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requests for back issues - you will be silently ignored.  For "Cat's

Meow" information, send mail to lutzen@novell.physics.umr.edu


a question

Date:     Thu, 31 Dec 92 06:29 CDT

From: <CARRIER%FNALC.bitnet@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject:  a question

        I am new to the net, and I need a answer to a question quickly be-

cause I am going on vacation and want to do some brewing while I am off.

        It seems that most people are brewing large quantities at a time-

5 gallons or so. My question is- can a beginner brew only 1 or 2 gallons at

a time and still get good results?

        Any help on this is needed by New Years day at about 7 am, thats when

my well deserved vacation begins. Thanks for the help.      Bob

        replies received at    SMTP%"CARRIER@FNAL.FNAL.GOV"    graciously.

------------------------------


My extract rate woes, your responses.

Date:    Thu, 31 Dec 92 07:53:38 EST

From: Jim White <JWHITE@MAINE.maine.edu>

Subject: My extract rate woes, your responses.

I recently posted a note re: my poor extract rate and recvd a number of

helpful responses. Thought I'd share them here.....

 - I used only 3.5 gals of sparge water for 10 lbs of grain. Respondees

  unanimously suggested I up that to 4.5 or more gals. Thanx, I'll do that.

  I ended up boiling the wort down to about 4 gals, and needed to add some

  to get back to 5 gals. I didn't test the gravity prior to the dilution.

 - It was suggested that I do some analysis on my water. I should strive to

  get my sparge water to about 5.5 pH. Here's what I did...

   I went to an aquarium store and picked up a pH test kit, ( one of these

   where you drop x drops of this stuff into a measured amount of water, than

   note the color).

    Results

    Source                               pH

    Water fresh (cold) from tap.         7.0  (Water district said it'd be 8.3)

    Same boiled with cover off(20mins)   8.0

    Same boiled with cover on(20mins)    8.0

    Same raised to 180F                  7.0

    Same raised to 200F                  7.3 (approx)

    I noted absolutely no mineral precipitation in my boiler after a 1/2 hour

    boil. I had also expected the pH to drop as a result of the boil, but

    the opposite occured. Adding 1t of Gypsum to about 2 gals of boiled water

    did not lower the pH a measurable amount (still looked the same color).

    I suppose it's near enough to neutral so as to expect little help from

    the gypsum.

    What seemed odd was that the pH started to raise between 180 and 200F.

    In any event, it seems I need to acidify. I'll see what's available at the

    local Homebrew supplier. I wonder, though, would a small quantity of

    Orange juice accomplish the acidification w/o making the resultant beer

    tastes like a morning breakfast drink. If so, how much?

Jim White

------------------------------


Dextrin Malts

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 08:52:47 EDT

From: doug <doug@metabolism.bitstream.com>

Subject: Dextrin Malts

   Greetings:

   I was speaking to a local brewpub brewer recently and he suggested

   to me that dextrin malts should be added later in the mash than

   pale grains.  Any thoughts on this?

   Thanks in advance

   doug connolly, doug@bitstream.com

------------------------------


Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Date: 31 December 1992 13:12:06 CST

From: R.Deschner@UIC.EDU

Subject: Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Rob Bradley asked, so let's just make this general...

The Chicago Beer Society's monthly homebrewer meetings are held on the

first Thursday of every month, at 7:30PM, at Goose Island Brewery, 1800 N

Clyborn Ave. There are also monthly single-topic homebrewer meetings,

where the making of a specific style is covered in depth, two major

public blind tastings each year, an annual AHA-sanctioned homebrew

contest, an annual Beer Judge Certification Exam, the Blues n Brews

Cruise on Lake Michigan, a picnic, periodic pub crawls by chartered bus,

and the annual Membership Meeting in January.

In general you should come to the Goose Island meeting on the first

Thursday to find out about these.

Dues-paying members receive the (roughly) quarterly newsletter

"Hoppenings", get major discounts on admission to all CBS tastings and

other events, and get the year's "beer item", such as an apron (to keep

wort splashes off your clothing), or some kind of glassware.

For more information, call or write

    CHICAGO BEER SOCIETY, BOX 1057, LA GRANGE IL 60525, 708-692-BEER

or just show up at Goose Island on the first Thursday - complete

membership materials will be available.

(No disclaimer. Yes, I am connected with the Chicago Beer Society.)

------------------------------


Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 7:20 EST

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

   I have a question concerning the effects of exposing a fermenter to a

constant light source.  But first, I'll explain the reason for my

question.  Here's the scenario:  I have been brewing my first lager in

the refrigerator in my garage.  I use a Hunter Air-Stat to control the

temperature in the frig to within a degree or two.  As the weather has

gotten colder, however, so has the refrigerator, and there's nothing the

Hunter monitor can do to correct for too low a temperature.  A friend of

mine suggested a simple solution to this problem:  mount a light bulb

inside the refrigerator, and always leave it on.  This provides a slow

but steady warming of the frig, regardless of the outside air

temperature.  I tried it, and it works quite well:  a 15-watt bulb

provides enough heat that the frig runs for a total of an hour or so in

a 24-hour period (5 or 6 minutes at a time).

   However, I'm concerned about the effects of light on the beer and

yeast.  I am aware that exposure to ultraviolet light is undesirable.

I've been told that incandescent bulbs (as opposed to fluorescent)

should not produce much UV light, and certainly 15 watts is not very

powerful, but the bulb is only a foot or so from the fermenter.  I've

also read that plastic is a strong absorber of ultraviolet light.  I

normally use a plastic fermenter for the primary, and a glass carboy for

the secondary, but in this case I used a plastic secondary as well.

   Now for my question:  does anyone know which wavelengths of light are

most harmful to the beer/yeast?  I'd like to use the glass secondary as

I usually do.  I could use a colored light bulb to eliminate various

regions of the light, for example, a yellow bulb should filter out blue

light, etc.  Is there an easier (and inexpensive) solution?  Maybe a

very low-power heating element?  Or am I just worrying unnecessarily

about the exposure to light?

   Thanks for your thoughts.

Tom Kaltenbach

Rochester, New York

tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1046, 01/01/93

*************************************

-------

This file received at Sierra.Stanford.EDU  93/01/04 16:28:04

HOMEBREW Digest #1046               Fri 01 January 1993

 FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES

  Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator

Contents:

  a question (CARRIER)

  My extract rate woes, your responses. (Jim White)

  Dextrin Malts (doug)

  Chicago Beer Society FAQ (R.Deschner)

  Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light (Tom Kaltenbach)

Send articles for __publication__ to homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

  (Articles are published in the order they are received.)

Send UNSUBSCRIBE and all other requests, ie, address change, etc.,

  to homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

Archives are available via anonymous ftp from sierra.stanford.edu.

    (Those without ftp access may retrieve files via mail from

    listserv@sierra.stanford.edu. Send HELP as the body of a

    message to that address to receive listserver instructions.)

**Please do not send me requests for back issues!**

*********(They will be silenty discarded!)*********

**For Cat's Meow information, send mail to lutzen@novell.physics.umr.edu**

----------------------------------------------------------------------


a question

Date:     Thu, 31 Dec 92 06:29 CDT

From: <CARRIER%FNALC.bitnet@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject:  a question

        I am new to the net, and I need a answer to a question quickly be-

cause I am going on vacation and want to do some brewing while I am off.

        It seems that most people are brewing large quantities at a time-

5 gallons or so. My question is- can a beginner brew only 1 or 2 gallons at

a time and still get good results?

        Any help on this is needed by New Years day at about 7 am, thats when

my well deserved vacation begins. Thanks for the help.      Bob

        replies received at    SMTP%"CARRIER@FNAL.FNAL.GOV"    graciously.

------------------------------


My extract rate woes, your responses.

Date:    Thu, 31 Dec 92 07:53:38 EST

From: Jim White <JWHITE@MAINE.maine.edu>

Subject: My extract rate woes, your responses.

I recently posted a note re: my poor extract rate and recvd a number of

helpful responses. Thought I'd share them here.....

 - I used only 3.5 gals of sparge water for 10 lbs of grain. Respondees

  unanimously suggested I up that to 4.5 or more gals. Thanx, I'll do that.

  I ended up boiling the wort down to about 4 gals, and needed to add some

  to get back to 5 gals. I didn't test the gravity prior to the dilution.

 - It was suggested that I do some analysis on my water. I should strive to

  get my sparge water to about 5.5 pH. Here's what I did...

   I went to an aquarium store and picked up a pH test kit, ( one of these

   where you drop x drops of this stuff into a measured amount of water, than

   note the color).

    Results

    Source                               pH

    Water fresh (cold) from tap.         7.0  (Water district said it'd be 8.3)

    Same boiled with cover off(20mins)   8.0

    Same boiled with cover on(20mins)    8.0

    Same raised to 180F                  7.0

    Same raised to 200F                  7.3 (approx)

    I noted absolutely no mineral precipitation in my boiler after a 1/2 hour

    boil. I had also expected the pH to drop as a result of the boil, but

    the opposite occured. Adding 1t of Gypsum to about 2 gals of boiled water

    did not lower the pH a measurable amount (still looked the same color).

    I suppose it's near enough to neutral so as to expect little help from

    the gypsum.

    What seemed odd was that the pH started to raise between 180 and 200F.

    In any event, it seems I need to acidify. I'll see what's available at the

    local Homebrew supplier. I wonder, though, would a small quantity of

    Orange juice accomplish the acidification w/o making the resultant beer

    tastes like a morning breakfast drink. If so, how much?

Jim White

------------------------------


Dextrin Malts

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 08:52:47 EDT

From: doug <doug@metabolism.bitstream.com>

Subject: Dextrin Malts

   Greetings:

   I was speaking to a local brewpub brewer recently and he suggested

   to me that dextrin malts should be added later in the mash than

   pale grains.  Any thoughts on this?

   Thanks in advance

   doug connolly, doug@bitstream.com

------------------------------


Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Date: 31 December 1992 13:12:06 CST

From: R.Deschner@UIC.EDU

Subject: Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Rob Bradley asked, so let's just make this general...

The Chicago Beer Society's monthly homebrewer meetings are held on the

first Thursday of every month, at 7:30PM, at Goose Island Brewery, 1800 N

Clyborn Ave. There are also monthly single-topic homebrewer meetings,

where the making of a specific style is covered in depth, two major

public blind tastings each year, an annual AHA-sanctioned homebrew

contest, an annual Beer Judge Certification Exam, the Blues n Brews

Cruise on Lake Michigan, a picnic, periodic pub crawls by chartered bus,

and the annual Membership Meeting in January.

In general you should come to the Goose Island meeting on the first

Thursday to find out about these.

Dues-paying members receive the (roughly) quarterly newsletter

"Hoppenings", get major discounts on admission to all CBS tastings and

other events, and get the year's "beer item", such as an apron (to keep

wort splashes off your clothing), or some kind of glassware.

For more information, call or write

    CHICAGO BEER SOCIETY, BOX 1057, LA GRANGE IL 60525, 708-692-BEER

or just show up at Goose Island on the first Thursday - complete

membership materials will be available.

(No disclaimer. Yes, I am connected with the Chicago Beer Society.)

------------------------------


Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 7:20 EST

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

   I have a question concerning the effects of exposing a fermenter to a

constant light source.  But first, I'll explain the reason for my

question.  Here's the scenario:  I have been brewing my first lager in

the refrigerator in my garage.  I use a Hunter Air-Stat to control the

temperature in the frig to within a degree or two.  As the weather has

gotten colder, however, so has the refrigerator, and there's nothing the

Hunter monitor can do to correct for too low a temperature.  A friend of

mine suggested a simple solution to this problem:  mount a light bulb

inside the refrigerator, and always leave it on.  This provides a slow

but steady warming of the frig, regardless of the outside air

temperature.  I tried it, and it works quite well:  a 15-watt bulb

provides enough heat that the frig runs for a total of an hour or so in

a 24-hour period (5 or 6 minutes at a time).

   However, I'm concerned about the effects of light on the beer and

yeast.  I am aware that exposure to ultraviolet light is undesirable.

I've been told that incandescent bulbs (as opposed to fluorescent)

should not produce much UV light, and certainly 15 watts is not very

powerful, but the bulb is only a foot or so from the fermenter.  I've

also read that plastic is a strong absorber of ultraviolet light.  I

normally use a plastic fermenter for the primary, and a glass carboy for

the secondary, but in this case I used a plastic secondary as well.

   Now for my question:  does anyone know which wavelengths of light are

most harmful to the beer/yeast?  I'd like to use the glass secondary as

I usually do.  I could use a colored light bulb to eliminate various

regions of the light, for example, a yellow bulb should filter out blue

light, etc.  Is there an easier (and inexpensive) solution?  Maybe a

very low-power heating element?  Or am I just worrying unnecessarily

about the exposure to light?

   Thanks for your thoughts.

Tom Kaltenbach

Rochester, New York

tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1046, 01/01/93

*************************************

-------

This file received at Sierra.Stanford.EDU  93/01/04 16:33:46

HOMEBREW Digest #1046               Fri 01 January 1993

 FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES

  Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator

Contents:

  a question (CARRIER)

  My extract rate woes, your responses. (Jim White)

  Dextrin Malts (doug)

  Chicago Beer Society FAQ (R.Deschner)

  Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light (Tom Kaltenbach)

Send articles for __publication__ to homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

  (Articles are published in the order they are received.)

Send UNSUBSCRIBE and all other requests, ie, address change, etc.,

  to homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

Archives are available via anonymous ftp from sierra.stanford.edu.

    (Those without ftp access may retrieve files via mail from

    listserv@sierra.stanford.edu. Send HELP as the body of a

    message to that address to receive listserver instructions.)

**Please do not send me requests for back issues!**

*********(They will be silenty discarded!)*********

**For Cat's Meow information, send mail to lutzen@novell.physics.umr.edu**

----------------------------------------------------------------------


a question

Date:     Thu, 31 Dec 92 06:29 CDT

From: <CARRIER%FNALC.bitnet@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject:  a question

        I am new to the net, and I need a answer to a question quickly be-

cause I am going on vacation and want to do some brewing while I am off.

        It seems that most people are brewing large quantities at a time-

5 gallons or so. My question is- can a beginner brew only 1 or 2 gallons at

a time and still get good results?

        Any help on this is needed by New Years day at about 7 am, thats when

my well deserved vacation begins. Thanks for the help.      Bob

        replies received at    SMTP%"CARRIER@FNAL.FNAL.GOV"    graciously.

------------------------------


My extract rate woes, your responses.

Date:    Thu, 31 Dec 92 07:53:38 EST

From: Jim White <JWHITE@MAINE.maine.edu>

Subject: My extract rate woes, your responses.

I recently posted a note re: my poor extract rate and recvd a number of

helpful responses. Thought I'd share them here.....

 - I used only 3.5 gals of sparge water for 10 lbs of grain. Respondees

  unanimously suggested I up that to 4.5 or more gals. Thanx, I'll do that.

  I ended up boiling the wort down to about 4 gals, and needed to add some

  to get back to 5 gals. I didn't test the gravity prior to the dilution.

 - It was suggested that I do some analysis on my water. I should strive to

  get my sparge water to about 5.5 pH. Here's what I did...

   I went to an aquarium store and picked up a pH test kit, ( one of these

   where you drop x drops of this stuff into a measured amount of water, than

   note the color).

    Results

    Source                               pH

    Water fresh (cold) from tap.         7.0  (Water district said it'd be 8.3)

    Same boiled with cover off(20mins)   8.0

    Same boiled with cover on(20mins)    8.0

    Same raised to 180F                  7.0

    Same raised to 200F                  7.3 (approx)

    I noted absolutely no mineral precipitation in my boiler after a 1/2 hour

    boil. I had also expected the pH to drop as a result of the boil, but

    the opposite occured. Adding 1t of Gypsum to about 2 gals of boiled water

    did not lower the pH a measurable amount (still looked the same color).

    I suppose it's near enough to neutral so as to expect little help from

    the gypsum.

    What seemed odd was that the pH started to raise between 180 and 200F.

    In any event, it seems I need to acidify. I'll see what's available at the

    local Homebrew supplier. I wonder, though, would a small quantity of

    Orange juice accomplish the acidification w/o making the resultant beer

    tastes like a morning breakfast drink. If so, how much?

Jim White

------------------------------


Dextrin Malts

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 08:52:47 EDT

From: doug <doug@metabolism.bitstream.com>

Subject: Dextrin Malts

   Greetings:

   I was speaking to a local brewpub brewer recently and he suggested

   to me that dextrin malts should be added later in the mash than

   pale grains.  Any thoughts on this?

   Thanks in advance

   doug connolly, doug@bitstream.com

------------------------------


Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Date: 31 December 1992 13:12:06 CST

From: R.Deschner@UIC.EDU

Subject: Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Rob Bradley asked, so let's just make this general...

The Chicago Beer Society's monthly homebrewer meetings are held on the

first Thursday of every month, at 7:30PM, at Goose Island Brewery, 1800 N

Clyborn Ave. There are also monthly single-topic homebrewer meetings,

where the making of a specific style is covered in depth, two major

public blind tastings each year, an annual AHA-sanctioned homebrew

contest, an annual Beer Judge Certification Exam, the Blues n Brews

Cruise on Lake Michigan, a picnic, periodic pub crawls by chartered bus,

and the annual Membership Meeting in January.

In general you should come to the Goose Island meeting on the first

Thursday to find out about these.

Dues-paying members receive the (roughly) quarterly newsletter

"Hoppenings", get major discounts on admission to all CBS tastings and

other events, and get the year's "beer item", such as an apron (to keep

wort splashes off your clothing), or some kind of glassware.

For more information, call or write

    CHICAGO BEER SOCIETY, BOX 1057, LA GRANGE IL 60525, 708-692-BEER

or just show up at Goose Island on the first Thursday - complete

membership materials will be available.

(No disclaimer. Yes, I am connected with the Chicago Beer Society.)

------------------------------


Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 7:20 EST

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

   I have a question concerning the effects of exposing a fermenter to a

constant light source.  But first, I'll explain the reason for my

question.  Here's the scenario:  I have been brewing my first lager in

the refrigerator in my garage.  I use a Hunter Air-Stat to control the

temperature in the frig to within a degree or two.  As the weather has

gotten colder, however, so has the refrigerator, and there's nothing the

Hunter monitor can do to correct for too low a temperature.  A friend of

mine suggested a simple solution to this problem:  mount a light bulb

inside the refrigerator, and always leave it on.  This provides a slow

but steady warming of the frig, regardless of the outside air

temperature.  I tried it, and it works quite well:  a 15-watt bulb

provides enough heat that the frig runs for a total of an hour or so in

a 24-hour period (5 or 6 minutes at a time).

   However, I'm concerned about the effects of light on the beer and

yeast.  I am aware that exposure to ultraviolet light is undesirable.

I've been told that incandescent bulbs (as opposed to fluorescent)

should not produce much UV light, and certainly 15 watts is not very

powerful, but the bulb is only a foot or so from the fermenter.  I've

also read that plastic is a strong absorber of ultraviolet light.  I

normally use a plastic fermenter for the primary, and a glass carboy for

the secondary, but in this case I used a plastic secondary as well.

   Now for my question:  does anyone know which wavelengths of light are

most harmful to the beer/yeast?  I'd like to use the glass secondary as

I usually do.  I could use a colored light bulb to eliminate various

regions of the light, for example, a yellow bulb should filter out blue

light, etc.  Is there an easier (and inexpensive) solution?  Maybe a

very low-power heating element?  Or am I just worrying unnecessarily

about the exposure to light?

   Thanks for your thoughts.

Tom Kaltenbach

Rochester, New York

tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1046, 01/01/93

*************************************

-------

This file received at Sierra.Stanford.EDU  93/01/04 16:38:02

HOMEBREW Digest #1046               Fri 01 January 1993

 FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES

  Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator

Contents:

  a question (CARRIER)

  My extract rate woes, your responses. (Jim White)

  Dextrin Malts (doug)

  Chicago Beer Society FAQ (R.Deschner)

  Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light (Tom Kaltenbach)

Send articles for __publication__ to homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

  (Articles are published in the order they are received.)

Send UNSUBSCRIBE and all other requests, ie, address change, etc.,

  to homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

Archives are available via anonymous ftp from sierra.stanford.edu.

    (Those without ftp access may retrieve files via mail from

    listserv@sierra.stanford.edu. Send HELP as the body of a

    message to that address to receive listserver instructions.)

**Please do not send me requests for back issues!**

*********(They will be silenty discarded!)*********

**For Cat's Meow information, send mail to lutzen@novell.physics.umr.edu**

----------------------------------------------------------------------


a question

Date:     Thu, 31 Dec 92 06:29 CDT

From: <CARRIER%FNALC.bitnet@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject:  a question

        I am new to the net, and I need a answer to a question quickly be-

cause I am going on vacation and want to do some brewing while I am off.

        It seems that most people are brewing large quantities at a time-

5 gallons or so. My question is- can a beginner brew only 1 or 2 gallons at

a time and still get good results?

        Any help on this is needed by New Years day at about 7 am, thats when

my well deserved vacation begins. Thanks for the help.      Bob

        replies received at    SMTP%"CARRIER@FNAL.FNAL.GOV"    graciously.

------------------------------


My extract rate woes, your responses.

Date:    Thu, 31 Dec 92 07:53:38 EST

From: Jim White <JWHITE@MAINE.maine.edu>

Subject: My extract rate woes, your responses.

I recently posted a note re: my poor extract rate and recvd a number of

helpful responses. Thought I'd share them here.....

 - I used only 3.5 gals of sparge water for 10 lbs of grain. Respondees

  unanimously suggested I up that to 4.5 or more gals. Thanx, I'll do that.

  I ended up boiling the wort down to about 4 gals, and needed to add some

  to get back to 5 gals. I didn't test the gravity prior to the dilution.

 - It was suggested that I do some analysis on my water. I should strive to

  get my sparge water to about 5.5 pH. Here's what I did...

   I went to an aquarium store and picked up a pH test kit, ( one of these

   where you drop x drops of this stuff into a measured amount of water, than

   note the color).

    Results

    Source                               pH

    Water fresh (cold) from tap.         7.0  (Water district said it'd be 8.3)

    Same boiled with cover off(20mins)   8.0

    Same boiled with cover on(20mins)    8.0

    Same raised to 180F                  7.0

    Same raised to 200F                  7.3 (approx)

    I noted absolutely no mineral precipitation in my boiler after a 1/2 hour

    boil. I had also expected the pH to drop as a result of the boil, but

    the opposite occured. Adding 1t of Gypsum to about 2 gals of boiled water

    did not lower the pH a measurable amount (still looked the same color).

    I suppose it's near enough to neutral so as to expect little help from

    the gypsum.

    What seemed odd was that the pH started to raise between 180 and 200F.

    In any event, it seems I need to acidify. I'll see what's available at the

    local Homebrew supplier. I wonder, though, would a small quantity of

    Orange juice accomplish the acidification w/o making the resultant beer

    tastes like a morning breakfast drink. If so, how much?

Jim White

------------------------------


Dextrin Malts

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 08:52:47 EDT

From: doug <doug@metabolism.bitstream.com>

Subject: Dextrin Malts

   Greetings:

   I was speaking to a local brewpub brewer recently and he suggested

   to me that dextrin malts should be added later in the mash than

   pale grains.  Any thoughts on this?

   Thanks in advance

   doug connolly, doug@bitstream.com

------------------------------


Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Date: 31 December 1992 13:12:06 CST

From: R.Deschner@UIC.EDU

Subject: Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Rob Bradley asked, so let's just make this general...

The Chicago Beer Society's monthly homebrewer meetings are held on the

first Thursday of every month, at 7:30PM, at Goose Island Brewery, 1800 N

Clyborn Ave. There are also monthly single-topic homebrewer meetings,

where the making of a specific style is covered in depth, two major

public blind tastings each year, an annual AHA-sanctioned homebrew

contest, an annual Beer Judge Certification Exam, the Blues n Brews

Cruise on Lake Michigan, a picnic, periodic pub crawls by chartered bus,

and the annual Membership Meeting in January.

In general you should come to the Goose Island meeting on the first

Thursday to find out about these.

Dues-paying members receive the (roughly) quarterly newsletter

"Hoppenings", get major discounts on admission to all CBS tastings and

other events, and get the year's "beer item", such as an apron (to keep

wort splashes off your clothing), or some kind of glassware.

For more information, call or write

    CHICAGO BEER SOCIETY, BOX 1057, LA GRANGE IL 60525, 708-692-BEER

or just show up at Goose Island on the first Thursday - complete

membership materials will be available.

(No disclaimer. Yes, I am connected with the Chicago Beer Society.)

------------------------------


Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 7:20 EST

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

   I have a question concerning the effects of exposing a fermenter to a

constant light source.  But first, I'll explain the reason for my

question.  Here's the scenario:  I have been brewing my first lager in

the refrigerator in my garage.  I use a Hunter Air-Stat to control the

temperature in the frig to within a degree or two.  As the weather has

gotten colder, however, so has the refrigerator, and there's nothing the

Hunter monitor can do to correct for too low a temperature.  A friend of

mine suggested a simple solution to this problem:  mount a light bulb

inside the refrigerator, and always leave it on.  This provides a slow

but steady warming of the frig, regardless of the outside air

temperature.  I tried it, and it works quite well:  a 15-watt bulb

provides enough heat that the frig runs for a total of an hour or so in

a 24-hour period (5 or 6 minutes at a time).

   However, I'm concerned about the effects of light on the beer and

yeast.  I am aware that exposure to ultraviolet light is undesirable.

I've been told that incandescent bulbs (as opposed to fluorescent)

should not produce much UV light, and certainly 15 watts is not very

powerful, but the bulb is only a foot or so from the fermenter.  I've

also read that plastic is a strong absorber of ultraviolet light.  I

normally use a plastic fermenter for the primary, and a glass carboy for

the secondary, but in this case I used a plastic secondary as well.

   Now for my question:  does anyone know which wavelengths of light are

most harmful to the beer/yeast?  I'd like to use the glass secondary as

I usually do.  I could use a colored light bulb to eliminate various

regions of the light, for example, a yellow bulb should filter out blue

light, etc.  Is there an easier (and inexpensive) solution?  Maybe a

very low-power heating element?  Or am I just worrying unnecessarily

about the exposure to light?

   Thanks for your thoughts.

Tom Kaltenbach

Rochester, New York

tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1046, 01/01/93

*************************************

-------

This file received at Sierra.Stanford.EDU  93/01/04 16:40:10

HOMEBREW Digest #1046               Fri 01 January 1993

 FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES

  Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator

Contents:

  a question (CARRIER)

  My extract rate woes, your responses. (Jim White)

  Dextrin Malts (doug)

  Chicago Beer Society FAQ (R.Deschner)

  Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light (Tom Kaltenbach)

Send articles for __publication__ to homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

  (Articles are published in the order they are received.)

Send UNSUBSCRIBE and all other requests, ie, address change, etc.,

  to homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

Archives are available via anonymous ftp from sierra.stanford.edu.

    (Those without ftp access may retrieve files via mail from

    listserv@sierra.stanford.edu. Send HELP as the body of a

    message to that address to receive listserver instructions.)

**Please do not send me requests for back issues!**

*********(They will be silenty discarded!)*********

**For Cat's Meow information, send mail to lutzen@novell.physics.umr.edu**

----------------------------------------------------------------------


a question

Date:     Thu, 31 Dec 92 06:29 CDT

From: <CARRIER%FNALC.bitnet@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject:  a question

        I am new to the net, and I need a answer to a question quickly be-

cause I am going on vacation and want to do some brewing while I am off.

        It seems that most people are brewing large quantities at a time-

5 gallons or so. My question is- can a beginner brew only 1 or 2 gallons at

a time and still get good results?

        Any help on this is needed by New Years day at about 7 am, thats when

my well deserved vacation begins. Thanks for the help.      Bob

        replies received at    SMTP%"CARRIER@FNAL.FNAL.GOV"    graciously.

------------------------------


My extract rate woes, your responses.

Date:    Thu, 31 Dec 92 07:53:38 EST

From: Jim White <JWHITE@MAINE.maine.edu>

Subject: My extract rate woes, your responses.

I recently posted a note re: my poor extract rate and recvd a number of

helpful responses. Thought I'd share them here.....

 - I used only 3.5 gals of sparge water for 10 lbs of grain. Respondees

  unanimously suggested I up that to 4.5 or more gals. Thanx, I'll do that.

  I ended up boiling the wort down to about 4 gals, and needed to add some

  to get back to 5 gals. I didn't test the gravity prior to the dilution.

 - It was suggested that I do some analysis on my water. I should strive to

  get my sparge water to about 5.5 pH. Here's what I did...

   I went to an aquarium store and picked up a pH test kit, ( one of these

   where you drop x drops of this stuff into a measured amount of water, than

   note the color).

    Results

    Source                               pH

    Water fresh (cold) from tap.         7.0  (Water district said it'd be 8.3)

    Same boiled with cover off(20mins)   8.0

    Same boiled with cover on(20mins)    8.0

    Same raised to 180F                  7.0

    Same raised to 200F                  7.3 (approx)

    I noted absolutely no mineral precipitation in my boiler after a 1/2 hour

    boil. I had also expected the pH to drop as a result of the boil, but

    the opposite occured. Adding 1t of Gypsum to about 2 gals of boiled water

    did not lower the pH a measurable amount (still looked the same color).

    I suppose it's near enough to neutral so as to expect little help from

    the gypsum.

    What seemed odd was that the pH started to raise between 180 and 200F.

    In any event, it seems I need to acidify. I'll see what's available at the

    local Homebrew supplier. I wonder, though, would a small quantity of

    Orange juice accomplish the acidification w/o making the resultant beer

    tastes like a morning breakfast drink. If so, how much?

Jim White

------------------------------


Dextrin Malts

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 08:52:47 EDT

From: doug <doug@metabolism.bitstream.com>

Subject: Dextrin Malts

   Greetings:

   I was speaking to a local brewpub brewer recently and he suggested

   to me that dextrin malts should be added later in the mash than

   pale grains.  Any thoughts on this?

   Thanks in advance

   doug connolly, doug@bitstream.com

------------------------------


Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Date: 31 December 1992 13:12:06 CST

From: R.Deschner@UIC.EDU

Subject: Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Rob Bradley asked, so let's just make this general...

The Chicago Beer Society's monthly homebrewer meetings are held on the

first Thursday of every month, at 7:30PM, at Goose Island Brewery, 1800 N

Clyborn Ave. There are also monthly single-topic homebrewer meetings,

where the making of a specific style is covered in depth, two major

public blind tastings each year, an annual AHA-sanctioned homebrew

contest, an annual Beer Judge Certification Exam, the Blues n Brews

Cruise on Lake Michigan, a picnic, periodic pub crawls by chartered bus,

and the annual Membership Meeting in January.

In general you should come to the Goose Island meeting on the first

Thursday to find out about these.

Dues-paying members receive the (roughly) quarterly newsletter

"Hoppenings", get major discounts on admission to all CBS tastings and

other events, and get the year's "beer item", such as an apron (to keep

wort splashes off your clothing), or some kind of glassware.

For more information, call or write

    CHICAGO BEER SOCIETY, BOX 1057, LA GRANGE IL 60525, 708-692-BEER

or just show up at Goose Island on the first Thursday - complete

membership materials will be available.

(No disclaimer. Yes, I am connected with the Chicago Beer Society.)

------------------------------


Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 7:20 EST

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

   I have a question concerning the effects of exposing a fermenter to a

constant light source.  But first, I'll explain the reason for my

question.  Here's the scenario:  I have been brewing my first lager in

the refrigerator in my garage.  I use a Hunter Air-Stat to control the

temperature in the frig to within a degree or two.  As the weather has

gotten colder, however, so has the refrigerator, and there's nothing the

Hunter monitor can do to correct for too low a temperature.  A friend of

mine suggested a simple solution to this problem:  mount a light bulb

inside the refrigerator, and always leave it on.  This provides a slow

but steady warming of the frig, regardless of the outside air

temperature.  I tried it, and it works quite well:  a 15-watt bulb

provides enough heat that the frig runs for a total of an hour or so in

a 24-hour period (5 or 6 minutes at a time).

   However, I'm concerned about the effects of light on the beer and

yeast.  I am aware that exposure to ultraviolet light is undesirable.

I've been told that incandescent bulbs (as opposed to fluorescent)

should not produce much UV light, and certainly 15 watts is not very

powerful, but the bulb is only a foot or so from the fermenter.  I've

also read that plastic is a strong absorber of ultraviolet light.  I

normally use a plastic fermenter for the primary, and a glass carboy for

the secondary, but in this case I used a plastic secondary as well.

   Now for my question:  does anyone know which wavelengths of light are

most harmful to the beer/yeast?  I'd like to use the glass secondary as

I usually do.  I could use a colored light bulb to eliminate various

regions of the light, for example, a yellow bulb should filter out blue

light, etc.  Is there an easier (and inexpensive) solution?  Maybe a

very low-power heating element?  Or am I just worrying unnecessarily

about the exposure to light?

   Thanks for your thoughts.

Tom Kaltenbach

Rochester, New York

tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1046, 01/01/93

*************************************

-------

This file received at Sierra.Stanford.EDU  93/01/04 16:40:25

HOMEBREW Digest #1046               Fri 01 January 1993

 FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES

  Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator

Contents:

  a question (CARRIER)

  My extract rate woes, your responses. (Jim White)

  Dextrin Malts (doug)

  Chicago Beer Society FAQ (R.Deschner)

  Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light (Tom Kaltenbach)

Send articles for __publication__ to homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

  (Articles are published in the order they are received.)

Send UNSUBSCRIBE and all other requests, ie, address change, etc.,

  to homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

Archives are available via anonymous ftp from sierra.stanford.edu.

    (Those without ftp access may retrieve files via mail from

    listserv@sierra.stanford.edu. Send HELP as the body of a

    message to that address to receive listserver instructions.)

**Please do not send me requests for back issues!**

*********(They will be silenty discarded!)*********

**For Cat's Meow information, send mail to lutzen@novell.physics.umr.edu**

----------------------------------------------------------------------


a question

Date:     Thu, 31 Dec 92 06:29 CDT

From: <CARRIER%FNALC.bitnet@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject:  a question

        I am new to the net, and I need a answer to a question quickly be-

cause I am going on vacation and want to do some brewing while I am off.

        It seems that most people are brewing large quantities at a time-

5 gallons or so. My question is- can a beginner brew only 1 or 2 gallons at

a time and still get good results?

        Any help on this is needed by New Years day at about 7 am, thats when

my well deserved vacation begins. Thanks for the help.      Bob

        replies received at    SMTP%"CARRIER@FNAL.FNAL.GOV"    graciously.

------------------------------


My extract rate woes, your responses.

Date:    Thu, 31 Dec 92 07:53:38 EST

From: Jim White <JWHITE@MAINE.maine.edu>

Subject: My extract rate woes, your responses.

I recently posted a note re: my poor extract rate and recvd a number of

helpful responses. Thought I'd share them here.....

 - I used only 3.5 gals of sparge water for 10 lbs of grain. Respondees

  unanimously suggested I up that to 4.5 or more gals. Thanx, I'll do that.

  I ended up boiling the wort down to about 4 gals, and needed to add some

  to get back to 5 gals. I didn't test the gravity prior to the dilution.

 - It was suggested that I do some analysis on my water. I should strive to

  get my sparge water to about 5.5 pH. Here's what I did...

   I went to an aquarium store and picked up a pH test kit, ( one of these

   where you drop x drops of this stuff into a measured amount of water, than

   note the color).

    Results

    Source                               pH

    Water fresh (cold) from tap.         7.0  (Water district said it'd be 8.3)

    Same boiled with cover off(20mins)   8.0

    Same boiled with cover on(20mins)    8.0

    Same raised to 180F                  7.0

    Same raised to 200F                  7.3 (approx)

    I noted absolutely no mineral precipitation in my boiler after a 1/2 hour

    boil. I had also expected the pH to drop as a result of the boil, but

    the opposite occured. Adding 1t of Gypsum to about 2 gals of boiled water

    did not lower the pH a measurable amount (still looked the same color).

    I suppose it's near enough to neutral so as to expect little help from

    the gypsum.

    What seemed odd was that the pH started to raise between 180 and 200F.

    In any event, it seems I need to acidify. I'll see what's available at the

    local Homebrew supplier. I wonder, though, would a small quantity of

    Orange juice accomplish the acidification w/o making the resultant beer

    tastes like a morning breakfast drink. If so, how much?

Jim White

------------------------------


Dextrin Malts

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 08:52:47 EDT

From: doug <doug@metabolism.bitstream.com>

Subject: Dextrin Malts

   Greetings:

   I was speaking to a local brewpub brewer recently and he suggested

   to me that dextrin malts should be added later in the mash than

   pale grains.  Any thoughts on this?

   Thanks in advance

   doug connolly, doug@bitstream.com

------------------------------


Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Date: 31 December 1992 13:12:06 CST

From: R.Deschner@UIC.EDU

Subject: Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Rob Bradley asked, so let's just make this general...

The Chicago Beer Society's monthly homebrewer meetings are held on the

first Thursday of every month, at 7:30PM, at Goose Island Brewery, 1800 N

Clyborn Ave. There are also monthly single-topic homebrewer meetings,

where the making of a specific style is covered in depth, two major

public blind tastings each year, an annual AHA-sanctioned homebrew

contest, an annual Beer Judge Certification Exam, the Blues n Brews

Cruise on Lake Michigan, a picnic, periodic pub crawls by chartered bus,

and the annual Membership Meeting in January.

In general you should come to the Goose Island meeting on the first

Thursday to find out about these.

Dues-paying members receive the (roughly) quarterly newsletter

"Hoppenings", get major discounts on admission to all CBS tastings and

other events, and get the year's "beer item", such as an apron (to keep

wort splashes off your clothing), or some kind of glassware.

For more information, call or write

    CHICAGO BEER SOCIETY, BOX 1057, LA GRANGE IL 60525, 708-692-BEER

or just show up at Goose Island on the first Thursday - complete

membership materials will be available.

(No disclaimer. Yes, I am connected with the Chicago Beer Society.)

------------------------------


Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 7:20 EST

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

   I have a question concerning the effects of exposing a fermenter to a

constant light source.  But first, I'll explain the reason for my

question.  Here's the scenario:  I have been brewing my first lager in

the refrigerator in my garage.  I use a Hunter Air-Stat to control the

temperature in the frig to within a degree or two.  As the weather has

gotten colder, however, so has the refrigerator, and there's nothing the

Hunter monitor can do to correct for too low a temperature.  A friend of

mine suggested a simple solution to this problem:  mount a light bulb

inside the refrigerator, and always leave it on.  This provides a slow

but steady warming of the frig, regardless of the outside air

temperature.  I tried it, and it works quite well:  a 15-watt bulb

provides enough heat that the frig runs for a total of an hour or so in

a 24-hour period (5 or 6 minutes at a time).

   However, I'm concerned about the effects of light on the beer and

yeast.  I am aware that exposure to ultraviolet light is undesirable.

I've been told that incandescent bulbs (as opposed to fluorescent)

should not produce much UV light, and certainly 15 watts is not very

powerful, but the bulb is only a foot or so from the fermenter.  I've

also read that plastic is a strong absorber of ultraviolet light.  I

normally use a plastic fermenter for the primary, and a glass carboy for

the secondary, but in this case I used a plastic secondary as well.

   Now for my question:  does anyone know which wavelengths of light are

most harmful to the beer/yeast?  I'd like to use the glass secondary as

I usually do.  I could use a colored light bulb to eliminate various

regions of the light, for example, a yellow bulb should filter out blue

light, etc.  Is there an easier (and inexpensive) solution?  Maybe a

very low-power heating element?  Or am I just worrying unnecessarily

about the exposure to light?

   Thanks for your thoughts.

Tom Kaltenbach

Rochester, New York

tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1046, 01/01/93

*************************************

-------

This file received at Sierra.Stanford.EDU  93/01/04 16:41:12

HOMEBREW Digest #1046               Fri 01 January 1993

 FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES

  Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator

Contents:

  a question (CARRIER)

  My extract rate woes, your responses. (Jim White)

  Dextrin Malts (doug)

  Chicago Beer Society FAQ (R.Deschner)

  Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light (Tom Kaltenbach)

Send articles for __publication__ to homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

  (Articles are published in the order they are received.)

Send UNSUBSCRIBE and all other requests, ie, address change, etc.,

  to homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

Archives are available via anonymous ftp from sierra.stanford.edu.

    (Those without ftp access may retrieve files via mail from

    listserv@sierra.stanford.edu. Send HELP as the body of a

    message to that address to receive listserver instructions.)

**Please do not send me requests for back issues!**

*********(They will be silenty discarded!)*********

**For Cat's Meow information, send mail to lutzen@novell.physics.umr.edu**

----------------------------------------------------------------------


a question

Date:     Thu, 31 Dec 92 06:29 CDT

From: <CARRIER%FNALC.bitnet@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject:  a question

        I am new to the net, and I need a answer to a question quickly be-

cause I am going on vacation and want to do some brewing while I am off.

        It seems that most people are brewing large quantities at a time-

5 gallons or so. My question is- can a beginner brew only 1 or 2 gallons at

a time and still get good results?

        Any help on this is needed by New Years day at about 7 am, thats when

my well deserved vacation begins. Thanks for the help.      Bob

        replies received at    SMTP%"CARRIER@FNAL.FNAL.GOV"    graciously.

------------------------------


My extract rate woes, your responses.

Date:    Thu, 31 Dec 92 07:53:38 EST

From: Jim White <JWHITE@MAINE.maine.edu>

Subject: My extract rate woes, your responses.

I recently posted a note re: my poor extract rate and recvd a number of

helpful responses. Thought I'd share them here.....

 - I used only 3.5 gals of sparge water for 10 lbs of grain. Respondees

  unanimously suggested I up that to 4.5 or more gals. Thanx, I'll do that.

  I ended up boiling the wort down to about 4 gals, and needed to add some

  to get back to 5 gals. I didn't test the gravity prior to the dilution.

 - It was suggested that I do some analysis on my water. I should strive to

  get my sparge water to about 5.5 pH. Here's what I did...

   I went to an aquarium store and picked up a pH test kit, ( one of these

   where you drop x drops of this stuff into a measured amount of water, than

   note the color).

    Results

    Source                               pH

    Water fresh (cold) from tap.         7.0  (Water district said it'd be 8.3)

    Same boiled with cover off(20mins)   8.0

    Same boiled with cover on(20mins)    8.0

    Same raised to 180F                  7.0

    Same raised to 200F                  7.3 (approx)

    I noted absolutely no mineral precipitation in my boiler after a 1/2 hour

    boil. I had also expected the pH to drop as a result of the boil, but

    the opposite occured. Adding 1t of Gypsum to about 2 gals of boiled water

    did not lower the pH a measurable amount (still looked the same color).

    I suppose it's near enough to neutral so as to expect little help from

    the gypsum.

    What seemed odd was that the pH started to raise between 180 and 200F.

    In any event, it seems I need to acidify. I'll see what's available at the

    local Homebrew supplier. I wonder, though, would a small quantity of

    Orange juice accomplish the acidification w/o making the resultant beer

    tastes like a morning breakfast drink. If so, how much?

Jim White

------------------------------


Dextrin Malts

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 08:52:47 EDT

From: doug <doug@metabolism.bitstream.com>

Subject: Dextrin Malts

   Greetings:

   I was speaking to a local brewpub brewer recently and he suggested

   to me that dextrin malts should be added later in the mash than

   pale grains.  Any thoughts on this?

   Thanks in advance

   doug connolly, doug@bitstream.com

------------------------------


Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Date: 31 December 1992 13:12:06 CST

From: R.Deschner@UIC.EDU

Subject: Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Rob Bradley asked, so let's just make this general...

The Chicago Beer Society's monthly homebrewer meetings are held on the

first Thursday of every month, at 7:30PM, at Goose Island Brewery, 1800 N

Clyborn Ave. There are also monthly single-topic homebrewer meetings,

where the making of a specific style is covered in depth, two major

public blind tastings each year, an annual AHA-sanctioned homebrew

contest, an annual Beer Judge Certification Exam, the Blues n Brews

Cruise on Lake Michigan, a picnic, periodic pub crawls by chartered bus,

and the annual Membership Meeting in January.

In general you should come to the Goose Island meeting on the first

Thursday to find out about these.

Dues-paying members receive the (roughly) quarterly newsletter

"Hoppenings", get major discounts on admission to all CBS tastings and

other events, and get the year's "beer item", such as an apron (to keep

wort splashes off your clothing), or some kind of glassware.

For more information, call or write

    CHICAGO BEER SOCIETY, BOX 1057, LA GRANGE IL 60525, 708-692-BEER

or just show up at Goose Island on the first Thursday - complete

membership materials will be available.

(No disclaimer. Yes, I am connected with the Chicago Beer Society.)

------------------------------


Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 7:20 EST

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

   I have a question concerning the effects of exposing a fermenter to a

constant light source.  But first, I'll explain the reason for my

question.  Here's the scenario:  I have been brewing my first lager in

the refrigerator in my garage.  I use a Hunter Air-Stat to control the

temperature in the frig to within a degree or two.  As the weather has

gotten colder, however, so has the refrigerator, and there's nothing the

Hunter monitor can do to correct for too low a temperature.  A friend of

mine suggested a simple solution to this problem:  mount a light bulb

inside the refrigerator, and always leave it on.  This provides a slow

but steady warming of the frig, regardless of the outside air

temperature.  I tried it, and it works quite well:  a 15-watt bulb

provides enough heat that the frig runs for a total of an hour or so in

a 24-hour period (5 or 6 minutes at a time).

   However, I'm concerned about the effects of light on the beer and

yeast.  I am aware that exposure to ultraviolet light is undesirable.

I've been told that incandescent bulbs (as opposed to fluorescent)

should not produce much UV light, and certainly 15 watts is not very

powerful, but the bulb is only a foot or so from the fermenter.  I've

also read that plastic is a strong absorber of ultraviolet light.  I

normally use a plastic fermenter for the primary, and a glass carboy for

the secondary, but in this case I used a plastic secondary as well.

   Now for my question:  does anyone know which wavelengths of light are

most harmful to the beer/yeast?  I'd like to use the glass secondary as

I usually do.  I could use a colored light bulb to eliminate various

regions of the light, for example, a yellow bulb should filter out blue

light, etc.  Is there an easier (and inexpensive) solution?  Maybe a

very low-power heating element?  Or am I just worrying unnecessarily

about the exposure to light?

   Thanks for your thoughts.

Tom Kaltenbach

Rochester, New York

tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1046, 01/01/93

*************************************

-------

This file received at Sierra.Stanford.EDU  93/01/04 16:41:54

HOMEBREW Digest #1046               Fri 01 January 1993

 FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES

  Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator

Contents:

  a question (CARRIER)

  My extract rate woes, your responses. (Jim White)

  Dextrin Malts (doug)

  Chicago Beer Society FAQ (R.Deschner)

  Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light (Tom Kaltenbach)

Send articles for __publication__ to homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

  (Articles are published in the order they are received.)

Send UNSUBSCRIBE and all other requests, ie, address change, etc.,

  to homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

Archives are available via anonymous ftp from sierra.stanford.edu.

    (Those without ftp access may retrieve files via mail from

    listserv@sierra.stanford.edu. Send HELP as the body of a

    message to that address to receive listserver instructions.)

**Please do not send me requests for back issues!**

*********(They will be silenty discarded!)*********

**For Cat's Meow information, send mail to lutzen@novell.physics.umr.edu**

----------------------------------------------------------------------


a question

Date:     Thu, 31 Dec 92 06:29 CDT

From: <CARRIER%FNALC.bitnet@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject:  a question

        I am new to the net, and I need a answer to a question quickly be-

cause I am going on vacation and want to do some brewing while I am off.

        It seems that most people are brewing large quantities at a time-

5 gallons or so. My question is- can a beginner brew only 1 or 2 gallons at

a time and still get good results?

        Any help on this is needed by New Years day at about 7 am, thats when

my well deserved vacation begins. Thanks for the help.      Bob

        replies received at    SMTP%"CARRIER@FNAL.FNAL.GOV"    graciously.

------------------------------


My extract rate woes, your responses.

Date:    Thu, 31 Dec 92 07:53:38 EST

From: Jim White <JWHITE@MAINE.maine.edu>

Subject: My extract rate woes, your responses.

I recently posted a note re: my poor extract rate and recvd a number of

helpful responses. Thought I'd share them here.....

 - I used only 3.5 gals of sparge water for 10 lbs of grain. Respondees

  unanimously suggested I up that to 4.5 or more gals. Thanx, I'll do that.

  I ended up boiling the wort down to about 4 gals, and needed to add some

  to get back to 5 gals. I didn't test the gravity prior to the dilution.

 - It was suggested that I do some analysis on my water. I should strive to

  get my sparge water to about 5.5 pH. Here's what I did...

   I went to an aquarium store and picked up a pH test kit, ( one of these

   where you drop x drops of this stuff into a measured amount of water, than

   note the color).

    Results

    Source                               pH

    Water fresh (cold) from tap.         7.0  (Water district said it'd be 8.3)

    Same boiled with cover off(20mins)   8.0

    Same boiled with cover on(20mins)    8.0

    Same raised to 180F                  7.0

    Same raised to 200F                  7.3 (approx)

    I noted absolutely no mineral precipitation in my boiler after a 1/2 hour

    boil. I had also expected the pH to drop as a result of the boil, but

    the opposite occured. Adding 1t of Gypsum to about 2 gals of boiled water

    did not lower the pH a measurable amount (still looked the same color).

    I suppose it's near enough to neutral so as to expect little help from

    the gypsum.

    What seemed odd was that the pH started to raise between 180 and 200F.

    In any event, it seems I need to acidify. I'll see what's available at the

    local Homebrew supplier. I wonder, though, would a small quantity of

    Orange juice accomplish the acidification w/o making the resultant beer

    tastes like a morning breakfast drink. If so, how much?

Jim White

------------------------------


Dextrin Malts

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 08:52:47 EDT

From: doug <doug@metabolism.bitstream.com>

Subject: Dextrin Malts

   Greetings:

   I was speaking to a local brewpub brewer recently and he suggested

   to me that dextrin malts should be added later in the mash than

   pale grains.  Any thoughts on this?

   Thanks in advance

   doug connolly, doug@bitstream.com

------------------------------


Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Date: 31 December 1992 13:12:06 CST

From: R.Deschner@UIC.EDU

Subject: Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Rob Bradley asked, so let's just make this general...

The Chicago Beer Society's monthly homebrewer meetings are held on the

first Thursday of every month, at 7:30PM, at Goose Island Brewery, 1800 N

Clyborn Ave. There are also monthly single-topic homebrewer meetings,

where the making of a specific style is covered in depth, two major

public blind tastings each year, an annual AHA-sanctioned homebrew

contest, an annual Beer Judge Certification Exam, the Blues n Brews

Cruise on Lake Michigan, a picnic, periodic pub crawls by chartered bus,

and the annual Membership Meeting in January.

In general you should come to the Goose Island meeting on the first

Thursday to find out about these.

Dues-paying members receive the (roughly) quarterly newsletter

"Hoppenings", get major discounts on admission to all CBS tastings and

other events, and get the year's "beer item", such as an apron (to keep

wort splashes off your clothing), or some kind of glassware.

For more information, call or write

    CHICAGO BEER SOCIETY, BOX 1057, LA GRANGE IL 60525, 708-692-BEER

or just show up at Goose Island on the first Thursday - complete

membership materials will be available.

(No disclaimer. Yes, I am connected with the Chicago Beer Society.)

------------------------------


Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 7:20 EST

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

   I have a question concerning the effects of exposing a fermenter to a

constant light source.  But first, I'll explain the reason for my

question.  Here's the scenario:  I have been brewing my first lager in

the refrigerator in my garage.  I use a Hunter Air-Stat to control the

temperature in the frig to within a degree or two.  As the weather has

gotten colder, however, so has the refrigerator, and there's nothing the

Hunter monitor can do to correct for too low a temperature.  A friend of

mine suggested a simple solution to this problem:  mount a light bulb

inside the refrigerator, and always leave it on.  This provides a slow

but steady warming of the frig, regardless of the outside air

temperature.  I tried it, and it works quite well:  a 15-watt bulb

provides enough heat that the frig runs for a total of an hour or so in

a 24-hour period (5 or 6 minutes at a time).

   However, I'm concerned about the effects of light on the beer and

yeast.  I am aware that exposure to ultraviolet light is undesirable.

I've been told that incandescent bulbs (as opposed to fluorescent)

should not produce much UV light, and certainly 15 watts is not very

powerful, but the bulb is only a foot or so from the fermenter.  I've

also read that plastic is a strong absorber of ultraviolet light.  I

normally use a plastic fermenter for the primary, and a glass carboy for

the secondary, but in this case I used a plastic secondary as well.

   Now for my question:  does anyone know which wavelengths of light are

most harmful to the beer/yeast?  I'd like to use the glass secondary as

I usually do.  I could use a colored light bulb to eliminate various

regions of the light, for example, a yellow bulb should filter out blue

light, etc.  Is there an easier (and inexpensive) solution?  Maybe a

very low-power heating element?  Or am I just worrying unnecessarily

about the exposure to light?

   Thanks for your thoughts.

Tom Kaltenbach

Rochester, New York

tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1046, 01/01/93

*************************************

-------

This file received at Sierra.Stanford.EDU  93/01/04 16:44:45

HOMEBREW Digest #1046               Fri 01 January 1993

 FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES

  Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator

Contents:

  a question (CARRIER)

  My extract rate woes, your responses. (Jim White)

  Dextrin Malts (doug)

  Chicago Beer Society FAQ (R.Deschner)

  Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light (Tom Kaltenbach)

Send articles for __publication__ to homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

  (Articles are published in the order they are received.)

Send UNSUBSCRIBE and all other requests, ie, address change, etc.,

  to homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

Archives are available via anonymous ftp from sierra.stanford.edu.

    (Those without ftp access may retrieve files via mail from

    listserv@sierra.stanford.edu. Send HELP as the body of a

    message to that address to receive listserver instructions.)

**Please do not send me requests for back issues!**

*********(They will be silenty discarded!)*********

**For Cat's Meow information, send mail to lutzen@novell.physics.umr.edu**

----------------------------------------------------------------------


a question

Date:     Thu, 31 Dec 92 06:29 CDT

From: <CARRIER%FNALC.bitnet@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject:  a question

        I am new to the net, and I need a answer to a question quickly be-

cause I am going on vacation and want to do some brewing while I am off.

        It seems that most people are brewing large quantities at a time-

5 gallons or so. My question is- can a beginner brew only 1 or 2 gallons at

a time and still get good results?

        Any help on this is needed by New Years day at about 7 am, thats when

my well deserved vacation begins. Thanks for the help.      Bob

        replies received at    SMTP%"CARRIER@FNAL.FNAL.GOV"    graciously.

------------------------------


My extract rate woes, your responses.

Date:    Thu, 31 Dec 92 07:53:38 EST

From: Jim White <JWHITE@MAINE.maine.edu>

Subject: My extract rate woes, your responses.

I recently posted a note re: my poor extract rate and recvd a number of

helpful responses. Thought I'd share them here.....

 - I used only 3.5 gals of sparge water for 10 lbs of grain. Respondees

  unanimously suggested I up that to 4.5 or more gals. Thanx, I'll do that.

  I ended up boiling the wort down to about 4 gals, and needed to add some

  to get back to 5 gals. I didn't test the gravity prior to the dilution.

 - It was suggested that I do some analysis on my water. I should strive to

  get my sparge water to about 5.5 pH. Here's what I did...

   I went to an aquarium store and picked up a pH test kit, ( one of these

   where you drop x drops of this stuff into a measured amount of water, than

   note the color).

    Results

    Source                               pH

    Water fresh (cold) from tap.         7.0  (Water district said it'd be 8.3)

    Same boiled with cover off(20mins)   8.0

    Same boiled with cover on(20mins)    8.0

    Same raised to 180F                  7.0

    Same raised to 200F                  7.3 (approx)

    I noted absolutely no mineral precipitation in my boiler after a 1/2 hour

    boil. I had also expected the pH to drop as a result of the boil, but

    the opposite occured. Adding 1t of Gypsum to about 2 gals of boiled water

    did not lower the pH a measurable amount (still looked the same color).

    I suppose it's near enough to neutral so as to expect little help from

    the gypsum.

    What seemed odd was that the pH started to raise between 180 and 200F.

    In any event, it seems I need to acidify. I'll see what's available at the

    local Homebrew supplier. I wonder, though, would a small quantity of

    Orange juice accomplish the acidification w/o making the resultant beer

    tastes like a morning breakfast drink. If so, how much?

Jim White

------------------------------


Dextrin Malts

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 08:52:47 EDT

From: doug <doug@metabolism.bitstream.com>

Subject: Dextrin Malts

   Greetings:

   I was speaking to a local brewpub brewer recently and he suggested

   to me that dextrin malts should be added later in the mash than

   pale grains.  Any thoughts on this?

   Thanks in advance

   doug connolly, doug@bitstream.com

------------------------------


Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Date: 31 December 1992 13:12:06 CST

From: R.Deschner@UIC.EDU

Subject: Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Rob Bradley asked, so let's just make this general...

The Chicago Beer Society's monthly homebrewer meetings are held on the

first Thursday of every month, at 7:30PM, at Goose Island Brewery, 1800 N

Clyborn Ave. There are also monthly single-topic homebrewer meetings,

where the making of a specific style is covered in depth, two major

public blind tastings each year, an annual AHA-sanctioned homebrew

contest, an annual Beer Judge Certification Exam, the Blues n Brews

Cruise on Lake Michigan, a picnic, periodic pub crawls by chartered bus,

and the annual Membership Meeting in January.

In general you should come to the Goose Island meeting on the first

Thursday to find out about these.

Dues-paying members receive the (roughly) quarterly newsletter

"Hoppenings", get major discounts on admission to all CBS tastings and

other events, and get the year's "beer item", such as an apron (to keep

wort splashes off your clothing), or some kind of glassware.

For more information, call or write

    CHICAGO BEER SOCIETY, BOX 1057, LA GRANGE IL 60525, 708-692-BEER

or just show up at Goose Island on the first Thursday - complete

membership materials will be available.

(No disclaimer. Yes, I am connected with the Chicago Beer Society.)

------------------------------


Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 7:20 EST

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

   I have a question concerning the effects of exposing a fermenter to a

constant light source.  But first, I'll explain the reason for my

question.  Here's the scenario:  I have been brewing my first lager in

the refrigerator in my garage.  I use a Hunter Air-Stat to control the

temperature in the frig to within a degree or two.  As the weather has

gotten colder, however, so has the refrigerator, and there's nothing the

Hunter monitor can do to correct for too low a temperature.  A friend of

mine suggested a simple solution to this problem:  mount a light bulb

inside the refrigerator, and always leave it on.  This provides a slow

but steady warming of the frig, regardless of the outside air

temperature.  I tried it, and it works quite well:  a 15-watt bulb

provides enough heat that the frig runs for a total of an hour or so in

a 24-hour period (5 or 6 minutes at a time).

   However, I'm concerned about the effects of light on the beer and

yeast.  I am aware that exposure to ultraviolet light is undesirable.

I've been told that incandescent bulbs (as opposed to fluorescent)

should not produce much UV light, and certainly 15 watts is not very

powerful, but the bulb is only a foot or so from the fermenter.  I've

also read that plastic is a strong absorber of ultraviolet light.  I

normally use a plastic fermenter for the primary, and a glass carboy for

the secondary, but in this case I used a plastic secondary as well.

   Now for my question:  does anyone know which wavelengths of light are

most harmful to the beer/yeast?  I'd like to use the glass secondary as

I usually do.  I could use a colored light bulb to eliminate various

regions of the light, for example, a yellow bulb should filter out blue

light, etc.  Is there an easier (and inexpensive) solution?  Maybe a

very low-power heating element?  Or am I just worrying unnecessarily

about the exposure to light?

   Thanks for your thoughts.

Tom Kaltenbach

Rochester, New York

tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1046, 01/01/93

*************************************

-------

This file received at Sierra.Stanford.EDU  93/01/04 16:47:01

HOMEBREW Digest #1046               Fri 01 January 1993

 FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES

  Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator

Contents:

  a question (CARRIER)

  My extract rate woes, your responses. (Jim White)

  Dextrin Malts (doug)

  Chicago Beer Society FAQ (R.Deschner)

  Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light (Tom Kaltenbach)

Send articles for __publication__ to homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

  (Articles are published in the order they are received.)

Send UNSUBSCRIBE and all other requests, ie, address change, etc.,

  to homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

Archives are available via anonymous ftp from sierra.stanford.edu.

    (Those without ftp access may retrieve files via mail from

    listserv@sierra.stanford.edu. Send HELP as the body of a

    message to that address to receive listserver instructions.)

**Please do not send me requests for back issues!**

*********(They will be silenty discarded!)*********

**For Cat's Meow information, send mail to lutzen@novell.physics.umr.edu**

----------------------------------------------------------------------


a question

Date:     Thu, 31 Dec 92 06:29 CDT

From: <CARRIER%FNALC.bitnet@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject:  a question

        I am new to the net, and I need a answer to a question quickly be-

cause I am going on vacation and want to do some brewing while I am off.

        It seems that most people are brewing large quantities at a time-

5 gallons or so. My question is- can a beginner brew only 1 or 2 gallons at

a time and still get good results?

        Any help on this is needed by New Years day at about 7 am, thats when

my well deserved vacation begins. Thanks for the help.      Bob

        replies received at    SMTP%"CARRIER@FNAL.FNAL.GOV"    graciously.

------------------------------


My extract rate woes, your responses.

Date:    Thu, 31 Dec 92 07:53:38 EST

From: Jim White <JWHITE@MAINE.maine.edu>

Subject: My extract rate woes, your responses.

I recently posted a note re: my poor extract rate and recvd a number of

helpful responses. Thought I'd share them here.....

 - I used only 3.5 gals of sparge water for 10 lbs of grain. Respondees

  unanimously suggested I up that to 4.5 or more gals. Thanx, I'll do that.

  I ended up boiling the wort down to about 4 gals, and needed to add some

  to get back to 5 gals. I didn't test the gravity prior to the dilution.

 - It was suggested that I do some analysis on my water. I should strive to

  get my sparge water to about 5.5 pH. Here's what I did...

   I went to an aquarium store and picked up a pH test kit, ( one of these

   where you drop x drops of this stuff into a measured amount of water, than

   note the color).

    Results

    Source                               pH

    Water fresh (cold) from tap.         7.0  (Water district said it'd be 8.3)

    Same boiled with cover off(20mins)   8.0

    Same boiled with cover on(20mins)    8.0

    Same raised to 180F                  7.0

    Same raised to 200F                  7.3 (approx)

    I noted absolutely no mineral precipitation in my boiler after a 1/2 hour

    boil. I had also expected the pH to drop as a result of the boil, but

    the opposite occured. Adding 1t of Gypsum to about 2 gals of boiled water

    did not lower the pH a measurable amount (still looked the same color).

    I suppose it's near enough to neutral so as to expect little help from

    the gypsum.

    What seemed odd was that the pH started to raise between 180 and 200F.

    In any event, it seems I need to acidify. I'll see what's available at the

    local Homebrew supplier. I wonder, though, would a small quantity of

    Orange juice accomplish the acidification w/o making the resultant beer

    tastes like a morning breakfast drink. If so, how much?

Jim White

------------------------------


Dextrin Malts

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 08:52:47 EDT

From: doug <doug@metabolism.bitstream.com>

Subject: Dextrin Malts

   Greetings:

   I was speaking to a local brewpub brewer recently and he suggested

   to me that dextrin malts should be added later in the mash than

   pale grains.  Any thoughts on this?

   Thanks in advance

   doug connolly, doug@bitstream.com

------------------------------


Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Date: 31 December 1992 13:12:06 CST

From: R.Deschner@UIC.EDU

Subject: Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Rob Bradley asked, so let's just make this general...

The Chicago Beer Society's monthly homebrewer meetings are held on the

first Thursday of every month, at 7:30PM, at Goose Island Brewery, 1800 N

Clyborn Ave. There are also monthly single-topic homebrewer meetings,

where the making of a specific style is covered in depth, two major

public blind tastings each year, an annual AHA-sanctioned homebrew

contest, an annual Beer Judge Certification Exam, the Blues n Brews

Cruise on Lake Michigan, a picnic, periodic pub crawls by chartered bus,

and the annual Membership Meeting in January.

In general you should come to the Goose Island meeting on the first

Thursday to find out about these.

Dues-paying members receive the (roughly) quarterly newsletter

"Hoppenings", get major discounts on admission to all CBS tastings and

other events, and get the year's "beer item", such as an apron (to keep

wort splashes off your clothing), or some kind of glassware.

For more information, call or write

    CHICAGO BEER SOCIETY, BOX 1057, LA GRANGE IL 60525, 708-692-BEER

or just show up at Goose Island on the first Thursday - complete

membership materials will be available.

(No disclaimer. Yes, I am connected with the Chicago Beer Society.)

------------------------------


Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 7:20 EST

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

   I have a question concerning the effects of exposing a fermenter to a

constant light source.  But first, I'll explain the reason for my

question.  Here's the scenario:  I have been brewing my first lager in

the refrigerator in my garage.  I use a Hunter Air-Stat to control the

temperature in the frig to within a degree or two.  As the weather has

gotten colder, however, so has the refrigerator, and there's nothing the

Hunter monitor can do to correct for too low a temperature.  A friend of

mine suggested a simple solution to this problem:  mount a light bulb

inside the refrigerator, and always leave it on.  This provides a slow

but steady warming of the frig, regardless of the outside air

temperature.  I tried it, and it works quite well:  a 15-watt bulb

provides enough heat that the frig runs for a total of an hour or so in

a 24-hour period (5 or 6 minutes at a time).

   However, I'm concerned about the effects of light on the beer and

yeast.  I am aware that exposure to ultraviolet light is undesirable.

I've been told that incandescent bulbs (as opposed to fluorescent)

should not produce much UV light, and certainly 15 watts is not very

powerful, but the bulb is only a foot or so from the fermenter.  I've

also read that plastic is a strong absorber of ultraviolet light.  I

normally use a plastic fermenter for the primary, and a glass carboy for

the secondary, but in this case I used a plastic secondary as well.

   Now for my question:  does anyone know which wavelengths of light are

most harmful to the beer/yeast?  I'd like to use the glass secondary as

I usually do.  I could use a colored light bulb to eliminate various

regions of the light, for example, a yellow bulb should filter out blue

light, etc.  Is there an easier (and inexpensive) solution?  Maybe a

very low-power heating element?  Or am I just worrying unnecessarily

about the exposure to light?

   Thanks for your thoughts.

Tom Kaltenbach

Rochester, New York

tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1046, 01/01/93

*************************************

-------

This file received at Sierra.Stanford.EDU  93/01/04 16:50:14

HOMEBREW Digest #1046               Fri 01 January 1993

 FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES

  Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator

Contents:

  a question (CARRIER)

  My extract rate woes, your responses. (Jim White)

  Dextrin Malts (doug)

  Chicago Beer Society FAQ (R.Deschner)

  Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light (Tom Kaltenbach)

Send articles for __publication__ to homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

  (Articles are published in the order they are received.)

Send UNSUBSCRIBE and all other requests, ie, address change, etc.,

  to homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

Archives are available via anonymous ftp from sierra.stanford.edu.

    (Those without ftp access may retrieve files via mail from

    listserv@sierra.stanford.edu. Send HELP as the body of a

    message to that address to receive listserver instructions.)

**Please do not send me requests for back issues!**

*********(They will be silenty discarded!)*********

**For Cat's Meow information, send mail to lutzen@novell.physics.umr.edu**

----------------------------------------------------------------------


a question

Date:     Thu, 31 Dec 92 06:29 CDT

From: <CARRIER%FNALC.bitnet@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject:  a question

        I am new to the net, and I need a answer to a question quickly be-

cause I am going on vacation and want to do some brewing while I am off.

        It seems that most people are brewing large quantities at a time-

5 gallons or so. My question is- can a beginner brew only 1 or 2 gallons at

a time and still get good results?

        Any help on this is needed by New Years day at about 7 am, thats when

my well deserved vacation begins. Thanks for the help.      Bob

        replies received at    SMTP%"CARRIER@FNAL.FNAL.GOV"    graciously.

------------------------------


My extract rate woes, your responses.

Date:    Thu, 31 Dec 92 07:53:38 EST

From: Jim White <JWHITE@MAINE.maine.edu>

Subject: My extract rate woes, your responses.

I recently posted a note re: my poor extract rate and recvd a number of

helpful responses. Thought I'd share them here.....

 - I used only 3.5 gals of sparge water for 10 lbs of grain. Respondees

  unanimously suggested I up that to 4.5 or more gals. Thanx, I'll do that.

  I ended up boiling the wort down to about 4 gals, and needed to add some

  to get back to 5 gals. I didn't test the gravity prior to the dilution.

 - It was suggested that I do some analysis on my water. I should strive to

  get my sparge water to about 5.5 pH. Here's what I did...

   I went to an aquarium store and picked up a pH test kit, ( one of these

   where you drop x drops of this stuff into a measured amount of water, than

   note the color).

    Results

    Source                               pH

    Water fresh (cold) from tap.         7.0  (Water district said it'd be 8.3)

    Same boiled with cover off(20mins)   8.0

    Same boiled with cover on(20mins)    8.0

    Same raised to 180F                  7.0

    Same raised to 200F                  7.3 (approx)

    I noted absolutely no mineral precipitation in my boiler after a 1/2 hour

    boil. I had also expected the pH to drop as a result of the boil, but

    the opposite occured. Adding 1t of Gypsum to about 2 gals of boiled water

    did not lower the pH a measurable amount (still looked the same color).

    I suppose it's near enough to neutral so as to expect little help from

    the gypsum.

    What seemed odd was that the pH started to raise between 180 and 200F.

    In any event, it seems I need to acidify. I'll see what's available at the

    local Homebrew supplier. I wonder, though, would a small quantity of

    Orange juice accomplish the acidification w/o making the resultant beer

    tastes like a morning breakfast drink. If so, how much?

Jim White

------------------------------


Dextrin Malts

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 08:52:47 EDT

From: doug <doug@metabolism.bitstream.com>

Subject: Dextrin Malts

   Greetings:

   I was speaking to a local brewpub brewer recently and he suggested

   to me that dextrin malts should be added later in the mash than

   pale grains.  Any thoughts on this?

   Thanks in advance

   doug connolly, doug@bitstream.com

------------------------------


Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Date: 31 December 1992 13:12:06 CST

From: R.Deschner@UIC.EDU

Subject: Chicago Beer Society FAQ

Rob Bradley asked, so let's just make this general...

The Chicago Beer Society's monthly homebrewer meetings are held on the

first Thursday of every month, at 7:30PM, at Goose Island Brewery, 1800 N

Clyborn Ave. There are also monthly single-topic homebrewer meetings,

where the making of a specific style is covered in depth, two major

public blind tastings each year, an annual AHA-sanctioned homebrew

contest, an annual Beer Judge Certification Exam, the Blues n Brews

Cruise on Lake Michigan, a picnic, periodic pub crawls by chartered bus,

and the annual Membership Meeting in January.

In general you should come to the Goose Island meeting on the first

Thursday to find out about these.

Dues-paying members receive the (roughly) quarterly newsletter

"Hoppenings", get major discounts on admission to all CBS tastings and

other events, and get the year's "beer item", such as an apron (to keep

wort splashes off your clothing), or some kind of glassware.

For more information, call or write

    CHICAGO BEER SOCIETY, BOX 1057, LA GRANGE IL 60525, 708-692-BEER

or just show up at Goose Island on the first Thursday - complete

membership materials will be available.

(No disclaimer. Yes, I am connected with the Chicago Beer Society.)

------------------------------


Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 7:20 EST

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Refrig. temp control; effect of exposing fermenter to light

   I have a question concerning the effects of exposing a fermenter to a

constant light source.  But first, I'll explain the reason for my

question.  Here's the scenario:  I have been brewing my first lager in

the refrigerator in my garage.  I use a Hunter Air-Stat to control the

temperature in the frig to within a degree or two.  As the weather has

gotten colder, however, so has the refrigerator, and there's nothing the

Hunter monitor can do to correct for too low a temperature.  A friend of

mine suggested a simple solution to this problem:  mount a light bulb

inside the refrigerator, and always leave it on.  This provides a slow

but steady warming of the frig, regardless of the outside air

temperature.  I tried it, and it works quite well:  a 15-watt bulb

provides enough heat that the frig runs for a total of an hour or so in

a 24-hour period (5 or 6 minutes at a time).

   However, I'm concerned about the effects of light on the beer and

yeast.  I am aware that exposure to ultraviolet light is undesirable.

I've been told that incandescent bulbs (as opposed to fluorescent)

should not produce much UV light, and certainly 15 watts is not very

powerful, but the bulb is only a foot or so from the fermenter.  I've

also read that plastic is a strong absorber of ultraviolet light.  I

normally use a plastic fermenter for the primary, and a glass carboy for

the secondary, but in this case I used a plastic secondary as well.

   Now for my question:  does anyone know which wavelengths of light are

most harmful to the beer/yeast?  I'd like to use the glass secondary as

I usually do.  I could use a colored light bulb to eliminate various

regions of the light, for example, a yellow bulb should filter out blue

light, etc.  Is there an easier (and inexpensive) solution?  Maybe a

very low-power heating element?  Or am I just worrying unnecessarily

about the exposure to light?

   Thanks for your thoughts.

Tom Kaltenbach

Rochester, New York

tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1046, 01/01/93

*************************************

-------


UV/fermenter

Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 04:17:40 -0800 (PST)

From: Jack Thompson <jct@reed.edu>

Subject: UV/fermenter

I am not competent to answer Tom Kaltenbach's question about the effect of

UV on fermenting beer, but I can suggest a couple of things about light

and UV in general (there's a reason that most beers are bottled in brown

(or green for a few brews) bottles.  Increased shelf life (Miller's and

Henry Weinhard's must sell very fast!).

Incandescent bulbs put out upwards of 75 microwatts/lumen of UV.  That is

not very much energy, but UV is a mutagen, and plastic, unless it has a UV

absorber incorporated with it, does not slow UV down to any appreciable

extent.  A couple of things which you might do are to put black paper

around the fermenter and paint the inside of the refrigerator with a

titanium white paint.  Titanium absorbs UV better than any other white

pigment.

Looking forward to reading any other postings to your question.

Jack Thompson

Thompson Conservation Laboratory

------------------------------


Alchohol and health

Date: Sat, 2 Jan 93 16:27 GMT

From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>

Subject: Alchohol and health

Now that the holidays are safely over, HBD readers may be

interested in a recent review article on alchohol consumption and

health published in the November 1992 issue of NUTRITION ACTION

HEALTH LETTER (Vo. 19 #9).  This is a publication of Center for

Science in the Public Interest, a non-profit organization that

focuses on nutritional issues.  Their article is footnoted for

those who wish to peruse the original publications in the NEW

ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICIEN, LANCET, JAMA, etc.

First the good news: moderate consumption of alchohol lowers your

risk of heart disease.  For instance, a study of 44,000 men by

the Harvard School of Public health found that those reporting

consumption of one half to two drinks a day had a 26% lower risk

of developing heart disease.  These findings have been reinforced

in studies by the American Cancer Society and other

organizations.  (A "drink" is defined as 1/2 ounce of pure

alchohol, or in homebrew terms about one can of Budmilloors).

The director of the French National Institue of Health and

Medical Research is quoted as saying that "there is no other drug

that is so efficient [at preventing heart attacks] as the

moderate intake of alchohol."

      Why is this?  It appears that alchohol has a significant

ability to raise HDL cholesterol levels (this is the "good"

cholesterol); drinkers have been found to have 10-15% more HDL

than non-drinkers.  "As alchohol intake goes up, HDL goes up,"

according to the director of the Framingham Heart Study (although

it should be noted that after 2-4 drinks a day there is no

increased benefit in further consumption).  However, the article

also notes that there is no direct link between alchohol and

reduced risk of heart disease--the above studies show

correlation, not necessarily cause--and there is a possibility

that differences in lifestyle between drinkers and non-drinkers

may account for some of the effect.

Now the bad news.  Actually, this comes in two parts.  The first

part is that while alchohol consumption lowers risk of heart

disease, when it passes from moderate to heavy it increases risk

of cancer, stroke, and death from other causes.  There is

therefore a balance between risk and benefit, and it cannot be

stated that more you drink the better off you are.

      The second part has to do with the definition of "moderate".

This differs for men and women.  "Moderate" alchohol consumption

for men lies somewhere between one and two "drinks" a day (note

that this means quantity of alchohol consumed, not the bottles of

doppelbock!).  Basically, once you pass 2 drinks a day the scale

tips toward the unfavorable.  As the article says, "At four

drinks a day, while a man is 25 percent less likely than a non-

drinker to die of heart disease, he is 30 to 35 percent more

likely to die of cancer or stroke.  He's also more likely to

become addicted to alchohol." (p. 6)  A handy reference chart

with the relative risks is printed on this page for those who

like to gamble.

      Women have it tougher: the break point appears to be between

3-7 drinks a week, with increased risk of breast cancer being the

major problem.  One study showed that women drinking 3-9 drinks a

week cut risk of heart disease by 40 percent, but increased risk

of breast cancer by 30 percent.  Doctors therefore urge women to

take their own medical history into account when regulating

alchohol consumption, but can't offer any firm guidelines.  The

reason is that while the cancer risk goes up for women, many more

women die of heart disease than of cancer--by a factor of about

3.5 to 1--so reducing heart risk at the cost of increased cancer

risk may have net advantages.  In the opinion of one of the co-

investigators on the above-mentioned (3-9 drink) study, "A drink

a day for a woman is not too much.  There's little health reason

to stop." (p. 6)

      Just in case any of your are thinking about it, the article

also notes that binge drinking does not provide the health

benefits of smaller portions regularly spaced out.  Drinking your

week's allowance of booze in one sitting doesn't have the same

effect.

      In spite of all this, the pundits are reluctant to encourage

people to start drinking, or to drink more.  In my own opinion

this is at least partially due to a cultural bias against

drinking, but it is also true that a substantial minority of

drinkers cannot control their consumption.  Also barred are

pregnant women, people taking certain medications, and people

driving or operating other machinery.

      In other words, if you're in the moderate range (up to 2/day

for men, 1/day for women), don't worry.  If you're drinking more,

well, you might consider worrying a little.

      Anybody who's interested in further information should

contact CSPI at 1875 Connecticut Ave., NW, Sutie 300, Washington,

D.C.  20009.  Telephone: 202-332-9110.

------------------------------


Calculate First, TV and TJHB!

Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 02:20:33 -0500

From: TiM@world.std.com

Subject: Calculate First, TV and TJHB!

Always Compute First.

   Just a reminder for those of us who are still in our 20th or so

brewing...I just finished a double brewing session, making a stout

(the last batch at 7 weeks was great, but I made a couple modifications

for this batch), and a Pilsner on its back. The Pilsner was from a

recipe in ZYMURGY. After I ground the grains and mashed, I thought

the grain looked a little thin, but what was I to know, I've been

running around brewing bunches of 1.055-60 beers the past few months.

When the O.G. came out at 1.036 I nearly died...THEN I went to my

handy dandy Darryl Richmond shareware converted to EXCELL and mucked

with spreadsheet and found that no extraction rate possible would

have been able to hit the O.G. of the published brew with the bill

of grain listed....normally I ALWAYS run things through the spreadsheet

or at least calculate them out on a piece of paper by hand...

The first time you're brewing anything, don't trust what you read.

Compute it yourself factoring in experience with your own equipment.

Live and Learn.

Strange Things On TV.

   My wife was sitting in the living room writing on our portable with

some nameless noise on TV when she suddenly called me into the room.

Apparently it was some cop show (on Saturday evening) and they were

going to arrest some guy for having a 'still'. When the cameras

followed into the guys house it was obvious from the Cajun-type cooker

and setup that he was home-brewing. In the back of the squad car as

they were loading everything in was a copy of Papazian's JOY OF

HOMEBREWING! The cop gave this grand speech about how normally

this stuff would come out ok but all he has to do is deviate from the

recepie and it could kill someone...They were still convinced they

had a hard-liquor still. This probably wouldn't have made it to the

------------------------------


Some Questions about Lambic

Date: Sun, 3 Jan 93 17:12:59 CST

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Some Questions about Lambic

The temptation to join a conversation which on the one hand involves hot-side

aeration (HSA), and on the other Martin Lodahl & Lambic, is too great

to pass up.  Martin's reply in HBD#1045 to Steve Anastasi's interesting

post in HBD#1044 reminded me of a number of questions I always wanted

to ask him.  Since these topics are current, I thought now was as good a

time as any to do so.

I have always assumed that in a beer style like Lambic, where flavor

complexity is taken to the outer limits possible in a grain based

beverage, that the usual rules do not always apply.  I suspect that this

may be the case for Lambics as far as HSA is concerned.  This, however,

like everything else in this post, is more of a question for Martin

than a statement of fact by me.

Negative effects due to HSA are usually reflected in a flavor the

Germans call "Herbstoffe."  Roughly translated this means "grain bitter"

or "grain astringency."  Although, I do not have Martin's vast tasting

experience with Lambics, the ones I have tasted in Europe have never

shown any indication of Herbstoffe.  Sometimes I pick up astringent

tones in bottled Lambics which have been imported to the U.S.  I

believe, however, these flavor tones are artifacts, i.e., resulted

from the beer's long journey across the Atlantic, and are not intrinsic

to this beer style.

There are some theoretical considerations which suggest HSA should

be a nonissue.  Ironically, the same issues arise in a project I am

currently working on which involve beers very far removed in character

from Lambics.  Herbstoffe arises from the presence of what could be

called HSA aldehydes.  These in turn arise from the interaction of

ethanol in beer (as well as some other things) and products which were

oxidized on the hot side of wort production.  The HSA aldehydes have

been isolated, and definitely display "grain astringent" flavors.

Moreover, it has also been shown that most Saccharomyces will ignore

them.  Thus, in most beers, if present, they will spill over into the

finished beer and display Herbstoffe.  With Lambics, on the other

hand, there is a good deal more to the story.  As Professor Verachtert

and his students at the University of Leuven in Belgium have shown,

there are a large number of microbes which get onto the playing field.

It is conceivable, although definite proof is lacking, that some of

these might find the HSA aldehydes inviting targets, and reduce them

to alcohols.  Given the large fatty acid composition of Lambics, the

alcohols would probably be converted to esters, and form a small part

of the very large ester pool in Lambics.  If true, this would mean that

all of the splashing of hot wort that takes place in Lambic brewing

does no harm.

What bothers me (slightly) are the implications of this for North

American Lambic brewers.  At the present time they will not be

dealing with a "full deck" with respect to the relevant microbes,

and this conceivably could be an important issue.  To cite a

specific example, we have in the Southwest a number of really

dedicated Lambic brewers.  A couple of these have gone to great

lengths to simulate the actual Lambic brewing environment, including

both splashing hot wort as well as having cob webs in their brewing

area.  While I really enjoy tasting their beers, they consistently

have a flavor tone which I will oversimplify and call "metallic."

I do not remember ever tasting anything like this in Europe, although

I have tasted something like it in selected bottles which were

imported to the U.S.  I, of course, defer to Martin for a final

judgement on "metallic" gflavors in Lambic.  But, assuming for the

moment that they are artifacts and not intrinsic to Lambics, this

raises the issue of the possible need for brewers in North America

to modify the traditional process.  If I were given a vote, I would

place as No. 1 on the list the removal of the cob webs; removal of

splashing comes further down on the list!  However, in general which

of the rules we use for normal beer (whatever that might be!), should

be followed, and which should be rejected in favor of traditional Lambic

practice?

Martin, I realize this is the first working week of 1993, and

everyone has a lot to do.  Thus, I hate to put a number like the

above in a good friend's lap at this time.  Nevertheless, when you

have the opportunity, I would really enjoy your insights into

these matters, even if they are only preliminary and tentative

opinions.

George Fix

------------------------------


Enzyme for brewing "dry" beers

Date: Sun, 3 Jan 93 22:30 EST

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Enzyme for brewing "dry" beers

   Last Thanksgiving I was in the Chicago area and I picked up a "dry beer"

kit made by Glenbrew of Scotland.  I usually don't buy kits or hopped malt

extract, but I was intrigued by this kit because I've never really

understood how the mega-breweries go about making a "dry" beer.  This kit

apparently is imitating Michelob Dry, as there was a big picture of a

Michelob bottle on the label, minus the Michelob name, of course.  The

reason I am posting this message is that the kit included a packet that was

stamped "DRY PILSNER ENZYME, ADD WITH YEAST".  Presumably this contains an

enzyme that helps break down the higher, unfermentable sugars in the wort

into simple sugars that can be metabolized by the yeast.  Use of such an

enzyme might be an interesting new variable to try in different recipes.

Does anybody know what this enzyme might be?  Is there a commercial source

for it?

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1047, 01/04/93

*************************************

-------


Re: Calculate First, TV and TJHB!

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 07:54:24 -0500

From: zentner@ecn.purdue.edu (Mike Zentner)

Subject: Re: Calculate First, TV and TJHB!

>Strange Things On TV.

The show is Cops on Fox.  I saw it too.  As they sorted through the

incriminating evidence, I realized I have every piece of the same

equipment (chillers, mash tun, burner, large boiling vessel).  If you

watched the whole story, though, the cops, in their planning of the

raid were careful to note that brewing was legal and that they would

have to be careful about this (although I don't think they really knew

what was involved in homebrewing).

As I understood it, they did not find a functioning still, but did

catch this guy homegrowing something else as well.  They took him away,

but his face was blurred, which may indicate that he was not found

guilty.

The bad press given to TCJHB was strictly due to the show, like it was

some kind of manual of sorcery or something.  The reference to a bad

batch causing health problems was to a bad batch of distilled

liquor...this is true.  Looking at the guys house, it's not

unbelievable that he wasn't also distilling liquor...it could be done

with homebrew equipment & slight modifications.

Mike Zentner

------------------------------


homebrew cop tv

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 13:48:05 GMT

From: baker@dfwdsr.SINet.SLB.COM (James Baker - Dallas Seismic)

Subject: homebrew cop tv

 Homebrew COP TV:

  I saw the episode mentioned in HB 1047.  Actually, the guy

 was arrested for distilling alcohol and growing marijuana.

 In the pre-raid meeting of police, it was stated that brewing

 beer was legal, that they were looking for a still.

  I assumed that the police grabbed all the evidence that they

 thought could be used, thus the carboy and brew book. Better

 safe than sorry, eh?

  The interviewed cop DID repeatedly refer to the distilled

 spirits as being 'brewed'.  (e.g. "When you brew that stuff,

 the result could blind someone, or in a worse case kill them")

     jb

------------------------------


Kegged!

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 09:08:03 EST

From: davehyde@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil

Subject: Kegged!

Well, I finally got all my keg stuff straightened out.  I kegged 5 gal of

raspberry lager on thursday, and tapped it on Sat.  Wow.  I don't wanna go back

to bottles again.  Thanks to all (all 3 of you) who responded, the advice was

right on.

Dave Hyde

davehyde@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil

------------------------------


Competition Announcement

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 07:05:44 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Competition Announcement

************** Competition Announcement - Bay Area Brewoff ***************

This is your last notice for the Bay Area Brewoff hosted by The Draught

Board homebrew club. This is a medium size competition, last year we had

150+ entries. We always have good, experienced judges at this competition.

The competition will be held at Lyons Brewery in Dublin, Ca. The

competition will be held on Jan 23, 1993. Last year we had a Holiday beer

catagory as an experiment. The response was so good, we are going to do it

again.

The entries are to be shipped to arrive the week of Jan 2-9. An entry

consists of two 12 oz bottles. Entry deadline is Jan 9, 1993. The entry fee

is $5.00 per entry. Label each entry with the catagory, your name, address,

phone number and club affilliation, if any. For entries in the Holiday Beer

catagory, specify any spices/herbs/special ingredients used. For entries in

the Mead catagory, specify melomel, cyser, or metheglin as necessary. If

you have any questions, you can call John Pyles (competition coordinator)

at (510) 791-0589.

Entries should be shipped to -

     Lyons Brewery Depot

     7294 San Ramon Road

     Dublin, Ca. 94568

The catagories are as follows -

 India Pale Ale

 Pale Ale - American & English

 Dry Stout

 Porter

 Barley Wine

 Amber Lager (Steam style)

 Mead (all types)

 Holiday beer

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Metallic flavors (lambic, etc.)

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 10:07:28 EDT

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: Metallic flavors (lambic, etc.)

George Fix says:

) While I really enjoy tasting their beers, they consistently

) have a flavor tone which I will oversimplify and call "metallic."

) I do not remember ever tasting anything like this in Europe, although

) I have tasted something like it in selected bottles which were

) imported to the U.S.  I, of course, defer to Martin for a final

) judgement on "metallic" gflavors in Lambic.

Interesting.  I know that many people, including George, have complained

about the quality of domestic kilned malt.  I have made several beers

with 100% domestic "Munich" or "Vienna" and invariably the result

is dry, a little bit tart, has a weird cherry-grape flavor component,

and has a noticeable metallic component.  These were all ales ....

I used to attribute this to oxidation, HSA, or what have you.  That

may well be, but other beers handled similarly are clean and have

no oxidation-like defects.  I wonder if perhaps this grain is at fault.

Is oxidation/HSA a real problem with high proportions of these malts?

Any comments?

================O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis================

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1992 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------


water treatments

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 10:30:05 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: water treatments

Hi All,

 In HBD #1046, Jim White writes:

>I noted absolutely no mineral precipitation in my boiler after a 1/2 hour

>boil.

 Water "hardness" is a measure of carbonate content.  Since no carbonate

precipitated out, I'd venture to say that this water is already fairly

soft.

>In any event, it seems I need to acidify.

 It may not be necessary to acidify for mashing.  When water is added to

grist, it will acidify naturally to some extent.

 My water source is a private well, the water is quite hard.  After

pre-boiling my mash water, I get a lot of precipitate, but the pH is still

close to 7.  Once the water and grist is mixed however, the pH drops to

roughly 5.4-6.0, depending on the type of malt.  If I use English pale

malt, the pH drops to 5.4-5.5, and I leave it at that.  If I use less

modified pilsner malt, the pH gets to ~6.0, and I use a teaspoon of gypsum

to drop it to 5.4-5.5.  My theory is that the degree of kilning accounts

for this difference, as the acidification effect is more pronounced if dark

malts are added to the mash.

 Anyway, I'd recommend not acidifying any mash water until after

mashing in the grain, as it may not be necessary.

>...I wonder, though, would a small quantity of

>Orange juice accomplish the acidification w/o making the resultant beer

 If your water has a pH of 8 after boiling, you probably should acidify

for sparging.  Use a "food grade" acid like citric, lactic, or acidblend,

and be very careful not to overdo it.  I use 1/4 *teaspoon* of acidblend to

acidify 4 gallons from ~7 to ~5.5.  A little goes a long way, and you

don't want to let the pH of the runoff drop below 5.0.

 There was a discussion of sparge water acidification in HBD about two

weeks ago, issues #1033 and 1034 if memory serves.  Check the archives.

                                   Cheers,

                                     Jim

------------------------------


brewing Munich Dunkels

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 10:25:46 CST

From: cush@msc.edu (R. Cushing Hamlen)

Subject: brewing Munich Dunkels

This last weekend I tried my hand at brewing a true Munich Dunkel.  After

reading Miller, I decided to do so using all Munich malt.  My source for

Munich malt states that the malt is enzymatic, with sufficient enzymes

to convert starch without using pale malt.

Well, to make a long story short, I ended up with about three gallons of

starchy barley malt porridge....it did not even begin to convert!  The

process was a protein rest at 130F, conversion at 150F for two hours,

another hour at 158F (out of desperation).  PH was 5.2.  Mash was

9.1 pounds of grain with one quart of water per pound of grain.

So, the question is this:  has anyone out there make a Munich Dunkel using

all Munich malt, and had sucess doing so?  I am wondering if the 'Munich'

malt we can buy here is simply not a good malt to use to make a dunkel,

or if I happened to get some malt whose enzymes had been inactivated.

This is likely a good topic for open discussion on the HBD, so go ahead and

post any responses.

- --

 > Cush Hamlen    | cush@msc.edu

------------------------------


UV, Zima

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 08:59:18 -0800

From: SCHREMPP_MIKE/HP4200_42@pollux.svale.hp.com

Subject: UV, Zima

One way to block the UV nasties in your fridge... Break the top off a brown

beer bottle and stick it over the bulb. Let the guys that formulated the glass

do the work of figuring out the techie stuff.

ZIMA... a malt beverage. While stuck in the snow all last week at Tahoe I spent

a lot of time in Safeway. I saw and bought a bottle of ZIMA, a "CLEAR malt

beverage". I thought, "Gee, a clear beer". Wrong. It was junk. Don't be fooled

into buying any, it ain't even close to beer. Luckily I was cheap enough that I

only bought one bottle, not a whole six pack.

Mike Schrempp

------------------------------


COPS & TCJOHB

Date:    Sun, 3 Jan 1993 21:33:13 -0500 (EST)

From: HAPANOWICZ@bigvax.alfred.edu (The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.)

Subject: COPS & TCJOHB

  The saturday 2/1/92 episode of COPS on the FOX network had an interesting

case that related to homebrewing.

  The West Precinct of the Pierce County Sheriff office (Washington State)

obtained a search warrent to look for a still in a guys house.

Deputy Andy Estes was explained in the briefing that they want search the

mans house and find the still.  It wasn't clear if a still was all they

were after but a man from the Liquor Board was also present at the briefing.

They had some info on where the still was kept in the house from an

informant.  Depty Estes stated that the man had brewing equipment (Homebrewing

is legal) and he had a still (Illegal).  He presented the procedure that

they would follow to serve the warrent.

   The sheriffs served the warrent and searched the house.  They found

the burner (A high BTU burner like we use to boil a large wort) and

stated that it was used for the still.  They also found several soda

kegs.  They called the company that owned the soda kegs and stated that

they were stolen and asked if they would like them back.  Also found was

a wort chiller and other homebrew equipment.  The guy had a keg setup

for mashing the grains and the Liquor board guy said thats what was needed

to make the whiskey or grain alcohol.

 In the search of the house they found a greenhouse in the closet that he

was using to grow you-know-what, not hops but its second cousin.

They packed the brewing equipment into a van and took him off to jail.

 Deputy Estes stated that all this guy needed to do was to make one bad

batch and everyone who drank it would go blind.

Comments:

  I don't know if the man involved was selling his product(s), the beer,

the alcohol or the green stuff.

  The camera focused on a book in the man's house: Guess what it was

titled. YUP! Papazians "The Complete Joy of Homebrewing."

   The Liquor Board guy stated that if copper tubing was found it was

part of a still.  I think the guy was brewing beer from grains and the

copper tubing was part of the chiller.

   The man in question also had a cooler that had tubing running through

it.

  All the equipment that I saw related to homebrewing and it seemed to

be an advanced set-up.

 It seemed as if all the legal authorities involved had no clue on the

chemistry or engineering involved with homebrewing beer.

  I don't have the name of the Liqour board guy or the man in question.

  I can get these names off the video tape if anyone wants to pursue

this further (someone in Pierce County Washington?).

 I really have a life, I was waiting for Ren&Stimpy to come on :^) !

Questions:

   If you obtained soda kegs via a deposit are you stealing from the

beverage company?  His kegs had warning labels on them.  What if you

buy refurbished kegs, do these have the names of beverage companies

stamped on them? Mine do.  I meant to say that the kegs in the first

sentance were obtained from a redemption center.

  What is law on distilling alcohol for personal consumption?

 Did anyone else see this show?  Comments?  Let's write some letters

and set the authorities straight on this.  I think that punishment is

in order for his "plant" growing, even though Clinton didn't inhale.

  I am willing to send the tape to anyone who wishes to view it as long

as it gets passed around. Note: My VCR is screwed up such that the

tape may be of good quality when viewed on your VCR (Head Problem).

Rick Hapanowicz HAPANOWICZ@CERAMICS.BITNET  hapanowicz@bigvax.alfred.edu

------------------------------


Glo:gg Brew

Date:    Mon, 04 Jan 93 11:53 CST

From: XLPSJGN%LUCCPUA.bitnet@UICVM.UIC.EDU

Subject: Glo:gg Brew

Dear Brewers,

Well, the holidays are over and I thought I'd send a little note

note about the reactions I received from my Glo:gg Ale brewed for the

season.  First of all, I want to thank all who offered their advise and

know-how, all were very helpful.  Unfortunately, I'm afraid that I

chose the wrong method...  Not that the brew was a failure - in fact I

got a great deal of responses that it was quite good... but...

The overall opinion was that it was "interesting" in that it tasted

alot like a cinnamon and rasin roll, moreso than a beer (even a holiday

brew!).  Let me recap what I did:

Following Papezian's recipe for 'Elbro Nerkte Brown Ale' I thought I'd

simply add the glogg spices (in essence form - soaked in alcohol) at

bottling.  Instead, however, I decided to add them to the secondary

after steeping them in 1 gal of water, much the same way as if I were

steeping specialty grains at the start of a boil.  In effect, I added

a 'tea' of glogg to the secondary (spices and all) and let ferment

for 10 days.  Then bottled.

My personal reaction to the brew is that it is certainly drinkable,

but perhaps best left for a desert-type beverage.  It is heavily

spiced (I presume due to the steeping, rather than simply adding them

as is - dry - to the secondary... or even added to the boil when I

added the finishing hops...).  Further, I misread the original recipe

and added 1/2# rather than 1/4# black pattent malt, and that oversight

added a rather dry bitterness to the finish.  The carbonation was

almost too good (best yet!).

I think that if I try this one again, I'll go even easier on the black

pattent malt (maybe 1/8#?) and add the spices (sans rasins this time)

with the finishing hops.  In all, I'm glad I got the experience, but

next time I'll go for something less extravigant that won't act some-

like prune juice!

Cheers,

  John

------------------------------


CO2 Utilization

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 09:40 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: CO2 Utilization

 I am getting tired of waiting till my tank runs dry to report back on a

 discussion of about a year ago.

 Here is what I have gotten thus far out of the last one, filled in Dec 1991:

          49 kegs force carbonated and dispensed

          Hundreds of bottles counter-pressure filled

 There are still a few pounds in the tank and I think it is safe to say that

 the CO2 is in the noise, as an expense in the force vs natural carbonating

 argument.

 I should point out that I always turn off the tank when not dispensing and

 thereby eliminate losses from leaks.

 js

------------------------------


Sources of Supplies

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 18:56:47 GMT

From: u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil (Markham R. Elliott)

Subject: Sources of Supplies

YEE HAA !!

  Santa came through this year and brought me a Microbrewery kit (by Billingtons

of Kirklands, WA).  Included in the kit is everything a newcomer needs for the

first brew.  I'm not sure of _exactly_ what the syrup was I added (my guess is

that is a blended extract of barley, hops and malt) to the water along with the

sugar and yeast, but want to make more when this batch is bottled.  Enclosed is

an order form for resupplies.  The supplier is Coopers Brewery, (Australian)

handled through Billingtons catalog sales (of Portland, OR).

  Being as novice as one can be to the brewers art, I don't want to get into

messing with the actual grains yet, and am content to experiment with the syrupy

extract (exactly what is in the stuff anyway), but I would like to see what else

is available out there through other suppliers.  I live in the Jackson, MS metro

area, and there are no HB Supply stores, or other (known) establishments that

stock associated items.

  Would someone please be so kind as to send me an address or list of reputable

supply company addresses so I can get catalogs and/or additional info.  I found

and quickly perused Miller's book, but as far as suppliers, he merely suggests

joining some association, subscribe to _Zymurgy_, and obtain addresses from the

advertisers.

  Thanks in advance.  Any and all help appreciated.

M ELLIOTT  TELNET u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil

------------------------------


Homebrewers as fodder for TV cop shows

Date:    Mon, 4 Jan 1993 16:38:06 -0500 (EST)

From: TAYLOR@sbchm1.chem.sunysb.edu

Subject: Homebrewers as fodder for TV cop shows

 Did anyone happen to catch the TV show COPS? I walked in on the

middle of a segment from Washington state, where they had taken someone

into custody for running a home still -- where it looked to me that what

he was doing was making home brew.

 The numbskulls put up a photo of the cover of THE COMPLETE JOY

OF HOME BREWING just to show what a really dangerous criminal they were

dealing with. There was also a "detective" making comments about people

going blind and so on and so forth.

 I bring this up because it will be that much more difficult to get

my friends to try my (quite drinkable) home brew. I am also not thrilled

by the spectre of having to explain that it's not illegal to make home

brew -- no matter what you see on TV.

------------------------------


Low OG

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 15:57:59 CST

From: Jacob Galley <gal2@midway.uchicago.edu>

Subject: Low OG

Last night we whipped up an Ad Hoc Weiz-Steam-Bock from some old

extract and grain that was lying around, and the OG is surprisingly

low. Here's the details:

For 5 gallons, mash at ~165^F:

~3 lbs English 2-row

 3 lbs American wheat

 .5 lb Barley flakes

Add to:

~10 lbs Munton & Fison LMX

~3/4 oz N. Brewer hop pellets (90+ minute boil)

~1/2 oz Fuggles hop pellets (30 minutes)

~1/2 oz Tettnang hop pellets (2 minutes)

Pitch:

California Lager Wyeast slurry

We had to boil all this for at least 2 hours because we started with

much more water than we should have. I'm talking 10 gal down to 5 gal.

This is also the first time I've used my chiller, which is just 25

feet of copper tubing that lies in my bathtub submerged in cold water.

It works great!

Anyway, this brew produced some amazing cold break. After it settled

overnight, there was about 4-5 inches of trub. While I racked this

off, I measured a gravity of 1037 or so, which seems very low

considering how much extract we put in. Can anyone explain why? Would

the amount of trub be related in any way? Might this have been a poor

reading because it was taken from the top of the carboy (even if this

was a full boil, ie not water on top of wort), ie would the heavier

sugars & stuff settle to the bottom of the carboy overnight?

Another question: We siphoned the wort into the chiller with a J-cane

and generic plastic tubing. We couldn't help but notice that our

J-cane became very limp in the boiling hot wort and is now sort of an

S-cane (or maybe a xi-cane). How nasty/toxic will this make my beer?

Thanks,

Jake.

"JUST DO IT yourself." <------------- Jacob Galley / gal2@midway.uchicago.edu

------------------------------


Light and the fermentor

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 16:51:22 PST

From: Bruce Mueller <mueller@sdd.hp.com>

Subject: Light and the fermentor

In HBD #1046, reference was made to UV light in the 'frig with a 15W bulb

to keep the temperature up a bit in very cold weather.  Well, to really

cut the UV down, why not use a higher wattage bulb and dimmer?  You know

that 15W of mostly heat is what you need;  by shifting the bulb's output

from the visible towards the IR, UV will drop dramatically.  If you run

a bulb which only glows a dull red, UV will be virtually nonexistant.  In

fact, why not use the built-in (presumably) light socket in the 'frig?

I suppose a screw-in dimmer might be a bit tough to come by.

Bruce Mueller

Chemist and Tinkerer

------------------------------


What is Victory Malt?

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 16:47:32 -0800 (PST)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: What is Victory Malt?

My homebrew shop just started carrying Briess Victory malt.  The owner

doesn't know what it is, he just got a sack because the salesman at Great

Western says "It's good to put in Ales."  It looks like six-row thats been

toasted.  What is this stuff?  What sort of beers does it go in?  How much

do you use?  I said "What the heck!" and put a pound and a half in a

recent porter and reduced the other roast malts slightly.  Tastes OK at

bottling.  What am I dealing with here?

Paul (narrow bandwidth) deArmond

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1048, 01/05/93

*************************************

-------


The infamous tv-homebrewer...

Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 14:29:57 +0000 (GMT)

From: Kurt Swanson <Kurt.Swanson@dna.lth.se>

Subject: The infamous tv-homebrewer...

The saddest thing about the whole story of the homebrewer being

arrested on the "COPS" television show, is how many homebrewers watch

that ridiculous show!

- --

Kurt Swanson, Dept. of Computer Science,

Lunds universitet.  Kurt.Swanson@dna.lth.se

------------------------------


Stealing Soda Kegs?

Date:     Tue, 5 Jan 1993 08:52 EST

From: JCHISM%HSSCAM.decnet@NETVAX.MIS.SEMI.HARRIS.COM

Subject:  Stealing Soda Kegs?

>Questions:

>   If you obtained soda kegs via a deposit are you stealing from the

>beverage company?  His kegs had warning labels on them.  What if you

>buy refurbished kegs, do these have the names of beverage companies

>stamped on them? Mine do.  I meant to say that the kegs in the first

>sentance were obtained from a redemption center.

I bought refurbished soda kegs (I have 2 of the stubbies) also, and the

refurbisher was carefull enough to remove the names of the beverage

companies using an electric engraver to scratch them out.

  _______________________________________________________________________

 |                                                                       |

 | Jami Chism - The Party Line BBS - 717-868-5435 - 4 Lines, ALL 14.4    |

 |            FREE Access to all callers from 1/8 to 1/18                |

 |_______________________________________________________________________|

------------------------------


Alternate homebrew club in Chicago area

Date:    Tue, 5 Jan 1993 10:05:35 -0600 (CST)

From: VANAGS@ADCALC.FNAL.GOV

Subject: Alternate homebrew club in Chicago area

Hi!

I don't remember who asked about the Chicago Homebrew Club, but I thought

you might want to know about another club.  It's located in the west

suburbs, near Aurora.

It's the Headhunters Homebrew Club.  Yes, I'm a member.  We meet once a

month.  The next meeting is coming up on Friday, Jan 8.  Future meetings

are Feb 5 and March 5.  Our founder is Greg Lawrence.  You can contact

him at (708) 557-2523.  He also sells homebrew supplies.

We usually have a pretty good turnout.  Some of our members (including

Greg) have won awards in homebrew competitions.  But there are also plenty

of novice brewers.  Everyone is welcome to come, taste, and enjoy.

      Cheers  ->>Laura

------------------------------


RE: Munich malt, COPS, CO2

Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 11:24:17 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: Munich malt, COPS, CO2

Hi All,

  In HBD #1048, Cush Hamlen writes:

>...My source for

>Munich malt states that the malt is enzymatic, with sufficient enzymes

>to convert starch without using pale malt.

  This differs from my understanding.  Munich malt is kilned to a degree

sufficient to produce about 10L/lb/gal.  I've always believed that moderate

to high levels of kilning inhibit or destroy subsequent enzyme activity

during mashing.  I use Munich malt frequently for Euro-lagers, but always

mash it along with several pounds of pilsner malt.  Most of the literature

I've read recommends handling Munich malt in this manner, i.e., mash it

along with high enzyme malt such as pale or pilsner.

********************************************************************

  Lots of discussion regarding recent episode of "COPS".  From

Rick Hapanowicz:

>The guy had a keg setup

>for mashing the grains and the Liquor board guy said thats what was needed

>to make the whiskey or grain alcohol.

>The Liquor Board guy stated that if copper tubing was found it was

>part of a still.

  It doesn't surprise me in the least that some pinheaded minion from a

government beaurocracy would be so totally clueless, even given that the

agency involved was the Liquor board and the agent should presumably be

able to differentiate between legal brewing and illegal distillation.

>It seemed as if all the legal authorities involved had no clue on the

>chemistry or engineering involved with homebrewing beer.

  Does anybody else find this a little scary?  The marijuana cultivation

not withstanding, when this man answers to the illegal distillation charge,

he will find himself in the position of having to prove his innocence,

rather than the prosecutor having to prove his guilt.  In view of the

"evidence", how many of us could find themselves in the same situation?

  Sorry to turn this into soc.our.legal.system.sucks.bigtime, I'll come

down off the soapbox now, and get back to discussions of brewing.

*********************************************************************

  Also in HBD #1048, Jack Schmidling writes:

>Here is what I have gotten thus far out of the last one, filled in Dec 1991:

>          49 kegs force carbonated and dispensed

>          Hundreds of bottles counter-pressure filled

>There are still a few pounds in the tank and I think it is safe to say that

>the CO2 is in the noise, as an expense in the force vs natural carbonating

>argument.

  I bought a filled 5 pound tank this spring, and so far I've carbonated

and dispensed 25 kegs, counter-pressure filled several dozen bottles, and

there is still some left in the tank.  I've called around, it would cost

me about $7 to get it re-filled, so I consider the cost as trivial.

  Cost aside, the degree of control over carbonation levels that force

carbonation gives is just great!  By keeping the beer refridgerated at a

constant temperature, I can carbonate the beer to a level appropriate for

any given style, just by adjusting the regulator.

>I should point out that I always turn off the tank when not dispensing and

>thereby eliminate losses from leaks.

  Ditto, there's no such thing as a 'leakproof' system.

                                   Cheers,

                                     Jim

------------------------------


cloudy brew.

Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 17:06:35 GMT

From: baker@dfwdsr.SINet.SLB.COM (James Baker - Schlumberger-GeoQuest - Dallas)

Subject: cloudy brew.

  I've just brewed my third batch (my second batch exploded), and the

 brew is cloudy.  It's been two weeks since I've bottled, and I've

 opened a couple - they seem ok, carbonation and taste is good.  What

 did I do to cause the cloudiness?!?

    jb

------------------------------


OVERNIGHT MASH

Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 10:40 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: OVERNIGHT MASH

 Just for drill, I tried something new with the last batch.  I doughed it in

 before I went to bed and mashed it in the morning.  My thoughts were along

 the lines of, the longer it sits in the water, the more likely to soften and

 saturate all the starch and hence, improve the extract yield.  I used water

 below room temp instead of the usual 90F so as to discourage bacterial

 action.

 I got my usual 30 pts/gal/lb so it didn't help a bit and I may have only

 proved that my mill does a good job but it would be interesting to know if it

 helps others who use Coronas or poorly crushed grain.

 It is still in the primary but I can not detect any obvious diference in the

 taste at this point.

 js

------------------------------


PH color test kits

Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 14:41 EST

From: gcw@granjon.att.com

Subject: PH color test kits

>Date:    Thu, 31 Dec 92 07:53:38 EST

>From: Jim White <JWHITE@MAINE.maine.edu>

>Subject: My extract rate woes, your responses.

>   I went to an aquarium store and picked up a pH test kit, ( one of these

>   where you drop x drops of this stuff into a measured amount of water, than

>   note the color).

>    Results

>    Source                               pH

>    Water fresh (cold) from tap.         7.0  (Water district said it'd be 8.3)

>    Same boiled with cover off(20mins)   8.0

>    Same boiled with cover on(20mins)    8.0

>    Same raised to 180F                  7.0

>>    Same raised to 200F                  7.3 (approx)

>    I noted absolutely no mineral precipitation in my boiler after a 1/2 hour

>    boil. I had also expected the pH to drop as a result of the boil, but

>    the opposite occured. Adding 1t of Gypsum to about 2 gals of boiled water

>    did not lower the pH a measurable amount (still looked the same color).

>    I suppose it's near enough to neutral so as to expect little help from

>    the gypsum.

>    What seemed odd was that the pH started to raise between 180 and 200F.

The temp of the water does effect the color drop PH test. I know this

because of testing my spa - if I leave the test water in the tester

overnight the results (colors) will be different then when I first

tested at 100F. Why this is true - I don't have a clue.

Another thing that effects the color drop PH test is chlorine - this can

be corrected with chlorine neutralizer drops. I don't remember off hand

which way the chlorine effects the PH test.

The PH in my area is so high it is off the scale - the highest listing

on the tester is 8.0 and is a medium dark red color and my water turns

almost purple. Since I only do partial mash's, I have not worried about

lowering the PH to an exact level (just throw some gypsum in), but when I

start to I'll have to buy the acid stuff by the gallon!

Geoff Woods | It's not just sluggin' gorms neemer! |

  | ( not just for breakfast anymore |

------------------------------


hop questions

Date: 05 Jan 93 15:21:59 EST

From: CHUCKM@PBN73.Prime.COM

Subject: hop questions

Having just read Continental Pilsener  (xmas gift) I have

a few questions/comments that may spark some discussion.

  1. Miller indicates that pellet hops yield a greater utilization than

     whole hops , thus, less ounces of pellets are required than whole

     hops.

  2. Miller indicates that pellets need only be boiled for 15 minutes.

  3. Miller indicates that extract brews need not be boiled for more than

     45 minutes and maybe as little as 15 minutes.

Did I misinterpret.... Does anyone have any comments on these Items as

they seem to be somewhat contrary to what I have previously believed.

But, far be it for me to contradict Miller.

Happy Brewing

Chuckm

------------------------------


Light Protection

Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 12:13:34 PST

From: humphrey!cr@uunet.UU.NET (C.R. Saikley)

Subject: Light Protection

Tom Kaltenbach asks about protecting his beer from light produced by a 15W

bulb in the fridge. Here's my two cents.

Some plastics are good UV absorbers, and others are fairly transmissive.

Untreated polycarbonate lenses (commonly used in spectacles) transmit less

than 0.1% in the UVB region, and around 3% in the UVA. I've seen other

plastics transmit up to 30% in UVB and 75% in UVA. While I'm only about two

feet from a transmittance spectrophotometer, I don't have any plastic

fermenters handy, so I can't say what their transmittance properties are.

On the other hand, the visible part of the spectrum may cause harm to your

beer as well.  I've seen references stating that 520nm light (green) is

particularly effective at making beer go skunky, although this magic number

of 520nm seems to be steeped in a certain amount of mystery. The point

is, to be on the safe side, you want to protect your beer from visible

light as well as UV. Here's the low tech solution:

Take a standard grocery bag and cut an airlock sized hole in the bottom

center. Invert the bag and place it over your standard 5 gallon glass

carboy, with airlock protruding thru the airlock sized hole. Your carboy

will be neatly jacketed, and protected from light. This should be more

than enough protection from a 15W bulb.

------------------------------


Belgian Ale Book - Comments wanted

Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 15:20:48 EST

From: Joe Rolfe <jdr@wang.com>

Subject: Belgian Ale Book - Comments wanted

hi all

just a short reminder to all those who noted problems, misunderstandings

or any thing of positive or negative nature dealing with Pierre Rajotte and his

Belgian Ale Book.

Several people have commented that the book was not hitting the mark...

I will be traveling to Montreal - probably in late Febuary/ early March,

of which I will be spending a majority of the time with Pierre.  I have talked

to him about this and he agreed to clarify any points of confusion.  These

responses will either be mailed back via email, posted or snail-mail, depending

on how many I receive (so far very few...).

I will send one more reminder out a couple of weeks before I leave..

 So take your shots now or forever hold your books ;)

All comments can be sent to the address below, I will print them and deliver

to Pierre.

- --

joe rolfe

jdr@wang.com

508-967-5760

------------------------------


"COPS" episode I saw this past weekend

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 10:31 EST

From: "Chris Ext.7037" <CDAVID@LANDO.HNS.COM>

Subject: "COPS" episode I saw this past weekend

Did anyone see the segment in which they got a search warrent on a guys house

who they suspected of growing marijiana and operating a whiskey still...

anything for ratings, but this one might have harmed the homebrewers...

yea, the guy was growing marijuana (being a Libertarian, this does not bother

me, and is his right) but the real clincher on this ine was that the STUPID

cop thought he was operating a still... he had all the goodies most of us

have in our homes... wort chiller, CO2 tanks, kegs, coolers, and get this...

a copy of "The Complete guide to Homebrewing..." was shown, and it never even

dawned on these guys that this guy just MIGHT be brewing beer... nope, guilty

until proven innocent is their motto.  In later comment, the cop who made

the bust what saying that "sure, this guy may make 10 or so good batches of

liquor, but sooner or later he'd make a batch that would blind someone..."

What a Maroon!

Chris David

------------------------------


Lambiks, HSA, Spiders

Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 13:18:43 PST

From: humphrey!cr@uunet.UU.NET (C.R. Saikley)

Subject: Lambiks, HSA, Spiders

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

>Negative effects due to HSA are usually reflected in a flavor the

>Germans call "Herbstoffe."  Roughly translated this means "grain bitter"

>or "grain astringency."  Although, I do not have Martin's vast tasting

>experience with Lambics, the ones I have tasted in Europe have never

>shown any indication of Herbstoffe.  Sometimes I pick up astringent

>tones in bottled Lambics which have been imported to the U.S.  I

>believe, however, these flavor tones are artifacts, i.e., resulted

>from the beer's long journey across the Atlantic, and are not intrinsic

>to this beer style.

Does this so called "grain bitterness" taste anything like the usual

flavor defects we associate with oxidation? (sherry==>cardboard) Or is

it a different beast? If I wanted to taste this flaw, where could I

find a clear example? Would an old bottle of Anchor suffice?

As far as lambiks go, traditional brewers go to great lengths to avoid

oxidizing their aging beers. It is considered very important to not

disturb the pellicle that forms on aging beer, because it provides some

protection from the air in the ullage. Furthermore, oxidized or metallic

tastes are definitely not the norm for a lambik. I suspect that they

don't suffer from the effects of HSA, but can't be certain until I've

found a clear example of Herbstoffe.

>we have in the Southwest a number of really

>dedicated Lambic brewers.  A couple of these have gone to great

>lengths to simulate the actual Lambic brewing environment, including

>both splashing hot wort as well as having cob webs in their brewing

>area.

  [snip]

>If I were given a vote, I would

>place as No. 1 on the list the removal of the cob webs; removal of

>splashing comes further down on the list!

In Belgium, there are different schools of thought regarding the presence

of cob webs in a lambik brewery. There are those who consider them a

valuable asset. The Cantillon brewery for example has quite a large spider

population. The pro spider camp points out (as did Martin) that spiders

are useful in reducing the number of fruitflies, which harbor acetic acid

critters.

On the other hand, when I was visiting Timmerman's, they were in the

process of scrubbing down the walls. I questioned my host, Mr. Jack

VanAntwerpen, about the possibility of disturbing friendly biota. His

reply was something to the effect of "BUNK!" His feeling was that

although the image of a cob web laden brewery was poetic, there are

better ways of controlling fruitflies than with spiders!

There are certainly some very picturesque breweries in Belgium, and the

cob webs definitely add to the ambiance. But if you're interested in

making psuedo lambiks, there are many more important things to consider

than your spider population!

Cheers,

CR

------------------------------


Fear for Homebrewers

Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 16:20:01 PST

From: tpm%wdl58@wdl1.wdl.loral.com (Tim P McNerney)

Subject: Fear for Homebrewers

The last couple of issues of HBD have brought up what I consider a

very dangerous trend among homebrewers.  Yes, they are watching the

TV show COPS.

Maybe the cops' fears that the 'brew' in question would cause

blindness or death was not far off the mark.  It could have even

worse side effects, watching braindead television shows (redundancy

if I ever heard it).  Better to be blind or dead.

But did you see the episode from Las Vegas where...

I need a homebrew.

- --Tim

------------------------------


Changes at the Archives

Date: Tue, 05 Jan 93 16:37:57 -0800

From: "Stephen E. Hansen" <hansen@Sierra.Stanford.EDU>

Subject: Changes at the Archives

Over the holidays I spent some time reorganizing the Homebrew Archives

at Sierra.Stanford.EDU.  The first change that you will notice is that

almost all files have been placed in subdirectories such as "docs",

"programs", "digests", etc.  The most significant change however is

that the issues of the Hombrew Digest are now stored as individual

files rather than shar files or tar files.  The Digest index files now

cover a whole year and the index for the current year is updated with

each new issue.  New issues will also be placed directly in the

appropriate subdirectory (i.e. digests/1933) as they are received.

Storing the digests in individual files was done primarily for those

who must access the archives via the listserver, as the monthly shar

had gotten too big for most mailers, but it also seemed that most of

the ftp access was for only one or two issues.

Those of you who don't follow the rec.crafts.brewing newsgroup might

be interested in the contents of the "images" directory.  It currently

has about 70 files containing pictures of various beer labels and

coasters in GIF and JPEG format.

Stephen Hansen

homebrewer, archivist

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Stephen E. Hansen - hansen@sierra.Stanford.EDU  | "The church is near,

 Electrical Engineering Computer Facility        |  but the road is icy.

 Applied Electronics Laboratory, Room 218        |  The bar is far away,

 Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4055    |  but I will walk carefully."

 Phone: +1-415-723-1058   Fax: +1-415-725-7298   |      -- Russian Proverb

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


None

Date: 5 Jan 93 16:18:46 U

From: "Michael Blongewicz" <esri!mailgate.noname!mblongewicz@uunet.UU.NET>

Subject: None

                       Subject:                               Time:5:17 PM

  OFFICE MEMO          None                                   Date:12/18/92

To whom it may concern:

Please include me in your distribution of the Homebrew Digest [HBD].  My

address is mblongewicz@esri.com

If you are in need of more information, or I need to do something more inorder

to start receiving HBD, then please let me know at the above address.

Thank you

Michael

------------------------------


Small Batches, Wort Starters

Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 23:09:48 -0500

From: cook@uars.DNET.NASA.GOV (Chris Cook, NMOS Quality Engineer - (301)386-7807)

Subject: Small Batches, Wort Starters

I don't know who remembers, but a few months ago I started trying to brew

small, 1-gallon batches of experimental beer.  I got a lot of advice from

people through the HBD, so I thought I'd post a status report.

As a quick recap, I started playing around with small, all-grain batches

so that I could try many different grain bills without the cost and

alcoholism that lost of 5-gallon batches would require.  I'd just bought

a slew of Belgian malts and, as always, patience was the resource in

short supply.  What flavor would biscuit malt add?  How Aromatic?  Should

I use 1 or 2 pounds?  Despite several letters that implied disaster, I

figured, what the hell.

The first two batches were basically 1/5 scaled versions:

                              Recipe 1       Recipe 2

                              --------       --------

Belgian Pale Malt               2.5             1.5

Belgian Caravienne              -               1.0

Gypsum                          1/4 tsp       1/4 tsp

Cascades (boil)                 1/4 oz        1/4 oz

Cascades (aroma)                1/4 oz        1/4 oz

Irish Moss                     ~1/4 tsp      ~1/4 tsp

Mash-in @ 122 degrees (30 min), heat to 155 til done, mash out at 170.

I did the best on measuring the hops using a little postal scale.

I ended up using every pot that I owned, but brewing two small batches

was less work than one 5-gallon batch.  The only difference was that the

boil was better for the small batches; I'll have to scale the boil back

to duplicate my 5-gallon capabilities.

The people who said that I would have trouble with hop rates and

measuring hops were correct.  Maybe it was the active boil.  The small

batches had hops like I've never brewed before!  One week after bottling,

the hops flavor would have been classified as 'caustic' for both batches,

although at this point the hops have relaxed a bit and the beer is damn

good, with a pleasant lemon/citrus flavor that I expect came from the

Cascades.  My wife loved it too, puzzling me (as always) me no end.

Unfortunately, the subtle differences in malts were completely lost.

People said that, with the small thermal inertia of 1 gallon, the old

cooler/lauter-tun wouldn't work well and that infusion mashing was

probably out of the question.  Well, nyah nyah nyah-nyah nyah!  I

converted a 1-gallon cooler to a mash/lauter-tun and (to my chagrin) it

worked better and more efficiently than my big 44-quart, slotted-copper-

pipe rectangular one.  It held temperature quite well for hours.  I liked

it enough that I got a two-gallon cooler for small high-gravity batches,

but I haven't tried it yet.

Given the hops overload, I made batches 3, 4 and 5 this way:

                        Recipe 3    Recipe 4    Recipe 5

                        --------    --------    --------

Belgian Pale Malt         2 #        1.5 #       1.5 #

Belgian Caravienne                   1 #

Belgian Aromatic                                 1 #

Cascades (boil)          1/8 oz      1/8 oz      1/8 oz

Cascades (aroma)        ~1/16 oz    ~1/16 oz    ~1/16 oz

Irish Moss              ~1/4 tsp    ~1/4 tsp    ~1/4 tsp

The aroma hops weights were more by eye than weight.  I bottled them a

week ago, but I haven't tried them yet.  We'll see how these go, but I'm

having fun so far.

On another note, yesterday I was brewing a medium-high gravity ale (14#

of grain) and, as expected, after I got my 6+ gallons the runoff was

still reading about 1.020.  I let the lauter-tun empty into the spare pot

and I got about a gallon of weak wort, all dressed up with nowhere to go.

I had also just used up my last quart of starter.  Some time ago I

started canning yeast starter wort in mason jars, and it's a great time-

saver.  Just boil some wort, pour it into hot jars, put on new lids and

boil in water a few minutes.  The jars are sterile and ready whenever I

need them.  So after thinking about the added hassle of looking for my

last pound of DME, I actually had a good idea and used the runnings to

make 4 yeast starters.

I do have a question: does canning the wort (sometimes stored for months)

introduce any problems that anyone can think of?  I know cooling a wort

slowly is supposed to allow DMS to build up, but I hope the

concentrations in a quart will hurt much.  The jars are clear, but

they're in the dark with the rest of my preserves.  Any other

considerations I've missed?  I hope not, since it's really handy.

Chris Cook                                cook@uars.dnet.nasa.gov

------------------------------


e-mail test

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 00:59:38 CST

From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)

Subject: e-mail test

ignore... bb.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1049, 01/06/93

*************************************

-------


Charcoal Water Filters

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 8:32:16 EST

From: Jim Grady <jimg@hpwarga.wal.hp.com>

Subject: Charcoal Water Filters

Back in HBD #1040 (24 Dec. - I just caught up from the holidays!) Darryl

Richman says:

> There is no need to boil all your water before you brew.  If your water

> comes with a lot of chlorine, an activated charcoal filter will remove

> it.  You need only boil and decant your water if you have a lot of

This is true but I misread it at first and thought I would emphasize

that if you use a charcoal filter you should boil all of your brewing

water either before or while you are brewing.  Many of us extract brewers

boil only part of the wort and I must confess that when I lived in a

town with better tap water, I made up the 5 gallons straight from the

tap.  I have since moved to a new town that has a lot of chlorine in the

water (0.7 ppm) so I bought a chlorine water filter for the house

thinking this means I don't need to boil the water from the tap.  Well,

according to Miller (I think it's his new book, "Brewing the World's

Great Beers") and my backyard neighbor (who sells filters & such to

industry) active charcoal filters are _great_ breeding grounds for

bacteria.  In addition to collecting all sorts of organics for them to

munch on, the media itself promotes growth.

- --

Jim Grady                  |"Talent imitates, genius steals."

Internet: jimg@wal.hp.com  |

Phone: (617) 290-3409      |                    T. S. Eliot

------------------------------


Gas leaks in keg systems

Date:    Wed, 6 Jan 1993 8:00:18 -0600 (CST)

From: SMITH@EPVAX.MSFC.NASA.GOV (The Ice-9-man Cometh)

Subject: Gas leaks in keg systems

>From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

>>From: arf

>>I should point out that I always turn off the tank when not dispensing and

>>thereby eliminate losses from leaks.

>Ditto, there's no such thing as a 'leakproof' system.

Okay, dumb question.  If you turn off the gas at the tank and let the

system sit for a while, and you have (the inevitable) leaks, won't the

beer go flat?  Or do soda kegs have check valves built in?  I have a

tapper-fridge with a Sankey tap, which is hooked up to a half-barrel

which sits there for up to 2 months before it gets finished; my 5-lb

CO2 cylinder has lasted through 3 1/2 half-barrels but I think it's

getting low....

Not so dumb question:  anyone know of a cheap source for a gas check valve?

|    James W. Smith, NASA MSFC EP-53    |     SMITH@epvax.msfc.nasa.gov      |

|"Don't ever tell anybody anything.  If you do, you start missing everybody."|

|                                                     --J. D. Salinger       |

|     Neither NASA nor (!James) is responsible for what I say. Mea culpa.    |

------------------------------


% alcohol by weight vs. by volume

Date: Wednesday, 6 Jan 1993 10:08:36 EST

From: m14051@mwvm.mitre.org (John DeCarlo)

Subject: % alcohol by weight vs. by volume

>From: mfetzer%ucsd.edu@chem.UCSD.EDU (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer)

>How do I compute %alcohol by weigh in terms of %alcohol by volume.

OK, the simplistic answer is that alcohol weighs roughly 80% of

what water does for the same volume, so you can translate 5%

alcohol by volume into 4% by weight (or use the inverse of 1.25

to go from 4% by weight to 5% by volume).

For the particularly picky among you, this simplistic approach

would mena that if the beer were 100% alcohol by weight, it would

be 125% by volume, clearly ridiculous.

So, here is the complete approach, with percentage stated as 70%,

not .7 (you can substitute 1 for the 100s if using 0-1 values):

           (%AbV * .8) * 100

%AbW = --------------------------

       (100 - %AbV) + (%AbV * .8)

Which has 5% AbW converted to 4.04% AbV.

           (%AbW * 1.25) * 100

%AbV = ----------------------------

       (100 - %AbW) + (%AbW * 1.25)

Which translates 4% AbW into 4.95% AbV.

Internet: jdecarlo@mitre.org (or John.DeCarlo@f131.n109.z1.fidonet.org)

Fidonet:  1:109/131

------------------------------


cheapest soda kegs

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 08:27:59 -0700

From: dinsdale@chtm.eece.unm.edu (Don McDaniel)

Subject: cheapest soda kegs

Time for the periodic "where to get kegging equipment" post.

Rumor has it that as the soda industry is abandoning SS kegs for

plastic-lined cardboard boxes, kegs are available really cheap.

For those on the list that have been at it for a while, is thee

any validity to this assertion?

What is the best source of tanks, kegs, regulators and guages at

the moment for someone who is mechanically inclined enough that

he/she doesn't need a turnkey kit from a homebrew supplier?

Thanks,

Don McDaniel

------------------------------


re PH vs color test kits

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 09:49:26 EST

From: cjh@diaspar.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Chip Hitchcock)

Subject: re PH vs color test kits

   The variation of color (of pH tests) with temperature may be caused by

the fact that acidity/alkalinity is temperature-sensitive. pH is the log10

of the reciprocal of the concentration (moles/liter) of H+ ions; thus pH of

7 is a concentration of 10^-7. ]In sufficiently pure water[ the H+ can come

largely from the (very slight) tendency of H2O itself to dissociate into H+

and OH-; pH 7 is "neutral" (at room temp) simply because the concentration

of OH- is also 10^-7. Not surprisingly, H2O dissociates more readily at

higher temperatures; "neutral" at ~100C is pH ~6. Without knowing just what

is in the test solutions I wouldn't begin to guess the effect of a higher

concentration of both ions, except that I wouldn't expect it to be the same

as at room temperature; the behavior of the active compound(s) in the

solution itself could also change.

   I don't know what the standard is in professional brewing, but based on

the above I would /expect/ that they read pH only in samples cooled to room

temperature, or possibly via probes and equipment that correct for the

effect of high temperature.

------------------------------


Kegged!

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 11:08:00 EST

From: davehyde@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil

Subject: Kegged!

Several people wrote and asked for forwards of the stuff I received on

kegging.  Rather than forward everything, I've summarized it here.

Hope its helpful.  BTW, credits follow.  Sorry if I missed anyone,

but I don't keep mail very long and I didn't expect the number of

requests for info that I got.

Where to get equipment:

I can't be of much help here.  I got my taps and CO2 bottle from

our  neighborhood association (?!) since we rarely use them anymore,

and the keg  came from a friend who is on excellent terms with a

distributor.  Several  people have recommended scrap metal yards,

though.

removing that dang ball tap!:

There's a leaf spring at the top of the tap between the tap and the

keg neck.   I worked the end of the spring back to one of the bayonette

slots in the neck  where I pried it out with a screwdriver.  Once

the spring is out lift then  twist the tap up and out of the neck.

This was the hardest part because it  was stuck and there's not much

to get a grip in.  Re-installing is just the  reverse.

carbonation, racking, pressurizing:

Some people recommended priming with 1/4-1/2 c corn sugar before

pressurizing.  Another recommendation was to pressurize and let

the beer set a day or 2 in  the fridge.  I didn't want to wait,

so I force carbonated and agitated the  beer.  I racked the beer

straight from the carboy to the keg with no priming.   I put the

tap back in and pressurized it to ~25 psi.  I didn't get any

guidelines as to pressure vs. style, so this was a guess based

on a  recommendation of 20-40 psi.  I removed the lines and rolled

the keg around  for 10 min or so on the basement floor and tapped it.

Stand Back!  The first  few pints were well carbonated but slightly

cloudy.  This disappeared over the  next day or so.

Comments:

Unfortunately I didn't bottle any of this batch to do a taste

comparison.  It  is, IMHO, my best batch by far.  The raspberries

aside (see below) the beer  has a wonderful color, is crystal clear,

and the head is incredible.  Same  feel and consistency as Guiness

Draft cans with that nitrogen thingy in them.   Lasts forever too.

The only problem:

I can't bottle any to give away.  I tried quiety filling a bottle

for a friend, but when he opened it it was flat.  So...keg party

time, perhaps.

Many thanks to:

bobc@Eng.Sun.COM:                               removing that dang ball tap!

sag5004@yak.ca.boeing.com (Ford Prefect):       carbonation

Jonathan Butt <jbutt@cs.mun.ca>:                carbonation

dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma): carbonation, racking,

                                                pressurizing

and to davet@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Dave Thompson), who asked about my  raspberry

lager:  I didn't want to mess with fruit, so I used a recipe from a

supply place near Baltimore, MD that was basically  an amber lager with

3/4 tbsp of raspberry soda extract added to boil for  15 min.  At

bottling (or kegging, as in my case), another 4 tbsp were  added to the

(now) finished beer.  I wouldn't recommend this unless  you _really_

like rasberry beer.  STRONG!  But _I_ like it.

Dave Hyde davehyde@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil

------------------------------


Brewing supplies in Conn.

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 09:39:14 -0700

From: cbacco@ursa5.cs.utah.edu (Corby Bacco)

Subject: Brewing supplies in Conn.

Hello all,

 I have an older brother who is interested in getting into

homebrewing.  He lives in Norwalk, Conn..  Can anyone reccommend any

homebrew suppliers in the general area.

  Thanks,

         Corby

------------------------------


hops,extracts,pilsners

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 11:18:44 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: hops,extracts,pilsners

(1) Miller is not alone in talking about different utilization of

whole (leaf) hops versus pelletized hops.  However, it seems that

there are a lot of variables involved, such as:  how were whole

and pellet hops handled?  were they kept bagged and chilled as much

as possible?  does the pelletizing break the resin glands, thereby

altering the bittering potential of the hops?  what is the boil length?

what is the vigor of the boil?  what is the gravity of the boiling

wort?  In the end, aim at a style, try a recipe, taste the result,

and modify your process accordingly!

(2) Whether the hops are whole or pellets, the same general rules

apply:  boil 45 to 90 minutes for bittering, 20 minutes or so for

flavoring, and 10 minutes or less for aroma.

(3) In all-grain brewing, a 90-minute boil is probably a reasonable

minimum.  There are various chemical reactions occurring that require

that length of boil, plus you are typically boiling your wort down from

7 or more gallons to 5 gallons at the finish.  With extracts, in part

the concern is that longer boils darken the wort, and other things

equal, it's more difficult to make a very pale beer such as a pilsner

with extract.  You should probably aim for a 45-60 minute boil so that

hop bittering occurs.  Although it is bad practice, you hear stories

about how some recipes recommend stirring malt extract syrup into

water without a boil and then racking to primary.

A pilsner is a pale, bitter lager of conventional strength.  An

extract brewer could make a decent pilsner:

 - use unhopped extra-light or light malt extract,

 - hop with noble hops (Saaz, Hallertauer, etc.) and hop for appropriate

bitterness,

 - Boil for 45 to 60 minutes,

 - Use a lager yeast (Wyeast has good ones) and ferment at an appropriate

temperature (48 to 50 degrees F).

Miller has some other good pointers in his pilsner book in the text

preceding the recipes, which summarizes points made earlier in the

book.

------------------------------


Re: brewing Munich Dunkels

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 9:25:01 PST

From: Dave Sheehy <dbs@hprnd.rose.hp.com>

Subject: Re: brewing Munich Dunkels

R. Cushing Hamlen writes:

> This last weekend I tried my hand at brewing a true Munich Dunkel.  After

> reading Miller, I decided to do so using all Munich malt.  My source for

> Munich malt states that the malt is enzymatic, with sufficient enzymes

> to convert starch without using pale malt.

>

> Well, to make a long story short, I ended up with about three gallons of

> starchy barley malt porridge....it did not even begin to convert!  ...

>

> So, the question is this:  has anyone out there make a Munich Dunkel using

> all Munich malt, and had sucess doing so?

Long ago I made a Maerzen based on Miller's recipe which calls for 9 or 10

pounds of Munich malt. I asked the same sort of question on the HBD (i.e.

will it convert all by itself) and a few people stated they couldn't see how

it could convert. I said "what the h*ll" and went for it. Well, it converted

and fermented just fine. Then the problems began. Most of the batch wouldn't

carbonate (I added the priming sugar, honest!). It was a lager so after

bottling I lagered as much of it as would fit in the fridge (as per Miller's

recomended method of lagering). None of the beer ever had any kind of head

whatsoever either. Now here's the weird part. The few bottles that did

carbonate were from the portion that was lagered in the fridge. None of the

bottles that were stored at room temperature ever carbonated to any

significant degree. That was a real bummer because other than the lack of

carbonation the beer tasted pretty good. I used Wyeast #2308 on this batch.

If I were to do this again I think I would at least add a pound of wheat

malt to improve the head potential. Since Munich malt is kilned at a high

temperature I believe much of the head producing proteins are gone.

>       > Cush Hamlen                           |       cush@msc.edu

Dave Sheehy

------------------------------


Yeast question

Date: 6 Jan 93 09:59:00 +1000

From: KRUSE_NEIL@Tandem.COM

Subject: Yeast question

- ------------   REPLY ATTACHMENT   --------

SENT 01-06-93 FROM KRUSE_NEIL

I have a yeast question...

My usuall recipe is 6# Alexanders amber syrup extract, willamette hops,

boil around 45 mins.  Put carboy with the five gals. of wort in bathtub

to cool, pitch ale yeast.  The next morning the carboy is bubbling like

crazy and the beer always turns out great.  BUT... Last night I helped

a friend follow my award winning recipe with one difference, we used

6# of DRY malt extract.  This morning he called me to tell me it was

not bubbling at all...nada, nonthing.  My question is why?

Should he add more yest?  Is the temperature off?  I thought my recpie

was idiot proof, I guess I was wrong ;)

Thanks

KRUSE_NEIL@tandem.com

------------------------------


KETTLE MASHING

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 09:00 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: KETTLE MASHING

 The following article was rejected by Zymurgy's editorial department for some

 obscure reason, so I will post it here in serial form.

                           KETTLE MASHING

                          By Jack Schmidling

 Mashing and sparging in plastic buckets of one form or

 another has become so universal that the method I am going

 to discuss might seem like something new.  However, it is

 more or less the way beer had been made since time

 immemorial.  Until that is, a certain very popular book on

 home brewing appeared.

 Kettle mashing, as I call it, has some advantages and some

 disadvantages over the now "traditional" plastic bucket

 method and until one understands both approaches, a

 commitment to one or the other can lead to a good deal of

 unnecessary frustration.

 Kettle mashing is simply using a kettle with an appropriate

 secreening device and spigot to "cook" the mash in and once

 the mashing is complete, the same kettle becomes the lauter

 tun.  After sparging in the lauter tun, the kettle is used

 for boiling and if it has a close fitting cover, can be used

 as the primary fermenter.

 The most fundamental advantage of the approach is the ease

 with which the transition from extract to all grain can be

 made.   The only new requirement is a straining device in

 the kettle already used for boiling extract beer.  The

 investment required to "give it a try", is quite minimal and

 if you decide you don't like the program, you end up with a

 great brew kettle that sports a spigot that won't get

 clogged up with hops and specialty grains.

 The other advantages are a bit more technical and I will

 point them out when we get to them.

 The key to the system is the screening device and the spigot

 for the kettle.  The first one I made was to be used in

 conjunction with an overlaying false bottom.  The false

 bottom was a stainless steel plate the size of the kettle

 bottom with a zillion holes laboriously punched into it.  It

 created no end of problems on the very first batch.  Mash

 got under it and scorching was just about impossible to

 control.  So in disgust, I pulled it out, continued the mash

 and assumed a disaster was at hand.

 Much to my incredulous delight, when I opened the spigot,

 the wort ran clear after less than a cup of turbid runnoff.

 I have since made about 30 batches using only the screen

 device and get very consistent and respectable extract

 yields.

 We will begin the discussion, by describing the screening

 device and spigot that is installed in the brew kettle.  The

 first one I made was made from galvanized pipe fittings and

 window screen, installed in a 32 qt enameled canning kettle.

 The current version is all brass, copper and stainless

 installed on two stainless kettles, a ten gallon for mashing

 and fermenting and a sixteen gallon for boiling.  Having two

 kettles allows one to be prepared for the next operation

 while the other is doing its thing.

 Fig. 1 shows an exploded view of the spigot and strainer.

 The strainer is simply a 2 x 6 inch piece of screen, rolled

 into a six inch tube and clamped to the copper tube.  The

 last half inch is bent over itself to seal it off.    The

 copper tube has a slight bend in it to allow it to be

 rotated so that the end is right on the bottom leaving

 almost no wort behind.  It is easily removed for cleaning.

 The spigot passes through a clearance hole drilled in the

 kettle and is retained by the female connector and a washer

 to take up the treads and make a tight fit.

 All the parts are available at a good hardware store.  For

 those not inclined to hunt down the parts, a complete kit is

 available from the author.

 Once the spigot/strainer device is installed in the brew

 kettle, you are ready for the plunge.  If you are shopping

 for a kettle, my only advice is the bigger the better.  I

 consider the 32 qt canner about the minimum for a 5 gal

 batch.

                   Continued...............

------------------------------


What to see, barley wine help needed.

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 11:12:07 -0800

From: sag5004@yak.ca.boeing.com (Ford Prefect)

Subject: What to see, barley wine help needed.

Sorry about posting one of those "I'll be in your neighborhood where

should I go" posts... but

I am getting married in the end of July. For a honeymoon the general

plan is to start in Seattle, head to the coast take a left goto

california take a left head through painted desert and goto colorado,

take another left and head home.  If I sell my 911 in time we may make

the trip in a miata (with no luggage room).  Or use my fiancees ford

explorer (ie room to pick up a six pack here and there :-)

I am interested in interested places and brews to see along the way.

(Note:  places may or may not include some non beer related places like

cannon beach OR).  I am interested in two beer styles in particular:

alt, and barleywine.  A recent trip to Levenworth WA revealed a new

brewpub and I want to see how their alt compares with others.  Also I

have been interesed in finding commercial examples of real barley wine

(not barleywine like style).  I tried to make some myself, but the

results are very sweet and not what I expected.

Any help/flames/etc would be helpful.  As far as places to see "Check

out the Whomper Inn a couple of little towns south of tillamok on 101"

would be sufficient (I know how to use a phone book, If I could just

get the paper ones to grep :-)  Also I would be glad to meet some of

you electronic people, maybe we could quaff one in your favorite spot.

Also, I would like some feed back on "my" barleywine recipe.  I stole

it from somewhere (sorry I don't remember where) so it isn't really

mine, but I would be happy to hear how to improve it.  Also how long is

it supposed to age?  When I made this recipe (twice) I was just

starting to go all grain,  I have been making slow incremental

improvements as I go, but still have along way to go.  BTW, the small

beer made with the second runnings was quite tasty.

May 10, 1991 and May 25 1991

9 gal water

2 tsp gypsum

32 lbs Klages

2 lbs Crystal

1/4 lb Chocoalte malt

throw in grains at 170F stir...temp drops to 152F...wait 90 minutes

sparg until 6.5 gallons collected (8 the second time).

2oz Cascade 60 minutes

2oz Centenial 60 minutes

1 tsp Irish moss 20 minutes

2oz Fuggles 5 minutes

boil 60 minutes,   OG 1.106  (1.095 2nd batch)

used whitbred ale yeast + redstar champagne

after ~3 weeks I transfered to another carboy

and another 3 weeks later I kegged with a FG of 1.038 (1.028 2nd batch)

I have not tasted the second batch (yet), but the first one is very

sweet and almost no hops.  Again any advice would be apreciated.  If

you are local, maybe we can arange a tasting.

thanks

stuart galt                          boeing computer services

sag5004@yak.boeing.com               bellvue washington

(206) 865-3764                       or home (206) 361-0190

#include <standard/disclaim.h>

I don't know what they say, they don't know what I say...

------------------------------


need help kegging

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 16:21 EST

From: Carlo Fusco <G1400023@NICKEL.LAURENTIAN.CA>

Subject: need help kegging

Hello everyone,

I have now made the jump to kegging my beer and now I have a question or 2.

I bought a generic regulator from a welding shop and it works great, one

problem though, the second gauge is scaled for liters per minute and cubic

feet per hour. It is the same as a pressure guage but the scale is set up

for unrestricted flow, as in MIG welding.

Does anyone have a conversion table for this scale?

[ie when the pressure equalizes at 7 lpm, what would that equal in psi]

Thanks

Carlo Fusco  g1400023@nickel.laurentian.ca

------------------------------


[Resend]  HSA & Lambix

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 13:47:24 PST

From: Martin A. Lodahl <pbmoss!malodah@PacBell.COM>

Subject: [Resend]  HSA & Lambix

In HOMEBREW Digest #1047, George Fix made my day:

> The temptation to join a conversation which on the one hand

> involves hot-side aeration (HSA), and on the other Martin Lodahl &

> Lambic, is too great to pass up ...

Gosh, George <blush!> ...  I wrote up a reply and submitted it that

evening, but it was too huge for HBD by any conceivable standard,

and was bounced, as it should have been.  I'll make it more brief

this time.

> Negative effects due to HSA are usually reflected in a flavor the

> Germans call "Herbstoffe."  Roughly translated this means "grain

> bitter" or "grain astringency."  Although, I do not have Martin's

> vast tasting experience with Lambics, the ones I have tasted in

> Europe have never shown any indication of Herbstoffe.  Sometimes I

> pick up astringent tones in bottled Lambics which have been

> imported to the U.S.  I believe, however, these flavor tones are

> artifacts, i.e., resulted from the beer's long journey across the

> Atlantic, and are not intrinsic to this beer style.

I've run across astringency in some of the best lambiks I've had, and

most especially in some of the young (vos) lambiks served from casks

in specialty cafes.  I don't have your experience of German beers and

wouldn't recognize true Herbstoffe, but the astringency I'm thinking

of in this instance is of the husky, grainy sort we often associate

with hot sparges, and as lambik brewers frequently sparge hot, I've

been assuming that was the cause.  "Nutty", "sherry-like" and even

"cigar-like" oxidation products are frequently named in my tasting

notes.  These could well be HSA products, couldn't they?  Oddly, these

flavor notes seem altogether appropriate to the beers I've found them

in -- not a defect, but part of their character, even their charm.

Many lambiks, whether insipid (Belle Vue), regrettable (Lindeman's)

or splendid (Frank Boon) don't have identifiable astringency, but

many seem to.

>  ...  Herbstoffe arises from the presence of

> what could be called HSA aldehydes ...

> ... most Saccharomyces will ignore them.  ...  It is

> conceivable, although definite proof is lacking, that some of

> these [microbes] might find the HSA aldehydes inviting targets,

> and reduce them to alcohols.  Given the large fatty acid

> composition of Lambics, the alcohols would probably be converted

> to esters, and form a small part of the very large ester pool in

> Lambics.  If true, this would mean that all of the splashing of hot

> wort that takes place in Lambic brewing does no harm.

This is to say the least, intriguing!  It's true that despite wild

splashing of the hot wort into the cooling trays and subsequent storage

in gas-permeable containers (barrels) for two or more years the

results are nothing like what you'd get if you treated a pale ale

the same way.  The remaining identifiable oxidation products actually

add to the character of the lambik.  And I've never tasted the

paperlike or cardboard notes in a lambik that we often associate

with oxidation.  Most lambiks have a _very_ substantial ester

component.  One gueuze (St. Louis) was so fruity that I first thought

I'd been served a fruit lambik by mistake!

> What bothers me (slightly) are the implications of this for North

> American Lambic brewers.  At the present time they will not be

> dealing with a "full deck" with respect to the relevant microbes,

> and this conceivably could be an important issue.

I believe you're right.  There are definite flavor differences

between the synthetic products some of us have been experimenting

with, and the "real thing" made the traditional way.

[ ... ]

> they consistently have a flavor tone which I will oversimplify and

> call "metallic."  I do not remember ever tasting anything like

> this in Europe, although I have tasted something like it in

> selected bottles which were imported to the U.S.

My experience has been just the same, though right offhand I can't pin

down any Stateside encounters with that flavor in lambiks either,

but if CR Saikley's reading this, perhaps he can jump in?  Exactly

that note is coming through like gangbusters in the pseudo-lambik I

brewed 18 months ago that I'm sipping as I write this.  The biological

spectrum in it was limited (as far as I know) to S. cerevisiae (Wyeast

1007, in fact), Pediococcus damnosus, and a not particularly aggressive

strain of Brettanomyces bruxellensis.  Sparge temperature was allowed to

rise to 190F, and I splashed the wort some, but hadn't yet concluded

that it would be helpful to the development of the Brett. flavor

profile.

> ... But, assuming for the moment that they are artifacts and

> not intrinsic to Lambics, this raises the issue of the possible

> need for brewers in North America to modify the traditional

> process.  If I were given a vote, I would place as No. 1 on the

> list the removal of the cob webs; removal of splashing comes

> further down on the list!  However, in general which of the rules

> we use for normal beer (whatever that might be!), should be

> followed, and which should be rejected in favor of traditional

> Lambic practice?

I'm struggling with exactly that question, and lack both the

background and data to reach a satisfactory answer.  Conference

attendees could hardly forget Mike Matucheski's remarkable paean to

Brettanomyces.  Mike is a strong believer in following the

traditional processes in hopes that the local microflora will

be suitable, and while his creations don't have a lot in common

with most of the Belgian products they're certainly similar to

the hardest available lambiks.  "Hardness" in a lambik is a descriptor

of the acetic acid contribution to the flavor, and while the Belgian

spiders help to keep hardness under control by taking fruit flies to

lunch, their American counterparts may not be so helpful.  Some of

the test batches of J-X Guinard, "father" of the "pure cultures"

method of home lambik brewing, tasted more like the "real thing"

than mine, and the biggest difference between his process and mine

is that he fermented in plastic water carboys, while I stayed with

the glass I usually use.  Mike Sharp's experiments using an oak

cask were even closer to optimal, and what Mike's and J-X's flavor

profiles had that mine didn't was primarily a major improvement in

the flavor contribution of the Brettanomyces.  What does all of that

have to do with HSA?  Well, just that it raises the question of whether

there is a relationship between Brettanomyces, which seems to contribute

more to the final flavor when exposed to (some) air, and the lack of

the degree of staling one would normally expect in beers that don't

harbor Pediococcus and Brettanomyces.

I must be crowding the size limit by now.  Thanks for asking,

George!

= Martin A. Lodahl      Pacific*Bell Systems Analyst =

= malodah@pbmoss.Pacbell.COM       Sacramento, CA       916.972.4821 =

= If it's good for ancient Druids, runnin' nekkid through the wuids, =

= Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me!  8-)   =

------------------------------


lost in the wood

Date: 06 Jan 1993 19:31:24 -0500 (EST)

From: Sandy Cockerham <COCKERHAM_SANDRA_L@LILLY.COM>

Subject: lost in the wood

Not long ago I bottled my first attempt at an oat pale ale. I made a blunder

though. I added 2 oz. of toasted oak chips to the secondary. Needless to say,

the oak character is QUITE pronounced. I was really bummed. The carbonation is

great, nice head retention, it is very clear (gee, I remember someone getting

flamed for saying their beer was clear, oh well...), and it is a deep golden

color (golden oak, I'd say.).

The moral of the story? Be aware of those evil oak chips!

I hope this mellows, it has only been in the bottle since Thanksgiving.

       Sandy C.

From: COCKERHAM SANDRA L            (MCVAX0::RX31852)

To:   VMS MAIL ADDRESSEE            (IN::"homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com")

------------------------------


Re: Light Protection

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 16:30:12 -0800

From: Carl.Hensler@West.Sun.COM (Carl Hensler)

Subject: Re: Light Protection

To protect wort in a fermenter in a refrigerator from light from

a small light bulb, I suggest simply wrapping the bulb with

aluminum foil.

------------------------------


Lights in the fridge

Date: 06 Jan 93 23:28:16 EST

From: Bill Crisafulli <73750.2427@compuserve.com>

Subject: Lights in the fridge

I have a little different scenario that ultimately leaves me in the same

boat wrt light bulbs.  I have a fridge used during the Chicago summer for

temp control, but since fridge is in a detached, unheated garage, things get

pretty nippy in the winter.  Since I like to store beers in the fridge year

round (both kegs and some bottles to savor), I did the following.

I salvaged a cheap, plastic mechanic's light (you know, the kind in a little

cage that has a long cord coming out the end and a switch on the handle

under the light).  I cut the cord a few feet off the lamp, and attached a

new plug.  I then plugged that into a $12 thermo switch dohickey (technical)

that powers its outlet when temps drop to 35F, and powers off at 45F.  This

seems to be doing the trick and keeping the temp stable when outside

temperatures are hitting 0F.

I'm not sure how long the light is on, or exactly what the relationship is

wrt the outside temp.  Also, I have a 70W bulb in there, facing a wooden

inner fridge door to try to reduce direct light and reflection.  The

plastic lamp says don't exceed 75W, so I don't feel too comfortable

enclosing the thing inside anything else for fear of a blazing fridge (and

cars, etc) if it overheats.  I certainly don't worry about the kegs

(stainless), but the bottles of my Belgians and Hardy's and monthly Beer

Across America specials (light as they have been) are making me wonder what

the danger is?

Bill

I kinda like the idea of using a brown bottle to cover it.  I could take a

750ml beer/wind bottle and do something with that, I think.  But really,

what is the danger?  I protect from direct light via shelving, but what of

indirect?

Distribution:

  >INTERNET:homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1050, 01/07/93

*************************************

-------


Stuck fermentation?

Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 08:32:49 -0500

From: steve@snake.appl.wpafb.af.mil (Steve Zabarnick)

Subject: Stuck fermentation?

I am a new homebrewer working on my first batch. I used 3.25 lbs of Edme

Bitter Hopped Malt Extract and 3 lbs of Laaglander Amber DME for 5 gallons.

I started the yeast (1 package Edme Ale Yeast) in one cup of water boiled

with 2 Tablespoons DME, at 80 degrees. 1 oz of Fuggles pellets were boiled

for 30 minutes, 2/3 oz of Hollertau for 10 minutes, and 1/3 oz Hollertau

for 5 minutes. The yeast was pitched at 90 degrees (is this too high? -- I

followed the online beginners guide from Rob Gardner, but have since read

that pitching should occur closer to 75-80 degrees).

A fermentation lock was placed on the primary (bucket) and the fermentation

begun in a 62 degree room. The OG was measured as 1.048. Bubbling began

within 5 hours and was vigorous the following day. My concern is that on

the second day the bubbling in the fermentation lock has completely

stopped. This seems too soon. Bubbling fermentation only occurred for 36

hours. As the bubbling had stopped, I opened the primary and measured a SG

of 1.022. This seems too high. My question is: what should I do now? Should

I rack to the secondary and wait for fermentation to restart? Is this the

fault of the Laaglander DME, which is apparently notorious for high TG's?

Do I need to add yeast nutrient? Do I need to add more yeast? Should I rack

to secondary and then bottle after a week? How will this high TG affect the

taste of the final product?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Steve Zabarnick

steve@snake.appl.wpafb.af.mil    OR

zabarnic@udavxb.oca.udayton.edu

------------------------------


RE: gas leaks

Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 09:12:33 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: gas leaks

Hi All,

  In HBD #1050, James Smith writes:

>Okay, dumb question.  If you turn off the gas at the tank and let the

>system sit for a while, and you have (the inevitable) leaks, won't the

>beer go flat?  Or do soda kegs have check valves built in?

  Not such a dumb question, I think it's just that James has a much

different setup than mine.  I use soda kegs, not 1/2 barrels, and I

don't have taps installed in the fridge as he does.  I keep about

12-15 psi on the kegs as a "maintainence pressure".  When not in use,

I don't leave the hose barbs connected to the keg.  Both the gas "IN"

and liquid "OUT" fittings on soda kegs have a check valve in them, which

is closed when the hose barbs are removed, keeping the keg sealed. If

the hose barbs are left on, the check valve is open, and the only remaining

seal is between the small rubber gasket on the fitting and the inside of

the hose barb.  IMHO, this is a primary candidate for both gas and

(shudder) liquid leaks, not to mention the wear and tear on the valve

spring from keeping it compressed continually.

                                   Cheers,

                                     Jim

------------------------------


CO2 pressure

Date:    Thu, 7 Jan 1993 9:14:22 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: CO2 pressure

   Someone asked this before, and I don't remember seeing an answer,

so here it is again.  After beer has been carbonated in a keg, say to

2 volumes (or something like 20 lbs. at 50 degF), what pressure should

be kept in the keg to retain that level of carbonation all the way to

the last pint?  (the last pint being quaffed a couple/few weeks later,

and assuming no change in temperature)

Russ

------------------------------


Growing Hops

Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 09:13:43 EST

From: jfunk <jfunk@MAIL.CASI.NASA.GOV>

Subject: Growing Hops

I need some advice from some of you who have successfully grown your own hops. I

live in the Mid-Atlantic region ( Northern Maryland ), and would like to know

what time of year is best for growing, harvesting. Also things like soil

composition, fertilizer, composting, etc would be helpful to know.

                                        Thanks!

                                        Jim.

------------------------------


Beer Camp

Date: 07 Jan 1993 11:19:07 -0500 (EST)

From: LEONH001@mc.duke.edu

Subject: Beer Camp

Hi All,

Has anyone been to the "Beer Camp" at Oldenberg Brewery?  My wife

gave me a gift of it for Christmas and I am wondering if it is worth

the $600.  (Camp is $341 rest is airfare).  Please contact me at

leonh001@mc.duke.edu.   Thanks!   Dave Leonhard

------------------------------


cold plate question

Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 08:20:36 -0800

From: mcnally@wsl.dec.com

Subject: cold plate question

Many HBD's ago, Jack S. described a wonderful-sounding contraption

called a "cold plate", I think.  I have the impression that the thing

is some sort of in-line rapid-chilling device that chills beer from

a room-temperature pressurized keg on the way to the glass.  Is that

correct?  If so, can these things be bought for not much money (i.e.,

less than the cost of a spare fridge to keep the kegs in)?

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Mike McNally                                           mcnally@wsl.dec.com

Digital Equipment Corporation

Western Software Lab

------------------------------


Cops are after you from Micah Millspaw

Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 08:25:56 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Cops are after you from Micah Millspaw

About this search for the still. This greatly concerns me, many times I

have had people who know that I homebrew, ask if I have a still

(with which I make the beer) I say no. When people come over and ask

if they can see my brewing equipment, they look at it and say, so this is

the still. This line of questioning bothers me a great deal and I often

make efforts to explain. The problem is, that per BATF regs (a vestige

from the Volstead Act) it is not legal to possess a still (in the USA)

for any reason or use.(it is possible to obtain a permit from the BATF

but this requires a bond and so on) In the USA the possession of a still

can result in forfiture of the property that the still was found on as

well as other punishment. The Volstead Act was the enforcement aspect

of Prohibition. The precedents set by this Act are the basis for the

narcotics seizure and property forfiture laws. Start looking at the

BATF regulations and you will start to wonder if prohibition was actualy

repealed.

 The rubb is that homebrewing equipment is basically the same

as the larger part of the stuff need to distill. It will most likely

be proven in court that the homebrewing equipment could be used for

illegal distillation wither it was or not. Be concerned this could happen

to you. Also discourage people from going around saying so and so has

a still and he makes beer. Because some, over zealous cop will break down

your door and arrest you and your will have to get a lawyer to prove

(at your expense) that you are innocent, if possible. It could be proven,

by an expert of course, that your homebrewing equipment is in fact

potential distilling equipment and then what do you do, say yes it could

be used for that, but I didn't do it. Remember if your innocent can't

be convicted.

 It seems that many people beleive that brewing and distillation

are the same. All that it could take is for someone to say that so and so

has a still (which you don't) and next thing you know the police are

breaking down the door. Most are ignorant of the laws concerning the

production of alcoholic beverages. I've encountered people who make their

own wine and brandy (making brandy is illegal) but were shocked at my

making beer because they were certain that homebrewing is illegal. These

same individuals later told me that it was legal for ethnic Portuguese only

to make their own brandy in California (and they actually beleive this).

 I've even had the pleasure of being grilled by the FBI over my

homebrewing. The FBI agent asked if I knew that I had admitted to commi-

ting an illegal act by naming homebrewing as one of my hobbies. There was

also concern that if I was making beer that I was probably making other

drugs as well. Make beer and your in bad company. They also annoyed my

neighbors about this as well, which did little to improve my standing in

the area. Also there is an article in the latest issue of American

Brewer that tells of the state of Georgias efforts to stamp out homebrewing

by busting home beer and wine making shops for selling illegal parphen-

alia, such as yeast.

 I guess that the point that I am trying to get across is that this

could happen to any homebrewer. And that educating the public, ie.. friends,

neighbors,etc...,is the only way to prevent such an incident. Misinformation

can be very hazardous to you.

micah

1/6/93

------------------------------


Lab Grade >= Food Grade ?

Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 12:20 EST

From: Mark Cronenweth <CRONEN@vms.cis.pitt.edu>

Subject: Lab Grade >= Food Grade ?

My biology teacher buddy just acquired an unused 5-gallon container which we

think might be useful somewhere in the brewing process.  It's a heavy-duty

opaque plastic "jug" with a screw-on lid about 6" diameter, with a spigot

near the bottom.  My friend believes that, since this vessel was intended for

lab experiments, the plastic is inert and free from bad chemicals, since

these might ruin the data.  He says it's "Lab Grade".  I have 2 questions:

Do any of you scientists out there know how a "lab grade" container

compares with "food grade"?  Would it be OK to consume beer that has come in

contact with a lab grade container, assuming it was clean to begin with?

Also, since the spigot is about 1.5" from the bottom of the container, I

thought it would make an ideal vessel for secondary fermentation, since we

could tap the beer right off the trub into bottles.  Also, if we left the

screw-on cap in place, we might be able to use it to carbonate or maybe lager

a batch in the fridge.  Any ideas about this?

Mark Cronenweth, University of Pittsburgh

------------------------------


kegging

Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 11:46:41 CST

From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)

Subject: kegging

> I racked the beer

>straight from the carboy to the keg with no priming.   I put the

>tap back in and pressurized it to ~25 psi.  I didn't get any

>guidelines as to pressure vs. style, so this was a guess based

>on a  recommendation of 20-40 psi.  I removed the lines and rolled

>the keg around  for 10 min or so on the basement floor and tapped it.

First of all, you need to get the beer cold before you agitate it,

and secondly, do not disconnect the pressure lines before agitation-

the beer will absord the CO2 in the headspace and more is needed

from the tank after agitation begins.  How much pressure you need

depends upon how cold the beer is-you need less when it is colder.

bb

------------------------------


Herbstoffe and Spiders

Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 11:41:08 CST

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Herbstoffe and Spiders

Many thanks to Martin Lodahl for fielding the questions sent to him.

Boy, did we get our money's worth with his responses. To wit:

>I've run across astringency in some of the best lambiks I've had, and

>most especially in some of the young (vos) lambiks served from casks

>in specialty cafes.  I don't have your experience of German beers and

>wouldn't recognize true Herbstoffe, but the astringency I'm thinking

>of in this instance is of the husky, grainy sort we often associate

>with hot sparges, and as lambik brewers frequently sparge hot, I've

>been assuming that was the cause.  "Nutty", "sherry-like" and even

>"cigar-like" oxidation products are frequently named in my tasting

>notes.  These could well be HSA products, couldn't they?  Oddly, these

>flavor notes seem altogether appropriate to the beers I've found them

>in -- not a defect, but part of their character, even their charm.

>Many lambiks, whether insipid (Belle Vue), regrettable (Lindeman's)

>or splendid (Frank Boon) don't have identifiable astringency, but

>many seem to.

Many people, and yours truly is as guilty as they come, detect astringency

very easily, and then consciously or unconsciously consider it a flaw. It

has been reported that overconcentration of one's brewing activities on

Viennese style beers can do this to one's palate! Nevertheless, as Martin's

comments suggest, with Lambik these issues are far more subtle. By the way,

I did fly the term "Herbstoffe" by some language experts and they noted that

the translation "grain astringent" was correct but incomplete. This term

also conveys a "unpleasant" feature as well. Thus, if "common use" rules

are used, then astringent tones like those cited above should not be

cited as examples of "Herbstoffe". Great point Martin. C.R. Saikley's

comments in HBD#1049 were, as always, dead on target as well.

I have also received some really witty e-mail from members of the Spider

Appreciation Society. They correctly point out, as did C.R. and Martin, that

spiders provide protection against fruit flies and other bugs. They also

make the excellent point that this is natural protection and does not involve

chemical cleaners, etc. Anyone with even the slightest social conscious will

be sensitive to and applaud that point. Nevertheless and alas, I remain a

hopelessly unreconstructed reactionary on this point, and if given a vote, it

would go toward removal of the cob webs. Perhaps this is related to the severe

emotional trama received upon walking into a room with an open fermenter in high

kraeusen, and with everything (including the sides of the fermenter) being

adorned with cob webs. Surely there is a better way to go. One that is natural,

yet one that is less stressful to those who worry about what it is that spiders

do after lunch.

Martin > Outstanding post.

Spider Society > You folks seem like a really fun group. When and where do

                 you meet?

George Fix

------------------------------


KETTLE MASHING

Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 10:20 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: KETTLE MASHING

                 KETTLE MASHING,   Part 2

 The following procedure is intended only as a starting point

 that I know works well enough to assure a successful, first,

 all-grain experience.  I do not want to get into endless

 discussions about the pros and cons of the procedure at this

 time nor do I even claim that I brew beer this way.  There

 are an infinite number of variations that could be fodder

 for future articles but the object of this one is to

 introduce the approach and brew a simple batch of all grain

 beer.

                      MASHING

 The first step is to dump 8 lbs of crushed pale malt into

 the kettle.  Don't forget the screen!  Add 3 gallons of warm

 tap water and mix thoroughly.

 Apply heat and raise temp to 155F.  Stir frequently to avoid

 caramelizing and to distribute the heat.  Hold this temp for

 30 minutes by adding heat and stirring as necessary.

 After 30 mins at 155F, crank up the heat and continue

 stirring until 178F is reached.  This step is known as

 "mashout" and is difficult or impossible to do with the

 plastic bucket approach.  It is my opinion that it

 eliminates one source of a common problem with first all

 grain batches known as a "set mash.

 Hold this temp for 10 minsutes, then turn off the heat and

 let it rest while heating water to a boil on another burner.

 Use a pan that holds at least two quarts of water.

                     SPARGING

 The level of wort in the kettle should be about an inch

 above the grain when it settles.   Lay a small bowl on top

 of the grain to distribute the sparging water and minimize

 the disturbance of the grain.

 Open the spigot just a trickle and run the wort into a cup

 until it runs clear.  Pour the turbid runoff back into the

 kettle.   With this setup, it will run clear after a few

 ounces.  Again, as comparison, it sometimes takes gallons

 with the other system and this must be recycled back into

 the mash till it does run clear.

 The object of sparging is to extract as much sugar from the

 grain as possible.  The longer it takes, the more efficient

 the extraction.  Adjust the outflow so that it takes at lest

 10 mins to fill a gallon jug.  Pour the boiling water into

 the bowl as available or necessary to keep about an inch of

 water over the grain.  The availability of boiling water

 will probably be the limiting factor on sparge rate.

 Most brewers will tell you that the sparge water should not

 exceed 170F but if you use boiling water in this system, the

 average temp will be far below 170F and you will be lucky to

 keep it above 150F.  You can fiddle on your next batch.

 Trust my on the first.

 The first runoff should be about 1.080 and you quit when it

 gets below 1.010.  The total blend will produce 6 to 7

 gallons at about 1.035 which, after boiling will yield 5 to

 6 gals at 1.040.  Collect the wort in gallon jugs or five

 gallon plastic buckets (can't get away from them).

               Continued............

------------------------------


Re:  COPS, homebrewing, and the WOD

Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 11:26:15 PST

From: Richard Childers <rchilder@us.oracle.com>

Subject: Re:  COPS, homebrewing, and the WOD

Regarding the recent thread about the busted homebrewer, I see three

possibilities ... in order of likelihood :

 (1) The cops were using the home brewing equipment in bad

  faith, since they knew he wasn't running a still but

  knew that the judge wouldn't know that and that the

  situation could be safely misrepresented, to get the

  warrant to bust him for marijuana cultivation - which,

  as others have noted, is far more a service to his

  community ... like homebrewing, it is being independent

  and productive and creative and nurturing - than a

  threat or anything that might damage the commonwealth

  that the COPS allege to represent.

 (2) The cops were as stupid as the judge, and misled by the

  informant, who had a grudge, or a bias against marijuana.

 (3) The guy was genuinely running a still ... which does not,

  prima facia, seem to be the case, although, off hand, I'm

  not sure it would be possible to prove this, since the

  equipment needed for both is essentially identical, and a

  wort cooler could probably be used as a distillation coil.

  This means this could happen to _any_ of us, and anything

  you have that is illegal on the premises will be used to

  justify their action - anything. Unregistered gun, for

  example, they could and probably would parley it into a

  federal case if they could, before they'd admit that they

  had made a mistake and owed you compensation / apologies.

  Personally, I don't see the difference between brewing

  beer, wine, and other alcohol so long as you are neither

  selling it nor creating a threat to the wellbeing of your

  neighbors.

  What this sort of implies is that if they're going to

  break down your door when you're _not_ distilling, and

  try to make it look like you are ... you may as well,

  anyway.

I think the circumstances suggest that marijuana was the target and home-

 -brewing was used to justify it, no thought given to the thousands of well-

 -meaning and generally law-abiding homebrewers. This is consistent with

War On Some Drugs thinking. How do y'all like it when it returns to roost ?

- -- richard

=====

- -- richard childers  rchilder@us.oracle.com  1 415 506 2411

         oracle data center  --  unix systems & network administration

  ... whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

------------------------------


Ninkasi Beer

Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 14:17:01 MST

From: Rick Myers <rcm@col.hp.com>

Subject: Ninkasi Beer

I have scanned the complete July/August 1991 _Archaeology_ magazine

article about the Anchor brewery's adventures in brewing their

"Ninkasi" brew, into uuencoded GIF format files.  I will make them

available to anyone who requests them via email.  Be warned, however,

the entire 10 pages consume a little over 2Mb, and if your mailer cannot

handle the file sizes, I will NOT break them down into smaller pieces...I

will mail each page separately, however.  The largest file size is 437Kb.

I will NOT entertain questions such as "How do I decode these files",

"How do I display them on my Sun workstation", etc.

Enjoy.

- --

Rick Myers    rcm@col.hp.com

Information Technology Specialist

Hewlett-Packard

Network Test Division

Colorado Springs, CO

"I don't drink milk.  Milk is for babies.  I drink BEER!!!

 - Arnold Schwarzenegger

------------------------------


OAT POST

Date: 07 Jan 1993 14:47:58 -0700

From: Bruce Given      <SCN146@WACCVM.corp.mot.com>

Subject: OAT POST

A request for the HBD. I am in the process of collecting Oatmeal

stout recipes,If anybody has a favourite can you post it on the

Net or to me privately , I promise that I will post them when

I have a good amount collected.( recipes in the Cats Meow don't

count.)

 Cheers !!!

 Bruce ...

------------------------------


great beers of belgium

Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 15:41:18 MST

From: "Ray Brice" <ray@hwr.arizona.edu>

Subject: great beers of belgium

My boss recently saw a book by Michael Jackson

entitled: "Great Beers of Belgium".

Can anyone give me a brief review of it and/or

a place to purchase this?  You can email me

directly.

Thanks!

ray@hwr.arizona.edu

------------------------------


Stand up to COPs!

Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 17:52:08 EST

From: strasser@raj2.tn.cornell.edu (Tom Strasser)

Subject: Stand up to COPs!

 I am writing in hopes of convincing a large number of you to

voice your opinion in defense of homebrewed beer, a subject near and

dear to most of our hearts.  I figure that that many of us (including

myself) do not watch shows such as COPs, however the rumblings heard

here weren't as bad as my personal rumbling when I read the

transcription of the segment sent to me by Rick Hapanowicz (after he

reviewed the video he mentioned here on Tuesday).  As discussed earlier

the show COPS broadcast an episode where they allegedly

arrested a man for distilling liquor, while in actuality all

they showed was homebrewing kegs, immersion chillers, being

confiscated and referred to these as illegal equipment.  The show

was so disturbing  to me personally that I have written a letter

to both the local Fox station and the producers of the COPS show,

and would like to very strongly encourage you to get as many

letters sent as possible from your own contacts.  I have already sent

out mail to club contacts throughout the country, which includes the

transcript of the show segment detailing what I personally feel are

misrepresentations in the show.  I am willing to send this transcript to

anyone who wishes it, to encourage you to voice your opinion to your

local fox affiliates, and to the COPs producers at the address I have

given below.

 A small number of brewers here have been apathetic about

the negative exposure, saying that the people who watch a show of

this nature aren't worth trying to educate.  I would like to

point out that this may not seem so trivial as some ignorant

neighbor results in your arrest and the confiscation of your

brewing equipment.

 So if each of you could take some time to vioce support for

homebrewing I feel it would be to the benefit of all involved.  I feel

this is one point most all of us should agree on, and hope we can make

our voice well heard.  If anyone would like a copy of the transcript, or

the letters I sent to COPs, and the local affiliate, I would be happy to

forward them in hopes that this would induce more response from

homebrewers around the country.  Thanks in advance for your efforts

COPs Address (Thanks Rick):

COPS

c/o STF Productions

P.O. Box 900

Beverly Hills, CA 90213

Auf ein neues,

Tom Strasser...strasser@raj5.tn.cornell.edu...strasser@crnlmsc2.bitnet

------------------------------


Maibock Recipe

Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 16:53:16 -0800 (PST)

From: "Hank E. Eggers" <heggers@eis.CalState.EDU>

Subject: Maibock Recipe

Fellow brewers...Just wanted to know if anyone has or has seen a recipe

for a brew similar to EKU Kulmbacher Maibock? This is my favorite brew but

it is 1) expensive 2) hard to find (if at all)..Currently, I am only a

lowly extract brewer but if my only choice is a grain recipe, it my be

enough encouragement to give it a shot. Thank you!

Hank Eggers  Internet: heggers@eis.CalState.edu

------------------------------


RE: Charcoal Water Filters

Date: Fri, 7 Jan 93 17:40:58 PST

From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

Subject: RE: Charcoal Water Filters

Jim Grady <jimg@hpwarga.wal.hp.com> writes:

> Back in HBD #1040 (24 Dec. - I just caught up from the holidays!) Darryl

> Richman says:

Hope you got all you wanted at Xmas!

> > There is no need to boil all your water before you brew.  If your water

> > comes with a lot of chlorine, an activated charcoal filter will remove

> > it.  You need only boil and decant your water if you have a lot of

>

> This is true but I misread it at first and thought I would emphasize

> that if you use a charcoal filter you should boil all of your brewing

> water either before or while you are brewing.  Many of us extract brewers

> boil only part of the wort and I must confess that when I lived in a

> town with better tap water, I made up the 5 gallons straight from the

> tap.  I have since moved to a new town that has a lot of chlorine in the

This is an excellent point.  Even though one may have had success in

the past relying on tap water, there is no guarantee that the tap

itself has not become contaminated by some food particle or other vector.

> water (0.7 ppm) so I bought a chlorine water filter for the house

> thinking this means I don't need to boil the water from the tap.  Well,

> according to Miller (I think it's his new book, "Brewing the World's

> Great Beers") and my backyard neighbor (who sells filters & such to

> industry) active charcoal filters are _great_ breeding grounds for

> bacteria.  In addition to collecting all sorts of organics for them to

> munch on, the media itself promotes growth.

This is another good point.  You can, however, buy charcoal filters

that are impregnated with silver, which acts as a bacteriostat.  These

will eventually grow bacteria when they get near their usage limits.

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1051, 01/08/93

*************************************

-------


Botulinum in canned malt extract?

Date:         Fri, 08 Jan 93 11:41:23 +0200

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      Botulinum in canned malt extract?

I just got a 1.5 kg can of a malt extract "with hopps added". It must have been

sitting for a couple of years in this guys store. I took it to a friend who has

some experience in homebrewing. As we opened the can the malt started oozing

out and some air/gas came out. We figured it might be the result of some

bacterial growth, but the malt looked and smeeled just normal. We autoclaved

the malt for 20 minutes. We used it for making 25 lit. of what would hopefully

become beer. Questions:

Has anyone seen bacterial growth in canned malt extract?

Can C. botulinum grow in the presence of hopps?

If there was any botulinum toxin in the malt extract do you know if we have

inactivated it by the 20 min autoclaving.

In short, should we not take the risk, dump this batch and start all over with

fresh malt extract (which will take me another month to get)???

Nir

------------------------------


kegging

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 07:56:06 -0600

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: kegging

With respect to the pressure--carbonation level--temperature discussion:  In

Miller's new book _Brewing the World's Greatest Beers_, he gives a set of

guidelines on carbonation level for various styles, and a table of temperature

vs. pressure that yields a given level.   And this past week, I borrowed a

kegging system from my local homebrew supplier, IMO (Thanks, Roy), looked up IPA

to get a carbonation level, and dialed-in 17 lbs on the pressure gague because

of the cold temperature.  Voila, perfectly carbonated beer.  Gallons of it.  So,

the table is really what you need.  The book has other things to reccommend it

too -- I'd say its worth the price.  And I want a kegging system now.  Of

course, I'll need a regerigerator too...

 t

------------------------------


Diminishing Yields

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 09:05:53 est

From: mtavis@gemini.hyperdesk.com (Mike Tavis)

Subject: Diminishing Yields

I have just bottled my third attempt at all-grain brewing.  I've been

very happy with the results so far, but I have noticed a disturbing

trend -- my extract rates are plummeting with each batch.  My first

batch yielded 29 pts/lb/gal (a number I never expected to get the

first time).  My second batch dropped to 22 pts/lb/gal and my third

batch was a miserable 18 pts/lb/gal.

All three of these batches had different grains bills, but the

technique was pretty consistent.  In fact, I tried to do everything

the same as the first batch in order to recreate the results.

Everything seemed close to that first batch -- the crush was the

same, the pH was the same, the temperatures and times were the same --

but my yields are still going in the wrong direction.

After many different discussions, one of my brewing buddies asked,

"Has the temperature of the wort coming out of the lauter tun been the

same?"

I said, "I never take that temperature.  I just make sure that the

sparge water is about 168-170."

He said, "Well depending on the size of the grain bed, the sparge

water will be lowered and if it gets too low it won't be effective at

rinsing the sugars from the grain."

I said. "That makes some sense because in each successive batch I have

used more grain -- specifically, the first batch used 8 lbs, the

second batch 10 lbs, and the third batch 12.5 lbs."

So what do you guys think?  Should my sparge water temperature depend

on the size of my grain bed or do I need to go back to the drawing

board?  Thanks.

- -- Mike

  o o|  Michael Tavis, HyperDesk Corporation

  o o|  Suite 300, 2000 West Park Dr., Westboro, MA  01581

  ---+  E-mail: mike_t@hyperdesk.com        (508) 366-5050

------------------------------


152 year old Porter yeast

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 9:08:37 EST

From: twilloug@brynmawr.webo.dg.com (Tony Willoughby)

Subject: 152 year old Porter yeast

I'm posting this for a friend of mine, John Reed.

His e-mail address is: johnr@ci.com

================

I read an excerpt from the December 17 issue of "Nature" which describes

ancient microbes.  The article mentions a *152 year old Porter yeast*

which was discovered in a shipwreck from 1825.  The divers recovered a

bottle of porter which still contained yeast.  The yeast was cultured and

now is supposedly used in a commercial porter!

I would love to try that Porter!

Does anyone have a clue what porter uses this 152 year old yeast?

Thanks!

================

- --

Tony Willoughby               | He that buys land buys many stones.

twilloug@brynmawr.webo.dg.com |    He that buys flesh buys many bones.

                              | He that buys eggs buys many shells,

                              |    But he that buys good beer buys nothing else.

                              |                       - An Old English Saw

------------------------------


COPS and the still

Date:         Fri, 08 Jan 93 09:43:52 EST

From: "Mark Rich-mpr8a@acadvm1.uottawa.ca" <MPR8A@acadvm1.uottawa.ca>

Subject:      COPS and the still

At the risk of supporting gung-ho policemen...

 For those of you unfamiliar with marijuana culture, yes; dope and a still

go hand in hand. If you take high percentage grain alcohol and soak marijuana

in it; the oils from the plant dissolve into the liquid. If you then evaporate

the alcohol you are left with a very sellable product- pot oil. (I have a frien

d who does this). I do not defend the cops in their actions on that particular

bust (they did seem pretty ignorant of what they stumbled onto), but if this

guy was growing large quantities of grass and had brewing equipment around,the

odds are pretty good he was distilling for oil producing purposes.

------------------------------


Cops don't know hops

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 07:13:40 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Cops don't know hops

Maybe those plants growing in the guys closet were HOPS! Don't they look

the same when very young plants? Lets give this poor innocent brewer every

break possible.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Storage / shelf life of Crushed Malt

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 10:01:53 -0500

From: rogers%scsd.dnet@gte.com (JOHN - GTE - (617) 466-3681)

Subject: Storage / shelf life of Crushed Malt

     I would like to start mashing. I also would like to save

some money and buy the grain in bulk (55 pound sack). Since I do

not own a grinder I would be interested in information on storing

crushed grain.

     Should I Freeze or refrigerate it or ??? ?

     Zip lock bags or a plastic bucket or ??? ?

     What is the shelf life of crushed malt? (i.e what age /

storage conditions will affect mash results, flavor or any other

important characteristics?

     How does the storage / shelf life of crushed malt compare

with uncrushed malt?

     Does the benefit of crushing your own grain outweigh the

possible negative affect of pulverizing (rather than grinding)

the grain by using a "non-optimized" home crusher?

     Thanks in advance for any info !!!

John

------------------------------


growing hops

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 10:22:20 EST

From: kstiles@alux1.att.com

Subject: growing hops

jfunk@MAIL.CASI.NASA.GOV asks about growing hops:

Jim,

It's not too early to start thinking about starting hops in the

Mid-Atlantic region.  Last year was my first hop harvest, so

naturally I feel free to consider myself an authority on hop

growing.  I'm in SE Pennsylvania, not so different from

N Maryland.  I got my hop rhizomes in March from Freshops in

Philo, Oregon.  I planted them immediately in 1-gallon plastic

pots and set them in a sunny window until after the last

heavy frost.  This was late April, and the hop shoots were

about 1-2' high.  I gave them a dowel-string contraption to

climb.  Hops like rich, well drained soil, so if you have

brick-like clay like I do, you're best off making mounds of

soil-compost mixture to plant the shoots in.  Choose a sunny

spot if possible.  Once they start growing, hops are like a

weed, and don't really need much fertilizer.  The real work

is to give them something to climb.  I made 7' trellises from

a frame made of furring strips and a random network of string.

This was OK for the first season, but will clearly not be

adequate for established hops.

     Harvest is in August and September, varying with hop

variety.  Figuring out when to pick the hops is the trickiest

part, but once you have the knack, it's easy.  They turn from

hard to springy, get a "papery" look to them, and display

orange globules at the base of the petals.  If the petals turn

brown, you waited too long, but you have a fair amount of

leeway, so don't worry.  The hops do not all ripen at once,

so the harvest is spread out over several weeks.  After the

frosts kill the vine in the fall, I covered the mounds with

copious amounts of compost.

     Limited probing under the mounds has shown an amazing

network of rhizomes.  I'm offering cuttings to interested

parties within driving distance of Allentown (Varieties:

Mt. Hood, Chinook, Cascade, Willamette and Nugget).

Here's a harvest summary that I sent to another Digest member

by email:

First year Freshops rhizomes, planted in April in eastern Pennsylvania

Variety         Dried weight (oz)       Comments

========        ========                ========

Cascade          12                     Yow!

Mt. Hood            5/8                 Meager

Nugget              3/8                 Maybe next year

Willamette          3/8                 Ditto

Chinook          10 1/2                 Mutant giant cones

All the vines were vigorous, but the Mt. Hood didn't grow very high

despite the fact that it took a dramatic early lead over the other

varieties.  I suspect that I should have taken seriously the advice

to thin the shoots to 2 or 3.

Picking Cascades and Chinooks is a sensory experience to say the

least.

I had no pests to speak of.  A few leaves with holes, and a (very)

few cones that something bored through, and a couple of Japanese

Beetles that were really much more interested in other things in my

yard.  My theory is that hop-loving pests may give a 1-year grace

period before they gather in number to devastate your hop yard.

For any hop flavor profile experts who have read this far:  how

would you describe Chinook flavor/aroma?  What other hop varieties

are similar?  I find it a bit odd (though not unpleasant).

Kevin Stiles

------------------------------


re: Mettalic notes in Belgium Ales

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 10:53:01 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: re: Mettalic notes in Belgium Ales

I have been following the discussion between Dr. Fix and

Martin Lodahl concerning Herbstoffe and general flavor

profiles found in Belgium Ales/Lambics with interest.

The question that I have relates to my experiances of

detecting distinct metallic notes in Belgium ales during

my travels to Belgium.  This metallic flavor seemed

especially pronounced in many of the Tripples that I

sampled.  The metallic notes would usually diminish as

the beer became warmer.  Martin and/or George: Do you

feel this is a product of HSA techniques that seem so

prevelent in Belgium brewing or do you suspect another

cause in particular with respect to Tripples?

Jim Busch

PS: There are spiders on the ceiling above my "open

fermenter" but I keep the lid on so they cant crawl

in!

------------------------------


All

Date: 08 Jan 93 11:26:38 EST

From: Charlie Papazian/Boulder <72210.2754@compuserve.com>

Subject: All

We've been having a lively discussion on compuserve regarding COPS (the

television program ).  I understand you have as well.  If you don't have this

information already, here it is:

The address of the producers of COPS:

Malcom Barbour

COPS/ Barbour/Langley Productions

13900 Tahiti Way Suite 124

Marina Del Rey, CA  90292

Telephone:  310 827-2116

FAX:  310 821-4166

fermently,

Charlie P.

p.s. I had written them in response to their airing of this program in late

November.  I got a response from the producers and am awaiting a response from

the police department that exercised the search warrant.  still waiting.

------------------------------


Proper Sparging Technique

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 12:13 CDT

From: Tom Clark -- COMNET 435-5045 <TCLAR@HOBBES.CCA.CR.ROCKWELL.COM>

Subject: Proper Sparging Technique

Hello to all,

 The college where my wife works is currently between semesters and is

offering a class on homebrewing during their "interim" schedule.  It is being

taught by a team of two instructors, one a philosophy professor/20 year

homebrewer and the other a chemistry/microbiology professor.  In general the

class is pretty good with nightly tastings of the various beer styles, and

three MANDATORY brewery tours, (like I wouldn't go!)  Anyway, a question came

up in class last night that I volunteered to pose to the net for "the real

answer".

 The chemistry professor asked why the homebrew professor didn't totaly

drain the mash tun before adding any sparge water.  She said that we would get

the best possible extraction rate if we followed this "two-part' sparge.  There

was no definitave answer presented so I made my offer to post to this group.

Thanks for your help in advance,

Tom

------------------------------


Leaky Kegs

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 09:10 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Leaky Kegs

 >From: SMITH@EPVAX.MSFC.NASA.GOV (The Ice-9-man Cometh)

 >Subject: Gas leaks in keg systems

 > If you turn off the gas at the tank and let the system sit

 for a while, and you have (the inevitable) leaks, won't the

 beer go flat?  Or do soda kegs have check valves built in?

 The disconnect is a check valve but only if disconnected

 from the line and they too can leak.  One of the most common

 leaks is around the large gasket of the opening and the

 check valve doesn't help any.

 In the unlikely event that one would leave a keg sit around

 so long that it goes flat, one only has to repressurize the

 keg to drink it.  On the other hand, an empty CO2 tank is

 real depressing, especially if it is on the first keg.

 js

------------------------------


Lab Grade plastics

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 13:34:22 EST

From: casagran@gdstech.grumman.com (Lou Casagrande)

Subject: Lab Grade plastics

Regarding the question of whether lab grade plastics are of equal or

better quality than food grade: when I was a grad student (I'm a

chemist), we used a jug that sounds just like the one described to

hold our supply of deionized water. As Mark surmised, we had to keep

our water free of impurities. However, we were careful not to keep it

around for too long. One of the reasons has to do with acidification

by absorbing carbon dioxide, obviously _not_ a concern here. We may

have been concerned about leaching of "plasticizers" into the water,

too. Although I'm not a plastics chemist, my understanding is that all

plastics are made with them, although some might contain less than

others. My point is that your food grade fermenter was made similarly,

so it's probably worth trying the lab grade jug for one batch. Just

don't keep the wort in it for too long (i.e. no lagering). Also, be

sure to attach a tube to the spigot in order to drain it so as not to

aerate your brew.

On your second question, DO NOT use the jug for a keg or for anything

that becomes pressurized. I'm sure you would come home some day to

find five gallons of your latest all over your floor, besides which

you would have to store the brew in it for too long, giving what

plasticizers there are a chance to leech into it.

Hope this helps.

Lou Casagrande

------------------------------


Alsan sterilizer

Date: Fri, 08 Jan 1993 12:34:12 EST

From: connell@vax.cord.edu

Subject: Alsan sterilizer

I recently received a bottle of Alsan sterilizer from the James Page

Brewery (which also sells homebrewing supplies).  Their catalog

identified Alsan as the sanitizer they use in the brewery so I

thought I'd give it a try.  But when it came, I was a bit intimidated

by the label.  It warns of permanent eye damage etc and recommends gloves

and goggles.  I called the brewery, but the guy I spoke with couldn't

tell me what sort of stuff this is.  It doesn't smell like a chlorine

and it suds a bit.  Can anyone out there tell me what this stuff is

and whether it is a good thing for homebrewers to use?

A second information request: I recently acquired a kegging setup

(5 gal soda keg) but I'm having trouble with carbonation.  I've

seen several thank yous for good info on kegs appear on HBD recently

so I ask for help too.  I put 3 gals of hefewiezen under 20psi at

45F.  What I get is tons of foam but absolutely no carbonation.

When I tried aggitation at these pressures, I just got more foam

but still no carbonation.  Any advice will be received gratefully.

------------------------------


Ninkasi article

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 11:56:30 MST

From: Rick Myers <rcm@col.hp.com>

Subject: Ninkasi article

I have had moderate interest in the Ninkasi article GIF's - great!

There have been several requests for ftp access, but I cannot offer

that because I am on a closed subnet.  There have also been

suggestions to put them on the archive machine at Stanford, which

I also will not do because of copyright issues - thus, the email

offer, for private use only.  If somebody does happen to put them

on the archive, make sure I am not associated with them in any way

(put YOUR name there, not mine)!

Brew on,

Rick

- --

Rick Myers    rcm@col.hp.com

Information Technology Specialist

Hewlett-Packard

Network Test Division

Colorado Springs, CO

------------------------------


KETTLE MASHING

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 09:20 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: KETTLE MASHING

              KETTLE MASHING,    Part 3

                 BOILING THE WORT

 When the wort is collected, dump the spent grain on the

 compost pile and rinse out the kettle.  I always save a few

 pounds in freezer containers for beer bread.  The seven

 gallons of wort will barely fit into the kettle for the boil

 so it is best to bring a smaller portion to a boil initially

 to avoid boilover.  After evaporating some and getting the

 boil under contro, the rest can be added.  A minimal one

 hour boil will evaporate about a gallon so you can play with

 the volumes in various ways.  You can increase the gravity

 by more boiling or boil less and have more beer.

 Add half of your hops as soon as boiling begins.  Save one

 forth for the end and the remainder at regular intervals

 during the boil.   If you need a suggestion, try 1.5 oz of

 Chinook for your first batch.

                  CHILLING AND FERMENTING

 After the boil, the wort is cooled, either overnight or with

 a wort chiller if you have one.  I draw it off, after

 chilling, a gallon at a time so that I can shake it

 vigorously and "glug" it into the primary to oxygenate it

 prior to pitching yeast.

 If you hold the chilled wort in a carboy or gallon jugs, you

 can clean out the kettle and use it again as the primary

 fermenter if the lid fits well.  Just boil a cup of water in

 it with the lid on for about 5 minutes to sterilize it.

 The kettle seems to be universally available for about $35

 and the rest of the stuff can be had for under $20, making

 it a pretty inexpensive system.

 So, that's what kettle mashing is all about.  Try it, you

 may like it.

 js

                   Addenda.............

 Here is the list of parts required:

 1. Brass "air cock", 1/8" male pipe thread at one end, bibb

 spout at the other and lever on top.

 2. Brass "female connector", 1/8" female pipe thread at one

 end, 3/8" copper tubing compression fitting at other end.

 3. 6" length of 3/8" copper tubing flared at one end and

 bent so the end rests on bottom.

 4. 4 X 6 inch screen (window, brass, copper or ss)  rolled

 into tube and clamped to flared end of copper tube.  (flare

 prevents it from falling off at inconvenient times)

 All it takes is a 3/8" hole in your kettle, near the bottom.

 If you run a 1/8" pipe tap into the hole, you can screw on

 the air cock and it will not leak.  However, as most kettles

 are too thin to provide enough threads for a safe and

 permanent fit, I modify the fittings by rethreading the

 aircock and connector with STRAIGHT pipe threads.  This

 allows the connector to be screwed on to the aircock in such

 a way that you achieve a snug fit by compression instead of

 relying on the tapered pipe threads.

 Aside from the brass screen, you can find this stuff at a

 good hardware store.  I used window screen for months and

 see nothing wrong with it.

 js

------------------------------


Homebrew Digest #1051 (January 08, 1993)

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 10:50:19 -0800

From: rpeck@pure.com  (Ray Peck)

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1051 (January 08, 1993)

>Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 17:52:08 EST

>From: strasser@raj2.tn.cornell.edu (Tom Strasser)

>Subject: Stand up to COPs!

>

> I am writing in hopes of convincing a large number of you to

>voice your opinion in defense of homebrewed beer, a subject near and

>dear to most of our hearts.

Below is a letter I am sending to the COPs people.  Does anyone have

the address for FOX?

COPS

c/o STF Productions

P.O. Box 900

Beverly Hills, CA 90213

Hello.

I am writing regarding your recent program which concerned a man

getting arrested for growing marijuana.  In that program, several

pieces of homebrewing equipment were depicted as distilling equipment.

As I'm sure you are aware, home beer brewing is very much legal, and

is a quickly growing hobby (just as microbrewed beers are the quickest

growing segment of the beverage industry).  Distillation, on the other

hand, is a Federal crime.

I'm sure you are also aware of the current civil forfeiture laws.

Under these laws, anyone possessing any equipment similar to

distillation equipment can have all of their property seized, without

being charged for a crime: the police simply need to show "just cause"

(i.e., an "informant").  By blurring the line between perfectly legal

home beer making and home distillation, you have done a *great*

disservice to home brewers.  You have greatly increased the

possibility of "midnight raids" and civil forfeiture against

law-abiding people.

As you may guess, I am a homebrewer.  In my experience (I communicate

with hundreds of other homebrewers), homebrewers are beer connoisseurs

and professional people.  They are not beer-guzzling yokels.  By

connecting homebrewers with bootleggers, you have insulted and

endangered a large number of your viewers and others.  I belong to a

computer mailing list on the worldwide Internet computer network.

This mailing list consists of hundreds of professional people (mostly

computer engineers).  There has been a lot of fear expressed on the

list since your show aired.  People worry about a disgruntled neighbor

telling the police that they are distilling, and then having their

house raided by armed men at night.  This is not a pleasant prospect,

to say the least.  Many have expressed the opinion that they should

now keep their brewing secret, to avoid this possibility.

I strongly urge you to air a segment on an upcoming show to clear up

this issue.  You should make it clear that home beer making is

perfectly legal.  You should also make it clear that the equipment

that was shown being seized on your program was not, in fact,

distillation equipment, but homebrewing equipment, and that while much

homebrewing equipment can be used for distilling, that it is the *use*

of distilling equipment that is illegal, and not the possession of

something that *looks* like distilling equipment.

If you do not air such a segment, you are further endangering a large

and growing population of law-abiding people.

Ray Peck

498 Bush

Mountain View, CA 94041

------------------------------


Sediment in Carboy

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 20:30:36 GMT

From: u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil (Markham R. Elliott)

Subject: Sediment in Carboy

     First, thanks to all of you who responded to my inquiry of mail order

sources of brewing supplies. I've got ten names on the list in just a few days.

Every supplier that I have contacted so far has said they would send a catalog.

You home brewers seem to be an OK crew.  If anyone is interested in getting the

compiled list, drop me a line.  Not having purchased any reference books yet,

I have a couple of questions which are probably easily answered . . .

     I eagerly await my first batch to stop fermenting so I can bottle and try

it.  Lately in the HBD there has been talk of culturing one's own yeast.  Not

that I as a rank amateur want to attempt anything as exotic as that, but the

subject brought a couple of questions to mind regarding the sediment in my

carboy.

     First question:  Is this sediment (trube, correct?) the source of the yeast

culture base, or is the sediment which will settle in the bottles after

secondary fermentation the source?  Why use one and not the other?

     As I anticipate being able to bottle the batch somewhere between Monday and

Thursday, should I save this precipitate for anything?  I recall when one of my

older sisters returned from school in Britain many years ago, she introduced the

rest of the family to a product called VEGEMITE.  The container stated that it

was a by-product of the brewing process, but I forget if it was a grain or a

yeast based product.

     At any rate, it was like a pate or paste which you spread on toast or

crackers.  Malty & salty, and you couldn't eat too much in a single

sitting/snack.  A few years ago I was stationed in Huntsville, Al, and there was

a real-life Australian restaurant in town called The Down Under.  As well as

Australian brews and wines, kangaroo steaks and other exotics, they sold at the

cash register a similar product called MARMITE.  Again the container stated it

was a by-product of the brewing process (grain ? yeast ? I can't remember).

     My sister (now working at Univ. GA) has always told me to keep an "eye out"

for it, and my wife likes the stuff too, but we never see it in any stores.

Just as a matter of curiosity, does anyone out there know exactly what these

products are made from and how?  Would it be possible/viable to make one's own

"HOMEBREWMITE" ?  How?

     PROST!!    M R Elliott

------------------------------


Re: cold plate question

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 15:24:14 CST

From: jay marshall 283-5903 <marshall@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject: Re: cold plate question

Mike McNally writes:

>Many HBD's ago, Jack S. described a wonderful-sounding contraption

called a "cold plate", I think.  I have the impression that the thing

is some sort of in-line rapid-chilling device that chills beer from

a room-temperature pressurized keg on the way to the glass.  Is that

correct?  If so, can these things be bought for not much money (i.e.,

less than the cost of a spare fridge to keep the kegs in)?

Superior Products at (800)328 9800 carries the cold plates.  A single

product plate costs $37.  I can not yet comment on how they work since

mine hasn't arrived yet, but I'll be able to do so in a week or two.

I've already got the spare fridge, but I can't ferment ales and keep

kegs at drinking temp at the same time so I decided to go ahead and

get the plate for use when the fridge is being used for fermenting.

Incidentally, it was Jack who turned me on to Superior Products.

Thanks arf!

Jay

------------------------------


Germany suggestions?

Date: Fri, 08 Jan 93 17:27:12 -0500

From: David Arnold <davida@syrinx.umd.edu>

Subject: Germany suggestions?

Hello all,

I've found out I'll be travelling to Germany shortly, and was wondering

if you might be willing to offer suggestions on places to go & beers to

try?

I'll be over there from 1/18 until 1/25, and will be flying into Munich,

then going north, staying about 1/2 way between Bamburg and Regensburg.

(A little town named Vilseck (sp?).)  We'll be staying with a friend, and

will have a rental car, so I'm interested in suggestions around Bamburg,

Nurenburg, Regensburg and Munich.  I'd read in M.J.'s book about a monestary

near Munich (Andechs monastery?); is it as alluring as he makes it sound?

We'll also be (hopefully) taking a day trip to Pilzen & Prague, so suggestions

for there are also helpful.

I'd posted about a year ago for my friend who was in Germany then; some of

the suggestions I got then were:

    Rauchbier - This is availble in the spring

    Any beer ending in -ator.  Kulminator, Pirminator are two

    If you're into the ales, try an Alt beir.

    Eisbock.  Kick-butt thick like molasses heavy duty beer.  Mondo alcohol,

    Pilsners, especially Czech BudVar

    Hefe-weizen dunkeles & helles

I'm not terribly thrilled with wheat beers, especially in the winter.  I

lean more towards ales generally.  I've had one alt beer (Schlosser Alt)

and loved it; should I have any problem finding it, or am I in the wrong

area?

Lastly, I see the literature mentions limit of 2 l. per person.  Is that

a hard limit, or do I just have to declare it if I bring more than that

back?  I've gotten conflicting answers from people on this one.

Any/all suggestions welcome.  PLEASE email them to me (also) if you decide

to post back here, I don't want to miss a scrap of info!  :-)

Thanks in advance,

David Arnold

Inet:     davida@syrinx.umd.edu

Bitnet:   davida%syrinx.umd.edu@cunyvm

UUCP:     uunet!syrinx.umd.edu!davida

NeXTmail: davida@anagram.umd.edu

------------------------------


counter-pressure bottle fillers

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 15:52:05 -0700

From: lager!wtm@hellgate.utah.edu (Tom McCollough)

Subject: counter-pressure bottle fillers

I am in the market for a counter-pressure bottle filler.  Before

constructing my own, as it seems many HBDers have done, I would like to

find out about commercially available fillers.  All I could find in the

1992 archives were just a few comments about commercially available

fillers, mostly negative, and not enough to guide someone in a

purchase.  If you are an owner of a commercially available filler,

could you please post a review?

Thanks,

Tom

------------------------------


re: COPS

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 16:53:37 -0800 (PST)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: re: COPS

Things are actually a little bit worse than Micah puts them.  <shudder>

Property siezures place the burden of proof on the owner to PROVE that the

seized items were not used in the commission of a crime.  Since possession

of some things is itself a criminal offense, a vehicle can be contributing

to the possession of anything found inside of it.

As a former distiller, I would point out that the essential element of a

still is the vaportight still-head, not the condensor. A copper tubing

coil is not sufficient evidence of a still, without some other supporting

parts, such as a head, slobber-box etc.  So if all that poor guy in Tacoma

had was a wort chiller, he should get that charge dropped.

What's the AHA doing about this travesty?  I would think that Charlie P.

has an interest in defending his good name, never mind helping out all of

us dues-paying members.

Paul.

------------------------------


Botulinum in malt extract

Date:         Sat, 09 Jan 93 22:25:00 +0200

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      Botulinum in malt extract

Sorry folks, I already got the answer for the question I've posted above (took

me a day). I was a bit worried so I started reading my microbiology books.

Well the answer as to the potential danger of the botulinum toxin is that

although it might be present in this malt extract which I've used, the 20 min

in autoclave are supposed to completely inactivate the toxin. Actually, even 10

minutes of 100 C will do the job.

------------------------------


Homebrewing supplies in Munich

Date:         Sat, 09 Jan 93 22:35:39 +0200

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      Homebrewing supplies in Munich

A friend of mine will be in Munich a couple of weeks from now. Can someone

recomend a place to which I could send him to, where he'll be able to find

home-brewing supplies. I'm going to be using whatever he brings back to make

my second batch ever (first one just started foaming) should I ask for anything

special but hops, yeast (which one?) and some malt extract (Light or Dark / Wet

Dry)??

Thanks in advance

Nir

------------------------------


Cat's Meow

Date: 09 Jan 93 17:49:15 EST

From: Jim Bayer <72416.1044@compuserve.com>

Subject: Cat's Meow

I've been poking around on the Internet for the first time.

What is this "Cat's Meow" section that I see?  Is it recipes?

Jim

******

* I gott'a get me a snappy ending!!!

******

Distribution:

  homebrew >internet:homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

------------------------------


Our image as brewers

Date: Sun, 10 Jan 93 08:59:44 -0800

From: mark@verdix.com

Subject: Our image as brewers

Folks, I am concerned about the image that we project to new readers

of r.c.b and the Digest.

As devotees of this noble passion, we naturally want to inspire those who

are new to brewing, and to imbue them with our enthusiasm for this most

salutary of crafts.  Unfortunately, I am afraid we may fall short of

this aim.

Yes, I'm talking about the fact that two of the regular posters to

these forums have the usernames "gak" and "arf".  Are these the words

that we want others to associate with homebrewing and homebrewed beer?

I am sure you will agree that they aren't very appealing.  "Hey,

would you like to try some of my homebrew?..."  "Gak!! Arf!"

Who knows how many times a reader might be exposed to these words in just

a single issue of the HBD?  All the worse if they don't actually read

the 'From:' header fields, because then these unwholesome sounds

are transmitted *subliminally*.  And who knows how many other crude

and obnoxious usernames have escaped my notice?

Just something to think about.

Happy brewing!

- --mark

------------------------------


Homemade yeast hulls?

Date: Sun, 10 Jan 93 12:15 CST

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: Homemade yeast hulls?

I traveled to my favorite homebrew supply outlet in search of

some yeast nutrient in the form of yeast hulls.  The store was

currently out but assured me that they would get some in by mid-

week.  All well and good but it meant that I had to postpone my

mead-making plans until next weekend.

During the drive home it hit me [boink!].  Here I am buying yeast

hulls while at the same time dumping large quantities of yeast

slurry down the drain.

Is there an easy way for the homebrewer to make yeast hulls from

yeast slurry ?

chris campanelli

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1052, 01/11/93

*************************************

-------


sparging

Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 04:07:49 CST

From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)

Subject: sparging

> The chemistry professor asked why the homebrew professor didn't totaly

>drain the mash tun before adding any sparge water.  She said that we would get

>the best possible extraction rate if we followed this "two-part' sparge.  There

>was no definitave answer presented so I made my offer to post to this group.

Unfortunately, when the liquid is drained entirely from the grains,

gravity compacts the grain bed, leading to stuck sparges.  Keeping the

water leve above the grain bed helps keep the grain bed loose, and

facilitates the circulation of sparge water while preserving the

filtering properties of an undisturbed grain bed.

Indeed, Some brewers sparge this way (Pierre Roujette (sp?) for one, if

you've read his book.)  Now that my Zapap lauter is on its final leg, I

just may adopt the method if it works well with the picinic cooler/slotted

copper pipe manifold style lauter which will replace it (apparrently,

such a sparge system is less prone to "sticking" than a Zapap lauter)

bb

------------------------------


Pilsener head

Date: 11 Jan 93 08:10:59 EST

From: CHUCKM@PBN73.Prime.COM

Subject: Pilsener head

Hello everyone,

    Having just talked with a Polish friend of mine who has frequented

Pilzn (and U Fleku) many times.... We were talking about the thick head

the pilseners have. M. Jacksons video (beer hunter) shows this and he actually

floats a coin on the head. My friend attests to this as he has actually

done it.

    My question is..... Has anyone out there been able to brew a pilsener

with such a dense head. I have read Miller's book on pilsener, but I don't

remember it discussing this point very much.   Any feedback will be welcome.

Thanks in advance,

chuckm

------------------------------


COPS again

Date:    Mon, 11 Jan 1993 10:23:19 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: COPS again

  Well, which address is correct wrt. the COPS program?  Is it STF

productions or Barbour/Langley productions?

  As someone mentioned, there's more to a still than copper tubing, and

homebrewing chillers always have one end that has a faucet attachment.

I picture the tubing on a still as being used in a different manner.

  And, the people who watch shows like COPS are *exactly* the ones who

need to be educated.  We might have bumped into an iceberg here folks....

Russ G.

------------------------------


re:kettle mashing pt 3

Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 10:35:12 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: re:kettle mashing pt 3

In the last digest:

<From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

<Subject: KETTLE MASHING

<Add half of your hops as soon as boiling begins.  Save one

<forth for the end and the remainder at regular intervals

<during the boil.

This is not recommended for infusion mashing.  The wort should

be boiled a minimum of 30 minutes prior to the first hopping.

This is due to the need to break down and make floc large

proteins that carry over into the kettle.  After the 20-30

minutes of boiling, there will be large amounts of flocs that

can be skimmed off the top.  Then add the first hops for a

minimum boil of 60 minutes, adding finishing hop as desired.

If you hop immeadiately upon boiling you will quickly coat

the hops surface with the proteins thereby considerably

reducing the hop efficiency.  If you dont care about efficiency,

I guess it doesnt matter as long as you account for the reduced

efficiency.  1.5 oz of chinook is  a lot of hops so I guess

this works for Jack.  Also, if you are adding hops at 30 min.

to end of boil, these will contribute significantly to the

overall IBUs, so this should be taken into account.

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Lab Grade vs. Food Grade

Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 08:35:48 -0700

From: Jon Binkley <binkley@beagle.Colorado.EDU>

Subject: Lab Grade vs. Food Grade

I agree with Lou Casagrande that the Lab Grade plasticware will

probably be okay to use for brewing.  However, this does not

apply for chemicals or additives. Use Food Grade or USP (pharmaceutical)

Grade chemicals ONLY!! Other grades of chemicals, e.g. reagent grade,

contain significant (read above EPA and FDA limits) of various

nasties such as lead and arsenic.  So stick to food grade, at

least for additives.

Jon Binkley

------------------------------


RE: sparge water temp, precrushed grain

Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 10:41:58 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: sparge water temp, precrushed grain

Hi All,

  In HBD #1052, Mike Tavis writes:

>I said, "I never take that temperature.  I just make sure that the

>sparge water is about 168-170."

>So what do you guys think?  Should my sparge water temperature depend

>on the size of my grain bed or do I need to go back to the drawing

>board?

  IMHO, maintaining the temperature of the sparge water at 165F-170F

is less important than maintaining the temperature at the surface of

the grain bed at that level.

  Many brewers use some means of diffusing sparge water as it's added

to the lauter tun.  I use a Zapap system with a collander sitting on

top to diffuse the sparge water I add, which then falls 2-3 inches

before striking the surface of the liquid covering the grain bed.  It

has been well reported in this forum that water that is diffused then

passed through air in this manner cools rapidly.  I sparge with

water at ~190F, the temperature at the surface of the grain bed is

~165F, the temperature of the runoff ~150F, and these numbers are

consistent with grain bills that vary between 9-13 pounds of grain.

Your mileage may vary Mike, but try heating your sparge water enough to

get the grain bed to 165F-170F.

*******************************************************

  Also in HBD #1052, John Rogers writes:

>I would like to start mashing. I also would like to save

>some money and buy the grain in bulk (55 pound sack). Since I do

>not own a grinder I would be interested in information on storing

>crushed grain.

>What is the shelf life of crushed malt? (i.e what age /

>storage conditions will affect mash results, flavor or any other

>important characteristics?

  I wouldn't recommend this at all.  Once malt has been crushed, it

deteriorates quickly.  There was a post on r.c.b a while back, wherein

someone related a conversation with the headbrewer from a well known

microbrewery.  This headbrewer stated that if it was necessary to grind

the malt at night before adding it to the mash tun the next morning, he

increased the amount of the base malt in the grain bill by 10%. This was

done to compensate for the extraction lost by the grain sitting around

pre-crushed *overnight*.

>Does the benefit of crushing your own grain outweigh the

>possible negative affect of pulverizing (rather than grinding)

>the grain by using a "non-optimized" home crusher?

  Yes!  It's very important to get the crush right!  Grinding it too coarse

results in low extraction, grinding it too fine (and thus pulverizing the

husks, which sounds like what you're planning to do) results in poor

filtering and a hazy finished product.

  Consider buying a mill.  Whatever money you spend, you'll eventually

recover it in the savings from bulk grain purchases.  I buy 55 pound

sacks, and the cost per pound is less than half of the cost of a

pound of pre-crushed grain.  By the second sack, I'd already saved more

than what my mill cost.

                                   Cheers,

                                     Jim

------------------------------


Cold Plates

Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 9:02:35 MST

From: Rick Myers <rcm@col.hp.com>

Subject: Cold Plates

> Superior Products at (800)328 9800 carries the cold plates.  A single

> product plate costs $37.  I can not yet comment on how they work since

> mine hasn't arrived yet, but I'll be able to do so in a week or two.

I picked one up at a local auction, along with a 10lb CO2 tank, a

stainless bar sink, 3-3gal. Cornelius kegs, the faucet a bar dispenses

soda/liquor/water out of (lighted, with solenoid box and hoses), and

some other goodies - all for 50 bucks!!!  I haven't used the cold

plate yet, as I haven't found a need, but I plan on keeping it handy.

Moral:  Homebrewers, check your local auctions regularly for this

kind of stuff!

> I've already got the spare fridge, but I can't ferment ales and keep

> kegs at drinking temp at the same time so I decided to go ahead and

> get the plate for use when the fridge is being used for fermenting.

I'm just going to get another fridge, instead of using the plate, so I

will have one fridge for serving, one for fermenting, and one in the

kitchen for food!

- --

Rick Myers    rcm@col.hp.com

Information Technology Specialist

Hewlett-Packard

Network Test Division

Colorado Springs, CO

------------------------------


Re: Our image as brewers

Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 9:54:40 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Our image as brewers

mark@verdix.com writes:

>Folks, I am concerned about the image that we project to new readers

>of r.c.b and the Digest.

>

>Yes, I'm talking about the fact that two of the regular posters to

>these forums have the usernames "gak" and "arf".  Are these the words

>that we want others to associate with homebrewing and homebrewed beer?

Mark certainly is right, this isn't good.  But there are so many other

homebrewing words with *good* connotations, like "sparge" and "counterflow

wort chiller".  In fact, I've had this idea for a while to write a sort

of "call to homebrewing":

Be a homebrewer!

Learn the secrets of good head.

Rack off as often as you like without being embarrased.

Be able to say words like "sparge" and "fuggles" with a straight face.

Amaze your friends and inebriate your enemies (or the other way around)

 ...

If that appeal doesn't attract new brewers, I don't know what will.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


flame off, OK?

Date: 11 Jan 93 17:57:01 GMT

From: mark@verdix.com (Mark Lundquist)

Subject: flame off, OK?

Yesterday I posted an article about the unappealing sounds of the

names "arf" and "gak".

If you have read that article and are getting ready to send me some

flamage over it, please stop right now and read this carefully:

IT...WAS...A...JOKE !!!

I've gotten a couple of flames already -- incidentally none from gak or

js (a.k.a "arf", I know what it stands for, thank you kindly). I take

full responsibility, I should have included at least one ":-)" for

those who forgot to take their humor pill.  Clearly, the humor wasn't

as obvious as I intended, and some people actually thought I was

serious, and took me to the woodshed for being uptight about other

people's usernames.  I just though we could use a little injection of

humor, that's all.

------------------------------


Plasticizers

Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 11:05:57 PST

From: Bruce Mueller <mueller@sdd.hp.com>

Subject: Plasticizers

Lou Casagrande was concerned about lab grade plastics for brewing.  Three

issues he was concerned with were:

>by absorbing carbon dioxide ...

>leaching of "plasticizers"

>DO NOT use the jug for a keg or for anything that becomes pressurized.

I am a chemist and agree 100% with the first, especially in regards to HDPE.

This plastic is notorious for its permeability to CO2.  However, I do not

agree with the second or third.

In the second case, Lou went on to say that all plastics contain plasticizers.

Not true.  And in the case of lab grade plastics, plasticizer migration is

unacceptable.  From a safety standpoint, a few years ago Nalgene (a big manu-

facturer of lab plastics) had a problem with bottles cracking after long-term

exposure to certain chemicals.  I believe that the plasticizer they had used

migrated out (either into the solution or the surrounding air), stiffening

the bottle.  They recalled these bottles.  Well, reformulation must have

occurred to alleviate this.  If a plasticizer is still used, it must be much

less likely to migrate.  Thus, unless used for long-term storage, virtually

none will be leached out.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that if

washed well in hot, detergent-laden water before use (a good practice anyways

to remove any mold release from the outside, easing labeling), even long-term

(e.g. 3 months) storage should not be a problem.  In this case, I would wash

between each long-term period to remove any plasticizer which can migrate from

the inside surface of the bottle.

Third, these bottles tend to hold pressure reasonably well.  I have used them

numerous times to ship stuff which will go in an aircraft's hold, which is

not well pressurized.  They don't leak!  Now, at higher pressures (20 psi?)

the worst which would happen would likely be a slow leak at the cap (and some

through the walls--remember the CO2 permeability), not the catastrophic case

Lou predicts.  Yes, I would definitely place the pressurized container where

catastrophic failure would not be disastrous in other ways just to be safe.

I'll step down from the soap box now.

Bruce Mueller

------------------------------


Carbonation, Yield, Fillers

Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 10:20 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Carbonation, Yield, Fillers

 >From: mcnally@wsl.dec.com

 >Many HBD's ago, Jack S. described a wonderful-sounding contraption

 called a "cold plate", I think.  I have the impression that the thing

 is some sort of in-line rapid-chilling device that chills beer from

 a room-temperature pressurized keg on the way to the glass.  Is that

 correct?

 Right on!

 >If so, can these things be bought for not much money (i.e.,

 less than the cost of a spare fridge to keep the kegs in)?

 They start at $37 for a single product unit and are available with up to four

 pathways for dispensing 4 different products simultaneously.

 They are available from Superior Products.  Call (800) 328 9800 for catalog

 or to place an order.  They really are the Cat's Meow.

 >From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)

 >First of all, you need to get the beer cold before you agitate it,

 That is good advice in general but I would not want to have those without

 fridges to think that it is absolutely necessary.  Because I use the above

 cold plate for dispensing and counter-pressure bottling, I do not ever

 refrigerate my kegs.  I force carbonate at room temperature which ranges from

 near 80F in Summer to as low as 55F in Winter.  I use the same procedure

 regardless of the temperature.

 I start at 50 lbs and gradually reduce the pressure to around 25 lbs after

 the initial rush while shaking.  I lower the pressure each time the drop in

 pressure slows down while shaking.  With the cold plate, the pressure can be

 left at 25 lbs for normal foam free dispensing.  The very narrow SS tubing in

 the cold plate simulates a very long feed line so there is a substantial

 pressure differential from keg to tap.

 You can dispense at just about any pressure as long as the keg is given

 enough time to equillibrate.  Unlike most systems, foam is usually cured by

 INCREASING the pressure and the post chilling is death on foam.

 >From: mtavis@gemini.hyperdesk.com (Mike Tavis)

 > I've been very happy with the results so far, but I have noticed a

 disturbing trend -- my extract rates are plummeting with each batch...After

 many different discussions, one of my brewing buddies asked, "Has the

 temperature of the wort coming out of the lauter tun been the same?"

 >I said, "I never take that temperature.  I just make sure that the

 sparge water is about 168-170."

 I think your friend may have a clue and most brewers seem to be contented if

 the temp of the sparge water on target.  I have written many times on the

 importance of knowing what the mash temperature actually is an not relying on

 the temp of the sparge water.  I find that even with boiling water going in

 at the top, the average temperature of the mash is around 150F.  This assumes

 that you maintain an inch or so of water over the top of the grain bed.  Take

 a thermomenter and poke it around.  I guarantee you will become a believer.

 Assuming that you had complete conversion according to an iodine test before

 you started sparging, the fact that the yield was a function of grain

 quantity would indicate inefficient sparging and temp is one place to look.

 The other would be in the method of sparging.  Make sure to maintain at least

 an inch of water over the grain and stir or "cut" the mash several times

 during the process.  Use a long knife to cut through it radially and

 circumferentially while trying not to disturb the area near the false bottom

 or screen.  I stir the mash thoroughly after all the sparge water is in and

 let it settle again for a last run.  The gravity of this last run is 10 to 20

 points above what was coming out befor stiring.

 >From: lager!wtm@hellgate.utah.edu (Tom McCollough)

 > I am in the market for a counter-pressure bottle filler.  Before

 constructing my own, as it seems many HBDers have done, I would like to

 find out about commercially available fillers.

 In my experience, it seems that all the producers use a single probe for CO2

 and beer.  I am not sure how this can work but I guess it does.  The one I

 made has a two hole stopper with separate gas and beer lines.  One goes to

 the bottom and the other ends at the stopper.  Nothing goes out the gas line

 till the bottle is completely full.  Perhaps someone can explain how the

 single probe filler works and why people insist on making them that way.

 >From: mark@verdix.com

 >Yes, I'm talking about the fact that two of the regular posters to

 these forums have the usernames "gak" and "arf".  Are these the words

 that we want others to associate with homebrewing and homebrewed beer?

 I am sure you will agree that they aren't very appealing.  "Hey,

 would you like to try some of my homebrew?..."  "Gak!! Arf!"

 Surely, you jest?  Probably not.  Well, be comforted by the fact that things

 could be worse.  ARF stands for the Amateur Radio Forum and was at one point

 in my life, more important than home brewing.  Your comfort should come from

 the fact that there is also a Better Amateur Radio Forum out there and the

 host of BARF is not interested in homebrewing.

 js

------------------------------


Re: Cops!

Date:  Mon, 11 Jan 1993 16:12:49 -0500

From: Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@canrem.com>

Subject: Re: Cops!

Personally I'd rather have a list of the sponsers of "COPS"

I think a letter to the sponsers with the suggestion of a

boycott or an actual boycott of thier products would have a

greater effect.

You would also figure that the various homebrew suppliers in

the US would also be interested in clearing this up.

Nick

*****************************************************************************

I drink Beer I don't collect cute bottles!

zen%hophead@canrem.com

*****************************************************************************

------------------------------


Breweries in Jamaica???

Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 15:58 CST

From: wseliger@chinet.chi.il.us (William Seliger)

Subject: Breweries in Jamaica???

Does anyone know of any Breweries in Jamaica???  I will be flying into

Montego Bay and staying in Runaway Bay, but might be tempted to travel to

Kingston to visit a brewery.

Thanks in advance,

Bill Seliger

wseliger@chinet.chi.il.us

W 1(708)640-2718

H 1(312)907-9686

------------------------------


Belgian Malts

Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 17:09 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Belgian Malts

Chris writes (in his description of his 1-gallon test batches):

>                        Recipe 3    Recipe 4    Recipe 5

>                        --------    --------    --------

>Belgian Pale Malt         2 #        1.5 #       1.5 #

>Belgian Caravienne                   1 #

>Belgian Aromatic                                 1 #

>Cascades (boil)          1/8 oz      1/8 oz      1/8 oz

>Cascades (aroma)        ~1/16 oz    ~1/16 oz    ~1/16 oz

>Irish Moss              ~1/4 tsp    ~1/4 tsp    ~1/4 tsp

I'd just like to point out that Recipe 4 equates to a 5-gallon batch

with 5 lbs of crystal malt in it.  The DeWolf-Cosyns Belgian malts

that begin with "Cara" are caramel or crystal malts.  In general

the DeWolf-Cosyns malts fall into four categories (I'm not sure, however,

who created these categories).  The comments are based upon comments provided

by DeWolf-Cosyns and the degrees Lovibond are the actual results of the

first test of the malts (also provided by DW-C).  Although I don't think that

they said anything about it, I assume that if Aromatic (at 25.7L) will convert

itself (i.e. can be mashed alone), then surely their Munich should also.

Note that Roasted Malt is basically Black Patent.

BASE MALTS deg L comment

Pilsner   1.83

Pale Malt 3.21

Wheat  1.75

COLOR MALTS

Munich  7.83

Aromatic  25.7 will convert itself

CRYSTAL MALTS

Cara-Pils 7.87

Cara-Munich 21.65

Cara-Vienne 77.5

Special B 221

ROASTED MALTS

Biscuit  22.5 probably not-enzymatic, i.e. won't convert itself

Chocolate 497.5

Roasted Barley 557.5

Roasted Malt 601

Al.

------------------------------


RE:Charcoal Water Filters

Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 14:37:28 PST

From: Scott Lord (CompuCom) <v-ccsl@microsoft.com>

Subject: RE:Charcoal Water Filters

>Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 8:32:16 EST

>From: Jim Grady <jimg@hpwarga.wal.hp.com>

>Subject: Charcoal Water Filters

IN HBD #1050 Jim Grady was concern with activated Charcoal  having too

much bacteria.

>Back in HBD #1040 (24 Dec. - I just caught up from the holidays!) Darryl

>Richman says:

>> There is no need to boil all your water before you brew.  If your water

>> comes with a lot of chlorine, an activated charcoal filter will remove

>> it.  You need only boil and decant your water if you have a lot of

> and my backyard neighbor (who sells filters & such to

>industry) active charcoal filters are _great_ breeding grounds for

>bacteria.  In addition to collecting all sorts of organics for them to

>munch on, the media itself promotes growth.

What you need to look for when purchasing a active charcoal filter is

to see if it bacteriastatic witch

means that the filter will inhibit the growth of bacteria. this is done

by impregnating the active charcoal

with silver oxide .This will kill all bacteria that try's to live in

the filter.

------------------------------


hose couplers

Date: 12 Jan 93 02:49:08 GMT

From: mark@verdix.com (Mark Lundquist)

Subject: hose couplers

I have an idea.  Have you seen these quick-disconnect gadgets for hose

connectors?  I think you can find them in the garden department.  Anyway,

you can install them on your sprinklers, spray nozzle, hose bib, &c.  Each

coupler has a threaded male and female half which fit together with an

O-ring seal.  From then on you just snap on, snap off.

When I get a few extra bucks, I'm going to pick a few up and install

them on my faucet adaptor, bottle/carboy washer and wort chiller.

Then I can just snap and unsnap things instead of screwing and

unscrewing.  It seems like I'm always screwing my bottle washer on for

something and then realizing I need water, or something else like that.

You could also get one of those Y-connector things with a valve on

either arm -- then you could always draw water even if something is

hooked up to the faucet.  Another possibility would be to get one of

those kitchen spray nozzles on the end of a length of vinyl hose.

That might come in handy.

- --mark

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1053, 01/12/93

*************************************

-------


Cider...

Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 04:22:08 -0500

From: bfbrown@media.mit.edu

Subject: Cider...

I am wondering wether 1.5 months is enough time

A) to bottle hard cider at

and

B) to drink hard cider at (it looks crystal clear)

It fermented very well, and I am looking forward to a clean

batch of cider.  Please lemme know.  Also, as a beer brewer

ONLY, I am wondering about how to bottle the cider, 1/2 of which

I will prime with corn sugar; is bottling it in beer bottles too

dangerous?  And do I use the 3/4 cup per 5 gal?  Does this figure

change for less (i.e. is it nonlinear, like kegging beer?)

Thanks for input,

BB

------------------------------


Pilsener head

Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 11:47:54 +0100

From: dejonge@geof.ruu.nl (Marc de Jonge)

Subject: Pilsener head

In HBD #1053 chuckm asks:

>My question is..... Has anyone out there been able to brew a pilsener

>with such a dense head. I have read Miller's book on pilsener,

>but I don't

>remember it discussing this point very much.

>Any feedback will be welcome.

Just a method that seems to work ok for me:

(Using a 2-step decoction mash)

Add 5 to 10 % of unmalted barley at the beginning of the

alpha-amylase rest (around 70C).

The reason for this is that unmalted barley contains a lot of

proteines, while the protelase enzyme is no longer effective at this

temperature, so lot of large proteines will end up in your wort.

Note that this is standard practice in many German breweries

(only, since they are not allowed to use unmalted grains, they use

'legally malted' barley or cheat-:)malt  )

You will need to cold-condition your beer as you are likely to get

some initial chill-haze using this method, but that's what I do for

almost every beer anyway.

Hope this may contribute to solving your head troubles.

Marc                       (Marc de Jonge: dejonge@geof.ruu.nl)

------------------------------


Community Relations

Date: 12 Jan 93 10:50:00 WET

From: "ONREUR::JSAMPSON" <JSAMPSON%ONREUR.decnet@onreur.navy.mil>

Subject: Community Relations

Perhaps the best way to quell this COPS paranoia would be to invite

the off-going watch over for a homebrew to thank them for their

service.

- -- John

------------------------------


COPS sponsor boycotts

Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 09:07:45 -0500

From: blosskf@ttown.apci.com (Karl F. Bloss)

Subject: COPS sponsor boycotts

While in principle, this is a good idea, it won't work with the number of

homebrewers around.  Considering was a COPS audience, the people advertising

were probably Mattel with WWF dolls or something. ;-)  Anyway, even the boycott

of Sam Adams because of BBC's litigations doesn't seem to be hitting Koch's

pockets.  Responsible letters where you're not totally flaming the producers

would be appropriate.  They'll maybe even take time to read them.

 -K

(blosskf@ttown.apci.com)

------------------------------


HOPS POST

Date: 12 Jan 1993 07:06:05 -0700

From: Bruce Given      <SCN146@WACCVM.corp.mot.com>

Subject: HOPS POST

Time to start looking for Hop Plants !!

             this is a Note to all Canadians On HBD.

Does anybody know where I can Purchase Hop cuttings in Canada ?

I have tried to contact CAMRA but from what I can see they don't

exist as a National body any longer ...

As for bring cuttings if from the U.S ( have you ever dealt with Canada

customs/agriculture) endless paper work the cuttings would be dead by

time those guys inspected them !!

so if anybody knows where I can obtain them please let me know.

via email or phone @ 514-731-6881

 Thanks !!!

------------------------------


Sour Beer

Date:         12 Jan 93 12:46:02 EST5EDT

From: TSAURET@hermes.gc.peachnet.edu

Subject:      Sour Beer

    I would like any advice or comment from someone more experienced

than I regarding a recurrent problem I am having with brewing beer

with light DME.  Too often when I am brewing a batch of light style

beer with all dry malt, I have gotten a beer with a sour taste.

This has happened with ale yeast and lager yeast.

    The Joy of Home Brewing tells me that I'm not cleaning thoroughly,

but I find this hard to believe.  I have followed the same

careful cleaning procedures with light style beers made primarily

from a kit and adding only two or three pounds of adjunct malt and

gotten very good results.  This problem has never occurred with

stouts, porters, and dark or amber ale styles that I have brewed

with all dry malt.  Any ideas?  Thanks.

------------------------------


Fond fairwells from Micah Millspaw

Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 10:49:37 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Fond fairwells from Micah Millspaw

 I'd like to mention that I'll be leaving the HB digest and LLNL

due to cuts in defense spending. Of interest is the fact that my brewery

MURPHYS CREEK BREWING CO. will be open sooner because I'll have more

time to spend on it. The brewery is located in historical Murphys, a

gold rush town in the Sierra foothills, at the corner of Murphys grade

road and French gulch road. Kegs should be available by April and bottles

shortly after, tours will be avilable, phone 209 736 BREW.

There are several wineries in the area as well, so if anyone is going to

be in the area, come on up.

 This digest has been very interesting and I've had a lot of

fun interacting with those on it. (Thanks Bob, for the access)

Micah Millspaw

1/11/93

------------------------------


subscription request

Date: 12 Jan 1993 14:39:43 -0500 (EST)

From: HUD_TEACHER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU

Subject: subscription request

Could you kindly send me information re: subscription to Homebrew Digest?

My address is Hud_teacher@sitvax.stevens-tech.edu

Many thanks.

Sincerely,

Michael Feldstein

------------------------------


Lab grade vs. Food grade

Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 15:13:20 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Lab grade vs. Food grade

From: Jon Binkley <binkley@beagle.Colorado.EDU>

writes-

>probably be okay to use for brewing.  However, this does not

>apply for chemicals or additives. Use Food Grade or USP (pharmaceutical)

>Grade chemicals ONLY!! Other grades of chemicals, e.g. reagent grade,

>contain significant (read above EPA and FDA limits) of various

>nasties such as lead and arsenic.  So stick to food grade, at

>least for additives.

I am not sure if ignorance is the cause of the sentiments here, but the

poster seems to have a rather deluded notion about the usefulness

of the FDA and EPA, apart from their own self preservation, and defintiely

a very poor idea of toxicology.  I use regular lab grade phosphoric acid

for pH control, and need very little of it.  The 0.1 ppm arsenic and .001%

heavy metals as lead really have me shaking in my boots!!!  The amount I add

probably has negligible influence on the level of these elements naturally

occuring in my water anyway.  Actually, the limits for these contaminents

in food grade phosphoric acid (from Food Chemicals Codex. 3rd ed.) are not

more than 3 ppm arsenic, not more than 10 ppm HM as lead and

not more that 10 ppm flouride.  Flouride wasn't even listed, but when

chloride was 1ppm, it is safe to assume flouride is neglibile.

Lab chemicals are very pure.  I suspect that the 'sacred' USP grade

phosphoric acid used in tons by Coca-Cola has similar heavy metals

profile as this, but it is hardly worth Fisher's while paying the

FDA megabucks to have their chemicals approved for food use, so they

display not for food use on their containers to cover their legal

behind.

As homebrewers we produce huge quantities of poison, but we don't

consume it all at once.  Fearing minor quantities of heavy metals

is irrational.  If I broke a mercury thermometer in a batch, I'd

fish out the bead and brew on.  The quantitie of mercury that could

dissolve would be negligible and unless you consume mercury everyday

you have nothing to fear.  If a child eats mercury from a thermometer,

you have little to fear.  The bulk of mercury will pass straight

through the child.  However if the child eats a bead of mercury

every day, then you would have a problem.  I suggest anyone with an

irrational fear of very small quantities of toxins read the article on

it in the Oct/Nov 92 issue of Garbage magazine.

Ulick Stafford

------------------------------


Plasticizers,CO2,O2,etc...

Date: 12 Jan 1993 15:33:26 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Wayde Nie, Eng.Phys. II" <9106857@SSCvax.CIS.McMaster.CA>

Subject: Plasticizers,CO2,O2,etc...

 If these HDPE plastics are permeable to CO2 then wouldn't O2

(oxygen), being a smaller molecule, be as or more capable of passing through

the plastic? Maybe Bruce Mueller can comment?  If this is the case then how

advisable would it be to put it to long term brewing purposes - ie. Lagering?

Is the amout of permeated gas enough to worry about oxidizing your brew and

other such problems (Feeding the nasties)?

 I was always under the impression that Primary Ferment was done in

F.G. Plastic, then transfered to a Glass Carboy to eliminate the problems

of gas permeable plastics during aging/lagering, etc...  If any cares to

comment, please do...

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wayde Nie, Eng.PhysII                       I used to be indecisive.....

McMaster University, Canada                 But now I not so sure.

9106857@SSCvax.CIS.McMASTER.CA

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Lab grade vs. Food grade again

Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 15:43:14 EST

From: casagran@gdstech.grumman.com (Lou Casagrande)

Subject: Lab grade vs. Food grade again

Bruce Mueller's reply to my posting seems to have more authority

behind it than my posting did--as I said, I'm not a plastic chemist,

and he seems to have more experience than I. I also had never tried

pressurizing these jugs, but other plastics I've used have buckled

under pressure. Since Bruce has pressurized them, it sounds reasonable

to use them as kegs. To set the record straight, though, I was *not*

concerned about CO2 leacing *into* the brew--we produce copious

amounts of that gas during fermentation. I don't know about it

leaching *out* however--probably not a big concern.

Lou Casagrande

------------------------------


Diminishing Yields

Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 12:20:58 PST

From: grumpy!cr@uunet.UU.NET (C.R. Saikley)

Subject: Diminishing Yields

In a recent Digest, Mike Tavis says:

>>my extract rates are plummeting with each batch.  My first

>>batch yielded 29 pts/lb/gal (a number I never expected to get the

>>first time).  My second batch dropped to 22 pts/lb/gal and my third

>>batch was a miserable 18 pts/lb/gal.

  [snip]

>>All three of these batches had different grains bills,

  [snip, snip]

>>He said, "Well depending on the size of the grain bed, the sparge

>>water will be lowered and if it gets too low it won't be effective at

>>rinsing the sugars from the grain."

>>I said. "That makes some sense because in each successive batch I have

>>used more grain -- specifically, the first batch used 8 lbs, the

>>second batch 10 lbs, and the third batch 12.5 lbs."

To which Jack responds:

>I think your friend may have a clue and most brewers seem to be contented if

>the temp of the sparge water on target.  I have written many times on the

>importance of knowing what the mash temperature actually is an not relying on

>the temp of the sparge water.  I find that even with boiling water going in

>at the top, the average temperature of the mash is around 150F.

Some years back, I began measuring temperature profiles thru the mash while

sparging. Like Jack, I found that my water had to be much hotter than 168 to

get the mash up to that temp. This makes sense for at least two reasons :

1) Losses in the system, especially if your sparge water is sprayed over the

grain bed.

2) Reaching equilibrium temp. The grain bed is below the optimum temp, thus

the water must be higher than optimum temp for the grain/water mixture to

equilibrate at optimum temp.

The effects of point #2 can be minimized by mashing out.

Note also that the temperature difference between grain bed and sparge water

will be reduced as the sparge proceeds (ie the mash heats up). With my system,

I found that sparging with boiling water was fine at first, but eventually the

temp at the top of the bed got up to 185! OUCH!

Getting back to Mike's problem, increasing the amount of grains used increases

the thermal mass of the mash. Thus the temp of the sparge water would have to

be raised to achieve the same equilibrium temp, assuming the same amount of

water is added. This is one factor in Mike's diminishing yields.

Jack also says,

>Assuming that you had complete conversion according to an iodine test before

>you started sparging, the fact that the yield was a function of grain

>quantity would indicate inefficient sparging and temp is one place to look.

Here I disagree. Yield is necessarily a function of grain quantity. Higher

gravity beers suffer from reduced yields for fairly straightforward reasons.

The extreme example being a barley wine that is not sparged at all. There's

so much sugar left in the grains that some even make a second beer out of the

second runnings.

Assuming you're consistent, one pound of grain will yield x amount of sugar

when sparged with y amount of water. If sparged with y/2 per pound or 2y per

pound, you will get reduced or increased yields respectively (to a point). If

you use 12 pounds of grain instead of 8 for a 5 gallon batch, the ratio of

sparge water to grain is reduced, and the yield is reduced accordingly. This

is a second factor in Mike's results.

As Jack pointed out, getting around the first factor is pretty simple : raise

the temp of your sparge water. Getting around the second problem is more of a

hassle. You would sparge with more water, and collect more (weaker) wort.

Then boil the *%$# out of it to reduce the volume. Some commercial breweries

do this. In Belgium there are brewers who boil for up to 6 hours! Personally,

I'd rather accept lower yields than boil the day away.

Sorry for the length.

Happy Brewing,

CR

------------------------------


Re: Our image as brewers

Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 14:51 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Our image as brewers

Jeff writes:

>Be a homebrewer!

>Learn the secrets of good head.

>Rack off as often as you like without being embarrased.

>Be able to say words like "sparge" and "fuggles" with a straight face.

>Amaze your friends and inebriate your enemies (or the other way around)

I'd like to add:

Learn the correct pronounciation (and spelling) of words such as:

wort, krauesen, gueuze, trub, willamette...

Al.

------------------------------


Belgian Lovibond correction

Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 15:18 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Belgian Lovibond correction

I accidentally reversed the numbers on Cara-Munich and Cara-Vienne, so

here's the correct list (technically the numbers are from Siebels not

DeWolf-Cosyns):

BASE MALTS      deg L   comment

Pilsner         1.83

Pale Malt       3.21

Wheat           1.75

COLOR MALTS

Munich          7.83

Aromatic        25.7    will convert itself

CRYSTAL MALTS

Cara-Pils       7.87

Cara-Vienne     21.65

Cara-Munich     77.5

Special B       221

ROASTED MALTS

Biscuit         22.5    probably not-enzymatic, i.e. won't convert itself

Chocolate       497.5

Roasted Barley  557.5

Roasted Malt    601

Al.

------------------------------


re : Jamaica

Date:         Tue, 12 Jan 93 15:59:04 EST

From: Randy Heflin <HEFLINJR@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU>

Subject:      re : Jamaica

   William Seliger asked about breweries in Jamaica. I don't know

the details on the brewery, but I can say there is some very fine

island-brewed beer. I believe the brewer is Desnoes and Geddes in

Kingston. The products are Red Stripe Lager and Dragon Stout. Red

Stripe is O.K. (it has a full,if not refined, taste - it's fun to

watch the frat boys' sour faces when they first taste it!), but

the real treat is Dragon. It's a very enjoyable, extra malty, super

potent brew that I couldn't (and still can't) get enough of. I strongly

encourage you to seek it out  (it won't be hard to find.) Oh, and

according to local lore, Dragon has one other important quality.

When a local saw me with a bottle in hand, he said while pointing to

my girlfriend: "Dragon! Good for you, mon. Makes you do your

homework!"  ;-)  ;-) nudge, nudge.

                                                Randy

P.S. Are there any HBDers out there in the southwestern Virginia

(i. e. Virginia Tech) area? I just moved here a few months ago and

am feeling isolated from the good beer experience.

------------------------------


Homebrew Digest #1053 (January 12, 1993)

Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 14:10:52 -0800

From: rpeck@pure.com  (Ray Peck)

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1053 (January 12, 1993)

>Date: 12 Jan 93 02:49:08 GMT

>From: mark@verdix.com (Mark Lundquist)

>Subject: hose couplers

>

>I have an idea.  Have you seen these quick-disconnect gadgets for hose

>connectors?  I think you can find them in the garden department.  Anyway,

>you can install them on your sprinklers, spray nozzle, hose bib, &c.  Each

>coupler has a threaded male and female half which fit together with an

>O-ring seal.  From then on you just snap on, snap off.

You can get couplers like this, but made to screw onto a kitchen

faucet.  They are often used to connect portable dishwashers.

I have my (low-flow, on-off lever) aerator, Jet bottle washer, and

hose all connected to these fittings.  When I got the fittings, they

tended to pop off if asked to withstand full water pressure (i.e.,

faucet turned full on, aerator valve turned off).  Since they are

solid brass, and put together with spring steel C clips, I took them

apart and added shims to move the locking balls outward to facilitate

tighter locking.  I've had no problems since.

*Highly* recommended.

------------------------------


Barley wine

Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 16:24:35 PST

From: Robert Pulliam <pulliam@monty.rand.org>

Subject: Barley wine

  I would like to take the plunge and make a barley wine.  Does anyone

have a tried and true receipe that they wouldn't mind sharing.

  A side note:

  I had the pleasure (while in San Francisco) of drinking a couple of

the new canned Guinness (Mmmm).  Last weekend, I made an effort to

locate some of this in the Los Angeles area, and came up empty.

Does anyone know if distribution has made it here and where I might

pick up a few.

------------------------------


Re: COLD PLATES leave me cold.....

Date: 12 Jan 93 19:12:01 EST

From: Tim Norris <71650.1020@compuserve.com>

Subject: Re: COLD PLATES leave me cold.....

 Cold plates are the most amazing things I've ever seen for serving ice

cold beer from warm kegs in the middle of a Chicago August. That's what

they're designed for.

 BEWARE: They are not a great alternative to proper longterm/everyday

serving and refrigeration of precious homebrew. At recent 'all draft'

beer tasting/competitions here in The Windy City, we've had the darned

things freeze up on us and it seems that the only temperature the beer

comes out at is 'ICE COLD'.

 Consider your uses! Think about your long term needs. Shop around at

used appliance places, ask them to call when the good ones come in.

Refrigerators are our friends, and a good one with a tap or three on the

outside IS a great way to serve your homebrew. It's always right where

you put it, and it keeps your beer from spoiling!

                  #1 reason not to use cold plates:

       Much too difficult to decorate with refrigerator magnets.

Tim Norris

Cold Plate Hater.

------------------------------


Re: sparging

Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 18:49:00 EST

From: mcharry@freedom.otra.com (McHarry)

Subject: Re: sparging

In regard to draining the lauter tun before refilling with sparge water:  I

tried this a couple times (using an Easymash).  It didn't seem to make much

difference and was more bother.  I suspect that what is going on is not a

serial dilution, but a kind of general flow from top to bottom with minimal

mixing.  I actually tried SG samples from the sparge water on top and the

outflow:  there is quite a difference.

------------------------------


Head, Boiling, Disconnects

Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 22:50 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Head, Boiling, Disconnects

 >  My question is..... Has anyone out there been able to brew a pilsener

 with such a dense head....   Any feedback will be welcome.

 I didn't have a silver dollar handy this afternoon but I had no problem

 floating a Costa Rican 25 Centimos piece on a glass of the World's Greatest

 Beer.

 >From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

 <From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

 <Add half of your hops as soon as boiling begins.  Save one

 <forth for the end and the remainder at regular intervals

 <during the boil.

 >This is not recommended for infusion mashing.

 I accept the recommendation but what does it have to do with the method of

 mashing?

  >The wort should be boiled a minimum of 30 minutes prior to the first

 hopping. This is due to the need to break down and make floc large

 proteins that carry over into the kettle.

 Don't understand this as it is already in the kettle if one is boiling.

 >  After the 20-30 minutes of boiling, there will be large amounts of flocs

 that can be skimmed off the top.  Then add the first hops for a

 minimum boil of 60 minutes, adding finishing hop as desired.

 If you hop immeadiately upon boiling you will quickly coat

 the hops surface with the proteins thereby considerably

 reducing the hop efficiency.

 This makes sense and as I do not usually skim because most of the hops is in

 the foam, it sounds like a good idea just on general principles.  However, as

 my wort is entering the kettle continuously from the lauter tun, it is not

 obvious when to start the clock.

 > 1.5 oz of chinook is  a lot of hops so I guess this works for Jack.

 It is a bit much even for my 7 gallon batches and I have reduced it to 1.0.

 I thought I changed that in the article.  Thanks for the pointer.

 >From: mark@verdix.com (Mark Lundquist)

 >Have you seen these quick-disconnect gadgets for hose

 connectors?  I think you can find them in the garden department.  Anyway,

 you can install them on your sprinklers, spray nozzle, hose bib, &c.  Each

 coupler has a threaded male and female half which fit together with an

 O-ring seal.  From then on you just snap on, snap off.

 Great idea and it just proves that you are almost as smart as me because I

 did all that about a month ago.  However, aside from a connection to the

 sink, the garden size is not convenient for homebrew size hoses.

 You can however, get similar type fittings that are made for plastic and

 copper tubing of all sizes.  I have them on my wort chiller, bottle filler,

 lauter to kettle line and everywhere else I could think of.  McMaster-Carr

 carries a complete line of them.  (800) 833 0300

 js

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1054, 01/13/93

*************************************

-------


5 gallon plastic mashing bins w/electric heating element

Date: 13 Jan 1993 09:22:41 -0400 (EDT)

From: relic <JMULLER@SSCvax.CIS.McMaster.CA>

Subject: 5 gallon plastic mashing bins w/electric heating element

i am currently looking at going to full boils and/or full mashes, and was

wondering how useful it would be to have this particular sort of heating unit

(i.e. a five gallon plastic brewing bin, with a heating element, basic pot for

power (not thermal) control, and a spigot.  given that it is not likely i am

going to be able to set up a gas unit/copper kettle for some time 8-), is this

an adequate substitute, or should i forego such a piece of hardware and wait

for my gas system to materialize?

so, i am asking for anybody's advice and/or experiences with such machines.

your consideration would be greatly appreciated...with my thanks, and possiblyl

a threat to compile this information (if it isn't already on a FAQ or other

file).

------------------------------


re: boiling,skimming and hopping

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 10:06:21 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: re: boiling,skimming and hopping

In the last digest Jack asked for some clarifications

of my comments:

from: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

 <From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

 <Add half of your hops as soon as boiling begins.  Save one

 <forth for the end and the remainder at regular intervals

 <during the boil.

 >This is not recommended for infusion mashing.

 <I accept the recommendation but what does it have to do with the method of

 <mashing?

A decoction mash will break down the larger proteins and gums into

easier to handle products.  These substances will be less detrimental

to the brewing process, and will be less capable of coating the hops.

>The wort should be boiled a minimum of 30 minutes prior to the first

 hopping. This is due to the need to break down and make floc large

 proteins that carry over into the kettle.

<Don't understand this as it is already in the kettle if one is boiling.

You are doing the right thing to begin boiling the wort as soon as

possible.  In my process, the sweet wort will begin to boil just as I

am ready to add more runoff.  This will of course, cool the wort to

below boiling.  This procedure repeats until the kettle is full.  Each

time the wort comes to a boil, more of the proteins will floc and

coalesce.  You can skim these off with a standard strainer.  Once the

kettle is full and brought to a boil, it is still a good idea to boil

30 minutes prior to the first hopping.  You can reduce this time if

you have been boiling and straining during the kettle filling process.

If you employ a decoction mash, all of this is less important.  The

breakdown of the large moleculer weight proteins that occur during a

decoction mash is also why this technique is important for trouble

free lautering of wheat beers.

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Cold Plates

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 09:42:15 EST

From: orgasm!davevi@uunet.UU.NET (David Van Iderstine)

Subject: Cold Plates

I've had some experience with these things, which was not good. I made the

mistake of adding ice over the cold plate before I had beer running through

it. It seems that ice crystals formed *inside* the plate's tubes, with the

result being incredibly foamy beer at the tap that did not go away for

days (it was a looong party! :-). The advise I was given (I'm afraid much

too late!) was to get the beer running first, then chill the plate down.

Dave VI

===========================================================================

== Dave Van Iderstine                           Senior Software Engineer ==

==                   Xerox Imaging Systems, Inc.                         ==

== UUCP: uunet!pharlap!orgasm!davevi        davevi@pharlap.com :INTERNET ==

==-----------------------------------------------------------------------==

==          "I haven't got time for instant gratification!"              ==

===========================================================================

------------------------------


Sparging with initial drain off.

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 10:40:50 -0500

From: ryan%phmms0.mms.smithkline.com@smithkline.com (Dominic Ryan)

Subject: Sparging with initial drain off.

I would like to again compare sparging with chromatography where there is

a tradeoff between speed and efficiency.  If one uses a very tightly

packed support for the column (i.e. the grain bed) then one will use less

'sparge water' and get better efficiency.  However the tradeoff is that it

can take a *lot* longer unless forced under pressure.

Another factor that lowers efficiency and ends up requiring significantly

more liquid is letting the bed drain, even partially.  The problem is that

air channels develop in the bed and these can take a lot of 'sparging' to

close up.  This will sometimes more than double the amount of liquid

required to get all the desired materiel out of the bed.  I would

therefore not expect draining the wort off of the bed initially to be a

good thing.  Getting as tight a bed as you can afford to spend time

sparging will get you the best sparging efficiency with the least amount

of sparge water used and therefore the minimum in husk astringency.

As others have pointed out keeping the grain bed hot is essential, this

will really improve flow through the bed and solubility of the sugars in

the water.  Getting the grain bed heated up properly should be happening

with mashout at 75-80oC and then dumping it all into the sparge bucket.  I

find that I must keep the initial runoff at least that hot if it is to be

recirculated, after all that is the sparge 'water' initially.  I also do

not sprinkle water on top of the bed.  I pour the water onto the inside of

a big spoon as I move the spoon around the top of the bed.  I do this with

almost no liquid on top of the bed until there is really no extractable

sugar left at the top of the bed.  After that I fill up the top of the

sparge bucket to the lip with water only a little hotter than ideal, say

80oC.  Others have pointed out correctly that sprinkled water will cool

significantly.  Rather than heating to boiling and guessing at the

temperature of the resulting sprinkle just pour carefully and you will

have no trouble.  Finally, I keep the bottom of the sparge bucket in a hot

water bath.  That seems to have the greatest effect on sparge speed,

presumably because the bottom would otherwise be cooling fastest.

There can be too much of a good thing with a tight grain bed, my

recent 5 hr sparge was just a little too tight for liking by about

2:30AM...:-) That one was my own fault though.

M. Dominic Ryan                         SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals

(215)-270-6529              internet:   ryan%phmms0.mms@smithkline.com

------------------------------


Re: CABA info

Date: 13 Jan 1993 09:42:50 -0600 (CST)

From: Robert Schultz <SCHULTZ@admin1.usask.ca>

Subject: Re: CABA info

Bruce Givens (Attention Canadian Brewers):

 The following is an address I received through the HBD of the CABA

 Hope it helps.

Robert Schultz

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I'm going off half-cocked? I'm going off half-cocked? ...

Well, Mother was right - You can't argue with a shotgun." - Gary Larson

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From:   IN%"71601.3357@CompuServe.COM"  "Paul Dickey"

CABA is a Federally Incorporated, non-profit organization whose purpose is

to promote homebrewing as an enjoyable hobby through educational

publications, events and other activities.

Our Newsletter comes out every two months, we have up to three contests per

year, a conference and seminars - unfortunately not west of Ontario to date.

This March we are having an event in Montreal and hope to reach out to other

regions as time goes on.

------------------------------


AHA judging sheets

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 11:21:20 -0500

From: Chris Thompson <christ@sci.ccny.cuny.edu>

Subject: AHA judging sheets

Can someone please post/email/tell me where I can find a copy of the sheets

AHA uses in beer competitions?  Thanks,

Chris Thompson

------------------------------


Beginners questions

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 09:43:44 PST

From: I've Faulted... and I can't spin up! <fecich@csoa1.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Beginners questions

Could someone explain to me how to decode "beginner.Z" and other Z files

in the homebrew repository?

Thanks,

Larry Fecich DEC CS

------------------------------


Misc. Stuff

Date: Wednesday, 13 Jan 1993 13:20:24 EST

From: m14051@mwvm.mitre.org (John DeCarlo)

Subject: Misc. Stuff

1.  Temperature of water as it goes into the grain.

    Basically speaking, the temperature of the water on the stove doesn't

    make a bit of difference--it is the temperature it is when it goes

    into the grain.  So if you carefully pour or siphon water in, it

    won't change temperature too much.  If you splash it through the air,

    into a bowl, where it then splashes through the air *again*, before

    hitting the grain, it wouldn't surprise me too much to find that the

    temperature of the water entering the grain has gone from 212F on the

   stove to 180F or less.

    The point being that different methods *can* produce different apparent

    results.

2.  Someone recommended I start skimming as soon as appreciably thick foam

    started forming on the boiling wort, *then* add the hops.  I have

    switched to this method and it seems to result in better hop

    utilization and much reduced opportunity for boil over (I no longer

    have to *stop* a boil-over in progress).  Caveat-I haven't measured

    anything here, especially not hop utilization.

Internet: jdecarlo@mitre.org (or John.DeCarlo@f131.n109.z1.fidonet.org)

Fidonet:  1:109/131

------------------------------


Mead

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 10:39:02 -0800

From: Paul Ray <paulr@delilah.ccsf.caltech.edu>

Subject: Mead

Hi,

I am about to brew my first batch of mead in a couple weeks.

Does anyone have any hints that might help?  I have

a couple of specific questions as well.

I don't have any "acid blend" which is called for (but

optional) in my recipe (which I am getting from the New Joy of Homebrewing).

Do I need it and does anyone know how to get it?

Also, what is a good source for 15 pounds of honey?  I don't want

to squeeze 300 little plastic bears into my pot :->  What honeys

have people used and does the type of honey make much difference?

Thanks for any help.  I hope my first batch of mead turns out as

well as my first batch of beer (which I love).

- -- Paul

Paul S. Ray              Internet: paulr@caltech.edu

206-49 Caltech           Internet: paulr@delilah.ccsf.caltech.edu

Pasadena, CA 91125       Bitnet  : paulr@caltech.bitnet

(818) 356-2911

------------------------------


lab grade again

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 11:46:58 -0700

From: Jon Binkley <binkley@beagle.Colorado.EDU>

Subject: lab grade again

Ulick Spaford apparently knows exactly how much heavy metals you can

consume safely (knows more about it than the Evil Government Agents

who are out to subvert and control our lives, anyway).  This is fine

for him, and for anyone else willing to put in the years of research

necessary to find out such information.

For myself, I'm still going to stick to the food grade stuff, and

stick to my recommendation that homebrewers not motivated enough

to be as much an expert on the subject as Ulick obviously is to

also avoid reagent and lesser grade chemicals as food additives.

Ciao,

Jon Binkley

------------------------------


Re: Diminishing yields

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 13:03:05 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Diminishing yields

In HBD #1052, Mike Travis was disappointed that his extract rates were

steadily dropping for his first three all-grain batches.  He himself

brought up the issue of sparge temp, so all the discussion has been

about that.

However, I usually make batches using anywhere from 8-10 lbs of grain,

and I don't see any difference in extract rate even though I sparge

with the same temp water.  I don't think that 2 lbs of grain will

create enough difference in the sparge efficiency (all other variables

being the same) to cause a 7 pts/lb/gal decrease.

I think James Dipalma got closer when he addressed Mike's extract rate

problem and someone else's question about storing pre-crushed grain in

the same post (HBD #1053).  He mentioned the anecdote that some brewer

would increase the grain bill 10% if the crushed malt had to sit even

overnight.

That 10% seems a little extreme.  However, if Mike bought a large

quantity of pre-crushed malt and used it to make his three batches

several weeks apart, it might degrade enough to account for the loss in

extract.

Also, make sure your later grain bills didn't include disproportionately

high percentages of specialty malts like Munich or crystal.  If you

don't have enough pale malt, you won't get enough enzymatic activity to

get a full conversion.  (Try the iodine test next time if you're not

sure -- a drop of iodine in a bit of mash liquid will turn purple/black

if there are still unconverted starches.)

Just a couple more thoughts on the problem.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Rickard's

Date:         Wed, 13 Jan 93 16:08:18 EST

From: "Mark Rich-mpr8a@acadvm1.uottawa.ca" <MPR8A@acadvm1.uottawa.ca>

Subject:      Rickard's

Here in Ottawa there is a fine brew to be had called "Rickard's Red". It

is by far my favorite quaff. Does anybody out there know where it comes

from? Who makes it? and the big question... How to make it?  I have only

seen it in certain bars on tap. It does not seem to be available in bottles.

        Thanx

  For those of you who do not know this brand... it's a Deep-Amber/red colour

with a rich creamy head that's slightly beige. Smells a bit sweet/flowery; and

tastes sort of sweet with a slight bitterness in the after-taste. I highly

reccomend you try it.

------------------------------


Bier Haus Hopped Extract

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 18:35:27 EST

From: bickham@msc2.msc.cornell.edu (Scott Bickham)

Subject: Bier Haus Hopped Extract

 Recently, I was given a 4.75 lb. can of Bierhaus Continental

Amber Hopped Extract.  Note that this is not the Bierkeller brand.

The ingredients are listed as: "wort (malt, barley, corn syrup, hops)",

and it was imported from England for Bierhaus of Erie, PA.

 I don't like the idea of using an unknown quantity of corn

syrup, so I'm planning to use the can along with a mash to brew something

roughly in the Old Ale style.  My question is: does anyone on the net

have any idea what the hopping rate is?  I'm guessing something in the

range of 20 IBU's - does this sound reasonable?

Thanks,

 Scott

- --

=========================================================================

       "Bosnia has been cleansed," said Tom acerbically.

                                                       - Geoff Miller

Scott Bickham                             |

LASSP and Materials Science Center   |       bickham@msc.cornell.edu

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY  14853     |       bickham@crnlmsc2.bitnet

=========================================================================

------------------------------


ZYMURGY IMPROVEMENTS

Date: 13 Jan 93 19:08:44 EST

From: Charlie Papazian/Boulder <72210.2754@compuserve.com>

Subject: ZYMURGY IMPROVEMENTS

Howdy 'all,

I thought I'd drop in to express some encouragement to some of you who have

seemed pretty dissatisfied with zymurgy as of late.  I haven't caught the whole

thread, in fact I only came across one comment from A. Dietz from Morristown,

NJ, but I'm assuming (maybe I'm assuming a bit too much, if so let me know)

that there was considerable discussion about disatisfaction regarding the

contents of the magazine.

   I was thinking about this and we have really benefitted in the past from

people like yourselves when you have directed your disatisfaction to us

directly, so we can consider doing something about it.  But perhaps much more

importantly, we know there are a lot of people like A Dietz who know far more

than the average homebrewer and could really offer the membership some good

information by perhaps contributing some technical articles themselves.  A.

Dietz and others are just the kind of guys (or gals) we're looking for as your

knowledge goes way beyond the content of what zymurgy is able to presently

offer.  Why not help us help you and others like you and give us some outlines

and ideas on some technical subjects that, perhaps, we have not covered in the

past 2 or 3 years.  We'd really appreciate that.

   As a matter of fact all of the growth and improvements that we've been able

to offer over the years have come from people more knowledgeable than the

average homebrewer.

    I understand that there has been some concern that we have rejected several

good technical articles.  If you folks could be more specific that would help

us solve this problem, if indeed it is a problem.  Elizabeth Gold (Editor) and

I review all the manuscripts and ideas that are submitted.  Neither of  us are

recalling any incidences where we rejected quality, accurate technical

articles.   But if we have done so inadvertantly or otherwise, please drop us a

note and we will look into things.

Thanks for listening and keep up the [constructive] griping.

Fermently,

Charlie P.

p.s.  I can be reached at my CIS address, though after january 20 you should

direct any messages to James Spence at the AHA at 70740,1107, as I will be on

vacation for a couple of weeks and won't be checking my e-mail.

------------------------------


mead

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 18:33:00 -0500 (EST)

From: Alexander Samuel McDiarmid <am2o+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: mead

does anyone out there have a recipie for mead?

actually I want a fast recipie, the one I have requires six months and

one year is suggested.

thanks

       -A.

------------------------------


Can I use this keg?

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 12:57:53 -0800

From: mark@verdix.com (Mark Lundquist)

Subject: Can I use this keg?

My brother inherited an empty beer keg from some college roommates, who

moved out without returning their keg.  It just didn't seem right to

throw the think away, so he's had this beer keg in a shed in our folks'

back yard for a couple of years now, probably with a bunch of other

stuff that it just didn't seem right to throw away.

Anyhow, the other day he thought of me, thought of that beer keg, and

gave me a call.  So we visited Mom and Dad.

Much to my disappointment, the keg (a quarter barrel) was a

"one-holer".  From what I have heard, these aren't suitable for

homebrewers, because you have to have a special machine to wash 'em

out.

Is there any way that I can adapt this thing for home use, or am I

stuck with a worthless piece of junk?

It seems like the filling and cleaning issues could be taken care of

by cutting a bung hole, *except*...except I'd still need a way to

clean out the internal plumbing of the keg.  Any ideas?

Also, the keg is aluminum so any fittings that I might need would have

to be TIG welded.

Thanks for any help!

- --Mark

PS This keg was actually not empty, it was "almost empty", in that

special way that only an almost-empty keg can be after a couple of

years!  Phew!!

------------------------------


Floating Coins

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 18:18:45 -0600

From: "Chauncey T. Griggs" <grig0009@student.tc.umn.edu>

Subject: Floating Coins

In HBD#1054, arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling) writes:

>I didn't have a silver dollar handy this afternoon but I had no problem

>floating a Costa Rican 25 Centimos piece on a glass of the World's Greatest

>Beer.

Is that anyting like a wooden nickel??? :^)

Chauncey Griggs (grig0009@student.tc.umn.edu)

- ----------------------

                   Science is just facts; just as houses are made of stones,

  *  ^^  *         so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not

  *^^^^^^***       a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science.

  *  ^  ^*  *                                       -Henri Poincaire'

  * :^)  *  *

  * >  < *  *   My opinions are purely my own (unless somebody agrees with me).

  *      ***

  ********      Chauncey Griggs (grig0009@student.tc.umn.edu)

------------------------------


Sparge-O-Matic

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 15:37

From: CCASTELL.UNIX11@mailsrv2.eldec.com (CCASTELL)

Subject: Sparge-O-Matic

I was wondering if anyone has tried Sparge-Magic from Scientific Brewing

Systems.  It's your typical two-bucket-with-grain-bag system EXCEPT that

the hose coming out the bottom of the bucket goes to a carboy stopper.

The stopper also has a hose running to a gizmo (pardon my use of technical

jargon) that connects to a faucet which creates a vacum in in the carboy.

The wort is essentially "sucked" out of the grain rather than allowing

it to slowly flow using gravity.  Alledgedly, this method allows one to

use sparge water with no concern about temperature.

I've used it five times with varying degrees of success.  Does anyone

have any comments on such a system (based on experience, common sense,

gut feel, conventional wisdom, or folk lore)?  Should such a system

produce better extraction rates (as claimed)?  Would it tend to suck

things out of the grain that would be best left where they were?

Thanks.

Charles Castellow

ccastell@eldec.com

------------------------------


cleaning carboys

Date:    Wed, 13 Jan 1993 15:30:41 -0600 (CST)

From: STOREY@fender.msfc.nasa.gov (BadAssAstronomer)

Subject: cleaning carboys

    Hi

    I'm looking for some cleaning suggestions for carboys etc. My last

    3 batches of brew have had a acidic flavor in them. I have been

    gradually been getting into all grain brewing in these last few

    batches, and I attributed the off-flavor to this change.

    Everything else I do has remained pretty much the same. A friend

    suggested that maybe I wasn't cleaning things well enough. I just

    sorta brushed it off, until I started thinking about it. Maybe I'm

    getting a little lazy in my cleaning etc. I have used clorox since

    I started brewing. Also, I read that sometimes cleaning with

    clorox can add "flavor" to your brew.

    Anyone out there want to take the time to let me know how they

    clean their brew equipment. I would especially be interested in

    cleansers other than clorox.

    thanks ahead

    scott

------------------------------


desperately seeking help

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 18:01:24 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: desperately seeking help

Dear brewing experts,

I'm desperately searching for what I'm doing wrong in my extract brewing.  The

trouble is beer which (I think) develops a strong flavor after being in the

bottle for a short while.  I never had this problem while brewing using kits,

where I never boiled anything, just dumping the kit directly into the

fermenter.

My latest problem is a batch which I bottled 11/30 last year and tried last

night, to be very disappointed in the strong flavor.  It's hard to describe

but is similar to one which I dislike in another brew in which I used amber

extract, crystal and chocolate malts.  I thought I'd used too much chocolate

malt that time.  The peculiar thing is that this flavor was not apparent at

bottling time.  I think my sanitation is good, by soaking all the bottles in

bleach overnight, and the caps also.  The flavor is kind-of burnt, but there

were no black marks on the inside of the boiler.

This latest batch was originally brewed in a 3-gallon batch using M&F light

extract, although the final product is far from light.  I used 3.3 lbs and

boiled this in 1.5 gallons of water for 60 minutes with 1/2 oz of Pride of

Ringwood hops.  The yeast was Nottingham Ale.

Can anyone give me pointers to any possible problems?  Can beer oxidize in a

month to produce a strong flavor?  What other things can result in beer

apparently changing so much.  Is it maybe subjective that it's changed and the

original tasting when it was flat and with cloudy yeast in suspension sort of

disguised the flavor?  If the wort was caramelized during the boil would this

show up as a strong flavor?

Is 60 minutes too long for a "concentrated" extract boil?  Should I try

reducing it to 30 minutes and use more hops?  The one thing this beer and

the other dark one have in common is a 60 minute boil.  Is an electric

element and a stainless steel stock pot a risky combination?

Any advice would be much appreciated.  I've had so little luck with migrating

from kits that I'm almost ready to return to them, but somehow that smacks of

a retrograde step and a defeatist attitude.

 Yours desperately,

  Peter

------------------------------


HDPE--Kill it dead?

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 19:04:07 PST

From: Bruce Mueller <mueller@sdd.hp.com>

Subject: HDPE--Kill it dead?

------------------------------


Physics, surface tension, and bubbles ;-)

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 19:49:46 PST

From: greg@bandit.Berkeley.EDU (Greg Jesus Wolodkin)

Subject: Physics, surface tension, and bubbles ;-)

In reading Papazian's book (I paid for my copy ;-) I came across a

statement in Appendix 9 (p.375) that made me curious.  To quote,

  "A big explosive bubble feeling in the mouth is due to the use of

   fermentable ingredients other than barley malt.  A beer made with

   all barley malt will tend to have a smaller (almost a creamy

   sensation) bubble feeling in the mouth.  This phenomenon can be

   explained in terms of physics, surface tension, and bubbles, but

   need not be gone into here."

This reads as if it should have a few smileys at the end of it.. is

there any truth to this statement?  Any comments/explanations?  While

I have a strong physics background, I don't see how one can separate

malted barley from malted wheat, corn sugar, honey, or in general from

the myriad of other fermentables in terms of the bubble size which

will be produced in the finished beer.

As I read it, this statement has nothing to do with priming (i.e. the

common corn sugar vs. malt extract vs. gyle controversy) as far as I

can tell, but seems to refer to the entire grain/adjunct bill.  So

Charlie, if you're reading this, explain away ;-)

Best wishes,

Greg Wolodkin  greg@bandit.berkeley.edu

------------------------------


Cold Plates

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 21:20 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Cold Plates

 >From: Tim Norris <71650.1020@compuserve.com>

 Subject: Re: COLD PLATES leave me cold.....

  >Cold plates are the most amazing things I've ever seen for serving ice

 cold beer from warm kegs in the middle of a Chicago August.

 > BEWARE: They are not a great alternative to proper longterm/everyday

 serving and refrigeration of precious homebrew.

 I see no reason why they are not a great alternative to everyday serving but

 I do agree that a caveat is in order regarding long term storage.  Ageing and

 storing beer in a refrigerator is not the same as aging and storing at room

 temperature.  I have no personal experience with what difference it makes but

 I am sure the experts have many.  My only concern is that the beer not spoil

 in Summer and thus far I have had no problem but I never seem to be able to

 keep a keg for more that a month or so and it has never spoiled in that time.

 I think the issue would only be the characters of a true lager.  I have been

 bottling a sixer of each batch and storing them in the fridge so that in a

 few months I will have some properly aged to compare with my keg stuff.

 >At recent 'all draft' beer tasting/competitions here in The Windy City,

 we've had the darned things freeze up on us and it seems that the only

 temperature the beer comes out at is 'ICE COLD'.

 Not to doubt your anecdotal experience but there is nothing in my physics

 books that would explain how that could happen unless someone thought you

 were making ice cream and put salt in the ice.

 It do however, make very cold beer but there is no law that says you have to

 put a ton of ice on it.  For a two glass serving, I use about two cups of

 cubes and about half are still there after drawing the beer in winter.  In

 Summer they are just about gone.

 >                  #1 reason not to use cold plates:

 >       Much too difficult to decorate with refrigerator magnets.

 Don't want to be flamed for a commercial but I have a special this week on

 aluminum magnets and they are designed to work best on horizontal surfaces.

      #10 reason TO use cold plates:

 You never have to lift a full keg off the ground.

 JS

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1055, 01/14/93

*************************************

-------


Re: Diminishing Yields

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 20:43:48 EDT

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: Re: Diminishing Yields

CR says (Jack says):

)  I find that even with boiling water going in

) >at the top, the average temperature of the mash is around 150F.

)

) Some years back, I began measuring temperature profiles thru the mash while

) sparging. Like Jack, I found that my water had to be much hotter than 168 to

) get the mash up to that temp. This makes sense for at least two reasons :

) [etc.]

I doubt that it makes much difference what the temperature of the

mash during sparging is so long as it is relatively hot and <165-170F.

If it's <168F, sparge slower.  The sugar *will* diffuse out, no matter

what the temperature is.

) [etc.]

) 1) Losses in the system, especially if your sparge water is sprayed over the

) grain bed.

This is easily avoided if you have a cover over the bed.  I have a

Zapap-type setup and have a perforated lid on my inner bucket.

Usually the stuff coming out of my sparging setup is pitifully cold

(140-155F) but I get yields in the 30-33 points/lb range for barley malts,

so it can't be hurting me.  Not much, anyway!

) As Jack pointed out, getting around the first factor is pretty simple : raise

) the temp of your sparge water. Getting around the second problem is more of a

) hassle. You would sparge with more water, and collect more (weaker) wort.

) Then boil the *%$# out of it to reduce the volume. [...]

Old British Beers suggests collecting wort until the gravity has fallen

to 15 points below the target gravity (i.e., 1.085 for a beer that

is to be pitched at 1.100), then, if you want, boiling whatever you

collect afterward separately until it reaches 15 points below.  I

have no evidence to support my belief, but I think this should

reduce carmelization and color changing effects.

================O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis================

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1992 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------


re:enzymes in pale malt

Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 9:12:23 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: re:enzymes in pale malt

In the last digest Jeff wrote:

<Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 13:03:05 MST

<From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

<Subject: Re: Diminishing yields

<Also, make sure your later grain bills didn't include disproportionately

<high percentages of specialty malts like Munich or crystal.  If you

<don't have enough pale malt, you won't get enough enzymatic activity to

<get a full conversion.  (Try the iodine test next time if you're not

<sure -- a drop of iodine in a bit of mash liquid will turn purple/black

<if there are still unconverted starches.

In general, this is not true.  Domestic malts will contain more enzyme

potential than you could ever use.  Even modern continental malts will

have enough enzymes for just about any all malt beer.  The use of Munich

and crystal malts in just about any reasonable percentage will work fine.

I believe low yields are primarily related to methods of mashing and

lautering.  All other variables being the same, if your extract goes

down when your grain bill goes up, check the lauter tun. When I was

using the Zapap method, there was a breakeven point where more malt

yielded the same extract.  I blame this on the compaction and loss of

efficient lautering due to higher grain mass.

I have a friend who uses

the (IMHO) poorly designed Phils lauter tun and he has the exact same

problem with compaction yielding lower extract efficiency.  My complaint

with the Phils system is that the tube from the false botom has to

rise up out of the false bottom to then exit the bucket.  This can lead

to a problem with an air bubble forming inside the tube.  I have seen

extremely slow runoffs that I think are due to this design.  Of course,

anyone can correct this (and see if Im right!) by simply drilling a

hole in the bottom and plugging up the normal tube outlet.

Jim Busch

------------------------------


lab vs food grade, Krausening, and The Brews Paper

Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 10:06:09 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: lab vs food grade, Krausening, and The Brews Paper

Jon Binkley responded to my article with a number of inaccuracies

and an arrogant attitude.  I thought that the idea of this forum

was to pass brewing information of use to brewers, rather than

passing old myths, like that lab grade (ACS grade) chemicals will

kill you quicker than 5 ml of sodium penthathol (or whatever).

Myth 1.  Food grade chemicals (Codex) are purer than lab chemicals -NOT.

ACS grade is the highest grade that can be obtained resonably, unless it's

not good enough and ACS will set a higher standard for manufacuturers to

aim at.  ACS standards are improved as technical feasibility of production

improves.  Food grade is that which satisfies certain health standards for

toxins.  For instance, I listed certain parameters for lab and food

phosphoric acid.  Both have the same heavy metals as lead requirement, but

for the other parameters the lab grade was much, much, better than

the food grade.

Myth 2. Lab grade is cheaper than food grade -NOT

500 g of phosphoric acid costs around $25 from Fisher or $12 from Sigma.

I am sure Coca-Cola pays much less.  But the problem is that food grade

phosphoric acid does not seem to be available in small quantities.

CAVEAT:  While I am very happy that lab grade phosphoric acid is better

than food grade, this may not be the case for all chemical you may use.

However, be aware and educated.  Question all statements that are not

backed up by solid evidence, especially those where the reason is no

better than you're not supposed to because the government say so.  And

beware of supposed experts wearing underpants on their arms!!

Other things.  I noticed in r.c.b that many people have been defining

krausening as priming with sterile wort, rather than the correct

definition - priming with a small quantitiy of beer in the krausen

stage.  The source of this misinformation seems to be Charlie P.'s

book.  Perhaps he should write an erratum pamphlet (a sheet wouldn't

be big enough).

Anyone seen a paper calle The Brews Paper?

Ulick Stafford

ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu

------------------------------


Homebrew supplies in the Midwest...

Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 12:09:56 -0500

From: Michael  Gerard <mgerard@engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Homebrew supplies in the Midwest...

Does anyone know of any homebrew supply places in the midwest (specifically

near Ann Arbor, MI)? I found one place here but it is still less expensive

to buy the grain from St. Pat's in Texas and have it shipped up.  There

should be some place near the "grain belt" that sells grain.  Any help

would be appreciated.

Thanks

Mike

------------------------------


HDPE and Lab Chemicals

Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 9:33:17 PST

From: Bruce Mueller <mueller@sdd.hp.com>

Subject:  HDPE and Lab Chemicals

Wayde writes in HBD#1054,

>If these HDPE plastics are permeable to CO2 then wouldn't O2

>(oxygen), being a smaller molecule, be as or more capable of passing through

>the plastic? Maybe Bruce Mueller can comment?

Well, you might think so.  Chemistry isn't that simple :'(.  I had to get the

numbers this time (I knew the other answer, but not quantitatively) so here

they are:

Permeabilities in cm3xmm/s/cm2/cmHg (yes, pressure in cmHg) at 30C:

O2:  10.6 CO2:  35 H2O (vapor, 90% rel. hum., 25C):  130

For comparison purposes, the numbers for PET (soft drink bottles):

O2:  0.22 Wow! CO2:  1.53 H2O (same cond'ns):  1300

My reference is "Polymer Permeability" edited by J. Comyn.  It's a British

book I believe.  Isn't that PET amazing at keeping O2 in or out?

Lou in the same issue "accused" :) me of pressurizing my HDPE jugs.

Actually, this isn't true.  I counted on the airline to do the reverse--the hold

is at low pressure, the bottle filled at about sea level.  But based on this,

about 1/2 atm vacuum not causing any liquid leakage AND HDPE's strength,

I extrapolated to the pressurized case.  Extrapolating is sometimes dangerous,

but I certainly wouldn't worry in this case, because HDPE is not brittle.

Please DO NOT pressurize ANY water bottle style carboy, glass or plastic.

Come to think of it, one of the British contributions to homebrewing is the

polypin (see Dave Line's "The Big Book of Brewing").  These are polyethylene

and used as "kegs".  Probably not the best idea, in light of its oxygen

permeability (Wayde referred to this).

On another note, Ulick had a great point about non food grade chemicals.  I

trust the assays on these (e.g. ACS grade) as much as or more than the USP

variety--they are generally purer.  In HBD#1055 Jon recommend again against

these, unless one is aware of toxicology.  This is a good point.  Would some-

one knowledgable about toxicology enlighten us about the "real" limits for

long-term consumption of e.g. lead?  I think most homebrewers who would go to

the trouble of obtaining lab-grade chemicals also would have sufficient

ability to calculate their "dosage" of such nasties (simple dilution).  I hope

so.

I hope this time more than the header gets through!

Yours in brewing,

Bruce Mueller

Analytical Chemist by training

------------------------------


decoction mashing

Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 09:43:53 PST

From: rstya@mda.ca (Roy Styan)

Subject: decoction mashing

I have been experimenting with decoction mashes for the last 5 or 6 brews, and

have been experiencing a common problem with each.  The final gravities have

all been very high, typically 1025.  This seems to be independant of yeast

strain (I've used several different ones, both lager and ale) and only somewhat

dependent of mash temperature.  With very low temps (64C - 65C) I have brought

the gravity down to 1018, but this is not always the case.

So what gives?  Does docoction destroy more of the alpha enzymes than beta,

yielding full conversion, but with lots of dextrins?  Is it possible to get

a low final gravity with decoction?

 - Roy

------------------------------


The Dangers of a High Temp Sparge

Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 11:28 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: The Dangers of a High Temp Sparge

Recently, there's been some discussion of sparge water temperatures.

At least two brewer's have suggested using very hot boiling or

almost boiling water for sparging.  The ususal argument against

using sparge water over 170F is that additional tannins are extracted

from the grain above this temperature.  I agree that a too-hot

sparge will make your beer a bit astringent (due to the increased

tannins), but there's another reason for keeping the sparge water

below 170F, and that is STARCH EXTRACTION.  Once you're done with

the saccharification rest, you should make very sure you're not

extracting any more unconverted starch from your grains.  One very

cloudy beer I've tried in the past was, upon further investigation,

sparged with boiling water.

Finally, I've brought this up once in the past, but no one commented

and I just forgot about it, but I'd like to bring it up again for

the sake of discussion:

   Could it be that we don't want the grain bed during the sparge to

   be *AT* 170F, rather we want the *sparge water* to be at 170F and

   we should let the grain bed (in an insulated tun) settle at whatever

   temperature it wants?  Can someone who has "Brewing and Malting

   Science" please look this up?  Darryl, what sparge temp is used for

   Pilsner Urquell?

Comments?

Al.

------------------------------


RE: Mead Questions

Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1993 15:38:18 EST

From: hmcook@boe00.minc.umd.edu (Hardy M. Cook)

Subject: RE: Mead Questions

I began brewing mead this past fall.  I didn't use acid blend in my

first batch and it turned out just fine, and I did include it in the

batch I made last week though to soften the alcohol warmth.  As for

honey, you can get dependable results from Clover honey.  I buy mine

in five pound jar at the local Price Club discount house (less than

five dollars a jar).

------------------------------


Cold plates, Mash tuns

Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 12:51:45 -0800

From: arthur@chiba.esd.sgi.com (Arthur Evans)

Subject: Cold plates, Mash tuns

 -> Cold plates and other serving devices

Since there's been some discussion of cold plates

for serving beer here, it might be worthwhile to

mention that there's an article in one of the Zymurgy

special issues (I think it's the "gadgets" issue)

has instructions for building a "mini-jockey-box."

Basically, this consists of a water cooler with a

beer line running through it.  On one side you have

a serving tap, on the other side you have a line

running to your keg, and inside the cooler you have

a coil of copper tubing ("look, officer! it's a condenser!"

sorry--wrong show) connecting the two.  Beer flows

through the line and gets cooled by the ice that

you cleverly placed in the cooler for this purpose.

Anyway, it sounded like it would work and not cost

too much, and best of all, it's yet another excuse

to play around in the garage with power tools. (And

isn't that half the fun of new equipment?)

Anyway, I've seen some version of these jockey boxes

at a number of events (beer festivals, outdoor concerts,

etc.), and they seem to work all right, but I'd be

interested to hear if anyone has tried making one at

home.  I'm thinking of making one for my illustrious

brother's wedding (to serve beer, not as a wedding present--

so don't get your hopes up, Stew).

 -> Mash tuns

On a completely unrelated topic, I'm contemplating the

leap into all-grain brewing after many a year of

extract brewing.  I'm thinking about constructing a

picnic-cooler type mash tun, and I'm wondering what

size I need.  The local Sears sells 5-gallon coolers,

but I suspect that's too small for making 5-gallons

batches.  Can anyone who has this kind of mash tun

tell me 1) what size they have, 2) what size batches

they make (how much grain, how many gallons), and

3) where they scored the damn thing?

Many thanks to anyone who can help me on this,

 -arthur

------------------------------


skimming

Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 15:06:20 cdt

From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: skimming

I've been following the discussion on skimming with interest.  Tell me,

someone, would this skimming at the beginning of the boil be recommended for

extract brews as well?  So far it has been discussed only in relation to all-

grain procedures.

This isn't called skimmy-dipping, I suppose....?

Jonathan

------------------------------


Pete's Wicked Ale

Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 17:58:46 EST

From: woessner@psych.purdue.edu (Leo Woessner)

Subject: Pete's Wicked Ale

  I would like to try to clone Pete's Wicked Ale.  I would appreciate anyone who

has made such a ale, to post the recipe, and/or mail me a copy.  A friend of mine ne

mine has just started to brew and very much enjoys Pete's Wicked Ale.  Being a

beginer I would like a extract recipe.  Any sujestions on O.G., Hops, and malt

will be very helpful.

  Over Christmas I visited my parents in Colorado and had the fortune to visit

the Walnut Street brew-pub in boulder.  The served a tremendous stut called

Devils Thoumb Stout.  It was a mild stout (closser to a Porter) with a coffee

aroma and taste.  I was taken by the way in which the maltyness of the beer

went with this coffe-like flavor.  I asked the man who gave us a tour about the

beer.   He tpld me that there was no coffe in the beer but they used generous amounts of

amounts of chocolate-malt to achieve the flavor.  He was not teriably informativev

, so I am not totally convinced that there is no coffe in the beer.  Last week-

end I made a porter with 3/4 pound of chocolate malt to try to get the coffee-

like flavor.  Recipe:

 3.3# John Bull dark malt extract

 3.3# Munto and Fision light extract

 1/2# amber DME

 3/4# chocolate malt

 1oz cascade hops(60 min)(4HBU

 2oz fuggles hops(60 min(10 hbu)

 1oz cascade hops (steep 20 min while cooling)

 1/8 oz Hallertau hops(steep)(Just because I had them ;-)

 Whitebread Ale yeast

If anyone out there has made a stout or a porter similiar to Devils Thomb stout

I would appreciate a recipe.  I also would apreciate any recipies, tips, hints,

or magic spells that would help me make such a stuot or porter.

        Thanks in advance

     Estes oF Manang

------------------------------


COPS and Civil Forfeiture

Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1993 15:02:45 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: COPS and Civil Forfeiture

If you're frightened, angered, or just curious about the idea of police

entering your home or car, seizing everything you own, and forcing you

to sue the government to get it back, you'll be interested in a series

of articles from the Pittsburgh Press.  The series is called "Presumed

Guilty", and I have ASCII and PostScript versions available to anyone

who asks.

Being somewhat off the topic of brewing, this will be the only time

I'll bring this up on HBD, but email conversations are welcome.  I

figured the recent uproar justified this single article.

thx

gak

------------------------------


Cold Plates

Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 23:10 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Cold Plates

 I feel like Don Quixote on this issue but when I find something that really

 works, I tend to be a real crusader.......

 >From: orgasm!davevi@uunet.UU.NET (David Van Iderstine)

 >I've had some experience with these things, which was not good. I made the

 mistake of adding ice over the cold plate before I had beer running through

 it. It seems that ice crystals formed *inside* the plate's tubes, with the

 result being incredibly foamy beer at the tap that did not go away for

 days (it was a looong party! :-).

 I am not sure how or why ice crystals would form inside but they would

 quickly go away when the warm beer hit them and they certainly are not the

 reason for the foaming.

 >The advise I was given (I'm afraid much too late!) was to get the beer

 running first, then chill the plate down.

 In my case, it is always hooked up so there is always beer in the line.  You

 do have a different situation but not likely to have anything to do with

 foaming.

 In the likely event that THAT advise didn't work either, try mine.

 Turn off your brain and crank up the pressure.  Don't think about it, it

 causes migrains.  Just DO it!  Try 25 or 30 lbs.

 I guarantee you, there is some pressure somewhere that will pour properly and

 with a cold plate it is about twice what you are used to.

 >From: "Chauncey T. Griggs" <grig0009@student.tc.umn.edu>

 >In HBD#1054, arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling) writes:

 >>I didn't have a silver dollar handy this afternoon but I had no problem

 >>floating a Costa Rican 25 Centimos piece on a glass of the World's Greatest

 >>Beer.

 >Is that anyting like a wooden nickel??? :^)

 Who me?  No, actually it is about the size of a quarter but is made of

 aluminum.

 You should have heard my wife when HER glass of beer had a dime and a quarter

 on the bottom and 25 Cetimos on the top.  She politely suggested that I

 conduct my experiments with my glass.

 Actually, I think I could float a quarter if I took the time to build up the

 head in the traditional way but it was an afterthought after pouring the

 beer.

 I will report back after I try it.

 js

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1056, 01/15/93

*************************************

-------


Homebrew supplies

Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 08:25:34 EST

From: Rick Michael <rmichael@sesky4102b.pl.osd.mil>

Subject:  Homebrew supplies

I have just started homebrewing, and looking for any information on mailorder

suppliers, and monthly publications dedicated to homebrewing.  Any information

would be appreciated.

My e-mail address is rmichael@sesky4102a.pl.osd.mil

Thank -- Rick

------------------------------


re:decoction mashing

Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 9:29:26 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: re:decoction mashing

In the last digest:


decoction mashing

Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 09:43:53 PST

From: rstya@mda.ca (Roy Styan)

Subject: decoction mashing

<I have been experimenting with decoction mashes for the last 5 or 6 brews, and

<have been experiencing a common problem with each.  The final gravities have

<all been very high, typically 1025.  This seems to be independant of yeast

<strain (I've used several different ones, both lager and ale) and only somewhat

<dependent of mash temperature.  With very low temps (64C - 65C) I have brought

<the gravity down to 1018, but this is not always the case.

I would suspect an inadequate rest time at around 64C for the saacharification

rest of the decoction prior to boiling the decoction.  Maybe you are resting

at this temperature, it is hard to tell without more details.  Possibly,

you need to rest for a longer period prior to the actual boiling of the

decoction.  1.018 would seem a bit high depending on style, but not out

of range.  Certainly 1.025 is quite high.  My weizen decoctions have been

ending around 1.013-1.017 but I am certain of the quality and quantity of

viable yeast at pitching time.  I assume you are pitching a large healthy

starter?  FGs of 1.012 are possible with decoctions but the rest temps can

be tricky to hit and maintain.

on another subject:

From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: skimming

<I've been following the discussion on skimming with interest.  Tell me,

<someone, would this skimming at the beginning of the boil be recommended for

<extract brews as well?  So far it has been discussed only in relation to all-

<grain procedures.

Not important since the extract manufacturer has already processed the wort

for you, including the hot break which will remove many of the particles

that would coat the hops if you were all grain brewing.

Best of luck,

and yet another point:

From: woessner@psych.purdue.edu (Leo Woessner)

<re coffee stouts

try using small amounts of Roasted barley and/or very small amounts of

black patent malt to increase the coffee notes.

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Sears coolers

Date: 15 Jan 1993 10:03:10 -0500

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel.F.McConnell@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Sears coolers

                       Subject:                               Time:9:45 AM

  OFFICE MEMO          Sears coolers                          Date:1/15/93

Arthur Evans writes:

>The local Sears sells 5-gallon coolers,

but I suspect that's too small for making 5-gallons

batches.  Can anyone who has this kind of mash tun

tell me 1) what size they have, 2) what size batches

they make (how much grain, how many gallons), and

3) where they scored the damn thing?

I used to brew in a 5 gal Gott Water cooler (K-Mart, about 25$).  This was

capable of mashing 13 lb of malt in a single infusion (1 qt H2O/lb)- plenty for

a 5 gal all grain batch and even enough for the occasional 10 gal of low

gravity beer (milds).  It works great-loosing less than 1C over a 60 min mash.

By draining the thin mash, heating and adding back you can hit a mash out temp

prior to sparging.

I now make 10-15 gal at a time and use a 10 gal Gott of the type that football

players like to dump on their coaches (sez Gatoraid on the side, but who

cares).  This big boy can do step mashes, decoctions and single infusions.  25

lbs is as far as I have gone, but that's plenty for my taste.

DanMcC

------------------------------


Bottle filler info wanted

Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 10:45:41 EST

From: Joe Rolfe <jdr@wang.com>

Subject: Bottle filler info wanted

hi all,

this is not yur average request for info - what i am looking for is 2 items:

 1) anyone know of a company in New York under the name of

   Prospero Equipment Company??????

 2) that failing any one know of where i could aquire a multi spout

  siphon bottle filler, similar to the one offered by the

  Compleat Winemaker?

the specs i need to meet are:

 good polished tank welds, sanitary

 1.5" triclover inlet

 floor standing

 easily cleaned

 some type of float valve or mechanism to set the liquid level in

  the tank

 able to fill 12 oz, 16 oz, 22 oz, 750ml bottles

 multi spouts 6 or more (up to 12)    - capacity of 12+ bottle/min

 not going to cost more than a few grand

these type of contraptions are not counter pressure devices, are mainly used in

the wine/champagne industry....

 any help???

joe rolfe

- --

joe rolfe

jdr@wang.com

508-967-5760

------------------------------


Re: arf's Incredible Knowledge

Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 10:48:06 EST

From: orgasm!davevi@uunet.UU.NET (David Van Iderstine)

Subject: Re: arf's Incredible Knowledge

I posted:

>>I've had some experience with these things, which was not good. I made the

 mistake of adding ice over the cold plate before I had beer running through

 it. It seems that ice crystals formed *inside* the plate's tubes, with the

 result being incredibly foamy beer at the tap that did not go away for

 days (it was a looong party! :-).

Jack posted:

> I am not sure how or why ice crystals would form inside but they would

 quickly go away when the warm beer hit them and they certainly are not the

 reason for the foaming.

Well, Jack, I spent many hours talking with the owner of The Spirit Haus

in Amherst, Ma, who rented it to me, as well as others, who said that was

the cause. It ran foamy for three days. Now, I want to know, what makes YOU

so God Damned Smart, huh?

------------------------------


Re: enzymes in pale malt

Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 9:31:47 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: enzymes in pale malt

> <Also, make sure your later grain bills didn't include disproportionately

> <high percentages of specialty malts like Munich or crystal.  If you

> <don't have enough pale malt, you won't get enough enzymatic activity to

> <get a full conversion.  (Try the iodine test next time if you're not

> <sure -- a drop of iodine in a bit of mash liquid will turn purple/black

> <if there are still unconverted starches.

>

> In general, this is not true.  Domestic malts will contain more enzyme

> potential than you could ever use.  Even modern continental malts will

> have enough enzymes for just about any all malt beer.  The use of Munich

> and crystal malts in just about any reasonable percentage will work fine.

Whoops, sorry if I mislead anybody.  When I said "disporportionately

high percentages" I was thinking of ridiculous percentages, like

*replacing* your pale male with Munich.  I'm sure someone out there has

tried it (no, not me :-).

> My complaint

> with the Phils system is that the tube from the false botom has to

> rise up out of the false bottom to then exit the bucket.  This can lead

> to a problem with an air bubble forming inside the tube.  I have seen

> extremely slow runoffs that I think are due to this design.

So back to lauter tuns.  I lauter with a slotted copper manifold

system that drains via a ~24 inch standpipe connected to a siphon.  I

don't know exactly how the Phils system works, but I imagine my setup

could have a similar problem.  However, I almost always get >30

pts/lb/gal yield.  Perhaps the siphoning pressure removes any air

bubbles that might get in the way.

On another note, Arthur Evans asks about picnic-cooler mash tuns.  I

believe Gott manufactures 10-gallon (40 qt) liquid coolers, the kind you

see on the back of construction-company pickups.  You can also use

rectangular food coolers, which I've seen in sizes up to 54 qts, though

you probably don't need anything larger than 28 qts.  I mash in a 40 qt

stainless kettle, and my mashes usually amount to no more than 20 qts or

so for an eventual 5 to 6 gallon batch of beer.

Which brings us back to lautering.  If you're moving to all-grain you

need a way to lauter.  I've used both the Zapap double-bucket setup

and the slotted copper manifold setup, and the manifold wins hands

down both in speed, ease of use, and efficiency.  Stuck sparges due

to grain bed compaction were common with my Zapap; I've had nary a one

with my manifold (even when making beers with >50% wheat).

Both lautering setups have been discussed many times in the digest, so

check back issues or email me if you want more info.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


HSA not a problem if chilled?

Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 16:35:43 GMT

From: Martin Wilde <martin@gamma.intel.com>

Subject: HSA not a problem if chilled?

As a bunch of us were recently talking at a brewing club meeting the other

night, the topic swung to HSA (hot side aeration).  I had mentioned the talk

which has been going on in HBD about this and how most people thought it was

a nasty thing.  I then recalled pictures I had seen of Sierra Nevada

and English breweries using a hop back and watched some local brew pubs using

them also.  Someone came up with a reason why these breweries products do not

have the nasty tastes associated with HSA.

Could it be after you dump the wort over the hops and then immediately chill

it to ~70 degrees the nasty phenols do not have time to develop?

thanks

Martin Wilde                 |  So many beers...

martin@gamma.hf.intel.com    |  So little time...

uunet!intelhf!gamma!martin   |

------------------------------


Simple (low-cost) Kegging system

Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 10:20:17 MST

From: frank@Solbourne.COM (Frank Jones)

Subject: Simple (low-cost) Kegging system

Greetings,

  This is a long one, but useful I think...

  I recently found a low-cost kegging system which I wanted to

share with the Digest. It is very new to the market; I found out

about it at our local brew club (The Unfermentables, Denver) when

the manufacturer came and gave us a short talk on their product.

(The manufacturer, QUOIN, is based in Golden, CO.) I was looking to

go to a kegging system, and this caught my attention. I purchased one

keg as a trial and filled it with Christmas Ale, which was consumed

(decimated?) at a party the weekend before Christmas. This past

weekend I filled it again, and if anything it was easier. All went

as advertised, and I am very pleased with its performance. Well

enough of that, but I wanted to establish that I *had* used this

system, not just heard about it.

I've delayed announcing this for two reasons: 1) I just changed

jobs, and now have a real Internet connection, and 2) I was about

to use the keg a second time, and wanted to wait until that was behind

me to see if anything else cropped up.

  The Keg system is produced by Quoin (pronounced "coin") Systems

Inc., (address below). The bottle was developed by Coors Inc.

originally as a take home cheap returnable keg for their

distributors (e.g. like a party ball), but the system was abandoned

by them, I believe, because of the difficulity with the charging system.

Quoin Systems (consisting of former Coors employees) bought the

kegging system, and came up with their own charging system, which

is unique (and patented). The charging system is a pouch which

contains a (food grade) mild acid & sodium salts in a

multi-compartmented pouch. The acid is kept separate from the

salts by a pressure sensitive barrier, which is triggered once

the keg is pressurized (with a small hand pump). Once the pouch is

activated the chemicals mix, producing CO2, which makes the pouch

expand, filling the head space in the keg. The contents of the pouch

are totally isolated from the brew. The beer is primed as normal

with sugar/wort. The pouch is only to keep the brew under pressure,

about 15psi, and the head space filled. When the keg is empty, you

simply puncture the pouch, remove it and throw it away.

  The Keg is made of brown PET plastic, with removable aluminum

clamp rings for the plastic valve system. These things were

designed for public use, so are of very stout construction. The keg

holds 10 liters total, but only about 8 liters (about half a 5 gal batch)

of brew with the required head space.

  Quoin is marketing the keg to home brewers and micro-breweries.

They are a very small operation, but they tell me they are selling

quite a few, and are staying up with the demand. I understand that

the Breckenridge Brewery (a local Colorado Micro-brewery) has

purchased some for take-home/returnable customer use.

  I'll try and head off some of the obvious questions:

_how much does it cost?_

  $29.50 .. 8 liter Keg, valve assembly, horizonal stand with

     carrying strap (neat design) & 2 pouches

  $ 4.00 .. 2 plastic sleeves for standing the keg upright for

     filling

  $ 5.00 .. activation pump

  $ 3.00 .. 1 pouch ($33.00 for 12 of them)

  (normal startup requires the keg, pump, and stand $38.95,

additional kegs don't require the pump or stand)

  $ 5.00 .. shipping per keg.

  Colorado residents add 4.3% tax.

They accept Master Card & Visa or checks payable to QUOIN.

_what about contamination?_

  The pouches are pre-sterilized, and are sealed in a second pouch.

The air that is introduced to activate the pouch, once the pouch is

in the keg, is just outside air; however it is bled off immediately

after activation, so shouldn't be much of a factor. The keg itself

is easily disassembled, with the mouth opening being about 2 1/2" in

diam, and is very easily cleaned. Since it is PET plastic, care

should be taken not to scour/scratch it. but it cleans up quickly

and easily.

_What is it called?_

 The best part: "The Party Pig"(tm) :) When the keg is assembled with

valve, and is in the horizontal stand, it does indeed look like a

pig. the only things missing are ears, eyes & tail (aftermarket

options???).

Where to order?

Quoin Systems Inc.

401 Violet St.

Golden, CO 80401

phone (303) 279-8731

_Disclaimer?_

  Yeah, I guess I should. I do not have *any* monetary affiliation

with Quoin Systems (damn it), other than being a customer.

Problems: A brew buddy of mine purchased one at the same time I did,

and had a problem assembling the valve/restrictor assembly which

ended up damaging the valve. After looking at it the problem

appeared to be that, when the two parts are pushed together the

valve was depressed (opened) in the process which pinched it

between the two parts. She replaced the entire assembly for $5 but

I think that the valve itself might have fixed it. If care is taken

when assembling the restrictor, e.g. pushing on the valve body itself,

this shouldn't re-occur.

If you have any questions that I can answer please feel free to

post either directly to me, or to the Digest, and I will answer all

that I can. Also since Quoin is a local call for me I would be

happy to forward any questions/queries to them that I don't feel

qualified to answer.

fj..

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Franklin R. Jones                           National Technical Support Engineer

frank@Solbourn.COM   <-Internet...snail->   Solbourne Computer Inc.

    303.678.4769                            1900 Pike Road

fax 303.772.3646                            Longmont, CO 80501

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"If we are not supposed to play with words...

                                                then why do we have so many??

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Computer error

Date: Wed, 15 Jan 92 10:55:28 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat (George J Fix)

Subject: Computer error

During the week of 1/11-1/15, utamat, our local workstation, frequently

down so the operating system could be upgraded and additional memory installed.

To make a long story short, selected mail to gjfix@utamat.uta.edu was trashed

due to a failure to properly backup the system during these changes. I was

told that some of the lost mail was to me, and at least a couple had the term

"HSA" in the subject title. I would be grateful if anyone who sent e-mail

to this node and has not received a response could resend their message.

More generally, I would be grateful to anyone who requested but has not

received the original HSA article could do the same.

I believe it was either Steve Stroud or his wife who gave the following sage

advice. "One can never be too rich, too thin, or have too many backups". I

believe the same applies to CO2 tanks, but that is a another matter!

I hope everyone caught CP's post in HBD#1055 about Zymurgy. I believe these

folks are quite sincere about these matters. This would mean that the ball is

now in our court, and those interested should definitely respond.

George Fix

------------------------------


Paul Edwards

Date: 15 Jan 93 10:06:25 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.EDU>

Subject: Paul Edwards

Subject:  Paul Edwards                          Time:10:01 AM    Date:1/15/93

Paul; I am unable to successfully contact you via the address I have, please

send me some E-mail so I can try a reply, or correct my address.

Thanks, RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


Cleaning agents, Papazian

Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 14:11:43 EDT

From: doug <doug@metabolism.bitstream.com>

Subject: Cleaning agents, Papazian

   Sorry this is a bit late, but my mail was down for a day.

   C. Papazians article struck me as somewhat odd in HBD #1055.  I

   agree with his general point that people who have problems with

   Zymurgy should contact Zymurgy, of course that is NOT to say that

   they that they shouldn't use this forum as well.... the point that

   struck me as odd was that it sounded like nobody on the Zymurgy

   staff was a regular reader of the HBD.  If that's the case, they

   certainly are missing many great ideas for articles...

   Secondly, Scott the BadAssAstronomer was looking for a new

   cleanser.  I've been told by a local brewer that DRANO contains

   something that is very similar to what is used to clean hop residue

   out the industrial aging tanks.  I've never tried it, but he

   suggested a teaspoon in 5 gallons really cleans up nicely.  I

   suggest a lot of rinsing...

   good luck

   doug@bitstream.com

------------------------------


RE: HBD 1056

Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 15:01:34 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: HBD 1056

Hi All,

  In HBD #1056, Roy Styan asks:

I have been experimenting with decoction mashes for the last 5 or 6 brews, and

have been experiencing a common problem with each.  The final gravities have

all been very high, typically 1025.  This seems to be independant of yeast

strain (I've used several different ones, both lager and ale) and only somewhat

dependent of mash temperature.  With very low temps (64C - 65C) I have brought

the gravity down to 1018, but this is not always the case.

So what gives?  Does docoction destroy more of the alpha enzymes than beta,

yielding full conversion, but with lots of dextrins?  Is it possible to get

a low final gravity with decoction?

   I've used decoction mashing extensively, generally for Bohemian pilsners

and German festbiers.  I've also experimented with styles that do not

traditionally call for decoction mashing, such as pale ales.  Both the

pilsners and the pale ales typically finish around 1.015.  I'm also aware

that wheat beers are commonly brewed using decoction mashing, and can finish

as low as 1.010, though I've never done this.  A few suggestions come to mind,

some of which you've already covered.

 Yeast attenuation: Roy mentions trying several different yeast strains,

 I assume they had different attenuation ratings.  If so, then yeast

 performance may be eliminated as a factor, and the discussion focused

 on mashing procedures.

 Water/grist ratio: a higher water to grist ratio will produce a thinner

 mash, which favors the beta amylase enzyme.  I use 1.3 - 1.5 qts/lb

 (I can hear the gasps from the infusion mashing crowd), which also helps

 reduce the darkening effect of decoction.  This is very important in

 preserving the pale, delicate color in a pilsner.

 Conversion temperature: the lower end of the sugar rest temperature

 range also favors the amylase enzyme. 65C is ~149F, still sounds a

 little too high if you're after a thinner bodied beer.  Quoting from

 Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer":

 "temperatures below 149F(65C), on the other hand, seriously limit

 dextrin formation while favoring the formation of maltose by Beta

 amylase.  Because starch granules are not gelatinized or dispersed

 below 149F, Beta amylase activity at lower temperatures serves only

 to eliminate the dextrins formed in the decoction, without further

 significant starch reduction."

 Try a brief rest at 140F-145F, should result in a less dextrinous wort.

*************************************************************************

  Also in HBD #1056, Al. Korz on sparge temperatures:

> The ususal argument against

>using sparge water over 170F is that additional tannins are extracted

>from the grain above this temperature.  I agree that a too-hot

>sparge will make your beer a bit astringent (due to the increased

>tannins), but there's another reason for keeping the sparge water

>below 170F, and that is STARCH EXTRACTION.

   Point well taken, I'd agree that water that is actually in contact with

the grain should never exceed 170F.  My use of sparge water at ~190 is a

result of the characteristics of my own brewing equipment.  As stated in a

previous post, I mount a collander atop the lauter tun as a means of

diffusing sparge water, minimizing disturbance of the grain bed.  This

setup cools the water rapidly, as the temperature at the top of the grain

bed is 160-165.  I believe this is the hottest point in the system, and

still maintain that this is the key data point.  What difference does the

temperature of the sparge water make when it's not in contact with the

grain?  Extraction of tannins and unconverted starch is not likely to occur

when the sparge water is sitting in a pot on the stove.

                                   Cheers,

                                     Jim

------------------------------


zymurgy

Date: 15 Jan 93 12:15:40 EST

From: Charlie Papazian/Boulder <72210.2754@compuserve.com>

Subject: zymurgy

So far I've received about a dozen responses to my last posting.  I'd like to

say that we really appreciate the time you all have taken to send them our way.

 Thanks again

Fermently,

Charlie P.

------------------------------


Re: Jack's floating coins

Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 15:28:08 -0500

From: djt2@po.CWRU.Edu (Dennis J. Templeton)

Subject: Re: Jack's floating coins

Jack writes

>>>I didn't have a silver dollar handy this afternoon but I had no problem

>>>floating a Costa Rican 25 Centimos piece on a glass of the World's Greatest

>>>Beer.

>>Is that anyting like a wooden nickel??? :^)

> Who me?  No, actually it is about the size of a quarter but is made of

> aluminum.

  ^^^^^^^^

!

After all the anti-aluminum histeria to emanate from this source, I can

only assume that he promptly deposited the tainted WGB in the nearest

potted plant!  (pity the plant :=)]

dt

------------------------------


Bottle Filler

Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 11:05:04 PST

From: hartman@varian.varian.com (John Hartman)

Subject: Bottle Filler

Allow me to suggest yet another counter pressure bottle filler.  It's

simple, inexpensive, and effective.  Call it John's Cheaper Filler.

To make this filler you will need the following:

 Standard 3-piece plastic airlock       $.95

 No. 2 rubber stopper w/hole (beer bottle size)    $.30

 3/8" ID vinyl tubing, 9" in length       $.30.

 3/8" ID vinyl tubing, 2" in length       $.05.

The total capital outlay for this little project is $1.60, leaving extra

fun money for the rest of the brewery.  Use a saw of some sort (I used a

hack saw) to turn the 3-piece airlock into a 4-piece airlock.  Cut the stem

of the airlock off at the top, where it meets the bleach water reservoir.

Keep the stem and discard the rest of the airlock.  Slid the stopper over

the stem so that the stem protrudes from both the top and bottom of the

stopper.  Attach the 9" length of tubing to the stem below the stopper.

Attach the 2" length of tubing to the stem above the stopper.  You've done it.

You now have your very own bottle filler and you're ready to bottle.

To bottle a beer from your keg attach the 3/8" tube on the top of the stopper

to a plastic cobra/picnic tap coming from your keg.  Insert the assembly

into the bottle.  Place 20 PSI of pressure on the keg.  You may need a different

keg pressure for your system, but I bet it'll be close to 20 PSI.  Hold the

stopper down and open the tap.  Beer will fill the bottle to about 1/4 full and

then the flow will stop as the pressure in the bottle reaches the keg pressure.

You should see some foam.  Wait about 10 seconds and the foam will subside.

Now carefully loosen your grip on the stopper so that a little air escapes from

the bottle.  The tap should still be open and as the air escapes beer will

gently fill the bottle with no additional foaming.  As the beer appoaches the

neck slow down.  There will be about 1" of foam.  Loosen your grip again to

allow the foam to be displaced by beer.  Be careful or you'll be wearing that

foam.  If you do get foamed remember you're a homebrewer and you like this

kind of stuff.  Once the foam is displaced you can close the tap and then

slowly remove the filler.  If you pull it out too quickly the beer will foam

and you'll loose carbonanation.  You can now cap the bottle.

One obvious draw back to this filler is that the beer will potentially be

oxidized by the air in the bottle when you start.  For those concerned with

oxidation, a second filler could be attached to a second keg filled with CO2.

Just before a bottle is filled you could blast the bottle free of O2 and then

proceed as above.  I haven't found this to be necessary, but I thought I'd

mention it as we never seem to stop talking about the evils of oxidation.

It works for me.  Try it!

Cheers,

John

hartman@varian.varian.com

------------------------------


re: Rikard's Red

Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1993 15:58:00 +0000

From: "Rick (R.) Cavasin" <cav@bnr.ca>

Subject: re: Rikard's Red

A few people have asked about Rikard's Red which is widely available

in Ontario.  It is brewed by MOLSON'S, and IMHO is an attempt to prevent

the micro's grabbing too big a segment of the market.  They try to

downplay who makes it in an attempt to cash in on the microbrewery

mystique.  All this wouldn't be so bad except that the beer tastes

more or less like generic Molson's (Canadian, Export, etc.) with a

touch more flavour and body.  It can't hold a candle to any of the

good micro-beers like Wellington, Conners, or Hart.  This is a matter

of taste however, and some who like a more mainstream beer may appreciate

Rikard's.  Labatt's attempted to do the same thing a while back.  The

beer was called something like 'Duffys' and was particularly vile.

Haven't seen it in quite a while.  I must confess to a certain bias

against such imitation micro-beers in that the big breweries have a lot

of leverage (who's kidding who, they have a government sanctioned

monopoly on beer sales and distribution and MAKE the rules)

that they already use to make life hard for the micro's.

Also, the whole thing smacks of dishonesty.

Is it any wonder that many beer lovers view Molson and Labatts as the

'great satans'?

Cheers,

Rick C.

------------------------------


GIF Files and Labels

Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 13:16:31 PST

From: Mike Leclere <msl@orca.rose.hp.com>

Subject: GIF Files and Labels

I recall seeing a blurb somewhere about beer logos or labels having been

scanned into GIF files.  I think it was in the HBD, but I'm not sure.

I made a note of it at the time (around New Year's so the memory is vague

at best) with the promise to myself that when I had the time I'd go get

them to play with.  Well, I've finally gotten around to it, but I can't find

the note I made as to where they are.  I have tried to consult the

archives, but I have a feeling it is too recent to be listed there - at

least I can't seem to find it in the index.  Does anyone remember the details

about this?  If so I would appreciate e-mail on it, or just a repost to HBD

with an appropriate title line like "Where to find beer logo GIFs."

Mike (msl@hprnd.hp.com)

------------------------------


Under Pressure...

Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 16:39:59 EST

From: casagran@gdstech.grumman.com (Lou Casagrande)

Subject: Under Pressure...

Bruce writes:

>Lou in the same issue "accused" :) me of pressurizing my HDPE jugs.

Okay, okay, so the airline does the actual work, but the result is the

same. ;^) He says he has extrapolated from this ~1/2 atm vacuum to

determine if the jugs would withstand priming pressure. But how much

pressure is generated by priming? My assumption before reading his

posting was that there would not be too much. However, it seems that

this might not be correct: Assume 1 lb priming sugar, glucose

(C6H12O6), or 454.5 g at 180 g/mol gives us 2.53 mol. Now assume that

every glucose molecule gives us 2 ethanol and 2 CO2 (I'm not sure

about this): C6H12O6 --> 2C2H5OH + 2CO2. Now we have 5.05 mol CO2.

Using the perfect gas law (imperfect, yes, but sufficient for our

purposes), pV=nRT, rearranging gives p=nRT/V.

     n=5.05 mol

     R=0.0821 l atm/mol-K

     T=298 K

     V=4 l (I'm assuming you're using 5 gal of a 6 gal jug)

p=30.9 atm! Am I going bonkers, or is this a lot? Even if I'm off by a

factor of 2 somewhere, there is still 15 atm of pressure generated. Is

Bruce's extrapolation still good? Maybe. Is there anyone out there who

knows for sure? Bruce or Ulick? Your turn.

Hopping Along,

Lou Casagrande

Physical Inorganic Chemist by training

------------------------------


Sparge Temperatures

Date: Wed, 15 Jan 92 16:28:25 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat (George J Fix)

Subject: Sparge Temperatures

It is possible that the time honored temperature range 168-172F

for sparging seen in many books on home brewing are a carry over

from older commercial practice. I know from direct experience at

some regionals using older brewing practices (e.g., Straubs in

St. Marys, Pa. and Pittsburgh Brewing to cite two examples),

considerable effort was extended to achieve this temperature

range throughout the grain bed. The rational behind the procedure

was to terminate all enzyme activity in a predictable way. Both

breweries were sensitive to even small changes in the wort % fermentability

as well as to yield.

I use to do the same until a few years ago Mark Carpenter of Anchor

suggested an alternative. At Anchor, after conversion they raise the

mash to only 160F, and sparge with water at 168F. (Russ, please help

if my numbers are not current). I tried this and found that for most

beer styles the change was positive in terms of finished beer flavors.

In my system there was a drop in yield, but also less husk based material

was extracted. (Russ, does Anchor have any other reasons for using this

procedure?)

A very radical procedure that was discussed in the commercial literature,

was to lower the mash temperature to 32F-34F, hold for a definite period,

and then sparge with water at that temperature. After that the mash was

heated back up and boiled as usual. The authors claimed only small

reductions in yield, and at the same time a ten fold reduction in

anthocyanogen levels. This article appeared in a peer reviewed journal,

which means their results were likely checked with care. I have personally

tried the procedure for a 5 liter batch, and the results were consistent

with their findings. Having said that, let also say that I have zero interest

in trying it with a 50 liter batch for obvious reasons.

I now believe that the traditional numbers should not be seen as engraved in

stone. If a particular brewer finds a particular combination of temperatures

which consistently gives beers to their liking, then to quote a well known

personality from my neck of the woods, "end of story". ( Well, at least I didn't

use the phrase "you people" in this post.)

George Fix

------------------------------


Dangers of a High-temp Sparge

Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 16:34 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Dangers of a High-temp Sparge

I wrote:

 >    Darryl, what sparge temp is used for

 >    Pilsner Urquell?

Two brewers wrote to me suggesting that knowing the sparge temperature

used to make Pilsner Urquell would probably not be as useful as I had

initially theorized.  For example, Spencer wrote:

>Is this a relevant question?  PU is heavily decoction mashed, so it

>seems to me that the sparge conditions wouldn't yield the same result

>as when applied to our typical infusion mash.

My initial response to both was something like this:

 > Well, yes -- I feel we can learn and adapt from every source.

 > After you dump your mash into the lauter tun, does it really

 > matter which method of mashing was used to convert the grains?

And then I thought (in my reply to Spencer):

 > Hmmm... then again, decoction mashed grains will have much less

 > unconverted and trapped starch than infusion mashed, so they

 > could probably get away with a hotter sparge than us infusion

 > mashers.  Perhaps you're right.  Perhaps my earlier argument

 > is the key to the demise of my PU comparison.  In any event,

 > maybe it will start some new discussions.

In Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer," he says that the primary advantage of

decoction mashing (and the reason that it yields slightly higher

extract efficiencies) is because as the during the decoctions, the heat

causes the starch grains burst and become available to be converted.  This

was the basis for my contention that too-high a sparge temperature could

cause unconverted starch to be sparged out of the grains.  Miller advises

against high-temp sparges also (for the same reason, I believe) in his

"Continental Pilsener" book from the AHA Classic Style Series.

That I asked Darryl if he knew the sparge temp for PU was a

mistake, since as Spencer (and the other person (sorry)) noted, the

fact that PU is decoction mashed means that its mash's grains have much

less unconverted (and unavailable) starch than our typical single- or

step-infusion mashes.  Therefore, knowing their sparge temperature would

not be as useful as I had initially anticipated (not that I'm not still

interested).

Bottom line, the point I was trying to make was, that I feel that the

best way to lauter is to:

1. take the mash that you have raised to 170F during mashout,

2. put it in an insulated lauter tun,

3. sparge with 170F water (acidified if necessary), and

4. if your runoff is too cold (heck, I don't know, say, below 140F), then

insulate your tun better, rather than raising your sparge water temperature.

^^^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^

Comments?

Al.

------------------------------


Please help me convert mg/L to ppm

Date: Fri Jan 15 17:34:05 1993

From: ogilvie@ficc.ferranti.com (jim ogilvie)

Subject: Please help me convert mg/L to ppm

I recently reqested and recevied a report from my water suplier

listing all the junk in my tap water.  Now I could use a little

help interpreting what they sent me.  What I expected was a

breakdown of how much junk in parts-per-million is in the water;

what I got was how much junk in MG/L is in there.  Assuming

MG/L means milligrams-per-Liter (bad assumption?), can I read

that as being pretty close to parts-per-million?  Since a liter

of tap water has a mass really close to 1kg, can I say that

1 mg/L is 1mg/kg here?  mg/kg looks a lot like parts-per-million,

if the ratio is a mass-of-junk to mass-of-water ratio.  Does

"ppm" mean normally mean "mass-of-one-part-junk to

mass-of-one-million-parts-water?

The person that sent me the report couldn't help me convert

MG/L to ppm.

Any help is appreciated.

Jim          (ogilvie@ferranti.com)

------------------------------


Daytona Beach and Jacksonville FL

Date: Sat, 16 Jan 93 9:43:40 EST

From: sfw@trionix.com (Scott Weintraub)

Subject: Daytona Beach and Jacksonville FL

Im off to the land of spring break...any chance of real beer there (or in

nearby Jacksonville?

- --Scott Weintraub

  TRIONIX

  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

  | Scott Weintraub  |  TRIONIX Research Laboratory, Inc.       |

  | Software Engineer  |  8037 Bavaria Road         |

  |    |  Twinsburg, OH 44087         |

  | e-mail: sfw@trionix.com |  Voice: 1-216-425-9055  Fax: 1-216-425-9059 |

  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


questions

Date: Sat, 16 Jan 1993 11:51:41

From: Gary.Cote@leotech.MV.COM (Gary Cote)

Subject: questions

I am looking for three receipes for brews.

One is for "Taddy porter"

The second is for a "New castle brown ale" and third is

for a "corona" (not for me).

All are for extract brews.

Also is there any problems with the way that I cool my wort?

Here it goes..

I put 3.5 gollons water into a plastic fermanter and put it in my

large

chast freezer, Yes I cover and seal it tight.

I boil the wort then strain it into the 33 degree water.

It brings the temp down to around 65 degrees. then pitch the yeast

Also is there any problems with using those 5 gal. slightly tinted

water

bottles thet spring water comes in as a secondary?

Thanks Gary Cote  gcote@leotech.mv.com

- --

Gary Cote

gcote@leotech.mv.com

 * Origin: Leo Technology (603)432-2517/432-0922 (HST/V32)

(1:132/189)

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1057, 01/18/93

*************************************

-------


party ball revisited

Date: 18 Jan 1993 08:12:01 -0500 (EST)

From: Sandy Cockerham <COCKERHAM_SANDRA_L@LILLY.COM>

Subject: party ball revisited

Seeing the post today about the party ball system was somewhat ironic. I just

purchased one yesterday at Great Fermentations, Indianapolis. The one I got is

in the traditional Coors party ball configuration, that is, once the seal is

punctured, the beer should be consumed within 24 hours. Hey, its only a 2.5 gal

keg... shouldn't be a problem.

My questions are: how much priming sugar do I add? and what is the time frame

for the beer to be ready? Once primed & carbonated (and still sealed) can this

keg be stored in my fridge for a month or two?

Since the initial beer is pushed out of the keg by CO2, could the basic rubber

stopper counter pressure bottle filler also mentioned in today's post be used

to fill a couple of bottles (just in case you wanted to) ?

          Sandy C.

From: COCKERHAM SANDRA L            (MCVAX0::RX31852)

To:   VMS MAIL ADDRESSEE            (IN::"homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com")

------------------------------


CO2 Pressure Correction

Date: Mon, 18 Jan 93 08:58:24 EST

From: casagran@gdstech.grumman.com (Lou Casagrande)

Subject: CO2 Pressure Correction

Fellow Brewers,

Okay, I blew it big time. In the last issue I submitted what turned

out to be some very premature calculations of the priming pressure

for a five gallon brew. First of all, when I got home Friday night, I

checked a conversion table for confectioner's sugar (the closest

thing I could find to brewer's sugar) and found that there are only 4

1/2 oz in one cup, meaning that in the standard 3/4 cup priming

sugar, there are only 0.21 lb, or 0.53 mol of glucose. So now my

calculations were off by a factor of 5, at best.

I admit, I also forgot about that standard high school chemistry

property of solubility. I checked the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and

Physics, and CO2 is soluble in H2O at 1.45 g/l at 25 C. Upon

reflection, the brew is probably saturated from the primary

fermentation, since 1.45 g/l is only 27.4 g in 18.9 l (5 gal), or

0.62 mol, less than even the 1.07 mol from priming. Even forgetting

for a moment that pressure will drive this solubility higher, the

1.07 mol CO2 will produce an overpressure of 6.5 atm in 4 l, or ~1/5

my original estimate. As I said, solubility will be driven higher by

the pressure, and the pressure correspondingly lowered. Anyway, I'll

think before I leap next time.

I still do not know, though, what the exact proportions of CO2

produced by fermentation are. My gut instinct says they must be less

than a simple chemical equation, otherwise where does the material to

make new little yeasties come from?

Yeast-headidly,

Lou Casagrande

------------------------------


Keep it private David

Date:         Mon, 18 Jan 93 10:42:05 EST

From: "John E. Lenz" <JELJ@CORNELLA.cit.cornell.edu>

Subject:      Keep it private David

David Van Iderstine,

  Your posting in Monday's digest was uncalled for.  If you have a such a

petty gripe, with Jack or anyone else, please settle it via private e-mail.

  I tried to do this privately (and less politely) but the address

on your posting was as worthless as the posting.

John

------------------------------


Date:      Mon, 18 Jan 1993 11:01:18 EST

From: Ming-chung Lin <MARS@suvm.acs.syr.EDU>

Subject:      Keep it private David

Subject:  Coffee stouts and porters

In regards to Leo Woessner's questions about coffee

beer.  Late last year I made a clean out all our

ingredients brew with a friend.  I think we started with

some kind of bitter kit, added some spraymalt, didn't

have enough fermentables so we added 1-2 lbs corn sugar

(boohiss), and a pot of very strong french roast coffee

(along with bittering and aroma hops).  I forget if we

used any adjunct grains.  The result was surprisingly

drinkable.  We brought a bottle to the local homebrew

supply store and the proprietor thought it tasted like

an imperial stout (we didn't tell him what it was until

AFTER he tasted it).  We named it BOOTPOLISH, and anybody

who has tasted it and likes strong stouts has liked it.

So, Leo, experiment!

Lisa St. Hilaire <MARS@SUVM.acs.syr.edu>

------------------------------


Keg priming

Date: Mon, 18 Jan 93 10:27:19 PST

From: Bruce Mueller <mueller@sdd.hp.com>

Subject: Keg priming

Lou, this isn't a flame, just trying to keep the facts straight.

You made the following statement regarding priming the now notorious

HDPE jug.

>meaning that in the standard 3/4 cup priming sugar, there are only 0.21 lb, or

>0.53 mol of glucose. So now my calculations were off by a factor of 5, at best.

Using 3/4 cup priming sugar sounded scary to one who kegs.  I force carbon-

ate, so I had to check back issues of the digest for a reference from a

natural carbonator.  In HBD#1003, Robert Haddad said 1/2 cup of corn sugar

gave him about 25 psi at serving time.  Unless he kegs much differently than

I do, there would be very little headspace in the keg.

Lou, you correctly mentioned that CO2 is soluble in water.  Using Henry's Law

(ooh nooo, Chemistry!), you can calculate just how much does dissolve and thus

the remaining pressure.  I will leave that as an exercise for whoever wishes

to, because I'm very satisfied with Robert's empirical evidence.  For you

thrillseekers, CO2's constant is 1.64 x 10^3 atm at 25C.  The formula you want

is

p(CO2) = H(CO2) x x(CO2)

where p(CO2) is the equilibrium pressure

      H(CO2) is the constant above

      x(CO2) is CO2's mole fraction;  you can safely assume that water contains

      55.6 moles/ l (CO2 is negligible where Henry's law applies)

thus,

x(CO2) = moles(C02) dissolved/ l / 55.5

Have fun, don't worry!

Bruce Mueller

------------------------------


The Answers, Natural Carbonation in Kegs

Date: Mon, 18 Jan 93 11:10:52 PST

From: Bruce Mueller <mueller@sdd.hp.com>

Subject: The Answers, Natural Carbonation in Kegs

Hi all,

Well, I just couldn't resist the chance to do a simple theoretical chemical

calculation.  In a 5 gal. container, assuming all the CO2 dissolves, 1/2

cup yields 16 psi and 3/4 cup only 24 psi.  Well, my fear was unfounded

regarding this higher priming level.  However, I bet the beer would initially

gush pretty good with the latter pressure behind it.

Robert Haddad overestimated his pressure by about 55% way back in HBD#1003.

That's all folks!

Bruce Mueller

------------------------------


Beer in Aus & NZ

Date: 18 Jan 1993  12:49 EST

From: afd@hera.cc.bellcore.com (adietz)

Subject: Beer in Aus & NZ

I'm travelling to Australia (Cairns area) and onto New Zealand (all over)

in a couple weeks.  Would appreciate info on the brewpub and homebrewing

scene in these areas, or even talking beer with local brewers.

 -A Dietz

Bellcore, Morristown NJ USA

afd@cc.bellcore.com

------------------------------


CO2

Date: Mon, 18 Jan 93 11:28:17 CST

From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)

Subject: CO2

>But how much

>pressure is generated by priming? My assumption before reading his

>posting was that there would not be too much. However, it seems that

>this might not be correct: Assume 1 lb priming sugar, glucose

>(C6H12O6), or 454.5 g at 180 g/mol gives us 2.53 mol. Now assume that

>every glucose molecule gives us 2 ethanol and 2 CO2 (I'm not sure

>about this): C6H12O6 --> 2C2H5OH + 2CO2. Now we have 5.05 mol CO2.

>Using the perfect gas law (imperfect, yes, but sufficient for our

>purposes), pV=nRT, rearranging gives p=nRT/V.

>     n=5.05 mol

>     R=0.0821 l atm/mol-K

>     T=298 K

>     V=4 l (I'm assuming you're using 5 gal of a 6 gal jug)

>p=30.9 atm! Am I going bonkers, or is this a lot? Even if I'm off by a

>factor of 2 somewhere, there is still 15 atm of pressure generated.

you're forgetting how much CO2 is dissolved in solution (over 90% of

the CO2 in a typical bottle is in solution).  It doesn't all go in the

headspace.  Also, most homebrewers don't give their beer time enough for

all the priming sugar to ferment - if you did, you would only need about

2-3 oz per 5 gal beer to obtain average carbonation.  Anybody with a kegging

setup can tell you that there is around 1-1.5 atm (14-21 psi) in (on?)

carbonated beer at serving temps.

bb

------------------------------


Decoction mashing

Date: Mon, 18 Jan 93 18:47:18 GMT

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: Decoction mashing

James, quoting from Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer", writes:

        "temperatures below 149F(65C), on the other hand, seriously limit

        dextrin formation while favoring the formation of maltose by Beta

        amylase.  Because starch granules are not gelatinized or dispersed

        below 149F, Beta amylase activity at lower temperatures serves only

        to eliminate the dextrins formed in the decoction, without further

        significant starch reduction."

My practical experience causes me to question this. I haven't read Noonan, but

I have found that starch conversion often tastes as if it is 50% complete by

the end of a half hour _protein_ rest at 50C. (By the way, why does the mash

effervesce? I have never seen this phenomenon even mentioned). Regarding the

problem of extracting unconverted starch during sparging, I am wondering how

significant this is in practice. When one considers that the brew will ferment

for 1-2 weeks, then condition for at least another 3 weeks, it is worth

considering how much starch will actually remain in suspension by the time of

serving. My gut feel is that protein and glucan hazes are much more enduring.

- --

Conn V Copas

Loughborough University of Technology          tel : +44 509 263171  ext 4164

Computer-Human Interaction Research Centre     fax : +44 509 610815

Leicestershire  LE11 3TU              e-mail - (Janet):C.V.Copas@uk.ac.lut

G Britain                                      (Internet):C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk

------------------------------


Corona Grain Mill adjustments

Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1993 10:55:30 CST

From: "John L. Isenhour" <isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov>

Subject: Corona Grain Mill adjustments

I'm trying to adjust my Corona Grain Mill to minimize the uncracked grains that

pass through.  I ground the tip of the stem (which presses against the ball

bearing in the clamp-on arm) flat, this stopped the adjustable grinding plate

from changing depth during turning.

The outer grinding plate is held on by a cotter pin, and it is free-floating

(i.e. it wobbles around).  This would seem to allow some grain to escape.  I'm

wondering if I should try to affix the adjustable plate to the stem in such a

way that it could not wobble and yet maintained a parallel position in respect

to the other plate.  Anyone tried this?

I'd also like to motorize this operation.  Anyone done anything with a pully or

something?

tnx!

John, The HopDevil

john@hopduvel.uucp

isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov

------------------------------


Phil's Phalse Bottom

Date: 18 Jan 1993 14:59:37 -0500 (EST)

From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

Subject: Phil's Phalse Bottom

In HBD # 1056, Jim Busch  commented on the commercially available "Phils Phalse

Bottom.":

>My complaint with the Phils system is that the tube

>from the false bottom has to rise up out of the false

>bottom to then exit the bucket.  This can lead to a

>problem with an air bubble forming inside the tube.

>I have seen extremely slow runoffs that I think are

> due to this design.

For those people who are not familiar with this piece of equipment, it consists

of a circular piece of plastic shaped like an inverted dome.  This sits on the

bottom of an Igloo/Gott-type cooler.  It is perforated with small holes,

effectively operating as a false bottom by holding back the grains/husks, but

permitting sweet wort to pass through unimpeded.  The amount of "dead space"

under the dome is reasonably small, certainly much less than with a Zapap-type

of lauter tun.  There is a 90 degree plastic elbow that rises up out of the

centerof the false bottom, and a connection can be made between this elbow

and the outlet hole at the bottom of the cooler with plastic tubing or a

rigid tube.

A friend of mine bought one of these this past fall and I have used his a couple

of times.  The first time I simply ran a piece of plastic tubing from the elbow

through a rubber stopper which was wedged into the outlet hole.  I then attached

an adjustable tubing clamp to control flow and directed the effluent from the

lauter tun directly into the bottom of the boiling kettle.

Unfortunately I ran into the exact problem described by Jim.  Try as I might, I

could never get a very quick flow of sparge from this setup.  Lke Jim, I first

assumed that I had an air bubble stuck in the line that would not permit flow of

liquid.  However, upon examining the situation more closely (and reading the

directions that came with the Phalse Bottom!), I concluded that the problem

actually was due to the collapse of the plastic tubing in the lauter tun, caused

by the relatively hot temperatures of the mash/sparge water.

When I used the Phalse bottom a second time, I butted a rigid plastic tube right

up to the plastic elbow and connected them with a VERY short piece of plastic

tubing.  The rigid tube was then run through a stopper wedged into the outlet

hole in the cooler, and a piece of tubing was attached to direct the sparge into

the boiling kettle.

This arrangement worked quite well, and I had no trouble with a slow runoff.

When used this way this false bottom works reasonably well and is a cheap way

to quickly convert an Igloo-type cooler to an insulated lauter-tun (though

there are other even cheaper ways of doing this that aren't much more work).  I

think that it certainly superior to the  grain bag/vegetable steamer combo

commonly used by many homebrewers.

I think that the holes in the false bottom are a bit large and would like

to see this unit manufactured with smaller holes and more of them.  It would

also be easy to replace the plastic elbow with a threaded copper one,

so that one could attach a piece of copper tubing to this via a compression

fitting, by-passing the use of plastic tubing entirely.

Steve Stroud

------------------------------


BEST iodine (idophor?)

Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1993 10:42:33 CST

From: "John L. Isenhour" <isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov>

Subject: BEST iodine (idophor?)

I just got some BEST iodine type sterilant, and was wondering about the

dilution of it.  Handwritten on the bottle was "1 1/4 teaspoons per gallon".

I cannot locate any tables that convert teaspoons to milliliters, and when I

tried measuring 1.25 teaspoons with various kitchen measures, I was getting

different results when I measured it in milliliters (on a 2 ml pipette).

I was trying to make up a quart of solution, and I ended up adding 1.5 ml

of BEST.  In a mason jar, this looked like american pilsner, and I used it on

my glass racking canes and carboys.  When I drained it, it had left suds behind

and I was concerned about not rinsing it (so I did).

Could someone with experience give some advice?  How many ml's in a teaspoon?

tnx!,

John - The HopDevil

john@hopduvel.UUCP

isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov

------------------------------


Under Pressure

Date: Mon, 18 Jan 93 13:55:32 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Under Pressure

In hbd1057 Lou Casagrande did some calculation that achieved a

pressure of 30 atm priming 5 gallons in 6 gallons with 1 lb sugar.

The main error was a failure to allow for the amount of CO2

dissolved in the beer, which at 0C would be around 171 ml/100ml.

Adjusting the calculations thus gives a pressure of around 3

atmospheres - still high, but then 1lb is a lot of priming sugar.

Ulick Stafford

------------------------------


Grain, Volume vs Weight

Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1993 17:18:00 +0000

From: "Kevin (K.W.) Golka" <golka@bnr.ca>

Subject: Grain, Volume vs Weight

On the weekend we brewed an all grain lager.  The recipe was similar

to a Pilsner we had made before but our intention was to increase the

volume of water and end up with more beer with a lower OG.

Specifically our original Pilsner has a starting OG of 1053 for 23 L.

By scaling up the grains and adding more water we were hoping to obtain

an OG of 1047 for 29 L.

After the protein rest was finished and we added the mash water, my

friend commented on the amount of head space we had left in the tun.

We use a cylindrical drink cooler.  With similar volumes of grain in the

past (13 lBs) we expected to have only a 2" to 3" of head space.  We

ended up with about 7".

Since we were concerned about head space we ran the protein rest a bit

stiffer than usual.  We had overall 2 L less water in the tun.  This

would account for 1" to 2" of head space.  We suspected that we some how

measured the grain incorrectly and had left out about 2 lbs.  We

decided to proceed as is and live with this since we had reached the

desired strike temperature.

When we finished the collected volume of 20 L gave an SG of 1074.  This

was pretty close to our original target SG assuming 13 lbs of grain and

an efficiency of 28 pts/lb/gal (US).  So we actually did have the

correct amount of grain in the tun all along!

So how did we end up with all of this head space?  The grain we used

came from the same 45 kg bag we have been using all along so it should

have had the same volume per weight.

Is there a rule of thumb for grain volume vs weight?  I suppose this

depends on the moisture content but what are the extremes, 0 % moisture

(if possible?) and 100 % moisture.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Kevin Golka,   613-763-3474

   These opinions are my own and not necessarily those of NT or BNR.

------------------------------


RE: enzymes in pale malt

Date: Mon, 18 Jan 93 14:13:47 PST

From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

Subject: RE: enzymes in pale malt

Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com> writes:

> > <Also, make sure your later grain bills didn't include disproportionately

> > <high percentages of specialty malts like Munich or crystal.  If you

> > In general, this is not true.  Domestic malts will contain more enzyme

> > potential than you could ever use.  Even modern continental malts will

> > have enough enzymes for just about any all malt beer.  The use of Munich

> > and crystal malts in just about any reasonable percentage will work fine.

> Whoops, sorry if I mislead anybody.  When I said "disporportionately

> high percentages" I was thinking of ridiculous percentages, like

> *replacing* your pale male with Munich.  I'm sure someone out there has

> tried it (no, not me :-).

Let's clear up a misconception here.  Real Munich malt, whether

domestic or imported, has enzymes.  It has sufficient enzymes to

convert itself, and perhaps just a bit more.  If you want to make a

real dark Munich lager, then use Munich malt.  I've made several bocks

with high percentages of Munich (60-80%) and it works just fine.

In particular, the imported 2 row Munich malt is far superior to the

domestic 6 row "Munich" malt because it is prepared differently.  The

domestic is regualr pale malt that is given a final kilning at a higher

temperature to increase the color.  It does do this, but not a lot, and

it doesn't prepare the malt to produce the malty aromas that are really

appropriate for most of the dark lager beer styles.  Read Fix's "Vienna

* Maerzen * Oktoberfest" for more discussion about this.  The imported

2 row Munich malt is prepared by heating it briefly while still moist

and then drying it.  This produces the most color and malt aroma for

the temperatures.

Crystal malts are prepared in the same general way, but rather than a

brief heating while moist, the malt undergoes as complete a

saccarification as possible, and then is subjected to higher heating

temperatures for longer periods to really enhance the color formation.

They have no enzymes left because of the higher, longer heating.  They

also have much darker color ratings than Munich malt.

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1058, 01/19/93

*************************************

-------


GIF / ppm<->mg/l / safe water

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 05:49:24 CST

From: todd@gold.rtsg.mot.com (Todd M. Williams)

Subject: GIF / ppm<->mg/l / safe water

In HBD#1057 Mike Leclere <msl@orca.rose.hp.com> asks...

 >SNIP<

>>I recall seeing a blurb somewhere about beer logos or labels having been

>>scanned into GIF files.  I think it was in the HBD, but I'm not sure.

>>"Where to find beer logo GIFs."

>>

>>Mike (msl@hprnd.hp.com)

In HBD#1049 "Stephen E. Hansen" <hansen@Sierra.Stanford.EDU> wrote...

>Subject: Changes at the Archives

>

>Over the holidays I spent some time reorganizing the Homebrew Archives

>at Sierra.Stanford.EDU.  The first change that you will notice is that

>almost all files have been placed in subdirectories such as "docs",

>"programs", "digests", etc.  The most significant change however is

>that the issues of the Hombrew Digest are now stored as individual

>files rather than shar files or tar files.  The Digest index files now

>cover a whole year and the index for the current year is updated with

>each new issue.  New issues will also be placed directly in the

>appropriate subdirectory (i.e. digests/1933) as they are received.

>

>SNIP<

>

>Those of you who don't follow the rec.crafts.brewing newsgroup might

>be interested in the contents of the "images" directory.  It currently

>has about 70 files containing pictures of various beer labels and

>coasters in GIF and JPEG format.

>

>Stephen Hansen

>homebrewer, archivist

>

>------------------------------------------------------------------------

 >Stephen E. Hansen - hansen@sierra.Stanford.EDU  | "The church is near,

 >Electrical Engineering Computer Facility        |  but the road is icy.

 >Applied Electronics Laboratory, Room 218        |  The bar is far away,

 >Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4055    |  but I will walk carefully."

 >Phone: +1-415-723-1058   Fax: +1-415-725-7298   |      -- Russian Proverb

>------------------------------------------------------------------------

- -----AND-------------------------

In HBD#1057 ogilvie@ficc.ferranti.com (jim ogilvie) asks....

>Subject: Please help me convert mg/L to ppm

>I recently reqested and recevied a report from my water suplier

>listing all the junk in my tap water.

 >SNIP<

>can I read that as being pretty close to parts-per-million?

 >SNIPSNIP<

YUP...

mg/l and ppm are _exactly_ the same.

Also... 1 ppm = 0.058 grains/US gallon  or  1 grain/US gallon = 17.1 ppm

>Jim          (ogilvie@ferranti.com)

While we are back to nasties in water, I looked up some MCL (Maximum

Contaminant Level) for some of the goobers found in tap water that may

apply to us.  These numbers are per the 1986 version of the EPA's Safe

Drinking Water Act...so they must be "safe"...right ;)

They are listed in ppm or mg/l...take your pick.

Pollutant MCL

- --------- ---

Arsenic  0.05

Chloride 250.0

Copper  1.0

Cyanide  0.01

Fluoride 1.4 to 2.4

Iron  0.3 (>0.3 makes water red)

Lead  0.05

Manganese 0.05 (>0.1 forms brown-black stain)

Mercury  0.002

Nitrate  45.0

Sulfate (SO4) 250.0 (>500 has a laxative effect)

The list gets pretty extensive..these were the ones that looked usefull.

If you want others, post or send me email...

Most people cannot tolerate drinking water that exceeds 300 ppm carbonate,

or 1500 ppm chloride, or 2000 ppm sulphate.

NOTE: According to my reference "Exposures over safe limits can result

in a variety of serious health problems ranging from liver and kidney damage,

high cancer risk, nervous system disorders, skin discoloration, hypertension,

an a variety of others."

Not to scare anyone away from brewing...i just get dangerous with a reference

book sometimes...sorry

Todd

unix systems scapegoat

Downers Grove, IL.

todd@rtsg.mot.com

  /--------------------------------------------------------------------------/

 / -rwxr-xr-x   1 todd      employer  69   Feb 10 1958  OPINIONS              /

 / lrwxrwxrwx   1 employer  other     9    Jan 01 1970  OPINIONS -> /dev/null /

  /--------------------------------------------------------------------------/

------------------------------


1) right yeast for Barleywine? 2) Priming with malt extract?

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 11:55:09 +0100

From: steve_T@fleurie.compass.fr (Steven Tollefsrud)

Subject: 1) right yeast for Barleywine? 2) Priming with malt extract?

I plan to make a Barleywine soon. I have two recipes. One calls for

champagne yeast because it will survive above the levels of alcohol

which would normally kill off regular lager or ale yeasts. The second

recipe calls for lager yeast?! I am afraid of compromising the taste

of the "beer" by using champagne yeast (is this a valid concern?).

On the other hand, I don't want to have a sickly sweet, half fermented

Barleywine because the alcohol level killed the lager yeast.

Has anybody out there got any experience with this? Is the recipe calling

for lager yeast incorrect? What about fermenting it with the lager yeast

and then adding the champagne yeast when the lager yeast dies? (a sort of

compromise intending to benefit from the qualities of both)

I recently experimented with adding refined table sugar to a lager batch

(approximately 70% malt extract to 30% sugar) to see how it would affect

the taste. The result was lighter bodied, well carbonated, with an

unpleasant cidery aftertaste. Now I want to avoid using sugar at all,

even for priming. In order to make a completely sugar free, all malt

lager, I would like to try priming with dried malt extract. Should I

use the same quantites of malt extract as I would with sugar? One homebrew

guide I have says to prime until the specific gravity increases by .005.

Won't it be necessary to use more dried malt extract because of the

unfermentables?

Steve Tollefsrud

Valbonne, France

e-mail: steve_T@fleurie.compass.fr

------------------------------


BEST iodine (idophor?)

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 09:53:33 EST

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: BEST iodine (idophor?)

A teaspoon (t) is 5ml.  A tablespoon (T) is 15ml. A fluid oz is 2T or

6t or 30ml. (Well, 29.6, actually.)

=S

------------------------------


stuck fermentation?

Date:    Tue, 19 Jan 93 09:41 CST

From: XLPSJGN%LUCCPUA.bitnet@UICVM.UIC.EDU

Subject: stuck fermentation?

Dear Brewers,

I have a quick question.  I had such success with Papezian's recipe

for Propensity Lager last year that I decided last week to give it

another go.  It is delicious stuff!!  However, I think I might be

experiencing my first stuck fermentation.  I'm storing the brew in

my pantry at about 47F constant (I leave the window cracked open

and the door shut to help cool the room).  I'm using a blow-

off method (again), but this time I'm using liquid yeast.  I've used

liquid ale yeasts before and have had good beers, but this is my

first try with liquid lagers.

I used Wyeast liquid lager (pilsen), and all was going gang-

busters within 12 hrs of bursting the inside package of the yeast packet

It had swelled almost to the point of bursting itself.  I made a

batch of starter that night, and watched as that too grew vigorously -

the smell was (for brewers anyway) heavenly!  Then, after brewing the

wort according to the recipe, I cooled the brew and pitched the yeast.

That was almost two days ago, and as yet, there seems to be no action

through the blow off tube...Not even a kreusen yet.  However, the beer

does seem to be clearing (is it settling too soon?).

So my question(s) is/are: is it too soon to tell if the brew is stuck?

And, if it is stuck, how can I nudge it along? Could the temperature

be responsible for the (apparently) slow start?  If so, should I try

closing the window, opening the door, and warming the pantry/

lagering closet up a bit??

Thanx, and Cheers!

John

(ps to Jcusick@luccpua - lost yer number, but saved you a Christmas

Ale!! 'Twas the season - 'tiz the last (brew, anyway).  Call me or

"E" me.  Will try you @ Micro soon. - jn

------------------------------


Hop question?

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 10:37 EST

From: "C. Lyons / Raytheon-ADC / Andover, MA" <LYONS@adc3.adc.ray.com>

Subject: Hop question?

Some time back I saw a similar question, but never read a reply.

When adding boiling hops, does the selection of the type of

hop (Kent Goldings, Northern Brewer, Cascade, etc.) make any

difference on the final taste profile?  I am wondering if I only

need to be concerned about getting the number of IBUs correct, or if it

is significant to get the correct number of IBUs from a particular hop when

attempting to duplicate recipes/styles.  I understand that hops

added for flavor and aroma do give the beer destinct characteristics,

but I am curious if anyone believes that the boiling hops do?

                                        Christopher Lyons

                                        LYONS@ADC3.ADC.RAY.COM

------------------------------


Re: Phil's Phalse Bottom

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1993 11:39:55 EST

From: Jay Hersh <hersh@expo.lcs.mit.edu>

Subject: Re: Phil's Phalse Bottom

>When used this way this false bottom works reasonably well and is a cheap way

>to quickly convert an Igloo-type cooler to an insulated lauter-tun (though

>there are other even cheaper ways of doing this that aren't much more work).  I

>think that it certainly superior to the  grain bag/vegetable steamer combo

>commonly used by many homebrewers.

Well Steve I have to take exception here. My grain bag and copper coil works

wonderfully. In fact I get excvellent flow, never a stuck sparge, and it worked

great the first time. While I don't doubt that you have now gotten your Phil's

to work well I don't think your claims of "superior"ity are founded....

Maybe we need to have a Mash Off to duke this out :-)...

 JaH

------------------------------


Teaspoons to milliliters

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 12:41 EST

From: hjl@gummo.att.com

Subject: Teaspoons to milliliters

3t=T

2T=one ounce liquid measure

32 ounces=1 quart

1 quart x 1.06=1 liter

1 liter/1000=milliliters

So 1 teaspoon = 4.91 ml. (most sources use 5)

Hank Luer

------------------------------


Re: Natural Keg Carbonation: Haddad Replies

Date:         19 Jan 93 12:45:20 EDT

From: "Robert Haddad"  <RHADDAD@bss1.umd.edu>

Subject:      Re: Natural Keg Carbonation: Haddad Replies

On Monday Jan 18, Bruce Mueller wrote:

> In digest #1003, Robert Haddad said

> 1/2 cup of corn sugar gave him about 25 psi at serving time.  Unless

> he kegs much differently than I do, there would be very little

> headspace in the keg...

> ... I'm very satisfied with Robert's empirical evidence.

Then, after second thought, Bruce adds:

> In a 5 gal. container, assuming all the CO2 dissolves, 1/2

> cup yields 16 psi and 3/4 cup only 24 psi.  Well, my fear was

> unfounded regarding this higher priming level.  However, I bet the

> beer would initially gush pretty good with the latter pressure

> behind it.

> Robert Haddad overestimated his pressure by about 55% way back in

> HBD#1003.

Well, Bruce, I must say that quoting me in such a scientific exchange

did lots for my ego, even to show that I may have goofed, and, I hope,

this will be taken into consideration when my tenure review takes

place... :)

However, I stand by my original reading of about 25lbs of CO2 because

something was omitted in the midst of all these numbers, namely that

I pumped some 10lbs of CO2 in the keg at priming time to ensure an

adequate seal (which, according to your numbers would make sense,

16lbs with 1/2 cup of glucose, plus some 10lbs for good seal)

Anyway, on another note, perhaps you or someone else on the line can

explain to me why my "Pilsner Urquell" (Cats Meow2, Don McDaniel),

which has been at 50 deg for 70 days, still registers a gravity of

about 1.020 (down from 1.050). Does this qualify as stuck

fermentation? Should I keg as is, with no priming, and hope that

fermentation will continue during lagering? What if I want to bottle

some (I have 20 gals of the stuff!).

Thanks,

Robert Haddad

------------------------------


Windsor, Nottingham Ale yeasts

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1993 12:51:00 +0000

From: "Bill (W.R.) Crick" <heybc@bnr.ca>

Subject: Windsor, Nottingham Ale yeasts

I recently tried both Windsor, and Nottingham Dry Ale yeasts

made, or marketted by Leuve in Canada.

Nottingham: Pitch from a distance;-) Very fast to create a krausen

            and needed blowoff tube 6 hours after pitching

            hydrated yeast. Quick fermentation at 62F

Windsor: Not a quick as the Nottingham.

         FG ENDED UP 1.020!!! NO reason for this other than the

         yeast?

         A friend mentioned he had a very different recipe than

         mine end at1.020 as well using this yeast.

- ----->?  Has anyone else noticed this about this yeast?

         Definite bannana smell at racking.

Bill Crick  -> Brewius, Ergo Sum!

Disclaimer: These are my opinion, not those of either BNR, ot NT.

------------------------------


priming sugar and head retention

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1993 11:41:47 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: priming sugar and head retention

I've been having difficulty in getting a good head on my beers.  I can

generate a reasonable one by pouring "forcefully" but this tends to make the

rest of the glass somewhat flat.  Is the standard 3/4 cup supposed to be able

to generate a good head and also preserve good carbonation in what remains?

One 3 gallon batch I made I inadvertently put in 3/4 cup which translates to

1.25 cups for 5 gallons.  That batch has PLENTY of head- too much, but it gave

me the idea of increasing priming.  What are thoughts about increasing priming

to around 1 cup?  This should generate plenty of CO2 for head forming, but is

this heresy?

 Peter

------------------------------


Brews Paper, Sparging

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 09:50 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Brews Paper, Sparging

 Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 10:06:09 EST

 From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

 >Anyone seen a paper calle The Brews Paper?

 Yes.  It's great fun to read.  Sort of like Rush Limbau on home brewing.

 I loved his interview with Clinton....

 What are your plans for personal brewing?

     I'd like to try something with flowers.

 Something like dandelion wine?

     No.  Genifer.  She's a great little bottle washer

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >At least two brewer's have suggested using very hot boiling or

 almost boiling water for sparging.

 Just for the record, and to clarify MY current view, I suggest using

 whaterver temperature it takes to get the proper (see below) temp in the

 grain bed.

 >  Could it be that we don't want the grain bed during the sparge to

    be *AT* 170F, rather we want the *sparge water* to be at 170F and

    we should let the grain bed (in an insulated tun) settle at whatever

    temperature it wants?  Can someone who has "Brewing and Malting

    Science" please look this up?  Darryl, what sparge temp is used for

    Pilsner Urquell?

 >Comments?

 Excellent food for thought.  My guess is that the number is a "momily" based

 on some particular system that has since been chipped in stone and followed

 blindly.

 What is "proper" for a commercial sized batch is not likely to be the same

 for a ten gallon kettle and certainly not the same for an insulated vessel.

 We need a number for the actual mash, based on chemestry and how we get there

 is our own responsiblity.   Perhpas we can even put an end to the flame fests

 everytime someone uses boil and sparge in the same sentence.

 Just as an aside, I make my sparge water as I use it in a small boiler, fed

 directly from the tap.  It runs out of the boiler, and falls into the lauter

 tun.  The temperature loss in my system is a hidden blessing because it

 allows me to boil off the chlorine at a higher temp.

 >From: arthur@chiba.esd.sgi.com (Arthur Evans)

 > in one of the Zymurgy special issues (I think it's the "gadgets" issue)

 has instructions for building a "mini-jockey-box."

 Just a point of caution on "jockey boxes".  First of all, they probably are

 more efficient than a cold plate for continuous use because of the amount of

 beer in the tubing.  However, for the occasional glass, all that beer in the

 the copper tubing, is beer you probably do not want to drink if it has sat

 there for a day or more.  You will have to dump a glass or two to flush the

 system and that simply would not do.

 The cold plate has very thin and much less tubing along with a good aluminum

 heat sink to increase the efficiency.  The one I have only holds an ounce or

 so of beer and the tubing is stainless.  It is much better suited for casual

 and occasional use.

 js

If I posted this already, file it under too much aluminum....

jjs

 ~.

------------------------------


RE: decoction mashing

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 16:54:16 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: decoction mashing

Hi All,

  In HBD #1058, C.V.Copas writes:

 ...Regarding the

problem of extracting unconverted starch during sparging, I am wondering how

significant this is in practice. When one considers that the brew will ferment

for 1-2 weeks, then condition for at least another 3 weeks, it is worth

considering how much starch will actually remain in suspension by the time of

serving. My gut feel is that protein and glucan hazes are much more enduring.

  IMHO, anytime starch makes it into the wort, either through incomplete

conversion or extraction during sparging, it's a significant problem.

It's not so much the aesthetics of the haze itself, but that beers with a

starch haze taste slightly infected.  I confess to brewing a couple of

beers that had this problem while transitioning to all grain brewing,

and the off-flavor got worse over time, not better.  I've since tasted

other brewer's beers that had this problem, same slightly infected taste.

It seems to be a common problem among beginning grain brewers who are

trying to learn to mash and sparge properly.

  In a typical scenario, a brewer will pitch a large quantity of yeast,

which multiplies and quickly metabolizes sugars in the wort, preventing

any bacteria that is present from getting established and causing flavor

problems.  Is it possible that the presence of starch in the wort provides

a growth medium for bacteria that would otherwise have none?  I have no

background in microbiology, so I'm not qualified to answer that question

definitively.  Perhaps others who are would care to comment?

                                   Cheers,

                                     Jim

------------------------------


100% munich malt

Date: 19 Jan 1993 16:39:49 -0500

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel.F.McConnell@med.umich.edu>

Subject: 100% munich malt

                       Subject:                               Time:4:32 PM

  OFFICE MEMO          100% munich malt                       Date:1/19/93

Regarding the 100% munich malt question:

A friend of mine (Jeff Renner-used with permission) recently made a 100% munich

malt brew for a male-bonding-TV-football-saturday.  Ohio State vs Michigan.  It

was made intentionally low in gravity (but not in flavor) so they could drink

it all afternoon.  The target beer was a Munich style dark beer.  There were no

problems in the mashing or conversion, perhaps because this was only 10L malt

and plenty of enzymes were available.

For 7.5 gal:

10 lb Ireks Munich malt (10L)

mash in with 8 qts H2O at 65C to rest at 55C--30 min

raise with 3 qts boiling H2O and heating to 67C--85 min

remove thinnest third, boil and add back to rest at 75C--10 min

sparge to collect 8 gal

boil 90 min

1st Hop addition-42 gr (3.8%) Hallertauer pellets-90 min

2nd hop addition-10 gr (3.8%) Hallertauer pellets-20 min

3rd hop addition-10 gr (3.8%) Hallertauer pellets-0 min

Ferment with Bavarian Lager yeast at 60F--14 days

2ndary at 33F-- 22 days

OG=1.040  TG=1.012

This turned out to be very good, with nice, light malty sweetness, but

certainly NOT the *Munich* style as was expected.  I'm sorry I missed the

party, but at least some was left over in the keg.

DanMcC

------------------------------


History of "33" in brewing?

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 15:43:37 PST

From: Ted Barber <tbarber@ampex.com>

Subject: History of "33" in brewing?

Howdy,

While designing the label for our latest and gratest Alt Beer my friend and

I got into a twist about the requirement for a "33" somewhere on the bottle.

Where did the "33" come from and why is it used throughout the world on beer

labels.  As examples:  33 Export of France, Rolling Rock of the U.S., and

Bom d bom of Viet Nam.  One suggesting was that they all shared a common

recipes.  Any brew historians out there with the "real" story of the "33".

Thanks,

Ted Barber

TBARBER@Ampex.Com

------------------------------


Yeast nutrient

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 19:25:31 EST

From: fawcett%iron@cs.umass.edu

Subject: Yeast nutrient

This is probably a FAQ, but what is in yeast nutrient?  I bought some of it a

few months ago for a stuck fermentation.  The bottle says FERMAX but doesn't

list the ingredient(s).  Is this an enzyme?  Papazian has a short section on

yeast nutrients but doesn't say what they are.

 -Tom

------------------------------


Re: Trivia

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1993 17:05:19 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: Trivia

Found this in the 12/15/88 HBD:

>Date: Thu, 15 Dec 88 12:17:48 MST

>From: hpfcla!hpcea!hplabs!utah-cs!iwtsf!korz (Algis R Korzonas +1 312 979 8583)

>Full-Name:

>Subject: Trivia

>

>Trivia question:

>

>Which Beatles song refers to homebrewing?

I searched and searched, but never found the answer!

Well?

have fun

gak

------------------------------


Hops & Hepatitis; Polenta

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 01:00 GMT

From: "Stephen G. Pimentel" <0004876702@mcimail.com>

Subject: Hops & Hepatitis; Polenta

I just read an article that said that research (they cited

the Annals of Internal Medicine) seemed to suggest that

various herbs (valerian, asafetida, HOPS, chaparral leaf,

gentian, etc.) were implicated in causing hepatitis. They

specifically mention that germander seemed to have

caused the ill in several people who were taking it for

weight loss.  Germander is sometimes used to flavor

beer.  Should we be worried? Is our consumption of

whatever it is that may be in hops too low to matter? Or

is this just allopathic propaganda?

Also someone a while back posted their recipe for

polenta.  As I can't access the archive, could that person

send the recipe to me; I thought I'd snagged it, but I

didn't.

spimentel@mcimail.com

------------------------------


using steel cut oats in stout

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 14:54:08 MST

From: Brian.Smithey@Central.Sun.COM (Brian Smithey)

Subject: using steel cut oats in stout

Hi,

I'm getting ready to do an oatmeal stout, and I'm planning on using

steel cut oats rather than rolled ("Quaker") oats.  I was planning

on cooking the oats before adding them to the mash, figuring that

the cut oats would require gelatinization prior to mashing.

However, when looking through "Cat's Meow" for inspiration (and to

take another look at Jay Hersh's great steel cut oat experiments),

I didn't find any mention of cut oats being cooked, but rather

recipes that implied adding the raw cut oats directly to the mash.

I'd like to hear any experiences with using steel cut oats in an

all-grain brew -- whether you cooked or not, how much you used,

how the beer turned out, etc.

Thanks,

Brian

- --

Brian Smithey / Sun Microsystems / Colorado Springs, CO

smithey@rmtc.Central.Sun.COM

------------------------------


Query

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 19:22:23 PST

From: Mike Leclere <msl@orca.rose.hp.com>

Subject: Query

Stephen,

I received the following kind reply to my query on HBD about the gif

files of beer logos, etc...

- ---------------------------------


Changes at the Archives

Date: Tue, 05 Jan 93 16:37:57 -0800

From: "Stephen E. Hansen" <hansen@Sierra.Stanford.EDU>

Subject: Changes at the Archives

Over the holidays I spent some time reorganizing the Homebrew Archives

at Sierra.Stanford.EDU.  The first change that you will notice is that

 ...

Those of you who don't follow the rec.crafts.brewing newsgroup might

be interested in the contents of the "images" directory.  It currently

has about 70 files containing pictures of various beer labels and

coasters in GIF and JPEG format.

Stephen Hansen

homebrewer, archivist

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unfortunately, I cannot seem to access them via the listserver.  Am I doing

something wrong?  I have tried e-mail of the following line:

index /pub/homebrew/images

I wanted to get at listing of what was there, but no luck.  All I get back

is the main index listing.  Any suggestions?

Mike

PS:  Sorry to take your time on this.  If this is out of order, please let

me know.

------------------------------


Questions about mashing, sweet finishes, clean burners, etc.

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 23:57:32 -0500

From: cook@uars.DNET.NASA.GOV (Chris Cook, NMOS Quality Engineer - (301)386-7807)

Subject: Questions about mashing, sweet finishes, clean burners, etc.

All right, I have a few quick questions.  Or maybe not so quick...

  1) In Greg Noonan's book "Brewing Lager Beer," he describes decoction

     mashes using phrases like "...draw off the thickest third of the

     mash..."  Look, after all the stirring he describes, isn't the mash

     pretty uniform?  Could someone who does this describe what the

     "thickest" or thinnest part is, and how you draw it off?

  2) After tasting Thomas Hardy's Ale, Royal Oak Pale Ale, Samuel Smith's

     Oatmeal Stout and others, I've fallen in love with these beer's sweet

     finishes.  How do they do it?  Is this simply a result of mashing

     temperatures, or are we talking artifice here?  Thinking minds want to

     know.

  3) I have one of those Mount Saint Helens jet propane burners.  It roars,

     jets, flames up high and almost completely contaminates every pot and

     pot resting place I own every time I brew.  Does anyone have any tricks

     for making the thing burn cleaner so that it makes less soot?  I

     remember the thread a few months ago about containing the flame around

     the pot, but I'm talking about avoiding the soot factor.  I know the

     signs of an inefficient burn when I see them.

  4) Oh, and finally, is everyone being honest with their grain extraction

     rates?  I realize the pressure to talk up your extraction points and

     all, but are we talking reality here?

That's enough for now.  I'll add more information as I learn.

Chris Cook

cook@uars.dnet.nasa.gov

------------------------------


compiling new list

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 02:20 EST

From: Carlo Fusco <G1400023@NICKEL.LAURENTIAN.CA>

Subject: compiling new list

Ok, I'm getting tired of hearing the question about where to find a good

brew in city X. I have decided to be the coordinator of a list that will

finally tell people where to go in which city. I am hoping to produce

this list so that it is accessable as a FAQ. [who can tell me where to

send the final list for achiving to.I would also like to update my list

about brewing online but I don't know where to send this list to, or

how to archive it....any ideas?]

The way I see it, this list will be a update to the "publist" found in

HBD. If you wish to submit entries into this list please send them to

me. I would like the entries to be in the following format:

Country, City

Name of establishment, what is it? [eg. restraunt, brewpub, bar, etc]

street address and phone number, if possible.

 why should I go there?--eg. it has 1 million beers on tap

 [keep this to 4 lines or less]

I think this should take several weeks to compile but I a willing to do

the work.[In other words, don't look for the list for at least a month]

Remeber, tell your friends...afterall we all have a different idea of

how good a place is.

Send submissions to G1400023@nickel.laurentian.ca

And a special request to all those Canadians out there, send your entries

in so I know where to go when I visit your hometown...Heck, I may even

call you to join me.

Carlo Fusco

g1400023@nickel.laurentian.ca

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1059, 01/20/93

*************************************

-------


Kegging.

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 21:47:16 +1030

From: Murray Robinson <robinm@mrd.dsto.gov.au>

Subject: Kegging.

I've finally gone and bought my self all the bits and pieces

(mostly second hand)  I need for a draught beer system. ie:

 Cornellius Keg with screw top.

 Disconnect fittings

 Tubing

 Tap suitable for through fridge wall mounting

 Regulator

 Chest freezer.

 COST: $135 Australian.

The Gas bottle I rent at $4 per month.

What I now need to know is the correct procedure for using it. This is

what I had in mind so please let me know any problems, improvements, etc

you can think of.

1) Sterilise Keg, fittings, lines, tap etc.

2) Purge keg of all air by sealing the lid, turning gas cylinder on, connecting

the gas line from the gas cylinder and pressurising to 15 psi. Purge CO2/O2 mixture

via the safety valve. Repeat.

3) Turn gas cylinder off and release all pressure in the keg via the safety valve.

Open the lid of the keg, and gently fill the keg with beer to within 2-3 inches of

the top of the keg.

4) Reseal keg, turn gas cylinder on and pressurise to 15 psi. Purge any remaining O2

in the keg using the method described in (2).

5) Pressurise the keg to 25 psi and place in a cold fridge for a day or so.

6) Remove keg from fridge and roll it vigorously to disolve the CO2 into the beer.

Replace keg in the fridge.

7) When ready to serve beer, bleed excess pressure from keg and connect gas line set a

about 7 psi to push beer from the keg.

Any comments?

P.S. I have allready replaced the rubber O Rings and seals on the keg.

Cheers and Beers,

Murray.

------------------------------


sweetness of products in wine/cider/beer

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 13:56:33 +0100

From: Victor Reijs <Victor.Reijs@SURFnet.nl>

Subject: sweetness of products in wine/cider/beer

Hello all of you,

I am looking for information on what the perceived sweetness (compared to

sucrose) is for some products which are present in wine/cider (and perhaps also

in beers). I am thinking of products like:

 - alcohol (in the range of 4 to 15 % vol.)

 - glycerol (in the range of 0 - 20 gr/litre)

I have some ideas about the sweetness of other products (like glucose, lactose and

maltose). Perhaps other people have even more information on other products (not

mentioned).

Because sweetness is not a linair scale, I have putten some info of the

concentrations of the products. So if there is some info about this non-linair

process, I am also very interested.

Hope somebody can help or point me to some articles/papers.

All the best,

Victor

------------------------------


kudos & gripes

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 08:07:45 EST

From: mlobo@sentry.foxboro.com (Michael T. Lobo)

Subject: kudos & gripes

First I want to thank Stephen Hansen for the new structure of the HBD archive

structure..very practical & quite easy to use..

On that note, I want to ask that we all get in the habit of being more specific

in our _Subject_ comments.  In the archive indexes, this is all we see, and when

the topic is _re:HBD ***_, it makes for a useless entry.  I have been guilty of

this in the past, but since using the archives, I see the reason others have

complained in the past.

later,

Michael T. Lobo   508 549 2487

Foxboro Co.

mlobo@foxboro.com  "I Love beer, beer loves me; when I drink too much,

my beer speaks for me" -Monty

------------------------------


Re: Phil's Phalse bottom

Date: 20 Jan 1993 08:27:01 -0500 (EST)

From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

Subject: Re: Phil's Phalse bottom

IN HBD # 1058 I said, in regard to Phil's Phalse Bottom:

>>it certainly is superior to the  grain bag/vegetable steamer combo

                                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

and Jay Hersh replied:

>My grain bag and copper coil works wonderfully.

                  ~~~~~~~~~~~

Jay,

Note that I never mentioned a copper coil.  I was specifically referring to the

vegetable steamer commonly used by many brewers.  This setup requires the use

of a grain bag because the steamer doesn't fit tightly in the bottom of the

cooler.  There is also quite a bit of dead space associated with the steamer.

I have looked at your copper coil setup and am sure that it works as well or

better than PPB.  However, PPB is an off the shelf item that takes about 2

seconds to install :-), an advantage for some people.  I still doubt that you

need to use the grain bag with your setup, though it probably does make cleanup

easier.

Steve Stroud

------------------------------


Re: Trivia

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 8:55:45 CST

From: guy@mspe5.b11.ingr.com (Guy D. McConnell)

Subject: Re: Trivia

Richard Stueven writes:

>Found this in the 12/15/88 HBD:

>

>>Date: Thu, 15 Dec 88 12:17:48 MST

>>From: hpfcla!hpcea!hplabs!utah-cs!iwtsf!korz (Algis R Korzonas +1 312 979 8583)

>>Full-Name:

>>Subject: Trivia

>>

>>Trivia question:

>>

>>Which Beatles song refers to homebrewing?

>

>I searched and searched, but never found the answer!

>

>Well?

    The only one that leaps to mind is "Rock and Roll Music" with the line

"drinking homebrew from a wooden cup" (a song snippet I occasionally use in my

 .sig file) but that is actually a Beatles cover of a *Chuck Berry* song.

- --

Guy McConnell  guy@mspe5.b11.ingr.com  or  ...uunet!ingr!b11!mspe5!guy

    "All I need is a pint a day"

------------------------------


Goodies for the TechnoBrewer

Date:         Wed, 20 Jan 93 10:09:54 EST

From: Tom Dimock <RGG@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu>

Subject:      Goodies for the TechnoBrewer

The January catalog from American Science & Surplus (601 Linden Place,

Evanston, IL 60202) has a couple of goodies which might be useful to

you technically inclined brewers out there.  On page 27, they have a

small Bunsen Burner that is jetted for use with propane for $4.75.  Just

the thing for flaming those loops, etc.  Second, on page 20 they have

0-15 PSI pressure guages for $3.00 each.  These should be just the

ticket for use on CO2 lines, counter-pressure bottlers, etc.

I have no connection with AS&S other than as a satisfied customer

etc. blah blah blah.  Their catalog is a hoot, and useful stuff can

be found in most copies.

------------------------------


Brews Paper / Grain mill rollers

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 07:48:34 MST

From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

Subject: Brews Paper / Grain mill rollers

Ulick and Jack commented on the Brews Paper.  I think this thing is a piece

of junk.  I'm not sure why I received their first issue, but I guess it has

something to do with my subscription to Zymurgy.  Anyway, there are soooooo

many typos in the thing, I started to believe they were there on purpose. On

the front cover they have a quote something like: "We ain't too serious".

When I saw it at first I thought it was a good thing.  After reading the BP

cover to cover, I decided they need to be a bit more serious.  The writing

was at a junior high school conversational level, to boot.  If any BP folks

are reading this digest, I suggest you work on issue #2 a little longer

before it goes to press.  Sorry for the long tirade but bad "journalism" bugs

me...  (On a lighter note, I _did_ enjoy the jokes, etc.)

Roller mill rollers:  anyone have any good sources?  I have a wonderful

little homemade roller mill, but the rollers are a weak point.  One good

suggestion I received was conveyor belt rollers from a junk yard, but I

thought I'd solicit more suggestions here.

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


Priming.

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 08:55 EST

From: "C. Lyons / Raytheon-ADC / Andover, MA" <LYONS@adc3.adc.ray.com>

Subject: Priming.

> I've been having difficulty in getting a good head on my beers.  I can

> generate a reasonable one by pouring "forcefully" but this tends to make the

> rest of the glass somewhat flat.  Is the standard 3/4 cup supposed to be able

> to generate a good head and also preserve good carbonation in what remains?

>

> One 3 gallon batch I made I inadvertently put in 3/4 cup which translates to

> 1.25 cups for 5 gallons.  That batch has PLENTY of head- too much, but it gave

> me the idea of increasing priming.  What are thoughts about increasing priming

> to around 1 cup?  This should generate plenty of CO2 for head forming, but is

> this heresy?

I too was unhappy with the level of carbonation when using 3/4 cup

of corn sugar for priming.  I have experimented with priming and

find that I am most happy when using 1 cup of priming sugar for a

5 gallon batch.  I believe this is a matter of taste, I

personally enjoy the carbonation I get from 1 cup, and find 3/4

too little and 1.25 too much.

I have also experimented with the addition of sweet-n'-low during

bottling.  I use dry yeasts, and decided to try David Line's

suggestion (p. 21, Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy, "However if

you can only get home brew beer yeasts instead of the recommended

commercial 'Brewer's Yeast' the flavour balance can be acceptably

restored by adding five saccharin tablets").  I have found that 10

packages of sweet-n'definitely adds too much sweetness (more is

not better, in this case).  I have also experimented with five

packages of sweet-n'-low and believe this to be my best batch

yet.  Many people have enjoyed this ale, and I found that this

batch disappeared quickly (leaving me with three earlier

batches).  Even with 5 packages of sweet-n'-low the sweetness

could be lowered slightly.  Next I will try 4 packages.  Has

anyone else using dry yeasts expermented with artificial

sweetners?  If so, I'd be interested in hearing your comments.

Christopher Lyons

------------------------------


Answers

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 10:37:35 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Answers

In hbd1059 Chris Cooke asks a numer of questions.

re: decoctions, there are several ways to remove thick or thin decoctions.

I personally, use a sieve to remove a thick decoction, and a small pot

as a large ladle to remove thin decoction.  I have one comment in

general about dections.  I have found that I need much larger decoctions

than Noonan recommends for reaching strike temperatures.  This is probably

because I mash in a 7gallon Gott that has a large heat capacity, itself.

I typically in a 2 decoction mash remove a 50% thich decoction to raise from

protein rest to saccarification, and if the strike temperature is

particularily high will usually need to add more boiling water.  I may

use 60% for the lauter decoction.

re, burner - if there is soot, the mixture if obviously too rich.  Tweak

down your gas flow if you can.

re extraction rates.  My last batch was 3lb Munich, 6lb 2-row lager, and

1lb 6row CaraPils.  I got 12B in 6+gallons.  That is about 29 sg points.

Just a data point.

js praises The Brews Paper.  I personally think it is not that great (well OK

for nothing - but personlly I think the $15 annual subscription could be

better spent on Imported hops or something).  It should be noted that

js is not an unbiased observer as the publication carries advertisments

for his products.  Incidentally, does anyone know who is responsible for

the ads in Zymurgy selling Coronas with the statement that it is better

than the js rollermill (someone in St. Louis)?

re: slow yeast, I have a similar problem (I can't rmember who posted the

note).  I pitched a batcj of Vienna lager with a yeast (Wyeast Bavarian)

that I had used several times before and washed in acidified Ammonium

persulphate.  I then fermented the sludge out twice with a rather

stodgy 1020 wort prepared from low quality DME, but the second ferment seemed

resonable.  I then pitched it into 6 gallons of wort chilled to 40F and

left it for 6 hours at 40F to settle.  I then racked off the trub.  However,

I am sure I left most of the yeast behind as I doubt if much managed to

get into the wort well at 40F for 6 hours.  It is now been 60 hours+ at

around 48-50F, without any real visible fermentation.  I am not worried

yet, considering my problem to be mainly due to a low cell count, and

it will eventually hit krausen, but should I be??? Comments.

Ulick Stafford

------------------------------


bottle sediment, "partial d

Date: 20 Jan 1993 10:48:07 -0500

From: Chris McDermott <mcdermott@draper.com>

Subject: bottle sediment, "partial d

 bottle sediment, "partial decoction"

 Since going all-grain, I've developed a problem with

sedimentation in my bottled beers. The beers are crystal clear, but

have a layer of loosely associated sediment at the  bottom that's

about 1cm thick.  I don't think that this is yeast, but I'm not

sure what it is.  Has anyone experienced the same problem, and if

so what causes it?

 I've really enjoyed the recent thread on decoction.  Noonan's

book is a great resource, but its self-contradiction disturbs me a

little. So, this additional discussion helps to sooth my nerves a

bit.

 Anyway, my mashing method, which I dub "partial decoction", is

infusion in a 40 qt. Gott-Mash/Lauter-Tun. Hot water is added to

reach the protein rest temperature. Boiling water is added to reach

the sachrifictation temperature. And then the _thinnest_ 3rd of the

mash is removed, boiled, and returned to reach the mash out

temperature. Is this method standard among a subset of us masher,

or am I and a few others (see Daniel F McConnell's post in

HbD#1059) all alone out there? If there are others, I'd like to

hear about your experiences with this M.O.

_

"Less talk; more synthale" - Worf from STTNG

_

Christopher K. McDermott                  Internet:  mcdermott@draper.com

C.S. Draper Laboratory, Inc.              Voice:     (617) 258-2362

555 Technology Square                     FAX:       (617) 258-1131

Cambridge, MA 02149 (USA)

------------------------------


Re: yeast, Windsor Ale; Wyeast lager

Date:        Wed, 20 Jan 93 11:16:27 EST

From: CW06GST <CW06GST%SJUMUSIC.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

Subject: Re: yeast, Windsor Ale; Wyeast lager

     In the last exciting episode of Homebrew Digest (#1059),

Bill Crick mentions Windsor Ale Yeast.  Recently, I brewed a

Christmas ale using this yeast with satisfactory results:

                  INFAMOUS CHRISTMAS GLO:GG BEER

5# LIGHT AMERICAN MALT EXTRACT SYRUP

2# LIGHT CLOVER HONEY

1/2 OZ SAAZ HOPS (BOIL)

1/2 OZ SAAZ HOPS (LAST 2 MIN. THEN STEEPED 10 MIN.)

1 25 ML ALCOHOL BASED GLO:GG SPICE

1 package WINDSOR ALE YEAST - REHYDRATED (no starter)

(Glo:gg spice is made up of ginger, cinnamon, cardamom and clove.)

Boiled for 30 minutes.  Cooled to 70 deg. F.  pitched yeast.

Fermentation began within 8 hours.  Finished within 3 days.

OG=1.053

FG=1.008 (after 2 weeks)

This was a very quick and easy recipe; a real plus around the

holidays.  The beer was rather tasty, although the spices were

rather pronounced (covering up any defects if present).  The yeast

was very fast and attenuative.  I have some more of it, so I'll post

the results of that brew.

Also, in the same episode, Steve Tollesfrud had some trouble with

Wyeast lager yeast.  I brewed a batch using the same yeast and had

the same problem.  After pitching I put the fermentor in a

refridgerator at about 45 degrees F.  I had no action for 4 days

and nothing happened until I warmed the wort to 65 degrees.  I

kept it at that temperature until primary fermentation stopped,

and then slowly eased the temperature back down to 45.  Racked

to secondary and kept at 45 deg for 1 month.  Racked to bottling

bucket, and I am now aging in the bottles at same temperature.

     I tasted the beer before bottling and it is quite good.

After bottle conditioning it should be delicious.

     Has anyone else had this problem with Wyeast lager?

Marinated minds want to know.

Erik Zenhausern

------------------------------


Andre Pruitt 8000

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 11:23 EDT

From: Kieran O'Connor <OCONNOR%SNYCORVA.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

Subject: Andre Pruitt 8000

FWIW here's the Andre Pruitt 8000, mashtun and lauter tun set up.

I have finally made an all grain batch and I was trying to make a set

up with a combo lauter and mash tun.

Here's the set up--thanks for the tips from you folks:

Igloo 10 gallon cooler.

Plastic Fermenter

Bottling Spigot

OK--her'es the deal. Origianlly I was oging to hook up a Phil's False

bottom to my cooler and replace the spigot with a 1 inch bottling

bucket valve. My friend, Andre Pruitt, said, forget the false bottom--

use a bottling bucket.

So I drilled a bazillion holes into the bottom of my original plastic

fermenter. I also cut off the first "ring," the first inch or so of

the fermenter.

The I drilled a bazillion holes in the lid also.

Andre drilled the spigot hole to 1 inch--but be careful--dont just use

a wood bit--use the kind which drills a pilot hole first, and put

osmething inside the cooler so the drill wont shake while you drill.

Now--to the brewing:

Put the fermenter into the cooler, and put the grain inside. Mash in.

Then let it mash for the time specified.  To sparge, we put the lid

on top of the fermenter and sparged through the holes.  I'm going to

cut the lid so that it will sit right on top of the grain.

You can alter the speed of the sparge with the bottling bucket valve--

so it was quite nice.

Over the mash--it lost 2 degrees in 50 minutes.

At the end, pull out the bucket, put it into another, and then you

dump the grain!

Volia, the Andre Pruitt 8000 Mash/Lauter Tun.

Comments welcome--suggestions too!

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Addresses:

Bitnet: oconnor@snycorva

Internet: oconnor@snycorva.cortland.edu

------------------------------


RE: HBD 1059

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 11:30:43 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: HBD 1059

Hi All,

  In HBD #1059, Chris Cook asks:

>All right, I have a few quick questions.  Or maybe not so quick...

>  1) In Greg Noonan's book "Brewing Lager Beer," he describes decoction

>     mashes using phrases like "...draw off the thickest third of the

>     mash..."  Look, after all the stirring he describes, isn't the mash

>     pretty uniform?  Could someone who does this describe what the

>     "thickest" or thinnest part is, and how you draw it off?

  Decoctions are generally done after some sort of rest, i.e., acid,

protein, or saccharification, so the mash at these points is not uniform.

The thickest part of the mash is the grist, which tends to settle on the

bottom during rests, the thinnest part is the liquid that's atop the grain.

I use an Igloo cooler to hold saccharification rest temperatures.  For thick

decoctions, I tip the cooler so the liquid runs to one side, and use a small

saucepan to withdraw the grain from the other side.  To achieve mash-out, I

use a thin decoction, scooping the liquid from the top with the same pan.

Not very "high-tech", but effective.

********************************************************

  Also in HBD #1059, Steven Tollefsrud asks:

>I recently experimented with adding refined table sugar to a lager batch

>(approximately 70% malt extract to 30% sugar) to see how it would affect

>the taste. The result was lighter bodied, well carbonated, with an

>unpleasant cidery aftertaste. Now I want to avoid using sugar at all,

>even for priming. In order to make a completely sugar free, all malt

>lager, I would like to try priming with dried malt extract. Should I

>use the same quantites of malt extract as I would with sugar? One homebrew

>guide I have says to prime until the specific gravity increases by .005.

>Won't it be necessary to use more dried malt extract because of the

>unfermentables?

  Yes, I've used 1 to 1 1/4 cups of dried malt extract to prime a 5

gallon batch versus 3/4 cup of corn sugar.  It will also take a week or

so longer to achieve good carbonation.

********************************************************

  Also in HBD #1059, John of the odd looking Bitnet address asks:

>I used Wyeast liquid lager (pilsen), and all was going gang-

>busters within 12 hrs of bursting the inside package of the yeast packet

>It had swelled almost to the point of bursting itself.  I made a

>batch of starter that night, and watched as that too grew vigorously -

>the smell was (for brewers anyway) heavenly!  Then, after brewing the

>wort according to the recipe, I cooled the brew and pitched the yeast.

>That was almost two days ago, and as yet, there seems to be no action

>through the blow off tube...Not even a kreusen yet.  However, the beer

>does seem to be clearing (is it settling too soon?).

>So my question(s) is/are: is it too soon to tell if the brew is stuck?

>And, if it is stuck, how can I nudge it along? Could the temperature

>be responsible for the (apparently) slow start?  If so, should I try

>closing the window, opening the door, and warming the pantry/

>lagering closet up a bit??

  I've experienced fairly long lag times, on the order of 24-30 hours,

when using liquid lager yeast, and pitching when the wort had cooled

to ~50F.  I've managed to cut this down to 12-18 hours by pitching

when the wort is slightly warmer, ~60F, pitching a somewhat larger volume

of starter than for ales, and leaving the primary fermenter in a warmer

place until signs of fermentation are evident.

  I'd say that 47F is a bit too cool for the yeast to get started.  Try

moving the fermenter to a warmer room, or closing the window.  When

fermentation starts, re-open the window, but try to avoid sudden, drastic

temperature swings.  Also, if you decide to pitch your next batch at a

higher temperature, be aware that you'll get a bit more diacetyl in

exchange for the faster start.  Not a major problem, I've managed to

deal with it by utilizing a diacetyl rest.

                                   Cheers,

                                     Jim

------------------------------


gone for a brew

Date: 20 Jan 93 11:58:48 EST

From: Charlie Papazian/Boulder <72210.2754@compuserve.com>

Subject: gone for a brew

Thanks all for sending me notes regarding zymurgy and my new book.  All

comments have been very helpful.  This note is to let you all know that I'll be

on vacation and far far from even thinking about getting on a computer.  I'll

be not checking my e-mail after Thursday a.m., Jan 21 until mid February when I

catch up with all the piles of stuff awaiting me upon return (vacations are

like that).  If you wish to e-mail the American Homebrewers Association or any

other of the Association of Brewers Divisions please e-mail James Spence at

Compuserve:  70740,1107.   Thanks.

Charlie P.

------------------------------


Did tin do me in? (and ruin my beer?)

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 12:25:26 -0500

From: hoodj@gov.on.ca (Jim Hood)

Subject: Did tin do me in? (and ruin my beer?)

My first attempt at all-grain (10th batch overall) produced my first

throw-away batch. There are no visible signs of infection, though

no doubt there are bacteria which are more subtle about their presence.

The beer looks and smells fine. It has a terribly bitter, almost

metallic (though not all tasters agree with this description) aftertaste.

One person commented "It's like you overhopped by an order of

magnitude." I didn't.

The recipe was Tony B.'s version of SNPA, which he posted late last

summer. Procedure pretty much ala Miller. Good sanitation observed

(no problems that way from previous extract and partial mash brews).

My nomination for the culprit is my boiler. I obtained one of those

old copper boilers, some folk refer to them as "jam boilers". A lot

of these, I am told, were tin plated on the inside (beats me why).

I'm wondering if the acidic wort reacted with the tin to produce

the bad taste that this batch has. The only reference to tin I

found in Miller who said keep it out.

Of course I'm open to other suggestions, if these kind of boilers

haven't been a problem for other brewers. Also I'm willing to UPS

a bottle to anyone who cares to run a personal diagostic, as long

as you're not too far from Mich. upper peninsula.

- --

Jim Hood

hoodj@gov.on.ca

------------------------------


Beatles Trivia

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 09:43:09 PST

From: "Jim Daly, Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, MA" <daly@mast.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Beatles Trivia

>Trivia question:

>

>Which Beatles song refers to homebrewing?

Rock and Roll Music:

"...They're drinkin' homebrew from a wooden cup, them folks are dancin' and

they're all shook up.  They started singin' that rock and roll music, any ol'

way you choose it..."

- -------------------------------------------

Jim Daly

Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, MA

daly@wrksys.enet.dec.com

- -------------------------------------------

------------------------------


RECIPE REQUEST

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 09:26:55 PST

From: damrowk@Thomas.COM (Kip Damrow)

Subject: RECIPE REQUEST

Hey there,

Does anyone out there have an extract recipe for Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale??

Thanks for your help...

Kip

------------------------------


Re: Trivia

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 09:48:29 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: Trivia

>>Which Beatles song refers to homebrewing?

>

>I searched and searched, but never found the answer!

Thanks to Tony Willoughby (twilloug@brynmawr.webo.dg.com) and

Barry_Gillott@dgc.ceo.dg.com for the answer:  "Rock and Roll Music",

which is not strictly a Beatles song at all.

thx for playing

gak

107/H/3&4

------------------------------


The Cinnamon Stopper, resolved

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 12:54 EDT

From: HOWED@bcvax1.bc.edu

Subject: The Cinnamon Stopper, resolved

 A while back, I posted a problem with a batch of cinnamon beer.  Since

then I have fiddled around with it a bit, and I seem to have figured out the

problem and how to carbonate the beer.

 I reprimed each bottle by hand and recapped them.  This has been

effective in carbonating.  The best guess that has been made about why it

didn't take the first time was that by adding the cinnamon to the priming sugar

when bulk priming, the cinnamon turned into a syrup which collected the sugar

into a few bottles, thereby turning them into gushers.

 Since then, my partner and I have ventured out yet again into new

combinations [for us anyway] and we have made a chocolate wheat beer.  A

tasty idea that has definitely panned out well for us.

HOWED@bcvms.bc.edu

------------------------------


Trivia/Barleywine Yeast

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 13:42 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Trivia/Barleywine Yeast

Gak writes:

>Which Beatles song refers to homebrewing?

Well, it's a bit of a trick question.  It's actually a Chuck Berry

song, redone by the Beatles: Rock & Roll Music.

Just so this post is not just trivia...

Steven writes:

>I plan to make a Barleywine soon. I have two recipes. One calls for

>champagne yeast because it will survive above the levels of alcohol

>which would normally kill off regular lager or ale yeasts. The second

>recipe calls for lager yeast?! I am afraid of compromising the taste

>of the "beer" by using champagne yeast (is this a valid concern?).

>On the other hand, I don't want to have a sickly sweet, half fermented

>Barleywine because the alcohol level killed the lager yeast.

If you can get a hold of some relatively fresh Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

or SN Porter or Stout (I'm assuming you can't get Wyeast 1056 in France),

you could culture it and use that exclusively.  Chico Brewing Co. uses

this yeast for their Bigfoot Barleywine, so you can too.

Using a beer yeast at first and then a Champagne yeast to finish off

(as Steven later suggests) is a good idea if you can't get the gravity

down with just the beer yeast.  Make sure you pitch A LOT of yeast

and AERATE THE WORT VERY WELL, so the yeast has a fighting chance.

I've read that some brewers rouse the yeast on very high gravity beers,

but if you do, you're probably better off doing this in the secondary

so you don't stir up the trub.  Also make sure to not aerate the wort

during the rousing -- I just agitate the fermenter, being careful to

not spill the airlock into the fermenter (note this is with glass --

you can forget about trying to not suck air on a plastic fermenter --

it's impossible).

Al.

------------------------------


Keg questions

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 11:58:55 -0800

From: mark@verdix.com (Mark Lundquist)

Subject: Keg questions

Thanks to those who responded to my question about how I might make use

of a keg that I "inherited".  The keg was one of the new-style

"one-holer" (Sanke?) brewery kegs.  The most sensible-sounding suggestion

was that I find a distributor who would be willing to trade me a Golden

Gate keg for my keg.

So...now I have some questions:

1) Should I naturally condition my kegged beer, or should I

   artificially carbonate?  Will there be any difference in the

   quality of the finished beer?

2) How do I keg-condition beer?  (For bottled beer, I prime with

   1 cup DME per 5 gal.)

3) How do I artificially carbonate beer?

4) How long can kegged beer be stored if a CO2 tapper system is used?

5) How can I bottle from a keg?

6) How do I clean my keg?  What sanitizing agents can/should I use?

Is there anything else I need to know about filling, storing, serving,

etc. with my keg?

Thanks!

------------------------------


Corona Adjustments, Nitrosamines

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 09:10 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Corona Adjustments, Nitrosamines

 >From: "John L. Isenhour" <isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov>

 >The outer grinding plate is held on by a cotter pin, and it is free-floating

 (i.e. it wobbles around).  This would seem to allow some grain to escape.  I'm

 wondering if I should try to affix the adjustable plate to the stem in such a

 way that it could not wobble and yet maintained a parallel position in respect

 to the other plate.  Anyone tried this?

 Even if you were willing to sacrafice adjustability and welded the assembly

 together, you could not avoid the problem you point out.  It is the nature of

 the beast.  You have a four point system with only two "bearings".  It relies

 on the two faces rubbing agianst each other for alignment.  When used as we

 use it, it relies on the grain to keep them proplerly spaced.  If you keep it

 full, it will more or less do this.

 What I find helpful is to set the spacing using a .055" gage on each side of

 the plate.  Dimes are about the right thickenss but a bit hard to work with.

 Adjust the pressure so they can just be pulled up and down.  This will give

 you the nominal spacing used on most rollers mills as a starting point.  Note

 that this is only true when the mill is full and cranking.

 >I'd also like to motorize this operation.  Anyone done anything with a pully

 or something?

 I defer to those who have done this but point out that the "bearings" are

 iron against iron and not intended for high speed or rigorous use.

 >From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

 >The imported 2 row Munich malt is prepared by heating it briefly while still

 moist and then drying it.  This produces the most color and malt aroma for

 the temperatures.

 >Crystal malts are prepared in the same general way, but rather than a

 brief heating while moist, the malt undergoes as complete a

 saccarification as possible....

 I am glad you cleared that one up.  It is amazing what threads can follow

 from the seemingly innocent use of two words in the same sentence.  In this

 case Munich and crystal.

 I would like to use this opportunity to re-address the nitrosamine issue as

 these two malts are produced in exactly the way that produces the maximum

 precursors for this potent carcinogen.

 Crystal malt is probably the worse of the two because of the time spent in

 the hot, moist state but as it is used in only small quantities, it may be

 less of a hazzard than Munich which could make up the entire batch.

 My advice is, know your maltster and his process.  Indirect kilning,

 eleviates the nitrosamine problem and I would advise against using malt,

 especially crystal and Munich, produced in direct fired kilns.

 It can be inferred from their literature that the Munich malt produced by De

 Wolf - Cosyns is indirectly kilned.  Inferring things from literature can be

 dangerous so I ask that Tim Norris or any of the other dealers reading this

 make the effort to find out for sure and report back.

 js

------------------------------


Recipe Request

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 11:23:57 PST

From: damrowk@Thomas.COM (Kip Damrow)

Subject: Recipe Request

Hey there,

Does anyone out there have an extract recipe for Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale ?

Thanks in advance...

Kip.

------------------------------


Refractometers

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 15:18:04 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat (George J Fix)

Subject: Refractometers

Apparently many people have started using refractometers to measure

gravities because they are simple and very accurate. Isn't it nice

to be able to do these measurements at any temperature and with only a

few drops of wort instead of the contents of an entire hydrometer jar!

One should be aware that the presence of alcohol in fermenting (or

fermented) wort will skew the refractometer reading. Actually the same is

true for hydrometer readings, but this is often overlooked. To get accurate

results from either instrument, one needs to first boil off the alcohol

from a sample and then replace the volume lost with distilled water. The

reading one gets at this point is the real extract (RE), and in degree Balling

(or Plato) is % sugar that is actually there (by wt.). It is different

from the rather artificial number measured by a hydrometer without alcohol

removal. The latter is called the apparent extract (AE), and the relation

between AE and RE has been discussed in this forum. Unfortunately, the

relation between refractometer measurements with and without alcohol

removal is not known to me, and possibly does not exit.

This post does not mean to imply that refractometers are a "must have"

item for homebrewers. There are many leading long and happy lives, and

brewing sensational beer to boot, who are very content with their

hydrometers. My private e-mail, on the other hand, indicates that there

is a nontrivial interest in refractometers. I am often asked about where

one can purchase such an instrument. I am a few years removed from this.

My model comes from Cole-Palmer, but I understand their prices have soared

in recent years. One of course can always count on Fisher Scientific to lead

the league in high prices. If anyone has done a recent search, then a post

on HBD might be helpful. It could be that there is a wide variation in prices

for instruments of comparable quality.

George Fix

------------------------------


Re: Trivia

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 14:28:05 PST

From: The Man Who Invented Himself <stewarte@sco.COM>

Subject: Re: Trivia

>From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

>Subject: Re: Trivia

>

>Found this in the 12/15/88 HBD:

>>

>>Which Beatles song refers to homebrewing?

>

>I searched and searched, but never found the answer!

>

>Well?

I think it was "Spargin' Pepper's Lonely Hops Club Band", wasn't it?

- -- Stewart

------------------------------


shelf-life of grains?

Date: 20 Jan 93 20:29:45 GMT

From: mark@verdix.com (Mark Lundquist)

Subject: shelf-life of grains?

How long can uncrushed grain be stored?  I have some (specialty malts,

etc.) in sealed plastic bags, and I'd like to know if there's some

point after which I should toss 'em.

Thanks,

- --mark

------------------------------


Priming, CO2, psi, Temp, Kegs. (long)

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 16:54:04 -0600

From: "Jim Ellingson" <jimme@pi28.arc.umn.edu>

Subject: Priming, CO2, psi, Temp, Kegs. (long)

Fellow Brewthren,

I've been watching this psi vs pounds of sugar debate

for a couple of days, hoping it would de-pressurize itself.

Clearly it will not.  My apologies for the length of

this post.  I normally give wonderful advice  ]:~)  such as

this via private e-mail.

In the archives, there is a chart of volumes of CO2 in beer,

versus temperature and pressure.  CO2 pressure is given

along the top of the chart.  Temperature is given down

the left side.  It makes little sense to discuss pressure

without also giving the temperature.

All other things being equal higher (lower) temperatures

will lead to higher (lower) pressures since the CO2 gas is

more soluble at lower temps.  Equally, the vapor pressure of

CO2 is a function of temperature.

In a corner of the chart are the following guidelines for

volumes of CO2 for different styles of beer at whatever

temperature and corresponding pressure (I'm guessing

these are volumes of CO2 at atmospheric pressure.):

        Volumes of CO2:

        British style beers  = 2.0  - 2.4

        Most other beers  = 2.4  - 2.85

        High-carbonation beers  = 2.85 - 2.95

That is, if I'm force carbonating, I need to push between

10 and 15 gallons of CO2 gas into my 5 gallons of beer.  The

pressure required to do this is a function of temperature.

If I'm using natural carbonation, I need to provide enough

fermentables to generate just over 10 to 15 gallons of CO2 gas

in my 5 gallons of (bottle conditioning) beer.  The amount

depends on the style.  The amount extra depends on the head

space, but we always want much more beer than headspace.

While the rate at which the yeast will consume the priming

fermentables and carbonate our beer is a function of temp,

the volume in the finished product is not.  (Yes, yes, I

know, provided the temp is high enough for the yeast to work

and low enough not to kill the yeast and . . . provieded we

wait long enough).

Let's look at a couple of examples.  If our beer is kept at

50^F, then we have the following set of pressures and volumes:

psi CO2   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24

volumes 1.98 2.06 2.14 2.21 2.30 2.38 2.45 2.54 2.62 2.70 2.78 2.86 2.94 3.02

If I want 2.7 volumes of CO2 in my pilsner,

I set the regulator to 20 psi.  If I want 2.3 volumes of

CO2 in my porter, the regulator should be set to 15 psi.

While this chart does give equilibrium values, it says nothing

about how long it would take for 2+ volumes of CO2 to find

its way into the beer.  (This is where higher pressures

and/or shaking the keg come into play.)

If we are priming, things get more complicated.  Being very simple

about it, a given volume of priming sugar/extract/gyle should yield

a known amount of fermentables.  For a given amount of fermentables,

we can expect the creation of a known volume of CO2.  (Let's keep the

yeast attenuation, time to full condition, alcohol toxicity and any

other favorite nits hidden for the time being)

Going back to the chart, and keeping our beer at 50^F.  If

priming with 1/3 cup of dextrose yields 11 psi (1.98 volumes),

then priming with 1/2 cup of dextrose should yield 23-24 psi

(2.94-3.02 volumes) in our keg.

I hope this helps.  Sorry about the length.

Cheers,

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

*  Jim Ellingson                                     jimme@arc.umn.edu  *

*  AHPCRC/University of Minnesota                    tel 612/626-8088   *

*  1100 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55415    fax 612/626-1596   *

------------------------------


Re: using steel cut oats in stout

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 17:05:56 MST

From: resch@craycos.com (David Resch)

Subject: Re: using steel cut oats in stout

>I'd like to hear any experiences with using steel cut oats in an

>all-grain brew -- whether you cooked or not, how much you used,

>how the beer turned out, etc.

Hi Brian,

I've made at least 2 batches of Oatmeal Stout using steel cut oats. I

believe that I used on the order of 2 pounds for a 13 gallon batch, but

I don't have my recipes here at work and so am not sure what percent of

the grain bill the oats were, but it was less than 10%.

I gelatinized the oats prior to adding them to the mash.  The steel-cut

oats that I got at a health food store were quite coarse and very hard.

I believe that just adding them to the mash dry would have required a

MUCH longer mash time to achieve starch conversion... even boiling

took quite a while to soften the oats.

I found that I had to add a LOT of water to the oats during

gelatinization.  They just seem to keep soaking it up.  I had to

reduce the amount and temperature of the rest of my mash water since I

was basically adding a substantial quantity of boiling oatmeal to the mash.

The stouts made using the oats have turned out very well.  They have always

finished with a fairly high terminal gravity ~1.020, but I'm not sure

how much of that is the result of the oats and how much is due to the other

ingredients.  The oatmeal stouts that I have made this way have had a very

nice creamy mouth-feel to them with a bit of residual sweetness.

Let us know how your's turns out!

Dave

------------------------------


No lag in old Wyeast

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 19:52:15 -0500

From: bradley@adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: No lag in old Wyeast

Greetings all,

WYeast says on their package the it will take n days for an n-month-old

package to puff out.  I cracked a 4-month-old package of 1008 (German)

yesterday.  At 24 hours it was already getting fat.  The ambient was

60 or even lower, so I'm sure it would have been fully puffed in 24

hours at 68-70.  This is slightly inconvenient as I'd been planning

to brew Sunday.  Has anybody had the same experience with 1008?  With

other strains?

Cheers,

Rob (bradley@adx.adelphi.edu)

------------------------------


Mountmellick Famous Irish Stout

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 22:22:42 -0500

From: "Aaron Frost" <afrost@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: Mountmellick Famous Irish Stout

 Has anyone experienced a brew with Mountmellick Products, Hopped

 Famous Irish Stout?  I used 8 lbs, finished with 3/4 oz fresh

 cascade that hed been lying around, and pitched the supplied

 yeast.

  Will I get close to GUINNESS with this recipie?

 O.G. was 1.058

 Thanks for your opinions, I bottle on Sunday.  Andrew.

------------------------------


Milk Stout

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 19:36:00

From: Gary.Cote@leotech.MV.COM (Gary Cote)

Subject: Milk Stout

Has anyone out there had a brew called "Tennents Milk Stout"?

I had one when I was in St. Maartin in november but I

have never seen it here in the states.

It was stronger than a Guinness Stout in taste and in

alcohol.

Just wondering...

Thanks..... Gary

gcote@leotech.mv.com

- --

I`d rather have a bottle in front of me

than a frontal lobotimy....

 * SLMR 2.1a *

 * Origin: Leo Technology (603)432-2517/432-0922 (HST/V32)

(1:132/189)

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1060, 01/21/93

*************************************

-------


Out of the Office

Date: 21 Jan 1993 03:46:03 GMT

From: "Chatt-Mike" <MSMAIL.CHATTM@TSOD.lmig.com>

Subject: Out of the Office

I am out today.

I will be back in the office Friday 1/22

(This is a pre-recorded message.)

_______________________________________________________________________________

From: UNIX.HOMEBRW1 on Thu, Jan 21, 1993 3:45 AM

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1060 (January 21, 1993)

To:   HOMEBREW (UNIX.HOMEBRW1); Chatt-Mike

File(s): MEMO 01.21.93 03.37

------------------------------


solder

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 09:19:44 EST

From: mmlai!lucy!gildner@uunet.UU.NET (Michael Gildner)

Subject: solder

Recently, I've seen some mention of lead-free solder being a bad

thing for homebrewing.  Evidently the tin in lead-free solder

can react with beer.  I didn't realize this several months ago

when I made my wort chiller.  I constructed the chiller with soft

copper tubing.  The coils didn't stay together very well so I

put I spot of solder between each coil of the chiller to help keep

it rigid.  Now with all this recent talk of the incompatibility

of solder in brewing I've starting worrying.

How does the solder react negatively with beer/wort?

Is there some attribute I might recognize in my beers that point to

solder contamination?

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to cleanly remove

the solder from the copper coils?

What would be an efficient way to keep a soft copper coils

together so they form a nice cylinder?

Thanks for any responses.

Mike Gildner

gildner@mml.mmc.com

------------------------------


Munich Malts

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 08:48:17 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat (George J Fix)

Subject: Munich Malts

Darryl Richman writes:

>Lets clear up a misconception here. Real Munich malt, whether

>domestic or imported, has enzymes. It has sufficient enzymes to

>convert itself, and perhaps just a bit more. If you want to make a

>real dark Munich lager, then use Munich malt. I've made several bocks

>with high percentages of Munich (60-80%) and it works just fine.

Anyone who has had the good fortune of tasting Darryl's bocks know

they are more than "just fine". They are sensational! His version

which took 1st place in the AHA nationals a few years ago was one

of the finest bocks I have ever tasted, amateur or commercial. The

following is data which support his observations. D-C stands for

DeWolf-Cosyns, while G-W stands for Great Western. Their 2-row

malt is a Klages-Harrington blend. DP stands for diastatic power,

it is a measure of the strength of the malt's enzyme system. The

symbol "_" means too low to measure.

                                   DP       Yield(%)     Protein(%)

                                  -----    ---------     -----------

BASE MALTS   D-C Pale Ale          60        76          10.0

             D-C Pils             105        75          10.0

             G-W 2-row            135        76          12.5

COLOR MALTS  D-C Munich            50        77           9.9

ROASTED MALTS D-C Caravienne       _         72           8.9

              D-C Caramunich       _         72          10.6

              D-C Special B        _         66          10.0

NOTES:

1. The strength of the enzyme system of the Munich is not dissimilar to

that of the pale ale. Practical experience has shown that if DP > 40,

then the grains will have sufficient enzymes to convert their own starch.

The roasted malts do not have much in the way of an enzyme system, but

Darryl noted this in his post.

2. For those who missed the yield discussions on HBD, the following are

points on the yield-gravity point line:

              yield(%)      pts./lbs./gals.

             ----------    -----------------

               60              28

               65              30

               70              32

               75              34.5

               80              37

3. The yields quoted were obtained under laboratory conditions. It is

generally not possible, nor desirable in most circumstances, to achieve

these in a practical brewing situation.

4. I have found that both the color and roasted malts have starch with a

large number of 1-6 links. These will not be broken in a normal mash. Thus

these malts will always make nontrivial contributions to the dextrin pool,

even if they are included at the start of the mash.

5. Many highly respected maltsters in the US claim it is impossible to make

color and roasted malts from two row barley. The low protein levels of the

D-C malts indicate that they indeed come from 2-row barley, and very high

quality to boot. Sonja, noted as Europe's best 6-row barley, never has

protein levels below 13%. Hector, a mid-western feed barley (which I sometimes

fear finds other applications as well!), never falls below 14%.

George Fix

------------------------------


Re: Brews Paper

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 9:48:50 EST

From: roman@tix.timeplex.com (Daniel Roman)

Subject: Re: Brews Paper

Guess I'm not the only one who got this.  When I first saw it I thought

it might be interesting, but that was only before got past the cover to

find that most of the items listed on there were what turned out to be

joke articles.  The biggest teaser was "Exclusive Clintion on Homebrew

Interview".  I thought at first, this paper must be good if they got an

interview, once you get to the "article" they state that they wrote the

Clinton staff and did not get an interview so they made one up.

After that I did not know if ANY of the articles was supposed to be

serious (or the ads either).

For $15 a year they can keep it.

BTW, they even spelled George Bush --> Geroge Bush !!!  :-]

- --

_________

Dan Roman  GEnie: D.ROMAN1  Internet: roman@tix.timeplex.com  //

American Homebrewers Association member        Only AMIGA!  /X/

------------------------------


Brews Paper / Grain mill rollers

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 8:51:51 CST

From: jmiller@anubis.network.com (Jeff J. Miller)

Subject: Brews Paper / Grain mill rollers

In HBD #1060 Norm Pyle writes about the Brews Paper being poorly edited

and needing a bit more polish.  Well, I'm glad somebody other then myself

felt this way toward it!  With all the material that is available I just

can't see sending money to these people for a poorly published paper.

Mr. Charlie P. if your listening:  If these people did get there mailing

list from the Zymurgy subscription list I would like to indicate that I

don't appreciate Zymurgy selling/giving my name to them.

OK... I'm done bitching now...  On to grain mill rollers.

I've settled on using some 6" pipe that I got from some local pipe

fitters.  I figured the bigger teh diameter the better the grind.

I'll be welding sides to the pipe and then welding a bar through the

centers.  The bar will get mounted in pillow blocks and the pipes

spun by a motor with a belt.  This is pretty much a nock off from

the one in Zymurgy.  On additional feature that I plan to add is

to put a scroll on the pipe to pull the grains toward the center.

Cost.... grrr... I got the stuff from a guy that loves to swill my

brew but he charged me full price for that stuff rather then simply

pulling some scrap for me.  Ended up being just under $20 for 2 18"

sections.

- --

Jeff Miller                 Network Systems Corporation

Advanced Development        7625 Boone Avenue North

jmiller@network.com         Minneapolis MN 55428   (612)424-1724

------------------------------


nitrosamines

Date:    Thu, 21 Jan 1993 9:54:01 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: nitrosamines

Jack, I've asked this before, and since you brought it up, I'll ask

again:  What is the level of nitrosamines in fire-kilned malts,

especially as compared to what one might get in a grilled entry at

the local pub?  It doesn't make sense to me to avoid ordering a stout

when your hamburger on a toasted roll has orders of magnitude more n.amines

in it anyway.

Russ

------------------------------


Re: Kegging

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 08:23:14 MST

From: resch@craycos.com (David Resch)

Subject: Re: Kegging

>5) Pressurise the keg to 25 psi and place in a cold fridge for a day or so.

>

>6) Remove keg from fridge and roll it vigorously to disolve the CO2 into the

>   beer. Replace keg in the fridge.

>

>7) When ready to serve beer, bleed excess pressure from keg and connect gas

>   line set a about 7 psi to push beer from the keg.

>

>

>Any comments?

In my opinion, skip step 6 and just leave the beer in the fridge at 25 psi for

1 or 2 more days, depending on the carbonation level desired.

Shaking the keg simply increases the rate at which CO2 dissolves into the beer.

By not shaking, carbonation takes a bit longer, but you don't disturb the yeast

and protein sediment that precipitates when the beer is put into the fridge.

Dave

------------------------------


Homebrew Digest #1060 (January 21, 1993)

Date: 21 Jan 93 10:24

From: Michael_Merriman@camb.intersolv.com

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1060 (January 21, 1993)

          Re:  Motorizing the Corona.

          I simply removed the handle, inserted a bolt into the

          threads, cut off the head with a hacksaw, and attach a

          power-drill to the bolt.  I typically crush about 10-15 # at

          a pop, and with the drill, this takes about 10 min.  I'm

          sure I could get that down to two minutes if I had a 10#

          hopper, but I haven't gotten around to that yet....maybe

          that old bottling bucket would be just the right size.

          But...I'm not really impressed with the results of the

          corona overall.  Anyone with a source for a reasonably

          priced roller mill?

          mfm 617 252-4561

          Michael_Merriman@INTERSOLV.com

          Kendall Sq, Cambridge, MA 02142

------------------------------


Keg pressures

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 07:46:46 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Keg pressures

Jim Ellingson's notes on kegging in the last digest were right on, I would

like to point out one additional thing that most keggers overlook. Your

regulator gauge may not read your real keg pressure.

This is due to the pressure drop across check valves that may (should) be

in your CO2 lines. I have experienced about a 2 psi drop across each check

valve. I have one at the regulator output and one at each output from my

gas manifold. This means I must set my regulator to 16 psi to get 12 psi at

my kegs (16psi - 4psi=12psi). Your systems may vary.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Stuck Pilsner Urquell

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 08:47:26 -0700

From: dinsdale@chtm.eece.unm.edu (Don McDaniel)

Subject: Stuck Pilsner Urquell

Robert Haddard asked about a highish final gravity of 20 on his attempt

at my Czech Pilsner recipe:

I don't recall what my final gravity was, but I know it didn't

ferment out really dry.  I wouldn't call 20 stuck.  Depending on the yeast,

that's in the normal range.  However if you're kegging, there's no reason

you can't forgo priming and see what develops.  If it is too flat after

lagering, you can always force-carbonate it then.

Don McDaniel

------------------------------


Re: Barleywine Yeast & questions

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 11:04:51 EST

From: neilm@juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Neil Mager )

Subject: Re: Barleywine Yeast & questions

korz@iepubj.att.com writes:

 >

 > If you can get a hold of some relatively fresh Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

 > or SN Porter or Stout (I'm assuming you can't get Wyeast 1056 in France),

 > you could culture it and use that exclusively.  Chico Brewing Co. uses

 > this yeast for their Bigfoot Barleywine, so you can too.

 >

 >

 > Al.

  What about a yeast culture from Thomas Hardy? Will that work or

  has the high alcohol content mutated the yeast. In December, Micah had

  mentioned making Barleywines when their kids were born. Anyone

  have a copy of Micah's Barleywine recipe?

  On a similiar note, Miller mentions that it is difficult making

  an all-grain Barleywine and his recipes call for adding extract.

  He never fully explains what the problem is. Is the problem the

  quantity of grain needed to get the og high enough without

  adding extract? Or is there some other problem?

   Neil

- --

===============================================================================

Neil M. Mager

MIT Lincoln Laboratory       Lexington, MA

  Weather Radar - Group 43

Internet                    <neilm@juliet.ll.mit.edu>

Voice                       (617) 981-4803

===============================================================================

------------------------------


steel cut versus rolled oats

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 10:32:35 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: steel cut versus rolled oats

It's been said before on the net, but can't be said enough.

Steel cut oats are not gelatinized.  You might first soak them

overnight.  You must boil them (say, 45 min) to gelatinize them.  In

my experience, echoed by someone on a recent HBD, they soak up a lot

of water and can be quite gummy and starchy.  Once gelatinized, they

must be mashed.

An easier alternative exists in rolled oats, such as are commercially

available from Quaker Oats.  You'll find these in 3 forms:  original,

quick, and instant.  The original and quick differ in that they take

5 and 1 minutes, respectively, to cook into oatmeal.  For homebrewers,

the Original are the hulled whole oats run through rollers, and are

therefore gelatinized.  The quick and instant are thinner cuts.  You

can add rolled oats straight into the mash.

Another easier alternative is flaked oats, sold through homebrew supply

shops.

Does anyone have a source for malted oats?

------------------------------


RE: Hop Question and others, too

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 10:22:19 PST

From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

Subject: RE: Hop Question and others, too

"C. Lyons / Raytheon-ADC / Andover, MA" <LYONS@adc3.adc.ray.com> writes:

> When adding boiling hops, does the selection of the type of

> hop (Kent Goldings, Northern Brewer, Cascade, etc.) make any

> difference on the final taste profile?  I am wondering if I only

> need to be concerned about getting the number of IBUs correct, or if it

> is significant to get the correct number of IBUs from a particular hop when

> attempting to duplicate recipes/styles.  I understand that hops

> added for flavor and aroma do give the beer destinct characteristics,

> but I am curious if anyone believes that the boiling hops do?

This is a topic that doesn't get much attention.  I believe that the

reason is that once we engineering types (well, most of us do seem to

fit that description, don't we?) have a way to hang a number on

something, we feel it must be solved and move on to the next problem.

If only there were a way to describe hop aroma with a number...

Anyway, it is my personal opinion that more than just bitterness is

extracted from hops, even during a long boil.  I feel that the low

alpha hops tend to provide a cleaner, crisper flavor with a more

pleasant, less cloying aftertaste in the finished beer than many of the

high alpha varieties.  (These were developed, after all, in order to

satisfy bean counters and not brewers.)  I also find that using a

minority contribution from some of the high alpha hops -- sometimes

exactly those varieties I don't like the most as the only bittering

contributors -- can add "complexity" and interest to a beer.  If this

doesn't make sense, well, then I guess I'll have to renounce my

membership in the ACM.

cook@uars.DNET.NASA.GOV (Chris Cook, NMOS Quality Engineer -

(301)386-7807) writes:

>   1) In Greg Noonan's book "Brewing Lager Beer," he describes decoction

>      mashes using phrases like "...draw off the thickest third of the

>      mash..."  Look, after all the stirring he describes, isn't the mash

>      pretty uniform?  Could someone who does this describe what the

>      "thickest" or thinnest part is, and how you draw it off?

If you let the mash rest for 10 or 20 minutes, the "thickest" or

heaviest part will settle to the bottom of the tun.  I've seen folks

use the restaurant 1 quart steel ladles to pick it up, but I use a half

gallon Tupperware measuring cup.  Since I use an 80 quart (yes, that's

right) picnic cooler for 15 gallon batches, the grain bed is not too

deep, and I can get a bottom sample pretty easily.

>   4) Oh, and finally, is everyone being honest with their grain extraction

>      rates?  I realize the pressure to talk up your extraction points and

>      all, but are we talking reality here?

I would claim that I am getting about 30-31 pts/lb/gal, but it's also

the case that my measurement may not be very accurate.  Since I make 15

gallons batches -> 25-35 lbs. of malt, and since I have to weigh it out

about 2 lbs. at a time, there is a great possibility for error to creep

in.  However, I don't believe it to be systemic in one direction, so it

might be self cancelling.  Or this might be the purest rationaization.

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------


Wyeast

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 12:12:55 EST

From: thutt <thutt@MAIL.CASI.NASA.GOV>

Subject: Wyeast

      Question:  Where can I get information on the strains of Witbread

      The only one I can find has no number, and is simply called

      Witbread Ale Yeast.

      Has anyone ever seen a German Ale yeast that comes in green 5 gram

      packets?  I opened it up, and it looked and smelled like sawdust.

      I rehydrated it, but it still smelled and looked like sawdust.  I

      threw it out and used something else.

      I'd rather eat $1 on yeast than $30 on a whole batch.  Was I wrong?

------------------------------


RE: No lag in old Wyeast

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 12:22:50 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: No lag in old Wyeast

Hi All,

  In HBD #1060, Rob Bradley writes:

>WYeast says on their package the it will take n days for an n-month-old

>package to puff out.  I cracked a 4-month-old package of 1008 (German)

>yesterday.  At 24 hours it was already getting fat.  The ambient was

>60 or even lower, so I'm sure it would have been fully puffed in 24

>hours at 68-70.  This is slightly inconvenient as I'd been planning

>to brew Sunday.  Has anybody had the same experience with 1008?  With

>other strains?

   At the end of the summer, my local homebrew supplier was tossing out

Wyeast packages that were more than 5 months old, and replacing them

with fresh stock.  I obtained some of the old packages gratis, including

a 1098 culture that was 9 months old.  I intended to burst the inner

package, and if it swelled, to try culturing it.

   I popped the package on a Wednesday night, by Friday morning, ~36 hours

later, it was ready to burst.  I pitched it into a starter, when I returned

from work Friday night, the starter was vigorously fermenting.  I ended

up using it to brew that weekend, got a lag time of about 4 hours, and

primary fermentation completed in 2 days.  This particular culture turned

out to be one of the most vigorous I'd ever used.  Both of the other

"outdated" packages(1084, 1338)swelled within 2 days of popping the package,

I got viable yeast out of both of them.

   IMHO, there is no correlation between the date code and the time

required for the package to swell, as I've also had 1 month old packages

take 6 days to swell.  As Rob mentioned, this is inconvenient, as timing

if fairly important.  This inconsistency is one factor that lead me to

start culturing yeast in the first place.  I can reliably grow a pitchable

starter from a slant in 3 days.

                                   Cheers,

                                     Jim

------------------------------


Re: new publist

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 13:23 EST

From: Carlo Fusco <G1400023@NICKEL.LAURENTIAN.CA>

Subject: Re: new publist

Hello again,

In my efforts to update the publist in the archives I have hit a snag.

I spoke to John R. Mellby, who created the publist and he told me there

will be an update shortly. So in order not to duplicate his work I will

send him all the replies I have recieved to date. Thanks to all those

who responded to my message.

Carlo Fusco   g1400023@nickel.laurentian.ca

------------------------------


Re: No lag in old Wyeast

Date: Thursday, 21 Jan 1993 13:21:51 EST

From: m14051@mwvm.mitre.org (John DeCarlo)

Subject: Re: No lag in old Wyeast

>From: bradley@adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

>WYeast says on their package the it will take n days for an n-month-old

>package to puff out.  I cracked a 4-month-old package of 1008 (German)

>yesterday.  At 24 hours it was already getting fat.  The ambient was

>60 or even lower, so I'm sure it would have been fully puffed in 24

>hours at 68-70.  This is slightly inconvenient as I'd been planning

>to brew Sunday.  Has anybody had the same experience with 1008?  With

>other strains?

Well, I have often wondered about this, as all my packages are

ready in about 24 hours, no matter how old they were.

So let's take a step back and wonder about these instructions.

If yeast double their population in about 3 hours, then in 24

hours they could increase their population by a factor of 2^8, or

256.  So in 4 days, they could increase their population by a

factor of 256^4 (4,294,967,296), roughly 4 billion (US).

OK, so some of this time is spent producing CO2 and not

reproducing, say 6 hours, so divide everything by 4 and get 1

billion.  Does this mean that Wyeast expects only 1 yeast cell in

1 billion to be alive after 4 months?  Sounds pretty unlikely to

me.

Anyway, if more than 999 in 1000, say, of the yeast cells have

died, you probably are going to have some problems, maybe?  In

which case you shouldn't ever need more than a factor of 2^10 or

so, requiring 30 hours or so, plus some time for CO2, say a day

and a half.

Now there are lots of unspoken assumptions, such as doubling

rates being applicable at 70F or somesuch.  Still, as someone who

knows nothing of yeast growth, I would appreciate some feedback

on this to see if I am seriously off anywhere (which I expect I

am).

Internet: jdecarlo@mitre.org (or John.DeCarlo@f131.n109.z1.fidonet.org)

Fidonet:  1:109/131

------------------------------


Bitter Recipe

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 12:35:55 CST

From: caitrin lynch <lyn6@midway.uchicago.edu>

Subject: Bitter Recipe

Recently I have had several bitters at various microbreweries in Chicago and

Boston, and want to try to duplicate them (extract). To my mind what makes

them distinctive is the malty beginning and the bitter finish. Previous

attempts to make anything like this ends up as my generic pale ale. Any

suggestions. Thanks.

Caity

------------------------------


Artificial Sweeteners

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 12:54 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Artificial Sweeteners

Christopher writes:

>I have also experimented with the addition of sweet-n'-low during

>bottling.  I use dry yeasts, and decided to try David Line's

>suggestion (p. 21, Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy, "However if

>you can only get home brew beer yeasts instead of the recommended

>commercial 'Brewer's Yeast' the flavour balance can be acceptably

>restored by adding five saccharin tablets").  I have found that 10

>packages of sweet-n'definitely adds too much sweetness (more is

>not better, in this case).  I have also experimented with five

>packages of sweet-n'-low and believe this to be my best batch

>yet.  Many people have enjoyed this ale, and I found that this

>batch disappeared quickly (leaving me with three earlier

>batches).  Even with 5 packages of sweet-n'-low the sweetness

>could be lowered slightly.  Next I will try 4 packages.  Has

>anyone else using dry yeasts expermented with artificial

>sweetners?  If so, I'd be interested in hearing your comments.

Christopher -- I doubt you will get much support from this digest's

subscribers for your use of Artificial Sweetener.  People have commented

on Dave Line's use of saccharin on the HBD a few years ago, and most posters

said something like, "well, you do what you want, but *I'M* not putting

saccharin in *MY* beer."  The note about Brewer's Yeast that you quoted

from Line is key to this whole issue.  If you like beers with considerable

residual sweetness, I suggest you try Wyeast #1338, European Ale.  It

leaves the most residual sweetness of any of the Wyeasts or dry yeasts.

To me it seems a shame to use the finest ingredients (better than most

industrial brewers) and put in a lot of your time and then use an

artificial sweetener.  Try the #1338 -- I wouldn't be surprised if you

stuck with the liquid yeasts and quit with the saccharin.

Al.

------------------------------


Wyeast Lager

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 13:07 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Wyeast Lager

Erik writes:

>Also, in the same episode, Steve Tollesfrud had some trouble with

>Wyeast lager yeast.  I brewed a batch using the same yeast and had

>the same problem.  After pitching I put the fermentor in a

>refridgerator at about 45 degrees F.  I had no action for 4 days

>and nothing happened until I warmed the wort to 65 degrees.  I

>kept it at that temperature until primary fermentation stopped,

>and then slowly eased the temperature back down to 45.  Racked

>to secondary and kept at 45 deg for 1 month.  Racked to bottling

>bucket, and I am now aging in the bottles at same temperature.

>

>     I tasted the beer before bottling and it is quite good.

>After bottle conditioning it should be delicious.

>

>     Has anyone else had this problem with Wyeast lager?

I made a batch of bock that has done quite well in several competitions

using Wyeast #2308.  The way that I did it was, incubated the popped

package at 68F, chilled the completed wort down to exactly (as close as

I could) 68F, aerated very well, pitched the yeast, and put the carboy in

the crawlspace which was at 57F for 12 hours.  After the 12 hours, a small

bead of kraeusen was forming, so I put it in the beer fridge at 50F.

After two days, I lowered the temp in the beer fridge to 45F and that's where

it stayed for the six weeks of primary and secondary fermentation.  After

bottling, I lagered the beer in the bottles at 40F for 4 months (till the

perm nose went away ;^).

The recipe has been posted here before, it's called Bo^bs B. Birthday Bock.

Al.

------------------------------


Decoction, Congratualtions

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 10:00 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Decoction, Congratualtions

 >From: cook@uars.DNET.NASA.GOV (Chris Cook, NMOS Quality Engineer -

 >  1) In Greg Noonan's book "Brewing Lager Beer," he describes decoction

      mashes using phrases like "...draw off the thickest third of the

      mash..."  Look, after all the stirring he describes, isn't the mash

      pretty uniform?  Could someone who does this describe what the

      "thickest" or thinnest part is, and how you draw it off?

 Nice to know there are other critical readers out there.  I simply ignore

 this bit of advice.  Even if you let it settle, you could hardly "draw" off

 the thickest part.

 I routinely do a partial dicoction, if for no other reason than just to have

 something to do while waiting.

 After STIRRING, I remove 3 quarts to a separate kettle and bring to a boil.

 I add this back to the mash and stir till the temp is again uniform and then

 do it again.  I can get three or four of these in during the one hour mash

 and it is about what is required to maintain the sacc temp and the last one

 starts it on the way toward mashout temp.

 I make no claims about the usefulness of this but as I said, it keeps my

 humble brain active.

 ...............

 CONGRATUALTIONS to Dave Wiley for taking First Place in the First Annual Net

 Brew-Off.  Dave scored 44 out of a possible 50 points.  Yours truly was

 honored with 38.

 We all thought the organizer, Mark Nightingale absconded with the goods as he

 has never responded to email since soliciting the entries.  He now says they

 decided to wait six months to "age" the beer properly and announced the

 results by mail.

 Don't know if excuses are necessary but considering that my entry was my 5th

 all grain batch, I could have done much worse.  The negative comments were,

 over carbonated and needs more malt.  Considering that I only used 8 lbs of

 malt in the 7 gal batch, it is not surprising and I am now using 12 lbs.  I

 now force carbonate and CP bottle so I am ready for the next Net Brew-Off.

 js

------------------------------


Tennents Milk Stout

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 15:40 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Tennents Milk Stout

Gary writes:

>Has anyone out there had a brew called "Tennents Milk Stout"?

>I had one when I was in St. Maartin in november but I

>have never seen it here in the states.

>It was stronger than a Guinness Stout in taste and in

>alcohol.

I had one somewhere between Martinique and Barbados (it helps to make

friends with bartenders on cruise ships -- it was from his private stock)

and saw some in a grocery store near the dock in Bridgetown, Barbados.

I too, have never seen it outside of the Caribbean, but this does not mean

it is not available -- just a data point.

I don't recall it being strong in alcohol, but indeed it was stronger in

flavor than Guinness.  It's not really fair to compare it with Guinness,

however, as Guinness is a dry stout and as you can tell from the name,

Tennents *Milk* Stout is a sweet stout.  A bit drier than Dragon Stout

(made by D&G in Kingston, Jamaica and *available* in the US), but the

sweetness is up there.

An interesting note about Guinness in the Caribbean.  The Guinness I had

in Jamaica, was also made, under contract, by D&G.  The Guinness I had in

Barbados was made by Banks (again, under contract) in Barbados.  I don't

recall 100% percent if this was on the label, but on the cap these two

beers said "GUINNESS -- FOREIGN-STYLE STOUT," I believe.  The Guinness

that we get in the Chicago area, is made in *DUBLIN* and the label and

caps say "GUINNESS EXTRA STOUT."  According to the AHA style descriptions,

"Foreign-style Stout" is a dry stout with a higher OG and associated alcohol

level.  The bottled Guinness that we get in the US is definately stronger

in alcohol than the Guinness in Ireland -- that's a documented fact.  I

seem to recall that the Guinness I had in the Caribbean was a bit sweeter

than the stuff we get from Dublin, but I could not say for sure without

a side-by-side comparison.  I think I may have brought back one full --

we'll see.

Al.

------------------------------


The Brews Paper

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 18:27:26 EST

From: bickham@msc2.msc.cornell.edu (Scott Bickham)

Subject: The Brews Paper

I received my copy of this already infamous newspaper yesterday,

and in spite of the bad language and grammer, I managed to get

through most of it.  I was not impressed.  In addition to the

lack of content or humor in most of the articles, I found many

of the comments to be blatantly sexist.  But before someone quickly

points out that several members of the Brews Paper staff are indeed

women, just let me say that the same goes for many of the mens'

magazines that are found at your local news stand.

The most depressing thing about it is that our names were almost

certainly given to the newspaper by the AHA.  I had thought the

AHA was making an effort to treat homebrewers of either sex equally,

and not delegate the women to the chore of bottle washing, but the support

of the Brews Paper definitely convinces me that they are still mired

in the 80's.  I think that in the future, the AHA should do more

research before handing out their mailing list to such a low-budget,

low-quality publication such as this.  I'm sorry to waste your time.

Scott

------------------------------


re: trivia

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 16:38:50 PST

From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)

Subject: re: trivia

>>Trivia question:

>>

>>Which Beatles song refers to homebrewing?

>

>I searched and searched, but never found the answer!

>

>have fun

>gak

"Rock 'n' Roll Music" meantions homebrew (in one recording, at least),

but not homebrewing.

+---

Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,

lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1061, 01/22/93

*************************************

-------


We are all going to Die

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 23:23:45 EDT

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: We are all going to Die

J. S. says,

)  I would like to use this opportunity to re-address the nitrosamine issue

   <sigh>

)  as these two malts are produced in exactly the way that produces the maximum

)  precursors for this potent carcinogen.

   <sigh>

Don't you know that it's all part of a Bavarian conspiracy to kill

YOU, Jack?  And we're all in on it, too.

HH1/2K

================O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis================

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1992 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------


Brews paper, WYeast date co

Date: 22 Jan 1993 06:01:58 -0500

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel.F.McConnell@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Brews paper, WYeast date co

                       Subject:                               Time:5:56 AM

  OFFICE MEMO          Brews paper, WYeast date codes         Date:1/22/93

>From Jeff J. Miller:

>Mr. Charlie P. if your listening:  If these people did get there mailing

list from the Zymurgy subscription list I would like to indicate that I

don't appreciate Zymurgy selling/giving my name to them.

I second that.  It seems obvious that the list came from the AHA.  Anyway the

Pico Brewery article by Mike O'Brien and Dave West *IS* genuine.  No

disclaimer, they are friends of mine.  Mike can't spell well either, but I

should think he knows how to spell his name by now!  Humor is one thing

(spellin is anothur), but misinformation (sugar vs malt article) is quite

damaging those new to the hobby.

>From James Dipalma:

>IMHO, there is no correlation between the date code and the time

required for the package to swell, as I've also had 1 month old packages

take 6 days to swell.  As Rob mentioned, this is inconvenient, as timing

if fairly important.

In the past I've experienced the same thing and suspect that variable lag times

have more to do with retail mishandling than product date codes.

------------------------------


Munich malt made me a believer

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 8:51:58 EST

From: bickham@msc2.msc.cornell.edu (Scott Bickham)

Subject: Munich malt made me a believer

Darryl Richman writes:

>Lets clear up a misconception here. Real Munich malt, whether

>domestic or imported, has enzymes. It has sufficient enzymes to

>convert itself, and perhaps just a bit more. If you want to make a

>real dark Munich lager, then use Munich malt. I've made several bocks

>with high percentages of Munich (60-80%) and it works just fine.

I recently made a dunkelweizen with 5 pounds of malted wheat,

3.5 pounds of Munich malt, and some crystal and black malts thrown

in for body and color.  My O.G. was 1.052, for a yield just

under 30.  So the Munich malt not only converted itself, but also the

5 lbs. of malted wheat.  Just a data point.

Scott

------------------------------


Motorizing the Corona

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 8:20:34 CST

From: jmiller@anubis.network.com (Jeff J. Miller)

Subject: Motorizing the Corona

In Homebrew Digest #1060, Michael_Merriman@camb.intersolv.com writes

about motorizing a corona by...

>           I simply removed the handle, inserted a bolt into the

>           threads, cut off the head with a hacksaw, and attach a

>           power-drill to the bolt.  I typically crush about 10-15 # at

>           a pop, and with the drill, this takes about 10 min.  I'm

>           sure I could get that down to two minutes if I had a 10#

>           hopper, but I haven't gotten around to that yet....maybe

>           that old bottling bucket would be just the right size.

I did this same thing but hooked it up to a large motor complete with

gears to reduce the spin to 140rpm.  This worked ok but I found my

corona to be so sloppy in its production that the thing bounces all

over.  I also ended up snapping a screw and a milled setup trying to

use the setup.  I've pretty much given up on trying to do follow this

path and am now building a roller mill.

- --

Jeff Miller                 Network Systems Corporation

Advanced Development        7625 Boone Avenue North

jmiller@network.com         Minneapolis MN 55428   (612)424-1724

------------------------------


Grape-Nuts (TM) and German Purity Law

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 09:43:44 -0500 (EST)

From: "Hi, you don't know me, but I play one on T.V." <cygnus@unh.edu>

Subject: Grape-Nuts (TM) and German Purity Law

Okay, so one day I sittin' down at breakfast eating my Grape-Nuts(tm)

cereal, and I noticed the ingredients:

Malted barley, wheat, salt, yeast.

I was wondering what if I were to include yonder cereal in a mash and

make a beer?  It seems logical since the aforementioned ingredients

are in most beers that a beer could be made from it....

Secondly, I was wondering if there are copies of the German Purity Law

out there anywhere on the net or if anyone has it... just out of curiosity...

Danke in advance,

 -chris

- --

------------------------------


re:Barleywine yeast & high alpha hops

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 9:53:15 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: re:Barleywine yeast & high alpha hops

In the last digest, Neil Mager asks about brewing barleywines with

Thomas Hardys yeast.  I have done this, using a culture from a

bottle of 1991 hardys.  The strain was isolated on a plate, so

I would assume that I was fermenting with the bottling strain,

which could certainly be different from what the initial ferment

strain is in the Eldrige Pope Brewery.  Anyway, I grew a one

liter starter, brewed a 26 degree P BW, and pitched the culture.

It took off quite well, producing a large amount of blowoff.

After a week or so of primary fermentation, the gravity was down

to around 11 P (~1.044) and the ferment appeared to be dead.  At this

point I racked quietly and pitched a ton of american ale yeast

slurry (~150 grams of Old Dominion Ale yeast, off a uni).  This

yeast happily began chewing up the remaining fermentables and the

resulting finish was about  6 P (~1.024).  THe beer was a great

BW, bit I would caution anyone who intends to use this method to

be prepared for a high FG or be prepared to repitch.

Neil also inquires about adding extract to produce a BW.  I feel

this is a fine method, depending on your equipment.  When I was

brewing in my older setup, getting a good volume of high gravity

beer was not possible.  I would max out my system to yield about

5 gallons of 20-22 P wort, and add 3 lbs of DME.  Worked fine.

Now that I have a larger mash tun, I just reduce my yield by

30%, increase my grain bill by 50% and make a small beer in my

older kettle.  Last BW made with this method yielded a BW of

23P and a small beer of 8P.  The small beer was astringent from

the spraging, but enough Kent Goldings took care of most of that

flavor.

Darryl Richman notes his experience with high alpha west coast

hops.  I agree 100%, beers made exclusively with a low to medium

alpha hop tend to much more pleasing on the palate.  Beers

made with Chinook tend to much harsher, in my experience.  I do

like the notes that Centennial hops can contribute, but I still

try to keep the quantities added to the initial boil low.  THis

hop does lend itself nicely to dryhopping, though.

Anyone out there tried Liberty hops??  I have used the Mt Hood

hops with fine results and intend to try Liberty soon.

Jim Busch

------------------------------


PH Adjustments

Date: 22 Jan 1993 08:07:33 -0700 (MST)

From: Cisco <FRANCISCO@lan.ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: PH Adjustments

Last weekend I was brewing an all grain stout and following Miller's

suggestion of a ph of 5 to 5.6 for the mash - no problem with the

hard water I have. But I couldn't lower my sparge water to 6.5 from

8.1 using gypsum. After dumping in a teaspoon at a time and taking

reading with a digital ph meter, I could only get the ph down to

7.6 after I used up the entire one ounce package of gypsum. The ph

seemed to drop down to 7.6 after the addition of 1/2 ounce of gypsum

but any further addition didn't seem to lower it any further.

Does anyone have any suggestions about what I can use to lower my

sparge water ph to 6.5?????

I should mention that I've been an all grain brewer for ten years.

The stout that I'm brewing has the addition of one of those small

bottles of coffee extract used for making Kahlua(spelling?) that I

added at the end of my boil with my final addition of finishing

hops. I'll let you all know well it turns out in a couple weeks.

John Francisco

------------------------------


mareseatoatsanddoeseatoatsand...

Date:         Fri, 22 Jan 93 10:15:43 EST

From: "John E. Lenz" <JELJ@CORNELLA.cit.cornell.edu>

Subject:      mareseatoatsanddoeseatoatsand...

Greetings all,

In HBD #1061, Tony Babinec suggests using rolled oats rather than steel cut,

for the sake of convenience.  Good advice, IMHO, until, after discussing the

different types of Quaker oats, he got to the statement

"Another easier alternative is flaked oats, sold through homebrew supply

shops."

Seems to me that the price will likely be the only difference between flaked

oats sold in a homebrew supply shop and rolled oats from a grocery store.  The

best prices on many types of non-malt grains (whole, rolled, and otherwise)

can usually be found at food cooperatives (real coops, not the yuppie natural

food stores).  For example, my local coop carries organic flaked barley for

$.69/lb, or I can go to the local homebrew shop and pick up a prepackaged

pound of flaked barley for $1.59.  Sure, this is only one observation.  But

the next time you are in the market for adjuncts you might consider a stop at

your local food coop.  If they don't stock what you are looking for, they can

probably order it.

Tony ends with

"Does anyone have a source for malted oats?"

I didn't see any last time I stopped by the coop, but I'm sure I've seen an ad

for them lately, though I can't remember where.  I thought it was The Malt

Shop (1-800-235-0026), but the most out-of-the-ordinary thing they carry (at

least according to my somewhat outdated catalog) is malted rye.

Ooogy wawa,

John

------------------------------


wyeast package swell/lag times

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 9:59:50 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: wyeast package swell/lag times

Here's another data point on Wyeasts...

In my experience, if I pop a very fresh Wyeast packet, it will swell in

a day, but otherwise it can take several days.  The 1 month lapsed equals

1 day "rule" is only a rule of thumb.  If the freshness date is months

ago, then the yeast in the packet are somewhat stressed, and upon

breaking the seal, the yeast will use the sugar to replenish their

glycogen reserves and other such things to get them ready for the job

awaiting them in the wort.

I find it easiest to start the process several days to one week ahead of

anticipated brewing.  American Science Center, for example, has 250, 500,

and 1000 ml flasks that can be fitted with a stopper and fermentation lock.

If your packet swells, pitch it into a flask and toss in some sterile wort

and build up the yeast.

To those who pop the packet and find that it swells before they're ready

to brew, you should pitch it into some starter wort and build up the

yeast mass.  If you don't have flasks, use a 12 oz beer bottle!

If you let the package swell up and pitch directly into your 5+ gallons

of wort, you're underpitching.  This is especially true for lagers.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but this has been talked about

at past AHA conferences, for one.  Biochemistry works more slowly at

50 degrees F than at 65 degrees F, and therefore one must pitch with

proportionately more lager yeast.  The compromise method of setting

the wort in a somewhat cool spot until signs of fermentation begin is

a way to shorten the length of the lag period.  If you pitch lager yeast

into your cool wort, even after one pitch into a starter, the lag can

last 4 days or more.  If you build up the yeast first, you'll have a

much shorter lag time.

------------------------------


Micah's Barley Wine Recipe

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 08:18:54 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Micah's Barley Wine Recipe

Micah's Barley Wine recipe can be found in one of the recent Zymurgy issues.

I beleive it was about 1 year ago. It took a second or third at AHA comp.

He named it "Trespassers Will Be Violated".

The best Barley wine I have EVER tasted was when I judged at the recent

Calif. State Homebrew Competition. The BW made by Jack Dawson took best of

class and had also won best of class previously at the Calif State Fair and

won the AHA Barley wine is fine. One of the things that amazes me is the

how that many judges could agree! One of the judges at the All State Comp

who I judged with was Steve Harrison, a long time friend and sale manager

for Sierra Nevada. He made the comment about a couple of the BW's that "I

hope these guys don't go into business!" Tom Altenbach's BW was just edged

out, and took a second place. The first place BW was just a little more

complex than Tom's. MaybeTom could post his recipe for interested parties.

My question is "could Jack Dawson do it again"? Didn't Jack's recipe get

posted here in the HBD last month?

Bob Jones

------------------------------


What I did on my Christmas vacation

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 11:21:30 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: What I did on my Christmas vacation

I spent 3 weeks in Chicago over the holidays.  In the days since I

left it's gotten to be a better home for homebrewers.

The most fun I had with my clothes on was at the CBS first Thursday

meeting at Goose Island.  This is an informal meeting held by the

Chicago Beer Society every month.  Chicago area homebrewers who don't

attend should have their heads examined.  Homebrewers bring their beer

and share it around, and non-brewers are welcome too.  I met a lot of

great people and drank a lot of great beer.  I brought some of my own,

which held up well despite travelling from NY via Montreal and Ottawa.

Everywhere there was good talk, good beer and goodwill to all.

Interestingly, the world's greatest brewer (tm?) didn't attend,

although he threatened to do so publicly, right here in the HBD.

Another fun outing was the Chicago Brewing Company.  They hold

brewery tours every Saturday at 2:00.  They proudly claim to be

the only brewery bottling beer in Chicago.  This is technically

true; however, there is an excellent lager called Baderbrau bottled

in the 'burbs, and good draft beer is brewed within the city limits,

notably at Goose Island.

The CBC brews three fine beers.  Their Legacy Lager won a gold at

the GABF and their Heartland Weiss took a bronze.  My favorite is

a good bitter ale with lots of body called Legacy Red Ale.

Before I tasted it, I thought "Irish Red Ale" was a scam perpetrated

by Coors et al.  I've never seen any of these beers on Long Island.

>big surprise<   I don't know how far afield they're distributed.

Co-owner Steve Dinehart gives good tour and he's quite knowledgable

on the subject of Chicago brewing history.  The set-up is a 100 bbl

system bought from the Manhattan Brewing Company when they closed

shop a few years back (soon to re-open, I understand).  The kettles

are new: a two-kettle system with 50 bbl capacity.  Kettle #1

doubles as mash tun and boiler while #2 is the lauter tun.  Nice

looking hunks o' copper.

Some interesting notes:  the wheat beer is 2/3 malted wheat and

1/3 6-row.  All beers are bittered with Chinook.  Finishing:

Mt. Hood for the lager, Willamette for the Ale (or was that

Fuggle?), none for the wheat.  The wheat beer has great clovey

phenols, the ale exhibited a little of the same.  It was more

pronounced in some of the December beer I had at the brewery than

in some older bottles (Sept?) purchased in a store.  They were

planning to go back to a fresh slant in January.

There are plans in the works for both a porter and a cream ale.

I got some bottles from an experimental batch of cream ale and was

most impressed.  Look for it when it comes out: smooth and quite

bitter with a color similar to the red ale.

When I lived in Chicago (89-91) there were no good brewstores.

This, too, has changed for the better, but perhaps I'll leave

that for another time.  Suffice it to say that I shared the

drive back to the right coast with grains and hops.

Cheers,

Rob (bradley@adx.adelphi.edu)

------------------------------


Re: solder (holding wort chiller together)

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 11:33:28 CST

From: "Roger Deschner  " <U52983@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject: Re: solder (holding wort chiller together)

Somehow this is a problem it had not occured to me to have. My immersion

chiller holds together fairly well on its own. It is made of standard

3/8" tubing. And having it as loose coils makes it easier to clean, too,

since stray hop petals that get caught in it come right out while

cleaning it by simply separating the coils slightly. But anyway, if you

really must hold your coil together, this idea might work for you:

Just take bare solid copper electrical wire, size #14 or #12 (cheap,

readily available, and pure copper) and weave it amongst the coils, at

two places 180 degrees apart. If you are clever and even the slightest

bit artistic, you can leave enough wire leftover at the top to fashion

handles and put two of those thick fibre tubes that department stores

provide for carrying string-wrapped packages home with. Then you can lift

the thing out of your wort easily.

For removing the solder, go to Radio Shack, and you can get a thing

called a Desoldering Wick, which comes with instructions. Heat the copper

tubing with your torch, and the wick should soak up nearly all of the

solder once you get it hot enough.

- --- Roger Deschner

------------------------------


Old Wyeast 1008 with short lag

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 13:11:53 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: Old Wyeast 1008 with short lag

Thanks to all of you who replied to my posting concerning the

Wyeast 1008 which exhibited no noticable lag in getting started

despite being 4 months old.  A significant piece of data which

I had omitted was the fact that I bought the yeast the day it

arrived in the brewshop -- it was 3 days old -- and brought it

straight home.  I  kept it at a constant temperature in a bag

at the back of my fridge.  So it had been well cared for.  It

was pointed out that Wyeast probably plays it safe, assuming that

the older the package is, the more often it has been mishandled.

Yeast that starts faster than expected is a whole lot better than

yeast whcih starts slower than expected.  Obviously!  It gives

you the opportunity to make a starter.  If you'd been planning

on making one anyway (I had) you can work it up in 2 or 3 steps,

perhaps beginning as small as a cup, perhaps ending up as large

as half a gallon, instead of the wimpy pint- or quart-sized

starters most of us seem to use for 5 gallons.

Cheers,

Rob (bradley@adx.adelphi.edu)

------------------------------


Which dregs to culture?

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 13:18:56 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: Which dregs to culture?

I'm thinking of using recultured Chico yeast for my next brew.

Plan 1: Buy some SN Pale Ale.  Open 3 bottles and pour the dregs

        into a starter, treating them as I would a Wyeast culture.

Plan 2: Same, but with three bottles of my own pale ale, brewed

        from a fresh pack of Wyeast 1056.

I suppose SN's cleanliness/quality control is superior to RB's,

but at least I know that my beer has been well cared for since

bottling.  My beer is almost 4 months old, but here on Long Island

I can't be sure that SNPA will be any fresher.

Any suggestions?  Musings?

Cheers,

Rob

(bradley@adx.adelphi)

------------------------------


Barleywine Yeast Method

Date: 22 Jan 93 13:34:21 EST

From: Jeff Frane <70670.2067@compuserve.com>

Subject: Barleywine Yeast Method

On the subject of proper yeasts for barleywines, I'd like to offer

my own suggestion, having brewed a couple successfully.  I make a

BIG yeast starter, i.e., a whole batch of ale and get that up and

running, then use the yeast from that to ferment the barleywine.

The first time I did this was because the champagne yeast _pooped

out_ after two days!  Fortunately, I brewed some ale shortly after

and pitched fermenting beer into the barleywine.  It took off and

fermented out completely.

More recently, I deliberately made of a batch of pale ale,

intending to follow the same procedure.  As it turned out,

however, I delayed brewing for a week, racked the ale off the

yeast pack (WYeast 1056), and ran the cooled barleywine wort on

top of the pack.  Kablooie!  Those yeasts were hungry and fell

on the barleywine like reporters on a free lunch.

The notion of using champagne yeast is pretty bizarre, when you

thithink of it.  Can you imagine any self-respecting British

brewery using some Frog yeast?  Part of the problem may have

arisen from the homebrewer's notion that everything should be

quick and easy.  The British barleywines I've tasted have all

required _years_ to reach a drinkable stage--but they _will_

get there.

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


chiller construction (was solder)

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 13:07:53 EST

From: eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West)

Subject: chiller construction (was solder)

I don't know how you're going to get rid of the solder you've got on

there now, but, when you do:

Strip enough 16 or 14ga solid copper wire to do the job.

Cut the wire into three or four pieces.

Bend the pieces in half.

`Weave' the wire into your coils.

   $

  0 (0)

   X

  0 (0)

   X     0 = copper tubing

  0 (0)

    X ()X// = copper wire

  0 /0)

       /   /  X

 /0/ (0)

  X  X

 (0) (0)

  a  b

a - wrap the wire around the bottom coil, cross over, cross again over

    the next coil, etcetera ad finem.

b - when done twist the ends together well and turn the ends under so

    they won't snag on your sleeve.

Carl

WISL,BM

------------------------------


Barleywine problems

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 13:20 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Barleywine problems

Neil writes:

  What about a yeast culture from Thomas Hardy? Will that work or

  has the high alcohol content mutated the yeast.

I'm not a ubiologist, but I know that Chico Brewing crops (harvests)

yeast from all their beers except the Bigfoot Barleywine, the Celebration

Ale and (I think) the Pale Bock (which is a lager yeast anyway).  I

believe the reason for not reusing yeast from the strong-alcohol beers

was, just as Neil suggested, mutations.

  On a similiar note, Miller mentions that it is difficult making

  an all-grain Barleywine and his recipes call for adding extract.

  He never fully explains what the problem is. Is the problem the

  quantity of grain needed to get the og high enough without

  adding extract? Or is there some other problem?

The problems are that if you only use first runnings, you have to use

bushels of grain to get enough (1080+) runnings for a 5-gallon batch,

or, if you do sparge, then you have to boil 20 gallons down to 5 somehow!

Al.

------------------------------


Protein levels

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 13:07 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Protein levels

George writes:

>5. Many highly respected maltsters in the US claim it is impossible to make

>color and roasted malts from two row barley. The low protein levels of the

>D-C malts indicate that they indeed come from 2-row barley, and very high

>quality to boot. Sonja, noted as Europe's best 6-row barley, never has

>protein levels below 13%. Hector, a mid-western feed barley (which I sometimes

>fear finds other applications as well!), never falls below 14%.

Just what we need for making an authentic Moobock.

Another data point:

I was at a microbrewing seminar back in 1989, at which Briess Malting Co.

did a talk.  Included was a brochure which listed the analysis of all their

malts.  Strangely enough, both the Briess 2-row and their 6-row had reported

protein levels of 14%!

Al.

------------------------------


Contribution of boiling hops

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 13:10:51 MST

From: Brian.Smithey@Central.Sun.COM (Brian Smithey)

Subject: Contribution of boiling hops

> "C. Lyons / Raytheon-ADC / Andover, MA" <LYONS@adc3.adc.ray.com> writes:

> When adding boiling hops, does the selection of the type of

> hop (Kent Goldings, Northern Brewer, Cascade, etc.) make any

> difference on the final taste profile?  I am wondering if I only

> need to be concerned about getting the number of IBUs correct, or if it

> is significant to get the correct number of IBUs from a particular hop when

> attempting to duplicate recipes/styles.  I understand that hops

> added for flavor and aroma do give the beer destinct characteristics,

> but I am curious if anyone believes that the boiling hops do?

> Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com> responds:

> [ ... ]

> Anyway, it is my personal opinion that more than just bitterness is

> extracted from hops, even during a long boil.  I feel that the low

> alpha hops tend to provide a cleaner, crisper flavor with a more

> pleasant, less cloying aftertaste in the finished beer than many of the

> high alpha varieties.

I seem to remember reading somewhere lately that the ratio of

alpha- to beta-acids also plays a part in the hop bitter profile

of the finished beer, not just the total iso-alpha acid "count",

and that high alpha hops usually don't have correspondingly high

beta acid levels.  I wish I could remember where I read/heard this,

perhaps this will jog the memory of somebody who can provide more

detail (maybe it was Warner's "German Wheat" book, I was reading

that recently).  Maybe the crisp/clean vs. cloying flavors that

Darryl describes are a result of low vs. high alpha to beta ratios?

Brian

- --

Brian Smithey / Sun Microsystems / Colorado Springs, CO

smithey@rmtc.Central.Sun.COM

------------------------------


barleywine

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 14:12:38 CST

From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)

Subject: barleywine

> On a similiar note, Miller mentions that it is difficult making

> an all-grain Barleywine and his recipes call for adding extract.

> He never fully explains what the problem is. Is the problem the

> quantity of grain needed to get the og high enough without

> adding extract? Or is there some other problem?

My problem usually is that I can't sparge enough grain for a 5 gal

batch in a Zapap lauter.  Let me go out on a tangent here.  Has

anyone noticed a correlation between the length of the mash and

the speed of the runoff?  3 weeks ago I did a sour-mash stout

(15 hour mash), and the runoff was quite slow.  A week later

I made a partial-mash barleywine (10 lbs of grain) with a 45

minute mash (usual is 2 hours for me), and it had the fastest

runoff ever.  Perhaps the husks decompose some in a long mash,

making for a bad filter bed.

Back to barleywines...

Miller claims that it requires an extended boil go comcentrate

all the wort, but I do not find this to be the case.  A 2 hr

boil (standard for me) easily condenses 10 gallons down to 5

with my setup.  I usually wind up adding boiling water to the

wort to keep it from concentrating too much.

Since I switched to hops plugs (the freshest), I find that the

5 oz + necessary in a barleywine absorbs over a gallon of the

precious wort.  In the last batch I squeezed 2 gallons out of

the hops left in the boiler, stuck the wort in the fridge overnight

and let it separate from the trub, then siphoned off the good stuff,

re-boiled it, and added it to the fermenter.

I would recommend adding some sugar to a barleywine, though, even

if you want a super-rich taste like Hardy's.  Barleywine can

be notorious for stuck fermentations, but batches where I have

added brown sugar (turbinado sugar is yummier) seem to just keep

glugging away.

I always use dry Whitbread Ale yeast with barleywines.

I wrap the fermenter in a towel and let the vigorous fermentation

take the temperatures into the 80-90F range for 1 day, and then

try to get it back down to 60-70F.  I find this makes for just

the right amount of esters with said yeast.

None of this is carved in stone, of course.  Barleywines are

kosher for experimentation - they always turn out great!

 - Brian "I never drank a barleywine I didn't like" Bliss

------------------------------


Hop Specifications

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 14:44 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Hop Specifications

Darryl writes:

>"C. Lyons / Raytheon-ADC / Andover, MA" <LYONS@adc3.adc.ray.com> writes:

>> When adding boiling hops, does the selection of the type of

>> hop (Kent Goldings, Northern Brewer, Cascade, etc.) make any

>> difference on the final taste profile?  I am wondering if I only

>> need to be concerned about getting the number of IBUs correct, or if it

>> is significant to get the correct number of IBUs from a particular hop when

>> attempting to duplicate recipes/styles.  I understand that hops

>> added for flavor and aroma do give the beer destinct characteristics,

>> but I am curious if anyone believes that the boiling hops do?

>

>This is a topic that doesn't get much attention.  I believe that the

>reason is that once we engineering types (well, most of us do seem to

>fit that description, don't we?) have a way to hang a number on

>something, we feel it must be solved and move on to the next problem.

>If only there were a way to describe hop aroma with a number...

Born and bred a techno-weenie myself (BSEE/MSEE), I have the same kind

of tendancy, although I'm missing some of the information needed to

interpret the attached hop data.  Perhaps someone can post the meaning

of all these hop fractions?  Perhaps someone can massage the data

enough to assign an AROMA FACTOR to each variety?  Alas, I've drifted

from my heritage, let my membership to the ACM and IEEE lapse, taken

to believe that brewing is more of an art and less science than we would

like it to be and traded my slide-rule for a penlight.  The bottom line,

I feel is still that the human senses are our most useful tools as brewers

and a beer that tastes good on paper doesn't necessarily have to taste

good in your glass.  That said:

>From HOP VARIETY SPECIFICATIONS, printed by HOPUNION, U.S.A., INC.

variety  Alpha Beta Co-Hum- Total Myrcene Humu- Caryo- Farne-

  Acids Acids ulone oil (% of lene phy- sene

  (%w/w) (%w/w) (% of (%v/w) whole (% of liene (% of

    AA)  oil) whole (% of whole

       oil) whole oil)

        oil)

==============================================================================

CASCADE  4.5- 4.5- 33- 0.8- 45- 10- 3- 4-

  7.0 7.0 40 1.5 60 16 6 8

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CENTENNIAL 9.5- 3.5- 29- 1.5- 45- 10- 5- <1

  11.5 4.5 30 2.3 55 18 8

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHINOOK  12.0- 3.0- 29- 1.5- 35- 20- 9- <1

  14.0 4.0 34 2.5 40 25 11

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CLUSTER  5.5- 4.5- 36- 0.4- 45- 15- 6- <1

  8.5 5.5 42 0.8 55 18 7

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FUGGLE  4.0- 1.5- 25- 0.7- 40- 20- 6- 4-

  5.5 2.0 32 1.2 50 26 10 5

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GALENA  12.0- 7.0- 38- 0.9- 55- 10- 3- <1

  14.0 9.0 42 1.2 60 15 5

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HALLERTAUER 3.5- 3.5- 18- 0.6- 35- 30- 10- <1

  5.5 5.5 24 1.0 44 38 12

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LIBERTY  3.0- 3.0- 24- 0.6- 35- 35- 9- <1

  8.0 4.0 30 1.2 40 40 12

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MOUNT HOOD 5.0- 5.0- 22- 1.0- 55- 12- 7- <1

  6.0 7.5 23 1.3 65 25 10

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NUGGET  12.0- 4.0- 24- 1.7- 51- 12- 7- <1

  14.0 6.0 30 2.3 59 22 10

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PERLE  7.0- 4.0- 27- 0.7- 45- 28- 10- <1

  9.5 5.0 32 0.9 55 33 12

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TETTNANGER 4.0- 3.0- 20- 0.4- 36- 18- 6- 5-

  5.0 4.0 25 0.8 45 23 7 8

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WILLAMETTE 4.5- 3.0- 30- 1.0- 45- 20- 7- 5-

  7.0 4.0 35 1.5 55 30 8 6

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One other piece of very interesting data (there is more, but it's geared more

towards growers and salespeople) that would not fit above, is storagabilty:

variety  storagabilty

  (% of AA remaining

  after 6 months storage

  at 20 degrees C)

CASCADE  48-52

CENTENNIAL 60-65

CHINOOK  65-70

CLUSTER  80-85

FUGGLE  60-65

GALENA  75-80

HALLERTAUER 52-58

LIBERTY  35-55

MOUNT HOOD 50-60

NUGGET  70-80

PERLE  80-85

TETTNANGER 55-60

WILLAMETTE 60-65

Note that Liberty, the latest commercially available Hallertauer "replacement"

seems to have hit much closer (numerically) to Hallertauer than the other most

recent attempt, Mount Hood.  Alas, it's storagability has suffered.

Ahhh, friday at last...

Al.

------------------------------


GUINNESS in Caribbean

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 15:02 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: GUINNESS in Caribbean

I checked the labels and caps yesterday night:

 GUINNESS FOREIGN EXTRA STOUT

Al.

------------------------------


All-grain barleywine

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 12:26:08 EDT

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: All-grain barleywine

neilm@juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Neil Mager ) says:

  On a similiar note, Miller mentions that it is difficult making

  an all-grain Barleywine and his recipes call for adding extract.

  He never fully explains what the problem is. Is the problem the

  quantity of grain needed to get the og high enough without

  adding extract? Or is there some other problem?

So far as I can tell, he's either 1) in too much of a hurry, or

2) reluctant to make beer in a way that doesn't give 33+ pts/lb of

extract.

If you sparge to near completion, you will have a 3-6 hour boil if

you want to get your wort to 1.100 or higher.  The long boil means

that your wort will have an orange-ruby color, which may or may not

be what you want.  It IS a lovely color, though!

If you begin with a fairly stiff mash and use grain to the tune of

4-10 lbs per gallon of wort desired (!), then sparge very slowly,

you can collect wort at 1.085+, which will need only an hour or so

of boiling--essential for making that most difficult and tedious of

(non-lambic) beers, the very pale barleywine.

While it may seem ghastly to some (including me) to get only 15 or

less points of extract per pound of grain, a few 8-10 hour barley

wine brewing sessions involving very long boils can bring about a

softening in this attitude.  Anyway, when you think about it, if making

5 gallons of barleywine requires a $35-$50 bag of grain and you have

the facilities to do it all at once ... what's the big deal?  Costwise

it's still competitive with extract.

Second runnings can make very good beer.  I do not recommend boiling

them for over a hour, though, since the result (in my experience)

seems to be a bit astringent, even when my sparging water is acidified

and reasonable in temperature.  Don't worry--make a "light" beer.

The slightly unbalanced grainy character is a positive contribution

to flavor in that case, especially if you dry-hop out the wazoo.

A good reference for making very strong beers is the wonderfully succinct

and matter-of-fact "An Introduction to Old British Beers and How to

Make Them," by Dr. John Harrison and the Durden Park Beer Club.  You

can order this from Great Fermentations of Santa Rosa.  For example:

(per Imperial gallon):

28 Usher's 68/~ Mild Ale (1885)

OG 80

A high gravity mild ale virtually unique to Scotland.

2 lb Pale Malt                       1 1/3 lb Carapils

0.9 oz Goldings Hops

Mature for 4 months.

================O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis================

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1992 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------


Year end report

Date: 22 Jan 1993 17:02:23 -0500 (EST)

From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

Subject: Year end report

END OF YEAR REPORT

Beverage Industry has just released  beer volume sales for the US for 1992.

The top 10 selling beers in the US were:

(name, millions of BARRELS, % market share, % change)

Budweiser  45.9 24.1 -3.2

Miller Light  18.0  9.5 -7.7

Bud Light  13.5  7.1 11.6

Coors Light  12.8  6.7  4.1

Busch   10.2  5.4  4.1

Miller Genuine Draft  8.9  4.7 18.7

Milwaukee's Best  8.3  4.4 -1.2

Old Milwaukee    5.8  3.0 -4.9

Miller High Life  5.0  2.6 -13.8

Natural Light    4.8  2.0  9.1

Overall, sales of beer in the US grew just 0.3% in 1992, this following a 2%

decline in 1991.  The increase in sales is mostly attributed to a very slight

increase in domestic sales and a 4% increase in imports.

The #1 beer, Budweiser, saw its sales slip 0.5 million barrels to "only" 24.1

million barrels, its lowest production since 1985.  Overall, however,

Anheuser-Busch continued its march towards 50% of the market because sales of

several of its other brands were up significantly.  A-B's overall production

increased from 86.1 to 87 million barrels and its overall market share went

from 45.5% to 45.7%.

The other major players all saw their sales decrease in 1992.  Miller went from

42.8  to 41.9, Coors from 19.5 to 19.3, Stroh from 14.7 to 13.5, and Heileman

from 10.3 to 9.5 million barrels. Pabst's sales increased from 6.7 to 7.1

million barrels, largely on increased sales of Olde English 800 (yum!).

Underscoring the importance of growing small regional brands like Rolling Rock

and Sam Adams, brewers in the "other" category doubled their overall sales to 5

million barrels and a 4.5 % market share.

Imports sales were up sharply.  Heineken continued by far the biggest seller,

and Corona's sales were up for the first time since 1987.

The top 10 imports in 1992 were:

(name, estimated millions of GALLONS, % of import market)

Heineken 60.5 23.8

Corona Extra 29.5 11.6

Becks  23.2  9.1

Molson Golden 19.0  7.5

Labatt's Blue 13.4  5.3

Amstel Light 11.0  4.3

Tecate    8.6  3.4

Foster   7.9  3.1

Moosehead  7.0  2.8

Bass   5.5  2.2

Guinness  5.5  2.2

Cheers,

Steve

------------------------------


diminishing desperation

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 16:20:29 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: diminishing desperation

I received a lot of suggestions about my wierd tasting beer and many thanks

to all who responded.  Although the problem hasn't been completely isolated

I'm happy to announce that my latest batch is excellent.  Since I used

exactly the same procedures and equipment this tends to rule these out as a

problem.  What I did change is the malt, yeast and hops.  The remaining

common items between the two batches with this flavor are:

Nottingham Ale yeast

Munton & Fison malt (although one used light and the other amber)

I'm wondering if anyone else has had strange flavors from using either of

the above.

 Peter

------------------------------


brewspaper

Date: Sat, 23 Jan 93 13:22:56 CST

From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)

Subject: brewspaper

Producing a newspaper is an enourmous task, with the overriding concern

being: get it out on time.  Producing the first edition is even harder,

with the overriding concern beging: just get it done.  As they said

in their "letters" section: This is the first edition - "we don't have

any letters - we're adlibbing."  You guys should wait till you see

the next couple of editions before you convict them of editorial

negligence.

As for Zymurgy giving them a list of subscribers (if this is indeed

what happened), I think you have a legitimate bitch here, but in the

chance that receive something useful from their distributing my

address I am grateful.  As long as I don't start recieving a bunch

of "BREWCARD" credit card* (which may be used at any of my favotive

mail-order shops) offers with a 21% interest rate, I will be happy.

Give 'em a break!

bb

------------------------------


Brewspaper, Super Corona

Date: Sat, 23 Jan 93 12:30 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Brewspaper, Super Corona

 >From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

 >Ulick and Jack commented on the Brews Paper.  I think this thing is a piece

 of junk.  I'm not sure why I received their first issue, but I guess it has

 something to do with my subscription to Zymurgy.  Anyway, there are soooooo

 many typos in the thing....

 How bout the way they consistantly spelled "lauder tun"?

 >Roller mill rollers:  anyone have any good sources?  I have a wonderful

 little homemade roller mill, but the rollers are a weak point.

 Please be so kind to share what you find with the rest of us.  I gave up

 looking long ago and use custom made rollers.

 >From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

 >js praises The Brews Paper.

 I believe I only referred to the humor.

 >  I personally think it is not that great (well OK for nothing - but

 personlly I think the $15 annual subscription could be better spent on

 Imported hops or something).

 It was sent out to everyone on the Zymurgy mailing list at no cost to anyone.

 I think we can all gain from having another national publication promoting

 our hobby/business.  Remember all the griping about Zymurgy rejecting

 articles?  Well, here is another place to send them.

 In addition to airing our criticism here, we should also take the time to

 write the editor and let him know what we want in an alternative journal.

 Personally, I have no problem with humor but I do not think it should be the

 dominant feature and I have expressed my views to the editor.

 >It should be noted that js is not an unbiased observer as the publication

 carries advertisments for his products.

 I think my views are pretty straightforward.  If nobody likes it, nobody sees

 my ads no matter what I say about it.

 >  Incidentally, does anyone know who is responsible for the ads in Zymurgy

 selling Coronas with the statement that it is better than the js rollermill

 (someone in St. Louis)?

 Sure.  He is the one and only person to return a MALTMILL for a refund.

 However, as he is a regular contributor to this forum and r.c.b, I will give

 him the opportunity to identify himself and enter into the discussion so he

 can make his case publicly.

 >From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

 >Subject: nitrosamines

 >Jack, I've asked this before, and since you brought it up, I'll ask

 again:  What is the level of nitrosamines in fire-kilned malts,

 I have answered this before.  It is requried to be less than 5 PPM.

 >especially as compared to what one might get in a grilled entry at

 the local pub?  It doesn't make sense to me to avoid ordering a stout

 when your hamburger on a toasted roll has orders of magnitude more n.amines

 in it anyway.

 As I do not eat hamburgers on toasted rolls, you will have to do your own

 homework.  You are also confusing the toxins in toast with those in malted

 barley and they ain't necessarily the same.  The nitrosamines in malt are a

 result of precursors formed during the germination of the grain combined with

 the combustion by-products of the flame.  It happens long before they come

 even close to being toasted.

 js

------------------------------


All-grain Red Ale recipes?

Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 23:57:53 -0600 (CST)

From: brewmstr@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jim Bayer)

Subject: All-grain Red Ale recipes?

Hello All..

I'm a "beginner" at all grain and am trying to get past the Pale Ale into

something a little more interesting, so I'm looking for a good  Red Ale

recipe A La Killian's.

Any help will be appreciated.

Jim

******

* I gotta' get me a snappy ending!

******

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1062, 01/25/93

*************************************

-------


diacetyl

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 92 20:19:00 -0500

From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com (Roy Rudebusch)

Subject: diacetyl

From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com

Dear Fellow Brewers;

I would like to share with you the benefits of single infusion mashing

in a picnic cooler mash/lauter tun.  Mostly the time savings and not

having to handle the mash. You too can "brew beer like the micros"!

Typical yield is 28^/#. Good enough.

9:00 AM begin to run water for a 12.5 gal batch, 6 gal for mash and 14

        for sparge.

9:05 started to crush 22# of grain, with a motorized Corona Mill.

     OBTW, blind side-by-side comparisons between grists crushed with a

     corona mill and a "you know who" rollermill have shown the corona

     crushed grist to be superior. The Corona Mill produced less flour

     and smaller starch granules and the husk was left more intact.

     Analysis was done by several professional brewers and scores of

     accomplished homebrewers.

9:10  Began to heat mash water to 180F

9:40  Added the 6 gal of 180F mash water to picnic cooler mash/lauter

      tun. Plastic tubing manifold system. Igloo 36 Qt.

9:45  Doughed in grist when temp of strike water is ~175F.

10:00 Mash temp is 156F. Just right!

11:00 Mash temp now 150F. Began to runoff.

   1/2 bbl brewpot is on the burner closest to the tun. 1/2 bbl

   brewpot (hot liqour tank) with the sparge water is on middle burner.

   Cloudy wort is diverted to a 5 gal pot on the far burner.

11:20 Recirculated about 4 gal of cloudy wort. Wort running clear.

11:21 Started to collect clear runoff in brewpot.

12:00 Sparged to the 8 gal mark in brewpot, wort now beginning to boil.

      Added first hop addition.

12:51 Stopped collecting.

      Collected over ~15 gal of wort ~2 of which has boiled off.

1:05  Added finishing hops, immersion wort chiller.

1:15  Started to chill.

2:45  Finished chilling, ran chilled bitter wort into fermenters through

      a spigot in the bottom of the brewpot, whole hops seem to filter

      back the hot and cold break. The hopback is a 1" copper tee with a

      12 x 8" piece of copper screen rolled up and inserted through it

      and then wadded scrap copper screen placed into both ends.

Prosit!

Roy Rudebusch

 * OLX 2.2 * Corona Mill

------------------------------


HBU -> IBU question

Date: Sun, 24 Jan 93 13:41:58 EST

From: Jim Grady <jimg@hpwarga.wal.hp.com>

Subject: HBU -> IBU question

I realize that this has been discussed before but could someone please

e-mail or post the calculation for IBUs as a function of alpha acids,

s.g., boiling time and anything else I might need to know?  I am trying

to compare two recipes for a Pilsener.  The first is in the Traditional

Beer styles issue of Zymurgy and the second is in Dave Miller's "Brewing

the World's Great Beers."

The first recipe calls for:

   5.75 HBU Chinook @ 60 min.

+  3.5  HBU Saaz    @ 15 min

+ finishing hops and dry hopping

The second recipe calls for

  10 HBU (pellets) or 12 HBU (whole) Hallertau or Tettnanger @ 30 min.

+ finishing hops

Both recipes are extract based.  My question is, are these hopping rates

roughly equivalent given the different boiling times?

Thanks!

- --

Jim Grady                  |"Talent imitates, genius steals."

Internet: jimg@wal.hp.com  |

Phone: (617) 290-3409      |                    T. S. Eliot

------------------------------


Homebrew Shareware suggestions anyone?

Date: Sun, 24 Jan 93 16:32:17 CST

From: Eugene Zimmerman <ezimmerm@hp.uwsuper.edu>

Subject: Homebrew Shareware suggestions anyone?

Salutations!

 I'm a comp sci major and am learning the fine art of C programming.

Not that you really care about my education, but I am embarking on a new

adventure. I'm going to be programming and then releasing in the form of

Shareware a homebrew program. I would lieke suggestions from anyone

who has any suggestions on it's content.

 So far, I'm thinking of including a database of previous brews, a DB

of beer styles, DB of hops (wich will be user alterable for specific tastes)

and a brewing calculator/recipehelper. This recipe thing will be able

to import data from the other databases so you could work off of the

classic style of say a Bock  and then 'tweek' it a tad if you wish. Once

declaring what kind of style you wish to emluate, the program would import

the recipe for you to alter. You could also import pervious brews. I'm

thinking it would calculate out the specific grav, HBUs as well as IBU's

and other things. What I need from the brewing community is suggestions as

I am but one brewer and together we are many, with many needs and wishes

when it comes to brewing aids. So, if you would please reply to me at :

ezimmerm@hp.uwsuper.edu

it would be greatly appreciated.

  I plan on finishing the first version by spring(living in Duluth,

this means late May ).

Gene in Duluth

------------------------------


Beer Survey - anybody seen it?

Date: Sun, 24 Jan 93 21:35:16 CST

From: hopduvel!john@linac.fnal.gov (John Isenhour)

Subject: Beer Survey - anybody seen it?

This saturday I got a beer survey - the envelope was designed like a

foaming mug (the color of american pilsner) boldly stating

"We'd like to tap into your thoughts on beer".  Inside was a form

stating 'pour out your thoughts on beer' with a bunch-o-beer mugs

you were supposed use to indicate that your favorite beer was bud, bud

light, miller, coors, samual adams (the contract brewer with all the

lawyers), etc.  I wonder if anyone else has seen this as I too got a

copy of 'The Brewspaper' (not impressed if I have to pay) and I'm

wondering where all this came from.  BTW I circled the 'other' beer

catagory and indicated Sierra Nevada Pale Ale for what this

scientific study called 'most often brand'.

- --

John Isenhour

renaissance scientist and

AHA/HWBTA (soon to be recognized as certified) National Beer Judge

------------------------------


All grain barley wines - second runnings

Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 12:51:50 GMT

From: des@pandora.swindon.ingr.com (Desmond Mottram)

Subject: All grain barley wines - second runnings

Joseph Hall (amongst others) makes some good points about making barley

wines. First the waste of grain if you only use the first runnings,

secondly that you can make very good beer with the second runnings:

> While it may seem ghastly to some (including me) to get only 15 or

> less points of extract per pound of grain

 ...

> Second runnings can make very good beer.

 ...

> uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

I agree totally and have successfully done it. I mashed 10# (possibly

more?) pale malt in 3+ gallons of water and ran off 2 gallons without

sparging at 1085 to make the barley wine. I then sparged the rest with

about 4 gallons of water. This gave 5 gallons of 1040 wort and made a very

good beer.

The only problems I encountered were (a) the difficulty of getting the hop

rate right for only two gallons of 1085 wort, and (b) racking the wort off

the trub after boiling, as it threw a huge quantity. More exact details can

be supplied on request.

The barley wine was utterly revolting and undrinkable for at least six

months, but carries a punch like a heavyweight boxer. I've had it now for

a year and it has improved only slowly. I suspect it won't be at its best

for years. Maybe I wasn't so successful after all?

Rgds, Desmond Mottram

des@pandora.swindon.ingr.com

------------------------------


keg foam fix/weast 3056

Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 09:02:18 EST

From: mlobo@sentry.foxboro.com (Michael T. Lobo)

Subject: keg foam fix/weast 3056

A few months ago I brewed my first batch of weizen beer using Wyeast 3056..here

are my results...

The Wyeast was 3 months old, but swelled almost to the bursting pt. w/in 24 hrs.

I used a starter and pitched the next day.  After the usual primary wait,

I kegged this and let it sit in 60 deg. for 1 month.  I tapped the keg Saturday,

and after tasting it was VERY happy - nice flavor ( just like a "real Weizen..

who would have guessed ;^)

Up until now, I have had some foaming problems with my kegs.  I force carbonate

and the problem was that it took about 1/3 of the keg for the foam to subside

enough so I could get a properly carbonated beer( that 1/3 keg usually ended up

in the keg cooler..major bummer!).  I always allow the excess pressure to bleed

off via the CO2 connector on the keg before trying to draw the first few beers,

because of the high pressure.  Well, the first glass of Weizen looked like

airport runway foam, and I was not about to go through the 1/3 keg ritual with

this one.  I could see the beer leaving the keg ok, but about 5" into the hose,

the foam was starting and by the cobra tap - foam-a-rama.  The hose was ~24"

long.  I cut my hose with the cobra tap so it was only 2 inches long, and viola!

no more foam!  Needless to say, this really made my weekend...so much, that we

tapped a second keg ( an IPA ) on Sunday to see if it was a fluke, and it also

poured great from the start...

IMHO, the keg should be allowed to settle for at least 24 hrs before tapping.

This has helped my keg pressures considerably.  Also, the colder the keg when

you force carbonate, the easier it is to do (for the weizen I needed alot!).

enjoy,

Michael T. Lobo   508 549 2487

Foxboro Co.

mlobo@foxboro.com  "I Love beer, beer loves me; when I drink too much,

my beer speaks for me" -Monty

------------------------------


Solder and beer - whats the deal?

Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 10:04:55 CDT

From: smanastasi@mmm.com

Subject: Solder and beer - whats the deal?

I've been following the thread on solder and beer.  I recently made

a lauter/mash tun using the slotted copper coil design (and had fun

doing it).  I used lead-free solder for all my joints.

Is there a valid concern with exposing lead-free solder to a

liquid (wort) with PH down to 5.1 or so?  Since there is some solder

on the exposed surfaces of joints, my wort will come in contact

with the solder (as well as smaller amounts of solder on the

interior of each joint).

I realize that there is tin in the solder but I did not think that

that a mild acid such as wort would cause any problem, especially

since the exposure time is only a couple hours or so - albeit at

elevated temperatures.

Maybe in another article, I will post my advice on making the slotted

copper coil.  I learned a few things.

- --

Steve Anastasi

St. Paul, MN

smanastasi@mmm.com

(612) 733-6970

------------------------------


Brwon ALe style question

Date:    Sat, 23 Jan 1993 20:59:31 -0600 (CST)

From: MEHTA01@SWMED.EDU

Subject: Brwon ALe style question

i am going to try and make an English style brown ale and would like to hear

some of you experienced (AHA certified) judges, what you think the

characteristics of the style are

 i am thinking of using:

  4 lb Light Liq Extract (Alexander's)

  2 lb English 2 row malt

  1/4 lb chocolate malt

  1/4 lb black patent malt

  1 - 3/2 lb light brown sugar

  1 oz. GOlding boiling

  1/2 oz Cascade boiling hops and finishing

Ferment with ale yeast.

i would like to hear from others who have tried to make a similar beer on

their ingredients and results. i have been making all kinds of arbit(rary)

beers like Pumpkin ale (from a recipe on HBD) and getting very good results,

but i would really like to try and see if i can get close to a good style of

established beer. (and i personally like brwon ales...) SO please send  me all

kinds of warnings or suggestions:- i would like to hear about other's

experiences in making this style of beer..

CIao

Shreefal

------------------------------


hops, nitrosamines

Date:    Mon, 25 Jan 1993 11:20:47 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: hops, nitrosamines

  For all my recent batches, I've pulled apart the finishing hops to

expose more of the good stuff at the core.  Yesterday I used a coffee

grinder, and the results were spectacular!  Loosely load whole hops

into the grinder, give it a few spins, and out comes chopped hops,

with an incredible aroma.  A bonus is a sort of hops-hash (for lack

of a better term) that collects on the edge of the grinder.  Scrape

that into a vial with vodka....hops oil!  Another bonus for those

using immersion chillers is that the chopped hops don't cling to the

copper as much as whole hops do; cleaning is easier.

  Ok, so malt must be < 5ppm nitrosamines.  Any nutritionists out there,

or cancer specialists, with the number on grilled meat?  If not, I'll

find the time to look it up myself; my gut (ha!) feeling is that the

quantity in malt is minute compared to that in grilled beef.

  And, for the record, it *is* possible to get a stuck sparge with a

10-gallon cooler/strainer lauter tun...too fine a crush, too long a

settling stage (2+ hours vs. the usual 30 minutes).  It was nice to

have a Zapap tun to fall back to.

Russ

------------------------------


Barleywine

Date: 25 Jan 1993 08:55:08 PST

From: "JSDAWS1@PROFSSR" <JSDAWS1@PB1.PacBell.COM>

Subject: Barleywine

*** Resending note of 12/30/92 09:24

I've recently read comments by Bob Jones (thank again...) for this barleywine

recipe named "blind squirrel barleywine"  which took a first place at the

California State comps at Stern grove, SF this fall, and just recently won

the AHA's Barleywine is Fine (I think) comp.  I call it blind squirrel because,

it's the first brew I've ever done which has won anything.... which proves

only that even a blind squirrel sometimes finds the acorn  :)

Cheers.     Jack     jsdaws1@pb1.pacbell.com

OK - as far as I can recall from the extensive records I've kept     :)

Batch size:  5 gal.

Extract:     6 lbs.  Williams light Australian syrup

             5 lbs.  Williams light Australian dry

Grain:       1 lb.   10-L crystal steeped

             1 lb.   40-L crystal steeped

Hops:        3  oz   Chinook pellets aa%13 (60 min)

             1/2 oz  CFJ-90  pellets aa%9  (5 min)

             1/2 oz  CFJ-90    "      "    (dry-hopped in 2ndary)

Water        1 tsp   gypsum at start of boil

             1 tsp   irish moss  (30 min)

Yeast:       14 g.   Whitbread dry

Primary fermentation -  glass for 5 days at 65'

2ndary  fermentation -  glass for 16 days at 65'

Bottled:    June 15, 1991

Note:  Wort was boiled in 4 gal. pot (3 1/2 volume) with 2 gal. water added

to primary fermenter.

------------------------------


RE: wheat malt, sparge water acidification

Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 12:13:23 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: wheat malt, sparge water acidification

Hi All,

  In HBD #1062, Scott Bickham writes:

>So the Munich malt not only converted itself, but also the

>5 lbs. of malted wheat.

  I read somewhere that wheat malt itself contains sufficient enzymes

for conversion.  Does anyone know if it does or not??

***************************************************************

  Also in HBD #1062, John Francisco writes:

> Last weekend I was brewing an all grain stout and following Miller's

>suggestion of a ph of 5 to 5.6 for the mash - no problem with the

>hard water I have. But I couldn't lower my sparge water to 6.5 from

>8.1 using gypsum. After dumping in a teaspoon at a time and taking

>reading with a digital ph meter, I could only get the ph down to

>7.6 after I used up the entire one ounce package of gypsum. The ph

>seemed to drop down to 7.6 after the addition of 1/2 ounce of gypsum

>but any further addition didn't seem to lower it any further.

>Does anyone have any suggestions about what I can use to lower my

>sparge water ph to 6.5?????

   Acidification of sparge water was discussed at some length in

this forum about a month ago.  The consensus (huh? on HBD?? :-)) was

that not every brewer needs to acidify the sparge water, and that even

those who do so should be careful not to overacidify.

   I have very hard water as well, and had the same difficulty lowering

the pH of the sparge water adequately.  The symptom was a very distinct taste

of tannin in the runoff when the gravity was still over 1.020.  A pale lager

I brewed was noticeably astringent.  I started using acidblend, which I

understand to be a mixture of citric, malic, and tartaric acid, to acidify

4 gallons of sparge water from ~7 to ~5.5.  This required only 1/4 teaspoon

of acidblend, as a little goes a long way.  Several others pointed out

the danger of making the wort *too* acidic, i.e., lack of a good hot break.

   So the moral is, *if* you have this problem with your brewing water,

use a "food grade" acid like citric or tartaric, and be very careful.  You

want to deliver wort of about 5.5 - 5.7 pH to the boiler.

                                   Cheers,

                                     Jim

------------------------------


RE: PH Adjustments

Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 09:08:15 PST

From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

Subject: RE: PH Adjustments

Cisco <FRANCISCO@lan.ccit.arizona.edu> writes:

> Last weekend I was brewing an all grain stout and following Miller's

> suggestion of a ph of 5 to 5.6 for the mash - no problem with the

> hard water I have. But I couldn't lower my sparge water to 6.5 from

> 8.1 using gypsum. After dumping in a teaspoon at a time and taking

> reading with a digital ph meter, I could only get the ph down to

> 7.6 after I used up the entire one ounce package of gypsum. The ph

> seemed to drop down to 7.6 after the addition of 1/2 ounce of gypsum

> but any further addition didn't seem to lower it any further.

> Does anyone have any suggestions about what I can use to lower my

> sparge water ph to 6.5?????

Clearly, this bears repeating.  You *can't* lower your *sparge water*

pH appreciably by adding gypsum.  The goal of water treatment is to

allow your *mash*, not your *water*, to reach optimum pH.  The reason

for treating sparge water is that as you remove the wort from your

mash, you are removing most of the acidifying material.  If you have

water with carbonates in it, it will drive the remaining material into

an alkaline state.  You should only be concerned with the pH of your

mash, not your water.

The reason that gypsum tends to lower pH is that it dissolves and

dissociates into Ca and SO4.  The calcium will then combine with malt

components to form a weak organic acid.  If nothing else intervenes,

this settles the pH of the mash at a good point.  However, carbonate is

somewhat basic and can overcome the acidity of this weak acid.

Especially when much of the acid is removed, as it is during sparging.

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------


Enzymes in malted wheat

Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 13:50:53 EST

From: bickham@msc2.msc.cornell.edu (Scott Bickham)

Subject: Enzymes in malted wheat

Yesterday, I wrote:

  "Munich malt not only converted itself, but also the

5 lbs. of malted wheat."  Before I get flamed too badly, let me admit

my mistake - I confused the malted wheat in the Weizen with the unmalted

barley in my last batch - a Belgian White.  Maybe someday I'll learn my

lesson about posting without reviewing the facts ;-)

John Francisco wrote:

  "Does anyone have any suggestions about what I can use to

lower my sparge water ph to 6.5?????"  I recommend investing in some

food grade lactic acid, which you should be able to order from a pharmacy

in your area.  I found a pint bottle for $23, and it should last many

years since it only takes 1/4 tsp. to lower the pH of a gallon of sparge

water from 8 to 5.5.

Rob Bradley asked about culturing Sierra Nevada dregs.  Isn't there three

different strains involved in the fermentation, as well as three initially

in the Wyeast 1056 pouch?  The first strain starts rapidly, but isn't

tolerant to ethanol and settles out rapidly, and then a second strain takes

over.  The third strain starts very slowly, but is responsible for the

bottle conditioning.  I have heard of very slooow fermentations from

yeast cultured from SNPA dregs, so maybe only the third strain is viable

at that time.  Any comments?

Scott

------------------------------


All-Grain Barleywine

Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 13:58:23 EST

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: All-Grain Barleywine

In the last two issues there have been a lot of comments on

the feasability of all-grain barleywines.  I recently bottled

an all-grain batch of barleywine which had an initial gravity

of 1.100 using my rather primitive (Zap-Pap lauter tun)

equipment.  To get a higher initial gravity I split the mashing

of 22 lbs of pale ale malt and 2 lbs of crystal malt using

2 kettles. (Actually I needed 3 pots since my two 4 gallon

pots were filled to the brim with mash).  The mash was relatively

stiff at 1 quart per pound of grain.  Two separate sparges were

done where I collected the first runnings plus enough wort to

make 3 1/2 gallons from each sparge for a total of 7 gallons.

I didn't have the time nor the equipment to use the rest of

the runnings so I simplly dumped the partially sparged mash

into my compost pile.

I use a ten gallon stainless steel pot for boiling, and boiled

the wort down to 6 1/2 gallons in the first half hour and down

to about 5 3/4 gallons the next hour.  The pre-boil gravity was

1.082, and post boil gravity was 1.100 (which is consistent) and

yields 82*7/24 or 100*5.75/24 or about 24 pts/lb/gal.  Normally

I get about 27-28 pts/lb/gal with a regular strength beer.

The wort was fermented using a 3 quart starter of The Yeast

Culture Kit A1 yeast (a close relative of Wyeast 1056) which

took the gravity down to 1.030 in four days.  I then racked

to secondary, after which there was very little activity.  After

one week dry hopped with 1/2 oz of Kent Goldings pellets and

stirred.  I didn't want to pitch more yeast since my secondary

(a 5 gallon carboy) was filled to within 2 inches of the brim,

so I decided 1.029 was good enough and bottled after two weeks in

secondary.  The beer was very clear with a deep amber color, had

a nice warm alcohol taste but was a little sweet (next time a little

more bittering hops).  I'll wait a few months to see how it ages

before posting the recipe in detail.

Bill Szymczak

bszymcz@ulysses.nswc.navy.mil

------------------------------


"ISO-KLEER"

Date: 25 Jan 1993 14:22:33 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Wayde Nie, Eng.Phys. II" <9106857@SSCvax.CIS.McMaster.CA>

Subject: "ISO-KLEER"

Hi all,

  I have a quick qestion, Has anyone ever hear of a product for clearing

brew called "ISO-KLEER"?

 I inherited a couple of bottles and have no idea what it is or how it's

used (except that it is a clearing agent -- I assume from the name!)  This

stuff comes in small (about 100mL) bottles and is a clear liquid. The bottle

is blank except for a "5" in a circle with "ISO-KLEER" under it, stamped on in

black ink.

  If anyone has ever used/heard of this stuff, I'd like to know what it

is and how is it used. (Do you have to boil it, dilute it, how much do you use,

etc...)  Any help is appreciated.

    Thanks,

    Wayde.

------------------------------


credit cards

Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 11:24:09 CST

From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)

Subject: credit cards

I cite myself:

>As for Zymurgy giving them a list of subscribers (if this is indeed

>what happened), I think you have a legitimate bitch here, but in the

>chance that receive something useful from their distributing my

>address I am grateful.  As long as I don't start recieving a bunch

>of "BREWCARD" credit card* (which may be used at any of my favotive

>mail-order shops) offers with a 21% interest rate, I will be happy.

Looks like I spoke too soon.  I just got 3 lbs of anti-oxidation bottle

caps from the AHA today, and an application for guess what was included.

Only 13.9% though.

It doesn't annoy me as much as it epitomizes the American economy.

bb

------------------------------


Briess/DeWolf-Cosyns protein levels

Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 13:37 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Briess/DeWolf-Cosyns protein levels

I wrote:

>I was at a microbrewing seminar back in 1989, at which Briess Malting Co.

>did a talk.  Included was a brochure which listed the analysis of all their

>malts.  Strangely enough, both the Briess 2-row and their 6-row had reported

>protein levels of 14%!

Elsewhere in the literature that I got from Briess at the seminar, I found

different protein levels listed.  Their 6-row was 13.5% and the 2-row was

13.0% protein.

On the other hand, the DeWolf-Cosyns Belgian malts are between 8.94 and 10.63

for all but the Aromatic, Chocolate, Roasted Barley and Roasted Malt, which

are in the 10.75 to 11.22 range.  Even their wheat malt is only 10.61%

protein!

Al.

------------------------------


COPs replies:

Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 14:56:14 EST

From: bickham@msc2.msc.cornell.edu (Scott Bickham)

Subject: COPs replies:

Soon after the COPS incident was discussed here, I sent a letter to the

local FOX station and the producers of COPS explaining that I thought

homebrewing had been misrepresented.  Today, I received the following

reply:

- ----------------

Dear Mr. Bickham,

Thank you for your letter regarding the homebrewing episode of COPS.

Please realize that COPS is a video verite show, flimed without a script,

rehearsals, narration or whatever.  What we see while accompanying the

police is what you see -- right or wrong.

In the episode you question, the officer does make the point that home

brewing is legal, and nowhere is there any mention of beer.  The suspect

was, in fact, supposedly making tequila and whiskey.

We have however brought your complaint to the attention of the police, and

we truly regret any misinterpretation -- which was not our intent.  COPS

has never professed to do anything other than reflect actual incidents

while following our nation's police departments in carrying out their duties.

Sincerely,

Malcolm Barbour

Executive Producer

- ------------------

It appears that COPS is aware of our feeling about this incident, and

judging from this, may even respond to similar letters the receive from

other homebrewers.  I don't think they should be held blameless, since

there is obviously a large audience for this type of journalism, but they

shouldn't be held responsible for the ignorance the law enforcement officers

display on camera.

   Scott

------------------------------


Juice jar starters, squeezing out an extra quart

Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 15:25:20 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: Juice jar starters, squeezing out an extra quart

In hbd #1062, Tony Babinec wrote about making starters from Wyeast:

>...American Science Center, for example, has 250, 500,

>and 1000 ml flasks that can be fitted with a stopper and fermentation lock.

>...

>...If you don't have flasks, use a 12 oz beer bottle!

In most supermarket, you can buy 48 and 64 ounce juices in dark

brown bottles.  Their wide mouths accept #8 and #8 1/2 stoppers.

You can make a quart-sized starter in either of these bottles;

almost 1/2 gallon in the larger size.

Misers (like me) will appreciate the following feature of this

system: leave a few drops behind in the juice bottle when when you

pitch the yeast and fill it up with trub from your cooling/settling

vessel.  It will settle and you'll get an extra quart or more of

beer which, in my limited experience, is hardly more raunchy than

the good stuff.  [I came up with this idea in early December after

reading the experiences of a clever person whose name escapes me.

He used a 2 l. pop bottle.]

Cheers,

Rob (bradley@adx.adelphi.edu)

------------------------------


hop storage

Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 13:27:58 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: hop storage

Al gives us some interesting figures for hop storage which apply for, I

presume, whole hops.  I'm wondering what the figures would be for hop

pellets stored at -18C (i.e. in the freezer).

In fact, is storing pellets in the freezer a good idea?  Is any harm likely

to come to them?

 Peter

------------------------------


HOW HOMEBREW DIGEST WORKS

Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 14:12:39 PST

From: inc@tc.fluke.COM (Gary Benson)

Subject: HOW HOMEBREW DIGEST WORKS

Please, if this article has made it to the HomeBrew Digest,

would Rob Gardner or whoever is now moderating the list

send me a mail message giving your correct email address?

I have been trying since last Friday to reach Rob, and I

am not sure that the addresses at the top of each digest

are correct.

Thank you very much.

------------------------------


Yeast Bank

Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 20:37:58 PST

From: engebret@steer.sdsu.edu (aguado e)

Subject: Yeast Bank

   With the selection of dry yeasts being small and the choices of liquid

thinning the wallet, I am looking into culturing my own yeast.  Miller

mentions the "Yeast Bank."  This sounds like an easy way to propagate

yeast, however, I don't knoe anyone who has used this product.  Has

anyone tried using a "Yeast Bank," or "freeze shield?"

Thanks,

Mark Engebretson

      /*/      /***/              /*/      /***/       Mark Engebretson

    /*   */  /*     */    /*/   /*   */  /*     */     Dept. of Geography

  /*       /*         *//*   */        /*         */   San Diego State U.

/*       /*             */     */    /*             */ ENGEBRET@UCSVAX

------------------------------


Low Pilsner Yield(?), GOTT Cooler Conversion

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 00:12:38 -0500

From: TiM@world.std.com

Subject: Low Pilsner Yield(?), GOTT Cooler Conversion

This year (the second year I've been brewing) I decided to try a lager

since I now have a new unheated area below an addition to the house

which keeps an ambient 40-45 degree temperature during the winter.

(I'm in the market for a used fridge...just haven't got one yet).

My question is: I bought 'Pilsner' malt, and according several sources

including the calculations in Darryl Richmond's (c) shareware

spreadsheet, for brew 1 I should have received a 1.044 O.G.

However I ended up with 1.038 (pilsner light?). For brew 2 I compensated

and 'aimed' for 1.052 and ended up with 1.043.

Both times I rested at 130 degrees for 45 minutes, then through a

combination of adding some boiling water and

heating existing mash brought the temperature to 156. I mash using

a GOTT water 'cooler' which tends to lose only about a degree in 30

minutes (after which I heat a little of the mash and bring it back to

proper temperature). I mashed for 90 minutes, then poured the mash

into a kettle, broke at 168, poured the mash into my sparging setup

and did about a 45-50 minute sparge with 168-170 degree water.

I guess my question is: Is Pilsner grain typically low-yeild? Did I

do something wrong (this is my first attempt at lagering).

Just for the detail, the first beer used Danish Lager Wyeast. The

second used Wyeast #2206.

Every other all-grain brew I've made to date (15) hit the O.G. within

 .02, except both these using Pilsner malt (from the same homebrew supply

shop).

Also, does anyone have info regarding converting the water-outlet in

a GOTT cooler painlessly into a grommet-and-hose assembly for a combo

mash/sparge bucket? The false bottom from my Phils unit fits PERFECTLY

into the GOTT cooler...can I get away with simply using a big grommet

to seal a piece of tubing (I've never had the problem experienced by

some people on this BBS of mash crimping the plastic tubing coming

from the top of the false bottom)?

Thanks.

*******************************************************************

Fortunatly, The Second To Last Bug Has Been Fixed.

Tim Roaix, @ TiM.world.std.com.

   *Prodigy  JXRW77A (until my one-month free trial is over on this

piece-o-crap excuse for an online network).

------------------------------


BREW locations in San Diego, CA

Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 22:53:53 PST

From: danforth@trinity.llnl.gov (Bill A. Danforth)

Subject: BREW locations in San Diego, CA

Hello all,

I am in San Diego this week, and am wondering about brew locations

(brewpubs and/or locales with great selections).  Any pointers??

Thanks in advance,

A Beerman without a beer-

Bill Danforth

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1063, 01/26/93

*************************************

-------


World's Greatest, Barleywine

Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 19:30 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: World's Greatest, Barleywine

 >From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

 >The most fun I had with my clothes on was at the CBS first Thursday

 meeting at Goose Island.... Interestingly, the world's greatest brewer (tm?)

 didn't attend, although he threatened to do so publicly, right here in the

 HBD.

 When I found out that the World's Greatest judge of beers was unable to

 re-arrange his honeymoon plans, I decided that it just was not worth my

 effort.  Had I known you were going to be there, I most certainly would have

 been there to frustrate you.   Imagine have to pick which of my three beers

 really was the World's Greatest.

 A WARINING to all:  Do NOT trust to random luck.  Phone ahead!

 >From: Jeff Frane <70670.2067@compuserve.com>

 >Subject: Barleywine Yeast Method

 >On the subject of proper yeasts for barleywines, I'd like to offer

 my own suggestion, having brewed a couple successfully.

 This is probably not (maybe?) related to yeast but it is a good segue anyway.

 This past Sunday, I took a customer to lunch at the Goose and we did their

 sample program.  All the beers were interesting and worth the taste.

 However, the barlywine was absolutely vile.  My guest says this is what

 barleywine tastes like and I politely dissented but did not argue.  The

 customer is not always right but there is little to be gained by arguing with

 one.

 I am not sure of the correct nomenclature but it tasted like the

 screenprinting ink I use smells.  Back in the days before I cultured yeast, I

 had made beer with that taste, more than once.   I recognize it as a defect

 and not just something unique to barleywine because I never have made

 barleywine.

 Anybody have barleywine at the Goose lately?

 js

------------------------------


COPS

Date:     Tue, 26 Jan 93 7:46:51 EST

From: "Peter J. Burke" (FSAC-PMD) <pburke@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  COPS

Not nerely enough has been written in regards to that

certain COPS episode, so here is some more.

I sent aletter voicing my complaint to the producer of

the show. His reply, full of vague apologies and

bureuocratic bs, is enclosed:

COPS

Barbour/Langley Productions

Dear Mr. Burke,

Thank you for your letter regarding the home brewing episode

of COPS.

Please realize that COPS is a video verite show, filmed without

a script, rehearsals, narration or whatever. What we see while

accompanying the police is what you see -- right or wrong.

In the episode you question, the officer does make the point

that home brewing is legal, and nowhere is there any mention

of beer. The suspect was, in fact, supposedly making tequila

and whiskey.

We have however brought your complaint to the attention of the

police, and we truly regret any misrepresentation -- which was not

our intent. COPS has never prfessed to do anything other than

reflect actual incidents while following our nation's police

departments in carrying out their duties.

sincerely,

Malcolm Barbour

Executive Producer

As you can see, a truly bogus excuse. He desreves more hate mail.

PROST !!!!

------------------------------


COPS

Date:     Tue, 26 Jan 93 7:46:51 EST

From: "Peter J. Burke" (FSAC-PMD) <pburke@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  COPS

Not nerely enough has been written in regards to that

certain COPS episode, so here is some more.

I sent aletter voicing my complaint to the producer of

the show. His reply, full of vague apologies and

bureuocratic bs, is enclosed:

COPS

Barbour/Langley Productions

Dear Mr. Burke,

Thank you for your letter regarding the home brewing episode

of COPS.

Please realize that COPS is a video verite show, filmed without

a script, rehearsals, narration or whatever. What we see while

accompanying the police is what you see -- right or wrong.

In the episode you question, the officer does make the point

that home brewing is legal, and nowhere is there any mention

of beer. The suspect was, in fact, supposedly making tequila

and whiskey.

We have however brought your complaint to the attention of the

police, and we truly regret any misrepresentation -- which was not

our intent. COPS has never prfessed to do anything other than

reflect actual incidents while following our nation's police

departments in carrying out their duties.

sincerely,

Malcolm Barbour

Executive Producer

As you can see, a truly bogus excuse. He desreves more hate mail.

PROST !!!!

------------------------------


Beer Survey

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 15:13 GMT

From: brians <brians_+a_neripo_+lbrians+r%NERI@mcimail.com>

Subject: Beer Survey

MHS:   Source date is:      26-Jan-93 09:21 EDT

John Isenhour asks about the bright yellow choose-a-mug beer survey.  I can

report that one arrived at our house last week, and that we took a similar

tack in answering it (i.e. listing "most often" brands of some obscurity

rather than Xing the mug of some megasuds).  However, I can't help anyone

figure out where the names came from; though I've got my name on several

beer related lists, the survey came addressed to my wife, who is on no such

thing.  Of course, we queered the results by making her name answer to my

habits, but that's a risk you take when you just mail out your surveys.  I

should add that they promised a "free mystery gift" for completing the

survey - the bait did its trick, as I would never have bothered with it if

there weren't something in it for me.  I just hope this isn't something to

help research Zima ClearMalt, or something equally horrifying; I expect my

mystery gift will be a voucher for a beverage I'd rather not have, in any

case.  Anyone else?

Brian Schuth

brians%neri@mcimail.com

------------------------------


Nitrosamines

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 09:39:02 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat (George J Fix)

Subject: Nitrosamines

The work that first showed that nitrosamine is a potential carcinogen is

summarized in the following:

     Environmental Aspects of N-nitroso Compounds, Proceedings of a

     Working Conference held at the NE Center for Continuing Education,

     Univ. of New Hampshire, 22-24 Aug. 1977, IARC Publ. No. 19 (1978)

Following this report, a technical committee was formed and headed by

Dr. W.A. Harwick of Anheuser-Busch, Inc. This lead to various procedures

that could be used to control N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) levels in malt.

Their findings were published in the MBAA Tech. Qr. (Vol.17, No.4, 1980).

For the record, the highest NDMA level reported was in Bamberg Rauchbier.

It contained 5-15 parts per billon, and not 5 ppm as reported in HBD. This

also was the level reported in their malt. The NDMA levels of beer is typically

9-10 times lower than in the malt used.

I feel it is perfectly legitimate to raise the possibility that beer with

higher than normal nitrosamine levels could be a health hazard. Nevertheless,

there are many aspects of this issue I do not fully understand. For example,

population data shows that Bamberg has one of the highest rates of beer

consumption in Germany (no small feat!), yet its cancer and death rates

are near (and in fact slightly below) the average in Germany. I conjecture

if the fair citizens of Bamberg smoked cigarettes at the same rate they

consume Rauchbier, and if at the same time everyone else in Germany did not

smoke, then the Bamberg cancer and death rates would 5-10 times the German

average. This is a fair comparison since most German beer has very low NDMA

levels. While a formal linkage between cigarette smoking and cancer has not

been established, just about anyone's data shows that it is indeed real. If

Rauchbier is a health hazard, why doesn't this show up in the data? People

in Bamberg have been drinking this beer throughout the 20th century, and in

fact even longer.

There has been a serious "social cost" associated with the ban on smoked

malt. One casuality has been a beer called "Smoked Porter". It is a

natural for brewpubs. For example, it and smoked salmon are a marriage

made in heaven, especially if capers are added as well. It is possible

for a brewpub to buy regular malt, and then smoke it themselves. Alaska Br.,

a micro, is doing just that, and at the same time winning all sorts of

ribbons at the GABFs for their version of smoked porter. Nevertheless,

the brewpubs I have been associated with have been reluctant to brew

a version for fear they would be accused of poisoning their customers.

It doesn't take much of this sort of thing to totally trash a small

commercial operation.

For the record, the Belgium base malts have very low NDMA levels, and

in fact are lower than most US malts. Other than that, they are perfectly

fine for brewing!

George "smoke malt not cigarettes" Fix

------------------------------


re:Beer Survey - anybody seen it?

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 10:24:37 EST

From: eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West)

Subject: re:Beer Survey - anybody seen it?

Six data:

Yup, I got one too, so did the wife, but I'm not

an AHA member and neither is she.

On the other hand, neither got 'The Brewspaper'.

Carl

WISL,BM.

------------------------------


pvc v. copper

Date: 26 Jan 1993  10:57 EST

From: dab@cc.bellcore.com (dave ballard)

Subject: pvc v. copper

hey now-  anybody out there have a cooler tun using a pvc manifold instead of

copper?  positive/negative comments?  anyone?  anyone?

dab

oh, btw, cans of guinness pub draft have begun popping up here in

piscataway, nj, so keep your eyes open if you haven't seen it near

you yet...

=========================================================================

dave ballard

dab@cc.bellcore.com

=========================================================================

------------------------------


Corona versus JSP MaltMill

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 11:30 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Corona versus JSP MaltMill

This post may come as a surprise to those who have followed my

battles with JS over the last year, but being a BJCP beer judge

teaches you the importance of being just and unbiased, which is

what I feel compelled to do regarding this point also.

Roy writes:

     OBTW, blind side-by-side comparisons between grists crushed with a

     corona mill and a "you know who" rollermill have shown the corona

     crushed grist to be superior. The Corona Mill produced less flour

     and smaller starch granules and the husk was left more intact.

     Analysis was done by several professional brewers and scores of

     accomplished homebrewers.

I find this so incredibly hard to believe, I find it difficult to

avoid calling it a lie.  With the proper adjustment, the Corona can,

indeed, produce smaller starch granules, but contrary to Roy's statement,

this will invariably produce *more* flour and *shred* the husks into

very small pieces.

Jack and I have this on-again/off-again war going on and during

one of the cease-fires, I purchased a JSP MaltMill.  I have compared

the crush with the MM against the crush done by various other means,

including the Corona, and I must honestly say that the MM crush is

*far* superior to the Corona and all other methods short of a $5500

professional rollermill.  I have used the MM with over 17 different

varieties of malted and unmalted barley and there has *never* been any

splintering of husk material by the MM as is *always* the case with

the Corona.

I'm not the only one who thinks this way... on March 31, 1992,

George Fix wrote:

>Jack has built a first rate mill that is

>worth every penny  he is asking for it. The metal work, the

>heart of any mill, is extremely impressive. When the mill first

>arrived, the first thing we did was to compare the quality of the

>crush with that obtained from the commercial mill at the Dallas

>Brewing. For the record the latter cost between $5000 and $6000.

>There was absolutely no difference between the two.

Al.

P.S.

Roy also writes:

>9:40  Added the 6 gal of 180F mash water to picnic cooler mash/lauter

>      tun. Plastic tubing manifold system. Igloo 36 Qt.

>

>9:45  Doughed in grist when temp of strike water is ~175F.

For the record, "doughing-in" is the addition of water to the grist

(which is highly recommended) not vice versa.  Adding the grist to

the strike liquor will work, but will create much more balled starch

than the opposite (see Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer").

------------------------------


brown ale or porter?/samuel smith's

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 12:07:08 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: brown ale or porter?/samuel smith's

In the last HBD, Shreefal presents the following recipe for

comments:

   brown ale recipe

4 # light liquid extract

2 # english 2-row malt   <--- lager or ale malt?

1/4 # chocolate malt

1/4 # black patent malt

1 # light brown sugar

1 oz Goldings in the boil

1/2 oz Cascade boiling hops and finishing   <--- is that 1/2 oz

                                            each for boiling and

                                            finishing?

ale yeast

I'd like to comment on the recipe and the brown ale style.  This is

not a flame!

The AHA style guidelines for the english brown ale are:

1.040 - 1.050 SG

   15 - 25    IBUs

   15 - 22    color

Assuming the usual 5 gallon batch, the above recipe will produce a

beer in the mid-to-high 1.050s.  I played with it a bit in Chris

Campanelli's BRF program, but the gravity math would go

approximately as follows:

32 - 36 points of gravity for the liquid extract

10      points of gravity for the 2 pounds of malt

 5      points of gravity for the highly roasted malts

 8 -  9 points of gravity for 1 pound of sugar

So, strictly speaking, the beer is too big to be a brown ale.  In

gravity and color, it is more like a porter.  1/4# each of

chocolate malt and black malt will give the beer a dark brown-red

color.

What about hops?  As indicated, I don't know whether the hopping is

intended as:

1 oz Golding in boil             1 oz Golding in boil

1/2 oz Cascade in boil      OR   1/2 oz Cascade for finish

1/2 oz Cascade for finish

Assuming a one-hour boil, the left hop schedule will produce

something like 30 IBUs, which is better suited to a porter, while

the right hop schedule will produce something like 25 IBUs, which

is suited to a brown ale.

A brown ale is brown in color and malt-accented in flavor.  While

there are different variants of brown ales, sample some Newcastle

Brown Ale or Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale.

How about getting some color and flavor from dark crystal malt?

For example, assuming a 5-gallon batch and 75% extract efficiency:

7-8 # pale malt (OR 5 # dry malt extract)

1 # 80L (dark) crystal malt

should produce an appropriate flavor and body.  For an attempt at

a "nut" flavor, try instead:

7-8 # pale malt (OR 5 # dry malt extract)

1 # 10L (light) crystal malt

2-3 ounces roasted barley

In either of the above, you can substitute some brown sugar for the

pale malt or dry malt extract.  I wouldn't use more than 1 pound of

sugar.  While pure refined sugar will ferment perfectly, brown

sugar has some added molasses that will leave some residual

unfermentables and their flavors in the beer.

Samuel Smith's Nut Brown ale is very nicely hopped.  To get some

hop flavor, which I think I taste in this particular beer, try a

hop addition at 20 minutes to end of boil.  Samuel Smith's uses a

unique yeast and fermentation setup.  For a bit of diacetyl

(butterscotchy) flavor in the beer, perhaps Wyeast Irish ale yeast

might be tried.

------------------------------


Keg pressures/hose lengths

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 12:14 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Keg pressures/hose lengths

Michael writes:

>because of the high pressure.  Well, the first glass of Weizen looked like

>airport runway foam, and I was not about to go through the 1/3 keg ritual with

>this one.  I could see the beer leaving the keg ok, but about 5" into the hose,

>the foam was starting and by the cobra tap - foam-a-rama.  The hose was ~24"

>long.  I cut my hose with the cobra tap so it was only 2 inches long, and

>viola! no more foam!  Needless to say, this really made my weekend...so much,

>that we tapped a second keg ( an IPA ) on Sunday to see if it was a fluke,

>and it also poured great from the start...

It seems that many, many brewers have problems getting their kegging systems

to work properly.  What is often forgotten (as Michael noted) is the length

of the liquid-side hose.  David Miller has a great article in the 1992

AHA Conference Proceedings on kegging systems.

The CO2 dissolved in the beer will come out of solution eventually.  We

would like most of it to come out of solution in our mouths, not earlier.

*When* the CO2 comes out of solution is based upon many things, including:

the temperature of the beer,

the pressure on the gas-side of the keg,

the length of the liquid-side hose,

the diameter of the liquid-side hose,

the smoothness of the walls of the liquid path

   (note this includes any gunk on the inside of the walls of the

    pickup tube, fittings, hose and faucet),

the amount of constriction of flow in the faucet, and

the cleanliness of the glass.

I dispense my 54F ales at between 7 and 12 psi (depending on the style),

down a 6 foot, 1/4" ID FOXX SUPERFLEX hose and (as Michael said) let the

keg cool for a good 24 hours so the force-carbonated beer can dissolve

the CO2 you pressed against it.

Al.

------------------------------


brown ale quick correction

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 12:36:05 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: brown ale quick correction

Here is what a portion of the brown ale post should say:

32 - 36 points of gravity for the liquid extract

10      points of gravity for the 2 pounds of malt

 2      points of gravity for the highly roasted malts

 8 -  9 points of gravity for 1 pound of sugar

Sorry!

------------------------------


Wyeast #1056 vs. #1098

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 12:27 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Wyeast #1056 vs. #1098

Scott writes:

>Rob Bradley asked about culturing Sierra Nevada dregs.  Isn't there three

>different strains involved in the fermentation, as well as three initially

>in the Wyeast 1056 pouch?  The first strain starts rapidly, but isn't

>tolerant to ethanol and settles out rapidly, and then a second strain takes

>over.  The third strain starts very slowly, but is responsible for the

>bottle conditioning.  I have heard of very slooow fermentations from

>yeast cultured from SNPA dregs, so maybe only the third strain is viable

>at that time.  Any comments?

I think you're talking about the Whitbread yeast.  SNPA yeast and Wyeast

#1056 are both single-strain yeasts, whereas Whitbread and Wyeast #1098

are three-strain yeasts.  Slow fermentation from SNPA dregs might be

attibuted to under-oxygenation by brewers used to dry yeasts (which require

a lot less oxygen than Wyeast or dreg-cultured yeasts) or by extended

lag times resulting from temperature shock (be careful that your starter

and wort are as close to the same temperature as possible).

Al.

------------------------------


Goose Island homebrew store

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 12:35:59 CST

From: Jacob Galley <gal2@midway.uchicago.edu>

Subject: Goose Island homebrew store

Sorry to waste bandwidth, but does anyone in Chicago know when the

Goose Island branch of Alternative Garden Supply will be opening?

Jake.

"JUST DO IT yourself." <------------- Jacob Galley / gal2@midway.uchicago.edu

------------------------------


FAST Fermentation

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 13:37:44 CST

From: rak@mayo.EDU (Ron Karwoski)

Subject: FAST Fermentation

I've seen articles in the past that suggested pouring a new batch

of wort over the trub remaining in the fermenter after racking

off for bottling. I gave this a try last weekend and recommend it

if for nothing else than the entertainment value. Fermentation

started in less than an hour, and after four hours the fireworks

had commenced. I have never seen such a vigorous fermentation!

The blowoff tube resembled flowing lava and I kept getting up

during the night to see if disaster (overflowed blowoff jar) had

struck. Luckily, the blowoff tub was longer than normal and the

height of the bend never allowed much wort to be blown off. I'm

sure that at least a gallon would have been blown off under normal

conditions. Fermentation was basically complete in less than 20

hours. I'll be racking to a secondary soon and I'll let you know

how it taste after bottling. Lag time is definitely not a problem

with this method.

=============================================================

Ron Karwoski                   Internet:   rak@bru.mayo.edu

Biomedical Imaging Resource

Mayo Foundation

Rochester, MN 55905

===============================================================

------------------------------


RE: freezing pellets, low pilsner yield

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 14:50:29 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: freezing pellets, low pilsner yield

Hi All,

  In HBD #1063, Peter Maxwell asks:

>Al gives us some interesting figures for hop storage which apply for, I

>presume, whole hops.  I'm wondering what the figures would be for hop

>pellets stored at -18C (i.e. in the freezer).

>In fact, is storing pellets in the freezer a good idea?  Is any harm likely

>to come to them?

   I use pellets exclusively, and always store them in the freezer.  Pellets

tend to keep better than whole hops, storing them in the freezer seems to

prolong the shelf life even further.  I've used pellets that were stored in

this manner for 4 to 5 months, the beers came out fine, I didn't *notice*

any funny flavors or effect on hop utilization.  On the other hand, I`ve

read that sub-freezing temperatures can rupture the lupilin glands.

Assuming for the moment that this is true, how much of a problem would this

be with pellets?  IMHO, the milling and pressing processes used to make

pellets would rupture the glands anyway.  Comments, anyone??

***************************************************************

  Also in HBD #1063, Tim Roaix asks:

>This year (the second year I've been brewing) I decided to try a lager

>since I now have a new unheated area below an addition to the house

>which keeps an ambient 40-45 degree temperature during the winter.

>(I'm in the market for a used fridge...just haven't got one yet).

>My question is: I bought 'Pilsner' malt, and according several sources

>including the calculations in Darryl Richmond's (c) shareware

>spreadsheet, for brew 1 I should have received a 1.044 O.G.

>However I ended up with 1.038 (pilsner light?). For brew 2 I compensated

>and 'aimed' for 1.052 and ended up with 1.043.

>Both times I rested at 130 degrees for 45 minutes, then through a

>combination of adding some boiling water and

>heating existing mash brought the temperature to 156. I mash using

>a GOTT water 'cooler' which tends to lose only about a degree in 30

>minutes (after which I heat a little of the mash and bring it back to

>proper temperature). I mashed for 90 minutes, then poured the mash

>into a kettle, broke at 168, poured the mash into my sparging setup

>and did about a 45-50 minute sparge with 168-170 degree water.

>I guess my question is: Is Pilsner grain typically low-yeild? Did I

>do something wrong (this is my first attempt at lagering).

>Just for the detail, the first beer used Danish Lager Wyeast. The

>second used Wyeast #2206.

>Every other all-grain brew I've made to date (15) hit the O.G. within

> .02, except both these using Pilsner malt (from the same homebrew supply

>shop).

   Tim, do you know to what extent the pilsner malt was modified?  I get

German pilsner malt that has a very low degree of modification.  On two

occasions in the past, I used this malt as a base malt for light colored

ales.  Both times, I used a step mash with rests roughly similar in times

and temperatures to what Tim described.  The first batch, I got 27 pts/lb,

and 26 for the second.  I consistently get 30-32 pts/lb using step mashing

and highly modified malts, 34 pts/lb using decoction mashing and under-

modified pilsner malt.  IMHO, the combination of undermodified malt and

step or single infusion mashing will produce lower yields, the use of

these malts calls for decoction mashing.

   If the modification rating cannot be obtained from the supplier, there

are a couple of other ways to determine the degree to which a malt has been

modified.  Chew a few grains, if the malt is undermodified, the tips of

the grain will feel hard and steel-like against the teeth.  The degree of

modification can also be determined by examining the length of the

acrospire.  Use a razor or penknife to scrape away the husk, there will be

a fibrous looking growth that's a slightly different color than the rest

of the kernel.  If the length of this growth is 1/2 to 3/4 the length of

the kernel, the malt is undermodified.  If the length of the acrospire is

3/4 or more the length of the kernel, the malt is highly modified.

   There are pilsner malts available that are highly modified, I know

Munton & Fison produces such a malt, I'm sure there are others.

                                   Cheers,

                                     Jim

------------------------------


California Common yeast

Date:    Tue, 26 Jan 1993 15:53:29 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: California Common yeast

   What's the optimum temperature range for Wyeast's California Common

yeast, aka. Steam (tm) beer yeast?   My Wyeast profile listing must be

out of date as CC yeast is not even listed;  Jeff F., do you have the

latest version?  Fwiw, it's fermenting madly at 60 degF.

RussG.

------------------------------


wort chiller questions

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 14:56:34 -0700

From: Mike Zulauf <zulauf@orbit.Colorado.EDU>

Subject: wort chiller questions

Howdy All!

     I have a few questions regarding wort-chillers.  I am interested

in making my own chiller.  The type I have decided on is a copper coil

immersed in an ice-water bath.  The reason for this style is the desire

to conserve water (Colorado being a fairly arid state.)

     I am curious if anyone else uses this type of chiller.  If so, how

well does it work?  How long does it take to chill 5 gallons of wort to

a reasonable temperature?  How much ice is required?  What length of

what diameter tubing was used?

     Anything else I should know before leaping in and just making the

thing?  Enquiring minds want to know!

Thanks for any and all replies,

                                Mike Zulauf

                                zulauf@orbit.colorado.edu

------------------------------


Colour Units

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 12:27:01 +1030

From: Murray Robinson <robinm@mrd.dsto.gov.au>

Subject: Colour Units

I have just found a new supplier for my grain requirements who has data

sheets on the malt available. Specifically, it mentions a colour rating

expressed in degrees EBC as opposed to degrees LOVIBOND. What is the conversion

factor between the two units.

Also the product specification mentions the following:

SPECIFICATION  PALE MALT  WHEAT MALT

Colour   2.7 degrees LOVIBOND 4.5 degrees LOVIBOND

Total protein  eg 11.5%  14.5%

Soluble protein  eg 5.0%   8.5%

Kolbach index  eg 43 (no units) 61 (no units)

Diastatic power  70 degrees L  160 degrees L

Viscosity  1.65 cp   1.60 cp

Need I concern myself with any of these quantities? If so which ones are important

and what do the units mean? Does the above specification indicate a malt of good

or average quality?

Cheers,

Murray.

------------------------------


Bluebonnet Brew-off

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 23:10:58 EST

From: bryanb10@aol.com

Subject: Bluebonnet Brew-off

x     It's Back!...

x     Announcing

x        The Seventh Annual

x        BLUEBONNET BREW-OFF

x       HOMEBREW COMPETITION

x          March 5-6, 1993

x    Dallas / Fort Worth, Texas

x       with

x     Beer Judge Certification Program Ex

am

x

xFellow Homebrewers,

xIn Texas, the bluebonnet is a symbol of beauty and pride, especia

lly during

xthe spring when they blanket the countryside.  The coming of spring in 1993

xis no

 exception, as we usher in that time of year with this year's edition

xof the BLUEBONNET BREW-OF

F.  In  a few short weeks, the judge's score sheets

xwill be in, and the mugs and ribbons awarded.

 This means that NOW is the

xtime to gather your brews and make travel plans.

x

xThis ye

ar's competition will be bigger and better than ever with an expanded

xformat which will include sp

eakers, demonstrations, and activities to

xsupplement the greatest collection of homebrews we have

ever known.  Did I

xhear somebody say "Pub Crawl!"?

x

xWe invite homebrewers everywhere

to join the Cowtown Cappers, the Arlington

xHomebrewers, and the North Texas Homebrewers Associatio

n for two days of

xadventure such that has not been experienced before.

x

x

Thank You,

x      The 1993 Bluebonnet Committee

x

xClubs:  Please make copies of th

is brochure and its enclosed entry forms

xavailable to your members.

x

xEligibility

x

The 1993 Bluebonnet Brew-off Homebrew Competition is open to all

xnon-commercial, home- produced

 beers.  Beers produced on the premises of

xcommercial breweries are ineligible.

x

xEntri

es

xEach entry shall consist of three (3) bottles, free of commercial labels or

xother ident

ifying markings which are not part of the entry label.

xThe minimum size for entry bottles is 10 o

unce.  Bottles which do not

xconform to these standards will be disqualified.  The preferred bottle

 for

xentries is the 12-ounce brown longneck.

x

xBrewers may enter any categories, with

the restrictions that only one entry

xmay be submitted for any one sub-category, and that no more t

han two entries

xmay be submitted for any one overall category.

x

xAll bottles should be

 clean, with a properly completed entry label attached

xby rubber band.  Please do not use tape or

glue!  Bottles will be presented

xat the judging tables, and the use of any material which may caus

e a label

xto be difficult to remove during entry logging may cause it to be ineligible

xfo

r awards.  The sole purpose of the bottle label is to match an entry to a

xrecipe form, so that we

may assign an entry number to it.  Once this is done,

xthe label is removed.

x

xBe sure

that each entry has an accompanying recipe form which is completely

xfilled out, since this is our

source for all information concerning that

xentry.  With the expanded category list we are using th

is year, it is

ximportant that you designate exactly the category and sub-category on this

x

form so that your beer will be judged according to the style you wish.

x

xEntry Fees and Dea

dlines

xEntry Fee for entries received by 1:00 PM, Feb. 20 (Saturday) is

$6.00/entry.

xLate E

ntry Fee for entries received by 1:00 PM, Feb. 27 (Sat.) is $7.00/entry.

xCurrent members of recogni

zed homebrew clubs may discount each entry by $1.00.

x

xFinal deadline for entries is 1:00 PM

, February 27, 1993.

xAbsolutely no entries will be accepted after this deadline.

xThere wil

l be no exceptions to this deadline!

x

For More information contact:

x The Winemaker Shop

                    Phone: (817) 377-4488

x 5356 W Vickery

x Fort Worth, TX   76107

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1064, 01/27/93

*************************************

-------


Propensity Pilsner Lagering Questions

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 00:06:05 -0800

From: finette!tamsky@hub.ucsb.edu (Marc Tamsky)

Subject: Propensity Pilsner Lagering Questions

I am posting for a friend, but he made the following, and has a few questions:

Propensity Pilsner (from Papazian's NCJOHB)

Wyeast #2007 (I think it's a bavarian lager, but the # is definitely correct.)

OG: 1055

Primary Ferment for one week @ 52F.

Racked to secondary.

Secondary Ferment is currently on it's NINTH week @ 40F.

Still getting glugs every 60 seconds from normal 3-piece airlock.

Bottom of carboy currently has ~1 inch of all-one-color trub.

Color is crystal clear.

Questions:

Is this too long of a ferment?

Should this be re-racked into a third carboy to get it off the trub?

With 60sec/glug does he need to wait any longer before bottling?

If he bottles now, should he use less priming sugar since it's not finished?

Thanks

[post replies to here or to me with cc: to pauljj@aol.com (the brewer of

the batch)]

tamsky@finette.UUCP  ||  tamsky@crash.cts.com

------------------------------


Cops

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 11:14:05 +0000 (GMT)

From: Kurt Swanson <Kurt.Swanson@dna.lth.se>

Subject: Cops

After reading Mr. Barbour's response to his hate mail, I tend to agree

with him - up to a limit...

The TV show cannot be expected to know all the ins & outs of

homebrewing, hang-gliding, tiddlywinks, and other pursuits.  And

"Cinema Verite" is worth preserving - BUT it should be prefaced as

such.  I think the show ought to begin with a disclaimer - "we show it

as it is - without any justification, morally or legally, on our

part."

Just my thought - if you find it distasteful you can send your

hate mail to:

Kurt Swanson

K|rb[rsv[gen 26

S-223 55  LUND, Sweden

- --

Kurt Swanson, Dept. of Computer Science,

Lunds universitet.  Kurt.Swanson@dna.lth.se

------------------------------


Semi Annual Wort Chiller diatribe

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 08:28:01 -0500

From: zentner@ecn.purdue.edu (Mike Zentner)

Subject: Semi Annual Wort Chiller diatribe

Mike Zulaf asks about tubing in ice chillers.

Mike, while I haven't built one of these specifically, I have seen one

work and can offer some general advice which may be of use to other

readers as well.

In general, don't go with any tubing smaller than 3/8" OD unless your

tubing length is very short (I built a counter flow chiller with 1/4"

and was sorry I wasted my time).  Because I use tap-temperature water,

I have a 30' length counterflow chiller.  If you are going to use ice

(and keep it icy) you can get away with less.  If ever in doubt about

your length, install a valve at the outlet of your copper coil so you

can slow down the flow if the outlet is not cold enough.  A friend of

mine who uses a chiller of the type you mentioned is convinced the 10'

length he used is too short.

MOST IMPORTANT!  Before you coil any tubing, take a q-tip, dip it in

rubbing alcohol, and swab around on the inside of the tubing.  If you

get black goo on the end, you've got machining oils inside and don't

want your beer to be in contact with that.  You need to clean out the

tubing by snaking a very stiff wire through it, lubricated with lots of

dish soap.  Pull a string through the tubing, tie cotton balls on the

string and pull them back and forth to scour the inside of the tubing.

Rinse the soap out (leaving the string in) and repeat the cotton ball

exercise.

If anyone wants my plans for a counter-flow chiller, send me email.

Mike Zentner

------------------------------


Weinhenstephan Wheat yeast

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 08:37:48 EST

From: mlobo@sentry.foxboro.com (Michael T. Lobo)

Subject: Weinhenstephan Wheat yeast

Can anyone tell me where I can get some Weinhenstephan Wheat yeast?  My last 2

packages of Wyeast 3056 have behaved strangely, and I'd rather not waste mt time

making a wheat ale...

There is probably no need to waste HBD space on a reply, so just e-mail me at

mlobo@foxboro.com

Thanks!

Michael T. Lobo   508 549 2487

Foxboro Co.

mlobo@foxboro.com  "I Love beer, beer loves me; when I drink too much,

my beer speaks for me" -Monty

------------------------------


Culturing Sierra Nevada Dregs

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 08:55:44 EDT

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: Culturing Sierra Nevada Dregs

Someone says:

) Rob Bradley asked about culturing Sierra Nevada dregs.  Isn't there three

) different strains involved in the fermentation, as well as three initially

) in the Wyeast 1056 pouch?  The first strain starts rapidly, but isn't

) tolerant to ethanol and settles out rapidly, and then a second strain takes

) over.  The third strain starts very slowly, but is responsible for the

) bottle conditioning.  I have heard of very slooow fermentations from

) yeast cultured from SNPA dregs, so maybe only the third strain is viable

) at that time.  Any comments?

My experience with 1056 and cultured Sierra Nevada is that they both

perform similarly (at least when neither is infected), are more attenuative

than 1098 and 1028, and generally finish more quickly than less attenuative

yeasts, particularly when the wort is dextrinous.

Even if your SNPA is a little old, you can still make a fine culture

from it.  The last one I did took several days to start up in a small

culture flask.  Fresh ones take only a day or two, or so they tell

me.  I've never seen a brand new SNPA out this way, although they

still taste just fine.  :-)

As another poster said, you must be confusing the Whitbread yeast

with SNPA/Chico/1056.  Now, what I remain confused on is whether the

real Whitbread triple strain is used in the Wyeast cultures.  My current

understanding is that it is not, that 1098 is a single strain.  I

know I've heard the answer to this several times over the past year

here, but it just doesn't sink in ... :-(

Finally, on a slightly different topic, has anyone here tried using

1084 (Irish) for purposes other than stouts and porters?  I feel like

trying it in bitter and mild ... perhaps it might make a good alt

yeast, too?

================O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis================

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1993 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------


Diastatic Power of Wheat Malt

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 08:36:45 EDT

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: Diastatic Power of Wheat Malt

James Dipamla writes:

) Hi All,

)

)   In HBD #1062, Scott Bickham writes:

)

) >So the Munich malt not only converted itself, but also the

) >5 lbs. of malted wheat.

)

)   I read somewhere that wheat malt itself contains sufficient enzymes

) for conversion.  Does anyone know if it does or not??

Well, I just made a crystal-clear beer with 100% (domestic) wheat malt, so I

guess the answer must be "yes."

More on this later.

================O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis================

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1993 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------


Articles on Malting Methods

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 7:57:30 CST

From: raudins@galt.b11.ingr.com (Glenn Raudins)

Subject: Articles on Malting Methods

  Does someone know of any articles on the current practices in the malting

  industry?  I have read the Malting & Brewing Science, and Practicle Brewer.

  I am looking for more up to date information, on current malting companies.

  I would suspect magazines such as the New Brewer, Brewers Digest, etc would

  have some.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Glenn Raudins

raudins@galt.b11.ingr.com

------------------------------


re:doughing in water onto malt

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 9:42:27 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: re:doughing in water onto malt

In the last digest Al Korz wrote:

<For the record, "doughing-in" is the addition of water to the grist

<(which is highly recommended) not vice versa.  Adding the grist to

<the strike liquor will work, but will create much more balled starch

<than the opposite (see Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer").

This is indeed what Noonan preaches.  I have always wondered about

the importance and significance of adding water to malt as opposed

to the converse.  Ok, so one can get "balled starch", wont it then

hydrate and become "non balled"?  Cant you just stir enough to

completely mix the mash?  Since I do an upward step mash, the

protein rest provides a 30 minute hydration period for the grains.

Wont this hydrolyze the grains and liquify the starches? Also, who

has ever seen a professional brewery doing this??  All of the breweries

I can  recall visiting do what most homebrewers do, raise a volume

of water to a given temp, and add the crushed grains onto the

water.  This is one of the "Noonanisms" that I feel is rather un-

important to the overall beer quality.  THere are so many other

places for brewers to make significant improvements to quality

in brewing like malt/hops/yeast choices and even water chemistry.

Maybe I missed something somewhere....

Jim Busch

------------------------------


n.amine,dough-in

Date:    Wed, 27 Jan 1993 9:52:23 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: n.amine,dough-in

>From George Fix:

>The work that first showed that nitrosamine is a potential carcinogen is

>summarized in the following:

>     Environmental Aspects of N-nitroso Compounds, Proceedings of a

>     Working Conference held at the NE Center for Continuing Education,

>     Univ. of New Hampshire, 22-24 Aug. 1977, IARC Publ. No. 19 (1978)

      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Coincidence?  I think not!  (look at my e-mail address).  Interesting

about the drinkers of Rauchbier.  I wonder how much their diet (other

than beer) affects their cancer rate, ie. if a lot of beta-carotene

vegetables (sauerkraut perhaps?) negates the effects of the n.amines.

>From Al:

>For the record, "doughing-in" is the addition of water to the grist

>(which is highly recommended) not vice versa.  Adding the grist to

>the strike liquor will work, but will create much more balled starch

>than the opposite (see Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer").

Curious.  I add the grist to the liquor, and get what seems to be a fine

dough-in.  It seems to allow for better mixing -> no dry spots.  How does

Noonan determine that it creates more "balled starch"?  Just what is

"balled starch"?  Obviously I don't have the book.....

Russ G

OPAL/ESP

UNH

------------------------------


nitrosamines

Date: 27 Jan 1993 10:18:40 -0400 (EDT)

From: KLIGERMAN@herlvx.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: nitrosamines

To continue the thread concerning nitrosoamines (specifically

N-nitrosodimethylamine), they are indeed potent carcinogens but their level in

beer is relatively small (ave. 2 ppb) compared to such products as frankfurters

(0 - 84 ppb), fish and fish products (4 - 26 ppb), cheeses (2 - 26 ppb),

and various meat products (1 to 80 ppb).   They are also found in tobacco

smoke and are produced in the human body from reactions between nitrates

and protein.  In reality, some of the more prominent carcinogens we should

worry about are tobacco smoke both main and side-stream, grilled meat and

fish products which contain potent heterocyclic amines, alcohol in excess,

mycotoxins found in moldy grain, and UV light.

Andy Kligerman

[These are of course my own opinions and do not represent those of any Agency

I may belong to.!]

------------------------------


Old trub, New wort story

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 11:36:04 -0500

From: rxh6@po.CWRU.Edu (Randall Holt)

Subject: Old trub, New wort story

Had to add my data point to the re-usable trub methodolgy.

Made a nice lager in my 50 degree basement, and decided to try

out the method of trub recycling. First I dumped the trub into

a sterile pot, and covered it, then washed and sterilized the fermenter

(I use plastic for the first stage, but only have one usable bucket).

Brewed up another batch, let cool, and pitched the wort. Okay so far.

As reported, the first stage takes off like a house afire, even at 50F,

it looked like it would be ready within 5 days to rack to secondary.

But, around the fifth day, while making my customary wort check, I noticed

that the whole basement smelled of dirty diapers. And when I stepped into

the little side room that I keep my fermenters, the smell was overpowering.

(insert sound of sinking spirits)

Well, loathe that I am to dump $20 of malt down the drain, I waited one more

day and then racked it to secondary.  And while checking the gravity, I tasted

the tube full of beer, and _no odd flavors_!  The  secondary seemed to be

clearing just fine, BUT, the odd smell persisted in the fermentation room.

To make a long story short, the ferment room is right next to the downstairs

bathroom, which we almost never use.  The p-trap in the shower had dried out,

allowing sewer gas to seep out into the ferment room through the plumbing

access hole. Running the shower for a few minutes solved the problem.

The end of the story, is that the final product, a bitter lager turned out

beautifully, and I'm convinced that re-using trub is a viable alternative

but I would recommend it only for low temperature fermentation because of

the extremely fast start.

And run your basement shower every month or so to keep the  p-trap primed.

Bibo ergo sum.

- --

Randall W. Holt  rxh6@po.cwru.edu

------------------------------


Source for caps for Champagne bottles.

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 09:41:53 -0700

From: cbacco@ursa5.cs.utah.edu (Corby Bacco)

Subject: Source for caps for Champagne bottles.

Greetings,

 I was wondering if anyone can give me a source for caps

for Champagne bottles (28 mm?).  My roommate works at a restuarant

and has been bringing home a nice supply of champagne bottles which I

would love to be able to cap.  My capper does have the proper fittings

to handle the larger caps (as well as the standard ones) so all I need

are the caps and I'm in business.  I've checked with my local shops

(all 2 of them) and with William's mail order and so far have struck out.

Any ideas?

   Cheers,

    Corby Bacco

------------------------------


Bay area Brewoff Results

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 09:08:26 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Bay area Brewoff Results

For those that like to see their name in lights, here are the winners of

the Bay area Brewoff.

Pale Ale - 32 entries

1 - Ray Call

2 - Larry & Marty

3 - Paul Marshall

IPA - 18 entries

1 - Al Branch

2 - Gerry Burke

3 - Micah Millspaw

Amber Lager - 13 entries

1 - David Sapsis

2 - John Arends

3 - Len Lemicup (sp)

Barley Wine - 10 entries

1 - Tom Altenbach

2 - Ray Call

3 - Micah Millspaw

Stout - 18 entries

1 - David Lose

2 - Kirk Ware

3 - Dave Rose

Porter - 29 entries

1 - Harry Graham

2 - Gary Burcell

3 - Scott & Siegfried Bigelow

Holiday - 31 entries

1 - John Hartman

2 - Pete Gotts

3 - John Leichel

Mead - 8 entreis

1 - Ray Call

2 - Bruce Brazil

3 - Tom Lorelle

A good time was had by all...........

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Re: pvc v. copper

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 09:12:36 -0800

From: atl@kpc.com

Subject: Re: pvc v. copper

>  hey now-  anybody out there have a cooler tun using a pvc manifold instead o

f

>  copper?  positive/negative comments?  anyone?  anyone?

  I am using a six gallon Ropak bucket with a PVC manifold at the bottom for

my lauter tun.  There is a half inch adapter for PVC that screws directly into

the small spigot sold at my local brewshop.  This piece, a cross fitting,

three end caps and the 12 or so inches of PVC needed cost me a grand total of

about $2.50.  I slotted the bottom similarly to the copper coil method.  It

works fine, and seems to have improved my yields over the Zapap method.  I

attribute this to the elimination of the 1-1.5 gallon space between the two

buckets in the Zapap system.  Then again, I've only got about 6 all grain

batches under my belt :-), and experience may be what is increasing my yields.

------------------------------


Double BOck anyone???

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 12:13:07 -0500

From: hosehead@acs.bu.edu (Michael Reinhorn)

Subject: Double BOck anyone???

 If anyone out thewe knows of a good recipe for a blond double

bock, I would appreciate it very much if they could post it, or send

it directly to me.  I had a very ggood sample at the Chapter HOuse in

Ithaca, so if there is anyone in the COrnell area who might have a clue

as to how to make this beer, I  would love to try to make some myself.

 Thanks to all in advance.

Cheers from BOston.

Micki Reinhorn

Hosehead@acs.bu.edu

------------------------------


And now, a beer for cats!

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 16:22 GMT

From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>

Subject: And now, a beer for cats!

HBD readers might be interested in the following, which was distributed by the

Associated Press:

"Brewery Markets Energy Drink for Pets

     "Strasbourg, France: A French brewery hopes to capture the pet market

with its latest product--a non-alchoholic, high energy drink for cats and

dogs.

     "The Pecheur brewery's latest creation is made from ingredients left

over from the beer-making process and enriched with vitamins and mineral

salts, said Marc Arbogast, the brewery's technicaltechnical director.

     "The drink will be marketed in Japan. If Japanese pets give it a paws-

up, it will be introduced in France in March, then in Germany.

     "The drink comes in cartons and costs about the same as mineral water.

     "Pecheur has previously experimented with a beer containing malt whisky

and another promoted as an aphrodisiac."

I've seen what I belived is the last product mentioned, which is packaged in a

contain I could easily have mistaken for a men's cologne.

Unfortunately I can't say which paper this appeared in or on what date.  I

received this clipping from a relative.

------------------------------


Re: freezing pellets, low pilsner yield

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 13:12:38 -0500

From: polstra!larryba@uunet.UU.NET

Subject: Re: freezing pellets, low pilsner yield

In HBD #1064 James Dipalma writes:

>

>   I use pellets exclusively, and always store them in the freezer.  Pellets

>tend to keep better than whole hops, storing them in the freezer seems to

>prolong the shelf life even further.  I've used pellets that were stored in

>this manner for 4 to 5 months, the beers came out fine, I didn't *notice*

>any funny flavors or effect on hop utilization.  On the other hand, I`ve

>read that sub-freezing temperatures can rupture the lupilin glands.

>Assuming for the moment that this is true, how much of a problem would this

>be with pellets?  IMHO, the milling and pressing processes used to make

>pellets would rupture the glands anyway.  Comments, anyone??

>

In fact, Pellet hops have all the glands ruptured by the pellitization

process.  The reason pellets are more stable is that they are highly

compresses an d that naturally excludes oxygen infiltration.  The

completely ruptured glands are the reason pellets have higher utilization

rates in the boil.

- --

Larry Barello   uunet!polstra!larryba

------------------------------


Homebrew Digest #1063 (January 26, 1993)

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 09:55:10 -0800

From: rpeck@pure.com  (Ray Peck)

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1063 (January 26, 1993)

Verify address before sending writes:

>From: bickham@msc2.msc.cornell.edu (Scott Bickham)

>Subject: COPs replies:

>

>Soon after the COPS incident was discussed here, I sent a letter to the

>local FOX station and the producers of COPS explaining that I thought

>homebrewing had been misrepresented.  Today, I received the following

>reply:

Yesterday, I got an identical reply.  Nice to know they don't waste

their time with individual letters. . .

Verite by ass.  Propaganda != Art.

------------------------------


Hop Storage; Brewers Publications

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 12:28:03 CST

From: raudins@galt.b11.ingr.com (Glenn Raudins)

Subject: Hop Storage; Brewers Publications

  Re: Hop Storage

 Hopefully, with enough data, the storage loss of alpha acid can be

  fit to a nice curve for each type ( and form: pellet, whole, plug)  Anyone

  have enough data to make an approximation?

  Re: Brewers Publications

 Now, not long ago, we lost our membership discount in return for

  a wider availability of the books.  Has anyone seen the books in a book

  store or any place new since this change?  I haven't, and am wondering if

  I am the only one.  Does this mean we can go to the book store and order

  them?  What does this get us? No Shipping?

Glenn Raudins

raudins@galt.b11.ingr.com

------------------------------


Central Florida brewers?

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 13:05:04 CST

From: gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com (Guy McConnell)

Subject: Central Florida brewers?

    Do we have any brewers in Central Florida (Orlando, Kissimmee, St. Cloud,

Lake Buena Vista, etc.) who read the Homebrew Digest?  If so, please contact

me via email.  Thanks!

- --

Guy McConnell  gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com  or  b11!mspe5!gdmcconn

    "All I need is a pint a day"

------------------------------


nitro-what?

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 11:45:14 cdt

From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: nitro-what?

How about this:

>>RELAX, DON'T WORRY -- HAVE SOME NITROSAMINES!<<

Works for me.....

------------------------------


Re: Colour Units

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 13:05 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Colour Units

Murray writes:

>I have just found a new supplier for my grain requirements who has data

>sheets on the malt available. Specifically, it mentions a colour rating

>expressed in degrees EBC as opposed to degrees LOVIBOND. What is the conversion

>factor between the two units.

>

>Also the product specification mentions the following:

>

>SPECIFICATION           PALE MALT               WHEAT MALT

>

>Colour                  2.7 degrees LOVIBOND    4.5 degrees LOVIBOND

>Total protein           eg 11.5%                14.5%

>Soluble protein         eg 5.0%                 8.5%

>Kolbach index           eg 43 (no units)        61 (no units)

>Diastatic power         70 degrees L            160 degrees L

>Viscosity               1.65 cp                 1.60 cp

I don't have a conversion, but here are some L/EBC pairs from Siebel's --

perhaps you can figure out your own conversion factor:

Lov    EBC

3.21   8

7.83   15

25.7   55

7.87   15

21.65  45

77.5   155

221    500

22.5   55

497.5  1100

557.5  1400

601    1400

Looks slightly non-linear at the ends, but roughly 1:2 in the middle.

Regarding the quality of this malt, I'd say it's quite good.  To compare,

the DeWolf-Cosyns Pale Ale Malt is:

3.21 degrees Lovibond

10.00% total protein

3.94% soluble protein

60 degrees Lintner (diastatic power)

Schreier 2-row Brewer's Malt is:

1.78 degrees Lovibond

12.4% total protein

5.10% soluble protein

131 degrees Lintner

Al.

------------------------------


re-using yeast in fermenter

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 13:26:25 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: re-using yeast in fermenter

Ron Karwoski writes about his experiences in pouring new wort over existing

yeast in the fermenter.  My questions relate to doing the same thing with

the secondary fermenter:

1.  If the secondary has been sitting a while (say a week or two) is the

sediment still viable yeast?

2.  After I've racked off for bottling, how long could I safely leave the

remnants?  I thought of just putting back the airlock and leaving it

untouched until the next brew.

3.  If I do 2 above, will it be necessary to "start" the yeast by adding a

small amount of sterile wort as per WYEAST starters?

 Peter

------------------------------


Yeast Culturing Questions

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 17:04:10 EST

From: hmcook@boe00.minc.umd.edu (Hardy M. Cook)

Subject: Yeast Culturing Questions

I'm a new reader of HBD, and some recent discussions about culturing yeast

prompt me to ask a few questions.  I started culturing yeasts a few weeks ago.

I began with an ale and a lager strain that I purchased in slants from the

mail order supply store I use.  I then had a microbiologist make me slants and

petri dishes of solidified worts as per Paul Farnsworth's culturing article in

the ZYMURGY Yeast and Beer Special Issue.  I inoculated two petri dishes with

these strains, but of course I didn't want to stop there.

Next, I took the sediment from a Trippel I had brewed using Wyeast #1214

(Belgium Ale), cultured it, and inoculated another petri dish.

Then, I brewed a lager with a Whitbread Dry Lager Yeast and an ale with a

Whitbread Dry Ale Yeast.  I first inoculated slants from the starter cultures

I had made by rehydrating these two in sterile wort.  I had inoculated slants

of the other three strains too, but all five of these slants were not as

solidified as the petri dishes and I did not like what saw, so I disposed of

them.  I still, however, wanted cultures of the two Whitbread varieties, so I

inoculated petri dishes from the slurry I collected after the primary

fermentation.

I also inoculated a petri dish from a starter culture I made from a Dry Edme

Ale Yeast.

Now, my questions.

Concerning the Belgian Ale Yeast from the Trippel, what are the chances that

it has mutated or was a multiple-strain yeast?  (I am currently making a

starter culture to use over the weekend.)

Are the Whitbread's Dry Ale and/or Lager Yeasts triple-strain yeasts, and if

they are, does that mean that I have cultured only the third strain because I

used the slurry from the primary fermentation?

Is there anything I should know about the Dry Edme I cultured?

I would appreciate any response from those more experienced than I in yeast

culturing.

Thanks,

Hardy M. Cook

HMCook@boe00.minc.umd.edu

------------------------------


turpentine/solvents

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 20:04:43 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: turpentine/solvents

Scott in #218:

>...

>because it tasted and smelled like turpentine.

>...

>Question:  Will these fusel alcohols/solvents diminish with time?

Al in #219:

>It's not a failure.  The higher alcohols will definately diminish with

>time and the beer will become fruitier and more complex.  Wait at least

>4 months but it could take a year -- don't worry... the alcohol level

>will keep nasties at bay.

Al.

I disagree.  Let me be more specific: what Al says about higher alcohols

may well be true.  We don't really know what's wrong with Scott's beer.

I have, however, on three or so occasions over the years had awful,

unexplained (unexplainable?) solvent tastes/smells.  Similar to the

problem that JS mentioned in the Goose Island Barleywine (I tasted

the stuff in early January and agree (!!) with arf) in today's HBD,

but more pronounced.  In my private lexicon, this solvent taste is

"clinical".  I posted about it in the HBD in 1989, wondering about

possible connections with diacytel (consensus: no connection) and how

to avoid it (be careful with fermentation temperature and cleanliness,

I seem to recall).

At any rate, I twice bottled such beer, and the solvent never went

away, not even after a year.  It got worse, in fact, as the other

flavors mellowed.

So keep us posted, Scott.

Cheers,

Rob (bradley@adx.adelphi.edu)

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1065, 01/28/93

*************************************

-------


brewpots

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 07:48:29 EST

From: mmlai!lucy!gildner@uunet.UU.NET (Michael Gildner)

Subject: brewpots

After some thought I've decided to invest in all grain brewing.

The problem seems to be that the start up costs for the equipment

could be over $100.  I can get access to a corona through my

local homebrew club and the cost of converting my cooler for mashing

is minimal.  The main cost remains, a large 7-10 gallon brewpot.

So does anyone have any ideas on where to find a good deal on a large

pot?  I've been eyeing one at the local "PACE" store recently.  It is

a 13 gallon oval shaped "Revere" copper boiler for $80.  I was hoping

to find something for under $50.

Any ideas?

Mike Gildner

------------------------------


COPS again...

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 08:20:45 -0500

From: zentner@ecn.purdue.edu (Mike Zentner)

Subject: COPS again...

In regard to the letter from Malcolm Barbour.  While I agree that the

show "shows it as it happens", I think the thing that most offends me is

the big zoom-in at the end of the segment on TCJHB.  That is NOT "as it

happened", that is a shot done for emphasis to evoke an emotional response

from the audience.  It it was going to be done "as it happened", I would have

expected a shot of the criminal being hauled off (if I was there, I know

that's where I would have been looking).  Anyhow.....

Mike Zentner

------------------------------


Nitrosamine Garbage

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 9:14:48 EST

From: klm@mscg.com (Kevin L. McBride)

Subject: Nitrosamine Garbage

Sigh...  OK, folks, for the N-th time:

We are all going to die some time.  This fact cannot be avoided,

though it appears that at least one regular contributor to this forum

believes that he has found the key to eternal life through the beating

of dead horses.

If a glass of Smoked Porter is going to kill me then at least I will

die a happy man.

Next topic.  Please.

- --

Kevin

------------------------------


dough in correction

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 9:09:07 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: dough in correction

In the last digest I made the comment regarding dough in

methods in many breweries based on adding malt to water.

It occurred to me last night that many BIG breweries and

small breweries with pretty high tech malt feed systems

do indeed have a spray system where the malt entering the

mash tun is showered with hot water mixing both as they

enter the tun.  This is indeed about the best way to

dough in, but I still assert that for homebrewers this

is a bit of overkill.  But then, most of you probably

were aware of this anyway.

Jim Busch

------------------------------


instructions & gifs

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 09:11:27 -0500

From: mgx@ornl.gov (Michael D. Galloway)

Subject: instructions & gifs

Could someone point me towards the HBD issue numbers where the

picnic cooler/mash tun/lauter tun with slotted copper tubing

instructions are?  Also, could the person making the gif and jpeg

scans perhaps scan the zymurgy issue cover that has kathy ireland

on it?  I would be most gratefull!

Michael D. Galloway                     mgx@ornl.gov

Solid State Division                    voice -- (615) 574-5785

Oak Ridge National Lab                 fax -- (615) 574-4143

Living in the Wasteland (of Beer, that is)

------------------------------


re:blond doppelbock

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 9:23:41 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: re:blond doppelbock

In the last digest hosehead@acs.bu.edu (Michael Reinhorn) asks

about making Blond DoppelBock.  HE also notes that the bock

from the Chapter house was pretty good.  This bock used to

be produced by the now defunct Clement Brewing Co.  It was

indeed a fantastic blond doppel, weighing in at 9.5% alcohol by Vol!!

For a try at the brew:  Use 100% pale pils malt, possibly adding

a bit of Munich, but this is not required.  Push the OG up

to around 1.090.  Use quality imported german hallertaur hops.

A double decoction mash would be good.  Keep the IBUs in the

20 range.  Ferment with a very clean lager strain, keeping the

ferment temp at 48F.  After primary for about 1 week, rack to

secondary and slowely (2F per day) drop the temp to 31F.  You

may want to do a 2 day diacetyl rest at 39F.  LAger at 31F

for at least 6 weeks, 8 is better.  Prime with fresh yeast

and wort, or force carbonate.  This is not a simple beer

to make well, but can be very rewarding.

Jim Busch

------------------------------


RE: doughing-in

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 09:48:34 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: doughing-in

Hi All,

   In the last few digests, an interesting thread on dough-in.  Al

Korz writes:

>>For the record, "doughing-in" is the addition of water to the grist

>>(which is highly recommended) not vice versa.  Adding the grist to

>>the strike liquor will work, but will create much more balled starch

>>than the opposite (see Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer").

   Jim Busch answers:

>This is indeed what Noonan preaches.  I have always wondered about

>the importance and significance of adding water to malt as opposed

>to the converse.  Ok, so one can get "balled starch", wont it then

>hydrate and become "non balled"?  Cant you just stir enough to

>completely mix the mash? ....

>This is one of the "Noonanisms" that I feel is rather un-

>important to the overall beer quality.  THere are so many other

>places for brewers to make significant improvements to quality

>in brewing like malt/hops/yeast choices and even water chemistry.

  I tend to agree with Jim.  Quoting from the source in question:

 "More than 10 percent flour is undesirable because it balls or cakes

 readily.  Balled flour results in unconverted starch that is

 inaccessible to enzymes; some would surely wash into the wort during

 sparging, causing an irreversible haze in the beer."

  So, Noonan says that the problem with balled starch is that it leads

to incomplete converison, and to unconverted starch getting into the wort

and causing a starch haze.  While I believe this is true in general, I don't

think dough-in procedure is the determining factor in creating balled starch.

I say this because I always do it "backwards", fill the mash tun with

water at ~130F, add 2-3 pounds of grist, stir thoroughly, repeat until

all the grist has been added.  The temperature settles in at ~118F-120F,

just right for the protein rest.  I don't have any problems with either

complete conversion or starch hazes, my lagers come out brilliantly clear.

IMHO, a too-fine crush of the malt is far more likely to cause the above

mentioned problems, due to large amounts of flour and pulverized husks.

Comments, please?

                                   Cheers,

                                     Jim

------------------------------


logic

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 09:58:42 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: logic

Al in HBD1064:

><For the record, "doughing-in" is the addition of water to the grist

><(which is highly recommended) not vice versa.

Jim in HBD1065:

>This is indeed what Noonan preaches.  I have always wondered about

>the importance and significance of adding water to malt as opposed

>to the converse.

Why stop there?  Let's consider the inverse: adding non-water to malt.

How about the contrapositive: adding non-malt to non-water.  :-)

------------------------------


San Francisco BrewPubs?

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 09:56:03 EST

From: curt@sundc.East.Sun.COM (Curt Harpold-Sun-Vienna VA-Systems Engineer)

Subject: San Francisco BrewPubs?

I'm leaving the relatively brewpub-dry east coast for a few weeks at

headquarters.  I'd like suggestions of good brewpubs to visit in the

SF/Palo Alto/Berkeley area.

To avoid getting flamed for wasting bandwidth, you may want to reply to

me by email.

Thanks,

 ......Curt Harpold                        curt.harpold@east.sun.com

------------------------------


WYeast #1084

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 9:14:29 CST

From: gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com (Guy McConnell)

Subject: WYeast #1084

In Digest #1065, Joseph N. Hall asks:

> Finally, on a slightly different topic, has anyone here tried using

> 1084 (Irish) for purposes other than stouts and porters?  I feel like

> trying it in bitter and mild ... perhaps it might make a good alt

> yeast, too?

    It works great everywhere I've used it.  It is my "house yeast" and I have

used it in the following:

 a blackberry ale

 2 English milds

 an Irish Red Ale

I have also used it in 6 different stouts and have the recipe for a 7th

already formulated, waiting for time to brew it.  I love its contribution to

beer and all of these I mentioned have been well received by friends and club

members as well.  I say go for it!

- --

Guy McConnell  gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com  or  b11!mspe5!gdmcconn

    "All I need is a pint a day"

------------------------------


re-use slurry

Date:    Thu, 28 Jan 1993 10:12:57 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: re-use slurry

   Re-using yeast slurry is easy, efficient, cost effective, and taste

effective; I do it often.  Some things to keep in mind:

   1) Sanitation - especially wrt. the very first primary (meta-primary?)

ferment.  Anything "bad" you introduce here will be propagated through

all the successive batches.  Once you get to the point of using the

slurry, sanitation is *not as* important, because there is such a

relatively enormous amount of yeast being pitched for primary ferment

that other organisms cannot get a foothold.

  2) Pitch a large healthy yeast starter for the meta-primary ferment.

  3) Use the slurry from the secondary.  The primary has trub, hops, and

dead yeast that can add off flavors.  However, you may use the primary

slurry if it fits your brewing style.  If you are unsure of your

sanitation in transferring from primary to secondary, you may be better

off using the primary slurry.

  4) Don't overdo it.  All yeasts mutate; some more (and more quickly)

than others.  Often the mutation is to become more attenuative (making

a dryer beer).  I've found this to be true of Sierra Nevada/Wyeast 1056

yeast; after 3 batches the beer is too dry for my tastes.  Whitbread

ale yeast, otoh, had been reported to be able to be re-used many times

(20+ ?) without much change in character.

Try it, you'll like it.  Oops, gotta go to work.

RG

------------------------------


RE: EBC to Lovibond

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 10:40:25 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: EBC to Lovibond

Hi All,

   In the last HBD, Al Korz writes:

Murray writes:

>I have just found a new supplier for my grain requirements who has data

>sheets on the malt available. Specifically, it mentions a colour rating

>expressed in degrees EBC as opposed to degrees LOVIBOND. What is the conversion>factor between the two units.

>

>Also the product specification mentions the following:

>

>SPECIFICATION           PALE MALT               WHEAT MALT

>

>Colour                  2.7 degrees LOVIBOND    4.5 degrees LOVIBOND

>Total protein           eg 11.5%                14.5%

>Soluble protein         eg 5.0%                 8.5%

>Kolbach index           eg 43 (no units)        61 (no units)

>Diastatic power         70 degrees L            160 degrees L

>Viscosity               1.65 cp                 1.60 cp

I don't have a conversion, but here are some L/EBC pairs from Siebel's --

perhaps you can figure out your own conversion factor:

Lov    EBC

3.21   8

7.83   15

25.7   55

7.87   15

21.65  45

77.5   155

221    500

22.5   55

497.5  1100

557.5  1400

601    1400

  Fred Eckhardt's well-known book on beer styles contains an equation

for converting EBC to Lovibond.

 EBC = Lovibond * 2.65, less 1.2

  Implying that to convert from EBC to Lovibond, add 1.2, then divide by

2.65.  Here's what I got when I ran the numbers Al provided:

EBC = 8, L = 3.47

EBC = 15, L = 6.11

EBC = 55, L = 21.21

EBC = 15, L = 6.11

EBC = 45, L = 17.43

EBC = 155, L = 58.94

EBC = 500, L = 189.13

EBC = 55, L = 21.21

EBC = 1100, L = 415.55

EBC = 1400, L = 528.75

EBC = 1400, L = 528.75

  Hmmm, a couple of interesting observations here.  First, from looking

at the pairs Al provided, it would seem that whatever the conversion

formula is, it's not linear, so I'm not terribly surprised the equation

from Eckhardt doesn't quite hold.  Second, there are three pairs where the

EBC rating is the same (15, 55 and 1400), yet the equivalent Lovibond

ratings are different.  What gives?

  I would be very interested in an accurate method of converting these

units.  If anyone knows how to convert the two, please jump right in.

                                   Cheers,

                                     Jim

------------------------------


Isolating pure yeast

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 08:07:46 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Isolating pure yeast

Hardy M. Cook ask some questions about yeast culturing.

There exists a agar called "WL nutrient agar" that is great for isolating

pure yeast from wild yeast strains. This agar is green in color. The pure

yeast take up the green color when grown up on Petri dishes and the wild

yeast remain white. I personally have never used the stuff, but have know

about it for years and was looking at some yeasts that were grown up of

the media this last weekend at the Bay Area Brewoff. A friend of mine uses

it to always check his yeast and grows up yeast taken from slants on the

stuff. I like these type of eyeball sort of tests. Maybe some microbio type

out there could post the availablity and cost of the media for those

interested.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Pecheur

Date: 28 Jan 93 08:20:54 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.EDU>

Subject: Pecheur

Subject:  Pecheur                               Time:8:06 AM     Date:1/28/93

>"Pecheur has previously experimented with a beer

>containing malt whisky..."

I think this is a mistake. They have brewed a beer using whisky malt called

Adelscott which (according to Mr. Jackson) "imparts a very light smokiness." I

have spoken with the US importer about this product in the past only to learn

that they do not plan to introduce it here. Some problem with the labeling.

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


help

Date: 28 Jan 1993 11:41:35 -0500 (EST)

From: SSA92FAJ14@RCNVMS.RCN.MASS.EDU

Subject: help

help

------------------------------


Bluebonnet Brew-off

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 10:16:42 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat (George J Fix)

Subject: Bluebonnet Brew-off

I hope everyone caught Bryan's announcement in HBD#1064 of the Bluebonnet

Brew-off which will be held on 5-6 March. The organizing committee has

really worked hard on this one, and it looks like it is going to be a

very interesting and fun conference.

I hope to organize a tour during the conference. This will be carefully

coordinated with the organizing committee so that it does not conflict

with the exciting events they have planned. The conference will be held

in the central part of the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex (better known here

as the Arlington metroplex). This is within striking distance of two

commercial breweries (Dallas Brewing & Miller/Ft. Worth), and I hope to

include some interesting homebrewing setups as well. It would be great

to have people on this network join us. Technical discussions tend to

have a lot more meaning when they are done in the context of an actual

brewing configeration.

Anyone interested should contact me via private e-mail.

George Fix

gjfix@utamat.uta.edu

------------------------------


Repitching yeast.

Date: 28 Jan 1993 11:56:16 -0500

From: Chris McDermott <mcdermott@draper.com>

Subject: Repitching yeast.

 Repitching yeast.

First off lets clear up the terminology here.  Several post in last few digest

have mentioned repitching "trub".  In most cases I assume that this was simply

a mistake and what the writer meant was "yeast".  However in #1065 Randall Holt

says:

>Made a nice lager in my 50 degree basement, and decided to try

>out the method of trub recycling. First I dumped the trub into

>a sterile pot, and covered it, then washed and sterilized the fermenter

>(I use plastic for the first stage, but only have one usable bucket).

>Brewed up another batch, let cool, and pitched the wort. Okay so far.

While I am sure that this will give him a good quantity of viable yeast, I'm

also sure that it give him of bunch of crap (trub - yeast = crap) that I

wouldn't want to pitch into my beer.   So before anyone takes that advise to

heart unadvisadly - the more accepted method, at least in my mind, is to

repitch the sediment from the secondary which should be mostly yeast and should

contain several orders of magnitude less crap.

Also in #1065, Peter Maxwell asks:

>1.  If the secondary has been sitting a while (say a week or two) is the

>sediment still viable yeast?

At least some portion of the yeast should still be viable.

>2.  After I've racked off for bottling, how long could I safely leave the

>remnants?  I thought of just putting back the airlock and leaving it

>untouched until the next brew.

With no food left the yeast will begin to autolzye. This is not good.  My

method for saving yeast in this situation is to dilute the sediment in the

carboy with some sterilized water and then dump that slurry into a steril jar

that gets stored it in the refridgerator.  The cool temperatures slows down the

autolyzation and should keep the yeast good for a week or more.  I use a

pressure cooker to prepare "canned" jars of yeast starters.  Using the same

method I make up a few jars of "canned" water that serves to produce a

sterilized jar for storage as well as sterilized water.

>3.  If I do 2 above, will it be necessary to "start" the yeast by adding a

>small amount of sterile wort as per WYEAST starters?

Most of the "old" yeast may have died, but again there should remain some

portion of healthy yeast.  By using a starter you can insure that you will get

a large population of viable yeast for pitching.  I usually assume that the

portion of viable yeast is large enough that I can build up a large starter (1

 - 1.5 qt) in a single step, but depending on how old the yeast is you may want

to do it in stages.

_

Christopher K. McDermott                  Internet:  mcdermott@draper.com

C.S. Draper Laboratory, Inc.              Voice:     (617) 258-2362

555 Technology Square                     FAX:       (617) 258-1131

Cambridge, MA 02149 (USA)

------------------------------


Re: re-using yeast in fermenter

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 10:08:19 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: re-using yeast in fermenter

> Ron Karwoski writes about his experiences in pouring new wort over existing

> yeast in the fermenter.  My questions relate to doing the same thing with

> the secondary fermenter:

>

> 1.  If the secondary has been sitting a while (say a week or two) is the

> sediment still viable yeast?

>

> 2.  After I've racked off for bottling, how long could I safely leave the

> remnants?  I thought of just putting back the airlock and leaving it

> untouched until the next brew.

The yeast should still be viable even after a long secondary.  I believe

that many of the yeast cells go dormant, rather than die (the more

biologically inclined can correct me on this point if I'm wrong).

I suppose you could leave the remnants in your fermenter, but once you

remove the beer, you introduce a lot of air and accompanying microbeasts.

My technique is to pour the sediment into a small sterilized (boiled) jar,

cap it with an airlock, and put it into the fridge.  The small CO2 output

you'll get will quickly purge the smaller jar of air, and the colder temps

inhibit any bacterial growth and slow down the yeast activity.

I find that my yeast stored this way will last 2-3 weeks.

> 3.  If I do 2 above, will it be necessary to "start" the yeast by adding a

> small amount of sterile wort as per WYEAST starters?

I don't think so.  If you have half a cup of thick yeast slurry like

that, you already have more yeast than you would in a 1-qt starter.

I simply let the yeast warm to room temperature until it shows signs of

life again, and then dump it right into my wort.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


doughing in

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 11:27:20 -0600

From: oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (donald oconnor)

Subject: doughing in

large  breweries dough in by propelling a spray of grist into another

spray of water.  the water is typically about 5-8 degrees C warmer than

the desired mash temperature.  i'm not sure which approximation

by homebrewers, i.e., either adding the malt to the water or vice

versa is the better alternative.  intuitively, i suspect adding the

grist to the water slowly would result in less dough clumps.  neither

approach can mirror the uniform temperature and heat exposure of the

entire grist as seen in the commercial brewery.  for example,

the grist initially added to the water sees a higher temperature than

the grist added later on.  it seems from the recent posts on this subject

that both methods work pretty well.

------------------------------


Judges Wanted

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 09:37:10 PST

From: rstya@mda.ca (Roy Styan)

Subject: Judges Wanted

The Royal Canadian Malted Patrol is holding their annual "Wort You Brewin'?"

competition in Vancouver B.C. on March 6, 1993.  If any of you out there are

interested in judging please let me know and I will send you the details.

------------------------------


yeast culture media - formulations by weight

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 11:53:24 CST

From: "John L. Isenhour" <isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov>

Subject: yeast culture media - formulations by weight

I've allways done my culturing using liquid media  and I'd like to experiment

with agar.  I have found recipes that are formulated in units like

'tablespoons of' and, as my agar is not powdered and in several weird foamy

shapes (strings, square tubes etc), I would like to request some agar recipes

using english or metric measures.

Thanks!

John - The HopDevil

john@hopduvel.UUCP

isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov

------------------------------


HBU-IBU Table, Wort chillers

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 13:23:51 EST

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: HBU-IBU Table, Wort chillers

In HBD 1063 Jim Grady asks about calculating IBU's

from HBU's for comparing recipes.  Although his question was

probably answered directly, I've computed the following table

using Rager's article in the Zymurgy Hops edition, and I hope

other hbd'ers find it useful also.

               *** IBUs from 1 HBU ***   (Rager)

                         Gravity of Wort

Time(min)  1.040  1.050  1.060  1.070  1.080  1.090  1.100  1.110  1.120

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  5         .746   .746   .711   .678   .649   .622   .597   .574   .553

 10         .895   .895   .853   .814   .779   .746   .716   .689   .663

 15        1.194  1.194  1.137  1.085  1.038   .995   .955   .918   .884

 20        1.507  1.507  1.436  1.370  1.311  1.256  1.206  1.159  1.117

 25        1.806  1.806  1.720  1.642  1.570  1.505  1.445  1.389  1.338

 30        2.283  2.283  2.175  2.076  1.986  1.903  1.827  1.756  1.691

 35        2.806  2.806  2.672  2.551  2.440  2.338  2.245  2.158  2.078

 40        3.403  3.403  3.241  3.093  2.959  2.836  2.722  2.617  2.520

 45        4.015  4.015  3.823  3.650  3.491  3.345  3.212  3.088  2.974

 50        4.194  4.194  3.994  3.812  3.647  3.495  3.355  3.226  3.106

 55        4.477  4.477  4.264  4.070  3.893  3.731  3.582  3.444  3.316

 60        4.477  4.477  4.264  4.070  3.893  3.731  3.582  3.444  3.316

               Gravity of Wort (Extract Brewer Range)

Time(min)  1.130  1.140  1.150  1.160  1.170  1.180  1.190  1.200  1.210

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  5         .533   .515   .497   .481   .466   .452   .439   .426   .415

 10         .640   .618   .597   .578   .560   .543   .527   .512   .497

 15         .853   .823   .796   .770   .746   .724   .702   .682   .663

 20        1.077  1.040  1.005   .972   .942   .914   .887   .861   .837

 25        1.290  1.245  1.204  1.165  1.129  1.094  1.062  1.032  1.003

 30        1.631  1.575  1.522  1.473  1.427  1.384  1.343  1.305  1.269

 35        2.004  1.935  1.870  1.810  1.754  1.700  1.650  1.603  1.559

 40        2.430  2.347  2.268  2.195  2.127  2.062  2.002  1.944  1.890

 45        2.868  2.769  2.676  2.590  2.509  2.433  2.362  2.294  2.230

 50        2.995  2.892  2.796  2.706  2.621  2.542  2.467  2.396  2.330

 55        3.198  3.088  2.985  2.889  2.798  2.713  2.634  2.558  2.487

 60        3.198  3.088  2.985  2.889  2.798  2.713  2.634  2.558  2.487

 To use this table estimate (or measure) the gravity of the wort, and

 find the number corresponding to the time of boil.  Multiply this

 number by the HBU's to get IBU's.  For example to compare Jim's

 two recipe's for an extract pilsener,  let's assume a full boil

 with a gravity of about 1.050 (and neglect the increase in gravity as

 the wort is concentrated).  Then recipe 1 yields

      5.75 HBU @ 60 min = 5.75 * 4.477 = 25.7 IBU

+     3.5  HBU @ 15 min = 3.5  * 1.194 =  4.2 IBU

- -------------------------------------------------

                                         29.9 IBU (from the boil).

Recipe 2 calls for

      10.0 HBU @ 30 min = 10.0 * 2.283 = 22.8 IBU

which is less than recipe 1.  Of course if you are only doing a

partial boil (heaven forbid) the gravity of the boil will be about

1.125 and the IBU counts will be reduced to 21.4 and 16.6

respectively.

In Rager's article the utilization rates

are based on a maximum of 30% at 60 minutes and these numbers should

probably be reduced by about 20% for hop flowers.

In HBD1064  Mike Zulauf asks about immersion in ice-water chillers:

>   I am curious if anyone else uses this type of chiller.  If so, how

>well does it work?  How long does it take to chill 5 gallons of wort to

>a reasonable temperature?  How much ice is required?  What length of

>what diameter tubing was used?

>     Anything else I should know before leaping in and just making the

>thing?  Enquiring minds want to know!

I made such a chiller out of 25 ft. of 3/8 od

copper last summer because during

the summer my tap water is 80 degrees F making the counterflow or

immersion in kettle type less attractive.  It works great, chilling

5 gallons of boiling wort down to 60-70 degrees F in 15 to 20 minutes.

When you factor in the latent heat needed to melt the ice you will

find that equal amounts of 10 deg F ice and 212 degree boiling

water will come to equilibrium at about 52 degrees F.  So as a rule

of thumb you should use about the same amount of ice as the wort

you're trying to cool. I also add about 1 or 2 gallons of cold water

to the ice.  You should constantly stir

the ice water while the wort is passing through for the ice water and

wort to more efficiently equilibriate the temperature.

On the other hand since my tap water now is about 52 degrees F I have

also made an immersion in kettle chiller which cools the wort to

about 70 deg F in about 25 minutes.   Since we don't have a water

shortage in Maryland, I prefer this method because I don't have to

save all that ice.

Bill Szymczak

------------------------------


propensity pilsner lagering

Date: 28 Jan 1993 13:37:55 -0400 (EDT)

From: KLIGERMAN@herlvx.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: propensity pilsner lagering

Subject: Propensity Pilsner Lagering Questions

>I am posting for a friend, but he made the following,

and has a few questions:

>Propensity Pilsner (from Papazian's NCJOHB)

>Wyeast #2007 (I think it's a bavarian lager, but the # is definitely correct.)

>OG: 1055

>Primary Ferment for one week @ 52F.

>Racked to secondary.

>Secondary Ferment is currently on it's NINTH week @ 40F. etc...

>Still getting glugs every 60 seconds from normal 3-piece airlock.

>Is this too long of a ferment?

I have made this beer 3 or 4 times and it is excellent but

the flavor depends on the source of honey.  My advice to

you is relax and have a homebrew.  Your lagering is more than

ample but you probably have a lot of dissolved CO2 which is

slowly coming out of solution.  I would raise the temp. 5 degrees/day

until your beer is up to room temp. and let it either finish fermenting

 (doubtful) or degass a bit.  Also it would be wise to take a gravity

reading and/or measure the residual sugar to see if the gravity is low

enough to bottle safely.

------------------------------


My Shuttle Buddy

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 13:58:03 est

From: "Sadvary, Bill" <SADVARY@DICKINSON.EDU>

Subject: My Shuttle Buddy

My Shuttle buddy, Dan Vosel (some of you may know him) sent me a case of

Pabst Blue Ribbon today for my birthday.  I thought it was a rather unusual

choice of brew and thus it got me wondering...

The label states:

 This is the _ORIGINAL_ Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.  Nature's choicest

 products provide its prized flavor.  Only the finest of hops and

 grains are used.  Selected as America's Best Beer in 1893.

A few questions:

 1. Why would they specify Original?  Did they have forgery problems

    at one time?

 2. Nature's choicest products, is choicest a word?

 3. Prized flavor, would anybody know the prizes awarded?  ..besides

    a Blue Ribbon.

 4. Only the finest of hops and grains.  How would I attempt to

    duplicate such a beer?  Rice would be one, right?

 5. Selected as America's Best Beer.  What other american beers were

    around available in 1893?

If anyone can answer any of these I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

 -Bill Skill

 sadvary@dickinson.edu

------------------------------


Scientific American: Absinthe

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 12:31:59 -0500 (EST)

From: Tom Rush <trush@mhc.mtholyoke.edu>

Subject: Scientific American: Absinthe

If anyone is interested and has access to the back issues of SA the

June 1989 issue, pp 112-117, there is an article on the liqueur "Absinthe".

I know this is not a forum for discussion of distillates but bear with

me :-) ... it is well researched and proposes a chilling theory on the

use (abuse) of various herbs particularly Artemisia absinthium the common

herb, Wormwood and other herbs found in herbs gardens(mine)and many

times in herbal outlets(herbalists?).

I understand the herbs in absinthe are distilled *essences* but it is

food for thought when someone discovers an old beer recipe some of

the herbs it could require may contain some powerful compounds which

invite the cautionary phrase "more is not always better".

Other interesting sections touch on relationship of absinthe with

Van Gogh, Degas, Manat, etc.-the "absinthe spoon" which I have seen

but never knew why a spoon would have slots cut thru it. Also a

sidelight on the invention of the alcoholmeter (works like a hydometer),

and a 19th century still. Ironically in the bibliography of the author,

Prof. Wilfred Niels Arnold specializes in yeast research but his

avocation is 19th century medicine and art history. Please do not

consider this as "breaking new ground" it is meant to be read and

taken for face value, I am not a scientist or engineer (liberal arts

and MBA).

Now that I am admitted scientific layperson, would someone be kind

enough to send me the method used to "wash" yeast? I would prefer

a simple explanation where I don't have to put on a laboratory

"white coat" :-) ... Thanks,

Tom Rush

------------------------------


Florida Brewers

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 18:01:36 +0000

From: G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk

Subject: Florida Brewers

Guy McConnell asks:

>   Do we have any brewers in Central Florida (Orlando, Kissimmee, St. Cloud,

>Lake Buena Vista, etc.) who read the Homebrew Digest?  If so, please contact

>me via email.  Thanks!

Please talk to (email) me also. I shall be over in Florida with my family

for 2 weeks at Easter - Yes, Orlando for Disney World then the Gulf coast.

Otherwise advice on pubs, breweries etc. would be appreciated.

Geoff

PS. sorry to those who don't like these requests but the brewlist isn't

ready yet. Or is it?

------------------------------


nitrosamines in beer

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 13:35:41 CST

From: lencell@unmc.edu (Lance Encell)

Subject: nitrosamines in beer

Just to add a little to the talk about nitrosamines, they are found in beer

and wine, but as has been noted, they are found at very low levels.

They are formed under acidic conditions in our stomachs by the nitrosation

of ingested secondary amines by nitrite (generated from nitrate).

It has been shown that vitamin C prevents nitrosation by competing with the

amines for the nitrite.  So everyone drink their O.J. so you get your C's.

Finally, nitrosamines require metabolic activation to exert their toxic

and carcinogenic effects.  It just so happens that ethanol increases levels

of the enzyme responsible for the activation of N-nitrosodimethylamine, the

major nitrosamine found in beer.  Whether increasing the metabolism by raising

enzyme levels is good or bad regarding toxicity is currently being studied

by a lot of people.

This is great, we all need a little chemistry now and then.  Enjoy.

 -Lance

------------------------------


Mai Bock Strike Temp and Chillers

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 17:18:00 +0000

From: "Kevin (K.W.) Golka" <golka@bnr.ca>

Subject: Mai Bock Strike Temp and Chillers

I have read a couple of recipes for Mai Bock that call for a mash

temperature of 150F for 2 hours.  This temperature seems too low.

The Mai Bock which we made had a strike temperature closer to 156F and

it turned out pretty much as expected.

With a mash temperature of 150F how do you end up with the

characteristic sweetness of a Bock?  There was a pound or so of crystal

malt in these recipes but I wouldn't have thought that this would be

sufficient on its own for the style.

I thought that a two hour mash at this temperature would give you

Mai Dry :).  Am I missing something here?

On another note...

I have an immersion wort chiller but a friend of mine is planning on

building a counter flow chiller.  Is there a FAQ with pipe diameter,

length and so on?

Has anyone built a counter flow chiller that looks like a coil in a big

coffee can?  Advantages/disadvantages over the garden hose method?

Thanks for any info,

Kevin Golka,   613-763-3474

   These opinions are my own and not necessarily those of NT or BNR.

------------------------------


cyser yeast

Date: 28 Jan 1993 16:41:28 -0600 (MDT)

From: MARK TARATOOT <SLNDW@CC.USU.EDU>

Subject: cyser yeast

Greetings.

I am going to give my first cider a couple of months in the bottle

and I am sure it will get better.  It already seems to be improving

and I am less disapointed than I was at first.

In the meantime, I am in the process of starting a batch of cyser

and am in need of a few comments.  The basic recipie is:

~ half a gallon of snowberry honey (5-6 pounds)

4 + gallons fresh cider (mostly macintosh and delicious)

12 oz seneca granny smith apple juice concentrate (no preservatives)

3 tsp acid blend

3+ tsp yeast nutrient

10 campdon tablets

O.G. = 1.082

I have several yeast varieties at my home, and I am wondering which

I should use/start with/finish with/etc.  I have:

 Pastuer Champagne   (red star)

 Montrachet          (red star)

 Epernay 2           (red star)

 Ale                 (williams)

My last cider was made with Epernay 2 and it finished quite dry.  I

would like a sweeter beverage, but I don't know if the ale yeast will

poop out too soon (I want to sparkle some of it).  Also, I don't

know if the ale yeast will ferment more vigorously and scrub some

of the more subtle flavors from the must.  If anyone has information

on the characteristics of the first three yeasts above, I would like

to hear it.

When I rack this, should I increase the sugar (honey) if I go with

one of the wine yeasts??  My first cider started around 1.050.

What about lager yeast?  What are the advantages/disadvantages

in using one type of yeast and adding another at a later time

(or starting with more than one type)?

How about juicing some other type of apples and tossing that in

at one of the rackings?

I plan on pitching late tonight or more likely tomorrow morning after

the majority of SO2 has been thrown off, so timely comments would be

helpful.

BTW... the Clinton Ale is Delicous!!

Thanks for the help!

 -toot

------------------------------


Nitrosamines, Dough-in

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 12:25 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Nitrosamines, Dough-in

 >From: gjfix@utamat (George J Fix)

 >For the record, the highest NDMA level reported was in Bamberg Rauchbier.

 It contained 5-15 parts per billon, and not 5 ppm as reported in HBD.

 Just testing to see if you read my articles as carefully as

 I read yours :)

 > This also was the level reported in their malt. The NDMA levels of beer is

 typically 9-10 times lower than in the malt used.

 One would think that it would be many orders of magnitude lower than the malt

 resulting from the dilution by water.  Would not the fact that this one is an

 exception point to the possibility that they are creating new NDMA (I bow to

 your term) in their brewing process?

 >I feel it is perfectly legitimate to raise the possibility that beer with

 higher than normal nitrosamine levels could be a health hazard. Nevertheless,

 there are many aspects of this issue I do not fully understand. For example,

 population data shows that Bamberg has one of the highest rates of beer

 consumption in Germany (no small feat!), yet its cancer and death rates

 are near (and in fact slightly below) the average in Germany...

 A dilemma indeed. (Potentially resolved by the suggestion today that, maybe

 it's the saurkraut)  However, someone decided that NDMA is carcinogenic and

 without further evidence, I am not about to waive the condemnation based on

 one anecdotal experience.  It's a bit like the CDC claiming that mosquitoes

 can't spread AIDS because a study done in a swampy town in Southern Florida

 showed no higer incidence than the population at large.

 >For the record, the Belgium base malts have very low NDMA levels, and

 in fact are lower than most US malts.

 Their literature claims that all their malts are indirectly kilned and the

 major US supplier (Bries) still uses direct fired kilns.  No doubt this is

 what skews the data.

 Personally, I was delighted to find a source of indirect malt that didn't

 compromise overall quality and taste.  The Belgian malts seem to be the best

 of all options.  By using them I do not have to care who is right on the NDMA

 issue.

 >From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

 >This is indeed what Noonan preaches.  I have always wondered about

 the importance and significance of adding water to malt as opposed

 to the converse.... This is one of the "Noonanisms" that I feel is rather un-

 important to the overall beer quality.

 >Maybe I missed something somewhere....

 I think what you missed was Rudebusch's reference to "doughing-in" with water

 at a tempeature on the order of 175 degs.

 Douging-in is the initial mixing of malt with water in such a way as to

 assure that it is thoroughly mixed BEFORE the water is raised to ANY strike

 temperature.  It is done with a small quantity of water at or near room

 temperature and the result is what is described in the name, i.e. a dough or

 very thick paste.  It is more easily accomplished by adding the water to the

 malt but the important point is to break up the starch balls before they are

 heated up as they can then form clumps that water will never penetrate.

 The value of all this can be debated ad nausiam but one point that should be

 clear is that it really can not be done with a single step infusion mash.

 The amount of water used to doughin, in addition to the grain itself, could

 never be brought to saccharification temp by adding the rest of the water,

 regardless of the temp.  It is a concept that really only applies to kettle

 mashing on the stove.

 This also explains why brewpubs and micros do not do it.  I would also

 caution that as micros are in a grey area economically, between large

 commercial brewers and home brewers, they are not necessarily the paragons of

 technology or quality a homebrewer wants to aspire to.  They do lots of

 things for reasons of cost that we do not have to be concerned with.   The

 majors can do things that seem costly but have a positive effect on the

 bottom line for other reasons.  They also have the option of "adjusting" the

 bottom line by adding more water to the "beer concentrate".

 >From: KLIGERMAN@herlvx.rtpnc.epa.gov

 >-nitrosodimethylamine), they are indeed potent carcinogens but their level

 in beer is relatively small (ave. 2 ppb) compared to such products as

 frankfurters (0 - 84 ppb), fish and fish products (4 - 26 ppb), cheeses (2 -

 26 ppb), and various meat products (1 to 80 ppb).

 Interesting numbers but so are the ranges.  They all have a low end below the

 FDA limit for beer.  I don't know what the limits are for the other products

 but I think we all know that BIG Brother seems as interested in protecting

 the economy and big business as they are in protecting the consumer.

 Having said that, I guess I have to add, so what?  Only a fool would

 intentionally choose to eat products with higher levels of carcinogins if

 given reasonable choices.  In malt we have a choice.  If we let the industry

 trample our health interests and defend them in doing it, whom have we

 served?  If we insist on the safest product they can produce, we serve

 ourselves.

 js

------------------------------


Hop_aroma

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 17:57:54 PST

From: tinsethg@ucs.orst.edu (Glenn Tinseth)

Subject: Hop_aroma

In a recent issue Darryl Richman laments:

>If only there were a way to describe hop aroma with a number...

Well, Darryl (choir music...) there is a way, and the good folks at O.S.U.

Ag.  Chem.  (Gail Nickerson) and Blitz Weinhard Brewing (Earl Van Engel) have

published a couple of papers on it in the Journal of the American Society of

Brewing Chemists (Vol.  50, No.  3, 1992).  The number you hoped for is called

the hop aroma unit and is Rquantitatively measured as 1 nanoliter per gram of

hops (1 ppm, v/w), of 22 hop oil compounds that have been reported to affect

hop aroma.S The individual measurements of these 22 compounds make up the

Hop Aroma Component Profile (HACP).  The researchers hope that the hop

aroma

unit will end up being as useful as the alpha acid % is now.

The 22 aroma-active compounds are divided into three groups, oxidation

products of humulene and caryophyllene, floral-estery compounds, and citrus-

piney compounds.  The oil is obtained via steam distillation and taken apart

with a gas chromatograph.

What does this mean to the average homebrewer? Not a heck of a lot, unless

youUve got some state of the art instrumentation hanging around the garage.  I

sell hops for a living and have had a *real* hard time getting anything but

vague average values from the brokers.  So for a specific lot of hops from a

specific grower (which could be any of many), you are better off relying on

your nose than making any assumptions based on the R1992S crop data.

In the same issue Al (Korz) asks about his hop stats and whether anything

useful can come of them.  Here are some common assumptions for hop

RnobilityS: AA % less than 7, alpha/(alpha+beta)=.4-.6, cohumulone <25%,

myrcene content low, humulene/caryophyllene >3, farnesene may or may not

be present.  So you can get quite a bit from the numbers you have.

I have a *lot* of other info on hops, hop analysis, Rhoppiness potentialS,

yeah I went a little crazy with my copy card at the library, heck, no one

else reads those beer journals but me.  Give me a yell if you want more in

depth hopitude. IUm on the net only on Tues and Thurs.

Glenn Tinseth (The Hop Source)

tinsethg@ucs.orst.edu    503-873-2879

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1066, 01/29/93

*************************************

-------


malt mixing

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 02:38:20 MST

From: Chris Kunath (Chicago) <cjk@denver.ssds.COM>

Subject: malt mixing

Dear Hopheads,

I've followd this reflector group for several months, and am

finally motivated enough to try my first batch of homebrew.

Whilst doing my homework, though, I've stumbled across a few

contradictions.  After I figured out the difference between a

single-stage and two-stage fermentation (thanks to "Better Beer

& How to Brew It") after about ten books, I have only one

conceptual block (so far):  mixing the malt.

Mr. Beadle ("Brew it Yourself*"), and at least two other British

1960s-type books abhor boiling:

 "Do not bring the water to a boil.  You will remember

 from the section on commercial procedures that the malt

 was kept at a temperature of 153 degrees Farenheit to

 allow the diastase enzyme to convert starches to sugar

 for correct fermentation of the malt.  If you allow the

 water temerature to approach the boiling point, you will

 upset this sugar conversion and cause it to refix at a

 stage that will not allow the yeast to convert all the

 malt sugar to alcohol and and carbon dioxide.  The

 temperature of the mixing water must not exceed 153

 degrees F.  Every other book on home-brewing has

 incorrectly given instructions to boil the malt in the

 water to dissolve it.  This will only guarantee that

 some of the malt sugar will not be converted.  This

 single bit of misinformation from those who should know

 better has caused many beginners to become unnecessarily

 discouraged in their attempts at brewing."

Tenth-grade chemistry was many moons ago.  Every book I've stumbled

across published since then (c1971) recommends boiling, even up to an

hour for porters and stouts.  Since that is what I'd like to brew, I

have a few questions:

1.  Has brewing chemistry advanced since then, proving this guy

    and my library of 1950-70 homebrewing books wrong?

2.  Am I treading on rwar territory?  If so, don't waste

    bandwidth, flame me direct at cjk@denver.ssds.com.

Perhaps I should not "Don't Worry," and instead "Don't Panic!"

:-)

*  Beadle, Leigh P.

   Brew it yourself, Doubleday Canada Ltd., Toronto.  1971

   Library of Congress catalog card number 79-164535

------------------------------


Dough in, yeast, all Munich brew, barley wine

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 10:18:08 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Dough in, yeast, all Munich brew, barley wine

I have haqd some trouble with the mailer.  My last 2 postings bounced

after several days...

Congrats to js for finally giving an accurate description of dough in,

i.e. adding the minimum COLD water to form a dough.  This is not just

to prevent dough balls, but to allow enzymes to leach into tha water

before the rests.  It assumes s poorly converted malt.  Normally the

temp is raised to ACID rest with an infusion of boiling water, but

who does an acid rest anyway?  I will dough in for my barley wine

this weekend, mostly because I don't know how thin my mash can be

(24 lb in a 7ga cooler), and because I'll be using Pilsener malt.

I often reuse yeast and have had few problems, except that occasionally

fermentation will start so quickly, I won't have a chance to rack

off the trub before it gets dispersed.  I will reuse the yeast from

the primary of a stout made with yeast cultured from a Guinness bottle

for my barley wine.

I made a beer with all munich and 1 lb of Ireks-Arkady crystal.  My

suppliers has been having trouble getting anlyses, so I was shooting

in the dark.  Rather than a dunkel, the beer is a Vienna.  Now I am wondering

what the supposed Vienna I made with 3lb Munich and 6lb lager will be-

a Muenchener Helles - my attempt at the latter became an award winning

Helles Bock (maybe I'll brew what I intend to sometime!).

Someone asked about agar - 1.5% is normal for slants i.e. 15g/liter.

Convert from these units to those you like perhaps 1/2 oz per quart

would be close.

Ulick Stafford

------------------------------


Old Porter Brewed using Salvaged Yeast

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 11:24:25 +0100

From: steve_T@fleurie.compass.fr (Steven Tollefsrud)

Subject: Old Porter Brewed using Salvaged Yeast

In response to someone's not so recent interest in this story, I dug around

in my dusty archives and found a copy of an article which I clipped out

of the Int'l Herald Tribune (Nov. 29, 1991). The story is written by

Steven Prokesch of the New York Times Service.

It is about the successful efforts of a microbiologist, Dr. Keith Thomas, to

cultivate yeasts taken from two bottles of Porter recovered from a ship that

sank in the English Channel in 1825. He is now brewing Porter from this yeast

with a Porter recipe from the same era taken from the archives of Whitbread.

The significance of this beer is that it is an example of what true Porter

was like in the early 19th century and how, over time, yeasts have changed

through genetic mutation and brew recipes have changed in response to

consumer mutation.

The name of this brew is Flag Porter and Bottle Green. At the time of the

article, only about 4000 gallons per year were being produced. Flag Porter

and Bottle Green were being wholesaled by Vinceremos Wines Ltd. and most of

it was being sold through restaurants, specialty liquor stores, health food

shops, and pubs in the UK, though, according to the article, they were hoping

to start exporting to the U.S. in 1992.

This is a very interesting story for this forum, and I have not done it

justice with the scant details I have included here, but I don't know

whether it is legal to transcribe it without permission from the

publication or the author. Can anybody advise me on this?

I hope that this info has been useful for the person who was asking about it.

Steve Tollefsrud

Valbonne, France

e-mail: steve_T@fleurie.compass.fr

------------------------------


hops

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 08:33:23 EST

From: mlobo@sentry.foxboro.com (Michael T. Lobo)

Subject: hops

Greetings:

 Can anyone tell me where I can buy hop seeds/plants/whatever you need

to grow hops?  A mail order place would be great.

Thanks - please just email me directly-

Michael

Michael T. Lobo   508 549 2487

Foxboro Co.

mlobo@foxboro.com  "I Love beer, beer loves me; when I drink too much,

my beer speaks for me" -Monty

------------------------------


Aluminum brain death?

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 09:28:11 -0800

From: jason@beamlab.ps.uci.edu

Subject: Aluminum brain death?

Is there anything wrong with using an Aluminum brew pot.

I don't know if this is related, but it seems that everytime

I try to make a beer with any spices or special ingredients

it turns out horrible.  All the simple ale's with only

malt, sugar, and hops turn out great, but with the addition

of even just cinnamon it turns into icky beer.

Some of the bad spiced brews seem to have the presence of another

 form of alcohol or solvent, that the non-spiced ones lack.  The

procedures are the same for both spiced and non-spiced.  The only

thing that could be different (besides the presence of spices) is

maybe I boil longer when I add spices.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Am I making Alzheimer brew?

J

------------------------------


re: reusing yeast & open fermenters

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 11:14:59 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: re: reusing yeast & open fermenters

Since the yeast reuse thread has popped up again, I thought

I'd add my two cents worth.  I am most likely in the minority

of homebrewers in that I am currently utilizing open fermentation

techniques.  I ferment in a SS vessal with a heavy lid that in

no way could be construed as a closed system.  One of the

great advantages of open fermentation is the ability to skim

a lot of trub junk off the fermenter during the first 8-24

hours of fermentation.  The resulting krausen head can be

quite strikingly clean and white.  Since I brew mostly ales,

my yeast tends to rise to the top of the fermenter around

day 4 or 5.  I skim this yeast off and since I usually have

more yeast available to me than I can ever use, I throw it

away, or give it to fellow brewers.  Top cropping ale yeast

is a more effective and viable technique to reuse yeast than

waiting to harvest off the secondary.  Yeast allowed to sit

in the secondary will invariably be less healthy than fresh

top cropped yeast.  This is due to autolysis and alcohol

effects on the yeast cell.

I have generally been quite pleased with the ease of open

fermentation with respect to skimming and harvesting of the

yeast.  If you are a careful clean brewer, using quality

yeast, open fermentation is great.

Jim Busch

------------------------------


EBC -> Lovibond conversion

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 09:50:04 PST

From: greg@bandit.Berkeley.EDU (Greg Jesus Wolodkin)

Subject: EBC -> Lovibond conversion

Sorry if I've lost track of who said what in this thread.. I think

it went like this:

Murray writes:

>>> I have just found a new supplier for my grain requirements who has data

>>> sheets on the malt available. Specifically, it mentions a colour rating

>>> expressed in degrees EBC as opposed to degrees LOVIBOND. What is the

>>> conversion factor between the two units.

Al Korz adds:

>> I don't have a conversion, but here are some L/EBC pairs from Siebel's --

>> perhaps you can figure out your own conversion factor:

>> Lov    EBC

>> 3.21   8

>> 7.83   15

>> 7.87   15

>> 21.65  45

>> 22.5   55

>> 25.7   55

>> 77.5   155

>> 221    500

>> 497.5  1100

>> 557.5  1400

>> 601    1400

Jim Dipalma says:

> Hmmm, a couple of interesting observations here.  First, from looking

> at the pairs Al provided, it would seem that whatever the conversion

> formula is, it's not linear [...]  Second, there are three pairs where

> the EBC rating is the same (15, 55 and 1400), yet the equivalent

> Lovibond ratings are different.  What gives?

Looks to me like the EBC has just been rounded off to the nearest

convenient number -- for all intents and purposes, though, 557L and

601L are identical, no?

> I would be very interested in an accurate method of converting these

> units.  If anyone knows how to convert the two, please jump right in.

Take a look at the data on a log-log scale.. the relationship

                    p

  Lovibond = M * EBC          with M = 0.5 and p = 0.98

works well, even in the range of pale malts.  I don't know if this is

an "exact" conversion, but it does a good job on the data given.

/* In case the notation is confusing.. */

   double Lovibond (double EBC)

   [

      double M = 4.9950570e-01;

      double p = 9.8024579e-01;

      return (M * pow(EBC, p));

   ]

/*                                     */

Happy brewing,

Greg

------------------------------


re: EBC to Lovibond

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 07:13:28 PST

From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

Subject: re: EBC to Lovibond

Yesterday, James Dipalma expanded on Al Korzonas' observation that the

conversion between EBC color units and Lovibond (SRM) is not linear.

This is indeed true.  Both would like to find some kind of relationship

between the two.  Unfortunately, there is no real conversion between

the two.  The problem is that they represent two different ways of

measuring color in beer, and they react differently to different

coloring agents.  The widely quoted conversion of 2.65 + 1.2 does work

passably for pale beers where there isn't a lot of coloring material.

Even if you could work up a curve fit for readings against one set of

beers, other beers might not lie on that line because their coloring

comes about from different materials.

The problem stems from the fact that the EBC has specified measurements

at one light frequency while the ASBC has opted for a different one,

with a fudge in it to try to approximate Lovibond.  Although two beers

might appear to be the same color to our eyes, these differing

measurement techniques might come up with strongly different numbers.

To use a rough analogy, it's like watching a B&W TV;  although red and

green are being transmitted, to the observer they are both gray.

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------


Lagering in the Fridge

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 8:15:41 PST

From: davep@cirrus.com (David Pike)

Subject: Lagering in the Fridge

This comment is in response to the lagering question where the beer had been

in the fridge for 9 weeks and still 'glugs' slowly....

Refrigerators inject cool/cold air INTO its interior while cooling. This means

that the ability of CO2 to be released into the air from the beer will be

less than if the beer is outside the fridge (ie. the air pressure inside the

fridge is a *bit* higher than the outside air pressure.

Now you open the door, and the air pressure drops, but slowly. If you stand

and look at your beer, perhap a minute or two, one or two glugs may appear,

so...(to repeat what we already know) the best way to tell if fermentation is

done is to take an SG. Get some beer, let it stabilize re. temperature, and

perhaps even release some CO2, then take the SG.

Dave Pike

------------------------------


Re: Isolating pure yeast

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 10:41:15 PST

From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)

Subject: Re: Isolating pure yeast

> There exists a agar called "WL nutrient agar" that is great for isolating

> pure yeast from wild yeast strains. This agar is green in color. The pure

> yeast take up the green color when grown up on Petri dishes and the wild

> yeast remain white.

> Bob Jones

This may not be exactly a question for the Digest, but here goes.

This stuff sounds interesting and useful, but it also sounds strange.

What is the difference in "pure" and "wild" yeast that determines

whether they will pick up the color?

I mean, at some point they were _all_ wild yeast.

Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,

lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate

------------------------------


Doughing-in

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 12:58 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Doughing-in

Jim writes:

>In the last digest Al Korz wrote:

><For the record, "doughing-in" is the addition of water to the grist

><(which is highly recommended) not vice versa.  Adding the grist to

><the strike liquor will work, but will create much more balled starch

><than the opposite (see Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer").

>

>This is indeed what Noonan preaches.  I have always wondered about

>the importance and significance of adding water to malt as opposed

>to the converse.  Ok, so one can get "balled starch", wont it then

>hydrate and become "non balled"?  Cant you just stir enough to

>completely mix the mash?  Since I do an upward step mash, the

>protein rest provides a 30 minute hydration period for the grains.

>Wont this hydrolyze the grains and liquify the starches? Also, who

>has ever seen a professional brewery doing this??  All of the breweries

>I can  recall visiting do what most homebrewers do, raise a volume

>of water to a given temp, and add the crushed grains onto the

>water.  This is one of the "Noonanisms" that I feel is rather un-

>important to the overall beer quality.  THere are so many other

>places for brewers to make significant improvements to quality

>in brewing like malt/hops/yeast choices and even water chemistry.

Russ writes:

>>From Al:

>

>>For the record, "doughing-in" is the addition of water to the grist

>>(which is highly recommended) not vice versa.  Adding the grist to

>>the strike liquor will work, but will create much more balled starch

>>than the opposite (see Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer").

>

>Curious.  I add the grist to the liquor, and get what seems to be a fine

>dough-in.  It seems to allow for better mixing -> no dry spots.  How does

>Noonan determine that it creates more "balled starch"?  Just what is

>"balled starch"?  Obviously I don't have the book.....

Noonan's book is the first place I've seen this "add the liquid to the

dry" procedure recommended regarding brewing, but I believe that most

food cookbooks recommend adding the liquid to the dry so you can work out

the clumps.  Theoretically, I believe the problem is in that little

"pockets" of the dry material can become encapsulated (like lumpy

gravy).  This is probably less of an issue with the relatively stiff

mashes that we use in our infusion mashes, than with the much "watery-er"

mashes that Noonan uses in his decoction mashes.

I don't agree that it is overkill -- I don't think it's that hard to add

3/4 of your water at first, smush-out (a very good technical term... see

DeKlerk ;^) the clumps and then add the balance of the water.  I feel

that the biggest problem may not be the loss of extract rather the

possiblity of these clumps un-clumping during the mashout and releasing

starch into your runnings (say goodbye to any hope of crystal-clear beer).

Al.

------------------------------


Spraying the grist

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 13:17 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Spraying the grist

Both Jim and Donald mentioned the spraying of water on the grist

as it enters the mash tun.  I suspect that this has the addional

benefit of reducing grain dust which is explosive.

Yes, both methods (liquor-to-grist and grist-to-liquor) will work,

but I, personally am always looking for ways to improve my methods

 -- I get a great deal of new ideas from the HBD and other digests

and this is what keeps my brews constantly improving.  Thanks to all!

Al.

------------------------------


Wyeast #1084

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 14:02:02 -0800

From: arthur@chiba.esd.sgi.com (Arthur Evans)

Subject: Wyeast #1084

In Digest #1065, Joseph N. Hall asks:

> Finally, on a slightly different topic, has anyone here tried using

> 1084 (Irish) for purposes other than stouts and porters?  I feel like

> trying it in bitter and mild ... perhaps it might make a good alt

> yeast, too?

I used the "Irish ale yeast" in an ESB--strong, farily light in color,

and aggressively hopped--pretty un-stout like.  It was really tasty,

and probably my favorite of all the batches I've brewed (it was

rated pretty highly by a random sampling of friends too, who

said things like "your best yet," and "can I have another?").

I can certainly recommend it for bitters--and it seems like it

would be good for beers calling for some residual sweetness,

like milds and Scottish ales.  Go for it.

OK

 -arthur

------------------------------


Weird beer flavor

Date: 29 Jan 93 12:49:57 GMT

From: mark@verdix.com (Mark Lundquist)

Subject: Weird beer flavor

I have some extract ale that is ready to go into bottles, but it tastes

wrong.  I'd like some help in identifying what the wrong flavor is,

and how to eliminate it!

The best way I can describe it is: have you ever tasted malt extract

syrup right out of the can?  There's a molasses-like malty sweetness

up front, followed on by an unpleasant aftertaste (at least, I find it

to be unpleasant).  Well, the weird flavor component in this batch of

ale is very much like that aftertaste in malt syrup.

Here's the specifics:

Two cans (8 lbs) Alexander's Pale malt extract syrup

13 AAU (1 oz.) Chinook hops (boil)

1 oz. Cascade hops (finish)

W. #1098 (British), recultured from dregs of a

      homebrew (1st generation)

O.G. 1.058

F.G. 1.017

Does this taste description ring any bells?  Is it something that will

go away with time?  (Please don't bother with "Well you're using all

this malt extract, so of course your beer is going to taste like malt

extract, why don't you switch to all-grain, blah blah blah".  I'm sure

I'll switch to all-grain someday soon, OK?  But I have never had this

problem with an extract batch before, and I want to find out if anyone

has had any specific experiences with it).

Thanks for any help,

- --mark

------------------------------


Yeast Re-Use and Attenuation

Date: 29 Jan 93 17:22:59 EST

From: Jeff Frane <70670.2067@compuserve.com>

Subject: Yeast Re-Use and Attenuation

Russ Gelinas makes an interesting observation:

> Subject: re-use slurry

>

>    Re-using yeast slurry is easy, efficient, cost effective, and taste

> effective; I do it often.  Some things to keep in mind:

>

>   4) Don't overdo it.  All yeasts mutate; some more (and more quickly)

> than others.  Often the mutation is to become more attenuative (making

> a dryer beer).  I've found this to be true of Sierra Nevada/Wyeast 1056

> yeast; after 3 batches the beer is too dry for my tastes.  Whitbread

> ale yeast, otoh, had been reported to be able to be re-used many times

> (20+ ?) without much change in character.

>

This datapoint on WYeast 1056 is very appropriate for me right now.

I've been repitching the same yeast for several batches and used some

stored 1056 to ferment out the extract beer I made in my Beginning

Homebrew class.  When I measured the specific gravity the other night,

the hydrometer dropped right through like it was in water -- and the

beer doesn't taste too good. :-(  (Don't worry, I've got plenty of other

good stuff in kegs so I won't die of thirst.)  I was surprised by this,

as the yeast strain I used to use regularly never performed this way;

Russ' observation answers my concern.

On 'tother hand, Ballantine Brewery supposedly used this yeast strain

over and over, repitching hundreds of times without any problems.  So

I'm still scratching my head over this one.

One thing the yeast was _very_ good for was the barleywine I brewed on

the 10th.  As I mentioned previously, I ran the wort in on top of a

deliberately created yeast pack (after racking out a "starter" ale); the

specific gravity dropped from 1.095 to 1.030 in 15 days, which is pretty

damn good.  So, by the way, is the barleywine.

James Dipalma asks:

> Subject: RE: EBC to Lovibond

>

>   Hmmm, a couple of interesting observations here.  First, from looking

> at the pairs Al provided, it would seem that whatever the conversion

> formula is, it's not linear, so I'm not terribly surprised the equation

> from Eckhardt doesn't quite hold.  Second, there are three pairs where the

> EBC rating is the same (15, 55 and 1400), yet the equivalent Lovibond

> ratings are different.  What gives?

>   I would be very interested in an accurate method of converting these

> units.  If anyone knows how to convert the two, please jump right in.

>

I can only reiterate what I was told by the lab folk at Great Western

Malting: There is NO conversion formula, and I've told this to Fred,

too.  According to the lab folk, who should know, the only way to get an

accurate Lovibond figure is to test the sample on equipment calibrated

in Lovibond.  A few years back they ran some tests for me on British

malts and the figures didn't come out anywhere near where they would

have using Fred's calculations.  Fred's calculations, by the way, as

much as I love the man, are not always, um, completely reliable.

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


keeping properties of yeast slurry

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1993 16:00:00 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: keeping properties of yeast slurry

There have been a few replies to my earlier questions regarding reusing the

slurry from the secondary fermenter.  Comments like "it should keep for a

few days" or "a week or two" appeared as did something to the effect of

leaving it longer would result in autolysis, which is bad.

Given that several people have indicated that they leave their brew in the

secondary for months sometimes, why don't they suffer from autolysis also?

What's the difference between leaving it in the secondary for months and

leaving it in a separate bottle for months?  In particular I was thinking of

filling a beer bottle with the slurry, capping it (because fermentation is

finished) and putting it in the refrigerator.  Then all I'd have to do is

warm this up to wort temperature and pitch, then wait for the fireworks.

Does this sound viable?

 Peter

------------------------------


Alternative yeast re-use method

Date:    Fri, 29 Jan 1993 18:18:59 -0600 (CST)

From: MEHTA01@SWMED.EDU

Subject: Alternative yeast re-use method

 i sp

spoke to a fffriend here at UTSouthwestern Medical Centre where

we are students about culturing yeast, as she is doing her Ph.D. on yeast

genetics and is always culturing all kinds of yeast (nasty mutated ones

though).

 i had previously done the re-use slurry trick successfully and told

her about it, asking her why it can be re-used only a few times...

One main reason, she said, is that alcohol kills yeast or at least causes

severe damage to the poor beasties. Thus, resuing the yeasties that have been

exposed to alcohol for a long time (in the secondary) is not a good idea.

The ones that are left are the ones that are more tolerant of alcohol (hence

the fact that the Sierra Nevada culturer noticed severe attenuation after 3

life-times... in theprevious HBD # 1066 Jan 29).

 So, the solution is to take off some yeast during the aerobic

fermentation period and store them in a cold (0 to 5 C) fridge in whatever

kind of wort they are in. They should stay well for quite a long time (settling

into their cyst mode due to thte cold) and every time you make a starter,

you can just store  alittle bit before you pitch, for next time.

  i would recommend carryinmg out the std sanitary procs with these

yeast viz. flaming the mout of the containers, and all other things that touch

the yeasties...

Good luck. If you have any more qs, pls email me, i have a real informed source

who can help me answer these qs....  :-) (for the price of a good HB, she says)!

Ciao

Shreefal Mehta

mehta01@utsw.swmed.utexas.edu

------------------------------


World's Worst Brewer

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 16:35:28 EST

From: mcharry@freedom.otra.com (McHarry)

Subject: World's Worst Brewer

Sorry, Jack, this isn't a flame :)

I have a friend, who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty, who

claims to be the World's Worst Brewer.  I think it might be amusing to

outline his process:

He is, of course, an extract brewer.  He doesn't have a big enough pot to

boil the whole brew, so he squirts the extract into his carboy with some of

the water.  Some of the rest of the water goes into his kettle with the

hops, which are boiled for an hour or so.  This water is  then dumped into

the carboy, bringing the level up to something less than full.  The (dry,

of course) yeast is pitched and a lock fitted.  When the krausen falls, he

tops up the carboy with more water, thus avoiding the need for a blow off

tube and such.  When fermentation is finished, he syphons the beer into

plastic soda bottles primed with sucrose.  The result is not too bad.

One side effect of this process is that there is no coagulation and

precipitation of protein, so the brew never clears.  He has two solutions

to this:  The first is to brew mainly dark beers so he can't tell.  The

second is to refer to the stuff as "high protein sports drink."  I don't

think the brewing supplies shop keeper likes him hanging around talking to

the other customers.

He claims his next project is to use only a small amount of dark extract

for color and to make up the rest of the fermentables with table sugar.

------------------------------


Growth Media,Dough-in

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 21:50 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Growth Media,Dough-in

 >From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

 >The pure yeast take up the green color when grown up on Petri dishes and the

 wild yeast remain white... I like these type of eyeball sort of tests.

 Me too but this one sounds like a wet dream.

 > Maybe some microbio type out there could post the availablity and cost of

 the media for those interested.

 Maybe some microbio type could tell us how it works.

 .............

 One more pass at dough-in.  Two batches back I doughed-in a batch before

 going to bed and mashed in the morning just to see if it made any difference.

 I thought it might improve the conversion by solubilizing the starch better

 but did not know what effect it might have on the taste.

 The conversion was at the high end of typical for me (31 pts/gal/lb) but it

 might be more helpful on poorly crushed malt than on properly crushed.

 It is now in the keg and I have been drinking it for about a week and

 completely forgot about the experiment till this dough-in thread joged my

 memory.  I can't find the slightest clue that the taste was affected and I

 passed around a liter at a recent CBS meeting and at the last report, no one

 has died from it.

 js

------------------------------


Keg problems

Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1993 09:57 EST

From: Carlo Fusco <G1400023@NICKEL.LAURENTIAN.CA>

Subject: Keg problems

Hello,

I have made the leap into kegging but I can't get the thing to work properly.

Every time I try to pour a beer there is nothing but foam. I have tried some

of the ideas mentioned last week in the digest and none work.

I have chilled the beer before taping, tried a long [6ft] and short [10in]

liquid out hose, bleeding off the excess pressure in the keg before pouring,

let it sit for a week after force carbonating.

What I have noticed is that the beer is not losing CO2 in the liquid out

hose, it remaines a liquid until it gets to the cobra tap and all I get is

foam comming out of the tap.

I have a few ideas what the problem is but I could use some input from the

ever knowing HBD crowd. I think I might be over carbonating the beer or the

beer comes out to fast and foams up when it hits the glass.....any

suggestions at fixing these things or other insights to what the problem may

be.

Thanks for the help

Carlo Fusco  g1400023@nickel.laurentian.ca

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1067, 02/01/93

*************************************

-------


W L Nutrient Medium

Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1993 15:53:42 EST

From: "M. Mitchell Smith" <mms7r@ascus.micr.virginia.edu>

Subject: W L Nutrient Medium

In HBD #1066 Bob Jones asked about WL Nutrient Agar.  Here's what I

could find:

"Wallerstein Laboratory Nutrient Medium" was devised by Green and Gray,

Wallerstein Lab. Comm., 13:357, 1950.  I couldn't find it as pre-poured

plates, but you can get the powder ready to mix and autoclave from

suppliers of Difco microbiology products; it is Difco catalog number

0424-01-7 and lists for $43.00 per pound in my Curtin Matheson Scientific,

Inc. catalog.  From the recipe below, I'm guessing 1 pound would make

about 5.5 liters of medium.  That should keep you in green for awhile :-).

Here's the recipe from "Products for the Microbiological Laboratory",

Baltimore Biological Laboratory, Inc. (BBL).  [The book lists it as

BBL product no. 01-388 but I couldn't find it in the BBL section of

current suppliers.]

Formula in Grams per Liter of Distilled Water

- ------------------------------------------------

 Yeast Extract    4.0

 Trypticase    5.0

 Dextrose   50.0

 Monopotassium Phosphate   0.55

 Potassium Chloride   0.425

 Calcium Chloride   0.125

 Magnesium Sulfate   0.125

 Ferric Chloride    0.0025

 Manganese Sulfate   0.0025

 Brom Cresol Green   0.022

 Agar    20.0

Preparation

- -----------

"Suspend 80 grams of the dehydrated material in a liter of distilled water.

Mix thoroughly.  Heat with frequent agitation and boil for about 1 minute.

If a final pH of 6.5 is desired, the pH may be adjusted with one per cent

aqueous sodium caronate, using about 30 ml. per liter of water. ...

Dispense and sterilize the medium by autoclaving at 121C. (15 lbs. steam

pressure) for 15 minutes.  Avoid overheating and unnecessary remelting."

Use

- ---

"W L Nutrient Medium is recommended for examination of worts, beers, liquid

yeast and other materials.  At a pH of 5.5, reliable counts of variable

brewer's yeast cells may be obtained.  With the pH adjusted to about 6.5,

the medium becomes suitable for obtaining counts on baker's and distiller's

yeast."

The same medium can be used for counting contaminating bacteria with the

addition of cyclohexamide at 0.004 grams per liter to inhibit the growth

of yeast.  This then makes it "W L Differential Medium".

Caveat

- ------

We've never used the stuff.  Proceed at your own risk!  I didn't do it!!

        -- Mitch

- -----------

M. Mitchell Smith   mms7r@Virginia.EDU

Department of Microbiology  (804) 924-2669

University of Virginia

Charlottesville, VA 22908

------------------------------


Lager...

Date: 01 Feb 1993 10:47:26 -0600 (MDT)

From: MARK TARATOOT <SLNDW@CC.USU.EDU>

Subject: Lager...

Greetings.

I have a quick question about lagering.  What are

the advantages/disadvantages of lagering in

"bulk" (ie in the carbouy) versus lagering in

bottles?

thanks

 -toot

------------------------------


WL nutrient agar update

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 93 10:16:13 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: WL nutrient agar update

A few additional details on the WL nutrient agar. As I understand the media

it changes color primarily do to Ph reactions. Yeasts turn green and other

things turn pink or white. The term "wild yeast" in my last post, wasn't the

best possible description. What one would do is plate out an unknown yeast

source from say a bottle of beer. Then by eyeballing the growth shapes and

colors one can easily identify the different types of yeasts. Then each

different type is picked up and built up and used to ferment a test batch of

beer or wine. The desirable ones are saved and re-used. I have a paper from

a talk given about 10 years ago by a person from The Winelab. As I recall

this media was used to isolate and culture all their yeast strains.

I hope this short explaination better describes the way I think this media

is supposed to be used. And JS your are welcome for the "Wet Dream".

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Cider Sweetening...

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 93 13:17:15 -0500

From: Brian F. Brown <bfbrown@media.mit.edu>

Subject: Cider Sweetening...

Looking for a recipe to sweeten cider which has turned out very dry.

I want something of the Woodchuck style, but maybe not quite as sweet.

11/21: put Camden tablets one each in four gallon jugs of cider.

11/22: pitched 2 gallons with wine yeast, 2 with shampagne yeast

1/10:  Racked all to secondaries.  Tasted small glass of both

 styles -> too dry

Any recipes which sweeten after fermentation with something like

apple juice concentrate or something else are requested.  Please

email reply.

Thanks a lot,

BB

------------------------------


Re: Beadle

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 93 13:00 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Beadle

Chris writes:

>Mr. Beadle ("Brew it Yourself*"), and at least two other British

>1960s-type books abhor boiling:

>

>        "Do not bring the water to a boil.  You will remember

>        from the section on commercial procedures that the malt

>        was kept at a temperature of 153 degrees Farenheit to

>        allow the diastase enzyme to convert starches to sugar

>        for correct fermentation of the malt.  If you allow the

>        water temerature to approach the boiling point, you will

>        upset this sugar conversion and cause it to refix at a

>        stage that will not allow the yeast to convert all the

>        malt sugar to alcohol and and carbon dioxide.  The

>        temperature of the mixing water must not exceed 153

>        degrees F.  Every other book on home-brewing has

>        incorrectly given instructions to boil the malt in the

>        water to dissolve it.  This will only guarantee that

>        some of the malt sugar will not be converted.  This

>        single bit of misinformation from those who should know

>        better has caused many beginners to become unnecessarily

>        discouraged in their attempts at brewing."

>Tenth-grade chemistry was many moons ago.  Every book I've stumbled

>across published since then (c1971) recommends boiling, even up to an

>hour for porters and stouts.  Since that is what I'd like to brew, I

>have a few questions:

>

>1.  Has brewing chemistry advanced since then, proving this guy

>    and my library of 1950-70 homebrewing books wrong?

Don't confuse the MASH with the BOIL.  In all-grain brewing, you MASH,

LAUTER, BOIL, CHILL, FERMENT and PACKAGE.  In extract brewing, you simply

BOIL, CHILL, FERMENT, and PACKAGE.

Our knowledge of brewing chemistry may have advanced, but the physics

involved and therefore the chemistry is still the same.  If Mr. Beadle and

your 1950-1970 homebrewing books are saying that you should not boil your

wort, then indeed they are wrong.  The passage Chris has quoted and which

I have included here, on the other hand is referring to mashing.  If you

begin from malt extract, where the producer of the extract has already done

the mashing and lautering for you, so you start the process from the boil

onwards.  It appears that Mr. Beadle is perhaps confusing infusion mashing

with decoction mashing or is mis-reading "every other book on home-brewing."

I suggest that any beginner first read Charlie's book, "The New Complete Joy

of Homebrewing."  This book is all you really need to begin brewing.  If you

want to continue your studies, I recommend then reading Miller's "The Complete

Handbook of Homebrewing" followed by Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer," followed

by George's "Principles of Brewing Science."  The reason I recommend the books

in this order is because Charlie's tone and language de-mystifies brewing

and concentrates on stressing how easy brewing really is.  I feel that the

other books dive into complicated procedures and science much too early

for a beginner -- they could really scare a beginner away from starting.

Once you've read the four books I mention above, you can then go back and

read older books and see if you can't find little bits of useful information

hidden among all the stuff you already know.  Saturday night I was reading

Foster's "Porter" and ran across something I had yet to read in any other

book (alas, I can't remember what it was, but it's stored away in my brain

somewhere and I'm sure it will come to me in the right situation).

Al.

------------------------------


Re: keeping properties of yeast slurry

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 93 14:23:52 -0500

From: polstra!larryba@uunet.UU.NET

Subject: Re: keeping properties of yeast slurry

In HBD #1067, Peter Maxwell writes:

>There have been a few replies to my earlier questions regarding reusing the

>slurry from the secondary fermenter.  Comments like "it should keep for a

>few days" or "a week or two" appeared as did something to the effect of

>leaving it longer would result in autolysis, which is bad.

>

>Given that several people have indicated that they leave their brew in the

>secondary for months sometimes, why don't they suffer from autolysis also?

> ...

Good observation.  I have recycled slurry from my primary that was sitting

for over 7 months in the refer at 50f (my delivery box).  Of course it needed

to be rejuvinated: I added fresh wort, shaked vigorously, let settle for a

day, poured off the liquid into some more fresh wort and waited until it

took off.  Easily 99% of the slurry was dead, but there were a few live ones

in there that took off.

My experience is that within two weeks the slurry can be directly pitched into

the fermenter and a violent start will be observed, followed by complete

fermentation in an unbelievably short time.  Good tasting beer follows.  Longer

than that and you need to restart the yeast by adding fresh wort, let it start

to ferment and separate out the live yeast (as described above) and build it

up again.

The reason yeast might survive eons in a secondary or keg or bottle is that

there is lots of wort (beer) on top of it with residual sugars that the yeast

can slowly work on.  WIth reclaimed slurry, usually it is topped with

plain water (in my case) so there is nothing but their neighbors to feed on.

- --

Larry Barello   uunet!polstra!larryba

------------------------------


Re: Keg Problems

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 93 13:28 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Keg Problems

Carlo writes:

>Every time I try to pour a beer there is nothing but foam. I have tried some

>of the ideas mentioned last week in the digest and none work.

>

>I have chilled the beer before taping, tried a long [6ft] and short [10in]

>liquid out hose, bleeding off the excess pressure in the keg before pouring,

>let it sit for a week after force carbonating.

>

>What I have noticed is that the beer is not losing CO2 in the liquid out

>hose, it remaines a liquid until it gets to the cobra tap and all I get is

>foam comming out of the tap.

Assuming your pressure is correct for the temperature you're using, I have

two suggestions:  1. Are you opening your faucet all the way?  Note

that if you only open it part-way, the constriction will cause foaming, so

*always* open the faucet full blast.  2. Could your faucet be dirty or

have something stuck in it?  Take it apart and soak it in bleach for a few

hours then rinse, reassemble, rinse, rinse and rinse again.  Even though

my faucets are stored inside my beer fridge, when I don't pour from a

particular keg for a week or so (I can have four on-line at one time) sometimes

a glob of mold forms inside the faucet (YUK!).

Al.

------------------------------


Re: Aluminum brew pot & and spices

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 93 12:33:16 MST

From: frank@Solbourne.COM (Frank Jones)

Subject: Re: Aluminum brew pot & and spices

in #1067 jason@beamlab.ps.uci.edu askes:

>Is there anything wrong with using an Aluminum brew pot.

Yes, don't. Aluminum reacts with the acidic wort, to produce off tastes. I'm

sure some of our chemists can tell you exactly what happens. The best rule of

thumb is stick to Stainless Steel & or Copper equipment.

and:

>I try to make a beer with any spices or special ingredients

>it turns out horrible.  All the simple ale's with only

>malt, sugar, and hops turn out great, but with the addition

>of even just cinnamon it turns into icky beer.

>Some of the bad spiced brews seem to have the presence of another

> form of alcohol or solvent, that the non-spiced ones lack.  The

>procedures are the same for both spiced and non-spiced.  The only

>thing that could be different (besides the presence of spices) is

>maybe I boil longer when I add spices.

I have had good success with spices added to the fermenter, *not* during the

boil, for a Chrismas Ale I made last November. I put all the spices (cimmamon,

clove, ginger, orange zest, and nutmeg) into about 2 quarts of water, boiled

them long enough to feel confident that they were sterile, cooled to room temp.

I added them to secondary, then racked wort on top, from the primary. If you

use one step fermention, I would add after pitching yeast. Beer came out very

good, a bit ginger heavy, but was drinkable after two weeks (orange was strong,

after about 4 weeks ginger was the winner), it is wonderful now,

if only, I had more of it :(  It was real popular with the Christmas Guests...

Hope this helps.

>Am I making Alzheimer brew?

how would you know, who made this beer anyway? :)

fj..

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Franklin R. Jones                           National Technical Support Engineer

frank@Solbourn.COM   <-Internet...snail->   Solbourne Computer Inc.

    303.678.4769                            1900 Pike Road

fax 303.772.3646                            Longmont, CO 80501

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"If we are not supposed to play with words...

                                                then why do we have so many??

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Mixing beers

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 93 12:47:13 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Mixing beers

OK, I would like to hear peoples views on mixing beers. I used to really be

rather stiff shirted about this whole affair. I figured that if the brewer

made a beer certain way, then by damn it shouldn't be messed with! I have

become a little more relaxed about these things in the recent past, and as

a result have had rather good mixes. How about Sierra Nevada Celebration ale

with a floater of Anchor Old Foghorn? Yum, yum. Their both great beers, but

the two mixed create a third beer that is as great and different. I realize

that there are a few of you that live in "the beer waste land" and this

discussion could drive you mad. I have found some interesting mixes on my

home draft system. I usually go through and squirt alittle beer from each

tap into a common glass to keep the taps from sticking (this IS mandatory

work you know). I of course drink this mix of beers, and some interesting

combo's have come up. I remember the Vienna lager and the Scotch ale mix,

sort of a Robust Porter. Have I gone off the deep end, or am I finally

relaxing? One thing is for sure, when you mix about five draft beers while

lubing those taps, the mix sure don't lack complexity!

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Brewing Sake

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 93 15:16:19 -0500

From: Phil DiFalco <pdifalco@fnma.COM>

Subject: Brewing Sake

From: Japan Times, January 29, 1993 --

"Brewing fuzzy for sake's sake,

Computer helps make up for dwindling makers' ranks"

FUKUSHIMA (Kyodo) A computer system for controlling the fermentation

of malted rice, the most important process in brewing sake, has been

developed by a technical center here.

Fukushima Prefectural Aizu Wakamatsu Technical Support Center spent

four years working on the system, which it claims will help the

industry, hit by a shortage of skilled brew masters.

A local sake brewer is now experimenting with the system to assess

its feasibility for commercial use.

In brewing sake, malted rice, or "moromi," is fermented in a tank to

turn starch into alcohol.

The trick is making the precise temperature adjustments during the

process. This has been difficult to automate.

The center developed the technology to automatically measure the

specific gravity of moromi and its alcohol content during fermentation.

The technology permits a temperature gradient to be maintained between

the surface and bottom.

The center talked to many chief brewers about temperature adjustments

and computerized the data collected.

The outcome has been a fuzzy-control system for adjusting temperature.

The art of brewing takes years of experience to master. A fully

qualified brew master needs to spend more than 10 years in the business.

But many chief brewers are farmers who work in breweries in their

spare time.

According to the Central Association of Sake Brewers Cooperatives,

the average age of chief sake brewers across the country rose by

about 10 years to 60 over the past 14 years.

The aging of the brewers and lack of successors have cast a pall

over the future of the industry.

Tadashi Sato, chief of the Fukushima Prefectural Aizu Wakamatsu

Technical Support Center's brewing department, hoped the new

fermentation control system will alleviate the problems.

- ---

email: pdifalco@fnma.com (NeXT Mail Okay)

Philip DiFalco, Senior Analyst, Advanced Technology

FannieMae, 3900 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 22016     (202)752-2812

------------------------------


Homebrew Digest #1066 (January 29, 1993)

Date: 01 Feb 1993 15:10:15 PST

From: "JSDAWS1@PROFSSR" <JSDAWS1@PB1.PacBell.COM>

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1066 (January 29, 1993)

*** Reply to note of 01/29/93 00:52

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1066 (January 29, 1993)

I've been reading various techniques and opinions for re-pitching yeast

( trub ? ) from a previous batch to start a new one.  While common sense tells

me that pitching the contents of the 2ndary is better than the gunk typically

found in the primary.  One evening a couple weeks back I was getting ready to

make a yeast starter by consuming a few SNPA's and just coincidentally killed

a 3-gallon cornbellius keg of some very tasty pale ale.  It occurred to me that

a potentially very stable source of yeast would be the residue at the bottom

of this keg, since I prime the beer before racking into the keg.  I made up the

starter as usual, dumped it into the keg, and pumped it back into my 500 ml

flask.  By morning, the contents had fully fermented.  I haven't tried the

resulting beer yet.  The flash fermentation of the starter resulted in it

going dormant but I did have active fermentation in my beer within 18 hours.

I plan next time to simply hold the pressurized dregs and draw off some wort

during the boil, add it to the keg, shake the s--- out of it and pump that

directly into my wort.  My only question is:  would the cold temps which this

ale yeast endures while in my refrigerator cause any off flavors, etc in a

finished beer ?   BTW. I've found that 1 bottle of good home brew, or 3 of

fresh SNPA makes a great starter.

| If it's good enough for ancient druids runnin naked thru the woods  |

|   drinkin strange fermented fluids then it's good enough for me.    |

| JACK DAWSON  -  JSDAWS1  -  415 545-0299  -  CUSTOMER BILLING  (BG) |

------------------------------


BUGS!

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 93 17:09:38 MST

From: dwatson@as.arizona.edu (Dan Watson)

Subject: BUGS!

   Yo Y'all,

   Not long ago, I got geared up to make a batch of I.P.A.  Rummaging

around in my shelves I found a tupperware bin of about two lbs of pale

ale malt which I promptly added to the grain bill.  This stuff had

been sitting for a couple of months.  Humming a happy tune, I milled

all of the grain together into a big clear plastic bag (keeps the dust

down), and proceeded with the preparations.  With everything ready and

HB in hand, I grabbed the bag and found it teeming with thousands and

thousands of tiny black bugs!!  Talk about a terrible sinking feeling!

Horrified and discusted, I threw the whole ten lbs out to the chickens

(who thought this was QUITE the treat), and went and begged some grain

from a friend (thanks Ken!) and the day was saved.

  These guys look like beetles and on close inspection there were tiny

holes in the husks of the grains.  Has anyone else had experience with

these monsters?  How can one avoid them?  I was thinking about storing

the grain under CO2 in kegs, maybe these things can't grow without O.

Any tips would be appreciated.

     Thanks, Dan

------------------------------


RE: brewpots

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 11:40:24 +1030

From: Murray Robinson <robinm@mrd.dsto.gov.au>

Subject: RE: brewpots

In HBD 1066 Mike Writes:

> After some thought I've decided to invest in all grain brewing.

> The problem seems to be that the start up costs for the equipment

> could be over $100.  I can get access to a corona through my

> local homebrew club and the cost of converting my cooler for mashing

> is minimal.  The main cost remains, a large 7-10 gallon brewpot.

> So does anyone have any ideas on where to find a good deal on a large

> pot?  I've been eyeing one at the local "PACE" store recently.  It is

> a 13 gallon oval shaped "Revere" copper boiler for $80.  I was hoping

> to find something for under $50.

>

> Any ideas?

I have just gone through the process of acquiring the bits and pieces for

an all setup and have found some particularily good sources for large

brewpots (ie larger than 10 gallons).

1) Try your local software manufacture for secondhand kegs. Places like

Coca Cola not only have the 5 gallon Cornellius Kegs that brewers use for

their draft beer systems but they also have 10 gallon Stainless Steel Kegs.

These 10 gallon kegs allready have handles welded onto them so all you need

to do is cut a hole in the top of it to convert it into a pot. In Adelaide the

10 gallon SS kegs sell for $45 secondhand.

2) Phone you local beer manufacturer and go through the same process with them.

If you can purchase secondhand kegs from them you will not only need to cut a

hole in the top of it or cut it through the middle but you will also need to put

some handles on it.

3) Try a few scrap yards. In Adelaide, one of the local scrap yards bought all of

the secondhand 18 gallon kegs from the Coopers Brewery for $18 and was reselling

them to the public for $40. Quite a markup, but, still reasonably cheap for a

brewpot if you can do the metal work yourself.

4) In Australia, the dairy industry used to use 10 gallon SS drums for transporting

the milk. This has now changed and their are a lot of old drums to be had from local

dairy farmers. As far as price goes it depends on the farmer you talk to and the

condition of the keg laying around his farm. From my experience prices go from free

to $50.

Hope this helps. I chose to buy the 10 gallon kegs from Coca Cola.

Cheers,

Murray.

------------------------------


Malted rye?

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 01:42 EST

From: Carlo Fusco <G1400023@NICKEL.LAURENTIAN.CA>

Subject: Malted rye?

Does anyone have any idea where to get malted rye. I want to try brewing

a beer with a hint of rye wiskey flavour...it also seems like a Canadian

thing to do ;-)

Carlo Fusco........g1400023@nickel.laurentian.ca

------------------------------


need bigger brewpot

Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1993 23:20:05 -0500 (EST)

From: Stephen Brent Peters <sp2q+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: need bigger brewpot

Howdy,

I'm looking for a pot big enough to go all-grain with.  Say, 8 gallons?

Are there any pittsburgers out there in net-land who could point me in the

right direction to pick one of these babies up for a good price in or near

the city?

I'd also buy a used one if I could find one.

 -Steve Peters

521-5580

sp2q@andrew.cmu.edu

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1068, 02/02/93

*************************************

-------


echo about beer in FidoNet

Date: Tue, 02 Feb 93 12:27:45 +0100

From: Victor Reijs <Victor.Reijs@SURFnet.nl>

Subject: echo about beer in FidoNet

Hello all of you,

I seems there is an echo-area in FidoNet about Zymurgy? Does somebody know the

real name of that echo? I would like to get that echo in Europe, or did others

already try that and they did not succeed?

Hope somebody can help me.

All the best,

Victor

------------------------------


Mixing beers

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 05:24:22 MST

From: stevel@chs.com (7226 Lacroix)

Subject: Mixing beers

When I lived in Seattle (ahhhhh, the Great Northwest) there was a place...

T.S. McHugh's where they mixed something called a Blacksmith...a Guinness

mixed with Old Nick Barleywine...it was superb!  Just across the street at

Jake O'Shanassey's (may the Irish forgive me for any wrong spelling) they

made something by floating Guinness on top of a Harp....again...heaven..

At home, I had a batch of Cherry Ale come up a little short on the

carbonation side, so I mixed more than a few bottles with a strong bitter,

and while not particularly memorable, it did make that flat beer more than

drinkable!  Bob, sounds like you're relaxin' just fine to me... ;-)

 Steve Lacroix

 Primitive Brewing

------------------------------


re: HBU-IBU table in HBD1066

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 08:17:27 EST

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: re: HBU-IBU table in HBD1066

In HBD1066 I submitted an HBU-IBU conversion table

but forgot to mention any volume relationships.

That table assumes a 5 gallon batch.

To adjust for a volume of X gallons simply multiply the

numbers in the table by 5/X.

Bill Szymczak

------------------------------


recirculating runoff

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 08:09:45 -0500

From: rogers%scsd.dnet@gte.com (JOHN - GTE - (617) 466-3681)

Subject: recirculating runoff

I have been easing myself into all grain brewing. I have done a

few batches with varying amount of grains. I have found that

keeping the temp. constant during mashing is easier than I

expected but that lautering is more of a pain than I expected.

My question: just how important (*really*) is re-circulating the

runoff? I am using a grain bag with a very fine mesh, and it

seems to catch everything of real substance. Also note I am not

concerned with extracting every  molecule of fermentable from the

grain. I would be happy to get 25-27 points per pound, and add an

extra pound or so of grain to reach the  specified OG.

Thanks for any advice!!

------------------------------


Mixing beers

Date:         Tue, 02 Feb 93 08:26:04 EST

From: Tom Dimock <RGG@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu>

Subject:      Mixing beers

Mixing beers has a long history in England, where the Black and Tan,

Light and Dark, or 'arf 'n 'arf are all quite common in pubs.  One of

my fond memories involves drinking with friends from MIT at the

Muddy Charles, a graduate student hangout on campus.  At that time,

they only had Bud on tap :-( , but they did have Guiness in bottles.

Being cheap, but not quite cheap enough to drink Bud straight, I'd

buy a bottle of Guiness, and use half a Guiness per pitcher of Bud

to give the stuff some flavor.  It worked pretty well - it made the

Bud into something you could fool yourself into believing was beer....

A floater of barleywinne on a good pale ale...   Hmmm....

------------------------------


Re: Brew pots

Date:         Tue, 02 Feb 93 08:04:37 CST

From: Doug Behm <DBEHM@UA1VM.UA.EDU>

Subject:      Re: Brew pots

I have an eight gallon and a five gallon enamel brewing pot. These pots

are enameled canners found at Walmart or other similar stores. I think

I paid about $20 each for them. I had the eight gallon but it was too big for m

y stove , it din't fit over three burners and i burner gave a 'hot spot. The

five gallon fit a little better but is still a little large for a kitchen stove

------------------------------


Re: Cider Sweetening...

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 9:22:13 EST

From: roman@tix.timeplex.com (Daniel Roman)

Subject: Re: Cider Sweetening...

Brian F. Brown writes:

> Looking for a recipe to sweeten cider which has turned out very dry.

> I want something of the Woodchuck style, but maybe not quite as sweet.

The best way I have found to achieve sweet cider is to artificially

carbonate with kegging equipment after using potassium sorbate to kill

off the yeast.  After the yeast are dead you can sweeten to taste.  I

know of no yeast with low enough attenuation to achieve sweetness

anywhere near something like Woodpecker (I have not had Woodchuck).

May I suggest you subscribe to the Cider Digest.  Requests should be

sent to "cider-request@expo.lcs.mit.edu".

- --

_________

Dan Roman  GEnie: D.ROMAN1  Internet: roman@tix.timeplex.com  //

American Homebrewers Association member        Only AMIGA!  /X/

------------------------------


Where to get good hops?

Date:         Tue, 02 Feb 93 08:46:34 CST

From: John Callaway <OCJOHN%LSUVM.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>

Subject:      Where to get good hops?

Does anyone out there know of a place to get

good, fresh hops by mail order.  The ones I have

been getting lately from my local brew store are not

so good, and I want to try a new place.  THANKS

John Callaway                  ocjohn@lsuvm.bitnet

Dept. of Oceanography

Louisiana State University

------------------------------


Update in solvents in homebrew

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 9:49:55 EST

From: bickham@msc2.msc.cornell.edu (Scott Bickham)

Subject: Update in solvents in homebrew

Last week, I posted (indirectly) some worries about solvent-like

flavors and aromas in my latest brew - a Strong Belgian Ale.  It

was a mash/extract recipe, with about 45 gravity points coming from

the mash and another 35 from a kit that was given to me.  The wort

was pitched onto the Belgian Ale yeast slurry left behind when I

bottled a wit.

When I bottled the strong ale, there was a terrible flavor similar to

turpentine.  But now, after only one week later, this seems to have vanished,

leaving behind lots of banana esters and some spicy phenolics.  The

finish was slighlty bitter, but that should mellow with age and blend

with the esters to create a nice complex balance.  I did notice the

solvent-like aroma when I was washing the bottle, so whatever the culprit

was (maybe the yeast?), it seems to have settled out of the beer's way.

Scott

- --

=========================================================================

Scott Bickham                             |

LASSP and Materials Science Center   |       bickham@msc.cornell.edu

=========================================================================

------------------------------


Cornellius kegs

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 07:59:22 -0700

From: John Adams <j_adams@hpfcjca.sde.hp.com>

Subject: Cornellius kegs

>

> 1) Try your local software manufacture for secondhand kegs. Places like

> Coca Cola not only have the 5 gallon Cornellius Kegs that brewers use for

> their draft beer systems but they also have 10 gallon Stainless Steel Kegs.

> These 10 gallon kegs allready have handles welded onto them so all you need

> to do is cut a hole in the top of it to convert it into a pot. In Adelaide the

> 10 gallon SS kegs sell for $45 secondhand.

>

Working for a software company we RARELY if EVER have unused kegs

laying around.  We usually reuse them for our next release 8^)

I have heard that SOFTDRINK manufacturers are pretty good sources for

cornellius kegs!

John "tongue firmly in cheek" Adams

------------------------------


Irish Red Ale

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 9:23:28 CST

From: gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com (Guy McConnell)

Subject: Irish Red Ale

    As a result of my post on using Wyeast #1084 Irish Ale yeast in an Irish

Red Ale, I received several requests for the recipe.  Here 'tis:

         Dana's Smilin' Irish Eyes Red Ale

            5 Gallons

  6    pounds  Alexander's Pale Malt Extract Syrup

  1    pound   Orange Blossom Honey

  1    pound   ( 4 cups ) Belgian Special B ( 200 L )

  3    ounces  Cascade Hop Pellets

  1    tsp     Irish Moss

  1    pack    Wyeast #1084 Irish Ale

 Place cracked grains in 2 quarts cold water and bring temperature up

 to 170 degrees.  Steep for 15 minutes and sparge into brewpot.  Add

 malt extract and 1 oz. hops and boil for 45 minutes.  Add Irish moss,

 1 oz. hops, and honey & boil for 15 more minutes.  Remove from heat &

 add remaining 1 oz. hops.  Cool quickly, add to 3 gallons cold water

 in primary fermenter, and pitch yeast.  Rack to secondary after

 vigorous fermentation subsides.  Bottle when fermentation completes.

I bottled this one with gyle I saved before pitching the yeast, my preferred

priming method now.  I did it as a quick and easy way of making a decent Irish

Red Ale and it turned out quite well.  An all-grain version could be done with

2-row malt (I'd use the Belgian), a little carapils, and the special B.  Maybe

a little toasted victory malt would also add a nice "toasty" character.  The

two best commercial examples of this (non?)style IMHO are Boulevard Brewing

Co. (of Kansas City MO.) "Irish Ale" and Birmingham Brewing Co. "Red Mountain

Red Ale".  I know the guy who started the Birmingham Brewing Co. and he gave

me the details of his recipe.  It has 2-row pale malt, Carapils, and Belgian

Special B with "18-20" IBU of hops (he didn't tell me what type but I believe

Cascades are used) and Irish Ale yeast.  After trying either of these, you

will realize just how pale a reflection Killian's is of this all but forgotten

style.  Another victim of the American Mass Brewing monster.

    I was also asked for my blackberry ale recipe which used #1084 yeast:

    Cat's Claw Blackberry Ale

            5 Gallons

  6    pounds  Alexander's Pale extract syrup

  1    pound   Orange Blossom Honey

  1    pound   ( 4 cups )Crystal Malt, 10L

  1/4  pound   ( 1 cup ) Victory Malt

  1    ounce   Cascade Pellets ( bittering - 60 mins )

  1/2  ounce   Cascade Pellets ( finishing )

  1    pint    WYeast #1084 Irish Ale Yeast ( recultured )

  8    pounds  Blackberries

  2/3  cup     Orange Blossom Honey ( for priming )

 Place crushed grain in cold water and steep for 45 minutes at 155

 degrees.  Sparge into brewpot and bring to a boil.  Add extract and

 bittering hops and boil for 50 minutes.  During the boil, mash berries

 through a strainer to extract the juice.  Add honey and boil for 10

 more minutes, skimming off any scum that forms.  Remove from heat and

 pour blackberry juice into the hot wort.  Stir well and allow to steep

 for 15 minutes.  Cool and pour into primary containing 3 gallons cold

 (previously boiled) water.  Pitch yeast and aerate well.  Rack to

 secondary when vigorous fermentation subsides.  When fermentation

 completes, make a "hop tea" with the finishing hops.  Cool, add to

 bottling bucket along with honey priming solution, and bottle.

This brew turned out quite well too with a nice blackberry nose complimented

by a floral note from the Cascade hop tea added at bottling.  Enjoy!

- --

Guy McConnell  gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com  or  b11!mspe5!gdmcconn

    "All I need is a pint a day"

------------------------------


all-grain snobs

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 10:45:54 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: all-grain snobs

In HBD 1067, Mark Lundquist:

Subject: Weird beer flavor

>I have some extract ale that is ready to go into bottles, but it tastes

>wrong.  I'd like some help in identifying what the wrong flavor is,

>and how to eliminate it!

>

>....  Well, the weird flavor component in this batch of

>ale is very much like that aftertaste in malt syrup.

>

>Here's the specifics:

>

>Two cans (8 lbs) Alexander's Pale malt extract syrup

>13 AAU (1 oz.) Chinook hops (boil)

>1 oz. Cascade hops (finish)

>W. #1098 (British), recultured from dregs of a

>     homebrew (1st generation)

>

>O.G. 1.058

>F.G. 1.017

>

>... (Please don't bother with "Well you're using all

>this malt extract, so of course your beer is going to taste like malt

>extract, why don't you switch to all-grain, blah blah blah".  I'm sure

>I'll switch to all-grain someday soon, OK?

Later, McHarry sez:

>

>Subject: World's Worst Brewer

>...

>He is, of course, an extract brewer.

Well, I know McHarry couldn't have planned that, but ouch!  Talk about

rubbing salt into an obvious wound.

I posted about how much fun the CBS "First Thursday" meeting was last

month (I wish I could be in Chicago tomorrow.... >plug< 7:30 at Goose

Island).  The first people I talked to were a couple who brewed a nice

pale ale, and very good holiday ale and stout.  And they were so

apologetic about it being extract brew!

The homebrewing community is generally guilty of snobbishness when it

comes to extract vs. grain.  It is assumed that all extract brewers will

eventually "grow up" and go all-grain.  (When I was younger, it was

assumed that pot leads to harder drugs....)  I'm sure many do, but

there's no reason they need do, and grain brewers shouldn't try to

make them feel small.

That said, Mark may not like my advice.  Based on many extract brews,

I think the problem is not extract, but too much extract.  Somewhere

around 1050, I've found that the "extract tang" (Dave Line's words)

becomes evident.  With ~6.5 pound (3kg.) you can make _VERY_GOOD_ beer

like OG 1045-1048, FG 1010-1012.  "Ordinary strength" beer.  Of course,

one reason for homebrewing is to try out stronger styles.  If you want

to do that with extract, consider:

 - partial mashes

 - a pound  of adjunct (brown sugar for a darker ale, brewer's corn

                        syrup for a lighter one)

 - dark malt both to boost the OG a little and to mask other flavors

 - overhop :-)

 - long bottle aging

Alternate versions of Mark's ale:

 -  replace 1.5 lb. Alexander's with a 2 lb. partial mash --

    this can be done with equipment already available in most kitchens.

 -  Replace 2 lb. Alexander's with 1 lb crystal and 1 lb. brown sugar

    (darker, Bass-like ale).

 -  Less popular with "Enemies of BudMilLob" would be to replace 1.5

    lb Alexander's with a brewer's grade corn syrup.  Unlike corn sugar,

    these syrups have a sugar spectrum similar to wort and won't change

    the OG-FG balance.  Of course the beer will be 80-20 malt-corn,

    but (heresy coming!) I'm not sure that's so bad when the amount of

    malt present was already sufficient to make good beer.  And, your

    non-beer-snob friends may find it a kinder, gentler untroduction

    to high gravity brew.

Finally, and more practically for the present batch, Mark.  Just let

it age for a while in the bottle.  You've used good yeast, so it won't

go dry and over-carbonated.  The stuff is gonna be great on Paddy's

Day...just don't put any green food coloring in it!

Cheers,

Rob (bradley@adx.adelphi.edu)

,

------------------------------


pH electrode, copper pot, rye

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 10:50:41 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: pH electrode, copper pot, rye

In hbd 1066 Michael Gildner complained that the only suitable pot he

could find was a 13 gallon copper one for $80.  I drooled.  Wher could

I find one?  I have the cheapo option - an 8gallon enameled canning pot

I bought at a local housewares store called Waccamaw, but I believe

they can be specially ordered at Ace hardware.  Its cheaper <$30, but

I am fed up of the poor heat transfer of steel, which I would also

have with stainless, so more information like manufacturers names for

big copper pots would be appreciated.

I bought a chceap pH electrode/meter from Cole-Palmer for $30.  It is

called the Champ and has a resolution of .1 and an accuracy of .5 (mine

reads .1 high).  I am satisfied.  If anyone is interested Cole-Palmer's

number is 1-800-323-4340 and the "Champ pH Tester" catalog number is

G-05941-10.  Usual disclainers.

Carlo Fusco wanted Rye Malt.  It used to be available from the Malt Shop

in Cascade Wisconsin.  I don't have the phone number, but you could try

800-555-1212 for it, or email me tomorrow.

Ulick Stafford

------------------------------


NDMAs (the last little bit)

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 7:59:47 PST

From: "Donald G. Scheidt" <dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com>

Subject: NDMAs (the last little bit)

In HOMEBREW Digest #1066, Fri 29 January 1993, a few folks kept on flogging

the nitrosamine horse:

>From: lencell@unmc.edu (Lance Encell)

>Subject: nitrosamines in beer

>

>Just to add a little to the talk about nitrosamines, they are found in beer

>and wine, but as has been noted, they are found at very low levels.

>

>They are formed under acidic conditions in our stomachs by the nitrosation

>of ingested secondary amines by nitrite...

>It has been shown that vitamin C prevents nitrosation by competing with the

>amines for the nitrite.  So everyone drink their O.J. so you get your C's.

>

>Finally, nitrosamines require metabolic activation to exert their toxic

>and carcinogenic effects.

Thanks for a little research on the metabolisation of NDMAs.  Since I drink

OJ the way caffeine-heads drink coffee - I drink it by the liter - I'm not

going to worry about the NDMA levels in any of my beer, either store-bought

or home-made.

>From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

>Subject: Nitrosamines, Dough-in

>

> >From: gjfix@utamat (George J Fix)

>

> >For the record, the highest NDMA level reported was in Bamberg Rauchbier.

> It contained 5-15 parts per billon, and not 5 ppm as reported in HBD.

>

> Just testing to see if you read my articles as carefully as

> I read yours :)

Cute, but disingenuous.  Given the orders of magnitude between ppm and ppb,

this is important.  The point is, there are plenty of sources of health

risks, carcinogenic especially, that are far nastier than the few ppb's of

NDMA found in, say, the California & Alaska Street Brewery's Rauchbier.

These days, you stand a bigger risk from the second-hand smoke of a typical

cigarette-filled pub than from any beer you'll drink.

> > This also was the level reported in their malt. The NDMA levels of beer is

> typically 9-10 times lower than in the malt used.

>

> >I feel it is perfectly legitimate to raise the possibility that beer with

> higher than normal nitrosamine levels could be a health hazard. Nevertheless,

> there are many aspects of this issue I do not fully understand. For example,

> population data shows that Bamberg has one of the highest rates of beer

> consumption in Germany (no small feat!), yet its cancer and death rates

> are near (and in fact slightly below) the average in Germany...

>

>                          ...  someone decided that NDMA is carcinogenic and

> without further evidence, I am not about to waive the condemnation based on

> one anecdotal experience.  It's a bit like the CDC claiming that mosquitoes

> can't spread AIDS because a study done in a swampy town in Southern Florida

> showed no higer incidence than the population at large.

Bamberg is not a "swampy town in Southern Florida".  It's a regional center

with 75,000 inhabitants, with several thousand more in the surrounding small

towns and farm areas.  It is an area known for its smoked beers, as well as

a brown-copper unfiltered and open-fermented-and-aged lager beer made from a

darker, almost Vienna-style malt, kilned at those high temperatures.

If someone "decided" that NDMA is carcinogenic, someone else may do

research and "decide" that the research that lead to the carcinogenic

finding requires a little more study, especially in the light of more

recently gathered statistical evidence.

> Personally, I was delighted to find a source of indirect malt that didn't

> compromise overall quality and taste.  The Belgian malts seem to be the best

> of all options.  By using them I do not have to care who is right on the NDMA

> issue.

The best reason to use the Belgian malts is 'cause you like 'em - sorry if

that seems a bit simple-minded, but I'm not planning on being part of this

world forever (statistical evidence suggests that this plan is on target -

we're all gonna die sometime!).  I'm glad I've gotten to sample the flavour

of all kinds of good beer - whether made from good Belgian malts, or from

Bamberger Rauchmalz!

more to follow...

- --

        __       |                                        |       __

       // /      |  Don Scheidt                           |      // /

      /  / /     |  Boeing IASL, 777 Cab Development      |     /  / /

     / // / /    |  dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com      |    / // / /

    / / // / /   |                                        |   / / // / /

   / / /__/_/ /  |                                        |  / / /__/_/ /

  / / /________/ |                                        | / / /________/

  //___________/ |                                        | //___________/

------------------------------


The *very* end of NDMAs, really!

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 8:00:42 PST

From: "Donald G. Scheidt" <dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com>

Subject: The *very* end of NDMAs, really!

The NDMA/nitrosamine "debate", cont'd:

> >From: KLIGERMAN@herlvx.rtpnc.epa.gov

>

>                                                            ... their level

> in beer is relatively small (ave. 2 ppb) compared to such products as

> frankfurters (0 - 84 ppb), fish and fish products (4 - 26 ppb), cheeses (2 -

> 26 ppb), and various meat products (1 to 80 ppb).

>

> Interesting numbers but so are the ranges.  They all have a low end below the

> FDA limit for beer.  I don't know what the limits are for the other products

> but I think we all know that BIG Brother seems as interested in protecting

> the economy and big business as they are in protecting the consumer.

>

> Having said that, I guess I have to add, so what?  Only a fool would

> intentionally choose to eat products with higher levels of carcinogins if

> given reasonable choices.  In malt we have a choice.  If we let the industry

> trample our health interests and defend them in doing it, whom have we

> served?  If we insist on the safest product they can produce, we serve

> ourselves.

If we believe everything ever said about everything, we resort to drinking

"100 percent distilled water and pure grain alcohol, Mandrake."  As soon as

I hear of statistically valid higher-than-normal normal cancer cases due to

drinking beers from dark, highly kilned, and possibly smoked malts, I'll

think twice about it.

The best and last word has been said:

>From: klm@mscg.com (Kevin L. McBride)

>Subject: Nitrosamine Garbage

>

>We are all going to die some time.  This fact cannot be avoided,

>though it appears that at least one regular contributor to this forum

>believes that he has found the key to eternal life through the beating of dead horses.

>

>If a glass of Smoked Porter is going to kill me then at least I will

>die a happy man.

Amen!

- --

        __       |                                        |       __

       // /      |  Don Scheidt                           |      // /

      /  / /     |  Boeing IASL, 777 Cab Development      |     /  / /

     / // / /    |  dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com      |    / // / /

    / / // / /   |                                        |   / / // / /

   / / /__/_/ /  |                                        |  / / /__/_/ /

  / / /________/ |                                        | / / /________/

  //___________/ |                                        | //___________/

------------------------------


Adelscott

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 8:01:12 PST

From: "Donald G. Scheidt" <dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com>

Subject: Adelscott

>From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.EDU>

>Subject: Pecheur

>

>Subject:  Pecheur                               Time:8:06 AM     Date:1/28/93

>>"Pecheur has previously experimented with a beer

>>containing malt whisky..."

>

>I think this is a mistake. They have brewed a beer using whisky malt called

>Adelscott which (according to Mr. Jackson) "imparts a very light smokiness." I

>have spoken with the US importer about this product in the past only to learn

>that they do not plan to introduce it here. Some problem with the labeling.

"Introduce" it?  During the imported-beer boom of the early eighies, when one

could buy, among others, Rodenbach, Saisons de Silly, and St-Louis beers

in Seattle, bottles of Adelscott appeared on the shelves of several

specialty beer-and-wine-retailers here.  Adelscott was sold in smallish (25

cl) clear-glass bottles, and mentioned the smoked-whisky malt on the label.

The smoky flavour was quite subtle, and over-chilling it masked it

completely; it was also paler in colour than the Bamberger-style Rauchbier.

The closest Bamberg beer to it in flavour is the lightly smoky Greifenklau

Rauchbier, with just a hint of smoke in the background.  Adelscott's not

hard to find in France and Belgium, and I've seen it in the Netherlands also.

As a homebrewing-related aside, the company that imports the only German

Rauchbier (Kaiserdom) available here (Seattle / Pacific Northwest) is

Merchant du Vin, of Seattle.  The founder of MdV is also involved with the

Pike Place Brewery and the Libery Malt Supply homebrewer's shop.  As a

result, Liberty Malt has Bamberger Rauch malt available, imported from

the same company that makes Kaiserdom.

Two Seattle brewpubs have also made Rauchbiers, both top-fermented.  Big

Time Alehouse's Rauchbier was smooth, but had a curiously "slippery" mouth-

feel.  West Seattle's brewpub is up-front in flavour, but also has a very

hoppy astringency to it; they serve it mixed half-and-half with a more

conventional bitter ale, unless you ask for it "straight".

- --

        __       |                                        |       __

       // /      |  Don Scheidt                           |      // /

      /  / /     |  Boeing IASL, 777 Cab Development      |     /  / /

     / // / /    |  dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com      |    / // / /

    / / // / /   |                                        |   / / // / /

   / / /__/_/ /  |                                        |  / / /__/_/ /

  / / /________/ |                                        | / / /________/

  //___________/ |                                        | //___________/

------------------------------


Grain Weevels

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 11:09:10 -0500

From: rxh6@po.CWRU.Edu (Randall Holt)

Subject: Grain Weevels

D. Watson tells a sad tale of finding weevely grain and asks for advice.

My father used to store large amounts of wheat and oats in 50-gallon

drums (as part of a two year food supply in preparation for the

coming nuclear holocaust, a byproduct of the Cuban missile thing).

Anyway, weevels were a problem back then, because irradiated food didn't

exist. His solution was to fill up the grain barrel, then toss in a

large brick of dry ice, put the lid on loosely, then seal the barrel

with wax to keep airtight after the CO2 had sublimated. Result - bug free

after 10 years.

I guess this technique could be modified to store barley using CO2(g).

A wors of warning, once you find weevels in your pantry, you will _never_

get rid of them, short of completely replacing all dry goods, and then

fumigating.

- --

Randall W. Holt  rxh6@po.cwru.edu

------------------------------


malted rye source

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 11:04:16 CST

From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)

Subject: malted rye source

>Does anyone have any idea where to get malted rye. I want to try brewing

>a beer with a hint of rye wiskey flavour...it also seems like a Canadian

>thing to do ;-)

The Malt Shop

N 3211 Highway S

Cascase WI 53011

1(800)-235-0026

------------------------------


Re: BUGS!

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 12:38:43 -0500

From: strahs%medusa@medusa.bioc.aecom.yu.edu (Dan Strahs)

Subject: Re: BUGS!

>down), and proceeded with the preparations.  With everything ready and

>HB in hand, I grabbed the bag and found it teeming with thousands and

>thousands of tiny black bugs!!

 Sounds like you have grain beetles.  These nasty suckers will eat

anything: flour, spices, sugar, dried pasta, malted barley 8~)

 Your best bet for eliminating this infection is to clean EVERYTHING.

If you have a second nest of these beetles anywhere near your stored grain,

they'll return.  To prevent entry of these beetles, you need very tight closing

containers.  Ordinary jars apparently don't work too well; my girlfriend had

to throw away most of her spices after the beetles got to then through the

threads of the lids of the screw-top jars.  Clean everything; you may want to

consult with an exterminator.  Empty every cabinet; examine everything they

could possibly eat.  Don't assume that an iten is uninfested just because it's

closed or unopened.

 Good luck.... Terminate with extreme prejudice.

       Dan Strahs

------------------------------


Re: Bad Luck With Spices

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 12:37:24 EST

From: orgasm!davevi@uunet.UU.NET (David Van Iderstine)

Subject: Re: Bad Luck With Spices

I don't know if your trouble with spices has anything to do with an

aluminum brewpot, I do know however that spices can quickly overwhelm

the other flavors in your wort.  It's REAL easy to go overboard,

thinking such small quantities will have no effect. They do! ginger

root is especially strong, I've found.

Typical quantities I use in making an excellent spiced ale are: 1/2

teaspoon (tsp.) powdered nutmeg, 1.5 tsp.  powdered cinnamon, 1/2 tsp.

powdered clove (all 8 minutes from end of boil), 1 tsp. liquid vanilla

(5 minutes from end). Add to this 1 lb. honey, 6 lbs. light extract, a

pound or two of pale-to-crystal grains, hops of your choice, and barring

infection I promise you a winner. This recipe has been called "the best

homebrew I've ever tasted" by anyone who's tasted it. If you get the

same reaction, just give credit where due! :-)

Dave Van Iderstine

===========================================================================

== Dave Van Iderstine                           Senior Software Engineer ==

==                   Xerox Imaging Systems, Inc.                         ==

== UUCP: uunet!pharlap!orgasm!davevi        davevi@pharlap.com :INTERNET ==

==-----------------------------------------------------------------------==

==          "I haven't got time for instant gratification!"              ==

===========================================================================

------------------------------


brewpots

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 13:08:34 CST

From: russo@carlos.sps.mot.com (Russell L. Oertel)

Subject: brewpots

I noticed a couple of people mentioning that they need brewpots big

enough for all-grain brewing, and particularly one person who was

concerned about cost.  My solution to this problem is to have two

smaller brewpots.

When I started brewing with extracts, I used a 3.5 gallon SS pot which

cost about $15.  I figured the easiest thing to do would be to buy

another identical pot, so that's what I did.  3-3.5 gallons is about

all my electric stove will boil on one burner, anyway, and it's easier

to move around ~25 lbs. of wort than ~50 lbs. if your setup requires

moving pots around.

Russ Oertel              "Don't worry, Ma - I'll grow up some day... but it

russo@carlos.sps.mot.com  probably won't be in my lifetime." - Sneaky Pete Rizzo

------------------------------


Hypercard program

Date: Tue, 02 Feb 1993 16:07:08 EST

From: SRIRACHA <radavfs@ube.ub.umd.edu>

Subject: Hypercard program

I seem to remember discussion about a program that would

turn the homebrew digest into a Hypercard stack, allowing

the Mac users among us to sort through the digest at our

leisure...anyone else remmeber this one?  I've been nomail

for a while, so forgive me if this has been beaten to death

recently.

Best,

Volker

Volker Stewart  Langsdale Library, U. of Baltimore radavfs@ube.ub.umd.edu

------------------------------


H-BAIRD MALTS

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 12:14:21 PST

From: Mark Simpson <mark@crash.cts.com>

Subject: H-BAIRD MALTS

Howdy HBDers

1)  Is anyone out there (George Fix?) familiar with the Hugh

Baird malts?  I would like to know what beer they are generally

used in and its characteristics such as points per pound of

extract (theoretical maximum).

2)  How does one go about converting Theoretical Maximum Extract

(ie 82% TME for Klages malt, for example) to points per pound of

extract, excluding the brewhouse efficiency factor?

If this has already been discussed in the past, maybe someone

could point me in the right direction.

Thanks for the help,

Mark Simpson, The Harmonica Brew-Cat

------------------------------


Drew's Brew Wheat Beer

Date: Tue, 02 Feb 93 13:53:47 -0800

From: atl@kpc.com

Subject: Drew's Brew Wheat Beer

  I've gotten a number of complements on my extract wheat beer, and a

request for the recipe, so I thought I'd post it here.

2, 4 lb cans Alexanders 60% wheat 40% barley unhopped extract

1 lb 80L crystal malt, crushed

2 oz 5.3 alpha Styrian Golding hop plugs

2 oz 6.1 alpha Cascade whole hops

Wyeast #3056 Bavarian Weissen yeast

3 days before brewing, pop the Wyeast package.

2 days before brewing, pitch Wyeast package contents into a starter made

  from 2 cups water, 1 cup light dry malt extract, and 1 Tettnanger

  pellet.  I use this type of starter on all my batches and pitch

  *after* high krausen.

BrewDay:

1) "Teabag" the Crystal malt, and add to 3 gallons cold water.

2) Bring almost to a boil and remove the "teabag".

3) Add malt extract and bring to a boil.

4) Add Styrian Goldings hops and boil for one hour.

5) Add Cascade hops, return to boil and remove from heat.

6) Steep 15 minutes.

7) Chill with immersion chiller to 80F.

8) pour into clean fermenter and top up to 5.5 gallons total volume

   with cold water.

9) shake up starter, pitch and vigorously stir wort.

10) Ferment ~3 days at ~68F.

11) Rack to secondary.

12) bottle when clear (~1 week) with 1.25 cups light dry malt extract.

This is about he simplest recipe I've ever made, and it tastes great.

Clean and refreshing, and a little on the light bodied side.  I might

lower the lovibond rating of the crystal malt to get a color that more

matches the flavor.  I'll be attempting to recreate this with all grain

this weekend :-)

+------------------------------+ Andrew Lynch, atl@kpc.com

| Congratulations, Bill and Al | Kubota Pacific Computer Inc. Santa Clara, Ca.

| Now, don't screw it up!      | (408)748-6345

+------------------------------+

------------------------------


A marvelous accident

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 16:05:55 CST

From: acarvin@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Andy Carvin)

Subject: A marvelous accident

Not too long ago I brewed a five-gallon batch of beer that somehow turned

into something it should never have been in the first place. Lemme explain:

In November I brewed a basic batch of John Bull Wheat Beer. Nothing really

exciting -- three cups of sugar, one ounce of hallertau hops. Then, I

decided to add one pound of oats, just to see what would happen. When the

time came for bottling, I realized I forgot to sparge the oats, and they

had swollen so much I was stuck with a gallon of beer, yeast, and wort that

was unseparable.

I didn't want to throw this stuff away, so I immediately brewed five

gallons of Telfords Nut Brown Ale, added 2 cups of sugar, 3 cups honey, 2

ounces cascade hops, and a quarter cup of maple syrup. Now, I honestly did

not think this would amount to much, and my fears worsened when I noticed

that most of the wheat beer bottles were infected. Praying for the best, I

bottled the nutbrown monstrosity anyway.

Well, two weeks ago we cracked a few open, and amazingly enough, it tastes

almost exactly like Chimay Premiere, except with 8% alcohol. Just to

confirm my surprise, I brought samples to fellow brewers and beer

afficianados, and they also said the same thing -- Chimay.

Does anyone out there have any clue what I did right to make such a great

beer?

Feel free to email me directly, or post on the net. Thanks a bunch.

acarvin@casbah.acns.nwu.edu

------------------------------


SUBSCRIPTION

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1993 01:55 EDT

From: KING_MAR%BENTLEY.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu

Subject: SUBSCRIPTION

PLEASE SEND ME ALL INFORMATION PERTAINING TO HOME BREWING.

THANK YOU, MARTIN KING

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1069, 02/03/93

*************************************

-------


"Irish Red Ale"...

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1993 9:39.0.53

From: dduane@kestrel.win.net (Diane Duane)

Subject: "Irish Red Ale"...

It may amuse (or horrify) some of you to know that at present, there are

almost NO red ales sold in Ireland.  Killian's, which I've seen while

visiting in the US, is not sold here.  Just about the only ale brewed in

Ireland at the moment, to the best of my knowledge anyway, is Hilden Ale,

brewed by Hilden up in the North.  And it doesn't get down into the south

- -- whether because of import problems, or no one here knows it exists,

I'm not sure.

The most popular beers here are, by and large, Irish brewed ones:  Guinness

has a stranglehold on the market (and likes it that way, so that foreign

beers, especially the German ones, are coming into the country only very

slowly.  My husband danced and sang for about a week when he was able to

get some weissbier in, just before Christmas.).  American beers are oozing

in...heaven help us.  Miller Draft is sold in bottles:  so are Pabst

(some places) and Schlitz.  There is better news, though:  Budweiser

is brewed here under license by Guinness, and "Uncle Arthur's" version

is two and a half times stronger than the US article.  Astonishingly,

it actually tastes like something....   Otherwise, the most common brews

found here would be (for stouts)  Guinness, Murphy's, and Beamish:  for

lagers, Harp, and some German ones like Kronenbourg, Carlsberg, and

Louwenbrau.

PS:  the weird beer called "Guinness Gold" is not sold here.  They wouldn't

dare.  (grin)

Regards from (presently) sunny Ireland!

Diane Duane / Kestrel Ridge / Avoca, Co. Wicklow, Ireland

          Fidonet: 2:263/164 / Ci$:  73200,3112

            Internet:  dduane@kestrel.win.net

"A little science...a little magic...a little chicken soup."

------------------------------


WL media (extracted from the Difco Manual)

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 08:53:18 -0500

From: Paul Matulonis <paulm@sci.ccny.cuny.edu>

Subject: WL media (extracted from the Difco Manual)

There has been some curiousity recently regarding WL media

for plating out yeast.  I extracted the following from the

Tenth Edition of the Difco Manual; all disclaimers apply;

this was done without permission; proceed at your own risk.

I checked the copy for accuracy but the final word should be

verified via your local copy of the Difco Manual.

Paul Matulonis

CCNY/Biology

paulm@sci.ccny.cuny.edu

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

WL NUTRIENT AND DIFFERENTIAL MEDIA

INTENDED USE

Bacto WL Nutrient Broth and Bacto WL Nutrient Medium are

recommended for the cultivation of yeasts, molds and bacteria

encountered in brewing and industrial fermentation processes.

Bacto WL Differential Medium, also used in the microbiological

control processes in the fermentation industry, permits the

unrestricted growth of bacteria and inhibits development of

yeasts and molds.

HISTORY/PRINCIPLES

Bacto WL Nutrient media are prepared according to the formulae

described by Green and Gray.  In their study of various

fermentation processes, Green and Gray pointed out the inadequacy

of the microscopic count in fermentation control procedures. An

exhaustive study of the method of examination of worts, beers,

and liquid yeast and similar fermentation products led to the

development of two media; one containing no

selective agent and the other, a differential medium containing

the antibiotic Actidione (cycloheximide) as a selective agent.

Bacto WL Nutrient media permit the development of yeast. In those

instances in which the number of yeast cells is comparatively

small, certain bacteria can be detected. Green and Gray reported

that counts of viable bakers' yeast may be made on the WL

nutrient medium at pH 5.5. If the reaction is adjusted to pH 6.5,

the count of bakers' and distillers' yeast may be made. In making

microbial counts using these media, the temperature and time of

incubation will vary depending on the various materials under

investigation. Temperatures of 25C are generally employed with

brewing materials and 30C for bakers' yeast and alcohol

fermentation mash analyses. Incubating periods run from 2 to 7

days, depending on the flora encountered. Incubation periods of

10 to 14 days may be used in some cases.

Bacto WL Differential Medium has the same formula as Bacto WL

Nutrient Medium, with the addition of 0.004 g of Actidione per

liter. This inhibits the development of yeasts without

interfering with the development of bacteria generally

encountered in beers.

A reliable count of bacteria can be obtained at pH 5.5. To obtain

estimations of beer cocci and lactic rods, plates should be

incubated under anaerobic conditions. For estimation of acetic

acid rods and termobacteria (very small rods occurring in wort as

described by Linder in about 1900 as _Termobacterium lutescens_,

iridescens and erythrimum) incubate under aerobic conditions. To

analyze bakers' yeast and alcohol fermentation mashes, the

reaction is adjusted to pH 6.5. Plates containing dilutions of

bakers' yeast are incubated aerobically, while those from

alcoholic fermentation mashes are incubated anaerobically.

FORMULAE

BACTO WL NUTRIENT BROTH

DEHYDRATED

Ingredients per liter

Bacto Yeast Extract ..........     4 g

Calcium Chloride .........         0.125 g

Bacto Casitone ...............     5 g

Magnesium Sulfate ........         0.125 g

Bacto Dextrose ..............      50 g

Ferric Chloride ..........         0.0025 g

Monopotassium Phosphate ...        0.55 g

Manganese Sulfate ........         0.0025 g

Potassium Chloride .......         0.425 g

Bacto Brom Cresol Green ..         0.022 g

Final pH 5.5 + 0.2 at 25C.

One pound will make 7.5 liters of final medium.

Rehydrate with 60 grams/liter.

BACTO WL NUTRIENT MEDIUM

DEHYDRATED

Ingredients per liter

Bacto Yeast Extract ..........     4 g

Magnesium Sulfate      0.125 g

Bacto Casitone ...............     5 g

Ferric Chloride          0.0025 g

Bacto Dextrose ..............      50 g

Manganese Sulfate ........         0.0025 g

Monopotassium Phosphate ...        0.55 g

Bacto Agar ...................     20 g

Potassium Chloride .......         0.425 g

Bacto Brom Cresol Green     0.022 g

Calcium Chloride .........         0.125 g

Final pH 5.5 + 0.2 at 25C.

One pound will make 5.6 liters of final medium.

Rehydrate with 80 grams/liter.

BACTO WL DIFFERENTIAL MEDIUM

DEHYDRATED

Ingredients per liter

Bacto Yeast Extract ..........     4 g

Magnesium sulfate ............     0.125 g

Bacto Casitone ...............     5 g

Ferric Chloride .............      0.0025 g

Bacto Dextrose ..............      50 g

Manganese Sulfate ...........      0.0025 g

Monopotassium Phosphate ...        0.55 g

Bacto Agar ......................  20 g

Potassium Chloride .......         0.425 g

Bacto Brom Cresol Green .....      0.022 g

Calcium Chloride .........         0.125 g

Actidione (cycloheximide) ..       0.004 g

One pound will make 5.6 liters of final medium.

Rehydrate with 80 grams/liter.

METHOD OF PREPARATION

1. To rehydrate suspend appropriate amount in 1 liter cold

distilled water and heat to boiling to dissolve completely.

2. Sterilize in the autoclave for 15 minutes at 15 Lbs pressure

(121C).

3. To obtain a final reaction of pH 6.5 add the amount specified

on the product label of a 1% solution of sodium carbonate per

liter distilled water used for rehydration;

 dissolve and sterilize as indicated above.

STORAGE

Bacto WL Nutrient and Differential media         Below 30C

Prepared media                                   2 - 8C

QUALITY CONTROL

Identity Specificatlons

                    WL Nutrient    WL nutrient           WL Differential

                    Broth           Medium               Medium

Dehydrated powder:  light beige     light tan            beige w/blue tint

                     w/blue tint,    w/blue tint,        homogeneous,

                     homogeneous,    homogeneous,        free-flowing

                     free-flowing    free-flowing

Solution:           6% solution     8% solution          8% solution

Reaction:            pH 5.5 + 0.2    pH 5.5 + 0.2        pH 5.5 + 0.2

                     at 25C         at 25C                 at 25C

Prepared medium:    blue, clear     blue-green, very     greenish-blue

                                    slightly opalescent     slightly

                                                            opalescent

Typical Cultural Response In/on Bacto WL Media

After 40 - 48 Hours at 30C (Bacteria at 35C)

        Organism                                        Growth

                                       WL Nutrient WL Differential

                                          Media         Medium

Escherichia coli ATCC2 25922           fair to good      good

Lactobacillus fermentum ATCC~ 9338     fair to good      good

Proteus mirabilis ATCC~ 25933          fair to good      good

Saccharomyces cerevisiae ATCC~ 9763        good       inhibited

Saccharomyces uvarum ATCC~ 9080            good       inhibited

REFERENCES

1. Paper read at Am. Soc. of Brewing Chemists Meeting Detroit,

May, 1950.

2. Wallerstein Lab. Comm. 13:357 1950.

3. Ibid., 14:169 1951.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

------------------------------


Re: all-grain snobs

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 8:59:40 EST

From: mcharry@freedom.otra.com (McHarry)

Subject: Re: all-grain snobs

Sorry if I offended extract brewers with my reference to my friend, the

World's Worst Brewer, as, of course, an extract brewer.  He is mainly

trying to produce beer by the simplest possible means.

We are all extract brewers.  Some of use make our own extract.  Whether

that is worth the bother (it more than doubles brewing time) is a matter of

what you are trying to brew and how much effort you want to put into it.

Some of my better beers have been extract brews.  It seems to me that one

can make a lighter colored beer from all-grain, and a lighter bodied one as

well, if the mash temperature is right.  One can also play with adjuncts

such as rice or rye with interesting results.  Whether that is worth

shooting a whole Saturday, I am not sure.

The World's Worst Brewer is satisfied with what he produces and the time he

puts in on it.  As I said, the stuff is actually quite drinkable, in fact I

may drown my sorrows in a liter plastic pop bottle of the stuff this

evening--I need the protein!

------------------------------


Adelscott

Date: 3 Feb 93 07:49:37 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.EDU>

Subject: Adelscott

Subject:  Adelscott                             Time:7:40 AM     Date:2/3/93

Don Scheidt says:

>"Introduce" it? During the imported-beer boom of the early eighies,

>when one could buy, among others, Rodenbach, Saisons de Silly,

>and St-Louis beers in Seattle, bottles of Adelscott appeared on

>the shelves of several specialty beer-and-wine-retailers here.

Interesting. It was perhaps 2 years ago when I contacted the importer in Mass.

Could be that they were reluctant to bend to our ever increasing label

requirements and withdrew it, but no mention of this was made during my

conversation with their representative.

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


Culturing lager yeast

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 08:00:50 PST

From: greg@bandit.Berkeley.EDU (Greg Jesus Wolodkin)

Subject: Culturing lager yeast

Greetings!

  In getting ready to brew my first lager, last week I attempted to

culture the yeast from a commercial brew.  I've cultured SNPA (Wyeast

1056) several times without any problems, so I figured it'd be easy..

  I re-read the "Yeast" chapter in Miller, and then headed down to

Liquor Barn and picked up 3 pints of Paulaner Hefe-weizen.  My

technique was as follows:

    1) 1.020 SG starter wort, just off the boil, cover and cool

       in a sink full of ice water to 80F.

    2) Sanitize a one gallon glass jug and funnel (20 minutes with

       chlorine solution, then rinse).

    3) Take a butane lighter to the exposed rim of the pot, then

       transfer 1/2 gallon of starter wort into the jug and fit

       with (sanitized) airlock.

    4) Open a bottle of hefe-weizen, flame the mouth, decant beer

       into pitcher, sending the last 1/2" of dregs into starter.

       Repeat until beers are gone and pitcher is full ;-)

    5) Place the starter jug at room temperature (70F) covered with

       a t-shirt to keep out the light.

    6) Drink the hefe-weizen and don't worry!

  Well a typical culture (at least in my experience) would be bubbling

merrily within 48 hours, with visible signs of activity within 24.

This one has been *much* slower.  At four days there was *nothing*.

At five days a very small ring of bubbles on the surface.  Now at six

days, it has reached kraeusen stage.

  I can think of a few possible mistakes -- first the beer was chilled

(it was unavailable warm at the store), and I guess that would slow

things down.  Second I discovered that Miller actually recommends

Spaten, not Paulaner, as a stable, reculturable lager yeast.  (Oops..)

  Whatever I have in my starter is a bottom-fermenter.  It even smells

good, so after it finishes I plan to taste the result and give it

another feeding.  If it seems OK at that point, I will most likely

brew with it.  I wanted to ask those of you who culture yeast on a

regular basis:

    1) Is six days such a long lag that I should expect a wild

       yeast, rather than the yeast I was attempting to culture?

    2) What behaviour can I expect from the Paulaner hefe-weizen

       yeast, assuming that's what I've got?  Anybody ever use it?

    3) Should I eventually move the starter to fermentation temps

       (~50F) or should I leave it at 75F until pitching (since I

       will most likely pitch at 75F)?

As always, thanks in advance for any suggestions/comments.

Greg Wolodkin

------------------------------


Re: BUGS!

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 11:20:52 EST

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Re: BUGS!

I would think that canning jar lids, screwed down tightly, would keep

the bugs out.  After all, they can hold a vacuum seal for years, even

without the screw band holding the lid down.  Of course, there is one

major difference: the vacuum seal is formed at high enough

temperatures to deform the "rubber" on the lid to exactly conform to

the rim of the jar.

I get bugs every summer, and consider it a good excuse to throw out

the old stuff in the cupboard.  If it's more than a year old, I'm not

sure I want to eat it anyway.  I've got too many uncontrolled insect

sources entering the house to keep them all away.  (Birdseed is the

worst, even after freezing it at 0F for a few weeks before using it.)

=S

------------------------------


Lager...

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 11:39:53 EST

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Lager...

Disadvantage is that you almost are required to add new yeast to get

reliable carbonation when you bottle.  Also, you tie up a carboy for a

long time.

Advantages: you can put off bottling.  A carboy takes less space than

two cases of beer(?).  Purportedly, you get better flavor

characteristics.  I've only done one (sort of) test on this -- a

friend and I split 10 gallons of wort (Vienna lager), pitched the same

yeast (2308, from the same starter), fermented at the same temperature

(in our respective fridges) for the same length of time.  He clarified

with Polyclar, bottled, and lagered in the bottles.  I lagered in

carboy, didn't clarify, then bottled.  Both were good (an

understatement!), mine had a more malty flavor, but that may have been

because he used polyclar and I didn't.

=S

------------------------------


BUGS!

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 11:45:54 EST

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: BUGS!

Rereading your post, it appears to me that the bugs (or, rather, their

eggs) came in the grain (a not unlikely occurrence).  The tightest

container in the world won't prevent these suckers from growing. The

CO2 idea sounds good, as I don't think they can grow without oxygen.

I've had this problem with birdseed, and sometimes with flour(!) back

in the days when I bought 25lbs at a time.  Freezing them for a month

in my chest freezer (or even storing them there) seems to kill most of

the eggs.

=S

------------------------------


FAQ/RFC on Recirculation.

Date: 03 Feb 1993 11:07:19 -0500

From: Chris McDermott <mcdermott@draper.com>

Subject: FAQ/RFC on Recirculation.

 FAQ/RFC on Recirculation.

Since many topics come up in cyclical manner it would be nice if they could be

answered in a FAQ format.  And since some topics have more than one accepted

answer the FAQs should try to show all sides of an issue.

So to get the ball rolling here is an example:

FAQ #0000-000:

[Note that 0000 indicates the number of the FAQ and -000 indicates its version.

 The version mechanism allows mistakes and inaccuracies to be corrected and

newer information to be included in newer versions of the FAQ.]

****

FAQ #0001-01:  Recirculation:  What is it, and should I do it?

Recirculation is a practice employed in the lautering of mashed grains where

the turbid sweet wort is collected, as it is runoff, and recirculated through

the grain bed until the runoff becomes clear.

Most sources of homebrewing information will tell you that you should employ

the practice of recirculation to avoid significant amounts of chaff in the

boil.  Chaff in the boil is considered by these sources to lead undesirable

effects in the finished beer including astringancy and cloudiness. (Ref.

Miller, Papazian)

However, others beleive that some amount of chaff in the boil is desireable in

that it helps to coagulate large protien molecules producing a better hot-break

and thus a clearer finished product.  Futhermore, some think that the hot side

areation (HSA), or oxidation, of the sweet wort during recircluation outwieghs

any benifit that may be gained by clearing the wort.  (Ref. Fix)

****

Please consider this FAQ as a kind of HbD Request For Comment (RFC).  Please

feel free to make any additions or corrections.

_

Christopher K. McDermott                  Internet:  mcdermott@draper.com

C.S. Draper Laboratory, Inc.              Voice:     (617) 258-2362

555 Technology Square                     FAX:       (617) 258-1131

Cambridge, MA 02149 (USA)

------------------------------


Hypercard Program

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 12:18:39 EST

From: Andrius Tamulis <ATAMULIS@ucs.indiana.edu>

Subject: Hypercard Program

I may be the person to whom you refer - I wrote a Hypercard Homebrew

Digester about 2-3 years ago, and offered it to anyone who wanted it.

I even send out a few copies. Soon after, however, I discovered a

serious bug/problem - Hypercard fields can be only 32767 lines long,

and at one line per article (as I recall) this quickly filled my index

field. I've tinkered with it once or twice in the interim, but have never

really got it working to my satisfaction.

I am willing to send a copy of it to anyone who cares to ask for it,

send email to ATAMULIS@ucs.indiana.edu, with a request that if anyone

makes it work well, they send me a copy.

andrius tamulis

------------------------------


IBU table

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 11:19:51 CST

From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)

Subject: IBU table

bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak) writes:

>In HBD1066 I submitted an HBU-IBU conversion table

>but forgot to mention any volume relationships.

>That table assumes a 5 gallon batch.

>To adjust for a volume of X gallons simply multiply the

>numbers in the table by 5/X.

Well thanks, now that I just wasted 35 oz of hops in my latest barleywine :-)

AA units = oz hops * %AA and HBU = AA units / gal. wort (right?)

so that was really a AAU to IBU table, or do I have them backwards?

I also noticed that the rows for 55 and 60 minute boiling times

were identical.  Was this a typo?

Nonetheless, the table is among the things that I saved from the HBD

for future reference and is greatly appreciated.

bb

------------------------------


fresh hops

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 11:36:29 CST

From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)

Subject: fresh hops

The freshest hops I have found are hops plugs from GW Kent.

They come vacuum packed in gold foil, in packs of 10 - 1/2 oz plugs.

At around 8$ per pack ($1.60/oz) they are about twice as expensive

as normal leaves or pellets, but they are so fresh that you

will probably have to reduce your hopping rate by about 30%

over "regular" leaf hops.  They can survive a 60 minute boil

without scrubbing out all their aromatics (which isn't always

what you want).

Available from

Alternative Garden Supply, Streamwood, IL: 1 (800) 444-2837

The Malt Shop, Cascade, WI: 1 (800) 235-0026

bb

------------------------------


Lager Questions

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 13:18:38 CST

From: rak@mayo.EDU (Ron Karwoski)

Subject: Lager Questions

I am planning on starting a Bock soon and have a few Lager

questions:

At what temperature should the wort be when the yeast is pitched

and how soon should the whole thing be brought down to lagering

temperatures? Do you wait for active signs of fermentation before

cooling?

Should the starter be cooled?

What is a good liquid yeast for a Dopplebock?

Thanks.

Ron Karwoski                   Internet:   rak@bru.mayo.edu

------------------------------


How Long Is Too Long

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 16:19:09 -0500

From: pointon@m2c.org (Joel Pointon@staff)

Subject: How Long Is Too Long

Greetings fellow brewers.  Being a fairly new convert to HB, I

have a question that I realize most of you WON'T be able to relate to.

Although I enjoy my HB, I'm not a big drinker, so subsequently I

have a stockpile building up of my brewing efforts.  The beer cellar

presently contains the following extract brewed product: Porter,

(3 months), Pilsner (2 months) and English Bitter (1 month old).

The cellar is approximately 55 degrees F at this time of year and

will increase to about 65 by the beginning of summer.  How long

can one expect to keep each of these before the flavor falls off?

I know, I know - "drink it or loose it", but seriously if I had to

focus on which would decline first I would guess Pilsner, Porter and

Bitter in that order.

As long as I've tempted your wrath already - I'm heading to San

Diego 2/13 - 21 for a sailing course and ***** brew pubs, etc.*****.

(Please send replies on this portion via email.)    Thanks.

------------------------------


help the pathetic beginner

Date:         3 Feb 93 16:31:59

From: bmkinz@mail.wm.edu (Kinzie Brian Mark)

Subject:      help the pathetic beginner

I am new to homebrewing (Papazian would put me at the intermediate

level) and I would like some advice on brewing a Belgian Ale, using a

couple bottles of Chimay I have for their yeast (someone told me this

could be done, but didn't bother to tell me how).  Please e-mail me

directly, and use small words so I will understand what you are

talking about.  Thanks in advance,

bmkinz@mail.wm.edu

------------------------------


A survey of the readership

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 16:15 MTS

From: Chuck Coronella <CORONELLRJDS@CHE.UTAH.EDU>

Subject: A survey of the readership

Are you an all grain brewer or an extract brewer?

Lately, there have been quite a few highly technical discussions about mash

techniques, kegging setups, and hopping rates, to name a few.  This has been a

real boon for most of us, whether advanced or beginners.  Advanced brewers get

an opportunity to discuss, with others at their level, the challenges that

they're facing in their home breweries.  Beginners can read these discussions

and learn.  Everyone wins.

With one exception.  Beginner brewers, or even intermediate brewers, are

likely being intimidated by the high level of this discussion.  How many posts

in the last few weeks have started with "I'm only a lowly extract brewer..."

or "Sorry for taking up bandwidth with such a simple question..."?  And, I

wonder how many questions have not even been asked because the author is

afraid of being labelled "not a REAL brewer" by more advanced brewers.

(Remember that discussion a while back about _real_ brewers?)  I believe that

Rob Bradley was referring to this in HBD #1069, when he wrote about all-grain

snobs.  I'll bet that the progress of many beginners is being slowed by this

thought.  I hate to think that people are being intimidated from asking

questions, because the HBD has helped me so much in the three or so years that

I've been reading it.  (There used to be lots more "lower level" discussions.)

I think it would be interesting to take a poll to see how many readers are

extract brewers, or all-grain brewers.  I suspect that the readership

consists of more beginners than are represented by the questions posed in the

HBD.  And I think that, if beginners realized that they make up a substantial

part of the HBD community, they would be more likely to pose "lower level"

questions, and therefore, improve their comprehension and brewing.

Therefore, I invite everyone reading this post to send me a brief note

indicating your level of expertise.  Please use the keywords:

All Grain            if you rarely use extract for your brewing, other than

                     for yeast culturing,

Intermediate         if you do some mashing, partial mashing, some yeast

                     culturing, etc., but you don't consider yourself very

                     experienced, or

Extract              if you are relatively new to the brewing process, haven't

                     tried mashing, or in general, consider yourself to be on

                     the steepest part of the learning curve.

I know that this classification is too simple, but it should prove to be

informative, nonetheless.  (It should also give some kind of a count of the

number of readers, as well as swamping my mail utility.)  In about a week, I'll

post the results.

Cheers,

Chuck                 coronellrjds@che.utah.edu

P.S.  Sorry if this gets posted twice, we're experieingnce nicaltech

ultiesdiffic iwth our ermail.

------------------------------


Dry Malt Extract vs. Syrup Malt Extract

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 17:09:59 PST

From: Richard Cox <rcox@hsc.usc.edu>

Subject: Dry Malt Extract vs. Syrup Malt Extract

One of my homebrew suppliers strongly maintains that dry malt

extract provides better flavor and less extract "tang" than the

syrup variety.  He has encouraged me to use all DME in my recipes

whenever possible.

I'm too new to homebrewing to have an objective opinion on this,

although my last batch -- using all DME -- does taste *much*

better than my first, which was made with syrup extract.  There

may have been other factors at work in that case, though.  I have

wondered whether or not the syrup cans impart any detectable

metal taste to the extract.

Does anyone have any advice?

)   rcox@hsc.usc.edu         (

)                            (

)   sparkman@well.sf.ca.us   (

------------------------------


Beadle, Open Fermenting, arf n snobs

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 13:00 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Beadle, Open Fermenting, arf n snobs

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 Chris writes:

 >>Mr. Beadle ("Brew it Yourself*"), and at least two other British

 >>1960s-type books abhor boiling:

 >>        "Do not bring the water to a boil....  This single bit of

 misinformation from those who should know better has caused many beginners to

 become unnecessarily discouraged in their attempts at brewing."

 >Don't confuse the MASH with the BOIL.  In all-grain brewing, you MASH,

 LAUTER, BOIL, CHILL, FERMENT and PACKAGE.  In extract brewing, you simply

 BOIL, CHILL, FERMENT, and PACKAGE.

 I also have this book in my library and HIS statement far better fits my

 definition of the "single bit of misinformation" that caused me no end of

 confusion.  That page was dog eared in my book and the paragraph underlined.

 I assure you the he was referring to extract beer as there is not a single

 reference to whole grains in the entire book.

 Several times he describes the process of mixing extract with water between

 151 and 155 F and maintaining it there for the duration.

 Another example of his misinformation is on page 53, also underscored and

 burnt into my early data base on brewing.

 "If you look into the fermenter, you will see a rich foamy head bubbling on

 top.  This head is composed mainly of resins from the hops, which are forced

 up ty the carbon dioxide bubbles.  Some books advocate skimming off the head

 but this should never be done because it contains all the oils and resins

 that will give the beer its body, aroma and characteristic  beer taste."

 Certainly, there is a legitimate debate on the importance of skimming the

 foam but no one but Beagle argues the merits of leaving it there.

 I also note on reviewing the book again for this posting that there is no

 mention anywhere of hops.  His recipes simply call for light or dark extract

 as though hops did not exist.

 The book also has no index so it is difficult to find anything but I think it

 is safe to say that it is one of the worst of the generaly lousy books on

 homebrewing available in the 60's and 70's.

 It is not hard to understand why homebrewing is now rapidly expanding as a

 hobby and why it stagnated before.  I have no problem admitting that I never

 really made a good batch of beer till I spent several months digesting the

 Digest and much of the other information currently available.  It's truly is

 a New World Order for home brewing.

 >From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

 >Subject: re: reusing yeast & open fermenters

 >I am most likely in the minority of homebrewers in that I am currently

 utilizing open fermentation techniques.

 You're in good company.  The only thing you need to do to complete your joy

 is to add a spigot on the bottom so you can take QC samples on a regular

 basis to determine how it is progressing before sending it to the secondary.

 I find that for some strange reason, the primary fermentation seems to take

 much longer this way and I always seem to come up about a half a gallon

 short:)

 I am sure you have also figured out how simple it is to sterilize with a bit

 of water boiling in the bottom.

 I also suspect that you, like the rest of the enlightened ones, simply yawn

 at all the discussions about "blow-off" tubes and related mess.

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >Subject: Spraying the grist

 >Both Jim and Donald mentioned the spraying of water on the grist

 as it enters the mash tun.  I suspect that this has the addional

 benefit of reducing grain dust which is explosive.

 I suspect that it might have a negative effect if Fix's hypothesis on HSA is

 correct.  What say George?

 >From: Tom Dimock <RGG@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu>

 >Subject:      Mixing beers

 >Mixing beers has a long history in England, where the Black and Tan,

 Light and Dark, or 'arf 'n 'arf are all quite common in pubs.  One of

 my fond memories involves drinking with friends from MIT at the

 Muddy Charles, a graduate student hangout on campus.  At that time,

 they only had Bud on tap :-( , but they did have Guiness in bottles.

 Being cheap, but not quite cheap enough to drink Bud straight, I'd

 buy a bottle of Guiness, and use half a Guiness per pitcher of Bud

 to give the stuff some flavor.  It worked pretty well - it made the

 Bud into something you could fool yourself into believing was beer....

 This is amazing.  I was going to point this out in response to the original

 question but I could not resist noting that ARF was drinking arf 'n arf long

 before he gained world wide acclaim as the World's Greatest Brewer.  I did

 this when I was stationed in Bermuda in the 60's.  Guinness and Bud was the

 poor man's real beer.

 >From: "Donald G. Scheidt" <dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com>

 >From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

 >Subject: Nitrosamines, Dough-in

 >

 > >From: gjfix@utamat (George J Fix)

 >

 > >For the record, the highest NDMA level reported was in Bamberg Rauchbier.

 > It contained 5-15 parts per billon, and not 5 ppm as reported in HBD.

 >

 > Just testing to see if you read my articles as carefully as

 > I read yours :)

 <Cute, but disingenuous.  Given the orders of magnitude between ppm and ppb,

 this is important.

 Just cute.  George and I discussed the orders of magnitude issue in email and

 it was a private joke in public.  When researching the subject, I got that

 sort of ambiguity from the maltsters themselves.  Not one of them could tell

 me for sure whether it was ppm or ppb so I asked George.

 >The best reason to use the Belgian malts is 'cause you like 'em - sorry if

 that seems a bit simple-minded, but I'm not planning on being part of this

 world forever...

 It is not only simple minded but puts everything else you say in the same

 perspective.  Part of being cultured and civilized is controlling our likes

 to conform with not only our own well being but the needs and interests of

 others.  I may very well like the taste of smoked Scheidt on a bagle with

 cream cheese, but I am not simple minded enough to assume that justifies

 eating it.

 js

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1070, 02/04/93

*************************************

-------


All-grain snobs

Date: Thu, 04 Feb 93 08:15:01 -0600

From: dbreiden@dsuvax.dsu.edu

Subject: All-grain snobs

Wasn't it Rob B. who had some remarks about all-grain snobs?  Well said,

Rob!  I recently made the switch to all-grain -- I will admit that I was

always a bit apologetic about being an extract brewer.

My friends (hi guys) had all gone all-grain long before I did, but I

wouldn't call them all-grain snobs.  While I do agree with Rob about

keeping down the snobbishness, I also believe that all brewers should

seriously consider doing the all-grain bit.  I was always encouraged to

take the plunge, and I'm oh so happy I did.  The beer isn't orders of

magnitude better (yet), but the magic of the mash is just TOO cool!

The best situation is for extract brewers to be able to dabble in all grain

without purchasing the equipment (which may or may not cost a fortune).

I personally believe working with an experienced person is the best way

to manage all aspects of brewing though.

Brew-on!

- --Danny

------------------------------


Irish Ales

Date: Thu, 4 Feb 93 09:51:47 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Irish Ales

Being Irish I was more than a little surprised to read a posting from

Ireland saying that there was no ale sold there and began to wonder

if I had grown up in and visit a different place.  In hbd 1070 Diane Duane

never mentioned ales in her list of beers and even said there were none

apart from a minor Northern brew.  While ale sales have been falling

to lager (with stout relatively constant) sales of Smithwicks are still

high.  MacArdles is also sold nationwide in bottles and can be got

on draft in local areas.  In Waterford one can even get Phoenix Ale

in large bottles produced at the small Cherry' brewery there.  All

3 of these are sold by Irish ales, which is a group coowned by

Guinness and Grand Met.  Bass is also produced in Belfast and is

an Irish Ale having slightly different taste than British produced

Bass.  Unfortunately the virtual monopoly Guinness have on the Irish

market, and indeed on malt and hop industries has meant that there are fewer

small brewers than elsewhere.

Another point I would question was Diane's statement that Irish Bud

was 2.5 times stronger than American stuff.  While it does taste a

little better (It would be hard not to), it is 4.3% by vol as

against US Bud which is 4.6%.

Ulick Stafford

------------------------------


beginners,extract

Date:    Thu, 4 Feb 1993 10:03:09 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: beginners,extract

  As one who has flooded the HBD with "beginner" questions, I have to

agree with Chuck C. about the tone lately.  I'm now exclusively an

all-grain brewer (it's easy, really), but no less than 2 years ago

I was an "extract brewer without a clue".  So I asked questions, *lots*

of questions, to the HBD.  Some were really clueless; I cringe when I

look through some of the HBD archives.  But, hey, just *asking* the

questions forced me to think about what I was doing, and of course the

quality and depth of the answers has always been startling.  So go

ahead and ask "beginner" questions; they often lead to more advanced topics,

so everyone wins.  For instance.....

  It was mentioned that extract brew tastes better if it is made from

100% dry extract.  In my e.brewing days, my standard batch was 1 can of

syrup with and equal amount of dry extract, which seemed tastier than

2 cans of syrup.  Perhaps, as was said, the canned syrup does pick up

some of the metallic flavor of the can, and might be (one of) the

source(s) of the extract "tang".  Those box/bags of syrup from BME

always produced a nice (if expensive) brew.....Hmmmm....

Russ G.

BTW, *HIGHLY RECOMMENDED* - Read *all* the HBD archives.  Yes, all.  IMHO,

the HBD archives are perhaps the richest source of homebrewing info

available.

------------------------------


Yeast Culturing Supplies

Date:         4 Feb 93 09:54:12 EST

From: "Dean Roy"  <DEAN@alpha.uwindsor.ca>

Subject:      Yeast Culturing Supplies

After paying the price for packs of Wyeast, I am looking at yeast culturing.

The problem I have encountered is in finding a source for supplies.

    What I was hoping to find was a CANADIAN supplier of equipment such as

petri dishes, test tubes, agar, etc. that is willing to sell retail. If

anyone knows of such a supplier, I would appreciate you letting me know.

    Also, American suppliers may be okay too since Windsor is only a half

mile drive from Detroit Mi.

Please reply via private email!

  --------------------------------------------------------------------

  | Dean Roy                        |  Email: DEAN@UWINDSOR.CA       |

  | Systems Programmer              |  Voice: (519)253-4232 Ext 2763 |

  | University of Windsor           |  Fax  : (519)973-7083          |

  --------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


re: HB Shelflife, Irish Bud

Date: Thu, 4 Feb 93 10:22:02 EST

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: re: HB Shelflife, Irish Bud

In HBD1070 Joel Pointon asks about the shelf life of homebrews

>The cellar is approximately 55 degrees F at this time of year and

>will increase to about 65 by the beginning of summer.  How long

>can one expect to keep each of these before the flavor falls off?

   From personal experience, I've had some of my beers about

one year after brewing and they were still good, with some

being better than when younger.  My beers are kept in similar conditions

as yours, perhaps even 2 or 3 degrees warmer.  Someone told me that

HB will keep up to 5 years, but I've only been brewing myself a little

over a year and a half.  In general, beers with more alcohol, and

more hops should keep longer than weaker brews.

The only danger comes from beers with an

infection or wild yeast which can cause the beer to overcarbonate

and gush upon opening. (This happened to me with an octoberfest

last year.)  In this case, which will be obvious, I would

recommend drinking these fast (if drinkable) or dumping them

out before any explosions occur.  With my batch the beer was

actually not so bad, but the caps were bulging outward and

half the beer gushed out when I opened a bottle.

Also, Diane Duane writes

>(some places) and Schlitz.  There is better news, though:  Budweiser

>is brewed here under license by Guinness, and "Uncle Arthur's" version

>is two and a half times stronger than the US article.  Astonishingly,

>it actually tastes like something....

Does stronger mean greater alcohol content?  If so since

Budweiser is about 4.8% alcohol by volume this would put the

Guinness version at about 12%, stronger than most barleywines.

Maybe we should try to get the Irish Bud imported back to the US.

Bill Szymczak

------------------------------


tap beer mix

Date: Thu, 4 Feb 93 9:39:14 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: tap beer mix

A number of bars in the Chicago area have both Old Foghorn and

Sierra Nevada Draught Ale on tap.  It wasn't long before the

half-and-half mixture was christened...

   A Foggy Night in the Sierras

After you've imbibed a few, you know from whence the name comes :-).

------------------------------


Gold Coast Brewery

Date:     Thu, 4 Feb 93 11:05:28 EST

From: William Boyle (CCAC-LAD) <wboyle@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  Gold Coast Brewery

    Does anybody know anything about the Gold Coast Brewery, such as

tours, tastings, hours they are open?  Any information would make

me very happy.

     B^2

------------------------------


more lager questions

Date: 04 Feb 1993 09:07:45 -0600 (MDT)

From: MARK TARATOOT <SLNDW@CC.USU.EDU>

Subject: more lager questions

I have two more questions regarding lagering.  If I choose to

lager my lager in the bottle, should I:

 1. Prime, put in warm (room temp) place for a week to carbonate,

    put in cold place to finish lagering.

  or

 2. Prime, put in cold place to finish lagering, put in

    warm (room temp) place to carbonate.

????

Will the latter give the beer a dicetyl rest after lagering (during

carbonation)?

Second Question:

Concernig pitching extra yeast at bottling.  What if I just "grab up"

some of the yeast sitting on the bottom of my fermenter?  What are the

chances that these yeasts are mutated and what will that do to the

final product?  This particular batch is in a tertiary fermenter (racked

from secondary to get WAY away from yeast/other stuff that floculated out)

so all the "stuff" should be yeast.  This yeast will be mostly dormant,

to be sure, but shouldn't it just hop back to life if more fermentables

are added?

Any comments?

thanks!

 -toot

------------------------------


chimay yeast/recipe idea

Date: Thu, 4 Feb 93 10:20:21 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: chimay yeast/recipe idea

I had success culturing up Chimay yeast by using a large bottle of

Chimay Red.  If you examine the cork closely, you'll see a date

code.  In the Chicago area, the currently available bottles are

dated 10/92, which means that they're reasonably fresh.  Perhaps

you have access to this beer wherever you are.  I would use Chimay

Red rather than Cinq Cent or Grand Reserve because it's the lowest

gravity of the three.

You can drink the beer (!) and pitch the dregs from the bottle into

some starter wort.  The yeast ought to take off relatively quickly,

that is, within a couple days.  If you get no activity or very slow

activity, then discard the starter wort and start over.  Once you

have an active culture, you can taste and smell it to see whether

it's good.  At this point, you have a choice.  You can either brew

a beer and pitch your starter culture, or you can plate out the

yeast, isolate a single cell, build it up, and then brew the beer.

The advantage of the more labor-intensive approach is that you can

isolate the yeast and build it up minus whatever bacteria or other

stuff might be in the dregs, provided you're sanitary in your yeast

culturing.  On the other hand, if you're satisfied from your taste

and smell test that the starter culture is good, you can pitch it

straight into the beer, albeit at some slight risk.

The Chimay yeast is a very important component of making a Chimay

clone.  You might try to get your hands on Wyeast Belgian ale

yeast, though to me it doesn't taste like Chimay's.

For recipe ideas, Rajotte's book has a recipe called St. Humulus.

I don't have the book with me now.  Note that Chimay Red has a

starting gravity of 1.063, which, while high, is not whopping.

What an incredible beer!

Here's a recipe suggestion:

Abbey Beer in the style of Chimay

9 pounds U.S. 2-row

1.5 pounds Munich malt

0.5 pounds 60L (or darker) crystal malt

1-2 ounces of chocolate malt

1 pound of honey or dark brown sugar

6 - 7 AAUs bittering hops, a mix of hallertauer and kent goldings,

added at 60 minutes before end of boil.  You are not looking for

high hop bitterness, nor should there be noticeable hop aroma.

Chimay yeast, of course

If you're not an all-grain brewer, then don't use the 2-row or

munich malt but use, say, 7 pounds light, unhopped dry malt extract

instead.  Use crystal and chocolate malt for color.  The honey or

brown sugar will boost the starting gravity as well as contribute

to the flavor and body of the finished beer.  You might try doing

the fermentation at a relatively "warm" temperature, say, 70 to 75

degrees F.  This should lead to more of that Chimay flavor in the

finished beer.  And, don't drink the beer all at once, as its

flavor will evolve in the bottle over time.

Good luck!

------------------------------


Re: "Irish Red Ale"

Date: Thu, 4 Feb 93 10:31:10 CST

From: gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com (Guy McConnell)

Subject: Re: "Irish Red Ale"

Diane Duane writes:

> It may amuse (or horrify) some of you to know that at present, there are

> almost NO red ales sold in Ireland.  Killian's, which I've seen while

> visiting in the US, is not sold here.

    Actually, that was part of the point in my posting.  That is why I used

the terms "(non?)style" and "all but forgotten style" when describing it.  My

history on Killian's is a bit foggy but I seem to recall that they were a

brewery in Ireland (brewing an Irish Red *Ale*) and they experienced financial

difficulty (probably due in part to the preference for stouts and [increasingly]

lagers) in Ireland.  A "kind-hearted" American megabrewery decided to help them

out and gobbled them up.  They moved production of the Irish Red over here and

de-characterized it almost completely, decided it should be a *lager*, and

kept the name.  I don't intend this to be regarded as absolute fact as I admit

that my recollection of the details is a bit rusty, but I think the truth is

pretty close to what I remember.  Anyone with access to the Real Truth, please

feel free to step in.

    This is another case where microbreweries and homebrewers are responsible

for reviving (rescuing?) a beer style, much in the same way as Porter.  The

two examples I mentioned are, I'm sure, not the only ones left (hopefully!)

but they are the two I am familiar with and both are microbrewed ales.  Now,

I love a pint o' Guinness with a passion and my tastes tend toward the darker,

heavier beers but I occasionally like something a little lighter.  A good

Irish Red Ale fits the bill nicely.

- --

Guy McConnell  gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com  or  b11!mspe5!gdmcconn

    "All I need is a pint a day"

------------------------------


idophor, rinse/reuse

Date: Thu, 4 Feb 93 11:04:54 CST

From: billm@scorpio.sps.mot.com (Bill Moyer)

Subject: idophor, rinse/reuse

I've just recently tried using idophor instead of a bleach

solution for sanitizing ( .5oz idophor/gallon water, ~12.5ppm

free iodine) and have 2 questions.

1) if a rinse is omitted at bottling time, will the brew condition

 properly, or will the yeast be affected? I'm assuming no air

 drying of the bottles.

2) how long will the solution remain stable, and what indication (if

 any exists) can be used to guage the remaining sanitization

 potential of the solution?

thanks,

Bill Moyer

------------------------------


RE: lager questions, recirculation

Date: Thu, 4 Feb 93 12:30:03 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: lager questions, recirculation

Hi All,

   In HBD #1070, Greg Wolodkin writes:

   <description of culturing yeast from Paulaner Hefe-weizen deleted>

>2) What behaviour can I expect from the Paulaner hefe-weizen

>      yeast, assuming that's what I've got?  Anybody ever use it?

   My understanding is that Paulaner uses a non-flocculating lager yeast

to bottle condition the hefe-weizen, it's not the same yeast used to

ferment the beer.  I'm fairly certain a top fermenting strain is used for

that purpose.

   That said, I believe you'd end up with a cloudy beer due to the poor

flocculation, and you would likely not get the clove phenolic/banana ester

character that's desirable in a German weizen.

Disclaimer: I've never actually cultured this yeast and brewed with it, so

the above comments should be taken with whatever quantity of salt seems

appropriate :-).

****************************************************************

   Also in HBD #1070, Ron Karwoski asks:

 >At what temperature should the wort be when the yeast is pitched

 >and how soon should the whole thing be brought down to lagering

 >temperatures? Do you wait for active signs of fermentation before

 >cooling?

   This seems to be a major issue, I see a lot of posts in this forum

and r.c.b regarding pitching temperatures for lagers, and long lag

times that result from pitching liquid yeast at reduced temperatures.

   According to Miller, pitching at temperatures in excess of 50F results

in increased diacetyl production.  He states that the traditional method

is to pitch when the wort is between 40F-48F.  While this produces

minimal diacetyl, it does cause longer lag times.  To counteract this

problem, Miller recommends pitching large amounts of yeast, 0.67 to 1.3

ounces of *slurry* per gallon. (Source: Miller's Continental Pilsner)

 IMHO, the one pint to one quart starters that most of us use simply

do not contain enough yeast to initiate lager fermentations quickly.

I've been experiencing the problem of long lag times with lagers, and

confess to pitching at slightly higher temperatures (~60F) in attempting

to reduce lag time.  For my last batch, I used a somewhat larger starter

than usual, and fermentation did start more quickly.  For my next batch

(also a Bock), I'm going to grow the yeast in a one gallon starter, let

it ferment out in order to get a large sediment of hungry yeast, pour

off most of the liquid, and pitch the slurry at 50F.  I'll post the

results.

>Should the starter be cooled?

  The starter should be as close in temperature to the wort as possible,

as temperature shock is detrimental to yeast performance.  I've pitched

starters into *slightly warmer* worts with good results, but I wouldn't

recommend pitching a starter that's at 70F into wort at 50F.

****************************************************************

   Also in HBD #1070, Chris McDermott writes:

FAQ #0001-01:  Recirculation:  What is it, and should I do it?

Recirculation is a practice employed in the lautering of mashed grains where

the turbid sweet wort is collected, as it is runoff, and recirculated through

the grain bed until the runoff becomes clear.

Most sources of homebrewing information will tell you that you should employ

the practice of recirculation to avoid significant amounts of chaff in the

boil.  Chaff in the boil is considered by these sources to lead undesirable

effects in the finished beer including astringancy and cloudiness. (Ref.

Miller, Papazian)

However, others beleive that some amount of chaff in the boil is desireable in

that it helps to coagulate large protien molecules producing a better hot-break

and thus a clearer finished product.  Futhermore, some think that the hot side

areation (HSA), or oxidation, of the sweet wort during recircluation outwieghs

any benifit that may be gained by clearing the wort.  (Ref. Fix)

   For what it's worth, I recirculate about 1 - 1.5 gallons.  The runoff

is still a little cloudy at this point, but it is free of any large chunks

of husk or grain material.  Coincidentally (or perhaps not so), 1.5

gallons is exactly the volume of "dead space" under the false bottom in

my lauter tun.

   Not to change the subject, but this brings to mind something I've been

wondering about for some time.  Exactly how much of a problem is HSA

during sparging?  The wort will be boiled within an hour, which will drive

off the oxygen, so I guess my question could be phrased "how quickly do

HSA reactions occur?"  Comments, please.

                                   Cheers,

                                     Jim

------------------------------


Capital Region Microbrewers Festival

Date:         Thu, 04 Feb 93 12:41:12 EST

From: WAYNE HINES <IWLH%SNYCENVM.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

Subject:      Capital Region Microbrewers Festival

Just a note to let you all know:

_______________________________________________________________________________

                           Capital Region

                            MICROBREWERS

                              FESTIVAL

         Friday                             Saturday

         February 26th                      February 27th

         6pm - 10pm                         2pm - 6pm

         at the Lake Ave.                   at the New Scotland Ave.

         Armory, across                     Armory, 130 New Scotland Ave.

         from the Parting                   near Medical Center

         Glass

         Saratoga Springs,NY                Albany, NY

                            Tickets Include

    A commemerative beer glass to sample 40-60 different beers from more

    than 25 microbreweries and brewpubs from across the United States.

             Tickets $15 per person / $18 at door if available

    Tickets available at:

Holmes & Watson : Mahar's           : The Parting Glass   : The Market Grill

450 Broadway    : 1110 Madison Ave. : 40 lake Ave.        : Million Dollar Mile

Troy, NY        : Albany, NY        : Saratoga Springs,NY : Lake George,NY

                      Also available by phone or pickup at

   U.S. Brewing Supply, 815 Madison Ave., Albany, NY 12208 - (518)449-5787

            Proceeds to benefit the Hugh O'Brien and Star Foundations

                           and Saratoga Winter Club

_______________________________________________________________________________

    Insert standard disclaimer here.

------------------------------


All-grain Snobs

Date: Thu, 4 Feb 93 08:30 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: All-grain Snobs

 >From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

 >Subject: all-grain snobs

 >The homebrewing community is generally guilty of snobbishness when it comes

 to extract vs. grain.

 I can't speak for the "community" and you may be right but it is also worth

 while to put the issue into proper perspective.

 Keeping in mind that lots of people stick with extract because they are lazy,

 paranoid or il-informed and further keeping in mind that the industry, as

 opposed to the "community" has a vested interest in maintaining the status

 quo because it would just about dry up without extract sales, it is worth

 noting that some extract beers are excellent beers, so I am told.   One also

 presumes that lots of extract brewers use extract because they know how to

 make said excellent beers.

 Having said that, I suggest it is the extract brewers' insecurity,

 sensitivity and paranoia that creates the image that all-grain brewers are

 snobs.

 >Based on many extract brews, I think the problem is not extract, but too

 much extract.  Somewhere around 1050, I've found that the "extract tang"

 (Dave Line's words) becomes evident.

 This is an interesting point and may very well be true and important to those

 who wish to continue brewing with extracts.

 The reality is that once a brewer makes the switch, invests in the equipment

 and learns the process AND becomes aware of the economies that accrue, he has

 little incentive to go back and try to make good extract beer.

 If looked at objectively and without emotion, I see nothing wrong with the

 notion that brewing extract beer is a step in the overall experience of

 brewing beer.  That is not to put a value judgement on it or to belittle it

 but simply to put it in proper perspective.  It is by any definition, a

 shortcut to brewing beer and hence, not the total process.

 I have been castigated in the past for comparing it with baking with cake

 mixes but it is hard not to draw the comparison.

 Perhaps a better analogy is instant versus brewed coffee.  A batch of coffee

 is made after which it is concentrated down to a convenient extract, to which

 hot water is added by the consumer and we get coffee again.   Judging by all

 the TV commercials, ha ha... some of it may actually be good but it is a hell

 of a way to treat coffee.  They same could be said for a nice batch of wort

 that gets concentrated.

 The bottom line is we brew beer the way we do because it suits our needs and

 personalities and we brag about what we do because we are human.  There is

 just no point in trying to impune evil motives into our hobby.

 js

------------------------------


american beer

Date:    Thu, 4 Feb 1993 12:40:47 -0600 (CST)

From: STOREY@fender.msfc.nasa.gov (BadAssAstronomer)

Subject: american beer

    Hello all

    Sorry to beat a dead horse, but if there was any prior posts about

    "Beer Across America" beer club, I missed them. I was thinking

    about joining this thing, but I'm still a bit hesitant. I was

    wondering if anyone is or has tried this beer club. It sure sounds

    good to someone in the "Southern Beer Wasteland" such as myself.

    Reply to storey@fender.msfc.nasa.gov if you like. Or, post it,

    hell there might be someone else who wants to know :)

    scott

------------------------------


Turpentine?

Date:         Thu, 04 Feb 93 13:43:58 EST

From: "Mark Rich-mpr8a@acadvm1.uottawa.ca" <MPR8A@acadvm1.uottawa.ca>

Subject:      Turpentine?

howdy all,

 This "turpentine tasting beer" thread leads me to ask one simple, but burning

question... How do you know what turpentine tastes like?! Am I missing out on

something?  Hmmm... maybe it would make a good margarita...and it's cheaper tha

n tequila!  ;-)

------------------------------


Re: A survey of the readership

Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1993 11:09:12 -0800

From: paul@melody.rational.com (Paul Jasper)

Subject: Re: A survey of the readership

On 3 Feb, 16:15, Chuck Coronella wrote:

> Subject: A survey of the readership

>

> Are you an all grain brewer or an extract brewer?

>

>-- End of excerpt from Chuck Coronella

I fit into your definition of "Intermediate", I guess, since I use

extract and often do partial mashes.  However, I've been brewing on

and off for about 13 years.

I really consider myself a "beer connoisseur" - my primary reason for

brewing is to understand the subtleties of flavor and appearance

imparted by variations in the process, and I find HBD a valuable

way to supplement this experience.  Oneday I'll probably get around

to doing a few all-grain brews, but I don't consider the extra

effort a necessity in achieving my main aims.  As a Englishman, and a

member of CAMRA, I find the discussions on HBD of pressurizing beer

with CO2 (e.g. in soda kegs) far more disturbing than any distinction

between extract and all-grain brewing.

P.S. I've sampled Celis White a couple of times now and been very

impressed.  Anyone know of anywhere in San Francisco selling it that

is more "comfortable" than the Toronado and Midtown (both lower

Haight Street)?

P.P.S. Beer snobs can drink all-grain snobs under the table any day! ;^)

- --

- -- Paul Jasper

- -- RATIONAL

- -- Object-Oriented Products

- --

------------------------------


convert cooker to natural gas...

Date: Thu, 4 Feb 93 13:23:35 CST

From: todd@gold.rtsg.mot.com (Todd M. Williams)

Subject: convert cooker to natural gas...

Greetings All,

 I have a question about cajun cookers.  I have put an addition

on the ol' homestead, and moved the laundry room into the addition.

I now want to turn the old laundry room into my brewery :-[)>

 I have a double sink, a floor drain, and the gas line and vent from

the dryer.  What I want to do is convert my cajun cooker from a propane

unit into a natural gas unit.  Can I do this??  If so, does anyone

know what is involved?  How much it might cost??  Where to get parts???

Any help would be very welcome!!!

Thanks,

Todd Williams          | Motorola, Inc.

Downers Grove, IL.     | Radio Telephone Systems Group

(708) 971-8692         | Cellular Infrastructure Group

When in Chicago....    | Arlington Heights, IL.

Gimme a call.......    | (708) 632-5691

Stop by for a HB...    | todd@rtsg.mot.com

Moderation, lad....moderation is the key.  8 or 10 is reasonable

refreshment.  After that, and it's likely to degrade into drinking.

  /--------------------------------------------------------------------------/

 / -rwxr-xr-x   1 todd      employer  69   Feb 10 1958  OPINIONS              /

 / lrwxrwxrwx   1 employer  other     9    Jan 01 1970  OPINIONS -> /dev/null /

  /--------------------------------------------------------------------------/

------------------------------


Soda Kegs on Tap

Date:    Thu, 4 Feb 1993 14:30:18 -0500 (EST)

From: TAYLOR@sbchm1.chem.sunysb.edu

Subject: Soda Kegs on Tap

Anybody have advice on how (and how long) to keep soda kegs on tap? I have

not tried it for more than about two weeks, and there was a noticable

change in the beer at the end. I did not take stringent measures against

leaks, so I presume the deterioration was due to air getting into the keg.

I ask because the advice someone gave to shorten the line to the cobra tap

worked out really well.

------------------------------


homemade wine

Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1993 13:39:44 EST

From: connell@vax.cord.edu

Subject: homemade wine

I have noted with curiosity that while there is discussion of sidelines

to beer brewing that shows up on the digest (cider, mead), there is

almost no discussion of homemade wines.  I have never read about

or experimented with homemade wines, but I have the idea that people

just dump concentrate and water in a carboy and add yeast.  Is wine

making discussed here so seldom because the process is uninterestingly

straightforward or because the results are so inferior to commercial

wines or both?

------------------------------


cold break in or out?

Date: Thu, 4 Feb 93 13:41:18 MST

From: Joe Boardman <boardman@amber.Colorado.EDU>

Subject: cold break in or out?

------------------------------


Killian's Irish Red

Date: Thu, 4 Feb 93 16:20:54 -0600

From: cwvandev@hwking.cca.cr.rockwell.com (Craig Vandeventer)

Subject: Killian's Irish Red

Just a clarification on which category Killian's falls into - the last time

I had one(last night) I read the label and it says that it is a "LAGER".

I, too, was suprised as I thought that it was an ale also.

Craig Vandeventer

------------------------------


subscription confirmation

Date:        Thu, 04 Feb 93 19:54:15 EST

From: Joe Palermo <S91M%NMUMUS.bitnet@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>

Subject: subscription confirmation

hello out there. I'm a complete novice homebrewer with only one batch of

beer completed, and frankly it sucked horribly. tasted worse than old

mil --- i never knew that was possible. it was a tyneside brown extract

kit that ended up tasting like yeasty bread water, lacking any sort of

desirable qualities whatsoever. currently working on a batch of rocky

raccooon's honey lager. any suggestions for success or improvements out

there? remember, i'm new at this.

------------------------------


Leaf Hops?

Date: 5 Feb 93 03:36:28 GMT

From: SynCAccT@slims.attmail.com

Subject: Leaf Hops?

I've been using leaf hops from a west coast distributer for a while

now, satisfied with the results. I purchased some GW Kent Saaz

yesterday and mentioned the West Coaster to him and he scorned

"sweep-ups!". I asked him to elaborate, he said that the hops

purchased from this particular western hop vendor were bale drop

offs, swept into a nice pile and sold to us as fresh from the farm

hops.

I was skeptical, but was told that I could tell that they were "sweep

ups" because they never came in cones, rather they come in loose

petals. I rushed home, looked in one bag and would estimate that 95%

of the hop volume is loose petals as I was told.

I've picked wild hops here in Ontario and they generally fall apart

after kilning, which is what I attribute the "individual hop petal"

phenomenon to, but I would be curious if anyone would have the

"inside scoop" on leaf hops, whole cones vis-a-vis petals.

Incedently, the GW Kent foil wrapped babies are actually perfectly

preserved whole cones, unadulterated and compressed into a plug. Upon

re-expansion in the boil pot they look like they just fell off the

vine.

+----------------------------------+

| Internet: gande@slims.attmail.com|

| Glenn Anderson                   |

| Manager, Telecom. Facilities     |

| Sun Life of Canada               |

+----------------------------------+

------------------------------


All-Wheat Beer

Date: Thu, 4 Feb 93 19:19:09 EDT

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: All-Wheat Beer

I made the following brew on 20 Dec last year.  It has turned out

to be a *fine* beer, and I recommend it to you.

All-Wheat American Pale Ale

To make 3 US gallons:

6# US Malted Wheat

3oz toasted malted wheat -- in 350F oven until brown/dark tan through

several pounds spent barley for sparging, boiled and drained.

Crack grains.  Add hot (150F) water to make a very stiff mash at 120-125F.

Let rest 1 hr.  Add infusion of boiling water, plus direct heat if

necessary, to bring to 150-152F.  Let rest 30 min.  Add spent

barley, raise to 158F for 10 min, then to 168F for 10 min.

Sparge to collect 4-1/2 gallons or so of wort at 1.035+.

Add 3/4 or 1 oz 5AAU Cascade hops (the original used 1-1/4 oz, but

this is pretty darn hoppy) for 1-1/2 hr boil.  Add 1/2 oz Cascade

when removing kettle from heat, cover, let sit for a few minutes.

Pitch with cultured SNPA yeast or Wyeast 1056.  Volume should be

3-1/2 gallons at about 1.048.  Ferment at 65-70F.  Rack off primary

after a few days.  When fermentation has dwindled in secondary,

add 2-3 tbsp Polyclar in boiling water.

The finished product was bottled a little over two weeks ago.  It

is still not fully conditioned, but that will pass.  The aroma is

unique.  It smells like the crust of a freshly-baked loaf of bread.

(With notes of hops and the usual Chico yeast bouquet.)  The beer

is crystal clear, still throws a light to moderate chill haze (less than

many weizens), and has a fine, fine American Pale flavor.  Even an

experienced sipper would have difficulty distinguishing it on the

palate from barley beer.  There certainly is no "tang" or overt

fruitiness to it.

I offer this as food for thought to those who wonder whether American

wheat malt has sufficient enzyme activity to convert itself.  For

the rest of us, it's just good beer ....

================O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis================

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1993 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------


Storing crushed grain

Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1993 19:08:28 -0600 (CST)

From: brewmstr@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jim Bayer)

Subject: Storing crushed grain

I'm just beginning to mash and I have a question about the practical shelf

life of CRUSHED grain.

Since I'm just beginning to mash, I don't have a grain mill so I order all of

my grain crushed.  If for some reason all of my ingrediants arrive for brewin'

on Saturday but something happens and I can't get to it, how long can I store

the grain and still have fresh grain and how should I store it?

So far someone told me to freeze it, but that sounds wrong to me.

BTW, I'm thinking of weeks for storage, not days.  I know it's best if I don't

have to store the grain, but I like to have my bases covered.

Jim

*****************************************************************

* I'm not w*rrying, I'm having a homebrew!  You should too!     *

*                                                               *

* < Don't let your wife blame anything on your homebrewing >    *

* < Beer always tastes good, hangovers always go away (stolen) >*

* Jim Bayer -> Chicago, IL                                      *

* brewmstr@ddsw1.mcs.com    72416.1044@compuserve.com           *

*****************************************************************

------------------------------


Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1993 14:10:41

From: doug@dottos_plc.win.net (Douglas James Otto)

Subject:

Please remove me from your mailing list.

Douglas Otto                         Internet: doug@dottos_plc.win.net

(916) 482-2160

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1071, 02/05/93

*************************************

-------


Re: IBU table

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 07:48:29 EST

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: Re: IBU table

In HBD1070 Brian Bliss first quotes me:

>>In HBD1066 I submitted an HBU-IBU conversion table

>>but forgot to mention any volume relationships.

>>That table assumes a 5 gallon batch.

>>To adjust for a volume of X gallons simply multiply the

>>numbers in the table by 5/X.

and responded

>Well thanks, now that I just wasted 35 oz of hops in

>my latest barleywine :-)

>AA units = oz hops * %AA and HBU = AA units / gal. wort (right?)

>so that was really a AAU to IBU table, or do I have them backwards?

>I also noticed that the rows for 55 and 60 minute boiling times

>were identical.  Was this a typo?

Well, after Brian's note I wasn't sure myself so I looked up

AAU's and HBU's in Papazian (TCJoHB), Miller (TCHoHB) and

the Zymurgy Hops special edition V 13 No. 4.  I don't have

Papazian's new edition and his old one mentions alpha units

but does not mention either HBU or AAU.  Miller only defines

AAU = oz hops * %AA as Brian stated above.

I found HBU mentioned twice in the Zymurgy issue. The first mention

was at the bottom of page 44 on the AHA Guide to Hop-Flavored

Mald Extract page where they say

"The expression "HBU" refers to homebrew bittering units.

HBU equals the number of ounces of hops multiplied by the

percent of alpha acids in the hops."

Also, in Jackie Rager's article he writes

"If I understand what I've read, AAU and HBU are calculated by

multiplying the weight of hops (in ounces) by their alpha acid".

So I think HBU and AAU are the same thing, at least I assumed they

were based on my readings. However, I think Brian's definitions

make more sense - Why define two different terms to mean the

same thing with neither depending on the volume?

The lines for 55 and 60 minutes of boil are identical because

according to the utilization table I used (from Rager's article)

the utilization of 30% for a boiling time between 51 and 60 minutes.

Actually, my table should have listed boiling times as intervals

<5 min, 6-10 min, 11-15 min, etc. instead of 5, 10, 15 which I

listed for simplicity.

I think you've also invented a new beer style-barhopwine.

Bill Szymczak

------------------------------


Ale ageing question.

Date:           Fri, 5 Feb 93 7:56 EST

From: Gerald_Wirtz@vos.stratus.com

Subject:        Ale ageing question.

     It's cold up here in New England and I was wondering just what

affects temperature have on ageing ales? My beer is aged in a room

that the average temperature is around 55-60F. It's tasting Ok but

the carbonation in slow to build up even after 30 days.

     If I were to store the beer in a warmer location (after being cool)

would the carbonation increase? Or has the cooler temperatures somehow

killed the yeast?

     Thanks - In Advance - For any replies

------------------------------


Irish Ale, lager pitching, dryer gas stove

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 08:38:46 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Irish Ale, lager pitching, dryer gas stove

Guy McConnell reproduces a blurb from Coor's about Killian's Red.

Much of it is true other than the fact that it paints Old Adolphus

and family as being something other than Ogres.  Ireland has had

its own ogre family dominating the brewing industry (now a largely

English owned company that also produces whisk(e)y in Scotland)

and throughout history has gobbled up all competition it could,

blackmailed Pubs to keep Harp taps when they wouldn't have been

able to give the piss away, and now that they do replacement

lagers under licence (having stolen the Carlberg franchise from

Beamish after they spent years building it up) are forcing

pubs to retain Smithwick's taps (Smithwick's is an Irish Ale, but

a pretty poor one) whose sales are slumping.  Blackmail is easy.

Guinness do their own distributing and own all their own taps.

So they will offer to remove all their taps or none, including

the Guinness stout tap.  This beer represent about 1/2 of all

beer sold in Ireland.

A small brewery called Dempseys who produced an ale set up a few years ago in

Dublin and didn't last long.  Killians decided to close down in 1955

rather than sell their property including name to the big G.

Now they licence their name to Coors and Penforce (sp) in France.

The latter is supposed to be good.  Hell, they get money for

nothing.

James dipalma discusses lager pitching rates.  I always pitch

much yeast, like the entire primary sediment at 40F.  recently I

pitched a batch at 40F with my cleaned sediment, racked off all

trub including dead yeast, and I guess much of my live yeast

and waited 5 days at 48-49 for Krausen.  Disconcerting to some, but

recently when I tasted the Vienna I was making it is was exceeptionally

clean and good tasting for a beer in primary.  Relax, don't worry,

pitch much sediment cold and wait.  Remember yeast do much better at

cold temperatures than bacteria, and I would much prefer to slowly

build up a heawlthy yeast stock than rush things for the sake of

less worry.

Todd Williams considers using a cajun cooker indoors.  Best of luck!

I believe the modification for propane to methane is simply replacing

the flow nozzle with a narrower one, but getting the part other than

from junk would not be easy because nobody will sell it to you, justifyably

so, IMHO, for liability reasons.  Also I would not recommend it.  Cajun

cookers have a 200,000 btu/h output, don't they, which is much too

much for indoor use.  What I use is the burner from an old water heater

I picked up in a junk pile.  Just remove the regulator and burner,

connect it with the necessary valves and nipples to your dryer output,

and get a stand for your pot that will nestle the burner nicely.  I use

an old table stand.  This is then a 25,000 btu/h burner designed for

indoor methane use with no problem.  It even has a pilot light that will

go out if the flame fails. 25,000 btu  output is fine.  I would

boil 7 gallons from cold in about 15 minutes.

Ulick Stafford

s

------------------------------


Diastatic Malt Powder

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 9:12:45 EST

From: Jim Grady <jimg@hpwarga.wal.hp.com>

Subject: Diastatic Malt Powder

I don't know if this is helpful or not but I thought I would pass it on.

We received a catalog from "King Arthur Flour" in the mail yesterday and

on the back cover they are selling "Diastatic Malt Powder" for $3.95/lb.

They're selling it for baking bread but I was wondering if anyone had

any thought about using it for brewing.  As far as I know, Edme is the only

supplier of diastatic malt for brewing and that in 4# cans, minimum.

- --

Jim Grady                  |"Talent imitates, genius steals."

Internet: jimg@wal.hp.com  |

Phone: (617) 290-3409      |                    T. S. Eliot

------------------------------


p.s. on King Arthur Flour

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 9:18:48 EST

From: Jim Grady <jimg@hpwarga.wal.hp.com>

Subject: p.s. on King Arthur Flour

P.S. I forgot to include the phone number of "King Arthur Flour" in case

anyone wanted to try it or if there are any bakers out there (yeast

slurries can be reused for bread too!)

The King Arthur Flour Baker's Catalogue

P.O. Box 876

Norwich, VT 05055

Phone:  1.800.827.6836

FAX:    1.802.649.5359

P.P.S. They have the Marcato Grain Mill for $89.00 for those of you who

have been looking for one.  I'm still happy with extract brewing so I

have not tried any mills. Someday...

- --

Jim Grady                  |"Talent imitates, genius steals."

Internet: jimg@wal.hp.com  |

Phone: (617) 290-3409      |                    T. S. Eliot

------------------------------


krausen,iodophor,lagers & snobs

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 10:18:29 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: krausen,iodophor,lagers & snobs

From: Jim Busch

Some comments regarding recent digests:

<From: MARK TARATOOT <SLNDW@CC.USU.EDU>

<Subject: more lager questions

<Concernig pitching extra yeast at bottling.  What if I just "grab up"

<some of the yeast sitting on the bottom of my fermenter?  What are the

<chances that these yeasts are mutated and what will that do to the

<final product?  This particular batch is in a tertiary fermenter (racked

<from secondary to get WAY away from yeast/other stuff that floculated out)

<so all the "stuff" should be yeast.  This yeast will be mostly dormant,

<to be sure, but shouldn't it just hop back to life if more fermentables

<are added?

While it is true that the dormant cells could be revived, I have to wonder

the rational in carrying over these cells into the bottling process. THese

cells are certainly not as healthy as freshly grown ones.  The question to

ask yourself is: are there enough residual cells in the beer to wake up

after priming? Has the beer been lagered to the point of doubt about the

viability of the dormant cells?  I would recommend the traditional german

technique of adding krausen beer and/or young yeast slurry.  Yeasts at

this young stage of growth will have higher glycogen levels and will be

more able to ferment the remaining sugars without worries about mutations.

If there are enough cells already, the yeast will merely die off as soon

as the fermentables are gone.

<From: billm@scorpio.sps.mot.com (Bill Moyer)

<Subject: idophor, rinse/reuse

<I've just recently tried using idophor instead of a bleach

<solution for sanitizing ( .5oz idophor/gallon water, ~12.5ppm

<free iodine) and have 2 questions.

I believe Bill meant to state 1oz per 10 gallons!!!  At this level,

I never rinse, I just pour off the fluid in whatever I am sanitizing.

That said, I DO rinse when I am kegging.  A brief hot water rinse

of the iodophor prior to kegging does the trick.  So far, no problems.

I believe if the ferment is clean, it is fairly difficult to infect the

beer at packaging time.

<From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

<Subject: RE: lager questions, recirculation

<My understanding is that Paulaner uses a non-flocculating lager yeast

<to bottle condition the hefe-weizen, it's not the same yeast used to

<ferment the beer.  I'm fairly certain a top fermenting strain is used for

<that purpose.

Yes, it is lager strain in the bottle. But I do believe it is a flocculant

one, that is one of the reasons lager yeast is used.  If you want a Hefe-

weizen poured clear, the lager yeast will tend to cling to the bottom of teh

bottle.  Even if you pour it "correctly" the yeast tends to floc in the

bottom of your glass.  The top fermenting strain is filtered out prior to

addition of the krausen beer.

James goes on to comment on pitching temps of lager yeasts.  The important

thing to remember is that once fermentation is active, the temperature will

rise significantly.  Thus, if one pitches at 60F, the yeast could kick in

and boost the temp up to 70F!  Obviously, one of the tricks is to get it in

the fridge at the right time, so the temp is dropping as the yeast temp is

pushing it up.  You really want to be below 52F during primary fermentation,

so it is important to be careful about when you pitch and when you put it

in the fridge.  Pitch at 55-60F with LOTS of healthy yeast, move it to the

fridge and begin lowering the temp.  It will take a 10 hours or so for the

fridge to  cool the wort below 50F, and if you have enough yeast, activity

should have commenced.

RE: All grain snobs:

Very excellent beers are produced using extracts.  The key is the quality

of the extract (I believe dry IS better) and the yeast & hops.  That said,

while I will not claim to call it "cake mix"  I do often refer to extract

brewing as "home fermentation".  Dont take offense at this, the more you

know about brewing, the more you realize that fermentation is the most

important part of the process.  After a few hundred batches, the quality

of the wort is pretty consistent, but the challenge of the fermentation

remains :-).

Jim Busch

PS: to JS-  My lauter tun/open fermenter does indeed have a spigot.  The

only problem with taking ferment SG readings is that what comes out is

yeast sludge!  Thats what you get when you have a bottom grant.  Maybe

when I have a Unitank made, I will add the side outlet, about a foot up

from the cone. Of course, it is quite simple to open the lid and scoop

out a sample.

------------------------------


Special Archive Proposal

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 10:18:30 EST

From: neilm@juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Neil Mager )

Subject: Special Archive Proposal

        A few months ago, I started seriously considering taking the step

        from extract to all-grain brewing. I downloaded the indices of the

        archives from the last ~15 months to find information about

        all-grain brewing and cooler mash-tun/lauter-tun

        construction. After several pleasant evenings sorting

        through the archives of interest, I ended up with about 70

        messages (~200k) of interest.

        I'm sure I'm not the only one doing this. If we create a

        few Special Archives, readers could download the special archive,

        then ask specific questions later if the needed to. Sort

        of like a very detailed FAQ. Since the archive contains

        the reasonably complete thread, the reader would get

        different opinions and options from which they could draw

        their own conclusions (and confusion).

        This could also help reduce the bandwidth on the daily hbd

        since we wouldn't have to rehash how to build a cooler

        mash-tun/lauter tun or how to culture yeast, or how to

        brew a barley wine (I'm still sorting through that

        thread - thanks!). And hopefully, these wouldn't overload

        our current archive site since I don't foresee all that

        many of these...but I could be wrong!

        The Special Archive could be compiled by whomever has been

        following a particular thread. Consider the Special Archive

        the HBD version of a Zymurgy special issue.

        Thats the proposal...

        Neil (Still an extract brewer and proud of it!)

===============================================================================

Neil M. Mager

MIT Lincoln Laboratory       Lexington, MA

  Weather Radar - Group 43

Internet                    <neilm@juliet.ll.mit.edu>

Voice                       (617) 981-4803

===============================================================================

------------------------------


natural cooker, wine from c

Date: 5 Feb 1993 10:29:16 -0500

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel.F.McConnell@med.umich.edu>

Subject: natural cooker, wine from c

                       Subject:                               Time:10:11 AM

  OFFICE MEMO          natural cooker, wine from conc.        Date:2/5/93

todd@gold.rtsg.mot.com (Todd M. Williams)

>What I want to do is convert my cajun cooker from a propane

>unit into a natural gas unit.  Can I do this??  If so, does anyone

>know what is involved?  How much it might cost??.....

It couldn't be easier!  Just remove the brass cap from the cooker and drill

the orifice to 1/8 for natural gas.   Sounds like an great brewery in

progress.  If you are indoors make sure that you are **extremely ** well

vented.  This will cost some cash.  (A bathroom fan/vent *won't * be sufficient

to provide air exchange and remove all of the steam). A couple of good fire

extinguishers would not be out of the question either.

>connell@vax.cord.edu

>I have the idea that people just dump concentrate and water in a carboy

>and add yeast.  Is wine making discussed here so seldom because the

>process is uninterestingly straightforward or because the results are

>so inferior to commercial wines or both?

Ouch. This is a beer forum.  I know that there are also cider and mead forums,

and assume that there is one for homevintners.  In any case, the process that

you have described is a lot like the instant coffee analogy of Jack.  IMHO you

need (good) grapes to make (good) wine.

DanMcC

------------------------------


Extract brewers are lazy?

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 10:59:31 EST

From: gkushmer@Jade.Tufts.EDU

Subject: Extract brewers are lazy?

WARNING: this is long.

Once I saw this thread reappear, I knew it was only a matter of time before

Jack Schmidling would chime in with something like this:

>   Subject: All-grain Snobs

[...]

>  I can't speak for the "community" and you may be right but it is also worth

>  while to put the issue into proper perspective.

>

>Keeping in mind that lots of people stick with extract because they are lazy,

>paranoid or il-informed and further keeping in mind that the industry, as

>opposed to the "community" has a vested interest in maintaining the status

>quo because it would just about dry up without extract sales, it is worth

>noting that some extract beers are excellent beers, so I am told.   One also

>presumes that lots of extract brewers use extract because they know how to

>make said excellent beers.

>

>   Having said that, I suggest it is the extract brewers' insecurity,

>   sensitivity and paranoia that creates the image that all-grain brewers are

>   snobs.

This 'perspective' smacks exactly of the 'snobishness' that we have seen

discussed here on the HBD.  Lots of people extract brew because they are

lazy, paranoid, or 'il-informed'?  That's rich coming from a semi-retired

homeowner.  Why do I mention this?  Because economic status is part of

my personal reason for not going all-grain.

Right now I am spending many thousands of dollars going to school nights

while I work during the day.  Being older than me Jack, and having some

savings in the bank (plus whatever revenue you derive from selling tapes

of brewing and bats) you may have easily forgotten that some of us cannot

immediately afford the startup costs for all-grain.

If, for a minute, we consider extract brewing to be, from one possible

perspective, "training wheels" to the art of brewing, then it makes

sense that someone start off by extract brewing to learn the art before

moving on.  But things happen - you buy the equipment and put in the time

to brew and, if you are like me, you spend some money here and there to

improve your beers and increase your equipment holdings.

Before you know it, you're looking at all-grain wondering when you can

afford the cajun cooker and the 7 gallon Vollrath plus all these other

goodies that make all-grain fly.

At this point you, Jack, would seem to argue that in the end you'll actually

save money from the all-grain process.  Sure you might, I respond, but

this involves the concept of breaking even first.  I cannot economically

justify making all the purchases right now when I have tuition, rent, car,

and cat food payments to make.

Oh, but am I really just scared, and not wanting to make the plunge?  I

think not.  I spend my brewing time trying to learn more about the process.

I try things that I haven't tried yet - simple things that you have to

try at some point like dry-hopping, wort-chilling, making yeast starters,

or going for full-gravity boils.  I read HBD looking for new techniques, and

I talk with the more experienced brewers asking them what I can do to improve

my beers.

Ah, you say, but you aren't really doing anything but avoiding all-grain.

No.  In the meantime I am investing piecemeal in the equipment I need to

start all-grain.  I've got my pot, and I'm saving up to buy my cooker. Then

I will consider all the other goodies.

So far, then, I am neither lazy nor ill-informed.  And I think that my

curiousity cancels out any notions of being paranoid.

Does this mean then, that you are still right and that I am really just

an exception - someone on his way to reaching full enlightenment in the

hallowed halls of all-grain brewers?  No.

I happen to have a number of friends my age who have decided to take up

brewing too.  Both of them are now extract brewers.  One of them was on

his way to going all-grain until he suddenly found himself on academic

probation and out of a job.  He cut back on his brewing activities for a

little while and certainly killed any notions of going all-grain.

The other friend found himself in the middle of layoffs back when DEC

decided they would give him the ultimate X-mas gift.  For some reason his

priorities are not set on going all-grain anytime soon.  Both of them

still feel, BTW, that they have more to learn and enjoy in extract brewing

anyway.

Quite frankly, I've never met anyone who avoids going all-grain because they

are lazy, paranoid, or 'il-informed'.  Usually they avoid it for the cost,

time, and b/c they feel they have more to learn and enjoy from extract

brewing.  (Note: using time as a factor does not automatically mean you

are lazy.  Laziness doesn't apply when you have plenty else to do in your

life.)

With this rather long diatribe on your premise in mind, lets look

at your conclusion:

>   Having said that, I suggest it is the extract brewers' insecurity,

>   sensitivity and paranoia that creates the image that all-grain brewers are

>   snobs.

Hmmmm.  The only time I have ever heard extract brewers complain about

all-grain brewers' snobishness is really in this forum, the HBD.  I've

never won over a scared extract brewer's confidence at a club meeting or

at the supply store b/c we held some heavy burden of shame due to the

all-grain brewing community's snobishness.

It seems to me that people are really complaining about people like you

Jack, who make unfounded general statements like:

 >Keeping in mind that lots of people stick with extract because

 >they are lazy, paranoid or il-informed. . .

These statements are so arrogant.  You make it sound like a foregone

conclusion that this is the truth.  You, a middle-aged man living in

Chicago who never talks about going to competitions or meeting up with fellow

brewers at club meetings yet who seems to have plenty to say on this

forum.  Where does your experience base come from?

I've explained mine.

Finally (at last) I am not ignoring the rest of your post to HBD.  I agree

that brewing extract is a part of the "overall experience" but I don't

agree with your premise which pretty much says that once you know extract

brewing, you should move on to something else.

You see, your approach concludes that since extract brewing is nothing

more than a reduced set of steps in a process, you are therefore not

a legitmate brewer.  This is patently false:  would you suggest that

C programmers are not "real" programmers and that only Assembly language

programmers do "real" programming since Assembly programmers don't need

reduced shortcuts like compilers?  It makes about as much sense as you

do in approaching brewing - fewer steps = illegitmate worker.

I don't hold you to growing your own hops.  That's not unreasonable since

many here have tried.  By your reasoning, you are missing out on a step and

cannot be the authentic brewer you keep whining about being.

Your logic is poor; your reasoning arrogant.  Give it a rest.

- --gk

Greg Kushmerek

------------------------------


Beginner wants to make SMALL batch...

Date: Fri, 05 Feb 93 08:13:40 PST

From: davidr@eecs.ee.pdx.edu

Subject: Beginner wants to make SMALL batch...

First of all, is there a FAQ available?

Secondly, I am a beginner who has been reading for approx. two

weeks now.  I've never made homebrew.  Hell, I hardly ever even

drink beer.  However, I AM interested in the process, and do enjoy

a nice frosty one now and then.  In the past, I have made some hard

cidar, and a batch of wine... both with natural yeasts.  I used

a gallon jug with a piece of aquarium air tubing attached to the

top.  I ran the other end of the tube into a glass of water, thus

establishing an air lock.  Anyhow, I would like to try making some

brew, but on a much smaller scale than what I've seen.  Can anybody

suggest *ANY* recipe to use for a One-Gallon batch??  (I'd like

to use the same fermenting apparatus I just described.)  Also,

since I am a beginner, I have no idea as to the terminology.

I don't know what "secondary", "pitch", etc. means!  I understand

"yeast" and "fermentation," and that is the limit to my technical

brewing dictionary.  Eventually, I would like to read some of the

books described by others in HBD, but by the time I have more than

30 min. free time, I'll have obtained my MSEE.  I'd like something

to just get me started without having to read a great deal.

SUGGESTIONS???

Thanks,

David Robinson

davidr@ee.pdx.edu

------------------------------


re: idophor, rinse/reuse

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1993 11:02:00 +0000

From: "Rick (R.) Cavasin" <cav@bnr.ca>

Subject: re: idophor, rinse/reuse

Bill Moyer asks about iodophor rinse/reuse:

I tried out iodophor for the first time last weekend.  How well does

it work - who knows?  I found that the iodophor I purchased (brand

named 'iosan') tended to foam a fair bit when agitated.  Hence,

bottles that were simply emptied tended to contain a fair bit of

foam.  I was not prepared to leave this amount of residue unrinsed

(while the 12ppm concentration is considered safe when used on dairy

equipment without rinsing, I should think the volumes of milk that

would dilute the residue would be larger than the volumes of beer

going through my brewing equipment).  My incentive for using an iodophor

was the hope that it could be reused more than bleach (iodine less

volatile than chlorine?) and hence less would go down the drain (and

into the air I'm breathing!).

It's also cheaper than the brewing sanitizers.

My jug of iosan states that the amber colour of the solution is a

self-indicator. The bulk of the solution I mixed up is in a stoppered

carboy and is still amber.  I put about a pint in a blowoff bucket

for a batch of wine.  After a few days, the amber colour has disappeared.

The iodine has either reacted with the plastic bucket/hose, organic

gases expelled from the fermentation (no actual krausen has come down

the tube), or simply evaporated (scrubbed by the constant stream of CO2

bubbles?).  This would seem to verify the self-indicator feature.

The iodophor quickly stained my bottle/carboy brushes and hoses, but

has had minimal effect on my buckets. This doesn't worry me though.

Cheers,

Rick C.

------------------------------


Yeast freezing with glycerol

Date:           Fri, 5 Feb 93 11:29 EST

From: Donald_James@vos.stratus.com

Subject:        Yeast freezing with glycerol

Homebrew,

I would like to purchase some glycerol for freezing some yeast samples.

Could someone provide me with the address and telephone number of a company or

distributor.

Sincerely,

Don James

------------------------------


Re: FAQ/RFC on Recirculation

Date: 05 Feb 1993 11:28:53 -0500

From: Chris McDermott <mcdermott@draper.com>

Subject: Re: FAQ/RFC on Recirculation

 RE>FAQ/RFC on Recirculation.

In an e-mail message, Spencer Thomas says:

>I like the idea.  Now someone has to archive them specially?

Now thats a bit of a trick. I suppose that the latest version of each FAQ could

be maintained as a seperate file in the archives on sierra.  Then all that

would have to be done would be to maintain FAQ# vs. subject index.

Might there be some concensus on this?  How about other suggestions?

Volunteers?  Would someone like to write a FAQ on writting FAQs?

Spencer also points out:

>An addition to your FAQ: There is evidence that suggests that

>recirculating for a long time can raise extraction rates.  (Ref:

>Miller/hearsay (via Fix, I think), personal experience, Fix)

So:

**** HOMEBREW Digest FAQ #0001

FAQ#  001-002

Subj: Recirculation:  What is it, and should I do it?


Date: February 4, 1993

Orig: Chris McDermott (mcdermott@draper.com)

Subject: Re: FAQ/RFC on Recirculation

Recirculation is a practice employed in the lautering of mashed grains where

the turbid sweet wort is collected, as it is runoff, and recirculated through

the grain bed until the runoff becomes clear.

Most sources of homebrewing information will tell you that you should employ

the practice of recirculation to avoid significant amounts of chaff in the

boil.  Chaff in the boil is considered, by these sources,  to lead undesirable

effects in the finished beer including astringancy and cloudiness. (Ref.

Miller, Papazian)  Recirculation may also contribute to increased extract

efficiency.

However, others beleive that some amount of chaff in the boil is desireable in

that it helps to coagulate large protien molecules, producing a better

hot-break

and thus a clearer finished product.  Futhermore, some think that the hot side

areation (HSA), or oxidation, of the sweet wort during recircluation may out

weight any benifit that may be gained by clearing the wort.  (Ref. Fix)

****

_

Christopher K. McDermott                  Internet:  mcdermott@draper.com

C.S. Draper Laboratory, Inc.              Voice:     (617) 258-2362

555 Technology Square                     FAX:       (617) 258-1131

Cambridge, MA 02149 (USA)

------------------------------


Brewing a Weizenbock -- Need Ideas

Date: 05 Feb 1993 10:42 -0600 (CST)

From: Kevin Krelwitz <IA_KEVIN@vax1.iit.edu>

Subject: Brewing a Weizenbock -- Need Ideas

Hello Homebrewers!!

I have discovered a truly fantastic beer called "Erdinger Pikantus Weizenbock".

It is a Dark Weiss Bock beer with incredible body and a taste unlike any other

Weiss beer on the market.  It is available locally in Chicago at the

Weinkeller, a microbrewery/bar/german restauraunt which serves 8 different

brews of their own along with 500 different beers from around the world.

>From reading other posts, I believe that I would be able to cultivate the yeast

from several bottles of Pikantus, but I need help in finding a mixture of malt

extracts which would yield the proper starting wort for this type of beer.

Also, I would appreciate any ideas on proper brewing technique (temperature,

specific gravity, fermentation time, etc..) for this type of beer.

The Wienkeller (plug) is located on Roosevelt Road, just east of Harlem Ave. in

Chicago (actually in Berwyn).  I highly recommend this place to anyone who is

planning on making a visit to the area.  In fact, drop me a line and I'll meet

you there!!

Thanks in advance,

*******************************************************************************

* Kevin Krelwitz                    *      Why are we here?                   *

* ia_kevin@vax1.iit.edu             *      To Drink some beer!                *

* Illinois Institute of Technology  *      Roll the Bones.                    *

*******************************************************************************

------------------------------


cold break in or out....second try

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 09:45:01 MST

From: Joe Boardman <boardman@amber.Colorado.EDU>

Subject: cold break in or out....second try

****OOOPS**** Sorry about that "subject only" post yesterday.

Brevity is a commendable, but it was an accident. Here's the whole letter:

G'day HBD'ers,

After returning to Boulder from a 15 month stay in Australia,

I got reacquainted with my grain mill et al last weekend.  I brewed up a 10

gal batch, everything went well.  Then I ran it through my counter-flow chiller

and really ZAPPED it with Boulder's near-freezing tap water, causing a great

cold-break.  I had a semi-slow moving 1056 Wyeast starter going so I pitched

the two carboys and went to bed.  My wife just gave me a copy of Miller's

Complete Handbook, and he seems to go to great lengths to get the wort off

the trub, racking soon after pitching.  I left the stuff in there and it

settled out and formed a semi-solid layer on the bottom, even the churning

ferment of the last few days has left it pretty much undististurbed EXCEPT

it seems to have all these little "worm-holes" in it.  It's as if during the

active primary ferment some part of the trub has been used by the yeast.

What's the collective wisdom?

1)does leaving the cold-break in the primary (a feature of a counter-flow

chiller) harm the beer?

2)does it help the yeast, nutrients etc.?

3)is a beer-style thing (lagers no, ales yes)

4)can anybody tell the difference?

5)any ideas on what has been taken out of the trub to make the worm-holes?

Maybe next time I'll rack one carboy and not the other.  But it was 9.5 hour

session as it was and I just couldn't make myself sanitize another carboy and

go through all the hassle.  Or maybe I should just chill the hell out of it,

no problem to get it below 50F, and let it sit overnight before pitching.

All my instincts say "NO DON'T LEAVE YOUR WORT OVERNIGHT WITHOUT YEAST YOU

FOOL".

So......

 Cheers,

 Joe      "Leave dead dogs alone"

------------------------------


All-graiWorld's Worst All-Grain Snobs

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1993 08:40:22 -0800

From: tima@wv.MENTORG.COM (Tim Anderson)

Subject: All-graiWorld's Worst All-Grain Snobs

I nominate "All-grain snobs" as the most insipid HBD thread of the year.

On the other hand, "The World's Worst Brewer" is delightful, and I have a

suggestion:

               Tim's Bucket Conditioned Brew

Pour a 5 lb bag of cane sugar into a 5 gal plastic bucket with a spigot in the

side near the bottom. (Don't buy the bucket, just walk out the door of the

home-brew supply store with it under your arm.  Say something about wanting to

see if it's the right size.  Drive off with tires squeeling.)  Add room

temperature tap water, stir.  Pitch several packets of different kinds of

bread yeast.  Stir again.  Before putting on the lid, (Oh My God, did you

forget to steal the lid?  Well then use plastic wrap.) put your face close to

the surface of the wort and softly whisper the word "hops".  Wait a couple of

weeks. You now have beer for the rest of your life.  Just pour from the spigot

directly into your glass.  Or if you haven't gotten around to stealing any

glasses, directly into your mouth.  Every now and then add some more sugar and

water.  If it starts tasting sweet, add some more yeast.  If anything fuzzy or

smelly starts growing on top, skim it off (you don't want to DRINK that shit!)

It's obvious to me that your method of brewing is only a step toward my method

of brewing.  It couldn't possibly be the case that you actually enjoy doing it

your way.  Therefore, I want everybody who reads the digest to start making

bucket conditioned beer immediately.  And email me with all sorts gratuitous

testimonials, and grovelling for my approval.  As long as there's any sort of

difference in the way we make beer, you won't get it, but it will do wonders

for my ego.

Ready, begin.

tim

"Just kidding.  Use ale yeast."

------------------------------


Sanitizing Copper; All-Grain Snobbery

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 12:04:08 EST

From: DLAMARPL@ucs.indiana.edu

Subject: Sanitizing Copper; All-Grain Snobbery

Several sources indicate the hazards of using alkaline solutions (e.g.

chlorine) to sanitize copper.  None I have seen, however, suggest alternatives

other than boiling.  What are effective sanitizing agents for equipment that

cannot be boiled (e.g. counterflow wort chillers)?

*****

 In HBD 1071, Jack Schmidling implies that, in its "proper perspective,"

extract brewers' "image that all-grain brewers are snobs" is the result of the

neuroses of extract brewers themselves.  As a former rhetorical critic, I feel

compelled to note the contradictions in Mr. Schmidling's statements.

 In laying blame on extract brewers, Mr. Schmidling, an all-grain brewer,

describes them as "lazy, paranoid or ill-informed" and refers to their

"insecurity, sensitivity and paranoia."  Such epithets appear to me to be "all-

grain snobbery" of the most inelegant sort.  Although he is entitled to his

interpretation of the "proper perspective," his articulation of it lacks

internal validity.  Mr. Schmidling's attempt to exonerate the more

"sophisticated" brewers instead indicates that some of the perceptual

inadequacies felt by extract brewers may, in part, be instilled and perpetuated

by *some* advanced brewers.

 Any time we discuss advanced topics with those less informed, we must be

careful not to confuse or offend them, else we snuff out their desire to learn.

Without more empathy in our attempts to share our knowledge and experience with

beginners, we risk alienating potential new members of our hobby.  As I used to

tell my students: "THINK about what you say; you never know when your words

will come back to haunt you."

------------------------------


All grain snobs

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 09:04:55 -0800

From: SCHREMPP_MIKE/HP4200_42@pollux.svale.hp.com

Subject: All grain snobs

After reading all the snob stories, I had to throw in my two bits.

I believe a big part of the snobbery is the snob appeal... "sure you can

make better beer if you're willing to take the BIG STEP and go all-grain".

It's the mystique of the BIG STEP that makes brewers fear taking it and

puffs up those that have. The fact is, the BIG STEP is NO BIG DEAL. My second

batch was all grain and yours can be too.

Read a book, use a washed out cooler as a mash tun, make and use a $5 sparge

system (window screen on the end of a siphon tube (EASYSpihonPipe tm), and use

as many pots as necessary to boil the wort.

It's just not difficult enough to make those that do it into snobs. And it's

more fun too.

Mike Schrempp

------------------------------


Smooth Hop Utilization Function

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 09:19:49 PST

From: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards)

Subject: Smooth Hop Utilization Function

Hi fellow beermakers:

I've come up with a formula to approximate hop utilization in a continuous

fashion by fitting a curve to the data from the "Hops" issue of Zymurgy.

The article is "Calculating Hop Bitterness in Beer" by Jackie Rager, and

is found on pages 53 and 54.  (Thanks, Jackie.)

I know what you're saying:  "Overkill".  But in preparation for the

"do-it-all" spreadsheet that I hope to write sometime in the near future,

I've been trying to create a formula for all those little brewing

calculations that don't generally have one.

The main reason for fitting a curve, is to have an easy way of calculating

IBU's with a spreadsheet, or programmable calculator.  The secondary

reason is to have some reasonable interpolation of intermediate boiling

times.  Of course the smooth function is only as good as the original

data; but I think that it would provide more consistent results--especially

for someone like me who likes to add hops at different times (other than

the standard :60, :30, :05).

The graph approaches 5% utilization towards zero boiling time.  This

might seem strange at first until you assume that "zero" boiling time

means that the hops were boiled for zero minutes, but they were still

added to the wort.  In other words, I take the point zero to mean dry

hopping; or probably more correctly, putting the hops in at the very end

of the boil (steeping).  Dry hopping and steeping does (in my limited

experience) add to the bitterness a little.  (About 5%, right? :-)

Here's the data from the article:

boil (minutes)    Hop Utilization (percent)

     < 5                   5.0

   6 - 10                  6.0

  11 - 15                  8.0

  16 - 20                 10.1

  21 - 25                 12.1

  26 - 30                 15.3

  31 - 35                 18.8

  36 - 40                 22.8

  41 - 45                 26.9

  46 - 50                 28.1

  51 - 60                 30.0

>From that, I created a data point for each minute:

(0, 0.05), (1, 0.05), (2, 0.05), (3, 0.05), (4, 0.05), (5, 0.05), (6, 0.06),

(7, 0.06), (8, 0.06), (9, 0.06), ...

Then, I fit a smooth function to the data.  Here's the function that I

came up with:

___________________________________________________________________________

utilization = 18.109069 + 13.862039 * hyptan[(minutes - 31.322749) / 18.267743]

___________________________________________________________________________

(The hyperbolic-tangent may be expanded to it's exponential definition if

your calculator or spreadsheet doesn't have hyptan.)

                 x    -x

                e  - e

    tanh(x) = -----------           e = 2.71828182844...

                 x    -x

                e  + e

This formula was fit with the least-squares method.  I realized that a

hyperbolic-tangent fit much better than a polynomial, because the data

implies an "s" curve.  Here's the data and the curve superimposed:

      |                                                                _______

      |                                                        ___-----

  .30 +                                                  ooo***oooo

      |                                                _--

      |                                             oo*oo

      |                                        oooo*

      |                                         _-

  .25 +                                        -

      |                                      _-

      |                                   oo*oo

U     |                                   _

T     |                                  -

I .20 +                                _-

L     |                              o*ooo

I     |                              -

Z     |                            _-           o = data

A     |                           _             - = fit curve

T .15 +                         o*ooo           * = curve and data intersect

I     |                        _-

O     |                       -

N     |                    oo*oo

      |                   _-

  .10 +               ooo*o

      |               _-

      |          ooo**

      |        __--

      | ____***oo

  .05 **oooo

      |

      |

      |

      |

    0 +---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|-

      0        10        20        30        40        50        60        70

                                     MINUTES

As you can see the curve fits pretty well with the data.  Of course the

data is to be questioned; but it's the best that I've seen so far.  (I

especially suspect the data for the 41-45 range, it looks a little too

high to be consistent.)

Here's a table that the function generates:

___________________________________________________________________________

           Hop Utilization per Boiling Time

  +   :00  :01  :02  :03  :04  :05  :06  :07  :08  :09

:00  .051 .052 .053 .054 .056 .057 .059 .061 .062 .065

:10  .067 .070 .072 .075 .079 .082 .086 .090 .095 .100

:20  .105 .110 .116 .122 .128 .135 .142 .149 .156 .164

:30  .171 .179 .186 .194 .201 .209 .216 .223 .230 .236

:40  .242 .248 .254 .259 .264 .269 .273 .277 .281 .285

:50  .288 .291 .294 .296 .298 .300 .302 .304 .306 .307

:60  .308 .309 .310 .311 .312 .313 .314 .314 .315 .315

___________________________________________________________________________

Have Fun!

 -Alan (Overkill) Edwards

 .------------------------------------.  To find the sacred river Alph

| Alan Edwards: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov |  To walk the caves of ice

|     or: alan-edwards@llnl.gov      |  Oh, I will dine on honeydew

`------------------------------------'  And drink the milk of Paradise

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1072, 02/08/93

*************************************

-------


Calculating IBU's with the Utilization Function

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 09:22:27 PST

From: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards)

Subject: Calculating IBU's with the Utilization Function

Here's an example of how to use the hop utilization function in my previous

article, using the calculations in Jackie Rager's Zymurgy article:

UTILIZATION = 18.109069 + 13.862039 * hyptan[(MINUTES - 31.322749) / 18.267743]

    (Of course, you can drop a lot of those significant figures.)

    If the gravity of the boil exceeds 1.050:

ADJUSTMENT = (BOIL_GRAVITY - 1.050) / 0.2

    otherwise,

ADJUSTMENT = 0

IBU_PER_OZ  = UTILIZATION * ALPHA * 74.62 / (VOLUME * (1 + ADJUSTMENT));

    ALPHA is the percent alpha acids (eg. 5.2--don't devide by 100)

    VOLUME is the final number of gallons in the batch (usually 5).

    To calculate IBU's if you know the number of ounces of hops to be used:

IBU = OUNCES * IBU_PER_OZ

    To predict the number of ounces needed to hit a targed IBU:

OUNCES = IBU / IBU_PER_OZ

I've packaged those formulae into a nifty calculator for those of you

who are on a Unix machine, or a PC that has Perl installed.  (If there

is a demand, I can convert it to a C-shell script or a C program.)

It will calculate IBU's (International Bittering Units), given only:

 - amount of hops

 - alpha acid rating

 - length of boil

 - gravity of boil (if over 1.050)

It basically does what that mess of calculations in the Zymurgy article

does (but you don't have to think about it).  It will also do the

inverse--return the amount of hops required to reach a target IBU level.

If I typed:

ibu 1.5 8 45

The output would be:

1.50 ounces of hops with 8.0% alpha acid, boiled for 45 minutes

will produce 48.2 IBU's.

In the "inverse" mode:

ibu -i 49 8 60

would produce this output:

1.33 ounces of hops with 8.0% alpha acid, boiled for 60 minutes

will be required to produce 49.0 IBU's.

Here's the Perl script (called "ibu"):

___________________________________________________________________________

#!/usr/bin/perl

require "getopts.pl";

# set option variable defaults

$boil_gravity = 1.050;

$volume       = 5;

# read command line

if ((!&Getopts('iv:g:')) || ($#ARGV != 2))

  [

   printf STDERR qq/

Usage:

  ibu [-v volume] [-g boil_gravity] ounces percent_alpha minutes

      -v  Final volume in gallons.  The default is 5.

      -g  Gravity of boil if over 1.050.

or

  ibu -i [-v volume] [-g boil_gravity] target_ibu percent_alpha minutes

      -i  Inverse.  Return number of ounces required to hit target IBU's.

Example:

  ibu -g 1.082 1.5 8.3 30

/;

  exit 1;

  ]

$inverse       = $opt_i;

$boil_gravity  = $opt_g if ($opt_g);

$volume        = $opt_v if ($opt_v);

$ounces        = $ARGV[0];

$ibu           = $ARGV[0];

$alpha         = $ARGV[1];

$minutes       = $ARGV[2];

if ($boil_gravity > 1.050)

  [$adjustment = ($boil_gravity - 1.050) / 0.2;]

else

  [$adjustment = 0;]

# calculate utilization from exponential equivalent of hyperbolic tangent

$exp         = ($minutes - 31.322749) / 18.267743;

$utilization = 0.18109069 + 0.13862039

             * (exp($exp) - exp(-$exp)) / (exp($exp) + exp(-$exp));

$ibu_per_oz  = $utilization * $alpha * 74.62 / ($volume * (1 + $adjustment));

unless ($inverse)

  [$ibu = $ounces * $ibu_per_oz;]

else

  [$ounces = $ibu / $ibu_per_oz;]

printf("%.2f ounces of hops with %.1f%% alpha acid, boiled for %d minutes",

       $ounces, $alpha, $minutes);

printf(" in %.3f wort", $boil_gravity) if ($opt_g);

printf("/nwill");

printf(" be required to") if ($inverse);

printf(" produce %.1f IBU's./n", $ibu);

____________________________________________________________________________

Have Fun!

 -Alan (Overkill) Edwards

 .------------------------------------.  A thousand years have come and gone

| Alan Edwards: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov |  But Time has passed me by

|     or: alan-edwards@llnl.gov      |  Stars stopped in the sky

`------------------------------------'  Frozen in an everlasting view

------------------------------


Extract and Proud

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 11:40:09 cdt

From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: Extract and Proud

As one who has gotten a great deal of information out of HBD, and who finds

it a great way to forget about work for twenty minutes a day, I really hate

it when it degenerates into silly stuff like Pub-Info-Request-Wars and

Extract-vs.-Grain wars.

PLEASE LET'S NOT LET THIS GET OUT OF HAND, PEOPLE!

I have thought about doing the all-grain route, but frankly my present

financial condition prevents me from investing in the additional equipment,

and the fact that I have three children under the age of six lurking around

my house makes the extra time involved impractical for me.  I also suspect

that if I didn't know all-grain methods were available to the homebrewer, I

would continue to drink my extract brews in complete bliss (o.k., and

ignorance too).  Most of us extracters have very good reasons for staying

with our present methods.

My inquiries regarding extract brewing have always been received gracefully

and enthusiastically by readers of the HBD.  I would say that if there really

ARE extract brewers who are intimidated by the level of discussion by all-

grainers, yeast-culturers, etc., they should do as I have done: ask anyway!

It's your right.  If someone actually does respond "snobbishly," then flame

the idiot by private e-mail and go on asking your questions publicly.

Relax, don't worry -- have an extract brew.

Jonathan

------------------------------


RE: soda kegs on tap

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 12:43:47 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: soda kegs on tap

Hi All,

   From HBD #1071:

>Anybody have advice on how (and how long) to keep soda kegs on tap? I have

>not tried it for more than about two weeks, and there was a noticable

>change in the beer at the end. I did not take stringent measures against

>leaks, so I presume the deterioration was due to air getting into the keg.

   I'd say your presumption is probably correct.  I've kept beers in soda

kegs for over two months with absolutely no ill effects, the last pint tastes

as good or better than the first.  Sealed in a keg at a constant 45F,

protected from heat, light and air, beer should keep for quite some time,

certainly longer than two weeks.

   The poster didn't mention whether or not the kegs were kept refridgerated,

but I'm not sure this is a critical point.  Keeping them in a reasonably cool

place like a basement should be OK.  I believe the problem is the kegs were

not well sealed, allowing air to get in.

   Try keeping a maintainence pressure of 12-15 psi on the keg when not

dispensing.  This will help provide a tighter seal along the large O-ring.

Also, disconnect the CO2 tank and the cobra tap when not in use.  Leaving the

hose barbs installed keeps the check valves in the fitting open.  The only

remaining seal is the small rubber gasket between the hose barb and the

fitting, which I would not trust to keep the keg airtight over an

extended period.

                                   Cheers,

                                     Jim

------------------------------


Hops Cultivation

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 09:57:57-080

From: brian@bio.cor2.epa.gov (Brian Spence)

Subject: Hops Cultivation

Short time listener, first time caller. When my spouse and I purchased

our home, we had the good fortune of inheriting a rather prolific hops

plant. Now that I've begun brewing, the plant is no longer just and

attractive ornamental, but offers practical benefits as well.

The Problem: I have no idea as to what variety these hops might be. We

live in the infamous Willamette Valley, so I at least have the obvious

first guess.  Does anyone out there know of a good reference book that

would allow me to key out this beast. Perhaps a "Peterson's Field

Guide to Hops and Grains."

Other Questions: Papazian suggests that the soil for growing hops should

be loamy and kept continually moist during the growing season. We have

excruciatingly high clay content in our soils and  have never watered at all.

Nevertheless the plant has done quite well. Will the quality of the

hops be affected by my lack of care? Or should I follow the adage "If

it ain't broke, don't fix it?"  Also, how much will AAU vary with time

of harvest, amount of watering, etc.  And lastly, is there any moderately

low-tech way of determining AAU of homegrown hops?

A good reference book on this subject would satisfy my needs, should you

not wish to clutter the e-waves.

Thanks in advance.  Spence.

------------------------------


Wet Dream, FAQ

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 08:56 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Wet Dream, FAQ

 >From: Paul Matulonis <paulm@sci.ccny.cuny.edu>

 >Subject: WL media (extracted from the Difco Manual)

 >Bacto WL Differential Medium has the same formula as Bacto WL

 Nutrient Medium, with the addition of 0.004 g of Actidione per

 liter. This inhibits the development of yeasts without

 interfering with the development of bacteria generally

 encountered in beers.

 A most enlightening article.  However, if this is in response to the

 discussion about a medium that rejects or encourages "wild yeast", it seems

 to confirm my opinion that such a medium is a wet dream.

 The two described here simply control yeast and/or bacteria.

 >From: Chris McDermott <mcdermott@draper.com>

 >Subject: FAQ/RFC on Recirculation.

 >Since many topics come up in cyclical manner it would be nice if they could

 be answered in a FAQ format.  And since some topics have more than one

 accepted answer the FAQs should try to show all sides of an issue.

 A couple of points here.  Many of us barely literate computer users have no

 idea of how to access a FAQ, if indeed it is something we can get at will.

 Compuserve stores just about everything of any value in library files that

 are easily accessible but cost an arm and a leg to retrieve or even find out

 what's there.  I have not read the header lately, but if such a things exists

 for HBD readers, instructions on accessing it should be part of the HBD

 header and in terms even I can understand.

 .....

 >Recirculation is a practice employed in the lautering of mashed grains where

 the turbid sweet wort is collected, as it is runoff, and recirculated through

 the grain bed until the runoff becomes clear.

 >Please consider this FAQ as a kind of HbD Request For Comment (RFC).  Please

 feel free to make any additions or corrections.

 My comment is that there exists a commercially available product for mashing

 (name and availibity upon request) that runs clear in something less than one

 cup and the whole discussion becomes academic.

 .........

 Having said that, the RFC aspect for a FAQ library is important and seems to

 be lacking in the current system.  For example, I have badgered the person

 who maintains the FAQ to include videos in his list of sources and the

 request has been ignored for several years.

 >From: Chuck Coronella <CORONELLRJDS@CHE.UTAH.EDU>

 >Subject: A survey of the readership

 >I wonder how many questions have not even been asked because the author is

 afraid of being labelled "not a REAL brewer" by more advanced brewers.

 (Remember that discussion a while back about _real_ brewers?)

 How could I forget?  I suppose my more objective posting yesterday will also

 be interpreted by some as intimidation but that was not my intent.

 I simply think it's time to call a spade, a spade and get on with brewing.

 How one reacts to someone else's opinions, views and statements is his own

 responsibility.  If one chooses to run away because some windbag uses big

 words, I guess that's life.

 I would like to point out that before stumbling upon the HBD, I had spent

 over twenty years (off and on) making barely drinkable (and mostly not)

 rubbish.  And now look at me... the World's Greatest Brewer!  If I can glean

 what is needed out of this forum, so can anyone else and I have little

 sympathy for people who claim to be intimidated.

 >I suspect that the readership consists of more beginners than are

 represented by the questions posed in the HBD.  And I think that, if

 beginners realized that they make up a substantial part of the HBD community,

 they would be more likely to pose "lower level" questions, and therefore,

 improve their comprehension and brewing.

 That is a good point but I think it is already happening at a reasonable

 level.  Compuserve deals with this problem by dividing the forum into Basic

 and Tehnical message groups but that can't be done on the Digest so one just

 has to wade through the stuff they are not interested in but fortunately it's

 "free" here.  Someone could start up a beginners' digest but I think it would

 be counter-productive.

 I don't doubt that some people may be intimidated but there are enough that

 are not, to get out the questions and keep the discussions going.

 Back to spades.... "real brewers" was a poor choice of words and perhaps

 trying to come up with a more appropriate one will still offend some but

 pushing it under the rug doesn't help either.

 I still contend that mashing whole grains is another step up the ladder to

 becoming the "complete brewer".  If many/most opt out, so be it.  We opt out

 of many steps in the process but there is no reason to get paranoid about any

 particular one of them.  Nor is there any reason to criticize those who

 crusade for or against, any or all of them.

 >From: Richard Cox <rcox@hsc.usc.edu>

 >Subject: Dry Malt Extract vs. Syrup Malt Extract

 >One of my homebrew suppliers strongly maintains that dry malt

 extract provides better flavor and less extract "tang" than the

 syrup variety.  He has encouraged me to use all DME in my recipes

 whenever possible.

 I can't offer anything other than intuitive reasoning.  Wort is converted to

 extract by evaporating the water.  In the case of dry extract almost all and

 in the case of liquid much less.  Is seems that whatever they do to the wort

 to get rid of the water has nothing to do with what we do to wort to make

 beer and therefore, less is better.

 js

------------------------------


Bud % alcohol / Ridding oil from plastics

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 11:26:18 -0700

From: colvin@hayduke.cs.utah.edu (Tom Colvin)

Subject: Bud % alcohol / Ridding oil from plastics

After reading the posts of Ulick Stafford and Bill Szymczak, I realized

that Bud % alcohol must vary greatly from region to region even in the US.

In this "wonderful" state of Utah it is law that beer exceeding 3.2%

alcohol by volume must be sold in liquor stores.  However, Bud is available

in any grocery store around here.

Our brewing club recently brewed a beer with chocolate in it.  Does anyone

have any idea on cleaning the oil out of the plastic tubing and buckets

easily?  We were trying to avoid using dish washing detergent since they

normally leave behind stuff for anti-spotting and who knows what else.  We

also were trying to avoid using a lot of water since we going through a

major drought in the area.

 thanks for any advice in advance,

 Tom Colvin

 colvin@cs.utah.edu

------------------------------


Re: chimay yeast/recipe idea

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 10:49:46 PST

From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)

Subject: Re: chimay yeast/recipe idea

> From tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

>

> At this point, you have a choice.  You can either brew

> a beer and pitch your starter culture, or you can plate out the

> yeast, isolate a single cell, build it up, and then brew the beer.

I've been absent for a while, so I don't know what the last time was

that this was discussed.

The yeast in Chimay is not a single strain.  It is either 3 or 5.  I

forget which, but I think it is 3.  If you plate it and isolate a

single cell for building a culture, you will only get one of the

three.

Of course, you also avoid any other nasties that snuck into the bottle

in small numbers.

Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,

lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate

------------------------------


Recirculating Infusion Mashing System (RIMS)

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 14:28:39 EST

From: umehara@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL (M. Umehara)

Subject: Recirculating Infusion Mashing System (RIMS)

        Thanks for your response to my RIMS questions on the HBD.  I have

decided to build one and have several more questions for you.

 - What is your method for sparging?

 - What are your approximate flow rates during the different stages?

 - How quickly does your heater cycle on and off?

 - Which is higher, the liquid level or the grain level and should it

  matter?

 - Where does the diffuser go?  Does it float on top of the grain/wort?

        I really appreciate any help I can get.  I'm a gadget freak, but

unfortunately a klutz.

Mike

umehara@NADC.NAVY.MIL

------------------------------


Re: All-grain Snobs

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 11:05:15 PST

From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)

Subject: Re: All-grain Snobs

>  Keeping in mind that lots of people stick with extract because they are lazy,

>  paranoid or il-informed

[etc., deleted]

>  Having said that, I suggest it is the extract brewers' insecurity,

>  sensitivity and paranoia that creates the image that all-grain brewers are

>  snobs.

Gee,  Jack.  It's nice to know that I use extract because I am lazy

(partially true) and that I read your posting as arrogant and snobbish

because I am insecure.  I would otherwise have thought it was because

you post like the proverbial bull in a china shop.

I'd also like to thank you for not charging me $100/hour for this

analysis.

Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,

lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate

------------------------------


Re: Killian's Irish Red

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 11:23:10 PST

From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)

Subject: Re: Killian's Irish Red

> Just a clarification on which category Killian's falls into - the last time

> I had one(last night) I read the label and it says that it is a "LAGER".

>

> I, too, was suprised as I thought that it was an ale also.

>

> Craig Vandeventer

It _was_ an ale.  When Coors started making it (1978?) it was an ale.

Somewhere along the way, they started making the lager.

When I first was drinking it ~1986, it was an ale and I liked it.  I

stopped buying it for a while (shifting to Bass), and when I bought it

again, I didn't like it much.  I later noticed that it was (in tiny

print) "lager" now.

Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,

lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate

------------------------------


Re: How Long Is Too Long

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 15:06:32 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: Re: How Long Is Too Long

>From: pointon@m2c.org (Joel Pointon@staff)

>Greetings fellow brewers.  Being a fairly new convert to HB, I

>have a question that I realize most of you WON'T be able to relate to.

>Although I enjoy my HB, I'm not a big drinker, so subsequently I

>have a stockpile building up of my brewing efforts.  The beer cellar

>presently contains the following extract brewed product: Porter,

>(3 months), Pilsner (2 months) and English Bitter (1 month old).

>The cellar is approximately 55 degrees F at this time of year and

>will increase to about 65 by the beginning of summer.  How long

>can one expect to keep each of these before the flavor falls off?

Well, there are at least some of us out there who don't drink much beer.  I

probably drink about 2 or 3 beers a week.  There are at least 12 cases of

homebrew in my basement.

Like yours, my basement doesn't get below 50F during the winter nor much

above 60F or so in the summer.  Also, I store all my beer in cardboard

boxes with covers, so there is no exposure to light.

I brought a three-year-old holiday ale to a December homebrewer meeting.

It had been seriously overhopped originally and now tasted like an OK ale--

none of the spice character was left, and only a normal amount of hop

bitterness could be detected.  It wasn't oxidized, either.

I recently uncovered a two-year-old raspberry ale six pack.  Figured it

would have none of the overpowering raspberry aroma and flavor of the

original brew.  Boy, was I wrong!  Still smelled and tasted great!  I

*would* say that it was past it's prime, though.

For that matter, I still have some 1990 Anchor holiday ale down there and

it is starting to get a little worse but is still just fine.

What general rules or conlusions do I have?

1) Most beers will keep fine for at least a year under such conditions.

   Many will keep for two or three just fine.

2) Invite friends over to help you drink it if you like to brew as much as

   I do.  Everyone is happy this way.

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


Re: wine making

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 15:16:33 EST

From: kstiles@aluxpo.att.com

Subject: Re: wine making

in HOMEBREW Digest #1071 connell@vax.cord.edu asks:

> I have noted with curiosity that ... there is almost no discussion

> of homemade wines ...  Is wine making discussed here so seldom

> because the process is uninterestingly straightforward or because

> the results are so inferior to commercial wines or both?

 The charters of the Digest and rec.crafts.brewing exclude wine

making for some reason.  As both brewer and wine maker, I will risk

flamage to comment here on wine making.  As far as wine kits go, I

can't comment; I tend to avoid anything that looks like a recipe.  I

don't see why you can't make a decent wine from kits, though.  I make

fruit wines, which can't really be compared to commercial (grape)

wines.  For example, I tend to like dry wines ("Hey, Stiles, you

call this good wine?  I call it gagging in the Sahara."), but fruit

wines generally exhibit their fruit character better if they have

some residual sweetness.

 Wine making skills/equipment overlap considerably with those

of brewing, but there are differences.  Also, the time scale is a lot

different (I don't have TIME for instant gratification, dammit!).

Get a good book on wine making.  A browse through the library is a

good start.

ObBrewing:  No takers on my question about flavor/aroma properties

of Chinook hops, huh?  Do any commercial brews use them?

Kevin Stiles

------------------------------


Spiced Ale

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 14:52:46 cdt

From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: Spiced Ale

Now, here's a question that could be answered by extract brewers and all

grain brewers alike.

There was a *thin* thread (not quite overwhelmed by all the philosophizing

and speculation about snobbishnes) recently about spiced ales.

Part of the discussion prompts me to wonder: has anyone tried BOTH the

technique of adding whole spices at some point to the boil AND adding

powdered spices at the end of the boil?  (Obviously, in different batches.)

I made my first spiced ale this year and boiled orange zest, ginger root,

cinnamon sticks and whole cloves for about the last thirty minutes.  It has a

bit more bite than I intended, although the beer does taste quite good.  I am

wondering whether I boiled the stuff too long and whether powdered spices

at the end of the boil would produce a "kinder, gentler" brew.

If anyone has a response of general interest, please post.  I would also be

happy to summarize and post e-mail responses.

Not Worrying, and Having a Spiced Extract Ale With a Little Too Much Bite,

Jonathan

------------------------------


Leaf Hops?

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 16:27:42 EST

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Leaf Hops?

I have to agree about the freshness and general wonderfullness of hops

plugs.  I bought some recently (imported by Crosby & Baker, according

to the package) at Brew 'N' Grow (same as Alternative Garden Supply,

but in Detroit instead of Chicago).  I made a Bock with Hallertau & a

little Saaz.  What an aroma!  This was the first time I really

understood what is meant by the "spicy" aroma of Saaz.  Wow!

And the hops looked beautiful after I drained the wort.  Full cones

that half-filled my brewpot.

The beer is still lagering, so I can't report on the taste, yet.

=Spencer W. Thomas   |  Info Tech and Networking, B1911 CFOB, 0704

   "Genome Informatician" |  Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu |  313-764-8065, FAX 313-764-4133

------------------------------


BAA

Date:    Fri, 5 Feb 1993 15:44:38 -0600 (CST)

From: STOREY@fender.msfc.nasa.gov (BadAssAstronomer)

Subject: BAA

    Hi yall

    Well well well! There are quite a few of you out there with

    opinions on Beer Across America. I tried to reply to each of you

    to thank you for your time in replying to my query. But jeez, I

    got better response than I ever anticipated. So, I'll waste

    everyone's bandwidth and just do a global THANKS. :)

    I just gotta be careful what I ask for, I just might get it ;)

    I think I'm gonna join this thing, at least for a little while.

    Spencer had a good suggestion about "sharing" the cost. I may do

    that with a friend or 2 to help defray some of the expense. But

    we-uns here in the southland don't got much other choice. Maybe

    some day.

    Oh yeah, Michael G., thanks for the fax, I guess that means you're

    my sponsor. Only one more for a free 6er :):) Think maybe you

    could send ME a bottle? :)

    scott

------------------------------


Diacetyl ?

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 17:38:06 EST

From: Lee Menegon <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

Subject: Diacetyl ?

I have recently begun brewing all grain batches, 5 or 6.  A constant

comment about my beers is that they contain noticable levels of

diacetyl.  I have done some research in the Zymurgy trouble shooting

issue and in Miller's CHOB and found:

1) Diacetyl is a by product of the early stage of fermentation when

oxygen is available to the yeast.

2) Its level of production is directly related to wort temperature,

i.e. warmer = more diacetyl.

3)Yeast will eventually reduce the diacetyl in the later stages of

fermentation.

I discussed my brewing process with an experienced all grain brewer

who too was having this problem with his beers.  We decide that since

the yeast strains we were using 1056 and 1098 are not noted for high

levels of diacetyl in their flavor profile that the following could

be flaws in our brewing process:

1) Pitching into wort that was much warmer than the target fermentation

temperature.  We did this to reduce lag time.

2) Adding finings immediatley after racking to the secondary.  We did

this to induce CO2 generation to purge the head space.  This would cause

the yeast to prematurely fall out of suspension thus reducing the

quantity and the time in which the yeast was reducing diacetyl.

3) Since we artifically carbonate our beer in soda kegs we would not

bolster the yeast population which could reduce diacetyl in the

conditioning phase.

What besides pitching to wort at fermentation temperatue and finning after

the yeast has settled or not at all what can we do to reduce the production

of diacetyl and increase its reduction later?  I still plan to artificially

carbonate it seems to make for clearer beer and I can drink it sooner, 3

days after kegging.

What can I do to produce high levels of diacetyl and minimize its reduction

if I want to brew something with a Samuel Smith profile?  Is a warm

ferment with a yeast strain noted for diacetyl production and fining

immediatley after primary fermentation the way to go ?

- --

------------------------------


Re: dry VS syrup extract

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 15:48 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: dry VS syrup extract

Richard writes:

>One of my homebrew suppliers strongly maintains that dry malt

>extract provides better flavor and less extract "tang" than the

>syrup variety.  He has encouraged me to use all DME in my recipes

>whenever possible.

I know that the two most popular dry malt extracts, Munton & Fison

and Laaglander, are both made from 100% malt (note that the Laaglander

is a bit less fermentable, so use that to your advantage).  Many

syrups contain all kinds of other sugars, like corn and even sucrose.

I certainly would not want to simply dismiss all syrups -- there are

a great many that appear to be of very high quality.  I've narrowed

my use of extracts to a few that I feel are good (Northwestern, Munton

& Fison, John Bull, Alexander's, Coopers, Ireks and a few others)

and my extract batches have been par with my (and other's) all-grain

batches.

>I'm too new to homebrewing to have an objective opinion on this,

>although my last batch -- using all DME -- does taste *much*

>better than my first, which was made with syrup extract.  There

>may have been other factors at work in that case, though.  I have

>wondered whether or not the syrup cans impart any detectable

>metal taste to the extract.

I have not noticed this.

>Does anyone have any advice?

Yes, to everyone, not just Richard:

Taste your homebrew supplier's homebrewed beers -- if they are worse

than yours, don't take their advice.

Al.

------------------------------


Re: skimming/blowoff/HSA

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 16:05 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: skimming/blowoff/HSA

Jack writes:

> Another example of his misinformation is on page 53, also underscored and

> burnt into my early data base on brewing.

>

> "If you look into the fermenter, you will see a rich foamy head bubbling on

> top.  This head is composed mainly of resins from the hops, which are forced

> up ty the carbon dioxide bubbles.  Some books advocate skimming off the head

> but this should never be done because it contains all the oils and resins

> that will give the beer its body, aroma and characteristic  beer taste."

>

> Certainly, there is a legitimate debate on the importance of skimming the

> foam but no one but Beagle argues the merits of leaving it there.

I've done empirical analysis of two batches of beer split into blowoff and

non-blowoff (non-skimming, also) sub-batches.  Beagle is partly right about

the hop resins, but is dead wrong in saying that:

1. *all* of them are in the foam, and

2. the oils and resins give the beer its body.

> >From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

> >Subject: re: reusing yeast & open fermenters

>

> >I am most likely in the minority of homebrewers in that I am currently

> utilizing open fermentation techniques.

>

> You're in good company.  The only thing you need to do to complete your joy

> is to add a spigot on the bottom so you can take QC samples on a regular

> basis to determine how it is progressing before sending it to the secondary.

>

> I find that for some strange reason, the primary fermentation seems to take

> much longer this way and I always seem to come up about a half a gallon

> short:)

>

> I am sure you have also figured out how simple it is to sterilize with a bit

> of water boiling in the bottom.

>

> I also suspect that you, like the rest of the enlightened ones, simply yawn

> at all the discussions about "blow-off" tubes and related mess.

Part of the result of my blowoff/non-blowoff experiments was to determine that

I may lose some hop bitterness and a bit of hop flavor by using blowoff, but

I don't really want a lot most of what gets blown-off in my beer.  The

blowoff sub-batch was smoother, cleaner, less astringent and a bit less

bitter (note that I'm not a lupulophobe -- my last IPA had 80 IBU and I

thought it was a bit underhopped).  I urge you to try the blowoff method

for a beer or two and compare.

> >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

> >Subject: Spraying the grist

>

> >Both Jim and Donald mentioned the spraying of water on the grist

> as it enters the mash tun.  I suspect that this has the addional

> benefit of reducing grain dust which is explosive.

>

> I suspect that it might have a negative effect if Fix's hypothesis on HSA is

> correct.  What say George?

Oops.  I think there's some miscommunication here, Jack -- the mash isn't

hot at this time so Hot-side Aeration (HSA) is not an issue.

Al.

------------------------------


Digest Submission

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 19:36:50 -0800

From: Tom Clark <tclark@apple.com>

Subject: Digest Submission

This is being submitted for its author: Gary Henry, ghenry@apple.com

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Feb. 3, 1993

John Harvard Brew House

33 Dunster Street

Cambridge, MA 02138

617-868-3585

Timothy Morse Mark Palmer  Ray Kall

Master Brewer Manager and tour guide Bartender, Waiter, Homebrewer

The first impression of this place might be oops I've stumbled into Cheers. It's

down stairs under the THE GARAGE building at 33 Dunster Street, Just a half

block from Harvard Square and one block East of J.F. Kennedy Dr. It used to be a

restaurant called 33 Dunster Street.

The first thing you notice is the long bar with the stainless steal serving

tanks enclosed in glass behind it. The bar has three sets of four towers, each

having two taps. One hand pulled pump for either the casked Stout or the J.H.

Pale Ale. They seemed to alternate between the two brews. Lots of back lit

stained glass against the back wall which was left in place from when it was 33 Dunster Street.

At the same end of the building and enclose behind the glass is a big copper

mash-tun and fermentor from The Pub Brewing Company.

They get their pre-crushed malt from England and Hops from California,

mashing with 700 pound of malt at 165 degrees. Gypsum is added to

Cambridge's soft water. Extract is generally 430 gallons. The wort is counterflo

chilled and then fermented for three to five days.  The secondary is then racked

to stainless steal cellar tanks for 10 to 21 days at 50 degrees. Some of their

ales are dry hopped with whole hops.  When aging is done they drop the temp to

36 degrees and run it through a DE filter and then to the serving tanks behind

the bar. They use Krausing for carbonation and no CO2. They brew 14 barrels

every three days.

The dining area is large and comfortable. I first arrived there Sat. night at

11pm and the place was so packed I had to squeeze into the hostess stand to get

a Nut Brown Ale. The next morning I came back for Sunday brunch. It was great! I

had an Omelet that was stuffed with made-on-the-premise pork sausage in a BBQ

sauce and a little jack cheese. Served with home fries that were quartered new

potatoes saut ed in a garlic & onion sauce. Also served was a basket of baked

goods from a local bakery, hot and wrapped in linen with a generous scoop of

raspberry jam.

This brew house started nine months ago and has only been open about six

months. Timothy Morse, Master Brewer who started out at Anchor Brewing,

then went to Hope, WI and on to Commonwealth Brewing before starting at John

Harvard's Brew House, has yet to pour his own brew here. It's been done under

contract at Massachusetts Bay Brewing (Harpoon) due to hassles with the city of

Cambridge over the  zoning. Apparently Cambridge viewed brewing as a fire

hazard. Tim finally got to do his first brew Sat. Jan. 30,1993.

O-K now for the good stuff.  Ray Kall the bartender, who is also a home brewer

was very helpful, informative and friendly. In fact the entire staff here is

well trained and friendly. He said that once Tim gets going with his own brew

there should be some improvements. He hopes to brew traditional British

(Burton on Trent) style.

I had a five brew sampler.

1. Was a nut brown ale:   Color was very good. I didn't get much aroma. It was

drinkable but not exceptional. Not a Samuel Smith by any means.

2. Was a Highland Ale-a scotch:  My first taste of Scotch Ale so I can't comment

other that the FG (final gravity) seemed high but maybe normal for the style?

3. Was NEW TOWN LIGHT ALE:  Light golden color. Well carbonated. Good

Fuggles hopping. My wife would love this one.

4. Was JOHN HARVARD'S PALE ALE:  Nice copper color and hoppy. Served

either 'cold draught style' or 'cask conditioned and hand pulled' in the British

manner and the Brew House's biggest seller. Had a nice sweet aftertaste.

5. Was an IRISH EXPORT STOUT:  This also was poured in two ways. Draft and

cask. The cask was hand pulled and served warmer and less carbonated. Both

were dark, malty, with a rich roasted flavor.  True to style. A full bodied, but

less bitter version of the famous Dublin Ale. This was my favorite.

The bill of fare for this very memorable Sunday brunch and the five brew

sampler was $12.50. I went back one more time for dinner and the food was

again excellent. I highly recommend the John Harvard Brew House.

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- ------

Thanks,

Tom Clark

tclark@apple.com

- ------

------------------------------


culturing Paulaner yeast

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 22:49:24 PST

From: ng570@andechs.pnl.gov

Subject: culturing Paulaner yeast

In #1070 Greg Wolodkin writes about perhaps having problems culturing

yeast from the dregs of a bottle of Paulaner Hefe-Weizen.  According

to Eric Warner's wheat beer book, the Paulaner Weizen that is shipped

overseas is first pasteurized! I doubt that this is very good for

the bottling yeast. Maybe Spaten is a better bet, but I haven't seen

it around my area.

good luck!

Kirk Peterson

------------------------------


Crushed grain, etc.

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 22:00:19 EDT

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: Crushed grain, etc.

Danny says:

> Wasn't it Rob B. who had some remarks about all-grain snobs?  Well said,

> Rob!  I recently made the switch to all-grain -- I will admit that I was

> always a bit apologetic about being an extract brewer.

The insight into the brewing process and the complete flexibility

in recipe formulation are what do it for me.  You can bake fine cake

from mixes and buy top-notch frozen puff pastry, but until you make

your own from scratch you are not fully educated.  Similarly, a complete

education in homebrewing must include lots of all-grain beer ....

> The best situation is for extract brewers to be able to dabble in all grain

> without purchasing the equipment (which may or may not cost a fortune).

Really, it's not too expensive.  The beer is much cheaper (1/2 or less),

too.  I have spent much more on books and things like autoclaves and

culture tubes than I have on the equipment just needed to make all-grain

brews.  All you must have is a big pot (even the 20 qt Revereware

is ok, though a little small) and a lautering system.  <$100.

> I personally believe working with an experienced person is the best way

> to manage all aspects of brewing though.

Don't be shy.  There is no need to brew from extract before working

with all grain.  When you get down to it, the process *is* forgiving.

The only thing it isn't is, er, quick.

 ..

> >The cellar is approximately 55 degrees F at this time of year and

> >will increase to about 65 by the beginning of summer.  How long

> >can one expect to keep each of these before the flavor falls off?

At that temperature, well-made pale or amber beer will keep at least

a year.  Two or three, or more, wouldn't surprise me.  I don't recall

the last time I had a staled pale or amber brew, and I tend to keep

a few of almost every batch for 6-18 months.  Dark beers will eventually

start to stale quite suddenly.

Room temperature storage is OK for most homebrew, too.  Again, I've

kept bottles for over a year at room temperature with no problems.

 ...

Jack says:

>  Keeping in mind that lots of people stick with extract because they are lazy,

>  paranoid or il-informed [...], it is worth

>  noting that some extract beers are excellent beers, so I am told.

There weren't many extract-based first place winners in the Nationals

this year, but they keep on coming ....

>  Having said that, I suggest it is the extract brewers' insecurity,

>  sensitivity and paranoia that creates the image that all-grain brewers are

>  snobs.

Jack, Jack, Jack!  It's the fact that some of us all-grain brewers

ARE elitist snobs with a superiority complex.  Furthermore, we know

we are, and we love it.  We demonstrate our affluent, care-free lifestyle

by spending 4-8 hours tending a process that saves us all of $10 per

2 cases of heer.  We buy grain by the 50lb/25kg sack and smile while

grunting past the open-mouthed folks carrying 1lb bags of crystal malt.

The process is longer and harder and more rewarding TO US.  I really

don't believe, though, that it is much more likely to produce a prize-

winning beer than extract brewing is in the hands of someone sufficiently

skilled ... or lucky.

I personally wouldn't have it any other way.  :-)  :-)

 ...

connell says:

> I have never read about

> or experimented with homemade wines, but I have the idea that people

> just dump concentrate and water in a carboy and add yeast.

Oh, my.  <asbestos clothing at ready>

 ....

And finally, Jim Bayer says:

> I'm just beginning to mash and I have a question about the practical shelf

> life of CRUSHED grain.

> [...] If for some reason all of my ingrediants arrive for brewin'

> on Saturday but something happens and I can't get to it, how long can I store

> the grain and still have fresh grain and how should I store it?

A very long time.  So long as nothing is moving around inside it,

it is still OK.  I've heard people say it goes stale after a while,

but I've not noticed this in some fairly old precrushed grain I've

gotten from a friend.

It WILL pick up moisture from the environment if the humidity is high

enough.  I think that this is responsible for the apparent loss of

yield seen by brewers who have let crushed grain sit for a day or

two.  The effect is on the order of 10%.

(Now, I once made a fine stout from a grain bill that accidentally

included a pound of flaked barley infested with weevils.  So even

a few bugs won't hurt you.)

> So far someone told me to freeze it, but that sounds wrong to me.

Works fine.

> BTW, I'm thinking of weeks for storage, not days.  I know it's best if I don't

> have to store the grain, but I like to have my bases covered.

Use a reasonably airtight enclosure (tub or tightly folded bag is

fine) and everything will work out swell.

================O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis================

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1993 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------


Toasted Flaked Barley

Date: Sat, 6 Feb 93 11:02 CST

From: akcs.wally@vpnet.chi.il.us (John Walaszek)

Subject: Toasted Flaked Barley

I have recently purchased some toasted flaked barley and intend to use

about 4-6 ounces in a pale ale infusion mash. Has anybody used this

grain.  I am concerned that it might affect clarity.  I also wonder

if it should be run through the grain mill.  It really doesn't look

like flaked barley it looks more like flattened barley that's been

toasted.  Any input would be helpful. Thanks.

Wally

------------------------------


Corona flour stones

Date: Sun, 7 Feb 93 09:53 CST

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: Corona flour stones

I'm looking for the stone plate attachments for the Corona mill.  I wish

to grind some flour.  Any sources?  Thanks in advance.

------------------------------


PROTECT FROM FROST ?

Date:         Sun, 07 Feb 93 14:50:06 EST

From: John Pedlow <TKSJOHN@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>

Subject:      PROTECT FROM FROST ?

I'm a newcomer to this group; an apology if this has been covered.

As I was about to enjoy a Guinness Stout last evening I noticed

verbage accross the top of the case: PROTECT FROM FROST.  Why does

it say such a thing?  What does it mean?  Does it alter the brew

in some fashion if the temperature gets too low?  Thanks to whoever

is kind enough to enlighten me.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1073, 02/09/93

*************************************

-------


A New Journal

Date:      Sun, 07 Feb 93 11:31:50 PST

From: Martin Lodahl <gueuze!mal@PacBell.COM>

Subject:   A New Journal

If you read the Celebrator this may be old news to you, but a new

magazine devoted to the technical side of homebrewing, pub-brewing

or microbrewing is about to make its debut.  Called "Brewing Techniques",

it will break new ground in homebrewing (as far as I know) by being

an honest-to-goodness "peer review" journal.  The Editorial Advisory

Board (the peers who do the reviewing) consists of Patrick Baker, Byron

Burch, Fred Eckhardt, Teri Fahrendorf, George Fix, Terry Foster,

Mary Anne Gruber, Dave Miller, Greg Noonan, David Ryder and Bill

Siebel.  Impressive!  The clear wort of usable brewing information

certainly seems unlikely to be beclouded by the trub of unsupported

speculation presented as fact, with a panel like that reviewing

submissions.

The magazine will be published 6 times a year, at a subscription price

of $30.  For an unspecified time there will be a $24 introductory

rate for "charter" subscribers.  To subscribe, send a note with your

name and address information to:

   Brewing Techniques

   P. O. Box 3076

   Eugene, OR 97403

You'll be billed after the release of the first issue, scheduled for May.

To discuss advertising rates or editorial questions, call Stephen

Mallery, Editor, at 503.683.1916.

I think this may be the magazine many of us have been waiting for ...

- --

= pbmoss.pacbell.com!gueuze!mal      Martin Lodahl       Auburn, CA =

=  More reliable address: malodah@pbmoss.pacbell.com     =

------------------------------


Irish Ales and other matters

Date: Mon, 08 Feb 1993 08:16:58

From: dduane@kestrel.win.net (Diane Duane)

Subject: Irish Ales and other matters

Hi all.

Re Ulick Stafford's post of the Digest before last:

> While ale sales have been falling

>to lager (with stout relatively constant) sales of Smithwicks are still

>high.

I may get in trouble for this, but Smithwicks doesn't taste much like

an ale any more.  One of the things interfering with this is the excessive

carbonation.  It now tastes more like a red lager:  to me at least.

(Granted, this is all very subjective.)  What with my husband's and my

writing careers, we spend a fair amount of time in the UK, and a lot of

it staying in pubs, by preference:  and we drink a fair amount of ale,

"real" ale by preference, others as desired.  The carbonation in them is

always minor -- you might get a "petillant" pint, but nothing that fizzes

like our present Smithwicks.  And again, to me, it simply doesn't taste

ale-like.  It had never even occurred to me to think of it as an ale until

Ulick called it one.

>  MacArdles is also sold nationwide in bottles and can be got

>on draft in local areas.

Ulick, where did you find it on draft?  We are in and out of Dublin a lot,

and hit many of the major pubs in town, and I haven't seen McArdles on

draft anyplace.  In bottles, yes, and I thank you for reminding me of it.

But down here (Wicklow), it's thin on the ground.

> In Waterford one can even get Phoenix Ale

>in large bottles produced at the small Cherry' brewery there.

I never heard of this, and would very much like to try it.  Thanks for

mentioning it!

>  Bass is also produced in Belfast and is

>an Irish Ale having slightly different taste than British produced

>Bass.

Mmmm...true, and I dislike both forms of Bass immensely, so probably

I am not equipped to critique it.

> Unfortunately the virtual monopoly Guinness have on the Irish

>market, and indeed on malt and hop industries has meant that there are fewer

>small brewers than elsewhere.

True, but maybe with the trade barriers down between us and the

North, we'll see at least some Hilden coming down here.  The Hilden Ale

is extremely nice.  They are also now brewing a stout (Great Northern,

I think it's called).

>Another point I would question was Diane's statement that Irish Bud

>was 2.5 times stronger than American stuff.  While it does taste a

>little better (It would be hard not to), it is 4.3% by vol as

>against US Bud which is 4.6%.

(grin)  This one I'm going to blame on my husband.  (Truly, though, I

think I must have misheard him.  He's been going around the house muttering

"A *time* and a half stronger, not two and a half times....")  I will

pop down to the pub and pull the specific gravity and other figures.

But certainly it is stronger...one of the local spectator sports is

watching the American tourists come through, and see Bud on the pull, and

say,  "Looka here, Marge, they got Buuuuud here," and proceed to drink

as much of it as they would have drunk in front of the TV at home.  And

then they fall over, and then we stack them up by the wall and

put a tarp or something over them until they wake up.  Ah, my poor

countrymen!

Best to everyone, and thanking Ulick again for his advice.  D

Diane Duane / Kestrel Ridge / Avoca, Co. Wicklow, Ireland

          Fidonet: 2:263/164 / Ci$:  73200,3112

            Internet:  dduane@kestrel.win.net

"A little science...a little magic...a little chicken soup."

------------------------------


homemade wine

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 93 12:06:01 MET

From: THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch

Subject: homemade wine

hello all. my last message seems to have disappeared (come back rob, all

is forgiven). However someone else replied to the question of how to make

wine, and correctly said that extract + water doesn't make the best

wine. However, he then went on to say that you can only get good wine

from grapes etc. How wrong! We regularly see recipes for beer that

do not conform to the german purity laws, but still taste excellent.....

 .... possibly because they don't (I'll take an industrial example : most

english bitters contain types of sugar, eg mollasses). Well it's the same

with wine. Wine making started long before the french made it their own.

People have been making blackberry, strawberry, in fact hundreds of

NON-grape wines for centuries. It is the "grape wine snobs" and a very

powerful french industry which has meant that you can't buy them (a few

companies in britain sell them, including Gales - the brewery).

True this is a beer forum, and also true there are (sorry is) a digest

for wine, but please don't tell people off for asking! If anyone wants info

or wants to flame me please email me direct.

My wife and I have been both brewing and wine making for quite some years

now, and can safely say that both are extremely enjoyable, not least

because of the choice of drinks it gives us.

Sorry about the length of this rant, and sorry to the HBD - content -

purists. but I had to get my word in!

Rob Thomas

------------------------------


Info needed on Cincinnati brewpubs

Date: Mon, 08 Feb 1993 08:28:43 EST

From: babel@vs2.uh.cwru.edu

Subject: Info needed on Cincinnati brewpubs

I'm headed down to Cincinnati this coming weekend for a business trip

and was wondering if there were any good (or bad) brewpubs in the area.

I've heard that there is one right across the boarder in Kentucky, but

that is the only one that I have heard of.

If you know of any in or around the Cincinnati area please send email

ASAP.

   Thanks,

     Juli

- --

"Tell me lover are you trick or treat

 It's just that I'm all mistrusting

 when things taste so sweet"

Withches' night   Witches' night

take me by disguise             the harvest moon lies

I should have dressed up        We all do

for the sake of sore eyes       Witches' night

   --LadyIce

------------------------------


Homebrew Pubs in Boston?

Date:         Mon, 08 Feb 93 15:50:50 +0200

From: LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL

Subject:      Homebrew Pubs in Boston?

A friend will be spending a month in Boston. Could someone recomend a pub or

two in Boston, where my he will be able to taste and enjoy homebrewed beer?

Thanks

Nir

------------------------------


yeast reuse correction & all grain costs

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 93 9:20:23 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: yeast reuse correction & all grain costs

In the last digest I made a somewhat erroneous statement regarding

glycogyn reserves in dormant yeast cells.  IF the yeast has been

treated well and not shocked, then the dormant cells will have

plenty of glycogyn reserves afer sitting in the secondary.  The

cells should wake up fine when fed fresh wort.  An important

issue is to avoid "yeast shock" which could lead the cells to

excrete nasties back into your beer.  So, just be careful handling

the yeast and it should wake up fine.

RE: Costs of all grain brewing.

JS has again fired up the snobbery issue and generated a lot of

wasted bandwidth in the process.  I am sure jack is pleased.  What

I want to comment on is the response that implied the reason to

avoid all grain brewing is cost.  It has been noted in this forum

before that going all grain does not mean going broke.  To sum up

the costs needed (a low budget, workable setup):

2 plastic buckets with the holes drilled in one, plus a spigot-

$10

used 7 gallon SS kettle - 35-50$.

(maybe-corona mill-45$,new)

wort chiller, built at home, $25.

total- 65-130$

now look at the savings-dry malt extract at my local store was $9/

3 lbs!  So an extract brew would cost between 15-20 for malt, plus

hops & yeast, 23-27$/5 gallons.

All grain- 8lbs domestic 2 row at 30-50 cents/lb, 3-4$.  Add 2-5$ for

hops & yeast, $5-9 per 5 gallons.  The average homebrewer brews 10-20

times a year.  At 10 per year, the extract cost would be between 230

and 270$ per year.  At 20, 460-540 per year.  The same all grain

brewer would spend ~50-90$ at 10 per year, or 100-200 at 20 per year.

So the cost would be recovered in 10 batches or so.  Not bad, eh??

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Brewcap

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1993 12:26:53 -0500

From: Matthias Blumrich <mb@Princeton.EDU>

Subject: Brewcap

I just bought a BrewCap last weekend and I would like to know if anyone has

any advice before I try it (including "you wasted your money" :-) ).  One thing

I found curious is the warning against dry hopping with pellets since they

might clog the blowoff hose.  I don't see why this is true.  Would it be better

to put the pellets in a hop bag which would contain most of them?  Any advice

is most welcome.

 - Matt -

------------------------------


Increasing Yields and Yeast

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 93 12:59:00 est

From: mtavis@gemini.hyperdesk.com (Mike Tavis)

Subject: Increasing Yields and Yeast

After all the great advice I received on my "Diminishing Yields" post,

I wanted to report back to the digest with my solution.  For those who

don't recall, my post detailed the drop in my extract rate as a

function of the size my grain bed (the bigger the bed, the lower the

extract rate).

One important piece of information that I left out in my original post

was that I use a 5-gallon Rubbermaid cylindrical cooler with slotted

copper tubing for my mash/lauter tun.  My basic problem was that I

wasn't raising the temperature of the grain bed enough during mash

out.

Someone (sorry I forget the name) with the same setup said he/she adds

near boiling water to raise the temperature of the grain bed to the

168-170 range during mash out.  Naturally, the amount of mash out

water that you add (restricted by how much room is left in the cooler)

determines the temperature of the water required.  At some point there

isn't enough room left in the cooler to raise the temperature even

with boiling water.  Someone else (sorry again) said they get around

this problem by draining the cooler, heating the removed liquid, and

adding it back to the lauter tun.

I didn't have to resort to draining the cooler.  I used the first

technique and was able to bring my grain bed up to 167.  Previously, I

used the sparge water (at 170) to do the mash out.  I never took the

temperature of the grain bed in my old process, but I would guess that

it was in the mid to high 150's.

The result of the new process was a much faster sparge as well as an

extract rate of 29 pts/lb/gal.  Also, the wort come to a boil

noticeably faster.  I want to thank everybody that contributed their

thought and experience to my problem.

On another note, I've noticed that certain yeasts strains have

characteristic fermentation styles.  For example, WYeast 1056 seems to

have an very active start and ferment out quickly.  WYeast 1007, on

the other hand, seems to have a slower drop off and continues to

ferment for longer.  These observations are based on the highly

scientific glugs per second model, but they do seem to be

reproducible.  I was wondering if there was any real analysis of the

fermentation styles of different yeast strains?  Thanks again.

- -- Mike

  o o|  Michael Tavis, HyperDesk Corporation

  o o|  Suite 300, 2000 West Park Dr., Westboro, MA  01581

  ---+  E-mail: mike_t@hyperdesk.com        (508) 366-5050

------------------------------


Wine

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 93 09:20 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Wine

 >From: connell@vax.cord.edu

 >Subject: homemade wine

 >I have noted with curiosity that while there is discussion of sidelines

 to beer brewing that shows up on the digest (cider, mead), there is

 almost no discussion of homemade wines.

 While HOMEBREW Digest should provde the answer, it does not really explain

 why cider and mead are discussed far more frequently than wine.

 My guess is that it has something to do with the universal availability of

 apple juice and honey vs the regional availability of grapes.  The other lies

 in the beer vs wine drinking statistics of Americans.

 >I have never read about or experimented with homemade wines, but I have the

 idea that people just dump concentrate and water in a carboy and add yeast.

 If that is the standard ritual, it is no wonder few people do it.  It hardly

 is a program for great wine.

 I have made wine for years and used everything from dandelions and sugar to

 home grown grapes.

 With the proper grapes and scientific procedures one can make excellent

 wines.  Using concentrates and your procedure, one has a hard time improving

 on el cheapo jug wine and concentrates are very expensive.

 I am sitting on my most recent batch which I described in detail here during

 the startup stages but there is little to say about it while it sits for

 months on end.  I don't expect the final report in less than ten years and it

 does not make for great discussions.  Furthermore, as good wine requires

 fresh grapes, it is a seasonal project and I won't start another batch for

 another year.

 However, as long as you brought it up....  I do think I learned something

 from this batch that seems to confirm what has been said before.

 The wine contains 5 gals of home grown apple juice, and 11 lbs home grown

 elderberries, grapes and mulberries.

 I heated the apple juice to 170F and added the fruit and thus sterilized

 everything.  The wine tasted terriffic all through the process but now it is

 obvious that it is never going to clear properly.  I tried gelatine, betonite

 and now honey and oak chips.

 The word is that the heat destroys the enzyme that reacts with pectin and the

 pectin will remain in suspension forever.  One can add a pectin destroying

 enzyme during fermentaion to overcome this evil but I took my chances and

 seem to have lost.  I am going to experiment with a small amount of the wine

 and the enzyme at the present stage and will report what I learn.

 Well there you have it.  Be back in a year or so, on wine, that is.

 js

------------------------------


Re: cold break

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 93 12:29:38 CST

From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)

Subject: Re: cold break

>I got reacquainted with my grain mill et al last weekend.  I brewed up a 10

>gal batch, everything went well.  Then I ran it through my counter-flow chiller

>and really ZAPPED it with Boulder's near-freezing tap water, causing a great

>cold-break.  I had a semi-slow moving 1056 Wyeast starter going so I pitched

>the two carboys and went to bed.  My wife just gave me a copy of Miller's

>Complete Handbook, and he seems to go to great lengths to get the wort off

>the trub, racking soon after pitching.  I left the stuff in there and it

>settled out and formed a semi-solid layer on the bottom, even the churning

>ferment of the last few days has left it pretty much undististurbed EXCEPT

>it seems to have all these little "worm-holes" in it.  It's as if during the

>active primary ferment some part of the trub has been used by the yeast.

> 1)does leaving the cold-break in the primary (a feature of a counter-flow

> chiller) harm the beer?

Yes.  Side-by-side tests done by a reader of this forum concluded

that the effects were most objectionable when combined with the lack

of a blow-off for the primary.  Personally, I feel that I can tell

the difference, but one cannot be objective about it without side

by side comparisons.  I can say that not racking detracts from the

clarity of the beer, if not corrected by cold aging or the use of

clarifiers.

> 2)does it help the yeast, nutrients etc.?

Yes.  The yeast will feed on the cold break, and leaving the wort on

the break will help the yeast get started.  Miller claims that after

fermentation begins, the hop resins in the break will cause fusel

alcohols to be produced.  Possible solutions are:

a) pitch the yeast, let it sit on the break for a few hours, then

   rack off into the primary.  disadvantage: if you use a quick starting

   yeast (i.e. Whitbread) and wait too long, it will stir up the trub

   at the bottom before you have a chance to rack.  Also, if the yeast

   starter has fermented out (post high-krausen), much of the yeast

   will settle to the bottom and never make it to the primary.

b) let the break/trub settle (possibly overnight in a refrigerator)

   this corrects the disadvantages of (a), but adds to the risk of

   infection, as the yeast is not pitched immediately after cooling.

   If you chill the wort below 60F or so you will sufficiently inhibit

   any foreign bacteria and there is nothing to worry about, assuming

   you have been sanitary in your procedures.  The yeast does not

   get to initially feed on the trub, but I would argue the advantages

   of letting it do so, anyway.

c) use an immersion chiller and leave the trub in the brew kettle.

   This saves on time and the number of fermenters required (and

   the time to clean them).  disadvantages: the wort is more prone

   to foreign bacteria in an open kettle while cooling than when

   using a counterflow chiller, and you will not be able to see

   the dividing line between the wort and trub (unless you are using

   a pyrex boiler $$$).  When I use this method I squeeze the hops to get

   the last little bit out, then transfer this with the remaining trub

   in the kettle into 1 gallon glass jug(s) and let sit in the fridge.

   After a day at really cold temps you can recover quite a bit more

   clear wort (typically .5-1 gallon for me) and either re-boil it

   and add it to the fermenter, or add it to the next batch.  This

   is mainly a problem when using lots of leaf/plug hops.

> 3)is a beer-style thing (lagers no, ales yes)

At colder temperatures the yeast will not stir up the sediment on

the bottom of the fermenter, so there will be less contact between

live yeast and the trub, as in your case.  You can still rack the

beer off as long as this layer remains undisturbed (though you may

have to restart the siphon several times if CO2 keeps stopping it).

The cold temps used in conjunction with lager yeasts will usually

leave the trub layer intact, but fusel alcohols are much more

objectionable in lagers than in ales.

> 4)can anybody tell the difference?

See (1)

> 5)any ideas on what has been taken out of the trub to make the worm-holes?

Some clumps of yeast which were trapped in the layer became active

and created them as they rose back into solution.  Alternatively,

they may still be trapped in the layer, but the escaping CO2 bubbles

created the holes.

bb

------------------------------


Summer Skiing at Mt. Hood

Date: Mon, 08 Feb 93 12:11

From: CCASTELL.UNIX11@mailsrv2.eldec.com (CCASTELL)

Subject: Summer Skiing at Mt. Hood

The Northwest division of the Professional Ski Instructors of America

(PSIA-NW) holds three summer race camps each summer at Mt. Hood.  The

dates for this year are:

3-day camp July 23-25

5-day camp July 28-Aug 1

3-day camp July 30-Aug 1

I haven't seen pricing information yet for this year, but it normally

costs around $200 (if my memory is correct) for the lessons and lift

tickets for a 3-day session.  The 5-day sessions are a little more.

Food and lodging are up to you.  (Some people take a tent and camp

out.)

Most of you are reading this thinking that I've sent mail to the

wrong digest.  However, consider the dates:

3-day Summer Race Camp, Mt. Hood           July 23-25

AHA National Convention, Portland          July 26-30

Oregon Brewers Festival, Portland          July 30-Aug 1

Looks like quite a week.  Its been on my calendar for quite a while

now, and I thought that I would share this opportunity with any

skiers out there.

The camp is offered to instructors first, and if it doesn't fill up

by some date (not announced yet this year), they open up registration

to anyone.  Email questions/requests for more information directly to

me so as not to take up any more space here.  Send to: ccastell@eldec.com

ignore whatever my mailer says my return address is.  (I am a yearly

particpant in the race camp, not an organizer, so I have no financial

interest in the program other than having spent money on it!)

Charlie

------------------------------


Re: Extract Brewers, Yeast Attenuation

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 93 15:12:24 EST

From: orgasm!davevi@uunet.UU.NET (David Van Iderstine)

Subject: Re: Extract Brewers, Yeast Attenuation

To quote (and beat the proverbial dead horse):

>Keeping in mind that lots of people stick with extract because they are lazy,

>paranoid or il-informed (blah blah blah) .....

  So, Jack, since *YOU* were still an extract brewer right up until the middle

of last year, which were you-lazy, paranoid, or ill-informed? Maybe you left

one out?

  If anyone else gets as ticked off as I do with stupid statements like

that quoted above, I've been advised our only recourse is to FLOOD the

poster with private e-mail stating how we feel. Please do; I am!

  On a (Thank God!) completely different topic, does anyone have handy a chart

of yeast strains attenuitivity (attenuitiveness??). You know, when they'll

poop out, assuming perfect aeration, enough starter, etc.? I think it was

posted fairly recently, but of course I can find it. Mucho gracias.

 Dave Van Iderstine

===========================================================================

== Dave Van Iderstine                           Senior Software Engineer ==

==                   Xerox Imaging Systems, Inc.                         ==

== UUCP: uunet!pharlap!orgasm!davevi        davevi@pharlap.com :INTERNET ==

==-----------------------------------------------------------------------==

==   All Extract, Damn Proud!   ==

===========================================================================

------------------------------


Slow WYeast Growth

Date: Mon, 08 Feb 93 12:17

From: CCASTELL.UNIX11@mailsrv2.eldec.com (CCASTELL)

Subject: Slow WYeast Growth

I have packet of Vintner's Choice (WYeast) Champagne yeast from last

September.  I've had it in the refrigerator until I could find suitable

apple juice to make this year's cider.  (Actually, I've had a tough

time finding suitable juice this year, so I guess I just go with what

I have.)

I whacked the pouch the evening of 2-2.  By morning on 2-3, there was

SOME growth.  By morning of 2-4, it was where it normally would have

been after 12 hours.  Now on 2-8, it has hardly changed since 2-4.

The envelope is not tight at all, and I am in no fear of going home and

finding yeast all over the walls of my kitchen.

Prior experience with beer and champagne WYeast has been similar to what

has been reported here, namely that the activity seemed strong in spite

of an extra month or three.  Since nothing has happened lately, should I:

1) assume the nutrient isn't nutritious, and pour it into some starter?

or

2) toss the packet, not wanting to throw good cider after bad yeast

Charlie

ccastell@eldec.com

------------------------------


Irish Red Ale (again)

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 93 14:42:28 CST

From: gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com (Guy McConnell)

Subject: Irish Red Ale (again)

Ulick Stafford writes:

> Guy McConnell reproduces a blurb from Coor's about Killian's Red.

> Much of it is true other than the fact that it paints Old Adolphus

> and family as being something other than Ogres.

    Well, I didn't reproduce anything except nuggets from a fading memory.  I

don't even recall for sure where I came by this information but it wasn't from

Coors directly.  I called Coors a "kindhearted" megabrewer, an oxymoron if ever

there was one.  I even put in the quote marks as above.  I mentioned the fact

that Coors had removed virtually all of the beer's character and decided that

it should be a lager (I'm still not sure about that part - *was* it an ale when

it was brewed in Ireland?).  I also mentioned that micros and homebrewers were

responsible for reviving the Irish Red Ale style, much like porter.  I don't

credit Coors with doing anything except making Killian's fit in the American

mass market by sucking the very life out of it.  That is why I would violently

oppose Budweiser getting their hands on the real Budvar.  The one saving grace

of Coors is that they are the only megabrewer still producing a decent, all

barley beer, albeit seasonally, in Winterfest.  We couldn't even get that here

in Huntsville this year.  I don't count Miller's "Special Reserve" because there

is not a dime's worth of difference between that and "Genuine Draft" in spite

of the "all-barley" hoopla.  How anyone could use all barley and produce a

beer so lacking in any sort of beer character is beyond me.  I guess I expected

too much.  Anyway, I was being quite sarcastic in my treatment of Coors'

motives and if I painted them as "less than Ogres" it was not intentional.

    By the way Ulick, I found your posts on the state of Irish brewing most

enlightening.  It is a shame that the producer of so fine a beer as Guinness

Stout would use such tactics to keep a stranglehold on the market.

- --

Guy McConnell  gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com

       "All I need is a pint a day"

------------------------------


Sanitizing counterflow chillers/All-grain snobs

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 93 15:25 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Sanitizing counterflow chillers/All-grain snobs

DLAMARPL writes:

>Several sources indicate the hazards of using alkaline solutions (e.g.

>chlorine) to sanitize copper.  None I have seen, however, suggest alternatives

>other than boiling.  What are effective sanitizing agents for equipment that

>cannot be boiled (e.g. counterflow wort chillers)?

Ahh, but you *can* sanitize a counterflow chiller with boiling water.  Boil

up some water and siphon it through the chiller with the cooling water turned

off.

************

Regarding all-grain snobbishness, I'd like to say that indeed, it's a stupid

thread and those who still care about it should all take it off-line.

But before we do, I want to get in my two pence ;^):

I spoke with Jack yesterday at the CBS US Ale Fest at Goose Island and it

appears that he has gotten lots of private email regarding his post.  I

feel that this is the best course of action when you disagree with a person's

post in the HBD.  Let's not all overreact here.  I agree that Jack's post

took an abrasive tone but so did Greg's.  Are we counting wins and losses

here?  Let's not let our egos get in the way of brewing beer.  Let's not

take every post as some kind of life-threatening situation.  It's not.

Personally, lately I've been so busy these days (I've recently opened

a homebrew supply store *in addition to* working at AT&T) that it's hard

to find the time to brew an extract batch let alone the time to brew

all-grain, so virtually all my recent competition entries have been

extract beers.  In fact, my last 12 prize-winners were all extract +

specialty grain beers.  It just goes to show that good beer *can* be

brewed without mashing.

Al.

------------------------------


Re: recirculation FAQ

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 93 15:30 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: recirculation FAQ

Chris writes:

>Since many topics come up in cyclical manner it would be nice if they could be

>answered in a FAQ format.  And since some topics have more than one accepted

>answer the FAQs should try to show all sides of an issue.

>

>So to get the ball rolling here is an example:

>

>FAQ #0000-000:

>

>[Note that 0000 indicates the number of the FAQ and -000 indicates its version.

> The version mechanism allows mistakes and inaccuracies to be corrected and

>newer information to be included in newer versions of the FAQ.]

Sounds good, but: 1) where will they be kept -- I, for example, cannot FTP

anything from any of my machines and I've had great difficulty getting

stuff from the archives, and 2) "0000" is not very informative -- there

would of course have to be an index, but who would maintain this?

>FAQ #0001-01:  Recirculation:  What is it, and should I do it?

>

>Recirculation is a practice employed in the lautering of mashed grains where

>the turbid sweet wort is collected, as it is runoff, and recirculated through

>the grain bed until the runoff becomes clear.

>

>Most sources of homebrewing information will tell you that you should employ

>the practice of recirculation to avoid significant amounts of chaff in the

>       [etc.]

I have a few comments, not actually mine, but they've been posted here, so

I'm recirculating (pun intended) them.

Micah wrote:

> There have been some questions about both head retention (beer)

>and chill haze problems. I think that a large portion of the problem

>is a lack of lipids in the wort.

>        Lipids are very important elements for proper beer stability.

>Lipids are unsaturated fatty acids, this means that they are available

>to form new bonds with other elements of the wort. Although only a few

>ppm of lipids are present in finished wort, they can have far reaching

>effects on factors such as yeast viability, ester formation, gushing

>and flavour staling. Small variations in brewhouse procedure can produce

>large variations in wort lipids. Lipids adhere to trub particles ( trub

>contains up to 50% lipids) and to filter materials. Spent grains are high

>in lipids. A turbid top runoff from the lauter tun can contain 5 times,

>and even 40 times as many lipids as the clear wort runoff from the same

>mash. Also yeast will autolyze if it does not receive small amounts of

>ergosterol or unsaturated lipids.

>        North American grown barley malt contains very small amounts of

>free fatty acids (3.2-3.5 mg/l) opposed to european malts (18-26 mg/l).

>Insufficient fatty acid levels can result in high esters in the

>finished product and can also be responsible for gushing problems in the

>finished beer. The addition of unsaturated fatty acids can cure gushing.

>While the addition of saturated fatty acids tends to increase gushing.

>The content of unsaturated fatty acids has a strong influence on the

>formation of fermentation volitiles, notably the acetate esters. A wort

>that has been stripped of lipids could produce a beer too high in esters.

>        I beleive that a shortage of lipids may be a problem that

>homebrewers encounter because of their obsession with mash extraction

>yields. This need to eke out every trace of sugar from a mash, leads home

>brewers to practice wort recycling and or flaufing. These can be risky

>sparging techniques with regard to hot side aeration as well as stripping

>lipids from the wort. Recycling is the collecting of the wort as it runs

>out of the lauter tun and pouring it back over the grain bed. Many brewers

>claim that recycling should be done to settle the grain bed. Flaufing is

>the collecting of the wort as it runs out of the lauter tun, boiling it

>and then returning it to the top of the grain bed. These practices not

>only give oppurtunity for hot oxygen and wort reactions, but also strip

>out fatty acids (which North American grown malts are low in) that are

>essential for proper yeast nutrition.

>        I have long felt that mash recycling was a bad thing, in that

>it tends to remove a lot of large particulate matter that would otherwise

>be in the boil. I feel that these particles ( husks and grits mostly)

>provide a place for proteins to clump onto during the boil and then

>settle out more effectively in cooling.

>       I have observed much clearer finished wort (cooled) from my

>boils, when the mashes were conducted with no recycling of wort than

>from those of other brewers whose worts were made by recycling the mash.

>

>

>                                              Micah Millspaw 3/31/92

>

>

> A lack of sufficient lipids will cause the finshed beer to have

>stability problems one of which is head retention. Above it was mentioned

>that additions of lipids could cure gushing, I would make it clear that

>gushing is a head retention problem, and that it causes acn be the same

>as those responsable for no head formation at all.

>

>                                             Micah Millspaw 6/3/92

Note that I asked Micah (in private email, via Bob Jones) to give me

sources for more info on this "need for lipids," but I guess he was

(understandably) too busy with his new venture.  It's not that I don't

trust Micah, but when someone introduces something so different from

what I've read before (why haven't I read *something* about this before?),

I have a tendancy to doubt first and read up on it.  Can anyone (George?

John? Mike?) substantiate this "need for lipids?"

Darryl wrote:

>> From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>

>> Since this is a friendly forum I'll ask what seems to me to be

>> the obvious: why is extensive recirculation any different from

>> sparging with very large amounts of water?  My question refers to

>

>Because the pH of the wort is low, recirculation will not remove

>tannins.  But when you sparge, you may, depending on the ions present in

>your water.  This is the reason that Dave Miller suggests adding a bit

>of lactic acid to your sparge water.

>

>>  the extraction of tannins and the dreaded "teabag" effect (which

>> I have been able to create in the privacy of my own home!).  It

>> seems to me that either way there will be a fair amount of rinsing

>> going on.  Based on George Fix's posting yesterday, this

>

>The idea of recirculation is not to rinse, but to give the grain bed a

>chance to form, and thus hold back all of the solid material.

>

>It usually takes me about 20 minutes, or 5 gallons, of recirculation on

>a 15 gallon batch.  This through a Coleman 80 quart picnic cooler with

>a slotted copper pipe manifold.

>

>> recirculation DOES result in some tannic/husk extraction.  Well,

>> how much is too much (recirculation, that is)?

>My motto is to recirculate until the wort is as clear as I want my beer.

>

>> I suppose this could also lead to questions about decoction mashing,

>> since we're not supposed to boil our grains either.

>

>Yes, it certainly could.  But the decoct is also quite acidic, so even

>boiling in that circumstance does not extract substantial tannins.

>Those that are extracted may be conglommerated and precipitate out with

>the extra proteins that are also extracted, during the kettle boil.

>

>  --Darryl Richman

(to be continued)

Al.

------------------------------


Extracts knobs / overkill

Date: 08 Feb 1993 20:32:43 -0500 (EST)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: Extracts knobs / overkill

On the subject of extract v. all-grain, I can't resist adding a data point.

I've been a homebrewer for five years, all-grain for three.  I have a friend

who has been an extract/adjunct grain brewer for 15 years.  I would give a

lot to brew beers as good and as consistently as he does.  It's practice and

technique, I think, more than ingredients and method, that make for success.

On another topic, I'd like to thank Alan "Overkill" Edwards for his tables,

charts, curves, and assorted efforts to put nice, neat numbers to our

squishy, seat-of-the-pants approximations.  I certainly appreciate it, and

so do the other members of my local club.

Ed Westemeier, Cincinnati OH <<westemeier@delphi.com>>

Member, Bloatarian Brewing League

------------------------------


I need info on a research paper!

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1993 20:48 EDT

From: Kieran O'Connor <OCONNOR%SNYCORVA.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

Subject: I need info on a research paper!

Hi all,

I am working on a research paper for my MA in History. I sleazed a

coupling of brewing and research and managed to convince my professor

that a paper on the consolidation of the brewing idustry would be a

good topic.

What I'd like to write about is how the United States, chiefly through

prohibition, changed form a country with many breweries to one with a

few super regionals and national breweries.

I'd also like to look into the resurgence of micro-brewed and

homebrewed beers as a result of the bland offerings of the commercial

giants.

I guess what i could use is some help in some sources.  i can

certainly search the New York Times index, and I've done some

searching for texts.  Any thoughts on places to look?

I will be sending letters to the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco

and Firearms (hopefully they wont haul me away on COPS) :-(. Could

folks help me with addresses for the big breweries? Or other places

out there which might have a treasure trove of material? Anything at

UC Davis?

If anyone is initerested--I'll gladly upload a copy of the finished

product--as long as I earn a decent grade ;-).

Thanks for all the help--could you reply via personal mail or via this

forum with the header of "BREW PAPER". It makes life a lot easier.

Thanks in advance.

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Addresses:

Bitnet: oconnor@snycorva

Internet: oconnor@snycorva.cortland.edu

------------------------------


Shipping Homebrewed Beer?

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 93 22:09:07 EST

From: dcheck77@Jade.Tufts.EDU

Subject: Shipping Homebrewed Beer?

 I am almost considering myself an amateur brewer at this point, having

brewed two batches so far (both coming out surprisingly excellent -- luck?).

I'm brewing up in the Boston area (Framingham specifically), and I was looking

to send (heh heh) some of my beer to Santa Rosa, CA.

a) Is this legal?

b) Possible?

c) Advisable?

 If anybody wants to laugh at me directly, or possibly enlighten me as

to some great news about my shipment dilemma, please do.

Thanks much,

_-_Dan Checkoway Student of Mechanical Engineering

Tufts University Medford, MA 02155

email :  dcheck77@jade.tufts.edu

"Up here in Boston we call it Frappe..."

------------------------------


Whole Hops

Date: 9 Feb 93 03:37:53 GMT

From: SynCAccT@slims.attmail.com

Subject: Whole Hops

In HBD1071 I posted a comment regarding leaf hops in reference to

the loose hops I was purchasing from Freshops (not named in the

post) and information I received indicating that they were sweep-ups

because they were loose petals instead of whole cones. I received

this email from Glenn Tinseth and am posting it with his permission.

I will continue to use Freshops with no reservations tnks to Glenn's

legwork.

I continue to be baffled as to why some brewers insist that their

methods or opinions are exclusive. I have a hard enough time with

life without this kind of crap in my hobby.....Glenn Anderson

gande@slims.attmail.com

USUAL DISCLAIMERS.......

***************************************************************

To: internet!attmail!slims!gande

Glenn,

First of all let me compliment you on your name. I am a not yet

prominent west coast hop retailer (The Hop Source) who deals

exclusively in whole hops, imported and domestic. In a recent post

you mentioned some alarming info about a "west coast hop vender" that

you had received from the salesperson who sold you some Saaz hop

plugs. I am a competitor with Dave Wills (Freshops) if that's who you

mean, and would benefit if his business diminished. That being said

let me tell you the following.

What you were told is complete and utter bunk, Freshops buys whole

bales from Hopunion and repackages them in ziplock baggies. The floor

is never involved except as a place for the person filling the bags

to rest his/her weary feet.  I suspect that the person who told you

this does not know what they're talking about and may have a grudge

against Dave although I can't imagine why. I really did check into

this and representatives from Morris Hanbury, Hopunion, and GW Kent

all said virtually the same thing, that the person who told you this

is misinformed and also not a very nice person :-O

Whether or not a hop cone breaks into a bunch of loose bracts is

dependent on many factors including the care the grower takes in

harvest and drying, the subsequent handling received at the hands of

the broker, and even the variety and weather conditions. I get hops

directly from the UK (actually they are the hops that go into the 1/2

oz plugs) and they range from quite broken up to pretty whole

depending on the lot and the variety. In any event there is *no* loss

in brewing value when a hop breaks into pieces although it is

definitely less aethetically pleasing ;^)

Since you didn't mention the name of the hop vendor or the

salesperson, I decided to e-mail this, if you want you can post all

or part. I *am* very interested in knowing who said this so if you

are OK with it let me know.  There is no room for this kind of crap

in this industry!!

Wow that feels lots better getting this off my chest. Thanks.

Take care,

Glenn Tinseth

tinsethg@ucs.orst.edu

503-873-2879

------------------------------


Paulaner Hefe-Weizen

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1993 01:15:53 -0800 (PST)

From: David Schleef <dschleef@lclark.edu>

Subject: Paulaner Hefe-Weizen

     The yeast in the bottom of imported and domestic bottles of Paulaner

is very hard to re-propogate since all Hefeweizen at Paulaner is

pasturized. This piece of information I know as a fact, since working on

the bottling line (and in the brewhouse) was part of an one-month

internship I did last March at Paulaner.  I donot know, however, the exact

difference between the yeast used for bottling and the yeast used in

the primary ferment (never thought to ask) but I would imagine that the

bottling yeast is a special bottom fermenting strain and the primary yeast

is a top fermenting weizen strain.

                    David Schleef

dschleef@lclark.edu

------------------------------


Garumph.  Enough with 'real brewers'!

Date: Tue, 09 Feb 93 07:59:37 EST

From: thutt <thutt@MAIL.CASI.NASA.GOV>

Subject: Garumph.  Enough with 'real brewers'!

In regards to the vapid discussion about 'real brewers', let me pose

the following questions.

    o Do you drive?

    o Do you know how to set the points for your car?

    o Can you overhaul your engine?

    o Do you know how to do brake work?

    o Can you use Bondo? (have you tasted it?) (can you get the

      catalyst off your hands? if so, how?)

    If you have not answered 'yes' to all these questions, you are

    obviously an amatuer driver, and a danger to those of use who

    CAN, and DO, all of these things.  Please stay off the road.

My point? Get a life people.

This is getting to be more stupid than alt.sex.wanted.  There are

different levels of interests for hobbies.  (ex: My mother collects

porcelain dolls.  Other people collect barbies.  Both collect dolls,

but neither is better nor worse than the other).

You began making beer because of some personal reason, for your own

consumption.  Quit comparing yourself to other people.  If you are

happy with the beer you make, then drink it, and share your

experiences.

If you are not happy with your beer, give it away, tell us what you did

wrong, ask for advice on how to fix it, and share your experiences.

The discussion on bees was much more entertaining that this crap.

      Taylor Hutt

      Championing worldwide usage of Oberon-2!

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1074, 02/10/93

*************************************

-------


hbus & ibus

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 8:26:42 EST

From: Jim Grady <jimg@hpwarga.wal.hp.com>

Subject: hbus & ibus

First of all, thanks for all the charts and formulae for hbus -> ibus

given boiling time, S.G., etc.  I do still have a question however.  I

have seen that pellets have different utilization than whole hops (both

in this forum and in some of the homebrew books); indeed hop plugs have

yet another utilization rate.  Yet, none of the charts nor formulae

contain any reference to the form of the hops.  Does anyone have any

suggestions here?  Am I worrying too much?  Should I just use what I

have as a starting point and see how I like the results?

- --

Jim Grady                  |"Talent imitates, genius steals."

Internet: jimg@wal.hp.com  |

Phone: (617) 290-3409      |                    T. S. Eliot

------------------------------


QC, Archive, Snobs, Iodophor

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 07:40 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: QC, Archive, Snobs, Iodophor

 >Fm: Jim Busch

 >PS: to JS-  My lauter tun/open fermenter does indeed have a spigot.  The

 only problem with taking ferment SG readings is that what comes out is

 yeast sludge!

 True but my "QC" samples were tongue in cheek.  They never get near a

 hydrometer.  The first squirt is a bit yeasty but with the you-know-what

 screen at the other end of the spigot, I get a fairly clear "sample" to

 taste.

 >From: neilm@juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Neil Mager )

 >Subject: Special Archive Proposal

 Let me make another proposal.  How bout explaining what an archive is and how

 one goes about accessing it before you expand on a special archive.

 ............

 >  Various, Snobs...

 Again, I am forced to defend my statements on "all-grain snobs" but prefer to

 do it without personal references because this thread is simply going the

 wrong way again.   I am sure that I could benefit from sensitivity training

 but I wasn't able to sell my business at 40 and retire to a life of leasure

 because I was a fool or a tyrant.  One key to success is to find out what

 people really intend, want and mean and not try to explain to them what they

 mean.

 I listed many reasons why people make extract or all-grain beer, some

 positive and some negative and some with a value to be asigned by the brewer

 or reader.  To isolate the meanest and thrash the messenger with it is not

 only unfair but deflects the discussion into an endless stream of usless

 personal attacks instead of getting to the bottom of the issue.

 Viz...... The economics is one major factor in the issue and it certainly is

 true that one can make a batch of extract beer with less initial expense than

 a single batch of all-grain beer.

 However, as one refines his extract process, he ends up within a few dollars

 of an all-grain brewery.  When you get right down to it, the only thing one

 really needs to do all-grain is a large enough kettle to boil it in.  These

 are available for $30 at ACE Hardware and $5 more will get you a homemade

 Easymasher in the same store.  I am sure if one haunts garage sales, one

 could get it down even further.  That and less than $10 for ingredients will

 put you in the all-grain business.    Most of the rest of the gadgets and

 gizmos are just as useful and important to the serious extract brewer as they

 are to the all-grainer.

 One final point, I posted the same article to Compuserve and received not a

 single negative comment.  Again, I am not sure what this portends but it is

 food for thought.

 >From: "Rick (R.) Cavasin" <cav@bnr.ca>

 >My incentive for using an iodophor was the hope that it could be reused more

 than bleach (iodine less volatile than chlorine?) and hence less would go

 down the drain (and into the air I'm breathing!).

 Precisely my reason (breathing) for trying it.  That is, in addition to the

 fact that I got a free sample in the mail.  However, I don't think that it

 has anywhere near the useful life of bleach.

 I do not feel comfortable with the 1 minute contact time with a sanitizer so

 I always used bleach full strength or at least 50:50 and I use this stuff, 1

 oz to the gal.  There is no shortage of clean water around here so I have no

 qualms about thorough rinsing.

 I don't like the chlorine fumes and I usually wear a respirator when doing a

 keg or my pump and hoses.  I like being able to do a simple one time rinse

 with the iodophor and not having to worry about the fumes or pitting my kegs.

 I was a bit disconcerted when a fresh batch came through the pump almost

 clear.  I suspected oxidation so I did some experiments by shaking samples in

 closed testubes and the color does not change no matter how much or over what

 period I shake it.

 I have no idea where the iodine goes or why it changes color.  The is not

 enough water in the system to dilute that much.

 I guess, untill I have a bad batch of beer, I will continue to use it.

 As as aside, I tried using it for the starch test and it is totally ambiguous

 and unsuited for the test.

 js

------------------------------


Malted Barley

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1993 08:43:46 -0500

From: mgx@ornl.gov (Michael D. Galloway)

Subject: Malted Barley

OK,

I've got my 10 gal. cooler with false bottom and associated plumbing,

I've got my 8.5 gal pot, and I've got my immersion chiller:  I guess

I'm ready to mash.  I am going to get 8-10 lbs of British Pale Ale

malt this weekend and do "it".  However, I recall (please pardon my

poor memory) a thread (hey, a real thread and not a flame thread!)

pertaining to high quality malts (Belgium?).  Could someone with a

good handle on that thread please point me to the appropriate HBD

issue numbers or email me a summary.  I am interested in using these

malts.  Also, could someone post or email this newbie a description

of what comprises a high quality malt (proteins/nitrogen/modification/?),

i.e, what are the important factors.  Are all malts fully modified

these days?  How do you determine this information?

Hey BadAssAstronomer, how about a few bottles of my first all-grain

batch?

Inquiring (and Forgetful) Minds Want to Know!

------------------------------


DAB recipes? Yeast Culturing, and others.

Date: Tue, 09 Feb 93 08:45:59 EST

From: thutt <thutt@MAIL.CASI.NASA.GOV>

Subject: DAB recipes? Yeast Culturing, and others.

      Does anyone have a recipe for a DAB beer clone?  If not, do you

      know what IBU it has?  What type of malt/hops would produce that

      flavor?

      Secondly, what is the general concensus on Bigfoot Barley Wine?  I

      tried it, and felt that it tasted EXACTLY like SN Pale Ale, only

      more alcoholic; I was not impressed... I expected something

      different.  Is this how a BW is supposed to taste?

      Could someone provide me with the number to one of the science

      houses that sells flasks & test tubes?

      Does anyone have any 'caveat emptors' for the mail order places

      that are advertised in Zymurgy?  (Are some less reliable than

      others?  I've noticed some strange variations in price too...)

      I've also gotten a book published by G.W. Kent on Culturing Yeast

      that should be avoided, if you like the English language.  The book

      seems to be technically correct, but is so full of errors (bad

      editing, grammatical errors) that I will probably write a nasty

      letter of complaint to the publisher (it's in its third!!!!!

      printing, and it STILL has this many errors).

------------------------------


Re: John Harvard Brew House

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 09:12:46 -0500

From: rodin@ftp.com  (Jonathan A. Rodin)

Subject: Re: John Harvard Brew House

The beers currently sold at John Harvard Brew House are not brewed there.

They only recently got their license to brew and so their first beers are

still weeks away from being servable.

Jon

- --

Jon Rodin                   FTP Software, Inc.            voice: (508) 659-6261

rodin@ftp.com               2 High Street                 fax:   (508) 794-4488

                            North Andover, MA 01845

------------------------------


stainless-steel pot

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 10:05:19 EST

From: drew@scorpio.ic.cmc.ca (Drew Scott)

Subject: stainless-steel pot

For those of you who live in eastern Canada, I found a source

for 30 quart (US) stainless-steel pots.  I don't know who

manufactures them (no label) but they seem fairly sturdy.

The regular price is only $65 but I got one on sale for $50.

I know the same pot is sold elsewhere for over twice this

price.  The address of the store is:

Ares Equipement Ltee

4913 Boul. St-Charles

Pierrefonds (Montreal), Quebec

H9H 3E4

Tele: 514-624-0386

Fax:  514-624-4550

I have no idea if they will accept orders over the phone.

Andrew

------------------------------


Re: Spiced Ales, DME vs. syrup

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 09:41:56 EST

From: orgasm!davevi@uunet.UU.NET (David Van Iderstine)

Subject: Re: Spiced Ales, DME vs. syrup

In HBD #1073, Jonathon Knight asks:

|>has anyone tried BOTH the technique of adding whole spices at some

|>point to the boil AND adding powdered spices at the end of the boil?

I used to add whole spices somewhere mid-boil, and found that, for some

of the spices, their aroma/taste was being boiled off, particularly things

like orange zest or vanilla. Others, like ginger, would last through and

overwhelm completely. I tend to steer clear of ginger now, both `cuz it

easily overwhelms, and I just don't like its flavor!

I switched over to powdered spices near the end of the boil (5-8 minutes)

and am much happier with the results now. It has become very easy to get

consistency from batch to batch with this method, I find. I've settled

in on a particular recipe of my own creation which I have made several

years running now, and I can be assured it'll "taste right" when done.

There may be some dispute, though, over just how fresh powdered spices

might be, and that'd I think affect their utilization in the wort. The

only advantage I can see to whole spices over powdered is this "freshness

thing". And for certain spices, like orange zest, there is no powdered

alternative, nor need there be. Add that one near the end of the boil

for best results. And be aware that "oily" spices, like coriander, will

severely affect head retention and even bottle conditioning (carbonation)-

that is, really retard it!

Finally, I find it easier to control quantities with the powdered

versions. And believe me, they're *small* quantities! Nothing over 1 1/2

teaspoons goes in, some as little as 1/2 teaspoon!

On the subject of dry malt vs. syrup extract-I use only Munton & Fison

dry malt extract, have for 5 or 6 years, make great beer w/it, see no

reason to change. Also, I buy it 55 lbs. at a time, to minimize cost.

I go w/their lightest variety, & use specialty grains for flavor/color.

Dave Van Iderstine

===========================================================================

== Dave Van Iderstine                           Senior Software Engineer ==

==                   Xerox Imaging Systems, Inc.                         ==

== UUCP: uunet!pharlap!orgasm!davevi        davevi@pharlap.com :INTERNET ==

==-----------------------------------------------------------------------==

==          "I haven't got time for instant gratification!"              ==

==-----------------------------------------------------------------------==

==     "I've got plenty of time, however, for that ALL-EXTRACT beer."  ==

===========================================================================

------------------------------


beer

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 9:49:05 CST

From: Gregory C. Seher <lippy@cwis.unomaha.edu>

Subject: beer

Yee, yee i know 'dat all you'ds be makin' home 'de brew.  Yet we de see

all of the sea, in my bell-e Coors Light 'tis for thee.

                                                         Peace.

------------------------------


3.2 a/w, Spaten Hefe Weizen, Never mind the full grainers, d

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 10:59:40 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@schumann.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: 3.2 a/w, Spaten Hefe Weizen, Never mind the full grainers, d

Tom Colvin regrets that only 3.2 alc beer is available in

grocery stores in Utah.  2 points.  That is not unusual even in

more liberal states such as Minnesota.  In Indana 3.2 are

not sold, but grocery stores need a licence to sell beer,

and can't sell it chilled.  And nowhere can sell it on Sundays,

unlike in neighbouring states due to a bible belt part in

the south.  But at least it is cheaper than neighbouring states,

and we don't have an inane law like MI's 10cent return charge

(but why can't all beer sale laws and prices be like Wisconsin?).

3.2 is 3.2 by weight ~4% by volume, so it is not gruesomely weak.

It is stronger than many European table beers.

Spaten usually sell Hefe Weizen under the brand name, Fransiskaner,

which is readily available.  I cultured from it once, think I got

Krausen, but by the time I was ready to pitch, it was not lively and

the culture seemed to have a aa tart lactic acid flavor, so I used a

substitute (Fleischman's baking yeast - don't laugh the beer eventually

was award winning), but I suspect with proper sanitation it is a viable

yeast.

Never mind whole grain snobs, us decocters look down upon them with an

even more snobbish disdain - what they are too lazy to stir a thick

decoction and spend up to 8 hours mashing (but then I only do double

decoctions and I'm sure triple decocters think I'm ignorant and lazy,

and hop growers and barley malters think they're lazy, and people who

grow and harvest, and malt and mash their own barley and wheat and

irish moss look down on them).

RE natural carbonation.  I have had a hard time priming lagers even

with sterile wort, canned from the batch.  The perfectly cleared lagered

beers have so few viable yeast cells that carbonations takes 3 weeks or

more.  I will just prime ales and will now krauesen lagers in future

(and us krauseners look down with a snobbish disdain on primers - even

those who prime with sterile wort and especially those who think they`re

krauseners because they`ve never read a book more advanced than Papazian's

work, which of course us advanced snobs know, incorrectly defines

Krauesening).

:-) :-) for humor impaired

Ulick Stafford

**  Heineken!?! Fuck that shit ... Pabst Blue Ribbon!!!  **

(my very first sig ... now resurrected)

------------------------------


all-grain snobs

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 13:00:05 EST

From: rowan@ocean.rutgers.edu (Andy Rowan)

Subject: all-grain snobs

Jack Schmidling (arf@ddsw1.mcs.com) writes in HBD 1071:

>Keeping in mind that lots of people stick with extract because they are lazy,

>paranoid or il-informed and further keeping in mind

> [etc. etc.]

>Having said that, I suggest it is the extract brewers' insecurity,

>sensitivity and paranoia that creates the image that all-grain brewers are

>snobs.

Gee, Jack, you don't suppose it might also be because you characterize us

as lazy, paranoid...

------------------------------


A New Journal

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 10:08:58 PST

From: Martin A. Lodahl <pbmoss!malodah@PacBell.COM>

Subject: A New Journal

If you read the Celebrator this may be old news to you, but a new

magazine devoted to the technical side of homebrewing, pub-brewing

or microbrewing is about to make its debut.  Called "Brewing Techniques",

it will break new ground in homebrewing (as far as I know) by being

an honest-to-goodness "peer review" journal.  The Editorial Advisory

Board (the peers who do the reviewing) consists of Patrick Baker, Byron

Burch, Fred Eckhardt, Teri Fahrendorf, George Fix, Terry Foster,

Mary Anne Gruber, Dave Miller, Greg Noonan, David Ryder and Bill

Siebel.  Impressive!  The clear wort of usable brewing information

certainly seems unlikely to be beclouded by the trub of unsupported

speculation presented as fact, with a panel like that reviewing

submissions.

The magazine will be published 6 times a year, at a subscription price

of $30.  For an unspecified time there will be a $24 introductory

rate for "charter" subscribers.  To subscribe, send a note with your

name and address information to:

   Brewing Techniques

   P. O. Box 3076

   Eugene, OR 97403

You'll be billed after the release of the first issue, scheduled for May.

To discuss advertising rates or editorial questions, call Stephen

Mallery, Editor, at 503.683.1916.

I think this may be the magazine many of us have been waiting for ...

= Martin A. Lodahl      Pacific*Bell Systems Analyst =

= malodah@pbmoss.Pacbell.COM       Sacramento, CA       916.972.4821 =

= If it's good for ancient Druids, runnin' nekkid through the wuids, =

= Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me!  8-)   =

------------------------------


Re: recirculation FAQ (continued)

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 12:22 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: recirculation FAQ (continued)

I have one more piece of info on the recirculation issue that wouldn't

fit in my last post.

George Fix wrote:

>A minor data point. Dave Miller uses 2 hours of recirculation

>on a 15 bbl. (465 gal.) commercial brew. His recirculation times

>with homebrews was shorter.

>

>Dave and I have discussed recirculation at length over the years.

>He gets a grainy/husky flavor in his beers (homebrew and commercial)

>which he finds to be attractive and desirable. I have different aspirations

>for the beers I brew. Neither of these viewpoints are ameanable to

>rational analysis. What we have here are matters of style, and subjective

>opinion. Besides, just think what a boring world it would be if we were all

>making the same beer with the same procedures.

>

>As Micah pointed out (at some point in the early summer), the low lipid levels

>of US 2 row malt like Klages means that very little recirculation should

>be needed to get a clear runoff. (Malt properly crushed helps here as well.)

>Wort trub has a very high fatty acid content. The Belgium malts definitely

>have a higher lipid content, and I find that recirculation of ~4 gallons in

>a 13.3 gallon (50 liter) batch is needed to get proper clarification. So far

>grainy tones are not indicated, but the final judgement will have to await

>an analysis of the finished beer. If grainy flavors do show up, then I will

>modify the recirculation procedure.

>

>George Fix

Okay Chris, perhaps you would like to take all this and incorporate it

into the FAQ?  Note that first we need to debate/resolve the "need for

lipids" issue.

Al.

------------------------------


Chinook hops

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 12:23:33 EDT

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: Chinook hops

Kevin says:

> ObBrewing:  No takers on my question about flavor/aroma properties

> of Chinook hops, huh?  Do any commercial brews use them?

The books I've read seem to disdain the use of Chinook for aroma and

bouquet.  I've used 'em for both bittering and aroma and don't recall

that the results were particularly good or bad.  The complaints are

harshness and poor storability, if I recall.

Centennial is far superior in my opinion.  Try dry-hopping with a

half and half mixture of German Hallertau and Centennial.  Fragrant,

fresh, and yummy.  Wow!

================O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis================

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1993 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------


fining -> diacetyl

Date:    Tue, 9 Feb 1993 13:56:24 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: fining -> diacetyl

Lee M.,

   I'd vote that adding finings early on in the secondary is what is

causing the high diacetyl in your beer.  In fact, this is just what happens

with Samuel Smith beers, except their yeast flocs out because of the

nature of their slate fermentation vessels.  Give the yeast more time

in suspension in the secondary to reduce the diacetyl.

   Another source of high diacetyl is low oxygen levels at the beginning

of the primary ferment.  If your ferments are slow or weak, and finish

with a high final gravity, this may also be adding to your problem.

Russ G.

------------------------------


A Beer Odyssey (Act I)

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1993 10:58:56 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: A Beer Odyssey (Act I)

A Beer Odyssey

I don't much like sweet beers.  The Brown Ale style is not one of my

favorites.  I'm not so much a hophead as I am a "malthead".  I like

beers heavy, fairly dry, and very well-balanced.  Bitter is fine,

flowery is right out.  (I point this out so you'll have a handle on my

perspective later on.  Beer with me!)

Having said that, one of the best beers I've ever tasted is Downtown

Brown Ale, from Lost Coast Brewing in Eureka.  It's just sweet enough,

with just the right level of hops; it's one of my favorite beers of all

time.

I had my first taste of Downtown Brown Ale at the 1992 Fort Mason Beer

Festival in San Francisco, and I've enjoyed it at a number of

festivals since then.  I had always determined to visit the brewery

and sample their beers firsthand, and one particular weekend in August

was finally the right time.  My plan:  drive from San Leandro to

Eureka on Saturday, visit Lost Coast in Eureka and Humboldt Brewing in

Arcata (as long as I'm there), spend the night in Eureka, and drive

home Sunday morning.  Simple enough.

The Friday before the trip, I met my friend Jake at Brewpub on the

Green in Fremont.  We talked about his recent trip to the Hockey Hall

of Fame in Toronto, we had a great dinner (they make some fine

hamburgers there, honest!), and we had a taste of all of their beers:

 Wheat - 4.0%.  Seems to be an American style, but hints of

  Bavarian (clove) character.  Maybe a wheat lager?

 Lager - 4.2%.  Same characteristics as Wheat, but not as

  sweet.

 Amber - 4.2%.  Nice color, fruity like an amber should be.

  Good stuff.  Very slight Irish moss (?) flavor.

 ESB - 6.0%.  Just like the Amber, only more so.  The alcohol

  really comes through in the flavor.

 Porter - 5.0%.  OK - rather light and benign.  ("Benign" being

  the opposite of "assertive".)

Like many of the microbreweries, the brewers at Brewpub on the Green have

really improved their beers over the last year or so.  So many

breweries were making...well, bad beer a year or two ago, and those

same breweries are making some of the best now.  Brewpub on the Green

is no exception.

At eight o'clock in the morning on Saturday, August 15, I got in my

trusty Cougar and hit the road.  I fought the early weekend Bay Area

traffic and headed north on US 101.  As usual, I skipped breakfast...

why should today be any different?  (Little did I know...) Around ten

o'clock, I was feeling mighty dry.  I checked my map for potential

lunchtime stops...and there it was!  Just an hour away - the Mendocino

Brewing Company of Hopland, California!  I had been there before...good

beer, good food, and most importantly today, perfectly placed for a

lunchtime respite!

I drove into Hopland around 10:45, just a few minutes before opening

time.  I waited in my car, checking my Celebrator and my map for any

more potential stops on the way to Eureka.  Hmmm...Anderson Valley is

out of the way, and North Coast is even further.  Too bad.

Magically, the clock struck eleven...it's opening time!  And would you

believe the added bonus:  it was the brewery's Ninth Anniversary.

The party started immediately; the barbecue was fired up, and the Eye

of the Hawk Ale was flowing.  There was a geezer at the bar (named

"Norm", appropriately enough) who claimed that he had been there every

day since the day the place opened.  There was a camera crew working on

a documentary of Northern California brewpubs.  I tell ya, the place was

hoppin'!  For lunch:  a barbecued buffalo steak, done to perfection.  I had

a round of samplers to go with my lunch:

 Peregrine - Thin, yellow.  Very light.  Certainly a good

  "transition" beer, useful for the re-education of

  drinkers of industrial beer.

 Blue Heron - Somewhat better.  Slightly more body and flavor,

  little aroma.

 Red Tail - OK amber ale.  Good color, flavor not as strong as

  it could be.  MUCH better on tap than bottled!

 Black Hawk - Good black thick roasty.  A little sweeter than I

  like, but good enough for serious quaffing!

 Eye of the Hawk - I need a pint of this to tell if I really

  like it.

My pint of the Eye of the Hawk Ale was really remarkable.  It's their

"special" ale, brewed only for special occasions like today.  It's an

outstanding, full-bodied ale, darker than the Red Tail, and with a

similar but much more assertive flavor.  It's too bad this is such a

rare beer.

[To Be Continued...]

------------------------------


hops plugs & G.W. Kent (NOT!)

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 14:35:51 EST

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: hops plugs & G.W. Kent (NOT!)

I was at G.W. Kent on Saturday, so I asked them about hops plugs.

Randy said they had added them to their catalog this year, but then

were unable to get any from the supplier.  Something about a bad crop

this year.  So, G.W. Kent is not shipping hops plugs at this time.  If

you thought you got some with the G.W. Kent label, you must be

confused.  The only ones I've seen are imported by Crosby & Baker.

He also said that as far as he knows, any plugs on the market now must

be from the 1991 crop.  If this is true, then my experience with plugs

speaks very well for their keeping ability.  As I said yesterday, the

plugs I bought recently had the freshest hops I've ever used.

=Spencer W. Thomas   |  Info Tech and Networking, B1911 CFOB, 0704

   "Genome Informatician" |  Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu |  313-764-8065, FAX 313-764-4133

------------------------------


Re: Wet dream/ridding oil from plastics

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 13:33 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Wet dream/ridding oil from plastics

Jack writes (quoting Paul):

 >Bacto WL Differential Medium has the same formula as Bacto WL

 Nutrient Medium, with the addition of 0.004 g of Actidione per

 liter. This inhibits the development of yeasts without

 interfering with the development of bacteria generally

 encountered in beers.

 A most enlightening article.  However, if this is in response to the

 discussion about a medium that rejects or encourages "wild yeast", it seems

 to confirm my opinion that such a medium is a wet dream.

I believe another poster mentioned that the media which contains the

Brom Crestal Green (sp?) will identify different yeast strains because

each has its own characteristic pH, thus being stained a slightly different

shade of green.  This is the key to the isolation of yeasts using this

media.  But you can still have wet dreams about it if you wish... ;^).

***********************

Tom writes:

>Our brewing club recently brewed a beer with chocolate in it.  Does anyone

>have any idea on cleaning the oil out of the plastic tubing and buckets

>easily?  We were trying to avoid using dish washing detergent since they

>normally leave behind stuff for anti-spotting and who knows what else.

Well, it has been pointed out in many texts and in this forum, that there's

BIG difference between soap and detergent.  I'm not a chemist, so I don't

really know what that difference is (chemists, please chime-in and explain).

I too, have been wondering if using dishwasher *detergent* (one without

any special additives for sheeting, i.e. anti-spotting) would be okay for

glassware and brewing equipment.  What about pure Sodium Carbonate (washing

soda)?

Al.

------------------------------


Worst brew

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 11:57:16 -0800

From: SCHREMPP_MIKE/HP4200_42@pollux.svale.hp.com

Subject: Worst brew

Tim Anderson's discussion of "bucket conditioned beer" sounded a whole lot like

hte first time I fermented something (on purpose). A couple of suggestions from

my experience:

1. Steal the sugar from a restaurant packet by packet.

2. When the flavor of the brew prevents it from being consumed, add some

   unsweetened lime Koolaid. (I did this before Jonestown made lime Koolaid

   famous... or was that grape?)

Mike Schrempp

------------------------------


Re: Hops Cultivation

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 13:18 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Hops Cultivation

Brian writes:

>The Problem: I have no idea as to what variety these hops might be. We

>live in the infamous Willamette Valley, so I at least have the obvious

>first guess.  Does anyone out there know of a good reference book that

>would allow me to key out this beast. Perhaps a "Peterson's Field

>Guide to Hops and Grains."

I suggest the Hops Special issue of Zymurgy -- in it there are photos of

virtually every common hop cone and it's corresponding leaf.  Since you

live in the Willamette Valley, I suggest that you make use of the wealth

of local knowledge.  Take some cuttings to a grower and ask them to

identify.  I'll bet that the big commercial facilities have extensive

libraries too.

>Other Questions: Papazian suggests that the soil for growing hops should

>be loamy and kept continually moist during the growing season. We have

>excruciatingly high clay content in our soils and  have never watered at all.

I give each plant about 6.25 gallons of water every morning via a

timer-controlled soaker hose.  Water makes a big difference.  Initially,

I gave each hill (4: Hallertauer, Hersbrucker, Nugget and Willamette)

three 1 foot coils of soaker hose for 15 minutes per day.  I soon noticed

that the Willamette was doing much better than the Nugget, which was doing

better than the Hersbrucker, etc.  I noticed that the soaker hose was

spewing more at the near end than at the far end (I should have known).

After re-arranging the hose to give the far-end hills more hose, the

growth rate seems to have evened out.

>Nevertheless the plant has done quite well. Will the quality of the

>hops be affected by my lack of care? Or should I follow the adage "If

>it ain't broke, don't fix it?"  Also, how much will AAU vary with time

>of harvest, amount of watering, etc.  And lastly, is there any moderately

>low-tech way of determining AAU of homegrown hops?

If you pick too early or too late, you will not get as much AAU as if

you picked at the right time.  It seems to me that the general consensus

is that when the cones begin to feel light, springy and papery as opposed to

heavier, smushy and damp, it's time to pick.  I found that not all the

hops are ripe at one time.  I just set up a ladder and picked-off the ripe

ones once per week.

I've asked about low-tech ways to determine %AA and the only one I could

come up with is brew experimental batches and use your tastebuds.  If

someone knows how to determine %AA using simple chem, please post!

Al.

------------------------------


Re: Spiced Ale

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 15:19:02 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: Re: Spiced Ale

>From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

>I made my first spiced ale this year and boiled orange zest, ginger root,

>cinnamon sticks and whole cloves for about the last thirty minutes.  It

>has a bit more bite than I intended, although the beer does taste quite

>good.  I am wondering whether I boiled the stuff too long and whether

>powdered spices at the end of the boil would produce a "kinder, gentler"

>brew.

OK, some more opinions:

1) Why should it make a difference whether the spices are powdered or not,

   as far as your question goes?  Does it assume that all the spices are

   left in the brewpot and none get into the primary?

2) I am now firmly convinced that the only way to add spices is to "dry

   spice", by adding the spices only to the secondary.  After all, we know

   that the amount of flavor and aroma contributed by hops boiled a long

   time is much less than that of hops boiled a short time or hops not

   boiled at all (dry hopping).  Why should spices be different?  And since

   I only use spices for flavor and aroma, I dry spice.

Did a real nice job on my Pumpkin Pie Ale.  Plus, you don't have to use

powdered spices if you don't want to, just let them sit longer in the

secondary.

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


Re: chimay yeast

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 14:01 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: chimay yeast

Drew writes:

>The yeast in Chimay is not a single strain.  It is either 3 or 5.  I

>forget which, but I think it is 3.  If you plate it and isolate a

>single cell for building a culture, you will only get one of the

>three.

To the best of my memory, every source I've read says that Chimay is

brewed from a single yeast strain.  It has been widely publicised

that Father Theodore was the man who isolated Chimay's current

fermentation yeast and really cleaned up the beer.  I've read

somewhere, perhaps the bottle, that Chimay adds yeast during bottling

- -- I recall that there was no mention from this source of whether

the yeast added at bottling time is the same as the fermentation yeast

or different.  Nor do I recall if they mentioned filtering out the

fermentation yeast.  The bottling yeast may be the same as the

fermentation yeast since maintaining two strains of yeast is twice

as hard as maintaing one and it's not like the bottling yeast in

Chimay is a particularly good flocculator (like SNPA's yeast is).

Orval is brewed from a single yeast also, but then bottled with a

mixture of 5 yeast strains.  My source is one of the Jackson books

(either the pocket guide or the New World Guide to Beer... I suspect

the latter).  I feel, from my experiments, that one of the 5 bottling

strains is the fermentation strain, the one that produces the

characteristic banana/bubblegum nose of Orval.

Another multi-strain yeast is Whitbread.  George Fix wrote this quite

a while ago that Whitbread is a three-strain yeast.  My cousin has noted

that along with the change in bottles, Whitbread Ale has lost that

characteristic "dark bread" flavor.  I have yet to verify this.  Anyone

else notice this? Note that Wyeast #1098 bears a striking resemblence to

Whitbread yeast ;^).

Al.

------------------------------


Re: chimay yeast/recipe idea

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 12:05:56 PST

From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)

Subject: Re: chimay yeast/recipe idea

> The yeast in Chimay is not a single strain.  It is either 3 or 5.  I

Yea, I was wrong.  That's what I get for trying to be helpful and

posting from a year old memory.

Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,

lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate

------------------------------


Malting Wheat

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 13:15:31 -0700

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Malting Wheat

Does anyone out there know anything about malting wheat?

I buy (unmalted) whole wheat (for baking purposes) for about 15 cents

a pound.  Looking at this the other day, I thought I could make some

decent Weizen if I could maybe get a small batch of the wheat malted.

In addition to expanding my skills as a brewer, this would save me a

bundle over what my homebrew supplier charges for malted wheat (about

$1.50 per pound - an order of magnitude higher!)

Anyway, I tried malting a little the other day, and found it hard to

determine when the grain was fully modified.  The "steely-mealy" test

(mentioned, I believe, by Miller) does not seem to work here. The

grain, when wet, is soft and mealy, but is completely steely when

dried. I even tried mashing several ounces of this malted wheat in a

"micro-micro" mash tun (along with about 33% 6-row barley malt), but

got very poor conversion.

Does anyone have any experience with this, or know any good references?

Email me, and I'll post any significant/interesting information, as

well as let you know if I have any success with this. (Or does

anyone else really care?)

Too busy to make a fancy sigline...

Kelly Jones  (k-jones@ee.utah.edu)

------------------------------


BBW wins again!

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 10:42:15 EST

From: chuck@synchro.com (Chuck Cox)

Subject: BBW wins again!

Here's an update on the Sam Adams vs Boston Beer Works nonsense.

Jim Koch (dba Boston Beer Company, aka Sam Adams) lost his appeal in

Federal District Court.  Koch has the right to appeal again, and given

his attitude he is likely to do so.  His lawsuit against the

Commonwealth Brewing Co is still pending.

I wasn't at the trial, but I heard that Koch presented witnesses who

claimed to have gone to the BBW, disliked the beer, and blamed it on the

BBC.  Under cross-examination they were all discredited.  One admitted

to being too drunk to remember any details of the visit.  Another

objected to a 'foul aroma' which turned out to be the smell of a batch

being brewed (something Sam Adams fans generally have to go to Pittsburg

to experience).  Like the original suit, the ruling on the appeal was

quick and decisive; Jim Koch does not own the word "Boston".

So what happened to me?

Koch never followed up on the subpoena they served me.  We had to

reschedule it, and they never got back to me with a new date.  I think

they lost interest when it became obvious that I am not an employee or

representative of the Beer Works or the Sunset Grill, and that I was

hostile and well-prepared.  I got to keep the $46 federal witness fee,

and Koch had to spend some money to file & serve the subpoena, so I did

my part to waste Koch's money.

I am still boycotting Sam Adams products, and I urge you all to do the

same.  Since Koch has introduced more lawsuits than beer styles in the

last year, I think it is safe to say that the Boston Beer Company is a

law firm and does not deserve to call itself a brewery.

I want to thank you all once again for your letters of encouragement and

outrage.  I had intended to keep them all in defiance of Koch's subpoena

of my personal correspondence, but I ran out of disk space and had to

delete them.

By the way, I never heard from the person who is forwarding my posts to

Koch.  I am not surprised.  It is obvious that the weasel doesn't have

the spine to stand up for his/her own actions, typical for a Koch crony.

To Koch & his email droid: You are both losers, and the brewing

community would be better off without you.  I will continue to publicly

criticize your business practices, and encourage consumers to boycott

your products.

I am thinking of starting a new brewery, "The Adams Family Boston

Brewing Company".  Any interested investors? Any interested attorneys?

(for those who recently tuned into the HBD: Jim Koch has taken to suing

any brewery that uses the word "Boston" in the company name or on any of

their products.  I, and all my personal correspondence referring to

local breweries were subpoenaed by Koch in his appeal against the Boston

Beer Works.  I have no affiliation with the BBW except as a satisfied

customer and friend of the owners.  The subpoena was pure harassment

meant to stifle my outspoken public criticism of Koch & Co.)

- --

Chuck "Boston" Cox <chuck@synchro.com>

Starve a lawyer - boycott Sam Adams Beer.

------------------------------


Souring Wort

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 15:29:48 CST

From: wood@ranger.rtsg.mot.com (Dan Wood)

Subject: Souring Wort

   A brewing friend has become enamored with soured beers, Samuel Smith's

Taddy Porter in particular.  He would like to replicate this taste in

his own brew, using an extract recipe.  We both frequently do partial

mashes with adjunct grains, so suggestions in that vein are certainly

within his capabilities.

   So, if anyone could share his experiences, both success and failures

in souring beers (intentionally  :) we would be most grateful.  Please

feel free to respond via email if you prefer, I will summarize and post

a follow-up on results.

   Happy brewing!  Or, "fermenting" :( for those who share my pride in

producing fine beers from extract.

          Dan Wood

       wood@rtsg.mot.com

------------------------------


Archives

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1993 13:33:05 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Archives

In HBD# 1071, ex-beginner Russ Gelinas recommends:

>Read *all* the HBD archives.  Yes, all.  IMHO,

>the HBD archives are perhaps the richest source of homebrewing info

>available.

Here at Wind River Systems Technical Support, we have a knowledge base

system called TOPIC (made by Verity in Mountain View CA).  It lets us

search all of our old calls, bug reports, useful email, etc, so we can

answer customers' questions much more quickly and easily than before.

Of course, the first things we loaded into the system were the entire

HBD archive, the ASCII Cat's Meow, the publist, and tons of other

net.brew_stuff, and we update it monthly.  Mighty informative!  Mighty

useful!

have fun

Richard Stueven

Technical Support Manager

Wind River Systems, Inc.

510-814-2166

------------------------------


Re: diacetyl?

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 14:24 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: diacetyl?

Lee writes:

>I have recently begun brewing all grain batches, 5 or 6.  A constant

>comment about my beers is that they contain noticable levels of

>diacetyl.

>I discussed my brewing process with an experienced all grain brewer

>who too was having this problem with his beers.  We decide that since

>the yeast strains we were using 1056 and 1098 are not noted for high

>levels of diacetyl in their flavor profile that the following could

>be flaws in our brewing process:

>2) Adding finings immediatley after racking to the secondary.  We did

>this to induce CO2 generation to purge the head space.  This would cause

>the yeast to prematurely fall out of suspension thus reducing the

>quantity and the time in which the yeast was reducing diacetyl.

BINGO.  That's your problem, IMO.  I feel that you don't have to add

the finings to generate CO2 production -- by the time you are transfering

to the secondary you already have some C02 dissolved in the beer.  When

the beer travels over the top of the siphon hose (just past the highest point)

it is at slightly a lower pressure and some of the CO2 will come out of

solution, taking up your head space.  Another method, is to use your

kegging setup to squirt a bit of CO2 into the secondary before racking.

It's heavier than air and will minimize oxidation *during* transfer too.

>What can I do to produce high levels of diacetyl and minimize its reduction

>if I want to brew something with a Samuel Smith profile?  Is a warm

>ferment with a yeast strain noted for diacetyl production and fining

>immediatley after primary fermentation the way to go ?

I think so.

Al.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1075, 02/11/93

*************************************

-------


RE: all grain snobs, diacetyl

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 16:49:26 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: all grain snobs, diacetyl

Hi All,

   Just my .02 worth on the issue of all grain snobbery.  I think the

whole debate is ridiculous.  "All grain brewers are snobs" and "extract

brewers are lazy, paranoid, and ill-informed" are both groundless,

sweeping generalities, neither position is logically defensible.

   IMHO, any person who cares enough about good beer to spend the time and

effort to brew thier own is a kindred spirit.  Slowly but surely, the level

of beer consciousness in this country is rising, which is at least partly

attributable to the recent growth of the homebrewing craft.  That said,

what earthly difference does it make *how* the homebrew was produced?  I

for one am not going to turn up my nose at very good beer just because it

was brewed using procedures that differ from my own.

***********************************************************************

   In HBD #1073, Lee Menegoni writes:

>I discussed my brewing process with an experienced all grain brewer

   I should preface my comments by mentioning that I am this experienced

all grain brewer.  "Experienced" in this case is a relative term, I've been

grain brewing for about 6 months longer than Lee, I've done perhaps 15-20

more batches than he.  Having tasted his beers on many occasions (YUM!), I

consider us as being at about the same point on the learning curve.

>2) Adding finings immediatley after racking to secondary.

   I admit to being somewhat obsessive about clarity, I used polyclar when

racking ales because I wanted crystal clear beer.  While this achieved the

desired effect, I did end up with noticeable levels of diacetyl.  Polyclar

is rather indiscriminate about what it scrubs out of the wort, it will

cause the yeast to fall out of suspension quickly.  This does diminish the

ability of the yeast to reduce diacetyl.

>What besides pitching to wort at fermentation temperatue and finning after

>the yeast has settled or not at all what can we do to reduce the production

>of diacetyl and increase its reduction later?  I still plan to artificially

>carbonate it seems to make for clearer beer and I can drink it sooner, 3

   With my latest batch of ale, I did not use finings at all.  Once the beer

had fermented out, I racked to a keg, put a CO2 blanket on it, and left it

in the fermentation room at 65F for 2 days.  My reasoning was that racking

the beer roused some yeast back into suspension at a time when there were

no fermentables, a favorable condition for diacetyl reduction, according to

the Zymurgy troubleshooting issue.  Leaving it at 65F for two days ensured

that the yeast will not settle quickly, providing it with an opportunity to

work on the diacetyl.  I then chilled and force carbonated the beer as

usual.

   How well did this work?  The brew has been conditioning since Sunday,

should be ready soon.  Lee, when you come over on Thursday night to pick up

the yeast culture, let's tap it and see.

   Ah, the joys of experimentation :-)

                                   Cheers,

                                     Jim

------------------------------


Enzymes and temperature

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 18:54:48 EST

From: mcharry@freedom.otra.com (McHarry)

Subject: Enzymes and temperature

I know that enzyme activity varies with temperature, but I have never seen

discussed whether one can run a mash up to the upper 150s to break down

some of the starches, then drop back to 148 or so to finish off the

dextrins.  Does the higher temperature just favor the one enzyme system

over the other, or is the lower temperature system actually destroyed?  I

have always thought the latter, but the literature is unclear, and it would

seem the malting process exceeds those temperatures.

------------------------------


Rye

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 19:00:30 EST

From: mcharry@freedom.otra.com (McHarry)

Subject: Rye

I have been messing (literally) with a couple pounds of rye in my ale.  The

first batch I boiled the rye and dumped it into the mash.  The rye failed

to convert since it has a husk or membrane that failed to burst.  This

stuff needs broken up.  I ran it through the Maltmill for the second batch

and that worked much better, but-- when I dumped the spent grain into the

garden I noted a darker area near the bottom of the bed.  It was sweet!

Apparently this stuff forms some gunky mass that needs roused into the

sparge water a couple times after the first runnings.  I shudder to think

the yield I might have gotten had I known.  As it was, I got 27.

------------------------------


Overnight mashing

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 19:06:19 EST

From: mcharry@freedom.otra.com (McHarry)

Subject: Overnight mashing

I have been trying overnight mashing for the last couple batches, and I

like the results.  For the last batch, I doughed in with 130 degree water

from the tap, did the protein rest, and added the rest of the water, still

at 130.  Then I popped the whole thing in a warm oven and went to bed.  By

morning the temperature had risen to about 163.  I put the sparge water on

with the coffee and had at it.  The apparent time savings is great, and the

extract seems just fine.  Of course, this result is dependent on the size

of the mash and the temperature your oven will hold.  I find that a mash

will heat just a little slower than an equal quantity of water, so put a

pot of water in overnight and check the results.  It might work for you

also.

------------------------------


Re: Cincinnati Brewpubs

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 7:14:14 EST

From: rjsmith@iron.hq.aflc.af.mil (Randy Smith)

Subject: Re: Cincinnati Brewpubs

As Juli recently said:

> I'm headed down to Cincinnati this coming weekend for a business trip

> and was wondering if there were any good (or bad) brewpubs in the area.

> I've heard that there is one right across the boarder in Kentucky, but

> that is the only one that I have heard of.

>

> If you know of any in or around the Cincinnati area please send email

> ASAP.

The brewbup you are referring to in Northern Kentucky is Oldenberg.  They make

some fairly good beers that you can get throughout most of SW Ohio and N Ky.

Up here in Dayton (45min - 1hr from Cincy) there is the "Chickery" off I-675

on Ohio Route 725.  They specialize in chicken (hence the name) and do it

quite well.  They also make three beers on the premises.  I don't remember

their names off hand but they have a red ale (pretty good), an American light

pilner (standard stuff), and a wheat beer (never tried it).  Food is great and

the beer is good, worth the trip.

There is also a sports bar on Marshall Rd that has an Irish Ale made under

contract with Oldenberg.  The place is called Harrigan's.  They have typical

bar & grill food as well.  Major meat market on Thurs night.

- --Randy--

------------------------------


wyeast 2308 and other stuff

Date: 10 Feb 93 08:23:52 EST

From: CHUCKM@PBN73.Prime.COM

Subject: wyeast 2308 and other stuff

Hi brewers,

   Here are a few items I am seeking opinion on:

   1. Wyeast 2308 (Munich). The description of this yeast says that

      is sometimes 'unstable'. What does this mean. A friend told me

      that this yeast may quit before expected final gravity is achieved

      and rousing and extra aeration may be necessary....  any comments?

   2. Does anyone know any specifics about Alexanders malt extract..eg,

      what type of barley(s), mashing specifics..etc.

   3. There was an in Zymurgy for a software application called

      'Brewers Logbook' (i think). It looks like a MS Windows application

       and sells for $49. Does anyone have any experience with this

       program. $49 seems a little steep to me.

Thanks and happy brewing

chuckm

------------------------------


Clarifiers and dry-hopping

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 09:49:39 CST

From: jay marshall 283-5903 <marshall@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject: Clarifiers and dry-hopping

Hello all, I brewed up a batch a couple of weeks ago and, due to too much

HB being imbibed during the process, I forgot to add my usual dose of Irish

Moss during the boil.  No big deal, I thought, I'll just use some kind of

clarifier before I bottle.  Yesterday, looking at my beer sitting in the

secondary, I thought about dry-hopping it.  This leads to some questions.

First, what is the best kind of clarifying agent (are there really any

differences between using Isinglass, gelatin, or something else)?  Second,

will I run into any problems dry-hopping and using a clarifier?  I plan to

use pellets (in case that makes a difference).  Finally, am I correct in

assuming that the clarifiers only have an effect on the proteins, and that

it will not affect yeast availablility for bottle conditioning?

thanks,

Jay

marshall@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov

------------------------------


request

Date: 10 Feb 93 11:37:00 EST

From: "CHESTER RYEGUILD CPS112" <forsythec@clvax1.cl.msu.edu>

Subject: request

please put me on your email lists.

thanks.

chester

------------------------------


Lipids in wort

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 08:55:08 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Lipids in wort

Most of the research on the lipid in wort topic was done by Micah. One of

the references used was Declerck. This rather rare text is full of good info.

You may be able to check out a copy from your local library via an

inter-library loan. I would really like to have a personal copy for my

library, I would also like to have copies of both volumes of Malting and

Brewing science. If anyone has unwanted copies for the RIGHT price, please

email. There is a more polished discussion of this lipid topic in the last

issue of Zymurgy that Micah and I wrote, complete with references.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Licorice for better head...

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 17:07:14 +0100

From: steve_T%fleurie@champigny (Steven Tollefsrud)

Subject: Licorice for better head...

I have a couple of homebrew books which suggest using

licorice as a way of promoting better head in beer.

In a pharmacy here in France I was able to buy what

they call reglisse, which are shriveled up sticks

of wood (or root?) with a darkish nut color. They are

about 5 inches long. My question is this, is this

what I should be using or should I use the sort of

black licorice sticks we used to gnaw on when we were

kids (which is mostly molasses, I think)? I tried the

woodish reglisse (half a stick, pulverized) in my last

two batches and had good head, but I'd like to know if

this can be attributed to the licorice I used, or if it

might be the fact that I used unmalted barley in my wort

for the first time (contributing proteins for better head retention?).

The problem is I've got two variables and I don't know

which helped.

If anybody who knows about licorice in brewing can advise me,

I'd be much obliged.

Steve Tollefsrud

Valbonne, France

e-mail: steve_T@fleurie.compass.fr

------------------------------


re:wine digest.

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 17:36:53 MET

From: THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch

Subject: re:wine digest.

hello again.

I've had four requests so far for the address of the wine digest. Well, I'm

going to have to disappoint you. I found a number of mail-ins at

rusmv1.rus.uni-stuttgart.de (ip 129.69.1.12) a few months ago while

browsing the vast archives they keep. However, since I already

have more recipes and less storage space than I can use, I didn't

make a not of where in the haystack the needle actually was!

I has a quck look today, and if you're feeling adventurous you might

try /soft/kommunikation/news/spool/news and further down.

It is not beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was actually reading

rec.food.drink or some such. I'm pretty sure it wasn't rec.crafts.brewing

though. Before you start chasing down the directories or getting

teed off by being continually forbidden entry to the (VERY POPULAR)

site, I'll let you know that the posts I read were very light

on info and rather heavy on banter. This may have been an exceptional

selection that I read, but you have been warned.

Rob TH.

p.s. I'll pass on any info I may remember/rediscover as soon as I do.

------------------------------


Baltimore/DC brewpubs

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 11:25 EDT

From: SIMONS22@WILMA.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU

Subject: Baltimore/DC brewpubs

Hi....

 I'm planning a little trip to see brew pubs and microbrewers in the

Baltimore/Washington DC area. Looking for your suggestions and reviews.

Please mail me [save the traffic],

Alex Simons

internet: simons22@wharton.upenn.edu

------------------------------


A Beer Odyssey (Act II)

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 10:18:42 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: A Beer Odyssey (Act II)

A Beer Odyssey (Act II)

And up the road I went, and boy is it a long way to Eureka.  I can hear

the Downtown Brown calling me through the redwoods.  By three o'clock,

I was there.

It's a nice place, Lost Coast, with a lot of seating upstairs and

downstairs, and a long brass-covered bar.  A sign on the wall

announces that the brewery was established on July 13, 1990; Friday

the Thirteenth!  I hope good luck stays with this place, because they

make some of the best beers around.

The bar was nearly empty when I arrived, so I got to talk with Marty

behind the bar for a while.  I asked him if they had beer available

for takeout in the plastic gallon jugs like many of the other

California brewpubs.  He told me that the Department of Recycling told

him that those containers are illegal!  I find this very hard to

believe, because I've been to too many other breweries that offered

this method of takeout, and I named many of them for him.  I wasn't

able to convince Marty, though; he said that all he knows is what the

government tells him.  I'd appreciate any information that will set

either him or me straight.

I had a sample of each of their beers to wash down some mighty fine

(mighty HOT) Buffalo Wings:

 Pale - Very good pale, heavy body, light taste, well-hopped.

 Hefeweizen - Good smooth American style.  Thick, just sweet

  enough.  VGI.  (Very Good Indeed!)

 Dunkel Hefeweizen - Very caramelly.  If my memory serves me,

  doesn't it taste a lot like the Brown?

 Brown - Nope, the Dunkel Hefeweizen doesn't taste like the

  Brown at all...so much for my memory.  Brown isn't

  nearly as sweet as the Dunkel Hefeweizen.  An excellent

  brown!  I like it better (side-by-side) than the

  Hefeweizen.

 Stout - Too burnt/astringent.  I think maybe they should cut

  back on the black patent malt.

As I tasted their beers, and sipped my pint of Brown, I studied my

map.  I noticed that Highway 299 runs between US 101 and I-5.  I also

noticed that if I could get to I-5, I could stop at Sierra Nevada

Brewing Company in Chico on the way home.  I told Marty what I was up

to, and asked him if Highway 299 was the best way to get to I-5 from

Eureka.  He told me that it was possible, but if I was willing to

drive four hours or so out of my way, I could visit three more

brewpubs along the way!  I had to think about it for a few minutes,

but not for too many.

Marty's advice:  follow US 101 north (being sure to stop at Humboldt

Brewing in Arcata) to US 199, continuing to Cave Junction, Oregon.

There you'll find the Pizza Deli & Brewery.  Continue on US 199 to

Grant's Pass, Oregon, and pick up I-5 South.  The Rogue Brewery is in

Ashland, Oregon.  Spend the night in Ashland, and head south on I-5 in

the morning to get to Sierra Nevada in Chico.  "Sure," says I, "and

thanks for the tip!"  And off I went.

I got halfway to Arcata (a quick six miles from Eureka) before I

realized that I had forgotten the T-shirt that I had paid for at Lost

Coast.  At twenty bucks a throw, it's not the sort of thing you want

to leave behind, so I made my only backtrack of the journey.

But soon enough I was in Arcata.  I wasn't real sure what to expect,

as I didn't remember tasting their beers anywhere, and I didn't have

any lowdown on the brewery before I arrived.  It's really a huge

place, especially considering where it is!  (Take a look at your

California maps, and try to find Arcata.)  For a very good writeup of

the place, see Steve McClenathan's front-page article in the August

1992 Celebrator.

I would have liked to have spent more time here, because the beer was

excellent!  The real kicker:  they were all served from real live hand

pumps.  In all my travels up to that time, I hadn't seen a hand pump

on this side of the Atlantic.  I was impressed!  My round of samplers

included:

 Honey and Ginger Ale - 4.0%.  It certainly is.  Pretty good!

  Light...sweet, the ginger flavor is obvious.

 Gold Rush - 4.5%.  OK, fruity light ale.

 Red Nectar - 5.0%.  Good amber, well-hopped.  I've seen

  bottles of this at Liquor Barn, etc.

 Redwood Amber - 5.5%.  Better than Red Nectar, less hops, more

  malt flavor.

 Storm Cellar Porter - 5.7%.  Pretty burnt, maybe too much for

  a porter.  Pretty tasty, though...

 Humboldt Stout - 5.7%.  Not as burnt as the porter, smoother.

Unfortunately, I didn't have more time to spend there; Oregon was

calling.  US 199 is a twisty path through mountains and redwoods.

Beautiful scenery, and I'll bet it's even more impressive when you're

the passenger in the car, rather than the driver.  Distractions aside,

I arrived in Cave Junction around eight o'clock Saturday night, and I

found the Pizza Deli & Brewery right along the side of the road.

The name describes this place perfectly; it's a typical little pizza

joint with a brewery stuck on the side!  I bypassed the "Baitbucket

Pizza" (shrimp, oysters and/or anchovies) in favor of a small "Deli

Delight" (linguica, mushrooms, pepperoni, olives, beef, and sausage).

(So sue me; I'm a carnivore.)  I noted in their menu-cum-flyer that

they use some imported hops, which I thought was a little strange in

Oregon, considering the quality of the hops grown there.  They also

mention that their beers "are centuries old styles that have been the

daily fare of sober, hard-working men and women - not necessarily high

in alcohol or strong in flavor".  That last clause - "not...strong in

flavor" really caught my eye and set my expectations somewhat lower

than they might have been.  I was pleasantly surprised.

 Light - Good pale - good pizza beer.

 Blackberry - It's a good porter.  Can't taste the fruit, which

  is OK by me, since I don't like fruit beers.

 ESB - Not bitter enough to be called an ESB, but not bad at

  all.

 Dark - Good smooth dark ale.  Doesn't taste very strong,

  though...

 Nut Brown Ale - "High in flavor but low in alcohol" - ain't

  that the truth.

Overall, five good beers, and some very good pizza.  This stop really

fortified me for what I thought would be the last leg of tonight's

journey.

------------------------------


All Grain comments and a recipe

Date:    Wed, 10 Feb 1993 13:02 EST

From: Phil Hultin <HULTINP@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>

Subject: All Grain comments and a recipe

So, I see people have been getting bent out of shape about how

they brew their beer.  I will simply note that this past weekend

I entered a competition sponsored by CAMRA Ottawa, and my All

Grain Oatmeal Stout placed third in a field of 14, but that the

FIRST PRIZE WINNER WAS AN EXTRACT BASED STOUT.  And, it was a good

brew, too.  So.  I brew all grain because that's how I get the most

pleasure out of brewing.  My beers are good.  But, Good Beer is made

in many ways, the key being A GOOD ATTITUDE!  So maybe we should

lighten up, eh?

Anyhow, I recall a request some time ago for more recipes and less

babble.  So here is my CAMRA Third Prize Winning recipe, with

comments for improvement.

"Breakfast of Champions" Oatmeal Stout

Water 35 litres mixed with 0.5 tsp salt and 1.5 tsp chalk to buffer

the mash.

English Pale Malt (Munton and Fison 2.5 L) 2.8 kg

Munton and Fison Crystal (60L ?)           0.8 kg

Rolled Oats                                0.4 kg

Flaked Barley                              0.6 kg

Chocolate Malt                             0.44 kg

Roasted Barley                             0.1 kg

All grains added to mash tun, put first liquor (11 litres) at 80C.

Obtained strike temp of 64C (too low).  Added 3 litres boiling water

to obtain 66C.  Mashed for 1 hour.  Added 6 litres boiling water

to mashout at 70C for 25 min.

Drained and sparged with 85C water (too hot).  Collected runoff until

SG 1.010.  Boiled whole wort with 0.5 tsp powdered licorice, 227 g of

lactose, and 7 plugs (0.5 oz, 15 g each) of English Fuggles 4.2 alpha.

Boiled 1 hour, then removed as much of the hops as possible.  Added

Irish Moss, 10 grams, boiled 15 mins more.

Chilled in counterflow system, removing hot break but allowing cold

break to settle in carboy.  Pitched with active Wyeast 1084 culture.

OG 1.050 in 22 litres.

Primary ferment 9 days to SG 1.030.

Secondary ferment/maturation 24 days to FG 1.020.  Both ferments

at 22 C in closed vessels with locks or blowoffs.

Bottled with 2/3 cup corn sugar.

Carbonation took about 3 weeks but gave nice result.  Head retention

is not optimal (oats are a problem).  A bit excessively astringent

and roasty, next time add the dark grains only in the mashout, add

a bit more crystal.  This one got 39.6/50 but the winner, AN EXTRACT

STOUT, got 42.4/50!

So, There is my recipe, took all day, I had fun, but the extract

product was judged the better beer.  Ok by me.  How about you folks?

Cheers, P.

------------------------------


Protein rest for dextrine malt?

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 13:35:42 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: Protein rest for dextrine malt?

I recently used dextrine malt (carapils) for the first time.

It was US malt.  6-row I think.

  7 # Munton and Fison pale ale malt

  2 # carapils

  1 # dark crystal

I used a one-step infusion mash in the low 150s.  The beer is tasty but

has a serious haze.  Should I have given the mash a protein rest?

The beer is still in the secondary.  Can anything be done about the haze?

Cheers,

Rob "reviled originator of the insipid all-grain snob thread"

    (bradley@adx.adelphi.edu)

------------------------------


cold break & pitching

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 11:58:38 cdt

From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: cold break & pitching

I read Brian Bliss's post on cold break & racking off trub with interest.

I've only got twenty batches behind me, but I thought my somewhat heretical

methods might be of interest to those with as little or even less experience

than myself.  If some of you grown-up brewers out there would like to comment

too, it would be great.

I boil my beer in a Vollrath pot (borrowed from a friend who is currently not

brewing).  I generally boil about 4 gallons, losing a gallon or so over the

sixty minutes.  I have pre-boiled and chilled, first in the fridge and then,

while brewing, in the freezer, down to almost-frozen, 2 gallon jugs of water.

When the boil is over, I stick the Vollrath in my kitchen sink, filled with

ice water and dump the almost-frozen water in on top.  I cover the pot &

wait about a half hour or until all the ice in the sink melts.

Seems to me I get a pretty good cold break from this.

Wort-chillers?  We don' need no stinkin' wort-chillers!!!

Then, I rack the beer into my plastic bucket, add the yeast starter (i use

the boiled DME + a couple hop pellets method) and stir like nuts, take the

gravity reading, and rack into the glass primary ($18 water bottle - $8

deposit forfeit, and $10 for water which made really nice beer once) to which

I attach a 1" blowoff hose.

Now here's the heretical part.  After having read the discussion of yeast

nutrients in trub when it first appeared a few months ago, I decided to rack

off not only the beer but just a little bit of break material too (maybe 1/2

cup or so).  Also, in spite of all the *worrying* about temperature shocking

yeast, I pitch at a relatively high temperature - usually in the 80's F.(I

brew ales), because, o.k., well, my chilling methods DON'T work as well as a

wort-chiller does - but the bottom line is that I always get fantastic starts

(under six hours and a lot of crud in the blowoff bucket) and I've been getting

some pretty decent beer the last few batches.

I imagine I am just being silly with that little bit of break material I

rack off, but it doesn't seem to hurt anything either.  And if there might

be side effects from pitching at high temps, I'd love to know what they

might be.  At any rate, I may not be one of the World's Greatest but how

about one of the World's Cheapest (until my friend recalls his pot and I

have to go get one)?

Any remarks would be happily entertained.

Jonathan

------------------------------


All grain costs and wine methods

Date:  Wed, 10 Feb 1993 12:26:12 -0500

From: Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@CANREM.COM>

Subject: All grain costs and wine methods


yeast reuse correction & all grain costs

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 93 9:20:23 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: yeast reuse correction & all grain costs

RE: Costs of all grain brewing.

>JS has again fired up the snobbery issue and generated a lot of

>wasted bandwidth in the process.  I am sure jack is pleased.  What

>I want to comment on is the response that implied the reason to

>avoid all grain brewing is cost.  It has been noted in this forum

>before that going all grain does not mean going broke.  To sum up

>the costs needed (a low budget, workable setup):

>2 plastic buckets with the holes drilled in one, plus a spigot-

>$10

>used 7 gallon SS kettle - 35-50$.

>(maybe-corona mill-45$,new)

>wort chiller, built at home, $25.

>total- 65-130$

        Actually I started out for even less. 2 food grade

        buckets that I managed to get for free. a 32qt

        enamel canning pot. No wort chiller and precrushed

        malt. To be honest I was using the canning pot for

        full boils with extract so my only added cost was the

        tap on the buckets. Less then $50 total including

        the kettle.

        Cost isn't the issue but time is! If you don't want

        to set aside the better part of the day then don't.

        IMHO liquid yeast did much more for my beer then

        mashing did.

On the issue of wine making. Here in Toronto you can get

US wine grapes in season.[Say late Aug-late Oct]. You can

buy them either whole or get them crushed by the seller. A

second choice is to buy pre-made musts of imported grape

juices which are usually available year round.

If you are starting out with either the premade musts or

pre-crushed grapes the effort required is much lower then

beer and even simpler then the orginal method posted. [I.E.

dump concentrate add water and sugar] At most you will have

to add yeast. Of course you could stick to more traditonal

methods and use the natural occuring yeasts on the grape

skins. IMHO this tends to produce a wine of greater

interest.

On the cost issue a standard case of grapes [36lbs] produces

2-2.5Imp gallons of juice [say 10litres+] with prices

ranging from $15-25cdn per case plus crushing costs [I think

around $1 we crush our own so I'm not sure] Must are higher

priced.

Has long has you stick to relatively simple methods you will

end up with drinkable wines. Avoid doing anything wierd like

adding extra sugars or boiling the juice. The main point is

to get good grapes.

Nick

*****************************************************************************

I drink Beer I don't collect cute bottles!

zen%hophead@canrem.com

*****************************************************************************

------------------------------


Fermenting in Stainless

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 12:41:03 PST

From: "Jim Daly, Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, MA" <daly@mast.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Fermenting in Stainless

Can anyone comment on their experience fermenting in stainless?

Specifically, I'd like to get away from using glass and the idea

that comes to mind is to use cornelius kegs.   For my primary I

could replace a valve with a blowoff tube (although the diameter

may be too small with the existing hole), and for a secondary I

could replace a valve with an airlock or checkvalve.  An alternative

for the primary may be a quarter keg with the top removed, which

would provide more headroom (7.5 gallons).  I guess I could get

really fancy and put a valve on the center-underside of the kegs

to drain off the sediment during fermentation (the base of the kegs

are cupped), similar to what is done with commercial tanks.

Has anyone tried something like this?  Pros/Cons?  Thanks...

Jim Daly

daly@mast.enet.dec.com

Digital Equipment Corporation

Maynard, MA

------------------------------


AHA Conference Schedule

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 14:23:00 EST

From: Bill Ridgely FTS 402-1336 <RIDGELY@A1.CBER.FDA.GOV>

Subject: AHA Conference Schedule

          Yesterday, Charlie Castell brought to our attention the conjunction

          of a ski race camp with this year's AHA Conference:

          >Most of you are reading this thinking that I've sent mail to the

          >wrong digest.  However, consider the dates:

          >3-day Summer Race Camp, Mt. Hood           July 23-25

          >AHA National Convention, Portland          July 26-30

          >Oregon Brewers Festival, Portland          July 30-Aug 1

          >Looks like quite a week. (Etc).

          Well, as long as we're on the subject, here's another amazing

          conjunction that some of you may find interesting:

          AHA National Convention, Portland           July 23-25

          Oregon Brewers Festival, Portland           July 30-Aug 1

          National Speleological Society Annual

                   Convention, Pendleton              Aug 2-6

          For those not familiar with the latter, it's the national

          association devoted to caves and cave exploration. I've found over

          the years that a lot of homebrewers are also cavers (we have

          several in my homebrew club), and believe me, beer and cavers go

          together like Scotch and soda. Cavers are also generally crazy and

          like to party in a major fashion. The NSS Convention is a week-

          long campout with nightly parties including, among other things,

          "adult water sports" (sauna, hot tub, etc). Don't get me wrong -

           some serious science and athletic competition takes place during

          the day, but evenings are generally devoted to carousing and mass

          consumption (Does this start to sound like the AHA Convention?).

          The fact that the two are colocated in time and space this year is

          a major reason for an old West Virginia potholer like myself to

          make the trip (although I'll be at the AHA anyway to co-present one

          of the talks).

          Out of curiosity - any other caving homebrewers out there? Private

          e-mail preferred.

          Bill

          ridgely@cber.cber.fda.gov

------------------------------


Chinook,Lag, Foam

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 15:00 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Chinook,Lag, Foam

 >From: kstiles@aluxpo.att.com

 >ObBrewing:  No takers on my question about flavor/aroma properties

 of Chinook hops, huh?  Do any commercial brews use them?

 A number of brewers use them although at the moment I can not name them but

 it frequently comes up in trade journals.  At last Sunday's ALEFEST sponsored

 by CBS, there was one that boasted of the use of Chinook exclusive and it was

 an excellent ale.  Unfortunately, I do not recall the brand.

 I have used almost nothing but Chinook for the past year in over 40 batches

 and am just now moving on to other varieties now that I have a bench mark.

 I just bought some imported Hallertau to try in my first batch with Belgian

 Munich malt.  I will let youall know if it is worth the expense.

 I had routinely used a 1/2 oz plug of imported Saaz at the end of boil but as

 I could not tell the difference between batches without it, I quit doing it.

 As far as aroma goes, I have nothing to compare it with yet but moments after

 dumping the Chinook into the boiling wort, the aroma that wafts out of the

 kettle can only be described as what I now consider one of the reasons I make

 beer.  I will be most impressed if an exotic hops can improve on this.

 >From: Lee Menegon <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

 >1) Pitching into wort that was much warmer than the target fermentation

 temperature.  We did this to reduce lag time.

 If your dyacetyl taste is coming from fermentation temp and you are concerned

 about lag time, I suggest you reconsider your priorities.

 Presuming that you have a reasonable quantity of well working starter, the

 lag time will not be excessive if you pitch at or near primary fermentation

 temp.  However, the most benign temperature is always whatever the starter is

 when pitched.  If it is at room temperature, it should be pitched into room

 temp wort for minimum lag time and to minimize the shock to the yeast.

 BTW, you did not mention just how warm "warmer" is so I am shooting in the

 dark but I think in general, far too much concern is given to lag time and

 curing it by pitching "warm" is probably not worth the risk.

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 > I urge you to try the blowoff method for a beer or two and compare.

 I don't think I want to get into blowoff vs skimming again but I think that

 most people who use "open" fermenters skim the foam which is the equivalent

 of blowoff.  The point made by the author was that removing the foam, by

 whatever means, severly reduces the quality of the beer.  That is the

 mis-information we were dealing with.

 For what it is worth, I tried blow-off once and wrote it off as just another

 one of those procedures that you either believe in or don't and no amount of

 discussion will change a believer's mind.

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >> I suspect that it might have a negative effect if Fix's hypothesis on HSA

 is correct.  What say George?

 >Oops.  I think there's some miscommunication here, Jack -- the mash isn't

 hot at this time so Hot-side Aeration (HSA) is not an issue.

 I was under the impression that the spray water being mixed with the grist

 was hot.  As spraying it would significantly increase its surface area, it

 would disolve more oxygen than if simple poured in.  If cold, it would be

 even worse but of course become CSA.

 >From: orgasm!davevi@uunet.UU.NET (David Van Iderstine)

 >>Keeping in mind that lots of people stick with extract because they are

 lazy, paranoid or il-informed (blah blah blah) .....

 >So, Jack, since *YOU* were still an extract brewer right up until the middle

 of last year, which were you-lazy, paranoid, or ill-informed? Maybe you left

 one out?

 I am sure this will disappoint you but I have no problem recognizing that I

 was all of the above and I probably did leave a few out.  This is precisely

 the reason I feel so strongly about my position.  For the record, my first

 all grain batch was on Sep 23, 1991 and have not used extract since.

 >  If anyone else gets as ticked off as I do with stupid statements like

 that quoted above, I've been advised our only recourse is to FLOOD the

 poster with private e-mail stating how we feel. Please do; I am!

 I much prefer your public comments to your trashy and vulgar email.

 If anyone takes your suggestion, they will get the same treatment.  As a

 matter of fact, if you do it again, I will start posting your trash to the

 Digest.

 js

------------------------------


address verification

Date:         Wed, 10 Feb 93 15:52:08 MST

From: Jena Davidson <G0463114@NMSUVM1.NMSU.EDU>

Subject:      address verification

Yes, you do indeed have the right address.  I have just subsribed and am intere

sted in recipes, news, techniques.  What is your favorite beer? (imported and d

omestic) Happy Valentines DAy!!!

------------------------------


Irish Red Ale (again)

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 19:16:25 PST

From: lfk%kerbit@uunet.UU.NET (Lynn Kerby)

Subject: Irish Red Ale (again)

In HBD1074 Guy McConnell writes:

>                                                          The one saving grace

>of Coors is that they are the only megabrewer still producing a decent, all

>barley beer, albeit seasonally, in Winterfest.  We couldn't even get that here

>in Huntsville this year.

Too bad :-( it wasn't half bad for a Coors product.  I took offense a

the word "STOUT" on the label where other domestic premium beers are

labeled "MALT LIQUOR".  Winterfest and stout are about as far apart as

you can get in the world of beer styles like the Sam Adams Cranberry

Lambic and real Lambics.  I wish that domestic brewers would just stop

being so pretentious and call their stuff what it is.

     Lynn Kerby  -  [apple,amdahl]!veritas!lfk or  lfk@veritas.com

Disclaimer: Any and all opinions expressed herein are my own and do not

            necessarily represent the views of anyone, especially my employer.

------------------------------


the fermentables-adjuncts-yeasts matrix

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 19:25:26 PST

From: Richard Childers <rchilder@us.oracle.com>

Subject: the fermentables-adjuncts-yeasts matrix

"Date: 22 Jan 93 13:34:21 EST

 From: Jeff Frane <70670.2067@compuserve.com>

 Subject: Barleywine Yeast Method

    .

    .

    .

 The notion of using champagne yeast is pretty bizarre, when you

 thithink of it.  Can you imagine any self-respecting British

 brewery using some Frog yeast?  Part of the problem may have

 arisen from the homebrewer's notion that everything should be

 quick and easy.  The British barleywines I've tasted have all

 required _years_ to reach a drinkable stage--but they _will_

 get there."

I find it most convenient to view brewing as a finite state system with

four axes :

  - fermentable(s)

  - adjunct(s)

  - yeast(s)

  - sequence(s)

It can be visualized thusly :

   Fermentables & adjuncts .....

 +------------------------------------------------------- . . .

 |

Y |

e |

a |

s |

t |

s |

 |

 . |

 . |

 . |

 .

 .

 .

 ... and both axes are deliberately _not_ finite, because I don't believe

there are _any_ boundaries to the brewing experience, except those that

are imposed by the participant.

Not only is the list of fermentables and adjuncts unlimited, but, given

the proclivities of yeast populations and the diversity of microclimates,

so are the possible yeasts and their combinations.

This is one of the reasons I like the homebrewing community, because of

the vagueness of the term 'brewing', where the boundaries aren't very

specific. One can brew beer ... wine ... cider ... and anything else one

wishes to try.

The number of known results are far outweighed by the number of unknown

results, and this promises rewards to the experimentally inclined.

For example, I'm fermenting some black cherry juice from Napa Valley with

Pasteur Champagne Yeast, the same yeast I use to make sparkling cider out

of apple juice. I tried natural apple yeasts and liked the champagne yeast

much better. Even if it doesn't taste good I can use it as an adjunct to

another brewing experiment, like a fake cherry lambic.

- -- richard

=====

- -- richard childers  rchilder@us.oracle.com  1 415 506 2411

         oracle data center  --  unix systems & network administration

  ... whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

------------------------------


Irish Brew

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 21:39:31 PST

From: danforth@trinity.llnl.gov (Bill A. Danforth)

Subject: Irish Brew

Hello All,

My monthly dinner club is planning on an Irish theme for an upcoming dinner.

I am looking for recipes of Irish brews.  Please send them via email, and if

people want, I can post a summary or post the recipe I used and how it came out.

Please send recipes to:     danforth2@llnl.gov

Thanks in advance,

Bill Danforth

danforth2@llnl.gov

------------------------------


fruit wine making

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 10:09:03 +0100

From: Victor Reijs <Victor.Reijs@SURFnet.nl>

Subject: fruit wine making

Hello Rob and others,

> .... possibly because they don't (I'll take an industrial example : most

>english bitters contain types of sugar, eg mollasses). Well it's the same

>with wine. Wine making started long before the french made it their own.

>People have been making blackberry, strawberry, in fact hundreds of

>NON-grape wines for centuries. It is the "grape wine snobs" and a very

>powerful french industry which has meant that you can't buy them (a few

>companies in britain sell them, including Gales - the brewery).

>True this is a beer forum, and also true there are (sorry is) a digest

Also here is a big cultural difference between America and

Europe then. As I read in another mail that wine makers are

people who just take a can and brew something, you hear the

same story in Europe but then for beer makers;-)

But that is just for information and like all

generalizations it says not much!.

But there have already been more questions about wine and

reading the above message I see that there is a forum for

fruit wine making (I do not mean cider making (is a type of

wine) like mead). Is that correct and could you please

information on that.

If not, is it not possible to set up such a list somewhere,

who volonteers???

All the best,

Victor

------------------------------


chocolate in beer

Date: 11 Feb 1993 08:20:46 -0500 (EST)

From: Sandy Cockerham <COCKERHAM_SANDRA_L@LILLY.COM>

Subject: chocolate in beer

I for one can't tell you how to clean the mess, but next time perhaps you

should try using cocoa instead. In an old Zymurgy, Charlie P. has a recipe

for "Slanting Annie's Chocolate Porter". When he made it he spoke of the globs

of floating cocoa butter mess produced. He then stated that to get around that

one could use a good powdered cocoa.

One of the guys in the local brewclub made a chocolate porter with cocoa and

it was GREAT!

Sandy C.

From: COCKERHAM SANDRA L            (MCVAX0::RX31852)

To:   VMS MAIL ADDRESSEE            (IN::"homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com")

------------------------------


Misc. beginner questions

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 08:58:01 EST

From: casey@bbt.com (Kevin Casey)

Subject: Misc. beginner questions

I began my homebrewing experience by brewing "kit" beers in September, and

have since brewed at least 4 batches of all malt extract beers. After 9 or

so batches, I have some questions that I would like answered.

I made a batch of Pilsener which looks beautiful in the bottle until I

refrigerate it. What causes the hazing of the beer when I chill it, and

how can I avoid it?

I have experimented with differenct adjuncts. Are there any items that should

not go in Beer that would cause it not to ferment properly?

I haven`t had a gushing problem but I do have some of the first beers that I

made and they seem to be overcarbonated. They were fine for 4-6 weeks and then

began to lose flavor. Is this due to the yeast used?, and how much flavor

is a factor of the yeast used?

At what temperature would an average beer of 4-5% alcohol freeze? I would rather

store them in my garage than in my closet, but do not want them to freeze.

Any help would be appreciated.

I also have one comment on the all-grain vs extract brewing wars. Even a kit beer

tastes better than most domestics.

Kevin Casey (casey@bbt.com)

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1076, 02/12/93

*************************************

-------


all-Unix snobs

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 09:26:06 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: all-Unix snobs

In hbd1973, arf sez:

>...Many of us barely literate computer users have no

>idea of how to access a FAQ, if indeed it is something we can get at will.

>

>Compuserve stores just about everything of any value in library files that

                              ----------------------- (!!!)

>are easily accessible but cost an arm and a leg to retrieve....

In hbd1075,

>>From: neilm@juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Neil Mager )

>>Subject: Special Archive Proposal

>

>Let me make another proposal.  How bout explaining what an archive is and how

>one goes about accessing it before you expand on a special archive.

 I can't speak for "electronic community" and you may be right but it is

 also worth while to put the issue into proper perspective.

 Keeping in mind that lots of people don't know about archives because

 they are lazy, paranoid or il-informed and further keeping in mind that

 Compuserve, as opposed to the "electronic community" has a vested interest

 in maintaining the status quo because its revenues would dry up without

 uneducated users, it is worth noting that some Compuserve users are excellent

 people, so I am told.   One also presumes that lots of Compuserve users use

 Compuserve because they know how to make excellent e-mail.

 Having said that, I suggest it is the Compuserve users' insecurity,

 sensitivity and paranoia that creates the image that Unix-freaks are snobs.

Apologies to "real" Compuserve users.  I couldn't resist :-)

Rob (bradley@adx.adelphi.edu)

------------------------------


Re: Archives

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 09:45:00 EST

From: neilm@juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Neil Mager )

Subject: Re: Archives

Jack Schmidling writes:

 >>From: neilm@juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Neil Mager )

 >>Subject: Special Archive Proposal

 >

 > Let me make another proposal.  How bout explaining what an archive is

 > and how one goes about accessing it before you expand on a special archive.

  Archives are just a collection of files located on some system

  (with generous owners). All the HBD digests back to 1988 are

  stored on sierra.stanford.edu. They also allow to us

  access any previous digests via email or ftp.

  This is at the top of each HBD:

  > Archives are available via anonymous ftp from sierra.stanford.edu.

  > (Those without ftp access may retrieve files via mail from

  > listserv@sierra.stanford.edu. Send HELP as the body of a

  > message to that address to receive listserver instructions.)

  If you don't have ftp access, simply send mail to

  listserv@sierra.stanford.edu and you can receive the files.

  Here's a couple of examples to put in the body of your email:

 > index homebrew

  The listserver will email you the list of all homebrew related files you can

  receive.

 > get homebrew 1988.index

  The listserver will email you the a file containing the subjects

  of each HBD posting, much like the top of the HBD you receive

  daily.

 > get homebrew 1074

  The listserver will email the HBD from Feb 10, 1993, HBD # 1074.

Richard Stueven writes:

 > In HBD# 1071, ex-beginner Russ Gelinas recommends:

 >

 > >Read *all* the HBD archives.  Yes, all.  IMHO,

 > >the HBD archives are perhaps the richest source of homebrewing info

 > >available.

 >

   I completely agree. One of the advantages of the HBD over a

   book is the discussion that occurs. You get many different

   perspectives rather than the authors favorite.

 > Of course, the first things we loaded into the system were the entire

 > HBD archive, the ASCII Cat's Meow, the publist, and tons of other

 > net.brew_stuff, and we update it monthly.  Mighty informative!  Mighty

 > useful!

   Well, I'm jealous :-) . Unfortunatly, we all do not have disc

   space available for the HBD archives, which is why its so nice

   having the it archived for us on sierra.

   This is also why I think it would be nice have a few special

   archives files containing all the threads on some popular

   topics that come up frequently. The FAQ could reference some of

   these rather than briefly answering the questions or

   referencing the many hbd's that discussed the topic.

- --  Neil

===============================================================================

Neil M. Mager

MIT Lincoln Laboratory       Lexington, MA

  Weather Radar - Group 43

Internet                    <neilm@juliet.ll.mit.edu>

Voice                       (617) 981-4803

===============================================================================

------------------------------


Detergents etc.

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 09:53:44 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@beethoven.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Detergents etc.

Al referred to a previous posting about removing Chocolate oil

and made the excellent suggestion to use washing soda (sodium

carbonate).  I'll chime in and also suggest TSP (trisodium

phosphate) readily available in hardware stores as an oil paint

stripper, or caustic soda (sodium hydroxide).  These strong

bases are used in commercial practice for cleaning and sterilizing

and by us as label strippers.  They should be used according to

directions with rubber gloves.  These suckers will strip the oil

from your hands as easily as from the dirty vessel and you'll

need quite a bit of vaseline intensive care to get it back.

Don`t use soaps or detergents on your brewing epuipment.  The

reaction that occurs above is basically soap making.  The fatty acids

that forms the oils (attached to glycols) react in an acid-base

neutralization with the base to form fatty acid ions, which are

long chains ytpically 16-18 carbons long.  In water these will

form micelles with the negaticely charged acid group on the outside

and the hydrophobic hydrocarbons within.  Organic material can

dissolve within this micelles, so tha addition of soaps to water

allows insoluble organics to be dissolved.

Detergents are similar, except stronger acid groups such as sulponic

groups are on the end of the organic chain.  There are also non ionic

and cationic surfactants to go along with the usual anionic types when

an acid rather than basic environment is desired (Pert shampoo and

conditioner in one is an household example of this).

Basically domestic detergents and soaps are relatively kind to human

skin, or have other additives.  But in homebrew equipment they will

leave a residue that will knock that head straight out of your beer.

It is nearly impossible to remove a soap layer from the wall of a

plastic bucket.  Stick with strong bases for tough cleanup - and

use rubber gloves.  They are cleaner and stronger.

Ulick Stafford

PS on thurs all submissions were made on Tuesday.  hmmm - and there

isn't even a maltmill givaway going on.  When the cats away everything

goes to hell!

------------------------------


Ulick's Criticism of MI Deposit Laws

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 09:08:55 CST

From: wood@ranger.rtsg.mot.com (Dan Wood)

Subject: Ulick's Criticism of MI Deposit Laws

   While I have enjoyed Ulick's posts in the past, and benefitted from

the wealth of information he provides to this digest, I must take

exception to his description of Michigan's deposit law as "inane".

   I live in Illinois, a state with neither bottle deposit nor blue

laws.  I frequently visit friends and relatives in Michigan.  The

contrast between the two states in startling in many respects, but

let me focus on the difference this is entirely due to the bottle

deposit.

   In Michigan, you will find very little broken glass, nor will you

find litter from empty cans or cardboard packaging.  It's rare for people

to throw away their empties, instead they return them for cash.  In the

rare occasions where they are discarded as litter, local kids

enthusiastically gather them and return them to collect the deposit.

You wouldn't think it would work this well, but apparently the locals

have figured out that those dimes add up.

   In contrast, virtually no area of Illinois is immune to this litter.

Even residential neighborhoods routinely have empties (presumably from

"cruising" young drinkers) discarded on street corners and in front yards.

Local parks typically have hazardous areas created by broken glass.  In

my experience, this problem also exists in other states that don't have

deposit laws.

   Although Michigan's deposit laws have created some inconvenience for

retailers, I feel it's justified, since they profit from the sales.  It

costs the consumer nothing so long as he acts responsibly and collects

and returns the empties, which should be done regardless.  The deposit

simply provides incentive to "do the right thing".  Obviously social

conscience doesn't produce this incentive elsewhere.

   Please excuse the long post, and I certainly don't mean to flame, but

the lack of deposit laws in other states is a pet peeve of mine.  I can't

see condemning such an effective system simply because of minor

inconvenience suffered by out-of-state visitors.  Should anyone feel they

must debate this issue with me, please do so via private email, this is

the last HBD bandwidth I will expend on this topic.

   Stepping off my soap box now, relaxing, and still _brewing_ great beers

from extract,

        Dan Wood

        wood@rtsg.mot.com

PS: The worst beer thread is entertaining, but does anyone out there

_really_ think they can make worse beer than Miller Lite?  I think that

WWB is the one area where Budmilloors has an edge on us.  :)

------------------------------


Celis expanding to other States

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 6:41:36 CST

From: dewey@sooner.ctci.com (Dewey Coffman)

Subject: Celis expanding to other States

   Roll out the Celis

 Austin brewery to boost sales and production

    Austin American-Statesman Statesman, 2/9/93

 Celis Brewery plans to introduce its beers to 30 states and several

overseas markets by the end of the year, a move that would more than

triple its production from 8,000 barrels to at least 25,000.

 The Austin-made beers now are sold in six states and Washington, D.C.

This month, the company plans to begin distribution in six more, including

Colorado, Illinois, Indiana and New York.

 We think 1994 will be a very excellent year," said Christine Calis,

brewery president.  At the same time the privately held company is contracting

with several U.S.  distributors, it is working on sales leads in Europe and

Asia, Celis said. She said she expects to place the beers in Taiwan, China,

England, France and Holland by 1994.

 Celis began brewing last year and launched its beers -- Celis White,

Cells Pale Bock and Celis Golden in May. A fourth product, Celis Grand Cru,

was introduced in December.

 Cells' 1992 revenues, which represent about a half year of sales, were

$550,000, brewery officials said. This year, the brewery expects sales to climb

to about $3 million.

[much deleted]

------------------------------


Brewpub tour in San francisco?

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 10:21:24 EST

From: jrcost@hogpa.ho.att.com (John R Costelloe +1 908 949 2688)

Subject: Brewpub tour in San francisco?

I've heard rumors that someone has organized a brewpub tour in the

San Francisco area. Does anyone have any information on this? I'll

be in the area for about a week starting February 20.

I would also appreciate any recommendations for "must see" good beer

type bars (lots of local microbrew beers on tap) in San Francisco

and San Jose.

Thanks in advance.

John

P.S. It's going to be nice getting out of New Jersey for a while!

att!hogpa!jrcost

(908) 949-2688

------------------------------


Re: QC, Archive, Snobs, Iodophor

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 07:54:30 PST

From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)

Subject: Re: QC, Archive, Snobs, Iodophor

> From arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

>  One final point, I posted the same article to Compuserve and received not a

>  single negative comment.  Again, I am not sure what this portends but it is

>  food for thought.

I haven't been on for a couple weeks, so I didn't see it there.  I

would like to point out that there is a great difference between

CompuServe and the Digest.  That is that most CIS users do not read all

the message threads.  They use navigator programs to reduce connect

time and generally select message threads by subject.  Messages on the

Digest (actually, any digest or mailing list) go to everybody.

Also, of course, the Digest has developed ARF antibodies and will

likely react to even borderline messages if they are from you.

Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,

lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate

------------------------------


Wild Yeast

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 10:08:17 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat (George J Fix)

Subject: Wild Yeast

It is my opinion that the major open problem in brewing microbiology today

is the formulation of an accurate, practical, and rapid media for the

detection of nonculture yeast. The problem is one of a needle in a

haystack. We pitch ale yeast at the 5-10 million cell per ml (10-15 for

lagers), yet we want to detect contaminants at the 1- 10 cell/ml range.

In commercial work, even lower levels of detection are required (typically

in the cells per 100 ml. range).

This problem has been solved for bacteria. Cycloheximide, sometimes known

as actidione, added in very low levels to any of the suitable growth media

(WLN, NBB, UBA, et al) will nicely inhibit yeast (culture and otherwise)

without affecting bacteria. What is needed is something like this for wild

yeast.

Simply streaking samples from a slurry on a media like WLN is only going to

give a plate full of culture yeast. I have done this more times than I would

like to admit, and have found in spite of the color indicators, spotting the

one in a million is next to impossible. Gross contamination can be detected,

but direct microscopy, and in fact one's own nose, work as well in these cases.

The two following approaches have been suggested for small scale brewers:

   1. Rodney Morris> Incrementally add actidione to a growth media starting

      at extremely low levels. This, just like all Rodney's ideas, is

      terrific. It, however, is an extremely tedious procedure that for a long

      list of reasons can only be done in a professional lab. I use it only

      as a last resort, only at my university, and only if someone is paying

      me to do this work!

   2. Other inhibitors> A variety of inhibitors have been proposed like

      copper sulfate. These have been very effective in the detection of

      strains like S. diastaticus. However and alas, there are saccharomyces

      strains, quite common in both home and pub brewing, which are inhibited

      along with culture yeast. Murphy's law suggests that these are the folks

      that bring us the "funky homebrew" taste.

For those at Cornell on this network, you should be aware that some very

exciting work is being done in your Food Science Dept. by Dr. Karl Siebert,

the Chairman of the program and a very distinguished brewing scientist. His

group has come up with a new medium (cadaverine, lysine, ethylamine, nitrate)

that could be what we are looking for. Now if you folks could just recruit

Dr. Jean-Xavier Guinard from Penn. State, you would start to rival Munich!

George Fix

------------------------------


Poe on Ale

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1993 08:31:38 -0800 (PST)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Poe on Ale

Last August, Mike Hall used the following quote, attributed to E.A. Poe,

in his sig.  Mike though he got it from Guy McConnell.

Fill with mingled cream and amber, I will drain that glass again.

Such hilarious visions clamber through the chamber of my brain--

Quaintest thoughts -- queerest fancies come to life and fade away;

What care I how time advances:  I am drinking ale today.

                                            -Edgar Allen Poe

I've searched for the source for this in Poe's writings and have come up

blank.  It certainly is similar to Poe's style.  Where did this come from?

It deserves to go on a beer label.  Would the ATF approve it, or would the

abusive altruists ban it?

Paul.

------------------------------


Dry Hopping

Date:         Thu, 11 Feb 93 10:59:34 CST

From: Raymond Taylor <NU028463@VM1.NODAK.EDU>

Subject:      Dry Hopping

     I have been brewing for a couple of years, now, and consider

myself to be an intermediate to advanced brewer.  However, one

topic seems to elude my understanding; that is DRY HOPPING.

     I have Dry Hopped several batches, with good results, but

the hops effect on fermentation is what I can't figure out.  Each

time I have Dry Hopped  (I have always used pellets), seemingly

dead fermentation restarts, and continues slowly for quite some

time.  (This is not to be confused with the rapid release of

dissolved CO2 that can occur soon after the addition of the

hops.)

    I have a list of possibilities I have thought of, and would

like to get the HBD's opinions on them:

1.   The Hops introduce wild yeasts that can digest the heavy

     remaining sugars.  (I haven't noticed any off-flavors).

2.   The Hops contain some sort of enzyme that will break down

     the heavy sugars, to some the yeast can handle.  (I have

     seen gravities drop further than I expected.)

3.   The Hops provide a matrix for the yeast to attach to, and be

     more exposed to the wort.  (Similar to Beechwood?)

4.   The Hops contain a yeast nutrient.  (Or maybe simple

     sugars?)

5.   YOUR ideas here: ______________________________.

Thanks for any ideas.

Carl Eidbo

SINCE I DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO USENET PLEASE SEND ANY PERSONAL

RESPONSES TO RAY TAYLOR (NU028463@NDSUVM1) OR POST TO HBD.

YOU MIGHT TRY SENDING E-MAIL TO EIDBO@MILO.NODAK.EDU. CARL MIGHT

BE ABLE TO RECEIVE MAIL AT THIS ADDRESS BUT HE DOESN'T HAVE SEND

CAPABILITIES.    I WILL FORWARD ANY INFO YOU SEND DIRECTLY TO ME!

RAY

------------------------------


hops identification

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 12:34:49 EST

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: hops identification

There was a question a couple of days ago about identifying unknown

hops growing in someone's yard.

If the hops came from seed, the probability is essentially zero that

they are one of the "recognized" varieties.  Hops are normally

propagated vegetatively, that is, from cuttings of a "parent" plant.

All hops from a given "cultivar" are genetically identical.  Plants

grown from seed, even if both parents were the same, will have a

different genetic makeup, and therefore different flavor, alpha acid

content, and other characteristics.

If, however, the hops were planted by a homebrewer, then there's a

chance they are of a recognized variety, so it doesn't hurt to try to

identify them.

The bottom line is this: you will probably have to experiment with

them to determine their bittering and flavor characteristics.

=Spencer W. Thomas   |  Info Tech and Networking, B1911 CFOB, 0704

   "Genome Informatician" |  Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu |  313-764-8065, FAX 313-764-4133

------------------------------


S.S's Taddy Porter

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1993 09:50:55 -0800 (PST)

From: Mike Deliman <miked@wrs.com>

Subject: S.S's Taddy Porter

Hi All,

I just looked through our brew archives, looking for a recipe for

Samuel Smith's Taddy Porter, and unfortunately came up empty handed.

If anyone out there has a recipe, either extract or full-mash, I'd appreciate

if those kind souls would email me a copy!

Thanks much,

   mike

P.S. Keep us informed, Chuck!

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mike Deliman   | Save water | Starve a lawyer - boycott Sam Adams Beer.

miked@wrs.com  | drink      | "Koch has introduced more lawsuits than beer

 ...!wrs!miked  | homebrew!  | styles in the past year." - Chuck "Boston" Cox

------------------------------


Subject: BBW wins again!

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 11:12:18 -0700

From: John Adams <j_adams@hpfcjca.sde.hp.com>

Subject: Subject: BBW wins again!

> I am thinking of starting a new brewery, "The Adams Family Boston

> Brewing Company".  Any interested investors? Any interested attorneys?

Hey I'm interested and my name is Adams!  That should keep Koch's cronnies

away 8^)

John Adams

------------------------------


hop plugs/bad memory

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 12:16:30 CST

From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)

Subject: hop plugs/bad memory

>First of all, thanks for all the charts and formulae for hbus -> ibus

>given boiling time, S.G., etc.  I do still have a question however.  I

>have seen that pellets have different utilization than whole hops (both

>in this forum and in some of the homebrew books); indeed hop plugs have

>yet another utilization rate.

Hop plugs have the same utilization rate as loose leaf hops,

but they keep better.  i.e. the AA% content stamped on the package

actually means somehting.  You should multiply the AA% on loose

leaf hops by anything from .7-.9 (typically) to compensate for for

the drop in AA during storage before plugging the # into the table.

>I was at G.W. Kent on Saturday, so I asked them about hops plugs.

>Randy said they had added them to their catalog this year, but then

>were unable to get any from the supplier.  Something about a bad crop

>this year.  So, G.W. Kent is not shipping hops plugs at this time.  If

>you thought you got some with the G.W. Kent label, you must be

>confused.  The only ones I've seen are imported by Crosby & Baker.

Yes, I was reciting from memory, since my brewery is at home and I

was at work.  The plugs were from Morris & Handbury (sp?).  They

have a blue & white label as does Kent, and...

along the same lines:

lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson) writes:

>> The yeast in Chimay is not a single strain.  It is either 3 or 5.  I

>Yea, I was wrong.  That's what I get for trying to be helpful and

>posting from a year old memory.

Wow! Only a year old and you're already brewing and using a computer?

bb

------------------------------


Re: fining -> diacetyl

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 12:13 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: fining -> diacetyl

Russ writes:

>   I'd vote that adding finings early on in the secondary is what is

>causing the high diacetyl in your beer.  In fact, this is just what happens

>with Samuel Smith beers, except their yeast flocs out because of the

>nature of their slate fermentation vessels.  Give the yeast more time

>in suspension in the secondary to reduce the diacetyl.

I believe it's the highly-flocculent yeast strain that they use at the

Tadcaster Brewery (Samuel Smith's) rather than the slate "squares" that

causes the yeast to floc out early.  Someone (Darryl maybe?) reported

that they use some kind of hand-held pumping system to push the yeast

back into suspension.

Al.

------------------------------


Morris Hanbury Hop Plugs

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 12:29 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Morris Hanbury Hop Plugs

Spencer writes:

>were unable to get any from the supplier.  Something about a bad crop

>this year.  So, G.W. Kent is not shipping hops plugs at this time.  If

>you thought you got some with the G.W. Kent label, you must be

>confused.  The only ones I've seen are imported by Crosby & Baker.

I can verify that this was a bad year for hops in europe and that the

US importer (GW Kent's, Crosby & Baker's, and L. D. Carlson's supplier)

is Morris Hanbury, who only sells wholesale by the way, is not shipping

large quantities of plugs.  They said that since their supply is so small

this year, that they could not offer cases as they ususally do, so that

all their customers could have some.  Perhaps because G.W.Kent was not

interested in only 25 of 50 plugs, they chose to not stock them this year.

>He also said that as far as he knows, any plugs on the market now must

>be from the 1991 crop.  If this is true, then my experience with plugs

>speaks very well for their keeping ability.  As I said yesterday, the

>plugs I bought recently had the freshest hops I've ever used.

Indeed they have an incredible refridgerated shelf life, partly due to

the fact that their O2-barrier packages are nitrogen-purged before

vacuum-sealing.  The Morris Hanbury Plugs that I received, however,

were marked as 1992 crop.  I suspect that the unavailability of whole

and pelletized 1992 Goldings is perhaps associated with the fact that

they are most attractive in the plug form and thus most of the scarce

1992 export crop was destined to be made into plugs.  Just a guess.

Al.

------------------------------


A Beer Odyssey (Act III)

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1993 10:43:25 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: A Beer Odyssey (Act III)

A Beer Odyssey (Act III)

Ashland is a good long way from Cave Junction.  You have to drive

around a whole lot of mountains to get there.  You can work up quite a

thirst doing it.  I finally reached Rogue Brewing in Ashland around

10:30 Saturday night.

It pains me to say it, but I'm going to plead the Fifth in my

description of my visit to Rogue, and I promise the brewers and the

staff there that I will give them another go under more favorable

conditions.  I had been driving for some thirteen hours by then, and it

was late, and (dare I say it?) I was in more of a mood to sleep than I

was to drink beer.  As I walked up to the pub, there were a lot of

people making a lot of noise (or so I thought, but what did I expect on

a Saturday night?) and a folk guitarist on a stool outside.  I went

inside to the downstairs bar, and the bartender told me I should go

outside to listen to the music.  I explained the True Reason that I was

there, and ordered an IPA.

I'll be honest:  I've had Rogue beers on tap and in the bottle, and I

was never very impressed.  I found them sour and not very appetizing at

all.  My immediate reaction to this IPA wasn't much different, and I

finished the pint and left.

As I was driving away in search of a motel, the taste of the beer

lingered, and I thought, "You know, that beer wasn't bad at all."  My

state of mind had really distorted my state of palate.  Once again, I

apologize to the folks at Rogue, and I promise to stop by again and do

them up right.  Like so many of the beers I tasted on this odyssey, I

think they've probably improved immeasurably over the past year or

two.

I drove through the streets of Ashland, looking for a motel.  "No

Vacancy" signs lit my path.  Eventually, I came to I-5, and I headed

south, back toward California.  "There must be some towns nearby," I

thought, "and I'll find a place to stay in one of them."

Nobody had bothered to tell me that there are nothing but mountains

from Ashland on south, and big empty ones at that.  No towns to be

found; nothing but dark twisty Interstate Highway.  The nearly-full

moon rose behind Mount Shasta, some sixty miles away by air (ninety by

road).  Forty-five minutes later, I was in Yreka, California.

No vacancy.  I began to suspect a conspiracy.

I returned to the freeway and continued south.  It was plenty late, and

I was plenty tired, and about six hundred miles from home.  The next

town with a streetlight was Weed, California.

No vacancy.

I drove around the streets of Weed, checking all the motels, but they

all claimed to be full.  Reaching deep into my bag of tricks, I asked

myself what I would have done back when I was young and poor.

I slept in my car in a Motel 6 parking lot.

I woke Sunday morning around 6:30 when the fellow in the truck next to

me was loading up to leave.  (The looks I got from him...)  Just up

the road was the Hi-Lo Cafe & Motel.  The Cafe was a lot more

interesting to me than the Motel just now; I was in desperate need of

coffee.  I mapped out the day's battle plan over breakfast.  Since I

had come this far, and was now rounding the far turn, as they say, I

reasoned that I may as well visit a few more pubs on the way home.  I

plotted my course.

First up was Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Chico.  As luck would

have it, I reached this Mecca of Pubcrawlers at ten o'clock in the

morning, opening time, and time for Sunday brunch.  It's a beautiful

brewery, industrial surroundings notwithstanding, and a beautiful bar

inside.  It reminded me of the bar at Pacific Coast Brewing in

Oakland, but the one at Sierra is even bigger.  Sunday brunch at Sierra

consists of your choice from their breakfast menu plus a half-pint of

the beer of your choice.  What a way to start your day.  The hardest

choice to make was which beer to accompany breakfast.  To make a proper

choice, I felt that I should have a round of samplers first:

 Draught Ale - Like the Pale Ale, but smoother, and more hops.

 Pale Ale - Even better when fresh.

 Porter - Very smooth, with strong chocolate flavor.  Not as

  highly hopped as I remember it, and that's good!  Very

  thick.

 Stout - Heavier in body, but lighter taste than Porter.  Also

  not as highly hopped as I remember.

 Celebration Ale - Not available.  Too bad.

 Bigfoot Ale - Holy cow!  This is not your basic breakfast

  beer!  Again, ten times better when fresh, just like

  the others.

 Summerfest - Very smooth, heavy body, light taste.  Could use

  a touch more flavoring hops, but maybe not.

 Pale Bock - Not available.  Too bad.

I chose the Huevos Rancheros and a half-pint of the Draught Ale.  The

Huevos Rancheros were served with a black bean sauce and an alarmingly

hot salsa, and a fruit plate and various muffins.  Not bad for six

bucks!  There was a good crowd for a Sunday morning; at least two dozen

people were there for brunch, and even then the bartender called it a

"pretty slow morning".  Their prices are better than fair:  brunch, the

samplers, a pint each of Pale and Porter, a T-shirt, and two pint

glasses for $25.  It's a deal!  Be advised they're closed on Monday.

------------------------------


Re: Soured (?) Wort

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 12:53 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Soured (?) Wort

Dan writes:

>   A brewing friend has become enamored with soured beers, Samuel Smith's

>Taddy Porter in particular.

I'm confused.  Either your friend got a hold of a bad sixpack or is

mis-interpreting something in the Taddy Porter's flavor profile as

sour.  I have never found markedly more sourness in Taddy Porter than

in any other British ale.  I suggest your friend get a hold of some

Berliner Weiss or Cantillon Gueuze and compare sourness to Taddy Porter.

Granted, any beer with dark-roasted grains will have a bit more acidity

than paler beers, so perhaps I'm jumping-the-gun... perhaps your friend

is hyper-sensitive to sourness (everyone's perceptions of taste are

different -- part of being a judge is recognizing and normalizing your

own).

To answer your question, I feel that Charlie Papazian has a very good

explanation of sour mashing in the back of the New CJoHB.  I don't

have my copy here, so I can't help you with the times and temps,

but it basically uses naturally occurring Lactobacillus on grain husks

to sour the mash.  I tasted a pseudo-lambic that made it to the

second round of the nationals last year that was made this way and

it was quite good (albeit short on Brettanomyces character, but that's

a different story).

Al.

------------------------------


Level of Malt Modification

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 13:20:49 EST

From: Lee Menegon <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

Subject: Level of Malt Modification

In reviewing a grain suppliers catalog I noticed that they list the

level of modification of the various malts they sell.  They range from

low modification for the German varieties to highly modified for  the

British varieties.  American 2 rows were in the middle.

I know that when a friend step mashed some German Pilsner malt he would

get about 28-29 sg points per pound and his mashes would take 30 to 45

minutes longer than when he mashed British Pale malt.  When he switched

to decoction mashing the Pilsner malt his yield would be about 34 sg

points per pound.

Why are grains modified to different extents?

How can I use this level of modification information to brew better beer?

I have been experimenting with Muton&Fison Mild Malt.  It is kilned a bit

higher than pale malt, is slightly darker and adds a nutty flavor to a

beer's profile.  I have used it in a pale ale and brown ale and recommend

its use by partial mashers and all grain snobs, AGS.  In the pale ale it

was about 10-20% of the grist while the brown ale 4050% of grist.

Partial mashers use 1-1.5Lb for ale 2.5 to 4 lb for brown ale.

  I will have some of my most recent brown ale at the 2-12 meeting of the

Brew Free or Die Homebrew club.  Since it is named: not so Brown Ale  I

hope that the whinny voice in the Sam Adams radio adds, Jim Koch, does

not issue an injuction against me for using the same letters in the word

 Boston in my beer's name.  Incidently the grain was purchased in Boston.

Some recent posts have mentioned "a lost style " of beer, Irish Red Ales

and have metioned how homebrewing has help resurect styles, like Porter.

What is the Irish Red Ale style, its color, beginning and ending gravity,

what ingredients are normally used, grains hops, level of bitterness,

what yeast is characteristic of this style?  Lets discuss it and brew it.

 --

------------------------------


Costs / Cold Break

Date: 11 Feb 93 15:06:20 EST

From: Jeff Frane <70670.2067@compuserve.com>

Subject: Costs / Cold Break

On all-grain snobbery:  Jim Busch has offered excellent points on

how little all-grain brewing can cost.  I'd also like to offer a

suggestion -- brew with a friend.  Or several friends.  If you are

in a region with a homebrew club, or have other brewers nearby that

you know, pooling resources works very well.  It's obviously a lot

cheaper for 3 brewers to buy a grain mill or build a wort chiller

than for one, and the reality is that this equipment spends a lot of

time sitting around.  It's also true that a 15 gallon kettle

doesn't cost _that_ much more than an 8 gallon kettle, and two

brewers can make 10 gallons almost as quickly as one can make five.

It also means more than one brain -- which can be a real aid.

On Cold Break:

Brian Bliss has posted some responses to a query about cold break,

and I must say his opinion seems well-considered.  However, I have

to disagree, based both on my own experience and on the research I

did last year for a presentation at the AHA national conference.

George Fix suggested I post it to the Digest last summer, but I

never got around to it.  Here, then, are my own conclusions,

excerpted from a presentation/article on building a wort chiller:

Hot Break/Cold Break

In addition to getting the wort to fermentation temperature,

rapid cooling also causes changes in the wort which encourage

good fermentation and brighter beer.  At two late stages in the

boiling/cooling cycle, there is an opportunity to clear the

proteins, hop resins and other organic matter that would

discourage healthy yeast growth and cloud the finished beer.

The hot break occurs while the wort is still in the kettle and

is, in fact, considered to be the right time to end the boil.  It

is marked by the appearance of large flakes of "gunk" surrounded

by a brilliantly clear wort.  The cold break -- which consists of

similar organic compounds -- begins after the wort has been

cooled below 60^C (140^F).  George Fix writes that "by removing

most of both precipitates, one can eliminate approximately one-

half of the haze-forming material." While it is essential to

fine beer to ensure a proper hot break and to rack the wort off

the precipitate, some homebrewers are overly cautious about

"protecting" their beer from the cold break.

After touring through a few breweries, it is clear that

cold break sediment is nowhere near as threatening as it seems at

first glance; the most common systems create a cold break but do

nothing to eliminate it.  Consider, then, Jean de Clerq's

statement: "It is therefore essential, that while the sterility

of the wort is assured, it should (1) absorb sufficient oxygen

during cooling, (2) coagulated protein should be entirely

eliminated, and (3) the turbid matter which appears during

cooling should be at least partly precipitated, _so that it does

not remain as a fine colloidal suspension in the beer_."

(emphasis added). In other words, what's essential is ensuring

the break; once precipitated out, the material will only cause

problems if it is redissolved by raising the temperature again.

George Fix writes that "in preparing my book on brewing science I

tried to carefully study the effects of cold break carryover, and

found that as far as finished beer flavors wre concerned there

were none."  In that book, in fact, Fix explains that in

adverse conditions such as a shortage of oxygen, the trub can be

utilized in yeast metabolism.  He cautions, however, that

bacteria can use trub in the same way.  "If bacterial levels are

sufficiently low both in the chilled wort and in the pitching

yeast, then I believe there will be no problems from cold break

carryover." With proper sanitation, then, and the use of pure

cultured brewing yeast the carryover from cold break should not

prove a problem to the homebrewer.

------------------------------


Growing your own hops

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 15:09:07 CST

From: krueger@comm.mot.com (Kevin Krueger)

Subject: Growing your own hops

Okay, being a homebrewer means never having to say your sorry . . . uh, I

mean, it means you brew in a home (whatever that might be) and I finally

have one !!  So, being a homeowner means owning the land, and owning

the land means tilling the land, so I want to grow some hops !!

I am curious what kind grows best in Zone 5 (Northern Illinois).  I imagine

that there is a reference book that addresses so any suggestions would do

instead of advice.

Either way, thanks for any advice.

Kevin Krueger

------------------------------


re: idophor, rinse/reuse

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1993 16:08:00 +0000

From: "Rick (R.) Cavasin" <cav@bnr.ca>

Subject: re: idophor, rinse/reuse

JS relates his experiences with iodophor sanitizer:

I've had no problem with my brand of iodophor ('iosan') changing colour

during normal use.  Phil Hultin confirmed that iodine is fairly volatile

(though not as much as chlorine), and so will eventually evaporate if

left uncovered.  This explains the fact that the iodine dissipated from

the blowoff bucket but not from the stoppered carboy (I've reused the

solution in the carboy and it's still amber - I guess there's a certain

leap of faith you have to take in trusting the indicator colour during

multiple reuses).

Coincidentally, while brewing the other night, I decided to check if the

iodophor could be used as a starch indicator as well.  The mash was

already pretty much done and I got no colour change from the mash

sample.  So I tried adding a little powdered corn starch, and got the

typical blue indication.  Next time I'll check my mash at the beginning

and end of the mash.  Maybe it would be better to use the undiluted

iodophor for starch tests - will test and post results.

Cheers,

Rick C.

------------------------------


hops in outer space...

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 15:56:27 CST

From: todd@gold.rtsg.mot.com (Todd M. Williams)

Subject: hops in outer space...

More or less what was in the Thursday 2/11/93 Chicago Tribune...

BEER COULD REACH NEW HIGH IN SHUTTLE TESTS

German beer brewers, proud of their medieval roots, will join

the space age next month when astronauts aboard the space shuttle

test the effects of radiation and weightlessness on hops.

A leading brewery said Wednesday it hopes the experiment will

produce new and better types of hops, which give beer much of its

unique bitter flavor during fermentation.

"Plants change anyway because of natural radiation.  Now we want to

see what kind of mutation comes from extreme conditions of space

radiation and weightlessness," said a spokesman for Bremen-based

Brauerei Beck.

The hops experiment is one of about 90 to be carried out by two

Germans flying with a U.S. space shuttle in March to the orbiting

space lab.

Todd

Moderation sir, aye, moderation is my rule.  9 or 10 is reasonable

refreshment, but after that it's apt to degenerate into drinking

  /--------------------------------------------------------------------------/

 / -rwxr-xr-x   1 todd      employer  69   Feb 10 1958  OPINIONS              /

 / lrwxrwxrwx   1 employer  other     9    Jan 01 1970  OPINIONS -> /dev/null /

  /--------------------------------------------------------------------------/

------------------------------


still more BAA information

Date:    Thu, 11 Feb 1993 16:22:08 -0600 (CST)

From: STOREY@fender.msfc.nasa.gov (BadAssAstronomer)

Subject: still more BAA information

    Hi all

    Since I've had more than a few requests for info regarding my post

    about Beer Across America, I just thought I would post a few

    excerpts from the most recent BAA newsletter (kindly provided by

    our own Michael Galloway).

    Here are the 24 different brews sent during 1992.

    Jan Geary's Pale Ale

     Harpoon Ale

    Feb Millstream Schild Brau

     Oldenberg Premium Verum

    Mar Wild Goose Amber

     Boulevard Irish Ale

    Apr Eureka Bear

     Alpine Village Lager

    May Buffalo Lager

     James Page (not the Led Zeppelin guitarist I guess)

    Jun Dock Street

     Old Detroit Ale

    Jul Crazy Ed's Beer

     Helenboch Oktoberfest

    Aug Wasatch Wheat

     Pyramid Ale

    Sep Cherryland Golden Rail

     Elm City Golden Ale

    Oct Penn Pilsner

     Dominion Lager

    Nov Garten Brau Wild Rice Beer

     Kessler Oktoberfest

    Dec Portland Ale

     Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale

    They were also some favorites listed from the above:

    Honorable Mentions:

    Geary's

    Wild Goose

    Buffalo Lager

    Dock Street and

    Pyramid Ale

    Winners:

    Boulevard Irish Ale

    Kessler Oktoberfest and

    Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale

    As you may have noticed, all beers were either lagers or ales.

    Specifically, 15 lagers and 9 ales.

    The Jan 93 selections were; Mass Bay Brewing Winter Warmer and

    Fisher Brewing Dark Ale.

    There is a page of descriptions of each of the featured breweries

    giving locations and other beers available.

    It also prints reviews of the last quarter's beers. All are

    favorable in a way because they supposedly have already gone

    through a taste-testing before they are selected. But they do

    offer descriptions of each beer i.e. the color, hopness, finish

    etc.

    Another feature is that you can order from past selections. I was

    gonna order a 1/2 case of the SN Celebration, but they had none in

    stock. They did have Fishers Dark Ale, Portland Ale, Kessler's

    Centennial and Capitol's Dark Beer. Just in case you're

    interested.

    Lastly and of course *most* importantly; if you are a member and

    you recruit new members (they mention your name when they sign up)

    you get a free sixpack, including shipping. So, all you

    prospective new members out there, my name is Scott Storey

    (BadAssAstronomer) ;);)

    scott

------------------------------


Another Mash-out Idea

Date: 11 Feb 93 15:58:14 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.EDU>

Subject: Another Mash-out Idea

Subject:  Another Mash-out Idea                 Time:3:48 PM     Date:2/11/93

A thought: If unconverted starch, originating from dry sections of malt, might

be released during the sparge; would it not be prudent to forgo the mash-out so

that the enzymes, which are also in suspension (I assume), can do their bit on

the newly released starch? I realize that the liquid level is greatly increased

so it is harder for the enzymes to find the starch, but still...

Reactions?

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1077, 02/15/93

*************************************

-------


Adams Family BBC Product Suggestions

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 18:16:49 -0600

From: "Jim Ellingson" <jimme@pi28.arc.umn.edu>

Subject: Adams Family BBC Product Suggestions

I really enjoyed Chuck's post on Sam Adams vs The World.

Thanks for the update.

Chuck, I have some suggestions for the product line.

I'll leave the OG, Hop Profiles, etc. up to you.

        "Litigator"     A doppelbock, of course.

        "Jim Koch"      A NA barley whine.

and on the Adams Family Theme; "Pugsley Pale Ale"

"Lurch Lambic", "Mortica Marzen", "Uncle Fester Fest Bier"

Cheers,

Jim

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

*  Jim Ellingson                                     jimme@arc.umn.edu  *

*  AHPCRC/University of Minnesota                    tel 612/626-8088   *

*  1100 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55415    fax 612/626-1596   *

------------------------------


Re: A New Journal

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1993 16:37:16 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: A New Journal

Martin sez:

>If you read the Celebrator this may be old news to you...

Speaking of the Celebrator, congratulations to them on their Fifth Anniversary!

Keep up the great work, y'all!

have fun

gak

------------------------------


Fwd: Re: Pete, is this you?

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1993 19:12:41 EST

From: Gary_F._Mason%fc.jlc.mv.com@mv.com

Subject: Fwd: Re: Pete, is this you?

This is the result of my search for Pete Soper. He OKed the post.

Cheers...Gary

============================================================================

Gary,

 Very sorry to hear you are between jobs. I know this is

not a pleasant situation in your neck of the woods these days. Best

of luck with your search; I'll be thinking about you.

 Feel free to forward this to the Digest. I guess I should

have realized we'd developed a sort of electronic "community"

and I should have posted something about my status long ago.

 Yep, I'm still here. Still in the same job, same office,

same compiler development work. Encore still teeters on the crack of

doom but after eight and a half years on the crack I've gotten

tired of worrying about it.

 I haven't read the homebrew digest in around 20 months and

have put my homebrewing on indefinite hold. After my coworker here

was severely injured in a hang-glider accident in April of 1991

I had to take over extra work. I then rode through the closing of

a plant where half my development group worked and I had to see them

through layoffs. That was lots of fun.  Those of us at other sites

who were not laid off had that much more work to do, so up to about

mid-1992 I was totally distracted by being screwed into the ground

by the load.

 I took up gardening as therapy for this and have become one

of those rabid types who views the whole planet as composed of

compostable and non-compostable objects :-) Seriously, I was shoveling

horse manure off my truck before I went to work this morning. A

neighbor came out to see what was on fire (it was composting like

mad and creating big clouds of steam). Lately I've been on a

self-study kick, trying to reinvent myself as an "object-oriented

programmer" and between these two hobbies, all the rest of my

time has gone to my wife, whose career has ramped up to full time.

 But in addition to all this, I find I simply can't have ten

gallons of beer in the house and moderate either my waistline or the

tendency to substitute one more beer for a more "worthwhile" activity.

So, while I've learned to avoid saying "never", I don't expect to

be brewing any time soon and I'm thinking about other things.

Cheers,

Pete

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Pete Soper  (psoper@encore.com)   919 481 3730/voice   919 481 3868/FAX

Encore Computer Corp,     901 Kildaire Farm Rd,     Cary, NC 27511  USA

             Quality is in the eye of the customer.

***************************************************************************

  John Leslie Consulting FirstClass BBS, through PostalUnion by I.E.

  The views expressed in this posting are those of the individual.

***************************************************************************

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'C@)J16-J-6Fk-M-k-6-J4908$8CbEfdk)&"PG'8J8fp`CA)J2'TXBbjYGLjMEfd

KC@jMEh*P,Q0[E5&`Ffp`CA)q$3h-e`!!:

------------------------------


apology

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 07:59:18 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: apology

In hbd 1071, arf dismissed extract brewers in an off-hand and offensive

way.  I kept my peace.  Over the course of the next few days, Jack

referred to his limited knowledge of/access to the net.  To amuse

myself on a quiet Thursday morning, I took Jack's original post and

made a few simple global replacements: Compuserve user for extract

brewer, electronic community for homebrew community, etc.  I was

very amused, and decided to share the results with the hbd.  I

apologize now, as I did in the original post, to any Compuserve

users who didn't realize that this was all in jest.  More to the

point, I apologize to the HBD for wasting bandwith with what could

be considered a flame.  I hope this note appears on the same day as the

original joke.  And Jack, if you must respond by flaming, please direct

it to bradley@adx.adelphi.edu instead of here on the hbd.

Rob

------------------------------


Richmond, VA Brewpubs?

Date: 12 Feb 1993 07:48:33 -0600 (CST)

From: BLAST@sn01.sncc.lsu.edu

Subject: Richmond, VA Brewpubs?

I have to make a trip to Ft. Lee, VA (outside Richmond) early next week.

Anybody know of any brewpubs in that area?

Thanks,

Bruce Ray

------------------------------


Criticism of MI Bottle Deposit

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 08:52:58 CST

From: wood@ranger.rtsg.mot.com (Dan Wood)

Subject: Criticism of MI Bottle Deposit

Note: I sent this in yesterday, and got an emailed assurance that it

would be added to the HBD, but alas, it's not in today's issue.  My

apologies if it appears twice on Monday.  Just goes to show, you've

got to be careful about trusting daemons.  :)

   While I have enjoyed Ulick's posts in the past, and benefitted from

the wealth of information he provides to this digest, I must take

exception to his description of Michigan's deposit law as "inane".

   I live in Illinois, a state with neither bottle deposit nor blue

laws.  I frequently visit friends and relatives in Michigan.  The

contrast between the two states in startling in many respects, but

let me focus on the difference this is entirely due to the bottle

deposit.

   In Michigan, you will find very little broken glass, nor will you

find litter from empty cans or cardboard packaging.  It's rare for people

to throw away their empties, instead they return them for cash.  In the

rare occasions where they are discarded as litter, local kids

enthusiastically gather them and return them to collect the deposit.

You wouldn't think it would work this well, but apparently the locals

have figured out that those dimes add up.

   In contrast, virtually no area of Illinois is immune to this litter.

Even residential neighborhoods routinely have empties (presumably from

"cruising" young drinkers) discarded on street corners and in front yards.

Local parks typically have hazardous areas created by broken glass.  In

my experience, this problem also exists in other states that don't have

deposit laws.

   Although Michigan's deposit laws have created some inconvenience for

retailers, I feel it's justified, since they profit from the sales.  It

costs the consumer nothing so long as he acts responsibly and collects

and returns the empties, which should be done regardless.  The deposit

simply provides incentive to "do the right thing".  Obviously social

conscience doesn't produce this incentive elsewhere.

   Please excuse the long post, and I certainly don't mean to flame, but

the lack of deposit laws in other states is a pet peeve of mine.  I can't

see condemning such an effective system simply because of minor inconvenience

suffered by out-of-state visitors.  Should anyone feel they must debate this

issue with me, please do so via private email, this is the last HBD bandwidth

I will expend on this topic.

   Stepping off my soap box now, relaxing, and still _brewing_ great beers

from extract,

        Dan Wood

        wood@rtsg.mot.com

------------------------------


Mash temps.

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 11:10:09 EST

From: Andrius Tamulis <ATAMULIS@ucs.indiana.edu>

Subject: Mash temps.

In today's HBD I saw a question about mash temperatures, and as I've

had a question about the same that I've been meaning to put to the

net, I figure now's the time.

I all concerns Miller's book and his mash temperature recommendations.

I don't have the book here, so details may be fuzzy, but in his chapter

on "Conducting the Mash" he warns that starch does not dissolve in water

at temps. less than 149 F, and therefore you should never mash blow

(below, that is) that temperature. Then, in the ale recepie section,

he recommends mashing certain ales at 141-150 degrees F. Does anyone

know what's going on here?

andrius

------------------------------


message for Sandy Cockerham

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 10:32:44 CST

From: lencell@unmc.edu (Lance Encell)

Subject: message for Sandy Cockerham

Sandy, this is with regard to your post about chocolate porters.

I want to make a chocolate for my next batch, but haven't decided on

a recipe.  Any hints....clues.... or recipes you might recommend for

an extract brewer?  ANy help is much appreciated.  Please reply directly

to me at:

  lencell@molecular.unmc.edu

Thanks again,

 -Lance

------------------------------


A Beer Odyssey (Act IV)

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1993 09:54:54 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: A Beer Odyssey (Act IV)

A Beer Odyssey (Act IV, the last)

My next scheduled stops were Willet's and Brown Street, both in Napa.

Check your maps - Napa is a good long way from Chico, and the nearest

intervening brewpub involves a detour to Davis.  (Which wouldn't have

been a terribly bad idea, since Sudwerk makes some mighty fine brews.)

About halfway there, my human frailties overcame my drive for beer,

and around 12:30 I pulled off the freeway at Maxwell for an hour's

nap.

I awoke a new man.  Before long I was on Highway 128, navigating the

hills between the Central Valley and the Napa Valley.  (Nobody told me

there were mountains there!  Whose idea was this, anyway?)  Willet's

was closer than Brown Street, so I stopped there first.  I was shocked

and dismayed to read the sign painted in their front window:  "Closed

Sunday".  Fortunately, Brown Street was just up the road.

Brown Street had been my favorite brewpub since my first visit not long

after they opened.  They always had twelve very good beers on tap, from

a very light ale to a very black stout.  Their specialties were Ginseng

Ale, which was their Porter with a bit of ginseng extract added, and

California Chili Beer, which was amazing.  Period.  My friends and I

would make regular road trips to Napa to buy the stuff two or more

gallons at a time.  It was incredible.

Then the unimaginable happened.  I read it on page 13 of the August

1992 Celebrator:  "Closed:  Brown Street Brewing, Napa CA.  The brewery

has ceased production but the restaurant is still open."  I was stunned.

Shocked.  Dumbfounded, even.  Granted, they have a terrific restaurant,

but no more Chili Beer?  It was hard to imagine.  I was sure I was dealing

with a vicious rumor, but I had to find out for myself.

The sign on the door said "Sunday:  4:30-11:00".  No mention of the

state of the brewery.  As much as I would have liked to stay, it was

only 2:30, and I had places to go.  I have since learned that the

brewery is in fact closed.  They have five excellent California and

Washington beers on tap, but the brewery is closed.  A moment of

silence, please.

Kelmer's in Santa Rosa is just up Highway 12 from Napa.  It's bigger

than your average brewpub, with a long bar, a large dining area, and a

separate room that looks like it would be a great place for a private

party.  I was stuck in traffic (Traffic?  In Sonoma County?) on the way

there, so I didn't arrive until nearly four o'clock.  Imagine my

thirst.  I remembered tasting their excellent Scottish Ale on tap at

Pacific Coast, and I hoped to have some fresh at the brewery, but it

was out of season.  I had to make do with some of their other pretty

fine beers:

 Krystal (light) - Wheat lager.  Very light indeed.  Definite

  wheat sweetness.

 Klassic (medium) - Amber.  Also pretty light.

 Klout (dark) - Stout.  Good roasty flavor, but a bit thin.

 Independence Ale - "Winner of the Great American Beer

  Festival".  That's more like it!  Well-hopped,

  well-balanced pale ale.

The notes on the menu say that the brewery was established October

1987, and that they have sold over ONE MILLION glasses of their beer!

Well done!  They also sell those one-gallon jugs that are supposedly

illegal.  I asked the bartender about them, and he was not aware of

any rules prohibiting their sale.  Go figure.  The fish and chips,

while not up to the standards of the Edinburgh Castle in San

Francisco, were certainly good enough to soak up a pint of their

Independence Ale.

One last stop before the home stretch:  Dempsey's Ale House in

Petaluma.  It's tucked away in the back of the Golden Eagle shopping

center, but it's not too hard to find.  Once again, the gallon jugs

were on sale.  (They're everywhere, I tell ya!)  One more time, I

started with a round of samplers:

 Golden Eagle - light pale.

 Red Rooster - Less body but more flavor than Gold...

 Bad Bear Brown - Good brown.  Just sweet enough.  Could use a

  bit more "roasty" flavor, but maybe not.

 Henry's Stout - Thin, a little astringent.  Doesn't make the

  cut as a stout, and it has too much burnt flavor for a

  porter.

The jar behind the bar advertised homemade beef jerky, but the jar was

empty.  Too bad.

There were more stops to be made before I crossed the Bay on the way

home:  Marin in Larkspur; J&L in San Rafael; 20 Tank, San Francisco

Brewing, and Gordon Biersch in San Francisco; Bison and Triple Rock in

Berkeley; Pacific Coast in Oakland; Tied House in Alameda; but I had

to admit defeat.

Or was it defeat?  Nine brewpubs, samples of forty-one of the best

beers in California and Oregon, a thousand miles of driving through

some of the most scenic country in America...I think I won after all.

And I learned two very valuable lessons along the way:

 - A lot of microbreweries are making much better beer now than

   they were last year.

 - The 1989 Mercury Cougar was not designed to be slept in.

Richard Stueven

gak@wrs.com

------------------------------


Suggestions for a beginner...

Date: 12 Feb 1993 13:02:10 -0500 (EST)

From: Nathan Clark <GRS04736@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU>

Subject: Suggestions for a beginner...

I have recently become interested in HB, and have been reading HBD for a few

mos. I am wondering if there are any magazines out there for HB, especially

ones with help, hints and recipes for the novice.  I have seen some

references to "Zymurgy" in articles by Bob Jones and others.  Is this what I'm

looking for?  Also any good liturature for the beginner?

Thank you,

Nate Clark

grs04736@conrad.appstate.edu

------------------------------


RE- Fermenting in Stainless

Date: 12 Feb 93 10:22:13 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.EDU>

Subject: RE- Fermenting in Stainless

Subject:  RE: Fermenting in Stainless           Time:9:37 AM     Date:2/12/93

I have been using a 15.5 gal Sanke keg as a fermenter for the past 18 months or

so. I have been quite happy with the results. I have not modified the keg

except to remove the valve assembly. I can put 13 gallons of bitter wort in it

without a blowoff hose and not worry about overflow. To sanitize, I scrub the

interior with my regular carboy brush, inspecting with a small mirror and

flashlight. Very little grunge has stuck to the walls of the keg. I then rinse

with boiling water, about 3 or 4 gallons. I roll the keg around on its side

with the boiling water in it for about 15 minutes. The keg is emptied and

stored with some foil over the opening. Prior to filling the fermenter with new

wort I rinse it again with the same amount of boiling water as before, rolling

again for 15 minutes. I have not had any infection problems.

George Fix uses pony kegs for fermenters. There is some study which says that

the proportions of ponies are perfect for the task. Perhaps he'll chime in with

comments of his own.

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


Re: enzymes/heresy

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 12:25 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: enzymes/heresy

McHarry writes:

>I know that enzyme activity varies with temperature, but I have never seen

>discussed whether one can run a mash up to the upper 150s to break down

>some of the starches, then drop back to 148 or so to finish off the

>dextrins.  Does the higher temperature just favor the one enzyme system

>over the other, or is the lower temperature system actually destroyed?  I

>have always thought the latter, but the literature is unclear, and it would

>seem the malting process exceeds those temperatures.

It's a better idea to go the other way around or mash somewhere in the

middle, say low to mid 150s.  It is the latter.  Actually both alpha-amylase

(which cuts the starches into dextrins) and beta-amylase (which breaks

glucose molecules off the ends of dextrins and starches) slowly denature

at all the temperatures above 140F (or something like that -- I don't have

my books here).  Beta-amylase is MORE temperature sensitive and denatures

quite quickly at temperatures like 158F.  Alpha-amylase tends to be heartier

and lasts longer at temperatures like 158F.  So the key is how long are

alpha- and beta-amylase going to be around at your mashing temperature,

not at what temperature they "like" to work.  This is why going into the

high 150s and then back down won't work as planned.  I'll leave the answer

to your other question, about temperatures during the malting process,

to others since I don't know enought about it (perhaps much of the enzymes

*ARE* denatured, but enough is still left? -- that would explain why Munich

malt (kilned at higher temps) has less diastatic potential than Pilsener

malt).

**********************

Jonathan writes:

>I boil my beer in a Vollrath pot (borrowed from a friend who is currently not

>brewing).  I generally boil about 4 gallons, losing a gallon or so over the

>sixty minutes.  I have pre-boiled and chilled, first in the fridge and then,

>while brewing, in the freezer, down to almost-frozen, 2 gallon jugs of water.

>When the boil is over, I stick the Vollrath in my kitchen sink, filled with

>ice water and dump the almost-frozen water in on top.  I cover the pot &

>wait about a half hour or until all the ice in the sink melts.

>Seems to me I get a pretty good cold break from this.

>

>Wort-chillers?  We don' need no stinkin' wort-chillers!!!

That's exactly what I used to do and it was a BIG improvement over trying

to get the wort to pitching temperature in the bathtub.  I build myself

a wort-chiller so I could do full boils (better hop utilization) and for

consistency (sometimes half of the gallon of water would freeze and I'd

have a heck of a time getting it out of the jug!) so my pitching temp

was more predictable.

Then later:

>Now here's the heretical part.  After having read the discussion of yeast

>nutrients in trub when it first appeared a few months ago, I decided to rack

>off not only the beer but just a little bit of break material too (maybe 1/2

>cup or so).  Also, in spite of all the *worrying* about temperature shocking

>yeast, I pitch at a relatively high temperature - usually in the 80's F.(I

>brew ales), because, o.k., well, my chilling methods DON'T work as well as a

>wort-chiller does - but the bottom line is that I always get fantastic starts

>(under six hours and a lot of crud in the blowoff bucket) and I've been getting

>some pretty decent beer the last few batches.

There's little problem with pitching into 80F wort if your starter is around

80F also.  If your starter was in the 60s, then I'll bet you wouldn't be

getting such fast starts (temperature shock).  Also, pitching a warmer starter

into a cooler wort is a bigger shock to the yeast that going into warmer wort.

Regarding your picking up of trub, if you mean when you are transferring

to your secondary, then I feel you would be better off not picking up the

trub.  Sure there are nutrients in in, but they are should only be made

available to the yeast during respiration not during fermentation.  I've

read that fermentation of trub tends to increase fusel (higher) alcohol

production.  It has also been suggested that these higher alcohols are

blown-off if you use the blowoff method (which you do), so fermenting

on the trub is allegedly less of a problem if you use the blowoff method.

I ferment on whatever break I accidentally don't leave in the kettle

AND use the blowoff method and on most of my beers I feel there's no

problem with excessive higher alcohols.

Al.

------------------------------


Spread it on Toast Imperial Stout

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 13:06 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Spread it on Toast Imperial Stout

I've gotten several requests for the recipes with which I've won

awards.  I believe all but the Imperial Stout and Dubbel-style

have been posted.  I won't post the Dubbel-style, since I don't

agree with the judges -- I thought the beer was quite a bit worse

than they did, but here's the Imperial Stout:

Spread it on Toast Imperial Stout

by: Al Korzonas

6.6 lbs Northwestern Dark Unhopped Extract

3 lbs   Laaglander Light DME

1/4 tsp NaCl

1/4 tsp CaSO4

1 tsp   CaCO3

1 lb    40L Crystal malt

1/2 lb  Chocolate malt

1/4 lb  Flaked barley

3/4 lb  Roasted unmalted barley

5 gal   Palos Hills, IL (soft) tapwater

1.5 oz  7%AA Cluster pellets (60min)

1.5 oz  5%AA Cascade pellets (60min)

0.6 oz  5%AA Cascade pellets (15min)

0.5 oz  East Kent Goldings whole (dryhop)

8 oz    starter culture from 4 bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

Steeped grains at 170F for 15 minutes in grain bags.

OG=1090

FG=1037

Fermented at 65F.

Bottled with 1/2 cup boiled corn sugar.

This Imperial Stout is less alcoholic than many others I've had --

this is partly due to the fact that the Laaglander extract is not

very fermentable.  The Laaglander is also partly responsible for the

high FG.  This is a very creamy, smooth beer.

Al.

------------------------------


Brewing History

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 12:28:20 MST

From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

Subject: Brewing History

Kieran asked about information on brewing history for a research paper.

I have a long list of brewing history sources in the Bibliography of "Real

Beer and Good Eats".  There appears to be some interesting stuff there, some

published as early as 1879.  It could take some time to type it all in.  If

others are interested, I'd be willing to type it and post it.  If Kieran is

the only one interested, maybe I should just fax it.  Let me know.

(KOC:  I lost your email addr!)

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


aeration and hot/cold breaks

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 15:11:32 EST

From: johnw@NADC.NAVY.MIL (J. Williamson)

Subject: aeration and hot/cold breaks

 I could use a little help with the subjects of wort aeration and

the formation and importance of hot and cold break.

 First, wort aeration.  On reading beginner's books I get the impres-

sion that I should boil up my extract, grains, etc in my brewpot, and then

pour the wort through a strainer into my primary, pitch the yeast, seal and

leave alone.  Through this forum and from other sources I've learned that

the yeast needs oxygen to reproduce therefore the wort should be shaken,

stirred vigorously just before or after pitching.  What is the experts'

advice?  Do I leave the wort alone or not?

 Regarding hot andcold break.  As I understand it hot break is formed

during the boiling of the wort.  Cold break must be formed by cooling the

wort after the boil.  A few questions.  I only boil about one and a half

gallons and add that to three and a half gallons of water in my primary -

does just chilling the 1 1/2 gallons produce a cold break?  Does the rate of

cooling affect the formation of a cold break and if so how fast should it

be cooled?  I'm assuming that cooling my 1 1/2 gal of wort does produce a

cold break which settles to the bottom of my pot with the hot break - should

I take care and siphon the wort off the trub into the primary?  If I siphon

the wort off the trub am I leaving nutrients in the trub that the yeast need?

 Any help would be greatly appriciated as even the beginners books

are not crystal clear to the beginner.

 Thanks in advance,  JW

------------------------------


Chuck Cox Freed!!!!!!!

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 13:23:55 MST

From: stevel@chs.com (7226 Lacroix)

Subject: Chuck Cox Freed!!!!!!!

 It was nice to see that the mega-brewery wannabe, the BBC, has been

foiled by the courts, and (from the sound of it) their own "expert" witnesses..

especially the character who was so drunk....  Anyway, the call to continue to

boycott Sam Adams Beer (c'mon fellas, it really isn't that good anyway) will

be supported by this brewhound.  I'm glad Chuck stood his ground and maybe this

will be the end of it...then again maybe not.  Is there a lesson here???

I hope so...

------------------------------


roller mill rollers

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 14:20:12 -0800

From: SCHREMPP_MIKE/HP4200_42@pollux.svale.hp.com

Subject: roller mill rollers

A few weeks ago there was a posting from someone looking for a source of

rollers for roller mills. I got a woodowrking catalog yesterday that has

rollers that might work. These rollers look like conveyor belt rollers and

are sold to be used to make outfeed supports for table saws and such. Here

are the particulars:

      14" roller, Catalog number 100-023   $8.95

      22" roller, catalog number 801-127   $9.95

      Woodworker's supply

      1-800-645-9292

Disclaimer: I don't own a roller mill, and I've never pruchased these things,

            so I don't know if they're the right thing.

Mike Schrempp

------------------------------


malt extract

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1993 17:42:31 -0500 (EST)

From: Alexander Samuel McDiarmid <am2o+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: malt extract

I have just tried a new batch of beer which I brewed with a piltzner kit

(M&P?) in which instead of adding only shugar to the malt mix I used

malt concentrate.  My problem is that the taste is too bitter/(malty?).

I would like some suggestions if anyone has any as to why it has turned

out so bitter and general guidelines as to the proper use of malt

extract.  there is definately the approproate amount of alcohol though

(just for the idiodic innappropriate discussion as to what beer has the

most kick for the dollar).

My process went as such.

boiled all the water and the malt shugar (liquid), malt extract, and shugar.

then I dumped it all in the carboy as usual.

after cooling I dumped in the yeast ( came with the  kit)

after a week in the carboy I added gelatin as a fining agent

waited a few more days and racked to bottles.  I have since let the

bottles sit the required three weeks plus a few days.  (because I wanted

the beer out of the bottles faster I stuck to the required shugar to pre

beer ratio, also gets rid of that over pressurization prob my friends

complain about when they put in more.)

I have just opened the beer and drunk some, not bad or yeasty as if it

was opened too soon, but definately too bitter.

                                                            -A.

------------------------------


MI 10cent deposit, all-grain snobs

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 18:50:16 PST

From: mrozek@gandalf.etdesg.TRW.COM (Eric M. Mrozek)

Subject: MI 10cent deposit, all-grain snobs

Ulick Stafford <ulick@schumann.helios.nd.edu> writes in HBD 1075:

>and we don't have an inane law like MI's 10cent return charge

I was raised in Michigan and I thought the deposit was a bad idea when it

started, but after living in Los Angeles for the past ten years I've changed

my mind.  There are practically no bottles littering MI roadsides.  And so

what if it costs 10 pennies to keep the bottle for homebrew?  Once you get a

couple hundred (~$20), you keep reuseing them anyway.

I brew all-grain beer, but I'm not an all-grain snob.  Some of my best friends

drink extract beer. ;)   Me and my brewin' buddy DO brew all-grain, but we've

made several extract beers that have won Maltose Falcon awards and have

astonished some a'g'ers.  One was a Maple Ale that my buddy (Mr. Mark Davis)

published here a couple o' months back (actually, this one never lasted long

enough to enter).

Eric Mrozek

------------------------------


Where's Rudebush

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 21:20 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Where's Rudebush

 I think I have allowed a polite amount of time for Roy to defend his position

 and as he doesn't seem to be so inclined, I will offer a few comments.

 Roy Rudebush has been running ads in various journals claiming that his

 Corona Mill, "crushes malt better than J.S. rollermill. Proven" and he made

 the same claim in a recent posting to the Digest.

 This claim has been challenged by a HBD participant and he seems to have

 vanished from the scene.  I have written to him several times, both email and

 US Mail and have never received a response.

 As a bit of background, Roy who runs IMO Homebrew Supply in St Louis,

 purchased a MALTMILL (tm) about a year ago and promptly returned it for a

 refund.  Aside from comments about the Corona being better, he has never

 responded to any further attempts of mine to resolve the issue.

 Upon seeing one of his ads, my wife sent for the "proof" under her name and

 we received his analysis.  Again I wrote to him suggesting that it is

 probably futile to argue with his data but pointed out that most retailers

 take advantage of selling to both ends of the market and I do not understand

 why he is taking this approach.  I received no response to this either.

 He claimed in his posting here that....

 > Analysis was done by several professional brewers and scores of

 accomplished homebrewers.

 In the info he mailed out, he only mentions his wife and himself.  He also

 refers to a "Midwestern micro-brewery" that prefers to use a Corona because

 of its superior crushing.  I would be interested in knowing the name of this

 brewery.  The only one I know of in the Midwest using a Corona, never heard

 of him and the owner assures me it is a tight budget, not preference that has

 him using the Corona.

 As this is the one and only MM ever returned for a refund, it is important to

 me to make sure it is understood that something most peculiar is going on

 here.  It happens that the one he purchased was a very early eiditon (number

 5 or so) and many improvements have been made since.  All of the improvements

 have been to enhance reliability or ease of use and there never has been a

 problem with the crush quality.  Furthermore, all known problems with early

 units have been resolved to mutual satisfaction and as far as I know, there

 are no unhappy customers out there out of close to 500 users.

 I can't tell someone else how to run his business or attack him for his ads

 but I can sure jump on him for his hit'n run attack in this forum.

 Where are you Roy?

 js

------------------------------


Irish Red Style Definition

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1993 21:28:20 -0600 (CST)

From: brewmstr@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jim Bayer)

Subject: Irish Red Style Definition

I'm trying to find the "legitimate" definition for the Irish Red Ale

stlye.  I've heard that the style is becomming extinct, not unlike

Porter and I'm interested in any information I can get.

The history if Killians and the eventual sell out to Coors is interesting

but I don't think I have the whole story for that either.

Any recipes that are tue to the style would be appreciated.

Jim

*****************************************************************

* I'm not w*rrying, I'm having a homebrew!  You should too!     *

*                                                               *

* < Don't let your wife blame anything on your homebrewing >    *

* < Beer always tastes good, hangovers always go away (stolen) >*

* Jim Bayer -> Chicago, IL                                      *

* brewmstr@ddsw1.mcs.com    72416.1044@compuserve.com           *

*****************************************************************

------------------------------


New additions to the HBD Archives.

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 20:33:56 -0800

From: "Stephen Hansen" <hansen@gloworm.Stanford.EDU>

Subject: New additions to the HBD Archives.

Thanks to Ben Goetter we now have access to some the early digests

that had been missing from the archives.  More than a dozen from 1988

and four from 1989 have been added.  These digests are all from a

period before each issue was given a serial number and so they are

named with the date of issue (i.e. 881101 for Nov. 1, 1988).

I have placed the perl script written by Alan Edwards for computing

IBUs as a function of AAU, ounces, and boil time in the archives in

programs/iso.pl (listserv users send "get homebrew iso.pl").  See

Homebrew Digest #1073 (February 09, 1993) for more information.

And finally, in docs/hymn_to_ninkasi, is a copy of Miguel Civil's

translation of the Sumerian "Hymn to Ninkasi" as transcribed by Rick

Myers (listserv users send "get hymn_to_ninkasi").

I would like to request that those of you who are tranfering large

amounts to restrict your transfers to off hours, 5pm to 8am Pacific

Time.

Thanks,

Stephen Hansen

Homebrewer, Archivist, Beer Snob.

snob /'sn<a:>b/ n (1781)

 [obs. snob member of the lower classes, fr. E dial., shoemaker]

     1 Brit: COBBLER

     2: one who blatantly imitates, fawningly admires, or vulgarly seeks

     association with those he regards as his superiors

     3a: one who tends to rebuff, avoid, or ignore those he regards as inferior

     3b: one who has an offensive air of superiority in matters of knowledge

     or taste

Relax, lighten up, have a homebrew. :-)

------------------------------


Reused Ballantine yeast

Date: Sat, 13 Feb 93 12:08:17 EST

From: "Matthew Mitchell" <IEKP898@TJUVM.TJU.EDU>

Subject:  Reused Ballantine yeast

>On 'tother hand, Ballantine Brewery supposedly used this yeast strain

>over and over, repitching hundreds of times without any problems.  So

>I'm still scratching my head over this one.

Well since you mentioned it, I gotta relate a story I heard from the head

yeast guy at SchmidtUs of Philadelphia.  I gave a seminar and accompanying

laboratory 8^) on brewing biochemistry while in grad school and got the cook's

tour from him as part of the research.

He said that Schmidt's supplied yeast for another brewer he couldn't name but

I figured out was _Falstaff_ (not "Ballantine") in Cranston, RI.  Like most

other commercial ventures, Falstaff tried to keep its costs down, so they only

ordered yeast every few months.  Naturally, this boomeranged on them often, as

the yeast mutated or got contaminated, and Schmidt's would get an urgent call

from Cranston: "We need some more yeast, like yesterday!"  So the yeast guy

would grab the latest batch destined for mother Schmidt's, and put it on an

airplane.  The airplane would come back with a sachel full of money, since

Schmidt's knew Falstaff was over a barrel, and all the money they thought

they'd save by stretching the yeast eventually always got to Philadelphia.

Moral of the story: Recycling yeast usually works (e.g. Ballantine's IPA), but

sooner or later mother nature is gonna jump up and bite you on the wazoo!

Howzat!?!

Matthew Mitchell   <iekp898@tjuvm.tju.edu>

  former proprietor: Penthouse Brewing Co., Haverford, PA

  brewers of Barclay Beer, Northern Comfort Stout,

    and Big B Malt Liquor "9.4% alcohol, 100% flavor"

------------------------------


Diacetyl reduction and clarifiers

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 22:36:37 EST

From: jdg@cyberspace.org (Josh Grosse)

Subject: Diacetyl reduction and clarifiers

I was moved to post a response to several related questions in today's

issue (1076), regarding diacetyl reduction and clarification.

Clarifiers such as Isinglass or Polyclar (tm) will reduce the yeast population

in suspension, which may be a contributing factor in diacetyl levels above

the taste threshold.  Diacetyl is more likely to be noticable in lagers

than in ales.

Racking from primary to secondary fermentation vessels too early may also

contribute to diacetyl flavor/aroma.

Since I'm addicted to Polyclar, I use a procedure called a "Diacetyl Rest"

at the end of fermentation before racking to the secondary fermenter.

This eliminates diacetyl nose, and I get a beer with excellent clarity.

After fermentation completes, I bring my primary fermenter up to 68-72 F

for 24-48 hours prior to racking to the secondary.  I add Polyclar, and

bring the secondary down to lagering temperature.

One note about clarifiers.  Spencer Thomas and I split a batch of Vienna

this fall.  We pitched the same yeast into the same wort, split the batch,

and fermented separately.  We even used the same temperature for fermentation.

HOWEVER, Spencer didn't use a clarifier, and I did.  Yes, I won points on

clarity -- Spencer won on malt nose and flavor.

Diacetyl references:  Miller: TCHOHB, and Fix: POBS.

- -----------------------------------------------------------------

Josh Grosse                              jdg@grex.ann-arbor.mi.us

------------------------------


Thanks! (was RE: Beginner wants to make SMALL batch...)

Date: Sun, 14 Feb 93 13:27:54 PST

From: davidr@ursula.ee.pdx.edu

Subject: Thanks! (was RE: Beginner wants to make SMALL batch...)

I just wanted to thank all helpful people who replied to my

plea for help.  Unfortunately, my mailbox has been flooded for

a week, and I am unable to make personal replies.  I am, however,

convinced to try something larger than the one gallon that I

originally intended.  I will also somehow find the time to read

Papazian's book, as almost EVERY reply suggested!  Also, thanks

to those who provided definitions to the Brewian terminology that

I lack knowledge of.

 -David (Still learning) Robinson

------------------------------


Beer places of interest in Santa Clara, CA?

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 93 8:53:43 EST

From: klm@mscg.com (Kevin L. McBride)

Subject: Beer places of interest in Santa Clara, CA?

I'm scheduled to go to the Sun Developers Conference in Santa Clara,

CA at the end of March and would, quite naturally, like to spend my

free time checking out the local suds venues, i.e. brewpubs, micros

and beer bars.

Replies by e-mail graciously accepted.  Thanks.

- --

Kevin

------------------------------


George Fix's Address

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 09:35:19 -0600

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: George Fix's Address

Sorry to bother *everyone* with this, but Rob is away, and two weeks is a long

time to wait.  I'm trying to send mail to George Fix, and his address as it

shows-up in the digest is not sufficiently complete to accomplish this

(gjfix@utamat).  He does not seem to have a Compu$erve account.  If someone has

a complete address, I'd appreciate your sending it to me...

TIA

 t (trl@photos.wustl.edu)

------------------------------


Overnight mashing

Date: 15 Feb 1993 11:40:42 -0400 (AST)

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Overnight mashing

Before you trash the ideas herein, please note that I DO regocnize bad

beer when I taste it, and I DO know the reasons why the big names in

brewing for the most part discourage these techniques.  I was an extract

brewer for 4 years, and then made the switch to all-grain.  I sometimes

wished I could return to extract for a quick batch, but frankly I can't

afford kits anymore; after the initial expenses (and Christmas presents

from Mother in law...) I can brew a bitter for under $10 (canadian), vs

$20+ for an extract brew.  A few recent posts, particularly by George Fix

and McHarry got me thinking about overnight mashing and cold sparging.  So

here it is:  the EvenEZ-er OverNiteMash (c)*.

 0.  Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees F

 1.  Heat the mash water to 165 degrees F

 2.  add the grist slowly, stirring (gently) to ensure no dry spots

 3.  add heat slowly, stirring gently, until temeprature of the mash

 is an even 155 degrees F

 4.  Turn off the oven, put the mash pot in the oven.  (if you use

 an insulated tun, or your kettle won't fit in the oven, skip this

 step, it probably won't make that much of a difference).

 5.  Go to bed.

 6.  The following morning, remove the mash from the oven, and take

 the lid off (if it had one on).  This will cool it down quicker.

 7.  When the mash is cool, dump it in the lauter tun (two bucket

 type works just fine).

 8.  Sparge with COLD water.

 9.  Boil as usual.

 (I wouldn't reccommend this for a brew which needs step infusion or

decoction, this process is for a beer requiring only a single stage infusion

mash, such as an English bitter.)

 I hear you screaming "But there's no mashout!"  "My extraction

rates will be way down!"  "My sparge will stick!"

 To which I reply: So what, no it won't, and I had no problem, in

that order.  To qualify, as the temperature drops, the enzymes become less

active, plus the alpha amylase has been to some degree inactivated by the

high initial temp.  Furthermore, part of the reason for the mashout is to

eliminate a variable in brewing a specific beer; commercial breweries want

to control ALL variables so each batch comes out the same.  We're

homebrewers, we don't haveto listen to the bullies if we don't want to.  As

for extraction rates, mine were virtually identical to my hot sparge rates

(which were not spectacular, but a reasonable 26-27 points or so).  As for

the stuck sparge, I can't say I've EVER had one.  When making a two-bucket

lauter tun, tape 1cm graph paper to the bottom, and drill the holes evenly.

You will wind up with almost twice as many holes, believe it or not, and no

uneven drainage of the grain bed.

 I wonder if one reason for commercial breweries using a hot sparge

is that it requires much less energy to heat the sweet wort to boiling

afterwards...

 Anyway, this requires about 1/2 hour before bed (not including

grain grinding time), and about 3 1/2 hours the following day, making the

time consumption much more like making an extract brew.  Another major

advantage is virtually no hot side aeration (HSA) save for the mash (which

is why you stir it GENTLY).

 As a disclaimer, I just did this over the weekend, so I don't know

yet how the final product will taste, but I will keep you posted.

 Ed Hitchcock

 Dalhousie University

 Anatomy and Neurobiology

 ech@ac.dal.ca

* EvenEZ-er OverNiteMash and other silly ideas in this text are copyrighted

to Ed Hitchcock, 1993.  Use them freely, use them glibly, just don't use

them for profit.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1078, 02/16/93

*************************************

-------


Installing a Spigot

Date: 15 Feb 93 08:47:09 GMT

From: "Tom" <ceco!CWEMAIL!WAUTS@uunet.UU.NET>

Subject: Installing a Spigot

         Date: 02/15/93

         From: Tom Stolfi                                            - CWE1IIN

           To: Open-Addressing Application for Internet Acc INLINE   - CWEMAIL

      Subject: Installing a Spigot

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am just getting into all grainers and have found that a spigot installed in

the boil kettle would speed things up.  I have a porcelain over steel

stockpot. What type of material is the spigot, what is the cost to install,

where can I get the parts, and how long does it take to install?

Tom Stolfi                                           wauts@cwemail.ceco.com

Commonwealth Edison Co                               Waukegan, IL

------------------------------


Getting Rid of Detergent Residue?

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 93 10:58:52 -0500

From: esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

Subject: Getting Rid of Detergent Residue?

>Ulick Stafford writes that detergents should not be used on brewing equipment.

> Unfortunately, I have already used detergents on my fermenter several times.

>I always sterilize the fermenter and all other brewing equipment using a

>bleach solution before brewing, but I am worried about any detergent residue.

>Other than using TSP or other base cleaners, is there a product I should use

>to get rid of any lingering detergent residue?  Our beer has generally been

>slow to carbonate, but when it does, it usually carbonates sufficiently.

>

>Thanks in advance,

>

>Eugene Sonn

>esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

>

------------------------------


Sour Brew, Part II

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 93 10:06:40 CST

From: wood@ranger.rtsg.mot.com (Dan Wood)

Subject: Sour Brew, Part II

   First let me say thanks to those who replied in HBD and via email.

Experimentation with food grade acid is an interesting thought.  Does

anyone see problems with adding small amounts to just a few bottles at

bottling time?  Not that I'm nervous or anything, but I hate to take

chances with 5 gallons at a time.

   Anyway, my friend Brent tried following Charlie's directions.  He

placed a quantity (sorry, I'm unsure of amount) of pale malt in a cooler

with 5 gallons of water at 130 F.  He covered the cooler and left it for

19 hours.  The temperature had only dropped 20 degrees to 110 F, and

the liquid was sweet, with no sign of sourness  (tartness?) and no

noticible growth.  It may have stayed too hot, any other ideas about

what went wrong?

   Also, I had the pleasure of sharing an Imperial Stoudt and

Taddy Porter (Samuel Smiths) yesterday, and they both seemed to have

a bit of sourness, perhaps more noticable in the Imperial Stoudt.

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting something in the flavor, but there does

seem to be a much more distinct sour flavor than I've experienced in

beers with much more dark grains.

------------------------------


yeast strain selection

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 93 17:12:38 MET

From: THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch

Subject: yeast strain selection

hello all.

on this thread about yeast strain selection aka finding a

growth medium that will kill everything but the yeast you

actually want, I have a few comments.

Firstly, there seem to be two lines of discussion going

on at the same time, one concerns getting rid of so-called

"bugs" and the other concerns getting rid of "wild" yeasts.

So, the bug problem first:

most of the bacteria we are likely to get in our yeast

supply can't survive acidic conditions, so if you

sterilise (ie boil) your growth medium (eg wort),

which you have previuosly adjusted to pH 4-5 (unnecessary

if you mashed your own), the bacteria will not grow anywhere

near as fast as your yeast. By the time the sugar is

used up, there may well be enough alcohol in there to

stop all bacterial growth. (I brew a strong (1085) ale

just so that I can get a sample of yeast from the bottled

version when I need one).

The wild yeast problem, as far as my research has dug up,

is not at all trivial. You can stop the growth of

ale (top) yeasts compared to lager yeasts by fermenting

them on mellibiose as the sugar source. (this should be

availabe from Aldrich chemical co, etc). There are no

other sure fire ways of separating yeasts, unless you

know EXACTLY who the stranger in your wort is.

How about streaking plates, and doing small scale

runs with all the yeast looking colonies that appear,

and then isolating the strain you want by taste or

rapidity of clearance. This is how they do it in the breweries.

(Assuming they misslaid the clean strain or

are looking for a better one.

I suppose, having finished this note, that I

haven't really said anything new. Oh well.

Rob Thomas.

P.S. More brewing/beer quotes please..."Poe" was great!

------------------------------


still more BAA information

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 93 11:36:11 EST

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: still more BAA information

BadAssAstronomer writes:

 >     The Jan 93 selections were; Mass Bay Brewing Winter Warmer and

 >     Fisher Brewing Dark Ale.

We tasted these yesterday at the brewclub meeting.  "Dark Ale" is a

misnomer.  This stuff was sort of copper colored.  I'd say it's at the

dark end of the pale ale spectrum.  The flavor was nothing to get

excited about, either.

The Mass Bay Winter Warmer, on the other hand was excellent.  Nicely

spiced, but not overwhelming.  So many spiced beers have a sort of

sour flavor, but this does not.  Our meeting was outside at a local

park, and I'd say that the Winter Warmer lived up to its name.

=Spencer W. Thomas   |  Info Tech and Networking, B1911 CFOB, 0704

   "Genome Informatician" |  Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu |  313-764-8065, FAX 313-764-4133

------------------------------


an HBD-inspired yeast experiment

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 93 10:18:24 MST

From: Joe Boardman <boardman@amber.Colorado.EDU>

Subject: an HBD-inspired yeast experiment

G'day All,

This weekend I started a little experiment that was inspired by a thread here

a few months ago: "just what are the differences introduced by ale and lager

yeasts?".

I brewed a 10 gallon batch of a pretty generic (but leaning towards a lager)

wort.  Then as it came out of the counterflow I split it back and forth

between 2 glass carboys.  One of these was pitched with a Wyeast 2007 (Pilsen)

lager yeast, and is fermenting away at 50-53F. The other was pitched with a

Wyeast 1056 (aka SNPA) ale yeast, and is doing its thing separately at 65F.

The recipe was:

Virginia's Advice Ale/Lager

12 lbs Klages American 2-row malted barley

2  lbs Hinode Calrose California rice

5  oz Saaz plugs @3.1 alpha

2  oz Tettnang pellets @4.3 alpha

+ the two yeasts mentioned above

I ground the rice, boiled it and cooled it to 130 with ice.  Then I mashed in

the grain and the rice at 130 and held for 30 minutes, then did a 2 hour mash

between 152 and 145F.  The IG was 11.8 Brix (about 1.047), which means my

extract rate was in the low 30's.

I guess what I've really done is brew a lager and ferment half of it as an ale.

I made it very light in color and body so the yeast differences wouldn't be

masked.  Next time, to be fair, I guess I`ll have to brew an ale-type and do it

again.

Does anybody want to hazard a guess about the taste differences?

Does "clean" really mean anything?

Is anybody going to be in Boulder in about 2 months to try some in person?

Does anybody "know" they can tell them apart in a double-blind test?

I'll report back if there's interest.

Cheers,  Joe

"Remember, never take no cutoffs, and hurry along as fast as you can."

advice from Virginia Reed, 1847, after surviving the Donner Party debacle

------------------------------


I killed my yeast!

Date:    Mon, 15 Feb 1993 13:27:20 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: I killed my yeast!

  Yes I did, and it was cultured-from-the-bottle Chimay Red yeast :-(

The bleach-water was most of the way back up the blow-off tube, and when

I lifted it out of the overflow container to drain it back down, it splashed

back up the tube and into the wort.  What looked to be a ferment starting is

now dead, dead, dead.  It made me wonder why I had bleach in the overflow

bucket anyway.  Obviously, disconnection the blow-off at the carboy end

would have been a much better idea.

  My plan is to boil it again, to boil off the bleach, cool it, and if it

still tastes ok, pitch some other yeast.  Will this work, or has the chlorine

already ruined it?  I'm not happy......

Russ G.

------------------------------


Australian Yeast

Date: Tue, 15 Feb 94 14:01:22 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Australian Yeast

This post is a request for information from those who have brewed

with strains of active dry yeast from Australia. The strains I am

particularly interested in are Mauri Foods Y327 Ale, and Mauri Foods

Y497 Lager. It is my understanding that they were (are?) distributed

in Canada by Superior Brewing Supplies. I am preparing a talk for the

Microbrewers Conference in New Orleans, which will survey the important

yeast strains currently available. There are some small operations,

which due to limitations of equipment and other reasons, are forced into

the use of dry yeast. Thus, I felt it is important to touch on some of

the better versions. I have been told that the above strains have very high

% cell viabilities, and very low bacterial/wild yeast counts. Private e-mail

relating practical experience with these strains would be gratefully received.

George Fix

------------------------------


galvanized hardware cloth ok for sparging?

Date: Sun, 14 Feb 93 17:57:59 CST

From: hopduvel!john@linac.fnal.gov (John Isenhour)

Subject: galvanized hardware cloth ok for sparging?

I've been wanting to build a mash/sparge cooler with a mesh filter

as the rigid manifold arrangement sits a little too high off the

bottom of my cooler.  I havent been able to locate brass or stainless

mesh locally but I found some 1/8" galvanized hardware cloth.  I haven't

heard of anyone using this - is there a problem?  Also, what is a

reasonable minimum length of mesh if its rolled into a tube?

tnx!

- --

John de HopDuvel

home:john@hopduvel.uucp

work:isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov

------------------------------


The results are in

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 93 21:42 MTS

From: Chuck Coronella <CORONELLRJDS@CHE.UTAH.EDU>

Subject: The results are in

The results of a survey of the HBD readership are in!  As you may recall, I

recently submitted a note to the HBD (about a week and a half ago) inviting

everyone to mail me with a desriptor of their brewing level.  What a

response!!  By 10 a.m., I'd received more than 100 responses!  Thanks to all

for participating.  (And what a talkative crowd!  Sorry that I couldn't answer

messages individually.)

The admittedly inadequately simple categories from which I asked people to

choose were as follows:

All Grain            if you rarely use extract for your brewing, other than

                     for yeast culturing,

Intermediate         if you do some mashing, partial mashing, some yeast

                     culturing, etc., but you don't consider yourself very

                     experienced, or

Extract              if you are relatively new to the brewing process, haven't

                     tried mashing, or in general, consider yourself to be on

                     the steepest part of the learning curve.

The tallies are as follows:

All Grain:       55

Intermediate:    65

Extract:         69

I'd like to make a few comments regarding the survey.

Categorization:  Obviously, as stated above, a categarization of only three

simple slots describes the multidimensional brewer only crudely.  Some people

have _never_ brewed with extract; some have brewed for ten or more years with

extract only.  And so on.  I wanted to conduct this poll only to convince

novice brewers that they really should use the HBD, not to annoy readers by

forcing them to categorize themselves.  Enough said!

Statistical Discussion:  The results to this poll are most likely not truly

representative of the entire HBD readership.  I can think of several readers

who regularly post in the HBD who didn't reply.  I'm sure that more than 189

people read the HBD.  And I suspect that the tone of my original message might

have motivated those on the steepest part of the learning curve to reply,

skewing the results. Also, bravado or modesty might cause people to describe

themselves incorrectly.

Use of the HBD:  I did all this for one simple reason.  I want new brewers to

feel free to use the HBD as a valuable resource for talking with experienced

brewers for the purpose of improving their brewing, as I did.  Several

beginners told me that they were certainly intimidated from asking questions.

The HBD has got to be the greatest resource available; use it.  From my

results, a _significant_ fraction of the readership brews extract only.

You're not alone!

A few commented that they're annoyed by such questions as "How do you brew

beer?"  Obviously, questions like this are inappropriate, but this doesn't

mean that all discussion should be on the level of comparitive mashing

methods.  So, use the HBD, but use it wisely.

So there you have it.  An incomplete, inadequate survey of the HBD readership.

That's my contribution to brewing science for now.  (But with a Ph.D. in

chemical engineering, I should be able to do better than that!)

Cheers!

Chuck

P.S.  For those who must know, I have never tried mashing.  I use extracts and

specialty grains (and fruits and spices too, yumm!)  Maybe someday when I get

a regular job (and a house with a basement).

------------------------------


snobs

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 93 22:29 CST

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: snobs

>

> In Michigan, you will find very little broken glass, nor will

> find litter from empty cans or cardboard packaging . . .

>

     Really?  Guess you've never been to Detroit.

Lately there seems to be a tendency towards complaining about the

various types of snobs that can be found on the Digest.  Be it

all-grain or unix, I feel that these gripes are small potatoes.

I think there exists a more serious type of snob out there which

threatens the very foundation of the homebrewing community.  And

since it looks like no one else notices, I shall take it upon

myself to point it out the general HBD community.

I would like to complain about fart snobs.

I'm sure you're aware of whom I speak.  Tell me if this sounds

familiar:  You're at a homebrew gathering, drinking a beer,

trying to decipher the subtle nuances of the hop aroma, the malt

nose and the estery parfum when all of a sudden: (sniff)  Oh man!

Who the hell did that?  GODDAMMITROGER!!!

We have all suffered from such individuals.  You know who they

are.  Its that special breed of homebrewer who can bust worse

than anyone else around.

This is one type of snob I cannot tolerate. It's not enough that

a fart snob can emit such a heinous stench and at the same time

maintain the facade of calm innocence nor make an otherwise

gentle, God-fearing group of people trample one another in a

stampede for fresh air.  What really irks me is that these people

won't share their technique with others.

How do they do it?  What's the secret?  How can they rip so vile

that eyes water, dogs howl and vultures circle?

God knows I've tried.  I've eaten all the wrong foods.  I've done

shots of yeast slurry.  Hell, I've even sampled all the novice

homebrew put in front of me.  The result?  Nothing.  Oh sure,

what I could pass showed promise since it did offend my wife,

especially when I wafted the blankets.  But I think its more of a

female thing than anything else.

Which brings up another question: why don't women fart?  Is their

anatomy different in that the human female can't physically fart?

Lets face it, have you ever heard a woman let one go?  I know I

haven't.  It is my personal opinion that if a woman would fart

periodically, and I mean really let loose with a long, loud

stinkie, she would feel a lot better.  Hell, I'll go one step

further to say that most problems in the world today could be

solved diplomatically if the two parties involved would just sit

down and rip a few together.  Who's to say it wouldn't work.

Stranger things have happened.  But I digress.

After much contemplation, I have come to the conclusion that

maybe, just maybe, I not destined for such greatness.  Perhaps I

should accept the fact that I'm just a mediocre farter.  It could

be that these people are not self-made but born to greatness.

chris campanelli

------------------------------


New Brewmaster at Dock Street

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 01:33:22 EDT

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: New Brewmaster at Dock Street

I just spent an entertaining evening tasting infected beers at our

new homebrewing club (now officially christened B.U.Z.Z. -- Beer

Unlimited's Zany Zymurgists, after the store that sponsors it).  The

guest of honor was Nick Funnell, new (2 mo.) head brewmaster at Dock

Street in Philadelphia.

Nick is an entirely pleasant tall, lanky somewhat English fellow who

obviously has a great love of beer, and in particular cask ale.  I

think things are looking up for Dock Street.  (Jim Busch, did you

hear this?  It's about time!)

Nick brought along an ersatz "Framboise," which he claimed had a Flanders

brown base.  I'm practicing for the BJCP exam and was busily filling

out scoresheets as the beers wandered by, and was oh-so-pleased to

give his (Dock Street's) brew a 41.  Really, the only problem with

it was a slight lack of body.  Otherwise it was nearly perfectly balanced,

with an awesome raspberry nose, tenacious head, clear and tart fruit

flavor, and an interesting chocolate-toasted malt finish.  One of

those beers even your WIFE would love.  (Not my words, but we know

the stereotypes.)

He plans to import some casks from England shortly, and claims to

be addicted to real ale.  Judging by the slight shudder and glassy look

he gave while saying this ...

It turns out that his apartment is right on my way home.  Since he

lacks a car at this point, I dropped him off and was invited in to

share some cocoa with him and his wife Barbara.

Why do we make it so hard for these people to get work permits?  We

need MORE of them!

Yes, I think things are looking up at Dock Street!

================O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis================

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1993 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------


wild yeast media/Micah's st

Date: 16 Feb 1993 09:23:52 -0500

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel.F.McConnell@med.umich.edu>

Subject: wild yeast media/Micah's st

                       Subject:                               Time:9:19 AM

  OFFICE MEMO          wild yeast media/Micah's starter       Date:2/16/93

In HBD #1077 George Fix writes:

Subject: Wild Yeast

>It is my opinion that the major open problem in brewing

>microbiology today is the formulation of an accurate,

>practical, and rapid media for the detection of

>nonculture yeast. The problem is one of a needle in a

>haystack......

>In commercial work, even lower levels of detection are

>required (typically in the cells per 100 ml. range).

Have you (or anyone else out there) tried Lin's wild yeast

medium?  I think it contains crystal violet as a culture yeast

inhibitor, allowing wild yeasts to grow (or rather, to grow

better).  Is it better-worse-same-faster than cupric sulfate?

The 8th Edition of the ASBC Methods of Analysis contains a

section on this media, so I assume that it has some utility

and some brewery is using it.  Of course if a well funded

individual has the ASBC MOA maybe they could respond.  The

 media is available from Siebel.

Another note:

I have only been on the digest since #999 and in one of the

 early issuse I saw a reference to Micah's Magical (bionic)

 Starter.  Can anyone either publish the recipe again or direct

 me to the appropriate back issue?  Thanks.

DanMcC

------------------------------


My yeast is alive!

Date:    Tue, 16 Feb 1993 10:00:28 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: My yeast is alive!

   Looks like the bleach solution did not kill the yeast.  I warmed up

the carboy (by surrounding it with gallon jars of hot water), and it's

now fermenting.  How the chlorine will affect the taste, I don't know.

But it's Chimay yeast, so I can blame any odd flavors on the "weird"

yeast :-).

RussG

------------------------------


Mash temps. / Digest plumbing

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 08:10:43 MST

From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

Subject: Mash temps. / Digest plumbing

Andrius asks about Miller's recommended mash temps.  I may be speaking out of

turn here, since I don't have my copy of Miller handy, but....  I believe

Miller's book is mostly about brewing lagers.  If that bit of heresay is

actually true, then it may explain something.  If he is out to brew the

finest lager, he doesn't want any starch haze making him look bad.  So, he

wants to make sure all starch conversion is complete; if it's not, he's

going to get a starch haze.

To the numbers you mentioned:  I believe he said (or meant to say) that _all_

of the starch _may not_ dissolve below 149F.  In fact, I would bet most of it

does, which is something you can probably get away with in a dark, muddy ale.

I don't remember him asking for anything as low as 141F but it may be so.  I

personally like to mash in the 152 - 158 F range for more body, less alcohol.

Unfortunately, I always seem to screw up and get a nice variety of mashing

temps before it's all over. ;-) :-0

Mike Schrempp posted about some outfeed roller to use in a mill.  Thanks,

Mike.  I have one question:  does the catalog mention the diameter of the

rollers?  (I assume the 14" and 22" are lengths)  A larger diameter is

better for grabbing the grain.

A note about posting to the digest:  If you receive a reply from the daemon

that says it will post your article, it _will_ post your article.  If it says

something like: "there are 42 articles ahead of yours", then it probably

won't get in the digest for a couple of days.  Anything more than about 30

and there's no way it'll make it in the next digest.  Please be patient.  My

article posted today 2/16 was sent on 2/12.  The digest needs a serious dose

of liquid plumber, or less posts about snobs, to clear this up.  In the

meantime, double postings just make things worse, so just cool it and have a

beer.

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


Archives

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 10:38:31 -0500

From: mgx@solid.ssd.ornl.gov (Michael Galloway)

Subject: Archives

Neil,

I think that the idea of creating and maintaining thread/faq/usefull info

archives is long overdue. Nothing could be more usefull than to ftp to

the archive and grab a file with information on, say, building a picnic

cooler mash/lauter tun (I built one from a 10 gal gott and a 12 in. Phils

Phalse Bottom, next brew is going to be all grain!).  If you need help

or support let me know, I would be glad to manage a thread if that would

help lessen the burden.

Michael D. Galloway

mgx@ornl.gov

Living in the WasteLand (of Beer, that is!)

------------------------------


lagering

Date:  Tue, 16 Feb 1993 07:40:36 PST

From: John_D._Sullivan.wbst311@xerox.com

Subject: lagering

I'm a fairly experienced brewer (all-grain) trying something new to me, a pale

lager. I made a starter with my Wyeast pilsen lager yeast (2007?) and pitched

at 70 deg F. I had a short lag time and proceeded to lower the temp slowly to

50 deg with my hi-tech lagering system ;carboy covered up sitting under a

cracked basement window. (I know, I should have just opened the window.)  :)

My questions are these:

1)When should I rack to secondary? (with ales I just do primary)

2)When should I dryhop?

3)will minor temperature swings(48-55) adversely affect the beer or should I

just rdwhahb?

Replies are greatly appreciated.

John

------------------------------


grain bill

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 11:12:17 -0500

From: mgx@solid.ssd.ornl.gov (Michael Galloway)

Subject: grain bill

Hey ...

I went down to my local brew shop yesterday to but some grain for my first

batch of all-grain brew (a SNPA clone).  The proprietor looked at me rather

dubiously when i gave him the grain bill:

        8 lb British Pale Ale Malt

        1 lb British Crystal Malt (50L)

He seemed to think that the grain bill was short.  I figured that with

30 pts/lb/gal I would get an OG of about 1050.  He made some comments

about Dave Millers unrealistic effiencies and seemed to think that 25

pts/lb/gal was more reasonable.  I assumed that 30 was a "good" number

considering all i've read here on the digest. My setup is a 10 gal Gott

cooler with a Phils Phalse Bottom as a combination mash/lauter tun.  Am

I being unrealistic?  Perhaps I should go buy another pound or two?

michael galloway

mgx@ornl.gov

Living in the WasteLand (of Beer, that is!)

------------------------------


Other Digests

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 11:23 EST

From: Mark Cronenweth <CRONEN@vms.cis.pitt.edu>

Subject: Other Digests

In a recent HBD, I heard mention of the Cider Digest.  The address for this

digest was posted, I SUB'd, and have received some great info. that I know is

going to improve my cider tremendously - thanks Jay.

I've also heard rumors of a MEAD DIGEST out there somewhere.  If anybody has

addresses for any online MEAD info., recipes, etc. please post me at:

                    CRONEN@VMS.CIS.PITT.EDU

Some purists will probably flame me for mentioning other fermentable materials

on the HBD, but I can't help myself!  I love the HBD & look forward to reading

it every day.  I even check my mail for it on weekends.  But I'm just a

sleaze-bag when it comes to fermentation.  I'm not too proud to ferment

anything (once) !

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mark Cronenweth

University of Pittsburgh

School of Education

"From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step."  - Napoleon

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Test Message

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 10:03:34 PST

From: alm@brewery.ht.intel.com (Al Marshall)

Subject: Test Message

Test Message; Please forgive the use of bandwidth.

------------------------------


hops: rec.gardens request (fwd)

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 08:59:31 -0800 (PST)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: hops: rec.gardens request (fwd)

James,

      I've been getting my hop cuttings froms Freshops in Philomath, Ore.

They have given good service and are quite friendly over the phone.

Directory assistance for are code (503) should find them...

I don't have any here at work, but you should check out Zymurgy magazine.

This is the publication of the American Homebrewers Association.  It can

be found at large newsdealers and bookstores (usually among the gourmet

and food/wine magazines).  Everyone that sells hop cuttings advertises here.

If you want more info and contacts, send e-mail message with both the

subject and message "SUSCRIBE" to homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.ph.com to get

the daily internet digest for homebrewers.  It has around 1500 members and

is better behaved than rec.crafts.brewing where it is also echoed.

cheers,

Paul de Armond.

- ---------- Forwarded message ----------


Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 12:07:01 -0800

From: Mark Turner <mturner@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: hops: rec.gardens request (fwd)

Subject: hops: rec.gardens request

Paul,  I came across this request in rec.gardens and thought you might be

able to shed some light for the interested party.

- -- Mark

 James White

(james@rchland.vnet.ibm.com) wrote:

: Speaking of beer making and gardening.  Does anyone know of a good source

: for hop plants?  I believe that I have to buy the roots.  I see in some of

: of the catalogs, adds for hops but they are all from the same source and none

: provide the real variety name.

I mail ordered hop rhizomes from Marysville Oast in Oregon. I don't

have a phone number for them, but here's the address:

Marysville Oast

866 NE 1000 Oaks

Corvallis, OR 97330

I don't recall which varieties I purchased (and the markers are

covered with snow right now, so I can't read them from here!), but

both grew well and produced modestly, which is expected in the first

year. I'm looking forward to an increased harvest this fall!

------------------------------


apologies for previous post

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 09:12:35 -0800 (PST)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: apologies for previous post

To All,

       sorry about the preceeding post.  I used cc: to get the digest

address and forgot to delete the cc: line before sending.

Mea Culpa,

Paul.

------------------------------


recipe request (maple)

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 10:34:50 PST

From: southard@biology.UCSC.EDU

Subject: recipe request (maple)

In HBD #1078, Eric Mrozek mentioned a Maple Ale recipe posted "a couple o'

months back". This may have been before I started reading the digest.

Anyway it happens that I picked up a quart of maple syrup (grade c, dark

amber, $6) just yesterday. Any and all suggestions for using this in a

brew would be appreciated. I would definitely like to be able to taste

the maple - is a qt too much for 5 gal? For backround, I am not an all

grain brewer, but have done several partial mashes with good results.

I know that Cats Meow probably contains some good maple beer recipes,

but I don't know how to access it. Thanks in advance for any help.

Jon Southard

------------------------------


MM vs Corona

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 13:12 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: MM vs Corona

JS writes:

> In the info he mailed out, he only mentions his wife and himself.  He also

> refers to a "Midwestern micro-brewery" that prefers to use a Corona because

> of its superior crushing.  I would be interested in knowing the name of this

> brewery.  The only one I know of in the Midwest using a Corona, never heard

> of him and the owner assures me it is a tight budget, not preference that has

> him using the Corona.

I have spoken to that brewmaster from the "Midwestern micro-brewery" and

he did say to me that he prefers the crush of the Corona mill (drill-powered

by the way) over the MaltMill, but I disagreed with him then and still

disagree with him.  He and Roy seem to be the only two people that I've

heard of liking the Corona over the MaltMill.  I have an older model MaltMill

and am very happy with it, but the more-recent ones I've seen are, indeed,

even better.  On the older models, two pieces of plastic blocked grains from

"falling off the end of the roller in stead of being crushed" whereas the

current design has the rollers going all the way flush with their mounting

plates.  On my design, I need to put a tray under the outlet chute to

catch the grains -- the current design sits over a bucket, which, by the

way, reduces airbourne grain dust.  As much as I've disagreed with Jack

(I've got a few megabytes of off-line arguments on disk too), I've got to

admit, he's built the best homebrew-sized grain mill on the market.

Al.

------------------------------


Beginner questions/aeration/break/too bitter/Irish Red

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 14:11 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Beginner questions/aeration/break/too bitter/Irish Red

Nathan writes:

>I have recently become interested in HB, and have been reading HBD for a few

>mos. I am wondering if there are any magazines out there for HB, especially

>ones with help, hints and recipes for the novice.  I have seen some

>references to "Zymurgy" in articles by Bob Jones and others.  Is this what I'm

>looking for?  Also any good liturature for the beginner?

Yes, Zymurgy has articles targeted for virtually all homebrewers ranging

from beginner to expert.  I think that not only a subsciption is in order

if you are serious about homebrewing, but also get back-issues also (especially

the special issues on Hops, Extract, Troubleshooting and eventually All-grain).

I feel the best way to start, however is by reading "The New Complete Joy

of Homebrewing" by Charlie Papazian.  The articles in Zymurgy will make more

sense when you learn the basics and the vocabulary of homebrewing.

>Thank you,

>Nate Clark

>grs04736@conrad.appstate.edu

                 ^^^^^^^^

Look up Kinney Baughman if he hasn't contacted you yet.  He may still be

as AppState, but last heard he's a brewmaster somewhere in the vicinity.

************************

John writes:

> I could use a little help with the subjects of wort aeration and

>the formation and importance of hot and cold break.

> First, wort aeration.  On reading beginner's books I get the impres-

>sion that I should boil up my extract, grains, etc in my brewpot, and then

>pour the wort through a strainer into my primary, pitch the yeast, seal and

>leave alone.  Through this forum and from other sources I've learned that

>the yeast needs oxygen to reproduce therefore the wort should be shaken,

>stirred vigorously just before or after pitching.  What is the experts'

>advice?  Do I leave the wort alone or not?

If you are doing a full, 5-gallon boil, pouring it through a strainer will

aerate it enough, but you should let it cool before aerating.  When the

wort is hot (over 80F) the oxygen you add during aeration will react with

compounds in the wort to oxidize them.  This is Hot Side Aeration (HSA)

which you've probably noticed lately in HBD and is generally regarded as

bad (although it appears that many breweries get away with it).  If you

are doing a partial boil, as you've noted that you do, I feel you still

may need to do some aeration to get a good amount of oxygen in the wort.

The warning about letting it cool below 80F before aerating STILL APPLIES.

Make sure you don't use your wooden spoon to aerate -- you just can't

sanitize wood well enough and should only use wooden utensils in the boil.

> Regarding hot andcold break.  As I understand it hot break is formed

>during the boiling of the wort.  Cold break must be formed by cooling the

>wort after the boil.  A few questions.  I only boil about one and a half

>gallons and add that to three and a half gallons of water in my primary -

>does just chilling the 1 1/2 gallons produce a cold break?

Yes, the down side is that with a 5-gallon boil you will have to leave

a quart of wort behind in the kettle to avoid pouring the break into the

fermenter.  With a 1.5-gallon boil you will still have something close to

a quart of break which is a much bigger percentage of your boil.  Some

have suggested putting this break-wort in a jar, letting it settle in the

fridge and using it, but that's too much to worry about right now.

>Does the rate of

>cooling affect the formation of a cold break and if so how fast should it

>be cooled?

Yes.  The simple answer is: "as quickly as possible" but to give you a

rough idea, in the wintertime, with my immersion chiller, I get from

212F to 70F in about 15-20 minutes, depending on the thickness of the

wort.

>I'm assuming that cooling my 1 1/2 gal of wort does produce a

>cold break which settles to the bottom of my pot with the hot break - should

>I take care and siphon the wort off the trub into the primary?

I just pour it into the primary and stop just before the trub (break) begins

to go in.  It's usually 1-2 quarts of wort.

>If I siphon

>the wort off the trub am I leaving nutrients in the trub that the yeast need?

The yeast CAN use the nutrients in the trub, but if you've aerated well, the

yeast can synthesize everything they need -- getting it from the trub is just

a shortcut for the yeast.  Ideally, you may want to give the yeast a few

hours in the wort with the break and then siphon off into your primary, but

don't worry about it if you don't.

> Any help would be greatly appriciated as even the beginners books

>are not crystal clear to the beginner.

Yes and much less interactive than the HBD.

*************************

Alexander writes:

>I have just tried a new batch of beer which I brewed with a pilsner kit

>(M&F?) in which instead of adding only sugar to the malt mix I used

>malt concentrate.  My problem is that the taste is too bitter/(malty?).

>I would like some suggestions if anyone has any as to why it has turned

>out so bitter and general guidelines as to the proper use of malt

>extract.  There is definately the appropriate amount of alcohol though...

There is hopped malt extract and unhopped malt extract, if you added hopped

malt extract to your pilsner kit (which, by the way is a bitter style to

begin with) you may have made it too bitter for your taste.

>My process went as such.

>boiled all the water and the malt sugar (liquid), malt extract, and sugar.

>then I dumped it all in the carboy as usual.

>after cooling I dumped in the yeast ( came with the  kit)

>after a week in the carboy I added gelatin as a fining agent

>waited a few more days and racked to bottles.  I have since let the

>bottles sit the required three weeks plus a few days.

>I have just opened the beer and drunk some, not bad or yeasty as if it

>was opened too soon, but definately too bitter.

Fear not.  The bitterness will mellow a little with age.  Your process

seems okay (except for the hot aeration -- see above) as long as the

sugar you've added doesn't become too large a percentage of your

fermentables (IMO 20% is the maximum) which will give you cidery flavors.

************************

Jim writes:

>I'm trying to find the "legitimate" definition for the Irish Red Ale

>style.  I've heard that the style is becomming extinct, not unlike

>Porter and I'm interested in any information I can get.

>

>The history if Killians and the eventual sell out to Coors is interesting

>but I don't think I have the whole story for that either.

Personally, I don't think Irish Red is a real style -- I think it's a

recently created idea -- a product of the marketing director of a large

industrial mega-brewer.  Perhaps I'm wrong, but yesterday I heard a

radio ad for Killian's Irish Red Lager, in which "lager" was mentioned

prominently at least 20 times.

To create something resembling Killian's, I suggest brewing a lightly-

hopped (perhaps 15-20 IBU) pale ale but add 1 ounce of Roasted Unmalted

Barley, just for color.

Al.

------------------------------


Birmingham Brewing Tour (Part I)

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 15:43:03 CST

From: gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com (Guy McConnell)

Subject: Birmingham Brewing Tour (Part I)

    Jeff Herring and I toured Birmingham Brewing on Monday, February 15th.  I

had not been in there since they got any of their equipment and, boy, what a

difference - stainless steel everywhere!  A little history first:

    At the turn of the century, Birmingham was an industrial oasis in the rural

South.  The laborers who worked in its mines and factories came from

surrounding farmlands, from the industrial North, as well as every country of

Europe.  And with them, they brought their taste for beer.

    In 1889, The Birmingham Brewery was founded to help satisfy their thirsty

demands.  This modest brewery was equipped to produce 18,000 barrels of lager

beer annually.  By 1905, the brewery's annual output increased to 40,000

barrels.  The brewery closed its doors in 1908, the victim countrywide

prohibition.  Its barrels were smashed and their contents gently flowed through

the streets of Birmingham, to the horror of thirsty onlookers.  Not until last

year had beer been commercially brewed anywhere in Alabama since.  That has

changed with the opening of The Birmingham Brewing Company and its production

of Red Mountain Beers.  Their product line consists of 4 brews; a red ale (my

personal favorite), a golden ale, a gold lager, and (seasonally) a wheat beer.

The wheat will be brewed again this spring for the summer season.

    Jeff and I arrived at 2:00 and opened the sliding door around back on the

loading dock.  The wonderful aroma of fresh beer immediately wafted over and

welcomed us.  John Zanteson, Brewmaster, was expecting us and walked over to

greet us.  I asked if he minded my taking notes and pictures and he said "no"

so we quickly retrieved our cameras.

    John started out, surprisingly enough, as a homebrewer.  He developed a

desire to brew on a commercial scale and took a job in a brewery pushing a

broom.  From there he "learned every job in the place".  That is reflected in

his philosophy about aspiring brewmasters.  He says that if you are not willing

to start with the "menial" jobs in a brewery to learn the trade, you don't have

what it takes to become a commercial brewer.  John started brewing commercially

in 1988 at the Mendocino Brewpub in Hopland, California.  He then went to

Dixie brewing in Louisiana before coming to Birmingham Brewing.  I mentioned

the "Norm" character that Richard Steuven met at Mendocino (who claimed to have

been there every day since it opened) and John immediately said that he knew

him.  He said that he was a thin, older man in a pith helmet.  He said that he

could believe that old Norm had indeed been there every day since opening.

More to come...

- --

Guy McConnell  gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com

       "All I need is a pint a day"

------------------------------


Re: wyeast 2308 and other stuff

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 13:26:59 PST

From: TAN1%SysEng%DCPP@cts27.cs.pge.com

Subject: Re: wyeast 2308 and other stuff

Chuck,

I can tell you a few things about the "Brewer's Workshop"

as I am the author of the program. It was designed to help

craft recipes to a particular style of beer, of which there

are 33 included in the program.  They cover most varieties

of ales and lagers, but not specialty beers. As ingredients are

added their contribution to specific gravity, color and bitterness

are displayed in a style definition area, which also has target

values for each of these parameters for the style selected. This

way it is extremely easy to see if you are going to end up with

a bitter or a pale ale (for example).

There are of course many nice features associated with the program,

but for a full run down please send for the brochure. Its on the

house and doesn't use up valuable thread space, just write to

TKO Software, 423 Greenwood Drive, Arroyo Grande, CA  93420.

Tom Nelson

------------------------------


root beer

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 14:13:44 EST

From: mmlai!lucy!gildner@uunet.UU.NET (Michael Gildner)

Subject: root beer

Hello,

I have a couple of root beer type of questions.  I brought some

of that root beer extract this weekend and made two six pack of

the stuff according to the directions.  I used corn sugar instead

of granulated sugar as a sweetener.  I was wondering how that

might change the taste since it didn't seem as syrupy as store

brought root beer.  Also, I added dry yeast to get carbornation after

bottling.  Will this produce an alcoholic root beer?  My kids will

be bummed if Dad is the only one who gets to drink it.

Mike Gildner

gildner@mml.mmc.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1079, 02/17/93

*************************************

-------


HELP!  Can bottle carbonation take a long time?

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 14:06:43 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: HELP!  Can bottle carbonation take a long time?

I have a problem with my latest batch regarding virtually no bottle

carbonation.  Before going further, here are the specifics of the brew:

3 gallon batch (so you'll have to extrapolate to get 5G equivalents)

the boil -

3.5 lbs John Bull light extract syrup in 1.5 gallons water

1.23 oz Willamette for 45 mins

0.35 oz Willamette for 20 mins

(this batch frothed over when I threw in the hops :-( so not knowing how

much I lost I added another 0.25 oz)

After boiling I chilled it to 70 degrees (in about 10 minutes using my wort

chiller), let the trub settle for 30 minutes, syphoned into a 5 gallon glass

carboy, added water to make up to 3 gallons and pitched the yeast (WYEAST

1056 which I'd made into a 1 pint starter).

OG = 1.036

After 5 days at 68 degrees it was transferred into a secondary with an

SG of 1.007.

After 1 week in the secondary it was bottled with FG = 1.006.

This was looking great!  I wanted a light, dry beer.

1/2 cup corn sugar was boiled in some water, poured into a carboy and the

secondary siphoned into it.  Bottling was done from this mixture.  At the

time of bottling I noticed it was particularly clear - almost all suspended

cloudiness had fallen to the bottom of the secondary.

4 days later, after storing at 68, there is virtually no carbonation.  The

cap hissed a very little on opening, but the beer tastes REALLY flat,

subjectively only marginally, if any, more than there was when it was bottled.

What is going on here?  Should I wait longer?  If the yeast has mostly all

settled out in the secondary, does this mean a longer than normal

conditioning time?  Is it possible to have too little yeast in the bottles

to effectively condition them?

In an experiment I have "modified" three bottles but would like comments as

to whether this is the right thing to do or not:

add 1/4 teaspoon extra sugar directly

add 1/16 teaspoon (roughly measured) of dried yeast directly

put 1/4 teaspoon of dried yeast in 25 ml water to rehydrate and pour 5 ml of

slurry into a bottle

The dried yeast I used was Munton & Fison (happened to have a packet in the

fridge).

Any advice would be greatly appreicated.  I REALLY don't want to throw this

batch out as it tastes great, but do want it carbonated.

 Peter

------------------------------


Change of e-mail address

Date:         16 Feb 93 17:17:18 EDT

From: "Robert Haddad"  <M-RHADDAD@bss1.umd.edu>

Subject:      Change of e-mail address

Please excuse the impersonal nature of this message; It is being sent

to all four or five of my friends, to let you know that my email

address has changed:

                                    :-(    :-(   :-(    :-(

Old: rhaddad@bss1.umd.edu  :-( :-( BAD, REMOVE, OLD, YUCKY!!! :-(  :-(

                                    :- (    :- (   :- (    :- (

                                    :-)   :-)   :-)   :-)

New: m-rhaddad@bss1.umd.edu :-)  GOOD, KEEP, NEW AND IMPROVED :-) :-)

                                    :-)   :-)   :-)   :-)

                                    Thank you

                                    Robert Haddad

------------------------------


Questions From a Newer-Brewer About 2 Stage Fermentation

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 22:20:53 GMT

From: u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil (Markham R. Elliott)

Subject: Questions From a Newer-Brewer About 2 Stage Fermentation

     I write as a relative new-brewer and extract user, I have a

few questions to pose to the readership after having read the past

three months of the HBD and C. Papazian's TNCJoHB.

     This past weekend I finally aquired a second 5 gallon glass

carboy.  After three successful single-stage extract brewings, I

feel comfortable enough to take what I feel is the next step up the

brewing ladder:  Doing a two-stage fermentation.  Additionally,

this will be my first go at using no sugar in the process, except

for what appears to be the standard use of 3/4 cup for priming.

     As I understand the procedure, after the respiration phase has

completed, and the blow-off tube has cleared, I am to siphon the

fermenting brew into the secondary fermentation vessel (with as

little aeration of the liquid as possible), leaving behind whatever

sediment is on the bottom of the primary vessel.

Questions at this point:

     1.) Must the transfer to the secondary be done immediately, or

is there a safe window of a day or two?  Obviously the transfer

doesn't have to be done at all, but ... I am trying to make a

better brew.

     2.) How important is it not to aerate the wort during the

transfer from primary to secondary.

     3.) By leaving behind the sediment, won't there be a

tremendous (significant) amount of viable yeast left behind?  My

observations of the fermentation process show that the CO2 rises

from the precipitate at the bottom of the carboy, not from the

material in suspension.

     Now, all my primings to this point have been by adding a

measured amount of corn sugar to each bottle, then filling the

bottle, capping, conditioning ... enjoying (er, sort of).  Hey,

what can I say, I followed the directions that came with the

extract, and those supplied with the microbrewery kit ... how was

I to know.  Beat me, whip me, make me write bad checks!  I'm trying

to reform myself.

     If I understand the literature, about 3/4 cup of sugar/sugar

equivalent should be boiled in water or sterile wort, then added to

the contents of the secondary, cooled to the temperature of the

remaining 5 gal liquid (is it still called wort at this stage?),

bottled and conditioned as usual.

     It would seem that if I add anything to the remianing 5 gal

liquid in the secondary, and mix, all the precipitate will go back

into suspension and consequently be bottled.  If I don't mix, what

will be bottled will not be consistantly primed.  I was under the

impression that one of the advantages of doing a two-stage

fermentation was to eliminate as much particulate from the bottled

product as possible.

     Questions:

     1.) What am I missing here?  Do I accept putting all the

precipitate back into suspension and into the bottles, or,

     2.) Is there a method of mixing the priming sugar/equivalent

without disturbing the junk in the secondary?

     3.) Noting that the 3/4 cup is not carved in stein, if I

substitute dry malt extract for corn sugar, do I use the same 3/4

cup?  What if I substitute liquid extract?

     4.) Lastly, if I use (for conversation sake) a 3 pound can of

a hopped liquid extract, and want to use dry malt extract (instead

of a second un-hopped can of liquid or [gasp!] sugar) to  finish

off the ingredient list, what would be a reasonable amount of DME

be to use as a baseline starting point for future experimentation?

     GUIDANCE, PLEASE

     Mark

------------------------------


The results are in!

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 15:36 MTS

From: Chuck Coronella <CORONELLRJDS@CHE.UTAH.EDU>

Subject: The results are in!

The results of a survey of the HBD readership are in!  As you may recall, I

recently submitted a note to the HBD (about a week and a half ago) inviting

everyone to mail me with a desriptor of their brewing level.  What a

response!!  By 10 a.m., I'd received more than 100 responses!  Thanks to all

for participating.  (And what a talkative crowd!  Sorry that I couldn't answer

messages individually.)

The admittedly inadequately simple categories from which I asked people to

choose were as follows:

All Grain            if you rarely use extract for your brewing, other than

                     for yeast culturing,

Intermediate         if you do some mashing, partial mashing, some yeast

                     culturing, etc., but you don't consider yourself very

                     experienced, or

Extract              if you are relatively new to the brewing process, haven't

                     tried mashing, or in general, consider yourself to be on

                     the steepest part of the learning curve.

The tallies are as follows:

All Grain:       55

Intermediate:    66

Extract:         70

I'd like to make a few comments regarding the survey.

Categorization:  Obviously, as stated above, a categarization of only three

simple slots describes the multidimensional brewer only crudely.  Some people

have _never_ brewed with extract; some have brewed for ten or more years with

extract only.  And so on.  I wanted to conduct this poll only to convince

novice brewers that they really should use the HBD, not to annoy readers by

forcing them to categorize themselves.  Enough said!

Statistical Discussion:  The results to this poll are most likely not truly

representative of the entire HBD readership.  I can think of several readers

who regularly post in the HBD who didn't reply.  I'm sure that more than 191

people read the HBD.  And I suspect that the tone of my original message might

have motivated those on the steepest part of the learning curve to reply,

skewing the results. Also, bravado or modesty might cause people to describe

themselves incorrectly.

Use of the HBD:  I did all this for one simple reason.  I want new brewers to

feel free to use the HBD as a valuable resource for talking with experienced

brewers for the purpose of improving their brewing, as I did.  Several

beginners told me that they were certainly intimidated from asking questions.

The HBD has got to be the greatest resource available; use it.  From my

results, a _significant_ fraction of the readership brews extract only.

You're not alone!

A few commented that they're annoyed by such questions as "How do you brew

beer?"  Obviously, questions like this are inappropriate, but this doesn't

mean that all discussion should be on the level of comparitive mashing

methods.  So, use the HBD, but use it wisely.

So there you have it.  An incomplete, inadequate survey of the HBD readership.

That's my contribution to brewing science for now.  (But with a Ph.D. in

chemical engineering, I should be able to do better than that!)

Cheers!

Chuck

P.S.  For those who must know, I have never tried mashing.  I use extracts and

specialty grains (and fruits and spices too, yumm!)  Maybe someday when I get

a regular job (and a house with a basement).

P.P.S.  Our damn mailer is still giving us problems; my apologies if this

shows up twice.

------------------------------


Re: New additions to the HBD Archives.

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 15:28:56 -0800

From: "Stephen Hansen" <hansen@gloworm.Stanford.EDU>

Subject: Re: New additions to the HBD Archives.

In message <9302130433.AA28403@gloworm.Stanford.EDU>  I write:

>

> I have placed the perl script written by Alan Edwards for computing

> IBUs as a function of AAU, ounces, and boil time in the archives in

> programs/iso.pl (listserv users send "get homebrew iso.pl").  See

> Homebrew Digest #1073 (February 09, 1993) for more information.

Due to line noise that occured somewhere between my brain and my

fingers the IBU calculation script was called iso.pl instead of ibu.pl.

I have renamed it to ibu.pl.  I'll leave a link under the old name for

a few days.

Stephen Hansen

------------------------------


Kicking Dead Horse for Better Extraction

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 09:45:46 +0100

From: steve_T%fleurie@champigny (Steven Tollefsrud)

Subject: Kicking Dead Horse for Better Extraction

(that NAG-ging question)

I know that this poor dead horse has been kicked

so many times that it's beginning to seem a bit sadistic,

and I, for one, am starting to tire from all the debate

between advocates of extract brewing and proponents of

all grain brewing, but I felt I might offer just one more

whack at the old quivering nag.

There has been a lot of blatant arrogance expressed by some

all-grain brewers, some implying that extract brewers are

not in the same league, likening extract brewing to mindless

just-add-water cake-mixing, or, even more ridiculous, that

extract is analogous to instant coffee! This has left the

extract brewer feeling ridiculed in a forum intended to be

shared and enjoyed by all home-brewers.

While it was refreshing to see a few all-grain brewers come to

the defense of the extract brewer, I have yet to see one come

out in favor of extract brewing over all-grain brewing.

Maybe, then, all-grain brewing produces a brew of such vast

superiority over extract brewing that it justifies all the time,

expense and complexity. But this isn't always so, is it?

More than a few extract beers have beat out their all-grain

competitors in brew contests. If I were an all-grain brewer

who had made all the investment in equipment and time, I too would

find it difficult to admit, afterward, that it wasn't worth it.

Malt is only one contributor to what makes a good beer, and whether

that one ingredient is extracted from the grain in your kitchen

or at a factory is less significant to the quality of the final

product than what is contributed by the flavor and aroma of

the hops selected, the quantity and quality of the grain added

during the boil, the quality and purity of the water, the subtle

differences between yeasts, or the variations resulting from how

the fermenting was conducted (temperature, secondary fermenter,

sterilization, etc.). Far from being mindless instant cake-mix

brewing, there are more than enough ways of varying the other

contibutors to the formation of beer, intentionally or accidently,

to keep an extract brewer happily experimenting for years.

One of the most common reasons given by all-grain advocates for

making the plunge is for greater control over what goes into

the beer. But I have seen so much space in HBD used up discussing

problems of inconsistancy in all-grain results from one extraction

to the next as to make me shy away from having such "control"

at least until I've got bored with fiddling around with all

the other inputs that can be varied. Being an engineer by

profession, one of the attractions of homebrewing for me is

scientifically experimenting with the brewing process and

understanding how changes in the inputs or process affect

the (hopefully) tasty result. Using a good quality extract

is one way of controlling one of the inputs when I'm interested

in understanding the contibutions of another. How can you

tell the subtle difference a new hop might make when your

grain extract rate or unfermentable content is varying 10%

from one batch to the next?

It's nice to know that when I've become bored with all the

permutations possible in extract brewing, there is still a

whole new world of grain extraction waiting to be explored.

In the mean time, I'd like to feel good about my hobby

and not be belittled by those all-grain mashers who would

make us extract brewers think that we are not really worthy

to call ourselves beer brewers.

Steve Tollefsrud

Valbonne, France

e-mail: steve_T@fleurie.compass.fr

------------------------------


Oxygenating Mashes

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 01:34:57 EST

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: Oxygenating Mashes

What with all the hooplah about HSA, I thought the passage on

p. 277 of Malting & Brewing Science might be of interest:

  ... Additions of hydrogen peroxide or charcoal to the mash or

  charcoal to the sweet wort also reduce polyphenol levels [76].

  Oxygenating mashes, made with uncured or lightly cured malts,

  also reduces the wort anthocyanogen levels, probably through

  oxidations catalyzed by polyphenol oxidase, and can result in

  beers with enhanced shelf lives [77].  The low levels of

  anthocyanogens found in worts from mashes of green malt may also

  be due to their destruction by some enzyme-catalysed oxidative

  mechanism possibly using oxygen from air entrained in the mash....

Am I to take this to mean that the effects of aeration, at least

in the mash, vary depending upon the color of the mash?  Perhaps some

aeration is even GOOD in the case of light-colored worts?  In any

event, polyphenols are one thing and melanoidins are another.

I would rather have a hazy beer than a stale one.  There is also

obviously the question of whether any of this applies to fully

cured malts.

================O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis================

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1993 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------


Maltmill Kudos

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 05:19:31 MST

From: stevel@chs.com (7226 Lacroix)

Subject: Maltmill Kudos

 After reading Al's post this morning, I just had to respond.  A

couple of months ago, I posted some favorable remarks about the MM.  Shortly

thereafter, I received E-mail from one of our resident brewgods lambasting me

for my opinion.  I made a few humble offerings to said brewgod and we resolved

the more important issues (like those about my heritage) and both got on with

the rest of our lives.  It was refreshing to see someone else who isn't

afraid to voice their opinions on the net.  After all fellas, these are only

opinions...chill already.  P.S.  I still think the MM is the best mill for

HBers....so there ;-)....BTW, all of the blah blah disclaimers apply.

 Steve Lacroix

 Primitive Brewing  P.P.S.   Al, get ready for some interesting E-mail!

------------------------------


Re: Dry Hopping

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 08:35:57 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: Re: Dry Hopping

From: Raymond Taylor <NU028463@VM1.NODAK.EDU> (Actually Carl Eidbo)

>     I have Dry Hopped several batches, with good results, but

>the hops effect on fermentation is what I can't figure out.  Each

>time I have Dry Hopped  (I have always used pellets), seemingly

>dead fermentation restarts, and continues slowly for quite some

>time.  (This is not to be confused with the rapid release of

>dissolved CO2 that can occur soon after the addition of the

>hops.)

>    I have a list of possibilities I have thought of, and would

>like to get the HBD's opinions on them:

>3.   The Hops provide a matrix for the yeast to attach to, and be

>     more exposed to the wort.  (Similar to Beechwood?)

Hmmm.  Interesting.  May have some truth to it.

>5.   YOUR ideas here: ______________________________.

I believe it is fairly well-known that items in the fermenter like hops

(especially hop pellets) provide nucleation sites for CO2 production/

release.  This can easily account for more bubbling than expected for a

week or more (in my experience, anyway).

I have never seen an lower-than-expected terminal S.G., though, from dry

hopping, but if you have there might be other reasons, such as somehow

rousing the yeast or possibly adding oxygen that the yeast used.

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


Re: aeration

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 09:07:55 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: Re: aeration

From: johnw@NADC.NAVY.MIL (J. Williamson)

> First, wort aeration.  On reading beginner's books I get the impres-

>sion that I should boil up my extract, grains, etc in my brewpot, and then

>pour the wort through a strainer into my primary, pitch the yeast, seal and

>leave alone.  Through this forum and from other sources I've learned that

>the yeast needs oxygen to reproduce therefore the wort should be shaken,

>stirred vigorously just before or after pitching.  What is the experts'

>advice?  Do I leave the wort alone or not?

Well, first of all, you should *cool* the wort before pouring into the

primary, to avoid oxidation (HSA) that occurs very quickly at such high

temperatures.

Otherwise, pouring wort from a height, through a funnel with a strainer on

it, into a fermenter causes *lots* of splashing and aeration in my house.

I can't imagine that shaking or stirring the wort afterwards would do

anywhere near as good a job of aeration.

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


Lager Dry Hopping?, etc from 1079

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 09:31:57 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Lager Dry Hopping?, etc from 1079

It is nice to see that posting has caught up.  Hopefully it'll

stay that way.  Anyway, one post that struck me was John Sullivan's

asking about lager brewing.  Generally rack to secondary (lager

vessel) once the froth dies down in the primary.  Minor temperature

fluctuations will make little difference, but you shouldn't have

anything too significent in a basement, but the dry hopping question

got me thinking.  Traditionally (i.e. Germany, Bohemia) lager

finishing hops are added at the end of the boil, although reading

George Fix's Brewing Science book last night he mentioned that

dry hopping may also be better for lagers.  I wonder when would be best -

perhaps the whole lager, or add after krausen dies and let them sit in the

primary for the second week prior to lagering?  I am not a fan of dry hopping

as I have had trouble clearing dry hopped beers, but my stema beer that never

cleared tasted just like Anchor.  Anyone anyclearing suggestions

that are Reinheitsgebot?

Rob Thomas mentions keeping a strong ale for culturing bacteria low

samples.  However, strong beers tend to affect yeast too.  My preference

especially now that I have a pH meter is to acid wash yeast and culture

out to totally eliminate bacteria without worrying about mutants.

Norm Pyle considers Miller to be a lager book.  I dispute that.  It is a

good introductory text on producing many basic beers with typical American

Malts.  Noonan, dispite being error riddled, is a lager book.  It covers

the essential of lager brewing much better.  Hell, Miller recommends priming

with corn sugar.  What is Miller's Continental Pilsener book like?

Michael Galloway mentioned how his homebrew store recommended he increase

his grain bill.  Good advice, especially for a first all grain batch.  I

finally got a Milleresque yield in my last batch.  I mashed 12Ib of grain

(10 pilsener, 1 each of Munich and Carapils) for my 14B Dortmunder (6 gallons

or so), expecting my usual 30 point yield.  It ended up as 16.5 (out of

AHA style range :-) ), a yield of 33.  But I carefully doughed in, left

for an extra long protein rest as I desperately sought acid (I had hardened

the water with baking soda and gypsum wasan't cutting it), held the thick

decoction for an extra 10 minutes in the 140-150 range, and held the main

saccarification an extra 10 minutes while I ate my supper.  What was the

key factor?  Who knows?  Will I be back to 30 for my next batch?  25 is

a nice conservative target.  You should do better, but tales of first mashes

are usually disappointed because people end up with light beers because

they expected too much.

Al Korz doubts the existence of an Irish Red Ale as a distinct style.  I

tend to agree.  While Irish ale are less hopped than those of the South

of England they are not significently different from Northern English or

Scottish ales.  But the AHA aslready has so many styles of that type

that I think are practically indistinguishable, what's another?  Being

Irish I get used to the abuse of that word in the US.  The football team

here at ND are called the Fighting Irish.  That's a howl.  Then there is

Irish Spring soap and everyone seems to think Corned beef and cabbage is

a dish eaten in Ireland.  So what if Coor's abuse the term with their

Irish Red Lager.  You have as much chance of finding Corned beef and cabbage

in Ireland as Irish Red Lager (right now I'm pissing myself laughing :-).

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@bach.helios.nd.edu

------------------------------


Birmingham Brewing Tour (part II)

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 8:37:50 CST

From: gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com (Guy McConnell)

Subject: Birmingham Brewing Tour (part II)

Birmingham Brewing Tour, part II:

    The tour started with John telling us that they use exclusively Briess

malts in all their beers.  The Red Ale originally had some of the Belgian

caramel malt in it but John has since changed that over to domestic caramel

from Briess.  He said that the Belgian malts, while good, were no better than

the domestic malts and that he has had excellent results with Briess, both the

people and the product.  John said that he felt that American beer should be

made with American malt.  He likes the idea of keeping the jobs and business

in the U.S., particularly since the price, and the resulting beer, is right.

They also use only Yakima Valley hops with the exception of using some imported

Hallertauer in the lager.

    We started at the grain mill, a rather small unit for a brewery but keeping

with their philosophy of starting small and building up if necessary.  He said

that they'd likely replace it with a larger unit some time but, for now, it

fills their needs.  The grain is poured into a large hopper (it looked large

enough to handle at least 100 lbs of grain at a time) in the floor above the

mill (on the same level as the access ports on the mash tun and boiler).  From

there the grain is moved up to the mash tun through a semi-flexible plastic

hose with an "auger-like" device in it.  The mash tun is steam jacketed and

has a capacity of 30 bbl.  They put ~1500 pounds (dry weight) of grain in for

a batch, meeting the incoming grain with a stream of hot water as it goes into

the tun.  After filling, they do a 20 minute recirculation to make sure the

mash water is "turned over" well and the temperature is uniform.  The steam

jacket is not sufficient to mash on its own but rather acts as an insulator to

keep the heat in.  The mash is a single step infusion (forgot to ask what temp

and if they mash out).  They then drain the tun through the false bottom and

sparge the grains.  The liquor then is pumped into the kettle for a 1.5 hour

boil with hop additions done at various intervals by hand.  After the boil the

sweet wort is pumped into a settling tank in such a fashion as to create a

whirlpool and the trub and break material from the kettle is allowed to settle

out into a cone on the bottom.  They allow it a 20 minute "rest" here before

pumping it through a counter-current heat exchanger into a 60 bbl unitank

fermentor.  The hot water from the heat exchanger is then reused in the brewing

of a second 30 bbl batch to fill up the fermentor.  The beer is fermented for

4 - 5 days followed by a 2 week aging period for the ales and 3 weeks for the

lager.  The beer is naturally carbonated by sealing up the fermentor at a

predetermined gravity (and kraeusening the lager) followed by dropping the

temperature to 32^F to settle out most of the yeast and to mature the flavor.

The finished beer is then pumped through a plate and frame depth filtration

matrix into a bright beer tank.  There the carbonation level is checked and

adjusted if necessary.  The beer then goes into kegs or to the bottling line.

Their current "comfortable" capacity is 6,000 bbl a year but they could do

"considerably more" if need be.  Right now, there are just three brewers and

John said that a 60 hour week was a "welcome break".

Part III (the final installment) tomorrow...

- --

Guy McConnell  gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com

       "All I need is a pint a day"

------------------------------


Length of carboy aging.

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 08:48:41 -0600

From: rmolinger@mmm.com (RANDY OLINGER 3-0784 [544-2N-1])

Subject: Length of carboy aging.

Question here.  Let me preface this by saying that I am not worried.

How long can a batch stay in the carboy (after racking once) before

bottling?  Any stories out there of amazing feats like 6 month storage?

I used Wyeast American Ale and it was a slow starter, and even slower

finisher, but the FG is around 1009.  Due to lack of time it has been

basically ignored.  I don't want to say exactly how long it has sat, but

lets just pretend its around, oh, 3 months.   Do I have another month?

Will my yeast stay dormant that long?  I'm in no rush to bottle since

I have quite a stock built up.  I was kind of hoping that I'd have my

kegging system ready for this batch......

Any ideas, please respond to rmolinger@mmm.com

Happy brewing.

------------------------------


re:ale vs lager yeasts

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 10:15:03 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: re:ale vs lager yeasts

Tom writes,

<From: THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch

<Subject: yeast strain selection

<So, the bug problem first:

<most of the bacteria we are likely to get in our yeast

<supply can't survive acidic conditions, so if you

<sterilise (ie boil) your growth medium (eg wort),

<which you have previuosly adjusted to pH 4-5 (unnecessary

<if you mashed your own), the bacteria will not grow anywhere

<near as fast as your yeast. By the time the sugar is

<used up, there may well be enough alcohol in there to

<stop all bacterial growth. (I brew a strong (1085) ale

<just so that I can get a sample of yeast from the bottled

<version when I need one).

Well......

Some of this is true and some needs clarification.  One of the points

being missed here is that chemical substances resulting from bacteria

are detectable in the finished beer at levels as small as several parts

per BILLION (ppb)!  Another important issue is that while a yeast rich en-

vironmnet will reduce pH and eliminate oxygen, this will not occur for

several hours into the ferment.  The yeast must transition from the res-

piration phase into the "active fermentation" phase for these conditions

to be relevent.  By the time this occurs, your bacteria could have easily

produced a few ppb of nasties that can carry over into the finished

product.  The source for bacteria in the fermenter is often from the

yeast slurry/starter that was pitched, and thus the bacteria can

get a small foothold in your beer prior to active yeast fermentation.

This is one of the reasons Dr. Fix was pointing out the importance of

being able to determine gross percentages of bacteria in your pitching

yeast.  I would also point out that the flavor profile of the bacteria

excrement is quite foul (even at a few ppb).

Also, most brewers would never suggest reusing yeast from a beer of

such high OG (1.085).  This level of alcohol could definetly lead to

pour yeast performance and/or mutation problems.  In general, a OG of

1.050 or less is optimum for yeast propagation.

Jim Busch

PS: Just a nit here but boiling != sterilizing.  It does mean sanitizing,

and that is all we care about as long as we have bacteria free (negligable)

starters.  This is another reason many people pressure cook thier yeast

starters.

------------------------------


re:ale vs lager yeasts

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 10:16:13 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: re:ale vs lager yeasts

Pardon my missed subject line on the last post.....

Joe comments on his ale/lager yeast experiment.  A very good and

interesting test.  I would just point out that the Sierra ale yeast

that you used is about the "cleanest" ale yeast I have ever used.  Also

much of the flavor profiles you will create will be dependent on your

fermentation technique.  For example, the SNPA at 65F is about perfect

temp for the ale ferment.  In fact, variations from 60-70 will not

effect the outcome nearly as much as variations of 3-6F will in your

lager batch.  Also 50-53 is the "American" approach to brewing lagers.

Many Bavarian braumeisters never let the lager primary rise above 48F.

Not that it will be "bad", just different, and since this is partly

a experiment on "cleanliness" of lager vs ale it could be significant.

After primary ferment is complete, try a diacetyl rest at 42-44F for

2-3 days.  Then drop the temp 2F per day until it gets to 31F.  Lager

here for 4-6 weeks and the beer should be excellent.

Sounds like a great test, except the ale will be 2 months old when the

lager is ready!  Should be fine and tasty though.  Too bad Im not near

Boulder,I would definetly take you up on the blind test offer.

Jim Busch

------------------------------


re: Great beers from Dock Street!!

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 10:17:51 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: re: Great beers from Dock Street!!

Wow, three posts in one day, I must be ahead at work!

Joseph Hall pointed out that Dock Street in Philly has a new brewmaster.

What great news!  Strange how right after I read a rather heated debate

between Lou Ferrell, of Dock Street, and Ron Barchet, of Old Dominion,

on the pros/cons of Decoction mashing, Lou leaves Dock Street!  I had

to laugh about the issue in the DC brews paper, Barley Corn, since lou

was belittling the significance of decoction mashing when he was brewing

some of the thinnest weakest micro beers in the nation.  This was not

just my opinion, several professional brewers have reported the same

feedback.  Is it true that Lou is opening a micro in the Philly area?

There is nothing that disappoints me more than to travel to a craft brewery

and discover that the products are so mediocre.  It is a benefit to

the entrepenurial spirit of america that anyone can be a professional

brewer without specific training or national certification.  It can also

result in poor beer quality.  I am not trying to bash homebrewers who

turn pro, and I do believe Lou has been trained at a reputable US brewing

school, but it is not for everyone.  I do believe there is a place for

well trained brewmasters in the US even though the US Immigration service

doesnt agree.  I'll never forget hearing that the fantastic brewmaster

at Sudwerks was sent home by the INS for awhile because "we have brewers

in america" , glad he's back and speaking at the next microbrewers

conference!

I look forward to a wonderful pint of cask Dock Street when I get to philly

for the next Dead shows!

Obligatory positive comment:  Stoudts products have just arrived on tap

in the MD area.  I dont even think the brewmaster (Tom) is "formally"

trained, but he sure makes some outstanding beers!  The Export/gold was

an amazing "session" beer at 4% V/V with rich malty/hop notes.  The

Mardi Gras Bock was also outstanding, hiding the alcohol very well while

maintaining a rich maltiness. Both of these Stoudts get a solid 4.2/5.0.

Bigfoot, SNPA, SA Doppel and three Stoudts beers on tap all in one

weekend, we've come a long way in MD!!!!

Jim Busch

------------------------------


irish ale

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 9:41:23 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: irish ale

Roger Protz's "European Beer Almanac" gives the following information

for Smithwick's Kilkenny Ale:

OG 1052

Ingredients.  Pale ale and roasted malt (roasted barley?).  Challenger,

Fuggles, Goldings, Northdown, and Northern Brewer hops to 32.5 IBUs.

Infusion mash.  Top-fermenting yeast.

Nose.  Malt aroma with pear-drop esters.

Palate.  Light malty palate, dry finish with some fruit and hop notes.

Comments.  The use of roast malt gives the beer a rich copper color

and a pleasing fruity appeal.

******

It seems that Irish ale is brewed somewhat in the Scottish style, that

is, malt-accented.  Estery yeast and warm fermentation temperatures

could be used.  Diacetyl flavor note is okay.  Beer should be less-hopped

than bitter or pale ale equivalent.  Color can be gotten from 2 ounces

of roasted barley, or 4 ounces of Special B.

I, too, remember that Coors' Killian's Red was an ale and then became a

lager.  This was probably because Coors decided to "tone down" the flavor

profile.  In the Chicago market, radio commercials mention "Killian's Red,"

absent an ale or lager designation, and leave it at that.

Another American Irish ale is Dempsey's--still brewed by Huber?--which

likewise is not much like the original.

------------------------------


dry hopping and bottle conditioning

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 9:48:59 CST

From: cush@msc.edu

Subject: dry hopping and bottle conditioning

I have observed that every single brew that I have dry-hopped has ended

up with, apparently, a higher carbonation level in the bottle compared

to non-dry-hopped brews with the same amount of priming sugar.  The result

is brews with a nice-healthy head.  Not necessarily gushers....but one DOES

need to pour somewhat quickly after cracking the cap!

Has anyone else noticed this effect?  Any guesses as to the cause?

There has been some discussion lately about apparent slow fermentation in

the secondary following dry-hopping.  The two possibile causes that have been

proposed are 1) the hops act as nucleation sites for dissolved CO2, and

2) bacterial contamination on the hops.  Any thoughts as to which of these

two causes the higher bottle conditioning?  (I am still not convinced that

some bacteria, or more likely wild yeast, are not carried in on the hops).

 > Cush Hamlen    | cush@msc.edu

 > Minnesota Supercomputer Center, Inc. | 612/626-0263

------------------------------


Wild Yeast Media

Date: Thu, 17 Feb 94 10:12:45 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Wild Yeast Media

Dan asks:

>Have you (or anyone else out there) tried Lin's wild yeast

>medium?  I think it contains crystal violet as a culture yeast

>inhibitor, allowing wild yeasts to grow (or rather, to grow

>better).  Is it better-worse-same-faster than cupric sulfate?

>The 8th Edition of the ASBC Methods of Analysis contains a

>section on this media, so I assume that it has some utility

>and some brewery is using it.  Of course if a well funded

>individual has the ASBC MOA maybe they could respond.  The

> media is available from Siebel.

The ASBC's MOA is worth its weight in gold. Often I am asked by homebrewers

with aspirations to go into the commercial arena, which of the books on brewing

science should be studied. I have always given a prompt response to forget

about brewing science, and to get a copy of MOA and start practicing their

procedures.

The detection of wild yeast is a very special problem. All of the known

media including Lin's will not only surpress culture yeast, but selected

nonculture yeast as well. We are currently working with 10 different media,

including 5 developed at Siebel using a crystal violet base. If one were to

do plates using all 10, then likely one would be able to pick up at least

95% of nonculture strains in pitching yeast. This, however, is not a feasible

proposition. I consider it a triumph just to get pub brewers to do a crude

and simple test like HLP to check for bacteria! The work at Cornell may

hopefully change this situation.

George Fix

------------------------------


Wyeast data point

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 11:12:29 EST

From: Andrius Tamulis <ATAMULIS@ucs.indiana.edu>

Subject: Wyeast data point

I have a tale to tell of my first experience with liquid yeast.

Having expended my entire stock of dry yeast, and deciding that my mashing

technique has progressed enough to warrent the expense, I decided to buy

a packet of WYeast for the batch of beer I was planning. I went to the

local homebrew supply store, bought a foil packet labeled 1098 (or something

like that) and 2 oz. of hops, and went home. At this point, insanity,

or perhaps pure stupidity overtook me. I tossed the entire purchase into

the freezer.

I ate dinner, watched some TV, and thought about my schedule, deciding that

I would brew in 2 days, and so realized that I had to start the yeast. THen

it hit me - YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO FREEZE YEAST!! I ran to the freezer,

grabbed the foil packet, and felt it. The liquid inside was slushy, and

there was at least one part that was frozen.

I started warming the package against my skin as soon as I realized what had

happened, and when it had reached a proper temp., I broke that inner-seal

thingy and hoped. Well, the package swelled in less than the 2 days that

were suggested (this was last weekend, the date on the pack was Dec 6),

and the beer is bubbling nicely.

Just another story to keep people from worrying about yeast mistakes,

andrius

------------------------------


Re: Adams Family BBC Product Suggestions

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 08:19:25 PST

From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)

Subject: Re: Adams Family BBC Product Suggestions

> and on the Adams Family Theme; "Pugsley Pale Ale"

> "Lurch Lambic", "Mortica Marzen", "Uncle Fester Fest Bier"

I had been thinking more of a "Morticia Very Pale Ale"

Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,

lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate

------------------------------


Fermenters

Date: Thu, 17 Feb 94 10:07:46 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Fermenters

Russ writes:

>I have been using a 15.5 gal Sanke keg as a fermenter for the past 18 months or

>so. I have been quite happy with the results. I have not modified the keg

>except to remove the valve assembly. I can put 13 gallons of bitter wort in it

>without a blowoff hose and not worry about overflow. To sanitize, I scrub the

>interior with my regular carboy brush, inspecting with a small mirror and

>flashlight. Very little grunge has stuck to the walls of the keg. I then rinse

>with boiling water, about 3 or 4 gallons. I roll the keg around on its side

>with the boiling water in it for about 15 minutes. The keg is emptied and

>stored with some foil over the opening. Prior to filling the fermenter with new

>wort I rinse it again with the same amount of boiling water as before, rolling

>again for 15 minutes. I have not had any infection problems.

>George Fix uses pony kegs for fermenters. There is some study which says that

>the proportions of ponies are perfect for the task. Perhaps he'll chime in with

>comments of his own.

De Clerck (who else!) was the one who did the most fundamental work on fermenter

geometry. His results are briefly summarized on page 414 of his book. Actually,

his references provide more detail. His ideal fermenter is a shallow one like

that used at Anchor. Subsequent work has focused on the depth to surface area

ratio. This usually gets expressed as the ratio of depth to a characteristic

horizontal dimension. This number is very small for Anchor's fermenter, which

De Clerck felt was highly desirable. It has been my experience that as long as

that ratio is not much greater than 1.0, then effects due to fermenter geometry

will not be significant. With a 1/2 bbl. keg filled to 75-80% capacity, you are

doing just fine. My main interest in using kegs as fermenters is they permit

a closed system of beer transfer from fermenters to storage tanks via CO2

pressure. I still consider this a more important issue than geometry.

As Russ and Darryl Richman have correctly pointed out, boiling water is a

natural and effective sterilant. Many small scale German brewers would not

touch chlorine or iodophor with a "10 foot pole" due to a hypersensitivity

to chemical residues in beer. In the past, it was either boiling water or

vinegar for those folks. It should be noted, however, that peracetic acid

has found widespread acceptance there, primarily because its residues are

totally natural to beer. However and alas, this stuff is explosive (as been

previously noted in HBD). It seems like there are no 100% safe sterilants,

and this is an area where a "cowboy brewing style" does not find application.

Care and attention to detail is needed by all no matter what sanitation

procedure is being used.

George Fix

------------------------------


Meeting with Pierre Celis

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 08:41:38 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Meeting with Pierre Celis

I had the honor of meeting Pierre Celis last night at Lyon's Brewery Depot.

Pierre is on a world wind tour through Calif. micros. What a nice guy! I got

to pick his brain and share a few brews with him for about an hour. I

brought along a light lager for our consumption. He took a whiff and said

"no problems here", he liked it! He had many photos of his new brewery and

lots of photos of Hogarden brewery in Belgium. We did speak about brewing

techniques, I ask many questions and he was very open with answers. What a

evening for the memory bank!

Bob Jones

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1080, 02/18/93

*************************************

-------


Re: Corn Sugar in Root Beer

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 08:46:48 -0800 (PST)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Re: Corn Sugar in Root Beer

Mike Gildner asks about using corn sugar in root beer.  I've used corn

sugar and Equal(tm) [asparatame] to make diet root beer for a friend's

father who is diabetic.  We used four cups (about a pound +/-) of corn

sugar and a huge number of packets of Equal following the substitution

directions.  It worked fine and was rated as better than store-bought.

Homebrewed soft drinks contain very little alcohol, since the CO2 stomps

the yeast after it reaches a certain level.  I've also made root beer and

force carbonated it in a 5-gal soda keg.

I don't know what the store-bought root beers use to increase the richness

of the mouth feel.  Small amounts of glycerine or Irish moss (carageenan)

are possibilities, but I don't know of anyone who has published recipes

for full-bodied root beer.

------------------------------


Micah's magical yeast starters

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 09:05:06 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Micah's magical yeast starters

For a very short review, Micah advocated using powdered sugar for yeast

starters with some Difco nutrient. His claims of greater yeast growth got

all interested. I too have used this growth technique for a while with no

big obvious problems.

Now for the update.....

I recently decided to compare the two yeast starter techniques. The two

techniques being, standard starter (DME and water) and powdered sugar

starter. I split a 10 gallon batch of wort for comparison. Both starters

were the same gravity (1020) and volume and the yeast was the same (1028).

The two batches were fermented side by side at the same temp. I feed both

starters the morning of brew day. The powdered sugar starter (PSS) seemed to

generate much more yeast than the DME starter. The activity in the PSS was

almost zero through the whole growth phase, compared to the DME starter that

looks like a normal mini-fermentation. This is a bit troubling when you

observe the two side by side. I pitched them both and waited. The next

morning the DME starter batch was at high krausen, the PSS had no sign of

fermentation. The PSS started several hours later. The DME batch stopped

fermentation at about 3 days, and the PSS continued for several more days.

The terminal gravities were measured at about 1 week. The DME batch had

better attenuation than the PSS batch. The PSS batch never reached as low a

terminal gravity as the DME batch after several weeks. I have now kegged

them separately and will taste and continue my comparisons. My opinion at this

point in time is that although there may be much more yeast growth with a

PS starter the results when compared to a standard DME starter may not be

what one desires. I mentioned all this to Micah and he said it could be due

to the lack of Difco nutrient in the PSS. I don't think so. He thought the

results were interesting, too. He agrees now that PSS may not be so good.

Personally I am going back to DME starters, and don't recommend PS starters.

I'll post the taste off results when their all in.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


roller diameter

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 10:27:34 -0800

From: SCHREMPP_MIKE/HP4200_42@pollux.svale.hp.com

Subject: roller diameter

I got a few requests for the diameter of the rollers in I saw in a catalog.

I don't have the catalog with me, but the picture of the rollers looked like

they were somewhere between 1.5" and 2". I'll have another look tonight to

see if the diametre is listed.

Mike Schrempp

P.S. - My wife can rip a good one now and then. I suggest a big bowl of French

       Onion soup followed by large amounts of high quality cheese fondue.

------------------------------


yeast nutrition

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 10:52:42 -0800

From: jason@beamlab.ps.uci.edu

Subject: yeast nutrition

Ok, say I want to make a quickish mead, but I don't

have any yeast nutrients.

I know that malt extracts have the required goodness.

How many lbs of malt extract would I need to add to the

boil (for a 5 gallon or 1 gallong batch)

so that the yeast will be happy enough

to ferment in a reasonable amount of time?

I was thinking of maybe 1 lb honey and 1 lb extract per gallon

of water.  And using Champagne yeast.

Maybe 1lb honey and 1/2 lb extract per gallon will be

good enough?

Or three lbs honey and 1 lb extract for two gallons?

Comments?

Jscum

What happened to the mead digest--is no one posting to it.

I never saved the address, so I can't post to it until

it is sent to me again.

------------------------------


Re: roller mill rollers

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 13:45:53 -0500

From: polstra!larryba@uunet.UU.NET

Subject: Re: roller mill rollers

In HBD #1638 Mike Schrempp writes:

>A few weeks ago there was a posting from someone looking for a source of

>rollers for roller mills. I got a woodowrking catalog yesterday that has

>rollers that might work. These rollers look like conveyor belt rollers and

>are sold to be used to make outfeed supports for table saws and such. Here

>are the particulars:

>

I have lots of these rollers.  I got them from a local conveyor manufacture

for $5/ea (or may it was $3.50...) anyway they would be a BAD choice for

roller mills.  A: they are welded thinwall pipe and do not roll true enough

for any kind of milling.  B: they have internal bearings, so there is no

decent way to drive them.

Try "Bearings Inc" - you can get conveyor belt drive ends (e.g. shaft driven,

not bearing rolling) 4"dia, 10" wide for $44/each.  They are custom built

because you don't want a crown on your roller mill.  The one I had priced

out included built in hubs.  That is cheaper than the standard rollers with

two-piece hubs.  They also had a precision roller (machined), but I didn't

bother pricing it out.  I figured I could true up the standard rollers if

needed.

The company that actually makes the rollers is Van Gorp, in Iowa.

1-800-Van-Gorp  You want to specify a "Finish Bore Drum Conveyor Pulley"

And you want it "straight faced" not "crowned".

Disclaimer: I have yet to make my roller mill...

- --

Larry Barello   uunet!polstra!larryba

------------------------------


Refrigerators

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 19:29 GMT

From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>

Subject: Refrigerators

Over the past year I have thrown away almost half of the

beer I've brewed, which is a bummer of such magnitude that

only a homebrewer can understand.  This has been due to the

high temperatures in our house, which typically range from

74-76 degrees F.  I can say from long, sad experience that

this imparts some highly undesirable flavors to beer,

(particularly high-gravity brews), and I have the bottles to

prove it.  We have no control over this heat, which comes

from the various steam pipes located throughout the floors

and walls.  Nor do we have a basement.

In one of those saint-like gestures sometimes made by

spouses of homebrewers, my wife has given me permission to

look for a refrigerator I could use for brewing.

(Presumably this would be used in a conjunction with a

Hunter Airstat or similar device).

The problem--and the reason for her saintliness--is that our

house is quite small, and there is absolutely no

inconspicuous place to put a fridge.  We will have to live

with this thing constantly in our faces.  I am therefore

looking for the smallest possible (presumably dorm-type)

refrigerator that can hold a carboy with airlock.  I'll buy

new if necessary, as I am desperate.

Are any of you familiar with refrigerator models that are

currently available, or were available not long ago, that

fit this bill?

Please send responses and any other suggestions via E-mail

to PSEITZ@MCIMAIL.COM

Thanks!

------------------------------


lactic acid / BAA

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 17:20:12 CST

From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)

Subject: lactic acid / BAA

>   First let me say thanks to those who replied in HBD and via email.

>Experimentation with food grade acid is an interesting thought.  Does

>anyone see problems with adding small amounts to just a few bottles at

>bottling time?  Not that I'm nervous or anything, but I hate to take

>chances with 5 gallons at a time.

I tried adding some 88% lactic acid from GW Kent (I double checked to

make sure I had the right source this time) to my dry stout a few weeks

ago.  It tasted great.  The only side effect was that I passed out

after 5 pints and woke up with every muscle in my body sore as hell...

>   Anyway, my friend Brent tried following Charlie's directions.  He

>placed a quantity (sorry, I'm unsure of amount) of pale malt in a cooler

>with 5 gallons of water at 130 F.  He covered the cooler and left it for

>19 hours.  The temperature had only dropped 20 degrees to 110 F, and

>the liquid was sweet, with no sign of sourness  (tartness?) and no

>noticible growth.  It may have stayed too hot, any other ideas about

>what went wrong?

The mash probably also stayed too hot.  It needs to get into the

80-100 F range.  Then it will take only a few hours to sour appreciably.

>   Also, I had the pleasure of sharing an Imperial Stoudt and

>Taddy Porter (Samuel Smiths) yesterday, and they both seemed to have

>a bit of sourness, perhaps more noticable in the Imperial Stoudt.

>Perhaps I'm misinterpreting something in the flavor, but there does

>seem to be a much more distinct sour flavor than I've experienced in

>beers with much more dark grains.

The Imperial stout comes in a clear bottle and 50% of the time I

buy it, it is light-struck (skunky).  I don't drink much of the taddy

porter.

- ------------------------------

As far as Beer Across America goes:

>BadAssAstronomer writes:

> >     The Jan 93 selections were; Mass Bay Brewing Winter Warmer and

> >     Fisher Brewing Dark Ale.

>

>We tasted these yesterday at the brewclub meeting.  "Dark Ale" is a

>misnomer.  This stuff was sort of copper colored.  I'd say it's at the

>dark end of the pale ale spectrum.  The flavor was nothing to get

>excited about, either.

>

>The Mass Bay Winter Warmer, on the other hand was excellent.  Nicely

>spiced, but not overwhelming.  So many spiced beers have a sort of

>sour flavor, but this does not.  Our meeting was outside at a local

>park, and I'd say that the Winter Warmer lived up to its name.

I loved the Dark Ale.  The following is palate-subjective, but it

seemed to have just enough diacetyl without seeming stale to taste

good (not that a beer needs diacetyl, but this one used it to its

flavor advantage, as do Smith's and (possibly too much) Young's).

On the subject of staleness, try comparing a bottle of 1992 Thomas

Hardy's to a 1991 version...

- ------------------------------

>Nick brought along an ersatz "Framboise," which he claimed had a Flanders

>brown base.  I'm practicing for the BJCP exam and was busily filling

>out scoresheets as the beers wandered by, and was oh-so-pleased to

>give his (Dock Street's) brew a 41.  Really, the only problem with

>it was a slight lack of body.  Otherwise it was nearly perfectly balanced,

>with an awesome raspberry nose, tenacious head, clear and tart fruit

>flavor, and an interesting chocolate-toasted malt finish.  One of

>those beers even your WIFE would love.  (Not my words, but we know

>the stereotypes.)

Dock street amber was by far my favorite beer that BAA distributed

in 1992.  Unfortunately, they ran out before I could order a third

case (burp!)

Assuming he doesn't object, I'd like to see a copy of the score sheet...

(whatever happened to the idea of judging BAA beers and then

discussing the results via e-mail?)

bb

------------------------------


Public service announcement

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 13:47 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Public service announcement

This is a public service announcement for Chicagoland beer lovers

or beer lovers who will happen to be in the Chicago area this

Saturday, Feb. 20th:

What:  BEER TASTING (11 U.S. Microbrewed ales and 3 homebrewed ales)

When:  Saturday, February 20th, from 2pm till 8pm

Where:  MAINSTREET DELI AND LIQUORS

  5425 South LaGrange Road

  Countryside, Illinois

  (3 minutes north of I-55 (Stevenson) on LaGrange Road)

  (15 minutes south of I-290 (Eisenhower) on Mannheim Road)

  (LaGrange and Mannheim are the same street -- Route 45)

Cost:  FREE!!!

The Beers: Grant's IPA

  Grant's Scottish Ale

  Pike Place Pale Ale

  Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

  Pete's Wicked Ale

  Bell's Amber Ale

  Sierra Nevada Porter

  Bell's Porter

  Grant's Imperial Stout

  Bell's Kalamazoo Stout

  Sierra Nevada Stout

  Homebrewed Light Ale

  Homebrewed English Pale Ale

  Homebrewed Medium-dry Stout

More info: Call 708-430-HOPS or 708-354-0355

Okay, so there's nothing very extraordinary on the list, but it's

free beer (the best kind) and it's an opportunity to compare a

number of respectable commercial beers, side-by-side.  Actually,

the purpose of this tasting is to get some Beck's or Sam Adams (boo)

drinkers to be more adventurous.  Mainstreet normally does wine

tastings on Saturdays from 2 to 8, but this is their first beer

tasting.  Hopefully the turnout will be good, the owners will he

impressed and will do this more often, maybe next time with 11 Belgian

Lambiks!

Disclaimer: I'm not denying anything.

See you there.

Al.

P.S. I brewed the three homebrews.

------------------------------


re:  recipe request (maple)

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 15:43:25 PST

From: mrozek@gandalf.etdesg.TRW.COM (Eric M. Mrozek)

Subject: re:  recipe request (maple)

Jon,  in answer to your request:

Mark and I brewed the maple ale on Labor Day so I don't recall the details of

the recipe.  I'll pull out my logbook when I get home tonight and give you

the actual recipe tomorrow.

If I remember right, we used half a quart of dark amber maple syrup.  The end

result was a pretty dry beer with a thin body.  I really liked it even though

it didn't turn out like we intended (a maple flavored PALE ALE).  The maple

flavor was definitely there, but you can bend your brain trying to imagine what

maple syrup tastes like without the sugur.

I think the maple sugur ferments out almost completely, and even seems to

increase the overall attenuation.  The recipe was based on other pale ales

we had done (which had real pale ale gravities and body).  The next

maple ale we do will have more crystal malt and maybe some carapils (going for

more body).  Does anyone have any recommendations?

As for the Cat's Meow recipies, I have a hard copy and I can get it via FTP

(read the daily HBD header for more info) but maybe someone who already has

an electonic copy can volunteer to cut out the relevant recipies and E-mail

them to you (southard@biology.UCSC.EDU).

------------------------------


Irish red ale recipe idea

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 20:47:02 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: Irish red ale recipe idea

In #1079, Al (korz@iepubj.att.com) writes:

>Personally, I don't think Irish Red is a real style -- I think it's a

>recently created idea -- a product of the marketing director of a large

>industrial mega-brewer.  Perhaps I'm wrong, but yesterday I heard a

I agree, that the word `Red' sounds unauthentic and that the lager

Coors makes likely bears little resemblance to anything that may have

been brewed in Ireland in years gone by.

That said Irish Red _ALE_ (yes ALE) seems to be an emerging American

style, based on recent offerings at a variety of microbreweries.

Ironically, Guy McDonnell mentioned one in the article immediately

below AL's post!  I posted here in January about the Chicago Brewing

Company's Legacy Irish Ale.  I find it a very tasty brew.  It is both

darker and more bitter than Killians'.  It's brewed in Chicago, Al;

you must have tried it.  The blurb on the bottle says Irish immigrant

brewers brewed in this style in 19th century Chicago.  It's certainly a

plausible tale.

>To create something resembling Killian's, I suggest brewing a lightly-

>hopped (perhaps 15-20 IBU) pale ale but add 1 ounce of Roasted Unmalted

>Barley, just for color.

I can't imagine too many people really want to duplicate Killian's

when they can brew somthing with more character.  Here's my suggestion,

based on my memory of Legacy Red Ale and my experience using smallish

amounts of more hightly roasted malts in pale ales:

 pale ale malt or pale malt extract for OG of about 1050

   (for extract recipes with attenuative yeast, include 1 # crystal,

    for all-grain with attenuative yeast, mash at a warmer temperature)

 2 ounces roasted barley (up to 3 if no crystal is used)

 Bittering hops for 30 IBU (CBS uses Chinook)

 Fuggles or Willamette to finish (CBS uses Willamette)

 Wyeast Irish yeast or a reliable dried yeast

Cheers,

Rob (bradley@adx.adelphi.edu)

------------------------------


Adams Family Boston Brewery

Date: 17 Feb 93 18:38:44 U

From: "Richard Withers" <richard_withers@macmail.conductus.com>

Subject: Adams Family Boston Brewery

                       Subject:                               Time:6:24 PM

  OFFICE MEMO          Adams Family Boston Brewery            Date:2/17/93

Chuck Cox had a great suggestion for paying retribution to Jim Koch's (Sam

Adams) bad legal habits.  John Adams thought that, being born an Adams, he

could not be denied use of the name.  He's wrong, unless the law has changed in

the14 years since I visited the Bully Hill Winery on the Finger Lakes of New

York.

  During the tour of Bully Hill, I noticed that there were many paintings in

the tasting room signed by an artist named Walter S. ____; that is, the last

name was obliterated.  The same obliterated name was seen on various signs

around the winery giving inspiration to the workers about quality control and

the like.  I asked about this and was told that the owner was named Walter S.

Taylor, and he was a descendant of the founder of Taylor Wines.  Taylor Wines

had been acquired by Coca-Cola (Koch? could it be??) (or was it Pepsico?), and

they had obtained an injunction prohibiting Walter Taylor from using the Taylor

name in the marketing of Bully Hill wines.  So... Walter complied with the

order to the absurd limit.

  Bully Hill also produced bumper stickers stating:  "Drink Bully Hill wines --

the UN-Taylor"  (remember the 7-Up Un-cola campaign?)

  Fight back!

 - Richard Withers

withers@conductus.com

------------------------------


Mead and Extract Brewing...

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 22:13 EST

From: STBLEZA@grove.iup.edu

Subject: Mead and Extract Brewing...

Greetings all...

In a recent HBD, Mark Cronenweth <CRONEN@vms.cis.pitt.edu> writes:

> I've also heard rumors of a MEAD DIGEST out there somewhere.  If anybody has

> addresses for any online MEAD info., recipes, etc. please post me at:

Would any kind soul with any mead information also please E-mail me with the

info... It would be greatly appreciated.

Also, I've reads some messages talking about 'extract' brewing.  I'm afraid that

I'm not familar with this process.  I learned brewing from an organization

called the SCA (Society for Creative Anacronism), a medieval re-creationist

group.  Hence, I've only learned techniques in use before 1550 AD, and have

missed this (and other) techniques.  Would some kind soul please be so

generous as to give a brief explanation of this artform?  Thanx in advance.

+*****************************************+************************************+

|"There are no choices between good and   |The Dragon of                       |

|evil.  All choices are between the       |    Summer Sun and                |

|lesser of two evils, or the greater of   |           Winter Moon        |

|two goods."                              |(AKA J. Hunter Heinlen)             |

|   -The Dragon of Shadow Walking and     |(Bitnet:STBLEZA@IUP)                |

|    Night Stalking -- a good friend  RIP |(Internet:STBLEZA@GROVE.IUP.EDU)    |

+=========================================+====================================+

------------------------------


Rolling Rocks #33

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 09:26:43 EST

From: mlobo@sentry.foxboro.com (Michael T. Lobo)

Subject: Rolling Rocks #33

I saw this question posted a few weeks ago, and never saw a response -

does anyone know what the 33 on the Rolling Rock label REALLY stands for?

thanks,

Michael T. Lobo   508 549 2487

Foxboro Co.

mlobo@foxboro.com  "I Love beer, beer loves me; when I drink too much,

my beer speaks for me" -Monty

------------------------------


The Taste of Dextrose

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 23:20:47 EST

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: The Taste of Dextrose

How many of you out there have tasted the corn dextrose that comes

in 50-lb bags?

Now, pure glucose is mildly sweet, and essentially tasteless otherwise.

But this stuff tastes like, well, wallpaper paste.  When I added 3

grams to a glass of water the taste was still distinct, though probably

threshold at best in beer.

Is it ALL like this?

Another argument for using sucrose or some other seriously refined

sugar for priming.  Or, <sigh>, malt extract.

================O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis================

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1993 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------


Semi-beginner question

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 18:58:06 -0500

From: Chris.Kagy@p882.f70.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Chris Kagy)

Subject: Semi-beginner question

On the heels of Chuck's survey, I've got a semi-beginner question.  Would adding

rolled oats to a brew (a porter in this case) have any desireable effect if it

were used like other adjunct grains?  In other words, if I add a half pound of

rolled oats to 2 gal of water, bring it to a boil and remove the oats would

there be any useful result?  Unfortunately, I'm not set up to mash, hence my

question...  Thanks for any answers!

 -kegster

------------------------------


Wild Yeasts

Date:         Thu, 18 Feb 93 10:27:52 +0200

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      Wild Yeasts

I have been thinking about the problem of contamination of yeast cultures by

wild yeasts and would like to ask a couple of questions.

1. If you had the possibility to test for wild yeast contamination, say with a

   kit of some sort, would it be still worthwhile if you had no means to get

   rid of those nasties (other then dumping the contaminated stock)?

2. How often does the problem occur in your homebrewing enterprise?

Nir Navot

Molecular Biologist

Novice Home Brewer

------------------------------


Re: Kicking that horse

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 11:27:49 GMT

From: des@pandora.swindon.ingr.com (Desmond Mottram)

Subject: Re: Kicking that horse

Forwarded message:

>From des Thu Feb 18 11:09:08 1993

Subject: Re: Kicking that horse

To: homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.com


Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 11:09:08 GMT

X-Mailer: ELM [version 06.01.01.00 (2.3 PL11)]

Subject: Re: Kicking that horse

Just a few data points on Steve Tollefsrud's post, based on experience.

My background is 10 years brewing extract kits, now two years all-grain.

I agree with Steve that extract brewing can keep a brewer just as occupied

juggling with ingredients. Extract can beat all-grain in competitions.

It's easier, quicker and requires less kit. Why do I prefer all-grain?

Because all-grain consistently produces better beers for me than extract.

Maybe I'm such a useless brewer I can't get a good beer out of extract.

> There has been a lot of blatant arrogance expressed by some

> all-grain brewers,

I think it was only Jack, who admits he sometimes puts his foot in his

mouth. Best thing is to count ten and forget it. Mail direct if you must.

>

> Malt is only one contributor to what makes a good beer, and whether

> that one ingredient is extracted from the grain in your kitchen

> or at a factory is less significant to the quality of the final

> product than what is contributed by ... [hops, water yeast etc]

Disagree totally here. Factory extract in my experience is markedly

inferior to wort extracted at home or brewery. Probably due to the

processing required to eliminate the water. Far from being less

significant, I consider it to be the _most_ significant factor in poorer

flavour compared to all-grain. Only differences in hop rates come near to

affecting taste as much. This is why it is essential to use the very best

quality extract if you want to beat all-grain brews in competitions.

> One of the most common reasons given by all-grain advocates for

> making the plunge is for greater control over what goes into

> the beer.

It's not my reason, and I doubt it is a common reason. Greater scope for

experimenting maybe, and even that's debatable. As Steve says, all you do

is throw more variables in the pot. I use all-grain, as said before,

because it tastes _far_ better. That's the main reason I switched and the

only reason I prefer it. Ah! that taste!

> Steve Tollefsrud

> Valbonne, France

>

> e-mail: steve_T@fleurie.compass.fr

Desmond Mottram

des@pandora.swindon.ingr.com

------------------------------


RE: Kicking Dead Horse for Better Extraction

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 11:30 GMT

From: "John Robinson, King's College London" <UDAA002@OAK.CC.KCL.AC.UK>

Subject: RE: Kicking Dead Horse for Better Extraction

steve_T%fleurie@champigny (Steven Tollefsrud) writes:

> There has been a lot of blatant arrogance expressed by some

> all-grain brewers, some implying that extract brewers are

> not in the same league, likening extract brewing to mindless

> just-add-water cake-mixing, or, even more ridiculous, that

> extract is analogous to instant coffee! This has left the

> extract brewer feeling ridiculed in a forum intended to be

> shared and enjoyed by all home-brewers.

Whilst the "grain vs. extract" argument can be taken too far, I must

admit I agree with the instant coffee analogy.  After all, both

instant coffee and malt extract are concentrated forms of the original

substance.

I brewed with extract for about 5 years before trying my first

all-grain brew, and since then I haven't looked back. I could say the

same about using instant and ground coffee, and also about

from-concentrate vs. freshly-squeezed orange juice.  In all three

cases, IMHO, the concentrated product lacks the clean, "zesty" quality

of the original.  The basic flavour is present, and about right, but it

seems somehow to be dulled.  I've an idea that this difference is

rather more important than any _additional_ flavours that may be

introduced by the concentrating process.

OK, malt [extract] is only one ingredient, and not the major one for

flavouring purposes, but good fresh malt _does_ make a big

contribution to the taste.  I've drunk some fine beers made from

extract - and some dreadful all-grain brews.  But my own experience

with homebrew is that it's been well worth the change, if only to hear

from fellow imbibers the comment "this doesn't taste like homebrew,

it's just like <some commercial real ale>".

John

JANET: J.Robinson@uk.ac.kcl.cc.oak

------------------------------


chocolate porter

Date: 18 Feb 93 07:18:00 EST

From: "PAUL EDWARDS" <8260PE@indy.navy.mil>

Subject: chocolate porter

At the request of a few people, here's my chocolate porter recipe

that Sandy was bragging on a fwew issues back (blush):

3 lbs laaglander light dry malt

3 lbs laaglander amber dry malt

1/4 lb black patent malt

1/2 lb chocolate malt

2 1/4 lbs xtal malt (i had 32 deg lovibond laying around; 40 deg would be ok)

1/2 lb cara-pils

24 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 oz Northern Brewer hops (6.8% alpha), boiled 1 hour

1 oz Willamette (alpha not recorded) at finish of boil

Yeast was Whitbread dry ale yeast in a 1 qt starter

Steeped cracked grains in grain bag in 5 qts 160 deg F water.  Strained.

Brought water volume to 6 gallons, added dry malt, boiled one hour.

Chilled with immersion chiller, racked to primary, pitched yeast starter.

OG 1064  FG not recorded.  Bottled with 3/4 cup corn sugar to prime.

The beer was great tasting from the beginning, but after a month in the

bottle, the hop bitterness had diminished, allowing the chocolate

bitterness to come thru.  The beer was very rich and thick with a creamy

tan head.

My wife is a confirmed chocoholic (and porter lover), and is bugging

me to brew another batch.

Cheers!

- -- Paul

------------------------------


Answers

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 07:56:11 -0500

From: mgx@ornl.gov (Michael D. Galloway)

Subject: Answers

In HBD #1080 Mark had a few questions:

[snip]

>Questions at this point:

>     1.) Must the transfer to the secondary be done immediately, or

>is there a safe window of a day or two?  Obviously the transfer

>doesn't have to be done at all, but ... I am trying to make a

>better brew.

>     2.) How important is it not to aerate the wort during the

>transfer from primary to secondary.

>     3.) By leaving behind the sediment, won't there be a

>tremendous (significant) amount of viable yeast left behind?  My

>observations of the fermentation process show that the CO2 rises

>from the precipitate at the bottom of the carboy, not from the

>material in suspension.

>

Answers:

        1.  No, remember there are few hard and fast rules when it comes to

             making homebrew.  My typical fermentation schedule is this:

             Brew and get the primary going on Saturday ... active fermentation

             by Sunday.  Then I normally rack (transfer) to the secondary the

             next Saturday.  Then I bottle the following Saturday.  So ....

7 days

             in the primary and 7 days in the secondary.  Racking to the

             secondary gets the beer off the trub and hops and dead yeast and

             appears to allow much more yeast to flocculate ... this means

             clearer beer in the bottle with much less sediment in the bottle.

        2.  It is important that you minimize the aeration at this stage.  The

             dissolved O2 from aeration will lead to premature staling of

             your beer.  All you need to do is get the secondary end of the

             racking tube (I use 3/8 tubing) under the surface of the beer as

             soon as possible.

        3.  Yes, there will be a lot of 'good' yeast left behind but you will

             also leave behind a lot of dead yeast, trub (break material) and

             spent hop material.  Don't worry, there is plenty of yeast in

             suspension that will carry over into the secondary.

>     Now, all my primings to this point have been by adding a

>measured amount of corn sugar to each bottle, then filling the

>bottle, capping, conditioning ... enjoying (er, sort of).  Hey,

>what can I say, I followed the directions that came with the

>extract, and those supplied with the microbrewery kit ... how was

>I to know.  Beat me, whip me, make me write bad checks!  I'm trying

>to reform myself.

>     If I understand the literature, about 3/4 cup of sugar/sugar

>equivalent should be boiled in water or sterile wort, then added to

>the contents of the secondary, cooled to the temperature of the

>remaining 5 gal liquid (is it still called wort at this stage?),

>bottled and conditioned as usual.

>

>     It would seem that if I add anything to the remianing 5 gal

>liquid in the secondary, and mix, all the precipitate will go back

>into suspension and consequently be bottled.  If I don't mix, what

>will be bottled will not be consistantly primed.  I was under the

>impression that one of the advantages of doing a two-stage

>fermentation was to eliminate as much particulate from the bottled

>product as possible.

>

>     Questions:

>     1.) What am I missing here?  Do I accept putting all the

>precipitate back into suspension and into the bottles, or,

>     2.) Is there a method of mixing the priming sugar/equivalent

>without disturbing the junk in the secondary?

>     3.) Noting that the 3/4 cup is not carved in stein, if I

>substitute dry malt extract for corn sugar, do I use the same 3/4

>cup?  What if I substitute liquid extract?

>     4.) Lastly, if I use (for conversation sake) a 3 pound can of

>a hopped liquid extract, and want to use dry malt extract (instead

>of a second un-hopped can of liquid or [gasp!] sugar) to  finish

>off the ingredient list, what would be a reasonable amount of DME

>be to use as a baseline starting point for future experimentation?

>

>

Answers:

        First, once the fermentation is over, its beer, carbonated or not.

        1.  The normal priming method is this:  boil and cool 3/4 cup

             corn sugar (or 1 to 1 1/4 cup dried malt extract, I never use

             liquid extract, too hard to measure at this level) in 1 cup

             water.  Place this sugar solution in the bottom of a clean and

             sanitized 5 gal carboy (or what ever you use for a bottling

             container) and rack the beer from your secondary onto this

             sugar solution, again, with as little aeration as possible.

             The sugar solution will go into solution with the beer with

             no difficulty.  Bottle and enjoy a week or two later.

        2.  See 1

        3.  See 1

        4.  First, I would reccomend that you use unhopped extract (it

             is difficult to predict the hopping rate in extracts) and hop

             the wort yourself.  This way you get the hop rate YOU like

             and you get to use the variety of hops that are pleasing to

             YOU.  The amount of DME (dried malt ecxtract?) that you

             would need depends on the kind of beer that you want to

             make.  For my 'normal' ales I like an OG of around 1.045,

             and I usually end up using 6-7 lbs of extracts (I like the

             Northwestern extracts) total.

     GUIDANCE, PLEASE

>

>     Mark

>

Mark, hope this helps some.  Keep at it!

Michael D. Galloway

mgx@ornl.gov

Living in the WasteLand

------------------------------


Aeration

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 09:43:30 EST

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Aeration

I think this was in the gadgets issue of Zymurgy (maybe it was even

posted here months ago), but it's a neat idea that bears repeating.

It's not original to me, anyway.

I'm one of those who likes to rack (siphon) from the boiling pot into

my primary fermenter (maybe because it's hard to pour into the neck of

a carboy from a big pot).  I made a neat gadget that automagically

aerates the (cooled!) wort as it's siphoning.  I took some 3/8 OD copper

tubing (left over from building wort chiller, sparging manifold, etc.)

and cut a piece just slightly taller than the inside height of my

carboy.  A couple of inches down from the top (far enough down so it's

inside the neck of the carboy) I drilled four 1/16" holes.  I filed

notches in the bottom with a triangular file (this prevents it from

sitting flat on the bottom of the carboy and stopping the flow).  I

then insert this into the end of my racking tube, put it in the

carboy, and siphon.  The Bernoulli effect (knew that physics class

would come in handy some day) sucks air in through the holes, and it

gets well mixed with the wort.  Makes a nice head of bubbles in the

carboy, too.

Assuming you've got some copper tubing lying around, it's free and

easy.  Even if you don't, a couple of feet of tubing will cost you

maybe a buck?

=Spencer W. Thomas   |  Info Tech and Networking, B1911 CFOB, 0704

   "Genome Informatician" |  Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu |  313-764-8065, FAX 313-764-4133

------------------------------


Birmingham Brewing Tour (part III)

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 8:29:54 CST

From: gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com (Guy McConnell)

Subject: Birmingham Brewing Tour (part III)

    Last we were taken into the cold storage room filled with kegs, cases of

bottled beer, and the unmistakable aroma of hops.  I thought I'd died and gone

to heaven.  John then took us back to the front of the brewery (a long walk of

perhaps 100 feet), pointed out some cups and two taps and said "help

yourselves".  They had the golden ale and gold lager on tap.  There was no red

ale on tap because they didn't have any in kegs at the time.  I'll have to

recant my previous opinion of the golden ale.  I have had it in bottles here

in Huntsville and said that it was "good but nothing special".  After trying

it fresh at the brewery, I'll have to say that it is quite good.  It had a

wonderful hop aroma and flavor, balanced by good malt taste and topped off with

a creamy head.  The lager was very smooth and quite good as well.  John likened

it more to a Dortmunder style than a pils.  Being an ale man, I can't comment

on that comparison.

    I asked if he would tell me what was in the red ale, without giving away

the farm of course.  He said they use 2-row, Munich, Caramel, and a "small

amount" of Chocolate malts in the brew.  The chocolate is there primarily to

add texture and complexity rather than color as that is derived from the

caramel malt.  Clusters are used for bittering with Fuggles and Cascades used

for flavor and aroma.

    When asked about brewing other types of beer he said he'd love to do a

stout or a porter but they were afraid that it wouldn't sell here.  They do

plan to brew a Christmas Ale of some sort this year and are, as yet, uncertain

as to whether it would be available only in Birmingham or in all markets.

Their beer is currently available throughout Alabama in the "major" cities

such as Birmingham, Huntsville, Decatur, Mobile, Montgomery, etc.  He wasn't

sure how much of it made it into "outlying areas" as they deal only with

distributors.  It is also available in some parts of Georgia and they are soon

going to have it in the Florida panhandle.

    Red Mountain Red will be in next month's Beer Across America shipment and

John was quite honored by that as they are such a new brewery.  He showed us

the last of 3200 cases on their way to the BAA people.

    They are migrating to twist-top bottles since the ones they use are not

returnable anyway.  This had an unexpected benefit to us as he gave us a half

case of the red ale and a half case of the golden ale to split from their trial

bottling runs.  That fresh red ale is something else indeed!

    John is justifiably proud of the brewery.  He says that, while it is quite

small in comparison to most others, "there are no finer micros anywhere, all

of the equipment is first-rate".

    Quite an enjoyable tour, particularly since I'd never seen the inside of

a brewery before.  John said that he is happy to give tours of virtually any

size, preferring those in the range of 1 - 4 people.  Larger tours are also

welcome but are not as "personal".  Just call to make sure he will be in and

will have the time to show you around.  The address and phone number:

  Birmingham Brewing Company

  3118 3rd Avenue South

  Birmingham, AL. 35233

  (205)326-6677

Enjoy and here's to the return of the brewing industry to Alabama!

- --

Guy McConnell  gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com

       "All I need is a pint a day"

------------------------------


Found Beer

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 09:26:46 EST

From: mattd@software.pulse.com (Matt Downs)

Subject: Found Beer

All Homebrewers:

Recently, I found a raspberry wheat beer in a fermenter that I forgot about.

Please no flames--I know "stupid"!  Any way, it is about 7 months old and the

air lock appears to still be intact.  What I was wondering is if any one has

had an experience like this and what did they do?  Did you bottle it any way?

Did it turn out ok?  How might have using fruit changed this?

Any answers would be appreciated, but flames would not!  There seems to have

been an extradonary number of flames for people who have valid questions to

this group, we as a group should be more understanding and unless we have

constructive answer, we should refrain from wasteing bandwidth in meaningless

and unwanted expressions of our own inadequatcies (spelling is probably

incorrect).

Thanks.

Matt

 ____________________________________________________________________________

| Matthew Downs   | "To error is human, to forgive devine"     |

| Pulse Communications, Inc. |          |

| 2900 Towerview Road  | I have admitted my stupidity, I promise it |

| Herndon, VA 22071  | will not happen again!       |

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


is it too late for the secondary?

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 10:14:00 EST

From: DJH0@NIOSR1.EM.CDC.GOV

Subject: is it too late for the secondary?

Greetings-

    I tried a partial mash of 1/2 lb. chocolate malt (crushed with a

mortar and pestle) with a lager extract, and lacking a wort chiller, poured

the hot wort and the hot break (out of ignorance) through a strainer and

into a 5 gal. carboy with 3 gal. of water.  I let the cold water in the

carboy cool the wort and pitched my yeast soon afterward.  (My milling

"technique" had produced some powdery grains as well as granular grain

fragments) .  The latest posts in the HBD have given me some concern about my

crude methods.  Question- Has all the harm been done?  Should I bother

racking to a secondary ASAP to get the wort away from the hot/cold break

which formed a 1 inch layer on the bottom of my carboy?  The yeast is just

now producing CO2 (very slowly) after 2 days of no activity at 65-70^F.

Not worrying- just learning.

djh0@niosr1.em.cdc.gov

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1081, 02/19/93

*************************************

-------


Irish Red Ale

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 9:30:02 CST

From: gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com (Guy McConnell)

Subject: Irish Red Ale

    Considering that I am at least partly responsible for starting (as well as

carrying on) this thread, and that this (non?)style is near and dear to my

heart (as well as my palate), I decided to poke around in my copy of Michael

Jackson's 1977 "World Guide to Beer" to see what I could find.

    In the section on "Classical Beer Styles" under the "(Burton) Pale Ale"

heading:

    "...a lively beer, faintly acidic, with a strong tang of hops...also

sometimes known as 'India Pale Ale'...France has 'Irish Russett Ale', a copper

colored beer..."

Also, in the section on Britain and Ireland, he mentions that Lett's at

Enniscorthy, county Wexford, the last small independent brewery in Ireland,

ceased to produce its popular ales in 1956.  The company has kept up to date

its brewing license.  Enniscorthy-style beer can be produced under license in

France by Pelforth.  There is a picture of two beer labels on that page, one

from Ireland and one from France.  The one from Ireland reads:

  "G.H. Lett & Co., LTD., Enniscorthy Ruby Ale"

The one from France reads:

  "George Killian's Biere Rousse Brassee Par Pelforth"  While the signature on

the label under the horse's head is "George Killian Lett".  In the fine print

at the bottom it says:

  "Biere Brassee Par Pelforth Selon De Procede de Fermentation Haute

   (Irish Top Brewing) De George Killian Lett".

While this certainly does not indicate that "Irish Red Ale" is considered a

style unto itself, it does indicate that there exists (or existed) a type of

Irish Ale with a distinctively red coloration, possibly brewed only in one

area of the country.  It would also appear that this type of beer is no longer

produced in Ireland.

    I checked in the section in U.S. breweries to see if there was any mention

of Coors buying the Killian's name but this book was written prior to that.

It says that "while most major U.S. breweries brew multiple types of beers,

Coors is adamant that they only need one; their Coors Banquet Beer".

    Based on this, I stand by my assertion that "Irish Red Ale" is a type of

beer (perhaps "style" is not the correct word) that has been revived by micros

and homebrewers in much the same way that porter was.  My initial thought was

that "Irish Red Ale" was a relative to, or perhaps a decendent of, a British

beer style (I thought maybe Special Bitter or ESB).  While that may indeed be

the case, it seems that the evidence I found would indicate that it is

distinctly Irish in origin though perhaps similar to IPA in character.  I still

found no direct reference to the type of grain used, hopping rate, or strength

of this elusive brew but maybe further research will turn something up.

- --

Guy McConnell  gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com

"And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one for dessert"

------------------------------


Re: HELP!  Can bottle carbonation take a long time?

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 11:04:55 EST

From: ali@hicomb.hi.com

Subject: Re: HELP!  Can bottle carbonation take a long time?

>

> Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 14:06:43 -0800 (PST)

> From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

> Subject: HELP!  Can bottle carbonation take a long time?

>

> I have a problem with my latest batch regarding virtually no bottle

> carbonation.  Before going further, here are the specifics of the brew:

>

[ Some stuff describing process deleted ]

>

> 4 days later, after storing at 68, there is virtually no carbonation.  The

> cap hissed a very little on opening, but the beer tastes REALLY flat,

> subjectively only marginally, if any, more than there was when it was bottled

>.

I believe you should let the beer sit in the bottle a little longer.

You should wait about eight days (or so I've been told).  Just because

you only made 3 gallons doesn't mean you wait half the time.

> In an experiment I have "modified" three bottles but would like comments as

> to whether this is the right thing to do or not:

>

> add 1/4 teaspoon extra sugar directly

> add 1/16 teaspoon (roughly measured) of dried yeast directly

> put 1/4 teaspoon of dried yeast in 25 ml water to rehydrate and pour 5 ml of

> slurry into a bottle

>

Great experiment.  I would love to hear how it came out.

Also, I have a question of my own:  I would like to put fruit flavor

in my beer.  I am strictly an extract brewer (for now).  Is this easy

to do?  When should I add the fruit flavor (for example, apple)?  What

form should the fruit flavor take (diced apples, whole apples, apple

kool-aid?)?  I appreciate any help.

Thanks,

Shaheen

- --

Shaheen H. Ali   ali@hicomb.hi.com, !hicomb!ali

System Software Engineer

Hitachi Computer Products,

1601 Trapelo Rd., Waltham, MA 02154  (617) 890 0444

------------------------------


Several

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 07:30:28 MST

From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

Subject: Several

Some random ramblings:

Steve brings up several very valid points in the extract vs. all-grain

debate.  I will explain my motivation for recently going all-grain:  FUN.

I have more fun brewing with grain than with extract.  Everything else

(lower cost, more time, less/more control, etc.) is secondary.  All

homebrewers clearly have more fun brewing beer than people who just go to the

store and buy it.  I have more fun brewing mine with grain.  No big deal;

just brew it and have fun (right, gak?)

I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about clear beers.  It

seems all of the big boys are planning to make them but the people who

really know beer don't think they'll sell (no color = no taste = no alcohol

= no sales), or so the logic goes.  The interesting part to me was the

method for removing the color:  charcoal.  They dump a load of charcoal into

the beer, filter it out and voila!:  clear beer.  Any volunteers to ruin a

perfectly good batch of hb in the name of science?  (not me)  P.S.  I expect

it would be much more difficult to remove the color from a deep amber ale

than a piss-colored well-known American swill beer.  I'll bet Guiness

doesn't try to make Guiness Extra Stout & Clear.

Thanks for setting me straight on Miller, Ulick.  Its been several homebrews

since I read it...

Joe, I'd be glad to participate in your ale/lager taste test.  I don't

pretend to be able to add much to the discussion, but it sure would be

interesting for me.  I live in Longmont.

Just had a Vail Pale Ale last night.  It had a wonderful sweet, malty base

with a quite well-balanced hop kick to finish it.  I've never had a 22 oz.

bottle disappear so quickly.  In fact, it was so good I immediately went to

the store and liberated another.

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


pH Meters, Sparge, MM and Extracts

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 11:13:06 EST

From: Joe Rolfe <jdr@wang.com>

Subject: pH Meters, Sparge, MM and Extracts

hi all,

whew what a subject (forgot, yeast re-pitch, Belgian Ale Book Comments).

on the subj of pH meters - i recently got one from HANNA (shucks found out

it is made in italy :0). anyway does anyone have one of these?  do you

notice a fluctuation between hot and cold temps of the same sample?  i am not

sure if mine is defective or what,  pH varies by .5 (even after letting it sit

in the non-ambient temp sample for 1-2 mins)....the probe was calibrated with

the 7 and 4 solutions minutes before....and soaked in a conditioning solution

for 30 mins as recomended.... does any one have the temp diffs for pH?

on sparge water - i am just beginning to go all grain (not because i feel

less than a whole brewer - but for cost reasons and control over the end

product). i am looking for inputs on what types of acids people use to

knock down the pH of the sparge and comments on the results brought into the

final product (flavour, aromas, color or anything).

on the js MM, i have been using it - mostly on MF crystal - it does produce

a good crush, no tearing (to speak of ) of the husks.  the thruput may

not be high enough for my purposes (at least in a manually operated mode) but

both myself and another larger scale brewer are going to put a motor on it with

a good sized hopper (in and out).  anyone done any motorizing of these?  what

rpm did you find best (too fast the grains just roll or fall out of the sides).

my 1/2 cent on  extracts vs grain - what ever works for you.  i think it

has been said that yes - you too can make a good beer from extract and grain.

one thing i have found in using the extract to date - you have a hell of a time

controlling color of the final product.  if your looking for the same color

it seems very difficult (at least for a very pale to pale colors).  the extract

does brown over time ( i have yet to figure out MF date coding).  i have even

seen some difference in SG/lb/gallon of between 3 and 8 pts.  again if you try

as i do to produce the same product over and over - it makes it less "cookbook"

like.

i finally got a re-pitch to work.  i had problems with stucks and in

conversations with Mike Sharp and SHeri Almeda the major problem was O2

and areation.  i never had a problem re-pitching small batches (5-10 gal) but

larger batches (even when over-pitching) got stuck.  pH of the wort was fine

(5.2 +/- .2).  no major temp changes in the yeast.. started warming the yeast

up days in advance.  yeast never sat for more than 5-7 days in 40F temps.

so if in doubt areate the hell out it.  i used an oiless compressor with

 .2 ucron filter and connecteded to the bottom valve of the fermenter. a hose

dropped into the wort should do fine if you can get it to the bottom for top

opening vessels.  but always use a filter to get "sterile air".  i have also

heard that using pure O2 is not very good - most bottles o2 contains an

additive used to prevent "stuff" growing (for hospital use), it is very

explosive and too much purew o2 can be toxic to yeast..... although i have

heard that divers O2 should be fine.

as i have posted in the past - i will be travelling to montreal to see pierre

rajotte within the next few weeks - the offer still stands about those people

who thought the book "missed the mark", "lacked" wahtever... or was good in

whatever....both sides of the comments are desired...

so far i have posts from

Brian Bliss, Jim Liddil, Jim Busch (hi jim!), Conn Copas

have not gotten any specifics from Martin Lodal (not to put you on the spot:)

but in LD 11 for Thur Dec 10  -you mentioned "but many experienced and capable

brewers don't feel he succeeded in communicating it" [it being info on

brewing beglian ales]. between you and Conn - this was the impetus to get the

questions answered....

so martin - do you have any comments?? do any of the other brewers you talked

to have them?  these can be direct comments of questions that could be

answered to remove the vague areas.  as i said and pierre has agreed to

answer any questions, you post them, i hand carry them and respond to

all en-mass....

my god - what a long winded mess i have made - sorry for the wsted bandwidth

i have not posted in a while....i feel better now:)

good brewing (how ever you do it)

- --

joe rolfe

jdr@wang.com

508-967-5760

------------------------------


Re: Length of Carboy Aging

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 08:31:33 PST

From: bryan@tekgen.bv.tek.com

Subject: Re: Length of Carboy Aging

I brewed an Ale a couple of years ago that had a "stuck" fermentation. It

was in the winter in a unheated bedroom. After a couple of months in the

secondary I kind of forgot about it and it didn't get bottled till it was

6 or 7 months old. It was great. It didn't carbonate quite as much as I

thought it should have, but that didn't bother me. The ale was a nice amber

with no haze and very little yeast in the bottom of the bottle.

Bryan

------------------------------


Re: stuck conditioning

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 09:29:25 -0800 (PST)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Re: stuck conditioning

Peter Maxwell says his brew isn't conditioning in the bottle.  I've had

similar hassles.  Is there any visible sediment in the bottles?  This is

the best gauge (other than opening a bottle) of how the yeast in the

bottle is doing.  My guess is that the yeast count at bottling was to low.

In my case, I think this was due to fining with Polyclar.  Now I swish the

racking tube around the bottom of the secondary to pick up a little of the

yeast sediment.  I have also added 1/4 tsp of dry yeast to the bottling

bucket.

That's for later, this is for now:  Peter, shake all your bottles and lay

them on their sides in a warm (70F) place.  Shake every day, until there

is visible yeast in suspension.  I got this trick from The Cellar in

Seattle.  I think it works by exposing more yeast surface area.  I did

this on a batch of Kropotkin Anarchist Ale and it had good carbonation in

three weeks.  This was after it stayed flat for a month.  Let us know how

it all works out.

Paul.

------------------------------


Fermenters

Date: Fri, 18 Feb 94 11:12:21 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Fermenters

The following are answers to private e-mail from  Cush Hamlen. My response

to cush@msc.edu bounced.

>A quick question on your posting today on fermenter geometry:  If I follow

>you right, DeClerk (sp?) found a shallow container to be better.  However,

>is seems to me that a large surface area is just begging for increased

>likelihood of contamination (of course, this is a mute point for closed

>fermentors).  Is he concerned, then, about geometry as it relates to

>circulation of wort during fermentation?

You are absolutely right about bacteria. Those using open fermenters

have to be very careful here. Anchor has theirs in an enclosed area that

is under a positive pressure, and where sterile air is circulated.

>If one assumes that the circulation imposed by the CO2 rising through the

>liquid is akin to uniformly heating the base of a container,  then the

>mean number of convection cells is greater for a container with a small

>depth to area ratio.  This is the typical Rayleigh-Bernard convection

>pattern (Gee...can you tell that a great deal of my research has been

>in fluid-dynamics? :-)  )  The result of increased number of convection

>cells would be greater contact of unfermented sugars with yeast.

>Is it then concern about convectin pattern in the fermenter that drives

>the conclusion that 'shallow is better'?

You are exactly right here as well. There is a nontrivial temp. gradient in

a tower type fermenter which drives the Rayleigh-Bernard convection cells.

This has been observed empirically, and in addition numerical simulations

have been done using the (incompressible) Navier-Stokes equations at

appropriate Reynold's numbers which confirm this as well. I have the most

relevant references on file at home. I would be happy to send you this

list if interested. In modern commercial brewing, stirring devices are

added to the tower fermenters to keep yeast in suspension along the length,

and to level out temperature gradients. I still do not like these type

of fermenters, and they are usually only used when horizontal space comes at a

premium.

George Fix

------------------------------


Gelatin Finings

Date:         18 Feb 93 12:42:13 EST

From: "Dean Roy"  <DEAN@alpha.uwindsor.ca>

Subject:      Gelatin Finings

Can someone tell me if there is any difference between the gelatin finings

sold in homebrew stores and the plain unflavored gelatin you can buy at the

supermarket. I have a supply of the supermarket variety and was considering

using some on my latest batch.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------

  | Dean Roy                        |  Email: DEAN@UWINDSOR.CA       |

  | Systems Programmer              |  Voice: (519)253-4232 Ext 2763 |

  | University of Windsor           |  Fax  : (519)973-7083          |

  --------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Yeast mutation

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 12:14:45 CST

From: Jacob Galley <gal2@midway.uchicago.edu>

Subject: Yeast mutation

Jim Busch writes:

> Also, most brewers would never suggest reusing yeast from a beer of

> such high OG (1.085).  This level of alcohol could definetly lead to

> pour yeast performance and/or mutation problems.  In general, a OG of

> 1.050 or less is optimum for yeast propagation.

I've been wondering about this for a while. Just how does high alcohol

induce mutation? I'm assuming it's just natural selection for more

attenuative individual yeast cells. If so, is this necessarily a

problem? Can strange esters / by-products / flavors be created by this

kind of random mutation due to high-alcohol stoarge media (ie slurry)?

If adverse mutations occur, can't they be detected in the starter? Is

there something I'm missing?

Have another beer,

Jake.

"JUST DO IT yourself." <------------- Jacob Galley / gal2@midway.uchicago.edu

------------------------------


London Pubs and Breweries

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 13:32:07 EST

From: whjeh@hogpa.ho.att.com (John E Haas +1 201 386 4376)

Subject: London Pubs and Breweries

I'll be in London and Southern England for a week

in March and I'm wondering if anybody can recommend

some pubs and/or breweries to visit. I'm sure I've seen

this here before but at the time it didn't seem worth

saving.

Thanks in advance,

Ted

------------------------------


2 Stage Fermentation

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 11:40:39 -0800 (PST)

From: James Thompson <sirjames@u.washington.edu>

Subject: 2 Stage Fermentation

In response to Mark Elliott's questions about adding priming sugar to

secondary:

The method I was taught, which works great, is siphoning the secondary

ferment into another vessel -- to which you have already added the priming

sugar -- just prior to bottling (to get it off the secondary

trub/sediment).  Since the priming sugar is added to the new vessel

first, it is thoroughly mixed during the transfer.  You really wouldn't

want to mix up the sediment into your beer just before bottling, I should

think!

If this is clear as mud, and others don't explain more clearly, feel

free to e-mail me directly, and I'll explain step-by-step the method I use.

------------------------------


Re- Meeting with Pierre Cel

Date: 18 Feb 93 12:45:30 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.EDU>

Subject: Re- Meeting with Pierre Cel

Subject:  Re: Meeting with Pierre Celis         Time:12:36 PM    Date:2/18/93

I'd like to echo Bob Jones' comments about spending some time with the White

Brewer of Austin. I spent an hour or so with Pierre at the Toronado in San

Francisco on Wednesday afternoon. He is a very easy person to drink with. I

felt very comfortable trading beer stories over a pint of his white. Pierre was

interested to hear about our discussion groups here on-line and pleased that we

had such good reports of his beers from Boston and other locations. I think

homebrewers have a new friend in Austin.

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


Re: 2 stage fermantation and bottling

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 12:52:08 PST

From: mrozek@gandalf.etdesg.TRW.COM (Eric M. Mrozek)

Subject: Re: 2 stage fermantation and bottling

In HBD # 1080, Markham R. Elliott asks:

     2.) How important is it not to aerate the wort during the

transfer from primary to secondary.

     3.) By leaving behind the sediment, won't there be a

tremendous (significant) amount of viable yeast left behind?

 ...

     1.) What am I missing here?  Do I accept putting all the

precipitate back into suspension and into the bottles, or,

     2.) Is there a method of mixing the priming sugar/equivalent

without disturbing the junk in the secondary?

This is my bottling procedure:

1) Make up the priming solution by boiling a mixture of about 3 cups of the

beer in the secondary and 3/4 cup corn sugur or 1 cup of malt extract.

2) Carefully pour (avoid splashing/oxidation) the priming solution into a clean

tertiary (originally the primary).

3) Rack the beer from the secondary onto the priming solution.

4) Immediately bottle the primed beer.

This procedure leaves behind the sediment and achieves uniform mixing of the

priming solution with the beer.  Although most of the yeast has been separated

out at this point, I don't worry about it.  There is still plenty of viable

yeast in suspension as long as you're bottling within 3 weeks of brewing.

As for oxidation, your biggest concern should be with hot wort.  At fermentation

temperatures the effect is reduced by orders of magnitude.  But as long as you

are using a racking tube to siphon the beer off the sediment, why not avoid a

little splashing and make the best beer you can?

Eric

------------------------------


The real reason we brew

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 13:54:56 PST

From: mrozek@gandalf.etdesg.TRW.COM (Eric M. Mrozek)

Subject: The real reason we brew

Steven Tollefsrud writes in HBD #1080:

>While it was refreshing to see a few all-grain brewers come to

>the defense of the extract brewer, I have yet to see one come

>out in favor of extract brewing over all-grain brewing.

>...

>If I were an all-grain brewer

>who had made all the investment in equipment and time, I too would

>find it difficult to admit, afterward, that it wasn't worth it.

In my post to HBD #1078, I stated that I brew both extract and all-grain.

Although I didn't explicitly say "I am in favor of extract brewing over

all-grain brewing," I hope I implied that extract brewing is perfectly

acceptable.  It simply comes down to what your goals are and how you choose to

meet them.  If there are snobs (whether a'g'ers or EXTRACTERs) who criticize

the choice of others, all I can say is, *** Give people information, but let

them choose their own goals and means ***.

>One of the most common reasons given by all-grain advocates for

>taking the plunge is for greater control over what goes into the beer.

>But .. inconsistancy ...  make me shy away from having such "control"

Greater control in all-grain brewing isn't the same thing as having a

process that is "in control".  A'g'ers have more control available to them

because they can choose the mashing procedures and temperatures, sparging

temperatures and times, and many other variables.  Having more control (read:

choices, parameters, variables, tweak points, etc.) means it DOES take more

work to stay in control.  I think everybody's FIRST goal is to have fun with

a hobby that interests you.  If you want good beer, use good extract.  If you

want to play with these other controls, then play.

Eric

------------------------------


carbonation/priming/DMEvsLiquid

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 15:48 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: carbonation/priming/DMEvsLiquid

Peter writes:

>1/2 cup corn sugar was boiled in some water, poured into a carboy and the

>secondary siphoned into it.  Bottling was done from this mixture.  At the

>time of bottling I noticed it was particularly clear - almost all suspended

>cloudiness had fallen to the bottom of the secondary.

>

>4 days later, after storing at 68, there is virtually no carbonation.  The

>cap hissed a very little on opening, but the beer tastes REALLY flat,

>subjectively only marginally, if any, more than there was when it was bottled.

I usually wait at least a week to 10 days before expecting carbonation.

That a beer appears clear (not clouded with yeast) only means that the

yeast count has dropped below 10,000 cells/ml (I THINK -- I don't remember

if this is the right number -- perhaps someone can verify/correct?).  There's

still lots of yeast in suspension and should be plenty to carbonate your

beer unless you gave the yeast a temperature shock, in which case it may

take a bit longer.

***********************

Markham writes:

>     This past weekend I finally aquired a second 5 gallon glass

>carboy.  After three successful single-stage extract brewings, I

>feel comfortable enough to take what I feel is the next step up the

>brewing ladder:  Doing a two-stage fermentation.  Additionally,

>this will be my first go at using no sugar in the process, except

>for what appears to be the standard use of 3/4 cup for priming.

The sugar-freeness will improve your beer a lot more than the secondary.

>     As I understand the procedure, after the respiration phase has

>completed, and the blow-off tube has cleared, I am to siphon the

>fermenting brew into the secondary fermentation vessel (with as

>little aeration of the liquid as possible), leaving behind whatever

>sediment is on the bottom of the primary vessel.

You can, if you wish.  Many a prize-winning ale has been done with single-

stage fermentation.  I personally feel, that a secondary is only needed

for long ferments like lagers and thus I only use a secondary for lagers.

Note that respiration occurs before any activity can be seen.  Perhaps

what you mean is "after blowoff ends" which is perhaps 1/2 to 1/3 of the

way through the fermentation phase.

>     1.) Must the transfer to the secondary be done immediately, or

>is there a safe window of a day or two?

To gain the maximum benefit (which is to get the beer off the trub)

you want to go to the secondary right after blowoff ends, but if the

whole ferment is going to last only a week, I feel that the added

risk of infection and aeration are not outweighed by the benefits

of using a secondary.  Personally, I feel you're better off using the

second carboy to make another (concurrent) batch.

>     2.) How important is it not to aerate the wort during the

>transfer from primary to secondary.

If active fermentation is still ongoing, then it's less (but not much

less) important.  The CO2 escaping from the beer will scrub out much

of any oxygen you add.  If fermentation is over, then I feel it's more

important.  Just do your best and don't worry too much.

>     3.) By leaving behind the sediment, won't there be a

>tremendous (significant) amount of viable yeast left behind?  My

>observations of the fermentation process show that the CO2 rises

>from the precipitate at the bottom of the carboy, not from the

>material in suspension.

There's still plenty of yeast in suspension and although I don't have

a clear answer to why you see the majority of the CO2 coming from

the sediment, I'm quite certain that the yeast in suspension does

most of the work.  Note that when by beer is actively fermenting, there

so much yeast in suspension that the beer looks like chocolate milk

and I can't see much more than 1/2 inch into the fermenter.

>     Now, all my primings to this point have been by adding a

>measured amount of corn sugar to each bottle, then filling the

>bottle, capping, conditioning ... enjoying (er, sort of).  Hey,

>what can I say, I followed the directions that came with the

>extract, and those supplied with the microbrewery kit ... how was

>I to know.  Beat me, whip me, make me write bad checks!  I'm trying

>to reform myself.

Don't be so hard on yourself.  If you like the way your beer has been

turning out... great!  However, we all have room for improvement

and the difference between a great brewer and a good one is one that

is constantly trying something new, whether it be a new procedure or

a new ingredient or a new style.  I feel that you'll get better consistency

and less chance for infection if you bulk prime (what you are suggesting

in the next paragraph).

>     If I understand the literature, about 3/4 cup of sugar/sugar

>equivalent should be boiled in water or sterile wort, then added to

>the contents of the secondary, cooled to the temperature of the

>remaining 5 gal liquid (is it still called wort at this stage?),

>bottled and conditioned as usual.

Boil the priming sugar in water, not sterile wort.  Sterile wort has

fermentables in it too and you want to use just the 1/2 to 3/4 cup

of corn sugar (dextrose) for priming OR a measured amount of sterile

wort... not both.  It's called green beer at this point -- fermentation

is over, so it's not wort anymore.

>

>     It would seem that if I add anything to the remianing 5 gal

>liquid in the secondary, and mix, all the precipitate will go back

>into suspension and consequently be bottled.  If I don't mix, what

>will be bottled will not be consistantly primed.  I was under the

>impression that one of the advantages of doing a two-stage

>fermentation was to eliminate as much particulate from the bottled

>product as possible.

>

>     Questions:

>     1.) What am I missing here?  Do I accept putting all the

>precipitate back into suspension and into the bottles, or,

You're missing the priming vessel (aka bottling bucket).  No, don't do

that -- siphon the beer onto the priming solution in another sanitized

container, stir very gently and then bottle from that vessel.  I use

another carboy since the narrow neck is a smaller opening for nasties

through which to float in via the wind.

>     2.) Is there a method of mixing the priming sugar/equivalent

>without disturbing the junk in the secondary?

Yes.  See above.

>     3.) Noting that the 3/4 cup is not carved in stein, if I

>substitute dry malt extract for corn sugar, do I use the same 3/4

>cup?  What if I substitute liquid extract?

I've never used liquid since dry extract is easier to store partially

opened.  Dry malt extract is only about 80% fermentable, so if you

use it in place of corn sugar, increase weight used by 20% or so.

Malt extract syrup is about 20% water, so increase the weight used

by another 20% over dry malt extract.

>     4.) Lastly, if I use (for conversation sake) a 3 pound can of

>a hopped liquid extract, and want to use dry malt extract (instead

>of a second un-hopped can of liquid or [gasp!] sugar) to  finish

>off the ingredient list, what would be a reasonable amount of DME

>be to use as a baseline starting point for future experimentation?

As I mentioned above, the liquid is partly water, so if you substitute

dry for liquid extract, cut back by about 20% by weight.  NOTE THAT

LAAGLANDER DRY MALT EXTRACT IS LESS FERMENTABLE THAT MUNTON & FISON,

SO EXPECT A HIGH FINISHING GRAVITY AND A SWEETER BEER.  I use Laaglander

intentionally to make my Young's Special London Ale clone.  It would

be good for other high FG styles like Scotch Ale or Sweet Stout.

Al.

------------------------------


sadistic bestial necrophilia

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 17:10:59 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: sadistic bestial necrophilia

I think all we all grainers should get down on our knees and

pray to Steve Tollefsrud for showing us the light by

telling us we are all inferior

to the extract brewmeisters, but are afraid to admit it

because we are embarrassed about the expense in equipment and

time we spend to produce beer when the mighty extract brewers

produce award winning brew in a couple of hours.

The error of out ways, spending less than half what the mighty

extract brewers spend on malt superbly extracted by professionals,

controlling mashes so poorly

that the quality must be less consistent that the sugary, corn

syrupy, overdark extracts.  And we never know what extract we'll

get like the extract brewers, given the superb consistency of syrup

(Alexanders?), or TG from attenuative dried extracts (Laaglander) on

the market.  Thank you for pointing this out to us.  We can now

plant plants in our lauter tuns, donate our mills to charity, and

get most of our Saturday afternoons back again to spend $20 for

6.6lb of malt extract that isn't for pale wussy inferior beers

we make now with grain.

A repentant all grainer,

Ulick Stafford

s

------------------------------


queries

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 17:34:43 -1100

From: Kirk_Anderson@wheatonma.edu (Kirk Anderson)

Subject: queries

Hello everybody from a new reader, but brewer for 6-7 years, in near-total

isolation.  Hence discovering the HBD was a mind-blower.  I'll resist the

temptation to comment on recent flare-ups between extracters and

all-grainers.  How's that for self-restraint?  A few questions please.

1) hydrometer reading: at the highest level the wort climbs up the

instrument, or at the bottom of the curve?  I've been reading at the

highest part.  Crude experiments with plain tapwater at 60 degrees suggest

I'm right.

2) I've counted on Papazian's book for ages.  Must I buy the new revised

version?  What do I get that's new (besides an index)?

3) Since Charlie mis-defined krausening (and I thought I'd been krausening

all this time and I've only been wort-priming! with great success too),

please someone give the real definition.

4)  Go ahead-convince me that Wyeast is worth the extra investment. I'm all

ears.

5) Anyone tried the Brew Werk 'Abby Beer' kit?  How was it?

------------------------------


dryhopping/books

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 16:30 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: dryhopping/books

Ulick writes:

>got me thinking.  Traditionally (i.e. Germany, Bohemia) lager

>finishing hops are added at the end of the boil, although reading

>George Fix's Brewing Science book last night he mentioned that

>dry hopping may also be better for lagers.  I wonder when would be best -

>perhaps the whole lager, or add after krausen dies and let them sit in the

>primary for the second week prior to lagering?  I am not a fan of dry hopping

>as I have had trouble clearing dry hopped beers, but my stema beer that never

>cleared tasted just like Anchor.  Anyone anyclearing suggestions

>that are Reinheitsgebot?

Personally, I dryhop virtually all my beers, but then again most of them

are pale ales.  I have never had problems clearing my dryhopped beers --

they all turn out crystal clear without *any* finings.  Perhaps you should

look elsewhere (besides dryhopping) for your clarity problem.  For the

record, I use whole hops for dryhopping because they float and I just siphon

the beer out from under them.  I dryhop when fermentation has gotten down

to the 1 bubble/minute range and let the beer sit with the hops for exactly

seven days (more or less appears to reduce bouquet).

>

>Norm Pyle considers Miller to be a lager book.  I dispute that.  It is a

>good introductory text on producing many basic beers with typical American

>Malts.  Noonan, dispite being error riddled, is a lager book.  It covers

>the essential of lager brewing much better.  Hell, Miller recommends priming

>with corn sugar.  What is Miller's Continental Pilsener book like?

I feel that there are errors in Miller's "Complete Handbook of Homebrewing"

albeit not as many as in Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer."  I feel Charlie's

NCJoHB is the most error-free, although I have a few sticking points with

that too (like not recommending a strain of yeast -- I feel the yeast has

more to do with the flavor then virtually anything else -- certainly more

than which brand of extract!).  Miller's "Continental Pilsener" is a good

book with relatively few errors (IMO), but not as *great* as Guinard's

"Lambic" or the Fixs' "Vienna."

**********************

RANDY writes:

>How long can a batch stay in the carboy (after racking once) before

>bottling?  Any stories out there of amazing feats like 6 month storage?

Sure, but taste it before you bottle.  If it has gone bad and you hate the

taste, then don't bother.

>I used Wyeast American Ale and it was a slow starter, and even slower

>finisher, but the FG is around 1009.  Due to lack of time it has been

>basically ignored.  I don't want to say exactly how long it has sat, but

The slow finisher scares me a bit.  I've found 1056 to finish quite quickly

and suddenly.  Now don't get worried, but the slow finish may be related to

the slow start, namely, that during the slow start, something else got in

there.  But fear not.  Taste it and trust your tastebuds -- they won't

steer you wrong.

**************************

Cush writes:

>I have observed that every single brew that I have dry-hopped has ended

>up with, apparently, a higher carbonation level in the bottle compared

>to non-dry-hopped brews with the same amount of priming sugar.  The result

>is brews with a nice-healthy head.  Not necessarily gushers....but one DOES

>need to pour somewhat quickly after cracking the cap!

>

>Has anyone else noticed this effect?  Any guesses as to the cause?

>

>There has been some discussion lately about apparent slow fermentation in

>the secondary following dry-hopping.  The two possibile causes that have been

>proposed are 1) the hops act as nucleation sites for dissolved CO2, and

>2) bacterial contamination on the hops.  Any thoughts as to which of these

>two causes the higher bottle conditioning?  (I am still not convinced that

>some bacteria, or more likely wild yeast, are not carried in on the hops).

I haven't had this kind of effect and have brewed perhaps 40 dryhopped

beers in the last two years.  It took me a long time to convince myself to

dryhop (I was afraid of contamination) and eventually two things (both

suggested by the HBD):

1. when you dryhop, the beer already has very little sugar left, quite

a bit of alcohol and the antibiotic effects of the boiling and flavoring

hops, and

2. what self-respecting yeast or bacteria would live on hops!?!  It's not

like it's a grape skin or a cup of raspberry puree...  I think that hops

would tend to carry no more microbiota than the area that they have been

stored in contains (i.e. the dust in the area is just as likely to infect

your beer during bottle filling as the dryhops).

Al.

------------------------------


I heart the listermann sparger

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 18:10:38 -0500 (EST)

From: Andy Kurtz <ak35+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: I heart the listermann sparger

I  know there have been some postings in the past about the LS, but it

worked out so well for me that I thought I would plug it once again.

The LS (for those of you who don't know) is merely two 5 gal. plastic

tubs.  One is for holding sparging water; the other is a lauter tun (it

has a neato false bottom insert).   Both are drilled near the bottom and

have lengths of plastic tubing inserted in them.  The tube coming out of

the water container is terminated with a couple of lenghts of pvc pipe

fitted perpendicular to each other so that they sit atop the lauter tun.

 Water is sprayed onto the mash via a small brass pipe connected to the

pvc (and the plastic tubing, of course).  As water flows through the

tube, the brass pipe whirls around fan-like, spraying water slowly and

evenly across the grain.  The grain bed is never disturbed and the water

level is easy to regulate by keeping an eye on how fast the water shoots

through the "fan" and out of the lauter tun.

My extracts have gone from a dismal 1.035 (for 8-10 lbs of grain!!) to

over 1.060!  It cost me about 40 bucks, but IMHO was well worth it (I'm

sure y'all who are handy would be able to make something like this for

much less -- but hey, I'm into convenience).

andy

------------------------------


labels for laser printer

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 18:13:16 EST

From: rowan@ocean.rutgers.edu (Andy Rowan)

Subject: labels for laser printer

Has anyone found a good solution to the challenge of trying to

print labels for beer bottles on a laser printer?

I've got some ideas for things I could do up on the computer

and print out, but I'm afraid if I use the usual mailing label

type labels, I'll never get them off the bottles again.

Any ideas?

=================================================================

| Andy Rowan                         | You don't know what I'm  |

| Cook College Remote Sensing Center |   talking about?  Don't  |

| Rutgers University                 |   worry, everyone tells  |

| rowan@ocean.rutgers.edu            |   me I don't either.     |

| (908) 932-9631                     |                          |

=================================================================

------------------------------


Malt question

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 14:29:31 EST

From: richer@desi.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Al Richer)

Subject: Malt question

 I am a bit confused as to the differences between 2-row British and 2-row

American malts. I have a homebrew supplier that is happy to sell me Klages

as suitable for British styles (bitters, pale ales, stouts...) and tells

me that the major difference is that the American 2-row will convert faster.

Well.... I dunno.

 I have traditionally used British malts in my ales and stouts, and will

likely continue to do so for the specialty grains. At $40 for a 55-pound

bag (as opposed to $56 for Brit 2-row), it's awfully tempting...

On a related note...

Anybody got any good suggestions as to where to buy bulk grain malt in the

Boston area? This price is from Barleymalt and Vine in Framingham. Beer and

Wine Hobby in Woburn is a bit lower, but not much. Mailorder would be fine

only with a BIIIGGG price differential, considering the shipping ( I prefer

dealing over the counter and shipping by Mazda pickup...<grin>).

 Opinions, speculation (labeled as such), and other input welcome.

       ajr

_________________________________________________________

 Alan J. Richer              Mail:  richer@hq.ileaf.com

 Interleaf, Inc.             All std. disclaimers apply

 9 Hillside Ave.                  Your mileage may vary

 Waltham,MA. 02154

" It's a nitwit idea. Nitwit ideas are for emergencies.

The rest of the time you go by the Book, which is a

collection of nitwit ideas that worked at least once."

     from "The Mote in God's Eye" , Niven and Pournelle

_________________________________________________________

- --

------------------------------


Survey & Signature

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 17:00:16 -0800 (PST)

From: James Thompson <sirjames@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Survey & Signature

Thanks, Chuck, for the survey results.  As a new brewer, and as an

all-extract brewer so far, I have not been intimidated by the all-grain

info, but have been learning a lot from this great forum, from the simple

question-and-answer stuff to the highly technical jargon.  I learn more

in a few days of reading HBD than I would in months trying things out at my

own pace.  Hurray for Internet!

As a first time poster above in response to Mark Elliott's question re 2

Stage Fermentation, I forgot to put in a signature, address, disclaimer

and so forth.  To rectify that blatant omission:

 Jim Thompson

 sirjames@carson.u.washington.edu

Disclaimer:  All our opinions are only our own, aren't they my Precious?

------------------------------


Sankey Lock Ring Tool Availability???

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 17:56 CST

From: akcs.wseliger@vpnet.chi.il.us (William M. Seliger)

Subject: Sankey Lock Ring Tool Availability???

I'm not sure if this topic has come up before, but as long as we're

discussing stainless steel fermenters and fermenting in kegs:

Does anyone know where to get hold of the tool to remove the lock ring

that locks in the downtube in sankey kegs???

I would imagine that a toolmaker could make one at a great expense, but

SnapOn or someone like that must sell these things (probably also at

great expense).

Just wondering,

Bill Seliger

H 1(312)907-9686

W 1(708)640-2718

email wseliger@chinet.chi.il.us   -or- akcs.wseliger@vpnet.chi.il.us

------------------------------


mead digest

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 20:33:01 EST

From: woessner@psych.purdue.edu (Leo Woessner)

Subject: mead digest

I have recently tried to join the mead digest without success.  I mailed mead-

mead-lovers-request@nsa.hp.com  does the digest still exist.  If so how can I join

join??  Thanks in advance.

    Estes of Manang

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1082, 02/22/93

*************************************

-------


no more syrup

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 1:34:24 EST

From: Garland O Burton <gburton@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

Subject: no more syrup

i am at the stage of omitting the 4lb can of syrup in my recipes

and using all dry malt extract and hop pellets for the first time.

the recipe was:

4lb stout syrup (w/hop and roast barley extracts) i have heard that

this does not ferment efficently

3lb dry malt extract

1/2lb dark roast barley (steeped)

and most recently the addition of 1/2lb flaked barley.  first i steeped

at end of boil with dark roast, then on next batch boiled 10 min and strained

milky soup into wort.

at first i was using dry yeast.

the last 2 batches used yeast from local brewpub yeast harvest.

the boil was 15 min.  primary less than a week.  secondary more than a week.

i can tell (luck?) when it's time to act.

i just got a hydrometer and the og was 1.042 on the last batch.  it is still

in the secondary.

my (5) batches have all tasted ok, (great compared to store bought)

but i want to use all dry malt extract and hop pellets.  i do stout,

and am thinking of moving to pale ale (bitter) next.

what is the proper amount of dme to use.  6lb?  dark dme is all i have

ever used.  i was told that i could use 7lb light malt extract and 2 lb

"black patent."  is that unmalted stuff to steep like i do the dark roast?

i think the action of the brewpub yeast has spoiled me as far as ever using

dry yeast again so i will probably use liquid irish ale yeast in future.

i haven't tasted the brewpub yeast batches yet, but i think i will be

pleasantly surprised.

what kind of hop pellets, and what kind of boil times will i want for

my new, unknown recipe?  i don't know what flavor hops are good for

which brews, but i am sure there is the obvious hop and procedure for

the stout/porter i am trying to brew.

can i grow decent hops in mid ohio?

sorry for all the ?s but i have been reading dozens of hbd's and this

is my first post.  thanks for replies and all of your posts to peruse

in the last couple of months.

cheers!

gob!

------------------------------


33?

Date: Friday, February 19, 1993  06:35:06

From: TBSAMSEL@qvarsa.er.usgs.gov (Theodore B. Samsel)

Subject: 33?

  I was at a VietNamese restaurant for the Lunar NewYear, chowing

down on some cha giaou and Singha when Nguyen, the owner said he was out

out of Singha....well, I said "I'll try a 33 (bammitybam)"...

  When I got it, I looked at the label and the volume was 330 ml or

11.2 oz. Is the 33 from 330ml or 33cl..volumetrically speaking??

~~~~

Re: all grain...I'll do it when my kids move out and i have an 8-12

hour block of time to spare........

  Not lazy, just busyier than a onearmed paperhanger with an itch.

  Regards,

------------------------------


Mead Digest

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 07:46:17 -0500

From: mgx@ornl.gov (Michael D. Galloway)

Subject: Mead Digest

For what its worth, here is the address of the mead digest (I haven't

gotten any mead digests lately either).

        mead-lovers@nsa.hp.com

Michael D. Galloway

mgx@ornl.gov

Living in the WasteLand

------------------------------


Brewpubs in Atlanta area?

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 08:22:30 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: Brewpubs in Atlanta area?

I found Georgia Brewing brewpub in the last list I have.  Any other

recommendations or updates?  E-mail, please.  Thanks in advance.

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


Good chocolate beer, but...

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 08:43:20 -0500

From: blosskf@ttown.apci.com (Karl F. Bloss)

Subject: Good chocolate beer, but...

My first batch with chocolate malt matured yesterday, so I had some friends

over and generally it's a yummy beer.  However, I still have that slight,

annoying cidery taste.  I did add about 150g of sugar beet molasses besides

the malt extract and coarsely ground chocolate malt.  Is it perhaps too

refined of a sugar and adds mostly alcohol and not much flavor?  Other

suggestions?

 -Karl

(blosskf@ttown.apci.com)

------------------------------


BAA/Thomas Hardy's Ale/Maple

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 08:46:05 -0500

From: mgx@ornl.gov (Michael D. Galloway)

Subject: BAA/Thomas Hardy's Ale/Maple

Comments from a previous digest:

>>BadAssAstronomer writes:

>> >     The Jan 93 selections were; Mass Bay Brewing Winter Warmer and

>> >     Fisher Brewing Dark Ale.

>>

>>We tasted these yesterday at the brewclub meeting.  "Dark Ale" is a

>>misnomer.  This stuff was sort of copper colored.  I'd say it's at the

>>dark end of the pale ale spectrum.  The flavor was nothing to get

>>excited about, either.

>>

>>The Mass Bay Winter Warmer, on the other hand was excellent.  Nicely

>>spiced, but not overwhelming.  So many spiced beers have a sort of

>>sour flavor, but this does not.  Our meeting was outside at a local

>>park, and I'd say that the Winter Warmer lived up to its name.

Brian Bliss responding to these comments writes:

[snip]

>I loved the Dark Ale.  The following is palate-subjective, but it

>seemed to have just enough diacetyl without seeming stale to taste

>good (not that a beer needs diacetyl, but this one used it to its

>flavor advantage, as do Smith's and (possibly too much) Young's).

I liked the dark ale too, and I thought the color was very nice.  Nice

malty flavor.

and BB says:

>

>On the subject of staleness, try comparing a bottle of 1992 Thomas

>Hardy's to a 1991 version...

>

Sure wish we could get Thomas Hardy's here in the WasteLand (read

beer envy here!).

On the subject of maple beers:  I was cooking up a favorite ham steak

with maple syrup/mustard sauce in January.  While in the kitchen, I

happened to be quaffing a few bottles of the Winter Warmer.  All of

a sudden I had maple syrup in one hand and empty beer glass in the other:

seeking, as always, oral gratification I poured a tablespoon or two

of syrup into the glass and then poured a fresh Winter Warmer on top:

the result was fantastic! Great maple flavor and the sweetness really

seemed to complement the spicy flavor.  I've tried maple syrup in pale

ales, other ales, and porter now but liked it best in the Winter

Warmer and pretty good in the porter.

Just another date point.

Michael D. Galloway

mgx@ornl.gov

Living in the WasteLand

------------------------------


request for extract information

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 09:08:45 EST

From: WIESEN@VAX2.DNET.ICD.Teradyne.COM (Dan `Stout' Wiesen)

Subject: request for extract information

In regards to the `dead horse' thread started by Steve Tollefsrud,

how about providing extract brewers with information and

characteristics of malt extract?

In my college days, my friends and I were extract brewers.  Being

major geeks (RPI), we didn't bat an eye at massaging variables like

hops (plugs, pellets, whole, centennial, saaz, boiling, finishing),

adjuncts (crystal, black patent, brown sugar, molasses, cocoa,

ginger, spruce, oats) and yeast (dry, liquid, ale, lager).  But

when it came to malt, we didn't get much beyond the questions of

amber/dark? and syrup/dry?  We stayed away from hopped extracts,

preferring even as novices to control this.

One of the reasons all grain brewing is extolled is for the ability

to get your hands on more of the variables in the brewing process

and tweaking them to your satisfaction.  Similarly, one of the

reasons extract brewing gets panned is due to the _lack_ of control

of the extract.  Well, let's put the collective wisdom of the HBD

to work and give extract brewers the ability to have this control.

What I suggest is that people submit entries to me with the

following information:

BRAND:

FORM: (syrup/dry)

 - the percentage fermentable would be helpful for syrup

COLOR: (light, amber, dark)

 - perhaps an equivalent to the lovibond scale?

HOPS: (hopped/unhopped)

 - the name of the hops and the IBUs

SUGAR PROFILE: (percent of sugar from malt, percent of sugar

  from other sources such as wheat, corn or cane)

UNFERMENTABLES: (are there proteins, starches or other

  unfermentables present that may affect body,

  mouthfeel or head retention)

OTHER: (distinguishing characteristics such as roast barley,

 which would be appropriate for stouts, noticable tannin

 astringency, or perhaps the oxidized funk of wet

 cardboard)

Being a longtime reader (since #4xx, yet infrequent poster), I

vaguely remember a mention of a comparative study of malts

conducted by a Saskatchewan (yea, my home province) university.

I also vaguely remember some difficulty in obtaining the results

of that study.  This seems like it would be an excellent place to

start.  Does anyone remember the details better?  Does anyone know

where this post is in the archives?

Dan Wiesen

------------------------------


yeasts

Date: 19 Feb 1993 09:29:37 -0400 (EDT)

From: KLIGERMAN@herlvx.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: yeasts

Looking through my yeast packages I noted that I had Wyeast 1214 (Belgium-

Barleywine Ale) and a dry Koenig Whitbread Lager yeast.  Does anyone have

any informaion on the flavor profiles|, characteristics, opinions, etc. on

these.  Also, people ask about using old yeast.  I have found some Danish

2042 yeast that I collected from a secondary on 9/17/91 and stored in

about 25 ml of fermented wort in my refrigerator sinnce then.  I'm in

the process of starting it up again and let you know the results.  I've

done this before with yeast stored up to a year with excellent results,

but this should be a record (17 months)!!

- -----

Subj: refrigerator

A recent post asks about small refregerators (PSEITZ@MCIMAIL.COM).  I found

it easier and cheaper to purchase a small freezer and put a hunter controller

on it.  They usually go for less than $150.  Just make sure you can fit a

carboy inside.

------------------------------


Great Englis Pub

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 10:07:21

From: okra%genesis.uucp@gte.com (dean goulding)

Subject: Great Englis Pub

When we got the chance to fly Virgin Atlantic for $93 ea. way, we jumped.

Don't let the weather in the UK in Jan. scare you - just keep close

to your CAMRA Good Beer Guide!

It was our 4th of 7 days in England and we were heading south from the

county of Norfolk in East Anglia towards Oxford.  As it was getting late,

we detoured off the A47 to the town of Wisbech.  We couldn't see any

B&B signs but we did find a Real Ale pub from the Good Beer Guide and

thought that would be a good place to ask.  Thus we entered

The Rose Tavern freehouse in Wisbech.

They had just opened @ 5:30 and there were already 3 or so gents at the 12

seat bar.  We ordered Woodford's Wherry Best Bitter (OG 1.039 ABV 4%) and

asked about places to stay in the area.  Graham appeared from the back room

and set about to helping us find a room.  A call to the Marmin Hotel,

his first choice, proved them full.  So he asks 'Who's driving?'.  I

answered that I was and he say's 'Come on.  We'll go get you a room at

a good rate'.  So I left my wife at the bar and headed out to explore Wisbech

with the local publican.  At his direction, I drove around the town stopping

at two hotels that he declared 'too expensive', the Marmin again

'Just to check', and ended up at the Orchard Hotel (which came complete

with Basil and Sybil - but that's another story).  He also gave me an

impromptu historical tour and showed me the Elgoods Brewery in town telling

me to go in and 'tell 'em you came from America for a tour!'.

We returned to the Rose.  As I sat down one gent asks 'So you work with

computers?' and a second chimes in 'And make your own beer?'!  Patty

had been having quite a chat!  Over pints of Butterknowle's Conciliation

Ale (1.042, 4.2%) I got to know the folks who seemed to know me so well.

Graham was starting us collecting bar coasters (of which he has quite a

collection) by the time we tried Morrells Varsity (1.041, 4.3%).

All made us feel as welcome as we've ever been!  Sensing my curiosity about

Real Ale, Graham gave us a cellar tour (his cellar trousers are the butt

of the locals jokes), showed us where he has his beer festival in the summer

complete with live music and dancing, and gave us a copy of all the Real

Ale literature he could find.

We returned after dinner for the Everards Tiger Best Bitter (1.041, 4.2%)

and the best beer of the trip, Cains Formidible Ale (1.048, 5.1%) -

smooth, tasty and sneaky!

We consider ourselves fortunate to be adopted by Graham and the Rose Tavern

folks.  If you're ever anywhere near England, GO!  Best, freshest and most

diverse Real Ales (and conversation!) on our trip!

The Rose Tavern freehouse

53 North Bank (on the river)

Wisbech

tel (0945) 588335

Dean Goulding  (okra@genisis.nred.ma.us)

------------------------------


Fridges,Maple syrup and long lost beer

Date:  Fri, 19 Feb 1993 10:06:34 -0500

From: Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@canrem.com>

Subject: Fridges,Maple syrup and long lost beer


Refrigerators

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 19:29 GMT

From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>

Subject: Refrigerators

>In one of those saint-like gestures sometimes made by

>spouses of homebrewers, my wife has given me permission to

>look for a refrigerator I could use for brewing.

>(Presumably this would be used in a conjunction with a

>Hunter Airstat or similar device).

>The problem--and the reason for her saintliness--is that our

>house is quite small, and there is absolutely no

>inconspicuous place to put a fridge.  We will have to live

        How about a different idea. Paint/wallpaper it to

        match the room. A local micro used to have some old

        style fridges painted in the brewery colours with the

        logo. They looked quite nice. You could do something

        to make it fit the room.


re:  recipe request (maple)

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 15:43:25 PST

From: mrozek@gandalf.etdesg.TRW.COM (Eric M. Mrozek)

Subject: re:  recipe request (maple)

>Jon,  in answer to your request:

>Mark and I brewed the maple ale on Labor Day so I don't recall the details of

>the recipe.  I'll pull out my logbook when I get home tonight and give you

>the actual recipe tomorrow.

>If I remember right, we used half a quart of dark amber maple syrup.  The end

>result was a pretty dry beer with a thin body.  I really liked it even though

>it didn't turn out like we intended (a maple flavored PALE ALE).  The maple

>flavor was definitely there, but you can bend your brain trying to imagine what

>maple syrup tastes like without the sugur.

        A local micro [Niagra Falls Brewing] makes a maple

        syrup beer. It is very maple like. It's also fairly

        expensive. Most of this brewery's products are on

        the high side in terms of alcohol. This is no

        exception. I think 7+%volume. There is no doubt that

        there is maple in this beer. I'd hate to guess how

        much syrup is in there.

        BTW the stout they produce is also very nice.


Found Beer

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 09:26:46 EST

From: mattd@software.pulse.com (Matt Downs)

Subject: Found Beer

>All Homebrewers:

>Recently, I found a raspberry wheat beer in a fermenter that I forgot about.

>Please no flames--I know "stupid"!  Any way, it is about 7 months old and the

>air lock appears to still be intact.  What I was wondering is if any one has

>had an experience like this and what did they do?  Did you bottle it any way?

>Did it turn out ok?  How might have using fruit changed this?

        A couple of weeks ago I bottled a raspberry

        puesdo-lambic(k). It had spent 5+months on the

        fruit. 5months could be considered rushing it-). I'd

        say go ahead and bottle it. Mine had a great

        raspberry aroma to it.

        Nick

*****************************************************************************

I drink Beer I don't collect cute bottles!

zen%hophead@canrem.com

*****************************************************************************

------------------------------


re: Rolling Rocks #33

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 10:56:45 -0500

From: Eric Conrad <conrad@merl.com>

Subject: re: Rolling Rocks #33

There are 33 words on the back of a Rolling Rock bottle.

Count 'em.

I know this is the reason for the "33" because on the back

of a bottle of Rolling Rock Light, it doesn't say "Rolling

Rock Light" (that'd be 34 words), but "Rock Light."  The

back of the bottles said "Premium Light" when the light beer

was first released (also 33 words).

                          ...Eric

------------------------------


>Rolling Rocks #33

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 11:35:08 EST

From: rowan@urban.rutgers.edu (Andy Rowan)

Subject: >Rolling Rocks #33

Michael Lobo writes:

  >I saw this question posted a few weeks ago, and never saw a response -

  >does anyone know what the 33 on the Rolling Rock label REALLY stands for?

Well, the story I heard is that it's the number of *words* on the label,

including their cute little slogan that's printed on the back of the

label and read through the glass.  Either that or the number of words

just in the cute little slogan, I can't remember...

Anyway, this is just as unlikely to be the real reason as any other

you'll hear, but it does happen to be true.  That is, there ARE 33 words...

=================================================================

| Andy Rowan                         | You don't know what I'm  |

| Cook College Remote Sensing Center |   talking about?  Don't  |

| Rutgers University                 |   worry, everyone tells  |

| rowan@ocean.rutgers.edu            |   me I don't either.     |

| (908) 932-9631                     |                          |

=================================================================

------------------------------


Re: Found Beer

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 9:50:20 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Found Beer

> Recently, I found a raspberry wheat beer in a fermenter that I forgot

> about.  Please no flames--I know "stupid"!  Any way, it is about 7

> months old and the air lock appears to still be intact.  What I was

> wondering is if any one has had an experience like this and what did

> they do?  Did you bottle it any way?  Did it turn out ok?  How might

> have using fruit changed this?

The general consensus, I believe, is that you should let your nose and

tastebuds be the judge.  Fermented beer can last quite a long time in

the secondary if kept from contact with air.  If it still tastes and

smells good, then it's good, and you can bottle it without worry.

In fact, I brewed a cherry wheat beer recently that I left in the

secondary (or perhaps it was even tertiary) for three months, on

purpose.  It turned out wonderfully, and four months later it continues

to get better.  My general experience with fruit beers is that they are

extremely complex and take a lot of aging to reach their peak, so 7

months may have improved it!

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


3rd annual March Mashfest (AHA sanctioned competition)

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 10:45:10 MST

From: Steve Dempsey <steved@longs.lance.colostate.edu>

Subject: 3rd annual March Mashfest (AHA sanctioned competition)

The Fort Collins, CO Mash Tongues will hold their 3rd annual

March Mashfest homebrew competition March 12-13, 1993.  This

AHA sanctioned event is open to all homebrewers.  Entries will

be evaluated by BJCP and other experienced judges.  All AHA

styles except cider and sake may be entered; awards will be

presented in 9 categories.  Entry fee is $3 per entry.  Deadline

for receiving entries is Tuesday, March 9.  For complete rules &

entry forms via e-mail send:

    To: netlib@longs.lance.colostate.edu

    Subject: help

or if you are familiar with netlib:

    Subject: send index for mashfest

================================    Engineering Network Services

Steve Dempsey                       Colorado State University

steved@longs.lance.colostate.edu    Fort Collins, CO  80523

================================    +1 303 491 0630

------------------------------


Starch Conversion Weirdness

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 10:17:46 -0800

From: atl@kpc.com

Subject: Starch Conversion Weirdness

  About three nights ago, I purchased a 5 gallon igloo cooler to try

single step infusion mashes in.  I have been doing all my mashes in my

brewpot, using my kooker to add heat when neccesary.  The temperature

fluctuations were quite difficult to control.

  Anyway, I put 12.25 lbs of grain into the cooler, and added 12.25

qts of 172F water, stirred, and the temperature settled at exactly

155F, the desired temperature for this batch.  I closed the lid, and

let it sit for an hour.  At this time, I sampled a bit of liquid from

the surface and performed the iodine test for starch conversion.

There was no color change, indicating complete conversion.  Then, on a

whim, I sampled some liquid from the spigot at the bottom of the

cooler, and performed the iodine test on this as well.  The test

instantly turned jet black, indicating incomplete conversion. I

thought this might be a result of fluid in the spigot itself, so I ran

about a quart of liquid through, and tested again with the same

(incomplete conversion) results.

Note:  I had placed a stopper, short piece of plastic tubing, and a

"Mr. Tuffy" sink scrubber into the spigot so I could drain liquid from

the spigot cleanly.

  At this point, the temperature had dropped to about 152F, so I

drained about 1.5qts of liquid from the spigot, boiled it, and stirred

it back into the mash.  I then stirred the mash well, thinking that

maybe I had been sampling from a portion of the mash local to the Cara

Pils malt I had added. This brought the temperature back up to about

154F, and I let it sit for another hour.  I repeated the pair of tests

again with the same results.

  Now frustrated, and up past my bedtime on a weekday, I drained out

about 2 qts of liquid, boiled it, and stirred it back into the mash,

bringing the temperature up to about 158F.  I put the lid on, and went

to bed.  In the morning, the temperature had dropped to 144F, and the

test from both top and bottom indicated complete conversion.  I

sparged with my "PVC manifold in the bottom of a bucket" system, and

brewed as usual.  My extraction rate was 26.9.

Now, the questions:

1) How is it possible to have different conversion rates in different

   portions of the mash?

2) I regularly get extraction rates from 24-28.  What can I do to

   approach the magic 30 that I hear commonly in this forum.  My

   sparges usually take 1-1.5 hours, and the temperature in the lauter

   tun stays between 150F and 170F.

3) The method used above to reheat the mash seems similar to

   decoction mashing. With regards to decotion mashing:

  a) is it usual to drain and boil just liquid, or liquid and grain?

  b) doesn't this process denature the enzymes needed for conversion?

  c) is there some formula for how much of the liquid or liquid and

     grain to reboil to make a desired temperature change?

4) Are the enzymes converting the starches dissolved in the liquid, or

   bound into the starch itself?

p5) Unrelated question: Is boiling 2oz of hops for an hour the same

   as boiling 4oz for 30 minutes? In other words, in the equation for

   IBU's can you trade off boil time against total hop weight and acheive

   the same results?

 Thanks,

   Drew

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Lastly: Shut the f**k up about all grain versus extract!  Brew what

you like, how you like, when you like! If you must argue the point

further into the ground, take it OFFLINE! Phew, sorry, just had to get

that off my chest.

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


When to call it beer

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 12:51:44 CST

From: jlf@palm.cray.com (John Freeman)

Subject: When to call it beer

> >     If I understand the literature, about 3/4 cup of sugar/sugar

> >equivalent should be boiled in water or sterile wort, then added to

> >the contents of the secondary, cooled to the temperature of the

> >remaining 5 gal liquid (is it still called wort at this stage?),

> >bottled and conditioned as usual.

> Answers:

>         First, once the fermentation is over, its beer, carbonated or not.

My understanding is that once you pitch the yeast, you may call it beer.

John Freeman

jlf@cray.com

------------------------------


Powdered sugar starters

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 12:54:20 CST

From: jlf@palm.cray.com (John Freeman)

Subject: Powdered sugar starters

> For a very short review, Micah advocated using powdered sugar for yeast

> starters with some Difco nutrient. His claims of greater yeast growth got

> all interested. I too have used this growth technique for a while with no

> big obvious problems.

>

Isn't powdered sugar just sugar?  I don't understand the insistence on

using the powdered form versus the crystalline form.

------------------------------


Yeast type and beer style

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 13:27:29 EST

From: Lee Menegon <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

Subject: Yeast type and beer style

I plan on developing and refining an Octoberfest recipe.  My

goal is to try to produce a Spaten Ur Marzen clone.  I realize

Jackson considers this one of the world's finest beers so I

guess I am aiming high.  I am an all grain non fart snob and

would appreciate input on this project.

What Wyeast strain is appropriate to this style:

Bohemian, Bavarian or Munich?

At a recent club meeting a fellow brewer mentioned using the Bohemian

yeast in a Pilsner and finding his brew came out drier than a similar

 brew using the Bavarian strain.  This inspite of the published

 attenuation for the Bavarian being the greater of the two.  Any data

points on this issue?

The Munich yeast is some times refered to as "unstable" what does this

mean?  What effect does instability have with regards to culturing this

strain?

PS: I have yet to get an injunction for using the same letters

 in Boston in the name of my Brown Ale so this project will yield:

   not so Bavarian Fest Beer.

- --

------------------------------


Combating skunky beer/CBC's Legacy Red Ale/Old Raspberry Wheat

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 13:03 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Combating skunky beer/CBC's Legacy Red Ale/Old Raspberry Wheat

Brian writes:

>The Imperial stout comes in a clear bottle and 50% of the time I

>buy it, it is light-struck (skunky).  I don't drink much of the taddy

>porter.

I read somewhere that keeping beer at around 50F (in the dark) for a few

days will cause some chemical reactions that make the light-struck (skunky)

aromas go away.  I tried it on a sixpack of severly light-struck Newcastle

Brown Ale (clear bottles) and it worked!  Perhaps some of the rest of you

could try it and see if I just lucked out or was influenced by wishful

thinking?  I'd say a bottle of Pilsner Urquell after a week or three

under fluorescent lights would be the ultimate challange.

BTW: All the Samuel Smith's beers that we get here are in clear bottles.

Frankly, I can wait till I open to look at the color.

************************

Rob writes:

>Ironically, Guy McDonnell mentioned one in the article immediately

>below AL's post!  I posted here in January about the Chicago Brewing

>Company's Legacy Irish Ale.  I find it a very tasty brew.  It is both

>darker and more bitter than Killians'.  It's brewed in Chicago, Al;

>you must have tried it.  The blurb on the bottle says Irish immigrant

>brewers brewed in this style in 19th century Chicago.  It's certainly a

>plausible tale.

Someone (was it Tony? sorry) recently speculated that perhaps Irish Ale

(in Ireland) tends towards a malty version of a Pale Ale.  This may

be true, but my recollection of CBC's Legacy Red Ale is that the balance

was definately towards bitterness as opposed to maltiness.  Perhaps

it's the Chinook they use and the Chinook bitterness "stands out" more

than an equivalent IBU of a milder hop?  So maybe all ties of Irish-American

Red Ales with Irish-Irish Ales have been long severed and the two styles

(if indeed they are styles) have diverged or perhaps have never been

related?

**********************

Matt writes:

>Recently, I found a raspberry wheat beer in a fermenter that I forgot about.

>Please no flames--I know "stupid"!  Any way, it is about 7 months old and the

>air lock appears to still be intact.  What I was wondering is if any one has

>had an experience like this and what did they do?  Did you bottle it any way?

>Did it turn out ok?  How might have using fruit changed this?

Sure, I've done it, but mine was 9 months old and I initially pitched not

only Saccharomyces, but also Brettanomyces Lambicus yeast and Pediococcus

Cerevisiae bacteria.  It was my pseudo-lambik-kriek!  The pseudo-lambik-

framboise is still in the fermenter (10 months and counting...).  I liked

the p-kriek but felt it needed more sourness and Brett character.  If you

taste yours and feel that it has developed a lactic infection which you

don't like, well then send them to me... I'll drink them!

Al.

------------------------------


A Modest Proposal/Irish Ales/Snobs

Date: 19 Feb 93 14:14:13 EST

From: Jeff Frane <70670.2067@compuserve.com>

Subject: A Modest Proposal/Irish Ales/Snobs

<<A Modest Proposal>>

Recently, the _Homebrew_ Digest has had what seems to be an increasing

number of contributions (some very long) about people's tours through

commercial beer land.  I hasten to say that I have no problem with

people writing about the microbrews they've discovered, or how much

they loved the Pacific Northwest -- in fact I think articles like this

can be quite interesting, and I've even written a few myself.

I'm not convinced, however, that the Homebrew Digest is the right place

for such articles. Frankly, I have a tough time plowing through the

Digest every day and wouldn't mind if it was a little shorter.  I've

also noticed that the lag time is getting pretty long, and that articles

seem to need several days now to be posted; I think this hurts the utility

of the Digest, and the flavor of almost-instant electronic response that

makes the Digest so useful for those with questions (especially

panicky questions about why "nothing's happening!").

In Usenet, there is a distinct difference between alt.beer and rec.

crafts.brewing.  People who post questions (usually beginner's) about

how to make beer on alt.beer, quickly get shuffled off to rcb.  Why

do we not have a similar division here -- and soon?

No, I don't have the means nor the knowledge to run a Beer Digest myself.

But I suspect someone else could, and that Rob wouldn't mind offering

some advice.

<<Irish Ales>>

I have a reference somewhere, not to hand, given to me by my father,

a retired food technologist.  In a book on the economic and political

impact of various seed grains there was some attention given to the

economic boycott imposed on the Irish by the British in (I believe) the

18th century in order to bring Ireland to a colonial status.  One of the

restrictions was on the importation of hops; according to the author

this resulted in the Irish switching to "porter".  The Irish have

succeeded over the years in becoming dandy smugglers, but it still appears

that not very many hops made it in to the country.

Any "authentic" ales, then, are likely to have very low hopping rates,

and especially be lacking in the finest of finishing hops.

<<All-Grain Snobbery>>

Being primarily an all-grain brewer myself, I've watched the bickering

here with a certain alarm.  Recent converts to all-grain brewing tend to

sound much like those who just quit smoking -- there is an appalling air

of self-righteousness (except for you, of course, Jack).  A number of

people have pointed out that a good many award-winning beers are brewed

from an extract base; I have long since gotten over being surprised by

this phenomenon.  In my own experience, assuming the same quality yeast

and hops, and quality malt extract and additional grains, the real

difference comes from using a full boil.  I teach a beginning homebrew

class and brew using the "Papazian" method, more or less, having pre-

boiled the water in the carboy; I also occasionally brew an extract

batch at home.  No matter how hard I try, the batch brewed in class is

NEVER as good as the one I brew using a large kettle and a wort chiller.

But, hell, what do I know?  I don't care what method a brewer uses; if

the beer is good and they're willing to let me drink it, what possible

difference can their process make?

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


mash vs extract

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 13:21:58 CST

From: jlf@palm.cray.com (John Freeman)

Subject: mash vs extract

I'd like to add my opinion to the mash vs. extract discussion.  I made

my first extract beer in several years last Sunday and I enjoyed it

thoroughly.  (I did add some home toasted malt for color/flavor.)  It

was definitely easier, and the wort was clearer than any mash I've ever

made.  I racked it last night to the secondary - it looks and tastes

wonderful.

My general rule of thumb is to mash for pale beers, and use extract for

dark beers.  Because I do believe pale beers simply come out better

when mashed.  Although I made some good pale beers using Alexander's

extract.  It seems like a waste to me to take a good home mashed wort

and cover it up with dark malts, that's why I say use extract for dark

beers.

As for having better control over the brewing process, not in my case.

Sometimes I hit the mash temperature I want, sometimes I have to adjust

it.  I never mash or boil for exactly the same amount of time each

time.  I never have exactly the same yield in gallons or points per

gallon.  And fermentation temperature control?  whatever room temp is

for ales, and basement temp for lagers.

I took the plunge into mashing over ten years ago, after twelve years of

extract brewing, and made the switch to Wyeast two years ago.  I'd say

that liquid yeast is more important in making excellent, consistent

beer than mashing.  In fact, using extract would be a better choice for

getting consistent beer than mashing.

Now I mash because I like pale beers, and since I've made the investment

in equipment, it's cheaper.  Otherwise, I'd use Alexander's malt, specialty

malts, Freshhops, and Wyeast.  And keep the stinking brown sugar out of

my beer.

John Freeman

jlf@cray.com

------------------------------


Micah's PS Starters

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 12:54:26 PST

From: "John Cotterill" <johnc@hprpcd.rose.hp.com>

Subject: Micah's PS Starters

Full-Name: "John Cotterill"

I have also tried to duplicate Micah's procedure for using powerdered sugar

starters.  My results are similar to Bob's and I DID use a yeast nutirent

in the starter.  I did not do any side by side like Bob, just a normal batch

of beer with the PS starter.  My initial starter was 500ml of 1.020 powdered

sugar with a pinch of yeast nutrient.  After two days I fed the starter

200ml of 1.030 PS solution with additional nutrient.  A day later I brewed.

I was impressed with the quantity of slurry at the bottom of the starter.

It was about 300ml of fairly dense/cloudy material.  The yeast also

flocculated very well (BTW it was 1056 yeast).  I poured off the clear liquid

on top, pitched the 70F starter into 70F wort and fermented at 70F.  The

OG of the wort was 1.061.  My lag time was the almost the longest that I

have recorded...almost 2 days!  I think a single package of 1056 would have

started faster.  And indead, just like Bob, the fermentation was slow and the

FG was high.  I eventually repitched with a standard 1056 DME starter and

the beer fermented out fine.

I am going to stick with the standard DME starters.  I don't think the yeast

pitch rate is as high with similar volumes of DME and PS, but the PS yeast

must get severely shocked going into the beer environment from the PS env.

A bunch of the beasties must die, and those that survive must take a while

to adjust.

JC

johnc@hprpcd.rose.hp.com

------------------------------


simons and beer

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 13:50:42 PST

From: scott@gordian.com (Scott Murphy)

Subject: simons and beer

did anyone catch the Simson's last night.

While much of the episode was neo-prohibitionist, there were a

few good parts.  The Brewery tour where they showed the taps of

Duff, Duff Lite, and Duff Dry all connected to the same pipe

was very funny.

scott

------------------------------


Refrigerators

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 14:33:07 -0800

From: pascal@netcom.com (The Cat In The Hat)

Subject: Refrigerators

"Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 19:29 GMT

 From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>

 Subject: Refrigerators

    .

    .

    .

"     ... I am therefore

 looking for the smallest possible (presumably dorm-type)

 refrigerator that can hold a carboy with airlock.  I'll buy

 new if necessary, as I am desperate.

"Are any of you familiar with refrigerator models that are

 currently available, or were available not long ago, that

 fit this bill?"

I have a small refrigerator which is _just_ tall enough, if one takes out

all of the internal racks. The freezer is too low to allow a vapor lock,

but I can think of a couple of workarounds, including a flexible piece of

hose ( which could also lead out of the refrigerator, so that you can see

it percolating ), a hole in the freezer / refrigerator barrier, or the

removal of the freezer compartment altogether ( leaving behind the coils

on the sides and top of the refrigerator, of course ).

It's called a Welbilt, model W 555 AX. Says Welbilt is a US corporation

on the back, but it also says the refrigerator was built in Yugoslavia.

I'd _guess_ it was made in the Seventies, but refrigeration technology is

pretty stable, few or no differences between apartment refrigerators made

in the Seventies, and those made now.

It's just the right size and height to hold a small microwave oven, or

a collection of cookbooks, or a spice rack and associated materials.

- -- richard

     "It is obligatory, within the limits of capability, to commend the

      good and forbid evil."     _Kitab_Adab_al-Muridin_, by Suhrawardi

                richard childers          pascal@netcom.com

------------------------------


yeast

Date:    Fri, 19 Feb 93 17:02 CST

From: XLPSJGN%LUCCPUA.BITNET@UICVM.UIC.EDU

Subject: yeast

Dear Brewers

Just a quick question here:  I recently brewed up a batch

of leftovers to make a total of 1 gal. of beer... just simply for

the hell of it.  I threw in approximately 1# dry wheat malt

and 1# dry light malt (though I suspect both were less than a full

pound, and therefore total at maybe 1.67#?).  Plus, I tossed in

1/2 oz. Tett. and another 1/2 oz Cascade hops, though I think I left

the Tett. for the finishing stages.  (For all of you exacting and

technical brewers out there, I appologize for my rather cavalier

recounting of my proceedures; I assure you, my brewing is seldom

so relaxed!  Usually, my gilrfriend leaves the house for her own

sanity when I brew!!).  I cooled the wort while also rehydrating

some ale yeast - but now here's the rub:  Such yeast is seldom

available in quantities less that what is needed for the traditional

5 gal. batch.  But I tossed it all in anyway.

The fermentation was obviously through within a day and within two

I bottled the brew.  At that time, the taste and smell reminded me of a

beach-side men's room in the summer time, without air conditioning!

(Pfew-ee!).  I'm hopeful, though.  Maybe it'll age out?

So the question is: could the large quantity of yeast (or the fact

that it was dry) lend off flavors and/or aromas to the beer?

I'm not too concerned about it over all, as this is a batch of

left-overs, but I am interested in the learning experience.

Cheers,

John

------------------------------


Re: yeast starters

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 17:06:06 EST

From: mcharry@freedom.otra.com (McHarry)

Subject: Re: yeast starters

Bob Jones reported on his rather disappointing results with sugar water as

a starter.  Following MM's post I tried something similar using sucrose and

yeast nutrient (just the salts, not the Difco stuff).  I was disappointed

as well.  I have thought about better additives, but came to the conclusion

wort is probably less hassle.

Has anyone tried pressure cooked fermenter sludge as a yeast nutrient?

Intuitively it sounds like just the ticket.

John McHarry

------------------------------


starters - DME versus extract syrup

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 16:09:18 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: starters - DME versus extract syrup

Bob Jones gave us interesting results of comparing DME with powdered sugar

and concluded that DME was better.  I have never used DME but extract syrup

instead.  Are there any thoughts or experiences regarding any difference

between these?

 Peter

------------------------------


Rolling Rock #33

Date:           Sat, 20 Feb 93 14:31 EST

From: Richard_Ahrens@vos.stratus.com

Subject:        Rolling Rock #33

Michael T. Lobo asked for the real meaning of the "33" on the Rolling Rock

label. Cecil Adams, who writes "The Straight Dope" column in numerous papers,

researched this some time ago. His answer is included in the second

collection of extracts from those columns, "More of The Straight Dope." The

book is a gas - check your bookstore. Where else would you find all 32 of the

variations of the spelling of Muammar Qaddafi's name recognized by the

Library of Congress?

Anyway, Adams says that the number "officially" represents two things: the

year Prohibition ended and the number of words in the slogan on the bottle.

That slogan is "Rolling Rock from glass lined tanks in the Laurel Highlands.

We tender this premium beer for your enjoyment as a tribute to your good

taste. It comes from the mountain springs to you."

He adds, "Now this is a touching sentiment, and there is no question that

there are 33 words in it, but from the point of view of being intellectually

satisfying, it sucks." So he interviewed James L. Tito, former CEO of Latrobe

Brewing. Tito's family owned the company from Prohibition until 1985. His

answer was based on notes and discussions with now dead family members. In

other words, it probably can't be substantiated either, so take it with a

grain of salt.

Apparently when the Titos were preparing to introduce Rolling Rock in the

late thirties, there was much argument about what slogan to put on the back

of the bottle. Long and short ones were debated. When the one eventually used

was written, someone wrote a big "33" on it to indicate its length. When the

original copy went to the bottle maker, they did not realize that the number

was not part of the text and it made its way onto the first run of bottles.

Rather than throw out perfectly good bottles, they then made up a story about

it representing the end of Prohibition.

Adams seems a bit skeptical of this version, too, but he seems to have gotten

as close as one can get to a real source of any folklore.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1083, 02/23/93

*************************************

-------


Why does my beer smell like bubble gum?

Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 13:02:21 MST

From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

Subject: Why does my beer smell like bubble gum?

A few questions for those with more homebrewing experience:

1)  Why does my homebrew smell like bubblegum?  This is my third

    batch; I used the following ingredients:

        7 lb. container of Steinbart's Light liquid malt extract

        0.5 lb. dried light malt extract

        1 lb. crushed crystal malt

        1.5 oz cascade pellet hops (60 min)

        0.5 oz cascade hop pellets (10 min)

        1.2 oz cascade hop flowers (1 min)

        2 tsp gypsum

        0.5 tsp salt

        1 qt. Wyeast 1056 starter

    I put 1.5 gallons distilled water in a stainless pot.  I steeped the

    crystal malt about 30 min as the water was heating up, then

    removed before full boil.  Added extracts, salt, gypsum, boiling

    hops, then aroma hops as indicated.  Placed boiling pot into sink

    full of ice cubes and chilled to ~80 degrees F.  Poured into carboy,

    without attempting to strain out pellet hop residue.  Topped with

    presumably sterile bottled water.  Pitched yeast solution when I felt

    that the wort had cooled to room temp.

    The next morning, about 12 hours after pitching, there was noticable

    activity. 36 hours after pitching, the fermentation was furious, and

    had actually churned up the trub into suspension.  BTW, I used a

    blow-off tube.

    After 10 days, I bottled with 0.75 C corn sugar.  7 days after

    bottling, I tried one.  Carbonation was OK, but the beer smelled

    of bubblegum.  My wife thinks it smells like licorice, but to me

    it smells like a fresh package of Bazooka Joe.

    Does anyone know why this happened?  I realize that I haven't given

    it very long in the bottle.  I seem to remember reading about this

    phenomenon somewhere before, but I haven't been able to find it.

2)  I would really like to replicate Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.  I really

    like its hoppy aroma.  My second batch of homebrew (recipe almost

    exactly that given for batch #3, above) had good hop aroma, but it

    disappeared after about 1 - 2 weeks.  The above batch has almost

    no hop aroma; maybe it is masked by the bubble gum scent.

    Why can't I get this nice hop aroma?  I have a few ideas:

        a) My hops are not fresh enough.

        b) boiling bag reduces hop aroma extraction

        c) I need to dry hop the beer

        d) Hop aroma carried off during blow-off

    If anyone can help me out here, I would appreciate it.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Joel Birkeland

birkelan@cs1.sps.mot.com

------------------------------


queries correction

Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 20:12:31 -1100

From: Kirk_Anderson@wheatonma.edu (Kirk Anderson)

Subject: queries correction

   I asked if anyone had tried the Abbey Beer kit by "Brew Werk".  Of

course I meant "Brew Ferm" as you probably guessed.  Not such a good

showing for my first HBD intervention:(.

   Say did anyone catch The Simpsons last Thursday, the only show that

tells the truth about America?  Case in point: Homer skipped out of work to

go on the tour of the "Duff" brewery.  The guide boasted about Duff, Duff

Lite, and new Duff Dry.  The three huge tanks with those brands on them

were being filled, all out of the same mega-pipe.  If you don't look at the

show, reconsider. No I don't work for Fox.

------------------------------


Yeats on Beer and Politics

Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 10:03:26 -0800 (PST)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Yeats on Beer and Politics

I just found the following quote in the current issue of "Steamshovel

Press" at the end of an interview with Robert Anton Wilson.

"A statesman is an easy man, he tells his lies by rote.

 A journalist invents his lies, and rams them down your throat.

 So stay at home and drink your beer and let the neighbors vote."

    - William Butler Yeats

I don't agree with the sentiment, but others may like it...

Paul (silence does not imply consent) de Armond

 -not that I've been accused of silence, mind you.

------------------------------


Carbonation w/ Dry Ice?

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 2:50:37 MST

From: J. Michael Diehl <mdiehl@triton.unm.edu>

Subject: Carbonation w/ Dry Ice?

I think this was rehashed some time ago, but I missed the discussion.

Anyway, a friend and I have decided to try homebrewing and would like to

brew a bier that we could share with our friends.  Unfortunately, most of our

friends would be turned off by a bier with "bugs" floating around in it.  So

we were wondering if we could carbonate our bier with dry ice.  We were

thinking of putting some in the bier at bottling time.  The dry ice should

sublimate directly into solution with the bier.  Might take some experimentation

to find the dosage, but what do you think?

Thanx in advance.

+----------------------+----------------------------------------------------+

| J. Michael Diehl ;-) |  I thought I was wrong once.  But, I was mistaken. |

|                      +----------------------------------------------------+

| mdiehl@triton.unm.edu| "I'm just looking for the opportunity to be        |

| Thunder@forum        |            Politically Incorrect!                  |

| (505) 299-2282       |                        <me>                        |

+----------------------+----------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


Gelatin, London beers, Hydrometer readings

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 10:29:05 GMT

From: des@pandora.swindon.ingr.com (Desmond Mottram)

Subject: Gelatin, London beers, Hydrometer readings

> From: "Dean Roy"  <DEAN@alpha.uwindsor.ca>

> Subject:      Gelatin Finings

>

> Can someone tell me if there is any difference between the gelatin finings

> sold in homebrew stores and the plain unflavored gelatin you can buy at the

> supermarket. I have a supply of the supermarket variety and was considering

> using some on my latest batch.

I always use the supermarket variety as I've never seen the HB store

variety. It seems to do the trick.

> From: whjeh@hogpa.ho.att.com (John E Haas +1 201 386 4376)

> Subject: London Pubs and Breweries

>

> I'll be in London and Southern England for a week

> in March and I'm wondering if anybody can recommend

> some pubs and/or breweries to visit.

When in London the best beers are Fullers and Youngs. Fullers is brewed in

Chiswick and is common in West London, Youngs is brewed in Wandsworth

and common in south west London. The (once) good chain of "Firkin" (as in a

Firkin good pint) brewpubs eg Phoenix & Firkin, Frog & Firkin etc are also

worth trying.

Try the following pubs:

Anglesea Arms, South Kensington

County Arms, Wandsworth

Dove, Hammersmith

Hand in Hand, Wimbledon

Orange Tree, Pimlico (brewpub)

Princess Louise, Holborn

Spotted Cow, Putney

Thatched House, Hammersmith

White Cross, Richmond

Windmill, Clapam Common

Get copies of CAMRA publications:

Good Beer Guide (national coverage, available in bookshops)

various local guides (available from CAMRA and some local bookshops)

London Drinker Magazine (available in some pubs, eg Dove and Anglesea)

Also Good Pub Guide (avaliable in bookshops), as good beers and good pubs

don't necessarily go together. CAMRA often recommends good beer in grotty

pubs. Only if both guides recommend it can the place be a certain hit.

> From: Kirk_Anderson@wheatonma.edu (Kirk Anderson)

> Subject: queries

 ...

> 1) hydrometer reading: at the highest level the wort climbs up the

> instrument, or at the bottom of the curve?  I've been reading at the

> highest part.  Crude experiments with plain tapwater at 60 degrees suggest

> I'm right.

Line, Wheeler and the notes that came with my hydrometer say not so. Stir

the brew remove density layers, twirl the hydrometer to shake off bubbles

below the surface, read the bottom of the meniscus. and remember to correct

for temperature.

Surface bubbles clinging to the scale obscuring it are a real pain. Does

anyone have suggestions for preventing this? I always blow a hole on the

surface and keep blowing gently to stop more bubbles collecting, but it

can't be good for hygiene.

Rgds, Desmond Mottram

des@pandora.swindon.ingr.com

------------------------------


Sierra Nevada Bock?

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 09:36:42 -0500

From: mgx@ornl.gov (Michael D. Galloway)

Subject: Sierra Nevada Bock?

Well I did the dirty deed this weekend:  My first all grain batch (batch

number 25).  The recipe was supposed to be SNPA:

        10   lb  British Pale Ale Malt

        0.5  lb  British Crystal Malt (50 L)

        1     oz  Perle (8.1%)

        1/2 oz  Cascade Whole Hops - Flavor

        1     oz  Cascade Whole Hops - To Be Dry Hopped Next Week

        500 ml  Starter of WYeast 1056

Mashed the pale ale malt and crystal in 13 quarts treated (i.e. boiled)

water at 150 F for 1.5 hr in a 10 gal Gott with a Phils Phalse Bottem.

Sparged with 4+ gal acidified (1/8 tsp "acid blend") to pH = 5.5 water at

170 F.  Sparged to 6.5 gal.  The gravity at 6.5 gal was 1053.  This

implies:

        (53 pts) X (6.5gal) / 10.5 lbs  =  32.8 pts/lb/gal !

When boiled to 5.5 gal and racked to primary that yields an OG of 62.6.

What should I call this stuff?  Sierra Nevada Potent Ale?

Anyway, the mash went very well.  The temperature drop was only

two degrees over the 1.5 hrs (I preheated the Gott).  Now sparging,

that is another story.  I was somewhat overwhelmed by the

sparging:  I kept drawing off wort and recirculating it but it

never seemed to clear the way I expected it.  I finally said to hell

with it and ran off the initial wort and proceded to sparge

with water to 6.5 gal.  There was still good sugar in the sparge

at this point.   What is the lowdown on sparging?  How much do

YOU recirculate?  Am I needlessly worrying?

All in all, an interesting adventure and it went much easier than

I expected.  Maybe Sierra Nevada Helles Bock?

Michael D. Galloway

mgx@ornl.gov

Living in the WasteLand

------------------------------


Printing labels on a laser printer

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 8:50:14 CST

From: jmiller@anubis.network.com (Jeff J. Miller)

Subject: Printing labels on a laser printer

> Has anyone found a good solution to the challenge of trying to

> print labels for beer bottles on a laser printer?

>

> I've got some ideas for things I could do up on the computer

> and print out, but I'm afraid if I use the usual mailing label

> type labels, I'll never get them off the bottles again.

>

> Any ideas?

I located some 3/4" round labels that are designed for use on

a laser printer; unfortunatly they seemed EXTREMELY expensive

at $15 a box but I don't recall how many labels were in a box.

I've used this size label before by writing on them and then

sticking them on  the caps; no mess on the bottle!  It seems

that with the proper font you could get beer name and possibly

bottling date or other info.

- --

Jeff Miller                 Network Systems Corporation

Advanced Development        7625 Boone Avenue North

jmiller@network.com         Minneapolis MN 55428   (612)424-1724

------------------------------


labels for laser printer

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 08:28:58 -0700

From: John Adams <j_adams@hpfcjca.sde.hp.com>

Subject: labels for laser printer

I just print my artwork on regular paper and, using Elmer's glue, attach

the label to the bottle.  In this manner the label can be easily removed.

John Adams

------------------------------


removing foam scum

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 10:09:01 -0500

From: "Daniel K. Yee" <yee@a1.relay.upenn.edu>

Subject: removing foam scum

- ------- Forwarded message

Posted: Mon, 22 Feb 93 00:00:01 -0500


Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 10:09:01 -0500

Author:

Subject: removing foam scum

     Hello all.  Most of my previous brews have been fermented in

five gallon glass carboys used as primary fermenters followed by

secondary fermentation in another glass carboy.  Since I have

always been somewhat bothered about the quart or two loss of beer

from the blowoff of the primary fermenter, I recently invested in

a 6.5 gallon glass carboy.

     Since my new primary has a larger headspace, I do not get any

lost due to blowoff.  The beer that I have subsequently produced

have been good, but now I find that it has a tad more of a bitter

"bite" than before (but this only means a slightly longer aging

time before consuming the brew).  Any suggestions as to how to

remove the scummy resinous brown globs that float on the foam in a

sanitary fashion?  (Yes, I do believe that the blowoffs

from my previous setup remove the "nasties" and hence yield a

smoother beer.)

               Eagerly awaiting your suggestions,

               Dan "Sven" Yee

- ------- End of Forwarded message

------------------------------


Fermenter geometry

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 07:49:20 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Fermenter geometry

During my discussion with Pierre Celis, the subject of fermenter

geometry came up. He mentioned that the head or foam cap in a shallow open

fermenter was much more dense and stable than one in a closed smaller

fermenter. He said he don't understand it either. I know when I visit Anchor

and see their fermentations at high krausen I am only getting a snap shot of

the fermentation. Say Russ, when you've walked by that room several nites in

a row, have you EVER seen that foam fall? I don't know how any of this would

apply to us, it is just an interesting observation and may explain how open

fermentation can be safe in some cases.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


More yeast when bottling cold lagers

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 10:54:45 EST

From: leavitt@mordor.hw.stratus.com (Will Leavitt)

Subject: More yeast when bottling cold lagers

After many successful Ales, I decided to try my hand at a true

lager:  basic extract/crystal malt oktoberfest recipe with Wyeast

Bavarian liquid yeast.  Its been in the secondary for about a month

at 40-45F.  Do I need to add more yeast when I bottle it?  Some

folks around here say I should, others say that lager yeasts like the cold

and will be ready to go as soon as I add in priming sugar and

give a stir.

One more data point: I'm dry hopping with a whole plug of hallertauer,

which is floating in a mass at the top of the fermenter.  Will

this act to precipitate yeast out of solution?

       -will

------------------------------


laser labels

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 10:28:34 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: laser labels

Andy Rowen asks about laser printer labels.

I always use a laser printer to print my labels, but I don't use Avery

lables.  I use post-consumer recycled paper (i.e. the other side of

previously printed upon sheets!).  I print 8 to a sheet and cut on

a paper cutter, and stick to the bottles with a glue stick.  They

stay stuck on but come off easily when you want them to.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@bach.helios.nd.edu

------------------------------


Beer Labels for laser printers

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 08:05 PST

From: Bob_Konigsberg@3mail.3com.com

Subject: Beer Labels for laser printers

In HBD 1082 Andy Rowan asks about beer labels for laser printers.

3M (No I don't own stock in them), makes at least one kind of 8 1/2 X 11

laser printer label.  Its adhesive is the post-it note kind, i.e.,

removeable.  They may also make one with stronger adhesive, since I've

found that the post-it note kind, tends to peel off when the bottle is

put into the refrigerator.

The main deal here though is that you can print up 9 labels on a single

page, and then cut them up.  There are 3 score lines across the backing

so that you can peel the backing paper off once the labels are printed.

BobK

------------------------------


Phenolic flavours (long) part I

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 14:19:29 +0000

From: G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk

Subject: Phenolic flavours (long) part I

Hi. I was recently asked by some colleagues to write a few notes on the

problems of phenolic off-flavours in beers. The following summarises my

views of what I have read on the subject. I thought you might be

interested. What I would like is comments and suggestions on where I

might be in error, or where I should make changes to improve clarity.

It (just) exceeds the 8K limit so the end is in another message.

Many thanks in advance.

Geoff

 -o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

                             TCP

TCP is a term used by amateur beermakers in the UK to refer to

a particular group of off-flavours and odours reminiscent of

a commercially available antiseptic. These taints, although

not necessarily just trichlorophenols, are caused by phenolic

compounds. Beer will, typically, contain 100-200 parts per

million (ppm) of tannins ("tannin" being a term referring to a

large group of polyphenolic compounds) which come

predominantly from the barley, although there is some

contribution from the hops. Whilst in this form the flavour

threshold is quite high, when combined with chlorine their

contribution to flavour is quite out of proportion to their

concentration. The flavour thresholds for chlorinated phenols

is around 2-3 parts per billion (ppb).

The common causes of this taint are summarised along with

suggestions of how the taint might be avoided.

Water Supply

Chlorination is the almost universal method of sterilising

domestic water supplies. In the distribution system, chlorine

gas can be dissolved directly in the water, a hypochlorite

(e.g. sodium hypochlorite) can be added to the water, or a

chloramine process may be used. Whilst the first two methods

perform in fundamentally the same way, chloramines, which are

produced by combining chlorine with ammonia, persist many

times longer than free residual chlorine. Chloramines are

particularly useful on long transmission lines and where

reliable penetration into stagnant areas of the distribution

system is needed.

Although the level of chlorine in the water should be less

than 1 ppm, it is necessary for it to be removed before using

the water to make beer. To be safe, chlorine must not come in

contact with the phenols naturally occurring in wort and beer

so all added water must be treated wherever it is used in the

beermaking process, including water used in diluting a beer to

produce a beer of lower gravity.

If the supply is also contaminated with phenols then reactions

will occur resulting in unavoidable phenolic flavours.

Fortunately this is rare, the World Health Organisation and

European  regulations specify a permissible limit of 1 ppb of

phenolic substances, but water authorities endeavour to remove

all of the phenols as a matter of course, so as to avoid

undesirable flavours. If it does occur then beverages other

than beer, e.g. tea or homemade wine, will also be affected,

and the only practical solution is for the water to be passed

through an active carbon filter. This method is extremely

effective and reliable; it removes all the free chlorine and,

if flow rates are not too great, the phenolic compounds also.

In the majority of cases, where the supply is not contaminated

with phenols, other methods for the removal of chlorine may be

employed.

Commercially, a common recommendation is the addition of

sulphur dioxide, followed by rousing. The sulphur dioxide

almost instantaneously reacts with the free chlorine and also

removes any chloramines in just a few minutes. It is normal

for sodium (or potassium) metabisuphite to be used at the rate

of 1-2 mg per litre. The addition of one campden tablet to

five gallons of water will supply in excess of ten times the

required dose. It should be noted that this method affects the

levels of salts in the water, which might be undesirable, but

which should be allowed for in any subsequent water treatment.

It is more normal, however, for the amateur simply to boil the

water to drive off the chlorine. A boil of 20 minutes is

usually sufficient and this is no imposition because most

water treatments prior to brewing involve boiling the water.

Sterilisers

Chlorine from sterilising agents such as domestic bleach or

commercial cleansing agents, inadvertently left in fermenting

bins, on cooling coils or other equipment could be responsible

for the taint. All equipment, if sterilised initially with

chlorine containing agents should be thoroughly rinsed,

preferably with a dilute metabisulphite solution, prior to

use.

Wort Bacteria

Very few breweries, especially home breweries, are free from

contamination with enterobacteria which, if their growth

proceeds to any great extent, can impart very noticeable

odours and flavours to the beer. In particular, contamination

with Hafnia protea  (formerly Obesumbacterium proteus) or the

coliform bacteria Escherichia coli and those of genus

Klebsiella (Aerobacter), can be the cause of phenolic or

medicinal taints. They can also be responsible for other off-

flavours including a parsnip odour and the production of

celery-like flavours, and can influence the development of

high levels of diacetyl.

The action of these bacteria is severely inhibited during the

progress of fermentation, as the pH drops and the alcohol

rises,  but they multiply quite rapidly during the early

stages and, if allowed a sufficiently strong foothold, will

leave behind significant levels of their metabolic products.

The H. protea bacterium is also quite capable of surviving

fermentation and appears to be able to influence yeast

metabolism in a way that encourages a high final pH and final

gravity of the beer, and thus assists the survival of both it

and other enterobacteria.

These bacteria, being present in soil and vegetation and also

possibly present in very small numbers in the water supply,

are readily introduced into a brewery. Once established, they

can be persistent and difficult to remove, and are frequently

transferred, in the pitching yeast or by contaminated

equipment, onto successive brews.

Beer is at its most vulnerable between the cooling of the wort

and the time that a strong and active ferment is underway, so

this period must be kept to as short as possible. The normally

low pH of wines means that these bacteria are usually

inhibited and their presence is unlikely to cause phenolic

flavours in home made wines. Also, the naturally high acidity

of roasted grains means that dark beers are less susceptible

to these problems and, conversely, the higher pH of lagers

makes them more vulnerable.

------------------------------


Phenolic flavours, part II

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 14:20:20 +0000

From: G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk

Subject: Phenolic flavours, part II

The concluding part of the phenolic flavours article

Geoff

 -o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Wild Yeasts

Wild yeast can be the cause of a number of problems in beer.

In addition to off-flavours the most common are surface films,

turbidity and gushing.

Phenolic flavours are known to be produced by certain wild

yeasts, including some strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae,

and S. carlsbergensis. Also certain strains have developed the

ability to kill other sensitive yeasts and, under appropriate

conditions, can begin to dominate fermentation. A number of

these strains, otherwise suitable for brewing, are

characterised by the unacceptable production of medicinal

flavours.

It may be worth noting the, perhaps extreme, case where one of

the strains of yeast used to ferment Bavarian wheat beers

produces 4-vinyl guaiacol. This gives the beer its

characteristic "clovelike" phenolic flavour.

Avoiding problems with wild yeasts is essentially a matter of

pitching yeasts free of infection and keeping equipment clean.

Continued reuse of a yeasts from previous brews can, over

time, contribute to a build up of contamination.

Avoiding Phenolic Off-flavours

1.The quality of domestic water supplies clearly varies

  greatly throughout the country, and within a single district

  is subject to seasonal fluctuation. All added water should

  be boiled prior to use and in extreme cases it might be

  necessary to filter the water through an active carbon

  filter prior to this boiling. As an alternative chlorine may

  be removed by the addition of metabisulphite but the added

  salts may make this undesirable.

2.Any equipment that might come in contact with the wort or

  beer, if sterilised initially with chlorine containing

  agents must be thoroughly rinsed, preferably with a dilute

  metabisuphite solution before use.

3.Microbial infections should be avoided by rapidly cooling

  the boiled and strained wort and getting the fermentation

  off to a good start by the addition of a sufficient quantity

  of an active yeast starter. If yeasts are being re-used from

  previous batches, fresh cultures should be obtained at

  regular intervals.

------------------------------


Hot Tip on dry hopping!

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 08:20:57 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Hot Tip on dry hopping!

Ok boys and girls here is the hot tip of the month...

During the Calif. Allstate Competition I judged Barley wines with Steve

Harrison from Sierra Nevada. I mentioned to Steve how much better this years

Celebration Ale was than last years. It was more like it used to be about 8

years ago. He said it was the same exact recipe as last year! The ONLY thing

they did different was seal the fermentor after dry hopping to reduce

scrubbing the aromatics out with CO2 release.

Ok, I went home and tried this technique on a batch. What I did was rack to

a 5 gallon keg and place the dry hops in a nylon bag with a big brass ball

in it to help sink the bag and hops. I then sealed the keg and applied a

small pressure. Everyday as a passed by the kegs I gave it a sort of rocking

motion. After 1 week I opened the keg and fished out the hop bag with a coat

hanger that had been staightened. I resealed keg, cooled and artificially

carbonated. The results are really amazing! I have dry hopped many times and

NEVER had the results this technique provides. The resultant beer is like

taking a hand full of hops and rubbing them in your face with ever glass.

The beers head and clarity are amazing at two weeks. I did use 1 oz per 5

gallons and they were Centenials and very fresh. I will cut back on the next

dry hopped batch. You keggers must give this a try.

I'm already thinking about the next batch, a Pilsener with 100% Saaz and dry

hopped with Saaz.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Curious about Copper

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 16:36:09 GMT

From: u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil (Markham R. Elliott)

Subject: Curious about Copper

Just a question out of idle curiosity that one of you chemists or historians

out there may be able to answer.

This weekend my father-in-law cycled over for a visit and we got on the subject

of brewing.  He is an ex-FBI agent, and was retelling a story about an

investigation of an employee of the Pabst Brewery in (Milwaukee ?) back in the

late 40's.  At any rate, we started talking about the machinery and processes

etc (I have been known to be a gadget freak).  We both started wondering about

why copper is the traditional material of choice in most parts of the brewing

process.  We never figured it out, so I told him I'd ask the Digest.

Is copper's use a carry over from the days before stainless or is there some

quality about the metal that makes it the most desirable.

Although I minored in Chemistry years ago, it wasn't/isn't my strong suite, so

any answers in semi-technical/laymans terms would be appreciated and understood

better.  (Grammer wasn't my either favorite).

Noch einmal, bitte!!  Mark

------------------------------


Labels for laser printer

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 11:47:43 EST

From: steve@garnet.spawar.navy.mil (Steve Jacobs)

Subject: Labels for laser printer

> Andy Rowan writes:

>

> Has anyone found a good solution to the challenge of trying to

> print labels for beer bottles on a laser printer?

I purchased a package of 25 pre-gummed, water-based adhesive sheets of

8 1/2" X 11" paper specifically designed for making labels. They come off

the bottle easily with warm water.

The package states that it is photocopier safe (although they do not

guarantee compatibility with all brands of photocopiers).

I bought mine for $3.99 from:

        Brew America

        138 Church Street N.E. Suite F

        Vienna Virginia 22180

        (703) 938-4805

Standard disclaimers apply.

        Steve Jacobs (KSI Inc)

------------------------------


mailing homebrew

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 11:19:18 CST

From: lencell@unmc.edu (Lance Encell)

Subject: mailing homebrew

I'm looking for tips or advice on sending a case of homebrew from Omaha, NE

to New York City.  Any help will be appreciated.   -Lance (lencell@unmc.edu)

------------------------------


Re: pH Meters,O2

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 09:25:38 -0800

From: sherman@qualcomm.com (Sherman Gregory)

Subject: Re: pH Meters,O2

>on the subj of pH meters - i recently got one from HANNA (shucks found out

>it is made in italy :0). anyway does anyone have one of these?  do you

>notice a fluctuation between hot and cold temps of the same sample?

I just got one of these also, and did some experimentation to test for

this.  I did NOT see any variation with temp.  Maybe there is something in

your water that is changing as when it heats up.  Have you gone back and

forth in temp a couple of times with the same water to see if this is

repeatable?  The instructions imply that the readings should be good over a

temp range of 0 to 50 deg C (32 to 122 deg F).  I see some seeming random

variations with mine of about .1 units, but I see no obvious correlation to

temperature.

>i have also

>heard that using pure O2 is not very good - most bottles o2 contains an

>additive used to prevent "stuff" growing (for hospital use), it is very

>explosive and too much purew o2 can be toxic to yeast..... although i have

>heard that divers O2 should be fine.

The local Brew pub that I frequent (Callahan's) uses pure O2 (at least it

comes from a green bottle).  His beer comes out good. Next time I see the

brewer I will ask him what grade of O2 he uses.

------------------------------


Wort Aeration

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 11:37:30 CST

From: gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com (Guy McConnell)

Subject: Wort Aeration

Joe Rolfe writes:

> i finally got a re-pitch to work.  i had problems with stucks and in

> conversations with Mike Sharp and SHeri Almeda the major problem was O2

> and areation.

[...]

> so if in doubt areate the hell out it.  i used an oiless compressor with

> .2 ucron filter and connecteded to the bottom valve of the fermenter. a hose

> dropped into the wort should do fine if you can get it to the bottom for top

> opening vessels.  but always use a filter to get "sterile air".  i have also

> heard that using pure O2 is not very good - most bottles o2 contains an

> additive used to prevent "stuff" growing (for hospital use), it is very

> explosive and too much purew o2 can be toxic to yeast..... although i have

> heard that divers O2 should be fine.

    That's because "diver's O2" is actually compressed *air*, not O2 at all.

The air that goes into a SCUBA cylinder has to be dry and oil-free, though it

is not any more "sterile" than the air it is made from.  An aquarium pump with

an in-line filter works well for this purpose.

- --

Guy McConnell  gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com

           A diver too.

------------------------------


Sankey valve removal tool

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 11:41:11 CST

From: gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com (Guy McConnell)

Subject: Sankey valve removal tool

William M. Seliger writes:

> I'm not sure if this topic has come up before, but as long as we're

> discussing stainless steel fermenters and fermenting in kegs:

> Does anyone know where to get hold of the tool to remove the lock ring

> that locks in the downtube in sankey kegs???

> I would imagine that a toolmaker could make one at a great expense, but

> SnapOn or someone like that must sell these things (probably also at

> great expense).

    Bev-Con International sells a Sankey Valve Removal Tool for a mere $225.00.

Hopefully someone has a more economical solution to your dilemma than that.

- --

Guy McConnell  gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com

       "All I need is a pint a day"

------------------------------


Celis Wit in Boston

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 12:48:22 EST

From: Jim Grady <jimg@hpwarga.wal.hp.com>

Subject: Celis Wit in Boston

Some one mentioned that Celis Wit should be available in Boston by now.

Does anyone know where I can find it?  After all the descriptions here,

I am eager to try it!  Thanks.

- --

Jim Grady                  |"Talent imitates, genius steals."

Internet: jimg@wal.hp.com  |

Phone: (617) 290-3409      |                    T. S. Eliot

------------------------------


Farewell wherever you fare

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 12:00:40 CST

From: gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com (Guy McConnell)

Subject: Farewell wherever you fare

    Well, since I posted two articles this morning and the automagical reply

said that there are 51 articles ahead of mine in the queue, I'd better post

this today as well if it is to be seen before Friday.

    Friday, February 26th will be my last day here at Intergraph.  I am leaving

and going to work in Orlando for another company.  My access to the net (and

therefore email and the HBD) will cease with my leaving, at least until I buy

a PC for home.

    I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the HBD since 1990 when I subsribed.

Access to the Digest, as well as Charlie's book (recommended overwhelmingly by

the digest contributors) have made my brewing experiences most pleasant.  I

read for several months before I jumped in and I have yet to make a single

batch that was "bad".  At times in the past, as well as of late, the Digest

degenerates into a forum for "one-upmanship" and the usually high signal to

noise ratio goes the other way.  It gets carried out to the ridiculous and

none of the participants seem willing to let it drop.  It eventually returns

to normal, though not without casualty.  Witness the formation another brewing

forum because of this very thing not so long ago.  If I might make a gentle

suggestion, think before you post.  As someone suggested long ago, if you see

a post to which you are considering an inflammatory response, have a homebrew

first, sleep on it, and then, if you still must respond in that manner, do it

by email.  The Digest is constipated now from those wanting to get the last

word in on the all-grain vs extract snob issue.  Email it!  If you simply must

post to show your rapier wit or superior knowledge, do it on rec.crafts.brewing

since that type of thing is the norm on usenet.  You will dazzle many more by

doing so, if that is your aim.  If it is not, then email was more appropriate

anyway.  Think about it.  My hope is that, by the time I get a connection

again, things will be back to normal.  In the meantime I raise a glass to you

all and I look forward to when our paths cross again.

- --

Guy McConnell  gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com

       "All I need is a pint a day"

------------------------------


hbd1081 re: semi-beginner question

Date: 22 Feb 93 08:58:00 PST

From: Tom Haley <tah@ccgate.SanDiegoCA.NCR.COM>

Subject: hbd1081 re: semi-beginner question

Chris,

        I would never boil ANY grains.  What I would do is get a grain bag and

        seep it in your wort until apx 180 deg F.  This allows some of the

        flavor and the nice unfermentables to enhance you beer.  Mashing

        allows you to convert starch to sugar for more fermentables.  I

        always seep something when I am doing and extract batch and sometimes

        even when doing a full mash.

tom

------------------------------


Refractometers and Hydrometers

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 10:03:58 PST

From: "John Cotterill" <johnc@hprpcd.rose.hp.com>

Subject: Refractometers and Hydrometers

Full-Name: "John Cotterill"

Brew Dudes and Dudettes,

I have been using a refractometer for a few months now.  This past weekend

I decided to do an experiment to see how the refractometer readings match

up to hydrometer readings on beer.  I filled my test jar with an IPA and

put my hydrometer in and it read 1.015.  I took a drop of the IPA and put

it on my refractometer and it read 8.2% Brix.  Converting this number to

points S.G., its about 1.032!!  What gives here?  BTW, both numbers are

temperature corrected.

JC

johnc@hprpcd.rose.hp.com

------------------------------


WYeast

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 11:11:41 -0700

From: Doug Cripe <doug@crevasse.ATMOS.ColoState.EDU>

Subject: WYeast

I've got a few questions regarding the use of WYeast.  I'm fairly new

to the joys of homebrewing, and up till now have only pitched dry

yeast.  However, over the weekend I decided to hoist myself off the

bottom rung of the ladder and try the recipie for an Irish Red Ale

that appeared in HBD a few weeks back, which called for the WYeast.

My questions are these:

1) The instructions state that a period of incubation is needed (1-3)

days before pitching.  Why is that?  I assume that when you break the

inner seal, some sort of ****cose is mixed with the yeast to wake

them up from hibernation and thus this is some sort of proofing

period to see if they're viable.

2) The rule of thumb is that 1 day is needed for each month beyond

the manufacturing date on the foil pouch at the time of purchase.

Well, the date stamped on mine was Feb 17, and I bought it on Feb 20,

so I concluded that even less incubation time than a day would be

necessary - was this a safe conclusion?  This suspicion was confirmed

by what comes next...

3) Another instruction is that the foil pouch should expand to at

least an inch diameter before pitching.  I broke the seal, kneaded

the pouch well, and set it on top of my water heater which I guessed

to be about the recommended 80F degrees for the incubation.  I

checked on it three hours later, and the pouch had expanded to the

point that it was very taut, and I thought it would burst if I waited

much longer, so I went ahead and pitched it.  The instructions led me

to believe that the fact of expansion was more important than the

actual length of time of incubation - was that a correct

interpretation?

4) My roommate brewed at the same time I did, and he used dry yeast.

The next morning his carboy was bubbling merrily (as we've found to

be a normal time span for dry yeast), but there wasn't even a hiccup

in mine.  The following morning, however, mine was also bubbling,

though with a tad more melancholy than my roommate's had the morning

before.  The temperature in the pantry where the fermentation takes

place is about 67-70F degrees.  Is this slow start normal?  Should I

expect the total fermentation time to be longer than the usual two

weeks?

Thanks in advance,

Douglas Cripe

Atmospheric Science

Colorado State University

Fort Collins, CO   80523

------------------------------


CAUSE/EFFECT ESSAY

Date:     Mon, 22 Feb 93 13:10:37 EST

From: "David C. Skeldon" (CCAC-LAD) <dskeldon@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  CAUSE/EFFECT ESSAY

I am currently writing an essay on the reasons for the growing popularity of

homebrewing, and I was wondering if anyone would like to email me some of the

reasons that they feel homebrewing is gaining in popularity.

Please email me directly.

                                 Thanks

<dskeldon@pica.army.mil>

Dave Skeldon: Owner, Operator, and Chief Brew Meister of Wooddale Brewing Co.

------------------------------


>queries

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 13:25:45 EST

From: rowan@lake.rutgers.edu (Andy Rowan)

Subject: >queries

Kirk Anderson writes:

  >2) I've counted on Papazian's book for ages.  Must I buy the new revised

  >version?  What do I get that's new (besides an index)?

>From what I've seen, not that much.  I started by using a friend's

copy, which was the old edition.  When I bought my own new one,

it seemed pretty much the same.  Certainly there are differences,

and I haven't done any systematic comparison by any means, but

probably no need to get the new one since the old one serves so well.

Although that index is pretty handy...

Example of a change I did notice: in the new one, he has now tried

maple-syrup flavored beer and highly recommends it.

I also am resisting the temptation to keep the insipid thread

alive about extract vs. all-grain.  So shut up already, the rest of you.

=================================================================

| Andy Rowan                         | You don't know what I'm  |

| Cook College Remote Sensing Center |   talking about?  Don't  |

| Rutgers University                 |   worry, everyone tells  |

| rowan@ocean.rutgers.edu            |   me I don't either.     |

| (908) 932-9631                     |                          |

=================================================================

------------------------------


Re: Several

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 10:38:53 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: Several

Norm Pyle reminds us:

>I will explain my motivation for recently going all-grain:  FUN.

>I have more fun brewing with grain than with extract.  Everything else

>(lower cost, more time, less/more control, etc.) is secondary.  All

>homebrewers clearly have more fun brewing beer than people who just go to the

>store and buy it.  I have more fun brewing mine with grain.  No big deal;

>just brew it and have fun (right, gak?)

######                                    ###              #              ##

#     #     #     ####   #    #   #####   ###             ###               #

#     #     #    #    #  #    #     #     ###              #                 #

######      #    #       ######     #      #                     #####       #

#   #       #    #  ###  #    #     #                      #                 #

#    #      #    #    #  #    #     #     ###             ###               #

#     #     #     ####   #    #     #     ###              #              ##

have fun

gak (an all-grain non-snob)

107/H/3&4

------------------------------


Re: All-grain vs. extract

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 14:02:38 EST

From: orgasm!davevi@uunet.UU.NET (David Van Iderstine)

Subject: Re: All-grain vs. extract

Excuse me for noting, but this all-grain vs. extract thread has gotten

completely dorky and out of control. Can we get on with other things?

DVI

------------------------------


pH is temperature dependent

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 14:26:24 EST

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1/T09 225-6171  22-Feb-1993 1426 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: pH is temperature dependent

;Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 11:13:06 EST

;From: Joe Rolfe <jdr@wang.com>

;Subject: pH Meters, Sparge, MM and Extracts

;hi all,

;whew what a subject (forgot, yeast re-pitch, Belgian Ale Book Comments).

;on the subj of pH meters - i recently got one from HANNA (shucks found out

;it is made in italy :0). anyway does anyone have one of these?  do you

;notice a fluctuation between hot and cold temps of the same sample?  i am not

;sure if mine is defective or what,  pH varies by .5 (even after letting it sit

;in the non-ambient temp sample for 1-2 mins)....the probe was calibrated with

;the 7 and 4 solutions minutes before....and soaked in a conditioning solution

;for 30 mins as recomended.... does any one have the temp diffs for pH?

pH, much like specific gravity, is dependent on temperature.  I would think

there would be a temperature correction table that came with your meter.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1084, 02/24/93

*************************************

-------


us vs Brit malt/ Fruit in beer

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 14:20:35 EST

From: Lee Menegon <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

Subject: us vs Brit malt/ Fruit in beer

Some comments on recent posts:

US vs British Malt

According to the data provided by a grain vendors, NorthEast Brewers Supply,

they list the degree of modification for grains from 1 least modified to 4

most modified.  They indicate that the British grain they stock is "4"

while the US ,Klages + Harrington, as 3.  I have  been led to believe

that the less modified a malt the longer it takes to protein rest and

mash.  Taking this further, that the highly modified, British, malts

often do not require a protein rest hence their single step infusion mash.

I have just brewed a cream ale using all US grains, my extraction rate was

essentially the same as the British malt I usally use.  The mash time was

essentially the same since I always do a 15-30 minute protein rest.  The

color was the palest I have ever brewed avery light yellow/ gold I could

never get a beer this pale using British malt.

 -Fruit in Beer

I brewed a strawberry Ale this summer.  What I learned is add fruit to the

 secondary, like dry hopping, or all the aromatic properties will be lost out

 the air lock during active fermentation.  Lightly hop the brew or the subtle

fruit flavor will be over powered.  If the fruit has pectin in it add pectic

enzyme  or the beer will never clear, it breaks down the pectin.  Remember that

yeast metabolizes sugar, that sweet fruit juice will become alcohol and fruit

 essence.

 - Apple Beer?  I don't know if this is a good combination, fermented apple

juice is cider, and I find cidery tasting beer unenjoyable.  I have had

wonderful rasberry, strawberry and cranberry beers.

Brewing books:

As a beginner I found the Miller "Complete handbook of Home Brewing" more

informative than the original Papazian book.  I have not looked at the new

versions.  I would recommend some of the Zymurgy special issues to someone

wanting to improve their knowledge.  The Hops issue has useful information

on more accurately determining the level of bitterness in a beer.  The

Yeast issue has information on yeast reuse which make liquid yeast less

 costly per batch.  The Trouble shooting issue cover many flaor faults.

------------------------------


Fermenters,batch size and heat buildup

Date:  Mon, 22 Feb 1993 14:23:41 -0500

From: Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@canrem.com>

Subject: Fermenters,batch size and heat buildup

Hi,

        with all this talk about the perfect fermenter

        design I was wondering if somebody could comment at

        what point does the heat buildup become high enough

        to affect the ferment? Also are the Wyeast preferred

        temps for the ferment or ambient? So does a

        40-50litre ferment create enough heat to alter an

        ale ferment? How about lagers?

        Thanks

        Nick

*****************************************************************************

I drink Beer I don't collect cute bottles!

zen%hophead@canrem.com

*****************************************************************************

------------------------------


lagering

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 14:11:24 -0500 (EST)

From: yavo@gvls1.VFL.Paramax.COM (Steve Yavorski)

Subject: lagering

I'm an extract brewer with a single stage fermentation setup.  Is there

any way to make a lager without a secondary fermenter.  I will be moving

soon, and don't want to buy a carboy until after I move.  I'd like to

take advantage of my cold basement temperatures, though.  I thought I

read something in a past HBD about lagering in the bottle.  Is this

possible?  If so, what is the procedure?  Would a viable alternative be

a single stage fermented steam beer?

Thanks in advance,

Steve

Stephen Yavorski   internet - yavo@ivy.paramax.com

NEXRAD Integration   phone    - (215) 443 - 7500

Paramax Systems Corporation

Ivyland, Pennsylvania

------------------------------


Fermenting on trub

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 15:20 EST

From: Carlo Fusco <G1400023@NICKEL.LAURENTIAN.CA>

Subject: Fermenting on trub

Hello Everyone,

A few months ago there was discussion in this digest about fermenting

on the trub. There was some argument weither to rack your cooled wort

off of the trub as soon as it settles or to forget about it and pitch.

Well I did a little experiment with my last 2 batches of Scotch Ale.

Batch 1: After chilling I let the trub settle for 45min and then racked

the beer into a glass carboy and pitched the yeast [wyeast 1098].

Batch 2: After chilling I did not let the trub settle but I pitched

right away with wyeast 1098.

Observations:

Batch 1 had a fast fermentation and cleared quickly. It was ready to

keg in 2 weeks. Single stage fermentation.

Batch 2 started in about the same time as Batch 1 but the fermentation

took longer and it never really cleared up. It was ready to keg in 3

weeks. Single stage fermentation.

Flavour:

Batch 1 had a nice clean taste with the usual flavours associated with

a dark ale, the specialty grains seemed to really come through in the beer.

It was really good and did not last to long.

Batch 2 is not very good at all. It's flavour and smell is musty, yeasty,

and somewhat astringent. I am having a hard time giving this stuff away.

Well you can say I learned my lesson and will from now on always let the

trub settle and rack the beer off the trub before pitching.

Carlo Fusco...........g1400023@nickel.laurentian.ca

------------------------------


Alcohol content of Homebrew

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 15:36:42 EST

From: elser@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL (S. Elser)

Subject: Alcohol content of Homebrew

Being a relatively novice brewer, I enjoy gathering new information from this

digest.  I have seen several references to alcohol content in homebrew recently.

One dealt with siphoning trub into the secondary fermentor (creating more

fuesel alcohols), the other I dug up touched upon the relationship between

the body of the brew and the alcohol content.

  My questions:  When using partial mask method (following instructions from

a recipe for holding grains at specific temps for specified lengths of time,

then adding the resulting liquid to more water containing extract or DME),

is the temperature/time relationship the determinant factor in alcohol content

of the finished beer?  Some people tell me my beer seems to have higher alcohjol

than they're used to (this would be commercial American or Canadian brews).  I

have never tried to calculate the alcohol content, but I would imagine that with

mashing variations, an accurate estimate might be way off.  What are the rules

of thumb for starch conversion vs. temperature?

  I suppose the "trub" reference is a different factor in alcohol?  And how

does a blow-off tube affect alcohol?

  Thanks!

Sheila Elser

                      Please substitute "mash" for "mask" in second paragraph.

------------------------------


oxidation in the bottle

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 13:24:42 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: oxidation in the bottle

I've been wondering about beer oxidising when in the bottle, due to

excessive splashing in the syphoning/bottling process.  Given that yeast are

present in the bottle also (or else bottle conditioning wouldn't happen),

why don't they simply use any introduced oxygen to multiply before

fermenting the priming sugar?

A reasonable answer would be that oxidation takes place more quickly than

the yeast can remove the oxygen, but does anyone know the real answer?

 Peter

------------------------------


yeast mutation

Date: 22 Feb 1993 16:30:38 -0400 (EDT)

From: KLIGERMAN@herlvx.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: yeast mutation

Jacob Galley posted a question dealing with yeast mutation.  Alcohol when

metabolized can produce acetaldehyde which is mutagenic, but my guess is that

since there are always spontaneous mutations occurring, if you use one yeast

batch for too long a time, you wind up selecting strains that will out compete

your original strains as the environment (wort) changes.

------------------------------


Re: labels for laser printer

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 14:22:01 EST

From: orgasm!davevi@uunet.UU.NET (David Van Iderstine)

Subject: Re: labels for laser printer

I used to use adhesive labels, and you're right, they're hell to get off.

I've read on the digest here that plain paper, dipped in milk (that's

right!) will hold labels on well, once dry. When re-wetted, they supposedly

slip right off. I haven't tried it, as I've just plain given up labelling

(too paranoid, lazy, and ill-informed, you know ;-).

Dave Van Iderstine

------------------------------


Saving Yeast

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 17:18:46 EST

From: SRIRACHA <radavfs@ube.ub.umd.edu>

Subject: Saving Yeast

Hallo thar homebrewers!

My brewing partner and I recently started using liquid yeast and

are quite pleased with the results - the cost, however, is making

us wonder about whether or not we should buy a new packet every time

when a strain could be reused...I guess our question is this:  How

have the experiences of other digesters been regarding saving the

sludge?  Do you seal it up with some malt extract?  Do you put it

into a container that would allow stoppering/airlocking?  Just curious...

we saw a couple of possible containers the other day, but I thought I'd

beter write first...How about "Grolsch-type" bottles?

Thanks in advance for any input

Volker

radavfs@ube.ub.umd.edu

------------------------------


Re: stuck conditioning

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 20:22 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: stuck conditioning

Paul writes:

>Peter Maxwell says his brew isn't conditioning in the bottle.  I've had

>similar hassles.  Is there any visible sediment in the bottles?  This is

>the best gauge (other than opening a bottle) of how the yeast in the

>bottle is doing.  My guess is that the yeast count at bottling was to low.

>In my case, I think this was due to fining with Polyclar.  Now I swish the

>racking tube around the bottom of the secondary to pick up a little of the

>yeast sediment.  I have also added 1/4 tsp of dry yeast to the bottling

>bucket.

I'd like to advise against this last suggestion, especially if you used a

different liquid yeast for the primary fermentation.  If the yeast you

add at bottling is more attenuative than the fermentation yeast you could

get exploding bottles.  Also, if you are using dry yeast in the primary

ferment and are bottling with the same yeast, I strongly suggest rehydrating

the yeast in both cases.  In a sort of newsletter from Lallemand (the

yeast manufacturer), they say that dry yeast rehydrated in wort (as opposed

to rehydrating in 104-115F sterile water) is more likely to produce

off-flavors.  I've found that the lag time was quite a bit longer when

I didn't rehydrate in water in recent tests with Coopers and Lallemand

yeasts.

On a related note, I have written in the past warning about the use of

the yeast that comes with Munton & Fison Kits (it use to be called

Muntona, but now I think it just says "yeast").  I said that it gave

very, very high levels of phenolic/clove aromas and flavors and that

I suggested it not be used.  I'd like to point out that I had not

rehydrated this yeast in water (since it was not mentioned by M&F in the

instructions).  Perhaps if the yeast is rehydrated in water, it may be more

acceptable in terms of the phenolic/clove flavors?  Note that this still

does not address the issue of bacterial infection of the dry yeast

which was a problem years ago with the Muntona yeast (eventually the

beers would become gushers... when I switched to Wyeast, I could keep

the beers for years without them becoming gushers, so it was NOT my

sanitation methods).

Al.

------------------------------


extract barleywine

Date: 23 Feb 93 02:10:56 MST (Tue)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: extract barleywine

A while back, amidst all the extract/all-grain ego-excreta, there was a

comment about "tang" of extract brews with a lot of malt.  The recent

"found beer" note (I like it!) reminded me of an extract barleywine we've

had for some years, with a fair stash turning up recently (in bottle).  It

was strong enough to start (1.095 OG) that we'd have been able to pick up

any off-flavors or especially any tang, but nobody who's tasted it has had

any complaint...either when it was young, or now, several years later.

(In its youth, we did some comparisons against Old Foghorn.  It came out in

a dead heat.  I loved it, and spent some considerable effort comparing the

two:-)

There was also a suggestion somewhere along the way that dry malt might be

better than canned.  This old barleywine was made with M&F spraymalt, so

FWIW there's a possible datapoint in favor of dry.  Anyone else made any

comparisons, or even have any good/bad single datapoints?  Most of my

brewing isn't beer these days, but barleywine is the one exception I'd

make, so if I brew extract I'd like to aim carefully.

I'm also intrigued by the processes.  I think I'd heard that the dried malt

was essentially "sprayed" and evaporated by dry air and low pressure, as

opposed to boiling off water.  If so, this would make a good case for why

dry malt would survive processing better than canned (less heat).  True?

 ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


help

Date:         Tue, 23 Feb 93 13:26:50 MSK

From: Alexander Nazarenko <ANAZAREN%????????@vm.gmd.de>

Subject:      help

help

END OF MESSAGE

------------------------------


Annual Contest -- Upstate New York Homebrewers Assoc.

Date: Tue, 23 Feb 93 6:56 EST

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Annual Contest -- Upstate New York Homebrewers Assoc.

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

                  UPSTATE NEW YORK HOMEBREWERS ASSOCIATION

                15th Annual Contest & 4th Empire State Open

                          Saturday, April 24, 1993

                                     at

                   McGinnity's Restaurant and Party House

                  534 West Ridge Road, Rochester, New York

                                Donation $5

                          Doors open at 6:00 p.m.

                     Public judging starts at 7:00 p.m.

     COME AND JOIN THE FUN AT NEW YORK STATE'S OLDEST HOMEBREW CONTEST!

                      *** FREE SAMPLES OF HOMEBREW ***

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THERE WILL BE 11 CATEGORIES:

   1) British Ale               5) Light Lager          9) Porter

   2) North American Ale        6) Amber Lager         10) Stout

   3) Brown Ale                 7) Dark Lager          11) Specialty

   4) Belgian Ale               8) Looks Like SARANAC

No entries will be accepted after April 14 (see details below).

Beers can be entered at shops in:  Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Ithaca,

or they can be shipped.

         CONTEST SANCTIONED BY THE AMERICAN HOMEBREWERS ASSOCIATION

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

CONTEST PRIZES:

   BEST OF SHOW:   A complete home kegging system

   1st Runner Up:  $50 gift certificate for homebrew supplies

   2nd Runner Up:  $25 gift certificate for homebrew supplies

   Prizes in each category:  malt extract or other homebrewing supplies

   Prizes in Looks Like SARANAC:  items awarded by F.X. Matt Brewery

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

For further information about entering the contest, other prizes, etc., send

an email request to Tom Kaltenbach at "tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com".

------------------------------


Distribution change

Date: Tue, 23 Feb 93 09:04:27 CST

From: patm@mallet.med.ge.com (Pat McNamee 5-5009)

Subject: Distribution change

Please remove me from the distribution of Homebrew Digest.

Thanks.

------------------------------


More Beer Poetry

Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1993 07:08:13 -0800 (PST)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: More Beer Poetry

This one is from E. A. Housman's "The Welsh Marches" via the Oxford

Dictionary of Quotations.

Say, for what were hop-yards meant,

Or why was Burton built on Trent?

Oh many a peer of England brews

Livelier liquor than the Muse,

And malt does more than Milton can

To justify God's ways to man.

Paul.

------------------------------


Re: Starch conversion

Date:  Tue, 23 Feb 1993 09:48:53 -0500

From: Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@canrem.com>

Subject: Re: Starch conversion

>Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 10:17:46 -0800

>From: atl@kpc.com

>Subject: Starch Conversion Weirdness

>  Anyway, I put 12.25 lbs of grain into the cooler, and added 12.25

>qts of 172F water, stirred, and the temperature settled at exactly

>155F, the desired temperature for this batch.  I closed the lid, and

        How well did you stir? How long before you checked

        the temp? Personally I add the water first. The

        cooler will suck up a fair bit of temp. With my

        larger cooler I count on losing close to 10F to the

        cooler itself. I also stir quite a bit during mashin

        to make sure no hot spots develop. I also tend to

        wait 1min at least before mashing in. I'm sure hot

        spots mean cold spots.

>let it sit for an hour.  At this time, I sampled a bit of liquid from

>the surface and performed the iodine test for starch conversion.

>There was no color change, indicating complete conversion.  Then, on a

>whim, I sampled some liquid from the spigot at the bottom of the

>cooler, and performed the iodine test on this as well.  The test

>instantly turned jet black, indicating incomplete conversion. I

>thought this might be a result of fluid in the spigot itself, so I ran

>about a quart of liquid through, and tested again with the same

>(incomplete conversion) results.

        Did you do any stirring during the mash? I usually

        stir a little bit every 15-20mins. Also I think most

        people will tell you that iodine results aren't

        perfect.

>  At this point, the temperature had dropped to about 152F, so I

        I don't lose this much temp during 1-2hours usually.

        I wonder if the temps weren't evened out during

        mashin.

>Now, the questions:

>1) How is it possible to have different conversion rates in different

>   portions of the mash?

        I think that if you didn't stir at all it could. I

        personally don't do an iodine test. I just mash for

        a certain time. 1.5hours pale beers 2hours for

        stouts/porters. If you are worried I'd guess pulling

        off a sample and testing it's gravity would be

        better then an iodine test.

        Nick

*****************************************************************************

I drink Beer I don't collect cute bottles!

zen%hophead@canrem.com

*****************************************************************************

------------------------------


immaterial girl

Date: 23 Feb 93 10:48

From: Mike_Merriman@camb.intersolv.com

Subject: immaterial girl

>From the Boston Globe:

"The Modern Brewer," the beer supply house in Cambridge, recently posed the

following question to its discerning clientle:  Do you think Madonna is a jerk?

Yes, 15%, and No,  14%.  A whopping 71% answered that they didn't care, which

proves that people who brew their own beer are wiser that the general

population.

mfm

------------------------------


Appropriateness of articles

Date: Tue, 23 Feb 93 10:24:48 CST

From: gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com (Guy McConnell)

Subject: Appropriateness of articles

Jeff Frane writes:

> Subject: A Modest Proposal/Irish Ales/Snobs

                                        ^^^^^

> <<A Modest Proposal>>

>

> Recently, the _Homebrew_ Digest has had what seems to be an increasing

> number of contributions (some very long) about people's tours through

> commercial beer land.  I hasten to say that I have no problem with

> people writing about the microbrews they've discovered, or how much

> they loved the Pacific Northwest -- in fact I think articles like this

> can be quite interesting, and I've even written a few myself.

>

> I'm not convinced, however, that the Homebrew Digest is the right place

> for such articles.

    Since I'm the author of the most recent of these brewery reviews, I have

to disagree.  From the heading of this most useful forum:

 "FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES"

    I think that brewery tour reports certainly belong.  Mine was long so I

broke it into three parts.  It probably doesn't matter much to those who now

take for granted accessible microbreweries and their products but we, here in

Alabama, have had no such luxury until the opening of the micro in Birmingham.

Some of the most enjoyable and informative articles in this forum have been

about brewery tours.  They give clues to those wishing to approximate a

favorite beer on the brewing process and ingredients used in that beer as well

as interesting insight on the microbrewing industry which most of us support

whenever possible.

    Far more damaging and digest-clogging are the continued ramblings on such

banal subjects as the "all-grain snobbery" thread that is *still* continuing

and is even treated in some length at the end of this article containing a

"modest proposal" to shorten the digest.  We hear about which groups are "snobs"

(are not! are too!) and why and then we are treated to lenghty articles from

people in each group explaining why they, at least, do not fit this description

("I have *friends* who are all-grain/extract brewers - I can't be a snob!").

> In Usenet, there is a distinct difference between alt.beer and rec.

> crafts.brewing.  People who post questions (usually beginner's) about

> how to make beer on alt.beer, quickly get shuffled off to rcb.  Why

> do we not have a similar division here -- and soon?

    How about let's just drop all the namecalling and criticizing articles?

I'll bet that those have taken up far more space than any brewery tour articles

combined.  Also, there *is* another brewing list which is always short.  I

get both but guess which one I've found most useful thus far, warts and all.

- --

Guy McConnell  gdmcconn@mspe5.b11.ingr.com

       "All I need is a pint a day"

------------------------------


Yeast and Malt

Date: Tue, 23 Feb 93 08:52:48 PST

From: Robert Pulliam <pulliam@monty.rand.org>

Subject: Yeast and Malt

Greetings Brewmiesters,

  Just a couple of quick questions for the collective wisdom of the

HBD crowd.

     1.  I have just put a small amount of wyeast European Ale #1338

  in a sterile Fisher bottle with some lightly hopped weak wort

  (around SG 1020) and attached an air lock.  I would like

  to keep this as a starter base in my refridgerator.  When do

  I place it in the fridge, and when, with what and how often

  do I feed it?

     2.  Is it possible to make our own specialty malts (i.e. roasted,

  chocolate, black patent, etc.) from a regular 2 row?  How about

  crystals etc.?  This would certainly help cut down the costs.

  Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

Robert Pulliam

(pulliam@monty.rand.org)

------------------------------


Re:no more syrup/hops in OH/cidery beer/extract info

Date: Tue, 23 Feb 93 12:53 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re:no more syrup/hops in OH/cidery beer/extract info

Garland writes:

>i am at the stage of omitting the 4lb can of syrup in my recipes

>and using all dry malt extract and hop pellets for the first time.

>

>the recipe was:

>

>4lb stout syrup (w/hop and roast barley extracts) i have heard that

>this does not ferment efficently

The efficiency of the fermentation is dependent on a lot of things, one

of them being the amount of yeast nutrients in the wort, another being

the amount of glucose/fructose/sucrose in the wort (recall Bob Jones'

et al. reports of high FGs with sucrose starters).  A lot depends on

the quality of the extract you use (see later in this post).

>3lb dry malt extract

>1/2lb dark roast barley (steeped)

>and most recently the addition of 1/2lb flaked barley.  first i steeped

>at end of boil with dark roast, then on next batch boiled 10 min and strained

>milky soup into wort.

I suggest that you steep all the specialty grains before the boil (as the

water is coming up to 170F -- pull them out at 170F) since you would like

to coagulate any of the large proteins that you may have introduced from

the grains -- which will take the whole 60 min boil.

>what is the proper amount of dme to use.  6lb?  dark dme is all i have

>ever used.  i was told that i could use 7lb light malt extract and 2 lb

>"black patent."  is that unmalted stuff to steep like i do the dark roast?

2 lbs is quite a bit of black patent for a 5 gallon batch.  I used 1/2 lb

roasted barley and 1/2 lb black patent in a recently tasted batch with

two cans (6.6#) of John Bull Dark syrup and it fermented out just fine

with Wyeast #1084.  I'd say a pound of black patent should be enough if

you are using light malt extract.

>what kind of hop pellets, and what kind of boil times will i want for

>my new, unknown recipe?  i don't know what flavor hops are good for

>which brews, but i am sure there is the obvious hop and procedure for

>the stout/porter i am trying to brew.

I used 3 ounces of Clusters for the boil and a half-ounce of Cascades

in the fermenter (after the kraeusen fell), but I would recommend adding

another 1 ounce of Fuggles or Goldings for the last 15 minutes of the

boil (for flavor).

>can i grow decent hops in mid ohio?

Sure.  Give them plenty of sun, plenty of string to climb (15-20 feet!)

and lots of water (6-7 gallons per plant, per day).

*****************************

Karl writes:

>My first batch with chocolate malt matured yesterday, so I had some friends

>over and generally it's a yummy beer.  However, I still have that slight,

>annoying cidery taste.  I did add about 150g of sugar beet molasses besides

>the malt extract and coarsely ground chocolate malt.  Is it perhaps too

>refined of a sugar and adds mostly alcohol and not much flavor?  Other

>suggestions?

It's not the level of the refinement, it's the type of sugar.  Too much

sucrose (cane or beet sugar), dextrose, glucose or fructose will give you

cidery flavors.  It may not be all your fault -- it could be the fault

of your extract (see below).

****************************

Dan `Stout' Wiesen writes:

>how about providing extract brewers with information and

>characteristics of malt extract?

Pick up the Zymurgy special issue on Extract Brewing.  It has a listing

of virtually every extract brand that was available at the time (1986?).

One popular extract that was not available at the time is Northwestern.

I've spoken to the manufacturer and it is made from 100% barley malt

(except the Bavarian Weizen which is 65% wheat malt 35% barley malt) and

contains no other sugars, flavors or colorings.  The hopped extracts

contain the equivalent of 10 IBU of pre-isomerized hop extract (from

unlisted hop varieties, alas) for a 5 gallon batch in one 3.3 lb box.

(Therefore two 3.3# boxes in a 5 gallon batch will give you 20 IBU).

Al.

------------------------------


Call a spade a spade

Date: Tue, 23 Feb 93 11:29 CST

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: Call a spade a spade

What with the over-abundance of interesting and informative

braying about extract vs all-grain brewing, I have taken the

liberty of compiling a list which, I feel, best summarizes the

characteristics of the two types of brewers:

Extract:  Scum of the earth, lazy, ignorant, obtuse, oppressed,

white bread with no crust, born-out-of-wedlock complainers.

All-grain:  Scum of the earth, pompous, swaggering, self-

righteous, ill-tempered, intolerant, vain, incestuous braggarts.

Naturally I've left out the more colorful descriptors so as not

to offend the under-aged (or humor-impaired).

So it seems that no matter which brewing technique you employ,

you fall into one of the two categories.  Now I don't know about

the rest of you, but this is one scum-of-the-earth who would like

to put this topic to bed.  And if we don't do it toot sweet, I'll

be forced to post about other beer-related topics even more

vulgar than farting.  And let me tell you, there are a few.

You have been warned.

chris campanelli

------------------------------


Re: request for extract information

Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1993 12:07:18 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: request for extract information

In HBD# 1083, Dan `Stout' Wiesen vaguely remembers a mention of a

comparative study of malts conducted by a Saskatchewan (yea, his home

province) university.  He also vaguely remembers some difficulty in

obtaining the results of that study.

I don't think Martin will mind my re-posting of his article from HBD# 698.

If he objects...well, I'll owe him (more) beer.

have fun

gak

107/H/3&4

- ------------------------------

 Date: Thu, 8 Aug 91 11:03:42 PDT

 From: Martin A. Lodahl <pbmoss!malodah@PacBell.COM>

 Subject: Sugared Extracts

 A discussion of the adulteration of malt extracts with corn sugars

 has been going on over in the newsgroup rec.food.drink, and Paul

 Chisholm of Bell Labs asked me to let HBD in on the secret.  I

 started the whole fracas by making a cryptic reference to recent

 research that cast the purity of extracts in doubt, and Doug DeMers

 of Amdahl immediately asked for sources, and more information.  So

 the following day I posted this:

 The flap all began in Zymurgy, Vol. 13 #5, Winter 1990.  On page 15,

 in Dan Fink's "Brew News" column, was an item describing a report

 presented by Professor Michael Ingledew of the University of

 Saskatchewan to the 1990 meeting of the American Society of Brewing

 Chemists, on research he and his colleagues were doing on the

 composition of malt extracts.  This research, a combination of High

 Performance  Liquid Chromatography and fermentation studies,

 disclosed the substantial unlabeled presence of glucose syrup,

 invert syrup/liquid sucrose, and high fructose corn syrup in the

 extracts tested.  They also discovered poor fermentation from some

 extracts, due to a deficiency in the free amino nitrogen content

 normally provided by barley malt (had any stuck fermentations

 lately?).  In the presentation, they did not identify the extracts

 tested.

 I don't have to tell you what a storm that raised!  The AHA followed

 up on it, and in Dan Fink's column (page 14) in the Summer 1991

 issue of Zymurgy (Vol. 14 #2) they published a letter from Professor

 Ingledew in which he said that they indeed were NOT planning to release

 the names of the extracts tested.  They felt they couldn't be sure

 whether the adulteration was done by the manufacturers, or by the

 distributors.  They also felt their sample might not be representative,

 as they had only tested 44 "lager" extracts, and no "ale" extracts

 (their terms).  They didn't feel they had the time or money to handle

 either additional testing or possible legal action.  They also felt

 that the burden of following up on the problem they'd identified

 rested with the brewing industry, through the marketplace.  Then

 Professor Ingledew closed with this paragraph:

  In spite of my comments above, I have complete

  confidence in the results obtained in my lab by

  my colleagues.  There is no doubt that some

  manufacturers are profiting from the addition

  of lower cost corn sugars to malt extract.

 Well!  Where does that leave us?  Neither of the articles made it

 clear what percentage of the extracts tested had been "juiced", or

 to what degree.  And, of course, we have no idea what they were

 testing.

 I hope you're not too terribly depressed.

 = Martin A. Lodahl                      Pacific*Bell Systems Analyst =

 = malodah@pbmoss.Pacbell.COM       Sacramento, CA       916.972.4821 =

 = If it's good for ancient Druids, runnin' nekkid through the wuids, =

 = Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me!  8-)   =

- ------------------------------

------------------------------


Re: 33?

Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1993 12:10:06 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: 33?

Once and for all, the reason they put "33" on Rolling Rock bottles is

to keep people guessing about the reason they put "33" on Rolling Rock

bottles.

have fun

gak

107/H/3&4

------------------------------


Re:  Other 'brewing' digests

Date: 23 Feb 93 11:29:00 PST

From: Tom Haley <tah@ccgate.SanDiegoCA.NCR.COM>

Subject: Re:  Other 'brewing' digests

There has been quite alot of discussion lately about throwing yeast into

other liquids besides wort.  I think that most people who get into brewing

do so for the fun of fermenting.  That being said, I thought I would help

encourage this by posting what I know about other digests.

Mead digest

     submissions                         mead-lovers@nsa.hp.com

     requests                            mead-lovers-request@nsa.hp.com

     FTP site:                           sierra.stanford.edu

                                         anon FTP, pub/mead/

cider digest

     submissions                         cider@expo.lcs.mit.edu

     requests to                         cider-request@expo.lcs.mit.edu

     Raw digest archives available for ftp only

                                         export.lcs.mit.edu

Anyone know of others?  Lets encourage fermentation!

tom

Tom.Haley@ScrippsRanchCA.NCR.COM

------------------------------


Wyeast Bohemian wrt attenuation

Date: Tue, 23 Feb 93 19:03:53 PST

From: Pat Lasswell <patl@microsoft.com>

Subject: Wyeast Bohemian wrt attenuation

Data point:

I just bottled a bock (15.5B/SG 62) fermented with the Bohemian yeast.

I chose it because I wanted a high terminal gravity.  Instead, I ended

up with a very alcoholic, dry beer.  Hmmm.  If it weren't so clean,

I'd swear it was Belgian.  Fermentation temps were in the low 40s

and 30s; and -- as I recall -- the saccharification rest was held at

158 (2-decoction mash).

Ars Zymurgia

patl@microsoft.com

------------------------------


SUSCRIBE

Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1993 20:17 PST

From: CIS309137@axe.humboldt.edu

Subject: SUSCRIBE

PLEASE ENROLL ME IN THE HOMEBREW MAIL LIST

------------------------------


Refractometers and Hydrometers

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 11:29:41 +0100

From: dejonge@geof.ruu.nl (Marc de Jonge)

Subject: Refractometers and Hydrometers

In HBD1084 John Cotterill writes:

>Brew Dudes and Dudettes,

>I have been using a refractometer for a few months now.  This past weekend

>I decided to do an experiment to see how the refractometer readings match

>up to hydrometer readings on beer.  I filled my test jar with an IPA and

>put my hydrometer in and it read 1.015.  I took a drop of the IPA and put

>it on my refractometer and it read 8.2% Brix.  Converting this number to

>points S.G., its about 1.032!!  What gives here?  BTW, both numbers are

>temperature corrected.

Sounds ok:

I did a simple experiment once with a bit of unfermented wort,

adding (96%) alcohol volumes to see the effect on measured

density:

F.G.= density of wort without the alcohol.

Numbers in the table are the measured values (with a hydrometer)

after adding the percentage of alcohol given in the columns

(All values +/- my accuracy; your mileage had better vary.... )

      %AbV->

F.G. |     1     2     4     6     8

- ------------------------------------

1020 |  1019  1018  1014  1011  1009

1030 |  1029  1028  1025  1021  1017

1040 |  1038  1036  1032  1029  1026

So, I would guess that your beer, with 32 gravity points of

sugars, contains a little over 8% alcohol by volume,

which produces a 1015 hydrometer reading....

Marc de Jonge (Who fears this hobby may be getting out of hand:)

------------------------------


Malt roasting - help!

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 13:36 GMT+200

From: Michel Vandenplas <mvdp@maties.sun.ac.za>

Subject: Malt roasting - help!

Maybe a better subject title would be Homebrewing in Darkest Africa. One

of my many problems (as a novice there are of course many others) is that

the only malt I can buy at a reasonable price, is unroasted. The grain

makes a good pale ale (to my unrefine

Naturally, while I like pale ales, I'd like to make some darker brews. To

this end I've roasted some of the grain at between 100-110C. This grain

has then been mixed with about 70% unroasted grain and extracted, giving a

darker colour to the beer. Is this

Lastly, I've been using my wife's rolling pin to crush the grain. Does

anyone have any inexpensive and easy alternatives to this? I'm surely

loosing a lot in extract potential this way.

Many thanks to all the digest contributors from whom I've gleaned advice -

without their knowledge that is :-).

Regards

Michel

------------------------------


Laser Labels Adhesive/tale of "33"

Date: 24 Feb 1993 08:02:38 -0500 (EST)

From: Sandy Cockerham <COCKERHAM_SANDRA_L@LILLY.COM>

Subject: Laser Labels Adhesive/tale of "33"

Last HBD someone asked how to apply the labels they make on the laser printer.

Stolen directly from an old HBD-- MILK!!!!! I have used this technique. I used

skim milk, dipped the label in and smoothed out the bubbles. It held extremely

well. Non-toxic too!

On another note, the story I heard regarding the 33 on the Rolling Rock label,

which by the way is not stuck on with milk :)   When the designs for the RR

labels were submitted, they were numbered. The one chosen was (you guessed it)

#33. As the tale goes, when it went into production someone neglected to take

the 33 off and it has been on the label ever since.

Sandy C.

From: COCKERHAM SANDRA L            (MCVAX0::RX31852)

To:   VMS MAIL ADDRESSEE            (IN::"homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com")

------------------------------


CIS

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 07:40 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: CIS

 >From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)

 >I would like to point out that there is a great difference between

 CompuServe and the Digest.  That is that most CIS users do not read all

 the message threads.... Also, of course, the Digest has developed ARF

 antibodies and will likely react to even borderline messages if they are from

 you.

 Good points, both.  But perhaps the former is a symptom of the latter.

 Just a point of reference, I have lost interest in CIS for exactly that

 reason.   It would cost a fortune to read all the articles and there is no

 way to sort out what is worth reading.  People have no qualms about posting

 messages such as "Good idea, Bob." and the board is loaded with them,

 probably even the majority.  Even a thread with one's own name in the subject

 can lead to endless drivel but you keep reading it so as not to miss anything

 that might be appropriate.  I think the dicipline forced on people by knowing

 that everyone has to at least download what one writes is a tremendous house

 cleaner.

 js

------------------------------


Sanitizer

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 07:39 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Sanitizer

 >From: "Rick (R.) Cavasin" <cav@bnr.ca>

 >Subject: re: idophor, rinse/reuse

 >JS relates his experiences with iodophor sanitizer: I've had no problem with

 my brand of iodophor ('iosan') changing colour during normal use.

 Here is the sequel to my experiments:

 Two test tubes with 1 oz to 1 gal idophor, lids screwed on tight..

 One tube remained undisturbed.  The other shaken vigorously at regualar

 intervals.  For several weeks, no change in either.

 It has been about a week since I last looked but yeasterday, I was astounded

 to note that, the control was totally clear and the one that had been shaken

 was still the original color.  Any ideas now?

 I will do it a again with more controls but this is totally surprising to me.

 JS

------------------------------


lager

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 07:40 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: lager

 >From: Joe Boardman <boardman@amber.Colorado.EDU>

 >Subject: an HBD-inspired yeast experiment

 >Does anybody want to hazard a guess about the taste differences?

 Does "clean" really mean anything? Is anybody going to be in Boulder in about

 2 months to try some in person? Does anybody "know" they can tell them apart

 in a double-blind test? I'll report back if there's interest.

 I would hazard a guess but in about a week I will have the results from my

 own similar experiment.   At the moment, I will bet that a new thread on

 "Lager Snobs" is not far off.

 Keep us posted.

 js

------------------------------


Beer Crawls

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 07:40 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Beer Crawls

 Re:  Jeff Frane on Beer Crawls

 I have posted an article in response to many postings several times over the

 past two weeks and it has yet to get into the digest.  I try to minimize

 bandwidth by combing many responses into a single posting.  Obviously, the

 Digest software is sorting out long messages and "clensing" them.  In order

 to fool the system, I have broken it down into many short ones and eliminated

 the ones that no longer have relevance.

 Whether people agree with what I say or not, I suggest that responses to

 current discussions are more relevant and in line with the objectives of this

 forum than long feature articles on commercial beer and establishments.  I

 won't go so far as to say they do not belong here but perhaps they could be

 saved till the Digest gets the "slows" again.

 js

------------------------------


Galvanized Screen

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 07:41 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Galvanized Screen

 >From: hopduvel!john@linac.fnal.gov (John Isenhour)

 >Subject: galvanized hardware cloth ok for sparging?

 >I've been wanting to build a mash/sparge cooler with a mesh filter

 as the rigid manifold arrangement sits a little too high off the

 bottom of my cooler.  I havent been able to locate brass or stainless

 mesh locally but I found some 1/8" galvanized hardware cloth.  I haven't

 heard of anyone using this - is there a problem?

 I used galvanized hardware cloth on the original EASYMASHER (tm) for several

 dozen batches and soo no problem with it.  Zinc is a common mineral suplement

 in vitimin pills so I see no reason not to use it.  Not sure why you want to

 use 1/8" mesh.  I use 30 mesh (30 wires/inch) in the EM and it works very

 well. The original used widow screen, whatever that is and it also worked

 well.

 The only source I have found for SS screen is McMaster Carr but I have to buy

 about $50 worth.  Not too practical if you are only making one.

 >  Also, what is a reasonable minimum length of mesh if its rolled into a

 tube?

 Don't quite understand what you are doing but the tube in the EM is 6 inches

 long and 3/8" in diameter.  It is pinched off at one end and slips over 3/8"

 copper tubing on the other.  The tubing is bent so the screen rests on the

 bottom.  This handles the entire task of the false bottom, slotted tube and

 other such devices.

 js

------------------------------


Gluten in beer

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 9:06:40 EST

From: Jim Grady <jimg@hpwarga.wal.hp.com>

Subject: Gluten in beer

I believe that this was discussed before, or at least something similar,

but I do not know how it was resolved.

We will be having company over for dinner in a couple weeks and one of

the people coming cannot have any gluten in his diet.  The question

naturally is, would homebrew be a problem?

The discussion earlier was along the lines of how much wheat is in the

beer but "The Cook's Companion" says that barley has some gluten too

(albeit, not as much as wheat).  Furthermore, it says that gluten is a

protein.  This makes me ask a couple questions:

  1. Is it some of the protein that settles out in the hot or cold

        break?

  2. Is it one of the proteins responsible for aiding head retention (if

        indeed proteins are responsible)?  After all, wheat is high in

        gluten and wheat malt is often recommended to aid head

        retention.

  3. Is it a protein that is broken down in the protein rest or in the

        malting process?

e-mail or posting is fine.  I will summarize any e-mail responses I get.

Thanks for your help.

- --

Jim Grady                  |"Talent imitates, genius steals."

Internet: jimg@wal.hp.com  |

Phone: (617) 290-3409      |                    T. S. Eliot

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1085, 02/25/93

*************************************

-------


Ph meters, Hydrometers

Date: 24 Feb 1993 09:08:30 -0500

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel.F.McConnell@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Ph meters, Hydrometers

                       Subject:                               Time:9:02 AM

  OFFICE MEMO          Ph meters, Hydrometers                 Date:2/24/93

>;on the subj of pH meters - i recently got one from HANNA (shucks found out

>;it is made in italy :0). anyway does anyone have one of these?  do you

>;notice a fluctuation between hot and cold temps of the same sample?  i am not

>;sure if mine is defective or what,  pH varies by .5 (even after letting it

sit

>;in the non-ambient temp sample for 1-2 mins)....the probe was calibrated with

>;the 7 and 4 solutions minutes before....and soaked in a conditioning solution

>;for 30 mins as recomended.... does any one have the temp diffs for pH?

>pH, much like specific gravity, is dependent on temperature.  I would think

>there would be a temperature correction table that came with your meter.

The Hanna does not come with a calibration table, however you can get a

accurate reading by measuring the wort pH at the SAME temperature as the

electrode was calibrated.  You must calibrate  fairly often (at least each

day), so if you calibrate at 60F and cool wort to 60F you should be ok.  Even

if you are off by 0.5 unit you are still far more accurate than pH papers

INMH(color blind)O.  I love mine.

The operational definition of pH is: pH=pH(s)+E/k. Where pH(s) is the pH of a

known standard, E is the emf of the cell, k=2.302RT/F  where R is the gas

constant, **T is temperature** and F is the value of the Faraday.  As you can

see, since temperature is a variable, the measure of pH is definitely

temperature dependant.  From Handbook of Chem/Phys.

[end of chemistry digression]

On the hydrometer topic, I recently discovered (when brewing with a friend who

uses his religiously) that mine is horribly and uselessly inaccurate, so I have

gone back to not using the thing.  The old OG estimates of STRONG, NORMAL and

WEAK always worked for me before, but occasionally I'd like to check my

efficiency.  Thermometers can be very different from one to another and so can

hydrometers.  Short of purchasing a refractometer are there any mail order

shops that sell a reasonably priced ($15-20 ...??) CALIBRATED hydrometer?

Thanks,   DanMcC

*As long as Keith (Richards) is still alive, I can have another beer. *

------------------------------


Printing labels on a laser printer

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 09:24:43 EST

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Printing labels on a laser printer

Jeff J. Miller writes:

 > I located some 3/4" round labels that are designed for use on

 > a laser printer; unfortunatly they seemed EXTREMELY expensive

 > at $15 a box but I don't recall how many labels were in a box.

Well, let's see.  If they're packed tightly on the page, you've got

maybe 150 on a page.  If the box has 50 pages, then there would be

7500 of them in the box.  So they're .2 cents each.  Not really

expensive, except up front.  Even if there were only 10 pages, they'd

still be 1c each.  That's less than you pay for bottle caps.

=S

------------------------------


The Unfermentables

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1993 09:50:23 -0500 (EST)

From: "I'm a jelly doughnut.  I'm a jelly doughnut" <cygnus@unh.edu>

Subject: The Unfermentables

Hi, I was wondering what grains have significant amounts of

unfermentables etc.... i.e.

Barley (malted)

Wheat  (malted)

Rice syrup solids

and more...

I like my beers to have a heavy malty taste.. just like when you put

loads of 'malted milk' in your milkshake... I beleive that is a barley

malt.

Question remains what type of unfermentables are we talking about here?

right now I have a coffee beer brewing, and I want that

earthy malty flavour... so I figured I'd post out of curiosity to see

what the HBD could come up with for all to know :)

thanks,

 -chris (dcm2@kepler.unh.edu)

------------------------------


pH Meter Temperature Compensation

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 10:13:21 -0500

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: pH Meter Temperature Compensation

To answer some ongoing problems with pH meters and

temperature dependence:

pH measurements ARE temperature dependent.

Some pH meters come with built in temperature compensation

(a separate temp. probe is used in this case) and some

pH meters allow for manual compensation.

With pH meters, we use the Nernst Equation

E = Ex + 2.3*R*Tk/n*F * log(ai)

Plugging in all the constants,

we get E = Ex - 1.98*Tk*pH

Ex is a constantant depending on your reference electrode and

E is the potential measured by the pH electrode.

As you can see, a change in Tk (Temperature, in Kelvin)

Will change the slope of your E/pH curve.

Important notes, pH will always read 7.0 at 0 mV output

(Temp. compensation is not important near pH 7)

At pH 3 or 11, a temp difference of 15C leads to a pH difference

of 0.2

pH error can be approximated as  0.03 pH error/pH unit/10C

Reference:  pH and Conductivity, Omega, Vol 26, pp. A-3 to A-5

OHBN (Obligatory HomeBrew Note) : The Irish Red Ale for

St. Patty's day is almost ready.

- ----

Timothy J. Dalton                                   tjdalton@mit.edu

MIT, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Materials Etching Technology Lab

------------------------------


Chill haze help, copper

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 10:02:21 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Chill haze help, copper

When I chill my lagers I get a chill haze, and with this at the back of my mind

I read George Fix's Brewing Science book and he wrote of phenol-protein

interactions that cause chill haze.  There seemed to be 3 solutions 1) remove

proteins with Irish moss or gelatin, 2) remove the tannins with polyclar,

or 3) lager for 5-7 week at 0C. I would love to use the latter method, but

until I get a chest freezer it is impractical.  Other things that help are

sparging less, and boiling for the right time.

My question is how do people use polyclar?  I don't really want to, but

it seems like a better option than gelatin or Irish moss that may remove

head proteins.  Should I add it to the beer when I rack to lager and

lager with it there, or would it be sufficient to add it when I chill the

wort, let that sit at 0C till fairly clear and then rack onto the yeast.

Is this last idea ridiculous?

Re.  Copper about which Mark Elliot asks.  The reason are mainly traditional.

Copper is a metal that has been known forever nearly.  At beer making

pH's it doesn't corrode, and the main advantage is that it has the second

highest heat transfer coefficient of all metals.  This was more important

when fire brewing was the only heating method.  Since this method is still

used by us homebrewers, I would like nothing better than a big copper jam pot.

But I have not seen any for sale.

______________________________________________________________________________

'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@bach.helios.nd.edu

P.S.  I am sorry that many of you were offended by my continuation of the

'dead horse' thread and I apologise for not restiricting criticism to email.

But I am not the only one commiting that sin and I think it is also

time for those of you who

dispair of this theme to stop posting your sanctimonius criticisms about how

hbd is going to hell in a handbasket because of the odd accrimonius post.  I am

sure I am not alone in thinking that such piety is more nauseating than

the occasaional flame. Also, I think there was a criticism of rec.crafts./

brewing.  It is my experience that r.c.b is usually more civil than hbd.

I think that hbd snobs are more common than *6&-#$%@* snobs.

------------------------------


Hops in Ohio

Date: 23 Feb 1993 19:44:13 -0500 (EST)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: Hops in Ohio

Garland Burton asks if you can grow decent hops in Ohio.

Answer:  YES!

You can definitely grow decent hops in Ohio.

I've been growing them for a couple of years in Cincinnati, and I have

a friend in Dayton who has been growing them for over 5 years.

Very successfully, I might add!

Cascades do best in this area, but try Hallertauer as well (Hersbrucker).

Order the rhizomes from a good source like Freshops in Oregon, and plant

them as soon as the danger of frost is over.

You won't have any way of knowing exactly what the alpha acid percentage

is, but you can guess, based on the average for the variety.  You can

also do what I do, which is ignore the issue and just use them for

dry hopping.  Works great!

Lots of sun seems to be the most critical factor.

- -- Ed

------------------------------


Decoction Mash Questions

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 11:04:55 -0500

From: cook@uars.DNET.NASA.GOV (Chris Cook)

Subject: Decoction Mash Questions

In HBD 1083, while talking about starch conversion during infusion mashing,

Drew asked (about drawing off some of the mash for reheating):

>  3) The method used above to reheat the mash seems similar to decoction

>     mashing.  With regards to decoction mashing:

>     a) is it usual to drain and boil just liquid, or liquid and grain?

>     b) doesn't this process denature the enzymes needed for conversion?

>     c) is there some formula for how much of the liquid or liquid and

>        grain to reboil to make a desired temperature change?

Good questions.  Like Drew, I'm looking to use some simple use of a decoction

in infusion mashing, either to raise the temperature of the infusion, for a

rudimentary step mash or for a mash-out.  Plus, I'd like to try full

decoction mashing, just to see for myself.

A few weeks ago I asked what Noonan meant in his reference to removing

"...the thickest third..." of the mash.  There were several answers posted,

but they reinforced my impression that people were interpreting Noonan's

directions in different ways.

One person said that the thickest part was at the bottom of the mash-tun

after letting the grains settle.  Another said that 'thickest part'

description was misleading, referring to a decoction consisting mostly of

grains.  He recommended that the mash be gently stirred before scooping off

the decoction.

Logically, I can believe that the mash will settle into heavier and lighter

layers, but we're talking about pretty uniformly-sized grains.  Is it

important to scoop from the bottom, or is it more that we should avoid using

the top layer.  Do the husks migrate to the surface or some such?

How much liquid should be drawn off with the decoction?  I got three general

answers in the Digest:

1)    With a small pot, scoop up a bunch of grain and pour off the liquid

      until the grains are barely covered, something like a stew.

2)    With a small pot, scoop a bunch of grain against the side wall of the

      mash-tun and slide the pot up the wall, letting most of the liquid

      drain back.  It wasn't clear how much liquid should remain in the pot,

      but the writer implied that only a little liquid should be in the

      decoction.

3)    Scoop the decoction with a sieve or colander.  I assume this leaves

      almost no liquid in the decoction.  Barley stir-fry?

Several people emphasized the problems with grain sticking in the pot while

heating the decoction.  I don't know whether the drier decoctions were

significantly worse, but it seems they should be.

Book references and logic are only good to a point.  Anybody have experience

using a decoction to heat up a cool infusion mash, for a simple step mash,

or for a mash-out?  How large are the decoctions, how much liquid should be

left in the decoction, and how bad is the sticking?

Chris Cook

February 24, 1993

cook@uars.dnet.nasa.gov

------------------------------


Anchor Foam

Date: 24 Feb 93 08:34:36 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.EDU>

Subject: Anchor Foam

Subject:  Anchor Foam                           Time:8:32 AM     Date:2/24/93

Bob Jones asks about the flat fermenters at Anchor and foam activity.

Now that you ask, I can't say that I have ever noticed those vats without a

head on them except when they are being filled.

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


Celis White...Answer and Question

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 11:40:03 -0500

From: aderr@BBN.COM

Subject: Celis White...Answer and Question

As to where to find Celis White in the Boston area, I guess that

depends on how broadly you define the "Boston area". Harrington

Liquors, in Chelmsford, MA carries three Celis beers (White, Grand

Cru, and one other (Bock?)). They also carry a wide selection of

lambics, hard ciders, and beers from all over.

Now for a question:

I tried Celis White over this past weekend and I LOVED it!! Does

anyone out there have a recipe (yet) that approximates it? Any tips

would be greatly appreciated.

BTW, I'm "only" an extract brewer so far. (Sorry, I couldn't resist).

Thanks,

Alan Derr

(aderr@bbn.com)

------------------------------


SG temperature correction

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 09:38:33 -0800

From: "Stephen Hansen" <hansen@gloworm.Stanford.EDU>

Subject: SG temperature correction

There have been several articles lately that either

requesting information on the variation of specific

gravity with temperature or in obvious need of such

information.

The Homebrew Archive at Sierra.Stanford.EDU has a file

containing correction factors for specific gravity vs.

temperature.  The file is sg_vs_temp and anonymous ftp

users will find it in the pub/homebrew/docs directory.

Those of you using the listserv should use the command

"get homebrew sg_vs_temp".

Stephen Hansen

homebrewer, archivist

- --=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--

 Stephen E. Hansen - hansen@sierra.Stanford.EDU  | "The church is near,

 Electrical Engineering Computer Facility        |  but the road is icy.

 Applied Electronics Laboratory, Room 218        |  The bar is far away,

 Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4055    |  but I will walk carefully."

 Phone: +1-415-723-1058   Fax: +1-415-725-7298   |      -- Russian Proverb

- --=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--

------------------------------


Answers about bottle labels

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 13:49:33 EST

From: rowan@soil.rutgers.edu (Andy Rowan)

Subject: Answers about bottle labels

I got lots of mail in response to my question about making bottle

labels on a laser printer, so I thought I'd summarize them for

others.  I guess longer-time readers of HBD or r.c.b. will have

seen these already...

Lots of people suggested printing on regular paper and then sticking

it to the bottle by wetting it with milk (yes, milk).  All said

it sticks perfectly well as long as the bottle stays dry, and comes

off easily with a soak.

As far as glues, I got the following suggestions:

   1 part white glue (like Elmers) to 2 parts water.  Water soak to remove.

   Glue sticks for kids, which are soluble in water.

   Dennison "Tack a Note" glue stick, with sticking power of a post-it note.

   Rubber cement.  Remove label (and cement) by peeling it off.

As far as self-adhesive (mailing) labels, most are VERY difficult to remove,

but Don Howard wrote that Z-LABEL brand laser printer labels come off

easily after a short soak, and cost about 2 cents each.

------------------------------


Cat's Meow Evaluation

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 11:46:39 PST

From: jwsb@netcom.com (Justin Broughton)

Subject: Cat's Meow Evaluation

The Cat's Meow (for those who don't know) is a compilation of recipes

posted on the Internet and in HBD. It is available via anonymous ftp

from sierra.stanford.edu in /pub/homebrew/recipes.

I have already posted this to the internet, but realized that I forgot

to post to home brew digest. So please excuse the duplicate posting.

Looking through the Cat's Meow recipe book, there seems to be no indication

of whether the recipe has been tried by others and found to be reasonable

and/or whether it gives the same results.

I have been talking with Mark Stevens (one of the compilers of the recipe

book) and we agreed that a survey of this kind would be most useful.

Therefore I am asking you all to reply to me (jwsb@netcom.com) with

details as follows:

 . chapter containing recipe (beer style)

 . name of recipe

 . number of times brewed

 . changes to any ingredients (if any)

 . changes to the procedure (if any)

 . SG/OG

 . overall quality of the beer

 . if problems were experienced what you think the reasons for

   the problems were

 . would you brew it again?

 . if you would what would you change.

Please send only recipes which you did not significantly change.

To the originators of the recipe - if you have repeated the recipe since

feel free to send me your comments as well.

Results will be forthcoming. I will probably not post them since this

might cause ruffled feathers, but will mail to anyone requesting them.

Thank you in advance for all your time.

Justin Broughton

Configurex Inc., South San Francisco, California

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

- --

------------------------------


Dorky Topics

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 15:03 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Dorky Topics

 >From: orgasm!davevi@uunet.UU.NET (David Van Iderstine)

 >Subject: Re: All-grain vs. extract

 >Excuse me for noting, but this all-grain vs. extract thread has gotten

 completely dorky and out of control. Can we get on with other things?

 I find it an interesting perversion of the objectives of a discussion forum

 to consider a topic "dorky" because it generates a lot of interest.

 I think the objective is to discuss what is of most interest to most people

 and those who are not interested in such a topic are free to skip it.

 Complaining about what is discussed may or may not be "dorky" but is

 certainly a more obvious misuse of bandwidth.

 js

------------------------------


pH

Date:    Wed, 24 Feb 1993 17:23 EST

From: Phil Hultin <HULTINP@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>

Subject: pH

Just a quick point.  It is perfectly normal for pH to vary with

temperature.  Thus, your pH meter should give a different

reading for hot and cold solutions.  Good laboratory pH

meters have a temperature adjustment, and the really nice

ones automatically compensate for temperature.  If you want

to you can find how to correct pH meter readings for the temp.

effect, but it is probably easier to just adjust your sample

to the right temp. before making the reading.

------------------------------


Re: fermenter geometry

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 18:30:57 -0800

From: pascal@netcom.com (Quasimodo The Hunchback)

Subject: Re: fermenter geometry

"Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 07:49:20 PST

 From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

 Subject: Fermenter geometry

"During my discussion with Pierre Celis, the subject of fermenter

 geometry came up. He mentioned that the head or foam cap in a shallow open

 fermenter was much more dense and stable than one in a closed smaller

 fermenter. He said he don't understand it either. I know when I visit Anchor

 and see their fermentations at high krausen I am only getting a snap shot of

 the fermentation. Say Russ, when you've walked by that room several nites in

 a row, have you EVER seen that foam fall? I don't know how any of this would

 apply to us, it is just an interesting observation and may explain how open

 fermentation can be safe in some cases."

My intuition is that there is a connection between the fermentation and the

surface-to-volume ratio. In the book _On Aggression_ ( author's name escapes

me, alas ) it discusses the difficulty of maintaining enough oxygen in the

aquariums ( this was before World War II, no pumps, little electricity ) and

notes that, even with the inclusion of a large portion of the closed ecology

of proximate ponds into the tanks, including moving creatures which stirred

up the water ... a very large surface-to-volume ratio was a prerequisite.

( The author was researching the aggressive instincts of cichlids ... )

Others have noted that readings for mash efficiency, as well as temperature,

vary from top to bottom in mash geometries which emphasize height. This is

optimal for conservation of heat, but not so for circulation of mash solution,

such that this too bears some additional examination.

Summary : I'd guess there is a lot of garnered experience which has guided

some isolated brewers down this path, and that this bears further examination

in both the mash and the fermentation sequences.

I haven't done a mash yet myself ( ObDisc: I have used grains as adjuncts ),

but when I do, I expect I'll stir things to keep a temperature gradient from

forming and to evenly expose everything to walls and atmosphere. I don't do

open fermentation and, lacking a controlled environment, I'd hesitate to, as

this would also provide a larger target for drifting spores and bacteria ...

- -- richard

     "It is obligatory, within the limits of capability, to commend the

      good and forbid evil."     _Kitab_Adab_al-Muridin_, by Suhrawardi

                richard childers          pascal@netcom.com

------------------------------


Proposed North Bay Bike Ride & Pub Crawl

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 19:18:00 -0800

From: pascal@netcom.com (Quasimodo The Hunchback)

Subject: Proposed North Bay Bike Ride & Pub Crawl

I just purchased a lovely new mountain bicycle, and have been riding all

over San Francisco, having a blast. It didn't take me long to conceive

of other possibilities ... such as taking the ferry boat to Angel Island,

in the middle of San Francisco Bay ... or beyond, to Larkspur or San

Rafael.

I mentioned this to a few bicycle-riding beer buddies, and they told me

of a brewery that's apparently just a stone's throw from the San Rafael

ferry landing. This is apparently a well-known ride amongst many locals.

I don't know its name but I'm sure many others do. (-:

So, I'm proposing a Bay Area HBD Ride, from San Francisco - probably the

south end of the Golden Gate Bridge - across the Bridge, through Sausa-

 -lito, along the edge of the Bay, northwards to San Rafael, using exist-

 -ing bike trails already established, stopping at pre-established points

for those wishing to join en route.

Once at the brewery, we dissemble for excellent ( I've been told ) food

and beer, departing as convenient to ride back to our vehicles along the

route, if appropriate, or taking the ferry back to San Francisco, and then

riding back from whence we came within San Francisco. ( Those doubting that

this might be possible might prefer to park along the Embarcadero and ride

their bikes to the Golden Gate Bridge in the morning, so that their cars

are only a few blocks away when they get off the ferry. ) Naturally, some

people might prefer to remain together all the way back to the Toronado ...

or we could even meet there in the first place, instead of the Bridge.

Naturally, mountain bikes ( 18 speed or above ) are recommended, as this is

not a short ride ( although every effort has been made to plan it so that

it is not necessary to ride uphill and that the majority of the trip will

be downhill or level bayshore ), but I leave the final decision to the dis-

 -cretion of the individuals, and promise to assist anyone who has problems

en route, as the person responsible for this proposal.

I think this would be a _great_ opportunity to match names with faces, and

get a few of the lurkers to emerge into the light and let us introduce our-

 -selves and sweep them into the mileau. As well as establish that one can

be physically competent while drinking copiously, and still brewing.

Proposed date : Sunday, 07 March 1993.

What say ye ? Email me at pascal@netcom.com, please.

- -- richard

     "It is obligatory, within the limits of capability, to commend the

      good and forbid evil."     _Kitab_Adab_al-Muridin_, by Suhrawardi

                richard childers          pascal@netcom.com

------------------------------


Yeast Starter Temperature

Date: 25 Feb 93 03:36:48 GMT

From: SynCAccT@slims.attmail.com

Subject: Yeast Starter Temperature

I have 3 Lagers fermenting now, 2 at 42 degrees F and 1 at 48F. All

of these are fermenting (what I would consider) rather slowly. All

3 batches started at 1.052 and after a month in the Primary are

between 1.032 and 1.040. Fermentation does not appear stuck as they

all have a good krausen still and are generating a fair ammount of

co2 (1 bubble every 10-15 seconds).

I'm using 2035, 2308 and 2007, 2 cultured from my slants and one

straight out of the Wyeast pack. My question is: these yeasts were

built up to pitching volume (about 2/3 quart of slurry) in 2 steps,

the first in 1/2 pint of wort and then into 1.5 quarts, over 5 days.

The starters were fermented on top of the fridge and with the

heat from the back of the fridge I would guess it was about 80-85F.

The starters were chilled to match the wort at pitching time and all

started to ferment actively within 15 hours.

Is there a correlation between yeast performance and starter

fermentation temperature with S.uvarum? I'm concerned that I've

promoted mutated cell growth, generating an active starter that

performs well only at warmer temperatures.

Gravity has slowly declined over the last month, the beer tastes fine

so I suspect patience will be the solution to my problem. Any other

comments or suggestions?.....

 ...Glenn Anderson

  gande@slims.attmail.com

------------------------------


HB Competition

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 23:51:35 MST

From: thomas ciccateri <tciccate@carina.unm.edu>

Subject: HB Competition

  The Albuquerque, New Mexico USA-based Dukes Of Ale are again

sponsoring their annual AHA Sanctioned Beer Competition.  Deadline

is April 16, 1993.  Fee is $2.00 per entry.  Judges are club-certified,

AHA certified, recognized, or masters.  Info: Art Priebe at

73707.2262@compuserve.com   Buena Suerte.

------------------------------


Fix times two

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1993 08:22:56 -0600 (CST)

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Fix times two

 Figured out how to beat the system.  I posted 7 articles yesterday and all

 got acknowledged except the two that were 40 lines long.  The longest one

 acknowledged was 33 lines.  Here is the "long" one in two parts...

 >From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

 >Subject: George Fix's Address

 > I'm trying to send mail to George Fix, and his address as it

 shows-up in the digest is not sufficiently complete to accomplish this

 (gjfix@utamat).....

 Sure glad someone else is having this problem.  Virtually all my mail bounces

 to George but it seems to get through often enough to prove that it is a good

 address.  The last two letters I have sent about 10 times and specifically

 asked him to acknowledge receipt.  It is particularly frustrating because it

 contains an apology to his wife which I hereby extend to anyone else who may

 have been offended by my use of an old boy's term referring to things that

 happen to men in the night.

 This is the way the bounce appears in my mail and I get the response within

 seconds so it is not happening at his location.....

 cont..........

------------------------------


Re: galvanized screen & Zinc

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 93 9:06:54 CST

From: cush@msc.edu

Subject: Re: galvanized screen & Zinc

I would caution against giving an unqualified 'yes' to using galvanized

screen in the mash.  I seem to recall that Zinc can be highly toxic in

too high a concentration, though it is a 'vitamin' at lower concentrations.

If I am remembering wrongly, someone please correct me, but I do believe that

as far as Zinc goes, there can be 'too much of a good thing'.

- --

 > Cush Hamlen    | cush@msc.edu

 > Minnesota Supercomputer Center, Inc. | 612/626-0263

------------------------------


Mashout

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 93 09:10 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Mashout

 >From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.EDU>

 >Subject: Another Mash-out Idea

 >I realize that the liquid level is greatly increased so it is harder for the

 enzymes to find the starch, but still...

 This aint necessarily so.  I use about 3.5 gal of mash water to 12 lbs of

 grain and when it settles down after mashing, I end up with one inch of

 liquid above the grain.  This level is maintained through the entire sparge

 so the ratio of grain to liquid does not change till I turn off the sparge

 water source at the end.

 >Reactions?

 Burrp

 Hmmmm.... Just occurred to me that the last two lines are another good

 example of a typical CIS beer forum message that one would have to pay to

 read.

 js

------------------------------


Mashout

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1993 09:07:27 -0600 (CST)

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Mashout

 >From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.EDU>

 >Subject: Another Mash-out Idea

 >A thought: If unconverted starch, originating from dry sections of malt,

 might be released during the sparge; would it not be prudent to forgo the

 mash-out so that the enzymes, which are also in suspension (I assume), can do

 their bit on the newly released starch?

 Two problems here...  As most people claim to be sparging at 170F, the

 enzymes would be deactivated by the heat.  Of course some of us realize that

 the real temp in the grain is closer to mash temp so you are probably right.

 Therefore, what you are effectively doing is increasing the mash time without

 increasing the time it takes to mash.  Not a bad idea, probably.

 The real problem with forgoing the mash out is that the real temp in the

 grain bed drops even lower and could create all sorts of other problems.

           cont............

------------------------------


Red Star

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 93 09:11 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Red Star

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >On a related note, I have written in the past warning about the use of

 the yeast that comes with Munton & Fison Kits (it use to be called

 Muntona, but now I think it just says "yeast").  I said that it gave

 very, very high levels of phenolic/clove aromas and flavors and that

 I suggested it not be used.

 This sounds dangerously reminiscent of my experiences with Red Star and all

 its repackaged clones.  When I thought I was trying different yeasts, I later

 learned that it was all repackaged Red Star.

 Do you know who makes the yeast?  I personally, would never use a yeast that

 did not identify the actual lab that makes it.

 I suspect that 90% of the love affair (mine included) with liquid yeast

 results not from switching to liquid but from getting away from Red Star and

 its stealth progeny.

 js

------------------------------


gelatin fining

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 93 08:10:26 -0700

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: gelatin fining

 "Dean Roy"  <DEAN@alpha.uwindsor.ca> writes:

>Can someone tell me if there is any difference between the gelatin finings

>sold in homebrew stores and the plain unflavored gelatin you can buy at the

>supermarket. I have a supply of the supermarket variety and was considering

>using some on my latest batch.

I don't generally fine my beer, but as a home winemaker, I do fine my wine,

and yes, plain unflavored gelatin works great. The procedure for wine is to

soften about 1 tsp gelatin (per 5gal wine) in some warm wine, and stir into

the carboy. Takes 7-10 days to settle out.

Kelly Jones               <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

------------------------------


Attemperation/Repitch

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 93 11:40:23 EST

From: Joe Rolfe <jdr@wang.com>

Subject: Attemperation/Repitch

hi all,

Nick asks

>    with all this talk about the perfect fermenter

>        design I was wondering if somebody could comment at

>        what point does the heat buildup become high enough

>        to affect the ferment? Also are the Wyeast preferred

>        temps for the ferment or ambient? So does a

>        40-50litre ferment create enough heat to alter an

>        ale ferment? How about lagers?

well Nick, I would guess that you would like to keep

the primary ferment temp as close to the recommended temps

as possible (65F for ales, 55F for lager).  I would say that

depending on the flavour profile you want anything more than

+/- 10F is too much.  Smaller batches, from my limited playing

with them don't seem to change very much from ambient +/- 5F

in the middle of the vessel.  I would venture that the 10 or so

gallon batches could produce enough heat to require

attemperation.  I dont have a 10 gallon fermenter, but my 2BBL

fermenter will generate quite alot.  If I pitch at 70F, ambient

temp being in the low 60'sF, the next morning at the peak of

fermentation - temps will be approaching 80F.  This only

happened once - thankfully.  I now cool the fermetner down to

62F after I see signs of fermentation - this usually takes a

few hours.

As an aside here - I would like to use a sankey keg for a

fermenter.  I have heard of George Fix using a pony (1/4BBL)

which I assume has no internal/external plate or coil.

Anyone using any 1/2BBL ekgs with attemperation devices, other

that sticking in a drum of water???

SRIRACHA <radavfs@ube.ub.umd.edu> asks:

>My brewing partner and I recently started using liquid yeast and

>are quite pleased with the results - the cost, however, is making

>us wonder about whether or not we should buy a new packet every time

>when a strain could be reused...I guess our question is this:  How

>have the experiences of other digesters been regarding saving the

>sludge?  Do you seal it up with some malt extract?  Do you put it

>into a container that would allow stoppering/airlocking?  Just curious...

>we saw a couple of possible containers the other day, but I thought I'd

>beter write first...How about "Grolsch-type" bottles?

You can store it in a sanitized (or as close to sterilized as you can get)

vessel (jug, - i use a pop keg).  If you are not going to repitch within

a day or so (guessing here -- anyone know how long?), put the vessel in

a refrig (40F).  It should last a week or so (again how long??).  I would

repitch within a week or dump it myself.  Grolsch bottles should work

fine for smaller (5-10 gallons ferments).  When you do take it out of the

refrig (as Mike Sharp recomends warming the slurry up well in advance).

I assume that when Mike does this it is done fairly slowly not to shock

the beasts into mutation.   My process is to remove from the refrig 2 days

in advance, on the first day store it at 10F higher than refrig temp.

The second day store at a 10F higher that the previous.  As I cool the wort

some of the wort is diverted to the keg with the slurry.  I allow this to

sit at temps as close to pitching for an hour or so.  The fermenter is then

areated for 45 min with sterile air.  At the half way point in areation

the slurry is pitched.  Since doing it this way (past 4 times) the

fermentation is underway in 2 hrs (no lag here) and the final gravity is

reached within 3 days (usally 2).

>From the general reading in HBD and other pubs - if your clean you can bet

on repitch of 5-6 times.  If your really clean and do the lab work - you

should be able to repitch forever(???).  I will be stopping at 5 times -

until I can afford the time do it, a scope, chemies and the lab space.

good luck and stay clean!

- --

joe rolfe

jdr@wang.com

508-967-5760

------------------------------


Sugared Extracts

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 93 11:47:32 EST

From: kstiles@aluxpo.att.com

Subject: Sugared Extracts

A subject thread about the quality of malt extracts led

Richard Stueven to re-post Martin Lodahl's article about the report

from Professor Ingledew's of the University of Saskatchewan about

sugar in malt extracts.  Since Prof. Ingledew seems so afraid of

lawsuits, let me point out that I am not asserting in the following

that any company, foreign or domestic, is adulterating its malt

extract with sugar.  I merely note these observations; draw your

own conclusions.

I recently bought some American Eagle light dry malt extract.  It

seems peculiar in a number of ways:

 1)  It is not a uniform powder like other DME that I've

bought (M&F, Laaglander).  Rather, it is a mixture of a light

brown powder and white crystals.

 2)  It doesn't clump into hard blobs like other DME

when mixed with water.  It just dissolves more like, say, sugar.

 3)  It doesn't have a strong malt taste like other DME.

It tastes more like slightly malty very sweet wall paper paste.

 4)  When used in a yeast starter, the starter tastes,

well, cidery.

Keep in mind Prof. Ingledew's point that any adulteration can

be done by a distributor as well as the supplier.

We all know about the high FG's from using Laaglander, presumably

from a high dextrin content.  Any experiences with American Eagle

(the DME, not the canned extract)?

Kevin Stiles

------------------------------


Labels:  Affixing & Removing

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1993 08:52:31 -0800 (PST)

From: James Thompson <sirjames@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Labels:  Affixing & Removing

Since I make my own paper labels, I affix them with regular gluestick;

they stay on fine, and come right off in hot water -- this hot tip

brought to you from my homebrewer tutor, Mark Antush... Hi, Mark! :-)

For removing labels from used commercial beer bottles, I recently

purchased a brush-scraper combination designed for cleaning bbq grills.

After soaking the bottles in hot water, the scraper makes short work of

removing the paper, and the brush takes off the glue.  Although it is a

metal-bristle brush, I haven't noticed any problem with scratched

bottles.

Jim Thompson

sirjames@carson.u.washington.edu

Disclaimer: "These opinions are only our own, aren't they my Precious?"

------------------------------


re: idophor, rinse/reuse

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1993 12:25:00 +0000

From: "Rick (R.) Cavasin" <cav@bnr.ca>

Subject: re: idophor, rinse/reuse

JS relates further experiments with iodophor sanitizer:

Hmmmm.  How much headspace in each testtube? (headspace vs

solution ratio could be fairly high in a testtube)

Did you open either tube (thus releasing iodine vapour in headspace)

during the test? Both stoppers sealed tightly? Possible leak?

Ideally, the test should be carried out with several tubes in each

group, and outliers discarded.

I've used my solution several times since my previous posting (without

augmenting the iodophor) and though the amber colour may have faded a

little (hard to remember what the original shade was - could mix up

more I guess), it is still definitely amber.  I guess there's no

real way to know the sanitizing power vs colour relationship.

Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances.

Check the label on your iodophor - mine says the iodine is supplied in

the form of a complex.  This might make it less volatile.

Cheers,

Rick C.

------------------------------


Wyeast reuse/stretching

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1993 12:25:00 +0000

From: "Rick (R.) Cavasin" <cav@bnr.ca>

Subject: Wyeast reuse/stretching

There's been some renewed interest in making the most of Wyeast

packages lately.  Although I think I've posted this before, it

sounds like there's at least a few people who might find a repost

useful.  Here's the method for stretching the Wyeast that I

have been using successfully.  It should be noted that storing the

the yeast in the form of sediment may be suboptimal (someone else

posted a simple yeast washing technique some time ago - haven't

tried it).  All I can say is that this method has worked for me

with 4 different Wyeast ale strains (Whitbread, Irish, German, European).

It's simple, and requires no special equipment.  Alternatively,

it allows several brewers to swap yeasts with each brewer propagating

one strain.

******************************************************************

Briefly, my suggestion consists of converting the original Wyeast

package into a number of 'copies' stored in beer bottles.

ie. it is a parallel propagation rather than a serial propagation

Step 1:

Prepare some starter wort (S.G. = 1.020), see Miller's book for

recipe.  Basically, you need about 1/2 gallon, but if you make

more and can it in mason jars (using standard canning procedures),

you will not have to prepare more at a later date.

Step 2:

Place 1/2 gallon or so of starter wort in a suitable container

(1 gallon glass jug), pitch (inflated) Wyeast package at correct temp.

and fit air lock. This is the 'master' starter.

Step 3:

Allow to ferment to completion.  When fermentation has ceased,

agitate the 'beer' to suspend all sendiment, and very carefully

bottle it.

You will now have about 6 bottles of very thin beer with a good

deal of viable yeast sediment in each bottle.  Use each bottle

as you would use a package of Wyeast - ie. prepare a starter

culture a couple days before brewing.  This is facilitated by

canning wort when you prepare the master starter.  All you need to

in that case is pop open a mason jar of wort, dump it into a

sanitized bottle/jug of appropriate size, pop open one of your

bottle cultures, add it, agitate vigorously, and fit an air lock.

All yeast starters are of the same 'generation', ie. 'twice

removed' from the original Wyeast package (as opposed to the usual

'once removed').  This helps avoid the accumulated contamination over

multiple generations that may occur with serial propagation.

I've had the bottled

cultures remain viable for more than 6 months (so far).

Observe proper sanitation and wort aeration procedures thoughout.

Equipment: 1 gallon jug (for 'master' starter)

           1.5 litre wine bottle (for subsequent starters)

           air lock

           6 beer bottles, caps and capper

Optional equipment: mason jars and canning pot.

*****************************************************************

Later,

Rick C.

------------------------------


Brewing on Line

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1993 13:45 EST

From: Carlo Fusco <G1400023@NICKEL.LAURENTIAN.CA>

Subject: Brewing on Line

Hello brewers,

I want to tell you that with the newest interest in putting yeast into

anything fermentable, I have updated the 'Brewing on Line' list to

'Brewing on Line vers. 2' It is a text file of about 8k.

It is available from sierra.stanford.edu via anonymous ftp. It is in

the pub/homebrew/docs directory, and is titled brewing_on_line.v2

For those using the listserver, you can get it by mailing a message

to the listserver with the following comand "get homebrew brewing_on_

line.v2"

Carlo.................g1400023@nickel.laurentian.ca

------------------------------


Homebrewers 'round the world

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 93 10:35:03 PST

From: Jack St.Clair at fmccm6 <Jack_St.Clair_at_fmccm6@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: Homebrewers 'round the world

Just a thought that I'd like to share.  I've been reading the HBD for

about a year and a half it got me started into homebrewing and has

taught me many things.  One of the interesting things about the digest

is the diversity of the people who post and their locations.  I have

seen postings from England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, New Zealand,

Australia, South Africa just to name a few.  Sometimes it is dificult to

acertain where the posting is from even though the poster includes

his/her full name and their computer mail address.  My thought?  Why not

include City/Country in your post.  It might prove very interesting and

may start new friendships around the world.  Just a thought.

Jack (I brew for the taste of it) St.Clair

JACK_ST.CLAIR_AT_FMCCM5@CCM.HF.INTEL.COM

Folsom City, California, USA ---(See how easy it is!)

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1086, 02/26/93

*************************************

-------


? lagel ?

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1993 10:58 PST

From: MAXWELLS@axe.humboldt.edu

Subject: ? lagel ?

I have a question about a lager (?) beer I brewed about six weeks ago.

To start with I'm an intermediate brewer who uses both extract and grains

I find, that the combination of the two usually yields a great flavor.  I

don't quite go to the extent of mashing (still not quite sure on the

procedure) - what I do is boil the grains for about 45min at 150deg,then

I strain the resulting "extract" into my brewpot and combine it with the

canned extract.  I usually use either one can or bag of extract and about

5 lbs. of grain (although how much extract I end up with is a mystery to

me).

Anyway, for this recipe I used 1lb of Munich Malt, 1lb Malted Wheat,

4 cups pale malted barley, 1/2lb corn sugar, and a 3.3lb can of John

Bull unhopped light malt extract.  I also used Saaz hops for primary

and Mt. Hood for aromatic.  And to start with I used Wyeast European

Lager liquid yeast.

The problem is this - after the brewing process, when the beer was cool

enough to add the yeast I realized the package was about 3 months old, and

had not yet risen (I gave it two days, and assumed it would be done...

usually when I use the liquid ale yeast it is newer)  Not really thinking

I added the yeast anyway and put the fermentor outside (Humboldt temp is

about 45-50 deg this time of year)  After two days, there still was no

sign of fermentation so I panicked and went out and bought two packages

of dry ale yeast (couldn't find dry lager yeast).  After adding that and

moving the fermentor back inside, fermentation showed up within twelve

hours...So I left the primary inside for 12 days and then put it into the

secondary and put the carboy back outside.  I left it out there for about

3 weeks (hoping the lager yeast would kick back in).

So I guess my question is this, now that I've bottled I can't decide to

let it age at room temp or in the refrig...I put half of the batch in the

fridge and half at room temp...there is sediment building at the bottom of

the bottles in both cases and both still have a very light color...I just

hope it is not ixidized...Any ideas if this beer is an ale , lager, or

maybe its a lagel?>

anyway any suggestions would be appreciated...

thanks...the Humboldt Hophead

#| ]

------------------------------


Yeast Ranching

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 93 11:14:21 -0800

From: atl@kpc.com

Subject: Yeast Ranching

  I have recently seen and contributed to threads on the various ways

to save yeast from one batch to another.  Especially after realizing

the per batch cost savings of all grain brewing, the price of a Wyeast

packet was a large percentage (20%) of the total cost of each batch.

I decided to try to maintain my own yeast stock.

  My first method was to simply place a portion of the trub from

primary or secondary fermenter into a glass milk bottle and attach a

fermentation lock.  To reuse this yeast, I either simply pitched the

whole thing into the next batch, or "re-started" it with some fresh

wort. This worked fine as long as the yeast was reused very quickly.

This was a particular problem for me, as I like to use different yeast

strains for different brews, and rarely use the same yeast twice in a

row. If you don't brew weekly, this problem would worsen. Another

potential problem here is that successively reusing the yeast does

increment the generation count, and many of the yeasts we use, Wyeast

American Ale for example, are known to mutate rapidly with succesive

generations.

  After a few tries at the "saving the trub" method with various

results, I went out and bought the Zymurgy special issue on yeast.

Most of what follows is my experience using the information from

that volume. If you decide to try what I've tried, I highly

reccomend it's purchase.

  My local BrewShop, Fermentation Frenzy in Los Altos, Ca, carries

assorted yeast cultures on agar slants.  These slants may be used in

two ways.  One is to wash all the yeast from the slant into a small

(500ml) starter, and when it is just past high kraeusen, pitch it into

you cooled wort.  This will net you a small savings over Wyeast, as

the slants are $2.50 each.  The most economical method is to use an

innoculation loop (a small wire at the end of a stick) that has been

flame sanitized to pick up a minute portion of the yeast from the

slant, and rinse it (yeast) off into a very small (50-100ml) starter.

When this is at high krauesen, pitch this starter into a 500ml

starter, and use as above.  I now perform one more step and pitch

this 500ml starter into a 1l starter and pitch that into my wort after

high krauesen. I have found that each "step" takes one to two days.

This method has the additional benefit of keeping the master culture

at the same generation.  For my starter vessels, I use 500ml and

1000ml ehrlemeyer flasks, with matching stoppers and fermentation

locks.

  I home can wort for use as starters and for priming my beer.  I

purchased a case of Ball 1 pint canning jars ($7.50), filled them with

highly hopped 1.040 extract based wort, attached the lids loosely, and

set them in a boiling water bath for about 30 minutes.  If you have a

large enough pressure cooker, that's better than the boiling water

bath, but resist the temptation to "speed cool" the cooker or remove

the pressure lock as it will cause the jars of wort to come to a boil

again and spew their contents into the pressure cooker. As the jars

cool, the lids suck down and seal the jars tightly.  It is a good idea

to let the wort cool and trub settle before pouring it into the

canning jars, otherwise, you will loose several ounces of wort when

you use them. The wort does come to a second boil in the boiling water

bath, so don't worry about infection.  Quality control is as easy as

making sure the lids are difficult to remove when using the canned

wort.  This may sound like a lot of work, but it sure beats boiling up

small starters when you need them, and is easier than reserving gyle

from each batch.

  While attending the Brewers Luncheon at Gordon Biersch in Palo Alto

(thanks for the info gak!) the head brewer, Mike Ferguson, was

generous enough to trade me a liter of yeast straight from the

secondary fermenter for a few of my best brews! I decided at this time

that I needed to try making my own slants to preserve yeast that I

collected from other sources such as breweries or purchased Wyeast

packets.

  Sterile slants can be purchased through the brewshop for $1.50, and

saving the acquired yeast can be as easy as using your innoculation

loop to streak a tiny (read invisible) portion of yeast onto the

surface of the slant.  Store this at room temperature for a few days,

*LOOSELY CAPPED*.  Soon you will see a bit of milky white growth on

the slant.  It can then be used as described in the previous

paragraph, and stored in the refridgerator for up to 6 months.  BE

WARNED:  It is active, and if the cap is screwed on all the way it CAN

explode!!

  At this point, after collecting a number of empty slant bottles, I

decided to try making my own slants and plates for yeast culturing.

Plates are nice because you can grow a larger culture and check for

discoloration (infection).  They are not a good choice for long term

storage of yeast, as they are not really sealed, and will eventually

become infected.  I purchased a assortment of bottles, a couple of

petri dishes and a bottle of powdered agar from our local chemist's

supply, LabPro in Sunnyvale, Ca.  The agar was quite expensive, $24.50

for 100g.  This agar does not contain any nutrients or sugars to feed

the yeast.  It can be compared to gelatin, as it's purpose is to set

wort into a semi solid mass for culutring yeast.  I place a rounded

tablespoon of agar into 1 cup of boiling wort.  This is then poured

into the slant bottles, which are then run through a process similar

to home canning.  Before they cool, they are set on an angle so when

the agar hardens, it forms an elliptical surface larger than the

diameter of the slant bottle itself.  Be careful when choosing bottles

for slants, avoid soft plastic seal inserts as they will melt in the

pressure cooker/boiling water bath.  The wort/agar mixture is also

poured into the sanitized petri dishes and allowed to harden.  Set

these aside for a week, and re-pour any that show *any* signs of

growth.  (Note: I occasionally ignore the last safety tip, and haven't

been caught by it yet...)  You can also preserve unused wort/agar by

canning in a larger jar.

  The next step I suppose, is to get a microscope, and learn all about

what I am looking at through it. We'll see...

 Hope this answers some questions,

  Drew

Andrew Lynch, Kubota Pacific Computer, Santa Clara, Ca. atl@kpc.com

Movin' to Montana Soon, Gonna be a Saccharomyces tycoon....

------------------------------


Re; Sanitizer

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1993 14:47:56 EST

From: Jay Hersh <hersh@expo.lcs.mit.edu>

Subject: Re; Sanitizer

> Here is the sequel to my experiments:

>

> Two test tubes with 1 oz to 1 gal idophor, lids screwed on tight..

is this right, 1 oz to 1 gal.?? That is 10 times the amount recommended

for usage. If this is indeed correct does this test really tell us anything

since the concentrations are an order of magnitude above what people

normally use??

hoping that was a typo....

 JaH

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hopfen und Malz, Gott erhalts

------------------------------


fruit beers/secondaries for lagers/trub/alcohol/bottle oxidation

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 93 14:50 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: fruit beers/secondaries for lagers/trub/alcohol/bottle oxidation

Lee writes:

>I brewed a strawberry Ale this summer.  What I learned is add fruit to the

> secondary, like dry hopping, or all the aromatic properties will be lost out

> the air lock during active fermentation.  Lightly hop the brew or the subtle

I agree 100%.

>fruit flavor will be over powered.  If the fruit has pectin in it add pectic

>enzyme  or the beer will never clear, it breaks down the pectin.  Remember that

I did not use pectinase and the beer cleared wonderfully.  I did not, however,

boil the fruit to sanitize (this will definately set the pectins), rather

I froze it and then blanched it in 212F water.

***************

Steve writes:

>I'm an extract brewer with a single stage fermentation setup.  Is there

>any way to make a lager without a secondary fermenter.  I will be moving

You can, but the long ferment on the trub and dead yeast is why you need

a secondary (if you did an ale that took 8 weeks to ferment out a secondary

would be recommended), not that fact that it's a lager.  You can go ahead

and do it in just a primary, but the resulting beer *may* have yeasty and

sulfury flavors.  I'd go with the steam until you get a secondary.

**************

Carlo writes:

>Well you can say I learned my lesson and will from now on always let the

>trub settle and rack the beer off the trub before pitching.

I've done similar tests and for ales, I don't really worry about the trub,

use the blowoff method (do you?) and my single-stage ales have beer turning

out quite well.  I have do say that I have many data points contrary to

yours.  Maybe the blowoff is the difference?

*************

Sheila writes:

>  My questions:  When using partial mash method (following instructions from

>a recipe for holding grains at specific temps for specified lengths of time,

>then adding the resulting liquid to more water containing extract or DME),

>is the temperature/time relationship the determinant factor in alcohol content

>of the finished beer?  Some people tell me my beer seems to have higher alcohol

>than they're used to (this would be commercial American or Canadian brews).  I

Yes.  Lower mash temperatures, i.e. around 148F, will give you a more

fermentable wort and thus the final result will be a higher alcohol beer.

>have never tried to calculate the alcohol content, but I would imagine that with

>mashing variations, an accurate estimate might be way off.  What are the rules

>of thumb for starch conversion vs. temperature?

Low temps (~148F) will give you a more fermentable wort and higher mash

temps (~158F) will give you a less fermentable wort (higher FG, lower

alcohol).

>  I suppose the "trub" reference is a different factor in alcohol?  And how

>does a blow-off tube affect alcohol?

Fermenting on trub reportedly increases fusel (higher) alcohol production.

These higher alcohols can indeed have more "alcohol flavor" which may give

the impression of a stronger drink.  Some higher alcohols give your beer

a "solventlike" flavor/aroma, like paint thinner or model airplane glue.

The majority of the alcohol in your beer is ethanol and this can be calculated

from your specific gravity.  It's not difficult, thanks to an HBD post by Tom

Kuhn in August of 1989:

>  OK, for all of you who _hate_ algebra but _can_ plug numbers into a

>formula (or formulas into a program), here is the relationship between

>initial specific gravity (SG1) and the temperature at which it was

>measured (T1), final specific gravity (SG2) and the temperature at which

>it was measured (T2), and percent alcohol by volume (A), corrected to

>60 F.  (All temperatures are F.):

>

>

>     [0.0190 x (T1 - T2)] + [131.25 x (SG1 - SG2)] = A

>

>

>Based on Papazian, p. 47:

>

>             (SG1 - SG2) x 105 = % Alcohol by weight

>

>             (% Alcohol by weight) x 1.25 = % Alcohol by volume

>

>

>   and on Doug Roberts (HBD #236)

>

>             (T x 1.449E-4 - 0.009) + SG(uncorrected) = SG(corrected)

*************************

Peter writes:

>I've been wondering about beer oxidising when in the bottle, due to

>excessive splashing in the syphoning/bottling process.  Given that yeast are

>present in the bottle also (or else bottle conditioning wouldn't happen),

>why don't they simply use any introduced oxygen to multiply before

>fermenting the priming sugar?

Because the yeast multiply and respire due to the concentrations of

oxygen *AND YEAST* in the "wort" not just oxygen.  When you introduce

yeast into your oxygenated wort, they first respire *not* until they

run out of oxygen, but rather until they reach a certain concentration.

They then shift into the fermentation phase and the rest of the oxygen

in the wort (if there's any left) is scrubbed out by the CO2 produced.

At cellar or fridge temperatures, the oxidation takes some time, but

I would suspect that the yeast aren't interested in it at bottling

time, only in the sugar.

Al.

------------------------------


Re: Extract Information

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 93 15:26

From: CCASTELL.UNIX11@mailsrv2.eldec.com (CCASTELL)

Subject: Re: Extract Information

Al Korzonas writes:

> Pick up the Zymurgy special issue on Extract Brewing.  It has a listing

> of virtually every extract brand that was available at the time (1986?).

That's correct, it's the 1986 Special Issue (vol. 9, no. 4).  The article

is "AHA Definitive Guide - The Lowdown on Malt Extracts" by Jill Singleton.

I happen to have it at my desk because I've been thinking about writing to

someone about getting updated information (e.g., AHA, HBD).  The article

says "This Guide will be updated periodically."  (I wonder what the

period is.)  It's the best information I've seen, but it is incomplete.

The table includes information such as Dry or Syrup, Package Size,

Yeast Included?, Hop Flavored?, Barley Type, BU per can, BU per pound,

and Ingredients.  Quite a lot of the bittering information is left

blank, as is a good deal of the Barley Type and Ingredients.  Other

information that would be useful might be hops type (not given in

the ingredients), more detail concerning Barley Type and Ingredients,

and possibly some sort of color expectations.

I think Dan `Stout' Wiesen is asking for more complete information.

(I'd send some to him, but unfortunately I don't have any.  I've

looked around Compu$erve a little, but haven't found anything there,

either.)  Hopefully, there is information that can be sent to Dan.

I look forward to seeing an updated report.

Charles Castellow       ccastell@eldec.om

------------------------------


O2'ing your wort

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1993 15:46:43 -0800

From: sherman@qualcomm.com (Sherman Gregory)

Subject: O2'ing your wort

As I promised, I checked with the brewmaster at my local hang-out

(Callahan's) about what type of oxygen he uses to oxygenate his wort.  He

confirmed that oxygen is often sold with a fungicide in it.  He said that

most companies also have it available without the fungicide.  So, you just

have to make sure when you order it, that you specify the non-fungicide

version.

------------------------------


Austin, TX Brewpubs

Date: 25 Feb 1993 21:49:32 -0600 (CST)

From: BLAST@sn01.sncc.lsu.edu

Subject: Austin, TX Brewpubs

I have to make a trip to Austin, TX next week...

Anyone got the latest on brewpubs there?

Thanks,

Bruce Ray

Deep C Software

------------------------------


NOTE 02/26/93 08:04:18

Date: 26 Feb 1993 08:04:08 GMT

From: ceco!CWEMAIL!WAUTS@uunet.UU.NET

Subject: NOTE 02/26/93 08:04:18

To: HBD

From: Tom Stolfi(wauts@cwemail.ceco.com)

Subject: AHA Sanctioned Competition

The BIDAL SOCIETY OF KENOSHA is holding their 7th Annual Regional Homebrew

Competition April 23 & 24, 1993.  This competition is open to all

homebrewers and awards will be presented in all categories.  Last year over

200 entries were judged.  All homebrews will be evaluated by BJCP and

experienced judges(please contact if you are interested in judging).  This

competition is part of the 1993 MIDWEST BREWER OF THE YEAR series.  All

entries must be received by April 16, 1993. For further information email

your request to WAUTS@CWEMAIL.CECO.COM

Tom

------------------------------


Decoction

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 93 09:15 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Decoction

 >From: cook@uars.DNET.NASA.GOV (Chris Cook)

 >A few weeks ago I asked what Noonan meant in his reference to removing

 "...the thickest third..." of the mash.  There were several answers posted,

 but they reinforced my impression that people were interpreting Noonan's

 directions in different ways.

 I hate to sound pompous but Noonan's book is replete with such incongruities.

 In many cases he seems to be simply repeating information someone else gave

 him and he does not have the background to sort out the contradictions.  In

 others, he doesn't seem to be able to put himself into the readers shoes and

 try to understand what he is saying.  I would also like to point out that his

 book is loaded with useful facts and details and they are only spoiled by not

 knowing which ones to believe.

 Having said that, here is the procedure I have developed to incorporate

 decoction into my Easymash process.

 I bring the mash to the low end of saccharification temp using the gas flame.

 I them scoop several quarts of mash  and heat this to boiling in a separate

 kettle.  I just dip in and take what I get.   I add this to the mash and

 after through mixing I do it again.  I find that I can do this three times

 during an hour mash and keep the temp within the proper range.  The fouth

 time takes me toward mashout and I then turn the fire back on to complete it.

 This provides about a 60% decoction.  I make no claims for the results aside

 from giving me something to do while mashing as I ponder all the virtures

 Noonan claims for decoction.

 js

------------------------------


Re: Celis White recipe

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 93 9:34:08 CST

From: markz@hangdog.sps.mot.com (Mark Zaleski)

Subject: Re: Celis White recipe

>aderr@BBN.COM Requested a recipe for Celis White

I do not know of any recipes that emulate that exact beer, but

I do know that anyone who wants the Celis White yeast can get

it through Paul Farnsworth at U of TX, San Antonio.  He runs a small

yeast culturing operation on the side.  I don't have the address

handy, but can post at a later date.

  -Mark Zaleski   markz@hangdog.sps.mot.com

                  Motorola, Austin, TX

P.S.  The Celis "Bock" that you saw on the shelves is not a Bock at all,

but a product made to compete with Shiner Bock (blech!) down here in TX.

------------------------------


Review of a new RIMS system - Part 1

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 93 09:54:08 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Review of a new RIMS system - Part 1

The following review will appear in a future issue of Zymurgy. I have

posted it on HBD to get pre-publication comments.

DISCLAIMER> I am not involved financially or otherwise with the company

producing this product. BRD, a company for whom I consult, does not do

systems less than 7 bbls. They are not involved, nor have any interest in,

the product discussed below. Finally, I am also doing consulting work for

Crosby and Baker, and they too will not be involved with the system reviewed

below.

                A  New  RIMS  System

RIMS stands for recirculating infusion mashing system. The fundamental ideas

were developed by Rodney Morris, a noted brewer and microbiologist. His

overall concept, described in several publications, is truly remarkable.

First of all, his concept addressed in a direct way many problems found

in conventional homebrew mashing systems such chronic low yields, poor

grain mixing, and turbid runoffs. Moreover, his system addressed these

problems in a highly original way. The reviewer is not aware of anyone,

commercial or amateur, who consided a continuously circulating mash during

the saccharification rest. That, of course, is the heart of Rodney's

concept.

Shortly after the early articles on RIMS appeared, many people started to

build versions in the 1/2 to 1 barrel range, volumes which are finding

wide spread favor by equipment oriented homebrewers. The reviewer did not

get the opportunity to taste beer made by all of these systems, but the ones

tasted were very disappointing. Rodney's prototype did make good beer, but it

was much smaller. It hard to characterize the various defects encountered,

but the overall malt character of each was less than ideal, and often had

an outfront grain astringent tones. Also in each case the brewers told me that

they got better results with their stove top mashing systems. Micah Millspaw,

a noted homebrewer, told me that he had given up on the idea of a large RIMS

system, and that he could do better going in different directions. Micah's

system, by the way, is quite impressive, but is based on a no circulation

philosphy, and therefore is quite different from the one discussed in this

review.

George Fix

------------------------------


Review of a new RIMS system - Part 2

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 93 09:55:11 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Review of a new RIMS system - Part 2

It was in this context that I met Conrad Keys of Houston, Texas. At the

1991 Dixie Cup he informed me that he had designed a new and improved

RIMS system. I was very skeptical, and tried to talk him out of it. The

main reason for doing this review is to "eat corn" in public, for he was

able to do what I thought was impossible. This became clear on Saturday,

August 29, 1992. On that date both Rodney and I were invited to Houston

to witness a full 1/2 bbl. brew on his new system. We were simply astonished.

The first thing noted was the controllers on the system. Electronics is one

of Conrad's strong suits, particularly in dealing with the nonlinear effects

inherent in the circuits in these types of controllers. The result is a totally

automated system, with which the brewer can exert precise control. The mash was

started at 125F, and this was held for 30 mins. This was followed by a

transition to 154F at the classic monotone rate of 1F per min. The circulation

was started at this point, and much to my surprise, not only was there no

frothing or foaming, there were even no air bubbles present. Later analysis

of the finished beer indicated that there was no hot side aeration during the

recirculation. In fact, the beer was exceptionally smooth with a mellow malt

flavor. Rodney brought a refractometer so the increase in SG was monitored

throughout the duration of the mash. It had peaked by 10 mins. into the rest

at 154F, and conversion as determined by the iodine test was obtained after

15-20 mins. The ultimate yield was a whopping 72%, or 34.5 pts./lb./gal.

The system was designed so that at the end of the mash the hot sparge water

is pumped through the entire system ahead of the mash tun creating a self

cleaning effect. This was followed by a brilliantly clear runoff. The clarity

of runoffs has always been a strong point of all the RIMS built. At the end of

the day Rodney told me before leaving that this indeed was the best realization

of his ideas.

I have not had the opportunity to talk with Conrad about prices and related

issues. Apparently, he wants to produce a variety of different variations

of his basic design, including 1/2, 1, and 2 barrel systems, each likely

being in a different price range. All of these systems will be fabricated

from 304 stainless. The workmanship on the current prototype is first rate.

The system itself has a highly attractive and professional appearance.

Interested readers should contact Conrad at 713-666-9735.

George Fix

------------------------------


Tried a few commercial brews,Seeking Alt recipe and local beer judge

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 93 07:54:19 -0800

From: sag5004@yak.ca.boeing.com (Ford Prefect)

Subject: Tried a few commercial brews,Seeking Alt recipe and local beer judge

Sorry about stuffing this all into one post, Okay maybe not that sorry :-)

1) Tried a few commercial brews:

   a) Emerald City Ale, from Emerald City Brewing Company and it says

      "where it rains it pours" on the bottle.  I found it to be a somewhat

      lifeless boring beer (glad I only bought 1 bottle :-).  I think the

      snappy saying should be "where it rains its poor"

   b) Altbairisch Dunkel from Ayinger.  I liked this one.  Is this a good

      commercial example of an Alt?  If not where can I find one?

2) I am looking for an Alt recipe.  All grain is prefered but not necessary.

   Is it a lager/or / ale?  I looked in my copy of winners circle last

   night and saw that some people lagered and some didn't.  The type of

   yeast didn't provide me a clue either.  Mark me down as confused.

   Also I wouldnt mind a recipe for your favorite red/amber ale that

   isnt too strong.  I need to brew up a storm for my wedding reception

   (end of July) and it was suggested that I might want to bring beer

   for 200 or so.  You can probably guess what I am doing with my

   weeekends for awhile :-)

3) I really want to become a better judge of beer and would like to get

   some inputs from some local (in and about Seattle) judges.  I have a

   "brown ale" that is very dark, and I am pretty sure it is not to

   style and am wondering what I have (other than a beer that seems to

   be evaporating with at alarming rate).  I was hoping somebody could

   come over have a taste and let me know what it is that I have and

   how to converge more closly with the desired style.

Thanks for your time and patience.

stuart galt                          boeing computer services

sag5004@yak.boeing.com               bellvue washington

(206) 865-3764                       or home (206) 361-0190

#include <standard/disclaim.h>

I don't know what they say, they don't know what I say...

------------------------------


kegs and mass consumption

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1993 08:43:20 -0800 (PST)

From: Mike Deliman <miked@wrs.com>

Subject: kegs and mass consumption

Hello Brewers and Consumers,

Having aquired 1 1/2BBL keg and 1 1/4BBL (pony) keg, I'm about ready to take

the mass production/consumption plunge. (Well, actualy, I'd like to produce a

pony keg of pale before May, when NASCAR hits sears point!)

Could someone out there who has managed to collect the kegging info please

send me a copy?! (the whole shootin' match, please! :-)

Thanks much,

     -mike

P.S. I may be all grain, but I'm still lazy as the dickens, and do it just

for fun. If I'd have learned from an extractor, I would be brewing that way.

The crux of the issue is, as gak sez, to "have fun"!

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Mike Deliman, 800-USA-4WRS, FAX 510-814-2010, WRS 2400bd BBS: 510-814-2165

        email:  miked@wrs.com (inet)  or [sun,uunet]!wrs!miked (uunet)

   Snail Mail:  Wind River Systems, 1010 Atlantic Ave, Alameda CA 94501 USA

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Irish "Red" Ales

Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 18:36:20 PST

From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

Subject: Irish "Red" Ales

As a further note on this style, the February issue of "What's

Brewing," the newspaper of CAMRA, contains an article by Michael

Jackson about the state of brewing in Ireland.  Here are a few notes

from the article that relate to the discussion:

On Irish Ales:  All ale producers in Ireland are owned by Guinness.

These include Cherry's (in Waterford), Smithwick's (in Kilkenny), and

Macardle's (in Dundalk).  Jackson describes them as all using some

roasted barley, which would tend towards giving them all a common

color.  He says "Of the Irish ales that I have tasted over the years,

most have tended toward a buttery, malty sweetness, tather than a hoppy

dryness.  If we accept that hops were first used in Bohemia or Bavaria,

and came via Northern France and Flanders to Britain, it is reasonable

to assume that their use arrived rather late in Ireland."

On George Killian Lett's Red Ale, he notes that he has tasted the

varieties brewed under license in France and Colorado.  "The Lett's

brewery had a Ruby Ale before it closed in the 1950s, so I cannot

wholly accept the popular story that the Irish brewers were inspired by

the success in the 1960s of Younger's Tartan."

On Irish Red Ales in general:  "Why Irish ales tend towards a reddish

colour, I am not sure.  Malting techniques do vary from one country to

another, and that may have had something to do with it in the past."

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------


Madonna survey

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 93 15:25:47 EST

From: Hans Vahlenkamp <hvahlenk@lorax.trenton.edu>

Subject: Madonna survey

Mike Merriam writes in HBDigest #1085

> ... Do you think Madonna is a jerk? ...

I totally disagree with his implied insult to Madonna.  She may be different

from most people, but you cannot deny that she is very cool and very

interesting.  IMHO the HBDigest is no place for such a criticism.  Mike,

consider yourself flamed ;^)

P.S. Don't take this too seriously...

Hans Vahlenkamp

Trenton State College

hvahlenk@trenton.edu

------------------------------


unfermentables/email size/ferment temps

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 93 13:07 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: unfermentables/email size/ferment temps

Chris writes:

>Hi, I was wondering what grains have significant amounts of

>unfermentables etc.... i.e.

>I like my beers to have a heavy malty taste.. just like when you put

>loads of 'malted milk' in your milkshake... I beleive that is a barley

>malt.

It sure is.  I suggest Laaglander Light Dried Malt extract for the most

unfermentables available to homebrewers in an extract.  Crystal malts

have quite a bit of unfermentables also.

>Question remains what type of unfermentables are we talking about here?

Complex carbohydrates.  The carbohydrates in our worts range from the

simplest (glucose) to the most complex (starch).  Of course we would like

to minimize the amount of unconverted starch in our worts.  These

carbohydrates are a continuum of complexity, glucose, fructose, sucrose,

maltose, maltotriose... etc.  The simplest carbohydrates are fermentable

by virtually all strains of yeast.  As the complexity of the carbohydrates

increases, less and less strains are able to ferment them (that's why

some strains of yeast are said to be more attenuative -- they are able to

ferment the more complex types of carbohydrates, the ones some less

attenuative strains cannot).  Some carbohydrates are not fermentable by

any beer yeast, for example lactose.  Lactose is thus used by some

brewers to make sweet stouts.  [I'm no biologist, but I'll bet money that

Lactobacillus *is* able to ferment lactose, by the way.]

I'm not sure where melanoidins fit into this puzzle -- I'm sure they are

responsible at least in part for malty flavors (consider the difference

in flavor between sucrose and caramel made from sucrose).  Perhaps others

who know can take over here and explain?

********************

Jack writes:

>Figured out how to beat the system.  I posted 7 articles yesterday and all

>got acknowledged except the two that were 40 lines long.  The longest one

>acknowledged was 33 lines.  Here is the "long" one in two parts...

I don't think it's the length in lines, rather the size in bytes.  I know

that the HBD rejects any post longer than 8K.  I also know that if I post

a long and a short post around the same time, the short one always gets in

faster than the long.  I think the routing algoritms in the machines that

route from my machine to the HBD server have a tendency to delay longer

posts (perhaps till the evening when phone rates are lower?).  Finally, you

may have restrictions on mail length on your own machine -- ask your

administrator.

***********************

Joe writes:

>Nick asks

>>    with all this talk about the perfect fermenter

>>        design I was wondering if somebody could comment at

>>        what point does the heat buildup become high enough

>>        to affect the ferment? Also are the Wyeast preferred

>>        temps for the ferment or ambient? So does a

>>        40-50litre ferment create enough heat to alter an

>>        ale ferment? How about lagers?

>

>well Nick, I would guess that you would like to keep

>the primary ferment temp as close to the recommended temps

>as possible (65F for ales, 55F for lager).  I would say that

>depending on the flavour profile you want anything more than

>+/- 10F is too much.  Smaller batches, from my limited playing

I agree with everything Joe wrote, except the recommended temperatures.

In my opinion, the recommended fermentation temperatures for ales are

between 60F and 75F (but you can go a little higher if your yeast

is very neutral, i.e. does not make too many esters/higher alcohols/

phenolics).  For lagers, depending on the yeast, the recommended

fermentation temperatures are between 40F and 55F.  Some will ferment

a bit lower, but I wouldn't push it too much.

Get to know your yeast.  I stick to relatively few yeasts that I've

gotten to know over the years and I can tell when things are going

well or when the yeast is not happy.  Occasionally, I add another

yeast to my stable and at first everything it does is a mystery.

I've had some trouble getting a handle on Wyeast Belgian Ale, I think

I'll stick to 1 gallon batches till I figure these beasts out.

Al.

Al Korzonas

Palos Hills (near Chicago), Illinois, USA

------------------------------


Refractometers and Hydrometers

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1993 13:52:21 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: Refractometers and Hydrometers

Marc de Jonge writes:

> I did a simple experiment once with a bit of unfermented wort,

> adding (96%) alcohol volumes to see the effect on measured

> density:

> F.G.= density of wort without the alcohol.

> Numbers in the table are the measured values (with a hydrometer)

> after adding the percentage of alcohol given in the columns

> (All values +/- my accuracy; your mileage had better vary.... )

>

>       %AbV->

> F.G. |     1     2     4     6     8

> - ------------------------------------

> 1020 |  1019  1018  1014  1011  1009

> 1030 |  1029  1028  1025  1021  1017

> 1040 |  1038  1036  1032  1029  1026

>

So if I measure the FG with a hydrometer to be 1.018, how do I know if it's

really 1.030 with 8% or 1.020 with 2%?

Or does this matter?

How, then, do I calculate what the % alcohol of my beer really is?

 Peter

------------------------------


Laaglander high FG/poetry

Date:      Friday, 26 Feb 1993 17:52:33 EST

From: "Sweet, Timothy" <TSWEET%WVNVM.BITNET@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU>

Subject:   Laaglander high FG/poetry

1. I'm new to the list and to home brewing and have seen a couple of mentions

of the fact that Laaglander DME does not ferment as completely as some others.

So I have a question about this: In my current batch I was using the specs.

from Papazian's chart for "special red bitter"--6 lb. amber DME (I used Laag-ed

lander) and 1/8 lb. roasted unmalted barley (which I brought to a boil and

then strained out).  The OG was 1050; fermentation seems to have stopped and

the FG is 1030.  This seems too high.  has something gone wrong--incomplete

fermentation--or would this be a reasonable FG?  (Sorry--forgot to note that

I am brewing 5 gal.)  The beer seems a bit too sweet for my taste.

2. I sometimes quote the lines from Housman ("malt does more than Milton can"

etc.) but I know them not from "The Welsh Marches" but from "Terence This Is

Stupid Stuff" (from the collection A SHROPSHIRE LAD)--and for this reason I

quote tham with a certain self-conscious irony.  The next lines of the poem

read:

   Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink

   For fellows whom it hurts to think:

   Look into the pewter pot

   To see the world as the world's not.

Read the whole poem, rather than the snippet from the Oxford book of quotations

and you wil get a new view of the famous lines.

------------------------------


BOOK REVIEW & A PROPOSAL

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1993 16:45:25 -0800 (PST)

From: James Thompson <sirjames@u.washington.edu>

Subject: BOOK REVIEW & A PROPOSAL

Since there are often requests for information about locations of

brewpubs and microbreweries in HBD, I thought I would pass on some

information in the form of a book review, and a proposal.

BOOK REVIEW

Johnson, Steve.  ON TAP:  The Guide to U.S. Brewpubs.  Clemson, SC:

WBR Publications.  paperback, 314 pp.  $15.95.

I just received my copy of this publication yesterday.  As it

purports to be in the subtitle, it is a complete directory of U.S.

brewpubs, "including brewery restaurants and microbrewery taprooms

and tasting rooms," so the definition of "brewpub" has been

extended slightly.  I would agree with Mr. Johnson, however, that

his extension is the most useful for this sort of directory.  (He

is even polite enough to provide an appendix of establishments,

listed by state, that were not included because they did not fit

his admittedly liberal definition of "brewpub."

The entries are listed by state, with each establishment listed in

alphabetical order for each state.  Every state's section starts

with a map to provide a general orientation of where they are.

Each entry distinguishes between brewpub and microbrewery, provides

complete address, phone number, hours, styles (and names!) of the

beers brewed/sold, types of food, entertainment, or special events,

whether they have their own parking, smoking policy -- and just

about anything else he could find out.  For its directory listings

alone this book is a treasure trove.  But he also provides

interesting introductory material about the recent history of

microbreweries in this country (short!), the brewing process, and

a glossary of beer-related terminology.  It is also illustrated

throughout with cartoons, microbrew beer labels, and beer quotes.

As regards the Washington section, I am sorry to relate that you

can cross out page 283, for the Noggins Westlake Brewpub is no

more. (Heavy sigh!)

ON TAP is priced at $15.95 and is available from WBR Publications,

PO Box 71, Clemson, SC  29633.  Don't be silly, of course I have no

monetary connection with WBR Publications!

PROPOSAL

I would strongly urge anyone who might be traveling the country to

get a copy of this book.  I'll keep my copy handy and when I see

the occasional request for such info, I'll e-mail said party with

relevant data and remind them of the existence of this book.

However, my proposal is this:  if you will e-mail me the authors

names, titles, publishers, and price of books that are guides to

your local (state or city), I will compile them and share it with

this forum.  For example, we have a book for Seattle entitled

SEATTLE BREWS which is a complete guide to the pubs, micros, and

taverns of this great beer city.  Whaddya say?

Jim Thompson/Seattle WA

sirjames@carson.u.washington.edu

Disclaimer:  Our opinions are only our own, aren't they my

Precious?

     Five things these Chestertonian youths revere:

     Beef, noise, the Church, vulgarity and beer.

               -- Anonymous

------------------------------


Korean malt extract (I kid you not)

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 93 08:05:47 EST

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: Korean malt extract (I kid you not)

I saw something new and different yesterday.

I was browsing through a local Oriental food store.  First I located

some semi-polished unenriched rice for a sake project.  Above that

I saw some wheat starch.  Then some potato starch.  Then some mung

bean starch.  "Hmm," I says to myself, "This might be fun to try in a

beer one of these days."

Then, of course, right next to it I see the "malt powder" and several

other things (wheat & rice flour, etc.) with labels on them saying

"It is illegal to make wine at home for sale."

The "malt powder" I saw was Korean and came in reasonably priced

bags of about 1 lb.

Now, of COURSE I am not even beginning to suggest that this stuff

might be of any particular quality or use in brewing beer, but

I suppose I will have to at least look into it!  More than anything

else I just think it's amusing ....

================O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis================

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1993 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------


dry-hopping vs. hop nose

Date: Sat, 27 Feb 93 07:43:00 -0500

From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com (Roy Rudebusch)

Subject: dry-hopping vs. hop nose

From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com

DH:>that the way to

DH:>retain good hop aroma is to dry hop in a *sealed* secondary, so the goodies

DH:>aren't lost thru the air lock.  Is that safe in plastic/glass?

Hop nose is achieved by boiling pellet hops for two min. and

loose hops for 5 min.

Dry-hopping seems to contribute mostly to palate flavor.

The best way to achieve maximum hop nose would be to utilize a

"hop cage". Run hot wort through these hops on the way to

a counterflow chiller. This would be "distillation" of the volatile hop

compounds.

Here is Pale Ale I just brewed:

11 Gal 1060

14# U.S. 2-row

 4# Munich, Ireks

 4# CaraVienne

 2# Aromatic

30 HBUs Centennial

finished with 1 1/2 oz Centennial loose hops (boiled 5 min.)

Chilled with immersion chiller

W-1028 repitch.

OBTW, I have also discovered that filtering tends to *improve* the hop

flavor and hop nose of a beer. The beer flavors are cleaned up thus

allowing the hop goodness to shine through.

Brew on.

 * OLX 2.2 * If your mind goes blank, remember to turn off the sound.

------------------------------


Laser Labels Adhesive

Date: 27 Feb 93 10:11:48 EST

From: Jim Manda <70322.2634@compuserve.com>

Subject: Laser Labels Adhesive

To: >INTERNET:homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com


Laser Labels Adhesive

Date:  26 Feb 92

From: 70322.2634@COMPUSERVE.COM (Jim Manda)

Subject: Laser Labels Adhesive

Sandy writes:

>Last HBD someone asked how to apply the labels they make on the laser

>printer. Stolen directly from an old HBD-- MILK!!!!! I have used this

>technique. I used skim milk, dipped the label in and smoothed out the

>bubbles. It held extremely well. Non-toxic too!

Great idea, Sandy.  Tried it myself on some regular old computer paper.  I

used __industrial__ strength 1 percent milk.  Works like a champ.  Thanks

for the tip.

 -Jim

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1087, 03/01/93

*************************************

-------


Please sign me up

Date:         Sat, 27 Feb 93 14:29:08 EDT

From: Ted WHittemore <YX804C@gwuvm.gwu.edu>

Subject:      Please sign me up

if this is a digest mailing list of homrebrew information, please sign me up, m

y email address is : yx804C@gwuvm.gwu.edu (internet) and yx804c@gwuvm (bitnet)

 thanks, Ted

------------------------------


Phoenix sites/sights

Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1993 21:20 EST

From: Darryl Davidson <D_DAVIDSON@uvmvax.uvm.edu>

Subject: Phoenix sites/sights

I'm headed for Phoenix the weekend of March 5-6-7 and would appreciate the

'usual' advice, but MORE IMPORTANTLY, I want to track down Celis White

and try it while I'm there.  As a sort of 'just in case' scenario, I'd

even be willing to race somewhere during my layover in Dallas-Ft Worth if

it meant it.  Reply directly here, and thanks in advance.  As for the

grumbling anti-advice lobby: go ahead and flame me... 'sworth it!

- --Darryl     d_davidson@uvmvax.uvm.edu

------------------------------


Re: Refractometers and Hydrometers

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 10:51:51 +0100

From: dejonge@geof.ruu.nl (Marc de Jonge)

Subject: Re: Refractometers and Hydrometers

In HBD 1087 Peter Maxwell asks:

> So if I measure the FG with a hydrometer to be 1.018, how do I know if it's

>  really 1.030 with 8% or 1.020 with 2%?

You don't know (from F.G. alone)

> Or does this matter?

The two mentioned cases will taste very differently, so in that sense

it matters.

>  How, then, do I calculate what the % alcohol of my beer really is?

>From the difference between O.G and F.G., for example with one of

the formulas cited by Al Korz in HBD 1087.

Just to make things clear: The table is a definite 'don't worry' item

if you use normal methods for measuring the density. It is intended

for refractometers, which determine the extract concentration

not the gravity.

I only use the real extract value, corrected for alcohol, to get

some insight in the yeast and mash characteristics across

very different batches

Marc de Jonge

------------------------------


Yeast Technology

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 7:57:38 CST

From: raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com (Glenn Raudins)

Subject: Yeast Technology

  A little while back, I read review in the HBD about the book: Yeast

  Technology.  I would like some more opinions on whether this book is worth

  the money from a brewing point of view or if there are better books that

  cover the brewing aspects of yeast.  I am looking for an in depth book

  that covers areas like autolysis (& the compounds formed.)  Any help

  would be appreciated.

Glenn Raudins

raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com

------------------------------


Pitching Idea

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1993 09:16:31 -0500 (EST)

From: "I'm a jelly doughnut.  I'm a jelly doughnut." <cygnus@unh.edu>

Subject: Pitching Idea

I was thinking...

pitch your ale yeast around 60 F... let it ferment at this temp for a

day or two to discourage bacteria growth and to let the yeast make

alcohol, the stuff that kills some bacteria... then jack the temp up

to 65 F to finish...

how valid is this statement?  I mean, it almost sounds like making a

steam beer etc. but I was just wondering...

 -chris

- --.

David (Chris) Mackensen -- dcm2@kepler.unh.edu  cygnus@unh.edu

"Hi, you don't know me, but I play one on T.V."

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Ranching

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 08:31 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Ranching

 >From: atl@kpc.com

 > I home can wort for use as starters and for priming my beer.  I

 purchased a case of Ball 1 pint canning jars ($7.50), filled them with

 highly hopped 1.040 extract based wort.....

 I'm with you up to this point but why not just eliminate this whole step by

 saving a pint of wort from the previous batch.  A further bonus (for

 all-grain brewers) is that the starter is more like your actual brews than

 one made with extract.

 > This may sound like a lot of work, but it sure beats boiling up

 small starters when you need them, and is easier than reserving gyle

 from each batch.

 Not sure what you mean by "gyle", I would call it bitter wort but anyway, how

 can your process possibly be simpler than setting aside a pint of wort before

 pitching?

 You did not mention what kind of air lock you are using on the flask but if

 you use a glass one, simply putting it on at the end of boiling will

 sterilize it and fill it with sterile water as the steam condenses.  Nothing

 could be simpler.

 > The agar was quite expensive, $24.50 for 100g.

 A suitable agar can be had from oriental food shops for far less.  It is sold

 in stick form and you need about 6 inches to a cup of wort.

 Nice article.  I don't want to start another snob thread but I put yeast

 culture right up there with all-grain as one of the more rewarding aspects of

 homebrewing.

 js

------------------------------


Sanitizer

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 08:32 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Sanitizer

 >From: Jay Hersh <hersh@expo.lcs.mit.edu>

 >is this right, 1 oz to 1 gal.?? That is 10 times the amount recommended

 for usage. If this is indeed correct does this test really tell us anything

 since the concentrations are an order of magnitude above what people

 normally use??

 >hoping that was a typo....

 No typo.  I also used bleach neat or at least 2:1 when I used it.  It is all

 relative and I find the long contact times discomforting.  For example,

 unless one uses 5 gallons of sanitizer in a 5 gallon keg, how can one ever be

 sure of a one minute contact time?  If used at higher concentrations, one can

 simply slosh a small amount around for a minute and get a more effective

 sanitization than doing the same with a small amount at the recommended

 concentration.

 As rinse water is not a problem around here, I don't mind more thorough

 rinsing and it is still far less than I had to do with bleach.

 js

------------------------------


Ginger beer problem

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 10:20:14 EST

From: Dave Whitman <rsndww@rohmhaas.com>

Subject: Ginger beer problem

To homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.co

X-Mailer: LeeMail 1.2.4

This is my first post to hbd, although I've been reading for a while now.  I've

been extract brewing for about 2 years.

I'm in the middle of a batch of ginger beer, using a recipe which is a

hodge-podge of Cat's Meow recipes and my own warped ideas.  What I'm shooting

for is something with a pronounced ginger flavor and aroma, good body, but a

very light color.  I think I'm going to hit all the goals except the ginger

flavor, which is a problem given that this is supposed to be a ginger beer.

Here's the fine print for a 5 gallon batch:

2   cans Munton & Fison extra light extract (for light color)

0.5 lb.  maltodextrin powder             (for body w/o color)

2   oz   Hallertauer leaf hop            (4.6% alpha)

3   oz   sliced ginger root        (peeled for lighter color)

4   each juice from fresh lemons

1   pkt  Whitbread ale yeast

The ginger and hops were boiled in the wort for 45 minutes, then lemon juice

was added along with my immersion chiller.  After an additional 10 minute boil,

the batch was chilled to 65F.  ph: 5.3 before lemon juice, 4.0 afterwards.

To my chagin, the resulting wort had very little ginger flavor.

1. Did I steam distill off all the good stuff by boiling the ginger too long?

2. Can I "dry ginger" the batch by adding shredded ginger to my secondary

   fermenter?  Any suggestions on how much to try?

Dave Whitman/rsndww@rohmhaas.com  "I had a homebrew, but I'm *still* worried."

------------------------------


Mashout

Date: 01 Mar 1993 11:29:51 -0400

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Mashout

 If we are going to go off on a discussion of mashout and whether

one should or should not, and the temperatures in the grain bed during the

sparge and so on, perhaps we should state the reason for a mashout at all.

I may be completely off track here, but the only reason I can see for a

mashout at enzyme-deactivating temperatures is _consistency_.  When brewing

a sweet ale, for example, you don't want to convert all your

polysaccharides down to glucose, so you kill off the enzymes before they

can completely chop them up.  You like the beer, you want to reproduce it

as closely as possible (especialy if you're a commercial brewer) so you

control the mash precisely, and then you deactivate the enzymes.  If, on

the other hand, you are a homebrewer trying to squeeze out an extra

extraction point or so in a "Swilling Beer" (please note this term refers

to an individual's standard recipe that keeps the fridge full, allowing

slightly longer interludes between experimental batches), you might just

let the enzymes play a little longer.

 Jack suggested that the mashout also increases the grain

bed temperature to allow for an easier sparge.  This may well be true, but

I suspect that this would be more important for commercial breweries.  A

friend and I compared the extraction rates for two brews, one sparged with

cold water, the other with hot.  The hot sparge was done very slowly (3 hrs

or so) while the cold sparge was fairly quick (1 hr).  The end result:  the

long sparge produced a much clearer wort, but the extraction rates were

virtually identical.  Unfortunately these rates were on the low side,

around 25-26, but at least the sparge can be ruled out as the cause of poor

extraction.  Prime suspects for low extraction rate are the malt itself

(canadian 2-row pale) and the crush (gotta get a MaltMill one of these

days).

 In summary:  If you have a brew you like and would like to brew

consistently, mashout (of course, you have to be consistent with the malt

and the mash protocol too).  If you want to squeeze out an extra 1/2 point of

extraction, and don't care about consistency, don't bother with mashout.  If

you want to avoid HSA during the sparge, chill the mash and use cold water.

 (Jack, you seem to get good results, would you mind trying a cold

sparge through the EM and let us know how it turns out?)

 ed

+----------------------------------------------+

| D is for Doppelbock, a strong german beer    |

| Three bottle of this, you'll be on your ear. |

+----------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


AHA Sanctioned Competition

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 09:57 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: AHA Sanctioned Competition

[I'd like to apologize for the lateness of this post.  I received the

information last thursday, but due to an important day-job deadline, I

could not post it till now.  Since there is limited time to request

additional information, I will email additional information directly.

Sorry.]

                        BREWER'S OF SOUTH SUBURBIA

                       (south-suburban Chicagoland)

                              AHA Sanctioned

                      Regional Homebrew Competition

                    Judging: Saturday, March 20, 1993

                    at Public Landing in Lockport, IL

                            Sponsored by:

                 DOPPLEBOCKERS BREWERY AND RESTAURANT

                 (opening soon in Lockport, Illinois)

                                 and

                     SHEAF & VINE BREWING SUPPLY

          POINTS EARNED IN THIS COMPETITION GO TOWARDS DETERMINING

                      "MIDWEST HOMEBREWER OF THE YEAR"

         BEST OF SHOW AWARD SPONSORED BY SHEAF & VINE BREWING SUPPLY

        [(gift certificate (plus shipping if winner is out-of-state)]

ELIGIBILITY:

1. You must be relaxed.

2. You must not be worried.

3. You must have a homebrew to enter.

WHERE AND WHEN TO SEND:

1. The entry deadline is Friday, March 12th, 1993.  This allows us time to

cash the checks and buy train fare to Portland in June.

2. Entries accompanied by fees, forms, etc., should be delivered or

shipped to:

                             B.O.S.S.

                         c/o Sheaf & Vine Brewing Supply

                             INSIDE Mainstreet Deli and Liquors

                             5425 South LaGrange Road

                             Countryside, IL 60525

                             (708) 430-HOPS (4677)

FOR MORE INFORMATION, SEND EMAIL TO ME AT korz@iepubj.att.com  or

CALL THE COMPETITION CO-CHAIRMEN:

Mike Pezan  (708) 349-8462      and       Marty Nachel  (815) 469-4789

If you will be in the Chicagoland area on March 20th, and would like to

judge, please send me email (korz@iepubj.att.com) and I'll send you a

Judge Registration Form.

Al.

------------------------------


RIMS system

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 08:14:57 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: RIMS system

George,

I'm posting this RIMS discusion to the digest, because I think this

is of general interest to a lot of brewers.

I too have tried the RIMS setup, and spent a lot of time

trying to make it work. I finally came to the conclusion that it only works

with a specific geometry and only with small batch sizes. My attempts at a

10 gallon size RIMS was a bust. I refocused all my attention to convincing

others that wanted to try the system not to waste their time. Your post

wasn't very specific on details that describes the recirculating mechanics.

This IS the problem area. You got mother nature to deal with here, and she

is tuff to change. I found the grain compression at any speed was too much

in a 10 gallon sanke keg mash tun. Again I came to the conclusion that it

MIGHT work IF the mash/grain area was large compared to the depth. How does

this new system overcome these obvious problems? I must have discussed this

problem with 10 scientists and engineers around here with no good fool proof

ideas. I would sure like to know what makes this new system work. My present

system has a gas fired mash tun that I must stir continously while heating.

This is the only WORK in my system, and I dislike it. Micah's system of

underleting has its problems too. The management of water volumes can be

tricky. I have tried it and it too did not work as Micah would have us all

believe. I think he just makes it work because, that is the only way he had

to add additional heat to his mash tun. I'm sure if Micah was around to

defend his approach he would.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Brewing in the Southwest- articles

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1993 12:27:46 -1000

From: ifby546@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joe H. Barfield)

Subject: Brewing in the Southwest- articles

Please submit to me articles relating to brewing in the Southwest . The

deadline for submission to the April issue of the Southwest Brewing News is

March 15. I am looking for articles about or reviews of beers, bars,

breweries, brewpubs, books, burps, brewers, laws, homebrew clubs, ideal

and/or ridiculous homebrew set-ups,  brewing in general, and anything else

you might expect to see in a bi-monthly newspaper covering the brewing

scene in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. >>

Also, please let me know if there is a more appropriate place to post this

request.

>>More info next week on Brewpub legalization in Texas. Currently, HB335 is a

>>boon to micros &  brewpubs when legalized. In effect, HB335 simplifies and

>>lowers licensing cost for small brewers.

>>  I took samples of IPA wort last night before & after chilling. Post cold

>>break was certainly clearer than the sample before cold break. I had used

>>*Break Bright*  30 min. before end of boil. Anybody know if this is better

>>than plain old unreinheit Irish moss?

Thanks- Joe Barfield, Publisher, SW Brewing News, 406 w.35th, Austin, TX

78705- (512)467-2225.

------------------------------


Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 17:42 GMT

From: DWORKINJ <DWORKINJ%DIALOG@mcimail.com>

Subject:

unsub homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

------------------------------


computing alcohol content

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1993 11:15:28 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: computing alcohol content

Further to my note in HBD 1087, I see that Al refers to an earlier equation

by Tom Kuhn .....

>  OK, for all of you who _hate_ algebra but _can_ plug numbers into a

>formula (or formulas into a program), here is the relationship between

>initial specific gravity (SG1) and the temperature at which it was

>measured (T1), final specific gravity (SG2) and the temperature at which

>it was measured (T2), and percent alcohol by volume (A), corrected to

>60 F.  (All temperatures are F.):

>

>

>     [0.0190 x (T1 - T2)] + [131.25 x (SG1 - SG2)] = A

>

What I'd like to know is SG2 the value obtained with a hydrometer, which

therefore includes the effect of the alcohol present?  Or does SG2 represent

the "real" SG, in terms of residual sugars?

 Peter

------------------------------


Electronic Brewing Publications

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1993 12:27:40 -1000

From: ifby546@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joe H. Barfield)

Subject: Electronic Brewing Publications

Howdy,

I'm interested in other electronic bulleting boards related to the art of

brewing. I've heard reference to  bulletin boards called rec.craft &

rec.brewing.  How does one subscribe or refer to these?

Also, what other popular bulletins exist. What popular media is out there?

What is available on Compuserve, etc.

Please send your responses to me at: ifby546@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu, I'll

compile the responses and post it back to the HBDigest.

Thanks- Joe B.

------------------------------


filter questions

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 14:38:59 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: filter questions

I am considering filtering my beer for the first time and I thought I

would consult the HBD for any tips.  My primary reason to filter is

merely to remove any residual yeast.  I am aware of a filter sold

by the Filter Store, which is merely a wholehouse cartridge type

filter.  The filter cartridge is some kind of polypropelyne substance

that retails for about $33.  Now, my local Hechingers has a woven type

sediment filter for use in just such a house filter and it is only

$5.  Anyone have experiences using either of these filters?  Any tips

on cleaning or sanitizing?  I have heard that chlorine will break

down this filter, but the people at the Filter Store specifically said

to backflush at low pressure and use 1TBls chlorox per 1 gallon!  Seems

like if anything will breakdown this polypro, this would.  Any

thoughts about iodophor and or caustics (weak)??

Thanks,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


hop flavor/hop nose

Date: Mon, 01 Mar 1993 14:14:47 CST

From: "John L. Isenhour" <isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov>

Subject: hop flavor/hop nose

roy.rudebusch@travel.com (Roy Rudebusch) writes:

>Hop nose is achieved by boiling pellet hops for two min. and

>loose hops for 5 min.

>

>Dry-hopping seems to contribute mostly to palate flavor.

I believe that to get that "MORE HOPS"(tm) flavor and aroma, you can certainly

do end-o-the-boil additions, but to really get those 'knock their socks off'

hop aromatics, dryhopping is the way to go.

 -The HopDevil

john@hopduvel.UUCP

isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov

ps to BLAST@sn01.sncc.lsu.edu

>I have to make a trip to Austin, TX next week...

>Anyone got the latest on brewpubs there?

Brewpubs are currently illegal in TX:(

------------------------------


honey

Date:         Mon, 01 Mar 93 13:15:20 MST

From: "Jena D." <G0463114@NMSUVM1.NMSU.EDU>

Subject:      honey

I am an intermediate brewer and am interested in using honey either in a pilsen

er or an ale.  Any recipes out there you would like to share?  I am also intere

sted in a chocolate beer recipe. I noticed KArl Bloss had one but i had trouble

sending him a direct message.  Any recipes would be greatly appreciated.  Also

in response to an article that was on a fruit beer.  We brewed a batch of black

berry beer that was good after 6 weeks but after three months, what a differenc

e in taste and color.  Patience is a virtue, I suppose.

------------------------------


My experience with Dutch dried malt extract

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 15:34:12 EST

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1/T09 225-6171  01-Mar-1993 1523 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: My experience with Dutch dried malt extract

Timothy Sweet writes:

>1. I'm new to the list and to home brewing and have seen a couple of mentions

>of the fact that Laaglander DME does not ferment as completely as some others.

>So I have a question about this: In my current batch I was using the specs.

>from Papazian's chart for "special red bitter"--6 lb. amber DME (I used Laag-ed

>lander) and 1/8 lb. roasted unmalted barley (which I brought to a boil and

>then strained out).  The OG was 1050; fermentation seems to have stopped and

>the FG is 1030.  This seems too high.  has something gone wrong--incomplete

>fermentation--or would this be a reasonable FG?  (Sorry--forgot to note that

>I am brewing 5 gal.)  The beer seems a bit too sweet for my taste.

I brewed a version of Papazian's Palalia Ale to make an IPA using a dried malt

extract from Holland with similar results to yours.  OG was around 1053.  FG

was around 1029 even after being in secondary for 2 weeks.  It's been in

bottles for a few weeks now and I haven't had any gushers or beer bombs so it

looks like it did ferment out.  It doesn't seem as sweet as a previous batch

of ale I made from 2 cans of dark extract syrup.  That may be due to my use of

oak chips in the IPA.  The tannins in the oak may be hiding some of the

residual sweetness.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA USA

------------------------------


Finishing hops vs. dryhops

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 14:59 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Finishing hops vs. dryhops

Roy writes:

>Hop nose is achieved by boiling pellet hops for two min. and

>loose hops for 5 min.

>

>Dry-hopping seems to contribute mostly to palate flavor.

I must disagree.  I have about 40 datapoints to the contrary.  I agree

that *some* hop bouquet can be gained from finishing hops (last 1 to 5

minutes of the boil), but not *nearly* as much as from dryhopping.

Please note that I've found that in my setup (5 gallon glass carboy

with blowoff; switch to airlock after krausen falls; dryhop with whole

hops or plugs for exactly 7 days after the airlock rate falls to 1

bubble/minute) any more or less than 7 days of dryhopping gives me less

hop bouquet and an order of magnitude more than finishing hops.  Perhaps

in your previous dryhopping attempts, you waited too long or not long

enough.  You also *must* wait for the fermentation to subside or the

CO2 will scrub the hop aromatics out of the beer.

Al.

------------------------------


Addition of coriander

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 16:32:28 -0500

From: Deborah Poirier <Deborah_Poirier@INRS-ENER.UQuebec.CA>

Subject: Addition of coriander

Hello all,

I brewed a batch of Wit last weekend, which is bubbling nicely in the primary.

The recipe (Miller) calls for the addition of 1 ounce of coriander seed to the

secondary.  Do I have to boil the coriander before adding it or will there

be enough alcohol present to ward off any nasties?  Any help would be very

much appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

Deb

<poirier@inrs-ener.uquebec.ca>

------------------------------


Re: Korean Malt extract (digest #1087)

Date:         1 Mar 93 16:29:23 EDT

From: "Robert Haddad"  <M-RHADDAD@bss1.umd.edu>

Subject:      Re: Korean Malt extract (digest #1087)

A few months ago, while shopping in anoriental supermarket in

Rockville, MD, I came across the same assortment of flours (bean,

rice etc.), including the mysterious Malt Powder Joseph Hall

seems to have come across. Since it seemed significantly cheaper

than the stuff I get at the brew supply store, I thought I'd give

it a try.

I bought 2 1-lb bags, and tried a small batch of ale, with no other

malts or sugars, as if it were out of a can of malt extract. Much to

my disappointment, nothing happened. The stuff never fermented. No

bubbles, not beer aroma. The only transformation which did eventually

occur was the film of greenish-brown slime which grew on the surface

after about 2 months, and the pungent and noxious odor

which emanated when I opened the fermenter to look in.

I then decided to taste the malt powder. Oddly, it didn't taste

anything like the powdered malt extracts I usually buy. It tasted

more like flour--no sweetness to it. It seemed starchy.

Now, the closest I have come to brewing all-grain beers is partial

fermentation. Could it be, perhaps, that this malt powder has to be

heated slowly to a given temperature, and then be allowed to rest

for a starch conversion? Should, perhaps other sources of malt/sugar

be added to help/activate the conversion?

I had given up on this idea, but would be happy to continue

experimenting with the stuff if you or others could share your

thoughts about what might have gone wrong.

Cheers,

Robert Haddad   <m-rhaddad@bss1.umd.edu>

------------------------------


Re: gelatin fining

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1993 14:06:16 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: gelatin fining

Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu> sez:

>I don't generally fine my beer...

I don't fine my beer...my beer's pretty fine as it is!

(Ha!  Ha!  It's a joke, son...)

have fun

gak

------------------------------


Test Driving Mills

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1993 14:39:24 -0800 (PST)

From: Mike Deliman <miked@wrs.com>

Subject: Test Driving Mills

Hello all in Home Brew Land,

Recently one of our fellow homebrewers and I decided that when I received

my maltmill, we'd try to do an honest side-by-side comparison of the crush

produced by a Corona and a MaltMill. I had intended to pick-nits with the

analyses; even to the point of weighing the flour produced from one pound of

milled malt, etc.

Unfortunately, the testing may need to be delayed. Although I've received the

maltmill, and assembly was trivial, there is one large problem with the

maltmill as it stands.

As delivered, I'm sure that the maltmill wouldn't pass the simplest of FDA

inspections for food preparation machinery. Probably not even in <insert

third world nation here>.

The construction of the mill itself is acceptable.

The problem lies in the accumulated detritus lodged into the rollers. While

assembling the mill, I brushed my hand on the surface of the rollers. I was

aghast to see zebra stripes on my hand. Stripes of lubricant mixed with metal

particles, dirt, grunge.

The rollers have a nice design - they are grooved, which could facilitate the

uptake of grain. It is also a poor design, as it's nearly impossible to

remove the accumulated detritus from the grooves.

I spent about an hour trying to clean the rollers last night, and at this

point, I'd still pronounce it unusable. It would seem that in order to

properly clean the things, I'll need to disassemble the mill completely, and

break out innumerable amounts of soaps, degreasers, solvents, etc.

Something I'd rather not do. Certainly not in the Rheinheitsgebot.

To be honest, I'm appalled that someone would ship food processing machinery

in such a state; especially priced at $130.

In the interest of being fair, I've written to the producer and asked for a

clean set of rollers to replace these. I'll post the results of this inquiry.

- ---------------

I have a question for the chem types out there. Does anyone know which would

contain more energy per given volume: LNG (natural gas) or LPG (propane) ?

I ask as I recently purchased a nice burner, which I thought was designed for

LPG. When I run int off of a propane tank, however, it burns far too rich.

(it coats the boiler with soot, and the flames never do adjust down to that

nice, blue, clean burn!)

- ---------------

Brew question: does anybody out there have a recipe (pref all grain) for

Samuel Smith's Pale? Please!! Send to me!!

     Thanks all! (grain mill results will be posted)

   -mike

P.S. The worst part about the grunge: Listen to a Shark's game, and you`ll

probably hear my call... (harassing the ref)

               "KILL THE ZEBRA!!!"

  Mike Deliman, 800-USA-4WRS, FAX 510-814-2010, WRS 2400bd BBS: 510-814-2165

        email:  miked@wrs.com (inet)  or [sun,uunet]!wrs!miked (uunet)

   Snail Mail:  Wind River Systems, 1010 Atlantic Ave, Alameda CA 94501 USA

                (near Checkov's nuclear wessels.)

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Lallemand yeasts

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 13:51 EST

From: "C. Lyons / Raytheon-ADC / Andover, MA" <LYONS@adc3.adc.ray.com>

Subject: Lallemand yeasts

Back in HBD #1026 Al wrote:

> What I'm trying to say is that some dry yeasts make bad beer and some

> make good beer.  Less than a year ago, I posted that I would never use

> a dry yeast again, but have since reconsidered after tasting some beer

> made with Coopers yeast.  I've also made some with Nottingham and

> Windsor, but have yet to taste it.  I still use Wyeast for most of my

> brews and I simply could not get the woody character of my Pale Ale

> without Wyeast #1028 London Ale, but I look at it as having three more

> yeasts (Coopers, Nottingham and Windsor) to choose from in addition to

> the yeasts from Wyeast.

I'm very curious what Al's comments were on the different yeasts.

Al, if you've had a chance to taste the above beers you've

referred to, please comment.  I'd also be very interested in

hearing from others who have experimented with various dry

yeasts.

------------------------------


pH

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 23:02:00 +0000

From: DAMON_NOEL/HP0800_01%mailhub.cs.itc.hp.com@mailhub.cs.itc.hp.com

Subject: pH

With respect to the recent thread on pH vs. temperature...I assume that

when adjusting the pH of sparge water that the calibration of the meter

using the calibration solution should be done at sparge temperature and

that the desired pH be set at that temperature, not room or 60 deg.  I

found that the boiling (conditioning) of my sparge water went from an

initial room temp reading of 7.0 to 8.3 at 170.  I used citric acid to

make adjustment to 5.8 at the sparge temperature. The first time I tried

this, I too used gypsum initially but after 2 Tbs. changed only a couple

of tenths, I went to the acid and overshot to 5.0.  I salvaged the sparge

with bicarb and all seemed to go well.

------------------------------


re: powdered sugur

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 16:28:24 PST

From: mrozek@gandalf.etdesg.TRW.COM (Eric M. Mrozek)

Subject: re: powdered sugur

In HBD #1083 John Freeman asks:

>Isn't powdered sugar just sugar?  I don't understand the insistence on

>using the powdered form versus the crystalline form.

Powdered sugur is a mix of finely ground table sugur and cornstarch (about

60%/40%).  This is why powdered sugur doesn't cake or clump, and why you

don't substitute powdered sugur for regular sugur when baking (the doughs

become impossibly stiff).

Eric

------------------------------


more on labels...

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 19:56:55 PST

From: damrowk@Thomas.COM (Kip Damrow)

Subject: more on labels...

Hello HBers,

Regarding beer labels; Will the color, from a color copy bleed when dipped into the famous HBD milk adhesive ( i.e. skim milk in shallow bowl ) ?

Just wondering...

Kip Damrow

Thomas Bros. Maps

Irvine, CA

------------------------------


RE: Decoction Mash Questions

Date: Mon,  1 Mar 93 16:51:59 PST

From: Pat Lasswell <patl@microsoft.com>

Subject: RE: Decoction Mash Questions

In HBD 1086, Chris Cook asks about decoction mashing.

I have brewed 10+ decoction mashed beers of varying quality: some were

horrible (got dumped), some were outstanding.

When I first started out, I attempted to get the decoctions as thick as

possible.  The result was caramelization in the decoction no matter

how much I stirred, and the more I stirred, the more HSA became a factor.

My solution to this dilemma was to ensure that the decoction was dilute

enough not to require stirring, either by adding boiling water after

dextrinization, or by including some of the mash liquid in the decoction.

I also tried several different (and messy!) means of removing the

decoction.  In the end, I found the quickest, cleanest, and easiest to

be siphoning: I use a 1"ID soft-pvc tube about 5 feet long.  Another

advantage to siphoning is that it eliminates a source of HSA.

It is not important to pull only the 'thickest' or the 'thinnest' portion

for a particular decoction.  If a fairly representative sample of the

entire mash is taken, all works well.  I have found that the most

important thing to be aware of is the quantity: beware of taking too

little.  Perhaps if one is using a malt of low diastatic strength, such

as Munich, one may need to be careful not to boil too much of the mash

liquid, but with domestic 2-row, I have not had a problem.  Noonan

recommends that the lauter decoction be thinnest portion, so as to

deactivate the enzymes and as not to gelatinize unconvered starch.

Neither of these is really an issue.  When the decoction is remixed, the

temperature should be at mash-out which will denature the enzymes anyway.

Any starch that is released should be trapped by a proper lauter: only

clear run-off goes to the boiler.  Hence, his two points are non-issues.

Noonan makes a big deal of slowly and evenly mixing the decoction back

into the mash to avoid hot spots.  For larger brewing operations this may

be important, but I have never found it so, where a dozen strokes with a

spoon will completely mix my mere 5-gallon mashes.  To return the

decoction to the cold settlement, I use the siphon hose to return the

entire decoction at once.  I mix thoroughly and stabilize the temperature

with boiling or cold water.  Siphoning here further reduces sources of

HSA.

I have been experimenting with a modified decoction mash wherein the

enzyme-rich liquor of the dough-in is lautered off and reserved prior to

the first decoction, enabling the _entire_ grain mass to be boiled at

once.  The initial trial of this method was promising: extraction was

high; the beer is good.  If it yields worthwhile technique, I'll post.

Ars Zymurgia

patl@microsoft.com (Pat Lasswell)

Redmond, Washington USA

------------------------------


Open Fermentors

Date: Mon,  1 Mar 93 18:43:31 PST

From: Pat Lasswell <patl@microsoft.com>

Subject: Open Fermentors

Owing to the encouragement of seeing someone (Jim Busch?) advocate open

fermentation, I gave it a try.  It is one of my best beers to date, much better

than many that I have made in carboys.

The fermentor used was a 6-gallon crock that my Dad used to brew his beer in.

I sterilized it with boiling water before siphoning in the cooled wort and

pitching the yeast.  I used a culture from the bottom of the secondary

of a beer

fermented with Nottingham ale yeast.  The yeast had been acid-washed and fed

with several 1.020 sucrose solutions.  At pitching time there was about

5 oz. of

healthy yeast in the starter.  Lag time was about 12 hours, and

fermentation was

finished within 60 hours of pitching.  Fermentation temperature was 68degF at

the peak, finishing at 65degF when I racked to a secondary and dry-hopped.

I found it much easier to monitor the ferment with an open fermentor: just

sterilize the hydrometer or thermometer and drop it in; want a taste? -- just

dip in a (sterilized) spoon.  I have been used to just pitching the yeast and

waiting until the fermentation visibly subsided before racking to secondary;

there was nothing to do during primary except check on it every 12 hours or so.

With open fermentation and no blow-off, I had to keep an eye on it and skim

the foam every 6 hours, lest it push off the kettle lid that I had on it.

(This may be because the crock was just barely big enough to hold 5 gallons of

beer and the foam of high-kraeusen; if the fermentor were larger, then perhaps

I would not have been concerned.)

I had expected to be able to harvest clumps of new yeast from the top of the

primary, but they never appeared.  This may be because the yeast is highly

flocculant.  (The beer does have a slight diacetyl component.)  I had thought

that perhaps the yeast did not reproduce much, due to the high pitching rate,

but I did collect about a pint of yeast slurry from the bottom of the

fermentor, so that obviously wasn't the case.  Any ideas?  Does the flocculant

nature of Nottingham yeast make it a bottom cropping strain?

Recent discussions have centered on fermentor geometry.  The crock has roughly

the same proportions as a carboy, or a little more squat.  Judging from recent

posts, this is not the 'ideal' geometry, having too small of a surface-to-

volume ratio.  Would this have had an effect on yeast cropping?

Ars Zymurgia

patl@microsoft.com (Pat Lasswell)

Redmond, Washington USA

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1088, 03/02/93

*************************************

-------


Mashing, was: ?lagel?, and dry hopping

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 11:55:57 MST

From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

Subject: Mashing, was: ?lagel?, and dry hopping

The Humboldt Hophead writes:

>To start with I'm an intermediate brewer who uses both extract and grains

>I find, that the combination of the two usually yields a great flavor.  I

>don't quite go to the extent of mashing (still not quite sure on the

>procedure) - what I do is boil the grains for about 45min at 150deg,then

                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This is mashing.

>I strain the resulting "extract" into my brewpot and combine it with the

 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This is sparging.

>canned extract.  I usually use either one can or bag of extract and about

>5 lbs. of grain (although how much extract I end up with is a mystery to

>me).

I hate to tell you this HH, but you _do_ know the procedure for mashing.  You

are just doing it on a smaller scale.  My first mash was done this way,

called a partial mash, adding the extract from the grains to the extract from

the can.  To go all-grain, all you have to do is increase the amount of

grains and skip the extract.  Of course, that assumes you would ever want to

go all-grain, etc. etc. (ACKK! do I have to be PC here, too? - I hate this.)

Roy sez:

>Hop nose is achieved by boiling pellet hops for two min. and

>loose hops for 5 min.

>

>Dry-hopping seems to contribute mostly to palate flavor.

I tend to slightly disagree with this statement.  My experience tells me that

dry-hopping contributes greatly to the nose _and_ the flavor.  Also, and this

may be bunk, it seems to accentuate bitter hops as well.  I mean that,

although it doesn't actually add bittering, the bittering hops seem more

assertive when boosted with a large dose of dry hops.  This may only be true

when the two hops are the same or similar varieties (i.e. I haven't done any

real scientific research to prove/disprove my theories).

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


more powdered sugar

Date: 2 Mar 93 06:54:00 EST

From: "PAUL EDWARDS" <8260PE@indy.navy.mil>

Subject: more powdered sugar

In HBD 1088, Eric said that "Powdered sugur is a mix of finely ground table sugur and cornstarch (about

60%/40%).  This is why powdered sugur doesn't cake or clump, and why you

don't substitute powdered sugur for regular sugur when baking (the doughs

become impossibly stiff)."

Wellll, at my local grocery, that stuff is called confectioners' sugar

and is intended for making cake icing and such.  100 percent powdered

sugar is available as well.  Some places might call it bartenders' sugar.

it mixers well in drinks, without leaving undissolved  grit.

Both types are clearly labelled as to contents.

That said, I only use dry malt for my yeast starters, canning 7 or 8 qts

at a time in a pressure canner.

  -- Paul

------------------------------


brewcap

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 93 08:25:19 EST

From: mmlai!lucy!gildner@uunet.UU.NET (Michael Gildner)

Subject: brewcap

Hello,

Does anyone have comments about the BREWCAP device that fits over

the top of a carboy. I'm thinking of buying one so I can draw

samples out of the carboy alittle easier.  Also, are there any

gizmos around that help start a siphon.  I can never get that

trick to work where you first fill the tube with water.

Mike Gildner

gildner@mml.mmc.com

------------------------------


Fancy Labels

Date:     Tue, 2 Mar 1993 09:45 EST

From: JCHISM%HSSCAM.decnet@NETVAX.MIS.SEMI.HARRIS.COM

Subject:  Fancy Labels

MOORE office supplies catalog has several laser labels that are appropriate

for "gift" bottles or when you want to get fancy.  They're called Design

Film and come in 3 varieties - Graduated, Clear and White.  The graduated

is a combination of red/white, green/white, yellow/white, blue/white or

gray/white.  While it's not a paper, it is a film that easily peels off.

Jami Chism

jchism@decnet.mis.semi.harris.com

disclaimer: I don't work for Moore or have any financial interest

- -----

------------------------------


Mills / burners

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1993 07:25:35 -0800 (PST)

From: Mike Deliman <miked@wrs.com>

Subject: Mills / burners

  Hello Home Brewers,

  Thanks to all who responded on my post to yesterday's hbd.

  Here's some followup on the millery:

  I recieved two replies, which I'll attach.

  This first came in before the hbd went out:

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Re: MaltMill

To: miked@wrs.com (Mike Deliman)


Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1993 21:26:41 -0600 (CST)

X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21]

Subject: Mills / burners

Content-Length: 0

Status: RO

  And this second came in after hbd went out:

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Re: MaltMill

To: miked@wrs.com (Mike Deliman)


Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1993 08:10:27 -0600 (CST)

X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21]

Subject: Mills / burners

Content-Length: 2570

Status: RO

 Message 1/3  From Mike Deliman                       Mar 1, 93 01:44:40 pm

 -0800

 Return-Path: <miked@wrs.com>

 Subject: Re: MaltMill

 >The rollers are filthy, coated fariley well with oil residue, metal

 particles, and ground in grime. The easiest way to clean it would be to

 dissasemble it and soak the rollers in solvent.

 >If you would be willing to ship me a set of clean rollers I'd be gald to

 ship back the currently unusable rollers. I'm not exactly thrilled about

 the thought of dissasembling/reassembling the thing, but if it'll save

 me from the thought of injesting unknown contaminents with my beer, it'd

 be worthwhile. (not to mention probably a lot easier than spending hours with

 cleaning rags, solvents, boiling water, degreasers, etc...)

 >Let me know your thoughts,

 I don't think we could remain friends if you knew my thoughts

 at the moment :)

 However, here are the facts:

 The only thing on the rollers is a thin coating of rust-proofing oil.  This

 is applied after they are knurled so they do not rust in inventory.  At the

 time they are assembled, the rollers are wiped vigorously with a clean rag to

 remove as much as possible.  The easiest way to get the rest of it off is to

 mill a few pounds of malt with it and feed it to the birds.

 Our QC procedure here is to mill a pound with one mill out of every batch of

 10 to make sure there are no systemic problems.  We simply blow it off with

 an air hose after testing and you may have gotten one of these which would

 have some dust or debris on the rollers.   However, it would be the same as

 if you had run a pound throgh it.

 Unless something happened to yours from the time it left here till you

 received it, it should look just like the 600 others we have shipped and no

 one has previously even commented on what you find unacceptable.

 Unless you want to pay $75 for the ss roller option, oil is a necessary evil

 on a steel product.  Once it is in regular use, it will stay clean without

 any special attention but I can not inventory hundreds of expensive rollers

 and take the chance of them getting rusty nor getting rusty before the

 customer has a chance to use it.

 You can clean them with a wire brush and cooking oil and then wipe them down

 thoroughly.  Other than that, I do not know what to tell you.  If I send you

 another set of rollers, they will look exactly like the ones you have.

 Your money will, of course, be cheerfully refunded if you choose to return

 the mill.

 Sorry for the trouble,

 js

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Apology accepted, but how's this work?

       " The only thing on the rollers is a thin coating of rust-proofing

         oil."

       "The easiest way to get the rest of it off is to

 mill a few pounds of malt with it and feed it to the birds."

 okay, I see. take my home brew supplies, coat them with machine oil, and

 give it to the birds. Well, I never DID like pidgeons.

 I guess either the other 600 users did the above, cleaned with a wire brush,

 et all, or were just too embarrassed to complain. Or they don't mind machine

 oil lager.

 nuff said.

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Thanks much to all who responded to the LPG vs LNG question. I suspected

 what seems to be true: the burner is probably jetted for LNG, and needs

 re-jetted for LPG. The LPG supplies more energy per given volume and thus

 requires more 02; since there is no way to increase flow of air into the

 venturi, I gotta decrease the fuel flow. Thanks guys!

  >pfffft< have a homebrew,

 -mike

P.S. After I clean the MM properly, the crush analysis will be posted.

  Mike Deliman, 800-USA-4WRS, FAX 510-814-2010, WRS 2400bd BBS: 510-814-2165

        email:  miked@wrs.com (inet)  or [sun,uunet]!wrs!miked (uunet)

   Snail Mail:  Wind River Systems, 1010 Atlantic Ave, Alameda CA 94501 USA

------------------------------


RIMS

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 93 09:36:01 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: RIMS

I want to thank the many people who sent comments on my RIMS review.

The typos noted were the following:

     1. Replace "It hard" with "It is hard" in the second paragraph.

     2. Replace "eat corn" with "eat crow" in the third paragraph.

I have been very critical of the AHA for these sort of typos. I seem

to remember from my youth a story about glass houses and stones. Does

anyone remember how that one goes?

Bob Jones in HBD#1088 raises some very interesting points. As such things

pertain to the specific case of Conrad's system, I would feel a good deal

more confortable if they were addressed directly to Conrad. Those who saw

pictures of my own 1/2 bbl. system in Milwaukee know it is quite different

from Conrad's. It is also different from Bob's, who in turn differs from

Micah. I look on all of this with a good deal of favor. What a boring world

it would be if total uniformity reigned!

Because of length restrictions, reviews differ from technical articles. What

I look for in a review is a clear statement of the product claims made by

the producer, and a good faith effort on the part of the reviewer to check

them. Interested readers can then contact the producer for details. The

following are what I understand to be the claims Conrad is making for his

system. My observation of an actual brew being done with his system leads me

to believe that they are all valid.

   1. Total temperature control through uniquely designed controllers and

      heating elements. Any reasonable type of infusion mashing schedule

      can be used with the system.

   2. Recirculation without HSA.

   3. High yields and brilliantly clear run offs.

   4. A system that is trivial to clean.

Would someone be so kind and post a list of Rodney's articles about RIMS?

I have kept only the one that appeared in the Maltose Falcon newsletter,

since it appeared to be the most complete and detailed.

George Fix

------------------------------


Test Driving

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 93 09:41 CST

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Test Driving

 >From: Mike Deliman <miked@wrs.com>

 This issue should obviously be discussed off line but since Mike chose to

 post it to the Digest before I even received his comments in email, he leaves

 me little choice but to respond in kind.

 >As delivered, I'm sure that the maltmill wouldn't pass the simplest of FDA

 inspections for food preparation machinery.  To be honest, I'm appalled that

 someone would ship food processing machinery in such a state; especially

 priced at $130.

 My objective is to provide a modestly priced product to satisfy hombrewers.

 If you wish to satisfy the FDA, you should have purchased the Stainless Steel

 Roller Option (SSRO) for an additional $75.

 >In the interest of being fair, I've written to the producer and asked for a

 clean set of rollers to replace these. I'll post the results of this inquiry.

 You might have waited for my response before dragging it out in public.

 Here is the response I sent to you before reading the Digest.

 Return-Path: <miked@wrs.com>

 Subject: Re: MaltMill

 >The rollers are filthy, coated fariley well with oil residue, metal

 particles, and ground in grime. The easiest way to clean it would be to

 dissasemble it and soak the rollers in solvent.

 >If you would be willing to ship me a set of clean rollers I'd be gald to

 ship back the currently unusable rollers. I'm not exactly thrilled about

 the thought of dissasembling/reassembling the thing, but if it'll save

 me from the thought of injesting unknown contaminents with my beer, it'd

 be worthwhile. (not to mention probably a lot easier than spending hours with

 cleaning rags, solvents, boiling water, degreasers, etc...)

 >Let me know your thoughts,

 I don't think we could remain friends if you knew my thoughts

 at the moment :)

 However, here are the facts:

 The only thing on the rollers is a thin coating of rust-proofing oil.  This

 is applied after they are knurled so they do not rust in inventory.  At the

 time they are assembled, the rollers are wiped vigorously with a clean rag to

 remove as much as possible.  The easiest way to get the rest of it off is to

 mill a few pounds of malt with it and feed it to the birds.

 Our QC procedure here is to mill a pound with one mill out of every batch of

 10 to make sure there are no systemic problems.  We simply blow it off with

 an air hose after testing and you may have gotten one of these which would

 have some dust or debris on the rollers.   However, it would be the same as

 if you had run a pound through it.

 Unless something happened to yours from the time it left here till you

 received it, it should look just like the 600 others we have shipped and no

 one has previously even commented on what you find appalling and

 unacceptable.

 Unless you want to pay $75 for the ss roller option, oil is a necessary evil

 on a steel product.  Once it is in regular use, it will stay clean without

 any special attention but I can not inventory hundreds of expensive rollers

 and take the chance of them getting rusty before the customer has a chance to

 use it.

 You can clean them with a wire brush and cooking oil and then wipe them down

 thoroughly.  Other than that, I do not know what to tell you.  If I send you

 another set of rollers, they will look exactly like the ones you have, unless

 something very strange happened to yours.

 Your money will, of course, be cheerfully refunded if you choose to return

 the mill.

 Sorry for the trouble,

 js

 .............

 I now add that in keeping with the tradition that the customer is always

 right, I suggest that you return the mill for detailed QC review.  If it is

 typical of what we have been shipping for the past year, your money will be

 cheerfully rufunded and we will call the whole thing off.  If it is as you

 described, I will ship you a brand new one and pay shipping charges both

 ways.

 jjs

------------------------------


To be fair

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1993 08:08:53 -0800 (PST)

From: Mike Deliman <miked@wrs.com>

Subject: To be fair

To be fair, I feel I should post this, which came in amongst the replies

from yesterday's post.

] Ummmm, not necessarily to defend JS, but: have you ever purchased a

] Corona Mill??  When shipped, they are full of oil and grit, and to clean them,

] you have to disassemble them, and scrub them in a sink full of soapy water.

] So, it sounds like the condition of your maltmill is not that

] far out of line.  After, all, you only have to clean it once....

I do see the point. But then, if I bought a blender for $50, I'd expect less

than a blender that costs $130. Nuff said, on to re-jetting that burner and

attempting an SSPA clone :-) !

      Brew On Dudes >pffft<, (have a homebrew)

      -mike

  Mike Deliman, 800-USA-4WRS, FAX 510-814-2010, WRS 2400bd BBS: 510-814-2165

        email:  miked@wrs.com (inet)  or [sun,uunet]!wrs!miked (uunet)

   Snail Mail:  Wind River Systems, 1010 Atlantic Ave, Alameda CA 94501 USA

------------------------------


re:stuck carbonation

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 93 11:14:29 EST

From: fingerle@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL (J. Fingerle)

Subject: re:stuck carbonation

Last week,

Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

wrote:

That's for later, this is for now:  Peter, shake all your bottles and lay

them on their sides in a warm (70F) place.  Shake every day, until there

is visible yeast in suspension.  I got this trick from The Cellar in

Seattle.  I think it works by exposing more yeast surface area.  I did

To which I reply: I just had a stuck carbonation situation, my first

ever.  I first thought that I had messed up, pehaps not sufficiently

stirring the priming sugar into the beer, but then it dawned on me

that the temperature of my spare bedroom might be the problem.

Due to recent colder weather in the Philly area, the bottles were being

maintained at about 50 to 55F, as opposed to the more usual 60-65F.

So, I simply took them out of the room, shook each bottle, and left

them in the 68-70F temperatures of my house, and voila!, three days

later, sediment and carbonation.

Sometimes its the simple things...Oh yeah, the beer was the Sam

Adams-taste alike from Cat's Meow, an Ale.

- --

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

name:  Jimmy                          On balance, it is a wonderful thing that

email: fingerle@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL    the cold war is over.      -Bill Clinton

 -or-   fingerle@NADC.NAVY.MIL         ON BALANCE?!?  It's end has a down side?

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

------------------------------


Re: Korean Malt Extract

Date: Tue, 02 Mar 93 10:32:35 CST

From: Fritz Keinert <keinert@iastate.edu>

Subject: Re: Korean Malt Extract


Re: Korean Malt extract (digest #1087)

Date:         1 Mar 93 16:29:23 EDT

From: "Robert Haddad"  <M-RHADDAD@bss1.umd.edu>

Subject:      Re: Korean Malt extract (digest #1087)

I expected to see plenty of responses on this, but since they don't

seem to be coming, here goes:

I bought some of that stuff before, too. It was from the local

alternative food co-op, and it was not Korean, but I bet it was the

same. What it is is ground-up malt (grains that have been sprouted,

dried again, and ground into flour). It is not dried malt extract,

which you (and I) were hoping to get.

Theoretically, the enzymes should still be in there, so you might be

able to convert it to sugar, but you would have a really hard time

getting it filtered.

I think I tried using it in bread, but it didn't work as flour,

either. It was too sticky because it does contain some sugars. I am

not sure what it is supposed to be good for.

- ---

Fritz Keinert                             phone:  (515) 294-5223

Department of Mathematics                 fax:    (515) 294-5454

Iowa State University                     e-mail: keinert@iastate.edu

Ames, IA 50011

------------------------------


Korean malt, fining, labels

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 93 10:55:12 EST

From: eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West)

Subject: Korean malt, fining, labels

Korean malt:

I suspect that what you've got there is malt flour, not extract powder,

just ground up malted grain. Should make good bread.

Fining:

I don't fine my beer either, no point, it doesn't have any money.

Labels:

>Will the color, from a color copy bleed...

Nope, not a problem, the image on a photocopy, B&W or color, consists

of pigmented plastic powder(s) (polyester in some, maybe all, cases)

melted onto the paper. The plastic will not be affected by milk or water.

Carl

Waltham, Mass.

When I stop learning, bury me.

------------------------------


.......how come you taste so good?

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 93 11:57:57 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: .......how come you taste so good?

I have advocated the use of brown sugar in pale ales in this forum

on at least two occasions.  The first was in HBD#528 in a recipe which

appears in Cat's Meow (p.1-12 in the postscript version).  The second

was a little over a month ago in the post where I coined the phrase

"all-grain snob" (mea culpa).  This practice recently took a slam:

In HBD#1083 John Freeman sez:

>And keep the stinking brown sugar out of my beer.

Do I detect an all-malt attitude?  (I'll aviod the "s" word :-)

Many of us began brewing from kits, using enormous amounts of sugar,

and eventually learned that cutting back on the sugar meant getting

rid of the cidery falvors.  This doesn't necessarily imply that all

sugar must be cut out in all circumstances.  Belgian beer homebrewing

seems to have become vastly more popular during my three years on the

HBD, and homebrewers are willing to follow Belgian practice when it

comes top sugar.  Why should we treat UK brewers differently?

Looking back in my log book, I notice that my first two bitters

contained small amounts of brown sugar - under 15%.  Both were

served on draft at parties and both were overwhelming successes.

Having lived in England for two years, I can also assure you that

the flavor was quite authentic.  As well, there were occasional

pale ales and brown ales which had brown sugar additions.  In all,

something like 4-5% of my 200+ batches.  No particular problems noted,

and some raves received.

I notice that I haven't used brown sugar myself since since posting

my Cat's Meow recipe.  I think I'll try a brown and/or pale ale

with 10-15% sugar in the near future.  I'd also appreciate e-mail

from people who've tried my Cat's Meow recipe, with their opinions

on using brown sugar in a Bass-alike.

Cheers,

Rob (bradley@adx.adlephi.edu)

------------------------------


Brown sugar........

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 93 11:57:11 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: Brown sugar........

Some beers, especially British ones, are brewed with small amounts

of brown sugar.  I believe that reputable UK brewers keep the total

amount of extract from adjuncts and sugars at or below 15% (see

Foster's _Pale_Ale_).  I also understand that when brown sugar is

used, it is more likely to be a "raw" brown sugar, like demerara, than

the stuff one finds in a North Amercian supermarket.  The latter

is likely to be ordinary white cane sugar doctored with molasses.

My palate tells me that there is brown sugar in Newcastle Brown Ale,

and an English friend who is quite a good judge of beer agrees.  On a

more cautious claim, I believe I have tasted subtle brown sugar tones

in bottled Bass.  After a recent experience, though, I'm reluctant

to state definitively that the tones actually come from brown sugar.

Last Friday I had a bottle of Pike's Place Pale Ale, from White River

Junction, VT.  This is a really fine brew: on the dark side of pale

ale color, with good body and _substantial_ hop bitterness :-)

On the nose, though, I picked up an unmistakabe brown sugar aroma.

A pleasant one, I might add.  However, the label states only malt,

hops, yeast and water, and I have no reason to doubt them.  So my

conclusion is that a brown sugar aroma can develop without the

addition of brown sugar in the wort.  Any comments?

There has been recent interest in Housman's poetry and the towns

where we live:

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

|Robert Emmett Bradley  |                                                |

|Dept. of Mathematics   |"The troubles of our proud and angry dust       |

|  & Computer Science   | Are from eternity, and shall not fail.         |

|Adelphi University     | Bear them we can, and if we can we must.       |

|Garden City, NY 11530  | Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale." |

|(516)877-4496          |        A. E. Housman, _Last_Poems_, #9.        |

|bradley@adelphi.edu    |                                                |

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


Re: Yeast Ranching

Date: Tue, 02 Mar 93 10:02:25 -0800

From: atl@kpc.com

Subject: Re: Yeast Ranching

> From: arf@genesis.mcs.com

> >From: atl@kpc.com

> > I home can wort for use as starters and for priming my beer.  I

> purchased a case of Ball 1 pint canning jars ($7.50), filled them with

> highly hopped 1.040 extract based wort.....

>

> I'm with you up to this point but why not just eliminate this whole step by

> saving a pint of wort from the previous batch.  A further bonus (for

> all-grain brewers) is that the starter is more like your actual brews than

> one made with extract.

  I had considered using all-grain to make the canned wort, but went

with extract for simplicity.  (I had a batch to mash and three to

bottle at this point) Also, I brew widely divergent beers weekly, so

reserving a pint of stout might not be appropriate for starting a

batch of light lager.  My canned wort is "least common denominator"

pale type.

> > This may sound like a lot of work, but it sure beats boiling up

> small starters when you need them, and is easier than reserving gyle

> from each batch.

>

> Not sure what you mean by "gyle", I would call it bitter wort but anyway, how

> can your process possibly be simpler than setting aside a pint of wort before

> pitching?

  I called it gyle from Papazian's description of reserving bitter

wort for later priming purposes.  You may have a point on simplicity,

but I had more faith in the "canned" wort keeping for a long period of

time at room temperature.  Also, since I had been reserving gyle for

priming purposes (usually 3 22oz bottles per batch), and frequently

have 2-5 batches fermenting simultaneously, my refridgerator just

isn't big enough.

> You did not mention what kind of air lock you are using on the flask but if

> you use a glass one, simply putting it on at the end of boiling will

> sterilize it and fill it with sterile water as the steam condenses.  Nothing

> could be simpler.

  I'm not sure which flask you are referring to.  I use flasks for

growing my starters, but I don't boil at that point.  I pour sterile,

canned wort into the sanitized flask, stir in a small sample of yeast,

and affix a sanitized plastic airlock.  At appropriate times, I add

more sterile wort to enlarge the starter, and move to larger flasks

when appropriate.

> > The agar was quite expensive, $24.50 for 100g.

>

> A suitable agar can be had from oriental food shops for far less.  It is sold

> in stick form and you need about 6 inches to a cup of wort.

 Can you give me the asian name(s) for this?  I can just imagine going

into my local asian grocery and trying to describe agar. :-)

>

> Nice article.  I don't want to start another snob thread but I put yeast

> culture right up there with all-grain as one of the more rewarding aspects of

> homebrewing.

Thanks for the compliment, no snobbery felt, and yes, it is fun.  If

I'd been brewing beer in 7th grade biology class, I might have paid a

little more attention!

 Drew

- --------

Andrew Lynch, Kubota Pacific Computer, Santa Clara, Ca. atl@kpc.com

------------------------------


Ginger beer summary

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 93 13:25:11 EST

From: Dave Whitman <rsndww@rohmhaas.com>

Subject: Ginger beer summary

To homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.co

X-Mailer: LeeMail 1.2.4

I was astonished at the number of responses to my post about low ginger flavor

in my ginger beer wort.  Thanks everyone!

Many people pointed out that the sweetness of the wort may be masking the

ginger flavor.  The message is that 1) lots of recipes use about 3 oz of ginger

and use 1 hour boil times, and 2) a little ginger goes a long way. Before

panicking, I'll taste the beer during racking into my secondary.

Jim Grady suggests grating the ginger rather than slicing it.  For what it's

worth, I tasted the ginger slices after boiling, and they were pretty

flavorless, suggesting that the flavor was sucessfully extracted.

Spenser Thomas warns that he tried adding pieces of ginger to each bottle,

which gave good flavor, but also caused gushing.  He suggests making a ginger

tea by steeping ginger in hot water, and adding that to the secondary.  Would

steeping santize the ginger enough to avoid the infection suggested by gushing?

How hot / how much time do I need to santize an ingredient?

Dan Butler-Ehle says that he uses ginger a lot, but has never been really happy

with the flavor - the pepperiness is missing.  He thinks the ginger oils boil

off early.  He has added ginger to his secondary, and that doesn't seem to

help, and sometimes leads to off-flavors.  He speculates the pulp rots, and

suggests I try dried, ground ginger.

I looked up ginger and oil of ginger in the Merck Index, and got some insight

into just what's there. The major flavor componant is a fairly high molecular

weight phenol called gingerol.  It doesn't look very volatile.  However, there

are a number of other constituents which DO look volatile: camphene,

phellandrene, borneol, citral and cineol.  I suspect at least some of these are

lost during an extended boil, explaining my and other's reports of

disappointing flavor.

Dave Whitman / rsndww@rohmhaas.com

------------------------------


Propane Cooker Problems.

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1993 10:27:00 -0800

From: Bob Konigsberg <bobk@NSD.3Com.COM>

Subject: Propane Cooker Problems.

Mike Deliman writes about problems with his propane cooker...

I believe that propane (LPG) has more heat per volume.  As for the soot

from your burner, it may be that the air/fuel ratio is not set

correctly.  Look at the inlet and there should be a rotatable shutter

that you can adjust the air/fuel mixture with.  Mine was a fairly cheap

unit from Sears and it had one.

The other problem I noted with mine was that the gas/flame distribution

was uneven with the far side of the burner having a much longer flame than

the near side.  A little surgery with a drill grinding bit and I was able

to change the configuration of the casting to allow a more even gas flow.

See crude graphics below.

  / ------------- /      / ------------- /

   /             /        /             /

- ---------    +---/      ------X    +----/

- ---------   /   /       --------   X/  /

      /--------/              /-------/

      Original             Improved

Although it's a bit crude, the two X's in the right hand drawing show

where the carving was done.  The left hand carved out area opened up

the gas flow to the inlet side of the burner, and the right hand X carving

made a "bounceback" kind of effect with the gas so that the jet of gas

(later flame) didn't simply flow straight out the opposite side of the

burner from the gase inlet.  It's still not perfect, but the flame

distribution is a lot more even than it was as the unit was shipped to me.

Despite the appearance of the drawing above however, the actual grinding does

not (should not) go anywhere near the edge of the casting.

Kip Damrow asks about color copier labels.  They don't run when wet.

The toner powder used in photocopying is a plastic powder that is melted

(fused) to the paper.  If flexed however, you may see flaking of the

material off the paper.

BobK

------------------------------


hop aroma

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 93 12:42:47 -0600

From: oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (donald oconnor)

Subject: hop aroma

It seems that every couple of months there is another discussion about

hop nose or aroma and flavor and methods of achieving it in the beer.

It's the general lack of good info in the homebrewing literature and

even texts on brewing science like Biotechnology of Brewing and Malting

and even Malting and Brewing Science on this topic that leads to

repeated queries.  That's what led Mark Garetz to put together a nice

article for zymurgy, appearing in the summer issue, about dry-hopping.

Mark has done a really professional job putting the article together with

interviews with Fritz Maytag (several hours), Jim Koch (the beloved one

in this forum) and many other people in the hop industry.  The article

discusses several methods using finishing hops such as dry-hopping,

hop backs, finishing hops at the end of the boil, hop tea, etc.

It's interesting that all of these approaches contribute to hop flavor and

aroma of the beer, but the hop flavor and aroma can be very different for

each technique.  This is due to the fact that hop oil which is the stuff

which contributes the hop flavor and aroma is really many different oils.

Some are more volative than others and some are more chemically reactive

than others and all are more reactive and volatile at higher temperatures.

Thus the type and amount of oils and secondary oil products in the beer

depends on the variety of hop, amount, temperature, time and many other

factors, including, as Bob Jones pointed out, opened or sealed vessel.

Bob's advice is right on the mark.  You will get more hop aroma by

dryhopping in the keg.  The reason for this is that volatile hop oils

are not soluble in beer but rather are in suspension.  The volatile

suspended oils would really prefer to float away.  Take Bob's advice,

don't give them a chance; keep the lid on.

Rather than say that one method of using finishing hops is 'better'

than another, I prefer to say that they are are all wonderful but

different.  If you have any doubt about the incredibly vast difference

of hop aroma and flavor betwenn using the same type of hop in (I believe)

nearly equal amounts in two different ways, just compare Sierra Nevada

Pale Ale and Anchor Liberty Ale.  Both use Cascade finishing hops.

One is dry-hopped and the other uses a hop back.

I am a proponent of the idea of including more information in a recipe

with regard to finishing hops.  it's really not enough to say

"dryhopped with 1 oz cascades."  if I want to really match the beer

I need to know how long the hops were in the fermenter or keg and

the temperature.  similarly, if you use finishing hops at the end of

the boil, i not only need to know how much for how long, i need to

know the rate at which the hot wort was cooled because the hop

flavor and character are altered significantly during a slow cooling.

------------------------------


Re: Ginger beer problem

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1993 11:00:29 -0800

From: sherman@qualcomm.com (Sherman Gregory)

Subject: Re: Ginger beer problem

>Dave Whitman <rsndww@rohmhaas.com> writes

Subject: Ginger beer problem

>3   oz   sliced ginger root        (peeled for lighter color)

>The ginger and hops were boiled in the wort for 45 minutes, then lemon juice

>was added along with my immersion chiller.  After an additional 10 minute

>boil,

>the batch was chilled to 65F.  ph: 5.3 before lemon juice, 4.0 afterwards.

>To my chagin, the resulting wort had very little ginger flavor.

>1. Did I steam distill off all the good stuff by boiling the ginger too long?

I don't think so.  I made a batch about 6 mo. ago with 1.5 oz of ginger

boiled for an hour and it had a very good ginger flavor.  I think that I

might have grated my ginger as opposed to slicing it.   Ginger is powerfull

stuff and 3 oz seems like a lot.  Maybe it is like hops in that there can

be a lot of variation of "the good stuff" season to season etc.

>2. Can I "dry ginger" the batch by adding shredded ginger to my secondary

>   fermenter?  Any suggestions on how much to try?

This sounds like a cool idea, but I think that I would finish this batch

without it. Then, if in the end, if there is not enough ginger flavor, you

can brew another batch and "dry ginger" it.  This way, you will have a

better idea where the ginger flavor came from.

BTW... How well do your yeasties like that low pH wort?

------------------------------


Maltmill, etc.

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 93 12:28:47 EST

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: Maltmill, etc.

Mike says:

> As delivered, I'm sure that the maltmill wouldn't pass the simplest of FDA

> inspections for food preparation machinery. [...]

> The problem lies in the accumulated detritus lodged into the rollers. While

> assembling the mill, I brushed my hand on the surface of the rollers. I was

> aghast to see zebra stripes on my hand. Stripes of lubricant mixed with metal

> particles, dirt, grunge.

I found the machine-oil smell of the device a bit worrisome, but after

passing a few pounds of grain through as a trial I decided it was

in fact not a problem.  The odor has largely gone away now that I've

run a batch through.  The odor is not evident in the grain passed

through.

> The rollers have a nice design - they are grooved, which could facilitate the

> uptake of grain. It is also a poor design, as it's nearly impossible to

> remove the accumulated detritus from the grooves.

So?  Over the long haul this doesn't make a bit of difference.  Over

the short term, yes, it would be nice if Jack brushed the rollers

clean in something like hexane and then with a mild detergent.

> I spent about an hour trying to clean the rollers last night, and at this

> point, I'd still pronounce it unusable. It would seem that in order to

> properly clean the things, I'll need to disassemble the mill completely, and

> break out innumerable amounts of soaps, degreasers, solvents, etc.

> Something I'd rather not do. Certainly not in the Rheinheitsgebot.

I wish Jack had shipped mine smelling like Ivory soap, but I'm not

sure what if any difference it makes.  Certainly I have no problem

with the particles of grain that tend to lodge in the grooved rollers.

> To be honest, I'm appalled that someone would ship food processing machinery

> in such a state; especially priced at $130.

Calling it "food processing machinery" is a bit loose.  After all,

you are going to thoroughly filter and boil the output.  You aren't

really going to "eat" the output of the mill at all.  The chance

of, say, a chip of steel making it through to a bottled beer is zero,

considering all the settling and sedimentation that goes on.

Finally, casual experimentation (just now) reveals that a dry toothbrush

suffices to clean the rollers down to the shine on the portion (about

2/3) of the rollers where the grain gets crushed.  Why don't you just

run 5-10 lbs of cheap malt through and get on with things ... ?

The effect of the maltmill on fat British 2-row malt is most impressive.

The husks are left almost completely in one piece, and the kernel

is squished perfectly into coarse chunks.  The results on less modified

American 2-row and particularly 6-row are a little less remarkable,

but I gather that these grains are harder to crush anyway.

I will print a detailed review when I have some data points.

I am looking for a reduction in astringency (vs. grain from Corona)

and an improvement in extraction rates.  So far, at least the latter

seems likely.

================O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis================

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1993 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1089, 03/03/93

*************************************

-------


Re: Pitching idea/Sanitizer/Ginger/Correction/Coriander/Dry yeasts

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 93 14:18 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Pitching idea/Sanitizer/Ginger/Correction/Coriander/Dry yeasts

Chris writes:

>pitch your ale yeast around 60 F... let it ferment at this temp for a

>day or two to discourage bacteria growth and to let the yeast make

>alcohol, the stuff that kills some bacteria... then jack the temp up

>to 65 F to finish...

>

>how valid is this statement?  I mean, it almost sounds like making a

>steam beer etc. but I was just wondering...

Well, it's sort of valid... but you're making ale.  Ale temperatures are

between, say, 60F and say, 75F.  I don't understand why you suggest that

you should first ferment at 60F to "let the yeast make alcohol, the

stuff that kills some bacteria" and then raise the temperature.  It's sort

of backwards from one common way to make lagers: to start the batch at

around 65F and then once the yeast get going, (slowly) lower the temp to

40F or 45F.  If you have good sanitation techniques and are pitching

clean yeast, you can ferment the whole batch at 65F or the whole hatch

at 60F.  The Steam(tm) beer you suggest this might be (it's not) would

be made with lager yeast (Wyeast #2112 might be a good choice ;^) fermented

at the cool end of ale temperatures (say 60-65F).

*****************************

Jack writes:

> No typo.  I also used bleach neat or at least 2:1 when I used it.  It is all

> relative and I find the long contact times discomforting.  For example,

I'm no biologist, but I think that contact times are much more important

then concentrations, i.e. 10 min at 200ppm is more lethal to nasties than

1 min at 10000ppm, no?  Biologists?

Personally, I'm trying to move away from Chlorine as a sanitizer from a

environmental point of view.  Moving to Iodine may not be much better

for the environment either.  I'm looking for a source of Peracetic Acid

(Acetic acid and Hydrogen Peroxide).  The H2O2 quickly becomes water and

acetic acid is plentiful in the world.  Also, a few stray ppm of acetic acid

won't affect my brew as much as a few ppm of Sodium Hypochlorite will.

********************

Dave writes:

>3   oz   sliced ginger root        (peeled for lighter color)

>

>The ginger and hops were boiled in the wort for 45 minutes, then lemon juice

>was added along with my immersion chiller.  After an additional 10 minute boil,

If you had grated the ginger and added it only for the last 2-3 minutes of

the boil, you would have had a lot of ginger flavor and aroma.  I used 2 ounces

like this and the beer took 4 months to be drinkable -- but very good

eventually.

>1. Did I steam distill off all the good stuff by boiling the ginger too long?

Yes.

>2. Can I "dry ginger" the batch by adding shredded ginger to my secondary

>   fermenter?  Any suggestions on how much to try?

Yes, but just to be on the safe side, after you peel the ginger (I did)

but before you grate it (coursely) on your sanitized grater, I suggest

blanching it (dip it in boiling water for 10 seconds).

***********************************

I wrote:

>

>                        BREWER'S OF SOUTH SUBURBIA

>                       (south-suburban Chicagoland)

>                              AHA Sanctioned

>                      Regional Homebrew Competition

That should be BREWERS OF SOUTH SUBURBIA (no apostrophe).  I don't know

why I've lateley been randomly putting apostrophes in front of trailing s's.

***********************************

Deb writes:

>I brewed a batch of Wit last weekend, which is bubbling nicely in the primary.

>The recipe (Miller) calls for the addition of 1 ounce of coriander seed to the

>secondary.  Do I have to boil the coriander before adding it or will there

>be enough alcohol present to ward off any nasties?  Any help would be very

>much appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

Boiling would definately reduce the aromatics you have available.  I would

just blanch them (dip them in boiling water for 10 seconds) and then

crush them in your sanitized coriander mill (I guess you could use a

sanitized spoon in a sanitized cup if you don't have a true coriander

mill ;^).

***********************

C. Lyons wrotes;

>> yeasts (Coopers, Nottingham and Windsor) to choose from in addition to

>> the yeasts from Wyeast.

>

>I'm very curious what Al's comments were on the different yeasts.

>Al, if you've had a chance to taste the above beers you've

>referred to, please comment.  I'd also be very interested in

>hearing from others who have experimented with various dry

>yeasts.

I've tasted two batches now made with the Nottingham.  One was split

between bottles and a keg.  It's very clean and only very slightly fruity

in the keg, but tastes/smells nutty (peanutty, like Grant's IPA [sic] or

Grant's Scottish [sic] Ale) in the bottled version.  Although I've only

tried it on two batches, so I don't quite have a handle on this yeast,

but the Nottingham appears to be relatively attenuative (more so than

the Coopers, I'd say).  I haven't had a chance to taste the Windsor --

I only made a 1 gallon batch to try it out and then sort of forgot about

it.  I've been told that the Windsor tends to be even more attenuative

and less flocculent (these two factors are related) than the Nottingham.

The Nottingham batches were fermented at 65F.

The Coopers is quite fruity fermented at 65F and probably the best

dry ale yeast I've ever tried.  It's not phenolic at all and all the

flavor is a very clean fruitiness.

For those of you who made it to the Mainstreet beer tasting, the

American Light Ale and English Pale Ale were made with Coopers and

the Medium-dry Stout was made with Nottingham.  The *DRY* stout was

made with Wyeast #1084 (two years ago!).  How about that -- the dryest

beer of the bunch was made not with dry yeast, but with liquid!

Al.

------------------------------


Old "Potato Beer" recepie

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 93 13:16 CST

From: THOMAS VODACEK <87749194@ucs.uwplatt.edu>

Subject: Old "Potato Beer" recepie

To:  Homebrew Digest

Fm:  87749194@uwplatt.edu     Thomas Vodacek

A friend gave me an old recepie from his uncle that was for

potato beer.  The idea is a little odd, but I would like to try

it to see the result.

It calls for cutting each potato into just larger than matchstick

size pieces and mashing them seperately from the grain portion

and then filtering with cloth and -then- mixing the worts for the

boil.

I was wondering where the enzimes for the potato starch conversion

come from?  It seems to me that if there were enzimes present they

would be converting the starches right away in the field and in

the store.  Or does the tuber have a way to control the enzimes

in the living tissue?  I would guess that when a potato is stored

a long time and then gets soft before it begins to grow eyes (like

mine usually do) this is like the point in grain malting where the

grain is dried in a kiln.  If this is true:

  1.  Do I have to let all of the potatos get to this stage, or

  2.  Are there enough enzimes in just one or two that can do

      all of the work, or

  3.  Are the potato starches in such a state that they are

      (very) quickly converted by the grain enzimes after mixing, or

  4.  Should I hold the wort at mashimg temps for a time as

      comversion takes place?

The recepie doesn't say to wait for conversion, but then it doesn't

say to test for it either.

Has anyone used potatos in a "beer" that can lend assistance?

Thanks.

Thomas Vodacek

------------------------------


Proposal (Repeat) & Review (New)

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1993 17:11:43 -0800 (PST)

From: James Thompson <sirjames@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Proposal (Repeat) & Review (New)

PROPOSAL

To repeat my proposal in HBD #1087:  if you will e-mail me the

authors names, titles, publishers, and prices of books that are

pub/brewpub/microbrewery guides to your local (state or city), I

will compile them and share the results with this forum.  (You

could also send me oneliners such as "homebrewing is illegal in

Georgia" or "there are no brewpubs in Texas."  (These sad facts we

learned in recent postings.)  The book which is the object of the

following book review is an example of the sort of guidebook I have

in mind.  Is doable, yes/no?

BOOK REVIEW

Becker, Bart.  SEATTLE BREWS:  The Insider's Guide to Neighborhood

Alehouses, Brewpubs, & Bars.  Anchorage & Seattle:  Alaska

Northwest Books, 1992.  176 pp., paperback.  $9.95.  ISBN:  0-

88240-425-3.

Bart Becker has saved me the task of writing such a book -- and

deprived me the fun of the research!  He also did a better job than

I might have done.  Besides listing all the pubs, brewpubs and

microbreweries in the Seattle area, he includes some basic

introductory material on the history of beer, how beer is made, and

beer terminology; he also provides a few recipes for food using

beer as an ingredient, a list of brewpubs & microbreweries in

Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, British Columbia and California, and an

appendix giving information on organizations, publications and

events.  The actual directory listings are given by neighborhood --

which makes it easy for planning pubcrawls!

One feature that makes this guide slightly confusing is that the

directory information itself is divided into two separate

categories, one part listing brewpubs and microbreweries, and

another listing "Alehouses and Bars."   However, the book is well

indexed, so it is easy to find the entry for a place whose name you

already know.  For all your folks heading for Portland for the AHA

convention, you might consider a side trip to Seattle, truly "The

Best Place In America to Drink Beer!"  And if you do so, you will

find this book the perfect companion to make your way around like

a native.

Don't be silly; of course I do not have any monetary interest in

the sale of this book.  I just wish I had written it.  :-)

Jim Thompson/Seattle WA

sirjames@carson.u.washington.edu

Disclaimer:  Our opinions are only our own, aren't they my

Precious?

     Five things these Chestertonian youths revere:

     Beef, noise, the Church, vulgarity and beer.

               -- Anonymous

_______

------------------------------


Clear Beer?

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1993 21:33 EDT

From: Kieran O'Connor <OCONNOR%SNYCORVA.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

Subject: Clear Beer?

OK.  I couldnt believe it, but, alas, it was on NPR.  Miller will soon

be offering a clear beer!  Anyone got any details?

I suppose it will be helpful to those who wish to avoid the open

container laws, but at the price of drinking Miller :-)

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Addresses:

Bitnet: oconnor@snycorva

Internet: oconnor@snycorva.cortland.edu

------------------------------


"clear beer??..."

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 93 21:51:16 CST

From: lencell@unmc.edu (Lance Encell)

Subject: "clear beer??..."

anybody hear about Miller coming out with a "clear" beer?

Can you believe it?  Sorry if this is old news, and if it isn't, sorry

I don't know more...... or am I?

- ----Lance

------------------------------


Mashout, RIMS

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 93 22:10 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Mashout, RIMS

 >From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

 > Jack suggested that the mashout also increases the grain

 bed temperature to allow for an easier sparge.  This may well be true, but

 I suspect that this would be more important for commercial breweries.  A

 friend and I compared the extraction rates for two brews, one sparged with

 cold water, the other with hot..

 Just for the record, I never made claims that mashout improves yield.  Only

 that it would tend to prevent stuck mashes in cases where this could be a

 problem.  I tend to agree that, assuming a working system, the yield depends

 primarily on the malt.  My last batch was 34/pts/lb/gal and the only thing I

 changed was the malt.  I used Belgian Munich.

 >  (Jack, you seem to get good results, would you mind trying a cold

 sparge through the EM and let us know how it turns out?)

 Hmmm... That's a bit like asking my wife if she would mind if I brought

 another women home.  I think I know the answer and am not sure what the

 exercise would prove.

 I am sure it would work and with the EM, you can stir it anytime and

 eliminate set mashes but there is just something about sugar and hot water

 that seems right.

 >From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>  on RIMS...

 Reading the article in Zymurgy on RIMS put me to sleep and the question of

 "why" kept haunting my dreams.  Now that someone seems to have made it work,

 I still ask, "why"?  It seems a bit like a computer controlled, laser guided

 nail clipper.  Would someone please tell me what the benefits are supposed to

 be?

 js

------------------------------


Belgium

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 93 22:36:00 CST

From: hopduvel!john@linac.fnal.gov (John Isenhour)

Subject: Belgium

I've been wanting to find an excuse to check out the Belgian brews

real close up, and recently someone told me there was some kind of

brewfest that occurs once every five years called the Leeven

Festival (his spelling) and that it was about 10 Km out of Brussels.

I can find a town called Leuven northeast of Brussels and am hoping

this is the right place.  Anyway, if anyone has any info on this

(its supposed to be in late May) I would really like to hear about

it.

And as long as I'm there:-) I might as well see as much of the

brewscape as I can, so any hints on good places to go or routes or

whatever will be greatly appreciated.  How do you go about dragging

back beers?  Should I consider renting a car (or a truck and a

driver?).

- --

John Isenhour

renaissance scientist and certified (till they recalc:) Beer Judge

home: john@hopduvel.UUCP  (hopduvel!john@linac.fnal.gov)

work: isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov

------------------------------


cooker conversion summary available...

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 05:01:27 CST

From: todd@gold.rtsg.mot.com (Todd M. Williams)

Subject: cooker conversion summary available...

Greetings All,

Last month I groveled in the following manner...

> I have a question about cajun cookers.  I have put an addition

>on the ol' homestead, and moved the laundry room into the addition.

>I now want to turn the old laundry room into my brewery :-[)>

>

> I have a double sink, a floor drain, and the gas line and vent from

>the dryer.  What I want to do is convert my cajun cooker from a propane

>unit into a natural gas unit.  Can I do this??  If so, does anyone

>know what is involved?  How much it might cost??  Where to get parts???

>

>Any help would be very welcome!!!

>

>Thanks,

Well, I recieved many responses...many more than I expected :-D

I would like to thank everyone personally, but, there are too many!!!

So, you know who you are....THANKS, THANKS, and more THANKS!!!

I am in the process of preparing a summary and will send it to whoever

wants it.  I guess this thread was covered over the summer (before I

started reading HBD) so I won't waste any more bandwidth posting the whole

summary.  So if you want it, send email to the address below, with a subject

of "cooker summary", and I will forward it to you.

See all you CBS/BOSS members at the Goose tonight.

Again...many thanks to all!!

Todd Williams          | Motorola, Inc.

Downers Grove, IL.     | Radio Telephone Systems Group

(708) 971-8692         | Cellular Infrastructure Group

When in Chicago....    | Arlington Heights, IL.

Gimme a call.......    | (708) 632-5691

Stop by for a HB...    | todd@rtsg.mot.com

Moderation, lad....moderation is the key.  8 or 10 is reasonable

refreshment.  After that, and it's likely to degrade into drinking.

  /--------------------------------------------------------------------------/

 / -rwxr-xr-x   1 todd      employer  69   Feb 10 1958  OPINIONS              /

 / lrwxrwxrwx   1 employer  other     9    Jan 01 1970  OPINIONS -> /dev/null /

  /--------------------------------------------------------------------------/

------------------------------


Does this qualify as anal...or what?????

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 05:33:19 MST

From: stevel@chs.com (7226 Lacroix)

Subject: Does this qualify as anal...or what?????

 I haven't been reading my mail recently, but the current thread re:

The Maltmill definitely qualifies as severely anal IMHO.  Jesus folks, get on

with the rest of your lives will ya.  If you don't like the MM, send it back,

make your own, or whatever, but climb off Jack's ass already!  I'm reminded of

a quote....nah...I've wasted too much time of this post already...

 Steve Lacroix

 Primitive Brewing (worts and all!)

------------------------------


Glass houses

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 11:54:10 +0000

From: G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk (Geoff Cooper)

Subject: Glass houses

In HBD #1089 george Fix asks:

>                                                        I seem

>to remember from my youth a story about glass houses and stones. Does

>anyone remember how that one goes?

Yes, I remember that one; doesn't it go:

        "People who live in glass houses shouldn't"

On the same lines, I believe, as:

        "Familiarity breeds"

Relax, Have fun, and keep smiling.  :-)

Geoff

------------------------------


Texas Brewpubs

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 08:14:34 -0600

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Texas Brewpubs

john@hopduvel.UUCP

isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov writes:

>ps to BLAST@sn01.sncc.lsu.edu

>

>>I have to make a trip to Austin, TX next week...

>>Anyone got the latest on brewpubs there?

>Brewpubs are currently illegal in TX:(

Unless you operate it as an amusement park centered around a marine-mammals

theme, in a county containing a city the size of San Antonio.  Why, then its OK.

Want to guess who owns Sea World?

 t

------------------------------


Diastatic malt flour

Date: 03 Mar 1993 10:28:22 -0400

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Diastatic malt flour

Malt flour with active enzymes makes terrible bread (but great bricks) by

itself.  However, adding a tablespoon (don't get carried away now) to the 6

cups or so of regular flour when making bread produces excellent results.

 ed

------------------------------


Belgium, brown sugar

Date:    Wed, 3 Mar 1993 9:40:29 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: Belgium, brown sugar

    There was mention of a beer supermarket of sorts in Brussels in a

past HBD.  Could someone point me to the issue, or give me info on

the market if you have it.  A friend is going there, and I'd like him

to have full luggage on the way back ;-).

   Re. brown sugar:  In my book, it's virtually *required* in an English

style ale.  Yes, I actually add brown sugar to all-grain batches, usually

1 lb (10-15%).  Purist, I'm not.  Beer drinker, I am.

RussG

r_gelinas@unhh.unh.edu

------------------------------


several items

Date: 03 Mar 1993 09:41:56 -0400 (EDT)

From: KLIGERMAN@herlvx.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: several items

I recently posted questions concerning Belgian wyeast 1214  and Whitbread Lager

Yeast (Koenig) dry and have received no responses. Has anyone used these or

have any info. on their flavor profiles, etc.?  Respond by e-mail if you like.

Thanks.

Jena

------------------------------


continuation

Date: 03 Mar 1993 09:56:30 -0400 (EDT)

From: KLIGERMAN@herlvx.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: continuation

I hit the wrong key and prematurely ended my last post. Sorry.

Jena D. requested info. on honey lagers.  I have made Papazian's

Propensity Lager several times and it is excellent.  The flavor depends

upon the honey used.

Regarding my use of 17 month old yeast slurry kept in the frig....It did

not revive in the strarter.  So this might be taken as a duatum for time

that leads to failure.  Others I have done have worked after about a year.

------------------------------


Dry Herbing With Coriander

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 09:00:33 -0600

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Dry Herbing With Coriander

Deb <poirier@inrs-ener.uquebec.ca> writes:

>

> I brewed a batch of Wit last weekend, which is bubbling nicely in the primary.

> The recipe (Miller) calls for the addition of 1 ounce of coriander seed to the

> secondary.  Do I have to boil the coriander before adding it or will there

> be enough alcohol present to ward off any nasties?  Any help would be very

> much appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

>

I didn't boil or anything, and had no trouble.  But I was careful about handling

the seeds.  I didn't roll `em around in my hands or anything.  I cracked `em

open with my coffee grinder -- you could crush with a heavy glass on a cutting

board, rolling-pin style.  I think some people microwave their dry-herbs to try

to kill nasties.  I can't comment on the effectiveness of this.  I counted on

careful handling and the alcohol.  Its probably nothing to worry about.

 t

------------------------------


Fastest Homebrewer/dry beer

Date: 3 Mar 1993 10:01:04 -0500

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel.F.McConnell@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Fastest Homebrewer/dry beer

                       Subject:                               Time:9:51 AM

  OFFICE MEMO          Fastest Homebrewer/dry beer            Date:3/3/93

I have just discovered the ultimate in quick homebrewed beer.  I can, with this

product make beer in 30 seconds, thus I think I deserve the title of World's

Ultra-Fastest Homebrewer.  The product is South Hills BEER flavored Dry

Beverage.  All you do is add water and presto....beer!  You can make it any

alcoholic strength you want by adding alcohol.  You can make it alcohol free

and be socially acceptable.  This is the ultimate in dry beer.  Just pour the

powder on your tongue (anyone else ever eat a Fizzie?).

Other marketing claims tell us this product has "micro-brewery taste".  Hummm,

I wonder which micro?  "This refreshing drink will help revitalize the weary by

providing carbohydrates necessary to lift the spirit and move the body" (move

over George Clinton).  "You may enjoy this beverage with or without alcohol.

If adding alcohol, please do not drive or undertake activities requiring sharp,

mental acuity."  What, we need warnings on products that contain no alcohol,

but can have alcohol added?  Next I expect warnings on orange juice, coffee,

Kool-aid.........

Ingredients: Maltodextrine,  natural and artificial beer and malt flavors,

dried beer, and corn syrup solids.

This is made for the backpacking and mountaineering set in mind.  Cost is $1.59

for 8oz which comes to a whopping $127.20 for 5 gallons.

Now for the product review.  I prepared it according to package instructions,

adding the package (less the small amount that I ate dry) to 1 cup of cold

water (the colder, the better), and waited for the "head" to go down.  I also

waited for the large floating blobs to dissolve.  The batch was divided in half

and the recommended 1/2 tablespoon of grain alcohol was added to one.

Dry: Slightly sweet, sour and effervescent.  Fun and pleasant.

Non-alcohol: Slightly cloudy.  Aroma is that of licorice, no hops, no malt.

Low carbonation.  Taste is thin, sour with some lemon notes.  Not at all

beer-like.  Drain food.

Alcohol:  Same appearance as NA version.  Alcohol present in nose with

licorice.  Low carbonation.  Flavor is flat, the alcohol predominates over the

sour, lemon flavor.  Drain food.

Overall impression: a waste of perfectly good water.

I'm glad I didn't make a 5 gal batch!  I guess that I will go back to more time

consuming methods:-)

DanMcC

PS.  The cows were picked off the Net.  Am I a cattle rustler?

>          (__)

>          (oo)                       U

>   /-------//                    /---V

>  / |     ||                    * |--|                       .

> *  ||----||

>    ^^    ^^

> Cow at 1 meter.         Cow at 100 meters.        Cow at 10,000 meters.

------------------------------


New PA Homebrew Supply Shop

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 10:07:22 -0500

From: blosskf@ttown.apci.com (Karl F. Bloss)

Subject: New PA Homebrew Supply Shop

For those of you in the Lehigh Valley, PA or surrounding areas, there's

a new homebrew supply shop you might be interested in.  At the moment he's

mail order only, except by appointment, since there's no retail shop.

I talked to the guy for a bit and he seemed knowledgeable (at least compared

to me) and quite pleasant.

Call or write and ask for a catalog:

Have A Home Brew

Chris Striba, Brewer & Owner

1322 Weaversville Rd.

Northampton, PA  18067

(215) 262-4092

------------------------------


Glass Carboys in Dallas Texas - Where are they ?

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 09:50:37 CST

From: roddy@visual-ra.swmed.edu (Roddy McColl)

Subject: Glass Carboys in Dallas Texas - Where are they ?

My brewing friends and I are looking for some prices on glass carboys

in the Dallas Texas area. Any brewers in the area who know of good

prices ($15 is the best we have so far), please let me know where and

how much.

Thank you much

Roddy McColl

------------------------------


Starting that siphon!!

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 10:55:57 -0500 (EST)

From: David C Mackensen <cygnus@unh.edu>

Subject: Starting that siphon!!

What I usually do is use a sanitized turkey baster to start my siphon...

it's kinda hard to explain, but I usually wind up with the turkey

baster full of beer and the hose too (wich is good)...

I usually suck, then let it sit for a second, then squeeze to purge

the air, then suck again, let it settle, then squeeze...

now, if you keep your mind out of the gutter, we should be all set :)

it helps if the baster is at the level you are going to siphon to...

this should get the hose full of beer, then rip the baster out and

away you go... and of course, empty the baster full of beer into the

carboy.

 -chris

- --

------------------------------


efficient propane burners

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 11:03:22 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: efficient propane burners

Since this burner thread has started up, I thought I would

share my experience with building a propane fed direct fired

burner unit.  My problem was to find a efficient variable

output burner to both heat the mash tun through various steps

without carmelizing the mash, and also be used to quickly

heat large volumes of water or wort.  I was aware of the

Solarflo corporation from a comment in Bill Owens pamphlet on

building a brewery.  I got the brochure from solarflo (

22901 Aurora Rd, Bedford Heights, OH, 44146, 216-439-1680)

and discovered a large selection of slotted cap and inpinged

burners.  These units are made of cast iron and feature air

venting that ensures even burning and optimum combustion.  The

burners are very impressive units, incorporating numerous

geometries and numbers of jets available.  This kind of product

is not cheap, the unit I selected has 24 slotted cap jets on

a 10.5 inch disk.  This unit ran approx $160.  I do believe

it is worth the cost for larger applications.  All you need

other than the burner is a propane ball valve, regulator,

tank and a connection means, I used 1/2 inch refridge copper

tubing flared onto 1/2 inch black iron pipe.  The real nice thing

about this design is that it is flexible, I can lower or raise

the burner height or I can adjust the flame BTUs using the Ball

valve.  During mashing, the distributed flame front from 24 jets

allows me to rapidly raise temp without carmelization.  It will

also boil over my wort kettle if I let it.

Thanks to the people who responded to my filtering question, I am

gathering the necessary elements and will post a synopsis when

complete.

Good Brewing,

Jim Busch

Colesville, MD

------------------------------


Alcohol Free -- Can It Be Done?

Date:         Wed, 03 Mar 93 10:57:09 EST

From: Jim Lando <ST403299@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>

Subject:      Alcohol Free -- Can It Be Done?

Dear Homebrewers,

Here's a challenge for you.  I'm an avid beer lover who has been told that I

may not consume alcohol anymore for medical reasons.  The current cast of

non-alcoholic brews pales (no relation to ales) in comparison with the variety

and quality of microbrew and macrobrew available for consumption.  To date

I have found only one non-alcoholic brew which has any hops flavor at all and

this is Freeport USA made by the FX Matt Brewing Co of Utica, NY.

My question then is twofold: 1) Do you know of any other non-alcoholic brews

of any quality? 2) Can one homebrew a non-alcoholic beer? (short of brewing,

distilling, and recarbonating)  Are there solutions which do not involve huge

capital expenditures?  Are there yeasts which produce CO2 but not EtOH?

Any info you have will help.

Thanks In Advance,

Jim Lando

------------------------------


First all grain

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 09:12:37 MST

From: haney@soul.ampex.com (Kenneth Haney)

Subject: First all grain

Hi all,

Well I finally took the plunge and tried an all-grain beer. I am so

excited I just had to post it. Everything seemed to go amazingly smooth

without any real hic-ups. I think I need to make a bigger lauter-tun,

the one I've been using for partial mashes just isn't big enough, the

grain comes to the top of the bucket. Anyway here is my first attempt.

    9 lbs. Munton & Fison Lager (purchased precrushed, don't have a mill)

    1/2 lbs. same grain toasted for 10 min at 350 in oven

    1/2 lbs. Munton & Fison Crystal Malt  (No idea about L. rating)

    1 oz. Kent Goldings  60 min boil

    1/2 oz. Hershbacher Hallertau (sp??) 30 min boil

    1/2 oz. Hersh. Hall. 10 min boil

    pinch  Irish Moss  10 min boil

    1 pk Edme dry yeast

I used a step mash ala THCOHB. Lauter-tun got filled up to the top

with grain so there was no way to keep sparge water above the grain

bed, still seemed to go smooth. I only have small pots so I had to

use 4 of them to hold and boil all of the wort. I also split up the

hops between the pots so they all got some. I chilled with my new

immersion chiller thanks to a none brewer friend that found a copper

coil in his travels and gave it to me. Boy it sure beats the cold

bath tub bit. It is now fermenting as we speak.

I am going to have to get a big boiling pot some day. I do have a

cooler to convert to a mash/lauter-tun. Does anyone have any

suggestions about what to do to convert it?????

I sure hope this batch turns out OK, because it sure was fun and

not as hard as I had always thought it would be.

Ken Haney

haney@ampex.com

------------------------------


Millage

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 11:21 EDT

From: Kieran O'Connor <OCONNOR%SNYCORVA.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

Subject: Millage

Not to inflame the flamers--just leave this one alone.

But on the Maltmill that I purchased, I use a clean paintbrish to

clean the rollers.  It gets out all of the malt dust, and I use my

dustbuster to suck it up.  I use a 2" inch brush--but any will do.

I suppose the only caveat is to make sure its new.

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Addresses:

Bitnet: oconnor@snycorva

Internet: oconnor@snycorva.cortland.edu

------------------------------


Brewcap, Korea Malt, Chinook

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 11:19:16 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Brewcap, Korea Malt, Chinook

Mike gildner asks about brewcaps.  They are cheap and very useful for

starting siphons.  My prefered method is sucking on the brewcap when

racking to a carboy with the cap on the receiving part of the siphon.

Other than that just suck.  Starting siphons is not all that likely

to infect a batch.  I am convinced all the handling while filling

the siphone with water is more risky. Swill your mouth with

hard liquor before starting it, if you are concerned.

It is interesting about the Korean malt as I noticed it in an oriental

food store around the same time as the original mention here.  It was

very pale and cheap so flour seems like the likely explanation.  I used

to use a cheap dried malt extract that I got at a health food store

for brewing.  It was dark and relatively cheap.  However, my girlfriend

had a reaction to beer made with it, and it made Laaglander seem

fermentable.  I still have some for straters, but since I started

canning boil dregs I haven't used it.

I have been using Chinook hops as bittering hops, and have been a little

disturbed by a slightly unpleasent aftertaste from beers brewed with

them.  I have heard some criticism of this hop variety.  Am I seeing the

effect of it?  If so can someone recommend a palatable high alpha bittering

hop.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@bach.helios.nd.edu

------------------------------


Commercial beer yeast

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 12:11:13 -0500

From: cm199@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Thomas G. Moore)

Subject: Commercial beer yeast

I'm looking for commercial beers that you can culture the yeast

out of besides Chimay and Sierra Nevada. Preferably ale yeast.

Any help would be appreciated!

------------------------------


INDEX, BS, Ranching

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 11:11 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: INDEX, BS, Ranching

 I noticed in yesterday's index that I had sent two messages to the Digest,

 subject Maltmill, which I did not.  Fortunately, they did not appear in the

 body and I gather that Rob's Automagical software can sort out cc's from

 email but somehow they stick in the index.

 >From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

 >Subject: Brown sugar........

 >Some beers, especially British ones, are brewed with small amounts

 of brown sugar.

 If brown sugar gives you the taste you are looking for, then Reinheightsgbot

 be damned.  However, you should know that "brown sugar" in the U.S, (thanks

 to the good old FDA again) is nothing but refined white sugar with molasses

 added.  If you don't believe it, try it.  I made some when I first heard this

 and have not bought brown sugar since.

 The point is, if you only want the flavor contributed by brown sugar you

 might consider just using molasses and leaving out the sugar.   You also have

 a much wider range of flavors in molasses than you do in brown sugar.

 >From: atl@kpc.com

 >Subject: Re: Yeast Ranching

 I dealt with most of this in email but here are a few comments that may be of

 interst to others...

 > You may have a point on simplicity, but I had more faith in the "canned"

 wort keeping for a long period of time at room temperature.

 You run the risk of the neck and mouth of the jar contaminating the wort as

 you pour it out.  I put my pint in the fridge and PC just before use if I

 need to use it directly.

 >  I'm not sure which flask you are referring to.  I use flasks for growing

 my starters, but I don't boil at that point.  I pour sterile, canned wort

 into the sanitized flask, stir in a small sample of yeast, and affix a

 sanitized plastic airlock.

 If you use a glass airlock, you can sterilize the wort, flask and airlock all

 at the same time.   When the wort comes to a boil, put on the lock and the

 steam sterilizes and fills the lock with sterile water.

 I am not trying to be hard to get along with, just hate to see people

 re-inventing the wheel.

 > Can you give me the asian name(s) for this?  I can just imagine going into

 my local asian grocery and trying to describe agar. :-)

 Strangely enough, they call it agar agar.  If you just say agar, you get a

 blank stare.

 js

------------------------------


siphon starting

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 09:31:23 -0800

From: SCHREMPP_MIKE/HP4200_42@pollux.svale.hp.com

Subject: siphon starting

Here's the best siphon starting techniques I've found:

1. Put a racking tube on both ends of ther siphon hose. It makes it a lot

   easier to handle, and helps with step 2.

2. Put a short peice (6") of siphon tube on the out-end of the thing.

3. Sterilize the whole mess.

4. Put the input end into the wort (or whatever). Hold the output end racking

   tube up so the siphon hose is in the air as high as possible.

5. Suck on the out-end to draw liquid up to the top of the upraised siphon.

6. Bring the siphon tube down, but keep the out end of the tube above the level

   of the liquid (the rest is below the liquid level).

7. Pull off the 6" piece off the end so your mouth-nasties are not going into

   your beer.

8. Put the out end where you want the wort to go and then lower it below the

   level of the liquid.

This really works. My spilled wort coefficient has dropped dramatically with

this proceedure. Finding a 6" piece of tubing with a slightly bigger diameter

than typical tubing makes it esaier to take off when the time comes.

Mike Schrempp

Beer is goood

Beer is food

My favorite beer

Is what I've brewed

------------------------------


Opaline phytoliths and hop rash

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 09:21:22 -0800 (PST)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Opaline phytoliths and hop rash

Spring is coming and all of us hop growers are getting excited.  I just

got an answer to a question about hops that had been puzzleing me since

last harvest.  Some of us hop pickers get a red rash and irritation on the

backs of hands and inside of forearms when picking hops.  There was some

speculation last fall about the cause of this:  plant juices, resins, the

stickery things on the bines, etc.

Last week I had a visit from my friend Ryan Drum, the second homebrewer

after my Uncle Charlie that I knew.  In addition to brewing, Ryan is also

a botanist and skilled in electron microscopy.  His explanation of the hop

rash is that the stems are covered with tiny needle-like mineral bodies

called opaline phytoliths (sp?)  These are broken off and get lodged in

the skin, just like fiber-glass insulation.  The little cuts in the skin

are raw and open to further irritation from sweat or other nasties.

Ryan says that nettles have a similar phytolith and this his how the nasty

oil gets into our skin when we brush against them.  He mentioned hops,

nettles and canabis as all having this kind of needle-like phytoliths.  A

long time ago he classified plants by their phytoliths and used this to

examine coprolites (fossil stools) to determine diets....

Paul.

------------------------------


brown sugar or caramel malt?

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 12:37:31 -0600

From: oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (donald oconnor)

Subject: brown sugar or caramel malt?

In yesterday's digest Rob Bradley stated he found the "brown sugar

aroma" in a beer made with malt only, no brown sugar.  For several

years I was under the impression that you needed brown sugar or

molasses (Treacle) to get that flavor and aroma and assumed that

the English ales which have that aroma do indeed use these adjuncts.

like Rob, i now wonder if I haven't been mistaken.  what tipped me off

was my first sniff of crushed Special B malt, a belgian crystal (caramel)

malt of about 200 degrees lovibond.  i've used this malt is several

ales now and it does indeed impart something very similar to the 'brown

sugar aroma' that Rob refers to.

so my question is, does anyone have DIRECT knowledge as to which

English ales use adjuncts such as brown sugar or treacle?   i wonder

if some of the ones which we think use these are actually using

very dark crystal malts similar to special B.  does anyone know

if there are very dark english crystal malts which are unavailable

in the U.S.

------------------------------


BrewCap

Date:         Wed, 03 Mar 93 13:41:51 EST

From: Daniel Butler-Ehle <DWBUTLER@MTUS5.cts.mtu.edu>

Subject:      BrewCap

To Mike Gildner <gildner@mml.mmc.com> who asked about the BrewCap:

BrewCap doesn't really make it easier to take samples.  You have

two tubes: one reaches up to the bottom of the inverted carboy to

allow CO2 and kraeusen to escape, and the other collects yeast.

In order to get a sample of the beer, you have two choices:

   1) Empty all the yeast out of the yeast collection tube and let

      it drain until you have clear beer coming out.  But the

      instructions say never to remove ALL the yeast from the tube.

      If you do this, you may cause the water trap liquid in the

      tube to get sucked up into the carboy.

or

   2) Drain the water from the larger tube (the blowoff tube), cap

      it, and shake the carboy until enough beer splashes up into

      the end of the rigid tube inside the carboy.  This gives a

      clearer sample than (1).

I've only used my BrewCap once.  It works well, but it'll take a

little getting used to.  Maybe I'll use it on one of my beers next

week.  It should be great for repitching yeast when batches overlap

because of the yeast collection tube; it's easy to remove a large

sample of freshly-settled yeast.

It took me two years to get around to using BrewCap after I bought it.

The main reason is that it requires that I have some way to hold a

carboy upsidedown without resting it on its neck.  I took a bunch of

backpack straps and sewed them together in such a way that they can

hold an inverted carboy by the shoulders.  I then hung this setup in

an upsidedown steel kitchen stool.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ K eweenaw

                                             R eal

 Dan Butler-Ehle                              A le

 Calumet, Michigan                             E nthusiasts

                                                U nited for

 dwbutler@mtus5.cts.mtu.edu                      S erious

        -or-                                      E xperimentation in

 DWBUTLER@MTUS5.BITNET                             N aturally

                                                    E ffervescent

         the U.P.'s best homebrew club               R efreshment

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ S cience

------------------------------


sugar in English beers/other thoughts

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 13:06:33 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: sugar in English beers/other thoughts

A perusal of Roger Protz's "Real Ale Drinker's Almanac" indicates

that a substantial fraction of English ale recipes employ adjuncts

and additives such as sugar, molasses, treacle, caramel, flaked

maize, and occasionally flaked wheat.  Somewhere -- it may be in

Terry Foster's "Porter" -- I read that in the 19th century English

producers were encouraged by the Government to use sugar.  Was this

an effort by the Government to encourage the home island to

patronize the colonial sources of sugar?  In any event, the

smoothness and lightness of body contributed by the adjuncts might

make the preferred "session beers" less filling to the palate,

thereby encouraging the quaffing of another pint.  While I don't

know the relative prices, it could be (and might have been) that

the cost of ingredients for such a beer might be less than if it

were an all-malt beer.  And, the unfermentables in the less-refined

sugars would contribute to aroma and flavor.

I agree with Rob Bradley that as novices we learn to stay away from

sugar, but that it nonetheless has its place.  So, by all means,

experiment with sugars in your ales.

On Bass Ale, they are quite secretive about their process and

ingredients.  None of the publications I've seen, such as the Roger

Protz books, say anything about ingredients such as the hops used,

because the brewer isn't telling.

It also seems that an important contributor to flavor, aroma, and

palate is the yeast used, and also the fermentation temperature.

John The Hop Devil ("More malt, More hops"), I'd love to take some

of that Fuller's yeast off your hands!

------------------------------


hop aroma / real ale

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 11:15:36 MST

From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

Subject: hop aroma / real ale

Donald O'Connor's comments about dry hopping made me think about what the

Brit's call "Real Ale".  I believe this term is intended to describe ale that

has been dry hopped, and that has finished fermentation/conditioning in the

keg.  Since this is done under pressure, this may explain the English folks'

love of real ale.  Actually, it probably doesn't imply dry-hopping as much as

leaving hops in the keg (perhaps left from the boil), but in either case,

more hop aroma would be retained in this situation.

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1090, 03/04/93

*************************************

-------


Lallemand dry yeasts

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 11:19:02 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: Lallemand dry yeasts

C. Lyons writes:

> I'm very curious what Al's comments were on the different yeasts.

> Al, if you've had a chance to taste the above beers you've

> referred to, please comment.  I'd also be very interested in

> hearing from others who have experimented with various dry

> yeasts.

Before I switched to Wyeast I used Nottingham Ale yeast quite a lot.

Generally I had very good results except for two successive batches that

produced a very strange flavor strongly reminiscent of that found in German

wheat beers.  In fact, one person who tasted it said that brewers strive to

get this flavor.  Well, in a pale ale it's rather out of character.  I don't

know why this happened.  It could have been higher than normal brew

temperatures (done in summer) or a contaminated batch.  At any rate, I

switched to Wyeast after that and haven't had any more problems.  Reusing

slurry from the secondary cuts down the extra cast involved.

As an aside, 1056 is REALLY attenuative!  My latest was fermented with

slurry from the previous (which used 1056 from the packet, via a starter).

In 3 days the SG went from 1.042 to 1.008.  I've heard it becomes even more

attenuative with successive mutations, too.

 Peter

------------------------------


Raspberry beer

Date:     Wed, 3 Mar 93 14:16:15 EST

From: William Boyle (CCAC-LAD) <wboyle@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  Raspberry beer

I am thinking about making a raspberry beer, the cost of

raspberries is a bit high.  I was going to use soda extract.

Mix it in at bottling time (this way I can adjust the amount

to my taste).  Has anybody tried this?  How did it turn out?

Any comments will be appreciated.

                                             B^2

------------------------------


more info on British pubs

Date:    Wed, 3 Mar 1993 13:31:18 -0600 (CST)

From: STOREY@fender.msfc.nasa.gov (BadAssAstronomer)

Subject: more info on British pubs

    Hi all

    I too would like to appeal to all you worldly people and locals

    out there. Someone posted a request for recommended English pubs

    and brewpubs of London some time ago. I will also be in London in

    the next couple of weeks. But I will also be elsewhere on the

    island. I plan to visit all type of places in the south of England

    concentrating on the Portsmouth and Bournemouth areas. I have

    plans to go to Bristol and Exeter. Just about anywhere in the

    southern half of the country is fare game.

    So, if any of you have any experiences you would like to share, I

    would like to hear them. So far the only brewery I plan to

    visit/tour is the Eldridge Pope brewery. Hope they have a tasting

    room somewhere :). You can post privately to me, or send it to the

    digest. There is bound to be someone out there besides me that

    would find any info useful.

    thanks

    scott

------------------------------


WATER BOILING ON AN ELECTRIC STOVE

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 13:09:00 CST

From: Thomas_Joe@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil

Subject: WATER BOILING ON AN ELECTRIC STOVE

 I HAVE RECENTLY MOVED TO A SMALLER PLACE THAT DOESN'T ALLOW B-B-Q'ING

 OR THE USE OF A KING COOKER. THEREFORE, I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF ANYONE

 HAS HAD SUCCESS BOILING THEIR WORT ENTIRELY ON AN ELECTRIC STOVE? IF

 SO, HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE AND CAN YOU SUGGEST ANY TIPS TO SPEED THE

 PROCESS WITH MY 8 GAL. CERAMIC ON STEEL POT.

 - JT

------------------------------


mail order hops

Date: Wed, 03 Mar 93 10:40:39 -0800

From: tims@ssl.Berkeley.EDU

Subject: mail order hops

I am looking for the name and address of a company (I think

one good one was in Oregon) which will ship hop root

cuttings, from which one can grow their own hops.

If someone has this and can email it to me, I would

appreciate it.

Thanks,

Tim

tims@sag4.ssl.berkeley.edu

------------------------------


Powdered Sugar

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 12:20:19 PST

From: "John Cotterill" <johnc@hprpcd.rose.hp.com>

Subject: Powdered Sugar

Full-Name: "John Cotterill"

I asked Micah why he used powdered sugar instead of regular sugar.  He stated

that the powdered sugar is easier to work with and it disolves better.  There

is no chemical reason, its just easier.

BTW, as I mentioned, my experience with sugar only starters suggested that I

return to good old DME.  My yeast seem much happier.

JC

johnc@hprpcd.rose.hp.com

------------------------------


Finings / Starter Wort

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 15:51:55 EST

From: Lee Menegon <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

Subject: Finings / Starter Wort

A recent post asked about the use of Polyclar as finings when to add and

 how much.  I would warn against using Polyclar immediately after racking

to the secondary.  Both my self and a fellow brewer were experiencing high

levels of diacetyl in our beers.  One of the causes was the addition of

 Polyclar immediately into the secondary.  This caused the yeast to fall

 out of suspension before it worked on reducing the diacetyl caused by

pitching at too high a temp. 1 to 1.5 tsp is plenty to add to the secondary

after a couple days of "diacetyl rest".

Starter Wort:  I use the following technique for producing starter wort.

After racking off the trub I add a gallon of very cold water to the trub.

I let the trub, wort, hop particles

settle and siphon the clear liquid in to clean bottles which I immerse

in boilng water for 30 minutes.  I cap these and refridgerate. This

produces a starter of about 20 to 25 sg points.  I was led to believe

that starters should not be high gravity since yeast mutation could occur

as the alchol level rises.  Is this a valid assumption?

- --

------------------------------


Pectate enzyme

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 14:38 MTS

From: Chuck Coronella <CORONELLRJDS@CHE.UTAH.EDU>

Subject: Pectate enzyme

I have a very short question regarding the use of pectate enzyme.  As I

understand it, this enzyme can be used to break down the pectate that will set

as a result of boiling a fruit, preventing the set pectate from clouding beer.

My question(s) are these:  Is that statement above correct?  At what point in

the process is this enzyme added to the wort?  (Before, after boil, in

secondary...)  How much is necessary?

I'm planning to use this in a cherry beer that I am making.  Actually, the

beer is already fermenting, and I'm planning to add the crushed cherries in a

couple of days.  To avoid nasties, I'd like to boil the fruit before it's

added to the fermentation.

Thanks for any help,

Chuck

------------------------------


forwarding address

Date: Wed, 03 Mar 1993 17:03:58 EST

From: fahrner_t@wums.wustl.edu

Subject: forwarding address

Please send the homebrew digest to my new address: fahrner@milbrandt.wustl.edu

Thanks in advance

Tim Fahrner

------------------------------


Yeast Starter Questions

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 18:29 EST

From: STBLEZA@grove.iup.edu

Subject: Yeast Starter Questions

Greetings all...

I have a couple quick questions about yeast starters and survivobility.

First, can yeast survive being frozen for long periods of time?  Does it depend

on the type of yeast used?  If so, does anyone have info on what type work and

what types don't?

Second, and health-store type Brewer's Yeast be used as a yeast nutrient?  It

would seem reasonable to me, since brewers yeast is killed yeast, so it should

have all the things yeast wants, in all the right quantities.

Now, here is what I want to do...

I want to get good yeast, and make a large patch of starter which is then

frozen.  Then, whenever I go to add yeast to my wort or must, I just 'chip' some

yeast off of my starter ice block, re-start it in a glass or jar, and add that

to the wort or must.  This would decrease my expense for yeast a good bit, and

would be easier than trying to keep active growth going for-bloody-ever (not to

mention that this would avoid all the problems with mutation).  So, what do

people think?  If no one has an answer, I will try it out myself...

Also, to all the people I promised a review of my medieval brewing techniques

to, sorry that it's taking so long, but I'm writing it up, and I'm currently

bogged down at school, so...

+*****************************************+************************************+

|"There are no choices between good and   |The Dragon of                       |

|evil.  All choices are between the       |    Summer Sun and                |

|lesser of two evils, or the greater of   |           Winter Moon        |

|two goods."                              |(AKA J. Hunter Heinlen)             |

|   -The Dragon of Shadow Walking and     |(Bitnet:STBLEZA@IUP)                |

|    Night Stalking -- a good friend  RIP |(Internet:STBLEZA@GROVE.IUP.EDU)    |

+=========================================+====================================+

------------------------------


Attention Grain-Brewing, Would Be Control Freaks

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 18:26:46 -0500 (EST)

From: Donovan Bodishbaugh <dfb@acpub.duke.edu>

Subject: Attention Grain-Brewing, Would Be Control Freaks

My feelings concerning the ridiculous running debate over AG vs. ME

brewing (I can resist no longer):

 You cretins have got it all wrong!  The beauty of grain brewing

lies not in gaining control, but in relinquishing control!  Once I brewed

extract beers, and they were good, but they all tasted more or less the

same.  Any changes in character (body, bitterness, color, strength, aroma,

etc.) were totally predictable, based on my simple alterations in the

recipe.  There was absolutely no surprise (read adventure) in cracking a

new batch.  Now I grain brew exclusively, because every batch is a totally

new experience.  Burners, brewpots, lauter tuns, thermostatically

controlled immersion heaters, circulators, chillers, every new piece of

paraphenalia I employ only adds another variable and source of

unpredictable complexity to my brews.  Call it the Heidelberg Uncertainty

Principle of brewing.  My beers just get better and better, no two taste

the same (regardless of using the same recipe), and, best of all, none of

them tastes remotely like a commercial product.  If my objective was to

gradually perfect some imitation of a "classic style" by trial and error

repetition, I'd buy a case of Pilsner Urquell or Guiness Extra Stout,

scrape off the labels, and spend all my weekends fishing!  What do you

people consider to be fine art, paint by the numbers?  Grain brewing

allows you to unleash the infinite variability of grain combinations,

complex carbohydrates, protein interactions, acid-base and redox

biochemistry.  The result is like ice sculpture: You can marvel at it,

savor it, and enjoy it in different lights, but you can't put it in a

museum.  If you think grain brewing gives you more control over the

finished product, you're seriously deluded.  If that is what you're after,

you are also missing the point.

DFB

"When the going gets tough, the weird turn pro." - Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

------------------------------


Oiling Your Mills...

Date:         Thu, 04 Mar 93 07:31:42 EST

From: Lloyd MacIsaac <UGF00011@vm.uoguelph.ca>

Subject:      Oiling Your Mills...

When I worked in a Restaurant the chef used Vegitable Oil to keep his

kitchen gadgets from rusting (esp. roasting pans). Perhaps this could

be the answer for mills?  Veg oil is edible and cheap. I guess Peanut oil

or sesame oil might even impart an unique taste ??

Don't know if it works, but sounds better than refined motor oil!

Lloyd MacIsaac (UGF00011@VM.UOGUELPH.CA)

------------------------------


Clear Beer

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1993 08:50:45 -0500 (EST)

From: William Frederick Pemberton <wfp5p@holmes.acc.virginia.edu>

Subject: Clear Beer

Isn't Coors marketing a clear beer called Zuma (or some similar silly

name)?

This clear thing is a really strange fad....

Bill

------------------------------


Clear beer

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 9:18:42 EST

From: roman@tix.timeplex.com (Daniel Roman)

Subject: Clear beer

Apparently Miller and some others are trying to go after a "younger"

market as well as trying to go after women.  They define "younger" as

21-25 ;-)  Anyway, following on the coattails of the light beer wave and

then the dry beer wave and now Crystal Pepsi, clear beer had to be next.

Think of it as marketing genius for the big boys to make even more

money with an even more tasteless product.  They won't have to spend

much money on malt, just more rice and corn (remember the Bud commercial

"It's the rice").  They'll charge the same price and end up with

something that tastes more like Perrier than Coors light does now but has

as much alcohol as a light beer.

Hopefully the FDA (or whoever is in charge of this kind of thing) won't

allow them to call it beer anymore.  It's really gonna give beer a bad

name (or at least "WATER" down the definition of "beer").  My

suggestion for a name would be "Alcoholized Seltzer".  I don't know why

they just don't go ahead and make seltzer by artificially carbonating

it and then just add some grain alcohol, that's gotta be cheaper then

going through the trouble of brewing it.

I certainly don't expect anyone to get into homebrewing to make "clear

beer".

- --

_________

Dan Roman  GEnie: D.ROMAN1  Internet: roman@tix.timeplex.com  //

American Homebrewers Association member        Only AMIGA!  /X/

------------------------------


Re: Ranching

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1993 07:02:26 -0800

From: mfetzer@ucsd.edu (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer)

Subject: Re: Ranching

Ahem. All this talk of Ranching is getting to me! Look folks... they're

plants. We call that farming! Ranching is for critters... Seems to be a

common misconception amongst brewers. *grin*

(just some humor to throw between the maltmills...)

Mike

__

Michael Fetzer

Internet:      mfetzer@ucsd.edu        uucp:    ...!ucsd!mfetzer

Bitnet:        FETZERM@SDSC

HEPnet/SPAN:   SDSC::FETZERM           or       27.1::FETZERM

------------------------------


Re: BrewCap

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1993 10:10:58 -0500 (EST)

From: bobml@msd.measurex.com (Bob LaGesse)

Subject: Re: BrewCap

Six or so months ago I tried to contact the the BrewCap Company but my letter

was returned with forwarding address unknown.  If anyone has their current

address, please e-mail it to me.  Overall the BrewCap arrangement worked well

but I felt that the milk carton arrangment recommended by them wasn't as

secure as I would like.  Their instructions also mentioned a tripod (sold by

them) for holding the carboy which also allowed it to rotate 180 degrees.

I think that this would make the handling of the carboy much easier.

Does anyone know anything about this contraption?

By the way Dan, Did you happen to buy your BrewCap at the Keweenaw Coop?

It's one of the best coops that I've ever been to; it's also a good source

of home brewing supplies.  In fact, I happened to buy my BrewCap there.

Also, When does your KRAUSENERS club meet?  Maybe I can bring up a few of

my own brews sometime to share 8^).

- --

Domain: bobml@msd.measurex.com    Bob LaGesse, Senior Software Engineer

  UUCP: ...!uunet!mxmsd!bobml     Measurex/Management Systems Division

 Voice: (513) 825-3931 X303       1280 Kemper Meadow Drive

   Fax: (513) 825-5393            Cincinnati, Ohio 45240, USA

------------------------------


Sugar and real ale

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 15:33:41 GMT

From: des@pandora.swindon.ingr.com (Desmond Mottram)

Subject: Sugar and real ale

Speaking as a Brit familiar with local brews and breweries:

Many, but by no means all, UK breweries use small amounts of caramel or

brown sugar to _colour_ their beers. I've never heard of it being used for

flavour. Other breweries use none at all and would be insulted if you

suggested they did, so be careful how you ask. They use larger quantities of

crystal malt instead. I can only obtain one type of crystal malt for

homebrewing and it adds a lot of colour and flavour. Darker types don't seem

at all common. I have a vague notion cara pils is a pale crystal malt. It is

certainly not commonly used in British beers.

The excessive use of sugar in brewing is generally regarded in the UK with

the same contempt and disgust as elsewhere. Only mega marketing muck makers

do it, to cut costs and to hell with quality.

Real Ale in the UK is beer which has not been filtered, pasteurised or

pressurised, and which is allowed to condition in the barrel. Air is drawn

in as it is served, so its shelf life is 4 days max. If any hops are

present they will be fresh hops added to the barrel when the beer is racked,

they would NEVER be spent hops from the boil.

Some UK pubs pressurise the beer with CO2 to force it to the bar. Others

keep it under a CO2 banket to extend shelf life. The former is called "top

pressure" and the latter "blanket pressure". Purists condemn both methods

and say beers kept in this way are not real. CO2 adds an unpleasant prickle

to real ale, though this is usually only evedent when top pressure is used.

Normally real ale is handpumped. If the beer is served through a tap (or

switch) or if the handpump is pulled back and left while the beer runs out,

ask if they are using an electric pump or top pressure. The former is OK,

the latter often is not.

PS please don't refer to England or English when you mean Britain or

British. It upsets the natives no end.

Rgds, Desmond Mottram

des@pandora.swindon.ingr.com

------------------------------


Beer on a stick (was BrewCap)

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 10:31:15 EST

From: eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West)

Subject: Beer on a stick (was BrewCap)

Dan sez:

- ------- -------------------------------

It took me two years to get around to using BrewCap after I bought it.

The main reason is that it requires that I have some way to hold a

carboy upsidedown without resting it on its neck.

- -------------  -----------------------

Took me a little while too.

My suggestion:

 -Stand a 5' or 6' 2x4 on end,

 -Drill a hole through the top end,

 -Drill another hole through it about a foot down from the first hole,

 -Run each of 2 lengths of rope through the holes,

 -Tie a loop in the lower rope that will hold the neck of your inverted

 carboy (experiment with an empty carboy),

 -Tie the upper rope around the erstwhile base of the carboy, make sure

 that it won't slip off, if it can, re-drill one of the holes so that

 the ropes will be closer together,

At Brewing Time:

 -Set your full carboy on the floor,

 -Invert the 2x4,

 -Hook the neck-loop on the neck of the carboy (watch the hoses),

 -Tie the base-rope really tight,

 -Holding onto the carboy, pick up the whole operation, turn it over, and

 rest the 2x4 on the floor (keep it balanced),

 -Lean it in a corner, make sure the 2x4 won't slip, and put a bag over it.

The hoses will hang down as straight as you please and the rotary

shaking to move the yeast into the neck is easy.

I hung a gallon jug further down the 2x4 to serve as the

blowoff/airlock, tie this on after it's all set up.

Carl West

Waltham, Mass.

When I stop learning, bury me.

[Kinney, if you like this enough to include it in future instruction

sheets, feel free to do so. I'll happily trade good illustrations for

another BrewCap or two ;)]

<was that too shameless?>

------------------------------


Dry Hopping, English Beers, Just a Thought

Date:        Thu, 04 Mar 93 11:19:48 EST

From: CW06GST <CW06GST%SJUMUSIC.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

Subject: Dry Hopping, English Beers, Just a Thought

     Recent talk of dry hopping has really peaked my curiosity.

I would really like to brew an ale with a _strong_ hop nose.

I have tried the standard "add at the end of the boil" method

but I haven't gotten the results I would like.

     It seems that dry hopping is the answer, but I don't really

know how to do it.  The literature I have found has little or no

mention of dry hopping, and the only place I have gotten any

substantial information has been on HBD.  From what I understand

all that is really necessary is to add a quality hop plug to the

secondary and let sit for a week.  Is there something I'm missing?

Can you use pellets?  Is sanitation a problem?  What type of hops

are best?  Any details would be greatly appreciated.

    Recently someone was asking about British beers and pubs

(I'm sorry, I don't recall the name).  I hope you haven't left

yet, you lucky @#$%!  My advice is to go to as many different

pubs, and try as many different beers as possible.  Not only

will you expand your beer horizons, but you will probably meet

some very interesting people.

     A couple of pubs that might be of interest are The Queen's

Larder, and the Salisbury, both in London.  The Queen's Larder

is a small neighborhood pub, simply decorated, with a friendly

atmosphere.  In addition to the beer, the stilton was very nice

also.  The Queen's Larder is located in the Bloomsbury section

of London, not far from The British Museum.  The Salisbury is a

much larger and more elegant pub, but they let me in anyway.

In addition to the ales they had on tap, they also have some

good bottled beer.

     In additon to the beers available in England that have

already been mentioned, one of my favorites is Flowers Strong Ale.

They also make an IPA which is quite good, but IMHO the strong ale

is really something special.  It is available on tap, at The Sherlock

Holmes Pub, located near Trafalgar Square.  It's a little touristy,

but at this time of year you'll probably meet some of the local

chaps.  If anyone knows anything more about Flowers Strong Ale,

I would appreciate any information.

     Finally, if there is something that you read in HBD that

you find stupid, useless, inappropiate, ridiculous, etc., why

don't you just be an adult and *ignore it* instead of helping

to propagate useless threads.

Have Fun!

Erik Zenhausern

Bronxville, NY

e-mail: cw06gst@sjuvm.bitnet

------------------------------


Assorted Questions.

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 11:13:28 CST

From: Brewmeister Gene <ezimmerm@hp.uwsuper.edu>

Subject: Assorted Questions.

     I have a DoppleBock fermenting right now that has 'been at it' for

about 5 weeks. I used 12 lbs extract, and 1.5 lbs grains in this brew. I also

have used a starter culture (With extract, and it works GREAT!). Well, the

brew started in about 8 hours after pitching and has been kept at  40 F

+- 7 F for the past 4 weeks and 5 days(two days to ensure fermentation was

going well enough, actually just a day and a half). Anyway, I was wondering

if anyone would have an idea when this thing will end? I know I should have

taken hydrometer readings, but I hate to 'waste' this brew in anyway shape

or form. I am using an 's' type air lock and the solution levels are not

level and there are still bubles on the surface of the brew...

     My next question pretains to homebrew clubs int the Laramie WY

area. My wife has applied to a Ph.D. program there and we would move if she

is accepted. So, does anyone know of the 'brew scene' in Laramie?

     Much thanks for your efforts to help me out!

Gene in Duluth

------------------------------


Texas Brewpub Legislation

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 11:32:36 CUT

From: ibmpa!vpdbox.austin.ibm.com!dewey@ibminet.awdpa.ibm.com (Dewey Coffman)

Subject: Texas Brewpub Legislation

 I got a call from the guys at Southwest Brewing News this morning

 asking me to spread the word that they are producing a Special

 Issue on the Texas Brewpub Legislation. If you'd like to receive

 a free copy of this, please CALL (512) 282-3911, and tell them

 you heard about it from Dewey Coffman on USENET.

 ( Please forward this to any interested parties )

 Southwest Brewing News    (512) 282-3911

 11405 Evening Star Drive      FAX (512) 282-4936

 Austin, TX 78739    Email: ifby546@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu

   SouthWest Brewing News.

 Covering Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Lousiana, New Mexico & Texas.

 Home Brewing & other beer related news(like the battle for brewpubs

 here in Texas.) Columns like: "Ask the Beer Doctor", Brew Ha-Ha's

 (upcoming events), & "The Hopvine".  $12 a year.

 Publisher:  Joe Barfield (512) 453-7001

 Editor:   Bill Metzger (512) 282-3911

 Ad Manager:  Hans Granheim (512) 443-3607

- --

Dewey Coffman  vpdbox.austin.ibm.com!dewey@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com

Consulting @ IBM dewey@ctci.com   dewey@cactus.org

11400 Burnet Rd    All opinions are mine.

Austin, TX 78758-3493, USA  (512) 823-6463

===============================================================================

Don't Bag it. 1-800-453-SMOG, This letter is printed on 100% recycled electrons.

------------------------------


Starting that siphon/bottle brushing

Date:  Thu, 4 Mar 1993 09:27:02 PST

From: Jeffers.Wbst129@xerox.com

Subject: Starting that siphon/bottle brushing

I have a very simple method of starting siphons. I use a plastic bottle filler

tube with the little spring loaded valve in the bottom. After sterilizing the

hose and tubes I rinse them with with very hot tap water. Then I put the bottle

filler tube on the end of the siphon hose and rinse the assembly by opening the

valve while running hot water through. I then release the valve and have a

siphon hose and tube full of water. I attach the pickup tube empty and put it

into the carboy. I start the siphon by pushing the bottle filler tube against

the bottom of an empty bowl until the beer strts to come out. I then use one of

these large black paper clamps to hold it against the bottom of my bottling

bucket so my hand doesn't get tired. The flow through the bottle filler is

slower but it is ever so easy to control.

Whenever I was brushing away at my bottles my mind would be dreaming of

automatic bottle washers and automated spinning brushes and stuff of that sort.

I was also a little paranoid that my little bottle brush has to be coaxed to

hit all the inside surfaces of the bottle. Well one day a simple idea struck

me. I got a wine bottle brush, cut the loop off the end and chucked it up in my

battery powered drill. The bigger diameter brush is a little harder to push in

but it seems to have a better chance of hitting all of the corners. Now I power

brush my bottles right in the sanitizing solution. I just have to hold the

bottle to keep it from spinning, cram the brush in, pull the trigger, wobble it

around as I run it down and up. I have used this on 8 or 9 batches and it is

much easier. Please note that 110v drills could be dangerous if they were used

in this manner.

~ Bill

------------------------------


Sugar

Date: 04 Mar 93 13:49:36 EST

From: Jeff Frane <70670.2067@compuserve.com>

Subject: Sugar

Jack is right* about American brown sugar, one of the reasons

I find it inappropriate for ales.  Much closer, I believe, is

something called Turbinado sugar, which I pick up at the health

food store -- this is a raw brown sugar, with a very different

consistency than "brown sugar" from the supermarket.

Incidentally, H L Hind's brewing text, written in Britain in the

1930s, gives representative grists for a variety of beers.  He

offers grain bills for pale ales with and without sugar (more with,

I recall, than without).  Relying on memory at the moment, it

seems that there is a good deal of discussion about various forms

of sugar and that "invert" sugar is preferred.

====

In reference to the production of "continental" aroma characteristics,

I've found in a recent brew that a _small_ amount of fresh Mt Hood

pellets, added at the end of the boil gave the beer an astonishing

Hallertau nose -- exactly like a good German lager.  In larger

quantities Mt Hood has its own distinctive aroma, but at this level,

about 1/2 oz/5 gallons, it is easy to see why it was developed as a

replacement for German Hallertau mittelfreuh.

- --Jeff Frane (gummitch@techbook.com)

*This is twice in the last week that Jack and I have agreed on

something -- will the planets shift their courses?

------------------------------


Caramel Flavour Ideas??

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 19:30:21 +0100

From: rizy@eel.sunet.se

Subject: Caramel Flavour Ideas??

I'm an all-grain freak in search of a caramel taste in my ale.

I've tried using brown sugar but with little or no success. I've also tried

frying up a bit of sugar in the frypan to caramelize it. Does anyone know

how the likes of Newcastle Brown, Bass, etc get that special caramel

flavour with a smooth body.  Any serious suggestions would be very

welcomed.

             Rick Zydenbos

             Stockholm

             Sweden (Mead Country)

------------------------------


Re: Clear beer

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 14:10:09 -0500

From: rodin@ftp.com  (Jonathan A. Rodin)

Subject: Re: Clear beer

Kieran O'Connor <OCONNOR%SNYCORVA.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU> writes:

> OK.  I couldnt believe it, but, alas, it was on NPR.  Miller will soon

> be offering a clear beer!  Anyone got any details?

lencell@unmc.edu (Lance Encell) writes:

> anybody hear about Miller coming out with a "clear" beer?

> Can you believe it?

I have in front of me the Food section from the March 3, 1993 Boston Globe.

It has an article on colorless drinks and how well they are selling.  It

mentions that Miller is working on one and that Coors "is test marketing

a new product called Zima ClearMalt, which looks like a barbershop tonic,

is meant to be drunk like beer, but tasts of gin."  Yuch, I think I'll give

them a pass.

The article (which is primarily about clear soft drinks) goes on to state:

"It's the biggest marketing fad since the 'lite' craze of the '80s."  And

we all know the 'lite craze' improved American beers.

Jon

- --

Jonathan Rodin              FTP Software, Inc.            voice: (508) 659-6261

rodin@ftp.com               2 High Street                 fax:   (508) 794-4488

                            North Andover, MA 01845

------------------------------


Re: hop aroma / real ale

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1993 11:26:44 -0800

From: paul@melody.rational.com (Paul Jasper)

Subject: Re: hop aroma / real ale

On 3 Mar, 11:15, Norm Pyle wrote:

> Subject: hop aroma / real ale

>

> Donald O'Connor's comments about dry hopping made me think about what the

> Brit's call "Real Ale".  I believe this term is intended to describe ale that

> has been dry hopped, and that has finished fermentation/conditioning in the

> keg.  Since this is done under pressure, this may explain the English folks'

> love of real ale.  Actually, it probably doesn't imply dry-hopping as much as

> leaving hops in the keg (perhaps left from the boil), but in either case,

> more hop aroma would be retained in this situation.

>

>-- End of excerpt from Norm Pyle

Well, not really.  Real Ale doesn't have to be dry hopped and solids from

the boil usually won't find their way into the barrel.  Real Ale means the

beer undergoes a secondary fermentation in the barrel (or bottle) and is

served without the use of external pressure.  The word "keg" is frowned

upon by Real Ale aficionados because it means a closed system effectively

preventing any secondary fermentation.  To an Englishman, "keg beer" equates

to dead beer, pasteurized and pumped full of CO2 at the brewery/factory,

as popularized by beers like Watneys' Red Barrel in the 60s.

"Cask conditioned" ale requires the skill of the cellarman in overseeing

the fermentation after the barrel is delivered to the pub.  This involves

the use of soft (porous) and hard (non-permeable) wooden plugs, called

"spiles" to "vent" the barrel to control the fermentation, the level of

carbonation and the contact with oxygen from the air.  Real Ales are

usually pumped from the barrel because there is insufficient pressure in

it to propel the beer from inside.  Hence, the beautiful sight of a set

of ornamental handpumps sprouting from the bar of many British pubs.

Electric pumps are fine too, as long as they draw the beer from the cask.

"Gravity dispense" involves placing the glass under the tap on the barrel

itself - the most natural way of serving a pint!

Of course, many British Real Ales are dry-hopped.  This usually involves

adding a handful of fresh hops at the brewery, just before the barrel is

sent to the pub.

- --

- -- Paul Jasper

- -- RATIONAL

- -- Object-Oriented Products

- --

------------------------------


Isn't Chinook an Army helicoptor?

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 15:16:40 EST

From: kstiles@aluxpo.att.com

Subject: Isn't Chinook an Army helicoptor?

In HOMEBREW Digest #1090 Ulick Stafford writes:

> I have been using Chinook hops as bittering hops, and have been a little

> disturbed by a slightly unpleasent aftertaste from beers brewed with

> them.  I have heard some criticism of this hop variety.  Am I seeing the

> effect of it?  If so can someone recommend a palatable high alpha bittering

> hop.

A few weeks back I solicited opinions of Chinook hops for flavor/aroma.

Summary of responses:  Joseph Nall said that they were disdained for

their flavor/aroma, and recommends Centennial instead.  Jack Schmidling

uses them extensively for bittering and flavor, and finds them excellent

for both uses.  Scott Barrett (earlier private communication) had seen

them described as "spicy." A couple of months ago, Al Korzonis posted

Alpha and Beta acid information from Hopunion for many hop varieties.

[Enter fallible memory mode]  Somewhere, the argument was made that high

Alpha bittering hops can leave harsh overtones because the Alpha/Beta

ratio is much higher than it is for the noble hops (about 1.0).  By this

meric, Galena would be a better choice, though not as good as sticking

to noble varieties.

My interest in Chinooks originated with a first year harvest of almost

12 ounces.  I brewed a pale ale hopped solely with home grown Chinook

hops to educate my palate.  It was a generic 1.060 SG pale wort with:

(full 5 gal. boil) 3/4oz. at 60 min, 1/2oz. at 30 min, 1/2oz. at 2 min

and 1/2oz. for dryhopping in the secondary.  I found the flavor to be

unusual, but not unpleasant - pretty mild hop character considering

the IBU that I had calculated (about 55, assuming Alpha=12).  This

was such a popular brew that the second part of the experiment (the

effect of aging) had to be abandoned.  What would be nice would be a

reference to a commercial brew X, where, say,

brew X : Chinook     as     Anchor Liberty Ale : Cascades.

Ah, well, back to experiments.

Kevin Stiles

------------------------------


Re: Sanitizer

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1993 12:44:29 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: Sanitizer

>From: korz@iepubj.att.com

>

>Personally, I'm trying to move away from Chlorine as a sanitizer from a

>environmental point of view.  Moving to Iodine may not be much better

>for the environment either.  I'm looking for a source of Peracetic Acid

>(Acetic acid and Hydrogen Peroxide).  The H2O2 quickly becomes water and

>acetic acid is plentiful in the world.  Also, a few stray ppm of acetic acid

>won't affect my brew as much as a few ppm of Sodium Hypochlorite will.

I'm no biologist either, but how's this:  if you have the means to

generate and manage it, wouldn't live steam make a reasonable and

"green" sanitizing agent?  Of course, it's just as nasty to, say, human

skin as it is to nasty-bugs, but like I said, you'd need some way to

manage it.

Biologists?  Environmental Engineers?  Plumbers?  Rank amateurs?

Actually, the peracetic acid idea doesn't sound too bad.  Wonder what

the Aldrich catalog has to say...  (Yes, Mike, I'll be giving it back

to you any day now.)

have fun

gak

Castro Valley, California

------------------------------


My Current RIMS setup

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 9:51:31 CDT

From: agerhardt@ttsi.lonestar.org (Alan Gerhardt)

Subject: My Current RIMS setup

I have been a RIMS nut/experimenter since I first read Rodney's

article in Zymurgy. I've used coolers, kegs, and any other container

I could find to experiment.

My batch size has always been 10 gallons, and I have occasionally

run into the grain bed compaction problem described by others.

I have done two things over the last few months which have helped

considerably:

(1) I started using a roller mill ( yes, the infamous MM - if you

    put aside all the arm-waving and frothing at the mouth, it is

    a very good mill for the money ).

    My corona always seemed to produce some amount of flour, depending

    on how good my adjustment was. Sometimes, this flour would make a

    paste and clog my screen at the bottom of the mash/lauter tun.

    This problem went away when I started using the roller mill.

(2) My current mash/lauter tun is a 1/2 barrel keg with the top

    cut off and a drain pipe in the bottom, with a SS screen false

    bottom. When I start a batch, I place a "tube" formed by rolling

    up some SS screen in the center of the keg, resting on top of

    the false bottom. The diameter of the tube is about 3-4 inches.

    The mash is placed around the outside of the screen tube, so

    from a top view, it looks like a donut.

    The recirculating wort now flows through the screen in the

    middle as well as through the bottom. Since the primary goal

    during the mash phase is to control temperature, it really doesn't

    matter that the flow is not uniform through the garin bed any

    more. The temperature seems to be reasonably uniform through

    the mash, and no compaction occurs.

    Also, by having the return flow from the pump exit below the

    surface of the wort, I no longer have any foaming. That hopefully

    reduces HSE.

    At sparge time, I simply reduce the flow way down, pull the

    tube out, and give the mash a gentle stir. After about 5-10

    minutes, the wort is running clear again. I then turn the

    pump off, start the pre-heated sparge water flowing in at

    about the same rate as the wort drains out the bottom.

I have about 5 batches under my belt ( figuratively and literally)

using this setup, and it seems to work well.

I hope this helps give someone more ideas to keep improving the

RIMS technology. More personal equipment experiences would really

help the s/n ratio on the digest. One does not have to agree or

approve of someone else's methods to gain benefit (food for thought)

from them.

I would be very interested in hearing about what type of temperature

controls anyone is using with a RIMS setup.

------------------------------


Re: siphon starting/Edme... yikes!

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 15:20 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: siphon starting/Edme... yikes!

My method for sanitizing my racking setup and siphoning:

1. Fill the priming vessel (usually a carboy) with sanitizing solution.

2. Fill the racking tube/hose with tapwater and close the plastic hose clamp

3. Dip the racking tube into the priming vessel, put the out-end of the

setup into a small bowl or pitcher, place this lower than the level of the

top of the sanitizing solution, open the clamp and siphon some of the

sanitizing solution till you get the small bowl 3/4 full.  Close the hose

clamp.

4. Let this sit for 10-15 minutes to sanitize the inside of the tubes, the

outside of the racking cane and the last foot or two of the out-end of the

hose.

5. Remove the setup from the priming vessel and the bowl and rinse off the

outside in hot water.

6. Hand it to your brew-partner to hold by the "safe-to-touch" areas (the

areas that will not be in touch with the beer) or place it down on a

previously sanitized place (I hang mine from the ceiling by a loop of

string -- touching only at the "safe-to-touch" areas).

7. Dump the sanitizing solution into a large bucket (I ususally use my

old plastic fermenter for this) just in case you need to re-sanitize.

Rinse the priming vessel and add your priming solution to it.

8. Pour some hot water (or boiled water if your water has bacterial

problems) into a vessel and place the in-end of the racking tube (the

racking cane, in my case) into this water.  Lower the out-end below

the level of the water and run the siphon for a few minutes to rinse

out the sanitizing solution.  Make sure stop the siphon (close the

hose clamp) before you run out of water.

9. Move the in-end of the setup into the beer you wish to siphon and

the out-end into a slop bucket.  Open the hose clamp and run the

siphon till it's full of beer.  Shut the clamp, move the out-end

into the priming vessel and re-open the clamp.

10. By the way, I don't let the siphon run dry at this stage either.

When I've finished siphoning the green beer into the priming vessel,

I shut off the clamp, raise the priming vessel, move the in-end of

the setup into the priming vessel, attach a sanitized bottling wand

and siphon a few seconds into the slop bucket to purge the un-primed

beer out of the setup.

Once I got to be good at this method, I only have to start my siphon

once and just use the previous liquid to start the siphon of the

liquid I want to siphon.  It may sound complicated, but it's not.

I would like to recommend *against* starting a siphon with one's mouth

in the strongest possible way (even if you rinse your mouth out with

hard liquor, etc.)... it's an invitation for trouble.  I used to use

a turkey baster, but it did not have enough volume to start the siphon

in one draw, so inevitably, I would blow a bunch of air through my

beer -- not good.

***********************

Kenneth writes:

>Subject: First all grain

>    9 lbs. Munton & Fison Lager (purchased precrushed, don't have a mill)

>    1/2 lbs. same grain toasted for 10 min at 350 in oven

>    1/2 lbs. Munton & Fison Crystal Malt  (No idea about L. rating)

>    1 oz. Kent Goldings  60 min boil

>    1/2 oz. Hallertauer Hersbrucher 30 min boil

>    1/2 oz. Hall. Hers. 10 min boil

>    pinch  Irish Moss  10 min boil

>    1 pk Edme dry yeast

I humbly would like to suggest that your beer would improve much more

if you switched away from Edme dry yeast.  I cringed when at the end of

your wonderful ingredient list, I read "Edme dry yeast."  If you want

to stay with dry yeast, try Lallemand Nottingham, or even better, try

Coopers dry yeast.

Al.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1091, 03/05/93

*************************************

-------


Lager starting

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 15:42 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Lager starting

In a recent post, I described *one* method that is used to start a

lager fermentation, in which the ferement is started at a warmer

temperature and then cooled for the main ferment.  Jim Busch, in

private email pointed out:

><stuff that kills some bacteria" and then raise the temperature.  It's sort

><of backwards from one common way to make lagers: to start the batch at

><around 65F and then once the yeast get going, (slowly) lower the temp to

><40F or 45F.

>

>I personnaly believe this is bad advice to those wishing to brew authentic

>lagers.  Yes, starting the ferment at 65F will go a long way toward

>getting the ferment going, but it will adversely affect the flavor

>profile of the finished product.

What Jim means is that esters will be produced and you'll get the fruity

flavors of an ale which you would like to avoid in a lager.

>Once the ferment gets going at 65F, the

>thermal energy will push the average internal temp up as much as 10F!

>Unless the brewer has a amazingly efficient attemperation device, the

>"lager ferment" stage would be at high kraeusen around 65-70F until the

>chiller could kick in.  It can take as much as three days at 49F to

>reduce the temp into the acceptable range and by this time most of the

>primary ferment will be complete.  Also, one does not want to reduce the

>temp below 48F until 90+% of the primary is complete.  At this time,

>a two day rest at 42F will be adequate to reduce diacetyl levels, prior to

>reduction to 31F for lagering.  This is another personal nit of mine that

>I frequently hear homebrewers refer to a 70F diacetyl rest. This is indeed

>an efective way to "rush ferment" lagers as Professor Narziss has documented

>very well.  But this technique is intended to produce lagers in less than 21

>days, total time!  Even in this method, the primary is carried out at 55-58F

>and not into the 60s.

>

>This is not intended to be a flame, and I think you are doing a good job

>of informing the public of various techniques.  I believe the attitude to

>push the temperature is a result of grossly inadequate pitching quantities,

>and is a poor substitute for healthy yeast.

He's right.  I should probably mentioned the preferred method in which the

starter is slowly (to avoid temp shock) cooled to, say, 50F and pitched

into 50F wort.  Then you can slowly bring the temp down to the 40s if you

want.  Note that this will give you a much slower start than the method

I suggested in my original post and therefore will require much better

sanitation, but if it's lager you're after, I recommend (as Jim does)

that you follow the German methods as opposed to the "rush ferments"  that

the American industrial giants use.  Note that fruitiness is also tied

to the strain and some are less fruity at warmer temps than others.

Thanks Jim.

Al.

------------------------------


Cooper's Yeast

Date: 4 Mar 1993 16:05:53 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

Subject: Cooper's Yeast

Subject:  Cooper's Yeast                        Time:1:57 PM     Date:3/4/93

Al says:

>The Coopers is quite fruity fermented at 65F and probably the

>best dry ale yeast I've ever tried.  It's not phenolic at all

>and all the flavor is a very clean fruitiness.

My experience with Cooper's is that it has a distinct "bready" character. I

generally use Sierra Nevada cultured from a few Pale Ale bottles. I have

substituted Cooper's at times when my starter didn't make the grade. I make a

house ale regularly with no modifications to the recipe unless I pitch the

Cooper's rather than the SNPA. The Cooper's is much less fruity with more yeast

taste or, as I said, "bready". Attenuation seems to be about the same between

the two. My house ale has an OG of 1.060 and finishes around 1.018 with both

yeasts.

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


All-Grain Help/BrewCap

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 21:36:46 PST

From: "Joe Stone" <JSTONE@SJEVM5.VNET.IBM.COM>

Subject: All-Grain Help/BrewCap

  I completed my first all-grain batch about three weeks ago.  Two-and-a-half

gallons are now bottled.  The other two-and-a-half gallons were filtered

(0.5-micron "Filter Store" filter) and are now carbonating in a keg in my

fridge.  I sampled the beer in between the primary and secondary and it had a

pronounced "grainy" taste (grainy as in grain husk).  Being my first all-grain

batch, I severely underestimated the heat-retention capabilities of a Vollrath

pot.  I combined nine pounds of grain (one pound at a time) with a steady

stream of 170oF water.  The initial mash temperature was 150oF.  In my haste,

I immediately applied heat to the mash with a 35K BTU cooker.  The Vollrath

pot has a SS tooled screen in the bottom.  Upon applying heat, the temperature

of the water/grain-dust solution below the screen increases rapidly.  By the

time I could thoroughly stir the mash, the temperature was at 190oF.  Oops!

Not only did the temperature hit 190oF, but it took a good 45 minutes for the

temperature to return to the target range.  I was hoping that someone could

confirm my seemingly-obvious diagnosis of the "grainy" taste.

  I also have a question regarding sparging.  I often read of two and three

hour sparges.  I use an elevated cooker/pot arrangement to bring heated water

to the grain bed via a sparge ring.  I have good control over the drip-rate.

My question involves what is considered appropriate in terms of a sparge rate.

With my first all-grain batch mentioned above, I "throttled-back" the flow

rate using the spigot in the bottom of the pot.  My objective was to sparge

for one hour and collect about six-and-a-half gallons of wort.  After about

45 minutes, the flow rate had reduced to a trickle (with the spigot now

wide open).  I would estimate that I collected about four gallons of wort.

Does this seem appropriate?  Should I be calculating my extraction rate?

  I can't imagine a better siphon-starter than a BrewCap.  I took a very

sharp 0.5" drill bit and drilled out the main stem of the BrewCap.  There is

a significant amount of excess material between the I.D. and the O.D. of the

main stem.  I soaked the BrewCap in hot water for a few minutes and inserted

my 0.5" O.D. hooked racking tube into this enlarged stem.  I slid an 8" piece

of tubing over the auxiliary stem into which I simply blow.  The siphon starts

every time and your mouth doesn't come anywhere near your beer.

js

------------------------------


re: Ginger beer summary

Date: 4 Mar 93 23:19:07 MST (Thu)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: re: Ginger beer summary

Dave Whitman <rsndww@rohmhaas.com> writes about ginger...

> Many people pointed out that the sweetness of the wort may be masking the

> ginger flavor...

This is backwards from my experience (and some cooking experience as well)

 - a bit of sweetness usually tends to bring out spices, ginger in

 particular.

>...The message is that 1) lots of recipes use about 3 oz of ginger

FWIW, we've used a lot more than that, and had good results.  We used about

9 oz in an amber ale that turned out nicely, and about twice that in a

mead.  (these were 5 gal recipes)  The amber ale was a prize-winner some

years ago.  The mead is still young, hence a bit assertive, and you need to

calibrate the difference in alcohol content (meads generally being a lot

stronger), but it's not excessive.  Don't be too bashful!  I'd say you can

put half a pound of ginger in a serious ale, and a pound in a good mead.

> Jim Grady suggests grating the ginger rather than slicing it.  For what it's

> worth, I tasted the ginger slices after boiling, and they were pretty

> flavorless, suggesting that the flavor was sucessfully extracted.

That's a good test, but I wonder if you may not have boiled off some part

of the essence?  (conjecture only)  We have added ginger to the hot wort

or must, then transferred it to the primary and let it stay for at least

the first week or so.

> Spenser Thomas warns that he tried adding pieces of ginger to each bottle,

> which gave good flavor, but also caused gushing...

Definitely a problem...nucleation points.  Anything rough will cause CO2 to

come out of solution rapidly.  (It could be a sanitation problem as you

suggested later, but I think not.  It's just a matter of providing the kind

of surface that makes CO2 bubble out.)

> (another) He has added ginger to his secondary, and that doesn't seem to

> help, and sometimes leads to off-flavors.  He speculates the pulp rots, and

> suggests I try dried, ground ginger.

No, stay with fresh ginger.  You lose too much otherwise.  I'd suggest

trying to treat it more gently--get it hot enough to sterilize, but don't

boil it.

 ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


bikePUBcrawl

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 22:23:57 -0800

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: bikePUBcrawl

Despite suggestions to the contrary, I have decided to go ahead and carry

out this bicycle-based pub crawl, as scheduled, this Sunday, 07 March 1993.

I realize that the weather may not prove suitable but my intuition is that

it will be a glorious day. Early March in San Francisco usually is.

If anyone cares to skip this bicycle ride, it may happen again, if it proves

at all to be successful or reasonably well-attended, in a month or so. It's

also possible some other bikePUBcrawls might be scheduled, elsewhere in the

Bay Area ...

Those of you without the inclination to bicycle ( Russ Wigglesworth, to be

precise, but surely others as well ) are welcome to meet us at the brewery,

within the time range we estimate we'll be arriving within - see below for

the approximate schedule.

The destination is the Marin Brewing Company, 'in Larkspur, at 1809 Larkspur

Landing Circle( ph# 415.461.4677)', to quote a helpful soul. ( Thanks, PDK. )

The route is described below, although it is also reachable by car as well as

by ferry. ( This route is also summarized below, but I include other direc-

 -tions for purposes of redundancy of informedness - thanks, Paul J. )

I encourage everyone to invite a friend or three. Safety in numbers ...

Here's the schedule :

Sunday 1130 arrive at south end of Golden Gate Bridge, via bicycle from

  Fisherman's Wharf ( where car is optionally parked ), or,

  park on ocean side of bridge, by old WWII artillery bunkers

  and ride bicycle over to meeting point ( short stroll ).

 1200 depart from south end of Golden Gate Bridge, meeting on the

  west side of the bridge ( bicycle side ) between 1130 - 1200.

  bring a windbreaker, a backpack, and water, of course, as

  well as ancillary items - tools, spare tire, pump, headlight

  if you plan to ride at night, etc.

  Over bridge, loop around to road underneath, follow around

  to Sausalito, through Sausalito, through Mill Valley, under

  101 overpass, across marshes, to stop light @ Blythedale.

 1300 Depart intersection of Blythedale, negotiate neighborhood

  via bike path, towards and parallel to 101, over hill and

  into Corte Madera, to Tamal Vista Street.

  Follow Tamal Vista to end, turn right, cross 101, turn left,

  follow bike path parallel to 101, into Larkspur.

 1400 Arrive Larkspur, check ferry schedules, converge on pub for

  cold ale and hot food.

 1600 Head back to San Francisco via ferry. Windbreakers useful.

 1800 Possible sunset gathering at the infamous Toronado.

Caveats :

 - There won't be any good way to deal with dead bicycles en

  route, so I ask everyone to

  (a) determine that their vehicles are in good shape, and

  (b) determine how they will cope with problems if they

   occur ( I suggest Golden Gate Transit ).

  I'll have a pump but I'm not a professional bike mechanic.

 - Bring spare change in case you need to make calls or take a bus,

  as well as bicycle locks and the like.

 - Bring tools if you have them, between us we may be able to fix

  any small problems that crop up.

 - Mountain bikes are advised simply because they are more able to

  resist flat tires through their architecture, and flats

  are the single greatest nemisis of bicyclists.

 - Bring some snacks, we'll be working up an appetite ...

Here's a longer but more precise explanation provided by Paul Jasper.

- -- richard

     "It is obligatory, within the limits of capability, to commend the

      good and forbid evil."     _Kitab_Adab_al-Muridin_, by Suhrawardi

                richard childers          pascal@netcom.com

> Richard,

>

> I don't know about San Rafael, but a group of us often cycle from

> San Francisco to Larkspur Landing during the summer months.  It is

> about 22-24 miles from the centre of SF to the Marin Brewing Company

> in the shopping area at Larkspur Landing Circle.  There's a footbridge

> over the road from the ferry landing that takes you right up behind

> the brew pub.  The beer is excellent, and the food is pretty good too.

>

> Our route:

>

> Cycle through Park Presidio to the Golden Gate Bridge (very pleasant,

> but check the map for the precise route).  Careful as you leave the

> park: observe stop signs and the speed limit, because cops often

> hang out in the bushes on busy summer days (honest - they'll ticket

> you!)  You'll cross under the bridge to get to the bike path on the

> west side of the bridge (east is for pedestrians only).

>

> Over the bridge and turn left immediately on the other side across a

> narrow pathway to take the road that winds down under the bridge.

> Follow this round the coast into Sausalito.

>

> Follow the marked bike route (there's one place where you dismount and

> carry your bike down some steps).  Basically, you follow a straight line

> all the way out of Sausalito to Mill Valley, going under the 101 viaduct.

> Eventually, you come to a junction with stop lights.  Cross the road,

> the bike path continues and is quite wide.  You'll reach a right turn

> into a residential street - take this.  I think you pass a small school.

>

> Keep going straight on towards 101.  When you reach it, there is a pathway

> alongside 101 that takes you over the hill - very important, because all

> other routes involve multiple steep hills.  There is a sign saying

> "Horse Hill" and something about being a rest-home for retired horses,

> and asking for donations.  Funny, because you'd only see it if you were

> driving the wrong way on 101!  By now you'll be looking forward to a beer!

>

> When you reach the road on the other side of the hill, keep going straight

> on, down the hill, towards Corte Madera.  The road winds around to some

> stop lights.  Cross straight over and follow Tamal Vista past the

> shopping center (Safeway, etc) on your right.  You'll also pass another

> set of shops on your right, including Any Mountain, where you can pick

> up spare parts for your bike.

>

> At the end of Tamal Vista, turn right at the lights.  You'll come to 101

> again, where you have a choice: you'll see a footbridge you can cross,

> or you can take the road to the right, under 101, left at the lights

> and towards the other end of the footbridge.  From there, there is a

> path alongside 101.   After a short distance you get to a point where

> you cycle unguarged from the traffic alongside the off-ramp from 101,

> across a bridge.  Don't cross any roads, just follow the path with the

> road to your left as it curves to the right towards Larkspur.  You'll

> soon see the strange structure of the ferry building.  Go there and

> check on the times of the ferries, then cross the bridge to the brewery.

>

> Mountain bikes aren't necessary for this trip.  My friends with racing

> bikes probably find it less exhausting than I do (the bigger tires have

> more friction with the road).  It's an enjoyable excursion, but you'll

> really be grateful for a beer when you reach the brewery, unless you

> are a lot fitter than me!  I usually take BART home (you can get a

> temporary pass) from the Ferry Building in SF to avoid the hills back

> to where I live in Glen Park.  I'm in no condition to attempt the

> ride home!

>

------------------------------


Date:      Fri, 5 Mar 1993 08:14:06 EST

From: Ming-chung Lin <MARS@suvm.acs.syr.EDU>

Subject: bikePUBcrawl

Subject:   Siphoning, clear bear

Call me primitive, but I siphon beer the way we learned

to siphon gas as kids.....So far I've had only one lousy

batch (for totally different reasons), and a couple of

award winning brews.  I sterilize the tubes while doing

the rest of the equipment, so my hands are pretty clean.

If worried about contaminating the batch I sometimes hold

the end of the tube in my hand and suck through my hand.

I've done this much more often than we did gas as kids,

and brew tastes much better.

Daniel Roman,,,,,You don't think that clear beer appeals

to "women's taste", do you????  I was a little insulted

to be put into a category of people who like that kind of

thing.  Perhaps you (and Miller) should find someother

words to use for people who like clear beer.  Women I know

who drink beer (most of us brew our own) prefer strong ales

and stouts.

Lisa St. Hilaire <MARS@SUVM.ACS.SYR.EDU>

------------------------------


brwon sugar

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 09:07:33 EST

From: fingerle@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL (J. Fingerle)

Subject: brwon sugar

OK, several people mentioned that they add "brown sugar" to

their British Ale recipes, and several others have very

quickly responded that in America, "brown sugar" means

regular granulated white sugar with molassass-and, they

usually caution, it should NOT be used.

Well, what is meant by "brown sugar" to an Englishman?

Anyone know?  And to those of you who mentioned that you

use "brown sugar", please be specific, do you mean the

American stuff, or something else?

And to those of you who say not to use American brown

suger, do you have any thoughts on what to use instead?

Yankee minds need to know...

- --

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

name:  Jimmy                          On balance, it is a wonderful thing that

email: fingerle@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL    the cold war is over.      -Bill Clinton

 -or-   fingerle@NADC.NAVY.MIL         ON BALANCE?!?  It's end has a down side?

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

------------------------------


Don't count on it Dan

Date:         Fri, 05 Mar 93 09:18:39 EST

From: "John E. Lenz" <JELJ@CORNELLA.cit.cornell.edu>

Subject:      Don't count on it Dan

In HBD # 1091, Dan Roman says: "I certainly don't expect anyone to get into

homebrewing to make "clear beer"."

Dan, haven't you seen the advanced copy of the 1994 AHA style definitions?:

      CLASSIC EGREGIOUS BEER-TYPE BEVERAGES

      29. CLEAR BEER

      Category award sponsored by CMB, the consortium of mega brewers

      (current membership: coors, miller, bud, though a wannabe in Boston(tm)

      has applied).

      a) American standard clear beer--effervescent, no color, no head, no

         malt flavor or aroma, no fruitiness, diacetyl, or esters,

         imperceptible hop bitterness, flavor and aroma.

         Geographic subcategories:

         1) Milwaukee style--low levels of PCB's acceptable, must be in a

            clear bottle.

         2) Colorado style--should be indistinguishable from pure

            Rocky Mountain spring water (except for alcohol content).

            Not to be confused with Colorado Clear Bastardized Malt Beverage.

         3) St. Louis style--should bear a striking resemblance to filtered

            Mississippi river water, but with lighter body and crisper flavor.

      b) American premium clear beer--a generally "bigger" version of American

         standard clear beer.  Geographic subcategories still applicable.

Also, look for Clear Beer Light and Clear Beer Dry for the 1995 competition.

And, for 1996, or '97 should anticipated legal hassles arise, expect to see a

Boston Clear Beer category, details relating to trademark restrictions and the

numbers of marketing weenies and lawyers required to assist in the brewing

process are yet to be worked out.

Ooogy wawa,

John

------------------------------


Britishmen, not Englishmen

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 09:27:46 EST

From: fingerle@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL (J. Fingerle)

Subject: Britishmen, not Englishmen

Seconds after I posted regarding brown sugar,

Desmond Mottram says:

PS please don't refer to England or English when you mean Britain or

British. It upsets the natives no end.

Sorry, my apologies.  No Offense meant.

BTW, so as to distinguish me from the denizens of Canada or Mexico D.F.,

who, like me, are techincally Americans, I prefer to be known as

a Pennsylvanian.. ;*)

- --

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

name:  Jimmy                          On balance, it is a wonderful thing that

email: fingerle@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL    the cold war is over.      -Bill Clinton

 -or-   fingerle@NADC.NAVY.MIL         ON BALANCE?!?  It's end has a down side?

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

------------------------------


unsuscrube me

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 07:21:15 -0700

From: lhdsy1!pandora!vstem@uunet.UU.NET (D. Stewart McLeod)

Subject: unsuscrube me

Please take my name off of the distribution list please.

vstem@calgary.chevron.com

------------------------------


celis beers arrive in Chicago

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 8:52:33 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: celis beers arrive in Chicago

Sam's, on North Avenue, had cases of Celis White and Celis Grand Cru.

Just in time for First Thursday at Goose Island!

------------------------------


RIMS Questions

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 10:21:44 edt

From: Greg_Habel@DGC.ceo.dg.com

Subject: RIMS Questions

Message:

I am submitting this for Jeff, a fellow homebrewer who is

experimenting with RIMS.  His statement is:

We use the standard RIMS revisited (from Zymurgy gadget issue) and

the temp control works fine.  Temp readout is not working well

because it is subject to some EMI (electro magnetic interference)

caused by all the equipment (pump, heater etc).  Our real problem is

the motor control which due to its open loop nature is unsatisfactory.

We are looking to implement a closed loop control using a Motorola

chip TDA1185A or some other intigrated solution.  How does your motor

control work?  Has anyone implemented a closed loop control?

                                 Greg

------------------------------


Current RIMS setup9s)

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 07:54:51 -0800

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: Current RIMS setup9s)

"Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 9:51:31 CDT

 From: agerhardt@ttsi.lonestar.org (Alan Gerhardt)

 Subject: My Current RIMS setup

    .

    .

    .

    The recirculating wort now flows through the screen in the

    middle as well as through the bottom. Since the primary goal

    during the mash phase is to control temperature, it really doesn't

    matter that the flow is not uniform through the garin bed any

    more. The temperature seems to be reasonably uniform through

    the mash, and no compaction occurs.

    Also, by having the return flow from the pump exit below the

    surface of the wort, I no longer have any foaming. That hopefully

    reduces HSE.

    At sparge time, I simply reduce the flow way down, pull the

    tube out, and give the mash a gentle stir. After about 5-10

    minutes, the wort is running clear again. I then turn the

    pump off, start the pre-heated sparge water flowing in at

    about the same rate as the wort drains out the bottom."

I've been thinking about RIMS designs for a year or so myself, and while

I'm hardly a mechanical engineer, it seems to me that it would be possible

and efficient to agitate the grain bed and maintain circulation, not with

a pump, but with a few sources of vibration around the container, which

would massage the grain and distribute the heat _very_ nicely, without

the problem of aeriating the solution.

- -- richard

     "It is obligatory, within the limits of capability, to commend the

      good and forbid evil."     _Kitab_Adab_al-Muridin_, by Suhrawardi

                richard childers          pascal@netcom.com

------------------------------


Boiling on electric stove

Date:    Fri, 5 Mar 93 17:27:19 GMT

From: sbsgrad%sdph.span@Sdsc.Edu

Subject: Boiling on electric stove

From: Steve Slade <sslade@ucsd.edu>

Date sent:  5-MAR-1993 09:11:29 PT

Joe Thomas asks about boiling his brew water in an 8 gallon ceramic on

steel kettle on an electric stove.

I've been doing this for several years now. It takes a few hours with the

lid on the pot, but the water does eventually come to a boil, and maintains

the boil for as long as needed. I use the one large burner on our stove, on

HIGH. This tends to heat the stove top from heat reflected off the bottom

of the kettle. I've found that placing aluminum foil on the stove top

around the big burner prior to brewing helps the stove to survive. Before I

did this I had several pieces of the stove top flake off after brewing, so

beware!

************************************

Now a question I've been meaning to ask: How do I make a beer that is, for

lack of a better term, thick? The best beers I have tasted have all seemed

like they have more body, or greater viscosity, than the ones I brew using

a partial mash. I don't want to brew a sweet beer, so useing less

attenuative yeast is out. Do dextrins add body without a sweet taste? I've

tried using 1/4 cup flaked barley in a 5 gallon batch without much luck. Is

carapils or one of the Belgian malts a better choice?

Thanks,

Steve Slade

reply to: sbsgrad%sdph.span@sdsc.edu  or  sslade@ucsd.edu

------------------------------


Miller Clear "ZIMA"

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 09:38:29 PST

From: Jack St.Clair at fmccm6 <Jack_St.Clair_at_fmccm6@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: Miller Clear "ZIMA"

     Yes folks, you have heard right.  Miller has produced a clear

     liquid they are touting as a clear malt named "ZIMA".  We've tried

     it and I suppose it will soon become a fad for the politically

     correct.  Like Corona and a squeeze of lime. Yuk!  Anyway, IMHO it

     tases like 7-Up and alcohol and, again, IHMO is not very pleasent.

     It reminds me of my younger days in the service when we used to mix

     "Everclear" (198 proof alcohol) with 7-Up for that quick buzz.  In

     ZIMA, the alcohol tast/aroma is very pronounced as is the citrus

     taste.  I've had one and will never (yes, I mean NEVER) have

     another.

     My son will probably like it and buy it.  You know, he's the one

     who drinks Coors Light and calls himself a beer drinker. Viva le

     difference!

     Jack

     Folsom City, California

     jack_st.clair_at_fmccm5@ccm.hf.intel.com

------------------------------


Hops in keg

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 09:42:44 PST

From: Bob.Clark@Eng.Sun.COM (Bob Clark)

Subject: Hops in keg

I've seen only passing reference to throwing hops into the

keg at kegging time.  Have any of you tried this?  I'm a hop

head, and love both SNPA and Liberty Ale, and my dry hopping

hasn't gotten me there yet.

 Bob C.

------------------------------


Re: RIMS

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 09:53:59 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: RIMS

In HBD# 1091, Alan Gerhardt <insert clever word synonymous with "says",

because I can't find my thesaurus>:

>I hope this helps give someone more ideas to keep improving the

>RIMS technology. More personal equipment experiences would really

>help the s/n ratio on the digest.

Following through on an idea from George Fix, I'm working on a summary

of all of the RIMS discussions from the HBD back-issues.  I hope to

finish it today (Friday), as I'll be out of town next week.

(Any Phoenix brewpub recommendations?  Anybody there interested in

having a pint bought for them?  :-)

have fun

gak

Castro Valley, California

------------------------------


Boiling fruit, Pectate enzyme

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 11:58 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Boiling fruit, Pectate enzyme

Chuck writes:

>I have a very short question regarding the use of pectate enzyme.  As I

>understand it, this enzyme can be used to break down the pectate that will set

>as a result of boiling a fruit, preventing the set pectate from clouding beer.

>

>My question(s) are these:  Is that statement above correct?  At what point in

>the process is this enzyme added to the wort?  (Before, after boil, in

>secondary...)  How much is necessary?

>

>I'm planning to use this in a cherry beer that I am making.  Actually, the

>beer is already fermenting, and I'm planning to add the crushed cherries in a

>couple of days.  To avoid nasties, I'd like to boil the fruit before it's

>added to the fermentation.

I've never used pectic enzymes, but I have a suggestion.  This worked

for me on a recent beer and in 6 months, no gushers, therefore, no

infection.  I surmised that any nasties would be on the OUTSIDE of the

fruit, therefore, I simply dipped the frozen cherries in very hot (212F)

water, for 15 seconds.  I figured that the coldness of the frozen centers

would keep the pectins from setting.  Well, they did a little bit, but

most of the cloudyness settled out and the beer is quite clear for a fruit

beer.  Perhaps you might want to consider freezing and blanching like I

did and then also using a bit of pectic enzyme?  I'm also eager to learn

about pectic enzymes, so I hope someone out there tells us more about them.

I'll bet there's something in the Fruit and Beer issue of Zymurgy (sorry,

don't recall which issue it is) on pectic enzymes, but I haven't had the

time to read all of it.

Al.

------------------------------


Re: Ranching

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 13:12:48 EST

From: rowan@forest.rutgers.edu (Andy Rowan)

Subject: Re: Ranching

Michael Fetzer writes:

  >Ahem. All this talk of Ranching is getting to me! Look folks... they're

  >plants. We call that farming! Ranching is for critters... Seems to be a

  >common misconception amongst brewers. *grin*

Now I'm not so sure!  Let's look at this for a moment.  Let's see...

Back in our younger days (or mine anyway), Zappa used to sing

that he wanted to move to Montana (soon) and be a dental floss tycoon,

"just me and the pigmy pony, out by the dental floss bush."

So dental floss is evidently a plant, too, but I don't recall him

ever saying he was going to be doing *farming*.

Maybe to be safely generic we should be talking about "yeast husbandry,"

(too gender-ist, I guess), or "yeast-o-culture" (no, then people

would think it was a cult).

Yeastology?  Yeasticism?

Those of us from the Atlantic coast of the US could call ourselves

"yeasterners."

========================================

| Andy Rowan                           |

| Cook College Remote Sensing Center   |

| Rutgers University, New Brunswick NJ |--> on the banks of the Raritan

| rowan@ocean.rutgers.edu              |       "I love that dirty water"

========================================

"Yeast is yeast, and west is west..."

------------------------------


Pectic Enzyme, Oil

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 12:16 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Pectic Enzyme, Oil

 >From: Chuck Coronella <CORONELLRJDS@CHE.UTAH.EDU>

 >Subject: Pectate enzyme

 Can't answer any of your questons regarding beer but...

 My last batch of cider was made from apples just about too far gone to use.

 The juice looked more like watery apple sauce than juice.  Nothing settled

 out in the overnight settle and after fermenting it still looked like apple

 sauce.  It sat for months with no change even though I racked it several

 times.

 Several weeks ago I racked again and added pectic enzyme and was astounded to

 find it crystal clear in the morning with two inches of apple sauce on the

 bottom.  This stuff is like magic.

 >From: Lloyd MacIsaac <UGF00011@vm.uoguelph.ca>

 >Subject:      Oiling Your Mills...

 >When I worked in a Restaurant the chef used Vegitable Oil to keep his

 kitchen gadgets from rusting (esp. roasting pans). Perhaps this could

 be the answer for mills?

 Good point.  The instructions that accompany each mill recommend exactly that

 for people living in very humid climates of if it is to be stored for a long

 period of time.

 >Don't know if it works, but sounds better than refined motor oil!

 Just a point to keep in mind, machine oil is not much different from mineral

 oil which is taken as a remedy for various and sundry maladies.  I wouldn't

 suggest drinking it but on the other hand, there is no reason to believe that

 it is inherently toxic.

 >From: des@pandora.swindon.ingr.com (Desmond Mottram)

 Interesting article but I have never quite understood why this...

 >PS please don't refer to England or English when you mean Britain or

 British. It upsets the natives no end.

 Trying to understand this has lead me to realize that there is no name for

 people who live in the USA and some Canadians, for example, get insensed if

 you call them Americans and others if you don't.

 >From: Jeff Frane <70670.2067@compuserve.com>

 >*This is twice in the last week that Jack and I have agreed on

 something -- will the planets shift their courses?

 That would be trivial compared to the real sign from on high....  the day

 when Jay H responds to my request to read his Beer Forum.

 >From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

 >Subject: Re: Sanitizer

 >I'm no biologist either, but how's this:  if you have the means to

 generate and manage it, wouldn't live steam make a reasonable and

 "green" sanitizing agent?

 I suspect that steam is very commonly used in commercial operations but you

 correctly identified the problem at home.  Producing and controlling it is

 not a trivial problem compared to sloshing a little iodine around.

 js

------------------------------


Mail order hop cutting source

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 11:12:03 PST

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1/T09 225-6171  05-Mar-1993 1410 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Mail order hop cutting source

In the March 4 edition of HBD, Tim S. asked people to e-mail him info about

mail order sources for hop cuttings.  I tried but couldn't get through on the

address he posted, so I'll post the info to HBD:

Tim,

There is a chain of stores called Worm's Way which sells hop root cuttings.

They have stores in MA, MO, and FL.  They are primarily a garden supply

company specializing in hydroponics.  They also feature homebrewing supplies.

There is one near where I live.  I plan on stopping in soon and picking up

some hop cuttings myself.  They do mail order.  Here's the phone number for

the store in Worcester, MA.  They might be able to direct you to a store

closer to you or maybe mail you some themselves.

Worm's Way

(508)797-1156

You might want to call 800 information and see if they have a toll free

number.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Re: electric stoves

Date:  Fri, 5 Mar 1993 13:35:54 -0500

From: Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@CANREM.COM>

Subject: Re: electric stoves

>

> Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 13:09:00 CST

> From: Thomas_Joe@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil

> Subject: WATER BOILING ON AN ELECTRIC STOVE

>

>  I HAVE RECENTLY MOVED TO A SMALLER PLACE THAT DOESN'T ALLOW B-B-Q'ING

>  OR THE USE OF A KING COOKER. THEREFORE, I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF ANYONE

>  HAS HAD SUCCESS BOILING THEIR WORT ENTIRELY ON AN ELECTRIC STOVE? IF

>  SO, HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE AND CAN YOU SUGGEST ANY TIPS TO SPEED THE

>  PROCESS WITH MY 8 GAL. CERAMIC ON STEEL POT.

        Before I starting using a propane burner I never had

        any real problems with using my electric stove. Just

        set the kettle up so it sits on two elements. It

        takes awhile to come to a boil and you have to leave

        the lid on to get a good boil but it works. Usually

        when the water is heating up I have other things to

        do.[i.e crushing grain]

        Nick

*****************************************************************************

I drink Beer I don't collect cute bottles!

zen%hophead@canrem.com

*****************************************************************************

------------------------------


Boiling on an electric stove

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 14:33:00 +0000

From: "Bill (W.R.) Crick" <heybc@bnr.ca>

Subject: Boiling on an electric stove

Joe Thomas asked about boiling an 8 gallon pot on an electric

stove. What yo need is a HotRod (tm).  Get a 220v electric hot

water heater element of the type that screws into the tank.

Get a 1 or 2 litre plastic juice bottle, and cut the bottom off of

it. Hook a 110v cord to the element, and screw the element into the

neck of the juice bottle so the element sticks out. See graphic

below. Float this sucker in you pot to give the stove a help.

Also useful for raisnin temperature of cooler type mash tuns.

Note at 110v the element will be approx 1/4 the power rating for

220v. We have 3000 element that yields about 750w.

            _________-=  cord to 110v outlet

           /

     |    (   |

     |    )   |Juice Bottle

     |    (   |

/////|    )   |/////////////  wort which juice bottle floats in

     |    (   |

     /    )   /    @ @<-- Hot break flocks because you use irish moss

      / |==| /      @ <-- Hops

       /|--|/

        -||-

         ||

         || Heater element

         ||

         ||

         ||

         //

Bill Crick

Disclaimer:1. Don't build this.

           2. Use a ground fault protected outlet.

           3. Don't get the cord wet.

           4. Be careful

           5. Don't build this.

           6. I take no responsibility for anything related to

              this post.

           7. This is my opinion, not BNR's

------------------------------


RE: WATER BOILING ON AN ELECTRIC STOVE

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 11:33:20 PST

From: mdcsc!gdh@uunet.UU.NET (Garrett Hildebrand)

Subject: RE: WATER BOILING ON AN ELECTRIC STOVE


WATER BOILING ON AN ELECTRIC STOVE

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 93 13:09:00 CST

From: Thomas_Joe@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil

Subject: WATER BOILING ON AN ELECTRIC STOVE

In HBD 1091, Joe Thomas writes,

> I HAVE RECENTLY MOVED TO A SMALLER PLACE THAT DOESN'T ALLOW B-B-Q'ING

> OR THE USE OF A KING COOKER. THEREFORE, I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF

ANYONE

> HAS HAD SUCCESS BOILING THEIR WORT ENTIRELY ON AN ELECTRIC STOVE? IF

> SO, HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE AND CAN YOU SUGGEST ANY TIPS TO SPEED THE

> PROCESS WITH MY 8 GAL. CERAMIC ON STEEL POT.

Before I got my outdoors propane burner set up, I used to boil my wort

on a standard GE electric kitchen stove burner. I, too, was using a

ceramic on steel pot. I found the burner to be most inadequate.

I also found several methods to improve the situation.

 -       To get the wort hot initially, I used two smaller stainless

pots

 which has aluminum-clad bottoms. When the stuff was boiling, I

 moved it to the big ceramic on steel pot.

 (BTW, I still use the same pot, and am still unhappy with it. I

 have yet to find a place to buy a 6 gal and up stainless pot of

 decent construction with an aluminum-clad bottom [the aluminum

 transfers the heat better]).

 -       Before I hit on the use two burners with the smaller pots idea,

 I would heat up the large pot faster by putting on the lid,

 then

 first placing pot holders all over the top, then secondly

 draping

 kitchen towels over that, with the towels hanging down the

 sides

 to help hold the heat in.

 You can tell by the sound when you need to take the lid off to

 avoid boil-over. It is risky until you know though, and I did

 create one heck of a mess before I got the system down!

 -       If the burner does not put out enough heat to sustain a full

 boil with the lid off, then put the lid on between stirs after

 it hits the full boil. When you hear it going real good, take

 the lid off and stir it around for a bit. The full boil will

 continue with the lid off for a while, then die back down. Time

 for the lid again.

That is all the advice I can offer you on that one. Best of luck!

gdh

------------------------------


Sparge efficency

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 16:27:04 EST

From: Lee Menegoni <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

Subject: Sparge efficency

When people indicate the degree of extraction they get for all grain

batches what technique do they use?  I do the following:

After sparging I stir the contents of the brew pot and take a sample

of the well mixed liquid.  I measure and temp adjust the specific gravity.

I multiply this value times the volume in the brew pot and divide the

total by the number of pound of grain.

eg.  an sg of 40 in 7 gallons of liquid = 280 total sg points

divided by the 10 lbs of grain = 28 pts per lb.

I have acidified my sparge water, verified my grain bed temp was over 150

made sure that the Corona cracked grain was not under milled and verified

complete conversion using iodine tests of the stirred mash.  I have not had

haze or clarity problems with my beer.  Sparge time is about 1.5 hours using

a zappap lauter tun with a 1" false bottom.  What am I doing wrong that

prevents me me from getting to the next level of all grain snobbery

the thirtysomething level of extraction all grain snob??

- --

------------------------------


Re: Ranching

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 15:52:56 PST

From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)

Subject: Re: Ranching

> Ahem. All this talk of Ranching is getting to me! Look folks... they're

> plants. We call that farming! Ranching is for critters... Seems to be a

> common misconception amongst brewers. *grin*

Just to educate you (as someone else educated me a month ago in

alt.folklore.urban), yeast are not plants according to modern

biological taxonomy.  The fungi are in a different kingdom from the

plants.

Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,

lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate

------------------------------


Re: Dallas Carboys

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 18:48:11 -0600

From: sagard@digi.lonestar.org (Steve Agard)

Subject: Re: Dallas Carboys

Roddy McColl asks, in HBD #1090, where a homebrewer can find

a carboy for under $15. Several suggestions:

 1. Work a deal with a local homebrew shop on a used

           5 gal carboy. there's an excellent shop in the area.

 2. Mail order a 6 or 7 gal carboy - it's a bit more

    expensive, but I think Miller and Papazian recommend

           this size over a 5 gal. I've seen a 7 gal Italian

           carboy (real homebrewer's art...) for ~$25. (I use

    a 5 gal secondary, but a 7 gal bucket as primary)

 3. Call one of the bottled water suppliers and ask

    for an empty glass carboy (there are a lot of

           plastic ones around), for which you'll be asked

    to pay the deposit (~$8).

 4. Go to Whole Foods, or some other quality supplier,

    and buy a 5 gal w/water (~$15 including deposit) and

    use the water in your first batch (makes great SNPA

    if not distilled water) and the carboy is yours.

Cheers.

Steve Agard

------------------------------


Peracetic acid

Date:    Fri, 5 Mar 1993 22:55:46 -0500 (EST)

From: DDICICCO@USC.PPPL.GOV

Subject: Peracetic acid

A recent thread concerning the possible use of peracetic as a sanitizer

prompted me to search for some information on this compound. The Merck

Index lists peracetic as "a powerful oxidizer, strongly corrosive to

tissue, explodes violently upon heating to 110 deg. C." Coupled with

the fact that one liter costs $90, this information left me wondering

if any significant benefit could be realized by using this compound.

Anyone have any practical experience with this substance?

[Cool glass of Chlorox, anyone? ;)  ]

Darrell DiCicco

Princeton

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1092, 03/08/93

*************************************

-------


RE: Boiling Water on Electric Burner

Date: 6 Mar 93 10:09:00 +1000

From: BELLAGIO_DAVID@Tandem.COM

Subject: RE: Boiling Water on Electric Burner

Joe Thomas wonders about boiling water on an electric stove.  I have an

electric stove that I use for my brewing and have learned some lessons.  The

first lesson is that if you are doing a full 5-6 gallon boil it takes a long

time to boil ( about 40 minutes ).  The second lesson is that if you do a full

boil for an hour, your element will last about 3 batches before becoming

extremely warped ( thus decreasing contact surface and increasing boiling time

and heat directed elsewhere ).  This warped element eventually leads to a

melted connector ( this actually happens after batch #7 since I was alternating

between both my big burners ).  So, then I went to the appliance part store and

had to by a connector plug, two reflector shields, a regular large burner, and

an extra heavy duty canning burner.  The canning burner cost $35.00 and I

highly recommend it!  It has extra support and is raised higher than the stove

top.  It also has a higher heat output.  Now, I boil my wort and don't have to

worry about the heat and weight warping my burner.  I would think a way to

decrease the boiling time would be to start boiling a gallon of water on both

burners, once they are close to boiling, put one in the other and refill the

empty one with a gallon and bring it to near boil.  Keep doing this until you

have the desired amount in your big boiling kettle and it should all be near

boiling then.  I have not done this since I am lazy.  Have fun.

Super Dave

bellagio_david@tandem.com

------------------------------


survey results

Date: Sat, 6 Mar 93 18:54:19 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: survey results

I posted in 1089 about brown sugar.  I asked HBD readers who had

experience using brown sugar to write with me.  The results are

mixed but generally positive.

In HBD1090, Russ Gelinas said:

>   Re. brown sugar:  In my book, it's virtually *required* in an English

>style ale.  Yes, I actually add brown sugar to all-grain batches, usually

>1 lb (10-15%).  Purist, I'm not.  Beer drinker, I am.

In HBD1091, Rick Zydenbos said:

>I'm an all-grain freak in search of a caramel taste in my ale.

>I've tried using brown sugar but with little or no success.

I had four people e-mail me about their experiences brewing with

modest amounts of brown sugar:

Respondent #1 brewed with:

            2 packages Northwestern Gold Malt Extract

          1/2 #        80 L crystal

            2 c.       North American dark brown sugar (about .8 #)

The result:

>...[it] was a big hit with my friends, and a number even remarked that it

>was quite similar to BA but with more carbonation and hop aroma.  There was

>no 'cidery' flavor, but a nice caramel/molasses note in the beer which I

>thought was appropriate.

Respondent 2:

        80%  all-grain

        20%  US domestic brown sugar

The result:

>...Well the beer was well received by

>some and not liked by others.  I now know the flavor and I personally

>don't like it.  As said, others do.  I can now taste it in some

>draught English bitters

_BEWARE_:

>.. When I brewed the 20%

>batch it smelled like H2S--sulfury rotten eggs during the ferment.

>It tasted fine, but the basement stunk during primary.  This is the

>only time I've ever had sulfur smell in primary and it was the only

>time I used brown sugar, so the two might be related...

Respondent 3 says he took my recipe for

>.... Bass Ale from Cat's Meow and cranked it up.

10# 2-row Klages Malt

 .5# Cara Pils Malt

 .5# Crystal Malt, 90L

 1# brown sugar, added to boil

The result:

>First Place in Classic Pale Ale category in an AHA competition

Respondent 4 brewed:

> ...a Bass-ale type beer, the recipe compiled from 3-4 others

>in the CM and elsewhere, and I did use 1 lb. brown sugar

The result:

> I think it tastes great.

Other notes:

Arf sez:

> you might consider just using molasses and leaving out the sugar.

I've experimented with molasses in the past.  It never gave me the

caramel flavor I sought.  Just a heavy molasses-ey flavor.

Donald O'Connor suggests Belgian Special B.  I'm going to give that

a try.  A good solution for the purists, too.

Cheers,

Rob (bradley@adx.adelphi.edu)

------------------------------


demerara & turbinado

Date: Sat, 6 Mar 93 19:02:29 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: demerara & turbinado

"Turbinado" and "Demerara" are the "real" brown sugars.  They are

both partially refined cane sugars.  I've heard it said that they

are, respectively, the American and British names for the same thing.

However, turbinado is _very_ pale, lighter than a brown paper bag.

Demerara is about as dark as a brown beer bottle.

Demerara is readily available in the UK.  Can UK readers confirm whether

turbinado is the same thing called "Trinidad" sugar by Dave Line?

As Jeff Frane said, turbinado is available in North America in health

food stores.  When I lived in Toronto, I could buy demerara, imported

from the UK, in homebrew shops.  My respondent #2 tells me it can be

bought from Great Fermentations in Santa Rosa, CA, but in the form of

sugar cubes!!!!!

North American supermarket brown sugars are refined cane sugar with

molasses added.  (HBDers must be getting sick of hearing this: I said

it in HBD1089.  Arf repeated it in 1090, as though it was news.  In

1091 Jeff Frane said "Jack is right".  Is it a fact yet?)  Some

questions: since molasses is a by-product of the refining process,

what's the difference between a solution of turbinado and a solution

of refined white sugar with the appropriate amount of molasses?

Could a chemist tell the difference?  Could a yeast cell? Are there

nasty trace chemicals in the supermarket brown sugar because of the

refining process?  Did respondent #2's H2S smell arise because his

brown sugar was doctored with sulfurized molasses?

Cheers,

Rob (bradley@adx.adelphi.edu)

------------------------------


Older, but not sweeter / Cloudy

Date: Sat, 6 Mar 93 19:46:10 MST

From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

Subject: Older, but not sweeter / Cloudy

I seem to have two problems with my homebrews, which I will discuss

separately.

The first problem I've had from my very first brews.  It involves sweetness,

or a lack thereof.  As my beers age, they seem to lose the sweetness they had

when they were younger.  I'm comparing the flavor profile from a 1-month old

brew to a 3-month old brew (since bottling).  This has happened with extract

brews, partial mashes, and all-grain'ers.  I _really_ like my beers when they

are young, but as they age, I like them less and less.  The hop bitterness

starts to overpower them, as the sweetness fades.  Others have reported

hoppiness fading with time, but with this problem, it seems to gain

prominence.  Anyway, I suspect the hop-fade reports really refer to aroma,

less so than bittering.  So, this sounds like an infection problem, right?

Bacteria/wild yeasts eating up the "unfermentables", etc. etc.  Well, none of

my brews have ever experienced gushing.  The worst its ever gotten is some

bottles having more carbonation than others, which I attributed to poor

mixing of the priming sugar (this hasn't happened in quite a while).  Of

late, I can't discern a difference in carbonation between the "young" beer

and the "old" beer.  Of course, comparing a 3-month old beer to the memory of

a 1-month old beer is difficult at best.  Help?  Comments?  I'll discuss my

sanitation procedures in another post if that seems to be the tack to take.

Second problem:  my all-grain brews (3 to date) are, without exception,

cloudy.  I do a simple single-stage infusion at 150-158F.  I've used American

and British 2-row.  I try to do a mash-out, but I know the temperature isn't

165F+ like it should be (I don't think mash-out would have anything to do

with this anyway).  Do I need to a protein rest?  At what temp?  I mash in a

cooler, so upward infusion is doable, but I'd only like to do it if

necessary.  BTW, the cloudiness doesn't make them any less tasty, but a

friend says he likes all-grain because he can get his beers much clearer than

with extracts (probably among other reasons as well).  What gives?  Thanks

for your (collective) advice.  It will be appreciated.

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


Carboy Cap vs BrewCap

Date: Sat, 6 Mar 93 20:59:11 PST

From: "Joe Stone" <JSTONE@SJEVM5.VNET.IBM.COM>

Subject: Carboy Cap vs BrewCap

  As many of you probably recognized, I made a mistake in referring to my

0.5"-drill-bit-modified-hooked-racking-tube arrangement as an altered BrewCap.

It is simply an altered $1.50 Carboy Cap (which is actually better ... a

BrewCap runs $13.00)

js (a.k.a. Joe Stone)

------------------------------


Re: Making a Corona malt ready

Date: Sun, 7 Mar 93 15:33:00 -0500

From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com (Roy Rudebusch)

Subject: Re: Making a Corona malt ready

From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com

breiden@dsuvax.dsu.edu (Danny Breidenbach) writes:

OK -- I weighed the alternatives and my budget and got a Corona -- I

wanted a Maltmill -- but $50 more is $50 more.  Maybe later ...

anyway -- now that I have this Corona -- now that I've assembled it --

I seem to remember hearing about various tweaks and modifications to

make it better for malt ---

Jack Scmidling:

JS:>Tighten both nuts that hold the thing together first.  No matter

JS:>what anyone tells you, these must be tight.  Then adjust the large

JS:>wingnut so that something the thickness of a dime will just barely

JS:>pass between the two plates.  You must have a gauge on both sides at

JS:>the same time to do this.

Well said! But I would like to elaborate:

First, disassemble and wash with dishsoap.

Remove and do not replace the inner snap ring. The only purpose for this

ring was to prevent from losing the steel ball when it is disassembled!

To remove the snap ring just turn in the adjustment screw till the

ring is pushed out.

Remove the cotter key from the shaft and adjust the plate so it is more

perpendicular to the shaft. The mobile plate needs to run a parallel

course to the fixed plate. The hub may give some options for refitting.

Also the cotter key may need to be replaced.

File the end of shaft so it smooth and flat.

Crush on!

 * OLX 2.2 * Corona Mill

------------------------------


Alan's RIMS Implementation, Part 1

Date: Sun, 7 Mar 93 23:09:12 -0600

From: hpfcla.fc.hp.com!melkor!rick (Rick Larson)

Subject: Alan's RIMS Implementation, Part 1

Here is part 1 of some text I received from Alan Gerhardt about his

RIMS implementation.

- ---------Alan's-Text----------

Hi Rick,

I built my mash tun by getting a 15.5 gal keg, using a metal cutting

blade in a circular saw to cut the top off at the top seam where the

handle ring is welded on. As it turns out, the groove at that weld

tends to guide the blade, so it is easy to get a straight cut. Be sure

and use safety glasses, however, because sparks and metal bits will

be flying. Make sure you follow all the normal safety tips for working

with kegs as well.

I then drilled a drain hole in the bottom, and used a brass "cooler

drain" fitting. The fitting has a nut and a gasket, which gives a

good seal, and is threaded on the inside as well. I then attached

the required pipe/fittings to connect the drain to my RIMS unit.

             =======

             =======flange

             =|   |=gasket

    ----------|   |------------keg bottom

             =======

             ======= nut

              || ||

               | |

               | |other fittings to suit

I used a water heater jacket as insulation by cutting it in approx

thirds, and wrapping three layers around the keg and securing it

with duct tape.

For a false bottom, used a piece of 3/8" copper tubing formed in a

circle to fit the bottom of the keg, and soldered a straight piece

as an extra support across the center. Picture an international

"NO xxx" symbol and thats what it looks like.

A piece of stainless screen rests on top. I also soldered a 1/2" copper

coupling to one side of the inside of the copper ring into which I

stick a vertical piece of copper tube as a vent stack which sticks

above the grain bed.  This limits the compaction of the grain bed by

the suction from the RIMS pump. If you're not using a RIMS, then you

don't need the vent stack, and you have a conventional mash/lauter tun.

My plumbing is set up as follows:

          |--------|

      | v      |   |               v=vent pipe

      | v      |   |               g=grain

      |gvgggggg|   |               s=screen

      |gvgggggg|   |

      |svssssss|   |  ______________

      ----------   --|              |

          |__________|   RIMS       |

          |          |______________|

          x

         drain

         w/valve

On the next installment, I will describe the contruction of my

RIMS unit, which is patterned after the original Rodney Morris unit.

Cheers,

Alan

- --

Rick Larson                     rick@adc.com, melkor!rick@cs.umn.edu

ADC Telecommunications, Inc.    ...!uunet!melkor!rick

Minneapolis, MN  55435          (612) 936-8288

------------------------------


Alan's RIMS Implementation, Part 2

Date: Sun, 7 Mar 93 23:11:08 -0600

From: hpfcla.fc.hp.com!melkor!rick (Rick Larson)

Subject: Alan's RIMS Implementation, Part 2

Below is the remaining text I received from Alan.

- --------


RIMS Part 2

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 92 14:57:32 -0600

From: agerhardt@ttsi.lonestar.org (Alan Gerhardt)

Subject: RIMS Part 2

As promised, here's a description of my RIMS unit. I started with the

R. Morris basic design and adapted it as needed.

I think Rodney deserves a lot of credit for coming up a practical

homebrewer's implementation of this idea. His methods sure gave me

a headstart.

I wanted the unit to be able to do at least a 10 gal batch size, which

for me usually equates to 16-20 lbs of grain, so I chose a 5KW heating

element from WW Grainger. It is a very low heat density element which

is advertised to be able to even run dry. It is a very long element,

which has in a "U" shape, and folded over to be about 19" long. It

cost about $20, but has turned out to be a very good investment, in

that I have seen no evidence of excessive heating (which would kill

the enzymes) or scorching. With this element, I get about 1.75-2

degrees/min temperature boost with 18 lbs of grain and about 7-8 gal

of water.

I used a length of 1.5" (about 21") copper pipe as an element housing,

with a cap for each end, and assorted fittings to connect things up.

I used a length of 1.5" (about 21") copper pipe as an element housing,

with a cap for each end, and assorted fittings to connect things up.

   outlet-------------------------------------------------  .5" copper pipe

         -----------------------------------------------  |

                                                        | |

                 ----                                   | | ----__

                 | -------------------------------------   --- |  |-_

                 |  |==========================================|  |  |-

                 |  |==========================================|  | _|-

                 | ----  ------------------------------------- |__|- ^

                 ---- |  |                                  ---- ^   |

                      |  ---   __                                |  element

                      |   |||||__  stopper with                  |   head

                      |  ---       thermistor

                      |  |

                      |  |

                     ------                                    copper nut

                     |    |--------------

                     |    |              |

    inlet------------|    |              |

         ------------|    |  pump        |

                     |    |              |

                     |    |--------------

                     ------

The inlet and outlet pipes are .5" copper. I drilled holes in the 1.5"

tube for the inlet and outlets ( a tight fit is better ), and soldered

them in.

The trickiest part was the mounting of the heating element. Rodney used

a 1" threaded pipe to copper pipe adaptor. Since the adaptor narrows

down too much to allow the element I chose to fit through, I cut off

the threaded portion, in effect making a copper nut. I soldered the nut

outside of the cap ( with hole drilled in it ), and the element just

screws into the end of the pipe. The supplied gasket makes a water

tight seal. The element is easily removed for inspection/cleaning,

although cleaning is seldom required if a clean water rinse and

recirculation is performed after use.

I put the thermistor inside of a .125" copper tube, and sealed it in

epoxy, being careful not to short it out. The tube is inserted through

the stopper so that it sticks into the fluid flow.

The Radio Shack thermometer Rodney used is no longer available, so I

didn't put that through the stopper too. I use an external digital

thermometer instead.

I put the whole thing into a wood case, with the inlet and outlet tubes

sticking out through drilled holes. I connect to the unit using plastic

tubing and band clamps.

I built a pump speed control per Rodney's design and it works fine.

I have not been able to get his temperature controller to work yet, and

am currently using a toggle switch instead.

As he recommended, I used a GFI outlet inside my box, from which I get

all power. That is in my opinion, a very wise investment.

I set the whole system up on two Workmates, one for the RIMS unit, and

the other for the mash tun. The whole thing disassembles and stores so

I have my garage back when done.

Observations:

(1) At full flow, the outlet stream will sometimes generate a

    LOT of foam in the mash tun if not properly directed.

(2) Sparging is a snap now. I just add as much water as my mash tun

    will hold, raise to 165-170 degrees, and recirculate for about

    30 minutes.  My efficiency is typically 30-31/lb/gal, for 6 row

    malt ( Stew's Brew malt ), just short of Miller's numbers. For

    larger quantities of malt ( not as much room for more water ),

    I plan to drain/replace the sparge water as required.

(3) A proper grain grind is just as important as always.

(4) The wort runs incredibly clear by the time you are sparging, and

    no husks or other particles make it into the boiling kettle.

(5) If you are contemplating building a RIMS, don't scrimp on the

    pump or the heating element.

(6) You have to be crazy or an obsessive tinkerer to go to this

    much trouble.

I hope this helps somebody !

Cheers,

Alan

- --

Rick Larson                     rick@adc.com, melkor!rick@cs.umn.edu

ADC Telecommunications, Inc.    ...!uunet!melkor!rick

Minneapolis, MN  55435          (612) 936-8288

------------------------------


Thicker Beer Body

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 07:49:20 EST

From: Dave Whitman <rsndww@rohmhaas.com>

Subject: Thicker Beer Body

To homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.co

X-Mailer: LeeMail 1.2.4

In HBD #1092, Steve Slade asks:

>How do I make a beer that is, for

>lack of a better term, thick? The best beers I have tasted have all seemed

>like they have more body, or greater viscosity, than the ones I brew using

>a partial mash. I don't want to brew a sweet beer, so useing less

>attenuative yeast is out. Do dextrins add body without a sweet taste? I've

>tried using 1/4 cup flaked barley in a 5 gallon batch without much luck. Is

>carapils or one of the Belgian malts a better choice?

I'm using 0.5 lb maltodextrin powder in my latest batch in an attempt to

improve body.  I added it in the hopes of improving body without increasing

color, but I tasted the powder prior to addition, and it had very little taste.

As such, you might give it a try to increase body w/o sweetness.

I'm also interested in cara-pils malt.  Could someone post a nano-tutorial on

its use?  From reading, I thought I could treat cara-pils as a very low color

replacement for crystal malt, just steep it in my brew water while heating to a

boil, then filter off before adding my extract.  However, the guy at my local

brew store told me that it needs to be mashed to allow conversion.  I don't

want to let enzymes chew the nice dextrins down too much, since the whole point

is to get some viscosity.  What's the story?

Dave Whitman

------------------------------


Japanese hops

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 13:59:34 +0100

From: lennart@mistral.btj.se (Lennart Sandberg)

Subject: Japanese hops

I found while shopping a package of seeds and it said japanese hops,

Humulus Scandens ( H. japonicus ). The package says it's a fast growing

creeper, few flowers. It was a serie of seeds called Grandmothers flowers

and this plant was to remind of the time when it was law to grow hops for

beermaking. I presumed its either a mutant or a japanese relative.

Teenage mutant ninja hops ?? ;-)

Because it wont flower very much I doubt it has any use in beermaking,

anybody with more info?

Of course I had to buy it.

/lennart

lennart@mistral.btj.se or lennart%mistral.btj.se@mail.swip.net depending

on mailhost.

------------------------------


Recurring infections

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 8:49:01 EST

From: Steve Zabarnick <steve@snake.appl.wpafb.af.mil>

Subject: Recurring infections

------------------------------


Re: a carboy for under $15

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 09:45:34 -0500

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Re: a carboy for under $15

sagard@digi.lonestar.org (Steve Agard) writes :

>        1. Work a deal with a local homebrew shop on a used

>           5 gal carboy. there's an excellent shop in the area.

Beer and Wine Hobby up here in Woburn MA sells used

7 gallon glass carboys for $14.95

I bought one.  Didn't look very used.  Works great and

the price was right.

I think these ones are pickup only, no mail order.

 Tim

------------------------------


Last Call - Belgian Ale "Bitching"

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 10:00:10 EST

From: Joe Rolfe <jdr@wang.com>

Subject: Last Call - Belgian Ale "Bitching"

 hi all,

last call for those of you who have questions/problems or comments on

Pierre Rajotte's Belgian Ale book.  I will take these questions/complaints

to Pierre this Saturday whilst visiting and return the comments to

you.  all comments welcome, if you wish reponse in private - indicate so

in your email.  this way you can "holler" as loud as you like without

public interruption...... Last call!......email to jdr@wang.com

thanx in advance!...

- --

joe rolfe

jdr@wang.com

508-967-5760

------------------------------


some comments on sugar

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 9:42:14 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: some comments on sugar

HBD is in one of its cyclical sugar threads.  Here are a few

thoughts on sugars.

Sugars such as American cane sugar (American table sugar) are

highly refined sugars that, from the standpoint of brewing and your

yeast, are fully fermentable.  Molasses is a thick syrup produced

when sugar is refined.  American light brown sugar and dark brown

sugar are highly refined sugar with some of the molasses added back

in.  From this, it does not follow that you cannot or should not

use them in your brewing.  As I understand it, brown sugar has some

unfermentables that will impart flavor to the finished beer.

Demerara sugar is a light-colored, partially refined sugar.  Did

you know that there is a Demerara River in Guyana?  This must have

been (still is?) a sugar-producing area.  Turbinado sugar is a

less-refined, darker, sticky sugar.  You might be able to find

these in health food stores.

"Sugar in the Raw" is a light amber fine-crystal sugar available in

commercial supermarkets (in the Chicago area, anyway) in 2-pound

boxes.  "Raw Hawaiian Sugar" is an amberish rock-candy sugar

available in 2-pound bags.

If you cannot find demerara or turbinado sugar, permit me to

suggest that in recipes calling for demerara sugar, use Sugar in

the Raw or Raw Hawaiian Sugar if you can find them, or use light

brown sugar, and that in recipes calling for turbinado sugar use

dark brown sugar.

Molasses is available in at least two forms -- as mild molasses or

as a stronger blackstrap molasses.  I've avoided the blackstrap

molasses but have used mild molasses in a few recipes.  I didn't

have a good idea how much to add, but I started with small

additions on the order of 1/4 - 1/2 cup, as I didn't want the

flavor to dominate.

Finally, Rajotte's "Belgian Ales" suggests that Belgian brewers use

sugar for coloring.  The grain bills of Rajotte's homebrew recipes

typically feature only small amounts of crystal malt or highly

roasted malts, if any.  Instead, he suggests that for pale beers

use pilsner malt and refined sugar (or consider a light honey such

as clover honey or alfalfa honey), and for color use small amounts

of crystal malt or brown malt and use darker candi sugar.  I think

it's a great suggestion, though I don't know how to calculate the

color contribution of darker sugars to the finished beer!

------------------------------


Clear beer...

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 11:54:23 EST

From: <mgerard@engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Clear beer...

There is a recipe in Cat's Meow called "Sima" that calls for

brown sugar and priming sugar bittered with lemons.  It sounds

like this new "Zima" is priming sugar with lemons (or something

similar).

Here's my recipe for dull clear beer:

5 gallons water

1 lb rice

1 lb corn sugar

4 lbs priming sugar

1  oz cheap hops

Boil hops alone for 1 hour (there's nothing to be added to the

water/wort)

Add priming sugar

Ferment

Result: A clear beer with no body (what a great

marketing strategy)!

Mike

Ann Arbor, MI

------------------------------


Recurring infections

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 12:01:44 -0500

From: steve@snake.appl.wpafb.af.mil (Steve Zabarnick)

Subject: Recurring infections

I started homebrewing two months ago and have had two out of

three batches go sour. The first batch was the only not to

bad. For all batches I used a plastic bucket primary and a

glass carboy secondary. I sanitized all surfaces with bleach

solution for each batch (I was especially careful for the last

batch). I preboiled all the water for the last two batches.

The first batch used dry yeast, the last two used liquid.

Any ideas on what I am doing wrong? I'm getting very

frustrated! Should I throw out my plastic primary and get

another glass carboy?

All advice is appreciated.

Steve

Steve Zabarnick

steve@snake.appl.wpafb.af.mil    OR

zabarnic@udavxb.oca.udayton.edu

------------------------------


Clear beer and women

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 12:13:07 EST

From: roman@tix.timeplex.com (Daniel Roman)

Subject: Clear beer and women

Ming-chung Lin writes:

> Daniel Roman,,,,,You don't think that clear beer appeals

> to "women's taste", do you????  I was a little insulted

> to be put into a category of people who like that kind of

> thing.  Perhaps you (and Miller) should find someother

> words to use for people who like clear beer.  Women I know

> who drink beer (most of us brew our own) prefer strong ales

> and stouts.

>

> Lisa St. Hilaire <MARS@SUVM.ACS.SYR.EDU>

Whoa!  I was just listing Miller's et al marketing reasons for creating

"clear beer".  Did it sound to you like I agreed with them?  Perhaps I

was negligent in not stating that my source for the info was the Daily

News and that these are not the opinions of the author etc. etc. etc.

but I did not expect to get jumped on for that.  Just thought I'd

"CLEAR" :-) that up before any more FemiNazis attack me.

My wife's favorite style of homebrew is my Oatmeal Stout, and though she

does not take an active part in the brewing process (though I've tried

to get her involved), she is more than happy to consume a wide variety

of the homebrew, especially the dark stuff.

BTW Lisa, I take it you are using someone else's account?

_________

Dan Roman  GEnie: D.ROMAN1  Internet: roman@tix.timeplex.com  //

American Homebrewers Association member        Only AMIGA!  /X/

------------------------------


Marin, Bicycles, and the Marin Brewery

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 09:33:33 -0800

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: Marin, Bicycles, and the Marin Brewery

"Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 22:23:57 -0800

 From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

 Subject: bikePUBcrawl

"Despite suggestions to the contrary, I have decided to go ahead and carry

 out this bicycle-based pub crawl, as scheduled, this Sunday, 07 March 1993."

For those interested, the day was great, and so was the ride. A bit of fog

while crossing the Golden Gate, but this also was an indicator of the wind's

minimal presence. Across in Marin, the fog evaporated and was not seen until

we crossed the Bay via ferry that evening.

The route is pretty straightforward ... down to Sausalito, along the bike

path, under 101, across Blithedale in Mill Valley, right at the school, then

along Lomita to 101, right, onto the bike path paralleling 101, over the hill

and down into Corte Madera. Cross at the light, onto Madera, which becomes

Tamal Vista. Go to the end, turn right, cross the freeway at the pedestrian

bridge, then continue along, parallel to 101, back onto the bike path, along

101, down the off ramp, bearing right with the road, into the parking complex

of the Larkspur Golden Gate ferry landing.

It all sounds very complex but the secret is that everyone uses this path all

of the time and it is well established, as well as quite intuitive. In every

case but one - at the school, where the right turn is unobtrusive - choices

were either obvious, IE, straight ahead, or intuitive, IE, in order to cross

the freeway I needed to zig-zag a bit but the goal was obvious.

We checked the schedule, then crossed the pedestrian bridge to the shopping

complex Marin Brewery was within. We sat outside, on the patio, at a small

table. ( There were only three of us - both, friends, neither HBD readers but

both interested in brewing. ) The beer was good, but it was not noteworthy ...

although my tiredness may have had something to do with this perception. The

food, also, was good but not noteworthy, and the fish & chips, a touch oily.

However, the clam chowder was excellent, and next time I'll have a bowl of

that and skip the fish & chips. Their hamburgers may be much better, I'll

have to see another time.

Afterwards, we returned to the ferry building and boarded ... returning, we

put two bikes in my truck and drove up to meet the third person, at the Toro-

 -nado ... thence, homeward.

Overall, one of the best benefits of this ride is seeing just how easy it is

to cover 20-plus miles in under two hours. ( We did it in 2:08 and loafed a

_lot_. ) Another thirty minutes of riding and I could have been up in San

Rafael, picking up brewing supplies at Great Fermentations ... and, of course,

there are many other nice rides in Marin, as well as some nice picnic spots

we passed en route. Although the brewery was not as rewarding as I thought it

should be, the ride amply compensated for this lack ... and I _will_ return to

the brewery again.

One problem is the meeting place - where we met was not immediately obvious,

although it _is_ the southmost end of the _bridge_, and it _is_ on the west

side, and it _is_ the beginning of the bike path, as clearly denoted by the

very large sign at the beginning of the crossing, which directs bike riders

to go down the ramp and under the bridge, to the other side ... I hope this

did not cause anyone any inconvenience.

- -- richard

     "It is obligatory, within the limits of capability, to commend the

      good and forbid evil."     _Kitab_Adab_al-Muridin_, by Suhrawardi

                richard childers          pascal@netcom.com

------------------------------


Infusion mash Stout

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 12:39:30 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Infusion mash Stout

I intend to make a stout using a single infusion mash with the major

component of the grain bill being a British Pale Ale malt.  But

I want to know if I should worry about the fact that my roast and

flaked barley have not been exposed to a prtotein rest - usually

I make stout using lager malt with a prtoein rest, quite successfully.

Is the likely problem a stuck sparge or simply poor conversion of

the adjuncts?

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@bach.helios.nd.edu

------------------------------


False Bottoms, Efficiency

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 11:50 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: False Bottoms, Efficiency

 From: "Joe Stone" <JSTONE@SJEVM5.VNET.IBM.COM>

 >In my haste, I immediately applied heat to the mash with a 35K BTU cooker.

 The Vollrath pot has a SS tooled screen in the bottom.  Upon applying heat,

 the temperature of the water/grain-dust solution below the screen increases

 rapidly.  By the time I could thoroughly stir the mash, the temperature was

 at 190oF.  Oops!

 Welcome to the ranks of us drones who have blindly built the "standard"

 version of the scaled down commercial mash tun only to find it poorly suited

 for home brewing.  The following is the relevant section from my soon to be

 published article on Kettle Mashing.....

 ..............

 The key to the system is the screening device and the spigot for the kettle.

 The first one I made was to be used in conjunction with an overlaying false

 bottom.  The false bottom was a stainless steel plate the size of the kettle

 bottom with a zillion holes laboriously punched into it.  It created no end

 of problems on the very first batch.  Mash got under it and scorching was

 just about impossible to control.  So in disgust, I pulled it out, continued

 the mash and assumed a disaster was at hand.

 Much to my incredulous delight, when I opened the spigot, the wort ran clear

 after less than a cup of turbid runoff.  I have since made about 50 batches

 using only the screen device and get very consistent and respectable extract

 yields.

 ..............

 If anyone would like a copy of the entire article, drop me mail.

 >From: Lee Menegoni <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

 >Subject: Sparge efficency

 >What am I doing wrong that prevents me from getting to the next level of all

 grain snobbery the thirtysomething level of extraction all grain snob??

 Probably just telling the truth and not fudging the numers :)

 We have been through this a zillion times and my opinion is that

 instrumentation error and measurement technique can easily account for +/- 5

 points of uncertainty.  28 is well within the range of nominal.  On my last

 batch I got 33 and the only thing I changed from the previous batch (30) was

 the malt.

 The most important thing is that, once you are in the ballpark, with what is

 expected, you should worry less about what others get and more about

 establishing a meaningful measurement technique that will give you consistant

 and meaningful results.  If you change a process or ingredient, you want to

 know that any change in yield results from that and not from sloppy

 measuring.

 It is perfectly legitimate for example, to include the liquid in the trub you

 throw out in your volume determination but you must keep this in mind when

 you compare results with others and you must do it all the time.  The same

 applies to reading the hydrometer.  If you fudge to the top of the meniscus

 or the bottom, you must do it consistantly and keep in mind that it has about

 a 4 point effect on the bottom line when comparing with others.

 js

------------------------------


Celis Beers

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 09:48:15 -0700

From: Michael Howe <howe@gwl.com>

Subject: Celis Beers

Hello all,

   All this talk of the various Celis beers arriving in cities around the

nation has gotten me excited.  My brother sent me an article from the Austin

daily newspaper about Celis a while back.  The article stated that Celis

was going to be introduced in a number of test markets around the nation.

COLORADO was one of the lucky states.

    I live and work in the Denver,CO area (Englewood to be specific) and have

yet to see Celis anywhere here (believe me, I've looked).  Has anyone in this

area seen Celis at any of their local liquor stores?  If so, could you please

show me to the promised land :-).  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I

am getting tired of trying to EXPLAIN Celis White to people.  I'd rather just

give them a bottle of it...

Reply via e-mail if you prefer.

Michael Howe                  e-mail : howe@gwl.com

Software Engineer II

The Great West Life Assurance Co.

Englewood, CO

------------------------------


Nalgene bottles

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 11:02:34 -0700

From: colesa@spot.Colorado.EDU

Subject: Nalgene bottles

Nalgene makes 20 litre (about 7 gallons) PLASTIC bottles that have the

following features:

        1) Large mouth

        2) Screw top cap

        3) Large handles to carry it

        4) Best of all, a spigot about 3/4 inch above the bottom of the bottle

        The biggest problem would obviously be sanitation, but these

bottles are designed for laboratories, and the large mouth would make

cleaning easier than a narrow mouthed carboy.  Punch a hole in the cap for

the fermentation lock, and I think it would make one hell of a closed

fermenter.  They cost about $23.

        Anyone use these before, and if so, how did it work?

Adam Coles                   *

Senior, Bioengineering       * Sure I'll wear a three piece suit...

College of Engineering       * As long as it's jeans, t-shirt,

CU Boulder                   * and a leather jacket!

------------------------------


Wierd Science etc.

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 11:12:57 MST

From: stevel@chs.com (7226 Lacroix)

Subject: Wierd Science etc.

 Ya know, one reason I like the HBD is all the home science info I pick

up.  The Hot Water heater element trick is sooooo cool (really!) and I like the

responsible nature of the poster....but hey, we're  adults (well most of the

time) and if you whoever said Home Brewing wasn't risky business!!!

 On another note, during my travels in Mexico, I learned that at least

one culture on the continent has a name for USAers and Canadians that relates

to the land mass....most Mexicans call USAers North Americans...

 I throughly enjoyed the humorous posting about the Clear Beer

Catagories....sorta reminds me of of Old Frothingslosh...point of order...

Coors tested a product named "Zima" last summer.  If Miller is using "Zima"

as a product name, all of you weaselly lawyer-types might want to take time

out from you "Boston"tm adventures to get on this fat cow.  Oooooooh doesn't it

make your nipples hard to think of yourself in the middle of a spat between

these two well funded cowboys????

 Well, back to work...and keep those fun science projects coming!!!!!

Steve Lacroix

Primitive Brewing (and wierd science student extraordinaire)

------------------------------


questions from a new snob :')

Date: 08 Mar 1993 14:05:42 -0500 (EST)

From: Frank Tutzauer <COMFRANK@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu>

Subject: questions from a new snob :')

Well, I finally did it.  Yesterday I brewed my very first all-grain batch.

Back in December I asked for some tips and got them, so a very belated thanks

to Jay Hersh and Tim Norris (lauter tun designs), Rob Thomas (strike heat/mash

temp formula), Jeff Benjamin and Spencer Thomas (general all-round advice),

and Jack (quick delivery of a MALTMILL--for the record, mine had no debris and

only a very light coating of oil which I took care of with a toothbrush and

some really crummy roasted barley I had laying around).

Some observations and questions:

First, things went pretty well.  Temperature control in my picnic cooler was

harder than I expected and sparging was easier than I expected.  I got about

28 points a pound.  The runoff cleared *very* quickly, like within a quart or

two.  (I suspect Jack's mill is the reason why.)  And about this business of

the iodine showing conversion at the top of the cooler but not with the wort

from the spigot:  I didn't experience this phenomenon.  At the beginning of

the mash, both top and bottom turned black; at the end of the mash, neither

did.  So, who knows....

In terms of time, I would say that I only spent about 2 hours longer than my

extract batches, and much of that was due to fumbling on my part since I don't

have my technique down yet.  Naturally, it took me longer to crush the malt

than the pound or so of specialty grains I was used to using, but the sparge

took place while the rest of the runoff was heating up on the stove, so that

didn't really add much extra time (I've been doing full-volume boils).  As far

as I could see, only the hour or so mash represented any significant time over

and above an extract batch.

Now the questions.  First, in yesterday's digest, Joe Stone asks how long the

sparge should take.  I've got the same question.  Miller, people in my club,

and lots of other folks talk about the sparge slowing to a trickle.  Mine

didn't.  It did slow a little, but never to a trickle.  If I'd've wanted to, I

could have run it out like gangbusters.  Again, my guess is that Jack's mill

is why, and for me the length of the sparge seems to be strictly under my

control.  So, how long should I make it?  The most convenient is to finish the

sparge right as the wort on the stove is coming to a boil.  Is this

reasonable?  Is longer better (more sugars?), or is shorter better (fewer

tannins?)?

Second, what's the deal on acidifying the mash?  Miller says to get the pH to

5.0 to 5.5.  I checked right after doughing in, and it was like maybe 6.3.  I

thought to myself, "Man, this is my first all-grain batch.  I've got a lot

more important stuff to worry about than acidifying the mash."  Also, I

remembered Miller saying something about not fighting the "natural

inclinations of the malt."  So I remembered not to worry, decided to let the

malt naturally inclinate, and opened the day's first homebrew.  What should I

do in the future?

Finally, should I acidify the sparge water?  Charlie P.'s silent on the

matter, Miller says to acidify to a pH of 5.7, and Noonan spouts of a

typically let's-make-it-harder-than-it-needs-to-be Noonanism, something like

acidify if the pH rises .7 during sparge but never more than .2 unless the

azimuth of the moon corresponds to the declination of blah, blah, blah....

What should I do and how important is it?

Thanks a bunch, folks,

- --frank

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1093, 03/09/93

*************************************

-------


Sanitizing Chemicals

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 19:54:56 GMT

From: u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil (Markham R. Elliott)

Subject: Sanitizing Chemicals

To all you technicals out there (and laymen like me), If I could get some

clarification on sanitation please.

In my last post to the HBD, I asked about the techniques of using a secondary

fermentation vessel, and a consensus on the amount of different priming

agents that could be used.  Many replies suggested I get a plastic bucket and

mix the priming agent with the beer in the bucket, then bottle from it.

Well I made the batch using a secondary and bottled it before getting a

bucket, we will see how it turns out.  I am a bit concerned about the

tremendous amount of fermentation activity for 3 days, then _nothing_.  But,

that is another matter.

This weekend I acquired a 5 gal pail (Carl West was right, check out Chinese

Food places [HBD #1041], not only do they get oil in them, but soy sauce as

well).  I took it home to clean it up (yuch! :-b ), using massive amounts of

Tide laundry soap, mass quantities of water and an old sponge.  I got to

thinking while in the midst of this mess, how should I really be cleaning and

sanitizing this thing.

A discussion was held in HBD issues 1030 through 1055 about cleansing agents,

disinfectants, food vs. lab grade plastics and the like.  What bothers me is

that nothing was really definitively stated about cleaning plastic pails.

It was noted that Iodine and Iodophor shouldn't be used because they stain,

and the plastic absorbs/leeches back the chemicals.  Detergents shouldn't be

used because they leave surfacants which are detrimental to the brew.  If

peracetic acid (acetic acid+H2O2) will dissolve an un-jacketed bullet, I'm

not going to use it on my equipment.  Finally, a lot was said about using

chlorine bleach, but no one seems to agree about how to use it (concentration

vs contact time etc.), or if it should really be used, again because of the

absorption/leeching problem(s).

I know, I know, RDWHAHB.  Really though, is there an accepted method and or

chemical to use, and what is it?  The bucket originally had soy sauce in it,

then apparently was used as a frying oil/grease repository.  Pretty gross

stuff before "cleaning".  I realize that the beer will be in the bucket for

only a short time, but I would hate to ruin a good batch of beer during the

bottling process just because I didn't clean the plastic right.

Suggestions are welcome, but again, is there a DEFINITIVE answer with regard

to HDPE plastic?

Noch einmal, bitte!!  Mark

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 Markham R. Elliott                 u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil

 Information Technology Laboratory                     (601) 634-2921

 Waterways Experiment Station

 Vicksburg, Mississippi  USA

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Carboy for under $15

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 14:33:24 +0700

From: ifby546@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joe H. Barfield)

Subject: Carboy for under $15

St. Patrick's of Austin sells 7  gal. carboys for $10. They advertise in

the back of Zymurgy.

Contact Lynne O'Connor at (512) 832-9045. Don O'Connor had a HBD post on

hop aroma last week.

Joe Barfield, Publisher, Southwest Brewing News, ifby546@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu

Brewnews from Arkansas, Arizona, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma & Texas.

406 W. 35th, Austin, TX, 78705.  512/467-2225. (FAX)512/282-4936. Subscrips

 - $12/yr.

- --------------------

------------------------------


Texas Brewpub Legalization

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 14:44:19 +0700

From: ifby546@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joe H. Barfield)

Subject: Texas Brewpub Legalization

Folks, Texas Brewpub Legislation is in committee. Please write & call the

following legislators _this_ week_. All the major changes that would make

the proposed bad legislation into good legislation will be considered as

you read this.    If you have any questions please email me.

I didn't know if this was the correct forum for BPub legalization issues

but I figured a brewpub is a perfect place for homebrew clubs to meet!

Please forward to all Texans who like beer. Thanks Joe Barfield, Publisher, SWBN

- ---

Southwest Brewing News Brewpub Legalization Guide. 3/8/93. Please forward

to interested friends.

Brewopub n. A brewery that sells its own beer on premise. Or a Restaurant

that brews its own beer. Legal in 42 states.  Something Texas needs to

legalize to join the rest of the civilized nation.

Folks, we can legalize brewpubs this year. All you have to do is call and

write to the following legislators and voice a few simple requests.

What to tell the legislators:  Key consideration: BE BRIEF!

These folks are busy. If as many folks call in as we hope, we could

possibly end up alienating some V.I.P.'s if we drone on. It really won't

hurt if you limit your calls to the following three statements.

1."I support brewpub legalization in the TABC Sunset Bill"

The bill considered is referred to as the T.A.B Sunset Bill. There are

identical bills introduced in the Senate and the House.

2. "I want brewpubs to have the right to sell for on and off-premise

consumption."

Currently, the legislation disallows sales for off-premise consumption.

Most states allow people to purchase a refillable container with which to

carry beer purchased at the brewpub home for consumption. Currently many

bars in Texas enjoy this right. Why should this privilege be denied to

brewpubs in Texas?

3. "I want brewpubs to have the right to limited self-distribution."

Brewpubs generally start small. So small that it's not worth a large

distributor's effort to distribute a brewpub's products to local venues. In

order  to supply a local area with fresh products, a brewpub has to

initially be able to distribute its own products. This may be as few as a

couple of kegs per week to a nearby bar. As the brewpub grows, it becomes

more rewarding to each party if a distributor handles a brewpubs contracts.

In fact, in California, brewpubs can distribute their beer, yet over 95% of

California's brewpub beer is distributed by beer wholesalers.

Who to contact:

Write to and call the following important people: (and communicate the 3

phrases listed above)

1. Sponsors of Senate Bill #622: Senator Carriker       (512) 463-0130,

Speak with  Mark Moran, Legislative Aide.

Senator Ike Harris, Co-author   (512) 463-0108,  Speak with Tiffany Wehner,

Staff Assistant.

Senator Carl Parker, Co-author  (512) 463-0104, Speak with David Gonzales,

Legislative Aide.

2. Sponsors of House TABC Sunset Bill: Representative David Cain

(512) 463-0476,  Speak with the receptionist.

Representative Ron Wilson       (512) 463-0744

3. Members of Committees reviewing the bill

Senate State Affairs Committee

O. H. (Ike) Harris, Chair       463-0108

Peggy Rosson, Vice Chair        463-0129

Steve Carriker  463-0130

Don Henderson   463-0107

John Leedom     463-0116

Eddie Lucio     463-0127

Gregory Luna    463-0119

Jane Nelson     463-0122

Jerry Patterson 463-0111

Dan Shelley     463-0106

David Sibley    463-0109

Royce West      463-0123

John Whitmire   463-011 House Licensing and  Administrative Procedures Committee

Ron Wilson, Chair       463-0744

Dan Kubiak, ViceChair   463-0600

David Cain      463-0476

Ben Campbell    463-0478

Bill G. Carter  463-0482

Mario Gallegos  463-0614

Tony Goolsby    463-0454

Paul Hilbert    463-0572

Delwin Jones    463-0542

Garfield Thompson       463-0716

Ken Yarbrough   463-0648

4.Your local Senator and House Representative   a. Call them at the phone

numbers listed on back page

        b. Write to them at the following addresses:

The Honorable [Representative]  The Honorable [Senator]

The House of Representatives    The Senate of Texas

P.O. Box 2910   P.O. 12068

Austin, TX 78768-2910   Austin, TX 78711-2068

If you aren't sure who your legislator is, call your county voter

registration office and ask for the names of your House Representative and

Senator. Your county's voter registration telephone number should be on

your voter registration card or in the county section of your telephone

book's blue pages. If you can't find the number call 1-800-253-9693. They

may be able to tell you your senator & representatives' names.

Attend the Public Hearings:

Call the bill tracking service at 1-800-253-9693. You can follow the

progress of the bills as they are reviewed by committees.   Remember, the

bills in question are referred to as the "TABC Sunset Bill".  HB335 is NOT

the Brewpub bill.  By all means, attend the public hearing! Sign up in

support of Brewpub Legalization. When your turn to testify is announced say

"I support brewpub legalization. I defer my comments to (the designated

spokespeople)." We will be at the hearing in advance and will let you know

who will speak on Brewpub Legalization's behalf. Of course you have the

right to speak on your own behalf, but exasperating the committee members

by droning on will hinder rather than help us. Remember, please BE BRIEF.

Questions can be referred to Joe Barfield, Publisher, Southwest Brewing

News at ifby546@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu

Address mail to 406 W. 35th, Austin, TX 78705. (512) 467-2225.

SUPPORT FRESH BEER IN TEXAS!

Joe Barfield, Publisher, Southwest Brewing News, ifby546@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu

Brewnews from Arkansas, Arizona, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma & Texas.

406 W. 35th, Austin, TX, 78705.  512/467-2225. (FAX)512/282-4936. Subscrips

 - $12/yr.

- --------------------

------------------------------


Ranching or Farming?

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 15:03:29 MST

From: Rick Myers <rcm@col.hp.com>

Subject: Ranching or Farming?

> Just to educate you (as someone else educated me a month ago in

> alt.folklore.urban), yeast are not plants according to modern

> biological taxonomy.  The fungi are in a different kingdom from the

> plants.

OK, yeast are fungi.  But, have you ever heard of a mushroom ranch?  I

think not.  Most fungi grow from the soil.  I brew beer and raise yeast

on my 5 acre farm.  Therefore, yeast must be "farmed"...

:-)

- --

Rick Myers

rcm@col.hp.com

------------------------------


Places to go in Brussels

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 14:48:05 GMT

From: Rob Simpson <robs@charles-cross.plymouth.ac.uk>

Subject: Places to go in Brussels

I am due to go to Brussels this week-end. Any recomendations as to where

to go and what to see whilst there? Anyone know of any breweries that

welcome visitors/have tours etc.?

Thanks

Rob

robs@cx.plym.ac.uk

------------------------------


WOMEN,BEER,AND THE HBD

Date: 08 Mar 1993 19:10:03 -0500 (EST)

From: Sandy Cockerham <COCKERHAM_SANDRA_L@LILLY.COM>

Subject: WOMEN,BEER,AND THE HBD

I HAVE TO AGREE WITH LISA ST.HILAIRE. I THINK IT IS RUDE FOR SOME OF YOU ALL TO

LUMP US IN THE CLEAR BEER LOVERS BECAUSE OF OUR GENDER. I TOO PREFER DARKER

BEERS AND WILL ONLY DRINK A LAGER WHEN ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE (INCLUDING

DIET COKE) IS AVAILABLE.

WHILE I AM ON MY SOAPBOX...I AM INSULTED BY JACK (AND OTHERS) USE OF THE TERM

'WET DREAM' IN THIS DIGEST. IT IS UNCALLED FOR AND IS TASTELESS IN THIS FORUM.

THIS DIGEST IS TO HELP US BREW BETTER BEERS, AND TO ENHANCE BEER APPRECIATION.

 ...NOT TO BE INSULTING.....

FLAME AWAY, I DON'T CARE!!

SANDY C.

From: COCKERHAM SANDRA L            (MCVAX0::RX31852)

To:   VMS MAIL ADDRESSEE            (IN::"homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com")

------------------------------


White beer: let's talk turkey

Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 03:01 GMT

From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>

Subject: White beer: let's talk turkey

The arrival of Celis has spurred an interest in brewing white

beers, and in addition some HBDers have expressed a desire for

more recipes on the net.  The following recipe and comments

should provide a good start for people who want to get ready for

their summer white beer drinking.

CITADELLE WHITE (5 gals.)

5 lbs. 2-row pale malt

3 lbs. Belgian wheat malt

 .75 lb. hard red winter wheat

 .5 oz Styrian Goldings (6.8% AA), boiled for 60 minutes

10 grams ground coriander (boiled 10 minutes)

zest of 4 oranges and one lime (added after end of boil)

12.5 ml 88% lactic acid (added at bottling)

110 grams corn sugar in 4.75 gallons for priming

Hoegaarden white yeast cultured from brewery sample

OG: 1.042

FG: 1.012

Procedure:

Strike with 8 quarts @ 135F for 20 minute protein rest at 122-

124F; Add 1 gallon boiling water to raise to 145F, then heat to

158F for 30 minute saccrification; add 2 gallons boiling water

for 10-minute mashout at 170F; transfer to lauter tun and let sit

20 mins, then sparge with 6 gallons water @ 180F.  I stopped

sparging at 1.008, collecting 6.25 gallons at 1.037.  Boiled for

90 minutes and cooled with immersion chiller.

Tasting notes:

Lemon/gold color with a substantial haze and white head.

Slightly orangey aroma.  Light to medium body with full, almost

moussy carbonation.  Light to moderate tartness with subtle but

pleasant coriander flavor, some orange present but faint.

Aftertaste mostly tart and coriander-ish.  I wouldn't go head to

head with Celis White, but this is unmistakably a white beer and

will make for excellent hot-weather drinking.

Specifics:

Grain bill--The basic bill is 60% barley malt, 30% wheat malt,

and 10% raw wheat.  The latter was purchased at my local food

coop for $0.55/lb.  I would increase the gravity to 1.046 next

time but think these proportions provide good results with little

trouble.  The raw wheat was absolute hell to grind, but there

were no problems with the mash and sparge.

     Thanks to Jim Busch, the sultan of wheat beer, for help with

the grain proportions.

Hops: Anything will do as long as it's not too caustic or spicy.

Go for something noble-ish.  My target was 14 IBU.

Yeast: A local brewer brought back yeast from the Hoegaarden

brewery, but I don't think the yeast choice is critical.  This

yeast has less character than the Celis, so anything that

ferments reasonably thoroughly and has some character should do.

Coriander: 10 grams (about 2 teaspoons) gave good but not strong

flavor, to my palate a bit more than the Celis white but not

anywhere near excessive.

Orange: I purchased some dried orange peel at my coop, and boiled

2 grams in one gallon of water as a test.  The result had a very

unpleasant, ham-like flavor and aroma.  The same applied when I

used dried McCormick peel, and even fresh peel (though a little

less so).  I did NOT want this flavor in my beer (if you don't

believe me, try it!).  For this reason I used the Papazian fruit

method, adding the peel just after the boil for sanitation

reasons.  This worked pretty well, though most of the aromatics

were scrubbed during the fermentation; I used a 6.7 gallon carboy

for a single-stage fermentation, and for the first 3 days it

smelled like orange juice.  If you want more orange aroma, add

some peel to your secondary.  Since Sunkist oranges aren't

curacao oranges, I added the peel of one lime for some tartness

and character.  Can't tell if it helped, but it sure didn't hurt.

Lactic acid: At time of bottling the beer was 4.7 pH, and not

tart.  I added lactic acid (available from the Malt Shop in

Wisconsin) to taste, starting with 10 ml.  2.5 additional ml

brought it to about where I wanted it, and the pH at that point

was +/- 4.3.  However, I dosed it according to taste, not

numbers.  The result was right on target, taste-wise, and I'm

thoroughly sold on the use of this stuff.

     Thanks to the many HBDers who provided information on their

experiments with this ingredient.

Please note that this recipe will not make you two cases of Celis

or Hoegaarden, but I think you'll do fine with it.  Some tweaking

to bring it in line with your own tastes, and I hope the notes

will save you some time, effort, and experimentation.

Phil Seitz

PSEITZ@MCIMAIL.COM

Arlington, VA

------------------------------


Cornelius keg FAQ

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 22:08:25 CST

From: mrmike@geta.life.uiuc.edu (Mike McCaughey)

Subject: Cornelius keg FAQ

A long time ago some kind soul posted a FAQ-like

document on Corny keg cleaning, handling and filling

systems. Alas, now that I'm ready to take the plunge,

I can't find it in my own archives or at Stanford. Could

someone send me a copy or point me to where it is on the

archives?

Alternately, since questions about soda-pop kegs keep

uh, popping up (sorry), it might be a good idea to put

one together for the Stanford archives. I'm willing to

put it together, but I am obviously not a kegging expert

and will need to solicit your advice.

Send mail to me directly to avoid clogging the digest.

Tanks and Regards,

mrmike

mrmike@geta.life.uiuc.edu

------------------------------


Peracetic acid; sodium hydroxide

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 22:27:15 EST

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: Peracetic acid; sodium hydroxide

Darrell said:

) A recent thread concerning the possible use of peracetic as a sanitizer

) prompted me to search for some information on this compound. The Merck

) Index lists peracetic as "a powerful oxidizer, strongly corrosive to

) tissue, explodes violently upon heating to 110 deg. C." Coupled with

) the fact that one liter costs $90, this information left me wondering

) if any significant benefit could be realized by using this compound.

) Anyone have any practical experience with this substance?

I myself have wondered why a couple of the hbd luminaries have announced

their intentions to use this stuff for sanitation purposes.  In any

event, I think you can roll your own by mixing strong acetic acid

and strong hydrogen peroxide.  Now, the glacial acetic is cheap, and

so is 30% h2o2.  (Stay away from the 50% stuff.)

BUT: Not having tried this, I can't tell you whether or not it blows up

in your face.

- -----

In a similar vein, I just tried using sodium hydroxide (lye; caustic

soda) to clean some hoses.  All I can say is, WOW.

I added about 1 oz of a saturated, filtered solution of sodium hydroxide

(about 1 part NaOH to 2 parts water) to 3-4 inches of warm water in my

sink and dropped in the offending hoses, which included one blowoff

tube coated inside with hop and protein scrudge.  (Needless to say,

I was wearing a nice, thick pair of rubber gloves.)  The stuff

*immediately* came off the tube into the water, much as water soluble

ink might have.  A few minutes soak and a little swish, followed by

a thorough rinse, and, voila, squeaky clean tubes.

Although the handling precautions are considerable, I would recommend

this to anyone who has a tough cleaning problem.  (But obviously you should

keep lye away from your aluminum utensils unless you want to dissolve

them.)  I may begin using it to clean my carboys after messy primary

fermentations.

================O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis================

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1993 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------


Re: English/British

Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 11:37:11 GMT

From: des@pandora.swindon.ingr.com (Desmond Mottram)

Subject: Re: English/British

> >PS please don't refer to England or English when you mean Britain or

> >British. It upsets the natives no end.

My somewhat flippant remark provoked so many inquiries by mail I felt a

post to clarfy was in order, despite having nothing to do with homebrew.

I'll keep it short and suggest follow-ups to soc.culture.british or by mail.

Britain / British Isles / UK mean practically the same thing. England does

not. Britain comprises England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle

of Man and the Channel Islands. The English are of predominantly Nothern

European extraction: Saxon and Dane. All the others are predominantly

Celtic and were there before the Romans came. They all have their own

languages and culture. (If you visit England take a trip into Wales and

you'll see bilingual road signs).

Owing to political and economic domination by England, a fierce nationalistic

pride is possessed by the Welsh, Scots and Irish, who do not wish to see

their national identity submerged and dominated by the English. So they

don't like it when they are referred to as "English". British is OK but if

you know the person's origin, Welsh, Scot/Scottish, or Irish is better.

Only Northern Ireland is in the UK. Eire is not. They are Irish, period.

"Brit" is a common term of abuse there.

Is this recognisable to some of you? Funny lot humans...

Rgds, Desmond "a good Irish name that" Mottram

------------------------------


[To: rianhard:  New Home Brewing Store in N.J.]

Date:     Tue, 9 Mar 93 7:10:14 EST

From: "Peter J. Burke" (FSAC-PMD) <pburke@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  [To: rianhard:  New Home Brewing Store in N.J.]

Please excuse if this is sent twice,

I don't know why it does that...

- ----- Forwarded message # 1:


Date:     Tue, 9 Mar 93 7:05:45 EST

From:     Peter J. Burke (FSAC-PMD)  <pburke@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  [To: rianhard:  New Home Brewing Store in N.J.]

          econner@PICA.ARMY.MIL

cc:       pburke@PICA.ARMY.MIL

Subject:  New Home Brewing Store in N.J.

Message-ID:  <9303090705.aa21707@FSAC3.PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Greetings,

A new home brewing store opened in Cranford NJ a few days ago.

They don't have a credit card machine yet, but have mostly

everything else that Teaneck & Red Bank have.

The Brewmeister

115 N. Union Ave

Cranford, NJ 07016

(908) 709-9295

GSP south to Cranford Exit  (just past Union tolls)

This puts you on North Avenue (going towards Cranford)

At first light (gas station) make a right (Elizabeth St.)

At blinking light (next light) make a left  (North Union Ave)

You follow this road going over a small bridge and past a church.

It is in the center of town on the right side next to a

Hallmark-type store.

Mon, Tues, Wed:  12:30 - 8:00pm

Thurs: 12:30 - 9:00pm

Fri: 12:30 - 8:00pm

Sat: 10:00 - 6:00pm

Sun: 12:00 - 3:00pm

As you can see, mighty convinent hours.

The proprieter is the secratry of a local home brewing club

(They meet at Sandy Hook every month).

He plans on keeping a fresh rotating grain stock with

specials from different countries every month.

PROST !

- ----- End of forwarded messages

------------------------------


Brew Supplies

Date:     Tue, 9 Mar 93 7:34:41 EST

From: Jpetty@PICA.ARMY.MIL

Subject:  Brew Supplies

The following may be of interest to HBD readers; I have no affiliation.

Red Bank Brewing Supply

Red Bank, N.J.

1-800-779-7507

In addition to a complete line of brewing supplies, They claim to have staff

who serve on advisory panels to commercial breweries and publications.  They

maintain an on site pilot brewery to insure quality of materials and offer

courses for brewers.  They specialize in hard to find and unusual equipment

and supplies as well as metal fabrication for custom brewing fixtures.

Their prices are very reasonable.

------------------------------


weisse bier

Date: 09 Mar 93 08:12:27 EST

From: CHUCKM@PBN73.Prime.COM

Subject: weisse bier

Hi BrewFolk,

  I'm interested in peoples experiences brewing Bavarian Weisse Bier.  I have

read Warner's book and still have some questions.

  Re: Weisse beer yeast

      Wyeast 3056 in the only commercial weisse yeast I know of. Warner

      indicated in his book that some German brewers prime their Weisse biers

       with lager yeast and some do not. Does this mean that some are

       primed with the same yeast that they are fermented with? If yes,

       are any of these biers available in the US and is their yeast

       re-culturable.  In the Gadgets issue of Zymurgy, Warner was

       written up in the winner's circle section for Weisse Bier. His

       recipe said he used yeast cultured from a bottle of German Moy

       Weisse Bier. -- Has anyone ever seen this in the US?

   Re: Mashing

       Warner maintains that decoction is the only way to go and

       barely had two or three sentences about infusion.  Any comments?

Your replies will be greatly appreciated,

Chuckm@pbn73.prime.com

------------------------------


Newbie Questions

Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 08:40:04 +22306512 (CST)

From: dhholscl@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (David Holsclaw)

Subject: Newbie Questions

Guys and Gals of the brewing world,

I starting brewing about six months and six batches ago, and I have several

questions that I am sure will make me look foolish but I would like to have

answers.

For the record I have Charlie P's book and just purchased Dave Miller's _The

Complete Handbook of Home Brewing_ so if you could point me towards chapters or

sections (that answer my questions) that I might have missed or not fully

understood at the time I read them, that would probably save bandwidth and make

everyone very happy.  :)

I have been adding specialty grains (crystal, chocolate, etc.) to my brews and

IMHO they are turning out great!! My question pertains to the purpose of the

specialty grains.  Do they simply impart a flavor to the beer?  I realize they

have little or no enzymes so 'no' conversion of the starches can take place

like in a real mash. Right?

My second question is about using flaked maize as an adjunct.  My wife likes

Miller Genuine Draft. I know, I know, I can see the flames coming already. I am

slowly converting her over to 'real' beer, but I aldo told her I would attempt

an American Lager with some corn in it.  Can I simply boil these little devils,

strain and add to the wort or do the starches provided by the maize also have

be coverted through a mash with malts containing enzymes?

If anyone has any extract recipes for this type of beer I would greatly

appreciate seeing them.

Thanks to all who have taken the time to read all of this and reply.

I have learned a lot from the collective wisdom of the net and wish you all

great beers.

- -- David Holsclaw

- -- dhholscl@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu

------------------------------


Sparge Times & water pH

Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 09:32:12 -0600

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Sparge Times & water pH

 Frank Tutzauer <COMFRANK@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu>

>So, how long should I make it?  The most convenient is to finish the

>sparge right as the wort on the stove is coming to a boil.  Is this

>reasonable?

Whether its reasonable depends, of course, on how long it takes your stove to

raise the wort to a boil 8-)  One of the brewers in my club starts heating the

boiling kettle after its about 1/3 full, and by the time the last of the sparge

is running into the kettle, it been boiling for 10-15 minutes.  His beers are

consistently among the very best in the club.  This technique saves him maybe 45

minutes per brewing session.  Not bad, eh?

>Is longer better (more sugars?),

Yes

>or is shorter better (fewer tannins?)?

Yes

My favorite authority (Miller) says the sparge should take 45 minutes to an

hour.  He says this gives a good balance between extraction and avoiding

tannins.  It has worked well for me.  My wheat ale took about 1:15 -- my other

beers work like yours -- I have to close the spigot to make the sparge take more

time.  I insulate my lauter tun and keep a lid on it to keep it hot.  I'm using

a grain bag in my bottling bucket, which I fitted with a false bottom made from

the lid of the bottling bucket.  Keeping the grain bed hot makes controlling the

runoff rate much easier -- it becomes a matter of throttling the thing down.

I've changed my technique a bit since I made the wheat ale, so I'm expecting it

to go better next time.

I have been acidifying my sparge water, but I'm not convinced it makes a

difference, at least in higher-gravity, dark beers.  In the lighter beers (1040

or less) I'm sure the effect would be more pronounced because there's less stuff

in there to mask the tannins.  Your comments on Noonan's book gave me a big

grin, but in his defense, he's writing mainly for commercial brewers (small

scale and pilot plant operators), and the key in that game is batch-to-batch

consistency, in the extreme.  What should you do?  Hmmmmm.  If you notice any

kind of astringency in your beer, try acidifying your sparge water.  Astringency

leaves a kind of dry, chalky feeling in your mouth.  The other thing you might

try is testing the pH of the last cup of your runoff.  If the pH is above 5.5,

try acidifying.  The other thing to keep in mind is that all this depends on the

grains you use.  Dark, roasty malts tend to make the mash more acidic than light

malts.  If you want to experiment with your techniques, make measurements, and

write down what you do, just as they taught you in chemistry lab 8-)

 t

=============================================================================

Tom Leith                           InterNet:   trl@wuerl.WUstl.EDU

4434 Dewey Ave.                   CompuServe:   70441,3536

St. Louis, Missouri  63116

                                                "Tho' I could not caution all

314/362-6965 - Office                            I still might warn a few:

314/362-6971 - Office Fax                        Don't lend your hand

314/481-2512 - Home + Infernal Machine           to raise no flag

                                                 atop no Ship of Fools"

=============================================================================

------------------------------


re: Older, but not sweeter / Cloudy

Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 10:34:12 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: re: Older, but not sweeter / Cloudy

Hi All,

   In HBD#1093, Norm Pyle writes:

>The first problem I've had from my very first brews.  It involves sweetness,

>or a lack thereof.  As my beers age, they seem to lose the sweetness they had

>when they were younger.  I'm comparing the flavor profile from a 1-month old

>brew to a 3-month old brew (since bottling).  This has happened with extract

>brews, partial mashes, and all-grain'ers.  I _really_ like my beers when they

>are young, but as they age, I like them less and less.  The hop bitterness

>starts to overpower them, as the sweetness fades.

>...

>So, this sounds like an infection problem, right?

>Bacteria/wild yeasts eating up the "unfermentables", etc. etc.  Well, none of

>my brews have ever experienced gushing.

   Well, *something* is reducing the complex sugars after bottling, and

since you are not getting gushers, it doesn't seem likely that it's

bacteria.  My guess would be that you are using a highly attenuative yeast.

What strain of yeast are you using?  Also, if you are reusing yeast across

several batches, the strain will become noticeably more attenuative after

a few batches.

>Second problem:  my all-grain brews (3 to date) are, without exception,

>cloudy.  I do a simple single-stage infusion at 150-158F.  I've used American

>and British 2-row

>...

>Do I need to a protein rest?

   Could you provide a little more detail, Norm?  Is the beer cloudy at

room temperature, or does it become cloudy after the beer is chilled?

If it's cloudy at room temperature, the problem is probably not excess

protein, but a starch haze.  A too-fine crush of the malt results in

excessive flour and pulverizing of the husks, which leads to poor

filtration during sparging.  Check your crush, and make sure the husks are

intact or nearly so.

   If the beer is clear at room temperature but becomes cloudy when chilled,

you have chill haze (don't worry, it's not contagious :-)).  Chill haze is

a reaction between long chain proteins and tannins in the beer.  There are

many ways to treat this problem.  A protein rest of 115F-120F for 30 minutes

will reduce the long chain proteins that cause chill haze, however, this

is generally not necessary with highly modified British 2-row malt.

Fining with 1 teaspoon of Irish moss 30 minutes before the end of the boil

will help settle out the proteins.  You could also fine with polyclar at

the end of secondary fermenatation, just before bottling.  Polyclar helps

to settle out the tannins that react with proteins to cause chill haze.

***********************************************************

   Also in HBD#1093, Steve Zabarnick writes:

>I started homebrewing two months ago and have had two out of

>three batches go sour. The first batch was the only not to

>bad. For all batches I used a plastic bucket primary

   This suggests to me that you may have scratched the primary while

cleaning it after your first batch.  Once a plastic fermenter is

scratched, it becomes very difficult to sanitize properly.  Check

your primary carefully for scratches, and if there are some,

replace it.

***********************************************************

   Frank Tutzauer writes about his first all grain batch:

   First, let me congratulate you on joining the ranks of the snobbish

elite :-) :-) (smileys included for the humor impaired)

>First, in yesterday's digest, Joe Stone asks how long the

>sparge should take.  I've got the same question.  Miller, people in my club,

>and lots of other folks talk about the sparge slowing to a trickle.  Mine

>didn't.  It did slow a little, but never to a trickle.  If I'd've wanted to, I

>could have run it out like gangbusters.

   If your runoff slows to a trickle when the tap is wide open and the tun

full of water, this is a problem, the mash is starting to set.

   I experimented with runoff rates for a while trying to determine the

optimal rate.  I started running off about 1 gal/15 minutes, or 90 minutes

for 6 gallons, and carefully measured and recorded my extraction rate.

Gradually, I sped this up until I got to 1 gal/8 minutes, or just over

45 minutes for 6 gallons.  At rates higher than this, my extraction began

to drop.  Of course, this is based on my brewing environment (geometry of

my tun, my procedures, etc.), your mileage may and probably will vary.

Don't be afraid to experiment.

>Is longer better (more sugars?), or is shorter better (fewer

>tannins?)?

   I think tannin extraction is more a function of pH and the amount of

sparge water used, rather than the runoff rate.  As sparge water is

added, sugars are extracted, and the pH of the mash becomes more alkaline.

Eventually, you get to the point where more tannin than sugar is being

extracted, you want to stop before this occurs.  So, sparge at the fastest

rate possible without extraction dropping off, and use both your hydrometer

and your palate to determine when to stop.  I start tasting the runoff

and monitoring the gravity as I get close to 6 gallons collected.  For my

setup, when the gravity gets to ~1.010 the taste of tannin first becomes

noticeable, and this is when I stop sparging.

>Second, what's the deal on acidifying the mash?  Miller says to get the pH to

>5.0 to 5.5.  I checked right after doughing in, and it was like maybe 6.3.

>...What should I do in the future?

   The amylase enzyme works well at the pH range Miller recommends.  Adding

a small amount of gypsum to the mash should do the trick.

>Finally, should I acidify the sparge water?

   This question should be a FAQ, if it isn't already.  Unless you have

an extreme water situation, this should not be necessary.  In my case, I

have a private well with extremely hard water.  I had an astrigency problem

with my beers because the pH of the mash was getting too alkaline during

sparging.  Acidifying the sparge water helped me, but I'd guess it's not

necessary in your case, judging by the pH of your mash after doughing in.

   Now that I've answered your questions, could you answer one for me?

>I got about 28 points a pound.

>but the sparge

>took place while the rest of the runoff was heating up on the stove

   How are you measuring your extraction rating with part of the wort on

the stove, and part of it still coming out of the tun?

                                  Cheers,

                                     Jim

------------------------------


Plastic Primaries & Marin Brewery Directions

Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 08:01:34 -0800

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: Plastic Primaries & Marin Brewery Directions

"Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 12:01:44 -0500

 From: steve@snake.appl.wpafb.af.mil (Steve Zabarnick)

 Subject: Recurring infections

"I started homebrewing two months ago and have had two out of

 three batches go sour. The first batch was the only not to

 bad. For all batches I used a plastic bucket primary and a

 glass carboy secondary."

It is a truism, I have been told, that plastic is hard to sanitize,

especially inside any scratches in the inside surface. It has been

a major effort, after every brewing session, to _not_ place all of

my paraphernalia inside my plastic mega-container, which naturally

would hold everything very nicely. But I've resisted the temptation.

Despite this, I _still_ don't use the plastic vat for anything but

short periods of exposure, and often leave a powerful bleach solution

within it with the lid on tight, for weeks, when not in use. I use it

as a temporary container for inducing hot breaks before racking, as

well as an intermediate holding place while adding corn sugar before

bottling, but _never_ for long periods of time ( IE, over an hour ).

"Any ideas on what I am doing wrong? I'm getting very

 frustrated! Should I throw out my plastic primary and get

 another glass carboy?"

Don't throw it out but _do_ invest in a second glass carboy, it's not

a waste of money, IMHO.

"Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 09:33:33 -0800

 From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

 Subject: Marin, Bicycles, and the Marin Brewery

"The route is pretty straightforward ... down to Sausalito, along the bike

 path, under 101, across Blithedale in Mill Valley, right at the school, then

 along Lomita to 101, right, onto the bike path paralleling 101, ..."

                      ^^^^^

Um, that was a left, FEI.

- -- richard

     "It is obligatory, within the limits of capability, to commend the

      good and forbid evil."     _Kitab_Adab_al-Muridin_, by Suhrawardi

                richard childers          pascal@netcom.com

------------------------------


Celis Substitute?

Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 08:31:14 MST

From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

Subject: Celis Substitute?

Michael Howe reports that he hasn't seen Celis White in Colorado.  Sorry,

Michael but I haven't seen it here yet, nor have I even tasted it, but I have

a suggestion.  Try Sunshine Wheat by the New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins.

This is the first wheat beer I've ever truthfully enjoyed.  It is spiced in

the Belgian tradition with coriander and orange peel, as CW is reported to

be.  It is just a wonderful, full bodied wheat beer with some very

interesting flavor components.  I'd like to try CW as a comparison, but until

I find in our neck of the woods, SW will do just fine.

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


Raw Sugar

Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 10:40 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Raw Sugar

 >Rob (bradley@adx.adelphi.edu)

 >Arf repeated it in 1090, as though it was news.  In

 1091 Jeff Frane said "Jack is right".  Is it a fact yet?)

 That was established in the first sentance.

 > Some questions: since molasses is a by-product of the refining process,

 what's the difference between a solution of turbinado and a solution

 of refined white sugar with the appropriate amount of molasses?

 Not much.

 >Could a chemist tell the difference?  Could a yeast cell?

 Not likely.

 Let me caution you that the terms used in the industry are a lot like those

 in any other, i.e. they mean different things to different people.  I am not

 an expert on sugar but while shooting "Orchids vs Hamburgers", we spent a day

 filming at a sugar refinery in Costa Rica and everything coming out of the

 centrifuge (turbine?) was called turbinado.  Raw suguar usually means the

 evaporated and crystalized juice from the cane crusher.  It can also mean the

 output of the centrifuge after most of the molasses has been removed or even

 a fairly light colored sugar with all the molasses removed.  It is also the

 trade name for a Yuppie product that has nothing to do with anything.

 What this refinery called raw sugar were kilo sized blocks in the shape of

 truncated cones about 5 in in dimater at the bottom.  These are available

 everywhere in Central America and used in a popular drink called agua dulce.

 One drops the block in boiling water and pulls it out when the water is

 appropriately sweet and it is served like tea, but of course in a glass.

 We brought one of these home in 1985 and needless to say, have most of it

 still intact.  As a result of this thread, I bashed it up with a hammer and

 ran it through a MM and can now use it in tea.

 Now if Jeff will give us the nod, we can move on and wind up laser lables.

 >From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

 >Second problem:  my all-grain brews (3 to date) are, without exception,

 cloudy.

 Your process description leaves out any information about fermenting

 procedure.  Given time, I have never made a beer that would not clear. I do

 however, always use secondary fermentation and highly recommend it as SOP for

 high quality beer.

 How long is your primary?

 How long is your secondary?

 What kind of yeast are you using?

 js

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1094, 03/10/93

*************************************

-------


protein rest / sparging technique

Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 10:48:25 CST

From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)

Subject: protein rest / sparging technique

Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu> writes:

>I intend to make a stout using a single infusion mash with the major

>component of the grain bill being a British Pale Ale malt.  But

>I want to know if I should worry about the fact that my roast and

>flaked barley have not been exposed to a protein rest - usually

>I make stout using lager malt with a protein rest, quite successfully.

>Is the likely problem a stuck sparge or simply poor conversion of

>the adjuncts?

It won't make the sparge stick any more than usual (no problems

since I switched to a copper-pipe manifold), though you could get

poor conversion of the adjuncts.

If you're aiming for gainess, you want to increase the protein

content of the finished product.  By all means go ahead an eliminate

the protein rest, even if you use lager malt.  The result is

excellent head retention, creamy mouthfeel, and additional haze,

which is no problem in a stout.

- ------------------

Frank Tutzauer <COMFRANK@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu> writes:

>First, things went pretty well.  Temperature control in my picnic cooler was

>harder than I expected and sparging was easier than I expected.  I got about

>28 points a pound.  The runoff cleared *very* quickly, like within a quart or

>two.  (I suspect Jack's mill is the reason why.)

I assume you used a slotted copper pipe manifold which will not stick.

I cut too many holes in mine, and the runoff is actually too fast for

great extraction.  I was always having stuck sparges with a Zapap

lauter tun.  Crushing the grain with a Maltmill only made a minor

difference.  Shorter mash times helped the most - I think the husk

material begins to decompose after about 90 minutes and tends to

clog a false bottom.

Anyway, now my technique is as follows: 1) crush all the grain and

place in cooler, stir (dry) to mix.  2) hook a siphon hose up to

the outlet, and gently upward-infuse with 163F water, to avoid

oxidation.  when the water is well above the level of the grain, you

can (gently) stir the (thin) mash without any additional oxidation.

3) To mash out, drain a gallon or two, heat to 170F, and return

to the mash.  This can all be done (gently) through the siphon hose,

simply by lowering or raising the kettle.  4) drain completely,

possibly recirculating .5-1 gal.  5) siphon in 170F acidified sparge

water.  Again, backwards, through the copper pipe manifold.

6) repeats step 4, then 5 and 4 again if you wish.

>From an oxidation standpoint, it would be preferable to be able to

sparge with water running just under the surface of the mash, while

it is being drained from below.  The copper pipe manifold drains

so quickly that the sparge water does not run evenly through the

grain bed, leading to poor extraction when this is done.  Perhaps

this would work if there were fewer slots in the manifold (mine

currently is 7 ft long, with ~100 slots in it, 1 slot per inch),

and if the slots where closer together farther away from the

outlet.

>Now the questions.  First, in yesterday's digest, Joe Stone asks how long the

>sparge should take.  I've got the same question.  Miller, people in my club,

>and lots of other folks talk about the sparge slowing to a trickle.  Mine

>didn't.  It did slow a little, but never to a trickle.  If I'd wanted to, I

>could have run it out like gangbusters.

One of the advantages (disadvantages) of a copper pipe manifold.

The disadvantage is that if it runs too fast, you get poor extraction.

If you try to slow it down, you're only draining wort through the

slots nearest the outlet.

>The most convenient is to finish the sparge right as the wort on the stove

>is coming to a boil.  Is this reasonable?

The first running from my setup are around SG 1.100, which will caramelize

easily if I heat it too vigorously.  I usually wait until I collect a

full 7 gallons before I start heating towards a boil.  If you do heat

the first runnings earlier, so it gently to avoid caramelization, and do

not splash the hot wort when you add the second runnings later, to

avoid oxidation.

>Second, what's the deal on acidifying the mash?  Miller says to get the pH to

>5.0 to 5.5.  I checked right after doughing in, and it was like maybe 6.3.

If I preboil my mash water, mine always comes out 5.3-5.5, so I don't

worry about it.  (it's impossible to use ph papers accurately with

dark malts anyway, due to the staining action).  If you don't boil the

mash water to drive off the chlorine, the buffering action will insure

that the ph never gets low enough, unless you add massive amounts of acid

(gypsum won't do it), which will adversely affect the flavor of the final

product.

>Finally, should I acidify the sparge water?  Charlie P.'s silent on the

>matter, Miller says to acidify to a pH of 5.7, and Noonan spouts of a

>typically let's-make-it-harder-than-it-needs-to-be Noonanism, something like

>acidify if the pH rises .7 during sparge but never more than .2 unless the

>azimuth of the moon corresponds to the declination of blah, blah, blah....

>What should I do and how important is it?

The consensus is to try to get it down below 5.8.  For me, this works out

to be about .5 tsp of acid blend in 5 gal water.  If you add, say 1

tsp, then the ph of the sparge water will drop further (to 5.0 or below),

but as soon as the sparge water mixes with the wort in the grain bed,

the buffering action will raise the ph back to the 5.2-5.5 range.  better

to overdo it (slightly) than under do it.

bb

------------------------------


Re: Cloudy, questions

Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 10:02:25 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Cloudy, questions

Norm Pyle writes:

> Second problem:  my all-grain brews (3 to date) are, without exception,

> cloudy....  What gives?

Eliminating the particles that can cause hazy beer happens at two points

in the brewing process (and neither one is in the mash, although I

suppose your mashing technique may have a small effect).  The first is

during the boil, where proteins coagulate.  This is known as "hot

break".  I've heard a good hot break referred to as "egg drop soup", and

sometimes you see 1-2 inch long strands of goo rolling around in your

boil.  The second is during cooling, where more protein particles

coagulate.  This is the "cold break".  To make things confusing, both

the process and the resulting sludge from the boil are called "hot

break", but the result of the cold break process is called "trub".  Go

figure.

Here are some tips I've collected to help you maximize your breaks :-)

and maximize your chance at clear beer:

Hot Break:

1.  Make sure you have a full, rolling boil (can't be stirred down).

2.  Try adding Irish moss about 10-15 minutes before the end of the

    boil.  This is supposed to provide nucleation sites for the protein

    strands so they settle out.

3.  Leave the hot break in the kettle.  I use a copper Chore Boy wrapped

    around a 4" piece of slotted copper tubing to siphon with, and that

    seems to filter nicely.

Cold Break:

1.  Cool the wort as quickly as possible after the boil.

2.  Cool to as low a temperature as possible.  Noonan states that you

    don't get effective cold break until you cool to 50F or so.  I think

    that's a little much, but if you can cool to 60F or so you'll get a

    much better cold break.

If your beer is still cloudy, you can try racking to a secondary and

fining to get the remaining particles out of suspension.  After racking,

add a teaspoon of gelatine dissolved in water.  As the gelatine settles,

it should carry a lot of the particulates with it.

Frank Tutzauer has a few questions after his first all-grain batch.

> Joe Stone asks how long the sparge should take.  I've got the same question.

I haven't really seen a consensus on this in the Digest.  My experience

is that a 20 min.  sparge suffices to get me a 30-33 pts/lb/gal extract

rate, but your mileage may vary.  Others insist a 2 hour sparge with

lots of recycling is the way to go.  Try experimenting, and make sure

you taste the runoff.  Your tastebuds will be your biggest guide for

avoiding tannin extraction.

> Second, what's the deal on acidifying the mash?

> Finally, should I acidify the sparge water?

It depends on your local water.  Where I live, the water is naturally

soft and I haven't worried about it (in fact, I've never even checked

the pH of my mash or sparge water).  Regulating the pH seems to be a way

of reducing tannin extraction, so if your beer doesn't come out overly

astringent, you probably don't need to adjust anything.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Lager Starter?? General Comments

Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 11:52:28 EST

From: Lee Menegoni <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

Subject: Lager Starter?? General Comments

 I will be brewing a lager soon.  I use a refridgerator with Hunter

 Air stat for temp control.  The controls on the fridge are broken so

my choices are on / off.  This limits my lagering temp to 40F.  Given

this constraint what is the promary fermentation temp  I should use

for Wyeast Bohemian yeast?

When producing a starter I plan to pop the bag at cellar temp 65F.

What temp should the starter I pitch to be?  Should I pich it at 65 and

cool it to 60 let it reach full krausen, pitch this to a 2nd larger

starter solution at 60 and cool to 55F and pitch this to the 55F wort?

I plan to deal with the long lag time of cool initial wort temp by

having a large amount 2-3oz of starter slurry.  Am i corect in my

assumption that pitching at to high a temp while reducing lag time

can produce flavors and ester inappropriate for a pilsner?

Norm mentions having problems with his all grain brew remaining cloudy:

did you iodine test the stirred mash? or just mash for x minutes?

did you recirculate the first few gallons of sparge?

did you rack off the trub?

Taking the above steps I have not had a clarity problem with AG brews.

I protein rest all grains for 15 to 30 minutes even highly modifeied British

grain.  I find that the time to (mash only) == (mash + protein rest).

Beer loses sweetness in bottle.  Attenutive yeast, like 1056, will

 continue to ferment complex sugars making for a less sweet beer over time.

My sweet brown ale became a dry brown ale with 1056 yeast.

Acidified mash water reduces the amount of tannins that can be leached ot during the sparge.  It helps reduce astringency and can improve yield.

- --

------------------------------


Weizen Request

Date: Tue, 09 Mar 1993 13:27:42 EST

From: rosenthal@aclcb.purdue.edu

Subject: Weizen Request

Greetings,

I would be grateful if someone could post a good all grain weizen

recipe.  I am relatively new to the all grain business, so any

specifics on the mashing process with the additional wheat malt

would also be helpful.  Thanks in advance!

Additionally, for those individuals in the northern Indiana/southern

Michigan region, there is a relatively new brewpub in Mishawaka

(not sure of the spelling) Indiana called Mishawaka Brewing.

The food is pretty good and the beers are quite nice, especially

the Founders Day Classic Stout.  The quality may not be up to

that of the brewpubs found on the west coast, but there's not

very many in this particular area (except Chicago).

Scott Rosenthal

Purdue University

------------------------------


Ginger beer update

Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 14:20:07 EST

From: Dave Whitman <rsndww@rohmhaas.com>

Subject: Ginger beer update

To homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.co

X-Mailer: LeeMail 1.2.4

I racked my ginger beer into the secondary last night.  As in the wort, the

beer had very little ginger flavor.  This despite 3 oz of ginger added during

boiling.

To attempt to correct this, I added 4 oz of shredded ginger root to the

secondary.  I dropped the whole root into a cup of boiling water for 10 minutes

to sanitize.  I figured that the short boil and low surface area of the

uncut/ungrated root would minimize loss of volatiles while sanitizing at least

the outside.  After boiling, the root was grated in a sanitized food processor,

and the grated material was added into the secondary (along with the boil

water, which smelled strongly of ginger).

I'll taste again at bottling time, and post how it worked out.

Dave Whitman

PROFS/OV: smtp(rsndww)         *  "Slime molds have 13 sexes, but is this

internet: rsndww@rohmhaas.com  *   arrangement stable?"

US Mail:  get real.            *   Science; Vol 257, p324 (17 July 1992)

------------------------------


RIMS

Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 14:03:53 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: RIMS

We had the good fortune of having Conrad Keys at this years Bluebonnet,

which was held last weekend. He was hoping to bring his first production

RIMS model, but this unfortunately was not possible. He is wisely seeking

insurance coverage for his system, and they have required that changes in

the wiring be made before they extend coverage. He did come with a brochure

on the system which contained a detailed picture of his prototype. Given

the average homebrewer's skill at reverse engineering, this may provide

a lot of grist for one's mill (so to speak). Conrad indicated he would

sent copies free of charge to anyone who requests one.

I was reluctant to give out much detail in my review because I consider

Conrad as a good friend, and I would have a hard time sleeping at night

if I said something that was not in his best interest. However, he was

very candid about things at the Bluebonnent, and the following is a summary

of his ideas about RIMS:

  1.There are three crucial design parameters. These are the following:

           a. Type of crush used to mill the malt

           b. Geometry of the mash tun

           c. Diameter of the tubing used in the recirculation

It will come as no surprise that a corona is not appropriate, and any mill

which gives too fine of crush will experience the problems described by

Bob Jones in his post. The other two parameters are system dependent, and

Conrad recommends that those who are designing RIMS cut themselves as

much slack as possible in this area. For example, the optimal configuration

in his 1/2 bbl. system is quite different than with the 2 bbl. system.

   2. Top flight pumps are also crucial. Most pumps will eventually give

a laminar flow. Some, however, will cause foaming at the start and at the end.

These should be avoided.

   3. Less than optimal yields will occur if there are temperature gradients

in the system during the mash. This tends to be more important for the larger

versions than the small one described in Rodney Morris' articles. I personally

am not a "yield uber allen" type. My bottom line is the finished beer itself.

If it is to my taste in the case of my beer, or to another's taste in the case

of their beer, then whatever procedures used will not be faulted by me. In any

case, those wishing to increase the yield of their RIMS may want to investigate

the heating used with an eye to removing thermal gradients. Obviously this

depends very sharply on the geometries involved.

George Fix

P.S. The Bluebonnet was a great success. I was really proud of the dignified

and refined behavior of the participants. There were, at the very most, only

2 or 3 fistfights, a new record for Texas! Seriously, it was a lot of fun,

and we were all grateful for the entries sent in from outside our region.

------------------------------


Easymash

Date:         Tue, 09 Mar 93 15:37:21 EST

From: "Mark Rich-mpr8a@acadvm1.uottawa.ca" <MPR8A@acadvm1.uottawa.ca>

Subject:      Easymash

**** OPEN MSG TO JACK SCHMIDLING*** (did I spell that right?)

Hi Jack...

             I've been reading the digest for a while now, and am considering t

he shift to all-grain. I have been slowly gearing-up, and recently lucked into

a used 8 gal SS stock-pot with a spigot already attached. I remember reading a

few posts about your Easymasher(tm) setup, and I'm curious to know how much tro

uble it would be to sort of "borrow" (brown-nose-mode on) your skill and experi

ence. I was hoping you could see your way clear to sharing the basics of your d

esign with me.Please please please please. I will- of course - understand, shou

ld you not wish to part with it.

                                 Grovellingly yours,    Mark

------------------------------


bottle conditioning takes a long time?

Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 14:02:55 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: bottle conditioning takes a long time?

Recently I posted an item in which I expressed concern over my beer not

conditioning.  After regularly experiencing 3 day ferments, and reading about

how conditioning occurs "rapidly" I was upset to find almost no pressure in

the bottles after 4 days.  I then tried experiments by modifying three

bottles as follows:

(a) add 1/4 teaspoon extra sugar directly

(b) add 1/16 teaspoon (roughly measured) of dried yeast directly

(c) put 1/4 teaspoon of dried yeast in 25 ml water to rehydrate and pour 5 ml

of slurry into a bottle

This is to report the results of that experiment, since people have

expressed interest.

The summary is that I was indeed too hasty.  Two weeks later and the bottles

had conditioned beautifully.  In comparing each of bottles a,b and c above

with an unmodified bottle, there is virtually no difference between b, c and

the standard bottle, at least as far as carbonation is concerned.  There

seems to be a very subtle difference in flavor, but so subtle that it can be

effectively ignored.  In my case I suspect the M&F dried yeast I added is

less attenuative than the WYEAST 1056.  There may have been a difference if

it was the other way around.

As far as bottle (a) goes, yes it's more carbonated, a bit too much so.

The bottom line is to not expect bottle carbonation within two weeks.

TNCJHB

suggests some beers are ready to drink in days, but this will be strongly

dependent on the yeast used.

Thanks to everyone who replied to my original note.

 Peter

------------------------------


American Black Malt

Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 15:20:57 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: American Black Malt

For those who are using American black malt in their beers, I thought

the following might be interesting.  It's from an article by Roger C.

Briess, of the Briess Malting Co., in the October 1986 issue of Brewer's

Digest, a professional publication.  As far as I know, Briess is the

only American malthouse producing black malt.  This article was what

convinced me to use only British black malt in my beer (since upgraded

to include malts from Germany).

"Black malt is specifically produced for coloring value. Extract and

enzyme activity are inconsequential.

"Historically, black malt imparted an astringent, harsh, smoky flavor to

beer. Beers dating back several hundred years could tolerate such flavor

profile due to high gravity worts. We have been successful in

eliminating this undesirable characteristic to make the product

compatible with the lowest gravity beers, such as 'light' beer.

"The proper application is in the mash tun; however, black malt flour

may be added to the kettle for minor color adjustments.

"Coloring value has been empirically established at 0.08 lb/US Bbl to

increase beer 14 degrees Lovibond. The value is linear. It was

established in our pilot brewery in Chilton and corroborated by

cooperative tests by select commercial breweries."

Briess black malt, in other words, is the brewing equivalent of

decaffeinated coffee.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


In need of some history

Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 17:52 CST

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: In need of some history

Awhile back some pinhead posted an article titled "Wave of Wort".  It

appeared in the HBD around Sep/Oct/Nov.  If someone knows which digest

number the post appeared in or has the digest on disk, could you please

send it to me by email.  Thanks in advance.

chris campanelli

ps. Thank you, yes, I know about the archive site.  I figure this is the

easiest and fastest way to go.

------------------------------


Cheap 5 Gallon Carboys

Date: 9 Mar 93 16:46:00 +2000

From: BELLAGIO_DAVID@Tandem.COM

Subject: Cheap 5 Gallon Carboys

I don't know about 7 gallon carboys ( I got my used one through mail order for

$10.00 plus $8.00 shipping ), but for brand new 5 gallon carboys, try your

local Corning Glass outlet.  They have them for $8.99 brand new.  I compared

them to the ones for sale at the beer stores and they are exactly the same only

$7.00 cheaper!  While you are there, pick up some foot, half yard, and yard

classes in stands for magnitudes less than the beer store.  The one I go to

is in Gilroy Ca.  I assume they are nation wide.

Super Dave

bellagio_david@tandem.com

------------------------------


Real Root Beer and Cancer

Date: 10 Mar 93 11:31:00 WET

From: "ONREUR::JSAMPSON" <JSAMPSON%ONREUR.decnet@onreur.navy.mil>

Subject: Real Root Beer and Cancer

While catching up on my cross-discipline reading on the train this

morning, I came across a very interesting paper on natural vs. synthetic

carcinogens in the diet (L. S. Gold, et.al., Science, vol. 258, pg 261,

9 Oct 92, "Rodent Carcinogens: Setting Priorities").   Since many of us

long for the taste of REAL root beer, I thought it would be interesting

to compare the banned chemical safrole (the primary carcinogen in

sassafras) with other known carcinogens.

The paper ranked 80 natural and man-made chemicals shown to cause cancer

in laboratory rats.  First some definitions:

   TD50 = the daily lifetime dose (milligrams of chemical per kilogram

          of body weight per day) which halves the proportion of rats

          which remain cancer-free at the end of a standard lifetime.

   HEPR = (Human Exposure/Rat Potency) the percentage of TD50 received

        by a 70 kilogram human for the given lifetime intake rate, i.e.,

 (mg chemical per day) / (70 kg)/(TD50 for that chemical).

HEPR (%) HUMAN EXPOSURE (PER DAY) RAT CARCINOGEN

4.7  Wine (250ml)   Ethanol (30 ml)

2.8  Beer  (12 oz; 354 ml)  Ethanol (18 ml)

1.4  Mobile Home Air (14 hrs/day) Formaldehyde (2.2 mg)

0.4  Regular Home Air (14 hrs/day) Formaldehyde (598 ug)

0.3  Lettuce, 1/8 head (125 g) Caffeic acid (66.3 mg)

0.2  Real Root Beer (12 oz; 354 ml) Safrole (6.6 mg)

0.1  Apple, 1 whole (230 g)  Caffeic acid (24.4 mg)

0.1  Mushroom, 1 (15 g)  various hydrazines

0.1  Basil (1 g of dried leaf) Estragole (3.8 mg)

0.07  Pear, 1 whole ( 200 g)  Caffeic acid (14.6 mg)

0.07  Brown Mustard (5 g)  Allyl isothiocyanate (4.6 mg)

0.06  Diet Cola (12 oz; 354 ml) Saccharin (95 mg)

0.04  Coffee, 1 cup (from 4 g ) Caffeic acid (7.2 mg)

0.03  Celery, 1 stalk (50 g)  Caffeic acid (5.4 mg)

0.03  Carrot, 1 whole (100 g)  Caffeic acid (5.16 mg)

0.006  Bacon, cooked (100 g)  Diethylnitrosamine (0.1 ug)

0.002  White bread, 2 slices (45 g) Furfural (333 ug)

0.002  DDT, daily avg before ban DDT (13.8 ug) (before 1972)

0.001  Tap Water, US avg (1 liter) Chloroform (83 ug)

0.00003  Approximate HEPR of upper-bound risk estimate used by US

  regulatory agencies to control exposure to man-made

  chemicals.

0.000000006 Captan (synthetic pesticide), Captan (11.5 ng)

  US daily avg residue intake

 g = gram, m = milli-, u = micro-, n = nano-, l = liter

Please note that HEPR is NOT a direct estimate of the risk of a human

getting cancer, but rather is an index of relative carcinogenicity.

Thus, all it seems you can say is that drinking one bottle of real root

beer entails about the same risk of cancer as eating two fresh,

unsprayed, organically-grown apples.

Again, this is not my field, so I suggest anyone with an uncontrollable

urge to flame first read the whole paper and then refer their professional

comments to the authors.

John A. Sampson

Office of Naval Research European Office

------------------------------


Re : British pubs

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 12:49:16 GMT

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: Re : British pubs

I came here to GB 3 years ago and was disappointed at the number of tied pubs

which offer only one brewery's products. The best opportunity for beer

education is to find a festival. These are advertised in the CAMRA mag "Whats

Brewing", presumably available to non-subscribers from the London office. There

is a festival somewhere in the southern regions about fortnightly. One tip:

most brew is past its best after 2 days, so go early. Continental festivals are

also starting to find their way in there, eg, Cantillon in Belgium seem to have

regular beer breakfasts!

- --

Conn V Copas

Loughborough University of Technology          tel : +44 509 263171  ext 4164

Computer-Human Interaction Research Centre     fax : +44 509 610815

Leicestershire  LE11 3TU              e-mail - (Janet):C.V.Copas@uk.ac.lut

G Britain                                      (Internet):C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk

------------------------------


Peracetic Acid and Other Strong Cleaners!

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 08:54:28 -0500

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Peracetic Acid and Other Strong Cleaners!

With all of this talk about using peracetic acid, let me just

give people a brief warning.  Mixing peroxides and acids is not

to be taken lightly.

We use a 3:1 mixture of a mineral acid (I will not name it) to 50 percent

hydrogen peroxide as a method of removing photoresist from wafers.

This mixture is called 'piranha etch' as it is very powerful.

It will very strongly attack any organics, skin included.

Also, the cleaning power of such a mixture diminshes very rapidly.

If allowed to stand for a while before use, its essentially just

the same as using the acid by it self.  The oxidizing power of

the hydrogen peroxide is short lived.

Someone mentioned that the Merck Index talked about peracetic acid

being explosive at 110C.  Peroxides can be very unstable. A few years

ago, the bomb squad had to remove hundreds of vials of peroxides

from Thomas Edison's lab in NJ as he had lots of old peroxides

sitting around for 50 to 75 years.

I have found that plain old unscented chlorine bleach is a very

effective cleaner.  Stuborn 'gunk' from a vigorous primary can easily be

removed by just filling the carboy with water and adding a little

bleach and letting it sit for a week.

It is also safer than many of the more concentrated cleaners.

Similar warnings go for using strong caustics like sodium hydroxide.

They are dangerous stuff, so please don't take they're use lightly.

Its roughly equivalent to using draino as a cleanser.

Just some things to think about.  Read up on these cleaners before

you use them!

 Tim

- ----

Timothy J. Dalton                                   tjdalton@mit.edu

MIT, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Materials Etching Technology Lab

------------------------------


Non-Alcohol Brews

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 07:56 CST

From: fjdobner@ihlpb.att.com

Subject: Non-Alcohol Brews

To The Gentleman Asking About Non-Alcohol Brewing,

To be a purist, non-alcoholic beer is a contradiction. For if it does not

have alcohol it cannot  be _legally_ called beer. However, as long as we

we're being picky the commercial versions of NA beers are not precisely

NA beers. They contain something under 0.5% alcohol.

Recently, I saw an article written about such beverages and I just wanted to

pass this information along to someone who really could use it. It was

prepared by the Copley News Service.

Basically brewers employ either of two methods to achieve a non-alcoholic

product:

1. The older technique takes beer that has been made in the usual way and

evaporates the alcohol by heating the brew in a vacuum chamber, which allows

a low boiling point. Kingsbury and Kaliber are made this way. The principal

problem here is to avoid changing the taste of the brew by cooking it.

In addition, this process would be very impractical for one of more

modest means like most homebrewers.

2. A more modern method, used by most of the German brewers, uses intense

cold and rapid extraction of the yeast to arrest the brewing process

before too much alcohol forms. This technique seems to leave a lot of the

sugar in the brew and therefore gives it a sweet taste.

The second option would seem to give homebrewers a chance to attempt a

low-alcohol beverage. Assuming that you make ales, chilling the

fermenting wort sufficiently would be practical in a refrigerator.

In addition, the remaining yeast could be fined with your favorite

fining (I would probably use polyclar since it would seem to

be able to work with the high gravity liquid).

The resulting beer would not be the same, but much sweeter. It depends

upon your taste. I have not read the HBD since you posted and I

wonder whether you have heard similar words from others but I hope this

helps. I hope you can drink beer in some way or other.

Good Luck.

Frank Dobner

------------------------------


help! nonstop fermentation

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1993 09:21:31 -1100

From: Kirk_Anderson@wheatonma.edu (Kirk Anderson)

Subject: help! nonstop fermentation

Dear Colleagues:

Words of consolation, anyone?  My wife and I finally collaborated on a

batch of HB and despite the initial excitement, we have a problem on our

hands.  Here's the dope:

1 can (4lbs.) Ironmaster "Special Lager" malt extract

packet of Isohop extract (included with above)

2 lbs. corn sugar

1/2 lb. maple syrup

2 oz. apricot wine flavoring ("Wines Inc.")

11.5 g sachet Edme dry yeast

It was a 50-minute boil with apricot extract only going in the last five.

I rehydrated the yeast in warm water shortly before pitching.  O.G. was

1.050 and when I racked to secondary three days later it was 1.018!  Now

here's the problem: *that was exactly four weeks ago and fermentation has

not stopped.*  Bubbles still rising, a cute layer of foam still on the

surface.  I've never encountered this before.  I've always been a careful

sanitizer, but should I assume something got by me this time?  Temperature

has been 58-62F for the duration.  Don't pick on me for using corn sugar

(it was the first time I've done so in years--my last few batches were

nearly non-alcoholic and my checking account was low: MEA CULPA).  And yes

I'll be going to liquid yeast for my next one.  But what about now?  Down

the loo?

Thanks for you advice or condolences via e-mail.

Kirk Anderson

------------------------------


new jersey brewpub legalization

Date: 10 Mar 1993   9:21 EST

From: dab@cc.bellcore.com (dave ballard)

Subject: new jersey brewpub legalization

Hey now-  A friend of mine has become involved with the campaign of one

of New Jersey's gubernatorial candidates and would like to start bending

some people's ears about brewpub legalization.   Does anyone know

exactly where this matter stands right now and where I can get some more

information about it?

Thanks in advance...

dab

=========================================================================

dave ballard

dab@cc.bellcore.com

=========================================================================

------------------------------


English and British

Date: 10 Mar 1993 10:38:46 -0400

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: English and British

Can I use the term English and England when referring strictly to England

and not Scotland or Wales?  It seems to me that in the original post the

person wrote England and meant England, and not Britain.  I try to be

precise, and if in conversation I wish to refer to the UK I say Britain or

UK, but if I mean England alone I say England.  In fact two yeasr ago I

went to England and Wales, never quite made it to Scotland.  Can I say I

went to England and Wales?  Or do I have to say I went to Britain?

 ed

------------------------------


plastic pails

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 15:17:00 +0000

From: DAMON_NOEL/HP0800_01%mailhub.cs.itc.hp.com@mailhub.cs.itc.hp.com

Subject: plastic pails

re the reuse of plastic pails...a data point...in my early brew

days in an effort to save money I came by several "food grade"

pails which had contained pickles.  I cleaned them with every

thing I could think of in every concentration to no avail. Some

cleansers would seem to do the job, but in a few days the pickle

smell would reappear. I concluded that the plastic had absorbed

the taste/smell and was exuding it over time.  I threw them out

and would not recommend reuse of containers which had liquid in

them...soy sauce???? not a common adjunct!

------------------------------


Bubble gum aroma during primary ferment

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 08:30 EST

From: "C. Lyons / Raytheon-ADC / Andover, MA" <LYONS@adc3.adc.ray.com>

Subject: Bubble gum aroma during primary ferment

   Based on recent discussions recommending Nottingham dry yeast

I decided to try it.  One major difference I've observed so far

that a strong bubble-gum aroma is given off during the primary

fermentation.  Last night, my son entered the room were the

fermentation was occuring and aske if he could have some bubble

gum too.  So this is not in my mind.  What gives?  Has anyone

else ever observed this?

Chris

LYONS@ADC3.ADC.RAY.COM

------------------------------


Mashing Questions

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1993 10:44:19 -0500 (EST)

From: Chris Mackensen <cygnus@unh.edu>

Subject: Mashing Questions

Okay, I seem to be still confused about mashing...

 -what is a protein (enzyme) rest and at what temperature?

 -what is a good temperature to keep your mash so that the enzymes don't

break down the complex sugars?  I am more concerned about a heavy

malty taste (not caramelly taste) than the alcohol content.

 -what temperature converts starches over to sugars?

 -what "normal" order or succession should each of temperature

categories be in?  does it matter?

any help would be most appreciated...

thanks,

 -chris

- --.

David (Chris) Mackensen

dcm2@kepler.unh.edu, dcm2@bifur.unh.edu  I am the Time Daemon

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

"Hi... My name is Hobbes.  I'm the product of a malicious 6-year old's

twisted and destructive imagination.  Would YOU like to be my friend?"

------------------------------


Crystal malt

Date:     Wed, 10 Mar 93 11:43:40 EST

From: William Boyle (CCAC-LAD) <wboyle@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  Crystal malt

I have a question about crystal malt.  Crystal malt will add body,

sweetness and color to a beer.  These three contributions will

vary depending on the lovibond of the malt.  I feel that any

crystal malt should add the same amount of unfermentables to the

beer, this in-turn should add the same amount of body and

sweetness to the beer.  I think some of the sweetness may be

masked by the flavor of darker crystal malt, but the increase in

body will be the same for any crystal?  Am I wrong for thinking

like this?

On a side note in my dictionary beer is defined as a beverage made

from malt, hops, yeast, and water.  It does not say malted barley,

so the clear beer can be called beer is it is made from malted

rice of corn? I know it really does not matter but its a thought.

     B^2

------------------------------


Filtration, pt 1 of 2

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 11:51:05 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Filtration, pt 1 of 2

Filtration for homebrewers:

After brewing for several years, I finally had an occaision that called for me

to consider filtering my beer.  What happened is that in my quest to brew true

to style beers, I used a diferent yeast strain, specifically a Weihenstephan

Altbier strain (no, it is not from Wyeast).  I calculated out a Alt bier recipe

of 40 IBUs, 11% CaraMunich malt and 2 row grist to yield an OG of 12P (1.048).

All went as planned, ferment was vigorous and a ton of yeast was skimmed off of

my open fermenter.  The beer was kegged and lagered at 31F for 3 weeks.  After

sampling this beer many times during the lager stage, it became apparent that

the yeast was refusing to flocculate.  I mean were talking milkshake looking

stuff (kinda like Widmer "HefeWeizen" :-). So, I decided to do some research

on home filtration.  I had just won a copy of the AHA 92 conference transcripts

and noticed that steve Daniels wrote about filtering his beers.  I was aware

of The Filter Store and some of thier products since a local brewer uses the

standard kit to filter some of his beers.  Steve also recommends using this

basic kit.  He claims to have tried all sorts of filters and found a

"happy medium" using a .5 micron sterile filter. This is indeed the filter

sold with the basic kit from the Filter Store.  Now, I am quaffing a few ales

with my local Brewmaster friend and we are discussing the merits of filtration

and specifically the degree of filtration required.  Old Dominion Brewing CO,

where my brewmaster friend brews, filters using a plate filter and removing

down to 5-7 microns.  Another Baltimore brewpub does a similar level of yeast

removal.  The beers produced from these breweries have a fine degree of

clarity to them.  Not sparkling crystal clear, but certainly quite clear. I

also feel the flavor from hops and malt and overall mouthfeel of these

beers is very good and devoid of any "thinness" or lack of head retention.

At this point, I decided to post a inquiry to the HBD on filtration methods.

I got three responses, two of whom were using .5 micron sterile filters and

one who said his was 2 microns.  So, I was at a delemma stage, where my

professional brewer friends were claiming to not go below 5 microns to avoid

stripping the beer of important flavor elements, especially proteins, whereas

people who actually used the home filter methods seemed happy with .5 micron

sterile filtration.  I decided to ask Dr. Fix, who provided the following:

>From gjfix@utamat.uta.edu Wed Mar  3 14:22:15 1993

Jim:

Content-Length: 1736

X-Lines: 32

Status: RO

>A quick question, how many microns is a yeast cell?  I need to

>buy a filter to clarify my Altbier that is real yeasty, despite

>being lagered at 31F for 3+ weeks.  What I want is a real coarse

>filter, I am not interested in removing chill haze, I just want

>to remove yeast.  Any ideas on the coarsest filter that will do

>the trick?  All I read is about people using .5 micron filters

>and I believe this is smaller than I need.

Yeast cells vary from 5 to 10 microns. My own filter is a Zahm+Nagel

cartridge which is precoated with DE. The cartiridges come in 3, 1, and

 .45 micron sizes. I use the 3 micron version for my own homebrew. We

also use this size for BRD brew pubs. Some yeast will make it through

this type of filtration (don't ask me how!), but only at very low levels.

>(apparently any very young cells can be smaller than 3 microns and thus

>make it through the filter, JB)

Plating with SDA has indicated that the counts rarely go above 20-25

cells/100 ml, which is next to nothing considering we pitch at a rate

of 10 million cells/ml. I have found that a 1 micron filtration will

eliminate yeast, but will also start to compromise the beer's foam

stand. Pedios, if present, will also make it through. They are only

 .8 microns in diameter. A filtration at .45 microns will remove

everything, but it has a very negative effect on both beer foam and

flavor. These defects in "sterile filtration" are well recogonized.

Nevertheless, many micros (as well as large breweries) are starting to

filter at the submicron level. They claim their unpasteurized bottled

beer tastes better after 3-4 weeks in the trade than it would if the

sterile filtration were not used. They are likely correct, but I

personally would do what ever it takes to keep the bugs out, and not

go below a 1 micron filtration.

Take care.

George Fix

end part one.............

------------------------------


wit beer recipe and comments

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 9:52:36 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: wit beer recipe and comments

Here's a wit beer recipe (for 5 gallons) and comments:

   5 pounds pale malt

   1 pound wheat malt

   2.5 pounds flaked wheat

   0.5 pounds flaked oats

   hersbrucker hops to 18 IBUs

   20 gms ground coriander seed

   5 gms dried orange peel

   2 gms ground cardamom

   yeast:  Wyeast Belgian

Process was an upward step infusion mash:

   110 degrees F for 45 minutes

   122 degrees F for 45 minutes

   144 degrees F for 30 minutes

   150 degrees F for 90 minutes

   mash out

Spices were added in the last 10 minutes of the boil.

Flaked wheat is available from homebrew shops, but can also be

found in health food stores or natural food sections of

supermarkets.  I MUCH prefer flaked wheat to raw wheat berries.

The flaked wheat is already gelatinized.  The raw wheat berries

should be boiled and gelatinized, and that's a mess.  Also, there

are different wheats available, and it's not clear to me that

what's available in the health food stores is the same wheat as the

Belgians use.  The wheat malt in the above grain bill was a hedge,

and in retrospect could have been flaked wheat.

Flaked oats are available from homebrew shops, but rolled oats

(such as Quaker oats) could be used.

Somewhere in Michael Jackson's writings, I'm pretty sure he says

that Hoegaarden Wit has a grain bill as follows:

   50 parts barley malt

   45 parts wheat

    5 parts oats

While my grain bill used a bit more barley malt than these

proportions would suggest, I was nervous about conversion and my

starting gravity.  Not to worry -- the deliberate low temperature

rests and long rest times did the trick, and I got about a 1.050

beer.

Ground coriander is a great spice, and I thought that 20 gms would

not be too heavy-handed.  Incidentally, there are different types

of coriander seeds available.  Instead of going to the spice rack

of your favorite grocer, go to a spice specialty store to seek out

the larger coriander seed that is more "noble" -- that is, aromatic

and flavorful.

Ideally, the orange peel should be from the curacao orange.  Here's

a thought -- use a dash of orange curacao liquor in the beer.  I

used McCormick dried orange peel to no apparent bad effect.  If I

were to do things again, I might up the amount a bit, or substitute

something fresher.

Cardamom is a very elegant spice with a lemon-citrusy aroma and

flavor.  I use it lightly for background flavor and character.

Wyeast Belgian is a strong-gravity performer, but I used it here in

a conventional-gravity beer.  It did contribute a bit of its own

flavor, though somewhat muted.  I racked onto the yeast cake from

a just-racked beer, and maybe that contributed a bit of pleasant

dryness to the beer.  I'd love to get my hands on Hoegaarden or

Celis yeast, and failing that, might use Wyeast "London."

The suggestion in HBD to add a dash of lactic acid for some

tartness sounds like something to try.  As the acid is quite

concentrated, it shouldn't take much.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1095, 03/11/93

*************************************

-------


Filtration, pt 2 of 2

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 12:12:38 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Filtration, pt 2 of 2

Filter post, pt 2......

So, armed with this information, I called The Filter Store and asked

about coarse yeast filters. They informed me of a 5 micron and a 1

polypro 99.9% efficient filter.  I ask about adaptability  to my whole

house filter and they agree that it is compatable. I order the 5 micron

filter.  I need to build the connectors.

The filter connects  are 3/4" female NPT. So, I buy 2 3/4" male to 1/2"

sweat copper connectors, and two 1/2" sweat to

1/4" thread bushings and two 1/4" threaded hose barbs.  Soldering these

together, and screwing in the hose barbs results in a solid 3/16" id

hose to 3/4" filter union.

I buy a $13 cheapo whole house filter from Hechingers, and my cartridge

arrives.  I filter the still beer through the 5 micron filter after sanitizing

the kegs with Iodophor and the filter with Vigilquat.  I push lots of hot water

through the filter to rinse prior to use.

The beer is noticably clear, with some haze remaining but no real detectable

yeast cloudiness.  The beer vastly improved in flavor.  The cartridge was quite

discolored, due to lots of yeast captured.  I back flush with hot water and

soak overnight in a caustic solution.  The filter is stored in a ziploc bag

containing water and a sanitizer of your choice.  For my first filtering, I

only filtered 10 gallons, so I do not know the volume limitations of

this filter.  It is claimed to filter 150 -250 gallons of beer, but I

suspect that with good cleaning it will last longer.

Conclusion:

I am quite satisfied with my 5 micron filter.  It did what I wanted,

removed the yeast, resulting in a polished product.  I am quite sure that

it would have been crystal clear with a .5 micron unit, but I suspect

that flavor and head retention would have suffered.  Note that a 5 micron

filter is not a sterile filter and as such the brewer needs to have a

good grasp on on proper sanitation techniques, but I suspect those of us

using kegs and filters already have a good feel for sanitation.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

PS: my Altbier was made using all Liberty hop pellets.  The IBU was

calculated to be

around 40, but the bitterness perceptions to me are much less.  This hop has an

alpha of 4.0 and is the latest american attempt to produce domestically a hop

with characteritics of Hallertau.  I detect a grassy aroma from this hop, but

at times it does appear to remind me of a hallertau essence.

------------------------------


Wort chiller using dryice

Date:    Wed, 10 Mar 93 12:43 EST

From: Scott Knowles                        <NECHO%NCSUMVS.BITNET@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu>

Subject: Wort chiller using dryice

BREWERS,

  The fellas and I were bottling a batch of winter Lager

the other evening, and talk turned (as it will) to the Next Batch.

We hit apon an idea that is simple, straightforward, amd seemingly

foolproof; why not cool a hot wort with dry ice?  Think about it:

No wort-chiller hardware, no sink full of icecubes, no floating

the wort kettle in the cold swimmimg pool out in the back yard.

Just cold wort, fast.

  Has anyone tried this?  Does it make sense?  Seems to to me, but

then we were relaxing and having a homebrew at the time.

  In my lab at work, dry ice is available and free. (It can't be

recycled...)  I'm sure I could add enuf to the kettle to drop the wort

temperature 75 degrees C in maybe two minutes.  Follow this with

vigorous stirring to re-oxygenate the wort, then pitch.

  I invite comments and criticisms on this idea.  Tell me now,

before we burn $20 worth of grain and yeast trying it.

  If this works out, we plan to go to extremes and cool

the  _next batch_  with liquid nitrogen...

Scott Knowles         * I love beer.  Is that such a crime? *

<nEcho@NCSUMVS>

------------------------------


APOLOGY

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 11:46 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: APOLOGY

 >From: Sandy Cockerham <COCKERHAM_SANDRA_L@LILLY.COM>

 >Subject: WOMEN,BEER,AND THE HBD

 >WHILE I AM ON MY SOAPBOX...I AM INSULTED BY JACK (AND OTHERS) USE OF THE

 TERM 'WET DREAM' IN THIS DIGEST. IT IS UNCALLED FOR AND IS TASTELESS IN THIS

 FORUM.

 I have already apologized both publicly and privately for that but you

 aparently missed it and I hereby extend the apology personally to you.

 Having said that, it reminds me a bit of the time I flamed someone for using

 the term "anal" and got flamed back en masse for my ignorance of classical

 psychoanalysis and Freud.

 I don't claim Freud as the source for this one but I do think you'al are

 being a bit harsh.  "Tasteless and uncalled for" are a far cry from

 "insulting".   I may be tasteless but I would never intentionally insult a

 stranger.

 >From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

 >Subject: Peracetic acid; sodium hydroxide

 >In a similar vein, I just tried using sodium hydroxide (lye; caustic

 soda) to clean some hoses.  All I can say is, WOW.

 It is a powerful saponifier, i.e. it turns grease into soap and is used by

 lots of commercial brewers for cleaning kegs.  I do not know to what extent

 it is bacteriacidal but it cleans very well.

 >I added about 1 oz of a saturated, filtered solution of sodium hydroxide

 (about 1 part NaOH to 2 parts water) to 3-4 inches of warm water in my

 sink......

 For us unwashed masses.... it is also known as Draino.

 A teaspoon in a cup of water will do the trick.

 >From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

 >This suggests to me that you may have scratched the primary while

 cleaning it after your first batch.  Once a plastic fermenter is

 scratched, it becomes very difficult to sanitize properly.  Check

 your primary carefully for scratches, and if there are some,

 replace it.

 Far be it for me to question the wisdom of the ages but I have (had) used the

 same plastic primary since the early 70s and have not had an infected beer

 since a few months after I started to read the Digest.  I attribute the

 record to one or both of two procedure changes.

 Number one on the hit list was Red Star Yeast, contamination is built in at

 no extra cost.  You also need to find out who actually produced the yeast you

 use to make sure it is not one of the many brands of re-packaged Red Star.

 Number two was to ignore the usual instructions for making a sanitizing

 solution from bleach, i.e. 1 oz bleach to the gal or even 5 gallons of water.

 After cleaning the fermenter with a sponge and Ivory, I rinse it and put in

 about a cup of bleach.  I then put on the lid with a stopper in the hole for

 the air lock and slosh it around thoroughy and set it aside till the next

 use.  Next time I need it, I slosh it around again, dump out the bleach and

 rinse it carefully.  I guarantee, there is no scratch deep enough to evade

 this treatment.

 If you use iodine, I would suggest the same procedure with maybe an oz of

 juice to a cup of water.

 I now use my 10 gal mash kettle for primary and much prefer this because I

 can avoid all chemicals by simply boiling some water in it to sterilize it.

 js

------------------------------


Re: Sanitizing Chemicals

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1993 10:05:04 -0800

From: sherman@qualcomm.com (Sherman Gregory)

Subject: Re: Sanitizing Chemicals

I tried sending this directly to u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil, but I

got a "Host unknown" bounce.  So I post.

I have always used unsented Clorox bleach at 2 fl.oz./5gal to sanatize HDPE

buckets. Contact times anywhere from 15min to 1 week.  Then rinse with tap

water.  I often throw all of the equipment I need in the bucket for a

while, then empty everything out and rinse.  Then use th bucket for priming

or fermenting.  Never had any infections (knock on wood) or any damage to

the plastic.  The only problems I have had with bleach is leaving stainless

steel (or most any other metal) in it for more than a half hour is can

cause oxydation.

I don't know about using Tide though.  I use Tide for a lot of things

(including laundry, of all things), but not for my brew equipment.  For

that I use Cascade automatic dishwashing detergent.  I have heard that that

will not kill the head retention.

     Sherman

------------------------------


Cleaning plastic buckets

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 13:08:18 EST

From: rich@bedford.progress.COM (Rich Lenihan)

Subject: Cleaning plastic buckets

One thing that will work for getting critters that are hiding in the

cracks of plastic buckets is boiling water.  I have an old plastic

primary that has since been retired to bottling bucket.  Before brewing

I preboil 7+ gallons of water and transfer it to the plastic bucket.

This makes the bucket very hot.  Try this before you attack it with

chemicals.

I then use a dilute bleach (1 tbsp/gal) for 15 minutes to sanitize

before bottling.  I do not recommend storing high concentrations of

bleach in plastic for any length of time.  The plastic will absorb the

chlorine and even give off an odor of chlorine.  Trust me.  I *know*.

 -Rich

------------------------------


Re: Celis White Recipe

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 11:05:06 PST

From: "Tom Childers" <TCHILDER@us.oracle.com>

Subject: Re: Celis White Recipe

In HBD 1086, Alan Derr asked about a recipe for Celis White...

I've made three extract-based batches of Belgian ale over the last few

months, refining the recipe towards my personal preferences.  A few weeks

ago, I finally got to taste Celis White, and (surprise!) my latest batch

is very similar to Celis.

Basically, just use Papazian's "Who's In The Garden Grand Cru" recipe,

reduce the malt and honey a bit, and slightly bump up the hops.

  "Tamalpais Wit"  ("tam-ul-PIE-us vit", or "der schlafen dame weiss"

                    for you who don't speak coastal Miwok and Belgian)

  4-3/4 lbs light dried malt extract (or 5-1/2 lbs light malt syrup)

  2-1/4 lbs orange blossom (or other light) honey

  1 oz Hallertauer (boiling), 6 HBU

  1/2 oz Hallertauer (flavor)

  1/2 oz Hallertauer (aroma

  1-1/2 oz freshly crushed coriander seeds

  1/2 oz dried orange peel

  Wyeast #1214 Belgian ale yeast

Papazian suggests a 1-1/2 gallon boil, but I've been doing full 5-gallon

boils with great success.  After 45 minutes, add the flavoring hops and half

of the coriander; after 55 minutes add aroma hops, remaining coriander and

orange peel for the last 5 minutes.  Ferment at 72 degrees F.

I pitch the yeast (in a 1-qt starter) at about 78 degrees F to get the

primary fermentation going quickly.  This beer is ready to prime and bottle

after about 10 days.  The classic Belgian ale characteristics really come

through when you ferment this ale at a slightly warm temperature, as others

have pointed out in earlier digests.

Since Celis White is made with wheat malt, I'm going to start experimenting

with replacing some of the malt extract with wheat extract...

 -tdc

------------------------------


cooker summary available soon...

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 14:41:15 CST

From: todd@gold.rtsg.mot.com (Todd M. Williams)

Subject: cooker summary available soon...

Greetings All,

In HBD 1090 I spouted off and offered the following......

>Last month I groveled in the following manner...

  >SNIP<

>>What I want to do is convert my cajun cooker from a propane

>>unit into a natural gas unit.  Can I do this??  If so, does anyone

>>know what is involved?  How much it might cost??  Where to get parts???

>I am in the process of preparing a summary and will send it to whoever

>wants it.  I guess this thread was covered over the summer (before I

>started reading HBD) so I won't waste any more bandwidth posting the whole

>summary.  So if you want it, send email to the address below, with a subject

>of "cooker summary", and I will forward it to you.

 Well, guess what...I received over 40 requests.  I guess that means

I should just go ahead and post it.  However I am still compiling data.

I want to include info from a couple of vendors.  The reason for speaking

with vendors is that the King Kooker company does _not_ sell any burners

that they recommend for indoor use.  (thanks Mike O'Brian at pico-Brewing

Systems in Ypsilanti,MI).  I guess the two major concerns are generation

of heat and exhaust gasses, and depletion of oxygen.  I guess 100K+ BTU

might be a bit much for indoor use.  Anyway the _complete_ summary will

be posted next week.  Sorry it's taking so long. (10 days were spent

visiting 18 of CA's finest brewpubs :-D hey gak, did you get that mug yet?)

 I will post the cooker summary ASAP....

Todd Williams

Downers Grove, IL.

Moderation sir, aye, moderation is my rule.  9 or 10 is reasonable

refreshment, but after that it's apt to degenerate into drinking

  /--------------------------------------------------------------------------/

 / -rwxr-xr-x   1 todd      employer  69   Feb 10 1958  OPINIONS              /

 / lrwxrwxrwx   1 employer  other     9    Jan 01 1970  OPINIONS -> /dev/null /

  /--------------------------------------------------------------------------/

------------------------------


Wet Dream

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 11:10:54 PST

From: mdcsc!gdh@uunet.UU.NET (Garrett Hildebrand)

Subject: Wet Dream

In HBD 1094 Sandy C. makes the comment,

>WHILE I AM ON MY SOAPBOX...I AM INSULTED BY JACK (AND OTHERS) USE OF

THE TERM

>'WET DREAM' IN THIS DIGEST. IT IS UNCALLED FOR AND IS TASTELESS IN

THIS FORUM.

>THIS DIGEST IS TO HELP US BREW BETTER BEERS, AND TO ENHANCE BEER

APPRECIATION.

> ...NOT TO BE INSULTING.....

>FLAME AWAY, I DON'T CARE!!

I seriously doubt that Jack (or others) are trying to insult you or

anybody

else with this term. I certainly am not bothered by it. This is not

foul

language, nor does it demean the female readers, as would commenting

that

they sometimes get "on the rag," which no one, of course, has done.

gdh

------------------------------


re: Older, but not sweeter

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1993 13:46:48 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject:  re: Older, but not sweeter

Jim Dipalma writes:

> What strain of yeast are you using?  Also, if you are reusing yeast across

> several batches, the strain will become noticeably more attenuative after

> a few batches.

Doesn't this depend on the yeast?  I seem to remember reading that 1056 is

subject to "attenuative mutation" but that 1098 doesn't change much at all.

Can anybody expand on this?

 Peter

------------------------------


Yeast Slant ?? / Mashed stout / Kegs

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 16:49:28 EST

From: Lee Menegoni <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

Subject: Yeast Slant ?? / Mashed stout / Kegs

I have just been given a slant of

I have been given a slant of Weinstephan 3407 yeast.  What information do

people have on this variety.  What temp should I ferment / lager, what are

its flavor charecteristics, is it stable for reculturing?  Please post

responses to HBD or send to lmenegon@necis.ma.nec.com

Re infusion mashed stout:

I do not mash the dark grains with pale malt, it makes the iodine test

nearly impossible to read and the acidity of the highly kilned malts may

over acidify the mash.  I steep the grains and add them to the mash kettle

at mash out.

Re keg sanitation:

I fill my keg with water and add acouple Tbs of Bead Brite . I use a golf

tee or nail to depress the spring loaded valves of the liquid out and tilt

the keg until a little of the sanitizer solution drips out.  i repeat this

for the gas in connection too.  I then top off the keg close it shake it

ing water.  Drain rinse with some more boiling water. Drain. Finally I add

1 quart of boilning water apply CO2 and blow the water out thru your tap.

Your keg should now be sanitized , its liquid out tube clean and be filled

with CO2 so oxidation should be minimized when you rack in the brew.

------------------------------


Yeast strain ??

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 17:05:39 EST

From: Lee Menegoni <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

Subject: Yeast strain ??

 requeI

I

I requested information on a slant i recently recieved the yeast type

is Weinstphan 3470 not 3407.  What do people know about it.  The slant

was cultured from a large amount of slurry out of the secondary  from

a west coast breew pub.

Please  post responses to the HBD or to lmenegon@necis.ma.nec.com

- --

------------------------------


Re: Celis Substitute?

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 15:41:48 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Celis Substitute?

Norm Pyle writes:

> Try Sunshine Wheat by the New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins.

> This is the first wheat beer I've ever truthfully enjoyed.  It is spiced in

> the Belgian tradition with coriander and orange peel

Just so someone isn't disappointed -- not all Sunshine Wheat is done in

the White beer style.  In fact, most is just an American pale ale-style

wheat similar to that done by other micros.  The White-spiced bottles of

Sunshine Wheat were from a special batch that was one-time only, as far

as I know.  (Apologies to you non-Colorado folks who don't have access

to either version.  I guess you'll just have to come for a visit :-).

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Re:  Powdered Sugur

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 14:58:18 PST

From: mrozek@gandalf.etdesg.TRW.COM (Eric M. Mrozek)

Subject: Re:  Powdered Sugur

Dear Mr. Powdered Sugur,

(sorry I don't remember your name; I deleted the HBD from last week with your

response in it. 8^o

Yes, the powdered sugur with the cornstarch is often called confectioner's

sugur, but not always (I checked at the grocery store last night).  I originally

pointed out the cornstarch issue so that people wouldn't blindly buy powdered

sugur and end up with the cornstarch version.

By the way, I mis-quoted the sugur/cornstarch ratio.  It's not 70%/30%, but

rather 97%/3%.

Eric

------------------------------


Weat beers

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1993 16:57:37 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Weat beers

Having read Eric Warner's book (good beginning), Chuck had some

questions about weizen yeasThe Yeast Culture Kit Co. (I think that name

is right) has an authentic weizenbier yeast strain you might want to

track down; unfortunately, they are no longer selling retail so it will

take some sniffing.  But I believe you will have better results with

that than with the Other wheat beer strain, for the time being.

I don't believe any of the wheat beers currently imported fm Germany use

the fermentaion strain in bottling, and in any case most have been

pasteurized.  The strain Warner used was brought back from Germany.  (By

the way, I was on the panel in Milwaukee that awarded his blue ribbon

and I vouch for the fact that the man knows _exactly_ what he's talking

about in regard to weizens.)  In the fall, Admiralty Distributing, here

in Portland, will be imported Schneiderbrau, which Warner mentionsand

the importer assures me the fermentation strain and bottling strain are

the same (he just got back from a visit).  You certainly can't ask for a

more authentic yeast than that!

Although I view some claims about decoction mashes with considerable

skepticism, I would certainly take Warner at his word!

- --Jeff

------------------------------


All-Grain Process

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 19:15:26 PST

From: "Joe Stone" <JSTONE@SJEVM5.VNET.IBM.COM>

Subject: All-Grain Process

Let me try it this way.  If anyone out there feels that they have a "process"

for use with a mash-lauter/boiling vessel from the Brewer's Warehouse in

Seattle or from Precision Brewing Systems in Staten Island would you please

email it to me.  Thanks.

Joe

------------------------------


Supplies in Memphis, YN

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1993 08:58:16 -0500

From: William James Harrison <harriw3@rpi.edu>

Subject: Supplies in Memphis, YN

That is Memphis TN, USA.  I am moving sonn and would like to know

if there are any homebrew shops in that area or if I will have to go

through mail order distributors.  Any help with this and/or names of

brew pubs in that neck of the woods is greatly appriciated.

On another note, I recently started a batch of Wyeast (American) for

reculturing and I am curious on how many recultures can be achieved

before mutation/contanmination.  (BTW - I used a reculturing technique

recently posted on the HBD, maybe 2 weeks ago)

Jim

------------------------------


beer & food fest

Date:     Thu, 11 Mar 93 11:16:01 EST

From: "Robert J. Napholz" (GC-HSI) <rnapholz@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  beer & food fest

Hello all

   I'm looking for extra tickets for the beer & food fest. @ South Street

   Sea Port (New York) on March 15. If you have any extra tickets please

   call me.

     Thanks Rob N.

     work 201 724 7583

     home 908 850 4204

------------------------------


cider

Date: 11 Mar 1993 09:27:26 -0400 (EDT)

From: KLIGERMAN@herlvx.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: cider

In October I made an apple cider and thanks to the advice on the HBD,

I added sugar water after a few months and it cleared very well with

a gravity of about 0.992  down from 1.054.  I would like to bottle it

as a sparkling cider.  Should I wait longer or bottle it with about 3/4

cup of sugar now and let it age in the bottle?  Should I continue to let

it age in the carboy, or will I endanger killing the yeast.  I used

Whitbread dry ale yeast.  Thanks.

------------------------------


How do I build & use a slotted copperpipe manifold?

Date: 11 Mar 93 11:54:11 EST

From: ESF01%ALBNYDH2.bitnet@UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU

Subject: How do I build & use a slotted copperpipe manifold?

Hello HBD'ers,

    I have a 4.50 gallon Gott Picnic Cooler that I'd like to use as

a mash / lauter-tun for partial mashes.  My question concerns the

different false bottoms one uses in the bottom of the cooler.

How do you build a Phil's Phalse bottom, a screen type false bottom and

a slotted copperpipe manifold?  How do you use each type?

    Can I use two 4 gallon stock pots for boiling the extract instead

of one 8 gallon stock pot?

***************************************************************

**   Ed Frommer -  BPSM  Vital Records  Networking Systems   **

**   733 Broadway  Albany, NY  12237    Phone:(518)474-5245  **

***************************************************************

------------------------------


Slotted Copper

Date: 11 Mar 1993 10:08:30 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

Subject: Slotted Copper

Subject:  Slotted Copper                        Time:8:39 AM     Date:3/11/93

According to Mr. Bliss on slotted copper manifolds:

>If you try to slow it down, you're only draining wort through the

>slots nearest the outlet.

My manifold has about 10' of 1/2" pipe overall with slots every 1/4",

everywhere. It exits the tun and connects to a 5/8" hose which has a tubing

clamp across it which controls the flow. I sparge by running the water onto the

top of the grain bed allowing an inch or more of standing water to cover the

bed. I then drain at a rate which gets me about 10 gallons of wort in an hour,

keeping the inch of water on the grain bed until I'm within a gallon or so of

my desired total. Then I shut off the sparge water and drain the bed dry. I

typically get a yield of 31 or 32. On my last batch, 14 gallons of mild, I got

35!

I don't see how I could be getting these numbers if I wasn't getting good

coverage of the sparge flow through the grain bed. Nor do I see why restricting

the flow out of the manifold would have the effect described by Brian.

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


Sanitizer Utilization

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 93 13:38:06 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: Sanitizer Utilization

>From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

>>From: Jay Hersh <hersh@expo.lcs.mit.edu>

>>is this right, 1 oz to 1 gal.?? That is 10 times the amount recommended

>>for usage. If this is indeed correct does this test really tell us

>>anything since the concentrations are an order of magnitude above what

>>people normally use??

>>hoping that was a typo....

>No typo.  I also used bleach neat or at least 2:1 when I used it.  It is

>all relative and I find the long contact times discomforting.  For example,

>unless one uses 5 gallons of sanitizer in a 5 gallon keg, how can one ever

>be sure of a one minute contact time?  If used at higher concentrations,

>one can simply slosh a small amount around for a minute and get a more

>effective sanitization than doing the same with a small amount at the

>recommended concentration.

I didn't see any definitive comment on this while I tried to find some

quotes from microbiologist acquaintances.  But, I didn't want to leave it

alone.

My information is that sloshing "a small amount around for a minute", no

matter how high the concentration, is generally ineffective for

sanitization.

That is why people use 5 gallons of sanitizer in a 5 gallon container,

because "sloshing" doesn't work well.  Of course, those of us who use

bleach use the 1-3 tablespoons of chlorine bleach in 5 gallons of water as

our 5 gallons of sanitizer.  It may take 15 minutes to effectively

sanitize, but at least it does a good job of that.

>As rinse water is not a problem around here, I don't mind more thorough

>rinsing and it is still far less than I had to do with bleach.

Of course, rinsing is only a problem with bleach if you use so much that it

doesn't quickly evaporate.  When you use the amount mentioned above and

then empty all 5 gallons of sanitizer out, you are left with a few drops of

water that have at most 200 ppm of bleach in them.  The little bleach left

in those few drops evaporates very quickly and doesn't require any rinsing

of any sort.

It clouds the issue because some people are able to "sanitize" with tap

water and not get infections, so even if you use a not-very-effective

method like sloshing pure bleach around for a minute, you might not get bit

by an infection.

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


Re: Sanitizer

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 93 13:41:55 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: Re: Sanitizer

>From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

>>From: korz@iepubj.att.com

>>

>>Personally, I'm trying to move away from Chlorine as a sanitizer from a

>>environmental point of view.

>I'm no biologist either, but how's this:  if you have the means to

>generate and manage it, wouldn't live steam make a reasonable and

>"green" sanitizing agent?  Of course, it's just as nasty to, say, human

>skin as it is to nasty-bugs, but like I said, you'd need some way to

>manage it.

As others have mentioned, many commercial breweries use steam to sanitize.

I remember that the Old Dominion Brewery here in VA didn't get that in the

plans or something, and it cost them something like an extra $60,000 or

more to get the steam piped ten or twenty feet to the vessels to be cleaned.

OTOH, I have seen ads for used steam cleaning apparatus for under $3,000 in

my local newspaper.

I say go for it!

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


Ninkasi - Brewing an Ancient Beer

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 93 14:00:34 EST

From: Don Sharp  11-Mar-1993 1401 <sharp@rumor.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Ninkasi - Brewing an Ancient Beer

Not TOO long ago someone posted a note here about having scanned images of a

magazine article about an archaeologocal study of brewing methods in ancient

Mesopotamia.  Well, I contacted that person (although I've lost your

name/address, sorry!), and after some amount of laborious tedium with image

format conversions, spell checking and such, I converted those scanned images

into a text file.  It's about 450 lines long, so I hesitate to post it to this

digest unless I have some reason to think it would be valued.

Here's the lead paragraph of the article:

  Did beer come before bread? To answer the question scholars helped

  concoct a Mesopotamian brew from a 3,800-year-old recipe etched in

  clay.  By Solomon H. Katz and Fritz Maytag.

If this sounds interesting why not send me mail - if I get too many responses to

satisfy I'll just post to the digest - if not so many I won't waste space.

Don

sharp@rumor.enet.dec.com

------------------------------


irish moss/lager starters/sanitizers/non-alc beers/non-stop ferment/rests/zests

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 93 13:56 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: irish moss/lager starters/sanitizers/non-alc beers/non-stop ferment/rests/zests

Jeff writes:

>2.  Try adding Irish moss about 10-15 minutes before the end of the

>    boil.  This is supposed to provide nucleation sites for the protein

>    strands so they settle out.

I believe that the attraction is electrostatic and not simply nucleation

sites.

******************

Lee writes:

>When producing a starter I plan to pop the bag at cellar temp 65F.

>What temp should the starter I pitch to be?  Should I pitch it at 65 and

>cool it to 60 let it reach full krausen, pitch this to a 2nd larger

>starter solution at 60 and cool to 55F and pitch this to the 55F wort?

>I plan to deal with the long lag time of cool initial wort temp by

>having a large amount (2-3oz) of starter slurry.  Am I corect in my

>assumption that pitching at to high a temp while reducing lag time

>can produce flavors and ester inappropriate for a pilsner?

Sounds like a good plan to me.  I feel you are correct about the high

start temp creating unwanted esters and your plan will minimize this.

*****************

Tim writes:

>With all of this talk about using peracetic acid, let me just

>give people a brief warning.  Mixing peroxides and acids is not

>to be taken lightly.

I agree -- I'm glad you mentioned this.  One thing I had *NOT*

planned to do is make my own!

>We use a 3:1 mixture of a mineral acid (I will not name it) to 50 percent

>hydrogen peroxide as a method of removing photoresist from wafers.

>This mixture is called 'piranha etch' as it is very powerful.

>It will very strongly attack any organics, skin included.

Ick.  Not my idea of fun or "not worrying."

>I have found that plain old unscented chlorine bleach is a very

>effective cleaner.  Stuborn 'gunk' from a vigorous primary can easily be

>removed by just filling the carboy with water and adding a little

>bleach and letting it sit for a week.

>It is also safer than many of the more concentrated cleaners.

I've found this too, but my intention was to minimize the amount of

un-natural chemicals I was dumping down the drain.  Acetic acid and

H2O2 seemed much more "green" than Chlorine Bleach or Iodine.  Am I

right?  Perhaps in the concentrations we are using them (and given

the concentration of the Acetic Acid needed for it to be useful),

perhaps 200ppm Chlorine bleach solution or 25ppm Iodophor is more

"green?"  Can someone who really knows confirm or correct this assumption,

please?

******************************

Frank writes:

>prepared by the Copley News Service.

>

>Basically brewers employ either of two methods to achieve a non-alcoholic

>product:

>

>1. The older technique takes beer that has been made in the usual way and

>evaporates the alcohol by heating the brew in a vacuum chamber, which allows

>a low boiling point. Kingsbury and Kaliber are made this way. The principal

>2. A more modern method, used by most of the German brewers, uses intense

>cold and rapid extraction of the yeast to arrest the brewing process

>before too much alcohol forms. This technique seems to leave a lot of the

>sugar in the brew and therefore gives it a sweet taste.

Remind me not to trust the Copley News Service.  You see, there is a

third method, which is used by at least one mega-brewer, in which a

semi-permiable membrane is used to extract the alcohol by osmosis and

a fourth method in which a special yeast is used that does not

produce much alcohol.

- ------------------------------

Kirk writes:

Subject: help! nonstop fermentation

>1 can (4lbs.) Ironmaster "Special Lager" malt extract

>packet of Isohop extract (included with above)

>2 lbs. corn sugar

>1/2 lb. maple syrup

>2 oz. apricot wine flavoring ("Wines Inc.")

>11.5 g sachet Edme dry yeast

>

>It was a 50-minute boil with apricot extract only going in the last five.

>I rehydrated the yeast in warm water shortly before pitching.  O.G. was

>1.050 and when I racked to secondary three days later it was 1.018!  Now

>here's the problem: *that was exactly four weeks ago and fermentation has

>not stopped.*  Bubbles still rising, a cute layer of foam still on the

>surface.  I've never encountered this before.  I've always been a careful

>sanitizer, but should I assume something got by me this time?  Temperature

>has been 58-62F for the duration.  Don't pick on me for using corn sugar

Several possibilities:

1. 58-62F is pretty cool for some yeasts, although I was under the

impression that Edme was a voracious fermenter.

2. Could the apricot wine flavoring have some preservatives in it?

Did its instructions say to use it in the ferment or at botting?

3. You may have a wild yeast in there that's eating the more complex

sugars.  It may not be your sanitation -- the Edme may have had

a small amount of wild yeast along with the primary yeast.

I have a yeast that takes six or more weeks to ferment out even at

68F!

*****************

Chris writes:

>

> -what is a protein (enzyme) rest and at what temperature?

A protein rest is a time period in your mash schedule in which

proteolytic enzymes break large proteins into smaller proteins

and amino acids.  The larger proteins will give you chill haze

so you want them out of your beer.  The smaller proteins that

are created from the big ones will give you head retention and

bigger mouthfeel.  The amino acids are needed by the yeast for

nutrition.  Most malted barleys currently available are fully-modified,

so a protein rest is not really necessary.  Historically, only

undermodified (which is rare these days) pilsner malt *required*

a protein rest, but many brewers still incorporate one in their

mash schedules.  The temperatures for a protein rest are between

122F and 131F according to Charlie, if my memory serves correctly.

>

> -what is a good temperature to keep your mash so that the enzymes don't

>break down the complex sugars?  I am more concerned about a heavy

>malty taste (not caramelly taste) than the alcohol content.

You would want to do the saccharification rest at the higher end of the

saccharification range which is roughly 148F to 158F.   Therefore,

mashing at 158F will give you the most dextrinous wort, which appears

to be what you are seeking.  Along with this high mash temperature,

you may also want to increase the malt in the recipe to achieve this

"heavy malty taste."

>

> -what temperature converts starches over to sugars?

That's the saccharification range, above.

>

> -what "normal" order or succession should each of temperature

>categories be in?  does it matter?

(Optional) protein rest, followed by the saccharification rest,

followed by mashout at 168to170F.  You *must* work from the cooler

rests up to the warmer rests or, for example, you will denature the

proteolytic enzymes if you do the saccharification rest first.  There

is also an acid rest, which I believe is at 95F, used to

lower the pH of the mash (this is if you want to strickly follow

Reinheitsgebot and avoid chemical acidification of your mash).

>

>David (Chris) Mackensen

               ^^^^^^^^^

If you brew a sweet stout, I've got a suggestion for its name.

******************

Tony writes that he would avoid dried orange peel in his next

Witbier recipe.

Yesterday, I was reading Pierre Rajotte's _Belgain Ale_ in which

he mentions that the brewers there use *dried* orange peel.  Well,

this makes sense, because I don't think there are many Curacao

Oranges growing in Belgium.  I used fresh orange zest (4 oranges)

in the last 5 minutes of the boil in a semi-recent batch and it

was not very noticable -- I'm just saying that switching to fresh

zest doesn't automatically mean you will get more out of it.  I

will be trying dried next time, primarily because making fresh zest

is a pain and also because commercially-made dried zest is more

consistent, making the recipe more reproducable.

Al.

------------------------------


Hallertauer porters

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 93 15:29:35 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: Hallertauer porters

Anybody out there have experience using Hallertauer/Mt. Hood

in top fermented porters?  Please share with the HBD or at least

e-mail me.

Thanks,

Rob (bradley@adx.adelphi.edu)

------------------------------


A few observations regarding cleaners and sterilizing agents.

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 93 14:38:23 ???

From: kurka@bmcw.com

Subject:  A few observations regarding cleaners and sterilizing agents.

 Experiences I have had with chlorine as a sterilizing agent is that

it has the possibility of giving an "off" flavor to the brew. Whether or not

this was a case of not rinsing the equipment well enough after the chlorine

soak is not known.

 Soon after an experience like this, I switched to Sodium Bisulfate

as my primary sterilizing agent and have had fine success with it. If the

equipment is not rinsed well, a white residue can be easily seen and delt with.

(I find it to be a fair check on if the equipment has been cleaned well enough).

 A boiling water dip for bottles and caps is also recommended.

Sterilizing glass jars and lids during any food canning process is done

in this manner. (Since we are "Canning" liquid food, we can look to the

food canning process for a few tips). This step also will crack bottles that

may be weak and might crack when actually put under pressure.

 Does anyone have a list of any Homebrew mail order catalogs?

  Also, If any of you have used them, Your comments would be appreciated.

 Thanks for all the postings to HBD. We in Boise Idaho need contact

with the "real" beer drinkers of the world.

     SPK (kurka@bmcw.com)

------------------------------


Two Seperate Questions on: Kegging and Bitterness

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 93 14:14:16 PST

From: Richard Saunders <richsa@microsoft.com>

Subject: Two Seperate Questions on: Kegging and Bitterness

1. My friends and I have twice attempted the Fraternity House Ale (a 5

gallon version) from the AHA Winner's Circle recipe book. Both times

the beer has come out alright except for a kick-you-in-the-zipper

bitter after taste which, as you can imagine, is very unpleasant.

While this recipe is kind of heavy on the hops I have a hard time

thinking that this is the problem. I have boiled lots of hops for more

than an hour before and had it turn out fine. Also, for the second

batch instead of adding the finishing hops to the boil we just strained

the wort through them at the end. I did read something recently (can't

recall where) that said boiling crystal malt can result in bitterness.

It is possible that we let the one step mash heat up too high. There

were several times when we had to reduce the heat. Any other ideas or

suggestions, or has anyone else seen this with crystal malt before?

2. I have just started kegging my beer (xmas present resulting from

heavy-handed hinting) and love it. There are basically two recommended

ways of carbonating that I have come to know. One is to prime with 1/3

cup corn sugar when transfering into the keg - essentially treating the

keg as a big bottle. The other (recommended by the local brew supply

where the kegging system is from) is to simply let the beer ferment

out, shoot it with 25 - 30 lbs of CO2, shake well, and let sit in a

cold area for 3 days.

The second method is the one that I just used (unfortunately it was on

the problem batch mentioned above). This turned out great. Wonderful,

full creamy head and just enough carbonation in the beer.

My question is - there must be merrits to both but I can't seem to find

them spelled out anywhere. Could people please edjamacate me?

Hasta,

Rich

------------------------------


RIMS Summary

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 93 15:55:13 PST

From: klein@physics.Berkeley.EDU (David Klein)

Subject: RIMS Summary

I have been following the recent RIMS discussion with interest, and hope

to build a system in the near future. Thus I have gone back through the digest

and collected all RIMS posts that I could find (I looked back to Jan 91)

I edited the collection of posts down so as to ommit repeats (One design was

given if full twice) and comments by people who have not actually built a system

Since I have gone to the effort, I am more than happy to share the results

with all those who are interested in designing a system, or improving their own.

Simply write me, and I'll send it out to you (It is too long to post).

Also I would much appreciate a copy of the original Maltose Falcons RIMS aricle

I have no idea of how to get it, and would love a copy from someone.

Finally Questions:

    1) what pumps have people sucessfully used?

    2) ditto for thermisters and vessels (does everyone use a keg?)

    3) has anyone checked for thermal gradients?

    4) channeling is always an issue for sparging, but I've not seen it

        for RIMS, has anyone checked?

    5) mention has been made about automated mash systems of different design

         what are they? (What is Milspaw's design?)

    6) if anyone around the bay area has set up a system, or simply wants to

         share plans, I'd see them (a bay area RIMS conference??)

Dave

------------------------------


Cleaning plastic pails

Date: 11 Mar 1993 19:45:02 -0500 (EST)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: Cleaning plastic pails

A recent posting lamented the difficulty of getting strong food

smells and odors out of plastic pails and the like:

>I cleaned them with everything I could think of in every

>concentration to no avail. Some cleansers would seem to do

>the job, but in a few days the pickle smell would reappear. I

>concluded that the plastic had absorbed the taste/smell and

>was exuding it over time.  I threw them out

We have had very good luck locally in removing the stains AND the smells

from pickle containers by simply leaving them out in bright sunshine for

two or three days.

So simple it just doesn't occur to people, but try it!

- -- Ed Westemeier, Cincinnati, OH

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1096, 03/12/93

*************************************

-------


Re: Cleaning Bucket/Cleaning Bottles

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 93 17:32:19 -0600

From: sagard@digi.lonestar.org (Steve Agard)

Subject: Re: Cleaning Bucket/Cleaning Bottles

In HBD #1094 Markham Elliot asks:

Q: [paraphrased] how do you clean the oil and soy sauce out of

   a food grade bucket?

A: I would suggest using TSP. I am thankful that it had been

   recommended by many of the homebrew experts on the net for

   removing labels.

   One night, I obtained 30 1-pint beer bottles (previously

   Sapporo, Kirn, & Asahi) from a Japanese restaraunt. They

   make homebrew look good, are smaller than wine bottles,

   require less capping than U.S. domestic bottles, and are

   the perfect size for Bitter, Stout (and my SNPA-like). ;)

   Getting these bottles was not fun, but getting them clean

   and label free was easy :()>   The bottles all had lables

   (both paper and foil), as well as, tobacco & food particles

   (fish, ginger, wasabi, soy sauce, grease, etc.) on them.

   I added 1 lb TSP (from  hardware and paintstores), and

   1 1/2 cups chlorine, to a trashcan with the beer bottles

   (which had been filled with just enough warm water to cover

   all the bottles).

   I let this covered for 2 weeks, and then removed the bottles

   (while wearing rubber gloves - chemical resistant ones from

   a hardware store). Most of the lables had simply fallen off.

   The 4 or 5 lables that were still on were removed by rubbing

   the ridged fingers of the gloves across them once or twice.

   None of the lables had any ink left on them. The food parts

   had been broken down.

   I rinsed out/off each bottle, and then placed in a bathtub

   of warm water & let sit for 2 hours (probably overkill, but

   someone at a homebrew shop warned not to get any in the

   bottle or I'd never get a beer head). I then ran the bottles

   through the dishwasher twice (I usually the dishwasher to

   sanitize the bottles, but I don't like to ignore advice

   from those of you with more experience...). I bottled with

   these 3 1/2 weeks ago. Had one yesterday... tasted great,

   with lots of carbination and great head retention.

Hope this info helps. Cheers!

Steve

------------------------------


Pumps

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 93 21:25 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Pumps

 >From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

 > 2. Top flight pumps are also crucial. Most pumps will eventually give

 a laminar flow. Some, however, will cause foaming at the start and at the end.

 I am still waiting for an answer to my question, "Why RIMS?" but as a chronic

 tinker, I can't resist following the discussion.

 I now pump my beer from lauter tun to kettle, from kettle to primary and from

 primary to secondary and have solved the foaming problem in a very simple

 manner.  I simply put the appropriate resistor in series with the motor and a

 separate switch to provide a low voltage startup.  Once the beer has driven

 all the air out of the system, I switch to the normal voltage and foaming is

 no longer a problem.  Perhaps some such system could be used for the RIMS

 system.

 I am using the pump from the kitchen sink of my motor home so it is 12 VDC

 and makes it pretty easy.  However, I assume a standard light dimmer would

 work on most small AC pumps and would be even more flexible.

 >From: "Mark Rich-mpr8a@acadvm1.uottawa.ca"

 >Subject:      Easymash

 >I remember reading a few posts about your Easymasher(tm) setup, and I'm

 curious to know how much trouble it would be to sort of "borrow"

 (brown-nose-mode on) your skill and experience. I was hoping you could see

 your way clear to sharing the basics of your design with me.

 A copy of my article on Kettle Mashing is winging its way to you at the speed

 of light.  Not knowing what your spigot looks like, I can't really make any

 suggestions other than saying that there must be some way of attaching a tube

 to the spigot on the inside of the kettle.  The article includes a

 description and parts list so you can buy the stuff (or equivalent) at a

 hardware store.

 >From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

 >Subject: American Black Malt

 >Briess black malt, in other words, is the brewing equivalent of

 decaffeinated coffee.

 Sounds more like decaffeinated coffee with the coffee flavor removed, vis.

 FDA Brown #3.

 >From: fjdobner@ihlpb.att.com

 >Subject: Non-Alcohol Brews

 >To be a purist, non-alcoholic beer is a contradiction. For if it does not

 have alcohol it cannot  be _legally_ called beer.

 I think you got that a little mixed up.  It can not be called NA if it has

 more than .5% alcohol in it.  I suspect Big Brother would be delighted if

 milk produces called milk, beer.  Think of all the tax he could collect.

 There is no alcohol tax on NA so the law is to prevent brewers from slipping

 out from under the tax.

 >From: Kirk_Anderson@wheatonma.edu (Kirk Anderson)

 >Subject: help! nonstop fermentation

 >Now here's the problem: *that was exactly four weeks ago and fermentation

 has not stopped.*  Bubbles still rising, a cute layer of foam still on the

 surface.

 First of all, what does it smell like?  Until a few weeks ago, I would have

 predicted you used Red Star because I had a batch do that but it smelled like

 mold, tasted terrible and you said you used EDME.

 I had a recent batch do that with pure cultured, Pilsener Urquel yeast.  It

 bubbled furiously for weeks at 60F but turned out to be a pretty good beer.

 I think the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

 js

------------------------------


Sanitizing

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 7:56:02 MST

From: seiferth@cobra.cs.unm.edu (Justin Seiferth)

Subject: Sanitizing

With all the continuing talk of sanitizing agents, I'm suprised there

hasn't been more talk of my favorite agent- boiling water.  It doesn't

require rinsing, is environmentally safe and must be effective as it's

all I use - even for mead batches which sit in the secondary for months

and I've never had an infected batch.  I just boil the water in my wort

container for 10 minutes or so and then use it to sanitize the primary.

I sanitize my secondary by pouring hot tap water into the carboy- letting

it warm up and then adding about 2 gallons of boiling water.  It seems

to work great.

------------------------------


Keg sanitation / carbonation

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 9:41:36 EST

From: Lee Menegoni <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

Subject: Keg sanitation / carbonation

Some of the text of my recent post on keg sanitaion was missing:

After filling the keg and letting some out of the 2 connetors

I top it off with water and shake to ensure good mixing of the

 Beed Brite. (this is the missing part)  I let this sit over nite.

I then drain the sanitizer into a carboy or another keg and

proceed with the boiling liquid rinses.

Since I forced hot water out with CO2 the keg is filled with it,

its heavier than air.  I rack into the keg the CO2 blanket helping

reduce the potential for airation.  To force carbonate I set the

keg in my refridgerator , ideally it would be about 32F and

 preasureize to 30lbs.  I DO  NOT SHAKE THE KEG.  This could cause

your clear beer to get cloudy due to particles racked in.  I then

adjust the preasure 2 more times in 12 hour intervals.  I raise the

fridge temp to serving temp. and pour off about a quart or two of

foam this lowers the preasure and removes solids from the keg.

As the foam settles I drink the beer.

- --

------------------------------


sanitize keg, "German" porter

Date:    Fri, 12 Mar 1993 10:27:41 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: sanitize keg, "German" porter

  I've been sanitizing kegs by filling them with a couple of gallons of

boiling water, seal, pump in some CO2, open the tap to let some hot

water out, and then let sit for 30 minutes or so.  The heat will

kill off any nasties, and there's no rinsing involved.  The keg should

already be clean, btw.

   Rob asked about "German" hops (Hallertauer/Mt.Hood) being used in a

porter.  Just so happens in my younger/dumber days (before I became an

all-grain snob ;-), that I went even further, making an extract porter

with Hallertauer hops *and* Wyeast German ale yeast, #1007 I think it is.

Certainly not a "classic" porter, but perhaps the best extract brew I

ever made: clean, creamy, malty, and a wonderful hop nose.  Isn't it

perhaps likely that in the early days of porter, continental hops were

used?  Perhaps even German yeast?  What does Foster's Porter book say?

Russ G.

------------------------------


Doppelbock Names

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 10:40:42 EST

From: jeff344@voodoo.lerc.nasa.gov (Jeff Berton)

Subject: Doppelbock Names

It's well known that, traditionally, doppelbocks are named using the

"-ator" suffix, as in the familiar "Celebrator" or "Salvator" doppelbocks.

Just for fun, I decided to generate a nearly comprehensive list of English

words that end this way.  On my Unix box, I simply used "grep" for the

string "ate" on the dictionary file (usually in /usr/share/dict on most

Unix machines), and changed "ate" to "ator" globally in an editor.

There were, of course, a few words I rejected.  Some obvious misspellings

occurred, such as "watermelon" becoming "watorrmelon";  and also a few

occurrences of senseless words, such as "roommator" and "prostator."

I made a single pass through the list and deleted these obvious mistakes.

Here are a few potential doppelbock names my search turned up.

Apologies if they have been used before....

 -Names Schwarzenegger or Eastwood would be proud of:

 Annihilator, Assassinator, Dominator, Eliminator, Eradicator, Exterminator,

 Devastator, Detonator, Liquidator, Gladiator, and, of course, Terminator.

 -Names for scientists and engineers:

 Accelerator, Collimator, Correlator, Numerator, Denominator, Differentiator,

 Lubricator, Exponentiator, Evaluator, Radiator...

 -Names relating to the alcoholic nature of beer:

 Decimator, Exhilarator, Hallucinator, Incapacitator, Intoxicator, Sedator,

 Perspirator...

And many others.  Some examples I don't think anyone would want to use.

For example:  Nauseator, Regurgitator, Urinator, Flatuator, and a few other

more offensive names I will avoid mentioning. :-)

The complete list is 594 records long, and hence, too lengthy to post here.

I would be happy to e-mail the file to anyone who is interested.

- -------- Jeff Berton;  jeff344@voodoo.lerc.nasa.gov;  (216) 977-7031 --------

- --------- Aeropropulsion Analysis Office, NASA Lewis Research Center --------

- ------------- "If headquarters is interested, we're interested!" ------------

------------------------------


Re: slotted copperpipe manifold

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 9:43:40 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: slotted copperpipe manifold

>  I have a 4.50 gallon Gott Picnic Cooler that I'd like to use as

>  a mash / lauter-tun for partial mashes.  My question concerns the

>  different false bottoms one uses in the bottom of the cooler.

>  How do you build a Phil's Phalse bottom, a screen type false bottom and

>  a slotted copperpipe manifold?  How do you use each type?

I don't know anything about Phil's, but a screen type false bottom

requires installing a controllable spigot in the cooler.  IMHO, a

copper manifold is easier to build, more effective for sparging, and

doesn't require modifications to your cooler.

I have fairly detailed plans for my manifold system.  They're long,

so I won't post here unless there is a great demand.  Email me if

you'd like them.  BTW, this system is a scaled down version of the

lautering system used at New Belgium Brewing here in Fort Collins CO.

At the risk of sounding snobbish :-), if you're going to outfit your

cooler this way, you'll already have most of the equipment you'll need

to go all-grain.  A large kettle for boiling is the only other thing

you'll need, and

> Can I use two 4 gallon stock pots for boiling the extract instead

> of one 8 gallon stock pot?

yes, you can use two pots in a pinch (I've done it myself).  A risk is

that you won't get consistent hop extraction between batches, since the

volume of wort being boiled is a factor in the extraction rate.  A

larger kettle will make life much easier, though.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


sparge manifolds

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 11:02:53 CST

From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)

Subject: sparge manifolds

Russ Wigglesworth writes:

>According to Mr. Bliss on slotted copper manifolds:

>>If you try to slow it down, you're only draining wort through the

>>slots nearest the outlet.

>My manifold has about 10' of 1/2" pipe overall with slots every 1/4",

>everywhere. It exits the tun and connects to a 5/8" hose which has a tubing

>clamp across it which controls the flow. I sparge by running the water onto the

>top of the grain bed allowing an inch or more of standing water to cover the

>bed. I then drain at a rate which gets me about 10 gallons of wort in an hour,

>keeping the inch of water on the grain bed until I'm within a gallon or so of

>my desired total. Then I shut off the sparge water and drain the bed dry. I

>typically get a yield of 31 or 32. On my last batch, 14 gallons of mild, I got

>35!

I sparge in a 1' & 2.5' square cooler, with a grain bed depth anywhere

from 7"-14".  The pipe is only 5/16" id and 7" long, with slots every

inch.  The last time I tried keeping the H2O above the top of

the grain was with ~20 lbs of grain => 10"-12" deep.  I verified by

tatse testing that different areas of the bed were better rinsed than

others.  I only got 20 pts/lb (this is based on the wort that actually

makes it into the primary - If you count spillage & the gallon of trub

that I leave behind you get significantly higher figures).

What are the dimensions of your cooler?  How deep is the grain bed?

Is the pipe 1/2" inside diameter or outside?  (that's a big pipe).

>Nor do I see why restricting

>the flow out of the manifold would have the effect described by Brian.

Its kind of hard to explain, especially w/o graphics.  The problem is

anologous to that encountered with your auto's exhaust manifold.

Compare with a set of racing headers.  Visions of "sparge headers"

fill my mind...

I still need more experimentation with my new setup.

bb

------------------------------


hot break

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 10:45:52 EST

From: woessner@psych.purdue.edu (Leo Woessner)

Subject: hot break

  (Adendum to privous posting)

    A lot of Hot Break seemed to collect when I boiled the wort.  This being

my first all grain experience I did not try to filter it out and it is now in my

carboy.  What is a easy and efficient method of leaving the hot break and/or

cold break in the pot.  I do not have a wort chiller so I put both of my 14 qt.

pots in the sink filled with ice and cold water.  The break is floating violently .......

 -ly arround in my Carboy.  Is this a problem.  How can I eliminate it next time??..?

    THanks in advance

     Leo Woessner

------------------------------


lautering

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 10:29:46 EST

From: woessner@psych.purdue.edu (Leo Woessner)

Subject: lautering

  I finnally tried my first all grain batch.  Everything went fine.  My extractin........

extraction was a little low I got 23 pts/lb.  I used the step mashing procedure

given by Papazian.  Mashing was easy, complete conversion occured within 40 mins...

But lautering was a little more tricky.  I am using a Zapat (bucket in a bucket)

lauter tun.  While filling the tun it over flew a little.  Another problem I

had was getting the proper crush for the grain.  I am using a Corona mill.  The

How long should I recirculate the wort?? I recirculated about 4 gallons.  The

wort never seemed to clear more than after the first gallon or so.

   Questions:

 1) What does a good crush look like?

 2) How to achive a good crush using a Corona?

 3) How clear is clear when lautering?

 4) How long to recirculate using a Zapat tun.

  Recipe:

 8# Britsh 2-row pale ale malt

 1/2# crystal malt

 1/2 teaspoon gypsum in mash

 1 teaspoon gypsum in sparge water

 4 oz Heshaberker Halertau(sp??) (60min.)

 1oz Heshaberker Hallertau (steep 10 min)

 1 teaspoon Irish moss (boil 15 min)

 Whitbread ale yeast (started early in the morning)

   og 1039

   HBU's = 11.6

 I used two 14 quart ss stock pots to mash and boil in.  THe recipe was taken f .....

from the Cats_Meow.  It is Frane's House Ale.  Thanks Frane

   Thanks in advance for all comments/suggestions..

    Leo Woessner

------------------------------


Sanitizer, NA Secrets

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 11:54 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Sanitizer, NA Secrets

 >From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

 >Subject: Sanitizer Utilization

 >I didn't see any definitive comment on this while I tried to find some

 quotes from microbiologist acquaintances.  But, I didn't want to leave it

 alone.

 Me either/too.

 >My information is that sloshing "a small amount around for a minute", no

 matter how high the concentration, is generally ineffective for

 sanitization.

 Well, I would certainly like to see the details of that information.

 Frankly, I have my doubts.  Pure bleach, sloshed around a keg or bucket would

 leave a thin film on the surface that would be far higher in concentration

 than a full keg of weak solution.  That film would remain on the surface,

 long enough before evaporating, to provide an effective bacteriocide.  I also

 suggest that in a closed container, either a keg for a few minutes only, or a

 plastic carboy with a lid, indefinitely, the gas evaporated inside would

 provide ample security.

 I switched from dry to liquid yeast so I can be convinced but someone is

 going to have to try harder on this one.

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >Remind me not to trust the Copley News Service.  You see, there is a

 third method, which is used by at least one mega-brewer, in which a

 semi-permiable membrane is used to extract the alcohol by osmosis and

 a fourth method in which a special yeast is used that does not

 produce much alcohol.

 And a fourth which nobody wants to talk about.  Once the alcohol is reduced

 to the lowest practical level by what ever method, they simply dilute it with

 water to get at least a 50% reduction.

 Perhaps you were being polite when you tasted mine but it does certainly seem

 to be one of their dirty little secrets.

 js

------------------------------


Sanitization Survey

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 10:12:13 -0800

From: atl@kpc.com

Subject: Sanitization Survey

  I have been following the threads on sanitization with great

interest.  I have been brewing for about 10 years off and on, and am

now all-graining and yeast culturing (please no snob thread!).  I have

yet to get an infected batch, even though my sanitization procedures

are *very* lax compared to most of what I read here.  I use a solution

of a couple of tablespoons of household bleach to a couple of gallons

of warm water, wet the walls of my scratched plastic fermenters let it

sit a couple of minutes (usually, sometimes shorter) and rinse it out

with unfiltered, unboiled tap water.

  The only tyhing I can think of that would explain my complete lack

of problems is that I have always lived in areas with chlorinated city

water.  I would like to run a survey, asking folks to send me email

with the following info:

1) How many batches have you brewed?

  a) > 10

  b) 10-50

  c) > 50

2) How many infected batches have you had?

3) What source of water do you use?

  a) city

  b) bottled

  c) well

4) Do you filter any tap water you add to your wort?

5) Do you boil any tap water you add to your wort?

6) What sanitizer do you use?

  a) Chlorine bleach

  b) iodophor

  c) b-brite

  d) other (please describe)

7) Do you rinse with tap water?

8) Please describe (concise please) you sanizitation method (exposure

length, rinse method, etc.)

9) if you think I have missed any critical info, please tell me.

  I'll post a summary as time allows!

 Thanks,

  Drew

------------------------------


On Brewing Sugar

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1993 11:05:04 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: On Brewing Sugar

As penance for quoting an author while relying on memory alone,

I have typed the following material on brewing sugars from

H Lloyd Hind's "Brewing Science and Practice", which was written

in the 1930s and stands as the best source of information on

traditional British brewing practice.  There is a great deal of

very technical information about the production of various sugars

and their chemical/physical structure, some of which may not

even be accurate given advances in the physical sciences, and in

any case is well beyond our needs.  There is also information about

specific sugar blends produced for the British brewing trade, but

without brand names; in any case, the information is more than

50 years old so I left it out.

=================================================================

BREWING SUGARS

230--Sugars as Malt Adjuncts

Various sugars and starch conversion products can be added in the

copper to supplement the fermentable extract formed in the mash tun

by conversion of the starch of malt, but similar restrictions in

respect of the quantity used apply as with cereal adjuncts, on

account of the lack of nitrogenous yeast nutrients. They provide a

means for varying the composition of worth, within limits set by

the requisite balance between sugars and non-sugars, supply

extract which may be either entirely or only partly fermentable,

give characteristics of fulness and flavour that are appreciated

in some cases, increase the stability of beer by replacement of

nitrogenous extract and yield beer that will become more readily and

rapidly brilliant than when brewed with malt alone. Primings are

strong solutions which must not, in this country, exceed 1150

specific gravity but should not be much less. They are sometimes

added in the fermenting vessel at the close of primary fermentation

but, more frequently, in storage tank or cask to promote rapid

condition and, in some cases, on account of their flavour. The

sweet and luscious flavour of some sugars does not entirely

disappear when the sugar has been fermented but gives additional

fulness to the beer. In some cases, sugars which are not entirely

fermentable are selected.

The sugars used in brewing comprise

(1) Cane sugar, derived from the sugar cane and, much less frequently,

from sugar beet.

(2) Invert sugar, made by inversion of cane sugar.

(3) Starch sugars, including corn syrups and glucose, manufactured

by the conversion of the starch of cereals, usually maize [that's

_corn_, Norte Americanos].

(4) Mixtures of these, their utility in copper or cask depending on

their flavour and fermentability.

(5) Caramels, made from cane sugar or glucose.

(6) Lactose or milk sugar, which is only used in very small quantity

in some milk stouts.

(7) Honey, even less used.

Maltose, which might appear to be the most suitable sugar to replace

that formed from malt in the mash tun, is not used in the pure state,

but exists as a constituent of corn syrups with dextrin and glucose.

Lactose differs from cane sugar, invert sugar, maltose and glucose

in that is is unfermentable by ordinary brewery yeasts, while certain

of the higher starch conversion products are appreciated because

they are only partly or slowly fermentable.

(231) Cane Sugar

The sugars obtained from the sugar cane, sugar beet, sugar maple,

certain palsm or the stem of sorghum are, when purified, of identical

chemical composition. All of them are sucrose. The natural juices

from which they are derived, however, differ very considerably in

flavour owing to the many other substances which they contain. For

example, the root of the beet contains a larger proportion of mineral

salts than the sugar cane and decomposition products are formed with

the larger quantities of lime necessarily used in the course of

clarification, which give an objectionable flavour to the juices and

raw sugar. These render the latter unfit for consumption until

refined. The raw sugars from the cane are, on the other hand, very

luscious but they do not all taste the same, varying considerably

according to the place in which the cane was grown or the treatment

they received during extraction and preparation, characteristic

differences being found in sugars from Cuba, Java, Barbadoes, Trinidad,

St. Domingo, Mauritius, etc. Since the value of cane sugars in

brewing depends so largely on the flavours they communicate, even

after all the sugar itself has been fermented, the principal source

must be the sugar cane, which yields juices possessing these

properties in their most attractive form. The final product of the

refineries, from whatever source it originally came, is among the

purest substances commercially obtainable, but it lacks the

distinctive characteristics of flavour demanded in brewing. As a

source of carbohydrate extract it is unexcelled and can be used

without hesitation under circumstances in which those flavours are not

required, but the raw or partially refined sugars from the cane are

more attractive in most cases.

[... some technical information on the refining process deleted ...]

Usually the lusciousness of the sugars increases with greater

proportions of other substances derived from the cane, some of which

are in a colloidal state, and many such sugars, among them West

Indian and Brazil sugars of comparatively low polarisation, are used

in brewing on account of the fulness and sweetness they give. Other

low polarising sugars, such as that from Mauritius, have a somewhat

acrid after-flavour. On account of these different flavours, great

care must be exercised in selecting brewing sugars, fermentation

tests being desirable as the original flavour is not always a good

guide to that left after the sugar is removed.

[...]

Cane sugar is used both in the copper and as a priming. Raw sugars

of good class are generally employed for the former purpose and

when of good class are generally employed for the former purpose

and when of suitable purity should not contain excess of undesira-

ble substances or micro-organisms. Sugars of this type and pure

crystals can also be used for priming but candy sugar is preferred

by many. Cane sugar is rapidly inverted when added to cask, the

change being generally complete in about 24 hours. This process is

believed to be an essential preliminary to fermentation. It is

carried out by the enzyme inertiase or sucrase secreted by the yeast

and does not appear to affect the fermentative activity of the

yeast or influence the rate of fermentation. Baker and Hulton

found that cane sugar and invert primings were fermented at sub-

stantially the same rate in beer under ordinary cellar conditions

and that about one-third of either sugar still remained

unfermented after 7 days in cask when added at normal priming rates.

[Hind goes on to offer technical information about the cane sugars

used in brewing: refined crystals, candy sugar, brown sugar and

yellow crystals. "The yellow crystals represent the high grade

products turned out at many cane factories, and of which Demerara

sugar is well known."]

------------------------------


**Texas BPub Legalization Update**

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 13:43:20 -0600

From: ifby546@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu

Subject: **Texas BPub Legalization Update**

Texas Brewpub Legalization Guide - March 12, 1993

Action Item: Call & Write The House Committee by Monday, March 15!

Brewpub n. A brewery that sells its own beer on premise. Or a Restaurant

that brews its own beer. Legal in 42 states.  Something Texas needs to

legalize to join the rest of the civilized nation.

*** The House Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee is bringing

up the bill Monday, March 15. Call and write to the 11 members of that

committee ***NOW (March 12, 13, 14,15)***,  before the bill leaves the

committee. Then hammer the Senate Committee. The Bills are House Bill #1445

& Senate Bill #622. Any other "brewpub" bills are superfluous and shouldn't

be refered to at this time.***

                                What to tell the legislators:

Key consideration: BE BRIEF! These folks are busy. If as many folks call in

as we hope, we could possibly end up alienating some V.I.P.'s if we drone

on. Please limit your calls to the following three statements.

1."I support brewpub legalization in the TABC Sunset Bill"

        The bill considered is referred to as the T.A.B.C. Sunset Bill.

There are identical bills introduced in the Senate and the House. (House

Bill #1445, Senate Bill  #622). The Brewpub portion of the bill is section

#74.

2. "I want brewpubs to have the right to sell for on and off-premise

consumption."

3. "I want brewpubs to have the right to limited self-distribution."

                                Who to contact

This is a priority issue! The House Bill will be going to committee the

week of March 15!

 Write to and call the following important people: (and communicate the 3

phrases listed above)

****House Licensing and  Administrative Procedures Committee  (House Bill

1445)***Priority****

Ron Wilson, Chair...512/463-0744,  Delwin Jones...463-0542, Dan Kubiak,

ViceChair...463-0600,  David Cain...463-0476,    Tony Goolsby...463-0454,

Ben Campbell...463-0478,   Bill G. Carter...463-0482,  Mario

Gallegos...463-0614, Paul Hilbert...463-0572,...Garfield

Thompson...463-0716,   Ken Yarbrough...463-0648

  Your local Senator and House Representative

Write to them at the following addresses:

     The Honorable [Representative]    The Honorable [Senator]

      The House of Representatives      The Senate of Texas

      P.O. Box 2910                            P.O. 12068

      Austin, TX 78768-2910               Austin, TX 78711-2068

If you aren't sure who your legislator is,  call 1-800-253-9693. They may

be able to tell you your Senator & Representatives' names.

                  Attend the Public Hearings:

I'll post when the Public hearing is. Stay tuned.

  Remember, the bills in question are referred to as the "TABC Sunset

Bill".  HB335 is NOT "the" Brewpub bill.  At this point in time neither is

HB1425.  Remember, please BE BRIEF.

Other Questions can be referred to: Joe Barfield, Southwest Brewing News at

 ifby546@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu 512/467-2225  Address mail to 406 W. 35th,

Austin, TX 78705. -FAX (512) 282-4936

 Watch for future updates to the SWBN BREWPUB LEGALIZATION GUIDE

Sample Letter:

                       VOTE YES FOR BREWPUBS

The Honorable

The House of Representatives  (or The Texas Senate)

P.O. Box 2910                       (or P.O. Box 12068)

Austin, TX 78768-2910           (or 78711-2068)

Dear Representative (or senator)

   As an avid beer connoisseur, I would like to endorse economically viable

brewpub legislation.

   Brewpubs provide jobs, increase the tax base, increase tourism, increase

capital investments, and stimulate interest in locally-produced products

served straight from the brewery. They do not threaten the existing system.

 Please consider revising the TABC Code to allow small breweries: 1) the

right to sell for both on and off-premise consumption, and 2) the right of

limited self-distribution. The great State of Texas will benefit from a

burgeoning niche industry currently enjoyed in 42 other states.

  Please vote YES for the Sunset Bill's expanded brewpub legislation.

Sincerely,  JoeTax-payer&voter&beer-drinker

 -------------------------------

Joe Barfield, Publisher, Southwest Brewing News, ifby546@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu

Brewnews from Arkansas, Arizona, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma & Texas.

406 W. 35th, Austin, TX, 78705.  512/467-2225. (FAX)512/282-4936.

------------------------------


Texas Brewpubs, almost here..

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 8:11:24 CST

From: dewey@sooner.ctci.com (Dewey Coffman)

Subject: Texas Brewpubs, almost here..

 You say you want brewpubs in Texas? You say you haven't had time

 to call and voice your opinion? NOW IS THE TIME.

 On Monday, 3/15/93, the House Licensing and  Administrative Procedures

 Committee will vote on the changes in the TABC Sunset Bill regarding

 Brewpubs, this is were it died last time(2 or 4 years ago). They

 need to know that you support this, you don't want the bill watered

 down so that no one can afford to do it(this is talk of $12,000 license

 fees or no offsite sales).

 Call them and say:

"I support ECONOMICLY VIABLE brewpub legalization in the TABC Sunset Bill"

The bill considered is referred to as the T.A.B Sunset Bill. There are

identical bills introduced in the Senate and the House.

 If you have time, call each and every one of them. If not, just

 call Ron Wilson and Dan Kubiak. Print out this list and call over

 the weekend, fill up their answering machines. Give the list to friends

 either electronically or hardcopy. Let's not blow it this time.

House Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee

Ron Wilson, Chair       (512) 463-0744

Dan Kubiak, ViceChair   (512) 463-0600

David Cain       (512) 463-0476

Ben Campbell     (512) 463-0478

Bill G. Carter   (512) 463-0482

Mario Gallegos   (512) 463-0614

Tony Goolsby     (512) 463-0454

Paul Hilbert     (512) 463-0572

Delwin Jones     (512) 463-0542

Garfield Thompson       (512) 463-0716

Ken Yarbrough    (512) 463-0648

))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Questions can be referred to Joe Barfield, Publisher, Southwest Brewing

News at ifby546@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu

Address mail to 406 W. 35th, Austin, TX 78705. (512) 467-2225.

   SUPPORT FRESH BEER IN TEXAS!

- --

Joe Barfield, Publisher, Southwest Brewing News, ifby546@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu

Brewnews from Arkansas, Arizona, Louisiana, New Mexico, OKLA & Texas.

406 W. 35th, Austin, TX, 78705.  512/467-2225. (FAX)512/282-4936. Subscrips

 - $12/yr.

------------------------------


Boiling pots?

Date: 12 Mar 1993 13:49:31 -0600 (CST)

From: BLAST@sn01.sncc.lsu.edu

Subject: Boiling pots?

After several boilovers using a small enamel canner on my stovetop, I am

ready to get a larger pot. I have read (Papazian, Miller) that Aluminum

is to be avoided.

If not Aluminum, then the only choices seem to be enamel or stainless.

Where can one obtain a reasonably priced 32 qt. boiling pot?

I checked the local (Baton Rouge, LA) restaurant suppliers, they only

carry Aluminum. Since restaurants apparently use predominantly Aluminum

for boiling, what's the difference between wort and restaurant food that

makes Aluminum unsuitable for wort? Is it the acidity of wort and/or its

contact time w/the Aluminum? Or what?

Thanks,          !  What's the difference between a used car salesman

Bruce Ray        !  and a software salesman?

Deep C Software  !  One knows when he's lying, the other sells software.

------------------------------


second mail-order hop source for Canada

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 12:02:57 -0800

From: eurquhar@sfu.ca

Subject: second mail-order hop source for Canada

        There was some talk a while back about where hop rhizomes could be

found in Canada.  Well, just received my March/April copy of Harrowsmith

magazine and noticed an ad for a mail-order brew store in Ottawa called the

"Hop Stop" advertising hop rhizomes for sale.  Therefore, I decided to pass

on the two sources I know of for hop rhizomes in Canada.

mail: Hop Stop, 1661 Montreal Road, Ottawa, Ontario K1J 9B7

FAX: 613-748-3052

Tel: 613-748-1374

Don't know anything about this business but they offer a free catalouge.

        The other source of hop plants I know of is Richter's in Goodwood,

Ontario. They list the beer hop varieties: Cascade, Hallertauer, Mount

Hood, Nugget and Willamette for sale as plants at $7.00 a plant in their

1993 catalogue. There stock is really expanding so it quite possible that

more varieties will be available in the future.  I have ordered from them

before and the plants while often pricey were very healthy and arrived in

perfect condition.  Get them to throw in their catalogue. It's probably the

most informative and interesting herb catalogue produced by anybody.

mail: Richters, Goodwood, Ontario, L0C 1A0 Canada

FAX: 1-416-640-6641

Phone: 1-416-640-6677

They accept Visa and Mastercard for payment and ship to the States as well.

As always I don't have any involved with either company.  Hope this is of

help.

Eric Urquhart eurquhar@sfu.ca

Dept. of Biological Sciences,

Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC CANADA

------------------------------


Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1993 15:35:20 GMT

From: POIRIER@IREQ-CCFM.HYDRO.QC.CA

Subject: second mail-order hop source for Canada

Subject:  Indoor boiling

Hi all,

    There's been some discussion lately of boiling indoors on electric stoves.

One poor fellow was boiling in 4 pots on his stove, another was burning out

his elements. Well I did 2-pot boils for about 25 batches. And then I saw

the light. As a new convert, I feel that I must share my happiness with all

of you:

    I converted an old scratched 7 gallon plastic primary bucket into a

boiler. I used 2 1kW heating elements from a scientific surplus company

@4.50 USD each, so this is definitely a cheap approach.

The great thing about it is how effortless the boil becomes - no boilovers,

easy cleanup. I cannibalized my counterflow chiller, which was tough to

sanitize and constantly clogging with hops anyway, and now just sanitize an

immersion chiller during the boil.  The trub and hops drop to just below the

level of the spigot, and from there I splash it out into the primary. MUCH

easier! I have been brewing my brains out since I switched.

    If anyone would like more info on the supplier, just drop me a line:

<poirier@inrs-ener.uquebec.ca>. And thank you to all who responded to my

coriander question.

    While I'm at it, I'll be in San Francisco, San Diego, and all points

between in April. (I've already booked a tour with Anchor!) Any beer type

suggestions (sent privately, of course) would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Deb

------------------------------


sanitizing Agents Revisited

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 15:54:45 -0500

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: sanitizing Agents Revisited

korz@iepubj.att.com write:

Re: Sanitizing Chemicals

> I've found this too, but my intention was to minimize the amount of

> un-natural chemicals I was dumping down the drain.

I don't think that the amount of bleach we use in sanitizing is

significant compared to other uses.  One bottle of bleach from the

store will last me for quite a while.  Bleach used to wash white

clothes seems to go much faster.

(Note:  We can't use bleach at home in the wash due to the iron in the

water...it makes some really nice rust colored clothes)

> Acetic acid and H2O2 seemed much more "green" than

> Chlorine Bleach or Iodine.

I would agree with that assessment.  Both CH3COOH and H202 will decompose

in somewhat more friendly products.  Using *DILUTE* versions of this

may be allright.  By dilute, I mean vinegar and hydrogen peroxide that

you can buy in the pharmacy or grocery store.  I'm not sure on the

specifics of using these two in a mixture at low concentrations.  Then again,

as I was informed in e-mail, using vinegar and steam is an old and accepted

method in Germany and it seems safer to me.  Steam cleaning/sterilizing may

be a good way to do it. But not everyone has a steam line in their house.

kurka@bmcw.com write:

Re: A few observations regarding cleaners and sterilizing agents.

> Experiences I have had with chlorine as a sterilizing agent is that

> it has the possibility of giving an "off" flavor to the brew. Whether or not

> this was a case of not rinsing the equipment well enough after the chlorine

> soak is not known.

Something else that was just being discussed in e-mail.  One possible

drawback to using bleach as a sanitizing agent is the formation

of byproducts that you can taste.  You probably formed some chlorophenols;

they are readily tasteable at the ppb level.  Rinsing the chlorine out

better should solve the problem.

 Tim

------------------------------


Re: dry ice chilling/lye/bitter Frathouse Ale

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 14:54 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: dry ice chilling/lye/bitter Frathouse Ale

Scott writes:

BREWERS,

>We hit apon an idea that is simple, straightforward, amd seemingly

>foolproof; why not cool a hot wort with dry ice?  Think about it:

There's no guarantee that the dry ice doesn't have wild yeast spores

or bacteria in it.

********************

Jack writes:

> For us unwashed masses.... it is also known as Draino.

> A teaspoon in a cup of water will do the trick.

I've heard that Draino has other stuff in it besides Sodium Hydroxide or

Potassium Hydroxide.  I've heard that Red Devil brand Lye is all NaOH or

KOH (I don't recall which).  Check the label and use the pure stuff.

Further, Jack writes:

> Far be it for me to question the wisdom of the ages but I have (had) used the

> same plastic primary since the early 70s and have not had an infected beer

> since a few months after I started to read the Digest.  I attribute the

> record to one or both of two procedure changes.

>

> Number one on the hit list was Red Star Yeast, contamination is built in at

> no extra cost.  You also need to find out who actually produced the yeast you

> use to make sure it is not one of the many brands of re-packaged Red Star.

>

> Number two was to ignore the usual instructions for making a sanitizing

> solution from bleach, i.e. 1 oz bleach to the gal or even 5 gallons of water.

>

> After cleaning the fermenter with a sponge and Ivory, I rinse it and put in

> about a cup of bleach.  I then put on the lid with a stopper in the hole for

> the air lock and slosh it around thoroughy and set it aside till the next

> use.  Next time I need it, I slosh it around again, dump out the bleach and

> rinse it carefully.  I guarantee, there is no scratch deep enough to evade

> this treatment.

I've read the opposite, but would note that the ususal way that a mild

bacterial/wild yeast infection becomes apparent to us homebrewers is

gushers.  Now I don't mean to imply that Jack has infected beer (I've

tasted recent batches and indeed it does not taste/smell infected), but

I know that Jack kegs rather than bottles.  A minor infection in a kegged

beer would not be apparent, whereas the same level of infection in a bottled

beer would cause gushing.  It also depends on how long you keep the beer.

Certainly Stainless Steel is a much better choice for a fermenter than

plastic.

*******************************

Richard writes:

>1. My friends and I have twice attempted the Fraternity House Ale (a 5

>gallon version) from the AHA Winner's Circle recipe book. Both times

>the beer has come out alright except for a kick-you-in-the-zipper

>bitter after taste which, as you can imagine, is very unpleasant.

>

>While this recipe is kind of heavy on the hops I have a hard time

>thinking that this is the problem. I have boiled lots of hops for more

>than an hour before and had it turn out fine. Also, for the second

>batch instead of adding the finishing hops to the boil we just strained

>the wort through them at the end. I did read something recently (can't

>recall where) that said boiling crystal malt can result in bitterness.

>It is possible that we let the one step mash heat up too high. There

>were several times when we had to reduce the heat. Any other ideas or

>suggestions, or has anyone else seen this with crystal malt before?

Boiling crystal or any other barley malt will give you astringent flavors

which are, sort of bitter, but sort of not.  Peel a dark grape and just

chew the skin -- that's tannins -- is that the flavor you reported?

If so, then it's the boiling of the grains.  Also note that bitterness

(especially in the finish) can be intensified considerably by hard

water -- sulfates especially.  Are you adding a lot of Epsom Salts,

Gypsum or other sulfates?

Al.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1097, 03/15/93

*************************************

-------


PH meters / Lauter Tun design

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 15:39:21 EST

From: Lee Menegoni <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

Subject: PH meters / Lauter Tun design

Recently there was a thread on PH meters.  I would

like to know wher can I get one, what is the price

and what comments do people have on specific models.

I have heard of one model called " Check It"

any details??

I currently use a 5 gallon plastic bucket with a 1"

high false bottom and spigot on the side as a lauter

tun.  This container is jacketed with 1" of foam so

it does a good job of maintaining the temp of the

grain bed.  I have considered building a new lauter tun

with a copper tubing manifold and center drain using a

5 gallon food grade bucket.  Is this an improvement in

design, cent vs side drain.  I also have a Cornelius

keg with a seam leak near the top.  I have considered

cutting the top off and making a lauter tun out of it.

What is the ideal height of grain bed for a 5-6 gallon

batch?  Would this keg tun be better for 3 gallon batches

is it to narrow and tall for 5 gallon batches.?

Please post responces to the net or

lmenegon@necis.ma.nec.com

------------------------------


re: Two Seperate Questions on: Kegging and Bitterness

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 12:57:48 PST

From: Brew Free Or Die  12-Mar-1993 1553 <hall@buffa.enet.dec.com>

Subject: re: Two Seperate Questions on: Kegging and Bitterness

In HBD #1096:

>From: Richard Saunders <richsa@microsoft.com>

>Subject: Two Seperate Questions on: Kegging and Bitterness

>1. My friends and I have twice attempted the Fraternity House Ale (a 5

>gallon version) from the AHA Winner's Circle recipe book. Both times

>the beer has come out alright except for a kick-you-in-the-zipper

>bitter after taste which, as you can imagine, is very unpleasant.

>

>While this recipe is kind of heavy on the hops I have a hard time

>thinking that this is the problem. I have boiled lots of hops for more

>than an hour before and had it turn out fine. Also, for the second

I think the heavy hops is exactly the problem.  I considered brewing this beer

last fall, but, beforehand, I went through the math to determine the bittering

levels, using Jackie Rager's wonderful equation from the Zymurgy special issue

on hops.  I recall ending up with something like 110 I.B.U. for Ron Page's

Fraternity House Ale.  That's not beer - that's beer-flavored bitterness!

I think the recipe is bogus (I don't implicitly trust any of the award-winning

recipes that Zymurgy publishes).  Change the hops bill, down to about 35-55

I.B.U. (use one-third to one-half the bittering hops recommended).  Or, design

your own recipe, based on F.H.A.

- --

 Dan Hall   Digital Equipment Corporation   MKO1-2/H10   Merrimack, NH   03054

 hall@buffa.enet.dec.com          ....!decwrl!buffa.dec.com!hall

         "Adhere to Schweinheitsgebot

 Don't put anything in your beer that a pig wouldn't eat"  --David Geary

------------------------------


yeast 34/70

Date: 12 Mar 1993 16:51:07 -0500

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel.F.McConnell@med.umich.edu>

Subject: yeast 34/70

                       Subject:                               Time:4:45 PM

  OFFICE MEMO          yeast 34/70                            Date:3/12/93

>From: Lee Menegoni <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

>Subject: Yeast Slant ?? / Mashed stout / Kegs

>I have been given a slant of Weinstephan 3407 yeast.  What information do

>people have on this variety.  What temp should I ferment / lager, what are

>its flavor charecteristics, is it stable for reculturing?  Please post

>responses to HBD or send to lmenegon@necis.ma.nec.com

Fred Scheer (Frankenmuth Brewery) wrote a short article on this yeast strain in

American Brewer, Summer 1989, pg 19.   He uses this yeast for his lagers.   All

his beers tend to be very clean, rich and malty in a broadly Bavarian style.

This yeast was chosen because of the use of 6-row malt, high avaliable amino

acids, low zinc,  20 BU with a good dose of hop aroma, 7 day primary ferment,

and need for good flocculation in the lagering tanks.

Here is the data from the article.

Wort analysis:

plato-11.5

apparent attenuation-83.20%

The article indicated that he pitches 1/2L yeast suspension per hL of wort

(12-14 million cells/mL) due to the low (41F, 5C ) pitching temperature.

Primary fermentation is 7 days.  Fred makes the following points and  considers

them to be required.

 -good areation of wort (8-20 mg/L)

 -wort free of hot trub

 -minimum of cold trub

 -34/70 works best at low temp. (41F-45F, 5C-7C)

 -after 2 to 3 generations a higher than normal ester component appears.  Don't

pitch >6 times.

 -low lagering temp (0-2C) to encourage good flocculation.

The bottom line is that if you are using domestic malt like Fred (Breiss, I

think) and want to make Bavarian style dark, bocks or amber (Vienna or marzen)

beers, this culture should do nicely if you ferment COLD and pitch lots of

yeast.

Good brewing

DanMcC

------------------------------


re: demerara & turbinado

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 14:45:58 PST

From: Brew Free Or Die  12-Mar-1993 1745 <hall@buffa.enet.dec.com>

Subject: re: demerara & turbinado

In #1093:

>From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

>Subject: demerara & turbinado

>"Turbinado" and "Demerara" are the "real" brown sugars.  They are

>both partially refined cane sugars.  I've heard it said that they

>are, respectively, the American and British names for the same thing.

>However, turbinado is _very_ pale, lighter than a brown paper bag.

>Demerara is about as dark as a brown beer bottle.

There's another "brown sugar" available that hasn't been mentioned yet,

probably because it's not commonly seen (at least I'd never seen it before last

fall).  It was brought to my attention by Steve Stroud, who had some in his

cupboard.  It's a product called Sucanat (r), and it's 100% evaporated sugar

cane juice.  It is unrefined, dried, granulated cane juice, with no additives

and no preservatives.  On the container is written "All vitamins, minerals and

other nutrients of cane juice retained, nothing added, only water removed".

There's a chart on the back comparing it to brown sugar, white sugar, dried

maple syrup, liquid honey, and dried malt extract.  It is loaded with minerals

and nutrients!  It has twice the potassium of brown sugar, 250 times the

potassium of white sugar.  It still contains Vitamins A, C, B6, zinc,

magnesium, and calcium, while white sugar has none of those.  Yeast should love

it.

It is manufactured by NutraCane, Inc., 5 Meadowbrook Parkway, Milford, NH 03055.

Phone is (603) 672-2801.

I got a 2 kilogram can of it at Bread and Circus in Cambridge, MA for $8.69.

They have since gotten it in bulk, and with your own container it's even

cheaper.  I have never seen it sold retail anyplace else (I just left a message

on NutraCane's answering machine about availability - I'll report back what I

find out).

My intention was to brew a Triple using it, but so far it's only gotten as

far as my coffee cup.  It has a wonderfully assertive toffee-ish, caramel

flavor.  It's not crystalline like turbinado sugar - it's more powdery/granu-

lated and the flavor is much stronger.  Good stuff, and highly recommended in

coffee - you'll have to wait until I brew my Triple to get a report on that.

- --

 Dan Hall   Digital Equipment Corporation   MKO1-2/H10   Merrimack, NH   03054

 hall@buffa.enet.dec.com          ....!decwrl!buffa.dec.com!hall

         "Adhere to Schweinheitsgebot

 Don't put anything in your beer that a pig wouldn't eat"  --David Geary

 "Pigs would eat Sucanat"  --me

------------------------------


Water filter questions...

Date: Sat, 13 Mar 93 9:53:47 CST

From: Brewmeister Gene <ezimmerm@hp.uwsuper.edu>

Subject: Water filter questions...

Salutations all!

     I have decided to filter the water I use for brewing in my apartment.

Because it is an apartment and my wife and I will be moving in the summer,

I didn't install it to the water lines, instead fitting a temporary attachment

to the faucet. I've heard of others using such a temporary filter system and

was wondering if anyone had suggestions as how to store the wet filter once

I am finished with it? I am thinking of just letting the thing sit out 'till

dry then putting it away. Perhaps in the freezer. Sounds wierd, I know, but

since I want to filter out Cl, I thought it would be rather stupid to store it

in some kind of solution. I should mention this is a charcoal and poly filter.

(Water Pic's Under sink IF-10 model to be exact.)  The freezer, I'm thinking,

would inhibit growth of anything, and if I were to get most of the water out,

there shouldn't be any problem with cracks from ice pressure... Well any ideas

would be helpful.

Gene in Duluth

*******************************************************************************

* Eugene Zimmerman          * 'Real men don't eat quiche'                     *

* University of             * 'Wisdom is but the loss of innoscence valued'   *

* Wisconson, Superior       *                                                 *

* English Ed and Comp Sci   *                                                 *

* Majors                    *                                                 *

*******************************************************************************

------------------------------


First and second runnings

Date: Sun, 14 Mar 93 00:58:15 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: First and second runnings

Back in December, I posted a speculative article about brewing

in the traditional British "three runnings" method.  To summarize,

using information from Dave Line's _Big_Book_of_Brewing_ and a

little algebra, it appeared that one could make:

Strong ale  @ 1072

Pale Ale    @ 1046

Shandy      @ 1043

by using, per US gallon of final yield for each of the three, 5 pounds

UK 2-row malt and 2.2 US gallons of mash water.

As a variant, I scaled the recipe up to 2 gallons and collected and

brewed the first runnings according to the posted recipe.  I decided

to sparge afterwards and collect what amounted to the second and third

runnings together.  Given the desirability of a 5-gallon batch size, I

figured I'd add a little water and malt extract to the kettle to stretch

the brew length up to 5 gallons.  (No all-malt fixation here :-)

Summary: overall success!!  As I suspected, I got more yield in the

first runnings than predicted from Line's figures.  And that was despite

cutting the mash water down to 2 gallons.  I compensated by adding a

little more than a pound of dry malt extract.  Here are the details:

                         Strong Ale

                         ----------

   10  lb  Munton & Fison 2-row mild ale malt

1 1/2  oz  Willamette whole hops 60 minute boil - 4.2% alpha acid

  1/4  oz  Willamette whole hops 30 minute boil - 4.2% alpha acid

  1/4  oz  Willamette whole hops 10 minute boil - 4.2% alpha acid

Wyeast 1056, second generation, half of a one-quart starter

Mash with 2.5 gallons water at 151-154F.  Mash-out at 172F.

Transfer to lauter tun with 1.5 gallons foundation water at 172F.

Recirculate, let settle 30 minutes.  Draw off first runnings

(a little more than 2.5 gallons).

Yield: 9 quarts.  Original gravity: 1080

Estimated bitterness: 48 IBU

Primary ferment: 7 days.  Rack to two one-gallon jars.

Specific gravity at racking: 1025.

This beer was racked on February 11 and hasn't been bottled yet.

                            Celtic Ale

                            ----------

         Spent grains from strong ale

  5  oz  Chocolate malt

 19  oz  Light dry malt extract

  1  oz  Bullion pellets       60 minute boil - unknown alpha acid

1/2  oz  Willamette whole hops 10 minute boil - 4.2% alpha acid

1/2  t.  Irish moss            10 minute boil

Wyeast 1056, second generation, half of a one-quart starter

Steep chocolate malt in 1 pint water.  Add to mash tun after

draining first runnings for the strong ale.  Add 2.5 gallons water

at 172F to mash tun and let settle 15 minutes.  Sparge as usual

with water at 172F to collect 4.5 gallons.  Add dry malt extract

and sufficient water to boiling kettle.

Yield:  5 gallons.  Original gravity:  1035.

Estimated bitterness: 24-37 IBU (based on bullion @ 5-8% alpha acid;

Line estimates 4-9%, Papazian 8-9%).

Single-stage fermentation: 9 days.

Bottled with 5/8 cup corn sugar.  Final gravity: 1011.

If I do say so myself, this is a _great_ low alcohol beer.

It was ready to drink after about 5 days.  It's 4 weeks in

the bottle today and there's hardly any left :-)

Fred eckhardt, in The Essentials of Beer Style, lists Grant's

Celtic Ale at     ----------------------------

OG 1034,  FG 1008,  IBU 38.

------------------------------


Where Did My Saaz Nose Go ?

Date: Sun, 14 Mar 93 21:04:18 -0500

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Where Did My Saaz Nose Go ?

When I bottled this batch of Alt Bier last week, it had a wonderful

Saaz nose to it, from dryhopping in the secondary.  Now, a week later,

it's carbonated, ready to drink, and has no Saaz aroma at all...

Where did it disappear to ?

Other than the loss of nose, it's quite good! Tasty and bitter.

Partial Mash Recipe

===================

2.0  lbs Klages 2 Row,

0.75 lb Crystal, 40 Deg. L

0.5 oz Chocolate Malt

4 quarts water

30 min 122F Protein Rest, 1 Hr. 152 F Starch Conversion,

5 min 168 F mash out. Sparge with ~ 2 gallons 170F

Then add 5.375 lbs Telfords light english extract, total volume

of boil, 5 gallons.

1 oz. galena (12%), 0.5 oz Nothern Brewer (7.1%) 60 min

0.5 oz saaz (3.8%) 30 min

Boil 1 hr, chill with wort chiller to 60F

Repitch with Wyeast 1056 from seondary of an Irish Ale. (Bottled previous day)

OG=1.042

After 13 days, Dryhopped with 0.5 oz Saaz (3.8%)  for 8 Days more.

FG = 1.012

Wonderful Saaz aroma at bottling (3/4 cup corn sugar used)

So where did it go ?

 Tim

- ----

Timothy J. Dalton                                   tjdalton@mit.edu

MIT, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Materials Etching Technology Lab

------------------------------


BrewPubs in Europe

Date:         Mon, 15 Mar 93 13:39:29 +0200

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      BrewPubs in Europe

My brewing partner is going for a three-week tour to Europe. Does anyone here

know of any interesting brewpubs or homebrewer's attractions along the

following route: Amsterdam - Koln - Prague - Budapesht - Viena - Munich. ???

In the event he would like to buy brewing supplies to bring home with him, do

you know of a place where he could get them, in one of the towns he'll be

visiting?

Thanks in advance,

Nir

------------------------------


Metallic taste, old hops

Date:    Mon, 15 Mar 93 13:32 PST

From: SOMAK%FITKJES2.BITNET@SEARN.SUNET.SE

Subject: Metallic taste, old hops

  I cultured yeast from the bottle of Chimay White.  Now it

has been one week in the bottles and I wonder the strong

metallic taste it has.  I remember somebody remarked the

same thing in HBD sometimes ago.  Is it peculiar for the

Chimay yeast to produce metallic tastes, or is there something

wrong in my procedures? It was fermented in glass carboy and

temperature was about 22 Celsius.  Fermentation was single

stage and it lasted two weeks.

  I have also another question concerning old hops.  I have

Saaz hops which a friend of mine brought one and half year

ago from Germany.  They are stored in room temperature.  At

first there were no problems with them, but later I noticed

that beer brewed with them was cloudy, not clear.  Could the

old hops have caused this?  I think I have read somewhere

(HBD?) that there can be problems with old hops.

Markku Koivula

------------------------------


Extract Efficency

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 93 07:21 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Extract Efficency

 We have pretty well beaten to death the topic of extract efficency but I

 don't think we have discussed the most obvious way to determine what is going

 on in our beer.

 We all know how to divide gallons by pounds and multiply by gravity to come

 up with points/pound/gallon.  Some even apply this to some arbitray numbers

 of available starch and arrive at a percentage efficiency.

 Well, the other way to do it is to weigh the grain before mashing (easy and

 routine) and then compare this with the weight of the spent grain after

 mashing and drying (not so easy).  If dried to the same moisture content as

 the original grain, we arrive at an absolute figure for conversion of grain

 to beer stuff.

 This past weekend I made a batch with 10 lbs of malt and ended up with 8

 gallons at 1.040 for a calculated extraction of 32pts/gal/lb.

 After drying the spent grain and allowing for trub solids and a small amount

 lost in the drying process, it weighed 2.7 lbs.  This means that 73% of the

 malt ended up in my beer.   This is exactly the figure reported by Noonan as

 what can be expected from the types of malt I used.

 I am not sure just what this proves other than the fact that the EASYMASH

 process works as well as any other far more complicated methods of mashing

 and sparging.

 js

------------------------------


publications from the AHA

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 93 09:18:51 EST

From: fingerle@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL (J. Fingerle)

Subject: publications from the AHA

Just received my first ever Zymurgy and the accompanying catalog

of stuff the AHA offers.  And I have some questions.

1) Anyone have an opinion on "Winners Circle?"  How many

recipes are in this?  What is the ratio of extract to grain

recipes?  Is it better/worse/same/just-different from Cat's Meow?

2)How about Terry Foster's "Pale Ale?"  How many all-grain and

extract recipes?  The description given says "Recipes and data

given in English and metric..." English as in American units,

or english as in imperial units?

3)  They offer a Special Issue six pack which includes the

all-grain, troubleshooting, gadgets, yeast, hops, and beer styles

special issues, but does not include the malt extract issue.

Is that one worthwhile?  Since some of these date back to the

mid 80's, and I keep hearing how things keep improving for the

homebrewer, are any of these out of date?  Does anyone

feel that any of these could be skipped, or conversely, that

any of these are the best thing ever committed to paper?

Any opinions are welcome.  Please use private email. Thanks!

- --

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

name:  Jimmy                          On balance, it is a wonderful thing that

email: fingerle@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL    the cold war is over.      -Bill Clinton

 -or-   fingerle@NADC.NAVY.MIL         ON BALANCE?!?  It's end has a down side?

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

------------------------------


sparge manifolds

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 93 10:07:08 EST

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: sparge manifolds

I use a 10-gal Gott cooler, with a "three-pipe" manifold of 3/8"OD

copper, slotted every .75 - 1 in.  It's arranged as a circle with one

diameter.  One end of the diameter connects to the spigot, the other

end has a "down pipe" that I use for underletting and suction

breaking.  I have a ball valve on the outside that lets me easily

control flow rate.

I get great flow and decent extraction from this setup.  This weekend,

I made a "wit" beer (thanks to Phillip Seitz for the recipe).

Depending on whether I counted the unmalted wheat, I got somewhere

between 28 and 31pts extract in a 45minute sparge (5lbs Belgian

Pilsener malt, 3 lbs M&F wheat malt, 1 lb soft wheat "berries"),

stopping at 1.010.  The grain bed was about 6" deep (to the 3.5 gallon

mark in the cooler).  I opened the valve so that I got between 2 and

3qts/5min flow.  I recycled about a gallon.  I had absolutely no

problem with sticking, despite the wheat (there was a layer of icky

gray-brown sludge on top of the grain bed when I drained the cooler).

I won't belabor the advantages of the slotted-pipe system, except to

note that I think the "downpipe" is a fantastic addition to the usual

setup.  I find that underletting my infusions makes it a lot easier to

get a consistent temperature throughout the mash because you're

putting the hot stuff at the bottom, whence it will rise, instead of

on top, where it will just sit.

I'm happy with this system, that's for sure.

------------------------------


Oxygenated Water?

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 93 10:11:20 -0500

From: esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

Subject: Oxygenated Water?

I live in an area where the tap water is cloudy when it first comes out of

the spigot, but if you let it sit a few minutes, it clears up.  A friend of

mine told me the water is cloudy because they "oxygenate" it.  I have never

heard of this before.  Is my friend right or is he full of it?  If he is

right, is it bad for brewing?  I know I could boil the water if I am

worried about water quality, but as an extract brewer, I would rather not

spend the time boiling all that water.  Thanks in advance.

Eugene Sonn

------------------------------


Wyeast Abuse !!

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 93 09:23:37 CST

From: krueger@comm.mot.com (Kevin Krueger)

Subject: Wyeast Abuse !!

I hope noone takes action, but I may have been guilty of Wyeast abuse !!

I broke the seal on my Bavarian Lager package and let it bulge.  Unfortunately,

my week didn't go as planned and the package had to bulge to full proportions.

I definitely expanded the package to maximum size!  The week really fell apart

and the Wyeast package not only travelled several hundred miles, but also was

put through several temperature changes of more than 30-40 degrees.  When I

finally had a chance to make my starter, I opened the package and it didn't

smell 'clean.'  It seemed that there was some odor there that I didn't feel

comfortable with.  I decided to make the starter anyway and the yeast developed

nicely in the starter, but I am very hesitant to use this yeast for brew.  Does

anyone think my worries are valid or is yeast hardy enough to go through all my

abuse ??

Please don't take away my brew kit, I'll be better to my yeast next time !!

Kevin

------------------------------


?SS Cleaning Agents?

Date: 15 Mar 1993 10:36:31 -0500

From: Chris McDermott <mcdermott@draper.com>

Subject: ?SS Cleaning Agents?

 ?SS Cleaning Agents?

OK,  now that were on to this cleaning agents thread I've got a question.  I've

recently developed a problem with really stubborn scorches and stains on the

inside of my SS boiler.

The problem stems from the method I use to achieve a good stove top boil.  I

straddle the pot over two gas burners and use some heavy duty aluminum foil to

direct the flames that poke out from under the pot up its sides es.  Well this

works GREAT as far as getting a good boil goes.

The problem is that the top of the pot, above the level of the liquid, gets

very hot and any wort splashed on that part of the pot gets really burned on.

I can take off the crudge with a copper scrubber but some dark black stains

remain.  Is sodium hydroxide an appropriate cleaning agent to use in this case,

i.e. will it remove the stains and is it safe for SS?  If not are there other

alternatives?

Thanks,

_

Christopher K. McDermott                  Internet:  mcdermott@draper.com

C.S. Draper Laboratory, Inc.              Voice:     (617) 258-2362

555 Technology Square                     FAX:       (617) 258-1311

Cambridge, MA 02149 (USA)

------------------------------


Re: "German" porter

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 93 9:46:52 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: "German" porter

Russ Gelinas writes:

> Rob asked about "German" hops (Hallertauer/Mt.Hood) being used in a

> porter.  Just so happens in my younger/dumber days (before I became an

> all-grain snob ;-), that I went even further, making an extract porter

> with Hallertauer hops *and* Wyeast German ale yeast, #1007 I think it is.

> Certainly not a "classic" porter, but perhaps the best extract brew I

> ever made: clean, creamy, malty, and a wonderful hop nose.  Isn't it

> perhaps likely that in the early days of porter, continental hops were

> used?

I can't comment on the history of porter, but I can say that a porter

of mine that used Kent Goldings, Hallertauer, and Cascades (!!) just

won a 2nd place at the Fort Collins, CO Mashfest.  My original recipe

uses Perle and Cascade, but I was out of Perle when I made this batch.

The Hallertau were used solely as bittering hops, so the English and

American hops dominated.

I think I'll switch back to Perle next time, but isn't being able to

tinker with elements like that part of the fun of homebrewing?

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


More on copper slots

Date: 15 Mar 1993 08:55:41 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

Subject: More on copper slots

Subject:  More on copper slots                  Time:8:30 AM     Date:3/15/93

Brian Bliss says:

>I sparge in a 1' & 2.5' square cooler, with a grain bed depth anywhere

>from 7"-14".  The pipe is only 5/16" id and 7" long, with slots every

>inch.  The last time I tried keeping the H2O above the top of

>the grain was with ~20 lbs of grain => 10"-12" deep.  I verified by

>tatse testing that different areas of the bed were better rinsed than

>others.  I only got 20 pts/lb (this is based on the wort that actually >makes

it into the primary - If you count spillage & the gallon of trub

>that I leave behind you get significantly higher figures).

>What are the dimensions of your cooler?  How deep is the grain bed?

>Is the pipe 1/2" inside diameter or outside?  (that's a big pipe).

First, it is my understanding that in order to accurately compute yield you

MUST CONSIDER THE TOTAL VOLUME of wort, either pre or post boil (the yield will

not change since the concentration goes up as the volume decreases during

boil).

I mash in a 48 quart Igloo cooler with interior dimentions perhaps 12" wide by

24" long. My manifold is made of 1/2" ID copper pipe. The shape of the manifold

is the same as the bottom of the cooler with 2 additional lenghts of pipe

running in the long direction. That makes a rectangle with 4 long runs spaced

about 4" apart. The long pipes are joined at both ends with a network of tees

and elbows and 1'2" pipe. There is an exit tee in the middle of one of the  end

assemblies which couples to a fitting which runs through the wall of the

cooler. All of the pieces of pipe (including those used in the end assemblies)

are slotted half way at 1/4" intervals. The tees and elbows are left intact.

The manifold is placed in the cooler with the slots facing down. The concept is

to create a flow similar to that of a false bottom so that the sparge can flow

through the bed to an "exit" at any point in the mass.

I have mashed as much as 35 lbs of grain in this set-up and as little as 15

lbs. My worst yield so far has been 26 points. I attribute it to a too fast

sparge (maybe 20 minutes).

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


~r beer-cancer

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 93 11:58:03 EST

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: ~r beer-cancer

------------------------------


re: beer, root beer and cancer

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 93 12:00:25 EST

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: re: beer, root beer and cancer

In HBD1095 John Sampson brought to our attention a very interesting

article appearing in Science, (vol. 258 pg 261) on natural vrs.

synthetic carcinogens.  The fact that wine and beer were at the top

of the list alerted me to read the article myself.

In that article "Rodent Carcinogens: Setting Priorities", the authors

try to support their hypothesis that naturally occuring chemicals

have not been as rigorously tested as synthetic chemicals for

being potential carcinogens.  This was done by using an index

(HEPR) measuring the percent of the equivalent (by weight)

amount of daily lifetime rat dosage required to halve cancer free

rats at the end of a standard lifetime.  Some of the values are:

HEPR (%) HUMAN EXPOSURE (PER DAY) RAT CARCINOGEN

4.7  Wine (250ml)   Ethanol (30 ml)

2.8  Beer  (12 oz; 354 ml)  Ethanol (18 ml)

0.3  Lettuce, 1/8 head (125 g) Caffeic acid (66.3 mg)

0.2  Real Root Beer (12 oz; 354 ml) Safrole (6.6 mg)

0.1  Apple, 1 whole (230 g)  Caffeic acid (24.4 mg)

0.06  Diet Cola (12 oz; 354 ml) Saccharin (95 mg)

0.04  Coffee, 1 cup (from 4 g ) Caffeic acid (7.2 mg)

0.001  Tap Water, US avg (1 liter) Chloroform (83 ug)

0.00003  Approximate HEPR of upper-bound risk estimate used by US

  regulatory agencies to control exposure to man-made

  chemicals.

0.000000006 Captan (synthetic pesticide), Captan (11.5 ng)

  US daily avg residue intake

 g = gram, m = milli-, u = micro-, n = nano-, l = liter

One of the conclusions of this paper is:

"Our results indicate that many ordinary foods would not pass

the regulatory criteria used for synthetic chemicals."

They also point out that items which are high on the list may

not actually be a risk for human cancer even though they are

thousands of times the HERP equivalent to the one-in-a-million

worst-case risk used by the EPA.

One conclusion John made was

>Thus, all it seems you can say is that drinking one bottle of real root

>beer entails about the same risk of cancer as eating two fresh,

>unsprayed, organically-grown apples.

Due to the non-linear and sometime non-monotonic effects I think all

you can say is: if we have similar metabolisms as rats then

drinking 500 root beers a day entails the same risk as eating 1000

apples a day.  Non monotonic effects occur in fruits and

vegetables, which actually reduce your risk of cancer (when

taken in moderation) due to the presence of anticarcinogenic

antioxidants and vitimins.

Fortunately for us, (and the reason

I'm posting this article to HBD) is that these non-monotonic

effects also occur to some degree with beer (alcohol).

According to studies based on the drinking habits of over 275,000

middle aged men drinking one beer a day actually reduced their

risk of cancer by about 10%.  Details of these studies can be

found in "Alcohol and Heart Disease", in Nutrition Action

Health Letter, Vol 19, Nov. 1992, published by the Center for

Science in the Public Interest (Someone in the HBD forum gave

a nice summary of this article a few months ago but I forgot

who it was).  At two beers a day your cancer risk is back to

what it is with no alcohol, but your risk of heart disease

remains lowered by about 20%.  According to the HERP table

if you drink 36 bottles of beer a day and have a rat's metabolism

you have a better than even chance of developing cancer at some

time in your life.  However, as long as we drink in moderation

we can follow our first commandment of "Relax, Have a Homebrew"

without worry of cancer.  (Of course if you drink 36 bottles

of beer a day you probably won't worry too much either!)

As far as root beer goes, I personally wouldn't worry about

having one made with real sassafras, but I am unaware of both

any benificial effects from moderate studies, nor of other

studies that (I should hope) have been done on other aspects

of safrole toxicology which put it on the EPA hit list in the

first place.

Bill Szymczak

Gaithersburg, MD

------------------------------


Overkill with TSP; Er, I forget...

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 09:58:06 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Overkill with TSP; Er, I forget...

> From: sagard@digi.lonestar.org (Steve Agard)

> Subject: Re: Cleaning Bucket/Cleaning Bottles

>

>

> A: I would suggest using TSP. I am thankful that it had been

>    recommended by many of the homebrew experts on the net for

>    removing labels.

>

>    I added 1 lb TSP (from  hardware and paintstores), and

>    1 1/2 cups chlorine, to a trashcan with the beer bottles

>    (which had been filled with just enough warm water to cover

>    all the bottles).

>

>    I let this covered for 2 weeks, and then removed the bottles

>    (while wearing rubber gloves - chemical resistant ones from

>    a hardware store)

>

Steve, this is a classic case of overkill.  From my own experience with

TSP, you could have gotten away with a few tablespoons added to the

water (without the Chlorine, especially since you're going to sanitize

the bottles later anyway) and pulled the bottles out (without gloves)

within a couple of days -- and gotten the same results.  Not that what

you did was _wrong_, just that you could have save yourself money,

trouble and time.

>    of warm water & let sit for 2 hours (probably overkill, but

>    someone at a homebrew shop warned not to get any in the

>    bottle or I'd never get a beer head). I then ran the bottles

>    through the dishwasher twice (I usually the dishwasher to

>    sanitize the bottles, but I don't like to ignore advice

>    from those of you with more experience...).

As you suggest -- overkill.  Rinsing the bottles thoroughly under the

tap (or with a jet bottle washer, better yet) for a few minutes is

plenty -- the hombrew shop was Wrong.  TSP washes out thoroughly and

easily (especially if you hold your concentrations now a bit from the 1#

level) and shouldn't have any effect on your beer's head.  Forget the

bath, forget the dishwasher, rinse them thoroughly and sanitize them in

the oven (350 for 90 min.).

I would like to second Bruce Ray's query about the use of aluminum in

brewing kettles.  The only truly "authoritative" voice I've heard on the

subject is Dr. Michael Lewis, at the UC Davis' brewing program.  Lewis

says the only thing wrong with aluminum is that it's a crummy metal-- in

other words that it dents easily and is not as strong as stainless steel

(or as beautiful as copper).  A year or more ago there was a raging

argument here about Alzheimer's Disease, with the more reliable voice

being someone (Russ?) who worked in a University hospital where the

conclusion was that there was no link.

I have recently mashed a couple of batches in an aluminum kettle with

good results (although I forget what they were...) -- there is

definitely NO tinny flavor, which is one of the claims made against

aluminum.

How about some real data?

- --Jeff

------------------------------


Manifold, Draino

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 93 12:02 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Manifold, Draino

 >From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

 >Subject: Re: slotted copperpipe manifold

 >At the risk of sounding snobbish :-), if you're going to outfit your

 cooler this way, you'll already have most of the equipment you'll need

 to go all-grain.  A large kettle for boiling is the only other thing

 you'll need, and

 At the risk of  sounding commercial, if one has a large kettle and an

 easymasher (note lower case, indicating that one purchases the stuff to build

 it at the hardware store for about $10) installed in it, one does not need

 the cooler or the manifold.

 >From: woessner@psych.purdue.edu (Leo Woessner)

 >Subject: lautering

 >I finnally tried my first all grain batch.

 HURRAY!  Another snob is born.

   >      1) What does a good crush look like?

 Less than 10% flour... Defined as that which passes through a 100 mesh screen

 and lots of husks intact or minimally broken.  The major source of problems

 is with grinders that pulverize the husks.

 >     2) How to achive a good crush using a Corona?

 To be technical, one does not crush with a Corona, one grinds.  Having said

 that, they can be adjusted to minimize the amount of husk ground up but the

 price one pays is a course grind on the malt.  For repeatable results, use a

 set of gages or shims about .050" in thickness, inserted between the plates

 on opposite sides.  Adjust the wingnut tension so that they can just be

 slipped out.  Ignore all other advice suggesting that washers or shims be

 placed between the main frame and the adjustment frame, they do nothing but

 move the point at which the "proper" setting is achieved.

 >       3) How clear is clear when lautering?

 Just about as clear as the beer you are hoping to drink.

 >       4) How long to recirculate using a Zapat tun.

 Until it runs clear.  When you get around to building an easymasher, it will

 take about one cup, sometimes two.

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >I've heard that Draino has other stuff in it besides Sodium Hydroxide or

 Potassium Hydroxide.  I've heard that Red Devil brand Lye is all NaOH or

 KOH (I don't recall which).  Check the label and use the pure stuff.

 Good advice.  I was only making a point of reference.  I use only lye.  BTW,

 I got so excited about the stuff that I tried a number of things over the

 weekend.

 I was cleaning a keg that had some sediment that did not want to squirt off

 so I poured a little lie in it and it washed right off after less than a

 minute of contact.

 While cleaning up the mash tun to prepare it for fermenting I decided to

 attack some long ignored scorches with the lye and it worked like magic.

 I filled my cruddy looking coffee pot with a strong solution and after about

 an hour and a rinse, it literally sparkles.

 >A minor infection in a kegged beer would not be apparent,  whereas the same

 level of infection in a bottled beer would cause gushing.  It also depends on

 how long you keep the beer.

 I have developed the habit of bottling a sixer of each batch I make just to

 check on shelf life.  Although there has been no infection thus far, we have

 noted a significant drop in the flavor quality of the beer.  We opened a four

 month old bottle last week and both agreed it "tastes like extract beer".

 That is not snobbery, just part of our lingo here, reminiscent of the bad old

 days.  Most of them also seem to lack much ability to retain a head and

 seemed lacking in carbonation.  This is all beer bottled since I started c/p

 bottling.  Beer drunk within a few weeks of bottling is as good as draft but

 it seems to lose a lot over time.

 The good news is I have to dicipline myself to save it that long and the bad

 news is if you want it to keep forever, you will have to make BUD.

 js

------------------------------


My Lauter Tun

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 15:07 EST

From: Carlo Fusco <G1400023@NICKEL.LAURENTIAN.CA>

Subject: My Lauter Tun

Hello Fellow Brewers,

I would like to share an invention of mine with you. I was having trouble

with a the double bucket later tun so I made a new one. I took a 7 gallon

pail and used a knife to cut a 1/2 inch hole near the bottom. I then went

to the hardware store and bought a brass spigot for an outdoor faucet, some

steel 3/4 inch threaded washers [the kind used by electricians to attach

things to the outlet box], 2 inches of copper pipe, a clamp, and a 6X6 inch

sheet of galvenized door screening.

I put the thing together by first putting a washer onto the spigot. Then I

screwed the spigot into the bucket, after heating the hole with hot water.

I then screwed the second washer into place and tightened the whole thing

so that the spigot did not twist. I then rolled the screening to give me a

diameter of 1/2 inch and I used a clamp to attach it to the 2 inch piece of

pipe. Using a hammer, I folded over the edges and banged them flat to produce

a seam...but keep the 1/2 inch diameter inside the rolled up screening. The

1/2 inch pipe fits perfectly into the back of the spigot and can be easily

removed for cleaning.

I also attached a 3 inch piece of garden hose to the outflow side of the

spigot and fitted into it a 4 foot section of 1/4 inch clear tubing. This

tubing goes right into the boiling pot to reduce HSA.

Now I have a later tun that is easier to control the outflow and really easy

to use. I am now considering using this as a mash/lauter tun, much like the

cooler method. But first I have to learn to do that type of mashing. Right

now I still only use this as a lauter tun and a hopback to remove hop leaves

from the cool boiled wort.

                                                |     XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

                                                |                | |

                                               X|X               | |

                                __             X|X               | |

        _______________________|__|___     |///X|X///____________| |_

       /                      _|__|________|   X|X                   /

      /                        |  |        |   X|X                    /

_____/        screening        |  | pipe   |   X|X       spigot        /

h s  /                         |  |        |   X|X                      /

a e   /                       _|__|________|   X|X                       /

m a    /_______________________|__|___     |   X|X   __________           /

m m                            |__|        |///X|X///          |          |

e                             clamp            X|X             |          |

r                                      washers X|X             |          |

e                                               |              >          <

d                    ___________________________|              >          <

                                bucket wall                    >__________<

I hope this ascii drawing shows what I was trying to explain.

I remember a post some time ago showing the pro's and con's of the different

lautering methods. For this single point drain, it stated that the grain near

the edges did not get sparged. I have found this not to be true. I tasted the

grain from the edges and it was not any sweeter than the grain found at the

top of the grain bed, but this may only be true for me and I know some others

will disagree with me. But, I am very happy with this setup and I also

managed to  get 32 pts/lb/gal using this method, compared to 26 pts/lb/gal

using the double bucket technique.

Carlo Fusco                       email:  g1400023@nickel.laurentian.ca

Dept. Biology

Laurentian Univ.

Sudbury, Ontario

------------------------------


Add to homebrew

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 93 12:12:35 PST

From: bwalker@instruct.CapCollege.BC.CA (Bob Walker 2152)

Subject: Add to homebrew

Please add : bwalker@instruct.CapCollege.bc.ca  (Bob Walker)  to

the homebrew list.  Thanks

------------------------------


Reduction of Wort volume during boiling

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 93 12:53:33 -0800

From: atl@kpc.com

Subject: Reduction of Wort volume during boiling

  After sparging, I usually end up with 6-8 gallons of sweet wort.  I

usually boil for 90 minutes total, 30 minutes before hop addition, 45

minutes for boiling hops and 15 minutes for flavor hops.  I also do

not cover the pot, as I find it impossible to keep a vigorous boil

going without boilover if the pot is covered. After this, I usually

end up with about 4 gallons of bitter wort, and must top up with

filtered cold tap water. I do not see any dramatic hot or cold break,

and end up with about 1" of precipitated goop (tm) in the bottom of

the primary fermenter.  Am I boiling to vigorously?  Should I put the

lid on the boiling pot?  I would really rather not have to top up the

fermenter.

  Drew

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1098, 03/16/93

*************************************

-------


Re: Stuck fermentation?

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 16:16:35 -0600 (CST)

From: Colin R Kelly-1 <kell0170@student.tc.umn.edu>

Subject: Re: Stuck fermentation?

Hi, all,

     I have a question about a batch I'm brewing at the moment. I think

the fermentation is stuck, but I'd like some input from the rest of you

out there.

     I'm making an American Pale Ale using Wyeast #1056. I broke the inner

seal of the yeast package, last Tuesday night, intending to brew on

Thursday. By mid-Wednesday, the package was ready for use. Thursday

afternoon, after the boil, the wort took quite a while to cool. Since I

don't have a chiller at this time, I put the bucket outside, surrounded by

snow (Minnesota). It still didn't cool very fast, and I was running low on

time, so I pitched the yeast at about 83 degrees and placed the vessel in

our basement which is about 64 degrees. 24 hours later there was no sign

of fermentation, so I brought it upstairs, hoping that a change of temp

would get it kick started. After a few hours in a 75 degree room, it

started bubbling. It reached a peak of about 2 bubbles per second Saturday

afternoon, then fell off to almost nothing. The other batches I've brewed,

had a much longer and healthier fermentation than that.

     Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated. Please send replies

to my email address. Thanks.

     I think I'm going to go get some more yeast, and see if that works.

Later,

   Colin

***************************************************************************

Colin Kelly                      *  Cottleston,Cottleston,Cottleston Pie

kell0170@student.tc.umn.edu      *  A fly can't bird, but a bird can fly

           __o                   *  Ask me a riddle and I reply,

         _`/<,_                  *  "Cottleston,Cottleston,Cottleston Pie."

        (*)/ (*)                 *                        -- Master Pooh

***************************************************************************

------------------------------


Cara-pils haze

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 18:15 EST

From: "O! Gerek, I'm Mike Rego" <MREGO1@vax.clarku.edu>

Subject: Cara-pils haze

I've been reading the digest for a few weeks now, and it seems to

be very helpful in answering novice questions.  So, here is my first

posting:

My first attempt at a lager was a modified version of Papazian's

Crabalocker German Pils, and I brewed it on 2/21/93.  The ingredients

were 3 kg (6.6 lb) Ireks Munich light unhopped extract, .5 lb Cara-pils

malt, 1.5 oz Hallertauer (boiling), .5 oz Saaz (boiling), .5 oz Hallertauer

(flavor), .5 oz Saaz (flavor), 1 oz Hallertauer (aroma), and 14 gm

European lager yeast (G.W. Kent).

The Cara-pils was put in a muslin bag in 1.5 gal water and removed when

water began to boil.  Then the extract and boiling hops were added.  The

flavor hops were added at 30 min, and the aroma hops were added for the

last 2 min of a 60 min boil.

It fermented for 5 days at room temp in plastic primary (it just

wouldn't start in the cold 50 degree closet).  I guess this makes it

a steam beer, right?  Anyway, then I moved it back to the cold closet

until 3/10/93 (10 days in primary).  It was then racked to the glass

secondary.  At that point it was very cloudy, and disappointingly

an amber color.  It has been five days now, and the haze has mostly

settled.

My questions are:  Did the Cara-pils cause the haze? (I used it to

give it a little more body, but have since learned that it is not

like other specialty grains.)  I've heard of using gelatin for

trapping the haze, is this a good idea, and if so how to do it.

And lastly, if I do use gelatin should I be concerned that it would

trap all the yeast too? (I do need some yeast in my bottles for

carbonation.)

Thanks for the help.

Mike Rego

------------------------------


Help: Teflon a problem?

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 93 17:27:36 -0600

From: sagard@digi.lonestar.org (Steve Agard)

Subject: Help: Teflon a problem?

I've followed previous threads about stainless vs aluminum pots,

and read papazian's and miller's recommendations. I've used a

5 gal SS brewpot ($24.95) up til now.

The problem with this size pot is that I can only brew 4-1/4

gal wort. I'd prefer to brew a full batch (for reasons I've

read), and when I start doing all-grain batches, I'll need

a larger pot.

I've found a 6 gal aluminum pot with "Silver Metallic" interior

coating. I suppose this is Teflon with a name intended to suggest

of Silver Stone. The pot has insulated handles. The lid is

see-through, and has 1 small (sneaker shoe-lace eylet) vent in it.

It was only $60.

My question is this: If anyone has tried brewing in a Teflon or Silver

Stone coated brewpot, what were your results? If you haven't tried this,

your opinion is still welcome.

Thanks in advance,

steve

------------------------------


Malt Mill

Date: Tue, 16 Mar 93 07:39:16 EST

From: thutt <thutt@MAIL.CASI.NASA.GOV>

Subject: Malt Mill

      How does one go about getting a Malt Mill?  Seems no one around

      here has them.  Is that because it is mail order only?

      Could someone please provide the necessary information so that I

      will be able to get a Malt Mill?  (address, phone, cost, etc.,

      etc.)

      Thanks.

      Taylor Hutt

      Championing worldwide usage of Oberon-2!

------------------------------


BrewPubs in Europe

Date: Tue, 16 Mar 93 12:44:10 +0100

From: dejonge@tekserv.geof.ruu.nl (Marc de Jonge)

Subject: BrewPubs in Europe

In HBD1089 Nir Navot writes:

>My brewing partner is going for a three-week tour to Europe. Does anyone here

>know of any interesting brewpubs or homebrewer's attractions along the

>following route: Amsterdam - Koln - Prague - Budapesht - Viena - Munich. ???

>In the event he would like to buy brewing supplies to bring home with him, do

>you know of a place where he could get them, in one of the towns he'll be

>visiting?

Amsterdam: Brouwerij 't IJ: (Haven't got the adress but the Tourist Office

                             might know)

                            microbrewery, I think they still give tours

           Rob van Gelder : (Utrechtsestraat 3##?)

                            reasonable quality brewing supplies

                            British,Dutch,Belgian malts

                            German,British and Bohemian hops (mostly leaf)

                            (and an interesting collection of pot-stills,

                             chillers, and fractioning columns.....)

           Countless bars and cafes that have over five special beers on tap,

           mainly belgian mega-swill like Hoegaarden,de Koninck,Leffe etc.:)

           There used to be a place called 'Gollem' which had over 200 beers, I

           haven't been there in years.

           Brewpubs are not very common: It's hard to beat the imported prices.

Marc de Jonge          dejonge@geof.ruu.nl

------------------------------


Favorite Brew

Date:    Tue, 16 Mar 1993 9:28:15 -0400 (AST)

From: AGRANT@mta.ca (ANDREW GRANT)

Subject: Favorite Brew

 I'd like to ask anyone of you out there, if you have a fovorite

brew !  I would hope you do, but does anyone have one that is very easy

to mix together.  This isn't the first time i've brewed, but i've only

used the cans of malt and corn sugar, so i'm looking for something a

little different.

Thanks,

- --Andrew

------------------------------


Fraternity House Ale

Date: 16 Mar 1993 08:35:45 -0500 (EST)

From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

Subject: Fraternity House Ale

Dan Hall sez:

>I think the heavy hops is exactly the problem.  I considered brewing this beer

>last fall, but, beforehand, I went through the math to determine the bittering

>levels, using Jackie Rager's wonderful equation from the Zymurgy special issue

>on hops.  I recall ending up with something like 110 I.B.U. for Ron Page's

>Fraternity House Ale.  That's not beer - that's beer-flavored bitterness!

Ah, I didn't know that the recipe is Ron Page's, but that certainly explains

it.  Ron is a great brewer from New England, but he has also admitted that he

likes to keep his recipes secret and rarely puts down the exact recipe

formulation on an entry form.  This recipe is clearly one of those cases where

he fudged the numbers on the hop bill.

It also points out the need to analyze a recipe and see whether it is

reasonable before you brew it.  The AHA definitely should have done that to all

of the recipes in the 'Winner's Circle' before they published it.  Beginning

brewers don't need nasty surprises like Ron's FH Ale.

Steve

------------------------------


Succanat (tm)

Date: 16 Mar 1993 08:57:47 -0500 (EST)

From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

Subject: Succanat (tm)

Well, since Dan Hall let the cat out of the bag:

I've been using Succanat (tm) for the last few years.  It's a great (even

better) substitute for demerara or turbinado sugar in brewing.  It is organic,

unpurified, evaporated cane juice with no additives.  It looks like a brown,

powdery/crystalline solid, similar to dark dry malt extract though less

homogeneous in appearance.  According to the info on boxes of the stuff, it has

a nutritional make-up very close to malt extract with similar calorie, fat, and

protein counts.  It is also chock full of trace minerals and vitamins, unlike

any processed sugar.  Expensive perhaps???  Nahhh, at the Bread and Circus (in

Central Sq., Cambridge, MA) it is in the bulk bins for $1.49/lb.  I've also

seen it on shelves of local health food stores.

I've successfully used it many times in British-style ales - bitters, pale ales,

scotch ales - and the yeasties love it.  As Dan surmised, it does seem to have a

toffee-ish, caramel flavor.  I'm not sure that I'd use it in a tripel (I'd go

for straight corn sugar to keep the color down) but a dubbel might do well from

its addition.

Give it a go.

Steve Stroud

------------------------------


a beer drinking UK visitor gives thanks

Date:    Tue, 16 Mar 1993 8:17:20 -0600 (CST)

From: STOREY@fender.msfc.nasa.gov (BadAssAstronomer)

Subject: a beer drinking UK visitor gives thanks

    Hi all

    Just a short note to thank all those who sent me information on

    pubs and places to see whilest in England and Wales. With any

    luck, I'll have some stories to tell when I get back. See ya in a

    coupla weeks.

    scott

------------------------------


too much time

Date:    Tue, 16 Mar 1993 9:43:54 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: too much time

 <Jack's description of drying/weighing spent grains etc.>

> I am not sure just what this proves other than the fact that the [????] ;-)

> process works as well as any other far more complicated methods of mashing

> and sparging.

What it proves is that you've got too much spare time!  I can't even find the

time to keg a finished batch....

Russ G.

------------------------------


Caustic Remarks

Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1993 08:41:04 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Caustic Remarks

arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

>

>  >       4) How long to recirculate using a Zapat tun.

>

>  Until it runs clear.  When you get around to building an easymasher, it will

>  take about one cup, sometimes two.

>

Well, without getting into an argument here, my experience with a

camp-cooler mash tun, using British malts, is that I get a clear runoff

in about the same volume.  There is occasionally a little flour in the

first pint or so but from then on it's clear sailing.

>  >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

>  >I've heard that Draino has other stuff in it besides Sodium Hydroxide or

>  Potassium Hydroxide.  I've heard that Red Devil brand Lye is all NaOH or

>  KOH (I don't recall which).  Check the label and use the pure stuff.

>

>  Good advice.  I was only making a point of reference.  I use only lye.  BTW,

>  I got so excited about the stuff that I tried a number of things over the

>  weekend.

>

Once again, without trying to start a fight, I would say that using lye

requires more than a little caution.  It's not that the stuff doesn't

clean, just that it can also do a number on soft parts of the human body

- -- like eyes.  If you observe careful brewers in micro- and

macro-breweries, I think you'll find them using highly caustic compounds

only in closed systems; when they're used for cleaning small parts,

etc., they are handled with a great deal of caution, using rubber gloves

(and hopefully safety glasses).  Personally, I'm a little absent minded

(must be the aluminum), and I prefer to use cleaners that take a little

longer but aren't likely to melt my eyeballs.

>

>  I have developed the habit of bottling a sixer of each batch I make just to

>  check on shelf life.  Although there has been no infection thus far, we have

>  noted a significant drop in the flavor quality of the beer.  We opened a four

>  month old bottle last week and both agreed it "tastes like extract beer".

>  That is not snobbery, just part of our lingo here, reminiscent of the bad old

>  days.  Most of them also seem to lack much ability to retain a head and

>  seemed lacking in carbonation.  This is all beer bottled since I started c/p

>  bottling.  Beer drunk within a few weeks of bottling is as good as draft but

>  it seems to lose a lot over time.

>

>  The good news is I have to dicipline myself to save it that long and the bad

>  news is if you want it to keep forever, you will have to make BUD.

>

I think the reality is that beers that are bottle-conditioned last --

well, not forever -- but far longer than cp-filled bottles that haven't

been filtered and stabilized to death.  Of course, those of us in the

Great NW are known to hop our beers to a point of petrification, so

that's probably a factor.  Then again, it's definitely not Bud.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


Copper lautering manifold, Part 1

Date: Tue, 16 Mar 93 10:12:42 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Copper lautering manifold, Part 1

I've had enough requests for instructions for my sparge manifold that

I decided I'll go ahead and post them.  The article will be split into

two parts so the digest daemons won't reject it due to length.

The manifold is made up of 1/2" copper tubing, along with tees, endcaps,

and elbow fittings.  It looks sort of like a tree branch; a main stem

with arms coming off of it, alternating left and right.  One end of the

stem is capped, the other end leads to an elbow that angles up 90

degrees to a standpipe.  Here's an ASCII pic I hope will make it clear:

                                _ end cap

                                |

                            tee +---------] cap

                                |

         [--------+

                                |

                                +---------]

                                |

                       [--------+

                                |

                         elbow  /

                      90 deg up  --------------->==========

        standpipe      siphon hose

       (this would be coming out of the screen)

The length of the stem and the length and number of arms can be adjusted

to fit whatever kettle or cooler you use.  The manifold should fit

exactly in the the bottom of the vessel when you're done.

The arms of the manifold each have a number of slots cut in them, spaced

a couple of centimeters apart, not quite halfway through the tube (I

used a hacksaw to make them).  You can also use a hacksaw to cut all the

other pieces of tubing, but buying a $5 tubing cutter will make life a

lot easier.  The tees, caps, and elbow fitting will already fit very

neatly, so you don't even have to solder anything together.

When assembled, the slots will face down to the bottom of the vessel.

This is to keep the grain from clogging them, and so you don't leave a

half inch of wort in the bottom.  The standpipe should come up the side

of the vessel to just below the rim, so you can put the lid on.

You will need to come up with some way to connect your siphon hose the

the 1/2 inch standpipe.  We found a 1/2" to 3/8" ID reducer fitting and

a short piece of 3/8" OD tubing will connect nicely to a standard vinyl

siphon hose:

                         -----===

                              |  /__  3/8"  _______

          1/2 inch copper     |redu |------|siphon hose

                              | cer_|------|______

                              |  /

                         -----===

Also, the reducer and 3/8" OD copper need to be soldered so they don't

suck in air, since they're the only fittings that sit above the liquid

level.  [Note:  soldering copper is easy; it requires a few cents worth

of plumbing-safe solder and flux and a $15 propane torch.  Ask the

friendly folks at your local hardware store.]

(to be continued...)

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Copper lautering manifold, Part 2

Date: Tue, 16 Mar 93 10:14:25 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Copper lautering manifold, Part 2

(...continued)

As you might have guessed by now, you don't need a drain hole in your

vessel at all; just have the standpipe up the side of the kettle and

siphon from there.  You could somehow attach the manifold to a drain,

but I don't think it's worth the trouble.

The manifold rests right on the bottom of the vessel, and my "spigot" is

simply a hose clamp at the end of the siphon hose.  Buy one of the

plastic hose clamps that has variable click-stops.

Clean the manifold with hot water.  Since it isn't soldered, you can

just disassemble it when your done.  You can clean it with a small

bottle brush if you like, and if you're worried, you can soak the pieces

in a metal-safe sanitizer like ChemPro.  Whatever you do, *don't* try to

clean it with bleach.  Bleach and copper don't get along very well.  And

clean the manifold thoroughly with soap and hot water before using it

for the first time to remove oils and such used while manufacturing the

tubing.

Here's how the thing works:  assemble the manifold and place it in the

vessel, slots down.  Add your mash water and grain on top of it.  When

the mash is done, attach the siphon hose to the standpipe and start the

siphon going into another vessel.  As the level of the mash water drops,

add your sparge water so the water level stays an inch or two above the

grain bed.  When you run out of sparge water, or decide to stop adding

water, let the siphon run until all the water has been siphoned out.

You'll be amazed, this system gets almost every single drop!

This manifold system has a number of advantages:

1.  No need to modify your pot/cooler, so it can still be used for

    other things.

2.  You don't have to transfer the mash to another container

3.  No transfer means your grain bed won't get compacted, so your sparge

    won't stick.

4.  No transfer means your grain bed won't drop in temperature.

5.  You're using the suction of a siphon, not just gravity, to draw off

    the liquid.  This also lessens the chance of a stuck sparge.

6.  The wort runs off clear after only a quart or so.

Of course, this isn't the only lautering system that has these

advantages, but it has worked well for me.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


SNPA culture beginner questions

Date: Tue, 16 Mar 93 10:00:04 PST

From: Birkeland Joel RYYF20 <ryyf20@tempeccpb.sps.mot.com>

Subject: SNPA culture beginner questions

I have a couple of beginner questions on culturing yeast from

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

I have tried culturing SNPA yeast using the following procedure:

        1)  Prepare an SG 1.040 highly hopped wort, strain out

            hops, and reurn to boil for another 15 minutes in

            covered pan.

        2)  Carefully sterilize a pyrex measuring cup by boiling

            for 30 minutes.  Cover with Al foil which has been

            flamed.  Cool wort by placing covered pan in ice cubes.

        3)  Open SNPA, pour out almost all beer, sterilize bottle

            top using alcohol and flame.  Pour cool wort into SNPA

            bottle, add airlock, wait.

        4)  After 1 day, contents of SNPA bottle at high krausen.

            Step culture into Erlenmeyer using similar paranoid

            sterilization procedures.

        5)  After 1 more day, culture in Erlenmeyer at high

            krausen, looks good.

At this point everything seems OK, but when I went to pitch, I

smelled the starter, and it smelled vaguely of bubblegum, which

I have been told is a sign of possible contamination.  Lacking

an alternative, I pitched it anyway.

I would apreciate any comments on the above procedure, especially

if accompanied by alternatives which are known to work.  I have

used liquid cultures before, with success, by the way.

Also, provided I can get the procedure to work, I would like to

know if anyone uses cultures from SN Porter or Stout.  I haven't

seen this mentioned anywhere.

Thanks a lot for all your help.

Joel Birkeland

birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com

------------------------------


Re: pumps

Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1993 09:33:05 -0800

From: sherman@qualcomm.com (Sherman Gregory)

Subject: Re: pumps

> I am using the pump from the kitchen sink of my motor home so it is 12 VDC

> and makes it pretty easy.  However, I assume a standard light dimmer would

> work on most small AC pumps and would be even more flexible.

A light dimmer is not the right thing, they modulate the duty cycle rather

than control tha voltage.  There are motor speed controls that are made for

bathroom fans and such that are much like the dimmers, but should work

better.

------------------------------


Lye, Vierka yeast

Date:    Tue, 16 Mar 1993 11:45:30 -0600 (CST)

From: SMITH@EPVAX.MSFC.NASA.GOV (The Ice-9-man Cometh)

Subject: Lye, Vierka yeast

greetings.

About lye:  I discovered last weekend that lye is the principal

ingredient in the rubber-gloves species of oven cleaners, so Jack's

experience with shining up everything in sight doesn't surprise me.

Personally I am of the opinion that violent chemicals have no place

in food prep, so I don't use 'em, but to each their own....

About Vierka yeast:  Has anyone used this stuff before?  I used one

of their wine varieties for a mead last weekend, and it still ain't

bubblin'.  The weird part was, instead of the little yellow globs I'm

used to in dry yeast packets, there were what looked like dried herbs

in the package.  I assumed they were the equivalent of Budweiser's

beechwood chips, i.e. flocculation assisters coated with yeast, but

then they could have been dried leaves sold as yeast, too....  Is this

normal, and does it require special treatment?

thanx

|     James W. Smith, NASA MSFC EP-53    |     SMITH@epvax.msfc.nasa.gov     |

|       "Unstable condition: a symptom of life"  --Neil Peart of RUSH        |

|     Neither NASA nor (!James) is responsible for what I say. Mea culpa.    |

------------------------------


Re: Where did my Saaz nose go?

Date: Tue, 16 Mar 93 11:45 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Where did my Saaz nose go?

Tim writes:

>When I bottled this batch of Alt Bier last week, it had a wonderful

>Saaz nose to it, from dryhopping in the secondary.  Now, a week later,

>it's carbonated, ready to drink, and has no Saaz aroma at all...

A year or so ago, I heard of the results of a test that was done by several

brewers from Chicago Beer Society, in which they bottled part of a batch

with Zapata Smartcaps (now called PureSeal) and part with regular caps.

A blind tasting by experienced BJCP judges resulted in the following

determination: the hop nose of the PureSeal bottles was much fresher and

prominent.  For those unfamiliar with PureSeal (aka Smartcaps), they are

made with an oxygen-scavenging plastic which also is an oxygen barrier

for up to (I believe) 6 months.  It appears as if the first thing that

oxygen reacts with and ruins is the hop nose.  Tim: Could the loss of the

Saaz nose be due to air in the headspace?

Al.

------------------------------


Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1993 12:51:29 GMT

From: POIRIER@IREQ-CCFM.HYDRO.QC.CA

Subject: Re: Where did my Saaz nose go?

Subject:  Plastic boiler info

Hi all,

  Well I was inundated with requests for more information on my plastic

boiler setup, so I'll just post the basics here:

  I took an old plastic primary, 6.5 Imperial gallons, originally from my

local homebrew supply shop, now well past retirement age. I drilled a hole

for the spigot (a used plastic drum tap) about 1 inch from the bottom, and

for the two heating elements, I drilled holes 90 degrees CW and CCW from the

spigot, about 2 and 3 inches up.

  The elements are "1 kW, 115 VAC.  Chrome plated copper heating element.

Features automatic shutoff when not immersed in water.  Complete with mounting

nut and gaskets.  Designed for through wall installation in a 1-9/16" dia.

hole (3/16" thick approx.).  Electrical connection via recessed 3-wire socket;

supplied with mating 3-wire stub cord, 12" long; opposite end stripped.  Size

4-3/4" long x 3-1/2" wide.  New. Wt, 1 lb.  Order No. TM89HVC5702...$4.50 US."

H & R Company, 18 Canal Street, P.O. Box 122, Bristol, PA 19007-0122.

Sales 1-800-848-8001 Fax 215-788-9577 Business Office 215-788-5583.

Things to keep in mind:

 - The gaskets suck. I made my own with the stuff you buy in sheets at the

hardware store. And the gasket that came with my drum tap turned to mush.

 - You'll have to put your own plug on. The nice thing about the electrical

connector through thw bucket wall is that you just unplug the element when

you're manipulating the bucket, so there are no cords in your way.

 - It takes the 2 elements to get a good boil going, but only one to keep

things humming nicely. I plug one in the outlet on my stove, and one  in a

countertop outlet.

 - So far no leaks or problems. My local homebrew shop is now trying them,

with good success, and in fact plans to sell them to customers (gee, maybe

I could ask for a commission....Maybe some 2-row....). It's true

that the plastic is not rated for these temperatures, but I've been told

that neither is the electrim bin.

 - No scorching so far. The elements get coated in hot break material that

needs to be cleaned off, but that's it.

  I only picked plastic because it was easy. I'll stick with it as long as

it works. When I get around to it, though, I have a 12 gallon SS Labatt's

keg that I got at a scrapyard for 25 bucks (about 1.50 US...), which I'll

fit with the elements.

  If anyone has any questions or suggestions, please let me know.

Deb

------------------------------


San Francisco brew pubs

Date: Tue, 16 Mar 93 10:47:25 MST

From: "Steve Kurka" <kurka@bmcw.com>

Subject: San Francisco brew pubs

Does anyone have suggestions regarding brewpubs in San Francicso?

I'll be there this coming weekend (3/20/93). Please email to (kurka@bmcw.com)

  Thanks    Steve

------------------------------


Lauter Tun

Date: Tue, 16 Mar 93 12:33 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Lauter Tun

 >From: Carlo Fusco <G1400023@NICKEL.LAURENTIAN.CA>

 >Subject: My Lauter Tun

 Congratulations of proving that you have a world class mind, capable of

 re-inventing the easymasher.

 Just a few suggestions that you may find useful.  If you use soft copper

 tubing instead of pipe, you can put a double bend in in so that the screen

 sits right on the bottom.

                   |

     spigot    ----|-----/

               ----|----/ /

                   |     / /

                   |      / / ----------- screen

                   |       /-------------

                   ------------------------------bottom_

 Upon reading it again, that is the only suggestion I can offer.  You will get

 mountains of mail wailing about your use of window screen but I used it for

 months and it works just fine.

 Aside from the simplicity, the advantages of this system are as follows:

 The wort will run clear almost immediately and re-circulating gallons of

 turbid runoff becomes other people's problems.  This leads to the other

 advantage...

 You can thoroughly stir the mash several times during the sparge without

 disturbing the "filter bed" because it re-establishes itself so easily.  You

 thereby know for certain that you are getting maximum rinsing of the grain by

 the sparge water.   Contrary to popular opinion, the potential for extract

 efficiency with this system is greater than in any other, as of result of

 this feature.

 >I hope this ascii drawing shows what I was trying to explain.

 Thanks for the stimulus. I have been too lazy to make one but as they say, a

 picture is worth a thousand words.  So here is what I came up with...

         BRASS

         SPIGOT          FEMALE

           |           CONNECTOR

           |               |

        ________    |      |

        /_____  /   |      |

              | |   |   ____

      ________|_|___****____|_____   COPPER TUBING

     /  _______X____    ____ ____ /     /

    / /             ****____|    / /   /     SS SCREEN

   /_/              |             / /            |

                    |              / /----##################

                    |               /-----##################

                    -----BOTTOM------------------------------

 >From: atl@kpc.com

 >Subject: Reduction of Wort volume during boiling

  > After sparging, I usually end up with 6-8 gallons of sweet wort.  I

 usually boil for 90 minutes total... end up with about 4 gallons of bitter

 wort...

 First of all, there is a big difference between 6 and 8.  If it is 6, ending

 up with 4 after 90 min is just about right. Frankly, I do not think there is

 such a thing as too vigorous a boil.  If you lose too much wort, just start

 with more.  I would figure on about a gallon per hour of boil.

 Under no circumstances, do you want to cover the kettle.  Part of the reason

 for boiling is to concentrate the wort.

 js

------------------------------


weisse bier and decoction

Date: 16 Mar 93 13:49:13 EST

From: CHUCKM@PBN73.Prime.COM

Subject: weisse bier and decoction

Hello all,

   Thanks to those who responded to my questions regarding

Weisse Bier.   Anyway, This weekend I brewed a 1/2 batch (2.5 gal)

using a single decoction process (my first time).   My recipe for this

was

     3 lb german wheat

     1.5  american 6 row

     1/2 oz hallertau pellets

     wyeast bavarian weisse (3056 I believe)

     I saved about 1.25 quarts of wort for kreusen.

I mashed in with 1 quart/pound of water. My first question

is: when I pull my decoction for separate heating and boiling

it is not very liquid, and indeed, during boiling it gets

pastey(starts sticking to bottom). Should I have added more

water during this phase so it is not so dry?

Also, re: lautering and extraction effeciency.... is there

a relationship between duration of lauter and extraction rate.

My lauter for this exercise was fairly quick (10 min) and I

ended with a 1.038 wort.

It is currently fermenting nicely and doing fine.

Chuckm

------------------------------


Baseball/Beer Request

Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1993 13:10:00 EST

From: Bill Ridgely FTS 402-1521 <RIDGELY@A1.CBER.FDA.GOV>

Subject: Baseball/Beer Request

          I'll keep this short so as not to take up too much bandwidth on a

          not-specifically-homebrew-related subject.

          The editors of BarleyCorn, the Mid-Atlantic Region Brewspaper, are

          writing a special report on the beer scene at minor league

          ballparks, and they have asked me to kindly poll the readership on

          the subject.

          If anyone out there has stories or anecdotes about beer-

          enlightened minor league club owners or stadium operators,

          ballplayers with an affinity for good beer (or homebrew), whatever

          - please submit by private e-mail. Even names of individuals who

          might provide further info would be helpful.

          This report will be nationwide in scope, so please don't limit

          responses to the east coast.

          Thanks in advance for your help.

          Bill Ridgely

          E-mail: ridgely@cber.cber.fda.gov

------------------------------


Sugar and Out of work Cold Warriors....

Date: Tue, 16 Mar 93 07:53:13 MST

From: stevel@chs.com (7226 Lacroix)

Subject: Sugar and Out of work Cold Warriors....

 Following the thread on sugars recently, I have been a little surprised

to see no mention of Yellow D sugar...Purchased in my local upscale (read over-

priced) market the label claims differences between it and Turbinado, etc.

I'll bring the label to work to leave more info for you folks who might be

interested.

 As for the gentleman using the Navy's computer to access the HBD and then post out of context quotes from YOUR commander in chief...you've obviously

shown us yet another abuse of tax dollars.....thanks...and the down side of

the end of the Cold War.....is worth it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Steve Lacroix

 Primitive Brewing

------------------------------


Brewers in Portland, Oregon?

Date: Tue, 16 Mar 93 14:16:09 PST

From: Jack St.Clair at fmccm6 <Jack_St.Clair_at_fmccm6@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: Brewers in Portland, Oregon?

Hi fellow brewers,

There is a possibility that I will be transferred to the Portland area

sometime this summer. Can anyone out there tell me about the Homebrew

situation in the area?  Brewpubs? Supply shops? Homebrew Clubs?  I will

probably be living in the Hillsboro area and would really like to meet

some new brewers.

To help keep the bandwidth narrow, please respond via private mail.

Especially, if you are a homebrewer at Intel.  Any information will be

greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Jack

Folsom, California

jack_st.clair_at_fmccm5@ccm.hf.intel.com

------------------------------


yeast culturing

Date: Tue, 16 Mar 93 17:30:14 EST

From: woessner@psych.purdue.edu (Leo Woessner)

Subject: yeast culturing

  I am trying culture the yeast from several bottles of SNPA.  I boiled up three

cups of water with six tablespoons of DME and cooled the mixture.  I then poored

the wort into a steril half-gallon jug.  I then poored all but the last inch of

the SNPA out of five bottles.  I shook the remaning inch of SNPA in order to get

the yeast in solution and poored the dregs into the half-gallon jug.  Nothing

happened for 2 1/2 days, the brew never fermented very fast.  At the peek it

fermented at maybe 1 bouble per 30s.  Is this slow fermentation normal??

By THe Way (BTW) I did vigorously shake the wort to ariate the wort before adding

adding the SNPA yeast.  How do you culture yeast from a bottle?  Should I assume

it is OK??  How can I tell if it is infected??  Is the yeast OK?

   Thanks in advance

    Leo Woessner

------------------------------


Moderate drinking & minimal cold catching

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 0:04:10 CST

From: Jacob Galley <gal2@midway.uchicago.edu>

Subject: Moderate drinking & minimal cold catching

While we're on the topic of alcohol and health again, I saw an

interesting but superficial tidbit on CNN Streamline News a couple

nights ago. According to CNN, "a group of British researchers" has

released a study showing that moderate drinkers have "a much lower

chance" of catching a cold than folks who drink rarely or never.

This is all the info that was given. I'd like some more details, but

haven't seen anything in the _NY Times_ or the _Wall St. Journal_

since then. Does anyone know more?

Cheers,

Jake.

 "What's so interdisciplinary about studying lower levels of thought process?"

<-- Jacob Galley / gal2@midway.uchicago.edu (more obnoxious quotes in my .plan)

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1099, 03/17/93

*************************************

-------


Dry Rye Stout and my lauter tun

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 00:48 EST

From: Carlo Fusco <G1400023@NICKEL.LAURENTIAN.CA>

Subject: Dry Rye Stout and my lauter tun

Hello fellow brewers,

Yesterday I posted a message about a new lauter tun I made. I forgot to

mention that a dear friend or mine, Glenn, had a lot to do with the original

design. Also, I would like to acknoledge Jack for his Easymasher which

was unintentionaly reinvented.

Well, since recipes in the HBD are becomeing few and far between, I thought

I would share a great stout with you all. It happens to be the first product

of my new lauter tun.

Dry Rye Stout

Author: Carlo Fusco  <g1400023@nickel.laurentian.ca>

Digest: ?????

Ingredients:

8 lbs   2 row malt

1.1 lbs  flaked rye

1/2 lb  cara-pils malt

3/4 lb  roast barley

1/4 lb  black patent malt

1/4 lb  chocolate malt

1/4 lb  crystal malt [80L]

3 oz   Fuggles leaf hops [4.2%- for 60 min. ->12.6 HBU]

1 oz   Goldings leaf hops [5.2%- for 10 min.->0 HBU]

pinch   Irish moss

WYeast London Ale[1028]--starter made from new packet

Procdure:

Grind all grains and place them into the mash.

Mash in at 71C (160F). Temperature should drop to 66C (152F).

Mash for 2.5 hrs at 66C (152F). Mash out for 5 min at 76C (169F).

Sparge 6gal @71-76C (160F-169F). Boil for 1 hour. 3 oz of Fuggles

for 60 minutes. 1 oz of Goldings and Irish moss for last 10 minutes

Cool, remove trub, and pitch.

Ferment at room temperature 20C (68F) until fermentation ceases. About

10 days. A single stage fermentation was used. Then bottle or keg as

desired (I kegged it).

Comments:

This has got to be the best stout I have ever made. Since I have made

the move to all-grain, this will be the only stout recipe for me. The

flavour is dry and what you would expect from a stout. The rye and the

cara-pils has made it very thick, just like Guiness. If I have to adjust

anything, I would add more hops...say about another 1/2 oz of Fuggles

for the 1 hour boil. This stout is thick, very dark, overly smooth and

won't stay in my glass for very long.

Method   All Grain

Original Gravity:   1.060

Final Gravity:      1.020

Single Stage Ferment:   10-14 days

________________

Carlo Fusco..............g1400023@nickel.laurentian.ca

------------------------------


PU yeast

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 93 07:28:07 MST

From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

Subject: PU yeast

Jack writes:

>I had a recent batch do that with pure cultured, Pilsener Urquel yeast.  It

>bubbled furiously for weeks at 60F but turned out to be a pretty good beer.

Where did you get PU yeast, Jack?  All of the PU I've bought (and I've bought

a _lot_) has been filtered (no sediment).

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


Vierka Yeast, Saaz Nose

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 07:46:23 -0500

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Vierka Yeast, Saaz Nose

SMITH@EPVAX.MSFC.NASA.GOV (The Ice-9-man Cometh) writes:

Subject: Lye, Vierka yeast

> About Vierka yeast:  Has anyone used this stuff before?

I used Vierka's Dark Munich yeast for the batch of Dunkle

thats sitting in the secondary right now. (First attempt

at an all grain batch.  It was pretty easy).

I haven't had any problem with it so far.

> The weird part was, instead of the little yellow globs I'm

> used to in dry yeast packets, there were what looked like dried herbs

> in the package.

The Dark Munich is white in the packet.

Its a dark tan/brown in the secondary.

Pretty good floculator too.  As primary ended, the yeast nicely sank

to the bottom and stayed there.

> I assumed they were the equivalent of Budweiser's

> beechwood chips, i.e. flocculation assisters coated with yeast, but

> then they could have been dried leaves sold as yeast, too....  Is this

> normal, and does it require special treatment?

Don't know about your yeast, but all I did was rehydrate in 1 cup

of 110F water.  And they happily were fermentin' away in under 24 hours.

korz@iepubj.att.com writes:

Subject: Re: Where did my Saaz nose go?

> For those unfamiliar with PureSeal (aka Smartcaps), they are

> made with an oxygen-scavenging plastic which also is an oxygen barrier

> for up to (I believe) 6 months.  It appears as if the first thing that

> oxygen reacts with and ruins is the hop nose.  Tim: Could the loss of the

> Saaz nose be due to air in the headspace?

Oxygen was suggested as the culprit in some email I received too.

The wort underwent minimal aeration during racking.  (Siphoned from

secondary into bottling bucket, then into bottles with a

bottle filler).  Air in the headspace could be the problem.

I'll have to see if any of the nose recovers or if its gone for good.

 Tim

------------------------------


bleach and precipates on glass

Date:      Wed, 17 Mar 1993 08:36:27 EST

From: Ming-chung Lin <MARS@suvm.acs.syr.EDU>

Subject:   bleach and precipates on glass

I usually use bleach as a sanitizer, but have had some slight

misfortunes, besides smelly hands and spotty clothes.....

Some comments on soaking things overlong in bleach,

one is that is corrosive to metals, or perhaps the term

is that is a metal oxidizer.  In any event it will eat away

at metal.  The other regards bleach solution in glass containers.

I sometimes leave a bleachy solution in the glass carboy to soak,

then forget about until I need it again.  The problem is that

something precipates out of the solution onto the glass and won't

rinse off.  I tried scrubbing the precipate off with a carboy brush

and was surprised when the brush popped out the side of the carboy.

What usually works is to empty and rinse the carboy and soak it in

a strong vinegar solution, I suppose someother acid solution would

also work.  That gets rinsed out well, then I again sterilize the

carboy w/ bleach.  I also got a nasty precipate on some grolsch

bottles I left to soak in strong bleach sol'n.  They are still

waiting for a cleaning.  I plan to try TSP.  Does anybody have

experience w/ this problem?  I live in Syracuse, NY.  We don't

have especially hard tap water (at least judging by how soap suds

up in the shower), but we do live over massive limestone deposits.

Right now we're living under 3 ft of new snow!!!!

P. S.  I have to agree w/ Jeff Frane about working with strongly

alkaline solutions.  They have the potential to be more caustic

than acid solutions, partly because they do NOT rinse off very

easily, as all of us working w/ bleach should know.  I have a

small scar from ONE DROP of NaOH sol'n that jumped out of the

beaker while the sol'n was being mixed.  SO BE WARY!!!!

Lisa St. Hilaire <MARS@SUVM.ACS.SYR.EDU>.....YES, I'm using

Ming-Chung's account.........

------------------------------


yeast starter (help!!!)

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 09:13:39 EST

From: johnw@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL (J. Williamson)

Subject: yeast starter (help!!!)

>From johnw Tue Mar 16 13:12:16 1993

Received: by NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL (5.59/1.0 )

 id AA03557; Tue, 16 Mar 93 13:12:06 EST


Date: Tue, 16 Mar 93 13:12:06 EST

From: johnw (J. Williamson)

Subject: yeast starter (help!!!)

To: hpfcmi.fc.hp.com@homebrew

Subject: yeast starter (help!!!)

Cc: elser, johnw

Status: RO

 I was hoping to brew a lager this past weekend when I ran into

trouble getting a yeast starter going.  I was hoping that someone out

there in HB land could shed some light on the situation and perhaps save

me starting over.  Here are the particulars:

 Thursday evening I broke the inner package on a pack of Wyeast

pilsen lager yeast (sorry, forgot the number).  The package of yeast was

dated 8 February.  By Friday morning the pack had expanded to about 3/4

to 1 inch in thickness.  I pitched this into 3/4 quart of wort I had

prepared the evening before.  The wort starter was made by mixing 3 Tbs

of an amber DME with 3/4 quart water in a 1 1/2 quart clean juice jar.

I capped the jar and shook vigorously to mix well.  I then uncapped the

jar, covered with tin foil, and put into a 16 quart kettle with about

4 inches of water.  I brought the water in the kettle, with the jar of

wort, to a boil and simmered for about 1/2 hour to sterilize.  The kettle

was covered during the boil and simmer.  I then let the wort cool to room

temperature (65F) overnight.  The next morning was when I pitched the

yeast from the pack.  That was last Friday.  To date nothing, nadda,

zilch, has happened.  I've kept the supposed starter capped with aluminum

foil and in a paper bag to avoid exposure to light.  The wort has remained

around 65F.  Nothing!!!.  I did shake vigorously after adding the yeast.

Several times since I've sloshed the wort around thinking that maybe it

needed more aeration, nothing.  The only thing that has changed is that

when I slosh the wort around it does foam (some gas coming out of solution?)

 Does anyone have any ideas.  I don't want to brew 5 gallons of

wort only to pitch a dead starter but then again I have no way of telling

if this starter is dead or not.

 I called the supply house where i got the yeast and they mentioned

that the low pressure storm system which just came through Phila may have

caused the starter to mis-start.  This seems suspicious to me, however,

because I've never heard of problems at higher elevations where atmospheric

pressure is also less than at sea lever.

 [CAny help you'all can give would be immensly appriciated [D [D [D [D [D [D [D [Dreciated.  I don't

have a cooling system for brewing lagers and this may be the last chance

of the season I have.  If I have to get another pack of yeast then so be it

but I'd like to have the advise of some of you experts before doing so.

 cheers,

  JW

------------------------------


Falling Krausen

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 9:09:59 EST

From: rri!jreid@vtserf.cc.vt.edu (Joe Reid)

Subject: Falling Krausen

I have a question about when the krausen begins to fall after 2-3 days of

very active fermentation.  As the krausen falls I am left with (real techinical

term here) "brown sludge" stuck to the sides of my primary (plastic bucket).

The fermentation slows rapidly after this, and if I scrape the sludge into the

beer it begins fermentating again.

The question is, should I be scraping this sludge back into the beer?  Am I

doing something wrong to be getting the sludge in the first place?  This has

happened to all of my batches (batch #5 should be falling today or tomorrow)

and all of my batches are extract/DME (kits with DME not corn sugar (though

this did happen on my first batch with was corn sugar)).  My method is bring

1.5 gals of water to a boil, add about 4 lbs of liquid extract and about

5 cups of DME (about 2 lbs) and boil for 10-15 minutes.  Cool in a sink of

cold water (bath style) and transfer into primary, top to 5 gals, stir

vigorously, and pitch (my tap water is about 45F, so 3-2 gals of 100F wort

and 2-3 gals of 45F water cool nicely once in the primary.

Any hints would be appreciated.

Also looking for "Killian's" style recipes (Irish red ale/lager, ales prefered,

extract or partial mash prefered though an all-grain might lure me into starting

do to all-grains (I have a wort chiller on the way, should be here today))

- --

Joe Reid - UNIX Systems Administrator

jreid!rri@vtserf.cc.vt.edu

jreid@vtssi.vt.edu

vpcjoe@vtcs1.bitnet

if you can't tell, I'm a programmer, all my paretheses match up, no matter

how many levels deep.... :)

------------------------------


finland

Date: 17 Mar 1993 10:05:14 -0400 (EDT)

From: KLIGERMAN@herlvx.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: finland

I'll be traveling to the Espoo-Helsinki area of Finland in mid-April

I would be interested in meeting any homebrewers, or be referred to

brew pubs, breweries, or local beer in the area.  Please reply by

HBD or e-mail.  Thanks

Andy

------------------------------


Follow up on Succanat

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 10:06 EST

From: "C. Lyons / Raytheon-ADC / Andover, MA" <LYONS@adc1.adc.ray.com>

Subject: Follow up on Succanat

I've been following the thread on Succanat and have a few

follow-up questions.  My main question is if anyone has any

thought as to the SG/lb/gal number.  I have been trying to duplicate

"Old Peculier" with out much success.  I have re-read Dave

Line's book and he suggests that the secret is with the priming

sugars used.  He recommends using Black Treacle for priming.

I've been told that Molasses is similar to Treacle, and that

using it for priming is not the same as using it for primary

fermentation.  Apparently, alot of the aroma+ of the molasses is

scrubbed during primary fermentation, whereas it is trapped when

priming at bottling.  From Charlie's book (TNCJOHB) he recommends

using 1 cup of molasses for priming, when substituting molasses

for the standard 3/4 cup of corn sugar.  Does anyone think that

using Succanat for priming will help in simulating "Old

Peculier".  Any suggestions for the amount to use at priming

would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Chris

p.s.  I did call the manufacturer, and was told it can also be

purchased at the Rockingham Mall in Salem, NH. (but only sold in

1 & 2 lb quantities there).

------------------------------


Beer Questions

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 08:40:13 -0700

From: reeves@lanl.gov (Geoff Reeves)

Subject: Beer Questions

> MREGO1@vax.clarku.edu writes:

> My questions are:  Did the Cara-pils cause the haze? (I used it to

> give it a little more body, but have since learned that it is not

> like other specialty grains.)  I've heard of using gelatin for

> trapping the haze, is this a good idea, and if so how to do it.

> And lastly, if I do use gelatin should I be concerned that it would

> trap all the yeast too? (I do need some yeast in my bottles for

> carbonation.)

Mike,

        The Cara-pils may have contributed to your haze but it may be other

factors too. Haze is nothing to worry about. It is easily removed. Standard

haze precautions are (1) a good rolling boil to produce a hot break in

which whiteish brown gunk seems to come to the surface (2) irish moss. It's

a good idea to boil this for the last 5 min or so of your boil to give the

protein something to stick to which will sink. (3) Cold break. Snow is not

very good at cooling things down. In fact it's a pretty good insulator.

Some snow melts but then a layer of air will form between the pot and the

snow and it will take a long time to chill. Putting the pot in the bathtub

or sink with ice water works better. (4) The beer may clear on its own.

Wait until it's done fermenting and see if it's clear. (5) If none of those

work then gelatin can be added to the fermenter. Mix a pack of unflavored

gelatin with about a cup of warm (but not boiling water). Just pour it in

the fermenter. If you keep the fermenter cold after that it will

precipitate even more quickly. It may take some yeast out of suspension but

I usually add the gelatin a day or two before I'm ready to bottle. There

will definitely be enough yeast left for conditioning. I've had numerous

haze problems (usually becuase I forget or skip one of the steps above) but

I've always been able to clear my beer eventually.

Good Luck.

Geoff

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Geoff Reeves:  Space Science Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory   |

|                reeves@sstcx1.lanl.gov  or  essdp2::reeves (span)        |

|                Phone (505) 665-3877                                     |

|                Fax   (505) 665-4414                                     |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

|    A brewery is like a toothbrush. Everyone should have their own.      |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


Where to get a "Malt mill".

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 10:45:25 EST

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: Where to get a "Malt mill".

To Taylor Hutt - The Malt mill is available via mail from "Beer and

Wine Hobby" in Woburn MA. 1-800-523-5423.  The price for the non- adjustable

model is $119.  I'd recommend the adjustable model (about another $20)

because 6 row barley has smaller kernels and a tighter adjustment is

helpful here.  I don't know if BWH carries the adjustable but I've seen it

locally (20 miles north of Boston).

I'm seriously thinking of junking my Corona and getting the Malt mill.  I've

used it and it's great.

Tony Verhulst

------------------------------


Homebrew Digest #1099 (March 17, 1993)

Date: 17 Mar 1993 07:58:07 PST

From: "JSDAWS1@PROFSSR" <JSDAWS1@PB1.PacBell.COM>

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1099 (March 17, 1993)

*** Reply to note of 03/17/93 00:46

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1099 (March 17, 1993)

I've read some posts regarding the use of lye as a cleaning agent.  I use

it regularly on my glass primary fermenter... but a definite word of caution.

Water alone will NOT entirely clean this stuff off the glass, and it took a

batch of soap-suds beer (which went down the sink) to make that point.  I

now rinse with a weak citric acid solution after using lye and have had no

further suprises.

|    If it's good for ancient druids runnin naked thru the woods      |

|   drinkin strange fermented fluids then it's good enough for me.    |

| JACK DAWSON  -  JSDAWS1  -  415 545-0299  -  CUSTOMER BILLING  (BG) |

------------------------------


Sterilized bottles

Date:         17 Mar 93 09:30:07 EDT

From: CRD@imagesys.com (Chris Dukes)

Subject:      Sterilized bottles

I have been following the thread on sterilization/sanitization, but have

yet to read anything regarding what to do once the bottles have been

sterilized, other than fill them with homebrew. ;-)

Once the bottles are boiled, bleached, NaOH'ed, etc. . .where do you keep

them before they are filled and capped?  I am concerned about nasties

falling into the bottles while they are waiting to be filled.  Should I

bottle a six or twelve pack at a time to make sure no bottles are waiting

too long?

I have been cleaning the whole bunch and then filling and capping.  I

believe I have run across an infection in one or two bottles (not the

whole batch).  Therefore I have concluded that either the bottles weren't

sterilized well enough, or something got into the bottle after

sterilization.

Any help/advice on the subject would be greatly appreciated.  All grain

snobs and lowly extract brewers responses are more than welcome! ;-)

 -Chris Dukes  crd@imagesys.com   Image Systems Technology, Inc.

  Product Manager                 Rensselaer Technology Park

  CAD Overlay Products            385 Jordan Road

                                  Troy, NY 12180

  Tel:518-283-8783 Ext. 550       Fax:518-283-8790

------------------------------


Re: Vierka yeast

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 10:03:05 MST

From: Steve Dempsey <steved@longs.lance.colostate.edu>

Subject: Re: Vierka yeast

In HBD #1099 SMITH@EPVAX.MSFC.NASA.GOV (The Ice-9-man Cometh) writes:

> About Vierka yeast:  Has anyone used this stuff before?  I used one

> of their wine varieties for a mead last weekend, and it still ain't

> bubblin'.  The weird part was, instead of the little yellow globs I'm

> used to in dry yeast packets, there were what looked like dried herbs

> in the package.

I asked this question some time ago when I tried the Vierka mead yeast.

It seems the funny stuff is rice hulls used as the culture medium.

While this might work ok when the yeast is fresh, it seems to get in

the way of drying/processing.  So you get a lot less active yeast

than other brands, which are all yeast and no rice.

In practical terms, these yeasts need a starter to work up to reasonable

pitching quantities.  Or you could pitch multiple packets to get enough

for a shorter lag.  Even with a starter, the one I tried took 3-4 days

to get going in 500ml.  I don't think the yeast is very viable to begin

with.  I did end up plating out the culture to make sure I had something

clean.  It turned out to be one of my best meads ever.

================================    Engineering Network Services

Steve Dempsey                       Colorado State University

steved@longs.lance.colostate.edu    Fort Collins, CO  80523

================================    +1 303 491 0630

------------------------------


Murphy Creek Brewery, Fast mashing & stolen kegs

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 09:05:52 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Murphy Creek Brewery, Fast mashing & stolen kegs

Well I finally got up to Murphys with Micah to see the brewery he is working

on. Well there is a lot of work to be done, but Micah says he could brew

beer now if he had to. They (Murphy's Creek brewery) are waiting for the

wheels of BATF and all the assorted agencies to do their thing for

liscensing. While I was there I was looking at some of the specs on malt,

hops and yeast etc. and a quote from GW malt stated that the conversion time

for their pale malt (Harrington) is 5-7 minutes! Has anyone ever tried to

sparge after a 10 minute mash? Sounds like a good test for Jack S. with all

that time to burn!

Micah also relayed a comment he heard from a supplier of kegs. The supplier

said that the big boys are going after some people who own thier kegs. We're

talking about both the 15 gal sanke and the 5 gal cornelious style. The guys

comment was that even if you bought the keg legally from someone, they did

not have the right to sell their property. Therefore you purchased stolen

property. I would imagine the likelyhood of coke or pepsi going after

someone is remote, since they are going to the bag approach for their

syrupes. However, I wouldn't say the same for the megabrewerys, about their

15 gal SS kegs. I know a lot of micros are using these kegs and have seen

cases where they have bondo over the original owners name. Micah is buying

all new LEGAL kegs for their operation. Does anyone know of a case where

the megabreweys have went after someone? I hear tale that it HAS happened

on the east coast.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


questions on yeast/priming sugar for a barleywine

Date:    Wed, 17 Mar 1993 12:05:35 -0500 (EST)

From: P_LABRIE@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Paul LaBrie)

Subject: questions on yeast/priming sugar for a barleywine

Last December I made an all-grain barleywine which appears to have some

promise. My questions are: 1) how much priming sugar should I be using (I

currently have the barleywine racked off to 2 - 1 gal glass jugs fitted with

airlocks). 2) I used CWE Plus Wine Yeast, ala Dave Line, which seemed to handle

the fermentation OK...my question is "will this yeast sufficiently reactivate

in the presence of the priming sugar or should I be looking at some alterna-

tive?"

I have a pretty good idea for priming sugar amounts, but am honestly looking

for opinions as this is my first attempt at a barleywine.  I admit to being

particularly nervous about the ability of the CWE yeast to see its way through

the bottle conditioning/carbonation phase, if only because I've never tried

this stuff before. Any comments would be appreciated.

FWIW, all of my other beers are kegged -- I hate washing bottles 8-(

 - paul -

P_LABRIE@UNHH.UNH.EDU

p.s. I gave the second runnings of the barleywine sparge to a neighbor who

brews extract beers...it provided a nice adjunct (probably a poor choice of

terms here) to a batch of his stock bitter.

------------------------------


sugar request, data point on aging

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 11:08:27 cdt

From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: sugar request, data point on aging

I recently brewed an extract-based Bass-alike using Demarara that I really

like.  My only thoughts on improving this beer next time around are, "more of

everything"!  (My motto is, moderation in all things, but especially in

moderation.)  One thing I would especiallyu like more of is the effect I

perceive from the brown sugar stuff, and from the descriptions given of

"succanat" recently, I'm itching to try it.  However, I haven't lived in

Boston for a few years, and consequently I don't get to Bread and Circus all

that much.  Can I mail order this stuff from somewhere?

And how do you pronounce "succanat"?  Suck a gnat?  Sue can not?

Secondly, for what it's worth I cracked open a couple of bottles of extract

brewed steam beer last night that were about a year old.  They tasted pretty

crummy (but still better than Bud :) !!)  I'm not using oxygen-eating caps,

but it might make an interesting experiment - not that I let brews sit

around for very long at my house, anyway....

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Re: RIMS

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 09:36:32 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: RIMS

Quite some time ago, in an HBD long since passed, I prevaricated:

>Following through on an idea from George Fix, I'm working on a summary

>of all of the RIMS discussions from the HBD back-issues.

I haven't forgotten, and I haven't been able to read an HBD since that

very day, so if you've flamed me for forgetting and then for forgetting

your flame, forget it.

The check's still in the mail...don't abandon hope!  (Until I tell you

to abandon hope.  Then, and ONLY then, should you abandon hope.)

have fun

gak

Castro Valley, California

P.S.  How's that for a zero-content article?

------------------------------


Culturing Sierra Nevada Yeast

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 10:13:37 -0800

From: tims@ssl.Berkeley.EDU

Subject: Culturing Sierra Nevada Yeast

Dear Joel,

 Your procedure for culturing sierra nevada sounds

fine, as far as amateur homebrewing goes (which is certainly

where I stand as well).  Real yeast culturers do much more,

isolating single colonies on specially prepared slats and

all, and some homebrewers do this too.  Short of going

that far, I think you are doing the right thing.

 HOWEVER, I have stopped doing what you do after

I lost too many contaminated batches.  When I stopped

culturing the yeast at the bottom of the bottles, I have

had no contaminated batches.  I began to suspect that it

was not my culturing procedure, which was similar to yours,

but that maybe the yeast at the bottom of the bottles wasn't

all that pure, and culturing it adds exponentially

to the bad population.    Due to the easy availability

of good SN yeast (Wyeast 1056 is close to SN) in packages,

I just get this.  Usually, I make a starter.

 When I added in all my bad batches, it was certainly

not cost effective to culture the yeast.

Relax, ...

Tim Sasseen

------------------------------


...more manifold ideas

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 14:31:46 EST

From: envkas@sn370.utica.ge.com (Karl A. Sweitzer)

Subject: ...more manifold ideas

Here is my variation on Jeff Benjamins system...

          /   flush tube to clean out manifold before sparging

         /

        /

   e--t-t-t--e    -

   |  |   |  |       | = 1/2 in rigid copper tubes w/ slots

   |  |   |  |       T = 1/2 by 3/8 t fitting

   |  |   |  |       e = 1/2 in elbows

   |  |   |  |       t = 1/2 in t fitting

   |  |   |  |       - = short pieces of rigid copper tubing

   e--t-T-t--e    -

        |

        |      3/8 in clear plastic drain tube thru end of cooler

The flush tube runs vertically up the end of the cooler and

has a cap on it during the mash stage.  When I am ready to

start sparging, I run water thru the flush tube untill the

run off is clear.  The run off is recycled onto the top of

the mash to filter back thru the mash.

This flush idea came from Brewing Lager Beer by G. Noonan.

I adapted it to the cooler manifold concept and have been

very happy with the outcome... untill my last batch. The flush

tube came off while I was stirring the mash.  I then fished the

manifold out with a bent coat hanger and put the flush tube back

on.  The only problem was that my drain tube came off without my

knowing it.  I ended up with a open ended 3/8 in plastic tube for

a manifold.  The grain bed formed the filter, but the rate at

which the wort ran off was painfully slow, only a very fine trickle.

At the time I thought it was because I had ground my grains finer

to get a higher extract (last time I will do that again anyway).

The next time I plan to dimple the end of each copper tube with a

center punch (punch from the inside of the tubes).  This will form a

tighter fit that can still be dissassembled.

Karl Sweitzer

envkas@sn370.utica.ge.com

------------------------------


Chili Pepper Beer

Date: 17 Mar 93 10:29:12 U

From: "Michael Blongewicz" <esri!mailgate.boris!mblongewicz@uunet.UU.NET>

Subject: Chili Pepper Beer

                       Subject:                               Time:3:24 PM

  OFFICE MEMO          Chili Pepper Beer                      Date:3/16/93

Hey folks,

With Cinco de Mayo quickly approaching, I'm in need of a good/well tested

extract#004# chili pepper recipe.  My biggest question is how many chilies and what

form the chilies should be in, for a 5 gallon batch.  If anyone has such a

recipe or the necessary information, just email it to me at

mblongewicz@esri.com.

Thanks

Michael

------------------------------


Re: Copper lautering manifold

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 14:47:33 EST

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: Re: Copper lautering manifold

In HBD1099 Jeff Benjamin describes a sparge manifold

system which connects to a siphon hose as follows:

>You will need to come up with some way to connect your siphon hose the

>the 1/2 inch standpipe.  We found a 1/2" to 3/8" ID reducer fitting and

>a short piece of 3/8" OD tubing will connect nicely to a standard vinyl

>siphon hose:

>                         -----===

>                              |  /__  3/8"  _______

>          1/2 inch copper     |redu |------|siphon hose

>                              | cer_|------|______

>                              |  /

>                         -----===

>Also, the reducer and 3/8" OD copper need to be soldered so they don't

>suck in air, since they're the only fittings that sit above the liquid

>level.  [Note:  soldering copper is easy; it requires a few cents worth

>of plumbing-safe solder and flux and a $15 propane torch.  Ask the

>friendly folks at your local hardware store.]

Instead of soldering on the reducing coupling you could also use

a brass compression reducing coupling.  To go from 1/2 inch

copper tubing to 3/8 OD flexible copper tubing you will need

a 5/8 to 3/8 reducing coupler since the OD of stiff 1/2 copper

tubing is 5/8". (Bring samples of you tubing to the hardware store

to make sure.) Before siphoning you must make the fitting tight

using two wrenches.

I've been using a similar setup for my last 2 all grain batches

except I use an "I" formation with the standpipe coming up from the

center:

Looking down from the top

                         tee

    cap[----x----]cap

                          |

     |

                          |

     O tee with standpipe coming up

     |     out of the page

     |

     |

                  cap[----x----]cap

    tee

I stole ideas from this forum, possibly from some remarks Jeff

made a few months ago, and agree with the advantages he mentions.

------------------------------


Re: stuck ferment/cara-pils/favorite recipes

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 14:31 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: stuck ferment/cara-pils/favorite recipes

Colin writes:

>     I'm making an American Pale Ale using Wyeast #1056. I broke the inner

>seal of the yeast package, last Tuesday night, intending to brew on

>Thursday. By mid-Wednesday, the package was ready for use. Thursday

>afternoon, after the boil, the wort took quite a while to cool. Since I

>don't have a chiller at this time, I put the bucket outside, surrounded by

>snow (Minnesota). It still didn't cool very fast, and I was running low on

>time, so I pitched the yeast at about 83 degrees and placed the vessel in

>our basement which is about 64 degrees. 24 hours later there was no sign

>of fermentation, so I brought it upstairs, hoping that a change of temp

>would get it kick started. After a few hours in a 75 degree room, it

>started bubbling. It reached a peak of about 2 bubbles per second Saturday

>afternoon, then fell off to almost nothing. The other batches I've brewed,

>had a much longer and healthier fermentation than that.

You certainly gave the yeast a shock if you dumped them from room temp into

83 degrees, but not nearly as bad as if you would have suddenly LOWERED their

temperature 10 degrees.  I recently started a batch with Wyeast #1056 and

I pitched a 500ml, 72F starter into 72F wort (the great thing about immersion

chillers is that if you overcool, you can easily warm the wort up with hot

water just as easily).  I then set the fermenter into a 61F room (DUH!) and

let the yeast do their thing.  They promptly did absolutely nothing, for two

days.  When I moved it upstairs to the study (69F), they started in a few

hours.  When I closed the door, to keep the carboy (covered with a couple

of brown garbage bags) darker, the temp dropped down to 60F (DUH!!).  The

yeast slowed down again.  When I opened the door and warmed up the room,

they started again.  They've probably rebelled against me and spewed all

kinds of phenolics into my ESB.  Let's hope not.  I know much better than

to do this (really), but I haven't been giving my beer the attention

lately that it deserves or used to get.  Back to the question...

At 75F, I could see the 1056 fermenting out the whole batch in 2 or 3

days.  This would not be surprising.  The beer would jsut tend to be

a bit frutier than if the ferment was done at 70F throughout.  Check the

gravity.  If its gravity is 35% to 25% of the original gravity, then

it's done.  If the gravity is significantly higher than this, then you

may have a stuck ferment, but I doubt it.  Stuck ferments are usually

caused by sudden changes in temperature in the *middle* of a ferment,

not the beginning.  Once the yeast starts, if the temp doesn't vary

widely, the yeast will just ferment till they run out of sugars.

*****************

Mike (the palondromist) writes:

>My first attempt at a lager was a modified version of Papazian's

>Crabalocker German Pils, and I brewed it on 2/21/93.  The ingredients

>were 3 kg (6.6 lb) Ireks Munich light unhopped extract, .5 lb Cara-pils

>malt, 1.5 oz Hallertauer (boiling), .5 oz Saaz (boiling), .5 oz Hallertauer

>(flavor), .5 oz Saaz (flavor), 1 oz Hallertauer (aroma), and 14 gm

>European lager yeast (G.W. Kent).

>

>The Cara-pils was put in a muslin bag in 1.5 gal water and removed when

>water began to boil.  Then the extract and boiling hops were added.  The

>flavor hops were added at 30 min, and the aroma hops were added for the

>last 2 min of a 60 min boil.

>

>It fermented for 5 days at room temp in plastic primary (it just

>wouldn't start in the cold 50 degree closet).  I guess this makes it

>a steam beer, right?  Anyway, then I moved it back to the cold closet

Right.

>until 3/10/93 (10 days in primary).  It was then racked to the glass

>secondary.  At that point it was very cloudy, and disappointingly

>an amber color.  It has been five days now, and the haze has mostly

>settled.

>

>My questions are:  Did the Cara-pils cause the haze? (I used it to

>give it a little more body, but have since learned that it is not

>like other specialty grains.)  I've heard of using gelatin for

>trapping the haze, is this a good idea, and if so how to do it.

>And lastly, if I do use gelatin should I be concerned that it would

>trap all the yeast too? (I do need some yeast in my bottles for

>carbonation.)

If it's cloudy in the fermenter, it's most probably the yeast.  Perhaps

this yeast you used is not a good flocculator.  I suggest not worrying,

bottling it when it's ready, letting it carbonate at room temp for two

weeks, and then lagering it in the bottles between 35F and 40F to settle

the yeast.  Another cause for the haze may be bacterial, but let's hope

it's not.  If the beer was clear at room temp, but threw a haze when

chilled, that would be chill haze and would be partly due to the tannins

you extracted from the husks of the Cara-pils.  I remove my specialty

grains (in extract+specialty batches) at 170F.  I was tasting three

of my beers last night and one seemed more astringent than the other

two.  I checked my brewing log, and there it was: "accidentally boiled

grains for 10 minutes."  No haze by-the-way, probably because I used

a wort chiller and got a great cold break.  I've even stopped using

Irish Moss -- I felt it was reducing my head retention.

Now, who was it that started the rumour that Cara-pils is not like other

specialty malts?  I have been treating it just like any other Crystal

malt with no problems.  The one difference is that U.S. Dextrin Malt

(another name for Cara-pils) which is made from scrawny 6-row grains

is hard as ball bearings!  You could break a tooth on that stuff!  The

DeWolf-Cosyns Cara-pils is made from 2-row and is nice and plump and

not at all like US Cara-pils.  Bottom line is, that Cara-pils is just

very pale Crystal Malt (7.87L or 15 EBC for the DeWolf-Cosyns).

******************

Andrew writes:

> I'd like to ask anyone of you out there, if you have a fovorite

>brew !  I would hope you do, but does anyone have one that is very easy

>to mix together.  This isn't the first time i've brewed, but i've only

>used the cans of malt and corn sugar, so i'm looking for something a

>little different.

Get a copy of The Cat's Meow from the archives.  It contains a lot of

our (the HBD) favorites and will give you a lot of great recipes.  On

the subject of favorite brews, I have a lot of favorites, depending on

my mood, I could not have one favorite recipe -- I'd get bored with it.

Al.

------------------------------


Re: SNPA culturing/boiling/more on yeast culturing

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 14:46 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: SNPA culturing/boiling/more on yeast culturing

Joel writes:

>I have a couple of beginner questions on culturing yeast from

>Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

>

>I have tried culturing SNPA yeast using the following procedure:

>

>        1)  Prepare an SG 1.040 highly hopped wort, strain out

>            hops, and reurn to boil for another 15 minutes in

>            covered pan.

1040 is a bit high.  I suggest 1020 and I don't hop my starters at all.

You can if you want -- the hops will reduce the chance of bacterial

infection, but I would avoid "highly hopped," but that's just a gut

feeling, not based upon anything I've read.

>        2)  Carefully sterilize a pyrex measuring cup by boiling

>            for 30 minutes.  Cover with Al foil which has been

>            flamed.  Cool wort by placing covered pan in ice cubes.

>

>        3)  Open SNPA, pour out almost all beer, sterilize bottle

>            top using alcohol and flame.  Pour cool wort into SNPA

>            bottle, add airlock, wait.

>

>        4)  After 1 day, contents of SNPA bottle at high krausen.

>            Step culture into Erlenmeyer using similar paranoid

>            sterilization procedures.

>

>        5)  After 1 more day, culture in Erlenmeyer at high

>            krausen, looks good.

>

>At this point everything seems OK, but when I went to pitch, I

>smelled the starter, and it smelled vaguely of bubblegum, which

>I have been told is a sign of possible contamination.  Lacking

>an alternative, I pitched it anyway.

Perhaps a result of higher-than-usual temperatures.  I suspect that

everything was okay.

>Also, provided I can get the procedure to work, I would like to

>know if anyone uses cultures from SN Porter or Stout.  I haven't

>seen this mentioned anywhere.

I've cultured from SN Porter (I believe it is the same OG as the SNPA)

but not the Stout (which is only a few points higher in OG, so I don't

see a problem with it).  Culturing from SN Celebration Ale and Bigfoot

Barleywine is not recommended.

************************

Jack writes:

> up with 4 after 90 min is just about right. Frankly, I do not think there is

> such a thing as too vigorous a boil.  If you lose too much wort, just start

> with more.  I would figure on about a gallon per hour of boil.

I disagree.  A vigorous boil we want, but in most cases (i.e. for most

styles) we don't want to caramelize the wort.  The higher the heat, the

more the wort caramelizes.  This would not be good in a Pils style.

> Under no circumstances, do you want to cover the kettle.  Part of the reason

> for boiling is to concentrate the wort.

I agree, but for a different reason.  When the wort is above 140F, SMM

(inherent in malt) is being converted to DMS, which gives your beer a

cooked-corn aroma.  DMS, luckily for us, is quite volatile and boils

off, but only if you boil at least partly uncovered.  A simmer won't cut

it -- it has to be a good, rolling boil, however, the kettle does not have

to be completely uncovered.  I partially cover my kettle (about 1/2 to 2/3)

to reduce heat loss so I can get a good rolling boil with *less flame*,

thereby reducing caramelization.  Before I ripped out my electric stove

and put in a gas one, I would need to partly cover the kettle just to

get the water to boil!

****************

Leo writes:

>I am trying culture the yeast from several bottles

>of SNPA.  I boiled up three

>cups of water with six tablespoons of DME and cooled

>the mixture.  I then poured

>the wort into a sterile half-gallon jug.  I then poured

>all but the last inch of

>the SNPA out of five bottles.  I shook the remaning

>inch of SNPA in order to get

>the yeast in solution and poured the dregs into the

>half-gallon jug.  Nothing

>happened for 2 1/2 days, the brew never fermented

>very fast.  At the peek it

>fermented at maybe 1 bubble per 30s.  Is this slow

>fermentation normal??

Consider the size of the batch and the gravity (which, by the way, was

good for a starter).  Consider that a regular 5-gallon batch would have

almost 27 times the wort.  That equates to almost a bubble per second.

Not bad.  If the wort was 1040 or 1050 or 1060, you could have expected

2 bubbles per second, but 1 bubble/30 sec for a 24 ounce, 1020 starter

is just fine.

>By The Way (BTW) I did vigorously shake the wort

>to aerate the wort before adding

>adding the SNPA yeast.

Good.

>How do you culture yeast from a bottle?

Just like you said, but in a Erlenmeyer flask, in which I boil and cool

my wort -- I let the wort sanitize it's fermentation container.  Just

another great suggestion I snagged from the HBD (by the way -- don't try

to sanitize a plastic airlock with the steam from the boiling wort --

it will melt -- I know... glass airlocks are on order.)

>Should I assume it is OK??

Cautiously assume it's OK.

>How can I tell if it is infected??

Taste and smell, apart from microscope work and plating on differential

media.  I use my tastebuds and leave the lab work to George Fix and Mike

Sharp.

>Is the yeast OK?

Sounds like it's just fine.

Al.

------------------------------


Ph meters...

Date:  Wed, 17 Mar 1993 15:56:15 -0500

From: Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@canrem.com>

Subject: Ph meters...

Hi,

        I finally broke down and bought a ph meter.[The

        hanna unit that American brewer sells if it matters]

        I now have three questions:

        1) can I just use distilled water to calibrate at

        ph7?

        2) can I expect this thing to be reasonably

        calibrated just out of the box? Or should I just

        check to make sure?

        3) Finally is there anything I should look out for?

        Thanks

        Nick

*****************************************************************************

I drink Beer I don't collect cute bottles!

zen%hophead@canrem.com

*****************************************************************************

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1100, 03/18/93

*************************************

-------


sterilization, aeration, filtration.

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 16:42:36 -0500

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: sterilization, aeration, filtration.

I've been reading an intersting book the last week:

The Biotechnology of Malting and Brewing, by J.S. Hough

(Cambridge Univ Press, 1985)

Anyway,  while reading it, i've run across a few things that

answer recent threads on r.c.b and in HBD

All are quoted without permission.

Steam Sterilization: (p.49)

"Steam is also use for sterilisation but can only be fully effective if

it is saturated and operates in hot equipment.  There must be ample

oppotunity for the condensate to escape as the equipment heats up.

At least 30 min steam treatment at 1 bar over pressure after the equipment

has heated to 100C is necessary to achieve sterilisation of a

cleaned piece of equipment."

Wort Aeration: (p. 91)

"Aeration of wort is needed for yeast growth.  Specifically it is

required in small amounts (5-15 mg/l) by the cells in order to

synthesise unsaturafed fatty acids and sterols for intracellular

membranes...Air will provide a maximum of 8 mg/l dissolved oxygen.

Some strains of yeast however require more than this and oxygen is

substituted for air."

Yeast Size: (p. 96)

"A typical brewing yeast cell will, when fully grown, be between 8

and 14 um diameter and have a mass of about 40 pg when dry.  Thus,

10^12 dried cells will weigh 40 g."

Control of Infections: (P. 111)

in austenitic stainless steel vessels,

"The sequence is wash thoroughly by water, using high pressure

revolving jets or static spray balls in the vessels.  When the

water has drained, hot caustic soda (usually with

some sodium hypochlorite) is used as a detergent-sanitizer.

The caustic soda kills microbes effectively and is an excellent

dissolver of protein.  It is not however suitable for dissolving

and keeping in suspension calcium salts, therefor additions

of various polyphosphates, metasilicates or guconates may be made.

The hypochlorite is a source of free chlorine and therefore a strong

bacteriocide; it also enhances the cleaning power of the

detergent.  Free chlorine is however a dangerous agent of corrosion

of stainless steel if the pH of the solution falls to neutrality or below."

Filtration: (Pg. 143-147)

Several filtration techniques are talked about.  Its too long to post.

Bottom line is that diatomaceous earth (kieselguhr) is the

most popular filter type.  This, in combination with a secondary

membrane filtration does a great job.  1.0 um membranes will be expected

to prevent yeasts from be penetrating, and a 0.2 um membrane would be

expected to hold back bacteria.

 Tim

- ----

Timothy J. Dalton                                   tjdalton@mit.edu

MIT, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Materials Etching Technology Lab

------------------------------


New brewer

Date:        Wed, 17 Mar 93 16:13:26 EST

From: YC06000 <YC06%FERRIS.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

Subject: New brewer

Hi-

I am new to the art of homebrewing.  I have a couple of small

paperbacks on the subject, but would like to know if there

is one or two good sources for us novices?  I have yet to brew

my first batch, but I am getting anxious to start.  Any info

that you longtime brewers can impart to a beginner would be

greatly appreciated.

I just moved to Big Rapids, MI and don't know where I could get

brewing supplies.  Is mail order the answer? Help!!!

Thanks for your time!

Dan deRegnier  yc06@ferris.bitnet

Ferris State University

Big Rapids, MI

------------------------------


crystal malt in muslin bag

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 14:20:28 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: crystal malt in muslin bag

In HBD 1099 Mike Rego asks about Cara-pils haze.  This prompts me to ask a

more general question regarding the addition of other malts to an

all-extract brew.  Up until now I've been putting these in a tighly-woven

hop bag, but am convinced that the bag is too small, packing all the grains in

much too closely and restricting the extraction I get.

I'm thinking of using a much larger bag made out of muslin, but am wondering

if the much coarser weave will allow undesirable things into the wort.  My

procedure is generally to steep the grains for 20 minutes or so at 170

degrees, then remove the bag prior to bringing the wort to the boil.

The grain crushing process (either a rolling pin for me, or sometimes I buy

it pre-crushed from my brew shop) produces powder along with broken grains.

How important is it to sift all this powder out?  If it gets into the wort

will it cause any problems?

My thoughts are that the muslin idea would work, because in full grain brewing

all this stuff is thrown in with no strainer bag, right?

Any comments/suggestions are most welcome.

 Peter

------------------------------


Disappointing Results

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 15:43:44 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Disappointing Results

Mike Rego asks:

>

>

> My first attempt at a lager was a modified version of Papazian's

> Crabalocker German Pils, and I brewed it on 2/21/93.

>

[deleted]

> The Cara-pils was put in a muslin bag in 1.5 gal water and removed when

> water began to boil.  Then the extract and boiling hops were added.  The

> flavor hops were added at 30 min, and the aroma hops were added for the

> last 2 min of a 60 min boil.

>

At that point it was very cloudy, and disappointingly

> an amber color.  It has been five days now, and the haze has mostly

> settled.

>

> My questions are:  Did the Cara-pils cause the haze? (I used it to

> give it a little more body, but have since learned that it is not

> like other specialty grains.)

Here are some answers (even to questions you didn't ask): the amber

color is not surprising, really.  You'll find that one company's "light"

is another's "amber" and that truly pale beers are tough to make from

extracts.  In part, this is because the evaporation process necessary to

create syrup from wort often is allowed to darken the product.  But the

German syrups are particularly dark, or they were several years ago when

I did an experiment for Zymurgy and compared a dozen brands of extract.

Carapils does not cause haze, although there seems to be an odd train of

thought out there to this effect.  On the other hand, regardless of what

Charlie Papazian says, you shouldn't be boiling your specialty grains.

Far better to get them out earlier, and even better to simply steep them

at about 150F for an hour or so, then rinse them and use the resulting

liquid along with your extract.  Carapils will give your beer more body

if it's properly used; I can't imagine what "not like other specialty

grains" means in this context, but it sounds as though someone was

giving it a bum rap.  Carapils also has the added benefit of enhancing

the "maltiness" of beer, which is why microbrewers often use it in

conjunction with American pale malt.

I'm a little confused about what you mean by "haze" in a fermenting

beer.  Was it hazy when it went into the carboy, and did it not clear at

all (with a large deposit of solids) within an hour or two.  After the

yeast takes off, of course, there's a whole new "haze" which is just two

or three ***illion yeast cells performing their mating and working

rituals.  If the beer never looked bright in the kettle (taking into

account all the stuff floating around in it -- take a spoonful out and

look to see if the liquid itself is clear when the hop particles etc

have a chance to settle), it's possible your boil is not vigorous

enough.

========================================

On another note, has anyone ever gotten results anything like Charlie's

from one of his recipes?  He seems to bat them out at a fairly high

rate, and I've wondered over the years how much time goes into

developing each one, and whether he's ever brewed one of them more than

once (or better yet, more than three times) before publishing them.

What really struck me was his recipe in the most recent Zymurgy, which

calls for (not having it in front of me, and whoops, here we go again

relying on memory) something in the neighborhood of 3.5# of dry malt

extract and about 3 pounds (maybe a little more) of specialty grains.

This to produce five gallons of a beer over 1.065.  Does anyone else

think this is unlikely?

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


pH meter questions

Date: 18 Mar 1993 08:49:35 -0500 (EST)

From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

Subject: pH meter questions

Nicks asks:

>1) can I just use distilled water to calibrate at ph7?

No.  Distilled water is NOT pH 7, it is acidic due to dissolved CO2.

You need to buy (or make) buffer solutions to accurately calibrate your meter.

Your meter should also have some instructions about calibration.  Many of the

meters have two-point calibrations where you adjust the pH reading at, say, pH

4 and 9.  Since pH varies with temperature, you also need to make sure that you

calibrate it at the temperature specified by the manufacturer (unless your

model has auto-temperature correction).

Steve

------------------------------


Temp. Controls / Freezer

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 8:24:05 CST

From: raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com (Glenn Raudins)

Subject: Temp. Controls / Freezer

Re: Temperature Controls

I would like some feedback on what people think of their temperature controls

for their refrigs/freezers.  Has anyone used the digital one from American

Brewmaster?  I like the idea of the digital ones, but I've only seen ones that

go down to 40 degrees.  I know Williams beverage sell one that goes down to

20 degrees but it does not have a digital display.

Re: Refrig/Freezer

Any recommendations on refrigs/freezers that have worked well for people?  I

seem to think that a chest freezer would allow the best utilization of space

and it would allow the temperatures for lagering.  Also, what results have

people gotten lagering with just their refrigs (down to 40 degrees I believe)?

Glenn Raudins

raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com

------------------------------


Irish Bus trip

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 09:17:06 EST

From: card@apollo.hp.com

Subject: Irish Bus trip

>        From:  boover_c

>        Date:  Wednesday, March 17, 1993   7:40:41 am (EST)

>     Subject:  St. Patrick's Day...

>          To:  junk:

>

>

>  This Irish moment is brought to you by my parents:

>

>   This is a true story, I visited Ireland in the mid 70's during the summer. It

>   was in the 90's, very hot.  My wife and I choose to take the bus from Limerick

>   to Kilarney to "see the countryside". Well the bus trip started at 9 am and

>   due to arrive sometime in the afternoon taking into account a number of stops

>   in citys/towns along the way.  There was a bus driver and a fare collector on

>   board. Besides us there were about 8 other tourist Americans and some local folk

>   going whereever. At the 1st stop, the bus driver would open the door and get out

>   closely followed by his fare collector and walk down the street and disappear.

>   15 minutes later they would re-appear and head out. I didn't think too much of it except

>   we were stopping every 20 or 30 minutes and they would go thru the same routine.

>   Being hot, it became a pain to constantly wait for these guys. Finally, we said let's

>   following these guys. Sure enough, we turn the corner and lo and behold theres a bar!

>   We go in and theres' our driver and fare collector with 2 stouts in front of them.

>   Well needless to say, at every bus stop along the way, the driver would get out and

>   the fare collector and it was like a pied piper after that. By the time we got to

>   Kilarney we were all speaking tonque and having a blast. I asked the driver if he was going

>   back that night and he said no he spends the nite there.

>

>   Have a happy day.

------------------------------


Keeping bottles clean

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 09:35:44 -0500

From: blosskf@ttown.apci.com (Karl F. Bloss)

Subject: Keeping bottles clean

In HBD #1100, CRD@imagesys.com (Chris Dukes) writes:

>Once the bottles are boiled, bleached, NaOH'ed, etc. . .where do you keep

>them before they are filled and capped?  I am concerned about nasties

>falling into the bottles while they are waiting to be filled.  Should I

>bottle a six or twelve pack at a time to make sure no bottles are waiting

>too long?

I use a technique I saw here on the HBD once and has worked well.  After

cleaning, rinsing, and drying the bottles with your favorite method, take a

small square (~ 2"x2") of aluminum foil and seal up the bottle opening.  Then

bake the bottles (theoretically nothing lives over 60C, but I use just over

100C) for 15 minutes and let them slowly cool.  When you're ready to bottle,

just take the foil off.  I've done this up to 3 days before bottling and

have never had an infection yet.

 -Karl

------------------------------


Hong & Singapore

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 09:51:32 -0500

From: jpgareri@acs.bu.edu (Joseph Gareri)

Subject: Hong & Singapore

I have a trip (leaving 3/24) to Hong Kong and Singapore.  I have not found

much in the way for specialty beers for there places.  Does anyone have

suggestions of places to try or try to avoid?  I would appreciate any

responses.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

  jpgareri@acs.bu.edu     "Nothing worthwhile is ever accomplished without

  Joseph P. Gareri         The vision to perceive, The enthusiasm to continue,

  Boston University        And, regardless of temporary obstacles,

  (617) 353-2102           The persistance to complete."     -- Waite Phillips

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

------------------------------


Rye Malt and the Extract Brewer

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 06:51:33 PST

From: julie@eddie.jpl.nasa.gov (Julie Kangas)

Subject: Rye Malt and the Extract Brewer

Hi folks,

I'm wanting to try my hand at making the Finnish beer Sahti.  I've

found the malted rye (a tricky thing) but have a question.  You see,

I'm still an extract brewer and am not ready to go all grain right

now.  So I was wondering how I handle the rye malt.  Should I

treat it like a speciality grain by steeping it in near boiling

water and then adding it to the regular malt?  Or will I need to

do a partial mash?  How would I go about this?

Thanks,

Julie

------------------------------


Yeast starter and bottle drying

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 10:53:49 EST

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1/T09 225-6171  18-Mar-1993 1041 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Yeast starter and bottle drying

In HBD #1100, John Williamson writes:

> I was hoping to brew a lager this past weekend when I ran into

>trouble getting a yeast starter going.  I was hoping that someone out

>there in HB land could shed some light on the situation and perhaps save

>me starting over.  Here are the particulars:

> Thursday evening I broke the inner package on a pack of Wyeast

>pilsen lager yeast (sorry, forgot the number).  The package of yeast was

>dated 8 February.  By Friday morning the pack had expanded to about 3/4

>to 1 inch in thickness.  I pitched this into 3/4 quart of wort I had

>prepared the evening before.  The wort starter was made by mixing 3 Tbs

>of an amber DME with 3/4 quart water in a 1 1/2 quart clean juice jar.

I think your problem was that you used only 3 tbs of DME.  Are you sure you

gave the yeast enough to eat?

Chris Dukes asks about suggestions on what to do with bottles after they've

been sterilized:

>Once the bottles are boiled, bleached, NaOH'ed, etc. . .where do you keep

>them before they are filled and capped?  I am concerned about nasties

>falling into the bottles while they are waiting to be filled.  Should I

>bottle a six or twelve pack at a time to make sure no bottles are waiting

>too long?

I suggest that you keep the bottles with the open end down to prevent stuff

falling into them.  I can get about a case of 16 oz. bottles into a standard

dish drainer.  That's a pain since a 5 gal. batch takes about a case and a

half of bottles.  So, I picked up a drying rack.  It's a plastic tower that

holds up to 45 bottles and is expandable in increments of 9.  I wipe it down

with a bleach solution while my bottles are soaking, rinse the bottles with a

bottle washer attached to a faucet, and then let the bottles drip dry on the

rack.  It works great and doesn't take up much counterspace.  You might be

able to make one out of wood, but I'm not sure you could keep it as clean as

the plastic version.  I bought it at a local homebrew supply shop for around

$25.

I've heard of other folks using the dishwasher set on rinse and dry, but

that's not an option for me since I don't have a dishwasher or any room in the

kitchen to put one.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Chili Pepper Beer

Date: 18 Mar 1993 08:57:06 -0600 (MDT)

From: Mark Taratoot <SLNDW@CC.USU.EDU>

Subject: Chili Pepper Beer

Greetings.

I usually put half a chili in each bottle before sealing the crown.

First slice the pepper lenghwise.

Then remove the seeds (but not the inner white membrane)

Rinse

Put half (or two halves) chili in each bottle you want to "pepperize"

Seal crown

I have found that as soon as the beer is carbonated and conditioned it

is at it's best "pepperness."  The chili aroma and flavor seem to

mellow with age.  I cracked open a chili beer that had been sitting for

a couple of months, and the flavor was there, but it was very subdued.

So, maybe wait a couple of weeks if you want a beer that is at it's

greatest pepper potential for cinco de mayo.

I have tried putting chilis in with the boil, but the finished product

did not have any "pep," just a bit of peppery flavor.  Also, with the

pepper in the bottle trick, you can make less than a batch of pepperized

brew.  Perhaps if you plan on crating more than one batch of beer to be

consumed by may 5, then pepperize some of each and do a side by side

by side by side comparison of all the pepperized/non pepperized beers.

 -toot

------------------------------


Basic Homebrewing in Spanish?

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 08:05:32 PST8PDT

From: myersr@geoduck.nosc.mil

Subject: Basic Homebrewing in Spanish?

Anyone know where I can find basic homebrewing instructions written

in spanish?  I have a friend near Mexico City who is extremely

interested in learning how to brew beer.  He wants to someday serve it

in his restaurant.  Is there a spanish edition of  "The Complete Joy of

Homebrewing"?

Thanks,

Dick Myers

------------------------------


hop vine spacing

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 09:50:47 MST

From: smithey@fuji.Central.Sun.COM (Brian Smithey)

Subject: hop vine spacing

I'm waiting for my hop rhizome order to arrive from Freshops.

In the meantime, a friend has already received his, and tells

me that 6 ft. spacing is recommended between varieties.  I have

a good idea where I want to put them, but I'll only have about

4.5 - 5 ft between varieties.  I'd like to hear from some

experienced growers out there:  how far apart your varieties

are, any problems, speculation on whether I'll get into trouble

with closer than 6' spacing, etc.

Thanks,

Brian

- --

Brian Smithey / Sun Microsystems / Colorado Springs, CO

smithey@rmtc.Central.Sun.COM

------------------------------


Maltmill and Easymash source

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 11:29:31 EST

From: mcharry@freedom.cwc.com (McHarry)

Subject: Maltmill and Easymash source

A number of brewers suppliers (chandlers?) carry these things.  Last I

knew, you could also order them directly from:

Jack Schmidling Productions

4501 Moody

Chicago, IL 60630

+1 312 685 1878

You can also E-mail Jack for more info on current prices, retailers, etc.

He is a little reticent about posting commercials, but will probably reply

privately.

I use both these devices and am quite pleased with them.  You can build an

Easymash yourself--Jack posts directions from time to time.  If you want it

done right the first time, Jack doesn't charge that much over the cost of

parts for his kit, which has had some die work done on the air cock.

The Maltmill is another thing again.  It has custom castings, from recycled

aluminum cans!  I have no idea how Jack grooves the rollers, or where he

gets the stock.  It also is well-made and worth the investment.  I have the

non-adjustable version and have had no problems crushing various malts and

even raw rye.

I seem to recall that the Maltmill is about 120-125 dollars and the

Easymash is about 25 dollars.  If you order direct there is a small

shipping charge, but only one charge for both ordered together.

disclaimer--I have no interest in any of Jack's businesses.  I am just a

satisfied customer and amused observer.

------------------------------


Re: Chili Pepper Beer

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1993 11:04:30 CST

From: "Roger Deschner  " <U52983@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject: Re: Chili Pepper Beer

I've not been incautious enough to make one, but I've judged several, and

the palatable ones all had a high residual maltiness which balanced the

pepper. So many of these are awful, but I tasted one which was actually

good - and the trick in the recipe was to use Wyeast 1338 yeast (European

Ale/Dusseldorf Altbier) which will naturally leave a high maltiness.

Gravity was in the normal range around 1.050.

------------------------------


SNPA Yeast

Date: 18 Mar 1993 09:15:47 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

Subject: SNPA Yeast

Subject:  SNPA Yeast                            Time:8:52 AM     Date:3/18/93

Tim Sasseen says:

>that maybe the yeast at the bottom of the bottles wasn't

>all that pure

I have done the bottle culturing bit from SNPA for quite some time without any

problems. The yeast is a washed version of what was used to ferment the beer.

It is added to filtered beer to provide for the bottle conditioning. If there

were faults with this yeast or the culturing method I would expect we'd hear

about lots of problems from lots of homebrewers. I'd also expect there would be

some evidence of such a problem in Sierra's products. I can't say I've ever had

a bad bottle of anything that Sierra Nevada produced.

As for the OG recommended for starters:

I believe George Fix did some research (or at least referred to somebody's

research) which indicated that the performance of yeast was best when begun in

a starter which was close to the OG of the batch to be pitched. This was

especially true for higher gravities. George?

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


local brewmaster on sparge time/mashing dark grains

Date: 18 Mar 1993 12:24:14 -0500 (EST)

From: Frank Tutzauer <COMFRANK@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu>

Subject: local brewmaster on sparge time/mashing dark grains

I know Micah's no longer with us (gee, that sounds like he's dead--you know

what I mean:  He's no longer with the DIGEST), but before he left he made the

argument that dark grains should only be added at mash out, rather than for

the whole mash.  The subject came up at our homebrew meeting last night, and

Fred Lang, the brewmaster at our local micro, agreed with Micah.  He said to

put the dark grains in for just ten or twenty minutes at the end, while

mashing out.

Also, not too long ago, Joe Stone and I wondered about sparge times.  This

subject also came up at our meeting last night.  One guy said he aimed for 2

and a half to three hour sparges.  Another person said, "Gee, I just do it for

about twenty minutes."  Again, the question was put to Fred.  He said that the

length of time is really irrelevant, because it depends on your grain bed,

temps, and other things.  He maintained that you should use the gravity to

determine when to quit sparging.  In particular, do not go below 2 degrees

Plato, and in fact you should quit a little above that since it would be

better to throw out a little extract rather than get the tannins.  So what's 2

degrees Plato?  Like 1.008 maybe?.  Looks like those of you who stop at 1.010

have been talking to Fred...

Just thought you'd be interested,

- --frank

------------------------------


Re: yeast starter (help!!!)

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 09:32:25 -0800

From: atl@kpc.com

Subject: Re: yeast starter (help!!!)

>   I was hoping to brew a lager this past weekend when I ran into

>  trouble getting a yeast starter going.  I was hoping that someone out

> ....

>  prepared the evening before.  The wort starter was made by mixing 3 Tbs

>  of an amber DME with 3/4 quart water in a 1 1/2 quart clean juice jar.

  What was the SG of the starter?  I always use >= 1.040 starters, and 3Tbs

to 3/4 qt seems awfully thin to me.  I also pitch WYEAST packets into

300-500ml starters and then step up to 800-1000ml starters.  It seems that you

are using too large of a starter with too low a DME content.  Wioth any luck,

your yeast should still be viable, I might try  boiling up some really thick

wort, and adding it to you existing starter.

 Drew

------------------------------


Re: Sterilized bottles

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 09:35:21 -0800

From: atl@kpc.com

Subject: Re: Sterilized bottles

>  I have been following the thread on sterilization/sanitization, but have

>  yet to read anything regarding what to do once the bottles have been

>  sterilized, other than fill them with homebrew. ;-)

>

>  Once the bottles are boiled, bleached, NaOH'ed, etc. . .where do you keep

>  them before they are filled and capped?  I am concerned about nasties

Set a sterile cap on top of each bottle for the time between sanitizing and

filling.

 Drew

------------------------------


Bock recipe

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 12:42:55 EST

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Bock recipe

Well, I was going to wait until after this beer won the Bock is Best

competition :-) to post this, but a friend asked for the recipe, so

I'll kill two birds with one stone.  Since this was the first batch in

my new mash/lauter tun, the procedure required some fine-tuning.  Thus

the multiple infusions, etc.  This may make it difficult to exactly

reproduce the recipe!

I made this on Dec 26, so it's

Boxing Day Bock

10# Belgian Pilsener Malt

3#  Belgian Munich Malt

 (above Corona crushed)

 .5# M&F Crystal malt

2 oz chocolate malt

 (above pre-crushed by roller mill at the HB shop)

4oz Hallertau plugs @ 2.9%

2oz Saaz plugs @ 3.1%

Wyeast Munich Lager yeast (2308)

Procedure:

Mix Pilsener & Munich malts in mash tun, infuse 10.5qts H2O@170F (mash

temp 137F -- oops!), infuse additional 3qt @boiling (mash temp to 145F

- -- sigh!), decoct 3qts (pretty thick) to boiling (mash temp to 156F --

finally!)  Meanwhile, steep crystal in 1qt H2O @165F.  Mash 1hour.

Infuse 3gal @boiling to 165F, add crystal & chocolate malts & stir.

15min rest.  Start sparge, recirculate 6 qts.  Sparge to 6.5gal

(ending sparge gravity 1.010@150F == 1.026??)

Boil 1.5 hours.  Hop schedule

2 oz Hallertau @ 30 min

1 oz each Hallertau & Saaz @ 60 min

1 oz each @ 75 min

Chill & rack.  Yield approx 4 gal @ 1.066.

Pitch yeast from 1pt starter.  Move to cellar @58F.  After two days,

krauesen is evident, move to fridge @50F.

Primary time: 6 weeks

24 hour diacetyl rest at end.

Bottled at FG 1.022, lagered in bottle.

Comments:

It came out as a borderline "Helles Bock."  Probably should have left

out the chocolate malt.

This stuff is yummy.  Wonderful malt nose & flavor.  Nicely hopped.

Friends have said it's one of the best beers they have tasted.

I have to attribute much of its goodness to the ingredients: Belgian

malts and hops plugs.  This is the first time I've ever really smelt

the "spiciness" of Saaz hops.  I wonder whether the little decoction I

did to get the mash temperature up had some effect on the maltiness.

=Spencer W. Thomas   |  Info Tech and Networking, B1911 CFOB, 0704

   "Genome Informatician" |  Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu |  313-764-8065, FAX 313-764-4133

------------------------------


Re: Moderate drinking & minimal cold catching

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 09:57:46 -0800

From: atl@kpc.com

Subject: Re: Moderate drinking & minimal cold catching

>  While we're on the topic of alcohol and health again, I saw an

>  interesting but superficial tidbit on CNN Streamline News a couple

>  nights ago. According to CNN, "a group of British researchers" has

>  released a study showing that moderate drinkers have "a much lower

>  chance" of catching a cold than folks who drink rarely or never.

>

>  This is all the info that was given. I'd like some more details, but

>  haven't seen anything in the _NY Times_ or the _Wall St. Journal_

>  since then. Does anyone know more?

  I have no hard data, but my brewing has increased manyfold over this flu

season, to a point where I nearly never buy commercial beer anymore. (Less

than one case in 6 months).  For the first time in years, I have not gotten a

single cold through the flu season.  I attribute this to greater increase in

vitamin B intake.

 Drew

------------------------------


Lauter Tuns, PU

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 12:22 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Lauter Tuns, PU

 >From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

                                 _ end cap

                                 |

                             tee +---------] cap

                                 |

                        [--------+

                                 |

                                 +---------]

                                 |

                        [--------+

                        [--------+

                                 |

                          elbow  /

                       90 deg up  --------------->==========

                                     standpipe      siphon hose

                             (this would be coming out of the screen)

 Perhaps I am thick but I do not understand this.  Which way is up?

 >From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

 >Subject: PU yeast

 >Where did you get PU yeast, Jack?  All of the PU I've bought (and I've

 bought a _lot_) has been filtered (no sediment).

 I got mine from a customer on the West coast but he got it from Paul

 Farnsworth in Texas.

 I called Paul and learned that he got it on a recent trip to the source.  He

 sells a rather extensive library of yeast cultures on slants for $15 ea.  He

 also sells culturing supplies and equipment.  Thus far I have tried his PU

 and Essex ale.  I also have a Suffolk ale and a Bavarian lager that I have

 not gotten around to trying.

 His company is:

 Scientific Service

 7407 Hummingbird Hill

 San Antonio TX 78255

 (512) 695 2547

 From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

 >a quote from GW malt stated that the conversion time for their pale malt

 (Harrington) is 5-7 minutes! Has anyone ever tried to sparge after a 10

 minute mash? Sounds like a good test for Jack S. with all that time to burn!

 I have no access to GW malt but I always do the iodine test at ten minutes.

 Most domestic malt is just about fully negative at this point and the times I

 have checked it in 5 minutes, there has been a significant reduction in

 starch.

 As I do not really understand or trust the iodine test, I still usually mash

 for one hour.  After all, with time to burn....

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >Jack writes:

 >> up with 4 after 90 min is just about right. Frankly, I do not think there

 is such a thing as too vigorous a boil.  If you lose too much wort, just

 start > with more.  I would figure on about a gallon per hour of boil.

 >I disagree.  A vigorous boil we want, but in most cases (i.e. for most

 styles) we don't want to caramelize the wort. The higher the heat, the

 more the wort caramelizes.  This would not be good in a Pils style.

 Judging from all the interest in getting that caramel flavor recently

 displayed on the Digest, I presume that lots of people would not find that a

 problem.  More importantly, Ken Pachivich at Bader Brau makes an issue of his

 "fire brewed" process to achieve that caramel taste for his award winning

 Pilsner.  He brags about how hot the fire must be to achieve caramelization.

 El Cheapo Easymasher....

 The idea for this one came from McHarry and if you find me pushing a shopping

 cart full of empty cans, you can blame him.  He, of course, stole an idea

 from Benjamin but I couldn't understand the latter's drawing so, he beat me

 to it.

 This is the ultimate (in simplicity) EASYMASHER.  In fact it will probably

 always be an easymasher (lower case) because I can't think of any reason

 anyone would pay me to make it.

                ______

               |      |

               |    | |

               |    | |    3/8" O.D. Copper Tubing

               *    | |     /        with 3 bends

              *     | |    /

              *     | |   /

             *      | |  /

             *      | |

            *       | |        Screen Roll

           *        | |      /

           *        | ---######

           *        |________________________

           *                             /

          *                 Kettle Bottom

           *

            /

             3/8" I.D. Plastic Hose

 1. It requires no hole in the kettle.

 2. Does not interfere with stirring because it can be put in

    when ready to sparge.

 3. Can be used in any kettle, plastic bucket, crock or

    toilet bowl.

 4.  It can be built for about $2.

 5.  It looks a lot like the traditional siphon with a Chore

     Boy on it but has far more class.

 6.  Although untested, I suspect it will work better than

     any other system available today, with one exception.

 7.  Aside from the convenience of a spigot, it has all the

     technical advantages of the world famous EASYMASHER.

 The only remaining question is, where do I sign up for welfare?

 js

------------------------------


Beer and Cancer

Date:    Thu, 18 Mar 93 10:29 PST

From: Paul AndersEn                        <ECZ5PGA@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU>

Subject: Beer and Cancer

Hello fellow brewers,  Now I could be wrong, but, while doing research for

a paper in my Biology of Cancer class here at UCLA, I found some articles

which described studies being done in Europe regarding the effects of beer

and alcohol in general on the risk of colorectal cancer.  What they seemed

to be saying was that spirits and wine did not increase the risk of colorectal

cancer, but they found that beer did.  Of course the risk was substantially

increased only in subjects who drank large amounts of beer regularly over

the course of a lifetime.  There was also a link to dark beers and smoked

foods, such as fish.

  I did not end up writing my paper on this topic, so I cannot give any

references, however, it would not take me long to look them up again if

anyone is interested.

  If anyone else can shed some light on the subject, feel free.

By the way,  I tried the new Pub Daught Guiness in the can for the first

last weekend and I loved it.  Just for fun I ripped open the can to check

out the doohickie on the bottom: pretty cool.  If you haven't tried it yet,

and you like Guiness, go out and get some.  It is amazing how it looks and

tastes like it came out of the tap.  My only gripe is that you have to

open it cold (otherwise you have beer all over the place: like homebrew).

I haven't seen it in too may stores though.  In southern california you can

get it at the Price Club (although it may be seasonal).  It sure made my

St. Patricks Day.

  Homebrewers do it sanitarily

           P.Andersen

------------------------------


Re: yeast starter (help!!!)/sludge/bottling/starter correction

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 13:02 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: yeast starter (help!!!)/sludge/bottling/starter correction

JW writes:

> Thursday evening I broke the inner package on a pack of Wyeast

>pilsen lager yeast (sorry, forgot the number).  The package of yeast was

>dated 8 February.  By Friday morning the pack had expanded to about 3/4

>to 1 inch in thickness.  I pitched this into 3/4 quart of wort I had

>prepared the evening before.  The wort starter was made by mixing 3 Tbs

>of an amber DME with 3/4 quart water in a 1 1/2 quart clean juice jar.

I think that this may be your problem.  3 tbsp in 3/4 quart is an *very*

low gravity wort.  Even the 1020 wort that I use barely if ever shows

any kraeusen -- besides there being very little sugar for the yeast to

get excited about, the viscosity of the wort is so low that no "head"

forms.  You probably have a fine yeast starter, albeit a bit weaker than

it could have been.  If you want to continue to use the juice jar for

your starters, get a one-hole stopper to fit the top and put an airlock

in it.  The airlock will show you activity a lot more accurately than

watching the surface of the starter.

> I called the supply house where i got the yeast and they mentioned

>that the low pressure storm system which just came through Phila may have

>caused the starter to mis-start.  This seems suspicious to me, however,

>because I've never heard of problems at higher elevations where atmospheric

>pressure is also less than at sea lever.

Ridiculous.  Perhaps all the yeast in the US is now dead thanks to this

low pressure storm system?  Find a reputable supplier.

********************

Joe writes:

>I have a question about when the krausen begins to fall after 2-3 days of

>very active fermentation.  As the krausen falls I am left with (real techinical

>term here) "brown sludge" stuck to the sides of my primary (plastic bucket).

>The fermentation slows rapidly after this, and if I scrape the sludge into the

>beer it begins fermentating again.

>

>The question is, should I be scraping this sludge back into the beer?  Am I

>doing something wrong to be getting the sludge in the first place?  This has

The sludge is a combination of hop petals that made it through, hop resins,

dead and dormant yeast and probably a couple of other things.  Leave it

be.  The sludge is expected, but if you still think you want it in your

beer, taste it and decide for yourself.

******************

Chris writes:

>Once the bottles are boiled, bleached, NaOH'ed, etc. . .where do you keep

>them before they are filled and capped?  I am concerned about nasties

>falling into the bottles while they are waiting to be filled.  Should I

>bottle a six or twelve pack at a time to make sure no bottles are waiting

>too long?

I bought a bottle tree and a sanitizer thingamabob.  It mounts on the

top of the tree.  I pump bleach solution into the bottles (30 pumps)

and then set the bottles onto the tree.  When I've got two cases on

the tree, I rinse the first bottle, fill it, cap it and then go on to

the next bottle.  Perhaps you may want to sanitize all your bottles

(even if you leave them face up) and then rinse just before bottling.

This way, if anything falls in, the residual sanitizer will kill it.

************************

I wrote:

>>fermented at maybe 1 bubble per 30s.  Is this slow

>>fermentation normal??

>

>Consider the size of the batch and the gravity (which, by the way, was

>good for a starter).  Consider that a regular 5-gallon batch would have

>almost 27 times the wort.  That equates to almost a bubble per second.

>Not bad.  If the wort was 1040 or 1050 or 1060, you could have expected

>2 bubbles per second, but 1 bubble/30 sec for a 24 ounce, 1020 starter

           ^^^^^^^^^^

>is just fine.

That should have been 2 bubbles per 30 seconds.

Al.

------------------------------


Ninkaski - brewing an ancient beer

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 14:27:28 EST

From: Don Sharp  18-Mar-1993 1428 <sharp@rumor.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Ninkaski - brewing an ancient beer

Our colleague Stephen E. Hansen - hansen@sierra.Stanford.EDU - volunteered to

help me get the article installed in the Homebrew Archives at Stanford - I was

inundated with more requests than I could possibly fulfill, so that seemed like

the right thing to do.  If after a reasonably diligent effort to retrieve the

thing from the archives you have no success ping me again and I'll see what I

can do.

Don

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1101, 03/19/93

*************************************

-------


Yeast and Bottles

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1993 11:43:58 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Yeast and Bottles

> From: johnw@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL (J. Williamson)

> Subject: yeast starter (help!!!)

>

>  I was hoping to brew a lager this past weekend when I ran into

> trouble getting a yeast starter going.  I was hoping that someone out

> there in HB land could shed some light on the situation and perhaps save

> me starting over.  Here are the particulars:

>  Thursday evening I broke the inner package on a pack of Wyeast

> pilsen lager yeast (sorry, forgot the number).  The package of yeast was

> dated 8 February.  By Friday morning the pack had expanded to about 3/4

> to 1 inch in thickness.

Sounds like you were a bit hasty.  The package should be more like 3"

in thickness before it's pitched into the starter.

I pitched this into 3/4 quart of wort I had

> prepared the evening before.  The wort starter was made by mixing 3 Tbs

> of an amber DME with 3/4 quart water in a 1 1/2 quart clean juice jar.

> I capped the jar and shook vigorously to mix well.  I then uncapped the

> jar, covered with tin foil, and put into a 16 quart kettle with about

> 4 inches of water.  I brought the water in the kettle, with the jar of

> wort, to a boil and simmered for about 1/2 hour to sterilize.  The kettle

> was covered during the boil and simmer.  I then let the wort cool to room

> temperature (65F) overnight.

I think this is another case of overkill.  You should be able to

sterilize your starter by simply boiling the DME and water for 15

minutes in a pan on the stove.  Then force-cool it in the sink by

putting on a lid and running cold water around it.  This cooling takes a

matter of minutes.  Transfer into your sterilized jar, aerate and add

the yeast.  The problem, though, as I said above is that you didn't get

enough growth before you pitched into this volume.  Given time it may

well come up to sufficient yeast volume to use for brewing.  Bear in

mind, however, that you need roughly twice as much lager yeast for

pitching as you do ale yeast.

The next morning was when I pitched the

> yeast from the pack.  That was last Friday.  To date nothing, nadda,

> zilch, has happened.  I've kept the supposed starter capped with aluminum

> foil and in a paper bag to avoid exposure to light.  The wort has remained

> around 65F.

Some more overkill.  Put your starter somewhere warm and don't worry

about light.  If you've used hopped DME (which some people recommend),

there might be a concern about light struck smells, but yeast don't have

any objection to light that I've every observed.

>

>  I called the supply house where i got the yeast and they mentioned

> that the low pressure storm system which just came through Phila may have

> caused the starter to mis-start.  This seems suspicious to me, however,

> because I've never heard of problems at higher elevations where atmospheric

> pressure is also less than at sea lever.

Well, now that's a creative suggestion.  Ridiculous, maybe, but

creative.

> From: rri!jreid@vtserf.cc.vt.edu (Joe Reid)

> Subject: Falling Krausen

>

> I have a question about when the krausen begins to fall after 2-3 days of

> very active fermentation.  As the krausen falls I am left with (real techinical

> term here) "brown sludge" stuck to the sides of my primary (plastic bucket).

> The fermentation slows rapidly after this, and if I scrape the sludge into the

> beer it begins fermentating again.

>

> The question is, should I be scraping this sludge back into the beer?

No.

Am I

> doing something wrong to be getting the sludge in the first place?

No.

> From: CRD@imagesys.com (Chris Dukes)

> Subject:      Sterilized bottles

>

> I have been following the thread on sterilization/sanitization, but have

> yet to read anything regarding what to do once the bottles have been

> sterilized, other than fill them with homebrew. ;-)

>

> Once the bottles are boiled, bleached, NaOH'ed, etc. . .where do you keep

> them before they are filled and capped?  I am concerned about nasties

> falling into the bottles while they are waiting to be filled.  Should I

> bottle a six or twelve pack at a time to make sure no bottles are waiting

> too long?

>

> I have been cleaning the whole bunch and then filling and capping.  I

> believe I have run across an infection in one or two bottles (not the

> whole batch).  Therefore I have concluded that either the bottles weren't

> sterilized well enough, or something got into the bottle after

> sterilization.

>

> Any help/advice on the subject would be greatly appreciated.  All grain

> snobs and lowly extract brewers responses are more than welcome! ;-)

>

>

Aha!  This is exactly the problem with any system but my own.  (Sorry. I

couldn't resist the "snob" approach.) (But it's true.)

If you take your clean bottles, and put little aluminum foil tops on

them and then put them in a cold oven, raise temp to 350 for 90 min.,

let them cool and put them back in the case, you will not have to worry

about nasties.  I have let bottles sit like this for days and then

bottled without problem, and could probably let them sit for weeks -- as

long as none of the kids stuck their fingers through the foil.  Another

advantage of the system is that you don't have to empty the dishwasher

first.

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


Miller Ale, Yeast Slurry Reuse

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 12:46:39 EST

From: casey!aspen!joem@uu6.psi.com (Joe Mulligan)

Subject: Miller Ale, Yeast Slurry Reuse

  I have several questions for the readers of the HDB.

   1. Has anyone heard of a "Bass type" ale that Miller Brewing Co.

      was going to market? A friend of mine was on a tasting panel

      about 1 year ago. He said they were going to call it, tentatively,

      Miller Ale, Copperhead Ale, or God knows what.

      Flame me if you want, but it is (remotely?) possible that this could be

      a decent beer. After all, Detroit is making good cars again. Maybe

      the American mega-brewers can get their act together too.

   2. A while back I read a post asking if the yeast slurry in the bottom

      of a fermenter can be used to make bread or any other food products

      for human consumption. Any suggestions? (My friend's dogs are currently

      the benefactor of his yeast slurry. They love it!)

   3. Is the infamous Jim Koch related to the brewers of Koch's Anniversary

      Beer (from the New York area)?

------------------------------


re: sugar request, data point on aging

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 13:11:15 PST

From: Brew Free Or Die  18-Mar-1993 1541 <hall@buffa.enet.dec.com>

Subject: re: sugar request, data point on aging

In HBD #1100:

>From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

>Subject: sugar request, data point on aging

>And how do you pronounce "succanat"?  Suck a gnat?  Sue can not?

It's one "c", Sucanat.  It's a contraction of the words sugar cane natural.

And I pronounce it sue can gnat.  It might actually be shoo can gnat.

I'm eating some now.  Yum!

- --

 Dan Hall   Digital Equipment Corporation   MKO1-2/H10   Merrimack, NH   03054

 hall@buffa.enet.dec.com          ....!decwrl!buffa.dec.com!hall

         "Adhere to Schweinheitsgebot

 Don't put anything in your beer that a pig wouldn't eat"  --David Geary

------------------------------


Yeast Lab, Hallertau in porters

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 16:30:57 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: Yeast Lab, Hallertau in porters

Has anyone tried "Yeast` Lab" (tm) liquid yeast cultures?  They

just turned up at my local brewshop.  They're distributed by

G. W. Kent, so I imagine they are/soon will be readily available.

They come in litte 35 ml vials.  They cost the same as Wyeast.

The selection is similar.  They have most of the Wyeast strains,

and a couple that Wyeast don't seem to have.  There are 8 ales:

Autralian, American, London, British, Irish, Dussledorf, Canadian,

Trappist.  5 lagers: Pilsner, Bavarian, Munich, St. Louis, California.

There's a Bavarian and Weizen and two mead yeasts: dry and sweet.

I guess Autralian and Canadian ales and the two mead yeasts are

the only varieties not availbale from Wyeast.  I'm looking forward

to trying the mead yeasts.

__________

Thanks to all who replied on the subject of Hallertauer in porters.

In particular, thanks to Jeff, Russ, Nick, Kieth, Jim and Walt.

The use of Hallertauer, Mt. Hood or Tettnanger as a finishing

hop or dry hop for porter seems quite popular.  I had originally

been planning to do the same, but then I got thinking about using

them (Hal. and Mt. Hood in this case) for bittering and flavor as

well.  Only Kieth MacNeal seems to have tried this.  He bittered

with Hallertauer and Tettnanger in a porter that was also flavored

with ginger and juniper.  Wish I could try some!!

So I think I'm going to go for it:  I plan to follow the recipe

"Foster's Entire Butt" in Foster's _Porter_, except that I'll

use Hallertauer and Mt. Hood (possibly a touch of NB as well)

for all hop additions, and tone down the chocolate malt a

little.  The hope is to get something like a Bavarian dark beer

in hops and color, but with the ale characteristic of a porter.

Wyeast London, in case you were wondering.

Cheers,

Rob (bradley@adx.adelphi.edu)

------------------------------


Call for recipes

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 14:31:20 PST

From: Robert Pulliam <pulliam@monty.rand.org>

Subject: Call for recipes

Have any of you successfully cloned "Pete's Wicked Ale"?  If so, I would

love to get your recipe.  How about "Dos Equis Amber" (for Cinco de Mayo)

Anyone?

Robert J. Pulliam            |+|all thoughts, statements, and opinions,|+|

Los Angeles, CA.             |+|demented or not, should be my own; and |+|

pulliam@monty.rand.org       |+|I'm certainly not associated . . . . . |+|

------------------------------


yet another brewpub request

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 15:20:35 PST

From: scott@gordian.com (Scott Murphy)

Subject: yet another brewpub request

A friend of mine is driving from CA. to NJ. and is interested in

visiting the brewpubs along the way.  If you know of any in

Wyoming, S. Dakota, Minn., Wisc, Ill., Ind., Ohia, or Penn. please

email me.  I can summerize to the net if anyone wants to know.

thanks

scott

------------------------------


AHA/Pete's Press Release

Date: 18 Mar 93 18:24:21 EST

From: "James Spence/AHA/Colo." <70740.1107@compuserve.com>

Subject: AHA/Pete's Press Release

PRESS RELEASE

The American Homebrewers Association (AHA) announces Pete's Brewing Company's

sponsorship of the 1993 Ninkasi Award to be presented at the 1993 National

Homebrew Competition being held July 27-29 in Portland, Oregon.  Named after

the Sumerian Goddess of Brewing, this premier honor is awarded based upon

brewing proficiency across several categories of beer.  Scoring is based upon

the greatest accumulation of points across all style categories.

In addition to this year's trophy, judges and Pete's Brewing Company will

choose one of the Ninkasi Award winner's beers to be brewed as the first Pete's

Wicked Winter Brew which will be distributed coast to coast.

Compliments of Pete's Brewing Company, the award winning brewer will also

receive:

**Name recognition on every bottle of Pete's Wicked Winter Brew.

**Registration at the two week Short Course in Brewing Technology at the Siebel

Institute of Technology in Chicago (tuition, travel and lodging included).

**Attendance at Pete's Wicked Winter Brew's first brewing at Pete's Brewing

Company (travel and lodging included).

"As a homebrewer, I am excited to offer this opportunity to a fellow

homebrewer," remarks Pete Slosberg, founder of Pete's Brewing Company.  Pete's

homebrewing led to Pete's Wicked Ale, now a nationally acclaimed microbeer and

the 1992 Gold Medal Winner of the American Brown Ale category at the Great

American Beer Festival.  He continues, "This is the chance for someone's

homebrewing skills to be recognized across the United States."

The American Homebrewers Association, a division of the Association of Brewers,

is dedicated to promoting public awareness and appreciation of the quality and

variety of beers through the collection and dissemination of information.  For

more information about the National Homebrewers Conference or Competition,

please contact the AHA at (303) 447-0816.

 Contact: Karen Barela  (303) 447-0816

   American Homebrewers Association

   Kristin Seuell  (800) 877-7383

   Pete's Brewing Company

###

------------------------------


BrewCap ?

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1993 17:45:41 -0800

From: Michael.Burgeson@Eng.Sun.COM (J. Michael Burgeson)

Subject: BrewCap ?

Can someone who has a BrewCap please tell me if they will fit

on the threaded neck of a 6.5 gallon carboy, or do they only

work on the smooth neck of the 5 gallon carboys?

tx,

 - --mik

------------------------------


More AoB Bashing

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 20:08:38 EST

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: More AoB Bashing

Back on 8 February, I ordered some books from the AoB.  Among them

was The Practical Brewer.

When the package arrived a few days later, Practical Brewer was

not in it and was, according to the invoice, backordered.  Of course

I was charged for it anyway. When I called (the day the package arrived),

I was told the book was out of stock and would be in around the first of

March.  I said, OK, but I'm not too happy that you have invoiced me

for something you aren't going to ship for another three weeks.

(No response.)

Mind you, I wasn't told about the backorder when I phoned my order

in. :-||

So weeks and weeks roll by.  No Practical Brewer.

I called again today.  This time I was told "the book isn't back from

the printer yet ... it's a new printing."  I can now, they say, expect

the book to ship around the first of April.

None of this would bother me if AoB, which purports to run a high-class

mailorder operation, would do the usual high-class thing and INVOICE

ONLY FOR ITEMS SHIPPED.  I could wait for months (not that I would

like to) if they weren't holding onto my money.  As it is, though,

I am getting more and more pissed about this, as well as silliness

like "15% off" a $10 book...I mean, the mailing probably cost half

of that discount per member!

I plan to send a written complaint shortly, and encourage any of the

rest of you who have had trouble with the mailorder service, or other

aspects of the AHA/AoB/etc. to do the same with your gripes.

Help stamp out poor service in OUR organization.

================O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis================

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1993 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------


pH meters

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 20:40:33 EST

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: pH meters

Nick says:

)         I finally broke down and bought a ph meter.[The

)         hanna unit that American brewer sells if it matters]

)         I now have three questions:

I have one of these.  It works reasonably well for something

so inexpensive.

)         1) can I just use distilled water to calibrate at

)         ph7?

No, positively not.  You must use a buffer solution of some sort.

I recommend getting a pH 7 buffer and another buffer around 5.5.

The CRC Handbook has a table that tells you how to make up buffers

of any pH your heart desires.  I have 4, 5.5 and 7 in my cabinet.

You can also find premixed buffers (generally expensive) and buffer

capsules that you mix with some quantity of distilled water.

Distilled water has no buffering capacity.  Even a tiny bit of some

acidic or alkaline material in distilled water will change its pH

significantly--including contaminants that might be present on the

pH meter.  Typically, a probe rinsed in tap water will read well above

7 when placed in distilled water--because of the alkalinity of the

tap water.

)         2) can I expect this thing to be reasonably

)         calibrated just out of the box? Or should I just

)         check to make sure?

Don't trust it.  No way.  It could be +/- .5 units, or more.

)         3) Finally is there anything I should look out for?

Cool the samples to <100F before making your measurements.  Ideally

to <80F.  This isn't for the probe's sake, but for the sake of

accuracy.  The pH changes with temperature.

================O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis================

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1993 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------


DME vs. liquid malt extract

Date:         Fri, 19 Mar 93 08:19:33 +0200

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      DME vs. liquid malt extract

Is there any reason for not using DME only in an extract brew? Is there

something in the liquid malt extract that DME has not? As my only source of

extract (till I turn grain...) is from abroad I figured DME would give me more

extract per kilo (which counts if you have to use over-seas air-mail).

So, is my beer going to miss anything?

Nir

------------------------------


Used Kegs

Date: 19 Mar 1993 07:53:25 -0500 (EST)

From: Sandy Cockerham <COCKERHAM_SANDRA_L@LILLY.COM>

Subject: Used Kegs

Hi,

Does anyone know a good source for used 3 gallon Cornelius Kegs ??

thanks, Sandy C.

From: COCKERHAM SANDRA L            (MCVAX0::RX31852)

To:   VMS MAIL ADDRESSEE            (IN::"homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com")

------------------------------


Disappointing Results

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 09:51:02 EST

From: Michael J Kahlke <kahlke@express.ctron.com>

Subject: Disappointing Results

Jeff Frane asks:

> On another note, has anyone ever gotten results anything like Charlie's

> from one of his recipes?  He seems to bat them out at a fairly high

> rate, and I've wondered over the years how much time goes into

> developing each one, and whether he's ever brewed one of them more than

> once (or better yet, more than three times) before publishing them.

I just brewed a batch of his "Bruce and Kay's Black Honey Spruce Lager"

last month.  Fortunately, the owner of my local brewing supplying shop

warned me that he had tried to make this several times and recommended

that I use only a quarter of the spruce essence that Charlie Papazian

states in his recipe.  The result was a spruce lager with just the right

amount of "spruce-iness" to it.  If the store proprietor hadn't warned

me I would have ended up with two cases of Pine Sol instead.

Mike Kahlke

------------------------------


"candi" sugar

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 10:23:18 -0500 (EST)

From: Andy Kurtz <ak35+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: "candi" sugar

In "Belgian Ale"  Rajotte writes:

"Candi sugar is made by the slow crystallization of a highly

concentrated hot sugar solution.  The sugar solution is cooled in a tank

in which cotton strings are hung.  The crystals form themselves around

the strings.  The slower the cooling, the larger the crystals become."

questions:

1.  How concentrated is "highly concentrated"?

2.  Rajotte says that the taste profile of candi sugar is different from

sugar                                    "out of the bag."  In what way?

3.  This sounds a lot old fashioned "rock candy."  Will the results be

the same if I try this at home on a micro scale?

andy

------------------------------


Dark grains at mashout, Freezer

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 10:27:33 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Dark grains at mashout, Freezer

In hbd 1101 Frank Tutzaner referred to references by a local brewmaster

and Micah that dark grains should be added at mashout.  Forgive me for

being a purist, but wasn't the original reason for dark grains, and hence

dark beers, pH reduction prior to a good understanding of such matters?

Adding dark grains later may add color and sugars, but apart from a

slight extra asstringency, what is the problem with conventional maching

getting the benefit of pH reduction?  Adding grains late in the mash is

a step towards Michelob Dark.

I just purchased a 1950's Jeffrey Dahmer ( ;-) ) chest freezer by

International Harvester!  They certainly don't make them like they used to.

IH may have used the same sheet metal for this that they used for trucks.

It has features I have never seen before like a battery powered alarm if the

temperature rises and a thermometer in the door - unfortunately it says warm

to cold, rather than temperature.  This huge heavy beast was moved relatively

smoothly and is now in my basement and I do not feel like dragging it

back up the stairs!  Anyway, now that I have my summer lager I will be

very interested in answers to Glenn Raudin's questions in hbd 1101.

But I have a few more which refer to lagering.  I can probably fit

4 or 5 carboys in the freezer and so can now do long lagering, but

what do I do when adding a new beer to the lager?  Obviosly It would be

bad to adjust the temperature upwards from 40 or lower to step down

a new addition.  I have another small refrigerator that can take a 5 gallon

carboy that I use now, and could continue to use for step downs or 32

lagering for those extra special beers.  Also, how do people do

summer primary fermentations? I wouldn't want to raise the temperature in

the freezer even to 48, and because my 7 gallon carboys will not fit in the

refrigerator, will I be forced to use a blow off tube and 5 gallon carboys?

Any suggestions?

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@bach.helios.nd.edu

------------------------------


Re: Yeast food

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 10:45:15 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: Re: Yeast food

>From: Keith A. MacNeal  <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

>In HBD #1100, John Williamson writes:

>>       Thursday evening I broke the inner package on a pack of Wyeast

>>pilsen lager yeast (sorry, forgot the number).  The package of yeast was

>>dated 8 February.  By Friday morning the pack had expanded to about 3/4

>>to 1 inch in thickness.  I pitched this into 3/4 quart of wort I had

>>prepared the evening before.  The wort starter was made by mixing 3 Tbs

>>of an amber DME with 3/4 quart water in a 1 1/2 quart clean juice jar.

>I think your problem was that you used only 3 tbs of DME.  Are you sure you

>gave the yeast enough to eat?

I guess I have a hard time with measurements like that.  For a starter, you

want 1.020 wort, which roughly translates into 1 oz. for each pint.  So for

1.5 pints you want about 1.5 oz.

3 "heaping" tablespoons might easily be *more* than 1.5 oz.  Sometimes I

get more than 1 oz. out of one heaping tablespoon (I weigh for starters).

OTOH, 3 "level" tablespoons might easily be *less* than 1 oz.

So, he either put in more DME than needed or less than recommended.

*I* don't know.

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


Re: grain bags

Date:  Fri, 19 Mar 1993 10:40:52 -0500

From: Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@canrem.com>

Subject: Re: grain bags

>

> Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 14:20:28 -0800 (PST)

> From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

> Subject: crystal malt in muslin bag

>

> In HBD 1099 Mike Rego asks about Cara-pils haze.  This prompts me to ask a

> more general question regarding the addition of other malts to an

> all-extract brew.  Up until now I've been putting these in a tighly-woven

> hop bag, but am convinced that the bag is too small, packing all the grains i

> much too closely and restricting the extraction I get.

>

> I'm thinking of using a much larger bag made out of muslin, but am wondering

> if the much coarser weave will allow undesirable things into the wort.  My

> procedure is generally to steep the grains for 20 minutes or so at 170

> degrees, then remove the bag prior to bringing the wort to the boil.

>

        When I was still doing extract I would make bags out

        of cheese cloth. Worked great. Plus the cost for it

        was so low you could just toss them afterwards.

>

> My thoughts are that the muslin idea would work, because in full grain brewin

> all this stuff is thrown in with no strainer bag, right?

        Well yes but you also have some way to sparge. My

        current lautertun has a copper manifold in the

        bottom. It basically does the same job has the bag

        in keeping the grains out of the boil.

                Nick

*****************************************************************************

I drink Beer I don't collect cute bottles!

zen%hophead@canrem.com

*****************************************************************************

------------------------------


Re:  oat bran in brewing

Date:         Fri, 19 Mar 93 10:52:29 EST

From: Jean Hunter <MS3Y@CORNELLA.cit.cornell.edu>

Subject:      Re:  oat bran in brewing

Has anyone tried using oat bran in an oatmeal stout?  As a brewer in the

extract/partial mash school, I question the logic of using large quantities

of flaked oats as a specialty grain, especially when the starch will

obviously not be converted.  I would expect the gums and glucans to be

concentrated in the bran of the oat -- so why not use just the bran fraction

and save the rolled oats for breakfast?

I suppose that I'm assuming here that the major contribution of oats to a

stout is the fullness and body provided by the gums.

Can anyone comment on this assumption?

Has anyone tried brewing with oat bran, and with what results?

              Thanks and cheers -- Jean               (Sigbars waste bandwidth)

------------------------------


Los Alamos brewers

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 11:32 EST

From: "JOSEPH V. GERMANI" <GERMANI%NSLVAX@Venus.YCC.Yale.Edu>

Subject: Los Alamos brewers

Greetings,

Well, it's job search time for me, and one of the most important things to find

out about a town that you might be moving to is if there are there any

homebrewers there! So how about it, are there any brewers out there in Los

Alamos?  There must be some Hill Hoppers on the net.  Please reply directly to

me GERMANI%NSLVAX@VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU.  Thanks for the use of the bandwidth.

By the way, I hear that there is a small brewery half way between Santa Fe and

Taos that makes a good green chili beer.  I think that it is called Embudo

Station.

  Joe

------------------------------


quassia

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 10:52:37 CST

From: jlf@palm.cray.com (John Freeman)

Subject: quassia

Last night I was enjoying a Pipers Pride at Sherlock's Home in

Minnetonka and commented to the owner how much I liked it.  He then

showed me an article from Midwest Beer Notes about Pipers Pride.  Here

is a sentence that caught my attention "in our Pipers Pride I use a bit

of quassia -- a South American herb favored by many Scottish brewers

and used as late as the 1950's for some export ales."

I had never heard of quassia before.  Does anyone know anything about

it?  Like where to get it?  How much to use?

------------------------------


Charlie recipes

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 10:19:29 -0700

From: colesa@spot.Colorado.EDU

Subject: Charlie recipes

In digest #1101 Jeff Frane asks:

>On another note, has anyone ever gotten results anything like Charlie's

>from one of his recipes?  He seems to bat them out at a fairly high

>rate, and I've wondered over the years how much time goes into

>developing each one, and whether he's ever brewed one of them more than

>once (or better yet, more than three times) before publishing them.

>What really struck me was his recipe in the most recent Zymurgy, which

>calls for (not having it in front of me, and whoops, here we go again

>relying on memory) something in the neighborhood of 3.5# of dry malt

>extract and about 3 pounds (maybe a little more) of specialty grains.

>This to produce five gallons of a beer over 1.065.  Does anyone else

>think this is unlikely?

>

>- --Jeff Frane

My roomate and I just bottled his Toad Spit Stout, and although we modified

it a little (some extra dry dark malt extract and a little less liquid

extract), it tasted at bottling time VERY similar to Guinness, as he

claims.  Just my $.02.

Cheers!

Adam Coles                   *

Senior, Bioengineering       * Sure I'll wear a three piece suit...

College of Engineering       * As long as it's jeans, t-shirt,

CU Boulder                   * and a leather jacket!

------------------------------


How much is too much?

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 12:20:37 EST

From: gkushmer@Jade.Tufts.EDU

Subject: How much is too much?

I'm thinking of making a fruit beer (acutally, its a vegetable

beer), and I want it to have a good deal of residual sweetness.

To accomplish this I was thinking about putting in a pound and

a half of crystal malt.  Does anyone think that this might

be too much, or would this not make the beer as sweet tasting

as I might want?  I don't want it donut-sweet, but I would

like some slightly sugary taste in there.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

- --gk

------------------------------


pH meter

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 10:41:17 -0700

From: Loren Carter <lcarter@claven.idbsu.edu>

Subject: pH meter

In HBD 1100 Nick asks:

        1) can I just use distilled water to calibrate at

        ph7?

 No!  distilled water is not always at a pH of 7, in fact water will hardly

ever have a pH of 7.  Disolved gases will cause the pH to vary.  Disolved

carbon dioxide will cause the pH to be around 5.6.

 Also I would not trust the calibration on the new intrument.  It probably

is not calibrated at all and the calibration does change with time.  Use a

buffer solution of known pH to calibrate the meter.

Hope this helps.

Loren Carter

Chemistry Department

Boise State University

Boise, Idaho

------------------------------


Brewpubs and Micros in NV

Date: 19 Mar 1993 13:04:54 -0500

From: Chris McDermott <mcdermott@draper.com>

Subject: Brewpubs and Micros in NV

 Brewpubs and Micros in NV

Asking for a freind:

I'm looking for any Brewpubs or Micros in or around Las Vegas.

Please reply via email to save HbD bandwidth.

Thanks,

_

Christopher K. McDermott / MS 22          Internet:  mcdermott@draper.com

C.S. Draper Laboratory, Inc.              Voice:     (617) 258-2362

555 Technology Square                     FAX:       (617) 258-1311

Cambridge, MA 02149 (USA)

------------------------------


roast material

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 10:32:00 -0800

From: Michael.Burgeson@Eng.Sun.COM (J. Michael Burgeson)

Subject: roast material

My local homebrew supplier (Fermentation Frenzy) has a bag of "Roast

Material" from Hugh Baird.  "Roast Material" is what is printed on the

bag above the Hugh Baird logo.  It looks like roast barley to me, but

it tasted different (more biscuity).  Has anyone had any experience

with this grain?  Is "Roast Material" the British name for "Roast

Barley"?  Or is there more than one type of grain in it (it didn't look

like that to me).  Does anyone know what this stuff is?

see 'ya,

 - --mik

------------------------------


Re: Temp. Controls / Freezer

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 10:43:45 -0800

From: sherman@qualcomm.com (Sherman Gregory)

Subject: Re: Temp. Controls / Freezer

>Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 8:24:05 CST

>From: raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com (Glenn Raudins)

>Subject: Temp. Controls / Freezer

>Re: Temperature Controls

>I would like some feedback on what people think of their temperature controls

>for their refrigs/freezers.  Has anyone used the digital one from American

>Brewmaster?  I like the idea of the digital ones, but I've only seen ones that

>go down to 40 degrees.  I know Williams beverage sell one that goes down to

>20 degrees but it does not have a digital display.

>

>Re: Refrig/Freezer

>

>Any recommendations on refrigs/freezers that have worked well for people?  I

>seem to think that a chest freezer would allow the best utilization of space

>and it would allow the temperatures for lagering.  Also, what results have

>people gotten lagering with just their refrigs (down to 40 degrees I believe)?

I use both the temperature controler that William's sells and a Hunter "Air

Stat" for different refrigs.  The one thet William's sells (~$50) is a very

good quality industrial grade unit made by "PENN controls"  if I remember

right.  It is true that it doesn't have a digital display, but who needs

one?  It would look cool and impress all of your friends, but not really

necessary.  The Hunter Air Stat I bought a Home Depot for $19.  It does

have a digital display for the coolness effect, but has a couple of

disadvantages.  One is that the user interface was designed for programming

room air conditioners to save energy.  It is hard to use to just adjust the

temp setting and keep it there.  The other disadvantage id that it only

goes down to 40 or 45 deg F.  This is not cold enough for lagering.  Its

best advantage is price.

As far as refrigs go, I agree that the chest type would be best, althouth I

have not run accros one for the right price yet.   Most refrigs should not

have a lot of trouble getting down to 32 deg F for lagering.  I know that

none of my three do.

------------------------------


Dextrine/cara-pils

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 11:03:50 -0800

From: sherman@qualcomm.com (Sherman Gregory)

Subject: Dextrine/cara-pils

>korz@iepubj.att.com Writes

>Now, who was it that started the rumour that Cara-pils is not like other

>specialty malts?  I have been treating it just like any other Crystal

>malt with no problems.  The one difference is that U.S. Dextrin Malt

>(another name for Cara-pils) which is made from scrawny 6-row grains

>is hard as ball bearings!  You could break a tooth on that stuff!  The

>DeWolf-Cosyns Cara-pils is made from 2-row and is nice and plump and

>not at all like US Cara-pils.  Bottom line is, that Cara-pils is just

>very pale Crystal Malt (7.87L or 15 EBC for the DeWolf-Cosyns).

I was under the understanding that the process for malting crystal sort of

accomplished a pseudo mash.  I have never heard how Dextrine/cara-pils is

made.  What I do know is that William' Brewing (Bill Moore's company) sells

Dextrine/cara-pils as something that needs to be mashed, and also sells L10

light crystal as a non-masher substitute for this.  I have used both, but

with otherwise identical brews, so I have no comparison between the two.

Does anybody know how Dextrine/cara-pils is malted?  What are the other

opinions and experiences with not mashing it?

------------------------------


bottle drying rack

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 11:32:51 -0800

From: sherman@qualcomm.com (Sherman Gregory)

Subject: bottle drying rack

With the thread going on about bottle drying racks, I thought I would my

$.02 worth in.

I did not like the idea of something sticking into the neck of my already

sanatized bottles, like the comercially available racks do. It seemed that

I would have to sanatize the rack also.  So, I made my own rack from

plastic that I got out of the scrap pile at the local plastics store.  It

basically looks like a box, about 18"X30"X5" with 60 holes (1.25" I think)

drilled in the top. It holds 60 bottles upside down so nothing falls in

them, and no part of it goes into the bottle.  It sits on the counter top

when in use, an is easily stored when not.  It can also be moved around

with the bottles in it, if one is careful. It is constructed by glewing

some 1/4" plastic sheets together, then drilling holes with a hole saw.  I

don't ASCII graphics are necessary here, unless sombody really wants them.

     Sherman

------------------------------


Re: x-tal in muslin/hop spacing/mashing dark grains/Baderbrau

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 14:20 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: x-tal in muslin/hop spacing/mashing dark grains/Baderbrau

Peter writes:

>In HBD 1099 Mike Rego asks about Cara-pils haze.  This prompts me to ask a

>more general question regarding the addition of other malts to an

>all-extract brew.  Up until now I've been putting these in a tighly-woven

>hop bag, but am convinced that the bag is too small, packing all the grains in

>much too closely and restricting the extraction I get.

>

>I'm thinking of using a much larger bag made out of muslin, but am wondering

>if the much coarser weave will allow undesirable things into the wort.  My

>procedure is generally to steep the grains for 20 minutes or so at 170

>degrees, then remove the bag prior to bringing the wort to the boil.

>

>The grain crushing process (either a rolling pin for me, or sometimes I buy

>it pre-crushed from my brew shop) produces powder along with broken grains.

>How important is it to sift all this powder out?  If it gets into the wort

>will it cause any problems?

I suggest using a bigger (I think it's polyester) grain bag.  I think your

process is fine (for extract beers, I suspend the grain bag in cold water

and pull it out when it reaches 170F).  Most of the powder when you crush

crystal malt (AND THIS IS IMPORTANT) is the crystalized sugar.  Taste it.

It's sweet.  The first time I used crystal malt, I shook the grain bag

till the brown powder stopped coming out.  I then thought about it (I

had more than an hour to think, you see) and realized that the powder

was probably crystalized sugars.  Sure enough, when I tasted it, it was

sweet.  Now, if you are pulverizing your grain husks, then part of the

powder will be husk, but the solution is crushing your malt better and

not using a more fine bag.  Fix the source of the problem, don't put

a bandaid(tm) on a symptom.

*******************

Brian writes:

>I'm waiting for my hop rhizome order to arrive from Freshops.

>In the meantime, a friend has already received his, and tells

>me that 6 ft. spacing is recommended between varieties.  I have

>a good idea where I want to put them, but I'll only have about

>4.5 - 5 ft between varieties.  I'd like to hear from some

>experienced growers out there:  how far apart your varieties

>are, any problems, speculation on whether I'll get into trouble

>with closer than 6' spacing, etc.

The problem with having the spacing too close is that the hop

plants send runners underground and when they come up, you dont know

which plant they came from.  I planted mine 6 feet apart and put

3-foot diameter, rabbit fencing cages around them.  This was to keep

the rabbits and the pesky deer away from the young shoots.  Any

shoots that come up outside any of the cages, I chop them off with

a vertical chop with a spade.  This way, the shoots get cut off at

the source, just outside the cage, so they wouldn't eventually creep

into the next cage.  The fear, in case it's not obvious, is to

know what variety you are picking, so you don't dump Chinooks in

when you are expecting Saaz.  My standard "give each plant 6 gallons

of water and as much sun as you can" should also be mentioned.

**********************

Frank writes:

>I know Micah's no longer with us (gee, that sounds like he's dead--you know

>what I mean:  He's no longer with the DIGEST), but before he left he made the

>argument that dark grains should only be added at mash out, rather than for

>the whole mash.  The subject came up at our homebrew meeting last night, and

>Fred Lang, the brewmaster at our local micro, agreed with Micah.  He said to

>put the dark grains in for just ten or twenty minutes at the end, while

>mashing out.

This is dependent on your brewing water.  In Munich, the dominant style used

to be a Dunkel, made with dark grains.  This was because the dark grains

would acidify the Munich water and dark lagers just came out better than

paler ones.  If your water is soft, then you may indeed want to only

add the dark grains in during mashout.

**********************

Jack writes:

> Judging from all the interest in getting that caramel flavor recently

> displayed on the Digest, I presume that lots of people would not find that a

> problem.  More importantly, Ken Pachivich at Bader Brau makes an issue of his

> "fire brewed" process to achieve that caramel taste for his award winning

> Pilsner.  He brags about how hot the fire must be to achieve caramelization.

Controlled caramelization is quite hard to acheive, especially for us

homebrewers.  Commercial brewers are better equiped to control the

amount of caramelization that occurs.  Baderbrau is somewhere between

dark blonde and light amber in color, so the caramelization is not very

severe.  Obviously, Ken has good control over the amount that occurs.

For us to add repeatable caramel flavors in our beers, I'd say that

crystal malts are our best bet.

With all due respect to you, Jack, and at the risk of bringing an abrupt

end to the pleasant demeanor (and humor) you've recently displayed in

HBD, I'd like to dispute Ken Pavichevich's claims that Baderbrau is a

Pilsener.

We've disagreed on this before and no matter what Ken says or the people

who have deemed Baderbrau an award-winning Pilsener say, I contend that

it's not a Pilsener.  It is too malty in both nose and flavor, slightly

fruity and a tiny bit dark to be classified as a pilsener.  The caramelly

flavor that you say that Ken brags about is out of place in a Pilsener.

Pilseners are supposed to be sharply refreshing, their balance should

be decidedly towards hops in both flavor and aroma and have a spicy hop nose

(PU uses Saaz).  I'd say Baderbrau is a great Munich Helles (albeit at the

dark end of the style).  I feel it's a great beer, just not a Pilsener.

Al.

------------------------------


Manifold Design and use ??

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 16:47:40 EST

From: Lee Menegoni <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

Subject: Manifold Design and use ??

I have ten feet of 3/8" od soft copper tubing left over from

constructing a wort chiller.  I have considered using this

to construct a slotted copper manifold.  Is this diameter

adequate?  or should I use the Tee and plumbing stock type

of pipe.

When using the manifold does one also use a mesh grain bag or

does one just add grain to the mash tun with out a screen or

mesh bag over the manifold?

Is there any problem using  PVC pipe and connectors instead of

copper, besides philosphical issues.  It is used for hot and

cold water plumbing in some new construction so it is able

 to handle mas/sparge temps.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1102, 03/22/93

*************************************

-------


cider

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 13:40:02 PST

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: cider

Way back in HBD 1096, KLIGERMAN@herlvx.rtpnc.epa.gov  wrote:

>In October I made an apple cider and thanks to the advice on the HBD,

>I added sugar water after a few months and it cleared very well with

>a gravity of about 0.992  down from 1.054.  I would like to bottle it

>as a sparkling cider.  Should I wait longer or bottle it with about 3/4

>cup of sugar now and let it age in the bottle?  Should I continue to let

>it age in the carboy, or will I endanger killing the yeast.  I used

>Whitbread dry ale yeast.  Thanks.

I have had trouble posting (I am not even sure if this will make it, but ...)

but this is what I said at the time:

Well, now that you bring it up, let me ask you a couple of questions,

I just made a couple of batches of cider.  They turned out *very* dry,

which is cool, cause that's the way I wanted them.  However, they are

a little too dry.  I think one of my mistakes was using champagne yeast

(duh!).  But other than that, I have a conceptual problem.  Let's say

I use ale yeast next time, how do I get a *slightly* (and I do mean

very slightly) sweet AND carbonated cider.  Seems like if there is any

residual sugar in there, the yeast will eat it.  So you always get a

more carbonated, dry beverage.  I know I can add lactose (which

yeast cannot ferment) but that just seems so....."high tech".  Any

thing more "natural"?

By the way, my second batch I used apple juice concentrate to boost the

O.G.  Don't know if it will work any better, but intuitively one might

think it would contribute more 'apple' flavor.  We'll see.

As for your question, you quote an O.G. of 1.054.  Did this take into

account the sugar water you added?  If not, what was the gravity and

volume (or weight) of sugar water that you did add?  Doing a simple-

minded calculation on the figures you give, you (may) have an alcohol

concentration of a little over 8% by volume.  This is nearing the tolerance

of most ale yeast, although I was reading a chart at a homebrew store the

other day that seemed to say that some ale yeast could go up to 12%.

So I guess an answer to your question would depend on how much extra

sugar you treated your yeast to.  Although it probably wouldn't hurt

to bottle now.  However-- with a whole two batches of cider under my belt

(and the second still in secondary) my advice is probably worth just what

you paid for it.  :-)

Troy

------------------------------


Re: Lauter Tuns, PU

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 16:39:37 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Lauter Tuns, PU

>                                 _ end cap

>                                 |

>                             tee +---------] cap

>                                 |

>                        [--------+

>                                 |

>                                 +---------]

>                                 |

>                        [--------+

>                                 |

>                          elbow  /

>                       90 deg up  --------------->==========

>                                     standpipe      siphon hose

>                             (this would be coming out of the screen)

>

> Perhaps I am thick but I do not understand this.  Which way is up?

I probably wasn't too clear on this.  The "stem" and arms all lie on the

bottom of the pot/cooler, slots face down; then the standpipe comes up

the side of the vessel.  Here's a side view:

        siphon hose ===+

                      ||<-stand |

                      ||  pipe  |<- pot/cooler

                      ||        |

                      ||   arms |

                      |/########|

                      -----------

>The idea for this one came from McHarry and if you find me pushing a shopping

>cart full of empty cans, you can blame him.  He, of course, stole an idea

>from Benjamin but I couldn't understand the latter's drawing so, he beat me

>to it.

I wish I could say the standpipe idea is mine, but I stole it from

someone else, really.  You know what they say... "good artists borrow;

great artists steal."

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


BOTTLE DRYER

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 21:49 EST

From: tmr1@hotlg.att.com

Subject: BOTTLE DRYER

I have seen the plastic bottle drying towers sold in homebrew stores, but

I like the one that I built better.

It consists of 2 sheets of 1/2 inch plywood, 15" x 24" separated

by six 1 inch dowels, each about 5" long.  The top plywood sheet has

a 4x6 grid of 2-1/2 inch holes cut into it with a hole saw.  The

bottom sheet is solid plywood.  Below is a side view with a couple of

bottles sitting in the holes.  This bottle dryer holds 24 bottles, but

varying the size of the plywood and holes will change the capacity.

You can customize the dimensions to fit your size of bottles.  All the

wood pieces were painted with several coats of polyurethane prior to

assembly to make the entire structure fairly impervious to water damage.

As the bottles drain, I prop up one end of the dryer to let any

accumulated water run off the bottom sheet of plywood.

I only use 16 oz. Grolsch bottles for my brewing and this handles them

nicely even with the ceramic stoppers attached.  This drying rack will

let the bottles drip-dry upside down and not let any "nasties" fall

inside them.  It also does not touch the inside of the bottle so there

is no need to sterilize the dryer.

After I wash and dry a case of bottles, I just loosely clamp the ceramic

stopper in the mouth of the Grolsch bottle to keep out any dust.  I store

the rubber gaskets separately.  When it is time to bottle, I soak a case

at a time with a bleach solution, rinse thoroughly and let them drip-dry

for a few minutes.  The (boiled) gaskets then go on the ceramic stoppers

and are lightly closed until each bottle is ready to be filled.

   ____   ____

   |  |   |  |

   |  |   |  | <-----------------------  bottles

   |  |   |  |

===/  /===/  /===    ===    === <------  top sheet of plywood with holes

    ||  |  ||         |

        |             | <--------------  1" dowels

        |             |

================================ <-----  solid bottom sheet of plywood

                                                Tom Romalewski

------------------------------


Recipe: SN Porter Clone

Date: Sat, 20 Mar 93 16:41:55 -0800

From: ek@chem.UCSD.EDU (Ed Kesicki)

Subject: Recipe: SN Porter Clone

Here is a recipe for a clone of Sierra Nevada Porter.  I didn't mean for

it to come out that way; in fact, I had never tasted SNP until after I

made this one (my 4th all-grain batch).

It is based on Dave Miller's traditional porter recipe:

SIERRA NEVADA PORTER CLONE (5 gal batch):

 7 lb     2-row pale malt

12 oz     Black patent malt

 6 oz     Barley flakes

 .5 tsp    gypsum

Hops:   2 oz  Cascades loose hops, 5.5% aa, 60 min boil (= 11 AAU)

      0.5 oz  English Fuggles plug hops, last 5 min of boil

Yeast:  Sierra Nevada Yeast, cultured from two bottles (actually it

        was the yeast cake from a previous batch)

PROCEDURE:

Mash in:       130 deg. F  9 qts water (San Diego tap water)

Protein rest:  125 deg F       30 min

Mash temp:     154-142 deg F  1.5 hr

Mash out:      168 deg F        5 min

Sparge:        approx 4-5 gal @ 170 deg F

Total boil time of 1.25 hr, hops additions as noted above, chilled.

Fermented in glass, temp in the low 60's Farenheit, blow-off used.

OG: 50  FG: 17 (but could have gone lower--overcarbonated in bottles)

Total cost: $1.20 /six pack (not including yeast)

Ed Kesicki

P.S. In an upcoming issue I'll post a recipe for an ale which tastes

     suspiciously like Bigfoot Ale, but with slightly lower O.G.

------------------------------


Pub Draught Guinness

Date:    Sun, 21 Mar 1993 10:28 EST

From: Phil Hultin <HULTINP@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>

Subject: Pub Draught Guinness

I must say that I am surprised at all the enthusiasm for canned Guinness.

When I tried it (a 4-pack, shortly after it was introduced) I was totally

unimpressed.  But, moreover, at a recent CAMRA Ottawa Homebrew Competition,

they slipped Pub Draught Guinness into the stout category as a "ringer"

in a totally blind tasting, and the judges rated it 12th out of 14

supposedly homebrewed stouts!!

The judge's comments, even before the identities of the brews were

announced were (paraphrased): Beautiful head, wonderful nose, no flavour

at all.  Where's the beef?

Everyone was very amused when this brew was identified as Pub Draught

Guinness!!!

Cheers, P.

------------------------------


Are Zymurgy special issues worth it?

Date: Sun, 21 Mar 93 12:51:41 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: Are Zymurgy special issues worth it?

After more than seven years as a homebrewer, i've finally broken

down and joined the AHA.  The jury is still out on the question

of whether it was a wise investment of $25.

To the point: all of the special issues of Zymurgy from past years

can be back ordered, and I'm interested in opinions as to which

(if any) are worthwhile for an old dog who's always willing to

learn new tricks.

The issues in question:

1985 All-grain                  1986  Malt Extract   1987  Troubleshooting

1988 Brewers and their Gadgets  1989  Yeast          1990  Hops and Beer

1991 Beer Styles                1992  Gadgets and Equipment

1986 costs $5 and 1992 costs $9.5.  The others cost $8.5 and are

available as a set for a discount.  For the discount to be worth

it, one would have to want all 6.

Perhaps replies should be limited to e-mail, but I can't help

thinking there are a lot of other HBDers who would be interested

in the opinions of those who've read these issues.  In particular,

sis you learn a lot?  Do you still refer to them years later?

Thanks,

Rob (bradley@adx.adelphi.edu)

------------------------------


Drs. Balling and Plato

Date: Sun, 21 Mar 93 14:03:46 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: Drs. Balling and Plato

I have two questions about Balling/Plato:

1)  Exactly what is the difference between them?  Foster (_Pale_Ale_,

_Porter_) says Plato is "a more accurate, revised version of Balling"

He also says Balling is calibrated for 17.5C whereas Plato is calibrated

for 20C.  I presume the `more accurate revision' is something more

than just a temperature adjustment.  Was it simply a matter of Dr.

Plato (great name!) taking more accurate readings?

   It is interesting to note that both triple-scale hydrometers

   I have owned in my life have had Balling scales, the older,

   less accurate one .  On the other hand, most books (Eckhardt,

   Foster, Jackson) use Plato, the more accurate one.  What gives?

   Will some entrpreneur out there in HBD-land take up the

   challenge and produce a Balling/SG hydrometer for us?

2)  I understand that the conversion of a degree Plato to 4

points of SG (as in OG 1050 (12.5P)) is only an approximation.

A quick look at the Balling scale on my hydrometer shows that

SG ~= 4 x Balling - (1 or 2) in the range of 1030-1060.

However SG 1080 = 20 Balling and SG ~= 4 x Balling + (1 or 2)

for SGs around 1100.  Do I gather that the 1:4 approximation is

better when using Plato:SG?

Cheers,

Rob (bradley@adx.adelphi.edu)

------------------------------


OG for starters - a question

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 14:53:41 +0000

From: G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk (Geoff Cooper)

Subject: OG for starters - a question

Over the time that I have been reading HBD, there have been many articles

which have talked about the best gravity of wort to use in a starter. The

received wisdom from most postings is that an OG of 1.020 it best, but

recent postings have expressed different views.

I recently mentioned the figure of 1.020 to a (knowledgeable) colleague and

then realised that I had no hard evidence to support any claims - just HBD

hearsay (which I have no doubt is well founded :-) )

So what is the best OG for a starter? Is the value different for culturing

up from a small amount (say from a slant), from that for growing an existing

large colony (say from a packet of dried yeast)? Or, assuming that one might

culture from 10ml to 100ml and then to 1lt, should one use the same OG medium

for the 2 stages, or might it be better if they were different?

I look forward to your views, but would also appreciate recieving a reference

or two that I could follow up - or the results of some experiments that you

have carried out.

If I get a lot of info I shall gladly summarise it.

Geoff

------------------------------


Secondary?

Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1993 12:55:26 -0800

From: Richard Soennichsen <spart@well.sf.ca.us>

Subject: Secondary?

 Three days ago I made a Trappist ale and used a cultured Chimay for

yeast.  It began fermenting that night and fermented vigorously for the next

two days.

 Now it has slowed way down and the S.P. is within 2 points of that

specified in the receipe.

 Is it time to go to the secondary even though it has only been three

days?  The receipe called for three weeks in the primary and one week in the

secondary.(Cats Meow Ed2 pg. 9-18)

------------------------------


Looking for stainless containers in New Zealand?

Date: 22 Mar 1993 11:28:12 +1200

From: DAVID DEAN <DEAND@kea.lincoln.ac.nz>

Subject: Looking for stainless containers in New Zealand?

I'm new to HBD but not to homebrewing.  However, I just moved to New

Zealand and I'm having a hard time replicating the setup I left in

the States.

Stateside I was using 5 Gal stainless Coke (or Dr P) syrup canisters

as kegs (and storage) after secondary fermentation. However, they

use a plastic bag system here in NZ.  Does anyone know of any

stainless substitutes down under?

Thanks

- -----------------------<:-( David L. Dean )-:>------------------------

- --------<:-( Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand )-:>---------

 -<:-( "sober fearless pursuit of truth, beauty, & righteousness" )-:>-

------------------------------


two questions

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1993 01:50:06 -1100

From: Kirk_Anderson@wheatonma.edu (Kirk Anderson)

Subject: two questions

Did anyone catch the new Budweiser ad?  A couple of yuppies sitting round a

bar learn that because AB has a brewery in St Louis, and another in

Milwaukee, and another in New Jersey, etc., well, their favorite beer is

always *fresher*.  Right, so like how does pasteurization fit in here?

(Jeez who dreams up this sheepdip anyway?)

Question one: what does IMHO mean?  I've worked on this for days and can't

figure it out.

Question two: where can I get the most recent version of MacCompress for

reading ftp files?

I promise to be more beerish next time, but I just don't know who else to

ask other than you patient and helpful HBD comrades.  Respond by private

e-mail please.

Cheers, Kirk

------------------------------


Papazian's recipes

Date: 22 Mar 1993 08:40:59 -0500 (EST)

From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

Subject: Papazian's recipes

In digest #1101 Jeff Frane asks:

>On another note, has anyone ever gotten results anything like Charlie's

>from one of his recipes?  He seems to bat them out at a fairly high

>rate, and I've wondered over the years how much time goes into

>developing each one, and whether he's ever brewed one of them more than

>once (or better yet, more than three times) before publishing them.

>What really struck me was his recipe in the most recent Zymurgy, which

>calls for (not having it in front of me, and whoops, here we go again

>relying on memory) something in the neighborhood of 3.5# of dry malt

>extract and about 3 pounds (maybe a little more) of specialty grains.

>This to produce five gallons of a beer over 1.065.  Does anyone else

>think this is unlikely?

Memory can be a dangerous thing......:-)

I looked at the most recent Papazian recipe for a weizenbock.  Actually the

grain bill is *6* lbs of malted grain (most of it is enzymatic) and 3.5 lb of

dry malt.  For a five gallon batch Charlie suggests an OG of ~1.064, which may

be a little high, though it is reasonable if your sparging efficiency is good

and you are able to get ~30 points/lb/gallon.

Steve

------------------------------


Sucanat

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 93 08:41 EST

From: "C. Lyons; Salem, NH" <LYONS@adc1.adc.ray.com>

Subject: Sucanat

>>From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

>>Subject: sugar request, data point on aging

>

>>And how do you pronounce "succanat"?  Suck a gnat?  Sue can not?

>

>It's one "c", Sucanat.  It's a contraction of the words sugar cane natural.

>And I pronounce it sue can gnat.  It might actually be shoo can gnat.

>I'm eating some now.  Yum!

The lady at the Bread & Honey "granola" store in Plaistow NH pronounces

Sucanat as "Suck-a-nut".  Just a data point.

------------------------------


Wyeast reuse/etretching

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 93 09:21:47 -0500

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@fnma.COM>

Subject: Wyeast reuse/etretching

I have just bought a package of Liquid Wyeast.  I'd like to get the most

out of this purchase (ie., I'd like to stretch the use of this package

for successive batches of brew.)

I have read the Zymurgy "Yeast & Beer" Special Issue on yeast stock maintenance

and starter culture production.  This maintenance/production is certainly an

involving process when one considers the master culture preparation, working

the culture, and the plethora of equipment needed.

Upon reviewing the HBD, the following was posted by R.Cavasin for the

stretching of Wyeasts.  As stated, it's simple, and requires no special

equipment:

> ------------------------------

> Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1993

> From: "Rick (R.) Cavasin" <cav@bnr.ca>

> Subject: Wyeast reuse/stretching

>

> Here's the method for stretching the Wyeast that I have been using

> successfully.  It's simple, and requires no special equipment.

> ******************************************************************

> Briefly, my suggestion consists of converting the original Wyeast

> package into a number of 'copies' stored in beer bottles.

> ie. it is a parallel propagation rather than a serial propagation

>

> Step 1:  Prepare some starter wort (S.G. = 1.020), see Miller's book for

>          recipe.  Basically, you need about 1/2 gallon, but if you make

>          more and can it in mason jars (using standard canning procedures),

>          you will not have to prepare more at a later date.

>

> Step 2:  Place 1/2 gallon or so of starter wort in a suitable container

>          (1 gallon glass jug), pitch (inflated) Wyeast package at correct

>          temp. and fit air lock. This is the 'master' starter.

>

> Step 3:  Allow to ferment to completion.  When fermentation has ceased,

>          agitate the 'beer' to suspend all sendiment, and very carefully

>          bottle it.

>

> You will now have about 6 bottles of very thin beer with a good deal of

> viable yeast sediment in each bottle.  Use each bottle as you would use a

> package of Wyeast - ie. prepare a starter culture a couple days before

> brewing.  This is facilitated by canning wort when you prepare the master

> starter.  All you need to in that case is pop open a mason jar of wort, dump

> it into a sanitized bottle/jug of appropriate size, pop open one of your

> bottle cultures, add it, agitate vigorously, and fit an air lock.

>

> All yeast starters are of the same 'generation', ie. 'twice removed' from the

> original Wyeast package (as opposed to the usual 'once removed').  This helps

> avoid the accumulated contamination over multiple generations that may occur

> with serial propagation.

> I've had the bottled cultures remain viable for more than 6 months (so far).

>

> Observe proper sanitation and wort aeration procedures thoughout.

> Equipment: 1 gallon jug (for 'master' starter)

>            1.5 litre wine bottle (for subsequent starters)

>            air lock

>            6 beer bottles, caps and capper

> Optional equipment: mason jars and canning pot.

>

> ------------------------------

This method seems too simple when compared to the others I've read.

Am I missing something?

What are the advantages/disadvantages of the above method when compared

to the process involving Agar Slant preparation, etc.

Thanks for your responses.

------------------------------


big brewers brewing ales?

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 93 9:29:32 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: big brewers brewing ales?

Joe Mulligan recalls a friend of his being on a tasting panel for

a "bass-like" product from Miller Brewing.  I recently saw a news

blurb announcing Miller Special Reserve Amber Ale, and its description

fits Joe's.  Miller appears to be using the Special Reserve name

for specialty or super-premium beers, as it has already brought to

market Miller Special Reserve 100% Barley Beer, a blond, all-malt

beer.  I have not tasted the Amber Ale, and am wondering:  is it

amber?  is it an ale?  is it hopped above the taste threshold?

In launching the beer, Miller could be responding to Bass and

Sam Adams.  A spokesperson for Miller said that they believe there

is money to be made selling ales, although it is a relatively small

market for them and would account for 1% of their sales.  It also

appears that Heileman's, or someone contracting with them at La Crosse,

is brewing Windy City Ale, and Pabst, or someone contracting with

them, is brewing Old Tankard.

------------------------------


Sierra archives - Hymn to Ninkasi

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 93 8:46:02 MST

From: Rick Myers <rcm@col.hp.com>

Subject: Sierra archives - Hymn to Ninkasi

I retrieved the Hymn To Ninkasi file pub/homebrew/docs/hymn_to_ninkasi

from sierra.stanford.edu, and discovered it was a transcription I had

given someone via private email.  This is fine, however, the file has

the last paragraph and a half missing.  If whoever submitted it to the

archives would like to have a good copy there, please email me and I

will supply them with a good one.

- --

Rick Myers    rcm@col.hp.com

Information Technology Specialist

Hewlett-Packard

Network Test Division

Colorado Springs, CO

------------------------------


sterilize?, sugars, bleach/Chimay

Date:    Mon, 22 Mar 1993 10:19:45 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: sterilize?, sugars, bleach/Chimay

>Steam Sterilization: (p.49)

> ...

>At least 30 min steam treatment at 1 bar over pressure after the equipment

>has heated to 100C is necessary to achieve sterilisation of a

>cleaned piece of equipment."

Yes, for *sterilization*.  *Sanitization*, which is sufficient for most of

homebrewing, is much less rigorous, and more easily achieved.  Steam and

boiling water seem to be very good sanitizers.

For anyone interested, I found both Turbinado sugar and Sucanat at the

Granite State Natural Foods store in Concord, NH.  The Sucanat was about

$2.75(!)/lb., the Turbinado was $1.35/lb.  GSNF also has a decent selection

of homebrew supplies.  Most prices are good, but some things (throughout the

store) are very high.  Pay attention, or pay through the nose.

Re. my Chimay clone that had bleach water backwashed up the blow-off tube:

Well it's fine.  No indication of chlorine-induced problems.  It's phenolic,

but no more than would be expected with Chimay yeast.  My guess is that the

amount of chlorine that actually got in was less than what would have been

there anyway if I didn't boil all the water before starting.  Morale:  Relax,

Don't worry......and don't use bleach in the blow-off bucket.

Rg

OPAL/ESP

UNH

------------------------------


Re: Dark grains at mashout, manifold

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 93 9:43:55 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Dark grains at mashout, manifold

> >The subject came up at our homebrew meeting last night, and

> >Fred Lang, the brewmaster at our local micro, agreed with Micah.  He said to

> >put the dark grains in for just ten or twenty minutes at the end, while

> >mashing out.

>

> This is dependent on your brewing water.  In Munich, the dominant style used

> to be a Dunkel, made with dark grains.  This was because the dark grains

> would acidify the Munich water and dark lagers just came out better than

> paler ones.  If your water is soft, then you may indeed want to only

> add the dark grains in during mashout.

As a datapoint, an award-winning porter I made (the one using Hallertau

hops) did not have any roasted grains added until mash-out, and it

definitely was not anything like Michelob Dark!  10-15 minutes at

typical mash-out temp of 170F or so imparts plenty of color and nice

roasty character.  (The water here in Fort Collins tends to be fairly

soft.)

> When using the manifold does one also use a mesh grain bag or

> does one just add grain to the mash tun with out a screen or

> mesh bag over the manifold?

You don't need to use anything other than the manifold; just dump the

grain right on top of it.  Just make sure you have the slots facing down

against the bottom of the vessel.

> I have ten feet of 3/8" od soft copper tubing left over from

> constructing a wort chiller.  I have considered using this

> to construct a slotted copper manifold.  Is this diameter

> adequate?

I don't see why not.  The only difference is that you'll get a slower

rate of drainage.  This may even be an advantage, since with 1/2"

tubing you have to restrict the flow anyway.

> Is there any problem using  PVC pipe and connectors instead of

> copper, besides philosphical issues.

Again, I don't see any reason not to.  The only thing you might want

to check is the acid resistance of the PVC, since your wort will be

somewhat more acidic than plain water.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Dark grains at mashout

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1993 08:42:16 -0800 (PST)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Dark grains at mashout

Before the quibble and flame wars get started (sigh) I'd like to make a

plug for adding dark grains at mashout.  I've tried this on two batches of

porter [my current favorite] since reading about it here, and I'M A BELIEVER!

Dark grains have a lot of potential for harshness and astringency, adding

the chocolate and patent in the mashout gave me a rich, coffee-like yummy

luscious wonderful marvelous flavor and I like it.  Give it a try before

the "angels dancing on the head of a pin" theoretical arguments put a dead

sheep in the well.

Nullus in Verbum.

Paul.

------------------------------


Brewpubs in New Jersey

Date: 22 Mar 1993 11:38:11 GMT

From: "Stinson-Jeff" <MSMAIL.STINSONJ@TSOD.lmig.com>

Subject: Brewpubs in New Jersey

  Some associates and I are being sent (kicking and screaming) for a

lovely weekend in the Seacaucus/Carlstadt N.J. area. We expect to have

one free evening in which to experience the local brewpub scene. If

anyone knows of worthy establishments in the area please forward via

e-mail.

  Your help is needed to salvage an otherwise work/boredom filled

weekend!!

Thanks,

Jeff  MSMAIL.STINSONJ@TSOD.LMIG.COM

------------------------------


Flaked barley question

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 93 12:24:36 EST

From: Andrius Tamulis <ATAMULIS@ucs.indiana.edu>

Subject: Flaked barley question

This past friday I brewed a stout, which marked the first time I had ever

used flaked barley in a beer. It was an all grain recipe, and the mash went

well, but the sparge was terribly slow - by far the slowest I've ever had.

Now according to Papazian and Miller, this is caused by some kind of

stuff that's in the flaked barley (beta glucans? who can remember all these

names for things in beer, anyway). Miller sais that the way to deal with

this is with lager malt and a protein rest (the lager malt has more enzymes

of the needed kind for protein breakdown). Papazian mentions the problem,

offers no solution, and does no protein rest for his all-grain stout recipe,

which does include flaked barley. A quick perusal of the stout/porter

section of the Cat's Meow reveals about a 50/50 split of protein rest/

no protein rest of people who use flaked barley in all-grain brews.

So what do I do to make it all run smoother next time? Nothing - and live with

it? Do a protien rest? With or without lager malt?

Any comments are appreciated.

andrius

------------------------------


Spelling, Jackson

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 93 11:41 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Spelling, Jackson

 >From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

 >Subject: Yeast Lab, Hallertau in porters

                      ^^^^^^^^^

 >Thanks to all who replied on the subject of Hallertauer in porters.

                                              ^^^^^^^^^^^

 Would someone please provide the correct spelling for this word?

 Just when I thought I knew, I bumped into the "er" at the end in my newly

 acquired, SIGNED COPY of FIX and here we have both spelling in the same

 article.

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >With all due respect to you, Jack, and at the risk of bringing an abrupt

 end to the pleasant demeanor (and humor) you've recently displayed in

 HBD, I'd like to dispute Ken Pavichevich's claims that Baderbrau is a

 Pilsener.

 Tis not my wont to end pleasant things by propounding on that which I know

 nothing about.

 I was simply re-stating claims made by the brewer.  The claims (also by the

 brewer) that M.Jackson ageed, seemed to offer some weight but after all, they

 are all in it for one reason and the tendancy to offer mutual support seems

 to over ride absolute truth.

 Frankly, if what you say is true, it reflects more negatively on Jackson than

 it does on the brewer.  If Jackson went around telling brewers they made

 lousy beer, he would would have to get a real job.  He feeds his own

 popularity by dropping little jewels around at strategic places so people can

 use them for PR purposes.

 js

------------------------------


Re: Manifold Design and use ??

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 93 10:16:19 -0800

From: "Stephen Hansen" <hansen@gloworm.Stanford.EDU>

Subject: Re: Manifold Design and use ??

In HBD 1102 Lee Menegoni <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com> writes:

> I have ten feet of 3/8" od soft copper tubing left over from

> constructing a wort chiller.  I have considered using this

> to construct a slotted copper manifold.  Is this diameter

> adequate?  or should I use the Tee and plumbing stock type

> of pipe.

    I've got three feet of 3/8" copper in a 5 gallon cylindrical

Gott cooler and it seems to work just fine.  I removed the push

button tap and replaced it with a drum tap.  There is a stopper

at the inside of the drum tap and the copper comes out of it and

goes straight across the diameter of the cooler and then circles

around the circumference.  I've got slots every half inch or so,

which is probably overkill.

I would try and get uniform coverage so if you are using a larger

rectangular cooler you would need more copper.  You might also

want to go with a branching manifold with a rectangular cooler to

get more uniform drainage.

> When using the manifold does one also use a mesh grain bag or

> does one just add grain to the mash tun with out a screen or

> mesh bag over the manifold?

A grain bag probably wouldn't hurt but I haven't found it to be

necessary.

> Is there any problem using  PVC pipe and connectors instead of

> copper, besides philosphical issues.  It is used for hot and

> cold water plumbing in some new construction so it is able

> to handle mas/sparge temps.

I would say that if you can use it for drinking water at sparge

temperatures then it should be safe for this purpose.  The only

caveat on using normal food preparation materials in brewing seems

to be related to how they perform in an alkaline environment.

Stephen Hansen

------------------------------


Suggestions for 2 specialty brews

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 93 12:42:36 CST

From: Jacob Galley <gal2@midway.uchicago.edu>

Subject: Suggestions for 2 specialty brews

Does anyone have a recipe for Moxie? I want to make a Moxish Porter,

but don't really know where to begin.

Further down on the feasibility scale, I am tantalized by the idea of

a SEVEN GRAIN BEER. Surely this is not a unique idea. Does anyone know

of any previous attempts at this? I'm thinking this would include

barley (50-60%), wheat, rye, oats, rice (?), corn (?), millet (??).  I

envision this as an amber, steamy lager.

If I actually go through with this next weekend, it will be my first

full mash. But a little voice in my head says this will be a total

disaster. Maybe I should gain some mashing experience before

attempting anything this questionable.

Any suggestions or warnings would be appreciated.

Have fun,

Jake.

"JUST DO IT yourself." <------------- Jacob Galley / gal2@midway.uchicago.edu

------------------------------


slotted manifolds

Date: 22 Mar 1993 14:46:06 -0400

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: slotted manifolds

Lee Menegoni asks:

>Is there any problem using  PVC pipe and connectors instead of

>copper, besides philosphical issues.  It is used for hot and

>cold water plumbing in some new construction so it is able

> to handle mas/sparge temps.

 I just made a PVC slotted drain manifold for about $10 that works

beautifully.  On advantage with PVC is that the lengths of pipe and the

connectors fit snugly, forming an airtight seal, without gluing.  Thus one

can disassemble the whole thing and clean it out after use.  Also, by

removing the washer from inside the 3/4"threaded-1/2"smooth adapter, I was

able to use it in place of the nut on my spigot.  Thus it easily adapted to

my already existing system, making my bucket-full-of-holes obsolete.  (Now

I use the former "zapap" inner bucket to carry my brewing supplies up and

down the stairs).  The PVC resists the heat of sparging without any

problem.  The only difficulty was getting the glue from the price tags off

the connectors :)

 My manifold is an almost complete square with a diagonal leading up

to the spigot (the spigot was just too high to connect directly, but too

low for an elbow and a Tee), with projections from the one side into the

middle.  Slots are facing down.  With this setup the sparge cleared after

about 2 Litres of recirc., and all but about 1 cup of liquid was drawn off.

                            spigot

                             |_________

                                       /

                       ____________     |

                       |                |

                       |                |

                       |  --------------+

                       |                |

                       |                |

                       |________________|

 ed

------------------------------


Clinton E-Mail

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1993 14:19:00 EST

From: Bill Ridgely FTS 402-1521 <RIDGELY@A1.CBER.FDA.GOV>

Subject: Clinton E-Mail

          Those folks who missed the Mar 22 edition of the Washington Post

          may want to copy down the following presidential e-mail addresses.

          Apparently, the prez is a big fan of e-mail and is receiving

          upwards of 700 messages a day (I'm sure he reads every one!).

          Perhaps we should put him on the HBD mailing list. One of our local

          micros (Oxford Brewing Co) was put under contract to make a special

          "Inaugurale" for the recent festivities, so someone in the

          administration takes a liking to quality beer (probably Hilary).

          Anyway, here's the addresses:

          75300.3115@compuserve.com (via CompuServe)

          clintonpz@aol.com         (via America Online)

          clinton-hq@campaign92.org (via MCI Mail)

          Have fun, and let's keep those mailboxes full!

          Bill

          ridgely@cber.cber.fda.gov

------------------------------


Fridge Capacities

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1993 15:55 EDT

From: Kieran O'Connor <OCONNOR%SNYCORVA.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

Subject: Fridge Capacities

A note in the HBD indicated a brewer who had difficulty getting his

fridge down to 32 degrees.  This is so because the fridge's internal

thermostat has a range only down to about 38-40.  To remedy this,

remove the internal thermostat, connect the wires, and rely on the

outside (William's or Hunter) thermostat.

My fridge origianlly only went to 40, but with only the external

themostat, I got it to 28.  The problem is that the internal one kicks

out before it lets the fridge get down to 32.

Does this make sense?  I have an article from our club newsletter, and

would be glad to mail it to you--send a message with the subject "

fridge" and I'll send it to you.

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Addresses:

Bitnet: oconnor@snycorva

Internet: oconnor@snycorva.cortland.edu

------------------------------


Underletting Strike

Date: 22 Mar 1993 13:21:14 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

Subject: Underletting Strike

Subject:  Underletting Strike                   Time:12:58 PM    Date:3/22/93

The recently turned pro, Micah Millspaw, once spoke about his method of adding

the strike water to his grains by underletting (feeding the liquid into the

bottom of the grain bed.

I tried this over the past weekend. I have a slotted copper manifold in the

bottom of a 48 quart cooler. I just ran the strike water in thru the manifold

and let it fill the cooler where the grain was already in place. This was for a

10 gallon batch so there was 21 lbs of grain and the water used was 1qt/lb.

I cannot report that I was required to do less mixing. Micah felt that the

method provided for less dry spots in the grain bed. I stirred for my normal 10

minutes before I was satisfied that the grain was completely wet. The

temperature of the grain bed did seem to be more uniform and my target

temperature was accurate so the transfer of temperature is the same as my

regular method.

The greatest advantage to this method was the reduction in grain dust and the

ease of combining the two materials. I normally pour the grain in with one arm

and stir with the other as the water pours in from my hot liquor tank. By

underletting I was able to have more control over pouring the dry grain into

the empty cooler and then just opened the valve from the hot tank and added the

strike water. All but the top inch of grain was wet prior to my stirring. I

expected the grain to float more than it did.

I like it!

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


DRY HOPPING

Date:  Sat, 27 Feb 93 07:43:00 -0500

From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com (Roy Rudebusch)

Subject:  DRY HOPPING

From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com

Subject: dry-hopping vs. hop nose

DH:>that the way to

DH:>retain good hop aroma is to dry hop in a *sealed* secondary, so the goodies

DH:>aren't lost thru the air lock.  Is that safe in plastic/glass?

Hop nose is achieved by boiling pellet hops for two min. and

loose hops for 5 min.

Dry-hopping seems to contribute mostly to palate flavor.

The best way to achieve maximum hop nose would be to utilize a

"hop cage". Run hot wort through these hops on the way to

a counterflow chiller. This would be "distillation" of the volatile hop

compounds.

Here is Pale Ale I just brewed:

11 Gal 1060

14# U.S. 2-row

 4# Munich, Ireks

 4# CaraVienne

 2# Aromatic

30 HBUs Centennial

finished with 1 1/2 oz Centennial loose hops (boiled 5 min.)

Chilled with immersion chiller

W-1028 repitch.

OBTW, I have also discovered that filtering tends to *improve* the hop

flavor and hop nose of a beer. The beer flavors are cleaned up thus

allowing the hop goodness to shine through.

Brew on.

 * OLX 2.2 * If your mind goes blank, remember to turn off the sound.

------------------------------


Re: Making a Corona malt

Date:  Sun,  7 Mar 93 15:33:00 -0500

From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com (Roy Rudebusch)

Subject:  Re: Making a Corona malt

From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com

Subject: Re: Making a Corona malt ready

breiden@dsuvax.dsu.edu (Danny Breidenbach) writes:

OK -- I weighed the alternatives and my budget and got a Corona -- I

wanted a Maltmill -- but $50 more is $50 more.  Maybe later ...

anyway -- now that I have this Corona -- now that I've assembled it --

I seem to remember hearing about various tweaks and modifications to

make it better for malt ---

Jack Scmidling:

JS:>Tighten both nuts that hold the thing together first.  No matter

JS:>what anyone tells you, these must be tight.  Then adjust the large

JS:>wingnut so that something the thickness of a dime will just barely

JS:>pass between the two plates.  You must have a gauge on both sides at

JS:>the same time to do this.

Well said! But I would like to elaborate:

First, disassemble and wash with dishsoap.

Remove and do not replace the inner snap ring. The only purpose for this

ring was to prevent from losing the steel ball when it is disassembled!

To remove the snap ring just turn in the adjustment screw till the

ring is pushed out.

Remove the cotter key from the shaft and adjust the plate so it is more

perpendicular to the shaft. The mobile plate needs to run a parallel

course to the fixed plate. The hub may give some options for refitting.

Also the cotter key may need to be replaced.

File the end of shaft so it smooth and flat.

Crush on!

 * OLX 2.2 * Corona Mill

------------------------------


Ulick's Freezer

Date:    Mon, 22 Mar 1993 16:34:53 -0600 (CST)

From: BIRMINGH@FNAL.FNAL.GOV (Hi-keeba!)

Subject: Ulick's Freezer

         Ulick says:

>But I have a few more which refer to lagering.  I can probably fit

>4 or 5 carboys in the freezer and so can now do long lagering, but

>what do I do when adding a new beer to the lager?  Obviosly It would be

>bad to adjust the temperature upwards from 40 or lower to step down

>a new addition.  I have another small refrigerator that can take a 5 gallon

>carboy that I use now, and could continue to use for step downs or 32

>lagering for those extra special beers.  Also, how do people do

>summer primary fermentations? I wouldn't want to raise the temperature in

>the freezer even to 48, and because my 7 gallon carboys will not fit in the

>refrigerator, will I be forced to use a blow off tube and 5 gallon carboys?

>Any suggestions?

         One thing I have seen (in a different context, but fairly valid

    anyway) is to keep the freezer as cold as you want the coldest of your

    beers to be, and heat the carboys to the temperature you want. You can

    get flexible heating elements that could be wrapped around a carboy,

    and these in conjunction with a thermostat and strategically-placed

    temperature probe, could keep a carboy of beer at whatever temperature

    you desired.

         The only thing I can see wrong with this is that it is apt to be

    expensive.

                                              Phillip Birmingham

                                              birmingham@fne683.fnal.gov

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1103, 03/23/93

*************************************

-------


Specialty malts

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1993 13:59:47 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Specialty malts

Specialty Malts -- some info (part I)

In the interests of expanding knowledge about malts -- particularly

carapils (dextrine) malt, I'm posting some information drawn from a

couple of commercial sources.  The first is from an article by Roger

C. Briess, of the Briess Malting Co., which originally appeared in

Brewers Digest, October 1986. The focus of the article was the brewing

industry's ability to response to the market threat from imported beers

by their duplication through "all-American" ingredients.

The second is from material handed out

a few years ago at a presentation to microbrewers at Great Western

Malting, in Vancouver, Washington.  Shortly before, GW had been taken

over by Canada Malting Co., which also owns Hugh Baird, one of Britain's

largest malt houses.  That information is based on British malts and

terminology.

=========================================

Specialty Malts & Applications in Brewing, Roger Briess

"Basically two groups of malt exist from the maltsters' point of view:

kiln dried and roaster dried.

"Kilned malts, such as Pale Brewers or Munich types provide only

certain characteristics. The endosperm is generally _mealy_, providing

only _limited_ color and _limited_ flavor; however, few unfermentable

components. These malts are relatively inexpensive and easy to produce

on conventional equipment.

"Roasted malts, with the exception of Black Malt, have almost completely

glassy endosperms, providing non-fermentable components which enhance/

impart flavor, body, foam retention and beer stability.

[deleted text, mostly justifying high costs of specialty malts]

"Specific Characters

"Munich type malt increases color to a limited degree in beer with a

yellow-golden hue. It does _not_ enhance body, foam retention and beer

stability.

"It has reduced enzymatic activity and slightly less extract than standard

Brewers Malt.

"Carapils(R) (dextrine) malt has an almost completely "glassy" endosperm,

no enzymatic activity and somewhat less extract than standard brewers malt.

It greatly improves body, foam retention and beer stability without

increasing color or changing beer flavor profile, through non-fermentable

components. It is an elegant and inexpensive "natural" alternative to

alginates.

"Caramel malt also has an almost completely glassy endosperm, similar to

Carapils. It yields various color intensities in the desirable golden-red

hues. Standardized products in the 20 degree, 40d, 60d, 80d and 120d

Lovibond colors are readily available. Other variations are custom-made

upon request, volume permitting.

"The flavor profile varies with degree of roasting intensity, from a mild

caramel to a sharp, pronounced caramel. Fermentation will greatly influence

the remaining sweetness in the final beer.

[text deleted]

"One series of tests which were confirmed by brewing university researchers

indicates that a substitution of 15% Standard Brewers Malt on an "as-is-

basis" with Carapils permits an O.G. reduction from 11.5 d Plato to 10.5

d Plato without detection by a seasoned taste panel. Cost savings and

increased drinkability are some of the obvious advantages.

"Specialty malts are easy to use and generally do not require changes in

commercial brewing procedures, equipment readjustment, etc."

------------------------------


Specialty malts (more)

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1993 14:00:27 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Specialty malts (more)

from Hugh Baird

"Special brewing malts are used to impart, strengthen or balance specific

properties of the wort or beer such as color, flavor, body, foam

formation, protein stability, aroma and anti-oxident power. Most

reference books have little to say about colored malts. Many feel the

use of colored malts dates back to the 1600s when a serious fire in a

malt house produced a substantial volume of charred grain. It was decided

that it could be used u in the cheaper beer which was favored by

London porters and which was dark in color. By 1842, when the Roasted

Maltsters Act was introduced to limit the hours of roasting and control

temperatures, a wide variety of colored malts were already in use.

"Today's colored malts are now produced in roasting cylinders. They

provide direct heating in which hot, dry air passes through the cylinder

and indirect heating, where the grain is heated at a constant moisture

level providing a "stewing" effect.

"Colored malts consist of two types:

"Those made from green malt, generally referred to as caramel or crystal.

"Those made from dry material, often called roasted or chocolate.

 ...

"Carastan: This material is manufactured from germinating grain. The green

malt is transferred to a roasting cylinder and heated to 65^C for about

one hour. At this temperature and moisture, "stewing" occurs. The interior

of the grain is, in effect, "mashed." The starch is hydrolysed and

the endosperm liquifies. The temperature is then raised to 150^C for

varying periods of time, causing the breakdown products to react according

to the maillard reactions. When the malt cools, the liquid interior

sets to a pale-brown and caramel-like mass. The result is a malt with a pale

brown color and caramel-like taste. Colros are 30-37 ASBC. In addition to

their effect on beer flavor and color, they increase mouth feel and head

formation.

"Light Carastan: Produced in the same manner as carastan malt only due to

the lower color requirements, the roasting is prolonged at a lower

temperature. Color: 13-17 ASBC. Provides color without introducing as

much caramel flavor.

"Caramel (crystal): Again, the manufacturing method is basically the same

as carastan, using the same starting material, only using a longer and

higher roasting temperature. The flavors are more intense than carastan,

but basically have the same characteristics. The higher colored caramels

have a slightly "burnt" note. Colors can range from 50-212 ASBC.

"Amber (brown): Normally kilned pale malt is roasted in a cylinder at

tempeartures of 138-149^C, resulting in a malt that provides a somewhat

bitter flavor. Colors are 55-70 ASBC.

"Chocolate and Roasted Malt: This material is manufactured from kilned

malt by roasting at temperatures up to 250^C. Care must be taken not to

char the grain. Chocolate malt has a color of 450-500 ASBC and roasted

malt 500-550 ASBC.

"Roasted Material: Unsteeped barley is roasted at temperatures up to

250^C. It provides color like roasted malt only has a sharper, more

acid flavor.

"Munich Malt: Malt is allowed to "stew" at 50^C, then kilned at

temperatures less than 100^C. The high concentration of nitrogenous

material and reducing sugars produce high color without introducing

the carfamel/crystal flavor. Colros range 5-8 ASBC.

"Vienna Malt: A traditional pale malt produced at higher kilning

temperatures. It is characterized by high color and reduced enzyme

activity. Typically colors are 4-5 ASBC."

((I deduce from the numbers given above that ASBC colors are essentially

the same as those given in Lovibond.))

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


Tower System: Part 1

Date: 22 Mar 1993 17:24:03 -0500 (CDT)

From: ATKINSON@vaxb.acs.unt.edu

Subject: Tower System: Part 1

Fellow Brewers,

This is a long post, so here is...

Part 1

I am about to build the Tower System that Bill Owens describes in his book

"How to Build a Small Brewery".  It is a system which he suggests that is

to be used for brews up to 10 gallons.  After reading the recent thread on

RIMS in the HBD, I realized that there are probably several of you out

there that may be familiar with this Tower System.  Although not a RIMS,

this system seems to be similar to a RIMS in that it simplifies some of

the brewing steps.  This system uses a high temperature pump to lift water

to the highest point necessary, and then lets gravity do the rest of the

liquid moving work.  I like the idea of this system, and am hoping that

some of you can tell me about the pros and cons of using one of these, or

perhaps give suggestions for improvement.  For those of you who aren't

familiar with the Tower, I've tried to sketch it below, and would like

your insights also.  I believe that one of the great beauties of the

system is that it only requires one heat source, and only one kettle.  I

now have everything but the pump, and I guess I could simply transfer hot

water from the kettle to the ice chests in a bucket, but temperature drops

would have to be carefully observed.

  ========

 || _____||________

 || |             |          MASH/LAUTER TUN

 ||  |           |     (ICE CHEST & 2 COPPER MANIFOLDS)

 ||  |           |

 ||  |           |         _______________

 ||  |           |         |             |

 ||  |___________|=X========|=========  |

 ||                         |           |          X - valve

 ||    HOT WATER            |           |

 ||      TANK               |           |

 ||   (ICE CHEST)           | ==========|=X====

 ||                         |___________|

 ||                                         |        |

 ||                                         |        |

 ||                                         | KETTLE |

 ||                                         |        |

 ||                                         |        |

 ||                       ----              |        |

 || HIGH TEMP. HOSE      |    |             |        |

  =======================|    |==============________|

                          ----

                          HIGH                 ^^^^

                       TEMPERATURE             /__/  PROPANE

                          PUMP                /    / BURNER

------------------------------


Tower System: Part 2

Date: 22 Mar 1993 17:24:53 -0500 (CDT)

From: ATKINSON@vaxb.acs.unt.edu

Subject: Tower System: Part 2

Part 2

Some clarification of the previous diagram:

1.   The HOT WATER TANK and the MASH/LAUTER TUN are 58 quart ice chests

     (58 quart Igloo's can be purchased at SAM'S Wholesale Club for under

     $20 each).

2.   The cooking KETTLE is a converted 16 gallon stainless steel keg (top

     cut out and pipe fitting welded in place near bottom).

3.   The HIGH TEMPERATURE PUMP is a hot water circulator pump (can be

     ordered out of Grainger's catalog for about $75).

4.   The PROPANE BURNER is about 170,000 BTU (mine is a King Kooker,

     purchased at SAM'S for $50).

The system works by placing grains in the MASH/LAUTER TUN while heating

water to mash temperatures in the KETTLE.  Once the appropriate

temperature has been reached, it is pumped into the MASH/LAUTER TUN.  This

is done for as many temperatures as required for your recipe.

After all mashing water has been used, sparge water is heated in the

KETTLE and then pumped to the HOT WATER TANK.

When ready to sparge, the valves are adjusted so that effluent rate out of

MASH/LAUTER TUN is equal to the influent rate from the HOT WATER TANK.

The upper and lower manifolds are similar: the upper one is used to

distribute hot sparge water evenly over the filter bed; the lower one is

used to filter the grain from the wort.  This system should allow one to

adjust sparging time to as fast or slow as one desires.  (I think that I'd

try to set my sparge to about 2 hours so that I could leave the system

alone while I watched another upset in this years NCAA March Madness!)

You sparge directly into the KETTLE, and you can bring the wort to a boil

when you have collected 1 to 2 gallons.

QUESTIONS, COMMENTS AND INSIGHTS (FLAMES?) WILL BE MUCH APPRECIATED!

P.S. I have no connection to Owens or his publisher.

Sam Atkinson

Brew Long and Prosper

------------------------------


Drama, Excitement, Surveillance !

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 93 11:43 CST

From: srw@ihlpv.att.com

Subject: Drama, Excitement, Surveillance !

This isn't directly related to brewing per se, but I thought the

readers of this digest might be interested in a little drama that

is unfolding at the Chicago Indoor Garden Supply store, 297 N.

Barrington Rd, Streamwood, IL 60107.

I stopped in this past Saturday (3-20-93) to pick up some liquid yeast

and the owner asked an unusual question, "Would you like to see a

surveillance camera?"  At first I thought it was a trick question, but

he lead me to the door, shoved a pair of binoculars in my hand, and

directed my attention to a utility pole directly across the street.

Strange.  Power transformers don't usually have little windows on the

front and high gain antennas on the top.

The owner went on to allege that the Drug Enforcement Agency placed a

camera there to see who visits the store.  He claimed that they would

send chase cars after the patrons to get the license tag and then in

some cases show up at their door step demanding to search their home.

The store not only sells the necessary supplies for making beer, but

they also sell supplies for growing spices and herbs in your home.

It appears that the DEA assumes all customers of the store are

growing marijuana.  The disturbing part, the owner alleges, is that

the DEA does not have a search warrant when they show up that your

door.

It's been a couple of days now and no one has shown up at my door,

but I can say for a fact that there was a suspicious looking

transformer on the utility pole Saturday afternoon.  I wonder if

they are monitoring Handy Andy, Franks Nursery, K-mart, etc.

I'm sure if you call the store at 708-885-8282 they will be glad to

tell you the latest chapter in this unfolding drama.

The local CBS affiliate, WBBM Channel 2, is going to do a news story

tonight (Monday).  This could be interesting.

Steve Walk -- 708-713-7409 (Voice)   708-713-7963 (FAX)

Room IHP 2F-520

Software Systems and Technologies Department

AT&T Bell Laboratories

263 Shuman Boulevard

Naperville, IL  60566-7050

att!ihlpv!srw or srw@ihlpv.att.com

------------------------------


Scandinavian brews??

Date:           Mon, 22 Mar 93 21:12 EST

From: Richard_Ahrens@vos.stratus.com

Subject:        Scandinavian brews??

Someone recently posted an inquiry about the brewscene in Finland. I'd like

to expand on that a bit. I'll be bumming around most of Scandinavia in May

and would like to hear from anyone with suggestions on beers, pubs,

festivals, etc., which shouldn't be missed. (In fact, since I've borrowed

bandwidth to ask that much, any thoughts on low-budget travel in the region

would be appreciated.) Reply by email, natch.

------------------------------


Chill Haze

Date: 22 Mar 93 22:19:45 EST

From: Jim Manda <70322.2634@compuserve.com>

Subject: Chill Haze

To: >INTERNET:homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com


Chill Haze

Date: March 22, 1993

From: 70322.2634@COMPUSERVE.COM (Jim Manda)

Subject: Chill Haze

I'm new to homebrewing and have my sixth batch sitting in the primary as I

write.  Although I've been very happy with my beer, I've been consistently

getting chill haze.  I brew from extracts (EEK!) and the only adjunct I've

used so far is crystal malt. A typical recipe for 3.5 gallons is:

  3.3 lbs. John Bull Pale liquid malt extract

  1 lb. 6 oz. Munton & Fison light DME

  6 oz. English crystal malt 40lv

  2 oz. Willamette hop pellets (boiling)

  1/2 oz. Cascade hops (finishing)

  1/2 tsp. Irish Moss

  1 pack Wyeast liquid yeast #1084, Irish ale

My method is pretty straightforward.  Crush the crystal malt in a ziploc

with my John Bull rolling pin, put it in a grain bag, and place in 1.5

gallons of cold water.  Bring to 170 degrees and steep for five minutes.

Remove the grains.  Add the extracts, bring to boil.  Add the boiling hops

and let it boil for an hour.  I've been adding the Irish Moss during the

last 15 minutes of the boil.  I force chill the wort by placing it in a

couple of sanitized 1 gallon containers and bathing it in very cold water.

It gets to pitching temperature within 20-25 minutes.

My thinking is that the crystal malt is somehow responsible for the chill

haze.  I do a primary and secondary fermentation and the warm beer is very

clear.  I know the chill haze is not supposed to affect the beer's flavor

but I would like to get rid of it.

I've looked around for papain, but the health food stores I've checked

don't carry a pure version of it.  I've checked with several home brew

supply houses for polyclar and their question is usually __What's it used

for?__

Thanks in advance for any and all advice.  I'm a regular HBD reader and

find it instructive and very readable.

 -Jim

------------------------------


HomeBrew Store Staked out by Feds

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1993 22:46:20 CST

From: "Roger Deschner  " <U52983@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject: HomeBrew Store Staked out by Feds

This story was on WBBM-TV, Channel 2, Chicago's CBS station, on this

evening's 10 O'Clock News.

Starting a week ago, the Drug Enforcement Administration has been

watching Chicago Indoor Garden Supply of Streamwood, IL, from a camera

somewhat ineptly camouflaged as an electric transformer on a utility pole

across the street. This store does 70% of its business in homebrewing

suppies, and has become one of the favorite suppliers to Chicago area

homebrewers. Two homebrewers were interviewed by Channel 2 who had been

followed home from the store by the Federalies, and had their homes

ransacked for drugs. When Ch.2's news truck parked in front of a nearby

storefront the DEA has been using as a staging location, an "interesting"

scene unfolded with a Ch.2 reporter not getting very many answers from

the Feds, who tried in vain to keep their cover. (Note: Ch.2 did

obscure their faces as per standard practice when showing undercover

agents.) Then a swarm of Streamwood Police Dept. cars came, sirens and

lights going, to try to chase away the Ch.2 news crew.

The whole slant of the story was that this was a case of the DEA going

too far in "Operation Green Merchant", where they are going after stores

in Suburban Chicago which they suspect are supplying marijuana growers

with lights, fertilizer, etc. The presumption is that if they follow

enough homebrewers and other purchasers of perfectly legal merchandize

home from this store, eventually they'll find drugs in somebody's house,

and then they can sieze and close the store. Since they have an officer

assigned full-time to follow customers of this store home, they figure

the odds are in their favor.

Channel 2 Chicago is to be complimented for broadcasting this story, and

for emphasizing several times during it that homebrewing is legal. Watch

for further developments - WBBM-TV generally does a good job of following

up on stories of this sort.

------------------------------


Re: spelling

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 11:46:23 +0100

From: dejonge@geof.ruu.nl (Marc de Jonge)

Subject: Re: spelling

In HBD1103 Jack Schmidling asks

>>Subject: Yeast Lab, Hallertau in porters

>                     ^^^^^^^^^

>>Thanks to all who replied on the subject of Hallertauer in porters.

>                                             ^^^^^^^^^^^

>Would someone please provide the correct spelling for this word?

>

>Just when I thought I knew, I bumped into the "er" at the end in my newly

>acquired, SIGNED COPY of FIX and here we have both spelling in the same

>article.

The place where the hops originally came from is called Hallertau.

I think in german the form 'Hallertau-er' signifies a possesion

or origin, so 'Hallertauer' would mean 'from (or of) Hallertau'

(This is only from memory, my last german classes are more than

12 years ago)

Marc de Jonge                (dejonge@geof.ruu.nl)

------------------------------


bunny beer

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 07:27:14 EST

From: TKACKOWS@ucs.indiana.edu

Subject: bunny beer

While reading the only section of the newspaper worth paying for (the

comics section), I came accross Frank and Ernest by Bob Thaves.  In the panel

F&E are standing at a bar with a sign that reads "ask about our 'bunny beer'"

The beer tender replies "it's made with more hops".  This caused me to smile

and chuckle.  Then I realized, I've never brewed any beer (I just like to

read the HBD, you guys can really bitch and moan) and was wondering:

What would more hops do to a brew?  Would the drink be palettable?

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

tj

BTW, GO HOOSIERS !!! ALL THE WAY IN THE NCAA!!!

------------------------------


re: Rye Malt

Date:    Tue, 23 Mar 1993 15:59:45 +0300 (EET)

From: NIKKANEN@ntcclu.ntc.nokia.com (Kari Nikkanen, design engineer)

Subject: re: Rye Malt

Julie says:

>I'm wanting to try my hand at making the Finnish beer Sahti.  I've

>found the malted rye (a tricky thing) but have a question.  You see,

>I'm still an extract brewer and am not ready to go all grain right

>now.  So I was wondering how I handle the rye malt.  Should I

>treat it like a speciality grain by steeping it in near boiling

>water and then adding it to the regular malt?  Or will I need to

>do a partial mash?  How would I go about this?

 I think you'll get closer to the real thing with a

 partial mash.  As I don't have any kind of reference

 around right now, I'd only say that one hour in 165 F

 should be enough.  But then again, sahti can be brewed

 with or without rye malt, so depending on how much rye

 taste you want, (partial)mash, steep or leave it out.  Well,

 that wasn't really much of a help, was it?  I guess I'll

 have to find some reference, an old recipe or something...

 Anyway (as you perhaps know) there are no strict rules about how

 sahti has to be made, so go on and just do it!

    Kippis! /Kari

------------------------------


Hallertau or Hallertauer

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 08:41:27 CST

From: Fritz Keinert <keinert@iastate.edu>

Subject: Hallertau or Hallertauer

In HB Digest 1103, arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling) asks

>> Subject: Yeast Lab, Hallertau in porters

>> Thanks to all who replied on the subject of Hallertauer in porters.

                                              ^^^^^^^^^^^

> Would someone please provide the correct spelling for this word?

> Just when I thought I knew, I bumped into the "er" at the end in my newly

> acquired, SIGNED COPY of FIX and here we have both spelling in the same

> article.

I think both forms are correct. Hallertau is the name of the region

where the hops come from. One of the meanings of the "er" ending in

German is "coming from", just like in English: New York is a town, a

New Yorker is a person from New York.

In German, the "er" needs to be there in the phrase "Hallertauer

Hopfen". In English, it is more customary to leave them off:

"Hallertau hops". Take your pick.

- ---

Fritz Keinert                             phone:  (515) 294-5223

Department of Mathematics                 fax:    (515) 294-5454

Iowa State University                     e-mail: keinert@iastate.edu

Ames, IA 50011

------------------------------


Proper use of lager yeast

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 10:19:58 EST

From: jwilliam@uhasun.hartford.edu (John Williams)

Subject: Proper use of lager yeast

Hi

 I have a question about the proper use of lager yeast.  I made

three batches from one pack of wyeast #1007 by repitching the dregs;

first from the primary and then from the secondary.  The first batch was

a bock and after sitting in the bottle in the basement (<50 deg) for

about 6 weeks was well carbonated and good.  The second was double

dunkel and after 6 weeks had no head or carbonation.  I took a couple of

bottles upstairs where the temperature is about 68 deg, shook them when

I walked by them and they were carbonated in about three days.  Two

weeks later, now, the ones in the basement are also carbonated.  The

last batch has been in the bottle for 5 weeks and shows no sign of

carbonation.

 Here is the question in all this.  What is the proper way to

treat the bottles?  Should I leave them at room temp for a week to

condition the beer in the bottle and then move them down to the basement

to clear or should I just move them down to the basement and wait six

weeks?  What I don't understand is that the beer did the primary ferment

down in the basement just fine, it finished in under a week, so why

doesn't the yeast carbonate the beer in the bottle in the same time?

Are the conditions in the bottle that different then in the carboy?

 Thanks for your help.

     John Williams

------------------------------


Catalog address, phone number

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 09:24:02 EST

From: boomer@sylsoft.com (Richard Akerboom)

Subject: Catalog address, phone number

About a year ago in the HBD someone mentioned a restaurant supply catalog

that was a good source of homebrewing equipment like pots, tap systems,

etc. I think they were located in the midwest, perhaps near Chicago

or in Wisconsin. I moved recently and seem to have lost the catalog,

and naturally now I need some equipment from them. Any suggestions

on the name and telephone number would be appreciated.

Rich

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Richard Akerboom       Domain: boomer@sylsoft.com or akerboom@dartmouth.edu

Sylvan Software          uucp: dartvax!sylsoft!boomer

Mechanic St.            Phone: 802-649-2231

P. O. Box 566             FAX: 802-649-2238

Norwich, VT 05055 USA

------------------------------


Re:Clinton E-Mail

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 08:58:29 -0700

From: 4311@cpf.navy.mil (CDR Fred W. Brunson)

Subject: Re:Clinton E-Mail

In HBD 1103 Bill Ridgely provided e-mail addresses for the

Commander-in-Chief (Bill Clinton).

I'm sure that Bill (Ridgely) was using hyperbole when he asserted

that the President reads every one of the 700 e-mail messages

that the White House gets daily.  A recent Wall Street Journal

side bar on the subject (my boss gets it and I get hand-me-downs)

indicated that the message traffic doesn't go directly to the

White House but is delivered on disk (the aol.com address is a

contractor's office in Vienna, Va), printed out and then handled

by staffers as normal written correspondence.  Replys  are only

sent via snail mail so you have to include your postal mailing

address in the e-mail if you expect an answer.

Still it's better than their predecessors as far as access goes

and, Bill, thanks for putting the word out, I should have thought

of it myself.

Fred

------------------------------


7 grain beer

Date: 23 Mar 1993 10:42:04 -0500

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel.F.McConnell@med.umich.edu>

Subject: 7 grain beer

                       Subject:                               Time:10:37 AM

  OFFICE MEMO          7 grain beer                           Date:3/23/93

Jacob Galley <gal2@midway.uchicago.edu> writes:

>Further down on the feasibility scale, I am tantalized by the idea of

>a SEVEN GRAIN BEER. Surely this is not a unique idea. Does anyone >know

>of any previous attempts at this? I'm thinking this would include

>barley (50-60%), wheat, rye, oats, rice (?), corn (?), millet (??).  I

>envision this as an amber, steamy lager.

Three years ago I brewed a Kashi Ale.  It all started when I saw some buckwheat

kashi in the bulk grain section of the local alternative grocery.  My wife sees

cereal-I see beer.  Next thing I knew, I was brewing.  The kashi contained 5

grains including a majority of buckwheat and some millet.  I mashed with 60%

2-row, 37.5% kashi and 12.5% rice to give the 7 grains.  I cooked the kashi in

water before mashing because I didn't know if that was needed or not...so to be

safe I cooked it.  It turned to mush.  Interestingly the mush (and rice) simply

seemed to *vanish* during the mash.  I kept the hop rate low to allow full

flavor evaluation.

The beer was very light in body with an unusual but interesting, almost smokey

flavor component most certainly due to the buckwheat.  Definitely falls in the

wierd-beer category, but it is worth making again.  I would add rye, eliminate

rice and add some crystal to provide more body and color.  I seem to recall

that high levels of millet is undesirable due to the oil in the grain

(Papazian?).

I can post the recipe if anyone is interested.  The basics for 5 gal were 4 lb

malt, 3 lb Kashi and 1 lb rice.

DanMcC

PS. My memory really isn't that good....I was considering making this again, so

I looked it up just two days ago.

------------------------------


Re : oat bran in brewing

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 16:00:40 GMT

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: Re : oat bran in brewing

Jean Hunter writes:

"Has anyone tried using oat bran in an oatmeal stout?  As a brewer in the

extract/partial mash school, I question the logic of using large quantities

of flaked oats as a specialty grain, especially when the starch will

obviously not be converted.  I would expect the gums and glucans to be

concentrated in the bran of the oat -- so why not use just the bran fraction

and save the rolled oats for breakfast?"

I cook with oat bran, and it doesn't seem to create much viscosity to me.

However, I have made extract stouts which involved a preboiled rolled oats

solution, and this definitely has mouthfeel, although zero SG. The best method

seems to be to flour the flakes, then add water rather than vice versa in

order to stop clumping. The solution throws an incredible amount of sediment,

so if you decide to boil the oats along with the malt and hops, forget about

racking off the trub, otherwise you will lose too much extract. There's no oil

in rolled cereals, so it shouldn't affect yeast metabolism. You can get

30 pts/lb/gall by mashing the oats with either some amylase enzyme or some

diastatic malt, and that will reduce the amount of starch sediment.

- --

Conn V Copas

Loughborough University of Technology          tel : +44 509 263171  ext 4164

Computer-Human Interaction Research Centre     fax : +44 509 610815

Leicestershire  LE11 3TU              e-mail - (Janet):C.V.Copas@uk.ac.lut

G Britain                                      (Internet):C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk

------------------------------


German-style Helles Lager

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1993 11:11:38 -0500

From: cstokley@mason1.gmu.edu (Catherine P Stokley)

Subject: German-style Helles Lager

Help requested from successful homebrewers of German or Austrian Helles

Lager Bier. After having tried upwards of 40 different recipes and

techniques to produce a German style beer rather than an English style

beer, I am about to throw in the hop bag and bag it. Can anyone offer some

insight into the problem? Over the years I have purchased brewing

materials primarily from Alternate Beverage in Charlotte, NC. The

products offered for sale are to a large extent from the U.K. I do not know

if the beers that I have brewed remind me of English beers I had while

living in England, because the English Malt extracts are basically

produced at higher temperatures and are consequently more bitter than

German malts might be or if the yeasts and hops I have used are similarly

from the wrong source. Without going into the all the variations of recipes

I have tried and without describing tastes and aromas long forgotten (still

recorded in my log, however), I would appreciate some suggestions for

recipes, techniques and sources of ingredients which could be used to

produce German or Austrian style Helles Bier.

Thank you

Catherine Stokley

internet:: cstokley@mason1.gmu.edu

------------------------------


Wine, Starters

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 10:18 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Wine, Starters

 >From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

 > Let's say I use ale yeast next time, how do I get a *slightly* (and I do

 mean very slightly) sweet AND carbonated cider.  Seems like if there is any

 residual sugar in there, the yeast will eat it.

 The standard trick is to use Campden tablets to stabilize the wine after the

 desired sweetness is achieved.

 I prefer to keep adding sugar till the yeast croaks and then just enough to

 get the sweetness I want.  The key is to do it in small increments when you

 get close or you will over shoot.  The type of yeast you use will determine

 the alcohol level when finished this way.

 In the last stages, I use honey because it ferments more slowly and seems

 more natural.

 >From: G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk (Geoff Cooper)

 >Subject: OG for starters - a question

 >Over the time that I have been reading HBD, there have been many articles

 which have talked about the best gravity of wort to use in a starter. The

 received wisdom from most postings is that an OG of 1.020 it best, but

 recent postings have expressed different views.

 >I recently mentioned the figure of 1.020 to a (knowledgeable) colleague and

 then realised that I had no hard evidence to support any claims - just HBD

 hearsay (which I have no doubt is well founded :-) )

 A MOMILY BUSTER in the bud.  I suspect you will find that there are probably

 sound scientific reasons behind the number but in the real world of home

 brewing, it really is academic.  There are also sound scientific reasons for

 re-hydrating dry yeast in plain water but the same real world reminder

 applies.

 I find the most practical starter is simply a small amount of the previous

 batch held back before pitching.  I put a pint in the fridge for the next

 batch and if I feel real scientific, I cut the first pitch with water but I

 usually just use it as is and as near as I can tell, the yeast loves it.

 >So what is the best OG for a starter?

 The OG of your last beer :)

 > Is the value different for culturing up from a small amount (say from a

 slant), from that for growing an existing large colony (say from a packet of

 dried yeast)? Or, assuming that one might culture from 10ml to 100ml and then

 to 1lt, should one use the same OG medium for the 2 stages, or might it be

 better if they were different?

 I do/have done all of the above and the same reminder applies.

 I suspect the best advice would be to lean towards minimum "shock".  If the

 slant is made on 1.020 agar, it could be argued that the starter should be

 1.020, but I won't.

 For those following the trials and tribulations of the World's Greatest

 Brewer, I have just started a Wyeast batch.  It was given (forced) to (on) me

 by Tim Norris.  So, I am re-culturing it on petri dishes and used the rest to

 start a starter.

 So far, what I dislike the most about it is that it doesn't seem to

 understand about telephones.  After sterilizing the packet, scissors, needle,

 pipette, flask mouth and removing the air lock, I cut open the packet and the

 BLODDY PHONE RANG!

 It was a  prospective customer wanting to know all about easy mashers and so

 with the phone on my shoulder and my mind on mashing, I continued to carry on

 with the yeast.  Naturally, it wouldn't pour nice and I slobbered more on the

 table than in the flask but I got enough to learn what I wanted to learn and

 converted another plastic bucket brewer to the wave of the future.

 Not surprisingly, there is a lot of dead yeast in the packet.  Within a few

 minutes of pouring it in, a significant layer had settled to the bottom of

 the flask.  This is about the amount I would normally have after three days

 of incubating from a slant.  It is now almost 24 hours later and there is

 only a modest amount of fermentation and thus I assume that it is mostly dead

 yeast.

 js

------------------------------


More Manifold Designs

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 08:38:16 PST

From: Richard.Goldstein@EBay.Sun.COM (Richard Goldstein)

Subject: More Manifold Designs

All this talk about manifold designs has got me thinking about a

variation, and I would like some feedback. I'm not very mechanically

inclined and I don't have a pipe cutter. However, I do have about 10'

of copper tubing left over from when I made a wort chiller.

Can I just make a flat coil and put it on the bottom of a cooler, and

cut slots (facing down) into it? It would be made with a standpipe.

I understand that most of the other designs allow the cleaning/rinsing

of the pieces, or have screens to protect them, but this manifold

design doesn't come apart. How important is that? How much gunk gets

into the slots of the pipes? Do you think that merely flushing the pipe

with water would be sufficient?  What other factors or design flaws am

I missing?

Thanks.

Richard Goldstein

------------------------------


Comments on Bud (Was: "two questions")

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 12:00:35 -0500

From: David Arnold <davida@syrinx.umd.edu>

Subject: Comments on Bud (Was: "two questions")

In HBD #1103, Kirk_Anderson@wheatonma.edu wrote:

>Did anyone catch the new Budweiser ad?  A couple of yuppies sitting round a

>bar learn that because AB has a brewery in St Louis, and another in

>Milwaukee, and another in New Jersey, etc., well, their favorite beer is

>always *fresher*.  Right, so like how does pasteurization fit in here?

>(Jeez who dreams up this sheepdip anyway?)

What gets me is the previous Bud commercial where the yuppies are in

the bar with the old guys, and the oldsters are debating what makes

Bud "so great".  One says "the hops", another says "the rice".

THE RICE?  Geez, that's part of what makes it taste like real beer filtered

through my kidneys!  Seems to me that's a good reason to drink something

else rather than Bud!?!?!

Of course, this is not a slight on (real) rice-based beer, but they're

telling us that they're making a standard pilser or lager with rice.  Does

anybody else find this laughable?  I figured they'd play down the rice

content as much as possible, especially with the upswing in popularity of

"real beers" (microbrews, etc).

Then again, why pull a lobe carping about it?  The last time I tried Bud

was two years ago and I was offended by it...

David Arnold

P.S.  Then there's Killians Irish Red being the "official beer of St. Patricks

      Day"; I wonder what Guiness and Harp thought of this?  :-)

Inet:     davida@syrinx.umd.edu

Bitnet:   davida%syrinx.umd.edu@cunyvm

UUCP:     uunet!syrinx.umd.edu!davida

NeXTmail: davida@anagram.umd.edu

------------------------------


Haller-what?

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1993 09:07:48 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Haller-what?

"Hallertau" is a place.

"Hallertauer" is the name of a thing from that place.

To wit:  "Diese Hopfen kommt von Hallertau.  Diese Hopfen sind Hallertauer."

Hope this helps...

have fun

gak

Richard Stueven, Castro Valley CA

------------------------------


Mashing Crystal, Dextrine Malts. Attenuation of Whitbread yeast

Date:    Tue, 23 Mar 93 07:29:08 PST

From: cole%nevis.hepnet@Lbl.Gov

Subject: Mashing Crystal, Dextrine Malts. Attenuation of Whitbread yeast

I have been somewhat confused by one of the ongoing threads regarding the

mashing of crystal and dextrine malts. I have just recently started doing

all-grain batches after three relatively successful partial mashes. In all

of my partial and full mashes I have added the crystal malt at the very

beginning of the mash. However, I have seen several comments on the HBD

over the last few months stating that crystal malts should not be mashed as

the mashing has already been done during the kilning stage. What confuses

me is that I have not seen this stated (to not mash crystal malt) in either

TNCJOHB or in Miller's book (though I haven't finished a thorough

cover-to-cover reading of it). I also see no explicit mention of treating

crystal malts separately in most all-grain recipes posted to the HBD or in

the Cat's Meow from the more experienced contributor's to this forum.

Please don't take this as an insult, but I am a little wary of some of the

"convential wisdom" that shows up on the HBD. So, the question is:

   Is it bad to mash crystal malts ? More specifically, do the enzymes

   reduce the desired sugars during the mash or are the sugars derived

   from crystal untouchable to the starch-converting enzymes ?"

Also regarding the recent thread on cara-pils (dextrine) malt, I forgot

to check, but I believe that Papazian EXPLICITLY states that cara-pils

MUST be mashed. I have learned to be wary of some of his statements, so

once again:

   Do the experts believe that cara-pils malt should be mashed ?

One reason I ask these questions is that in my first all-grain batch, I

attempted to produce a lower-gravity, lighter colored bitter (target OG 1.035).

I was tired of the amber color I found in beers made from extract and the

typical extract sweetness that I found inappropriate for some beers.

The grain bill was:

===================

5 1/2# pale malt

1/2 # light crystal (10L I think, it was a very light crystal)

1/2 # dextrine malt

I mashed in at 115 F, raised temp to 122 F for 30 min protein rest,

conversion rest at 152 F for 1 hour, mashout at 170 for 10 min., sparged

with 3.5 gallons. I obtained 180 pts*gal of extract, but also sparged too

long :( . I used a batch of second-generation Wyeast Whitbread Ale for the

ferment.

To make the story short, the Whitbread yeast fermented the beer down to

1.005, giving me an exceptionally dry, somewhat over-hopped, and astringent

(from over-sparging I assume) beer. Drinkable, but far from what I wanted.

I've read about the tendency of Whitbread to become more attenuative over

time, but I didn't expect this result in the second generation. I

definitely expected the crystal and dextrine malts to provide more residual

sweetness. Though I am skeptical, I cannot rule out breakdown of the

sugars during the mash as one reason for the resulting dryness. Thus, the

questions above.

Regarding the tendency of Whitbread to become more attentuative with

successive generations, is this a result of preferentially selecting the more

attenuative of the three strains ? If so, then the difference in behavior

between yeast taken from the primary or secondary might be considerable.

Cheers,

Brian Cole

------------------------------


re: Hallertau, Hallertauer

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 10:39:34 PST

From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

Subject: re: Hallertau, Hallertauer

To explain this distinction, one must understand a little bit about the

German language (that's about all I understand).  If you have a place

name, such as Berlin, then someone or something that comes from that

place is Berliner.  (This explains the oft mentioned "joke" about JFK's

"Ich bin ein Berliner" speach;  a Berliner is someone who comes from

Berlin, but a particularly style of doughnut also originates in Berlin

and is often simply known as a Berliner too;  hence, the "I am a jelly

doughnut" translation.)  So, we have Hallertau-Hallertauer,

Tettnang-Tettnanger, and Saaz-Saazer.  The latter doesn't get much use,

perhaps because the official AHA style guide suggests Hallertauer and

Tettnanger, but forbids Saazer.

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------


Carboy cleaning

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1993 11:21:30 -0800 (PST)

From: "U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit" <ericwade@CLASS.ORG>

Subject: Carboy cleaning

After racking or bottling I've been adding about 1/2 to 1 cup each of

trisodium phosphate TSP and chlorine bleach to my carboys, filling each

with water and storing until my next batch.  By this time all the nasties

from the previous batch have dissolved.  I rinse very well and santize

with idophor (.5 oz./5 gallons).  I've never found the need to scrub the

inside of the carboys with a brush (sometimes just a quick scrub around

the bottle neck).  Never had an infected batch since adopting this method.

Aside from the environmental reasons against pouring this much junk down

the drain, are their any beery reasons why I should abandon or adjust this

cleaning method?

Eric Wade

Internet: ericwade@class.org

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1104, 03/24/93

*************************************

-------


Re: SpecialIssues/DryYeast/Secondary?/Kiwi SS/Sanitation/Hallertauer/Baderbrau

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 13:47 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: SpecialIssues/DryYeast/Secondary?/Kiwi SS/Sanitation/Hallertauer/Baderbrau

Rob writes:

>To the point: all of the special issues of Zymurgy from past years

>can be back ordered, and I'm interested in opinions as to which

>(if any) are worthwhile for an old dog who's always willing to

>learn new tricks.

>

>The issues in question:

>

>1985 All-grain                  1986  Malt Extract   1987  Troubleshooting

>1988 Brewers and their Gadgets  1989  Yeast          1990  Hops and Beer

>1991 Beer Styles                1992  Gadgets and Equipment

In my humble opinion (IMHO), these back issues are all quite good or better

and fall into three categories: good, great and indispensable.

I believe the good are the 1986 and 1991, and the great are the 1985,

1988 and the 1992.  The indispensable are the 1987, 1989 and the 1990.

I literally refer to the 1990 on each batch I brew and refer to the

1987, 1989 and 1991 at least once per month.  I should refer to the

1988 and 1992 during the summers (but I don't) when I have the time to

build new hardware.  Perhaps this summer.

****************************

Geoff writes:

>So what is the best OG for a starter? Is the value different for culturing

>up from a small amount (say from a slant), from that for growing an existing

>large colony (say from a packet of dried yeast)? Or, assuming that one might

>culture from 10ml to 100ml and then to 1lt, should one use the same OG medium

>for the 2 stages, or might it be better if they were different?

I have this information scattered among files and books, but don't have the

time to compile it all into a meaningful, concise answer.  However, your

mention of dry yeast brings up an important point, the source of which I

recall.  According to the Lallemand Yeast Newsletter as well as several

other sources, DRY YEAST SHOULD BE REHYDRATED IN PLAIN, STERILE (as much

as possible) WATER -- NOT WORT.  It all has to do with hydrostatic pressure

and some other technical stuff, which I didn't store in my head, but the

importance of this is generally agreed upon in the literature.

********************

Richard writes:

> Three days ago I made a Trappist ale and used a cultured Chimay for

>yeast.  It began fermenting that night and fermented vigorously for the next

>two days.

> Now it has slowed way down and the S.P. is within 2 points of that

>specified in the receipe.

> Is it time to go to the secondary even though it has only been three

>days?  The receipe called for three weeks in the primary and one week in the

>secondary.(Cats Meow Ed2 pg. 9-18)

I would omit the secondary.  You must have had some very lively yeast or

fermented at a higher temperature than the author of the recipe or perhaps

aerated better than the author.  At this point, now that the beer is almost

done, going to a secondary would only increase the risk of infection and

an additional racking would aerate the beer more than if you just racked

it into the bottling vessel when the beer is done.  I feel that, in this

case, the benefits are not outweighed by the possible problems.

***************************

DAVID writes:

>Subject: Looking for stainless containers in New Zealand?

Don't they raise cows in New Zealand?  Try a dairy for surplus equipment.

***************************

Russ writes:

>>Steam Sterilization: (p.49)

>> ...

>>At least 30 min steam treatment at 1 bar over pressure after the equipment

>>has heated to 100C is necessary to achieve sterilisation of a

>>cleaned piece of equipment."

>

>Yes, for *sterilization*.  *Sanitization*, which is sufficient for most of

>homebrewing, is much less rigorous, and more easily achieved.  Steam and

>boiling water seem to be very good sanitizers.

I recently read somewhere that 30 minutes of pressure cooking a rubber

stopper did not kill some Pediococcus bacteria.  Immediately upon reading

this, I went downstairs and labeled my 20 gal HDPE pLambik fermenter

and all the stoppers and hoses I used "LAMBIK ONLY."  I plan to keep them

separate from my conventional beer equipment.

**************************

Jack writes:

>>Subject: Yeast Lab, Hallertau in porters

>                     ^^^^^^^^^

>>Thanks to all who replied on the subject of Hallertauer in porters.

>                                             ^^^^^^^^^^^

>Would someone please provide the correct spelling for this word?

Actually, Hallertauer is more correct.  The "er" suffix in German generally

means "of" or "from" therefore, "Hallertauer" are hops with direct lineage

to the type of hop that was grown in the Hallertau area.  "Hallertau" is

kind of correct, but bad grammar.  Consider "Boston Lager" versus

"Bostonian Lager."

> >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

>

> >With all due respect to you, Jack, and at the risk of bringing an abrupt

> end to the pleasant demeanor (and humor) you've recently displayed in

> HBD, I'd like to dispute Ken Pavichevich's claims that Baderbrau is a

> Pilsener.

>

> Tis not my wont to end pleasant things by propounding on that which I know

> nothing about.

On the contrary, it appears that you know enough about Pilsener to take

2nd place in Pilsener at the 1993 "Who Died and Made Us B.O.S.S.?" Competition.

> I was simply re-stating claims made by the brewer.  The claims (also by the

> brewer) that M.Jackson ageed, seemed to offer some weight but after all, they

> are all in it for one reason and the tendancy to offer mutual support seems

> to over ride absolute truth.

Perhaps this is true.  I've discussed this off-line with Jim Busch, and have,

with some prodding from George Fix, conceded that Baderbrau is too bitter and

too dark to be a true Munich Helles but my way of looking at it is as a

over-hopped Helles rather than a too-malty Pilsener.  Perhaps, as Jim

suggested in private email, a new category is needed for beers such as

Baderbrau and Samuel(tm) Adams(tm) Boston(tm) Lager(tm).

I propose the name: "Robust American Lager."

Al.

------------------------------


Pub Draught Guinness

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 15:12:16 -0500

From: Gerald Winters <gerald@citi.umich.edu>

Subject: Pub Draught Guinness

from Phil Hultin...

>I must say that I am surprised at all the enthusiasm for canned Guinness.

>When I tried it (a 4-pack, shortly after it was introduced) I was totally

>unimpressed.

I would like to second Phil Hultin's comments.  One of the common

complaints about BudMichMiller is the rather thin palate or general

lack of flavor.  Well certainly canned Guinness does a bit better but,

hey, it tastes watery to me.  I'll stick with the bottled version.

Gerald Winters

------------------------------


Re: (Tony Babinec) big brewers brewing ales?

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 13:31:09 PST

From: Richard Saunders <richsa@microsoft.com>

Subject: Re: (Tony Babinec) big brewers brewing ales?

One thing to note about Miller's Special Reserve beers:

They are "100% Barley Draft" not "100% (made from) Barley".

All they are claiming (legally) is that there is barley in the

beer and that it is 100% draft. Tricky bastards. Me still tastes

quite a bit of corn (or something) in these brews! Still, it tastes

better to me than their regular GD (Genuine Draft) stuff.....

------------------------------


Texas Brewpub Rumors

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 00:20:59 CST

From: Sean C. Lamb 335-6669 Loral <slamb@milp.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject: Texas Brewpub Rumors

Well, seeing as how I haven't seen anything on this subject

lately from our friends at SW Brewing News, I'll contribute

my share of the latest hearsay.

I was at the Houston Foam Ranger meeting last Friday night,

and one of our members was conspicuous by his presence.  He

works in one of the better pubs in town, and is usually

at work when the meetings are held.  I know that he is keen

on the brewpub legislation, so I "tapped" him for some

information while we partook of a keg of raisin/cinnamon

mead.

The public hearing on the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Comission

Sunset bill took place on 15 March.  The committee holding

the hearing had to review the whole bill, which is rather

thick, so they didn't want to spend a lot of time on the

pesky brewpub thing.  I guess the people lobbying for this

are doing a good job, because the brewpub section of the

bill was replaced with wholesale with a new section.

The details are that there will a separate brewpub license

available in Texas.  It will allow the production and sale

of beer and "malt liquor" (Texas legalese for beer w/> 4.0%

alc. by volume) for sale on-site and "to go".  It will

allow "bright beer" tanks for serving.  The license will

cost $500 for each increment of 5000 barrels of production

the licensee wishes to produce.  The license _will not_

allow the licensee to distribute its own product.  This

seems to be the only concession to the Texas Beer Wholesalers

Association, which has been the group holding up this

type of legislation in the past.  The bill, if passed to

the House floor by the committee, and then approved, and

then if a similar bill were passed in the Senate, is

supposed to take effect Sept.1.

I predict a good contingent from Texas at the Institute for

Brewing Studies convention/shindig in New Orleans next month!

I also predict that there will be at least on brewpub in

Houston by this time next year, if not earlier.

If you couldn't tell, all of the above is hearsay and

conjecture on my part.  Maybe Joe Barfield can verify

this for me.

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      .    _  .     _____________

      |/_|/__/|    /             /

     / / // /  /  / Happy! Happy! /

    /__|O||O|__ / /   Joy! Joy!   /

   |/_ /_//_/ _/ | /  ___________/

   | | (____) | ||  |/

   ///___//__/  // _/

   (_/         ||

    |  Real    ||/   Sean Lamb (slamb@milp.jsc.nasa.gov)

     /  Beer   //_/   Loral Space Info Systems

      /______//      Houston, Texas, USofA, Earth, Sol

     __|| __||

    (____(____)

------------------------------


Boiling specialty grains?

Date: 24 Mar 1993 00:41:04 -0600 (CST)

From: SWEENERB@memstvx1.memst.edu

Subject: Boiling specialty grains?

I was wondering if anyone holds an intelligent opinion about boiling specialty

grains like chocolate malt as opposed to just steeping them in 165-170 degree

water which will be added to the boiled wort made from malt extract.  Since I

have not as yet tried all-grain brewing I still boil in a 4 gallon pot, so I

boil half my water first, store it in the carboy then add the wort after a

subsequent boil.  On my last batch I decided to steep the specialty grains

after finishing the initial boil, then strained them out of the water and

added boiled wort.  Is there a downside to this procedure?  That batch,

a porter tasted pretty good, a reasonable extract facsimilie of Anchor Porter-

yumm, but the vast experiences of the HBD might convince me of the error of my

wheys.

Also, Miller's CHofHB recommends aerating the wort at 1hour intervals after

racking to the primary, then after 8-12 hours racking again off the hot&cold

break. I have tried this a few times and have not been able to tell any

difference.  Is this worth the trouble? Any comments, observations, etc. would

be greatly appreciated.

Bob Sweeney - SWEENERB@MEMSTVX1.BITNET

Memphis State University

Status: Permanent Student

(901) MSU-4210

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Dogbert's First Rule of Innovation: Companies are generally slow to adopt new

ways of business, especially if it means a reduction in their beloved paper.

Dilbert: I created a computerized interactive multimedia training tool for the

department.

Boss: Wonderful. Make some photocopies and route it around.

------------------------------


Just a reminder

Date: 24 Mar 1993 01:44:10 -0500 (EST)

From: TOMBOROON[ <STETLERT@VXC.UNCWIL.EDU>

Subject: Just a reminder

Hi. I know this isn't the kind of message you folks feel like seeing in

this digest, but give me a few seconds of your time, could you? About a

week ago, my younger brother died in an automobile accident. Alcohol was

involved. I don't understand why things had to happen the way they did.

Probably never will... but I can't help thinking about how the driver of

the other car could have saved my family quite a bit of grief if he had

bothered to call a cab or get a friend to drive him home.

I have nothing against homebrewing. To many of us, it's much more than a

hobby. It's an art, a science, a tradition, and a way of life all rolled

into one. But we often forget the incredible responsibility we have to

our safety, and that of those around us. Please don't drink and drive.

Tom Stetler

Stetlert@vxc.uncwil.edu

------------------------------


Rolled Oats and Judges

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 07:15:52 CST

From: rak@mayo.EDU (Ron Karwoski)

Subject: Rolled Oats and Judges

All this talk about using oat bran vs rolled oats has reminded me

of a problem I had with my last batch of beer. Following TCJOHB2

recipe for Uckleduckfay Oatmeal Stout I did a partial mash using

rolled oats (Quaker non-instant breakfast type) and other grains.

The resulting beer tastes good, although it is a little thin,

probably due to poor extraction. Anyway, the beer is well carbonated

but has zero head. A very "loose" head forms when the beer is

poured but quickly disappears. I'm not quite sure what the problem

is but I am wondering if the rolled oats had anything to do with

this. Any ideas?

Also our Club is looking at organizing a hombrew competition for

our county fair in August. What we need are judges. Is there a list

of registered judges someplace? How does one go about hiring a judge

and what are typical costs? Also, anyone know what it takes to become

an AHA sanctioned competition and is it worth it?

Thanks.

Ron Karwoski                   Internet:   rak@bru.mayo.edu

Rochester, Minnesota

------------------------------


Big Brother is Watching

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 09:17 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Big Brother is Watching

 Another incredible tale of the evils of bigger government was played out on

 the 10 O'Clock news last night.  It's another good example of what Big

 Brother does with our hard earned tax money and why we should refuse him one

 more cent.

 Instead of arresting drug dealers that can be found on thousands of street

 corners any night (or day) of the week, the FBI choses to hassle homebrewers

 with our tax money.

 They mounted a remote TV camera on a utility pole in front of Alternative

 Garden Supply in a suburb and monitor everyone who enters and leaves the

 store.  The camera is on a transformer whose top insulator sports a UHF

 antenna instead of the usual wire running up to the HV line.  Not terribly

 clever but seems to work.

 The next thing they did was to open a sting headquarters in a shop in an

 adjacent shoppping center and staff it with a dozen or so agents.  They

 either sit and monitor the tv or watch in patrol cars parked in the parking

 lot of AGS.  When they see someone who fits the "profile" of an evil drug

 dealer, they follow him/her home and bluff their way into whole house

 searches including dogs to sniff out the evil weed.  Needless to say, so far

 they have found nothing and have spent millions.

 I did my patriotic duty and drove out there and gave the old "vulgar salute"

 to the camera and had a chat with Dave Itel, the owner.  I tried to talk

 Marilyn into giving the camera a moon but she declined and just waived.

 It is truly pathetic and I suggest you all drop a line to the best friend Big

 Government ever had.  He can be reached on line at:

           75300.3115@compuserve.com (via CompuServe)

           clintonpz@aol.com         (via America Online)

           clinton-hq@campaign92.org (via MCI Mail)

 js

------------------------------


Coiled tube manifold-fitting in an Igloo cooler

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 10:58:05 -0500

From: djt2@po.CWRU.Edu (Dennis J. Templeton)

Subject: Coiled tube manifold-fitting in an Igloo cooler

Richard.Goldstein@EBay.Sun.COM described a coiled copper tubing manifold

with slots cut into it...

Your description is identical to the one I've been using for two years, and

has appeared on HBD before all of the "T" fitting freaks appeared. Have at it.

I'm writing mainly to point out that if you use 3/8 inch tubing, a 3/8 in

bulkhead union (tube to tube) will fit snugly in the outlet of an Igloo

cooler mashtun.

One supplier: USA Plastics Fax # 419-228-5034 orders 800 537-9724

3/8 in polypropylene bulkhead union #61123, $1.20 (minimum order $10)

One difference between your description and mine is the stand tube... I

don't really understand why one is desirable (except in a RIMS) All I can

see that doing is sucking air into the drain tube, leading to hot side

aeration (Gasp!).   Why not just let it trickle ad libitum??

have fun...

dennis

------------------------------


Jeff Frane's Carapils/Dextrine info

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 9:16:58 PST

From: alm@brewery.ht.intel.com (Al Marshall)

Subject: Jeff Frane's Carapils/Dextrine info

> "Carapils(R) (dextrine) malt has an almost completely "glassy" endosperm,

   no enzymatic activity and somewhat less extract than standard brewers malt.

   It greatly improves body, foam retention and beer stability without

   increasing color or changing beer flavor profile, through non-fermentable

   components. It is an elegant and inexpensive "natural" alternative to

   alginates.

   "Caramel malt also has an almost completely glassy endosperm, similar to

   Carapils. It yields various color intensities in the desirable golden-red

   hues. Standardized products in the 20 degree, 40d, 60d, 80d and 120d

   Lovibond colors are readily available. Other variations are custom-made

   upon request, volume permitting.

Thanks a lot for this information.  I've inferred from your

malt-extract+specialties recipes

that dextrine malt did not need to be mashed with other malts,

and this (and one other

piece I've seen) seems to be confirmation.  I'm left to wonder

about various other authorities that confidently state that dextrine malt

needs to be mashed with enzymatic malts.  Is there a property of dextrine malt

that we haven't discussed?

 -- Al Marshall

------------------------------


Towers

Date: 24 Mar 1993 08:16:20 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

Subject: Towers

Subject:  Towers                                Time:7:51 AM     Date:3/24/93

Sam Atkinson asks for feedback on the Owens-like Tower:

I have a similar tower except I use another converted keg for a hot liquor tank

with it's own burner so I don't need the pump. Gravity is certainly the way to

go. My only caveat would be the use of Igloo brand coolers. I have a 52 quart

Igloo which has made about 22 ten gallon batches. While it is still in use, the

interior of the cooler has deformed considerably with time. In fact there were

blisters evident after the very first batch. Other brewers who have Igloo

coolers report the same results. I still use mine because in spite of the

blisters there is no evidence of cracks in the plastic interior. Still, I think

that Coleman coolers seem to stand up better to the heat of mashing. I took a

survey of cooler users some time ago and the majority used Coleman. I expect

I'll replace mine with a Coleman when the time comes.

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


Thermostat placement in a freezer

Date:  Wed, 24 Mar 1993 10:16:00 PST

From: Patrick_Waara.WBST129@xerox.com

Subject: Thermostat placement in a freezer

I just bought a new freezer to do my lagering and keg storage which I intend to

control using my Hunter Airstat Monitor.  I have a question, though, regarding

the placement of the thermostat.  (That is, the actual remote measuring piece

of the thermostat on the end of the black wire.)  When I put it on the wall of

the freezer, it seemed to give me a false reading as the walls of the freezer

are much colder than the actual air in it.  I considered hanging it from the

lid, but I'm afraid it might catch on the kegs when I lift the lid and tear off

the wire.  Where do people who use a freezer as their refrigerator place their

thermostat?

~Pat

------------------------------


Carapils

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 14:15 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Carapils

 >From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

 >"Carapils(R) (dextrine) malt has an almost completely "glassy" endosperm,

 no enzymatic activity and somewhat less extract than standard brewers malt.

 It greatly improves body, foam retention and beer stability without

 increasing color or changing beer flavor profile...

 It is my opinion that this definition (like the one for Munich malt) does not

 apply to the D-K malt from Belgium.  Furthermore, I do not understand the (R)

 or the dextrine designation.

 I would describe the D-K carapils as hard but chewy endosperm and anything

 but glassy.

 It furthermore has a flavor that is easily recognizable and contributes

 significantly to the flavor profile and in line with what I taste in an

 imported Pilsner.

 BTW, another spelling question.  Pilsner or Pilsener or .....?

 js

------------------------------


starters

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 14:18:18 cdt

From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: starters

For the record, I've been using the yeast-starting advice given me by a friend

who is a great homebrewer.  I boil up one cup of DME in a little over a liter

of water,ending up with between 750-1,000 ml's after boiling and cooling.

I have no idea what S.G. this comes out to, but I do get absolutely great

starts.

However, for the sake of simplicity, I think Jack has the best idea - just

save a pint from your last batch!!  (all together now:  "DUHHH!")  Anything

that saves me time making beer so I can spend more time enjoying the

results, I'm in favor of.

Jack, how careful are you about what kind of beer you save for starters?

Have you ever used, say, an Imperial Stout for a starter for a Pilsener?

Or do you always use less strongly-flavored worts for starters?

Anyone else have experience with this method?

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Culturing Duvel Yeast

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 12:36:07 PST

From: 24-Mar-1993 1526 <ide@studio.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Culturing Duvel Yeast

I'm planning to culture the yeast from a bottle of Duvel and I have a few

questions:

 - Should I worry about mutation from the high alcohol content?

 - Does Moortgat use different yeasts for fermentation and bottle conditioning?

 - What are its characteristics, i.e. attenuation, esters, flavors?

Any comments about Duvel and its yeast?  This will be my first taste of this

devilish brew and I'm really looking forward to it.

Thanks for any help!

Jamie Ide

ide@studio.enet.dec.com

------------------------------


Re: Cider

Date: 24 Mar 1993 14:13:06 -0600 (CST)

From: Robert Schultz <SCHULTZ@admin1.usask.ca>

Subject: Re: Cider

KILLING YEAST in/for CIDER:

 I think a better method to kill off the yeast is Potassium Sorbate, (as

apposed to Campden tablets). Use about 1/2 tsp of Potassium Sorbate to 5 gal.

Then adjust sweetness with apple juice if making cider...this kind of falls out

of one of the recipes from the Cat's Meow II. If you want carbonation, you must

do it with CO2.

 My last batch ended with FG 0.994. I added 12.5 oz of McCain frozen

concentrate Apple juice and the 'new' FG was 1.000 -- could be a bit sweeter,

but a few months of waiting may help ???

 As for Jack Schmidling's comment about adding sugar until the yeast dies

may not be a good idea... this is how high alcohol content ports are made....by

adding small increments of sugar you are in effect conditioning the yeast

(actually I think you kill off the week cells and continue the ferment with some

of the stronger -- mutants?).  The concentration of alcohol changes the taste

(or how one perceives the taste) of the final product.

Hope this helps.

Robert Schultz

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I'm going off half-cocked? I'm going off half-cocked? ...

Well, Mother was right - You can't argue with a shotgun." - Gary Larson

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

------------------------------


Questions on priming with DME, and Warm climate brewing

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 20:49:52 GMT

From: u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil (Markham R. Elliott)

Subject: Questions on priming with DME, and Warm climate brewing

Hello all, I'm back with more novice-level questions and comments, looking for

guidance & advice from those with the requisite skill level.

In a mid-February posting, I asked for advice about 1.) Using a secondary

fermentation vessel, and 2.) Recommendations about priming agents/amounts, and

using a bottling bucket.  Thanks to all who responded either here in the HBD or

via private e-mail.  By sifting through the advice, comments, recommendations,

cautions and anecdotes, employing the secondary went off without a hitch, but

using a DME/water solution as a priming agent just didn't cut it.

Using the "most recommended" 1.25 cups boiled in water turned my "amber-clear"

beer in the carboy into a cloudy mess.  Once bottled, it took about 12 days to

settle back out, and when I cracked the first bottle this past weekend, only a

miniscule 'pffsssst'.  The second, third, fourth and ..... bottles were'nt any

fizzier.  Two and a half cases of nearly flat beer. >:-( "Boo, Hiss", no, that

should be "Boo, no Hiss".  To add insult to injury, I've got the chill-haze

blues too (first time ever).

Papazian recommends for that flat beer, adding some dry yeast into each bottle,

recapping & re-conditioning.  I contend there was enough yeast present based on

the activity of the original fermentation, and the sediment in the bottles.

His second recommendation (after trying adding more yeast) is un-capping and

adding sugar to each bottle.  Gee, this was what I was trying to get away from

by using another vessel to prime in & bottle from. At any rate, believe me, you

can't add very much dry corn sugar to a semi-carbonated liquid!  Talk about

fluid dynamics!! (;->) I ended up dissolving the sugar into an equal amount of

distilled water, boiling for a few seconds, cooling then adding .25 tsp to each

of 6 bottles as a test.  We'll see what happens in a week or 10 days.

Was I supposed to do the "1-hour rolling-boil/hot-break/cold-break" routine to

the DME/H2O priming solution too?  Y'all suppose the chill haze came from the

priming agent solution or simply because of bad technique while attempting my

first syrup/DME batch?  Should I attribute the lack of carbonation to a

lower-than-expected sugar content of the DME?

Some days I guess you just can't win for losing.  Right now I'm gonna go home

and mix me a flat homebrew with one that has "character" (Papazian's final

recommendation).  I just can't bring myself to feed my beer to the wife's

Magnolia trees.

A question for all you warm climate brewers out there:

At what temperature do I have to put my toys away for the summer?  Here in

deepest Dixie, the daily temperatures are getting ready to skyrocket, and I will

not be able to use the garage for brewing or conditioning, I suspect in just a

couple of weeks or so.  This past winter, I fermented everything under the sink

in a spare bathroom where the ambient temperatures were fairly constant between,

say, 67-72^F. The garage fluctuates too much from day to night, and from day to

day to realistically depend on, though I had no qualms using it to cool, age and

condition bottled brews.

I customarily maintain the house between 75-82^F in the summer in order to keep

the A/C bill within reason, and then crank up the ceiling fans.  From what

little I have read, I understand that the upper limit of acceptable fermentation

temperatures is about 72^F.  If I continue to ferment & condition at the higher

temps, can I reasonablly expect ok results, given the fact I am still a novice

extract-er?

Frustrated, disappointed, but still hanging in there.

Noch einmal, bitte!!  Mark

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 Markham R. Elliott                 u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil

 Information Technology Laboratory                     (601) 634-2921

 Waterways Experiment Station

 Vicksburg, Mississippi  USA

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


brass,zymurgy,dark grains,chimay clone

Date:    Wed, 24 Mar 1993 16:12:55 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: brass,zymurgy,dark grains,chimay clone

  Lots of topics...

  First, I read in a health newsletter than *brass* fittings, ie. a brass

spigot, especially when new, can leach lead into water.  What is brass?

Copper and ???.

  Re. Zymurgy special issues:  I refer to the 1991 AHA Beer Styles issue

quite a bit.  Most articles are well written; not many errors.

  Dark grains in mash or mashout?  Depends what you're looking for.  If

you want a hard bite, which I look for in a stout for example, put them in

the mash.  If you want it smoother, as in a dark lager, put them in the

mashout.

  Rich S. is concerned about racking his Chimay clone to secondary after

only 3 days.  What temperature did it ferment at?  What was the OG?  What

is the gravity now?  1 week primary and 3 weeks secondary seem like a

longer time than should be necessary.  My lastest batch, OG 1.045 fermented

at 65 deg F with Chimay yeast, was ready in half that time.  This was

also yeast that was cultured from a bottle brought back from Belgium, so

it may have been extra fresh and lively.  But I'd say treat it as you would

any other ale - it should finish in a couple of weeks.

  FWIW, a bunch of Bud drinkers had some of mine last night, and they liked

it a lot.  Go figure.

Russ G.

UNH

------------------------------


Pete's Wicked Clone

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1993 15:57:38 -0600

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Pete's Wicked Clone

Robert Pulliam <pulliam@monty.rand.org>

called for recipes a couple days ago...

>Have any of you successfully cloned "Pete's Wicked Ale"?  If so, I would

>love to get your recipe.

Well Robert, try this...

 8# domestic 2-row

 1# CaraMunich

 1# CaraVienne

 1# dark German

 8 oz CaraPils

 6 oz chocolate

 Mash-in 4 gallons at 57 C (135F) strike heat.

 Falls to 52C (126F).  Protein rest 30 minutes.

 Raise to 68C (154F),

 Saccrification 2 hours.

 No mashout due to brain-cloud.  You probably should

 Sparge with 6 gallons at 75C (167F)

 Got 7-1/2 ~ 7-3/4 gallons.  Gravity is 1046.

 Extraction = 29.7 points/#/gallon.

 Boil 90 minutes.

 4.4 aau Fuggles for 60 minutes,

 4.4 aau Fuggles for 30 minutes,

 5.2 aau Kent Goldings for 2 minutes.

 Chill to 25C (75F).  OG = 1060.

 Pitch Wyeast 1098

If your extraction rates are routinely below mine, add grain accordingly in your

recipe.  Just add to the two-row, don't bother to adjust the specialty malts,

its just not necessary.  My water is fairly soft, and slightly alkaline. I use

two tsp gypsum in my mash water.  Your mileage, of course, may vary.  If you

want a 1055 beer, lose 1# of two-row.  But I like mine at 1060.  FG was 1018.  I

had to add 1/2 gallon water at bottling to bring volume up to 5 gallons.  Let us

know how it comes out...

 t

------------------------------


Whitbread Warning

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 15:50:28 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Whitbread Warning

The following is my opinion of the situation described in Brian Cole's

post in HBD#1104.

Most of the lt. crystal malt I am familiar with has a carbohydrate

structure loaded with 1-6 links. These will not be broken in a

normal mash, regardless of when they were added. At the ~9% charge Brian

reported, he should have gotten a nontrivial dextrin pool.

It is very hard to get a good handle on things based on one batch,

however I suspect the culprit may be the Whitbread yeast. The heat

dried version is produced in the UK under license from the Whitbread

Brewing Co. at a special yeast plant. This plant went out of production

in 1991 because of a serious wild yeast infection. Production was just

resumed in a new facility in January of this year. These products

are only now being distributed to homebrew shops. The versions of the

dry yeast available before say Mar. 1, 1993 were the old yeast. Reports

that I have seen indicate that 25-35% of the old yeast had unacceptable

levels of nonculture strains. The latter were super attenuators, and

were reported to leave flavoring like Brian described. The old yeast also

also had to be at least 1 1/2- 2 years in age.

I have personally checked the new Whitbread yeast under a contract with

Crosby and Baker. There was no pressure to "whitewash" defects, and in

fact there was motivation the other way. C+B has a refusal clause with

producers whereby they can return any yeast without charge if samples do

not meet commercial standards with respect to both infections

and viability. To make a long story short, the new Whitbread dry yeast

passed with flying colors. My detailed report with plate counts will soon

be available from C+B. It should be noted, however, that the "pure" (3

strain) Whitbread yeast will give characteristic tangy, fruity flavor

tones. Some like these tones, while others react in a much different way

to them.

It looks to me like this is the start of a trend whereby a large number of

the producers of dry yeast start to clean up their act. Data as reported

in the Cal-Davis study (see Zymurgy's special yeast issue) may become a

relic of the past. IMHO we all have the folks at Wyeast to thank for this.

They were to first to set proper standards, which the others are now

apparently trying to match.

In a large number of cases when people complain that their beers are too

dry and lack sweetness, some sort of infection (low, moderate, or high)

seems to have played a part. Certainly the acid forming bacteria will

make a beer seem thinner than normal and unpleasantly dry. Yeast like

S. diastaticus will do this and at the same time leave medicinal/phenolic

tones. The wild yeast that occasionally turned up in the old dry Whitbread

yeast were apparently not as distructive. Nevertheless, if my conjectures

are correct, Brian was done a disservice by the Whitbread folks in the UK.

George Fix

P.S. We were at a Pilsner tasting earlier this week. All the beers were

German, and fresh (a real rarity for Texas). The two favorites were Konig Pils

and Veltins. Both were very hoppy (IBU~35-40), and well attenuated with a

distinct dry finish. Yet both were very malty and extremely smooth. The

net effect was that they were very clean beers with highly attractive flavors.

Thus a dry finish is not always undesirable.

------------------------------


FOOD GRADE PLASTICS

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 17:30:37 EST

From: alan@math.sunysb.edu (Alan McRae)

Subject: FOOD GRADE PLASTICS

There has been some discussion recently about                                   constructing electric boilers using plastic buckets.                            Since I only have 120V outlets and  do not have                                 access to any area where I could use a propane burner                           I have been using two Thorne Electrim Bims                                      (2 are necessary since I start out with 7 gallons                               of wort to be boiled).  These consist of a heating                              unit, a thermostat and a plastic bucket with a                                  drum tap (these things are probably very similar                                to bruheat boilers).   I think the bucket is either                             polyethylene or polypropolene (bruheat boilers use                              polypropolene). The question is this: What plastics                             are safe to use at boiling te!

mperatures with beer?

As an aside, I was told that people have had problems                           getting these Bims to even boil water.  When I first                            got mine only one would boil water.  I took the back                            off the thermostat of the one that would not boil                               water and adjusted the adjusting screw                                          (Do not press down on the screw too hard!).  Then I                             used strips of a foil-backed insulation (see the                                latest special issue of Zymurgy where Randy Mosher(?)                           tells how to insulate a lauter-tun) to insulate                                 the buckets.  These buckets will bring 3 1/2 gallons                            of 150 degree wort to a boil in less than half an hour:                         Not too great but better than nothing. By the way,                              these units work better if th!

e back plate of the

------------------------------


Dark grains at mashout

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1993 15:27:59 -0800 (PST)

From: Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG>

Subject: Dark grains at mashout

Recent postings have advocated adding dark grains only at mashout.

Should the bill for the dark grains be adjusted if they are added at

mashout or use the same quantity as if they were added at mash in?

------------------------------


Lager Starers / Starter SG

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 17:28:47 EST

From: Lee Menegoni <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

Subject: Lager Starers / Starter SG

In HBD 1100 J.Williamson indicated he had a long lag time

when he tried to expand his culture from the Wyeast pak.

Using the recommendation from Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer"

of pitching a large population of yeast into fermentation temp

wort I took the following steps and had vigorous fermentation in

45F wort in less than 12 hours.  The intent of this procedure is

twofold 1) produce a large volume of yeast slurry  2) acclimate

the yeast to the fermentation temp to minimize shock.

Day 1:  Pop Wyeast Bohemian Lager yeast pak at room temp 70F 8:00 AM

Day 2:  Pitch the Wyeast pak contents with 12oz of 65F 20sg wort 7:00PM

Day 3:  Add an additional 12oz of 60F 20sg wort 7:00PM

Day 4:  Pour of 2/3 of liquid, add 24oz of 55F 20sg wort 7:00PM

Day 5:

Day 6:  Pour off 2/3 of liquid, add 24oz of 50F 20sg wort 7:00PM

Day 7:  Pour off 2/3 of liquid, add 24 oz of 45F 20sg wort 10:00AM

And on the sevent day he brewed.

And when the day was done he looked at his wort and (hoped) it was good.

I pitched all the liquid and the slurry into the 45F wort at about 10PM

I checked the brew the next morning and it had a thin milky film over it

with bubbles coming out of the S airlock every few seconds.

Notes: Day 1 - 3 the starter bottle was left in my 65F basement wrapped

in 2 towels and put inside a cooler.  Days 4 - 7 the starter was in my temp

controlled refridgerator.  By leaving some liquid with each step the temp

changes are a bit more gradual also there is a substantial population in

the liquid.

I always make starters with 20 - 25sg wort.  I produce this starter liquid

by half filling 2 gallon bottles with trub from a brewing session.  I then

fill these bottles with very cold water and let them settle.  I rack off the

clear liquid from the two jugs and por

pour it in to 12oz bottles, other people I know use canning jars, I then

immerse these bottles in water and heat until the contents of them are

190 - 200F.  I maintain this temp for 10 - 15 minutes and cap.  This gives

me a ready supply of 1/2 gravity wort for starters and I don't feel so bad

about leaving stuff behind when I rack off the trub since It gets used.

I target a 6 gallon batch so I end up with about 5 gallons going in the keg.

------------------------------


Niagra/Buffalo or even Rochester beer retailers?

Date:  Wed, 24 Mar 1993 15:49:38 -0500

From: Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@canrem.com>

Subject: Niagra/Buffalo or even Rochester beer retailers?

Hi,

        Considering the less then exciting range of imported beers

        currently available in the Toronto area I'm thinking

        of making a run south of the border.

        1) Does anybody know of any retailers in hopefully

        the Niagara/Buffalo that carry some interesting

        Lambics?[Currently only Morte Subite gueze is

        available locally] Hopefully something unfiltered.

        At worse how about Rochester?

        2) Does anybody know the name of the US importer(s)

        for the better lambics?

        3) How expensive are these products in the US?

        Thanks

        Nick

        Mail would be best.

*****************************************************************************

I drink Beer I don't collect cute bottles!

zen%hophead@canrem.com

*****************************************************************************

------------------------------


Hops and submersion chiller?

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1993 19:03:18 -0600 (CST)

From: brewmstr@genesis.mcs.com (Jim Bayer)

Subject: Hops and submersion chiller?

I've been rereading TNCJOHB because I'm shortly going to mash (this weekend)

and I ran across some info that I never caught before.  It says that you

should always seperate the hops from the wort before cooling it.  If this is

true, how do I use an immersion chiller?  I don't recall anyone I've ever

heard of straining out the hops or removing the wort from the brewpot

before they used a submersion chiller.

Do I need a hopback setup or what?

Jim

- ------------------------------------------------------------------

|  Remember:  Brewing is not a matter of life and death.         |

|             It is much more important than that!               |

|=============================================================== |

|  Jim Bayer -> Chicago, my kind of town!  The windy city        |

|  brewmstr@ddsw1.mcs.com            72416.1044@compuserve.com   |

- ------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1105, 03/25/93

*************************************

-------


Brewing supplies in Europe

Date:         Thu, 25 Mar 93 13:45:22 +0200

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      Brewing supplies in Europe

Are you brewing in Europe? If so, could you please tell me were do you get your

brewing supplies from?

I thought the USA would be a good source for me, but apparently the shipping

expences are just too high.

Thanks,

Nir

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Nir Navot

Department of Cell Biology

The Weizmann institute of Science                 FAX   972-8-344125

Rehovot, 76100, Israel                            Phone 972-8-343417

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


DFW HB Sources

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 09:45:40 EST

From: paulb%ted@juliet.ll.mit.edu (   Paul Biron)

Subject: DFW HB Sources

I recently moved to Grapevine Texas and need to find a supply source

in the Ft. Worth/Dallas area. Can anyone help me out?

Thanks in advance.

Paul Biron

MIT/Lincoln Laboratory

DFW Airport

214-574-4800

------------------------------


RE: Petes Wicked Clone

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 9:49:58 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: RE: Petes Wicked Clone

In the last digest, Tom posted a fine recipe for a strong brown

ale:

        8# domestic 2-row

 1# CaraMunich

 1# CaraVienne

 1# dark German

 8 oz CaraPils

 6 oz chocolate

 Mash-in 4 gallons at 57 C (135F) strike heat.

 Falls to 52C (126F).  Protein rest 30 minutes.

 Raise to 68C (154F),

 Saccrification 2 hours.

 No mashout due to brain-cloud.  You probably should

 Sparge with 6 gallons at 75C (167F)

 Got 7-1/2 ~ 7-3/4 gallons.  Gravity is 1046.

 Extraction = 29.7 points/#/gallon.

 Boil 90 minutes.

 4.4 aau Fuggles for 60 minutes,

 4.4 aau Fuggles for 30 minutes,

 5.2 aau Kent Goldings for 2 minutes.

 Chill to 25C (75F).  OG = 1060.

 Pitch Wyeast 1098

        FG = 1.018

A question: What is Dark German??

Comments: While I think this is a fine recipe, for a Petes Clone,

try all Cascade for the hopping.  I would also tone down the OG

into the 1.052 - 1.055 range (as TOm indicated by suggesting less

pale malt).  One can also try the Worlds Greatest Yeast (tm):

Wyeast 1056/Narragansett/Dominion Ale.  You can also make a fine example of

this beer with a single step infusion.  In fact, the body may

go up in the final product when a single step is used due to the

rapid conversion of domestic pale malt between 130 and 150F.  Tom

certainly has plenty of body in his 1.060/1.018 beer, but if you

try the Worlds Greatest Yeast (tm), the FG will approach 1.010-

1.012.  By dropping both OG and FG, you will end up with roughly

the same alcohol by volume.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

PS: Brooklyn Brown Ale is a "Petes Wicked" clone, brewed by FX MAtt,

and when fresh , quite delicous.

------------------------------


Diacetyl, etc.

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 10:02:57 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Diacetyl, etc.

My most recent lager, that was supposed to be a vienna, but is an Helles,

seems to have quite noticable levels of diacetyl.  While, this flavor is

quite pleasent, and overall the brew has a beautiful malty palate, all

that I have read seems to be very concerned about diacetyl levels

because they indicate a yeast gone bad.  Should I dump all yeasts from that

strain and use a fresh lager strain?  AHA guidelines seem to indicate

that low diacetyl is OK for most lagers.  My brew procedure used a 2

week primary at 50F followed by lagering for 4 weeks, the last 2 at 32F,

and was bottled with Krausen.  The Krausen worked beautifully.  I have the most/

beautiful carbonation, and it came quickly.  This is with very low sediment

levels, but I guess I was fortunate to have brewed a Helles the previous

day!

Other points.  I just read Eric Warner's Weissbier book.  A good book.

Well worth the $9.50 Classic Beer style books cost at the local store.

Some points of interest.

He is very unconcerned with oxygen introduction at bottleing because the

yeast will use it.  This contradcits other writers wh tend to be anal on this

point.

Suggests priming with Speise (literally food) and suggests the first runnings,

from the lauter tun (with pasteurization).  Anyone tried this?

He is, unfortunately, unable to answer the 6 million dollar question - an

affordable source of the proper yeast.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@bach.helios.nd.edu

------------------------------


1.020 starters

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 09:03:38 -0600 (CST)

From: jack@wubios.wustl.edu (Jack Baty)

Subject: 1.020 starters

> From: G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk (Geoff Cooper)

> Subject: OG for starters - a question

> I recently mentioned the figure of 1.020 to a (knowledgeable) colleague and

> then realised that I had no hard evidence to support any claims - just HBD

> hearsay (which I have no doubt is well founded :-) )

  To take the 1.020 value somewhat past HBD hearsay:

  the directions on Wyeast packs suggest a gravity of 1.020 for stepping-up

  the yeast.

- --

Jack Baty  jack@wubios.WUstl.edu

Division of Biostatistics   Washington University Medical School   St. Louis

If you don't think too good then don't think too much.

------------------------------


canned Guinness/what's a good beer?

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 9:30:07 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: canned Guinness/what's a good beer?

Phil Hultin says that Draught Guinness did not fare too well in a

blind tasting.  Assuming that the Draught Guinness was in good

condition -- and this I don't know -- I'll speculate that what we

have here is an example of tasters scoring high the beers they

like.

To the best of my knowledge, canned Draught Guinness has OG 1.040 -

1.046, which makes it smaller in gravity than the bottled Guinness

Extra Stout, OG 1.052 or so.  Guinness, being an Irish Stout, is

quite sharp and dry, with roasted barley being the signature dark

grain.  Guinness is therefore dry and not to everyone's taste.

And, at its gravity, Draught Guinness doesn't have a lot of body.

In my opinion, when a beer is judged, the major questions ought to

be:

 - is it clean with no obvious faults?

 - is it brewed to style?

 - beyond the above, does it delight you?

In fact, in AHA/HBWTA events, judges use detailed point systems.

Some score from the bottom up -- x points for malt, y points for

hop, z points for appearance -- while others develop a quick

overall assessment of the beer, and then use the scoring sheet to

aid them in pinpointing the attributes of the beer.  If the beer

has no obvious faults -- for example, obvious bacterial

contamination or a stale, oxidized flavor -- and is brewed to

style, then it is a good beer.  You may not like it, but it is a

good beer.  For example, some people don't like the clove-like

phenol flavor found in some weizens.  If, in addition, the beer

delights you, then that might nudge its score higher.  If it

doesn't delight you, that doesn't make it a bad beer.

The unfortunate reality is that some judges give far too much

weight to subjective factors and matters of taste.  Probably among

the worst things done is to wrongly label a beer as infected.  This

can happen with spiced beers or belgian beers.  Also, it is not

uncommon amongst homebrew aficianados to see the hoppiest beer or

the biggest-gravity beer be the most preferred.  Of course, this

taste and preference would not occur amongst the Lite-beer-swilling

crowd.

An example of big beers winning is the AHA stout style.  Take a

look at past issues of Zymurgy.  Every year at AHA national, the

winner in the stout category is an imperial stout.  While the

winners were undoubtedly good beers, why hasn't a conventional

gravity dry stout ever won?  Do better brewers make big beers?  Are

novice brewers more likely to submit conventional gravity beers?

Whatever else is going on, I submit that many homebrewers and

homebrew judges are like the musician in Spinal Tap who pointed out

that while most guitar amplifiers range from 1 - 10, his went up to

11.  In other words, we like our beers with all the dials set on

high.

To be a better judge, one should constantly improve knowledge and

skills regarding ingredients, process, flavors and faults, styles,

national traditions, and commercial examples.  For all brewers and

beer enthusiasts, let's recognize that beer has an astounding range

of styles and flavor profiles.  It is surely much more varied in

flavor than the range of wines is, for example.  So, instead of

abolishing all styles except for BarleyWine, Imperial Stout, and

Eisbocks, let's leave some room for the session beers too!

------------------------------


brass

Date:    Thu, 25 Mar 1993 10:35:11 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: brass

   According to the Chambers Science and Technology Dictionary, brass is

"primarily copper and zinc, but may also contain other elements such as

aluminum, iron, manganese, nickel, tin, and *lead*.  There are numerous

varieties."

   So, what gives?  Are brass fixtures, ie. brass spigot, a bad choice for

beer equipment?

Russ

------------------------------


us versus belgian carapils

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 9:38:09 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: us versus belgian carapils

Just a reminder:  U.S. CaraPils and Belgian Carapils are not the same

thing.

U.S. Cara-pils is dextrine malt.  As described in Jeff Frane's

excerpts, it is hard and glassy, has minimal color, and is used

to add body.  It contributes dextrines to the beer, which won't

be fermented by beer yeast, and therefore will remain in the beer.

Belgian Cara-pils is a light caramel malt/crystal malt, with a

color rating of 8L.  It can be used in recipes calling for "light

crystal malt."  It will contribute some color and some caramel

sweetness.

------------------------------


Verification of address and receipt of first correspondence.

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 10:46:33 EST

From: LeRoy S. Strohl <lstrohl@s850.mwc.edu>

Subject: Verification of address and receipt of first correspondence.

This is to verify that I received my first correspondence from the

Homebrew Digest. Thanks. I am going to enjoy being a part of the interst

group.

lstrohl@s850.mwc.edu

------------------------------


Re: Brass Fittings - Composition

Date: 25 Mar 1993 10:02:25 -0500 (CDT)

From: ATKINSON@vaxb.acs.unt.edu

Subject: Re: Brass Fittings - Composition

Russ Gelinas asks about the compostion of brass, and any concerns about

lead.

According to "The Condensed Chemical Dictionary, 9th ed."

Brass is a copper-zinc alloy of varying composition, typically with zinc

content ranging from 15% (highly corrosion resistant brass) to 40%

(called Muntz metal; used for hot working alloy when cold-forming

operations are unnecessary). "Some brasses also contain low percentages

of other elements, e.g. manganese, aluminum, silicon, lead and tin)."

The Dictionary indicates that the only hazard of brass is the it is

"flammable in powder or finely divided form".

The Dictionary does indicate that additional information can be obtained

from the Copper and Brass Fabricators Council, 225 Park Avenue, New

York (how's that for an address!).

It turns out that children are much more susceptible to lead poisoning than

adults. Children may begin to experience symptoms when the level of lead

in their blood reaches 40 micrograms per 100 grams of whole blood; the

threshold for adults is about 60% to 70% higher.  EPA's drinking water

standard is 0.05 milligrams per liter.  This level was derived assuming

that one drinking 4 liters of water per day over an average lifetime with

levels of lead lower than the standard will prevent blood level

concentrations from reaching levels where symptoms will occur.

We are also exposed to lead in trace amounts in the food that we eat; it

is naturally occurring in soil; it is in many pesticides, and it is attached to

airborne particles (this is why EPA has banned leaded gasoline).  One

estimate is that we ingest approximately 130 milligrams of lead each day

in our food and drink (ReVelle and ReVelle, 1984 - "The Environment:

Issues and Choices for Society").

IMHO, the amount of lead that may be leached out of the few brass

fittings the we may use in our brewing gadgets, even under the lower pH

levels that brewing creates, would add only a very small increase in the

lead we are exposed to.  In addition, for every hour we spend brewing,

we are reducing the risks of walking across the street and getting hit by

a car!

So, I think you can add as many brass fittings as you want to your system

(stainless steel would be better, but its about 10 times more expensive),

not worry, relax, and you know....

Sam Atkinson

Brew Long and Prosper

------------------------------


Addition to distribution list

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 8:07:17 PST

From: Leland Pond <lpond@hpcugsya.cup.hp.com>

Subject: Addition to distribution list

Please add me to the distribution list for homebrew.

Thanks.

- --

Regards,

      Lee Pond  MS 44L3            email: lpond@cup.hp.com

      GSY TI Operation             HP DESK: Leland Pond  / HPG200/16

      19111 Pruneridge Ave.        Phone: (408 or 1) 447-0991

      Cupertino, CA. 95014-9807

------------------------------


Brewing/Beer clubs in Atlanta

Date:    Thu, 25 Mar 93 10:15 CST

From: XLPSJGN%LUCCPUA.BITNET@UICVM.UIC.EDU

Subject: Brewing/Beer clubs in Atlanta

Dear Brewers,

My brother in Atlanta is interested in homebrewing/beer clubs in the

Atlanta area.  He's just started brewing and is looking for a network

to get involved in for help, advise and meeting fellow brewers.  How-

ever, I think because of the laws against brewing beer at home, these

societies might be hard to find?

Could anyone who knows about a club or network in the Atlanta area

please E-mail me directly (or over this forum) and I'll pass the

info onto my brother.

Cheers,

John

------------------------------


Re: Pub Draght Guinness

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 08:50:27 -0700 (MST)

From: limd@plasma.arraytech.com (Davin Lim)

Subject: Re: Pub Draght Guinness

Gerald Winters writes:

>from Phil Hultin...

>>I must say that I am surprised at all the enthusiasm for canned Guinness.

>>When I tried it ... I was totally unimpressed.

>I would like to second Phil Hultin's comments.  One of the common

>complaints about BudMichMiller is the rather thin palate or general

>lack of flavor.  Well certainly canned Guinness does a bit better but,

>hey, it tastes watery to me.  I'll stick with the bottled version.

The bottled Guinness Extra Stout commonly available here in the US is

considered by many to be a world class beer (including myself,) but

this is a completely different product from Draught Guinness (canned or

otherwise.)  It's sort of an apples to oranges kind of thing.  The

Guinness Extra Stout is a higher OG product, with a correspondingly

higher hopping rate.  The draught versions(s) are intended to be much

lighter (to use a bad term) and I think more "quaffable".  Whereas I

don't have any problem drinking multiple pints of Draght Guinness,

usually from a real tap at one of several Boulder pubs, I know I would

have great difficulty consuming more than a couple of bottles of

the Extra Stout in a single sitting.

Now, if I could only finagle a trip to Dublin to try the Real Thing...

Just another point of view...

- --

 ........................................................................

 * Davin Lim     * limd@arraytech.com

 * Array Technology Corporation  * -- OR you can try ..

 * Boulder, Colorado.            *     raid5!limd@devnull.mpd.tandem.com

 ........................................................................

------------------------------


BEATRIZ Mill

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 08:44:46 PST

From: Richard.Goldstein@EBay.Sun.COM (Richard Goldstein)

Subject: BEATRIZ Mill

A friend just gave me a mill. The brand name appears to be BEATRIZ, and

he said it was from the UK. I've never looked at a Corona mill up

close, but it appears to be closer to a Corona than a Maltmill.

Does anybody have experience with this particular brand, and do you

have any advice or tips on its use?

Thanks.

Rich Goldstein

------------------------------


Rolled oats

Date:         Thu, 25 Mar 93 12:22:03 EST

From: Jean Hunter <MS3Y@CORNELLA.cit.cornell.edu>

Subject:      Rolled oats

    In response to the post about the headless beer made with rolled oats,

my Quaker Oats box claims 2 g fat per 1-oz serving (dry) of oats.  Yes, this

is without adding the milk.

    If you added a pound of rolled oats to your mash, you would be adding

the equivalent of 32 g, just over an ounce, of lipids.  Given that there must

be some lipids in barley, and that some folks add baking chocolate (50 to

70% fat) to their specialty brews without complaining of head retention

problems, could roughly an ounce of oat lipids be responsible for the

beheading of a stout?

    Sometimes an oil film on the serving glass can mess up a beer head.

Check (with) your dishwasher too.

    Cheers -- Jean                              (Sigbars waste bandwidth)

------------------------------


Re: Hallertau(er)

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 09:58:32 -0800

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: Hallertau(er)

Al writes:

>Actually, Hallertauer is more correct.  The "er" suffix in German generally

>means "of" or "from" therefore, "Hallertauer" are hops with direct lineage

>to the type of hop that was grown in the Hallertau area.  "Hallertau" is

>kind of correct, but bad grammar.  Consider "Boston Lager" versus

>"Bostonian Lager."

Can the people of Hallertau file suit in American courts?

I'd like to clear this up before I brew my "Hallertau Altbier".

thx

gak

Richard Stueven, Castro Valley CA

------------------------------


Re: Boiling specialty grains?

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 10:03:44 -0800

From: atl@kpc.com

Subject: Re: Boiling specialty grains?

>  I was wondering if anyone holds an intelligent opinion about boiling specialty

>  grains like chocolate malt as opposed to just steeping them in 165-170 degree

>  water which will be added to the boiled wort made from malt extract.  Since I

>  have not as yet tried all-grain brewing I still boil in a 4 gallon pot, so I

>  boil half my water first, store it in the carboy then add the wort after a

>  subsequent boil.  On my last batch I decided to steep the specialty grains

>  after finishing the initial boil, then strained them out of the water and

>  added boiled wort.  Is there a downside to this procedure?  That batch,

>  a porter tasted pretty good, a reasonable extract facsimilie of Anchor Porter-

>  yumm, but the vast experiences of the HBD might convince me of the error of my

>  wheys.

After about 5 years of boiling specialty grains, and ending up with beer that tasted

much better after a year in the bottle, I stopped boiling my grains and voila! beer

that tasted good out of the secondary.  As I understand it, higher temperatures will

leach tannins out of the husks of the grain.  These tannins will add an astringent

taste to you finished product.  The yeast in each bottle will *eventually* reabsorb

the tannins, but it is better to avoid them from the start.

The only doubt I have with your described method is that you don't boil the resulting

liquid from the steeping of the grains.  Once you have removed the husk material, it

is safe to boil the resulting liquid, and may even be beneficial.  A boil could kill

off residual nasties, although I don't know if anything could live in 170F water for

an extended period of time.  Boiling might also alter the sugars in the solution.

On the bottom line, if it tastes good, you *must* have done the right thing.

Andrew Lynch, Kubota Pacific Computer, Santa Clara, Ca. atl@kpc.com

------------------------------


Re: Culturing Duvel Yeast

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 10:20:19 -0800

From: atl@kpc.com

Subject: Re: Culturing Duvel Yeast

>  I'm planning to culture the yeast from a bottle of Duvel and I have a few

>  questions:

Where are you located?  Fermentation Frenzy in Los Altos, Ca. has slants of Duvel

yeast that I have used to attempt Duvel clones. I'm pretty sure that these cultures

would be better to use than the yeast in some poor abused bottle that's been on the

shelf forever. I don't know the technical profile, but it smells and has aftertaste

like Duvel.  I have done one extract and one all grain attempt at Duvel.  The all

grain came much closer, as I could control the percentage fermentable vs. percentage

unfermentable sugars in the wort.  Normal (tm) extract will have a ratio balanced

towards normal beer, and Duvel is not normal.  It is quite difficult to get the high

alcohol content without excessive body and residual sweetness.  My all grain batch

included 18lbs of grain and 3 lbs of honey for a 5 gallon batch.  I mashed for several

hours at 148F to try to get maximum fermentable sugars.  The Duvel yeast fermented it

from about ~1.090 to ~1.025 in just over one day!  Another week brought it down to

about 1.015.  Truely impressive.  It ended up with the nice blond color and rocky head

of Duvel, but was still a little too sweet. Duvel in Belgium hasd 9.5% alcohol (not

sure if by weight or volume) and the US version has 5.2%.

  If there is interest, I will post the recipe, but I don't want people to think I

really got it just right.

Andrew Lynch, Kubota Pacific Computer, Santa Clara, Ca. atl@kpc.com

------------------------------


Starters, Wine, Brass

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 13:05 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Starters, Wine, Brass

 >Jack, how careful are you about what kind of beer you save for starters?

 Totally reckless.  I literally start the next with the last.  I really think

 that a pint out of 7 gallons is in the noise.

 >From: Robert Schultz <SCHULTZ@admin1.usask.ca>

 > As for Jack Schmidling's comment about adding sugar until the yeast dies

 may not be a good idea... this is how high alcohol content ports are made....by

 adding small increments of sugar you are in effect conditioning the yeast

 (actually I think you kill off the week cells and continue the ferment with some

 of the stronger -- mutants?).  The concentration of alcohol changes the taste

 (or how one perceives the taste) of the final product.

 Can't argue with the facts but if one uses a low tolerence yeast, you can

 minimize the problem.

 >From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

 >  First, I read in a health newsletter than *brass* fittings, ie. a brass

 spigot, especially when new, can leach lead into water.  What is brass?

 Copper and ???.

 Sounds like a case of the media over-reacting to something they know nothing

 about.

 Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc.  The amount of either that can leach

 into beer is probably not measureable and both, in small doses are necessary

 to human health.

 js

------------------------------


bad supplier alert

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 14:47:46 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: bad supplier alert

Hi All,

   Just curious, anyone else having problems getting orders filled correctly

by Northeast Brewers Supply in RI?

   I have been (or was) a customer of thiers for about one year.  Over the

first few months that I did business with them, several orders were shipped

either incomplete or with the wrong items.  On most of those occasions, the

problem was that they did not have the item in stock and had it on backorder.

The irritating thing was that they would not tell me this when I placed the

order, even though the information was on their computer.  I would not

discover that the order was incomplete until I received it, one or two days

before brewday.  Each time this occurred, it put me in the position of

scrambling around at the last minute trying to second source the items from

other vendors.

   After several such incidents, I called and spoke to the owner, a Mr.

Kerry Brown.  He told me they had just put in a new computer system and hired

a lot of new help, and to please bear with them.  Being the understanding,

easy-going fellow that I am, I was satisfied with that explanation.

   Things got a little better for a while, as only the occasional order was

screwed up.  Two weeks ago, I ordered one pound of Saaz pellets, and 1/4 pound

of several other types of hop.  After waiting eight days, I called to find out

what had happened to my order.  After being left on hold for 15 minutes, the

person at the store said he was alone, the phones were ringing and the place

was full of customers, so he did not have time to look for the shipping log.

He could'nt say whether or not the order had been shipped.  He did locate my

order, but it was totally wrong, they had it as 1 *pound* of each hop.

   The next day, as a result of my complaining, I received a phone call from

Mr. Brown, ostensibly because he "was interested in my feedback as a

customer".  I explained the problem with the hop order, and amazingly, he went

into the same speil, new computers, new help, blah blah blah.  I reminded him

that we had held exactly the same conversation 8 months ago.  He then tried

a new tack, that "it's hard for any computer to track $10K a day in

inventory".  Gee, it's funny how in this age of online transaction processing,

banks can transfer millions of dollars a day across vast distances with no

problem, but NE Brewer's computers can't track a few ounces of hops in the

backroom.  Then it was "banks spend a lot more money for their computers".

This is surely earth shattering news to those who use PC driven databases in

thier businesses.  It became evident that he was interested in neither my

feedback or in retaining me as a customer, so the conversation terminated.

   In all fairness, NE Brewers does offer very low prices.  However, in my

opinion, this is made possible because they hire the cheapest, least

qualified help they can find, and then understaff, as evidenced by the lone

hapless clerk trying to wait on customers and answer the phone concurrently.

   The bottom line is, you *can* get good prices from NE Brewer, but you had

better have a second source lined up, you may very well need it.

                                     Jim

------------------------------


Ph measurement and meter calibration

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 14:30:07 EST

From: Lee Menegoni <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

Subject: Ph measurement and meter calibration

I have a couple questions about the use and calibration of a Ph meter.

If a meter's intended use range is 32-122F what is the effect of takiing

a reading at 150-160F?  how much percentage or Ph points will the reading

be off?  Does the Ph of the calibration fluids change with temp?

I measuring the mash and wort Ph should I take a sample and cool it to

100F  meAsure it and apply a temp adjustment?  When mash and wort Ph is

mentioned in various texts is this the Ph at mash / wort temp or is it

at some other temp??

- --

------------------------------


wheat beer yeast plating

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 12:08:58 -0800

From: ek@chem.UCSD.EDU (Ed Kesicki)

Subject: wheat beer yeast plating

This is addressed to anyone who has plated out Wyeast Wheat Beer Yeast:

We have done this and were wondering how the two different colonies looked.

We seem to have two types, one thicker and whiter, the other more

translucent and thinner.  But only one of our plates displays this,

the other only has colonies of the first type.

Could someone who has done this please do me the favor of letting me

know how your colonies looked and what characteristics each had when

they were used to ferment beer.

Thanks,

Ed Kesicki

ek@chem.ucsd.edu

------------------------------


off-flavor puzzle

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 15:05:40 cdt

From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: off-flavor puzzle

Here's one for all you beer - sleuths.

I have been re-using yeast by saving the slurry from the primary and washing

it using the sterile-water method.  Recently, I decided to pitch a new batch

directly onto the yeast cake in the SECONDARY of a previous batch.  Both of

these batches have developed a similar off-flavor.

I would described this flavor possibly as either "wet cardboard" or "cooked

corn" - but since I can't decide which, perhaps it is neither and I'm just

groping for terms to describe it from stuff I've read.  And incidentally, I

don't remember where I read them or what is supposed to cause these

particular flavors.  Quite a few batches ago I had one that turned out

"cidery," and there was absolutely no doubt about how to describe that.  The

cideriness subsided after a few weeks in the bottle and the beer was not

great, but drinkable.

But I digress.  The interesting thing is that a third batch of beer made

from the same yeast, washed from primary slurry, shows no sign of that

flavor defect.  The three recipes are completely different except for the

yeast.  Personally, I suspect that my problem came from reusing yeast from

the secondary that had been DRY-HOPPED.

Here's the scenario:  Batch one, California Common using Wyeast

"California," from package built up in DME starter.  Batch two, a porter

(?) or at anyrate a dark steam beer, made with California yeast saved from

prinary of batch one.  Bathc three, a cream ale (or cream steam in this

case I suppose) made with California yeast from secondary of batch one

(which had been dry-hopped).  Batch one and batch three have identical

flavor defects.  Batch two is fine.

And here are my questions: (1) Could the flavor defect in batch one be due

to leaving the hops (pellets) in the secondary too long?  I thought moving

the beer off the slurry in the primary would take avoid the risk  of

developing off-flavors in case of extended stay in the fermenter, but

perhaps the dry-hopping has its own risk in this regard.  (2) Should I

suspect infection?  The hops I used for dry-hopping smell fine in their

package, although I doubt I could pick up anything by nose that way.

Perhaps the infection was introduced when transferring batch one to

secondary, and from there to batch three.  (3) What are the chances of bottle

conditioning taking care of this?

I should add that the flavor problem is not overwhelming - it sticks out

like a sore thumb to me, but my wife guzzles happily and doesn't know what

I'm talking about.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Mail Alias

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 15:55:34 MST

From: jbmamay@beergod.dazixco.ingr.com (Jim Mamay)

Subject: Mail Alias

Hello,

Please add me to your journal mailings.

Thanks

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jim Mamay : Senior Systems Engineer

Dept.     : Systems & Tools

Phone     : 303-581-2384

Fax   : 303-581 9972

Mail Path : jbmamay@dazixco.ingr.com

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


CA Common recipe wanted

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 17:35:45 CST

From: jay marshall <marshall@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject: CA Common recipe wanted

Does anyone out there have a recipe for a good beer in the California

Common (aka Steam(tm)) style?  Please feel free to email or to post.  I

would also appreciate comments regarding the recipe's comparison to

Anchor Steam.

thanks,

Jay

marshall@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov

------------------------------


Extract Rates, Flavor and Color

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 19:22:53 -0800

From: jwsb@netcom.com (Justin Broughton)

Subject: Extract Rates, Flavor and Color

------------------------------


Extract Rates, Flavor and Color

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 19:25:17 PST

From: jwsb@netcom.com (Justin Broughton)

Subject: Extract Rates, Flavor and Color

I am curious about a subject I have not seen mentioned in any of the books

I have read. This is, what is the relationship between extract rate, flavor

and color. What happens if I am using a recipe which has an assumed stellar

extract rate, and I know my equipment can only get a percentage of it. If

I up the grain amount, will I get a more flavorful/colorful brew.

Also vice-versa if I am using a recipe which assumes very low extract rates

will my brew turn out tasteless and colorless if I tone it down to meet

my extract rates?

Justin

- --

------------------------------


new hombrew club forming

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 21:45 CST

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: new hombrew club forming

There's a new homebrewing club forming in the western suburbs of

Chicago in Dupage County.  The first meeting is scheduled for

Friday, April 30th.  For more info contact:

Todd Williams      todd@gold.rtsg.mot.com        (708) 971-8692

   -or-

Chris Campanelli   akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us   (708) 833-9059

------------------------------


That was gonna be my second guess

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 22:59 CST

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: That was gonna be my second guess

The other day I was subjected to a blind tasting at a friends.

"Try this", he said, "It has some flavors that I can't quite

place".

"What style is it?", I asked.

"It has some problems but the style should be pretty evident." he

said.

So I put on a judge's air and proceeded to dissect the beverage

according to the latest AHA guidelines.

Appearance: Very pale, Miller Lite-ish in color.  Way over-

carbonated.  No head retention.

Nose: Perfumy.  Fruity, apple-like.  No malt nose.  No hop nose.

Flavor: Starts out fruity.  Finishes dry with some tartness. No

body, very thin.  Gassy.

After surreptitious evaluation, I decided that it must have been

a very bad mead/cyser or an OK sparkling cider.  But which?

Depending on what I said I could have bruised an ego or given

tribute unto Caesar.  I loathe those situations.  It required

tact.  Ann Landers, where are you when I need you.

Summoning all of my self-taught guile, I responded: "Well, it

certainly is interesting."

"You don't like it?" he asked.

"Um, no, it's not that I don't like it, it's just that it could

fall into a number of different categories and I'm having a

little trouble deciding which.  On one hand it tastes like a very

good cider but on the other hand it tastes like a mead or cyser

that needs a little more aging." I said as I mentally patted

myself on the back.

"Well, truth be told", he said, "it's a French champagne.

Perrier-Jouet to be exact, vintage 1983."

(silence)

While trying not to blush too brightly I confidently responded,

"I knew that".

chris campanelli

------------------------------


Brewing supplies in Europe 2

Date:         Fri, 26 Mar 93 09:29:57 +0200

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      Brewing supplies in Europe 2

Do you have by chance the exact address, Tel. and FAX numbers (or just one of

these) for Munton & Fison (England) and DeWolf-Cosyns Maltings (Belgium).

Thanks, Nir.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Nir Navot <lcnavot@weizmann.weizmann.ac.il>

_______________________________________________________________________________

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1106, 03/26/93

*************************************

-------


Chocolate in the wort

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 93 08:51:00 EST

From: DJH0@NIOSR1.EM.CDC.GOV

Subject: Chocolate in the wort

Has anyone out there tried putting milk, white or dark bitter/sweet chocolate

into the brewpot?  I need to know how much is needed, and what tastes were

contributed to a 5 gallon batch of conventional stout or ale.  Any reasons

why this should not be attempted?

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyDan HewettyyyDJH0@NIOSR1.EM.CDC.GOVyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

                              I like the word 'indolence'.

                                It makes my laziness seem classy.

                                                 -Bern Williams

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

------------------------------


Net Noise (Please!)

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1993 08:08:41 CST

From: "Roger Deschner  " <U52983@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject: Net Noise (Please!)

1) If you are subscribing, unsubscribing, etc., please direct it to

homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com. If you direct it to the main address

for postings, you waste the (LIMITED!) bandwidth of this digest for

better stuff like beer, and worse for you, your request whatever it is

might not get acted upon.

2) Please limit your foamy musings to 80 columns in width. Yeah I know

that sounds like a limitation from the age of punched card computing and

horse-drawn carriages, but most computers (PC/DOS, Mainframe, Unix) and

most mail systems either wrap or truncate lines longer than 80. Posts to

HBD wider than 80 come out looking *REALLY* ugly.

THAT said, apologies for wasting this bandwidth on something other than

our beloved malty beverage, and back to relaxing, having a h.......

------------------------------


Northeast Brewers' Supply

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 93 14:16 GMT

From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>

Subject: Northeast Brewers' Supply

James Dipalma reports some rather unpleasant experiences with NBS, which

I have no reason to doubt.  On the other hand, I can report that they

have always gotten my orders right, shipped promptly, and charge less for

their goods than any full-service dealer I'm aware of.  (Hey Al, when's

your catalog coming out?)

 In fact, NBS is the ONLY supplier I've used that HASN'T screwed

up.  I don't think this suggests that they're perfect, but rather that

much of this is a matter of fate.  The fact that they're trying to shave

markups to the bone also suggests to me that they're walking a finer line

than some suppliers in terms of the resources needed to supply a certain

level of service.

 I, too, have a minor quibble with their computers.  As some may

have noticed, they charge less for 15 lbs of grain on a per lb basis than

for 5 lbs.  Ok, that's fair.  As it turns out, a 15 lb order arrives in

5 lb bags.  Quirky, but ok if that's how they want it.  However, if you

want to buy 20 lbs you have to pay a 15 lb price and a 5 lb price.  I assume

that their computer system is not set up to handle the prices on the basis

of total quantity rather than units, but this was a bit irritating.

 Finally, my mom says that when she called them before Christmas

to order a Corona for me, she also asked if they could supply me with a

basement (my chief brewing need).  They said no, so I guess they're not

FULL service!

 Standard disclaimers apply.

Phil Seitz

PSEITZ@MCIMAIL.COM

Arlington, Virginia, USA, Earth

------------------------------


Dark German

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1993 08:58:48 -0600

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Dark German

Jim Busch (busch@daacdev1.stx.com) asks:

 >What is Dark German?

Well, its like this.  I *believe* "Dark German" is a toastier version of

CaraVienne.  I'm actually not sure what distinguishes it from CaraMunich.

I should have said this the other day:  my local homebrew supplier (Roy

Rudebusch @ IMO in St. Louis) suggested the combination of the three "German"

malts instead of the combination of dark and light English crystal malts that I

wanted to use in this batch.  Roy knew what I was after, and  it worked out

quite well.  My original recipe was formulated with two pounds light English

crystal and one pound dark English crystal. Since that isn't what I actually

brewed, I didn't post that as "The Recipe". I couldn't tell you what difference

this actually makes in the final product.  I've noticed that Roy likes to use

smaller amounts several "specialty" malts in combination, rather than larger

amounts of fewer varieties.  Maybe Roy or other expierenced all-grain brewers

will be inclined to comment on this style of recipe formulation.  Can you win a

competition this way?  Would you really want to? 8-)

What I know about recipe formulation, I learned from Dave Miller (by way of

books), and Roy.  Roy taught me the practical application.  A good homebrew

supplier, who actually brews good beer himself, is a fine thing to have in your

neighborhood 8-).

 t

------------------------------


Re: Judges

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 93 10:58:27 EST

From: chuck@synchro.com (Chuck Cox)

Subject: Re: Judges

Ron Karwoski asks:

>

> Also our Club is looking at organizing a hombrew competition for

> our county fair in August. What we need are judges. Is there a list

> of registered judges someplace? How does one go about hiring a judge

> and what are typical costs? Also, anyone know what it takes to become

> an AHA sanctioned competition and is it worth it?

All organizers are encouraged to post competition announcements and

requests for beer judges to JudgeNet <judge@synchro.com>.

Most judges charge $50 per beer judged.  I, however, am a bargain.  I'll

judge for free if you'll cover my expenses and introduce me to a

beautiful single adult female biped who owns a brewery or racing team

and has bad taste in men.

Seriously, BJCP judges cannot be paid to judge AHA or HWBTA sanctioned

competitions.  However, a free lunch is considered appropriate, and many

competitions offer 'Beds for Brewers' where visiting judges stay at

local brewer's homes.

Contact the AHA (phone & address in Zymurgy) for a list of judges and

details about becoming a sanctioned competition.

Having a sanctioned competition gets you some advantages:

 - BJCP Judges get experience points.

 - Competitors may consider it more legitimate (this is debatable).

 - Announcement in Zymurgy (if they feel like it).

- --

Chuck Cox   <chuck@synchro.com>

Eliminate domestic terrorism - disband the BATF.

------------------------------


Brewing Mystery -- Sherlock Homeboy Solves All

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1993 09:19:14 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Brewing Mystery -- Sherlock Homeboy Solves All

>

Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

>

> I have been re-using yeast by saving the slurry from the primary and washing

> it using the sterile-water method.  Recently, I decided to pitch a new batch

> directly onto the yeast cake in the SECONDARY of a previous batch.  Both of

> these batches have developed a similar off-flavor.

>

> I would described this flavor possibly as either "wet cardboard" or "cooked

> corn" - but since I can't decide which, perhaps it is neither and I'm just

> groping for terms to describe it from stuff I've read.  And incidentally, I

> don't remember where I read them or what is supposed to cause these

> particular flavors.  Quite a few batches ago I had one that turned out

> "cidery," and there was absolutely no doubt about how to describe that.  The

> cideriness subsided after a few weeks in the bottle and the beer was not

> great, but drinkable.

>

(wet cardboard -- oxidation; cooked corn -- DMS)

> But I digress.  The interesting thing is that a third batch of beer made

> from the same yeast, washed from primary slurry, shows no sign of that

> flavor defect.  The three recipes are completely different except for the

> yeast.  Personally, I suspect that my problem came from reusing yeast from

> the secondary that had been DRY-HOPPED.

>

> Here's the scenario:  Batch one, California Common using Wyeast

> "California," from package built up in DME starter.  Batch two, a porter

> (?) or at anyrate a dark steam beer, made with California yeast saved from

> prinary of batch one.  Bathc three, a cream ale (or cream steam in this

> case I suppose) made with California yeast from secondary of batch one

> (which had been dry-hopped).  Batch one and batch three have identical

> flavor defects.  Batch two is fine.

>

Without being able to taste the beer, it's difficult to speak with too

much authority, but...  The odds are that there was a contamination

problem _after_ you transferred the beer in Batch 1 to the secondary --

or rather, during the transfer.  Batch Two was brewed with the clean

yeast from the primary, but Batch Three was fermented with contaminated

yeast.  Sanitize the bejezzus out of all the plastic that the beer would

be coming in contact with.  Also, check your carboys for scratches; it's

possible that there are bacteria lurking in there.  I had a recurring

unpleasant aroma (maybe the same one) that I could trace through several

batches...the common problem seemed to be equipment used in transfer.  I

tossed out _everything_ made of plastic and retired a suspicious carboy.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


the Speise of life

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1993 09:46:02 -0800

From: wolo@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Greg Wolodkin)

Subject: the Speise of life

In yesterday's digest, Ulick writes:

> Other points.  I just read Eric Warner's Weissbier book.  A good book.

> He is very unconcerned with oxygen introduction at bottleing because the

> yeast will use it.  This contradcits other writers wh tend to be anal on

> this point.

> Suggests priming with Speise (literally food) and suggests the first runnings,

> from the lauter tun (with pasteurization).  Anyone tried this?

Those two suggestions go hand in hand -- *if* you prime with malt sugars,

*then* you shouldn't worry about a little oxygen in the bottle, since the

yeast will use it.  If you prime with corn sugar, however, Miller points

out that the Crabtree effect kicks in, and the oxygen is untouched by the

yeast.

Sometimes I refrigerate the trub after racking into primary -- by bottling

time this separates, leaving enough wort to prime with.  I guess the first

runnings would work as well, since you'd only have to save a small amount.

For the homebrewer, though, once you've boiled that small amount and then

separated the hot and cold break, will there be anything left?  It might

take a few attempts to get the volume right.

Thanks for the info, Ulick.  I've heard a few bad comments about some of

the other books in this series, but so far only good things about this

one.  Guess I better go buy it..

Cheers,

Greg

------------------------------


Ginger Steamer

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 93 12:46:37 CST

From: Brewmeister Gene <ezimmerm@hp.uwsuper.edu>

Subject: Ginger Steamer

Salutations all!

    I'm an extract brewer that uses spec. grains and starter cultures that

just brewed a Steam beer.

Anyway, here's the recipe:

   Ginger Steamer

 6#   unhopped Amber liquid extract

 1#   120L Carmel Malt

 1/2# Victory Malt (25L) (Oven Toasted at 350F for 15 min)

 1/2# Double Malt (45L)

 1 oz Chinnok 13.6 % (Boil)

 1/2 oz Cascade (15 min left)

 1/2 oz Cascade (7 min left)

 1/2 oz Cascade (2 min steep)

 ~1 oz fresh Ginger indiscriminatly put in the last few minuets of

 the boil (15-5 min left)

    I will dry hop with 1/2 oz Cascade when I rack to the seconday.

    Oh, I am using Wyeast's California yeast, smells GREAT!

Gene in Duluth

------------------------------


Dark Grains - Mashout

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1993 11:28:39 -0800 (PST)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Dark Grains - Mashout

I've only just started adding the dark grains at mashout, but my initial

impressions are:

1) It takes a little more, since the extraction time/temp is less.

2) It greatly reduces the astringent harshness that comes with high

amounts of dark grains.

3) It makes chocolate malt more coffee-like and less burned.

4) Small amounts of black patent (3 oz.) can add color with no perceptible

burned taste.

I haven't tried it with a stout (roast barley) yet, so that's still a

mystery to me.  I'd like to hear more about other brewers experiences.

Paul.

------------------------------


Seattle Brew Fest '93

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 93 13:30

From: CCASTELL.UNIX11@mailsrv2.eldec.com (CCASTELL)

Subject: Seattle Brew Fest '93

I apologize to everyone for taking up bandwidth with announcements that

are only of interest to a small percentage of the readers.  Unfortunately,

I don't know of any mailing lists for Northwest readers, so here I am.

(If there is such a list, put me on it and send me a copy of the list.)

And since I'm talking about Northwest issues:  Yes, I did have the

Redhook Smoked Scottish Ale.  Very drinkable once you got past the first

sip, but not exactly my idea of a Scottish Ale.  (Never had anything

like that on Rose Street!)  The current Redhook specialty beer is a

Honey Stout.  Quite good!

****************************************************************************

The Washington Association of Small Brewers Presents

SEATTLE BREW FEST '93

at Seattle's Union Station

Opening Gala Evening to Benefit Cancer Lifeline

Thursday, April 8, 6-9pm

Tickets: $25 in advance, $30 at the door

($50 sponsor and $100 patron tickets also available)

Admission includes handcrafted beers, souvenir glass and fine local food.

Call 654-4141 to reserve your ticket.

Friday April 9, 3-11pm

Saturday April 10, 12-10pm

Tickets $5 in advance, $6 at the door

Admission includes 3 script and souvenir glass

Friday and Saturday tickets available at:

The Trolleyman in Fremont (Redhook)

Big Time Brewery and Alehouse in the University District

or call 365-5812

****************************************************************************

I recommend the Cancer Lifeline benefit.  All the food you want plus

all the beer (and cider) you can drink at one low cost, with the

proceeds going to benefit a worthwhile charity.

Previous Cancer Lifeline beer have included ALL of the Northwest

microbreweries plus some from California (Sierra Nevada and Anchor

were there last year) as well as Canada (Big Rock has made the trip

from Calgary both of the past benefits).  This is a great place to

meet and talk with the brewers, and help contribute to a good cause, too.

Hope to see everyone there.

Charles Castellow  (ccastell@eldec.com)

------------------------------


Almost Free Kegging

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 93 16:02 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Almost Free Kegging

 >From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

 >Subject:      Brewing supplies in Europe

 >I thought the USA would be a good source for me, but apparently the shipping

 expences are just too high.

 Just for the record, the price I quoted you was for 2nd air shipment of a 20

 mill.  I refuse to deal with the US Postal Service on this item but I am sure

 most retailers have no such compuction regarding routine brewing supplies and

 the cost would be far less than UPS air.

 ..........

 Someone quoted the Wyeast packet as a vindication of the 1.020 starter wort

 gravity and I only ask, where did THEY get the number?  These things have a

 tendancy to gain a life of their own and rattle around forever.

 ..........

 Here's another GREAT IDEA from the World's Greatest Brewer....

 This one is untested but considering the source, it's gotta work.

 For the poverty stricken brewer who just knows that kegging is the way to go

 but has to feed the kids before buying tank and regulator, it has occurred to

 me that a very simple alternative exists.

 Take an empty keg and and drop in a chunk of dry ice.  Seal it up and connect

 it to the keg of beer and the job is done.  A few inexpensive refinements

 would be an air pressure gage to monitor what is going on, a valve or two and

 even a regualtor if funds allow.

 I have no idea how much ice is required to develop what pressures and for how

 long but, as it's not my problem, I leave the details to those venturesome

 experimenters who have contributed so much to this hobby in the past.

 js

 p.s.  To protect myself from greedy lawyers, I would not suggest doing this

 without a pressure gage and close monitoring till we know what to expect.  I

 believe the Cornelius kegs are rated at 150 lbs but I have never and would

 never go above 50 lbs with them.   I would have been delighted to run these

 tests but the idea came to me last night will filling the last of my 4 kegs

 and it will be awhile till I have an empty one.

 jjs

------------------------------


Question on sterile wort preparation

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 93 18:11:23 MST

From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

Subject: Question on sterile wort preparation

Several people have mentioned using a pressure cooker

to can sterile wort for the purpose of yeast culturing.

This idea appeals to me, since the pressure cooker would

sterilize the wort and containers, thereby allowing somewhat

relaxed sanitization procedures during wort preparation.

However, when it comes time to use the wort, it must be

poured out of the canning jars and into the vessel which

will be used to culture the yeast, with the associated

contamination risks.

It would be nice if the same jar that was used in the pressure

cooker could accept an air lock.  This way, when it came time

to make the starter, one could simply take the jar of sterile

wort off the shelf, open it, put in the yeast, and attach

a sanitized airlock.

Does anyone know of small-mouthed jars with accompanying

small lids and rings, (sort of like a miniature Ball jar),

which would accomodate a drilled stopper?

Some may consider this a ridiculous idea, but I feel that

anything that simplifies my yeast culturing is worthwhile.

Joel Birkeland

Motorola SPS

birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com

------------------------------


Re: starters

Date: Sat, 27 Mar 93 12:58:06 -0500

From: polstra!larryba@uunet.UU.NET

Subject: Re: starters

In HBD #1105, Jonathan Knight writes:

>...

>However, for the sake of simplicity, I think Jack has the best idea - just

>save a pint from your last batch!!  (all together now:  "DUHHH!")  Anything

>that saves me time making beer so I can spend more time enjoying the

>results, I'm in favor of.

>

>Jack, how careful are you about what kind of beer you save for starters?

>Have you ever used, say, an Imperial Stout for a starter for a Pilsener?

>Or do you always use less strongly-flavored worts for starters?

Indeed, one should use common sense with regard to the color of the wort

and hopping rate used in the starter and the target beer.  Because starter

wort is usually diluted (see below), you don't have to be too anal about

this.

>

>Anyone else have experience with this method?

I do it all the time.  Usually I recover 2-4 pints of wort from the kettle

trub (filter it through a fine mesh nylon hop bag) and then boil can it

in mason jars.  Sometimes I just pitch the cooled wort into the fermenter

(keeps that total extract rate high), sometimes I use it for Krausening

(all natural..) and if I am low on starters I'll dilute the wort to 1.020

before canning and store those in my beer box.  I also use recoverd

wort for plating and slants: Just add 2% flaked agar (from the chinese

section of the grocery store) boil to dissolve, strain and boil can in

small mason jars for storage.

A plug for more complicated brewing:

Yeast management is amazingly simple and easy once you get over the hurdle

of doing it.  Just like all grain, it does

involve a little extra effort, but the $$ savings over $5 yeast packets

is considerable.  Since recovering wort and canning it is part of my

usual kitchen clean up, after brewing, it doesn't seem to take any extra

time.  Building up yeast doesn't take much time either: I just have to

start two days earlier that when using a Wyeast packet.

Cheers!

- --

Larry Barello   uunet!polstra!larryba

------------------------------


Failed mail  (msg.aa05650)

Date:   Sat, 27 Mar 1993 14:06:17 -0500

From: unixbox MMDF Mail System <mmdf@canrem.com>

Subject:  Failed mail  (msg.aa05650)

Nick Zentena asked about imported beer in Niagara - Buffalo region.

Will be happy to talk off-line, Nick.  Please send e-mail address

to TKSJOHN at UBVM.BITNET

- ----------------------------Original message----------------------------

    Your message could not be delivered to

'zen@hophead.canrem.COM (host: hophead.canrem.com) (queue: uucp)' for the

following

reason:  'uux pipe broke (system unknown?)'

    Your message follows:

Received: from ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu by unixbox.canrem.COM

 id aa05650; Sat, 27 Mar 93 14:06:08 EST

Received: from UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU by UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2)

   with BSMTP id 7303; Sat, 27 Mar 93 14:07:53 EST

Received: from UBVM (NJE origin TKSJOHN@UBVM) by UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (LMail

 V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 8754; Sat, 27 Mar 1993 14:07:53 -0500


beer on Niagara Frontier

Date:         Sat, 27 Mar 93 14:06:23 EST

From:         John Pedlow <TKSJOHN@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu>

Subject:      beer on Niagara Frontier

To:           Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@canrem.com>

X-Acknowledge-To: <TKSJOHN@UBVM>

Message-ID:  <9303271406.aa05650@unixbox.canrem.COM>

Hi Nick,

This is a test to see if I can get throuhjg to you.

John  (halfway between Buffalo and Niagara Falls)

------------------------------


HOME BREW U

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 93 14:54:21 PST

From: Scott Lord (CompuCom) <v-ccsl@microsoft.com>

Subject: HOME BREW U

Michael Jackson will be the gust speaker at this years Home Brew U

seminar here in Seattle WA. put on by Charles Finkel of the Pike Place

Brewery and Liberty Malt Supply Co. .  Should be a good one this year

with seminars all day and a lunch banquet  that features a verity of

oysters and other food that is prepared with beer. Fred Eckhardt will

also be there as a guest speaker.

It happens on 3-27 at "The Improvisation" Comedy Club on 1st ave down

town Seattle.

Normal disclaimers apply

Scott Lord

v-ccsl@Microsoft

------------------------------


Re : oatmeal

Date: Sun, 28 Mar 93 18:15:45 BST

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: Re : oatmeal

Jean's comments on the lipid content of oats prompted me to go looking in the

supermarket this weekend. I found that flaked oats, oat bran and wheat bran all

contained from 5-10% fat by weight. In the case of the 'brans', that presumably

means they are adding back the germ, no? The levels in the flakes varied

considerably, presumably depending upon whether whole grain cereals were

employed or not. Interestingly, the oat bran contained considerably more

carbohydrate than the wheat bran. I made a test mash of oat bran alone today

and obtained an extract of around 30/lb/Imp gall, ie, comparable to the flakes.

Viscosity, however, seemed less on an informal basis. One thing that has me

slightly bemused is that I would expect a 7% lipid content to result in an

immiscible layer whenever the substance was boiled in water; yet this does not

occur. Adding an additional 7% vegetable oil to the oat bran solution

certainly resulted in a visible layer.

I have had more head retention problems using exorbitant quantities of crystal

than I have had from using oats. By 'problems' I mean that it may require 3

month's maturation before the brew holds a decent head. A lot of factors are

presumably at work here, such as how much lipid is retained in the grain bed

(if mashing), how much gets bound up with the trub, how much attaches to any

finings which are employed, how much participates in esterification reactions,

etc (although George Fix seems to suggest that only saturated fats are

significant re ester formation). Following this line of reasoning, I guess that

fining can be deleterious to hop aroma?

- --

Conn V Copas

Loughborough University of Technology          tel : +44 509 263171  ext 4164

Computer-Human Interaction Research Centre     fax : +44 509 610815

Leicestershire  LE11 3TU              e-mail - (Janet):C.V.Copas@uk.ac.lut

G Britain                                      (Internet):C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk

------------------------------


Re: Lead from brass, and EPA

Date: Sun, 28 Mar 93 11:08:31 PST

From: dbell@cup.portal.com

Subject: Re: Lead from brass, and EPA

Sam Atkinson posted (in part):

>We are also exposed to lead in trace amounts in the food that we eat; it

>is naturally occurring in soil; it is in many pesticides, and is attached to

>airborne particles (this is why EPA has banned leaded gasoline).

This was certainly part of the reason tetraethyl-lead was banned. The

most important reason, however, was that lead poisons the platinum

catalyst in the catalytic converter that breaks down nitrogen oxides.

Even a minute amount of lead in the exhaust quickly makes the converter

useless...

Dave

dbell@cup.portal.com

------------------------------


Rye Crystal Malt

Date: Sun, 28 Mar 93 20:04:27 CST

From: Dr. Marc Kelly <mkelly@ccu.UManitoba.CA>

Subject: Rye Crystal Malt

I read here last week that someone had found a source of rye malt.

I tried getting this myself, but the only source that I could find in Zymurgy

 had gone out of business.

The reason for my interest is that I was thinking of trying to make crystal

 rye malt from it.

Does anyone have a current source, and does anyone know whether soaking this

 stuff to make crystal malt would carry any risk of ergotism?

 Maybe I should ask the Pied Piper :-)

I was also looking for a source of quinoa and amaranth to no avail.

I even tried to search the 'Net on the keyword "grain".

Anyone else have any luck, or know the protein/fat contents?

Jack said that he had used mulberries a while back. This was my favorite

berry, but since leaving sunny Australia, I've never seen them again.

Was this a local supply, or would it be possible for me to obtain some

somehow?

Sorry for the wish-list,

Marc Kelly.

mkelly@ccu.umanitoba.ca

__

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1107, 03/29/93

*************************************

-------


beer sphere

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 07:05:15 -0500

From: Michael D. Galloway <mgx@ornl.gov>

Subject: beer sphere

While shopping at my local homebrew supply shop I noticed these

smokey spherical objects lurking about.  The proprietor called them

beer balls or beer spheres or somesuch name.  They come in 2.5 and

5 gallon sizes.  The 2.5 gal would fit great in my fridge.  Has anyone

had any experience with these devices?  Are they worth looking into?

Michael D. Galloway

mgx@ornl.gov

Living in the WasteLand

------------------------------


aromatic belgium malts

Date: 29 Mar 93 07:55:53 EST

From: CHUCKM@PBN73.Prime.COM

Subject: aromatic belgium malts

Hello All,

   Recently there has been a lot written about the Belgium Malts

and in particular I have seen some mention of Belgium aromatic

malt. Does anyone know how the 'aromatic' malts differ from

other non-aromatic malts?

regards,

chuckm@pbn73.prime.com

------------------------------


Pilsner Pour

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 07:00 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Pilsner Pour

 Aside from the SANFU's in my video, probably the most memorable part is the

 conversation with Ken Pavichavich in the Baderbrau conference room.  He would

 pour a glass of beer with a whipped cream head and it would stay that way

 till we got tired of looking at it.  We were there several hours and one was

 still 2 inches above the rim of the glass when we left.

 The key to this amazing head is a special tap that he got from Europe that

 has two pour positions.  The forward position provides a normal pour with

 just a trace of head.  The back position creates nothing but foam.  By

 combing the two actions, one can get any sort of head desired.

 I saw an ad somewhere for one of these and sent for the info

  (800)-FOAMLESS and was stunned to learn the price was around $200.

 It seems the point of these is to save beer (and money) and the

 rationalization is that it pays for itself quickly in a bar environment.

 While thumbing through the Braukunst catalog, I spotted a similar tap for

 $46.95 and immediately ordered one.  It is directly replaceable with any H-S

 tap and required only unscrewing the old and screwing on the new.

 I was delighted with the results.  It does exactly what it is supposed to do

 and costs only about $10 more than the standard tap.

 For more info on this and other nifty beer gear, you can contact Cliff

 Tanner, Braukunst at:

             73507.2256@compuserve.com

 js

------------------------------


Chocolate

Date:     Mon, 29 Mar 93 8:04:11 EST

From: Jpetty@PICA.ARMY.MIL

Subject:  Chocolate

I recently made 5 gal of chocolate porter.  I used 24 tablespoons of dark

cocoa mixed in with the priming sugar.  There was a lot of cocoa left in

the bottling bucket and in the bottom of the bottles so I would use about

16 tablespoons next time.  You may be able to get more in solution by adding

it to the wort.  The taste was just dandy; be careful not to overhop as the

cocoa adds its own bitterness.  The 24 came from a recent HBD post, I don't

recall the author.

------------------------------


hop vine source?

Date: 29 Mar 1993 08:24:47 -0400 (EDT)

From: JUKNALIS@arserrc.gov

Subject: hop vine source?

 I believe I saw a reference to a supplier of hop vines for

planting a few digests ago.  Due to local problems I didn't get all my

e-mail for a while so does anyone know the address of the company-ies?

I think the name was FRESH HOPS..... thanks.

------------------------------


Contacts to US and Canadian brew clubs

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 9:03:16 EST

From: srussell@msc.cornell.edu (Stephen Russell)

Subject: Contacts to US and Canadian brew clubs

Hello fellow brewers,

Traffic recently has slowed a bit, so I thought I'd post this.

I maintain a list of email contacts to some 90-100 homebrew clubs around

the US and Canada.  The point is to help potential members find clubs

in their area and to help promote interclub communication.

If you would like the contact information for a club or clubs (or all clubs)

below, please send me email.  Similarly, if you are a member of a club,

either one listed below already or one not listed, and would be willing to

be the email contact person for your club, please send me email.

Oh, and if you have any questions, please send me email.....

internet:  srussell@msc.cornell.edu  or  srussell@snoopy.msc.cornell.edu

bitnet:    srussell@crnlmsc2.bitnet

PS:  I don't have a club contact for a Phoenix area club yet and am very

interested because it looks like I'll be moving there in two months.

PPS:  it would be nice if someone were willing to take this database off

my hands around that time (hint, hint!) -- really not much work any more.

Cheers and here's to great beers,

STEVE

(list of areas with club contacts follows)

Last updated 3/2/93 (* denotes snail mail only)

- -------------------

AL: Birmingham, Madison

AZ: Tucson

CA: Oakland, Orange Co., Modesto, East Bay, San Fernando Valley, Sacra-

 mento, San Francisco, Cupertino, Claremont, Pasadena, San Diego,

 Santa Clara Valley, Lancaster, South Bay/San Jose

CO: Colorado Springs, Boulder, Fort Collins, Denver

CT: Fairfield/New Haven counties, Middletown/Hartford

DC: Washington metro area

FL: Tallahassee

GA: Athens

ID: Boise

IL: Bloomington, Chicago, west suburbs (Sugar Grove), northwest suburbs

IN: Lafayette

MA: Springfield, Greenfield, Boston, Milford/central MA

MD: Chesapeake bay area

MI: Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, Houghton

MN: Minneapolis/St. Paul, Rochester, Duluth*

MO: St. Louis

NC: Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, NC

ND: Fargo/Moorhead

NF: regional

NH: Merrimack/Manchester, Seabrook, Lebanon/Hanover/White River Junction

NJ: Piscataway, Somerville

NM: Los Alamos, Albuquerque

NY: Syracuse, NYC, Ithaca, Utica, Long Island*, Staten Island, Rochester,

 Buffalo, Albany, Westchester County, Columbia Univ., Binghamton

OH: Cincinnati, Dayton, Cleveland

ON: Ottawa, Toronto (this one is actually national)

OR: Corvallis, Portland

PA: Philadelphia, Western Main Line suburbs, State College

QU: Montreal

SC: Columbia

SK: Saskatoon

TX: Austin, Bryan, Fort Worth, Denton, College Station, Houston, Clear

 Lake, Dallas

VA: Charlottesville, Richmond, George Mason Univ.

WA: Seattle

WI: Madison, Oshkosh

- --

Stephen W. Russell

Materials Science and Engineering         "In the long run, we are all dead."

Cornell University     -- John Maynard Keynes

srussell@msc.cornell.edu

------------------------------


Questions

Date: 29 Mar 93 03:42:39 EST

From: "Anderson_Andy" <Anderson_Andy%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Questions

Message Creation Date was at 29-MAR-1993 08:15:00

          Greetings,

               I'm an extract brewer who is quite new to this

          "homebrew network".  I have some questions that I hope won't

          bore you all.  Being new to this network, I don't know

          whether my concerns have been previously dealt with in

          excruciating detail.

          1.   To achieve maximum practical cold-break how quickly and

          to what temperature must I reduce my wort?

          2.   I'm intersted in re-using my yeast in order to keep

          costs down and diminish the time to begin fermentation.  How

          can I efficiently separate the yeast from protein globs and

          stray vegetable matter in my troob?

          3.   I was interested in doing some mail order extract

          purchases.  I saw one company offering a Wisconsin barley

          malt from Briess that was cheaper than what I normally pay

          for Munton & Fison unhopped extract.  Has anyone out there

          brewed with both of these extracts?  I'm interested in how

          they compare with each other.

          4.   When sparging in my extract brews, I filter out the

          hops as well as hot & cold break proteins and plop the gunk

          onto some cheese-cloth.  When I'm finished filtering, I

          squeeze the cheese-cloth to wring out the last liquid back

          into my wort.  An I screwing up because my "naked" hand is

          squeezing out the juices?  Am I introducing bacteria as

          well as skin oils?  How should I be doing this?

          5.   This may be "Politically Incorrect" to ask this, but

          does anyone out there have serious reservations about any of

          the mail-order companies from the following list:

          Red Bank Brewing Supply, William's Brewing, The Malt Shop,

          Brew Masters, The Brewers Club, The Brewery, MCC Brewing

          Supplies, Great Lakes Brew Supply, and Wine Hobby USA

              Are there any I should be using instead of these?

          Thanks for the help,

          Bitch's Brewery

          Andy Anderson

------------------------------


brewing scene in Baton Rouge

Date:         Mon, 29 Mar 93 09:06:19 CST

From: "J. B. Whitfield" <JWHITFIE@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU>

Subject:      brewing scene in Baton Rouge

[For Publication Only]

Dear Homebrewers:

     A homebrewing friend of mine, Steve Thompson, is moving to Baton Rouge (LS

U) this weekend and will be in the market for brewing supplies and will

also be interested in local brewpubs, etc.  Any suggestions?   Thanks, Jim.

------------------------------


Cancel Subscription Please

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 9:10:55 CST

From: Gerald Vauk <jerryv@grateful.sps.mot.com>

Subject: Cancel Subscription Please

Hey Now,

I simply do not have time to keep up reading the digestifier.

Could you please remove me from the distribution list.

jerryv@victor.sps.mot.com

Thanx!

Happy Cheese-

Jerry Vauk:-)

------------------------------


Stouts from Extract + speciality grains

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 09:47 EST

From: LYONS@adc1.adc.ray.com

Subject: Stouts from Extract + speciality grains

Just a quick question about making stouts from extract and

speciality grains.  In regards to the procedure of adding

a sparge bag containing speciality grains to the cold water and

removing prior to the boil ... is there any benifit to using

flaked barley in this manner?

------------------------------


Hydrometer left in fermenter?

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 09:37:07 CST

From: hinz@memphis.med.ge.com (David Hinz)

Subject: Hydrometer left in fermenter?

Greetings...I'm a beginning homebrewer, and have a question:

To know when the beer is done fermenting, I gather there are at least

two ways to tell:  1, by going by bubbling rate (90 seconds between

bubbles being the time to bottle), and 2, by waiting for the gravity to stop

changing for 2 or 3 days.  On the two batches that I've bottled, these times

have coincided, so apparently each is fairly valid.

Is there any reason not to just sanitize the hydrometer and drop it into the

secondary?  It seems to me that it gives less chance for infection than

opening it up every day or two to draw off a sample to test.  What I've been

doing is just dunking it in there, and reading it once a day or whatever, to

keep an eye on it.

Other than needing a hydrometer for each batch you're monitoring (not that

expensive, compared to ingredients, and once you buy it you have it forever),

can anyone suggest a reason not to do this?

I can see why I wouldn't want it in the primary fermenting carboy, as the

krauesen would change the weight of the thing.  Getting it out isn't a problem,

because it floats out when I rinse the carboy.  Anything I haven't thought of?

And what is the preferred method for knowing when to bottle, the bubble rate,

or the hydrometer reading?

Thanks,

Dave Hinz

------------------------------


pressure cook/#13 stopper fits pint jar

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 10:05:24 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: pressure cook/#13 stopper fits pint jar

I recommend using the pressure cooker method to create sterile

starter worts.  Following Dave Miller's book, add 3 pounds of light

dry malt extract to about 2.5 gallons of water to create 3 gallons

of wort.  Hop lightly if you wish, and boil for 30 minutes.  Chill

enough to facilitate transfer, and then transfer the wort to 12

Quart Ball jars or 24 Half-Quart Ball jars.  I found a 5 or 6

gallon pressure cooker (I don't remember the capacity, but it was

the largest one) at a Service Merchandise.  It takes two cooking

"cycles," as all jars won't fit in the cooker.  By cooking at 15

pounds pressure for 20 minutes, you sterilize the wort.  Then,

whenever you need some wort, you just pop open a jar.

The Half-Quart Ball jar can be fitted with a #13 stopper and

airlock, so you can pitch the yeast straight into it if you want.

The pressure cooker also comes in handy should you decide to do

yeast culturing.

------------------------------


Hunters.  How not to and how to connect them.

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 11:15:45 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Hunters.  How not to and how to connect them.

This weekend I wired up my freezer.  Not wanting the damage the

antique beauty in any way, I mounted the Hunter (heat-cool,

round, mechanicial model 40005) to a scrap of plywood, and connected

it to an extension cable coming in.  Anyway, when I turned on the

power, she blew.  A bright spark and there was no metal left on the

thin wires of the mercury trip switch.  I then realised that when

they said for 15-30V DC low power DC control systems, they meant it.  I

wondered why I had never heard of any problems wiring these puppies

up.  Common sense should have told me that the thin wires of the

Hunter could not carry a total freezer load.  I suspected that I may

have been able to connect if across the freezer's regular thermostat

circuit.  Anti-surge devices and such were mentioned, but guessing

that the voltage would still be 115 AC, and the fact that the wires

were quite thick, and also the prime directive - not to fuch with

the integrity of the freezer, my mind turned to relay.

So off I went back to Builder's Square for a new Hunter and then to

Radio Shack for a relay.  I got a 12 VDC relay with contacts

rated for 15 A at 125 VAC.  Overkill maybe but I was taking no chances.

I could have got a similar device with a coil that used 120 VAC.

It may well have had low enough power to be OK through the hunter,

but I was taking no chances.  I wired it all up at home.  I soldered

the relay contacts accross the power cord live wire (where the previous

Hunter used to be).  I connected the + terminal of a 9V battery to

the R connecter on the Hunter, the Y (cooling) connecter to the relay

coil, and closed the circuit by connecting the other coil connector to

the - terminal on the battery.

But the best point, which I haven't seen made yet is that it is

trivial to lower the range of one of these devices.  The scale is

from 40-90 F, but to be accurate the Hunter must be vertical, because

it is based on a mercury trip switch that sits atop a metal coil

type thermometer.  So I turned my Hunter 1/16 of a turn anti clockwise,

and now I get the temperature approximately 10 F below the setting.

It also occurs to me that it should be easy to adapt a heat only thermostat

based on the same principle to cooling only by loosening the mercury

switch and turning it around.  They are usually glued, but the glue

connection is easy to break (I discovered this while trying to save my

previous one).  The heat only ones are ~$13 as against $20 or so for

the heating/cooling one.  The relay cost $5-$6 - a standard Potter and Blumfield

repacked as Archer, a Radio Shack brand.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@bach.helios.nd.edu

------------------------------


Starters

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 11:20 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Starters

 >From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

 >It would be nice if the same jar that was used in the pressure

 cooker could accept an air lock.

 This is getting like the "where can I get a brew kettle cheap?"

 Erlenmeyer flasks, which are available at any scientific apparatus supplier,

 are designed to accommodate rubber stoppers.  All you need is a glass air

 lock (Korz carries them) and you are in business.  Bring the wort to a low

 boil, and attach the empty airlock.  The steam will condense into sterile

 lock water while sterilizing the lock and flask.

 >Some may consider this a ridiculous idea, but I feel that

 anything that simplifies my yeast culturing is worthwhile.

 This is certainly a step in that direction.

 >From: polstra!larryba@uunet.UU.NET

 >Yeast management is amazingly simple and easy once you get over the hurdle

 of doing it.  Just like all grain, it does involve a little extra effort, but

 the $$ savings over $5 yeast packets is considerable.  Since recovering wort

 and canning it is part of my usual kitchen clean up, after brewing, it

 doesn't seem to take any extra time.  Building up yeast doesn't take much

 time either: I just have to start two days earlier that when using a Wyeast

 packet.

 Well put and worth elaborating on at the risk of creating a Yeast Snob

 thread.

 Once yeast culturing becomes routine, doing anything else poses the same

 questions as brewing with extract.

 It may very well be a time/money tradeoff for some but in the majority of

 cases, it is simply fear of the unknown and intimidation by big words and

 complicated sounding procedures.

 I will say no more here but everytime I announce that I have an article on

 beginning yeast culture, I get inundated with requests which boggle my mail

 so I will post the article in serial form starting tomorrow.

 js

------------------------------


Re: Question on sterile wort preparation

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 09:22:50 -0800

From: atl@kpc.com

Subject: Re: Question on sterile wort preparation

>  However, when it comes time to use the wort, it must be

>  poured out of the canning jars and into the vessel which

>  will be used to culture the yeast, with the associated

>  contamination risks.

After removing the sealing ring, I dip the still sealed jar into a bleach

solution. Then I remove the lid and pour.

>  It would be nice if the same jar that was used in the pressure

>  cooker could accept an air lock.  This way, when it came time

>  to make the starter, one could simply take the jar of sterile

>  wort off the shelf, open it, put in the yeast, and attach

>  a sanitized airlock.

I have found that small juice jars  will reseal once or twice before

discarding.  We get Mission something or another juices here at work, and I

had a few friends save the jars abnd lids for me.  These will accept a #6

stopper.  Be sure to use the jars with the pop up top so you can tell if they

are contaminated.

 Drew

------------------------------


Brewpubs in Irvine, Ca?

Date: 29 Mar 93 09:41:00 +0900

From: BELLAGIO_DAVID@Tandem.COM

Subject: Brewpubs in Irvine, Ca?

Hi,

   I will be on travel in Irvine, Ca next week.  From my list I see there is

a brewpub in Hunington Beach.  Is this the only one near Irvine?  Is it worth

going to?  Is there any other spot that serves good beer?  Thanks in advance.

Super Dave

bellagio_david@tandem.com

------------------------------


re Question on sterile wort preparation

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 12:39:24 EST

From: eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West)

Subject: re Question on sterile wort preparation

Joel asks:

- --- --------------------------------

Does anyone know of small-mouthed jars with accompanying

small lids and rings, (sort of like a miniature Ball jar),

which would accomodate a drilled stopper?

- --- ------------------------------

I've had good luck with those hand-sized Veryfine juice bottles. Fill

'em maybe half full of wort, put the lids on so that the threads just

engage, and pressure-cook 'em. When you take 'em out, tighten 'em down

(wear hot-mitts). If the lids pop down when they cool, you got a good

seal, they'll last a _long_ time. They take a regular carboy stopper.

Have a look around the supermarket and/or convenience store,

you'll find something that'll work for you.

Carl

WISL,BM.

------------------------------


Grain Mills: the Test Drive

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 10:12:09 -0800 (PST)

From: Mike Deliman <miked@wrs.com>

Subject: Grain Mills: the Test Drive

Preface:

     This is an attempt by an amateur scientist to publish an objective

     review of two common mills.

       -----  Test Drive, the final chapter  -----------

The results of the great Corona Mill VS. MaltMill grain crush are in.

First, an overview of the hardware in the test:

    =====  Corona  ===== Price, as tested: $39.

The Corona mill is a fairly straightforward design. There is a hopper on

top, big enough for about 2 # of pale malt. It is a hand cranked design;

the hand crank is about 18 inches long. Once it's going, it's not too

hard to keep it going.

The mill itself uses a screw "impeller" to feed grain to the

crushing/grinding plates. The plates have a gap, which is adjustable via

a wingnut and locknut.

The Corona does require a mount for stability, and could use a mechanism

to direct the output of the milled grain.

Nearly all of the Corona's parts are made from cast metal. It'd be

fairly hard to break (i.e., it could fall off the brewing table, bounce

down the stairs, hit AND kill the cat, and still be functional).

   ===== MaltMill =====  Price, as tested: $130

(As tested, this unit had the adjustable gap feature. It did not have

the stainless steel rollers.)

This mill has a decent-sized hopper, which uses gravity to feed grain

through the rollers. The entire mill is designed to sit atop a bucket.

The MaltMill is a roller-mill design. The rollers and "bearing plates"

(for lack of a better term) are made of metal. The rollers themselves

are grooved; these were probably used in an industrial application and

required a significant cleaning effort before the author felt

comfortable about using this device on a food product.

The basic design is manufactured mostly from pressboard, save the name

placards and the roller assembly.  Structural integrity is provided by a

total of 8 bolts; two hold the hopper on, two hold the bottom board on,

and there are bolts at each end of the placards.

The rollers have an adjustable gap (on this model). The adjustment is

performed by rotating an eccentric cam on which the end of one of the

rollers is mounted. The adjustment can be tightened to the point of no

gap, or opened to where grain could fall through unmilled.  Once

adjusted, one must lock down the cam with a wing nut.

On the adjustable model, one of the placard bolts is replaced by the

adjustment lock down bolt - which sacrifices whatever structural

reinforcement the original bolt had to offer.

If this mill were to fall from 5 feet to a cement floor, there would

undoubtably be irreparable damage.

- -----------

Pre-test adjustments

The Corona was adjusted to where it left no unbroken kernels, and a

minimal amount of husk damage.  The adjustment is not hard to perform

while milling.

The MaltMill was adjusted to just where it would not allow malt to go

through uncrushed.  Aside from husk material and flour, the crush was

nearly indistinguishable from that of the Corona.

Adjustments had to be made by running a handful of grain through, then

loosening the wing nut, adjusting roller separation via twisting the

cam, and then tightening the cam. ("lather-rinse-repeat")

The goal with both mills was to adjust for a crush:

    * with minimal flour content

    * minimal uncrushed kernels

    * minimal damage to the husks

- ----------

The Crush: yields!

The Corona had a very consistent crush. With proper adjustment, one can

minimize the damage to the husks and at the same time leave no kernels

uncrushed.

The MaltMill has the possibility of passing a few uncrushed kernels

through while still producing significant flour.

Quantitative Analysis: procedure

Both mills were adjusted for proper crush. The MaltMill crushed into a

grain bag in a bucket. The Corona's output was directed via a sleeve

into a grain bag in a bucket.

After milling, the grain was sifted, and the resulting flour was weighed

on a counterbalance (accurate to within .02 grams).

Results:

For 2 # Pale Malt, the Corona produced 42.0 grams flour.

     the MaltMill produced 49.5 grams flour.

That's a whopping 20% MORE flour with the MaltMill.

This is significant as I've heard theories that flour content can

contribute to a stuck sparge; I've also had more sparge problems with

high flour content milled malts.

Husks: The husks on the Corona's crush were slightly more damaged than

on the MaltMill.

Unmilled kernels: the MaltMill had a higher ratio of unmilled

kernels; we did not see any unmilled kernels with the Corona.

If time had allowed, I would have liked to run some deeper analysis on

the grain - an actual count of unmilled kernels per 100 ground, etc,

would have been nice to tally.

=========

I leave the reader to interpret the results. Apologies to those whom

regard this posting as wasted HBD bandwidth.

Have a homebrew >pffft<,

       mike

  Mike Deliman, 800-USA-4WRS, FAX 510-814-2010, WRS 2400bd BBS: 510-814-2165

        email:  miked@wrs.com (inet)  or [sun,uunet]!wrs!miked (uunet)

   Snail Mail:  Wind River Systems, 1010 Atlantic Ave, Alameda CA 94501 USA

------------------------------


WARNING Re:  Almost Free Kegging

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 12:56:11 -0600

From: "Jim Ellingson" <jimme@pi28.arc.umn.edu>

Subject: WARNING Re:  Almost Free Kegging

Jack suggests using a keg as a pressure vessel and getting pressurized

CO2 gas from dry ice.  Highly pressurized gas can be very dangerous.

The short answer is:        DON'T DO IT!!!!!

Let's do a quick BOTEC (Back of the Envelope Calculation) analysis on

this.  The vapor pressure of liquid C02 is hundreds of psi (say 500

psi) and is a function of temperature.  It's several times the rated

operating pressure of a Cornelius keg (120 psi).  Clearly there is a

potential here for disaster.

Most substances expand about 1000 times upon boiling or sublimating, at

a pressure of one atmosphere.  So, if we use a pint of dry ice, it will

sublimate into 1000 pints of CO2 gas.  If we stuff 1000 pints of C02

into our 40 pint (5 gallon for you non BOTEC alums) keg, what is our

pressure?  The Ideal Gas Law states that each halving of the volume

induces a doubling of the pressure.  25 is roughly 2 to the 5th power,

so a pint of dry ice should generate 5 doublings of atmospheric

pressure or . . . something on the order of 25 atmospheres or 400 psi.

Using half as much dry ice would half the pressure.  So, using a half

cup would give us about 100 psi, which is twice Jack's recommend

operating pressure.  Also, I wouldn't use BOTEC analysis if I wanted a

pressure anywhere near the manufacturers rated operating pressure.

Using a quarter cup would give a pressure of around 50 psi but I still

don't think it's a very good idea.

Pressure vessels are thick, heavy and expensive for a reason.  The

pressurized gas which they hold contains an enormous amount of

potential energy.  (That's why they are hydro [water] tested.  Compared

to gases, fluids are approximately incompressible.)

BTW, thanks to all for keeping the S/N ratio up on the HBD.

Cheers,

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

*  Jim Ellingson                                     jimme@arc.umn.edu  *

*  AHPCRC/University of Minnesota                    tel 612/626-8088   *

*  1100 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55415    fax 612/626-1596   *

------------------------------


Hop Utilization Factors

Date: 29 Mar 93 09:20:23 EST

From: "Anderson_Andy" <Anderson_Andy%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Hop Utilization Factors

Message Creation Date was at 29-MAR-1993 14:14:00

          Greetings,

               Would someone out there please inform me on calculating

          the difference in the hop utilization factor for whole leaf

          vs. hop pellets.  I read these formulas on calculating the

          IBUs for a given beer, but I have not seen anything that

          deals with the form of the hop itself, aside from its Alpha

          value.  It would seem that this would be especially

          important for hops added near the end of the boil (i.e. for

          flavor or aroma).

          Thanks,

          Bitch's Brewery

          Andy Anderson

------------------------------


Re: Question on sterile wort preparation

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 14:43:23 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Question on sterile wort preparation

> It would be nice if the same jar that was used in the pressure

> cooker could accept an air lock.

I would think any glass juice jar with a lined metal lid fits the bill

nicely.  Just drink the juice and re-use the cap.  I use 1-qt jars

that take a #7-1/2 or #8 stopper.

I don't use a pressure cooker, but I make starters with normal

water-bath canning procedures.  After the jar cools, the center of the

lid collapses and seals just like a mason jar.  I suppose the lid will

wear out after a while, but I've used them 3 or 4 times and they still

work fine.  Their working life may be less when pressure cooked.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Ithaca Competition

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 18:21:03 EST

From: bickham@lynx.msc.cornell.edu (Scott Bickham)

Subject: Ithaca Competition

 Ithaca Brewers' Union May-Day Ale Competition

 AHA Sanctioned Homebrew Competition

  Saturday, May 1, 1993

Entry Information:

A.  Bottles: three 10-14 oz. bottles are required for each entry.

Grolsch-type bottles and bottles with raised lettering or paper

labels will not be accepted.

B.  Drop-off Sites: entries may be shipped via UPS or delivered in

person to Summer Meadow Herb Shop, 319 Eddy Street, Ithaca, NY

14850.  In addition, entries from the Syracuse area may be dropped

off at E.J. Wren Homebrew, Inc., 209 Oswego Street, Ponderosa

Plaza, Liverpool, (315) 457-2282 and those from the Binghamton

area dropped off at S & R Homebrewing and Winemaking Supplies,

223 Ridgefield Rd., Endicott, (607) 748-1877.  Entries will be

accepted from April 10 through April 24, 1993.

C.  Entry Fee: $5 per entry  ($4 per entry if more than 4 are

submitted).  Please include a check made out to "Ithaca Brewers'

Union" and enclose a completed entry form for each homebrew

submitted.

D.  Styles: all entries will be judged by AHA style definitions, which

were listed in the February IBU Newsletter.  Fruits, herbs or spices

used in speciality beers should be listed and the base style included

so that it can be judged appropriately.  Note: if a particular category

does not receive at least six entries, it will be combined with a

similar category for judging and award purposes.

1. Belgian-Style Specialty  6.  Porter

 a. Flanders Brown   a. Robust Porter

 b. Dubbel    b. Brown Porter

 c. Trippel   7.  Stout

 d. Belgian Ale    a. Dry Stout

 e. Belgian Strong Ale   b. Foreign style

 f. Lambic    c. Sweet Stout

 g. White   8.  Strong Ales

2.  Brown Ale     a. English Old Ale

 a. English Brown   b. Strong Scotch Ale

 b. English Mild    c. Barley Wine

 c. American Brown   d. Imperial Stout

3.  English Style Ale   9.  German Style Ale

 a. Classic Pale Ale   a. Altbier

 b. India Pale Ale   b. Koelsch

 c. Ordinary Bitter  10.  Wheat Beer

 d. Special Bitter   a. Berliner Weiss

 e. Extra Special Bitter   b. Weizen

4.  Americal Style Ale    c. Dunkelweizen

 a. American Pale Ale   d. Weizenbock

 b. India Pale Ale  11.  Specialty Ale

 c. California Common Beer  a.  Fruit Beer

5.  Scottish Ale    b.  Herb or Spice Beer

 a. Scottish Light

 b. Scottish Heavy

 c. Scottish Export

E.  Judging Information:  Judging will be done in a closed session at

the Tower Club Restaurant on the Ithaca College campus, with the

first round beginning at 10 a.m. sharp and the second round

commencing after lunch.  Contact Scott Bickham at (607) 266-0092

or e-mail to bickham@msc.cornell.edu if you are interested in

judging or stewarding.

- --

=========================================================================

Scott Bickham                             |

LASSP and Materials Science Center   |       bickham@msc.cornell.edu

=========================================================================

------------------------------


BAA competitor

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 15:36:47 -0800

From: SCHREMPP_MIKE/HP4200_42@pollux.svale.hp.com

Subject: BAA competitor

I just got information on a competitor to Beers Across America. I'm not

affiliated...    blah, blah,blah.

The company is:

    MICROBREW TO YOU

    428 E. Campbell Ave

    Campbell, CA 95008

    Phone: (408) 379-0500

    Fax: (408) 379-8837

Their flyer says they will ship two six-packs a month of microbrewery beer and

a newsletter about the beer and brewery that produced it. They are a new

company, about three weeks old. They say they are starting with california

beers, but will move expand soon.

The monthly cost is:

    $13.95 plus tax, S&H, and Calif deposit.

For those in the Bay area, these guys have a very small store in downtown

Campbell that stocks lots of kinds of beer (58 breweries were represented

when I stopped in). They are also a source for kegs from many of these

breweries.

Mike Schrempp

------------------------------


pasteurization, why how and who?

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 18:50:55 -1100

From: Kirk_Anderson@wheatonma.edu (Kirk Anderson)

Subject: pasteurization, why how and who?

Can someone satisfy my not-overly-technical curiosity about

pasteurization of beer?  Is there a simple way to tell if a

beer is pasteurized (I've been told it's obvious in the head)?

Why and how is it detrimental to the flavor?  Are all draft

beers unpasteurized?  Why? Are all imports unpasteurized?

Does the cold-filtered process represent a real improvement

over pasteurization?  What do they filter out anyway that

would shorten the shelf-life?  What would happen if megabrews

were not pasteurized?  Who's buried in Grant's tomb?

If this ground has all been covered, excuse me I'm a recent

reader.  But please tell me where, via e-mail.  Otherwise, it's

a topic that should interest beer cognoscenti (even though God

only knows why anyone would want to do this at home) and might merit

some HBD bandwidth.

yours with foam on top,

Kirk

------------------------------


recipe

Date:        Mon, 29 Mar 93 20:06:15 EST

From: U033000 <U033%SETONMUS.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

Subject: recipe

To whom it may concern:

How can I get a home brewing recipe?

The Circuit Breaker

------------------------------


Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 18:46:02 -0800 (PST)

From: Douglas Fay <94dfay@ultrix.uor.edu>

Subject:

sub doug fay

------------------------------


Re: Question on sterile wort preparation

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 23:18:35 EST

From: Mark Gryska <mark@vicorp.com>

Subject: Re: Question on sterile wort preparation

  I've used ball jars in a pressure canner for preparing my sterile

wort without worrying too much about dumping the contents into a

sanitized container for the starter. The advantages are: you can pour

off the wort and leave trub behind; oxygenate the wort while pouring;

clean the ball jar thoroughly if it is the wide mouth variety.  I

haven't had any problems with contamination. (knock knock knock) If you

are concerned then maybe you can get your hands on a glass milk bottle.

They usually come in 1/4, 1/2 and 1 quart sizes and you'll find that a

#6 stopper will fit and you can put these into a pressure canner as

well.

    - mg

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1108, 03/30/93

*************************************

-------


Addr: blue

Date: 30 Mar 93 08:30:47 EDT

From: RKING@VUNET.VINU.EDU

Subject: Addr: blue

I recently had a homebrew a friend sent me via another

friend. The beer was called Blue Porter. It gave me

double vision and put me to sleep. Hmmmnn. Does anyone

know what Blue Porter is and does it usually contain

any, uh...unauthorized substances added to it?

Sincerely to all.

   RKING@VUNET.VINU.EDU

------------------------------


New Supplier in Connecticut

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 8:57:13 EST

From: casey!aspen!joem@uu6.psi.com (Joe Mulligan)

Subject: New Supplier in Connecticut

A new homebrew supply store has opened in Monroe, CT:

Maltose Express

391 Main Street (Rte 25)

Monroe, CT 06468

(203)452-7332

They are experienced brewers, and have operated a mail order business

for several years.

I tried a Pale Ale that Mark, one of the co-owners made, and it was

great !! And it was an extract brew (recipe will be shared if desired).

This is the first supply store to open within a 20 mile radius of

Fairfield, CT, where I (and many other homebrewers) live. This is

good news !!

    CALL BEFORE STOPPING BY; THEY ARE NOT OPENED EVERY DAY !!

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course, I have no affiliation with this business. I just wanted to

share this blessed event with others in the Monroe area.

joem@nrd.ups.com

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Champagne - Urbanna, IL Brewpub inquiry

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 9:22:28 EST

From: LeRoy S. Strohl <lstrohl@s850.mwc.edu>

Subject: Champagne - Urbanna, IL Brewpub inquiry

I will be attending a conference at the University of Illinois next

week, 4 April -7 April. Does anyone know of brewpubs in the area? Should

there be several, any preferences. Thanks in advance.

lstrohl@s850.mwc.edu

------------------------------


Whitbread warning, part I

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 08:23:41 -0600

From: oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (donald oconnor)

Subject: Whitbread warning, part I

There have been a number of digest posts in the past few weeks which

suggest the quality of dry beer yeasts is improving.  The latest  post on

this was in last Thursday's digest by George Fix.  I'd be delighted if these

reports did indeed portend a new beginning for dry yeast, but I remain

very skeptical.  If I may be allowed to play the devil's advocate, let me

first explain why I think the recent reports offer limited encouragement at

best and why I doubt the existing processors of dry yeast are likely to

change their ways in the foreseeable future.

Dr. Fix states that the new Whitbread yeast passed his culture tests with

flying colors.  I presume this means that the bacteria count was low and

the viability was high.  This indeed is good but it should be noted that Dr.

Fix also suggests that neither of these was the problem with the old

Whitbread which he estimates made swill about 1/3 of the time.  Dr. Fix

further points out that the dryness of these beers might be due to a

nonculture (wild) yeast, particularly a S. diastaticus which can ferment

dextrin.  This rather unique property of S. diastaticus allows this wild

yeast to be detected by a culture method.  Basically, S. diastaticus will

grow on a dextrin or starch agar while the culture yeast will not.

However, I'd like to point out that the majority of nonculture yeasts

common to brewing are strains of S. cerevisiae for which there are no

reliable culture methods of detection.  In short, the new Whitbread could

be even more contaminated than the old, but with a differerent wild yeast,

and Dr. Fix's culture methods would not detect it.  There are methods

which will detect most wild yeasts but these methods are quite

sophisticated and would require equipment and expertise found in some

microbiology or biochemical laboratories with fluorescence microscopy

capabilities.

Although the culture tests conducted by Dr. Fix are indeed useful,

particularly for Crosby and Baker, in screening out batches with gross

contamination of bacteria, the only reliable and practical test of yeast

purity for the homebrewer is simply to test the quality of the beer made

with the Whitbread yeast.  The only practical way of knowing if wild

yeasts are present is to sample the beer and look for off flavors and

aromas, poor clarity, low final gravity, etc.

The other reports of improved dry yeast center around the new Lallemand

yeasts, Windsor Ale, Nottingham, and Koenig.  These yeasts have drawn

some attention in part because of the large ads in Zymurgy.  Some people

on the digest have suggested these are also improved dry yeasts.  I

expressed my doubts about these yeasts some time ago for reasons I'll

outline below.  GW Kent, the distributor of these, recently indicated that

one of these great new yeasts (sarcasm intended), Konig,  has been

dropped because of contamination.

------------------------------


whitbread warning, part 2

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 08:38:02 -0600

From: oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (donald oconnor)

Subject: whitbread warning, part 2

Their are several factors which suggest that dry yeast processors will not

produce improved dry beer yeast.  Firstly, dry yeast processors are

primarily interested in bread yeast.  Bacterial contamination in bread

yeast is not nearly as critical as it is in beer yeast.  Thus the processors are

understandably content with the contamination level of their principle

product and not inclined to spend money and time to improve a secondary

product.

Secondly, although homebrewing is a recent trend in the US, it has a much

longer history in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand.  It seems a little

unrealistic to think that yeast processors which have been entrenched in

making poor yeast for so long are suddenly going to get their act together

because of the American market.

Thirdly, culture tests such as those conducted by Dr. Fix for Crosby and

Baker have been done before and it's difficult to find any evidence that the

results influenced the processors in the slightest.  For example, the culture

tests conducted by Dr. Michael Lewis et. al. and published in Zymurgy in

the '89 special issue indicated some serious problems with amongst others,

Whitbread.  From Dr. Fix's remarks, we now know that Whitbread only got

worse after this, not better.

In spite of the long history of contaminated dry beer yeast, I don't think it

is an inherent flaw of the process.  I suspect it is simply a lack of adequate

quality control.  So what is required for adequate quality control?  Clearly

the entire process must be carried out in a sterile environment.  This

requires a room with sterile air (special ventilation equipment), sterile

packaging materials, sterile glassware and equipment which requires an

autoclave.  This is indeed what Dave Logsden at Wyeast has and I suspect

at least some of the dry yeast processors have these capabilities.  Quality

control is really the process of maintaining this sterile environment over

time and that is where the dry yeast processors fall short.  Quality control

requires routinely checking the yeast for contamination by culture

methods such as those Dr. Fix runs for Crosby and Baker, routinely

checking surfaces of equipment and glassware and even the walls for

evidence of contamination.  If you take a swab off the wall or an empty

flask and it grows on a agar media, you've got a problem.  Many breweries

routinely make small batches of beer and check for wild yeast

contamination by the off-flavors and aromas or appearance (flocculation)

of the beer.  If processors of dry yeast are truly serious about cleaning up

the dry yeast, they would carry out similar procedures.

A history of contaminated yeast suggests an inability to implement

adequate quality control.  That is why I am particularly dubious of

products from existing processors such as Lallemand in Canada, Distillers in

England, Coopers in Australia (also supposedly better according to Dr. Fix

as reported by Jeff Frane on rcb), and Red Star (back in production and

also improved according to Jeff Frane as reported on rcb) in the US.  The

reason I was immediately skeptical about the new Lallemand yeasts was

that I saw nothing in the ads or information to indicate that Lallemand had

improved its quality control.  I see nothing in the new information about

Coopers and Red Star to suggest that they'll break their pattern of reliably

making swill all too often.  The most hopeful note in Dr. Fix's post was that

a new processor was drying Whitbread yeast.  It may well be that the new

Whitbread is a good clean dry yeast--for now.  After all, if it's a new

facility, it's likely to be quite sterile at the outset.  But the real test will be

in a year or two.  Unless this new processor breaks the mold and institutes

adequate quality control procedures, I think we can expect the new

Whitbread to look very much like the old within a couple of years.

Unfortunately, homebrewers won't be seeing any of the new and improved

Whitbread for a while; it's only available to brewpubs for the time being.

Apparently there is another Australian dry yeast called Mauri Brew (not

produced by Coopers) which has appeared in Canada and is thought to be

of better quality.

Don

------------------------------


Belgian Aromatic

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 9:35:35 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: Belgian Aromatic

CHUCKM writes about Dewolf-Cosyns Aromatic malt.  Well, yes, most

malts are aromatic, but the Aromatic is especially, uh, aromatic.

It has a color rating of about 25 Lovibond, which makes it a bit

darker than dark Munich.  You know how you'll read a recipe in

Charlie's book, and he'll tell you to toast a pound of malt in

the oven for 10 minutes.  Well, in a way, the manufacturing process

for the Aromatic malt has done this for you.  Aromatic malt works

especially well when used as a substantial fraction of your grain

bill for bocks and doppelbocks, and could be used when you want

to make any malty amber to dark beer.

------------------------------


better ginger flavour

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1993 07:48:03 -0800

From: eurquhar@sfu.ca

Subject: better ginger flavour

        I too was very interested in obtaining a strong ginger flavour as I

developed a taste for a Jamaican ginger beer ( non-alcoholic) last summer

which was quite pricey and not too available. So I looked in a text on food

flavouring production and found out that the ginger bite and aroma were

extracted very differently.  The volatile flavour as Dave Whitman suggested

is volatile and is obtained by distillation but has none of the ginger bite

just the spicey lemon flavour.  The ginger bite is obtained by using

repeated extraction with a mixture of ethanol and hot water.

        We found that the ginger "bite" being much less soluble in pure

water can be extracted by grinding fresh ginger to a fine pulp in a little

boiling water.  Then letting the mixture simmer for 10 minutes on the stove

in about a litre of water.  You can obtain a good extract this way.  You

then strain it out and repeat this with the pulp twice more.

        Most of the spicy lemon flavour came out in the first extraction

with a good ginger bite present after the 4th extraction. The flavour of

the ginger beer was very strong at first but diminished slightly over time.

 This seemed due to some sedimentation as upon tasting it had quite a bite.

 Young fresh ginger (the one with the red stalk remnants) is much more

fragrant and lemony than mature ginger, I prefer it, use it at 2/3 young

and 1/3 mature ginger if you can get it.  At the level of 1 lb. ginger per

gallon you'll get lot's of ginger bite unless you're one of those people

who eat whole raw jalapeno's.  If using only mature ginger try about 8 oz.

to the gallon as it's much stronger.  Hope you find this info useful.

homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

Eric Urquhart (eurquhar@sfu.ca)

Centre for Pest Management, Dept. of Biological Sciences

Simon Fraser University, Burnaby , B.C. Canada

------------------------------


Freshops

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 10:44:44 EST

From: orgasm!davevi@uunet.UU.NET (David Van Iderstine)

Subject: Freshops

   Freshops

   36180 Kings Valley Hwy.

   Pholmath, OR 97370

   (503)929-2736

They sell hops rhizomes (roots), as well as bagged leaf hops. The more

rhizomes you order, the more you'll get. Huh? For instance, last year I

ordered 4 and got 4. This year I ordered 8, and got 11!

===========================================================================

== Dave Van Iderstine                           Senior Software Engineer ==

==                   Xerox Imaging Systems, Inc.                         ==

== UUCP: uunet!pharlap!orgasm!davevi        davevi@pharlap.com :INTERNET ==

==-----------------------------------------------------------------------==

==          "I haven't got time for instant gratification!"              ==

===========================================================================

------------------------------


Ale yeast sold by Northeast Brewers Supply

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 11:43:48 -0500

From: ""Robert C. Santore"" <rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: Ale yeast sold by Northeast Brewers Supply

Greetings all HBD readers!  I have a question for anyone that may have

tried the North American Ale yeast sold by Northeastern Brewers Supply.

I brewed up a pale ale with this yeast, and as the beer has aged it has

been getting an increasing clove-phenolic flavor that really dominates

the taste of this beer.  It is not an objectionable, flavor.  In fact my

SO really loves this batch claiming that its spiciness reminds her of

Orval (you have to love a woman that says such things about your beer).

Nevertheless, the taste is inappropriate for the style.

     Last night I popped the first bottle of a stout that was also

brewed with this yeast and much to my horror it also has this clove taste

that is strong enough to dominate even the pound of roasted barley that

I used in this five gallon batch.  So, now I'm pretty sure that the

yeast is the culprit (I've never encountered this flavor in my beers

before).  Has anyone out there tried this yeast and have you had similar

experiences with it?

     It is entirely possible that this particular culture that I have is

not representative of the yeast sold by NBS.  Their catalog describes the

yeast as producing a 'clean' profile.  When they shipped my order

(this is an order I made back in November) they did so during Christmas-

New Years time with the result that it was in the hands of UPS for more

than a week kept under who knows what temperature.  I had to make a number

of attempts to culture from their slants before I got one going.  So it

is possible it could be a freak.  Who knows, it might be a great yeast

for a wheat beer!  But I'll be keeping it out of my stouts.

Bob Santore,

Syracuse NY

rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu

------------------------------


Chocolate

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1993 12:28 EDT

From: HOWED@bcvax1.bc.edu

Subject: Chocolate

 Not too long ago, my partner and I created a chocolate wheat beer.  We

added 3 oz. of chocolate with the boiling hops and another 3 oz. with the

finishing hops.  This way, we figured we could get an aroma and a good

flavor from the chocolate.  It seemed to work, because we've got a good

beer in the bottle now.

 The one piece of advice we got before using the chocolate was that

there could be an unusual odor in the carbuoys.  We did get soething that

was unusual, but there was no infection, and the finished product is rather

tasty.  From what I understand, you can use less chocolate, anywhere down

to around 2 oz. for a more subtle flavor.  We wanted a more pronounced one,

so we went for [close to] the maximum.

 This addition is supposedly valid for just about any beer recipe.

Admittedly, I would not find certain combinations palatable to the point that

I would want five gallons of it in my kitchen [Chocolate Chili IPA?], but the

leeway is there.  Enjoy!

HOWED@BCVMS.BC.EDU

------------------------------


Cannot reach Don and Wally

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 11:19 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Cannot reach Don and Wally

Don at Tellabs and Wally at akcs:

I can't reach you via email.  Call me at 708-430-HOPS.

Al.

------------------------------


cancel

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1993 12:54:29 -0600 (CST)

From: melby@stolaf.edu (P Eric Melby)

Subject: cancel

Please cancel my subscription to this subgroup.

------------------------------


Late Reply to the Brass Question

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1993 10:45:32 -0800 (PST)

From: Thomas Feller <thomasf@ursula.ee.pdx.edu>

Subject: Late Reply to the Brass Question

I figured someone else would have made this piont by now but ...

Not to long ago NPR did a story about possible problems with

brass water facuets. It seem some manufacters of brass faucets

still use lead solder in constructing their faucets. The

Calf. EPA has been able to measure lead leaching into the water

when using these faucet when using very hot water. No numbers

were given.

The fellow for the Calf. EPA recomended not using hot water

from any faucet for cooking and if you have small children

to only use bottled water (how do we know the bottle water is

lead free?)

I think the case for how much lead, where it comes from, and

who is at greatest risk has been clearly stated here in the HBD

so make up your mind on the dangers.

I hope is helps.

 - Tom Feller

------------------------------


Help!

Date: 30 Mar 1993 13:05:29 -0600 (CST)

From: SWEENERB@msuvx2.memst.edu

Subject: Help!

Help!

I found out today (Tuesday 3/30) that there will be a local homebrew judging

on the 16th of April and bottles have to be submitted on the 14th.  My dilemma

is that I have a carboy full of what I hope is pretty damn good porter, but it

is still actively fermenting (about 15 seconds between bubbles) after 6 days.

I would really like to enter the contest with this brew, so I figured if I give

this batch a couple of more days in the carboy and bottle on the 1st it may be

ok by the 16th.  Is there anything I can do, however, to speed up the

carbonation process and/or help the yeast to drop out of suspension in the

meantime to remove the green beer taste?  Is there a fining agent which might

help? Any suggestions are welcome--tried and true or completely experimental--

at this point I'll try anything. Thanks in advance.

Bob

Bob Sweeney - SWEENERB@MEMSTVX1.BITNET

Memphis State University

Status: Permanent Student

(901) MSU-4210

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

------------------------------


Dead fermentation

Date:         Tue, 30 Mar 93 14:00:27 EST

From: "Mark Rich-mpr8a@acadvm1.uottawa.ca" <MPR8A@acadvm1.uottawa.ca>

Subject:      Dead fermentation

Hello all,

       Brewed a kit beer with a buddy last Sunday; Monday it was fermenting

at a reasonable rate, Tuesday Morning- Nothing. I am a bit disturbed by this.

(not worried, disturbed) We used a full boil, rehydrated the yeast in some of t

he wort set aside at 70f, for a few hours while the 5 gal of wort cooled. The k

it called for 1kg of corn-sugar, we subbed 1 kg light dry m-extract. The origin

al gravity was 1.041, glass primary with blowoff in a 70f room. I guess I shoul

d also mention it was a Brew-Pro, Mexican Lager kit. We plan to take a S.G. rea

ding tonight... Is it possible the beer is fermented-out??? As I am convinced t

hat it is not, any suggestions would be appreciated. Please forgive violation o

f the "Thou shalt not covet kit-beer" commandment. (it was a gift).

------------------------------


How are your HOP'S?

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 11:42:38 PST

From: Scott Lord (CompuCom) <v-ccsl@microsoft.com>

Subject: How are your HOP'S?

Went out to weed my hop garden and found that my hops are growing like

gangbusters both of my cascade hops are 15 inches long with 8 vines each and my

 Chinook is 10 inches with 6 vines. It looks like a norther good hop  year.

I got 3LBs of dry hops off them last year. It looks like it is time to

build the

 hop trellis.

v-ccsl@microsoft

------------------------------


Belgian aromatic malt/misc questions/

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 13:18 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Belgian aromatic malt/misc questions/

CHUCKM writes:

>and in particular I have seen some mention of Belgium aromatic

>malt. Does anyone know how the 'aromatic' malts differ from

>other non-aromatic malts?

I believe you're refering to the malt that DeWolf-Cosyns makes

that they call "Aromatic."  Basically, it is like Munich malt

in that it is darker than Pilsner or Pale malts but will still

mash itself.  It is roughly 23-28 degrees Lovibond.

***********************

Andy writes:

>          1.   To achieve maximum practical cold-break how quickly and

>          to what temperature must I reduce my wort?

Cold break begins to form at temperatures below 140F.  It has been reported

and I've verified empirically that the quicker you chill it (the more

suddenly the temperature drops) the better the break.

>          2.   I'm intersted in re-using my yeast in order to keep

>          costs down and diminish the time to begin fermentation.  How

>          can I efficiently separate the yeast from protein globs and

>          stray vegetable matter in my troob?

I feel it's better to harvest yeast from the secondary than the primary

since the trub, as you mentioned, settles in the primary.  I have a big

problem with harvesting yeast from the carboys because I dryhop.  Instead,

I make starters and split them in parallel into several batches.  The snag

here is that you need to brew several batches from the same yeast in a

relatively short period.  I have also successfully made starters from

the sediment in my own homebrew, but I've had problems with older bottles

and only do it for one generation to avoid the pitfalls of mutations.

>          3.   I was interested in doing some mail order extract

>          purchases.  I saw one company offering a Wisconsin barley

>          malt from Briess that was cheaper than what I normally pay

>          for Munton & Fison unhopped extract.  Has anyone out there

>          brewed with both of these extracts?  I'm interested in how

>          they compare with each other.

I've used both and I've found that the Northwestern extract tends to

give a slightly higher OG contribution per pound and that it tends to

leave a bit higher FG then the M&F unhopped.

>          4.   When sparging in my extract brews, I filter out the

>          hops as well as hot & cold break proteins and plop the gunk

>          onto some cheese-cloth.  When I'm finished filtering, I

>          squeeze the cheese-cloth to wring out the last liquid back

>          into my wort.  An I screwing up because my "naked" hand is

>          squeezing out the juices?  Am I introducing bacteria as

>          well as skin oils?  How should I be doing this?

"Yes," "yes" and "if you must, boil it again to sanitize.

Dave writes:

>Is there any reason not to just sanitize the hydrometer and drop it into the

>secondary?  It seems to me that it gives less chance for infection than

I dryhop so it would not work for me,  but I've done this before and there's

no reason that I can see to not do it.

Al.

------------------------------


Hunter/Corona vs MaltMill/hop utilization/pasteurization vs filtering

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 13:30 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Hunter/Corona vs MaltMill/hop utilization/pasteurization vs filtering

Ulick writes:

>This weekend I wired up my freezer.  Not wanting the damage the

>antique beauty in any way, I mounted the Hunter (heat-cool,

>round, mechanicial model 40005) to a scrap of plywood, and connected

>it to an extension cable coming in.  Anyway, when I turned on the

>power, she blew.  A bright spark and there was no metal left on the

>thin wires of the mercury trip switch.

There's a different Hunter, called the Airstat, which is made to control

window air conditioners.  That's the one you want.  No muss, no fuss

and 40F is low enough for me anyway.  Any lower and I think there may

be a risk of freezing bottles near the walls.  The Airstat is digital,

has a remote sensing device and you simply plug your freezer/fridge into

it.

***************************************

Mike writes:

>(for lack of a better term) are made of metal. The rollers themselves

>are grooved; these were probably used in an industrial application and

>required a significant cleaning effort before the author felt

>comfortable about using this device on a food product.

These rollers are custom made for this application and the oil on them

is to keep them from rusting.  Good thinking, you should clean everything

before you put food in it, shouldn't you.

>

>The basic design is manufactured mostly from pressboard, save the name

>placards and the roller assembly.  Structural integrity is provided by a

>total of 8 bolts; two hold the hopper on, two hold the bottom board on,

>and there are bolts at each end of the placards.

Your tone is not coincident with your impartiality.  The "pressboard" is

actually synthetic wood made from recycled milk jugs and is IMHO much

less likely to break than pressboard, plywood or cast metals.

>

>On the adjustable model, one of the placard bolts is replaced by the

>adjustment lock down bolt - which sacrifices whatever structural

>reinforcement the original bolt had to offer.

Sounds impartial to me... NOT.

>

>If this mill were to fall from 5 feet to a cement floor, there would

>undoubtably be irreparable damage.

Mine has fallen 4 feet onto a cement floor and still works fine.

>

>Results:

>

>For 2 # Pale Malt, the Corona produced 42.0 grams flour.

>     the MaltMill produced 49.5 grams flour.

>

>That's a whopping 20% MORE flour with the MaltMill.

>

>This is significant as I've heard theories that flour content can

>contribute to a stuck sparge; I've also had more sparge problems with

>high flour content milled malts.

You heard wrong.  Pulverized husk material is much more likely to cause

a stuck sparge than any amount of flour.  With proper doughing-in,

flour is not a problem -- it will be converted to sugars which are

soluble.  Flour production should not be an issue when evaluating a mill.

>

>Husks: The husks on the Corona's crush were slightly more damaged than

>on the MaltMill.

I personally feel that this is an understatement, but to me husk damage

should have been second only to thorough crushing of the grain as a

criterion for evaluation of the products.

>

>I leave the reader to interpret the results. Apologies to those whom

>regard this posting as wasted HBD bandwidth.

>

I don't believe it has been a waste of bandwidth, but also it has not been

impartial -- your tone was quite evidently biased against the MaltMill.

You should also have researched stuck sparges a bit more before formulating

your judgement criteria.  On my scorecard, the MaltMill won.

If I sound biased towards the MaltMill, so be it, I feel it deserves to

be defended, and if you haven't noticed, I did not preface my comments

with a statement of impartiality.  I'd like to point out that there

have been several reviews of the MaltMill versus the Corona that have

come up on the side of the MaltMill.  Check the archives... only you and

Roy Rudebusch have written negative reviews -- perhaps Roy's bias is due

to a hundred Coronas gathering dust in his basement -- I don't know for

sure.  I can sell either the Corona or the MaltMill.  My profit margin

is bigger on the Corona, although I've yet to sell a single one.  It's

designed for making tortilla's for Pete's sake!

*************************

Andy writes:

>               Would someone out there please inform me on calculating

>          the difference in the hop utilization factor for whole leaf

>          vs. hop pellets.  I read these formulas on calculating the

>          IBUs for a given beer, but I have not seen anything that

>          deals with the form of the hop itself, aside from its Alpha

>          value.  It would seem that this would be especially

>          important for hops added near the end of the boil (i.e. for

>          flavor or aroma).

A recent post (I'm not sure which digest) mentioned 20% less utilization

when using whole hops over pellets.  The reason for the difference is

mostly due to the fact that during pelletization, the lupulin glands are

physically ruptured making the Alpha Acids more available.

**************************

Kirk writes:

>pasteurization of beer?  Is there a simple way to tell if a

>beer is pasteurized (I've been told it's obvious in the head)?

No. There is no way other than to ask or look on the label.

>Why and how is it detrimental to the flavor?

Raising the temperature into the pasteurization range will drive off

aromatics which you would like to keep.  I've heard some say that it

will give the beer a "cooked" flavor, but the only beers that I've

tasted before and after pasteurization was Chicago Brewing Company's

Legacy Lager and Red Ale.  I noticed no categorizable flavor difference.

Note that these beers are flash pasteurized while in a piece of stainless

steel tubing, so perhaps there is no loss of aromatics there either.

>Are all draft beers unpasteurized?

I don't think so -- maybe they are and maybe not.

>Why?

Probably because of the rate at which they are consumed.

>Are all imports unpasteurized?

Most are but some are not.  Chimay is not.

>Does the cold-filtered process represent a real improvement

>over pasteurization?

I don't think cold filtering is anything but a shortcut to proper

lagering -- it filters out the chill haze.

>What do they filter out anyway that would shorten the shelf-life?

Flavor?  Body?  No, seriously, sterile filtration filters out bacteria,

but also much of the small proteins that give beer body and head retention.

>What would happen if megabrews were not pasteurized?

It would not change my buying habits.

>Who's buried in Grant's tomb?

Grant and his wife.

Al.

------------------------------


Results!  Zymurgy special issues.

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 15:11:54 -0500

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: Results!  Zymurgy special issues.

More than a week ago, I posted asking for peoples' opinions on

Zymurgy special issues.  I got 11 responses, as welll as mail

from others asking me to post a summary.  Well, here it is:

                        Recommended

                         or Highly     Somewhat   Negative or No    Do

                        Recommended  Recommended  Recommendation  Not Own

                        -----------  -----------  --------------  -------

85 All-grain                 3           4             1             2

86 Malt Extract              0           1             5             4

87 Troubleshooting           2           1             5             2

88 Brewers & Gadgets         0           0             7             3

89 Yeast                     8           3             0             0

90 Hops & Beer               8           1             1             0

91 Beer Styles               1           2             6             1

92 Gadgets & Equip't         4           1             5             0

To be fair, "no recommendation" is not as bad as a negative comment.

However, if someone has all the issues and just lists the ones he

finds useful, that's an implicit criticism of the others.  There

some guesswork going on here.  If he didn't mention whether he owned

it or not, I tried to figure it out from context.  So take the last

two colummns as approximate; I stand by their the total of the 2 in

each case, but may be off in the particulars.  NB the 1989 line adds

to 11, the others all to 10.  That's because one respondent simply

said he thought the Yeast issue was good and offered no other opinion.

There are some clear trends here: Yeast and Hops are pretty much

universally liked, Malt Extract and Gadgets '88 are out of the

running.  Opinion is divided on the others.  Once again, the

15% discount deal is on 85 and 87-91 as a set.  Maybe this is

a ruse by AHA to get rid of their inventory of 88 as a freebie

to those who want 85, 87 and 89-91 anyway?

Selected comments

- -----------------

85 All-grain: "...a good issue if you're an all-grainer, although a

    bit of the information seems old now"  "...old, more information

    is available in other books."

86 Malt Extract: "Obsolete, for the most part."

87 Troubleshooting: "Moderately useful, especially if you're judging."

     "IMHO the only valuable issues are this, hops and yeast."

88 Brewers & Gadgets: "...a real dog...When they sent me the '88 I

    decided to let my membership lapse."

89 Yeast: "A must-have.  Top-flight scientific data and advice."

    "There's good info in there."

90 Hops & Beer: "SUPERB! Well worth having!"  "indespensable"

91 Beer Styles: "Infuriating."  "Absolutely the most valuable.

    A very good reference."

92 Gadgets & Equip't: "Good, especially if you're a gadgeteer."

   "<Yawn!> Not much there."

------------------------------


what to do with used grain bill

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1993 15:36:31 -0500 (EST)

From: David C Mackensen <cygnus@unh.edu>

Subject: what to do with used grain bill

Well, I was wondering, what to do with the spent grain bill... so I

was thinking...

What if I were to put the spent grain bill into the primary?

any additional sugars that might have been left over can be used for

fermentation/taste (depending upon complexity)...

I know that it will probably introduce extra gunk into my beer that

might induce chill hazing or whatever, but, in a dark beer?  I don't

think it'll matter much...

I just hate to see all that grain to down the drain :)

any other ideas? I've heard about making bread out of it, but I don't

think that might be feasble for me.. :(  but who knows :)

One problem that I can foresee is the soaking up of my beer into the

grain????

comments please...

thanks,

 -chris

 .--

David (Chris) Mackensen         cygnus@unh.edu         puck@unh.edu

dcm2@kepler.unh.edu, dcm2@bifur.unh.edu  I am the Time Daemon

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

"Hi... My name is Hobbes.  I'm the product of a malicious 6-year old's

twisted and destructive imagination.  Would YOU like to be my friend?"

------------------------------


oh yeah (Re: what to do...)

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1993 15:48:06 -0500 (EST)

From: David C Mackensen <cygnus@unh.edu>

Subject: oh yeah (Re: what to do...)

What does the HBD think about just pouring a can of DARK malt (liquid)

into the primary before pitching (and of course, mixing it up REALLY

well)...

comments please:

 -chris

 .--

David (Chris) Mackensen

dcm2@kepler.unh.edu, dcm2@bifur.unh.edu  I am the Time Daemon

------------------------------


RE:Questions

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 13:02:26 PST

From: Scott Lord (CompuCom) <v-ccsl@microsoft.com>

Subject: RE:Questions

>From: "Anderson_Andy"

><Anderson_Andy%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

>Subject: Questions

>To achieve maximum practical cold-break how quickly and to what temperature

>must I reduce my wort?

Try to get it down to 60~70 F

>I'm interested in re-using my yeast in order to keep costs down and diminish

>the time to begin fermentation.  How can I efficiently separate the yeast from

>protein globs and stray vegetable matter in my troob?

Save only the yeast slurry from your secondary fermenter..

>When sparging in my extract brews, I filter out the hops as well as hot & cold

>break proteins and plop the gunk onto some cheese-cloth.  When I'm finished

>filtering, I squeeze the cheese-cloth to wring out the last liquid

back into my

>wort.  An I screwing up because my "naked" hand is squeezing out the juices?

>Am I introducing  bacteria as well as skin oils?  How should I be doing this?

First put your hop in a cheese-cloth bag when you boil your wort then pull the

 hop bags out before you cool and put them in a stainless steel bowl and use

 another stainless steel bowl on top to press out the wort and put it back in

 the kettle then cool it and siphon off the trub. you will lose about a 1/2 to

 1 quart from hot and cold brake.

------------------------------


Flaked barley as a specialty grain.

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 15:40 EST

From: LYONS@adc1.adc.ray.com

Subject: Flaked barley as a specialty grain.

Thank you for the replys about the question of using flaked

barley as a specialty grain.  It appears that using flaked

barley adds a creamy mouth feel and improves the head.  Some

people use flaked barley with all beer styles.  Recommendations

on the amount ranged from 5 ozs to 1/2lb for a 5 gallon batch.

It was also stated that flaked barley can be found at food co-ops

under "rolled" barley at a significantly lower price than from

your local homebrew supplier.

Thank you!

Chris

------------------------------


TEXAS-SCHELL COMPETITION

Date: Tuesday, 30 March 93 19:59:57 CST

From: LLROW@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: TEXAS-SCHELL COMPETITION

I don't know if this has been posted yet but:

"A homebrewer's dream come true!  Almost everyone who has brewed a batch

of beer in their kitchen or garage has thought, 'Gee, this beer is so

wonderful, wouldn't it be great if I could sell this stuff!'  Well

homebrewers, here's your big chance!"

So says the intro to this competition sponsored by the August-Schell

Brewing Co.in New Ulm, Minnesota.  Here's a rundown of the particulars:

What:  1993 Texas-Schell Open Homebrew Competition

       Two bottles per entry (Max. 4 per person)

       Catagories:  None (except no 'novelty'/fruit beers)

       Entry Fee:  None (Schell and C.R. Goodman Co. covers it.)

Ingredients:

      "Schell uses domestic grains, so we prefer that you do too.

       Extract recipies will be converted to all-grain equivalents.

       Either domestic or import hops ok.  If you are brewing an ale,

       they prefer that you use a dry ale yeast (really!), as they will

       most likely be using either Windsor or Nottingham ale yeast.  If

       you are making a lager, we suggest Wyeast #2035 which is, co-

       incidentally, Schell's own strain!  Alcoholic content should be

       a minimum of 4% by weight (5% by vol.) as they wish to bottle the

       beer in 22 oz. 'big-boys' and in Texas that means that it must be

       an "ale" or "malt liquor" (ie. over 4%/5%).

Who:   Any homebrewer residing in Texas

When:  Entry deadline is 4pm Saturday June 5.  The contest will be held

       the following weekend, 1pm Sunday June 13.

Where: Send entries to:  Texas-Schell Competition

                         c/o DeFalco's Home wine & Beer supplies

                         5611 Morningside Drive

                         Houston, TX 77005

       To be held at:    C.R. Goodman Companies

                         3430 Yale

                         Houston, TX 77018

They plan to use the winning recipe for an actual commercially produced

August Schell beer to be sold nation-wide.  Also in the works are plans

to fly the winner up to New Ulm for the brewing of the inaugural batch.

Sounds a bit like the Pete's Wicked Ale competition eh?

have at it.

steve

------------------------------


Beer Balls

Date: 30 Mar 1993 22:40:03 -0500 (EST)

From: RADAMSON@delphi.com

Subject: Beer Balls

In 1108, M.Galloway asks about beer balls.  I started to get into them

several years ago, but abruptly stopped using due to leakage problems.

I had the portable type from Fritz in Pottsdam, NY using an EDME tap for

CO2 cartridges.  The tap leaked like a sieve.  The balls were great for

a single event, the tap would hold and a cartridge or two would suffice. But

any longer just wouldn't cut it.

Randy at Brew Ha-Ha in Pottstown, PA had success with the "regulator" tap

system for the balls.  He and I both are, however, head-over-heels giddy

about 5 liter kegging.  You know, those 5 l Dink and other German draft cans.

These things are perfect for Non Don Cornelious Keggers.  Holds 10 pints of

your favorite draft in the kitchen fridge.  The key is the CO2 cartridge

adjustable pressure bottom-feed tap for these guys.  Fits both small and large

size CO2 carts.

I do have a question tho...  Is there a difference between the ISO CO2 carts

and a pack of Crossman CO2 chargers from the Kmart counter?  Is this what's

termed "Industrial CO2"?

Thanks,  and   Brew On.

Richard Adamson,  Brewer, Patriot, Steelers Fan!

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1109, 03/31/93

*************************************

-------


"Samiclaus" aka strongest beer in world

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 13:16:10 MET DST

From: THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch

Subject: "Samiclaus" aka strongest beer in world

Hello all,

I just thought I'd let you know what I found out about

Samiclaus beer. For those of you who don't know it,

It is a high alcohol (14%) lager with a rich malty

taste an good hop balance. (I highly recommend anyone

to try it once). It is brewed once a year and lagered

for a year before sale. Anyway, the interesting thing

is that the yeast strain used to manage this feat is

under constant development. After fermenation is complete,

the surviving yeasts are plated out and reused the following

year. What amazed me was that the beer could be so

standardized from year to year. It appears that this

technique works well for bottom fermenting yeasts,

but not ale yeasts. The latter are prone to yeast weakness

whereby they revert to an ancestoral genetic makeup,

thereby spoiling the beer.

The head brewer did say however that sometimes problems

present themselves: this years fermentation started

perfectly normally, but then stopped - for THREE months.

Just as strangely it then restarted of it's own accord,

but with serious overattenuation (>30 Plato down to 3,

roughly equal to 17% alcohol!).

The moral of this tale is that even the biggest Swiss

brewer has trouble with his yeast.

Another thing the brewer mentioned was that they

expose their malt to water for 7 seconds before milling

to soften the shell (sorry I've forgotten the proper name).

This has the effect of crushing the inside while only

splitting the husk (knew I'd remember it). This makes

for better lautering. We didn't get onto how you expose

malt to water for 7 seconds only, But he said they did that

because of the delay between milling and mashing (ca.5-10 hours).

To wet and the malt would mash itself.

I'll be using some of his malt in my next batch, and will

try spraying the malt with one of those plant sprays.

Any opinions? Has anyone done this?

Rob.

------------------------------


immersion cooler length

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 13:18:09 MET DST

From: THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch

Subject: immersion cooler length

hello all again.

Does anyone know about the minimum length of copper tubing that

can be used as an immersion wort cooler? Successfully.

Rob

------------------------------


a great Pale Ale

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 07:33:36 EST

From: fingerle@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL (J. Fingerle)

Subject: a great Pale Ale

From: casey!aspen!joem@uu6.psi.com (Joe Mulligan)

>I tried a Pale Ale that Mark, one of the co-owners made, and it was

>great !! And it was an extract brew (recipe will be shared if desired).

Sorry to waste the bandwidth, but my mail to Joe

is bouncing.  Joe, could you post the recipe to the

digest, or to me personnally?  Thanks!

- --

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

name:  Jimmy                           I will have a cabinet that

email: fingerle@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL     "looks like America."     -Bill Clinton

 -or-   fingerle@NADC.NAVY.MIL          He does-13 of 18 are lawyers!    -Jimmy

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

------------------------------


Re: What to Do with Grain Bill/Extract to Primary ???

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 08:28:02 -0500

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Re: What to Do with Grain Bill/Extract to Primary ???

David C Mackensen <cygnus@unh.edu> writes:

> Well, I was wondering, what to do with the spent grain bill

I toss all the spent grains on to the compost pile in the

back yard.  That seems to me to be the best use of the grains.

And adding 10 lbs or so every couple of weeks really adds up to

a lot of compost.

> What if I were to put the spent grain bill into the primary?

> any additional sugars that might have been left over can be used for

> fermentation/taste (depending upon complexity)...

How are you going to sterilize the grains before tossing them in ?

Boil them ?  Seems like you'd be asking to extract a pile of

tannins from the husks.  Then have the husks in contact with the wort/green

beer for a week or two ?

Doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

> I know that it will probably introduce extra gunk into my beer that

> might induce chill hazing or whatever, but, in a dark beer?  I don't

> think it'll matter much...

Depends on just what you like to drink.

> What does the HBD think about just pouring a can of DARK malt (liquid)

> into the primary before pitching (and of course, mixing it up REALLY

> well)...

Why not add the extract to your boil kettle when you're making the batch ?

I see no reason to do this.  What about sterilizing the extract ?

If you want to bost the gravity, add it to the boil.

 Tim

------------------------------


Re: priming kegs with sugar instead of dry ice

Date:  Wed, 31 Mar 1993 01:39:33 -0500

From: Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@canrem.com>

Subject: Re: priming kegs with sugar instead of dry ice

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Almost Free Kegging

>Here's another GREAT IDEA from the World's Greatest Brewer....

> This one is untested but considering the source, it's gotta work.

> For the poverty stricken brewer who just knows that kegging is the way to go

> but has to feed the kids before buying tank and regulator, it has occurred to

> me that a very simple alternative exists.

> Take an empty keg and and drop in a chunk of dry ice.  Seal it up and connect

> it to the keg of beer and the job is done.  A few inexpensive refinements

> would be an air pressure gage to monitor what is going on, a valve or two and

> even a regualtor if funds allow.

        Something even easier is of course available. It's

        called sugar-) You can always prime the keg just

        like real ale brewers. None of this fancy dry ice

        stuff. Best of all ale brewers have been doing it

        for centuries so the results are in.

        Nick

*****************************************************************************

I drink Beer I don't collect cute bottles!

zen%hophead@canrem.com

*****************************************************************************

------------------------------


aromatic malt

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 08:40:10 -0600

From: oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (donald oconnor)

Subject: aromatic malt

their are two belgian munich malts, one is called 'munich' and is about

6 lovibond and has a diastatic power of about 50.  the other darker

munich is called 'aromatic' and is about 21 lovibond and 29 diastatic power.

both malts will convert themselves although 29 dp is really pushing

it i suspect.

munich malt is made in the same way as pale ale or pilsener during the

initial stages of drying but the last stage is carried out at a higher

temperature.  the basic process for all kilned malts (pale ale, pilsner,

lager, mild ale, vienna, munich) involves drying the green malt which

has about 45% moisture at a low temperature until the moisture content

reaches about 12-18%.  regardless of the type of malt, a higher temperature

is needed at this point because this last bit of moisture is more difficult

to remove.  it is this stage that the each of the kilned malts

develops its unique features.  the munich is dried at the highest temperature

and thus has darker color and less catalysts (enzymes).

by the way, contrary to what has been reported here, this process is

basically the same the world over.  i.e., european and american munich

malts are made in the same way.

don

------------------------------


Results!  Zymurgy special issues.

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 09:53:54 EST

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Results!  Zymurgy special issues.

Rob Bradley writes:

 > 91 Beer Styles: "Infuriating."  "Absolutely the most valuable.

 >     A very good reference."

You know, I wonder if this reflects the dichotomy between those who

try to brew true to style (for competition or otherwise), and those

who just brew what they like.  One member of our club hates

competitions because of the focus on style -- he says "... this is a

good beer, I don't care if it's too/not enough (hoppy, malty, fruity,

whatever) for style X/Y/Z.  I like it."

=S

------------------------------


spent grain in primary?/how about malt syrup?

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 9:09:30 CST

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: spent grain in primary?/how about malt syrup?

I wouldn't put spent grain in the primary!  The grain is contaminated.

Some brewers exploit this by doing sour mashing, but the mashing is

done in a vessel, and is followed by a boil.  So, throw the spent

grains on the compost heap, or make a bread out of them.

I also wouldn't add malt syrup directly to the primary.  Again, you

want to boil the malt syrup for sanitation, and the boil does other

things such as help the clarity of the resulting beer.

------------------------------


YEAST CULTURE, one

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 09:21 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: YEAST CULTURE, one

                  JACK SCHMIDLING ON YEAST CULTURE

                         Part one

                          Objective

 The objective of culturing yeast is to isolate a single cell from a beer or

 culture that has the characteristics desired and encourage this cell to

 reproduce enough offspring to start a new batch of beer.

 This is easier said than done but with reasonable care, luck and modest

 investment, can be accomplished by the serious home brewer.

                           General Program

 The general program is to dilute the original culture and spread it over the

 surface of a growth medium in a petri dish so that individual cells are far

 enough apart to allow them to grow into visible colonies without touching

 each other.

 A sample from one of these typical colonies is transferred to a test tube

 containing a growth medium.  When this colony is actively growing, it is

 considered a pure culture and can be refrigerated for later use or started by

 covering with beer wort.  When this starter is actively fermenting, it is

 poured into a larger amount of wort which, when active, is pitched into the

 beer.

                           Basic Assumptions

 The procedure makes a number of assumptions which are correct, often enough

 to allow it to work well enough, to satisfy most requirements.

 The first assumption is that one can select the desired strain by looking at

 colonies on a petri dish.  This is more or less true because the overwhelming

 majority will be the same, i.e. the dominant strain.  Bacteria, molds and

 many wild yeasts are obvious and recognizable to the naked eye.

 The second assumption is that, while still very small, all round colonies are

 the progeny of single cells.

 The third assumption is that all such colonies, at least in the center are

 mono clonal or at least mono-cultures and otherwise sterile.

 To do the job right, one would have to study the original diluted culture

 under high magnification and do a presort at that level.  This is revealing

 and fun.  It also gives an indication of any bacterial contamination in the

 culture but the rub is marking individual cells and finding them later when

 they grow into colonies.  This is done using a calibrated X-Y stage on the

 microscope and making careful notes.  Fortunately, however, I do not believe

 that it is really necessary for the home brewer, although a must for the lab

 selling selected strains.

                             Details

 There are many growth media available for the purpose and no doubt someone

 can recommend a source or recipe for the ideal but for my experiments, I

 mixed two packets (16 gr) of Knox gelatin with one cup of 1.020 wort.  After

 heating and dissolving, this is poured into petri dishes and test tubes and

 sterilized in a pressure cooker for 15 min at 15 lb.

 It should be noted that a pressure cooker is the preferred method of

 sterilization but for our purposes, one could probably get by with steaming

 in any pot with a lid and a half inch of water.  Set the dishes or slants in

 or on a cup or some other support to keep them out of the water.

 The petri dishes are turned upside down after solidifying and cultured this

 way to prevent water of condensation from falling on the medium.  The test

 tubes are cooled on a slant to allow the water to settle on the bottom when

 vertical.  They are also stuffed with cotton before going into the pc.  You

 can also use tubes with plastic screwcaps and avoid the cotton.

 It should be noted that gelatin melts around 75 F so its use in summer is

 precarious.   The better alternative to gelatin is agar agar.  This is

 available at oriental food stores in stick form.  Half a stick (about 4

 inches) in a cup of wort will get you through the hottest weather.

cont...

------------------------------


Re: Beer Balls / 5L minikegs

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 07:25:15 -0800

From: atl@kpc.com

Subject: Re: Beer Balls / 5L minikegs

>  about 5 liter kegging.  You know, those 5 l Dink and other German draft cans

------------------------------


Brew Clubs in Atlanta

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 10:25:31 -0500

From: bret.lanius@ehbbs.com (Bret Lanius)

Subject: Brew Clubs in Atlanta

 VA. From: XLPSJGN%LUCCPUA.BITNET@UICVM.UIC.EDU

  I was unable to get email to you at this adress

 VA.

 VA. My brother in Atlanta is interested in homebrewing/beer clubs in the

 VA. Atlanta area.  He's just started brewing and is looking for a network

 VA. to get involved in for help, advise and meeting fellow brewers.  How-

 VA. ever, I think because of the laws against brewing beer at home, these

 VA. societies might be hard to find?

 VA.

 VA. Could anyone who knows about a club or network in the Atlanta area

 VA. please E-mail me directly (or over this forum) and I'll pass the

 VA. info onto my brother.

 VA.

 VA. Cheers,

 VA. John

The Covert Hops Society

Ken Ward

P.O. Box 15256

Atlanta, GA 30333

- ---

 . JABBER v1.2 . Bret Lanius        INTERNET: bret.lanius@ehbbs.com

- ----

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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|USR/HST:404-446-9462 V.32bis:404-446-9465-Home of uuPCB Usenet for PC Board|

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


Yeast Labs yeast cultures

Date:         31 Mar 93 11:36:29 EST

From: "Dean Roy"  <DEAN@alpha.uwindsor.ca>

Subject:      Yeast Labs yeast cultures

I recently puchased some liquid yeast cultures from my local homebrew

supplier. Unfortunately he no longer has Wyeast cultures but he said the

Yeast Labs cultures he had in stock (distributed by G.W. Kent) were just as

good.

    I have the following questions about these cultures:

    (1) Are these the same yeasts as Wyeast? I purchased a California Lager

        and an American Ale (is this 1056)?

    (2) The fermentation temperature suggested for both of the above is in

        the 70 degree range. Is this correct for the lager yeast?

    (3) The cultures come in clear plastic tubes. No inner pouch or anything

        similiar to burst. Do I simply dump the contents of the tube into a

        starter?

  --------------------------------------------------------------------

  | Dean Roy                        |  Email: DEAN@UWINDSOR.CA       |

  | Systems Programmer              |  Voice: (519)253-4232 Ext 2763 |

  | University of Windsor           |  Fax  : (519)973-7083          |

  --------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Dry Yeast

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 09:44:54 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Dry Yeast

I have personally reviewed the Whitbread production procedures for dry

yeast. Not only are they using a new facility, but their procedures

are new with a strong accent on downstream quality control, the point

of the process that caused problems in the past. For the record, our

analysis of this yeast did include Rodney Morris' incremental actidione

method for detecting wild yeast. This showed less than 1 nonculture cell

per 10 million viable yeast cells. Crosby and Baker is currently

distributing this yeast to both commercial customers and home brew shops.

Crosby and Baker is also distributing the Mauri yeast from Australia. I

have tested this yeast as well, and it too meet specs. C+B has my report,

which contains the detailed plate counts.

The Red Star products from Universal Foods have not as yet been tested.

I have had several discussions with Dr. Foy, the QC biologist at Universal.

They have not made beer yeast for over a year, and will be introducing

entirely new production procedures for their new yeast. Whether this leads

to improved product quality remains to be seen. But it very definitely is

not business as usual.

I hope this and my previous post are not seen as an endorsement of dry yeast.

Each of these strains have their own personality, which may or may not be

to a particular brewer's taste. For example, the Mauri strain is a "pure"

version of a well known Australian yeast. The test brews we did with this

yeast indicated a clean but relatively bland finish, whereas the "impure"

version was awash in flavors of all sort. This yeast IMHO is a good strain

for beginners who are just starting to develop their techniques. What is

discernibly true is that the dry yeast of 1993 and in the future are and will

be produced with much more rigorous QC standards than at any point in the past.

As I noted in my first post, Wyeast gets credit for this as they were the one

who set the proper standards.

George Fix

------------------------------


Re: Help!

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 09:19:10 -0800

From: "John C. Post" <jpost@llnl.gov>

Subject: Re: Help!

>Date: 30 Mar 1993 13:05:29 -0600 (CST)

>From: SWEENERB@msuvx2.memst.edu

>Subject: Help!

>Help!

>Is there anything I can do, however, to speed up the

>carbonation process and/or help the yeast to drop out of suspension in the

>meantime to remove the green beer taste?  Is there a fining agent which might

>help? Any suggestions are welcome--tried and true or completely experimental-

>-at this point I'll try anything. Thanks in advance.

>Bob

Nope...and anybody who tells you otherwise is full of it. Some things just

can't be rushed...You could jack it around and bottle early, but it wouldn't

be the great beer you started out making...

john

jpost@llnl.gov

------------------------------


YEAST CULTURE, two

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 11:41 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: YEAST CULTURE, two

                  JACK SCHMIDLING ON YEAST CULTURE

                          Part two

                      Isolating Cells

 The first step is to inoculate the petri dish with as diluted a mixture as

 possible.  The books are full of procedures for doing this but I find the

 simplest is just as good.  Take a copper wire or thin glass rod and heat

 several inches in a flame to sterilize.  Dip this, when cool, into a working

 beer or yeast culture.  If starting with dry yeast, dissolve one granule of

 yeast in a test tube with about one inch of sterile water.  Gently drag the

 inoculated wire across the gelatin in the petri dish, trying not to break the

 surface.  Next, draw the wire across this line at several points, to further

 dilute the sample.  Turn the dish over onto the cover and "incubate" at room

 temp for several days.  Do this on several dishes just for insurance and as

 controls.

                       Pure Culture

 The next step is to visually inspect the surface of the petri dish under low

 magnification (hand lens or naked eye will do) to pick out a "typical" colony

 that appears to have come from a single cell.  All colonies should be

 rejected that are any shape other than perfectly round and differ in any way

 from the majority.

 Flame your wire again and after cooling, remove a small sample from the

 center of the selected colony and poke this into the surface of the medium in

 a "slant" test tube.  You can do this to several slants, with the same

 sample, to assure all slants are the same or flame the wire and take a new

 sample from a different colony.  You can make as many slants as you will need

 for several months and throw away the petri culture.

 You now "incubate" the slants until 25% or more of the surface is covered

 with the pure colony and then refrigerate them till needed.

                                Starting

 When needed for use, cover the slant with sterile wort and pitch when ready,

 i.e fermenting.  For best results, this starter should be used to pitch about

 a pint of wort, a day or so before brew day.

 This process can be used on anything from a packet of Red Star to a bottle of

 your favorite beer and will produce a pure culture.  There is no guarantee

 however, that the strain will remain the same for ever because of natural

 mutation.   As it is my experience that the most common and objectionable

 contaminants of dry yeast are bacteria and mold, this process will guarantee

 at least, to eliminate these most serious problems.

                         SIMPLIFIED PROCEDURE

 An even simpler process can be used if one is not interested in isolating

 single cells and has confidence that the starting culture is pure.

 This procedure skips the petri dish part and assumes one is starting with a

 packet of liquid yeast or a culture slant obtained from a reliable source.

 After preparing the agar/wort medium and a convenient number of slant culture

 tubes, they are simply inoculated directly from the culture.

 Using the sterile procedure outlined above, just dip into the packet of

 liquid yeast with the transfer wire and poke this into the agar in the

 sterile slants.  One dip is enough to inoculate several tubes.  You can use

 the rest of the yeast in the packet to start the next batch but the slants

 can be saved for a year or more.

 If you use a purchased culture slant, the same procedure applies.  Poke the

 wire into the yeast culture and then poke this into the slants.  Save the

 original for future iterations.  If you started with a liquid yeast packet,

 save the last slant to start a new group.

 Using this simple approach, one can go several years without spending a penny

 on yeast and possibly forever once you get into the "yeast swapping" mode.  I

 have yet to buy any yeast since I stopped using dry.

 While this is not necessarily music to the ears of yeast suppliers, it is

 good news to the homebrewer.  That $'s for yeast in the bill of materials

 becomes zero to the yeast culturer.  Yeast suppliers (like extract suppliers)

 will no doubt always be with us and in the case of yeast, we need them to

 maintain pure strains when ours go south.  But to keep buying the stuff for

 routine use is strictly for the affluent and laz.... naw, I won't do that

 again.

 js

------------------------------


Re: dry yeast/flash ferment?/spent grains/no boil/flaked barley

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 12:18 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: dry yeast/flash ferment?/spent grains/no boil/flaked barley

Don writes:

>There have been a number of digest posts in the past few weeks which

>suggest the quality of dry beer yeasts is improving.  The latest  post on

>this was in last Thursday's digest by George Fix.  I'd be delighted if these

>reports did indeed portend a new beginning for dry yeast, but I remain

>very skeptical.  If I may be allowed to play the devil's advocate, let me

>first explain why I think the recent reports offer limited encouragement at

>best and why I doubt the existing processors of dry yeast are likely to

>change their ways in the foreseeable future.

Don, goes on to explain why he is still skeptical of dry yeasts.  With

all due respect, Don, how much of your data is concrete and how much is

conjecture?  I'm willing to accept your arguments, but have you visited

the plants that make these yeasts?  Have you talked to the manufacturers?

I don't mean to flame you -- I think you make some good points, but I just

want to know if this is based on concrete evidence.

>and Dr. Fix's culture methods would not detect it.  There are methods

>which will detect most wild yeasts but these methods are quite

>sophisticated and would require equipment and expertise found in some

>microbiology or biochemical laboratories with fluorescence microscopy

>capabilities.

Are you familiar with all the equipment George has at his disposal?  I am

aware of the fact that he has some pretty heavy-duty equipment available,

and would not doubt that there's quite a bit more that I don't know

about.

**************************

Mark wrote about a kit beer made with dry yeast rehydrated in 70F wort with

an original gravity of 1041, which stopped fermenting after about two days.

I would have quoted his text, but MARK FAILED TO USE CARRIAGE RETURNS, WHICH

MADE A MESS ON MY TERMINAL WHEN I TRIED TO INSERT A ">" AT THE BEGINNING OF

EACH LINE.

I recommend that you not use wort to rehydrate dry yeast -- you are not only

stressing the yeast, but tempting the remaining live ones to produce off

flavors.  Secondly, if you fermented at around 70 to 72F, a 1041 wort could

easily have fermented out in two days.  It would have helped to know the

temperature of the surroundings and if there were any sudden temperature

changes that could have knocked the yeast out.  If there were no sudden

temperature changes and you fermented above 68F, I'd suspect that it's done.

If your SG turns out to be below 1010, I'd say it femented out.  Give it a

few more days and then bottle.  If the SG is well above 1010, then I'd say

something happened to the yeast.  You could try making up a starter of

fresh yeast and pitching it after it finishes fermenting out (to ensure

that you are not adding addional oxygen to your main wort).

************************

Chris writes:

>Well, I was wondering, what to do with the spent grain bill... so I

>was thinking...

>

>What if I were to put the spent grain bill into the primary?

>any additional sugars that might have been left over can be used for

>fermentation/taste (depending upon complexity)...

I have no hard data on this, but my gut feeling is that I would

recommend against it.  Actually, it would make something like Ninkasi

 --if memory serves correctly, the "beer" of ancient Babylonia did not

have the grains removed -- talk about liquid bread!

I'm raising squirrels the size of pit bulls with my spent grains.  I just

dump them in the yard -- I think the deer like the hops and the squirrels

like the grains.

>What does the HBD think about just pouring a can of DARK malt (liquid)

>into the primary before pitching (and of course, mixing it up REALLY

>well)...

It's sanitary, and I assume you are adding it to water, so it will, er...

work..., I guess, but you still want to sanitize the water and would *like*

to boil the wort to get the proteins to coagulate, but technically it would

make beer.

***********************

Chris (another one) writes:

>Thank you for the replys about the question of using flaked

>barley as a specialty grain.  It appears that using flaked

>barley adds a creamy mouth feel and improves the head.  Some

>people use flaked barley with all beer styles.  Recommendations

>on the amount ranged from 5 ozs to 1/2lb for a 5 gallon batch.

You can get away with not mashing it (using it as a specialty grain)

in dark beers, but it will make light-colored beers cloudy if you

don't mash it.

Al.

------------------------------


MaltMill review

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 13:29:59 EST

From: Joe Rolfe <jdr@wang.com>

Subject: MaltMill review

 hi all,

after reading in the last two issues, i remember i owe a review on the maltmill

i bought - yes off jack - last fall.  i have the adjustable one and after

hearing a war story from a fellow brewer (commercial - both of us) i am glad

i do.  mine has worked very well in crushes of malted wheat, crystal and 2 row

pale (both MF and canada malting).  thruput is so far fair ( but them i ask a

lot). i can easily got thru 10lbs in a few minutes (with var speed drill).

i have yet to grind a full 100lbs+/- in it tho i do not forsee a problem,

provided the spinning of the rollers is not to slow nor to fast.

(anyone got any hints at the correct rpm for the rollers - max thruput and

least hassels)

on the other hand - this fellow brewer - had a hell of a time.  again this

was with the non-adjustable roller model.  the bill called for pale malt (MF)

crystal malt (MF) and choc malt (MF).  i was not there when the problems came

up - but the crystal ended up to fine,  the pale did not feed properly

and the guy had to rush out to get a corona.  now mind you this is a motorized

(probably too fast) with hoppers above and below. the total grain bill was on

order of around 100lbs (+/- 20 - i don't ask what he puts in his beers ). the

first 20lbs or so of the pale did run ok.  he is going ot order the adjustment

kit and upgrade.

anyway from my experience and his, if you get one get the adjustable one.

standard discalimer from a commercial user.

- --

joe rolfe

jdr@wang.com

508-967-5760

------------------------------


WYEAST contamination?

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 11:09:22 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: WYEAST contamination?

There has been a thread recently about contamination of dry yeasts, but what

about liquid?  From what I can make out, one form of contamination,

apparently somewhat prevalent in the old Whitbread, is by a wild yeast which

can ferment dextrine, giving excessively dry and bland beer.  This is just

what happened to me with a batch of 1056!

My first brew went from 1.036 down to 1.006, as measured with a hydrometer.

I've never had such a low reading, and the beer sure is bland.  I can hardly

taste anything in it.

The second batch used the slurry from the secondary of the above, and went

from 1.044 down to 1.008.  I would normally expect 1.012 minimum for this

type of beer.  This, too, is somewhat bland.

Both the above had some crystal malt, although I forget how much without my

notes.

My latest use of another pack of 1056 went from 1.044 to 1.013, much more

expected.

Has anyone else had WYEAST problems like this?

 Peter

------------------------------


what to do with used grain bill

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 11:18:43 PST

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: what to do with used grain bill

David C Mackensen <cygnus@unh.edu> asked:

>Well, I was wondering, what to do with the spent grain bill... so I

>was thinking...

>

>What if I were to put the spent grain bill into the primary?

>any additional sugars that might have been left over can be used for

>fermentation/taste (depending upon complexity)...

>

>I know that it will probably introduce extra gunk into my beer that

>might induce chill hazing or whatever, but, in a dark beer?  I don't

>think it'll matter much...

>

I would strongly advise against this course of action.  From what I have read

grain is highly contaminated with bacteria (lactobacillus, I think).  If you

put your spent grain directly in your primary, you are risking a

serious infection.  If you boil the grain to sanitize it,

you will end up extracting tanins from the husks.  This would probably (sheer

guess, here) be detectable even in a dark beer.

>I just hate to see all that grain to down the drain :)

>

>any other ideas? I've heard about making bread out of it, but I don't

>think that might be feasble for me.. :(  but who knows :)

Here's a few:  I have heard of some people using it to suplement their pet's

food.  Also, do you have a compost heap?  Maybe you could dry it and make your

own granola?  I've never done it, but it sounds easier than bread.

Hey, maybe you could make bread with it, then add the bread to your next batch

in the mash.  For that good ol' summerian taste!

Just a thought.

>

>One problem that I can foresee is the soaking up of my beer into the

>grain????

>

>comments please...

Soaking up your beer is probably the least of your worries.

>

>thanks,

> -chris

Just my $0.02, but your welcome.

Troy

------------------------------


Belgian Malts

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 14:44:08 -0500

From: Michael D. Galloway <mgx@ornl.gov>

Subject: Belgian Malts

Is there a reliable mail-order source of Belgian malts in the

southeast or east?  Please email direct.

Michael D. Galloway

mgx@ornl.gov

Living in the WasteLand

------------------------------


Plastic tubing questions

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 13:13:50 MST

From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

Subject: Plastic tubing questions

I have a difficult time cleaning the plastic tubing I use for

siphoning and blow-off.  For this reason, I end up going through a lot

of tubing, and probably wasting a lot of money.  This causes me to

ask the following questions:

Grainger stocks vinyl and polyethylene tubing which "conforms to

FDA standards", although they state that the vinyl product exhibits

a "slight" taste and odor.  They sell this stuff pretty cheaply.

Can I use this for siphoning?

(For some reason, Home Depot does not carry the I.D. tube that fits my

bottle filler.)

In grad school, we used plastic tube called Tygon, which I believe was

autoclavable.  Can this be used for beer?

Finally, does anyone know where I can get 1" ID blow-off tube?

Thanks for all of your help.

Joel Birkeland

Motorola SPS

birkelan@cs1.sps.mot.com

------------------------------


MM review

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 15:19:43 EST

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: MM review

 Hi All,

    I recently purchased a Maltmill with the roller adjustment,

 and would like to share my experiences with it.  I would like to

 preface my remarks by stating that I used a corona for about two

 years before getting a Maltmill.

    It arrived in good shape, and required just a few minutes to assemble.

 There are two bolts that fasten the roller assembly to the baseboard,

 and one other to fasten the crank.  I set it up, ground a pound of malt,

 and used an old toothbrush to clean up the rollers.

   Upon reading the enclosed instructions, it only took a few minutes to

 adjust it properly for two row.  I dropped a few grains onto the rollers,

 none of it fell through.  I ground a handful of malt on this setting, the

 grain chunks were a little large, so I tweaked the adjustment just a bit

 tighter.  I ran a pound through at that setting, each kernel was broken

 into several small pieces and the husks were virtually intact.  There were

 a few grains that *looked* whole, but when I picked them up it turned out

 that they were crushed so gently that they just didn't seperate from the

 husks.  I've never gotten that good a crush out of a corona, despite doing

 all the modifications to it that have been posted in HBD.

   The throughput of the MM is very impressive, in fact, if I had a

 complaint with the mill, it would be that it grinds a pound so fast

 that I had to keep stopping to refill the hopper.  I solved this by

 notching the bottom of a 4 gallon food grade bucket so that it

 fit snugly inside the hopper.  The bucket holds 8 pounds of grain

 easily, I only needed to stop to refill once, so I was able to grind

 10 pounds of grain for a batch in under 10 minutes.  This used to take

 30-40 minutes with the corona.

   The mill itself is designed to sit on a bucket, so that the output

 from the mill is easily collected.  I had seen a demonstration of an

 early version of the MM that required a shallow pan to catch the crushed

 grain, which had to be emptied every couple of pounds.  The newer version

 is a distinct improvement, the 5 gallon food grade bucket I placed

 under the mill easily contained all the grist.

   My extraction did not go up, but I really didn't expect it to.  I

 get 30 pts/lb/gal with infusion and 33 with decoction mashing.  The

 biggest difference in brewing with grain crushed with the MM was how

 incredibly fast the runoff from my lauter tun cleared.  With the

 corona, by the time I adjusted it to produce small enough chunks

 of grain to get decent extraction, the husks were pretty well trashed

 and there was a lot of flour.  This meant I used to have to recirculate

 1-2 gallons of runoff before it cleared, with all of the associated

 problems of heat loss and HSA.  With the MM, there was very little flour

 and the husks were virtually intact, providing good filtration, so the

 runoff cleared after 1 quart!  I was quite literally *stunned* how fast

 it cleared.  Scarcely believing my eyes, I recirculated a second quart,

 which ran crystal clear.  I don't think this was really necessary, I

 could easily have gotten away with recirculating just the one quart.

   In all fairness, the corona was *intended* to produce flour for

 making tortillas.  If one goes to the trouble of removing the snap ring,

 filing the end of the impeller shaft flat, replacing the cotter pin that

 retains the movable plate to minimize wobble, and gaps the plates

 correctly, the corona will do an adequate job at something it was never

 designed to do, i.e., crush malt.  I took each of these steps, and they

 all helped produce a better crush, but IMHO, for quality of crush,

 throughput, and ease of collection of the grist, the Maltmill is far

 superior.

   I, for one, am a very satisfied customer.  Congratulations on a fine

 product, Jack.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


Free Beer Across America

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 12:39:12 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Free Beer Across America

It occurred to me the other day that homebrew clubs across America could

exchange beers for free (minus the shipping charges)! The beers wouldn't

have to be homebrew, they could be local brewed at popular micros. What do

you think? All we need are the rules, details and start shipping. Email

certainly makes this concept more realistic. It would be especially fun to

exchange beers that won at local or national competitions.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


hop utilization

Date:    Wed, 31 Mar 1993 16:09:25 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: hop utilization

  The discussion of a 20% loss in hops utilization in going from pellets

to whole hops made me realize why one of my recent beers was surprisingly

over-bitter.  First let me say that I always use whole hops.  Usually

I pull some of them open to expose more of the lupulin glands, but a lot

of the cones are still intact even after the boil.  What was unique

about this "Bitter Steam" was that, rather than manually pull the hops

apart, I put them into a coffee grinder and gave it a few spins.

They chopped up very nicely.  I now believe that this chopping exposed

virtually *all* of the lupulin glands, resulting in a greatly increased

utilization.

   In fact, what are pellets if not chopped up whole hops?

Russ G.

------------------------------


filtering yeast

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 15:29:38 CST

From: "John L. Isenhour" <isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov>

Subject: filtering yeast

I was at my friendly neighborhood environmental ecologist recently

getting tested for reaction to pollution (nothin like that megacity air)

and they happened to test me for yeasts and I redlined the test.

The explanation was that things you are exposed to in high doses:-)

over long periods of time (been brewin about 14 years now) you're

likely to start reacting to it.  Sooo...

I'm looking for a inexpensive, reusable filter that will filter

yeasts out.  I'd like to find something that will filter yeasts size

particles only and leave those tastey proteins etc., alone.

I mostly keg (5/15 gal) and have CO2 and probably whatever it takes

besides the filter to get set up.

Thanks!

john

 -

John Isenhour

renaissance scientist and AHA/HWBTA certified Beer Judge

home: john@hopduvel.UUCP  (hopduvel!john@linac.fnal.gov)

work: isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov

------------------------------


Belgian Grains, kegs

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 16:55:38 EST

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Belgian Grains, kegs

If any one out there has information on Belgian Malts, descriptions

or grain analysis would they please post it or send me the

info at lmenegon@necis.ma.nec.com

For those of you in the Lowell Mass. area Harringtons Liquors, Chelmsford,

sells 5 gallon soda kegs with the gas in and liquid out connections

for $25.95.  They are used but not reconditioned, O rings are cheap.

They also have the best selection of imported and domestic micro brewed

beers outside of 128.  I don't work there I'm just a customer.

------------------------------


SN Porter

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 14:31:21 PST

From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)

Subject: SN Porter

I just got around to catching up on my Digest reading and noticed a

posting of a Sierra Nevada Porter clone.  This reminded me of a style

question I had about porter.

My question is, how true to style is SN Porter?

I had a sis pack a few weeks ago and found it to be more bitter/hoppy

than I thought a porter was supposed to be, but I haven't had many

porters.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good brew, just different than I expected.

Drew

------------------------------


ICE BEER is here

Date:         Wed, 31 Mar 93 16:18:35 MDT

From: Ivan Runions <626013@UCDASVM1.ADMIN.UCALGARY.CA>

Subject:      ICE BEER is here

FROM: Ivan Runions

      .

 Labatt's (mega) brewery in Canada took out a full page ad in a national

newpaper on March 26 anouncing it's new "ice brewed" beer.  The following

is quoted from the ad

   "Ice Brewing (TM) first chills the beer until ice crystals appear.

    At this point an exclusive process gnetly removes the ice crystals,

    which leads to a brilliant amber liquid uniquely rich in flavor,

    ..." blah blah blah

    " The result, at 5.6% alcohol by volume, is Ice Beer (TM)."

 Thoughts? Comments?  This appears to me a marketing gimmick, except for

the list of patents on the process (Canada, US, Germany and Europe).

 Ivan Runions

 Admin. Systems, Univ of Calgary          phone: 403-220-4435

 Calgary, Alberta                           fax: 403-282-9361

Canada            email: irunions@ucdasvm1.admin.ucalgary.ca

------------------------------


Legality of Mailing Homebrew

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 15:31:19 -0800 (PST)

From: Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG>

Subject: Legality of Mailing Homebrew

While trying to mail me some homebrew (and a bottle of Hook Norton Ale

from jolly ol' England) from Seattle, my brother was told by the Post Office

that it is flat out illegal to mail alcohol.  "What about all these folks

mailing to competitions?" he asked, to which the postal employeed replied,

"If you don't tell me what's in the package . . ."

Well, what with the AHA yearly competition entry deadline approaching, I

thought this might be an appropriate post.  And, while I am a law

librarian (and brewer) I do not give legal advice (standard disclaimer, etc.).

Section 124.42 of the U.S. Postal Service Domestic Mail Manual prohibits

the mailing of _taxable_ alcoholic beverages.  However, homebrew, up to

certain quantities is not taxable.  Authority 27 CFR sections 25.195 -

25.207, 26 USC 5053.

Enjoy.

Eric Wade <ericwade@class.org> (Internet)

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1110, 04/01/93

*************************************

-------


Hunter update, spent grain

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 19:27:58 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Hunter update, spent grain

I would like to update my Hunter post in 1107.  I have been informed

that a Hunter Airstat is what is normally used.  Its main use is controlling

windowe air conditioners and so can easily handle Freezer loads.  It

is simply plugged in and the freezer plugged into it.  I don't know

how available they are.  I didn't see one in any hardware stores but now

that the seasons are changing they may become available.

BUt to update my description of how to use the regular heat/cool home

thermostat.  I found the 9V battery to be useless for running the relay.

It seemed to go flat in a day (and I thought relay loads were low!).

I replaced iot with an old 9V power supply that I had lying around.

6V will also do it, and maybe there would be no problem with a 120VAC relay.

Otherwise I am now very pleased with the performance.  I like the simple way

of adjusting the range.  I have been informed that a method for modifying

the thermistor based airstat with a resistor was posted a while back, and

this would seem to be a less complicated approach than mine.  But hey, if

you can't get an airstat, this is an alternative.

David Mackensen asked about spent grain.  The best thing is to feed it

to livestock, if you know a farmer nearby.  You can use a little in bread,

but it usually ends up a little solid.  Or do what I do, compost it.  It

makes a fine mulchy compost, especially if you forget about it and leave it

rotting in your cooler for a week before dumping it :-)

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@bach.helios.nd.edu

------------------------------


Jockey Box and *FOAM*

Date: 31 Mar 1993 20:40:18 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Wayde Nie, Eng.Phys. II" <9106857@SSCvax.CIS.McMaster.CA>

Subject: Jockey Box and *FOAM*

------------------------------


RE: Questions

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 21:53:39 -0500

From: ""Robert C. Santore"" <rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: RE: Questions

In HBD number 1108 Andy Anderson asks:

 >        4.   When sparging in my extract brews, I filter out the

 >        hops as well as hot & cold break proteins and plop the gunk

 >        onto some cheese-cloth.  When I'm finished filtering, I

 >        squeeze the cheese-cloth to wring out the last liquid back

 >        into my wort.  An I screwing up because my "naked" hand is

 >        squeezing out the juices?  Am I introducing bacteria as

 >        well as skin oils?  How should I be doing this?

Andy, if there is anything true about homebrewers it is that we all

have our own ways of doing things and the ultimate test of our practices

is the quality of the beer we make.  However, having never tasted your

beers, I would object to this practice of yours on two grounds.  The first

is certainly the increased chance of contamination that you bring up.  I

hope you at least sterilize the cheese cloth by boiling.  The second

objection I would make is that once you've gone through all the trouble

to filter trub out of your wort, you want it to stay out!  The couple of

ounces of extra wort that you can obtain by pressing the trub is probably

not worth introducing trub into your fermenter.  My advice it to not do

it at all!

Bob Santore  (rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu)

Syracuse, NY

------------------------------


Whitbread yeast

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 21:50 EST

From: Mike Rego <MREGO1@vax.clarku.edu>

Subject: Whitbread yeast

The recent discussion concerning Whitbread yeast has caught my

interest.  At the end of February I brewed a porter using dry

Whitbread Ale yeast.  It was a 12 gram packet with a serial

number of 020412 stamped on the back.  I bought it along with

my other ingredients the day before brewing.

I did not have any trouble with this yeast during the ferment,

and the resulting brew is lovely.

Still being new to this, I have not yet tried a liquid yeast.

Almost everything I've read talks of Wyeast.  How is that name

pronounced, and is it the best?

By the way, I just finished a bottle of Sam Adams Cream Stout.

It has a distinct flavor that is hard to describe.  A slight

suggestion of burned popcorn?  After a few bottles it becomes

a familiar signature - kind of like the Guinness sour tang.

Mike Rego

Amherst, New Hampshire

------------------------------


5 liter Kegs

Date: 01 Apr 1993 01:39:34 -0500 (EST)

From: RADAMSON@delphi.com

Subject: 5 liter Kegs

I received several inquiries regarding the 5 liter metal keg setups. Here's

what I know:

The problem with getting the Dink, et.al. cans from the stores is that the tap

they sell you for $2.00 is a gravity tap that you insert in bung, flop the keg

upside down and 'can-open' a hole in what was the bottom (and now on top).

Certainly makes the vessel non-recyclable.

The solution is these bottom-feed CO2 cartridge taps made by Beer*King in

Germany.  I originally got my tap(s) from Hoster Brewery (brewpub) in

Columbus, OH - but they no longer 'keg' into 5 liter cans (and, therefore,

don't sell the taps anymore).  Dock Street Brewery in Philly kegs into 5 liter

cans, but I'm not sure about the type of tap they sell.  Stoudt's in

Adamstown, PA likewise.

A source that I do know of (and have no affiliation with) for both taps and

empty kegs is:

   Randy Martin, Proprieter

   Brew Ha Ha, Ltd.

   209 High St

   Pottstown, PA 19464

   800-243-2620 (orders)

   215-326-2620 (Dr. Brew)

Randy picked up a bunch of kegs from the now defunct State College Brewery

(Penn State) and could probably set you up.

The tap has a central stem the height of the can which feeds brew from the

bottom.  There may be a small yeast burst in the first couple ounces of

brew/foam when first tapping, but none whatsoever afterwards.  The tap also

has an adjustable CO2 valve that I "tweak-up" a little at a time to intro-

duce more gas - you can hear it enter and build up a bit, then back it off

to zero.  I put more gas on for overnight storage, haven't had any leaking.

As far as kegging these guys go, I have usually filled a couple 3 kegs

along with a couple dozen bottles.  And to keep it simple, I still bulk

prime with either DME (.50 cup) or Corn Sugar (.75 cup) and just fill them

as I go along.  Use your own standard priming rate, mine are low-to-fair

carbonation level (British Ales, mostly).  Since the volume is larger than

that of each bottle, the maturation time is increased (takes longer to

reach carbonation), but is well worth it.  Handling and storage is the same

as if they were bottles.  The 5 liter is equivalent to about 14 12oz bottles

 - but it goes in the fridge better.

For Sanitizing, I just drop a few tbls of Bbrite in, fill and soak for a

couple hours prior to kegging.  So far the hardest part about these is

forcing the bung in after I fill the keg.  I think I've been filling to

high - I'm going to be leaving about a 1" head space next time.

------------------------------


re:quick ferments & conditioning

Date: Thu, 1 Apr 93 9:16:11 EST

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: re:quick ferments & conditioning

"John C. Post" <jpost@llnl.gov> writes:

<Nope...and anybody who tells you otherwise is full of it. Some things just

<can't be rushed...You could jack it around and bottle early, but it wouldn't

<be the great beer you started out making...

I have discussed this offline with in more detail with John, but let

me say this attitude is utter nonsense. I have brewed several beers

that were online 2 weeks from brew day.  The key is tons of clean yeast

that flocculates well, and sometimes cold conditioning followed by

forced carbonation.  Filtering is an obvious solution.

Many many brewpubs making ales require 11 days from brewday to the

first tapping.  I have tasted many 11 day beers that were fine.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Style snobs (NOT!)

Date: Thu, 1 Apr 93 10:18:12 EST

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Style snobs (NOT!)

"Spencer W. Thomas" writes:

 > Those who try to brew true to style (for competition or otherwise),

 > and those who just brew what they like.

Reading this today, the word "just" jumps out at me.  I certainly

don't mean to imply that brewing what you like is in any way inferior

to trying to brew to style.  (Are we getting paranoid about flames

here, or what?-)

=S

------------------------------


maple beer

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 16:32:32 -0600 (CST)

From: John Edens <johne@sa-htn.valmet.com>

Subject: maple beer

Has anyone out there made a beer using maple syurp as an adjunct like

Papazian describes? If so, how did it come out and how much did you use?

John

------------------------------


"Samiclaus" aka strongest beer in world, for now?

Date: Thu, 1 Apr 93 10:40:50 -0500

From: andrew@ftp.com  (Andrew Lickly)

Subject: "Samiclaus" aka strongest beer in world, for now?

Recently I toured the brewery of the Boston Beer Company, the makers

of Sam Adams.  It was not terribly interesting, but it was cheap, a

$1 donation, and the beer was fresh and free.  Basically, I would

highly recommend it.

During the tour, they bragged about being in the process of

developing a "Triple Bock", apparently it is Jim Koch's goal

to get the world record for the highest alcohol content in a

commercialized "malt beverage".

Andrew

- --

 "Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own

  understanding."

------------------------------


Test Drive

Date: Thu, 1 Apr 93 09:44 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Test Drive

 >From: Mike Deliman <miked@wrs.com>

 Just a few comments on this review...

 > The rollers themselves are grooved; these were probably used in an

 industrial application and required a significant cleaning effort before the

 author felt comfortable about using this device on a food product.

 The rollers were designed by me and custom fabricated for use in MALTMILLS.

 They are brand new and any oil or other foreign matter is a result of the

 manufacturing process.  They are vigorously wiped before assembly but a film

 of oil remains as a rust preservative and some lint from the rag might also

 remain..

 >On the adjustable model, one of the placard bolts is replaced by the

 adjustment lock down bolt - which sacrifices whatever structural

 reinforcement the original bolt had to offer.

 Nothing is sacrificed as the screw's only purpose is to hold the panel in

 place.

 >If this mill were to fall from 5 feet to a cement floor, there would

 undoubtedly be irreparable damage.

 Damage, possibly, but not likely irreparable.  The most probable damage would

 be to the easily replaceable particle board base.

 >The MaltMill was adjusted to just where it would not allow malt to go

 through uncrushed.  Aside from husk material and flour, the crush was

 nearly indistinguishable from that of the Corona.

 That is not hard to understand because it is not the correct way to set up a

 roller mill.  The MM is designed to be operated with a nominal roller spacing

 of .055" and the adjustable models are shipped set, at that spacing.

 What you did to it was to make sure it could not possible produce a proper

 crush.  The adjustable feature is there only for very minor changes required

 to optomize feeding when motorized.

 >The MaltMill has the possibility of passing a few uncrushed kernels

 through while still producing significant flour.

 With the current model (yours) it is impossible to pass grain uncrushed

 through the rollers if properly set up or with the standard spacing.  Unless,

 of course, you have malt less than .055" in thickness.  On earlier models, it

 was possible for some to get around the rollers but this has been corrected.

 Furthermore, your statements contradict each other.  If you "adjusted to just

 where it would not allow malt to go through uncrushed" then by definition,

 you would not be "passing a few uncrushed kernels through".  You have the

 procedure right, you just didn't follow it.

 Secondly, as has been pointed out by several users, the benign nature of a

 roller mill frequently crushes the grain but leaves the husk so entirely in

 tact that it appears to be uncrushed.  However, upon teasing apart, is found

 to be thouroughly crushed.

 >After milling, the grain was sifted, and the resulting flour was weighed

 on a counterbalance (accurate to within .02 grams).

 The key here is, the nature of the "sifted".  That may sound like a nice

 general term but in brewing science it is meaningless unless we know the mesh

 size.

 According to Noonan, "flour" is defined as that which passes through a 100

 mesh screen.  I received no response when I asked you what mesh you used.

 Furthermore, for up to about 10% of the total grist, flour so defined is

 considered beneficial.  Beyond 10%, it COULD be a problem but that depends on

 the lauter system used and most importantly on the amount of husk material in

 the grist.

 I hate to sound like a broken record, but the flour phobia derives from the

 problems created by grinding malt in mills like the Corona.  It is a simple

 fact of physics and chemistry that the finer the crush, the more efficient

 will be the starch conversion and sugar extraction.

 The problem with grinders, i.e. devices with a moving surface working against

 a fixed surface, is that they damage the husk to the extent that the

 effectiveness of the filter bed can be seriously weakened.  This can be

 compensated for by a coarse grind but it is a compromise, the price of which

 is overall efficiency.

 As a roller mill only squeezes the malt, the impact on the husk material is

 trivial, resulting in the ability to mash and sparge with far larger

 proportions of fine grist, including flour.

 It just so happens that expensive commercial mills, with multiple rollers and

 sieving devices can create more fine grist that the MM.  But the MM is also a

 compromise, to keep the cost within the range of homebrewers' budgets.

 >That's a whopping 20% MORE flour with the MaltMill.

 Thank you but let's not confuse that with percentage of total grist.

 >Husks: The husks on the Corona's crush were slightly more damaged than

 on the MaltMill.

 That is probably enough to make the previous statement good news.  However,

 the problem here is that you can only compare the husks that are left large

 enough to see.  The ones that are pulverized and turned into dust by the

 Corona are not obvious to a casual inspection.  You have to microscopically

 examine the fine grist to see it.  This is not an easy thing to quantify and

 even I gave up trying.  I just sort of rest on the intuitive notion that

 squeezing has got to be better than grinding.

 >Unmilled kernels: the MaltMill had a higher ratio of unmilled

 kernels; we did not see any unmilled kernels with the Corona.

 Again, the MM was improperly set up and I would be most interested in hearing

 from you after you try it again.  The adjustment is only on one side, so if

 you set it so the rollers look parallel, you will be close enough.  You can

 also use a dime as a gauge that is pretty close to the nominal.   You can

 also set it so that it almost touches on the adjustable side and more closely

 simulate the .020" spacing of multi-roller commercial mills.  However, you

 may have some trouble turning the crank.

 Or you can return the mill and your money will be cheerfully refunded.

 js

------------------------------


Re:immersion cooler length

Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1993 08:42:04 -0800

From: sherman@qualcomm.com (Sherman Gregory)

Subject: Re:immersion cooler length

>Does anyone know about the minimum length of copper tubing that

>can be used as an immersion wort cooler? Successfully.

The longer the better.  Many of then are 20', some are 25', mine is a 50'

double helix (homemade).  It all depends how fast you want to cool and how

cool your tap water is, and how much water you want to use.  Maybe one of

the thermo-scientists out there can come up with a cool cooling equation

relating d(temp)/d(time) to length, tubing size, flow rate and tap water

temp.  Of course some heat is disipated out the side of the pot, so cooling

will be faster than this equtation says.

------------------------------


Subject:      ICE BEER is here

Date: Thu, 1 Apr 93 09:45:35 -0700

From: John Adams <j_adams@hpfcjca.sde.hp.com>

Subject: Subject:      ICE BEER is here

Sounds basically the same as Eisenboch which translates into an "Ice Bock."

The beer is frozen as so that the water can be removed thus leaving a more

potent liquid behind.  Typically Eisenbochs are much higher in alcohol

content than what Labatt is producing.

I have, in need of a quick chilling process, placed beers in the freezer

and, inadvertantly, created a ice brew.  Hmmmm, maybe I should trademark

my process!!

John Adams

------------------------------


YEAST CULTURES

Date: Thu, 1 Apr 93 11:05:52 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: YEAST CULTURES

I read Jack Schmidling's posts re subject and had some questions.

I've been culturing my own yeasty beasties for a few months now.

Generally following procedures similar to those outlined by Jack.

So far things have worked well but I live in fear of mutations and/or

wield yeast contanimations.  Questions are:

  I don't get isolated colonines on my plates, rather one big long smear

  of yeast where I've dragged the innoculating loop.  How can I innoculate

  so I get isolated colonies?  I suppose I could dilute by yeast sorce

  (usu bottle dregs or secondary dregs) but that add just another

  contamination risk.

  I understand some yeast cultures are actually combinations of several

  strains (eg whitbread).  Will I see all three of the whitbread strains

  as different looking colonies?  Do I have to culture each of the strains

  seperately?  What about yeast from Trappist ale which I understand

  actually contain some bacteria important to the flavor produced?

  I've heard that even if I get a good pure culture on a slant

  it will mutate and I can only use yeast from a given slant for a few

  months?  Is this true?  Is there a way to identify mutatants besides

  brewing a batch an looking for strange behavior such as low final s.g?

  Finally, I'd to take a look at these marvelous little creatures who

  work so hard to ferment my wort for me.  (Kinda like to say hi.)  I've

  got a pretty decent optical microscope if I can figure out what box it's

  in.  Any suggestions on preparing a sample for viewing?  Reflected light,

  transmitted light?  What power do I need to see these folks?  Can I

  recognize mutations this way?

WAK

|- William A Kitch                          (512) 471-4929 -|

|- Geotechnical Engineering                                -|

|- ECJ 9.227                                               -|

|- Univ of Texas at Austin, TX 78712-1076                  -|

------------------------------


AHA Sanctioned Competition - second posting

Date: 01 Apr 1993 09:54:09 GMT

From: "Tom Stolfi(wauts@cec" <ceco!CWEMAIL!WAUTS@uunet.UU.NET>

Subject: AHA Sanctioned Competition - second posting

******************************************************************************

** This is the second posting for the competition, anyone interested should **

** contact me ASAP for entry forms and information. Any judges available    **

** to judge on April 23 or 24 in Kenosha, WI please contact me for info.    **

******************************************************************************

The BIDAL SOCIETY OF KENOSHA is holding their 7th Annual Regional Homebrew

Competition April 23 & 24, 1993.  This competition is open to all

homebrewers and awards will be presented in all categories (categories will

be combined only if the number of entries for a style are insufficient

to judge the category as independent).  Last year's competition received over

200 entries .  All homebrews will be evaluated by BJCP and

experienced judges(please contact if you are interested in judging).  This

competition is part of the 1993 MIDWEST BREWER OF THE YEAR series.  All

entries must be received by April 16, 1993. For further information email

your request to WAUTS@CECO.CECO.COM

Tom

ps.  Our company is switching from uunet to an active internet link, if the

     above address bounces try the old on, wauts@cwemail.ceco.com.

------------------------------


Beer Balls/ 5L minikegs

Date: Thu, 01 Apr 93 09:39:37 -0800

From: atl@kpc.com

Subject: Beer Balls/ 5L minikegs

  Sorry about the aborted message on yesterdays digest.  I was wondering if

anyone knew a source for the 5L minikegs without having to drink expensive

commercial beer.

 Drew

------------------------------


king Kooker

Date:  Thu,  1 Apr 93 10:03:00 -0640

From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com (Roy Rudebusch)

Subject:  king Kooker

From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com

Subject: king Kooker

If you own a propane fired King Kooker or a Cajun Heater that produces

too much soot the orifice may be drilled to large.

Contrary to the manufacture's opinion 3/32" is too big. A more

efficient size is 1/16".

To fix, remove the end cap, plug the orifice with a sheet metal screw,

move over to the next facet, drill a new hole of the proper size,

cut off the end of the pipe if the new orifice closes.

Fire away,

r

 * OLX 2.2 * Without question aids is a homosexual disease

------------------------------


schwarzbier

Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1993 11:10:31 -0700 (MST)

From: walter@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Brian J Walter (Brewing Chemist))

Subject: schwarzbier

Howdy brewers,

 I am looking for an all-grain recipe for a schwarzbier.  Charlie P

 has a recipe in a past World of Worts column, but it is extract.  I

 am new to the all-grain world and haven't the experience in going

 about converting or creating recipes.  So, I am looking for someone

 who has made a schwarzbier before.  Thanks.

 Good Day,

 -Brian

Brian J Walter            |Science, like nature, must also be tamed|  Relax,

Chemistry Graduate Student|with a view towards its preservation.   |Don't Worry

Colorado State University |Given the same state of integrity, it   |  Have A

walter@lamar.colostate.edu|will surely serve us well. -N. Peart    | Homebrew!

------------------------------


Sediment

Date:         1 Apr 93 14:16:35 AST

From: "Thomas Gilks"  <TGILKS@brhs.cogs.ns.ca>

Subject:      Sediment

    I do not have the patience or knowledge to make beer as most of

you guys do, so I buy malt extracts from the can and make it that

way. I enjoy the beer I make except for one thing- the sediment at

the bottom of the bottle. I used to use a primary and secondary

fermenter, but now I use just one ordinary pail with a lid and

airlock, and I get better results. The beer mix I use is John Bull

Pilsner Light. I don't know if you can get this type in the U.S.A.,

but it makes a beer that tastes better than Labatts Blue. Do any of

you more experienced beer makers know any tips on getting less

sediment on the bottom of the bottle?

------------------------------


Legality of Mailing Homebrew

Date: Thu, 1 Apr 93 12:43:09 PST

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: Legality of Mailing Homebrew

Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG> says:

>Section 124.42 of the U.S. Postal Service Domestic Mail Manual prohibits

>the mailing of _taxable_ alcoholic beverages.  However, homebrew, up to

>certain quantities is not taxable.  Authority 27 CFR sections 25.195 -

>25.207, 26 USC 5053.

I don't doubt this is true, but there must be more to it than that.  One of

the gifts I got for my wedding was a membership in a wine club.  Every month

two bottles of wine arrived in the mail.  Wine is certainly taxable

(oh, BTW, this was commercial wine I was receiveing).  Now, I do not

remember whether I got it by US Postal or by UPS or what.  Would this make

a difference?

In addition, I understand there is an analogous club for beer.  How do we

reconcile these seeming disparities?

Troy (supplying another data point)

------------------------------


Grain Mills

Date: Thu, 1 Apr 93 15:28:35 MST

From: haney@soul.ampex.com (Kenneth Haney)

Subject: Grain Mills

Hi all,

   I've noticed that there are alot of people that have bought the

Malt Mill lately (previosly using Corona). So I was wondering if

any of you would like to sell your old Corona Mill?? I would

prefer to buy a Malt Mill but I can't justify it on my limited

budget. (Wife, 4kids, 2dogs, 1cat and some fish) ha

   So if anyone is willing to get rid of one, please drop me a

line.

Thanks

Ken

haney@ampex.com

------------------------------


Iodophor

Date: Thu,  1 Apr 93 17:39:15 EST

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Iodophor

Is the sanitizer Iodophor (sp?) harmful to septic systems?

------------------------------


Manitoba Brewers

Date:    Thu, 1 Apr 1993 17:48 EST

From: Phil Hultin <HULTINP@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>

Subject: Manitoba Brewers

To any HBDers in Manitoba:  Are there brewpubs or micros in Manitoba?

What is the legal situation about brewing etc there?  Any good

places to go in Winnipeg?  Email please.  P.

------------------------------


ICE BEER IS ALREADY HERE

Date:    Thu, 1 Apr 1993 17:50 EST

From: Phil Hultin <HULTINP@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>

Subject: ICE BEER IS ALREADY HERE

Ontario drinkers have been able to get Niagara Falls Brewing's

Eisbock for several seasons now.  It is noticeably strong, and

can be very tasty.  However, I have noted that the quality does

tend to vary a bit, and this Christmas, a gathering at the pub

C'est What in Toronto (where it was on tap) was decidedly

unimpressed with it.

I would say that this Johnny-come-lately is probably indeed a

marketing gimmick.  The Big Two are unlikely to come up with

much of interest these days.  Cheers, P.

------------------------------


That "Styles" Issue

Date: Thu, 1 Apr 93 16:44:02 PST

From: Martin A. Lodahl <pbmoss!malodah@PacBell.COM>

Subject: That "Styles" Issue

In HOMEBREW Digest #1110, Spencer W. Thomas, without warning or

provocation, suggested:

> Rob Bradley writes:

>  > 91 Beer Styles: "Infuriating."  "Absolutely the most valuable.

>  >     A very good reference."

>

> You know, I wonder if this reflects the dichotomy between those who

> try to brew true to style (for competition or otherwise), and those

> who just brew what they like.  One member of our club hates

> competitions because of the focus on style -- he says "... this is a

> good beer, I don't care if it's too/not enough (hoppy, malty, fruity,

> whatever) for style X/Y/Z.  I like it."

Normally, Spencer, I'd be inclined to agree.  We have the same

disagreements in my club, and they occur here and in other

electronic fora with some regularity, but in this instance I think

the cause is a bit different.  I may have been the one to offer the

"infuriating" comment, and I'm about as committed to styles as

anyone you're likely to meet.  My criticism of that issue is not of

its premise, but of its content.  Some of the sections are quite

good.  Some are not.  And no apparent attempt was made to reconcile

the style descriptions in that issue with those of the AHA Nationals,

an appalling oversight which has been a freaking pain to deal with,

I'll tell you!  Contestants and judges like get in wrangles over

which set of criteria to use, since both are published

by the AHA.  The Official Answer, of course, is that if it's the

Nationals, then ignore Zymurgy and go with the style descriptors

published along with the contest rules, also in Zymurgy (confusingly

enough).  I'm still surprised that this was allowed to happen.  In

my view, the value of the material presented wasn't commensurate

with the trouble it's caused.  Just my opinion ...

= Martin A. Lodahl      Pacific*Bell Systems Analyst =

= malodah@Pacbell.COM          Sacramento, CA           916.972.4821 =

= If it's good for ancient Druids, runnin' nekkid through the wuids, =

= Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me!  8-)   =

------------------------------


Yeast Culturing Equipment

Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1993 19:25:30 -0700 (MST)

From: walter@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Brian J Walter (Brewing Chemist))

Subject: Yeast Culturing Equipment

Howdy!

 I am looking for some places to get the basic equipment needed to start

 a yeast bank, i.e. test tubes, flasks, etc.  I have looked through most

 of the catalogs around the chem department here, but the pricing is

 obviously geared for schools and corporations who will pay the higher

 prices.  Any good cheap mail order places out there?

 Good Day,

 -Brian

Brian J Walter            |Science, like nature, must also be tamed|  Relax,

Chemistry Graduate Student|with a view towards its preservation.   |Don't Worry

Colorado State University |Given the same state of integrity, it   |  Have A

walter@lamar.colostate.edu|will surely serve us well. -N. Peart    | Homebrew!

------------------------------


Using Sulphites

Date: Thu, 01 Apr 93 18:20:10 PST

From: mikel@netlink.cts.com (Mike Lemons)

Subject: Using Sulphites

I have used a solution of potassium metabisulfite to sanitize all of

my brewing equipment for many years.  I recently read that it is

ineffective, that it does not release enough SO2 to do the job.

Considering the pain inflicted on my nasal passages by this stuff, I

find it hard to believe that any microbe could withstand such an

onslaught.

Is there any scientific proof for the claim that sulfites don't

work?  The enormous advantage of using sulfites is that no rinsing

is required.  It seems to me that re-contaminating something with

rinse water, after you sanitize it, totally defeats the purpose of

sanitation!

Chlorine and iodine must be rinsed out because they will impart bad

flavors to the beer, but sulfites are essentially tasteless.

(Otherwise people would have stopped drinking wine long ago -- the

stuff is full of it.)  Sulfites protect beer from oxidation to some

degree.  Commercial yeasts are usually bred to have some sulfite

tolerance. (Which I encourage by exposing them to it from day one.)

I don't like the idea of baking bottles because of the thermal stress

to the glass. (They're not even Pyrex, and they get repeatedly

pressurized and depressurized.)

I have a plastic bottle tree with a squirter attachment that is fast

and convenient for sanitizing bottles.  Because of the way that the

bottles drain, it leaves a white residue under the bottle caps,

though.  Maybe if I lowered the sulfite concentration to 1% . . .

- --

INTERNET:  mikel@netlink.cts.com (Mike Lemons)

UUCP:   ...!ryptyde!netlink!mikel

NetLink Online Communications * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115

------------------------------


1993 AHA NATIONAL HOMEBREW COMPETITION

Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1993 23:11:21 EST

From: bob@rsi.com (Bob Gorman)

Subject: 1993 AHA NATIONAL HOMEBREW COMPETITION

                  1993 AHA NATIONAL HOMEBREW COMPETITION

 -------------->       FIRST ROUND - EASTERN REGION       <--------------

                      JUDGE AND STEWARD REGISTRATION

                   June 5th & 6th - Kingston, New York

Dear Fellow Beer Enthusiast,

     The 1993 AHA National Homebrew Competition is right around the corner.

     Preparations are already under way to make this a successful event, but

     we need your help.  This year we anticipate over 800 entries from the

     New England/Mid-Atlantic region.  This means that we need a lot of help

     unpacking and registering entries, and more importantly judging them.

     This year the judging will be held at the Woodstock Brewing Company in

     Kingston, New York thanks to the graciousness of Nat Collins, Owner and

     Brewmaster.  Dates for unpacking are May 15, 16 and 22.  Judging will be

     on June 5 and 6, with two sessions on the 5th and one on the 6th.

     In planning this event we realize that many judges need to drive a

     distance in order to participate.  Therefore, we have made arrangements

     for local hotel accommodations and a festive party featuring regional

     microbrewed and homebrewed beer, snacks, raffles and door prizes on

     Saturday night, June 5th.

     To receive a registration form and further information please send mail

     to Bob Gorman <bob@rsi.com> which a subject of 'Kingston'.  The

     registration deadline is Saturday, May 1st (National Homebrew Day).

     Anyone already enrolled in the BJCP will receive a us-mailing later next

     week, you need not reply to this message.  If you are new to the BJCP or

     not in the program then this is you official notice.  I look forward to

     your replies.

     Cheers!

     -- Bob Gorman              bob@rsi.com                Waltham MA, US --

     -- Judge Registrar         uunet!semantic!bob         (617) 893 5655 --

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1111, 04/02/93

*************************************

-------


Thread For Mac

Date:         Fri, 02 Apr 93 13:10:30 +0300

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      Thread For Mac

Has any computer-wiz out there written a Thread-like program that can run on

the Macintosh computer? Or do you know of an already existing software that can

be used to search digests and create subsets of them following a specific

keyword? Thanks in advance. Nir.

------------------------------


What is this stuff?

Date: 02 Apr 1993 04:26:10 -0600 (CST)

From: SWEENERB@memstvx1.memst.edu

Subject: What is this stuff?

Browsing around my local self-service homebrew store I noticed a little plastic

bag of powder labeled HEADING AGENT from Crosby & Baker of Westport, MA. Does

anyone know exactly what this substance is? Miller in his CHofHB writes of a

heading compound called polypropylene aginate but he recommends using 1

tablespoon per 5 gallons, whereas the Crosby and Baker product called for 1/2

teaspoon per 5 gallons--different by about a factor of 6. Sign me,

Just curious.

Bob Sweeney - SWEENERB@MSUVX1.MEMST.EDU|  The first rule of statistics:

Memphis State University               |  If you torture your data long enough,

Status: Permanent Student              |  they'll confess.

(901) MSU-4210                         |

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

------------------------------


cooler thanks

Date: Fri, 2 Apr 93 12:59:48 MET DST

From: THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch

Subject: cooler thanks

hello all.

thanks for all the info on immesion cooler construction.

rob thomas.

------------------------------


maple beer

Date: Fri, 2 Apr 93 07:28:47 EST

From: rossini@hsph.harvard.edu (Anthony Rossini)

Subject: maple beer

>>>>> John Edens <johne@sa-htn.valmet.com> writes:

 John> Has anyone out there made a beer using maple syurp as an

 John> adjunct like Papazian describes? If so, how did it come out

 John> and how much did you use?

Well, I've got a batch in the secondary (6.25lbs M&F amber malt,

** 3 LBS ** grade B maple syrup (gotten at a local food co-op, approx $3/lb

so comparable to malt), probably too much hops).  I was going to report on

it after bottling, tasting, but thought I'd comment now.  The one problem

with my batch is hops.  Chinook, for that matter.  I've tended just to try

new things arbitrarily (if I want  to drink what I expect, I'll head to the

local pub or beer store, THANK YOU.) and this might be my first major

mistake.  Maple doesn't seem to bitter well (i.e. take to strong hopping)

very well at a young age.  Of course, cutting back on the hops, or using a

normal amount of hops would probably result in a taste of maple, malt and

hops.

Last I checked (during transfer to the secondary) it smelled like 1/2 beer,

1/2 pancake breakfast, tasted like beer with a taste (not just a hint) of

maple, especially once you knew what to taste for (I missed it on the first

sip, and wondered how that happened on the later sips).  The aftertaste was

something to be missed, though, and that had to do with the hops.

Well, maybe next time...

 -tony

- --

Anthony Rossini - grad student/statistician/hacker

rossini@biostat.harvard.edu

Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health

677 Huntington Ave, Boston MA 02115  617-432-1056

------------------------------


Re: 5 liter kegs

Date: Fri, 2 Apr 93 09:31 EST

From: tmr1@hotlg.att.com

Subject: Re: 5 liter kegs

R. Adamson (delphi.com) mentions using 5 liter kegs for home brewing.

I have 2 questions for him:

1)  What do you do with the original bung that gets pushed inside the

keg when it is tapped?  Do you leave it there?  Can you get it out?

Will it affect the taste of the beer?

2)  Where do you get new bungs to seal the kegs for home brewing?

Can a rubber stopper be used?  What holds it in place after the

CO2 pressure starts to build up?  If you use exact replacements,

won't the keg start to fill up with used bungs each time it is

tapped?

I have a foreign-made 5 liter tapper that uses a hand pump on top

for pressure.  It works very well for this type of keg.  If I were

to use it for home brew, I might cut the central stem 1/2" to 1"

short so it wouldn't go all the way to the bottom and suck up

yeast sediment.

                                                Tom Romalewski

------------------------------


Quick beer

Date: 02 Apr 1993 11:30:38 -0500 (EST)

From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

Subject: Quick beer

>Many many brewpubs making ales require 11 days from brewday to the

>first tapping.  I have tasted many 11 day beers that were fine.

>

>Jim Busch

The brewer at the Cambridge Brewing Co. (Cambridge, MA) has told me that some

of their ales go from the grain to the glass in 7 days.  This is partially due

to lack of storage capacity as well as robust sales.  It is amazing what a

healthy fermentation, filtration, and forced carbonation can do!

Although one could argue that more aging may be beneficial to the final

product, the CBC's beers are quite drinkable.

Steve

------------------------------


Decoction mashing

Date: Fri, 2 Apr 93 08:55 PST

From: /O=vmspfhou/S=dblewis/DD.SITE=JSCPROFS/@NASAmail.nasa.gov

Subject: Decoction mashing

***************************** PROFS Note *****************************

 From: DBLEWIS --VMSPFHOU            Date and time  04/02/93 10:58:24

 To: POSTMAN --NASAMAIL

 FROM: Dennis B. Lewis<dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

 SUBJECT: Decoction mashing

 I've noticed that I'm not the only person confused by decoction mashing. It

 seems like a lot of screwing around just to increase yield. Personally, I'd

 rather just add another pound or so of grist and not worry about it. Are there

 other benefits to decoction mashing? Clearer wort/green beer/finish product?

 Noonan says to remove "the heaviest third" of the mash. I suppose that does

 not include any grains since you will eventually boil it. This is really hard

 to do for those of us who mash in a pot on the stove instead of in a Gott

 cooler. Anyway, his directions are "marginal" (I'm being nice) in the

 decoction specifics.

 At any rate, I'm very happy with multi-rest infusion mashes and the decoction

 stuff is simply a curiousity. Maybe I'll try it if I have an entire Saturday

 to blow on it.

 Dennis B. Lewis  x39145

 Payload Operations/DH65

------------------------------


grain of salt

Date:    Fri, 2 Apr 1993 12:34:22 -0500 (EST)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: grain of salt

  Hey Roy R., cut the sh*t about homosexuality and AIDS.  It's got nothing

to do with brewing.  All that tag line does (besides invoke flames) is

to call into question your judgement.  As such, I would suggest that any

King Cooker owners think twice before following Roy's reworking of the

burner.

Russ G.

------------------------------


When to add brown sugar?

Date: Fri, 2 Apr 93 11:14 EST

From: LYONS@adc1.adc.ray.com

Subject: When to add brown sugar?

In Dave Line's book, Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy, he gives

directions for making an extract version of Fuller's ESB.  In his

directions he states that the brown sugar should be added to warm

water and then added to the cooling wort (after boiling).  I have

always thought that any sugars should be added along with the

malt.  Is anyone aware of any advantages to adding brown sugar

after the boil?

Chris,

LYONS@ADC1.ADC.RAY.COM

------------------------------


Legality of Mailing Homebrew, etc.

Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1993 09:18:13 -0800 (PST)

From: Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG>

Subject: Legality of Mailing Homebrew, etc.

Troy Howard <troy@scubed.com> questions how his wine club and BOTM clubs

can mail "taxable" products given the postal regs I quoted.  (Sorry all, I

am a bit novice at this and know not how to include just the portion of the

HBD I wish to respond to w/o including the whole HBD in my reply, advice

by e-mail would be appreciated).

My suspicion is that these clubs probably pay their taxes before mailing,

once paid, the product is no longer subject to taxation and should

therefore pass the postal service's scrutiny.  BTW, the entry instructions

for the AHA Nationals state that mailing homebrew IS illegal and that other

shippers (e.g. UPS) may refuse to ship if they know that you are shipping

alcohol. I had an experience with UPS with my very first order of supplies from

Great Fermentations of Santa Rosa, The Beverage People.  UPS had no

problem carrying the shipment but wouldn't leave it since I was not home.

They explained that they can't leave alcoholic beverages on the doorstep.

I convinced them it was only supplies and not alcohol (yet), and I've

since had all my supplies shipped to my work address.

So, the upshot of all this?  If you wan't to battle the postal service in

light of AHA's warning and others' experiences, I've given you the results

of my research.  Me?  I'll probably use UPS or find out if I can deliver

personally to Anchor since I work in SF.

Found in "The Monthly", an East Bay advertising freebie, in an article on

local beery spots:  Why is American beer (lets assume Schludwillers) like

making love in a canoe?  Because they're both f*ck*ng close to water:-)>.

- --Eric <ericwade@class.org>

------------------------------


Duration of a botled beer

Date:     2 Apr 93 14:15:44 EST

From: "Rafael Busto"  <SUPERVISOR@bnk2.bnkst.edu>

Subject:  Duration of a botled beer

 As a beginner I'd like to ask a probably FAQ. Once the beer is

 bottled, How many weeks can I keep the beer (no preservatives, no

 pasteurization) before it gets undrinkable?

 Thanks in advance

- --Rafael Busto--

Computer Center at Bank Street College of Education, New York, NY

rafael@bnk2.bnkst.edu

------------------------------


Re: Yeast Cultures/minimizing sediment

Date: Fri, 2 Apr 93 12:55 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Yeast Cultures/minimizing sediment

William writes:

>  I don't get isolated colonines on my plates, rather one big long smear

>  of yeast where I've dragged the innoculating loop.  How can I innoculate

>  so I get isolated colonies?  I suppose I could dilute by yeast sorce

>  (usu bottle dregs or secondary dregs) but that add just another

>  contamination risk.

Streak a third of the plate, flame the loop, streak the second third of

the plate after dragging through the path on the first third, flame again

and repeat on the final third, dragging through the second third.

>

>  I understand some yeast cultures are actually combinations of several

>  strains (eg whitbread).  Will I see all three of the whitbread strains

>  as different looking colonies?  Do I have to culture each of the strains

>  seperately?  What about yeast from Trappist ale which I understand

>  actually contain some bacteria important to the flavor produced?

I don't know about the Whitbread, but only one Trappist ale I that I know

of has a bacterial component and that's Orval -- you may be thinking of

Lambiks which indeed contain a long list of microbes.

**********************

Thomas writes:

>the bottom of the bottle. I used to use a primary and secondary

>fermenter, but now I use just one ordinary pail with a lid and

>airlock, and I get better results. The beer mix I use is John Bull

>Pilsner Light. I don't know if you can get this type in the U.S.A.,

>but it makes a beer that tastes better than Labatts Blue. Do any of

>you more experienced beer makers know any tips on getting less

>sediment on the bottom of the bottle?

If you let the beer sit in the fermenters longer, more of the yeast will

sink to the bottom.  (You should go back to using a secondary if you

plan to let it sit in the fermenter for over 2 or 3 weeks.)  This will

minimize the sediment in the bottle, but not eliminate it.

Al.

------------------------------


off-flavor puzzle/yeast wierdness/blowoff tube/succanat

Date: Fri, 2 Apr 93 13:51:19 cdt

From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: off-flavor puzzle/yeast wierdness/blowoff tube/succanat

Thanks to the folks who responded to my queries about off-flavors in two out

of three batches made with the same yeast.  I'm going to assume that I picked

up an infection while racking batch one to secondary, which was then

perpetuated when reusing the yeast from the secondary for batch three.  I

don't suspect my plastic tubing at this point because batch two, made with

yeast from batch one primary, is fine - and the same tubing waould have been

used to rack, bottle, etc.  Bottle conditioning seems to be improving things,

however.  Regarding plastic tubing, how often do people replace it?  I'm

assuming once a year is fine, but does anyone replace more often?

Now on to my next adventure.  I'm making a pale ale (actually it's making

itself right now) with some Wyeast 1056 "American" right out of the packet

via a DME starter solution.  On the sixth day it was still bubbling at about

three per minute, but as the krausen had subsided I racked to secondary

anyway, and tossed in the dry-hopping pellets.  Within a day or two, what did

to my wondering eyes appear but a KRAUSEN in the secondary!  Coming up on two

weeks now, it's still bubbling between one and two per minute.  I have made

ales this year with American, British, Irish, and London, and I have never

had yeast behave in this manner (including a previous "American" two

batches)!!  My basement has been around 60-62 F. all winter, but this is the

first time I have had such a slow fermentation.  What should I do (besides of

course RDWHAH)?

Joel Birkland asked about 1" I.D. plastic tubing.  I got mine at True Value.

They'll cut it to size and it doesn't cost much.   While we're on the subject

of blowoff tubes, I've seen several posts regarding the difficulty of

cleaning them.  My question is, what's the big deal?  The only beer that

comes in contact with it is what's being "blown off" - so as long as the tube

is dry, that is, nothing dripping into your beer when you first attach the

tube, why should it matter that you didn't get it squeaky clean after the

last batch?

Finally, for any Eastern Iowa brewers who were as interested as was I in the

recent thread on brown sugar alternatives, I can report that I found

"Succanat" at the New Pioneer Co-op in Iowa City.  It's a little pricey at

five & change for a two-pound can (they also have Turbinado for <$1/lb.) but

I plan to try it out.  If I like it a lot, would anyone in New England be

willing to mail me a bunch "in bulk" from Bread and Circus?

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

Thought for the day: In any organization there will always be one person who

knows what is going on.  This person must be fired.

------------------------------


Hello?

Date: 02 Apr 1993 12:31:12 GMT

From: "BRIAN A. AURAND" <ceco!CWEMAIL!E#AURAN@uunet.UU.NET>

Subject: Hello?

Who is this?

------------------------------


One of those handy little tips

Date: Fri, 2 Apr 93 16:51:29 EST

From: rowan@ocean.rutgers.edu (Andy Rowan)

Subject: One of those handy little tips

OK, this one isn't a major "aha!", but...

When you're pouring all that sanitizing solution out of the carboy,

if you shove the racking tube in there, air can enter through it

and the stuff just pours right out instead of glug-glug-glugging

and splashing all over the place.

Just one of those things that dawned on me after an evening of

bottling and RDWHAHB'ing...

========================================

| Andy Rowan                           |

| Cook College Remote Sensing Center   |

| Rutgers University, New Brunswick NJ |

| rowan@ocean.rutgers.edu              |

========================================

------------------------------


Brewing to style, Malt Mill, Chillers

Date: Fri,  2 Apr 93 17:49:24 EST

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Brewing to style, Malt Mill, Chillers

Brewing to Style:

  Having been a brewer for 3 years I recently have paid more attention to

"brewing to style" and have migrated away from "nikebrau", Just Brew It.

This switch in brewing philosophy coincides with a change in method, partial

mash to all grain [insert flames and name calling here].  My feeling is in

order for me to produce beers with flavor profiles that I would like I must

be able to control my process.  A good way to validate my process is to

attempt to brew to a certain benchmark/style and have my results reviewed by

certified tasters which generally means some sort of competition.  One of the

finest homebrews I have had was an attempt at one style, a Bier de Garde,

which turned out to be an excellent Extra Special Bitter.  The color was

too dark, the hopping was incorrect and it lacked the body and sweetness

of a Bier de Garde.  It still was a great beer.

Malt Mill:  I would concur with Jim Dipalma on his review.  Having participated

in its use my observations:  Cleaning- grind a couple pounds of grain, then

brush off the rollers 3 minutes max.  Adjust for proper crush about 5 minutes.

We ground, excuse me , crushed 10 lbs of grain in about 5 minutes.  I too

had the fastest clearing, clearest run off of any batch I brewed. The unit is

not fragile.  It is well designed, place it over a 5 gallon bucket and crush.

I want to sell my Corona, Email if interested  lmenegon@necis.ma.nec.com

Immersion wort chillers:  I would be more concerned about how long I could make

it.  Mine is made from 3/8" OD soft copper tubing which I wrapped around a

soda keg to make a coil.  I Used about 35 feet  of tubing.  I filled my brew

pot with 6 gallons of water, measured the height and coiled until I exceeded

that height.  I allowed for the in an out tubing to rise out and over the pot

to a point 6" below the top to prevent water getting in the wort in the event

of a leak.  50 feet of 3/8' soft copper was $22 the 3/8 to hose male connection

was about $3. I clamped old plastic tubing on the output end total, cost $25.

With the extra tubing I am making a manifold for my lauter tun.

------------------------------


Copies of M. Jackson's show

Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1993 17:15:28 -0800 (PST)

From: Michael Stuyt <klootzak@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Copies of M. Jackson's show

While on vacation in Rotterdam this spring break, I saw something about a

show called "Beer Hunt" (or something like that) hosted by Michael

Jackson.  It was on the British Discovery Channel.  Normally, I do not

watch television, so I was wondering if any one knows if its brodcast here

in the States or maybe somebody has copies on tape.

I am also interested if perhaps any one in the Seattle area would be

interested in forming a brew-club here at the U of W.

thank you,

M. Abraham Vijfvinkel-Stuijt

------------------------------


Re: Samiclaus and Sam Triple Bock

Date: Fri, 2 Apr 93 09:14:25 EST

From: boomer@sylsoft.com (Richard Akerboom)

Subject: Re: Samiclaus and Sam Triple Bock

In Regards to your letter <9304020800.AA13213@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com>:

> Subject: "Samiclaus" aka strongest beer in world, for now?

>

[deleted]

> During the tour, they bragged about being in the process of

> developing a "Triple Bock", apparently it is Jim Koch's goal

> to get the world record for the highest alcohol content in a

> commercialized "malt beverage".

I had some of this at the Sunset Grill in Boston. It is very strong

and I thought nicely done. The bartender (normally very well informed

at the sunset) claimed 14% alcohol. I found it hard to believe that

Sam had brewed something stronger than Samiclaus and figured that

14% was by volume. I don't have my Jackson's Pocket Guide here, but

Samiclaus is 13.x% alcohol by weight, so it would be more than 14%

by volume.

I would be interested in hearing from anyone who had some concrete

knowledge about the Sam Triple Bock, such as original and final gravity and

the alcohol content (and whether is by wt. or vol.).

Rich

ps-Thanks to those who pointed me back to Superior Products

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Richard Akerboom       Domain: boomer@sylsoft.com or akerboom@dartmouth.edu

Sylvan Software          uucp: dartvax!sylsoft!boomer

Mechanic St.            Phone: 802-649-2231

P. O. Box 566             FAX: 802-649-2238

Norwich, VT 05055 USA

------------------------------


Free Kegging, Yeast

Date: Sat, 3 Apr 93 07:46 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Free Kegging, Yeast

 >From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

 >I recommend using the pressure cooker method to create sterile

 starter worts.  Following Dave Miller's book, add 3 pounds of light

 dry malt extract to about 2.5 gallons of water to create 3 gallons

 of wort......  It takes two cooking "cycles," as all jars won't fit in the

 cooker.

 Wouldn't it be simpler just to cut the recipe in half?

 >From: "Jim Ellingson" <jimme@pi28.arc.umn.edu>

 >Subject: WARNING Re:  Almost Free Kegging

 >Using a quarter cup would give a pressure of around 50 psi but I still

 don't think it's a very good idea.

 >Pressure vessels are thick, heavy and expensive for a reason.  The

 pressurized gas which they hold contains an enormous amount of

 potential energy.

 Thanks for the envelop engineering.  In spite of your cautions, it still

 seems that it is a workable system if one is careful and does not work in the

 blind, i.e. monitor the pressure with a gauge.  If a quarter cup produces 50

 psi in an empty keg, it would seem to be enough to carbonate a 5 gallon batch

 and dispense it with pressure to spare.  Once the beer is carbonated, the

 pressue could be relieved down to working pressure and I assume there would

 be enough to despense an equal volume of beer.

 It would seem prudent, however to add a pressure relief valve in case things

 don't work out as planned.

 >From: "Dean Roy"  <DEAN@alpha.uwindsor.ca>

 >Subject:      Yeast Labs yeast cultures

   > (3) The cultures come in clear plastic tubes. No inner pouch or anything

         similiar to burst. Do I simply dump the contents of the tube into a

         starter?

 Have no idea about the rest of your questions but there are two ways to use

 the tube cultures.  Come to think of it, you did not say whether they are on

 agar or just in a liquid medium.

 If the latter, they are probably intended to be poured into a starter wort

 for one time use.

 If on agar, you can use them to start new cultures on slants and keep the

 original as your pure culture.  If you just want to start a batch with it,

 the best way is to pour enough sterile wort in the tube to cover the yeast

 and incubate it for 24 hours than use this liquid to start your starter.

 The article I just posted on yeast culture details how you can turn one of

 those tubes in a lifetime supply of yeast.

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >I recommend that you not use wort to rehydrate dry yeast -- you are not only

 stressing the yeast, but tempting the remaining live ones to produce off

 flavors.

 I have accepted the above on faith but have just read Fix's "Principles of

 Brewing Science", (a most humbling experience) and I now wonder if we are on

 the wrong tack.  If George could review the following paragraph and comment

 on whether or not it has any relevance to rehydrating dry yeast....

 From P 170.....

 "As a general rule, yeast stored for any length of time should be "fed" with

 fresh sterile wort to ensure that the storage medium has adequate

 yeast-assimilable sugars and amino acids.  Storage under a water cover should

 be avoided not only because water lacks nutrients, but because of the adverse

 osmotic pressures it would create."

 I presume that dried yeast includes whatever is left of the

 "yeast-assimilable sugars and amino acids" at the time of drying.  I also

 presume that they would be in a depleated state and adding only water would

 create the adverse osmotic preessure above referred to.  Whereas,

 re-hydrating it with a wort of comparable SG would not.

 What say, George?

 js

------------------------------


Milling, Yeast

Date: Sat, 3 Apr 93 07:47 CST

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Milling, Yeast

 >From: Joe Rolfe <jdr@wang.com>

 >Subject: MaltMill review

 >(anyone got any hints at the correct rpm for the rollers - max thruput and

 least hassels)

 >on the other hand - this fellow brewer - had a hell of a time.

 Not knowing who your friend is, I can not comment intellegently but to answer

 the first question in an indirect way and wondering if it might be the same

 person.....

 I received a call from someone several weeks ago who was having problems with

 a motorized mill.  It was throwing grain all over and chewing up orings.

 When I asked him what speed he was running at, he said he really didn't know

 but there was a 2 in pulley on the motor and a 2 in pulley on the mill.  If

 its a typical 1750 rpm motor, the problem is obvious.  On my personal mill, I

 use a 10 in pulley on the mill and a 2 in on an 800 rpm motor.  That gets it

 around 160 rpm and crushes about 5 lbs/min with little dust, noise or other

 problems.

 >  i was not there when the problems came up - but the crystal ended up to

 fine,  the pale did not feed properly and the guy had to rush out to get a

 corona.  now mind you this is a motorized (probably too fast) with hoppers

 above and below.

 Sounds suspicious.  Why don't you have him get in touch with me?  There has

 got to be a better solution than what he did :)

 Having said that, I started receiving malt from Minnesota Malting a few

 months ago that would not feed properly on the fixed mill which was designed

 using the same malt and I was totally frustrated till I had a few

 conversations with the maltster.

 Turns out that the lot was one that did not meet commercial specs for size

 and they put it aside for homebrewers assuming we would not care.  He said

 that there was less than a 5% chance of this kind of stuff getting out

 normally, whatever that was supposed to mean.

 When I asked why mega brewers care, with fancy adjustable mills and he said

 because they do not want to adjust them.  They just want to run forever.

 It is interesting to note that the Belgian malt is even larger the the MM

 malt but feed without difficulty.  It appears to me that the real problem is

 not just the size but the finish or texture of the husk.  The MM stuff was

 very smooth and shiny while the Belgian is coarse and rough.   As the mill

 relies on the grooves in the roller to grab the grain, the smoother the husk

 the more likely the grain will roll around for a while.

 On a motorized mill, if enough of them roll around, they will fill up the

 space and nothing gets done.  With a hand crank, this is rarely a problem

 because of the randomness of starting and stopping plus the ability to back

 up a bit to clear jams.

 The only other problem I know of is someone who came up with some Engl....

 sorry Brittish malt that was so small, it passed right through.  After

 running this one down, it also turned out to be reject malt.

 >anyway from my experience and his, if you get one get the adjustable one.

 IF you have thoughts of motorizing it.

 >From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

 >Subject: YEAST CULTURES

 > I don't get isolated colonines on my plates, rather one big long smear

   of yeast where I've dragged the innoculating loop.  How can I innoculate

   so I get isolated colonies?

 The key is more dilution.  After you think it is dilute enough, give it

 another 10:1.  Here is a standard streaking sequence....

              1.....2......3......4.......5.......>

                    |      |      |       |

              6...................................>

                    |      |      |       |

              7...................................>

                    |      |      |       |

              8...................................>

                    |      |      |       |

                    //     //     //      //

 After inoculating your wire, you start at 1 and by the time you get to

 the end of 8 you should have some single colonies if you start with  a dilute

 enough sample.

 To give you an idea of how littlel you need, I recently did a Wyeast and I

 dipped my wire into the packet and followed the above on two petri dishes in

 sequence and only got three isolated colonies on the second one.

 When I have done dry yeast, I would drop one granule into a test tube of

 sterile water and got about the right dilution.

 >  I understand some yeast cultures are actually combinations of several

   strains (eg whitbread).  Will I see all three of the whitbread strains

   as different looking colonies?

 I tried Whitbread  dry about 6 months ago and found no clue as to what was

 what.  It all looked the same and concluded that either it was all the same

 or telling the difference was beyond my patience.  I didn't particularly like

 the beer it made but that could be because I don't like it or because one or

 more of the necessary strains were missing.

  > I've heard that even if I get a good pure culture on a slant

   it will mutate and I can only use yeast from a given slant for a few

   months?  Is this true?

 If you only use the original slant to innoculate others, it should be good

 for years or until you contaminate it in the process.

 >  Is there a way to identify mutatants besides   brewing a batch an looking

 for strange behavior such as low final s.g?

 That's about it.

  > got a pretty decent optical microscope if I can figure out what box it's

   in.  Any suggestions on preparing a sample for viewing?

 Put a dilute drop of yeast on a slide, add a cover slip and work your way up

 to the higest magnification you have.  You need 1000X, oil emersion to see

 any detail.

 >Can I recognize mutations this way?

 No chance.  You will be able to identify certain wild yeasts and bacteria and

 have a lot of fun but won't solve any real problems in the process.

 Unfortunately, Peterson hasn't come out with a "Field Guide to Yeast" for

 pretty obvious reasons.

 js

------------------------------


Failure of first All grain

Date:    Sat, 3 Apr 1993 22:19:05 -0700 (MST)

From: JLIDDIL@AZCC.Arizona.EDU (Jim Liddil)

Subject: Failure of first All grain

Made a beer today with the following ingredients

3lbs belgain pilsner malt

4 pounds belgian pale ale malt

8 ounces caravienne

Mashed in 2 gallons of distilled water at ~154 for 1.25 hours at which time the

iodine test was negative.  The pH of mash was around 5.2.  Used a Zapap type

lauter tun with grain bag.  Recirculated about 0.5 gallons.  Used distilled

water for sparging.  Placed a pie plate on top of grain bed and added water at

about 165.  Also mashed out at 170.  Sparged till gravity was 1.008 .Ph of run

off was still around 5.5.  Collected about 7 gallons of wort.  Gravity after

boiling down to about 6 gallons was only 1.028.  Where did I go wrong?  If the

answer is perfectly obviuos please e-mail me rather than waste bandwidth here.

Jim Liddil

------------------------------


CIDER

Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1993 15:36:01 -0400 (EDT)

From: Matthew P Jukins <mpj@kepler.unh.edu>

Subject: CIDER

Hello all!  My name is Matt and this is my very first post to this list,

so I just thought I'd say hello.  :)

Well, my first question is this:  My friends and I are interested in making

cider, but don't know the first thing about where to start.  If possible,

we would like some tips, recipes, etc...  anything would help.  Please

mail me at: mpj@kepler.unh.edu

thanks for your bandwidth :)

 -matt

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1112, 04/05/93

*************************************

-------


Mac Thread, Decoction

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 10:16:35 MET DST

From: THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch

Subject: Mac Thread, Decoction

Hello all,

Nir Navot asked if there was a thread for Macs out there somewhere.

There is a Hypercard stack at Sierra.stanford.edu (pub/homebrew...)

Which will read in mail lists and then allow you to manipulate them

in Macintosh piont and click fashion. If my hard disk space weren't

limited I'd add all the mail lists to it for the complete brewing

reference text. As it is they stay on the vax.

Also, Dennis Lewis asked about decoction mashing and why people do it.

Well, I now do it for a combination of reasons:

1. I can only get lager malt (here in Switzerland) which is really

high in protein --> requires a protein rest at 50 deg.C;

2. I mash in a picnic cooler, and haven't got a pan big enough to

do a full stepped infusion;

I think (he says, sticking his neck out) that there is little

difference in the end result whether you do a stepped infusion or

a decoction over the same temperatures.

By the way, the "thickest third" does include the grains.

If you take out only the liquid and boil, possibly repeating

a number of times, you will quickly run out of enzymes, since

they are mostly in solution. The object of the decoction is

to raise the temperature of the mash in a stepwise manner without

havingf to heat the mash tun. I've not had problems with

tannin extraction etc because I only just bring the thick third

to the boil before replacing it. A longer boil (involving the

grains) would have the effect of gelatinising the starch, and

hence (apparently) of making it more available.... I don't

know, I get about 28-29 pts/lb/gall(US) most of the time.

- ------

finally, Chris Lyons asked about when to add sugar. Although

I'm only going on my experience here, I find that for normal

gravity beers I see no difference, but for high og (>1080)

I see alot of caramelisation (although is this bad, since you're

adding brown sugar for the caramel anyway?). I brewed Dave

Line's ESB using exactly his recipe, and although it didn't

taste exactly like draught ESB, it was certainly very pleasant.

Anyway that's quite enough of my opinions.

Rob Thomas.

------------------------------


historical recipes

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 10:36:17 MET DST

From: THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch

Subject: historical recipes

Hello all,

Some of you may remember that I posted a couple of recipes from the 1820's

a while back. Well, since they take time to two finger type in, I'll ask

for requests (email to me please). Here are the rest of the recipes:

london brown stout porter;

london ale;

table beer;

amber

(aka two penny) ale;

white porter (aka old hock);

Rob Thomas

------------------------------


Brewing Methods

Date:           Mon, 5 Apr 93 8:12 edt

From: Gerald_Wirtz@vos.stratus.com

Subject:        Brewing Methods

     I have been brewing for just over six months now and where I purchase my

supplies the owner is against using the 'blow-off' method of brewing.

     My question is why use the 'blow-off' method? It seems to me that this

would result in the loss of flavor.

     Thanks - Gerald Wirtz - Stratus Computer

------------------------------


Re: Samiclaus and Sam Triple Bock

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 08:55:32 edt

From: mtavis@gemini.hyperdesk.com (Mike Tavis)

Subject: Re: Samiclaus and Sam Triple Bock

Richard Akerboom writes:

> I had some of this at the Sunset Grill in Boston. It is very strong

> and I thought nicely done. The bartender (normally very well informed

> at the sunset) claimed 14% alcohol. I found it hard to believe that

> Sam had brewed something stronger than Samiclaus and figured that

> 14% was by volume. I don't have my Jackson's Pocket Guide here, but

> Samiclaus is 13.x% alcohol by weight, so it would be more than 14%

> by volume.

>

> I would be interested in hearing from anyone who had some concrete

> knowledge about the Sam Triple Bock, such as original and final gravity and

> the alcohol content (and whether is by wt. or vol.).

I have in front of me one of those sheets of marketing material that

is typically placed in the plastic thingies at restaurant tables.

This one is from the Boston Beer Company and was lifted from Doyle's

in Jamaica Plains (South Boston).  Unfortunately, I wasn't the one who

lifted it, so I can't give first hand impressions of Triple Bock.  I

can however type in what Jim Koch says about his new beer.

"We offer this strong, malty bock beer in the best tradition of

warming winter brews.  Our Triple Bock begins with a recipe calling

for over three times as much malt as our Boston Lager.  A long, slow

fermentation produces the rich, complex flavor notes and an

extraordinarily high alcohol level of 12%.  This strength is comparable

to a fine wine and is almost three times the level of ordianry beer.

In addition, this brew is carefully aged for four months at extremely

cold tempatures.  This traditional German technique develops the

remarkable smoothness of our beer.  At this strength, our Triple Bock

is ideally sipped slowly from a 5 ounce serving, enabling the true

beer lover to savor and appreciate its enormous character.  We present

our unique ice-conditioned beer this winter as a great way to take the

chill off the cold weather."

- -- Mike

  o o|  Michael Tavis, HyperDesk Corporation

  o o|  Suite 300, 2000 West Park Dr., Westboro, MA  01581

  ---+  E-mail: mike_t@hyperdesk.com        (508) 366-5050

------------------------------


re:yeast storage & mutations

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 9:36:21 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: re:yeast storage & mutations

JS writes about yeast culturing in the last digest:

<If you only use the original slant to innoculate others, it should be good

<for years or until you contaminate it in the process.

                        ___________

This is why you should make a working stock slant from your origianl

slant.  Only culture yeast from the working slant.  Go back to the

original slant to make new working slants.  Plating from the working

slant is a better way to ensure what you are brewing with.  There is

an increased risk associated with "dipping" a loop into a slant

repeatedly.  I would advise restreaking to a single cell at least

once a year.  In theory it can last for years, but why risk it?

If you are already culturing yeasts, then what is the extra plate and

slant once a year to ensure clean yeast?  A very important issue

is for the brewer to constantly question the performance of ones

yeast, is it flocculating like it used to?  Any slight change in

flavors or lag time or aromas of the fermenter?

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


AHA Competition Question

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 9:41:06 EDT

From: Kevin V Martin <kmartin@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

Subject: AHA Competition Question

Does anyone know if the AHA will accept hand delivered entries at the Goose

Island Brewery in Chicago for the annual competition?  I will be visiting my

brother this weekend in Chicago, and he said that he would deliver my entries

for me.  This would save me the hassled of having to deal with UPS.  Thanks for

any information.

Kevin Martin kmartin@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu

------------------------------


Duration of a botled beer

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 09:59:46 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Duration of a botled beer

Rafael Busto asks:

> As a beginner I'd like to ask a probably FAQ. Once the beer is

> bottled, How many weeks can I keep the beer (no preservatives, no

> pasteurization) before it gets undrinkable?

A long time, if you did a good job making it.  I've had beers that

have been in bottle for 10 years.  At that point, they're kind of

"old" tasting, but still drinkable.  Only strong, highly hopped beers

will last that long, but you should be able to keep your beer for a

year, easily.

Things that can reduce its keeping power:

1. Insufficient sanitation.  An low-level infection can take a long

time to take hold.  If you drink your beer up in a month or so, you'd

never notice it.  If you keep it for a year, you might.

2. Oxidation.  Again, this is something that takes a while to show up.

The damage may be done at any point in the brewing process, from

mashing through to bottling.  The key is to minimize splashing at all

times, EXCEPT just before pitching the yeast, when you need lots of

oxygen in the wort so the yeast can grow and reproduce.

3. Light.  Can cause skunking and other staling reactions.  Keep your

beer in the dark.

4. Heat.  Keep the beer in a cool place, preferably below 60F (i.e.,

in a cellar), but not where the temperature goes above 80F, for sure.

Temperature swings are bad, too.

=S

------------------------------


Yeast Lab yeast

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 10:25:15 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Yeast Lab yeast

You should have gotten an instruction sheet.  It suggests two ways to

use the yeast:

1. Make a starter.

2. Just dump it into your wort.

The first way works better -- quicker start, less chance of infection,

but the second way does work.

------------------------------


rehydrating yeast

Date: 05 Apr 1993 12:08:40 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: rehydrating yeast

Jack asks:

> I presume that dried yeast includes whatever is left of the

> "yeast-assimilable sugars and amino acids" at the time of drying.  I also

> presume that they would be in a depleated state and adding only water would

> create the adverse osmotic preessure above referred to.  Whereas,

> re-hydrating it with a wort of comparable SG would not.

 If I may be so bold as to jump in here, dried yeast have much of

the water removed from the cytoplasm, and need that water replaced before

they can behave normally.  A hypotonic solution (ie water) will cause the

yeast to swell up and soak up the necessary water nice and quickly.  A

hypertonic solution (ie wort) will be soaked up much more slowly.  In order

to re-hydrate the yeast, water is best, but don't keep them there too long,

or they may start to suffer osmotic lysing, or at least malnutrition.  Boy

is that a run-on sentence

*********************************

 As for brewing to style versus brewing to taste, I would have to

say a good brewer should be capable of both.  Having a style guideline to

shoot for gives the brewer knowledge, experience and skill.  If you can

brew a Sam Smith's clone, a Pilsner Urquell clone, and a Duvel clone, you

know what ingredients and protocols produce what results, and by all means

brew a beer you like, because you can know ahead of time what the result

will be.  If you just brew for fun, it's a great ride and the end product

is invariably good, but frequently a bit of a surprise.  Having style

catagories in competition does two things: it shows a brewer's skill at

producing the intended product, and it provides guidelines for the judges,

so they don't have to decide if the dry stout is better than the malty

helles.  Someone long ago on this forum (or maybe it was r.c.b) was

lamenting that they had lost a competition because their Pilsner was too

dark (or some such breech of catagory), but that if that same beer was

produced commercially it would be a "dark pilsner" and a catagory in

itself.  Sure.  And Pete's Wicked Ale won at the GABF, but could it fit

into any AHA catagory?  The point is these are not the only possible ways

to make beer, but target styles for homebrewers to emulate in order to

demonstrate their skill.

 ed

  ------------

  Ed Hitchcock    *-----------------------*

  Dept of Anatomy and Neurobiology |    |

  Dalhousie University    |     JUST BREW IT |

  Halifax, Nova Scotia   |   |

  ech@ac.dal.ca    *-----------------------*

------------------------------


Sanitation Using Spent Grains

Date:    Mon, 5 Apr 1993 15:18:22 GMT

From: "UARS::COOK"@CDHF1.GSFC.NASA.GOV (Chris Cook)

Subject: Sanitation Using Spent Grains

David C Mackensen (HBD 1109) asked

> What if I were to put the spent grain bill into the primary?  any

 additional sugars that might have been left over can be used for

 fermentation/taste (depending upon complexity)...

In the HBDs following, Mr. Mackensen got somewhat jumped on.  Timothy

Dalton asked

> How are you going to sterilize the grains before tossing them in ? Boil

 them ?  Seems like you'd be asking to extract a pile of tannins from the

 husks.  Then have the husks in contact with the wort/green beer for a week

 or two?

and Tony Babinec said

> I wouldn't put spent grain in the primary!  The grain is contaminated.

 home brewers exploit this by doing sour mashing, but the mashing is done in

 a vessel, and is followed by a boil.  So, throw the spent grains on the

 compost heap, or make a bread out of them.

and so on.  While I agree with the concerns about tannins, I have to

question the contamination potential.  Think of the process so far.  Mash

at 150 to 160 for an hour or more, then optionally mash out at about 170

degrees.  Maybe I'm wrong, but it's hard to believe that the grains aren't

pasturized after that.  Yes, some people use malt to start sour mashes, but

they use raw grains, not spent grains.

I admit that I remain dubious about how worthwhile the attempt would be,

but hey, we're only talking beer here.  I know that most of the sugars and

starches are gone, but maybe the grains can add interesting proteins.  I

don't know, but I'd be interested in learning.

Chris Cook

cook@cdhf1.gsfc.nasa.gov

------------------------------


AHA First Round Regional, Chicago

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 10:30:10 CDT

From: stevie@spss.com

Subject: AHA First Round Regional, Chicago

1993 AHA NATIONAL HOMEBREW COMPETITION

FIRST ROUND - MIDWEST REGIONAL

JUNE 11-13, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

CALL FOR JUDGES, STEWARDS, AND PARTICIPANTS

As you already know from other posts to this forum, the first-round regionals

of the AHA National Homebrew Competition will take place in early June.  The

Midwest Regional will be over the weekend of June 11-13, at the Goose Island

brewpub in Chicago.  Last year's regional was a great success, due in part to

an excellent turnout of judges and stewards.  While we fully expect the same

this year, we're leaving nothing to chance.  We've added some special activi-

ties to the schedule that you won't want to miss.

After the second judging session on Saturday afternoon, there will be a seminar

conducted by Chicago's own Siebel Institute.  From there, we'll move on to

dinner and the First Midwest Invitational Brewoff, an event that might attract

you to Chicago even if you couldn't pick up those judging points.

Last month, we invited 10 of the region's best homebrewers to brew five gallons

using the same set of ingredients.  A number of the area's homebrew supply

stores donated the raw materials, which were recently packed and delivered to

the participants.  The brewers can use some or all of the ingredients, plus

they can select their own yeast.  The beers will be judged in a blind but in-

formal judging at Saturday's dinner, and the champion brewer will receive an

attractive trophy.

Think you can brew as well as the invitees?  Well, everyone else is welcome to

participate in the Open Brewoff.  To enter, you can purchase an ingredients

kit (by the way, we're making everyone make an extract beer with specialty

grains) from one of our sponsoring suppliers and bring the result to the event.

We'll have balloting in the Open category as well, and that winner will be

automatically eligible for next year's Invitational.  Sponsoring suppliers are:

Evanston First, Sheaf and Vine, Chicago Indoor Garden Supply, and Tim's

Homebrew Thing.  You only pay for the ingredients.  There's no competition

entry fee.

The Midwest Invitational/Dinner will be open to all interested comers, but

space will definitely be limited.  To help defray the costs of the event (and

pay for the food, of course), there will be a $25 fee to attend.  Early

interest is high, so we expect there will be a lot of great beer to consume.

Of course, we need plenty of qualified judges and stewards.  A mailing with

registration form will be sent soon to all area BJCP judges, but those not in

the program or not in the area should feel free to contact me directly (e-mail

or phone).

Look forward to seeing you in Chicago.

- ----

Steve Hamburg   Internet:  stevie@spss.com

Chicago, IL     Work Phone:  312/329-3445

                Home Phone:  312/878-0177

------------------------------


Dry Hopping

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1993 09:31:28 -0700

From: sherman@qualcomm.com (Sherman Gregory)

Subject: Dry Hopping

In HBD #1112 "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU> writes:

>On the sixth day it was still bubbling at about

>three per minute, but as the krausen had subsided I racked to secondary

>anyway, and tossed in the dry-hopping pellets.  Within a day or two, what did

>to my wondering eyes appear but a KRAUSEN in the secondary!  Coming up on two

>weeks now, it's still bubbling between one and two per minute.  I have made

>ales this year with American, British, Irish, and London, and I have never

>had yeast behave in this manner (including a previous "American" two

>batches)!!  My basement has been around 60-62 F. all winter, but this is the

>first time I have had such a slow fermentation.  What should I do (besides of

>course RDWHAH)?

I have dry hopped about 4 batches, and always have observed this same

thing.  It is a real pain when using whole hops, because they try to to

push themselves out of the air lock.  It seems that there was a thread

about this on HBD about 6 mo. ago.  Then I went out of town and never

caught a conclusion about what was really going on.  Was there a

conclusion?  Does anybody have an explanation for this?

------------------------------


silly question on kegging

Date:         Mon, 05 Apr 93 11:43:43 CST

From: C05705DA@WUVMD.Wustl.Edu

Subject:      silly question on kegging

Could anybody give me any insight on why NOT to carbonate a keg naturally,

like in bottling, instead of using carbonated water and all the works

needed to do kegging.  My reasoning is simple; kegging didn't used to be

done the way it is today.  So, what are the pros and cons to throwing in

priming sugars in a keg and cork it?  I would appreciate any HELPFUL

suggestions.

------------------------------


Dry Ice carbonating in keg

Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1993 12:13:18 CDT

From: "John L. Isenhour" <isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov>

Subject: Dry Ice carbonating in keg

Jack Schmidling writes:

>>From: "Jim Ellingson" <jimme@pi28.arc.umn.edu>

>>Subject: WARNING Re:  Almost Free Kegging

>>Using a quarter cup would give a pressure of around 50 psi but I still

>>don't think it's a very good idea.

>>Pressure vessels are thick, heavy and expensive for a reason.  The

>>pressurized gas which they hold contains an enormous amount of

>>potential energy.

> Thanks for the envelop engineering.  In spite of your cautions, it still

> seems that it is a workable system if one is careful and does not work in the

> blind, i.e. monitor the pressure with a gauge.  If a quarter cup produces 50

> psi in an empty keg, it would seem to be enough to carbonate a 5 gallon batch

> and dispense it with pressure to spare.  Once the beer is carbonated, the

> pressue could be relieved down to working pressure and I assume there would

> be enough to despense an equal volume of beer.

I have to agree with Jim on this.  You really should try this yourself and

gather some empirical data before suggesting it to people who might not know

better.  I have a lot of experience with forced carbonation of water, wine,

beer and soft drinks, and if you've ever tried gassing beer up to 50psi, you'll

find that its difficult to even vent the pressure down to dispensing level

without it blowing out your venting tube.  If you do get it bled down to

tapping pressure, the resulting brew would dispense as incredible gusher of

foam as the brew tried to outgas.  The idea of it retaining enough pressure to

dispense itself means that as it goes from wildy overcarbonated to flat it will

be able to push itself out of the keg, but you'll only get a small amout out of

the tapper, then the brew will have to outgas enough to built up pressure to

tap more, this might work for a few brews in between the gushers and it being

so flat it cannot dispense, but it seems like a lot of sacrifice.

At a nice cellar temperature, adding a constant 16lbs or so of CO2 and

agitating the brew for about 5-10 min. will result in nice carbonation.  If you

dissolve too much C02 in it, you'll have to 'burp' the keg down to a reasonable

carbonation level before it will be usable.  I've found that 35 LBS of CO2 is

way too much (check Byron Burches CO2 chart and read his article in one of the

Beer and Brewing Journals - its the one from Oakland).  I've gassed champagne

up to the level you are talking about (in an appropriate container) and its a

horrible mess to dispense through a tap (even with an adjustable flow tap like

a guiness with the turbulence baffles removed from the tip).

The only way I can see to dispense beer thats been gassed up to 50psi would be

to slowly bleed it down to ambient atmospheric pressure (wipe the beer from the

ceiling:), remove the lid from the cornelius and pour it into pitchers.  I had

to do this about 10 years ago when I was just beginning to do forced

carbonation.

What might work would be to put a regulator on the keg such that anything over

16psi gets bled off, add your CO2, and agitate while it dissolves, wait a few

days, then put CO2 on it at about 10-12 lbs and dispense.

 -john

John Isenhour

mad scientist and national beer judge

john@hopduvel.UUCP

isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov

------------------------------


Re:immersion cooler length

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 14:13:05 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: Re:immersion cooler length

>From: sherman@qualcomm.com (Sherman Gregory)

>>Does anyone know about the minimum length of copper tubing that

>>can be used as an immersion wort cooler? Successfully.

>The longer the better.  Many of then are 20', some are 25', mine is a 50'

>double helix (homemade).  It all depends how fast you want to cool and how

>cool your tap water is, and how much water you want to use.

Aha!  A personal pet peeve, that I know nothing about.  Spout-off warning!

My own personal theory is that the shorter the better, until you get to a

reasonable minimum length.

Why?

Let me interject personal observation from my 15 ft. copper coil.  Probably

more than a foot is outside the wort, say one foot on each end, making 13

ft. in the wort.  I think that is too long.  Why?  Because the water comes

out boiling hot at the other end.  [I placed my quick-reading thermometer

in a cup which got the outflow from the wort-chiller, and it quickly jumped

to 210 or so.]

OK, what good does boiling-hot water do in your wort chiller?  I submit it

does no good at all.  So if I had another ten feet of copper in there, it

would be another ten feet carrying boiling hot water, doing no good.

So, the question is:

How long does water traveling through 3/8" copper tubing (it can only flow

so fast) take to reach equilibrium with the wort?

I suspect we are talking about 6-8 feet here, just from WAG speculation.

Anyone who really knows what they are talking about willing to resolve this

issue?  Are there completely overlooked issues, such as increased

efficiency with longer tubing as wort and source water temperatures get

closer? [So I just made this up and don't think it likely.  Sue me.]

Of course the temperature of the water used, the rate of water flow

(dependent at least in part on the tubing ID), and maybe other items are

involved.  Is there maybe a chart already made up for us to use by experts

in the field?

OK, I ranted enough.  Now I feel better.  Thanks and apologies to all.

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


Wine and Oxidation, Grain Bags

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 13:13 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Wine and Oxidation, Grain Bags

 We all know what evils to expect of beer that gets oxidized after fermenting

 and the need for quiet racking and transfer.  However, wine drinkers also

 know that good red wine needs to "breathe", which of course is, a snob word

 for oxidize.

 I have also seen several references to the fact that one of the reasons for

 racking wine at regular intervals is to promote oxidation.  Clearly, we have

 a conflict here and my Fall Wine is now in the aging stage and it would be

 nice to know if I should intentionally splash it around while racking or use

 the usual beer cautions.

 Anyone out there know?

 >From:(Jim Liddil)

 >Subject: Failure of first All grain

 >3lbs belgain pilsner malt

 >4 pounds belgian pale ale malt

 >8 ounces caravienne

 >Mashed in 2 gallons of distilled water at ~154 for 1.25 hours at which time

 the iodine test was negative.  The pH of mash was around 5.2.  Used a Zapap

 type lauter tun with grain bag.  Recirculated about 0.5 gallons.  Used

 distilled water for sparging.  Placed a pie plate on top of grain bed and

 added water at about 165.  Also mashed out at 170.  Sparged till gravity was

 1.008 .Ph of run off was still around 5.5.  Collected about 7 gallons of

 wort.  Gravity after boiling down to about 6 gallons was only 1.028.  Where

 did I go wrong?

 First of all there is nothing "wrong", you just made a lighter beer than you

 expected.

 The procedure reads like a textbook and aside from possible measurement

 error, and the need for more water in the mash, the only thing that sticks

 out is the Zapap with a grain bag.

 I do not wish to start another snob thread but it is my opinion that of all

 the lauter systems out there, the grain bag represents the one with the

 highest probability of failure.  Having said that, I realize that many people

 use them and sware by them but until a beginner at all grain learns their

 tricks of the trade, I would think low yield would not be unusual.

 First of all, if your Zapap has a false bottom, it is not clear why you use

 the bag.  The purpose of the false bottom is to prevent the grain from

 clogging the outflow while establishing a filterbed.  Once the bed is

 established, the grain itself acts as the filter and a grain bag is only

 overkill and a source of trouble.  I know of no commercial brewers that use

 grain bags so maybe there is a mesage in there for homebrewers.

 One sure test would have been to just dump the contents of the grain bag into

 the Zapap and stir it around with some more hot water.  My guess is the

 gravity of the next runoff would have shot way up.

 My suggestion is to try it without the grain bag next time and if that fails,

 build an easymasher or manifold lauter tun.  The advantage of the easymasher

 is that you can stir the mash at intervals during the sparge without

 upsetting the filter bed and scavenge every last bit of sugar out of the

 mash.

 js

------------------------------


Using Sanitizers of Various Sorts

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 14:18:29 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: Using Sanitizers of Various Sorts

>From: mikel@netlink.cts.com (Mike Lemons)

>Is there any scientific proof for the claim that sulfites don't

>work?  The enormous advantage of using sulfites is that no rinsing

>is required.  It seems to me that re-contaminating something with

>rinse water, after you sanitize it, totally defeats the purpose of

>sanitation!

>Chlorine and iodine must be rinsed out because they will impart bad

>flavors to the beer, but sulfites are essentially tasteless.

I personally don't use sulfites because of relatives who are allergic, so I

don't want to risk anything.  This may or may not be relevant to you.

But mainly, I can't imagine why someone would rinse after using chlorine or

iodine.  After all, if you use the recommended amounts of each in your 5

gallons of water (or however much it takes to fill your sink or fermenter),

simple air drying after draining out all the water leaves so little of

either chlorine or iodine as to be practically immeasurable.

The main problem seems to be that many people think that if the

recommendation is to use X ounces, then 10*X ounces must be 10 times

better, and 100*X ounces 100 times better.

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


Dry hopping

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 12:36:13 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Dry hopping

I tried dry hopping on my last batch for the first time.  Encountered

a few difficulties.  I used hop pellets.  When added to secondary, the

pellets hydrated nicely then floated to the top and stayed there for

the duration of secondary fermentation (~ 1 week).  When I started

racking the beer into my bottling bucket this hop head got broken up

and started sedimenting--a fair amount got siphoned into the bottling

bucket. I let it settle in the bucket for ~1/2 hr before bottling but

still got a fair amount of hop particles in the bottles, particularly

the last few bottles.

  Questions:

      What are pros & cons of pelletized vs whole hops when dry hopping?

      Any advice on removing hops when preparing to bottle?

      Alternatives to dry hopping that will give good hop nose?

WAK

|- William A Kitch                          (512) 471-4929 -|

|- Geotechnical Engineering                                -|

|- ECJ 9.227                                               -|

|- Univ of Texas at Austin, TX 78712-1076                  -|

------------------------------


More stupid carboy tricks

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 09:38:55 -0400

From: adiron!scott@uunet.UU.NET (Scott Barrett)

Subject: More stupid carboy tricks

In HBD #1112, Andy Rowan (rowan@ocean.rutgers.edu) provided a tip for

emptying a carboy more quickly by using a racking tube to break the

suction.  "Strike while the mash water's hot" I always say, so here's

another way to do it.

Begin to swirl the contents of your (still upright) carboy until you get a

good whirlpool going.  Invert the carboy quickly and swirl it strongly 2 or

3 more times.  The whirlpool effect should continue as the liquid drains

out and air will enter the carboy through the open center of the vortex.

When the carboy gets near empty, the remaining liquid will be swirling

pretty fast and will hang on the inside of the carboy's shoulders (like the

ball on a roulette wheel) rather than draining out.  Simply tilt the

inverted carboy a bit off vertical and the remaining liquid will quit its

tail-chasing and drain through the neck.

With this technique you can keep both hands on the wet carboy and don't

have to stick anything inside it.  It's also kind of fun having a white

tornado inside your draining carboy.

        Yours in brewing,

        Scott Barrett

------------------------------


Ale Grists Part I

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1993 12:55:29 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Ale Grists Part I

Ale Grists, Part I

After I posted some information a while back from HL Hind's

textbook on British brewing, from the 1930s, several people

requested that I post his data on ale grists.  My copy of

volume II finally surfaced, so here's the information.  In order

to follow it, though, there are a few things you need to know.

A quarter of malt = 336 lb.

A British barrel  = 43.2 American gallons

The numbers given under Malt. No. refer to a list of malts available

at the time Hind was writing.  The numbers 1, 4, 6, and 13 refer to

British 2-row ale malt; colors are, respectively, 4.5, 6.0, 6.0 and

4.0.  Number 14 is Moravian 2-row, color 6.5.  Nos. 19 & 20 are

"Californian" 6-row, colors 6.0 and 4.0.  No. 26 is Syrian six-row,

color 5.5.

Grists for Pale Ales (100 British barrels)

Malt. No. Quarters % of Total OG

    Extract

=========================================================

All-malt pale ale

1  16  85.1  1.055

20  3  14.9

Pale Ale with sugar and maize

6  7  37.7  1.050

14  6  32.3

26  3  14.8

Maize  1  5.5

Malt extract .5  1.9

Sugar  2  7.8

Light pale ale for bottling

4  4  27.7  1.040

13  4  27.4

19  3  19.4

Enzymic  .5  3.3

Maize  1  7.0

Sugar  3  15.2

"The use of flaked maize, rice or grits and sugar depends on the

character of the beer. Sugars add sweetness and, like flakes, reduce

the tendency to early haze formation in filtered beers, particularly

if the malt is at all under-modified. The sugars must be pale in

colour and carefully selected in accordance with the flavor required

in the beer. No. 1 and No. 2 inverts and other sugars of somewhat

similar character are suitable. The percentage of adjuncts used

varies with the type of beer, and may provide 10-25% of the total extract."

(more to come)

------------------------------


Ale Grists Part II

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1993 12:56:01 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Ale Grists Part II

Ale Grists, Part II

There is a different list of malts for the dark ales.  Number 3 is

English, color 5.5; No. 5 is Scotch, color 6.5.  Nos. 7-9 are English,

colors are 7.0, 8.0, and 7.5, respectively.  19 is Californian, color 6.0.

24 is Chilean (or similar 6-row), color 6.0.

"The malts are usually of rather lower grade than those selected for

pale ales. They are cured to a colour of 6 to 9, to give full flavour,

and it is not usually necessary to require such full modification. ...

Crystal and amber malt, particularly oak-dried amber, are frequently

used on account of their colour and flavour.  A larger percentage of sugar

is generally added in the copper than for pale ales, and darker sugars,

with more luscious flavours, are selected. No. 3 invert, good quality

raw cane sugar and proprietary mixed sugars of various descriptions,

with a little caramel, are suitable."

Grists for Mild and Dark Ales

Malt. No. Quarters % of Total OG

    Extract

=========================================================

Strong Ale

3  10  34.3  1.080

8  10  33.9

19  4  12.8

Crystal  1  3.2

Amber  1  3.2

Sugar  5  12.6

Mild Ale

5  4  24.6  1.045

9  6  35.5

19  3  16.8

Crystal  .5  2.8

Brown  .5  2.8

Sugar  4  17.5

Mild Ale

7  3  20.5  1.040

9  4  26.7

24  3  19.3

Diamber  1  6.5

Wheat malt 1  7.1

Sugar  4  19.9

(more to come)

------------------------------


Ale Grists Part III

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1993 12:56:25 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Ale Grists Part III

Ale Grists, Part III

There is a different list of malts for the dark ales.  Number 3 is

English, color 5.5; No. 5 is Scotch, color 6.5.  Nos. 7-9 are English,

colors are 7.0, 8.0, and 7.5, respectively.  19 is Californian, color 6.0.

24 is Chilean (or similar 6-row), color 6.0.

"There are a number of distinct types of stout and porter, for which

different blends of materials are used. On the one hand, are the stouts

brewed from malt only or from malt and roasted barley.  On the other,

are the sweeter stouts, for which a fairly high percentage of sugar is

employed.  The basis of the grists is a mixture of pale malt, not too

fully modified, but with a moderate diastatic activity, and either roasted

malt or roasted barley to give the requisite colour and flavour.  Roasted

barley gives a drier flavour than roasted malt and is preferred by many.

Crystal and amber malts are commonly blended with these in the sweeter

stouts. A proportion of six-rowed malt and of maize is also frequently

used, as in mild ales.  A limited percentage of oat malt or oat flakes

is included in the grists for oat malt and oatmeal stouts.  Milk stouts

generally derive their name from the lactose or milk sugar added, with

cane or other fermentable sugar, in the form of primings.  The copper

sugars are generally full flavoured and dark coloured.  Good raw cane

sugar, No. 3 invert and various mixed sugars are suitable, a sweet

caramel being added if it is desired to increase the colour without

the special flavour and aroma of roasted malt or barley.

Grist for Sweet Stout

Malt. No. Quarters % of Total OG

    Extract

=========================================================

3  6  27.6  1.060 (or 130 bbl at 1.046)

7  5  23.2

Roasted malt 3  12.1

or barley

Crystal  2  8.4

Amber  2  8.5

Sugar  6  20.2

(fini)

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 09:59:18 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Ale Grists Part III

Subject: Malt Mill

I wholeheartedly concur with James Dipalma's analysis of Jack's malt

mill. I was also impressed with Jack's own measured and thoughtful

response to the negative review of his mill. Here I simply wish to

throw in some data that was obtained from the comparison of Jack's

mill and a commercial mill.

I received Jack's mill in Jan., 1992. Shortly thereafter it was taken

to the Dallas Brewing Co. (DBC) for the test. The latter was done with

a standard and well established screen sieving procedure. This is

described for example in DeClerck, Vol. 2, pages 321-323. It in effect

consists weighing out the grain fractions that are retained on screen

meshes of diminishing width. The following is what we measured:

   ASBC          screen               grains retained, % by wt.

  screen no.     width, mm.             MM       DBC Mill

- ------------    ------------           ------    ---------

    10            2.000                 14          13

    14            1.410                 18          20

    18            1.000                 33          32

    30             .590                 25          25

    60             .250                  5           5

   100             .149                  3           2

Not Retained                             2           3

                                        ----        ----

                                        100         100

For those interested in details, the malt crushed was a Canadian 2-row

from Prairie Malting. The mill at DBC was made by Mangel, Scheuermann,

Oeters, Inc. of Huntingdon Valley, Pa. It costs around $6500. It is a

"BMW" as far as mills go for micros. A more common mill is the one made

by California Grain Milling, which costs around $2500. Those who have

visited Dave Miller's brewpub in St. Louis will have seen one. It is the

monster setting on the second floor in his grain room. Screen tests with

these mills have given similar results. It has also been my experience

that if roller mill spacing is appropriately adjusted, then this type of crush

can be obtained for any type of grain.

The commercial mills have been constructed so they can process 100 to

1000 lbs. of grain in minutes. Jack's mill can not touch that sort of

throughput. Nevertheless, the data shows that the same type of crush is

achieved.

I concluded my original review of Jack's mill by congratulating him for

producing such a good mill. I also observed it was very much worth the

price he was asking. Nothing I have seen or heard since then has altered

this opinion.

George Fix

------------------------------


That Damned Maltmill

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1993 12:59:00 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: That Damned Maltmill

Through a series of strange coincidences, I came into possession of

a MaltMill(TM).  As those who have been around awhile will atest, I

have had my differences(TM) with the MaltMill's builder so I

determined to submit it to the sort of rigorous and fair testing

only a true HBDer could provide.

My first problem arose with the box the MaltMill was shipped in.

There was so much tape on it that it required an Xacto knife to

get into the box.  Once in, I discovered the MM was crammed in

with tightly-crumpled balls of newspaper -- the Chicago Tribune --

which were rendered unreadable by this process.  This reduced my

co-worker, who hails from Chicago, to tears.  Another strike.

Once I had dragged the MM home (not easy, given its weight) and

assembled it (requiring the use of a crescent wrench!) it was clear

that if I had been able to carry the thing to the roof of my house

and throw it off, the MM would have been rendered unusable -- unlike

my Corona, which for the last several months has been propping up

the rear end of a Dodge power van in the back yard.

Having assembled the MM according to instructions and placed it on

a five-gallon bucket, I discovered that the device required me to

use my left hand to operate, even though I am right handed!  However,

after some examination, it seemed possible to Turn The Bucket Around,

so that the crank was on the right.  Why this was not explained in

the instructions, I do not know, but even more diabolical was the

fact that when I started cranking some malt through the MM, the malt

refused to grind and in fact mostly sprayed around the kitchen.

Once again, I discovered -- only through superior intelligence -- that

by cranking _the other direction_ I was able to achieve a crush.

Further deceptions:  although I had been told that I could expect to

crush enough malt for 5 gallons in 10 minutes, in real terms it took

seven!  Ha!

Conclusions:  the crush was excellent, the crush took 7 minutes rather

than the usual 30-40, and anyone who feels a need to motorize this

thing in order to do small batches of beer needs to spend a little more

time away from the computer lifting things heavier than their fingers.

One real problem: the bolt holding the wooden handle on the crank seems

to be threaded in such a way that it inevitably comes unscrewed while

cranking.  The first time it happened took me by surprise and the handle

came off; after that, I kept an eye on the bolt and tightened it as

needed.

It also looks as though I'll need to put rubber feet on my bucket, so

it doesn't slide and hop around while I'm cranking the mill.

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1113, 04/06/93

*************************************

-------


Re: Decoction/brown sugar/storagability/Wyeast1056/Allgrain problems

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 15:07 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Decoction/brown sugar/storagability/Wyeast1056/Allgrain problems

Dennis writes:

>I've noticed that I'm not the only person confused by decoction mashing. It

>seems like a lot of screwing around just to increase yield. Personally, I'd

>rather just add another pound or so of grist and not worry about it. Are there

>other benefits to decoction mashing? Clearer wort/green beer/finish product?

The dococtions do caramelize a bit and I'll bet that there would be a

slightly different flavor with a decoction mashed batch as opposed to an

infusion mashed batch with the same ingredients.  Probably not too big

a difference.  I've read somewhere that decoction mashing was primarily

a way to get consistent temperatures before the advent of the thermometer

(think about it), but the "modern" breweries that still use the decoction

method, like the brewers of Pilsner Urquell, use (I believe) a less

modified malt which would require triple decoction for reasonable yields.

>Noonan says to remove "the heaviest third" of the mash. I suppose that does

>not include any grains since you will eventually boil it. This is really hard

>to do for those of us who mash in a pot on the stove instead of in a Gott

>cooler. Anyway, his directions are "marginal" (I'm being nice) in the

>decoction specifics.

No, the heaviest third DOES include grain.  A few months ago, Darryl

Richman finally cleared up the reason that the decoctions did not

extract gobs of tannins: its the pH!  Indeed, the decoction mashing

method would work much better in a cooler than a kettle.

>

>At any rate, I'm very happy with multi-rest infusion mashes and the decoction

>stuff is simply a curiousity. Maybe I'll try it if I have an entire Saturday

>to blow on it.

Try a tried-and-true recipe and let us know how the beers compare, infusion

vs. decoction.

**********************

Chris writes:

>In Dave Line's book, Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy, he gives

>directions for making an extract version of Fuller's ESB.  In his

>directions he states that the brown sugar should be added to warm

>water and then added to the cooling wort (after boiling).  I have

>always thought that any sugars should be added along with the

>malt.  Is anyone aware of any advantages to adding brown sugar

>after the boil?

I'd recommend against it.  Many suggestions in those older homebrewing

books from England are full of errors.  Naturally, boiling anything

will tend to diminish aromatics (consider hops), and perhaps it would

be best to add the brown sugar in the last 5 minutes of the boil --

just long enough to sanitize, but minimizing any loss of aromatics.

********************

Rafael writes:

> As a beginner I'd like to ask a probably FAQ. Once the beer is

> bottled, How many weeks can I keep the beer (no preservatives, no

> pasteurization) before it gets undrinkable?

No, it's not that frequently asked... actually.  The answer is, depends.

On average, I'd say a homebrewed, unfiltered beer, stored at 65F would

be perfect for two months and then slowly begin to decline in quality.

Unless infected, most homebrew would be drinkable for more than a year.

The following factors *increase* storagablity:

high alcohol,

high hop rate,

cold,

oxygen-scavenging bottlcaps (PureSeal(tm), aka Smartcaps(tm)),

small headspace in the bottle, and

stable yeast strain.

The following factors *decrease* storagablity:

bacterial infection,

wild yeast infection,

aeration during bottling,

large headspace in the bottle,

heat,

light, and

unstable yeast strain.

**************************

Jonathan writes:

>Now on to my next adventure.  I'm making a pale ale (actually it's making

>itself right now) with some Wyeast 1056 "American" right out of the packet

>via a DME starter solution.  On the sixth day it was still bubbling at about

>three per minute, but as the krausen had subsided I racked to secondary

>anyway, and tossed in the dry-hopping pellets.  Within a day or two, what did

>to my wondering eyes appear but a KRAUSEN in the secondary!  Coming up on two

>weeks now, it's still bubbling between one and two per minute.  I have made

>ales this year with American, British, Irish, and London, and I have never

>had yeast behave in this manner (including a previous "American" two

>batches)!!  My basement has been around 60-62 F. all winter, but this is the

>first time I have had such a slow fermentation.  What should I do (besides of

>course RDWHAH)?

Wyeast #1056 tends to be slow in general and, although it has been reported

to ferment down to 55F, I've heard that it should be fermented well above

60F.  I proved this with a recent batch.  As the fermentation temperature

approaches 60F, the yeast slows down to a crawl.  I suggest you find a

way to warm it up to about 65F.  1056 also tends to lose all its "ale"

character in the low 60s.

***************************

Jim writes:

>Made a beer today with the following ingredients

>

>3lbs belgain pilsner malt

>

>4 pounds belgian pale ale malt

>

>8 ounces caravienne

>

>Mashed in 2 gallons of distilled water at ~154 for 1.25 hours at which time

>the iodine test was negative.  The pH of mash was around 5.2.  Used a Zapap

>type lauter tun with grain bag.  Recirculated about 0.5 gallons.  Used

>distilled water for sparging.  Placed a pie plate on top of grain bed and

>added water at about 165.  Also mashed out at 170.  Sparged till gravity

>was 1.008 .Ph of run off was still around 5.5.  Collected about 7 gallons

>of wort.  Gravity after boiling down to about 6 gallons was only 1.028.

>Where did I go wrong?

I would suspect two areas of problems: 1) a very bad crush, or 2) channelling

in your lauter tun.  Was the "grain bag" the kind with cloth sides and a

mesh bottom (the right kind) or the kind that's mesh-all-over.  The

mesh-all-over type have a tendancy to allow all the sparge water to head

immediately to the sides of the bucket and the channelling at the sides

pulls all the sparge water along the wall of the bucket and not through

the grain.

Al.

------------------------------


re:  Using Sulphites

Date: Mon, 05 Apr 93 13:17:43 PDT

From: mikel@netlink.cts.com (Mike Lemons)

Subject: re:  Using Sulphites

In my previous message I stated that iodine sanitizers must be rinsed

off.  This is not true.  Iodophor does not require rinsing.

I just read an article in _The Beverage People News_ that states that

sulfites do not kill bacteria, they only "stun" them.  I immediately got

this mental image of a bacterium laying on its back with its feet

twitching

in the air.  I don't know how you could tell if a bacterium has been

"stunned."

- --

INTERNET:  mikel@netlink.cts.com (Mike Lemons)

UUCP:   ...!ryptyde!netlink!mikel

NetLink Online Communications * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115

------------------------------


re:      ICE BEER is here

Date: Mon, 05 Apr 93 13:20:27 PDT

From: mikel@netlink.cts.com (Mike Lemons)

Subject: re:      ICE BEER is here

John Adams <j_adams@hpfcjca.sde.hp.com> writes:

>The beer is frozen as so that the water can be removed thus leaving a

more

>potent liquid behind.

I believe that the government frowns on this practice as they do on home

still production.  I'd keep quiet about it or you might have "revenuers"

knocking on your door.

- --

INTERNET:  mikel@netlink.cts.com (Mike Lemons)

UUCP:   ...!ryptyde!netlink!mikel

NetLink Online Communications * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115

------------------------------


Unusual recipies

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 15:29:20 -0500

From: devenzia@euler.jsc.nasa.gov (John Devenezia)

Subject: Unusual recipies

I posted this request to rec.crafts.brewing on the

network and due to lack of response decidied to widen

the call.

When I got started in the wonderful world of homebrewing

18 months and 18 batches ago I quickly found myself making

some, for the lack of a better word, unusual beers.  Not

at all the beers I envisioned myself creating when I started.

I figured I could buy just about any style of beer I wanted

and the main reason for me to homebrew was to create something

not commercially available.

I started with the wheat beers, whose light palette lends

themselves to an easy bastardization.  Cherry and raspberry

batches were not very adventurous so the great watermelon

experiment was performed.   From there spruce and chocolate,

whit and kriek. Molasses, honey and maple syrup. Yes it was

enough to make a beer purist shudder.  Rhienhosptgiet, why

I don't even know how to spell it.

To make a somewhat long story somewhat shorter, my last batch

has some of my friends questioning my hold on reality.  Captain

Crunch Crunchberries and strawberry poptart ale.

*_Here is call for all you would be gross-out artists to brag._*

I would like to receive a description of all of your most

adventurous, innovative or just plain wacky experiments.

They don't have to be tasty; for by our failures we

learn as much, if not more, as by our successes.  Extra points

for leaving the vegetarian nature of brewing.

I will compile and post.

John D.

devenzia@euler.jsc.nasa.gov

------------------------------


eternal ferment

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1993 17:57:05 -1100

From: Kirk_Anderson@wheatonma.edu (Kirk Anderson)

Subject: eternal ferment

Hello Brew Sages:

A few weeks ago, I asked you what you thought about my 'nonstop fermentation'

and the concensus was that I should not throw the stuff out but check the

airlock and the S.G.  I won't print the recipe again.  Suffice to say it's

an extract brew with half a pound of maple syrup and 2 oz of apricot

flavoring intended for wines, and Edme dry yeast.

Update: now after eight weeks, it ain't over.  The airlock is still giving

a feeble 'glug' once every 70 seconds.  The color got noticeably darker.

No off flavors to suggest contamination. Specific gravity down to about 1.009

(I think).

Question: can I bottle this now?  I'd really like to get on to my next batch

and only have one carboy.  But I'd hate to ruin this one just because I

got impatient.  If I do bottle, should I decrease priming sugar from the

standard 3/4 cup?

As long as I've got your collective ear: I just enjoyed some Catamount

porter.  Is this a good example of the style?

Hell, someone's got to ask all the questions around here.

Kirk

********************************

Kirk Anderson, Dept. of French

Wheaton College, Norton MA 02766                   <Kirk_Anderson@Wheatonma.edu>

   *************************

------------------------------


Macintosh search program

Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1993 15:09:45 MDT

From: John Landreman X1786 <jlandreman@atmel.com>

Subject: Macintosh search program

>From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

>Has any computer-wiz out there written a Thread-like program that can run on

>the Macintosh computer? Or do you know of an already existing software that

>can be used to search digests and create subsets of them following a specific

>keyword? Thanks in advance. Nir.

I use Super Boomerang. This program is included in the Now Utilities package

from Now Software. It has a Find command which will scan every file on a disk

(hard or floppy) for a keyword. The name of every file with the keyword is

displayed. You can then choose one of the files and the program will display a

three line section containing the keyword to see how it is used in context.

This is helpful if you use the keyword "hops" to look for posts on growing

hops as opposed to using hops in brewing beer. If the keyword is used more

than once in a file you can view each occurrance in context. After you are

done looking through a file you can select another file from the list

displayed.

John

------------------------------


Fridge defrosting

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 17:46:47 -0400

From: cestes@argos5.DNET.NASA.GOV (Chris Estes)

Subject: Fridge defrosting

Hi All..

I recently came into an old Beermeister; a litle 'fridge with a standard

and tap mounted on the top.  It needed a little modification to take the

5 gallon soda kegs - a bit too tall.  It works great, and I'm really

happy, except that the cooling element (?) gets a bunch of frost buildup

on it.  The cooling mechanism in this device looks _very_ primitive.

I was wondering if I hooked a Hunter  AirStat up to it, could I program it

in some way that might let it have a "defrost" phase?  Does anyone else have

any experience with this?  Should I just learn to live with it and throw it

out on the back porch for a few days every six months?

On another note, how long should I expect my 20lb CO2 tank to last?  I got

it last summer and have made at least 10 batches of beer since then.  I

also use it to push the sterilizer out of the keg when cleaning it.  The

pressure gauge for the high side hasn't really moved.

Any ideas???

 -Chris Estes-

cestes@argos5.dnet.nasa.gov

------------------------------


Re: Heading Agent

Date:    Mon, 05 Apr 93 19:02 EDT

From: Phil Bardsley                        <UPHILB@UNCMVS.OIT.UNC.EDU>

Subject: Re: Heading Agent

My local homebrew shop also sells small packets of off-white

"heading agent."  I didn't ask the manufacturer's name, but I

did ask about the contents:  "ground bark of the gum acacia

tree" I was told.  It's pupose is to reduce surface tension.

I use it all the time by adding it to my priming sugar before

adding water and boiling.  It's probably not necessary if you

have very clean utensils and beer glasses, but it helps fight

off detergents, oils, and other head killers that tend to

creep into the brews we less careful brewers produce.  Anyway,

at 1/2 tsp per 5 gals, it goes a long way.  Back when I brewed

only extract I noticed a definite improvement using it.  I

suspect I don't need it now that I brew all grain, but I'm in

the habit.

------------------------------


RE: Decoction Mashing

Date: Mon,  5 Apr 93 12:59:11 PDT

From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

Subject: RE: Decoction Mashing

Dennis B. Lewis<dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov> writes:

>  I've noticed that I'm not the only person confused by decoction mashing. It

>  seems like a lot of screwing around just to increase yield. Personally, I'd

>  rather just add another pound or so of grist and not worry about it.

Are there

>  other benefits to decoction mashing? Clearer wort/green beer/finish product?

Decoction is technique that provides other benefits besides additional

extract.  It coagulates more proteins and therefore produces a clearer,

more stable product.  It also aids in melanoidin formation, which can

increase the perception of the malty character of your beer, as well as

adding some color.  It gains the extra extract by completely

solibulizing all of the starch from the malt, which can also lead to

clearer, more stable beer.  It tends to remove more of the DMS

character that will come from lightly kilned malts, and makes the wort

more compatible with sulfury hops and/or yeast that accentuate sulfur

character.

>  Noonan says to remove "the heaviest third" of the mash. I suppose that does

>  not include any grains since you will eventually boil it. This is

really hard

>  to do for those of us who mash in a pot on the stove instead of in a Gott

>  cooler. Anyway, his directions are "marginal" (I'm being nice) in the

>  decoction specifics.

No, the heaviest third does include malt solids.  You do actually boil

the malt, husks and all.  (The next question is always "Why doesn't

this extract tannins from the husks?";  I believe that the pH controls

this extraction, and since the pH of the decoct is in the low 5's, none

is extracted.  Hot water above pH 6 will extract tannins.)  For a first

try at decoction, I would recommend pulling more than 1/3 -- perhaps

40% -- since many variables are at work in determining whether your

rest temperature is achieved (amount of cooling in transport of decoct

back into the mash tun, how much the decoct cools as you add it back,

etc.)  By returning the decoct slowly, you can observe the temperature

rise;  if you have too much, you can cool the remaining decoct after

the rest temperature is achieved with cold water.

>  At any rate, I'm very happy with multi-rest infusion mashes and the

decoction

>  stuff is simply a curiousity. Maybe I'll try it if I have an entire Saturday

>  to blow on it.

I did spend all day with my first decoction.  Part of that was due to

it going from a planned two decoction mash to a four decoction, because

I was far short of my temperature marks.  But having got beyond that,

decoction requires less equipment than a step infusion, and I believe,

produces a different spectrum of flavors and aromas.

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------


Carbonation in bottle-primed beer

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 10:09:08 PDT

From: alm@brewery.ht.intel.com (Al Marshall)

Subject: Carbonation in bottle-primed beer

Can someone recommend a technique for making bottle carbonation

a little more predictable without investing in counterpressure

filling?  By predictable, I mean time to condition, and carbonation

level.  Does anyone have experience with pitching fresh yeast when

priming, and how exactly do you do it?

By way of example, I have 5 gallons of porter in bottles

which are absolutely flat (and no yeast sediment)

after 1 week from priming with 1 pt water and

1/2 cup corn sugar and conditioning at 65F.  Although this period

is a little brief, my experience would indicate that I am in for

a long wait for carbonation if there is no carbonation at all at this

point.  I've noticed this problem in moderately (1055) to very (109X)

big beers which spent a long time in secondary.

If I get any attractive ideas, I'll implement them on the other half of

the batch.  Unfortunately, the experiment

will not be very scientific, as the

in-bottle half is Wyeast 1028 whereas the in-secondary half is

bottle-cultured Sierra Nevada.

By the way, I think there is some kind of natural law that makes

these problems occur on beer that is absolutely delicious :-).

Thanks in advance...

 -- Al Marshall

------------------------------


Miles of dense surface troooob

Date: Monday,  5 April 93 19:33:49 CST

From: LLROW@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: Miles of dense surface troooob

I brewed a scotch ale last night,  and noticed today a curious thing.

On the bottom of the carboy lies a thick (4-5 inches) layer of trub.

The fermentation is going full speed (no noticible blowoff though in it's

19th hour of fermentation) but the yeast sems to be collecting on top

of this layer of dense fermentables rather than eating into it.  I used

Irish moss with this batch, and haven't done so in months.  Is this

normal for beers brewed with the stuff?I'm gonna give it a few days yet

to see what happens, but the seperation in both color  and consistency

between the top and bottom is remarkable.  For those out there interested

in this mystery:  I used pellets not whole hops and partial mash with

3#syrup/3#dry extract and 1#munich/1#crystal/ 1/2# roasted.

Any comments/ helpful words of wisdom?

steve rowell

llrow@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

------------------------------


requesting a good hard cider recipe

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1993 23:45 PST

From: SMEED_J%PLU.BITNET@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu

Subject: requesting a good hard cider recipe

Hi all, I was just talking to a friend of mine, who incidentally is a

hard cider freak,about helping me make a batch of beer next month and

she asked me if I knew how to make hard cider.  Well, to tell the

truth untill now I hadn't really given it much thought.  But, I told

her I would try as soon as I got a recipe.  If any of you out there

have a good recipe for hard cider and wouldn't mind sharing it with me

please either post it here or email it too me at:  SMEED_J@PLU.BITNET

Thanks for the help,  Jeff Smeed

------------------------------


Re: More stupid carboy tricks

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 07:20 EST

From: tmr1@hotlg.att.com

Subject: Re: More stupid carboy tricks

In HBD #113, Scott Barrett mentions:

> Begin to swirl the contents of your (still upright) carboy until you get a

> good whirlpool going.  Invert the carboy quickly and swirl it strongly 2 or

> 3 more times.  The whirlpool effect should continue as the liquid drains

> out and air will enter the carboy through the open center of the vortex.

I also use this technique with my bottles to drain them of washing, rinsing

or sterilizing water before using my faucet bottle rinser.  With the bottle

inverted, 2 or 3 swirls drains them in about 1/3 the time it would normally

take them to gurgle empty.  When doing this with 40 bottles, it saves a lot

of time.

                                                Tom Romalewski

------------------------------


beer from Brussels/Antwerp - BBrite effectiveness

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 08:46:04 EDT

From: hpfcla!vjb%mtgzfs3.gaz.att.com (Victor J Bartash +1 908 957 5633)

Subject: beer from Brussels/Antwerp - BBrite effectiveness

A buddy of mine will be spending the next 5 months working in

Brussels and Antwerp and has offered to bring me back some beer.

Any suggestions on local brews to bring back? I like all types of beer

(except those that taste watered down).

On sanitation, I have brewing 4 years now and use partial mashes. I did

have one gusher my first year but haven't had any real problems since.

I use BBrite soaks and cleaning for 5 - 10 minutes followed by a little

rinsing by tapwater on my brewing equipment and soak

my bottles in bleach solution overnight. I now plan on

storing some beer in bottles longer than the 4 or so months they last

now to maybe 8 months. I usually don't brew from May to August and would

like to store a variety of beers styles (I usually have 5 or 6 at any time

during my "brew season") over the summer in my basement (~68 degrees).

However, I have been wondering if BBrite soaks and cleaning for 5-10

minutes is sufficient. Since any batch doesn't last past 4 months, I don't

know for sure that there haven't been slight infections that are not

apparent after 4 months but that could be a problem at 8 months.

To summarize: how effective is BBrite used in short (5-10 min) durations

as a sanitizer?

    Vic Bartash

------------------------------


Re: Failure of first All grain

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 09:25:54 -0400

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Re: Failure of first All grain

JLIDDIL@AZCC.Arizona.EDU (Jim Liddil) writes:

> Used distilled water for sparging.

> Gravity after boiling down to about 6 gallons was only 1.028.

> Where did I go wrong?

What was the pH of the sparge water ?

I've found that acidifying it (pH 5.5 or so) helps my extraction rates.

How good was the filter action ?  Did the sparge water run completely

through the grain bed, or was some/most of it channeled though, without

contacting the grain ?

 Tim

------------------------------


RE: decoction, first all grain

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 09:26:58 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: decoction, first all grain

Hi All,

 In HBD#1112, Dennis B. Lewis writes:

>I've noticed that I'm not the only person confused by decoction mashing. It

>seems like a lot of screwing around just to increase yield. Personally, I'd

>rather just add another pound or so of grist and not worry about it. Are there

>other benefits to decoction mashing? Clearer wort/green beer/finish product?

  Higher yield is just one benefit of decoction mashing.  The gelatinization

of insoluble starch and reduction of high molecular weight proteins that

occurs during decoction mashing produce a wonderfully clear, clean-tasting

finshed product.

  There are also certain styles that benefit greatly from decoction mashing.

I use this type of mashing for wheat beers, because of the proteins, and

for Bohemian pilsners and any German lagers that require a malty character.

IMHO, decoction mashing produces an incredible malt character, in both the

nose and the flavor of a beer.  I have never been able to produce the same

effect with infusion mashing, regardless of ingredients used or how high

the saccharification rest temperature was held.

>Noonan says to remove "the heaviest third" of the mash. I suppose that does

>not include any grains since you will eventually boil it.

Removing the "heaviest third" of the mash is also called a thick

decoction, and involves removing mostly grain and very little liquid.

I assume your concern is that boiling the grain will extract tannins

from the husks, and cause astringency in the final product.  Due to the

low pH of the mash being boiled, this does not occur.

>This is really hard

>to do for those of us who mash in a pot on the stove instead of in a Gott

When I use decoction mashing, I do the first saccharification rest

using exactly this method, by heating the thick decoction to 152F-155F

and holding that temperature for 30 minutes, essentially doing stove

top mashing.

>Maybe I'll try it if I have an entire Saturday

>to blow on it.

The decoction procedure I use requires 2 - 2.5 hours for mashing, or about

one hour longer than it takes me to do a single infusion mash.  I've done

about 20 batches using decoction mashing, it has never taken all day.

**************************************************************************

Also in HBD#1112, Jim Liddil writes of his first all grain batch:

First, let me congratulate you on becoming one of the snobbish elite :-)

>3lbs belgain pilsner malt

>4 pounds belgian pale ale malt

>8 ounces caravienne

>

>Mashed in 2 gallons of distilled water at ~154 for 1.25 hours at which time the

>iodine test was negative.  The pH of mash was around 5.2.  Used a Zapap type

>lauter tun with grain bag.  Recirculated about 0.5 gallons.  Used distilled

>water for sparging.  Placed a pie plate on top of grain bed and added water at

>about 165.  Also mashed out at 170.  Sparged till gravity was 1.008 .Ph of run

>off was still around 5.5.  Collected about 7 gallons of wort.  Gravity after

>boiling down to about 6 gallons was only 1.028.  Where did I go wrong?

   I'd like to commend you on where you went right.  You seem to have the

basics of sparging down, recirculating the initial runoff, sparging with

water at a reasonable temperature, sparging for a reasonable duration,

monitoring the pH of the mash and of the wort going to the boiler.

Actually, you did many things "right".

   I'm assuming your concern is with your extraction rate, let's see:

 28 * 6 / 7.25lbs means your sparge extraction was around 24pts/lb/gal,

bearing in mind that the gravity was measured after the boil, which will

lower the gravity somewhat.  This is not terrible extraction, especially for

a first effort.  It's a little difficult to offer suggestions to improve

your extraction without more details of your process, but I can mention some

things to look out for that do impact extraction.

   What was your crush like?  Ideally, each kernel should be broken into

several small pieces, and the husks left intact.  If you had large chunks

of kernel or uncrushed grains in your crush, this will reduce your

extraction.  Try grinding as fine as possible without pulverizing the

husks.

   How fast did you sparge?  While there has been no consensus in this

forum on what the "correct" runoff rate is, my experience was that my

extraction dropped when I tried to run the wort off faster than 1 gallon

per 8 minutes, or about 45 minutes to collect 6 gallons.  I use the Zapap

system as well.  If you completed sparging in less than 45 minutes, try

running off the wort a little more slowly.

 Not directly related to extraction, this is more of a recipe design

issue, but a little over 7 pounds of grain sounds a little light for a 6

gallon brew length.  This is, of course, dependant on what your target OG

was, and the efficiency of your specific system.  This latter point is key

to recipe design, you must know what level of extraction your system will

consistently produce in order to figure out the grain bill.  If you want a

higher gravity brew, try boiling down to 5 gallons, or if you're brewing

a 6 gallon batch, use another 1-2 pounds of base malt.

 I'm not sure about the use of distilled water either, everything I've

read suggests that this is not a good idea.  I can't quite recall why,

something to do with lack of necessary ions in the water.  Maybe someone

with a chemistry background can jump in here.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


All-grain troubles

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 13:48 GMT

From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>

Subject: All-grain troubles

Jim Liddil recently described his problems with an all-grain batch using

7 lbs of pale malts and 1/2 lb of crystal.  He got something on the order

of 6 gallons of wort at 1.028, and asked what he could have done better.

First, there was nothing wrong with your technique or equipment.  I used

equipment almost identical to yours, including a piece of window screen

in the base of my Zapap (almost eqivalent to your grain bag).  In fact,

my last batch had a grain bill almost identical to yours--7 lbs pale malt,

1 lb crystal.  Here are some observations.

1) What were you trying to make?  This is an excellent grain bill for a

British bitter (I ended at OG 1.037), but if you were shooting higher you'd

need more malt.  Assume for the time being that you'll be able to raise

the OG of one gallon by 25 points for every pound of malt you use.  As your

technique gets better you will get more.

2) If things don't work out well, there are some things you can do.  In

no special order:

 a. Add some extract.  This has the advantage of allowing you to

finish at any volume you want, regardless of the amount of sugar you have

(or have not) obtained from your grain.  The amount you add is likely to

be trivial in comparison to the grain, so don't get hyper about purity.

 b. Boil more.  You ended up with 6 gallons from a 7 gallon sparge.

For instance, I started with 6.15 gallons that I boiled down to 4.5 or so,

then topped up to 5.3 with tap water to get the desired gravity.  You

could have continued boiling to about 4.5 gallons and have been on target

for a bitter.  You'd have to boil a long time to get to 1.055, though.

 c. Boil less.  This is appropriate if you get MORE sugar from you

grain than expected.  In effect, you're increasing the dilution.

Several issues back there was a good article on hitting target gravities in

Zymurgy (the mead issue), which included a chart for converting gravities

depending on the temperature of the sample.  You'll need it.  The rule in

all-grain brewing is not to base your brewing expectations on the amount

of finished beer you want, as this will constantly vary somewhat depending

on your extraction.  I'm on my fourth all-grainer; the first three left me

with 4.3-4.5 gallons at the end of fermentation, but this last one will

probably leave me with well over 5 gallons, as I was able to pull more sugar

out.

 My procedure, in line with the above-mentioned article, is to do

my sparge to 1.008, then mix the wort well and take a gravity reading and

figure out how much wort I have.  For instance (from memory) I had 6.15

gallons at 1.033 before boiling on the bitter.  Since boiling vents off

liquid but very little sugar, I could estimate a final yield of 5.5 gallons

at 1.037.  (My apologies if these numbers don't add up exactly--I leave

my brain at home when I come to work).  Basically, you just fiddle with the

volume and gravity until you get the match you want.

 For those who use those 32 qt. seafood cookers like mine, I've found

that 3 cm of liquid depth (measured at the center of the pot) equals one

gallon of liquid.  I just stick a spoon into the center, then measure the

liquid level by marking the spoon.  This gets trickier when the liquid is

boiling, but that's life.  Anyway, I knew I had 6.15 gallons because the

liquid was 18.5 cm deep.

 Hope this helps.

Phil Seitz

PSEITZ@MCIMAIL.COM

Arlington, VA

------------------------------


my diatribe on styles

Date: Tue, 06 Apr 1993 10:20:55 EDT

From: Jay Hersh <hersh@expo.lcs.mit.edu>

Subject: my diatribe on styles

Howdy folks, once again questions of validity on judging to style have

once again popped up here. The following is an artcile I posted to

rec.crafts.brewing in the past on this issue. It was also reprinted

in the Wort Processors Newsletter, and Pat Baker (of Crosby and Baker

and the HWBTA representative to the Beer Judge Certification Program)

expressed an interest in possibly using it for future BJCP materials.

Since it has been well received I figured I'd post it here in the hopes

of better explaining why styles are useful and where they fall short.

 JaH

Q:  I have a hard time with style definitions and judges' comments since I

often look at certain flavor profiles as "defects."  Can you help me?

A:  Defect is a harsh word. There are a lot of flavors present in beer. These

arise from a variety of sources and vary widely with the style and the process.

Often characteristic flavors are strongly related to traditional processes used

to produce a certain style of beer.  As George Fix has indicated one can not

divorce the flavor of a particular style from its history.

So characteristics that are a desirable flavor in one beer are indeed

considered a defect in another, but this is not a random designation. This

arises from an understanding of the history, ingredients, and process in which

that beer is made.  For most of the styles used in competitions there is a

reasonable consensus as to what the characteristics of that style are.  The

styles are not defined in a vacuum, rather they arise from a cross section of

commercial beers that designate themselves to be of those styles as well as

what I mentioned above (history, etc.).

Homebrewing is a hobby/art/science whereby a brewer tries to create a product

that expresses themselves, pleases their taste (and their friends tastes), and

possibly also to create an existing recipe/style. If a particular brewer

considers the presence of a certain flavor as desirable that others may find

offensive, that is OK. The brewer is suiting their taste.  It has been said that

there are as many styles as there are beers being brewed and in a sense that is

true. But that also makes it impossible to try to impose any objectivity on the

judging process, a process that by its very nature is subjective.  In order to

have any means for comparison that tries to impose some level of objectivity,

the concept of styles has arisen.  This concept is not unique to beer.  Wine has

this concept as well and this concept also serves marketing purposes in that it

can promote (as well as confuse, i.e. Cranberry Lambic sic....) competition by

presenting a brewer's offerings to be in a range of flavor characteristics that

includes that brewers competitors.

Styles exist as a mark by which those seeking competition can judge themselves.

An old friend used to offer up beers to me for my advice on his recipe

concoction.  He would ask me what to do to his recipe. I would ask him what

style he was trying for, or at least in his mind what he wanted the beer to

taste like.  He would get a little irritated since he previously was adamant

about styles not mattering.  I then posed the parable to him that he was like a

lost person asking directions without knowing where he was trying to go.

To finally beat this point to death I'd use a cooking comparison.  If you wanted

to make chocolate chip cookies you'd want a recipe.  While there is variation

among this style of cookie from household to household, and manufacturer to

manufacturer, people can still tell chocolate chip cookies from sugar cookies,

etc.  If you were to set out to make them you'd want some guidelines as to what

the recipe might include and what the final product should taste like.

With regard to beer I think most judges would agree that there are only a few

flavors that would universally be classified as defects.  Most others are

characteristic flavors which may or may not be suitable for style.

I hope this explains a little more about style and judging.

- ------- End of Message

------------------------------


phils/sparging

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 09:19:40 -0500

From: Michael D. Galloway <mgx@ornl.gov>

Subject: phils/sparging

Phils Phalse Bottom Users:

Am I the only PPBU who has trouble getting his runoff to clear?

I suspect that I am getting an improper grind of my grain at my

local supply shop and that this is causing my problem.  I am just

curious about how much recirculating other PPBUs do to get their

worts to clear.  All the other aspects of the brewing process are

going great!  If I could just get the runoff to clear!

Email me direct to save bandwidth.

Michael D. Galloway

mgx@ornl.gov

Living in the WasteLand

------------------------------


Goose Island hosts First Round nationals

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 9:30:27 CDT

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: Goose Island hosts First Round nationals

Steve Hamburg posted the announcement to recent judgenets and hbd.

Note that the event is the weekend of June 11 - 13.

Someone asked about delivery of the beer.  You can mail or hand-deliver

your beer to the Goose Island Brewery.  So as to minimize the hassle

to them, please try to do it during the designated time period.  I

don't have the dates with me, but the timing is something like May 13

through May 21.

------------------------------


`Breathing' of wine

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 11:18 EST

From: KURZ@GANESA.PFC.MIT.EDU

Subject: `Breathing' of wine

> We all know what evils to expect of beer that gets oxidized after fermenting

> and the need for quiet racking and transfer.  However, wine drinkers also

> know that good red wine needs to "breathe", which of course is, a snob word

> for oxidize.

I beg to differ.  From my experience in wine making and my limited

qualities as a wine connoisseur I believe that what is commonly referred

to as "breathing" has nothing to do with oxidation.  Usually when you

pour a red wine from the bottle (i.e. decant it) you don't drink it

immediately.  Instead, you let it `breath' in a caraffe for some time

(half an hour to one hour or so).  The rationale is to let it develop

its bouquet.  Some volatile substances in the wine evaporate and

saturate the air immediately above the wine (that's also, by the way,

one of the reasons why you should serve red wine in big, wide glasses;

so as to retain the `aromatic air', i,e, the bouquet).  There is no

oxidation involved (to my knowledge).  That would take much longer.

There is a commonly recognized off-taste in wine which is caused by

oxidation.  Usually everyone strives hard to avoid it.

On the other hand, there is also a specific category of wines which get

their distinctive flavor from this particular oxidation off-taste:

Sherry.  One goes through great pains to ensure that Sherry wines get

enough air to develop this flavor.  I don't know that this is known as

`brething'.

------------------------------


enzyme potential

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 11:30:03 -0400

From: cm199@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Thomas G. Moore)

Subject: enzyme potential

Does anybody know of the enzyme potential of Belgian 2-row pale

ale malt from Dewolf-Cosyns? Would I need to mash with some

Klages to get quicker conversion? Thanks in advance.

- --

Thomas G. Moore

cm199@cleveland.freenet.edu

------------------------------


culturing belgian yeast from bottles (?)

Date: 06 Apr 1993 12:38:12 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: culturing belgian yeast from bottles (?)

I would like to culture the yeast from Duvel and Steendonk (a Wit) in order

to produce a strong belgian ale and a wit, respectively.  My questions are:

is the bottle conditioning yeast the same as the fermentation yeast?  Does

the high alcohol content of Duvel (or Maredsous for that matter) harm the

yeast?  Has anyone had any luck brewing beer from yeast cultured from Duvel

or Steendonk?  Can you plate the yeast directly, or should you (I) make a

starter by adding fresh wort to the bottle dregs?

 thanks

 ed

  ------------

  Ed Hitchcock    *-----------------------*

  Dept of Anatomy and Neurobiology |    |

  Dalhousie University    |     JUST BREW IT |

  Halifax, Nova Scotia   |   |

  ech@ac.dal.ca    *-----------------------*

------------------------------


Re: Immersion cooler length

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 10:27:32 -0600

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Re: Immersion cooler length

John DeCarlo writes:

>Let me interject personal observation from my 15 ft. copper coil. Probably

>more than a foot is outside the wort, say one foot on each end, making 13

>ft. in the wort.  I think that is too long.  Why?  Because the water comes

>out boiling hot at the other end.

You could say this tubing is too long; on the other hand, it is equally

accurate to say your flow rate is too low.  Increasing the flow rate

would result in cooler water coming out, and more (quicker) cooling of

the wort. Also, this tubing may be too long during the initial stages

of cooling, when cooling is very efficient due to the high temerature

differential, but it may still be inadequate during the latter stages

of cooling, when the temperature differential is much lower.  How long

does it take you to cool your wort?

>Anyone who really knows what they are talking about willing to resolve this

>issue?  Are there completely overlooked issues, such as increased

>efficiency with longer tubing as wort and source water temperatures get

>closer? [So I just made this up and don't think it likely.  Sue me.]

Trained as a chemical engineer, I can affirm that the calculations

involved here are indeed complex, involving not only aspects of the

flow inside the tubing (water temp, flow rate, tube diameter, thickness

and age of the tube, etc.) but also effects _outside_ the tube, in your

pot (geometry of the coil, pot, amount of stirring, etc.).  It would be

very difficult to come up with a formula that takes all of these

factors into account for the wide variety of setups that HB'ers use.

(Of course, having said this, some upstart will soon do just that, if

only to make me look foolish :) ).

As an aside, try this: when your cooling water outflow begins to drop

in temperature, try gently stirring the hot wort.  The temperature of

the outflow water should immediately shoot back up to almost boiling!

This indicates the effect of pot convection/stirring on the heat

transfer rate.

My own cooler is about 30 feet of 3/8" copper tubing, wrapped in a 12"

(?) diameter coil. I connect this to my house cold water line, and can

force enough cold water through it to keep the outflow warm (as oposed

to John's boiling hot). Thus, with my combination of tubing and water,

30 feet is not too long, and I can cool my wort to 65F in about 15

minutes.

So, the length of tubing you will need depends on, among other things,

your cooling water temperature and flow rate, and just how fast you

need to cool your wort.

Kelly Jones   <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1114, 04/07/93

*************************************

-------


Warp-speed Fermentation (?)

Date:    Tue, 06 Apr 93 11:28 CDT

From: XLPSJGN%LUCCPUA.BITNET@UICVM.UIC.EDU

Subject: Warp-speed Fermentation (?)

Dear Brewers,

Last Friday night, I brewed up a 5-gal. batch of ale with the following

ingrediants:

  6.6 # M&F Light Malt extract syrup (unhopped)

  1#    crystal malt

  1 oz. cascade for boil

  1/2 oz Northern Brewer for finish

  1/2 oz Northern Brewer for aroma

  Wyeast liquid British Ale yeast, made with a starter last Wed.

I followed a typical Papezian-type method of steeping the specialty

grains before boiling the hops and extract for an hour and cooling.  No

sparging, as I used pellets.  Unfortunately, I neglected to get an

original gravity reading (it was quite late).  However, I racked last

night to the 5-gal. carboy (I didn't use the blow-off method that

Papezian advocates), took a hydrometer reading and tasted the brew.

So here's my question:  the reading was at 1.010, and the flavor and

aroma then was quite good, but it needed clarification.  Is it

possible that all of the fermentables could have been fermented out

within that short of time?  I'm estimating, given the ingrediants

and amount of water, that the original gravity was somewhere around

1.040 or slightly higher (?).  If indeed the fermentation's finished -

rather than stuck (drag!) - is it better to let it clarify in the

carboy or the bottles?

Thanx in advance for any responses and directions.  And thanks in

response to all who answered my querry about brew clubs in the Atlanta

area; my brother's brewin' just fine!

Cheers!

John

------------------------------


Yeast, Kegging

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 11:42 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Yeast, Kegging

 >From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

 >There is an increased risk associated with "dipping" a loop into a slant

 repeatedly.  I would advise restreaking to a single cell at least

 once a year.  In theory it can last for years, but why risk it?

 If you are already culturing yeasts, then what is the extra plate and

 slant once a year to ensure clean yeast?....

 I guess I am more concerned about the risk of making it sound so complicated

 that people are intimidated.  For the person who has never done any of this

 before, the simpler the better and if he has to buy a new slant every year is

 still way ahead of buying new yeast for every batch.

 Turning that liquid yeast packet into ten or so slants directly would be my

 choice as the way to get one's feet wet.  I think I tried to get to much into

 that "beginner's" article on yeast culture.  The petri dish streaking can be

 ignored till the easy part becomes routine.

 >From: C05705DA@WUVMD.Wustl.Edu

 >Subject:      silly question on kegging

 >Could anybody give me any insight on why NOT to carbonate a keg naturally,

 like in bottling, instead of using carbonated water and all the works

 needed to do kegging.

 Not sure what you mean by carbonated water but the two basic reasons most of

 us force carbonate are:

    1. Although it improves with time, you can drink the beer

       within an hour of kegging.

    2. It creates no additional sediment as natural carbonadion does.

 >From: "John L. Isenhour" <isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov>

 >Subject: Dry Ice carbonating in keg

 >I have to agree with Jim on this.  You really should try this yourself and

 gather some empirical data before suggesting it to people who might not know

 better.

 All my kegs were full at the time and I just had to lay out the idea.  I got

 the answer I was looking for and presume anyone who tried it would have sense

 enough to use a pressure gage and keep an eye on things.  However, that is

 not what makes lawyer's rich and your point is well taken.

                ...........DISCLAIMER.............

   IF YOU PUT DRY ICE IN A CLOSED KEG, SUE GOD IF IT BLOWS UP.

 >  I have a lot of experience with forced carbonation of water, wine,

 beer and soft drinks, and if you've ever tried gassing beer up to 50psi, you'll

 find that its difficult to even vent the pressure down to dispensing level

 without it blowing out your venting tube.

 Here we are going to disagree.  You may be interested to know that I

 carbonate all my beer at 50 psi.

 Why?

 1.  My beer is always at basement temp.

 2.  I have found that some kegs don't seal properly at low pressure

     and must be raised high enough to seal.  This is actually why I quit

     naturally carbonating them.  It seemed to take forever till I

     found out what was going on.

 3.  It's a lot faster.

 Having said all that, the important issue is the volume of CO2 absorbed not

 the pressure it is done at.  One could use 500 psi if the keg would take it

 and get it done real quickly.  The key is knowing when to quit.

 Here is the way I do it:    I purge the keg several times to get all the air

 out then crank the pressure up to 50 psi and start shaking.  The pressure

 drops in 10 lb leaps for several minutes.  When it starts slowing down

 significantly, I turn off the CO2 and shake it down to about 30 psi and turn

 the gas back on.  If it continues to flow while shaking, I continue to shake.

 If not, I turn off the gas and let it sit for awhile.  If it has not dropped

 or I can not shake it down to dispensing pressure after an hour or so, I

 bleed of the pressure to 20 psi and call it done.

 For the record, I dispense through a cold plate with ice on it so my pressure

 is a little higher than normal but the bottom line is, I have no problem

 dispensing my beer (in fact I recently bought a Pilsner tap to create foam)

 and the one thing no one has yet complained about is the carbonation level of

 my beer.

 >From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

 >Subject: That Damned Maltmill

 >One real problem: the bolt holding the wooden handle on the crank seems

 to be threaded in such a way that it inevitably comes unscrewed while

 cranking.

 All MMs are shipped with one defect just to generate hateful commentary on

 the Digest to keep me humble.

 Seriously, this could be done my email but as there are 700 of them out

 there, you may not be the only one with this problem.

 The thread on the inside of the crank is bunged up with a special tool so

 that when the knob/handle is screwed in, it can only go so far before

 tightening in the thread.  I may have been sipping when I did yours but you

 can mush up the end of the treaded hole a bit with a screwdriver and a

 hammer.  Just be sure to do the right/correct end (inside).

 >It also looks as though I'll need to put rubber feet on my bucket, so

 it doesn't slide and hop around while I'm cranking the mill.

 Doing it on the bucket looks a lot easier than it is and depending on the

 floor surface, it can be like wrestling with an aligator.  I think most

 people eventually conclude that it works best clamped to a table with the

 business end hanging over the edge so the grain can fall into a bucket.

 Thanks for your humor.

 js

------------------------------


Is anyone else interested in meeting this guy

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 10:56:03 -0700

From: reeves@lanl.gov (Geoff Reeves)

Subject: Is anyone else interested in meeting this guy

>Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1993 17:07 EST

>From: "JOSEPH V. GERMANI" <GERMANI%NSLVAX@Venus.YCC.Yale.Edu>

>Subject: Re: Homebrewing in Los Alamos

>To: reeves@lanl.GOV

>

>Geoff,

>        Well, as I warned you before, I am coming to Los Alamos for a job

>interview.  You mentioned that you might like to get together for a few beers.

>

>I will be in Los Alamos on Tuesday (the 6th).  My potential employers will be

>taking me to dinner at around 6:30, and I'm not sure when I would be free.  I

>am

>guessing that sometime around 8 or 9 pm they will get sick of talking to me.

>If

>you, or any other Atom Mashers, would be interested in meeting up with me, let

>me know.  I figure that the best thing might be to give me your home number if

>you're interested and I could give you a call when I am free.  Otherwise, I

>will

>be in town for half of Wednesday, so if Tuesday night falls through we might

>be

>able to meet for lunch.  Just let me know what is most convenient.

>

>

>        Joe

>

>

Hi Folks,

        I got e-mail from a homebrewer coming here for an interview. I said

that if things worked out I'd get together with him tonight. Is anyone else

interested in joining us? If so give me a call (5-3877) or e-mail and I'll

let you know when I know more. All I know now is what is above.

Geoff

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Geoff Reeves:  Space Science Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory   |

|                reeves@lanl.gov (internet) or  essdp2::reeves (span)     |

|                Phone (505) 665-3877                                     |

|                Fax   (505) 665-4414                                     |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

|    A brewery is like a toothbrush. Everyone should have their own.      |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


contamination

Date: Tuesday,  6 April 93 12:02:53 CST

From: ADCMR@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: contamination

hello,

I am a relatively novice homebrewer (about a year) and I have just recently

noticed some trouble with an extract/speciatly grain beer.  I used crystal

malt (1/2 lb) biscuit malt (1/2 lb) and Alexander's pale ale (6? lbs.).  The

problem:  the beer sat fermented in the primary until the fermentation was

nearly done (i.e. more than 90 seconds between bubbles).  I racked(?) to the

secondary and everything looked fine for about a day.  Yesterday I noticed

that the secondary was bubbling about once every 45 seconds.  There is also

a light foam forming on top of the beer -- basically a thin airy head.  The

gas escaping from the lock doesn't smell like the usual gas so I am suspicious.

Does it sound like I have a contaminant yeast.  If so is there anything I

can do?  I thank everyone in advance.  My address is ADCMR@UTXDP.DP.UTEXAS.EDU

Caleb

------------------------------


OOPS

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 11:08:50 -0700

From: reeves@lanl.gov (Geoff Reeves)

Subject: OOPS

Sorry for the last message which was supposed to go to our homebrew club,

not to the homebrew digest.

Geoff

------------------------------


Yeast Starters

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 12:10:53 -0500

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Yeast Starters

Since I was out of DME, and I wanted to can a few pints of yeast-starter wort,

I decided to try the following...

After I had collected enough wort for my boil, I started collecting some into a

seperate pan for making starter.  I got around 6 quarts, at 1010.  To this I

added two cups of my "main" wort, which brought it up to 1013 or so.  Then I

boiled it down (with a bit `o hop and 1 tsp of Fermax) to 1020.  Then I canned

it as normal.  No DME required.  It looks a bit darker than I'd hoped, but hey,

its only a pint...

 t

------------------------------


Roller Mill, Rev. 1

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 09:33:00 MDT

From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

Subject: Roller Mill, Rev. 1

Well, I've done it.  OK, OK, my father-in-law has done it, but he's done it

to my specifications.  My roller mill, rev. 1 is complete and working.  This

thing is a dandy.  It is motorized, with a 1/3 horse washing machine motor,

and uses four pulleys to gear down the speed.  The rollers are reworked iron

pipe (3.5 inch diameter, I believe).  It is sort of a scaled-down version of

the one presented by RW and (??) in the latest Zymurgy gadgets special issue.

He is a tinkerer from way back, but the only special tools used were a welder

and a table-mounted belt sander.  The total cost of supplies was around $75.

I will give more info if there is interest, but I'm very busy right now and

if I have to choose between brewing a batch of beer and writing a legible

report on this mill, well, you can guess what'll happen.  I can say without a

doubt that the price of Jack's mill is very reasonable, considering the labor

put into this one.  I expect the two mills to produce roughly similar

crushes, BTW, although I probably will never have the chance to do a direct

comparison.

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


Favorite Brew Pub or Tavern

Date:    Tue, 6 Apr 1993 13:50:46 -0400 (EDT)

From: S_TUTTLE@UNHH.UNH.EDU

Subject: Favorite Brew Pub or Tavern

I am compiling a list of favorite watering holes.  I travel in the summer and

want to make a list of places to visit.  If the list gets long enough I may

distribute it among the contributors.

What is your favorite brew pub, beer bar, watering hole, tavern, biker bar,

blue collar bar or just plain bar?  Send me a the name, location, phone

number and a brief description of any place you think is worthy of a beer

lover.  Brew pubs and establishments with a good selection of beers are a

must but bars with some other kind of quality ambiance will do also.

No fern bars please (bars with guys in white shirts and ties who drive

beemers).

If you include your name and address, I will send you a copy of the list

when I deem it to be of good length and quality.

Also, how long should I age a cherry Kriek beer made from the malt extract

that is available in the stores now? Any recipe ideas for the cherry Kriek

malt extract?

------------------------------


Dry Hopping

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 11:03:00 -0800 (PDT)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: Dry Hopping

>From HBD 1113 Sherman Gregory comments on dry hopping.  I dry hopped for the

first time a week ago and both observed and expected this behavior.  I threw

hop pellets into the secondary before siphoning from the primary.  Sure

enough a "krauesen" developed and even though I didn't fill it right up, I

still ended up with this green, hoppy froth bubbling out the neck.  Next

time I'm going to fill it even less and put the remainder into another

container, to transfer into the secondary after the action subsides.  I

think I'll put the hops into a hop bag also to keep them in one place.  Does

this work as well as putting them in loose?

The cause seems obvious enough.  There is lots of dissolved CO2 in the beer

after fermentation and the hops act as nucleation sites causing loads of gas

to be released.  This gas continues to escape slowly (even without dry

hopping) and looks like fermentation but isn't.

 Peter

------------------------------


Re: silly question on kegging

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 11:02:51 -0700

From: paul@melody.rational.com (Paul Jasper)

Subject: Re: silly question on kegging

On 5 Apr, 11:43, C05705DA@WUVMD.Wustl.Edu wrote:

> Subject: silly question on kegging

Not a silly question at all... this is what distinguishes British Real

Ales from processed "keg" beers.  The cask conditioning is what adds the

subtleties to the flavor of the beer.  If you pump your beer full of

gas, you are "killing" it because this will prevent any further

fermentation taking place.

> Could anybody give me any insight on why NOT to carbonate a keg naturally,

> like in bottling, instead of using carbonated water and all the works

> needed to do kegging.

Well, it's quicker and requires less skill...

> My reasoning is simple; kegging didn't used to be

> done the way it is today.  So, what are the pros and cons to throwing in

> priming sugars in a keg and cork it?

It's a bit more complicated, because you don't want the pressure to build up

too much or it will have the same effect as artificially carbonating it.

> I would appreciate any HELPFUL suggestions.

Hopefully, I am being partially HELPFUL, if a little provocative... ;^)

Interestingly, the April edition of What's Brewing, the monthly newspaper

of Britain's Campaign for Real Ale, has a two page feature on the

preliminary results of some research they have been doing into whether

brewers are cheating by minimizing the cask conditioning of their beers.

They have been measuring the drop in gravity of beer delivered to beer

festivals (and in some cases to "friendly" pubs) and also the quantity

of yeast present.  They have been able to confirm that many beers are

sufficiently cask conditioned, but they can't prove when this isn't so

(due to factors such as the beer having completed its secondary

fermentation before they got their hands on it).  Reading between the

lines, they are particularly suspicious of Courage (Foster's) Directors'

Bitter.  However, they do conclude that the Campaign is right to place

so much emphasis on the benefits of cask conditioning in its definition

of the term "Real Ale".

>-- End of excerpt from C05705DA@WUVMD.Wustl.Edu

P.S. The same issue of What's Brewing has an article by Michael Jackson

on the topic of German double bocks, including Paulaner's Salvator,

recently the subject of some discussion on HBD.

- --

- -- Paul Jasper

- -- RATIONAL

- -- Object-Oriented Products

- --

------------------------------


Re: why blowoff?/Goose deliveries/Length of chiller/dryhopping

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 13:17 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: why blowoff?/Goose deliveries/Length of chiller/dryhopping

Gerald asks, why use the blowoff method?

It's merits have been argued in the HBD, but I believe it makes the

beer taste better, so I continue to use it.  Papazian says that

the kraeusen contains fusel oils (I've seen fusel alcohols elsewhere)

which some say contribute to hangovers.  The most graphic proof I have

for using the blowoff method is to challenge anyone to drink a glass

of blowoff.  YUK!  Just sniffing it is enough to guarantee my continued

support of this procedure.

The arguments against using the blowoff method (just to be fair) are that

you lose beer and that you lose some of the bittering you just but in

with the hops.  One of the test batches that I made was severely underhopped.

It turns out in this case that the non-blowoff half tasted better than

the blowoff half albeit the bitterness was a bit harsh.

If you are going to use the blowoff method, I suggest you go and get some

1.25" tubing and just stuff it into the top of the carboy.  Stick the

other end in a bucket or jug with a little water in it.  Don't use

a thin tube and a one-hole stopper as it will eventually clog and really

make a mess (especially likely when fermenting with fruit -- I know

firsthand).

**************************

Kevin asks:

>Does anyone know if the AHA will accept hand delivered entries at the Goose

>Island Brewery in Chicago for the annual competition?  I will be visiting my

>brother this weekend in Chicago, and he said that he would deliver my entries

>for me.  This would save me the hassled of having to deal with UPS.

The AHA won't know and won't care, the only people who might would be the

organizers of the Midwestern 1st-round judging and Goose Island itself.

Last year they accepted my entries hand-delivered, so I assume they will

accept them this year too.

*************************

John writes:

>>The longer the better.  Many of then are 20', some are 25', mine is a 50'

>>double helix (homemade).  It all depends how fast you want to cool and how

>>cool your tap water is, and how much water you want to use.

>

>Aha!  A personal pet peeve, that I know nothing about.  Spout-off warning!

>

>My own personal theory is that the shorter the better, until you get to a

>reasonable minimum length.

>

>Why?

>

>Let me interject personal observation from my 15 ft. copper coil.  Probably

>more than a foot is outside the wort, say one foot on each end, making 13

>ft. in the wort.  I think that is too long.  Why?  Because the water comes

>out boiling hot at the other end.  [I placed my quick-reading thermometer

>in a cup which got the outflow from the wort-chiller, and it quickly jumped

>to 210 or so.]

>

>OK, what good does boiling-hot water do in your wort chiller?  I submit it

>does no good at all.  So if I had another ten feet of copper in there, it

>would be another ten feet carrying boiling hot water, doing no good.

John then goes on to theorize that length may be important when the wort

approaches the temperature of the water.

I think you're wrong in the first assertion and right about the second

one -- as the wort cools, the length of the chiller becomes more and more

of an issue... you need a longer chiller.  My chiller is 50' of 1/4" copper

tubing (immersion) and it chills the wort from boiling to 70F in about 15

minutes during Chicago winters when my tapwater is about 45F.

*******************

William writes:

  Questions:

      What are pros & cons of pelletized vs whole hops when dry hopping?

I've found that when I use whole hops, they simply float and I siphon out

from under them -- no hops in the bottling vessel or bottles.

      Any advice on removing hops when preparing to bottle?

If you use pellets, you can put a copper scrubbing pad over the end of

the siphon hose followed by a mesh bag (this idea was originally introduced

by Al Taylor (I think it was Taylor...) and then independently by Kinney

Baughman).

      Alternatives to dry hopping that will give good hop nose?

See Kinney Baughman's article on a sort of hop-back in the Gadgets and

Equipment special issue of Zymurgy.

Al.

------------------------------


Thanks ...and more...

Date:        Tue, 06 Apr 93 15:30:19 EST

From: YC06000 <YC06%FERRIS.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

Subject: Thanks ...and more...

I would like to thank everyone who responded to my recent

inquiries about getting started.  I have purchased a couple

of the recommended books and I have located a homebrew shop

in the area.  They offer a class plus a discount on supplies

to those who take the class.  Now all I need are the supplies

to get started and the nerve to begin....

Next, what is the best source for bottles?  Are bottles bottles, or

are some better than others?  Should I stay away from bottles all

together?

Also, does anyone know if the Frankenmeuth (sp?) brewery gives

tours and if they do, do you know the hours of the brewery?

One more...I will be in Atlanta, GA in May.  Are there any

brewpubs or microbreweries to worth going to?

Thanks for everyones help.  I wish I had something to contribute.

Dan deRegnier  yc06@ferris.bitnet

Ferris State University

Clinical Lab Sciences

Big Rapids, MI  49307

------------------------------


Rehydrating dry yeast?

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 12:51:57 EDT

From: richk@icad.COM (Richard Kasperowski)

Subject: Rehydrating dry yeast?

The recent thread about rehydrating dry yeast before pitching drove me

to make my first submission to HBD.  (Loud clapping and cheering can

be heard from audience.)

As a relatively new brewer, this is the first I've heard of

rehydrating dry yeast before pitching.  For the few batches that I've

made, I pitched the dry yeast directly into the primary, with no

noticable bad effects (i.e., it fermented just fine, and the beer

tasted the way it was supposed to taste).

Is there any advantage to rehydrating the dry yeast?  Is there any

disadvantage to tossing the dry stuff directly into the primary?

 - --

Rich Kasperowski     richk@icad.com

------------------------------


Immersion Chiller Length

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 16:23:58 -0500

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Immersion Chiller Length

John Decarlo  <jad@pegasus.mitre.org> suggests that a shorter cooling coil

might be better than a longer one, down to some minimum.  What he has noticed

is that there may be an inflection point in the time vs. temperature curve

on this heat exchanger.  He's right.  There's no point in making a coil so

long that no additional heat is picked-up by the cooling water during some

portion of its travel.  Not that I could reproduce the work today, but this

was a problem on a physics assignment I did maybe 12 years ago.  It has to

do with the modulus of heat transfer in materials.  Essentially, heat takes

time to "travel" in a material, and the speed with which it "flows" depends

on the temperature difference.  A bigger difference in temperature causes

faster heat-flow.

So when you get to the point that a new, incoming volume of water is picking

up heat faster than some number of volumes of water already inside the tube,

your exchanger is too long.  What does this mean in practical terms?

Gee, any physics students out there who'd like to take a shot at finding

the optimal heat exchanger length vs diameter vs flow vs tap-water temp

for cooling wort?  Could be fun...  Or maybe we can do a net-wide emperical

data collection experiment.  If anyone's interested in the latter approach,

send me e-mail.

Oh -- mine's 50 feet of 3/8" copper, fwiw.

 t

------------------------------


dry hopping/fermentation in secondary

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 15:06:38 cdt

From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: dry hopping/fermentation in secondary

I'd like to hear more from people who have dry-hopped and had their

fermentation re-start in secondary.  I have dru hopped with pellets 3 or 4

times, and with whole hops once, and this is the first time I've had my beer

jump-start on me.

Specifically:  when do I know when to bottle?  I've still got a krausen

sitting on top, although the bubbling is very slow now.  I hate musking

around in the beer to get gravity readings, but I suppose that's the obvious

answer.

Also: I had thought that next time I dry-hop I might try whole hops in a

muslin bag, weighted down with a couple sanitized marbles.  Will this be more

or less likely to cause the same renewed fermentation?

And finally: should one perhaps not rack until the beer is within a point or

two of final gravity if one is going to dry-hop?  My gravity was still in the

high teens when I racked this time, and I'm thinking this may have

contributed to the jump-starting effect.

Thanks in advance.

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Re:immersion cooler length

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 14:51:20 -0700

From: sherman@qualcomm.com (Sherman Gregory)

Subject: Re:immersion cooler length

Oh, this is so much fun!  This is the first time I have been flamed on HBD!

Anyway...

In HBD #1113 "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org> writes:

>Aha!  A personal pet peeve, that I know nothing about.  Spout-off warning!

>

>My own personal theory is that the shorter the better, until you get to a

>reasonable minimum length.

>

>Why?

>

>Let me interject personal observation from my 15 ft. copper coil.  Probably

>more than a foot is outside the wort, say one foot on each end, making 13

>ft. in the wort.  I think that is too long.  Why?  Because the water comes

>out boiling hot at the other end.  [I placed my quick-reading thermometer

>in a cup which got the outflow from the wort-chiller, and it quickly jumped

>to 210 or so.]

>

>OK, what good does boiling-hot water do in your wort chiller?  I submit it

>does no good at all.  So if I had another ten feet of copper in there, it

>would be another ten feet carrying boiling hot water, doing no good.

It is true that for the first minute or so that the output is nearly at

boiling temp, but after that it is far less.  After that, hotter the water

comming out indicates more efficent cooling.  The idea here is to remove as

much heat from the wort as fast as possible.  The temperature delta times

the cooling water volume is purportional to the heat removed.  With a

longer tube, the output temp will be closer to the wort temp meaning more

heat removed.  I see two measures of efficency here.  One is cooling rate.

The other is temp change/water volume (important in waterless So. CA).

Both of these will be improved with a longer chiller.  I know that this is

not linear with chiller length, but more length always helps.

So much for flaming and counter flaming!  It is so much fun!

     Sherman

------------------------------


How to begin brewing?

Date:        Tue, 06 Apr 93 18:06:58 EST

From: U033000 <U033%SETONMUS.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

Subject: How to begin brewing?

Hello all, I am new this forum and am completely clueless as to

how to begin brewing my own beer. One of my MAJOR considerations

is money (I am a college student; therefore, I am poor). Could anyone

recommend to me a simple, good tasting recipe? Where can I get

supplies? How much will it cost? How long does it take to brew the

average beer? Etc. I live in the New York/North New Jersey area if you

wish to recommend any homebrew stores.

Thanks,

Bob

------------------------------


Immersion cooler design

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 17:07:19 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Immersion cooler design

Sherman has asked about immersion cooler design, what length and diameter

is appropriate, etc.  John DeCarlo sez short is good enough.

I'm sorry, John, but you are right and wrong.  It is correct that short

coolers put out very hot water initially, but longer is better.  Here's why--

Heat flow is proportional to temperature differential.  The rate of

temperature drop is fast at first, but slows down as the wort cools.  If

your cooler is smaller, it will take a lot longer to cool down below 90

degrees.  My water temperature varies from 45F (winter) to 55F summer.

The final 10 degrees of temperature drop takes a lot longer in the summer

than in the winter, due to the smaller differential.

All other things being equal (now there's a simplifying assumption!), the

greater the mass of copper tubing, the faster your cooler will chill that

brew.  I'm talking about using 1/4" - 1/2" i.d. soft copper tubing in the

longest length you, your brewpot and wallet feel comfortable with.  I have

been using 20 ft of 1/4" i.d. and just got 50' of 3/8" i.d. cause bending

over the pot for so long makes my back hurt.

BTW, there was a long (3 month) thread last summer on immersion and

counterflow coolers.  I have extracted the messages into one BIG file, and

will gladly send it to anyone who wants one.  If the demand is too much

for me to easily accomodate, I'll see about posting it to the

sierra.stanford.edu FTP site.

see ya in Portland,

Paul.

------------------------------


Grain during fermentation?

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 08:23 EST

From: LYONS@adc3.adc.ray.com

Subject: Grain during fermentation?

Following up on the recent thread of adding grain during

fermentation ... In Dave Line's book (BBLTYB) he gives an extract

recipe for a brown ale (Brown Jack Best Brown Ale) in which he

uses crushed roasted barley in both the pre-boil and in the primary

fermentation (pitched with yeast) stages.  I haven't considered this

before, but wonder if anyone has any comments on it.  Also, since

many have found that an ideal time to add hops, fruit, peppers,

spices, or any miscellaneous flavorings is during the secondary, it

seems that this would be a better time to add the roasted barley.

Has anyone experimented with the addition of speciality grains

during secondary fermentation?  Thoughts?

Chris,

LYONS@ADC3.ADC.RAY.COM

------------------------------


Corrections on Samichlaus

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 09:10:36 EST

From: boomer@sylsoft.com (Richard Akerboom)

Subject: Corrections on Samichlaus

Well, I spoke from memory which is always a mistake.

Samichlaus (note spelling) beer from Huerlimann in Zuerich, Switzerland

is, according to Jackson's Pocket Guide, Third Edition, brewed with

a original gravity of 27.6 Plato (about 1.110) and ferments out to

11.1-11.2 % alcohol by weight, which is 13.7-14 by volume.

OK, now that we have that correct, I am still interested if anyone

knows the real story on Sam Adams Triple Bock.

Rich

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Richard Akerboom       Domain: boomer@sylsoft.com or akerboom@dartmouth.edu

Sylvan Software          uucp: dartvax!sylsoft!boomer

Mechanic St.            Phone: 802-649-2231

P. O. Box 566             FAX: 802-649-2238

Norwich, VT 05055 USA

------------------------------


historical, part 1.

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93 09:25:33 MET DST

From: THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch

Subject: historical, part 1.

Historical Recipes by F Accum 1821

translated by Rob Thomas.

All recipes are adjusted to give 4 UK gallons

of beer at fermentation (i.e. 5 US gallons).

All measurements are UK units (same as US, except

gallon US = 0.8 gallon UK)

PART 1

Brown Stout Porter.

- ------------------

Ingredients.

13.99 lb malt, 1/5 pale, 1/5 amber, 3/5 brown

5.3 oz. hops.

Mashing.

Mash 1: 2.375 gall of water at 165 F, 1.5 hours.

Mash 2: 1.875 gall of water at 160 F, 1.5 hours.

Mash 3: 1.938 gall of water at 186 F, 3/4 hours.

Boiling.

mash 1 boiled with the hops for 1.5 hours.

mash 2 boiled with the used hops for 1.75 hours.

mash 3 boiled with the used hops for 2.5 hours.

Produces 4 gall at 1071.

fg. 1024.

- ------------------------------------------------

London Ale.

- -----------

Ingredients.

25.45 lb pale malt

9.29 oz. hops.

Mashing.

Mash 1: 1.820 gall of water at 175 F, 0.5 hours,

         then add a further 0.91 gall at 175 F, 2 hours.

Mash 2: 2.180 gall of water at 180 F, 1.75 hours.

Mash 3: 1.270 gall of water at 150 F, 1.25 hours.

Mash 4: 1.270 gall of water at 150 F, 1.25 hours.

Boiling.

mash 1 boiled with the hops for 1.5 hours.

mash 2+3+4 boiled with the used hops for 3 hours.

Produces 4 gall at 1068.

fg. 1026.

- -------------------------------------------------

Table Beer.

- -----------

Ingredients.

10.1 lb pale malt

1.92 oz. hops.

Mashing.

Mash 1: 2.880 gall of water at 160 F, 0.75 hours,

         then add a further 1.71 gall at 160 F, 1.5 hours.

Mash 2: 2.700 gall of water at 180 F, 1.25 hours.

Mash 3: 1.980 gall of water at 185 F, 1.25 hours.

Boiling.

mash 1 + 1/2 mash 2 boiled with the hops for 1 hour.

rest of mash 2 + mash 3 boiled with the used hops for 2 hours.

Produces 4 gall at 1035.

fg. 1012.5.

- -------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Dry Hop Sediment

Date:         Wed, 07 Apr 93 08:43:01 EDT

From: Peter Bartscherer <BARTSCHP%DUVM.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

Subject:      Dry Hop Sediment

In response to William Kitch's dry hopping questions, (his _slightly

edited_ text below):

>I tried dry hopping for the first time. I used hop pellets.

>When I started racking the beer into my bottling bucket the

>hop head got broken up and started sedimenting--a fair amount

>got siphoned into the bottling bucket.

FWIW, I had a similar experience with my first dry hop.

However, I found that GENTLY swirling, NOT SPLASHING, the beer in the

fermenter a day or two before bottling caused the hop head to break up

and settle out. I haven't had a sediment-in-the-bottling-bucket problem,

and I did get good hoppy results.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------

  Peter Bartscherer  215.895.1636           Design & Imaging Studio

  BARTSCHP@DUVM.OCS.DREXEL.EDU          Drexel U / Philadelphia, PA

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


vortex drain strength, and coriolis acceleration

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93 09:09:54 EDT

From: envkas@sn370.utica.ge.com (Karl A. Sweitzer)

Subject: vortex drain strength, and coriolis acceleration

I have found that the best vortex drains are formed when you swirl the bottle

or carboy in a counterclockwise direction (when viewed from above, in the

northern hemisphere of our spaceship earth).  The reason is the coriolis

acceleration vector caused by the counterclockwise rotation of the earth.

When you rotate the bottle in the same direction as the earth rotation

the coriolis acceleration vectors constructively add, forming a greater

force on the liquid molecules.  The coriolis acceleration vector tends

to force the liquid to the outside of the rotation circle leaving room

in the middle of the bottle for air to enter and replace the exiting liquid.

This air path is more efficient than "gurgleing" air entering the bottle as

periodic bubbles.  (note, for those of you in the southern hemisphere, rotate

the bottle in the clockwise direction. For those at the equator, rotate in

either direction.)  Some say that the coriolis accel. vector makes pigs tails

curl (no kidding!).  I have seen pictures of pigs from Equador with straight

tails!

I have also found that you can drain a full carboy quickly by inserting an

air tube into the neck and extending to the bottom.  The air tube allows

air to enter while the liquid exits.  Another trick is to cut an air hole in

the top corner of the handle of plastic gallon jugs.  I have several jugs like

this that I have marked in quart divisions that are handy for measuring and

pouring large quantities of liquid.

Karl Sweitzer

------------------------------


decoction

Date: 07 Apr 1993 10:59:19 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: decoction

I had heard from a reasonably reliable source (at least, he *claims* to be

reliable :) that decoction was classically performed by thrusting a bucket

into the top of the mash to make a well, and collecting any liquid that

colected there.  The decocted material then contained mostly liquid, with a

small quantity of grain (maybe 5-10% by weight).  When I mentioned the line

about taking a quantity of grain and leaving the liquid behind he thought I

was looney.  Anyway, his suggestion was to use a picnic cooler/lauter tun

and drain liquid only off the bottom, boil it, and dump it in on top.  So I

set up my slotted manifold and tried just that.  I did a protein rest, and

then a rest at 149-145 F, and another at 159-155 F.  I had to decoct and

boil several times to accomplish this.  All I can say is whoever claimed

that drawing off the liquid and boiling it would seriously reduce the

enzyme content should have watched the mash clear during the last rest.

You could literally watch it clear it happened so fast; from cloudy starchy

muddy water to crystal clear wort in about 15 min.  I don't know, maybe

this is a decoction-infusion hybrid if I don't boil any grain, but it sure

worked well.

 ed

  ------------

  Ed Hitchcock    *-----------------------*

  Dept of Anatomy and Neurobiology |    |

  Dalhousie University    |     JUST BREW IT |

  Halifax, Nova Scotia   |   |

  ech@ac.dal.ca    *-----------------------*

------------------------------


Decoction Mashing

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93 09:10 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Decoction Mashing

 >From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

 >I did spend all day with my first decoction.  Part of that was due to

 it going from a planned two decoction mash to a four decoction, because

 I was far short of my temperature marks.  But having got beyond that,

 decoction requires less equipment than a step infusion, and I believe,

 produces a different spectrum of flavors and aromas.

 There is a simple alternative method I use that makes the first step a lot

 easier and totally predicatble along with cutting the time down to about the

 same as a "normal" kettle mash.

 I use the stove to bring the mash to the low end of the saccharification

 range and just use decoctions to maintain the temperture.  I scoop out

 several quarts of mash and bring this to a boil in a separate kettle.  By the

 time this is boiling the main mash has cooled enough to need the decoc to

 maintian the proper temp.  Several gallons are boiled (during a one hour

 mash) in this manner and although far from a "real" decoction, it is a

 compromise that is easy and probably provides some measure of "a different

 spectrum of flavors and aromas" as noted above.

 js

                 --Darryl Richman

 ------------------------------

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1115, 04/08/93

*************************************

-------


Yeast, Kegging

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93 09:20 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Yeast, Kegging

 >From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

 >There is an increased risk associated with "dipping" a loop into a slant

 repeatedly.  I would advise restreaking to a single cell at least

 once a year.  In theory it can last for years, but why risk it?

 If you are already culturing yeasts, then what is the extra plate and

 slant once a year to ensure clean yeast?....

 I guess I am more concerned about the risk of making it sound so complicated

 that people are intimidated.  For the person who has never done any of this

 before, the simpler the better and if he has to buy a new slant every year is

 still way ahead of buying new yeast for every batch.

 Turning that liquid yeast packet into ten or so slants directly would be my

 choice as the way to get one's feet wet.  I think I tried to get to much into

 that "beginner's" article on yeast culture.  The petri dish streaking can be

 ignored till the easy part becomes routine.

 >From: C05705DA@WUVMD.Wustl.Edu

 >Subject:      silly question on kegging

 >Could anybody give me any insight on why NOT to carbonate a keg naturally,

 like in bottling, instead of using carbonated water and all the works

 needed to do kegging.

 Not sure what you mean by carbonated water but the two basic reasons most of

 us force carbonate are:

    1. Although it improves with time, you can drink the beer

       within an hour of kegging.

    2. It creates no additional sediment as natural carbonadion does.

 >From: "John L. Isenhour" <isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov>

 >Subject: Dry Ice carbonating in keg

 >I have to agree with Jim on this.  You really should try this yourself and

 gather some empirical data before suggesting it to people who might not know

 better.

 All my kegs were full at the time and I just had to lay out the idea.  I got

 the answer I was looking for and presume anyone who tried it would have sense

 enough to use a pressure gage and keep an eye on things.  However, that is

 not what makes lawyer's rich and your point is well taken.

                ...........DISCLAIMER.............

   IF YOU PUT DRY ICE IN A CLOSED KEG, SUE GOD IF IT BLOWS UP.

 >  I have a lot of experience with forced carbonation of water, wine,

 beer and soft drinks, and if you've ever tried gassing beer up to 50psi, you'll

 find that its difficult to even vent the pressure down to dispensing level

 without it blowing out your venting tube.

 Here we are going to disagree.  You may be interested to know that I

 carbonate all my beer at 50 psi.

 Why?

 1.  My beer is always at basement temp.

 2.  I have found that some kegs don't seal properly at low pressure

     and must raised high enough to seal.  This is actually why I quit

     naturally carbonating them.  It seemed to take forever till I

     found out what was going on.

 3.  It's a lot faster.

 Having said all that, the important issue is the volume of CO2 absorbed not

 the pressure it is done at.  One could use 500 psi if the keg would take it

 and get it done real quickly.  The key is knowing when to quit.

 Here is the way I do it:    I purge the keg several times to get all the air

 out then crank the pressure up to 50 psi and start shaking.  The pressure

 drops in 10 lb leaps for several minutes.  When it starts slowing down

 significantly, I turn off the CO2 and shake it down to about 30 psi and turn

 the gas back on.  If it continues to flow while shaking, I continue to shake.

 If not, I turn off the gas and let it sit for awhile.  If it has not dropped

 or I can not shake it down to dispensing pressure after an hour or so, I

 bleed of the pressure to 20 psi and call it done.

 For the record, I dispense through a cold plate with ice on it so my pressure

 is a little higher than normal but the bottom line is, I have no problem

 dispensing my beer (in fact I recently bought a Pilsner tap to create foam)

 and the one thing no one has yet complained about is the carbonation level of

 my beer.

 >From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

 >Subject: That Damned Maltmill

 >One real problem: the bolt holding the wooden handle on the crank seems

 to be threaded in such a way that it inevitably comes unscrewed while

 cranking.

 All MMs are shipped with one defect just to generate hateful commentary on

 the Digest to keep me humble.

 Seriously, this could be done my email but as there are 700 of them out

 there, you may not be the only one with this problem.

 The thread on the inside of the crank is bunged up with a special tool so

 that when the knob/handle is screwed in, it can only go so far before

 tightening in the thread.  I may have been sipping when I did yours but you

 can mush up the end of the treaded hole a bit with a screwdriver and a

 hammer.  Just be sure to do the right end (inside).

 >It also looks as though I'll need to put rubber feet on my bucket, so

 it doesn't slide and hop around while I'm cranking the mill.

 Doing it on the bucket looks a lot easier than it is and depending on the

 floor surface, it can be like wrestling with an aligator.  I think most

 people eventually conclude that it works best clamped to a table with the

 business end hanging over the edge so the grain can fall into a bucket.

 Thanks for your humor.

 js

------------------------------


boiling concentrates the wort

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93 9:20:34 CDT

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: boiling concentrates the wort

Keep in mind that in all-grain brewing you collect sweet wort which

is boiled down to 5 gallons typically.  That is, one of the functions

of boiling is to concentrate the wort.  In a 90-minute or so boil,

you'll be evaporating the water in the wort.  As an example, a beer

which would have SG of 1.050 at 5 gallons will give a gravity reading

of 1.042 at 6 gallons and 1.036 at 7 gallons.  At 7 gallons, the

wort is dilute, and when boiled down to 5 gallons, the more or less

same amount of sugars and stuff give the beer a gravity of 1.050.

So, if you collect 7 gallons of wort and take a gravity reading of

1.036, you'll have a 1.050 beer provided you achieve a vigorous

and sustained boil and boil the beer down to 5 gallons.  One last point:

the gravity reading done on the 7 gallon beer should either be done

at 60 degrees F (typically) or should be adjusted for the temperature

of the wort.  An uncorrected gravity reading on hot wort will understate

the specific gravity of the beer.

------------------------------


diastatic power of some malts

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93 9:29:30 CDT

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec)

Subject: diastatic power of some malts

Here are some numbers on some of the DeWolf-Cosyns malts:

Malt                 color    diastatic power

U.S 2-row (Schreier)  1.78L       131.0

Belgian pilsner       1.8         105

Belgian pale ale      3.2          60

Munich                7.8          50

Aromatic             25            29

Any of these malts is capable of conversion by itself, including

the Aromatic.  Notice that the Schreier has the highest diastatic

power.  Keep in mind that mega-brewers like to use adjuncts such

as corn in their mash, and are therefore interested in a base malt

with high diastatic power.  The homebrewer can use any of these

malts alone or in combination.  A typical pale ale malt can be

mashed alone and need not be mashed with a malt of higher diastatic

power.

------------------------------


Help, I boiled away the hops

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93 15:20:27 GMT

From: u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil (Markham R. Elliott)

Subject: Help, I boiled away the hops

Hello again fellow brewers!

I've returned with a deal you can't refuse....I will continue to call myself

a novice until I've got 2 years of hands-on hombrew experience, but I get to

continue to ask the dumb-s**t novice, extract-brewer questions.  OK?  Knew you

couldn't pass it up. :-)

I have been taking in all the advice I can read, and have taken much of it at

face value, few questions asked, but alas, silly me, I should have known better

without thinking things through.

Case in point, then an urgent request for opinions.

My beers have dramatically improved since that first fateful batch.  Reduced,

then eliminated the use of sugar.  Then came the use of a secondary fermenter.

Then the use of DME, and finally the failed attempt at using DME as a priming

agent.  Longer boils...longer boils...longer boils.  No one reminded me that

when using a hopped extract, the longer you boil, the more you remove what the

hops were put in there for.  No one to blame but myself, should have seen it

coming.  Knew better.  Dealt with essential oils in Organic Chemistry those

many years ago.  Faithfully read the HBD daily, and see cautions about not

boiling away the "hop nose", etc, etc.

Now the plea for help.

Should have guessed why everyone said "not bad, but not bitter enough".  Now

that I've screwed up another batch (now 3 days in the primary), is there a way

to salvage what I'm sure will be another "bland", hop-lacking brew?  The flavor

of the past few batches has been ok; rich, sort of sweet, but kinda watery and

again, missing a lot of what the hops were there for to begin with.

I have read with increasing interest over the past couple of weeks about "dry

hopping" in the secondary.  Would me adding some high alpha hop pellets to the

secondary be worth the try to put back in what I boiled away ?  Any other

suggestions (other than throwing it out) will be welcome.  BTW, no more hopped

kits for this kid, gonna take another step toward what many seem to feel is the

only way to brew.

Noch einmal, bitte!!  Mark

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 Markham R. Elliott                 u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil

 Information Technology Laboratory                     (601) 634-2921

 Waterways Experiment Station

 Vicksburg, Mississippi  USA

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Re: Immersion cooler length

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93 08:27:37 PDT

From: tima@wv.MENTORG.COM (Tim Anderson)

Subject: Re: Immersion cooler length

I made a change to my immersion chiller that made a noticeable difference.

Like many others I made mine by attaching hose fittings to 25 ft of 3/8 in.

copper tubing and coiling it into a helix (like a fat spring) which I just

set into the boiling wort.  While waiting for the magic occur, I entertained

myself by probing various parts of the wort with my thermometer. There were

huge temperature differences.  The top middle was the hottest by far.

Well, it seemed to me that the chiller is doing the most good where the wort

is hottest, so for the next batch I recoiled the tubing into a spiral (like

the burner on an electric range).  I suspend this maybe an inch below the

surface of the wort.  Since I use a big wide canning kettle, there's lots of

room.  Chilling is much faster.  I can stand there and watch the cold break

material form and fall between the coils to the bottom.  In fact I have to

stand there, because I haven't found a way to suspend it other than by

holding it.  Admittedly a pain, but the faster chilling is easily worth it.

tim

"My two favorite beer styles are Cold and Warm."

------------------------------


Request for decoction mashing help....

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93 08:29:17 -0700

From: sag5004@yak.ca.boeing.com (Ford Prefect)

Subject: Request for decoction mashing help....

Sorry about posting this to the whole world, but... with all the recent talk

about decoction mashing, I am a bit interested in giving it a try.

a) What books/article/whatever should I read to figure out how it is done?

b) Is there anyone in the Seattle area that is willing to come over and

   help/show/whatever brew a batch.  I seem to be entering my busy season

   with an up coming wedding and the picnic season aproaching :-)

thanks

stuart galt                          boeing computer services

sag5004@yak.boeing.com               bellvue washington

(206) 865-3764                       or home (206) 361-0190

#include <standard/disclaim.h>

I don't know what they say, they don't know what I say...

------------------------------


Problems with tab characters

Date:    Wed, 7 Apr 1993 15:47:01 GMT

From: "UARS::COOK"@CDHF1.GSFC.NASA.GOV (Chris Cook)

Subject: Problems with tab characters

Sorry to waste bandwidth with small stuff, but I have to mention about

people's use of tabs.  Please remember that your tab stops may not be mine.

In HBD 1113, for example, Jeff Frane included big tables of recipies, using

lots of tabs.  Well, his tabs don't match mine, and I had to work on his

table extensively to make it readable.  This is the case with almost

everyone's articles that use tabs, signatures, etc.

This is rather like the problem with articles over 80 columns wide.  They

look good to the sender, but suffer in translation.

Chris Cook

------------------------------


Copper tubing sizes

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1993 08:44:09 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Copper tubing sizes

Since it looks like we may be in for more interesting explorations of

thermohydrodynamics (wort chillers), please be aware that there is a lot

of potential for confusion about pipe (hard) and tubing (soft) sizes.

Soft copper tubing, like we use in most of our chillers, is usually

measured, sold and fitted by o.d. (outside diameter).  Hard pipe, that has

threaded or soldered fittings is measured by i.d. (inside diameter).

To add to the confusion, soft tubing used in refrigeration is sometimes

measured one way and sometimes another.  Also, many chain stores use both

i.d. and o.d. for soft tubing.  This may be a marketing ploy to get

hapless do-it-yourselfers to purchase the wrong fittings to clutter up

their junk drawers :-)

Rounding sizes to nearest 1/8", for soft copper tubing:

O.D.  =   I.D.

1/4"      1/8"

3/8"      1/4"

1/2"      3/8"

Now *I've* probably added to the confusion,

Paul.

------------------------------


Thanks for the decoction info.

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93 08:55 PDT

From: /O=vmspfhou/S=dblewis/DD.SITE=JSCPROFS/@NASAmail.nasa.gov

Subject: Thanks for the decoction info.

***************************** PROFS Note *****************************

 From: DBLEWIS --VMSPFHOU            Date and time  04/07/93 10:56:34

 To: POSTMAN --NASAMAIL

 FROM: Dennis B. Lewis <InterNet:dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

 SUBJECT: Thanks for the decoction info.

 Thanks to all who posted info on decoction mashing. I made an American

 pilsener last weekend (my first attempt at an all grain) and got pretty

 mediocre extraction--21ppg using temp-controlled mashing on Klages malt.

 I'll try the same recipe (tastes good from the fermenter) using a decoction

 mash and post the taste test results (it may take a month). Anyway, someone

 wrote that some of the big breweries like Pilsener Urquell still use decoction

 mashing. How on earth do they remove the grains from the mash tun? They must

 have to boil hundreds of pounds of grain. Anybody taken a tour?

 Dennis B. Lewis (713) 483-9145  **  NASA/JSC/DH65 Payload Ops

 Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Questions

Date: Wed,  7 Apr 93 10:55:16 MDT

From: "Steve Kurka" <kurka@bmcw.com>

Subject: Questions

I have a few questions:

This may be an uninsignificant question, but so what:

I would like to upgrade to a glass carboy soon, but don't know whether to go

with a 5 gallon or 6.5-7 gallon carboy. What are the advantages of each size?

( Ex: - no blowoff tubes needed to large sizes

      - no blowoff tubes on large size to blowoff stuff (but what stuff?))

Does anyone have more info on sulfites not killing bacteria?

Does anyone have simple ideas on cheap filtration methods?

I would also like to thank all who sent me lists of San Fransisco

brewpubs recently, the trip was a success (good beer).

Thanks, Steve  kurka@bmcw.com

------------------------------


Runaway Ferment... HELP!!!

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1993 13:06:31 -0500 (CDT)

From: brewmstr@genesis.mcs.com (Jim Bayer)

Subject: Runaway Ferment... HELP!!!

I've been brewing for about 2 years now and just did my first all-grain

batch 2 weeks ago.  Until now I've never seen a ferment go so

strongly and so long.

My grain bill is as follows:

6lb 2 row Klages

2lb Special Roast

1lb German Light crystal

1lb Cara-pils

I used Wyeast Irish Ale (forget the number), Northern Brewer, Cascade and

Hallertau hops.

Since it was my first all-grain batch, I expected it to take me longer, and it

did.  My sparge ran about 2.5 hours (trouble with the Listermann system) and

I ended up with some (very little) grain in the brewpot.  The edges of the false

bottom did not seal very well for me.

I tasted the outut from the sparge and it seemed ok.  I boiled it for about 1.5

hours and added the Irish moss 10 minutes before turning off the heat.  I used

a submersion chiller for the first time and got the temp down to about 65^F

in 20 minutes.  I pitched the yeast (no starter alas) and waited.

As a preamble, I should say I cleaned and soaked everything I used, spoon,

primary bucket, hoses, etc. in bleach solution.  I made it a little too strong

(used about 1 to 1.5 cups to 5 gallons) so I rinsed everything before use.  I

soaked it all for 15 to 30 minutes before the rinse.

I filled the primary, stirred vigorously for aeration and pitched, closed the

lid, sealed it tight and set up the air lock.

After 3 days of fermenting (took 36 hrs to start), I raked to the secondary

and thought it would finish in a few days.  To my surprise, it went to full

kreausen AGAIN and is still giving me 1 blip per second after 10 days.  I

checked it last night and the secondary is still at full boil.

Am I infected?  Is it the yeast?  What is going on??

I did notice that the wort was REALLY REALLY SWEET.  Never tasted one so

sweet before.  could it be the yeast are still feasting?  OG was 1.040

Any input will be greatly appreciated

Jim

brewmstr@genesis.mcs.com

------------------------------


Re: Eternal ferment/how long does CO2 last?

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93 13:54 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Eternal ferment/how long does CO2 last?

Kirk writes:

>A few weeks ago, I asked you what you thought about my 'nonstop fermentation'

>and the concensus was that I should not throw the stuff out but check the

>airlock and the S.G.  I won't print the recipe again.  Suffice to say it's

>an extract brew with half a pound of maple syrup and 2 oz of apricot

>flavoring intended for wines, and Edme dry yeast.

>

>Update: now after eight weeks, it ain't over.  The airlock is still giving

>a feeble 'glug' once every 70 seconds.  The color got noticeably darker.

>No off flavors to suggest contamination. Specific gravity down to about 1.009

>(I think).

Recently, I had, what appeared to be headed for a record-breaking ferment.

It was a simple 1048 English Ale using Wyeast #1028 "London Ale."  Well,

the problem started when I got married.  No, don't get me wrong, my wife

is wonderful and very supportive of my brewing and related endeavors.

However, when she got a look at one of our gas bills, she suggested we

lower our thermostat, from 72F to 68F.  I agreed.

I started my batch as ususal with a 500ml starter and pitched the 70F

starter into well-aerated, 70F wort.  I put it in the fermentation room

just like I used to and proceeded to not worry.  Well, I had forgotten

about my wife's cost-saving measures and failed to look at the 9" diameter

thermometer in the fermentation room.  It said 61F!

Two days and no kraeusen.  That's when the temperature dawned on me.

I brought the fementer up into the study (68F), closed the shades and

covered the fermenter with a couple of dark brown plastic garbage bags

to prevent light damage.  The next morning, although the fermentation

had started, I still thought it was too bright in there and closed the

door.  Guess what, the closet is not insulated and the temperature dropped

to 60F by that evening.  Fermentation back to a standstill.  I opened the

door and put some cardboard around the fermenter.

10 days later, it was still fermenting slowly at about 30 seconds between

glubs.  20 days from the start of the ferment, it had gotten down to a

minute between glubs, so I added the dryhops (1oz of Goldings plugs).

10 days of dryhopping, still 1 glub/min.  14 days of dryhopping, still

1 glub/min.  Hmmm?  Is this yeast brain-damaged or what?

Then, I thought, perhaps a lot of the yeast had gone dormant thanks to

the cold and had not awakened from simply warming the wort.  I rocked

the carboy around-and-around to swirl the yeast up from the bottom.

Naturally, lots of CO2 started escaping through the blowoff tube.  8 hours

later, the ferment was going at a good pace, perhaps 1 glub per 30 seconds.

24 hours after swirling, the glubs were 2.5 minutes apart -- ready to bottle!

I came up with this thought to rouse the yeast from what I've read about

yeast rousing used in some very strong beers (Thomas Hardy's may be one,

I'm not sure).  Next time a ferment is taking longer than you expected,

try rousing the yeast (without aeration, of course -- I just swirled my

airlocked carboy).

********************

Chris writes:

>On another note, how long should I expect my 20lb CO2 tank to last?  I got

>it last summer and have made at least 10 batches of beer since then.  I

>also use it to push the sterilizer out of the keg when cleaning it.  The

>pressure gauge for the high side hasn't really moved.

I have a 20# tank, but it hasn't run out yet since I got the leaks fixed.

The first filling only lasted perhaps 10 kegs, but the second is well over

20 and still going.  It's very important to change that washer between the

valve and the regulator with each filling -- it's a common source for

leaks.  Regarding the high-pressure side gauge, I'll stick my neck out and

say I think it's useless.  It won't begin to drop till all the liquid

CO2 has run out and has turned to gas.  Then it will drop to zero in one

or two days.  That's not my idea of warning you that it's about to run out!

I plan to weigh my tank the next time it runs out and use it's weight

as an approximation for when I should go get it refilled.  It should weigh,

well... 20# more when full (for a "20#" tank).

Al.

------------------------------


Follow-up: Tower System

Date: 07 Apr 1993 15:48:10 -0500 (CDT)

From: ATKINSON@vaxb.acs.unt.edu

Subject: Follow-up: Tower System

I promised a posting of comments made on the Tower System, and am

glad to do so!  Thanks to everyone who showed interest.  My initial

impression is that the Tower System is a good idea because there were no

flames.  However, it may be because of the limited experience that people

have with this system.  I'm still putting my system together (working on

limited funds, you know) and will let everyone know what I think after its

up and running and the little kinks have been worked out.  So some of the

replies:

1.     Stuart Galt suggested that I build a welded steel rack with wheels

       to house the tower so that it could be moved around for brewing

       and storage.  Sound like a great idea, but since I have a hammer

       and saw, but not a welder, I built my rack out of 2 by 4's and 3/4

       inch plywood.  I used Simpson Strong-Tie (TM) connectors to

       make sure that there was plenty of strength to hold 10 gallons of

       hot sparge water and mash (if you haven't seen these connectors,

       they are great for building work tables and shelves - ask your

       hardware store about them).  Also, by planning for my glass 6.5

       gallon fermentor to sit on the ground and allowing the kettle to

       gravity drain into it, the mash/lauter tun to drain into the kettle,

       and the hot water tank to drain into the mash/lauter tun, I designed

       the rack so that nothing with hot water ever has to be lifted (other

       than pumping from the kettle up to the hot water tank).  Thus, my

       rack has a working surface 45 inches above the ground for the

       mash/lauter tun to sit on, and a shelf 20 inches higher (a total of

       65 inches above the ground) for the hot water tank to sit on.  This

       allows me to slide the mash/lauter tun underneath the hot water

       tank when I'm not brewing so that I've got a work bench.

       However, since my mash/lauter tun in 16" tall (a 58 quart Igloo

       cooler), and it sits on top of a 45" high shelf, it is a too tall for

       even my 6'2" body to work with.  Therefore, I built a 10"

       platform that I can stand on when stirring the mash.  This platform

       simply slides underneath the rack when not in use.

       My rack, from the side, looks something like the sketch below.

        60"  ------                   The rack is designed so

             |    |                   that when I'm not brewing

             |    |                   everything (kettle, burner,

             -------------- 45"       coolers, etc. slides over

             |    |       |           to the left hand side, and

             |    |       |           I have a work bench on the

             |    ---------           right hand side.

             |    |       |

             |    |       |

             --------------

             |    |       |

2.     Rich Lenihan had several comments and suggestions.

       a.    Rich suggested that I pub a rolled screen/tube inside the

             kettle (like the EasyMasher (TM)) to filter out hops and

             trub.  An excellent idea that I have included.

       b.    Rich also was concerned about heat loss along the way, and

             that perhaps by preheating the system prior to mashing, this

             problem might be eliminated.  I checked with several

             people and using a picnic cooler for the hot water tank will

             hold the temperature to less than a couple of degrees heat

             loss over the few hours necessary.  Thus, preheating should

             probably not be necessary.  Also, Rich reminded me that

             Papazian has a grain bill/water temperature/water volume

             chart so that I can use that for a guideline.  I looked, and

             sure enough, it will be usefull!

3.     Bob Hodge suggested that instead of two manifolds in the

       mash/lauter tun, that only the lower one be used, and that mash

       water can be introduced from the bottom (underletting) like a

       recent thread had suggested.  I like this idea, and will implement

       it,  but I still will need the upper manifold for sparging.

A few people had questions about what I was going to use for high

temperature hose, what kind of fittings I was going to use, etc.  I

mentioned Grainger's and McMaster's supply catalogs for sources.

Finally, this post was originally to the Home Brew Digest, and not

rec.crafts.brewing.  So now, I am posting both the original and this

follow-up post to rec.crafts.brewing to see if there are any other

suggestions.

Thanks to all for the ideas!

Sam Atkinson

------------------------------


Re: Enzyme potential

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93 16:35 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Enzyme potential

Thomas writes:

>Does anybody know of the enzyme potential of Belgian 2-row pale

>ale malt from Dewolf-Cosyns? Would I need to mash with some

>Klages to get quicker conversion? Thanks in advance.

Sure, it's 60 degrees Lintner.  I don't think you would get much of

a increase in conversion -- you certainly would not *NEED* to add

anything.  By the way, Klages hasn't been grown in the US for (I

believe) two seasons -- Harrington is what most (all?) of the brewing

barley growers are producing.  If your supplier is advertising Klages,

either they don't know what they are selling or are selling very old

malt.

Al.

------------------------------


kiwi wine

Date:     Wed, 7 Apr 1993 14:49 MST

From: 2 <A317-475@lab.bus.utah.edu>

Subject:  kiwi wine

Here is an experimental recipe I came across and it actually worked.

This is for all you wine lovers.

This recipe need not be followed exactly and even if you do I doubt you'll

get the same result twice.

Get a 1 gallon jug, empty milk jugs work great. Be sure to clean it good

otherwise you'll end up with vinegar, not wine.

Clean the jug with a tablespoon of bleach and 3 cups water.  Swish it around

for a few minutes.

Take about 2 1/2 lbs. of fresh kiwi and put it through a juicer. If you don't

have a juicer just smash it up and use the pulp and all. In this case you'll

need to avoid the lower 1/3 of your wine when you drain the wine from the

container.

Put the kiwi juice, or pulp, into the container.  Add 2-3 cups of sugar and 1

tablespoon of yeast.  fill the jug almost full with distilled water.  Regular

water will work but it increases the chance of having a bacteria which will

produce vinegar.

Cover container lightly, it must be able to "breathe" but not have stuff fall

into it.  Leave sit in a semi-cool place and wait a)1 month for harsh wine,

or b)2-3 months for a smooth wine your freinds will love you for!!!!!

Any questions about kiwi wine a317-475@edu-utah-bus-lab

------------------------------


Vermont brews and brewpubs

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1993 18:04:32 -0400

From: Alan Christopher Braddock <braddock@wam.umd.edu>

Subject: Vermont brews and brewpubs

Hi there, homebrewers.  Another brewing/email neophyte here with a query

out of left field.  Any answers would be greatly appreciated.  I'm planning

a trip to Burlington, Vermont in early June and I'd love to know where to

eat and what to wash it down with.  I only know about Catamount (it is

Catamount, isn't it?), but if anyone can suggest a brewpub or two, I'd be

grateful.  It doesn't have to be in Burlington -- it's a small state and I

don't mind doing the Euell Gibbons thing, stalking the wild fermenter, etc.

                                               Alan Braddock

                                               BRADDOCK@WAM.UMD.EDU

                                               (in Baltimore)

------------------------------


Problem with initial SG value?

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93 16:34 EST

From: LYONS@adc3.adc.ray.com

Subject: Problem with initial SG value?

 >Mashed in 2 gallons of distilled water at ~154 for 1.25 hours at which time

 >the iodine test was negative.  The pH of mash was around 5.2.  Used a Zapap

 >type lauter tun with grain bag.  Recirculated about 0.5 gallons.  Used

 >distilled water for sparging.  Placed a pie plate on top of grain bed and

 >added water at about 165.  Also mashed out at 170.  Sparged till gravity was

 >1.008 .Ph of run off was still around 5.5.  Collected about 7 gallons of

 >wort.  Gravity after boiling down to about 6 gallons was only 1.028.  Where

 >did I go wrong?

I'm not sure you did anything wrong.  SG is a function of

temperature.  So if you read an SG of 1.028 at 212F, that would

be equivalent to an SG of 1.068 at 60F (which sounds great to

me).  Its common practice to record the temperature and SG

simultaneously, and then correct the SG for a temperature of 60F

(actually I normalize to 59F).

------------------------------


Re: Heading Agent

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93 17:08:25 EDT

From: eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West)

Subject: Re: Heading Agent

Phil relates:

>My local homebrew shop also sells small packets of off-white

>"heading agent."  I didn't ask the manufacturer's name, but I

>did ask about the contents:  "ground bark of the gum acacia

>tree" I was told.

Close. It is probably gum arabic, the dried sap of the acacia

plant, not the bark itself. It's used as a thickening agent,

to seal envelopes, and hold stamps on.

Carl

WISL,BM.

------------------------------


Re:miles of troooob

Date: Wed, 07 Apr 93 19:30:33 CDT

From: If wishes were cows@iastate.edu,

Subject: Re:miles of troooob

>From HBD#1114 Steve Rowell ponders,

>I brewed a scotch ale last night,  and noticed today a curious thing.

>On the bottom of the carboy lies a thick (4-5 inches) layer of trub.

Other stuff deleted

>For those out there interested in this mystery:

>I used pellets not whole hops and partial mash with

>3#syrup/3#dry extract and 1#munich/1#crystal/ 1/2# roasted.

>Any comments/ helpful words of wisdom?

I beleive, and I am only guessing, it was the pellet hops, I used those in a

cotton hop bag, and received a huge mess for my trouble.  No the bag didnt

break when it swelled.

I funneled into the primary through a "fine" screen, which quickly clogged.

John Bartleson

------------------------------


Rauchbier

Date: 07 Apr 1993 13:00:13 GMT

From: "Tom Stolfi" <ceco!CWEMAIL!WAUTS@uunet.UU.NET>

Subject: Rauchbier


Rauchbier

Date: 04/05/93

From: Tom Stolfi                                 wauts - cwe1iin

Subject: Rauchbier

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello all,

I am going to make a one gallon mini-batch of rauchbier for this summer.

Rather than smoke some malt I was considering using the "LIQUID SMOKE"

available in the grocery stores.  Has anyone used this?  If so, how much

did you use and at what point in the process did you add it.  I am planning

a light amber beer with OG around 1.050 and hopping with Tett or Saaz.

Any helpful comments or recipes would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.

Tom Stolfi                                   wauts@cwemail.ceco.ceco.com

Commonwealth Edison Co                       Waukegan, IL

------------------------------


Decoction mashing vs Infusion Mashing

Date: Thu,  8 Apr 93 02:30:59 PDT

From: Pat Lasswell <patl@microsoft.com>

Subject: Decoction mashing vs Infusion Mashing

My brew-partner and I have done a side-by-side comparison of

identical brews, one decoction mashed and the other step-infusion

mashed.

The differences were slight.  The main difference was notably

more malt aroma in the decoction-mashed beer.  One of our

club refers to decoction mashed beers as tasting "wet".  I know

what he is noticing, but I do not have vocabulary to describe

such a suble effect.

Ars Zymurgia

Pat Lasswell

patl@microsoft.com

Redmond, WA

------------------------------


Coriolis force

Date: 08 Apr 1993 11:01:45 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Coriolis force

Karl Sweitzer writes:

>I have found that the best vortex drains are formed when you swirl the bottle

>or carboy in a counterclockwise direction (when viewed from above, in the

>northern hemisphere of our spaceship earth).  The reason is the coriolis

>acceleration vector caused by the counterclockwise rotation of the earth.

>When you rotate the bottle in the same direction as the earth rotation

>the coriolis acceleration vectors constructively add, forming a greater

>force on the liquid molecules.  The coriolis acceleration vector tends

>to force the liquid to the outside of the rotation circle leaving room

>in the middle of the bottle for air to enter and replace the exiting liquid.

>This air path is more efficient than "gurgleing" air entering the bottle as

>periodic bubbles.  (note, for those of you in the southern hemisphere, rotate

>the bottle in the clockwise direction. For those at the equator, rotate in

>either direction.)  Some say that the coriolis accel. vector makes pigs tails

>curl (no kidding!).  I have seen pictures of pigs from Equador with straight

>tails!

 To this I can but say:  Horse poop.  The coriolois force on the

liquid in a carboy 30cm or so in diameter is virtually nil.  Swirl it any

way you please, there will be no difference.  The friction of the side of

the jug is far greater than any coriolis effects on the water.  As for the

pigs, they can poop too.

 ed

  ------------

  Ed Hitchcock    *-----------------------*

  Dept of Anatomy and Neurobiology |    |

  Dalhousie University    |     JUST BREW IT |

  Halifax, Nova Scotia   |   |

  ech@ac.dal.ca    *-----------------------*

------------------------------


Re: chiller lenght

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1993 10:10 EST

From: Carlo Fusco <G1400023@NICKEL.LAURENTIAN.CA>

Subject: Re: chiller lenght

Hello everyone,

I am here to back up some of John's claims. I also use a 15 ft chiller. It

is 3/4 inch diameter, the water is 38F, and it will chill 5 gallons in 20-25

min.

It is true about the chilling effect slowing down as the wort approches the

chilling water temperature. But, by then I am already below 70F and I am

ready to pitch my yeast.

>From Northern Ontario where water is found in abundance and wort chiller

materials are expensive.

Carlo

------------------------------


boiling exploitation

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1993 10:19:23 -0400 (EDT)

From: David C Mackensen <cygnus@unh.edu>

Subject: boiling exploitation

Hi,

 How much does boiling change the malt... i.e. I know that you

should boil the malt for a little bit to sanitize it, but...

what if I were just to have plain water in my boil with the hops and

then add the malt into said boil long enough to sanitize it at the

end... of course adding the appropriate irish moss or whatever...then

cool and pitch like normal...

would this affect the taste of my bier (mackensen extra stout:) )?

thanks,

 -chris

- --.

- -- Chris Mackensen (dcm2@kepler.unh.edu or puck@unh.edu)

------------------------------


Re: Wine and Oxidation

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 93 08:32:27 -0600

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Re: Wine and Oxidation

In HBD #1113, Jack Scmidling says:

>We all know what evils to expect of beer that gets oxidized after fermenting

>and the need for quiet racking and transfer.  However, wine drinkers also

>know that good red wine needs to "breathe", which of course is, a snob word

>for oxidize.

>I have also seen several references to the fact that one of the reasons for

>racking wine at regular intervals is to promote oxidation.  Clearly, we have

>a conflict here and my Fall Wine is now in the aging stage and it would be

>nice to know if I should intentionally splash it around while racking or use

>the usual beer cautions.

First, there is a difference (if only semantically) between breathing,

which refers to the exposure of wine to air immediately before

consuming, and aging, which is done either in bulk or in bottle, but

before uncorking.

As to breathing: There is no general agreement on why (or even

whether!)  breathing is beneficial.  Some feel it releases the aroma of

the wine, or helps dispel volatile compounds (such as SO2) which may

mask aroma and flavor.  Others feel it is desirable to oxidize a

certain portion of the phenols (e.g., tannins), especially if the wine

is big and young.

As far as aging goes, oxidation is definitely involved. However, slow,

controlled oxidation is what we want, as it tends to oxidize metallic

ions, phenols, etc., improving the wine.  It is generally believed that

too rapid oxidation (as may result from splashing, etc) will tend to

oxidize other components instead, such as alcohols, leading to

undesirable byproducts such as aldehydes, etc.

Remember that as a home winemaker, your wine is already getting much

more oxygen than commercial wines, due to the much higher surface

area/volume ratio present in small scale operations.  IMHO, your wine

will be oxidized enough just by such things as airspace in your carboy

or bottle, normal exposure to air during gentle racking, etc. Any

intentional splashing may be overkill.

Disclaimer: Little is really known (or agreed upon) about the mechanism

of oxidation, aging, breathing, etc. In the end, your own experience

and evaluations will have to guide you.

Hope this helps,

Kelly Jones  <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

*** I make my own beer AND wine --- I'm  crosstraining!! ***

------------------------------


hard cider brewing

Date:         Thu, 08 Apr 93 10:31:55 EDT

From: Bridget Cullinan <BCULLIN@american.edu>

Subject:      hard cider brewing

Dear Homebrewers:

Having once lived in the south of England and fell in love with English cider (

hard cider), I want to find out if anyone else out there has tried to brew thei

r own.  I'm looking for good recipes for "dry" English-style cider, not the swe

et overly-carbonated [I think] stuff like the Vermont Woodchuck cider.  So, if

anyone is interested in the idea, I can offer a few suggestions, but so far I h

ave stuck to brewing from a Boots Country Cider kit -- which is very good, by t

he way, but only available in England.

Please send any info to me at BCULLIN@auvm.american.edu.  Thanks.  Bridget

------------------------------


Lee Menegoni

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 93 09:23:20 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Lee Menegoni

Lee> I got your e-mail, and sent you my answers to your questions. I

got a response from nectech that lee=a.=menegoni@nectech.com was not

a good address. Do you have another one?

George Fix

------------------------------


Homebrew Digest #1115 (April 08, 1993)

Date: 08 Apr 1993 07:50:07 PST

From: "JSDAWS1@PROFSSR" <JSDAWS1@PB1.PacBell.COM>

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1115 (April 08, 1993)

*** Reply to note of 04/08/93 00:21

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1115 (April 08, 1993)

I've seen several posts re; dry-hopping.  I always get krauesen in the 2ndary

when dry-hopping and have come to accept it as normal.  I've also taken to

using hop plugs.  They provide the advantage of pellets in terms of convenience

and of whole hops in that I seem to get better aroma from them (as I seem to

with whole hops) with none of that ubiquitous green sludge clogging the carboy

neck.  Only problem is, they're slightly too large to fit thru the neck so I

end up cutting them in half with a steak knife.  I put them in a boiled hop

bag with marbles.  This usually prevents it from rising to the top and clogging

things up.

On another topic... keg-conditioning,  I always keg-condition my beer, and by

trial end error, have found that 1/2 the normal priming sugar recomended for

bottling works best.

|    If it's good for ancient druids runnin naked thru the woods      |

|   drinkin strange fermented fluids then it's good enough for me.    |

| JACK DAWSON  -  JSDAWS1  -  415 545-0299  -  CUSTOMER BILLING  (BG) |

------------------------------


Givin' carboys a swirly

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 93 07:58 PDT

From: /O=vmspfhou/S=dblewis/DD.SITE=JSCPROFS/@NASAmail.nasa.gov

Subject: Givin' carboys a swirly

***************************** PROFS Note *****************************

 From: DBLEWIS --VMSPFHOU            Date and time  04/08/93 09:59:07

 To: POSTMAN --NASAMAIL

 FROM: Dennis B. Lewis <InterNet:dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

 SUBJECT: Givin' carboys a swirly

 From: Karl A. Sweitzer

 >I have found that the best vortex drains are formed when you swirl the

 >bottle or carboy in a counterclockwise direction (when viewed from above, in

 >the northern hemisphere of our spaceship earth).

 OK, I haven't tried this but, I assume that when you start swirling the water

 in the carboy, that the carboy is already inverted (and over the sink/lawn).

 If you get up a good swirl and then try to invert the carboy, you would really

 goof up your swirl when the carboy gets horizontal. Plus the rotational

 inertia of 3+ gallons of water spinning fast enough to hug the sides would be

 impressive when you tried to flip it around.I think it just needed to be said.

 *** Physics disclaimer ***

 It has been years since my last physics course. I wasn't there, I wasn't

 drinking, and it's not my fault. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 Dennis B. Lewis (713) 483-9145  **  NASA/JSC/DH65 Payload Ops

 Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1116, 04/09/93

*************************************

-------


Bottle Sources

Date:    Thu, 8 Apr 1993 15:50:12 GMT

From: "UARS::COOK"@CDHF1.GSFC.NASA.GOV (Chris Cook)

Subject: Bottle Sources

Dan deRegnier asked for sources for bottles, which has been a common

request.

The usual source is from beer distributors.  I've gotten cases of

returnable beer bottles (longnecks) for little more than the cost of the

deposit (and an occasional promise to bring them a sample of the

resulting beer).  That kept me in beer bottles for several years, but I

was still having problems finding wine or champagne bottles.

For the last few years, though, I've done my bottle shopping at the local

recycling center.  I don't know if you have any in your area, but there's

a recycling center near me (near the University of Maryland, for anyone

local) that accepts aluminum, paper, some plastics, tin cans, and (the

most important for me) glass, separated into clear, green and brown 55

gallon drums.

While everyone else was depositing their stuff, I'd be withdrawing.  You

want to talk about some strange looks.  I'm one of the few people who

leave with more stuff than I brought.  I have to weed through a lot of

junk, but there are some fascinating bottles there.

It's the best recycling I can think of.

Chris Cook                                     cook@cdhf1.gsfc.nasa.gov

------------------------------


Chiller Study?

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1993 08:49:58 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Chiller Study?

In HBD #1115, Tom Leith has a *great idea* for collecting data for an

empirical chiller design study.  Does anyone have the time and stats pack

to do the regression analysis?  I know the theory, but don't have much

practical experience or time, since my job is being shut down in June due

to budget cuts.... [Our motto: "Leading the Way in Deficit Reduction."]

Anyway, Thanks to Mike Hall, [hi Mike] the necessary parameters are:

tubing length, ID & OD, flow rate (may I suggest seconds needed to

fill a 5 gal. carboy), water in/out temps (actually in temp

would be sufficient, but will increase the number of data points needed),

final temp of wort and time to reach that temp, wort stirred or not (Y/N).

Additional temp readings at various times of water out and wort will speed

the process and reduce the number of data sets needed.

All the other things are more or less equal for all of us:  wort SG

doesn't alter specific heats much,  water pressure is difficult to measure

and flow rate is really what counts.  Copper tubing is pretty standard in

terms of wall thickness and conductivity.  A yes/no datapoint should be

sufficient on stirring, since it will be hard to standardize measuring

stir rates.  I heartily reccomend stirring anyway, since wort is a very

poor conductor of heat and the delta_t around the chiller doesn't generate

very strong convection.

There's a Nobel prize (or at least a lot of HBD fame and gratitude) here for

someone who wants to do the work.  It will probably take a month or more

to get an adequate number of data sets....

Free Beer in Portland this Summer,

Paul.

------------------------------


Hawaii Brew Pubs

Date:         Thu, 8 Apr 93 09:36:52 PDT

From: "Peter Hadikin (HDIP9235)" <HDIP9235@BCIT.BC.CA>

Subject:      Hawaii Brew Pubs

FROM:  Peter Hadikin (HDIP9235)

       (604) 432-8452

I will be heading off on holidays to the islands of Hawaii and Maui at the

end of April/ beginning of May.  Just wondering if there is such a thing

as brew pubs on either or both of these islands.  Any responses may be

directed back to me and would be greatly appreciated.

Take it easy, Peter.

BC Institute of Technology

Computer Resources

3700 Willingdon Avenue

------------------------------


Help! Need Hop plant info

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 93 12:31:57 EDT

From: casey@bbt.com (Kevin Casey)

Subject: Help! Need Hop plant info

My brother (the one with the green thumb) recently volunteered

to grow hops for me. I need to order some plants (or do you

order rizomes sp?). Can someone guide towards a mail order

house for hop plants? Also, could you recommend varieties that

could grow well in Raleigh, NC (hot humid summers). Please

respond via private email. Thanks in advance!

- --------------------------------------------------------------------

Kevin Casey                  |     "What you doin' daddy?,

BroadBand Technologies, Inc. |          cookin' beer"

Research Triangle Park, NC   |

Internet: casey@bbt.com      |                   My 2 year old son

- --------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Verify address

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 93 14:11:11 EDT

From: Michael W Worobiec <mworobie@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

Subject: Verify address

address verified

------------------------------


Skimming, Hops, Color

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 93 13:21 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Skimming, Hops, Color

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 Subject: Re: why blowoff? dryhopping

 >Gerald asks, why use the blowoff method?

 >It's merits have been argued in the HBD, but I believe it makes the

 beer taste better, so I continue to use it.  Papazian says that

 the kraeusen contains fusel oils (I've seen fusel alcohols elsewhere)

 which some say contribute to hangovers.  The most graphic proof I have

 for using the blowoff method is to challenge anyone to drink a glass

 of blowoff.  YUK!  Just sniffing it is enough to guarantee my continued

 support of this procedure.

 >The arguments against using the blowoff method (just to be fair) are that

 you lose beer and that you lose some of the bittering you just but in

 with the hops.

 The above arguments seem to be based on only two possibilites:

      1.     Blow-off

      2.     Do Nothing

 Based on this, it would seem that blow-off is the preferred method.

 The third possibility is to ferment in an "open" container and skim the

 bitter crud floating among the foam.

 I put "open" in quotes because by this, hombrewers mean a large container

 with an opening large enough to get in to skim and a lid to keep out

 contaminants while fermenting.

 This usually is the "standard  7 gal plastic fermenter universally available

 in retail shops.  In my case, I use my 10 gal ss mash kettle for a fermenter.

 So, once we agree (ha ha) on the need to get rid of the crud, the discussion

 becomes...  skimming vs. blowoff.

 As Al mentioned, little or no beer is lost by skimming.  I wait till the foam

 is just about gone and only skim the brown crud that floats because that is

 what is bitter. The foam is just wort puffed up with CO2 and it turns back

 into wort when the fermentation subsides.

 On the negative side is the risk of contamination every time the fermenter is

 opened to skim but reasonable precautions can reduce this to the noise level.

 I don't think anyone will argue about the ease of cleaning an open fermenter

 vs. a carboy and associated tubing.

 ............

 >If you use pellets, you can put a copper scrubbing pad over the end of

 the siphon hose followed by a mesh bag (this idea was originally introduced

 by Al Taylor (I think it was Taylor...) and then independently by Kinney

 Baughman).

 First of all, whatever happened to Kinney?  I still see his ads but he has

 not posted here for months.  I am sure it is just a coincidence but it seems

 that he vanished about the time Jay Hirsh started his censored, politically

 cleansed, alternative forum.

 Well,  anyway the pot scrubber is a nifty idea but in a recent experiment

 with dry hopping, I found a new use for the easy masher.   It just so happens

 (ha ha) that the ID of the strainer tube is 3/8" and fits snugly over the end

 of the "standard" siphon tube.  You can slide it up or down to expose as much

 or as little of the strainer as you like and keep it whatever distance off

 the bottom you wish.

 BTW, the experiment was intersting in that I prefer the normally hopped beer

 to the dry hopped but the gang at CBS has exactly the opposite view.  Guess I

 will abandon all plans to become the World's Greatest Beer Judge.  Not liking

 hops could be considered a restrictive bias.

 ............

 Someone recently posted an article on diluting Michelob Dark with various

 amounts of water to make color calibrators.  I know have the beer and can't

 find the article.

 js

know = now

jjs

 ZZ

------------------------------


Hop Alpha Acid rating

Date: Thu,  8 Apr 93 13:46:02 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Hop Alpha Acid rating

A fellow brewer and I were talking about ingredients recently and made the

following observation:

The European hops we have been getting pellets and plugs have been steadily

declining in Alpha Acid rating each year.  My current Saaz pellets are 2.1%

What is the cause of this.  Is it due to economics, fixed supply of hops

going into an expanding market and homebrewers getting what mega brewers do

not purchase.  Or is it that that the hops actually are becoming less acidic.

Or are have the measurement methods changed.  Is it cyclic or seasonal.

Reviewing the original Papazian CJHB and its list of hops and alpha acid

ratings what I am getting now are almost 50% less than listed then.

------------------------------


Sorry for the noise...

Date: Thu,  8 Apr 93 07:47:09 EDT

From: Jim=Curl%Eng.West%PTLSANJOSE@ptltd.com

Subject: Sorry for the noise...

Just a test.

------------------------------


"Party Pig"

Date:     Thu, 8 Apr 93 14:52:30 EDT

From: "David C. Skeldon" (CCAC-LAD) <dskeldon@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  "Party Pig"

Frank Jones had an excellent post back in the middle of January on the "Party

Pig" made by Quoin.  Since then I haven't heard anything about it, and I was

wondering if anyone has more input/experiences.  I bottle all of my beer right

now, but I could see the advantage to a couple of kegs for summer parties.

                     Thanks

>Dave Skeldon: Owner, Operator, and Brewmeister of Wooddale Brewing Co.

------------------------------


Wrestling aligators

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 93 14:00 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Wrestling aligators

Jack writes, quoting Jeff:

>>It also looks as though I'll need to put rubber feet on my bucket, so

>it doesn't slide and hop around while I'm cranking the mill.

>

>Doing it on the bucket looks a lot easier than it is and depending on the

>floor surface, it can be like wrestling with an aligator.  I think most

>people eventually conclude that it works best clamped to a table with the

I disgree.  I suggest a square of rubber-backed carpeting under the bucket!

Shame on you Jack-- my solution is *simpler* than yours...

***************

Subject: Resurgent fermentation

Caleb writes:

>I am a relatively novice homebrewer (about a year) and I have just recently

>noticed some trouble with an extract/speciatly grain beer.  I used crystal

>malt (1/2 lb) biscuit malt (1/2 lb) and Alexander's pale ale (6? lbs.).  The

DeWolf-Cosyns Biscuit (if that's what you used), although it is a roasted

malt (like very pale chocolate malt) still has LOTS of starch in it and

should be mashed.  Given the pale-ness of your beer (judging from your

ingredients), I suspect that you'll have a starch haze.

>problem:  the beer sat fermented in the primary until the fermentation was

>nearly done (i.e. more than 90 seconds between bubbles).  I racked(?) to the

>secondary and everything looked fine for about a day.  Yesterday I noticed

>that the secondary was bubbling about once every 45 seconds.  There is also

>a light foam forming on top of the beer -- basically a thin airy head.  The

>gas escaping from the lock doesn't smell like the usual gas so I am suspicious.

>Does it sound like I have a contaminant yeast.  If so is there anything I

>can do?

I suspect that you have roused the yeast which may have indeed caused a

little bit more fermentation or perhaps simply provided nucleation sites

for dissolved CO2 to form bubbles and come out of solution.  A day is much

too short a time for a wild yeast or bacteria to begin releasing any gas.

**************

Subject: Are bottles, just bottles?  PLUS: Question for Charlie Papazian

Dan writes:

>Next, what is the best source for bottles?  Are bottles bottles, or

>are some better than others?  Should I stay away from bottles all

>together?

The best bottles, in my opinion, are, what we call here, "bar bottles."

They are the thick, brown longnecks that require a deposit and are often

so scratched up you can't see through them.  You can really mishandle

these bottles and still not break them.  On the down-side, they do tend

to have chipped-up lips (which can result in a bad seal) and are pretty

ugly.  I've heard that they are as scarce as hen's teeth in the West.

Around here, several small, old Wisconsin breweries, such as Huber, use

them as well as AB, Miller and Heileman's.  Go find a bar that uses them

or a big liquor store that stocks beer in them -- you can buy them for

the deposit and you get a nice waxed cardboard case free!

The reason I say these bottles are the best is because they are

competition-ready... you can use them for competitions.  Besides having

no raised lettering, I would be willing to bet that of all the broken

bottles that arrive at competitions, less than 1% are "bar bottles"

just because they are so durable.

My two other favorite bottles are much harder to get: Orval and the *old*

Whitbread (and Mackeson's) bottles.  Alas, they have raised lettering so

are not usable for AHA-sanctioned competitions.  They are really thick,

brown glass and usually are not re-used by the breweries so they are in

much better shape than "bar bottles."

The general rule is the thicker the glass and the darker brown they are,

the better the bottle.  Also, if you have your choice, you might as well

get bottles that are usable for competitions.  I need to make sure that

I have enough competition bottles of each batch.  It would be a shame to

have best beer ever just at its peak, right in time for the Nationals

and then find out you've only got Bass, Youngs, Fullers and Orval bottles

left.  Oh yeah... generally, only (approximately) 12 ounce bottles are

acceptable for competitions, so don't bottle the whole batch in Weiss,

Xingu and other jumbo bottles if you plan to enter some competitions.

Actually, if you only want comments on your beer, any bottle will do --

it will be judged, but will probably be disqualified if it doesn't

meet the bottle requirements.

Now, I have a question for Charlie: "What about the bottles that have

raised glass codes or "NO DEPOSIT" on the bottom edge of the bottle,

like McEwan's Scotch Ale or Samuel(tm) Adams(tm) Boston(tm) Lager(tm)?"

Last year, at the 1st round judging, we were told to accept such bottles

and disqualify only bottles with raised brand names such as "Bass,"

"FULLERS" and "ORVAL." I complied, but feared that the 2nd-round Nationals

may be more demanding on bottle requirements.  What's the official word?

************

Subject: Re: Rehydrating dry yeast?

Rich writes:

>As a relatively new brewer, this is the first I've heard of

>rehydrating dry yeast before pitching.  For the few batches that I've

>made, I pitched the dry yeast directly into the primary, with no

>noticable bad effects (i.e., it fermented just fine, and the beer

>tasted the way it was supposed to taste).

You could have excellent sanitation and study yeast or just good luck.

>Is there any advantage to rehydrating the dry yeast?  Is there any

>disadvantage to tossing the dry stuff directly into the primary?

 From Paul Farnsworth's article in the Yeast Special Issue of Zymurgy:

 "The latest data from Intek, an Australian dried-yeast producer

 who is just entering the U.S. market, are as follows:  Rehydrate

 the dried yeast in one-half cup of water.  Clean water between

 95 degrees F and 104 degrees F (35 and 40 degrees C) should be

 used.  City water supplies containing high concentrations of

 chlorine will inactivate dried yeast during rehydration.  Chorine

 can be removed [and any live bacteria killed - Al] by boiling.

 Cold water will significantly decrease the viability of dried

 yeast during rehydration.  It is advisable to not rehydrate yeast

 in wort because compounds extracted from hops are antiseptic and

 can decrease yeast viability while the yeast is being rehydrated."

Also, the Lallemand Newsletter has very similar recommendations (alas,

I don't have it here to quote), but mention that the osomtic pressure

difference rehydrating in wort can cause the yeast to produce off-flavors

when it later switches to fermentation.

I have a personal experience with a two three-quarter-gallon test batches

using Lallemand Nottingham yeast.  The 1048 wort was cooled to 80F, aerated

and the yeast was pitched.  In batch 1, the dry yeast was simply

sprinkled on top of the wort.  In batch 2, the dry yeast was rehydrated

in 104F water for 15 minutes and then pitched.  Both batches were kept

in a 65F room.  Batch 2 was actively fermenting in about 8 hours, whereas

Batch 1 took over 72 hours to begin fermentation.  Fermentation in Batch 2

appeared normal and healthy and was complete in about 5 days, whereas the

fermentation of Batch 1 was sluggish and took much longer.

Time and other projects prevented me from completing this experiment, i.e.

taking FG readings and tasting (in fact Batch 1 is still sitting there in my

fermentation room between pseudo-Kriek#2 and pseudo-Gueuze#1), but the

importance of rehydration was clearly shown.

Al.

------------------------------


Re: vortex drain strength, and coriolis acceleration

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1993 12:00:35 -0700

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: vortex drain strength, and coriolis acceleration

Got this from the sci.physics FAQ...

Summary:  the Coriolis force is real, but irrelevant at the bathtub

          (or carboy) scale.

have fun

gak

Richard Stueven, Castro Valley CA

Item 12.

Which Way Will my Bathtub Drain?            updated 11-May-1192 by SIC

- --------------------------------            original by Matthew R. Feinstein

Question: Does my bathtub drain differently depending on whether I live

          in the northern or southern hemisphere?

Answer: No.  There is a real effect, but it is far too small to be

        relevant when you pull the plug in your bathtub.

Because the earth rotates, a fluid that flows along the earth's surface

feels a "Coriolis" acceleration perpendicular to its velocity.  In the

northern hemisphere high pressure storm systems spin clockwise.  In the

southern hemisphere, they spin counterclockwise because the direction

of the Coriolis acceleration is reversed.  This effect leads to the

speculation that the bathtub vortex that you see when you pull the plug

from the drain spins one way in the north and the other way in the

south.

But this acceleration is VERY weak for bathtub-scale fluid motions.

The order of magnitude of the Coriolis acceleration can be estimated

from size of the "Rossby number".  Coriolis accelerations are

significant when the Rossby number is SMALL.

So, suppose we want a Rossby number of 0.1 and a bathtub-vortex length

scale of 0.1 meter.  Since the earth's rotation rate is about

10^(-4)/second, the fluid velocity should be less than or equal to

2*10^(-6) meters/second.  This is a very small velocity.  How small is

it?  Well, we can take the analysis a step further and calculate

another, more famous dimensionless parameter, the Reynolds number.

The Reynolds number is = L*U*density/viscosity

Assuming that physicists bathe in hot water the viscosity will be about

0.005 poise and the density will be about 1.0, so the Reynolds Number

is about 4*10^(-2).

Now, life at low Reynolds numbers is different from life at high

Reynolds numbers.  In particular, at low Reynolds numbers, fluid

physics is dominated by friction and diffusion, rather than by inertia:

the time it would take for a particle of fluid to move a significant

distance due to an acceleration is greater than the time it takes for

the particle to break up due to diffusion.

Therefore the effect of the Coriolis acceleration on your bathtub

vortex is SMALL.  To detect its effect on your bathtub, you would have

to get out and wait until the motion in the water is far less than one

rotation per day.  This would require removing thermal currents,

vibration, and any other sources of noise.  Under such conditions,

never occurring in the typical home, you WOULD see an effect.  To see

what trouble it takes to actually see the effect, see the reference

below.  Experiments have been done in both the northern and southern

hemispheres to verify that under carefully controlled conditions,

bathtubs drain in opposite directions due to the Coriolis acceleration

from the Earth's rotation.

The same effect has been accused of responsibility for the direction

water circulates when you flush a toilet.  This is surely nonsense.  In

this case, the water rotates in the direction which the pipe points

which carries the water from the tank to the bowl.

Reference: Trefethen, L.M. et al, Nature 207 1084-5 (1965).

------------------------------


Georgia Legalizes Homebrew

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 93 15:10:50 EDT

From: Brett Baumberger <bsb@hpuerca.atl.hp.com>

Subject: Georgia Legalizes Homebrew

Hi Brewers,

Georgia Governor Zell Miller signed a bill yesterday making it legal

for Georgia residents to brew 50 gallons of beer/year to be consumed at

home.  The newspaper did not carry an article on it that I could find.

A local TV station gave a 45 second story about it (using last year's

footage).

So the hoppers here in the Peachtree state will no longer live in fear

of the local Gestapo.

YC06000 <YC06%FERRIS.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU> writes in hbd1115:

>One more...I will be in Atlanta, GA in May.  Are there any

>brewpubs or microbreweries to worth going to?

Sorry. GA is a firm enforcer of the 3 tier distribution law.  No one may

be involved (commercially) in more than one of the following:

       manufacturing, distributing or retailing

of beer i.e. no brewpubs. :(

Brett

------------------------------


RIMS AND Immersion Heater Length?

Date: Wed,  7 Apr 93 20:58:05 PDT

From: Scott Lord (CompuCom) <v-ccsl@microsoft.com>

Subject: RIMS AND Immersion Heater Length?

I just picked up a  two stainless steel vessel double wall insulate

with copper coil that runs between the two walls.

It was made for  A&W rootbeer . Freon was pumped in the coil to keep it

cold. It came with four pumps two for pumping the

rootbeer and two as a Freon compressor . It holds 48 gals. and has a

lid and a bottom drain with a  stainless steel screen that rises 1

inch off the bottom and a stainless steel valve. I am going to use one

for a fermentor and the other as a hot water vessel used for sparging

and rims. Now I want to set up a rims system and to heat the mash I

will pump wort out of the bottom of the mash tun through some copper

coils that is placed in side the hot water vessel to boost the mash

temp. Now I will use a pump to transfer hot water from my boiler kettle

to the hot water vessel.  The pump has a max flow rate of 5 gals. a

minute but I have built a pump speed control.  I will keep the temp. of

the hot water vessel at 80 degree C. . My mash tun is a converted 15

gal. keg that has 6 inches of that spray in foam around it and my wort

boiler is a 15 gal. converted keg also with a hop back.

1.) So what size and what length should I use to get a 1 degree C. rise

in temp. ?

2.) What should I use to seal the lid of the fermentor down to keep the

air out ?

v-ccsl@microsoft

------------------------------


vortex drain strength, and coriolis acceleration

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 93 12:49:11 PDT

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: vortex drain strength, and coriolis acceleration

 envkas@sn370.utica.ge.com (Karl A. Sweitzer) writes:

>I have found that the best vortex drains are formed when you swirl the bottle

>or carboy in a counterclockwise direction (when viewed from above, in the

>northern hemisphere of our spaceship earth).  The reason is the coriolis

>acceleration vector caused by the counterclockwise rotation of the earth.

>When you rotate the bottle in the same direction as the earth rotation

>the coriolis acceleration vectors constructively add, forming a greater

>force on the liquid molecules.  The coriolis acceleration vector tends

>to force the liquid to the outside of the rotation circle leaving room

>in the middle of the bottle for air to enter and replace the exiting liquid.

>

                  [snip]

>

>Karl Sweitzer

Yes and No.  Yes: the coriolis force does exist and is in the direction you

indicate.  No:  the size of this force is negligible compared to the other

forces acting during the process, e.g. the forces you exert by swirling the

carboy, and the viscous and frictional forces of the water and carboy.  I

have not done a calculation, but I would bet the coriolis force is even

smaller than the surface tension of the water.

My $0.02:  whether you get a better vortex CW or CCW will most strongly

depend on whether you are right handed or left handed.

Also (I hate to quibble, but...) it is the CENTRIFUGAL acceleration

(not coriolis) that forces the liquid to the outside when it is rotating.

No flame intended.  Just wanted to put my degree to *some* use :-)

Troy

------------------------------


Brew Shops in the Olympia WA region

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 93 14:04:05 PDT

From: Gordon Baldwin <gbaldwin@unix11.eldec.com>

Subject: Brew Shops in the Olympia WA region

Sorry to take up bandwidth for a local question, but does anyone know of

any brew shops in the Olympia Washington area? I will be leaving Seattle

and I would like to have something local.

- --

Gordon Baldwin

ELDEC Corp

gbaldwin@eldec.com

------------------------------


Dry Hop Sediment

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1993 15:06:08 -0800 (PDT)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: Dry Hop Sediment

Peter Bartscherer writes:

> However, I found that GENTLY swirling, NOT SPLASHING, the beer in the

> fermenter a day or two before bottling caused the hop head to break up

> and settle out.

With all the frothing that the hop pellets cause in the secondary I would

think that all the air would have been purged out and the beer was sitting

under a layer of CO2.  This being the case, what's wrong with causing some

splashing as long as the airlock is left on?

 Peter

------------------------------


Lab Equip. Resources

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1993 17:14:30 -0700 (PDT)

From: Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG>

Subject: Lab Equip. Resources

Does anyone know of reasonably priced mail order resources for lab

equipment and supplies?  Specifically looking for the full range of slant

tubes, petri dishes, erlenmeyer flasks, stoppers, agar, and the like for

yeast culturing.  I know that a couple of brew supply stores have put

together "kits" but the reviews suggest that additional material would

probably be required and I'd like to compare buying my supplies directly

from a lab supplier vs. the kit price as well as having access to other

material.

If you don't know of any mail order suppliers, I live in Oakland and work

in SF, so Bay Area stores would be appreciated as well.  Reply by me-mail

please unless you think the community would like to know about the mail

order places.

And, since I seem to be in the information gathering mood, what about Bay

Area liquor (or other) stores that have a good range of Belgian beer

products that you would trust to be well handled.  I recently bought a

bottle of Chimay that was a couple of years old (didn't know it until I

pulled the cork).

BTW, Norm Pyle posts of a homemade roller mill:

>...sort of a scaled down version of

>the one presented by RW and (??) in the latest Zymurgy gadgets special issue.

(??) is Wayne Greenway and its a beautiful mill, my extract rating soared

after switching from buying precrushed to using this mill.  I'll miss having

it in the neighborhood when he moves.

Eric Wade <ericwade@ class.org>

------------------------------


Blowoff (fusels, etc.)

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 93 12:53:16 EST

From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)

Subject: Blowoff (fusels, etc.)

Korz says,

> Gerald asks, why use the blowoff method?

>

> It's merits have been argued in the HBD, but I believe it makes the

> beer taste better, so I continue to use it.  Papazian says that

> the kraeusen contains fusel oils (I've seen fusel alcohols elsewhere)

> which some say contribute to hangovers.

"Fusel oil" is the oily byproduct of ethanol distillation consisting

of mainly long-chain alcohols: propanols, butanols, etc.  The terms

"fusels," "fusel oils" and "fusel alcohols" are synonomous so far

as I know.  I don't know whether the term applies to aromatic as well

as aliphatic alcohols; since I don't hear phenols grouped in with

fusels, I assume that it doesn't.

Fusel alcohols are an important flavor component. The shorter ones have

medicinal/disinfectant flavors (e.g. isopropyl). The longer ones are

pungent and have a kind of fruity-citrusy-medicinal character that

is unmistakable. I've had quite a few homebrewed pale ales where the

octanol (orange-sweet-medicinal) was quite prominent.

In fact, the last Liberty Ale I drank smelled and tasted strongly

of octanol or something similar.  I was a bit surprised by it and

intend to try another bottle from a separate source, since I consider

it a defect. The last bottle of Liberty Ale I had was a few years

and quite a bit of palate training back, so I don't remember what

it used to be like.

A professional brewer who was drinking with me (at the Brickskellar)

at the time said that it seemed "old."  I'm not so sure; I've never

seen beer change in flavor this way in a bottle.  (Anyone care to

comment on the Liberty Ale profile?)

Some people claim fusels contribute a "clinging bitterness" to beer.

Bitter though they may be, they are so pungent that the flavor of

the beer will be negatively affected long before the finish, at least

in my opinion.

As far as hangovers go, long chain alcohols may well be a factor.

They become increasingly toxic and intoxicating as the chain of carbons

grows, to a point, anyway. Many many other fermentation byproducts

are also mildly toxic.  I would bet that the aldehydes,

ketones and esters contribute unpleasant metabolic byproducts.

Finally, fusel alcohols are quite soluble in alcohol, and can not

be removed by blowoff.  The unpleasant substances in blowoff residue

are tannins, unisomerized hop resins, etc. They are largely insoluble,

even in a weak alcohol solution, and are not going to be a primary

source of bitterness or astringency in your beer once it has cleared.

=============== O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis ===============

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net

2102 Ryan's Run East        Rt 38 & 41             Maple Shade NJ 08052

Copyright 1993 by Joseph N. Hall.   Permission granted to copy and

redistribute freely over USENET and by email.  Commercial use prohibited.

------------------------------


malt extract for priming;  exploding bottles

Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1993 08:23 EST

From: CROWELL%NSLVAX@Venus.YCC.Yale.Edu

Subject: malt extract for priming;  exploding bottles

I'm a beginning extract brewer,  and would appreciate any comments

on a couple of questions about bottle conditioning...

(1) On my first (and so far,  only)  batch of beer (a brown ale),  I

used 1.25 cups of malt extract for priming instead of 0.75 cups of corn

sugar.  Papazian mentions parenthetically that this can be done,  and I

thought,  why add sugar to my beer?  I was happy with the results...

does anyone know why corn sugar seems to be the standard method?

(2) I had a bottle explode while I was out of the house (4 weeks after

bottling).  What would be a common reason for this?  I wonder if I left

too little air-space,  or whether it might have to do with using malt

extract for priming.

        - Ben Crowell, New Haven, CT

------------------------------


Hops afterthoughts

Date: Fri, 9 Apr 93 07:31 PDT

From: /O=vmspfhou/S=dblewis/DD.SITE=JSCPROFS/@NASAmail.nasa.gov

Subject: Hops afterthoughts

***************************** PROFS Note *****************************

 From: DBLEWIS --VMSPFHOU            Date and time  04/09/93 09:32:21

 To: POSTMAN --NASAMAIL

 FROM: Dennis B. Lewis <InterNet:dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

 SUBJECT: Hops afterthoughts

 Mark Elliot writes:

 >Should have guessed why everyone said "not bad, but not bitter enough". Now

 >that I've screwed up another batch (now 3 days in the primary), is there away

 >to salvage what I'm sure will be another "bland", hop-lacking brew? Theflavor

 >of the past few batches has been ok; rich, sort of sweet, but kindawatery and

 >again, missing a lot of what the hops were there for to begin with.

 If I read your note correctly, you've been using hopped extract kits and

 boiling away. A long boil will indeed destroy any hop aroma that was in the

 beer. You can still use hopped extract kits, but make sure you add some flavor

 hops in the last 20 min of the boil and/or aroma hops in the last 5 min. Keep

 in mind that there are styles that do not typically have appreciable hop aroma

 or flavor--like stouts and most german lagers.

 If you want to add bitterness, see if you can find pre-isomerized hop extract.

 This is essentially what you get when you boil hops for bitterness. Keeping in

 mind that your beer probably already has some bitterness, follow the

 directions for adding LESS than the full amount. This stuff is concentrated

 and a little goes a long way. Remember, you can always add more. It will also

 add some hop flavor. You could add it to the secondary or to a malt extract

 primer at bottling time.

 If you want some hop flavor or aroma, there are two things you can do. (1) Dry

 hop with pellets if you have no head space in your secondary or use leaf if

 you have room. (2) Add hops when you bottle using the "coffee-pot method."This

 was discussed on HBD a couple months ago.

 Dennis B. Lewis (713) 483-9145  **  NASA/JSC/DH65 Payload Ops

 Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Re: `Breathing' of wine

Date: Fri,  9 Apr 1993 11:00:03 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Michael E. O'Connor" <mo0q+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: Re: `Breathing' of wine

Excerpts from internet.homebrew-beer: 6-Apr-93 `Breathing' of wine by

KURZ@GANESA.PFC.MIT.EDU

>> and the need for quiet racking and transfer.  However, wine drinkers also

>> know that good red wine needs to "breathe", which of course is, a snob word

>

>> for oxidize.

>

>I beg to differ.  From my experience in wine making and my limited

>qualities as a wine connoisseur I believe that what is commonly referred

>to as "breathing" has nothing to do with oxidation.  Usually when you

>pour a red wine from the bottle (i.e. decant it) you don't drink it

>immediately.  Instead, you let it `breath' in a caraffe for some time

>(half an hour to one hour or so).  The rationale is to let it develop

>its bouquet.  Some volatile substances in the wine evaporate and

>saturate the air immediately above the wine (that's also, by the way,

>one of the reasons why you should serve red wine in big, wide glasses;

>so as to retain the `aromatic air', i,e, the bouquet).  There is no

>oxidation involved (to my knowledge).  That would take much longer.

>From what I understand, `Breathing' of wine *is* to let it oxidize.

In wines, tannins are very important to the the aging of wine, but do

produce a somewhat undesirable taste.  I am pretty sure that the

`Breathing' period is so the oxygen can react with the tanins and sort

of `surround' them to mellow their taste.

I do agree however that oxidation of whine before it gets to the bottle

and ages is a bad thing...

I hope I'm not way off on this...

 -stew

I DRINK beer *and* I collect cute bottles!  ;-)

------------------------------


Re: vortex drain strength, and coriolis acceleration, wort chillers.

Date: Fri, 9 Apr 93 10:09:37 CDT

From: hinz@memphis.med.ge.com (David Hinz)

Subject: Re: vortex drain strength, and coriolis acceleration, wort chillers.

Karl writes:

- ---

I have found that the best vortex drains are formed when you swirl the bottle

or carboy in a counterclockwise direction (when viewed from above, in the

northern hemisphere of our spaceship earth).  The reason is the coriolis

acceleration vector caused by the counterclockwise rotation of the earth.

When you rotate the bottle in the same direction as the earth rotation

the coriolis acceleration vectors constructively add, forming a greater

force on the liquid molecules.

- ---

A couple of terms spring to mind here...."unmeasurable", "negligable", and

"insignificant" spring to mind.

The amount of force you are imparting into the molecules is, I would guess,

on the order of thousands or millions of times stronger than that of

the coriolis effect.  Yes it exists, yes it is measurable, but your swirling

a carboy full of water gives you a heck of a lot more force than the earth's

rotation, neutrino bombardment, specific gravity of your tap water, or the

color of the paint in your kitchen.

- -----------

About wort chiller length (oh no, not more!).....

I've got a 50 foot, 3'8" chiller I made, by wrapping it around a 5-gallon

bucket, then laced up the sides in 3 places with copper wiring wire.  It chills

the wort to pitching temperature in a rather rapid time (guessing 15 minutes,

I can look at my records to tell you for sure).  The water comes out boiling

(steam, actually) for a few seconds, then comes out progressively cooler.

Stirring with a sanitized spoon speeds up the heat transfer, and the lacing

keeps the coils far apart enough so that the wort can circulate pretty freely.

I, personally, can't see any benefit to a shorter length, at all.  You want to

give the water as much opportunity to absorb the heat of the wort.  I would

think the following are involved:

>Coil surface area (not mass, as someone else mentioned???)

>flow rate of water passing through coil

>temperature differential between wort & water.

So, let's try this:  We bring our cold water into the hot wort.  Should we

bring it in the top, or bottom?  The wort is probably warmer at the top, so we

should put the cold water in at the top so the temperature differential is

highest, or maybe not.  Any ideas?

Now, how about flow rate?  Slower flow would give the water more time to absorb

the heat, but I think the extra length does the same.  I dunno, I'm asking.

I suppose you could adjust the flow from the faucet for maximum outlet temp

in your chilling water, which would indicate maximum heat transfer.  It will

change as the temperature delta changes, however, I THINK.

What about tubing diameter?  Surface area goes up, flow rate goes up, but

restriction, and therefore time in the chiller, goes down.  Where is the

optimal point, extrapolated across all temperature differentials?

There are probably a thousand more variables.  I like the idea that someone

proposed here, to do an impirical study of what we are using, and decide

which coil construction works best.  I propose we look at the following

variables:

1> water going in at top or bottom of chiller coil

1A> Coil rotation direction (for the hell of it, can't think of an effect

but who knows...maybe a coriolis thing after all!)

2> diameter of tubing & length of tubing

3> flow rate used (how long to fill a quart bottle from the outlet of the

chiller coil?)

4> temperature of your tap water (just for reference, not really something

you can change all that easily)

5> amount of time to chill the wort to, say, 75 degrees F.

Can't think of anything else to measure offhand, any ideas?  Someone else

mentioned they'd tabulate results, I'd be willing to do so also or help.

Of course, it would mean that we'd all have to brew a batch of homebrew to

tabulate the results....sorry for the inconvenience ;-)))

Dave Hinz

hinz@picard.med.ge.com

------------------------------


re: Thanks for the decoction info.

Date: Fri,  9 Apr 93 08:32:46 PDT

From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

Subject: re: Thanks for the decoction info.

Dennis B. Lewis <InterNet:dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov> writes:

>  wrote that some of the big breweries like Pilsener Urquell still use

decoction

>  mashing. How on earth do they remove the grains from the mash tun? They must

>  have to boil hundreds of pounds of grain. Anybody taken a tour?

Umm, yeah, I have taken a tour.  Most of the info was published in a

Zymurgy article about 3 years ago.  (Sorry I can't tell you the issue

right off hand, my collection is at home.)

But to answer your question, a tour of nearly any of the German

breweries would do, since they almost all practice decoction mashing.

The usual arrangement is a 4 vessel brewhouse:  a mash tun

(maischebottich), mash cooker (maischepfanne), lauter tun

(lauterbottich), and a kettle (wuerzepfanne).  The process involves

doughing in in the mash tun, and then pumping from a bottom outlet to

the mash cooker the decoct.  That's how a "thick mash" is obtained for

boiling.  This decoct is eventually returned to the "rest mash" to

raise the whole to the next temperature plateau.  When the decoction

mash is finish, this outlet is used again to pump the entire mash to

the lauter tun.  During lautering, the bed will compact, and lautering

is stopped while an arrangement of "mash knives" is run around the tun

to loosen the bed.  When lautering is complete, the knives can be

turned sideways to form a moving wall, and this pushes the spent grist

into an outlet that leads to a holding tank or a farmers truck.  A

final wash is required, of course, to get the last recalcitrant husks to leave.

The reason for a 4 vessel system, rather than a two vessel system

(kettle and lauter tun) is that the commercial breweries can get a

significant overlap of successive batches on the equipment.  This is

important if your mash and boil process takes 11 hours to complete and

you want to make more than a million barrels of beer each year, as it

does at Pilsner Urquell.

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1117, 04/12/93

*************************************

-------


cooling

Date: Fri, 9 Apr 93 11:29:01 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: cooling

Tim Anderson posted an adjustment he made to his chiller to improve

cooling.  I have been considering a simple change - reversing the flow.

At present cold water enters at the bottom of the coil and exits at the

top.  That combined with water's tendency to stratify in layers causes the

wort to be still, stratified and hot near the top.  A reverse in flow

would chill the top stuff first and it would then sink setting up

convection currents that may aid coagulation and heat transfer.  The

reason I haven't until now is worry about air pockets being trapped in the

coil, but given high flow rates that is probably a foolish concern, and

an actual desire not disturb the hop pellets so much so I could rack off

them quicker.  However I usually have to rack wort twice anyway before

pitching so this is of less concern.  Comments?

Also related peripherally to cooling, Al's post interested me.  I have

roused yeast since the first batch I did when I was a whelp, thought

everybody did it, and thought it was essential for beers brewed with

bottom fermenting yeast (not Al's beer of course).  But the temperature

thread intrigued me.  72 or 68 is much too warm for a house I have to heat,

but then 60 is what I am used to.  In Ireland I usually had to put the

ferments in a warm place. But 60 is too cool for my

SO's guinea pigs and bird.  So their room is heated to 68-70.  This mean that

for nice temperature steps I can start at 68 in the rodent room, rack to

secondary and move to the kitchen (60) and then put it in the basement

50-55 to clarify prior to bottleing.  If only lager temperature steps were

so easy.

Another ale comment is that I have gone back to my plastic bucket

for ale primaries.  I never used to skim, but now I have decided after

reading Warner that I should collect yeast from the top.  I did so on my

last ale.  The yeast is quite the foulest stuff I have ever tasted due to

the hop resins and other lovely scum.  It doesn't seem to be contaminated

in that I can't taste anything off but that could be due to masking by

the hop resin.  I have decided that I should rinse and, to be sure, acid wash

the yeast prior to reuse.  Comments?

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@bach.helios.nd.edu

------------------------------


Wyeast reuse/stretching

Date: Fri, 9 Apr 93 09:14:33 PDT

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: Wyeast reuse/stretching

Howdy all,

Well, after all this talk about dry yeast contamination (notwithstanding

the recent posts concerning the improvements at Whitbred) I have finally

decided to take the liquid yeast plunge.

!*SPLASH*!

Ok, so I shelled out $4 for Wyeast Belgian Ale yeast.  FOUR BUCKS!  For

microscopic fungus!  It boggles the mind.  In HBD #1103, Philip J Difalco

<sxupjd@fnma.COM> reposted an article by Rick Cavasin on stretching Wyeast

by making a 1/2 gallon starter, fermenting to completion, bottling the

results in 5-6 bottles, and using the bottles to make starters for pitching

into your wort.  In the post, Philip asks for comments from the yeast-gurus

out there.

I have not seen any replies posted, so I thought I would ask again; with a

slightly different slant (no pun intended).

I have followed Rick's instructions and I now have a 1/2 gallon starter

fermenting away.  This should yield ~6 bottles of yeast.  However, for my

next brew, Belgian may not be appropriate.  So I'll go out, get another

packet of Wyeast (say, London Ale), and do the same thing for it.

Then, I'll have 5 bottles of Belgian and 5 bottles of London in the fridge.

So now I forsee obtaining my own collection of Wyeast, all bottled in 12 oz.

beer bottles and stored in the fridge.  I might only have to buy yeast

once a year (once my collection is established).

This seems like a very cheap, very easy form of yeast management.

Is it?

Are there draw backs (like problems with autolysis, or the yeast just dying)?

Am I wasting my time?

Rick mentions he has had bottled yeast last 6 months.  Will they last longer?

Are those 6 mo. old yeast just as good as those from a new Wyeast packet?

Please, please, please, send me guidance.

Lost in the terrifying world of expensive microscopic organisms,

Troy

------------------------------


camra

Date:    Fri, 9 Apr 1993 11:56:42 -0500 (CDT)

From: STOREY@fender.msfc.nasa.gov (BadAssAstronomer)

Subject: camra

    Hi everyone

    Just back from England with a bunch of real ale under and around

    my belt :) Man it was great, but I'll bore you with the details

    in some other post.

    However, the CAMRA Guide to Good Beer impressed me so much, I was

    thinking of joining CAMRA. Anybody out there a member or

    ex-member? Any and all comments will be appreciated.

    thanks

    scott

------------------------------


Re: Tabs and the such

Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1993 13:24:15 -0400 (EDT)

From: David C Mackensen <cygnus@unh.edu>

Subject: Re: Tabs and the such

try using emacs and the M-x untabify... this will replace tabs with

spaces and preserve columns.. what a bargain!

- --

- -- Chris Mackensen (dcm2@kepler.unh.edu or puck@unh.edu)

------------------------------


RE: Request for decoction mashing help....

Date: Fri, 09 Apr 93 14:46:39 -0400

From: ""Robert C. Santore"" <rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: RE: Request for decoction mashing help....

In HBD 1116 Stuart Galt asks:

 > Sorry about posting this to the whole world, but... with all the recent talk

 > about decoction mashing, I am a bit interested in giving it a try.

 > a) What books/article/whatever should I read to figure out how it is done?

 > b) Is there anyone in the Seattle area that is willing to come over and

 >    help/show/whatever brew a batch.  I seem to be entering my busy season

 >    with an up coming wedding and the picnic season aproaching :-)

I like Noonan's book - Brewing Lager Beer.  I re-read it all the time.

Also, FWIW, decoction mashing is easy!  Easier, I think, than a temp.

controlled mash.  Much less to worry about.  It is my favorite mash.

Enjoy!

Bob Santore

rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu

------------------------------


RE: Help, I boiled away the hops.

Date: Fri, 09 Apr 93 15:05:26 -0400

From: ""Robert C. Santore"" <rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: RE: Help, I boiled away the hops.

In HBD 1116 Markham R. Elliot writes:

 > My beers have dramatically improved since that first fateful batch.  Reduced,

 > then eliminated the use of sugar.  Then came the use of a secondary fermente

 > Then the use of DME, and finally the failed attempt at using DME as a primin

 > agent.  Longer boils...longer boils...longer boils.  No one reminded me that

 > when using a hopped extract, the longer you boil, the more you remove what t

 > hops were put in there for.  No one to blame but myself, should have seen it

 > coming.  Knew better.  Dealt with essential oils in Organic Chemistry those

 > many years ago.  Faithfully read the HBD daily, and see cautions about not

 > boiling away the "hop nose", etc, etc.

 > Now the plea for help.

 > Should have guessed why everyone said "not bad, but not bitter enough".  Now

 > that I've screwed up another batch (now 3 days in the primary), is there a w

 > to salvage what I'm sure will be another "bland", hop-lacking brew?  The fla

 > of the past few batches has been ok; rich, sort of sweet, but kinda watery a

 > again, missing a lot of what the hops were there for to begin with.

Mark, In my opinion most hopped extracts are way underhopped.  You didn't

give us a recipe to work with but I suspect that if you are relying on the

extract to give you your hops, that could be your problem.

     I would recommend using unhopped extract and adding your own hops.

There are many advantages: it is more fun, you become more familiar with

recipe formulation (after all, you may want to brew all grain some day),

and your flavor will drastically improve.  You also have much more freedom

to brew what you want.

     If you use your own hops, remember - you cannot boil away bitterness!

A vigorous 1-hour boil is just what you need to extract bitterness from hops.

You will lose some of the more volatile flavor components but thats ok

because you can add hops near the end of the boil to give you flavor and

aroma.  The amount to add and when to add it really depends on the style

you're after.  Find a homebrewer with a beer you like and get the recipe!

Then stick to it (just once anyway).

     As far as the batch you have in the carboy, I know that hop extracts

are available.  Some are for bitterness, some for aroma.  I've never used

them.  Ask your supplier and make sure you get the right kind (or both?).

Good luck!

Bob Santore

rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu

------------------------------


Help, I boiled away the hops

Date: Fri, 9 Apr 93 12:33:10 PDT

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: Help, I boiled away the hops

Markham R. Elliott writes:

>My beers have dramatically improved since that first fateful batch.  Reduced,

>then eliminated the use of sugar.  Then came the use of a secondary fermenter.

>Then the use of DME, and finally the failed attempt at using DME as a priming

>agent.  Longer boils...longer boils...longer boils.  No one reminded me that

>when using a hopped extract, the longer you boil, the more you remove what the

>hops were put in there for.  No one to blame but myself, should have seen it

>coming.  Knew better.  Dealt with essential oils in Organic Chemistry those

>many years ago.  Faithfully read the HBD daily, and see cautions about not

>boiling away the "hop nose", etc, etc.

>

>Now the plea for help.

>

>Should have guessed why everyone said "not bad, but not bitter enough".  Now

>that I've screwed up another batch (now 3 days in the primary), is there a way

>to salvage what I'm sure will be another "bland", hop-lacking brew?  The flavor

>of the past few batches has been ok; rich, sort of sweet, but kinda watery and

>again, missing a lot of what the hops were there for to begin with.

>

>I have read with increasing interest over the past couple of weeks about "dry

>hopping" in the secondary.  Would me adding some high alpha hop pellets to the

>secondary be worth the try to put back in what I boiled away ?  Any other

>suggestions (other than throwing it out) will be welcome.  BTW, no more hopped

>kits for this kid, gonna take another step toward what many seem to feel is the

>only way to brew.

OK, I'll give this one a try.  I am not sure I am right, so if any of you

out there know better, please feel free to gently correct me.

Hop essence and hop bittering are two very different things.

You are certainly right that boiling  for any significant period will almost

completly elimate hop aroma.  However, my understanding is (and this is the

part I am not really sure about) that the alpha and beta acids which are

responsible for hop bitterness are not really all that volatile.  So they

should not easily boil away.

Also, as I understand it, hopped extracts don't really have that much

hop aroma to begin with.

If I understand you correctly, you did not add any hops to the boil, and just

relied on the hopped extract.

So my suggestions depend on what you want:

1. If you want more bitterness, try boiling some hop pellets for 30 minutes

in a ~pint of watter, and add this to your secondary. [I have never tried this.

It seems like it should work.  Any one know any better?]

2. If you want more hop aroma, try dry hopping in the secondary.

3. If you want both, try 1 AND 2.

In the future, add your own hops.  It's as easy as falling down, and it opens

up a whole new dimension to your brews.

Troy

------------------------------


Bucket Sealer

Date: Fri, 9 Apr 93 12:45 PDT

From: /O=vmspfhou/S=dblewis/DD.SITE=JSCPROFS/@NASAmail.nasa.gov

Subject: Bucket Sealer

***************************** PROFS Note *****************************

 From: DBLEWIS --VMSPFHOU            Date and time  04/09/93 14:45:54

 To: POSTMAN --NASAMAIL

 FROM: Dennis B. Lewis <InterNet:dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

 SUBJECT: Bucket Sealer

 I recently acquired a couple of 20 liter plastic buckets. The bucket and the

 lid are both made from HDPE (which is food grade). The bucket is white and the

 lid is deep red. They used to contain laundry detergent. So far I've only used

 the buckets to soak-sterilize bottles. I would like to use them to ferment

 because if I put 19 liters (5 gal) in them the kraeusen will push the goop to

 the top of the bucket and stick it to the lid (Budweiser does this with their

 fermenters; it eliminates the need for a blow off hose, although I'll have to

 change the airlock a couple times.) I have a couple of questions regarding

 these buckets:

 1.) Is there any hazard associated with detergent that may have seeped into

 the bucket walls? They have been cleaned, soaked in bleach water and in hot

 tap water (160F). The buckets no longer have any perfumy smell whatsoever.

 2.) The lid does not seal well. Is there any food grade cheap sealant that I

 could use to caulk up the lid? How about some sort of gasket? Regular lids

 from other buckets don't fit.

 Dennis B. Lewis (713) 483-9145  **  NASA/JSC/DH65 Payload Ops

 Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Re: I boiled away my hops

Date: Fri, 9 Apr 93 15:12 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: I boiled away my hops

Mark writes:

>My beers have dramatically improved since that first fateful batch.  Reduced,

>then eliminated the use of sugar.  Then came the use of a secondary fermenter.

>Then the use of DME, and finally the failed attempt at using DME as a priming

>agent.  Longer boils...longer boils...longer boils.  No one reminded me that

>when using a hopped extract, the longer you boil, the more you remove what the

>hops were put in there for.

It's true that boiling boils-away hop aromatics, thereby removing hop

bouquet and flavor, but boiling does not boil-away hop bitterness.  What

I think your problem may be is that you added some DME to an already

underhopped kit but did not add some hops to make up for the increased

malt.  The Extract Special Issue of Zymurgy has a useful, albeit somewhat

outdated, table of commercial malt extracts which gives, among other things,

Homebrew Bittering Units (HBU) per can and HBU per pound for the hopped

extracts.  I've switched over to IBUs long ago since they are much more

universal, especially given that not everyone does full boils (using IBUs

and Jackie Rager's formulas from the Hops Special Issue of Zymurgy, you

can compensate for partial boils and get consistent bittering).

>Should have guessed why everyone said "not bad, but not bitter enough".  Now

>that I've screwed up another batch (now 3 days in the primary), is there a way

>to salvage what I'm sure will be another "bland", hop-lacking brew?  The flavor

>of the past few batches has been ok; rich, sort of sweet, but kinda watery and

>again, missing a lot of what the hops were there for to begin with.

>

>I have read with increasing interest over the past couple of weeks about "dry

>hopping" in the secondary.  Would me adding some high alpha hop pellets to the

>secondary be worth the try to put back in what I boiled away ?  Any other

>suggestions (other than throwing it out) will be welcome.  BTW, no more hopped

>kits for this kid, gonna take another step toward what many seem to feel is the

>only way to brew.

It's okay to use hopped extracts, as long as you use quality brands and know

how many IBUs have been added (in converting from HBUs to IBUs, 25% utilization

is often what's used).  To save this batch, what you can do is to buy some

isomerized hop oil and add that at bottling time.  Another alternative, is

to make a hop "tea" by boiling some hops in water for an hour (and while

you're at it, you can add flavor hops 15 minutes before the end of the boil

and finishing hops 5 minutes before the end of the boil), strain out the

hops and add this "tea" to your batch at bottling.  Try to minimize splashing

so you don't oxidize the hop oils.  Get the Hops Special Issue of Zymurgy

to figure out how much hops to boil up in the "tea" for whatever IBU level

you want your "tea" to have -- use 5 gallons for volume, since that's what

it's going into, even though it's not what your "tea" boil volume was.

***********************

Subject: Re: decoction mashing

Stuart writes:

>with all the recent talk

>about decoction mashing, I am a bit interested in giving it a try.

>

>a) What books/article/whatever should I read to figure out how it is done?

Greg Noonan's book, Brewing Lager Beer, is probably the best modern

discussion of the decoction mashing method that I know of.  Greg also

has an article in the All-grain Special Issue of Zymurgy, which has a

condensed version of the decoction process -- I don't recall if it was

enough info to actually do a mash.

DON'T PANIC!

Al.

------------------------------


Favorites

Date: Thu, 08 Apr 93 13:37:20 PDT

From: Darren Hanson <Darren.Hanson@f271.n103.z1.fidonet.org>

Subject: Favorites

Reply-To: darren@ofa123.fidonet.org

A couple questions for everyone. Reply in e-mail (note the Reply-To

address please!) and I'll post the results in a couple of weeks.

1)  What is your favorite type of fermented beverage?

    a) Ale

    b) Bock

    c) Lagger

    d) Weissen

    e) Steam Beer

    f) Mead (including melomels, et al)

    g) Hard Cider

    h) Wine (grape based)

    i) Wine (non-grape based, Strawberry Wine for example)

    j) Other (please specify)

2)  What are your three favorite draft beverages? (alcoholic)

3)  What are your three favorite beverages in bottles or cans? (alcoholic)

4)  What question did I leave out that I should have included?

5)  May I use your name in relation to this questionaire?

6)  Would you be willing to respond to a more in depth questionaire

    to be sent in e-mail in about a month?

__                 __

//  Darren Hanson  //

Prefered Return Path: darren@ofa123.fidonet.org

@ofa123.fidonet.org

- --

Darren Hanson

Internet: Darren.Hanson@f271.n103.z1.Fidonet.org

Compuserve: >internet:Darren.Hanson@f271.n103.z1.Fidonet.org

------------------------------


CO2

Date: Fri, 9 Apr 93 22:42 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: CO2

 Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93 13:54 CDT

 From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 > Regarding the high-pressure side gauge, I'll stick my neck out and

 say I think it's useless.  It won't begin to drop till all the liquid

 CO2 has run out and has turned to gas.  Then it will drop to zero in one

 or two days.  That's not my idea of warning you that it's about to run out!

 That confirms my suspicions.  I inherited an antique single gage regulator

 from my father who used CO2 for his airbrush in his art studio.  He's long

 gone and it has a lot of sentimental value but I always wondered what I was

 missing.  When I moved into this house, strangely enough, there was another

 one in a drawer in the basement just like my father's.  I put that on my 2.5

 lb cylinder for traveling.

 >I plan to weigh my tank the next time it runs out and use it's weight

 as an approximation for when I should go get it refilled.  It should weigh,

 well... 20# more when full (for a "20#" tank).

 I did that for the last two tanks and it leaves little doubt.  If you look

 carefully, you will find the tare (empty) weight of the cylinder stamped on

 it somewhere.  So if you forget to weigh it empty, all is not lost.  This is

 important for those of us who just swap tanks instead of waiting around for

 refilling.

 It is also a good idea just to be able to keep the gas man honest.

 The last time I swapped tanks, it seemed a bit light and when I got home it

 weighed in at 39 lbs.  The tank weighs 31 lbs so I got 8 lbs of gas instead

 of 20.  He cheerfully gave me a different one but it was a pain never the

 less.

 The final count on the previous tank was 40, 5 gal kegs carbonated and

 dispensed along with a lot of miscelaneous squiriting around.

 js

------------------------------


hops growing

Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1993 10:03:07 -1100

From: Kirk_Anderson@wheatonma.edu (Kirk Anderson)

Subject: hops growing

I received my rhizomes and my Zymurgy special hops issue yesterday.

Mr. Rajotte's article on growing is fine but does not give me enough

information.  Like first of all, I understand about needing a trellis and

so on, but what do I do with these things to start?

Do they go in the ground vertically?  What kind of ground? How deep? etc.

I've seen various postings on specific aspects of hop

growing in the HBD over the past couple months, but could some one

point me toward a more step-by-step treatment of the subject?

Thanks for helping.

********************************

Kirk Anderson, Dept. of French

Wheaton College, Norton MA 02766                   <Kirk_Anderson@Wheatonma.edu>

   *************************

------------------------------


mailing list

Date: Sat, 10 Apr 93 8:25:50 PDT

From: Martin McMenamin <mcm@orac.holonet.net>

Subject: mailing list

------------------------------


HOP ALPHA ACID

Date: Sat, 10 Apr 93 13:52 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: HOP ALPHA ACID

   A Proposed Method for Determining Hop Alpha Acid Content

 The following methodology is based on empirical measurement

 and experiments.  It may be seriously flawed but as the end

 results seem to achieve the goal desired, it is worth

 further experiments by anyone who cares to replicate the

 results.

 My pH meter arrived late last week and I must confess that I

 spent most of the time since then playing with it.  Although

 I suspect it will not have much impact on my beer, I bought

 it mainly to learn whether pH could be used to determine

 Alpha Acid content of hops.

 The instrument I purchased is made by Oakton and is the pH

 Tester 2.  Claimed accuracy and resolution is .1 pH unit.

 After calibrating the unit with pH 7 and pH 4 buffer

 solutions, I proceeded to test just about everything in the

 house.  The biggest surprise was to learn that tea, as we

 drink it, has a pH of 6.9.  I always thought that the

 astringency of tea was a result of tanic acid.  I also found

 that to test tap water accurately takes about 9 minutes to

 reach a stable value.  Boiled tap water reaches stability

 within a few seconds.  I presume it has something to do with

 dissolved gas.

 My hypothesis on hops Alpha Acid was that a high AA hop

 should produce a tea with a lower pH than a low AA hop under

 controlled conditions.

 To test the hypothesis I proceeded as follows:

   Tea #1  3 grs Chinook (AA 12%)  in 250 ml water.

   Tea #2  3 grs Saaz    (AA 2.9%) in 250 ml water.

 The teas were brought to a boil for 5 minutes and poured

 through coffee filters.

 The quantity of 3 grs was selected because that is 1/10 the

 amount of Chinook I normally use to hop a 7 gallon batch and

 it would make the math easier later on.

 After cooling the teas to room temperature, the following pH

 measurements were obtained:

          Tea #1  Chinook  pH   6.2

          Tea #2  Saaz     pH   6.6

 The delta is .4 pH which I believe works out to a factor of

 4 in the real world and nicely matches the delta of the AA

 in the hops.

 Although, measuring at different times sometimes provided

 different numbers, the spread was always the same and I

 attributed the problem to lack of understanding of how to

 use the instrument.

 The only significant anomaly was that on the third day, the

 pH of both teas dropped to 5.7.  They had been left

 uncovered throughout the period but something significant

 happened overnight of the third day.

 In conclusion, if the results are the product of Alpha Acid

 in the hops then it should be possible to work out formulae

 to determine the approximate AA of hops or at least

 determine how much of an unknown hop is required to achieve

 the same pH of a known hop.

 js

------------------------------


Boulevard Brewing Co.

Date: 9 Apr 93 24:31:00 PST

From: John Fitzgerald <johnf@ccgate.SanDiegoCA.NCR.COM>

Subject: Boulevard Brewing Co.

While on a recent trip through the mid-west, I picked up some micro

brews (I assume) made by the Boulevard Brewing  Co. in Kansas City,MO.

I carried back some Bully Porter, and some Irish Red ale.  Both of

these beers seem to have a metallic after-taste, very noticeable in

the Irish, less so in the Bully, because of the extra malt/hops flavor.

What I am wondering is if any locals, or anybody else who has tried

these beers has tasted something similar.  Rather than criticizing their

beers, I am trying to educate my taste buds.  Is this taste from high

metal ion concentrations as Miller suggests?  Or is this what phenolic

tastes like, perhaps from high chlorine content of the water?  Or maybe

the beer was stale - the label suggested drinking by April, so maybe

I was catching the beer at the end of it's preferred life cycle.  The

two were tasted at room temp (Probably in the mid 60's F).  If anybody

has any input, I'd love to hear it.

John.

------------------------------


Change of e-mail address

Date: Sun, 11 Apr 93 9:19:59 EDT

From: rjsmith@iron.afsac.wpafb.af.mil (Randy Smith)

Subject: Change of e-mail address

My e-mail address has changed to:

rjsmith@iron.afsac.wpafb.af.mil

The old address will continue to be recognized for another 6 months or so.

- --Randy--

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Randy J. Smith                         DoD #2022          '93 CBR900RR

C.E.T.A. Corporation                   rjsmith@iron.afsac.wpafb.af.mil

"Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments

for going on believing as we already do."

                  -  James Harvey Robinson

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Dry Hopping

Date: Sun, 11 Apr 93 13:33:42 CDT

From: Carl Eidbo <milo!eidbo@plains.NoDak.edu>

Subject: Dry Hopping

I have seen a lot of converstion about dry hopping lately.  I have tried

dry hopping a number of times, with limited results.  I have tried

enough that I do feel qualified to shoot my mouth off a bit.  (I have

only worked with pellets).

1.   Several people have reported "gushing" upon the first addition

     of pellets.  I have reduced and reduced the amount of pellets

     I add, to try and reduce the amount of gushing.  The last

     amount I tried was one pellet about 1/8" long.  The beer still

     gushed, although not quite as violently.  I added the rest of

     the hops about a day later, with no gushing.

     The beer was at about 68F, and virtually done fermenting.

     Apparently, there are several factors involved:

     A.   The slow release of CO2 by the yeast has caused the cool

          beer to become super-saturated with CO2.

     B.   The hops particles are nucleation sites for CO2 release.

     C.   The hop oils support head (foam) retention.

     D.   The "shock" of the initial CO2 release triggers a much

          larger release from the super-saturated fluid.

2.   I have frequently seen a re-start in fermentation a few days

     after the addition of the dry-hops.  Several others have also

     reported this effect to me.  It is easily observable by

     charting the "seconds per bubble" count of the airlock.

     Usually, a nice foamy head rises for a couple of days.

     Normally, there are no off-flavors associated with this renewed

     fermentation, but I have detected contamination flavors if

     the dry hopping was performed when the gravity is too high.

     I also pitched from a dry hopped batch, and the resulting

     beer was badly contaminated.

     Why?  I don't know.

3.   I have occasionally tasted a very bitter component after dry

     hopping.  My feeling is that these are hop particles that have

     not settled out yet.  Usually this "rough" flavor disappears

     in time.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Carl Eidbo          Prairie Homebrewing Companions           Fargo, ND

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


My Belgian rock collection

Date: Sun, 11 Apr 93 15:26 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: My Belgian rock collection

I have taken up rock collecting.  And not just any rocks either.

I collect only the finest.  I collect Belgian rocks.

Oh sure.  I know what you're thinking.  The answer is no.  I'm

not on drugs.  And yes, I still think that rock collecting in

general is still up there with bird watching, golfing and other

ectomorphic endeavors.

It's all come about innocently enough.  I'm an avid user of

Belgian malts.  On top of that I don't buy it in no stinkin'

five-pound bags neither.  Only bulk flips my skirt up.  If

there's no risk of a hernia, why bother?

Mixed in with the malt is a strange collection of unidentified

malted objects.  Most are easy to figure out.  A tangled clump of

barley rootlets, an odd twig or a mangled piece of wire.  But

every now and then I'll find a rock.  And while all of the

objects warrant inspection, to me the rocks are keepers.

To date my collection numbers four.  They all appear to be

similar in appearance.  All are bluish-grey, flat and layered.

It's hard to tell whether they've been malted.  I'd like to think

that they have as I don't know of anyone who collects malted

rocks.  At least the authoritative source on the achievements of

western civilization, The Guiness World Book of Records, doesn't

seem to have a category for it.

I look at the rock and try to imagine it's voyage.  I try to

picture where the rock came from and how it got mixed in with the

malt.  Where was the farm located?  The malting company?  What

does the local terrain look like and how close is it to the

coast?  Considering the region's history, has this rock ever been

tread on by a Roman sandal or the track of an armored vehicle?

Only the imagination can provide such answers.

When I go under I'll probably donate my collection to the

Smithsonian.  After all, when you consider what the Hursts,

Rockefellers, and Carnegies of the world have donated, a Belgian

Malted Rock Collection is far more interesting than a bunch of

stupid paintings any old day.  At least I think so.

chris campanelli

------------------------------


proposed beer tax increase

Date: 12 Apr 93 06:58:00 EST

From: "PAUL EDWARDS" <8260PE@indy.navy.mil>

Subject: proposed beer tax increase

I've just seen a memo from the Small Brewers Coalition which contained

the following information:

Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) has introduced Senate Bill 684, titled

"National Health Care Act of 1993", which proposes to raise the excise

tax on beer a whopping 450 percent, as follows:

Large brewers:  currently $18.00/barrel, proposed $81.00/barrel

small brewers:  currently $ 7.00/barrel, proposed $31.50/barrel

Increases in taxes for distilled spirits and wine are 215 percent and

20-30 percent, respectively.

Apparently, Sen. Inouye has it in his mind that beer is the root of

all health problems in the US!

Based on what I've seen of production figures for the last year or two,

A-B's taxes alone will go from about $1.5 billion to $6.5 billion.

Micro's would have to raise their prices to the point that some may not

survive.

If you feel as I do, write or call your senators and representatives and

let them know.  Taxes are one thing, highway robbery is an entirely

different matter.

  -- Paul Edwards

PS - If the bill passes, be *real* glad you know how to brew your own.

It may be the only way to afford a beer.

------------------------------


alternative forum

Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1993 08:10:26 -0400

From: Michael D. Galloway <mgx@ornl.gov>

Subject: alternative forum

> First of all, whatever happened to Kinney?  I still see his ads but he has

> not posted here for months.  I am sure it is just a coincidence but it seems

> that he vanished about the time Jay Hirsh started his censored, politically

> cleansed, alternative forum.

I musta been asleep or brain dead, what alternative forum are we talking

about here?

Michael D. Galloway

mgx@ornl.gov

Living in the WasteLand

------------------------------


Fermenting Apple Cider & Filtering Cold Break

Date: 12 Apr 93 03:23:37 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Fermenting Apple Cider & Filtering Cold Break

The following attachments were included with this message:

__________________________________________________________________

TYPE     : FILE

NAME     : ANDY

__________________________________________________________________

           Greetings,

                I had a friend over last night to help me with a Steam

           beer I was making.  He had with him a gallon bottle of apple

           juice he had picked up for his son.  He decided to

           experiment with the apple juice by re-hydrating an extra

           packet of dry yeast I gave him, pitching it into the apple

           juice bottle, and putting a cork with an airlock on top.

           This morning I got up and it's bubbling vigorously (I wish

           my beers fermented that quickly!).

                My questions:

           1. Does anyone know how this "cider" will turn out?

           2. I never measured OG, so does anyone know how much alcohol

              should be created?

           3. It may be too late, but is there anything that can be

              done now to make this concoction more palatable?

                With regard to the beer I made last night, I have a

           question.  After the boil was over, I chilled the wort down to

           about 70 degrees and strained it into my carboy.  I let it sit

           for about a half hour and watched as the cold break gently

           settled down to the bottom 1/4 of the carboy.  I then poured

           the carboy's contents through 2 separate funnels with

           strainers into another carboy.  I was attempting to filter

           out the cold-break.  Apparently, it is too fine to be

           trapped by the normal stainers which come with a brew shop's

           funnel.  Almost all the cold-break passed through both

           filters into my second carboy.  My question is, aside from

           siphoning off the clear wort from the cold-break sediment,

           is there any practical way to filter out the cold-break?  If

           a finer filter is the answer, then how fine should it be and

           where do I procure one?  (And yes, I realize that by all

           this filtering between carboys I am increasing my risk of

           contaminating my newborn beer!)

           Thanks,

           Andy A

           Bitch's Brewery

------------------------------


more comments on bottles / European system

Date: Mon, 12 Apr 93 06:23:36 PDT

From: brew it  12-Apr-1993 0923 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: more comments on bottles / European system

I also agree that genuine bar bottles are the best for bottling.  I've heard

horror stories of Sam Adams (tm) bottles breaking during the capping phase

after so many uses, although, I personally have not had this problem yet!

Has anyone seen this yet?

Bar bottles are noticibly heavier then standard returnable bottles, such as

Sad Adams(tm); the glass is much thicker, and hence, more durable.

Another bottle type I like is the 16oz standard european bottle.  these are

pretty heavy, and, then have 4oz more capacity then the bar bottle types

widely used in the states.

When I was in Austria this past fall, we went on

a tour of the Zipfer Brewery.  It was completely in german, hence, I did not

understand much, but I could guide myself through the tour with my nose!  At

any rate, they've really got their s%t down in Europe.  Most of the brew

sold in bottles there comes in a standard 16oz bottle (I think it is 16oz?!).

So, on the bottle input side of the bottling room at the Zipfer brewery,

you'll see returned bottles in standard returnable crates (much like milk

crates) from all sorts of breweries.  They all use the _same_ standard bottle,

they make it easy to return them to just about anyone, and just about any

brewery can fill the bottles.  Green ones, brown ones, etc.  Being an

environmentally concious person, I _really_ liked what I saw.  The US of A

is so caught up in making $$$ as quickly as possible that we'll probably

never see anything like that...

JC Ferguson

------------------------------


Coriolis force/Givin' carboys a swirly

Date: Mon, 12 Apr 93 08:38:30 -0600

From: John Adams <j_adams@hpfcjca.sde.hp.com>

Subject: Coriolis force/Givin' carboys a swirly

Ed Hitchcock writes:

>  To this I can but say:  Horse poop.  The coriolois force on the

> liquid in a carboy 30cm or so in diameter is virtually nil.  Swirl it any

> way you please, there will be no difference.  The friction of the side of

> the jug is far greater than any coriolis effects on the water.  As for the

> pigs, they can poop too.

Interesting hypothesis but I doubt you've have ACTUALLY testing it (the

coriolis effects on the water that is).  I have and I can say that getting

the water swirling in EITHER a 5 gallon glass carboy or a 12 oz. bottle will

indeed get the liquid to drain faster.  I have been using this trick for quite

some time but I'm sorry I didn't try to prove it on paper first.

While I will not comment on the actual forces involved (we all really known

there is not true coriolis 'force') or their magnitudes, the technique does

indeed work.

Dennis B. Lewis writes:

> OK, I haven't tried this but, I assume that when you start swirling the water

> in the carboy, that the carboy is already inverted (and over the sink/lawn).

> If you get up a good swirl and then try to invert the carboy, you would really

> goof up your swirl when the carboy gets horizontal. Plus the rotational

> inertia of 3+ gallons of water spinning fast enough to hug the sides would be

> impressive when you tried to flip it around.I think it just needed to be said.

Yes, start dumping the water and then begin to swirl it about.  As soon as

the water starts to clear out of the mouth (and air can be drawn up) the

carboy will quickly drain.  You do not need to continue to swirl the carboy

after the water starts draining quickly.

Believe me the inertia is NOTHING to be concerned about in comparision to a

gripping a wet, glass carboy containing somewhere between 16 and 32 pounds

of water.

John Adams

------------------------------


Re: Chiller Study

Date: Mon, 12 Apr 93 09:31:10 -0600

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Re: Chiller Study

I'd love to see someone perform this study, although one could

probably get equally valid results by running a simulation, with less

time/material expended.  However, as I indicated in my last post on

this subject, there are _two_ important heat transfer coefficients at

work here: one inside the tube, and one outside the tube.  It would

make little sense to accurately quantify conditions inside the tube in

terms of ID, flow rate, etc. and then simply characterize conditions

outside the tube as "stirred" or "unstirred".  One should include

parameters such as chiller diameter, spacing between coils, diameter

of pot, height of coil, velocity of stirring, etc., etc. A compounding

problem is that the inside convective heat transfer coefficient is

highly dependent upon the "scale factor": a new, shiny tube will

conduct much better than an old, crusty one...  Not a simple problem

at all, unfortunately.

PS:  gak writes:

>Got this from the sci.physics FAQ...

>Summary:  the Coriolis force is real, but irrelevant at the bathtub

   (or carboy) scale.

(followed by technical explanation of fluid dynamics involved in the

coriolis effect)

Hey gak, could you get the guys at sci.physics to tell us how long to

make our chiller coils?

Kelly

------------------------------


Yeast pitching rates

Date: Mon, 12 Apr 93 08:12 PDT

From: /O=vmspfhou/S=dblewis/DD.SITE=JSCPROFS/@NASAmail.nasa.gov

Subject: Yeast pitching rates

***************************** PROFS Note *****************************

 From: DBLEWIS --VMSPFHOU            Date and time  04/12/93 10:12:54

 To: POSTMAN --NASAMAIL

 FROM: Dennis B. Lewis <InterNet:dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

 SUBJECT: Yeast pitching rates

 I have a question about how the yeast pitching rates affect the flavor/quality

 of the finished beer. I have been guilty of dumping in a puffed up pack of

 yeast directly into the fermenter. But lately, I've been brewing by racking

 cooled wort onto sediment from the primary of a previous batch. The results

 are like night and day. The resulting explosive fermentation is very

 satisfying to watch and commences withing a few hours :-).

 Anyway, here's to point: when I pitch the small packet of yeast into the wort,

 it makes copies of itself until it hits the terminal concentration (50 M

 cells/ml(?)), THEN it goes into the fermentation cycle. If you pitch about the

 teminal concentration, then there is very little reproduction and all

 fermentation. It seems to me that this method would leave a lot of proteins in

 the beer because they weren't used to make other yeast and more alcohol for

 the same reason. Is the taste noticable? Do the extra proteins increase head

 retention/taste? I haven't had enough experience doing this to tell the

 difference.

 One other point: one common thread I've noticed regarding yeast culturing is

 how many generations the yeast are good for. Since I'm only using one

 generation(?!?) for a couple batches... (N.B. I remove most of the trub so I

 don't think there is much of a problem with accumulated crud on the bottom of

 the fermenter.)

 I may be nuts. If so the phaser me directly and save the bandwidth for more

 important things like Coriolis force physics lessons.

 Dennis B. Lewis (713) 483-9145  **  NASA/JSC/DH65 Payload Ops

 Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Immersion Chiller Efficiency

Date: Mon, 12 Apr 93 12:01:31 EDT

From: eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West)

Subject: Immersion Chiller Efficiency

There seems to be a confusion in this discussion of IC efficiency

between time, water, copper, and dollar efficiency.

To Improve Time Efficiency:

A larger, colder surface will cool the wort faster than a smaller,

warmer one. Use as long a chiller as you can manage, and run lots of

really cold water through it.  The cooler the water exiting the chiller

the faster the wort will be cooled. When cool water is exiting it

indicates that there is an appreciable temperature differential between

the cooling water and the wort for the entire length of the chiller

tubing, therefor more heat energy is being extracted from the wort than

if the exit water were warm or hot. Simply put: The more cold water you

run through the chiller the cooler your wort will get, the faster you

do it, the faster it will get cool. Especially if you stir the wort.

Use the chiller to stir with.

To Improve Water Efficiency:

This is a whole other question, one best answered by a

thermodynamacist, which I'm not, but I'll take a shot at a simple answer

anyway. Regulate the flow so that the output of the chiller is at the

temperature you want the wort to be. This will take longer.

Theoretically, I guess it would take forever because you would always

be _approaching_ the target temperature, but the flow would become

infinitesimal in an hour or two and you could get on with your brewing.

I don't think the length of the chiller matters in this case.

To Improve Copper Efficiency:

Make the chiller very short. It will take a _long _ time to cool the wort

by either method but you won't be using much copper to do it.

To Improve Dollar Efficiency:

Borrow someone else's chiller.

The Real Question:

What's important to you?

Carl

"In practice the difference between Theory and Practice

is greater than it is in theory."

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1118, 04/13/93

*************************************

-------


kegging using a beer chiller

Date: 12 Apr 1993 11:34:07 -0600 (CST)

From: SWEENERB@memstvx1.memst.edu

Subject: kegging using a beer chiller

I have a question for you keggers out there.  I have the opportunity to buy

several used Cornelius (sic) kegs and connections for what seems like a

reasonable price ($10/keg with connections).  I do not however have an extra

fridge and probably won't for the near future.  Is it possible to use

these kegs by connecting up a beer chiller like the one displayed in the

recent Gadgets issue of zymurgy--basically a copper tube running through an

ice bucket through which the beer flows?  I was wondering, beyond the

obvious pain of having to fill the bucket with ice periodically, what are

the disadvantages of this system?  Any advice would be appreciated.

Your friend and mine,

Bob

Bob Sweeney - SWEENERB@MEMSTVX1.BITNET

Memphis State University

(901) MSU-4210

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

------------------------------


long ferments

Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1993 11:03:30 -0800 (PDT)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: long ferments

In HBD 1116 Al writes:

> Then, I thought, perhaps a lot of the yeast had gone dormant thanks to

> the cold and had not awakened from simply warming the wort.  I rocked

> the carboy around-and-around to swirl the yeast up from the bottom.

> Naturally, lots of CO2 started escaping through the blowoff tube.  8 hours

> later, the ferment was going at a good pace, perhaps 1 glub per 30 seconds.

> 24 hours after swirling, the glubs were 2.5 minutes apart -- ready to bottle!

Are you sure the yeast were really roused into fermenting?  I offer the

theory that the 1 glub/min was due purely to escaping CO2 and not

fermentation, so the swirling just released a lot more gas (as evidenced by

increased bubbling).  After this had died down the release rate would

decrease.  The lower temperatures that you'd been fermenting at would allow

more CO2 to dissolve which would explain why it took longer to escape.

I'm convinced I'm right, but feel free to flame away at my ignorance.

 Peter

------------------------------


Re: Blowoff (fusels, etc.)

Date: Mon, 12 Apr 93 13:08 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Blowoff (fusels, etc.)

Joseph writes:

>Finally, fusel alcohols are quite soluble in alcohol, and can not

>be removed by blowoff.  The unpleasant substances in blowoff residue

>are tannins, unisomerized hop resins, etc. They are largely insoluble,

>even in a weak alcohol solution, and are not going to be a primary

>source of bitterness or astringency in your beer once it has cleared.

First of all, thanks for the very informative post -- I'd like to sit

down with a few Pale Ales and do some palate training together -- how

about Portland, say, late July?

I've had very little chemistry, so I can't disagree with you regarding

what actually gets blown-off, but I have some beers done in split batches

blowoff versus non-blowoff and the difference was stunning.  I can't

begin to explain it in chemical terms, but there definately was a big

difference in bitterness and astringency between the two sub-batches.

Perhaps its not the fusel alcohols or the tannins or the unisomerized

hop resins, but the difference in flavor was unmistakable.

Over the weekend, I bottled an Imperial Stout which I fermented using

the blowoff method.  I would like to suggest an additional effect of

using the blowoff method (although it seems quite negative and does

little to reinforce my continued support of this method) -- loss of

head retention.  It's not so much that I've noticed a reduction in head

retention with the blowoff-method beers, rather that the brown foam

that oozed out of the blowoff vessel and onto the floor during high

kraeusen, HAD DRIED AND STILL RETAINED IT'S SHAPE TWO WEEKS AFTER IT

HAD FORMED!  Do you follow me on this one?  The blowoff filled the

gallon jug which was supposed to catch it all and foamed out of the

top of it, onto the floor.  When this happened, I cleaned up most of

it but some was back between the carboy and jug.  This weekend, that

stuff was solid and looked like brown styrofoam.  Could this be some

of the small proteins and big dextrins that give you good head retention?

Could I have lost something useful, besides the quart and a half of beer?

Or are the proteins and dextrins distributed throughout the beer and I'll

just be able to do parlor tricks with this beer?  [By the way, OG 1120,

FG 1050 (approximately 9.2% Alcohol by volume) -- more attenuative yeast

needed next time (very sweet).]

Al.

------------------------------


All Grain technique questions

Date: Mon, 12 Apr 93 18:58:00 +0000

From: MOORE_ED/HP0800_01@mailhub.cs.itc.hp.com

Subject: All Grain technique questions

From: Ed Moore

 Subject: All grain method?

 I'm an extract brewer, interested in all grain. The logistics of all

grain (bigger pot, chiller, heating up 6 gallons of wort) have so far

kept me from trying all grain.  My brother-in-law (Greg) told me of his

method this weekend and I'm posting this note to see if others have used

it (and with what success).  FYI, Greg has been brewing for several

years and makes a good brew.

 OK, this is what Greg does which I found interesting.

 1) Prepare mash in a pot with 'warm' water.

 2) Put pot with mash into the oven, with the oven set

    to "warm".  Leave it for an hour or two.  (As Greg

    says 'no fuss, no muss'.)

 3) Transfer mash to lauter tun.

 4) Run 2 or 3 gallons of hot (170F) water into lauter

    to sparge.

 5) Boil the wort (2-3 gallons) with hops.

 6) Run 2-3 gallons of cold (tap) water into lauter to

    complete sparge.

 7) Combine cold sparge/wort with boiled wort to make a

    complete batch AND to obtain cold break.

 This is his tried and true technique.  He does not seem to have any

contamination problems and as I have said, makes a good brew.  Has

anyone else used this partial boil, cold sparge, method?

 Ed Moore

 egm@hpctdlb.col.hp.com

------------------------------


Yeast Culture Kit & Lab Equip

Date: Mon, 12 Apr 93 15:59:42 CDT

From: raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com (Glenn Raudins)

Subject: Yeast Culture Kit & Lab Equip

  Does anyone know of a mail order supply place that carries Dr. Schiller's

  Yeast Culture Kit?  (Jim?  Do you know?)

  I would like to second that request for Lab equip supply places.  Also does

  anyone have the number for Aldritch and know if they sell to individuals?

Glenn Raudins

raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com

------------------------------


Bigfoot in NJ?

Date: Mon, 12 Apr 93 17:00:16 EST

From: eric@synchro.com (Eric Haas)

Subject: Bigfoot in NJ?

While we here in New England see most of Sierra Ne-

vada's fine products, for some reason two of their most

interesting brews--the Maibock and the Bigfoot Ale--

aren't distributed here.  Rumor has it, though, that

they can be found in New Jersey, where I'm going in a

few weeks to visit the in-laws.  Can some Garden State

reader of the Digest help me find them?

I'll be getting on the Parkway at its northern

terminus, right off the Tappan Zee, and driving it to

south of Asbury Park.  While my wife does like beer and

is willing to put up with my interest in it, she

doesn't have much patience for driving around aimlessly

for very long, so I'd like to know of a store within a

few minute's drive off the Parkway.

Send me private e-mail (eric@synchro.com), or even call

me (old style: 617-536-9500 w; 617-965-0573 h).

Thanx.

      --eric haas

- --

------------------------------


Color calibration

Date: Mon, 12 Apr 93 17:12:14 EST

From: eric@synchro.com (Eric Haas)

Subject: Color calibration

Jack:

The use of Michelob Dark in dilution to

test for color can be found in an

appendix of George Fix's "Vienna" book

- --

------------------------------


CAMRA Guide

Date: Mon, 12 Apr 93 19:18:17 CDT

From: fahrner@milbrandt.wustl.edu (Tim Fahrner)

Subject: CAMRA Guide

Greetings HBD'ers

I know this info has been posted before, and I even wrote it down

in my HB notebook. Of course, I then proceeded to lose my notebook.

What I am looking for is how to get my hands on the CAMRA guide, since

I will be going to England, Whales, and Ireland in another month or so.

Any personal recommendations on real ale establishments would, of

course, also be appreciated. Please reply via private e-mail to avoid

clogging up the digest with responses to an FAQ like this (I usually

hate these kind of messages too, but I wasn't sure how else to get the

info).

Thanks in advance

Tim Fahrner

------------------------------


Oops, bottle bombs???

Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1993 21:24:49 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Oops, bottle bombs???

I recently made a batch of wheat ale (Wit style) with a new yeast

(supposed to be Hoegaarden strain).  It started slow, but built up a big

krauesen -- needed a blow-off tube for a week.  Eventually it slowed, and

3 weeks later was putting out one bubble every 45 seconds, roughly.  I

figured it was time to bottle.  Racked onto priming solution in a second

carboy, and took S.G.  1.020...  Hmm... Initial gravity 1.040...

Hmm... Tastes ok...  Not too sweet... Late night decision -- let's go for it.

Bottled 2 cases.

But then, I got worried.  Talked to the friend who gave me the

yeast.  He didn't think it should stop so soon. Talked to another friend who

had used the same yeast in a similar recipe.  His went from 1.047 to

1.014.  Hmm.... One major difference: my fermenter was in the cellar, at

56F, his was at 65F.  Maybe this yeast doesn't like to be cold.  Hmm...

Ok, brought a bottle up from the cellar, shook it well, and fitted a

fermentation lock.  Couple days later, it's still going nicely.  Hmm...

Haven't taken an S.G. on this one yet, but it's looking like I blew it,

and mistook a stuck fermentation for a finished fermentation.

Now, I could chill the he** out of these bottles, and drink them up

quickly, or I could try to relieve the pressure, or something.  I'm not

wild about pouring 2 cases of bottles back into a carboy (not to mention

the inevitable aeration that would take place).  I could see lifting and

resealing (or replacing) the caps a couple of times.  Or, I could chill

the h*** out of it...

Any advice?

And, a hard scientific question: How many volumes of CO2 should I expect

to get from a .001 drop in S.G.?  Haul out the old envelope.  Let's say

that 3/4c corn sugar produces 2 volumes in 5 gal.  That's 3/8 lb, at

40pts/lb/gal is 12/5 pts, so maybe I get 1 volume/gravity pt.  So, if my

test bottle keeps going down to 1.014, I'm going to get about 6 volumes!

Bottle bombs for sure!  But I could relieve the pressure a couple of times

(if I do it at the right time!) and be ok, ... maybe ...  Hmm....

=Spencer W. Thomas   |  Info Tech and Networking, B1911 CFOB, 0704

   "Genome Informatician" |  Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu |  313-764-8065, FAX 313-764-4133

------------------------------


Most Litigious Beer in the World

Date: Mon, 12 Apr 93 10:13:21 PDT

From: grumpy!cr@uunet.UU.NET (C.R. Saikley)

Subject: Most Litigious Beer in the World

From: andrew@ftp.com  (Andrew Lickly)

A while back, Andrew Lickly wrote about SA Triple Bock :

>During the tour, they bragged about being in the process of

>developing a "Triple Bock", apparently it is Jim Koch's goal

>to get the world record for the highest alcohol content in a

>commercialized "malt beverage".

Gee, he'd better be careful here. What if the brewers at Hurlimann

or EKU have trade marked the phrase "Strongest beer in the World" ?

Oh BTW, if you're listening Jim, I have a cousin named Sam who will

be contacting you soon.  :+)

CR

------------------------------


Cheap Carboys!!

Date: Mon, 12 Apr 93 23:26:41 CDT

From: atzeiner@iastate.edu

Subject: Cheap Carboys!!

I finally got around to looking for a 5 gal. carboy for a secondary and went

to talk to my lab professor in the Chem E. department and guess what!!  I got

two 5 gallon carboys for $5.  They were really dusty, but didnt smell like

any noxious chemicals and weren't stained or anything.  So, if you have a

university you might want to check out the Chem E or Ag department to see if

there are any old carboys around.

BTW, one of the carboys is made of the old blue tinted glass and has the date

1932 stamped on the bottom!!  I wonder if it's worth any money  :-)

Andy

------------------------------


Siebel Institute ... in Chicago

Date:         Tue, 13 Apr 93 09:40:43 +0300

From: Nir <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      Siebel Institute ... in Chicago

Could anyone tell me anything about the Siebel Institute? I saw some HBD issues

ago a couple of lines concerning a two-week course on Brewing Technology given

there, and I'd like to know more, but don't have their address.

Thanks, Nir.

------------------------------


Hello?

Date: 13 Apr 1993 08:09:08 GMT

From: "BRIAN A. AURAND" <E#AURAN@CWEMAIL.ceco>

Subject: Hello?

Hello,

        Who is this?  I'm very interested in the subject.

                                -Brian

------------------------------


Wyeast Bohemian Lager yeast

Date: 13 Apr 1993 10:24:36 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Wyeast Bohemian Lager yeast

 In an effort to make a Pilsner Urquell type lager, I used the

Wyeast 2124, Bohemian Lager, as per recommendations on the net.  A friend

also used the same strain, and his beer came out, well, bad.  I chalked it

up to an infection or some such.  But I tasted my lager yesterday (still in

secondary, clearing slowly) and it tastets the same as his.  Quite

phenolic, a little estery, and lots of dry sulfury compounds.  In short, it

tastes like a mediocre Lambik.  Admitedly there was a long lag time when I

pitched the yeast (the pack hadn't quite swelled up, so it took about 3

days to get going).  But the fact that I have not once had an infection

since my first batch (followed the instructions on the can on that one), and

that my friend has yet to have an infection, and both of us brew with 2124

and it tastes the same in each case seems to indicate that either 2124

isn't the yeast for making PU clones, or these packs were contaminated.

Anyone else out there with similar experiences?

 ed

  ------------

  Ed Hitchcock    *-----------------------*

  Dept of Anatomy and Neurobiology |    |

  Dalhousie University    |     JUST BREW IT |

  Halifax, Nova Scotia   |   |

  ech@ac.dal.ca    *-----------------------*

------------------------------


Bottles (Europe/US) / Yeast Generations

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1993 09:37:43 -0400 (EDT)

From: yavo@ivy.Paramax.COM (Steve Yavorski)

Subject: Bottles (Europe/US) / Yeast Generations

JC Ferguson writes:

>

> At

> any rate, they've really got their s%t down in Europe.  Most of the brew

> sold in bottles there comes in a standard 16oz bottle (I think it is 16oz?!).

> So, on the bottle input side of the bottling room at the Zipfer brewery,

> you'll see returned bottles in standard returnable crates (much like milk

> crates) from all sorts of breweries.  They all use the _same_ standard bottle,

> they make it easy to return them to just about anyone, and just about any

> brewery can fill the bottles.  Green ones, brown ones, etc.  Being an

> environmentally concious person, I _really_ liked what I saw.  The US of A

> is so caught up in making $$$ as quickly as possible that we'll probably

> never see anything like that...

Actually, all brown 12 oz. returnable bottles in the U.S. are a standard

shape and size.  Any brewery can use these bottles no matter what

brewery previously used them.  Open thine eyes and ye shall see.

*************************************

Dennis B. Lewis writes:

>  One other point: one common thread I've noticed regarding yeast culturing is

>  how many generations the yeast are good for. Since I'm only using one

>  generation(?!?) for a couple batches... (N.B. I remove most of the trub so I

>  don't think there is much of a problem with accumulated crud on the bottom of

>  the fermenter.)

>

Each time a beer ferments out and the yeast is re-used for another

batch, this is considered a new generation.  The multiple "life cycles"

and alcohol environment the yeast work in can cause mutations.

Steve

Stephen Yavorski   internet - yavo@ivy.paramax.com

NEXRAD Integration   phone    - (215) 443 - 7500

Paramax Systems Corporation

Ivyland, Pennsylvania

------------------------------


CAMRA

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 09:44:54 EDT

From: curt@sundc.East.Sun.COM (Curt Harpold-Sun-Vienna VA-Systems Engineer)

Subject: CAMRA

STOREY@fender.msfc.nasa.gov (BadAssAstronomer) writes:

>    Just back from England with a bunch of real ale under and around

>  ...

>    However, the CAMRA Guide to Good Beer impressed me so much, I was

>    thinking of joining CAMRA. Anybody out there a member or

>    ex-member? Any and all comments will be appreciated.

Scott,

I've been a member of CAMRA for several years, mostly just to get the

Good Beer Guide, but it also to help me in planning my trips to the UK.

Their newsletter is good, and keeps me up-to-date on the dates and locations

of Beer Festivals (to which CAMRA members are admitted free).

If you travel to the UK often, CAMRA membership is well worth the price.

While passing through an area, I can always rely on the pubs in the Guide

to give good service, beer, and usually food.

Keep in mind, however, that omission from the GBG does not imply a lower-

quality pub.  Indeed, many of my favorites are not listed.  If you're in

a town for more than a day, don't depend solely on the GBG - ask the locals

about good pubs.

Curt Harpold curt.harpold@east.sun.com

------------------------------


Screen Tests

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 08:53:02 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Screen Tests

I received some e-mail from people asking for more detail regarding the

sieving tests to evaluate grain milling. Apparently there are a few people

who would like to build their own apparatus for doing this. I think this would

be a terrific project for a homebrew club.

The best model that comes to mind for getting ideas for designing a screen

sieving device is the Pfungstadt plansifter described by DeClerck (p.321,

Vol.2). Here the screens are in parallel, and placed in order of decreasing

screen width.

One will note that the device is not large. Indeed, it is traditional to do

tests on only 100 gram samples. This of course raises the practical problem

of avoiding sampling errors. The usual rules regarding small sample sizes

apply. It is often a good idea to run several tests on samples taken from a

particular crush to make sure the measured results are robust.

There is strong agitation during sieving. DeClerck reports that the screens

on the Pfungstadt plansifter are rotated ~300 times per minute for 5 minutes.

It has been my experience that this is ***very*** important. As Jim noted in

his post, the MM will leave over half of the kernels in a state where they

look as if they were not crushed. Without the proper agitation they will be

artificially captured on the coarser screens. This will result in very large

errors (up to a factor of 2) in the measured results. With proper agitation,

on the other hand, they will fall apart just as they do when we rub them in

our hands.

The major application of a sieving device is in the determination of the

proper roller spacing. This can be used not only for a MM, but for any

other mill, and indeed even a Corona. It has been my experience that the

best spacing will vary with the type of malt that is to be milled.

I hope that anyone who who starts a project along these lines will keep

me abreast of their progress. I bet the whole affair turns out to be a lot

of fun.

George Fix

------------------------------


Fermentable sugars in honey

Date: 13 Apr 93 04:43:38 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Fermentable sugars in honey

Message Creation Date was at 13-APR-1993 09:36:00

          Greetings,

               I was interested in using greater quantities of honey

          in some of my "Speciality" ( or "Peculiar") Beers.  In

          my attempt to calculate how much hops to use as well as

          body characteristics, I need to know how much fermentable

          sugars are in a unit weight of honey.  I realize that there

          is no simple answer to this, given the fact that honeys can

          vary greatly depending on the flower and the regional

          conditions.  However, that caveat being stated, any insight

          would be greatly appreciated.

          Andy A

          Bitch's Brewery

------------------------------


re measuring alpha acids with pH meter

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 10:31:30 EDT

From: cjh@diaspar.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Chip Hitchcock)

Subject: re measuring alpha acids with pH meter

   One problem with the assumptions and one with the results:

   Tannic "astringency" doesn't have much to do with pH. Examples: colas

are in the range of pH 2-3 (/very/ rough, but certainly more acid than your

tea---the acid in colas is as much a problem for your teeth as the sugar)

and nobody calls them astringent; typical vinegar at 5% acetic acid is

something like pH 3 (it's been a /long/ time since I had to work from Kdiss

to pH), ditto. There are many organic acids which have a very modest effect

on the pH of water. I don't know the mechanism of astringency but I would

guess it's some other reaction completely; try tanning leather with a

random acid and see where it doesn't get you....

   pH is a log10 measurement. .3 decrease in pH is 2x acidity, .47 is 3x,

 .6 is 4x, .7 is 5x.  According to bc (UNIX calculator program), e ^ ( .4 *

ln(10) ) is 2.5, so your result actually doesn't agree with expectation---

EXCEPT that weak acids don't affect pH in proportion to their

concentration. Crudely put, the acid has to break into H+ and (remainder)-,

to change the pH; this is a balancing act in which the more acid you have,

the less of it actually dissociates.  What's the average Kdiss for hop

acids? Damfino---George Fix or Steve Stroud might have numbers.

   I also don't know how "utilization" (amount of acid extracted) varies

with acid content---I would expect the % utilization to be lower for the

same mass of high-alpha hops compared to low-alpha (since you're trying to

make a more concentrated solution) but have no figures on /how/ /much/ of a

difference this is. To eliminate this factor you might need a Soxhlet (sp?)

extractor, which is fun to watch but not cheap.

------------------------------


Oregon Homebrew Festival

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 07:57:05 pdt

From: Ted Manahan <tedm@hpcvcbp.cv.hp.com>

Subject: Oregon Homebrew Festival

Full-Name: Ted Manahan

          ANNOUNCING

     THE ELEVENTH ANNUAL

  OREGON HOMEBREW COMPETITION AND FESTIVAL

    On Saturday, May 8, 1993 at 12 noon.

   Benton County Fairgrounds - 110 SW 53rd Street, Corvallis, Oregon.

The Capitol Brewers, Cascade Brewers Society, Heart of the Valley

Homebrewers, Mary's Peak Lagers, and the Oregon Brew Crew invite you to

participate in the ELEVENTH annual homebrew competition and festival,

the longest-running event of its kind in Oregon. The focus of the event

will be a judging of homebrewed beer sanctioned by the American

Homebrewer's Association (AHA). In addition, the Club will host a

festival to promote awareness and knowledge of various beer styles,

provide opportunities to share information about the homebrewing craft,

and encourage interaction of homebrewers in a social atmosphere.

  ENTRY REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COMPETITION:

Anyone 21 years of age or older may enter. All entries must be

personally homemade by the entrant. No entrant can enter more than two

entries in any one category.  Entries must be registered for judging by

11 AM on Saturday May 8, 1993.  Festival organizers will not assure

registration or judging of entries received after this time. To help

avoid a log jam of registrations the morning of the competition,

entrants are encouraged to send or bring their entries to: Oregon

Homebrew Competition and Festival, c/o Freshops, 36180 Kings Valley

Highway, Philomath, OR 97370 by 5 PM Friday, May 7th for entry

registration. All reasonable efforts will be made to transport, store,

and serve each entry in the best possible manner. Entries that are

mailed should be shipped via UPS as non-perishable food in appropriate

protective packaging. As shipping may resuspend sedimented material,

shipped entries should arrive with sufficient time for settling to allow

the best appearance.

Three bottles of at least 10 fluid ounces each are required for judging

(one each for first round judging, potential second round judging, and

potential best of show). Each entry (not bottle) must be accompanied by

a sheet of paper specifying the following information: Brewer's name and

address, category to be judged in (note: brewers should specify style

within category to assist judges in evaluation; e.g. Light Lager -

Continental Pilsner), recipe, and a $5.00 entry fee (checks must be made

payable to Ted Manahan, _not_ Heart of the Valley Homebrewers; the entry

fee is used to cover expenses for hall rental and ribbons). Efforts will

be made to allow entrants at the festival to reclaim unused entries and

empties; however, festival organizers makes no guarantees in this

regard.

Qualified judging of all entries is the primary goal of the event. Three

judges will evaluate and score each entry using the American

Homebrewer's Association (AHA) 50 point system. The average of the three

scores will rank each entry in its category. The Master of Ceremonies or

other qualified person will review elements of beer categories and

styles with each panel prior to judging. The Best of Show will be

determined by the best average score in a second judging of the highest

average scoring entry in each category. A club competition will also

result form the outcome of the judging. Brewers associated with any

homebrewing club will receive points for their winning entries credited

toward a club total. Club members should include their club name on

their entry form. Points scored in this competition count toward

NORTHWEST Homebrewer of the Year. The descriptions and standards used by

the AHA at the National Homebrew Festival and Competition will be used

in judging. Judging will be conducted in a controlled environment

(separate room) away from the hubris of the festival.

Entries will be received for judging in the seven following categories:

1) Light Lager (includes American and Continental styles)

2) Dark Lager (includes bock)

3) Stout and Porter

4) Light / Pale Ale (includes IPA)

5) Dark Ale (includes Brown Ale)

6) Specialty (includes wheat, fruit/herb beers, steam beer)

7) Strong Beer (includes dopplebocks, barleywines, and imperial stouts)

Festival organizers reserves the right to judge an entry in an alternate

category if, after registration is completed, it is found to be entered

in a category having fewer than four entries. Ribbons and prizes will be

awarded to First and Second place in each category as well as for Best

of Show.

We are looking forward to a highly enjoyable festival with a relaxing

atmosphere, several displays, food concessions, music, a raffle and the

opportunity to interact with masters and luminaries of the brewing

craft. Judging and award presentations should be completed by 5 PM.

Any questions regarding the festival can be directed to Ted Manahan at

503/926-6228, internet address tedm@hp-pcd.cv.hp.com

- ------------------------ CUT HERE ---------------------------

          ENTRY FORM

     Entrants must complete one form for each entry.

(Use either this form, or a form similar to that used in the AHA

 national competition. )

Brewer's Information:

Name of Brewer____________________________ Phone______________

Address_______________________________________________________

City_____________________________ State/Province______________

Zip/Postal Code__________________ Country_____________________

Are you a member of a Registered Homebrew Club?__________(Y/N)

What is its name?_____________________________________________

Entry Information:

Name of Brew__________________________________________________

Category/Subcategory__________________________________________

Ingredients and procedures:

Number of gallons___________

Brand names and amounts of malt extracts used:

Type and amount of sugar used (if any):

Variety of hops used:

 Boiling hops - weight and time________________________

 Boiling hops - weight and time________________________

 Aromatic hops - weight and time_______________________

Type of water treatment (minerals or salts) used:

Type of yeast used (liquid/dry) and brand:

Type and amount of adjuncts used (fruit, herbs):

How was beer carbonated? Indicate procedure and amount:

Original Gravity:___________________

Terminal Gravity:___________________

Duration of fermentation____________

Secondary fermentation used?________ How long?________________

Date of bottling____________________

Temperature of Fermentation_________

Any additional information such as temperature and length of mash or

sparging techniques:

------------------------------


Please point me in the right direction

Date:  Tue, 13 Apr 1993 08:05:41 PDT

From: Dimitri_Katsaros.Wbst139@xerox.com

Subject: Please point me in the right direction

Hi all,

    I started reading this digest fairly recently and was wondering if you nice

people could give me a hand on getting some beginner info such as what stuff

I'll need, what is the process (books or ftpable texts would be cool) , what

are some good suppliers, etc.  Also, if anyone is interested in moderating a

conference on my BBS on the subject, please have your modem dial 1-716-242-0440

(2400 baud) or 1-716-242-0441 (14.4K).  The BBS is called Macsimizing BBS and

runs on First Class software... you can either call in via text comm packages,

or via the graphical interface that is available on both my BBS and info-mac

for download.  Also, I keep on seeing the (presumably) magazine Zymurgy being

referred to..... could someone tell me how to obtain it? is it available on

some news stands?

Thanks for any and all help in advance

Dimitri Katsaros

------------------------------


Re: Immersion chiller

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 10:26:02 CDT

From: atzeiner@iastate.edu

Subject: Re: Immersion chiller

>From yesterdays HBD:

>Date: Mon, 12 Apr 93 12:01:31 EDT

>From: eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West)

>Subject: Immersion Chiller Efficiency

>

>There seems to be a confusion in this discussion of IC efficiency

>between time, water, copper, and dollar efficiency.

>

>To Improve Time Efficiency:

>

>A larger, colder surface will cool the wort faster than a smaller,

>warmer one. Use as long a chiller as you can manage, and run lots of

>really cold water through it.  The cooler the water exiting the chiller

>the faster the wort will be cooled. When cool water is exiting it

>indicates that there is an appreciable temperature differential between

>the cooling water and the wort for the entire length of the chiller

>tubing, therefor more heat energy is being extracted from the wort than

>if the exit water were warm or hot. Simply put: The more cold water you

>run through the chiller the cooler your wort will get, the faster you

>do it, the faster it will get cool. Especially if you stir the wort.

>Use the chiller to stir with.

 This isn't really right...A larger colder surface will cool faster

because of more surface area and with a larger tube diameter you would want a

high flow rate so that there would be turbulent flow instead of laminar( If it

was laminar flow, there would be a warm boundary layer of water near the walls

of the coil and the water towards the middle would not be doing any cooling).

However, I think you would want the exiting water to be warmer for a given

length of tubing.  The amount of heat removed from the wort should be:

 (delta q) = m*Cp*(delta T)

where  m=mass flow rate of water

 Cp=heat capacity

 (dealta T)=temperature difference=Tout-Tin

So, if the flow rate increases, the heat removed increases, and if the

temperature difference increases, the heat removed increases.

(I'm sure there is a bit more analysis of this that can be done...It's be a

couple years since I had heat transfer and I didn't like that class anyway:-)

Andy

------------------------------


Re: more comments on bottles

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1993 08:26:10 -0700

From: sherman@qualcomm.com (Sherman Gregory)

Subject: Re: more comments on bottles

It HBD #1118 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com> writes:

>I also agree that genuine bar bottles are the best for bottling.  I've heard

>horror stories of Sam Adams (tm) bottles breaking during the capping phase

>after so many uses, although, I personally have not had this problem yet!

>Has anyone seen this yet?

I exclusively use Sam (tm) Adams (tm) Bottles (tm?).  These seem to be good

bottles to me.  I had one break on about my third batch, but that was a

homebrew virgin bottle (as opposed to many uses).  I think that I was

getting overly aggressive with the capper, so I have never considered that

the bottles fault. But maybe I am wrong.  I have had no other problems.

Has anyone else?

     Sherman

------------------------------


Re:  My Belgian rock collection

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 9:38:33 MDT

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re:  My Belgian rock collection

> Mixed in with the malt is a strange collection of unidentified

> malted objects.  Most are easy to figure out.  A tangled clump of

> barley rootlets, an odd twig or a mangled piece of wire.  But

> every now and then I'll find a rock.  And while all of the

> objects warrant inspection, to me the rocks are keepers.

>

> To date my collection numbers four.  They all appear to be

> similar in appearance.  All are bluish-grey, flat and layered.

Why not add some English rocks to your collection?  I buy large

quantities of Hugh Baird malt, and have noticed similar looking

rocks in my grain.  I usually discover them when the handle of

my mill suddenly ceases to turn, so they're a little chipped

around the edges and are therefore probably not museum quality.

Does anybody know if these rocks serve some mysterious purpose in

the maltster's arcane art?  Or are they merely slip-ups in the

quality control department somewhere?

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Krausening/Mashing

Date: 13 Apr 1993 10:46:10 GMT

From: "Tom Stolfi" <WAUTS@CWEMAIL.ceco>

Subject: Krausening/Mashing

 Date: 04/13/93

 From: Tom Stolfi                                   WAUTS    - CWE1IIN

 Subject: Krausening/Mashing

KRAUSENING

I remember a recent thread regarding krausening and I am considering trying

it soon.  My question is this - in order to achieve the same carbonation as

using 3/4 cup corn sugar I need to calculate the Degrees of Extract available

in the corn sugar.  Then, based on the SG of the wort for krauseningadd enough

to create the same Degrees of Extract.  Is the above statement correct.

MASHING

What is the proper mash temperature during sparging??  I would assume it to

be very close to mashout temp (170deg F).  I have noticed that the temperature

of my runoff during sparging has been 150F.  I  typically heat my sparge

water to 170-175 about fifteen minutes before I start my sparging procedure.

Is this reducing my YIELD????????

Next time I will heat the sparge water to the proper temp. immediately

prior to using it.

Tom Stolfi                                           wauts@cwemail.ceco.com

Waukegan, IL

------------------------------


RE: HOP ALPHA ACID

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 12:27:40 -0400

From: ""Robert C. Santore"" <rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: RE: HOP ALPHA ACID

In HBD 1118, Jack Schmidling writes:

 >   A Proposed Method for Determining Hop Alpha Acid Content

 > The following methodology is based on empirical measurement

 > and experiments.  It may be seriously flawed but as the end

 > results seem to achieve the goal desired, it is worth

 > further experiments by anyone who cares to replicate the

 > results.

As well as further discussion!  Jack, I heartily applaud your

experiments.  I did have some comments on your interpretation

that seemed worth posting, but I think your efforts were worth-

while.

 [stuff deleted]

 > astringency of tea was a result of tanic acid.  I also found

 > that to test tap water accurately takes about 9 minutes to

 > reach a stable value.  Boiled tap water reaches stability

 > within a few seconds.  I presume it has something to do with

 > dissolved gas.

Or another explanation involves the cantankerous nature of pH meters.

In general, they will respond much more rapidly if they are used to

measure similar samples consecutively.  For example, if you calibrate

the meter using the commercial buffers, then put the electrode in a

solution with comparatively little dissolved solids (like water) it

may take the electrode a while to settle down in its new environment.

Once stabilized, the next water sample you measure should equilibrate

much more rapidly.  Try it!

   [stuff deleted]

 > After cooling the teas to room temperature, the following pH

 > measurements were obtained:

 >          Tea #1  Chinook  pH   6.2

 >          Tea #2  Saaz     pH   6.6

 > The delta is .4 pH which I believe works out to a factor of

 > 4 in the real world and nicely matches the delta of the AA

 > in the hops.

Keep in mind the logarithmic nature of the pH scale.  In the

'real world' this difference in pH amounts to:

(10^-6.2)/(10^-6.6) = 2.5 times the amount of free H in the Chinook tea

 > Although, measuring at different times sometimes provided

 > different numbers, the spread was always the same and I

 > attributed the problem to lack of understanding of how to

 > use the instrument.

The changes over time could be due to either temperature changes

(although not in this case since you waited for the samples to cool)

or they could be due to re-equilibration with atmospheric gasses

(most notably CO2) after the sample was degassed by boiling.

 > The only significant anomaly was that on the third day, the

 > pH of both teas dropped to 5.7.  They had been left

 > uncovered throughout the period but something significant

 > happened overnight of the third day.

Distilled water in equilibrium with atmospheric CO2 has a pH of 5.6!

Microbial action is also a possibility if the pH change was sudden.

 > In conclusion, if the results are the product of Alpha Acid

 > in the hops then it should be possible to work out formulae

 > to determine the approximate AA of hops or at least

 > determine how much of an unknown hop is required to achieve

 > the same pH of a known hop.

You may have something there, but I wonder what other types of

acids might be present in hops that produce no flavor components.

Ultimately we don't want to know the total acidity that the hops

can produce in our beers, but the specific quantities of a particular

class of acidic compounds.

Bob Santore

rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu

------------------------------


More on Immersion Chillers

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1993 12:30 EDT

From: HOWED@bcvax1.bc.edu

Subject: More on Immersion Chillers

 After seeing all of the discussion on immersion wort chillers, I could

not resist thowing in my paltry 2 cents.

 Before I started to brew, I saw a friend of mine do a batch.  He had a

wort chiller, and so I thought it was a great idea.  So, I went to the hardware

store, got 50' of 3/8 O.D.flexible copper tubing and a compression fitting.

The coil is fit so that there is about 2 inches of spance between the coil and

the side of the container for the wort.  The outer coil just spirals down

from the compression fitting [where the water comes in], then I made a much

smaller coil inside the outer one which spirals up and out, where the water

flows out.

 This chiller will cool wort which is fresh from the stove in about

15 mintues.  Usually, I notice when the temp is at around 80 degrees [F],

walk into the next room to tell my partner that it's just about ready, toss

a dart or two, then come in to the 65 degree wort, all ready to pitch.

 All I can say is I have no complaints.  It works for me.

Dave

HOWED@BCVMS.BC.EDU

"If you ever reach total enlightenment while drinking a beer, I bet it makes

beer shoot out your nose."     -Jack Handey

"Homebrew is enlightenment in a bottle, and it doesn't come out of your _nose_"

   -Anonymous

------------------------------


rotten egg smell

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 11:56:42 CDT

From: paulb%mist@juliet.ll.mit.edu (Paul Biron)

Subject: rotten egg smell

Last weekend I brewed up a batch of wheat beer using Alexander's 60/40

wheat extract, a 1.5 lb 100% wheat kicker, and various grains and hops.

I used Yeastlab Bavarian wheat liquid yeast. Prior to brewing I made up

a starter using 5 tbsp DME. After 24 hours in the starter there was quite a

bit of activity as well as a good deal of sediment but minimal kreusen.

I pitched into the primary and vigorous fermentation began within 18

hours. Once fermentation started, I began to notice a sour sulphur odor.

Now that fermentation has stopped and I've racked to the secondary, the

odor isn't as distinct but it's still there. Questions:

1: Has anyone had this experience using Yeastlab yeast. This is my first

   experience with it. I've always used Wyeast befor this batch.

2: Will the odor disappear with time.

3: Is there a chance that I have a contaminated batch.

Any feedback will be appreciated

Thanks.

Paul Biron

MIT Lincoln Laboratory

DFW Airport

Dallas, TX

------------------------------


Re: camra

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1993 11:01:32 -0700

From: paul@melody.rational.com (Paul Jasper)

Subject: Re: camra

On 9 Apr, 11:56, BadAssAstronomer wrote:

> Subject: camra

>

>     Just back from England with a bunch of real ale under and around

>     my belt :) Man it was great, but I'll bore you with the details

>     in some other post.

>

>     However, the CAMRA Guide to Good Beer impressed me so much, I was

>     thinking of joining CAMRA. Anybody out there a member or

>     ex-member? Any and all comments will be appreciated.

>

>-- End of excerpt from BadAssAstronomer

I've been a member of CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, since 1978.  When

I moved to the US, I brought my membership with me, and I certainly find

it a good way to keep up with the UK beer, pub and brewing scene.

It costs 14 UK pounds (approx US$21) for "overseas membership".  I believe

CAMRA will accept credit card orders over the phone (they will for book

orders, like for the Good Beer Guide).  Their number is 011+44-727-867201.

They keep regular office hours, so remember to call early enough in the day

(before approx 12noon Eastern, 9am Pacific).  Or write for details to CAMRA,

34 Alma Road, St Albans, England, AL1 3BW.

Membership includes a subscription to What's Brewing, their monthly

newspaper.  This is 32 tabloid-format pages of news about British pubs,

breweries and beers, a column on homebrewing, a full page of beer hunting

from Michael Jackson (April issue: German Bocks and Doppelbocks), various

industry news (what's Anheuser Busch up to in Europe?), listings of beer

festivals, etc, etc.

- --

- -- Paul Jasper

- -- RATIONAL

- -- Object-Oriented Products

- --

------------------------------


growing hops

Date:         Tue, 13 Apr 93 12:13:49 EDT

From: "Jim L." <JLAUKAIT@ccvm.sunysb.edu>

Subject:      growing hops

Hello fellow homebrewers,

  I am a little new to this forum as well as homebrewing itself. I am sure this

has been talked about before, but I could use some information. I would like to

grow my own hops. It doesn't look too tough. I have a supply that can give me

rhizomes for Hallertau, Cascade, and one other I can't remember. The only

info I have is out of Papizanian's (sp?) book. Can anyone give me maybe a

little more insight, tips, etc.? Everything would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Jim

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1119, 04/14/93

*************************************

-------


Seeking Albuquerque & Santa Fe beer recommendations

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 12:27:05 CDT

From: shaver@zeppelin.convex.com (Dave Shaver)

Subject: Seeking Albuquerque & Santa Fe beer recommendations

I'm looking for recommendations for brewpubs and the like in the

Albuquerque and Santa Fe areas.  I've done some research, and here's

what I've found so far.  I'm looking for confirmation and updates to

this information.

I looked at all the 1990-1993 HBDs (issues 335-1118) and found this

information (edited to conserve bandwidth):

| Date: 16 Jan 90 12:25:00 MST

| From: "2645 RUTH, GUY R." <grruth@sandia.gov>

|

| Richard Tatz (former brewmaster at Santa Fe Brewing Co.) says that a

| real estate developer will be opening up a brewpub close to the

| University of New Mexico in Albuquerque this year.

This must have not happened based on comments below.

| Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 09:17:54 -0800

| From: sami@scic.intel.com

| Subject: Brewpubs in Santa Fe, etc...

|

| [...] It seems that there is a local microbrewery, but no brewpubs.

| Date: Tue, 23 Jun 92 10:13:43 -0600

| From: 105277@essdp1.lanl.gov (GEOFF REEVES)

| Subject: SF Brews (That's Santa Fe - the original SF :-)

|

| There are no brew pubs in Santa Fe. Embudo Station (on the way up

| to Taos) is the closest. It's probably about a 45 min drive but very

| pretty and worth going. Santa Fe Pale Ale is brewed at the Galisto

| Brewing Company just south-east of Santa Fe. It's not a brew pub but

| they will give you a tour (I think just on the weekends unless you

| arrange otherwise).  If you just want to try the beers you can get any

| that are available at The Royal Buck on Galisto Street in Santa Fe.

| They have a pretty good selection of beer and they carry "Santa Fe"

| beers from the Galisto Brewery which are not available in bottles

| anywhere but at the brewery. Of course there are good beer drinking

| establishments in Albuquerque too.

| Date: Sun, 28 Jun 92 00:11:15 CDT

| From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)

| Subject: brewpubs in albuquerque

|

| check out billy's long bar.  they have 22 taps running, [...] Let's

| see, Watney's Cream Ale & Stout, Guiness, Bass, Anchor Porter/

| Steam/Liberty Ale, all the Paulaner Beers, and more.  They also have

| yards [...] and the most gorgeous bartendresses I've seen in my life

| Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 11:32 EST

| From: "JOSEPH V. GERMANI" <GERMANI%NSLVAX@Venus.YCC.Yale.Edu>

|

| [...] By the way, I hear that there is a small brewery half way between

| Santa Fe and Taos that makes a good green chili beer.  I think

| that it is called Embudo Station.

The brewpub database contains these entries (again, with some edits):

|    - Pub List -

|    November 12, 1992

|

| New Mexico -- Albuquerque:

|   Albuquerque Brewing

|     Microbrewery.  As of '89 they were also planning a brewpub.

|     Oops sorry!  They are reported closed.

So, are they dead or alive? :-)

|   Billy's Long Bar

|     Bar with 22 taps, yard glasses.

|

| New Mexico -- Embudo:

|   Embudo Station

|     Brewpub on the way to Taos (from Santa Fe).  (Is this the same

|     as Preston Brewery?)

|   Preston Brewery - P.O. Box 154; 87531 (505)852-4707

|     Microbrewery, aka Sangre De Cristo Brewing

|

| New Mexico -- Santa Fe:

|   Royal Buck, The - Galisto St

|     Pub.  "They have a pretty good selection of beer and they carry

|     'Santa Fe' beers from the Galisto Brewery which are not available in

|     bottles. <Geoff Reeves "105277@essdp1.lanl.gov">

|   Russell Brewing Co.

|     Microbrewery

|   Santa Fe Brewing Co - State Rd 41 (Flying M Ranch); 87540 (505)988-2340

|     Microbrewery producing Santa Fe Pale Ale.  Tours.  In the (suburb)

|     Galisteo

|

| New Mexico -- Taos:

|   Chili Connection, The

|     Restaurant

|   Eske's: A Brewpub/Sangre de Cristo Brewing Co

|     Brewpub

|

| New Mexico -- Tijeras:

|   Manzano Mountain Brewing Co - No. 3 Los Alamitos Dr; 87059 (505)283-5303

|     Microbrewery

Addresses and contact information that is missing would be nice.  Thanks

for any additions or corrections you can make!

//  Dave Shaver

//  CONVEX Computer Corporation, Richardson, TX

//  Internet: shaver@convex.com    UUCP:  uunet!convex!shaver

------------------------------


Guinness in cans

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 10:14:24 PDT

From: Brew me  13-Apr-1993 1311 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Guinness in cans

Does anyone have any word with regard to Guinness draught in cans making

its way to more locations in the US?  Currently, I've heard they are

available in Wash DC, San Fran, and one other place.  I live in the Boston

area and I've been relying on my Irish comrades to supply me - I'm really

surprised that Boston was not chosen as a "test" site for the canned

draught Guinness, which, IMO, is _very_ authentic.

I've heard that this summer we may see more of these.  Anyone else know

more about them?  I wouldn't mind seeing the Murphey's in cans here as

well 'cuz they too are quite yummy!

JC Ferguson

Digital Equip. Corp

------------------------------


tips gleaned from Anchor brewing tour

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 11:11:34 -0700

From: tims@ssl.Berkeley.EDU

Subject: tips gleaned from Anchor brewing tour

Dear Folks,

 I promised a while ago to report on some of

the things I learned during my recent trip to the Anchor

brewery.  The folks there are very nice about giving tours

and information, and most of all free samples of their

various beers, all of which add up to a great visit if you

have the chance to go.

 Since they are in the business to sell beer, I hope

you will patronize their products even as you attempt to

duplicate them using the information below.

 Here are some random notes, scribbled hastily during

the tour.  I can't guarantee the accuracy, but this is to

the best of my knowlege and scribbling.

 - their Steam beer is mashed at three separate temperatures

 - steam beer uses both pale and crystal malts, while the

 Liberty Ale is 100% pale

 - their wheat beer is 70% wheat malt

 - The steam beer boil is 1.5 hours, with hops added throughout

 the boil.  It gets a 2 hour sparge.

 - Steam and porter both use lager yeast, and are fermented

 at 60 F.

 - they reuse yeast after washing it.

 - They use iodophor to santize their fermenting vessels

 - Liberty Ale is dry hopped

 - their steam beer is aged (lagered) at 50 F.

That's it.  For you steam lovers like myself, the above info

and the net-lore that steam uses 100% Northern Brewers hops

should be able to come up with a pretty good match to the

beer, if you are the mashing type.

Good luck,   Tim Sasseen

------------------------------


Short answer on chiller size

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1993 11:32:38 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Short answer on chiller size

Make your chiller out of 30' of 3/8" OD soft copper tube.

The long answer is 120K, and I'll be glad to send it (in two handy <100K

chunks) to anyone who wants it.

P.

------------------------------


SPECTROPHOTOMETER WANTED

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1993 10:12:06 -0700

From: GARETZ%EMAIL@AMD3.AMD.COM

Subject: SPECTROPHOTOMETER WANTED

I am looking for a cheap (as in almost free) used UV-VIS

spectrophotometer to be used in hop research for a book that I am

writing on hops.  The intent is to come up with better bittering

formulas than exist in the literature today, taking many more of

the brewing variables into account.  Spec specs:

Range:  UV-VIS, usually 200nm to something

Bandwidth (aka slit width): 2nm or better

So check your surplus equipment closets and see if there's an

older model hanging around that no one wants any more.  Or if you

live in the SF bay area and can get me access to an instrument in

a lab during off hours, that would work also.  Reply by email to

mark.garetz@amd.com  Thanks.

------------------------------


RE: PH METER FOR AA%

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1993 10:02:46 -0700

From: GARETZ%EMAIL@AMD3.AMD.COM

Subject: RE: PH METER FOR AA%

Jack Schmidling is attempting to use a pH meter to measure hop

alpha acids.

I had asked this question of some hop experts and always got the

reply that the alpha acids were too weak to show up on a pH

meter.  Jack, can you try this:  Dilute the Chinnok tea with

distilled water by an amount intended to match the Saaz? tea's AA

and see if the pH matches the Saaz tea.  That should tell us if

you are measuring the AAs or something else.  I am also skeptical

that only a 5 minute boil got any AAs in the tea at all.  I would

repeat the experiment with more water (say 1 litre) and do a 60

minute boil.  This will give iso alpha acids, but should be

proportional.  You might also try a methanol extraction rather

than water.  This is a more common practice in the hop world.

Mark Garetz (new to the digest)

------------------------------


Re : Blowoff (fusels, etc.)

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 19:44:52 BST

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: Re : Blowoff (fusels, etc.)

Joseph writes:

>In fact, the last Liberty Ale I drank smelled and tasted strongly

of octanol or something similar.  I was a bit surprised by it and

intend to try another bottle from a separate source, since I consider

it a defect ...

A professional brewer who was drinking with me (at the Brickskellar)

at the time said that it seemed "old."  I'm not so sure; I've never

seen beer change in flavor this way in a bottle.<

Wine that has passed its peak is also sometimes described as 'fuselly' in

pseudo German. On another thread, I would have presumed that wine is aired

prior to consumption in order to permit unpleasant volatiles to escape, most

likely sulphur compounds.

- --

Conn V Copas

Loughborough University of Technology          tel : +44 509 263171  ext 4164

Computer-Human Interaction Research Centre     fax : +44 509 610815

Leicestershire  LE11 3TU              e-mail - (Janet):C.V.Copas@uk.ac.lut

G Britain                                      (Internet):C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk

------------------------------


Reuse of bottles in USA

Date: 13 Apr 1993 12:20:18 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

Subject: Reuse of bottles in USA

Subject:  Reuse of bottles in USA               Time:11:27 AM    Date:4/13/93

>They all use the _same_ standard bottle, they make it easy to

>return them to just about anyone, and just about any brewery

>can fill the bottles.  Green ones, brown ones, etc.  Being an >environmentally

concious person, I _really_ liked what I saw.

>The US of A is so caught up in making $$$ as quickly as possible

>that we'll probably never see anything like that...

In fact that used to be the way everybody did things. Well, almost. As little

as 20 years ago I was able to purchase bottled beer in cases of returnable

bottles. The beer came from Bartells in PA (I lived in NJ at that time) it was

around $3.50 a case plus $0.03 deposit per bottle. I also recall buying soda by

the case right from the plant in a refillable quart bottle around the same

time. All glass containers for beverages were at one time returnable for the

purpose of refilling.  All milk was sold this way when I was a kid. While we

never saw a standardized bottle which could be used by any brewery, the

principle was certainly there.

I suspect that the practice was abandoned when the range of sales for any given

producer extended beyond where it was cost effective to reclaim the bottles.

For the big breweries this was not such an issue (hence the continued existence

of the "bar bottle") but for small regional or local brewers (or other beverage

producers) if you wanted to get a bigger market share you had to figure on the

loss of the container. Also one way to reduce or maintain the cost of a product

is to reduce the cost of the package. Cans also contributed to the elimination

of re-use containers.

Standardization of glass containers would go a long way toward facilatating the

re-use ethic. Alas there would be no end to the cries of "foul" if such a

suggestion were made. The idea of cross-use between industries alone would be

enough to get the neo-pros out of joint. "What?! Use the same bottle for milk,

soda, water, AND BEER, WINE, or WORSE!?!"

Don't expect it in our timelines. We can't even get the world to agree on a

measuring system! I can hear the Ayn Rand-ites coming for me now...

RW...Heretic at Large

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


gushers

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1993 13:42:07 -0600

From: colesa@spot.Colorado.EDU

Subject: gushers

Recently my brewpartner and I bottled a Red ale.  We were slightly

disturbed that fermentation had stopped so soon (after four days of very

high activity, the Spec. Gravity was the same for four more).  We primed

with malt extract

(1 1/4 cup to 5 gal) and now about 1 in 3 bottles gush.  Is it possible

fermentation was stalled that long and picked up in the bottle?  This is

not a big problem, since we can easily open bottles over a sink, but I'd

like to be sure when fermentation is complete.  Replies via e-mail are

welcome.  Thanks in advance!

Adam Coles               * I'm not giving in to security under pressure

Senior, Bioengineering   * I'm not missing out on the promise of adventure

College of Aerospace     * I'm not giving up on implausible dreams

CU Boulder               * Experience to extremes, experience to extremes

colesa@spot.colorado.edu *             -N. Peart

------------------------------


Zima Review & Thanks

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 12:32:08 PDT

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: Zima Review & Thanks

Hey, folks:

I had my first taste of Zima this weekend, and thought I would post a

short review.

First, Relax.  Beer it definately AINT.  It calls itself a "clear malt

beverage".  While I cannot testify on it being malt, it was a beverage and

certainly was clear.

COLOR: none

HEAD: none

HOPS: none

AROMA: sweet and slightly citrusy

TASTE: exactly like a vodka-seven (that's vodka and seven-up)

If you like 7-up, you'll love this drink.  It was a little too sweet to be

refreshing, even on a hot day.

I won't buy any more.  If I want something that tastes like Zima, I'll mix up

a vodka-7 myself.  It'll be WAY cheaper.

*****************

Many thanks to all of you who responded to my plea for help on yeast culturing.

Your suggestions/advice/experience were very timely and helpful.

Cheers,

Troy

------------------------------


Recipe: Bigfoot Jr.

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 16:22:06 -0700

From: ek@chem.UCSD.EDU (Ed Kesicki)

Subject: Recipe: Bigfoot Jr.

Here is a recipe for a beer similar in flavor to SN Bigfoot Ale, although

it is not quite as high in alcohol content. (OG of 70 compared to 95 for the

real bigfoot according to M. Jackson).  Let's say it's Bigfoot Jr.

I wasn't attempting to make a clone, it just came out that way--maybe not

surprising since I used the SN yeast.

In fact, I had never tasted SN Bigfoot until after I had made this one,

and I found the flavor very similar.

SIERRA NEVADA BIGFOOT JR (4.5 gal batch):

 10 lb     2-row pale malt

  8 oz     Dextrin malt

  1 lb     Amber crystal malt (40 deg L)

 .25 cup    Chocolate malt

  2 tsp    gypsum

Hops: 1.5 oz  Northern Brewer loose hops,5.7% aa, 60 min boil.

      1.0 oz  Cascades loose hops, 5.5% aa, 60 min boil

              (total of 14 AAU bittering)

      0.5 oz  Hallertauer pellets, last 5 min of boil

      0.5 oz      "         "    , end of boil, sat 10 min before chilling

Yeast:  Sierra Nevada Yeast, cultured from two bottles

PROCEDURE:

Mash in:       130 deg. F  12 qts water (San Diego tap water, boiled+cooled)

Protein rest:  125 deg F        30 min

Mash temp:     155-146 deg F  1.25 hr

Mash out:      170 deg F         5 min

Sparge:        approx 4-5 gal @ ~ 170 deg F

Total boil time of 1.5 hr, hops additions as noted above, chilled,

 racked off trub

Final volume was 4.5 gal

Fermented in glass, temp in the low 60's Farenheit, used primary+secondary.

Two week fermentation

OG: 71  FG: 15

Primed with 1/2 cup corn sugar, bottled 2.5 gallons like this, which became

the Bigfoot Jr.  The remailing 2 gal. was diluted up to 3 gal with water,

then bottled after adding a little more corn sugar (~1or2 tbsp). This

produced a very very good pale ale (Not at all bigfoot-like!) with a

more civilized alcohol content.

Please try it and let me know how it turns out.

Ed Kesicki

------------------------------


Mashing temps for De Cosyns Belgian malts?

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 17:18:06 -0700

From: "Carl J. Appellof" <cja@chmist.zso.dec.com>

Subject: Mashing temps for De Cosyns Belgian malts?

Went to a presentation by Dr. Michael Lewis from U.C. Davis a few

weeks ago where he said that a temp. step mash was absolutely

essential to give best extract yeilds and fermentability when using

American lager malt (aka "klages" in this neck of the woods).  He

also said that with British Pale Ale malt, a single temp infusion mash

was best.  I get the idea that the mash temp profile really depends on

what your malt was designed for.

I have some Belgian Pilsner malt and Pale Ale malt from De Cosyns

maltings.  Does anyone have info on the proper mash temps for these

two fine malts?  (If I had to guess, I'd do a single temp 150F

infusion mash with the Pale Ale, and a temp step/ramp from

122F-142F-158F for the Pilsner malt.)

 Carl J. Appellof

Carl J. Appellof (cja@chmist.zso.dec.com)

------------------------------


Re: Boulevard Brewing Co

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 20:51:33 CDT

From: If wishes were cows@iastate.edu,

Subject: Re: Boulevard Brewing Co

>While on a recent trip through the mid-west, I picked up some micro

>brews (I assume) made by the Boulevard Brewing  Co. in Kansas City,MO.

Other stuff deleted

>If anybody has any input, I'd love to hear it.

I was in KC over the Easter Holiday, and enjoyed a fine meal at Bristol's on

the plaza.  I had a IPA brewed by Boulevard and thought it was a fine brew.

While everyone else had coffee for desert I had another IPA.

Just my 2 cents worth

John Bartleson

------------------------------


How not to filter beer

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 23:36:00 CST

From: hopduvel!john@linac.fnal.gov (John Isenhour)

Subject: How not to filter beer

Ok, so I've been asking around and reading up on how to filter

homebrew and I went by and looked at some whole house water filters.

It seemed that they contained an awful lot of liquid for filtering

five gallon batches and might be wasteful.  So I notice these cute

little 'icemaker' filters by Pollenex that are clear tubes about

1.5" in diameter and about a foot long.  These are filled with

carbon but they have a threaded cap and an O ring seal on one end.

I found one of these for $5.00 and also a 5.0 micron string filter

(two for $5.00) so I figure I'll just pour out the carbon and stuff

the wound string filter in the cartrige and see what happens.

BTW,

I've looked all over and I cannot find the 3.0 micron filters I

think George Fix was talking about, if anyone knows where I can find

one of those let me know.  (the filter store says ??)

Anyway, I'm working on the little filter cartridge and found that the

plastic connecters that come with it - that thread into each end of

the cartridge, have outer threads that fit cornelius keg threads (ball

lock type at least - I dont have pin lock), I added a compression ring

(a little brass ring that looks like a double of the normal

cornelius plastic compression washers i.e. "<>" rather than ">" )

to get a good seal.

Then I try to unscrew the O ring cap off the cartridge.  It is stuck

on really tight, so tight I thought I'd break it if I tried any

harder (I had the hex-head cap in a vise and was using 2 pipe

wrenches on the body of it).  I thought I remembered testing one of

them and it unscrewed, so I ran to Kmart but they were all beyond

hand tight.  So I went back home and heated the cap in real hot

water... finally put some ignited propane on it.  After about a half

hour of heating and twisting and cursing, I got the cap off.

Ok, so now I pour out the carbon and take the poly wound filter

cartridge and open it up and find the end of the string.  I roll the

string up in a tight little ball estimated to simulate what would

pass through the poly string filter if I hadnt grossly mutilated it.

I didnt want to filter it too much (gad! barley wine 'in' and

Coors extra light 'out'  red alert).

(CO2 purging, fixing leaks etc mercifully omitted)

I diverted a sample:) on the way out of the fermenter into tank#1

which I used to compare against the filtered stuff going into tank

#2 (I was using CO2 to push the brew rather than a pump).

The glass I diverted after the filter looked exactly the same

(clarity wize etc) as the stuff right outta the fermenter:-(

I dissasemble the whole deal, stuff the little housing with as much

filter string as seems sane, and repete proceedure.  same results.

So, I think that a small cartrige filter that would be disposable

or reusable with a small amount waste is still a good idea.  I think

I could fabricate a smaller less wasteful housing if I could find

the right media.  FWIW, the Filter Store told me today that pleated

filters were much more effecient and poly string filters were only

about 65% effecient at their rated effectiveness.

Now I've got a bunch of barley wine samples that I'm not about to

waste and its getting late!

 -john

- --

John Isenhour

renaissance scientist and AHA/HWBTA National Beer Judge

home: john@hopduvel.UUCP  (hopduvel!john@linac.fnal.gov)

work: isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov

------------------------------


RE: rotten egg smell

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 06:45:16 EDT

From: dstotler@cygnus.PPPL.GOV (Daren Stotler)

Subject: RE: rotten egg smell

Paul Biron writes:

>Last weekend I brewed up a batch of wheat beer using Alexander's 60/40

>wheat extract, a 1.5 lb 100% wheat kicker, and various grains and hops.

>I used Yeastlab Bavarian wheat liquid yeast. Prior to brewing I made up

(stuff deleted)

>hours. Once fermentation started, I began to notice a sour sulphur odor.

>Now that fermentation has stopped and I've racked to the secondary, the

>odor isn't as distinct but it's still there. Questions:

   I guess this is going around. My last batch was very similar to this;

in particular, I also used the Yeast Bavarian Wheat Liquid Yeast (from

a starter). The fermentation went on for nearly a week. And, it gave off

a distinct "rotten egg" smell (my wife was the first to complain; I don't

need to give her any more reasons to object to my brewing in the house).

I called my local brew shop. The proprietor suggested leaving the beer on

the yeast for four days after the krausen had fallen; by that time the

smell should have dissipated. He was right! At this point I didn't see

any reason to go to a secondary, so I went ahead and bottled the beer.

My taste tests at that point indicated no ill effects; we'll have to

wait until this weekend to test the finished product. My only complaint

was that there were some fairly ugly remnants from the krausen floating on

top of the beer when I started bottling. Some of it made its way to

the last few bottles; I guess I can expect some puzzled looks

from unsuspecting guests.

                        ---Daren Stotler

                           dstotler@pppl.gov

------------------------------


Drinking in Albuquerque, Buffalo, & Toronto

Date: 14 Apr 93 02:58:29 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Drinking in Albuquerque, Buffalo, & Toronto

The following attachments were included with this message:

__________________________________________________________________

TYPE     : FILE

NAME     : TOM

__________________________________________________________________

I will be travelling in the near future to Albuquerque NM and

Buffalo/Toronto and would appreciate any information on

brewpubs/good beer bars in the vicinity(s).  Thanks in advance.

------------------------------


Yeast Propagation

Date: 14 Apr 93 02:52:52 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Yeast Propagation

Message Creation Date was at 14-APR-1993 07:26:00

          Greetings,

               I've a question about starter cultures and their OG's.

          I remember reading several items on hbd recently concerning

          whether an OG of 1.020 was appropriate or just a piece of

          folklore handed down over time.  I've read that when a

          fermentation reaches full yeast saturation, there are

          supposedly 50 million yeast cells per milliliter of

          solution.  Is this irrespective of the Gravity of the wort?

          Does a unit volume of 1.020 wort create the same number of

          yeast cells as 1.080 wort?  If the OG of the wort does make

          a difference in the final quantity of yeast cells, is there

          some sort of mathematical relationship I can use to

          determine final number of yeast cells for a given volume of

          wort at a set OG?  It seems to me that if the OG has no

          bearing in the final saturation number of yeast cells, and

          saturation will always be 50 Mill/ml, then why not just

          decrease the DME, increase the water, end up with an OG of

          1.010, but because of a greater volume have a greater number

          of yeast cells.

          Help!!  I see yeast in all my dreams!

          Andy A

          Bitch's Brewery

------------------------------


hops primer

Date:    Wed, 14 Apr 1993 10:10:34 -0400 (EDT)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: hops primer

   Just a reminder that I've got a primer on growing your own hops.  If

there's a lot of interest, I'll post it to the list.  Otherwise it's

available by personal e-mail.

Russ Gelinas

gelinas@unhh.unh.edu

------------------------------


Milling nightmare

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 07:54:36 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Milling nightmare

I recently brewed a Brown Ale. One of the malts in the recipe is English

crystal malt. This stuff really makes a brown ale. I usually put it in the

mashout to minimize some of it's harshness. I will mill the crystal malt

separately from the pale malt. Well all was going well with the pale malt. I

then started to crush the crystal malt. The mill started making funny

bumping noises. I looked at the cracked grain and it didn't look cracked,

more of a mashed look. Well I tasted the malt and it was like gum. Well I

figured I would pass the malt through the mill one more time to better

crack/mash it. The mill stopped! The malt gum/goo/sticky crab stuck to the

mill rollers and clogged the mill! It took me about two hours to clean the

rollers up. Not an easy task if you don't want to use water for fear of

rusting the rollers. I think what happened here is the malt was in a room

where the humidity was very high and it sucked up all the moisture to make

bubble gum malt. Under my house flooded during the winter and created this

high humidity. The lesson here is I will taste test all malt before they go

through the mill and I am considering some sort of moisture tight bag around

the malt to prevent this from happening again. Grooved rollers on a mill are

a definite disadvantage in this circumstance.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Wort Chillers

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 08:33 PDT

From: Bob_Konigsberg@3mail.3com.com

Subject: Wort Chillers

It's been a while since I got on my soapbox (so as not to get too

tiresome on the subject), but having used both immersion chillers and

counterflow chillers (former first, latter second), I believe that

there is nothing like a counterflow chiller.

1) Because the wort and  cooling water are going in opposite directions,

   you get a very efficient heat exchange.

2) The bulk of the wort in the boiling pot stays hot enough to

   discourage assorted bugs.

3) The wort is chilled in complete sterility and then dumped out at

   pitching temperature right into your sterile (I hope) carboy.

   I usually pitch the starter culture into the carboy and then dump

   the wort on top of it.

4) You get (depending on the temperature of your cold water) a really

   good cold break during the chilling process.

The big dread that most people consider is cleaning it.  This is

actually not too bad.  First I run hot water through it, then a solution

of chlorinated TSP and hot water and let that sit for 10 minutes.  Then

another two minutes of hot water flow and cap both ends and leave it sit

with water in it.  The chlorinated solution must NOT sit in it long

term, it will corrode the copper.  Then I always rinse for two or three

minutes with hot water prior to use.

If anyone wants a drawing with detailed instructions, email me for my

home address and then send me a self addressed stamped envelope for the

drawing itself.

BobK

------------------------------


Cheap Hop Rhizomes

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 8:51:28 PDT

From: davep@cirrus.com (David Pike)

Subject: Cheap Hop Rhizomes

For those of you who are in the Pacific N.W. and want to grow your own

hops, the Herbfarm in Fall City has inexpensive rhizomes (3 for 3.99) for

sale.

Usual disclaimers.

Dave

------------------------------


Chicago stakeout...

Date: 14 Apr 93 08:21:00 EST

From: "ROBERT W. HOSTETLER" <8220RWH@indy.navy.mil>

Subject: Chicago stakeout...

I had to unsubscribe from the digest for a couple of weeks; what's

the status of the stakeout on the homebrew/hydroponics supplier in the

Chicago 'burbs?

While I'm at it, what's happening with the Boston trademark lawsuit? Jim

Koch is doing commercials for Samuel Adams, and his voice just plain

sounds weaseley...

Bob Hostetler     8220rwh@indy.navy.mil

------------------------------


re: Lab equip

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 12:52:18 EDT

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: re: Lab equip

>I would like to second that request for Lab equip supply places.  Also

> does anyone have the number for Aldritch and know if they sell to

> individuals?

The toll free Customer service for Aldrich is 800-558-9160.

They sell non-chemicals to individuals but if you want

chemicals (agar included) you must order through a business.

I recently bought some Pyrex Petri dishes from them.

Theirs was the only catalog I found with Pyrex dishes, which they

sell in different sizes, namely,

o.d.XH(mm)  Cat. No.    Each    Pkg/12        Case

  58X15    Z13,973-4   $6.05   $47.80       $258.75/72

  98X10    Z13,974-2    5.40    39.80        214.60/72

 100X15    Z13,975-0    5.40    39.80        214.60/72

  98X20    Z13,976-9    5.40    39.80        214.60/72

(100X15 seems to be the standard size).

They also added on a $10.00 shipping charge to the order.

As far as other supplies for yeast culturing go

   test tubes  - The minimum order in the catalogs I've seen

                 is 144 for over $100, so your best bet is

                 probably a local hobby shop.

   agar        - I took Jack Schmidling's advice and found it

                 both in stick and powdered form in a local Chinese

                 market.  The powdered form seems most convenient

                 but the instructions were in Burmese (I think).

For some of the other items

J&H Berge, Inc. of 4111 So. Clinton Ave., So. Plainfield,NJ

(I don't have their phone number handy) have a more limited selection

of supplies than Aldrich, but at generally lower prices.

Bill Szymczak

bszymcz@ulysses.nswc.navy.mil

------------------------------


Equations for wort chiller and immersion heater length

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 10:41:22 PDT

From: 14-Apr-1993 1341 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Equations for wort chiller and immersion heater length

All of this talk about proper wort chiller length and length of immersion

heaters made me dig out my copy of Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook

(5th editon, pp. 10-36 and 10-37).  Here are some formulas that may be of help.

First, let's define some terms.  This will be a little tricky since I can't

sub and superscript easily.  I'll use an * to signify multiplication.

A, area in sq. ft.; Ab, of tank bottom; Ac, of coil; Ae, equivalent; As, of

sides; At, of top; A1, equivalent area receiving heat from external coils; A2,

equivalent area not covered with external coils; Dt, diameter of tank, ft.; F,

design (safety) factor; h, film coefficient, B.t.u./(hr.)(sq.ft.)(0F); ha, of

ambient air; hc, of coil; hh, of heating medium; hi, of liquid phase of tank

contents, or tube-side coefficient referred to outside of coil; hz, of

insulation; k, thermal conductivity, B.t.u./(hr.)(sq.ft.)(0F/ft.); kg, of

ground below tank; M, weight of tank contents, when full, lb.; t, temperature,

0F; ta, of ambient air; td, of dead-air space; tf, of contents at end of

heating; tg, of ground below tank; th, of heating medium; to, of contents at

beginning of heating; U, over-all coefficient, B.t.u./(hr.)(sq.ft.)(0F); Ub, at

tank bottom; Uc, of coil; Ud, of dead air to the tank contents; Ui, through

insulation; Us, at sides; Ut, at top; U2, at area A2.

Case 1:  Tank Maintained at Temperature with Internal Coil

For steady state:  q=Us*Ae*(t-t')

for a tank on legs: Ae=(Ut/Us)*At + (Ub/Us)*Ab + As

for a flat-bottomed tank on the ground:

Ae= As + (Ut/Us)*At + [(2*Dt*kg/Us)*(t-tg)]/(t-t')

The coil area is:  Ac= (q*F)/Uc*(th-t)m

The safety factor, F, is a matter of judgment based on confidence in the

design.  A value of 1.10 is normally not considered excessive.

For a flat-bottomed tank indoors, not insulated, using water as a fluid,

Us=1.8, and As=0.35*At + As + 0.9*Dt.  For an uninsulated tank on legs

indoors, Us=1.8, and As=0.35*At + Ab + As.

Case 2:  Heating with an Internal Coil from Initial Temperature for Specified

Time (wort chiller length for desired chilling time)

Q= Wc*(tf-to)

Ac = [Q/theta_h + Us*Ae*[((tf+to)/2)-t']]*[1/Uc*[th-(tf+to)/2]]*F

where theta_h is length of heating period.

Over-all heat transfer coefficient for copper coil with cold water flowing

through it and immersed in hot water with no agitation is 105-180

B.t.u./(hr.)(sq.ft.)(0F).

Good luck!

Keith A. MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corporation

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


dry-hopping, pitching rates

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 12:16:34 cdt

From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: dry-hopping, pitching rates

Brewing Comrades,

I have a couple remarks on postings in HBD#1118.

First, Carl Eidbo's remarks on dry-hopping problems remind me very much of

what I have been through with a recent batch.  I have only gotten a few

comments on my trials and tribulations from digest contributors (I'm afraid

my postings had to compete with that very lively thread on swirling) but

enough to point me in this direction for future dry-hopping:

>>>when dry-hopping, I will (1) wait until the gravity is within a couple

points of finishing, and (2) use leaf hops rather than pellets, probably sunk

in a muslin bag weighted down with sanitized marbles.

Comments, anyone?

Second, regarding Dennis Lewis's post on pitching rates, I seem to recall a

year or two ago there was this fellow identifying himself as "Father

Barleywine" who claimed to be brewing multiple batches re-using the yeast

cake over and over, just dumping the new beer on top each time.  I was

intrigued by this and tried it a couple of times, but the results were really

not very pleasant.  Papazian says that the phenomenon known as "yeast bite"

can be associated with high pitching rates (and I also recall he says

something like "there is no scientific explanation for this") and I think

this was my problem - my yeasts were biting me!

However, thanks to the wisdom of the digest I no longer dump onto yeast cakes

and I also plan to give up washing my yeast for re-use in favor of the

"parallel propagation method" described herein recently, in which one lets a

starter solution ferment to completion, then splits it up into several

bottles fitted with airlocks and stores them in the fridge until brewing

time.

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Search for good Beer

Date: 14 Apr 93 09:43:26 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Search for good Beer

Message Creation Date was at 14-APR-1993 14:33:00

          Greetings,

               I've a friend who will soon be travelling to

          Harrisburg, PA.  He wants to know if there are any

          brew-pubs, good beer pubs, or just enjoyable bars in the

          area.  Any response will be appreciated.

          Thanks

          Andy A

------------------------------


Beer Chillers

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 16:08 EDT

From: hjl@gummo.att.com

Subject: Beer Chillers

In HB#1119 Bob Sweeney asks about the use of beer chillers

comprising a coil of copper tubing, a bucket, and ice. He

expressed some concern about possible negative aspects of

this device. When I was very young (right after prohibition)

such coolers were built right into the bar in all

the neighborhood saloons. We had one in our summer house

which was used during fund-raising picnics attended by

large crowds (hundreds of people). They'd go through about

a dozen half-barrels of brew. The beer was delivered cold

but would get pretty warm towards the end of the day.

The chiller worked great. It had about fifty feet of half

inch copper tubing in an insulated box about two feet by

one foot by one foot deep. The ice was delivered in large

blocks about the same size as the cooler. It was chopped

into smaller (fist-sized) chunks using an icepick.

The only problem I ever observed during the forty years I

knew this gadget occurred late one hot afternoon when the

bartender (who had been busily replacing his electrolytes)

decided to save time in replenishing the ice by putting

in large chunks and chopping it up in the cooler.

After a short period of furious chopping, the level

of the ice began to rise. Then it became surrounded

foam and finally beer began pouring over the sides.

This shouldn't be a problem with today's technology

where the ice comes pre-chopped.

Hank

 .//'

------------------------------


dry hopping versus hop tea

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1993 13:47:04 -0800 (PDT)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: dry hopping versus hop tea

In HBD 1118 Al talks about adding hop tea prior to bottling:

> to make a hop "tea" by boiling some hops in water for an hour (and while

> you're at it, you can add flavor hops 15 minutes before the end of the boil

> and finishing hops 5 minutes before the end of the boil)

How does this compare with dry hopping for the same effect?  I would think

that 1/2 oz hops sitting for a week in a secondary would have more effect

than the same quantity boiled for 5 or 15 minutes in water.  Also, how does

the volume of boiled water effect the extraction?  It all has SG=1.0 which

implies it's independent of volume???

It would seem to be much easier to boil hops to make tea which is added at

the last minute than to mess around with dry hopping.

 Peter

------------------------------


Zymurgy article copy request

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 12:17:26 PDT

From: WHATEVER IT TAKES <smith@zeke.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Zymurgy article copy request

 Does anyone out there have the Zymurgy Spring 1989 issue (Vol.12-1)

   If so; could you photocopy and fax me the articles on ?

      Boiling Hops: how much is enough?

      Carbonation Techniques: How to get the right amount of fizz in your beer.

               Thank You in advance,

                George Smith

                Fax:(603) 881-0120

------------------------------


Guinness Stout (Imperial) Recipe

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 14:20:24 PDT

From: mikel@netlink.cts.com (Mike Lemons)

Subject: Guinness Stout (Imperial) Recipe

There has been some discussion lately about the difference between

different types of Guinness Stout.  Here are some statistics from _The

Essentials of Beer Style_ by Fred Eckhardt:

  Original  Alcohol    Final   Hops

  Gravity    ww/vv    Gravity  ibu

Guinness Extra Stout

    1052    4.4/5.5     1011    50

1901 Guinness Extra Stout (In Ireland)

    1075    6.3/7.9     1014    90

The numbers for the Irish Guinness are quite similar to those for

Grant's Russian Imperial Stout.  (So the truly Irish Guinness is really

Russian! -- go figure.)

The book also states: "Pale 2-row ale malt, plus 9% each of flaked

barley and very dark roast barley, in a two-step infusion mash (1-hour

at 148-151 F/64.5-66 C).  Bullion bittering and Golding aromatic hops to

50 i.b.u."  (This is for Export Guinness)

I would like to brew a beer in the style of Irish Guinness, but with

more body.  I also like the molasses flavor of Mackeson Stout.  So I

came up with this all-extract recipe:

     Ingredients:

             6 pounds, William's English Dark liquid malt extract

             3 pounds, Australian Dark dry malt extract

             1 pound, dry weizenmalt (60% wheat)

             1 pound, crystal malt (40L)

             1 pound, roasted barley (540L)

             1 pound, chocolate malt (400L)

             1/2 pound, black patent malt (500L)

             1 cup, molasses

             2.34 ounces,  Bullion pellets (8.8% alpha), boil 60 minutes

             .78 ounce, whole Kent Golding (7.8% alpha), boil 10 minutes

             Wyeast Irish ale #1084

Leave out this ingredient, since it requires mashing:

             1 pound, flaked barley

Any comments?  Do you think the yeast will handle the high gravity or

will I need to re-pitch with champagne yeast?  Should I throw something

else in to increase the body?  (I would like it as thick as possible.

Maybe I should make my first attempt at mashing with flaked barley and

carapils.)  Should I reduce the hops because the roasted barley will

add some bitterness?  How many i.b.u. worth?  Does anyone think that

lactic acid should be added?

- --

INTERNET:  mikel@netlink.cts.com (Mike Lemons)

UUCP:   ...!ryptyde!netlink!mikel

NetLink Online Communications * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115

------------------------------


Wyeast Bohemian Lager yeast

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1993 19:31:28 EDT

From: Jay Hersh <hersh@expo.lcs.mit.edu>

Subject: Wyeast Bohemian Lager yeast

I have brewed repeatedly with the Wyeast 2124 (as have others I know)

and report nothing but excellent results. I would however contact

Wyeast with the batch number to determine if there are any known

quality problems with the lot you and your friend got.

Also how was it stored at the shop you got it from. There is

some possibility that it might have been mishandled leading

to damage to the yeast.

 JaH

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1120, 04/15/93

*************************************

-------


whitbread warning, part 3

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 01:46:01 -0500

From: oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (donald oconnor)

Subject: whitbread warning, part 3

There seems to be some confusion regarding the availability of the new

Whitbread dry yeast.  George Fix mistakenly believes Crosby and Baker is

presently distributing the new Whitbread to homebrew shops.  They are

not but hope to make it available in 2 or 3 months.  Additionally, Crosby

and Baker is not currently distributing the Australian yeast, Mauri.

George reports the use of an actidione test to check for wild yeast.  The

basis of this culture test is the same as all culture tests;  to prepare a

medium on which the culture yeast cannot grow but contaminating yeasts

can.  Like all other culture methods it's limitation lies in the fact that many

 wild yeast contaminants common to breweries are quite similar to the

culture yeast.  If you inhibit the culture yeast, you often inhibit the wild

yeast.  In the actidione test, the wild yeasts are broken into 2 subsets--

those that are more resistant to actidione and those that are less resistant.

George apparently drew the line as fine as possible by using the minimal

('incremental') amount of actidione.  This approach has been in the

literature for at least a quarter of a century.  George reports wild yeast

counts are less than 1 in 10 million culture cells.  A more accurate

statement would be that wild yeasts which are more resistant to actidione

than the culture yeast are less than 1 in 10 million.  It's impossible to say

what the overall level of wild yeast contamination is based on this test

alone.

For those interested, there was an article in Journal of the Am Soc Brewing

Chemists a few issues ago in which the relative merits of the culture tests

were compared.  Each of the culture methods individually misses many

wild yeasts.

George Fix suggests the old Whitbread might be contaminated, perhaps by

a dextrin consuming yeast, S. diastaticus.  S diastaticus may well be a

common contaminant of dry yeast because it is a pastry yeast and as far as

I know every dry yeast processor makes oodles more bread and pastry

yeast than brewers yeast.  There is a culture test for S. diastaticus but the

easiest method of determining if it is NOT there is simply to make some

beer.  S. diastaticus and many other wild yeasts make beer with the

characteristic 'medicinal' taste.  The compound responsible for this flavor

can be easily detected by running the beer through a gas chromatograph

and also, as we all know, by merely sniffing the beer.  This is just one

example of the value of sensory tests.  Sensory tests are not only easier

and practical but often more reliable than culture tests, particularly

limited culture methods.  It would seem that George Fix is also of this

opinion based on the following quote from his book.  "Perhaps the best

way to detect yeast disorders is by examining their by-products and the

resulting alteration of beer flavors."  George may have only been referring

to respiratory-deficient mutants at this point which is yet another common

problem of dry yeasts.  There is a reasonable hypothesis that respiratory

deficient mutants (aka petite mutants) are an inherent problem of large

scale commercial production.

The value of any test is diminished by distance and time from the

brewery, in this case the homebrewery.  The viability of dry yeast is one

area where this can be easily recognized.  It's not surprising that freshly

dried yeast is still viable.  The far more pertinent issue for the

homebrewer is the viability in 6 months, a year or 2 years.  Of course the

history of the yeast packet has a lot to do with answering this question,

but a dated package would surely help the homebrewer.

Since the new Whitbread is not even available yet to homebrewers, it's

impossible to perform the culture tests and sensory evaluations on packets

of the yeast directly relevant to homebrewers.  It may well turn out that

the new Whitbread is an improvement over the old and also a good clean

yeast, but George's data is simply too limited and too removed from the

point at which the yeast will be used by homebrewers to reach that

conclusion now.

Finally, I have heard that the new Whitbread is in fact not the old

Whitbread at all.  The old Whitbread was a mix of three strains.  The

rumor is that the new Whitbread is a single strain.  Perhaps George or

someone else can confirm or refute this.

------------------------------


Riverside Garage & Brewery

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 21:36:06 EST

From: chuck@synchro.com (Chuck Cox)

Subject: Riverside Garage & Brewery

Introducing the Internet's SECOND garage & brewery.

The Riverside Garage & Brewery, the new home of SynchroSystems, the

Silent But Deadly electric autocrosser, and Brain Death Barleywine, is

now open for business.  Located in (the Peoples's Republic of)

Cambridge, Massachusetts, just above the flood level of the Charles

River, and just minutes from the Plough & Stars and the Sunset Grill &

Tap.

Garage available for emergencies, futon available for guests, beer

available for any occasion.

- --

Chuck Cox   <chuck@synchro.com>

The Bill of Rights is not available ala carte.

------------------------------


Cold Plate, pH

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 08:54 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Cold Plate, pH

 >From: SWEENERB@memstvx1.memst.edu

 >Subject: kegging using a beer chiller

 >Is it possible to use these kegs by connecting up a beer chiller like the

 one displayed in the recent Gadgets issue of zymurgy--basically a copper tube

 running through an ice bucket through which the beer flows?

 At the risk of boring the regular readers, herewith my program to stamp out

 refrigerators........

 Presuming that you do not keep your beer in a hot attic, you can chill it as

 you dispense it with several gadgets, including the one you mentioned.  The

 cooler the keg is kept, the longer it will last but in typical basement

 temps, the keg will be long gone before it spoils from the heat alone.

 There is however a far better device for home use than the coil type chiller.

 First of all, I would not use copper for the coil and all the commercial

 producers use stainless tubing to keep the greedy lawyers at bay.

 The device of choice is called a cold plate.  It consists of a serpentine of

 very narrow ss tubing, imbeded in a cast aluminum plate with in and out

 fittings.

 The plate is placed in a dish pan and hooked up between the keg and the tap.

 Ice cubes are dumped on the plate and voila, cold beer.  Two cups of ice will

 chill several glasses of beer, depending on the ambient temp.

 I have mine hooked up so that I can direct it to my counter-flow bottle

 filler and it does a great job.

 The major advantage of the plate over the coil job is that it only holds

 about an ounce of beer and requires far less ice.  You would typically purge

 the beer from the line between periods of non usage and the coils can hold a

 lot of beer.

 On the other hand, for a picnic or large party the coil configuration would

 be more efficient.

 For more information on cold plates and other beer type gadgets, you can get

 a free catalog from Superior Products by calling 800 328 9800.

 >From: ""Robert C. Santore"" <rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu>

 >Subject: RE: HOP ALPHA ACID

 <Keep in mind the logarithmic nature of the pH scale.  In the

 'real world' this difference in pH amounts to:

 (10^-6.2)/(10^-6.6) = 2.5 times the amount of free H in the Chinook tea

 I can't find my old slide rule nor a log table and it does seems a bit simple

 minded to assume that if 1 unit equals ten then .4 must equal 4.  Thank you.

  > The only significant anomaly was that on the third day, the

  > pH of both teas dropped to 5.7.  They had been left

  > uncovered throughout the period but something significant

  > happened overnight of the third day.

 <Distilled water in equilibrium with atmospheric CO2 has a pH of 5.6!

 Microbial action is also a possibility if the pH change was sudden.

 Sounds like I am reinventing the wheel.

  > In conclusion, if the results are the product of Alpha Acid

  > in the hops then it should be possible to work out formulae

  > to determine the approximate AA of hops or at least

  > determine how much of an unknown hop is required to achieve

  > the same pH of a known hop.

 <You may have something there, but I wonder what other types of

 acids might be present in hops that produce no flavor components.

 Ultimately we don't want to know the total acidity that the hops

 can produce in our beers, but the specific quantities of a particular

 class of acidic compounds.

 Maybe we should redefine what I was trying to learn.  As I recall, the whole

 notion of AAU and bittering units is a fiction created to help duplicate a

 given bitterness so as to make consistant beer.  It produces a formula to

 guide the brewer in knowing how much hops to put in the kettle and what that

 number is based on is of little interest to the brewer as long as he gets an

 accurate number from the suplier to plug into his formula.

 If another set of guidlines, that give the same results but based on a

 totally unscientific use of a pH meter, that anyone can purchase, it would be

 boon.

 I doubt that we could keep the producers honest by faulting the numbers on

 their packages but I am thinking more along the lines of helping the home

 grower of hops who hasn't a clue.

 js

------------------------------


chilling wort

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1993 13:44:59 -0500 (CDT)

From: John Edens <johne@sa-htn.valmet.com>

Subject: chilling wort

I think I might be missing something in the discussion. I have a wort chiller

made of about 15 to 20 ft of copper tubing that I run cold water through

to cool the approximately two gallons of wort in my brewpot.

I have always assumed that since I am going to dilute the wort with cold water

to bring the volume up to five gallons, I only need cool the wort to 100

degrees F, or 40 degrees C for our European and Canadian readers. I

haven't noticed any bad results from this. My standard procedure is to siphon

the wort out. What would happen if I just poured the cooled wort from the

brewpot into the primary, skipping the siphon. I know that a lot of the

leftover clumps of protein and hop residue would get in that would

otherwise be left behind. Anything else?

John

------------------------------


Re: Immersion chiller

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 11:47:29 EDT

From: eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West)

Subject: Re: Immersion chiller

Andy says:

>I think you would want the exiting water to be warmer for a given

>length of tubing.  The amount of heat removed from the wort should be:

> (delta q) = m*Cp*(delta T)

>where  m=mass flow rate of water

> Cp=heat capacity

> (dealta T)=temperature difference=Tout-Tin

>So, if the flow rate increases, the heat removed increases, and if the

>temperature difference increases, the heat removed increases.

You're OK until you define delta T, the delta T that is important here

is T-wort - T-water at each point along the chiller.

To keep this delta T high you need to keep T-water as low as possible,

if T-out is high then the delta T through the wall of the copper tubing

is low for the last part of the chiller, wasting cooling potential.

If you want to cool the wort as quickly as possible, you want the chiller

to be as cold as possible for as much of its length as possible, the way

to do that is to run as much water through it as possible, starting as cold

as possible.

Stirring helps. On both sides of the copper. It might help to install a

wiggly wire through the length of the chiller to cut down on laminar flow

through the tubing.

I believe the whole problem is really quite simple, it's alot like putting

ice into a glass of soda, more ice cools it faster.

Carl

When I stop learning, bury me.

------------------------------


Hard (Lager) Cider?

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 11:01:10 -0400

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

Subject: Hard (Lager) Cider?

GOAL:

To make a Hard Cider?

PLAN:

I made a 1 quart yeast starter from Wyeast #2112, a California Steam Beer

Lager Yeast (that ferments well up to 62^F).

I added the starter to 3/4 gallon of Apple Cider, affixed an airlock, and

it's now fermenting in my basement (at 60^F).

QUESTIONS:

1) How long should I excpect the fermentation process to last?

2) What would an ideal fermenting temp. be for such a concoction?

3) Is my result going to be a Hard Cider, or a (strange) Lager Beer?

4) I plan on conditioning the fermented result with either 1/6 cup of Corn

   Sugar, or 1 to 2 cups of Apple Cider - and then bottle it.  First of all,

   is it necessary to do this conditioning?  If it is, what ingredient is best,

   and how much should I use (for a 1 gallon batch)?

5) How long will such a (lager) cider last in bottled form?

6) Should I have submitted this query to rec.crafts.pyrotechnics?

------------------------------


is it beer?

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 93 10:02:39 -0400

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

Subject: is it beer?

Now what did I do now?

I decided to stray from dry (Ale) yeasts, and start using liquid

yeasts.  My first endeavor is with the California Steam Beer

Lager Yeast - Wyeast #2112, which is to ferment well up to 62^F.

I also decided to stretch out this supply.  I made a 1/2 gallon

starter, and then bottled it (making 6 samples).

Before making a foray into a 5 gallon batch of Steam Beer,

I thought I'd make a 1 gallon test-batch of something - to

test out my yeast-stretching attempt, and to gaurd against

potentially wasting a 5 gallon investment of beer ingredients.

First, I made a 1 quart starter from one of the bottled yeast

samples.  After the starter was ready, I made a test wort.

My test batch consisted of about 1.5 lbs of light DME, 3/8 oz.

of Northern Brewer Hops, 4 oz. Clover Honey and 2 oz. peach

marmalade - all boiled for about 45 mins.  This yielded about

1 1/4 gallons of wort (I never took an SG reading).

After the wort cooled, I added the starter and wort to a gallon

jug, affixed an air-lock, and placed it in the basement (at 60^F).

I got good blow-off the first day and a half.  It's been almost 6

days now and the beer is still actively fermenting (bubble apprx.

every 15s).

QUESTIONS:

1) This is my first attempt at a lager.  I've never seen fermentation

   this active after 6 days.  Is this because it's only a 1 gallon

   batch, or is this because of the qualities of a lager yeast?

2) Wyeast #2112 is supposed to ferment well to 62^F, but would it

   hurt to put this in a colder environment (my firdge)?

3) I'm not planning on bottling until the apparent fermentation ceases,

   or 3 weeks have elapsed, which ever is soonest - is this wise?

4) What should I call the resulting beer?

------------------------------


Is it beer?

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 15:48:13 -0400

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

Subject: Is it beer?

Now what did I do now?

I decided to stray from dry (Ale) yeasts, and start using liquid

yeasts.  My first endeavor is with the California Steam Beer

Lager Yeast - Wyeast #2112, which is to ferment well up to 62^F.

I also decided to stretch out this supply.  I made a 1/2 gallon

starter, and then bottled it (making 6 samples).

Before making a foray into a 5 gallon batch of Steam Beer,

I thought I'd make a 1 gallon test-batch of something - to

test out my yeast-stretching attempt, and to gaurd against

potentially wasting a 5 gallon investment of beer ingredients.

First, I made a 1 quart starter from one of the bottled yeast

samples.  After the starter was ready, I made a test wort.

My test batch consisted of about 1.5 lbs of light DME, 3/8 oz.

of Northern Brewer Hops, 4 oz. Clover Honey and 2 oz. peach

marmalade - all boiled for about 45 mins.  This yielded about

1 1/4 gallons of wort (I never took an SG reading).

After the wort cooled, I added the starter and wort to a gallon

jug, affixed an air-lock, and placed it in the basement (at 60^F).

I got good blow-off the first day and a half.  It's been almost 6

days now and the beer is still actively fermenting (bubble apprx.

every 15s).

QUESTIONS:

1) This is my first attempt at a lager.  I've never seen fermentation

   this active after 6 days.  Is this because it's only a 1 gallon

   batch, or is this because of the qualities of a lager yeast?

2) Wyeast #2112 is supposed to ferment well to 62^F, but would it

   hurt to put this in a colder environment (my firdge)?

3) I'm not planning on bottling until the apparent fermentation ceases,

   or 3 weeks have elapsed, which ever is soonest - is this wise?

4) What should I call the resulting beer?

------------------------------


Hard (Lager) eider

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 15:44:46 -0400

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

Subject: Hard (Lager) eider

GOAL:

To make a Hard Cider?

PLAN:

I made a 1 quart yeast starter from Wyeast #2112, a California Steam Beer

Lager Yeast (that ferments well up to 62^F).

I added the starter to 3/4 gallon of Apple Cider, affixed an airlock, and

it's now fermenting in my basement (at 60^F).

QUESTIONS:

1) How long should I excpect the fermentation process to last?

2) What would an ideal fermenting temp. be for such a concoction?

3) Is my result going to be a Hard Cider, or a (strange) Lager Beer?

4) I plan on conditioning the fermented result with either 1/6 cup of Corn

   Sugar, or 1 to 2 cups of Apple Cider - and then bottle it.  First of all,

   is it necessary to do this conditioning?  If it is, what ingredient is best,

   and how much should I use (for a 1 gallon batch)?

5) How long will such a (lager) cider last in bottled form?

6) Should I have submitted this query to rec.crafts.pyrotechnics?

------------------------------


Is it beer?

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 09:13:45 -0400

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

Subject: Is it beer?

Now what did I do now?

I decided to stray from dry (Ale) yeasts, and start using liquid

yeasts.  My first endeavor is with the California Steam Beer

Lager Yeast - Wyeast #2112, which is to ferment well up to 62^F.

I also decided to stretch out this supply.  I made a 1/2 gallon

starter, and then bottled it (making 6 samples).

Before making a foray into a 5 gallon batch of Steam Beer,

I thought I'd make a 1 gallon test-batch of something - to

test out my yeast-stretching attempt, and to gaurd against

potentially wasting a 5 gallon investment of beer ingredients.

First, I made a 1 quart starter from one of the bottled yeast

samples.  After the starter was ready, I made a test wort.

My test batch consisted of about 1.5 lbs of light DME, 3/8 oz.

of Northern Brewer Hops, 4 oz. Clover Honey and 2 oz. peach

marmalade - all boiled for about 45 mins.  This yielded about

1 1/4 gallons of wort (I never took an SG reading).

After the wort cooled, I added the starter and wort to a gallon

jug, affixed an air-lock, and placed it in the basement (at 60^F).

I got good blow-off the first day and a half.  It's been almost 6

days now and the beer is still actively fermenting (bubble apprx.

every 15s).

QUESTIONS:

1) This is my first attempt at a lager.  I've never seen fermentation

   this active after 6 days.  Is this because it's only a 1 gallon

   batch, or is this because of the qualities of a lager yeast?

2) Wyeast #2112 is supposed to ferment well to 62^F, but would it

   hurt to put this in a colder environment (my firdge)?

3) I'm not planning on bottling until the apparent fermentation ceases,

   or 3 weeks have elapsed, which ever is soonest - is this wise?

4) What should I call the resulting beer?

------------------------------


Honey Wheat recipe

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 07:36:58 pdt

From: Ted Manahan <tedm@hpcvcbp.cv.hp.com>

Subject: Honey Wheat recipe

Full-Name: Ted Manahan

   Don Leonard is looking for a honey wheat beer recipe. I have one

   that I have been quite happy with. This recipe originated as an

   attempt to take advantage of a sale on Brewmaker beer kits at our

   local homebrew supply store. Here it is:

   Soak:

 6 oz 20L crystal malt

 2 oz chocolate malt

   in water while heating. Remove malt when water reaches 170F. After

   the water boils, remove from heat and add

 3.2 lb can Brewmaker Export Beer kit

 3.3 lb can Munton & Fison Wheat malt extract

 1 lb honey

 1 t brewing salts (optional - my water is quite soft)

   Bring to a boil. Hop schedule is as follows:

 45 minutes: 0.5 oz 5.7 alpha Northern Brewer

 20 minutes: 0.5 oz 5.5 alpha Cascade

  5 minutes: 1.0 oz 5.5 alpha Cascade

   Force cool with immersion chiller, pitch Steinbarts ale yeast in a 1

   quart starter. After one week, rack to secondary. After one more

   week, rack to a keg and dry hop (in a bag) with 0.5 oz Cascade.

   OG=1.050 FG=1.020

   A few notes:

     0) This produces a complex, brown beer with a lot of flavor. Dry

 hopping in the keg really makes a lot of difference in the hop

 aroma!

     1) The OG reading seems a bit low, but I have gotten it twice.

 I also got 1.064 once using John Bull hopped extract instead

 of the Brewmaker kit. I suspect the Brewmaker kits of

 contributing less fermentable material than the "name brand"

        extracts. Another factor is that I am probably not consistent in

 the amount of honey I use.

     2) I don't remember if I crushed the crystal and chocolate or not.

     3) Steinbarts ale yeast is a mutant form of Wyeast Chico ale yeast.

------------------------------


Canned Guiness

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 12:42:41 -0400

From: Ron Natalie <ron@topaz.bds.com>

Subject:  Canned Guiness

We've got it here (Washington, DC).  I picked some up because there was an

article in Advanced Imaging last year about the can construction (the imaging

tie-in was that a vision system was used to inspect the construction of

the cans).  The cans have a plastic button in the bottom that releases

gas into the can after it is open (to simulate how it would be if it

just came from a tap).  It's a cute gimmick.  I don't know, I don't care

for the stuff myself.

 -Ron (Never drink anything you can't see through).

------------------------------


Chimay: types and clones...

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 10:21:01 -0600

From: cbacco@ursa5.cs.utah.edu (Corby Bacco)

Subject: Chimay: types and clones...

Greetings all,

     I just had a friend bring me a bottle of Chimay (it's difficult

to find in Utah) and was wondering which type it was.  Miller mentions

Chimay having three different colored caps (red, white, and blue) for

different styles and Papazian mentions Belgian ales typically being done

in three styles (House brew, double, and triple).  I was wondering which

was which.  The bottle I have has a red cap.

     Also, now that I've finally gotten a bottle of Chimay I couldn't

resist the temptation to try and brew with the yeast from the bottle.

I popped open the bottle last night, put the yeast into a starter and

then throughly enjoyed the Chimay (good stuff!).  I was planning on using

Miller's all grain recipe for brewing Chimay.  Has anyone used this

and care to offer advice/modifications?

       Thanks in advance,

                   Corby Bacco (aka Brother Bacchus,

                                    Trappist monk in training)

------------------------------


Filtering beer

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 09:18:05 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Filtering beer

John Isenhour spoke about his efforts at filtering beer in the last digest.

John the reason your beer didn't filter well is probably due to colloidal

haze

particals. These haze particals and proteins must connect together to form a

large enough partical to filter out. The best way to do this is to chill the

beer to 32 deg f for at least a week. If you can't get to 32 deg f then as

cold as you can get it. I have filered beer with a .5 um filter and not

improved the clarity! The quantity of these colloidal hazes is very dependent

on the malt quality. After I switched to GW malt (from Breiss) my beers are

much clearer before filtering. I also think I have noticed some head

problems

with the .5um filtration. I am planning a split batch filtration vs no

filtration to prove this to myself. I'll post the results.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Mashing temps

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 08:29:34 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Mashing temps

I was amused by Carl J. Appellof's comments about what Michael Lewis at UC

Davis said about mashing American grain. I have heard him say just the

opposite! I sometimes think that Lewis loves to "tweak" people about the

opposite of what they think is the only way to do something. He IS a teacher

and this challenge to his students is a good idea. However, he seems to take

it to the extreme. Cases in point. I have personally heard him say all of

the following. "We here at Davis have never noticed anything (flavor or

aromatic) from dry hoping", "decoction mashing is silly, our modern day

malts only need a single mash temperature for complete conversion", and on

and on. I would love to hear comments from students at Davis on Mr. Lewis's

teaching techniques. From what I've heard and seen I'm not to impressed. He

however does have an excellent staff! Mary Maranda is one of those that is

overshadowed by Lewis and under recognized, IMHO.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Malted Rocks

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 10:58:46 MDT

From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

Subject: Malted Rocks

All this frivolity about malted rocks has me worried.  My father-in-law and I

have put many hours into building a nice motor driven mill and I really don't

want to crush any rocks, or have any rocks crush my mill.  Any great

suggestions for a sieve to filter out large rocks?  With 10+ pounds of grain

it is impractical to find them by hand.  I haven't, BTW, found any rocks in

the American or British malt I've used so far, but I've only done about 5

all-grain batches.  The Zymurgy grain mill avoids major damage by rocks by

holding the rollers with engine valve springs.  I, on the other hand, skipped

this option and am now wondering if I should regret that decision...

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


Sake

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 11:24:13 -0600

From: cbacco@ursa5.cs.utah.edu (Corby Bacco)

Subject: Sake

Hello,

 I have a friend who wants me to make a sake for him.  Does anyone

have any recipes or recommend any sources for this beverages?

   Thanks,

         Corby

------------------------------


3 micron filters; New Orleans

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 10:56:18 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: 3 micron filters; New Orleans

John Isenhour asked in HBD#1120 about the availability of filter cartridges.

I got my 3 micron filter several years ago from Zahm+Nagel in Buffalo.

Their phone number is 716-833-1532. Ask for Al Lap. Their products are

designed for commercial operations, and are priced accordingly.

Discussions with Jim Busch and others have convinced me that the 5 micron

filters available to homebrewers can do just as good a job as the more

expensive versions. Perhaps Jim can give us a review at the appropriate

point of his own experiences.

George Fix

P.S. I hope those attending the IOB conference in New Orleans will look me

up. Conrad Keys has informed me that he will be there with the first

production version of his RIMS system.

------------------------------


Yeast Culturing Equipment

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1993 10:38:58 -0700 (PDT)

From: Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG>

Subject: Yeast Culturing Equipment

Thanks to those who replied to my request for sources (mail-order and

otherwise) of lab glassware, etc. for yeast culturing.  I've contacted the

following four companies and requested their catalogs.  I haven't received

them yet so I can't determine if they have what I want nor how good their

prices are.

Cole Parmer (708) 647-7600.

Friedrich & Dimmock (800) 628-2629

Chiron (800) 776-9154

Sigma (800) 325-3010

Notes:  I believe I've seen Cole Parmer mentioned on the HBD before. Dean

Lee, who sent me info on Sigma, says they are good about dealing with

indviduals, will take credit card orders, etc.  Chiron sells products from

more than one manufacturer and they want to know which manufacturer's

catalog you want.  Their catalogs list case prices but you can call them

for prices on lesser quantities.

In all cases I identified myself as an individual who does yeast

culturing at home; none of them had any problem with the fact that I wasn't

a large corporate or university client.

For local sources:  See if your local library (or employer, check with the

procuement department) has a copy of the Thomas Register.  It is an

enormous catalog of industrial services and supplies.  See volume 7,

pp. 12,781+ "Glassware:Laboratory".  Entries are listed geographically.

Finally, I know that yeast culturing can be done in beer bottles, milk

bottles, wine jugs, etc. (I've got two 1/2 pt. milk bottles myself), I

just like the toys and catalogs, you never know what you'll come across!

Repeat request:  Any good sources of Belgian beers in the SF bay area,

esp. east bay?

Eric Wade

<ericwade@class.org>

------------------------------


Carboy vs plastic bucket

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 10:54:33 PDT

From: steve_kenshulo@csufresno.edu (Steve Kenshulo)

Subject: Carboy vs plastic bucket

     What are some of the pros and cons of using a carboy instead

of a plastic bucket? Most of the kits I see for beginers use a 6-7

gallon bucket, but a lot of "old-timers" use a carboy?

     Buy the way, I am thinking on buying a few extra fermentation

vessels and the price is about the same around here.

     Thanks in advance,

     Steve Kenshalo

     skenshul@mondrian.csufresno.edu

------------------------------


Beer Bread method (pretzels too!)

Date: 15 Apr 1993 12:08:07 -0600 (MDT)

From: Mark Taratoot <SLNDW@CC.USU.EDU>

Subject: Beer Bread method (pretzels too!)

Greetings.

There was some talk a while back about making beer bread and several

recipies and ideas were exchanged.  Since then I have been doing

a bit of experimenting on my own and have come up with a

pretty good method.

Beer has been called liquid bread.  I feel bread could also be

called solid beer :)  Indeed they are similar in their ingredients.

There is nothing like enjoying a "slice" of liquid bread with a

"hunk" of solid ale!  Below are methods for making pretzels

and bread from beer dregs.  They are quite tasty!

I used to dump out the yeast cake from my fermenters onto

my compost pile.  My philosophy was that if more of the

yeasts I like live in my environment, then if I get an infection

in my beer, it is more likely to be a "beer friendly" yeast.

I thought it would be a good idea to let the yeat live again

and so I modified the L.A. Times pretzel article that was

posted previously.  The method is:

1.  After siphoning off beer (to bottle/keg) swirl carboy around

really hard to get as much of the yeast cake into suspension as

possible.  Pour it into a jar (to save the yeast to use within

the next few days) or a bowl (to use immediately).

2.  Add a bit more beer or other liquid to the carboy (dregs from

bottles work fine).  Swish this around and get the last of the yeast.

3.  Add more liquid as needed (the more liquid you add, the larger

the batch)

4.  Add just a bit of sugar or honey.

5.  Add flour to get the propper consistency (for pretzels, I

have found that 2 cups liquid to 4 cups flour works.  I use

half whole wheat and half unbleached white flour.)

 5b. If you add an egg, it will rise more.

6.  Knead.   Allow to rise until doubled in volume.  Knead again.

7.  Roll into "snakes" and form pretzels.  Put on greased tray.

8.  Brush with one of the following, then sprinkle with salt if

desired:

  Egg (shiny rich crust)

  Milk (crispy)

  Butter (soft)

  Nothing (easy)

9.  Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes (approx) until just golden.

Pretzels are yummy and are a great idea for a homebrew club

meeting.  However, they are best eaten right away and they don't

save well.

Making bread from beer dregs is also very simple:

Follow steps 1-4 above.   I like to make large batches of bread

so I can get 3-4 loaves from one breadmaking endevour.

5.  Add 2 cups flour (I use whole wheat) and let sit for half hour.

6.  Add "stuff" (1-2 tsp salt, 1/3 cup melted butter or oil,

1/3 cup sugar or honey, and up to a couple of cups of the

following: nuts, seeds, spent grains, etc.) and mix well.

7.  Add more flour a little at a time (again, I use mostly whole wheat,

but if you like white bread, use unbleached white flour) until the

dough is firm.

8.  Turn out onto a floured board and knead for 15 minutes adding

flour until the dough is not sticky.

9.  Put in oiled bowl and allow to rise, then knead again for

another 15 minutes.

10. Form loaves.  I like round loaves, so that's what I make.

For loaf pans, grease them, for round loaves, sprinkle a tray

with corn meal and put loaves on trays.  Allow to rise again.

11. When doubled in volume, brush with melted butter (or other

items listed above for different crusts) and bake at about 375

for 30-40 minutes.

12. Allow to cool 10-30 minutes, then enjoy.

------------------------------


The State of Beer in New Mexico

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 12:20:34 MDT

From: mlh@cygnus.ta52.lanl.gov (Michael L. Hall)

Subject: The State of Beer in New Mexico

Strangely enough, there have been several requests of late about what there is

to do in New Mexico with regards to beer. Even more peculiar is that I had

gotten all of my info together before these requests came out :-)

Anyway, I have taken it upon myself to be the keeper (at least for now) of the

"New Mexico Brewing FAQ". In it I catalog anything that has to do with both New

Mexico and brewing/beer. I will send it out to anyone who requests it by email

(my address is <hall@lanl.gov>). Here is the table of contents:

Contents:

1. Commercial Beer Establishments

    Albuquerque

    Santa Fe

    Los Alamos

    Taos

    Elsewhere

2. Homebrew Clubs

    Albuquerque

    Los Alamos

    Close to NM

3. Judges in NM

4. Competitions

5. Homebrew Supplies

6. Publications

7. Other

I think that this would be a good idea in other states too (or smaller areas,

e.g. "The San Francisco Bay Area FAQ"). Maybe someone in each state would

volunteer to keep track of all the info in his/her state.

Mike Hall

The Los Alamos Atom Mashers

hall@lanl.gov

------------------------------


hops primer

Date:    Thu, 15 Apr 1993 14:41:18 -0400 (EDT)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: hops primer

  OK enough already!  The response for copies of the Hops Growing Primer

have been overwhelming.  I'm getting it into HBD shape and will try to

post it on Friday.  Please no more direct requests!

Russ

------------------------------


cold break and blowoff questions

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1993 14:16:56 -1100

From: Kirk_Anderson@wheatonma.edu (Kirk Anderson)

Subject: cold break and blowoff questions

Seems like the more I brew, the more questions I have.

I'll still be an extract brewer for a little while.  When I pour my gallon

and a half of boiling wort onto three and a half of cold water, is that the

dreaded Hot Side Aeration, or is that just a pretty good way of getting a cold

break?  Does the answer depend on whether or not I use a strainer to catch

the hop gunk while pouring? (following Charlie)

So now I got my cold break.  Do I have to to rack the wort off this stuff

before pitching yeast?  or can it wait a few days until I rack to secondary?

There's a lot of talk about blow-off tubes lately. I assume you folks all

use a carboy for primary AND secondary, since I don't see how a tube on my

plastic primary would ever spit anything.  (I may skim the next one, as js

recommends.) I suppose too that you always brew exactly the same quantity,

since blowoff volume would vary with the level of the wort in the vessel?

Well I just did my first Wyeast. And I had even made a starter.  That baby was

chugging 14 hours after pitching.  By the way, how much extract syrup (not DME)

does it take in a pint of water to make 1.020?

Thanks everybody. 'On a toujours besoin d'un plus petit que soi' (La Fontaine)

Kirk

------------------------------


Bandwidth

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 14:13 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Bandwidth

>Re: Seeking Albuquerque & Santa Fe beer recommendations

This should have been sent directly rather than being posted.  99% of

us don't need to know.

*************************

Subject: Re: gushers

Adam writes:

>Recently my brewpartner and I bottled a Red ale.  We were slightly

>disturbed that fermentation had stopped so soon (after four days of very

>high activity, the Spec. Gravity was the same for four more).  We primed

>with malt extract

>(1 1/4 cup to 5 gal) and now about 1 in 3 bottles gush.  Is it possible

>fermentation was stalled that long and picked up in the bottle?  This is

>not a big problem, since we can easily open bottles over a sink, but I'd

>like to be sure when fermentation is complete.  Replies via e-mail are

>welcome.  Thanks in advance!

If only 1 in 3 gush, then I'd say either you did not mix the priming

solution well with the green beer or you have inconsistent sanitation

of your bottles.

*****************

Subject: Re: Mashing temps for De Cosyns Belgian malts?

Carl writes:

>Went to a presentation by Dr. Michael Lewis from U.C. Davis a few

>weeks ago where he said that a temp. step mash was absolutely

>essential to give best extract yeilds and fermentability when using

>American lager malt (aka "klages" in this neck of the woods).  He

>also said that with British Pale Ale malt, a single temp infusion mash

>was best.  I get the idea that the mash temp profile really depends on

>what your malt was designed for.

>

>I have some Belgian Pilsner malt and Pale Ale malt from De Cosyns

>maltings.  Does anyone have info on the proper mash temps for these

>two fine malts?  (If I had to guess, I'd do a single temp 150F

>infusion mash with the Pale Ale, and a temp step/ramp from

>122F-142F-158F for the Pilsner malt.)

Agreed that undermodified malt needs either a step-infusion or decoction

mash for best results (protein splitting into amino acids, etc.), but

the proper mash temp is dependent on what kind of dextrin profile you

want in your wort, not on the grain type.  I'm pretty sure that the

DeWolf-Cosyns Pale and Pils malts are both fully modified (I'll check

tonight and post a followup tomorrow) and can be used without a protein

rest.

If you want a dextrinous wort, high in unfermentables, then do the

sacchification rest (regardless of the mashing method) at the higher

end of the saccharification temperatures (i.e. in the vicinity of

158F).  If you want a highly fermentable wort, then do the saccharification

rest at the lower end of the range (i.e. in the vicinity of 1048F).

Temperatures in between (e.g. 153F) will give you wort that is neither

very high nor very low in dextrins.

**********************

Subject: Re:dry hopping versus hop tea

Peter writes:

>In HBD 1118 Al talks about adding hop tea prior to bottling:

>

>> to make a hop "tea" by boiling some hops in water for an hour (and while

>> you're at it, you can add flavor hops 15 minutes before the end of the boil

>> and finishing hops 5 minutes before the end of the boil)

>

>How does this compare with dry hopping for the same effect?  I would think

>that 1/2 oz hops sitting for a week in a secondary would have more effect

>than the same quantity boiled for 5 or 15 minutes in water.  Also, how does

>the volume of boiled water effect the extraction?  It all has SG=1.0 which

>implies it's independent of volume???

>

>It would seem to be much easier to boil hops to make tea which is added at

>the last minute than to mess around with dry hopping.

Indeed it is easier, but just as you suspected, I've found that the hop

bouquet is much, *much* more intense from dryhopping than from using

finishing hops (last 5 minutes).  Not only is contact time an issue, but

the wonderful aromatics in hops are very volatile and therefore it takes

very little boiling to drive them off completely.  I'm afraid I don't

have the answer to your question on water volume and extraction.

************************

Subject: Re: Guinness

Mike writes:

>There has been some discussion lately about the difference between

>different types of Guinness Stout.  Here are some statistics from _The

>Essentials of Beer Style_ by Fred Eckhardt:

>

>

>  Original  Alcohol    Final   Hops

>  Gravity    ww/vv    Gravity  ibu

>

>Guinness Extra Stout

>    1052    4.4/5.5     1011    50

>

>1901 Guinness Extra Stout (In Ireland)

>    1075    6.3/7.9     1014    90

Note the year: 1901.  A lot has changed since then.  The Guinness on tap

in Ireland is actually *lower* in gravity than the Guinness we get in

bottles.  Judging from my tastings of the Guinness in the special cans,

I'd say that it's OG is also lower than the bottled variety, but it's

been quite a few years since my last pint of Guinness in the Isles, so

I could not say if in fact it was the same OG as the on-tap version there.

See Jackson's Pocket Guide for the exact gravities on modern Guinness.

<recipe deleted>

>Any comments?  Do you think the yeast will handle the high gravity or

>will I need to re-pitch with champagne yeast?  Should I throw something

>else in to increase the body?  (I would like it as thick as possible.

>Maybe I should make my first attempt at mashing with flaked barley and

>carapils.)  Should I reduce the hops because the roasted barley will

>add some bitterness?  How many i.b.u. worth?  Does anyone think that

>lactic acid should be added?

I don't think you need to re-pitch champagne yeast -- I think the

#1084 will handle the OG you propose.  The heavy stouts can handle a

great deal of IBUs, upwards of 100 to 200 -- my last Imperial Stout had

(I believe) 180IBU, but that was with an OG of 1120.  I don't think

that lactic acid is needed -- the dark grains will provide plenty

of acitity -- in fact you may want to add a couple of teaspoons of

Calcium Carbonate to mellow the acidity unless your water is already

high in Carbonates.

Al.

------------------------------


sparge water acidification

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1993 14:18:29 -0600 (MDT)

From: limd@plasma.arraytech.com (Davin Lim)

Subject: sparge water acidification

Does anybody know of a cheap source of food-grade lactic or phosphoric

acid?  This would be used for acidification of sparge water.  I'd like

to not use more commonly available organic acids like wine acids or

ascorbic acid.  I can get lactic and phosphoric acids from the usual

scientific supply houses (Carolina, for one) but the prices too high

for "consumer" use.  Has anybody heard of any homebrew supply shops

selling this stuff via mail order for a reasonable price?

Here's a crazy idea for your collective speculation on its potential:

Since colas are fairly loaded with phosphoric acid, and the pH of a

cola is in the range of 2-3, I'm guessing that it would not take much

cola to reduce the pH of my tap water to the desired range of 5.3 to

5.7.  If the volume of cola required to bring the pH down is indeed

quite small, I would guess that it's flavor contribution could also

be quite small - if not totally unnoticable in even the lightest

beers.  So, whaddya think?  Is this plausible?

- --

 ........................................................................

 * Davin Lim     * limd@arraytech.com

 * Array Technology Corporation  * -- OR you can try ..

 * Boulder, Colorado.            *     raid5!limd@devnull.mpd.tandem.com

 ........................................................................

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1121, 04/16/93

*************************************

-------


Hops and pH

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 20:30 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Hops and pH

 Forgot who said...

 >Jack, can you try this:  Dilute the Chinnok tea with

 distilled water by an amount intended to match the Saaz? tea's AA

 and see if the pH matches the Saaz tea.

 I did that but unfortunately, not during the same experiment.  I did it just

 for taste comparison of the two hops to equalize the bittering.

 >That should tell us if you are measuring the AAs or something else.

 "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn".  The objective is to find a simple

 method of estimating hop bittering for home grown hops or hops of unknown

 qualities.  If the results provide that information and are repeatable, it

 doesn't matter if it is measuring cosmic rays.

 >I am also skeptical that only a 5 minute boil got any AAs in the tea at all.

 Ditto above.

 >New to the Digest.

 I was born cranky.  You'll get used to me.

 js

------------------------------


hops primer

Date:         Fri, 16 Apr 93 00:42:41 EDT

From: Jim <JLAUKAIT@ccvm.sunysb.edu>

Subject:      hops primer

Russ,

   I am having quite a hard time sending you mail, as a matter of fact

nothing has gotten through yet, I think. Would you send the hops primer to me

email? Thanks.

   Sorry to take up valuable space in the forum, but it had to be done.

TNX,

Jim

JLAUKAIT@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU

------------------------------


Homebrew Expo 93 / Supplies in GB

Date:         Fri, 16 Apr 93 12:58:21 +0300

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      Homebrew Expo 93 / Supplies in GB

I just got the No. 25 issue of (the British) Homebrew Today. Going to England?

Hombrew Expo will be held in Bristol on the 22nd of May. A wine and beer

competition will be held there too (commercial wine and beer kits only (WOW)).

And if you'll be looking for brewing supplies in England, like I did till a

couple of days ago, the same Homebrew Today magazine lists about 70 retailers,

from all over the country. Just in case anybody is interested.

 -nir

LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL

------------------------------


Dry Hopping ?

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1993 08:24:54 -0400

From: Michael D. Galloway <mgx@ornl.gov>

Subject: Dry Hopping ?

I dry hop most of my beers regardless of style (read HopHead here) and

get satisfactory results with hop pellets.  However, the aroma associated

with whole hops and plugs is quite appealing but the one attempt I made

at dry hopping with whole hops was rather dissapointing.  I use glass

carboys for primary and secondary and I could not get many whole hop

cones into the secondary without creating a BIG mess.  How do you carboy

users get whole hops and plugs into and out of your carboys with minimal

fuss and contamination concerns?

Michael D. Galloway

mgx@ornl.gov

Living in the WasteLand

------------------------------


PETE Bottles, Russ Wigglesworth

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 09:18:01 EDT

From: blazo@aol.com

Subject: PETE Bottles, Russ Wigglesworth

In response to:  Subject:  Reuse of Bottles in the USA, 11:27AM, 4/13/93,

Russ Wigglesworth, et al.

The PETE bottles that soda comes in make excellent beer containers.  Just

make sure that they are the type with the plastic, versus the metal, top.

They are available in one, two & three liter sizes, as well as the smaller

sizes.  The sanitization procedures are identical to those associated with

sanitizing glass.  In response to your suggestion re:  standardization of

containers, Switzerland, I have read, has a law that all beverage and food

containers MUST be manufactured of PETE.  Each container bears a $0.10

(equiv. in SWFR) tax, which is used to finance the recycling of these

containers.  So, although the containers are not, per se, reused they are

recycled on-mass with no separating, etc.  I also consider myself an

environmentally concious person and am delighted to be a recycling

non-comsumer by homebrewing.  No taxes either (yet!).

John F. Blazier II

inet:  blazo.aol.com

*P:  TJKV20A

------------------------------


Rocks, Bottles

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 08:30 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Rocks, Bottles

 >From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

 >Subject: My Belgian rock collection

 >I look at the rock and try to imagine it's voyage.  I try to

 picture where the rock came from and how it got mixed in with the

 malt.  Where was the farm located?  The malting company?  What

 does the local terrain look like and how close is it to the

 coast?  Considering the region's history, has this rock ever been

 tread on by a Roman sandal or the track of an armored vehicle?

 Only the imagination can provide such answers.

 The imagination quickly returns to reality when the rock enters on the most

 dangerous leg of the voyage, viz..... the trip through your roller mill.

 Only truly monument class rocks are capable of surviving to enjoy a quiet

 retirement in the august Campanelli Collections.

 On the other hand, you may want to save your mill from proving its metal by

 removing the treasure first.

 >From: brew it  12-Apr-1993 0923 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

 >Subject: more comments on bottles

 >I also agree that genuine bar bottles are the best for bottling.

 A few weeks ago I walked to the neighborhood "bar" and was delighted to see

 big, tall, brown Bud bottles on the bar so I asked the nice lady if she could

 sell me some.  "Sell them, why you can have all you want." she said.

 As she started handing them to me I noticed they were imposters.  They all

 had screw tops and felt like delicate china.  So I headed for the local

 homebrew shop and bought a case of brand new long necks for about the same

 price as a case of Bud at the liquor store but I was saved the trouble of

 dumping out the Bud and removing the lables.

 js

------------------------------


Guinness talk

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 07:15:10 PDT

From: Rasta Mon  16-Apr-1993 1011 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Guinness talk

In Ireland, beer products are taxed based on their alcohol percentage:  the

more alcohol, the more taxes on the product.  Hence, it is detrimental for

brewers to sell high alcohol brew 'cuz it would be taxed to death and

consumers wouldn't buy it.  Guinness in Ireland is fairly weak, I reckon,

maybe 3% tops.  In the US, it is a bit stronger - kind of like Budweiser in

the Carribean (it is 5% there!).

JC Ferguson

Digital Eq. Corp.

------------------------------


brewpot source - and a question.

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 10:41:17 EDT

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: brewpot source - and a question.

I've given up the idea of trying to find a used SS brew pot - they're hard

to find.  I've just ordered a new one (38.5 quarts) from  Rapids - wholesale

Bar and Restaurant Equipment (1-800-553-7906) Rapid City, Iowa.  The price

was $91 for the pot, $25 for the lid, and $9 for the shipping.   $125 sure

is alot of money but it's better than the >$158 that I've seen in the brew

supply stores.

Is there any harm in giving a mash a protein rest even if the grain is fully

modified?  It seems like good insurance if no harm is done.

- --Tony Verhulst

------------------------------


Hops Primer

Date:    Fri, 16 Apr 1993 10:41:25 -0400 (EDT)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: Hops Primer

              A Hops Growing Primer  (ca. 1990 w/ additions)

              --------------------

- -- Acknowledgements to Peter Soper for writing the majority of this primer. --

- -- Thanks Pete!                                                             --

  Hops for beer making grow from the rhizomes of female hop plants. Rhizomes

look like root cuttings but have buds growing from them that will become new

vines. Rhizomes also contain stored nutrients to support initial growth.

  Hops grow vertically as one or more vines that spiral up a twine or anything

else convenient.  Depending on latitude, location, and variety, they sprout

from about mid-March or April and grow through the summer and early fall. A

single plant can easily grow 40 feet tall when it is mature but growth in the

first year is usually much less.  In most instances by the second or third year

the plants will exhibit full growth. Height is very closely linked to the amount

of sunshine the plant gets.

  Hops grow best in full sun and you should pick a spot with the best possible

southern exposure.  Hops grow best in loose, well drained soil. Blended

peat moss and sand make a good hops growing environment.  In cases of poor

soil drainage, it can be helpful to create a mound of soil a foot or so tall

which will aid drainage.

  Hops need lots of water. As they grow be sure to give them a very good

soaking at least once a week. Mulch in the summer helps with weed control and

also holds additional water.  Also, hops have big appetites.  Composted cow

manure has been reported to be an excellent well balanced fertilizer.

  Once a bed has been prepared the rhizomes are planted about four inches below

the soil surface with any obvious buds coming from the rhizome oriented to

point upward toward the soil surface.

  After several inches or so the new vines should be thinned such that just the

most healthy and vigorous three vines are left to continue growing. This will

be an ongoing process as new shoots may show up later but the initial thinning

is an important one. It's been reported that the young shoots that are culled

may be steamed and eaten like asparagus.   On the other hand, some growers

espouse cutting the new shoots at all, allowing all vines to grow to full

height.

  As the vines grow over a foot tall they should be trained to grow up a

twine. This can be done by twisting the vine around the line.  You may have

to repeat this for a few days before the vine gets the idea.  Remember, like

most plants, hops will "follow" the sun, and so have a natural tendency to

wrap from east to west, or counter-clockwise looking up for a south facing

plant.

  The most common hops trellis consists of strings running from the roof of

a building down to stakes driven into the soil near the plants.  Another

option, often used by commercial growers, consists of a large central pole,

with strings running from the top of the pole down to the foot of each plant,

similar to the spokes on a wheel. Expect the string or twine to hold a lot of

weight as the vines grow tall. A 25+ foot plant may weigh 20+ pounds.

  Hop blossoms start out looking like large sand burrs and then take on a

characteristic cone shape and grow in size. The size of a fully developed cone

depends on the variety, varying from one to two inches long by one half to

one inch in diameter.

  The hops are fully mature and ready for picking when two changes take place.

First, immature hops have a damp, soft feel and when squeezed slightly tend

to stay compressed. Mature hops feel more like paper, spring back when squeezed

and feel noticeably lighter. The second key test is to pick an average example

hop and cut it lengthwise down the center with a knife. When ready to pick the

yellow powder (the lupulin sacs containing the essential oils and bitter

substances that are "where it's at") will be a dark shade of yellow, like the

stripes on a highway, and it will be pungent. If a light shade of yellow then

chances are the hops are immature.

  When ready to pick it is best to snip the stems of the cones with scissors or

a knife to avoid jarring the hops and knocking lupulin powder out or worse,

pulling the center of the cone out with the stem, causing a great loss of

lupulin.  Touching hops plants can cause skin irritation in some people;

gloves and long sleeves can help in this matter.

  Just picked hops are roughly 80 percent water; if left alone they spoil

rapidly. For proper storage most of the water is removed by drying. A good

drying method it to lie the hops on a card or screen in an attic. Just a few

hours during the heat of summer or a few hours more in cooler weather is

enough to dry the hops.  Use a before and after weighing and trial and error

to try to achieve about 7-10 percent residual moisture after drying.

  After drying, hops keep best at low temperatures and away from oxygen. A

kitchen freezer easily takes care of temperature but to get the hops away from

oxygen is difficult. Tightly packing hops in canning jars will minimize the

trapped air but be careful not to use too much force and break the all

important lupulin sacs since this accelerates oxidation. Purging the canning

jar of oxygen by blowing in carbon dioxide from a kegging system will also

help prolong freshness.

  It's common to get 4 or 5 harvests per year by picking the biggest, most

mature hops every two weeks or so as the flowers ripen.  Patience and

judgement are important since cones left on the vine too long turn brown

and are obviously oxidized and spoiled, while immature hops have little

lupulin in them.

  At the end of the growing season when the leaves have fallen or turned

brown, cut the vines at the surface of the soil and if possible remove the

twine. After cutting back the vines a layer of three or four inches of mulch

and composted manure can be put over the exposed vines for insulation and

nutrition during the winter.

  Japanese beetles are the number one nuisance in many areas. A common

remedy is to position a "Bag a Bug" type beetle trap about 30 feet

directly up wind from the hop vines. There is some concern that the "Bag

a Bug" traps may actually attract more beetles than they catch, but that

probably depends on the situation. Certain plants such as rose bushes may

also attract the beetles, so it's best to keep those plants away from your

hops. Also, the beetles' larvae live in the ground, and in cases of extreme

Japanese Beetle infestation the surrounding lawn may need to be treated

accordingly.  A number of other pests, such as aphids, can harm hops, and

can be treated with any number of pesticides.  Remember, though, that you

will be consuming these hops, and should use low toxicity natural pesticides,

such as 1% Rotenone dust, for direct pest control on the plants.  As with

any consumable, you should ensure that any pesticide is well washed off

before using the hops.

  One other hazard is animals. A short fence of rabbit wire will keep cats,

dogs, rabbits, etc. at bay.  Deer have also been reported to be fond of hops.

  Rhizomes are available from an increasing number of sources.  American

Brewmaster in Raleigh, NC and Freshops in Philomath, OR are two well-known

suppliers.  Cost is usually a few dollars each. They should be kept in plastic

bags, moist and cold in your refrigerator until they are planted.

  Additional information about hop growing can be found in "Homegrown Hops"

by David R. Beach.  Also, the 1990 special issue of "Zymurgy" is devoted

to hops and contains an article about growing hops by Pierre Rajotte.  The

AHA also has additional hops-oriented publications.

- -- Comments to r_gelinas@unhesp.unh.edu --

------------------------------


California Festival of Beers

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1993 07:38:36 -0700

From: esri!riker!mark@uunet.UU.NET (Mark Oliver)

Subject: California Festival of Beers

Does anyone have a phone number/address or know of the availability of tickets

for the California Festival of Beers in San Louis Obispo, on May 29th?

Last year I purchased my ticket at a different Homebrew fest a few weeks before

the one in San Louis Obispo.  That one is already sold out!

Thanks in advance,

Mark Oliver  (moliver@esri.com)

------------------------------


Whitbread Warning

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 10:22:31 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Whitbread Warning

I respectively disagree with virtually all of O'Conner's analysis in

HBD#1121. Those who want first hand information regarding my analysis

of both the new Whitbread yeast as well as the Mauri strains from

Austrlia should contact Seth Schneider of Crosby and Baker at the

following toll free number:

                     1-800-999-2440.

George Fix

------------------------------


Immersion chiller

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 10:29:06 CDT

From: atzeiner@iastate.edu

Subject: Immersion chiller


Re: Immersion chiller

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 11:47:29 EDT

From: eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West)

Subject: Re: Immersion chiller

Andy says:

>I think you would want the exiting water to be warmer for a given

>length of tubing.  The amount of heat removed from the wort should be:

> (delta q) = m*Cp*(delta T)

>where  m=mass flow rate of water

> Cp=heat capacity

> (dealta T)=temperature difference=Tout-Tin

>So, if the flow rate increases, the heat removed increases, and if the

>temperature difference increases, the heat removed increases.

You're OK until you define delta T, the delta T that is important here

is T-wort - T-water at each point along the chiller.

To keep this delta T high you need to keep T-water as low as possible,

if T-out is high then the delta T through the wall of the copper tubing

is low for the last part of the chiller, wasting cooling potential.

If you want to cool the wort as quickly as possible, you want the chiller

to be as cold as possible for as much of its length as possible, the way

to do that is to run as much water through it as possible, starting as cold

as possible.

Stirring helps. On both sides of the copper. It might help to install a

wiggly wire through the length of the chiller to cut down on laminar flow

through the tubing.

I believe the whole problem is really quite simple, it's alot like putting

ice into a glass of soda, more ice cools it faster.

Carl

When I stop learning, bury me.

>

>

>

 I think you misunderstood what I meant.  I was showing the equation

for the amount of heat removed from the wort by the chiller.  This equation

should be correct for this.  If water at 40F goes in and comes out at 150F at

a flow rate of 1 gal/min there will be a certain amount of heat removed from

the wort(I didn't bother to calculate it).  I was just showing that you can

pretty much get the amount of cooling you want with a given chilling coil.  If

you increase the flowrate you are not going to get as much of a temperature

drop.  I do agree with you in that the amount of heat transfer depends on the

temperature gradient from the wort to the water.

 If someone could figure out the heat capacity of wort, you could

figure out how much heat you needed to remove to get it to a certain

temperature.  You could then calculate how long your wort chiller would take

to cool the wort.  ( You could calibrate your wort chiller by cooling a volume

of water and measuring the flowrate and the in and out temperatures)

Now, if I could only build a shell and tube heat exchanger for a wort chiller

I'd be happy!!

Andy

------------------------------


address verify

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 9:42:50 PDT

From: rcristad@weber.ucsd.edu (Riccardo Cristadoro)

Subject: address verify

 PLease Send my daily article to sboxer@ucsd.edu ]

 Thanks very much

------------------------------


Rollers

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 11:51 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Rollers

 >From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

 >My father-in-law and I have put many hours into building a nice motor driven

 mill and I really don't want to crush any rocks, or have any rocks crush my

 mill.  Any great suggestions for a sieve to filter out large rocks?  With 10+

 pounds of grain it is impractical to find them by hand.  I haven't, BTW,

 found any rocks in the American or British malt I've used so far, but I've

 only done about 5 all-grain batches.  The Zymurgy grain mill avoids major

 damage by rocks by holding the rollers with engine valve springs.  I, on the

 other hand, skipped this option and am now wondering if I should regret that

 decision...

 Perhaps, now that there are about 700 MALTMILLS (tm) out there, we have

 enough statistical evidence to suggest one of two things:

       1.  Relax, don't worry.....

       2.  Relax, don't worry if you have a MM

 On the assumption that no news is good news, and I have only shipped one set

 of replacement rollers to date, we can assume that:

    a.    rocks are few and far between

    b.    customers are silently suffering

    c.    the design of the MM makes it relatively immune to stones.

 Commercial mills and the one in Zymurgy and Norm's have one thing in common,

 they use large diameter rollers.  Generally speaking, these are  preferable

 because they do not require knurling or texturing of the surface to get the

 grain to feed properly.  They also have a higher throughput at a given speed.

 They also happen to be far too expensive for a mill designed to retail at

 under $100.

 The MM uses 1.5" diameter rollers with linear grooving to ensure proper

 feeding of the grain.  The smaller diameter rollers just MAY make it very

 difficult for a stone to feed into the gap and just go round and round.  It

 does not appear that any special safety arrangement is necessary.

 The one set of rollers that a customer did destroy was done in by a wood

 screw which probably was not in the malt.  It was also running unatended with

 an electric drill doing the work.  Not a good idea in the first place.  To

 damage the steel rollers, a significant amount of noise and vibration would

 clue one in to turn it off.  This also is another reason why a belt and

 pulleys are preferred to a direct drive.  The belt will slip when the rollers

 jam.

 I doubt that rocks would be a problem at all with hand cranked mills.

 As far as a sieve to remove rocks, I would suggest that the most dangerous

 rocks are the ones about the same size as the malt and a sieve would be

 useless.

 The .5" mesh screen that is on the MM is intended to keep fingers out.

 Anything smaller than this severly restricts grain flow.

 js

------------------------------


hop questions

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 10:56:12 MDT

From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

Subject: hop questions

I have some questions about hops.

When I was a child, I remember hop fields around Mollala, OR.

Does anyone know what kind of hops are grown there?  (Willamette?)

My father tells me it is one of the main hop growing regions in the

U.S.

I am planning on visiting OR this coming July.  Any chance of finding

U-pick hops then? (It could happen!)

Another question:  Anyone know if hops can be grown here in Phoenix?

I know it gets pretty hot in Yakima during the summer, so maybe...?

Thanks,

Joel Birkeland

------------------------------


Easymash, Harrisburgh PA brewplaces

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 14:10:16 EDT

From: mcglew@sde.mdso.vf.ge.com (McGlew Raymond)

Subject: Easymash, Harrisburgh PA brewplaces

I was at my neighborhood hardware store recently looking for ss screen

for an easymash (home made) when I spotted some springs, some of which

were loosely coiled (i.e. had about 1/8 to 1/2 inch spaces between

coils.  If I bought one that would snugly fit over copper tubing, and

pinched off the other end, this might work great (especially if I waited

until alter the mash and placed the copper tube siphon-like into the

mash kettle.  Anything wrong with this idea?

------------------------------


Homebrew Digest #1121 (April 16, 1993)

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1993 10:56:33 -0700

From: rpeck@pure.com  (Ray Peck)

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1121 (April 16, 1993)

Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG> writes:

>Repeat request:  Any good sources of Belgian beers in the SF bay area,

>esp. east bay?

Well, a couple.  But they don't have what I'm *really* looking for:

Liefmann's Goundenband and Frambozen (available from the Admiralty Beverage

distributer in Portland), and Rodenbach Gran Cru (probably not

available anywhere in the States).

o The Cannery Wine Cellar in SF had Timmerman's, Chimay, Orval,

Grimbergen, and I think St. Sixtus and more last time I was there.

o Cost Plus wine store in SF had Grimbergen, St. Sixtus, Chimay,

Orval, and some French Biere de Garde's and more last time I was there.

o Whole Foods in Palo Alto carries Chimay (including the small

bottles of Red!), Orval, Duvel, Hoegaarden, Steendonk, Grimbergen

Triple, Lindeman's, and the Celis brews.

o Safeway (!) in Mountain View carries Chimay Red, Orval,

Lindeman's.

o Liquor Barn Mtn View carries Chimay White and Red, Orval,

Duvel, Lindeman's, Satan, and I think a couple more.

Any more sources are Very Welcome.

------------------------------


Hard Cider

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 13:56:02 EDT

From: "John R. Calen - Contacting Systems - E.F., N.Y" <calen@vnet.IBM.COM>

Subject: Hard Cider

I'll address some of Phil's questions on hard cider, having dabbled with

it myself and throw in my own two cents here and there...

As long as you start with sweet cider, the fermented result is hard

cider. Add malt and you get a strange beer.

WRT yeast, I find there are three paths to take:

* Control the ferment

* Influence the ferment

* Stand back and let it ferment

I prefer to influence the ferment. All I do is dump the cider on the

yeast cake of my previous brew and let 'er rip. The yeast outnumbers

the bacteria in this scenario and I've had good results thus far.

You can sanitize the cider with campden tablets, pasteurization or other

means and introduce the yeast of your choice. I like ale strains for the

ease of maintenance and the esters add complexity to the cider.

The opaque cider you get from a farm stand is already teeming with yeast.

If you're a gambling type, just let it warm up and go it's merry way.

Conditioning: I like sparkling cider. The rate of 1/6 cup corn sugar to

a gallon of cider sounds good to me. (3/4 cup to 5 gal, 3/20 cup to 1

gal is about 1/6 cup)

The cider should be ready for priming when it starts to clear, could be

a few weeks. It should last indefinitely in the bottle, assuming you

keep it cool.

P.S. This is the right place for this question, unless you over prime!

Regards,

John Calen -- Calen@vnet.IBM.COM

Hudson Valley HomeBrewers Chairman and Grucci Pyrotechnician (and still

among the big blue.)

------------------------------


is it beer?/Canned Guinness/Chimay/filtering/DeWolf-Cosyns Pils Malt

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 13:41 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: is it beer?/Canned Guinness/Chimay/filtering/DeWolf-Cosyns Pils Malt

Philip writes:

>I also decided to stretch out this supply.  I made a 1/2 gallon

>starter, and then bottled it (making 6 samples).

>

>Before making a foray into a 5 gallon batch of Steam Beer,

>I thought I'd make a 1 gallon test-batch of something - to

>test out my yeast-stretching attempt, and to gaurd against

>potentially wasting a 5 gallon investment of beer ingredients.

>

>First, I made a 1 quart starter from one of the bottled yeast

>samples.  After the starter was ready, I made a test wort.

>

>My test batch consisted of about 1.5 lbs of light DME, 3/8 oz.

>of Northern Brewer Hops, 4 oz. Clover Honey and 2 oz. peach

>marmalade - all boiled for about 45 mins.  This yielded about

>1 1/4 gallons of wort (I never took an SG reading).

>After the wort cooled, I added the starter and wort to a gallon

>jug, affixed an air-lock, and placed it in the basement (at 60^F).

>I got good blow-off the first day and a half.  It's been almost 6

>days now and the beer is still actively fermenting (bubble apprx.

>every 15s).

First of all, if you wanted to test the yeast, you probably should have

avoided bizzare ingredients such as the marmalade, I feel.  Secondly,

the marmalade has had pectin added and intentionally set, therefore your

beer will have clods of pectin floating around in it.

Onward...

>QUESTIONS:

>1) This is my first attempt at a lager.  I've never seen fermentation

>   this active after 6 days.  Is this because it's only a 1 gallon

>   batch, or is this because of the qualities of a lager yeast?

Lager yeasts in general tend to be slower fermenters.  Just because you

used lager yeast doesn't mean you're making a lager -- it's the temperature

that decides this.  At 60F, you indeed, are making a steam beer, a sort of

lager/ale hybrid halfway between a lager and an ale on the fruitiness scale.

>2) Wyeast #2112 is supposed to ferment well to 62^F, but would it

>   hurt to put this in a colder environment (my firdge)?

It would slow the ferment down even more and make the beer more lager-like

in the end.

>3) I'm not planning on bottling until the apparent fermentation ceases,

>   or 3 weeks have elapsed, which ever is soonest - is this wise?

Wait till fermentation ceases -- if you bottle based upon time and not

activity, you're asking for glass grenades.

>4) What should I call the resulting beer?

Call it Apricot Marmalade Steam.

************************

Ron writes:

>We've got it here (Washington, DC).  I picked some up because there was an

>article in Advanced Imaging last year about the can construction (the imaging

>tie-in was that a vision system was used to inspect the construction of

>the cans).  The cans have a plastic button in the bottom that releases

>gas into the can after it is open (to simulate how it would be if it

>just came from a tap).  It's a cute gimmick.  I don't know, I don't care

>for the stuff myself.

The plastic bubble in the bottom of the cans is full of beer, not gas.  This

plastic bubble actually separates the can into two sections, a small one

and a large one. When you open the can, the pressure drops in the big

section.  Now there's a pressure differential between the big section and

the small one.  This forces a stream of beer from the high-pressure small

section into the beer in the low-pressure large section, through a small

hole, causing the beer in the large section to foam.  Gosh, the stories

people come up with -- when these cans were just introduced, some people

dreamed up all kinds of stories about nitrogen being in the bubble and

dry ice being in the bubble!

Personally, I like the bottled version better.

**********************

Corby writes:

>     I just had a friend bring me a bottle of Chimay (it's difficult

>to find in Utah) and was wondering which type it was.  Miller mentions

>Chimay having three different colored caps (red, white, and blue) for

>different styles and Papazian mentions Belgian ales typically being done

>in three styles (House brew, double, and triple).  I was wondering which

>was which.  The bottle I have has a red cap.

There are actually, four varieties of Chimay available in the US.  I feel

that the 750ml, corked bottles are different enough from the 330ml, crown-

capped versions, to be considered a different type.  I would not have

investigated this difference if it had not been pointed out by Jackson

in his Pocket Guide to beer.  I agree with him that the corked versions

tend to age slightly differently, due to the porosity of the cork -- I

feel they tend to be more oxidized, but it adds an addditional complexity

to the beer.

There's a problem with the AHA's definitions in the Trappiste Beers area.

Indeed, there are several beers that are loosely in the Dubbel style and

several in the Tripel style, but a great many that don't fit into these

categories.  For example, Orval is a House brew, and Westvletteren's

Abt (available here as St. Sixtus, albeit brewed by a secular brewery)

is not a House, Dubbel or Tripel.  It would be better if the AHA created

a subcategory called "Trappiste, Other" and specified that further

clarification must be listed (as they do with Fruit or Herb beers).

I'll make this suggestion if I'm asked again to be a member of the

National Homebrew Competition Committee.

Luckily, Chimay's red fits the Dubbel category quite closely, so that's

what you tasted.  The Blue-capped 330ml bottles are similarly a Dubbel,

exept brewed from a higher gravity.  The White-capped 330ml bottles are

much paler -- too pale for a Dubbel and quite highly hopped.  Although

it's new name excapes me, the Burgundy-labeled 750ml bottles are the

jumbo-version of the red, the 750ml Cinq Cents are the jumbo-versions of

the white and the 750ml Grand Reserve are the jumbo-versions of the

blue.  The blue-capped 330ml bottles are vintage dated.

**************

Bob writes:

>John Isenhour spoke about his efforts at filtering beer in the last digest.

I'd like to add that there's a good article in the 1992 Beer and Brewing

(AHA Conference Proceedings) on filtering by Steve Daniels.  He advocates

only the polypropylene pleated filters and warns of all the problems he

encountered before he switched to this style of filter.

**************

I wrote:

>Agreed that undermodified malt needs either a step-infusion or decoction

>mash for best results (protein splitting into amino acids, etc.), but

>the proper mash temp is dependent on what kind of dextrin profile you

>want in your wort, not on the grain type.  I'm pretty sure that the

>DeWolf-Cosyns Pale and Pils malts are both fully modified (I'll check

>tonight and post a followup tomorrow) and can be used without a protein

>rest.

I've checked (according to Noonan's descriptions) and indeed the DeWolf-

Cosyns Belgian Pilsner malt is fully modified -- the acrospire (sp?) is

consistently the entire length of the kernel.

Al.

------------------------------


filters/Dr. Lewis/biscuit malt

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 16:10:54 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: filters/Dr. Lewis/biscuit malt

In the last digests:

<Went to a presentation by Dr. Michael Lewis from U.C. Davis a few

<weeks ago where he said that a temp. step mash was absolutely

<essential to give best extract yeilds and fermentability when using

<American lager malt (aka "klages" in this neck of the woods).  He

<also said that with British Pale Ale malt, a single temp infusion mash

<was best.  I get the idea that the mash temp profile really depends on

<what your malt was designed for.

Ahhh, from the guru that claims that domestic 2 row converts in 5 minutes!

I have to agree with Bob Jones on the statements made by Dr. Lewis, take them

with a grain of undermodified 6 row.  The bottom line in my opinion is that

all malts have thier attributes and many a fine beer can be made using

one of the three common techniques, step mashing, single infusion, and

decoction.  Most malts to be found in the US (domestic or imported) can

produce a well made beer using any of the three techniques.  In the past

I always used a step mash with 2 row domestic.  Recently I do a infusion,

rest at 154, then mash out at 170.  Works real good.  The fun part of

brewing is to mix ingrediants with techniques and still create wonderful

beers.  For a supper malty bock/speciality beer a decoction is almost a

must (even when using domestic 2 row).  For a wheat beer with more than

40% wheat malt, again a decoction is a must.  For many pale ales, and

porters/stouts one can use a infusion or a step.  An issue to be aware of

when doing a step with domestic 2 row is that the time it takes to rise

the temp from 122 to the 150s will have several minutes in the 140s and

lots of conversion is taking place at these temps, resulting in a higher

fermentability, regardless of the sacchrafication rest temp. Note that

Dr. Lewis was pointing out how to maximize extract and fermentability,

and a step mash will indeed do this.  When using the "Worlds Greatest

Yeast,tm" fermentability is the last of my problems, I do everything

I can to maximize my dextrin pool.

Re:filters,  I believe submicron filtration is the wrong way for homebrewers

to go.  Cold conditioning, followed by filtration down to 3-7 microns works

for my primary goal, yeast removal.  If the still beer is not rediculously

high in yeast cells, 5 microns works for me.  I had a keg that was primed

with sugar, already had way too much yeast, and after filtration at 5 microns,

still was way cloudy.  But, the beer went from undrinkable (looked like

Widmers "hefeweizen" :-) to cloudy but delicous.  BTW, I used a store bought

spun filter to "coarse" filter my Barleywine and it worked.  Disposable,

though is not too efficient.

RE:Biscuit malt.  I used about one pound of this in a pale ale that had

50 lbs 2 row domestic, 5.5lbs caravienna and 2.4 lbs caramel 40, 3 lbs

Belgium Munich.   I made this same recipe with aromatic instead of Biscuit,

and was I suprised to see how much darker the biscuit made the wort.  Some

pretty powerful stuff.  Too early for taste results as it is currently

fermenting away.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Sugar tests for priming

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 09:19:43 EDT

From: Jim=Curl%Eng.West%PTLSANJOSE@ptltd.com

Subject: Sugar tests for priming

>Recently my brewpartner and I bottled a Red ale.  We were slightly

>disturbed that fermentation had stopped so soon (after four days of very

>high activity, the Spec. Gravity was the same for four more).  We primed

>with malt extract

>(1 1/4 cup to 5 gal) and now about 1 in 3 bottles gush.  Is it possible

>fermentation was stalled that long and picked up in the bottle?  This is

>not a big problem, since we can easily open bottles over a sink, but I'd

>like to be sure when fermentation is complete.

I have been kegging this year, but I eliminated my bottle carbonation

problems in the past by using a sugar analysis test kit.  These kits,

which are basically just diabetic urine kits, allow you to measure the

amount of residual sugar in your beer and then prime accordingly.  If you

let your beer ferment out, then this is unnecessary.  But if you have a

long slow fermenting batch or just don't want to wait, determining the

residual sugar is a big help.

On batches that I have bottled, I have found that I usually didn't need

the full dose of priming sugar and scaled back accordingly.  On one batch,

the test revealed that I didn't need to prime at all!  My carbonation levels

have been very consistant using this technique.

The kit I bought from a homebrew store cost about $20 and included a bottle

of tablets, a test tube, a small pipet and some instructions.  You could

probably get away cheaper if you bought a kit directly from a pharmacy and

worked out the conversion (from urine test to beer test) yourself.  But the

kit comes with 100 tablets, so the cost is only about $0.20 per test.

As to why your beer did what it did, I can only speculate, particulary without

additional information.  That sounds like a little too much priming extract to

me, but that may not be a problem.

Beer is mysterious.

Jim Curl

------------------------------


Las Vegas - Brewerys? BrewPubs?

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 08:42:07 EDT

From: wiehn@evax.gdc.com

Subject: Las Vegas - Brewerys? BrewPubs?

I'm off to Las Vegas in June and I'm curious to discover any Breweries or

BrewPubs in the area ---- Any Suggestions?????

John Wiehn

Wiehn@evax.gdc.com

------------------------------


cold break, stout

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 11:45:05 cdt

From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: cold break, stout

Kirk Anderson's questions about cold break were discussed at some length back

in the fall.  However, in the interest of reviving old topics (there may

always be some new information), here's what I have been doing.

(1) I boil about 4 gallons, which shrinks to three after a one-hour boil.

(2) I don't have a wort chiller, so I put my brewpot in a sink full of ice &

cold water, and I dump in two gallons of pre-boiled and chilled to almost-

frozen water on top.  This produces a good cold break and gets the temp down

to the high eighties or so in a half hour or less.

(3) I DO rack off the cold break into a bucket, where I then add yeast

starter solution and stir vigorously to aerate.

Then I rack into 5-gal. glass primary and use a 1-inch bolwoff tube (Diameter

of course, not length!:-))

It seems to me that racking off the cold break and blowing off have produced

better beer, but I can't prove it.  I've only made about twenty batches (last

half dozen or so this way) and I find these procedures relatively easy to

handle for a not-very-experienced brewer.

Regarding stouts, here is a recipe which I made recently and liked quite a

lot.

6 lbs. William's English Dark

1/4 lb each dark crystal, black patent, & roasted barley

hop schedule went something like:

1/2 oz. Chinook, 60 min.

1/2 oz. Chinook, 30 min

1/2 oz. Fuggles, 15 min.

1/2 oz. Kent Goldings, 5 min.

Wyeast Irish

3/4 c. corn sugar to prime

I steep the grains for a good long while (at least an hour) in a separate pot

and then sparge through a strainer into the brewpot.  I don't have a

thermometer to control the temp., but I guess this is sort of a "partial mash,

" or at any rate I think I get better results than when adding the grains to

the pot in a bag and then taking them out before boil is reached.

This is a delightful stout, if  on the light side (like I hear bottled

Guiness is these days anyway) and even came out with a little bit of a

Guiness-y "tang."  I wasn't using a sour mash or anything - maybe it's the

recipe, or maybe just a lucky infection :)

Regarding the "Irish" Wyeast:  I love it!  And I made an Imperial Stout with

it too, and the Irish yeast chomped through it just fine, so I would say it

handles high-gravity brews pretty well.

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Bottle brushes - Mail Order Source???

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 08:33:44 EDT

From: wiehn@evax.gdc.com

Subject: Bottle brushes - Mail Order Source???

Can anyone give this newcomer a lead on where I can get bottle brushes through

the mail??????  What would the cost be on the size brush needed to clean old

soda/beer bottles?

John Wiehn

WIEHN@EVAX.GDC.COM

------------------------------


Re: Hard (Lager) Cider?

Date: Sat, 17 Apr 93 10:17:54 -0700

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: Re: Hard (Lager) Cider?

"Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 11:01:10 -0400

 From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

 Subject: Hard (Lager) Cider?

"QUESTIONS:

 1) How long should I excpect the fermentation process to last?"

A couple of months. Lots of complex sugars in cider.

"2) What would an ideal fermenting temp. be for such a concoction?"a

Depends on the yeast. You're using lager ? 55 F.

"3) Is my result going to be a Hard Cider, or a (strange) Lager Beer?"

Cider. ( Shades of Lysenkoism !! )

"4) I plan on conditioning the fermented result with either 1/6 cup of Corn

   Sugar, or 1 to 2 cups of Apple Cider - and then bottle it.  First of all,

   is it necessary to do this conditioning?"

No.

"If it is, what ingredient is best,"

I think cider is a good choice.

"and how much should I use (for a 1 gallon batch)?"

Wing it. Try 1/4 cup to start.

"5) How long will such a (lager) cider last in bottled form?"

Dunno. Depends on local conditions and taste. You are on the frontier of

brewing, there are no precedents, you are _making_ them as you do this.

- -- richard

The silliest thing I ever read,  richard childers, pascal@netcom.com

Was someone saying "God is dead."

The simple use of The Word

Negates the second, and the third. ( Duke Ellington, _Sacred Concert_ )

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1122, 04/19/93

*************************************

-------


Immersion chiller architecture

Date: Sat, 17 Apr 93 10:09:52 -0700

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: Immersion chiller architecture

"Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 11:47:29 EDT

 From: eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West)

 Subject: Re: Immersion chiller

"Stirring helps. On both sides of the copper."

Agreed, I don't think this is being addressed at all.

Despite the desire not to aereate the wort, if the wort is not moved around,

somehow, it will develop relatively weak convection currents that will act

to move the wort around very little. As a consequence, an insulating wall of

wort of intermediate temperature will build up around the coil, much as an

intermediate layer of water, in a foam-layered SCUBA suit, warms up to body

temperature and then acts as an insulating layer between one's body and the

colder outer ocean.

This can be corrected by building a immersion chiller strong enough to be

used as a slow stirring mechanism, also. Unfortunately, _this_ leads to

thicker walls on the copper tubing ... which translates into less efficient

transfer of heat from hot wort to cold water. Perhaps a 'skeleton' of a

stronger wire could be wrapped, helix-style, around the softer and thinner

copper tubing, to hold it and protect it from being bent by impact against

the sides of the container.

"I believe the whole problem is really quite simple, it's alot like putting

 ice into a glass of soda, more ice cools it faster."

On that thread, has anyone considered a parallel chiller architecture ?

It would increase the available surface area available to the coldest water,

as it enters the chiller and contacts the hottest wort ( which would, I'm

speculating, be at the top, assuming no heat is entering the system ), and,

all other things being equal, I speculate that there would be a fairly

straightforward linear relationship between the speed wort chilled at and

the number of fixed-length, unconstricted-surface-area chiller segments in

operation ... just as there is between the number of ice cubes one drops in

a glass of water, and the speed at which it cools ( again, assuming that

the actual surfaces through which the heat is transferred remain free of

obstructions ).

I must say, this is a fascinating little thread and I'm waiting for someone

to integrate it all and generate a matrix of optimal architectures out of

the cross-indexing of length, diameter, wall thickness, architecture, and

flow rate. ( For purposes of simplification it seems best to assume that the

wort will start out at just below boiling, worst case, and the water at just

above freezing, say, 35-40 F, worst case. ) While there may be no absolutely

'best' solution or architecture, there absolutely _is_ a set of, shall we

say, optimal solution to this particular problem in physics, just as there

is a fairly finite set of possible container geometries within which the

chiller is immersed ...

- -- richard

The silliest thing I ever read,  richard childers, pascal@netcom.com

Was someone saying "God is dead."

The simple use of The Word

Negates the second, and the third. ( Duke Ellington, _Sacred Concert_ )

------------------------------


Durden Park Beer Circle

Date: 18 Apr 1993 20:54:42 -0400 (EDT)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: Durden Park Beer Circle

Please excuse the bandwidth, but I will be in London later this week,

and I understand the Durden Park Beer Circle meets on the 22nd.

If visitors are welcome, I would greatly appreciate e-mail from anyone

who can tell me exactly where and when -- I would love to attend.

Thanks,

Ed Westemeier, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA  <<westemeier@delphi.com>>

------------------------------


Gravity to high ...

Date: Sun, 18 Apr 93 22:20:23 PDT

From: tlopez@alt.cam1.unisys.com (Tito Lopez)

Subject: Gravity to high ...

I'm a first time brewer and just maybe I'm a bit too impatient.  I bought

the Stout kit (Guinnes Extra Stout) and followed the direction as closely

as possible.  I let it ferment 5 days in the primary fermenter between 58 to

64 degrees.  I transfered it to the secondary fermenter and it's been there

for 9 days.  The gravity on this day was 1018 (measurement adjusted to

reflect temp above 60 degrees), 6 above the F.G.  According

to the kit it would take 7 to 9 days (after it's been transfer to the

secondary fermenter) to bottle.  What's wrong? Give it more time?

IMF (Tito Lopez)

------------------------------


Skimming during fermentation

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 08:34:55 EDT

From: casagran@gdstech.grumman.com (Lou Casagrande)

Subject: Skimming during fermentation

Fellow Brewmeisters,

I am still a relatively unsophistocated brewer, in that I am still

using a single-stage fermentation with the 6-gallon plastic fermenter.

I had heard about skimming, but I was always a little reticent to open

my brew during fermentation for fear of contaminating it. My question,

then, is: What is the proper method for skimming to minimize the

chance of contamination or other "badness"? By the way, a quick answer

to this question will be important, as I just put a batch of stout

together last night.

Thanks,

Lou Casagrande

casagran@gdsnet.grumman.com

------------------------------


BREAD YEAST

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 07:55 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: BREAD YEAST

 One of the first "Momilies" I addressed shortly after starting to read the

 Digest was the seemingly hidebound belief that bread yeast makes lousy beer.

 This was shortly before I became a born-again yeast culturer.

 I decided to check out the bread yeast momily but knowing what I had learned

 about culturing, it seemed only reasonable that the test should be done on a

 pure cultured bread yeast.  I suspected the real problem with bread yeast was

 the same as in all dry yeast, i.e. contaminants other than the culture yeast.

 I pure cultured some Fleishman's bread yeast on petri dishes and then to

 slants.  The real problem became one of committing a batch of beer, with all

 the expense and time that entails to the experiment.  So the slants sat in

 the fridge for months.

 Well, I finally got around to doing it.  On March 12, I brewed up a 7 gal

 batch, using "only the finest ingredients".  I even got a yield of 33 on this

 one and I pitched the bread yeast.

 The primary at 55F was nominal and I pumped it to secondary a week later and

 noted a decided clove taste.  As of Apr 16, it was still fermenting

 moderately with not a sign of clearing.

 I decided I had tied up the equipment long enough to learn what I wanted to

 learn and kegged 5 gallons of it.  I force carbnated this and took it to a

 CBS meeting to share this great science with the rest of humanity.

 With the notable exception of one nameless individual who thought it was

 "kinda nice", there will not likely be a sudden conversion to bread yeast at

 CBS.  When I later made the rounds with a rather good lager, people sort of

 turned around and made like they didn't see me.  I had to do a real sell job

 to get them to try this one.

 The clove taste was, in my opinion, overpowering and rendered the beer more

 or less undrinkable.  What is interesting is that I have made this very same

 beer before using Red Star beer yeast, even to the never-ending fermentation.

 My suspicion is that Red Star beer yeast is either severly contaminated with

 their bread yeast or IS their bread yeast.

                            .............

 I also finally got around to trying a Wyeast primarily because Tim Norris

 practically forced it on me.  It was the 2206 Bavarian and I pure cultured

 before using it. I brewed a batch of Munich style lager and it made a decent

 beer but can really say not much else about it.  It was pretty nominal as far

 as my taster is concerned.

 However, it is worth nothing that the two petri dishes have been sitting on

 my lab table for 6 weeks now and there still is not the slighted sign of

 contamination.  I innoculated two plates directly from the package just by

 dipping the innoculating needle into the liquid.  I dipped twice, once for

 each plate, to increase the possiblity of picking up a contaminant.  One was

 opened once to innoculate slants and the other has never been opened. This

 speaks well both for the yeast and my procedure.

 js

------------------------------


Where do I begin?

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1993 09:00:16 -0400 (EDT)

From: julie <jaj406@kepler.unh.edu>

Subject: Where do I begin?

 I would like to make my own homebrew, but I don't know where

to start.  Could someone give me advice on how to start and what I

need to begin.  I have some ideas, but not sure if I'm on the right track.

 You can e-mail me at   jaj406@kepler.unh.edu

 Thanks.....

------------------------------


Pet peeve--Belgian beer "styles"

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 13:37 GMT

From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>

Subject: Pet peeve--Belgian beer "styles"

Al Korzonas recently took a jab at the AHA's beer style classification

system, with particular reference to their Belgian beer categories.  Way

to go, Al!  Usually I preface this sort of thing by saying "Don't get me

started", but since it's too late already...

Where does the AHA get off classifying these beers as doubles and triples?

It seems to me that this classification is based on the beers of Westmalle,

but there are lots of examples that don't conform.  Orval is obvious.

Rochfort offers its beers in 6, 8, and 10 degrees, as to many "abbey"

brewers.  If the 6 is a double and the 10 is a triple, what's the 8--

2.5?  Where does Chimay's Cinq Cents (a partial-wheat beer if I'm not

mistaken) fall into this?  Frankly I think it's rediculous to have style

perameters when the entire population of breweries in this style only

equals five.

Sad to say, I think that Michael Jackson is responsible for much of the

incongruity we see in the style listings, as these closely mirror his own

scheme in the World Guide to Beer.  Personally I've never heard a Belgian

refer to Liefman's as a Flanders Brown, for example.  I think Pierre

Rajotte was a lot closer to the mark when he stuck to commonly accepted

terminology and the Belgian classification system based on O.G.

Sorry, I'll get off the soapbox.  However, I must say it irritates me to

submit beers to contests where judges who may have only had a few beers of

any given type in their lives will be ranking my beer based on these

misconceived numbers.

------------------------------


a few observations

Date:    Mon, 19 Apr 1993 10:23:04 -0400 (EDT)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: a few observations

  First, thanks to whoever started this conversation about rocks in malt.

Never heard of such a thing, until this Sat. when the Corona went "crunch"

on one. Nothing broke, just don't start talking about severe infection

problems, ok?

   Anyway, the grain (minus the rock) seemed quite soft when I was grinding

it, which I attribute to it being stored in a not-exactly-dry garage for

the last few months.  But it crushed beautifully, in fact I had to admire

how perfect the crushed grains looked.  It mashed/converted just fine, and,

it sparged sparkling clear immediately.  I mean the first few *drops* were

clear and it stayed that way, with an unrestricted flow.  This is with the

Gott cooler type of lauter tun.  My guess is that the moisture in the grains

allowed the Corona to sort of squeeze the shells open rather than grind them

to dust; there was much less flour than usual.

   Unfortunately, damp grains are not usually a good idea (they tend to spoil),

so don't go soaking your grains to get a great sparge.  I just happened to

be lucky.

   Again I chopped the whole hops in a coffee blender, and I'm getting

convinced this is a very good idea.  Besides the probable better utilization,

they helped form a solid trub bed in the brewpot, and filtered so well I

was able to rack almost all of the liquid from the pot.  There may be a

connection with the World's Greatest Sparge (tm) here also.

   I plan to dryhop one of the batches with ground whole hops in a mesh bag;

I'll report back anything interesting.

Russ

------------------------------


Immersion chillers

Date: 19 Apr 1993 11:47:12 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Immersion chillers

 I finally got around to making my immersion chiller over the

weekend.  I used 25' of 1/4" tubing in a plani-spiral (like an electric

stove burner).  The input and outputs hook over the side of the pot, and

the final (outer) coil cuts straight across the bottom of the coil

(perpindicular to the input), and down to the bottom of the pot, across and

back up to the coil before joining the input end over the edge of the pot.

Thus it supports itself about 2" or so below the surface of the wort.  From

test runs (I haven't tried on an actual beer yet) I can recommend that

anyone wishing to use 1/4" tubing to save money (like I did) either go for

the 3/8", or make sure your connections are really secure.  1/4" tubing has

a very high resistance to flow.  Remember, resistance to flow is the 4th

power of the diameter of the tubing (ie reduce diameter to half, resistance

goes up 16 fold).

 In my case I (perhaps stupidly) bought 1/4" tubing because it was

$7 cheaper than the 3/8", and I already had most of the connectors, whereas

I would have had to dish out an additional $7-8 on connectors for 3/8"

tubing.  I first connected it with rubber lab hose to the sink, and the

hose swelled up like a ballon.

 Anyway, any suggestions on whether to cool from outside in or

inside out?

 ed

------------------------------


Rocks in Belgian Malts

Date:    Mon, 19 Apr 1993 15:25:12 GMT

From: "UARS::COOK"@CDHF1.GSFC.NASA.GOV (Chris Cook)

Subject: Rocks in Belgian Malts

On the subject of rocks in the malt, I've had small rocks jam my MaltMill

in two out of the last 8 or so batches.  In both cases I had to stop, take

the grains out of the hopper and actually unscrew the hopper to get the

rock out of the mill.  Worse, the rocks left scars on the rollers in both

cases, smearing an arc of those careful grooves flat.  Jack was right,

though, when he said that, with the o-ring, the second roller would just

slip, saving the mill from any serious damage.

I've been using the Belgian malts almost exclusively, so I don't have any

idea whether this problem is widespread or just with these malts.

Mind you, one thing that aggravates my problem is my ongoing affair with

high-gravity beers.  It's been a problem ever since I started all-grain

brewing: if it's less than 10 pounds of grain, I don't make it.

It's all Jack's fault: his mill made things too easy.

Chris Cook

cook@cdhf1.gsfc.nasa.gov

------------------------------


First and Second Runnings

Date:    Mon, 19 Apr 1993 15:25:39 GMT

From: "UARS::COOK"@CDHF1.GSFC.NASA.GOV (Chris Cook)

Subject: First and Second Runnings

Speaking of high-gravity beers, he said, I've been going to _really_ big

beers recently, with a grain bill from 25 to 30 or more pounds of grain for

5 gallon batches.  The first runnings are the barley wine, double bock,

Russian Imperial stout or whatever, and the second runnings are enough

(with a pound of DME) to easily make an ordinary beer.

Easy was the surprising keyword, too.  I'm all set up for the first beer

anyway: I've got the pots dirty, the starter's foaming away, the sterilizer

stuff mixed up, the hoses soaking and small parts waiting, the immersion

wort-chiller all hooked up, everything.  It becomes kind of an assembly

line affair.

You can figure the procedure.  After getting enough wort for the first

beer, continue the sparge for the second.  Chill the first batch while

finishing up the boil on second.  When the first batch is cool, pitch using

2/3 of the starter (I use more starter for this batch because of its

gravity).  Finish any last-minute hopping on the second wort, take it off

the stove and move the wort-chiller (immersion) from the first pot into the

second.  After a little sloshing and swirling (if you like that kind of

thing) start the first beer syphoning.  The syphon usually finishes before

the second batch is cool; I just leave the hoses in place until I'm ready.

When the second wort's cool, I pitch the last of the starter in that wort,

swirl again and move the syphon hose to the second wort.

I'm using the same equipment, I'm just using it twice instead of once.  I

plan the batches using the same yeast, so there's only on starter.  I've

noticed that the second beer is quite a bit lighter than the first, and you

can always make more changes by adding more malts to the lauter-tun.  The

hopping is completely up to you, of course.

One thing that helps a lot is using a second cooler to hold the sparge

water.  That frees up the stove, calms my mind and generally organizes my

frenetic procedures.  The poor thing's a swelling 44 quart Coleman cooler I

wouldn't choose on purpose, but it's what I had for free in the basement

and it works.  I fill it with the sparge water at 185 to 190, and I'm good

to go for both batches.  I know that that's too hot, but the water has to

stay hot after heating the cooler, waiting for up to two hours and running

slowly through the plastic hose into the lauter-tun.  My sparge pH is

naturally low, and I figure that, if it's not perfect, I'm only making

beer.

I remember an article in Zymurgy where someone recommended brewing two

batches staggered together, but I thought it would be way too much work.  I

think I was wrong.  It took me a little longer, but only an hour or so, and

that's completely without prior planning.  The cleanup was the same.  If

you're interested in high-gravity beers, I recommend going for two.

Chris Cook

cook@cdhf1.gsfc.nasa.gov

------------------------------


1993 Mazer Cup Mead Competi

Date: 19 Apr 1993 11:16:06 -0500

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel.F.McConnell@med.umich.edu>

Subject: 1993 Mazer Cup Mead Competi

                       Subject:                               Time:11:13 AM

  OFFICE MEMO          1993 Mazer Cup Mead Competition        Date:4/19/93

We wish to announce the 2nd annual Mazer Cup Mead competition.  Full

information and entry forms have been published on the mead lovers digest.

They may be obtained from me via e-mail either electronically (preferred)

or via snail mail upon request. An edited version follows.

                         1993 MAZER CUP MEAD COMPETITION

ELIGIBILITY:

    This is an AHA sanctioned event.  All Makers of Mead are eligible.

    You may enter as many categories as you like, but are limited to one

    entry per category.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS:

(1) Each entry will consist of TWO (2) BOTTLES of at least 177 mL (6 oz),

    but not more than 750 mL (25 oz) preferably, 12 oz.  Both corked and

    capped entries are acceptable.  Black out identifying marks on bottles

    or caps.

[snip]

WHEN, WHERE, HOW:

(1) Entry fee is $5.00 per entry. All North American entries will be

    accepted between Monday June 7 and Friday June 18, 1993.  International

    entries will be received anytime before June 18.

(2) First round judging will be held on Friday, June 25.

(3) Best of Show judging will be held on Sunday, June 27.

(4) Make checks Payable to: Dan McConnell, Mazer Cup Mead Competition.

(5) Entries can be dropped off or shipped to the following location:

                       MAZER CUP MEAD COMPETITION

                            c/o Dan McConnell

                           1308 West Madison

                           Ann Arbor, MI 48103

AWARDS AND PRIZES:

The beautiful mazers are hand-thrown at the prestigious Pewabic Pottery.

(1) The AHA/HWBTA 50-point rating scale will be used, with 25 points

    required for award eligibility.

(2) The brewer of the 1st place in each category will be receive a

    ribbon and a mazer.

(3) The brewer of the 2nd place in each category will be receive a

    ribbon and a mazer.

(4) The brewer of the 3rd place in each category will be receive a

    ribbon and a mazer.

(5) The BEST OF SHOW will receive the  Best of Show ribbon and the

    coveted hand-crafted communal mazer.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL:

    Ken Schramm, Competition Director        313.291.6694

    Dan McConnell, Competition Registrar     313.663.4845

    Hal Buttermore, Judge Director           313.665.1236

    Mike O'Brien                      FAX    313.485.BREW

MISC INFORMATION:

(1) e-mail to Dan McConnell will get you a snail-mail copy of this flyer

    (in color!) and entry forms. Last year entries-check your mailbox.

(2) User printed forms are acceptable and encouraged.

(3) Qualified Mead Judges are invited to judge this event. Contact Dan

    McConnell via e-mail or Hal Buttermore by telephone.

MEAD CATEGORIES:

1. SHOW:  Mead consisting of honey, water and yeast ONLY.  No spices,

    fruit or other flavoring additives permitted.  Addition of water

    treatments and acidification is permitted.

2. TRADITIONAL:  Mead consisting of honey water and yeast.  Other

    flavoring additives are permitted in small amounts, but the primary

    flavor must be of honey.

3. MELOMEL:  Fruit, other than Grapes or Apples.

4. CYSER:  Apples.

5. PYMENT:  Grapes.

6. HIPPOCRAS:  Spiced Pyment.

7. METHEGLIN:  Herbs and/or Spices.

8. BRAGGOT (BRACKET):  Malted barley (must be at least 50% honey).

SUBCATEGORIES:

a) Sparkling.

b) Still.

------------------------------


Old Time Root Beer Request

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1993 09:01:38 -0700

From: roth@avsan1.irvine.dg.com (John Roth)

Subject: Old Time Root Beer Request

Hi folks!  I'm in search of recipes and/or references regarding homemade

root beer.  On a recent trip to the local homebrew supply shop, the proprietor

bragged about the quality of homemade root beer as opposed to what is currently

available in a can.  My wife and son were in attendance, so I am now being

pressed to make some.  Please email any suggestions directly to me.

Thanks

 -John

------------------------------


getting rid of DMS

Date: 19 Apr 1993 13:33:11 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: getting rid of DMS

 Having narrowed down the causes of my lager off-flavours to

(way-)too much DMS either from bad yeast or slow cooling, I was wondering

if there is any way to flush out the excess DMS?  Is there any way to

encourage the yeast to consume it, or will renewing fermentation at a higher

temp scrub out some of it?  It's pretty undrinkable now, is there anything

I can do apart from bottle it in 2L bottles and hand it out to my friends

who don't know any better?  Is there anything (non-toxic) that will remove

or neutralize DMS (like maybe fruit acids or hot peppers)?  I really hate

throwing away a brew.

 ed

------------------------------


dry hopping - HELP!

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1993 11:07:23 -0800 (PDT)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: dry hopping - HELP!

I tasted my first batch of dry hopped beer yesterday.  The effect was great,

but I was disturbed to see all this "stuff" in the beer.  It was sticking to

the sides of the bottles, which had to be rotated to loosen it so it would

sink.  It only "sort of" sank and they all have this fairly thick, loosely

packed layer on the bottom - not at all pleasant.

Undoubtably the problem is that I dry hopped with pellets and just threw them

in the secondary (allowing extra space for the frothing which occurred).  I

assumed they'd all sink to the bottom but apparently there was enough in

suspension to give my sediment problem.  I left them for a total time of one

week.  I can think of two ways to get around it and would like comments from

those with experience.

(a) Use a fine-mesh hop bag for the hops.  Would this reduce the extraction?

(b) Use the same hop bag tied around the end of the racking cane when

siphoning out.  Would this become clogged?

Any comments are most welcome.

 Peter

P.S.  In my darkest nightmares I have the picture that the sediment is not

hops at all but due to some horrible infection.  Is any infection likely to

produce stuff like this?

------------------------------


clarity (Breiss vs GW)

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 13:06:44 CDT

From: jay marshall <marshall@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject: clarity (Breiss vs GW)

in #1121 Bob Jones says:

> After I switched to GW malt (from Breiss) my beers are much clearer

> before filtering.

Does anyone else care to comment on the clarity of beers brewed with

malts from different suppliers?  I had not noticed any differences, but

then I've not been looking for it either.  I usually attribute variations

in clarity and other qualities to my tendency to continually try new methods.

I have not looked specifically for those kinds of differences between

the various suppliers.  The reason I ask this is because I believe I

remember a thread a while back about Breiss-based beer having higher levels

of DMS (due to their direct-kilning methods and the need to reduce

nitrosamine levels using some kind of sulpher-based stuff??).  If there is

a clarity difference as well, would it also be a by-product of their kilning

methods, i.e. direct vs indirect?

BTW, I have two local suppliers of malt.  The closest one has Breiss, the

other (25 miles further away) carries GW where there is an option.  If there

is a consensus on this clarity issue, I might try and get the closer one

to carry some GW.

Jay

marshall@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov

------------------------------


Dry Hopping?/bar bottles/protein rest/Chimay Duh!

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 13:27 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Dry Hopping?/bar bottles/protein rest/Chimay Duh!

Michael writes:

>I dry hop most of my beers regardless of style (read HopHead here) and

>get satisfactory results with hop pellets.  However, the aroma associated

>with whole hops and plugs is quite appealing but the one attempt I made

>at dry hopping with whole hops was rather dissapointing.  I use glass

>carboys for primary and secondary and I could not get many whole hop

>cones into the secondary without creating a BIG mess.  How do you carboy

>users get whole hops and plugs into and out of your carboys with minimal

>fuss and contamination concerns?

I have been using 5 gallon carboys with a blowoff hose.  It's a rare yeast

that does not blow off enough room for an ounce of whole or plug hops.  I

tried dryhopping with pellets, but was disappointed with the results --

it appeared to me that the pellets sank to the bottom and were covered with

dying yeast, thereby negating their contribution.  The whole hops and plugs

that I use now float for at least 10 days (although I've found that much

more or less than 7 days provides less bouquet than 7 days exactly).  Also,

since the whole petals are much bigger than the small particles of pelletized

hops, they are less likely to get sucked-up by the siphon hose.  Last night,

I bottled a batch of American Pale ale.  The 1 ounce of whole Cascades had

been in the carboy (the primary) for 10 days (a bit longer than I wanted,

but unavoidable due to scheduling problems) and 95% of the petals were

floating on top, 5% were just sort of suspended.  I siphoned all but about

12 ounces out of the primary into the priming carboy and only one petal

made it into the priming carboy.  There was no clogging of the siphon.

Even if that one petal had been sucked up during bottling -- I'm certain

it would not have made it past the bottling valve.

*************************

Jack writes:

> A few weeks ago I walked to the neighborhood "bar" and was delighted to see

> big, tall, brown Bud bottles on the bar so I asked the nice lady if she could

> sell me some.  "Sell them, why you can have all you want." she said.

>

> As she started handing them to me I noticed they were imposters.  They all

> had screw tops and felt like delicate china.  So I headed for the local

> homebrew shop and bought a case of brand new long necks for about the same

> price as a case of Bud at the liquor store but I was saved the trouble of

> dumping out the Bud and removing the lables.

Few bars still use "bar bottles" but you only need to find one.  If you

can't, you can try finding a liquor store that sells Huber or Rheinlander

or even Budweiser in bar bottles (I know that Mainstreet Deli and Liquors

in Countryside does).  If they sell the beer in bar bottles, they accept

the empties.  Mainstreet will sell you a case of empty Rheinlander bottles

for $1.20 and you get a nice, strong, waxed-cardboard box too.

*****************

Tony writes:

>Is there any harm in giving a mash a protein rest even if the grain is fully

>modified?  It seems like good insurance if no harm is done.

No harm, just a bit more time.

***********************

I wrote:

>There are actually, four varieties of Chimay available in the US.  I feel

>that the 750ml, corked bottles are different enough from the 330ml, crown-

>capped versions, to be considered a different type.  I would not have

Duh!  How did I get an MSEE without simple arithmetic skills.  Three plus

three is six, not four.  There are six different products sold by Chimay

in the US.  (By the way, Mainstreet Deli and Liquors in Countryside, IL

just got in a shipment of all six so I know all six are currently being

imported.)

Al.

------------------------------


RE: 2112

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 16:42:02 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: 2112

Hi All,

 In HBD#1121, Philip J Difalco writes:

>My first endeavor is with the California Steam Beer

>Lager Yeast - Wyeast #2112, which is to ferment well up to 62^F.

>My test batch consisted of about 1.5 lbs of light DME, 3/8 oz.

>of Northern Brewer Hops, 4 oz. Clover Honey and 2 oz. peach

>marmalade - all boiled for about 45 mins.  This yielded about

>1 1/4 gallons of wort (I never took an SG reading).

>After the wort cooled, I added the starter and wort to a gallon

>jug, affixed an air-lock, and placed it in the basement (at 60^F).

>I got good blow-off the first day and a half.  It's been almost 6

>days now and the beer is still actively fermenting (bubble apprx.

>every 15s).

>

>QUESTIONS:

>1) This is my first attempt at a lager.  I've never seen fermentation

>   this active after 6 days.  Is this because it's only a 1 gallon

>   batch, or is this because of the qualities of a lager yeast?

>2) Wyeast #2112 is supposed to ferment well to 62^F, but would it

>   hurt to put this in a colder environment (my firdge)?

>3) I'm not planning on bottling until the apparent fermentation ceases,

>

>   or 3 weeks have elapsed, which ever is soonest - is this wise?

  I've used the 2112 for a half-dozen 5 gallon batches of steam beer,

I think what you're seeing is pretty typical of this yeast.

  The yeast seems to be a fairly slow worker.  I've fermented my batches

at 50F-58F, ambient basement temperatures at my place during the winter.

In each case, it took 9-14 days for the krausen to fall, and a good three

weeks for the beer to completely ferment out.  My first batch, kegged after

two weeks, had a fair amount of residual sweetness.  An additional week

at 55F cleared that up, but I'm not surprised you still had significant

activity on day 6.

  I believe 2112 is actually a lager yeast, one that doesn't produce harsh

flavors at warm fermentation temperatures, hence it's use for steam beer.

It wouldn't hurt to put it in the fridge, but I don't think that you would

get the muddy, rounded phenolic character of steam beer if you do.  The

batches I made that were fermented at 58F had noticeably more of this phenolic

character than the batches fermented at 50F.

  It's always advisable to hold off on bottling until fermentation ceases,

unless you're into glass grenades :-).  Based on my experience with this

yeast, I'd advise you to wait at least three weeks.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


Bulk malt

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 14:11 PDT

From: /O=vmspfhou/S=dblewis/DD.SITE=JSCPROFS/@NASAmail.nasa.gov

Subject: Bulk malt

***************************** PROFS Note *****************************

 From: DBLEWIS --VMSPFHOU            Date and time  04/19/93 16:10:27

 To: POSTMAN --NASAMAIL

 FROM: Dennis B. Lewis <InterNet:dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

 SUBJECT: Bulk malt

 I have a question for the net regarding storage of bulk malt grain. I've

 started moving toward all-grains and I'd like to start buying the grains in

 the 55-lb sacks from a mail-order place to save some cash. One problem I can

 see right now is storage of the grains. I live in Houston and it gets pretty

 humid here in the summer. While the house is air conditioned, I'm not sure

 that the humidity is low enough to protect the grains. Anybody have any ideas?

 Is it worth my time and money? I suppose that I could do it seasonaly and buy

 grains from the store for summer brews. I would probably go through a 55 lb

 bag in 2 maybe 3 months at my current brewing rate.

 Thanks in advance for all the expert advice.

 Dennis B. Lewis (713) 483-9145  **  NASA/JSC/DH65 Payload Ops

 Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


brewing videos?

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 14:10:52 PDT

From: Gary Rich <garyrich@qdeck.com>

Subject: brewing videos?

     Has anyone seen any good video tapes on the brewing process?  At my

     current point, going from following the directions on the can (nasty!) to

     all-grain snob I've come up against a number of things that it would help

     a lot to just _see_.  I haven't seen any videotapes on how to brew in the

     shops or brewspapers, but it seems like something that must be out there.

     I have friends that would like a primer to watch while they make those

     first few batches.  I also think videos on all-grain, decoction, etc

     would be a really good thing.

     If you like that how about a weekly TV show on home brewing?  Cable

     access anyone?

     -Gary R.-

              garyrich@qdeck.com

------------------------------


""Stretching" liquid yeasts

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 18:46:45 EDT

From: ab126@freenet.carleton.ca (Jay Cadieux)

Subject: ""Stretching" liquid yeasts

I've decided to make the change from dry to liquid yeast for my

next batch.  Can anyone tell me the procedure for "stretching"

liquid yeasts via culturing?  Thanks in advance...

- --

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jay A. Cadieux (ab126@freenet.carleton.ca, 1:163/277.1@fidonet.org).

"His mind is not for rent, to any God or government" - Rush, "Tom Sawyer"

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Re: Hops Primer

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 16:59:47 PDT

From: tpm%wdl80@wdl1.wdl.loral.com (Tim P McNerney)

Subject: Re: Hops Primer

Russ Gelinas writes:

>   Hops grow vertically as one or more vines that spiral up a twine or anything

 ...

> single plant can easily grow 40 feet tall when it is mature but growth

So we are talking a plant which after a year or two could reach 40

vertical feet.  Maybe I am missing some obvious trick (can you train or

force the hops to grow horizontally), but how do people handle such

growth?  Do you have weather balloons with twine attatched to give the

plants full growing room or just use telephone poles as the "plant stakes"?

And in either case, do you harvest using a crane or can you just scale the

critter?  Perhaps getting people to skydive in and grab a couple of cones

on their way down would work, but I would probably have to cough up a

homebrew for each in repayment and that would make for a tough trade.

Not that I am worried, mind you.  I expect my brown thumb alone will

confirm that none of my hop plants grow more than a manageable 4-5 feet.

But in case my best efforts are unable to control their growth, what

should I (have you) done?

Thanks.

________________________________

- --Tim McNerney

- --Loral Western Development Labs

- --(408) 473-4748

- --tpm@wdl1.wdl.loral.com

------------------------------


Root Beer

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 18:19:27 PDT

From: davidr@ursula.ee.pdx.edu

Subject: Root Beer

I'm looking for an old-time root beer recipe.  My great-great grandmother

used to make some.  I don't know if it was alcoholic or not, but if

anybody has either version, I'd appreciate a copy.

------------------------------


"objective" beer tasting

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 18:31:41 -0700

From: l200-cu@garnet.berkeley.edu (mARK wITTEMAN)

Subject: "objective" beer tasting

I write this note as a humble submission for help from a group of people

who obviously know their beer a whole lot better than I.  I have been

subscribing to HOMEBREW for about three weeks now, initially for the

novelty of it, but now for the fun facts and information it gives me.

Besides being a beer enthusiast, I am also a masters student at UC Berkeley's

School of Library and Information Studies.  I am looking to wed an academic

term project with my pension for good beers.  More specifically, an instructor

in the School has asked that we create a mock cataloging system for a co

collection of things (real or imagined -- and not necessarily bibliographic

in nature) for a hypothetical library or other collection.  My bright

idea is to create a catalog for the bottled beers of California Micro-

breweries!  The catalog would allow for a detailed description of the

beer including such things as:

 * Name of beer

 * Brewer and bottler

 * Ingredients (right down to the region or variety of hops and other

   stuff)

 * Color, nose, and flavor

 * Seasonality (Winter Ale?  Spring Bock?)

 * Stylistic family (Porter, dry stout, IPA, etc.)

What I need help with is defining the proper terms and definitions needed

to describe the type of beer (stylistic family, above) and the essential

qualities of beer (color, nose, and flavor, above).  Is there a handy

book that lays out the rules of "objective" beer tastin and judging?  Where

am I likely to find it?  For that matter, is there a source that will list

all the brews of California?

Obviously, I am an amateur at the beer and ale game.  I don't need mountains

of information, just a detailed outline.

Perhaps you're thinking,

"Hey!  This guy is a grad student, and a future librarian besides!  Why can't

he find this for himself?"  Well, I've tried.  If such a tome exists, it

has eluded my best formulated search strategies.  Take pity on me and send

whatever information you think might help.

Thanks in advance.

========================================================================

                                                   o

                                                * o

                                                     *

mARK h. wITTEMAN                              0000000000       STOUT

                                             00000000000       BITTER

MLIS Student                                 0==========       IPA

University of California                     0|.     . |===|   PORTER

Berkeley                                     0|  .  :  |  ||   PILSNER

                                             0| .   .  |  ||   BOCK

l200-cu@garnet.Berkeley.EDU                   |   .    |  ||   RAUCHBIER

                                              |  .    .|===|   SAISON

(Note that the first character in my          |.    .  |       WEISSBIER

 address is a lower-case 'L,' not a one.)     |   :    |       BARLEY WINE

                                              ~~~~~~~~~~

------------------------------


Cry for Help, Part II

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 18:38:30 -0700

From: l200-cu@garnet.berkeley.edu (mARK wITTEMAN)

Subject: Cry for Help, Part II

I should have mentioned in my first message that I already own a copy of

M. Jackson's _New World Guide to Beer_, which has been my brief introduction

into the world of beer tasting and beer families.  I need a little more

info than it provides in its introductory chapters.

========================================================================

                                                   o

                                                * o

                                                     *

mARK h. wITTEMAN                              0000000000       STOUT

                                             00000000000       BITTER

MLIS Student                                 0==========       IPA

University of California                     0|.     . |===|   PORTER

Berkeley                                     0|  .  :  |  ||   PILSNER

                                             0| .   .  |  ||   BOCK

l200-cu@garnet.Berkeley.EDU                   |   .    |  ||   RAUCHBIER

                                              |  .    .|===|   SAISON

(Note that the first character in my          |.    .  |       WEISSBIER

 address is a lower-case 'L,' not a one.)     |   :    |       BARLEY WINE

                                              ~~~~~~~~~~

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1123, 04/20/93

*************************************

-------


Hops Primer: a historic addendum

Date: 19 Apr 1993 22:04:53 -0500 (EST)

From: OIT_JAMES@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU

Subject: Hops Primer: a historic addendum

 Thanks to Russ Gelinas for sharing his primer.

After reading it, I wondered if some of the books in my

dusty library contained any relevant information.  I was

surprised to find a short essay on growing & harvesting

hops in an old Family Encyclopedia.   I have typed the

material as best I can, any mistakes are probably mine

and not in the original text.  I wonder if anyone has a

copyright on something this old?

_A New Family Encyclopedia; or Compendum of Universal

Knowledge: Comprehending a Plain and Practical View of

Those Subjects, Most Interesting to Persons, In the

Ordinary Profession of Life_. Edited by Charles A. Gooch,

New York, 1831.  Section II,  Art of Gardening, or

Horticulture, p459.

"    HOP.  Any bit of a root will grow and become a

plant.  The young plants should be planted in the fall,

three or four together in a clump, or hill, and the hills

should be seven to ten feet apart.  The first year of

planting, put four rods, or little poles, to each hill,

and let two vines up each pole, treading the rest of the

vines down to creep about the ground.  In a month after

the vines begin to mount the poles, cut off all the

creeping vines, and draw up a hill of earth around the

poles a foot high, covering all the crowns of the plant.

At the end of another month, draw some more earth up,

making the hill higher and higher.  When the fall comes,

cut off all the vines, that have gone up the poles, a

foot from the gound; take down the poles; dig down the

hills, and open the ground all round the crowns of the

plants; and before winter sets in, cut all down to the

very crowns, and then cover the crowns with earth three

or four inches thick.  Through this earth, the hop-shoots

will start in spring.  You will want but eight of them to

go up your four poles; and the rest, when three inches

long, you may cut, and eat as asparagus.  This year you

put poles 20 feet long to your hops.  Proceed the same as

before, only make your hills larger; and this year you

will have plenty of hops to gather for use.  Be sure to

open the ground every fall; and cut all off close down to

the crown of the plants.  They are fit to gather when you

see, upon opening the leaves of the hop, a great deal of

yellow dust, and when the seeds which you will find at

the sockets of the leaves of the hop, begin to be plump.

Gather them nicely, and let no leaves or stalks be amoung

them, and lay them out on a cloth to dry in the sun,

taking care that no rain or dew fall on them.  When

perfectly dry, put them, very hardly and closely pressed

into a new bag, made of thick Russia linen; and in this

state they will keep good, and fit to use, for twenty, or

perhaps, three times twenty years."

  _ The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping_ from

Sierra Club Books, 1982, includes the following

information:

 The vine can attain 25 feet in a season.  A hop

vine can be trained on a trellis or with support posts to

become a small weeping tree, and therefore can be grown

in a container or planter box.  The vines require rich

soil, good drainage, plenty of water after growth starts,

and full sunlight.  The book also recommends thining the

shoots early in the spring, and eating what you harvest.

Mildew, aphids, and mites can be a problem.

  An organic gardening encyclopedia I have contained

information about what to do with the spent hops,

including amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus, if anyone

is interested.  I was going to send it as well, but this

has gotten pretty lengthy and my fingers are worn out.

** remember a standard disclaimer now **

James Wilson

oit_james@vax1.acs.jmu.edu

------------------------------


Whitbread warning

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 00:37:05 -0500

From: oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (donald oconnor)

Subject: Whitbread warning

In HBD #1122 George Fix suggests calling Seth Schneider at Crosby and

Baker for first hand information regarding the Whitbread and Mauri

yeasts.  Curiously, my posts on this subject were in part based on first

hand information contained in recent conversations with Seth.  These

chats were in fact prompted by George's earlier posts.  It was

Seth's opinion, in view of all the data including George's plate counts,

that the new Whitbread should be regarded as neither inferior nor

superior to the old Whitbread.  As of two weeks ago, Crosby and Baker

had not decided whether or not to distribute the Mauri yeast.

------------------------------


damp barley grind, bread yeast, historical

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 12:25:15 MET DST

From: THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch

Subject: damp barley grind, bread yeast, historical

hell all,

Russ Gelinas (hbd1123) mentioned getting good results by chance, when

he used a corona to crush "damp" malt. Well, this is sort of similar

to the wet grinding that is often used in mainland europe to crush

grains. The theory is if you could wet the outside of the grains

without doing the same to the inside, then the husk would just split

(being more elastic in a moist state) and the goodies inside would still

be crushed finely. In practice, it works. However, usually there are

two alternatives to wetting:

1. using steam treatment;

2. Contact with the strike water (which for these mashes is at ca. 30 deg. C,

decoction) for a certain amount of time ---- down to 7 seconds!!.

I've been experimenting with lager grains from Hurlimann (which

just crumble to dust in a Marcato Mulino mill) by spraying them with

a plant sprayer just before the crush. This makes a great improvement,

although I imagine nothing like a MaltMill(TM). Once I have my method down

I'll post full "instructions".

**********************

Jack in the same hbd mentioned his experiment with fleishmann's (sp)

bread yeast. I have also tried a couple of brews, with the locally

available "bread" yeast. In all honesty one batch was highly clovy,

but the other (albeit a heavy dark beer) was not overwhelmingly so.

I suspect that my yeast was not actually bred  for bread use, but

was actually produced by a brewery.

I must say, given another source of proper yeast, I'd never use

bread yeast again.

*********************

Finally, I'm still getting inquiries about the historical recipes

from the 1820's book I've got a copy of. I have posted all but

the table beer, but these may have been missed.

Could you mail me with a subject line: history yes

if you think I should post again.

If I get sufficient responses I'll post, otherwise I'll

send direct (if you already asked me directly, could you remail me,

we have a serious disk space shortage on this machine, which means I

get scrubbed very often.)

Rob Thomas.

P.S. how does everyone do those trailing remarks/quotes.... I presume

they are automatic.?

------------------------------


Nashville, TN, brewpubs

Date: 20 Apr 93 07:46:00 EST

From: "ROBERT W. HOSTETLER" <8220RWH@indy.navy.mil>

Subject: Nashville, TN, brewpubs

I'll be in Nashville this weekend, and any info on local brewpubs

would be greatly appreciated. With TN's wierd liquor laws, they

might not even be legal... Private responses welcomed.

Bob Hostetler    8220rwh@indy.navy.mil

    or roberth131@aol.com

------------------------------


immersion chillers revisited

Date: 20 Apr 1993 10:42:18 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: immersion chillers revisited

     I would like to both recant my post to yesterday's HBD, and

respond to another post in that same issue concerning immersion

chillers.  Just so you won't have to look it up, I made a flat

spiral chiller from 1/4" OD tubing.  I mentioned that the

resistance was very high, and that people thinking of going 1/4"

should either a) think again or b) buy lots of hose clamps.

     I now say ignore a), go for b).  I did a temperature test run

last night.  This thing dropped 5 gallons of rolling boil water

down to 70F in under 15 minutes.  The outflow water was initially

hot, but no hotter than tap water.  I had the cold water running

into the centre and spiraling out, creating (to a very limited

degree) a counterflow efect.  Best of all, since the coldest spot

was dead centre at the top of the wort, it created a significant

convection current.  I never had to stir the liquid once, and

temperature readings showed very little difference throughout the

pot.  I was genuinely impressed.

 ed

  ___

 /   /   /     Ed Hitchcock                   +<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>+

|      0  /   Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology  +    Drink             +

|          > Dalhousie University             +     Noise / Make     +

|      0  /   Beer Wasteland                  +              Beer    +

 /___/   /     ech@ac.dal.ca                  +<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>+

------------------------------


Easymashs

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 08:53 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Easymashs

 >From: mcglew@sde.mdso.vf.ge.com (McGlew Raymond)

 >Subject: Easymash

 >I was at my neighborhood hardware store recently looking for ss screen

 for an easymash (home made) when I spotted some springs, some of which

 were loosely coiled (i.e. had about 1/8 to 1/2 inch spaces between

 coils.  If I bought one that would snugly fit over copper tubing, and

 pinched off the other end, this might work great (especially if I waited

 until alter the mash and placed the copper tube siphon-like into the

 mash kettle.  Anything wrong with this idea?

 Nothing other than the range of "1/8 to 1/2 in spaces".  That goes from

 almost adequate to just about useless.  The mesh size I use on the EM

 strainer is 32, i.e 32 holes to the inch.  That makes the opening

 considerably less than 1/32" when the wire size is taken into consideration.

 Furthermore, the spring is likely to bend and change the spacing during use.

 You can buy the screen you need for about 10 cents and I don't see any

 advantage in the spring.

 js

------------------------------


Infection in Plastic Primary

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 9:47:16 CDT

From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>

Subject: Infection in Plastic Primary

Forwarded message:

 I just wanted to write in after seeing the messages on skimming out of a

 plastic fermenter.  My last batch that I brewed (a "Golden" ale that I

 formulated to be a cheaper and faster quaffing alternative to my other

 brews) was placed in a plastic fermenter for the primary fermentation.

 It didn't seem as though the lid fit as tightly as it once had, because

 there was nary a jiggle of the airlock the whole time, but I could see

 the Krausen rise and fall.  Anyway after 4 or 5 days I racked to my

 glass secondary and after a few days I noticed what looked like large

 spots on the surface of the brew but closer inspection showed them to be

 composed of tiny bubbles.  I popped the airlock off and smelled the

 brew, but couldn't detect any off odor.  I swirled the contents around

 and the bubbles dissipated, but within a day they were back.  It just

 doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before, and I thought that

 once the beer was fermenting and alcoholic that it wouldn't support an

 infection.  Has anyone had such a problem before?

 Tony Johnston

 Homebrewer and Chemist    (Better Living through Zymurgy)

 anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu

------------------------------


The Ultimate Chiller?

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 08:14:54 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: The Ultimate Chiller?

In the last digest Richard Childers suggested an immersion chiller that

might be stirred and parallel cooling chillers. Well tommorrow is here... In

my talk at the AHA conference, one of the topics will a motor driven

stirred parallel immersion chiller. Micah and I will be discussing several

of our home grown hair brained ideas. For those that are attending I won't

spill the beans about how much better it works. I'll just invite you all

along. I will tell you that it IS better! I will bring pictures and slides of

the chiller for all sceptics to see.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Chimay Yeast Problem

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 10:01:50 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Chimay Yeast Problem

I recently cultured yeast from a bottle of Chimay and used it in an ale

recipe.  The fermentation went fine but the yeast are extremly reluctant

to settle out.  It's been in the secondary for 10 days and only the top

inch has clarified!  Two questions:

  1) Has anyone had problems w/chimay taking a long time to settle out?

  2) Any suggestions for helping out the process?  I could add some

     clarifying agents but at this stage I'm concerned about infection

     sense fermentation is complete and no CO2 is being produced.

WAK

|- William A Kitch                          (512) 471-4929 -|

|- Geotechnical Engineering                                -|

|- ECJ 9.227                                               -|

|- Univ of Texas at Austin, TX 78712-1076                  -|

------------------------------


RE: dry hopping - HELP!

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 12:02:03 -0400

From: ""Robert C. Santore"" <rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: RE: dry hopping - HELP!

In HBD 1123 Peter Maxwell notes:

 > I tasted my first batch of dry hopped beer yesterday.  The effect was great,

 > but I was disturbed to see all this "stuff" in the beer.  It was sticking to

 > the sides of the bottles, which had to be rotated to loosen it so it would

 > sink.  It only "sort of" sank and they all have this fairly thick, loosely

 > packed layer on the bottom - not at all pleasant.

Ah, Peter.  Let me relate a similar dry-hopping experience.

It involves a pale ale I brewed that I wanted to try dry hopping . . .

like your batch, this was the first time I ever dry hopped.  I used

Cascade pellets in the secondary, about 5 days before bottling.  When

I bottled the beer tasted fantastic, and with a beautiful hop aroma.

I put the batch down for the requisite conditioning, and after ten days

wanted to have my first carbonated taste.  To my horror, there was this

almost feathery white growth throughout all of the bottles.  I chilled

one and tasted it - YUCK!  It was undrinkable.  I was devastated.  I

imagine some beasty got in with the hops.  I know the batch was not

otherwise contaminated, because I used a cup of the yeast from this

batch's primary to start another batch that came out wonderfully well.

Anyway, I left the beer in the cellar thinking that some day I'd have

to open all those bottles and dump it down the drain.  I had never had

a throwaway and was not looking forward to it.  Well, I'm good at not

getting around to do unpleasant tasks, so I waited about three months

before I draged the cases upstairs to do the dirty deed.  At the last

minute I decided to put one in the fridge and wait 'till the next day.

Incredibly, this batch turned out great!  It is unlike anything I've

ever had before.  Whatever awful flavor developed early on is completely

gone.  I have no doubt that there was an infection.  Even now there is

this very fluffy sediment that stirrs up easily, and the beer is over-

carbonated.  That is an unfortunate combination, because as soon as you

pop the top, the bubbles rising up through the sediment cause it to mix

all throughout the bottle.  What I do now is get the bottles real cold,

then take an opener and crack the top just enough to let out the gas,

then recap (with the same cap) and stick it back in the fridge.  That

solves the overcarbonation problem.  When pouring I leave an inch in

the bottle to pour a clear glass, or if it's just for me I don't even

worry about it.  So the moral is, even if you do have an infection and

some nasty tasting beer, don't be too hasty to dump it.  I am not sure

I'd want to repeat this brew (it really is wonderful, but man is it

hard to wait four months before you find out if you have beer or sewer

water).  I've been reluctant to dry hop ever since, but the hop-tea

alternative just does not give the same result.

Anyone out there have a way of sanitizing hops without destroying the

aroma?

Bob Santore

rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu

------------------------------


Metallic Cherry Beer, or the cheapskate always loses

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 10:09:13 -0600

From: coronell@cadesm24.eng.utah.edu (Charles Coronella)

Subject: Metallic Cherry Beer, or the cheapskate always loses

I recently made my third annual cherry beer.  I was excited to use my new

4-gallon (aluminum) pot for the boil.  I got this pot real cheap($12), and it

would allow me to do nearly full boils.  When I  transferred the beer to

secondary, the taste was pretty good, but had a slight metallic flavoring.

Unusual, but I'm used to strange flavors in my beers.  Hell, that's one of the

reasons I brew.  I thought nothing of it.  But apparently, the taste got

stronger with time.  It was prominent at  bottling, and the metallic taste has

become overwhelming in the bottled beers.  For the first time, I find myself

pouring my own brews down the drain!!  :-(

My previous pot was aluminum, but gave no perceptable metal flavors.  I've

been looking for a low cost, full sized kettle, and thought that I'd found an

inexpensive alternative.  Guess I was wrong.  Let this be a warning for all

the cheapskates out there.  Any suggestions on where to find 28-quart

stainless kettles for less than $150?

Wonder if all this aluminum has anything to do with my recent memory loss

problems...

- ---------------------

On another note, I'd like to congratulate all the recent contributors to the

HBD for being so well behaved.  And especially, I'd like to thank Rob for

maintaining the HBD.  Also,  I note that there's been a small backlog of

submissions, so that a note might not appear for a day or two.  I think it

would help if everyone tried their best to keep posts short (including

 .sig files and quoted text from previous posts.)

Chuck  coronellrjds@che.utah.edu

?

------------------------------


lauter tun and fridge questions

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 11:05:59 CDT

From: atzeiner@iastate.edu

Subject: lauter tun and fridge questions

I am going to start partial grain and then all grain brewing soon and I have

started to make a Zapap lauter tun.  I drilled all the holes in the bottom of

a 4 gal. pail and the bottom of it is around 3 inches from the bottom of the

other 4 gal. pail.  I think I remember reading that it's better to have only

about 1 1/2 inches from the strainer part to the bottom of the outer pail.  Is

that right??  Also, how far from the bottom of the outer pail do you want to

make the draining hole??( I think I read 1/2 inch)  Another question I have

is, what is the best way to disperse the sparging water into this kind of

lauter tun?  I know it should be sorta sprinkled rather that just poured into

the tun.  Is there a specific HBD digest that has good info on sparging

technique?  I would like to know a little more that the basics that are in

TNCJOHB...

 Also, I just bought an old fridge so I can brew in the summer and it's

the old kind with just a single door.  The freezer part is just a little metal

thing at the top with a small plastic door.  I figure that I would remove the

door from the freezer so that when the thermostat turns the fridge on, the

freezer section will cool the rest of the fridge.  Is there any reason to not

do this?

 I am also wondering what kind of external temperature controllers are

the best and where they can be gotten the cheapest...  I saw a couple of ads

in Zymurgy for these for $30 and $32, but I dont know what kind they are.

Thanks...Andy

------------------------------


Re: Hops Primer

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 09:28:30 -0700

From: Drew Lynch <chrnlgc!ra!drew@uucp-gw-2.pa.dec.com>

Subject: Re: Hops Primer

>  Not that I am worried, mind you.  I expect my brown thumb alone will

>  confirm that none of my hop plants grow more than a manageable 4-5 feet.

>  But in case my best efforts are unable to control their growth, what

>  should I (have you) done?

  My plants went about 20' the first year.  I simply tied strong brown

twine (the really coarse kind) to the exposed beams at the second

floor roofline.  They climb like mad.  This year, I am adding more

lengths of twine.  I have two hop plants in planters, one on each side

of my porch.  They each grow up a 6'x 1' vertical trellis rooted in

the soil in the large pot, onto a 2'x 8' horizontal trellis mounted to

the fence on each side, and from there to four strings reaching from

each side up to a central point on the roofline.  This should create a

really nice shady hop canopy for those hot summer months. Harvesting

is as simple as reaching out my second floor bedroom window and

snipping the twine.

  Hoppy Gardening,

   Drew

------------------------------


German Weissbier yeast

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 9:45:54 PDT

From: davep@cirrus.com (David Pike)

Subject: German Weissbier yeast

Anybody out there in HBD land have a good weissbier yeast for let. Please

contact me by private email. Thank you.

Dave

------------------------------


Oregon hops and storing grain

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 12:01:36 PDT

From: tinsethg@ucs.orst.edu (Glenn Tinseth)

Subject: Oregon hops and storing grain

Recently Joel Birkeland asked about hops in Oregon and whether there are

any U-Pick hop fields. First of all, the Mt. Angel area is a big hop

growing center, at least a thousand acres of hop fields of every

imaginable variety. Unfortunately for the homebrewer, U-Pick hops doesn't

happen as far as I know. The hops are machine harvested and

immediately kilned and baled, and then sold either directly to the big

brewers under contract or to any of a number of brokers.

Yakima, WA is definitely the US hop center with Oregon and Idaho in 2nd and

3rd positions. California and New York were both historically hop producers

but are not commercial today. Hops will grow just about anywhere but to be

commercially competitive requires just the right conditions (Yakima being as

close to perfect as the US has to offer).

Hopefully those of you coming to our fair state in July for the conference

will have an opportunity to tour a hop yard or two. Let me know via email

if there is much interest and I may be able to set up something (no promises)

since several of the big Oregon hop farms are just up the road from my farm.

Cheers,

Glenn Tinseth

The Hop Source

tinsethg@ucs.orst.edu

(503)873-2879

------------------------------


WE'D LIKE TO INVITE YOU T

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 19:18 GMT

From: "ROSQUETE.WNETS385" <6790753%356_WEST_58TH_5TH_FL%NEW_YORK_NY%WNET_6790753@mcimail.com>

Subject: WE'D LIKE TO INVITE YOU T

     Date: 20-Apr-93      Time: 03:13 PM       Msg: EXT04099

WE'D LIKE TO INVITE YOU TO "RUN AWAY" WITH US IN JUNE AT THE "CORPORA

TE      CHALLENGE". TOMORROW IS THE LAST DAY TO SIGN UP FOR THE RUN I

N CENTRAL PARK, A  SPECIAL RUNNER'S T-SHIRT & A PICNIC. Call 4981

------------------------------


Immersion Chiller <swan song>

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 15:44:13 EDT

From: eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West)

Subject: Immersion Chiller <swan song>

One last try, after this, I give up.

Given any particular wort chiller, the object of the game is to remove heat

from the wort as quickly as possible until it reaches the target temp.

The way to do this is to keep the chiller as cold as possible for as much of

its length as possible. If the output water is hot, the last portion of your

chiller is warmer than it should be. The way to keep the chiller cold is to

run as much cold water through the chiller as possible, the limiting factor

here is mechanical, not thermodynamic; how much pressure can you put on your

chiller before you blow a fitting? :) IF you are putting maximum available

flow through your chiller, you're getting the fastest cooling your system will

give you.

Yes, this uses a lot of water.

Do you want to save water or get a good cold break?

That's the question you have to answer.

Keep in mind when you think about this that heat and temperature are different

concepts and that raising the _temperature_ of the cooling water is _not_

the object of the game, the object of the game is to pump as much _heat_

as possible out of the _wort_ as quickly as possible.

- -- Carl

Keep the chiller as cold as possible.

There, I'm done.

Was it good for you?

------------------------------


Re: Immersion chiller architecture

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 15:23:15 MDT

From: frank@Solbourne.COM (Frank Jones)

Subject: Re: Immersion chiller architecture

In #1123 richard childers asks

 ->On that thread, has anyone considered a parallel chiller architecture ?

 Well, yes I have. . . more than considered it, I built and use

one.

 I've been following this thread with some interest myself.

When first presented with the problem of a wort chiller, my thoughts

were that the surface area of most commercial chillers is

insufficient. My thought process was that the majority of the heat

exchange would take place in the first few feet, and as the

temperature of the water inside the tube approached the temperature of

the wort the heat exchange rate would flatten off, so that the rest of

the tubing would be mostly exhaust with little heat exchange

properties. This is more intuitive than proven fact, not wanting to go

to that much effort to build bunches of test chillers. I have some

experience with auto air conditioning design and construction in a

previous lifetime (BC :=: Before Computers :) ). It was the normal

practice of condenser and evaporator design to split the flow of

coolant into multiple paths, and to obtain maximum tube surface area

by finning the coils.  With that preamble. . .

 My chiller: I dismissed the concept of finning the tubing

because of cleaning issues (but that would undoubtedly make it most

efficient). The design I ended up with needs one modification (e.g., I

need to build another one to fix it, and haven't yet) which I'll cover

after the description.  The chiller uses four circuits of 1/4 inch

soft copper tubing, each coil is about 9' to 10' in length and is

coiled like an electric stove burner element, with the exit tube

running under the coil (from the inside) to return to the outside of

the coil (and support the coil as well) approximately 2" from the

inlet tube. I attached these coils to an inlet and exit manifold that

was made from a 1" rigid tube, elbowed vertically, with an elbow on

top for the hose attachment. This allows several things to work

together, in that the manifolds are close together (convenient hand

hold), the coils are made to be about 4" smaller in diameter than my

brew pot and vertically only take up about 5" of space, so the coils

are below the surface of the wort. This allows me to to use a gentle

side to side motion while the chiller is running, but keep the coils

below the surface, and with the manifolds together I can keep the lid

mostly on the pot, to keep airborne stuff out. I used 1/4" tubing

because the volume to surface area is greater than on 3/8", and it is

easier to bend by hand without kinking. The 4-to-1 manifold was made

by flattening a short section of 1" rigid tubing so that 4-1/4" tubes

would slip fit into the flattened tube, then it was staked with a

small chisel between the 1/4 tubes to minimize the gap area needed to

be filled with solder.

 I had wanted to run some "scientific" type tests against a

friend's commercially built chiller to see how fast it is under the

same conditions, e.g., start with boiling water, same cold water

source, and measure times to drop to certain temperatures, but haven't

had much time for that kind of thing lately. (I intend to do so in the

near future.)  My chiller will take boiling wort down to 60 deg F in

less than 10 mins, which if memory serves me is faster that my

friend's chiller.

 Flaw in this design: Solder. I used lead free silver, but

there is still the problem of solder in contact with the wort. I was

careful to clean all the joints so the surface contact is minimal. I

do use it currently but the next chiller will have the inlet and

exhaust tubes turn vertically in a bundle and the manifolds will be

above the surface, thus removing the solder problem.

 This chiller required a lot of work, and isn't for someone

that hasn't had a lot of experience with a soldering torch, but I'm

very happy with the results.

If anyone wants more details/has questions, email to me directly.

chill out folks. . . :)

fj..

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Franklin R. Jones                          National Technical Support Engineer

frank@Solbourne.COM  <-Internet...snail->  Solbourne Computer Inc.

    303.678.4769                           1900 Pike Road

fax 303.772.3646                           Longmont, CO 80501

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"If we are not supposed to play with words...

                                               then why do we have so many??

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  . . .and from a co-worker that I have turned into a homebrewer, just

  by proximity! :) A chiller with a slightly different bent. (sorry I

  had to. ;)

  Meet Ken ("KJ") Sullivan.

===============================

Hi,

This is a followup to Frank Joneses posting about a multi-coil parallel

chiller.  Frank introduced me to homebrewing.  I consider him to be

very knowledgeable.  I've been listening to him talk about the

redesigned chiller and decided to build one for myself.  I hate

plumbing.  I used 4 sections of 3/8" soft copper tube each about 12'

long, coiled into a spiral.  The solder connections are made outside

of the wort.  I used a 'T' with short, capped off sections on either

side, and drilled 3/8" holes for the coils.  One 'T' is the water

source, the other 'T' is the drain.

                        [] <- hose thread

                        ||

                        ||

                     ___||___

                    [________] <- 'T' w/ caps & holes

                     ||||||||

                    // |||| //

                   // //  // // <- 3/8"x12' copper coils

                   || ||   || ||

                   || ||   || ||

                  input to coils

The return from the coils drains into another 'T' setup and out a

drain hose.  I assembled it using a wire tube bender, 1/2" rigid pipe

and fittings, lead-free solder and a propane torch.  I had to resolder

some joints after I pressure tested it.  I cleaned it, cleaned it,

cleaned it, and boiled it.  It seemed to work pretty good. :-) I sorta

goofed, I wound the 1st coil one way and the remain three another.  It

still works.  I would suggest using 1/4" tube for tighter coils and

less wort displacement.  Also, wind all the coils the same way,

starting from the outside winding inwards and coming out from the

center. I separated the coils with books while I soldered them into

the 'T's.  Kinda tricky :)

KJ

------------------------------


Fleishman's yeast, wetting malt

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 18:32:27 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bizet.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Fleishman's yeast, wetting malt

In 1123 js spoke of a beer he made with plated out Fleischman's.  A pale bock

I made by adding adding a number of cakes to the wort won a ribbon in a

competition.  In another competition the worst comment was some ale character,

high temp fermentation? or dried yeast?  Hardly a total disaster.  The other

judge thought it might be oxidized but he was listed as a novice and the first

of 5 judges or so to so judge the beer.  Last competition I am entering.  It is

disgracful to enter a contest paying someone money to drink your beer and not

even getting a qualified judgement.  It is about time I wrote AHA a snotty

letter.  Oops a bit of a sidetrack.  Anyway, I suggest that Jack's plated out

yeast was one of the contaminent yeasts rather than the predominant one.

Fleischmans is not pure culture, but it is probably no worse than good dried

yeasts.

Russ Gelinas spoke of a good grind he achieved in a Corona with damp yeast.

I read somewhere (a German source, I think) that better grinds can be

achievedbysoaking the grains for 40 seconds prior to grinding.  I guess the

reason for this may be that the outside of the husks is lubricated slightly

reducing shredding.  Wet milling is another commercial technique.  I think

i`ll try misting the grains slightly next time I brew to see if it helps.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@bach.helios.nd.edu

------------------------------


Bring the king's taster!

Date: Tuesday, 20 April 93 21:25:27 CST

From: LLROW@UTXDP.DP.UTEXAS.EDU

Subject: Bring the king's taster!

Yesterday I carved a hole in my old fermentation bucket (I now use

glass carbouys for both stages) in order to fashion a bottling bucket with

spigot.  I got carried away and ended up with a hole too big to fit the

spigot gaskets well enough to keep water from trickling out.  Out of

desperation and in fear of having to buy a new bucket if I felt like

continuing, I closed part of the hole up with a silicon sealant.  Does

anyone else think this was a bad idea?  The sealant does not say that

it's food grade, nor does it say anything about the health risks of the

cured silicon (only the ropy stuff that stinks of molten horse bones).

Will this affect my beer if it's only in contact for 10-20 min as I run

it through whilst bottling?  Should I peel the silicon off and try larger

gaskets?

Steve

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1124, 04/21/93

*************************************

-------


Dupage County Homebrew Club

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 21:14 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: Dupage County Homebrew Club

There's a new homebrew club forming in the western suburbs of

Chicago in Dupage County.  The first meeting will be:

          Date: Friday, April 30th

          Location: My house

          Time: 8pm

If you plan to attend, contact myself or Todd for the address.

If the weather is accommodating the meeting will be outside so if

you're a potato you might want to bring a chair. If it's indoors,

those of you who are allergic to cats, beware.

Chris Campanelli    akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us  (708) 833-9059

Todd Williams      todd@gold.rtsg.mot.com        (708) 971-8692

------------------------------


golden ale, dry hopping, fusels

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 07:41:04 EDT

From: fingerle@NADC.NAVY.MIL (J. Fingerle)

Subject: golden ale, dry hopping, fusels

Anthony Johnston writes:

 I just wanted to write in after seeing the messages on skimming out of a

 plastic fermenter.  My last batch that I brewed (a "Golden" ale that I

 placed in a plastic fermenter for the primary fermentation.

     Strangely enough, me too.

 Anyway after 4 or 5 days I racked to my

 glass secondary and after a few days I noticed what looked like large

 spots on the surface of the brew but closer inspection showed them to be

 composed of tiny bubbles.

     Again, strangely enough, me too.  Actually a friend pointed out the

     spots which, as I suspected, were actually clusters of very

     small bubbles.  To me, this is nothing more then the evidence

     of continued fermentation.  I have had them before with no problems.

 I popped the airlock off and smelled the

 brew, but couldn't detect any off odor.  I swirled the contents around

 and the bubbles dissipated, but within a day they were back.  It just

 doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before, and I thought that

 once the beer was fermenting and alcoholic that it wouldn't support an

 infection.  Has anyone had such a problem before?

     Yeah, me, but I'm not so sure its a problem.  While the alcohol

     in the beer will aid in preventing an infection, it is my

     understanding that it is not an absolute guarentee.  As for what

     you are describing, I'd suggest that your batch is ok.

Other topics:

There's been a lot of talk lately about dry-hopping, hop tea, etc.

Are there any guidlines on what quantity of hops to use?  A half

ounce, an ounce, what?

Regarding the subject of blowoff and/or skimming the krausen foam-I

generally rack to the secondary after the vigourous fermentation has

slowed, but before the krausen head "de-bubbles" and settles into

the beer.  What ends up happening is that the siphon removes the beer

from the middle of the primary, leaving the sediment (bottom) and

krausen (top) behind.  Is this sufficent to keep the fusel oils

and off flavors of the krausen out of my beer?

And, finally, a personal thanks to Joe Mulligan for the recent

recipe.  Sorry to waste BW, but mail to him keeps bouncing!

- --

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

name:  Jimmy                           I will have a cabinet that

email: fingerle@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL     "looks like America."     -Bill Clinton

 -or-   fingerle@NADC.NAVY.MIL          He does-13 of 18 are lawyers!    -Jimmy

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

------------------------------


Wort pots

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 06:05:35 PDT

From: Brew Your Own  21-Apr-1993 0905 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Wort pots

re: Chuck  coronellrjds@che.utah.edu

I purchased a stainless steel 20 qt (5 gal) pot at Lechmere's (discount

deptartment store chain in New England) for $25.00.  SO far, it has worked

very good.  I tend not to boil much more then 3gal worth in there.  This is

not one of those heavy-duty resturant types - it is pretty flimsy (read: thin).

Again, it works well, and for $25.00 for stainless steel, I ain't complainin'!

JC Ferguson

Digital Equip. Corp.

------------------------------


First and Second Runnings

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 09:49:35 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: First and Second Runnings

Noonan's Scotch Ale book has a discussion of "double mashing" and

getting both high and low gravity beers from one batch of grain.

Pretty good book, he's a little repetitious in spots, but lots of good

info.  TONS of recipes!

=S

------------------------------


Celis beer gossip

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 15:22 GMT

From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>

Subject: Celis beer gossip

Last night (Tuesday) was the first of three nights of Belgian

beer tastings at the Brickskeller; the same program will be

offered each night.  The program included the Celis line (with

Pierre in attendance), the return of Rodenbach Grand Cru, and

Timmerman's Framboise, Scaldis, and Saison Dupont.  The F. Boon

beers were originally scheduled in place of these last three, but

they mysteriously disappeared somewhere en route between Belgium

and Washington.  (Anybody seen Mike Sharp lately?)  Anyway,

here's some information gleaned from the Celis portion of the

program.

General:

1) Hops: all the beers use Willamette and Cascade (!) except for

the Golden, which uses Saaz.

2) Yeast: Pierre uses his own for all but the Golden, which uses

a Czech yeast.  Yeast is used once and discarded.  (This was

touted as a purity thing, but I suspect the stuff is hard to work

with; I'd heard from a Belgian brewer that the Hoegaarden strain

had become infected about two years ago and had been replaced.

Also Pierre Celis is obviously a knowledgable businessman, and

undoubtely realizes the economies that can come from reuse.)

3) Packaging: all the beers except the white are filtered.

The beers:

1) Golden: a lager.  Well, I'll believe it if they say so,

but...you sure could have fooled me!  This is a very soft beer

with a wild-honey character.  Don't get me wrong--I like the

stuff, but Pierre admitted it was the first lager he'd ever made,

and I suspect he doesn't have a German-style lager bone in his

body.

2) Pale bock.  Much to my own discredit, this one had always had

me puzzled, as it sure doesn't taste Belgian, or like a bock beer

either.  It turns out to be a.....pale ale.  Actually, once this

was mentioned it made immediate sense--has British-style hopping,

good crystal malt color, and caramel flavor.  Let it go flat and

it could pass for a glass of Evrard's.  The story (subject to

reality checks as mentioned below) is that a beer can't be called

an ale in Texas unless it is a minimum of 5% ABV.  This one is

just below that, so they called it something else.

3) The white: Before the tasting I had a bottle of Dentergems

white, and was patting my back for doing so well with my own

white clone.  Then we had the fresh, kegged Celis white, and it

was like when they go from black and white to color in the Wizard

of Oz.  Back to the drawing board.  Yet more proof, if any is

needed, that fresh kegs from a good brewery are unbeatable, while

old bottles from a good brewery most certainly are.

     The first thing I'll do, too, is to triple the coriander.

     They use a blend of various orange peels--brewable details

were not forthcoming.

4) Grand Cru: No special information was offered.

Pierre is quite talkative, although his English is more

functional than fluent, and very friendly.  He does speak French

as well as Flemish, so anybody out there who wants to practice

can get a workout.  We conjugated verbs together during the

break.

     All said, I'm pretty sure that some of the information we

received had been tailored, embroidered, omitted, or spin

doctored for public distribution.  Nothing malicious, but perhaps

devious in a sporting way.  For instance, they went into great

detail about the dangers of autolysis, which seems to me to be an

excuse for filtering beers that were never filtered back in

Belgium.  There was the bit about the yeast, and they also went

on and on about "Why Austin"?  Explanations included the

sunshine, the water, central location, location of his previous

importer (who is now director of marekting at Celis).  Well, all

this is probably true, but Pierre's also pretty conservative,

real entrepreneurial with a strong work ethic, and would probably

fit into Texas without too much trouble.  He thinks Europe

doesn't have much of a future (he may be right), and prefers a

place where people get rewarded for hard work.  At any rate, he

seems to be settling into the U.S. quite comfortably.

Those familiar with Celis' partnership problems and the Interbrew

buyout will be pleased to hear that the new brewery was financed

with the buyout proceeds and that there appear to be no pesky

partners on the horizon.

Phil Seitz

PSEITZ@MCIMAIL.COM

------------------------------


Re: Immersion Chillers

Date: 21 Apr 1993 09:40:21 -0600 (CST)

From: Robert Schultz <SCHULTZ@admin2.usask.ca>

Subject: Re: Immersion Chillers

 I made my chiller out of 1/8" id copper tubing (it was the right price -

$4.00 for ~ 20').  I made a couple of connectors to attach it to a garden hose.

It works great, ~30 minutes to take boiling wort to pitching: could have used a

few more feet of tubing... cold water in at the top of the helix to aid in

convection...but I still stir it around a fair bit...

Rob.

------------------------------


Chiller Thread in Archives

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1993 10:41:55 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Chiller Thread in Archives

The response to the thread from last year on wort chillers was (nearly)

overwhelming.  The file is now available via FTP as

/pub/homebrew/docs/wortchillers.Z on Sierra.Stanford.EDU.

Many thanks to Stephen Hansen for all the good work he has done for the

archives.

The current discussion on parallel tube immersion chillers shows that

people have been doing some good thinkin', workin' and drinkin' since last

August.  I'm looking forward to hearing Bob and Micah at Portland.  In the

meantime...

Paul.

------------------------------


whitbread warning

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 10:54:15 EDT

From: lconrad@poincare.Prime.COM (Laura Conrad)

Subject: whitbread warning

Donald O'Connor writes:

> Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93

> From: oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (donald oconnor)

> Subject: whitbread warning, part 3

> There seems to be some confusion regarding the availability of the new

> Whitbread dry yeast.  George Fix mistakenly believes Crosby and Baker is

> presently distributing the new Whitbread to homebrew shops.  They are

> not but hope to make it available in 2 or 3 months.

If this is true, what's the stuff I've been buying in The Modern

Brewer, Cambridge, Mass?

It wasn't there for a few months, and then about the time the net

started talking about the new stuff being available, it was back, so I

assumed it was the new stuff.

   Laura

------------------------------


anodizing my cheap aluminum pot?

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 12:16:35 -0600

From: coronell@cadesm35.eng.utah.edu (Charles Coronella)

Subject: anodizing my cheap aluminum pot?

I gotta question for all you metallurgy type folks out there.  Can I get my

cheap aluminum pot anodized?  A friend of mine, a metallurgist, says probably,

(what a help).  She says that many aluminum pots sold in the US are already

anodized, and that local shops can do it for a price, but at what price, she

didn't know.  Also, there are apparently different types of anodizing, and I'm

guessing that some would be less toxic than others. Bob Konigsberg,

bobk@NSD.3Com.COM, called a local anodizing shop that told him no way, too

dangerous, FDA won't permit it.  So my specific questions are these:

1)  Is there a nontoxic (and legal) method of anodizing my cheap Al pot?

2)  Can I get it done cheaply, and at what kind of shop?

3)  Can I expect that an anodized pot to keep its durability for a long while?

BTW, thanks to everyone who suggested places that sell cheap SS pots.  Looks

like I could get a 32 qt SS pot for ~ $100.

Chuck

------------------------------


SS Pot and Propane Cooker

Date: 21 Apr 93 07:05:26 EDT

From: CHUCKM@PBN73.Prime.COM

Subject: SS Pot and Propane Cooker

Hi everyone,

    Here's something I thought I'd pass along.

 I was at Pace Warehouse this past saturday. They had an outdoor cooker

for sale which looked perfect for brewing. It is in the same line as a Cajun

Cooker except the stand is about 3 feet high. Also, it comes with a 6 gallon

Stainless Steel pot with strainer basket.  Price was $85. All you need supply

is the propane tank.  The stand looked strong enough to hold the weight of

6 gallons. Hopefully it is since a 6 gallon pot comes with it.   Is anyone

else using one of these?

Chuckm

------------------------------


Yeast Propagation

Date: 21 Apr 93 10:44:32 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Yeast Propagation

Message Creation Date was at 21-APR-1993 15:42:00

          Greetings,

               I was recently told that the yeast used in Seirra

          Nevada Pale ale is identical to Wyeast 1056. Is there any

          thruth to this?

               Also, I was told that Chimay uses only one type of

          yeast for a given beer.  Supposedly, they do not bottle

          ferment with a different yeast strain.  If this is true,

          I'll attempt to make a Chimay yeast culture.  I'd just like

          to know if I'm wasting my time, or if I'll get the right

          yeast.

          Thanks,

          Andy A

------------------------------


Stinky yeast

Date:         Wed, 21 Apr 93 16:06:57 EDT

From: "Mark Rich-mpr8a@acadvm1.uottawa.ca" <MPR8A@acadvm1.uottawa.ca>

Subject:      Stinky yeast

Hello hb-ers...

 Last weekend, my brew partner and I mixed up an extract recipe as follows..

500g crystal(crushed), 250g choc-malt(crushed), 1kg clover honey, 2kg light-

dry-malt, 1kg dark-dry malt, 100 g halertau hops, 2 pkgs edme dry ale-yeast

(rehydrated in water 30 min before pitch). We use full boil, and cool in the

bathtub with ice-water in a ss 10 gal pot. The resulting wort had an og of

1.078 !! (yikes). Anyhow here's the thing the yeast in the warm water REALLY

smelled, BIG TIME! Being our first experience with Edme... in it went. The

Brew took off like crazy about 4 hours later, and just slowed down this am.

Still has that smell though... Should I worry???

------------------------------


Honey Beer Recipe

Date:    Wed, 21 Apr 1993 16:36 EDT

From: Phil Hultin <HULTINP@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>

Subject: Honey Beer Recipe

A while ago someone asked about recipes for honey beers.

This is a bit tardy, but perhaps people will find this

of interest.

"La Souriciere" Belgian-style Wheat and Honey Ale

2.5 kg hard red wheat (husked) crushed and put into

12 L of water with 1.5 tsp of gypsum.  Heated to boil

over 1 hour with stirring.

1 kg malted wheat (British)

4 kg 6-row pale malted barley (N. American)

0.5 kg Munich malt

0.335 kg Ireks crystal malt

All ground together, put in mash tun.  The hot wheat/water

was added along with 5 L warm tapwater, mash stabilized at

65C.  Mash continued for 3.25 hours until iodine test showed

starch conversion complete.  Decoctions removed periodically

to maintain mash temperature.  Mashout by decoction to 83C for

30 min.

Sparged with water at 78-82C to a effluent gravity of 1.010.

Added 500 g buckwheat honey to the boiling pot.

1 oz Saaz plugs (90 min)

1 oz Saaz plugs (60 min)

 .5 oz Hallertau flowers (30 min)

2 g coriander seed (15 min)

Irish moss (15 min)

Pitched Wyeast 1214 Belgian Ale starter.  OG 1.077 in 21 L of wort.

Fermented at 23C 4 days, racked to secondary.  Continued fermentation

at 23C.  It was necessary to re-pitch active Wyeast 1214 after 1.5 months

and again after 2.5 months to obtain complete fermentation.

FG 1.021.  Primed with 2/3 cup glucose.

COMMENTS:  The hopping schedule doesn't really make much sense, and

in retrospect, I would not add the hops so soon.  The brew is perhaps

a bit too bitter for the style, and not aromatic enough.  I would

have preferred to use Styrian Goldings rather than Hallertau.

The honey character required the long fermentation and aging to

smooth out, but the buckwheat gives a rich smooth taste to the brew.

This stuff is potent, and seems to have an effect beyond what one

would expect from the alcohol content.

The re-pitching is probably due to inadequate aeration in the

primary, but active fermentation was obtained after each addition.

Anyhow, hope this is of interest to the honey/wheat beer fans out

there.  P.

------------------------------


Re: Infection in Plastic Primary

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 13:58:58 PDT

From: tooch@auspex.com (Michael J. Tuciarone)

Subject: Re: Infection in Plastic Primary

"Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu> writes:

>  I popped the airlock off and smelled the

>  brew, but couldn't detect any off odor.  I swirled the contents around

>  and the bubbles dissipated, but within a day they were back.  It just

>  doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before, and I thought that

>  once the beer was fermenting and alcoholic that it wouldn't support an

>  infection.  Has anyone had such a problem before?

There are plenty of strains of bacteria, mold, and yeast that can and will

live in fully-fermented beer. This is a prime cause of the infamous

"bottle gushers" since bacteria or wild yeast keep eating (so-called)

unfermentable sugars after the lager or ale yeast has given out, producing

more CO2, resulting in pfft when you open the bottle.

HOWEVER,

this does not necessarily mean your beer is infected. You've sniffed it:

that's a good first test. Now sterilize a glass turkey baster and draw

off a couple ounces of beer, and taste it. Does it taste OK? Then

at this point it *is* OK.

Keep an eye on it, especially after you bottle. Prime it lightly, and

sample it after a week and every few days thereafter. If it shows signs

of gushing then you have to decide what to do. If at any point it

starts tasting bad, then you've definitely got a bad batch.

Until then, relax.

- ---

Mike Tuciarone

Auspex Systems, Santa Clara, CA 94043; 408-492-0900 vox -0566 fax

Y'all wanna get this party started *quickly*

------------------------------


Dry Hop Sterilization, SS Pots, Temp. Controllers

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1993 15:08:25

From: garetz@brahms.amd.com (Mark Garetz)

Subject: Dry Hop Sterilization, SS Pots, Temp. Controllers

Bob Santore asks:

>Anyone out there have a way of sanitizing hops without destroying the

>aroma?

Firstly, I doubt that the hops were the source of the contamination,

assuming they were handled correctly.  There has been some published

research done at UC Davis that showed there was no contamination risk from

dry hopping, and beers such as Liberty Ale and Sam Adams Lager (both dry

hopped) would have infection problems.

Anyway, if you are really concerned and want to "sterilize" the hops first

without destroying the aroma and/or putting something nasty in your beer, I

would suggest soaking them for a few minutes in some Everclear or 100 proof

vodka.  Strain the alcohol, or add it, your choice.  If you strain, don't

throw it away.  It makes a tasty drink on ice, cut with some water.

Chuck Coronella asks about a source for cheap SS pots.  High grade Vollrath

SS pots (with aluminum clad bottoms) are available from Superior Products, a

restaurant supply, for $90 plus $24.50 for the lid for the 38 qt model.  24

qt is $69 plus $18.50.  Superior is nation-wide.  800-328-9800 for a catalog

and the location near you.  They also have the best prices on CO2 regulators

($37 for twin gauge, $30.50 for single) and other beer stuff like thick wall

beer line, taps, etc.

Andy asks about a source for temperature controllers.  I am using the Hunter

Air-Stat that homebrew suppliers sell from $30 up.  I got mine at the local

hardware super store (Home Base, but Home Depot also has 'em) for $19.50.

Mark Garetz

------------------------------


Stirring and Cakes

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 21:45 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Stirring and Cakes

 >From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

 >In the last digest Richard Childers suggested an immersion chiller that

 might be stirred and parallel cooling chillers....

 One of the most significant advantages of the immersion chiller is that by

 the time the wort is chilled, the trub has settled out and is left behind

 when the wort is run off.

 Why on earth would you want to keep it all stirred up?  You will either have

 to wait the additional time to settle after chilling or run the suspended

 trub out into the fermenter.  It will take some heavy science to convince me

 that chilling in 10 minutes vs 20 minutes will have a detectable effect on

 the end product.

 >From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bizet.helios.nd.edu>

 >Subject: Fleishman's yeast

 >In 1123 js spoke of a beer he made with plated out Fleischman's.  A pale

 bock I made by adding adding a number of cakes to the wort won a ribbon in a

 competition.

 Two comments here.  First of all, putting cakes in beer seems a bit of a

 reach and if the judge happend to be a chocolate freak... but then, you

 didn't really tell us what kind of cakes they were.

 > Last competition I am entering.  It is disgracful to enter a contest paying

 someone money to drink your beer and not even getting a qualified judgement.

 You should stick to cake beer.  Everybody knows what good cake tastes like.

 >Anyway, I suggest that Jack's plated out yeast was one of the contaminent

 yeasts rather than the predominant one.

 The procedure I use makes that very unlikely but I will not deny the

 possibility.  However, it seems far more likely that your success with cakes

 was based on such a fluke.

 >Fleischmans is not pure culture, but it is probably no worse than good dried

 yeasts.

 I am not sure how you can know that with such certainty.  I would concede

 that it is probably no worse than dried Red Star but I already stated that.

 The preponderance of evidence is that good dry yeast makes good beer far more

 often than not and possibly always for many.  The small sample of inputs from

 those intrepid experimenters who have tried bread yeast, is exactly the

 opposite.

 Finally, I make no claims for all bread yeast nor for "cakes".  The yeast I

 used was from a small packet of Fleishman's dried baker's yeast.  It was pure

 cultured to assure that the dominant yeast was cultured and bacteria left

 behind.

 Those who have been around here for awhile, no doubt note that even old

 cranks can learn new tricks.  I have always been a firm believer in the

 notion that when lightening strikes 3 or 4 times, it's time to rethink my

 position.

 js

------------------------------


Stirred Immersion Chiller

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 21:20:55 PDT

From: "Joe Stone" <JSTONE@SJEVM5.VNET.IBM.COM>

Subject: Stirred Immersion Chiller

  Speaking of home-grown, hair-brained ideas, I have had an ice cream maker

motor and paddle sitting on my workbench for three months.  The ice cream

maker is of the plastic bucket variety.  The motor is actually intended to

turn an aluminum can of cream surrounded by ice in the plastic bucket.

The plastic paddle is intended to remain stationary and the aluminum can

turns around it.  The hair-brained idea was to attach the paddle to the

motor so that it would turn inside my double-helix immersion chiller.  As

I said, the parts are still sitting on my workbench, but all this chiller

talk has got me fired up ...

Maybe I'll get to it this weekend, wife permitting.

Joe

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1125, 04/22/93

*************************************

-------


RE: Stinky Yeast

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 93 10:27:24 -0400

From: ""Robert C. Santore"" <rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: RE: Stinky Yeast

In HBD 1125, Mark Rich writes:

 > 1.078 !! (yikes). Anyhow here's the thing the yeast in the warm water REALLY

 > smelled, BIG TIME! Being our first experience with Edme... in it went. The

I have brewed several batches with Edme dry ale yeast.  My notes describe

all of these batches as stinky.  The sediment in the primary smelled of

vomit.  However, the smell was not evident in the final beer.

Bob Santore

rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu

------------------------------


Wyeast 1214

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 93 10:41:01 -0400

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: Wyeast 1214

Just a Wyeast data point: I cracked a packet of Belgian (1214) last

week that was dated September 30, 1992.  That means 6.5 months old.

Within 48 hours, it was fully puffed and I made a happy, healthy

starter which I pitched about 40 hours later.  The beer is bubbling

meerily as I write.

Admittedly, I bought the yeast 4 days old, brought it straight home

and kept it in the fridge throughout the whole period.  Nevertheless,

I'm pretty impressed at the keeping properties of this stuff.

------------------------------


End of the season looming

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 93 10:56:40 -0400

From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

Subject: End of the season looming

It's a typical spring day on Long Island (mild and rainy) and I'm

already contemplating the end of the brewing season :-( :-( :-(

A Belgian dubbel will occupy the secondary for a few weeks and a

late-May trip out of town makes it hard to schedule another batch

before the hot days of June-July-August.  With neither a basement

nor AC, it's hard to brew anything except possibly high-temperature

Belgian-style stuff.   Has anybody had any REAL success brewing

quality ale using the "wet t-shirt" method when the ambient is above

80F?  (Disclaimer: this is not a sexist joke.  The idea is to place

a carboy in a shallow pan of water and drape a t-shirt on it.  The

shirt acts as a wick, drawing up water.  The water evaporates,

alledgedly cooling the carboy to ale temperatures.)

Looking back over a successful season (11 5-gallon batches plus

a 2-gallon barley wine and various apple and honey potions) my

major regret is that so many good bottles of beer aged past their

prime.  I don't drink fast enough!!!  I don't want to increase my

alcohol consumption.  Brewing a 3-gallon batch is just as much work

as a 5-gallon batch.  If I brewed less frequently, I would suffer

from decreased variety.  Perhaps the answer is to get find a brewing

partner, so that I get only a case or so from each brew and cut the

work down accordingly.

Any other recommendations?  Any thoughts as to whether the HBD is

a suitable forum to post a "personal ad" sseking a brewing partner?

------------------------------


Beer with body

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 93 08:15:02 PDT

From: tima@wv.MENTORG.COM (Tim Anderson)

Subject: Beer with body

Last night, as I was drinking one of the last few bottles of my "Mincemeat"

Christmas beer, I was thinking how it really belonged in a crust with a scoop

of vanilla ice cream.  This got me to thinking about various ways this could

be accomplished.  One idea was to make beer jello.  Another is to use a bunch

of apples in the brew, go ahead and boil 'em and let the pectin set.

In the particular beer I was drinking, the recipe was based on a mincemeat

recipe in The Joy of Cooking, but I left the apples out because of the pectin.

Perhaps I should have left them in.

Anyway, I had a packet of Knox unflavored gelatin, so I made a cup of beer

jello.  I didn't want to waste a cup of precious homebrew, so I opened a bottle

of Rogue Ale I had in the fridge.  I just followed the microwave directions on

the packet, substituting beer for fruit juice.  (The microwave method has you

warm a quarter of the "juice" and use the rest cold.  I don't think I lost any

alcohol at all). The result was less disgusting than I expected.  In fact, I'm

convinced that in the hands of a trained professional, good things could be

done with this.  I was thinking of adding, in place of the traditional sliced

bananas and fruit cocktail, maybe sliced polish sausage, pretzels and pickled

eggs?

Back to the pectin, would gelatinized wort ferment ok?  Would the consistency

prevent fermentation?  Would fermentation prevent gelling?  I can picture a

magma-like glob working its way up the blowoff tube.  I suppose bottling

would be out of the question.  Maybe wide-mouth canning jars.  Then you could

serve it with an ice cream scoop.

On a related note: Since apple cider is just apple juice allowed to ferment,

and apple jelly is just (sweetened) boiled apple juice allowed to set, why not

hard cider jelly?  Boil, chill, pitch yeast, spread on toast.

tim

"I'll have another slice of beer, please."

------------------------------


Yeast and Tin

Date: 23 Apr 1993 00:05:41 -0600

From: "Manning, Martin P" <manning#m#_martin_p@mcst.ae.ge.com>

Subject: Yeast and Tin

Like others, I have some equipment with (lead-free) soldered joints. A comment

made by Randy Mosher in the recent Zymurgy gadget special indicated that there

is a potential problem with tin and yeast. Being new to this forum, I don't

know if this issue has been resolved or not, but a quick calculation tells me

that it takes 2.6 cubic millimeters (mm3) of tin to give 1 ppm in 5 gallons. My

trusty counterflow wort chiller has two joints (3/8" copper tube) in the wort

flow path, each of which I estimate used 16 mm3 of solder. It seems that if

even 1 ppm of tin were being dissolved into the wort, the device would soon

fall apart. It hasn't. I am interested in finding out just how toxic tin is to

yeast. Does anybody have any documented info on the concentration level which

would adversely affect yeast performance?

Martin Manning

------------------------------


soda keg prices

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 13:55:59 -0400 (EDT)

From: Mark Wells Wilson <mw4w+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: soda keg prices

   Just wondering:  How much do other homebrewers usually pay for soda kegs?

Mark

------------------------------


Parallel immersion chillers

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 93 13:34 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Parallel immersion chillers

Guess I'll have to build myself a parallel immersion chiller...

     ... just to keep up with the Joneses ;^).

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

But seriously, I've got a 50-foot, 1/4" OD immersion chiller (about

1/4 of which is not even in the wort on a 5 gallon batch) and it

cools my boiling wort to 70F in about 15 minutes.  All this math

and physics may indeed give me a chiller that is 20% more efficient,

but all that means is that it will cut my 15 minutes down to 12 minutes.

Is it really worth it?  Let's not lose touch with reality, eh?

Al.

------------------------------


Carbonation w/ Dry Ice (February 24, 1993)

Date: Thu Apr 22 12:01:34 PDT 1993

From: sslovac@atss.calstatela.edu

Subject: Carbonation w/ Dry Ice (February 24, 1993)

Carbonation with Dry Ice

Carbonation with dry ice can be done - we did it for years when I lived in

Ithaca and had a ready supply.  However, we used CO*2 tank, removed the valve,

broke the ice into smaller pieces, filled the tank about 1/4 full, recapped

and connected tubes to the regulator.  It worked fine and never imparted an

off taste.  Of course, we were carbonating kegs of beer, not bottles, but if

you have a kegging system then you can buy (or make) a counter pressure bottle

filler for $15 - $20 to bottle carbonated beer from the keg.

Concerning the proposal to use pieces of dry ice in each bottle,

 I would worry about the potential for explosion and wildly fluctuating

pressure in the bottles owing to the expansion ratio of CO*2 ice to gas: I

seem to remember that water is roughly 1:17,000 so CO*2 can't be too far away.

So I don't recommend trying individual bottling with dry ice, unless you can

safely and precisely experiment with measured amounts of (probably tiny)chips.

Also, individual bottle carbonation is highly labor intensive - much like

priming each bottle with a 1/2 tsp of sugar.

sslovac@atss.calstatela.edu      ;^)

------------------------------


5 litre kegs and N2O

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 16:45:53 -0400 (EDT)

From: Stephen Brent Peters <sp2q+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: 5 litre kegs and N2O

I recently purchaced a tap for 5 litre cans operated by those little

N2O cannisters you can use to make whipped cream (among other uses).

This little device is mighty keen, but I have already run out of N2O.

Does anybody know where I could purchase these little things at a

decent price?  I currently live in Pittsburgh, but I'd be willing to

mail-order.

I love the 5 litre keg thing, it is great!  A very convenient size,

and easy to use.  If anyone else is interested in trying this, Randy

at Brew Ha-Ha will sell you everything you need to keg and tap 5 gal

batches for 40$, or just the tap for $20.  Email me for his address (I

don't have it with me)

Also, here's a question:  I noticed in the instructions he gave me

that the kegs are lined with plastic and they explicitely state that

chlorine should not come in contact with it.  I have been brewing for

over a year and have never used anything other than chlorine and use

it to sanitize my plastic bottling bucket.  Is this just a cheap pitch

to sell more b-brite, or is there a good reason behind this?

 -steve

               Steve Peters =  sp2q@andrew.cmu.edu

                  *Oxnar demands a _Sacrifice!_*

------------------------------


CA Festival of Beers Reply

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 93 16:01:19 PDT

From: RDG3%SysEng%DCPP@cts27.cs.pge.com

Subject: CA Festival of Beers Reply

For advance tickets for the California Festival of Beers, held in San Luis

Obispo, Ca.  you can send your request (and check) to:

Hospice of San Luis Obispo

1432 Higuera

San Luis Obispo, CA 93401

The tickets are cheaper if you buy them in advance, $22.50.  The Festival is a

fund raiser for the Hospice and if you have any questions you can call them at

(805) 544-2266.

Here's to the Irish .....

------------------------------


Growing Hops Horizontally

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 93 16:30:43 PDT

From: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards)

Subject: Growing Hops Horizontally

GROWING HOPS

Last year, when I started growing hops, I mentioned my setup and that I

would give a report on how it worked.

I grow the hops up 8 feet, then horizontally about 16 feet.  My setup

works really well.  I run the vines up some nylon twine to a galvanized

steel wire, that is stretched across two posts, and then across to the

eaves of my house.

The first year, only two varieties made it most of the way across to my

house, for a total of about 20 feet--Chinook and Nugget.  This year, I

expect more growth, and may even find some of the vines wanting more

line.  As I write, three of the varieties have already reached 8 feet.

You only need to twist the new growth around the horizontal part of the

twine about every couple of days.  It's not that big of a deal to get

them to grow horizontally.  And it makes picking MUCH easier.  I don't

need to take the vine down OR use a ladder; I usually stand on a chair--

a step-ladder will do nicely.

DETAILS

 - I have seven hop plants of different varieties about 3.5 feet apart.

   The whole garden is about 24 feet by three feet.

 - The garden is along my North fence, for maximum sun.

 - Two 8 foot 2x4's are nailed to the wooden fence (at the corner and

   at a 4x4 post, for support), with a galvanized steel wire stretched

   across the tops (with a turnbuckle for tightening).

 - Nylon twine is hung from the steel wire and staked into the ground near

   the hops.  I would advise against using jute (natural fiber) twine.

   I used jute twine last year and after weathering, some of them snapped.

   Also, they stretch out over time, requiring retightening every so often

   (plan for this).

 - The horizontal twines are tied to the steel wire and fastened to the

   eaves of the roof with screw-eyes.

 - Some vines are not aligned with the house.  And in those cases, the

   twine goes to a second steel wire stretched between the North-East

   corner of the house and an 8 foot 2x4 attached to the East fence.

   That wire forms an extension to the North side of the roof, where

   the other twines are attached.

 - The garden is fenced in with a simple 2x4 frame and some chicken wire.

   If you have pets, you must fence it off.  Don't trust your dog.  I did

   two years ago, and he wrecked the garden.  I had to start all over again.

CHANGES

This year, instead of training three vines from each plant up one twine,

I am training four vines from each plant up TWO twines.  All twines are

equally spaced.  This gives the appearance of having twice as many vines

and should make harvesting much easier.  Last year's crop got pretty

bushy and hard to pick on the more prolific varieties.  I also hope that

the horizontal part will create some nice shade on my back yard, since

the vines will be 1.75 feet apart.  I seriously doubt that they will grow

together and cause me to misidentify the varieties.  I also expect a

bigger harvest from this configuration, since I can let more vines grow

without worrying about clutter.

GROWING TIPS

Keep new shoots pruned until you see hop cones, then let a couple of

vines emerge and wind around the existing vines.  You'll have another

harvest a few weeks after the first.  Keep doing this and you can have

several harvests in one season.

If you have some varieties that aren't doing too well (less that 6 vines

emerge), go ahead and train them all--it may be your only chance.  I had

a pretty poor first harvest from my Willamette and Mount Hood last year.

Tettnanger didn't do too well either.  Some varieties just don't do as

well as others.  If you are growing Nugget, Cascades or Chinook, expect

to trim them regularly.  They grow very well.  If you don't keep cutting

shoots, things can get hairy quickly.  The same goes for the long runners

that you get coming out of the sides of the vine.  Also, if you have the

choice, put the least prolific varieties in the part of the garden that

gets the most sun--they need all the help they can get.

If at all possible, water the hops with some kind of automatic system.

They need much water, and often.  I've got mine on a timer that waters

them twice a day.

Good luck, and most of all HAVE FUN!

 -Alan

 .------------------------------------.

 | Alan Edwards: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov |      Member: The Hoppy Cappers

 |     or: Alan-Edwards@llnl.gov      |      homebrew club, Modesto, CA

 `------------------------------------'

------------------------------


CHIMAY YEAST

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 20:17:50 -0400 (EDT)

From: "CURLEY::SOLVIBILEB"@JOE.ALB.EDU

Subject: CHIMAY YEAST

THERE IS ACTIVE YEAST IN THE CHIMAY BOTTLES.  WE FILTERED IT OUT AND

ATTEMTED TO CULTURE IT. WE THOUGHT WE WERE SUCESSFUL, BUT OUR BEER

WAS NO CHIMAY.  I THINK GOD MUST SAVE THE GOOD BEER FOR THE MUNKS.

THERE IS A "BEER HUNTER" EPISODE THAT FEATURES CHIMAY.  MAYBE YOU

SHOULD CHECK IT OUT.

                  GOOD HEALTH AND GOOD BEER,

                      BILL SOLVIBILE

------------------------------


New version of THREAD program for searching HBD

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 93 20:40 EDT

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: New version of THREAD program for searching HBD

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------

Announcing Version 2.1 of THREAD for MS-DOS computers, by Tom Kaltenbach

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------

   I've just completed a new version of my THREAD program, which is

designed to search the back issues of the Homebrew Digest and extract

those messages that follow a certain "thread" of conversation.  The new

version is a much-enhanced program, now faster (w/multitasking!), neater,

and easier to use.  This program, like earlier versions, is released to

the public domain:  no licensing fees or donations are required.  The only

restriction is that the program may not be sold or otherwise used for

commercial purposes.

   THREAD searches for conversation threads by extracting all messages

that contain specified key words; as a consequence, the program also

functions as a general subject-searching program.  For example, if you

wanted to search for all messages related to kegging, you might use

"kegging" as a key word.  Logical combinations are also possible; for

example, if you wanted all of the references to Jack Schmidling's MALT

MILL, you could search for "malt" AND "mill" NOT "miller" (the NOT

"miller" excludes the many references to Dave Miller's books).  The key

words are not limited to a single word, for example, you can search for

messages mentioning "dave miller" OR "dave line".  Up to 10 key word

specifiers are allowed.  Each matching message is displayed, with all key

words highlighted, for the user to view, save, skip, etc.  An automatic

mode allows non-interactive searches to be performed.

   THREAD operates on IBM PC or compatible 8088/80286/80386/80486

microcomputers running MS-DOS, so it does require that the digests are

stored as ASCII text files in a directory on the PC hard disk.  The

program has been uploaded to the archives at sierra.stanford.edu, where it

can be found in the /pub/homebrew directory.  The files are as follows:

  thread21.exe    ver 2.1 binary file, MS-DOS program executable

  thread21.pas    ver 2.1 source code, written in Turbo Pascal 5.5/6.0

  thread21.uue    uuencoded version of thread21.exe, for those without ftp

  thread21.xxe    xxencoded version of thread21.exe, for those without ftp

  thread21.doc    documentation and program description

  thread21.new    list of new features and enhancements in version 2.1

NOTE:  the "thread21.exe" file is a binary file and cannot be requested

using the listserver.  The uuencoded and xxencoded versions are included

for use with the listserv archive server, which sends files via mail.  The

uuencoding format is more popular, but fails with some IBM mainframe mail

nodes.  Xxencoding is required in these cases.  An xxencode/decode program

for MS-DOS computers is available from the Simtel-20 archives.

   A note to those not using MS-DOS:  version 2.1 of THREAD is highly

customized for MS-DOS computers.  Consequently, version 2.1 probably will

not be translated to "C" for porting to other platforms.  I recommend that

any non-DOS users of THREAD version 1.2 continue to use that version,

which, for the most part, is functionally equivalent to the new version.

   Any comments, questions, or suggestions can be sent to me at the

email address below.

Tom Kaltenbach                   Upstate New York Homebrewers Association

tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com         Rochester, New York USA

------------------------------


Un-suscribe

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 20:31 PST

From: CIS309137@axe.humboldt.edu

Subject: Un-suscribe

Please remove me from the homebrew digest list

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1126, 04/23/93

*************************************

-------


Bully Porter

Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 8:34:08 CDT

From: raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com (Glenn Raudins)

Subject: Bully Porter

I recently had the opportunity to have some Boulevard Brewing (Kansas City)

Bully Porter delivered to me (thanks Ken.)  In response to a recent review,

I decided to see if the metallic taste John Fitzgerald found was evident in

this six pack.  The review follows but to sum it up.  I tasted no metallic

taste.  Very Clean.  Anyone know what yeast they use?

Bully Porter from Boulevard Brewing

- -----------------------------------

Aroma:  Roasted Barley or Black Patent

        Hints of Chocolate Malt

 No hop aroma

Flavor: Hops not identifiable

 Dry Finish

Color: A bit dark but would fit the Robust

 Porter style (AHA).

Carbonation: Appropriate

Body:  A little thin for the style. (American or English)

Overall: AHA "Robust Porter" w/o the body.

         It is a bit too dry to be a porter, it resembles

  a dry stout with some of the roasted barley removed

  and the body taken away.

  Not an English Porter, it lacks the complexity and

  "fruitiness."

  An American Porter (though not smooth like Anchor.)

  A nice drinkable beer overall. (I like dry stouts.)

Notes: Expiration Notch on the Label (May)

 There was no metallic taste as John Fitzgerald reported.

 Many thanks to Ken Schmidt for delivering from Kansas City

   to the Alabama beer wasteland.

Glenn Raudins

raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com

------------------------------


Removal

Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 09:47:26 EDT

From: weir@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (Robert Weir - Manuals)

Subject: Removal

Please remove me from the homebrew list. I'm changing jobs and

no longer will have net access. Thanks for running the list.

Great service.

RSW

weir@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com

------------------------------


King Kooker

Date: 23 Apr 1993 09:04:48 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

Subject: King Kooker

Subject:  King Kooker                           Time:9:00 AM     Date:4/23/93

Any one with Costco access that is in the market for a propane driven burner,

come on down! $48.00 for the 3' high 120,000 btu stand with regulator. You even

get a pot which you can use for heating water (its aluminum). Looks like a good

deal. It might require some modification to support a sawn-off keg.

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


California to Portland Trai

Date: 23 Apr 1993 08:51:32 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

Subject: California to Portland Trai

Subject:  California to Portland Train          Time:8:49 AM     Date:4/23/93

Anyone interested in information on the California Crazy Train to the AHA

conference please e-mail me directly.

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


Wort Pots

Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 16:05:09 EDT

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1-1/T09 DTN 225-6171  23-Apr-1993 1557 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Wort Pots

What is this fascination for using stainless steel pots to boil wort in?

It seems obvious to me that the way to save about $100 on a boiling pot is

to pick up a brand new enamled steel canning pot.  I've seen them for around

$30.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Brewing Partners

Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 14:03:29 MDT

From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

Subject: Brewing Partners

Rob Bradley asks if the hbd is a suitable place to seek brewing partners.  I

can't think of a better place.  Your plans to use it to "keep up the variety"

are quite good, too.  I live in Longmont, CO and the idea of a brewing

partner for those all-grain batches is a good one.  I'd bet my wife would

like it too, if it got me out of the kitchen faster.  Any takers?

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


direction of hop vine climb

Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 11:44:59 PDT

From: mdcsc!gdh@uunet.UU.NET (Garrett Hildebrand)

Subject: direction of hop vine climb

I am growing three kinds of hops in my Southern California backyard,

and they are all doing the same thing: climbing the stake *clockwise*.

I have planted my hops, initially, in planters, and this is their first

year. The pots are dead center in my yard. I put a stake by each plant,

and let the plant figure out which way it wanted to climb, rather than

trying to train it. They all found the stake, and they all climbed it

the same way.

So, I'd have to say that training them to go up a stake

counterclockwise might be a challenge. Two points of reference: These

are Cascase, Willamette and Nugget, with the Nugget being the real

eager beavers; and the viewpoint for observing the direction of wrap on

the stake is looking down from the top of it.

Garrett Hildebrand

------------------------------


Clarification of THREAD v2.1 announcement

Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 17:43 EDT

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Clarification of THREAD v2.1 announcement

Just a small correction to my last post, which announced that THREAD v2.1 was

available for download via anonymous ftp from sierra.stanford.edu.  The

actual directory that thread is located in is "pub/homebrew/programs/thread",

not "pub/homebrew" as I indicated in the post.  The portable C version of the

old (v1.2) THREAD source code will also be available in this directory.

   Any comments, questions, or suggestions can be sent to me at the email

address below.

Tom Kaltenbach                   Upstate New York Homebrewers Association

tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com         Rochester, New York USA

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1127, 04/26/93

*************************************

-------


Foam and kegging problem

Date: 	Mon, 26 Apr 1993 07:17:43 -0400

From: Paul Andrews <PANDREWS@hpb.hwc.ca>

Subject: Foam and kegging problem

hi,

I finally got a good price on a 50L keg equipped with gauges and tubing and a

16 Lb CO2 tank...Ok.great I thought. but being a bit naive about this I

just forged ahead.  I brewed up 23 L of my favourite pilsner to try it out.

I racked it over to a secondary , clarified and siphoned into the keg after

about 18 days.  I pressurized to 50psi (at room temp).. let sit overnight..

(it went down to about 30 psi) after 16-18hours.  I decided to see what it

tasted/looked like the next day.  Ugh.. most foam and very little carbonation.

Ok.. I dropped the pressure to about 10 psi.. and kept this head pressure with

the CO2.. same thing.. hmm.. maybe chill it.. Dropped the tank in my laundry tub

and filled it with ice.:result not much better.. ALthough drinkable, There

was a GREAT deal of foam.. and little carbonation. (very small bubble).

Well I persevered and just filled pitchers with it.. drank it that way.

 Ok. I'm checking with some friends who have more experience to see what I

did wrong. but I appreciate any comments from experienced keggers.

The keg is 50L stainless with 1/4" copper tubbing dip tube and 1/4"

"tapping tube, both silver soldered into a stainless steel plug in the top of

the keg.

Any help.. or tell me what I did wrong?.  I'm dying to have my first keg party.

Paul Andrews: Health and Welfare Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

pandrews@hpb.hwc.ca

------------------------------


Clockwise?

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 93 08:48:03 EST

From: thutt <thutt@MAIL.CASI.NASA.GOV>

Subject: Clockwise?

> mdcsc!gdh@uunet.UU.NET (Garrett Hildebrand) noted the following:

>

> I am growing three kinds of hops in my Southern California backyard,

> and they are all doing the same thing: climbing the stake *clockwise*.

Must be the coriolis effect! :-)

------------------------------


Fascination with Stainless

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1993 11:07:41 CDT

From: "Roger Deschner  " <U52983@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject: Fascination with Stainless

Either stainless steel or enameled steel can be used satisfactorily for

brewing. Aluminum is the big no-no.

The reason for prefering stainless is simple durability. If you ding an

enameled pot, the enamel chips off, and if that happens on the inside,

the required thorough cleaning becomes impossible. Enameled steel also

weighs quite a bit more than stainless, adding to the already

considerable weight of five gallons of (hot) wort.

------------------------------


Wet T-shirts

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 93 12:02 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Wet T-shirts

 Date: Thu, 22 Apr 93 10:56:40 -0400

 From: bradley@adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley)

 Subject: End of the season looming

 > Has anybody had any REAL success brewing quality ale using the "wet

 t-shirt" method when the ambient is above 80F?

 My guess is that this would word about as well as an evaporation type air

 conditioner on Long Island.  Seen any lately?

 For this to work at all, requires very low humidity ala Arizona.

 BTW, nice to see you survived your experience with the World's Greatest Beer.

 Make that second greatest...  a red ribbon sure is humbling.

 >Any other recommendations?  Any thoughts as to whether the HBD is

 a suitable forum to post a "personal ad" sseking a brewing partner?

 Sounds more like you need a drinking partner.

 js

------------------------------


RE: 5 litre kegs and N2O

Date:    Fri, 23 Apr 1993 17:52:11 +0400 (EET-DST)

From: NIKKANEN@ntcclu.ntc.nokia.com (Kari Nikkanen, design engineer)

Subject: RE: 5 litre kegs and N2O

in HBD1126 Steve wrote:

>I recently purchaced a tap for 5 litre cans operated by those little

>N2O cannisters you can use to make whipped cream (among other uses).

 So you are using N2O instead of C02?  Do you get

 better (smoother) head in your beers than with

 C02?  I think I'll start kegging my beer too, and

 I just thought some time ago, that if Guinness

 uses N20, why shouldn't I.  Does anyone else

 have any opinions?

    Kippis!/ Kari

------------------------------


Easy Yeast Culturing 2

Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 10:47:30 PDT

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: Easy Yeast Culturing 2

I wanted to follow up the compilation of responses to Easy Yeast Culturing

with my own experience.

I followed Rick's method with my latest batch, a dopplebock.  I made the

1/2 gallon "mother" starter, and bottled 5 12 oz bottles.  Stored them in the

fridge for three days.  Next, I took one out, let it warm to room temp, then

pitched it into about a pint of 1.020-1.030 wort.  This I used as  starter for

my brew.  I let this starter ferment for a couple of days.  On brewing day

I poured off some of the "beer" sitting atop the yeast cake in the starter

(tasted ok, seemed to have high levels of diacytl), swirled the remaining

beer  to stir up the yeast, and pitched into the wort.

12 hours later I had a FABULOUS krausen going.  One of the fastest starts I

have ever seen.  Fermentation looked like it was almost done in about 36

hours.

I have not tasted it yet, but so far I am quite impressed.  I am bottling

this weekend, so I'll taste it then.

Just wanted to post a data point that this method does indeed result in

viable yeast (one of my fears as I started).  I will post more data as

I collect it.  So far, though, so good.

Troy

------------------------------


Easy Yeast Culturing

Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 10:32:45 PDT

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: Easy Yeast Culturing

Greetings all,

I have recently been inundated with email requests to forward summaries

of the responses I received from my questions on Easy Yeast Management.

Since there has been so much interest, I thought I would post a

compilation of responses.

Enjoy,

Troy

- -----------------------------------------------------------------

First, thanks to Rick (R.) Cavasin who posted the article which started

the discussion.  Here is (briefly) his idea:

>Step 1:

>Prepare some starter wort (S.G. = 1.020), see Miller's book for

>recipe.  Basically, you need about 1/2 gallon, but if you make

>more and can it in mason jars (using standard canning procedures),

>you will not have to prepare more at a later date.

>

>Step 2:

>Place 1/2 gallon or so of starter wort in a suitable container

>(1 gallon glass jug), pitch (inflated) Wyeast package at correct temp.

>and fit air lock. This is the 'master' starter.

>

>Step 3:

>Allow to ferment to completion.  When fermentation has ceased,

>agitate the 'beer' to suspend all sendiment, and very carefully

>bottle it.

>

>You will now have about 6 bottles of very thin beer with a good

>deal of viable yeast sediment in each bottle.  Use each bottle

>as you would use a package of Wyeast - ie. prepare a starter

>culture a couple days before brewing.  This is facilitated by

>canning wort when you prepare the master starter.  All you need to

>in that case is pop open a mason jar of wort, dump it into a

>sanitized bottle/jug of appropriate size, pop open one of your

>bottle cultures, add it, agitate vigorously, and fit an air lock.

>

- ------------------------------

Next, Daniel F McConnell <Daniel.F.McConnell@med.umich.edu> writes:

>I used to use a similar method-I would simply bottle 4 -6 bottles from a batch

>and keg the rest.  Your method would yield even greater yeast cell counts and

>better, faster starts.  I would purchase 2-3 Wyeast packages per year, usually

>an ale, a lager plus one that I had not yet tried, thus would have sufficient

>cultures for more than 15 batches.  I'm the kind of person that is rather

>faithful to my yeast-I would stick to one ale (1098) and one lager (2206), get

>to know them and understand when the fermentatuion has run into trouble.  I

>have carried some strains through a second generation with this method and had

>no problems.

>

>I have since gone to other methods (top cropping, slants etc.-no longer with

>Wyeast BTW), this method was not abandoned due to problems.

>

>Potential problems: 1) You must be extremely careful about sanitation.  That is

>why I would bottle beer, not starter wort-you can taste any off flavors.  2)

>keep the starter gravity low (<1.050) to prevent mutation.  3) keep them cold

>once they have carbonated. 4) hop your starter but not so much to mask any off

>flavors. 5) did I mention sanitation?

>

Are there draw backs (like problems with autolysis, or the yeast just dying)?

>In the cold autolysis will be present but is not a problem. Your Wyeast is

>autolysing too in the cold!!

Rick mentions he has had bottled yeast last 6 months.  Will they last longer?

>I always purchased new cultures each season so I dont know about lifespan. This

>insures success.

Are those 6 mo. old yeast just as good as those from a new Wyeast packet?

>Probably better.   Good luck

- ------------------------------------------------------------------

Then, Dennis B. Lewis <InterNet:dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov> adds:

> About yeast stretching: Sure, you can do that and it makes perfect sense. Make

> damn sure the stuff is completely fermented out or you'll get glass grenades.

> About four days before brewing, take out your starter, pour off the beer on

> top, pour in about 6 oz. of fresh, heavily-hopped wort (1.040 check Papazian

> on this. He gives good directions on how to bottle wort for later use in

> culturing.) Make sure you flame the mouths of the bottles before transfering.

>

> Attach an airlock to the bottle and let the yeast reactivate. After about 2.5

> days, pour off the top liquid (if it has started to clear again) and pour in

> some more wort. Then about 6 hours prior to pitching, do the same thing. If

> you care to do this much screwing around with your yeast, you will get

> tremendous starts and almost no lag time. I just did this with some Whitbread

> (Wyeast 1098) that I cultured from a bottle of ale that I had. It was glubbing

> like crazy 7 hours later.

- -------------------------------------------------------------------

And finally, "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu> suggests:

>  I've recently moved away from dried yeast and like you didn't want to pay

>$3.50 a shot for liquid yeast cultures.  For what it's worth here's my

>experience.

>

>  I didn't know a yeast from a slug before I started and have been brewing

>great beer from my own cultures for six months.  So my rule #1) anybody

>can keep good yeast cultures if their careful and can think.  I highly

>recommend getting the "Beers & Yeast" special issue of Zymurgy.  It has

>a bunch of good and easily understood articles on everything from how

>to get a culture from bottle conditioned beer to how to maintain culture

>stocks.

>  Having read the Zymurgy yeast issue, some HBD threads on the subject, and

>talked to other homebrewers this is what I have found to work for me.

>

>I don't brew with the same yeast often enough to keep starter bottles as

>your post talked about.  Instead I keep pure yeast cultures on slants (test

>tubes 1/2 full of geletinized wort) and plates (petri dishes of geletinized

>wort).  These are pretty easy to make;  refer to the Zymurgy issue or mail

>me back for more info.

>

>Every so often when I brew I steal some of the wort and make up some

>mason jars of sterile wort.  I use two sizes: pint jars w/ 1/2 cup of wort

>and quart jars w/ 2 cups of wort.  The wort should be about 1.020 sg but

>I don't worry too much about it (just take some of whatever you're brewing

>and dilute it down).  I process the jars just like any other canning

>operation.  I don't have a pressure cooker so I just use a boiling water

>bath.

>

>Three days before brewing I take one of the pint jars of sterile wort and

>sterilize around the top with grain alcohol (Everclear), and flame it.  I

>then take an innoculating loop (a small wire looped at the end) flame it and

>pick one colony of yeast off of a plate I made previously. I swirl the loop

>in the mason jar, set the lid back on and shake it to aerate the wort.  Then

>I set the jar aside and let the yeast work.  I don't bother with an airlock,

>the lid just sits on top.  It will take about two days for this starter to

>work up to high krausen.  When it's good and frothy I pitch the whole

>contents into one of the large mason jars of sterile wort.  Again sterilize

>the tops of both jars and aerate the wort.  This large starter batch will be

>ready to pitch in your primary the next day so get ready to brew.

>

>When I pitch my large jar of starter into my primary I get vigorous

>fermentation overnight (probably in 4 hours but I haven't stayed up to find

>out).  I've been very happy with this method. I have on hand three ale

>yeasts and one lager yeast only one of which I had to buy.  The others I

>cultured from bottle conditioned commerical beers of got from friends.

>It's really easy to do and gives you something to do inbetween batches.

>

>Read the Zymurgy issue and then mail back any questions, or post them if

>they're of a general nature.

- ---------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Wort Cooling

Date: Sat, 24 Apr 93 17:16:32 EDT

From: William Shirley <william@chemres.tn.cornell.edu>

Subject: Wort Cooling

Why wouldn't it be possible to boil the wort down to a smaller

quantity and then add a gallon of ice?  The ice can be made a

day in advance by putting boiled water in a sterilized refillable

gallon container from a super market.

As for the optimum design for an immersion cooler:  usually good

ideas can be obtained by looking at designs which have withstood

the test of time.  In this case the car radiator seems go be a

good model.  If it were possible to obtain one without lead

sodder then it might work well...

William Shirley

ws15@cornell.edu

------------------------------


hops direction

Date:    Mon, 26 Apr 1993 10:09:29 -0400 (EDT)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: hops direction

  Just so it's clear that we agree, yes, hops will climb "clockwise

*looking down*".  The Hops Primer states it as "counter-clockwise *looking

up*".  The reason for that orientation is that "up" is the direction of

growth, ie. imagine that you're a hops plant....

Russ G.

------------------------------


Westchester, NY homebrew club meeting

Date:        Mon, 26 Apr 93 11:35:18 EST

From: CW06GST <CW06GST@SJUMUSIC.STJOHNS.EDU>

Subject: Westchester, NY homebrew club meeting

To all Homebrewers in Westchester, NY:

There will be a meeting of the Wort Ever Ales You homebrew club at my

house, 219 Central Ave, Rye NY, on Tuesday April 27, at 7:30 pm.  All

those who wish to attend can contact me for directions at (914) 337-5897

at my office, and at (914) 921-4081 at my home in the evenings.

If you can not attend, but would be interested in joining the club,

please contact Andrew Schmidt at (914) 238-4549 for more information.

We are a fairly new club that has been started in the last year.  We

have about 20 members from all over Westchester Co.  The membership

includes some very experienced brewers, a certified beer judge, as well

as quite a few beginners.  All are welcome to join.

Also, Saturday, May 1, is National Homebrew Day, and our club will

be participating in a homebrew demonstration, as well as other brew

activities, at Mannion's Tavern, 640 Mc Lean Ave in Yonkers at about

1:30 pm until about 6:00.  This event is open to the general public

in order to promote homebrew awareness.  Mannion's phone # is

(914) 476-2786.

Mannion's has a large selection of bottled beer from around the world,

as well as a tasty menu.  Come one, come all, admission is free.  Bring

the kids.  I hope to see you there.

Thanks,

Erik Zenhausern

------------------------------


coupla questions

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 93 10:58:07 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.atg.trc.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: coupla questions

 Being new to homebrewing (since January, ~ 7 batches), I have a

 coupla questions:

 (1) I've noticed that several of the bartches dont have much head.

 I've seen the comments about spotlessly clean glassware, etc. I seem

 to notice a trend I'd like comments on: The batches i've done that

 had brewers sugar (or honey) seem to have a good head, the no-sugar

 batches seem to lack a good head. Anyone else observed this? Ideas

 why?

 (2) Where can I get some hop plants?

 (3) Can someone email me (or send me the ftp location for) the yeast

 culturing notes that were (apparently) posted here not too long back?

 Please email me directly, I'll summarize to the list in a few days to

 conserve bandwidth.

 THANKS!

 jim

------------------------------


Competitions and Dry Yeast

Date: Sat, 25 Apr 92 09:39:40 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Competitions and Dry Yeast

I have been entering a lot of competitions primarily with high

gravity amber and dark lagers. The objective has been to get a measure

of the new Belgian malts. A summary of our findings plus a general

analysis of these malts can be found in an article I wrote for the first

issue of Brewing Techniques. This issue should appear at the beginning

of May. Our own cultured lager yeast was used for all these brews.

I have also made full scale brews with the dry yeast that was sent to us

from Crosby and Baker, and these were also entered in sactioned competitions.

In each case, the following "German Wheat Ale" was used:

       Vol. = 50 liters

       Grain Bill - 7.5 kg. D-C pale ale malt, 2.5 kg. D-C wheat malt

       (SG = 1.048)

       60 grams Hallentau leaf hops, 60 grams Tettnang leaf hops

       (IBU = 26 mg/l)

This is a mild flavored beer, and was chosen for that reason. Any defects

in the yeast used would stick out like a sore thumb in this one. The Belgian

grains were used to remove malt quality as a issue.

Beer using the Mauri yeast from Australia that was sent to me by C+B was

entered in the 3rd Annual March Mashfest in Ft. Collins, Co. The judges were

Skip Madsen and John Landreman. Both are in the "recognized judge" category.

One gave a score of 41 and the other 39. The beer took first place in the

its category. I would be willing to bet that this beer was eliminated early

on in the BOS judging. This strain IMHO is not capable of producing beers

that can compete at that level. Our analysis and the Ft. Collins results

show that this yeast can nevertheless make creditable beer.

Beer made from the new Whitbread strain was entered in the March Pittsburgh

competition, the Bluebonnet, and the recent competition in Chicago. The judges

in the Pittsburgh competition were Cliff Beringer (certified) and Jim Desmond

(apprentice). They gave the Wheat Ale scores of 36 and 37, respectively. It won

a second in this event. The same was true for the Bluebonnet, except the score

sheets have not as yet been sent out. Jim Busch and a few others on this

network also won ribbons. Presumably these and the score sheets will be sent

out soon. I also entered a Brown Ale which took 1st place. This one was

fermented with a cultured yeast (BRY-204, a Belgian ale yeast from Siebel).

I have not seen the official results from Chicago. Al, when will we get this?

I personally prefer the Mauri strain to the new Whitbread, and indeed the

old Whitbread to the new version. The latter can, however, make creditable

beer. Copies of all the relevant score sheets will be sent to C+B where

they will be kept on file with our analytical results.

None of this refutes Mr. O'Connor's assertion that my yeast evalation procedures

are invalid. They are rather simple, but then I am a simple homebrewer and

never claimed to be anything else. Given Mr. O'Conner's depth of understanding

of yeast and related matters I would love to taste some beer he has brewed.

For reasons I do not understand, he has chosen not to participate in Texas

events like the Bluebonnent and Dixie Cup. I have been told that he has

sent samples of his beer to Chicago. They apparently called it "O'Conner's

O-Ring Beer". Does anyone know anything about this?

George Fix

------------------------------


RE: Wyeast 1214, Parallel immersion chillers

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 93 09:49:06 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: Wyeast 1214, Parallel immersion chillers

Hi All,

  In HBD#1126, Rob Bradley writes:

>Has anybody had any REAL success brewing

>quality ale using the "wet t-shirt" method when the ambient is above

>80F?

  I've used this technique several times, it does work well.  I do

have a basement, but it still gets to 75F-78F during the dog days of

July and August.  In addition to putting the carboy in a basin of water

and covering it with a wet towel, I use a small computer fan to

circulate the air around the carboys.  This keeps the evaporation rate

high enough to cool the carboys the 6-8 degrees or so necessary for

ale fermentation.  The fan itself draws very little current, so it doesn't

cost much to run it 24 hours a day, even at the larcenous rates that

Public Screwing, er, I mean, Service of New Hampshire charges.

  I've also been successful brewing dunkelweizens in warm weather using

Wyeast 3506 Bavarian wheat yeast.  The warmer fermentation temperatures

seem to help this yeast produce more of the clove phenolic that's

desirable in a weizen.

>my

>major regret is that so many good bottles of beer aged past their

>prime.  I don't drink fast enough!!!  I don't want to increase my

>alcohol consumption.  Brewing a 3-gallon batch is just as much work

>as a 5-gallon batch.  If I brewed less frequently, I would suffer

>from decreased variety.  Perhaps the answer is to get find a brewing

>partner, so that I get only a case or so from each brew and cut the

>work down accordingly.

>Any other recommendations?

  Sure, throw a party!  I have the same problem, as much as I enjoy

drinking homebrew, I enjoy brewing it even more.  On those occasions when

I've developed a backlog of several cases, my friends have been more

than happy to relieve me of the excess :-).

***************************************************************

  Also in HBD# 1126, Al Korz writes:

>But seriously, I've got a 50-foot, 1/4" OD immersion chiller (about

>1/4 of which is not even in the wort on a 5 gallon batch) and it

>cools my boiling wort to 70F in about 15 minutes.  All this math

>and physics may indeed give me a chiller that is 20% more efficient,

>but all that means is that it will cut my 15 minutes down to 12 minutes.

>Is it really worth it?  Let's not lose touch with reality, eh?

  I built my immersion chiller from 50' of 3/8" OD copper, and like

Al's, about 1/3 of it is not even submerged in a 5 gallon batch.  It too

will cool my wort from boiling to under 70F in 15 minutes.  While this has

been a fascinating thread, with all of the discussion of heat transfer

and convection currents, I confess to being totally unscientific in

the construction of my chiller.

  The copper came in a 50 foot coil, I was too lazy to cut it.  I just

sat down with a pin lock keg, and started wrapping coils.  I left a few

feet on either end for the inlet/outlet, and wrapped some bare 14 gauge

copper wire vertically between the coils to give it some structural

strength.  I did the whole thing in about 30 minutes, it works great, and

never once solved a heat transfer equation.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


Re: Hops

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 93 10:57:51 PDT

From: davidr@ursula.ee.pdx.edu

Subject: Re: Hops

Bravo!  Nice info on the Hops report, Alan.  I'm more of a

gardener than a private brew master, so this was of great

interest to me.

I would like to make a small clarification.

 - The garden is along my North fence, for maximum sun.

Alan doesn't state which side of the North fence.  This

information of course, is dependant on what part of the world you

live on.  For most, if not all of the US, the "Southern Exposure"

is what you are striving for.  The side of a fence or house is

nice because it stores and reflects heat/light for sun loving

plants.

 -David Robinson

davidr@ee.pdx.edu

------------------------------


Carboy Drain/Fill

Date: Sun, 25 Apr 93 12:26:03 EDT

From: roberts735@aol.com

Subject: Carboy Drain/Fill

Not only will the carboy drain faster with the Rack hose venting air, it will

also fill faster if you are dunking it in a large container, as I do.  I use

a very large cooler to hold by sterilizing water/chlorine mix, and put the

entire carboy in there, with a hose in it. It fills very quickly, whithout

the bubbles and splashes too.

Bob Stovall

------------------------------


Steel Kettles

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 93 12:05 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Steel Kettles

 >From: Keith A. MacNeal<macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

 >Subject: Wort Pots

 >What is this fascination for using stainless steel pots to boil wort in?

 It seems obvious to me that the way to save about $100 on a boiling pot is

 to pick up a brand new enamled steel canning pot.  I've seen them for around

 $30.

 Let me take a guess.  Your responses will run ten to one about the evils of

 chipping and how rust and iron will permate your beer and make it

 undrinkable.

 You will also get a few remarks about how the handles break off at the most

 inconvenient times.

 I used one for years for everything from fish boils and maple syrup to beer

 making and although it was chipped in a number of places including a hole in

 the lid that actually rusted through, it worked just fine.  Scrubbing off any

 rust before use seems to be all that is necessary and if you take care of it,

 there is no reason is should chip.  I was very rough on the pot and deserved

 every chip it got.

 I have never had a problem with the handles on my fossilized kettle but the

 new ones do creak and crackle when flexed.  I would, under no circumstance,

 trust them with a full kettle of boiling liquid but they can easily be lifted

 by the outside lip with potholders or gloves.

 My first easymasher was installed in such a pot along with a false bottom.

 The false bottom has been abandoned as a dinosaur and the easymasher is now a

 commercial product.

 There are several issues that seem to be limiting the universal acceptance of

 the em and the most significant seems to be the cost of a large pot and the

 fact that most people are unaware of the existance of the 33 qt

 enamel-on-steel canning kettle.

 There also seems to be a very powerful reluctance to drill a hole in a nice

 new kettle.  I am not sure what drives this paranoia but to buy a kettle for

 the sole purpose of brewing beer and not go the additional step for the

 ultimate in convenience seems a bit strange.

 Finally, a product does not seem to exist until Zymurgy does a review of it.

 Well, one thing led to another and I am now offering the EASYMASHER kit

 installed in the 33 qt canning kettle, ready to mash, sparge and ferment.

 Yes, in spite of all the momilies, they make great primary fermenters IF kept

 in good condition.

                      email for details.

 If you have received the Kettlemashing article, just ask for POT info.

 js

------------------------------


petri dishes

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 93 13:59:18 EST

From: woessner@psych.purdue.edu (Leo Woessner)

Subject: petri dishes

 I am trying to find a source of glass petri dishes to use for yeast

culturing.  Every place I have found that carries them has either will not sell

to a individual, or has a large minimum order ($75).  I want to find somewhere

I can order as few as say 5 or 6 petri dishes.  I am also interested in locating

possible sources of yeast slants which contain yeast which is hard to find.  Is

there a mail order place(s) which specialize in yeast culturing??

    Thanks in advance,

     Leo WOessner

------------------------------


Need info on how to bottle Single Malt Scotch

Date:  Fri, 23 Apr 1993 12:29:49 PDT

From: Dimitri_Katsaros.Wbst139@xerox.com

Subject: Need info on how to bottle Single Malt Scotch

Hi all

     My father had some barrels in Scotland and then had them shipped here...

They are 5 single malt scotches with different alcohol contents and different

darknesses.  First, what is the _legal_ way of bottling this stuff and second

what goes into doing this methodically... are filters involved?  is blending

necessary or even desireable? This is (I think) 18 years old.... give or take a

few years, so I don't want to screw this up :-)

Any advice is highly appreciated

Dimitri Katsaros

------------------------------


Whitbread History

Date: Wed, 22 Apr 92 17:30:27 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Whitbread History

Apparently-To: homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

Here is the recent Whitbread history as I understand it. The original

3 strain culture was produced at an old yeast plant, operated under

license by Whitbread. It was distributed in the US to HB shops and

micros by Siebel. This plant was shut down ~2 years ago as a part

of Whitbread's company wide modernization program. Siebel then had the

yeast sent to another plant in Canada to temporarily produce it there until

Whitbread's new yeast plant went into production. This is where is wild yeast

infection occurred. It caused quite a scandal in California and Canada, the

regions that apparently got the bulk of the bad yeast. Siebel promptly

dropped distribution of this yeast. A short time later Crosby+Baker contracted

with Whitbread to have some more production runs done at the old plant,

and started distributing it.

Both versions of Whitbread can be found in homebrew shops, at least this

is the case in the Southwest. The C+B version comes in a 14 gram packet,

while the other version comes in a 12 gram packet. I have tested both,

and the samples were quite acceptable as far as lactics and super-attenuators

are concerned. The yeast in the 12 gram packets are now very old, and

its viability was unacceptable in 2 of the 3 samples tested.

In general, the detection of wild yeast is extremely subtle, however the

detection of super-attenuators is a piece of cake. One need only inoculate

a sample of the yeast in a sterile dextrin extract and measure metabolic

activity. As I mentioned in a previous post, the yeast was also checked

with Rodney Morris' incremental actidione test. I have found this procedure

to be very useful in my own personal brewing. If there is anyone out there

who actually brews beer and who has evidence to the contrary, then I would

be glad to exchange both beer and data.

The situation may become more complicated in the next few months. The

Whitbread yeast that was sent to me from a test batch at their new

plant appears to be quite different from the old mixed culture. First,

I believe it is a pure single strain yeast. Secondly, it tends to give

a soft, slightly woody flavor not unlike Wyeast's London Ale

strain. It is a far cry from the crisp and snappy tartness produced

by the old mixed culture. It, like Wyeast's London Ale yeast, is

exceptionally clean and has >90% viability. Feedback on the new strain

would be welcome by me when it becomes available. The hope is that

it can serve as a beginner's version of the London Ale strain.

George Fix

Take care.

George Fix

------------------------------


Best British Beers

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 93 20:22:35 GMT

From: u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil (Markham R. Elliott)

Subject: Best British Beers

Fellow Brewers,

Thought I would share with you the contents of an article from the May issue

of _Bon Appetit_.  The article is the "Tasting Panel Report", and for May,

they pick ..."the 10 best British brews available stateside."...

Listed in alphabetical order, with *their* comments:

Bass Pale Ale, England ($1.50/12 Oz).  This world-renowned brew is clean and

bright, with a light color and lively, malty, well-balanced flavors.

MacAndrew's Scotch Ale, Caledonian Brewery, Scotland ($3.00/17 Oz).  A smoky,

spicy ale that is marketed with a lovable Airedale on the label, and the

slogan "Man's Best Friend."  We can't decide whether this refers to the dog

of the ale.

McEwan's Scotch Ale, Scotland ($1.50/12 Oz).  Anthony Dias Blue describes this

dark ale as "dense, sweet and rich, with hints of molasses and fruit."

Newcastle Brown Ale, England ($1.30/12 Oz).  It isn't really so brown, but

this ale does have nice flavors of spice and malt, with a crisp, fresh finish.

Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale, England ($2.50/Pint).  A fine Yorkshire product

that's smokey, toasty, lively and loaded with flavor.

Theakston Old Peculier Yorkshire Ale, England ($1.50/12 Oz).  This brew with

the peculiar spelling of _peculiar_ is lush and toasty, with a great finish.

Thomas Hardy's Ale, Eldridge, Pope & Co., Dorset, England ($3.00/6.33 Oz).

Named for Dorset's most famous writer, this ale, bottled with its natural

yeast, will improve with age.  Dark and complex, with Porter-like qualities.

Traquair House Ale, Scotland ($5.00/12 Oz).  Yes, it's expensive, but Traquair

was tops with us.  It's made on the estate of a historic Scottish manor house

that was once occupied by Bonnie Prince Charlie.  Angela Freire of _Wine and

Spirits_ magazine finds Traquair "earthy and hoppy".

Welsh Ale, Felinfoel Brewery, Wales ($2.50/Pint).  This brew was a favorite

of the poet Dylan Thomas. It is loaded with attractive spice and is "full and

thick with a nice bitter finish,"  according to one panelist.

Whitbred Traditional Pale Ale, England ($1.00/12 Oz).  Bright, with fresh,

snappy flavors.  "Fine balance and structure," says panel member. Cirilo

Octaviano.

*Listed prices are approximate and may vary from one state to another.*

Gosh, not too descriptive.  By no means am I a qualified judge, but it sounds

to me like the panel doesn't get around to judging beer too often, or at least

they don't use the same language in describing things like you certified folks

out there in HBD land do.

Wish they would have ranked them.

Noch einmal, bitte!!  Mark

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 Markham R. Elliott                 u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil

 Information Technology Laboratory                     (601) 634-2921

 Waterways Experiment Station

 Vicksburg, Mississippi  USA

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Clockwise Hop Growth

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1993 13:33:04 -0800

From: ulrich@sfu.ca

Subject: Clockwise Hop Growth

Garrett Hildebrand writes:

> I am growing three kinds of hops in my Southern California backyard,

> and they are all doing the same thing: climbing the stake *clockwise*.

Assuming you live in the northern hemisphere, the sun also travels around

the stake clockwise (clockwisdom being a holdover from sundials). Could

there be a connection? Are the plants following the sunlight?

Or maybe it's the Coriolus effect. :-)

Charles Ulrich

------------------------------


University of Rhode Island course

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 93 07:02:22 PDT

From: URI course  26-Apr-1993 1001 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: University of Rhode Island course

Any homebrew digest folks attend a class related to brewing at URI this

past friday?

Curious,

JC

------------------------------


soda keg prices

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 93 07:01:31 PDT

From: Soda Kegs  26-Apr-1993 0959 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: soda keg prices

BCI in the state of Tennessee, sells 3gal soda kegs for $36.50 and 5gal soda

kegs for $26.50.  These are reconditioned and quite clean.  I just ordered

a kegging system from them for about $140-, including shipping (I got the

3gal keg too).  I have yet to put beer in the keg, yet!

JC

------------------------------


Wooden trellis for hops?

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 93 16:56:34 EDT

From: emeeks@tx.ncsu.edu

Subject: Wooden trellis for hops?

Greetings--

I have persuaded a friend to let me grow some hops in his yard. To be

specific, it is on the side of his house. I planned to use twine  to

make a trellis, but my friend's wife decided a wooden lattice-type

trellis would look better. It seems to me that a wooden trellis, while

more aesthetically pleasing, would get in the way during the harvest.

I'd like to know if a wooden trellis would be worthwhile. Anyone out

there have one in use?

Thanks!

- --Ed

------------------------------


old style beer (not the bra

Date: 26 Apr 1993 16:51:16 -0500

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel.F.McConnell@med.umich.edu>

Subject: old style beer (not the bra

                       Subject:                               Time:4:48 PM

  OFFICE MEMO          old style beer (not the brand)         Date:4/26/93

Hi All:

Last year some of our club members and members of another club got together for

several weekends and brewed beer (imagine that) at an outdoor Renaissance Fair.

 These beers were brewed with a three tier gravity/stainless steel keg/propane

burner system.  There were many interested potential homebrewers and the events

were a great success.  The beer was good as well.  This year there are plans to

repeat the performance.   All this got me thinking....why not take a giant leap

backwards in technology?

Stainless is great at home, but primitive might be fun as well.  I envision not

a ss mash tun, but one made from half of an oak barrel, a large pot (cauldron)

boiled over an open fire.  A single infusion mash using a procedure in which

the grain is doughed in at ambient water temperatures and boiling  (or hot)

water added to reach mash strike.  Draining to the boiler the first runnings

and a second mash possibly with no sparge.

Well, I am in the process of building such a beast out of a 55 gal used whiskey

barrel, at least as a proof of concept.  Noonan's Scotch ale gives guidelines

for old style brewing ie. second mashing so I have something to start with. I

suppose decoctions are not out of the question either.

Has anyone tried something similar to this that can offer some guidelines?  Can

you think of a better mash tun or boiler?  I'm not sure how to cool this stuff

without entering the 20th century.

DanMcC

 .....oh no, think'in again

------------------------------


Culturing Chimay

Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 13:23 PDT

From: /O=vmspfhou/S=dblewis/DD.SITE=JSCPROFS/@NASAmail.nasa.gov

Subject: Culturing Chimay

***************************** PROFS Note *****************************

 From: DBLEWIS --VMSPFHOU            Date and time  04/23/93 13:48:51

 To: POSTMAN --NASAMAIL

 FROM: Dennis B. Lewis <dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

 SUBJECT: Culturing Chimay

 BILL SOLVIBILE writes:

 >THERE IS ACTIVE YEAST IN THE CHIMAY BOTTLES.  WE FILTERED IT OUT AND

 >ATTEMTED TO CULTURE IT. WE THOUGHT WE WERE SUCESSFUL, BUT OUR BEER

 >WAS NO CHIMAY.

 I have had several discussions with people on the net about Chimay

 yeast. I believe I read (in HBD probably) that Chimay yeast is a

 combination of 5 different strains plus some other microflora.  One

 person said that his plate of Chimay yeast had several "different"

 colonies of yeast on it, while another said that his plate looked all

 the same.  I think they got their yeast from bottle dregs, not from

 Wyeast 1214.

 I'm starting to culture my own yeast and am curious about Chimay and

 other Belgian strains.  Is it worth plating out the yeast or do you

 lose other important side strains? I would think that culturing the

 bottle dreg in wort and keep repitching until you get enough yeast

 slurry to pitch would be the way to go. Then keep repitching the

 slurry until there is a noticable difference like one of the side

 strains taking over.  I'm not worrying about it, because I don't have

 a batch in the fermenter, etc. etc., but I am curious. Thanks in

 advance for all the expert advice.

 Dennis B. Lewis  *  (713) 483-9145  *  NASA/JSC/DH6 Payload Ops

 Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Soda adjuncts

Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 13:23 PDT

From: /O=vmspfhou/S=dblewis/DD.SITE=JSCPROFS/@NASAmail.nasa.gov

Subject: Soda adjuncts

***************************** PROFS Note *****************************

 From: DBLEWIS --VMSPFHOU            Date and time  04/23/93 13:51:04

 To: POSTMAN --NASAMAIL

 FROM: Dennis B. Lewis <dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

 SUBJECT: Soda adjuncts

 In a recent HBD, someone asked about using cola to acidify

 the sparge water.  This idea rekindled the one I had about

 using Coca-Cola as an adjunct in making a porter.  So I gave

 it a sample try.  While the labelling didn't indicate that

 there were any preservatives in the mix, there are "natural

 flavors" which, of course, can be preservative in their own

 right.

 My test went like this: measure OG and pH; buffer with

 calcium carbonate to 5.4 or so, pitch yeast and yeast

 nutrient.  The OG was a whopping 1.042! That's a pound of

 sugar (high fructose corn syrup) per gallon. Or a teaspoon

 per ounce.  (Next time you have a can of Coke, think about

 eating 4 tablespoons of sugar. :-b)  The pH was below 4.5,

 probably more like 3 something. Turned my pH paper bright

 yellow. I didn't bother to boil the Coke, but I did

 decarbonate it.  I put 8 oz in a bottle with 1/2 tsp of dried

 ale yeast (rehyd) and a little yeast nutrient.

 The resulting cloudy mixture gave 2 glubs total and then the

 yeast started dropping out of suspension.  The SG didn't

 change much and the taste was terrible and not the least bit

 alcoholic.  Moral: Don't bother with colas or other sodapops.

 They have stuff that will knock out your yeast and don't

 really taste that good.  Blech.

 Dennis B. Lewis  *  (713) 483-9145  *  NASA/JSC/DH6 Payload Ops

 Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Chimay culturing question

Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 09:09:40 -0400

From: gxd@po.CWRU.Edu (Guy Derose)

Subject: Chimay culturing question

After 6 batches of extract/specialty grain/dry yeast beer, I'm about

to make my first attempt at culturing yeast.  I would like to make a

Trappiste style ale using the yeast from a bottle of Chimay.  I have

read and enjoyed the recent thread on HBD about yeast culturing and

Papazian's and Miller's book descriptions of culturing.  My question

is:  Is there a difference between the yeast in a big (750 ml) bottle

and in a small (~11-12 oz.) bottle of Chimay red?  Thanks for any

feedback.

- --

Guy DeRose

Case Western Reserve University

Physicist, PP-ASEL, homebrewer (NOT necessarily in that order)

------------------------------


SUMMER MUST BE COMMING, QUESTION ON O2

Date: 26 Apr 1993 17:44:28 -0500 (EST)

From: SMUCKER@UTKVX.UTCC.UTK.EDU

Subject: SUMMER MUST BE COMMING, QUESTION ON O2

Summer must be comming not much traffic on the Homebrew digest and we

had a day without Jack!

Question?  Have any of you out there used direct O2 before you pitched

your yeast?  I have read tails of some using direct injection of O2

instead of AIR and some problems with too much and getting way too much

yeast growth.  How much is right?  What range of volumes do you use?

Since I'm a welder and have the equipment to inject O2 it would seem a

better way to go than with AIR.

Dave S,

------------------------------


hop growth direction

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 93 16:49:38 EDT

From: Lee Menegoni <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

Subject: hop growth direction

 Could the clock wise direction observed be due to the plant tracking the sun?

I think thye recent thread on Carboy tricks would eliminate the Coreolius effect

I just kegged a Chech Pilsner using the Wyeast Bohemian strain the package was

mid February, It had no off flavors or aromas.  fermentation was at 45 and

lagering at 40  and a week at 32 to settle out yeast and proteins.  I would

have to say that the description is different from the result.  It did not

produce a strong malty flavor.  I have heard other brewers have the same result.

- --

------------------------------


Premier Malt Extract

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 93 20:18:45 EDT

From: hopz@aol.com

Subject: Premier Malt Extract

Yesterday while grazing at the grocery store, I noticed a can of "Premier

Malt Extract" next to the cereal section on the bottom (dusty) shelf.

It said it was malt extract used for brewing and baking.  Has instructions

under the lid along with unmarket packet of dried yeast.

Bright yellow label.

Interestingly enough it was 2.3 pounds or so... at about $4.50.  Detailed

label gazing revealed ingredients of malted barley, corn, and hops. Also sid

it was made in United Kingdom for a U.S. company.

Any ideas what this stuff is?

Thanks

Bob

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1128, 04/27/93

*************************************

-------


SIGNOFF

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1993 21:10:50 EDT

From: dcse20516@topcat.bsc.mass.edu

Subject: SIGNOFF

SIGNOFF

------------------------------


Decoction mashing...

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 00:14:00 -0500 (CDT)

From: David McDow <dmcdow@emx.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Decoction mashing...

My first post to this here forum (gulp)

  I am an all grain brewer, (7 batches) and have been doing the one step

infusion method of mashing grains.  The last 2 batches have been somewhat

of a disappointment.  They have been wheat beers, and my extraction has

been poor.  Previous to these 2 attempts, all have been barley batches and

extraction has been acceptable.  Someone (sorry forgot) mentioned that

wheat beers should be decocted.

  I would like to learn more about decoction mashing.  If anyone would

care to share their method I'd be appreciative.

Hanky (Thanx)

dave

dmcdow@emx.cc.utexas.edu

------------------------------


old style brewing

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 11:11:36 MET DST

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: old style brewing

hello all,

Daniel mentioned that he was thinking of brewing in an old/ancient

way. I thought I'd send this extract in, for it's general

interest:

Extracted without permission from Corran's History of Brewing:

 .......The mash-tun, according to Nordland, who calls

 it the filter vat, was the only specialised piece of

 brewing equipment; it was generally reserved for brewing,

 whereas other vessels might be used for different purposes.

 Filter vats were of coopered wooden construction, and some

had individual staves lengthened to make legs. Others sat on

 tripods or T-shaped supports.   Nordland's investigation

extended to philological aspects of brewing, and he shows

that one of the names for the filter vat is related to

stampr or stumpf, the stub of a tree, and hence to

wooden vessels or containers made by hollowing out logs.

 Such vessels predated coopered vessels, but in more

recent times were used only for crushing grain or bark

into flour or for storing dry goods such as flour. Reference

 is also made to a trough-like filter vat made from a

hollowed-out trunk and kept together by strong wooden

half hoops and cross pieces at the ends. Taps were made

of wood, generally beech, until well into the nineteenth

century, when brass taps were introduced.   Strainers for

the mash were a source of much variation. Straw was used

from Egyptian times for this purpose. The old Norwegian

practice was to put down a grating of sticks, usually of

juniper or alder, which supported the straw that did the

straining. Notched sticks were also used to support the

grating; later on came the wooden perforated bottom, which

has almost certainly been used since medieval times by brewers

in England.   Juniper was widely used in Norwegian brewing,

both for flavouring the malt and the beer. It was also included

in the hot water used for cleaning brewing vessels. The

importance of cleanliness was well understood. Before brewing,

the wooden coopered vessels were made watertight by being put in

running water. They might be kept filled with clean water, but a

juniper extract was more efficacious, a decoction of the plant

being boiled and poured into the vessel. But in order to make

quite certain the vessels were not sour, the Norwegian brewers

used 'stone boiling'. The practice of using hot stones for boiling

liquids is known in many parts of the world, and is particularly

associated with the processes of brewing and cooking.   Although

the use of stones for boiling has long vanished from Sweden and

Denmark, Nordland states there were stone breweries in Finland

and the Baltic countries within the twentieth century. The last

known survival, as far as is known, was at Newmannsdorf, near

Klagenfurt in Austria, where beer was still brewed by this method

up till 19I7, with the consumers' strong approval. This brewery

is now installed in the Technical Museum in Vienna and comprises

(a) A fireplace for heating the stones. This was usually a hole

    dug in the brewery yard, 2m x 1m, bricked on three sides

    with a sloping fourth side. Long logs and stones the size of a

    child's head were piled in layers.

(b) A wooden mash-tun on wooden supports, with a low plat

    form surrounding it; its outlet hole, which can be closed by

    a bung on the end of a pole, gives on to a wooden trough

    made from a hollow tree trunk.

(c) A primitive wooden pump, also made from a hollow log,

    which pumps water into a trough that conveys the water to

    the top of the mash-tun.

(d) Two other wooden vessels, one evidently for heating water

    and the other for fermenting.

The brewing procedure was as follows:

1 The malt was ground and the mash-tun outlet prepared by covering

it with juniper twigs.

2 The stones were heated and dropped into the mash-tun,

  which had been filled with water and with the prescribed

  quantity of hops.

3 The liquor was boiled.(BY THE HOT STONES)

4 Cold water was added, followed by ground malt, and

  mashing took place.

5 The mash was heated again, by means of larger hot stones

  this time, and the mash worked with a mashing oar. (An

  oaken cradle was used for carrying hot stones from the fire

  place.) 6 When mashing was finished, more juniper branches were

  put vertically into the mash to facilitate filtration, which

  began after 1hr.

Meanwhile 'sparging' liquor was heated in the second vessel with

the help of stones. Wort was ladled back into the mash-tun if it

did not come through clear. When it was clear, it was run into the

fermenting tun, which was placed in the cellar. It was

easy to cool in the winter, but during the hot season it might be

chilled by means of cold water and ice in some sort of floating vessel.

   The similarities of a good deal of this procedure to the findings of

Nordland in Norway make it probable that here we have a picture of early

ale and beer brewing in all the countries of Northern Europe.

                       Hops and Flavouring

The mixture of herbs known as gruit was extensively used in Scandinavia, just as

it was further south. The most important ingredient, certainly in Norway, was

the bog myrtle. Evidently the ale was potent when bog myrtle was added, and it

was often used in addition to hops. Hypericum perforatum, St John's wort, was

also used, as was yarrow (Achillea millefolium). Tansy and wormwood are also

mentioned. Pine roots and spruce chippings might sometimes be added to prevent

the ale from turning sour. There are further references to caraway, pepper and

even potato leaves and tobacco ('but that kind of ale was no good - it made them

sick'). Nordland considers that bog myrtle may still be used in western Norway.

Hops might be put in a bag and boiled in the wort, which saved subsequent

straining, or they might be strained off after boiling, for which purpose there

were hop strainers of basket work, vegetable fibres or hair, or even perforated

wooden boxes. Some indeed were small coopered vessels.

                              Yeast

Old Norwegian ale was top-fermented and the yeast was re

moved from the fermenter with a special skimming spoon,

though the brewer's right hand might also be employed. The

ale was generally drawn off before fermentation was finished,

and it fermented further in the cask. The brewing yeast was

used also for baking.

SORRY ABOUT THE VARYING LINE LENGTHS.

ROB. THOMAS

------------------------------


Nottingham yeast problem ?

Date:     Tue, 27 Apr 93 7:29:16 EDT

From: Jpetty@PICA.ARMY.MIL

Subject:  Nottingham yeast problem ?

This is my second batch with nottingham ale yeast.  After 48 hrs, still no

activity.  With my first batch after 48 hrs I gave up and pitched a different

yeast which promptly got the bubbles going.  Is Nottingham a particularly

slow starting yeast ?  For info, the OG was 1.052 and I rehydrated the yeast

"by the book".  I'm getting real nervous about letting it sit with no

activity (68 deg F) although I use an airlock.

------------------------------


thanks to hbd

Date: 27 Apr 1993 07:59:53 -0400 (EDT)

From: KLIGERMAN@herlvx.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: thanks to hbd

I didn't want to take up too much bandwidth but since the HBD has

been sparse lately, I wanted to thank the HBD and the people I

met in Finland.  Because of contacts through the HBD I was able to meet

2 very nice homebrewers in Helsinki, Finland this past week.  I wanted

to thank Kari Nikkanen and Hanna for showing us some of the best in Finnish

beers.  For those who get a chance Koff porter and lager are quite good,

but the standard Lapin Kulta, while better than most American lagers, was

nondiscript and "watery."  I also wanted to thank Ilkka Sysil and Anita Mikkonen

for inviting us to their home and sharing their excellent beer.  They make a

truly fine lager--better than many I tried that won contests in the States.

They also have a very interesting engineered system that he might be

encouraged to share over the HBD.

Andy Kligerman and Lucy Adams

------------------------------


Guinness and N20

Date: 27 Apr 93 02:25:50 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Guinness and N20

Message Creation Date was at 27-APR-1993 07:18:00

          In HBD 1128, Kari Nikkanen raises the question of using N2O:

          "... since Guinness uses N2O, why shouldn't I."

          A properly poured Guinness only uses 20% Nitrogen.  The

          remaining 80% is CO2.  The Nitrogen definitely helps in the

          smooth head, but most important is the baffle plate and

          atomizer within the tap which "aerates" the stout.

------------------------------


kegging pressures

Date: 27 Apr 1993 08:15:11 -0400 (EDT)

From: JUKNALIS@arserrc.gov

Subject: kegging pressures

 I'm having trouble keeping a consistent pressure in my cornelius

kegs during the gradual emptying of the vessel.  The first batch was fine

until the end when more & more pressure was needed to drive the beer out.

(It gravity siphoned fine during cleaning).  Now after conditioning

sometimes I get barely a trickle and sometimes a cup of foam.

 Anyone have any experience or ideas on this problem?

thanks in advance.  Joe

------------------------------


Typical Lager Fermentation Time?

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 7:51:31 EDT

From: rjsmith@iron.afsac.wpafb.af.mil (Randy Smith)

Subject: Typical Lager Fermentation Time?

Started my first genuine lager yesterday that will go into my Hunter Air

Stat controlled fridge for fermenting.  Most of what I've done in the past

is ales.  Usually we wait 2-3 weeks and then bottle.  I do have a hydrometer,

but never really use it.  Just too lazy to track the readings, etc.  Everything

has come out good for the past few years, so we've been doing ok so far.

I'm concerned with the lagering and how long it will take to be ready to

bottle.  How long is probably long enough?  I used 6.6# of liquid malt extract,

Y-yeast Bavarian yeast (forget the number), and will ferment at 48 degrees.

Used Tetnang and Saaz hops, but that shouldn't affect the ferment time, right?

Didn't take a hydro reading (the lazy part), but am making a typical 5 gal

batch.  My big fear is making two cases of beer grenades.  What do you think?

- --Randy--

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Randy J. Smith                         DoD #2022          '93 CBR900RR

C.E.T.A. Corporation                   rjsmith@iron.afsac.wpafb.af.mil

"Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments

for going on believing as we already do."

                  -  James Harvey Robinson

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


N2O

Date: 27 Apr 1993 10:07:10 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: N2O

I must be slipping, I missed that one first time around!  N2O is NOT WHAT'S

USED FOR GUINNESS!!!!!  Guinness uses N2, molecular nitrogen, not nitrous

oxide!  Nitrous oxide is used for whipped cream, yes, but you don't sit

with a bubbling glass of whipped cream under your nose!  Nitrous oxide is

used as an anaesthetic (laughing gas) and to boost engine output (a la Mad

Max).  Furthermore, it's solubility in water is close to that of CO2, which

is to say about 50 times greater than the solubility of Nitrogen.  Use CO2

or N2 if you like, don't use N2O!  You'll be too stoned to taste your beer!

 ed

  ___

 /   /   /     Ed Hitchcock                   +<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>+

|      0  /   Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology  +    Drink             +

|          > Dalhousie University             +     Noise / Make     +

|      0  /   Beer Wasteland                  +              Beer    +

 /___/   /     ech@ac.dal.ca                  +<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>+

------------------------------


Addr: Premier Malt

Date: 27 Apr 93 08:33:58 EDT

From: RKING@VUNET.VINU.EDU

Subject: Addr: Premier Malt

In response to the question about Premier Malt: I

occasionally use this because it sells at our local

grocery for $3.99 for a 2.2 lb (?) can. It USED

to be $2.99 until about last year. I have always found

it to be a good product, and will use three cans for

a 4 1/2 to 5 gallon batch of "kitchen sink brew,"

where I just throw in all the left over ingredients I

have. I have used the packet of dry yeast, at times,

when I don't have any liquid, and have had surprisingly

good results. I have no brewing store nearby, and the

price is right. I'd like to hear comments from other

brewers about this Premier.

********************************************************

Richard L. King, Reference Librariain, Vincennes (IN) Univ.

RKING@VUNET.VINU.EDU

------------------------------


RE: 2124 Bohemian

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 09:45:01 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: 2124 Bohemian

Hi All,

  In HBD#1128, Lee Menegoni writes:

>I just kegged a Chech Pilsner using the Wyeast Bohemian strain the package was

>mid February, It had no off flavors or aromas.  fermentation was at 45 and

>lagering at 40  and a week at 32 to settle out yeast and proteins.  I would

>have to say that the description is different from the result.  It did not

>produce a strong malty flavor. I have heard other brewers have the same result.

  I tasted this brew recently, I'd have to agree with Lee's assessment.

While the beer was quite good, it did not have the pronounced maltiness and

slightly sulfury notes of a Bohemian pilsner.  Instead, the malt character

was "softer" and much more subtle.

  I find this of interest because I provided both the undermodified pilsner

malt and the decoction mashing procedure Lee used for this brew.  We both

brewed pilsners about one week apart, we both used Saaz exclusively.  Using

this same malt and style of mashing, I've produced Bohemian-style pilsners

with the maltiness and sulfury notes I've come to know and love.  The only

difference in ingredients and procedures was that I used the Wyeast 2206

Bavarian, one of the strains recommended by Miller in his "Continental

Pilsner" book.  For anyone planning to brew a Bohemian pilsner, the 2206

produces a beer much closer to style than the 2124, IMHO.

  I have seen this type of thing before, where beers were brewed with the

same malt, hops, and procedures, but pitched with different yeasts to produce

distinctly different beers.  Never ceases to amaze me, though.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


RE: Soda Adjuncts

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 10:20:01 -0400

From: ""Robert C. Santore"" <rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: RE: Soda Adjuncts

in HBD 1128 Dennis Lewis writes:

 > alcoholic.  Moral: Don't bother with colas or other sodapops.

 > They have stuff that will knock out your yeast and don't

 > really taste that good.  Blech.

It is my understanding that the sugar/soda extract combination does

not have enough nutrients (other than sugar, of course ) to support a

fermentation.  Folks that make their own sodas rely on this fact since

most recipies I've seen suggest mixing up your extract/sugar, pitching

yeast, and bottling immediately.  The yeast can maintain just enough

activity to carbonate the mixture before dying of some horrible yeast

malnutrition.  This may explain why your test 'brew' didn't do much.

Of course, it does not rule out the possibility that preservatives are

at fault as well.  A test with a soda/malt combo should be decisive.

Bob Santore

Syracuse, NY

rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu

------------------------------


Alcohol and other drugs

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 07:53:29 pdt

From: Ted Manahan <tedm@hpcvcbp.cv.hp.com>

Subject: Alcohol and other drugs

Full-Name: Ted Manahan

I wrote this article for our local club's newsletter. In the interest of

generating controversy, I will post it here.

Ted Manahan

 - ----------------------------------------------------------------

At the recent Home Brew U, [In Seattle, WA] I heard Gene Ford speak. He

publishes the Moderate Drinking Journal, which is devoted to reporting

on the positive medical and therapeutic aspects of drinking.  He is on a

quest to counter the attempts of neo prohibitionists to limit access to

beer, wine, and spirits.

One of Mr. Ford's basic philosophies is that our culture has a long history

of using these drinks in moderation. They are social lubricators, and

promote relaxation and well being. With this I agree. He also objects to

the use of the term "alcoholic drinks" to describe beer, wine, and

spirits. He feels this term is used to create a link between these legal

drinks and illegal drugs. He claims there is a fundamental difference

between alcohol and illegal drugs.

At the AHA conference last year, the keynote speaker presented this same

point of view. Charlie Papazian put forth this same claim in a Zymurgy

editorial. I have heard other homebrewers with similar opinions. I don't

agree that there is any fundamental difference between these different

types of drugs.

Homebrewing was legalized only in the last couple decades. At various

times in history, alcohol has been out of favor, and even illegal.

Alcohol is a very potent drug, with the possibility of death resulting

from abuse. We homebrewers, as producers and consumers, need to be aware

of this.

We also need to be vigilant against someone deciding they know what is

best for us. The potential for abuse does not justify taking away the

liberty to use. This certainly holds true for other substances. The

current "war on drugs" is a prime example of creating criminals out of

honest citizens, just as prohibition created criminals out of honest

drinkers.

The main effect of the "war on drugs" is to guarantee a monopoly on drug

profits to those willing to break the law. What newspapers call "drug

related violence" is really money related violence - the most common drug

related violence is bar fights between drunk people.

It is foolish to self righteously decry the attacks neo prohibitionists

are making, while failing to see the connection with our own intolerance

of, for instance, marijuana use. Homebrewers need to be aware that

intolerance is contagious. People with "Zero Tolerance" will quickly see

that alcohol is more dangerous than most illegal drugs. The urge to

control people's behavior soon extends to everything we personally don't

do.

So don't fool yourself. The next time your friends complain about the

effort to lower the DUI limit to one beer, point out that they may be

contributing to the political climate that views government control of

our lives as acceptable. Take note of your own attitude next time you

hear of a drug bust. Would you have felt the same way about the BATF

busting a homebrewer twenty years ago? Next time, it could be you!

------------------------------


BCI phone number

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 08:06:48 PDT

From: BCI phone #  27-Apr-1993 1106 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: BCI phone number

The phone number for BCI is 1-800-284-9410.

I'm in no way affiliated with BCI other

then being a satisfied customer.

JC Ferguson

------------------------------


Old Dominion Brewing Co

Date:  Tue, 27 Apr 93 08:38:00 -0640

From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com (Roy Rudebusch)

Subject:  Old Dominion Brewing Co

From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com

Subject: Old Dominion Brewing Co.

In Ashburg, Virginia.

How are their beers, in general?

Do they have any particularily good ones? Are they a Micro or a brewpub?

Thanks in advance for your time in replying e'mail!

roy.rudebusch@travel.com        This internet node not supported by

                                government tax money.

 * OLX 2.2 * People who pun deserve to be drawn and quoted

------------------------------


Clockwise Hops

Date: 27 Apr 1993 11:44:46 -0400 (EDT)

From: POLLARD%FRMNVAX1.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu

Subject: Clockwise Hops

Just joined this list and am mighty impressed by the brewing knowldege of

you all.  I can't contribute much there, but I do know a thing or two

about botany.  Twining of vines appears to be unrelated to either sunshine

(they do the same under artificial light) or coreolis effect (I believe

they may have even tested it in the space shuttle).  It is controlled by

internal factors related to planes of cell division and distribution of

plant hormones.  Some species are innately counterclockwise twiners, and

others, like hops, go clockwise.  Yes, it is conventionally viewed from

the plant's point of "view", looking up.  An unsupported hop shoot, viewed

with time-lapse photography, makes clockwise spirals (a type of movement

called "nutation") in mid-air, until it touches something; then it twines

around that support.  So unlike the whirlpool in your toilet, it will also

go clockwise in the southern hemisphere.

      By the way, re. British beer reviews, I agree they aren't very

discriminating.  Anybody who can use the same adjectives to describe Bass

and Old Peculier must have no taste buds, and then to make no mention of

original gravity???  Is it any coincidence that these "10 best" happen to

correspond to the 10 brews most commonly found in a fairly good (but not

spectacular) liquor store?  Not much research done, I suspect.

Cheers.

------------------------------


Brew Ha Ha address

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 11:49:05 -0400 (EDT)

From: Stephen Brent Peters <sp2q+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: Brew Ha Ha address

Howdy,

To all those looking for the 5 litre keg and tap system.  Here is

where to find the goods:

Brew Ha Ha, Ltd.

209 High Street

Pottstown, PA 19464

800-243-2620

They also sell a terrific starting kit for beginning homebrewers.

               Steve Peters =  sp2q@andrew.cmu.edu

                  *Oxnar demands a _Sacrifice!_*

------------------------------


Carbonation, Nitrogen, Yeast

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 11:25 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Carbonation, Nitrogen, Yeast

 >From: Paul Andrews <PANDREWS@hpb.hwc.ca>

 >Subject: Foam and kegging problem

 > I pressurized to 50psi (at room temp).. let sit overnight..

 (it went down to about 30 psi) after 16-18hours.  I decided to see what it

 tasted/looked like the next day.  Ugh.. most foam and very little carbonation.

 Shake the blazes out of it and it will be carbonated in a few minutes at 50

 psi.  I would suggest that you reduce the pressure to about 20 lbs when the

 big rush is over or you run the risk of over carbonating it although at room

 temperature, that is not very likely.

 The problem you will have carbonating it at room temp is dispensing it.  I

 use a cold plate to chill it as it is dispensed but without that, all bets

 are off.

 >From: NIKKANEN@ntcclu.ntc.nokia.com (Kari Nikkanen, design engineer)

 >        So you are using N2O instead of C02?  Do you get

         better (smoother) head in your beers than with

         C02?  I think I'll start kegging my beer too, and

         I just thought some time ago, that if Guinness

         uses N20, why shouldn't I.  Does anyone else

         have any opinions?

 After reading George Fix's article on nitrogen, I had to give it a try.  I

 have been experimenting with a product called Aligal.  This is 20% CO2 and

 80% nitrogen and is sold in a cylinder with CO2 fittings, making it

 convenient to try.  Unfortunately, it is only available as a rental and costs

 $4.50 per month plus $18 for the gas.

 The first problem I encountered was when I attempted to carbonate a batch of

 with it.  After pressuring up the tank to 50 psi, there was not the slightest

 absorption, no matter how much I shook it.  I had to bleed of the gas and

 switch to the straight CO2 in order to carbonate it.  When it was just about

 fully carbonated, I bled of the CO2 and switched back to the mix and let it

 sit at 50 psi overnight.

 The results are very interesting but I am not sure it is worth the trouble or

 expense.  I have done 3 batches with this set up and although each one acts a

 little different, the common ground is a head that builds from the bottom up

 in a very peculiar manner.  The beer can come out of the tap without a bubble

 and fill the glass with foam but it disipates in seconds, leaving about an

 inch that will stay for hours if you don't drink it.

 What is interesting is that typical foam leaves a mostly empty glass when it

 dissipates but this foam just turns to beer.  I c-p bottled some and took it

 to a CBS meeting and it acts the same way when poured from the bottle.  It is

 really fun to watch.

 I put it in the catagory of cute but not sure what value it has for

 homebrewers.

 >From: sims@pdesds1.atg.trc.scra.org (Jim Sims)

 > (1) I've noticed that several of the bartches dont have much head.

  I've seen the comments about spotlessly clean glassware, etc.

 My experience has been that head retention is a problem primarily associated

 with extract beer.  "spotlessly clean glassware, etc." may be important with

 a marginal beer but since I started making all grain beer, it has become

 totally irrelevant how, if or with what, I clean the glass.

 > (3) Can someone email me (or send me the ftp location for) the yeast

  culturing notes that were (apparently) posted here not too long back?

 If you are referring to mine, it is on the way.  Actually, it is on the way

 regardless.

 >From: woessner@psych.purdue.edu (Leo Woessner)

 > I am also interested in locating possible sources of yeast slants which

 contain yeast which is hard to find.  Is there a mail order place(s) which

 specialize in yeast culturing??

 Scientific Service

 7407 Hummingbird Hill

 San Antonio, TX 78255

 (512) 695 2547

 This is a small scale operation run by Paul Farnsworth.  He has lots of yeast

 and everything you need to deal with it.  I have used 4 of his yeasts

 including Pilsner Urquel with good results.

 >From: SMUCKER@UTKVX.UTCC.UTK.EDU

 >Summer must be comming not much traffic on the Homebrew digest and we

 had a day without Jack!

 Sorry to let you all down but if you note the dates on the two articles in

 the most recent Digest, you will see that it was not my fault.

 >Question?  Have any of you out there used direct O2 before you pitched

 your yeast?

 Not personally but I just got a call from a customer who claims near Kreusen

 within 20 minutes of pitching with O2.  Not sure if that's good or bad, just

 another data point.

 js

------------------------------


Brewing partners?

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 13:18 EST

From: LYONS@adc1.adc.ray.com

Subject: Brewing partners?

I'm not sure about brewing partners.  But would others be interested

in trading one or two six packs of your better brews for those of

other brewers.  It seems that this way many of us could enjoy a wide

variety of brew.  Perhaps a means of placing ads of which styles one had

available and was willing to trade would be helpfull.  Any interest

or alternative ideas?

Chris

LYONS@ADC3.ADC.RAY.COM

------------------------------


Guinness

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 13:27 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Guinness

        I just thought some time ago, that if Guinness

        uses N20, why shouldn't I.  Does anyone else

        have any opinions?

Actually, Guinness uses a nitrogen/CO2 mix.  I believe it's about

65% N2 and 35% CO2.  The reason for this is so they can dispense

at high pressure without dissolving too much CO2 into the beer.

Pure CO2 at their dispensing pressures would make for uncontrollably

foamy beer.

This weekend, I had my first opportunity to drink ale drawn by hand pump

in the US.  After the judging at the Bidal Socielty of Kenosha homebrew

competition judging, one of the brewers from Brewmaster brought over his

*portable* beer engine!  A Black&Decker workmate was set up with an open

stainless keg underneath and the 3-by-3-by-3-foot wooden box in which the

beer engine was mounted.  At first, the beer was still a bit fizzy from

the being originally, naturally carbonated, but eventually it became

apropriately "flat" and the beer was more authentic.  It was actually

more of a novelty, but was nonetheless cool!

Al.

------------------------------


Micros using dry yeast?

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 13:58 EST

From: LYONS@adc3.adc.ray.com

Subject: Micros using dry yeast?

In George Fix's recent posts he mentions that Whitbread distributes

their dry yeast to HB shops and micros.  I am surprised to read that

micros would use dry yeast.  Does anyone know which micros use which

dry yeasts?  I would like to sample these beers and make my own

judgement on the use of dry yeasts.

Chris

LYONS@ADC3.ADC.RAY.COM

------------------------------


Question on Whitbread History

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 14:48 EST

From: LYONS@adc3.adc.ray.com

Subject: Question on Whitbread History

I enjoyed George's posting on the history of Whitbread.  I

unfortunately have been getting the 12 gram packages, which I now

understand to be very old.  I would like to try the new Whitbread

out (the one with similar characterisitics to Wyeast London Ale

yeast).  How is this new product packaged?  Any information on how

to identify this particular Whitbread from the other two would be

appreciated.

Thank you,

Chris

LYONS@ADC3.ADC.RAY.COM

------------------------------


Re: Growing Hops Horizontally

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 12:39:25 PDT

From: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards)

Subject: Re: Growing Hops Horizontally

In HBD #1128, davidr@ursula.ee.pdx.edu,

David Robinson writes:

| Bravo!  Nice info on the Hops report, Alan.  I'm more of a

| gardener than a private brew master, so this was of great

| interest to me.

Thanks David.

| I would like to make a small clarification.

|

|  - The garden is along my North fence, for maximum sun.

|

| Alan doesn't state which side of the North fence.

On MY side, silly.  (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

| This information of course, is dependent on what part of the world you

| live on.  For most, if not all of the US, the "Southern Exposure" is

| what you are striving for.  The side of a fence or house is nice because

| it stores and reflects heat/light for sun loving plants.

Seriously though, I live in California, so the plants are on the South

side of the North fence, to get maximum Southern exposure from the sun.

Clear as mud?  Well, I drew a little picture to help clarify my setup.

(I guess I should've done this in the first place.)

ARIEL VIEW

      8' 2x4 nailed                  NORTH FENCE

         to fence  /         (steel wire right above fence)          8' 2x4

    ________________/____________________________________________<--in corner

                     | :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  : |

           gate ---->| :():  :():  :():  :():  :():  :():  :()<---Hop hills

                     |_:__:__:__:__:__:__:__:__:__:__:__:__:__:_|

                     / :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  : |   E

                    /  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  : |   A

        garden fence   :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  : |   S

                       :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  : |   T

                       :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  : |

      horiz. twine --> :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  : |   F

    (two per hop hill) :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  : |   E

                       :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  : |   N

    -------------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+-.:  :  :  :  : |   C

                   twine tied to eaves of house  |+--+--+--+--+-|   E

                                                 |   2nd steel  |/

                                                 |     wire     | /

                                                 |              |  another

                  H O U S E                      |              |  8' 2x4

                                                 |              |

In HBD #1126, I wrote:

|  - I have seven hop plants of different varieties about 3.5 feet apart.

|    The whole garden is about 24 feet by three feet.

|  - The garden is along my North fence, for maximum sun.

|  - Two 8 foot 2x4's are nailed to the wooden fence (at the corner and

|    at a 4x4 post, for support), with a galvanized steel wire stretched

|    across the tops (with a turnbuckle for tightening).

|  - Nylon twine is hung from the steel wire and staked into the ground near

|    the hops.  I would advise against using jute (natural fiber) twine.

|    I used jute twine last year and after weathering, some of them snapped.

|    Also, they stretch out over time, requiring retightening every so often

|    (plan for this).

|  - The horizontal twines are tied to the steel wire and fastened to the

|    eaves of the roof with screw-eyes.

|  - Some vines are not aligned with the house.  And in those cases, the

|    twine goes to a second steel wire stretched between the North-East

|    corner of the house and an 8 foot 2x4 attached to the East fence.

|    That wire forms an extension to the North side of the roof, where

|    the other twines are attached.

|  - The garden is fenced in with a simple 2x4 frame and some chicken wire.

|    If you have pets, you must fence it off.  Don't trust your dog.  I did

|    two years ago, and he wrecked the garden.  I had to start all over again.

A clarification:

| This year, instead of training three vines from each plant up one twine,

| I am training four vines from each plant up TWO twines.

That's two vines per twine, four from each plant.  You might want to try

three per twine (six per plant), but I'm not sure that it would increase

your harvest or not--it might.  It would certainly increase the harvesting

difficulty if the plants get too bushy, but it's not that big of a deal.

According to the book I have, there IS a point of diminishing returns,

and I think that six vines per plant is probably pushing it.

If you are only using one twine per plant, then the book I have says to

train three or four vines.

| If you don't keep cutting shoots, things can get hairy quickly.  The

| same goes for the long runners that you get coming out of the sides of

| the vine.

I'm not sure about the runners that come out of the sides of the plant.

The book I have doesn't mention them.  I think it's probably better to

wind them up with the main vine.  That's what I'm doing currently, and

that's what I think I did last year.

What book am I referencing?  Good question.  I don't have it with me,

but you've all probably seen it, at least in Zymurgy.  I think it's titled

"Growing Hops".  Its the small paperback with hops all over the cover.

Good luck, and have fun,

 -Alan

 .------------------------------------.

 | Alan Edwards: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov |      Member: The Hoppy Cappers

 |     or: Alan-Edwards@llnl.gov      |      homebrew club, Modesto, CA

 `------------------------------------'

------------------------------


Priming Scotch Ale

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 13:53:21 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Priming Scotch Ale

Part 1: I've been told the scotch ale (heavy OG 1.040) I've currently

got in my secondary should be bottle to produce "low carbonation".

I normally bottle ale with 3/4 cup of corn sugar for a 5 gal batch.

This generally produces what I'd call a normal carbonation level.

(Except when I'm hasty to bottle the I get high carbonation and wish

I'd been more patient.)

  Question 1:  What amount of priming sugar would one use to get the

  'low carbonation' appropriate for Scotch ale? (5 gal batch).

Part 2:  I sometimes get varying levels of cabonation within a given

batch.  That is some bottles are more carbonated than others.  I

usually prime in the following way:  1) boil sugar w/a few cups of

water & let cool.  2) Start syphoning beer from secondary to bottling

bucket.  3)  When about 4" of beer are in bottom of bucket add sugar

solution.  4)  Keep syphon near bottom of bucket hoping to provide

enought mixing to uniformly disperse bottling sugar.

  Since I still get different carbonation levels methinks I'm not

properly mixing the bottling sugar with the beer.  I'm reluctant to

stir the beer for fear of oxidation and/or infection.  Suggestions?

Comments?

WAK

|- William A Kitch                          (512) 471-4929 -|

|- Geotechnical Engineering                                -|

|- ECJ 9.227                                               -|

|- Univ of Texas at Austin, TX 78712-1076                  -|

------------------------------


Re: British Brews/Chimay yeast/O2/Hop growth

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 14:56 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: British Brews/Chimay yeast/O2/Hop growth

Mark writes:

>Thought I would share with you the contents of an article from the May issue

>of _Bon Appetit_.  The article is the "Tasting Panel Report", and for May,

>they pick ..."the 10 best British brews available stateside."...

then later goes on to say:

>Gosh, not too descriptive.  By no means am I a qualified judge, but it sounds

>to me like the panel doesn't get around to judging beer too often, or at least

>they don't use the same language in describing things like you certified folks

>out there in HBD land do.

Yes, indeed, it's too bad that they did not enlist the talents of anyone who

had experience in judging or writing about beer.  Also too bad that they missed

Young's Special London Ale, Samuel Smith's Tadcaster Porter, Oatmeal Stout

and Imperial Stout and Mackeson's XXX Stout.  Kudos are due for drawing

attention to Traquair House Ale and Caledonian Ale (marketed here as and

misnamed MacAndrew's *Scotch* Ale (a Scotch Ale it's not)) two of my favorites.

************************

Dennis writes:

 I have had several discussions with people on the net about Chimay

 yeast. I believe I read (in HBD probably) that Chimay yeast is a

 combination of 5 different strains plus some other microflora.  One

 person said that his plate of Chimay yeast had several "different"

 colonies of yeast on it, while another said that his plate looked all

 the same.  I think they got their yeast from bottle dregs, not from

 Wyeast 1214.

Periodically, people write in the HBD that Chimay yeast is a mixture

of 5 yeasts, so you may have read it here, however, it is NOT TRUE.

Chimay *used* to be brewed with a yeast that contained several strains,

but Father Theodore (I believe with the help of DeKlerck) isolated a

strain out of many in their yeast which they have been using as their

single strain yeast for (I believe) at least two decades.  The label

says that they bottle with an addition of yeast, but people who have

brewed with Chimay bottle-cultured yeast that I've talked to have

reported very Chimay-like beers, so I suspect that the bottling yeast

is the same as the fermentation yeast.  To answer Guy's question, the

yeast in all the Chimay bottles, red, white, blue, 33ml and 750ml

is all the same strain.

Orval, another Trappiste Ale, is a completely different story.  They

too ferment with a single strain yeast, but bottle with a mixture of

5 yeasts.  I've successfully cultured what I believe is the Orval

fermentation yeast just by trial and error.  Orval also has a bit of

lactic sourness, which means that there's some kind of bacteria involved

which may be mixed-in with the fermentation yeast or just part of the

bottling menagerie.

***********************

Dave writes:

>Question?  Have any of you out there used direct O2 before you pitched

>your yeast?  I have read tails of some using direct injection of O2

>instead of AIR and some problems with too much and getting way too much

>yeast growth.  How much is right?

I don't know how much O2 is right, but too much O2 can be toxic to the

yeast, so be careful how much pure O2 you add to your wort.

*********************

There were several posters speculating about the climbing of hops, suggesting

that perhaps they are simply following the sun, which causes clockwise (as

viewed from the top) growth in the northern hemisphere.  Yes, it's the plant

following the sun.

Al.

------------------------------


Help! Overbubbling!

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 18:24:26 EDT

From: jkirsch@dolphin.uri.EDU (Jay Kirschenbaum)

Subject: Help! Overbubbling!

Hi,

A friend and I are making our first batch of Irish Stout.  He has brewed a

lager before, but this it my first batch of beer. We followed the directions

that came with the beer kit (Irish Stout from Eastern Brewers Supply)

but used a liquid yeast instead of the dry yeast supplied (on the

suggestion of EBS).

We are fermenting in a ~6.5 Gal plastic primary fermenter, but now, two days

after we pitched the yeast the wort is bubbling VERY vigerously.  It is

bubbling so much that it is getting in to the fermentiation lock, which

was 3-4 inches above the level of the brew when we began.

Did we do something wrong, or is a stout supposed to ferment that violently?

The ambient temperature is about 70-65 F as suggested in the recipe.

Thanks in advance,

Jay Kirschenbaum (and Dave)

jkirsch@dolphin.uri.edu

------------------------------


southpaw hops

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 18:24:30 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: southpaw hops

mdcsc!gdh@uunet.UU.NET (Garrett Hildebrand) noted the following:

>

> I am growing three kinds of hops in my Southern California backyard,

> and they are all doing the same thing: climbing the stake *clockwise*.

you live in the N. hemisphere.  when the sun comes up in the morning in

the SE, the leaves and grow point turn  towards it.  As the sun moves

across the sky toward the SW, the end of the stem follows it, winding

clockwise around the pole.

just a hypothesis..

bb

------------------------------


organizing a BREW-OFF!!

Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1993 8:21:07 -0500 (CDT)

From: MEHTA01@SWMED.EDU

Subject: organizing a BREW-OFF!!

Hi.

 i just wanted to share a few notes on an 'annual' brew-off that we

have going here at UTSouthwestern Medical Centre. The school is essentially

composed of graduate students (almost all Ph.D. students), post-docs and

felllows, and faculty and of course staff. There are millions of labs here,

all doing some form of biomedical research.

 There are a few of us who also brew in the little free time we have.

We have a GSO party (paid for [artly from the student fees) held every month

where we (GSO = Grad Student Organisation) serve beer and titbits...

 The GSO council decided, on a wee little brewing voice's suggestions,

to have an annual brew-off where the students, faculty etc would brew a batch

for the school and bring it in at one of the monthly parties that would then

be designated a Brew-Off!! It truns out that we have quite a few brewers in the

university and the event was very well received, with brewers of all levels

bringing forth their products. Lots of fun !! The brewers also get reimbursed

for the supplies (inggredients)for the one batch they bring in, but so far

very few people have brought receipts in.

 So, we have a greast time. The brewers get a chance to spread the good

beer (cheer :-) ) and get some general ffeed-back on their styles...

 i thought that some other univ people might be interested in hearing

about this fun event.

CIao

And happy brewing.. Here's to tiny bubbles..

Shreefal Mehta

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1129, 04/28/93

*************************************

-------


Don O'Connor's Beer, Premier Malt

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 18:15:47

From: garetz@brahms.amd.com (Mark Garetz)

Subject: Don O'Connor's Beer, Premier Malt

George Fix asks about Don O'Connor's beer.

I can personally atest to the high quality of Don's (and wife Lynne's)

beers. As to why he doesn't enter competitions, I'll let Don answer that one

but I suspect the beers would fare well.  I'll also give Don a chance to

post the story on the "O-Ring" beer.  It was very interesting and in fact

published in their latest newsletter (St. Patricks of Austin).

"Bob" asks about Premier Malt Products yellow can:

I read somewhere that Premier Malt Products had picked up the license to

distribute the old "Pabst Blue Ribbon" extract.  I think it was in the first

issue of that supposedly funny brew paper out of Michigan.

------------------------------


Headhunters May Meeting (W. Chicago 'burbs)

Date:    Wed, 28 Apr 1993 0:43:21 -0500 (CDT)

From: BIRMINGH@FNAL.FNAL.GOV (Hi-keeba!)

Subject: Headhunters May Meeting (W. Chicago 'burbs)

         The May meeting of the Headhunters homebrew club will happen on

    Friday, May 7, from 7-11 PM. The meeting will be at Greg Lawrence's

    place, 4 S 245 Wiltshire Lane, in Sugar Grove, IL. Bring beer or wine

    and munchies.

         For more information, call Greg evenings at (708) 557-2523, or

    e-mail me at birmingham@fne683.fnal.gov

                                                     Phillip Birmingham

------------------------------


Who's responsible for micrbrewing??

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 93 03:10:19 CDT

From: todd@gold.rtsg.mot.com (Todd M. Williams)

Subject: Who's responsible for micrbrewing??

Boy that guy in Boston(tm) does not give it a break....the new radio ads

here in Chicago(tm) treat us to Jim(tm) Koch(tm) telling us how he practically

invented the "microbrewery"(tm) and how the "big guys"(tm) spill more beer than

he makes in a year.  I'm geting really tired of this guys crap and shall

continue to not drink his products.  I also will continue to tell everyone

I know/meet, about his never ending shenanigans.  I urge y'all to do the same.

This guy could give a lot of politicians a run for their (read:our) money.

Sigh...Sorry...had to get that off my chest...I feel better now...thank you.

Todd(tm) (starving a lawyer, by not drinking SA(tm))

Downers Grove(tm), IL.(tm)

  /--------------------------------------------------------------------------/

 / -rwxr-xr-x   1 todd      employer  69   Feb 10 1958  OPINIONS(tm)          /

 / lrwxrwxrwx   1 employer  other     9    Jan 01 1970  OPINIONS -> /dev/null /

  /--------------------------------------------------------------------------/

------------------------------


wishlist from vienna/berlin...

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 93 05:24:06 CDT

From: todd@gold.rtsg.mot.com (Todd M. Williams)

Subject: wishlist from vienna/berlin...

My Mom is going to Berlin and Vienna, and has offered to bring

home some beer for me.  Any Suggestions???  She will probably only

bring a few.  Which are the best.  Can weiss yeast from German beer

be cultured?  As has been discussed, the stuff that is shipped to the

States is pasturized, or shipped with different yeast.  Help...she's

leaving on Saturday May 1st.  Please email replies to me directly.

Thanks muchly,

Todd Williams

Downers Grove, IL.

todd@rtsg.mot.com

Moderation sir, aye, moderation is my rule.  9 or 10 is reasonable

refreshment, but after that it's apt to degenerate into drinking.

------------------------------


Re: Problem with Nottingham Yeast

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 93 09:08 EST

From: LYONS@adc2.adc.ray.com

Subject: Re: Problem with Nottingham Yeast

>This is my second batch with nottingham ale yeast.  After 48 hrs, still no

>activity.  With my first batch after 48 hrs I gave up and pitched a different

>yeast which promptly got the bubbles going.  Is Nottingham a particularly

>slow starting yeast ?  For info, the OG was 1.052 and I rehydrated the yeast

>"by the book".  I'm getting real nervous about letting it sit with no

>activity (68 deg F) although I use an airlock.

I've used both Nottingham and Windsor.  As a side note I

preferred the Windsor.  However, the packages are rather small

 ... I believe containing approximately only 5 grams.  Since the

pitching rate is important in terms of the lag time, I have been

adding two packages of Nottingham for a single batch.  This is still

less yeast than a single package of Whitbread.  The lag time

I've experienced, when pitching at 60F is approximately 1 day.

On lag times like this I occansionly shake the primary until

notable fermentation kicks in.  IMHO I think this helps reduce

the lag time.

------------------------------


N2 and beer / hops

Date: 28 Apr 1993 11:26:31 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: N2 and beer / hops

Jack writes:

>The results are very interesting but I am not sure it is worth the trouble or

>expense.  I have done 3 batches with this set up and although each one acts a

>little different, the common ground is a head that builds from the bottom up

>in a very peculiar manner.  The beer can come out of the tap without a bubble

>and fill the glass with foam but it disipates in seconds, leaving about an

>inch that will stay for hours if you don't drink it.

>

>What is interesting is that typical foam leaves a mostly empty glass when it

>dissipates but this foam just turns to beer.  I c-p bottled some and took it

>to a CBS meeting and it acts the same way when poured from the bottle.  It is

>really fun to watch.

>

>I put it in the catagory of cute but not sure what value it has for

 Although perhaps impractical as Jack mentions, it does provide

aesthetics.  To some, good head is part of a fine beer, but heavy

carbonation may add an acidic tang, and deffinitely makes for a *fizzy*

product.  By nitrogenating the beer, you get good head without the soda pop

fizz.  The reason for this is, as Jack discovered, N2 is virtually

insoluble in water at low pressures, which is why the pressure didn't drop

in the keg. Ideally the beer in the keg should be naturally carbonated

(primed like a Real Ale) before being dispensed this way, not force

carbonated.  Force carbonating defeats the purpose.  The insolubility of

nitrogen is the reason for the small bubbles, the beer gets "the bends" when

it comes out of the tap.

**********************************

 Can anyone send me the phone number or FAX number for Freshops, or

any other hop supplier?  The planting time is almost past* and my local

supply fell through...

*This is Nova Scotia...it snowed last night.

  ___

 /   /   /     Ed Hitchcock                   +<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>+

|      0  /   Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology  +    Drink             +

|          > Dalhousie University             +     Noise / Make     +

|      0  /   Beer Wasteland                  +              Beer    +

 /___/   /     ech@ac.dal.ca                  +<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>+

------------------------------


Re: Chimay yeast

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 93 08:43:12 -0600

From: John Adams <j_adams@hpfcjca.sde.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Chimay yeast

I talked with one of Coors' microbiologists last night related to

Chimay yeast strain quesition.  He studied for his brewing PhD. in

Belgium so I highly value both his acedemic and professional opinions.

He informed me that Chimay only uses ONE yeast and you can observe this

is your cultures.  Not all trappists styles use a single strain.  His

recommendation was to use Chimay if you wish to culture a trappist

style yeast.

John Adams

------------------------------


Belgium Wheat Malt & Biscuit

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 93 11:28:38 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Belgium Wheat Malt & Biscuit

Hi all,

I like to brew german HefeWeizens using 70% wheat malt, and

following a decoction procedure as described by Eric Warner

in his excellent book on weizens.  The last two batches I

made used DeWolf Cosyns Wheat malt. In both cases, my extract

efficiency was way off.  I used to use Bavarian wheat malt

and always had great results.  This is a bothersome result,

but it could be due to other factors, notably both of these

batches were produced in my newer brewery and it is possible

that my decoctions are not as before.  I am looking for

feedback from the digest with respect to yields when using

this wheat malt.  Email me at busch@daacdev1.stx.com

The results are in from my latest celebration clone.  I used

a small percent of Biscuit in addition to large amounts of

caramel malts.  The biscuit resulted in an extremely pleasing

light "roasted" character.  It is subtle but evident.  The

ale is on the dark side of a pale ale, but the complexity and

maltiness/roasted character is blending well with the spiceyness

of Cascade and Centennial hops.  The biscuit malt would seem

ideal for use in Scotch Ales and other darker ales and even

in small quantities in amber ales.

Good brewing,

jim Busch

------------------------------


Re: Alcohol and other drugs

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 93 08:46:53 PDT

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: Re: Alcohol and other drugs

In 1129 Ted Manahan writes:

>We also need to be vigilant against someone deciding they know what is

>best for us. The potential for abuse does not justify taking away the

>liberty to use. This certainly holds true for other substances. The

>current "war on drugs" is a prime example of creating criminals out of

>honest citizens, just as prohibition created criminals out of honest

>drinkers.

>

>The main effect of the "war on drugs" is to guarantee a monopoly on drug

>profits to those willing to break the law. What newspapers call "drug

>related violence" is really money related violence - the most common drug

>related violence is bar fights between drunk people.

>

>It is foolish to self righteously decry the attacks neo prohibitionists

>are making, while failing to see the connection with our own intolerance

>of, for instance, marijuana use. Homebrewers need to be aware that

>intolerance is contagious. People with "Zero Tolerance" will quickly see

>that alcohol is more dangerous than most illegal drugs. The urge to

>control people's behavior soon extends to everything we personally don't

>do.

I would like to express my whole-hearted agreement with Ted on this issue.

You took the words right out of my mouth.  Excellent post!

Oh, by the way, Ted, may I suggest some flame-proof  long-johns for the next

couple of weeks :-)

Troy

------------------------------


Easy Yeast Culturing 3

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 93 08:57:16 PDT

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: Easy Yeast Culturing 3

Another data point for Easy Yeast Culturing:

I bottled my beer this past weekend.  The Easy Cultured Yeast did a very

nice job.  Dropped the gravity down from 79 to 18 (perfect).  The

dopplebock tastes GREAT!

This allays one of the fears that I had when I started this experiment, i.e.,

that the yeast would not be viable.  Now I guess the only remaining concern

I have is how long will they remain viable.

I'll keep you posted.

Troy

------------------------------


Mashing on an Electric Coil Stove

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 93 09:30:33 PDT

From: David Ferguson <davidfer@microsoft.com>

Subject: Mashing on an Electric Coil Stove

I am a semi-experienced homebrewer contemplating my first all grain

batch.  I'm wondering though if I will be able to use an electric stove

to maintain the precise temeratures needed for a successful mash.  I

have an old klunker with red hot, hot, less hot and warm settings.  Has

anyone had any success on similar stoves?  any suggestions on ways to

buffer the radical temperature changes between settings (like placing

the brew kettle over a pot of water perhaps)?

Thanks for any advice, direct replies are welcome and encouraged as usual.

Dave Ferguson

------------------------------


Bottliing Scotch Whiskey

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 16:04

From: RMCGLEW.BUSSYS@mhssmtp.mdso.vf.ge.com (MCGLEW, RAY)

Subject: Bottliing Scotch Whiskey

The Scotch in the barrells is VERY flammable and can be considered

 a hazardous material with  a flash point of about 110 deg F.  I suggest

 that you let me handle this hazmat in a way that will prevent another

 Waco incident in your neighborhood!

------------------------------


Re: Alcohol and other drugs

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1993 13:17:45 -0600

From: colesa@spot.Colorado.EDU

Subject: Re: Alcohol and other drugs

I must applaud Ted Manahan's article in HBD #1129 on the use of drugs,

drinking of alcolholic beverages and the moral soapbox some people get on

when speaking of "illegal drugs".

I have had many an argument with those who believe it's fine to drink, but

reprehensible to use other drugs.  The laws of biochemistry don't care what

is legal or not.  I simply don't agree with being told what to do for _MY_

own good.  My body is my own, and by that same philosophy I cannot force my

views about drinking or drugs on anyone else, but merely point out

hypocrisy when I see it.

Thanks Ted!

Replies by e-mail are welcome.

Cheers!

Adam Coles               * I'm not giving in to security under pressure

Senior, Bioengineering   * I'm not missing out on the promise of adventure

College of Aerospace     * I'm not giving up on implausible dreams

CU Boulder               * Experience to extremes, experience to extremes

colesa@spot.colorado.edu *             -N. Peart

------------------------------


RIMS, vent pipe, and channeling

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1993 12:33:52 -0700

From: Michael.Burgeson@Eng.Sun.COM (J. Michael Burgeson)

Subject: RIMS, vent pipe, and channeling

I am putting together a RIMS system, and have been reviewing designs

and discussions from past HBDs.  I am most interested in the topics

of grain bed compaction and channeling of liquor through the grain

bed.

In HBD #1088, Bob Jones posted concerns about grain bed compaction

in RIMS systems.  He related that he was unable to get a 10 gal.

setup to work properly.

In HBD #806, Alan Gerhardt posted an article about his RIMS system.

Alan's system included a vent pipe which extended above the grain

bed from the copper pipe manifold on the bottom of the mash/lauter

tun.  I think the use of a vent pipe would go a long way toward

reducing the compaction problem.  Bob, did you try a vent pipe?

Having a pipe going through the grain bed reminded me of a previous

discussion on the HBD about channeling in the grain bed.  A vent pipe

would provide the perfect opportunity for the recirculating liquor

to channel to the bottom of the tun, avoiding the grain bed.

With a RIMS system, channeling during the mash would not be a problem.

I am concerned about channeling during the sparge.  Two methods of

sparging come to mind.  First there is the  conventional method of

"slowly add sparge water while draining off decreasing gravity wort".

The other method would be "dump sparge water in, then recirculate".

If I used the latter method, I think channeling would become a minor

concern; you could just recirculate longer to overcome the reduced

efficiency due to channeling.  The drawback would be the need for

a tun with enough volume to hold all your grain, mash water and sparge

water.  Your efficiency would also suffer using this method.

I plan to use the former method, but the conventional method is

susceptible to poor efficiency due to channeling around the vent pipe.

What I would like to propose is using a vent pipe, but running it

outside the mash/lauter tun.  I also want to use a manifold above

the grain bed, submersed in the hot liquor, to reduce splashing.

               |                         |

            || |                         |

          v || |                         |

          e || |^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^|

          n || | ===manifold================================ < IN

          t || |                         |

            || |   1" - 2" hot liquor    |

          p || |                         |

          i || |-------------------------|

          p || |                         |

          e || |      GRAIN BED          |

            || |                         |

            /.======manifold================================ > OUT

               |                         |

        `-------------------------'

Can anyone see potential problems with this configuration?  Am I overly

concerned with channeling?

tx,

 - --mik

------------------------------


Nottingham/Whitbread/hop growth

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 93 14:36 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Nottingham/Whitbread/hop growth

Jpetty writes:

>This is my second batch with nottingham ale yeast.  After 48 hrs, still no

>activity.  With my first batch after 48 hrs I gave up and pitched a different

>yeast which promptly got the bubbles going.  Is Nottingham a particularly

>slow starting yeast ?  For info, the OG was 1.052 and I rehydrated the yeast

>"by the book".  I'm getting real nervous about letting it sit with no

>activity (68 deg F) although I use an airlock.

Some of the batches of beer that I've made with Nottingham took some time

to start, but eventually everything worked out alright.  You said that

you followed rehydration methods "by the book."  Well, there has been

some contradictory information on rehydration in the past.  Some descriptions

fail to mention a temperature differential between the "starter" and the wort.

I contend that this is still very important.  You rehydrate the yeast in

plain water between 104F and (I believe) 115F and then let it sit between

15 and 30 minutes, right?  Then you dump this 8 ounce "starter" into 5 gallons

of 65F wort.  This will definately shock the yeast.  What I do with dry

yeasts, is rehydrate them in 104F boiled water and then let them sit for

30 minutes in a covered (with plastic wrap) pyrex measuring cup.  In those

30 minutes, the "starter" has cooled to about 85F.  I then pitch this into

my wort which I have intentionally only cooled to 80F (instead of the usual

70F) and aerated well.  Even with this procedure, one batch took 48 hours to

start.

For Wyeast batches, I warm the package to 70F and then pop the nutrient

pack.  This gets incubated at 70F and then pitched into a 70F starter.

That gets subsequently gets pitched into a 70F wort.  Positive pressure

is obvious in the airlock/blowoff hose after 12 hours and kraeusen is

formed in 24.

*****************

Ted writes about alcohol and the "war on drugs."

Theoretically, I feel that it is not the government's job to protect

us from ourselves.  Let's face it... many things that are good in

moderation are bad in excess.  Then there are the things that are

legal although there has been no evidence of any positive effects from

these substances -- case in point: tobacco.  Alcohol can be abused,

but so can model airplane glue and aspirin and caffeine and automobiles

and Whipped-cream propellants and...  Education on the dangers and

*reasonable* warning labels, and then "buyer beware."  That's my position.

******************

Chris writes:

>I enjoyed George's posting on the history of Whitbread.  I

>unfortunately have been getting the 12 gram packages, which I now

>understand to be very old.  I would like to try the new Whitbread

>out (the one with similar characterisitics to Wyeast London Ale

>yeast).  How is this new product packaged?  Any information on how

>to identify this particular Whitbread from the other two would be

>appreciated.

I thought it was the 14 gm packages that were the "old variety" and

the 12 gm packages that are the "new variety," but I could have it

backwards.  I didn't particularly like the "black-bread-crust" flavor

of Whitbread Ale and thus chose to use other yeasts instead of Whitbread,

so I don't have any personal experience with it.

*************************

I wrote:

>had experience in judging or writing about beer.  Also too bad that they missed

>Young's Special London Ale, Samuel Smith's Tadcaster Porter, Oatmeal Stout

>and Imperial Stout and Mackeson's XXX Stout.

Subsequently *I* missed Fullers ESB!

I wrote:

>There were several posters speculating about the climbing of hops, suggesting

>that perhaps they are simply following the sun, which causes clockwise (as

>viewed from the top) growth in the northern hemisphere.  Yes, it's the plant

>following the sun.

But then POLLARD writes:

>you all.  I can't contribute much there, but I do know a thing or two

>about botany.  Twining of vines appears to be unrelated to either sunshine

>(they do the same under artificial light) or coreolis effect (I believe

>they may have even tested it in the space shuttle).  It is controlled by

>internal factors related to planes of cell division and distribution of

>plant hormones.  Some species are innately counterclockwise twiners, and

>others, like hops, go clockwise.  Yes, it is conventionally viewed from

>the plant's point of "view", looking up.  An unsupported hop shoot, viewed

I guess I should have left it to the botanists to give the final word.

Everything that I had read had said that the plants were "following the

sun," but then again, mine were all homebrewing-related sources and not

botany texts/journals/etc.

Al.

------------------------------


Dominion Brewing

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 93 16:00:29 EDT

From: gorman@aol.com

Subject: Dominion Brewing

>From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com

>Subject: Old Dominion Brewing Co.

>In Ashburg, Virginia.

>How are their beers, in general?

>Do they have any particularily good ones? Are they a Micro or a brewpub?

Dominion Brewing (Ashburn, VA) is a microbrewery located in the flight path

of Dulles Airport, outside Washington, DC

They brew several year-round beers, Dominion Ale, Dominion Lager, Dominion

Stout and perhaps others I've forgotten. They also produce seasonal brews,

the Christmas Ale was excellent, the current a Spring Bock I've yet to taste.

They also produce "house recipe" beers for a growing number of metro-DC area

bars.

They conduct tours on Saturday afternoons, call 703-860-BEER for details.

Last time I went, the president, Jerry Bailey, gave an excellent tour.

------------------------------


Decocting and Concocting

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1993 14:33:06 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Decocting and Concocting

  David McDow asks about decoction mashing:

  >I would like to learn more about decoction mashing.  If anyone would

>care to share their method I'd be appreciative.

Particularly if you're interested in real wheat beers, you should pick

up a copy of Eric Warner's book on German Wheat Beers, published by the

AHA.  Eric's decoction procede is straight-forward and easy enough to

accomplish (particularly on the stove), plus it makes a killer beer.

Greg Noonan's book on Lager Beer contains a much more complicated and

much longer decoction mash.  Judging from my reading in other sources,

Noonan's procedure is unnecessarily complicated given the malts we have

to work with these days and you should be able to use Eric's method for

other beers as well.

From: LYONS@adc3.adc.ray.com

Subject: Micros using dry yeast?

>In George Fix's recent posts he mentions that Whitbread distributes

>their dry yeast to HB shops and micros.  I am surprised to read that

>micros would use dry yeast.  Does anyone know which micros use which

>dry yeasts?  I would like to sample these beers and make my own

>judgement on the use of dry yeasts.

>Chris

There was a time a few years ago when it seemed every brewpub in

California was using Whitbread yeast, either their ale yeast or their

"lager" (which made remarkably ale-like lagers!).  This was apparently

due to the influence of UC Davis' Michael Lewis, who was busy convincing

potential brewpub owners/brewers that anything else was too complicated

and not worth the effort.  The results were pretty spotty, and

convenient or not, the yeast apparently did not respond well to

re-pitching, which meant the brewer had to keep buying more.  I wrote a

report about a trip through the brewpubs back in 1988 or so and singled

out one horrible example in Santa Rosa.  Byron Burch wrote to say that,

ordinarily, the pub turned out very good beer but that they'd had some

real problems with their dry yeast (Whitbread -- and by-now familiar

problems).  The local homebrewers stayed away until the beer was cleaned

up (although why the brewery was serving such awful stuff, I don't

know).

I don't know for sure, but I suspect brewers down there have become a

little more sophisticated in the last few years, and learned that "easy"

is not always the best choice.

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


Update to Pub list

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 93 15:53:11 -0500

From: jmellby@iluvatar.dseg.ti.com

Subject: Update to Pub list

The latest additions to my Publist have been made available on the

Homebrew archive at sierra.stanford.edu in the pub/homebrew/docs

directory, thanks to Stephen Hansen.  The file is publist.Z

(compressed with UNIX compress I believe).   Listserver users just need

to say "get homebrew publist".

This list includes brewpubs, pubs, restaurants, and beer (liquor)

stores which have good beer.  There are also some microbreweries,

home-brew shops and the like, but these are not as complete.

The goal of this is to give travelers a reference on where to

find good beers including sources to buy bottles to bring home.

My database which parses and searches this list currently says:

#Done reading in the pub db, Pubdb Version 1.2 July 1, 1991

#Recognized a total of 1417 pubs from 18 countries and 582 cities.

                       ---- (and the like)

I am trying to port the search program over from Sun to a PC,

but don't hold your breath until the C++ class I'm teaching is over.

If you have any information especially about new brewpubs or

beer pubs, brewpub closings, or useful notes/corrections

please send me a message

John R. Mellby               Texas Instruments

jmellby@iluvatar.dseg.ti.com (214)517-5370 <h> (214)575-6125 <w>

------------------------------


Re: CO2 cartridges

Date: 28 Apr 93 22:31:49 EDT

From: Tim Norris <71650.1020@compuserve.com>

Subject: Re: CO2 cartridges

Steve,

 You can also get the CO2 cartridges used for Seltzer bottles, the kind

that let you make and dispense your own.. I've never actually tried the

sporting goods store route. I've always used the small CO2 carts used for

Seltzer. Should still cost a lot less than Nitrous. They come in a package

quite similar to the Nitrous carts.

 The ultimate would be to rig an adapter that goes from the 5L tapper gas

thing to a real CO2 tank with a good regulator. In my experience, those

ggas cartridges leak a lot. I seem to lose 1/2 my gas before I dispense

any beer.

 If I find an adapter, I'll let you know.

Tim Norris

Chicago

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1130, 04/29/93

*************************************

-------


Re: Mashing on an Electric Coil Stove

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 09:43:05 MET

From: dejonge@geof.ruu.nl (Marc de Jonge)

Subject: Re: Mashing on an Electric Coil Stove

In HBD1130 David Ferguson asks about mashing on an uncontrollable

stove:

  I would suggest using decoction mashing when suitable for the beer

  you're making. You'll only need the hottest and nothing settings.

  An other method (which also buffers temperature drop) is

  placing the mash-tun in a larger kettle with water.

  (if you have a number of cheap enamel on

  steel pots ranging from 5 to 40L(1.5-10Gal))

  Marc de Jonge

------------------------------


historical recipes,part 1

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 11:19:14 MET DST

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: historical recipes,part 1

Historical Recipes by F Accum 1821

translated by Rob Thomas.

All recipes are adjusted to give 4 UK gallons

of beer at fermentation (i.e. 5 US gallons).

All measurements are UK units (same as US, except

gallon US = 0.8 gallon UK)

PART 1

Brown Stout Porter.

- ------------------

Ingredients.

13.99 lb malt, 1/5 pale, 1/5 amber, 3/5 brown

5.3 oz. hops.

Mashing.

Mash 1: 2.375 gall of water at 165 F, 1.5 hours.

Mash 2: 1.875 gall of water at 160 F, 1.5 hours.

Mash 3: 1.938 gall of water at 186 F, 3/4 hours.

Boiling.

mash 1 boiled with the hops for 1.5 hours.

mash 2 boiled with the used hops for 1.75 hours.

mash 3 boiled with the used hops for 2.5 hours.

Produces 4 gall at 1071.

fg. 1024.

- ------------------------------------------------

London Ale.

- -----------

Ingredients.

25.45 lb pale malt

9.29 oz. hops.

Mashing.

Mash 1: 1.820 gall of water at 175 F, 0.5 hours,

         then add a further 0.91 gall at 175 F, 2 hours.

Mash 2: 2.180 gall of water at 180 F, 1.75 hours.

Mash 3: 1.270 gall of water at 150 F, 1.25 hours.

Mash 4: 1.270 gall of water at 150 F, 1.25 hours.

Boiling.

mash 1 boiled with the hops for 1.5 hours.

mash 2+3+4 boiled with the used hops for 3 hours.

Produces 4 gall at 1068.

fg. 1026.

- -------------------------------------------------

Table Beer.

- -----------

Ingredients.

10.1 lb pale malt

1.92 oz. hops.

Mashing.

Mash 1: 2.880 gall of water at 160 F, 0.75 hours,

         then add a further 1.71 gall at 160 F, 1.5 hours.

Mash 2: 2.700 gall of water at 180 F, 1.25 hours.

Mash 3: 1.980 gall of water at 185 F, 1.25 hours.

Boiling.

mash 1 + 1/2 mash 2 boiled with the hops for 1 hour.

rest of mash 2 + mash 3 boiled with the used hops for 2 hours.

Produces 4 gall at 1035.

fg. 1012.5.

- -------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Re: Bottling Scotch Whiskey

Date:  Thu, 29 Apr 1993 05:28:47 PDT

From: Dimitri_Katsaros.Wbst139@xerox.com

Subject: Re: Bottling Scotch Whiskey

You (Ray McGlew) replied to my initial post with:

<The Scotch in the barrells is VERY flammable and can be considered a hazardous

material with a flash point of about 110 deg F. I suggest that you let me

handle this hazmat in a way that will prevent another Waco incident in your

neighborhood!>

Well... I appreciate the offer... how would you handle it differently?  I'm not

going to bottle in an enclosed area, and I don't smoke so... what other

considerations must I make?  And once the stuff is bottled and is as flammable

as you say, how do I store them without fearing that they'll turn into molotov

cocktails? :-) My last question would be where are you located? :-)

Hope to chat again with you soon

Dimitri Katsaros

------------------------------


BEER WITH THE BENDS

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 08:59 EDT

From: tmr1@hotlg.att.com

Subject: BEER WITH THE BENDS

In HOMEBREW Digest #1130 of Thu 29 April 1993, Ed Hitchcock writes:

:>      Although perhaps impractical as Jack mentions, it does provide

:> aesthetics.  To some, good head is part of a fine beer, but heavy

:> carbonation may add an acidic tang, and deffinitely makes for a *fizzy*

:> product.  By nitrogenating the beer, you get good head without the soda pop

:> fizz.  The reason for this is, as Jack discovered, N2 is virtually

:> insoluble in water at low pressures, which is why the pressure didn't drop

:> in the keg. Ideally the beer in the keg should be naturally carbonated

:> (primed like a Real Ale) before being dispensed this way, not force

:> carbonated.  Force carbonating defeats the purpose.  The insolubility of

:> nitrogen is the reason for the small bubbles, the beer gets "the bends"

:> when it comes out of the tap.

As a SCUBA diver, I would like to clarify the term "the bends" or as it

is also know as "decompression sickness" (DCS).   DCS is caused by dissolved

N2 coming out of solution from the blood, muscle and other fluids and body

tissues when a diver ascends too rapidly.  This forms tiny bubbles that

cause neurological and physiological damage to the body.

Although diatomic nitrogen (N2) is a very stable element and is relatively

inert at low temperature and pressure, it is easily dissolved in fluids

such as blood, water or beer.  I can't say if or why it causes a good head

on beer, but I can say that it will dissolve in it.

                                                Tom Romalewski

------------------------------


Scotch Ale/Caramel Flavor

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1993 08:09:34 -0500

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Scotch Ale/Caramel Flavor

I tried to make a Scotch Ale six weeks ago or so, and I've just

opened the first couple of bottles.  I used about 1/4 pound of

"Mexican" brown sugar in the five gallon batch.  Mexican brown

sugar seems to be highly unrefined, and has an absolutely

delightful molasses taste to it.

Now that the yeast is firmly on the bottom of the bottles, I

can tell that there is very little molasses on the nose, and

just a faint aftertaste. Just for fun the other day, I went out

and bought some MacAndrews and McEwain's Scotch ale to compare.

 Since I like the MacAndrews better, I'll talk about IT.  The

first thing I noticed was a strong malt/caramel nose and

flavor.  We're talking strength like drugstore candy.  More

caramel than malt, I think.  Tasty.  My attempt doesn't come

close.  MacAndrews has more hop bitterness than mine does, but

with all that caramel it probably needs it.  The color, body,

gravity, head, and the rest are fine in the beer I made --

what's missing is the caramel flavor.

It was an all-grain recipe:

 5# 2-row

 4# Cara-Vienne

 1# Cara-Munich

 1/4# Mexican Brown Sugar

 Wyeast 1098

 7 HBU Kent Goldings bitter

 Mashed at 155 F to get unfermentables up

The question I have is "How do I get the stronger caramel

flavor?"   The only thing I can think of to try is to get a few

quarts of the strong first runnings from the lauter tun, and

boil the h*ll out of it while sparging the rest to caramelize

the sugars.  Or maybe melt the brown sugar in a saucepan, and

caramelize it before adding it to the boil pot.  Or maybe buy

some Brach's (tm)

caramel cubes and dissolve `em in the wort instead of the brown

sugar?

Got any ideas for me??

 t

------------------------------


Starting All Grain & Cooler Mash Tun/Lauter Tun construction

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 09:20:34 EDT

From: neilm@juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Neil Mager )

Subject: Starting All Grain & Cooler Mash Tun/Lauter Tun construction

I compiled a digest on All Grain brewing and Cooler Mash

Tun/Lauter Tun construction. The ~80 messages were extracted from

HBD's from the last 18 months or so. Many of the messages are

interrelated, so I left it in one file.

Stephen Hansen has kindly installed the digest in a file named

all_grain_equipment.Z in the /pub/homebrew/docs directory

on Sierra.Stanford.EDU (thanks Stephen). If you are using  the

listserver, remember to leave off the .Z.

I hope others find this as useful as I have.

===============================================================================

Neil M. Mager

MIT Lincoln Laboratory       Lexington, MA

  Weather Radar - Group 43

Internet                    <neilm@juliet.ll.mit.edu>

Voice                       (617) 981-4803

===============================================================================

------------------------------


Humor

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 08:49 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Humor

 It appears that Ulick Stafford (ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu) took my recent

 attempt at humor over his "cake beer" as a personal insult and put down.

 I meant nothing of the kind and apologized privately but thought it would be

 useful to mention it publicly in case anyone else thought likewise.

 When someone says he put cakes in his beer, it is more than I can resist.  He

 was obviously referring to cakes of baker's yeast.  Just for the record, I

 used dry yeast in my experiment and make no claims about any other type.

 Also, for the record I refuse to use :) and accept the consequences.

 js

------------------------------


Single Malt Scoth Whiskey

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 9:52:10 EDT

From: Lee Menegoni <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

Subject: Single Malt Scoth Whiskey

Re: Bottling.

Single Malt Scotch Whiskey refers to the Whiskey coming from a

single barrel.  A whiskey like Chivas Regal is a blended

whiskey.  In a blended whiskey the intent is to produce a

product with identical taste from year to year.  With a Single

Malt whiskey each barrel will have differnt taste, however subtle

that provides a tasting adventure to the drinker.

If what you have is indeed barrels of single malt whiskey .  I would

bottle the contents of each barrel separately and label accordingly

and enjoy the nectar of the heather.

Regarding bottling and flame point,  If flamibility is an issue do it

in a well ventilated place like outside.  Reusing glass liquor bottles

with screw caps should be acceptable or wine bottles with corks.  The

liquor bottle and screw cap seems more practical with regards to re capping.

On principle I would not use plastic liquor bottles.

------------------------------


Requesting the e-mail or snailmail address of Michael Jackson

Date:  Thu, 29 Apr 1993 07:11:31 PDT

From: Dimitri_Katsaros.Wbst139@xerox.com

Subject: Requesting the e-mail or snailmail address of Michael Jackson

Hi all.... I was corresponding with Ray McGlew and he suggested:

<<I might try contacting Micheal Jackson.  He was an expert in scotch before he

got into beer.  If you do try and contact him I would have the names of the

makers, and the ages, of the scotches in question. .... I don't know if Jackson

has an E-mail address, you might post on the HBD a request for an address,

mailing or otherwise.>>

So... any of you out there know?

Thanks in advance

DImitri Katsaros

------------------------------


Please Resend.

Date: 29 Apr 1993 03:34:59 U

From: "AUSQM1" <AUSQM1@ausqm1.sps.mot.com>

Subject: Please Resend.

Mail*Link(r) SMTP               Homebrew Digest #1130 (Apri

!!!! Original Message >= 24K; See following enclosure. Preview follows

!!!!

HOMEBREW Digest #1130               Thu 29 April 1993

 FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES

  Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator

Contents:

  Don O'Connor's Beer, Premier Malt (Mark Garetz)

  Headhunters May Meeting (W. Chicago 'burbs) (Hi-keeba!)

  Who's responsible for micrbrewing?? (Todd M. Williams)

  wishlist from vienna/berlin... (Todd M. Williams)

  Re: Problem with Nottingham Yeast (LYONS)

  N2 and beer / hops (Ed Hitchcock)

  Re: Chimay yeast (John Adams)

  Belgium Wheat Malt & Biscuit (Jim Busch)

  Re: Alcohol and other drugs  (Troy Howard)

  Easy Yeast Culturing 3 (Troy Howard)

  Mashing on an Electric Coil Stove (David Ferguson)

  Bottliing Scotch Whiskey (MCGLEW, RAY)

  Re: Alcohol and other drugs (colesa)

  RIMS, vent pipe, and channeling (J. Michael Burgeson)

  Nottingham/Whitbread/hop growth (korz)

  Dominion Brewing (gorman)

  Decocting and Concocting (Jeff Frane)

  Micros using dry yeast? (LYONS)

  Update to Pub list (jmellby)

  Re: CO2 cartridges (Tim Norris)

Send articles for __publication_only__ to homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

  (Articles are published in the order they are received.)

Send UNSUBSCRIBE and all other requests, ie, address change, etc.,

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If your account is being deleted, please be courteous and unsubscribe

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Archives are available via anonymous ftp from sierra.stanford.edu.

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Please don't send me requests for back issues - you will be silently

ignored.

For "Cat's Meow" information, send mail to

lutzen@novell.physics.umr.edu

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------


Don O'Connor's Beer, Premier Malt

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 18:15:47

From: garetz@brahms.amd.com (Mark Garetz)

Subject: Don O'Connor's Beer, Premier Malt

George Fix asks about Don O'Connor's beer.

I can personally atest to the high quality of Don's (and wife Lynne's)

beers. As to why he doesn't enter competitions, I'll let Don answer

that one

but I suspect the beers would fare well.  I'll also give Don a chance

to

post the story on the "O-Ring" beer.  It was very interesting and in

fact

published in their latest newsletter (St. Patricks of Austin).

"Bob" asks about Premier Malt Products yellow can:

I read somewhere that Premier Malt Products had picked up the license

to

distribute the old "Pabst Blue Ribbon" extract.  I think it was in the

first

issue of that supposedly funny brew paper out of Michigan.

- ------------------------------


Headhunters May Meeting (W. Chicago 'burbs)

Date:    Wed, 28 Apr 1993 0:43:21 -0500 (CDT)

From: BIRMINGH@FNAL.FNAL.GOV (Hi-keeba!)

Subject: Headhunters May Meeting (W. Chicago 'burbs)

         The May meeting of the Headhunters homebrew club will happen

on

    Friday, May 7, from 7-11 PM. The meeting will be at Greg Lawrence's

    place, 4 S 245 Wiltshire Lane, in Sugar Grove, IL. Bring beer or

wine

    and munchies.

         For more information, call Greg evenings at (708) 557-2523, or

    e-mail me at birmingham@fne683.fnal.gov

                                                     Phillip Birmingham

- ------------------------------


Who's responsible for micrbrewing??

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 93 03:10:19 CDT

From: todd@gold.rtsg.mot.com (Todd M. Williams)

Subject: Who's responsible for micrbrewing??

Boy that guy in Boston(tm) does not give it a break....the new radio

ads

here in Chicago(tm) treat us to Jim(tm) Koch(tm) telling us how he

practically

invented the "microbrewery"(tm) and how the "big guys"(tm) spill more

beer than

he makes in a year.  I'm geting really tired of this guys crap and

shall

continue to not drink his products.  I also will continue to tell

everyone

I know/meet, about his never ending shenanigans.  I urge y'all to do

the same.

This guy could give a lot of politicians a run for their (read:our)

money.

Sigh...Sorry...had to get that off my chest...I feel better now...thank

you.

Todd(tm)

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Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 01:00:18 -0600

Message-Id: <9304290700.AA29039@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Who's responsible for micrbrewing??

From: homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com (Verify address before sending)

Reply-To: homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com (CHANGE THIS IF NECESSARY)

Errors-To: homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

Precedence: bulk

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1130 (April 29, 1993)

------------------------------


RIMS and dry yeast use by micros

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 08:15:03 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: RIMS and dry yeast use by micros

>J. Michael Burgeson asks about RIMS, vent pipe, and channeling.

>

>

>I am putting together a RIMS system, and have been reviewing designs

>and discussions from past HBDs.  I am most interested in the topics

>of grain bed compaction and channeling of liquor through the grain

>bed.

>

>In HBD #1088, Bob Jones posted concerns about grain bed compaction

>in RIMS systems.  He related that he was unable to get a 10 gal.

>setup to work properly.

>

>In HBD #806, Alan Gerhardt posted an article about his RIMS system.

>Alan's system included a vent pipe which extended above the grain

>bed from the copper pipe manifold on the bottom of the mash/lauter

>tun.  I think the use of a vent pipe would go a long way toward

>reducing the compaction problem.  Bob, did you try a vent pipe?

I have not tried a vent pipe, but I would guess that due to grain compaction

you will get a very large flow through the vent pipe and this would make for

alot of HSA and poor heat transfer in the heater due to all the foam. ie I

don't like it. Still an anti-RIMS zealot!

There are still alot of micros using dry yeast. The dry yeast used to come

from Siebels and was of a pretty high quality. I understand from Micah that

they are now being sold by Crosby and Baker (I think). He is planning on

using them at Murphy's Creek. The use of dry yeast in brewing at micros,

when you pitch a brick of yeast in a batch provides a large population of

good guys to bad guys and I haven't seen much problem around here that I

would contribute to dry yeast use. Now bottling (which Murphy's Creek plans

to do) is another story. Those small counts of critters can cause problems

when the beer is not stored and handled properly (which IS always the

case).

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Re: RIMS, vent pipe, and channeling

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 11:17:24 -0600

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Re: RIMS, vent pipe, and channeling

In HBD 1130, Michael.Burgeson@Eng.Sun.COM (J. Michael Burgeson) writes

about a proposed RIMS system, and says:

>  With a RIMS system, channeling during the mash would not be a

problem.

I am not sure this is the case. The purpose of the recirculation is to

evenly distribute both the heat and the enzymes/starches/etc.  If

significant channeling is occurring, this distribution will not be as

efficient, thus reducing the potential gains from the recirculation.

> What I would like to propose is using a vent pipe, but running it >

outside the mash/lauter tun.

While putting the tube outside will certainly eliminate this as a

source of channelling, I am skeptical as to whether this vent tube is

worth having. My understanding of the compaction problem is that it is

due to the suction from the recirc pump.  If this is so, then a vent

tube will not help (regardless of whether it is inside or outside the

vessel).  The tube will merely act as a manometer, displaying the

suction inside the vessel as a drop in liquid height in the tube.  The

exception to this is if the suction is great enough to drop the fluid

level in the tube below the level of where it enters the vessel, in

which case air will be sucked into the vessel from the tube.  This will

"clamp" the suction in the vessel at its present value, not allowing it

to increase any further.  However, (1) you may already have significant

compaction at this level of suction, and (2) air will be entrained into

your recirc stream, possibly causing loss of pump prime, and hot-side

aeration.

My suggestion is to use the vent tube, installed outside the vessel,

but use a clear tube so that you can observe the fluid (suction)

level.  Find a level (by trial and error) where compaction does not

occur, and set your pump flow rate to maintain approximately that

level.  (This would probably require constant monitoring, or better

yet, a closed loop feedback system.)

Another suggestion, which I throw out for discussion, is this: why not

recirculate _upward_ through the grain bed? It seems as though this

would reduce the compaction problem, as you are no longer creating

suction within the bed...

Disclaimer:  My degree is in Chemical Engineering, so I am very

familiar with the physics involved here; however, I speak from

_in_experience, as I have not built nor used a RIMS system.  I am

planning one, but will have to wait to get sufficient $$$ before I can

build one.  Anyone from the Salt Lake area want to pool resources???

Good Luck,

Kelly  <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

------------------------------


Re: 5 litre kegs and N2O

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1993 13:33:40 -0400 (EDT)

From: Stephen Brent Peters <sp2q+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: Re: 5 litre kegs and N2O

Since I only had one N2O cart to start with and that little one wasn't

quite enough to empty one keg I'd have to say I'm not yet prepared to

call N2O or CO2 superior.  I'm willing to bet that with this equipment

the results will be the same as the gas cannister does not carbonate

the beer, only push it out of the keg.  You still have to prime your

beer before you put it in the keg.

               Steve Peters =  sp2q@andrew.cmu.edu

                  *Oxnar demands a _Sacrifice!_*

------------------------------


Mash Temp

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 13:47 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Mash Temp

 >From: David Ferguson <davidfer@microsoft.com>

 >I am a semi-experienced homebrewer contemplating my first all grain

 batch.  I'm wondering though if I will be able to use an electric stove

 to maintain the precise temeratures needed for a successful mash.

 I think it is worth stating an opinion which other may choose to disagree

 with.

 Contrary to popular opinion and probably one of the many momilies that keep

 extract brewers from taking the plunge into all grain is the perceived need

 for precise temperature control for a "successful mash".  If by a successful

 mash we mean producing a good beer at a nominal extract yield, I suggest that

 you can achieve that even if your mash temp wanders randomly between 150F and

 160F for 30 minutes or more.

 With the right equipment and attitude, the "plunge" into all grain really

 becomes more like falling off a log.

 The notion about precise temperatures is based on the theoretical action of

 enzymes on starches which produce slightyly different amounts of different

 sugars at various point in the temp range.

 If that is important to a first time all grainer, I would be very surprised.

 These details are important for acheiving nominially different character for

 different styles of beer but I seriously doubt that very many home brewers

 are capable of maintaining the kind of temperature control required to prove

 the point.

 js

------------------------------


Mashing on an Electric Coil Stove

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 12:04:20 PDT

From: David Ferguson <davidfer@microsoft.com>

Subject: Mashing on an Electric Coil Stove

Thanks to all who replied to my question regarding mashing on an

electric stove with limited heat settings.  Sounds like it's not that

big a problem.  The following is a short collection of replies:

>From Tim Fairclough

 I mash in my oven and boil on the electric coil stove all the time. By

mashing in the oven I mean: setting my oven as low as it will go which

will hold a mash at 150 degrees perfectly. I stir ocasionally during the

mash period and heat the sparge water during the last half hour or so of

the mash period. I have done three partial mashes and one full mash this

way with great success (IMHO).  I should mention I have only done

infusion mashes. Good luck.

>From Karl Sweitzer

I use a .25 inch thick plate of brass over my coil stove to more equally

distribute the heat.  I found that I got coil burn marks in the bottom

of my thin boiling pot (even with extracts!).

>From Jason Goldman

I mash on an electric stove and I've been very successful.  The trick is

not to be in too much of a hurry.  In other words, if you are 10 deg shy

of your target temperature, don't turn the stove on red_hot to get it up

quicker.  When I do ales, I heat my mash water to around 180 def F.  Then

when I add the grain, it settles out to about 158 deg F.  After stirring

in the grain so I achieve a good mash in, I take it off the stove and put

the lid on.  If the temperature was too low (or if the mash temp drops),

then I put it back on the stove on hot/less hot for a while to raise the

temp.  Grain is a very good temp buffer on its own.

> From Ed Hitchcock

 If you're making a lager, you can do a decoction mash.  Heat the

mash water to about 135-140F and add grist. Let rest 1/2 hr.  Remove a

portion of the mash (grain and liquid) and bring that to a boil on the

stove and add back to the mash to raise the temp.  You may want to do rests

at 149-145F and 159-155F, so you'll want to remove maybe 3 quarts or so

(I've never actually done a thick decoction, so I can't give you the exact

numbers) to boil.  You can take small amounts and repeat a few times which

takes a little longer, but you won't cook too much of the mash, nor

overshoot your target temperature.

***************

I couldn't resist throwing in my $.02 on the Alcohol and other drugs

thread too.  The only reason I see to outlaw the use of drugs is to

protect the public against people who use them.  IMHO the government

should have no right to tell me what I can and can't do to myself, but

if I start affecting those around me I am beyond my rights.  With that

in mind, I would say someone high on a stimulant would be more likely

to affect those around them and hence would be more dangerous.

Alcohol, being a depressant, slows people down.  Although they can

still be violent and troublesome, I think the general opinion is that

they would not be such a threat to the public as someone on a

stimulant, hence less regulation.

I am opposed to regulation of *most* drugs (although I use no illegal

drugs by my own choice) and will never understand the arguments for

legalizing alcohol, but not marajuana (sp?).

Dave "Don't tell me what to do" Ferguson

------------------------------


oatmeal

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 16:47:47 EDT

From: lconrad@poincare.Prime.COM (Laura Conrad)

Subject: oatmeal

How do other people incorporate the oatmeal into an oatmeal stout (or

other beer)?

I've made 3 or 4 batches, and previous to last weekend I had used

Quaker oats from the supermarket, and added them to the mash.

Last weekend it was easier to go the the natural food store and buy

rolled oats from the bulk bins.

I frequently taste the grain when the sparge is through, to verify that

it is tasteless.  This is usually the case.  This is confirmed by the

fact that animals (including birds when there are other food sources)

don't seem to be very interested.

However, last weekend, there was still definitely oatmeal flavor in

the "spent" grains.

I don't remember whether I've tasted the Quaker oats batches. However,

I donate my spent grains to a friend who uses them for

landfill/compost.  He reported that there was definitely some animal

who had been eating around that batch.

Would I get better extraction if I cooked the oats before adding them

to the mash? Or is the flavor of the oats not really the point anyway?

  Thanks,

  Laura

------------------------------


Trappist Coors?

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1993 16:45:40 -1100

From: Kirk_Anderson@wheatonma.edu (Kirk Anderson)

Subject: Trappist Coors?

John Adams writes:

|I talked with one of Coors' microbiologists last night related to

|Chimay yeast strain quesition.  He studied for his brewing PhD. in

|Belgium so I highly value both his acedemic and professional opinions...

|His recommendation was to use Chimay if you wish to culture a trappist

|style yeast.

How many people like this does Coors employ, and what do they do there?

Coors? As in, 'It's (the) water'? Coors?  Will we see a

Colorado Trappist ale sometime soon?   Correct me if I'm wrong, but his

must be a frustrating line of work. What does he drink when he goes home?

------------------------------


A few questions about mashing...

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 13:06:28 -0700

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: A few questions about mashing...

  I am planning to brew the following two batches this weekend.

1) Imperial Stout

   Desired Yield: 5.5gallons@.1075

   Estimated Extract Effeciency: 27  (pts*gal/lb)

   Total Malt: 15.5

   .5 lb Chocolate

   .5 lb roasted Barley

   .5 lb flaked (barley or red wheat)

   14 lbs Klages

   Method: Overnight single step infusion mash starting at ~155F (should

           end at ~145F)

   Sparge with ~5 gallons 180F water (No Mashout)

   Boil 30 minutes

   Hops:

   Boil: 60 IBU Chinook (1 hour)

   Flavor: 10 IBU Cascade (15 minutes)

   Aroma: 1.5 oz Cascade (15 minute steep)

   Immersion Chilled to 80F

   Yeast: Wyeast Irish Ale (.5l starter from slant)

2) American Brown Ale

   Desired Yield:  5.5 Gallons@1.045

   Estimated extract efficiency: 27 (pts*gal/lb)

   Total Malt: 9.25lbs

   .5 lb 40L Crystal

   .25 lb black Patent

   .25 lb Chocolate Malt

   .25 lb Flaked (barley or Red Wheat)

   8 lbs Klages

   Method: 2 hour single step infusion mash at 156F (should end at ~154F)

   Sparge with ~5 gallons 180F water (No Mashout)

   Boil 30 minutes

   Hops:

   Boil: 25 IBU Cascade  (1 hour)

   Flavor: 5 IBU Cascade + 5 IBU Willamette (15 minutes)

   Aroma: .5 oz Cascade + .5 oz Willamette (15 minute steep)

   Immersion Chilled to 80F

   Yeast: Steinbart's Brown Ale (.5l starter from slant)

And,  I have a few questions (imagine that!):

1) In the past, I have made my own roasted barley by toasting milled 2

row klages at 350F for 15 minutes.  The beer came out *very* cloudy.

Any ideas how to avoid this?

2) When a yeast's attenuation percentage is listed, is that

%(fermentable sugar) or %(total sugar)

3) How can one determine the fermentable/unfermentable ratio *prior*

to mashing?  What percentage fermentables can I expect at 158F mash?

At 148F mash?

4)  I have never gotten the iodine test to go negative in less than 2

hours in the 153F-156F range.  The top of the mash may test negative

for starch, but upon stirring, the test will go positive.  I always

wait untils the stirred mash tests negative.  I also tend to get very

alcoholic, thinner bodied ales.  I would prefer a fuller bodied lower

alcohol (4.5% desireable) brew.  Should I be stopping the mash before

the test goes negative?

5) I prime with 1.5qts 1.040 sweet wort for bottling.  THis is roughly

equivalent to 3/4cup corn sugar.  Should I increase this for the stout

due to the high gravity?

 Phew...

 Thanks in advance,

    Drew

------------------------------


Long distance dispensing

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 18:30:13 -0400

From: djt2@po.CWRU.Edu (Dennis J. Templeton)

Subject: Long distance dispensing

I haven't yet resolved with my spouse the issue of space in the kitchen

fridge for a beer keg, but I thought up this compromise the other day:

How about putting the keg and CO2 tank in the basement and running a 1/4

inch line up through the kitchen floor into the fridge, then through a

steel cooling plate and a tap?  This way, a single glass of beer would be

cooled enough, and for a group, you could put the cooling plate into a tub

of ice.

My major concern is that I'd have to crank up the pressure to get a good

flow through about 12 feet of tubing, then the brew might be two gassy when

it's finally dispensed.

I'd appreciate hearing from folks who have used a long line between the

tank and the tap, and just what kind of problems you encountered.

dennis

------------------------------


RIMS

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 14:15:04 CDT

From: agerhardt@ttsi.lonestar.org (Alan Gerhardt)

Subject: RIMS

In HBD1130 Michael Burgeson mentioned possible differences in efficiency

between a "conventional" sparge and a recirculating sparge ala RIMS.

I have used both methods, and both worked OK with virtually no difference

in efficiency. So use whichever method you're comfortable with.

about channeling:

I also have never observed any channeling in my mashes, but to be

honest, I've never really been looking specifcally for that. I'll look

a little closer next time.

about vent tubes:

The vent tubes I have used in the past worked very well for minimizing

mash compaction due to suction from the pump. The tubes become less

effective as the quantity of grain increases. I'm not sure, but there

probably is a point where sheer weight of the grain is a factor.

When the vent tubes do suck air, there is foam generated, and HSE could

be a factor. HSE never seemed to be a problem for me, but it could be

a concern in a RIMS setup.  So far,

I like my current method ( described later ), but being an obsessive

tinkerer, wait till next week. :)

On my last two batches, I have used the vertical screen tube in the middle

of the mash until sparge time, when I removed it and recirculated the

wort at a slow rate ( no heat ), and then performed a "conventional"

sparge. On the first batch with the tube, I simply had the copper return

tube with a few holes drilled in it submerged below the surface of the

wort.  On the last batch I had a 3/8" copper tube ( again with holes

drilled in it ) coiled in a spiral around the screen tube and spaced

approximately halfway between the screen tube and the side of the mash

tun.  This setup gave a very consistent temperature in all parts of the

mash, with no compaction at all.

As Bob Jones correctly pointed out, the ultimate test of a RIMS setup

is a large batch using predominately wheat malt.  I plan to try that

sometime this summer.

Cheers,

Alan

------------------------------


Refrigerator Idea

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 14:16:55 CDT

From: agerhardt@ttsi.lonestar.org (Alan Gerhardt)

Subject: Refrigerator Idea

A few months ago, I successfully staged a coup de etat and gained possession

of the family freezer, hooked it up to my airstat, and brewed happily it

it while using my other beer fridge for serving temperatures.  Unfortunately,

after a spousal counter revolution combined with decreased availbility of

food, the freezer is now a freezer again .. with food in it instead of beer.

Oh well.

Now I have a dilemma with Texas summer coming. I need a 48-50F fermenting

environment, and a little lower temperature for serving.

I have an idea I have been considering:

With the airstat set at 49F, and the plastic freezer baffles set for

minimum freezer temp, I placed a container of water with a thermometer

in the freezer compartment. The water temperature stays at about 34F, and

has not frozen after about 3 days inside. The temperature inside the rest

of the fridge is 49+-2F

Since the fridge holds 4 5gal soda kegs, I want to have two fermenting, one

aging, and one serving. My idea is to construct the equivalent of a

jockeybox inside the freezer compartment. ( A cold plate would be nice,

but they are kind of pricey ) The beer from the serving keg would pass

through the coil and be chilled some, depending on how long the tube

was, flow rate, etc.

Has anyone tried anything like this?

Is this a crazy idea?

Any comments are welcome.

Cheers,

Alan

------------------------------


What's up with Jim Koch?

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 21:21:42 -0400

From: danp@ursus1.ursus.maine.edu (Daniel Philbrick)

Subject: What's up with Jim Koch?

Can someone tell me why Jim Koch's name and products seem to be MUD on

this network. I just read a real caustic message about him and I

remember several about six months ago along the same lines. What did he

do?

Dan Philbrick

|Sorry I Don't Have A Corny Saying|

DANP@URSUS1.URSUS.MAINE.EDU

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1131, 04/30/93

*************************************

-------


RE: What's up with Jim Koch

Date: Fri, 30 Apr 93 07:25:33 EDT

From: Jim.Beauvais@East.Sun.COM (Jim Beauvais - CONTRACTOR HRIS)

Subject: RE: What's up with Jim Koch

Dan writes,

Can someone tell me why Jim Koch's name and products seem to be MUD on

this network. I just read a real caustic message about him and I

remember several about six months ago along the same lines. What did he

do?

Dan Philbrick

DANP@URSUS1.URSUS.MAINE.EDU

Well he name is MUD for some of us because he has LOTUS syndrome, i.e.

he wants to sue people.

He has tried to sue the Boston Beer Works a new brewpub in Boston who

used the name boston in their name.  He says people will try their beer

not like it and it will hurt his sales.  Well, ask people on the street

who makes Samual Adams Boston Lager, and i will be it ask 10 people

maybe one will say The Boston Beer Co.

Being unsuccessful at sueing the Boston Beer Works he then proceeded to

bring suit against Commonwealth Brewery for having the name Boston on

their neck label, well Commonwealth was the first brewer/pub in Boston

so why not use the name.

Since this did not work he brought another suit against Boston beer

works.  This time it seems to have ended. BTW he lost again.

If you support small startup breweries and don't like the way big business

tries to squeeze the small guy. Don't BUY Samual Adams, it seems like a

good reason to boycott a product.

This is written up in the Yankee Brew News, last issue of 1992 i think,

titled: The Boston Beer Wars..

Cheers

------------------------------


RE: Nottingham yeast

Date:     Fri, 30 Apr 93 7:28:54 EDT

From: Jpetty@PICA.ARMY.MIL

Subject:  RE: Nottingham yeast

Thanks to all who responded to my Nottingham yeast question.  The consensus

is that this is a slow starter and a higher pitching rate may get it going

sooner.  My batch did start shortly after I posted the problem and is perking

away.  The temp was also a few deg cooler than I thought contributing to the

slow start.

------------------------------


Freshops phone #

Date: 30 Apr 1993 09:01:58 -0500 (EST)

From: OIT_JAMES@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU

Subject: Freshops phone #

Freshops

36180 Kings Valley Hwy.

Philomath, OR  97370

503-929-2736

------------------------------


Nitrogen solubility

Date: 30 Apr 1993 10:04:09 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Nitrogen solubility

tmr1@hotlg.att.com (sorry, don't know your real name) responded to my post:

>As a SCUBA diver, I would like to clarify the term "the bends" or as it

>is also know as "decompression sickness" (DCS).   DCS is caused by dissolved

>N2 coming out of solution from the blood, muscle and other fluids and body

>tissues when a diver ascends too rapidly.  This forms tiny bubbles that

>cause neurological and physiological damage to the body.

>

>Although diatomic nitrogen (N2) is a very stable element and is relatively

>inert at low temperature and pressure, it is easily dissolved in fluids

>such as blood, water or beer.  I can't say if or why it causes a good head

>on beer, but I can say that it will dissolve in it.

 Once more for those of you who've nissed this in the past:

According to my CRC Handbook, the solubility of certain atmospheric gases

in cold water at sea level (101.3 KPa):

 Oxygen:    4.89cc

 Nitrogen:    2.33cc

 Carbon dioxide: 171.3cc

 Nitrogen may easily be disolved, but only to the saturation point,

which is very low.  Thus if the pressure drops (a diver rising from the

depths, Guinness leaving the spout) to 1 atm, any amount on N2 greater than

2.33cc/100mL will bubble out of solution, causing DCS ("the bends") or a

lot of tiny bubbles which rise and make a nice creamy head.  As for why we

don't get the bends from oxygen bubbling out of solution, well, I don't

know the relative solubilities of O2 and N2 at higher pressure.  I can

say we have a physiological transport system for oxygen, so that most of

the O2 in the blood is bound to haemoglobin and not simply in solution.

CO2 in solution undergoes a chemical reaction, and exists (at least in part)

as carbonic acid.  As such, CO2 comes out of solution slowly, producing the

initial foaming which settles down to gentle bubbling.

 Don't drink and dive.

 ed

  ___

 /   /   /     Ed Hitchcock                   +<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>+

|      0  /   Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology  +    Drink             +

|          > Dalhousie University             +     Noise / Make     +

|      0  /   Beer Wasteland                  +              Beer    +

 /___/   /     ech@ac.dal.ca                  +<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>+

------------------------------


NEW PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT

Date: Fri, 30 Apr 93 08:21 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: NEW PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT

                   ANNOUNCING THE EASYSPARGER

 The EASYSPARGER provides a continuous supply of hot sparge water from any

 water tap.   No more need to anticipate your sparge water requirements in

 advance, just shut off the EASYSPARGER when you have enough.  It is the

 perfect companion to the EASYMASHER and just about any other lauter system.

 Send email for details, price and delivery.  Include postal address if you

 would like a complete catalog.

 Jack Schmidling Productions

 4501 Moody

 Chicago Il 60630

 (312) 685 1878

 js

------------------------------


On-line brewing resources

Date: Fri, 30 Apr 93 09:00

From: RMCGLEW.BUSSYS@mhssmtp.mdso.vf.ge.com (MCGLEW, RAY)

Subject: On-line brewing resources

 I just looked at the on-line brewing resources from the listserv.  As

  an avid user of the GEnie system I'd like to put a plug in for it.

  I've been on it for over a year and enjoy it quite a > bit.

  For users with local nodes there is no charge other than the

  $4.95 monthly fee (most people have local nodes), for others

  they can use Sprintnet to access GEnie for about $2/hr.

  NO advertisements per page!  Well organized topics (hey, I started

  some of them).

 Downside, there ridiculously high Internet charges

 makes reception of the HBD too expensive!

 Now that I have been "Martinized" I have absolutly

  no affiliation etc, etc, etc.

------------------------------


YO' MOMILY

Date: Fri, 30 Apr 93 09:21 EDT

From: tmr1@hotlg.att.com

Subject: YO' MOMILY

In the Homebrew Digest #1131, Jack Schmidling uses the term "momilies" in

the following message on mash temperatures:

>Contrary to popular opinion and probably one of the many momilies that keep

                                                          ^^^^^^^^

>extract brewers from taking the plunge into all grain is the perceived need

>for precise temperature control for a "successful mash".  If by a successful

>mash we mean producing a good beer at a nominal extract yield, I suggest that

>you can achieve that even if your mash temp wanders randomly between 150F and

>160F for 30 minutes or more.

I haven't been able to find this word in any dictionary.  I have seen this

word used before.  Could it be that the author really wanted to say

"anomaly"?  Or is this a slang term used in homebrewing lingo?

                                                Tom Romalewski

------------------------------


Re: Trappist Coors?

Date: Fri, 30 Apr 93 08:48:42 -0600

From: John Adams <j_adams@hpfcjca.sde.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Trappist Coors?

Hey I can imagine getting your PhD in brewing at one of the finest schools

in the world.  Studying in a country where some of finest beers are produced.

Meeting some of the most knowledgable people in the industry/acedemia and

when you're all finished...

 ...going back to the states to make Coors!

BTW he's a homebrewer.

John Adams

------------------------------


Re: mash channeling

Date: Fri, 30 Apr 93 11:21:45 EDT

From: eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West)

Subject: Re: mash channeling

Unlike the usual sort of channeling, I would expect channeling

in a mash to put you in contact with future spirits.

Jack's not the only one that can't pass one up every now and then.

Carl

------------------------------


Scotch Ale Caramel/Defense of Koch

Date: 30 Apr 1993 23:37:49 -0600

From: "Manning, Martin P" <manning#m#_martin_p@mcst.ae.ge.com>

Subject: Scotch Ale Caramel/Defense of Koch

In defense of Jim Koch, he has done something that no one else except maybe

Fritz Maytag has done, and that is to produce some interesting and characterful

beers which have displaced some of the imports in pubs, restaurants, and even

grocery stores nation-wide. His marketing tactics are rather aggressive, but

maybe that's what it takes to be heard among the large domestic and imported

beer marketeers (Anchor has succeeded in a much quieter, more dignified manner,

though). If Koch has told a few white lies, or miss-represented himself, he is

not the first to do so in the promotion of beer sales, nor will he be the last.

The point is that he is helping significantly to awaken the public to the

diversity in the world of beer which has been all but lost in the American

market. I don't think anyone can argue that Koch's products are not of the

highest quality, and generally representative of the style which they purport

to be. The glaring exception to this, of course, is the ridiculous Cranberry

"Lambic".

************************************

In response to the inquiry by Tom Leith about caramel flavor in scotch ales, I

suggest that the addition of some of the Belgian (DeWulf-Coysens) "Special B"

caramel malt is what is wanted. This is a very dark caramel malt which, as

mentioned in Pierre Rajotte's Belgian Ales book, is produced specifically for

brewing (Belgian) Scotch Ales. It is available from several homebrew shops at

outrageous prices, about $1.30 per lb, usually. Bulk-buyers can get it for much

much much less.

MPM

------------------------------


AHA National Homebrew Competition, Western Region Round 1

Date: Fri, 30 Apr 93 10:44:33 MST

From: Steve Dempsey <steved@longs.lance.colostate.edu>

Subject: AHA National Homebrew Competition, Western Region Round 1

        AHA National Homebrew Competition

     Western Region 1st Round

[ The length of this posting is intended to inform folks

  in the region of significant changes for our site over

  past years.  I know a number of people who have refused

  to participate when a number of problems started to

  appear over the last couple of years.  We have tried

  to address these by changing the way the competition

  is organized and run.]

The first round of the AHA NHC for the western region

will be held Saturday, June 5 and Sunday, June 6 at

the Wynkoop Pub and Brewery in downtown Denver,

Colorado.  Judging sessions will run approximately

9:30am-12:00pm and 1:30pm-4:30pm each day.  We will

also have space available at the pub Saturday evening

for socializing and potential extracurricular activities

still in the planning stages.

We expect some 800 entries to arrive and will need

many judges and stewards to complete the judging on

schedule.  Participation of every available judge

is essential to the continuing success of this

competition.

Some significant changes will be implemented this year

over previous first round sessions held in Boulder.

Organizers from each of the four major regional sites

have been working together to ensure uniform procedures

are used everywhere.

The first major change for us is registration for judges.

We plan to schedule sessions in advance so judges will

know their responsibilities for attending a specific

session to judge a specific style.  In the past, one

could simply show up at any session, gather in groups

of two to four judges, pick out a flight of beers, and

have at it.  While this offered great flexibility, it

also presented the organizers with great anxiety in

guessing how many sessions would be required and how

many judges would show up -- and if the judging would

actually be completed in time.

Large competitions such as the Blue Bonnet, the GABF

Professional Panel Blind Tasting, and several prior

NHC 1st and 2nd rounds at other sites have all used

this format successfully.  In order for it to work,

judges will need to contact the organizers with their

availability and preference for judging specific

styles (see below).  BJCP judges and registered clubs

and retail suppliers will receive detailed information

mailed on April 30.

All experienced judges including BJCP registered judges,

professional brewers, industry consultants, and any

other individual with experience at large regional or

national competitions is encouraged to judge.  Beginning

judges who have experience at one or two local competitions

are also encouraged to participate as apprentice judges,

and will be placed on a panel with more experienced

judges.  Anyone else wishing to participate is welcome

to help with stewarding duties.  A steward is responsible

for maintaining order at the table by assisting judges

with supplies, etc. and has the opportunity to observe

the judging process and even sample some of the beers,

but leaves the evaluation of the entries to the judges.

One of the best ways to start learning about judging

is to work as a steward and watch what goes on without

having the responsibility of evaluating the entries.

The second major change this year will be the method

for selecting entries qualifying for the final round.

In the past, we have tried to go by numeric scores alone.

The first round held in Chicago in 1992 used a two-tier

approach: all flights of a particular style are judged

simultaneously and a few of the best entries are

collected by a leading judge.  These contenders are

gathered quickly and passed to a second panel of

judges including one judge from each of the first

groups.  These judges decide which entries will

advance to round 2.  This two-tier system overcomes

problems with skewed or inaccurate scoring by any

panel of judges, and comes much closer to accurately

determining the best beers from categories with

large numbers of entries.

Judges and stewards may register by e-mail to:

    <steved@lance.colostate.edu>

Please use a subject of "NHC".  Include your name and

phone number(s), a postal address if you are NOT on the

BJCP or club mailing list, and indicate at least three

or four beer styles you feel best qualified to judge.

Once we know the judging schedule, you will be contacted

by phone and/or e-mail to confirm the styles and sessions

you will work.  If e-mail does not go through, call me at

(303) 491-0630 [day] or 482-1403 [evening]; you can leave

a message with the above information at either number if

I'm not in.

================================    Engineering Network Services

Steve Dempsey                       Colorado State University

steved@longs.lance.colostate.edu    Fort Collins, CO  80523

================================    +1 303 491 0630

------------------------------


New brewsheet now available in the HBD archive

Date: Fri, 30 Apr 93 12:09:08 CDT

From: shaver@zeppelin.convex.com (Dave Shaver)

Subject: New brewsheet now available in the HBD archive

Over the last year I've been working on a new brewsheet for keeping

track of my batches.  Stephen Hansen was kind enough to add it to the

archives.  My sheet is very similar to the existing brewsheet in the

archives created by Chris Shenton, but it has a few more bells and

whistles.

I used FrameMaker to create the sheet, so both MIF (Maker Interchange

Format) and PostScript versions are available.  FTP users can get them

from the archive on sierra.stanford.edu as:

 /pub/homebrew/docs/brewsheet2.mif.Z

 /pub/homebrew/docs/brewsheet2.ps.Z

Listserver users should request them with:

 get homebrew brewsheet2.mif

 get homebrew brewsheet2.ps

Happy brewing,

//  Dave Shaver

//  CONVEX Computer Corporation, Richardson, TX

//  Internet: shaver@convex.com    UUCP:  uunet!convex!shaver

------------------------------


A little more help

Date: Fri, 30 Apr 93 10:38:45 -0700

From: l200-cu@garnet.berkeley.edu (mARK wITTEMAN)

Subject: A little more help

To all HOMEBREW Readers:

About three weeks back, I posted a request for help on my homework -- more

specifically, I was looking for lists of California Microbreweries, info on

the families or styles of beers, and info on the "objective" description of

beer.

The response I've gotten has been stupendous.  In all, about 30 people

responded and everybody was wildly helpful even though they were obviously

dealing with an ammateur.  (Meaning me.)  I wasn't able to respond to

everybody individually, so I hope this will suffice as a thank you.

But aside from expressing my gratitude, I must make one more request.  About

two weeks back, a fella from AHA offered to e-mail me some info on beer

judging and how to become a licensed beer judge.  I meant to save his

message and respond with my own message asking that he please send it my way --

it's just the sort of thing I need.  But, as you can probably guess from

the tone of this request, I lost the message.

If the author of that message, or anyone else for that matter, could e-mail

me the aforementioned information, I'd be, once again, ever so grateful.

Sorry to fill the HOMEBREW screens with my personal projects.  I'm not

a HOMEBREWER, but subscribing to this newsletter has convinced me that

some day, when I'm no longer a starving student, I will give it a shot.

Thanks for entertaining my request.

========================================================================

                                                   o

                                                * o

                                                     *

mARK h. wITTEMAN                              0000000000       STOUT

                                             00000000000       BITTER

MLIS Student                                 0==========       IPA

University of California                     0|.     . |===|   PORTER

Berkeley                                     0|  .  :  |  ||   PILSNER

                                             0| .   .  |  ||   BOCK

l200-cu@garnet.Berkeley.EDU                   |   .    |  ||   RAUCHBIER

                                              |  .    .|===|   SAISON

(Note that the first character in my          |.    .  |       WEISSBIER

 address is a lower-case 'L,' not a one.)     |   :    |       BARLEY WINE

                                              ~~~~~~~~~~

------------------------------


beer bends/mashing questions/long draft runs/Koch animosity

Date: Fri, 30 Apr 93 13:44 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: beer bends/mashing questions/long draft runs/Koch animosity

Tom writes:

>Although diatomic nitrogen (N2) is a very stable element and is relatively

>inert at low temperature and pressure, it is easily dissolved in fluids

>such as blood, water or beer.  I can't say if or why it causes a good head

>on beer, but I can say that it will dissolve in it.

It is my understanding that although N2 may be soluble in beer, it is *MUCH*

less soluble than CO2, which is why it is used by Guinness to dispense at

high pressure without uncontrollable foaming.

*******************

Drew writes:

>  I am planning to brew the following two batches this weekend.

>

>1) Imperial Stout

>   Desired Yield: 5.5gallons@.1075

Note that this is at the low-gravity end of the Imperial Stout range.

My last one had an OG of 1120.

>   Hops:

>   Boil: 60 IBU Chinook (1 hour)

60 IBU of Chinook may be a bit abrasive.  Many HBDigesters have reported

harsh bitterness from excessive use of Chinook hops.  As high alpha hops

go, I use Nugget, which I find much more pleasant even at high hop rates.

Make sure you aerate well.  High gravity ferments mean that the yeast

are going to need a lot of oxygen.

>1) In the past, I have made my own roasted barley by toasting milled 2

>row klages at 350F for 15 minutes.  The beer came out *very* cloudy.

>Any ideas how to avoid this?

You were making roasted malt (Brown, probably) not Roasted Barley.  Roasted

Barley is made from *unmalted* barley.  I don't know why the beer was so

cloudy unless you roasted *all* the grain in the batch and denatured all the

enzymes -- but then the starch test would have been positive forever.

>2) When a yeast's attenuation percentage is listed, is that

>%(fermentable sugar) or %(total sugar)

It's apparent attenuation (actual attenuation is much less, but alcohol is

thinner than water, so it gets thrown off).  Say for a 75% apparent

attenuation, if the OG is 1.050, the FG you can expect would be about 1.0125

((1.050 - 1) * (1 - 0.75) + 1 ) = 1.0125.

          ^     ^^^^^^^^    ^

          |        |        |

          |        |        This is because you're putting the water back

          |        |

          |        This is because you want to know what gravity

          |         is left, not what was taken away.

          |

          This is because the water won't be attenuated.

>

>3) How can one determine the fermentable/unfermentable ratio *prior*

>to mashing?  What percentage fermentables can I expect at 158F mash?

>At 148F mash?

I'm sure you know the answer to this question, but all this talk of

fermentables and unfermentables tends to make things seem complicated.

Prior to mashing the malt is virtually all starch, so it's 0% fermentable

and 100% unfermentable.  I don't know about the exact numbers, but last

night, I was re-reading George's article on Evaluating Yeast in the 1992

AHA Conference Proceedings and he mentions 65% fermentable wort if mashed

at (I believe) 154F.  Is that right George?  Did your source for those

numbers perhaps have other temps and percentages too?  Of course these

would all be thoretical ideals because of variations in grains from year

to year and maltster to maltster, no?

>

>4)  I have never gotten the iodine test to go negative in less than 2

>hours in the 153F-156F range.  The top of the mash may test negative

>for starch, but upon stirring, the test will go positive.  I always

>wait untils the stirred mash tests negative.  I also tend to get very

>alcoholic, thinner bodied ales.  I would prefer a fuller bodied lower

>alcohol (4.5% desireable) brew.  Should I be stopping the mash before

>the test goes negative?

No, no, no.   If you want a fuller beer, you want a more dextrinous wort.

Mash at a higher temperature, approaching 158F.  Don't linger at the

low-temp end of the saccharification temperature range (148F) or you will

convert too many dextrins into fermentables.  2 hours seems quite long.

I suspect either that your pH is off, your water chemistry is impeding

the enzymes or your thermometer is off and you're actually mashing at

145F.

>

>5) I prime with 1.5qts 1.040 sweet wort for bottling.  THis is roughly

>equivalent to 3/4cup corn sugar.  Should I increase this for the stout

>due to the high gravity?

1075 is not really that high, but I used 1/2 cup corn sugar for priming

my 1120 Imperial stout and it carbonated quite well.

**********************

Dennis writes:

>

>I haven't yet resolved with my spouse the issue of space in the kitchen

>fridge for a beer keg, but I thought up this compromise the other day:

>

>How about putting the keg and CO2 tank in the basement and running a 1/4

>inch line up through the kitchen floor into the fridge, then through a

>steel cooling plate and a tap?  This way, a single glass of beer would be

>cooled enough, and for a group, you could put the cooling plate into a tub

>of ice.

>

>My major concern is that I'd have to crank up the pressure to get a good

>flow through about 12 feet of tubing, then the brew might be two gassy when

>it's finally dispensed.

You're right, it would be quite gassy.  You're right about needing a lot

of pressure to push the beer that distance, but the *real* culprit for

needing high pressure is head (the change in height that you will have

to push the beer up).  It's all quite involved, but not too complicated

to figure out.  I suggest you pick up the 1992 AHA Conference Proceedings.

In there, you will find an article by Dave Miller which will give you all

the formulas and step-by-step instructions for figuring out what you need

to do to make your system work.  HINT: the key will be using a bigger

diameter hose.

*****************************

Dan writes:

>Can someone tell me why Jim Koch's name and products seem to be MUD on

>this network. I just read a real caustic message about him and I

>remember several about six months ago along the same lines. What did he

>do?

Koch's entrance onto the HBD doo-doo list was thanks to his suing the

Boston Beer Works brewpub for trademark infringement.  This apparently

was done for no other reason than to get some publicity since beer

drinkers with enough taste to tell the difference between Bud and Sam

Adams certainly have enough intellegence to tell the difference between

Boston Beer Works and Boston Brewing Company.  Not only did Koch sue

in a lower court (which ruled in favor of BBW), but took the case to

a higher court (which rules again in favor of the BBW).  Hence the

"starve a lawyer... boycott Sam Adams" motto was born.

A second reason for our hatred of Koch is due to his misuse of the

appelation "Lambic" which he used on a weak Cranberry Beer, that I

guarantee was not made by spontaneous fermentation as a true Lambic

must be (in the vicinity of Brussels, no less).

Koch's recent ads in the Chicago area (the ones where Koch says he started

the microbrewing revolution) would have probably been ignored by us HBD'ers

if not for his "beating up" on a upstart brewpub which has far better things

to worry about than court appearances.

All of this is too bad.  Frankly, I think that Sam Adams makes some of the

best beer that is available nationwide and at a reasonable price.  His

ads (incorrect as they may be) have, indeed, made inroads into changing the

average American beer-drinker's taste.  I would much rather see every second

customer at a liquor store carrying a case of Sam Adams than Budweiser or

Miller or Coors (as I see today), if only Koch would stop this litigative

nonsense and stop with the false advertising.  A public appology would be

nice too...

Has anyone mentioned that Koch should have called his Doppelbock "Litigator?"

Al.

------------------------------


Compressed files/Extraction rates

Date: 30 Apr 1993 13:53:39 -0600 (CST)

From: SWEENERB@msuvx2.memst.edu

Subject: Compressed files/Extraction rates

Pardon my ignorance, but...

What program do I need to decompress the files with the '.Z' extension in

the Sierra.Stanford archive?  Is this some type of Unix program?  Our system

here at Memphis State is a DEC VAX to which I can download to either a PC or a

Macintosh.  Are there programs available on these platforms to decompress

these archives? Please email soon as my account here may be taken away next

week when our semester ends. N_ts!

Also, I brewed my first all-grain batch last week and some questions about

extraction rates have been bugging me ever since.  I used 9 lbs of grain total

(7.5 lb klages, .5 lb cara-pils, .5 lb dark crystal malt, and .5 lb wheat malt)

and got an OG of 1036, which computes out to about 20 pts/lb/gal.  This seems

low compared to some of the extraction rates I see bandied about on the HBD.

However, when I went examined some of the receipes in the Winners Circle

section of Zymurgy I computed rates between 19 and 28 pts/lb/gal, with an

average of about 24.  Even these supposedly very good beers--I mean they placed

in a national contest so they must be good, right?--were lower than the 30-35

pts/lb/gal rates I often see quoted on the HBD.  So what gives?  Rates, I

assume are related to the grain crush, the type of grain, pH, and the mashing

and sparging methods and temps.  (My grains were Corona crushed, with a single

infusion mash in a picnic cooler with 3 gals h20 at 154 degrees for 90 minutes

- --with the first runoff at an OG of 1070, then sparged with 3.5 gals of 170

degree h20 @ 5.4 pH.)

I guess my question is, are higher rates necessarily better, since these winning

beers had lower extraction rates.  Or are these lower extraction rates just

more common in the homebrewing community and therefore more likely to win at

contests?  What are the disadvantages to having too high extraction rates, if

any? Are there other factors affecting the extraction rate than those listed?

Are there any glaring errors in my mash/sparging procedures?  How do you know

when your grain crush is adequate?  What is the air speed velocity of a fully

laden African sparrow?

There, I feel much better now.  Thanks for letting me unload.

Bob Sweeney

Memphis State University

(901) MSU-4210

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

------------------------------


Texas Beer Sights & Tastes, Farnsworth Yeast

Date: Fri, 30 Apr 93 11:17 CDT

From: akcs.wseliger@vpnet.chi.il.us (William M. Seliger)

Subject: Texas Beer Sights & Tastes, Farnsworth Yeast

I will be travelling to Texas in early May to spend some time in

San Antonio, Austin and Houston.  I am interested in Beery sights and

tastes in all three cities.  Private email to the following addresses

would be best.

Thanks in advance,

Bill Seliger

wseliger@chinet.chi.il.us -or- akcs.wseliger@vpnet.chi.il.us

p.s.  Does Paul Farnsworth only do business via mail or does he take

house visits for yeast pickups???

------------------------------


help with 1st time partial mash

Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1993 13:37:02 -0800 (PDT)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: help with 1st time partial mash

I'd like to augment my to-date extract-only brews with a partial mash.  My

plan is to use the oven, set at 150, and heat the mash on the stove top

prior to putting it in the oven.  My question relates to the initial

heating.  Everything I can remember reading about mashing talks about

heating water to a higher temperature so that it comes down to the correct

temp when the grain is added.

Why can't I put the grain in cold water and heat it all up together?  This

seems obvious, but what am I missing?

A second question relates to use of a manifold for sparging.  When is the

manifold put in?  After mash-out (where I presume I'd have to stir

everything up to get it on the bottom of the pot) or is it in the pot the

whole time?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 Peter

------------------------------


plans for the 'malt mill tm'

Date: 30 Apr 1993 16:15:13 -0600 (CST)

From: Robert Schultz <Robert.Schultz@usask.ca>

Subject: plans for the 'malt mill tm'

Jack/brewing community:

 Does any one have plans/pictures of 'A' or _THE_ malt mill (tm) that

they are willing to post.  I don't really have a problem with the cost of the

malt mill, but by the time one gets it to Canada with exchange and customs and

duty I am looking at over to $300 CND.

 Being 'mechanically inclined' and access to a machine shop, I would like

to attempt to build my own mill, and incorporate some (most?) of the design

which Jack has apparently honed.

Greatfully....

Robert Schultz

------------------------------


Want Supplies (Getting Started)

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 17:53:34 PST

From: cboesel@diablo.uu.holonet.net (Charles Boesel)

Subject: Want Supplies (Getting Started)

I'm looking to start homebrewing, but really don't want to spend

a lot $$ on the supplies. I would like to know if anyone has used supplies

they would be willing to sell to me. If so, send me e-mail.

Cheers,

Charles

- --

charles boesel @ diablo creative |  If Pro = for   and   Con = against

cboesel@diablo.uu.holonet.net    |  Then what's the opposite of Progress?

+1.510.687.3119(work)            |  What else, Congress.

------------------------------


Tour of Canada Malting.

Date: Sat, 1 May 93 22:04:31 MDT

From: Herb Peyerl <Herb.Peyerl@novatel.cuc.ab.ca>

Subject: Tour of Canada Malting.

Today; our brew club (Marquis de Suds) had a tour of the Canada Malting

facility and I thought it would be of interest to people on hbd.

I don't remember a lot of details since there was a certain amount of

imbibing going on...

It started with us meeting the Head Maltster who took us into one

of the malting "houses".  He explained that they currently have 4

houses with a total output capacity of ~500 tonnes/day (I'm presuming

metric tonnes).  They're currently building a new house which

will allow them to shutdown 3 of the current ones and it is of a

european design which is apparently more efficient.  It will allow

them to layoff half of their staff (they gave the staff a 1 year

notice of this and have allocated $3000CDN to assist the staff in

training for new careers. ($3000/person)).

We looked at the steeping silos where the barley is brought in;

steeped with water to facilitate washing of the grains.  This is

done in several cycles which are determined by the production manager.

The current batch was a 6-6-10-8-6-7 steep/aeration cycle.  This

works like so:

6 hours of wash

6 hours of aeration

10 hours of wash

8 hours of aeration

6 hours of wash

7 hours of aeration

A wash consists of pumping water into the bottom of the silo until

it overflows into an overflow reservoir and then letting it sit.

Aeration consists of draining the water and pumping air through

the silo from the bottom.

The cycle is determined by several factors:

a) customer spec (protein solubility; color; etc)

b) The characteristics of the grain shipped.

 i) They use a strain called "Henning" (sp?)

 ii) Each batch of grain is different due to the farm season.

>From there; the grain is drained into what they call a "piece"

which is basically a large (200yds long) concrete fenced off

area where it sits to germinate at a depth of about 3 feet.  It

sits there with air flowing over it and through it (from the bottom)

until the germination is at the level they expect (I believe this

is about 15 hours)..

The grain is then dropped into a spray room which was a very damp

loud place and I was unable to hear exactly what the purpose of this

was...

>From there the green-malt is transferred to the kilning piece

where it sits for another period of time to kiln according to

colour again. The temperature varies also according to the

level of diastatic potential that is required by the customer...

That's basically where the tour stopped.  My main interest aside

from the general process was in the machinery used.  There is

a large concern for excessive handling of the grain so as to minimize

crushing of the husks.  However; if during the aeration and

germination stage; the grain isn't mixed then aerobic heat gets

too high and this affects germination.  So the trade-offs are

there and are treated seriously.

Points of interest:

A) there were bags of sulphur outside the grain house and it

was explained to us that grain tends to have "DNMA" (sorry)

which apparently is carcinogenic so the sulfur is introduced into

the flame of the kiln-burners and burnt.  Apparently the

sulfur binds to the DNMA and reduces the levels substantially

The sulfur is used at a rate of .2 to .6 Kg / tonne depending

on the grain and even the amount of air-pollution in the

area at the time (I guess smog contributes to the DNMA levels).

Maybe one of our resident chemists can explain this further.

B) They use a naturally ocurring growth hormone to encourage

germination.  Again; depending on the batch of grain; some are

more sluggish than others.  Specifically the 6 row tends to be

more sluggish than the 2 row. (Labatts uses a 50/50 mix of 2/6

row whereas Molsons is 100% 2 row.).  Apparently the customers

know that a growth hormone is used but they don't want to "hear"

about it... ie "I don't wanna know".  It occurs naturally in the

grains anyway apparently; they're just increasing the amount.

C) Due to the high humidity (upto 100% relative); approximately

every three weeks they spray the humid areas with a bleach solution

to keep the mold and fungii at bay.

D) They use approximately 800,000 gallons of water a day

which they treat according to spec.  Our fine city isn't normally

a water-sensitive area (ie: We have plenty and it's very GOOD!).

E) They use the heat generated by germination and steeping to

pre-heat the water in order to conserve energy and control the

temperature of the grains.

F) They don't have "extra" bags of malt hanging around. :-(

G) 20% of their grain comes from the Hudderites in our area.

After the tour; we went to the coffee room and all partook of

homebrew.  Someone (A German member of our club) brought a

keg of Wheat beer which the Maltster and his asst thought

was just fantastic until someone used the "W" word. :-)

Apparently they've tried to malt wheat and rye but they just

soak up water and turn into a mush really easily with the

husks falling right off.  So; they just stick to barley.  They

don't do any specialty grains since that's too small a market

for their operation. (Each piece holds approximately 10 tons

of barley).  They are apparently capable of producing color

up to 3.0 but most of their orders are in the 1.6-1.9 lovibond

range.

Well; sorry for the lack of detail.  I hope some of you found

this of interest.  If you ever get a chance; I'd suggest you

try to take a tour of a malting facility.  It's eye-opening.

"I was early to finish | hpeyerl@novatel.cuc.ab.ca <Reply-To>   | I brew |

I was late to start, I | peyerlh@cuug.ab.ca                     | there- |

might be an adult, but | #define JANITOR "Network Anal-yst"     | fore I |

I'm a minor at heart." |    JANITOR, NovAtel Communications Ltd.|   AM.  |

------------------------------


Cornelius Kegs

Date: Sun, 2 May 93 15:00:52 -0400

From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

Subject: Cornelius Kegs

Hello:

 After 6+ years of homebrewing, I am getting ready to move away from

bottles and into draft. It looks like the cornelius system is the way to go.

I have a source for the equipment, but kegs are $40 a piece, and this sounds

steep to me.  I would welcome any information anyone can offer on where you

got your kegs, how much you paid, the pros and cons of reconditioned kegs

verses as-is used ones, and the exact type of keg which is preferable (I

have some vague notion that their are "ball-type" and "pin-type" setups,

or something of this ilk), I would appreciate this.  As these probably

qualify as FAQs, the answers may not be particularly edifying to the HBD

readership as a whole, it might be best to email me directly

(drose@husc.harvard.edu).  Thanks.

        d.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1132, 05/03/93

*************************************

-------


dmna, sulfur etc

Date: Mon, 3 May 93 12:44:51 MET DST

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: dmna, sulfur etc

hello all,

Herb wrote about the Maltery trip in hbd 1132.

> on the question of DMNA, it's dimethylnitrosamine, the major

(in terms of amounts and toxicity) nitrosamine found

in beer. It gets there all the way from the malt. More

often than not malts are treated with burning sulfur during

kilning. The effect of this is to decompose the nasties into

nontoxic dimethylamine. A side effect, appart from filling

the atmosphere with sulfur dioxide, is that the malts contain

more sulfur (in the form of sulphates etc) and often the

acidity of the malt is increased.

> as to the hormone used in germination, it's gibberellic (sp)

acid. This is indeed found in nature, in very many seeds and

seedlings. It is what is found in "rooting powder" used by

gardeners to make plant cuttings take root. It isn't in

any way related to mammalian (human) hormones, and has no effect

on the body. (A related hormone is acetylene, this stimulates

the ripening of fruit... try putting a young tomato (green)

in a bag with a little. It'll ripen alot quicker.. but watch

out for flames otherwise it'll be fried tomato.)

Returning to malting, I tried making caramel malt this

weekend. It turned out quite good, though the real test

will be a full batch of ale brewed with it.

My process was as follows:

steep 1 kg whole lager malt in water for 12 hours (over night)

then drain and put the grains in a covered pyrex dish in

the oven at 65-72 degC for 2 hours. This mashes the insides

of the fully moistened grains. The temperature is the theoretical

optimum under these (abnormal) conditions.

After this time, the grains could be squeezed between my fingers

releasing the hot(!!!) sweet contents. I didn't do this to all

of them ofcourse, otherwise I'd get no malt.

I then warmed the oven to 120 degC and dried/baked the grains,

being careful to stir regularly, otherwise toffee quickly

formed on the bottom of the dish.

The length of time you leave the grains influences the final

colour, I left mine for 2 hours to give a medium (sorry not

very scientific description) roast.

The insides of these grains is like toffee, though possibly

still a bit wet (sticky).

Any way, that's all I wanted to say,

Rob Thomas.

------------------------------


manifold use

Date: 03 May 1993 10:12:03 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: manifold use

Peter Maxwell asks:

>A second question relates to use of a manifold for sparging.  When is the

>manifold put in?  After mash-out (where I presume I'd have to stir

>everything up to get it on the bottom of the pot) or is it in the pot the

>whole time?

 My manifold is in a bucket, not the pot.  I do one of three things.

I can mash in the pot and dump it into the bucket on top of the manifold

for sparging.  I can put hot water and grain in the bucket on top of the

manifold and do a single stage infusion mash (ie just let it sit there for

a while), then sparge.  I can put warm water and grain in the bucket on top

of the manifold and do a decoction mash.  Some people have tha manifold in

the pot, but mine is made of PVC, so I don't like the idea of placing it on

a burner.

 Have fun!

Ed Hitchcock/Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology/Dalhousie University/Halifax NS

ech@ac.dal.ca   +-------------------------------------------------------+

  |    Remember, God created the world in six days, |

  |   and that was without the benefit of power tools! |

  +-------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


Mail-Order Belgian Grains

Date: 3 May 93 04:36:35 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Mail-Order Belgian Grains

Message Creation Date was at  3-MAY-1993 09:23:00

          Greetings,

               Does anyone out there in HBD-Land know of Mail-order

          businesses dealing in Belgian Grains?  In particular, I am

          interested in the Belgian (DeWulf-Coysens) "Special B"

          caramel malt that MPM wrote about for use in Scotch Ales in

          the last issue.

          Thanks

          Andy A

------------------------------


drinking, diving, momilies, etc

Date: Mon, 3 May 93 07:49:37 -0700

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: drinking, diving, momilies, etc

Ed Hitchcock says :

"Don't drink and dive."

In passing, I wanted to add that alcohol's influence increases as you

go deeper ( IE, as pressure builds up ). I forget the formula but it's

a fierce increase in influence. _Really_, don't drink and dive.

The Schmidmeister says :

"ANNOUNCING THE EASYSPARGER"

Cool !!

Tom Romalewski says, regarding "momiles" :

"I haven't been able to find this word in any dictionary.  I have seen

 this word used before.  Could it be that the author really wanted to

 say "anomaly"?  Or is this a slang term used in homebrewing lingo?"

I think it's slang. Dunno the etymology or deriviation but it translates,

roughly, into "wives' tale", if context is a correct guide. IMHO, this

does not mean it is _untrue_, rather, unverified grapevine gossip that

may be true but needs further examination.

And Carl notes :

"Unlike the usual sort of channeling, I would expect channeling

 in a mash to put you in contact with future spirits."

< groan > (-:

- -- richard

The silliest thing I ever read,  richard childers, pascal@netcom.com

Was someone saying "God is dead."

The simple use of The Word

Negates the second, and the third. ( Duke Ellington, _Sacred Concert_ )

------------------------------


FTP ing

Date: Mon, 03 May 93 11:05:00 EDT

From: "Hobson, Kevin" <HobsonK@magic.dcrt.nih.gov>

Subject: FTP ing

Could someone please enlighten me on FTPing to sierra?  More specificly, I

want to ftp a digest, are they available in a DOS format? zipped somewhere?

I am under the impression that the ftp-able files under /pub/homebrew/digest

 are unix based zipped files.  Is there a way to convert them? Help please.

I thank you ahead of time.  Please e-mail directly unless you feel others

may benefit.

I have never posted before (never needed to, it seems like every time I am

about to my question is answered that morning!).  I cannot tell you all how

much I enjoy this listserv.

(I swear one of my hop shoots grew an inch on Saturday afternoon!)

Kev   8^)

------------------------------


Cooker/boil post combo

Date: 03 May 1993 09:35:07 -0600 (CST)

From: Robert Schultz <Robert.Schultz@usask.ca>

Subject: Cooker/boil post combo

Has anyone tried the 10-15 gallon electric water heaters for mashing/boiling?

I saw one on sale:

         12 gallon (UK), 115 volt (220 would be better) for $115 CND

         (that should translate to about $90 US).

These are glass lined, so one would have to be careful cutting (grinding) the

lid off, but otherwise the unit is insultated and temperture controlled, with

the added feature of a 'bottom tap'.

 I would put money on the fact that they would be great for mashing, but

I wonder how they would work for boiling???

 The Costco 120,000 BTU sounds like the right size to boil 10 gallons of

wort.  Coleman also sells a camp cooker - but only 45,000 BTU.

 I am in the throws of ripping apart an old natural gas water heater and

converting the burner to propane for cooking my wort, but it too was only rated

at about 40,000 BTU.  Gas water tanks have the flame tube running up the centre

which doesn't do much for a 'pot'

Robert.

------------------------------


Guinness on the high seas...

Date: Mon, 3 May 93 11:29:46 EDT

From: richer@desi.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Al Richer)

Subject: Guinness on the high seas...

 This is from the "Irish Emigrant", an email newspaper featuring items

of interest to Irish expatriates and those working abroad.

     - The two ships which carried bulk Guinness from Dublin to

       Liverpool have made their last voyage.  The crews of the two

       vessels staged a protest against their redundancy terms for the

       last few weeks but this was eventually resolved.  About 40

       seamen have lost their jobs.  Guinness will in future be taken

       from the brewery in special tanks and loaded on board other

       ships.

  If they used this same technique to ship elsewhere, could this perhaps

explain the distinctive "tang" in guinness here in the States?

  "The bilges are flooding, Captain!"

  "Pump it into the container tanks. No one will notice..."

      Tongue firmly in cheek,

         Alan J. Richer

- --

------------------------------


Am I ready to go all-grain?

Date: Mon, 3 May 93 11:09:20 CDT

From: hinz@memphis.med.ge.com (David Hinz)

Subject: Am I ready to go all-grain?

Greetings.

I've got half a dozen extract batches under my belt (some were with specialty

grains), and I really enjoy the brewing process.  I *THINK* I'd like to try an

all-grain batch, and I'd like to make sure that I understand the basic

principles involved.  So, here's what I understand the process to be:

1> select a recipe & get the ingredients

2> crush the malt (or buy it crushed)

3> start the WYeast pack, then make a starter (I'm already using this method)

4> malt the barley

    OK, this is where it gets complicated, right?  I want to basically make

a barley soup type of concoction, and keep the mixture at 150-160 degrees,

temperature decided by how much fermentables vs. body I want.  Right?

OK, now I've let it sit at, say, 155 degrees.  What's a protein rest?  What's

this about heating it up to two different temperature levels so the different

enzymes can do their stuff?  Am I worrying?

OK, so I have my 'soup'.  Now, I need to sparge.  So, I take my soup, pour

it into my lauter tun (which I haven't made/bought yet).  Which design is

best?  (uh oh, I'd better not start that one.  How about 'which design is

fairly easy to build and will last, cost isn't all THAT important')

So, I sparge, limiting the flow so that I get good extraction from the grain

bed.  I go through my sparge water, and recirculate it until clear?  Is that

the case?  I'm not too clear on that bit.

Anyway, I finish my sparging, and I have somewhere around 5-6 gallons of

wort at this point, right?  From here, it's familiar.

So, have I missed anything, or misunderstood anything (probably)?  Is that all

there is ?!??!?!?!  It really doesn't seem like a lot more than just using

specialty grains, with the exception that the specialty grains aren't sparged

as completely, it seems.

Thanks for any info you can provide.  The differences between my all-extract

and my "some specialty grains" (is this partial mash?) batches have convinced

me that it's worth the extra effort!

Thanks!

Dave Hinz

hinz@memphis.med.ge.com

------------------------------


GENIE, Momily

Date: Mon, 3 May 93 12:03 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: GENIE, Momily

 >From: RMCGLEW.BUSSYS@mhssmtp.mdso.vf.ge.com (MCGLEW, RAY)

 >Subject: On-line brewing resources

 > I just looked at the on-line brewing resources from the listserv.  As

   an avid user of the GEnie system I'd like to put a plug in for it.

   I've been on it for over a year and enjoy it quite a bit.

   For users with local nodes there is no charge other than the

   $4.95 monthly fee (most people have local nodes),....

 Let me add my two cents here also.  On the downside is that it can get pretty

 slow during the busy periods but considering that it is free compared to

 Compuserves opressive fees, it is a great trade off.  The only other problem

 is that it is not as active as CIS or HBD but that seems easy to rectify.

 To re-iterate, GENIE beer formum participation is included in the $4.95

 monthly fee.  Compuserve charges $6 per hour for participation in their beer

 forum.  That may not sound like much but for any kind of interactive

 participation, keeping it under $100 per month is not easy.

 I suppose the AHA got in bed with CIS before there was a Genie but at this

 point in time, I think it is time to reconsider the association.  It is

 really a dis-service to promote a service that is so expensive when other

 alternatives are available.

 If anyone wants sign up info on Genie, just call... 800 638 9636

 >From: tmr1@hotlg.att.com

 >Subject: YO' MOMILY

 The history of the word is as follows:  Some years ago, my wife thumbed

 through a book titled "MOMILIES" at a friend's house.  It consited of page

 after page of those silly little things that MOM used to tell us we must do

 because she said so.  Some of them were good advice and many were just plain

 silly.

 js

------------------------------


RE: What's up with Jim Koch

Date: Mon,  3 May 93 10:06:23 PDT

From: David Ferguson <davidfer@microsoft.com>

Subject: RE: What's up with Jim Koch

I don't want to accused of spreading rumors, so let me emphasize that

the following is founded on word of mouth only.

I was told during a tour of a local brewery that Sam Adams is contract

brewed out of the Weinhard's brewery in Oregon as well as others across

the country.  Would this disqualify it as a microbrew?  Does anyone

know if this is true?

Dave Ferguson

------------------------------


Litigator

Date: Mon, 3 May 93 12:23 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Litigator

It turns out that my suspicions were correct... the name "Litigator"

for S(tm) A(tm) Doublebock [sic] was too good to have not been

already mentioned.  Jim Ellingson coined the name.

Al.

------------------------------


Cosmic Brew

Date: Mon, 3 May 93 18:16:45 GMT

From: u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil (Markham R. Elliott)

Subject: Cosmic Brew

Hello Fellow Brewers,

I'm back to share a newsworthy item I found in the Saturday, 1 May edition of

my local daily newspaper, the Jackson, MS _Clarion Ledger_.  The article is

one of about 8 that appears each day "highlighting" little snippets of info

about world events (with arrows to a country on a world map, as to enhance our

geographical education).

Dateline OBERPFAFFENHOFEN, Germany

Beck hopes yeast in space brews cosmic beer

- ---Don't look now, but the German beer of your future may be orbiting overhead

on the shuttle Columbia.  A tube of Beck and Co.'s ingredients is fermenting

aboard the shuttle to determine whether weightlessness and cosmic rays can

genetically alter yeast to produce tastier beer.  Experts at the University of

Munich will make sample batches after the yeast is returned, said company

spokesman Hans-Joachim Allgaier.  Beck may know by the end of the year whether

it has a commercially viable mutant.  "We wouldn't sell it as space beer,"

Allgaier said.  "We're too conservative to market beer like that.  Besides, it

wouldn't taste like space."

==============================  END OF ARTICLE  ============================

?Beck and Co.?  Is this the same Beck as in Beck's beer from Bremen?  I hope

something works for them, 'cause even though I like a dark beer, their stuff

don't do it for me, especially after having had a sampling of some dark

home-brewed.

Noch einmal, bitte!!  Mark

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 Markham R. Elliott                 u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil

 Information Technology Laboratory                     (601) 634-2921

 Waterways Experiment Station

 Vicksburg, Mississippi  USA

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Coming Soon: Beer That's Out of This World ?

Date: Mon, 3 May 1993 11:47:56 -0700 (PDT)

From: John Brooks <jbrooks@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Coming Soon: Beer That's Out of This World ?

***********

The following article was drawn from the Associated Press and

appeared in the May 2 Seattle Times:

   "OBERPFAFFENHOFEN, Germany - Don't look now, but the German beer of

your future may be orbiting overhead on the space shuttle Columbia.

   A spiral tube of Beck and Co.'s finest ingredients is fermenting

aboard the shuttle, to determine whether the weightlessness and intense

cosmic rays of space can genetically alter yeast to produce tastier beer.

   Germans may be tittering that their national passion for beer has

been taken to the limits, literally.  Beck's lovers hope the already

prized brew will taste even better.

   The yeast is among the less weighty of the 88 experiments in Columbia's

payload, which is being monitored at a space center outside Munich.

   The $570 million program includes research into everything from energy-

conserving turbine blades to semiconductors to robotics.  The yeast

experiment is one of several aboard the shuttle enabling scientists to

observe changes in living cells in a weightless environment."

OK - let the beer naming begin!!

 "Weightless Beer" (it's less filling)

 "Intergallactic Ale"

 "Star Wars Stout"

*****************************************************************

John Brooks   *    *

University of Washington *        "Don't worry,  *

jbrooks@u.washington.edu *    *

ph: (206) 543-9149  *           Be hoppy!"  *

fx: (206) 543-7654  *    *

*****************************************************************

------------------------------


mash efficiency

Date: Mon, 3 May 93 14:57:35 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bernini.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: mash efficiency

Bob Sweeney writes in hbd1132

>section of Zymurgy I computed rates between 19 and 28 pts/lb/gal, with an

>average of about 24.  Even these supposedly very good beers--I mean they placed

>in a national contest so they must be good, right?--were lower than the 30-35

>pts/lb/gal rates I often see quoted on the HBD.  So what gives?  Rates, I

2 points.  I brew 5 gallon batches or so, but always want 6+ gallons of wort.

Up to 1 gallon will be the hop trub, I will collect wort for priming, and

will lose some volume to yeast trub in racking, and even through evaporation

and loss of volume.  Therefore the actual wort efficiencies of those batches

may well have been higher.

The second point is that lesser extraction can result in less astringency and

hence smoother - better beers.  However, many consider this to be wasteful.

Yesterday I brewed and extracted about 8.4B per lb per US gallon - highish

but I am usually over 7.5 (30 sg points approx) for the 6 gallons I collect,

but for the 5 gallons of beer I produce,  the efficicy drops to 28 for my

batch yesterday, or better

than 25 for the average.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@bach.helios.nd.edu

------------------------------


I don't "hate" Jim Koch

Date: Mon, 3 May 1993 13:01:09 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: I don't "hate" Jim Koch

In the most recent Digest, Al Korzonas explains why "we hate Jim Koch."

I don't hate anyone (except, perhaps, my ex-wife and Eliot Abrams);

certainly I don't hate Jim Koch, and I'd rather Al Korzonas didn't speak

for me.

In reality, Koch's bad odor goes back a lot farther and includes a lot

more than his overly-litigous behavior or his ridiculous "lambic" beer.

He's a wheeler-dealer, and is guilty of most or all the excesses

associated with wheeler-dealers.  But the microbrewery business has its

share of wheeler-dealers, too; not necessarily as successful(!) as Koch,

but they are out there.  And, as others have pointed out, Koch -- for al

his deceptions -- has succeeded in awakening a mass audience for

flavorful, all-malt beers that is much larger than anything the micros

could have done alone.

Personally, I'll reserve my hatred and outrage for people who commit far

greater crimes than Jim Koch's marketing ploys.

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


Extraction Rates

Date: Mon, 3 May 93 10:00:21 EDT

From: Lee Menegoni <necis!lmenegon@transfer.stratus.com>

Subject: Extraction Rates

Whenever I read the tremendous extraction rates people get it

reminds me of the comment one of my golf partners said: " I

Always do worse when someone else keeps score"

That aside.  Mashing and sparging technique will impact extraction.

A poor crush and poor mash , ie incomplete conversion, will reduce the

potential extraction.  A poor sparge will leave converted sugars in the

grain further reducing extraction.

I get between 28 and 30.

Equipment can also be a factor.  I noticed when I reduced the height of

the false bottom in my Zappap lauter tun I improved extraction.  Over

sparging for the sake of better extraction can lead to astringent flvors

'from the extraction of husk tannins.

A usual cause for poor extraction in the beggining phase of all grain

brewing.  Is sparging.  What was the grain bed temp?  The PH of the

sparge water? Temp of sparge water?  Did you stir the contents of the

brew pot before taking a sample?  Did you temp adjust the samples sg

before doing your calulations?

What method was used to calculate the extraction:  I use

(temp adjusted sg of pre boil wort * vol of preboil wort) / total grain bill

- --

------------------------------


liberty ale

Date: Mon, 3 May 93 12:51:23 PDT

From: dra@jsc-ws.sharpwa.com (Darren Aaberge)

Subject: liberty ale

To my knowledge I have never tasted a beer that has been dry hopped.  I have

always been happy with the results of steeping the hops at the end of the boil.

But this last weekend I was able to taste Anchor's Liberty Ale.  Wow!  If I

closed my eyes I could believe I was drinking a glass of hops.  Being from the

Pacific Northwest, this is a good thing.

So now I have to try dry hopping.  Does anybody know what kind of hops Anchor

uses for dry hopping?  Does anybody know what kind of yeast they use for their

liberty ale?  I am assuming that since they call it an ale they do not use the

same yeast as they use for their steam beer.  Is the yeast in the bottle the

yeast that is used for fermentation or do they add a different yeast for

conditioning?

Darren

------------------------------


3 gal kegs revisited

Date: 03 May 1993 15:42:01 -0500 (EST)

From: Sandy Cockerham <COCKERHAM_SANDRA_L@Lilly.com>

Subject: 3 gal kegs revisited

I posted several months ago asking for info on 3 gal. kegs. Slowly, I got

replies. In the middle of all that I took a vacation to the Bay Area (where

I visited Anchor and some other great places). Needless to say, I have been

procrastinating on the keg thing... BUT, in the meanwhile I had a birthday

and was given a *complete* system including a 3 gal. keg. Of course, we all

know that one keg isn't enough. So, here is the information I was given.

1.    Brewhaus in Knoxville,TN  1-800-638-2437    3 gal(??fitting) 39.95

2.    St.Pat's of Texas Brewer's Supply  1-512-832-9045  3 gal pin 38.00

                                                        3 gal ball 47.00

3.    BCI in Brighton,TN  1-800-284-9410       3 gal(pin or ball)  34.50

      they also have 10 gal.kegs.

4.    Brewmaster in San Leandro, CA 1-510-351-8920  no longer carry the

      3 gal for 25.00  (BUT, the 5 gal are currently 20.00!)

5.    Brewmeister(not sure of location) 1-916-356-5602  3 gal kegs 45.00

      (all new rubber and stainless plugs).

These are posted in the order I received the information. I have since

ordered from BCI, but have not yet received my order. Hope this helps someone

find a source!

Sandy C.

From: COCKERHAM SANDRA L            (MCVAX0::RX31852)

To:   VMS MAIL ADDRESSEE            (IN::"homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com")

------------------------------


Need an address

Date: Mon, 03 May 1993 17:32:40 -0500 (EST)

From: "Robert M. Peitzsch" <ROB@Pharm.SOM.sunysb.edu>

Subject: Need an address

Hi everybody!

   Back when i was a lowly grad. student in New Orleans, I used to

order all of my stuff from a place called Simplex.  If I remember

correctly, it is in either Wis. or Minn.  Unfortunately, I have

lost their address. Does anybody out there have it??

Thanks much,

Rob

rob@pharm.som.sunysb.edu

------------------------------


Evanston Challenge, results

Date: Mon, 3 May 93 16:43 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Evanston Challenge, results

     Here are the results of the Evanston First,

              Third Homebrew Challenge.

                 BEST OF SHOW

 First Place:    Bill Seliger, Classic Dry Stout

 Runner up:      Gary Kramer, American Pale Ale

 2nd Runner up:  Daniel Mossell, German Wheat

                 CATAGORIES

 LIGHT LAGER

 First Place:   Jack Schmidling, Bohemian Pilsener

 2nd   Place:   Bill Seliger, German Pilsener

 3rd   Place:   Carle Rollins, American Standard Lager

 DARK LAGER

 First          Dan Kasen, Traditional Bock

 2nd            Ray Daniels, Traditional Bock

 3rd            Walter Gude, Dopplebock

 LIGHT ALE

 First          Gary Kramer, American Pale Ale

 2nd            Scott Brandt, American Wheat

 3rd            Jon Fischer, Belgian Strong Ale

 DARK ALE

 First          Bill Seliger, Classic Dry Stout

 2nd            Bill Seliger, Robust Porter

 3rd            Al Korzonas, Sweet Stout

 MIXED

 First          Andy Badeker, German Kolsch

 2nd            Daniel Mossell, German Wheat

 3rd            Ray Daniels, German Dunkelweizen

 MIXED-SPECIALTY

 First          Ray Daniels, Sparkling Mead

 2nd            Bill Seliger, Herb Beer

 3rd            Glen McDavid, Specialty

 ................

 For the easymasher skeptics, at least two of the winners that I know of were

 made with the system that can't work.

 js

------------------------------


CO2 Tanks

Date: Mon, 3 May 93 14:59:33 -0700

From: bsolmsted@ucdavis.edu

Subject: CO2 Tanks

I am interested in the amount of 5 gallon kegs a twenty pound CO2 tank

will dispense.  I know it has been posted before.  If someone could kindly

point me in the right direction.

Thanks.

Bret Olmsted

bsolmsted@ucdavis.edu

------------------------------


Brewpubs in Columbus, Indy, and Chicago

Date: Mon, 3 May 1993 20:56:59 -0400

From: Alan Christopher Braddock <braddock@wam.umd.edu>

Subject: Brewpubs in Columbus, Indy, and Chicago

o and Brewpub fanciers,

     A while ago I asked about info on good brewpubs in Vermont.  The

response was so great -- my tankard runneth over!

     Now my housemate is planning a trip home to Iowa next week and he'll

be passing through Columbus OH, Indianapolis, and Chicago.  He knows about

Berghoff's in Chicago, and he knows where to go once he's in Iowa, but if

anyone could suggest other places, we'd be grateful, especially since I'm

from Iowa too, and I make the same trip once in a while.

    Thanking you in advance for the brew route info!  -- Alan B.

------------------------------


Whitebread Yeast and Brewpubs

Date:    Mon, 3 May 1993 21:50 EDT

From: Phil Hultin <HULTINP@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>

Subject: Whitebread Yeast and Brewpubs

Another datapoint in the saga of the "old" Whitbread yeast.

The local brewpub, a fine outfit worthy of many more tourist

dollars BTW, has always used a Whitbread yeast.  At about

the same time that George Fix tells us the production of

this yeast was switched to a Canadian plant and the problems

began, I and several other fans noticed serious consistency

problems in the lovely hand-pumped real ale served at this

pub.  One week, yummy, the next, yucky.  Too much of odd

fruit flavours and way overattenuated.  Tasted like cheap

homebrew, you know the sort of stuff I mean.

Anyhow, of late these problems have tapered off, and recent

pints are back to being pretty yummy again.  So, I for one

think the data fits the proposed history.

BTW, I also would like to get a Maltmill but nobody in this

neck of Canada has ever heard of the *&%$#$% thing.  Also,

the cost of importing just one would bankrupt me.  Jack, do

you have any suggestions for us?  As a political aside, perhaps

this is a good example of why IMHO the so-called free trade

deal sucks big rocks.

Cheers, P.

------------------------------


Biscuit malt

Date: Mon, 03 May 1993 19:28:55 -0700

From: Bob Devine <devine@postgres.Berkeley.EDU>

Subject: Biscuit malt

Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com> says:

> The biscuit malt would seem

> ideal for use in Scotch Ales and other darker ales and even

> in small quantities in amber ales.

Yes, I tried some in a batch for a basic ale and found that the

biscuit malt adds a distinct taste from the usual crystal malt.

For the next batch in this style I will probably increase the

amount used.  Since a common name for Scotch beer is "Wee Heavy"

maybe I could call this ale a "Wee Light".

Bob Devine

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1133, 05/04/93

*************************************

-------


re:brewpubs in Columbus OH

Date: Tue, 4 May 93 8:19:39 EDT

From: Mark A Fryling <mfryling@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

Subject: re:brewpubs in Columbus OH

Greetin's

I can supply some info regarding Alan Christopher Braddock's request for

brewpubs in Columbus OH.  The newest (and I think best place in town) is called

Barley's Ale House.  It's located on High street just north of downtown across

from the comvention center in an area called the Short North.  They have a nice

pale ale, an irish red ale and an excellent porter all of which can be bought

in pint or 1/2 yard glasses. The food is quite good too.

Alternatively, check out Hoster's in the Old Brewery district (just south of

downtown also on High street).  They have a varying array of light and dark

lagers and also a very nice menu for dinner.

Enjoy!!

Mark

------------------------------


Correction, PU on Draft

Date: Tue, 4 May 93 07:42 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Correction, PU on Draft

 For the record, I referred to an article on nitorgen use in brewing by Geroge

 Fix and he has been inundated with questions on it.

 Unfortunately, the article was not written by Fix.  It was sent to me by

 George and I got so engrossed in the information that I never bothered

 reeding the authors names.

 It is from the MBAA Technical Quarterly,  Vol 29 and the authors are

 David Taylor, Bamber, Brown and Murray, all in the UK.

 Sorry George.

                       ................

 My wife and I had dinner at the Edelweiss Inn, 7650 Irving Park in Norridge,

 IL and stared at a point of sale ad for PU through most of the dinner.  We

 presumed it was the usual skunky, sedimented six pack stuff so we just

 sampled the Germans wines.  When the wine was gone, I started drooling over

 the PU again and much to our delight, the waitress told us it was on draft.

 At this point, in the meal, I couldn't really appreciate it but for those in

 the area, it's there and $2.50 will get you ten ounces in a genuine PU glass.

 Sure be fun to bring the C-P filler and send a few plain brown bottles off to

 the National.  Who me?

 Actually, I wouldn't take the chance because real people probably don't like

 it anyway untill someone tells them it's the world's greatest beer and they

 must like it.

 js

------------------------------


Where's the hops?

Date: Tue, 4 May 93 07:51:02 CDT

From: dspalme@mke.ab.com (Diane Palme x2617)

Subject: Where's the hops?

Hello all!

I just have a quick question which would serve to dispell any worries I might

be having about my newly planted hops.  About 2 weeks ago I planted 3 hop

roots in the back garden and I have yet to see any progress.  Now, the weather

up here in Wisconsin has been far from perfect (lots of rain, pretty chilly,

temps in the mid-30's to low 60's, usually around 45).  I am starting to

wonder whether or not my little ones will ever poke their pretty little hoppy

heads out above the ground or if they are just shy.  Any input from some other

hop growers in the upper-midwest would be greatly appreciated.

By the way, should I be fertilizing these guys?  If so, what do all of you

recommend?  I have some ordinary vegetable fertilizer but is there a particular

brand which works the best.  Ohmigosh(!), they might grow even faster if I start

to feritilize them.  Hmmm.  Maybe I had better bolt the door after I do that

(assuming they cooperate and _start_ growing) :-).

Much appreciated in advance...

Diane

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Im Himmel gibts kein Bier  |

drum trinken wir es hier!  | dspalme@mke.ab.com

These opinions are mine.  Most of the people I work with wouldn't want to

hear my opinions, much less assume that they are those of Allen-Bradley.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


RE: Mail-Order Belgian Malt

Date: Tue, 4 May 1993 08:51:32 +22306512 (CDT)

From: dhholscl@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (David Holsclaw)

Subject: RE: Mail-Order Belgian Malt

> Greetings,

> Does anyone out there in HBD-Land know of Mail-order businesses

> dealing in Belgian Grains?  In particular, I am interested in the Belgian

> (DeWulf-Coysens) "Special B" caramel malt that MPM wrote about for use in

> Scotch Ales in the last issue.

> Thanks

> Andy A

North Brewing Supplies

9009 South 29th Street

Franklin, WI 53132

(414) 761-1018

Brian North carries the De Wolf-Cosyns malts and a lot of other great products.

<standard disclaimer about only being a satisfied customer>

- ------------------------------

David Holsclaw     dhholscl@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu

------------------------------


extraction & Zapap

Date: Tue, 4 May 93 9:55:03 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: extraction & Zapap

About this thread on extract efficiency and in particular the

use of a Zapap lauter tun:

<Equipment can also be a factor.  I noticed when I reduced the height of

<the false bottom in my Zappap lauter tun I improved extraction.  Over

<sparging for the sake of better extraction can lead to astringent flvors

<'from the extraction of husk tannins.

Two comments here: 1) When approaching the end of the lauter, tip the

buckets so that they lean forward at an angle.  Put something under the

back of the buckets to support them.  Watch for grain matter coming out

& terminate runoff at this time.  What this does is clear out the higher

SG "trapped" runoff in the flase bottom below the outflow.

2) Build the sucker with a BOTTOM outlet.  Design it so the spigot is

as flush as possible to the inside bottom of the lauter tun.  In this

arrangegment, the amount of false bottom "dead space" is irrelevent.

The grain particulate matter will be flushed out early in the recirc

process and will run clean until the final runoff carries grain matter

to the spigot.  Your extraction will improve. This is my current lauter

tun design and it works great.  you just need to suspend the buckets/pot

so that the spigot will clear the support structure.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


More on Cosmic Beer

Date: Tue, 4 May 93 14:05:39 GMT

From: u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil (Markham R. Elliott)

Subject: More on Cosmic Beer

Another note on beer in space, as a follow-up to my posting on Cosmic Beer on

3 May.

Anyone catch _The Tonight Show_ with Jay Leno the night of 3 May?  Apparantly

he too heard about the Beck beer experiment, and had a comment or two about

the shuttle Columbia's problems and cargo.  Went *something* like this...

You guys hear about the trouble the space shuttle has been having lately?  First

the toilet breaks, to conserve energy they have had to shut off most all of

their lights, and have got no hot water.  Oh yea, they are having a good time

on the shuttle.  And .... they are making beer up there!

Really, no kidding.  Some German company has sent up some stuff to see how it

does.  Can you imagine, a bunch of guys, weightless, no lights, with free beer

and a broken toilet ...

Well, he told it funnier.

Noch einmal, bitte!!  Mark

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 Markham R. Elliott                 u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil

 Information Technology Laboratory                     (601) 634-2921

 Waterways Experiment Station

 Vicksburg, Mississippi  USA

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Pubs and Such

Date: 04 May 1993 09:17:09 GMT

From: WAUTS@CWEMAIL.ceco.com

Subject: Pubs and Such

         To: Homebrew Publications                        HOMEBRE1 - CWEMAIL

    Subject: Pubs and Such

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello all,

I have a friend going to Octoberfest, the lucky SOB.  He is going to be in

Bavaria, specifically Munich and Wurtzburg.  If you know of some good pubs

and/or breweries in these areas could you please forwardthe info to me via

private email.

Also, a few club members are planning a trip to Oregon for the AHA competition,

they plan on taking the week after the competition to drive to San Luis Obispo

and would like to hit all? the brewpubs and micros along the way.  If you know

of any along this route please forward the info to me via private email.

Thanks in Advance.

------------------------------


liberty ale notes

Date: Tue, 4 May 1993 09:44:34 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: liberty ale notes

Liberty Ale is fairly high in gravity, at 1.060 - 1.062 in starting

gravity.  Malts are all U.S. pale malt, though I would be inclined

to throw in a bit of light crystal.  Color is on the light side.

Hops are all Cascades.  Liberty Ale is fairly bitter, and I think

has something like 45 IBUs of bitterness.  As a homebrewer, add

Cascades several times during the boil, and dryhop with some

Cascades.  Try 1/2 ounce to 1 ounce of Cascades hops for at least

a week in the secondary.  Pellets are more convenient.  Regarding

yeast, I don't know what Anchor uses, but the homebrewer can use

Wyeast "American" Ale or culture some Sierra Nevada yeast from a

bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.  In the bottle, Liberty Ale

sometimes tastes a bit one-dimensional.  I had some fresh on draft

recently and it was deliciously balanced and perilously drinkable.

------------------------------


Fear of Clear Beer

Date: Tue, 4 May 1993 11:03 EDT

From: HOWED@bcvax1.bc.edu

Subject: Fear of Clear Beer

 I was sitting down with the Boston Globe this morning, when I happened

upon a article that caught me totally off guard: "It's Clear, All Right, But Is

It Beer?"  Featured in the article is a picture and a review, of sorts, of

Miller's lastest creation, "Miller's Clear."

 This may not be news to many of you, but here are some of the

things written about this "beer" in the article.  122 calories per bottle,

with a "full-flavor" [according to Miller, that is.

 The author took this complimentary six pack and wandered around

Boston, getting bartenders to try the beer and give their opinion.  All but

one said basically that they think that "most beer drinkers will try Clear

once before quickly returning to their regular brands."

 Some of the more colorful quotes were these:

"It tastes like sparkling water with a hint of beer."

"If you keep filtering and filtering beer, you eventually get back to water."

"It tastes like Alka Seltzer that's gone flat.  It has no grit.  I couldn't

 give it away."

The one bartender who did like the stuff is apparently a bartender in a

rather upscale hotel, whose work uniform consists in a black wasitcoat

and tie, with a Hawaiian orchid in his lapel...and worked for Miller for

14 years.

Finally, here's the end of the article:

"But I think you should put the color back.  I think you should put the flavor

back.  And especially I think you should do what most of these Boston bar-

tenders suggest: Put the beer back.

   -Nathan Cobb"

Unclearly Brewing Beer,

  Dave Howe

HOWED@BCVMS.BC.EDU

------------------------------


Priming with Honey?

Date:        Tue, 04 May 93 11:28:59 EDT

From: CW06GST <CW06GST@SJUMUSIC.STJOHNS.EDU>

Subject: Priming with Honey?

     This past weekend I was at a homebrew exposition and one

of the guys there was hawking honey for mead and beer.  We got to

talking (and drinking his fine mead) and I asked about using honey

to prime beer with.  He told me that in order to prime with honey

you need about a pound (standard small jar available in supermarkets)

and that it takes about a month to carbonate.  Is this information

accurate?  Has anyone ever done this before?

     Any and all responses are appreciated.

     Erik  Zenhausern

     cw06gst@sjumusic.stjohns.edu

------------------------------


Re: What is brewing in New York City

Date: Tue, 4 May 93 8:42:00 PDT

From: rcristad@weber.ucsd.edu (Riccardo Cristadoro)

Subject: Re: What is brewing in New York City

 I am about to start graduate school in New York City.  I

wouldn't think of leaving my brewing back in California!  Does

anybody know of brewpubs or more importantly home brew shops in the

city?  Thanks in advance

 STEVE BOXER

------------------------------


dmna, sulfur etc

Date: Tue, 4 May 1993 11:38:08 -0500 (CDT)

From: sean@wubios.wustl.edu (Sean Dyer)

Subject: dmna, sulfur etc

Disclaimer: This is not a flame, I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to

get some use from the plant physiology courses I have taken (programming

usually doesn't require you to know about plant hormones :)  )

>In HBD #1133 Rob Thomas says:

> .......as to the hormone used in germination, it's gibberellic acid.  This

>is indeed found in nature.......It is what is found in "rooting powder"

Actually GA is used to force blooming.  The class of compounds that I think

you're thinking of is auxins.  Auxins stimulate rooting and cause elongation

of stems (etiolation).  Many commercially used auxins and GAs are in fact

completely synthetic. (I vaguely remember that Agent Orange is

auxin-like)(Maybe someone with better information can correct me)

> (A related hormone is acetylene, this stimulates the ripening of fruit...)

I think you're thinking of ethylene.  Ethylene does in fact accellerate

ripening.

Brewing Question:

I have just disolved a small business that sold homebrewing kits, so I have

~110 #s of pale Laaglander malt extract to use up.  I also have 50 #s of 40L

crystal, 50 #s of roasted barley, and a lot of cascade(alpha 5.4%) and

galena(alpha 14%).  I have found that the malt extract recipes that I have

made just aren't as good as the all grain brews I've made.  I do a full volume

boil, use a wort chiller and Wyeast, but it's still not as good, and its

nearly as much trouble as a full mash.  Does anyone have any suggestions for

improving my extract brews so that I can use up this DME and grain?  Also if

anyone has any good recipes using just the ingredients I have I would

really appreciate it if you could post them or mail them to me.

 -Sean Dyer

------------------------------


Re: Sammy Adams & Belgian Malts

Date: Tue, 4 May 1993 10:03:33 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: Sammy Adams & Belgian Malts

Sam Adams is not and never has been a microbrewed beer.  From its

inception it was contract-brewed, originally in Pennsylvania and for the

last couple of years here in Portland at the Blitz-Weinhard Brewery.  I

think they also did some pilot brews in Germany, although this might

just be Kochype.

People interested in purchasing Belgian malts ought to contact Tim

Norris, who runs a small business out of his home in Chicago.  I don't

have his address handy, but he can be contacted by e-mail at his

CompuServe account: 71650.1020@CompuServe.COM

Tim offers an excellent selection of the malts, excellent prices and his

service is impeccable.  I recommend him highly.  I just received, as a

matter of fact, my second order of Belgian malts.  Even with shipping

costs from Chicago to Portland, the malts cost about 2/3 what they would

have cost from my local retailer -- if he carried them.

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


sparge water volume

Date: 04 May 1993 14:21:18 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: sparge water volume

I seem to recall that in Fix's article on HSA (at least I believe that is

the source) it was mentioned that the volume of sparge water should not

exceed 1.5 times the mash volume.  I don't quite see how this works if you

want to make beers of different gravity.  One uses different volumes of

mash water with different quantities of grain to make a 1034 bitter or a

1060 bock.  For the 1060 beer you may get away with using 1.5 times mash

water for sparging, but for the bitter it'll be more like 2.5 times,

otherwise you just won't make up the volume of wort to 5 gallons.  Did I

misremember?  Does this make sense?

 ed

____________

Ed Hitchcock/Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology/Dalhousie University/Halifax NS

ech@ac.dal.ca   +-------------------------------------------------------+

  |    Remember, God created the world in six days, |

  |   and that was without the benefit of power tools! |

  +-------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


Hunter Air Stat Range Extension ?

Date: Tue, 4 May 93 14:22:54 -0400

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Hunter Air Stat Range Extension ?

Has anyone tried to tinker with their hunter airstat to drop

the lower limit of the control range down from 40F to 32F or so ?

I'd be willing to sacrafice control from 75 to 90F on the upper end to gain

on the lower end...

I know that my fridge can handle this range, but I'd rather use the external

controller (digital numbers have this 'soothing' effect...) ;-)

 Tim

------------------------------


IBU Competition Results

Date: Tue, 4 May 1993 14:24:51 -0400 (EDT)

From: bickham@msc.cornell.edu

Subject: IBU Competition Results

A. Belgian Ales

 Brewer   Style    Club

      ----------        -------------                   ----

  1.  Ken Morton Flanders-style Kriek  IBU

  2.  Barry Cooper Trippel    IBU

  3.  William Hitt Chimay Clone   UNYHA(Rochester)

B. English Brown/Mild/Strong Scotch Ales

  1.  Rob Bradley English Brown   none

  2.  Paul Anderson Strong Scotch   IBU

  3.  Andre Pruitt Mild    IBU

C.  English Style Ales

   1.  Ken Morton Ordinary Bitter   IBU

   2.  Scott Bickham Ordinary Bitter   IBU

   3.  Kieran O'Connor Pale Ale   IBU

D.  American Style Ales

   1.  Ken Morton California Common  IBU

   2.  Kieran O'Connor Pale Ale   IBU

   3.  Mike Lelivelt Pale Ale   IBU

E.  Porter/Barleywine

   1.  Lee Turner    Barleywine   ABCNY(Syracuse)

   2.  Chris Stamp    Robust Porter  IBU

   3.  Ben & Kristin Fox   Brown Porter   IBU

F.  Stout

   1.  Franklin Moore Imperial Stout   IBU

   2.  Chris Stamp Sweet Stout   IBU

   3.  Bob Talkiewicz Sweet Stout   BYI(Binghamton)

G.  German Style/Specialty Ales

   1.  Julian Zelazny Altbier    BFOD

   2.  Andre Pruitt X-Mas Beer   IBU

   3.  Tim Artz  Altbier    BURP

F.  Wheat/Belgian White

   1.  Scott Bickham Belgian White   IBU

   2.  Mike Lelivelt Belgian White   IBU

   3.  Lew Jansen Weizen    IBU

Best of Show - after some serious debating, a tie was declared between

Scott Bickham's Belgian White and Ken Morton's Flanders-style Kriek.

- --

=========================================================================

Scott Bickham                             |

LASSP and Materials Science Center   |       bickham@msc.cornell.edu

=========================================================================

------------------------------


momilies

Date:         Tue, 04 May 93 13:52:13 EST

From: Daniel Butler-Ehle <DWBUTLER@MTUS5.cts.mtu.edu>

Subject:      momilies

In Homebrew Digest #something-or-other, Tom Romalewski says the following:

>In the Homebrew Digest #1131, Jack Schmidling uses the term "momilies" in

>the following message on mash temperatures:

  .......

>

>I haven't been able to find this word in any dictionary.  I have seen this

>word used before.  Could it be that the author really wanted to say

>"anomaly"?  Or is this a slang term used in homebrewing lingo?

Neither is really true.  "Momily(tm)" comes from a series of books

by someone whose name I can't remember.  The books are about

things your mother always told you that weren't quite true.  The

term "momily" is trademarked by the author.

About a year(?) ago, someone on this list started applying the

term to all those millions of things that some people think are

LAW but really aren't.  (Oh my gods! If don't siphon the cooled

wort off the trub, your descendants will MUTATE!  You're entire

batch will be DESTROYED if you don't have your pH adjusted to

exactly what Miller recommends!)

I guess that identifying momilies(tm) helps us keep in mind that

for every "law" in homebrewing, there is a beer that won awards

by breaking it.

Cheers!

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_/K/eweenaw

                                            /R/eal

 Dan Butler-Ehle                             /A/le

 Calumet, Michigan                            /E/nthusiasts

                                               /U/nited for

 dwbutler@mtus5.cts.mtu.edu                     /S/erious

        -or-                                     /E/xperimentation in

 DWBUTLER@MTUS5.BITNET                            /N/aturally-

                                                   /E/ffervescent

         the U.P.'s best homebrew club              /R/efreshment

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_/S/cience

------------------------------


Oregon Brewer's Festival

Date: Tue, 04 May 1993 10:09:37

From: garetz@brahms.amd.com (Mark Garetz)

Subject: Oregon Brewer's Festival

Can anyone provide me with info and a contact number for the Oregon Brewer's

Festival to be held after the AHA Conference?    Thanks

------------------------------


Special B Mail Order Source, Anchor Liberty Info

Date: Tue, 04 May 1993 10:08:15

From: garetz@brahms.amd.com (Mark Garetz)

Subject: Special B Mail Order Source, Anchor Liberty Info

> Andy A asks if there are any mail order suppliers for Special B and other

Belgian Malts

St. Pat's of Austin (512) 832-9045 carries Special B and other Belgian

malts.  Great stuff.

> Darren Aaberge asks about Anchor Liberty Ale:

The hops used are Cascade.  In homebrew terms the dry hopping rate is about

2 ozs per 5 gallons for about two weeks at reduced temperature (around

50-55F).  At Anchor they are added to the conditioning tank.  Also be aware

that Liberty also receives a healthy dose of finishing hops.  For more

information on *how* to dry hop, my article on this topic will be out in a

few weeks in the next Zymurgy.

As to their yeast, the only thing I know for sure is that it is a different

strain from the Steam yeast.  Liberty is fermented in deep tanks (as opposed

to the shallow tanks for their Steam and Porter) and at a slightly higher

temperature (but not much).  There is a good chance that Sierra's yeast is

related to the Anchor, but this is pure speculation on my part.  Anchor did

help the SN boys get started.  Anyway, you won't go wrong with SN yeast when

trying to clone Liberty.  Culture from a bottle or use Wyeast "Chico".

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1134, 05/05/93

*************************************

-------


Celis Pale Bock

Date: Wed, 5 May 1993 08:02:18 -0400

From: Michael D. Galloway <mgx@ornl.gov>

Subject: Celis Pale Bock

hey ...

I just had my first taste of Celis Pale Bock last night and fell in love.

Anybody have a good all grain recipe that even comes close to this

beer?  I would be interested in cloning other Celis brews also! (You

can't get that stuff around here)

Michael D. Galloway

mgx@ornl.gov

Living in the WasteLand

------------------------------


re ethylene and ripening

Date: Wed, 5 May 93 08:34:54 EDT

From: cjh@diaspar.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Chip Hitchcock)

Subject:  re ethylene and ripening

   Ethylene is in fact responsible for only one axis of ripening; for

instance, it turns green tomatoes red without changing their consistency

(hence the red styrofoam baseballs sold as tomatoes in most supermarkets).

For that matter, can any botanist here tell us whether it has anything to

do with barley? I know there are substantial differences between grains

and fruiting plants but don't remember any details as it's been 25 years

since my last serious botany....

------------------------------


Space Beer, Zippos

Date: Wed, 5 May 93 08:30 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Space Beer, Zippos

 >From: u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil (Markham R. Elliott)

 > Experts at the University of Munich will make sample batches after the

 yeast is returned, said company spokesman Hans-Joachim Allgaier.  Beck may

 know by the end of the year whether it has a commercially viable mutant.  "We

 wouldn't sell it as space beer," Allgaier said.  "We're too conservative to

 market beer like that.  Besides, it wouldn't taste like space."

 Yah, and I got a bridge for him.  I think you may rest assured that, at that

 cost, they will find a "commercially viable mutant" whether they "find" one

 or not.

 >From: Phil Hultin <HULTINP@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>

 >BTW, I also would like to get a Maltmill but nobody in this

 neck of Canada has ever heard of the *&%$#$% thing.  Also,

 the cost of importing just one would bankrupt me.  Jack, do

 you have any suggestions for us?

 Ever thought of taking up smuggling?

 If the U. S. treated Toyotas like Canada treats MALTMILLS, Japan would still

 be trying to build Zippos lighters and Bush would still be president.

 js

------------------------------


The effect of Light on Beer

Date: 5 May 93 04:46:41 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: The effect of Light on Beer

Message Creation Date was at  5-MAY-1993 09:18:00

          Greetings,

               I'm curious about the effect of light on beer.  I've

          always been told that light can cause a "skunky" off-taste,

          so I've always covered my carboys, bottled at night,

          bottled in brown bottles, and stored the bottles under

          cover.  Evidentally this has worked since I have not been

          getting any "Skunk" flavors.  After considering my

          brewing/bottling process I've started to wonder if this is

          over-kill.  Am I going to extreme lengths for minimal gain?

               Does anyone know the wave-length of the  "harmful"

          light?  I mean are we talking UV, visible, IR, or some

          other wave-length?  If visible light is a culprit, are the

          lights in my house enough to cause problems?  How much

          light, in terms of strength and duration, is required to

          cause problems?  I'd hate to find out that visible light

          from light-bulbs could potentially cause problems - On a

          stressful day there's nothing better than sitting on the

          floor, sipping a home-brew, and staring at all the bubbles

          of an active fermentation.  Ahhh!!

          Andy A

------------------------------


Brew-Pubs & Good-Beer Bars in San Diego

Date: 5 May 93 04:46:21 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Brew-Pubs & Good-Beer Bars in San Diego

Message Creation Date was at  5-MAY-1993 09:12:00

          Greetings,

               I realize that these personnal requests for brew-pub

          "enlightenment" become tiresome after awhile, but I just

          love to tap into a good source of knowledge.

               I will be out in San Diego in a week and I'm interested

          in finding some good brew-pubs or "good-beer" bars.  I will

          also be making a pilgrimage up to Costa Mesa for The Goat

          Hill Tavern, so if there are any pubs I  should check out

          along the way - please let me know of them.

          I appreciate the help.

          Andy A

------------------------------


Sierra Nevada Brown Ale

Date: Wed, 5 May 93 07:53:10 PST

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Sierra Nevada Brown Ale

I thought it might be appropriate to mention a new beer I had this week.

Sierra Nevada's Brown Ale! I thought it was a good example of the style and

really liked it. SN, who is know for those big hoppy beers, has used a

delicate hand at the hopping here and did a great job (once again). Don't

know if they plan to bottle it or not, I just hope it becomes one of their

main line of beers. Watch for it!

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Re: Priming with Honey?

Date: Wed, 5 May 93 09:12:19 PDT

From: tima@wv.MENTORG.COM (Tim Anderson)

Subject: Re: Priming with Honey?

Erik Zenhausern inquired:

> talking (and drinking his fine mead) and I asked about using honey

> to prime beer with.  He told me that in order to prime with honey

> you need about a pound (standard small jar available in supermarkets)

> and that it takes about a month to carbonate.  Is this information

> accurate?  Has anyone ever done this before?

I have primed several batches with honey.  In some of these batches, honey

also made up a significant portion of the fermentables, in others, the only

honey used was for priming.  I don't know about the weight, but I found that

1/3 Cup will give a pleasant light carbonation, and anything more that 1/2 Cup

will produce soda-pop fizziness.  Boil it in water as you would corn sugar,

but also skim the scum off as it boils.  It will probably contain a bit of wax

and pieces of bee armpits.

A month is excessive, but it does take a little longer than, say, corn sugar.

At the tiny quantities used for priming, you won't be able to tell the

difference between clover, blackberry, or anything else, so use what's

available, it's all just bee barf.  Some will disagree with that.  Those who

do are wrong.  :-|

Mark Garetz asked:

> Can anyone provide me with info and a contact number for the Oregon Brewer's

> Festival to be held after the AHA Conference?    Thanks

All I know is I've only missed one of these, and this year I'm skipping my

daughter's wedding in order to attend.

tim

------------------------------


"Momily"

Date: Wed, 5 May 93 12:07 EDT

From: hjl@gummo.att.com

Subject: "Momily"

Suspect it derives from "homily" as an anticlerical comment.

Hank

 .//'

------------------------------


Re: Where's the hops?

Date: Wed, 5 May 1993 12:29:39 -0400 (EDT)

From: roman@tix.timeplex.com (Daniel Roman)

Subject: Re: Where's the hops?

Diane Palme x2617 writes:

>I just have a quick question which would serve to dispell any worries I might

>be having about my newly planted hops.  About 2 weeks ago I planted 3 hop

>roots in the back garden and I have yet to see any progress.

I think you're worrying a little too much and too early, give them some

time.  Here in NJ the Cascade have just broke the surface and the

Williamette are 3 feet long (with other varieties somewhere inbetween).

These are established plants.  You've got quite a bit cooler weather up

there and you're starting with new plants, give 'em time.

Did the cuttings already have some shoots and were they "crisp" and

seemingly alive (as opposed to dried out)?

>By the way, should I be fertilizing these guys?  If so, what do all of you

>recommend?  I have some ordinary vegetable fertilizer but is there a particular

>brand which works the best.

A slow, continuous release fertilizer seems to work best, I use bone

meal with good results with an occasional overspray (the hops are

adjaicent to my veggie garden) of Miracle Grow.

_________

Dan Roman  GEnie: D.ROMAN1  Internet: roman@tix.timeplex.com  //

Ascom Timeplex (NJ)  Homebrew is better brew!  Only AMIGA!  /X/

------------------------------


Sparge Water

Date: Wed, 5 May 93 11:12:03 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Sparge Water

Ed Hitchcock asks in HBD#1134 how a bitter with SG = 1.034 can be

brewed with the ratio of sparge water to mash water being no more than

1.5. I personally let the mash thickness float, and indeed have found this

to be a relatively unimportant variable within a reasonable range. In

particular, plots of yield vs. mash thickness tend to be quite flat in

the range 25-40 liters/kg.

To cite some examples, suppose we want to brew 50 liters. In my system

this would require

                 50 * (4/3) = 66.67 liters water

(due to 12.5 % of the water used being left in the grains, and a 10%

evaporation in the boil). Suppose 33.3 liters of water is used in the

mash, and the same amount is used for sparging. If 10 kg. of base malt

is used (adjustments are needed if adjunct malts are used), then typically

56 liters of wort would be collected in the brew kettle at a gravity of

1.045. This would boil down to 50 liters at SG = 1.050. A grain bill consisting

of say 7 kg. of base malt typically yields 50 liters at 1.035.

In both of the above cases the yield is ~30 pts/lbs/gal. While this number

is insensitive to mash thickness, it does depend strongly on the mash to

sparge water ratio. In the above examples, about 2% of the extract is left

behind in the grains. Had the ratio been increased to 1.5 (26 liters in the

mash and 60 liters for sparging), the extract lost will typically drop to

1%. The most extreme case I have brewed had a ratio near 3.5 (20 liters mash

to 46 liters sparge), and virtually no extract was left behind in the grains.

The resulting beer was not to my taste, although clearly this is a subjective

evaluation (as opposed to a scientific one). As I have noted before, I am not

a yield aficionado. The major exception to this involves malt which has

deteriorated due to excess moisture. I have alas had this happen, and the

resulting yields were extremely low. In all other cases, I am indifferent to

the yield a particular brewing configuration will give. The real issue is

how the brewer feels about the finished beer.

George Fix

------------------------------


clear beer stuff

Date: Wed, 5 May 1993 12:33:07 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: clear beer stuff

According to this week's Advertising Age, Miller Clear Beer is

being test-marketed in Austin, Texas; Minneapolis; and Richmond,

Va.  Ad Age conducted a blind tasting in Chicago.  Suitably chilled

Clear Beer was poured into colored plastic cups along with

Budweiser and Coors, and the lights were lowered.  Some taster

comments (tasters were Ad Age employees -- probably not a bad

target group):

"It tastes just like a Bud."

"It seems a little more mellow, almost like flat beer."

"It tastes like watered-down beer."

"If you had a glass of beer and emptied it, then refilled it with

water...that's what it tastes like."

One taster thought Clear Beer had more body than the other two

brews.

Several tasters commented that Clear Beer had "a mineral water

aftertaste."

Several male panelists said they judge a beer's quality and

strength by the deepness of its color.  "Don't people equate color

with flavor?  If so, that could be a problem."

Finally, one male panelist said color "makes a beer brand to me.

It certainly would be weird to chase tequila with a clear beer."

------------------------------


B.O.S.S. Challenge `93

Date: Wed, 5 May 93 12:41 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: B.O.S.S. Challenge `93

Here are the award winners from the

"1993 Who Died and Made Us B.O.S.S.? Challenge"

                  1st             2nd                3rd

Wheat Beer:       Dick Van Dyke   Patrick Delozier   Mike Brennan

IPA/Amer. Pale:   Mike Pezan      Dick Van Dyke      Mike Kenny

Alt/Kolsch/Cream: Rob Reed        Dave Lowe          Brian & Linda North

Pale Ale/Bitter:  Stewart Rose    Len Bergonia       Al Korzonas

ESB/Scottish Ale: John Walaszek   Tony Babinec       John Dalton

Brown Ale:        Joe Perillo     D & B Hoppe        George Fix

Porter:           Dick Van Dyke   Rob Reed           Dick Van Dyke

Stout:            Dennis Davison  Dennis Davison     Joe Perillo

Strong Ale:       B & L North     Brian Bliss        Stewart Rose

Pilsener:         Jules Roeles    Jack Schmidling    John Dalton

Export/Helles:    Gary Hauser     Dave Lowe          Dennis Davison

Amber/Dk Lager:   Dennis Davison  Patrick Delozier   Mike Pezan

Traditional Bock: Tony McCauley   Jim Thommes        Al Korzonas

Misc. Bock:       Tony Babinec    Dennis Davison     Dennis Davison

Spice Beer:       John Walaszek   Patrick Delozier   Tom Manteufel

Fruit Beer:       B & L North     Al Korzonas        Joe Perillo

Belgiarama:       Brian Bliss     Dave Norton        Al Korzonas

NoCommercialComp: Tom Eskridge    Ken Butler         George Fix

Mead/Cider:       Tom Manteufel   Dave Norton        Dick Van Dyke

2nd Best of Show: Rob Reed (Kolsch)

BEST OF SHOW:     Brian & Linda North (Barleywine)

Club Total Points:  1st- Brewers of South Suburbia

                    2nd- Brewtown Brewmasters

                    3rd- Kansas City Biermeisters

The organizer has assured me that the processing of forms has been completed

and the mailing of awards and judging forms will be completed this week.

Al.

------------------------------


Little Shop of Hops

Date: Wed, 5 May 93 15:46:21 EDT

From: casagran@gdstech.grumman.com (Lou Casagrande)

Subject: Little Shop of Hops

SB>  I am about to start graduate school in New York City. I

wouldn't

SB> think of leaving my brewing back in California! Does anybody know

SB> of brewpubs or more importantly home brew shops in the city?

Thanks

SB> in advance

SB>  STEVE BOXER

First, I'd like to welcome you to the east coast--quite a change from

SD, but we have our charms.

One of those charms is a relatively new brew shop and homebrew central

(for things such as judging or tasting classes). It's called, get

ready for the groans, "Little Shop of Hops." Its address is 15 W. 39th

St., NY, NY 10018. They have a mailing list for their monthly (?)

newsletter, and I'm sure they'd be happy to add you to it. I don't

know a lot about them, since I've only been there once (I live on LI

and have another supplier out here), but they looked like they were

going to be pretty good (they had only been open for ~1 month at the

time).

Lou Casagraande

casagran@gdstech.grumman.com

------------------------------


Free Belgian Beer Tasting

Date: Wed, 5 May 93 15:36 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Free Belgian Beer Tasting

A Public Service Announcement:

On May 16th, from 1 to 5 pm, Mainstreet Deli and Liquors in

Countryside, Illinois will be holding a FREE Belgian-style

Beer Tasting.  There will be over 25 Belgian-style Beers including:

Scaldis (in Belgium, Bush)

Saison Dupont (vielle Provision)

Rodenbach Gran Cru

Blanche De Bruges

Affligem Dubbel (and possibly the Trippel)

Grimbergen Dubbel & Trippel

Liefman's Brown, Kriek and Frambozen

Saison Dupont

Castelain Biere de Garde

Duvel

Orval

Westmalle Dubbel

St. Sixtus Abt

Chimay Red, Cinq Cents & Grande Reserve

Celis White and Grand Cru

Brigand

Corsendonk Monk's Brown and Monk's Pale

Lindeman's Kriek

Timmerman's Framboise

Maes Pils

There will be a limited supply of home-brewed pKriek, brewed by a

regular contributor to the Homebrew Digest.

There is also a good chance that there will be a special guest beer (not

available for sale) that is traditionally brewed by a non-profit brewery

in Belgium but is avalable as yet only in one "state" in the U.S.

MAINSTREET DELI and LIQUORS

5425 South LaGrange Road

Countryside, Illinois

708-354-0355

Al.

Disclaimer: I plead insanity.

------------------------------


Yeast Lab Co. and its Weisen yeast

Date: Wed, 5 May 93 13:31:00 PDT

From: davep@cirrus.com (David Pike)

Subject: Yeast Lab Co. and its Weisen yeast

Fellow HBDer's,

Does anyone know an addres or phone # for the Yeast Lab Co. I'm actually

looking for the background for their weisen yeast.

Dave

------------------------------


Momilies

Date: Wed, 5 May 1993 18:02:00 -0800

From: ulrich@sfu.ca

Subject: Momilies

Others have addressed the meaning of the term "momily" (TM). But let me

make one conjecture about its etymology: it's a blend of "mom" and

"homily", and is not related to "anomaly". A homily is like a sermon. I

haven't read the book, so correct me if I'm wrong.

Charles Ulrich

------------------------------


White beer recipe revisited

Date: Thu, 6 May 93 01:54 GMT

From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>

Subject: White beer recipe revisited

Some time ago I posted a recipe for a white beer I believe a

fair number of people used as a starting point for brews of

their own.

While I thought my own batch had turned out pretty well

(still do), I also said that there was room for improvement

and experimentation.  Most of the people I know who are

brewing white beer--myself included--are still figuring out

how to deal with it, and the idea of the posting was to

share my own experience in the hope that other people

wouldn't have to start from zero.

In this same vein I'd like to ask those people who used this

recipe--or have another one they like--to let us know how

things worked out.  You can send messages to me if you like,

and I'll edit them into a single post.  I'd be particularly

interested in comments on grist ratios, spicing, and yeast.

If things didn't turn out well you're welcome to call me a

scoundrel, too--I'll do my best to leave in any relevant

feedback you have that might help someone make better beer,

as well as any insults that seem especially witty.

Phil Seitz

PSEITZ@MCIMAIL.COM

P.S. to Tony Babinec: so what DID the CBS say about this

beer--from a brewing standpoint?  I've got my bullet-proof

vest on (borrowed from Jack), so for the good of the

community let's have it.

------------------------------


Responses to Queries in HBD#1134

Date: Wed, 05 May 93 23:17:48 EDT

From: drwho2959@aol.com

Subject: Responses to Queries in HBD#1134

In HBD#1134,

Mark Garetz asks:

>Can anyone provide me with info and a contact number for the Oregon Brewer's

>Festival to be held after the AHA Conference?    Thanks

Zymurgy tells us to call Widmer Brewing Company in Portland, Oregon, at

(503)281-BIER (Note the GERMAN spelling of beer!).  AHA Conference is

July 26-30, and Oregon Brewers Festival is July 30-August 1.  Both events

are to be held in downtown Portland, OR, which is a beautiful city and a

beer drinkers paradise!

And Steve Boxer asks:

>Does anybody know of brewpubs or more importantly home brew shops in

>[New York] city?  Thanks in advance

Be sure to pick up a copy of _The Barleycorn_ AS SOON AS YOU CAN.  It is the

East Coast's equivalent to the Celebrator.  I am looking at an old copy from

last December as I type this.  There are LOTS of home brew shops listed in

New York state, but unfotunately my knowledge of New York geography is

rather sketchy.  There is one listed on Staten Island, though:

East Coast Brewing Supply

124 Jacques Ave.

P.O. Box 060904

Staten Island, NY  10306

(718)667-4459

You can subscribe to the Barleycorn by sending $12.00 check or money order

along with your name and address to:

Barleycorn

P.O. Box 2328

Falls Church, VA  22042

(703)573-8970

*----------------------------------------------------------------------*

|               Andrew Patrick                                         |

|       SysOp,                  Houston Correspondent & Distrib. Mgr., |

|  Home Brew Univ. BBS                  Southwest Brewing News         |

|  (713)465-0265, 2400 bps          Internet: andinator@delphi.com     |

*----------------------------------------------------------------------*

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1135, 05/06/93

*************************************

-------


RE:Yeast Lab Weizen

Date: Thu, 6 May 93 9:38:47 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: RE:Yeast Lab Weizen

Dave asks about the yeast lab weizen:

<

<<Date: Wed, 5 May 93 13:31:00 PDT

Subject: Yeast Lab Co. and its Weisen yeast

<

<

Fellow HBDer's,

Does anyone know an addres or phone # for the Yeast Lab Co. I'm actually

I too am extremely interested in any info regarding the origins

of the Weizen strain they sell.  I have *heard* that it is

similar to Wyeast Wheat, but I have not tasted it or know of

a brewer using it.  If anyone out there uses this strain (or

others from them), I would appreciate feedback on the fermentation

characteristics.  IN particular, does the yeast produce distinctive

banana esters and phenolic character?

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Sam Adams being investigated

Date: Thu, 6 May 93 09:45:10 EDT

From: jimf@centerline.com

Subject: Sam Adams being investigated

Today's Boston Globe reports that Sam Adams is being investigated by

the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs for misrepresentation

in advertising.  The investigation was incited by the Brooklyn Brewery

because of the advertisements stating that Sam Adams Lager has "won

the Great American Beer Festival four years running."

It seems that they won in '85, '86, '87, '89, and '90 -- never more

than three consecutive years.  (The article also mentions that they

won a gold and silver medal in '92 but they didn't mention that when

talking about how many awards they'd won.)  They didn't compete at all

in '88.

Best quote, from Jim Koch, about why it's ok: "I used to say we won

four years in a row.  If you go to bat three times, get three hits and

a walk, and then a fourth hit, didn't you get four hits in a row?"

Also disputed is the claim that Sam Adams is the only American beer

imported into Germany.  So are Brooklyn Lager and others.

jim frost

jimf@centerline.com

------------------------------


Legal Probelms for Sam(tm)Adams(tm)

Date: Thu, 6 May 93 09:51:44 -0400

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Legal Probelms for Sam(tm)Adams(tm)

Boston Globe, Thursday May 6, 1993.  Pg. 77 (Business Sect.)

Quoted without permission.

Barroom Brawl, by Frederic M. Biddle, Globe Staff.

"   Beer isn't all that's brewing at Boston Beer Co.

    The Maker of Samuel Adams Boston Lager, described on bottlecaps and in

company advertising as "The Best Beer in America," is barroom-brawling

with a New York rival.

    New York City's Deparetment of Consumer Affairs is investigating Boston Beer

for "possible violations" of the city's consumer protection law. "It's

smarmy," Jim Koch, Boston Beer's president, said in an emotional interview

yesterday.  He said that the Borrklyn Brewery, which in New York distributes

Mass. Bay Brewing Co.'s rival Harpool Ale, incited the investigation.

    "Thats ridiculous!" says The Brooklyn Brewery's president.

    "Thats irrelevant!" says a spokeswoman for the New York Department of

Consumer Affairs.

    What is relevant,a ll agree, is the New York agency's April 19 letter to

Koch.  "Your current ads claim that Sam Adams Lager 'won the Great American

Beer festival four years running,'" the agency writes.  "However, our

preliminary investigation indicates that while you received awards in 1985,

1986, 1987, 1989 and 1990, awards were never reveived for more than three

consecutive years."

    Exactly what Sam Adams won is also in dispute.  In the late 1980s Samuel

Adams Boston Lager actually won "consumer preference" polls of attendees of

the Association of Brewers' Great American Beer Festival in Denver.  Plaques

accompanying those awards read: "Best Beer in America."

   But in 1990 the poll was replaced by a Professional Panel Blind Tasting,

following sore losers' objections.  "It was becoming a popularity contest,

and it didn't really reflect our mission," says association president Charles

Papazian.

   Now New York is telling Koch that "there is clear potential for consumers

being misled when you refer in the aggregate to "winning" the Great American

Beer Festival without being specific as to the nature of what you won."

[the articles continues on and on and on...

highlights....

Meanwhile, Koch has fallen flat with competitors.  For example:  Brooklyn

Brewery's president, Steve Hindy, disputes Boston Beer's claim that Samuel

Adams is the only American beer imported into Germany.  Brooklyn Lager is, among

others.  "Many people are of the opinion that Jim's advertising is

out of bounds," Hindy says.

[and it goes on...talking about the use of GABF awards in advertising and

how the policy is changing, and how there are 32 gold medals there...

SA got a gold and silver last year, but then again Pabst Brewing Co.'s

Olde English 800 Malt Liquor got the gold in the Americal Malt Liquor

category...]

------------------------------


Re: Sparge water

Date: Thu, 06 May 1993 10:47:45 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Re: Sparge water

Thank you George for responding to my question.

I do, however, have a few questions and commentaries.  Firstly, I recognize

that the mash thickness can be varied to some extent with little change in

the final beer.  The question then is which has a greater effect on the

quality of the final beer, brewing every batch with about the same mash to

sparge volume ratios, or brewing beers with about the same mash thicknesses?

You wrote: "Had the ratio been increased to 1.5 (26 liters in the

mash and 60 liters for sparging), the extract lost will typically drop to

1%. The most extreme case I have brewed had a ratio near 3.5 (20 liters mash

to 46 liters sparge), and virtually no extract was left behind in the

grains."

 Perhaps I am missing something, but 26L mash and 60L sparge is a

ratio of 2.3, and lo, 20L to 46L is also a ratio of 2.3.  You lost me

somewhere in there.

 Lastly, was the 1.5 ratio solely for extraction rates?  If so, I am

less concerned than if this figure were for preventing tannin extraction or

some other factor.

 ed

____________

Ed Hitchcock/Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology/Dalhousie University/Halifax NS

ech@ac.dal.ca   +-------------------------------------------------------+

  |    Remember, God created the world in six days, |

  |   and that was without the benefit of power tools! |

  +-------------------------------------------------------+

 Eschew Budmillmolcoorbattheadh

------------------------------


Miller Clear -- Less Yucky?

Date: Thu, 6 May 93 11:15:05 CDT

From: stevie@spss.com

Subject: Miller Clear -- Less Yucky?

With Miller Clear Beer in test market in Richmond, it was no surprise that

last Saturday's Washington Post had a feature on it.  Customers at a local

tavern were questioned.  In general the comments were very much as in Ad

Age (mentioned in Tony Babinec's post in the last HBD), with the most positive

remarks coming from people who didn't really like beer.  One couple, in particu-

lar, said that they had been drinking beer since college, but came to realize

that they really didn't like it.  Miller Clear was "less yucky" than regular

beer.

The bar owner said Miller Clear was selling briskly, but it looked mostly like

a fad.  Most of the customers were trying it once, and then switching back to

normal-looking stuff.

I didn't save the article, but I recall that Clear was only slightly lower

in alcohol and calories than regular Miller products -- 122 calories per 12 oz.

Tim Norris and I (we were in DC to judge at BURP's Spirit of Free Beer homebrew

competition) thought briefly about a road trip to pick up a six to bring back to

our pals in Chicago, but we opted for "yucky" Belgian stuff instead.  We also

only got as far south as Manassas, and lucky for us, Hero's didn't carry it.

Perhaps one of our DC colleagues can provide direct quotes from the Post?

 +------------------+---------------------------+---------------------------+

 |  Steve Hamburg   | Internet: stevie@spss.com | "Life is short, and so    |

 |  SPSS Inc.       | Phone:    312/329-3445    | are some brewers."        |

 |  Chicago, IL     | Fax:      312/329-3657    |                           |

 +------------------+---------------------------+---------------------------+

------------------------------


Yeast trivia, Zima

Date: Thu, 6 May 93 09:58:23 PDT

From: Bob.Clark@Eng.Sun.COM (Bob Clark)

Subject: Yeast trivia, Zima

I live in east San Jose, CA, just outside the area where there was

a problem with the Mediterranean fruit fly (MedFly) last year.  There's

a fly trap in my front yard, and I talked with the guy who was checking

it for fruit flies.  It turns out that the bait they use is a mixture

of borax and *yeast*.  This struck a chord with others who have mentioned

that their fermentation attracts fruit flies to their airlocks.

A friend brought a six-pack of Zima over last weekend.  We split one

bottle, and he refused to take the remaining five bottles home.  It

reminded me of the aftertaste you get with a really bad, cheap champagne.

A bartender mentioned, too, that everyone who tried it in the bar had

only bad things to say about it.

 Bob C.

------------------------------


Correction

Date: Thu, 6 May 93 10:59:54 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Correction

Richard Goldstein asks via private e-mail the following:

>Your mash ratio of 33 liters for 20kg of malt is roughly 1.5 qts/lb

>(sorry, I'm not entirely comfortable leaving all this stuff in metric

>units), and several of texts imply that this is at the high end of the

>mash ratios, ie that this is a rather "thin" mash. I am assuming that

>you are dispelling this notion by the statement:

>>plots of yield vs. mash thickness tend to be quite flat in

>>the range 25-40 liters/kg.

>Do you really mean 25-40 liters/kg, or are you missing a decimal point?

>Or am I missing the point? :)

Ops! What we have here is a tenured Full Professor of Mathematics with a

Ph.D. from Harvard who can not do arithmetic! Doctor cure thyself! The

correct range is 2.5 to 4.0 liters/kg. Thanks Rich!

The malt charge reported in my post was 10 kg., giving a concentration

of 3.3 liters/kg. which is approximately 1.58 qrs/lb.

>I think that many homebrewers believe that a thicker mash is better, so

>this is very interesting. Are yields vs mash thickness fairly

>insensitive to mashing procedure? That is does your statement apply

>equally as well to infusion/step/decoction mashing, or are there some

>"better" thicknesses for each of these?

These results are for infusion mashing only. The situation for decoction

is a good deal more complicated because of the volume reductions during boiling.

Theoretically a thick mash provides more thermal protection for enzymes, and

this has been put forward as a point for a thick mash. On the other hand,

enzyme activity is inhibited by the concentration of the products produced,

and this tends to favor a thin mash.

There appears to be some disagreement about whether the effects cancel,

or that they are simply weak effects. Our mathematical models (based on the

nonlinear differential equations of enzyme kinetics) suggest it is a

combination of both. In any case, it has been my personal experience with my

own system that mash thickness is not a major issue.

The issue of over sparging and indeed hot sparging varies with beer style.

IMHO one can ruin many lager styles this way, however as Martin Lohahl

correctly has pointed out a few months ago, some of these effects can and

have been used to advantage in Belgian styles.

Thanks again Rich. I enjoy your e-mail!

George Fix

------------------------------


Skunk beer?

Date: Thu, 6 May 1993 11:27:11 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Skunk beer?

I also have wondered about the incidence of mercaptan "skunkiness".  So I

propose:

Hey, Chuck!  Could JudgeNet do an informal survey and report back on the

incidence rate of skunky beer in contests?  It seems to me that contest

submissions would be the product of "reasonable" anti-skunk precautions.

I have read in literature from John I. Haas (a big hop supplier) that

isomerized hop extracts are far more resistant to skunkiness.  I've taken

this to mean that most of the beer sold in clear bottles (Miller,

Newcastle, Sam Smith, Corona, etc.) is hopped with the isomerized extract

and doesn't use *real* hops.  I'm only guessing.....

Paul.

------------------------------


Filtering beer

Date:  Thu, 6 May 1993 03:47:30 -0800

From: scott@fm.gi.alaska.edu (Scott Stihler (USGS analyst))

Subject: Filtering beer

Greetings,

I've got a question regarding filtering beer. I've been interested in filtering

my homebrew for awhile but I'm somewhat confused as to what is the optimum

filter size for beer. Does anybody out there happen to know? I'm afraid if I

get too small a filter size I may lose body. Anyways, I'd appreciate here what

you have to say.

Cheers,

Scott

------------------------------


Sierra Nevada Brown and The Goat Hill

Date: 6 May 93 11:28:00 +1300

From: BELLAGIO_DAVID@Tandem.COM

Subject: Sierra Nevada Brown and The Goat Hill

I would just like to second Bob's acclaim of Sierra Nevada's Brown.  I really

liked it.  They told me it was a special one time brew.  I will be going

back shortly and can't wait to have a pint.  I also like their spring special

Pale Bock.  As for Andy's mention of the Goat Hill Tavern, I was told of this

place by the HBD and was glad I went.  Great place to hang out.  I could go

for one of their Black Fog (Anchor Old Foghorn and Watney's Cream Stout)

mixtures right now.

Super Dave

------------------------------


recipies for weisen

Date:         Thu, 06 May 93 15:04:43 CST

From: C05705DA@WUVMD.Wustl.Edu

Subject:      recipies for weisen

a while back, month or two roughly, several people posted good recipies

for weisen beer; they were fairly simple ones.  Unfortunalty, the file that

i saved it in bit the big one, followed by @#%*!.  it seems that one of

them had munich malt and one had regular two row malt.  also, they included

the name of the yeasts they used; they were of the wheat ale type.  could

you good people please resend them?  thanks.

"The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs,

 nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately,

 by the grace of God."   Thomas Jefferson

address: c05705da@wuvmd.wustl.edu

------------------------------


tv ad for hb video

Date: Thu, 6 May 93 16:34:51 CDT

From: jay marshall <marshall@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject: tv ad for hb video

While watching the Discovery channel last night I saw an ad for a

homebrewing video.  Needless to say I was surprised to see this kind

of thing advertised nationally.  Has anyone seen the video?  If so,

would you care to give a brief review?

Jay

marshall@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov

------------------------------


Effect of light on beer

Date: 06 May 1993 19:52:26 -0400 (EDT)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: Effect of light on beer

In response to yesterday's request for info on the effect of light on beer:

I've always found this fascinating, so I'll just outline what I understand

to be the case, and let the experts fill in the gaps and correct the parts

that are shaky.

What actually happens is pretty easy to understand (assuming you have a PhD

in organic chemistry).  The alpha acids in hops are changed chemically

during the boil, becoming isomerized (which means the molecules are formed

into long chains).  These iso-alpha acids (as they are then called) are

much more bitter than the naturally occurring alpha acids, and they are

also much more unstable in light.  When light hits them, they are changed

chemically again, and they tend to react with some of the sulfur compounds

present in all beers.  That reaction produces a new chemical (to be

precise, the loss of CO by the acyl radical forms the 3-methyl-2-butyl

radical, which then combines with a thiol radical from sulphur-containing

proteins to produce 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol, for those of you keeping

score) which is familiarly known as a mercaptan.  Mercaptans are also the

active ingredient in a skunk's defense mechanism, and are easily recognized

by the human nose at levels of a few parts per billion. OK, how much light

does it take?  If it's the right (actually, the wrong) kind of light, the

answer is "not much." Any light with a wavelength shorter than 520

nanometers will do the job.  Think about how sunlight is broken up by a

rainbow or a prism.  The longer wavelengths are at the red end of the

spectrum and the shorter wavelengths are at the blue end.  Red, orange, and

yellow won't really cause you a problem.  Green is getting dangerous (the

yellow-greens are OK, the blue-greens are not).  Blue, indigo, and violet

are a definite no-no.  Ultraviolet is right out.  Since normal (white)

light contains more or less the whole visible spectrum, you want to use a

type of glass that filters out the harmful part. Anyone who has ever done

serious photography knows that fluorescent lamps put out light that is more

heavily skewed toward the blue end of the spectrum, and incandescent lamps

toward the red end.  Obviously, fluorescent lights are more harmful to beer

than incandescent lights.  What kind of lights are used in the beer display

case at your favorite retailer?  Uh-huh, that's right! Actually, it only

takes about 24 hours of exposure to this kind of light to have an effect on

beer in a clear bottle (have you had any Corona lately?).  Green bottles

help, but only a very little, since they just block a little of the red

light and a little of the blue.  Higher levels of sulfur compounds in some

beer produced in green bottles can actually wipe out the advantage, so that

some beer shipped in green bottles is even more easily skunked than beer in

clear bottles.  Brown bottles help quite a bit, since they block almost all

of the harmful wavelengths, but still let some of the harmful green light

through. Some of the big guys actually apply a chemical treatment to their

beer, so that light has little or no effect.  Miller is the first one that

comes to mind, and even though it's shipped in clear bottles, you're very

unlikely to find a skunked Miller.

 But who wants a Miller? We don't always get what we pay for, and it would

really be worth your while to ask your retailer for beer that hasn't been

exposed to the light.  Get a six-pack from a freshly opened case in the

back room, rather than a cold one that has been sitting in the display case

under fluorescent lights for a week.

Ed Westemeie  Cincinnati, OH   westemeier@delphi.com

------------------------------


Methanol (aka wood alcohol)

Date: Thu, 6 May 93 18:39:29 -0600

From: cbacco@ursa5.cs.utah.edu (Corby Bacco)

Subject: Methanol (aka wood alcohol)

Hello all,

     First of all let me say that I know that methanol is not

produced in homebrewing, at least everything I've read so far says

that, and I am not worried about going blind.  But, now that

I've been brewing for about a year I've heard enough people say

"You homebrew!?  Watch out you don't go blind!"  that now I

really would like more amunition to argue with.

     Specifically, WHY isn't methanol produced during homebrewing

or I guess the question could be asked as how DO you produce

methanol?  Thanks for the info in advance.

   Cheers,

       Corby Bacco

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1136, 05/07/93

*************************************

-------


Re: Sammy Adams

Date: Wed, 5 May 1993 10:32:49 -0700

From: paul@rational.com (Paul Jasper)

Subject: Re: Sammy Adams

On 4 May, 10:03, Jeff Frane wrote:

> Subject: Re: Sammy Adams & Belgian Malts

>

> Sam Adams is not and never has been a microbrewed beer.  From its

> inception it was contract-brewed, originally in Pennsylvania and for the

> last couple of years here in Portland at the Blitz-Weinhard Brewery.

>

>-- End of excerpt from Jeff Frane

You mean the claim that Sam Adams Boston Lager(tm) is a microbrewery

beer is a "momily"(tm)?  ;^)

BTW, a sign has appeared on a huge billboard on the way into San

Francisco from the airport proclaiming Samuel Adams to be America's

best beer... I think a few of the city's Anchor drinkers might have

a word or two to say about that (let alone the Celis aficionados,

local brewpub fanatics, Red Tail Ale swiggers, etc, etc)!

- --

- -- Paul Jasper

- -- RATIONAL

- -- Object-Oriented Products

- --

------------------------------


Re: Help! Overbubbling!

Date: Fri, 7 May 93 09:07:10 EDT

From: casagran@gdstech.grumman.com (Lou Casagrande)

Subject: Re: Help! Overbubbling!

Jay wrote back in HBD1129 (sorry, but I'm just catching up on my

reading):

> A friend and I are making our first batch of Irish Stout. He has

> brewed a lager before, but this it my first batch of beer. We

> followed the directions that came with the beer kit (Irish Stout

from

> Eastern Brewers Supply) but used a liquid yeast instead of the dry

> yeast supplied (on the suggestion of EBS).

>

> We are fermenting in a ~6.5 Gal plastic primary fermenter, but now,

> two days after we pitched the yeast the wort is bubbling VERY

> vigerously. It is bubbling so much that it is getting in to the

> fermentiation lock, which was 3-4 inches above the level of the brew

> when we began.

>

> Did we do something wrong, or is a stout supposed to ferment that

> violently?

I have had the same thing happen with my two previous batches. The

first was the Sparrow Hawk Porter from TNCJOHB, which had an OG of

1.054. The second was the Dark Sleep Stout from TNCJOHB, which we

perked up a bit by using 3 lbs of the dark DME rather than 1 lb. This

had an OG of 1.067. The latter was so vigorous that it actually pushed

up the lid on my fermenter (when the air lock became clogged) and

spilled about a pint of foam on the floor. The stout is still aging in

the bottles, but the porter turned out to be very smooth, so this was

probably simply an inadvertant blowoff. By the way, both brews were

fairly highly hopped. I didn't use a liquid yeast, but I do rehydrate

religiously. That didn't change from previous batches, though, so I'm

not sure that that can be the answer.

In any event, just clean up any mess, make sure your fermentation lock

stays clear, and let it ferment to completion (which has probably

already happened, considering the lateness of my posting wrt Jay's

:~O).

Lou Casagrande

casagran@gdstech.grumman.com

------------------------------


Re: Help! Overbubbling!

Date: Fri, 7 May 93 09:29:08 EDT

From: jkirsch@dolphin.uri.EDU (Jay Kirschenbaum)

Subject: Re: Help! Overbubbling!

I wrote:

[Story about a very vigerous fermentation]

Well...Yesterday we bottled--a week ago we transferred the brew to a secondary

fermenter, and everything seems fine!!  I snuck a taste as we were bottling,

and it tastes great!! although perhaps not quite as bitter as it should

be, but these things happen.  I will report back in two weeks or so

and tell how it finally comes out, but thanks to everyone who responded

(I don't have all the old messages, sorry that I didn't respond individually)

Thanks,

Jay Kirschenbaum

jkirsch@dolphin.uri.edu

University of Rhode Island

------------------------------


Re: Methanol (aka wood alcohol)

Date: Fri, 07 May 93 08:01:49 -0600

From: Steve Dempsey <steved@longs.lance.colostate.edu>

Subject: Re: Methanol (aka wood alcohol)

In HOMEBREW Digest #1136 you write:

>     Specifically, WHY isn't methanol produced during homebrewing

>or I guess the question could be asked as how DO you produce

>methanol?  Thanks for the info in advance.

Methanol production requires:

   1) the proper yeast (wild yeasts)

   2) unique fermentables (cellulose == wood, grain husks)

As a homebrewer, you use a known yeast type that does not yield

methyl alcohol as its primary waste product.  The homebrewers

of days gone by could not keep things clean; wild yeasts would

get in and start eating the wooden vats used for fermenting,

or in the case of moonshine production, the grain is left in

the mash during fermentation and provides enough fiber for

methanol production.  After distilling the product, the methanol

concentration is high enough to do serious damage.  Nearly all

methanol casualties are caused by consuming distilled spirits

produced from an improperly controlled fermentation.  Occasionally

someone stupid mistakenly procures the cheapest alcohol he can

find to spike his drink, not realizing that it's poisonous.

Traditional beer/ale homebrewing has never been a problem so

long as the right yeast strains are employed.  The wrong yeasts

are hard enough to come by that it's not going to be a problem

unless you ferment in wooden vats/barrels, or leave lots of

grain in your wort during fermentation.  Even so, the resulting

beer would have lots of other off-flavor byproducts of the unusual

yeast and you wouldn't want to drink it.

================================    Engineering Network Services

Steve Dempsey                       Colorado State University

steved@longs.lance.colostate.edu    Fort Collins, CO  80523

================================    +1 303 491 0630

------------------------------


Beer Machine Infomercial

Date: Fri, 7 May 93 10:14:03 -0400

From: rxh6@po.CWRU.Edu (Randall Holt)

Subject: Beer Machine Infomercial

I haven't seen the ad mentioned yesterday for a homebrew video,

but I did catch the last few minutes of the Beer Machine (tm?)

Infomercial. Since I haven't noticed any mention on this letter,

I thought I'd bring it to attention.

The device they sell looks like a 2.5 gal. glass keg, laying

on it's side, with a support stand, a tap and a screw-cap up on

top. They demonstrate pouring in extract, adding water straight

from the tap, add the yeast and screw on the cap ( I assume there's

some kind of CO2 release). Wait for five days, then refrigerate

(presumably after closing the release) and draw your own.

They only want $34.95 for the kit (oh, times four easy payments,

a typical infomercial small-print bullshit trick), so the real

cost with shipping is about $150. The extract they sell is

Sun Country, which they will gladly supply for refills for about

twice the cost at my local HB shop. But, hey, business is business.

Despite the excessive cost, this may introduce people into real

homebrewing. The question I have, has anyone tried this system, or

even tried brewing in this fashion, by fermenting and carbonating

in the same container? I can imagine how tangy this beer would be,

being poured right off the trub. Of course the happy smiling 'real

people' are quaffing crystal clear, perfectly carbonated, 1 inch head,

beer. I don't recall them ever mentioning the word yeast, which I

would guess is a marketing strategy, but they do call their system

"All natural". (So is the aboriginal practice of spitting in the

mash pot to hasten the conversion of starch).

I also object to the trademarking of MY nickname.

Randy 'The other Beer Machine' Holt

Bibo Ergo Sum

- --

Randall W. Holt  rxh6@po.cwru.edu

------------------------------


another drinkers opinion on Clear Beer

Date: Fri, 7 May 93 10:41:13 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.atg.trc.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: another drinkers opinion on Clear Beer

 Hans is local to DC...

 jim

> Return-Path: <tallis@starbase.mitre.org>

> Date: Fri, 7 May 1993 10:21:05 -0400

> From: Hans Tallis <tallis@starbase.mitre.org>

> In-Reply-To: Jim Sims's message of Fri, 7 May 93 07:46:12 EDT

> Subject: more Clear Beer silliness

>

>

> I've had a clear beer, down in C'ville.  It tasted like dirty, weak

>vodka.  I think I almost threw up.  (But it was like the 10th beer for

>the evening, so maybe that had something to do with it.)

>

> - --Hans

------------------------------


Sam Adams & other "microbrewers"

Date:      Fri, 7 May 1993 11:26:17 EDT

From: Ming-chung Lin <MARS@suvm.acs.syr.EDU>

Subject:   Sam Adams & other "microbrewers"

Last year I visited the F.X. Matt brewery in Utica, NY and

was delighted to see a room full of GOOD BEER (not the usual

Matt's fare).  There were tanks full of Sam Adams, Harpoon Ale

Brooklyn Lager, and others that I don't now remember.  Matt's

contract brews for many microbreweries, although I think the

tour guide (whose knowledge I sincerely doubt since he claimed

"beer is beer") said that they didn't brew Sam Adams, they

just aged and bottled it.  The others were brewed there.

For those of you in other parts of the country, Matt's is the

nation's 11th largest brewer, far behind the likes of Miller

and A.B.  It's named after and owned by Frances Xavier Matt

and also his brother.  They produce a very low budget (and

taste) line called Utica Club, a middle of the road line called

Matt's (kind of like PBR), and also Saranac Lager which won

some best beer of its kind award.

I find it curious that the brewers that are brawling in Boston

all send their stuff to Utica.

Lisa St. Hilaire <MARS@SUVM.ACS.SYR.EDU>

------------------------------


RE: Effects of Light on Beer

Date: Fri,  7 May 93 08:57:06 PDT

From: David Ferguson <davidfer@microsoft.com>

Subject: RE: Effects of Light on Beer

Ed Westemeie writes:

"Get a six-pack from a freshly opened case in the

back room, rather than a cold one that has been sitting in the display case

under fluorescent lights for a week."

I'm curious if there is any relation between the protection from light

and the better flavor of draft beer.  I would imagine that there really

are several reasons why draft beer tastes better including freshness

and less temperature variance due to higher volume, but is light

exposure a significant factor?  Would any brewing gurus care to

illuminate me (us) on the issue?

Dave Ferguson

------------------------------


Miller Genuine Draft Mini Kegs

Date: Fri, 7 May 93 11:09:36 CDT

From: greenbay@vnet.IBM.COM

Subject: Miller Genuine Draft Mini Kegs

I was at the bar last night and saw something new. Little plastic

Miller Genuine Draft kegs with a turnspout. They looked like they would

be pretty cool for storing homebrew in. The are made of heavy-duty plastic

and the screw on top forms quite a seal (I sprained my thumb opening it.)

Has anyone ever tried to put homebrew in these things? (Size-wise they are

a little larger than the average pitcher.)

So, does anyone know where I can get grass from lambeau field so that I can

brew Green Bay Packer beer?

Later,

Bob Crowley

------------------------------


All grain instructions - how's this look?

Date: Fri, 7 May 93 11:39:58 CDT

From: hinz@memphis.med.ge.com (David Hinz)

Subject: All grain instructions - how's this look?

Greetings!

I've decided to jump in with both feet, and go for an all-grain batch.  I've

purchased a lauter tun, and will construct a cooking kettle out of a

Stainless Steel 1/2 bbl and a water heater element tonight.  I wrote up

a checklist, and would like to run it past people here to see what comments

you have.  Obviously, it's a very basic checklist, but I want to make sure

I have things in the right order, haven't missed anything, and so on.

I'm doing Papazian's "Silver Dollar Porter", with an extra pound of Munich

malt per the suggestion of the local brewshop.  My lauter tun is sort of a

Zapap-type, but with a rotating sprinkler for the sparge water (probably fluff,

but I'm lazy & impatient, so I didn't buy or build an easy-sparger.....yet)

So, here's my list:

>Select recipe & obtain ingredients.

>Start Yeast pack (2-3 days before brewing)

>Add yeast to quart of starter wort (~12 hours before brewing)

>Preboil 10 gallons of "brewing water", put in carboys when cool. (night

before brewing)

>Bring 1.33 qt H2O per pound of grist to 130 degrees (f) in mash kettle.

>Add above water to grist, protein rest for (60?) minutes at 122 deg.

        >Adjust pH to about 5.3 if needed

>Start sparge water in cooker kettle, bring to 170(?) degrees.  How much?

>Raise mash temp to 155 deg, hold at this temp until conversion is done.

 (Can I do this with boiling water?  How much do I use?)

        >Adjust pH if needed

        >Test for conversion with Tincture of Iodine

>Raise temp of mash to 175 deg, for (20?) minutes, to mash-out.

>Pour mash into lauter tun, let it compact, recirculate runoff until clear.

>Put sparge water into sparging vessel, start the sprinkler.  Keep the

liquid level right around the top of the grain bed by regulating flow in

and out of lauter tun.  Collect this wort in the cooker.

>Plug in cooker, bring to boil, add hops per schedule, boil per recipe.

>Immersion chill, rack, pitch, shake, ferment, rack, settle, rack, prime,

bottle, keep in kitchen for a week, put it in the basement, wait, wait,

wait, drink, MMMMmmmmmmmmmm.

- ---

Note that some of the times may be inaccurate, I'm doing this from memory,

30 miles away from my books.  Those, obviously, will be adjusted as needed.

Please e-mail or post if you can suggest improvements.  I can't read R.C.B,

so posts to the HBD would be better.

Thanks for any input,

Dave Hinz

------------------------------


Oatmeal Stout

Date: 07 May 1993 12:08:17 -0600 (CST)

From: RBSWEENEY@memstvx1.memst.edu

Subject: Oatmeal Stout

Does anyone on the HBD have a good all-grain recipe for an oatmeal stout.

? Last month at the Bluff City Brewers and Connoisseurs awards banquet

(Memphis,TN) Dave Miller was the guest speaker and brought along a keg of

his delicious oatmeal stout--my kind of guest.  Unfortunately, I was not able

to talk to him long enough to get the recipe, but the idea of oatmeal stout

will not go away.  The hop bouquet on Dave's was heavenly, so I assume he

must have dry hopped, and he did say the beer had been filtered using a DE?

filter.  Emails would be appreciated.

As an aside, some of Miller's comments on making the transition from homebrewer

to microbrewer (his is in St. Louis) related to the brewers individual

perspective on brewing.  He basically divided the brewing community into

'Germans' and 'Belgains'.  The Germans being those who meticulously brew to

style, while the Belgains never want their brews to taste the same way twice.

His opinion was that as you make the transition to microbrewer you lose some

of your Belgain influence and become more German.  He also strongly recommended

the filtering of beer, which he claimed brought out entirely new (and

presumably better) flavor profiles.  As I said, if his oatmeal stout is any

indication, he must be on to something.

Thanks in advance for the recipes.

Bob Sweeney

Department of Management Information Systems

Memphis State University

P.S.  Oops, make that 'Germans' and 'Belgians'.

                                         ^^

------------------------------


Cornelius repeat (oops)

Date: Fri, 7 May 93 13:45:46 -0400

From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

Subject: Cornelius repeat (oops)

Hello.  I recently posted a question about sources for Cornelius kegs.  Thanks

to all who replied with some good input.  One person in particular sent a

lenthy piece on keg cleaning and reconditioning which was very useful.

Unfortunately, I deleted it before I could get it on paper; could the

person who sent it (whose name I also deleted) please send it again. I

offer my sheepish thanks.

 Also, regarding the use of yeast in medfly traps (HBD#1136): yes,

fruitflies in fact do not eat fruit, they eat wild yeast that grows on fruit.

In the lab (drosophila melanogaster is a favored organism for studying

development) they are grown in little vials with yeast and some

food for the yeast to eat.  As a yeast geneticist working in a building

populated by fly geneticists, this relationship is a particularly painful

one.  I will probably never recover from the repeated taunts of "my organism

EATS your organism".

        d.

------------------------------


SPARGE, Skunks, Bidal

Date: Fri, 7 May 93 12:51 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: SPARGE, Skunks, Bidal

 >From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

 >Subject: Sparge Water

 >I personally let the mash thickness float, and indeed have found this

 to be a relatively unimportant variable within a reasonable range. In

 particular, plots of yield vs. mash thickness tend to be quite flat in

 the range 25-40 liters/kg.

 Not sure I can address what youse guys are talking about but I will use the

 discussion as a segue to what I want to talk about.

 I have found that there are far more advantages to using a thin mash than a

 thick one.  In fact, I don't know of any reasons for fighting a thick mash.

 1.  A thin mash has more mass and makes temp maintenance far easier.

 2.  A thin mash is far easier to stir and thereby assure thorough mashing and

 temperature homogeneity.

 3.  A thin mash requires less sparge water in direct proportion to the amount

 of mash water used.

 4.  A thin mash has less tendency to scorch or caramelize when kettlemashing.

 5.  It takes longer to bring a thin mash to temp but the time is well spent

 as the mash gets a sample of every recommended "rest" in the book and has the

 possiblity of curing every il and adding a bit of every character possible.

 For the record, I use 4 gals of water to mash 12 lbs of grain.  I consider

 this on the thin side but have no qualms about using more water, just haven't

 tried it.

 >From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

 >Subject: Effect of light on beer

 >OK, how much light does it take?  If it's the right (actually, the wrong)

 kind of light, the answer is "not much."....

 I was waiting with baited breath to hear the answer but "not much" is not

 very satisfying.

 All this science is real nice but when I see people putting bags over carboys

 of fermenting beer in the basement, I can't help but wonder if we haven't got

 another MOMILY out of control.

 As a teenager, we joked about "Skunky Millers", so I am a believer in the

 principles involved but have serious reservations about the potential damage

 from occasional fluorescent lights over a period of a few weeks.

 Seems easy enough to prove with a few simple experiments but I am so far from

 believing it, that I have better things to do.

 So, I offer a challenge to some incipient MOMILY BUSTER.  Split a batch in

 half and keep half in the dark and expose the other to 8 hrs of fluorescent

 light per day.  Bottle some of both when ready, then do the same every 30

 days till you smell a skunk and report back.

 My bet is, you will run out of beer first.

 ..........

 Does anyone know anything about the Bidal Society Competition? i.e., can

 someone post the results?

 js

------------------------------


Dextrins vs temp

Date: Fri, 7 May 93 13:36 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Dextrins vs temp

While looking for some data for another post, I found the following

info, which I think is very interesting.  It's from a post by Todd

Enders from July 1991:

>Subject:   Mashing, Dextrins, and American Lager Stats.

>

>

>     After the recent discussion about dextrins, mashing, etc.  I went and did

>a little research into just how much the mash temperature effects the

>fermentability of the wort.  I found the following in _Industrial

>Microbiology_ by Prescott and Dunn, 3rd ed. (used without permission)

>

>Effect of the Temperature of Conversion on the Ratio of Sugars to Dextrins

>

>     Conversion                 Ratio of Sugar

>        Temp.                    to Dextrins

>     ----------                 --------------

>

>       147.2F                       1:0.37

>       150.8F                       1:0.40

>       154.4F                       1:0.48

>       158.0F                       1:0.52

>       161.6F                       1:0.57

>

Very interesting, no?

Back to my thick vs. thin mash search...

Al.

------------------------------


Mash stiffness vs. enzyme activity

Date: Fri, 7 May 93 13:59 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Mash stiffness vs. enzyme activity

George writes:

>These results are for infusion mashing only. The situation for decoction

>is a good deal more complicated because of the volume reductions during

>boiling.

>Theoretically a thick mash provides more thermal protection for enzymes, and

>this has been put forward as a point for a thick mash. On the other hand,

>enzyme activity is inhibited by the concentration of the products produced,

>and this tends to favor a thin mash.

>

>There appears to be some disagreement about whether the effects cancel,

>or that they are simply weak effects. Our mathematical models (based on the

>nonlinear differential equations of enzyme kinetics) suggest it is a

>combination of both. In any case, it has been my personal experience with my

>own system that mash thickness is not a major issue.

It was Noonan that said: "...thick mash improves enzyme performance.  In

a thin mash, proteolytic and other heat-labile enzymes are destroyed in

the course of the rest: in a thick mash, they may survive into the

saccharification range."

Greg brews some great beers, on the other hand, he sometimes goes to

extremes.  Therefore, I'd just take this more as a data point than

a definitive answer.

On the third hand (?), I've read, but cannot find it again (drat!), that

a stiff mash favors one of the amylase enzymes and a thin one favors

the other.  Anyone have this data?  Was that in Noonan also?

Al.

------------------------------


Isomerized Hop Extracts vs. Skunkiness

Date: Fri, 07 May 1993 10:49:58

From: garetz@brahms.amd.com (Mark Garetz)

Subject: Isomerized Hop Extracts vs. Skunkiness

>Paul dArmand asks about isomerized extracts and whether or not they are

immune from ligh-struck or "skunky" effects.

Regular isomerized extracts are no more immune to skunkiness than hops.

However, there *is* a treatment one can do to the extract (or presumably,

the beer) that makes the beer more immune.  Sam Smith's claims to use such a

process, but IMHO it doesn't work very well.  I have had many of their Nut

Brown Ales that were severely light struck.

>Ed Westemeie states that isomerized alpha acids are much more bitter than

their non-isomerized "natural" counterparts.

Nothing I have ever read on hops supports this statement.  However, the

non-isomerized alpha acids don't dissolve very well in water or beer, and so

they have a minimal effect on the bitterness.  The isomerized AAs are much

more soluble.  Maybe Ed was actually trying to state this, but simplified it.

Mark Garetz

HopTech

------------------------------


Re: filtering--Why?

Date: Fri, 07 May 93 12:58:08 PDT

From: florianb@ying.cna.tek.com

Subject: Re: filtering--Why?

Scott Stihler writes:

=>

I've got a question regarding filtering beer. I've been interested in filtering

my homebrew for awhile but I'm somewhat confused as to what is the optimum

filter size for beer. Does anybody out there happen to know? I'm afraid if I

get too small a filter size I may lose body. Anyways, I'd appreciate here what

=>

I was interested in this at one time also, due to some haziness I had with

my brews. However, I figured out that instead of filtering out the haze

along with body, I should fix the problems that caused the haze in the

first place. I don't know what all was causing the haze, but I did a

combination of things to fix it. These included: going all-grain, using

a keg system, and changing how I did the mash.

The old timers on this digest will remember me and my mashing technique.

Someday I will get out from under all the piled up duties at work and

ship out a description of my mashing technique. Basically, I put all

the sparge water in the mash at once, stir, and wait until the whole

thing settles. Saves time and hassle, and I get nearly the same

extraction as with the old textbook method. I'll detail it someday,

I promise.

Florian

------------------------------


Re: Legal Probelms for Sam(tm)Adams(tm)

Date: Fri, 7 May 93 14:07:13 PDT

From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)

Subject: Re: Legal Probelms for Sam(tm)Adams(tm)

> From dalton@mtl.mit.edu (Timothy J. Dalton)

> Boston Globe, Thursday May 6, 1993.  Pg. 77 (Business Sect.)

> and it didn't really reflect our mission," says association president Charles

> Papazian.

Charles?  That's the first time I've _ever_ seen that.

>    Now New York is telling Koch that "there is clear potential for consumers

> being misled when you refer in the aggregate to "winning" the Great American

> Beer Festival without being specific as to the nature of what you won."

Hmm.  I seem to recall exactly that being discussed in the Digest about

two years ago.  I was impressed with the ad claims until I read just

_how_ the "winner" was chosen.

Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,

lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate

------------------------------


HBD submission

Date: Fri, 7 May 93 17:35:27 EDT

From: rdeaver@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil

Subject: HBD submission

A while back, I recall somebody posting a comment about boiling wort.

The post mentioned that if you brought the wort over a certain

temperature (I believe it was 153 degrees F), you would convert some of

the sugars to a non-fermentable form.

I only have a half-dozen batches under my belt, and most have seemed a

bit sweet.  The finishing gravities ave been around 1.002, but the brew

had a heavy taste to it.

Planning to launch off on another brewing session of Heavy Scottish Ale,

I dropped into the local brewshop for a strainer bag.  The question

raised was that if I did not boil the wort, would I have sterilization

problems.  I will be using Briess DME, and this time will be using some

specialty grains.  I always boil water ahead of time, to get rid of

chlorine.

What is the general consensus?  I have had this "sweet heaviness" with

several batches; it is not recipe-specific.  The last batch, I went as

far as using yeast nutrient.

------------------------------


membership

Date: 07 May 1993 17:08:21 -0700 (MST)

From: CBOSWELL@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU

Subject: membership

Greetings,

I am a member of the Old Pueblo Homebrewing Club, in Tucson, AZ, and I would

like to expand my horizons by becoming a member of the homebrewing e-mail

digest.  My address is: cboswell@ccit.arizona.edu

Thanks.  I look forward to absorbing the wisdom of elders (in experience,

only, of course) and maybe contributing some of my own, if I ever get any.

------------------------------


Miller CLEAR

Date: Fri, 7 May 93 19:00:41 CDT

From: fiero@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Bill Fuhrmann)

Subject: Miller CLEAR

Just realized that we are a test market, the rest of you haven't had the

"honor" of tasting Miller Clear yet.

It looks and tastes like sparkling water.  There is a very slight (very,

very, very slight) bit of beer taste to it and a little bit more nose.

To a quick sniff, it smells like you didn't quite rinse out your glass

completely.  You have to swirl it around your mouth to notice any taste.

I expect that this will be popular with very under age drinkers since

it does not require acquiring a taste for it, it won't be obvious what

they are drinking (maybe also popular for drinking in cars for that

reason), and won't be noticeable on their breath.

I bought it once to see what it was like and it appears to have lived

down to even lower expectations than most of the people in the beer

world expected.

The clerk in the store thought that I was buying an interesting

combination of brews;  Clear and Cerveza Caliente (cabos style chili

beer).  The Cerveza is brewed by the Minnesota Brewing Company in

St. Paul (home of blonds and blond food).

If you want to brew a clone, just put water in the bottle, add yeast and

the priming sugar.  You'll probably come pretty close to the taste but not

the 4.6 % (by volume according to the label) alcohol.  Just think, you can

mix this with a low alcohol beer and get a light beer.

Bill Fuhrmann, aka fiero@pnet51.orb.mn.org

"You don't know what you've got till it's gone." - Joni Mitchell

------------------------------


CLEAR BEER

Date: Sun, 9 May 93 1:51:18 MDT

From: thomas ciccateri <tciccate@carina.unm.edu>

Subject: CLEAR BEER

I brought some Miller CLEAR BEER to this month's meeting of the

Dukes Of Ale club for tasting.  The label claims 4.6% alcohol /

volume.  Consumers can call 1-800-MILLER6 for more information.

Most reviewer's comments reflected the following opinions:

Aroma - CO2, Taste - Slightly sweet water, Body - like seltzer

water, Aftertaste - none, Overall Impression - Good clarity, no

hop bitterness or aroma, no malt character and no appreciable

flavor outside that attributed to carbonation.  And some people

thought that it couldn't get any worse than light beer !

 Tom Ciccateri ->  tciccate@carina.unm.edu

 University of New Mexico

 Training and Learning Technologies Div.

------------------------------


Collecting yeast abroad

Date: Sun, 9 May 93 08:54 PDT

From: /O=vmspfhou/S=dblewis/DD.SITE=JSCPROFS/@NASAmail.nasa.gov

Subject: Collecting yeast abroad

***************************** PROFS Note *****************************

 From: DBLEWIS --VMSPFHOU            Date and time  05/09/93 10:54:40

 To: POSTMAN --NASAMAIL

 FROM: Dennis B. Lewis <dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

 SUBJECT: Collecting yeast abroad

 I have the good fortune to be going to Germany (Cologne area) next month. I'd

 like to collect some yeast while I'm there. I have a few questions for the

 net:

 1. How well does solid agar keep at approx room temp for maybe a week or so?

 I'm pretty careful with sanitation.

 2. What does the Customs Dept think when you come back with small vials of

 yeast on slants that are capped and all taped up? I know they get bent out of

 shape if you bring plants or animal products, so does yeast count?

 3. Pierre Rajotte, in the Zymurgy special issue, sez to mail the vials back

 home, along with a business card from the brewery, mark it yeast sample, etc.,

 and leave it to the postal inspectors to yea or nay it. Does this work?

 4. Anybody know of any must see breweries/biergartens in Cologne?

 Any responses would be greatly appreciated. If I get enough e-mail (as opposed

 to HBD posts) I'll collect the ideas and post them at once. Thanks in advance

 for all the expert advice.

 Dennis B. Lewis  *  (713) 483-9145  *  NASA/JSC/DH6 Payload Ops

 Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Belgian caramel pils

Date: 09 May 1993 20:47:26 -0400 (EDT)

From: KLIGERMAN@herlvx.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: Belgian caramel pils

I hope someone can clarify for me the use of DeWolf-Cosyns  Caramel

Malt Caramel Pils.  I was under the impression that these were crystal malts

that did not need to be mashed; with cara-pils being the lightest and special

B being the darkest.  Today I was making a Pilzen style honey lager and

wanted to use a pound a very light crystal (Caramel Malt Caramel Pils).  As

I usually do with an extract recipe, I crushed the grain, added it to about 3/4

gallon of cold water, and slowly brought the "mash" up to about 180 F.  I

then sparged with about a gallon of hot water (about 190 F).  After this I

looked at the grain and it looked like gelatinized starch.  I did an iodine

test and the result was jet blue-black.  I decided to add more water and 1

pound of crushed Klages Pale malt and mashed at about 155 F.  I then added

this to my honey-malt extract wort.  Question:  The Belgian malt did not act

like typical crystal malt--it gelatinized instead of dissolving.  I thought

this was supposed to be a crystal malt or if not at least self convert.  It

seemed to do neither--just form gelatinized soft grain.  Can anyone please tell

me where my assumptions or processes are wrong, else I will worry without having

a homebrew.  Will my Pilzen be cloudy from the first sparge of the apparently

unconverted starch?

Thanks,

Andy Kligerman

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1137, 05/10/93

*************************************

-------


mash vs. extract table

Date: Mon, 10 May 93 10:53:55 MET DST

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: mash vs. extract table

Hello All,

Here's table of mash thickness vs. temp vs. extract, taken from

Malting and Brewing Science, vol 1, D.E.Briggs, J.S.Hough, R.Stevens,

T.W.Young, Chaman and Hall, 1981.

Hope it's of some use. Rob Thomas.

Influence of mash temperature and concentration on the composition of sweet wort

[Data of HALL quoted by HARRIS (1962) [221]

Mashing temperature         60!C (140!F)        65 6!C (150!F)

Mash thickness (%) (2)     67    39    29       67    39    29

Wort analyses(1)

 Hexose                  12.3  10.1   9.5     11.9   9.5   8.1

 Sucrose                  2.8   3.4   3.4      4.1   4.2   3.8

 Maltose                 43.9  48.3  49.5     38.8  43.9  42.8

 Trisaccharide           14.3  14.3  13.8     12.6  13.6  15.0

 Dextrin                 17.5  15.5  14.6     24.2  21.2  22.3

 Fermentability (%)      73.3  76.1  76.2     67.4  71.2  69.7

 Extract ( %)           55-63  76.2  75.6     73 4  75.3  74.2

 Soluble N (% of wort  6.2-6.6 5.34  5.50     5.58  5.22  5.03

solids)

 pH                     5.46   5.40  5.50     5.31  5.33  5.38

(1) carbohydrates expressed as % of wort solids.

(2) Parts of grist/100 parts of water.

Mashing temperature     68 3!C (155!F)

Mash thickness (%) (2)  67    39    29

Wort analyses(1)

 Hexose                11.0  10.2   8.0

 Sucrose                3.7   5.0   4.0

 Maltose               36.9  37.0  39.0

 Trisaccharide         12.8  12.7  14.3

 Dextrin               27.6  26.2  26.9

 Fermentability (%)    64.4  65.0  65.3

 Extract ( %)          73.3  74.6  74.0

 Soluble N (% of wor   4.90  4.77  4.85

solids)

 pH                    5.31  5.35  5.30

------------------------------


Belgian souvenirs

Date: Mon, 10 May 93 8:04:53 EDT

From: Mark A Fryling <mfryling@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

Subject: Belgian souvenirs

Hi gang!

I'v got a question for all of you worldly travelin' beer lovers out there.  My

girlfriend is going to be in Europe all of next month and will be spending the

last week of her trip in Belgium.  So naturally, I have asked her (and she has

agreed) to bring me back some local Belgian beers.  My questions to you are:

     1)  Whats the duty rate on alcohol over the duty-free limit (and for that

         matter whats the duty free limit)?

     2)  Is it best just to pack the beer carefully and carry it on the plane

         as extra luggage or to ship it?

     3)  Does anyone have any particular recomendations about Belgian beers not

         available here that she might easily find there?  She will be spending

         most of her time in Antwerp.

Any and all assistance can be sent either directly to me at

                   mfryling@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu

or posted if you think your comments are of general interest.  Thanks in

advance.

Mark

"Never let your sense of morality prevent you from doing what's right"

------------------------------


Musings on Commercial Beer

Date: Mon, 10 May 93 08:00 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Musings on Commercial Beer

 My C-P bottler is down for re-design so I bought a bunch of commercial stuff

 to take to a party.  Always wanting to turn a beer drink into a learning

 experience, I bought some things I have wanted to try/compare.

 Draft Guinness in the can is not only lousy beer but the nitrogen gizzmo is

 just plain silly.  I thought the beer had a metalic taste and was lacking in

 anything worth mentioning.

 Bass ale was about as bland as the Guinness but lacked the metalic taste and

 just about any other, for that matter.

 Take the coloring out of Beck's Dark and you have Beck's regular.  It seems a

 bit more beerish but hardly in line with the color.

 The good news (strike me dead) was Miller Reserve Pale Ale.  I tried the "all

 barley" larger a few months ago and it seemed a farce but this stuff is real

 ale.  It's fruity and wonderful.  It has a very marvey aroma and the taste

 that follows is exactly was you expect from the aroma.  By far the best beer

 to come out of the biggies in decades.  No doubt they found the right

 combination of chemicals to do the trick but at least it tastes like beer.

 It does not taste like my ales but rather like most of the ales I taste at

 club meetings and the experts tell me that is what it is supposed to taste

 like.

 Needless to say, I wait with baited breath to hear what others think of it.

 js

------------------------------


re skunks

Date: Mon, 10 May 93 09:21:37 EDT

From: cjh@diaspar.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Chip Hitchcock)

Subject: re skunks

> So, I offer a challenge to some incipient MOMILY BUSTER.  Split a batch in

> half and keep half in the dark and expose the other to 8 hrs of fluorescent

> light per day.  Bottle some of both when ready, then do the same every 30

> days till you smell a skunk and report back.

>

> My bet is, you will run out of beer first.

   I wouldn't suggest that anybody do this with a batch they value.

   Stiv Stroud runs periodic Dr. Beer sessions at which participants can

sample beers with various off-flavors. At the session I was at a couple of

years ago, the demonstration of light-struck beer involved some Molson's

which he said had had a total of 6 hours of direct sunlight (well, as

direct as you can get in February). The stuff was LETHAL; I could smell it

a yard away almost the instant the bottle was opened and wouldn't even

consider tasting it (I wanted to be able to taste something else that day).

   I expect this will vary quite a bit according to factors like carboy

geometry and how dark the beer is; my assessment in private email was that

it wasn't likely to be a problem because most homebrewers don't have

flurorescents where they ferment. I also don't have any data on typical

spectra for fluorescent lights, only the datum that they're efficient

lights only by comparison with incandescents---something like a mere 85%

(vs ~93%) of energy used comes out as heat, which would suggest that

fluorescents might have less energy in the high-visible and UV range

than sunlight. However, there are probably enough carboy-sized places in

the typical homebrewer's residence without sun or fluorescent lighting that

it would be a silly risk to take.

------------------------------


Isomerized Hop Extracts vs. Skunkiness

Date: Mon, 10 May 93 10:13:12 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Isomerized Hop Extracts vs. Skunkiness

May 1 (National Homebrew Day), the Kalamazoo Brewery had a free

homebrew "conference".  One of the speakers was a "hop chemist" from

Kalsec (I think I got that right), a company in Kalamazoo that does

"spice extraction".  He talked about the chemistry of hops flavors &

aromas.  The best part was the box of vials of extracted flavor/aroma

components that he passed around (ranging from "cheesy/funky" through

"esters" to pure isomerized alpha&beta acids (he said it was 1,000,000

BUs)).  Apparently, Kalsec makes the hops extract that "2 of the 3

largest brewers" in the US use (hint: AB is the one that doesn't).

They do the light-stabilization thing that lets Miller get away with

clear bottles (even though the hops are just about sub-threshold, I

imagine the mercaptans wouldn't be).

(The rest of the day was fun, too.)

=S

------------------------------


Sam Adams...... a Microbrewery

Date: 10 May 1993 10:40:45 -0500 (EST)

From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

Subject: Sam Adams...... a Microbrewery

Far be it from me to take the position of defending Sam Adams, but there

appears to be some confusion in the HBD-world about where SA is and isn't

brewed.

Jeff Frane sez:

> Sam Adams is not and never has been a microbrewed beer.  From its

> inception it was contract-brewed, originally in Pennsylvania and for the

> last couple of years here in Portland at the Blitz-Weinhard Brewery.

Well, yes and no.  Sam Adams LAGER was first brewed as a contract beer in the

Pittsburgh Brewing Co.  It still is, and in the last few years it has also been

contract brewed at Blitz-Weinhard.  The other seasonal bottled SA products are

also contracted out of Pittsburgh.  I don't know whether these are also brewed

at B-W.

Sam Adams BOSTON ALE (bottled version and some of the draft) is brewed at

Matt's in Utica, NY.   Sorry, Lisa St. Hilaire, your tour guide was wrong.

Utica does the brewing, not just the storage.

It gets more confusing, however, because Sam Adams (the Boston Beer Company)

does indeed have a microbrewery here in Boston where they make numerous draft

beers (including Boston Ale) that are available at local taps in the Boston

area.  Some of these beers are experimental (like the recent "triplebock" and

last summer's "dunkelweizen").  The draft beers that SA's takes out to the GABF

are also brewed here in Boston.  I have been told by the head brewer that they

also make occasional batches of Sam Adams Lager (draft) in the Boston brewery.

The heart of Sam Adam's microbrewery is a 10 bbl mashtun which was acquired

from the now defunct Newman's Brewery in Albany.

So to say that Sam Adams is not and never has been a microbrewed beer is not

true.  While it is predominantly a contracted beer, at least here in

Boston, some of the product is microbrewed.

Steve Stroud

Oh, BTW, the Sam Adams that is sold in Germany is supposed to be

contract-brewed IN Germany.  I don't know the name of the brewery.

------------------------------


Re: Beer Machine Infomercial

Date: Mon, 10 May 93 10:39:43 -0400

From: "John D. McCalpin" <mccalpin@perelandra.cms.udel.edu>

Subject: Re: Beer Machine Infomercial

I did not see the commercial for this beer machine, but in the May 10

digest, Randall Holt (rxh6@po.CWRU.Edu) asks:

>The question I have, has anyone tried this system, or

>even tried brewing in this fashion, by fermenting and carbonating

>in the same container? I can imagine how tangy this beer would be,

>being poured right off the trub. Of course the happy smiling 'real

>people' are quaffing crystal clear, perfectly carbonated, 1 inch head,

>beer.

I have done this with a "Brew Sack" (tm).  Instead of using a glass

or plastic keg, they use a woven plastic bag with a plastic liner.

The "Brew Sack" comes pre-loaded with hopped malt syrup in one of three

varieties (Porter, Stout, Pilsner).  Just add hot (~150 degree) water

to dissolve the syrup, then add more water (20 pints total) to cool

down to ~95 degrees and add the yeast.  The bag is equipped with a

pressure relief valve in the screw-on cap and with a tap near the

bottom.

I kept mine for about 7-10 days at a reasonable room temperature, then

moved it downstairs to a room at about ~55 degrees for 4 weeks.

It was pretty lively when I opened it, but the carbonation seemed external,

somehow -- the beer never had much head by itself.  I guess this is not

surprising, since a plastic bag is not going to stand up to a lot of

pressure.

The beer (a Porter) was very rich and quite tasty.  It was *not* clear

(even for a Porter), but I was not bothered by any sediments.  I did

choose to pass on the last 2 inches of brew left in the bottom, though

I suppose it would be a good vitamin B-12 supplement?

This weekend I plan to start a Brown Ale that I will split between a

standard single-stage fermentation technique and the "Brew Sack".  Then

in 6 weeks or so I will have an official comparison taste test ---

provided that I can get the !@#$%^&* screw cap off of the Brew

Sack....

- --

John D. McCalpin                        mccalpin@perelandra.cms.udel.edu

Assistant Professor                     mccalpin@brahms.udel.edu

College of Marine Studies, U. Del.      John.McCalpin@mvs.udel.edu

------------------------------


Pierre Rajotte

Date: Mon, 10 May 93 09:04:08 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Pierre Rajotte

Does anyone have an address for Pierre?

Thanks, WAK

|- William A Kitch                          (512) 471-4929 -|

|- Geotechnical Engineering                                -|

|- ECJ 9.227                                               -|

|- Univ of Texas at Austin, TX 78712-1076                  -|

------------------------------


Re: Where's the Hops?

Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 09:55:01 -0500 (CDT)

From: dspalme@mke.ab.com (Diane Palme x2617)

Subject: Re: Where's the Hops?

Hi all!

Thanks ever so very much for the words of encouragement and wisdom.  My

mailbox overfloweth! :-)

Anyway, I stopped out by the garden yesterday and lo and behold!  The kids

are here!  The Hallertau and the Cascade have poked their heads up and the

Tattenanger is still being shy.  I swear they looked different between 12:00

and 4:30!  Yikes!  I haven't thrown any fertilizer on them (I am scared to!).

Again, I will keep all of you up to date.  There were too many respondants

to thank each and every one individually.  Let it suffice that your good

thoughts and kind words have stopped my worrying.

Happy Hopping!

Diane

- --

------------------------------


Draft Beer (was effects of light)

Date: Mon, 10 May 93 10:58:36 -0400

From: Ron Natalie <ron@topaz.bds.com>

Subject:  Draft Beer (was effects of light)

How about the fact that the beer isn't near-boiled after it's been fermented?

 -Ron

------------------------------


Nepalese and Tibeten Chan(g)

Date: Mon, 10 May 93 14:57:21 GMT

From: u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil (Markham R. Elliott)

Subject: Nepalese and Tibeten Chan(g)

I have a question for you beer scholars out there.  This past weekend my father-

in-law and I were quaffing a couple, and he asked me if anyone on the network

had ever mentioned "Chang".  He told me a story of when he went to Nepal and

began a climb of Mt. Everest (real story, fully documented etc, etc. he never

intended to go to the summit or anything, just wanted to 'climb' it, and he went

and climbed to one of the traditional base camps).

At any rate, he said it is a brewed beverage, consumed  during social and

sometimes at ceremonial gatherings (sometimes spelled as "Chan" by those in

Tibet).  Said it was quite strong, and (given the altitude) would really 'do

a number on you'.  He wants to know if anyone out there in HBD Land knows a

full history and recipe.

I've seen a couple of posts lately from some student(s) doing research on

brewing, so come on guys and gals, here is your chance to show us what you've

got.

Noch einmal, bitte!!  Mark

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 Markham R. Elliott                 u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil

 Information Technology Laboratory                     (601) 634-2921

 Waterways Experiment Station

 Vicksburg, Mississippi  USA

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Hops/2 Liter Bottles

Date: Mon, 10 May 93 10:14:26 CDT

From: greenbay@vnet.IBM.COM

Subject: Hops/2 Liter Bottles

I have two questions that I hope someone could answer for me.

1) On average, what does a single hops flower weigh? (A range would

   also be OK if that is easier.)

2) I heard a customer at a homebrew store saying that homebrew could

   safely bottled in 2 liter bottles. Does anybody have any information

   on this?

Thanks,

Bob Crowley

------------------------------


Isomerization

Date: Mon, 10 May 93 10:32:41 CDT

From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>

Subject: Isomerization

Two issues ago my eye was struck by the statement regarding the

processes involved in brewing and skunking "... isomerization is the

process by which longer chain molecules are made."  Well, I don't have a

PhD in Organic chemistry, yet.  Isomerization is simply a change in

structure or connectivity in a molecule.  I believe that in the alpha

acids, the isomerization involves the shifting of double bonds to form a

conjugated system (alternating double and single bonds in a chain) that

would indeed be more photoreactive.  I have been looking for a book that

explains the chemistry of brewing in more detail from beginning (pH of

Water, mineral effects) to end (the effects of light on beer, etc.)

Does anyone know of any sources or titles that would have this sort of

info?

Thanks

Anthony Johnston

Homebrewer, Chemist

anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu

"Better living through Chemistry"

"Zymurgy is Chemistry"

"Better living through Zymurgy"

A

 .

------------------------------


Sugars

Date: Mon, 10 May 93 10:01:37 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Sugars

I decided the hot Texas summer months were a good time to brew stong

Belgian ales.  I figured I'd better read up on the subject first;  I

started with Pierre Rajotte's _Belgian Ale_ (Classic Beer Style Series

#6).  A very interesting book w/a lot of info, but less than clear in

a number of places.  One of the unclear area is the subject of sugars.

Rajotte devotes 6 pages to description of sugars used in brewing but

left me confused.  So I re-read Miller's (_Complete Handbook of Home

Brewing_) section on sugars.  Some of what Miller says seem to

contradict Rajotte--more confusion.

   Here's what I think I know about various sugars.

   Corn sugar--aka glucose or dextrose.  A single sugar 100%

      fermentable. Adds no flavor to beer.

   Cane sugar--aka sucrose.  A double sugar made up of glucose and

      fructose.  Must first be broken into glucose and fructose before

      it can be fermented.  Fructose is apparently responsible for the

      cidery flavor in beers using a large amount of sucrose.

   Invert sugar--Sucrose that has already been split into glucose and

      fructose by acid reduction.  Has pH of 4 to 6.

   Brown sugar--Partially refined sucrose.  Produces rum like flavor in

      beer.

   Molasses-- I don't really know what the composition of molasses is.

   Demerara-- ?

   Treacle-- ?

   Candi--Sucrose that has been refined by slow crystalization.  May be

     light or dark or camelized?

   Honey-- I don't know what sugars are in honey.

   Malto-dextrin--Long sugars produced it mashing malt.  Not fermentable

      and tasteless.  Common homebrew lore it this adds body to beer but

      Miller (pg 61) says this is not so!

   The questions are:

      Can you fill the question marks above?

      Any errors above?

      If sucrose must be inverted before being fermented, how does this

         happen in the brewing process?  Is there an advantage to using

         invert sugar?

      Do you have sources for demerara, treacle, or candi?

      What sugars have you used for strong ales and with what results?

      Does malto-dextrin add body or not?

      Any suggested reading?

Looking forward to your responses, WAK

|- William A Kitch                          (512) 471-4929 -|

|- Geotechnical Engineering                                -|

|- ECJ 9.227                                               -|

|- Univ of Texas at Austin, TX 78712-1076                  -|

------------------------------


Re: thin mashes & not mashes

Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 09:16:14 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: thin mashes & not mashes

Into the discussion about thin vs thick mashes, I would interject

another source.  Unfortunately, I don't have my copies of the old

Amateur Brewer (under Fred Eckhardt's editorship) in front of me to

check numbers, but there was an issue focusing on the production of

wheat beers.  These were specifically Swiss weizens, which aren't

necessarily remarkable (and in fact have an extremely complex mash cycle

as I recall), but it was in that article that I first heard that thin

mashes were proteolytic.  I believe the article gave specifics on malt

to water ratios.

I don't know the answer.  My own experiences have been all over the map

on thickness and I've yet to discover any real difference in the

resulting beer.

Rdeaver is a bit confused:

>

> A while back, I recall somebody posting a comment about boiling wort.

> The post mentioned that if you brought the wort over a certain

> temperature (I believe it was 153 degrees F), you would convert some of

> the sugars to a non-fermentable form.

>

> I only have a half-dozen batches under my belt, and most have seemed a

> bit sweet.  The finishing gravities ave been around 1.002, but the brew

> had a heavy taste to it.

>

> Planning to launch off on another brewing session of Heavy Scottish Ale,

> I dropped into the local brewshop for a strainer bag.  The question

> raised was that if I did not boil the wort, would I have sterilization

> problems.  I will be using Briess DME, and this time will be using some

> specialty grains.  I always boil water ahead of time, to get rid of

> chlorine.

>

> What is the general consensus?  I have had this "sweet heaviness" with

> several batches; it is not recipe-specific.  The last batch, I went as

> far as using yeast nutrient.

>

Once the stuff is wort, all the conversions have taken place and no

amount of tinkering with the DME itself will change the relative

thickness of your beer.  If you are _really_ getting a finishing gravity

of 1.002, it's pretty clear that the beer isn't finishing too high --

it's more likely that you are under-hopping (your bittering hops).

Could it be that you're not adding hops at all but relying on a hopped

extract?

Another possibility is that you're misreading the hydrometer.  Could it

possibly be 1.020?  If so, then the problem is probably something

involving your yeast: you're not using enough, or you're not aerating

the wort at pitching time so that the yeast have insufficient oxygen and

poop out without ever finishing their fermentation.

BOIL the wort!  Make your best effort not to boil the grains you're

adding, however, regardless of what certain books might advise.  Better

you should steep the cracked grains at about 150F for 1/2 - 1 hour,

strain and rinse them with hot water and add your extract to the

resulting liquid.

Keep plugging away.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


Chill Haze Remover

Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 10:16:32 -0600 (CST)

From: Robert Schultz <Robert.Schultz@usask.ca>

Subject: Chill Haze Remover

 I saw some "Chill Haze Remover" - Cordon Bleu is the name (I think) made

in Burton-On-Trent, U.K. in my lolcal brewstore the other day.  The liquid is to

be used 5 ml to 5 gal (U.K.) to remove Chill Haze.

 Has anyone tried it?  Does it work?  I have a Plisner (lagering as I

speak) that appears to have some chill haze.  I am likely to use it on half of

the batch unless I hear glowing reports....

Thanks.

Robert.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I'm going off half-cocked? I'm going off half-cocked? ...

Well, Mother was right - You can't argue with a shotgun." - Gary Larson

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

------------------------------


Mash Stiffness

Date: Mon, 10 May 93 12:04 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Mash Stiffness

In personal email, Rich Goldstein pointed me to the passage I was

thinking of (in fact, he saved me the trouble of typing it in --

Thanks, Rich!):

Miller writes, in "The Complete Handbook of Homebrewing":

 Another factor influencing enzyme activity is stiffness

 (thickness) of the mash. A thin mash -- say 2.5 quarts of water

 per pound of grain -- ultimately favors a more complete

 breakdown of carbohydrates in the kettle. However, because the

 enzymes are more diluted, breakdown takes longer to achieve. On

 the other hand, a stiff mash -- around 1.33 quarts per pound,

 as I recommend -- initially favors starch breakdown; however,

 as amylolysis proceeds, the increasing concentration of sugars

 in the mash inhibits further enzyme activity. A stiff mash

 favors breakdown of proteins in the mash kettle, and it

 provides one other benefit: it protects the enzymes better. At

 any temperature, the thinner the mash, the faster the enzymes

 will be deactivated [p. 128]

Also, Brian Smithey wrote to me me mentioning that he begins his stovetop

mashing with a stiff mash and then thins it out later, I assume when going

from the protein rest up to the saccharification rest.  In a insulated

cooler step infusion mash, where the temperature is raised simply by adding

boiling water, this is inevitable, but in a stovetop mash, this is optional.

This would be an intersting area for experimentation... no?

Al.

------------------------------


Soda Keg relief valve replacements

Date:    Mon, 10 May 1993 13:34:10 -0400 (EDT)

From: TAYLOR@sbchm1.chem.sunysb.edu

Subject: Soda Keg relief valve replacements

 I have a 5 gal keg with a screw-in, springed, relief valve which

does not seal properly. Does anyone have an idea where I can get a replacement?

Thanks.

------------------------------


Micro and Brewpubs equipment requirements

Date: Mon, 10 May 93 14:27:15 EDT

From: Bruce=Kiley%SIG%SNI%sig@sni-usa.com

Subject: Micro and Brewpubs equipment requirements

Greetings,

Once upon a time a saw a document somewhere that listed what equipment would

be needed to start up a microbrewery or a brewpub.  Does anyone have that

document on know where to find it?  If anyone has some info they could send

me that would be great.

Thanks,

Bruce Kiley

Please reply to brucek@sig.sni-usa.com

------------------------------


IBU's for Weissbierxxx zen

Date: Mon, 10 May 93 15:37:46 EDT

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: IBU's for Weissbierxxx zen

   While reading the recipies in Warner's book on German Wheat Beer

it seemed to me that the suggested amount of hops (2.6 HBU's for a

5 gallon batch) seemed too small to attain 15 IBU's of bitterness.

Especially, since he recommends boiling 1/2 of the hops for 60 minutes,

1/4 for 30 minutes and the remaining 1/4 for the last 10 minutes.

Using the formula from Rager's article in the Zymurgy Hops Special Issue

          W(oz) X %A X %U X 7462        HBU X %U X 74.62

   IBU = ----------------------   =     ---------------   = HBU X %U X 14.9

                V(gal)                        5

we get

   IBU = 1.3 X 0.30 X 14.9      (1.3 HBU's 30% utilization for 60 min)

       + 0.65 X 0.153 X 14.9    (0.65 HBU's 15.3% utilization for 30 min)

       + 0.65 X 0.06 X 14.9     (0.65 HBU's 6% utilazation for 10 min)

       = 5.81 + 1.48 + 0.58

       = 7.87   (7.9 with rounding)

This seems significant since it is only a little more than half the

target of 15 IBU's that Warner claims!  Even if you assume the full

30% utilization figure for all the hops added the value is 11.6.

Checking the Glossary in Warner's book he uses the formula (bottom of p 139)

for IBU as

 IBU = H X (a% + b%/9) / 0.3

(actually Warner has a typo and his formula for IBU reads HBU =...)

where

       H is the weight of hops in grams per liter

       a% is the alpha acid per cent

       b% is the beta acid per cent

       9  is a factor indicating that the flavoring power of alpha acids

   is about nine times greater than beta acids.

       0.3 represents an approximate 30% efficiency rate in hop extraction

    caused by vaporization or precipitation.

It seems to me that since Warner is dividing by 0.3 he is in effect

assuming a utilization rate of 33.3%.  With this formula (I'll omit the

details) you get 13 IBU's (neglecting the beta acid per cent).

Can anyone out there explain this discrepancy?  I don't think that Eric

Warner has a Ph.D in mathematics from Harvard so he shouldn't be making

arithmetic errors (sorrry George).

The only other exlanation I could think of is that Warner

is assuming a 33.3% utilization rate independent of the time of boil

and that the beta acid content is always about 1.4 times the alpha acid

content.

By the way, I think that Warner did a great job on his research for the

book, and have found it otherwise well written and full of very useful

information.

Bill Szymczak

------------------------------


Book recommendation

Date: 10 May 93 15:51:05 EST

From: Matthew Mitchell <IEKP898%tjuvm.bitnet@TJUVM.TJU.EDU>

Subject: Book recommendation

From:  Matthew Mitchell

At the ASBMB last year, I picked up a copy of "The Biotechnology of Malting

and Brewing" by J.S. Hough (Cambridge U. Press: 1985 :their address is

40 W 20th, NY NY 10011-4211!) which is now out in paperback.

I cannot recommend this book enough to those of you who have an interest in

all-grain brewing, yeast culture, and any of the more technical aspects of

brewing.  It covers the entire process from barley to barrel, with

descriptions of how commercial breweries produce their swill.

All aspects are clearly explained in terms understandable by someone who has

taken freshman chem and bio in college.  There are plenty of diagrams which

serious  homebrewers might try as a starting point for their experiments

with equipment and technique.  There's even some economic analysis and

discussion of commercial aspects.

Howzat!?!

Matthew Mitchell     <iekp898@tjuvm.tju.edu>   <iekp898@tjuvm.bitnet>

Former Brewmaster, Penthouse Brewing Co., Haverford PA

makers of Barclay Beer, Penthouse Brown Ale, and Big B Malt Liquor

------------------------------


re ethylene and ripening

Date: 10 May 1993 16:54:30 -0400 (EDT)

From: POLLARD%FRMNVAX1.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu

Subject: re ethylene and ripening

Did somebody call for a botanist??  Effects of ethylene on barley have

been studied.  It stimulates the release of gibberellin-induced

alpha-amylase from the aleurone cells into the endosperm.  In English,

that means it triggers another hormone (gibberelin) to induce the

formation of an enzyme that will convert starches into sugars.  So I

guess there's some potential here ... (?)

Joe Pollard

------------------------------


FX Matt Brewery

Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 17:23:30 -1100

From: Kirk_Anderson@wheatonma.edu (Kirk Anderson)

Subject: FX Matt Brewery

I was glad to see Lisa St Hilaire's posting in HBD #1137 regarding

the FX Matt Brewery.  There aren't a lot of things I miss

about living in Utica, but that's one of them.  I always bought

Saranac when I was a local, but when I went back for a visit, even

the draft Matt's tasted pretty decent.

I always sniggered during that part of the tour where you see

the famous 'Brooklyn' beer, the 'Philadelphia' beer, the 'Boston' beer,

and lord knows what others being created right there, two blocks from

my house.

More important, my letter to the president, FX Matt III (I'd suggested

he not charge for tours, and promote Saranac more vigorously), received

a response that was warm, polite and personal.  I was impressed.

In the same HBD, Randall Holt asks if any homebrewers have tried

fermenting and carbonation in the same container.  I was puzzled

when I saw this is exactly what they do at Matt's (and the other big

breweries, I assume).  Is there a pressure control that guarantees the

desired carbonation? Does their 'air lock' become a 'cork' at some

point in the process?  I don't think there was any mention of priming

during the tour at all.  How do dey do dat?

prosit! to all and to all a good night

Kirk

------------------------------


out on my own

Date: Mon, 10 May 93 17:40:32 EDT

From: Joe Rolfe <jdr@wang.com>

Subject: out on my own

hi all, just to inform some of you waiting for pierre rajottes feedback - it

is comming.  but recently i was laid off :) from wang to pursue other more

intresting venture (see sig file).  as a result i dont get much of chance to

read the list or mail for that matter.  i will asure those who sent

questions to me for pierre and his book will get a response ASAP...

happy brewing to all and support the small breweries nation wide!

- --

joe rolfe    - President/Brewer - Ould Newbury Brewing Company

jdr@wang.com - X Wang Employee, but still have an account

508-462-1980 - the brewery

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1138, 05/11/93

*************************************

-------


FX Matts

Date: Tue, 11 May 93 08:54:19 EDT

From: envkas@sn370.utica.ge.com (Karl A. Sweitzer)

Subject: FX Matts

The FX Matt Brewing Co is now supporting the homebrew community too.  They

have the been the gracious sponsor of the Mohawk Valley Friends of Beer for

about two years now.  They converted a room in the back of their "Brewery

Shop" into a test kitchen where we have taught homebrew classes and where

we hold our meetings.  They now also sell homebrew supplies.

Their Associate Brew Master, Jim Kuhr, is also a homebrewer.  He has made

5 gal batches right in their lab!  He and the Senior Brew Master Norm

Grisewood are also studying for the BJCP exam.  Pam Kuhr runs the homebrew

shop.  All of the people at the brewery have been very open about

information and techniques, but don't try to ask about recipes.

Our homebrew club has had the luxury of going on private tours with the

brew masters.  Other homebrew clubs have also arranged tours with the

brewery.  Their address is 811 Edward St, Utica, NY 13502

To answer Kirk Anderson's questions, they do use high kraeusen wort to

prime their lager beers.  They also recycle the CO2 that is produced in

fermentation for use later for purging empty storage vessels, etc..

Karl Sweitzer

envkas@sn370.utica.ge.com

------------------------------


Going Blind, Egg Drop Soup, Worms

Date: Tue, 11 May 93 08:04 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Going Blind, Egg Drop Soup, Worms

 >From: Steve Dempsey <steved@longs.lance.colostate.edu>

 >Subject: Re: Methanol (aka wood alcohol)

 >Methanol production requires:

    1) the proper yeast (wild yeasts)

    2) unique fermentables (cellulose == wood, grain husks)

 The "going blind" momily has nothing to do with making beer or even with

 distilling white lightn'n.

 It has to do with the fact that, in the good old days,  unscrupulous

 producers, middlemen and even a well meaning friend would add commercial

 alcohol to booz to streatch his fermented/distilled mash.  If he used the

 wrong kind of alcohol, either methanol or denatured ethanol, the result was

 poison and one of the symptoms could be blindness.    There is no way you can

 make anything that will cause blindlness by mashing, fermenting and

 distilling the kind of stuff normally used in beer and whiskey.

 ...............

 While on momilies, let's talk about the rolling boil and "great hot-break"

 momily.

 I have always been a bit disappointed with the sleazy little bits of

 coagulated protein in my brew kettle.  I boil on my aluminum melting furnace

 for at least 90 minutes in a 16 gal kettle.  I can bring 10 gal to a furious

 boil in about 15 minutes.

 Several weeks ago, I did a batch on my kitchen stove with an EASYMASHER

 installed in an 8 gal kettle just to prove that it can be done without any

 fancy burners.

 The result was a "boil" that I would describe more as a circulation and I do

 not recall seeing a single bubble break the surface.

 In spite of this, I evaporated the six gallons down to 5 and had coagulated

 protein floating around that I could have made lasagna with.

 So it would seem that if one wants "great hot-break", ease up on the heat.

 I also made believe I didn't own a wort chiller and let it cool naturally to

 pitching temp and, after cleaning and sterilizing the kettle, did the primary

 ferment in it.

 It is now clearing nicely in a carboy and last night's sample would indicate

 that it is not significantly different from any other ale I have made with

 the same ingredients and far more bother.

 I wait with BATED* breath.

 * It has been pointed out to me that "baited breath" results

   from having a mouth full of worms.

 js

------------------------------


Koch, GABF, and Ancient History

Date:      Tue, 11 May 1993 09:54:58 EDT

From: "Marlene Spears" <hopfen!marlene@uunet.UU.NET>

Subject:   Koch, GABF, and Ancient History

Being a senior citizen of the Kochpeace foundation, I thought I'd

recollect for the young whippersnappers on HBD and flame a little

to warm the hearts of the gray haired set.

For you reference hounds, Summer 1987 issue of American Brewer

magazine, page 15, Vince Cottone's article:  "Beer & Loathing in

Denver:  The Great American Beer Festival 1986"; and Fall 1987 issue AB,

page 26, Vince Cottone continues:  "Movement in the Right Direction:

The Great American Beer Festival".

Koch introduced the "sex even sells contract beers" slant at the 1985

GABF.  Until he came along, the popularity contest actually had something

to do with the taste of the beer.  But he added freebies (baseball caps

and tee shirts?) and had solicitous servers working the crowd.  He won

that year.  The next year, he had some competition (Pennsylvania Pils

had a nice Blonde urging you to try "the beer with body"), but his freebies

turned the Trick again.

In 1987, however, Koch had some strong competition in the ballot stuffing

category.  He almost lost to Boulder Brewing, but he managed to pass out

hundreds of free GABF tickets through his "assistants", with the

only string being "vote for my beer".  So he won again.  BTW, it was

Lightship that year, not the Boston Lager, which never won three years

in a row.  His advertising is kinda like saying George Bush won

the Presidential election three times in a row (1980/1984/1988).

Get the picture?  No?  Well, in 1988 Koch wasn't ALLOWED to compete

in the GABF "Best Beer in America" contest.  So the GABF organizers

belatedly got the picture.  By then, though, they'd lost

a lot of support from the sensible Northwest folk who had set up their

own Oregon Brewers' Festival and didn't invite Smadams, even though it

was indeed being produced under contract by H. Weinhard's.

But enough of history.  Get back to your brew kettles!

- --

- --------------

marlene@hopfen.rsi.com

------------------------------


Fast fermentation - is this a problem?

Date: Tue, 11 May 93 09:07:19 CDT

From: hinz@memphis.med.ge.com (David Hinz)

Subject: Fast fermentation - is this a problem?

<Insert standard greeting of your choice here>

I've done about a half-dozen batches, including my first all-grainer last

weekend, and each of them have something in common - they all ferment out

quicker than Papazian says they will.  I don't know if this is a problem,

a good sign, or what, so here's the details.....

For my last batch ("Silver Dollar Porter", all-grain) I used Wyeast

"British Ale" (1098????), pitched into a quart of starter wort a day

ahead of time.  There was a bit of foam on the surface of the starter

but no krausen to speak of. (foam was maybe 1/8" thick).  I pitched it

anyway because the wort was ready for it.  I chilled the wort to 75(F).

The next morning, I got up, the wort was fermenting wildly, I needed to

use a blow-off tube in a 6.5 gallon carboy.  That's another thing Papazian

says you'll never need to do, but I've done it on two batches.  The strange

thing is the temperature of the wort was up to 82(F), even though it was

cool in the house that night.

I started the batch on Saturday, and this morning the bubble rate was down

to once every 30 seconds or so, which to me means time for the secondary,

and/or wait until saturday or sunday and bottle.  It seems that that is the

pattern, I brew one saturday and bottle the next.  From what I've read,

however, it's usually several to many weeks between cooking & bottling.

I can see a couple of possibilities here.  1> I'm just getting a good start

with my yeast, and I'm worrying,  2> I'm not letting it finish (probably not

the case, I bottle when the gravity stops moving for a couple of days and the

bubbles are once/90 seconds), or  3> I should pitch at a lower temperature.

So, what's the deal?  or is it 4> (insert reason here)?

Thanks for any info you can help with.

Dave Hinz

P.S.  The many responses I got about going all-grain were fantastic, thanks

to anyone who I might not have written to personally.  The advice, hints,

and "Don't forget"s were quite helpful!

------------------------------


Honey & Contests

Date: 11 May 93 05:05:11 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Honey & Contests

Message Creation Date was at 11-MAY-1993 09:35:00

          Greetings,

               I've a couple of questions I'd like to raise:

          1.  I just bottled a honey-beer.  Honey contributed

          approximately 40% of the fermentable sugars.  The OG was

          1.060 and the FG was 1.007.  I used Wyeast 1056, so I

          expected from 70 to 75% attenuation and an FG of around

          1.016.  I also had the beer spend 2 weeks in primary and 2

          weeks in secondary.

               a.  Does honey ferment to a greater attenuation?

               b.  Did the long time in the fermenters combined with

                   the use of honey cuase it to ferment to so low an

                   FG?

               c.  When I sampled a small portion during bottling the

                   beer seemed to be full bodied.  Am I worrying about

                   nothing?

          2.  I just received the results from the two beers I entered

          in the "Nations Capital Spirit of Free Beer Competion".  I'm

          not complaining about the results, but rather I'm not

          certain as to the purpose.  I was told that I would be able

          to get helpful feed-back on my entries.  In some caes I did,

          in other cases there would be no comments and just a number

          (lower than the maximum score).  For feed-back purposes that

          sucks.  However, if the purpose of the competion is simply

          to pick the best beer in each category, then I guess that is

          acceptable.  Please inform me - just what is the purpose of

          these competitions?

          Thanks

          Andy Anderson

------------------------------


Chang

Date: Tue, 11 May 1993 10:12:00 EST

From: "/R=FDACB/R=A1/U=RIDGELY/O=HFM-400/TN=FTS 402-1521/FFN=Bill Ridgely/"@mr.cber.fda.gov

Subject: Chang

In HBD #1138, Mark Elliott writes:

     >I have a question for you beer scholars out there.  This past

     weekend my father-in-law and I were quaffing a couple, and he asked

     me if anyone on the network had ever mentioned "Chang".

     >At any rate, he said it is a brewed beverage, consumed during

     social and sometimes at ceremonial gatherings (sometimes spelled

     as "Chan" by those in Tibet).  Said it was quite strong, and (given

     the altitude) would really 'do a number on you'.  He wants to know

     if anyone out there in HBD Land knows a full history and recipe.

Well, since my colleague Wendy Aaronson and I will be giving a

presentation on chang at this year's AHA Conference, I suppose this puts

us in good position to help with your question.

Chang is one of many names given to the indigenous grain beers brewed

throughout the Indian subcontinent and the Himalayas. The Indians call

the beer pachwai and brew it mostly from rice. Nepali chang is brewed

from rice, millet, barley, and occasionally corn. In Tibet, the beer

(usually spelled "chung") is brewed almost exclusively from barley.

The key ingredient, however, is not the grain but the yeast cake known

variously as bakhar (India), marcha (Nepal), or phap (Tibet).

Preparation of yeast cake is a cottage industry throughout the region,

and there is considerable pride taken in the quality of the various

cakes produced regionally. Consensus among the Tibetans in our area is

that yeast cakes from Darjeeling make the finest chang.

The yeast cakes contain a combination of Saccharomyces and other fungi,

primarily Aspergillus and Mucor. The various microflora work in

combination to convert the starch in the unmalted grains to sugars and

then ferment them. The resulting beer is fairly low in alcohol initially

but has potential to become quite strong if left to ferment for an

extended period.

Preparation of chang is fairly simple. The grains (approximately 1/4

kilo per liter or roughly 2 lbs per gallon of finished chang) are

washed, boiled until soft, then drained and spread out on a nampo or

shallow basket. The yeast cake is crushed, mixed with a little flour or

tsampa (Tibetan barley malt powder), then worked thoroughly into the

cooled grain. The whole mass is then covered (traditionally with banana

leaves) and left to ferment. After several days, much of the mass is

liquified and converted to young chang. At this stage, it can be

consumed as a thick gruel, or the remaining grain can be strained out,

making a true beverage chang. As mentioned earlier, the beer can be left

to ferment further and will become stronger over time.

Chang is consumed regularly in the home as well as at weddings,

 funerals, and other ceremonial occasions. A large body of tradition (and

music) has been built over the centuries to accompany the ceremonial

consumption of both young and old chang.

Anyone interested in these indigenous beers may want to attend our

presentation at this year's conference. Wendy and I will be serving our

own interpretations of chang as well as chicha (the ancient corn beer

of the Andes). It should be a lot of fun, and we look forward to meeting

many of the regular HBD contributors.

Nemaste!

Bill Ridgely

ridgely@cber.cber.fda.gov

------------------------------


sugars/belgian beer brewing

Date: Tue, 11 May 1993 09:47:58 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: sugars/belgian beer brewing

William Kitch had some comments on sugars in the last hbd.  Here are

some comments on his comments.

Brown sugar (in USA) is refined white sugar with added molasses.

Molasses is any of various thick syrups produced in refining sugars.

There are two or three distillations, of which the thickest is

blackstrap molasses.  As blackstrap molasses is strongly flavored,

look for mild molasses.

Treacle is found in England, and is similar to molasses.

Whether or not there are any differences in process or end result, what

I can find as demerara or turbinado sugar appears to be the same thing.

It is rocky and light amber in color, and is only partly refined.  Various

forms of this sugar are widely available.  Turbinado sugar can be found

in health food and natural food stores.  I recently saw a 5 pound bag

at GNC for about $6.  Raw Sugar and Sugar in the Raw are available at

commercial grocery stores.  Sucanat(tm) can be found in 1 pound cans.

Does anyone have any domestic sources for candi sugar?  I recently got

my hands on some from Belgium.  The sugar is either light -- kind of

frosty white, not glassy clear like rock candy -- or dark (brownish

or dark amber).  It also comes in two sizes -- small and large.  I

think Rajotte says somewhere that the simple sugar mix in candi sugar

is desirable.  Also, he says that sugars are used for coloring.  A pound

of the dark candi sugar added to a beer made with only pale malts would

result in an amber-to-brown beer.  The other reason to add sugar is to

produce a high-gravity beer that is not all malt, because at high gravities

an all-malt beer can be quite weighty and palate-satiating.  In a similar

vein, homemade brown malt (say oven-toast pale malt for 40 minutes at

400 degrees F) or Special-B (200 - 220L) malt used in small amounts

will provide coloring without adding much of a flavor contribution.

Note that Rajotte's recipes avoid highly-roasted grains (chocolate malt,

black malt, roasted barley) and also avoid large additions of crystal malt.

Honeys should be experimented with in brewing.  Light honeys, such as

clover honey, alfalfa honey, thistle honey, or even orange blosssom

honey, could be used in light-colored beers, while darker honey,

such as buckwheat or autumn wildflower honey, could be used in amber

to dark beers.  One of the Mad Brewer's beers -- is it Oerbier? -- uses

some honey.

Finally, isn't invert sugar directly assimilable by the yeast?  Other sugars

must first be inverted or otherwise broken down by the yeast.

------------------------------


beer color in Fix&Fix VMO

Date: 11 May 1993 11:44:28 -0400 (EDT)

From: Frank Tutzauer <COMFRANK@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu>

Subject: beer color in Fix&Fix VMO

All right, the semester's finally over, and I've got time to catch up on my

digests.  I've got quite a few questions and tidbits that have been

accumulating, and now that activity on the digest has slowed somewhat, coupled

with my new found time, it's time to post.

First, let's start with Vienna, Marzen, Oktoberfest by George and Laurie Fix.

I just recently purchased this book and it's dynamite, although, as usual,

Brewers Publications has done a sloppy job of printing.  One of the first

things I did was dig up the errata sheet posted by Laurie Fix way back in HBD

859.  I seem to have the first printing, and I don't know if a second printing

is yet out, but I did catch an error not listed on the correction sheet.  In

particular, on pg. 88 they are discussing the calculation of beer color.  The

example they are using has 7.5 lbs of 1.8L malt and 9/16 lbs of 20L malt,

which gives a Lovibond rating of 7.5(1.8) + (9/16)(20) = 13.5 + 11.25 = 24.75.

But when they normalize to 5 gallons, they calculate 25.75/5 = 5.15, which is

a mathematically true statement, but has the wrong numerator (25.75, instead

of 24.75).  I believe the correct equation should be 24.75/5 = 4.95.

Relatedly, concerning the nifty graph on p. 91 showing Lovibond as a function

of dilution water added to a 20ml sample of 17L Michelob dark:  I fit an

exponential decay model to the data in the graph, and thought those of you who

program or otherwise need the equation would be interested.  The model is:

y = a + b*exp(-c*x)

where y is the Lovibond to be calculated, x is the dilution in ml, and the

constants are

a = 1.6545419

b = 15.354601

c = 1/65.709196.

The fit of the model is excellent (R2 = .999996), but only use it in the range

17L to 2L.  The reason is because, as Darryl Richman points out in HBD 854,

the curve flattens past 17L.  The exponential decay, of course, does not, so

extrapolating beyond 17L will give you major bad numbers.

------------------------------


review of THREAD v2.1

Date: 11 May 1993 11:44:53 -0400 (EDT)

From: Frank Tutzauer <COMFRANK@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu>

Subject: review of THREAD v2.1

Those of you who search back digests with Tom Kaltenbach's THREAD program for

the IBM PC will be happy to know that Tom has released a new version, THREAD

2.1, which introduces a few improvements over version 1.2.  (See Tom's

announcement in HBD 1127 and HBD 1131 for archive info, etc.) For those of you

who have never used it, THREAD allows the user to input one or more search

strings which the program then searches for in specified HomeBrew Digests.

Because it is tailor made for the HBD, THREAD is much faster than generic

text-search programs, and easily allows the user to follow a discussion

thread, locate a specific article, or gather all articles on any subject of

interest.

NEW FEATURES

The enhancements of version 2.1 that I particularly like are:

1.  Overwrite protection.  When the user specifies an existing file for

    output, THREAD 2.1 gives the user the choice of overwriting, appending, or

    aborting.

2.  Numerical-order searches.  Version 1.2 searched the digests in the order

    in which they appeared, whereas 2.1 searches them in numerical order.

    This is convenient if you want to interrupt the search midway through, so

    that when you return you can easily pick up the search where it left off.

3.  Keyword highlighting.  When an article is displayed on the screen, all

    occurences of the keyword(s) are highlighted, making it easier to discern

    the context within which the keyword is used.

4.  Improved cursor movement.  The user can use the up and down arrow keys and

    PageUp and PageDown to move through the found article.

5.  Naive multitasking.  In version 1.2, THREAD would search for a message,

    display it, and then continue the search after the user had read the

    message and decided whether or not to keep it.  In version 2.1, the

    program continues searching *while* the user is reading the previously

    found message, thus greatly decreasing the apparent search time.

6.  Search statistics.  When in automatic mode, THREAD displays a count of the

    number of files and messages searched, the number of matches found, and

    the number of matches written to the output file.  The file count, in

    particular, is useful inasmuch as it gives you an idea of how much

    progress has been made if you are searching a really huge number of

    digests.

PERFORMANCE

Being the geek that I am, I decided to do some comparative speed tests between

the old and new versions.  I happened to have 82 digests in a directory, so I

used these to compare version 1.2 to 2.1.  The machine I used is a very old

8086, so we're talking sloooow.  I began by conducting a very broad search.  I

simply searched for "beer" in the 82 digests, and put the programs into

automatic search mode (in the interactive mode, there really *is* no

comparison--because of the naive multitasking, THREAD 2.1 wins hands down).

THREAD 1.2 completed the search in 6 minutes and 20 seconds.  THREAD 2.1 took

6 minutes and 58 seconds--slightly slower.  I don't know why--maybe because of

the search statistics.  Next, I wanted to do a search that required a lot of

gyrating because of a complicated boolean search, so I had the programs search

for "malt and mill or maltmill but not miller".  After I input this search

criterion, I realized what a doofus I was since if the program found

"malt" and "mill" it would also find "maltmill"--still, since the program

evaluates the string anyway, the search criterion still meets my standard of

being a (needlessly) complicated search.  Anyway, THREAD 1.2 took 12 minutes

and 17 seconds, whereas THREAD 2.1 finished in 12 minutes flat.  Finally, I

wanted to see how the programs would fare on a faster machine, so I copied

the 82 digests to my 80486 (33 MHz) and reran the the above

"malt ... not miller" search.  THREAD 1.2 finished in 1 minute and 2

seconds, and THREAD 2.1 completed in a mere 43 seconds.

WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE IN FUTURE VERSIONS

Only two things.  The first is rather picky:  When in automatic mode, while

the program is updating the search statistics, the cursor jumps around the

screen in an annoying fashion.  This wasn't a problem in the previous version,

because there weren't any search statistics.  A list of files searched

scrolled up the screen, so the cursor wasn't a problem.  In the new version,

although I *like* the search stats, I just wish the cursor didn't jump around.

(I told you it was picky.)

The second enhancement I would like to see, though, is more substantive.

Currently, when input strings are connected with logical operators, the

program parses the input by simply resolving the operations left to right.  I

would like the ability to use parentheses to control the parsing.  For

example, someone wanting to read articles about the beer color in

Vienna, Marzen, Oktoberfest (sound familiar?) might reasonably want to

conduct a search for (George or Laurie or Fix) and (SRM or Lovibond).

Currently, the only way to do so would be to conduct *two* searches.  One

for "George or Laurie or Fix and SRM" and another for "George or Laurie

or Fix and Lovibond".  This works, but a single search would be nicer.

Unfortunately, my guess is that it would take quite a substantial revision of

the logic of the program to allow parenthetic input.  Even as it is, however,

Tom's THREAD program is a gem.  Before I got it, I would use Magellan or

WordPerfect or something, and it took *hours* to search my HBD collection.

Now I can finish it in minutes.  Thanks, Tom!

- --frank

p.s.  In addition to being a good programmer, Tom must be a pretty fair

brewer, too.  He took first place in the porter category at the recent

Upstate NY Homebrewers Assoc. annual competition.  Congratulations.

------------------------------


Anchor Steam practices: a compilation

Date: 11 May 1993 11:45:28 -0400 (EDT)

From: Frank Tutzauer <COMFRANK@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu>

Subject: Anchor Steam practices: a compilation

Now that I mash, I thought I would try again to mimic Anchor Steam.  My

extract version was pretty decent, but it missed in a few key respects that I

thought I might be able to rectify by mashing.  In anticipation of brewing an

Anchor Steam clone, I went through all my back digests as well as other

materials I had lying around, and collected every scrap of information I could

find.  I have compiled it in a collection of notes, which I have printed

below.

My purpose is two-fold.  First, discussions of Anchor Steam come up every so

often, but always in little bits and pieces.  I thought it would be a good

idea to have everything in one place.  Second, of course, I want to *brew*

this beer, so I thought by publishing this in the digest you could tell me

what I've got right, what I've got wrong, and what I've got missing.

I cite my references by number in square brackets.  A lot of the things I say

below I say as though they are undisputed facts, when, in reality, they are

opinions and guesses (we are back-engineering, after all).  So, when I say

something like "Anchor Steam is brewed with an upward infusion mash [1]" what

I really mean is:   "ACCORDING TO REFERENCE 1, Anchor Steam is brewed with an

upward infusion mash."  *I* don't have any first hand knowledge of the

material below.  Of all the references, number 1 is the most trustworty (it's

Fritz Maytag's article in the Beer Styles issue of Zymurgy).

Finally, I want to express my thanks to everyone on the digest who contributed

the information I am summarizing, and also to Tom Kaltenbach for THREAD

version 2.1, without which I would not have been able to compile these

comments.

Ok, here we go:

GRAIN BILL

Anchor Steam is all-malt [1,5] made from 2-row pale malt [1,3,5,6,7] and

crystal (caramel) malt [1,3,7].  No one has reported the proportion of pale to

crystal, but this ratio will be in large part influenced (but not completely

determined) by the gravity of the wort and color of the finished beer.  See

SPECS below.

MASH AND SPARGE

Anchor Steam is brewed with an upward infusion mash [1] that varies according

to the particular malt varieties [1].  A typical (common?) mash schedule

consists of 3 different temperatures [3], with a mash out of 160F [2] and, I

believe, a protein rest of 125-126F.  My evidence for the protein rest is an

inference on my part from reference [6].  My copy of reference [6] is actually

a reprint from BREWERS DIGEST, and on the cover of the reprint is a great big

color photograph of Fritz Maytag standing next to what is very clearly the

mash tun.  An easy-to-read temperature dial on the tun reads 52C, which is

125.6F (unless I've miscalculated).  I suppose it's possible that they were

actually heating or cooling the tun at the time of the photograph, and the

temperature was on the way up or down, with the photo being snapped at the

moment that it was 52C.  I find it easier to believe, however, that they were

at a *rest* point, which says "protein rest" to me.

In any event, they conduct a 2-hour sparge [3] with 160F water [2].

BOILING AND HOPPING

Anchor boils for one and a half hours [3] with whole hops [5,6] added

throughout the boil [3].  They use "a significant amount" of Northern Brewer

hops [1], and bitter at a level of 33 IBUs [1], although others have claimed

the rate is 40 IBUs [4].  I am inclined to believe the lower figure since it

comes from Fritz himself.  The quantity of hops used is approximately 1 pound

per barrel [6], which (if I am correct that a barrel is about 31 US gallons),

amounts to a shade over 2 and 1/2 ounces per 5-gallon batch.

Although most agree that Anchor uses only Northern Brewer hops in its steam

beer [e.g., 7], one occasionally sees other hops mentioned, for example,

Hersbrucker [4] or Galena [7].

With regard to dry hopping, the common wisdom is that Liberty Ale is the only

regular Anchor product to be dry hopped, although there is indirect evidence

to the contrary.  In particular, reference [5] is promotional material that I

received from the Anchor reps at the 1992 Buffalo Beer Fest. (Actually, they

were probably representatives of the local distributor of Anchor Steam).

Although the section on Anchor's steam beer does not *explicitly* state that

it is dry hopped, the Liberty Ale entry says:  "Hops are added [to Liberty

Ale] during aging (a process called dry-hopping) [to] further heighten the

aroma.  This is one of the secrets behind the notable bouquets of *all* Anchor

Brewing's beers."  Parentheses are theirs, brackets are mine, and the emphasis

on *all* is mine.  This sentence would seem to imply that Anchor Steam is

dry-hopped.  I asked one of the Anchor reps if my understanding of the

sentence was correct.  He was clue free, and I commented (jokingly and

good-naturedly), "Gee they sent the wrong guy down here."  A while later (when

I went back for seconds), the rep had obviously checked it out, because he

made a point of dragging me over to the side to tell me that, "Yes, they do

double-hop it."  Double-hop?!?  Well, I figured he meant dry hop.

In any event, take this dry-hopping information with a grain of salt.  It is

based on inference and the remarks of a local distributor, rather than someone

who actually worked in the brewery.  Just from taste, I personally believe

Anchor Steam is *not* dry-hopped.

FERMENTATION

A bottom-fermenting yeast is pitched at 60F [1].  Most everyone suggests using

Wyeast California Lager, but I have also had good success with Wyeast American

Lager.  The fermentation is conducted at 60F [3], and the peak temperature is

limited "very carefully" [1].  The fermenters are shallow copper pans.  Anchor

typically conducts a 3-day primary and a 3-week secondary [7].  The beer is

lagered at 50F [3].

CONDITIONING

Anchor Steam is kraeusened [1,7] to give 2.8 volumes of CO2 [1].  It is

conditioned in the low 50s (degrees F) [1], and the carbonation takes place in

sealed stainless-steel containers over several weeks time [6].  It is flash-

pasteurized at 170F and bottled so as to have extremely low levels of oxygen,

with only CO2 in the headspace [7].

SPECS

O.G.    = 1.049 - 1.050 [1]

F.G.    = approx. 1.013 [1]

IBU     = 33            [1]

SRM     = 11-13         [1]

Alcohol = 3.9% (weight) [7]

          4.7% (volume) [1]

REFERENCES

1.  Maytag, Fritz (1991).  California common beer.  ZYMURGY, 14, 50-52.  [This

is Fritz's article on Anchor Steam look alikes for the Traditional Beer Styles

special issue.]

2.  Fix, George J.  (Jan. 15, 1992).  Sparge temperatures.  HomeBrew Digest

#1068.  [George is citing Mark Carpenter of Anchor Brewing.]

3.  Sassen, Tim.  (April 13, 1993).   Tips gleaned from Anchor brewing tour.

HomeBrew Digest #1132.

4.  Dipalma, Jim.  (Dec. 1, 1992).  Re: Wyeast 2112, counter pressure

bottling.  HomeBrew Digest #1028.  [Jim is recalling a tour report posted

"some time ago" in the Digest.  He says his IBU figure is from Eckhardt.]

5.  No author.  (Aug. 1984).  Going against the grain.  TWA AMBASSADOR, pp.

36-38.  [This is promotional material I received from Anchor at the Buffalo

Beer Fest.]

6.  Kellett, Ann H.  (June 1988).  The first little national brewery.  BREWERS

DIGEST, reprint.  [Again, promotional material.  I don't know if the

photograph of Fritz appears in the actual journal, or just on the reprint.]

7.  Dunn, Dick.  (Dec. 5, 1991).  Notes from a tour of Anchor.  HomeBrew

Digest #777.

------------------------------


Sam Adams

Date: Tue, 11 May 93 11:58:08 -0400

From: esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

Subject: Sam Adams

As Steve Stroud says, some of Sam Adams is brewed in the Jamaica Plain

section of Boston (which actually used to be the center of brewing in

Boston because of its better than average water quality) but when I went on

a tour there, they said 5% of their beer is brewed there.  The rest is

contract brewed all over the country and at a place in Germany.  The reason

they cited should sit will with all of you HBDers: freshness.  Just as

Anchor's beer is either unavailable or scarce on the east coast, because

Sam Adams says it's concerned about it beer traveling over long distances

and thus delivering a less fresh product to the consumer.  I guess the way

they justify calling it a micro-brewer is that it brews in smaller batches

than AB or Miller and each brewery serves a specific area.  Decide for

yourself.

One other interesting note on SA is that even though they say they are so

concerned with freshness, they pasteurize all their bottled beer because

"we're worried a distributer will not take care of it properly and the

consumer will blame us for a lousy product."  So if you want to judge SA

you should find it on tap.

Eugene Sonn

esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

------------------------------


Possible problems with Wyeast 1028

Date: Tue, 11 May 93 12:47:03 EDT

From: richer@desi.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Al Richer)

Subject: Possible problems with Wyeast 1028

 I don't know if anybody else is going to be there, but I am going to be in

Atlanta in early June for the DECUS Symposium. If anybody else is there,

feel like getting together to talk a little homebrewing, and drink a little

beer?

 But now on to brewing stuff...

 Recently I made a generic stout using Wyeast London Ale yeast, rather

than my usual Irish Ale yeast. The recipe is (from memory) as follows:

9 pounds klages

1/2 pound chocolate malt

1/2 pound roast barley

1 pound 80L crystal

3/4 stick brewers licorice

2 ozs. fuggles (hazy on this...)

1 pound brown sugar

I used my standard infusion mash @ 152F, boiled for 90 min. with 3 hops

additions, force-chilled and pitched. The yeast (a 1-qt starter) took 36

hours to take off, then pumped up to a nice krauesen. This is all well

and good. Now comes the funny bit...

 It fermented for 4 weeks...

 I have never had a situation like this happen with any of my beers. It

seemed like the yeast went super-attenuative, as the FG stopped at around

1.008. The stuff it produced is drinkable, but hellaciously alcoholic and

with a pronounced particulate haze that seems to be yeast.

 There are two possibilities here. The first is that I am just not used to

using domestic malts (I've used Brirish malts up till now). The second is

that the 1028 did something wierd.

 I consider the second a possibility, as I split the pack and made slants

when I brewed this batch. The slants look really wierd in comparison to the

slants of 1084 that I usually have. Anybody think it'd be worth the effort

to send one of these to the Lodgsons at Wyeast?

* When I say the cultures looked odd, I mean that, instead of forming a white

layer on the surface of the agar, they formed a slimy white layer, replete

with bubbles from the CO2 they were everting. It looked lie yeast, but really

odd. I don't think it was a contamination problem, either, as all 12 of the

slants came out exactly the same, with no other wilds or bacteria.

       Yours,

        Al Richer

- --

Alan J. Richer  |  Interleaf, Inc.  |  Waltham, Ma., U.S.A.

Mail: richer@hq.ileaf.com        All Std. Disclaimers Apply

 The Klingon Army knife. Don't leave home without it.

    - Klueless the Scavenger

- --

------------------------------


Re: All grain instructions - how's this look?

Date: Tue, 11 May 93 09:19:46 -0700

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Re: All grain instructions - how's this look?

>  >Select recipe & obtain ingredients.

>

>  >Start Yeast pack (2-3 days before brewing)

 In practice, the Wyeast package is usually swollen nearly to bursting

in one day.  Give it two or three only if it is several months old.

>  >Add yeast to quart of starter wort (~12 hours before brewing)

Good idea.

>  >Preboil 10 gallons of "brewing water", put in carboys when cool. (night

>  before brewing)

You only need to do this for extract brewing.  All the water you use

for all grain will end up being boiled in the brewkettle.

>  >Bring 1.33 qt H2O per pound of grist to 130 degrees (f) in mash kettle.

>

>  >Add above water to grist, protein rest for (60?) minutes at 122 deg.

>          >Adjust pH to about 5.3 if needed

A protein rest is only necessary for undermodified malted barley. If you

still wish to do a protein rest, about 20 minutes is sufficient.

>  >Start sparge water in cooker kettle, bring to 170(?) degrees.  How

>  >much?

I usually sparge with 5-7 gallons 170-180F water.

>  >Raise mash temp to 155 deg, hold at this temp until conversion is done.

>   (Can I do this with boiling water?  How much do I use?)

>          >Adjust pH if needed

>          >Test for conversion with Tincture of Iodine

If you skip the protein rest, adding 171F water to room temperature

grain will usually net you about 155F with about 1+ qt per lb of

grain.  The rule of thumb (for the temperature range desired) is that

1 lb of room temp grain will drop the temp of 1 qt of water 16-18

degrees.  I heat some extra, as the mash tun will usually absorb some

heat.  For 1 10lb mash, I heat 12-14qts water to 173 for my desired

155 mash temp.  When you are off a couple of degrees, add a *LITTLE*

hot or cold water, stir, and check temp.

>  >Raise temp of mash to 175 deg, for (20?) minutes, to mash-out.

I don't think you need to hold the mash out temp at this stage, as it

will be at this temp all during sparge.

>  >Pour mash into lauter tun, let it compact, recirculate runoff

>  >until clear.

Avoid compaction.  It seriously slows sparge rate.

>  >Put sparge water into sparging vessel, start the sprinkler.  Keep the

>  liquid level right around the top of the grain bed by regulating flow in

>  and out of lauter tun.  Collect this wort in the cooker.

Keep about 1"-2" of water above the grain bed.  This will help prevent

compaction. Regulate your in/out flow to get about 1 gallon of sweet

wort in about 10 minutes.

>  >Plug in cooker, bring to boil, add hops per schedule, boil per recipe.

>

>  >Immersion chill, rack, pitch, shake, ferment, rack, settle, rack, prime,

>  bottle, keep in kitchen for a week, put it in the basement, wait, wait,

>  wait, drink, MMMMmmmmmmmmmm.

>

>  ---

>

>

>  Note that some of the times may be inaccurate, I'm doing this from memory,

>  30 miles away from my books.  Those, obviously, will be adjusted as needed.

>

>  Please e-mail or post if you can suggest improvements.  I can't read R.C.B,

>  so posts to the HBD would be better.

>

>

>  Thanks for any input,

>  Dave Hinz

Looks Good.  Have fun

  Drew

------------------------------


Re:canned Guinness & other beers

Date: Tue, 11 May 93 15:04:06 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re:canned Guinness & other beers

In the last digest Jack comments on several beers:

<Date: Mon, 10 May 93 08:00 CDT

<From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

<Subject: Musings on Commercial Beer

< My C-P bottler is down for re-design so I bought a bunch of commercial stuff

< to take to a party.  Always wanting to turn a beer drink into a learning

< experience, I bought some things I have wanted to try/compare.

And I thought you could just pull the tap and decarbonate the beer into a

bottle!  Wait a minute, didnt you follow the "how to build a CP filler" that

I sent you :-)

< Draft Guinness in the can is not only lousy beer but the nitrogen gizzmo is

< just plain silly.  I thought the beer had a metalic taste and was lacking in

< anything worth mentioning.

Utter nonsense!  I live in the Washington DC area where the canned Guiness was

test marketed, and I can attest to absolutely GREAT canned Guinness.  There

is nothing silly about a device that works, and works well.  The nitrogen has

nowhere to go until the can is opened, then it gradually rises through the beer

much the way a good draught version does.  I have always enjoyed extra stout,

even in my *shudder* Bud days.  The differences in the draught vs extra are

well documented.  I have always loved draught stout and this device actually

results in a very good version of canned draught beer. I do believe it is the

best canned beer I have ever had.

< Bass ale was about as bland as the Guinness but lacked the metalic taste and

< just about any other, for that matter.

No comment on Bass.

< Take the coloring out of Beck's Dark and you have Beck's regular.  It seems a

< bit more beerish but hardly in line with the color.

This is a bit harsh, no?  There are dark malt notes in Becks, albeit not like a

Munchner Dunkles. In defense of Becks, it is an all malt beer now, even if it

was not in the past.  It often manifests the metallic flavor that can occur in

many beers, especially some German beers made with Tettang hops.

< The good news (strike me dead) was Miller Reserve Pale Ale.  I tried the "all

< barley" larger a few months ago and it seemed a farce but this stuff is real

< ale.  It's fruity and wonderful.  It has a very marvey aroma and the taste

< that follows is exactly was you expect from the aroma.  By far the best beer

< to come out of the biggies in decades.  No doubt they found the right

< combination of chemicals to do the trick but at least it tastes like beer.

< It does not taste like my ales but rather like most of the ales I taste at

< club meetings and the experts tell me that is what it is supposed to taste

< like.

<

Havnt had it.  Good report from a quality local brewmaster, though.  Still gotta

wonder about "all barley".  Sure doesnt sound like "all malt" to me.

< Needless to say, I wait with baited breath to hear what others think of it.

I bit.  Probably lots of others too.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Hefe Weissbier advice

Date: Tue, 11 May 93 16:00 EDT

From: mgg@usl.com

Subject: Hefe Weissbier advice

I've been fortunate enough to experience a variety of true bavarian

Weissbiers (mit Hefe) in Bavaria and now I want to make the real McCoy.

I'm using the Papazian "lovebite weizenbier" recipe. I brewed on Sunday

and the fermentation is going well. My question is that earlier in the

book (pg 147) he described the general weizenbier method as "Traditionally,

the special top-fermenting yeast is filtered out before bottling or

kegging, at which time a more flocculant (better settling) lager yeast

is added for natural bottle conditioning." The recipe doesn't call for

this. This is my first attempt at Weissbier and would like to know if

the addition of lager yeast is recommended. I don't do any filtering

when racking the beer (other than leaving the sediment in the fermenting

pail), so I believe some yeast would end up in the bottling pail.

A response to HBD or email will be greatly appreciated. I'll summarize

email if thats what I recieve.

By the way, southern Germany makes for a great vacation as well as beer

tour. (I suspect you're not suprised by this. :-)) I say this since

the major and minor tourist towns all had at least one local brewery

which always had several great beers. (The only mediocre beer I had was an

export beer I had at the airport on the way home.) Prague Czech. also

falls into this category.

In response to:

 From: greenbay@vnet.IBM.COM

 Subject: Hops/2 Liter Bottles

 2) I heard a customer at a homebrew store saying that homebrew could

    safely bottled in 2 liter bottles. Does anybody have any information

    on this?

 Bob Crowley

While bottling my first batch I ran out of beer bottles. In desperation

I began using anything vaguely resembling a beer bottle (various juice

bottles and one 2 liter soda bottle). I was making a porter which

prescribed 5 weeks aging in the bottle. In general I don't recommend

these bottles since it didn't seem like I was getting a good seal.

Thanks to tolerance from the beer gods all turned out pretty well.

I did add plastic wrap between the bottle and cap to increase the

seal. The juice bottled beer had limited carbonation/head. However the

beer in the 2 liter soda bottle had almost the same amount of carbonation

as true beer bottles. So if you're ever in a desperate situation,

don't look a gift bottle in the mouth. :-)

Mark Gintner

mgg@usl.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1139, 05/12/93

*************************************

-------


chang

Date:         Tue, 11 May 93 17:10:06 EDT

From: asmith <ST101163@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>

Subject:      chang

I spent last semster in Nepal, and for about a month I stayed monastery in solu

khumbu, sort of on the way to Everest.  The monks don't drink chang, but they d

on't mind if their guests do.  The folks who live in that part of Nepal are She

rpas who are descendents of Tibetans, but I'm not sure what the exact history o

f chang is.  It was made out of corn, rice, millet or wheat.  I saw them  make

rice chang, and they did this by cooking up a big pot of rice, letting it cool,

 mixing in special chang yeast (marga) which was in powder form.  They let it g

o there for about four days, then they transferred it to a big plastic jug for

the secondary fermentation (I think I read somewhere that they used clay pots t

raditionally).  From what folks told me, they didn't use sugar unless they want

ed a particularly potent batch, and they didn't add much in the way of water.

It was served warm, and was sometimes pretty chunky.  I've tried to make it her

e, but the results haven't been so good.  Maybe my standards have changed.  The

 interesting drink to make would be thomba-- after millet is fermented it is pu

t into a special thomba mug complete with filtering bamboo straw, and hot water

 is poured over it.  It wasn't so alcoholic, but tasted great.  The monk I live

d with also made a type of apple wine, in which he followed more or less the sa

me process as with chang with dried apples.  He didn't consider it alcohol as s

uch, but it had a bit of a kick to it.  In retrospect, the surprising thing to

me was the utter lack of care about oxidation and also how the plastic jugs did

n't blow up.  I imagine they had slight leaks, maybe.  I don't know if this hel

ps.  about the recipe, I don't think they followed one, so if you want to recre

ate the effect start with rice & champ. yeast.  see ya,

                                                      A. Smith ps: i would be i

nterested in any more technical information folks have about using starches in

beer & wine making.

------------------------------


beer in thailand

Date: Tue, 11 May 1993 17:26:27 -1100

From: Kirk_Anderson@wheatonma.edu (Kirk Anderson)

Subject: beer in thailand

I'll be in Thailand for June and most of July and would welcome

any advice or suggestions in the 'enjoying world beers' department.

Thanks in advance, and please don't post anything interesting in

the digest while I'm gone.  Kirk

------------------------------


Re: Sam Adams...... a Microbrewery

Date: Tue, 11 May 93 16:15:34 PDT

From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)

Subject: Re: Sam Adams...... a Microbrewery

> From STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com ()

> Oh, BTW, the Sam Adams that is sold in Germany is supposed to be

> contract-brewed IN Germany.  I don't know the name of the brewery.

Another ping against the ad campaigns.  I guess that they imported the

_name_.  (Sort of like claiming that Big Macs are imported into

France).

Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,

lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate

------------------------------


Bay Area Beer

Date: Tue, 11 May 1993 18:46 PST

From: PETTEWAY@UCLAC1.Chem.UCLA.EDU

Subject: Bay Area Beer

Some time ago an absolutly fantastic guide to brewpubs in the San Francisco

Bay Area was posted. It was unique in that it included detailed public

transportation directions to each place.

If anyone has this, could you please mail it to me. I'll be there in two

weeks and have to start planning!

Thanks alot

Jason Petteway

petteway@uclac1.chem.ucla.edu

------------------------------


Campden Tablets

Date: Tue, 11 May 93 22:12 CDT

From: fjdobner@ihlpb.att.com

Subject: Campden Tablets

I had a reputable homebrewer once tell me that should I be interested

in adding fruit to the secondary, I would be advised to ensure that

I take sanitary precautions against bacteria and wild yeast. Agreeing

I asked what might be a logical means of doing that. One of the answers

I received was to use Campden tablets to treat the fruit before addition

to the fermenting beer.

Questions are:

1. Is the above advisable?

2. If so, I have purchased Campden tablets from Crosby and Baker

and would like to know how one might proceed. On the label it says

"16 tablets per quart water = 1% solution."

3. Will there be any side affects (taste, aroma) that may result

using the Campden tablets?

E-mail directly or general post (if of wide enough interest) would

be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Frank Dobner

------------------------------


Treacle

Date: Tue, 11 May 1993 21:16:42 -0800

From: ulrich@sfu.ca

Subject: Treacle

William A Kitch asks:

> Do you have sources for demerara, treacle, or candi?

Isn't treacle just the British name for molasses?

Charles Ulrich

------------------------------


Epic Brew Tour!

Date: Wed, 12 May 93 10:49:26 +0200

From: rizy@eel.sunet.se

Subject: Epic Brew Tour!

Dear Brewfolk,

 After working for two years in Sweden as molecular

biologists, my girlfriend and I feel its time to further our search

for the ultimate beer.  We plan somehow to travel east-west thru

the U.S. of A. for several months.  We would love to attain some

information on micro breweries and brew pubs to visit along the

way.  We would also be especially interested in corresponding

with anyone knowledgeable on great places for white water

kayaking, rock climbing and mountain biking.

Please email me at the above address.

Thanks in advance

Rick Zydenbos and Sue Francis

------------------------------


Re:  Sam Adams

Date: Wed, 12 May 93 09:48:47 -0400

From: Ron Natalie <ron@topaz.bds.com>

Subject: Re:  Sam Adams

> contract brewed all over the country and at a place in Germany.  The reason

> they cited should sit will with all of you HBDers: freshness.

No the real reason: cheapness.  For a beer that's got a expiratoin date

post dated five months in advance, I doubt the week to truck the stuff

around the country is going to make much difference.

A more correct reason is probably the same reason the Megabreweries as

well as Coke has regional plants.  They SAVE money by not trucking it.

And frankly, most of it comes from Pittsburg which is no closer to

Northern New Jersey than Boston is.

Does any of the 5% they brew go into bottles anyway?

------------------------------


Re: All grain instructions - how's this look?

Date: Wed, 12 May 93 10:55:14 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Re: All grain instructions - how's this look?

Drew Lynch writes:

 > >  >Preboil 10 gallons of "brewing water", put in carboys when cool. (night

 > >  before brewing)

 >

 > You only need to do this for extract brewing.  All the water you use

 > for all grain will end up being boiled in the brewkettle.

Unless you're trying to precipitate carbonates, and/or get rid of

chlorine.

------------------------------


Malt Aroma - Chilling - Boiling

Date: Wed, 12 May 93 10:04:34 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Malt Aroma - Chilling - Boiling

The recent discussion of mash thickness, temp and sugars production leads

me to the following question.  What component of the mash produces the

"malty aroma" and "malty flavor" found in German Octoberfests .  Is this

a function of the type of malt.  Since decotion mashers claim these

features are enhanced in that process.  What happens in a decoction that

doesn't happen in an infusion that produces these characteristics.

Chilling and Boiling:  JS recently posted about a weak boil and no chiller

brew with regards to hot and cold break.  Isn't another reason for a

strong rolling boil and a rapid chill the minimization of DimethylSulfide

DMS production.  The rolling boil drives off the DMS precursors and the

rapid chill minimizes the time in the optimum production range?  or

is this another momily?

------------------------------


some questions and a request

Date:        Wed, 12 May 93 11:29:25 EDT

From: LORD OF THE DEEP <S018%NMUMUS.bitnet@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>

Subject: some questions and a request

     Hullo!  I am going to be moving to the Chapel Hill, North Carolina

area at the end of the summer or a little before.  My first question is,

does any one know of the typical in the above area? brew pubs, homebrew

supply shopsso on so forth.  Anything about the area would be helpfull.

     Next up is a Dutch lagger style import extract that i just made, by

following the directions for this extract i have created a very nasty

tasting 18-20 proof beer I forgot to write down the name befor i came to

the lab today so i cannot tell you the brand but if this sounds

firmilliar to anyone please let me know how yours turned out.

                                        Thanks

Ther Richardson

S018@nmumus.bitnet

------------------------------


2 liter PET bottles

Date: Wed, 12 May 93 8:54:16 PDT

From: davep@cirrus.com (David Pike)

Subject: 2 liter PET bottles

We (a loose knit group of computer-type homebrewers) have been using the

1 and 2 liter PET (read COKE, Pepsi, and Talking Rain) bottles for almost

two years now with no problems. if...

1. Use only plastic caps, not the metal ones.

2. Because most of them are clear, you need to keep them in the darkness

during storage.

Dave

------------------------------


Beer Bread

Date: 12 May 1993 10:58:42 -0600 (MDT)

From: Mark Taratoot <SLNDW@CC.USU.EDU>

Subject: Beer Bread

Greetings.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a method of making bread

and pretzels from the yeast cake at the bottom of secondary

fermenters.  Well, I have something to add.

Last week I made two beautiful loaves of bread from some dregs

from a beer that I had dry-hopped.  At first I was a bit

apprehensive about doing this as I didn't know how the

hop bits would affect the taste.  I did it anyhow.

The advice:

 DO NOT DO THIS!!!

The resulting bread was too bitter to eat, even when

smothered in honey.  It may have made an ok garlic

bread, but we were kind of put off.

One interesting note:  We left the loaves sitting around

until the weather got nice enough (and we had the time)

to go "feed the ducks."  Well, it was over a week before

we finally got out.  The thing that surprised me was that

the bread had no mold on it.  Then I realized that this was

because of the hops!!  Now if I could find some hops that

I could add to the bread that would not make it so bitter

I could increase the shelf life from several days to more

than a week (but the bread usually does not stay around

that long.)

 -toot

------------------------------


Yeast

Date: Wed, 12 May 93 11:40:13 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Yeast

Seth Schneider of Crosby and Baker has informed me that I might have

in a recent HBD post reversed the package sizes of the Whitbread yeast

available today. To make sure there is no confusion, note the following:

   12 gram pck. = Whitbread from old plant that is distributed by C+B

   14 gram pck. = Whitbread that was produced at the Lallemand plant in

                  Canada

The strain I tested for C+B came from the lab at Whitbread's new facility.

Tests on yeast from full production runs will be done in the near future.

The tests on the Whitbread available today was not done as a part of my

contract with C+B. I did these strictly for my own edification. The lactic

counts on both were acceptable as was the viability of the C+B version.

The viability test (using Rhodamine B as a stain) showed % viable cells

as low as 17% in the Lallemand version, which is completely unacceptable.

The recent work for C+B dealing with dry yeast has been quite an experience.

It been 15 years since I last used this type of yeast. Two practical

points have come up using dry yeast that I have not seen in homebrewing

books. They are the following:

   1. It is useful to refrigerate dry yeast during storage. They will not

lose viability as fast as liquid yeast at room temperatures, nevertheless

they will lose viability with age and this process is accelerated at

temperatures above 60F.

  2. Very rigorous sterilization is needed for everything used in the

hydration process. I now do this with a pressure cooker, using 10 mins.

at 15 psi. I screwed up a perfectly good beer by being casual about this

in one batch. The finished beer had a measured diacetyl level of .175 mg/l,

which is above the threshold of .1 mg/l. Subsequent brews have indicated

the error was mine and it occurred during hydration.

Al Richter in HBD#1139 asks about possible problems about Wyeast's London

Ale strain (1028). Two micros in the Southwest had similar problems in the

past. This was the major reason I avoided talking about this yeast at

the microbrewer's conference in New Orleans. However, the Great Lakes Brewing

Co. brought some of their Best Bitter to NO which was fermented with this

yeast. It was IMHO one of the finest examples of this style I have ever

tasted. The brewer kept apologizing that it was merely a "session beer",

but what I was tasting was a very clean ale whose malt/hop balance was dead

on. The finish was soft, but marvelously complex. I have the feeling we are

going to be hearing a lot more from Cleveland (home of GLB Co.) in the

future. I also tasted at the recent Beer Fest in Temecula, Calif. an

outstanding Brown Ale brewed by Martin Lodahl using this yeast. Clearly the

time has come to do a few brews myself with this yeast to see what is

going on here.

George Fix

------------------------------


Pre-boiling Water

Date: 12 May 93 07:57:03 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Pre-boiling Water

Message Creation Date was at 12-MAY-1993 12:51:00

          Greetings,

              (I am writing this question on behalf of a friend whose

          address is too long to be accepted by the HBD computer.)

               In yesterday's HBD,  Drew Lynch, writing in response to

          a request for feed-back for a first all grain beer, wrote:

          >> You only need to do this for extract brewing.  All the

          >>water you use for all grain will end up being boiled in

          >>the brewkettle.

                 This was written in response to the statement:

           >>> Preboil 10 gallons of "brewing water", put in carboys

           >>> when cool. (night before brewing)

          My question:

               I thought the reason for pre-boiling the water was so

          that the chlorine would be boiled away.  The chlorine, being

          basic, could adversely affect the ph of the mash.  Is this

          correct, or am I once again looped in the head?

          2nd Item:

               Yesterday I asked what was the purpose behind Home Brew

          competitions.  Well, today I was informed.  A friend who was

          taking a brewery tour while the judging was going on stated

          that based upon the number of times the judges staggered

          into the restrooms, the only real purpose of these contests

          is for the judges to get free beer.

                (Oooh! I can already feel the flames!)

          Cheers

          Andy Anderson

------------------------------


Step culturing of yeast

Date: Wed, 12 May 93 14:12:10 EDT

From: Hal Laurent <laurent@tamdno.ENET.dec.com>

Subject: Step culturing of yeast

I see a lot of references to "step-culturing" yeast to increase the

population of yeast cells.  Why is it desirable or necessary to do this

in steps?  Is it bad to give the yeast too much food at one time?  I've

been pitching my yeast into one quart of sterile wort for a starter, but

it still seems to have a 1 1/2 to 2 day lag time before the primary

fermenter's airlock starts to bubble.  I've been considering using

two quarts of starter instead of one to get a larger population.  Is

it better for me to feed the yeast one quart first and then step up

to two quarts?  Can I just pitch the WYeast package into two quarts

to begin with?  Do I ask too many questions? :-)

 -Hal Laurent

 Baltimore MD

------------------------------


Anchor comments and clarifications

Date: Wed, 12 May 1993 10:54:05

From: garetz@brahms.amd.com (Mark Garetz)

Subject: Anchor comments and clarifications

Frank Tutzauer writes about Anchor products:

>evidence for the protein rest...is a picture of the temperature dial...

etc.

You are also making the assumption that they were making steam beer when the

picture was taken.  They could also have been making Liberty, Porter, Wheat,

or any of their specialty ales.  They all have different mash schedules and

temperatures.  Also, if it's the picture I'm thinking of and the temp dial

is the one attached to the copper pipe where the water and grain are mixed

as they flow into the tun, then this dial is measuring the temperature of

the incoming water/grain mixture.  The real "dial" (actually a digital

readout) is on the programmed temperature controller, located in another

room.

>mash out is at 160F

That's correct.

>Athough most agree that Anchor uses only Northern Brewer hop in its steam

beer, one occasionally sees other hops mentioned, for example, Hersbrucker

or Galena

I was in Anchor's hop room.  Only two varieties were there:  Northern Brewer

and Cascade.  The NB is for the steam and Cascade is for Liberty.  I don't

know what they use for the Porter or others.  Nothern Brewer is added to the

boil in three additions, and in about equal proportions.  One at the

beginning, one about half-way through and one near the end.  I understand

that Liberty is made with 100% Cascade (also in three boil additions plus

dry hopping).

>General discussion about which Anchor products are dry hopped...

I was fortunate enough to interview Fritz for my article on Dry Hopping (due

out shortly in the summer Zymurgy) so I think I can speak with some

authority (is that a pun?) on the subject.  Only three Anchor products are

dry hopped:  Liberty, Foghorn (barley wine) and the Christmas Ale.  The rest

are not.  Anchor's dry hop rate for Liberty is "approximately" 2 ounces per

five gallons and the hops are added in the conditioning tank and left for

about two weeks.

>General discussion about fermentation...fermenters are shallow copper

pans..

The shallow fermenters are made of stainless steel.  They are used for both

the steam beer and the porter.  I was told that fermentation temperature was

55F.  The same yeast is used for the steam and porter.  All other beers are

fermented in deep, open top ale tanks with a "traditional" ale yeast, also

at 55F.

One other important note:  Just as we know to adjust bitter hop rates based

on the alpha acid ratings, Anchor also adjusts the late and dry hop

additions according to the oil content.  I'm proud to announce that my

company (HopTech) will be rating all its aroma hops with oil content in

addition to alpha acid.  Hops will be available in mid-June.  If you want to

get our catalog when printed (currently in process), then send a postcard

to:  HopTech, POB 2172, Danville, CA, 94526 or you can call 1-800-DRY-HOPS

and leave a message.  You could also fax to (510) 736-7950.  Don't expect to

get anything till the first week of June.

Mark Garetz

HopTech

------------------------------


Is this Stainless Steel any good?

Date: Wed, 12 May 93 13:34:35 -0600

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Is this Stainless Steel any good?

I recently found an old industrial-size coffee brewer for sale for

$50.  It has a 14 gallon stainless steel pot, with lid, enclosed in a

SS case. It includes a bunch of auxilliary gear; such as heater, temp

controller, timer, valving, thermometer, etc. which I figure might be

useful in my brewing endeavours, especially if I decide to build a

RIMS. (Note that all of these parts are of questionable operating

condition.)

The problem is, this unit has been sitting outside in the rain for

quite some time.  The SS pot (the component I'm really after) has quite

a few rust spots.  This is not too surprising; I've seen other

stainless items which rusted after exposure to severe conditions.  The

pot is a non-magnetic grade of stainless (and no, its not aluminum).

My question is, is this pot worth the money? I've no doubt that I could

remove the spots with a steel wool pad and some elbow grease, however,

does the fact that it is spotted indicate that the SS steel may be an

inferior grade, unsuitable for wort boiling?  Are there types of SS

which one would not want to use for brewing?

What is the group wisdom on this? Any metallurgists out there who can

comment on "rusted stainless"?

Thanks,

Kelly <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

------------------------------


Removing labels?

Date:  Wed, 12 May 1993 15:58:00 +0000

From: "Bill (W.R.) Crick" <heybc@bnr.ca>

Subject:  Removing labels?

Why would you want to remove the labels? I'm not sure. Most of my old

stubbies still have the labels on them, although after 10 years,

some are getting unreadable;-)

Just a hint  on how to label  homebrew so you know  what is what.

Condense name down to a TLA (two, or three letters) Write this on

to of cap with indelible magic marker. This takes about 2 seconds

per bottle. It requires caps with  no cutesy logos or anything on

them. Some  letter combos are  real fast  like Mohawk Mild  -> MM

which is just four connected squiggles.

Bill Crick   Brewius, Ergo Sum

------------------------------


Usage of hops in Anchor Steam

Date: Wed, 12 May 93 20:28:39 GMT

From: Martin Wilde <martin@gamma.intel.com>

Subject: Usage of hops in Anchor Steam

In Digest #1139, Frank Tutzauer <COMFRANK@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu> writes:

>BOILING AND HOPPING

>Anchor boils for one and a half hours [3] with whole hops [5,6] added

>throughout the boil [3].  They use "a significant amount" of Northern Brewer

>hops [1], and bitter at a level of 33 IBUs [1], although others have claimed

>the rate is 40 IBUs [4].  I am inclined to believe the lower figure since it

>comes from Fritz himself.  The quantity of hops used is approximately 1 pound

>per barrel [6], which (if I am correct that a barrel is about 31 US gallons),

>amounts to a shade over 2 and 1/2 ounces per 5-gallon batch.

If you use this amount of hops, you will definitely get a hoppy beer.  You

have to remember hop utilization increases with batch size.  Most brewers I

have talked to when they brew a 15 gallon pilot batch and then scale up to

20-60 barrels will cut back on the hops by 10% to allow for the increased

utilization.

------------------------------


Hop Isomerization

Date: Wed, 12 May 1993 16:43:39 -0400 (EDT)

From: Donovan Bodishbaugh <dfb@acpub.duke.edu>

Subject: Hop Isomerization

In the May 7 HBD, Ed Westemeier wrote:

" alpha acids in hops are... isomerized (which means the molecules are

formed into long chains)."

 This was a good expose on light-struck beer.  Isomerization,

however, is not the formation of long chains of molecules.  That's

polymerization.  Isomerization is the rearrangement of the structural

configuration of a molecule, without changing the general molecular

formula.  The simple sugars fructose and glucose are isomers, both having

the formula C6H12O6.  The enzyme which interconverts these forms during

cellular metabolism is called isomerase.  I think hop alpha-acid

isomerization refers to the conversion of the straght-chain form to the

iso (branched) form.  I think Miller's book has a good discussion of this.

Anally Yours from the Wonderful World of Biochemistry,

DFB

------------------------------


recipes

Date: Wed, 12 May 1993 23:13:31

From: Gary.Cote@leotech.MV.COM (Gary Cote)

Subject: recipes

Hi All

I am looking for recipes about a few styles of beer mentioned in a

book

first printed in 1932. The name of the book is The Homemade Beer

Book.

The four styles are as follows.

 "Chica" A south american beer made fermented malt of indian corn.

 "Purl" A verity of amber beer formerly in demand in London but now

obsolete.

 "Quarf" A Russin beer made from rye.

 "Twopenny" An amber beer containing licorice and capsicum, used as a

stimulant in cold weather.

Any help with these would be great!!!

Thanks Gary Cote

gcote@leotech.mv.com

- --

gcote@leotech.mv.com

 * Origin: Leo Technology (603)432-2517/432-0922 (HST/V32)

(1:132/189)

------------------------------


Slow Learner

Date: Wed, 12 May 93 22:41 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject:  Slow Learner

 >From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

 < My C-P bottler is down for re-design so I bought a bunch of commercial

 stuff  to take to a party...

 >And I thought you could just pull the tap and decarbonate the beer into a

 bottle!

 I admit to being a slow learner (must be struck by lightening 3 times) but

 when I get it, I not only admit my errors but usually become a crusader.

 >  Wait a minute, didnt you follow the "how to build a CP filler" that

 I sent you :-)

 Don't recall but I bumbled around and made (and re-made) one that works like

 a champ.

 In all fairness, you can fill a bottle from a tap, if the beer is cold, the

 bottle is colder and retain good drinking carbonation but not enough to

 produce much of a head.

 >Utter nonsense!  I live in the Washington DC area where the canned Guiness

 was test marketed, and I can attest to absolutely GREAT canned Guinness.

 There is nothing silly about a device that works, and works well.....

 I do believe it is the best canned beer I have ever had.

 We can simply agree to disagree on this one.  I chose not to squander my

 daily beer ration by finishing the glass.

 < Take the coloring out of Beck's Dark and you have Beck's regular.  It seems

 a bit more beerish but hardly in line with the color.

 >This is a bit harsh, no?  There are dark malt notes in Becks, albeit not

 like a Munchner Dunkles.

 Perhaps a bit harsh but I humbly propose that  "a bit more beerish but hardly

 in line with the color" translates nicely into,  "There are dark malt notes

 in Becks, albeit not like a Munchner Dunkles".

 I think we said the same thing.

 < The good news (strike me dead) was Miller Reserve Pale Ale....

 >Still gotta wonder about "all barley".  Sure doesnt sound like "all malt" to

 me.

 I think one can make a case for the interpretation being NO RICE or CORN, i.e

 the only grain used being barley.  One can claim to make an all barley/malt

 beer and still keep cost down by using sugar to get the gravity up enough to

 produce the proper amount of alcohol.  The body and character of the all malt

 lager would suggest this approach.

 js

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1140, 05/13/93

*************************************

-------


Re: Blindness/Hot Break/Wyeast 1028

Date: Wed, 12 May 93 14:48 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Blindness/Hot Break/Wyeast 1028

Jack writes:

>The "going blind" momily has nothing to do with making beer or even with

>distilling white lightn'n.

>It has to do with the fact that, in the good old days,  unscrupulous

>producers, middlemen and even a well meaning friend would add commercial

>alcohol to booz to streatch his fermented/distilled mash.  If he used the

>wrong kind of alcohol, either methanol or denatured ethanol, the result was

>poison and one of the symptoms could be blindness.    There is no way you can

>make anything that will cause blindlness by mashing, fermenting and

>distilling the kind of stuff normally used in beer and whiskey.

Well, I doubt the well-meaning friend part because what's the point in

stretching your inexpensive, home-made shine with expensive, whiskey --

no, I believe the unscrupulus producers adding cheap methanol, but it

may also be from trying to ferment something other than mashed grain.

I recently heard about many people in India going blind or dying from

some cheap alcoholic beverage a *commercial* producer was making --

it appears that in the interest of increased profits, the manufacturer

was fermenting garbage!  Yes, that's right, city-dump-type garbage!

I agree that we're safe as long as we stick to sugars for fermentables.

>I have always been a bit disappointed with the sleazy little bits of

>coagulated protein in my brew kettle.  I boil on my aluminum melting furnace

>for at least 90 minutes in a 16 gal kettle.  I can bring 10 gal to a furious

>boil in about 15 minutes.

>The result was a "boil" that I would describe more as a circulation and I do

>not recall seeing a single bubble break the surface.

>In spite of this, I evaporated the six gallons down to 5 and had coagulated

>protein floating around that I could have made lasagna with.

>So it would seem that if one wants "great hot-break", ease up on the heat.

I suggest that the quality of the break may not necessarly be measured by

the size of the break particles.  The amount of break is probably the

same, but your vigorous boil causes the larger pieces to break up into

smaller pieces of coagulated protein.  Therefore, I feel that you probably

get no worse a hot break from a rolling boil than from a simmer.

On the other hand, a rolling boil is important for two other reasons:

1. Better hop utilization -- I've noticed a much better hop utilization

from my rolling boils on my new, 12,000 BTU gas cooktop than with my old,

under-powered electric cooktop.

2. When your wort is above 140F, S-methyl-methionine (SMM) is being

hydrolyzed to Dimethyl Sulfide (DMS).  DMS smells like cooked corn --

if you can get a hold of G. Heileman's Old Style, you can smell DMS for

yourself.  You can also smell it by boiling a few tablespoons of malt

extract in a cup of water and letting that cool overnight (I made this

mistake when I recently switched-over to Erlenmyer flasks for my starters).

If you have a vigorous boil, you either boil-off or oxidize to Dimethyl

Sulfoxide (DMSO) any DMS that gets produced.  A weak boil or if you boil

with the cover completely on the kettle will increase the amount of DMS

that remains in your wort.  Much of this will be scrubbed out of your beer

with a vigorous ferment, but if you create too much of it, enough will

remain in your beer to be detectable.

>I also made believe I didn't own a wort chiller and let it cool naturally to

>pitching temp and, after cleaning and sterilizing the kettle, did the primary

>ferment in it.

I suspect this batch will have some serious DMS problems.  As I said before,

when the wort is above 140F, DMS is being created.  This is true also as

the wort cools from boiling down to below 140F.  A chiller decreases this

lag period and reduces the opportunity for wort-spoiling bacteria to give

your beer vegetive aromas.

Al Richer writes:

>and good. Now comes the funny bit...

>

> It fermented for 4 weeks...

>

> I have never had a situation like this happen with any of my beers. It

>seemed like the yeast went super-attenuative, as the FG stopped at around

>1.008. The stuff it produced is drinkable, but hellaciously alcoholic and

>with a pronounced particulate haze that seems to be yeast.

>

> There are two possibilities here. The first is that I am just not used to

>using domestic malts (I've used Brirish malts up till now). The second is

>that the 1028 did something wierd.

Respectfully, I would like to suggest that perhaps you left out a possibility,

namely that a wild yeast or a bacteria from your brewery got into the batch.

You did not mention the temperatures of the starter and wort at pitching

time -- I've found that lag times can be significanlty increased when there

is a 10 or 15 degree difference between the starter and the wort.  36 hours

is not too bad, but I've had (and others have reported) lag times less than

12 hours using Wyeast with a starter.

Insufficient aeration and a temperature shock are possible culprits for

the long ferment.  I had a really long ferment once (Wyeast 1056) when

I accidentally dropped the temperature quite suddenly down to around 60F

from 72F.  The brew took 5 weeks to ferment out and was not too high

an original gravity (1051).

I've brewed two batches recently with Wyeast 1028 and had no problems in

either of them -- everything seemed normal and the resulting beer tasted

as expected.  One of them was a super-heavy Imperial Stout -- started at

1120 and finished at 1050.  Granted, this is not what I had hoped for and

in retrospect, I realize that I should have pitched some more-alcohol-

tolerant yeast when the 1028 pooped-out from the alcohol, but my point

for mentioning this is that it is just the opposite of Al Richer's

super-attenuated, high-alcohol batch.  The other batch was a more-

conventional gravitied IPA, which came out as expected.  Just two more

data points.

Al.

------------------------------


micro equipment?

Date: Thu, 13 May 93 11:31:22 MET DST

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: micro equipment?

hello all, I tried emailing Bruce Kiley directly to ask him if he got

the list of microbrewery equipment he asked for in hbd 1138, but the

note bounced. So, Bruce what's the scoop? (direct email would be nice if

you got anything). Also, I remember seeing a book on starting your own

microbrewery while I was in the States. Does anyone have the info (author,

title, publisher) on this?

Rob Thomas.

------------------------------


Campden tablets and fruit

Date: Thu, 13 May 93 09:11:00 -0400

From: djt2@po.CWRU.Edu (Dennis J. Templeton)

Subject: Campden tablets and fruit

Frank asks about experience with Campden tablets...

I made a nice Raspberry ale last fall and for similar reasons used Campden

tablets to disinfect the crushed berries.  As I reported here then, I was

aghast to watch the beautiful ruby color of the fruit fade to a piss

yellow, which never really returned.

About side tastes, etc... there was a definite sulfur odor that came out of

the airlock, and I let it sit in secondary for 2 months before bottling.

The finished product has no discernable sulfur taste or smell, but it is a

trace acid.

Others have suggested steeping the fruit in the hot wort, just as it

begins to cool.  Raspberries have so little pectin to begin with that

extraction of pectin into the hot wort should be little problem.  This is

less true for many other fruits though.

good luck,

dennis

------------------------------


Acronyms

Date:         Thu, 13 May 93 09:50:49 EDT

From: Elaine Boris <EBORIS@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>

Subject:      Acronyms

In HBD1137 May 10, Lou Casagrane ins his reply to Jay refers to recipes

from TNCJOHB.  Please what does that stand for?  Can I get these recipes?

I am new to the list and the acronyms  are not making sense.  Is there

a list of acronyms and their meanings someone can send me or post to the

list?   TIA (there is at least one I know), Elaine

Elaine Boris                                  Student Information Systems

Computer Services Specialist                  University of Georgia

706 542-0484                                  Athens  Georgia

------------------------------


Stainless Steel kettles & coffee pots & half-barrels

Date: Thu, 13 May 93 09:06:25 CDT

From: hinz@memphis.med.ge.com (David Hinz)

Subject: Stainless Steel kettles & coffee pots & half-barrels

Kelly Jones asks:

- ---

My question is, is this <coffee> pot worth the money? I've no doubt that I could

remove the spots with a steel wool pad and some elbow grease, however,

does the fact that it is spotted indicate that the SS steel may be an

inferior grade, unsuitable for wort boiling?  Are there types of SS

which one would not want to use for brewing?

- ---

I just made myself a 15 gallon, heated kettle, for about $20.00.  I found a

half-barrel (grade 304 SS, I beleive) from the early 60's, with Miller

Brewing stamped in the top.  This is the keg-shaped type.  It also has the

nifty feature of the "Diamond" type tapping system, where you would put the

CO2 in the top & draw the beer off the bottom.  So, it has TWO valves,

one on top, one on the side of the bottom.  (would that be bottom of the

side?  Whatever....)  Deposit on the 1/2bbl was $10.00.

Anyway, I used a Sawzall and about 7 blades to cut the top off of the keg,

but I'm going to use an abrasive saw blade next time in my circle saw.  The

valves are held in with a threaded ring, that comes out easily, and with

a bit of lathe work I turned one of the valves into a couple of

washers.  I used a 2500 watt water heater element through the bottom hole in

the half-barrel, used one of the washers to seal between that and the

barrel's rubber seal, and clamped it in there with the threaded retaining ring.

(Water heater element was about another $10.00)

The whole thing cleaned up very nicely, inside and out, with Soft Scrub <TM>

with bleach, and a washcloth.  It will be pretty easy to add a spigot to the

thing for my future (near future) tower system, and possibly a RIMS.

I guess my point here is that _I_ would rather mess around for a few hours and

cobble something useful together than to spend real money to buy something

already made up.  The fact that you're a homebrewer indicates you like the

"do it yourself" type of stuff, and it's really not too much work.

Does anyone know if modern "keg" type 1/2bbls have the bottom hole in them,

or did I find something unusual here?

Dave Hinz

------------------------------


Wyeast London Ale Yeast

Date:    Thu, 13 May 93 07:07:21 PDT

From: cole%nevis.hepnet@Lbl.Gov

Subject: Wyeast London Ale Yeast

Regarding Alan's experience with the Wyeast London Ale yeast:

>

> Recently I made a generic stout using Wyeast London Ale yeast, rather

>than my usual Irish Ale yeast. The recipe is (from memory) as follows:

[stuff deleted]

> It fermented for 4 weeks...

> I have never had a situation like this happen with any of my beers. It

>seemed like the yeast went super-attenuative, as the FG stopped at around

>1.008. The stuff it produced is drinkable, but hellaciously alcoholic and

>with a pronounced particulate haze that seems to be yeast.

>

I have a Scottish Ale (OG 1.040) that I bottled 3 weeks ago that was made

using the Wyeast London Ale Yeast. I don't have my notes handy but the grain

bill was something like:

8# British Pale Malt

1# British Crystal (~30 L)

1/8# Chocolate Malt

I used a single-step infusion mash for everything except the chocolate

malt which I added just before mash-out.

Hops: 12 IBU's (mostly fuggles) boil

I also added 1/4# succanat during the boil.

I pitched at a temp of 68 degrees from a starter I had made the day before.

The lag time was ~ 10-14 hours which is what I have come to expect using

Wyeast ale yeasts with my starter preparation procedures. I would guess

that over the whole fermentation period the average temperature was ~58 degree.

This batch fermented the fastest of my last 5-10 batches finishing in 10

days. It spent 1 week in the primary, 1 week in the secondary, but had

completely cleared after 3 days in the secondary. The FG was 1.010. I am

pretty happy with the result. This was my first attempt at a Scottish Ale

and since I have little experience with the real thing, I'm not sure how

true to style it is. In spite of the crystal and the succanat it is not

especially sweet (as the FG would suggest). It has a rather complex flavor

with the succanat providing a detectable but not overpowering molasses-

type undertone. I was surprised that even with the low hopping rate, the

hop bitterness really comes through. I don't know if this is a

characteristic of the London Ale yeast or not.

I looked up the characteristics of this yeast in the Zymurgy yeast issue

last night. The description was something like: produces a complex, woody,

characteristic, medium attenuation and flocculation (from memory). I agree

100% with the complex/woody description. I found the attenuation to be

rather normal given the OG of 1.040. I disagree with the flocculation

description though. Having watched other batches clear very slowly (> 1

week) with several stages of yeast precipitation, I was surprised to see

this beer clear in 2 days. When I bottled, I found that the yeast cake was

basically glued to the bottom of the carboy, and when I had finished racking,

I was able to pour out the last 1/2 cup of beer without disturbing the yeast

at all. The last 1/2 cup was nearly as clear as the beer that had been

racked. This behavior may be partially attributed to the cool

fermentation temperatures and is reminiscent of the three lager batches

that I have done.

In summary: I found the attenuation of the London ale yeast to be

reasonable and the flocculation to be extremely good at the temperatures

I used. I am pretty happy with the results I obtained using this yeast.

Brian Cole

------------------------------


Question on PET bottling.

Date: Thu, 13 May 93 08:45 EST

From: LYONS@adc1.adc.ray.com

Subject: Question on PET bottling.

Question for those how have experience using PET bottles.

What is the procedure at bottling.  For glass bottles I fill to

approx. 1/2 to 1 inch of the rim and then cap.  With PET bottles I

imagine there would be some expansion during carbonation.  Do you

fill the PET bottles less, partially squeeze the PET bottles before

capping, or treat the PET bottles the same as glass bottles?

Thanks,

Chris

LYONS@ADC3.ADC.RAY.COM

------------------------------


Lallemand Nottingham & Windsor?

Date: Thu, 13 May 93 09:01 EST

From: LYONS@adc1.adc.ray.com

Subject: Lallemand Nottingham & Windsor?

In George Fix's HBD #1140 post he mentioned that the Whitbread yeast

manufactored by Lallemand was "completely unacceptable" due to low

viable cell count.  Since Lallemand also produces Nottingham and

Windsor dry yeasts, is their any reason to expect that these yeasts

are acceptable?  From my on experience, and also from comments of

many others from this HBD, both Nottingham and Windsor have rather

long lag times.  On my last batch with Nottingham I used to packages

of yeast and the lag time was 48 hours.  Could this be due to a low

percentage of viable yeast cells?

------------------------------


American Beers in Germany

Date: Thu, 13 May 1993 07:55 PDT

From: shane <DEICHMAN@perch.nosc.mil>

Subject: American Beers in Germany

>

> From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)

>

> > From STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com ()

>

> > Oh, BTW, the Sam Adams that is sold in Germany is supposed to be

> > contract-brewed IN Germany.  I don't know the name of the brewery.

>

> Another ping against the ad campaigns. I guess they imported the

> _name_.  (Sort of like claiming that Big Macs are imported into

> France).

>

  I know for a fact that Sam Adams is NOT the only American

beer imported into the Bundesrepublik der Deutschland.  While

in Bonn last October, after visiting the Beethovenhaus in the

old town, I noticed a restaurant across the street called (I

kid you not) "The Chicago Pizza Pie Factory."  On their menu,

I was appalled to not only find that scourge of American

zymurgy, Budweiser, but to also discover that it was more than

TWICE the price of fine local brews like Bitburger (it was

DM6.90 a glass, about $4.00!)  My friend Eberhard explained

that the locals sometimes like to pretend they're Americans...

 -shane

<deichman@perch.nosc.mil>

------------------------------


Adding fruit to the secondary

Date: Thu, 13 May 1993 07:57 PDT

From: shane <DEICHMAN@perch.nosc.mil>

Subject: Adding fruit to the secondary

  There has been some traffic regarding adding fruit to the

secondary.  Aside from concerns over bacteria and wild yeasts,

I would caution against adding anything acidic (like the

citrous fruits), because it will kill your yeast and give you

a flat brew.  In one of my earlier batches, I added a bit of

orange peel to "liven up" the end product.  Complete failure...

 -shane

<deichman@perch.nosc.mil>

------------------------------


Quasi-Turbinado

Date: Thu, 13 May 1993 07:47:24 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Quasi-Turbinado

I just found some C & H "Washed Raw Sugar" at the grocery store.  The

package describes it as "turbinado-style".  It is formed as very regular

short cylinders (i.e. not crystalized).  I brewed several batches of light

and dark ales with 1/2 to 1# in the various batches.  It adds to the

alcohol level, doesn't give a cidery taste, and at the 1# level leaves a

yummy sweet *aftertaste* if the hop level is not too high.  This sugar

seems very similar to the "Sugar in the Raw" that I sometimes find in

restaurants.

I'm really tickled by the lingering sweetness.  My guess is that there are

significant amounts of unfermentable sugars that cause this.  The batch

with 1# in it had a OG of 1.072 and a FG of 1.034!  Carbonation level is

normal, no gushers, so I don't think the fermentation stuck, but haven't

had a chance to try to reproduce it.  This may be a good sugar for

Belgian/Trappist makers.

Paul.

------------------------------


Echoes of COPS

Date: Thu, 13 May 1993 07:56:10 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Echoes of COPS

Yesterday a friend told me that I should be very careful about my

homebrewed beer, since she had seen a TV program that described the

dangers of homebrew made by desperate criminals who were poisoning people

with it.  I asked her the name of the show and she said, "COPS"....

When I finished my tantrum....

It seems that those bozos are now into the rerun cycle.  They ran the same

piece of trash without any attempt to correct the misinformation.  As the

Situationalists point out, "It may still be possible to take advantage of

the fact that TV stations are not yet guarded by troops."  Destroy your TV

today, it may not be too late to save Western Civilization (an oxymoron if

I ever heard of one)...

in disgust---- Paul.

------------------------------


Re: Yeast

Date: Thu, 13 May 93 08:40:41 -0700

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Re: Yeast

>    2. Very rigorous sterilization is needed for everything used in the

>  hydration process. I now do this with a pressure cooker, using 10 mins.

>  at 15 psi. I screwed up a perfectly good beer by being casual about this

>  in one batch. The finished beer had a measured diacetyl level of .175 mg/l,

>  which is above the threshold of .1 mg/l. Subsequent brews have indicated

>  the error was mine and it occurred during hydration.

George,

  How does one measure the level of Dicetyl?  I have had undesirable

levels (judging by taste alone) in several batches.  I had always

assumed that the diacetly production was a product of fermenting the

yeast outside of it's preferred temperature zone.  My brew closet

stays around 65-72F this time of year.  Is it possible that my

methodology for using liquid yeast or yeast from slants is actually to

blame for the level of diacetyl, or is your observation only

pertinant to dried yeast users?

I use two sources of yeast:

1) Wyeast packages:  Usually, I will pitch the contents of the swollen

package into a 500ml starter of 1.040 bitter wort that I have canned.

2) Yeast stored on a slant: I use a flame sterilized nichrome wire loop

to pick up a pinhead of yeast from the slant, and then wash this into

~50ml of 1.040 canned bitter wort.  This is then stepped to 500ml just

after high krausen.

Note:  The slants I used are bitter wort/agar slants produced at home,

and the yeast usually originates from a Wyeast package.

With either method, I pitch the 500ml starter into 5.5-6.0 gallons of

80F bitter wort.  I usually see activity in 12-24 hours.

  I use ehrlemeyer flasks, plastic airlocks, and rubber stoppers for

my starter vessels, and sanitize in ~1/8 cup houshold bleach in 2-3

gallons of water for 5-10 minutes.

 Thanks very much for your time and postings to the digest.

  Drew

------------------------------


step culturing

Date: Thu, 13 May 1993 11:50:26 CDT

From: "John L. Isenhour" <isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov>

Subject: step culturing

Hal writes:

>I see a lot of references to "step-culturing" yeast to increase the

>population of yeast cells.  Why is it desirable or necessary to do this

>in steps?

>I've been pitching my yeast into one quart of sterile wort for a starter, but

>it still seems to have a 1 1/2 to 2 day lag time before the primary

>fermenter's airlock starts to bubble.

The lag time is the reason for step culturing.  The longer it takes for the

yeast to take over the better the chances of infection.  If you *really* trust

your technique, I wouldnt be too concerned about stretching the volumes.  My

big pressure cooker can hold one gallon glass jugs with a glass airlocks, and

I've done wyeast packet to 2 quart starters in those with no problem.  I do my

transfers (via sterile syringe) in a hood, and I'm pretty sure theres nobody

(bug wise) around to get into the wort.

 -john

The Hop Devil and (recently) National Beer Judge!

home: john@hopduvel.UUCP

work: isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov

------------------------------


Put the label on the cap

Date: Thu, 13 May 93 9:02:51 PDT

From: davep@cirrus.com (David Pike)

Subject: Put the label on the cap

Where it is easy to read while in a case or 6pack.

Try this: Being computer geeks, get access to a lase printer(not too hard).

Then, go down to the local label or paper store, and get 3/4 inch stick on

labels mounted on 8.5 x 11 inch paper. Then, get your favorite postscript,

drawing, or text layout program and print onto these labels with the

lase printer.

We print the batch #, the name(up to 3 lines, approx. 6 words) and the

bottling date on each label. They are easy to stick on, and even easier to

remove(they come off with the cap).

Get creaive. Even though we havent done it yet, We've envisioned even printing

the data in a spiral format to get more info on the label.

Cheers!

Dave

------------------------------


Re: brown sugar and bitter

Date: Thu, 13 May 93 11:01:41 PDT

From: rcristad@weber.ucsd.edu (Riccardo Cristadoro)

Subject: Re: brown sugar and bitter

I am trying to put together a bitter that reminds me of the

delightful brews I drank last year in England.  I want to get that

fruity, sweet taste that works so well under the Kent Goldings.  I

have thought about using some brown sugar.  /i know that yeast will

have much to say about the the final qualities of the brew so I am

going to use wyeast British ale.  So, I would appreciate it if the

bitter experts could share their secrets.

P.S.  has anybody tried oak chips in the secondary to capture the

"cask matured" taste???

Thanks in advance

Steve Boxer at UCSD

------------------------------


Variuos

Date: Thu, 13 May 93 14:35:58 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Variuos

In the last diget, George Fix makes some comments about the Bitter from

Great Lakes Brewing:

<However, the Great Lakes Brewing

<Co. brought some of their Best Bitter to NO which was fermented with this

<yeast. It was IMHO one of the finest examples of this style I have ever

<tasted. The brewer kept apologizing that it was merely a "session beer",

<but what I was tasting was a very clean ale whose malt/hop balance was dead

<on. The finish was soft, but marvelously complex. I have the feeling we are

<going to be hearing a lot more from Cleveland (home of GLB Co.) in the

<future.

I cant agree more! Every time I get a chance to sample the beers from GLB,

it is a worthwhile experience.  I was at the brewery in March and I can

imagine the brewer apologizing about a session beer.  If this is the Moon

Dog Bitter I had (won in the GABF) it is truely a fine example.  This

"session" beer is 12P (1.048) from a brewery that makes every other beer

at least 14P!  This is a brewery that likes a big beer.  The Stout was

19P!  The Dort is also over 14P.  They like hops and malt and it shows.

On another topic: Andy Anderson asks about removing Chlorine by boiling.

I say take the simple an effective approach and use a carbon filter.  The

pH will be reduced by normal acidification of the mash which is helped by

the presence of CA+ ions ( a bit of Gypsum will do).

Andy continues:

2nd Item:

               Yesterday I asked what was the purpose behind Home Brew

          competitions.  Well, today I was informed.  A friend who was

          taking a brewery tour while the judging was going on stated

          that based upon the number of times the judges staggered

          into the restrooms, the only real purpose of these contests

          is for the judges to get free beer.

                (Oooh! I can already feel the flames!)

This is not a flame.  I was a judge at this competition.  I do not condone

the concept of free beer.  If a brewer chooses to reward one with beer it

is the brewers choice, not responsibility.  Those of us who think otherwise

are not being serious about the buisness side of brewing.  My friends at the

Old Dominion Brewing Co did not provide free beer, our club bought a keg of

Helles which was not even consumed completely.  Judging beer is not a easy

undertaking.  I judged 18 "Belgium style" ales and I can tell you I did not

do it for "free beer".  In fact, there were many instances where the judge

attempts to be constructive when it is far easier to point to poor brewers

technique.  I am disappointed that the judge who sampled your beer was not

more constructive with comments, but I can see it occurring.

One more thing: Mark Garetz writes about Anchor,

<all these beers are

<fermented in deep, open top ale tanks with a "traditional" ale yeast, also

<at 55F.

I believe these are "closed" Unitanks/Mueller Conditioning tanks.  I do not

remember any indication as to open fermentation when I was there.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Yet more Sam Adams junk

Date: Thu, 13 May 1993 09:26 EDT

From: Kieran O'Connor <OCONNOR%SNYCORVA.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

Subject: Yet more Sam Adams junk

I've been doing research on Breweries and Brewing in the US.  Some of

you have sent me info and hleped me, thanks!

Now--according to the standard text on Brewing: Brewed IN Amrerica, by

Stalney Baron, Sam Adams was never a brewer--only a maltster.  I

really cant find any references in any primary sources about Sam Adams

being a brewer--I have found it in Boston Beer Propaganda and some

secondary sources, but have not been able to find any other

confirmation.  Anyone with a primary source?

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Addresses:

Bitnet:  oconnor@snycorva.bitnet

Internet: oconnor@snycorva.cortland.edu

------------------------------


Belgian Malts

Date: Thu, 13 May 1993 18:21:10

From: dwright@hammerhead.win.net (David Wright)

Subject: Belgian Malts

I remember seeing some information on Belgian malts (I think

here).  Of course, I didn't pay attention because my local homebrew

shop did not carry them.  Luckily, they now stock them.  Does

anyone have information concerning the various Belgian malts

available?  Color rating and potential use in recipes would be

helpful.

------------------------------


that pesky Anchor temperature dial

Date: 13 May 1993 20:33:01 -0400 (EDT)

From: Frank Tutzauer <COMFRANK@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu>

Subject: that pesky Anchor temperature dial

Thanks to everyone for helping me get my facts straight about Anchor Steam.  I

will collect all the corrections and alter my previous post so that we have an

updated version.  After I revise, I'll post it so that all the information is

in one place.  It's kind of long, though, so I won't post it until the next

slow period on the digest (Memorial Day, maybe?), although if anyone wants it

sooner, let me know.

I particularly want to thank Mark Garetz for his very knowledgeable comments

yesterday.  My one question concerns the temperature dial on the mash tun.

Mark writes:

>You are also making the assumption that they were making steam beer when the

>picture was taken.  They could also have been making Liberty, Porter, Wheat,

>or any of their specialty ales.  They all have different mash schedules and

>temperatures.

Duh... (hand slap to head as obvious fact finally makes its way into dense

interior).  I was so fixated on their steam beer that this very obvious

possibility simply didn't occur to me.  You are absolutely correct.

Still, let us suppose that it is their steam beer they're making.  Then:

>Also, if it's the picture I'm thinking of and the temp dial

>is the one attached to the copper pipe where the water and grain are mixed

>as they flow into the tun, then this dial is measuring the temperature of

>the incoming water/grain mixture.  The real "dial" (actually a digital

>readout) is on the programmed temperature controller, located in another

>room.

You are correct about what dial I was reading:  the one on the pipe where the

water and grain are mixed.  Is it therefore reasonable to assume that this

puts a maximum on the actual rest temperature?

Thanks,

- --frank

------------------------------


Invitation to Speak at 1993 Dixie Cup

Date: Fri, 14 May 93 01:45:02 CDT

From: Sean C. Lamb 335-6669 Loral <slamb@milp.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject: Invitation to Speak at 1993 Dixie Cup

 You heard it here first!

 This year's Dixie Cup (Houston Foam Rangers AHA/HWBTA/SPCA sanctioned

 competition and homebrew gathering of the tribes)

 will be October 15 and 16.  We've got a new site

 (they figured us out at the last place), and we're actually working on the

 thing now.

 To the point:

 Anyone who is anticipating, planning to, or in general thinking about attending

 this year's only Galactic homebrew weekend, and who may have something lucid

 to say on brewing-related topic(s) for about 45-50 minutes, and actually feels

 like getting up on Saturday morning (after the first round judging and

 Fredfest the night before) to relate this knowledge to a roomful of smelly

 (oh, sorry, that's just me!), groggy, and  dazed people,

 is requested to contact me.

 Of course, an abstract of your presentation will be required, in triplicate,

 by next tuesday, with the full text, including color slides, graphs and

 photos two weeks hence.

 Just in case I'm deluged by submissions, we've got 4 or 5 slots for speakers,

 and I'll be the judge of who is IMPORTANT enough (don't forget, it's not

 what you brew, it`s who you know that brews) to speak.

 Actually, in all seriousness, the conference is an enjoyable part of the whole

 Dixie Cup experience, and I would appreciate it if anyone who is coming

 and would like to share their knowledge would take the time to speak.

 Please extend this invitation to anyone

 you meet or know who is planning on coming.

 Sean Lamb  Dixie Cup 1993 Milli-conference Coordinator

 slamb@milp.jsc.nasa.gov  (713) 992-5661

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1141, 05/14/93

*************************************

-------


secondary/half-batch/Texas brewpubs

Date: Fri, 14 May 93 08:02 CDT

From: othon@ial7.jsc.nasa.gov (Bill Othon.LinCom)

Subject: secondary/half-batch/Texas brewpubs

I have a couple of questions for the group:

1) How long is too long in the secondary fermenter? I have

been reading that some people leave it for only a week, using

SG as a guide apparently. Recently I dry-hopped in the primary

(based on a Cat's Meow recipe) and after a week in the

secondary, there was at least an inch of "mung" at the bottom

of the carboy (I assume hops and yeastees). I decided to leave

the beer in for the usual 3-4 weeks.  Could this have been bad?

I haven't tasted the final product yet to be sure, but i am

pleased with the clarity of my beer to date.

2) Does anyone have a good half-batch all-grain recipe? I tried

an all-grain last year with two brewkettles over a gas stove, and

while it came out alright, it was a hassle. I'd like to get my

feet wet with some small scale stuff (which also allows for

easier experimentation if desired). For this type of batch, i

guess i use half the dried yeast package, or half the wyeast

starter.

On another note:

The battle for Texas rages on! After some strange schnanigans, the

bill with the amendment to allow brewpubs in Texas has passed the

house, and it's on to the senate. Someday an HBDer will have a

business meeting in Houston and ask if there are brewpubs, and

we'll be able to say "Hell, yes!".

Hoping for a Seattle-like beer culture in Houston

 -Bill

------------------------------


Darker with age...

Date:     Fri, 14 May 93 9:03:23 EDT

From: "Darren L. Ward" (FSAC-FCD) <dward@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  Darker with age...

 Is discoloration (darkening) a typical result from "light

exposure"???  I brewed a batch which when originally bottled was

much lighter in color than it is now.  The beer is in "Mason" jars,

with double gaskets/liners to better the seal.  (It worked).  I

had a problem with the initial conditioning of the beer, (very

little carbonation), but when I removed the jars from the fridge

for a couple of weeks and then re-refirdgerated them, the bubbles

were finally there (I'd brewed the batch 1.5 yrs ago, thought I

was a victim of novice errors, hate to throw things out, and only

recently read about re-conditioning carbonation-less beer to bring

the bubbles back.)  Anyway, back to the color inquiry, would the

darkening be the result of light exposure, age, and is

incandescent light a threat???

------------------------------


PET and GC

Date: Fri, 14 May 93 8:49:37 CDT

From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>

Subject: PET and GC

In regards to the recent discussion of the use of PET (2 litre soda)

bottles and the proper filling thereof, I would think that one should

fill them the normal amount (0.5" headspace).  You would not want to

compress the bottle before filling because then the CO2 formed would go

towards reforming the bottle to its normal volume, not carbonation (flat

beer).  Also, at the pressures involved with naturally carbonated

beverages, the expansion of the PET would be miniscule.  As a side note,

I would mention that a homebrew kit sold by Price Club in California

last winter (I don't remember the brand, but it came with Cooper's

extract) came with plastic caps for PET bottles.  I do not know where

one would buy these, as my local homebrew shop (Brew and Grow) doesn't

carry them, but I would think that one of the larger mail order supply

houses would carry them.  I'm not sure if one would want to reuse them

or not (you can't boil them, because they will probably deform, and the

seal inside may be porous enough to absorb som of your sanitizing

solution.  Also, the clarity of the material is worrisome if you do not

store your beer in the dark.

Do any of you scientists out there know about measuring components in

beer by gas chromatography?  I am wondering about the following:

Will the unfermented sugars in the beer crap out my column?  If so,

after how many injections?

What kind of column should I use?  Polar or non-polar?  (My guess is

polar, like a PEG column?)

Has anyone determined the proper settings for temperature and flow?

Ramping?  What are the probable RT's for common components (EtOH, DMS,

DMSO, diacetyl, etc?)

I could put the effort into determining the above, but right now time is

at a premium and I would hate to reinvent the wheel if someone else has

done the work.  If there isn't anyone who has done this before and I do

invest the effort, how many of you would be interested in my results?

Private e-mail please.

Tony Johnston

Chemist, Homebrewer, Lazyman

anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu

done the work

------------------------------


Blindness again

Date: 14 May 1993 08:31:16 U

From: "Westemeier*, Ed" <westemeier@pharos-tech.com>

Subject: Blindness again

There has been enough comment about blindness being caused by improper

distillation of alcohol recently, without any definitive answers, that

I'm beginning to suspect we're dealing with an urban legend.

So, FWIW, here's my "data" point:

My grandfather had several friends who produced and sold a

considerable quantity of distilled spirits during Prohibition.  He

once told me that the conventional wisdom of the time was that the

blindness often mentioned was caused by improper chilling procedure.

Specifically, many amateur distillers used automobile radiators as

heat exchangers.  As the wort (or whatever, I'm not an expert) went

through the coils of the radiator, it picked up contamination from

the lead solder used in its construction.  Lead is the cause of so

many other health problems related to lead poisoning in the blood that

I'm inclined to believe this may be the actual source of the story.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to dry off my cat in the microwave.

Ed Westemeier  -- Cincinnati, OH  -- westemeier@delphi.com

------------------------------


Re: Acronyms

Date: Fri, 14 May 93 10:45:48 EDT

From: casagran@gdstech.grumman.com (Lou Casagrande)

Subject: Re: Acronyms

Elaine,

You wrote,

> In HBD1137 May 10, Lou Casagrane ins his reply to Jay refers to

> recipes from TNCJOHB. Please what does that stand for? Can I get

> these recipes? I am new to the list and the acronyms are not making

> sense. Is there a list of acronyms and their meanings someone can

> send me or post to the list? TIA (there is at least one I know),

> Elaine

TNCJOHB is _The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing_, by Charlie

Papazian, which many of us (especially we neo-brewers) find helpful,

although evidently there are quite a few texts out there. Although

TNCJOHB does have ~some~ recipes, a larger source is _The Cat's Meow_

on sierra.stanford.edu in the homebrew directory. I haven't made any

of them yet, though, so I can't vouch for them. I have been happy with

all the recipes I've made from TNCJOHB (in addition to the Dark Sleep

Stout and the Sparrowhawk Porter, last year I made the Palilalia India

Pale Ale), and I would make any or all of them again.

As for a list of acronyms, I think there's a general list of internet

acronyms somewhere at Info-mac (sumex-aim.stanford.edu), but that

won't include specialized HBD acronyms. BTW, what ~does~ TIA mean?

Yours in Brewing,

Lou Casagrande

casagran@gdstech.grumman.com

------------------------------


Re:  Adding fruit to the secondary

Date: Fri, 14 May 93 9:36:58 MDT

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re:  Adding fruit to the secondary

> I would caution against adding anything acidic (like the

> citrous fruits), because it will kill your yeast and give you

> a flat brew.  In one of my earlier batches, I added a bit of

> orange peel to "liven up" the end product.  Complete failure...

I suspect that something else was wrong with that batch.  I've made a

number of spiced beers using the zest of up to 4 or 5 oranges and never

had any trouble.  There's even one classic beer style, Belgian Wit (or

White), that's traditionally spiced with corriander and orange.

I've also made raspberry, blueberry, and cherry beers, and I'm sure

other folks can recount experience with even more adventurous

ingredients.  I usually just weed out any truly fuzzy fruits, rinse them

in a bisulfite solution, then puree and add to the secondary (and watch

the yeast go bonkers with all that sugar!).  I've never had an infection

problem this way.  As long as the rest of your sanitation technique is

good, you should have no problems.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


All About Beer

Date: Fri, 14 May 93 12:23:21 -0400

From: jpgareri@acs.bu.edu (Joseph Gareri)

Subject: All About Beer

I have a question I hope to get some help with.  I have been subscribing

to _All About Beer_ for a couple of years.  For Christmas, I decided to

give a gift subscription to a friend and to augment my subscription to

include _Suds and Stuff_.  The problem is despite repeated calls to Mike

Bozak, none of my subscriptions have started coming.  I even spoke to

a representative at the Boston Brewers Festival, and still nothing.

Since I have not been charged for the issues, I suspect they have not

received my order, but each time I call, I am assured that they have

it in the records and all is well.

Questions:

1) Does anyone out there think either of these magazines are worth

   the trouble?

2) I subscribe to _American Brewer_ too, and like it a lot.  I just wish

   it came out more than once a quarter.  Does anyone recommed other

   magazines to use in place of _AAB_?

3) Are there any beer related magazines that are more east coast?

4) Are the newspapers like _Yankee Brew News_ worth the subscription?

Thanks for your help,

Joe Gareri

------------------------------


Re: Musings on Commercial Beer

Date: Fri, 14 May 1993 12:39:12 -0400 (EDT)

From: Stephen Brent Peters <sp2q+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: Re: Musings on Commercial Beer

Another comercial beer surprise is J.J. Wainright's which is produced

by the Pittsburgh Brewing Company (Iron City & *ha* Sam Adams).  I

wasn't expecting much, given IC and IC light etc.  But... Surprise!

It's damn good beer!  I can't vouch for how it is going to taste after

it sits in the trucks for a few weeks getting to the stores in your

city, but here in its home town it is quite nice.

               Steve Peters =  sp2q@andrew.cmu.edu

                  *Oxnar demands a _Sacrifice!_*

------------------------------


"Quarf"

Date: Fri, 14 May 1993 10:28:12 -0800

From: ulrich@sfu.ca

Subject: "Quarf"

Gary Cote asked about:

> "Quarf" A Russin beer made from rye.

Someone was confusing kvas (also spelled kvass), a Russian beer made from

rye or barley, with quaff, an English verb meaning to drink heartily. I

suspect you'll have no trouble getting info under the correct spelling. I

learned the word in high school Russian class (and remembered it twenty

years later!). It's even in my English dictionary.

        --Charles Ulrich

------------------------------


where have all my fermentables gone???

Date: Fri, 14 May 93 10:32:56 -0700

From: kensiski@nas.nasa.gov (David L. Kensiski)

Subject: where have all my fermentables gone???

Last week my brew partner and I made a batch of Winky Dink Marzen, as

described by Pappazian in TCJOHB (page 164 in the first edition).

Everything seemed to be going fine.  It had a starting gravity of

1.043 and fermented happily away at room temperature, peaking at about

a burble every two seconds.

At least everything was OK until last night when we racked to the

secondary for lagering.  When we opened the fermenter, the beer

smelled funny.  I might describe it as a skunky smell, but I've not

got a terribly keen nose for these things.  I thought it tasted

alright, though my parner claimed he could "taste" the smell in his

mouth.

Another oddity was that the specific gravity had dropped to 1.004!

There is no sugar left in this stuff!  Those yeast must have sure had

a good time in that brew!

So that leaves me with a couple of questions.  First, what could have

caused the smell?  Will it go away over time, or are we going to be

stuck drinking this batch with our noses plugged?  Second, what about

the lack of sugar?  Is it worth lagering the beer if there's nothing

left for the yeasties to eat?  Should we just go ahead and bottle it?

Our current strategy is to lager the beer at about 48 degrees for a

couple or three weeks and see what we have then.  Any other ideas?

- --Dave

________________________________________________________________________

David L. Kensiski [KB6HCN]              Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation

kensiski@nas.nasa.gov               NASA Ames Research Center, M/S 258-6

(415)604-4417                       Moffett Field, California 94035-1000

------------------------------


Molassas help

Date: 14 May 1993 11:33:13 -0600 (MDT)

From: Mark Taratoot <SLNDW@CC.USU.EDU>

Subject: Molassas help

Howdy Ho!

I threw together a kind of strange brew last night and need a suggestion.

The beer so far is:

1/2 pound 40 L crystal

1/2 pound 110 L crystal

1/4 pound Black Patent Malt

1/4 pound Roasted Barley

1/4 pound Chocolate Malt

1 pound Dark spraymalt (William's)

6 pounds Oatmeal Dark extract (William's)

1 cup Dark Brown Sugar

1 tsp Cyanne pepper

1/2 tsp Ground Ginger

1/2 tsp Corriander

2.5 oz Northern Brewer pellets

No finishing hops

Ale yeast

I was going to add some blackstrap molassas, but I think the jar

of molassas I have has "gone off" so I did not add any.  I would

like to use molassas to prime this (I will buy some new stuff) but

I do NOT know how much to use.

Anybody out there primed with molassas before?  How much did you use?

How was the carbonation level?  How long did bottle conditioning take?

One additional note:  After I had cooled the wort, I opened the

kettle to put the wort in the fermenter.  Inside the kettle,

floating on top of the wort was....

                    ****A TUFT OF CAT HAIR****

So now it is a battle between yeast and cat hair bugs.  By this morning

the beer had gone out of lag and smells fine.  Of course I am NOT

worrying.  I only worry about important things, like what kind of

beer to have next!

Any comments appreciated.

 -toot

------------------------------


More Anchor

Date: Fri, 14 May 1993 10:39:33

From: garetz@brahms.amd.com (Mark Garetz)

Subject: More Anchor

Jim Busch says he doesn't recall any open fermentation at Anchor.

All of the primary fermentation is done in open tanks.  The steam/porter

tanks are shallow (approx 2.5 ft deep) and maybe 8x20 feet (just an

estimate).  The ale tanks are square (about 12x12) and maybe 10-12 feet

deep.  The secondary fermentation and conditioning is done in closed

stainless tanks.  This may be what Jim remembers seeing.  I have pictures of

all three (and a shot of the copper mash tun and boiler in the morning light

hung on my office wall!).

Frank responds to my response:

>You are correct about what dial I was reading:  the one on the pipe where

the

>water and grain are mixed.  Is it therefore reasonable to assume that this

>puts a maximum on the actual rest temperature?

I don't know if it's reasonable to assume anything.  The tun is heated (by

steam I believe) and controlled by a programmable temperature controller in

the back room.  Don't forget that they do upward infusion mashes. I assume

that the reading on the dial would only be accurate if there was a

grain/water mixture flowing through it at the time the picture was taken

(odds are against it).

Mark Garetz

HopTech

------------------------------


1st batch problem(?)

Date: Fri, 14 May 93 21:03:41 GMT

From: weissborn@dfwdsr.SINet.SLB.COM

Subject: 1st batch problem(?)

Tuesday evening I cooked up my first batch and am having a problem

that I hope someone can help with.

First, the recipe:

6lbs of light dry malt extract

1.5lbs of Wildflower honey

1oz Northern Brewer hops

4oz of fresh ginger

2.5 cups of 20l Crystal Malt

Method:

Boiled 2 gals of water.  Cooled and poured into 5gal carboy.

Put 3 gals of water into pot,  Added crystal malt and brought

to a boil.  Boiled for five minutes (as per the local brewstore

instructions) then strained out the crystal malt.

Brought the liquid to boil again, added the DME, stirring to

make sure it didn't stick, added the ginger and the hops.

Boiled for about 45minutes.  Cooled to about 90dg farenheit.

Poured this into the carboy via a funnel in order to add O2.

Added 1oz of EDME dry yeast.  Added a blow-off tube and placed

in bathroom('cause it is dark and cooler than anywhere in the

house).

Got some bubbling in about an hour and through out the night

but no real foaming or high activity as I have heard others get

using EDME.  By Wednesday, afternoon, no more bubbling.  Went

back to the brew store and they suggested that I re-pitch.  This

time I used Nottingham dry ale yeast.  Pitched this Thursday

afternoon but no noticeable activity by Friday Morning.

So, my question is: "What happened?" and can I salvage this first

batch?

BTW, for what it's worth.  A Coleman campstove makes a pretty good

cooker.  I can bring 3 gals to a boil in about 20mins and if it

boils over, all I have to do is hose it down to clean it up.  My

wife was glad I didn't use the stove in the house  8-)

Anyway, any help will be greatly appreciated.

Bill Weissborn

------------------------------


another question on sugars

Date: Fri, 14 May 1993 14:31:53 -0800 (PDT)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: another question on sugars

In what I've seen so far there has been no mention made of Golden Syrup, a

type of sugar common in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.  Has anyone tried

this in brewing?

 Peter

------------------------------


Re: Belgian souvenirs

Date: Fri, 14 May 93 22:02:19 GMT

From: ccicpg!al!brian@uunet.UU.NET (Brian Davis)

Subject: Re: Belgian souvenirs

Mark asks:

     >1)  Whats the duty rate on alcohol over the duty-free limit (and for that

     >    matter whats the duty free limit)?

I got a lot of different replies when I asked this question last year.

I brought back 12.5 liters of beer with no problems.

     >2)  Is it best just to pack the beer carefully and carry it on the plane

     >    as extra luggage or to ship it?

I boxed the beer up with my dirty laundry as padding.  Most of the bottles

were wrapped in newspaper and then shoved into the legs of levis.  The box

went as checked luggage and arrived undamaged.  A friend of mine did have

some homebrew leak in his luggage once, so you may want to consider lining

the box with a plastic bag.

     >3)  Does anyone have any particular recomendations about Belgian beers not

     >    available here that she might easily find there?  She will be spending

     >    most of her time in Antwerp.

If someone offers her some Delerium Tremmens, have her buy the neat T-shirt

with the pink elephant logo, but skip the beer.

------------------------------


Re: Lallemand/Adding fruit

Date: Fri, 14 May 93 15:04 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Lallemand/Adding fruit

LYONS writes:

>In George Fix's HBD #1140 post he mentioned that the Whitbread yeast

>manufactored by Lallemand was "completely unacceptable" due to low

>viable cell count.  Since Lallemand also produces Nottingham and

>Windsor dry yeasts, is their any reason to expect that these yeasts

>are acceptable?  From my on experience, and also from comments of

>many others from this HBD, both Nottingham and Windsor have rather

>long lag times.  On my last batch with Nottingham I used to packages

>of yeast and the lag time was 48 hours.  Could this be due to a low

>percentage of viable yeast cells?

I've used these two yeasts on quite a few batches and have found that

rehydration at around 104-110F is very important to get a short lag

time.  Also, storage is a big factor in viability.  I store my dry

yeast in the fridge along with the liquid yeast.  Even if you store

your dry yeast in the fridge, does your retailer?  Do they have a

week's worth of yeast on the shelf with the rest in the fridge or do

they have a year's supply on the shelf?  Dried yeast is still alive

and has (I believe) about 8% moisture.  The Yeast Special Issue of

Zymurgy has an article that reports 10% viable dry yeast after 12 months

at 68F and 0% viable after 12 months at 100F.  Compare this to 80% viable

after 12 months at 38F.

Shane writes:

>  There has been some traffic regarding adding fruit to the

>secondary.  Aside from concerns over bacteria and wild yeasts,

>I would caution against adding anything acidic (like the

>citrous fruits), because it will kill your yeast and give you

>a flat brew.  In one of my earlier batches, I added a bit of

>orange peel to "liven up" the end product.  Complete failure...

I disagree.  I've not only made nearly 100 gallons of perfectly

carbonated fruit beers, but also a very sour pseudo-lambik which

was well carbonated.  No, something may indeed have killed your

yeast, but I doubt it was acidity.  Did you use campden tablets

to sanitize your fruit?  Did you let all the SO2 evaporate before

adding the fruit to the beer?  The SO2 released by the campden

tablets not only kills wild yeasts and bacteria, but can also

kill your cultured yeast.

Al.

------------------------------


Cleveland competition mystery

Date: 15 May 1993 12:40:44 -0400 (EDT)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: Cleveland competition mystery

The SNOBS Sampling, a sanctioned competition held at the Great Lakes

Brewing Co. in Cleveland back in February, was a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, things seem to have collapsed after the judging.  We have

a number of unhappy brewers in this area who have never received their

score sheets (I haven't found anyone who DID receive a score sheet).

Moreover, when I talked to the AHA yesterday, I found that they have

apparently never received an organizer's report, so those of us who

judged in this comp haven't received any credit for it.

I know that there is a lot of work involved, and I don't know the state

of volunteer help in Cleveland, but if anyone has any information as to

what happened, it would sure be appreciated.

Ed Westemeier  --  Cincinnati, Ohio  --  westemeier@delphi.com

------------------------------


Draught packaging; hop growth

Date: Sat, 15 May 93 16:39:26 PDT

From: mdcsc!gdh@uunet.UU.NET (Garrett Hildebrand)

Subject: Draught packaging; hop growth

In HBD 1139, Jim Busch comments on the effect of the new draught

packaging on Guinness:

[stuff cut]

>I can attest to absolutely GREAT canned Guinness.

I can, too. I have had it in the bottle and the old can and thought it

was utter trash. When I finally got to taste it on tap, I really liked

it. I was very surprised when I tried the draught packaging to find

that the new canned version was about as good as on tap. I got my first

taste of this a couple of years ago when a friend brought some back

from the UK. It is just now showing up here in the USA. Of course, if

one does not like draft Guiness from the tap, then this can won't

change ones mind.

Recently, I got to try another brand packaged this same way.This new

batch is called Flowers Draught. It is one of the best UK ales I have

tried, including many available on tap. I doubt, though, that this

packaging would do anything for Bud.

It might, however, do a treat for Baderbrau, which is already great

from the bottle!

HOPS

For those people growing hops for the first time, here is another "hop

report:"

The hops are doing fine. Nugget is still the fastest of Willamette and

Cascade. The Cascade took a long while to get going, is slow-growing by

comparison and has a more delicate growth in general (smaller leaves).

No bug problems so far. I am fertilizing with general-purpose organic

fertilizer, and they seem to like it fine. My highest vine is about six

feet up the twine (this is the first year.)

By the way, the Cascade took a long while to come up out of the

ground.

gdh

------------------------------


Hershey's chocolate syrup in beer

Date: Sun, 16 May 93 8:20:49 PDT

From: steve_kenshulo@csufresno.edu (Steve Kenshulo)

Subject: Hershey's chocolate syrup in beer

I have been thinks about dumping a can of Hershey's chocolate syrup

to my next batch of porter. Has anyone ever tried anything like this?

I am hopeing the chocolate will have enough unfermentables in it to

leave a _slight_ chocolate taste in the beer, without riseing the

alcohol content too high. I was thinking about adding a pint or so

in with the malt extract, then boiling the whole mess.

The only thing that I think might go wrong is the cocoa will be to

bitter after all the suger ferments out. Any ideas out there?

Steve Kenshalo

skenshul@mondrian.csufresno.edu

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1142, 05/17/93

*************************************

-------


Raspberries in beer

Date:         Sun, 16 May 93 10:10:07 EDT

From: Brett Charbeneau <BWCHAR%WMVM1.BITNET@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU>

Subject:      Raspberries in beer

Gang,

     Having seen the recent queries on fruit additives to wort I would like

to pose a question of my own.  I was exposed to a lambic framboise about a

month ago and have been experiencing pipe dreams of making my own ever since.

I am still an extract brewer, but I am interested in giving this style of

beer a go.

     If anyone has had any experience with this sort of lambic or successes

getting lighter ales "take" the fruit I would love to hear about it.  Does

one need to make the all-grain "jump" to be able to play on this level of

exotic beers?

         Brett Charbeneau

------------------------------


ISBN for brewing biotechnology book

Date: 17 May 93 09:09:26 EST

From: Matthew Mitchell <IEKP898%tjuvm.bitnet@TJUVM.TJU.EDU>

Subject: ISBN for brewing biotechnology book

From:  Matthew Mitchell

I lost the mail requesting the number, so apologies in advance for posting

to the net.

The ISBN for "The Biotechnology of Malting and Brewing" by JS Hough is

0-521-395533-4, published by Cambridge University Press.

Howzat!?!

Matthew Mitchell     <iekp898@tjuvm.tju.edu>   <iekp898@tjuvm.bitnet>

Former Brewmaster, Penthouse Brewing Co., Haverford PA

makers of Barclay Beer, Penthouse Brown Ale, and Big B Malt Liquor

------------------------------


Chocolate beer and The Hop Report

Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 08:12:19 -0500 (CDT)

From: dspalme@mke.ab.com (Diane Palme x2617)

Subject: Chocolate beer and The Hop Report

Howdy all!

(clack. clack, clackety clack:  imagine a teletype here) :)

 In response to all the the questions about chocolate beer of late, I

just thought I would throw in my $0.02.  I made a chocolate porter recently

ala TNCJoHB's Goat Scrotum Ale and tossed a full 6 oz. of baking chocolate

into the vat.  Some molasses went in as well and the results were wonderful!

The beer has a *very* noticeable chocolate flavor that coats the mouth but

is not bitter.  Definately something interesting.  Some important words of

warning for those wishing to replicate this beer:

 1.  DO NOT SAMPLE THE BEER WHEN TAKING S.G. READINGS!!!!!!

     I am *totally* serious about this.  I made the mistake

     of doing exactly this because (to be perfectly honest),

     we were worrying about the beer.  It was the vilest,

     most horrible, foul, disgusting ilk ever to pass these

     lips.  Worse than liver!!!!! :-)  The first time it was

     even remotely close to beer was when I put the stuff in

     the bottle.  This was about 3 weeks after brew day.  Ok.

     I'm better now.  Whew.

 2.  Be sure you are not operating heavy machinery when drinking

     this beer.  It is *very* potent.  Time for more honesty

     here, I don't know what the initial or final S.G readings

     were because we were *sure* this beer was a gonner.  :(

     Little did we know this was going to be the best beer we

     have ever brewed!  Go figure.

 Now that I have imparted what little wisdom I have...on to page 2

(clack, clack, clackety clack clack...  RRRRRRRRRIIIIIIPPPP)

 Now for the hop report.  Thanks again to all of you who wrote to

me telling me not to worry about the little guys.  They are all above the

ground now and doing great.  The Hallertau was the first up, followed

closely by the Cascade and bringing up the rear, the Tett.  I am very

pleased with their progress and plan to do some fertilizing now that they

are visible.  Is it harvest time yet????  :)

Diane

dspalme@mke.ab.com

- --

 " God does not play dice "

     - Albert Einstein

 " Nor is it our business to proscribe to God

  How he should run the world. "

     - Neils Bohr

------------------------------


Hops growth in the N.E.

Date:     Mon, 17 May 93 9:22:26 EDT

From: "Darren L. Ward" (FSAC-FCD) <dward@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  Hops growth in the N.E.

  Well, I don't know why my hops are doing so well, but

I'm not complaining.  My Nugget vines are at 16', Cascade at

15', Hallertauer at 12' and Mt. Hood at 8'.  The first three have

reached the tops of the cages they're in so they're going no higher,

but the Hood is climbing a string I hung diagonal to the top of my

chimney, a hypotenuse of approx. 25'.  I'm surprised and pleased with

the growth so far.  Not bad for a second year in the NY/NJ border

area of the country, I'd say.  The Hood only gets half the sun

the others do, the higher it grows though, the more it'll get.

None are with cones, yet.

------------------------------


How long in secondary ?

Date: Mon, 17 May 93 8:36:40 CDT

From: ptw@Texaco.COM (Paul T. Williamson)

Subject: How long in secondary ?

In HBD 1142 Bill writes:

>1) How long is too long in the secondary fermenter? ....... (stuff deleted)

In regards to that I have a couple of questions for the group :

I would also like to know how long is too long and what happens to the beer ?

Would it change the taste, color, or the ability to carbonate in some way ?

I have just started my first homebrew and though the instructions I received

from the brew shop say 1 to 2 weeks the stuff in my carboy seems to have

pretty much settled out after 3 or 4 days.  I plan to bottle it in the next

day or so but I wondered if my delay in putting it in the bottle would effect

it in some way.

     Paul Williamson

     PTW@Texaco.com

------------------------------


Back from the dead. 1.020 starters.

Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 10:29:02 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>

Subject: Back from the dead. 1.020 starters.

Greetings to all my homebrewing netbuddies!

First post in about 9 months.  Wow!!  It's been difficult to even keep

up with reading the HBD, much less post, even when you guys have been

talking about me.

School's out.  Hallelujah!

The big news as far as this forum goes, though, is...every homebrewer's dream

came true for me back in November when I became head brewer/consultant

at what is probably the World's Smallest Microbrewery--The Tumbleweed

Grille and Microbrewery here in Boone, NC.  (Cheers!! Clapping!! Thank

you. Thank you.)

And how much do we brew?  A whopping 60 gallons at a time!!  Most of

you would get a hoot from seeing the brewhouse.  It's nothing more

than an upscaled homebrewing operation.  We built everything

ourselves.  Conditions are a little rustic but the beer is pretty

good.  I'm happy with about 75% of the beers that go out the door.

And the other 25% is well-received anyway.

The interesting part of this enterprise is the fact that I've had a

chance to put together the numbers for running a microbrewery/brewpub

of this size and the results are rather surprising.  Even at this

scale, the enterprise is commercially viable and we haven't sunk tens

of thousands of dollars into the operation.

If there's any interest, I may post my reflections/observations/

calculations for this little project.  Who knows?  I might be able to

inspire some of you to give it a shot.

Before closing, let me try to make a worthwhile contribution to a thread I

barely followed from couple of weeks ago.  (And I apologize if this has already

been said.  Last time I made a comment about a two week old thread, I got flamed

into eternity so be kind...)  Didn't see this mentioned so...

RE: why 1.020 wort for starters?

I asked Dave Logsdon this a few weeks ago because we were having

trouble with long ferments at Tumbleweed.  Dave says 1.020 wort is

necessary only from the point of view of efficiency of reproduction of

the yeast.  Sure you can use 1.030 or even 1.040 wort but the yeast

will not reproduce as fast at that gravity.

Good to be back.  Hope to be contributing more often this summer

now that my schedule is back to normal human proportions.

 ___ ----------------------------------------------------------- ___

|   |                   Kinney Baughman                         |   |

|   |            baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu                 |   |

 / /                                                             / /

  |        "Beer is my business and I'm late for work"            |

   ---------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Anchor Porter Change

Date: 17 May 1993 08:14:47 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

Subject: Anchor Porter Change

Subject:  Anchor Porter Change                  Time:8:04 AM     Date:5/17/93

While busily unpacking entries to the 93 NHC the other night I paused for a

moment to watch the open primary fermenter in the Ale Room fill. It occurred to

me that the wort was pretty dark for any of the ale which they make so I asked

the brewer on duty what I was watching. "Porter," was his reply, "we went to

ale yeast in the porter about 3 months ago. So now the Steam is the only lager

product and it is the only one put into the shallow primaries." I quickly

retired to the tap room to sample this new version. I must confess that I had

already had my tastebuds cascaded with Liberty so my palate was not in top

form, still the porter seemed to be a little less robust than in the past. I'll

try it again tonight.

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


soda pop

Date: Mon, 17 May 93 10:36:41 -0500

From: gilling@quaver.urbana.mcd.mot.com (Harry Gilling)

Subject: soda pop

With summer coming soon, I'd like to make some root beer or ginger ale

suitable for kids to drink. I've seen the extracts in the stores which

contain all sorts of additives including food coloring. I'd much prefer to

make something from scratch if I could find some recipes. Does anyone

know of a source for recipes?

I understand the the soda made from the extracts results in a

drink with about .25% alcohol. Is the reason why this is so low compared

to beer is because you bottle it immediately and the yeast stops working

before it has time to convert much of the sugar?

------------------------------


re: Sugars

Date: Mon, 17 May 93 10:09:25 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: re: Sugars

One thing I find amazing about HBD is how adamatly one's opinions are

presented as fact!  Perhaps this has to do with the relative anonymity

of e-mail.  Any psychologists (pseudo or real) care to comment?

Anyway to the matter at hand.  The e-mail I received after my last

"sugar" posting has left me with, yes, *more* questions.

    Piloncillo (sp?) -- some sort of mexican brown sugar.  Anybody

       heard of and/or tried brewing with this?

    re US Brown sugar -- several people said they thought by FDA

       requirements sugar had to be fully refined.  Therefore brown

       sugar is actually refined sucrose with molasses added back after

       refining.  Can any of you FDA types confirm this?  If so is there

       any reason to use brown sugar.  Why not just a smaller amount of

       molasses?

    re Inverted -vs- non-inverted sucrose:  Can anyone move the following

       statements from my opinion list into my fact list:

          a) Sucrose must be broken into glucose and fructose before it

          can be assimilated by yeast.

          b)  Yeast have the ability to break sucrose into fructose and

          glucose.

       If b is true why is inverted sucrose "preferred by brewers"

       (Rajotte _Belgian Ales_).

    Caramel -- How does the process of caramelizing change sugar?  Can

       glucose, sucrose, fructose, and maltose all be caramelized?  Is

       molasses caramelized to some extent or does all its flavor come

       from other stuff in sugar cane and/or sugar beets used to make

       sucrose?

    Maltose -- Is this a simple sugar?

Just trying to learn, WAK

|- William A Kitch                          (512) 471-4929 -|

|- Geotechnical Engineering                                -|

|- ECJ 9.227                                               -|

|- Univ of Texas at Austin, TX 78712-1076                  -|

------------------------------


Bud, Wyeast, clear beer, Miller ale

Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 12:09:51 -1100

From: Kirk_Anderson@wheatonma.edu (Kirk Anderson)

Subject: Bud, Wyeast, clear beer, Miller ale

In HBD #1141, Shane writes:

|While in Bonn last October... I noticed a restaurant across the

|street called (I kid you not) "The Chicago Pizza Pie Factory."

|On their menu,I was appalled to not only find that scourge of American

|zymurgy, Budweiser, but to also discover that it was more than

|TWICE the price of fine local brews like Bitburger (it was

|DM6.90 a glass, about $4.00!)  My friend Eberhard explained

|that the locals sometimes like to pretend they're Americans...

Purely a novelty item.  There's a "Chicago Pizza Pie Factory"

in Paris too I believe. What worries me a lot more is AB's effort

to acquire the _real_ Budweiser in Bohemia.  Does anyone have

recent info on this?  Is there any reason to hope that the whole

world won't be eating and drinking the same multinational swill

before our time on earth is up?  They said the French would never

buy fast food.  Ha!  Prediction: all of Europe will be drinking Bud

in a very few years.

A couple months ago, I asked HBD readers to tell me why I should go

from dry to liquid yeast and got some kind and intelligent answers.

Well, my first experience with Wyeast was an attempt at a Belgian

ale.  When I bottled two weeks ago, I thought the stuff tasted very

ordinary.  But wait! after only 12 days in the bottle, I snuck a

taste, expecting it to be fairly green still. WOW!  This is my

best batch ever and it's only getting better.  There's no way I

could have got that charateristic flavor without the right yeast.

All you who predict the fast demise of clear beer because it tastes

lousy, I hope you're right, obviously. But what did you say when

lite beer hit the market?   It hasn't gone away, has it?  Remember what

HL Mencken said about the taste of the American public?

Finally, where and when can I get that new Miller ale (sic) that

js was raving about the other day?

Kirk

------------------------------


bisulfite solution

Date: Mon, 17 May 93 10:27:45 -0600

From: coronell@cadesm13.eng.utah.edu (Charles Coronella)

Subject: bisulfite solution

In today's HBD, Jeff Benjamin says he rinses fruit in "bisulfite solution"

before adding the puree to the secondary.  I've made a few cherry beers, and

I've always wondered about a way to kill bacteria et al living on the fruit

before adding them to the wort/beer (without boiling).  So, how/where/why/

why not?  I'd like to  hear from others about this or other easily available

treatments for fruits.

Thanks in advance,  (TIA)

Chuck

------------------------------


West Virginia Brewpub

Date: Mon, 17 May 93 12:31:27 EDT

From: Sean.Smith@LUNCH.TRUST.CS.CMU.EDU

Subject: West Virginia Brewpub

Thought I'd let you know about a little discovery I made this weekend:

Sometime since last summer, a microbrewery has opened up in Morgantown,

West Virginia (home of West Virginia University).  The ONE ONION BREWERY

AND BISTRO---allegedly ``West Virginia's First Brewpub''---is located in

the downtown section, down by the river.  The menu didn't look too exciting,

but my wife and I had a couple of pints and thoroughly enjoyed them.

The Scottish Stout had an especially nice flavor.   Talking with the young

bartender (who was reading Papazian when things were slow) revealed that the

owner is apparently an avid homebrewer who decided to go big-time.  They

do their own mashing, but apparently don't use a secondary...

For those keeping track of this sort of thing:

 WEST VIRGINIA, Morgantown.  The One Onion Brewery and Bistro.

  1291 University Ave.  (304) 296-BREW

Cheers!

 --Sean

sean.smith@cs.cmu.edu                  school of computer science

carnegie mellon university  5000 forbes     pittsburgh, pa 15213 3891

------------------------------


1993 Stoudt's Festival

Date: Mon, 17 May 93 12:34:21 EDT

From: Sean.Smith@THEORY.CS.CMU.EDU

Subject: 1993 Stoudt's Festival

Last summer, the Stoudt Microbrewery held a beer festival featuring

microbrewers from all over the East Coast.   (In fact, I first heard about

it here.)  A relative who went to it (and had a great time) reports receiving

information about this year's festival.  Since I haven't seen it announced

yet, here goes:

Stoudt Microbrewery Beer Festival

Two sittings: Friday June 12, 6PM-10PM or Saturday June 13, 2PM-6PM

At Stoudt's Black Angus Brewery Hall, Adamstown PA

(This is just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike)

$15/person

215 484 4385

Enjoy!

- --Sean

smith+@cmu.edu                                    school of computer science

carnegie mellon university    5000 forbes avenue     pittsburgh, pa 15213 3890

------------------------------


Bittering hops, alternative fuels

Date: Mon, 17 May 93 12:41:30 EDT

From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

Subject: Bittering hops, alternative fuels

------------------------------


Growing hops

Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 10:56:45 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Mark S. Nelson" <mnelson@eis.calstate.edu>

Subject: Growing hops

I was interested in possibly growing my own hops, and would like any

information on the types of climates they like.  I live on the Northern

California coast, so the weather is usually chilly and damp.  Do they like

this kind of thing?

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everything you know is wrong.

Mark S. Nelson       nelsonm@axe.humboldt.edu      mnelson@eis.calstate.edu

------------------------------


PET bottles, sankey kegs, _Brewing Techniques_, etc.

Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 11:01:05 -0700 (PDT)

From: Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG>

Subject: PET bottles, sankey kegs, _Brewing Techniques_, etc.

Finally caught up with my HBD reading after two weeks vacation and thought

I'd add my $0.02 plus ask a few questions.

Re: PET bottles.  Some time ago I mentioned that my brother was trying to

mail some Hook Norton beer that he brought back from England.  Well, it

arrived saftely and in addition to the pint (glass) bottle of Old Hookey,

he also sent me a 2 litre PET bottle of Hook Norton Bitter.  The bottle,

BTW, was the same brown color as the glass.

Stainless is good, aluminum is bad . . . Can anyone fill me in on the use

of the "new" sankey kegs, the type with only one tap hole in the top

center and the handles.  I've heard that they are aluminum with a

stainless coating.  Is this correct?  How durable is the stainless

layer?

What's happening with _Brewing Techniques_?  I understand it is due this

month so I shouldn't get too impatient.  Just wondering if anyone has any

news on its progress.

Cooler mashing and step infusion.  Does anyone have instructions on step

infusion and picnic cooler mashing?  I've been successfully doing single

step infusion in my cooler tun but was wondering what the numbers might be

for attempting step infusions (i.e., Step 1: x gal H2O @ y deg. F/lb

grist, Step 2 add x gal H20 (boiling?), etc.)

Finally, its easy enough to get kegs of beer at most liquor stores here in

the U.S.  Can the same be said for England.  I'm at the early stages of

planning a birthday party for my father two years from now.  We'll be

staying in a private house in southwest England.  I'd like to be able to

get ahold of a keg of cask conditioned ale.  Anybody have any knowledge of

what I might have to go through?  How long in advance would I have to get

it for it to be in serving condition?  Would I need to do anything to it?

What about a tap?

Many thanks,

Eric Wade <ericwade@class.org>

------------------------------


Thanks for all of the help with my bitter

Date: Mon, 17 May 93 11:31:17 PDT

From: rcristad@weber.ucsd.edu (Riccardo Cristadoro)

Subject: Thanks for all of the help with my bitter

Last week I posted a request for help with my next batch, a bitter.

I was very pleased with the numerous responces that I got, all of

them very helpful.  I really appreciate the help, and the

information that I get from this board.  I feel that the quality of

brweing advice is outstanding.  In any event, I want to share my latest

creation from the basement of Pirate ALE:

8 # British 2-row

 .5 #British crystal malt

 .5 # Wheat Malt

 .5 # Golden Brown sugar

 .75 oz Willamette (60 mins)

 .50 oz EKG (60) ----I had to use up some hops

1 oz EKG leaf hops (60)

1 oz EKG leaf hops (30)

1 oz EKG leaf hops (5)

Irish Moss

Wyeat #1098 (British Ale) started two days before in a starter

My O.G. was 1.046

 There are a few questions I wanted to ask.

This is my

second All-grain brew.  Is a starting gravity of 1.046 sound about

right for 9.5 pounds of grains/sugar?  I was reading Fred Miller's

book and he seems to get these amazing o.g.'s with 6 pounds of

grain.  Also, I mashed at a slightly higer temp (154-155).  I was

told that I would get more body in the brew by elevating the mash

temp.  What are the draw backs of the extra few degrees?  Is it a

good idea to use .5# of Wheat malt to help with head retention? I

got suggestions for Wheat malt and cara-pils.  Lastly,

one suggesting was to dry hop in my keg.  I like the idea of that,

but will whole leaf hops (EKG of course) clog my cornelius keg??

 Once again, thanks for all of the help.  I'll give you a

taste test report in a few weeks.

STEVE BOXER

------------------------------


Cranberry Beer???/Decoction mash

Date: 17 May 1993 13:48:13 GMT

From: WAUTS@CWEMAIL.ceco.com

Subject: Cranberry Beer???/Decoction mash

         To: Homebrew Publications                        HOMEBRE1 - CWEMAIL

    Subject: Cranberry Beer???/Decoction mash

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello all,

While cleaning  out the freezer the other day I uncovered four pounds of

cranberries.  Since Thanksgiving is way off I thought maybe I could use them

in a brew.  Does anyone have any recipes that use cranberries, if so would

you care to enlighten me??  Thanks.

I was reading Eric Warners Wheat book the other day, specifically the section

on single decoction mashing.  Since I haven't done a decoction yet I have two

questions, is it OK to boil the grains for 30min??  And how much liquid do

put in the pot with the grains.  Any info would be helpful.

Tom Stolfi

Wauts@cwemail.ceco.com

------------------------------


ReUsing Kegs

Date: Mon, 17 May 93 16:52:11 EDT

From: Bruce=Kiley%SIG%SNI%sig@sni-usa.com

Subject: ReUsing Kegs

I've heard that there are kits available that allows you to use standard

1/4 and 1/2 kegs.  Does anyone know any information about this ?

Please reply to brucek@sig.sni-usa.com

Cheers,

Bruce

------------------------------


Brewing Cookbook

Date: Mon, 17 May 93 16:55:53 EDT

From: Bruce=Kiley%SIG%SNI%sig@sni-usa.com

Subject: Brewing Cookbook

I currently use a brewing cookbook that I made using a database program.  It

is full functional cookbook type of program.  It offers customized printing,

IE: ingredients or brewing process or complete recipe or any combination,

detailed recipe instructions, brew ingredients via table choices of free form

entry, sorting, and many more features.

There are many types of these programs available, like SUDS.  My question is,

is there a need for another program like this?  Would you be interested?  I'd

like your comments.

Please reply to brucek@isg.sni-usa.com

Cheers,

Bruce

------------------------------


fruit beers

Date: Mon, 17 May 93 17:38:01 CDT

From: jay marshall <marshall@pat.mdc.com>

Subject: fruit beers

In HBD #1142 Jeff Benjamin and Al Korz mention their experiences with

fruit beers.  Would you guys briefly describe your process - i.e. when

you add the fruit (boil, primary, or secondary), whether or not you

use a sanitizing procedure such as campden tablets or (as Jeff mentions)

a bisulphite rinse, and how much fruit it takes to get a noticable

flavor.  Also, I would be interested in knowing what kind of hopping

rates are good to use with these beers.

I have tried one beer in which I added 2 qts of pure black cherry juice

to the secondary and, while it was very tasty, it didn't have as much

cherry flavor as I had hoped it would.  It seemed that most of the stuff

that makes cherries taste so good fermented away in the secondary.

thanks,

Jay

marshall@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov

(soon...marshall@pat.mdc.com)

------------------------------


Mail Order Supplies

Date: Mon, 17 May 93 18:35:34 -0500

From: spangle@abacus.mwsu.edu (Robert Spangle)

Subject: Mail Order Supplies

I need to ask a favor:

1) Since I have moved, and now I have the digest again, I need

   information.  In this city they do not have any homebrewing

   supplies.  I need some address of your favorite mail orders

   places.  You can send it to directly or just post an answer

   here.

2) I want to start growing hops.  Where do I get the flowers?

Thanks,

Robert Spangl

             e

Dept of Computer Science

MSU

Wichita Falls, Texas  76308

Spangle@abacus.mwsu.edu

------------------------------


Beer Video

Date: 17 May 93 19:43:11 EDT

From: Jim Kirk II <70403.3157@compuserve.com>

Subject: Beer Video

BREW VIDEO ANNOUNCEMENT:

Starkirk Productions has just released a video trainig video giving

information on opening your own micro-brewery or brewpub. We traveled to:

Boulevard Brewery (Kansas City MO), Walnut Brewery (Boulder CO),

Breckenridge Brewery (Breckenridge CO), Salt Lake Brewing (Salt Lake UT),

Sierra Nevada (Chico CA), Grant's Brewpub/Brewery (Yakima WA), Capital

Brewing (Middleton WI), Broad Ripple Brewing (Indianapolis IN). We

interviewed the owners and/or brewmasters of these succesful operations.

They gave us tons of info on opening and operation of brewing

establishments. The video comes on two tapes and runs approx 2:45. It sells

for $24.95 plus $5 P.H. For info contact me Jim Kirk 70403,3157 on

CompuServe or send to: Starkirk Productions, Inc.

                       3848 S. Sherman Dr.

                       Indianapolis, IN 46237

                       (317)786-1274

------------------------------


England Pubs

Date: 17 May 1993 21:26:52 -0400 (EDT)

From: ksalomon@BIX.com

Subject: England Pubs

I am taking a business/pleasure trip to England next week.  Does anyone

have any good suggestions for special pubs to check out?  I will be in

Manchester and London for 3 days each.

------------------------------


Light-struck beer again

Date: Mon, 17 May 93 21:48 EDT

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Light-struck beer again

I have an addition to the recent discussion on light-struck beer.  Andy

Hoffmann, a friend of mine who reads the digest off-line, brought an

article to my attention last week.  For those interested in the chemistry

of light-struck beer, look up the following:

Vogler, A. and Kunkely, H.  "Photochemistry and Beer", Journal_of_Chemical_

Education, vol 59, no. 1, Jan 1982, pp. 25-27.

The article is written by a couple of German chemists, and describes the

chemical reactions that occur when beer is exposed to various wavelengths

of light.  It also discusses the effects of brown and green bottles on the

light-struck flavor, and gives absorption spectra for brown and green glass.

It also provides 27 references for those brewers interested in more detail.

Hope this helps.

Tom Kaltenbach                Upstate New York Homebrewers Association

tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com      Rochester, New York, USA

------------------------------


BREWING TECHNIQUES

Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 22:22:15 -0400 (EDT)

From: SMUCKER@UTKVX.UTCC.UTK.EDU

Subject: BREWING TECHNIQUES

I had the good luck the other day to see a new magazine at my local homebrew

store, BREWING TECHNIQUES.  All I can say is WOW!  this leaves Zymurgy in the

dust.  This new magazine is designed to bring technical information to the small

scale brewer.  As I read it it is intended for both the homebrew and the brewpub

/ mircobrewer.  The first issue (volume 1, number 1, May / June 1993) has

articles by Fix, Schiller, Haunold, and Nickerson.  I especially like the

article by George Fix on Belgian Malts.  It has a column on trouble shooting by

Dave Miller and another on beer styles by Roger Bergen.  The content is great

and each article includes references if you want to follow up on more

information (although I am impressed with the depth of the articles).  The

presentation is very professional and well done.  With luck this magazine may do

for brewing what Fine Woodworking did for that hobby, take it beyond the amateur

world in to a expanding advanced amateur / small profession world.  With good

solid technical information this magazine can build the growth of both the users

/ suppliers just as Fine Woodworking did.

BEWING TECHNIQUES is published 6 times a year for $ 30.00.  But a charter

subscription is available for $ 24.00.  Their address is BREWING TECHNIQUES,

P.O. Box 3222, Eugene, Oregon 97403,  Tel. 503 / 683-1916,  Fax 503 / 687-8534.

One of the things I like best about this magazine was not once did it tell me to

not worry,   since most of us type A, technical types worry one hell of a lot

and that why we make damn good beer.  Just for the record I have no connection

what so ever with BREWING TECHNIQUES,  I was just very impressed and it was very

much worth the $ 5.00 I paid for it.  (The copy I got was likely a free one that

my homebrew supplier got as a sample, but so what it was worth the money.)  The

only two things I found wrong with this magazine was that it was too short and

didn't yet have as many advertisers as I would like to see,  but I bet these

both change with time.

Dave Smucker

------------------------------


Beer Disaster <PLEASE HELP!!!>

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 00:09:22 EDT

From: <geotex@engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Beer Disaster <PLEASE HELP!!!>

AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

Yesterday, I followed Charlie Papazian's recipe (The New Joy of HBing)

for so imperial stout.  Call me  a beginner, but, it was my first intermediate

brewing attemp.  i.e. I used grains to add color etc, to a malt extract,

boiled the whole mess (after sparging the grains out) and ending up with

some nice looking wort.  BUT!  The recipe called for 1-2 packages of ale

yeast, and I added 2.  Today it begain to ferment about 12 hours after

pitching the yeast.  When I got home about 8 hours after fermentation began,

the thing was going nutty.  I mean it is all bubbling out through the

fermentation lock on onto the floor.  I am talking a lot of the mixture is

gushing out.  What went wrong?  Too much yeast?  Too warm (its about 75)?

So is the beer which cost me about $30 to make ruined?  What is a novice

to do?  I poured some out (gasp), and I am thinking of moving the fermenter

outside where it will do minimal damage.  I am hoping the cool weather

may slow down this out of control process.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.  If at all posible, e-mail me

at geotex@engin.umich.edu.  I would like to know ASAP what to do!

Thanks

Alex

------------------------------


Homebrewing in the Far East

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 02:27:28 EDT

From: drwho2959@aol.com

Subject: Homebrewing in the Far East

(The following was captured from my BBS.  We are interested in comments and

 advice from any and all HBDers who have experience with homebrewing in the

 Far East.)

Msg #:  329   Security: 5         MAIN

 From:  SYSOP                     Sent: 05-17-93 20:35

   To:  HOWARD MORELAND           Rcvd: 05-17-93 21:17

   Re:  (R)HOMEBREWING-JAPAN & KOREA

> Does anyone have info on homebrewing in either Japan or Korea? A work

> assignment will take me to one of those locations this Fall, to stay

> for about a year. The fine folks at DeFalco's referred me to a notice

> on clubs in Japan in Zymurgy, and I wrote them. I still need a source

> of info for Korea, and more on Japan would be welcome. For instance,

> (1) is homebrewing legal, illegal but tolerated, or ranked with

> assassinating the head of state? (2) Are homebrew ingredients and

> equipment available locally, by mail order, or not at all? (3) Is it

> possible to take yeast slants through Customs without risking arrest?

> (4) Any particular items I should try to ship in when I move?

> Thanks.

Latest Zymurgy has a very interesting (and amusing) story about this:

(I am plagiarizing, go ahead and sue me, Charlie.... MAKE MY DAY!!!)

"LOW ALCOHOL OR NO HOMEBREW......

According to _All About Beer_ magazine, to get a license to brew beer in

Japan you must make a minimum of 2 million liters annually.  Obviously,

this makes homebrewing illegal.  Mr. Yamanaka, head of the Japan

Association for the Promotion of Homebrewing, is Japan's only importer

of homebrew kits.  How does he get around the law?  In Japan, beverages

containing 1 percent or less alcohol are exempt from the law.  So Mr.

Yamanaka went to Edme Ltd. in England and asked them to make a beer kit

with instructions to make a 1 percent alcohol beer.  The instructions

say to use 40 liters of water and no [additional] sugar, and brewers are

warned that deviaing from the recipe is illegal.  When the tax

collectors started asking questions, Mr. Yamananka told them to find

someone else to harass.  He hasn't heard from them since."

I wonder HOW MANY poor, unsuspecting Japanese homebrewers actually

FOLLOW the directions?!  YUCK!!

Msg #:  330   Security: 5         MAIN

 From:  DENNIS LEWIS              Sent: 05-17-93 21:58

   To:  HOWARD MORELAND           Rcvd: -NO-

   Re:  (R)HOMEBREWING-JAPAN&KORE

A couple of thoughts about Far East Brewing...  I suppose that homebrew

ingredients are available at least from mail order (probably just

extracts, because grains might be too similar to agricultural stuff, and

be prohibited.  The Japanese are extremely anal about importing

agricultural stuff). Yeast slants are a toss-up. If you wrap them well

to eliminate the smell, then they should go unnoticed. If you think you

can down grade, you may just want to switch back to dry (gasp!!!).

If I were going to go, I'd make a care package to send to myself. Pack

two 6.5 gal buckets w/ lids, and in them put: a bunch of tubing, a

couple airlocks, all the homebrew chemicals, stoppers, a well-wrapped

hydrometer, etc. Essentially send a basic homebrew kit.  Wrap up another

box with many cans/bags of malt extract, etc. Get friends and family to

mail you new stuff for birthdays, Christmas, etc.

If all else fails, the Japanese make some pretty damn good brew. They

copied the Germans in this just as they copy us in everything else.

Michael Jackson was fairly impressed.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------*

|               Andrew Patrick                                         |

|       SysOp,                  Houston Correspondent & Distrib. Mgr., |

|  Home Brew Univ. BBS                  Southwest Brewing News         |

|  (713)465-0265, 2400 bps          Internet: andinator@delphi.com     |

*----------------------------------------------------------------------*

------------------------------


Microbreweries in the London Area

Date:         Tue, 18 May 93 09:51:15 +0300

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      Microbreweries in the London Area

I'll be in London from June 6th on. Can anyone recomend any Micro or just small

and worth-a-visit brewery in and around London? How about you favorite Pub?

I already have the Publist.Z from the archive. Please reply directly to my box

LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1143, 05/18/93

*************************************

-------


Hops differences?

Date: 18 May 1993 08:21:28 -0400 (EDT)

From: JUKNALIS@arserrc.gov

Subject: Hops differences?

 Hello out there!  Can anyone tell me if it is possible to tell

the difference between different varieties of hops by their growth form

, scents, or flower structures??   Thanks in advance.  Joe

------------------------------


Did you BEER Bread?

Date: Mon, 17 May 93 15:44:39 CDT

From: Mark S. Hart <hart@hvhp1>

Subject: Did you BEER Bread?

Full-Name: Mark S. Hart

Salutations all,

I tried to e-mail my request directly to Mark Taratoot. but this *&*^&%$

system isnt cooperating.  I'll try it this way and then settle for

vend-o-matic pretzels.  The original request follows:

Hi Mark,

I just read your post in HBD 1140 about not making bread when the beer

had been dry hopped.  Being new to HBD I missed your posting of how to

make the beer bread and pretzels from the yeast cake at the bottom of

the secondary fermenter.

My request is:  Would you please inform me as to how you are making these

treats with this crud I usually throw away.  I can't think of a better

combonation than hot bread and fresh brew.  By the way, how are you getting

the yeast out of the carboy with out turning it into a gallon of soup.

I am about to bottle my rocky raccoon's crystal honey lager and would love

to give your receipe a try.  Please e-mail me at "hart@hvhp1.mdc.com"

Thanks for the info!

Mark S. Hart

------------------------------


Non-alcohol producing yeast

Date:     Tue, 18 May 93 9:08:37 EDT

From: "Darren L. Ward" (FSAC-FCD) <dward@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  Non-alcohol producing yeast

 I have a good friend who has given up alcohol, but still drinks

a lot of Non-alcoholic beer.  He's very interested in my home brews,

and would like me to brew a Non-alcoholic batch for him.  Is there a

source for yeast that can be used to do the same things except not

produce the alcohol????  What is the sugar turned into if not

alcohol???  I've checked the various mail order catalogs I have,

no mention of any special N.A. yeasts.

------------------------------


Cooling alternatives

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 09:42:22 EDT

From: gorman@aol.com

Subject: Cooling alternatives

I've got a 65F basement now. I fear it will get much warmer in July.

I've read about alternative (to refrigeration) cooling techniques like air

circulation towers, wet towel, etc.

Anyone have any real experience with this they could pass along?

Thanks in advance.

------------------------------


Commercials

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 09:30 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Commercials

 >From: Jim Kirk II

 >Subject: Beer Video

 I can't wait to read all the flames this one generates.   Considering the

 fact that it is far more commercial than my video announcement several years

 ago one would expect Jim to be trashed till at least the turn of the Century.

 Hopefully, we and the Digest have all matured a little since then and will be

 a bit more accommodating this time.

 New product announcements are one of the most useful aspects of this forum

 and should not be discouraged.  However, they (as all of mine have been, in

 spite of the thrashing I have received) should be announcements and not

 advertisements as this one clearly is.

 I suggest the following guidelines for NPA's:

   1.  Details limited to the name and function of the product.

   2.  Pricing and ordering information should NOT be included.

   3.  Readers should be directed to private mail for additional info.

 I think if we follow these guidelines on the Digest, NPA's will be looked

 forward to and well received.

 BTW, "Brew It At Home", a JSP video on home brewing basics is selling

 briskly.  It has been particularly well received by the public library

 community.  I regularly get calls from people all over the country who have

 checked it out on a whim and now, can't wait to get into homebrewing.

 I would be happy to send additional info on this video to anyone who emails

 for same.

 js

------------------------------


NOTE 05/18/93 09:43:07

Date: 18 May 1993 09:43:09 GMT

From: WAUTS@CWEMAIL.ceco.com

Subject: NOTE 05/18/93 09:43:07

Subject: Brewpubs/Micros in Indianapolis, IN

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello all,

I will be taking a short business trip to Indianapolis, IN in June.  I seem

to recall someone mentioning a new Brewpub/Micro down there but cannot find

th information.  If anyone knows of any Brewpub/Micros in Indianapolis please

send the info via private email.  Thanks in advance.

Tom Stolfi

wauts@cwemail.ceco.com

------------------------------


RE:Stoudts Festival

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 11:03:16 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: RE:Stoudts Festival

In the last digest, Sean remarks about the fabulous

Stoudts fest:

<Stoudt Microbrewery Beer Festival

<Two sittings: Friday June 12, 6PM-10PM or Saturday June 13, 2PM-6PM

<At Stoudt's Black Angus Brewery Hall, Adamstown PA

<(This is just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike)

<$15/person

<215 484 4385

The above sessions are SOLD OUT.  A seating was added for Sat

night.  It too may be sold out, I do not know.

I will be beer hunting in Europe until June 7 and I am returning

to pour beers for the Baltimore Brewing Co at the festival.  I

will be at the first two sessions and if anyone in HBD land

attends come by and say hi at the BBC table, it is always nice

to meet digesters in person and I am quite sure some of my

"Worlds Hoppiest Pale Ale" will be in attendance.

Good brewing,

Jim "Too hoppy for style" Busch.

------------------------------


Half and Half

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 09:55:27 CDT

From: greenbay@vnet.IBM.COM

Subject: Half and Half

I've seen a 'trick' where you have a liter of beer half being Harp and

the other half being Guinness stout. The bottom of the liter is Harp, the

top of the liter, Guinness stout.

I was reading _The_New_World_Guide_To_Beer_ yesterday and saw a bottle of

my stout and one of my light ales standing side by side and thought

"Hey, I know what I should try!" Well, it didn't work for me, didn't matter

which I poured in first, or how slow I poured. It all mixed together,

black as night. Does anybody know how to do this correctly.

Also, after reading all these happy hop reports, I've a sad one.

My hops fell victim to Scott's Weed and Feed. They put up a good fight

for five or six days, but on Sunday they just started withering away.

The culprit has given themself the name "Hop Killer."

Bob (funeral arrangements pending . . . )

------------------------------


Temperature for Whitbread Ale Yeast?

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 09:54 EST

From: LYONS@adc1.adc.ray.com

Subject: Temperature for Whitbread Ale Yeast?

Question for those who have used Whitbread Dry Ale Yeast.

My basement is currently at 60F with virtually no temperature

varation during the day.  Is this temperature to low for Whitbread

ale yeast?  Any comments would be appreciated.

Thank you,

Chris

LYONS@ADC3.ADC.RAY.COM

------------------------------


BeBop and Brew

Date: Tue, 18 May 1993 08:43:33 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Mark S. Nelson" <mnelson@eis.calstate.edu>

Subject: BeBop and Brew

An annual event is taking place this Saturday in northern Humboldt County

called BeBop and Brew.  As the name implies, it is a day-long festival of

jazz and beer!

It will be featuring microbrewies from all over California and Oregon:

over 26 different breweries will be represented!  Oh yeah, there will also

be some very tasty jazz being served up.

It runs from noon to six at Redwood Park in Arcata, California.  Tickets

are $13 and a can of food.

P.S.  I went to this fest last year and it was great!

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everything you know is wrong.

Mark S. Nelson       nelsonm@axe.humboldt.edu      mnelson@eis.calstate.edu

------------------------------


supply shops

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 10:26:40 MDT

From: haney@soul.ampex.com (Kenneth Haney)

Subject: supply shops

Hi all,

    I've noticed a few posts lately about starting a brewpub and or

microbrewery. Does anyone have any ideas or experience starting a

homebrew supply shop?

Thanks

Ken

haney@ampex.com

------------------------------


Let's try this again...

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 12:44:47 EDT

From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

Subject: Let's try this again...

Hello:

 I tried to post this yesterday but something happened.

 First: I have a question about bittering hops.  My understanding

has always been that with long boils (60' or more), the only character

imparted to the wort is bitterness; volatile oils are boiled off, and so

other flavors/aromas are lost.  If this is the case, then why do I see

recipes (e.g. some Winner's Circle recipes) that use combinations of hops

for 60 minute boiling?  If nothing survives but bitterness, why not just

buy the bitterest hops you can get, use an appropriate amount, and save

your Cascades for flavoring/finishing/dry hopping?  Is there actually a

subtle (but detectable) flavor/aroma contribution from hops boiled for 60

minutes?

 Second: There has been much discussion about alternative sugars,

such as golden syrup, treacle, etc.  I do a lot of Indian cooking and use

an unrefined cane sugar called jaggery.  It has a molasses-like flavor but

is milder and, I think, more complex.  It comes as a rather wet brick.

Has anyone heard of its being used for brewing?  Similarly, I brewed a

cream ale this weekend and used 1# or Pakistani Basmati rice.  Basmati has

a very different flavor from conventional rice, so I thought it might be

interesting, besides it was all I had.  Anyone tried this one?

 Keep pushing back the frontiers....

        d.

------------------------------


cranberry beer!

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 12:44:10 EDT

From: gkushmer@Jade.Tufts.EDU

Subject: cranberry beer!

I made a cranberry beer last year with just about that amount

of cranberries (~4 lbs.)

I took a recipie in the Cat's Meow II and pretty much followed

that with the lesser amount of cranberries.  In a nutshell,

it's an extract with

 5 lbs. Light Malt Extract

 1 lb. Sugar  (Don't worry about cidery flavors with this one)

I don't remember the hops, and for this one I actually used dry yeast

for my first time.

The way I used the cranberries was this way:  keep them frozen and

then puree them in a blender.  Make the wort as you normally would

and at the very end, just before you'd add a wort chiller and

immediately after you turn off the heat, dump the whole lot in.

The frozen berries bring the temp right down, and you get it in the

wort with some bouquet and flavor.

Good luck and let me know if you try something different.  I gave

them away for X-mas presents and the demand couldn't have been

higher for next year!

- --gk

Greg Kushmerek    "They [Australians] don't spell 'beer'

Sr. Researcher/Development  with four X's out of ignorance. . .And

Tufts University   light beer is a creation of the Prince

Medford, MA    of Darkness."

gkushmer@jade.tufts.edu    -Morse, Thames Valley C.I.D.-

------------------------------


sankey kegs (again)

Date: Tue, 18 May 1993 10:25:43 -0700 (PDT)

From: Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG>

Subject: sankey kegs (again)

Well just read my posting and realized that one of my questions was

incomplete.  What I really wanted to ask was about the use of sankey kegs

as brew kettles, mash tuns etc.  Are they aluminum, stainless, a

combination, etc.?  If they are coated, how thick is the stainless coating

and how durable is this over time?  Will it withstand repeated boiling and

scrubbing?

Thanks,

Eric <ericwade@class.org>

------------------------------


Kegging

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 06:48:00 PDT

From: Kegging  18-May-1993 0942 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Kegging

Sorry for the barrage of postings here, I've been busy and I'm just catching

up now.

I just kegged for the first time - a weissbeir made from an extract recipe.

No problems getting the brew in the keg, etc.  However, yesturday I poured

a brew and it came out w/ a head, but nothing too big.  When I tasted the

brew, it was kind of flat - that is, after it settled for about 2 mins, no

more bubbles were floating to the head of the brew.  So, I checked the pressure

in the keg and it was around 5 PSI or so.  Thinking that was the problem, I

cranked it up to 15 PSI and poured another.  Bigger head after the pour, but

the same sort of flatish brew once it settled.  So, I pumped the keg up to

20 PSI (w/ C02) and decided to let it sit (it is in my fridge; it has been

in the keg 1 wk - I primed w/ 2/3c DME).

What am I doing incorrectly?

Or, is this just the way it works in a keg?

regards,

jc ferguson

------------------------------


Chapel Hill Brewpub

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 06:13:38 PDT

From: Chapel Hill  18-May-1993 0910 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Chapel Hill Brewpub

My brother lives in Chapel Hill NC.   Nice place, but, you'll find quickly

that the south has a big appetite for 'American' beers - bud, miller, etc.

Some places will sell decent brews, but, they are not all that common, at

least compared to Boston.

They do have one Brew Pub - the name is escaping my mind at this time.  It

has sort of French-ish sounding name...  It is near the biggest CD (compact

disc) store in the Durham area - they boast 30k titles.  I had to ask around

(strangers on the street) and I did find it.  They were closed, but we did

get in to check things out (the doors were open).  Sort of an evening place.

Good luck,

JC ferguson

------------------------------


Molasses as primer

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 06:30:40 PDT

From: Brew  18-May-1993 0926 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Molasses as primer

>Date: 14 May 1993 11:33:13 -0600 (MDT)

>From: Mark Taratoot <SLNDW@CC.USU.EDU>

>Subject: Molassas help

[...]

>Anybody out there primed with molassas before?  How much did you use?

>How was the carbonation level?  How long did bottle conditioning take?

I have.  Charlie Papazian's book makes a reference to using molasses as

primer.  Basically, you prime at the rate of about 1/2 of what you would

use using DME (dried malt extract).  Typically, for 5gal, I use about 1 1/3c

of DME, so, for molasses, that would be 2/3c, dissolved in about 1 1/2c of

H20.

I actually screwed up when I did this and used _too_ much molasses.  I ended

up dealing with some over carbonation and I had to trash a few bottles of

my stout.

Give it 2 weeks to condition.

regards,

jc ferguson

DEC

------------------------------


source for hop plants?

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 06:22:53 PDT

From: RICH CATENA DTN 321-5170 <catena@arrcee.enet.dec.com>

Subject: source for hop plants?

Hi all,

anyone have a good source for hop plants that might do well in central n.j.?

thanks,

rich catena

digital equip. corp.

princeton, nj

------------------------------


Bleach and stainless don't go together well.

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 06:22:21 PDT

From: Bleach and stainless  18-May-1993 0920 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Bleach and stainless don't go together well.

>Date: Thu, 13 May 93 09:06:25 CDT

>From: hinz@memphis.med.ge.com (David Hinz)

>Subject: Stainless Steel kettles & coffee pots & half-barrels

[...]

>I just made myself a 15 gallon, heated kettle, for about $20.00.  I found a

>half-barrel (grade 304 SS, I beleive) from the early 60's, with Miller

[...]

>The whole thing cleaned up very nicely, inside and out, with Soft Scrub <TM>

>with bleach, and a washcloth.  It will be pretty easy to add a spigot to the

I'd caution everyone against using bleach to clean stainless steel vessels.

I'm under the impression that bleach will pit stainless steel.

JC Ferguson

DEC

------------------------------


bad beer

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 13:32:33 CDT

From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>

Subject: bad beer

This is a followup to a posting I made several weeks ago regarding some

peculiar looking bubble "colonies" that I noticed in my secondary

fermenter with a particular batch of ale.  It's been in the bottle

several weeks now (I followed the advice of several of you out there who

advised against its summary dispatch into the Mississipi) and can now

say that... It's definitely awful and undrinkable.  There is a flavor

that I can only describe as "soapy" :(  I do not know if this is merely

coincidental to the appearance of the strange bubbles or not, but I am

wondering if any of you out there have experienced such a taste and if

it from an infection.  The only other sources that I can blame would be

a) soap residue from the primary, but I have always washed it in the

same way ( a little bit of Joy and fastidiously rinsing it with hot

water no less than 3 times) and have never had this taste before.  Also

the intensity of the flavor seems to me as if it would take at least a

1/4 fluid oz for the 5 gallon batch for it to be this bad.  Another

possibility (other than infection) is b) the use of a different malt

extract, hopped Northwestern Golden, but I usually use NW malts and have

always thought them to be of excellent quality.  I really wonder about

the possibility of infection.....

Anthony Johnston

Puzzled Homebrewer, Confused Chemist

------------------------------


Bad smelling primary fermentation

Date: 18 May 93 09:22:00 +1100

From: KRUSE_NEIL@Tandem.COM

Subject: Bad smelling primary fermentation

Hi,

I've made about 8 extract batches, and each time the beer in the

primary smelled, well, like beer.  A nice sweet smell.  However,

my last batch, (which kept fermenting for 2 weeks) smelled terrible.

kinda like a mens bathroom afer a keg party.  Anyway,  is this what

you call "infected beer"?  Would the smell/taste have changed after

bottle conditioning?  The beer was still cloudy in the carboy at two

weeks.  I ended up dumping the stuff down the drain.

KRUSE_NEIL@tandem.com

------------------------------


sour mash, yeast propagation questions

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 15:12:54 cdt

From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: sour mash, yeast propagation questions

Greetings,

I'd like to hear from anyone with experience making sour mashes.  I read

Papazian's appendix on sour mashing yesterday, thinking I might try to make a

Guinness-style stout that way.

It seems to me, however, that I wouldn't want to use the whole batch of sour

mash (Papazian says to boil up 5 or 6 lbs. of malt extract in 1-1/2 gallons)

in a stout - I seem to remember that Guinness adds a *small* amount of sour

mash to their otherwise "regular" wort.

My question: what proportion of sour to "regular" is advisable in this case?

And, if I were to brew up the whole sour mash as Papazian suggests, and just

use some of it in a brew, how should I store the rest of it and how long will

it keep?

Another question: Charlie says to brew it up in a food-grade bucket with an

aluminum foil seal inside its lid.  If I have an extra plastic or glass

fermenter sitting around, shouldn't I just use that and seal it with an

airlock?

On to yeast propagation: I am going to try the parallel-propagation method.

After I make my gallon of master starter and split it up into six sealed beer

bottles as has been described in previous HBD's, I recall that it will keep

well under refrigeration for a considerable time.  Is this right?  If I do

this now, can I count on healthy, hungry yeast in September when I resume

brewing?

Brew on,

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Mail Order in Texas

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 16:03 CDT

From: othon@ial7.jsc.nasa.gov (Bill Othon.LinCom)

Subject: Mail Order in Texas

I managed to lose the original and a reply from the person wanting

info on mail ordering home brew supplies. here's the address for St.

Patrick's in Austin.

St. Patrick's of Texas Brewers Supply

12911 Staton Drive

Austin, Tx  78727

(512) 832-9045

Lynne O'Connor - proprietress

I've heard only good things, and they have an interesting catalog

you should ask for. I am completely unassociated with their operation.

Hope this helps.

 -Bill

------------------------------


Proper amount of spices?

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 17:04:08 EDT

From: cimssm@consl670uc.utica.ge.com (Steve McCormic)

Subject: Proper amount of spices?

Hi all,

 Can anybody give me an idea as to how much cinnamon

to add to a 5 gallon batch??  Any good guesses or tips from

experience would be appreciated.. Also, any related tips that

might be useful before I brew my first batch of "creative" beer

would be appreciated.

   Thanks,

    Steve McCormick

    mccormick@vaxms2.dnet.ge.com

------------------------------


Re: bisulfite solution, fruit beers

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 16:20:10 MDT

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: bisulfite solution, fruit beers

A couple of folks had questions about making fruit beers.  Here's the

procedure I've used successfully in the past:

1.  Brew a low gravity, lightly hopped beer as a base.  I like to use a

    wheat beer for a base, OG about 1.040 with maybe 1 oz of mid-alpha

    hops.  Goldings and Hallertau work well.  Remember that the fruit

    will add a lot more sugar, so you'll end up with a stronger beer,

    and that a lot of bitterness will probably detract from the fruit

    flavor.

2.  Let the beer run its primary ferment as normal (I usually go 5-7

    days), then rack.  Leave in the secondary for another 4-5 days

    before adding fruit.  This allows time for the yeast to get

    established and for some alcohol to get produced, possibly

    preventing nasties from the fruit from infecting your beer.

    Allowing the base beer to ferment out also lessens the CO2

    production, so the fruit aroma won't be scrubbed out as much by the

    fermentation.

3.  Sanitize fruit however you wish, puree, and add to the secondary.

    I just use a sulfite rinse on the whole fruit and don't worry too

    much about it.  Boiling is not recommended as it sets the pectins

    in the fruit.  I don't have any experience with campden tablets.

4.  When the renewed fermentation has completed (airlock glugs maybe

    once or twice a minute), rack off the fruit for a couple of days

    before bottling.  This will allow the beer to clear, and for any

    residual sugars to get eaten up, preventing gushers.  Prime and

    bottle as usual.

Plan on using a lot of fruit.  I typically use 1 or more pounds of fresh

fruit per gallon of base beer to get a good flavor and aroma.  You could

economize by using pure fruit juice; I'd suggest trying about 1 qt per

gallon of base beer.

Expect the ferment to go bonkers when you add the fruit.  The yeast tend

to go nuts with the addition of all that new sugar.  Keep an eye on your

blowoff tube to make sure it doesn't clog.

Now that it's spring, fruit will start arriving in stores before too

long.  Making a fruit beer isn't really that difficult, just a little

more time consuming (and expensive, if you use store-bought raspberries

:-( ).

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


The other us...

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 15:50:20 PDT

From: slag@physics.Berkeley.EDU (Brad Asztalos)

Subject: The other us...

Apropos Andrew Patrick's:

"They copied the Germans in this just as they copy us in everything else."

Do "we" know who the "us" is.

 But of course everything

  done in good America,

by us good Americans

   is immediately our own.

I had the finest Sake the other day...

BA

------------------------------


Raspberries in beer

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 15:51:47 PDT

From: "Tom Childers" <TCHILDER@us.oracle.com>

Subject: Raspberries in beer

In HBD 1143, Brett Charbeneau asks about raspberry beers...

I've been playing with raspberry wheat beers for a few months now, and am

drinking my third batch.  You don't need to go all-grain, but you do need to

sanitize the fruit somehow.  There are two main choices:

 - Add the fruit to the hot wort after the boil, when the temp has cooled to

  perhaps 170F, and keep the fruit/wort at 160-190F for at least 15 minutes

  to sanitize the fruit.  If you let the temp get too high, or boil the

  fruit, then you will set the pectin in the fruit and get very hazy beer.

  This method works well for frozen fruit, which has generally been turned

  to mush by ice crystal formation.

 - Sanitize the whole fruit with a food-grade sanitizing solution (perhaps

  by soaking in Everclear or 100-proof cheap vodka?), then add the fruit to

  the secondary and strain out during the priming/bottling process.

I use the first option, which has the advantage of being easy and pretty

bullet-proof.  The disadvantage is that you lose some of the aromatic

qualities of the fruit by heating it.

Here is my current wheat-raspberry recipe (many thanks to Kathy Henley

of Austin, TX for getting me going in the right direction).  Sorry, but I

don't take specific gravity measurements.

         Wheat Berry

5-1/2 lbs   light dried wheat malt extract

1-1/2 oz    Hallertauer or Northern Brewer (boiling), 7 HBU

1/2 oz      Hallertauer Hersbrucker (finishing), 2-3 HBU

24 to 36 oz frozen raspberries

16 oz       frozen blackberries

1 tsp       vanilla extract

Belgian ale yeast (Wyeast 1214)

Boil 2-1/2 gallons of water, add malt extract and boiling hops, and

boil for 55-60 minutes.  Turn off heat, add finishing hops, cool to

190 F and add the frozen fruit and vanilla.  Let sit covered for 20

minutes, maintaining temperature at about 170 F and stirring

occasionally.  Cool to below 100F, add to carboy pre-filled with 2-1/2

gallons of water, straining out and pressing the fruit to extract most

of the juice.  Pitch the yeast, ferment at 70-72F, transfer to

secondary after two days, then ferment completely out (about another 7

days).  Prime with 3/4 cup corn sugar and bottle.

24 oz of raspberries gives a fairly subtle beer, with a mild tart

raspberry underpinning that all of my friends loved.  36 oz of berries

give a more assertive, but not overwhelming, raspberry flavor.  Note

that Belgian ale yeast will give stronger "clove" overtones when

fermented at temperatures of 75-78F, and milder flavors at 70-72F.

Tom Childers

Mill Valley, CA

------------------------------


Re: secondary/half-batch/lightstruck?/off-aroma/1st-batch/GoldenSyrup

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 14:06 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: secondary/half-batch/lightstruck?/off-aroma/1st-batch/GoldenSyrup

Bill writes:

>1) How long is too long in the secondary fermenter? I have

>been reading that some people leave it for only a week, using

>SG as a guide apparently. Recently I dry-hopped in the primary

>(based on a Cat's Meow recipe) and after a week in the

>secondary, there was at least an inch of "mung" at the bottom

>of the carboy (I assume hops and yeastees). I decided to leave

>the beer in for the usual 3-4 weeks.  Could this have been bad?

>I haven't tasted the final product yet to be sure, but i am

>pleased with the clarity of my beer to date.

I recommend dryhopping only for the last 7 days before bottling.

Anything longer and you'll begin to lose more aromatics to the

atmosphere than you are gaining from the hops into the beer.

I've had beers spend 6 months in the secondary, but these were

pseudo-lambiks, so not a good datapoint.  I've had one beer

(an Orval clone) spend two months in the secondary and it won

a few awards.  The Orval yeast is very slow-going -- the current

batch has been in the primary for about a month and is still doing

a bubble every 15 seconds.

>2) Does anyone have a good half-batch all-grain recipe? I tried

>an all-grain last year with two brewkettles over a gas stove, and

>while it came out alright, it was a hassle. I'd like to get my

>feet wet with some small scale stuff (which also allows for

>easier experimentation if desired). For this type of batch, i

>guess i use half the dried yeast package, or half the wyeast

>starter.

Just take a regular recipe and cut all but the yeast in half.  You

can pitch a half-gallon starter into a 5 gallon batch and still not

overpitch.

***************************

Darren writes:

> Is discoloration (darkening) a typical result from "light

>exposure"???  I brewed a batch which when originally bottled was

>much lighter in color than it is now.  The beer is in "Mason" jars,

>with double gaskets/liners to better the seal.  (It worked).  I

>had a problem with the initial conditioning of the beer, (very

>little carbonation), but when I removed the jars from the fridge

>for a couple of weeks and then re-refirdgerated them, the bubbles

>were finally there (I'd brewed the batch 1.5 yrs ago, thought I

>was a victim of novice errors, hate to throw things out, and only

>recently read about re-conditioning carbonation-less beer to bring

>the bubbles back.)  Anyway, back to the color inquiry, would the

>darkening be the result of light exposure, age, and is

>incandescent light a threat???

I don't believe that light exposure will darken a beer, but oxidation

will.  I suspect that it was oxidation that caused the darkening.

Incandescent light is much less of a threat than sunlight (because

sunlight is considerably more intense) and less of a threat than

fluorescent because there's a lot less violet-UV in incandescents).

However, light-struck beer has a skunky smell, so use your nose to

decide if it's had too much light.

*****************************

David --

>Last week my brew partner and I made a batch of Winky Dink Marzen, as

>described by Pappazian in TCJOHB (page 164 in the first edition).

>Everything seemed to be going fine.  It had a starting gravity of

>1.043 and fermented happily away at room temperature, peaking at about

>a burble every two seconds.

>

>At least everything was OK until last night when we racked to the

>secondary for lagering.  When we opened the fermenter, the beer

>smelled funny.  I might describe it as a skunky smell, but I've not

>got a terribly keen nose for these things.  I thought it tasted

>alright, though my parner claimed he could "taste" the smell in his

>mouth.

Sounds like a wild yeast or bacteria got in there.

>Another oddity was that the specific gravity had dropped to 1.004!

>There is no sugar left in this stuff!  Those yeast must have sure had

>a good time in that brew!

Reconfirms my previous assertion.

>So that leaves me with a couple of questions.  First, what could have

>caused the smell?  Will it go away over time, or are we going to be

>stuck drinking this batch with our noses plugged?  Second, what about

>the lack of sugar?  Is it worth lagering the beer if there's nothing

>left for the yeasties to eat?  Should we just go ahead and bottle it?

It may go away with time -- I would go ahead an bottle -- worst case

you've wasted 3 hours and 48 bottlecaps.

*********************

Bill writes:

>6lbs of light dry malt extract

>1.5lbs of Wildflower honey

>1oz Northern Brewer hops

>4oz of fresh ginger

>2.5 cups of 20l Crystal Malt

>

>Method:

>Boiled 2 gals of water.  Cooled and poured into 5gal carboy.

>

>Put 3 gals of water into pot,  Added crystal malt and brought

>to a boil.  Boiled for five minutes (as per the local brewstore

>instructions) then strained out the crystal malt.

The brewstore is giving bad advice -- boiling the crystal malt (or

any grain for that matter) will extract tannins from the husks.  In

addition to giving you astringent flavors in your beer (like chewing

on a grape skin) but you may also have some chill haze (the beer will

get cloudy when you chill it) which is the reaction of the tannins

with proteins in your beer.

>Brought the liquid to boil again, added the DME, stirring to

>make sure it didn't stick, added the ginger and the hops.

>Boiled for about 45minutes.  Cooled to about 90dg farenheit.

>

>Poured this into the carboy via a funnel in order to add O2.

>

>Added 1oz of EDME dry yeast.  Added a blow-off tube and placed

>in bathroom('cause it is dark and cooler than anywhere in the

>house).

>

>Got some bubbling in about an hour and through out the night

>but no real foaming or high activity as I have heard others get

>using EDME.  By Wednesday, afternoon, no more bubbling.  Went

>back to the brew store and they suggested that I re-pitch.  This

>time I used Nottingham dry ale yeast.  Pitched this Thursday

>afternoon but no noticeable activity by Friday Morning.

You didn't tell us the temperature at which you were fermenting.

If the temperature was 75F, then there's a good chance that the

Edme did indeed finish fermenting all the fermentables and the

beer was done.  If it was 65F, then I'd say it should not have

taken such a short time.  One thing that can make yeast prematurely

stop fermenting is a sudden drop in temperature (say, 20 degrees).

I believe that Edme is quite a bit more fermentable than Nottingham

and the Edme would have used up all the oxygen, so I'm not surprised

that the Nottingham did nothing -- there was no O2 or sugar left

for it to eat.

>So, my question is: "What happened?" and can I salvage this first

>batch?

If you have a hydrometer, check the gravity.  If it's below about

1010, I'd say it's done -- bottle it.  If it's above 1010 -- give

it some more time.  If you don't have a hydrometer, just let it sit

for a week and see if it starts to ferment again.

************************

Peter writes:

>In what I've seen so far there has been no mention made of Golden Syrup, a

>type of sugar common in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.  Has anyone tried

>this in brewing?

This was mentioned a few years ago, but not recently.  Dave Line mentions

Tate & Lyle's Golden Syrup in some of his recipes.  Alas, neither the

Golden Syrup nor the Treacle is being imported any more -- it appears that

US customs wanted proof that Cuban sugar was not being used in the

production of these two items and that no such proof was available or

something like that.

Al.

------------------------------


fruit in beer

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 14:59 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: fruit in beer

Brett writes:

>     Having seen the recent queries on fruit additives to wort I would like

>to pose a question of my own.  I was exposed to a lambic framboise about a

>month ago and have been experiencing pipe dreams of making my own ever since.

>I am still an extract brewer, but I am interested in giving this style of

>beer a go.

>     If anyone has had any experience with this sort of lambic or successes

>getting lighter ales "take" the fruit I would love to hear about it.  Does

>one need to make the all-grain "jump" to be able to play on this level of

>exotic beers?

Not at all!  All the beers that I've brewed in the last year have been

extract + specialty grain (my new business has be too busy to set aside

even 8 consecutive hours).  If it's Lindeman's or Timmerman's Framboise

that you tasted, you'll have trouble duplicating the intensity -- I

suspect that they use syrups and pasteurize to keep them sweet.  However,

you can make some very tasty beers with fruit.  You need a lot, though...

read on.  [By the way, with a name like Brett, Lambiks should be right

up your alley... you see, one important contributor to the flavor of

lambiks are the yeasts Brettanomyces Lambicus and Brettanomyces Bruxellensis,

which we pseudoLambik brewers affectionately call, "Brett."]

*****************

Chuck writes:

>In today's HBD, Jeff Benjamin says he rinses fruit in "bisulfite solution"

>before adding the puree to the secondary.  I've made a few cherry beers, and

>I've always wondered about a way to kill bacteria et al living on the fruit

>before adding them to the wort/beer (without boiling).  So, how/where/why/

>why not?  I'd like to  hear from others about this or other easily available

>treatments for fruits.

*****************

Jay writes:

>In HBD #1142 Jeff Benjamin and Al Korz mention their experiences with

>fruit beers.  Would you guys briefly describe your process - i.e. when

>you add the fruit (boil, primary, or secondary), whether or not you

>use a sanitizing procedure such as campden tablets or (as Jeff mentions)

>a bisulphite rinse, and how much fruit it takes to get a noticable

>flavor.  Also, I would be interested in knowing what kind of hopping

>rates are good to use with these beers.

The two best fruit beers I've made have been my 1992 pseudoKriek made

with 13lbs of cherries and 3.5 gallons of homemade pseudo-lambik and

my nuptual ale which was made with 10 gallons of 15 IBU light ale

which was put on top of 15 pounds of cherries and 15 pounds of

raspberries in the secondaries.  To sanitize the fruits in both batches,

I froze the fruit and then blanched it in boiling water for 1 to 2 minutes.

The rasperries completely disintegrated, so I had to add the 1 gallon

of water along with them in to the fermenter.  The cherries held together.

It's *VERY* important to use a large blowoff tube (I use a 1.25" plastic

hose right in the neck of the carboy) and to only add the fruit when

the primary fermentation is done -- otherwise the delicate aromatics

will be scrubbed out by the CO2 being generated by the primary ferment.

A lot of CO2 will still be created, but it's best to minimize the

scrubbing action.

By the way, the 13 lbs of cherries was very good but not great -- I think

that about 16 or 18 pounds would have been better (and is what I'll use

this year).

Al.

------------------------------


Bock and/or Ale ...

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 12:30:19 MDT

From: "Steve Kurka - BMC West, Boise, ID" <kurka@bmcw.com>

Subject: Bock and/or Ale ...

 Ale and/or Bock recipe request:

  Recently, I had the pleasure to enjoy a "Pacific Rim Ale" from

 Washington State (Kalama??). This beer tasted very close to my favorite

 beer from Wisconsin (Huber Bock) only with a slightly lighter texture.

 If anyone has a close recipe for the Bock or the Ale, Please E-mail them.

 (The only problem with the Ale was that it was 24$/case as opposed to

  6$/case for the Bock - too bad Huber doesn't ship to Idaho)

    Thanks  Steve

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 - Women love cats.  Men say they love cats,          -

 - but when women aren't looking, men kick cats.      KURKA@BMCW.COM Boise, ID-

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


cold plate

Date: 18 May 1993 22:22:37 -0600 (CST)

From: RBSWEENEY@msuvx2.memst.edu

Subject: cold plate

Taking the advice of several HBDers, I bought a cold plate from Superior

Products (of my own free will). The cold plate does an adequate job of chilling

beer from room temp (~75 degrees) to about 55, which is about right for the

ales (bitters and stouts mostly) that I've brewed up to now.  The only problem

is a tendency for the hose connections to leak, which is not too big a problem

since everything is inside a small cooler.  However, I would like to be able

to leave all my connections hooked up, without having to disconnect between

quaffing to slow down the wastage (sic). I currently using 3/8ths inch OD

tubing to connect to both sides of the cold plate with hose clamps on both

connections. Is there anything else I could use or be doing to stop these

blasted leaks?

Thanks for the help

Bob Sweeney

Memphis State University

Department of Management Information Systems

------------------------------


Fruit/Cooler step mash

Date: Tue, 18 May 93 16:40:43 EDT

From: rgarvin@btg.com (Rick Garvin)

Subject: Fruit/Cooler step mash

Re: Raspberries in beer

My experience with making extract beers with fruit has been

good. I am an all-grain brewer who occasinally brews an

extract beer with fruit. These have turned out to my liking and

have consistently done well in contests. My experience

suggests that the yeast culture has a marked effect on the

product.

On May 1 BURP, the Washington, DC homebrew club,

sponsored the "Spirit of Free Beer" homebrew contest. I was

the judge organizer for this contest with 189 entries. As a BOS

judge along with Steve Hamburg of CBS, Randy Paul of

BURP, and Bill Manger of NYC we selected a Peach Lambic

as BOS. Now, I am prejudiced against strange beers for BOS.

BOS should be judged on a beers stylistic merits: Which beer

best epitomizes its style? Compared to commercial examples

this Peach Lambic, made by George Griffith of Hay Market

VA, was much better! This beer was made using 100%

extract, 5.5 lbs peaches per 5 gallons, and the culture from a

bottle of Cantillon Lambic. This beer was better than any of

the Cantillon products I have had.

So, fruit beers using extract? You bet!

Re: bisulfite solution

When making fruit beers I rinse the fruit lightly and put it into

the secondary. I do not feel that it is really possible to

sanitize/sterilize fruit without irreparably damaging the

characters that you are looking for. I have had a few beers get

a bit "Belgian" on me. But, that's ~fun.

Re: Cooler mashing and step infusion.

The problem with step mashing and coolers is that it is very

hard (impossible?) to have the appropriate malt/water ratio

and the appropriate temperature steps.

What do I do? For ales I do a protein rest at 122F for 30

minutes with 1 qt H20/lb of malt. I then take 1/3 of the mash

and bring it to 175F. I then add up to 1/3 qt boiling H20 /lb of

malt to bring the temperature up to the chosen starch

conversion temperature. For lagers I do a double decoction

with a strike at 122F, and steps to 144F-155F and 168F.

Cheers, Rick (rgarvin@btg.com)

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1144, 05/19/93

*************************************

-------


foreign american brews

Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 7:45:39 -0500 (CDT)

From: BadAssAstronomer <STOREY@fender.msfc.nasa.gov>

Subject: foreign american brews

    Hi all

    I just read Shane's post about finding Bud while in Germany. It

    reminded me of a funny situation while I was in London a few weeks

    back.

    I was in a pub somewhere in London (don't remember which one,

    there were so many its all a blur now). Who should walk up next to

    me at the bar but a couple of southern American boys (since I too

    am southern, I can talk about southern boys without fear of

    reprisal). Apparently, they had just come from McDonalds (with

    their Hard Rock Cafe bags in hand), and were suprised at the

    number of foreigners in that place. They were parched, and just

    had to get them a nice cold one. So, they just had that bartender

    bring them up a Bud (it cost them about $3 each) to quench that

    thirst. With horror on their faces, they realized this wasn't the

    nice cold one they wanted, by gawd, it was HOT!. Well, lots of

    moaning and groaning went on, until the barkeep gave them some ice

    to pour their Buds over. I could hardly contain myself. Well, it

    was funny at the time. I guess you had to be there.

    scott

------------------------------


sour mash, yeast propagation questions

Date:  Wed, 19 May 1993 09:15:00 +0000

From: "Rick (R.) Cavasin" <cav@bnr.ca>

Subject:  sour mash, yeast propagation questions

Jonathan Knight asks how long the bottled cultures are expected to last

in the parallel yeast propagation method:

I can't say anything definite about what will happen when the cultures

are refridgerated since I always kept them at cellar temp.  Although

this may not hold for ALL the Wyeast strains, I've had no problem with

the Irish, German, and British strains keeping for a number of months.

Refridgeration may help them keep even longer.  What I do is I always

decant a starter when I bottle up the cultures so that even if all the

bottles were to prove unviable, I will have at least got one batch of

beer out of the Wyeast package.  This way, you risk nothing by propagating.

As the bottled cultures age and their viability decreases, you can always

use two bottles to make up a new starter.  In any case, the process can't

be any worse than making up a starter from the dregs from Chimay or SNPA

as some posters do.  There's alot more sediment than in a bottle conditioned

beer, and you've had control over the storage conditions from day 1.

Cheers,

Rick C.

------------------------------


Proper amount of spices?

Date: Wed, 19 May 93 10:23:57 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Proper amount of spices?

According to Randy Mosher, who has a lot of experience making

strangely spiced brews, the best way to add cinnamon is to make a

"potion".  Soak some cinnamon in vodka for a week or two, then add the

potion gradually to the finished (but not yet bottled) beer until it

tastes right.

=S

------------------------------


Racking after Pitching

Date: Wed, 19 May 93 07:27:00 -0600

From: phil.brushaber@u2u.lonestar.org (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: Racking after Pitching

I have read many Homebrew texts but only recently got Dave

Miller's Complete Handbook of Home Brewing. Some of what

Miller suggests is contrary to my current practices of all-

grain brewing.  One area is racking the wort off the trub

after the cold break.

After the wort chill Miller suggests... "At this point you

have two choices,depending on how cold your wort is. If it is

down to fermentation temperature (48 to 55 F for lagers) you

should pitch your yeast immediately.... Close the fermenter

and move it to your fermentation area. The wort should be

racked off into a secondary fermenter about 8 to 12 hours

later, to separate it from most of the hot and cold break

material which will settle to the bottom of the vessel. Also

remember that, before pitching, the wort must be aerated."

I find this interesting. The advantage Miller suggests is

that after the proper hot and cold break that you don't have

to syphon off the clear wort from the boiler, just strain it

into the fermenter. But my concern lies in the area of

racking (and aerating) the beer again after it has been

sitting for several hours, but before fermentation begins.

Also there is the inference that the yeast starter should be

at the same cold (50 degree F) temperature as the chilled

wort. Is anyone else doing this for lagers? I have been

pitching my room temp starter into about 70 degree wort, then

putting the fermenter into the refrigerator and bringing the

temp down to 50 degrees.

Any thoughts?

phil.brushaber@u2u.lonestar.org (Phil Brushaber)

------------------------------


re beer bread

Date: Wed, 19 May 93 10:50:43 EDT

From: cjh@diaspar.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Chip Hitchcock)

Subject: re beer bread

   My landlady did this with the dregs of most of my batches. The crud in

the bottom of the carboy is pure yeast if you've racked off the trub or

if it comes from the secondary (modulo dryhopping), and a slurry of this

will work well (doesn't matter if it turns into soup---you need some liquid

to make bread anyway). But her preferred technique was to take whatever

was left over from bottling (e.g., incomplete bottle which could otherwise

oxidize) and mix it with enough flour to make a sponge. Unless you've

lost all your yeast (which you'll find out when your beer doesn't carbonate)

the sponge will start rising in a small number of hours and can be filled

with flour to the proper consistency for bread dough.

   This isn't quite like medieval recipes which call for taking a volume

of working beer, foam and all (probably even more effective with

true top-fermenting yeasts), but it does give a good flavor to the bread---

enough that you can taste it even with whole-wheat flour.

------------------------------


Re: Half and Half

Date: Wed, 19 May 93 10:57:16 EDT

From: cjh@diaspar.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Chip Hitchcock)

Subject: Re: Half and Half

> I've seen a 'trick' where you have a liter of beer half being Harp and

the other half being Guinness stout. The bottom of the liter is Harp, the

top of the liter, Guinness stout.

I've never seen this done this way. Around Boston, a lot of bars serve

Black&Tan, but that's Guinness on the bottom. (It's the only Black&Tan

the hypernationalist Irish-Americans around here approve of.) Since this

doesn't mix when swirled gently, I suspect the available Guinness (very

different from what you'd get in Dublin) is denser than Harp, which isn't

surprising. I never watched closely when they were poured, so I can't

give direct tips, but in generally you can layer a thinner liquid on top

of a heavier by pouring gently (especially at the start) down the side of

the glass.

------------------------------


Sencondary Fermentation

Date: Wed, 19 May 93 11:23:37 EDT

From: <geotex@engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Sencondary Fermentation

I am unsure of the purpose of racking to a secondar fermentation

container.

Could someone please clear this up for me.  It seems my books

don't clearly explain this.

I realize this maybe common knowledge for most seasoned brewers,

so you can e-mail me if you like.

Alex

geotex@engin.umich.edu

------------------------------


Jaggery

Date: Wed, 19 May 93 10:55:41 EDT

From: rgarvin@btg.com (Rick Garvin)

Subject: Jaggery

In HBD 1144 drose@husc.harvard.edu writes:

> Second: There has been much discussion about alternative sugars,

> such as golden syrup, treacle, etc.  I do a lot of Indian cooking and use

> an unrefined cane sugar called jaggery.  It has a molasses-like flavor but

> is milder and, I think, more complex.  It comes as a rather wet brick.

> Has anyone heard of its being used for brewing?

Jaggery is unrefined date sugar. It has some light molasses notes. I have used

it in yogurt and sone candies, bit never in beer. I would use it like brown

sugar.

Cheers, Rick (rgarvin@btg.com)

------------------------------


sour mash guinness

Date: Wed, 19 May 93 12:04:04 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: sour mash guinness

>I'd like to hear from anyone with experience making sour mashes.  I read

>Papazian's appendix on sour mashing yesterday, thinking I might try to make a

>Guinness-style stout that way.

>

>It seems to me, however, that I wouldn't want to use the whole batch of sour

>mash (Papazian says to boil up 5 or 6 lbs. of malt extract in 1-1/2 gallons)

>in a stout - I seem to remember that Guinness adds a *small* amount of sour

>mash to their otherwise "regular" wort.

I've tried making sour-mashed p-guinness before and also making it

by adding sour beer to the boil, and the latter works much better.

The sour mash leaves somewhat of a raunchy flavor to the brew, whereas

simply adding to the boil a bottle or two of beer from a previous batch

that has acquired a lactic infection produces a crisper, cleaner sourness.

How much to add is always subjective.  To get you in the ballpark - if

you can smell the soured beer a mile away, add 1-12 oz bottles in 5 gal.

If you can actually drink it w/o throwing up, add 3 or 4 bottles.

If you got lucky and the soured beer actually tastes funky-lambic-like

sour, add a gallon.

The boil will kill anything in the sour beer, but make sure you clean

the bottle up and anything outside the kettle that you may have splashed

with the sour beer well before the boil ends.

P-Guinness

8 lbs PILSNER malt

1 lb roasted barley

1 lb barley flakes

4 oz. black patent

1.75 oz GOLDINGS ~5% AA hop plugs

1-6 bottles of soured beer

The whole idea is to keep the protein in the beer, so you start with

Pilsner malt & don't do a protein rest.  Mash using you favorite technique,

but keep it short - 1hr or so.  Sparge w 170 F water (acidified).  Do not

recirculate excessively.  The short mash and the pilsner malt will help

avoid a stuck runoff.  Bring the wort to a boil as quickly as posssible.

Normally I boil 30 min to coagulate the protein before I add hops, but i

in this case, add the hops right at the start of the boil, or even before.

Use Goldings.* Add the soured beer - preferably soured from a lactic infection.

Boil 1 hour, or 45 min if you used hop pellets instead of plugs.  Cool &

pitch Wyeast 1084 Irish ale yeast starter.  SG should be 1.045-1.050 or so,

unless you get spectacular extraction rates (I don't).  Ferment 60-65F.

Now if you bottle, use 3-4 oz corn sugar and let condiiton.  If you keg,

you've got an added element in how you imitate guinness:  Chill the beer

to 50F, & turn the pressure up to 10-15 PSI & Serve.**  Do not agitate the keg.

The beer will have a head, but very little carbonation in the beer itself,

just like guinness.

bb

* Cascades will give that funky american hop taste, if you desire, but

taste unlike guinness.  Any German hop is right out.  Fuggles don't give

that sharp bitterness.  Maybe N. Brewer...

** Normally, to get carbonation in the beer itself, you would chill to < 40F,

turn up the pressure to 20-25 PSI, then agitate or else let sit 1 week at

that temp/pressure.  This means not disconnecting the CO2 supply, since the

beer will slowly absorb the CO2 in the headspace and more CO2 is needed

to keep the pressure high.

------------------------------


correction

Date: Wed, 19 May 93 12:14:17 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: correction

Ignore the comment about N. Brewer in my previous note - It is

a relative to Hallertau, which does not work in stouts (I've tried

it).  But then I seem to remember Jackson saying that Guinness

used N. Brewer.  I haven't used much N. Brewer.  Hmm.

The recipe works great with Goldings.

bb

------------------------------


treacle

Date: Wed, 19 May 93 12:19:45 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: treacle

Al Korzonas writes:

>This was mentioned a few years ago, but not recently.  Dave Line mentions

>Tate & Lyle's Golden Syrup in some of his recipes.  Alas, neither the

>Golden Syrup nor the Treacle is being imported any more --

I found black traeacle at alternative garden supply in streamwood, IL,

just a few months ago (not too far from you).  unfortunately, I have

not had the chance to use it in a brew yet.

bb

------------------------------


Beebop and Brew

Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 10:20 PST

From: BELLAKC@axe.humboldt.edu

Subject: Beebop and Brew

In HBD#1144, Mark Nelson wrote:

>An annual event is taking place this Saturday in northern

>Humboldt County called BeBop and Brew.  As the name implies,

>it is a day-long festival of jazz and beer!

>It will be featuring microbrewies from all over California and

>Oregon: over 26 different breweries will be represented!  Oh

>yeah, there will also be some very tasty jazz being served up.

>It runs from noon to six at Redwood Park in Arcata, California.

>Tickets are $13 and a can of food.

>P.S.  I went to this fest last year and it was great!

I would like to make a correction. Beebop and Brew will be on

SUNDAY, May 23rd not Saturday. Arcata is located on the coast

approximately 300 miles north of San Francisco. Tuck and Patti

will be the headlining group.

The following breweries will be in attendance:

Oregon:

     Deschutes Brewing Co. - Bend

     Full Sail Brewing Co. - Hood River

     Pizza Deli and Brewery - Cave Junction

     Portland Brewing Co. - Portland

     Rogue Brewery - Ashland

     Umpqua Brewing Co. - Roseberg

Northern California:

     Anderson Valley Brewing Co. - Boonville

     Etna Brewery - Etna

     Humboldt Brewery - Arcata

     Lost Coast Brewery - Eureka

     Mad River Brewing Co. - Blue Lake

     Marin Brewing Co. - Larkspur

     Nevada City Brewing Co. - Nevada City

     North Coast Brewing Co. - Fort Bragg

     Sierra Navada Brewing Co. - Chico

Central/Southern California:

     Anchor Brewing Co. - San Francisco

     Bison Brewing Co. - Berkeley

     Butterfield Brewing Co. - Fresno

     Devil Mountain Brewery - Benicia

     Golden Pacific Brewing Co. - Emeryville

     Monterey Brewing Co. - Monterey

     Pete's Brewing Co. - Palo Alto

     St. Stan's Brewing Co. - Modesto

     Tied House Cafe and Brewery - Alameda

Any questions, directions, etc? Contact me via private email:

Bellakc@axe.humboldt.edu

------------------------------


image files on sierra.stamford

Date: 19 May 93 12:10:25 EDT

From: CHUCKM@PBN73.Prime.COM

Subject: image files on sierra.stamford

I was browsing on sierra.stamford the other day under /pub/homebrew/images

and noticed a bunch of what I guess are image files,   mostly with a .jpg

and .gif file name suffix.    Does anyone know what format these files are

and what software I need to display these? Will any MS Windows applications

work?

Thanks in advance

chuckm@pbn73.prime.com

chuckm@pbn73.cv.com

------------------------------


Re: bad beer

Date: Wed, 19 May 93 11:43:26 PDT

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: Re: bad beer

"Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu> says:

>This is a followup to a posting I made several weeks ago regarding some

>peculiar looking bubble "colonies" that I noticed in my secondary

>fermenter with a particular batch of ale.  It's been in the bottle

>several weeks now (I followed the advice of several of you out there who

>advised against its summary dispatch into the Mississipi) and can now

>say that... It's definitely awful and undrinkable.  There is a flavor

>that I can only describe as "soapy" :(  I do not know if this is merely

>coincidental to the appearance of the strange bubbles or not, but I am

>wondering if any of you out there have experienced such a taste and if

>it from an infection.

I had this discussion with another fellow a few months ago.  I believe that

our consensus was that it was correlated with Whitbred Ale yeast.  Now,

the soapy flavor may be due to an infection of the yeast, or perhaps to

strange and "unique" esters from the yeast themselves.  Who knows.

Can you contribute another data point and let us know what yeast you

used?

Troy

ps.  Personally, I don't believe your malt is at fault. (hey!  That's somewhat

poetic)

------------------------------


cherry ale destroys carboy!

Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 12:34:08 -0700 (PDT)

From: Stewart Evans <stewarte@sco.COM>

Subject: cherry ale destroys carboy!

Last weekend I bottled a cherry ale.  I started with a basic

ale, very lightly hopped.  I bought 6 24-oz. jars of sour Morello

cherries from Trader Joe's; they were packed in light syrup, most

of which I poured off, so the total was something less than 9 lbs

of pitted cherries.  I put the cherries in the secondary and

racked the beer over them, and left them for about 3 weeks until

all the cherries had sunk to the bottom.  When I took a sample off

the top of the carboy, I noted some tartness but very little cherry

aroma/flavor.  I decided to bottle anyway.  When I tasted the

leftovers in the bottom of my bottling bucket, I was surprised to

find a distinct cherry taste!  I wonder if somehow the flavor was

not evenly dispersed through the beer initially, but got mixed in

by the racking process.  Anyway, it looks like it's going to be a

very nice summer beer.

After bottling, I rinsed out my carboy and stuck in my bottle-brush

to scrub out the krauesen ring.  Suddenly I heard a CRACK! like a

rock hitting a windshield.  The carboy had fractured almost all the

way around the base.  There was no pressure on the carboy at that

point.  Weird!  Perhaps earlier handling had produced some kind of

stress in the glass?  It's a pain to lose a $12 carboy, but at least

it happened AFTER I got the beer out of it!

- -- Stewart

"We need a good bar and a whiteboard.  In that order."

                             -- Chris Stuart (cs10@cornell.edu)

/* stewarte@sco.com is Stewart Evans in Santa Cruz, CA */

------------------------------


BeBop and Brew Correction

Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 13:11:41 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Mark S. Nelson" <mnelson@eis.calstate.edu>

Subject: BeBop and Brew Correction

When I posted the announcement for BeBop and Brew, I made a mistake on the

date.  It is actually Sunday, May 23.  Sorry about that.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everything you know is wrong.

Mark S. Nelson       nelsonm@axe.humboldt.edu      mnelson@eis.calstate.edu

------------------------------


RE: Half and Half

Date: Wed, 19 May 93 16:49:42 CDT

From: greenbay@vnet.IBM.COM

Subject: RE: Half and Half

Thanks to all for the many many responses to my question. I appreciate

the help. I was informed that I was thinking of a Black and Tan that

is made with Guinness and Bass and I recall seeing that, but I also think

that they serve a Guinness/Harp combo here also.

Anyway, I'll be trying out the ideas tonight!

Bob

------------------------------


hops/supply shops/boil hops/bleach+SS/Bad smell/correction

Date: Wed, 19 May 93 17:18 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: hops/supply shops/boil hops/bleach+SS/Bad smell/correction

JUKNALIS writes:

> Hello out there!  Can anyone tell me if it is possible to tell

>the difference between different varieties of hops by their growth form

>, scents, or flower structures??   Thanks in advance.  Joe

Yes.  I suggest you get the Hops special issue of Zymurgy.  With experience,

you can tell the difference between hops by aroma, although some are quite

close.  Unfortunately, I can't explain how to do this in words -- you have

to just practice.  The one aroma that is quite recognizable and definable,

is grapefruit -- Cascades and Centennial (CFJ90) have the most of this

grapefruit aroma, but I've noted it in Willamette to a lesser extent.

********************

Ken writes:

>    I've noticed a few posts lately about starting a brewpub and or

>microbrewery. Does anyone have any ideas or experience starting a

>homebrew supply shop?

Yes.  DON'T DO IT!  YOU'LL NEVER SEE YOUR FAMILY AGAIN!  YOUR PERSONAL

LIFE WILL END... YOU WILL BECOME A VERY BORING PERSON TO ANYONE WHO

DOESN'T BREW BECAUSE BREWING IS ALL YOU WILL BE ABLE TO TALK ABOUT!

YOU WILL HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT LATE DELIVERIES AND THAT PESKY $1.32

ERROR THAT YOU CAN'T FIND IN THE CHECKBOOK!  APRIL 15TH WILL TAKE ON

AN ENTIRELY NEW MEANING AND QUARTERLY, YOU WILL GO FOR A WEEK WITHOUT

SLEEP AS YOU TRY TO FILL OUT THE STATE SALES TAX FORMS...

That said, if you are still fool enough to try it, send email or call

me at 708-430-HOPS and I'll help you get started.

********************

d writes:

> First: I have a question about bittering hops.  My understanding

>has always been that with long boils (60' or more), the only character

>imparted to the wort is bitterness; volatile oils are boiled off, and so

>other flavors/aromas are lost.  If this is the case, then why do I see

>recipes (e.g. some Winner's Circle recipes) that use combinations of hops

>for 60 minute boiling?  If nothing survives but bitterness, why not just

>buy the bitterest hops you can get, use an appropriate amount, and save

>your Cascades for flavoring/finishing/dry hopping?  Is there actually a

>subtle (but detectable) flavor/aroma contribution from hops boiled for 60

>minutes?

Yes there is, I feel.  Among the more subtle, lower-alpha hops, there is

less difference, but the harsher, high-alpha hops, I feel that there is

a difference.  For lack of a better word, "harshness" is a component that

is added to the bitterness -- in the back of the throat, not just on the

back of the tongue, as in smooth bitterness -- when you use high-alpha

hops.  All I can really say is to try some small, pilot batches and see

if you feel the difference is important enough for you.

****************

JC writes:

>I'd caution everyone against using bleach to clean stainless steel vessels.

>I'm under the impression that bleach will pit stainless steel.

I agree.  Iodine-based sanitizers are recommended for sanitizing stainless

steel.

***************

NEIL writes:

>I've made about 8 extract batches, and each time the beer in the

>primary smelled, well, like beer.  A nice sweet smell.  However,

>my last batch, (which kept fermenting for 2 weeks) smelled terrible.

>kinda like a mens bathroom afer a keg party.  Anyway,  is this what

>you call "infected beer"?  Would the smell/taste have changed after

>bottle conditioning?  The beer was still cloudy in the carboy at two

>weeks.  I ended up dumping the stuff down the drain.

That smell you describe is indeed a bacterial infection.  It's unlikely

that it would have righted itself in the bottle.  The cloudiness is another

indication that there was an infection.  I suspect that more and more

reports of infected batches will be cropping up now that the warmer

weather is here.  It is still possible to brew in the summer, but you

must be extra, extra, extra careful about your sanitation -- what worked

in the cold of winter may not work in the summer.  Open windows, damp

basements, warmer tapwater (for wort chillers) and active, airbourne

microflora are some of the reasons that summer requires much more

stringent sanitation techniques.

*********************

I wrote:

>I believe that Edme is quite a bit more fermentable than Nottingham

                                         ^^^^^^^^^^^

>and the Edme would have used up all the oxygen, so I'm not surprised

>that the Nottingham did nothing -- there was no O2 or sugar left

>for it to eat.

Sorry... what I meant was "attenuative."  Rush, rush, rush, duh!

Al.

------------------------------


fruit, sugar,

Date: Wed, 19 May 93 19:39:07 EDT

From: Pierre Jelenc <rcpj@Panix.Com>

Subject: fruit, sugar,

Several people have asked recently about sanitizing fruit for fruit beers. I

recommend using a solution of potassium permanganate. It has been used

traditionally in countries where vegetables, salads, etc are a bit dodgy.

Make a frankly purple solution of permanganate in water, and soak the

whole fruit for 5-10 min. If the purple color fades (the stuff found

things to chew up), add a couple of drops of concentrate and let soak a

while more. Drain and rinse with boiled water.

About sugar, again from several posts:

Sucrose is broken readily by yeast into fructose and glucose. The yeast

must do that before using it for food. While it can do it, yeast is lazy

and will not balk if the job is done for it, hence the use of invert sugar.

Caramel: all simple sugars caramelize upon heating. The reaction is a

complex set of thermal dehydrations that produce short polymers and cyclic

compounds.

Maltose: it is a disaccharide like sucrose, except that it is made of two

glucoses.

Golden Syrup: my local supermarket in NYC at Broadway and 115th has it

routinely on the shelves, as well as several other Tate & Lyle specialty

sugar products. I saw treacle downtown a while ago, maybe at the South

Street Seaport mall.

Jaggery: It is partly refined sucrose from the sap of a palm tree.

Pierre

Pierre Jelenc

rcpj@panix.com

------------------------------


Results of UNYHA Annual Contest

Date: Wed, 19 May 93 7:21 EDT

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Results of UNYHA Annual Contest

Contest Winners of the AHA-sanctioned 15th Annual Empire State Open,

sponsored on April 25 by the Upstate New York Homebrewers Association,

Rochester, New York:

Light Lager    1st Place      Kurt Jensen

               2nd Place      George Fix

               3rd Place      Dave Chapus

Amber Lager    1st Place      Bill Heller

               2nd Place      Andrew Jones

               3rd Place      James E. Lee

Dark Lager     1st Place      Glenn Van Graafeiland

               2nd Place      Dave Chapus

               3rd Place      Art Allen

Porter         1st Place      Tom Kaltenbach

               2nd Place      Bill Hitt

               3rd Place      John D. Sullivan

Stout          1st Place      Chris Stamp

               2nd Place      Andrew Jones

               3rd Place      Terry O'Conner

North Amer Ale 1st Place      Mark Dux

               2nd Place      Mark Dux

               3rd Place      Dave Schlosser

Looks Like     1st Place      Dave Schlosser

Saranac        2nd Place      Andrew Jones

               3rd Place      Steve Gallagher

British Ale    1st Place      Kurt Jensen

               2nd Place      Peter Schuyler

               3rd Place      Randy Blandford

Brown Ale      1st Place      Scott Abrahamson

               2nd Place      Tom Thompson/Allen Ricket

               3rd Place      Jeff Tonges

Belgian        1st Place      Scott Bickham (wit)

               2nd Place      Bill Hitt (Trappist)

               3rd Place      Bill Hitt (Trappist)

Specialty      1st Place      Andrew Jones (spice beer)

               2nd Place      Bill Hitt (chocolate porter)

               3rd Place      Kurt Jensen (wheat)

Best of Show   1st Place      Scott Abrahamson (Brown Ale)

               2nd Place      Kurt Jensen (Light Lager)

               3rd Place      Scott Bickham (Belgian Wit, or "white", beer)

Tom Kaltenbach                Upstate New York Homebrewers Association

tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com      Rochester, New York, USA

------------------------------


Equipment?

Date: 19 May 1993 22:11:21 -0500 (CDT)

From: ROB WILSON <WILSONRS@VAX1.Winona.MSUS.EDU>

Subject: Equipment?

Hello All

I'm very new to homebrewing, only four extract batches. I'm looking for

some basic equipment at low prices (Since I'm a college student). I need

a couple of glass carboy's and bottles. I have seen bottles with there own

tops, look like a little porcelain stopper with a rubber washer on it. I

don't know what they are called but look like they would work well.

 .

Could some of you out there help me to find a mail order shop or anybody

willing to sell there equipment. The local pseudo homebrew shop wants $35

for a glass 5 gal. carboy, this seams high to me. Also what are those

bottles called and do they work?? Any other helpful hints on any brewing

subject welcome.

 .

Please email me at  wilsonrs@vax2.winona.msus.edu

Rob Wilson

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1145, 05/20/93

*************************************

-------


Re: Equipment?

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 09:39 EDT

From: tmr1@hotlg.att.com

Subject: Re: Equipment?

Rob Wilson asks:

> ................................................................. I need

> a couple of glass carboy's and bottles. I have seen bottles with there own

> tops, look like a little porcelain stopper with a rubber washer on it. I

> don't know what they are called but look like they would work well.

> ................................................. Also what are those

> bottles called and do they work??

The bottles Rob is referring to are Grolsch bottles, a beer made in Holland.

I was lucky enough to obtain about 400 of these once and it was one of the

reasons I began homebrewing.  I never liked the beer and I got the

bottles empty, but they are excellent for bottling homebrew.  They hold 16

ounces, are dark brown to keep out light, are very thick and sturdy (I

haven't broken one yet) and are a joy to cap.  Just a flip of the thumb and

they are capped.  No need for a special capper.  Most of the original rubber

gaskets are still in good shape and the few that were dried out or covered

with crud and/or beer mold were replaced.  Several homebrew supply stores

and mail order catalogs have them both in white and red.  I boil the gaskets

for 5 minutes to sterilize them before bottling.

The 16 oz. size is nice since I can pour 2 mugs of beer with a good head from

1 Grolsch bottle and still leave the yeast sediment in the bottle.  An

interesting thing I have noticed while soaking off the original labels is

that the older bottles were marked as 16 oz. on the label and as time went

on, the labels changed to 15.8 oz. and 15.2 oz.  Probably at the same price,

but at a savings to the brewery.  I'm in the process of measuring the volume

of each of the 3 differently marked bottles, but I'll bet that they are all

the same.  They just put less beer in them when they were bottled.

A typical 5 gallon batch will yield between 35 and 40 Grolsch bottles.  I

place a removable 3/4" round Avery label on the cap and write the batch

number on it using a yellow label for lager and brown for ale.  I make my own

front and back labels for each batch on a laser printer and glue them on to

the bottle with Elmer's white glue.  I have no idea where to get more of these

bottles.  Try a bar that serves Grolsch in these bottles.

                                                Tom Romalewski

------------------------------


sanitizing Stainless Steel

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 08:50:05 CDT

From: hinz@memphis.med.ge.com (David Hinz)

Subject: sanitizing Stainless Steel

Al Korzonas writes:

****************

JC writes:

>I'd caution everyone against using bleach to clean stainless steel vessels.

>I'm under the impression that bleach will pit stainless steel.

I agree.  Iodine-based sanitizers are recommended for sanitizing stainless

steel.

- ---

OK, here's a silly question.  I'm using my stainless keg as a cooker, so it'll

be sterilized by the boil, right?  So, as long as I get it CLEAN, and rinse it

good, that should be clean enough, right?

I never bothered sterilizing my wort chiller, because I just put it in the wort

when I'm boiling it, so the kettle shouldn't be any different, should it?

How about the ladle?  I just leave it hanging inside the keg, during the boil,

so I can stir the wort without worrying about putting a non-sterile instrument

in it.  Is having it sit in/just above the boiling wort enough to keep it

from contracting nasties?

*******************

Hint of the day...I've been pitching my yeast into a quart of starter wort,

and I get much quicker starts this way.  I just took 1lb. of dry malt extract

in a gallon of water, boiled for about an hour, and canned it.  Now, when I

want to brew on saturday, I pop my  wyeast pack on thursday, pitch it into

a gallon cider jug when it's ready, add the quart of starter wort, shake the

heck out of it, and let it go.  By saturday or sunday, it's ready to go

(nice 1/4" of froth on the surface), I make my batch, shake up the starter,

and pitch.  Starts have been within 12 hours regularly, I was getting 24

hour+ starts by just dumping the wyeast pack into the fermenter.

It's definately worth the minimal effort it takes, in my opinion.  If you aren't

making a yeast starter, I'd say it's not a bad idea to do.  The higher cell

count you start with, the quicker it'll get fermenting, and crowd out any

infections that happen to be there.

Any suggestions on refinement of this technique?

Dave Hinz

hinz@memphis.med.ge.com

------------------------------


Secondary Fermentation

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 06:46:53 PDT

From: JC  20-May-1993 0943 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Secondary Fermentation

>Date: Wed, 19 May 93 11:23:37 EDT

>From: <geotex@engin.umich.edu>

>Subject: Sencondary Fermentation

writes:

>I am unsure of the purpose of racking to a secondar fermentation

>container.

>

>Could someone please clear this up for me.  It seems my books

>don't clearly explain this.

I can think of two reasons for doing this (note: my reasons are more

geared for extract brewers):

1) xfr'ing the brew to the 2ndary helps separate the sludge from the

brew, and hence, if done right, will produce beers that are more clear.

2) buys you time.  bottling is time-consuming;  once you have the brew

in the 2ndary (carboy), you can let it sit in there for a while (months)

until you find a good time to bottle.

JC

------------------------------


Local beer made in Philadelphia??

Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 09:19:31 -0500 (CDT)

From: MEHTA01@swmed.edu

Subject: Local beer made in Philadelphia??

 Hi.

  i have a friend who is in Philadelphia and he volunteered to bring

some NorthEastern beer. When i was up in NJ, i remember drinking a Phil. beer

made by 'Dock St. Brewing Co.' called Anchor beer. i am not sure of the names

so would some one please verify these, before i send my kind friend off on a

widget-hunt.. :-)  Thank You.

Shreefal Mehta

Mehta01@utsw.swmed.utexas.edu

------------------------------


RE: Half and Half , NA Beer

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 09:22:59 CDT

From: greenbay@vnet.IBM.COM

Subject: RE: Half and Half , NA Beer

It worked! Pouring the Guinness into a spoon resting on the top of the

bottom beer effectively separated the two. Actually, I only got it to work

with Old Milwaukee on the bottom and my stout on top (Old Mil cold, stout

warm.) I tried it with one of my lighter colored beers, but the stout

mixed in. Maybe in that case the stout should have been on the bottom.

I'm also interested in producing an NA beer. One idea I had would be

to just use crystal malt or some other malt for the flavor and body of

the beer but not use anything that would contribute fermentable sugars.

 Then you could boil in the hops cool it down, add yeast and priming sugar

and bottle it. This would be restrictive on flavor, style, and whatnot,

but would it work?

Thanks for all of the help,

Bob

------------------------------


A new half-n-half

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 07:27 PDT

From: /O=vmspfhou/S=dblewis/DD.SITE=JSCPROFS/@NASAmail.nasa.gov

Subject: A new half-n-half

***************************** PROFS Note *****************************

 From: DBLEWIS --VMSPFHOU            Date and time  05/20/93 09:28:17

 To: POSTMAN --NASAMAIL

 FROM: Dennis B. Lewis <dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

 SUBJECT: A new half-n-half

 Since we have fresh, tasty Celis White available locally on tap, we make a

 concoction called "Cream of Wheat." It is a bottom layer of Celis White and a

 top layer of draught Guinness. Whenever you take a drink the whole boundary

 layer sloshes from one side to the other, but there is surprisingly little

 mixing. Very fun to watch and equally fun to drink. The Celis White adds an

 interesting spicy-fruitiness to the drink, while the Guinness is

 roasty-creamy. I highly recommend it to those who are brave enough to try.

 A note about pouring: I believe that the bartender pours the Guinness on a

 large spoon held just above the Celis or the rising layer of Guinness.

 Dennis B. Lewis  *  (713) 483-9145  *  NASA/JSC/DH6 Payload Ops

 Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Lyle's Golden Syrup and Black Treacle

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 07:50 PDT

From: /O=vmspfhou/S=dblewis/DD.SITE=JSCPROFS/@NASAmail.nasa.gov

Subject: Lyle's Golden Syrup and Black Treacle

***************************** PROFS Note *****************************

 From: DBLEWIS --VMSPFHOU            Date and time  05/20/93 09:51:10

 To: POSTMAN --NASAMAIL

 FROM: Dennis B. Lewis <dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

 SUBJECT: Lyle's Golden Syrup and Black Treacle

 I have access to both Lyle's Golden Syrup and Black Treacle. A one pound can

 runs about $2.50 for the Golden and $2.25 for the Treacle. As far as I can

 tell, the Golden Syrup adds a small amount of flavor (slight caramel taste)

 and not much in the way of fermentables (maybe 25-30 ppg). The Black Treacle,

 used in sparing amounts of 2-5% provides an "Old Peculiar" taste to your brew

 according the All-Grain Zymurgy special issue. I haven't used it yet, but I

 tasted it and Theakton's Old Peculiar is right on the money. It is similar to

 molasses, but the taste is noticable different.

 Is it really true that Lyle's Golden Syrup and Black Treacle are no longer

 imported? If so, then I'll run out and clean out the store of their stock.

 Dennis B. Lewis  *  (713) 483-9145  *  NASA/JSC/DH6 Payload Ops

 Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


RE: Racking after Pitching

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 11:03:44 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: Racking after Pitching

Hi All,

  In HBD#1145, STOREY@fender.msfc.nasa.gov posted a funny story about

beer culture shock in London.

  Reading it reminded me of the last time I was at O'Hare in Chicago.

I had a couple of hours to kill waiting for my flight, when I spotted

an airport bar that served Guinness Extra Stout.  The bar was lined with

people drinking the Budmilloors swill, appropriately served ice-cold in

order to numb the palate.  When I ordered a Guinness, a few people looked

up.  The bartender apologized, explaining that he couldn't serve me one

as he didn't have any cold.  *Everyone* looked up when I told him that

was OK, I liked it warm.  I spent the next two hours blissfully sipping

room temperature Guinness, to the utter revulsion of the Budmilloors crowd

seated around me.  I could not have been more pleased :-).

************************************************************************

  Brian Bliss posted a recipe for sour mash Guinness:

>* Cascades will give that funky american hop taste, if you desire, but

>taste unlike guinness.  Any German hop is right out.  Fuggles don't give

>that sharp bitterness.  Maybe N. Brewer...

>Ignore the comment about N. Brewer in my previous note - It is

>a relative to Hallertau, which does not work in stouts (I've tried

>it).

  I`ve used Bullion in my stouts with good results.  Give them a try.

************************************************************************

  Phil Brushaber writes:

>I find this interesting. The advantage Miller suggests is

>that after the proper hot and cold break that you don't have

>to syphon off the clear wort from the boiler, just strain it

>into the fermenter. But my concern lies in the area of

>racking (and aerating) the beer again after it has been

>sitting for several hours, but before fermentation begins.

  One of my brewing buddies, who is a firm believer in the gospel

according to Miller, racks his wort from the boiler, then allows it

to chill to 45F overnight.  Next morning, he racks off the settled cold

break into a second carboy and pitches.  His lagers come out great.

However, I'm not sure he re-aerates during the second racking, I think

he treats it like a racking to secondary, i.e., minimal splashing.

Lee, care to comment?

  I also chill my wort to about 48F before pitching, but I don't bother

racking off the cold break.  My understanding is that the yeast won't

bother with the trub while they have other food available, so off flavors

from fusel alcohol production is not a problem during primary fermentation.

My lagers come out well, too.  Comments??

>Also there is the inference that the yeast starter should be

>at the same cold (50 degree F) temperature as the chilled

>wort. Is anyone else doing this for lagers? I have been

>pitching my room temp starter into about 70 degree wort, then

>putting the fermenter into the refrigerator and bringing the

>temp down to 50 degrees.

>Any thoughts?

  It is important that the starter and the wort be about the same

temperature at pitching time.  I read somewhere (Miller? Noonan?) that

sudden, severe temperature shock will kill a large percentage of the yeast.

  In your case Phil, I'd say temperature shock shouldn't be a problem, as

your starter and wort are about the same temperature.  However, pitching

lager yeast at 70F will cause elevated levels of diacetyl in the finished

product.  Pitching when the wort is 45F-50F will sufficiently reduce the

amount of diacetyl produced during primary fermentation, so that a 1-2

day diacetyl rest after primary will reduce the diacetyl below threshold

level.

  Of course, a side effect of pitching into chilled wort is increased lag

time.  I've had some success compensating for this effect by growing large

yeast populations in a 1/2 gallon jug.  I start 7-10 days in advance of

brew day, let the starter ferment out, pour off most of the liquid leaving

just the yeast sediment, and re-feed with fresh sterile wort.  After two

feedings, I typically have about a 1 inch thick layer of yeast sediment.

When the wort is properly chilled, I again pour off most of the liquid, and

pitch the slurry.  Using this method, fermentation starts in 12-18 hours,

even at the reduced temperatures.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


secondary fermentations and fruit

Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 11:02:32 -0400 (EDT)

From: Bryan Kornreich <bkornrei@pennsy.med.jhu.edu>

Subject: secondary fermentations and fruit

Hey there,

     geotex@engin.umich.edu wrote that he was unsure about the purpose of

racking to a secondary fermentation container.  If anyone knows, please

tell us all.  I've been wondering about it for years and have never, ever

gotten a straight answer.  I've heard all sorts of reasons ranging from:

     -It helps clear the beer

     -It makes the yeast happier to work in a cleaner environment, so they

take the fermentation further

 and -"What do you mean 'why'?  You have to do it!  Everyone does it"

Me personally, I've done it and I see no real benefit--maybe a bit of

clearing, that's all; but then, I don't particularly care too much about

the color of my beer--taste and aroma mean everything to me.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

I have some questions for all you fruit beer brewers out there:

     1. How on Earth do you press your fruity wort (to get the juice out

of the pulp) with any hint of sterility.  I've always wanted to do a fruit

brew, but I am most afraid of this messy procedure.

     2. In yesterday's Wheat Berry beer recipie, would it be a good idea

to puree the rasperries and blackberries before adding them in order to

avoid the pressing step?  And would skipping the pressing be OK, or would

too much juice be left in the cellulose matrix of the fruit?

     3. Does anyone out there have a good recipe for a banana beer?  And

do you have to sterilize a banana before use?  (I'm guessing no!)

     4. What sorts of yeast leaves a nice banana taste in a beer (a

regular beer, not a fruit beer)?  Sort of like the Austrian EidelWeiss (is

that the right beer I'm thinking of?)

       thanks,

           Bryan

------------------------------


foreign american brews

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 11:13:30 -0400

From: Ron Natalie <ron@topaz.bds.com>

Subject: foreign american brews

Yes, I came across the same thing when I first went to Japan.  First, the

Japanese were amazed that I even knew of a handful of the Japanese megabrands

(Asahi, Kirin, Suntory, ...) but also the restaurant meus would almost always

list "Budweiser" as the first thing in the list of Imported beers.

 -Ron

I still find the name "POCARI SWEAT" amusing.

------------------------------


Re: 1/2 & 1/2; racking, the Secret Meaning of ..

Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 09:19:37 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: 1/2 & 1/2; racking, the Secret Meaning of ..

Phil Brushaber asks:

>

>

> I have read many Homebrew texts but only recently got Dave

> Miller's Complete Handbook of Home Brewing. Some of what

> Miller suggests is contrary to my current practices of all-

> grain brewing.  One area is racking the wort off the trub

> after the cold break.

>

> After the wort chill Miller suggests... "At this point you

> have two choices,depending on how cold your wort is. If it is

> down to fermentation temperature (48 to 55 F for lagers) you

> should pitch your yeast immediately.... Close the fermenter

> and move it to your fermentation area. The wort should be

> racked off into a secondary fermenter about 8 to 12 hours

> later, to separate it from most of the hot and cold break

> material which will settle to the bottom of the vessel. Also

> remember that, before pitching, the wort must be aerated."

>

Far be it from lowly me to say that Dave Miller is wrong... but the

research I did last year for a presentation at the AHA national

conference proved to my satisfaction (and my own experience has backed

it up), that racking wort off the cold break was entirely a waste of

time.  Somewhere back a few months I posted some direct quotations from

DeClerq and from George Fix, but in essence the point is that once the

cold break has been created properly (by adequate chilling) it will

_NOT_ be reabsorbed into the wort unless the temperature of the wort is

raised considerably above any conceivable in a brewery fermentation

area.

It _is_ important to get the wort off the hot break material, but this

is a relatively simple thing to achieve when drawing the wort out of the

kettle.

When I made the presentation (3 times! best believe the AHA gets their

money's worth out of you), I said that I had never seen a brewery that

worried about racking wort off the cold break -- one fellow from (I

think) Chicago said that I was wrong! (ooooooooooh!) and that such and

such brewery there did so.  Well, that's one.  And I suspect Dave

Miller's brewpub is another.

> I find this interesting. The advantage Miller suggests is

> that after the proper hot and cold break that you don't have

> to syphon off the clear wort from the boiler, just strain it

> into the fermenter. But my concern lies in the area of

> racking (and aerating) the beer again after it has been

> sitting for several hours, but before fermentation begins.

> Also there is the inference that the yeast starter should be

> at the same cold (50 degree F) temperature as the chilled

> wort. Is anyone else doing this for lagers? I have been

> pitching my room temp starter into about 70 degree wort, then

> putting the fermenter into the refrigerator and bringing the

> temp down to 50 degrees.

>

I ain't no lager expert, by a long shot, but the procedure you're

following is the same recommended to me by Dave Logsdon of WYeast Labs

and _he_ does make great lagers.  So...

=========================

On 1/2 and 1/2 (or, more properly "arf 'n arf")

I was taught to make these while tending bar at the Horse Brass,

Portland's "authentic" British pub.  I think it's pretty tricky from the

bottle, and haven't a clue how to start.  But with the proper taps, it's

pretty easy.  If you'll notice, Guiness is dispensed from a unique

faucet that comes down to a small tip, and has a little knob on the side

to control the flow.  If you put the ale (not Harp, yuck!) in the bottom

of the glass and then sloooooooooowly run the Guiness in on top (you

have to open the knob up just at the very end to allow a rush of

nitrogen/carbondioxide in for the head) you will end up with the heavy

Guiness on top of the thinner ale.  Naturally, this is an unstable

condition and the two beers will quickly mix -- but it does make a nice

presentation.

In general, I refused to do any other mixed beers, being a hard-core

traditionalist.  Arf n arfs I could live with, but some of the

waitresses spent a lot of time coming up with cute names for mixes of

various microbrewed ales -- they had to find another bartender to do

them (whoops! "find another bartender to mix them").

Incidentally, the most beautifully presented drink I ever saw was a

Tequila Sunrise at Henry Africa's in San Francisco.  The bartender would

put the grenandine on the bottom, then the assorted other goodies on

top, and finally put a swizzle stick all the way to the bottom and

quickly pull it up: the Grenadine would follow up the center of the

glass.  It was the only time the drink's name ever made sense to me.

================

> From: <geotex@engin.umich.edu>

> Subject: Sencondary Fermentation

>

>

> I am unsure of the purpose of racking to a secondar fermentation

> container.

>

> Could someone please clear this up for me.  It seems my books

> don't clearly explain this.

>

There are a number of good reasons for it.  One of the simplest is that

it leaves the cold break (trub, etc.) on the bottom of the first carboy.

This means that (a) you can harvest pure yeast from the 2ndary and (b)

that you will end up with _much_ less garp(TM) in your bottles.

>

> From: CHUCKM@PBN73.Prime.COM

> Subject: image files on sierra.stamford

>

> I was browsing on sierra.stamford the other day under /pub/homebrew/images

> and noticed a bunch of what I guess are image files,   mostly with a .jpg

> and .gif file name suffix.    Does anyone know what format these files are

> and what software I need to display these? Will any MS Windows applications

> work?

>

There are decoders around that will allow you to read .gif or .jpg

files.  I'm using Aldus PhotoStyler, which is supposed to be able to

read .gif files, but frankly it doesn't work worth a ... Anyway, I've

recently received some updates (which won't fit on the damn drive ...)

that supposedly will deal with .gif and .jpg (a compression format) --

but I haven't much faith.

I also have some shareware called Graphic Workshop which reads these

files (and many others) and converts back and forth.  It isn't a Windows

program but does run under Windows.

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


Brewing Techniques... a great new journal

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 12:28:28 -0400

From: djt2@po.CWRU.Edu (Dennis J. Templeton)

Subject: Brewing Techniques... a great new journal

I just received the inaugural copy of "Brewing Techniques" in the mail.

It is a beautiful, intelligent, and sure to be successful magazine.

I'm writing to offer my congratulations to the editors and writers, many of

whom appear here on the Digest.  Keep up the good work.

I got my inaugural subscription by sending $24 (for 6 issues, one year) to:

Brewing Techniques

P. O. Box 3076

Eugene, OR 97403

And, no, this is not a paid solicitation.  Sheesh!

dennis

------------------------------


Bitterness

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 9:31:40 PDT

From: tinsethg@ucs.orst.edu (Glenn Tinseth)

Subject: Bitterness

In this Wednesday's HBD drose@husc.harvard.edu asked about

bittering hops, specifically whether there was any reason to be picky

about what variety we use for >60 min. boils. I mean bitterness is

bitterness, right?

>From the back of the room comes a resounding *NO*

While it is true that boiling hops for greater than an hour or so gets rid

of the volatile essential oils (for the most part), these oils are not the

only compounds that give a hop its unique character. The quantity and

proportions of the various alpha and beta acids are different for each

hop variety. High alpha varieties typically have an alpha/beta

ratio of 2-4  while  noble hops' alpha/beta commonly is below 1. In

addition the cohumulone/humulone ratio also varies widely, hops

with high cohumulone levels are thought to contribute a harsher

bitterness to beer and negatively impact head retention.

The big brewers, under the assumption that bitterness was bitterness,

funded most of the development of high alpha varieties in the last 20

years. They found that their taste panels were able to distinguish

between beers bittered with noble varieties and high alphas and

preferred the former in most cases. Today a lot of their research money

is being spent developing higher yielding noble-type aroma hops (like

Mt. Hood and Liberty and soon to arrive Tettnanger and Saaz triploid

varieties).

The best way to demonstrate this is via test brews. Add the same

amount of alpha acids to each beer but make one Chinook (~12% alpha)

and make the other Saaz (~3-4% alpha) for example. Make sure you

boil the hops for >60 min. and don't add flavor/aroma hops. Then

ferment, finish,  and taste the difference.

Email me with your snail mail address for my  catalog which discusses

hop varieties, hop chemistry, bitterness calculations , and of

course, where to get fresh, whole hops. (Sorry for the commercial, but

Jack said it was OK:-)

Glenn

------------------------------


The Sanitation subject again - Recent studies on water nasties

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 09:10:59 MDT

From: "Steve Kurka - BMC West, Boise, ID" <kurka@bmcw.com>

Subject: The Sanitation subject again - Recent studies on water nasties

Sanitation and the homebrewer:

Recently, I have noticed more comments on sanitation due to summer's return.

As a backcountry camper and a homebrewer, I have many concerns about what

is "growing" in the water. Some of the water treatment practices of camping

be applied to the disinfecting process of brewing:

For those that read the REC.BACKCOUNTRY postings, you will know what affect

Chlorine and Idodine have on microflora, bacteria and the like. If you are

interested and do not read RB, I can forward a summary on water treatment.

It contains reviews on water filters and chemical effectiveness from recent

scientific studies and research. (Or look under REC.BACKCOUNTRY for a

1400 line posting on Sunday May 9.)

Now for a few qoutes:

1.

>Without getting too technical, one can gain some appreciation of the

>problem by understanding a few of the variables that influence the

>efficacy of chlorine as a disinfectant.

>

>1) Water pH: at pH values above 7.5, the disinfectant capability of

>   chlorine is greatly reduced.

>2) Water temperature: the warmer the water, the higher the efficacy.

>   Thus, chlorine does not work well in ice-cold water from mountain

>   streams.

>3) Organic content of the water: mud, decayed vegetation, or other

>   suspended organic debris in water chemically combines with chlorine

>   making it unavailable as a disinfectant.

>4) Chlorine contact time: the longer Giardia cysts are exposed to

>   chlorine, the more likely it is that the chemical will kill them.

>5) Chlorine concentration: the higher the chlorine concentration, the

>   more likely chlorine will kill Giardia cysts. Most water treatment

>   facilities try to add enough chlorine to give a free (unbound)

>   chlorine residual at the customer tap of 0.5 mg per liter of water.

    ...

2.

>Boiling

>

>Boiling water is one of the simplest and most effective ways to purify

>water. Boiling for 1 minute is adequate to kill Giardia as well as most

>other bacterial or viral pathogens likely to be acquired from drinking

>polluted water.

>

>Chemical Disinfection

>

>Disinfection of water with chlorine or iodine is considered less reliable

>than boiling for killing Giardia.  However, it is recognized that boiling

>drinking water is not practical under many circumstances. Therefore, when

>one cannot boil drinking water, chemical disinfectants such as iodine or

>chlorine should be used. This will provide some protection against Giardia

>and will destroy most bacteria and viruses that cause illness. Iodine or

>chlorine concentrations of 8 mg/liter (8ppm) with a minimum contact time

>of 30 minutes are recommended. If the water is cold (less than 10 deg C or

>5O deg F) we suggest a minimum contact time of 60 minutes. If you have a

>choice of disinfectants, use iodine. Iodine's disinfectant activity is less

>likely to be reduced by unfavorable water conditions, such as dissolved

>organic material in water or by water with a high pH, than chlorine.

    ...

The post on water treatment is very extensive. Recomended reading for

anyone who is Parranoid about infections, and the like. Boiling (Heat)

still looks like the Safest way to disinfect things.

We as brewers do have the advantage of Alchohol production to kill nasties.

Isn't this why most countries brew, and say "Don't drink the Water"?

The brewing process normally will render the water drinkable with

and excelent flavor ;-)   Steve

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 - Women love cats.  Men say they love cats,          -

 - but when women aren't looking, men kick cats.      KURKA@BMCW.COM Boise, ID-

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Images from listserv@sierra.stanford.edu

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 10:47:28 PDT

From: "Donald G. Scheidt" <dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com>

Subject: Images from listserv@sierra.stanford.edu

Not having ftp access, I must resort to using e-mail to get files from the

listserv system.  I'm having difficulty getting the "images" subdirectory;

I can't even get a simple listing of the .gif files.  Would some kind HBDer

lend assistance, or e-mail me a list of uuencoded .gifs?

ObHB: First Belgian-style witbier smells wonderful, coriander and orange

notes in the air, can't wait to keg it up and enjoy!

- --

        __       |                                        |       __

       // /      |  Don Scheidt                           |      // /

      /  / /     |  Boeing IASL, 777 Cab Development      |     /  / /

     / // / /    |  dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com      |    / // / /

    / / // / /   |                                        |   / / // / /

   / / /__/_/ /  |                                        |  / / /__/_/ /

  / / /________/ |                                        | / / /________/

  //___________/ |                                        | //___________/

------------------------------


Half & Half

Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 13:01:14 -0500 (CDT)

From: brewmstr@genesis.mcs.com (Jim Bayer)

Subject: Half & Half

Bob at greenbay@vnet.IBM.COM asks how to pour a half and half:

First you pour a half glass of Harps and then you pour the

Guiness slowly over a tablespoon on top of the Harps.  You

may get a little mix but it will stay seperated for a long

time.

Jim

|  Remember:  Brewing is not a matter of life and death.         |

|             It is much more important than that!               |

| ============================================================== |

|  Jim Bayer -> Chicago, my kind of town!  The windy city        |

|  brewmstr@genesis.mcs.com          72416.1044@compuserve.com   |

------------------------------


sour mash

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 13:37:19 cdt

From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: sour mash

Thanks to Brian Bliss for his interesting response to my question about

making sour mash for Guinness clones.

Pardon my ignorance: what is meant by "P-Guinness"?

Also, Brian, how do you introduce the lactic infection into the bottled

beers?

Jonathan

------------------------------


Beer Bread

Date: 20 May 1993 12:40:46 -0600 (MDT)

From: Mark Taratoot <SLNDW@CC.USU.EDU>

Subject: Beer Bread

Greetings.

Mark S. Hart mailed me and requested my beer and pretzel method.  I

tried to email him directly (several times) but it kept bouncing.

So, I will give a brief summary here.  The original post can be

found in the HBD archives by anonymous FTP from SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU.

Bread making can be time consuming, as can beer making.  But

if you make bread on a day that you will be around the house for

several hours doing other things, it really is not much of a time

drain, nor is it difficult.  And the result is oh so yummy.

Here is how:

NOTE: Do not use the yeast cake from primary fermentation unless

      you rack before fermentation gets underway (ie if you get

      the wort off the trub).  Use the cake from a secondary

      fermenter.

      Do NOT use the yeast cake from a beer that has been dry hopped.

      The beer will not spoil, but it will not taste good.

After you bottle/keg/spill-all-over-the-floor your beer, swish the

carboy around to get the yeast cake into a slurry.  Pour this slurry

into a jar (or bowl if you want to get started right away).  Pour

some more liquid into the carboy and swish again (you can use dregs

from the bottoms of recently emptied bottles, bottles that did not

get completely filled, water, vegetable stock, whatever).  You can

close the jar LOOSELY and keep it in the refrigerator for a week or

so. When you get ready to go, you can either decant off most of the

liquid or pour it in (I pour it in).

To the slurry, add 2 cups flour (whole wheat preferably) and just a

bit of sugar or honey.  This is the sponge.  Let it sit for 30-60

minutes.  If the yeast slurry has been in the refrigerator, it will

take longer to rise, so keep this in mind.  If you prefer, you can

stick the sponge in the fridge and use it as a "sourdough starter."

When the sponge has risen, add:

1/4 cup oil or melted butter (I like butter)

1/4 cup honey or sugar (mmmmm.  Honey.)

1 tsp salt

1 beaten egg (optional.  Will help rise and increase protien).

"STUFF" (some, all, or none of the following)

Bulgar wheat (1 part bulgar and 1 part boiling water pre mixed)

sunflower seeds, crushed nuts, wheat berries, rasins, dates,

oats, millet, rye, spent grains from brewing, etc...

AND... more flour, 1/2 cup at a time until the dough has reached the

proper consistency. NOTE: if you use a lot of "STUFF" then

you may need to add some high gluten flour.

Knead for 15 minutes.  Put in oiled bowl and allow to rise until

doubled in bulk.

Knead for 15 minutes.  Make loaves (I like braids and round loaves,

but loaf pans will work too).  For ronds and braids, put on

trays that have been sprinkled with corn meal or sesame seeds.

Allow to rise until doubled in bulk.  Brush top of crust (or all

of crust for round loaves and braids) with one of the following

for desired results:

Butter (yum) for a soft crust (if you use butter, put some more on

        right after the bread comes out of the oven)

Beaten egg for a shiny crust (nice for braids)

Milk for a nice brown crispy crust

Nothing (simplicity)

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until bread sounds hollow when thumped.  If

you are using pyrex loaf pans, bake at 325.

Let the bread cool 20-30 minutes, slice, and enjoy with a nice glass

of your favorite homebrew!

*********************PRETZELS***************************

Pretzels are easy too.

Take the yeast slurry or sponge, 1 tsp salt, a tiny bit of

oil, egg if you like, and enough flour to get the dough a nice

consistancy.  Knead for 15 minutes.  Put in oiled bowl and allow

to rise until doubled in bulk.  Knead again.  Roll into snakes

and shape the snakes into pretzels.

__At this point, I have been told you can increase the final

"chewyness" of the pretzels by dropping them one by one into

boiling soda water (1/4 to 1/3 cup baking soda in a pot of water).

Supposedly they will sink, then rise back to the top when they should

be removed__

Put the pretzels on greased trays.  Brush with beaten egg (or not, it

makes a mess of the trays) and sprinkle with salt (optional) if you

need to increase your blood pressure.  Bake for ??15 minutes?? at

400?? degrees (take them out as soon as they start to get brown, each

oven cooks differently, and when I have made pretzels in different

ovens, the times and temp can vary.

As soon as they come out of the oven, spread fine mustard on one and

devour it with a glass of fresh homebrew.  Pretzels don't save very

well, so make them when you have friends over.

Actually, it is easy as pie. (Hmmm.  Beer pie...   Nah.)

Have fun with these.  If anyone has comments or suggestions about

these, please contact me SLNDW@cc.usu.edu.

I always love to get new cooking tips.

 -toot

------------------------------


Spices/Protein rest/Tate&Lyle's

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 13:50 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Spices/Protein rest/Tate&Lyle's

Spencer writes:

>According to Randy Mosher, who has a lot of experience making

>strangely spiced brews, the best way to add cinnamon is to make a

>"potion".  Soak some cinnamon in vodka for a week or two, then add the

>potion gradually to the finished (but not yet bottled) beer until it

>tastes right.

I concur.  I believe, also, that Randy recommends filtering the potion

through a coffee filter.  I did this on a few beers and it worked quite

well (however, the judges liked my Curry Beer much more than I did!).

For those of you that haven't had the opportunity to try Randy Mosher's

odd beers, they are some of the most creative and interesting liquids

I've had the pleasure to taste.  My favorite is probably still the

Chantrelle (sp?) Mushroom beer.  Wow!

*********************

Brian writes:

>P-Guinness

>

>8 lbs PILSNER malt

>1 lb roasted barley

>1 lb barley flakes

>4 oz. black patent

>1.75 oz GOLDINGS ~5% AA hop plugs

>1-6 bottles of soured beer

>

>The whole idea is to keep the protein in the beer, so you start with

>Pilsner malt & don't do a protein rest.

Yes, but there are big proteins and small proteins.  The protein rest

will break the big proteins into smaller proteins and amino acids. I'm

pretty sure that any really big proteins that are left by the time you

are boiling will turn into hot break and do your beer no good anyway,

so I don't think that skipping the protein rest will actually significantly

increase your protein levels in the final beer.  Comments?

********************

Brian also writes that he found some Black Treacle a few months ago.

Yes, but I spoke with (as far as I know) sole wholesaler of the stuff

and he said that their current stocks had run out and that was it for

a while.

Al.

------------------------------


brewkettles and carboys

Date: 20 May 1993 14:48:25 -0500 (CDT)

From: Tim LaBerge <LABERGE@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>

Subject: brewkettles and carboys

Hi all,

I've been on an equipment binge lately, but I've run into some good

prices that I'd like to pass along.  I found 5 gallon glass carboys for

$9.00 at a factory outlet store that sells cookware, etc.  I also found

a 9.5-10 gallon stainless steel brewkettle(used) at a restaurant supply

store for $40.00.  Moral of the story: shop around and you can find some

bargains. (The brewkettle was dented and _covered_ with baked on grease,

but it all came off with elbowgrease.)

Tim LaBerge

Department of Mathematics

University of Kansas

------------------------------


Competition for Kock

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 15:58:15 EDT

From: casagran@gdstech.grumman.com (Lou Casagrande)

Subject: Competition for Kock

Fellow Brewers,

Just thought you'd all like to hear about an ad I heard on the radio

today. New Amsterdam is advertising its amber using something akin to

"It's not just 'great,' it's _exceptional_!" We all know which beer is

merely "great" now, don't we ;^).

Yours in brewing,

Lou Casagrande

casagran@gdstech.grumman.com

------------------------------


Re: Competition for Kock

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 16:25:03 EDT

From: casagran@gdstech.grumman.com (Lou Casagrande)

Subject: Re: Competition for Kock

Oops! Make that "Koch"!

------------------------------


Hops, Fruits

Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 11:38:08

From: garetz@brahms.amd.com (Mark Garetz)

Subject: Hops, Fruits

Brett Charbeneau asks about Raspberry and extract brewing:

HopTech sells a line of 100% natural fruit extracts that make brewing fruit

beers easy.  No pectins, sugars or preservatives to compensate for, and no

problems obtaining fruit out of season or sterilizing it.  Flavors available

are raspberry, blueberry, peach, pear and cherry.  They are added just prior

to bottling or kegging so all the fruit flavors stay in the beer.  For a

light fruit ale, we recommend 30% wheat.  Since the extracts contain no

sugar or much "sweetness" associated with the fruit, we also recommend using

malt extract high in dextrins or adjusting your mash accordingly to get a

sweeter brew.  For more info, leave a message at 1-800-DRY-HOPS (379-4677)

or fax 1-510-736-7950.  Catalogs mail 1st week of June.

Steve Boxer asks about leaf hops clogging the keg lines:

You want to put the hops in a "hop bag" and add some weight (Leaf hops tend

to float).  We also sell hop bags and weights, but these kind of bags are

readily available from most homebrew shops.  For weights, ours is made of

teflon so it won't scratch and is inert to beer, but you can also use clean

copper pennies, marbles etc.  Hint: "Wet" the bag and hops before adding.

It helps make sure the beer gets to the hops (learned this trick from

Anchor).  By the way, our bags are 100% cotton and even work with pellets!

"Joe" asks if you can tell the difference between hop varieties by flower,

scent or growth habits:

Yes to all.  However, it ain't easy.  The oil components and their ratios

can be used to identify a species, but it takes an HPLC to do it!  The

combination of the cone shape and the leaf style can be used (with

practice).  But I don't know why it matters.  The easiest way to tell is to

read the label on the package  :-).

"drose"  asks why it matters what hop variety is used for long boils, since

the aromatics will be lost:

True.  The aromatics are lost.  But is is wrong to assume that there is only

*one* bittering source.  There are many alpha acids, beta acids and

oxidation products that make up the overall bitter "character" of a certain

hop variety.  Each hop variety has all of these in varying proportions,

hence the differing bitter characters.  The number on the hop package is a

*total* alpha acids number - the ratios of the various alpha acids is

variety specific.  (Did I mention I'm writing a book about hops?)

Anthony Johnston asks about a "soapy taste" in his beer:

I wonder if that beer was dry hopped?  Sometimes this can cause a "soapy"

flavor.  Some palates are more sensitive to it than others.  It is caused

(my theory) by the fatty acids in the hops.  It is also my theory that this

is a "stage" of the oil on it's way to another compound because the flavor

will go away in another week or two.  (Same beer given to neighbor in week 1

 -"YUCHH!  Undrinkable.  Tastes like soap!"  in week 3 - "Hey this is great!

Got any more?"  Recently had another brewer friend ask me about an

astringent taste after dry hopping with some Tettnang.  Same deal (not a

fatty acid, but some other hop compound on it's way to something else).  I

told him to wait a few weeks.  Now the beer is "Fantastic" according to him.

Mark Garetz

HopTech

------------------------------


Half and Half Method

Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 15:48:54 -0500 (EST)

From: Karl Desch <kcdesch@stupid.ucs.indiana.edu>

Subject: Half and Half Method

Hey,

As I recall the way to make one of those silly half and half things is

quite simple.  To avoid creating a current in your glass, invert a

spoon (round side up) over your harp and slowly pour the guiness over

it. This spreads the flow over the surface of da beer, maintaining the

layers.

Have fun.  -Karlos

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1146, 05/21/93

*************************************

-------


bottles, caps, and kegs

Date: 20 May 93 18:05:49 EST

From: Matthew Mitchell <IEKP898%tjuvm.bitnet@TJUVM.TJU.EDU>

Subject: bottles, caps, and kegs

From:  Matthew Mitchell

Bottles:  I recall drinking Watney's Red from a 2 liter brown PET bottle

   I bought at a packy in Nantucket.   they also were kind enough to sell

   me a six of Ballantine's IPA for the price of regular Ballantine Ale...

   "Uh...I think I'd better get three more six-packs..."  8^)   !

Bottles:  Who said they were lucky enough to have stubbies|  I wish I had

   kept the Ortlieb's stubbies I used ten years ago.  We used a different

   bottle for each of our brands: pounders for the lager, kings for the

   malt liquor, green for the stout, clear for brown ale, and stubbies

   for special brews.  We also used A-Treat soda quart returnables

   "Party size":  wonderfully convenient when the biggest pain is cleaning

   and capping bottles.  (We get 12 oz painted A-Treats here too)

Caps:  Rather than putting labels or initials on caps, you may find it

   smarter to put a batch serial number.  (e.g. The batch 13 stout didn't

   carbonate as well as the batch 16)  You can compare brew to brew, and

   note at a glance through the hole in the top of the case how long a

   case full have been aging.

  Another good idea is to take a handful of caps, place them on a newspaper,

   and spray-paint them, color-coding by brand or recipe again.  This also

   has the benefit of covering the previous stuff on the caps.  (Cheaper

   to buy the overrun caps than plain ones)

and Kegs:

  David's keg with two valves is called the "Golden Gate" keg, which has

   not been in common use for a decade.  I think they're pretty good though.

   I remember drinking gravity-fed Bud one evening after a softball game when

   the pump of our tap failed|  You may have a hard time finding a tap

   to fit.

and BTW: I noted that McGillin's Old Ale House in Philadelphia advertises

   "Real Ale"  Is this REAL ALE as the CAMRA think of it (cask-conditioned

   and hand-pumped) or is it just real ale instead of faux ale like Molson

   Golden?

Howzat!?!

Matthew Mitchell     <iekp898@tjuvm.tju.edu>   <iekp898@tjuvm.bitnet>

Former Brewmaster, Penthouse Brewing Co., Haverford PA

makers of Barclay Beer, Penthouse Brown Ale, and Big B Malt Liquor

------------------------------


Adamstown PA microbrewery fest: June 11-12

Date: 20 May 93 18:25:32 EST

From: Matthew Mitchell <IEKP898%tjuvm.bitnet@TJUVM.TJU.EDU>

Subject: Adamstown PA microbrewery fest: June 11-12

From:  Matthew Mitchell

Stoudt's Black Angus will present the Second Great Eastern Invitational

Microbrewery Festival, June 11 and 12 in Adamstown,PA (betweenLancaster

and Reading)

Dates:  Fri. June 11 6-10pm and Sat June 12, 2-6 pm

Tickets:  (they suggest you purchase in advance: last year sold out)

   $15.00 per day (specify day)  check or MO payable to

   Black Angus Ltd., PO Box ???, Adamstown, PA  19501

Phone: 215-484-4385

Breweries expected:

  Dock Street, Philadelphia

  Arrowhead, Chambersburg

  British, Lithicum MD

  Wild Goose, Cambridge MD

  Oldenberg, Ft. Mitchell KY

  New England, Norwalk CT

  Old Dominion, Ashburn VA

  Buffalo

  Pennsylvania (Penn Pilsner), Pittsburgh

  Otter Creek, Middlebury VT

  Sam Adams Brew House, *Philadelphia*

  Vermont, Burlington

  Boston Beer Co (C)(R)TM and all those other reserved rights

    Hope they don't sue me for using their name in the post|

  New Haven

  and of course, Stoudt's

Price of admission includes souvenir tasting glass and food

They say there will be fifty tasting tables and that all the breweries

  will have at least two beers available.

This is not a competition, so expect a relaxed atmosphere, with the aroma

  of malt, hops, and brots, and probably German music, too.

If you're bringing along someone to drive, she or he may be interested in

  spending time among all the antique dealers on the Route 252 corridor

  while you drink beer.

Prosit|||

and

Howzat!?!

Matthew Mitchell     <iekp898@tjuvm.tju.edu>   <iekp898@tjuvm.bitnet>

Former Brewmaster, Penthouse Brewing Co., Haverford PA

makers of Barclay Beer, Penthouse Brown Ale, and Big B Malt Liquor

------------------------------


The Brews Paper

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 19:02:29 EDT

From: perreaul@egr.msu.edu

Subject: The Brews Paper

I have been subscribed to HB for several months and have learned much and

now it is time for me to share with you.    Recently, I received as a gift

The Brews Paper which is a new paper recently published since I recieved

Vol.1.NO.2..  This paper is informative and also on the lighter side or

also comical since it is , The Official Bathroom Reading Material of

Homebrewers.   I know some of you are real serious, it seems buy what I

have read but for those who like humor or as the heading says,  "We Ain`t

Too Serious".    I found it to be a good break....

The Brews Paper, 1105 N. Front St.,Suite 28, Niles, Mi 49120

                  12 issues  for $15.00

------------------------------


source for bottles...

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 22:49:16 CDT

From: wayne_clark@SEMATECH.ORG

Subject: source for bottles...

From: NAME: Wayne Clark

 FUNC: 230

 TEL: 512-356-3994                     <CLARK.WAYNE@A1@VAXEN>

To: "homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com"@INTERNET

          =>I'm very new to homebrewing, only four extract batches. I'm

          looking for

          some basic equipment at low prices (Since I'm a college student).

          I need

          a couple of glass carboy's and bottles.<=

          Rob,

          Like you, I am a homebrew novice.  I also had to find an

          inexpensive way stock up on bottles.  One of the best places I have

          found to get bottles is the local recycling center.  Occasionally,

          I find that somebody has dropped off a whole case or three of

          empties.  All that is required is a little elbow grease to clean

          them up.

          Cheers,

          Wayne

          wayne_clark@sematech.org

------------------------------


purl recipe

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 12:59:31 MET DST

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: purl recipe

Hello All,

Someone asked for a recipe for Purl a while ago.

Well, after rooting around in my note books I

found one copied by a book on brewing in London,

by Thomas Threale (aka Thrale) ca. 1800. He was

at the time one of the biggest London brewers,

with an annual output a little more than Whitbread,

so presumably he knew his stuff. I found the book

on microfische at the Management Library of

UCLA. But that's all I noted down. Anyway, here

it is:

Thos Thrale's Purl (ca. 1800)

Take Roman Wormwood, two dozen,

Gentian root, 6 lb,

Sweetflag root, 2 lb,

Galanga root (galingale?), 1-2 lb,

horseradish, 1 bunch,

Dried orange peel from the Indies (Curacao?), 2 lb,

Juniper berries, 2 lb,

Seville orange seeds, dried, 2 lb,

Cut and bruise all the ingredients, put in a butt,

(capacity 126 US gallons) and top up with pale or

mild ale. Store for one season.

Notes:

Gentians are protected flowers in Europe;

Sweetflag is a type of Sedge;

Galanga, to the best of my knowledge is galingale,

for which I have as yet to find a source;

The orange peel is almost certainly the Curacao

peel, still used by some Belgian brewers;

The ales appear to be normal in all respects;

I have no idea what 2 dozen of Wormwood refurs

to (bunches, roots?).

Happy experimenting!

Rob Thomas.

------------------------------


sparging

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 13:07:08 MET DST

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: sparging

Hello all,

I've just been reading a two volume book on brewing by

Hough, Stevens and a couple of others, in which they say

that in Europe (mainland) decoction mashing is often

followed by batch sparging. That is instead of sparging with a continuous

spray of water, the sparge water is dumped on in batches, the whole

lot stirred, and the washings run off completely before repeating.

For a 1055 beer they say that 3 such washes will give >99percent

extraction. As the gravity goes up, so do the number of washes required.

Any views? I noted in the equipment summary at Sierra.Stanford.Edu that

some of you out there are also doing this. Has anyone done direct

comparisons between the two methods?

Intrigued, Rob Thomas.

------------------------------


Fridge question

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 06:13:56 PDT

From: Your recipe is so tasty  21-May-1993 0912 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Fridge question

I have a fridge related question that ya'll might be able to answer.  I'm

in the market for the smallest fridge that will accomodate 2 5gal soda kegs.

Typically, these are about 5 cu ft of storage.  of the ones i've seen, the

inside is big enough if you include the freezer space.  but, with the freezer

in place, typically there is not enough room.  the freezer is definitely an

integral part of the fridge (provides the cooling) - i just want to move it

so it is not in the way.  i think this is possible, but, i'm wondering if

anyone has done it.

 +---------------------+

 | |                 | |

 | |   freezer area  | |

 | +-----------------+ |

 |                     |

 |                     |

 |                     |  height including the freezer space is quite

 |                     |  sufficient.

 |                     |

 |                     |

 |                     |

 +---------------------+

the freezer area is pretty much a big, u-shaped piece of aluminum with channels

running through it that carry ??? (cold air? cooled liquid???).  In some of the

fridges i've checked out, the freezer u=shaped thingy can actually slide out.

I was thinking of either inverting it (upside down u) or bending the u parts

into a straight piece.  bending presents some risk, i reckon.

any takers?  comments???

i'd go for a larger fridge, but alas, my living situation does not present

the opportunity (i live in an apt where space is a premium!).

JC Ferguson

------------------------------


why secondary?

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 10:18:27 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: why secondary?

Some more reasons:

1. If you're going to do a long fermentation, or you can't bottle

until next month, then it gets the yeast off the trub.  Left on the

trub too long, the yeast will start to produce nasty tasting stuff.

Umm.....  Well, I think that's the main reason, anyway.

=S

------------------------------


Jim Koch (oh no! not again!)

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 10:26:51 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Jim Koch (oh no! not again!)

I finally heard a Sam Adams ad on the radio last night (midnight on

the local "classic rock" station -- who do they think is listening

then?  Brewers on their way home from a homebrew club meeting, is

who.)  Anyway, I notice he's moderated his claim about the GABF to

"won 3 times in a row".  Maybe those counter-suits are having some

effect...

By the way, Jim Koch (pronounced "cook"?) sounds kind of whiny.

=S

------------------------------


Hops, Fruits

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 10:34:42 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Hops, Fruits

Mark Garetz writes:

 > "Joe" asks if you can tell the difference between hop varieties by flower,

 > scent or growth habits:

 >

 > Yes to all.  However, it ain't easy.

I'm not a botanist, but I play one on the net:-)  But seriously, my

understanding is that each hops "variety" (cultivar) is genetically a

single individual that has been propagated vegetatively.  (As are

apples.)  If you have a random hop plant that came up from seed, then

the odds are about 99 billion to 1 that it is NOT a recognized

variety.  So trying to identify it is a lost cause.  However, if you

know that the plant is a known variety, but not which one, then you

have some hope.

 > I wonder if that beer was dry hopped?  Sometimes this can cause a "soapy"

 > flavor.

I've noticed that dry-hopping often results in a "grassy" or "herbal"

taste that diminishes quickly with time.  Sort of like chewing on raw

hops.

=S

------------------------------


chlorine

Date:    Fri, 21 May 1993 10:39:11 -0400 (EDT)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: chlorine

   Steve posted about using chlorine as a preventative against Giardia.

It is my understanding that chlorine has no effect on Giardia cysts.

Iodine, on the other hand, will kill the cysts, especially with extended

contact periods (like overnight) and with warm water.  I know this has

nothing to do with homebrewing, but as someone who contracted Giariasis

*twice* last year (you don't want it, trust me), I don't want any

misinformation getting out.

    'arf 'n arf: Also known as a "black and tan".  I once ordered one

and the waitress laughed in my face, turned to the bartender and said

"E'll 'ave a blaaak 'n taaaan".  He just looked dumfounded.  Then she

said "A block 'n tawn", and he said "Oh" and poured the pint. :-)

   I've got a bottle of Anchor Liberty Ale with much sediment in it.

Could it be live yeast?

Russell Gelinas

esp/opal

unh

------------------------------


Re: Secondary and Fruit

Date: Fri, 21 May 1993 14:57:49 GMT

From: jdecarlo@mitre.org (John DeCarlo)

Subject: Re: Secondary and Fruit

Why use a Secondary fermenter?

The reasons have already been mentioned, but I usually add a little

explanation:

1) It gives the beer some time and a place to settle a little.  If you

   aren't real careful about how much trub gets in your primary, you may

   have some trouble leaving it all behind (especially when there is more

   than an inch or so).  When I rack to the secondary, I am real careful,

   but don't care *that* much if some cloudy beer gets through.  When I am

   ready to bottle, there is usually very little sediment left, which means

   that my beer in the bottling bucket is very clear and there is little

   noticeable sediment in the bottles.

2) Adding extra ingredients.  Any subtle ingredients, such as hops or spices

   or fruit, will lose more aroma during a vigorous primary fermentation

   than later on.  Adding them to a secondary is a good way to increase the

   amount of aroma that remains.

3) Time.  If you travel, or have children, or any other demands on your

   time, you may not be able to bottle the week or month your beer is

   ready.  In that case, leaving the beer on very little sediment in the

   secondary is *much* preferable to leaving it on the trub in the primary

   for that extra week or month.  Even without any of the other reasons,

   this reason alone is enough for me.

In summary, if you don't need the extra clarity or time or whatever, you

don't need to use a secondary.  There is no magic.  Plus, you can go wrong

with a secondary if you aren't careful about sanitizing or air-free racking.

Fruit:

I always put my fruit in the freezer overnight, supposedly to break down

cell walls.  I find this much preferable to pureeing or the like.  I always

get good aroma and flavor using this method.

John DeCarlo, MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA--My views are my own

Fidonet:  1:109/131  Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


Re: sour mash guinness

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 16:16:20 BST

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: Re: sour mash guinness

Brian writes:

"Ignore the comment about N. Brewer in my previous note - It is

a relative to Hallertau, which does not work in stouts (I've tried

it).  But then I seem to remember Jackson saying that Guinness

used N. Brewer.  I haven't used much N. Brewer.  Hmm.

The recipe works great with Goldings."

I find (British) N. Brewer works great in stouts; it definitely provides

flavour as well as bitterness when boiled an hour, unlike Hallertauer. Better,

if you are partial to fruit stouts, consider some Bullion for their

blackcurrant character. Unfortunately, these are being phased out here, and I

don't know of a suitable replacement. I actually find that if I use enough of

our cruddy, local Goldings, I also get blackcurrant. Conclusion? I am either

being sold mislabelled Bullion (unlikely, as they have Goldings aroma), or the

two varieties have something in common.

"The whole idea is to keep the protein in the beer, so you start with

Pilsner malt & don't do a protein rest.  Mash using you favorite technique,

but keep it short - 1hr or so.  Sparge w 170 F water (acidified).  Do not

recirculate excessively.  The short mash and the pilsner malt will help

avoid a stuck runoff."

Hmmm. Our anonymous lager malt (which admittedly isn't the same as pilsener

malt) shows _more_ tendency to set the mash than ale malt. I'd also be

interested to hear more about the effects of mash duration on viscosity; mine

seem to get more fluid with time. Unfortunately, I can detect lager malt in

even the most aggressive stout (sulphur?), which is why I don't follow Miller's

advice. Some wheat malt is well worth considering, however.

- --

Conn V Copas

Loughborough University of Technology          tel : +44 509 263171  ext 4164

Computer-Human Interaction Research Centre     fax : +44 509 610815

Leicestershire  LE11 3TU              e-mail - (Janet):C.V.Copas@uk.ac.lut

G Britain                                      (Internet):C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk

------------------------------


My Brown Ale

Date: Tue, 21 May 91 09:45 MTS

From: Chuck Coronella <CORONELLRJDS@CHE.UTAH.EDU>

Subject: My Brown Ale

Last night, I tasted the brown ale that I bottled just last Sunday.  Wow!!

I'm in love!  It's not clear yet, but it's already carbonated, and delicious!

Maybe y'all can comment on the authenticity of the recipe:

CHUCK'S BROWN ALE

Ingredients for 4.5 US gallons

4 lb Alexanders Malt Extract

0.5 lb Chocolate Malt

0.8 lb Turbinado

~2 fluid oz. Honey

2.2 oz. Cascade Pellets (5.5% AA) 45 min

1 oz Cascade Pellets, dry hop in secondary

0.5 t. Irish Moss

Yeast

OG  ~1.042

FG   1.010

The choc. malt was steeped in 65'C water for 20 min and then sparged (and

removed).  The yeast was made from the dregs of 10 bottles of beer (that got

dumped due to excessive aluminum leaching) that had been in a starter for 3

days before hand.  The yeast for that batch came from the dregs of several

bottles of stout, which was made with WYeast Irish Ale.  (I think I could make

beer from the dregs of the brown ale, but that might be one to many

generations!)  Temperature of fermentation was 60 - 70'F, 6 days in primary, 9

days in secondary (with dry hops).

I can't describe the taste so well, but it certainly is one of the best that

I've ever made.  The hop nose is wonderful!  I ran across the tubinado in a

health food store, and thought why not?  I believe that is added some residual

sweetness to the beer.  I hope that I can duplicate this one some day.

Chuck

------------------------------


Imported Beer in Ireland

Date:         Fri, 21 May 93 08:30:32 PST

From: Tim Murray <MURRAYT@WSUVM1.CSC.WSU.EDU>

Subject:      Imported Beer in Ireland

Reading the thread about Bud in Germany and England reminded me of an

experience I had in Ireland last year.  While traveling out to the countryside

by train one Sunday morn, we stopped at a station across from a train of Irish

football fans coming into Dublin.  Having been in the country for about a

week, I had already fallen in love with draught Guiness, Smithwick's, and Harp,

so I was shocked to see the tables of the adjacent train littered, not just a

few - piles, of Bud empties.  The Irish natives told me that AB had put-on

quite an advertising blitz and that Bud was becoming more popular.  How

anyone with ready access can choose Bud over the other wonderful beers is still

beyond me.

Incidentally, the Irish natives also told me that the best Guiness is draught

(no surprise there), and that the next best thing is Guiness in the can.  They

also firmly believe that the way a pint is "pulled" has alot to do with how

it tastes.

Looking forward to another Irish foray, I am!  tm

------------------------------


Sources of Cornelius Kegs

Date: 21 May 93 11:23:11-0400

From: JOHN.L.HALE@sprint.sprint.com

Subject: Sources of Cornelius Kegs

I'm sure this has been discussed many times before, but does anyone have any

good general sources for soda kegs?  Does the retailer who uses these pay a

deposit on them?  If so I might be able to talk some user out of some empties.

My local homebrew store has them for $20 each, but I thought I would try the

low cost route first.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

BTW: has anyone tried the closed system pressurized fermentation method that

Teri Fahrendorf wrote about in the 1992 special issue of Zymurgy?

------------------------------


RE:  Equipment/Grolsch Bottles/Labels

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 11:05:28 CDT

From: greenbay@vnet.IBM.COM

Subject:  RE:  Equipment/Grolsch Bottles/Labels

Two comments regarding Tom's note (tmr1@hotlg.att.com).

Grolsch bottles are great, another good similiar bottle is from

Fischer D'Alsace. I like their bitter, but most importantly, they use

22 oz 'Grolsch' bottles. They are very handy, heavy, and have the dark

brown bottles. And that reminds me, I've never seen dark brown Grolsch

bottles, all of mine are green.

Secondly, Tom mentions that he uses Elmer's glue to affix his labels.

I don't know how good/bad that works, but I do know that Glue Sticks

work great. I just put about a half inch strip on each side of the

label and it sticks great. Then, when you clean the bottle, a couple

hours of soaking and the label falls right off. It great.

Anyway, got to run,

Bob

------------------------------


Evaporative Cooling

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 12:25:07 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Evaporative Cooling

Recently read some threads on using evaporative cooling for summertime

brewing. The consensus seemed to be it was worthless in humid areas

like Austin (where I live).  Since none of the posts had any data I

decided to get some.  Here's the first data point.

Setup:  7 gal glass carboy w/5 gal of beer placed in shallow (4" deep)

        pan.  Cotton towel wrapped around carboy and secured w/diaper

        pin (my son helps out around the brewery).  Towel is soaked

        w/water every other day or so.  About 1/2" water is kept in

        pan;  capillary action keeps the lower 2/3 of the towel wet

        but the top 1/3 will dry out if it isn't rewet every other day

        or so.  No fan or force ventilation around carboy.

Data:   House is airconditioned.  Average temperatures in brewery (aka

        den).  Dry-bulb, 75 F

               Wet-bulb, 66 F (measured w/old fashioned sling psychorometer)

                     Which from standard psychrometric tables yields a

                     relative humidity of 62%.

               Beer in carboy, 69 F

So w/a passive evaporative system (no fan or force air around carboy)

I got about 2/3 of the wet-bulb temperature depression.  If a fan is

used to blow air around the carboy I don't see any reason one could

not reach the wet bulb temp in the carboy (my next step).

For those who think you have to live in Albuquerque to have effective

evaporative cooling, take a look at the following truncated psychometric

table.

Dry-Bulb

Temp F  |    Wet-Bulb Depression, F

  //    |   5    6    7    8    9    10 |

        |-------------------------------|

  60    |  73   68   63   58   53    48 |-/

  65    |  75   70   66   61   56    52 | |

  70    |  77   72   68   64   59    55 | |  <- Relative Humidity (RH)

  75    |  78   74   79   66   62    58 | |

  80    |  79   75   72   68   64    61 |-/

Note that for ambient temps of 70 - 80 F:

 RH of 70 to 80% allows wet-bulb temps 6 to 8 F below dry-bulb

 RH of 60 to 70% allows wet-bulb temps 8 to 10 F below dry-bulb

Or if your basement is at 60 F w/73% RH you should be able to reach

55 F--getting down to lager temps!

So let's quit guessing and get some more data points!

WAK

|- William A Kitch                          (512) 471-4929 -|

|- Geotechnical Engineering                                -|

|- ECJ 9.227                                               -|

|- Univ of Texas at Austin, TX 78712-1076                  -|

------------------------------


Racking off thee trub

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 13:00:45 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Racking off thee trub

Jim DiPlama recently posted and asked about the process I used

when racking off the trub with particular regard to airation.

Short answer:  I airate as I rack off the trub , which has settled from 4-12

hours, into primary.

I also pitch a large yeast population as starter.

Remember starter size will be determined by the amount of fermentables

used not simply the volume.

WARNING*****CAUTION****WARNING*****CAUTION*****WARNING*****CAUTION****

I only use this process in the fall, winter and early spring when

the outside temp is below 55 and the pollen count is extremely low.

I do all my brewing except for the mashing outside.

I also pay careful attention to sanitation.

WARNING*****CAUTION****WARNING*****CAUTION*****WARNING*****CAUTION****

DISCLAIMER*****DISCLAIMER*****DISCLAIMER******DISCLAIMER*****DISCLAIMER******

This process works for me.

If you don't like this please constructively flame me on the HBD.

If your normal process yields an occasional contaminated batch do not do this.

DISCLAIMER*****DISCLAIMER*****DISCLAIMER******DISCLAIMER*****DISCLAIMER******

I chill the wort to about 45-50F with my immersion chiller.

I then use a sanitized stainless steel frying basket to scoop out

hops and what ever break material it picks up.

I then pour the wort into a sanitized glass carboy, which is on a table taller

than the primary fermenter the wort will be later racked into, and cap.

For ales I move the carboy to my 65 degree basement.

Depending on weather (outside temp) and time of day/night I let the

trub settle for as little as 4 hours or overnite.  The longer I

wait the more compact the trub layer gets and the less wort I "waste".

After the settling period I rack into the primary and airate and pitch.

I then pour the "waste" trub layer into a 2 gallon carboy like bottle which I

topoff with cold tap water.  I have an in line charcoal filter on the tap.

I let this settle for a few hours and rack off the 1/2 gravity starter

wort which I boil and bottle.

When I brew I target 6-6.5 gallons out of the brew pot and plan on losing

a gallon to trub.  My goal is to get 5 gallons into a keg.

For lagers I use the 4 hour or so settle period since I do not want to raise

the wort temp.  For ales I go overnite since I want the wort temp to rise

closer to pitching temp.

Using this method requires strict saniitation.

If your normal process yields an occasional contaminated batch do not do this.

When I began brewing 3 or 4 years ago I found the Miller book a better resource

than Papazian.  I was really turned off by "don't worry", Ostrich don't worry.

Through subscription on HBD I have modified my process over time and no longer

consider myself a " Miller Dividian".

This rack off the trub thing my be a "momily".  During recent brew pub tours

the brewers mentioned that they would chill, settle for 15 - 30 minutes,

centerfuge and transfer to fermenter.  This would represent some degree of

wort trub separation particularly when they chill into the 30's or low 40's.

My current understanding of racking off the trub is that one should pitch

into the chilled wort and rack a few hours later.  This gives the yeast

the opportunity to use some component of the trub which it needs in the

beginning stage of fermentation and not provide the materials that the yeast

uses later in fermentation to produce fusel alcohols.  I tried this but was not

pleased with the lag time, this from a guy who leaves unpitched wort overnite.

I think I left a lot of yeast behind when I racked so I went back to my old

method.

What do other brewers think and do about trub and why.

Please post to the HBD.

------------------------------


bittering hops

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 14:29:45 cdt

From: "Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: bittering hops

Re: the thread on flavor contributions of different varieties of bittering

hops, I stumbled onto a combination I really like a couple of years ago and

repeated it again this year also with yummy results.  Namely, in a pale ale

type brew, I use BULLION for bittering and CASCADES for aroma.  Keep the

bittering level around 10-12 HBU, use a full-bodied light extract (or

whatever that translates to in all-grainese) and dump in maybe 3/4 lb. of

amber crystal.  This last time I used about 1/2 oz of cascades for finishing

(I'm doing this from memory) and Wyeast "American" ale yeast.  This brew was

great after just a week or two of bottle conditioning, and provides a "big"

flavor with a bracing hop bitterness and aroma.  Yum!

Point is, I haven't gotten quite the same results with other, similar brews

that used Cascades for finishing (or dry-hopping) and a bittering hop other

than Bullion.  And, since by general agreement/conventional wisdom/whatever,

Bullion hops are often referred to as "coarse," it might not spring to mind

as first choice for a pale ale in the 1042 S.G. range.  However, I like the

results I've gotten and I plan to try the same thing at some point with an

I.P.A. where the S.G. is high forties to low fifties.

Bottoms up!

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Re: SScleaning/sanitiation/NA/warmPitch/2ndaries/fruit/p-beer/ads

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 14:28 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: SScleaning/sanitiation/NA/warmPitch/2ndaries/fruit/p-beer/ads

Dave writes:

>OK, here's a silly question.  I'm using my stainless keg as a cooker, so it'll

>be sterilized by the boil, right?  So, as long as I get it CLEAN, and rinse it

>good, that should be clean enough, right?

Right.  I don't even use soap on mine -- just a non-stick-safe scrubbing

pad (more gentle than a scouring pad) and elbow grease.  The only things

in there are a little scortched malt and some Beerstone -- if it gets really

bad, maybe I'll use a bit of cola (for the acid) or if one of my batches of

pseudo-lambik goes super acetic on me, I'll use it for scrubbing the kettle

(that's what the lambik brewers do!).

>How about the ladle?  I just leave it hanging inside the keg, during the boil,

>so I can stir the wort without worrying about putting a non-sterile instrument

>in it.  Is having it sit in/just above the boiling wort enough to keep it

>from contracting nasties?

Anything that's mechanically clean and spends more than 5 minutes in the

boiling wort or water is going to be sanitary.  However, I still would not

use a wooden spoon on cooled wort even though you used it to stir the boil.

******************

Bob writes:

>I'm also interested in producing an NA beer. One idea I had would be

>to just use crystal malt or some other malt for the flavor and body of

>the beer but not use anything that would contribute fermentable sugars.

>Then you could boil in the hops cool it down, add yeast and priming sugar

>and bottle it. This would be restrictive on flavor, style, and whatnot,

>but would it work?

Nope.  Crystal malt has fermentables in it.  Email to Jack for his NA

beer made by heating regular beer.  I've tasted it and it wasn't too

bad -- not a prize-winner, but not bad.

*******************

Jim writes:

>  It is important that the starter and the wort be about the same

>temperature at pitching time.  I read somewhere (Miller? Noonan?) that

>sudden, severe temperature shock will kill a large percentage of the yeast.

You read it here... in the HBD!

>  In your case Phil, I'd say temperature shock shouldn't be a problem, as

>your starter and wort are about the same temperature.  However, pitching

>lager yeast at 70F will cause elevated levels of diacetyl in the finished

>product.  Pitching when the wort is 45F-50F will sufficiently reduce the

>amount of diacetyl produced during primary fermentation, so that a 1-2

>day diacetyl rest after primary will reduce the diacetyl below threshold

>level.

I agree that the elevated temperature may cause a bit more diacetyl to be

produced, but a bigger problem is with esters.  Remember, this is supposed

to be a lager.  I pitched Wyeast 2308 at 65F and let it sit in a 57F crawl

for 12 hours, then in a 50F cooler for 3-4 days then down to 45 for a few

months (primary and secondary).  The resulting beer was deemed "too fruity

for a bock" by judges I respect highly.  I can't bring myself to entering

as a Porter, although I've been told it's a potential prize-winner.  Only

four bottles left -- think I'll keep them for myself.

***************************

Bryan writes:

>     geotex@engin.umich.edu wrote that he was unsure about the purpose of

>racking to a secondary fermentation container.  If anyone knows, please

>tell us all.  I've been wondering about it for years and have never, ever

>gotten a straight answer.

The reason for it is to get your beer off the trub (hot break, cold break

and dead yeast).  However, I only use 2ndaries for lagers (which will spend

a long time on the trub) and fruit beers (because I need to make more room

for the fruit and because the 2ndary ferment will mean that the beer will

spend longer on the trub than in my standard one-week ale).

>

>I have some questions for all you fruit beer brewers out there:

>     1. How on Earth do you press your fruity wort (to get the juice out

>of the pulp) with any hint of sterility.  I've always wanted to do a fruit

>brew, but I am most afraid of this messy procedure.

Freezing breaks open the fruit juice "sacks" in the fruit.  I only mash

the cherries -- not the raspberries -- freezing turns them to mush anyway.

I use a stainless bowl, sanitized with boiling water and a sanitized potato

masher, bought just for this purpose, sanitized with boiling water and

never washed with soap.

>     2. In yesterday's Wheat Berry beer recipie, would it be a good idea

>to puree the rasperries and blackberries before adding them in order to

>avoid the pressing step?  And would skipping the pressing be OK, or would

>too much juice be left in the cellulose matrix of the fruit?

I theorize that freezing will make enough room for the yeast to get in --

the raspberries that I put in my psuedo-lambik were not mashed and they

have grown very pale in the last 6 months.

>     3. Does anyone out there have a good recipe for a banana beer?  And

>do you have to sterilize a banana before use?  (I'm guessing no!)

Unless it's damaged, I think not.  However, bananas are the wrong consistency

for fermenting -- too pulpy -- I suspect you'll have a very cloudy beer.

>     4. What sorts of yeast leaves a nice banana taste in a beer (a

>regular beer, not a fruit beer)?  Sort of like the Austrian EidelWeiss (is

>that the right beer I'm thinking of?)

Well, Red Star Ale yeast is notorious for making banana esters, but in the

past, has had problems with wild yeast and bacterial contamination.  I've

heard, from a very reputable source, that Red Star has some new products

coming and that they seem to be a big improvement over past products.

Some Weizens are bottled with the primary culture (most are filtered and

then bottled with a lager yeast which tend to be more stable) -- if you

can find out which ones are which, you can culture yeast from the Weizens

that have that ester you like.

********************

Jonathan writes:

>Pardon my ignorance: what is meant by "P-Guinness"?

I think this evolved from the Lambik digest.  It stands for Pseudo-Guinness.

It has been used mostly with pLambik or pKriek or pFramboise in respect for

the appellations (names).  True lambiks are made via spontaneous fermentation

in a small region of Belgium called the Zenne (Senne in French) valley.  We

respect this fact and therefore use p-<name> to distiguish our versions

made with various cultured yeasts and cultured bacterias.

********************

There has been a proliferation of advertisements on the HBD lately.  Could

we please try to keep this forum non-commercial?  I wouldn't mind some free

advertisement too, but I have been resisting the temptation.

Al.

------------------------------


Sour mash

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 18:06:56 PDT

From: bill@oilsystems.com (Bill Vaughan)

Subject: Sour mash

Jonathan Knight asks about sour mashing--

   I have done numerous batches of sour mash stout; I seem to be hooked on

the stuff.  I'll give you the recipe and procedure I've settled down to over

the last three years, but note that this brew isn't to everyone's taste.

SOURDOUGH STOUT -- mash/extract, makes 10 gallons

MASH: 7# pale malt

      2# barley flakes

      1# rolled oats

      2# wheat flakes

    1.5# roasted barley

    0.5# black patent malt

Mashing procedure:  upward infusion with acid rest and protein

rest, saccharify at 155 deg F.  The acid and protein rests are

really feeble attempts to break down all the gums in the flaked

barley and oats.  Maybe next time I'll try a decoction.

Mash-out at 170 deg F for 5 min or so.

Do not sparge the mash, instead cool it to 95 deg F.

Now add your lactobacillus.  There are several ways to get lacto but

the one I like best is to use good old L. Sanfrancisco, AKA Sourdough

starter.  I make a starter a week in advance by mashing a pound of pale

malt in a quart of water and adding the packaged dry sourdough starter.

Add the starter to the mash at 95 F and stir.  Keep it at that temp until

it begins to ferment.  I do this by putting the mash back in the insulated

box; it holds the heat just fine.  It will take quite a while to begin to

ferment.  When the grain starts to float to the surface and you can begin to

smell it, you can start checking pH.  I like to ferment the mash down to

pH 3.9 for a relatively tart beer or 4.3 for a sweeter brew.  Watch out --

the pH drops FAST at the end of the fermentation.  (This whole thing take

takes about 12 hours, give or take a lot.  If it gets too cool it will slow

down and take forever.  Put a heating pad under your mash kettle in that case.)

When the pH is right, raise the mash to 170 and sparge it out.  That will take

a long time because it is so damn viscous.  One of these days I will lick

the viscosity problem, sooner if anyone has any suggestions.

Since the mash is so acid, I can sparge out as much wort as I want without

ever getting any husk astringency, so I just sparge until I have 12 gallons

of wort.

Now add:  12# amber extract

          14 HBU hops (I like Eroica for this).

Boil down to OG 1.072, cool to pitching temp, pitch Wyeast Irish Ale yeast.

I think it is #1084, but won't swear to it.  (I am playing back this recipe

from memory; I am at work and my notebook is at home.)

I like to let this brew sit on the yeast for about a month at cool temp.

When it is done it should have FG around 1.020, so it is quite strong.  The

acid, alcohol, hops and malt play well against each other.  This is NOT

a session beer but I am quite attached to it.

- --Bill Vaughan

------------------------------


fruit, brewing, a sidenote

Date: 21 May 1993 21:20:01 -0400 (EDT)

From: NULL0TROOPER@delphi.com

Subject: fruit, brewing, a sidenote

My apologies for poor routing, but I understand that there has been

a question about sterilizing fruit before adding it to beer.  I've

made a few batches of citrus wines and fruit-based liquors and

would add the following suggestions:

1.   blanching the fruit may be sufficient to knock down most

bacteria, and is used in some home canning/freezing methods.

2.   for larger fruit, combine hot water and scrubbing before

pitching to a hot wort.  With wine, I use bisulfite after adding

sugar to the must, the day before adding the yeast.  (with oranges

aging in your living room and an allergy to penicillin this is NOT

optional :(

I've found that fermentation often lowers the acidity of a wine

must,  though this should be less pronounced with beers and ales (I

haven't tried it,  yet).  Flavor extraction from fruit can proceed

slowly even at 80 proof - so producing an extract beforehand might

not be a bad idea if you want a pronounced flavor.

Bruce

------------------------------


please cancel me for the summe

Date: Sat, 22 May 1993 00:06:09 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Andrew M. Vota" <avota@liberty.uc.wlu.edu>

Subject: please cancel me for the summe

please cancel my subscription as I will be away from my terminal for the

msummer months...

 Thank you

------------------------------


Dupage County homebrew mtg

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 23:42 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: Dupage County homebrew mtg

This is another call for all homebrewers in the western suburbs

of Chicago, in and around Dupage County.

The first meeting was so way-cool groovy that we think we'll do

it again.  The next meeting will be on Friday, May 28th.  Same

bat time, same bat station: 109 N. Ardmore, Villa Park.  Starts

around 8pm.

Yes, it is the Friday of the holiday weekend.  Guess this will

separate the men (and woman) from the pantywaists.

------------------------------


Brew Store Employees

Date: Sun, 23 May 1993 09:11 EDT

From: Kieran O'Connor <OCONNOR%SNYCORVA.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

Subject: Brew Store Employees

A question:  I've been offered a job filling in at a brew store. I

teach high school so Im off for the summer and I would be filling in

for vacation this summer (2 weeks) and then sometimes at night or

weekends for the summer and fall.  Any thoughts on pay? I haven't

worked other than teaching (some might argue that its not work

either ;-)) for quite a while.  Any of you either own a shop--what

would you pay--or work in a shop--what do they pay you?  I figured

maybe 8$/hour. Any thoughts?

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Addresses:

Bitnet:  oconnor@snycorva.bitnet

Internet: oconnor@snycorva.cortland.edu

------------------------------


NHC round 1 entries arrived in Denver

Date: Sun, 23 May 93 11:15:10 -0600

From: Steve Dempsey <steved@longs.lance.colostate.edu>

Subject: NHC round 1 entries arrived in Denver

Whew!  The unpacking is done in Denver.  We have our work cut out

for us; there were 840 entries logged.  Not counting broken bottles

and other problem entries (about 20 in all), the breakdown by category

is:

1   Barley Wine     32

2   Belgian         47

3   Brown Ale       32

4   English Pale    56

5   American Pale   58

6   Bitters         36

7   Scottish Ale    11

8   Porter          52

9   Strong Ale      15

10  Stout           56

11  Bock            48

12  Bavarian Dark   19

13  Dortmund/Export 14

14  Munich Helles   14

15  Classic Pils    48

16  American Lager  23

17  Fest/Marzen     39

18  Alt/Kolsch      22

19  Fruit           26

20  Herb            21

21  Speialty        41

22  Smoke            9

23  Cal. Common     27

24  Wheat           31

25  Trad. Mead      12

26  Flavored Mead   29

We advance only the best three from each category regardless of

how many were entered.  So if you entered in this region, you now

know how much competition you'll have in passing round 1.  Good

luck to all!

There is plenty of room for extra judges.  Judging will be Saturday

and Sunday, June 5-6 at the Wynkoop in Denver.  Two sessions each day

will begin at 9:30am and 1:30pm.  If you want to be involved in judging

and have not contacted me, I need to know by May 25.  Registration is

required for judges and stewards.  People who just show up on the judging

days will make things more complicated for me, and I'd prefer to avoid

the last-minute shuffle.

================================    Engineering Network Services

Steve Dempsey                       Colorado State University

steved@longs.lance.colostate.edu    Fort Collins, CO  80523

================================    +1 303 491 0630(w), 482 1403(h)

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1147, 05/24/93

*************************************

-------


bleach and SS/treacle

Date: Sun, 23 May 1993 18:08:26 -0500

From: donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: bleach and SS/treacle

the best and most complete source of info on the reactivity of various

acids, salts, bases and whatever with various metals, plastics, rubbers

is in the back of the Granger catalog.

for example, household bleach does not react with 304 and 316 stainless.

however, no info is available on 302 and 440 although its very unlikely

you will find pots or kegs made with these.

there are many other interesting items.  e.g,. BEER doesn't react with

much of anything (thank god) except a little with brass and polyethylene,

a little more with silicon and quite severely with cast iron and poly-

propylene.

Now you are probably wondering about BREWERY SLOP.  relax. it does not

react with any of the materials tested.

honestly, the table is an array about 400x30.

tate and lyle black treacle can often be found at your fancy-pants

food stores.  for example, here in austin it is available at

simon and david which has other stores around the country, fiesta

supermarket, and also st. pat's of texas.

i have also seen treacle on the shelf of safeways in california

a couple of years ago.

------------------------------


Re: Bottles/labels

Date: Mon, 24 May 93 06:44:25 -0700

From: staib@oodis01.hill.af.mil (Major Donald L. Staib;545TG/SEF;)

Subject: Re: Bottles/labels

Here's an input for you,  I pick up Kulmbacher malt beer bottles.

They are imported from Germany, are brown, have the porclain tops.  I

buy them empty from a local German restaurant.  I have about 200 now.

The gaskets work for many batches, but I have 300 new ones when the

time comes. ($5-6 per 100). I boil them before bottling.

I use labels unlimited for creating great labels with graphics.  I

have been scanning in beer related stuff for a variety of graphics.  I

print using a laser and colored paper.  It's easy to tell a batch by

the label color.  Glue stick is the easy way to go, it holds tight,

and the label comes off under a minute of hot water rinse! (got to

rinse the yeast anyway).

Cheers, The Braumeister in Layton, Utah

------------------------------


Funky, Break and Dew Point

Date: Mon, 24 May 93 09:40 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Funky, Break and Dew Point

 >From: RBSWEENEY@msuvx2.memst.edu

 >Subject: cold plate

 >The only problem is a tendency for the hose connections to leak, which is

 not too big a problem since everything is inside a small cooler.... I

 currently using 3/8ths inch OD tubing to connect to both sides of the cold

 plate with hose clamps on both connections. Is there anything else I could

 use or be doing to stop these blasted leaks?

 You need to find out where the leak is.  Maybe the fittings are not tight in

 the cold plate.  There is nothing different about these devices as regards

 leaks.  Mine has never leaked a drop since first setting it up.  I use the

 same hose and clamps.

 >From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

 >* Cascades will give that funky american hop taste, if you desire, but

 taste unlike guinness.

 Would someone kindly elaborate on this.  It may be the root of my problem in

 trying to make a beer that "tastes like ale".  Most of the homebrewed ales I

 have tasted have a flavor that I had written off as "extract tang" but upon

 tasting a few made from all grain, I began to have my doubts.

 The new Miller Pale Ale has this "funky?" taste.  Is there some connection?

 >From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

 >I said that I had never seen a brewery that

 worried about racking wort off the cold break -- one fellow from (I

 think) Chicago said that I was wrong! (ooooooooooh!) and that such and

 such brewery there did so.

 I pondered the same point and called up Ken Pavichavich at Baderbrau while

 producing my video and was convinced that the use of a fermenter with a

 conical bottom and drain, easily provides the function of removing the cold

 break and old yeast.  This step can be resorted to at will.

 I also suspect the whole discussion is irrelevant to those of us using

 imersion chillers as the hot/cold break is conveniently left behind in the

 kettle when the chilled wort is drawn off.

 >From:  <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

 >I'm in the market for the smallest fridge that will accomodate 2 5gal soda

 kegs.  Typically, these are about 5 cu ft of storage.  of the ones i've seen,

 the inside is big enough if you include the freezer space.  but, with the

 freezer in place, typically there is not enough room.

 That is one of the reasons that makes a chest freezer so much more suitable

 for use in the homebrewery.  Not only do you not have to deal with the

 freezer compartment but refers have as much useless space above a keg as

 useful space below it.  Freezers are all the same height no matter how many

 cubic feet the capacity and the height is just perfect for kegs and carboys

 with air locks.  There is little wasted space.

 Just so happens that I bought and instaled a 14 cuft unit last week and have

 a PU clone fermenting in it now.  Unfortunately, until my Hunter Airstat

 arrives, I is one.  (The Airstat is a simple controller that makes a freezer

 think it is a refer.)  Mine is a bit big for your apartment but just for

 reference, it holds 4 kegs, 2 carboys and a 10 gallon stainless

 kettle/fermenter and a couple cases of bottles.

 >From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

 >Subject: Evaporative Cooling

 >Recently read some threads on using evaporative cooling for summertime

 brewing. The consensus seemed to be it was worthless in humid areas

 like Austin (where I live).

 >Data:   House is airconditioned.

 Not so minor detail.  An airconditioned house is not "humid areas like

 Austin", it is a dry environment where evaporative cooling works just fine.

 However, I would suggest that if you have air conditioning, it would be far

 more effective and simple just to place your fermenter in front of the A/C or

 air duct.

 js

------------------------------


Klages Malt/ Banana Beer

Date: Mon, 24 May 93 11:23:03 EDT

From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

Subject: Klages Malt/ Banana Beer

Hello:

 I am an all grain brewer who has recently switched, for reasons of

cost, from British Pale Malt to American 2-row.  The supplier says that the

american is a mixture of Klages and Harrington, and that it works well

with a single-step infusion mash. The bag I got actually is labelled "50#

Whole Klages".  Anyway, I was concerened that the malt may not be

sufficiently modified, so I have done some batches using a protein rest.

This has generated the following questions:

 1. Do people think that one needs to do a protein rest with

 Klages or Klages/Harrington?  How well-modified are these malts?

 2. If a protein rest was called for and I did not do one, what

 would be the result?  Cloudiness?  Poor yield? What?

 3. When I do a protein rest, my sparges are very slow, as long as

 two hours.  Are sparges usually longer with a protein rest, or

 with a long mash at any temperature?  Traditionally I have had

 shorter sparges than some people (notable Miller) think I should

 have.  Does the fact that I do single step mashes, combined with

 the fact that Miller loves lagers and protein rests, explain this

 discrepancy?

 4. How do you pronounce Klages anyway?  Is it German, suggesting

 Kla-gus? Or something else (Kla-jus? Klay-gus? Klay-jus?) This is

 what happens when you get all of your information from print media.

 Also, someone recently asked about recipes for banana beer.  My

greatest success (failure?) in this area was with what was intended to be

a trappist ale.  I started with miller's recipe, yielding a high gravity

wort, and pitched cultured chimay yeast.  Since miller states that high

fermentation temperatures are used to enhance ester production, I

fermented near (but not, I though, TOO near) a radiator.  The resulting

beer was absolutely redolent of banana ester. It was completely

undrinkable...almost.  I am always very reluctant to throw out beer I have

already payed for.  Anway, the banana-ness got a little mellower over time,

but it wasn't a favorite, and I haven't tried a trappist ale since. If you

do try this recipe, you might want to serve it as a black and tan with

some of the chocolate stout some was discussing recently.  Or with a big

dollop of peanut-butter....

        dave.

------------------------------


SN Stout

Date: Mon, 24 May 93 11:05 EST

From: LYONS@adc1.adc.ray.com

Subject: SN Stout

I picked up a six of Sierra Nevada's Stout and really enjoyed it.

I even like it better than Guinness (-shudder-), finding the hop

profile of SN's more pronounced.  Does anyone with knowledge

of the SN Stout have any input into the type of hops, or hoping

schedule, used?  Not sure, but my initial guess was cascades.

Thanks in advance,

Chris

LYONS@ADC3.ADC.RAY.COM

------------------------------


Trip Report.

Date: Mon, 24 May 93 10:59:53 PDT

From: tima@wv.MENTORG.COM (Tim Anderson)

Subject: Trip Report.

Reading of Bud in Germany, England and Ireland is enough to drive a person

to drink.  So I took a drive this past weekend and drank (in that order).

I live in Portland, Oregon, where good beer, including REAL ALE, is readily

available.  I try to do my part in keeping the supply fresh.

I had to go to La Grande, a small town in Eastern Oregon, to see my daughter

perform in a play (she was spectacular, a Tony would be inadequate).  I lived

in La Grande for several years, and its remoteness was the main reason I left

five years ago.  It is 260 miles from Portland and 200 miles from Boise, Idaho.

I tried to tell the locals about the signing of the Magna Charta, but nobody

would believe me.  When I lived there, the classy taverns had Michelob on tap,

and all had varying flavors of Schludwiller and Schludwiller Light.

I had dinner at the bar in one of the better places.  There was a tap labelled

Portland Ale and another labelled Widmer Hefeweizen!  In the cooler there

were proudly displayed bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Bridgeport Blue

Heron and Guiness Extra Stout!  Over in a dark corner Rod Serling was smiling

at me.  Well maybe not, but this good beer thing was very disorienting.  My

first inclination was to plant myself for the evening, but then the thought

occurred, "What else might be out there waiting for me?"  So after downing

a pint of Portland, I decided to do a little survey.  I wandered down to what

had been an ordinary neighborhood tavern, dark and nondescript, but with a

beautiful old cherry wood bar.  I had fallen off several of its stools in

years past.  Surprise!  A sports bar!  I think they were trying to be Cheers.

To their credit they had Full Sail Golden Ale and Widmer Hefeweizen on tap.

I ordered a Full Sail, which came with a lemon slice (Yuck, the lemon ruined

it.  Made it completely undrinkable, down to the last drop.)  They also had

many bottles worth opening.

At this point I decided to really put the trends to the test.  A couple blocks

away is (dramatic pause) Marge's Tavern.  Marge's would be illegal in most

Thirld World countries.  The restrooms were last cleaned in 1922.  My faith

in rednecks was restored when I asked what kind of beer they had on tap and

was told "We got these."  The bartender pointed to three taps labelled Bud,

Hamms and Bud Light.  I proudly ordered a Hamms and paid my 85 cents (this is

true).  I drank it (this is also true).  They had nothing in bottles, lot's

of Industrial Swill in cans.

Well, to make a short story long, this remote backwater of a redneck town has

decent beer on tap, and more importantly, people are drinking it.  I believe

that when Joe Six-Pack starts buying good beer, good beer is here to stay.

Perhaps we'll see the day when people will be coming to the U.S. for a decent

pint, and we'll be looking down our noses at those Bud-swilling Germans.

tim

------------------------------


CAMRA in the USA?!

Date: Mon, 24 May 93 14:07:33 EDT

From: drwho2959@aol.com

Subject: CAMRA in the USA?!

CAMRA for the USA?!

Is the US ready for a REAL grass-roots beer lovers' organization?

We are about to find out:

Mr. Steve Hindy of the Brooklyn Brewery and some New York homebrewers

have invited Steve Cox, the Campaigns Manager of CAMRA UK, to New York

City on June 3-4.  The subject of the meeting will be how US beer lovers

can most effectively start an organization similar in scope and purpose

to CAMRA in the UK.

The working meeting will take place Thursday, June 3rd at 6pm at the

Marriott/Financial Center, 85 West Street, in Manhattan, just a few

blocks from the World Trade Center.

There will be a beer-tasting the following day - Friday, June 4th, at

the Kingston Ramada Inn in Kingston, NY at 7:30pm.

ALL interested people are actively encouraged to attend!!  If this

organization is to succeed, it needs a VERY broad base of support!

*----------------------------------------------------------------------*

|              Andrew Patrick                                          |

|       SysOp,                  Houston Correspondent & Distrib. Mgr.  |

|  Home Brew Univ. BBS                  Southwest Brewing News         |

|(713)465-0265,14.4kbps,V42bis      Internet: andinator@delphi.com     |

*----------------------------------------------------------------------*

------------------------------


Re: purl recipe

Date: Mon, 24 May 93 11:37:26 -0700

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Re: purl recipe

>  Hello All,

>  Someone asked for a recipe for Purl a while ago.

>.....

>  Galanga, to the best of my knowledge is galingale,

>  for which I have as yet to find a source;

I use an ingredient know as galanga or galingal in my Thai cooking.

It can be procured as sliced pieces of the root, or powder.  Check

your local Asian Grocer, or I could be talked into procuring it for

you for an appropriate recompense :-)

>  The orange peel is almost certainly the Curacao

>  peel, still used by some Belgian brewers;

>  The ales appear to be normal in all respects;

>  I have no idea what 2 dozen of Wormwood refurs

>  to (bunches, roots?).

>

>  Happy experimenting!

>  Rob Thomas.

------------------------------


Phenolic brews --> Lambics

Date: Mon, 24 May 93 12:42:46 PDT

From: Mike Peckar  24-May-1993 1509 <m_peckar@cscma.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Phenolic brews --> Lambics

I've now had the opportunity to twice rescue bad batches from the jaws of

the almighty disposal. For some reason -- maybe some of the more chemically

active minds out there can explain this one -- Fruit juice netralizes (or

at least masks) the phenolic taste in beer which has had the pleasure of

associating with one too many E. Coli.

Both times The beers were light golden ales; I think that was important. In

both cases, I had waited a couple of months in hopes the off-flavors would

dissipate, but to no avail. I don't remember what yeast's I used originally,

but I think that is important here for several reasons

The first one was an attempt at a pilsner-like Ale. I'd just popped open a

bottle and mix in two parts beer to one part Cranberry Juice. The results

were quite impressive, though nothing like a real lambic. Still it was much

more drinkable Sam Adam's poor excuse for a Lambic, with not even a hint of

the off tastes.

The second one was much more interesting and produced a Lambic that is

remarkably reminiscent of the real belgian stuff. I had left out a bottle

of Cherry Juicy Juice for a while. This is a commercial juice from

concentrate which is made up of Cherry, Apple, and White grape juices not

neccessarily in that order. The bottle had autopitched from the ether, and

fermented to a slightly carbonated state.  By itself, it had a wonderful

champagne mouth, and a creamy taste, with all three fruits prevalent, but

cherry dominating. What I did was decant this into my bottling bucket and

then I added about a dozen or so 16 oz bottles of my bad brew, leaving

behind as much of the dormant/dead yeasts as possible and tasted until the

proportions were o.k. I also added some unfermented Cherry Juicy Juice from

a fresh container to spark off fermentation again. My hopes were the less

dormant natural yeasts would overpower the longer-dormant ale yeasts. Also,

I stirred the carbonated beer to release as much CO2 from solution as

possible without excessively aeration. My guess is about the same ratio of

beer to juice as I had done before (2-1).

The results, after only four days were remarkable: A real good lambic

without 6 months of conditioning, without messing with real fruit, and

with wild yeasts!

------------------------------


soot on Stainless steel pot problem

Date: Mon, 24 May 93 16:15:24 EDT

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: soot on Stainless steel pot problem

I just got a "King Kooker" propane burner.  As many of you have also found out,

a home gas stove makes it difficult to get 7 gallons of wort to a boil.

My problem is that after the wort boils and I turn the cooker down to maintain

a nice rolling boil, the flame is very yellow (presumably because the gas/air

mix is off) and soot forms on the bottom of my expensive new Stainless steel

pot.

Have any others experienced this problem and is there a good solution?

- --Tony Verhulst

------------------------------


Decoction mash

Date: Mon, 24 May 93 16:02:34 PDT

From: bill@oilsystems.com (Bill Vaughan)

Subject: Decoction mash

I tried my first decoction mash yesterday and would appreciate comments

on the procedure.  When I'm trying something new, I always make my baseline

"plain jane all-grain" brew, because I know how it comes out with various

strains of yeast & hop varieties.  Grain bill:

   10# 2-row pale malt

    4# light Munich

    2# wheat flakes

(This is for 10 gallons, and yes, I _know_ it's not reinheitsgebot.)

I normally use a 1.25 quart/pound ratio in my mash (learned this from George

Fix's book), but this time I doughed the grain in with 8 quarts, let it sit ten

minutes, and added eight more quarts.  (All water is preboiled and conditioned.)

I was aiming for a strike temp of 122-124 deg but missed it and wound up at

120 degrees, probably because the mash cooled more during the dough-in than

I had figured on.

Now I had to pull out the "heaviest third" of the mash for my first and

only decoction.  (Noonan)  So how do I measure a third?  Must be volume,

because there isn't a heaviest third by weight.  But my mash tun isn't

calibrated in quarts, so I had to figure out how much was in it.  Noonan claims

that grain has the same heat capacity as water but only takes up 60% of the

volume.  (At least this is how I translate his mish-mosh of arcane -- nay,

alchemical -- terminology.)  So I figured I must have had 21 qts in my mash

tun.  Using a strainer I pulled out 7 qts of mash -- wet grain, really --

and dumped it in my decoct kettle.  Now here is where I really varied the

standard procedure.  Knowing I wanted another 4 qt water for my normal mash,

I just added it to the decoct kettle, so it wouldn't stick and scorch while

boiling.  This resulted in a mash that felt a little thin, but not very.

It converted just fine in 10 minutes at 158 deg, then I boiled it for 15 min and

put it back in the mash tun.

I was looking for a conversion temp of 153 deg but only got 146, so I had to

ook-ook the mash tun back onto the stove and heat it to 153, whence it went

in the insulated box for an hour, converted just fine, and up to 170 for mash-

out.  Sparge worked wonderfully well.  Just the right speed.  I always acidify

my sparge water with lactic acid to pH 5.0, so I can sparge out as much wort

as I need without getting husk astringency.  I wanted 12 gal wort but after

collecting 10.5 gal there was no more sugar left in the mash, so I just topped

up the brew kettle with 1.5 gal of treated water.

I added a total of 12.5 AAU of hops as follows:

   start of boil: 1/2 oz CFJ4 (8.5% AA)

                  1/2 oz Spalt (4.5%)

                    1 oz Saaz  (3.7%)

   +30 minutes:     1 oz Spalt (4.5%)

   +50 minutes:   1/2 oz Spalt (4.5%)

   end of boil:   1/2 oz Saaz leaf hops (compressed plug)

The boil was 1 hour -- actually the propane began to run low so the last 10

minutes was more of a simmer than a boil.  I let the leaf hops sit in the hot

wort for 10 minutes before adding the wort chiller, chilled to 70 degrees,

collected a hair over 10 gallons of cool wort and pitched Wyeast 2007 "pilsen"

lager yeast.  OG was 1.048, for a net extraction efficiency of 30 points/lb.

This morning, one carboy had started up, but the other one (which has a couple

quarts more beer in it) had not.  But at least it was producing positive

pressure in the blowoff hose.

I expect to ferment this beer at about 60 in my garage -- assuming the Bay

Area weather turns cold as it ought to.  I do not intend to dry hop.  The color

was pale -- no darker than my infusion mashed plain-jane, but maybe a little

more orange colored.

BTW, can someone tell me what the actual specific heat and density of grain are?

I guess I can measure the density myself, but measuring specific heat is beyond

my abilities, and nothing in the world will convince me that it is really

1.000 as Noonan says.  (except, of course, the collective wisdom of HBDers.)

- --Bill Vaughan

"There is no law but the law that there is no law."

------------------------------


efficiency and sparge rate

Date: 24 May 93 15:36:43 EDT

From: CHUCKM@PBN73.CV.COM

Subject: efficiency and sparge rate

Is there a relationship between extraction efficiency and

sparge rate.  I seem to remember some previous

dialog on this but don't remember what the concensus was.

<insert interesting quip here>

<insert clever graphic and logo here>

Regards,

chuckm@pbn73.cv.com

------------------------------


New kid/local brewpubs/local suppliers

Date: Mon, 24 May 1993 20:46:01 -0400 (EDT)

From: CROFTE@delphi.com

Subject: New kid/local brewpubs/local suppliers

Hi-di-ho neighbors. I am a newcomer here. I just brewed my first batch.

I chose an Irish Stout as I have grown fond of dark beers. I bottled it S

Saturday, and I am going to let it age until my baby's christening. Kind of

a double christening I guess. Babies due around June 7th, so that should givvve

it plenty of time to age. Side question, Would I be breaking any trademark rules

if I put my name, Croft, on the label? Is Croft still brewing?

Regarding brewpubs, I live in southern Massachusetts, anyone know of local

brewpubs in that area? I'd like to try some other types of beer before I try

to brew them.

How about supply houses? I got my first kit from a supply shop in New Jersey.

Just wondered if there was anything closer.

One last comment, regarding Tim Murray's post about AB in Ireland. Kind of

ironic, don't you think? Over in Ireland they are getting turned on by AB

and here I am in America getting turned on by Guiness Stout. Oh well.

Ed Croft

------------------------------


defending my recipe

Date: Mon, 24 May 93 20:00:18 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: defending my recipe

dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma) writes:

> I`ve used Bullion in my stouts with good results.  Give them a try.

yep, but they definitley leave a taste that you won't find in guinness.

After a one hour boil, I can detect hop flavor from bullion, hallertau,

or cascases and fuggles, and its not in line with what the real stuff

tastes like.  Just from taste, goldings seem to get me nearest real

Guinness.

While were on the subject, I forgot to emphasize that it is important

to resist the temptation to add a second dose of hops later in the

boil or to dry hop.

- ----------------

Knight,Jonathan G" <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU> writes:

>Thanks to Brian Bliss for his interesting response to my question about

>making sour mash for Guinness clones.

>

>Pardon my ignorance: what is meant by "P-Guinness"?

Pseudo-Guinness.  Just as a P-lambic is not a lambic, neither

is this real Guinness.

>Also, Brian, how do you introduce the lactic infection into the bottled

>beers?

Nature care of that one for me.  Save some of your next soured batch.

Beware of exploding bottles, though.  By the nature of the infection

(sour but not rancid, appearing late in the fermentation, more attenuative

that the brewing yeast) I assume that it was lactic.

- ----------------

Al K (originator of the P-lambic moniker) writes:

>>The whole idea is to keep the protein in the beer, so you start with

>>Pilsner malt & don't do a protein rest.

>

>Yes, but there are big proteins and small proteins.  The protein rest

>will break the big proteins into smaller proteins and amino acids. I'm

>pretty sure that any really big proteins that are left by the time you

>are boiling will turn into hot break and do your beer no good anyway,

>so I don't think that skipping the protein rest will actually significantly

>increase your protein levels in the final beer.  Comments?

Maybe you're right, but the technique doesn't hurt, saves times, and

aids filtering during the sparge.  The stuff IS too damn clear, though.

(sometimes it's hard to get things backwards!) Maybe if I go back to

a high-gravity boil...

- ----------------

Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk> writes:

>I find (British) N. Brewer works great in stouts; it definitely provides

>flavour as well as bitterness when boiled an hour, unlike Hallertauer. Better,

>if you are partial to fruit stouts, consider some Bullion for their

>blackcurrant character. Unfortunately, these are being phased out here, and I

>don't know of a suitable replacement. I actually find that if I use enough of

>our cruddy, local Goldings, I also get blackcurrant. Conclusion? I am either

>being sold mislabelled Bullion (unlikely, as they have Goldings aroma), or the

>two varieties have something in common.

 ...

>Hmmm. Our anonymous lager malt (which admittedly isn't the same as pilsener

>malt) shows _more_ tendency to set the mash than ale malt. I'd also be

>interested to hear more about the effects of mash duration on viscosity; mine

>seem to get more fluid with time.  Unfortunately, I can detect lager malt in

>even the most aggressive stout (sulphur?), which is why I don't follow Miller's

>advice. Some wheat malt is well worth considering, however.

As far as the DeWulf Cosyn's malt goes, the pale ale definitely drains slower

that the Pils.  My experience with mash viscosity vs. time contradicts

yours; I also would like to hear empircal evidence on the subject.

Does anybody know for sure exactly what Gunness is hopped with?

Is this in Jackson's book (World Guide to Beer)?

The next batch will utilize N. Brewer & wheat malt...  Maybe some of

the wheat malt could be sparged separately, with extra hot water.

The wheat malt has no husk to contribute to the astringency, and

the hotter water will make any protein more soluble.

- ----------------

Tim Murray <MURRAYT@WSUVM1.CSC.WSU.EDU> writes

>Incidentally, the Irish natives also told me that the best Guiness is draught

>(no surprise there), and that the next best thing is Guiness in the can.  They

>also firmly believe that the way a pint is "pulled" has alot to do with how

>it tastes.

It should be poured turbulently to allow the carbonation (and N2) to escape

and form the creamy head, then the pressure reduced as it is topped off.

There should be a creamy head, but little carbonation left in the beer

itself.

To answer this question, I have actually performed a blind tasting, and had

it performed on myself.  The results: the Guinness poured turbulently had a

much creamier head.  The taste was the same.

whew!

bb

------------------------------


Fridge Question

Date: Mon, 24 May 1993 21:17:13 -0400 (EDT)

From: SMUCKER@UTKVX.UTCC.UTK.EDU

Subject: Fridge Question

In stead of a fridge look for a small chest type freezer.

They work great with a external thermostat.  You maybe

able to find one that will just hold 2 to 3 kegs.  Chest type

freezer also don't spill the cold air the way a fridge does

when you open the door.  Hunter makes a room air

conditioner thermostat that many homebrewers have used

to control a freezer to fridge temperatures

Dave Smucker

------------------------------


question

Date: Mon, 24 May 93 22:27:40 edt

From: Kim_Kiesow@DGC.ceo.dg.com

Subject: question

Message:

I would like to know if anyone has tried making "beerbread" using one

of the new breadmaking machines? If so what are the proportions

needed? The machine I am using can handle up to 3 cups flour. Email

direct or post...

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1148, 05/25/93

*************************************

-------


Hops, Fruits/Racking off thee trub/London bottle shops

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 12:01:07 BST

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: Hops, Fruits/Racking off thee trub/London bottle shops

Spencer writes:

"I've noticed that dry-hopping often results in a "grassy" or "herbal"

taste that diminishes quickly with time.  Sort of like chewing on raw

hops."

I actually find this more with large amounts of certain bittering hops;

Hallertauer in particular. My best guess is that this could be due to

chlorophyl content, which is responsible for the green colour. My home dried

hops (at room temperature) go brown without seeming to lose their aroma,

presumably because I use neither forced drying nor sulphur dusting.

Lee writes:

"My current understanding of racking off the trub is that one should pitch

into the chilled wort and rack a few hours later.  This gives the yeast

the opportunity to use some component of the trub which it needs in the

beginning stage of fermentation and not provide the materials that the yeast

uses later in fermentation to produce fusel alcohols."

This is a perennial issue and I don't have the definitive answer either.

However, my understanding of the chemistry is that many fermentation

byproducts, such as fusel oil and esters, are produced during the yeast

_respiration_ phase. At this point, the yeast requires oxygen to reproduce,

most homebrewed worts contain suboptimal levels of dissolved oxygen, so it's a

reasonable bet that the yeast will attempt to extract oxygen from the trub, and

produce fusel oil in the process. Whether it will show more or less preference

for the trub is one of HBD's great controversies. For the yeast to metabolise

trub during the secondary requires it to switch from anaerobic to aerobic

fermentation (yes?), which strikes me as unlikely under normal conditions.

Does anyone know of any decent bottle shops in London, specialising in imported

beers? E-mail responses might be best.

- --

Conn V Copas

Loughborough University of Technology          tel : +44 509 263171  ext 4164

Computer-Human Interaction Research Centre     fax : +44 509 610815

Leicestershire  LE11 3TU              e-mail - (Janet):C.V.Copas@uk.ac.lut

G Britain                                      (Internet):C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk

------------------------------


Funky, Break and Dew Point

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 10:05:42 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Funky, Break and Dew Point

Jack Schmidling writes:

 >  However, I would suggest that if you have air conditioning, it

 >  would be far more effective and simple just to place your

 >  fermenter in front of the A/C or air duct.

I'm not sure about this.   Putting the fermenter in front of the A/C,

you get a blast of cold, followed by warming, followed by a blast of

cold, ....  Sitting in the corner with a wet T-shirt on, you get

continual gentle cooling.  (Of course, the difference may be

irrelevant, given the thermal mass of 5 gallons of beer.)

=S

------------------------------


NOTE 05/25/93 09:05:50

Date: 25 May 1993 09:05:09 GMT

From: WAUTS@CWEMAIL.ceco.com

Subject: NOTE 05/25/93 09:05:50

From:      Thomas L. Stolfi    wauts@cwemail.ceco.com

Subject:   3rd Annual Southport Beer Festival

Brewmasters Pub proudly announces the 3rd Annual Southport Beer Festival.

The festival is to be held in the Bier Garten at Brewmasters Pub on June

19th between 2:00pm and 9:00pm.  Brewmasters is located at 4017 80th St in

Kenosha, WI (Phone: 414-694-9050), for directions send private email.

The purchase price is $14/advance or $16/door (advance purchase guarantees

commemorative mug)and includes unlimited beer tasting. For those requiring

solid nutrition you will be happy to know that a pig will be roasted.  The

following list of breweries are to participate (there may be some last

minute changes):

Adlerbrau ------------- Appleton, WI

Boston Beer Co.(tm) --- Boston, Mass

Brewmasters' ---------- Kenosha, WI

Broadripple ----------- Indianapolis, IN

Calumet Brewery ------- Chilton, WI

Capital --------------- Middleton, WI

Cherryland Brewing ---- Sturgeon Bay, WI

Chicago Brewing ------- Chicago, IL

Lakefront ------------- Milwaukee, WI

Sprecher Brewing ------ Milwaukee, WI

Water Street Brewery -- Milwaukee, WI

Weinkeller ------------ Chicago, IL

For anybody wishing to stay overnight a list of hotels is available, send

request via private email.

Tom Stolfi

wauts@cwemail.ceco.com

------------------------------


The rise of Bud in Ireland

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 07:16:10 PDT

From: Bud and European drinkers  25-May-1993 1011 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: The rise of Bud in Ireland

There has been a lot of talk about the rise of the popularity Budwieser

beer in Ireland and europe in general.  I've been to Ireland twice recently

and Germany/Austria recently as well and this is the way my Irish friends

have put it.  When the warmer weather comes, the Irish look for brew that

is lighter, and Bud has that appeal.  Many Guinness drinkers switch to Bud

for the summer, and when the cooler weather returns, back to the Guinness.

When the Irish workers get home at 5:30pm, they still have 5 hours of day

light left!  The sun finally sets around 10:30pm or so.  On the other hand,

in the winter it is light by 9am and dark by 4pm (November anyways).  Perhaps

this extended light period during the summer has an effect on the choice

of brew too.

JC

------------------------------


South East Suppliers

Date:         Tue, 25 May 93 10:06:02 EDT

From: Elaine Boris <EBORIS@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>

Subject:      South East Suppliers

My local homebrew supplier is actually a natural foods grocery and their

selection is VERY limited. I would like know if anyone can suggest a

good mail order supplier in my area.    TIA ( Thanks in advance ), E.

Elaine Boris                                  Student Information Systems

Computer Services Specialist                  University of Georgia

706 542-0484                                  Athens  Georgia

------------------------------


Manhatten Brewing Company

Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 10:26:55 -0400 (EDT)

From: roman@tix.timeplex.com (Daniel Roman)

Subject: Manhatten Brewing Company

I've recently been made aware by a friend that the Manhattan Brewing

Company has reopened (last week?) under entirely new management (it

closed in 91).  They produce up to six different types of beers and ales

on premises and the theme there is beer.  Even the food makes extensive

use of beer in the recipes and/or is used to compliment the different

beer styles.  The address is 23 Watts St., between Thompson and Broadway

I believe.

I have not been there yet but I know someone who knows the Manager so

this info is 2nd or 3rd hand.  I hope to get there soon, anyone work in

the Canal St. area of NYC willing to do a scouting mission?

Also, does anyone have the address of the fellow who keeps the publist

file on sierra?  I seem to have misplaced it.  I'd like to make sure he

gets this updated info.

- --

_________

Dan Roman  GEnie: D.ROMAN1  Internet: roman@tix.timeplex.com  //

American Homebrewers Association member        Only AMIGA!  /X/

------------------------------


Sparge efficiency relative to flow rate

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 10:15:35 EDT

From: man@lcwdw1.att.com

Subject: Sparge efficiency relative to flow rate

Subject: Re: efficiency and sparge rate

This past weekend I experimented with my sparge rate to see if speeding it up

would result in reduced yield.  I normally make 12 to 13 gallon batches in a

converted keg mash tun with stainless false bottom. I always have to control

the flow with a valve or I would sparge 15 gallons in 20 minutes. I usually

restrict the flow to force the time to 2.5 to 3 hours.  At this rate, my

yields were generally 27-30 pts/lb/gal.  I used a tried and true recipe for

a session beer - Neshanic Bitter (1.039). This time the sparge lasted only one

hour to claim 15 gallons. I boiled it down to 13+ with a OG of 1.040. My yield

was 29.7 which I am quite pleased with. I will continue to experiment with

this sparge rate.

For the recipe hungry:

Neshanic Bitter (Recipe for 13 gallons)

16.0 lbs DeWolf-Cosyns Pale Ale

  .9 lbs DeWolf-Cosyns Cara Munich

  .6 lbs DeWolf-Cosyns Wheat

 8.5 gal mash water @ 175 F (a little to hot for this much grain, try 5 F less)

 1   Tbsp gypsum in mash. Mash for 1 hour. Recycle 1 quart.

 8.5 gal sparge water @ 180 F. Acidified with 10cc 88% lactic acid.

75   min boil

22.4 AAU Northern Brewer Whole Hops (60 minutes)

Counter-flow chilled

Wyeast Chico (second generation)

Fermenting @ 65 F.

Misc:

Grains weighed on Hobart deli scale.

Grains cracked in roller mill.

SG derived from refractometer, confirmed with hydrometer.

Mark Nevar

------------------------------


_Brewing Techniques_

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 10:53:02 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: _Brewing Techniques_

My issue of Brewing Techniques came yesterday.  Looks pretty good, I

think I'll spring the $24 to help keep it in business.  In this issue:

"Factors affecting hop production, hop quality, and brewer

preference," A. Haunold and G. Nickerson

    I haven't finished this one, but it includes some gas

    chromatograms showing "hop oils" in a few varieties.

"Belgian malts: some practical observations," G. Fix

    George does test batches.  Includes charts with color, diastatic

    power, etc.  Conclusion: the specialty malts are unique, the

    regular malts are very good, with slight flaws.

"Reinheitsgebot and the fifth ingredient," M. Schiller

    Bacteria and how to keep 'em out.

"Thinking about Beer Recipe Formulation," D. Richman Darryl describes

    how he put together his award-winning "Bock Aasswards" recipe.

    (Side note: it claims here he has a Bock book coming out soon.)  I

    would like it if this became a (semi-)regular feature, probably

    with various contributors.  (Hint: send in your contributions.

    I've seen some HBD postings that would do nicely in this slot.)

"Spreadsheet for Recipe Design," K. King

    Haven't read it yet.

Articles are classified as "Feature" (cover story, 1st above),

"Technical Articles" (2 & 3 above), and "Brewers' Forum" (4 & 5 above).

Columns (and therefore regular features, I assume):

"The troubleshooter," D. Miller

    The obvious thing, but more in depth than the "prof" in Zymurgy.

"Brewing in Styles," R. Bergen

    (This column will feature "guest brewers".)  This month is

    American Wheat Beers.  Talks about mashing & sparging techniques,

    as well as stylistic points.  Some points aimed specifically at

    the professional (microbrewer) audience, e.g., reference to lauter

    tuns with rakes.

The letters section, "Technical communications," looks very much like

some of the better articles in the HBD (and includes a couple of HBD

regulars in this issue).

All in all, a good effort.  This single issue has almost more

information content than a whole year of Zymurgy!  Well, maybe I

exaggerate.  And Zymurgy has its points, too: a profusion of recipes,

a chatty style, and lots more ads.  (I assume this will change.)

Brewing Techniques has a much sparer, cleaner, more professional

"look" to it, which is appropriate to a publication of this sort.

It's very readable, and shows good attention to look as well as

content.  Of course, there were a few typos, but not nearly as many as

some other brewing magazines I could mention.

[Imagine standard disclaimer here.]

=Spencer W. Thomas   |  Info Tech and Networking, B1911 CFOB, 0704

   "Genome Informatician" |  Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu |  313-764-8065, FAX 313-764-4133

------------------------------


Cold break separation

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 10:58:55 -0400

From: br035@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Raymond M. Yurick)

Subject: Cold break separation

js writes (on cold break separation)

>I also suspect the whole discussion is irrelevant to those of us using

> imersion chillers as the hot/cold break is conveniently left behind in the

> kettle when the chilled wort is drawn off.

Actually, immersion chillers do not give a well-defined cold break due

to the more gradual temperature drop.

Ray Yurick

------------------------------


Starter?

Date: 25 May 1993 09:59:34 -0500 (CDT)

From: ROB WILSON <WILSONRS@VAX1.Winona.MSUS.EDU>

Subject: Starter?

I want to make a yeast starter for my next batch, the problem is that I

dont have any DME to make it with. Can I just use a corn sugar/water

solution. If so who much water and corn sugar. Also is it true the more

sugar the higher the yeast count. I use dry yeast, does this take longer to

start? How long do you leave the starter before pitching?

Thanks to every one who helped me with the equipment question. I got some

from from Glenwood spring water for only $8.(carboys) The bottles I will

just have to look for.

E-mail me..

Thanks in Advance

Rob Wilson         wilsonrs@vax2.winona.msus.edu

------------------------------


Christmas Beers

Date: 25 May 1993 09:21:09 GMT

From: "Tom Stolfi" <WAUTS@CWEMAIL.ceco.com>

Subject: Christmas Beers

From: Tom Stolfi                                   Tom Stolfi - CWE1IIN

Subject: Christmas Beers

Hello All,

I am going to make a BIG Christmas beer this year and I am starting to compile

my recipes.  If you have a recipe you are willing to share (Ho Ho Ho, tis the

season of giving) or any advice on spices and such a response would be

greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

Tom Stolfi

wauts@cwemail.ceco.com

p.s. If I get a lot of response I will compile a list and post to the HBD.

------------------------------


Re: efficiency and sparge rate

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 11:57:03 -0400

From: polstra!larryba@uunet.UU.NET

Subject: Re: efficiency and sparge rate

Inm HBD #3321 you write:

>Is there a relationship between extraction efficiency and

>sparge rate.  I seem to remember some previous

>dialog on this but don't remember what the concensus was.

Chuck: I have sparged a 5 gallon batch (collected 6.5 gal)

from less than 20 minutes to over 90 minutes. I have not noticed

much difference in the efficiency.  Now, however, with a

poor crush or poor lauter geometry I have seen wide variations

in my sparge efficiency.  Actually, I don't know much about

geometry other than I typically get 100% of the expected extract

with my two rigs (false bottom plastic bucket with drum tap,

and a 1/2 bbl keg and a 8" slotted copper ring for the filter -

that is my new, fancy, 10 gal brewery).  I do have experience with

poor crushes: ones done by a coffee grinder (lots of whole grains

and flour) lauter middling ok, but poor extract, ones done by a

roller mill set too close: lots of flour, incredible slow sparge

and excellent extract.  A proper crush with a roller mill (or

corona) lauters very fast and I still get 100% extract.  BTW,

the corona will give you more flour and a slower sparge, but

other than that does a very credible job of crushing grain

when set properly.

If you have poor extract rates and suspect your geometry you

can try the technique (I can't remember who tried this first,

I think maybe Martin Lodahl) where you drain the first runnings,

add all the sparge water, stir, let settle and drain again.

that should remove any geometrical considerations (channeling, etc.)

Cheers!

- --

Larry Barello   uunet!polstra!larryba

------------------------------


Re: Galanga

Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 09:10:43 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: Galanga

Lord knows why anyone would put Galanga into a brew, but... As has been

pointed out, galanga is used in southeast Asian cooking, primarily Thai

and Vietnamese.  It is a relative of ginger (so it is NOT a root, but a

rhyzome), but it is MUCH MUCH more expensive.  It is available fresh in

any Vietnamese grocery store, but the odds are a beverage recipe really

requires dried, powdered galanga.  In this form, it's more likely to be

called "laos" (like the country).  Although related to ginger, it

doesn't taste at all like it, and ginger really wouldn't be a

substitute.

And, come to think of it, dried galanga/laos isn't all that expensive,

just the fresh stuff.

And while you're in there rooting around, try to find me a supply of

kaffir lime peel (dried).

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


RE: soot on Stainless steel pot problem

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 09:38:28 PDT

From: davidr@ursula.ee.pdx.edu

Subject: RE: soot on Stainless steel pot problem

>My problem is that after the wort boils and I turn the cooker down to maintain

>a nice rolling boil, the flame is very yellow (presumably because the gas/air

>mix is off) and soot forms on the bottom of my expensive new Stainless steel

>pot.

>

>Have any others experienced this problem and is there a good solution?

I learned this trick in boyscouts while backpacking.

Cooking on an open fire seems to ALWAYS accumulate soot on the

bottoms of your pans.  The solution?  Place a thin film of dish

detergent on the pan bottom.  Although, the soot still

accumulates, it washes off easily with water.  (Of course you

are going to have to scrub real well with steel wool or something

similar to remove the soot that has already accumulated... but

after that, if you use this method, its easy street.)

 -David Robinson

davidr@ee.pdx.edu

------------------------------


Bud in Ireland

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 12:13:34 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@davinci.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Bud in Ireland

In hbd1147 Tim Murray mentioned seeing lots of empty Bud cans on a train

being drunk by Irish Football fans.  There is much that should be known

about this.  Firstly, anyone who has travelled by train anywhere knows

that the selection of beers can leave a little to be desired (it is

interesting to note that the selection improves alot when crossing the

Canadian border at Port Huron/Sarnia, but that is another story).

Secondly, Budweiser produced in Ireland (by Guinness at the Smithwicks

plant in Kilkenny) has been acclaimed by Americans who have drank it as

tasting like a beer (as agianst how it tastes here).  It is produced to

normal Irish strength (4.3% - a bit weker than here), which probably

improves its balance.

Thirdly.  It is normally priced (in cans anyway) the same or cheaper than

other lagers, and it is possible it was being drunk because it was cheap.

Ulick Stafford

------------------------------


SS reactivity

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 12:59 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: SS reactivity

Don writes:

>the best and most complete source of info on the reactivity of various

>acids, salts, bases and whatever with various metals, plastics, rubbers

>is in the back of the Granger catalog.

`Fraid not Don... a more complete source of reactivity is in the back of

the Cole-Palmer catalog, but I won't go so far as to say that it is the

most complete source.

>for example, household bleach does not react with 304 and 316 stainless.

>however, no info is available on 302 and 440 although its very unlikely

>you will find pots or kegs made with these.

According to the Cole-Palmer reactivity chart, both "Chlorine Water" and

"Sodium Hypochlorite (<20%)" are listed as "Moderate Effect" for 316 and

304 Stainless Steel and "Severe Effect" for 440 Stainless Steel.  While

we're at it, it also says that there is a "Severe Effect" with "Cast Bronze,"

"Cast iron," "Aluminum" and "Carbon/Ceramic".  Copper is not listed, but

I strongly suspect that it, too, is reactive with both "Chlorine Water" and

"Sodium Hypochlorite (<20%)."

>there are many other interesting items.  e.g,. BEER doesn't react with

>much of anything (thank god) except a little with brass and polyethylene,

>a little more with silicon and quite severely with cast iron and poly-

>propylene.

Strange, in the Cole-Palmer chart, "Beer" has "No Effect" on Polyethylene,

Silicon or Polypropylene.

>honestly, the table is an array about 400x30.

Honestly, the Cole-Palmer table is about 550X40, but it still is not the

most complete I've seen -- just the most complete I have here at arm's length.

Al.

------------------------------


Beer in europe

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 10:38:36 -0700

From: jason@beamlab.ps.uci.edu

Subject: Beer in europe

Sorry about this request (I know these things bug the crapola

out of some of you), but I tried to retrieve the information

from the archives via ftp and my computer (or I) couldn't

hack it.

Where is great beer to be found and what no way to be missed beer

sites are there in:

Brussels

Munich

Amsterdam

and possibly other parts of Germany?

please respond via private e-mail by today

thank you very much, and have a glorious day.

Jason

------------------------------


Death of Rumor--There is NO Bud in Germany

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 09:21:09 EST

From: boomer@sylsoft.com (Richard Akerboom)

Subject: Death of Rumor--There is NO Bud in Germany

There is NO Anheuser-Busch Budweiser in Germany. A message a few weeks

ago started this rumor, but the author was confusing the original,

Czech Budvar (called Budweiser in German because of the German name

for the city) with the cheap imitation we get here in the states.

I emailed the author to find out, and he now realizes his mistake.

This also explains the high price he quoted.

If Anheuser-Busch were to import US Bud, they would have to change

the name, as the Czechs have the rights to the name in Europe. At

least until A-B buys them out, which I hope never happens.

Rich

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Richard Akerboom       Domain: boomer@sylsoft.com or akerboom@dartmouth.edu

Sylvan Software          uucp: dartvax!sylsoft!boomer

Mechanic St.            Phone: 802-649-2231

P. O. Box 566             FAX: 802-649-2238

Norwich, VT 05055 USA

------------------------------


Solution to Soot and a Thank You

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 18:58:15 GMT

From: weissborn@dfwdsr.SINet.SLB.COM

Subject: Solution to Soot and a Thank You

> Subject: soot on Stainless steel pot problem

>

>

> I just got a "King Kooker" propane burner.  As many of you have also found

out,

> a home gas stove makes it difficult to get 7 gallons of wort to a boil.

> My problem is that after the wort boils and I turn the cooker down to maintain

> a nice rolling boil, the flame is very yellow (presumably because the gas/air

> mix is off) and soot forms on the bottom of my expensive new Stainless steel

> pot.

>

> Have any others experienced this problem and is there a good solution?

>

> - --Tony Verhulst

Looks like you were never in the Scouts, Tony 8-)  The soot problem can be

solved

by dampening a bar of soap and then rubbing it over the bottom and sides.  When

you cleanup 95-100% of the soot will come off since it is "stuck" to the soap

and not to the pot.

Thanks to all who replied about my 1st batch problems.  At the suggestion of

several folks I took another gravity reading.  The O.G. (@90f) was .1112

the reading I got a few days ago was .1042(@74f) (I wish I could find my

temperature adjustment chart).  The feeling at the local brew shop is that it

is close to finished although it still tastes a little sweet.  I am planning

to take another reading tonight and will probably bottle tomorrow.

Thanks again for the advice.

Bill Weissborn

weissborn@dfwvx1.dallas.geoquest.slb.com

------------------------------


Fermenter Geometry/Sierra Nevada

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 13:40:49 PDT

From: John Cotterill <johnc@hprpcd.rose.hp.com>

Subject: Fermenter Geometry/Sierra Nevada

1)  I have been doing some experiments fermenting in 5 gal glass carboys and

    5 gal SS soda kegs.  I have found that the beers in the soda kegs all take

    much longer to ferment out.  I think it is do to the geometry.  Has

    anyone else noticed this?  I have heard of some people fermenting in

    Sankey (sp?) kegs.  I dont know what a Sankey keg is, but I am guessing

    that is is a regular beer keg.  If so, how in the heck do you make

    sure they are clean?  I want to use SS especially since I can use pressure

    to transfer the beer instead of syphons.  And a standard beer keg has

    a geometry similar to a carboyu.  Anyone have any experience fermenting

    in Sankey/beer kegs?

2)  I have spent the last year trying to make a Sierra Nevada PA clone.  I

    really have not even come close although the attempts have resulted in

    some mighty tasty beers.  I have a pretty poor sense of taste which is

    complicating my efforts.  It seems to me that Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

    uses lots of flavoring hops with low bittering hops - just an

    un-educated guess.  Can anyone shed some light on the hop profile for

    SNPA and perhaps even suggest a recipe.

Thanks!

JC

johnc@hprpcd.rose.hp.com

------------------------------


Soot on stainless

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 16:46:32 EDT

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1-1/T09 DTN 225-6171  25-May-1993 1644 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Soot on stainless

Here's a little trick I picked up in Boy Scouts many years ago.  To make

soot easy to remove from the outside of pans that have been used over a

campfire (or a yellow flamed Cajun Cooker), coat the outside of the pan with

soap.  You can either coat it in liquid dish detergent or rub a bar of soap

all over the outside.  The soot will simply rinse off with the soap at cleaning

time.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


kegs in fridges

Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 14:22:53 -0600

From: Paul Boor <PBOOR@beach.utmb.edu>

Subject: kegs in fridges

 In reference to fridges or freezers and the cold air falling out when

you open the door, I finally broke down and installed a stem tap through the

door of the keg fridge.  It is the thrill of a lifetime, drilling a hole

through the fridge door!  It was so much fun (and the tap looked so much more

professional than fumbling inside with the hoses) that I sprung for two more.

I justify the cost by the electric I will save during the 10 month Galveston

summer, not opening the door to draw a beer.

------------------------------


Sparging efficiency

Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 17:34:26 -0400 (EDT)

From: jdg@cyberspace.org (Josh Grosse)

Subject: Sparging efficiency

In HBD 1148, chuckm@pbn73.cv.com asked about the relationship between

sparge time and extract efficiency.

My answer using English 2-row pale malt:

    45 minute sparge = 27 pts / gallon.

    2.5 hour sparge =  34 pts / gallon.

I've been using a grain bag in a BruHeat as a combined mash/lauter tun.  I

have found that I get the clearest run-off and slowest drain rate by lowering

the level of wort until the grain bed compacts.  Recirculating before this

happens has no effect.  Once the grain bed has compacted, it clears the

runoff almost instantly.  Then, I recirculate.  With a compact grain bed, it

takes a long time for the sparge to complete.  I pre-acidify to 5.5-5.7 with

88% lactic acid.

Last fall, Spencer Thomas and I got 33 pts / gallon using a recirculating

mash system.  I don't have the money for such a system myself right now, so

I'll read a book (or catch up on a week's worth of HBDs) while sparging.

- -----------------------------------------------------------------

Josh Grosse                               jdg@grex.cyberspace.org

------------------------------


Beer Bread with Machine

Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 10:26:29

From: garetz@brahms.amd.com (Mark Garetz)

Subject: Beer Bread with Machine

Kim Kiesow asks if anyone has made beer bread with a bread machine:

Yes.  My wife makes it all the time.  She just substitutes some of my

homebrew for the water in the recipe, but she microwaves it first.  This is

mainly to warm it up because the machine wants warm water (although I have

yet to figure out why because you can delay the bread start for 12 hours or

more).  The type of beer to use depends a lot on the type of bread you want.

But very bitter beers will make the bread a bit bitter.  My favorite has

been a dark rye made with Porter.  To make the rye dark, she adds cocoa

powder.

Mark from HopTech

------------------------------


soot on pots

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 17:13:32 CDT

From: fiero@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Bill Fuhrmann)

Subject: soot on pots

|My problem is that after the wort boils and I turn the cooker down to

maintain

|a nice rolling boil, the flame is very yellow (presumably because the gas/air

|mix is off) and soot forms on the bottom of my expensive new Stainless steel

|pot.

The standard camping solution to this is to smear dish washing liquid on

the bottoms and sides of the pot.  Then all the soot just washes off.

Bill Fuhrmann, aka fiero@pnet51.orb.mn.org

"You don't know what you've got till it's gone." - Joni Mitchell

------------------------------


GABF Ad Claims

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 18:53:13 MDT

From: thomas ciccateri <tciccate@carina.unm.edu>

Subject: GABF Ad Claims

  In the Jan/Feb '93 issue of The New Brewer, Charlie Papazian states that

beginning July 1,1993 the Association of Brewers will enforce the following

rules on participants: Brewers promoting their awards must mention the

category in which the medal was awarded, they must mention the medal won,

and they must tell for which year the medal was won.

 Tom Ciccateri

 University of New Mexico

 Training and Learning Technologies

------------------------------


Sweetport recipe and Hoegaa

Date: 25 May 1993 19:20:12 U

From: "Steve Lovett" <Steve_Lovett@qm.symantec.com>

Subject: Sweetport recipe and Hoegaa

 Subject: Sweetport recipe and Hoegaarden recipe help.

Hi fellow brewors!

A couple of quick questions for you all. Has anyone brewed up Mike Ligas's

recipe "Sweetport Porter" from The Cat's meow II, 5-45? The recipe says it is

for six gallons, but the comments state that the author generally is an all

grain dude. So... does this mean mix up six for a full wort boil that boils down

to apx. five, or does it mean the actual volume of wort after the boil is six

gallons??

Also...  I have grown quite enamored of the coriander-orange peel flavor of

Hoegaarden "White" from Belgium. The current fruit beer thread has me really

itching to brew up something very similar. I have seen Papazian's recipe in

TNCJOHB but it is all barley malt based, and my memory is not what it used to

be, but I'm sure that Hoegaarden is a wheat beer.  I have seen "Grand Cru" kits

 from Brewferm, but the kit thing makes me a little sceptical so any advice  on

reproducing this lovely brew would be most appreciated.

Thanks... Steve Lovett

------------------------------


Porter recipe

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 18:24 EDT

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Porter recipe

As a result of a private request by Keith Schwols, I am submitting the

recipe for a beer that won first place in the Porter category in last

month's AHA-sanctioned competetion held by the Upstate New York

Homebrewers Association (Rochester, New York).  I've included my brewing

notes, just for kicks.

"Independence Porter" by Tom Kaltenbach (5-gallon recipe)

6.6  lbs  Munton & Fison amber malt extract

0.5  lbs  Munton & Fison light dry malt extract

0.5  lbs  chocolate malt, crushed

2.5  oz   Cascade hops pellets, boiling (55 min) (note:  for 2 oz, alpha =

          5.4; for 0.5 oz, alpha = 4.7)

0.5  oz   Hallertauer hops pellets, finishing (steep during chilling)

 2  tsp  gypsum

 1  pkg  Whitbread dry ale yeast

Brewing notes:

     The chocolate malt grains were crushed and added to approximately

one gallon of water and slowly heated.  Before a boil was reached,

grains were removed and sparged through two strainers, (one coarse and

one medium).  The malt extract, gypsum, and boiling hops were added and

boiled for 55 minutes.  About 15 minutes from end of boil, yeast was

rehydrated by standard method [note:  standard method consists of

removing 1 ladleful (approx. 1/4 cup) of boiling wort and diluting to 1

cup with cold water in a sanitized 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup.  It is

then cool enough to add the yeast immediately.  The Pyrex cup is covered

with plastic wrap, sealed with a rubber band.]  At end of boil,

immersion wort chiller was placed into brewpot, the finishing hops was

added, and the brewpot was removed from the heat.  The pot was

immediately transferred to the sink and the chilling begun.  The brewpot

lid was placed over the chiller and the gap between pot and lid was

sealed with plastic wrap.  After chilling for approximately ten minutes,

the wort was transferred to the primary, straining out the hops pulp in

the process.  Wort was diluted to five gallons with jug-aerated water.

[Note: jug-aerated water refers to the following:  cold tap water is

added to the fermenter 1/2 gallon at a time to make 5 gallons.  Each 1/2

gallon is shaken vigorously for 30 - 60 seconds in a sanitized plastic

gallon jug to aerate.  This may also help dechlorinate the tap water.]

Some cold tap water was blended with warm to produce a final temperature

between 65 and 70 degrees in the fermenter.  The yeast was pitched

immediately.  The original gravity was measured to be 1.060 at approx.

67 degrees --> 1.061 corrected.  Fermentation was carried out at

approximately 62 degrees.  Primary fermentation continued to 18-Nov-92,

when beer was racked to the secondary fermenter.  Batch was kegged on

7-Dec-92; final gravity:  1.015 @ 60 degrees --> 1.015 corrected.

Alcohol content was computed to be 6.0375% by volume, 4.83% by weight.

------------------------------


secondary fermentations and fruit

Date: Tue, 25 May 93 19:41:55 PDT

From: "Tom Childers" <TCHILDER@us.oracle.com>

Subject: secondary fermentations and fruit

In HBD 1146, Bryan Kornreich asks

> How on Earth do you press your fruity wort (to get the juice out of the pulp)

> with any hint of sterility.

I keep my (large wooden) spoon and strainer in the pot during the end of the

boil to sterilize them.  Since the Wheat Berry recipe used a partial boil,

you can just take the implements out, set the strainer on the funnel, and

start pouring the wort.  When the strainer fills with hops and fruit, I

press it with the spoon to extract the last bit of fruit juice, then toss

the strainer contents and repeat the process until all of the wort is in

the carboy.  Then I slap a clean cork in, let it sit for a few hours to get

to pitching temperature, and add about a quart of yeast starter.

By the way, I find that sterility is not a huge issue when I use big yeast

starters.  You can never maintain sterility in your cool wort - bacteria are

falling into the stuff at the rate of hundreds or thousands per minute.

Eventually, the yeast will crowd the bacteria out.  However, if you pitch a

small yeast culture, then the bacteria have enough time to create off-

flavors before losing the race.  I build up a very active starter, and

primary fermentation is generally in full swing within a few hours.

(Of course, I do keep things very clean, and sanitize the fermenter, siphons,

bottles and caps before using them.  I haven't had a pedococcus infection

yet, knock on wood.  Remember, people have been making beer for thousands

of years...)

> would it be a good idea to puree the rasperries and blackberries before

> adding them in order to avoid the pressing step?

Pureeing the fruit should work fine, although you may get a cloudier beer

from all of the little pieces of fruit skin in suspension.  You might want

to thaw the frozen berries first  :-)

Tom Childers

Mill Valley, CA

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1149, 05/26/93

*************************************

-------


Czech Budweiser

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 10:17:11 BST

From: des@pandora.swindon.ingr.com (Desmond Mottram)

Subject: Czech Budweiser

In HBD recently Richard Akerboom wrote about Czech Budweiser. This is IMHO

one of the world's finest beers. Richard adds:

>

> If Anheuser-Busch were to import US Bud, they would have to change

> the name, as the Czechs have the rights to the name in Europe.

Not in all European countries. In many cases A-B got there first. Here in

the UK _both_ companies can use the name.

> At least until A-B buys them out, which I hope never happens.

It will happen, make no mistake. A-B are out to get the Czech company.

I believe they already own 30% and are continually on the look out for ways

to increase their ownership. You can try lobbying A-B but do you really

think you will get anywhere? They will mouth all kinds of platitudes, but

when they get it they will kill the beer. So enjoy it while you can, it

really is a SUPERB beer and it won't be here for ever.

Rgds, Desmond Mottram

des@pandora.swindon.ingr.com

------------------------------


Re : Racking off thee trub

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 10:19:54 BST

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: Re : Racking off thee trub

Yesterday, I wrote this:

"However, my understanding of the chemistry is that many fermentation

byproducts, such as fusel oil and esters, are produced during the yeast

_respiration_ phase. At this point, the yeast requires oxygen to reproduce,

most homebrewed worts contain suboptimal levels of dissolved oxygen, so it's a

reasonable bet that the yeast will attempt to extract oxygen from the trub, and

produce fusel oil in the process."

This relied on memory and is inaccurate; apologies for the confusion. With

further reading, _precursors_ to these byproducts are formed, during both the

lag and respiration phases. Yeast does not extract oxygen from trub, it uses

the unsaturated fatty acids as an alternative to oxygen for growth. The net

effects of this alternative pathway remain controversial.

------------------------------


Guinness, Starter OG, wine acidity

Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 14:11:26 +0000

From: G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk (Geoff Cooper)

Subject: Guinness, Starter OG, wine acidity

Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk> writes:

>I find (British) N. Brewer works great in stouts; it definitely provides

>flavour as well as bitterness when boiled an hour, unlike Hallertauer. Better,

>if you are partial to fruit stouts, consider some Bullion for their

>blackcurrant character. Unfortunately, these are being phased out here, and I

>don't know of a suitable replacement. I actually find that if I use enough of

>our cruddy, local Goldings, I also get blackcurrant. Conclusion? I am either

>being sold mislabelled Bullion (unlikely, as they have Goldings aroma), or the

>two varieties have something in common.

 ...

>...                              Unfortunately, I can detect lager malt in

>even the most aggressive stout (sulphur?), which is why I don't follow

>Miller's advice. Some wheat malt is well worth considering, however.

Brian Bliss <bliss@pixel.convex.com> asks:

>Does anybody know for sure exactly what Gunness is hopped with?

Although Guinness might have used bullion in the past, bullion has not been

produced commercially in the UK since the 1987 crop, and is no longer

available (if someone in the UK sold you some recently they were old). As a

data point: when I last enquired (two years ago) Guinness were using Target

hops, a high alpha (10%-12% depending on season) hop which doesn't seem to

give too much aggression with its bitterness. It has a respectable aroma also

and is gaining popularity with many commercial breweries. The choice by

Guinness  is based on the price per unit of alpha acid - that is, it is

cheaper to obtain their bittering by using that hop rather than others; If

another hop were cheaper they would use it (assuming it didn't adversely

affect the flavour). No altruism on their part.

Further data: the 1992 UK hop crop, in Zentner, for some varieties was

    Target      47,396

    Challenger  12,866

    Northdown   11,977

    Goldings     8,965

    Fuggles      8,124

Northern Brewer was in 10th place with 347 Zentner, and the total production

was 96,417 which is fairly typical (1991 was exceptional with 120,333)

I also recall that Guinness use a high proportion of 'lager malt' in their

grist for reasons of economy too (I can't find my notes confirming this so

don't take that as gospel yet). It is simply that lager malt is cheaper than

pale. In the small quantities that I purchase, lager malt costs 405.00 per

tonne and pale costs 415.00 per tonne (crystal 425.00 per tonne, Roast

Barley 385.00) - prices in pounds sterling.

*********

On the subject of Guinness, I shall refer back to the discussion about their

thingy in the bottom of the draught guinness in cans. Al K. finally scotched

this momily but his description was not quite complete. In fact the plastic

chamber, which has a little hole in it, is totally empty when it is put in

the can. (No I don't meean a vacuum, I mean gas at atmospheric pressure OK?)

The system works because the pressure in the can exceeds atmospheric pressure

(remember the pssst when you pull the ring?). The can is filled with beer

that is cold enough (0C to 1C) to retain sufficient condition and an oversize

can (440ml beer in 500ml can, say) is used. They also "dose" the beer with

extra nitrogen (less soluble and finer bubbles). Once the lid is on, (and the

beer warms up) gas comes out of solution to create the pressure in the can.

The pressure in the can and inside the chamber reach equilibrium forcing beer

(and gas) into the device through its little hole. Once the can is opened, the

resulting drop in pressure forces this beer back out of the chamber through

the tiny hole. The shock of passing through this tight constriction creates

small stable bubbles which rise through the liquid acting as centres where

other bubbles form.

Cleaver really. The last remaining problem was finding a way to purge oxygen

from the whole system (hence, or otherwise, the nitrogen momily?).

********

Talking of momilies, Jack S. descibed me as 'a momily buster in the bud'. Now

that we have been told what a momily is, I know what I was being accused of.

But then again if Jack knew me better he probably wouldn't think of me as

being 'in the bud'.

The above happened when I asked about the rationale for using starters with

SG 1.020, which appears to be the received wisdom on this digest. I agreed to

summarise the responses, but unfortunately I have little to report. The most

promising response was from Kinney Baughan (quoting Dave Logson as) saying

that it is "necessary only from the point of view of efficiency of reproduction

of the yeast."

Perhaps I shall carry on looking at this one for a while, but lets have a few

data points. In my descriptions for making culture media, only two values

seem to appear; if you are to use (hopped) wort agar one uses SG 1.040 (hopped)

wort with 1.5% agar; if you choose to use MYGP (or similar) broth/agar then (I

calculate) the SG is about 1.005.

*********

Bruce <NULL0TROOPER@delphi.com> writes

>I've found that fermentation often lowers the acidity of a wine

>must,  though this should be less pronounced with beers and ales (I

>haven't tried it,  yet).

On the contrary, under normal conditions fermentation increases the acidity

(and lowers the pH) of wine must. This increase is typically of the order of

1 ppt (as Tartaric). The exceptions are when the must is extremely high in

acid at the start (eg >12ppt), or if there is a high proportion of malic acid

present and the particular strain of yeast being used can ferment malic acid.

There are only a few of those strains available to the home brewer and it is

very unlikely that one will be used (and then they only use about 20-25% of

the available malic acid)

As for beer, one might expect a pH drop from 5.5, say, to below 4.5 (after

which the activity of a number of bacteria is inhibited - fortunately for us)

*********

And finally, I was recently in central Florida and suffered the shock in the

supermarkets of finding that they had yards and yards of chilled shelving all

containing the same beer - they just had different names: Bud, Bud Dry,

Bud Lite, Michelob, Michelob Dry, Miller, Miller Lite, Coors, Pabst ...etc.

I was attempting to overcome the experience, when I spotted an oassis in the

corner - there were a couple of six-packs of Carlsberg Elephant. A beer I know

and I selected that one without hesitation - no choice really. If you haven't

tried it I suggest you do, if you come across it.

Regards

Geoff

------------------------------


New Orleans brewpubs?

Date:         26 May 93 08:34:46 CST

From: "Mary Dabney Wilson"  <WILSON@library.uta.edu>

Subject:      New Orleans brewpubs?

I will be traveling to New Orleans and want to know if there are any

good brewpubs.  Any recommendations?

Mary Dabney Wilson

------------------------------


Re: Fermenting in Sankey kegs / caustic soda suppliers

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 09:03:44 EDT

From: man@lcwdw1.att.com

Subject: Re: Fermenting in Sankey kegs / caustic soda suppliers

< 1)  I have been doing some experiments fermenting in 5 gal glass carboys and

<     5 gal SS soda kegs.  I have found that the beers in the soda kegs all take

<     much longer to ferment out.  I think it is do to the geometry.  Has

<     anyone else noticed this?  I have heard of some people fermenting in

<     Sankey (sp?) kegs.  I dont know what a Sankey keg is, but I am guessing

<     that is is a regular beer keg.  If so, how in the heck do you make

<     sure they are clean?  I want to use SS especially since I can use pressure

<     to transfer the beer instead of syphons.  And a standard beer keg has

<     a geometry similar to a carboyu.  Anyone have any experience fermenting

<     in Sankey/beer kegs?

I primary ferment in 1/2 barrel Sankey kegs exclusively. Cleaning them

immediately after use is a must. I sanitize them with boiling water on a

King Kooker. I have well water with no iron in it, so I'm not worried about

that reaction. I use one of those orange caps to cover the tap opening. It

fits perfectly.

Anyone in NJ know where I can buy caustic soda? My previous supplier is out

of business and I can't find anyone in the Somerville, NJ are that carries

it. I use it periodically to make sure the fermenters are really clean.

 Mark Nevar

------------------------------


Brewers Resource Dir/NYCY 2

Date: 26 May 1993 09:59:04 -0500

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel.F.McConnell@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Brewers Resource Dir/NYCY 2

                       Subject:                               Time:9:53 AM

  OFFICE MEMO          Brewers Resource Dir/NYCY 240          Date:5/26/93

Does anyone out there have access to The Brewers Resource Directory available

from the Association of Brewers?  I need to find some information, but am a

little hesitant to shell out the $80.

Also...does anyone know of a source for the yeast culture NYCY 240?  This is

(apparently) a highly flocculant English strain of great character that was

once available from Intek (sp?) in Australia who has since gone out of

business.

Please send private e-mail.

DanMcC

------------------------------


An easy fix for soot on Stainless steel pot

Date:  Wed, 26 May 1993 07:18:18 PDT

From: Michael_Genier.Wbst139@xerox.com

Subject:  An easy fix for soot on Stainless steel pot

"soot forms on the bottom of my expensive new Stainless steel

pot. "

Dear Tony Verhulst

This problem is best solved by a very simple method that I learned while a Boy

Scout.   The problem of soot and the burnt outsides of pots and pans is

epidemic on a campfire.   The method is to gingerly wipe on ordinary dish soap

on the outside of your pot.   On a camp fire may be half way up the pot, but in

your case maybe just the bottom.   The soap forms a non flammable barrier, that

attracts the soot.   When you clean your pot, the soot will come off with very

minimal scrubbing.  P.S. don't forget that the soap is on the bottom of the pot

and set it on your counter space, in the woods it dosen't hurt the dirt.

Good Luck --Michael Genier

------------------------------


California Common Beer

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 9:25:27 CDT

From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>

Subject: California Common Beer

I just bottled my first attempt at a California Common or "steam" beer

yesterday and I noticed a definite DMSO odor in the beer (the cooked

corn type odor).  Will bottle conditioning help to reduce this over time

or will I just have to get used to it.  What causes this (I've heard

that this is generally due to slow wort cooling, but as this was an

extract recipe which normally is cooled rapidly as it is transferred to

the carboy containing cold water, I doubt that the cooling is any

different from my other extract recipes.)

The effect is not extremely unpleasant, just unwanted.

Thanks,

Anthony Johnston

P.S.  In response to the current controversy of racking off of the trub,

I have recently made two batches of beer (stout and steam) where I did

rack mostly off the trub, but went ahead and pitched the gallon or so

remaining with the trub to see if there would be a difference.  All 4

beers are now in bottle, so I will report results in a few weeks.

------------------------------


Lambics - Is Belgium Unique ?

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 07:56:46 -0700

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: Lambics - Is Belgium Unique ?

Quoting a recent thread on lambic production ...

"From: Mike Peckar  24-May-1993 1509 <m_peckar@cscma.enet.dec.com>

 Subject: Phenolic brews --> Lambics

"The second one was much more interesting and produced a Lambic that is

 remarkably reminiscent of the real belgian stuff. I had left out a bottle

 of Cherry Juicy Juice for a while. This is a commercial juice from

 concentrate which is made up of Cherry, Apple, and White grape juices not

 neccessarily in that order. The bottle had autopitched from the ether, and

 fermented to a slightly carbonated state.  By itself, it had a wonderful

 champagne mouth, and a creamy taste, with all three fruits prevalent, but

 cherry dominating. What I did was decant this into my bottling bucket and

 then I added about a dozen or so 16 oz bottles of my bad brew, leaving

 behind as much of the dormant/dead yeasts as possible and tasted until the

 proportions were o.k. I also added some unfermented Cherry Juicy Juice from

 a fresh container to spark off fermentation again. My hopes were the less

 dormant natural yeasts would overpower the longer-dormant ale yeasts. Also,

 I stirred the carbonated beer to release as much CO2 from solution as

 possible without excessively aeration. My guess is about the same ratio of

 beer to juice as I had done before (2-1)."

"The results, after only four days were remarkable: A real good lambic

 without 6 months of conditioning, without messing with real fruit, and

 with wild yeasts!"

"From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

 Subject: defending my recipe

">Also, Brian, how do you introduce the lactic infection into the bottled

 >beers?

"Nature care of that one for me.  Save some of your next soured batch.

 Beware of exploding bottles, though.  By the nature of the infection

 (sour but not rancid, appearing late in the fermentation, more attenuative

 that the brewing yeast) I assume that it was lactic."

I am curious ... has anyone ever tried to induce a lambic in the Bay Area,

or any other area which is known to harbor a particular type of yeast in

the air ?

Are 'lambic' bacteria distinct from 'lactic' bacteria, and if so, how ?

The Bay Area, for instance, and California in general, was where sourdough

was evolved, and I have been given to understand that the cause of sour-

dough's sourness is lactobacillus acidophilis. So, making an intuitive leap

here, I have to wonder ... has anyone tried this ?

Where would I get a pure lactobacillus acidophilis culture to experiment

with ?

Is the sourdough made in Alaska different from that made in California ?

Is there a potential for an explosion of lambics along the West Coast ?

Comments, corrections, feedback, welcome, as always.

- -- richard

The silliest thing I ever read,  richard childers, pascal@netcom.com

Was someone saying "God is dead."

The simple use of The Word

Negates the second, and the third. ( Duke Ellington, _Sacred Concert_ )

------------------------------


Re: Galangale

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 10:50:43 EDT

From: eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West)

Subject: Re: Galangale

There was a long discussion on rec.food.historic two or three months

ago about galinga v. galingale, the upshot being (if I remember

correctly [I didn't save it, I wasn't that interested]) that galingale

is a different plant from galinga, some similarity in flavor, but

galingale was of European origin whereas galinga was of some eastern

origin.

FWIW.

Carl

WISL,BM.

------------------------------


Cat's Meow I & II

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 08:50:29 MDT

From: "Steve Kurka - BMC West, Boise, ID" <kurka@bmcw.com>

Subject: Cat's Meow I & II

This may be an FAQ, but where can I find the Cat's meow I & II?

Or, If they cannot be found out on the net, could someone be kind enough

to forward me a copy?   Thanks...   Steve       - KURKA@BMCW.COM Boise, ID-

------------------------------


snpa revisited

Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 10:12:20 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: snpa revisited

Here is some info and speculation on Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and how

one might try to clone it.  SNPA is surely worth emulating, yet it

has an elegance of flavor that is a bit elusive.  I can't claim to

have cloned it, but am iterating toward it!

Note that Sierra Nevada Draught Ale is SG 1.048 while Sierra Nevada

Pale Ale (bottled) is SG 1.052.  The Draught also tastes a bit

sweeter to me than the bottled.

Malts used are U.S. 2-row, dextrin malt (U.S. cara-pils), and

crystal malt.  I don't know the proportions used at Chico, but it

seems to me that you shouldn't be too heavy-handed with the crystal

malt, as I don't find a pronounced caramel flavor in SNPA, in

contrast to, say, Mendocino's Red Tail Ale.

Hops are Perle for bittering and Cascade for flavor/aroma.  Perles

are a fine general-purpose medium-alpha bittering hop, while

Cascades are signature hops in SNPA, Liberty Ale, and other

American pale ales.

Yeast is Wyeast "American" ale or bottle-cultured SNPA.

An all-grain recipe for a 5-gallon batch goes as follows (your

mileage may vary):

8 pounds U.S. 2-row pale malt

1 pound U.S. cara-pils

0.5 pounds crystal malt 80L

0.8 ounces Perle (alpha 6.5) at 60 minutes

0.5 ounces Cascade (alpha 6.3) at 30 minutes

0.5 ounces Cascade (alpha 6.3) at 2 minutes

0.5 ounces Cascade final addition (see below)

yeast is Chico yeast

In the mash, aim for a starch conversion temperature of 153 - 155

degrees F for some residual sweetness in the beer.  As for the hop

schedule, factors such as hop freshness and vigor of boil will

affect the final beer.  To my palate, SNPA is a medium-bitter beer,

not high-bitter beer, so something like 35 IBUs seems to be a good

target.

Regarding that final hop addition, I believe that Chico runs the

hot wort through a hopback with some fresh hops in it, so you might

rig up a homebrewer's gadget equivalent of a hopback.  Or, you

might add the final addition at flame off and let the hot wort sit

for 10 minutes with the lid on before chilling.  Or, you might try

dry-hopping.  I'm not claiming that these will produce an

equivalent effect, but they are all attempts to give the beer some

of the requisite hop flavor and aroma.

------------------------------


SN

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 10:25:36 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: SN

There have been a few request for Sierra Nevada Recipes the past

two days.  I pulled this off the hbd last December - it's one

of those articles worth saving.  Jack Schmidling asked about

elaborating on "american hop flavor".  My advice is to go

out and buy a 6 pack of assorted SN beers, and see if you can

pick out the ones made with cascade finishing hops and/or

dry-hopped:

- -------------------------

Summerfest

alcohol content:  3.5% by weight

starting gravity:  11.5 plato (about 1.046)

ending gravity:  2.7 plato

yeast:  lager

bittering hops:  perle

finishing hops:  hallertauer

malts:  2-row barley malt, dextrin malt

Pale Bock

alcohol content:  5.2% by weight

starting gravity:  16 plato (about 1.064)

ending gravity:  3.7 plato

yeast:  lager

bittering hops:  perle

finishing hops:  mt. hood

malts:  2-row barley malt, dextrin malt

Pale Ale

alcohol content:  4.4% by weight

starting gravity:  13 plato (about 1.052)

ending gravity:  2.8 plato

yeast:  ale yeast

bittering hops:  perle

finishing hops:  cascade

malts:  2-row barley malt, dextrin malt, caramel malt

Porter

alcohol content:  4.7% by weight

starting gravity:  14.5 plato (about 1.058)

ending gravity:  3.5 plato

yeast:  ale yeast

bittering hops:  nugget

finishing hops:  willamette

malts:  2-row barley malt, dextrin malt, caramel malt, chocolate

        malt, black malt

Stout

alcohol content:  4.8% by weight

starting gravity:  16 plato (about 1.064)

ending gravity:  4.5 plato

yeast:  ale yeast

bittering hops:  chinook

finishing hops:  cascade

malts:  2-row barley malt, dextrin malt, caramel malt, black malt

Celebration Ale

alcohol content:  5.1% by weight

starting gravity:  16 plato (about 1.064)

ending gravity:  3.9 plato

yeast:  ale yeast

bittering hops:  chinook

finishing hops:  cascade

dry hops:  centennial and cascade

malts:  2-row barley malt, dextrin malt, caramel malt

Bigfoot Ale

alcohol content:  10.1% by weight

starting gravity:  23 plato (1.092)

ending gravity:  6 plato

yeast:  ale yeast

bittering hops:  nugget

finishing hops:  cascade

dry hops:  centennial and cascade

malts:  2-row barley malt, caramel malt

------------------------------


Hoegaarden Replication

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 08:57:33 PDT

From: "Tom Childers" <TCHILDER@us.oracle.com>

Subject: Hoegaarden Replication

In HBD 1149, Steve Lovett asks about reproducing Hoegaarden Grand Cru with

wheat malt.  A few months ago, I posted a barley malt extract wit beer

recipe, and promised to try the same with wheat malt.  Well, the first

wheat malt batch finished a couple of weeks ago, and my friends and I are

quickly wiping out the results.  The wheat "bite" is great.  This beer

has a somewhat higher FG than Hoegaarden Grand Cru, so you may want to cut

back the malt and/or honey to try and emulate Hoegaarden accurately.

     Tamalpais Wit, v2.0

4-1/2 lb light dry wheat malt extract

2 lbs    orange honey

1 oz     Hallertauer/N. Brewer

         7.5 HBU boiling hops

1 oz     Hallertauer/Hersbrucker

         3 HBU finishing hops

1-1/2 oz crushed coriander

1/2 oz   dried orange peel

Belgian Ale yeast (Wyeast 1214)

Bring 5 gallons of water to a boil, then add first three ingredients.

Boil 45 minutes, then add 3/4 oz. coriander.  Boil 10 minutes, then

add remaining coriander and orange peel.  Boil 5 minutes, and add the

finishing hops for a final 2 minutes.  Chill immediately to 75 F,

areate into 5 gallon carboy, and add yeast.  Ferment using blow-off

method, then prime with 3/4 cup corn sugar and bottle.

The keys to making this beer are (1) use belgian ale yeast, (2) crush the

coriander yourself, so it is nice and fresh, (3) use orange honey, and (4)

use the best Hallertauer hops you can find.  Papazian's basic recipe is

very flexible; I've made 5 different beers so far by changing the malt

combinations, and I've liked them all.  I like this one the best so far.

Tom Childers

Mill Valley, CA

------------------------------


Cleaning stainless steel

Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 10:59:49 -0800

From: pohl@unixg.ubc.ca (Derrick Pohl)

Subject: Cleaning stainless steel

In HBD # 1147, Al (korz@iepubj.att.com) writes re cleaning stainless steel

vessels:

>Right.  I don't even use soap on mine -- just a non-stick-safe scrubbing

>pad (more gentle than a scouring pad) and elbow grease.  The only things

>in there are a little scortched malt and some Beerstone -- if it gets really

>bad, maybe I'll use a bit of cola (for the acid) or if one of my batches of

>pseudo-lambik goes super acetic on me, I'll use it for scrubbing the kettle

>(that's what the lambik brewers do!).

What about using a copper "Kurly Kate"-type scrubbing pad?  If copper is

softer than stainless steel (and I assume it is) then it shouldn't be a

problem.  Or is it?  Also, how about baking soda?

- -----

Derrick Pohl (pohl@unixg.ubc.ca)

UBC Faculty of Graduate Studies, Vancouver, B.C.

------------------------------


IBU Calculations

Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 10:54:17

From: garetz@brahms.amd.com (Mark Garetz)

Subject: IBU Calculations

I'm working on the HopTech catalog, and I'm putting in a formula for

calculating IBUs.  I'm using Rager's formula (Zymurgy Hops Special Issue) as

a base, but I think his utilization table is quite optimistic.  I have

worked up a preliminary set of numbers to replace his, but before I

prejudice you with my estimates, what are yours?  Do you feel his numbers

are OK or too low (I know they're not too high)?  If they're too low, what

percentage should they be reduced?  Final table will be posted back to HBD.

TIA,

Mark at HopTech

------------------------------


Yeast vs. Trub, Materials List, SNPA Hops

Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 10:48:39

From: garetz@brahms.amd.com (Mark Garetz)

Subject: Yeast vs. Trub, Materials List, SNPA Hops

Con Copas talks about racking the wort off the cold break vs. yeast

performance:

Let me throw this in:  A brewer friend (who also happens to be the winemaker

at a major Napa Valley winery) ran some controlled experiments on the

performance of yeast in wort where some of the break material had been left

in the fermenter, and where the break material had been completely filtered

out.  His results showed that the yeast definitely needed something from the

break material.  The "pure wort" did not ferment well at all.  Both were

oxygenated, the yeast was pitched from a starter (lab cultured) and the

tests were conducted in the mini-lab of this winery.  Sorry I don't have the

details on what he meant by "didn't ferment well at all" but it doesn't

really matter.  The point is not to worry about getting rid of all the trub

before pitching.

Al Corzona throws another chart into the ring....

After seeing Don's post, I was particularly concerned about the "severe

effect on polypropolene" because HopTech is making a Hop Back out of

polypropylene becuase of its excellent high temperature characteristics.  I

hauled out my Grainger's catalog and had a look at the list.  Sure enough

there it was polypro=severe effect with beer (with a note that beer is OK at

less than 72F).  Now a hopback really doesn't work with "beer" but wort.

The list also contains "cane syrup" but it also got a severe rating with

polypro.  Anyway, I was concerned.  Turns out Grainger's reprinted the list

from the Little Giant Pump Co.  (this reference is actually printed in the

Grainger's catalog).  So I called TLGPC.  They didn't know squat about the

list and told me it was provided by Phillips 66.  So I called Phillips.

After being bounced around to about 12 divisions, I finally found the one

that deals with polypropylene (they make it).  BTW, *no one* at Phillips

ever heard of the list and they guess it must have been done a long time

ago.  Anyway, after a few minutes of begging that I should be connected to a

materials engineer (not a sales "engineer") I got some helpful folks in one

of their labs.  Turns out the guy who knows the most about polypro is also a

homebrewer!  Well it was certainly a relief not to have to spend 1/2 hour

explaining what a hop back, wort etc. were!  Bottom line:  The chart is

wrong as regards to polypro.  Beer won't hurt it or react with it (neither

will wort).  This guy said that polypro's barrier properties weren't that

good and thought the chart might have been inferring that you wouldn't want

to store carbonated beer in it for long periods because it would go flat.

However, carbonated water is "OK" for polypro on the chart.  We couldn't

figure it out.  Now I know why Grainger's has a disclaimer as to the chart's

accuracy right up front.  For what it's worth...YMMV.

JC asks about the SNPA recipe:

I'm not sure what they use for bittering (I think Galena but don't quote

me).  For finishing and aroma they use Cascade.  Lots of it late in the

boil.  And then they run the wort through a hop back charged with even more

Cascade.  They do not dry hop this beer.  If I were trying to get an SNPA, I

would do something like this:

8 lbs Pale Malt

 .5-1 lb 40 degree Crystal

Optionally a pound of carapils for more body.

40-45 IBUs of Galena, Cluster or Cascade, boiled 90 minutes

1 oz Cascade 10 minutes

1.5 oz Cascade 5 minutes

2 ozs Cascade in a hop back (or steeped if no hop back)

SNPA yeast cultured from a bottle, or Wyeast Chico Ale

Personally, I'd use a single infusion mash at 150-153 degrees.

Mind you, this is off-the-cuff and merely a guess.

Mark at HopTech

coming soon!  HopTech gets its own domain (hoptech.com)....

------------------------------


Wheat Beer

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 11:16:19 PDT

From: rcristad@weber.ucsd.edu (Riccardo Cristadoro)

Subject: Wheat Beer

 I'm geting the ball rolling on my next brew---A Wheat Beer.  I would

appreciate tips and recipes for a real wheat bear with lots of clove

aroma and taste.  I would appreciate an all-grain (infusion) recipe.

What hops should I use (Hallertau)?  Also, I plan to use Bavarian

Wheat #3056 yeast, what is the correct temp to ferment?  Thanks in

advance for all of the help.

 While I'm here, I would appreciate some suggestions on

getting my transfer hose (plastic-type) clean and clear.  It always

seems to go cloudy.  Thanks.

STEVE BOXER

------------------------------


New Jersey Brewpub Bill

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 14:54:51 EDT"

From: Gary S. Kuyat <gsk@sagan.bellcore.com>

Subject: New Jersey Brewpub Bill

Full-Name: Gary S. Kuyat

Two bills are being "read" in the New Jersey State Legislature:

 #2354 in 2nd reading before Assembly

 #614  in 2nd reading before Senate

Both are voted on June 10th of this year.

These bills will allow "brewpub" establishments to operate in NJ.

I have asked my Rep to send me more info.  I will post details and

the results of the vote after the 10th.

- --

 -Gary

  gsk@sagan.bellcore.com

------------------------------


Date: Wed, 26 May 93 14:10:37 CDT

From: "Kirk Oseid [ mf11205 MechE ]" <oseid@s1.msi.umn.edu>

Subject: New Jersey Brewpub Bill

Subject: BPubs in Cour d'Alene

Fellow Brew Enthusiasts:

My wife and I will be spending several days in

Cour d'Alene in the middle of June.  Can anyone

direct us to BrewPubs in that area?

  TIA,

  Kirk

------------------------------


Re-using yeast & commercial beer storage

Date: 26 May 93 09:59:05 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Re-using yeast & commercial beer storage

Message Creation Date was at 26-MAY-1993 14:32:00

          Greetings,

               I have some questions in two basic areas.  Any insight

          would be appreciated.

          1.  I'm lazy. I would like to re-use my yeast as opposed to

          propagating multiple yeast colonies.  I rack my beers to

          2ndary fermentors and usually use polyclar on my lighter

          colored beers.  Should the yeast cake I save come from my

          primary or secondary fermentor?  I see problems with each:

               a. Primary will have more cold-break, dead yeast,

          and hop residue than secondary.

               b. Secondary will have plastic particles due to the

          polychlar.  (Should I use isinglass, instead?)

          2.  I've a couple questions regarding the storage of

          commercial beer (You know - that stuff ridiculed in the

          HBD).  Based upon the assumption that the vast majority of

          commercial beer is filtered and pasteurized is there any

          problem with storing the beer in an 80 degree dining room

          versus a 60 degree basement (assuming light is not a

          factor)? How about a 100 degree attic?

               Also, if I keep one 6-pack in my 65 degree basement as

          a control and then daily rotate a second 6-pack between my

          35 degree refrigerator and my 80 degree laundry room will

          any differences in taste result?  Will the rotated beer

          deteriorate more quickly?  Will a commercial beer which is

          constantly changing in temperature by as much as a 50 degree

          delta deteriorate more quickly than beer constantly sitting

          in a warm room?

               Finally, how different would the test results be if I

          chose to also sacrifice (shudder!) a 6-pack of home-brew in

          this experiment?

               I appreciate the help & information.

          Andy A

------------------------------


soot: take 2

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 15:24:01 EDT

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: soot: take 2

I'd like to thank all who responded to my cajun cooker soot problem.  I was

gratified at the response - 8 to 9 people sent me email with suggestions.

First of all, I was a boy scout :-) and I know the soap trick.  I was

not clear in my posting - it's not the cleaning of soot from the pot that

is my problem.  The cleaning is easy.  After chilling the wort, I put a large

strainer over my primary and pour the wort directly from the 10 gallon brew

kettle into the primary.  This usually means that I get soot on my hands and

clothes.  THAT's my complaint.

Two people wrote to me suggesting that a possible solution was to reduce the

size of the hole in the gas jet from 5/64" to 1/16" (when will the U.S. move

into the 20th century and use metric?).  I did this and noticed an improvement

in flame quality at low gas settings.  I'm planning to brew a batch this weekend

and see if the improvement is enough or if I'll be shopping for a new cooker.

Drew Lynch sent me a nice summary of different types of propane cookers

which I'm happy to include (with Drew's permission):

 "In my search, I found three types of burners.

  The "real" cajun cooker (what you have) has a single flame.  It has

the benefit of the highest total heat output(as high as 200,000BTU!),

and the detriment of no real adjustability. They also are very

inefficient gas-wise at the "simmer" setting.  There is no mixture

adjustability.  This is the cause of your soot problems.

  The "stove" type burner has ~100 individual flames.  It usually has

the lowest output (~20,000-40,000 BTU) and the best adjustability.  It

is very gas efficient.  The mixture need not be adjusted on these.

  The King Kooker company produces a hybrid of the two types(which I

have).  It has approximately 30 individual flames, 145,000 BTU and

decent adjustability. The efficiency is in between the two listed

above. To get an ideal burn, the mixture adjustment plate would be

moved when you switch from "nuke" to "simmer".  In practice, the wide

open setting seems to work well enough all the time, and I get minimal

soot marks on the bottom of my brewkettle.

  I am very happy with the model I have.  For a given batch, I heat 5

gallons of mash water to 178F, 5 gallons of sparge water to 180F, heat

the mash from 156F to 170F, and do 90 minute boils of 5-7 gallons.  I

get about 4-6 batches from a single propane tank (20lb?).  I would

return the burner you have, if you can, and try to procure the more

adjustable version.

  I have a local (Los Altos, Ca.) source for the King Kooker of the

"right" type: Fermentation Frenzy, (415)941-9289.  Where are you

located?"

Thank you Drew.

Tom Stolfi wrote that he has a _Camp Chef Cooker_ "stove type" burner

with 35,000 BTUs that will boil 5 gallons of cool water in about 20

minutes and gets NO soot on his pot at all.  He also mentions that the

same company makes a 135,000 BTU unit.

Well, that it folks.  I wish I'd known the above info before I bought

my cooker.  I'll report the results of boiling with my modified King

Kooker next week.

Good brewing,

Tony V.

------------------------------


cold break/starters/fermenter geometry/faucets/fruit sanitation & HSA

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 15:05 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: cold break/starters/fermenter geometry/faucets/fruit sanitation & HSA

Raymond writes:

>js writes (on cold break separation)

>

>>I also suspect the whole discussion is irrelevant to those of us using

>> imersion chillers as the hot/cold break is conveniently left behind in the

>> kettle when the chilled wort is drawn off.

>

>Actually, immersion chillers do not give a well-defined cold break due

>to the more gradual temperature drop.

I get a very well-defined cold break with my immersion chiller (50' x 1/4"),

so much so, that it looks like French Onion soup till I stir gently.

******************

ROB writes:

>I want to make a yeast starter for my next batch, the problem is that I

>dont have any DME to make it with. Can I just use a corn sugar/water

>solution. If so who much water and corn sugar. Also is it true the more

>sugar the higher the yeast count. I use dry yeast, does this take longer to

>start? How long do you leave the starter before pitching?

I suggest you  get some DME and then first re-hydrate the dry yeast in

104-110F sterile water for 15 to 30 minutes before adding it to a 1020

DME starter for a day or two.  Starters made from corn sugar have proven

to make for a sizable yeast mass, but that the yeast subsequently has

difficulty fermenting mixed-sugar (glucose, fructose, maltose, etc.) wort.

It's best to start on wort.  There are arguments on whether it's better to

start the yeast on a 1020 OG starter or on a starter that is more like

the wort they will be fermenting.  I use a 1020-1030 OG starter.  I've

found that the yeast starts faster in lower gravity starters (this is

in-line with Wyeast Labs' findings and recommendations).  I believe that

the ideal situation would be stepped-gravity starters -- first 1020, tben

1030, then 1040, finally pitching into the wort, but I don't go through

all that trouble.

********************

JC writes:

>1)  I have been doing some experiments fermenting in 5 gal glass carboys and

>    5 gal SS soda kegs.  I have found that the beers in the soda kegs all take

>    much longer to ferment out.  I think it is do to the geometry.  Has

>    anyone else noticed this?  I have heard of some people fermenting in

DeKlerk wrote that fermenter geometry is an important factor and says

basically that a short, wide fermenter is better than a tall narrow one.

I know that George Fix ferments in 1/4 barrel kegs partly for this very

reason.

***************

Paul writes:

> In reference to fridges or freezers and the cold air falling out when

>you open the door, I finally broke down and installed a stem tap through the

>door of the keg fridge.  It is the thrill of a lifetime, drilling a hole

>through the fridge door!  It was so much fun (and the tap looked so much more

>professional than fumbling inside with the hoses) that I sprung for two more.

>I justify the cost by the electric I will save during the 10 month Galveston

>summer, not opening the door to draw a beer.

I had considered this also, but backed-off when I read that some people have

problems with mold in the faucet.  I've found that if I don't drink from a

particular keg for two weeks or so, a big glob of mold forms in the faucet.

This, despite the fact that I have my faucets INSIDE the fridge at 54F.

If you use the faucets every day, you shouldn't have any problems.

*****************

Tom writes:

>In HBD 1146, Bryan Kornreich asks

>

>> How on Earth do you press your fruity wort (to get the juice out of the pulp)

>> with any hint of sterility.

>

>I keep my (large wooden) spoon and strainer in the pot during the end of the

>boil to sterilize them.  Since the Wheat Berry recipe used a partial boil,

>you can just take the implements out, set the strainer on the funnel, and

>start pouring the wort.  When the strainer fills with hops and fruit, I

>press it with the spoon to extract the last bit of fruit juice, then toss

>the strainer contents and repeat the process until all of the wort is in

>the carboy.  Then I slap a clean cork in, let it sit for a few hours to get

>to pitching temperature, and add about a quart of yeast starter.

This implies that you pour hot wort through a strainer.  If this is true,

then you are aerating the hot wort (Hot-Side Aeration or HSA) which is

causing a considerable amount of oxidation of the wort.  George Fix has

a great article in a recent Zymurgy on Hot-Side Aeration, which explains

in detail the problems with HSA.

Al.

------------------------------


RE: Fridge Question

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 16:43:09 EDT

From: jdsgeoac@osg.saic.com (Karen Jdsgeoac Hyrum GEOACOUSTIC)

Subject: RE: Fridge Question

JC Ferguson asked a few days ago how to modify a double dorm fridge to

fit 5 gallon kegs. I did this a few years ago as follows:

The U shaped freezer was attached to the to of the fridge with 4 clips.

Remove these clips.  The freezer/cooling plate is now supported by the

incoming freon line.  I carefully pushed the U shaped freezer down and

back so that the large part of the plate was parallel to the back of the

fridge.  This operation is tricky since there is some dange of crushing

or splitting the freon line.  I however had no problem , and the fridge

has been working fine for about two years like this.

Hyrum Laney

------------------------------


SO4 and hops

Date:  Wed, 26 May 1993 05:07:01 -0800

From: scott@fm.gi.alaska.edu (Scott Stihler (USGS analyst))

Subject: SO4 and hops

Hello folks,

I've been working on an article on hops for the Fairbanks homebrew club's

newsletter and I've come across several references to the fact that SO4 somehow

enhances hop bitters. However, I've never come across any explanation as to why

this is the case. Does anybody out there have any comments in this regard?

 - Scott Stihler

P.S. Should anybody in the unlikely event be in Fairbanks on June 19th, we're

     having our annual summer equinox meeting and you're invited.

------------------------------


More soot on pots...

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 14:13:51 PST

From: Hugh R Bynum <Hugh_R_Bynum@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: More soot on pots...

A number of articles in HBD 1149 suggested the tried-and-true Boy Scout

method for easily removing soot on SS pots.  Keep in mind that if your

propane cooker is burning with a yellow flame and making enough soot to

be a problem, it's also generating some carbon monoxide.  CO is

generated when hydrocarbons (e.g., propane) don't burn completely due to

insufficient oxygen.  It's colorless, heavier than air, and highly

poisonous.  In nonlethal amounts, prolonged exposure can leave you with

nausea and a splitting headache.

If you want to solve the problem and not just the symptom, try adjusting

the damper plate on the gas inlet to your cooker.  On my "Superior"(tm)

propane burner, it's a slotted disk that fits over the air intake on the

cast iron part of the burner, just behind the gas inlet valve.  Fully

open, there's enough air to blow the flame off the jets; closed down, it

burns bright yellow.  With a few tweaks, I was able to get it adjusted

for a clean blue flame through the full range between a simmer and full

throttle.  While the Superior burner is rated at 35,000 BTU, I would

guess that the 200,000 BTU King Kooker is fairly adjustable through its

full output range as well.  Good luck!

Hugh Bynum

Portland, Oregon

hugh@littlei.intel.com

------------------------------


Brewing Techniques address

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 17:12:04 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Brewing Techniques address

I figured this address had appeared enough times recently, but mail I

got today has convinced me otherwise.  Here it is, again:

                        Brewing Techniques

                        P. O. Box 3076

                        Eugene, OR 97403

A charter subscription is $24/6 issues (1 year).

=S

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1150, 05/27/93

*************************************

-------


Ferment too quick?!?

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 17:15:58 edt

From: Paul_Szabady@DGC.ceo.dg.com

Subject: Ferment too quick?!?

Message:

I was wondering if anyone out there in HBD-land has tried the recipe

for Armenian Imperial Stout from TNCJOHB.   I just brewed a batch

using this recipe this past sunday night.  I pitched the yeast (that

came with the "M&F Old ALe Kit" first thing monday about 6:30am.  By

about 8pm, I had a nice ferment going.  Tuesday am, I switched from an

overflowing airlock to a hose and pan of water due to an extremely

vigorous ferment.  Wed at about 1am I switched back to my airlock and

was pleased with a "once every 15sec glug".  By noon on wed, I seem

to have practically stopped fermenting.  I've been making homebrew

for about 6 years now and have never seen a recipe with this amount

of malt (almost 11 lbs - $33.00 for supplies!!!) finish soooo quick.

Barely 54hrs.  I'm thinking maybe I should've spent a little more and

got a better yeast.  Any suggestions/comments????  Should I pitch

more yeast???   I broke my hydrometer a while ago and haven't

replaced it yet so I don't have any sg readings.

Email direct or post...TIA ps

------------------------------


bleach and ss

Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 23:18:49 -0500

From: donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: bleach and ss

i'd like to clear up some confusion evident in al's post yesterday.  al's

confusion is significant, although understandable.

al is confused regarding sodium hypochlorite, chlorine water and bleach.

bleach is a dilute, about 5%, aqueous solution of sodium hypochlorite.

chlorine water is water with hypochlorous acid.  sodium

hypochlorite is the sodium salt of the acid.  i doubt that anyone is using

either sodium hypochlorite or chlorine gas for sanitizing their SS pots

or kegs.  although the reactivity of chlorine water and sodium

hypochlorite with SS is mildly interesting and contained in both the

cole-parmer and granger catalogs, it's not pertinent to the issue.

as i mentioned earlier, the table in the granger catalog suggest there

is no reactivity between 304 and 316 ss and bleach.  curiously, the

cole-parmer table al has is in perfect agreement on this point.

it's under "chlorox (bleach)".

my own experience agrees with the data in al's coleparmer table and the

granger catalog.  i used to use about 1 teaspoon of bleach per gallon

of water in sanitizing kegs (304 ss) and have observed no effect whatsoever

with exposures typically of 30 minutes to 1 hour.  it is best to be

cautious however.  it's easy to confuse aluminum for SS and the granger

catalog suggests bleach is reactive with aluminum.  curiously, the cole-

parmer catalog says that bleach does not react with aluminum.  these

tables are only guidelines.  no details as the conditions of the test

such as length of exposure are given.

al is also confused about the nature of silicon and silicone.  the one with

the 'e' has a long 'o' as in conehead.  although they are spelled similarly,

the difference between silicon and silicone is similar to the difference

between graphite and plastic.  al's confusion led him to erroneously

state that there is no reactivity between beer and silicon.  closer examination

of the cole-parmer table will reveal that there is no reactivity between beer

and siliconE.  as i said earlier, the granger catalog indicates that beer is

reactive with silicon but who cares.

------------------------------


breadmachines

Date: Thu, 27 May 93 00:23:46 edt

From: Kim_Kiesow@DGC.ceo.dg.com

Subject: breadmachines

Message:

Thanx for the recipes I received for beerbread using my machine. And

as far as using the "goop" from the bottom of the fermemter(sp?)it

sounds like the breadmachines do not allow enough time for the bread

to rise properly. I will most likely give it a try anyway. :*]

------------------------------


Brewing Techniques

Date: Thu, 27 May 93 08:12:46 PDT

From: "Bob Jones"  <novax.llnl.gov@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Brewing Techniques

Is anyone at brewing Techniques reachable via email? Someone knowledgable

about subscription info. that is.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Manhattan Brewing/Bud in Europe

Date: Thu, 27 May 93 11:21:06 -0400

From: driscoll@curacao.dartmouth.edu (Jim Driscoll)

Subject: Manhattan Brewing/Bud in Europe

Danial Roman asked for a scouting reported from the newly reopened

Manhattan Brewing Company ("New York's Working Brewery & Restaurant",

42 Thompson Street, New York, NY 10013, (212) 925-1515, Fax (212)

925-7051, Opens at 5:00pm for dinner, with lunch hours to be added

soon.)

Up from the street level a flight or two, you find an open space with

2 large (~100 BBL) copper kettles dominating a small dance floor, a

bar with hand pumps, some table seating in the center, and above the

bar additional table seating.  On tap are 5 ales, from which I sampled

the Brown Ale, India Pale Ale and their Amber Ale.  Mixed drinks and

wine can also be had from the bar, but their is no evidence of any

beer other than those house brewed.  I didn't stay for dinner, but the

menu, along with everything else, seems hardly changed from its

previous incarnation.

You might find Garrett Oliver running around in a white lab coat with

a patch marked MBAA (for the Master Brewers Association of the

Americas), which readily identifies him as the brewmaster.  Garret was

the former assistant brewer at Manhattan and he was kind enough to

take me up a floor and show me their brewery.  They have a 7 and a 12

BBL steam jacketed kettle with agaitation.  They mash in the M&F malt

in the kettle and do a temperature program mash (Michael Lewis of UC

Davis derides the term step-infusion mash as ``homebrew language'')

and then pump the mash to the lauter tun with a v-wire mesh false

bottom.  They use only whole hops in the boil.  Fermentation takes

place in open fermenters with top fermentaing yeasts.  From the open

fementors the green beer goes into one of their 15 or so 7 BBL grundys

in a cold room where it undergoes a secondary fermentation and is

racked to a serving grundy which dispenses to the bar below under

pressure.

Garrett is an enthusiastic brewer and mentioned some exciting and

unusual brews that he plans on producing once the new operation

settles down a bit.  When in the NY metro area you should support the

local brewers by checking this place out as well as Zip City

(Manhattan) and Mountain Valley Brewpub (Suffern, NY).

- ---

Richard Akerboom notes that AB would have to change the name of Bud in

Europe since the Czechs have rights to the name Budwiser there.  This

is in fact what they do.  If you grab a long neck ``Bud'' here the

label says Budwiser, but in Europe when you grab a ``Bud'' the label

says just that: Bud.  I guess they want to be their Bud too.

(Actually, the only place I have personally seen this Bud was in a

specialty beer store in Mechelen, Belgium.)

  Jim Driscoll

  Driscoll Brewing

  (908) 665-8333

  (908) 665-8355 Fax

------------------------------


re-using yeast

Date: 27 May 1993 08:35:08 PST

From: "JSDAWS1@PROFSSR" <JSDAWS1@PB1.PacBell.COM>

Subject: re-using yeast

Due in part to things I've read here re; yeast culturing, I decided to try

an experiment with my last batch.  A couple weeks back, I took a 3 gal.

keg of SNPA-clone pale ale to a picnic.  It ocurred to me that, since the

beer was clean (and tasty) and had yeast cultured from an SNPA 6-pack,

why not just let the dregs sit in the keg under preasure at room temp

until I brewed again (last Saturday) then simply pop the lid, add 1 cup

sterile cool water, swish it around, and dump directly into the primary.

Fermentation started within 12 hrs and smells clean.  It's a slow ferment

as are most that I do with SNPA but smells clean.   Questions:

  -  can anyone see potentiial problems or drawbacks with this method

  -  how long might clean yeast be held under preasure this way before it

     loses viability.

One other question....  I recently bought WYEAST packs for both british

ale and Lonmdon ALe (forget the #'s).  Can someone tell me what the difference

in these yeasts are based on their experiences, and which styles of ales

they might match up best with.

Thx

|    If it's good for ancient druids runnin naked thru the woods      |

|   drinkin strange fermented fluids then it's good enough for me.    |

| JACK DAWSON  -  JSDAWS1  -  415 545-0299  -  CUSTOMER BILLING  (BG) |

------------------------------


New Orleans Brewpubs

Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 12:19:53 -0500 (CDT)

From: brewmstr@genesis.mcs.com (Jim Bayer)

Subject: New Orleans Brewpubs

Mary Dabney Wilson asks about brewpubs in New Orelans:

Mary,

I was just in New Orleans and there is a new(er) brewpub there called

Crescent City Brewhouse.  The place is very nice and the beer isn't

bad either.  There's also an oyster bar and live entertainment.  I

especially enjoyed the Weissbeer they had.  They also have a Marzen they

call Red Stallion.  If I recall correctly, you can get a sampler of all

of their current brews.  You can see the copper mash kettles on the first

floor and the stainless holding tanks on the second, but they don't give

any brewery tour (like Goose Island does in Chicago)

Be sure to check out the t-shirts.  I like the logo and the stallion

on the back.  I bought one right away!

It's located between St. Louis (for sure) and Tolouse (I think)

right off the waterfront (Decatur?).

Don't get confused about the Jackson Brewery (Jacks), it's just a

shopping mall conversion of a real brewery.  The only thing at Jacks

is Budmilloors.

Jim Bayer

brewmstr@genesis.mcs.com

------------------------------


Hoegaarden Replication

Date: Thu, 27 May 93 14:00:08 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Hoegaarden Replication

Randy Mosher suggests tossing 1/4c of flour into the boil to get the

typical haziness of a White beer.

I haven't tried it.

=S

------------------------------


Marigold Ale

Date: Thu, 27 May 93 14:28:44 EDT

From: <geotex@engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Marigold Ale

Has anyone made Marigold Ale as listed on 6-2 in The Cat's Meow II?

I am thinking about starting up a batch, but I have never made such a

high alcohol brew.

I would be interested in hearing about the fermentation time (primary

and secondary) and aging time (in bottles).

Any other advice would also be appreciated.

Thanks!

Alex

geotex@engin.umich.edu

------------------------------


Close brush with disaster

Date: Thu, 27 May 93 19:15 GMT

From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>

Subject: Close brush with disaster

I'll set the scene:

Here I am at work, hustling to get things wrapped up so I can

head off tomorrow (Friday) for Belgium.  I'm looking forward to

lambic hunting, while my friends over there are combing the

countryside for rare and unusual brews made in farmhouses,

basements, garages and what have you for our week of

overindulgence.  I'm packing up two sixes of my own beer for

field testing, and bringing along several bottles of Celis for

presents.  In other words, all is nearly ready for a peak snob

beer experience.  Now it's time for lunch.

I walk out the door and down the street to our usual lunch place

and walk straight into................................a Bud Lite

commercial!  There they were...camera crews, mountains of

equipment, people trying to look important, cases and cases of

the vile stuff, workers everywhere hanging neon Bud Light signs

where there'd never been any before, and a gathering tribe of

bimbos and guys named Biff.

During lunch it turned out I'd sat down next to the crew, who

were reviewing takes from their recent shooting in Baltimore.

Must've seen the Bud Light truck drive by Baltimore's Washington

Monument at least twenty times.  Lots of in-bar photos of guys

named Biff touting Bud Light.  Babes named Gina and Tiffany,

touting Bud Light.  Dogs, touting Bud Light.  My lunch companions

and I (NOT the crew!) could not contain our amusement and got

some nasty looks.

That was close, though.  What would the homebrew world think if

my face showed up in an ad for this pathetic stuff?  It would be

almost as bad as being in a Sam Adams commercial!  (Of course,

nobody here knows what I look like, but...)

Looking forward to better things,

Phil Seitz

PSEITZ@MCIMAIL.COM

P.S. On second thought, perhaps I could infiltrate their evil

organization, swap some bottles, and change history?

------------------------------


Rot on hops leaves?

Date: Thu, 27 May 93 16:53:18 -0400

From: sxs32@po.CWRU.Edu (Subbakrishna Shankar)

Subject: Rot on hops leaves?

 I've noticed some yellow/brown rust like discoloration on the lower

leaves of my hops vines recently and am concerned (not worrying) that it

might be a symptom of a fungal infection. This is the second year in the

ground for these rhizomes, and the vines are already at 12-15 ft and

growing vigorously.  Last year we had a cold, wet summer here in Cleveland,

so the vines reached 10 ft only by the end of the summer and failed to

produce any flowers.  I also found plenty of slugs and aphids.  This year

the weather has been warmer and drier, and I have not seen any slugs or

aphids.  I have of course watered and fertilized the plants.

 Has anyone else seen this discoloration?  Is it a lack of a certain

nutrient or is it indeed a disease?  How can I safely get rid of it?

Thanks in advance for your help.

- --

Subba Shankar

E-mail: sxs32@po.cwru.edu (Internet)    U.S. Snail: Dept. of Neurosciences

Voice:  (216)368-2195                               Case Western Reserve U.

FAX:    (216)368-4650                               Cleveland, OH 44106

------------------------------


Correcting My Previous Post about IBUs

Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 17:24:55

From: garetz@brahms.amd.com (Mark Garetz)

Subject: Correcting My Previous Post about IBUs

Rick Garvin sent me a private email saying he was a bit confused about my

post requesting feedback on Jackie Rager's utilization chart.  I guess I

mixed up my "too highs" and my "too lows".  Let's try again:

I was asking whether people thought that Rager's chart numbers were too high

or not.  Then I went on to ask "if they were too low, by how much..."  I

really meant to ask:  If you think that Rager's numbers for utilization are

too high, then how much would you lower them?

Thanks again,

Mark from HopTech

------------------------------


Beer in Japan

Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 21:56:11 -0400 (EDT)

From: Bryan Kornreich <bkornrei@pennsy.med.jhu.edu>

Subject: Beer in Japan

Hey all,

    Firstly, I want to thank everyone who responded with their opinions on

the importance of secondary fermentations and with hints on obtaining

banana ester formation in beers.

     I was wondering if anyone knows any place to obtain real beer in

Japan.  I have heard all sorts of horror stories about the big 4 brewers

over there hiding knowledge of real beer from the Japanese public.  All I

have ever seen there in the past are a small variety of American Pilsner

clones.  Pretty gross; it actually drove me to drinking lots of sake--not

necessarily a bad thing, but this summer I'm going to be over there for

two whole months, and I don't know if I'll make it without a true ale,

bock, or stout to tide me over until my return.  If anyone knows of a nice

brewpub, or even any sort of place with good beer in Tsukuba (where I'll

be) or Tokyo (not too far away)--I'd really appreciate it.

    And if anyone who gets this list is in Tsukuba or Tokyo now, or will

be this summer, drop me an E-mail, and maybe we'll be able to set out in

search of beer together.

                Thanks,

                     Bryan

------------------------------


hoptech.com now active!

Date: Thu, 27 May 93 23:21:15 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: hoptech.com now active!

Just wanted to let you all know that HopTech now can receive email

directly and now has it's own domain.  You can email to: mgaretz@hoptech.com

Mark at HopTech

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1151, 05/28/93

*************************************

-------


Cleaining stainless steel

Date: Thu, 27 May 93 13:01:55 EDT

From: rgarvin@btg.com (Rick Garvin)

Subject: Cleaining stainless steel

For cleaing my stainless steel boilers I use a non-scratch

bathroom scotch-brite pad like 3M makes. I have found that

a lot of other brands can scratch stainless.

To remove beerstone and other gunk that does not come off

I use standard cheap white vinegar and the same type of

pad. This works quite dramatically even on caramelized

wort.

Cheers, Rick

------------------------------


Re: New Orleans brewpubs?

Date: Thu, 27 May 93 16:00:14 -0400

From: David Adams <tmc!david@uunet.UU.NET>

Subject: Re: New Orleans brewpubs?

Mary Dabney Wilson  <WILSON@library.uta.edu> asks...

> I will be traveling to New Orleans and want to know if there are

any

> good brewpubs.  Any recommendations?

>

The only brewpub I found when I was there last month was the Crescent

City Brewpub, and I hate to be negative, but I must say I was

singularly unimpressed.  I only had a weiss beer (actually about a

half of a weiss beer, I was unable to bring myself to finishing it.)

A group of 7 friends gathered there, and no one was interested in

going back.  In all fairness, I had just finished a rather wicked

hurricane when I got there, so my taste buds (not to mention my

vision, my sense of balance, or my speech) were not in top form.

One positive recommendation:  drink Abita beer while you are in New

Orleans, especially Abita Turbo Dog.  And if you get outside of the

city, try to visit the brewery.  Good people; wonderful beer.

- -- Dave

=====================================================================

   /vvvvvvv/   David Adams               :

   /       /   Monitor Company           :

   -|-     |   Information Engineering   :   This space intentionally

   OO---&) |                             :

   (       |   david@monitor.com -OR-    :         left blank

    |      |      uunet!tmc!david        :

=====================================================================

------------------------------


Re: Ferment too quick?!?

Date: Fri, 28 May 93 07:36:16 EDT

From: Jim.Beauvais@East.Sun.COM (Jim Beauvais - CONTRACTOR HRIS)

Subject: Re: Ferment too quick?!?

Paul writes;


Ferment too quick?!?

Date: Wed, 26 May 93 17:15:58 edt

From: Paul_Szabady@DGC.ceo.dg.com

Subject: Ferment too quick?!?

Message:

I was wondering if anyone out there in HBD-land has tried the recipe

for Armenian Imperial Stout from TNCJOHB.   I just brewed a batch

using this recipe this past sunday night.  I pitched the yeast (that

came with the "M&F Old ALe Kit" first thing monday about 6:30am.  By

about 8pm, I had a nice ferment going.  Tuesday am, I switched from an

overflowing airlock to a hose and pan of water due to an extremely

vigorous ferment.  Wed at about 1am I switched back to my airlock and

was pleased with a "once every 15sec glug".  By noon on wed, I seem

to have practically stopped fermenting.  I've been making homebrew

for about 6 years now and have never seen a recipe with this amount

of malt (almost 11 lbs - $33.00 for supplies!!!) finish soooo quick.

Barely 54hrs.  I'm thinking maybe I should've spent a little more and

got a better yeast.  Any suggestions/comments????  Should I pitch

more yeast???   I broke my hydrometer a while ago and haven't

replaced it yet so I don't have any sg readings.

Email direct or post...TIA ps

_----------------------

Well the first thing i would do is get a new hydrometer, how quick the batch

appears to finish is not accurate enough.  i have seen batches of stout become

extreamly vigorous, comming out the top of the fermemnter then after dropping

about 0.10 to 0.20 in 48 hours to a slow steady drop over a period of up to

5 days! This of course is somewhat dependent on the yeast used, but before doing

anything but waiting, BUY A NEW HYDROMETER!

jim

IBC,Ltd

------------------------------


European Bud rights...

Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 08:39:06 +0200 (MET DST)

From: Kurt Swanson <Kurt.Swanson@dna.lth.se>

Subject: European Bud rights...

Richard Akerboom (akerboom@dartmouth.edu) wrote:

> If Anheuser-Busch were to import US Bud, they would have to change

> the name, as the Czechs have the rights to the name in Europe. At

> least until A-B buys them out, which I hope never happens.

First of all this is not true.  The Czech company does not "own the

rights in Europe."  There is no such thing as a European patent

office.  Rights to trademarks are secured in every country.  And this

being the case, Anheuser-Busch products are widely available in a few

countries here.  In this country, Sweden, one can get US Bud (in all 3

strength classes - the least of which allowing it to be advertised on

tv), Schiltz, Michelob, Sam Adams (arggh!), Anchor Steam, and various

temporary products.  But you can also get the superior Czech Bud...

which happens to be the cheapest class 2 beer (up to 4.5%/vol)... By

the way, the better Czech pilsner (IMHO), Pilsner Urquell (also given

a german name - as if that was a good thing) - is the cheapest class 3

beer sold here (up to 5.6%/vol)...

- --

Kurt Swanson, Dept. of Computer Science,

Lunds universitet.  Kurt.Swanson@dna.lth.se

------------------------------


European Bud...

Date: Fri, 28 May 1993 10:02:23 +0200 (MET DST)

From: Kurt Swanson <Kurt.Swanson@dna.lth.se>

Subject: European Bud...

[I don't know why my previous post didn't make it, but here's the gist

of what I attempted to say before]

The is NO European trademark office.  Each country has its own, and

thus has the right to decide a difficult question - who has the right

to the name "Budweiser".  Here in Sweden, both products are sold -

with no difference in name.  In other countries US Bud is "Bud."  But

it is certainly not an equivalent situation in all of Europe.  In any

case, I read in a recent issue of CAMRA's "What's Brewing," that AB

and the Czech firm have come to an agreement in terms of marketing, so

that both products would be marketable in all countries...

P.S.  Besides BUD, we in Sweden can buy Schlitz, Michelob, Sam Adams

(arggh!), and Anchor Steam, as well as a few other temporary

products...

- --

Kurt Swanson, Dept. of Computer Science,

Lunds universitet.  Kurt.Swanson@dna.lth.se

------------------------------


Beer Festival Info

Date: 28 May 1993 08:07:08 GMT

From: "Tom Stolfi" <WAUTS@CWEMAIL.ceco.com>

Subject: Beer Festival Info

For those requesting more info on the Southport Beer Festival,

please resend your request and include yourfull email address.

Our REPLY option is not addressing properly.

Tom Stolfi

wauts@cwemail.ceco.com

------------------------------


litmus papers, Cambridge (MA, USA) water

Date: Fri, 28 May 93 10:36:30 EDT

From: pgs@ai.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)

Subject: litmus papers, Cambridge (MA, USA) water

I made my first partial mash last weekend, and ran into a problem.  I

was following the instructions in Miller's "Complete Handbook of Home

Brewing."  My problem was with the litmus papers I found at the local

brewing shop (The Modern Brewer).  I thought that the range was

appropriate (4.6 -- 6.2), but according to the chart and also to my

own results, the variation in color over the range was quite narrow --

tan to a rather light brown.  The result was that I had a very hard

time telling whether my mash pH was in the right range.  So here is my

question:

Does anyone know a retail source of good litmus papers that have a

greater variation in color over this range, or perhaps a range of only

5.0 -- 5.5?  A shop in the greater Boston area or a mail-order house

would be best.  The Cole-Parmer and Edmund Scientific catalogs I have

don't have litmus papers -- only pH meters.

Speaking of pH meters, the cheapest ones do not have detachable

electrodes.  Can someone with experience in these matters tell me how

long I might expect the electrodes on these meters to last if one is

only using them in brewing, where only mildly acidic solutions are

encountered?

Next topic.  Because my local brewing shop didn't have this

information, I thought I would post for interested homebrewers in the

area the assay I got from the Cambridge Water Department.  I didn't

actually get to talk to a chemist, so I wasn't able to get anything

about seasonal variation from them, but this is interesting all the

same.  Miller's book leads me to believe that the number listed as

"Alkalinity" refers to the total amount of both carbonate and

bicarbonate.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------

Source: Cambridge Water Department

        Operations Report (03/23/93)

Comparison of Cambridge Tap w/EPA & State Standards for 1993

Parameter               Finished Water          EPA & State Standards

                          (mg/l)                  (mg/l)

- ---------               --------------          ---------------------

Alkalinity               21                       ---

pH                        8.43                    ---

Dissolved Solids        230                     500

Conductivity            354 umhos/cm@25C          ---

Turbidity                <0.1 N.T.U.              0.5 N.T.U.

Free Chlorine             0.1                     ---

Total Chlorine            1.0                     ---

Color                    <5 color units          15 color units

Chloride                 58                     250

Nitrate                   0.60                   10

Sulfate                  28                     250

Aluminum                 <0.10                    0.05 -- 2.0

Arsenic                  <0.005                   0.50

Barium                   <0.10                    1.00

Cadmium                  <0.010                   0.01

Calcium                  17                       ---

Chromium                 <0.02                    0.05

Lead                     <0.005                   0.015

Magnesium                 3.2                     ---

Manganese                 0.022                   0.05

Mercury                  <0.0002                 <0.002

Selenium                 <0.010                   0.01

Silica                    3.1                     ---

Silver                   <0.02                    0.50

Sodium                   32                      20

Zinc                      0.024                   5

Total Coliform            0 C.F.U./100ml          0 C.F.U./ml

Standard Plate Count     10 C.F.U./100ml        500 C.F.U./ml

Langlier Saturation (corrosion) Index:  -1.0

Total Trihalomethanes; SWDA TTHM M.C.L.

 The M.C.L. is a Four Quarter Average of 100 ppb

   Current Four Quarters Data Average:    64 ppb

                   1993 (sic) Average:    17 ppb

No other regulated volatile organics, pesticides or herbicides are found.

Sample Collected  Feb. 11, 1993, Payson Park Reservoir

Camp, Dresser & McKee, Inc. Laboratory Services, Mass. Cert. I.D. MA012

- ----------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Dubbel,Steam

Date:    Fri, 28 May 1993 11:05:44 -0400 (EDT)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: Dubbel,Steam

   A double batch of Belgian Dubbel Ale and Steam (tm) (a trademark that

deserves one, btw) Beer, fermented at high gravity and diluted at kegging:

     5 lbs. light Munich

     2 lbs. light Vienna

  1.15 lbs. crystal (60L ?)

 10.35 lbs. M&F 2-row

     2 lbs. turbinado sugar

     1 oz. Centennial whole hops (90 minutes boil)

     2 oz. Saaz whole hops (added at end of boil, steeped while chilling)

     2 tsp Irish Moss (15 minutes)

Single-step infusion by mashing in with 20 qts. water at ~170 degrees.  My

notes have "17" with no 3rd digit, but it's commonly 170-172 degrees.

Conversion at 156 degrees for 4 hours (probably done much sooner; I was

busy).  Pour mash into 10 gallon cooler lauter-tun.  Top off with boiling

water.  Stir.  Let settle 30 minutes.  Drain, recirculate 2 gallons.

Boil 90 minutes, leaving about 8 gallons at 1.070 (not measured).

Rack ~5 gallons onto slurry from a previous batch of Belgian ale.  The yeast

had been cultured from bottle of Chimay.

Rack the remainder (~3 gallons) into another carboy.  Pitch with Wyeast

California Common (aka Steam) slurry from a previous batch.

Ferment the Belgian at 60-70 degrees.  Yes, that's a wide fluctuation.

I tried to keep it warm by surrounding the carboy with gallons of hot

water.  It works, but eventually the cool cellar temps win out.

Ferment the Steam at 55-58 degrees.

No secondary fermentations.

Keg the Dubbel after 16 days.  Had to add 3/4 gallon of boiled/cooled

water to fill 5 gallon keg.  FG: 1.012 (before adding water).  Fruity,

but no bananas.  Some bubblegum.  More spice/clove.  Did I say fruity?

Very fruity, in a very nice way. Strong, alcoholic, rum flavors/aromas,

maybe from the t.sugar. Dark brown. Stayed cloudy until just recently.

A unique and delicious beer; I've taken to drinking it from a wine glass.

Keg the steam after 37 days.  Had to add ~ 2 gallons of boiled/cooled

water to fill 5 gallon keg.  FG: 1.014 before adding water.  At the time

it tasted sulpherous with a homeperm(!) aroma.  Something happened as

it carbonated, though, because within a couple of days those off flavors

and aromas were gone, replaced by a Steam beer fruitiness (not at all like

the Belgian though), and a nice Saaz aroma, not noticeable in the Belgian.

A little too light body maybe, but perhaps only in comparison to the

very big body of the Dubbel.  Neither beer is very bitter, 'though the

Steam reveals the bittering hops better.  The Steam is a crystal clear

light brown color.  An excellent summer beer, if I do say so myself.

So, a grand and very successful experiment.  If your brewing time is

limited and seldom, I highly recommend this double batch/high gravity/

dilution brewing approach.

Russ Gelinas

esp/opal

unh

------------------------------


Zentner, cheese

Date: Fri, 28 May 1993 17:15:45 +0000

From: G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk (Geoff Cooper)

Subject: Zentner, cheese

Chip Hitchcock asks in a private email:

>All right, I'll bite. What's a Zentner? Teribu, perhaps?

I was afraid someone would ask that. Well, its a unit for measuring hops in,

isn't it.  Aka a big sack full :-)

I think it's 50Kg of hops (but not absolutely certain).

***************

I said that I recently had a bad experience with beer in Florida, but in fact

with the help of a few HBD contributors, I found a couple of brewpubs that

sold some very pleasant beers. May the brewpub concept prosper and flourish.

And what about American cheese? Is there any chance of a Campaign for Real

Cheese being started over there? I got the impression that the mega-cheeseries

had done the same to your cheese as the mega-breweries have done to your beer.

Plasticy, bland, virtually no variation in flavour or texture. Where did I go

wrong?

I found the good beer in Florida by asking your advice, maybe next time I'm

on your side of the pond I'll ask for advice of sources of cheese too.

Geoff

------------------------------


Budlight, Sam Adams and church

Date: Fri, 28 May 93 11:31 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: Budlight, Sam Adams and church

"A riot is an ugly thing... and it's about damn time we had one."

                         -  "Young Frankenstein"

Phil Seitz's post about infiltrating the evil empire of A-B and

substituting a homebrew for a bud light, possibly changing the

course of history, is a step in the right direction.  Radical

activism is like farting during the church sermon.  Its a

barbarous act in the face of entrenched hypocrisy.

Here in Chicago we're currently being bombarded by a wave of

Samuel Adams billboards.  It's not enough that the Chicago

tollway system is the cheapest parking in town.  To add insult to

injury you have to stop in front of one of these billboards.

Sitting in traffic for a half hour, staring at a monstrous Sam

Adams advertisement?  I still have nightmares.

During one of my more recent tollway camp-outs, I tried to avoid

staring at one of these billboards.  I did this by admiring the

architectural design of the billboard structure itself.  I was

amazed with the precision with which the welder had mounted the

ladder rungs.  These rungs marched all the way up the pole with

military precision.  It looked like a step ladder was necessary

for the billboard painters to reach the rungs from the ground.  I

became amused with the idea of donning a ninja suite, climbing

the billboard and painting the word "boycott" in huge black

letters in the foam of the billboard pint.  But alas, the traffic

started to move again, the daydream vanished and common sense

soon returned.

Although I consider myself to be a Question Authority type from

way back and a student of the Arf School of Agnosticism (ASA),  I

decided that this was something I wouldn't try.  Not because of

being scared of heights.  Not because of my history of brewing-

related accidents.  The real reason is that I can't tolerate the

I-told-you-so's while stuck in a full-body cast.

chris campanelli

------------------------------


AHA National Conference In Portland

Date: Fri, 28 May 93 12:13 CDT

From: fjdobner@ihlpb.att.com

Subject: AHA National Conference In Portland

All,

For those interested in going to the national conference this year,

I would like to know if there is something special that the HBD crowd

should organize while there? Perhaps it is customary for this group

to identify themselves by a charcateristic identifier (scarlet letter,

black armband..).

I would like to meet the faces behind the e-mail addresses and I thought

maybe our own activity might be a thought. Many things come to mind

but some possibilities might be:

1. A brewpub night for the HBD crowd.

2. A preconference HBD get together.

3. A postconference HBD get together

4. your proposals here.

I would be happy to help organize something but would like to know if

there is any interest. No doubt that we will see each other anyway

but some kinship may be just the thing.

If you would like to e-mail me directly and save airtime that would be

fine and I could then just give all responders the dump.

Frank Dobner

PS: I have my plane tickets, conference registration and hotel arrangements

already made. I am staying at a place up the street and saving a bit of

money

------------------------------


Czech Bud?

Date: Fri, 28 May 1993 11:29 PDT

From: shane <DEICHMAN@perch.nosc.mil>

Subject: Czech Bud?

O.K., I know -- I'm still clueless in California...

  I posted some erroneous info on "Bud in Germany" recently,

and was promptly corrected by some more astute zymurgophiles.

However, I deleted the message explaining the Czech Bud -- so

could whomever is aware of this please resend?

  Spaseeba! :-)

 -shane

<deichman@perch.nosc.mil>

------------------------------


Aluminum reactivity

Date: Fri, 28 May 93 12:18:32 -0700

From: arne thormodsen <arnet@kaibutsu.cup.hp.com>

Subject: Aluminum reactivity

>Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 23:18:49 -0500

>From: donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

>Subject: bleach and ss

>

>curiously, the cole-

>parmer catalog says that bleach does not react with aluminum.  these

>tables are only guidelines.  no details as the conditions of the test

>such as length of exposure are given.

Aluminum has some pretty unusual properties which are probably relevant

here.  It is unstable in the presence of oxygen, water, acids and bases,

BUT it is normally covered with a layer of oxide which prevents these

corrosives from reaching the actual metal.  If you manage to amalgamate

a bit of mercury with the surface of a bit of aluminum this oxide coat

will not stick.  The piece of aluminum will corrode in air, right before

your eyes (this makes a very impressive demo)

The relevent point is that in a strong oxidizing solution, such as

concentrated bleach, the oxide coat is stablized and the aluminum is not

attacked.  If you dilute the solution too much though, the alkalinity

will overcome the oxidizing strength, and at some point the aluminum

will get attacked (I don't know the figures here).  The same phenomenon

allows concentrated, fuming, nitric acid to be transported in aluminum

containers.  God help you if you get any water in there though!

Personally I wouldn't mess with aluminum for beermaking, because it's

corrosion properties are so tricky.

- --arne (the ex-chemist)

------------------------------


keg party

Date: Fri, 28 May 93 14:31:56 EST

From: woessner@psych.purdue.edu (Leo Woessner)

Subject: keg party

   I want to make a keg of homebrew and have a summer keg party, but I cannot

afford to buy a co2 system.  I can easily get a stainless steel beer keg

since I live in a colledge town.  It will be the type with a ball in the top

  I want to prime the keg to get it carbonated.

Question #1: How do I prime the keg (amount of sugar, DME etc)

QUESTION #2: How do I get the ball out of the keg?

Question #3: Will the ball seal the keg without preasure behind it?

Question #4: If not haw can I get the ball to seal without a co2 system?

I don not think th ball will seal wihtout preasure behind it, so I have been

thinking of using a magnet to hold the ball in place while the keg is

conditioning.  Anyone with experience, knowledge, hearsay, guesses, etc..

please  send e-mail.  When I make the keg I will write a summary of

my experience.

    Thanks in advance

     Leo Woessner

------------------------------


Spontaneous Fermentation

Date: Fri, 28 May 93 14:27:33 PDT

From: Martin A. Lodahl <pbmoss!malodah@PacBell.COM>

Subject: Spontaneous Fermentation

In HOMEBREW Digest #1150, Richard Childers speculated:

> I am curious ... has anyone ever tried to induce a lambic in the Bay Area,

> or any other area which is known to harbor a particular type of yeast in

> the air ?

We're headed here for an Avernus of terminological confusion.  By

definition, a "Lambic" is Belgian, which is why those of us

experimenting with homebrewing in the style usually call our efforts

by some other name.  And yes, quite a few of us have experimented

with spontaneous fermentation.  In some cases, the results have been

vaguely similar to Lambics, but it would be asking quite a lot to

have enough similarity between the microflora of the Senne valley

and that of, say, Mill Valley to produce a beer that in any way

resembled the "real thing."  The more promising experiments have

been those using cultures of the organisms identified as having the

greatest effect on the Lambic flavor profile.

> Are 'lambic' bacteria distinct from 'lactic' bacteria, and if so, how ?

Yes, they're quite different, for the most part.  Most Lambics

have a Lactobacillus component in their makeup, but it's relatively

small and completely overshadowed in its flavor effects by the

bacterium Pediococcus damnosus (nee P. cerevisiae) and the yeasts

Brettanomyces bruxellensis and B. lambicus.  The balance of these

last two seem to vary depending on how close to Beautiful Downtown

Brussels the brewery is, with B. bruxellensis dominating in town and

B. lambicus dominating in the country.  Main alcoholic fermentation

is carried out by wild S. cerevisiae and S. bayanus, and there's a

wide spectrum of others that get into the act at one time or

another.  A simplified summary can be found in "Lambic", by

Jean-Xavier Guinard, from the Classic Beer Styles series, Brewers'

Publications, 1990.

> The Bay Area, for instance, and California in general, was where sourdough

> was evolved, and I have been given to understand that the cause of sour-

> dough's sourness is lactobacillus acidophilis. So, making an intuitive leap

> here, I have to wonder ... has anyone tried this ?

I haven't tried it in the Bay Area, but I'd guess that while a tray

of wort left out overnight and then fermented without further

incouragement would produce _something_, but I really doubt you'd

recognize it as a Lambic.  One of the reasons I say that is that if

you want a good idea of what a spontaneously-fermented beer made in

a given location will taste like, just consider the smell of

standing water.  In Brussels, puddles and gutters have a sharp,

Lambic-like "tang", instantly recognizable.

= Martin A. Lodahl      Pacific*Bell Systems Analyst =

= malodah@Pacbell.COM          Sacramento, CA           916.972.4821 =

= If it's good for ancient Druids, runnin' nekkid through the wuids, =

= Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me!  8-)   =

------------------------------


BAA humour

Date: 28 May 1993 18:26:37 -0500 (EST)

From: Sandy Cockerham <COCKERHAM_SANDRA_L@Lilly.com>

Subject: BAA humour

It figures. All along many of us have complained about the beers we were

getting from Beer Across America. Too light, too many lagers, blah,blah...

This month they sent 2 porters. I found both of them-- Catamount and Boulevard

to be so roasty/burnt that I don't really enjoy them.

What was it my Mom always said about be careful what you ask for...you may get

it ?  (Does that make it a momily)?     :)

sandy c

From: COCKERHAM SANDRA L            (MCVAX0::RX31852)

To:   VMS MAIL ADDRESSEE            (IN::"homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com")

------------------------------


Wheat Beer Recipe

Date: Fri, 28 May 1993 17:20:16 -0800

From: pohl@unixg.ubc.ca (Derrick Pohl)

Subject: Wheat Beer Recipe

In HBD #1150, Steve Boxer wrote:

>        I'm geting the ball rolling on my next brew---A Wheat Beer.  I would

>appreciate tips and recipes for a real wheat bear with lots of clove

>aroma and taste.  I would appreciate an all-grain (infusion) recipe.

>What hops should I use (Hallertau)?  Also, I plan to use Bavarian

>Wheat #3056 yeast, what is the correct temp to ferment?  Thanks in

>advance for all of the help.

Here's an all-grain recipe for a lovely wheat ale I brewed last fall which

uses Wyeast's Belgian Ale yeast rather than the Bavarian Wheat, with plenty

of nice clove aftertaste resulting.  It is a light, refreshing beer,

perfect for summer (pretty good for winter, too, which is when I drank it).

                        Belgian Wheat Ale

                        -----------------

For about 23 l:

1 tsp. Gypsum in mash water

6 lb. Pale Malt (British highly modified variety from Baird's)

3 lb. Wheat Malt

1/4 lb. Crystal Malt (light)

2/3 oz. Bramling Hops (boil 50 min.)

1/3 oz. Bramling Hops (boil 10 min.)

1/4 oz. Centennial Hops (boil 1 min., then steep for 15 min.)

Wyeast Belgian Ale yeast

S.G. 1.044

Two-stage mash:  50 deg C. for 30 min., then 66 deg C. for 45 min.

The two-stage mash is because of the wheat malt component.

Fermented at cool room temperature (around 16 deg C.).

That's it.  The light hopping is to let the wheat and yeast flavours shine

through, and they do, very nicely.  Although this is an ale, I found it

tasted best well-chilled.  It also needed a little while (about a month) in

the bottle for the yeast and hop flavours to reach an optimum balance.

Enjoy!

- -----

Derrick Pohl (pohl@unixg.ubc.ca)

UBC Faculty of Graduate Studies, Vancouver, B.C.

------------------------------


AHA Conference in Portland

Date: Fri, 28 May 93 22:34:05 EDT

From: rgarvin@btg.com (Rick Garvin)

Subject: AHA Conference in Portland

The AHA conference is rapidly approaching. I will be making the

trip from Washington, DC. While looking over the materials I was

trying to find the value added by a partial registration vs

buying tickets to the social events. I get three speakers for

$30. I got the partial anyways.

I will be going out Friday before and checking out the local culture (haha).

Anyone who will be out early also let me know and we can get together.

I am trying to convince John Mallet at Old Dominion Brewing Co to ship

homebrew kegs with his product that will be in the Oregon Brewers Fest.

He has yet to agree. Otherwise, I think I will ship a case of my brew

to the hotel. That way I can hand carry a case too.

Cheers, Rick

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1152, 05/31/93

*************************************

-------


Celis - Part 2

Date: Mon, 31 May 93 08:18:32 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Celis - Part 2

Laurie and I did get into some really detailed discussions with Peter

Camps and Kimberly Blackmon concerning the yeast they are using. Except

for Pierre-Xavier Guinard's fantastic book, and my good fortune to be

able to talk with experts like Martin Lodahl, I have not been able to

find detailed and reliable information about the strains that are preferred

for Belgian Ales. Peter is a native of Belgium, and Kimberly has taken a

course in brewing microbiology there, so this was a opportunity that could not

be passed up.

The White and Grand Cru are fermented from the same ale yeast, a strain that

originates from Belgium. A special strain of lactobacillus is also added to

the White, hence the intrinsic characteristics of their Belgian ale strain is

best seen in the Grand Cru. One will note a honey like taste and smell in this

beer. While some of this comes from "special ingredients", honey is not added,

and I feel the flavor note is primarily a fermentation product (2,3-

pentandione). How well it serves this beer! I brought some fresh bottles of

the Grand Cru to the Beer Fest at Temecula, Ca. for Martin Lodahl to taste.

He gave it high marks for both authenticity and overall quality. Comments

Martin?

The White has been highly praised in this forum, and both Laurie and I concur

with this opinion.

Whitbread ale yeast is used to ferment the Pale Bock (Belgian Pale Ale). I had

extensive discussions with Kimberly about this strain. Based on this plus

investigation of her working slants, I conjecture that it is one of the single

strain versions in the Whitbread yeast collection, and not the 3 strain

version. Peter tells me that the Whitbread yeast have found wide acceptance

among Belgium's ale brewers, and indeed their strain was obtained from

Belgium.

They brew a very fine lager called Golden, which is not widely available

outside Texas. It is cold fermented (10C), and well aged. The total cycle

time for a brew is 8 weeks. The yeast used is definitely a mixed strain.

One is a lager strain which originates from Czechosolovkia, and the other

is a Belgian ale strain. Two distinctly different colonies can be seen on

their working slants, and both are inoculated during propagation. Given the

fermentation temperatures used, it is likely that the lager strain is the

major player, however the ale strain likely introduces subtle effects in

this tasty brew. Peter tells me that such mixed strains have found acceptance

among some Belgian lager brewers.

Perhaps the most impressive thing we found at Celis is that everyone seems to

love their job and would not want to be doing anything else. Who can blame

them!

George Fix

------------------------------


Celis - Part 1

Date: Mon, 31 May 93 08:17:53 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Celis - Part 1

It was my and Laurie's good fortune to be able to visit Peter Camps (Head

Brewer at Celis) and Kimberly Blackmon (their QA Director). What terrific

people! Pierre Celis was out of town the day we visited, and we therefore

did not get a chance to meet him. Rumor has it that he is a class act as

well.

We were told that over 12 million has been put into the plant, but it

looks to to be worth five times that. Words like "attractive" and "tastefully

done" seem to apply to everything from the building to the brewhouse. Those

familiar with the special requirements of closed looped systems used in

commercial brewing will immediately recognize that some world class process

engineering went into this facility. It also impeccably clean.

Peter was besieged at the conference in New Orleans with questions about

how to brew White Beer, so we decided to spare him and keep the conversation

on a general technical/scientific level. Nevertheless, the following points

emerged:

      1. They brew four 100 hl. batches a week which go into two 200 hl.

fermenters. All of the yeast is pitched with the first brew, and the fermenter

is filled to its working capacity with the brew from the next day. They are

currently using two vessels, a combined mash/lauter tun and a brew kettle.

There is a second brew kettle in place, but is not as yet in operation. When

it goes on line, they will be able to do two brews a day. These vessels are

copper, and were built in the 1930s. They are indeed gems!

      2. Cascade, Saaz, and Willamette hop pellets are used in different

amounts for each of their beers.

      3. The White is 50% unmalted wheat and 50% pale six-row malt from

Belgium. Their other beers use a pale two-row malt from Belgium as a base.

The six-row with its high DP is needed to convert the large unmalted grain

fraction in the White.

      4. A domestic caramel malt is used, but this may soon be replaced with

one from Belgium.

      5. After the fermentation all their beer is sent through a centrifuge.

I estimate that this is roughly equivalent to a filtration at the 8-10 micron

level.

      6. All of their beers, except the White, are given a DE filtration

at the end of storage.

      7. All of their beers are flash pasteurized before packaging.

      8. Their Pale Bock is really a Belgian Pale Ale, and is fermented at

22-24C. Its alcohol content is under 4% by wt., and because of a (really

stupid) Texas law can not be called an ale.

      9. Iodophor or sometimes paracetic acid is used for sanitizing; caustic

solutions are used for cleaning.

George Fix

------------------------------


The Hop Source

Date: Mon, 31 May 93 08:54:01 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: The Hop Source

It has come to my attention that Glenn Tinseth, a person who has been on

HBD, has opened a new hop outlet. The address is the following:

             The Hop Source

             11886 Paradise Road NE

             Silverton, Oregon 97381

             503-873-2879

I do not know Glenn personally, but I am aware of his background. He was

trained as a chemist, both on the undergraduate and graduate levels. His

current full time job is with Dr. Gail Nickerson's research lab at Oregon

State. Those who saw the feature article in the first issue of Brewing

Techniques will recall that name. Dr. Nickerson is one of the leading figures

in hop research, and the labs at Oregon State are world class in every sense.

In fact, I think it is fair to say that Oregon State is to the hop industry

what MIT and Stanford are to the computer industry.

In any case, Glenn's prices seem right. For example, he has an impressive

list of imports which sell for $18.18/lb. I recently purchased 3 pounds

(one each of East Kent Golding, Styrian Golding, and Czech Saaz), and

plan to get more when the new crop comes out next fall. He also sells all

the major domestic varieties for $9.45 to $11.85 per pound.

My major interest in Glenn's operation is his ability to give us "as is"

alpha-acid data rather than values measured at harvest. For some of the

low alphas (most notably Saaz), this is important. I am also going to

urge Glenn to provide other services like doing IBUs on samples of

homebrew sent to him. Analysis like that is a piece of cake given the

type of lab he is in. There are going to be some charges for such

services, for among other things Oregon State is going to overhead on

the use of their equipment. Given the elementary nature of the assays,

I hoping the charges will not be too expensive.

Glenn deals only with whole hops, but he will not get any complaints from

me for that. Also I have no financial interest in this operation. I am

simply a very satisfied customer.

George Fix

------------------------------


Homebrewed Clear

Date: Mon, 31 May 93 10:17:57 EDT

From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

Subject: Homebrewed Clear

Hello:

 With all the talk of Miller Clear recently, I became curious.  How

do they do it exactly?  Of course, a more pertinent question may be "WHY

do they do it?"  That notwithstanding, I set out to make my own clear on a

very small scale, not in the interest of good beer, or even acceptable

beer, but out of plain curiosity.  I work in a yeast lab.  We routinely

treat amino acid solutions with activated charcoal to remove contaminating

nucleotides.  A byproduct of this treatment is that the solutions go from

yellow (before filtration) to completely clear (after). Hmmmm.  Could this

simple observation be applied to the world of brewing?  I did the

following experiment: I took 1 ml samples of three beers I have fermenting

at present: a dark lager, a cream ale, and a pale ale.  All yeast and hop

particles were removed by centrifugation.  Then I added a small amount of

activated charcoal powder to each tube, mixed for a while, and then

removed the charcoal by filtration.  The result: three tubes of absolutely

colorless liquid!  But appearance is not everything; had I really

succeeded in reproducing miller clear?  I took a tentative sniff; there

was the distinctive aroma of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.  A small taste: again,

the very soul of NOTHINGNESS.  There was a slight alcohol flavor, but I

am sure that I can tone that down in subsequent batches.  In short, the

experiment was a complete success, and I will begin large scale production

soon, beating miller into the Massachusetts market and becoming

fantastically wealthy.  Of course, when I design the packaging for this

unique product, I must avoid using words like "Boston", "beer", "the",

and "and", thereby inviting the ire (and lawsuits) of the venerable Jim

Koch.  Perhaps a totally blank white label would be appropriate (Jim has

already aquired the rights to red, blue and silver); when people walk into

their neighborhood tavern and say nothing, they will be

served a frosty mug of ""!

      dave.

------------------------------


Re: Zentner, cheese

Date: Mon, 31 May 93 09:39:25 -0500

From: zentner@ecn.purdue.edu (Mike Zentner)

Subject: Re: Zentner, cheese

Geoff Cooper writes:

>Chip Hitchcock asks in a private email:

>>All right, I'll bite. What's a Zentner? Teribu, perhaps?

>

>I was afraid someone would ask that. Well, its a unit for measuring hops in,

>isn't it.  Aka a big sack full :-)

>

>I think it's 50Kg of hops (but not absolutely certain).

And it can be a person too!  Actually, I think it has its roots

as a measure of potatos (at least, that's what I thought it WAS

commonly used for, but I don't really know about its current

use).

Mike Zentner

------------------------------


AHA Conference in Portland

Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 09:29:20 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: AHA Conference in Portland

There were a couple of posts today in reference to the AHA Conference

here in Portland; I suspect there will be many mor in the days to come.

With luck, we shall get a big Internet crowd there, along with plenty of

people from the CompuServe Beer Forum.  Last year, Russ Wigglesworth

provided everyone with little red computer stickers for their nametags

so that we could pick out fellow computer beer/nerds from the crowd.

With luck, someone else will do the same this year.

Someone (Rick?) said that he was  buying a partial membership, leaving

out the social stuff and paying for speakers.  A suggestion: You've got

it backwards!  From my experience at last year's conference, the

"lectures" are the least interesting part -- hanging out, eating and

drinking with other homebrewers, _that's_ the real fun...and the most

educational.  I say this as one of last year's speakers!  There were a

couple of really interesting presentations, but the high points for me

were meeting George & Laurie Fix, having dinner next to Charlie

Olchowski, finally meeting Martin Lodahl in person, and doing a walking

tour of Milwaukee with Russ, and... oh, yeah, that beer.  And judging in

the 2nd round.  And Fred Eckhardt's cheese and beer tasting.  And...

Speeches?  We don't need no stinkin' speeches.

- --Jeff (on the ground) Frane

------------------------------


Beer Balls

Date: Mon, 31 May 93 12:32:13 EDT

From: jkirsch@dolphin.uri.EDU (Jay Kirschenbaum)

Subject: Beer Balls

I have recently found myself in possession of two beer balls (ok,

after yesterday's Memorial Day cookout).  I was wondering if it is

possible to use them in my homebrewing endevours?  I am trying to get

the metal cap/seal off and clean it out very well.  Is there a way

that I could use them for either fermenting or kegging?

Thanks,

Jay Kirschenbaum

jkirsch@dolphin.uri.edu

------------------------------


AHA National Conference In Portland

Date: Mon, 31 May 93 13:21:34 EDT

From: rgarvin@btg.com (Rick Garvin)

Subject: AHA National Conference In Portland

In HBD 1152 Frank Dobner Writes:

> For those interested in going to the national conference this year,

> I would like to know if there is something special that the HBD crowd

> should organize while there? Perhaps it is customary for this group

> to identify themselves by a charcateristic identifier (scarlet letter,

> black armband..).

There are two JamBeery nights. HBD could host a table. I beleive that

there is a $35 fee. We are doing one for BURP (Brewers United for Real

Potables) the Washington, DC club.

Otherwise, I will be out there with some other HBD participants and

enjoy a session. I thinks a brewpub trip would be a crowd pleaser.

Cheers, Rick

------------------------------


EASYMASH & MALTMILL

Date: Mon, 31 May 93 14:07:45 PDT

From: John Cotterill <johnc@hprpcd.rose.hp.com>

Subject: EASYMASH & MALTMILL

My experiences brewing this last weekend are note worthy.

I usually use a slotted copper tube manifold and cooler as a mash tun.  My

grain is roller milled by the local brew shop, generally about a week before

I get around to brewing.  I do a single step mash.  My extraction is generally

around 24 pts/lb/gal with an efficiency of about 70%.  Sometimes it heads up

closer to 75%.  I have been happy with this level of extraction and just add

a little extra grain to compensate.

I am working on a RIMs system.  I have a SS pot with a fitting welded near the

bottom.  I have not brewed in it yet since the RIMs is not done.  It seemed

like such a waste to have this pot collecting dust when there was some brewing

to be done.

I just purchased the world famous MALTMILL (had not used it yet).  I have a

false bottom for the mash tun, but my experiences using a mash kettle on the

stove with a false bottom have been poor.  I decided what the heck, I'll make

an EASYMASHER and see what happens.  Well, my extraction was 31.2 pts/lb/gal

with an efficiency of of over 91%!!  I could run the sparge as fast (or slow)

as I desired.  I did, however, have to recirculate about 1 gal to get a clear

beer, but that is much better than the copper manifold (about 3 gal).  I did

have a relatively thin mash (1.4 qt/lb), so that may have something to do with

it.

I gotta say, the system really works.  I am impressed by the results.  I need

to brew a few more batches to say for sure how repeatable things will be.  But

I expect little difference on future batches.  I suspect the gains are a

combination of both the MM and the EM.

My only complaint is that I did not expect such a high extraction.  Instead

of a 1.054 pale ale, I got a 1.070 strong India pale ale!

JC

johnc@hprpcd.rose.hp.com

------------------------------


Hops

Date: 31 May 1993 14:24:00 -0700 (PDT)

From: Philip Atkinson 356-0269 <PATKINSON@galaxy.gov.bc.ca>

Subject: Hops

          Hop bine.

          Grape vine.

          Hop BINE

          BINE, right? BINE.

          thank you =*)

------------------------------


pH Testing

Date: Mon, 31 May 93 23:15 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: pH Testing

 >From: pgs@ai.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)

 >Speaking of pH meters, the cheapest ones do not have detachable

 electrodes.  Can someone with experience in these matters tell me how

 long I might expect the electrodes on these meters to last if one is

 only using them in brewing, where only mildly acidic solutions are

 encountered?

 I have no idea but I suggest that anyone on a tight budget contemplating the

 purchase of a pH meter, borrow one and try it a few times.  I have used mine

 on about 10 batches since purchasing and no step in the process has varied

 from nominal by more than the measurement error.

 The only reason I continue to use it is because it is humiliating to think I

 got sucked into buying something I have no use for.

 What bugs me even more is finding out that it is even more useless for wine

 making because pH is not a useful measurement of acidity in wine.  One must

 measure titratable acidity with an arcane process that makes the pH meter

 look like like something from Star Wars.

 js

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1153, 06/01/93

*************************************

-------


Abita Bock (was Re: New Orleans brewpubs?)

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 93 09:09:50 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Abita Bock (was Re: New Orleans brewpubs?)

David Adams writes:

 > One positive recommendation:  drink Abita beer while you are in New

 > Orleans, especially Abita Turbo Dog.  And if you get outside of the

 > city, try to visit the brewery.  Good people; wonderful beer.

A recent selection from Beers Across America was Abita Bock.  This

stuff was good!  I didn't do a formal evaluation of it at the time,

so I'm relying on memory:

Style: Helles Bock

Appearance: golden, nice rocky head, good clarity.

Aroma: malty/sweet.

Flavor: Malt predominates, hops bitterness evident, no apparent hops

 flavor/aroma, sweet, but not overly so.

Body: medium.  Appropriate.

Overall impression: A very nice beer, true to style, and very

drinkable.  I want more!

I'd give it around a 40 (out of 50), I think.

Too bad it's not available in Michigan...

=Spencer

------------------------------


Spruce beer

Date: Thu, 27 May 93 08:24:05 PDT

From: dra@jsc-ws.sharpwa.com (Darren Aaberge)

Subject: Spruce beer

I have a spruce tree growing in my front yard and I have been wondering about

using some of the fresh spring growths in a brew.  Does anyone have any

experience using spruce in beer?  Papazian has a recipe for using it and there

are a couple of recipes in the cats meow, but they are all a little vague on

how to use it.  So far my plan is as follows:

10 lb 2-row pale malt

1/4 lb crystal 40l

1/3 lb chocolate

1.5 oz Cascades (boil for 60 min)

1 pint of spruce clippings

American ale yeast

My biggest question right now is when to add the spruce.  Should I boil it for

60 minutes or should I add it at the end of the boil?  Any suggestions or

comments would be welcome.  I don`t want the spruce to be overpowering, yet I

want it to be evident along with the hops.

Darren

------------------------------


Converting a freezer to a fridge

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 93 11:12:40 -0600

From: LPD1002%NYSHESCV.bitnet@UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU

Subject:  Converting a freezer to a fridge

When I moved into my new house, a large (as in 20 or 22 Cubic feet)

freezer was included.  I have no use for it in its present form.

Does anyone know of a way to convert it to a fridge.  I know there

are thermostats you can buy and hook to a fridge for more

precise temperature control.  But, I don't want to spend the $$, if

it is impossible for a freezer to be kept at a temp. above

freezing.  If it would work, the size would be great.  It would

probably fit a couple of carboys and a case or two.

Email me directly or post if you think there are others who are curiou

s.

Thanks for any responses.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

|   STEVE SEPTER          |       INTERNET                           |

| BITNET:LPD1002@NYSHESCV | LPD1002@NYSHESCV.BITNET@UACS2.ALBANY.EDU |

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Michigan brewpubs?

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1993 11:03:17 -0600

From: Paul Boor <PBOOR@beach.utmb.edu>

Subject: Michigan brewpubs?

To Michigan-knowledgable persons:

 What would be your advise re: brewpubs and micros in the Michigan area,

specifically in and around Grand Rapids, Holland, Traverse City (Cherry capitol

of the world), Saginaw, and Kalamazoo?

 Thanks.

 Pboor, for a returning Michiganer

------------------------------


Re: BAA humour

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 93 11:07:35 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: Re: BAA humour

Sandra Cockerham writes:

>It figures. All along many of us have complained about the beers we were

>getting from Beer Across America. Too light, too many lagers, blah,blah...

>This month they sent 2 porters. I found both of them-- Catamount and Boulevard

>to be so roasty/burnt that I don't really enjoy them.

I, for one, was happy.

I received a bottle of boulevard "Bully" porter 2 years ago from

a friend, and remembered it as being somewhat watery.  When the

package came, I was delighted to see blackened friends awaiting

me.  I tried the bully porter at room temp, and it was anything

but watery - smooth & delicious.  Upon refrigerating the rest in

a too-cold fridge (I like my milk COLD and my keg fridge was full),

the somewhat watery (by my taste) mouthfeel returned.

IMHO, Bully porter is a much better beer at warm temps.

(and exhibits more of a taste change with temp than most beers).

The literature that came with it (or was it the bottle?) claims

that it is made with roasted barley and chocolate malt; it is

more a stout (and a fine one at that) than a porter.

bb

------------------------------


Another data point

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 93 09:05:55 -0700

From: sag5004@yak.ca.boeing.com (Ford Prefect)

Subject: Another data point

Hello,

I am busy brewing for my upcoming wedding.  And have made a couple

observations that some people might be interested in.  If not, I

apologize in advance (AIA :-).

Basic recipe:

19 lb Klages

3  lb Munich

1.5 lb Crystal

1   lb Wheat

2oz Tettenanger, 2oz Centennial  (for 60 minutes)

2oz Cascade  (5 minutes)

*(NOTE: I am not sure about the Centennial but I am sure it is one of

those 'C...' types of hops)

I have made this four time recently, had an OG from 1.054-1.058.  This

makes ~11 gallons (one 5 gallon, and one 6 gallon carboy).  I do a single

step infusion mash, with a mash out up to 175 and hold for 15 minutes.

Experiment 1: Make two batches in a row pitching whitbred dry in one, and

wyeast 1214? (belgian) in the other.  The dry yeast had a bit of a bite

that is mellowing out as time goes by.  The only thing I can say about the

liquid is I like in more than the dry.

Experiment 2: This was an accident.  Having scotch/irish genes, I decided

to strech the next packet of 1214.  I put a 2 quart starter in a gallon jug

and let er rip for 3 days.  Brewed, pitched 2/3 into the carboys, and 1/3

into some settled, cool wort from this batch.  (monday)  On friday I brew

again, and had the fastest start I have ever seen.  eg. 1:30 pitch and clean

up, and by 4:30 foam city.

Everything smells and tastes "normal".  I will hopefully, have enough

for the wedding (I probably will if I don't drink it all myself first

:-).

Just a data point,  PS  What style catagory would this beer fit into?

stuart galt                          boeing computer services

sag5004@yak.boeing.com               bellvue washington

(206) 865-3764                       or home (206) 361-0190

#include <standard/disclaim.h>

I don't know what they say, they don't know what I say...

------------------------------


dusty, dry beer

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 93 11:28:13 PDT

From: rstya@mda.ca (Roy Styan)

Subject: dusty, dry beer

I was racking my beer a few weeks ago and found there was an extra two

liters or so.  Can't waste good beer so I found a two liter bottle and racked

into it.  During all that mucking about the yeast got quit stirred up and a

lot ended up in the bottle.  So its experiment time.  What does beer taste

like after spending a couple of weeks on a couple of cm. of yeast?

The quick answer?  Yech.

This stuff was as dry as a popcorn fart.  One sip and all the moisture in your

mouth gets sucked down with the beer, leaving nothing but dustball for you to

choke on.  And bitter?  Not the nice hop bitterness we all know and love, but

the bitterness one gets from biting into a tree root (y'all chew tree roots

down there, don't you?).

The main batch, on the other hand, has the nice malty aroma and taste I was

looking for (its an english brown), and slides down leaving a pleasant roast

aftertaste. Yummy.

What I found interesting is that all the elements of the dry, bitter batch

were in the main batch, but they had not be accentuated. Rather, they had

blended with other elements leaving a well balanced and rounded beer.

Woof.

------------------------------


Cloudy hoses/Bleach and SS

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 93 13:04 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Cloudy hoses/Bleach and SS

Steve writes:

>        While I'm here, I would appreciate some suggestions on

>getting my transfer hose (plastic-type) clean and clear.  It always

>seems to go cloudy.  Thanks.

You're probably sanitizing it in bleach solution, right?   Don't soak it

longer than 10 minutes and rinse with "clean" water immediately and it

will not turn cloudy.

****************************

donald writes:

>al is confused regarding sodium hypochlorite, chlorine water and bleach.

>bleach is a dilute, about 5%, aqueous solution of sodium hypochlorite.

I re-checked my 1991-1992 Cole-Parmer Chemical Reactivity charts and there

was no mention of Chlorox (bleach).  There was no confusion on my part

as to the difference between bleach and sodium hypochlorite.  I was quoting

the "Sodium Hypochlorite <20%" entry because it was all I had to work with.

I've just gotten off the phone with a Cole-Parmer Applications Specialist,

who took my order for the 1993-1994 catalog and verified that "Clorox

(bleach)" has been added to the 1993-1994 catalog.  Indeed, the table now

shows no effect between Clorox Bleach and 304 or 316 Stainless Steel.

However, as don says himself:

>these tables are only guidelines.  no details as the conditions of the test

>such as length of exposure are given.

I've read reports in the HBD of pitting (especially on the welds) in Stainless

Steel kegs after repeated use of Bleach solution in the kegs.  I trust the

cumulative experiences of homebrewers well beyond what I read in a table

and I've taken don's report as a single datapoint.

Furthermore, I'd like to point out that don's wife is the owner of St. Pat's

of Texas (brewing supply) and they do not stock Iodophor rather they stock

a chlorine sanitizer.

Finally, don has, in a newsletter, questioned the quality of the DeWolf-Cosyns

Belgian Malts (another item not stocked by St. Pat's of Texas) while on

the other hand, St. Pat's of Texas turns out to be the sole distributor

of Breiss malt in the area.

I've yet to find the reasoning for don's tirade on yeast a few weeks ago,

but I'm sure that his ulterior motives will surface eventually.

Please note that this is not a flame.  I'm simply posting data that I've

collected and am not personally attacking anyone.

Al.

------------------------------


Wyeast British and London/Rusty hop leaves

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 93 13:31 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Wyeast British and London/Rusty hop leaves

JACK writes:

>Due in part to things I've read here re; yeast culturing, I decided to try

>an experiment with my last batch.  A couple weeks back, I took a 3 gal.

>keg of SNPA-clone pale ale to a picnic.  It ocurred to me that, since the

>beer was clean (and tasty) and had yeast cultured from an SNPA 6-pack,

>why not just let the dregs sit in the keg under preasure at room temp

>until I brewed again (last Saturday) then simply pop the lid, add 1 cup

>sterile cool water, swish it around, and dump directly into the primary.

>Fermentation started within 12 hrs and smells clean.  It's a slow ferment

>as are most that I do with SNPA but smells clean.   Questions:

>  -  can anyone see potentiial problems or drawbacks with this method

Repeated re-use could favor a mutant strain and I recommend not re-using

yeast too many generations for this reason.  Typical problems with mutant

yeast are the loss of the ability to ferment certain sugars and the loss

of the ability to re-absorb diacetyl.

>  -  how long might clean yeast be held under preasure this way before it

>     loses viability.

The pressure probably won't make much of a difference.  Temperature does.

You are better off storing it at around 40F, but letting it warm up to

pitching temperature slowly before use.  At 40F, I believe that your

yeast would have a sufficient percentage of viable yeast for at least a

month, but this is dependent on the health of the yeast at pitching

time, the level of oxygenation of the wort, etc.

>

>One other question....  I recently bought WYEAST packs for both British

>Ale and London Ale (forget the #'s).  Can someone tell me what the difference

>in these yeasts are based on their experiences, and which styles of ales

>they might match up best with.

British is very similar to the old, three-strain Whitbread yeast, whereas

the London Ale is very similar to Bass and Co's Whiteshield yeast.  I haven't

used the British (Wyeast #1098) but I've read that others have reported

a spicy, tart flavor profile.  Wyeast's London (#1028) is one of my favorites

and I use it often.  It has a woody profile but otherwise is quite neutral.

*********************

Subba writes:

>        I've noticed some yellow/brown rust like discoloration on the lower

>leaves of my hops vines recently and am concerned (not worrying) that it

>might be a symptom of a fungal infection.

Did the leaves first turn light green between the veins, then yellow, then

rust-colored?  If so (and maybe also if not), you may have a Magnesium

deficiency in your soil.  I did and I could stop what you reported by

dissolving two tablespoons of Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom salts -- at your

local drugstore) in a couple of gallons of water and then splitting this

between my four hills.  I don't know if this is the best way to add Mg

to your soil, but it worked for me.  I had to do this about every 2 to 4

weeks to keep the leaves from turning.  Any other suggestions for increasing

soil Magnesium?  I know that hops are one of the few plants that require

Mg, but a tablespoon of MgSO4 a month!?!

Al.

------------------------------


pH Meter - uses

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1993 09:35:58 -0400 (EDT)

From: jdg@cyberspace.org (Josh Grosse)

Subject: pH Meter - uses

In today's issue, Mr. S. questioned his purchase of a pH meter, and said he

felt he purchased equipment he found to be useless.

I have one, and I find it extremely useful for three purposes:

1) Adjusting the pH of the mash.  (pH 5.0-5.5)

2) Adjusting the pH of sparge water. (ph 5.6-5.8)

3) Ensuring I don't oversparge. (ph > 5.5)

------------------------------


EDME Brewcraft Barrel

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 93 11:48:21 -0400

From: jpgareri@acs.bu.edu (Joseph Gareri)

Subject: EDME Brewcraft Barrel

I recently purchased an EDME Brewcraft Barrel.  The first batch I put in

was not great.  The main problem was it was terribly flat.  The barrel is

6 gallons with the CO2 injectors and a release valve that is supposed to

keep pressure up to 10 psi.

The batch was about 3.5 gallon wheat recipe from the Cat's Meow.  The recipe

itself was very weak, but that's another problem.

I primed it with 1/4 cup corn sugar disolved in 1.5 cups boiled water.

There was some gas build up, but the beer never got terribly carbonated,

so after 2 weeks, I primed again with the same amount.  This didn't seem to

work either.  Is it because there was too much air space, so the CO2 did

not remain in the beer?  The directions from EDME say it is not necessary

to use one of the CO2 injectors for conditioning.  Any thoughts?

I am currently in the secondary with Tom Childers "Wheat Berry", and would

not want to spoil a batch that seems to be coming along nicely (thanks Tom

for your tips).  Should I prime with the  3/4 cup corn sugar as Tom recommends

for bottling or should I reduce the sugar as is recommended for kegging?

I can't figure if this system is more like bottling or kegging.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Joe Gareri

Boston, MA

------------------------------


Iowa Beers

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 93 11:13:42 CDT

From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>

Subject: Iowa Beers

Just thought I'd share a pleasant experience I had this weekend.  While

visiting Cedar Rapids, I dropped down to the Amana Colonies (19 miles

south) and was pleasantly surprised to find in addition to several small

wineries.... a brewery!  Millstream brewery is in Amana (Main Amana) and

has 3 beers on tap and in bottles; their Schild Brau was the best IMHO,

amber in color and not too hoppy.  They also had a very nice wheat

beer.  Their lager however could stand some improvement, no one in my

group really cared much for it.

And while I'm on the topic of Iowa, has anyone out there been to the

microbrewery in Alden, Iowa?  Any idea how far it is from C.R. and if ti

is worth the trip.  Private email please.

Anthony Johnston

Chemist, Homebrewer, Beer junkie.

------------------------------


DMS/Lambiks/Hoegaarden

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 93 11:58 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: DMS/Lambiks/Hoegaarden

Anthony writes:

>I just bottled my first attempt at a California Common or "steam" beer

>yesterday and I noticed a definite DMSO odor in the beer (the cooked

>corn type odor).  Will bottle conditioning help to reduce this over time

>or will I just have to get used to it.  What causes this (I've heard

>that this is generally due to slow wort cooling, but as this was an

>extract recipe which normally is cooled rapidly as it is transferred to

>the carboy containing cold water, I doubt that the cooling is any

>different from my other extract recipes.)

DMS (Dimethyl Sulfide) is the chemical that give the cooked-corn aroma.

DMSO (Dimethyl Sulfoxide) is oxidized DMS.  Some DMSO can break down to

DMS during the ferment by the yeast.  Most of the DMS that is created

during the boil, cooling and ferment gets scrubbed out by the CO2, so

you need to have very high levels of SMM (the precusor of DMS), DMS

and DMSO to have some spill-over into your finished beer.

There are primarily two sources for DMS, bacteria and the malt.  The

bacteria that generates DMS is called Obesumbacterium Proteus.  You

may have had wort infected with this bacteria all along, but since

this bacteria's activity is mostly during the earliest stages of

fermentation, when the pH of the wort is greater than 4.5, a longer

lag time on this particular batch may be all that was needed to get

the DMS in the final beer above the 30ppb human detection threshold.

Another source for DMS is from the SMM that is created when malt is

germinated.  During the kettle boil, virtually all DMS that is created

is boiled-off.  If you cover the kettle or if the boil is not a rolling

boil (just a simmer) you can retain enough DMS to detect after fermentation.

Also, as you mentioned, fast cooling is essential to minimizing DMS

in the wort because when you take the kettle off the boil, DMS still

continues to be produced until you cool the wort below 140F, but is no

longer being boiled-off.

*******************

Richard writes:

>Are 'lambic' bacteria distinct from 'lactic' bacteria, and if so, how ?

Lactic bacteria are only one of many bacteria that contribute to the

flavors and aromas of Lambiks.  Pediococcus Cerevisiae and Lactobacillus

Cerevisiae are two of the lactic acid producers, but certain types of (all?)

Pedio also create diacetyl, for example, but only God knows what the other

microbiota in Lambik wort do with the diacetyl since I have yet to taste

a Lambik with a noticable diacetyl character.  In addition to the Pedio and

Lacto bacteria, Enteric bacteria play a role in the flavor/aroma of Lambiks.

Brettanomyces yeasts, B. Bruxellensis and B. Lambicus give the characteristic

"horsey" aromas as well as contribute to the flavor.  Many "wild"

Saccharomyces and Brettanomyces yeasts combine to produce the intense

fruitiness found in many Gueuze Lambiks, so much so, that I've often had

to look back at the bottle to make sure I hadn't been served a fruit lambik!

So you see, there's a lot more to Lambiks than just a lactic sourness.

Note that recent bottles of Timmerman's Framboise that I've tasted have

had a more pronounced Brett (horsey) character than I recall.  Perhaps this

is simply a batch-to-batch variation (lambiks, more so than any other beers,

vary quite a bit from batch-to-batch and even bottle-to-bottle!) or perhaps

Timmerman's is trying to blend more towards a traditional flavor (I hope so).

*******************

Tom writes:

>In HBD 1149, Steve Lovett asks about reproducing Hoegaarden Grand Cru with

>wheat malt.  A few months ago, I posted a barley malt extract wit beer

>recipe, and promised to try the same with wheat malt.  Well, the first

>wheat malt batch finished a couple of weeks ago, and my friends and I are

Actually, Hoegaarden White is made with (unmalted) wheat, but the Grand Cru

Is a sort of "all-barley" version, with no wheat added.  I conjecture that

the Celis are made similarly, but I'm certain that they are are much fresher

and better versions than those now made by Interbrau in Belgium.

*******************

Mark writes:

>ago.  Anyway, after a few minutes of begging that I should be connected to a

>materials engineer (not a sales "engineer") I got some helpful folks in one

>of their labs.  Turns out the guy who knows the most about polypro is also a

>homebrewer!  Well it was certainly a relief not to have to spend 1/2 hour

>explaining what a hop back, wort etc. were!  Bottom line:  The chart is

>wrong as regards to polypro.  Beer won't hurt it or react with it (neither

>will wort).  This guy said that polypro's barrier properties weren't that

>good and thought the chart might have been inferring that you wouldn't want

>to store carbonated beer in it for long periods because it would go flat.

>However, carbonated water is "OK" for polypro on the chart.  We couldn't

>figure it out.

I expect that a materials engineer at Phillips 66 should have been able to

figure out that the reason that Polypropylene is not acceptable for long

 -term storage of beer is not only because of CO2 permiability, but O2

permiability!  According to the Cole-Palmer catalog, the 02 permiability

is 25 x 10^-10 (cc-mm)/(sec-cm2-cmHg), which is 2.5 time higher than HDPE

(high-density polyethylene) which is widely known to be too oxygen-permiable

for long-term beer (or hop, for that matter) storage.  Long-term storage in

oxygen-permiable plastics will, of course, oxidize your beer (or hops).

By the way, why does every post by Mark sound like an ad for his business?

I, for example, have yet to mention that my store/mailorder house,

Sheaf & Vine Brewing Supply, sells hops stored in a special, proprietary

plastic that is food-grade, yet is an oxygen-barrier and that the pouches

are CO2-purged before vacuum sealing... but you don't see *me* running

shameless ads in the allegedly non-commercial HBD ;^).

Al.

Sheaf & Vine Brewing Supply

Countryside, Illinois

708-430-HOPS

------------------------------


Octoberfest recipe request

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 93 16:25:40 CDT

From: hinz@memphis.med.ge.com (David Hinz)

Subject: Octoberfest recipe request

Greetings.

I had several (OK, many) bottles of Hacker-Pschorr Octoberfest this weekend,

and I like it a lot.  Now, it seems to me that it's a very malty, lightly-

hopped lager, possibly something like a Maibock.  I dunno, I'm asking.

Anyway, my point is this....how can I make something like that?  I checked

the Cat's Meow, and didn't see anything listed specifically as an Octoberfest.

Anyone have a good recipe for this type of thing, or at least pointers on what

types of malts & hops to try?

All-grain recipe would be preferred, but I'll "takes what I gets".

Thanks,

Dave Hinz

ObBeerComment:

The Strong Scottish Ale from Papazian's "style guide" in TNCJOHB is fantastic.

Only 3 weeks in the bottle, and it's almost GONE.

------------------------------


Hop Utilization and clarifications

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 93 14:29:35 PDT

From: tinsethg@ucs.orst.edu (Glenn Tinseth)

Subject: Hop Utilization and clarifications

In a recent Digest, Mark Garetz petitioned the readers for info

regarding Jackie Rager's alpha acid (AA) utilization numbers in

his article in the Zymurgy Hop Special Issue. I am currently

in the middle of a fairly good sized research project into this

exact subject.

As George Fix mentioned in a recent posting, I am

fortunate enough to be able to work in Gail Nickerson's USDA hop

lab where I have the glorious title "Official Volunteer Hop Grinder

and Sample Prepper" in exchange for the use of their equipment. In

addition to running alpha and beta analyses on my hops, I am studying

AA utilization vs boil time and AA utilization vs wort gravity. Both

my early findings and an extensive literature review indicate that

there are problems with Rager's numbers. Typical util vs boil time

curves look nothing like Rager's numbers and max. util % numbers range

all over the place in the literature, from 10-50% in the finished beer

(Rager gives a middle of the road 30% for a 60 min boil).

It is still too early for me to give some definitive answer to

the util question. I know how unsatisfying it is to hear that

something is wrong without hearing the right answer but I am afraid

that we (myself included) are stuck with Rager's numbers for a while

longer, at least until I get a few more test batches in bottles and run

through the spectrophotometer. Is this "Vapor-data"?

Also, for everyone I promised a catalog to, they come from the printers

tomorrow, and will be in the mail the same day! Sorry for the delay but

the response to my previous posting surprised me (a good surprise:)

Glenn

------------------------------


Electronic Brewers in Portl

Date: 1 Jun 1993 16:02:03 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

Subject: Electronic Brewers in Portl

Subject:  Electronic Brewers in Portland        Time:3:56 PM     Date:6/1/93

As Jeff Frane mentioned I supplied stickers for our band of techies so we could

be easily spotted. I am willing to do the same this year and have had my

sign-maked friend begin work on the design.

I need a rough head count so I know how many to cut. Send me E-mail indicating

your intention to attend.

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


European BUD questions

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1993 16:28 EST

From: "Glen Flowers 601-4003, GTC-104" <GFLOWERS@LANDO.HNS.COM>

Subject: European BUD questions

In HBD #1152, Kurt Swanson writes:

>In this country, Sweden, one can get US Bud (in all 3

>strength classes - the least of which allowing it to be advertised on

>tv), Schiltz, Michelob, Sam Adams (arggh!), Anchor Steam, and various

>temporary products.

I'm puzzled by two questions:

1)  Why the (arggh!) after "Sam Adams"?  Wouldn't you consider Sam's

    a better American brew than the first two brands on the list,

    (neither of which rated an "arrgh!"), and easily better than BUD?

2)  What is a temporary product?

Just wondering,

Glen Flowers

Technical Training

Hughes Network Systems

GFLOWERS@LANDO.HNS.COM

------------------------------


Litmus Papers

Date:    Tue, 1 Jun 1993 21:14 EDT

From: Phil Hultin <HULTINP@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>

Subject: Litmus Papers

Actually, nowadays just about nobody uses "litmus" papers any more.

The old fashioned "litmus" came in two types, red and blue, and you

had to use the correct one for measuring acid or basic solutions.

The modern equivalent is referred to by various names, but in our

lab we just call them "pH papers".  If you can't find the right

stuff in your catalog, look under "test strips" or "test papers"

or "pH" rather than "litmus".  Modern test strips are much better

than "litmus".  The ones I like best (NOT the cheapest BTW) are

known by the trade name ColorpHast, and come as single use strips

of plastic with patches of colored indicator at the business end.

Just thought all the pH-concerned out there might like to know... P.

------------------------------


Zentners of hops

Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1993 21:34:12 -0400 (EDT)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: Zentners of hops

To clear up any lingering confusion, I can't resist putting in my $0.02 here.

Geoff's memory was exactly right.  The zentner (note lower case) is the

standard unit of measurement used in commercial hop dealings in Europe.

The zentner is equal to 50 kilograms.  It is abbreviated zr and is (I think)

beginning to be used outside Europe as well.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a unit of measurement that worked like IBUs

or BUs, so that we could speak of "X hooples of Saaz" produced and mean so

many kilos at such a percent of alpha acid?

- -- Ed Westemeier  --  Cincinnati, Ohio  -- westemeier@delphi.com  --

------------------------------


Hey Hayward!

Date: 01 Jun 1993 21:45:19 -0500 (CDT)

From: HUGH@vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu

Subject: Hey Hayward!

Date sent:  1-JUN-1993 21:42:21

Looking for a good micro-brew pub in Hayward, California.

Any suggestions?

Bitnet   -  Hugh@oshkoshw

Internet -  Hugh@vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu

------------------------------


Belgian malts in Brewing Tech

Date:  Tue, 1 Jun 1993 22:56:15 -0400

From: Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@canrem.com>

Subject: Belgian malts in Brewing Tech

Hi,

        I got my copy of Brewing Techniques this week and

        I've got some questions.

        The article on Belgian malts by Prof. Fix stated

        that the test mashes were conducted using distilled

        water and 30grs of calicum chloride. Is this enough

        in the way of minerals? Would this very soft water

        profile cause the results to differ from real world

        mashes? I assume that the distilled water was used

        to give some sort of a standard.

        Also the article gives the following:

        Pils malt -linter 105 able to convert 15-20%

        adjuncts

        Pale ale malt- linter 60 able to convert 10-15%

        adjuncts

        In comparison I think Canadian 2row is 120-130linter

        and capable of converting 50+% adjuncts.

        Are the adjuncts numbers given for the Pils just

        conservative? Would it be able to convert a high

        adjunct mash like a normal p-lambic?

        Finally is Brewing Techniques going to be review

        books other then those available from the AHA?

        Thanks

        Nick

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I drink Beer I don't collect cute bottles!

zen%hophead@canrem.com

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


AHA Conference in Portland

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 93 22:47:32 EDT

From: rgarvin@btg.com (Rick Garvin)

Subject: AHA Conference in Portland

Jeff Frane writes:

> Someone (Rick?) said that he was  buying a partial membership, leaving

> out the social stuff and paying for speakers.  A suggestion: You've got

> it backwards!  From my experience at last year's conference, the

> "lectures" are the least interesting part -- hanging out, eating and

> drinking with other homebrewers, _that's_ the real fun...and the most

> educational.

>

> Speeches?  We don't need no stinkin' speeches.

I agree, the partial registration includes all social events and some

of the lectures. I have been to a few of these conventions and I have

trouble sitting in a wonderful place like Portland in a hotel for 8

hours a day. Plus, getting up early after Brew Pub hopping.

Cheers, Rick

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1154, 06/02/93

*************************************

-------


Microbrewery festival

Date:     Wed, 2 Jun 93 7:36:25 EDT

From: Jpetty@PICA.ARMY.MIL

Subject:  Microbrewery festival

A recent HBD post mentioned the Second Great Eastern Invitational Microbrewery

festival in Adamstown Pa.  This is just a bit further than I care to drive

(home from), however a local bartender thought a similar event was planned

for Bethlehem Pa. during July.  Anyone have details on this ?

------------------------------


Re: Cloudy hoses/Bleach and SS

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 08:04 EDT

From: tmr1@hotlg.att.com

Subject: Re: Cloudy hoses/Bleach and SS

I also suffer from the "cloudy hose" syndrome.  I left mine soaking

overnight in a water/bleach (20:1) solution and it is permanently(?)

cloudy.  Will this impair the use of the hose for racking?  Will the

bleach leach?  Can I do something to get the hose clear again?  Maybe

boiling in water will do something to it.

Any suggestions are welcome.

                                                Tom Romalewski

------------------------------


European BUD questions

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 13:57:46 +0200 (MET DST)

From: Kurt Swanson <Kurt.Swanson@dna.lth.se>

Subject: European BUD questions

In HBD #1153, Glen Flowesr (GFLOWERS@LANDO.HNS.COM) wrote:

> In HBD #1152, Kurt Swanson writes:

>

> >In this country, Sweden, one can get US Bud (in all 3

> >strength classes - the least of which allowing it to be advertised on

> >tv), Schiltz, Michelob, Sam Adams (arggh!), Anchor Steam, and various

> >temporary products.

>

> I'm puzzled by two questions:

>

> 1)  Why the (arggh!) after "Sam Adams"?  Wouldn't you consider Sam's

>     a better American brew than the first two brands on the list,

>     (neither of which rated an "arrgh!"), and easily better than BUD?

I said arggh because I know the the mere mentioning of Sam Adams

products is enough to start an HBD trade war...

> 2)  What is a temporary product?

>

"Systembolaget" likes to keep a permanent stock and a rotating stock -

always trying new brands for a short time.  They buy them in massive

quantities [for example, they bought 500,000 bottles of the Belgian

De Koninck recently] at one time & get a great deal....

- --

Kurt Swanson, Dept. of Computer Science,

Lunds universitet.  Kurt.Swanson@dna.lth.se

------------------------------


iodine

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 08:45:21 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: iodine

I'm sure this has been covered before, but here I go again....

The last batch I made, I did the iodine test two ways:  1. I drained a

little out of the spigot at the bottom of my mash/lauter tun (Gott

cooler with copper-pipe manifold).  This tested completely starch free

after 20 minutes (the first time I tested it).  2. I pushed the spoon

into the top of the mash and let some fluid run into it.  This never

tested clear, even after 1.5 hours.

So which one should I believe?  I got a great (for me) extraction rate

of 31 pts/lb/gal, with wonderfully clear sweet wort, so it would seem

that conversion was indeed complete (maybe at 20 minutes).

A related question: Foster suggests (in _Pale Ale_) that you should

mash for 1.5 hours for flavor development, even if conversion is

complete sooner.  Any comments on this?

=Spencer

------------------------------


Weissbier available: Elkton MD

Date: 02 Jun 93 10:33:32 EST

From: Matthew Mitchell <IEKP898%tjuvm.bitnet@TJUVM.TJU.EDU>

Subject: Weissbier available: Elkton MD

From:  Matthew Mitchell

On the way back from the NCAA lacrosse finals (Syracuse 13, NC 12 in what

is arguably the best tournament game ever-see it on CBS Sunday at 3:30 ET)

I took a detour off I-95 to avoid traffic, toll, and poor PA state liquor

stores.

I discovered that my favored shop: State Line Liquors in Elkton, Maryland

(between I-95 and Newark, Delaware on MD route 279) has an excellent

selection of Weissbier, and a number of Belgian beers, all available as

singles.  Selection of US microbrews is fair to middlin': there is SN and

Pete's and a few other more common varieties, but I've seen better at

other places.

They have an 800 number (I think it's 800-345-WINE, but _please_ check

first!)  The booze prices are significantly better than most neighboring

states, and their wine selection is decent (if you can afford it, the Latour

and Palmer is right out on the shelves, but of recent vintage rather than

classic)  So if you are traveling 95 south, exit northbound at MD 279 or

southbound at DE 896 (then turn left at the football stadium and left

again on 279)  You'll save more than the toll!

No connection of course: just a satisfied Pennsylvania refugee!

Howzat!?!

Matthew Mitchell     <iekp898@tjuvm.tju.edu>   <iekp898@tjuvm.bitnet>

Former Brewmaster, Penthouse Brewing Co., Haverford PA

makers of Barclay Beer, Penthouse Brown Ale, and Big B Malt Liquor

------------------------------


Stainless Steel

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 09:42:34 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Stainless Steel

As one the people who raised concerns on HBD about the use of chlorine

with stainless equipment, perhaps a few additional remarks might be helpful.

The two alloys which are most relevant to brewing are the following (shown

with their % concentrations):

  type     Cr      Ni      C      Si    Mn      P      S      Mo

 ------   ----    ----    ----   ----  -----   ---    ---    ----

  304     18-20   8-12    .08     1     2      .045   .03     0

  316     16-18  10-12    .08     1     2      .045   .03    2-3

The 316 alloy differs from 304 by its 2-3 % molybdenum (Mo) content. It

is the latter which gives this alloy complete resistance to chlorine.

However, 316 is very expensive, very difficult to cold work, and not

used to make 5 gallon soda pop kegs. The best of the latter are made from

304. This alloy has some resistance to chlorine, but not like 316. Studies

done with brewing in mind concluded the following:

  1. The relevant parameter is the concentration of the free available

     chlorine (FAC), independent of its source (bleach, chlorine powder,

     etc.).

  2. At room temperature (and a normal pH), 304 is resistant to chlorine

     as long as the FAC is below 250 mg/l.

Since our standard 1 oz. bleach per gallon gives a FAC of 100 mg/l, one

could conclude that chlorine bleach can be used to sanitize ss kegs.

Careful brewers will reject this conclusion. The factor of 2.5 is cutting

it too close. More to the point, the studies were based on a one time

application of the chemical to the metal, and does not take into account

the effects of long time use. I use boiling water or iodophor simply

because I am not prepared to gamble with ss equipment that I hope will

be with me in the long run.

I am not against taking gambles in other aspects of brewing, like taking

ones standard Vienna formulation, doubling the hop rate, and sending

a few bottles to Jeff Frane. Actually a much bigger gamble, and one I

may live to regret, is ***not*** doubling the hop rate and sending some

to Jeff! Gambles like this are done everyday, but hopefully not with valued

equipment.

There is, in addition, a completely different aspect to these issues.

My grandfather was a brewer who like many of his generation absolutely

detested "chemical" cleaners and sanitizers. For him it was hot water,

18 hr. brew days, and maybe some vinegar and wet steam. I do not fully

agree with this viewpoint, but recalling some excellent homebrews I have

judged at various points in the past that have been ruined by residual

chlorine, there are some merits to this point of view. That is way I

was initially excited about peracetic acid. However and alas, the version

Diversity and others is producing for the brewing industry is not for us.

Even a drop or two of their concentrated solution on our hands would

turn them white as snow. These products were produced with closed CIP

systems in mind, and not the way we do things. It would therefore appear

that boiling water or iodophor are our best options for ss. If the latter

is used I would also recommend rinsing before use with water or sterile

beer, although there are many successful brewers who do not rinse.

George Fix

------------------------------


EasyLauter

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 07:46:14 PDT

From: Jamie Ide  02-Jun-1993 1044 <ide@studio.enet.dec.com>

Subject: EasyLauter

    My last six batches have included partial mashes of 4-6# malt, which

    gets combined with extract for the boil.  I've found partial mashing to

    be easy, once I got the hang of it, and I can taste the improvement

    it's made in my beer.

    The only problems I've had with the process have occurred during

    sparging.  Up until my last batch, I'd been using a cylindrical water

    cooler (it came with my house, you can't fight destiny) with a grain

    bag, which sat on a vegetable steamer, as a lauter tun.  I got lousy

    extraction with this method -- the one time I carefully measured gave

    me 17 points! -- and I had to recycle 1 gallon (out of 2.5) of runoff

    before it cleared.  The poor extraction may have been due to my grain

    bag's mesh sides and a poor crush.  I quickly grew tired of going

    through the extra work of mashing and then having to add 6 lb. of

    extract to get a reasonable SG, so it was time to look for a Better

    Way.

    In the grandest tradition of science, I appropriated someone else's

    idea.  Jack Schmidling's EashyMasher (tm?), sounded, well, easy and

    cheap to make.  I decided to adapt the idea to my lauter tun.  I poked

    around the hardware store and found a PVC connector which would screw

    onto my valve (the plastic one with the red lever, though it may fit a

    drum tap too).  This connector ended in barbs which fit 3/4" plastic

    tubing.  I attached a couple of inches of that to extend the pick-up

    tube, and fixed a few inches of rolled up screen, cut out of a broken

    window, on with a hose clamp.  Total cost was about $4.

    I've tried it on one batch and it performed impressively.  The runoff

    cleared after only two cups!  I couldn't calculate my extraction

    because I ran some extra off for canning yeast starters, but I hit my

    target gravity which I'd predicted using 25 point extraction.  A big

    improvement, though I think a better crush will improve it further.

    Not having to recirculate a gallon saved me some time, and clean-up was

    easier.  An unmitigated success.

    I recommend giving this a try if you're currently using a grain bag or

    a Zapap system.  Almost every brewer has a bucket with a valve on it,

    and for $4 you can convert it to an EasyLauter tun.

    Jamie Ide  ide@studio.enet.dec.com

    Disclaimer: I only know Jack through the HBD and the EasyLauter is too

    cheap to sell.

------------------------------


Wort Chiller to Sparge Heater

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 07:47:15 PDT

From: Jamie Ide  02-Jun-1993 1046 <ide@studio.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Wort Chiller to Sparge Heater

    I'll be going all grain soon, and I have an idea for heating sparge

    water.  I don't have a second large boiler to heat the water, and I

    collect the runoff of my partial mashes in my boiling kettle, so I can't

    use that.  What I was thing of doing is running my immersion wort

    chiller (aka that coil of Cu tubing currently sitting in my basement)

    backwards.

    That is, immerse the chiller in a pot of hot (boiling?) water and

    run tap water through it to heat sparge water.  By playing with the

    flow rate and the water temp., I ought to be able to get it up to temp.

    easily.

    This would also give a couple of advantages:

    I could stop the flow when the runoff sg dropped and not have any

    leftover water.  With practice, I could even use the water that the

    chiller sits in.

    I could easily hook up a "showerhead" to the hose output and get a

    nicely distributed flow over the mash.

    Has anyone tried this?  Any opinions?

    Jamie Ide                         ide@studio.enet.dec.com

------------------------------


Spruce and Oak Additions

Date:    Wed, 2 Jun 1993 14:52:49 GMT

From: "UARS::COOK"@CDHF1.GSFC.NASA.GOV (Chris Cook)

Subject: Spruce and Oak Additions

Darren Aaberge asked about adding spruce clippings to his beer.

I've made a number of spruce beers and I enjoy the flavor a lot.  I started

with Papazian's Goat Scrotum Ale and have stayed close to that style,

adding spruce to a rich, dark base for my spruce beers.  Unfortunately,

given that I don't have a spruce tree, I've depended on spruce extract, so

my experiences may not translate completely but they may still be useful.

For the first few spruce batches, I threw in a bottle of essence at the

beginning of the boil.  This was a lot, and I think compares to about a

quart of new spruce growth.  The house smelled wonderful and, when the beer

was done, the spruce flavor was smooth and rich without being overpowering.

Keep in mind that I was making a Spuce Beer, so I wanted spruce to be one

of the major flavors.

After a few batches, I got to wondering that wonderful aroma when I boiled

meant that I was boiling off the aromatics.  For the next Spruce Beer

batch, I waited until just before the boil ended to add it.  I knew the

flavor would be stronger, so I added half as much as usual.

This beer was, to be kind, different.  The flavors were too bold and too

harsh, without the richness I'd expected.  This might have been an artifact

of the essence, and may not apply to fresh spruce.  There may be no bad

beers, but this was certainly not a good beer, and I ended up dumping the

last half.

Darren said that he didn't want the Spruce overpowering the hops, so a pint

sounds about right.  I'd use a quart, but then I'm already a convert.  Not

knowing, I wouldn't worry about bruising the branches; just throw them in

whole at the same time as the boiling hops.

[A side note: I hold off the boiling hops until I've gotten a good, obvious

hot break - about 10 minutes after the boil starts.  If I don't wait, I

don't seem to get as much hops bitterness.  Someone said once that the

uncoagulated proteins coat the hops, limiting hops utilization.  I don't

have much hard evidence of this, but I've been following the advise.]

As a counter-example, I've also used oak chips and oak essence in IPAs.  (I

know that it's not in style any more, but I like it as a subtle addition.)

In this case I added the chips or the essence to the secondary.  The

batches with the oak chips were good; the batch with oak essence wasn't

good at all.  It had something like the real oak flavor, but with harsh,

strange overtones that were unsuitable; eventually it had to be tossed.

Let us know how things work.

Chris Cook                                      cook@cdhf1.gsfc.nasa.gov

------------------------------


Re: Iowa beers

Date: Wed, 02 Jun 93 09:55:11 CDT

From: atzeiner@iastate.edu

Subject: Re: Iowa beers

Anthony writes:

>Date: Tue, 1 Jun 93 11:13:42 CDT

>From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>

>Subject: Iowa Beers

>

>Just thought I'd share a pleasant experience I had this weekend.  While

>visiting Cedar Rapids, I dropped down to the Amana Colonies (19 miles

>south) and was pleasantly surprised to find in addition to several small

>wineries.... a brewery!  Millstream brewery is in Amana (Main Amana) and

>has 3 beers on tap and in bottles; their Schild Brau was the best IMHO,

>amber in color and not too hoppy.  They also had a very nice wheat

>beer.  Their lager however could stand some improvement, no one in my

>group really cared much for it.

>

>And while I'm on the topic of Iowa, has anyone out there been to the

>microbrewery in Alden, Iowa?  Any idea how far it is from C.R. and if ti

>is worth the trip.  Private email please.

>

>Anthony Johnston

>Chemist, Homebrewer, Beer junkie.

I think you probably mean Adel, Iowa which is west of Des Moines.  The Old

Depot brewpub just open there in 1991.  My wife and I just went there a couple

weeks ago.  They make 3 or 4 beers(I think an ale, lager, porter and something

else) and 1 or 2 beers of the month.  When we were there they had a Weisse and

an IPA which were both really good.  I talked to someone who went there

earlier this year and had a good Irish Red Ale.  The food there is also very

good.  The restaurant is not what you would probably think of a normal brewpub

though.  Its a new, modern-looking building which is separate from the

brewery.  I would recommend going there if you're in the area.

Andy

------------------------------


Zentners

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 7:54:22 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Zentners

There have been a few messages on the digest recently concerning the term

"zentner".  A zentner is 50kg (~110 lb) of hops.  It is most commonly used

in England as a measure of crop yield.  As far as I know, hops are not

actually sold in "zentners", but in 100kg (~220 lbs) bales.  This is slightly

larger than our US bale which is 200 lbs.

Mark from HopTech

------------------------------


clorox and stainless steel

Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1993 10:33:09 CDT

From: "John L. Isenhour" <isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov>

Subject: clorox and stainless steel

 Al (korz@iepubj.att.com) writes:

>I've read reports in the HBD of pitting (especially on the welds) in Stainless

>Steel kegs after repeated use of Bleach solution in the kegs.  I trust the

>cumulative experiences of homebrewers well beyond what I read in a table

(here here, didn't one of those tables say that grape juice ate teflon?:-)

Here's yet another data point (YADP)

I believe that problems may arise when brewers use a bleach solution that is

too concentrated.  I started kegging in 1978 using cornelius style kegs and

1980 with SS 1/2 barrels.  I still have those same kegs.  They have been

sanitized with bleach solution every time and believe me these kegs have seen a

lot of activity:-)   I have yet to see any wear of any kind on these lovelies,

beyond the occasional need to replace the O rings and brass wing nuts on the

cornelius's, and the bungs and figure 8 gaskets on 1/2 barrels.  I had

bartending experience prior to the use of these kegs where I learned about

chlorine test strips to determine the sanitizing power of the solution.  I use

in the ballpark of 50 ppm as determined by these strips and I havent had any

problems with the results.

When I work with newer brewers, one pretty common trait is to watch them splash

horribly (to me anyway) concentrated solutions of bleach water over everything

associated with the brewing process.  I usually take some of my test strips

along and show them that they are using solutions that are 'off the scale' of

the strips capacity (it only reads up to 200 ppm).  Its easy to believe that

'more is better', but when it gets to the point where you may sustain damage by

contact to yourself, it may be time to examine your technique.  I always wear

eye protection/gloves but at ~50 ppm I dont get too worried about burning holes

in my lab jacket or brief skin contact - or eating holes in Stainless Steel.

Dont get me wrong, I'm not knocking idophor (I used it all the time when I was

doing hospital OR work), but bleach is inexpensive (esp. when you dilute it

properly), easily available, effective, and pretty safe when used properly.

John Isenhour

Hop Devil and National Beer Judge

john@hopduvel.UUCP

isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov

------------------------------


Electronic Brewers in Portland

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 09:43:04 PST

From: Jack St.Clair at fmccm6 <Jack_St.Clair_at_fmccm6@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: Electronic Brewers in Portland

In HBD#1154, Russ Wigglesworth asked for a headcount.  Since the two

messages that I sent to him were returned with "Host Unknown" I'm

posting my reply here.  Please excuse the bandwidth and hope to see you

all in Portland.

Russ, count us in.  My wife and I are both planning to attend.

Jack St.Clair

Folsom, CA 95630

------------------------------


spruce beer

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 13:19:35 -0600

From: gmeier@ncsa.uiuc.edu

Subject: spruce beer

Darren writes on the subject of spruce beer:

>"My biggest question right now is when to add the spruce.  Should I boil it

>for

>60 minutes or should I add it at the end of the boil?"

I have no experience in using spruce clippings in beer or anything else,

but the terpenes responsible for much of the characteristic aroma are

fairly volatile, and I suspect they would steam distill out during a

prolonged boil.  I'd add them at or near the end of the boil.

Gary Meier

FMC Corporation

Princeton, NJ 08543

------------------------------


aha conference

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 11:59:57 -0700

From: Loren Carter <lcarter@claven.idbsu.edu>

Subject: aha conference

Is anybody out there in need of a room for the AHA conference in Portland,

Oregon this July?

I have a room at the Marriott where the conference is being held that I would

share with one or two people.

If you are interested contact me by email.

Loren Carter

Chemistry Department

Boise State University

Boise, Idaho

------------------------------


Iowa beer, Scottish Ale

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 12:47:29 cdt

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@GRIN.EDU>

Subject: Iowa beer, Scottish Ale

Anthony Johnston wrote commenting on Amana beer and asking about a

microbrewery in "Alden."

I'm relatively new to the state (4 years), and my spouse and I have been

procreating since we arrived.  The rug rats, unfortunately, keep me from

getting around much.  However, I concur with Anthony's appraisal of Amana

beer (good amber, not-so-hot-but-not-too-bad-either lager) which I have been

able to get frequently on tap locally and in bottles.  (I have my first trip

to the brewery itself planned in a couple weeks - provided we can get a good

babysitter.)

But I'm confuced about "Alden."  Do you mean "Adell?"  (It's entirely

possible that there is a place called Alden that I haven't heard of - please

correct me if so.)  Adell is on Route 6 just West of Des Moines, and no I

haven't been there either.  I've heard they have a very interesting menu, and

their beer is available locally in bottles.  I've only had a chance to sample

the porter, which won't knock your socks off, but I found it very pleasant.

The nake of this beer is "Old Depot."  If I ever get over there I'll post a

review.

- --------------------

David Hinz posts an enthusiastic report of his Scottish Ale brewed to

Papazian's "style guide" specs.  David, would you care to share the specifics

of your efforts?  I'm an extract brewer, but I'd still like to see your grain

bill if you did an all-grain recipe, so I can try to approximate with

extracts, and I'd be curious about your choice of hops and yeast as well.

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

P.S. speaking of Iowa beer etc. - Tom Calahan, my e-mail reply to you

bounced.  Are you still on the net?

------------------------------


Spruce Beers

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 10:55:21 -0800

From: pohl@unixg.ubc.ca (Derrick Pohl)

Subject: Spruce Beers

In HBD #1154, Darren (dra@jsc-ws.sharpwa.com) writes:

>I have a spruce tree growing in my front yard and I have been wondering about

>using some of the fresh spring growths in a brew.  Does anyone have any

>experience using spruce in beer?

>[cut]

>My biggest question right now is when to add the spruce.  Should I boil it for

>60 minutes or should I add it at the end of the boil?  Any suggestions or

>comments would be welcome.  I don`t want the spruce to be overpowering, yet I

>want it to be evident along with the hops.

I've brewed two batches of spruce beer:  one a dark ale similar to the

recipe you propose, and the other a light lager.  I used about 100g (~4

oz.) of green spring Sitka spruce growth in each one, boiled for about one

hour.  Personally, I preferred the light lager, but the dark ale was OK

too.  The flavour lent by the spruce surprised me.  It wasn't at all like a

tree, or a forest, or sap, or anything else one might associate with a

spruce tree.  Instead, it's a sweet, almost berry-like taste, with a bit of

sourness thrown in.  I can see why Papazian thought it tasted like

Pepsi-Cola.  It's subtle, yet distinct.  I have also found that it

dissipates fairly quickly in the bottle.  My spruce lager has been in the

bottle for a little over a month now, and the spruce character has subsided

considerably, which is OK because it was a bit much at first.

Whether you go the ale or lager route, keep the hops light to bring out the

subtle spruce flavour, and you should probably use a little extra spruce in

a darker recipe.

To brew, perchance to dream....

- -----

Derrick Pohl (pohl@unixg.ubc.ca)

UBC Faculty of Graduate Studies, Vancouver, B.C.

------------------------------


Stainless Steel - Part 2

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 13:25:54 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Stainless Steel - Part 2

Shortly after sending my post on stainless to HBD I started to worry that

my phrase "boiling water or iodophor" may be misinterpreted as one and not

two alternate procedures. In particular, one should ***never*** add an

iodophor to water at an elevated temperature, since potentially toxic

fumes can result. The version of iodophor I use is called Accord II, and

is made by Diversity. This is the version that has the iodine bound up in

phosphoric acid; the other versions have it bound up in detergents. Diversity

states that their product if applied at 110 F can be used to clean. I tried

this once and the smell was not pleasant. The point where it would be

dangerous is much higher, but I bet it happens below 212 F.

------------------------------


My Swollen Head, and Book Reviews

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 11:47:58 PDT

From: Martin A. Lodahl <pbmoss!malodah@PacBell.COM>

Subject: My Swollen Head, and Book Reviews

My goodness!  HOMEBREW Digest #1153 seems to have been the Martin

Lodahl Commemorative Issue!  Prof. George Fix called to mind a truly

delightful afternoon:

> I brought some fresh bottles of the Grand Cru to the Beer Fest at

> Temecula, Ca. for Martin Lodahl to taste.  He gave it high marks

> for both authenticity and overall quality. Comments, Martin?

Sure!  I can't imagine a better antidote for an 11-hour drive than

to sit sipping beer and talking brewing with G. Fix and D. Richman!

And I can't remember when I've had a beer that delighted me as much

as that Celis Grand Cru.  It's solidly in the Belgian Strong Ale

tradition, delightfully smooth and complex, different flavors

arriving in succession.  Before that, the White was the only Celis

product I'd tried, and was delighted with it both bottled and on

draft.  One of these days I'd very much like to get to that brewery,

and try the rest of the line!

By the way, I would have been perfectly happy with just that

afternoon, but as an Extra Added Bonus there was the Southern

California Beer Fest put on by the Barley Bandits and the Maltose

Falcons, in Temecula.  It was truly superb.

In the same issue, Jeff Frane was speaking of last year's AHA

Conference, and said:

> ... the "lectures" are the least interesting part -- hanging

> out, eating and drinking with other homebrewers, _that's_ the real

> fun...and the most educational.  I say this as one of last year's

> speakers!

And one of the better ones, at that!  I very much enjoyed Jeff's

presentation on wort chillers.  I also agree with his priorities --

the people were certainly the best part.

> ...  There were a couple of really interesting

> presentations, but the high points for me were meeting George &

> Laurie Fix, having dinner next to Charlie Olchowski, finally

> meeting Martin Lodahl in person ...

That guy, again!

> ... and doing a walking tour of Milwaukee with Russ, and...

> oh, yeah, that beer.  And judging in the 2nd round.

Where Jeff got to meet Eric Warner's to-die-for Weizen.

>  And Fred Eckhardt's cheese and beer tasting.  And...

>

> Speeches?  We don't need no stinkin' speeches.

Fortunately, in HOMEBREW Digest #1154 Nick Zentena restored my

perspective (I may some day be able to find a hat that fits, again)

by asking:

>        Finally is Brewing Techniques going to be review

>        books other then those available from the AHA?

As the author of the book review in question, I have to tell you

that BT didn't ask me to write it.  They asked me to write

_something_, leaving it pretty much up to me what I wrote.  I like

that particular book (Jean-Xavier Guinard's "Lambic"), I've read it

a number of times, and so I thought I could review it without doing

it (or BT) too much violence.  As far as I know, there's neither a

connection nor is there antagonism between BT and any part of AoB,

including the AHA and Brewers' Publications.  So the answer is yes,

there's no preference at all being extended towards any one

publisher, in BT's reviews.

= Martin A. Lodahl      Pacific*Bell Systems Analyst =

= malodah@Pacbell.COM          Sacramento, CA           916.972.4821 =

= If it's good for ancient Druids, runnin' nekkid through the wuids, =

= Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me!  8-)   =

------------------------------


oktoberfest recipe ideas

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 14:04:09 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: oktoberfest recipe ideas

Most German Oktoberfest beers have a starting gravity of 1.052 -

1.055, which puts them more in line with the AHA "Vienna" style.

These beers are amber-colored (aim for 10L - 12L), malt-accented

lagers.  From the point of view of recipe formulation, you have the

choice of using crystal malts, munich malt, or some combination.

In their book, George and Laurie Fix present recipes using crystal

malt.  Depending on your setup and extract efficiency, for a 5-

gallon brew you might use a grain bill such as the following:

8 - 9 pounds pilsner malt

6 oz crystal malt 10L

6 oz crystal malt 60L

6 oz crystal malt 120L

The above grain bill specifies pilsner malt, and you should use the

finest German or Belgian pilsner malt.  Lacking that, use a good

U.S. 2-row pale malt.  The crystal malt blend gives the beer the

requisite color, body, and sweetness.

In subsequent articles and postings to HBD, George Fix has reported

using mixes of DeWolf-Cosyns Cara-Vienne (20L) and Cara-Munich

(80L) malts.  In the first issue of Brewing Techniques, it appears

that George Fix has settled on a mix of Cara-Vienne and Special B.

Using the BRF program, the following grain bill should produce a

color in the desired range:

9 pounds pilsner malt

1 pound Cara-Vienne (20L)

1.5 ounces Special B

As an alternative to the above grain bills, one could explore the

use of Munich malt, which should give color and malt flavor.  As an

example, consider the following grain bill:

5 pounds pilsner malt

4 pounds Munich malt

1 pound U.S. cara-pils

1/4 pound crystal malt 40L

Note the high fraction of Munich malt in the grain bill.  As U.S.

Munich malt can be of variable quality, brewers have raised the

concern that the resulting beer will suffer from grain harshness.

However, with the availability of DeWolf-Cosyns Munich malt, as

well as German Munich malts, surely such a recipe should be tried.

For hops, use fine European Noble hops, and hop to 22 - 25 IBUs (or

roughly 6 AAUs).  As an example, the hop schedule might be:

0.85 ounces Tettnang (alpha=4.5) at 45 minutes until end of boil

1/2 ounce Styrian Goldings (alpha=4.9) at 30 minutes until end of

           boil

1/2 ounce Saaz (alpha=3) at 15 minutes until end of boil

This style is not a bitter style, so total hopping is kept down.

Nor are pronounced hop flavor or aroma desired, so the last hopping

is 15 minutes before end of boil.

Use a good lager yeast and proper fermentation temperatures.

Wyeast "Bavarian" lager works very well.  Ferment at 50 degrees F

or so.  Rack the beer to secondary, and lager for 4 to 8 weeks.

------------------------------


How can I protect my stove?

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 15:05:20 EDT

From: Hal Laurent <laurent@tamdno.ENET.dec.com>

Subject: How can I protect my stove?

Uncle Schweem:

Hey, next time you call tell me what your phone number is!!!!

 -Hal

------------------------------


How can I protect my stove?

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 15:12:12 EDT

From: Hal Laurent <laurent@tamdno.ENET.dec.com>

Subject: How can I protect my stove?

Whoops, sorry about the previous post!  I mailed the wrong file!

(insert sheepish grin here)

I've recently gone all-grain, and I must say I've found the improvement

in my beer to be considerable (although I *hate* how long it takes to

brew a batch).  If it wasn't for the HBD, I'm sure I wouldn't have

gotten the nerve to try it yet.  My thanks to all of you.

However, I still have a bit of a problem.  I've been using a 33-quart

enameled canning pot over two burners of my (gas) stove.  The problem

is that the stove top is getting really disfigured from the heat,

especially between the two burners.  Some sort of brown deposit forms

on the white enameled stove surface that is darn near impossible to

remove.

Two questions:

    1. Is there some method of removing these stains from the stove?

    2. Would it help if I lined the stove top with aluminum foil or

        some other material when doing the boil?

Hal Laurent

Baltimore, Maryland

------------------------------


Yeast history

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 17:01:26 -0400

From: lorelle@meglos.mdcorp.ksc.nasa.gov (Tom Lorelle)

Subject: Yeast history

This was given to me and I wonder if anyone can authenticate it.

__________________________________________

Solutions of The Secret of Alcoholic Fermentation

"Beer yeast, when dispersed in water, breaks down into an infinite

number of small spheres. If these spheres are transferred to an aqueous

solution of sugar they develop into small animals. They are endowed with

a sort of suction trunk with which they gulp up the sugar from the

solution. Digestion is immediately and clearly recognizable because of

the discharge of excrements. These animals evacuate ethyl alcohol from

their bowels and carbon dioxide from their urinary organs. Thus one can

observe how a specifically lighter fluid is exuded from the anus and

rises vertically whereas a stream of carbon dioxide is ejected at very

short intervals from their enormously large genitals."

By Friedrich Woehler and Justus von Liebig.

Published in the Annals of Chemistry, Volume 29, 1839

Thanks,

Tom

------------------------------


California Festival of Beers & Style Question

Date: Wed,  2 Jun 93 15:39:33 PDT

From: TAN1%SysEng%DCPP@cts27.cs.pge.com

Subject: California Festival of Beers & Style Question

For those of you unlucky folks who don't live in the central

coast of California, you missed an excellent event over the

holiday weekend - The California Festival of Beers, held in San

Luis Obispo.  This event has been annual for at least 5 years and

features the majority of California micro-brewers displaying

their craft.  There were 65 brewies present this year with a

relaxed atmosphere and almost no lines anywhere.  The exception

to this was the line to get into the event, which seemed endless

but really moved along pretty well.  There were too many beers to

critique, but who wants to be critical at an event like this

anyway?  The afternoon spent in pursuit of great beer and amazing

scenery is an annual event that overshadows even my wedding

aniversary, which my wife has reluctently given up the last 5

years running.  To anyone within driving distance, go to it.  I

have a friend who comes in from Phoenix every year for this

event.  Good time, highly recommended, always held on Memorial

Day weekend.

In HBD 1154 Stuart Galt gives a recipe of the following:

>Basic recipe:

>19 lb Klages

>3  lb Munich

>1.5 lb Crystal

>1   lb Wheat

>2oz Tettenanger, 2oz Centennial  (for 60 minutes)

>2oz Cascade  (5 minutes)

and asks what style it is.  Based on the recipe my program, the

Brewer's Workshop, predicts the OG to be 1.056, color to be 8

degree lovibond, and bitterness to be about 55 IBU's.  This is

based on an 11 gallon boil, an extraction efficiency of 70%,  and

20 lovibond crystal.  By these parameters alone the style

would fit an India Pale Ale almost like a glove.

But one must use caution when designing recipes to meet a style.

IPA is classically fermented in oak, so the use of oak chips

would round out the style.   IPA should use british Hops, not

German or American.  The use of Tettenanger, a finishing hop, in

the full boil is also unusual and wasteful in that the excellent

aromatics will be boiled off. The bottom line is that there are

many beers worth brewing, even if they don't fit a style exactly.

Darryl Richman has an excellent article in the new magazine,

Brewing Techniques, which deals with the topic of recipe design.

Highly recommended to anyone with a casual or better interest in

the hobby.

Disclaimer -  I wrote and sell the Brewer's Workshop, so my

opinions are necessarily biased.

Tom Nelson - TKO Software - (805) 481-4900 -  CI$: 72310,2710

------------------------------


What's the story with SA?

Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1993 18:55:09 -0400 (EDT)

From: "EDWARD M. CROFT" <CROFTE@delphi.com>

Subject: What's the story with SA?

What's the story with Sam Adams. It seems it's always getting trashed here.

A lot of people in my area (Southern MA) are buying Sam Adams. (Course there's

not a whole lot of selection in my area.) Is Sam Adams Ale and Lager really

that bad, or is it that people just don't like Koch(?). I'm new, so forgive me

for not being up on the controversy.

****

Finally tasted my first homebrew after only a week of aging in the bottle.

Not Bad... I made an Irish Stout. I'm letting the rest age, but tasting one

bottle a week to get an idea of the progression as it ages. I may not go back

to the packy again. My next effort will either be a wheat or a porter.

***

TIA for your responses to my Sam Adams question.

Big Ed

------------------------------


Using a freezer

Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1993 21:13:44 -0400 (EDT)

From: SMUCKER@UTKVX.UTCC.UTK.EDU

Subject: Using a freezer

I think that this is a good question and if I knew how easy it was to use a

freezer and how cheap used chest freezer where I would have started with a

freezer rather that a fridge.  I am sure this information has been it HBD

before but I don't think it hurts to add another data point.

Using a freezer works very well.  I have both a fridge and a freezer for my

beer and the freezer works the best and has the most useable space.  This

is of course a chest type freezer and not an up right.  The Thermostat I

use is a Johnson Controls, A19AAT-1C, PORTABLE THERMOSTAT, RANGE 20/80 DEG F,

SPST, OPEN LOW, STYLE 1.

I purchased it from the Brewhaus, 4955 Ball Camp Pike, Knoxville, TN 37921.

phone 1-800-638-2437.  price was $ 64.45.  It works very well!

Hunter room air conditioner thermostats are also reported to work but are

limited to a lower temperature of about 40 der F.  You want to go lower for

long term storage or lagering.  Cost about $ 40.00

Dave Smucker,  Brewing beer, not making jelly!!

------------------------------


Stoudt's Fest

Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1993 21:25:24 -0400 (EDT)

From: RADAMSON@delphi.com

Subject: Stoudt's Fest

Hope to meet any of the fellow HBD'ers at Stoudt's 2nd Annual Event.  I don't

quite know where I'll be - I've donated my efforts to the cause as I did last

year to where-ever Ed & Carol put me.  I lived in Philly last year so it

was an easy task.  This year I'm treking from Long Island with family in tow.

I'll be at every session, so look me up.  Just say "Home Brew Digest", I should

be able to recognize that!

>Jim Busch - I hope to meet you - you'll be at Baltimore Brewing, is that right?

Side note: I had been away from HBD awhile, and while catching up on my reading,

I found that what I had done to my Honey Wheat Ale (without knowing) was to get

it closer to a "White".  It had started out to be a quick, simple wheat beer:

6.6 lb Northwestern Wheat Extract & 3 lbs honey, Cascades up front with Haller-

tau to finish.  Simple, just rack and can (I'm that 5 Liter Keg guy).  But for

some reason I hesitated when racking. It needed something...  Somehow came up

with Coriander and Orange Peel - I must have read it long ago and just filed.

Anyway, I can't wait for it (but I will).  Question: Does it Clear? or does it

stay rather cloudy?  Hope I have some to take to Stoudt's..  enough is enough.

Later.

Richard Adamson    Brewer, Patriot (NOT Patriots), Steeler Fan.

/ex

/exit

/EXIT

/HELP

(how embarassing, I can't get out. ;-)

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1155, 06/03/93

*************************************

-------


Oktoberfest recipe and dirty stove tops

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 11:46:29 +0200

From: dejonge@tekserv.geof.ruu.nl (Marc de Jonge)

Subject: Oktoberfest recipe and dirty stove tops

After reading Tony Babinec's post in HBD 1155, I decided to throw in

another recipe for munich oktoberfest. This one is so simple it's

hardly a recipe but the taste comes out great: Strong malty flavour,

might do with a bit more hops, the taste is definitely 'in style'

(so the style might do with a bit more hops :)

[recipe for 20 litres]

 5.5 kg Munich malt

 40 g Hallertau hops (whole, 5.1% alpha)

yes, that's it

I make this with a 2-stage decoction mash, fairly high temperature

(for German beer)

Add strike water to get a temperature of 53C

(pH of the mash around 5.4) while 60% is at this temp. do a quick

infusion step of 67C with 40% of the mash (20 mins),

boil (20 min) and back,(temperature should be around 67C)

rest 45 mins,

boil 1/3 of the mash for 10 minutes,

back and rest 20 minutes (around 72C), sparge

add 30 g of hops at the beginning of the boil, the remainder

some 20 minutes before the end

Pitch bottom fermenting yeast, primary at 14C, secondary at 9C,

lager at 6C for a month.

OG 1053-1057

FG 1012-1014

The malts I've used for this recipe are Belgian munich and

Munich munich, they come out a bit different (the German version

was somewhat darker), but very nice.

On another issue:

Hal Laurent asks about stains on the stove top:

>Two questions:

>

>   1. Is there some method of removing these stains from the stove?

>

    a warm cleaning soda (Na2CO3, not caustic soda!) solution may help,

    but I'm not sure what that does with your stove top

>   2. Would it help if I lined the stove top with aluminum foil or

>        some other material when doing the boil?

    Being a sloppy cook, I find it useful to flood the stove with water

    before I start cooking anything messy, that reduces the cleaning

    of the stove to mopping up afterwards.

- ------------------------------------------------------------

Marc de Jonge                            dejonge@geof.ruu.nl

- ------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


RE: iodine

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 08:45:36 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: iodine

Hi All,

  In HBD#1155, Spencer W. Thomas writes:

>I'm sure this has been covered before, but here I go again....

>The last batch I made, I did the iodine test two ways:  1. I drained a

>little out of the spigot at the bottom of my mash/lauter tun (Gott

>cooler with copper-pipe manifold).  This tested completely starch free

>after 20 minutes (the first time I tested it).  2. I pushed the spoon

>into the top of the mash and let some fluid run into it.  This never

>tested clear, even after 1.5 hours.

>So which one should I believe?

  I'd say believe the first sample.  What I think happened is that the

sample drawn from the spigot was free of grain husks and pieces of grain

by virtue of being drawn through your sparge manifold, while the second

sample taken from the top of the mash contained grain material.

  IMHO, the iodine test *is* a reliable means of determining starch

conversion, but it is absolutely critical that the sample be free of

any grain husks (which contain cellulose) and grain chunks (insoluble

starch, which will never convert).  What is being tested here is the

degree of conversion of *soluble* starch to sugars, so it's important to

test a sample that is liquid only, free of any particulate matter.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


mircowave sanitation, superheated water

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 09:31:43 EDT

From: Ralph Palmer <rpalmer@Think.COM>

Subject: mircowave sanitation, superheated water

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Does the radiation from a standard home microware offer any sanitation

or sterilization benefits?  I remember reading about a new autoclave design

that also used microwave in the process and began to wonder about home

microwave ovens.

I just cultured my first batch of wyeast into 4 starters, and was very

paraniod about sanitation.  Afer soaking the bottles in a bleach solution

I decided to boil them.  I do not have a pot big enough, so I filled each

bottle 1/3 full and stuck them into the microwave to boil the water inside

the bottle.  As I sat there waiting for the boil, I wondered if the microwaves

themselves would kill any of the nasties.

Boiling the water inside the bottles worked well, but I also got to relearn

the hazards of superheating water.  The bubbles in boiling water need a

site to nucleate or the water does not boil at 212F.  Typically scratches

in pans or glass provide a nice nucleation point.  However if there are

no scratches, ie a nice smooth bottle or flask, the water will heat above

212F.  That is why boiling chips, little pieces of porus ceramic, are put

in flasks in chem class.  One of my 4 bottles did not boil when the others

did.  I first thought it was because it was positioned in the corner.  When

I opened the microware and touched the bottle, the hot water spurted out

the top!  Thank goodness I was wearing an oven mit.  I will continue to

use the mircowave to boil water in the bottle, but plan to put in a scratched

glass marble in to act as a boiling chip.

     Ralph Palmer

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ralph Palmer        |The opinions above are mine alone and do not

Thinking Machines Corporation |necessarily represent the views of my employer

245 First Street       |----------------------------------------------

Cambridge, MA 02142       | "Even paranoid people have real enemies"

email: rpalmer@think.com      |

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


SS/dry yeast

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 08:37:12 -0500

From: donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: SS/dry yeast

Al writes,

"I re-checked my 1991-1992 Cole-Parmer Chemical Reactivity charts and

there was no mention of Chlorox (bleach)."

Better check again Al.  Page 1185, item 23 from the top, 1991-92 Cole

Parmer catalog is none other than "Clorox (bleach)."  It's in the 93-94

catalog as well, page 1465.

Al goes on,

"Furthermore, I'd like to point out that don's wife is the owner of St. Pat's

of Texas (brewing supply) and they do not stock Iodophor rather they

 stock a chlorine sanitizer."

Wrong again.  St. Pat's has never at any time stocked a chlorine sanitizer

 .  St. Pat's has stocked both the 4 oz and liter size of iodophor for about a

year.  We've been using iodophor for as long but I see no reason to run

 down bleach which, as John Isenhaur points out, is inexpensive, readily

available and just fine if used properly.  It should be noted that my

 standard dose (1 tsp/gallon) was 1/6 th that suggested by george fix (1

oz/gallon),  i.e., nearly a full order of magnitude below the safe level.  If I

understand George correctly, he believes repeated use with a bleach

solution known to be safe, will eventually cause harm.  Poor logic.  If we

drink a beer a day for 40 years, we won't die from alcohol poisoning.

I recommend Arne's ? wonderful post of a couple days ago about the

reactivity of chlorite with aluminum.  Its a wonderful example of how

useless superficial knowledge such as numbers from tables can sometimes

be.

More from Al,

"Finally, don has, in a newsletter, questioned the quality of the DeWolf-

Cosyns Belgian Malts (another item not stocked by St. Pat's of Texas)"

Not true on both counts.  St. Pat's newsletters have had only good things to

say about belgian malts.  Not only does St. Pat's sell Belgian malt, St. Pat's

was one of the first shops to do so.  In fact, St. Pat's was the first shop to

advertise the availability of Belgian malts in Zymurgy (summer '92  Great

Fermentations also has an ad in the same issue).  My wife Lynne learned of

 these malts from Pierre Celis during a personal tour of his brewery while

it was still under construction.  Lynne can testify to Pierre's wonderful

nature.  He spent an hour or so toting our youngest boy Patrick, 1 at the

time, around the brewery.

Al adds,

"St. Pat's of Texas turns out to be the sole distributor of Briess malt in the

area."

St. Pat's, like Pierre Celis, appreciates the quality of both Briess and DeWolf

Cosyns malt.

Al goes on,

"I've yet to find the reasoning for don's tirade on yeast a few weeks ago,

but I'm sure that his ulterior motives will surface eventually."

The only two people who have resorted to sophomoric remarks regarding

my posts about yeast are Al and George.  I believe Al sells dry yeast for a

profit and George of course is employed by the distributor of Whitbread.

On the other hand St. Pat's gives dry yeast away free because Lynne

cannot in good conscience sell it for a profit.  I would be more than

 delighted if George and Al's dream of pure dry yeast were to come true;

then Lynne could start selling the dry yeast for a profit.

I found it ironic that in the end George was blaming Lallemand, Al's

favorite dry yeast producer, for the problems with Whitbread, the product

that George represents.  For the record, all Whitbread, the good, the bad

and the ugly has been produced under contract by Distillers in England.

 That particular portion of the Whitbread history seems to have been

invented for the purpose of not only deflecting responsibility for the really

atrocious batch of a couple of years ago, but also to pass blame on to the

 competitor, Lallemand.

Best regards,

Don

------------------------------


Converting a freezer to a fridge

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 07:38:07 -0600

From: LPD1002%NYSHESCV.bitnet@UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU

Subject:  Converting a freezer to a fridge

Thanks to all who responded to my query.

I have found the Hunter Airstat as recommended at Builders Square

For $28.  It only has a low end of 40 Degrees.  That was somewhat

bothersome since one of the reasons I wanted a fridge was to

try lagering.  The other suggestion, a Johnson Controls Portable

Thermostat is sold at my locat Homebrew store for $64.95. This

price was somewhat bothersome, but I think it's the one for me.

It has a wider range (down to 20 degrees) and the owner of the

homebrew store says he recommends it over the Hunter because he

knows of some people who used Hunters and had their compressors

burn out.  It seems the Hunter is a little TOO precise and kicks

the compressor on when there is any fluctuation in temperature.

The freezer I lucked into seems pretty old, so I guess my

decision is made.

                              STEVE SEPTER

------------------------------


SS and phosphoric acid

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 08:52:07 -0500

From: donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: SS and phosphoric acid

George Fix uses a sanitizer containing phosphoric acid for his 304 stainless

kegs.  Phosphoric acid reacts quite severely with 304 stainless.  should

we then conclude that the use of this sanitizer will damage his kegs with

repeated use?  of course not.  For the same reason that dilute bleach

will not either.

the key here is to use the product whether its phosphoric acid or bleach

properly.

------------------------------


California Crazy Train

Date: 3 Jun 1993 07:08:23 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

Subject: California Crazy Train

Subject:  California Crazy Train                Time:7:04 AM     Date:6/3/93

Due to a gross lack of response (0 reservations) the Crazy Train between LA &

Portland has been cancelled. Frequent reasons offered included the extended

travel time required and the attraction of lower RT airfares available. Maybe

we'll try again next year to Denver.

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


pH Testing

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 09:06 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: pH Testing

 >From: jdg@cyberspace.org (Josh Grosse)

 >In today's issue, Mr. S. questioned his purchase of a pH meter, and said he

 felt he purchased equipment he found to be useless.

 >I have one, and I find it extremely useful for three purposes:

 You will note that *I* found it to be useless, i.e. with MY process, using MY

 water.  I only suggested that before speNding the money, one should try one

 to see if it is needed in his/her case.

 If no adjustments are necessary and the water supply is constant, then one

 need not make the measurements on a continuing basis.

 >1) Adjusting the pH of the mash.  (pH 5.0-5.5)

 I presume you mean that you adjust the water to something so that after

 adding the malt, the pH is 5.0 to 5.5.   I wonder what that something is.

 My water is 8.1 and drops into that range.  I would be interested in knowing

 what your numbers are without adjusting.

 >2) Adjusting the pH of sparge water. (ph 5.6-5.8)

 Again, my sparge water is 8.1 and after sparging 10 gallons, it only raises

 the total pH of the wort a tenth of a point.

 >3) Ensuring I don't oversparge. (ph > 5.5)

 It is just as useful to use a hydrometer.  If you stop sparging when the

 gravity falls below 1.008, you will not likely have any problems.  It will

 take tons of a water a few points higher to have any effect on the total

 wort.

 But again, I am only suggesting that one try it before buying.  He may find

 that it only tells him what he already suspected from the quality of the beer

 produced.

 ------------------------------

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >Subject: Wyeast British and London/Rusty hop leaves

 >JACK writes:

 It may seem folksy to use first names but it's a bit confusing. I (one of

 several Jacks) am not responsible for the above.

 js

ZZ

------------------------------


looking for time saving tips

Date: Thu, 03 Jun 93 10:28:42 EDT

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: looking for time saving tips

In HBD #1155 Hal Laurent appreciated the quality of his brews after switching

to all grain but complains about the amount of time it takes.

When I read his post I thought he was talking about me! :-)  I've got 3

all grain batches under my belt now and they were  great (IMHO).  Even

my wife drinks my beers now - she was indifferent to my extract brews.  My best

time for brewing an all grain batch is about 5 hours and I'd like to cut that

down as much as possible.  Some one in a recent Zymurgy issue said that an

all grain batch took him 3 hours, including clean up.

My biggest problem right now is that I don't have water ready at the right

temperature at the right time and I know that this will be cured by experience.

I would like to hear about time saving tips from other brewers.

regards,

- --Tony Verhulst

------------------------------


Hunter AirStat modification

Date: 03 Jun 1993 10:06:10 -0600 (CST)

From: BLAST@sn01.sncc.lsu.edu

Subject: Hunter AirStat modification

I remember reading about a mod to the Hunter AirStat to make it work for a

lower (< 40F) temperature range.

Could someone with the specifics please repost or e-mail it to me?

I'm getting ready to do a lager and with outside temps above 90F already,

the little yeasties are going to need lots of TLC (Thermal Lagering Control).

Thanks,

Bruce Ray

------------------------------


A beer joke

Date:     3 Jun 93 11:01:04

From: "Rafael Busto"  <SUPERVISOR@bnk1.bnkst.edu>

Subject:  A beer joke

 - Why american (commercial) beer is like making love in a canoe?

 - Because is f__ing close to water

Rafael Busto

Computer Center Bank  Street College of Education, New York City

RBusto@bnk1.bnkst.edu

------------------------------


Re: What's the story with SA

Date: Thu,  3 Jun 93 08:01:13 PDT

From: TAN1%SysEng%DCPP@cts27.cs.pge.com

Subject: Re: What's the story with SA

In HBD 1155 Big Ed asks

>What's the story with Sam Adams. It seems it's always getting trashed here.

>A lot of people in my area (Southern MA) are buying Sam Adams. (Course there's

>not a whole lot of selection in my area.) Is Sam Adams Ale and Lager really

>that bad, or is it that people just don't like Koch(?). I'm new, so forgive me

>for not being up on the controversy.

>****

The controvery is not the beer produced by SA, it is generally regarded as

excellent (with the exception of the "Lambic"). The problem is Ed Koch and his

less than above board advertising techniques and litigations.  SA has made

claims that were not true (winner of the GABF 4 years running), filed lawsuits

against micro-brewerys for the use of the name "Boston" in their beer, and

generally handled himself in a manner that makes you glad he is not your

neighbor.

I've been watching the digest for almost a year now and have found it amusing

as to the various controversies that unfold.  It's like watching the black

sheep of the family, wondering what he's going to do next to screw up.

I personally do not participate in the boycott of SA products.  I like his

beers, and use them as examples good American beers.  I do go on, then, to

explain about Koch.  I may not like Koch, but its hard to deny that the lager

is excellent.

Tom Nelson

------------------------------


HELP FROM NJ!!!

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 10:31 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: HELP FROM NJ!!!

HELP!!!

URGENT!!!

If you live or work in New Jersey and would be willing to do me favor

(picking up some boxes from a warehouse and UPSing them to me) please

send me email directly.  Yes, this is beer-related and I'm sure we could

figure out some kind of beer-related compensation for this favor.

Thanks.  Sorry about the bandwidth.

Al.

------------------------------


Lautering

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 08:55:57 PDT

From: bgros@sensitivity.berkeley.edu (Bryan L. Gros)

Subject: Lautering

I realize that the variety of methods of sparging are as

numerous as people brewing, but I am looking for some

general guidelines.

What are the main parameters in sparging?  That is, what are

the important things that you want to work towards however you

are sparging?  How important is, for example, the thickness of

the grain bed?  the temperature of the water?  the level of water

above the grain bed?  the amount of recirculation?  water hardness/

softness?  pH?

what have I missed?  which are irrelevant?  which depend on the

style of beer the brewer is aiming for?  what do people that

sparge for two or three hours doing all that time, recirculating

or waiting for the grain to "soak" or what?

With that information, what is important for equipment?  geometry

of the lauter tun?

Several points of view would be great.  I think this aspect (along

with a poor grain crush from the store) is my main problem with

poor efficiency now (and maybe others too).  Thanks

                                    - Bryan

I guess I'm asking for a lot of information, so pointers to a good

reference would be fine, if one exists.

------------------------------


RE: How can I protect my stove?

Date: Thu, 03 Jun 93 12:01:52 -0400

From: ""Robert C. Santore"" <rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: RE: How can I protect my stove?

In HBD 1155 Hal Laurent asks about how to avoid brown stains on his stove.

Hal, I have the exact same set up you descrived:  A 33 qt enameled steel

brewpot over two burners of a white enamaled gas stove.  I get the same

brown stains you do.  One obvious source of the brown gunk is wort boil-

overs or small drips and spills.  I've also found that ANY residue on the

stove at the start of the brew session will turn into that impossible stain

even if it dosn't look dirty to begin with.  While starting out with a very

clean stove, and cleaning all spill as they happen will help, I have never

had a brew session that didn't leave some stain.  The solution is to use

oven cleaner after you're all done.  Let is soak awhile and you should find

that the stain wipes right off.

Bob Santore

rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu

------------------------------


Sparging, Octoberfest, pH Testing

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 11:08 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Sparging, Octoberfest, pH Testing

 >From: Jamie Ide  02-Jun-1993 1046 <ide@studio.enet.dec.com>

 >   That is, immerse the chiller in a pot of hot (boiling?) water and

     run tap water through it to heat sparge water.  By playing with the

     flow rate and the water temp., I ought to be able to get it up to temp.

     easily.

  >  Has anyone tried this?  Any opinions?

 Ah, yes. Great minds do travel the same paths.  You just missed my latest new

 product announcement.  The EASYSPARGER (tm) or easysparger (if you make it

 yourself) does exactly that with a lot less fuss.

 It is a small (6 qt) kettle with two barb fittings on it.  One goes to a hose

 and faucet adapter and the other, an inch lower, goes to a piece of stiff

 tubing that dribbles water into the lauter tun.  The kettle sits on the stove

 and will provide all the sparge water you will ever need with no pre-planning

 or calculating.

 On second thought, there is one significant disadvantage of your approach and

 that is there is no chlorine evaporation in the wort chiller, whereas in the

 open kettle, most of it is evaporated before getting to the outflow.

 >   I could easily hook up a "showerhead" to the hose output and get a

     nicely distributed flow over the mash.

 For the record, a shower head is one of those things that commercial brewers

 use that have no application in small batches but are so cute that some

 suppliers just can't resist selling them.

 If (as it should be) the water level is maintained above the grain level in

 the lauter tun, it make no difference where or how the water enters as long

 as it is not a tunneling downpour.

 >From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

 >Most German Oktoberfest beers have a starting gravity of 1.052 -

 1.055, which puts them more in line with the AHA "Vienna" style.

 > Ferment at 50 degrees F or so.  Rack the beer to secondary, and lager for 4

 to 8 weeks.

 I got the idea from the Fix's book that the most fundamental difference

 between the two styles derived from the fact that the Octoberfest was, by

 definition, aged for many months, i.e. March to October.

 If you look at the gravity ranges for the two styles, they just about overlap

 to the extent that the bottom end of one is the top end of the other.

 I would think that aging a "Marzen/Octoberfest" for two months would be

 cheating on the old family recepie.

 ...........

 To clarify a point on an earlier posting, my tap water is around 8.1 and upon

 doughing in, the pH of the mash drops to around 5.5.  The point being that if

 one buffers their water to this range before doughing in, they may be just

 kidding themselves.

 js

------------------------------


Re: iodine

Date: Thu, 03 Jun 93 08:57:20 -0700

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Re: iodine

>  I'm sure this has been covered before, but here I go again....

Well, sort of....

>  The last batch I made, I did the iodine test two ways:  1. I drained a

>  little out of the spigot at the bottom of my mash/lauter tun (Gott

>  cooler with copper-pipe manifold).  This tested completely starch free

>  after 20 minutes (the first time I tested it).  2. I pushed the spoon

>  into the top of the mash and let some fluid run into it.  This never

>  tested clear, even after 1.5 hours.

  I have been using an identical setup, and have have identical

results.  My top test did eventually test complete, after 3-4 hours.

For a while, I even did overnite mashes to get complete conversion.  I

ended up with a lot of underbodied, overalcoholic brews.  What I have

done since then is raised my normal mash temp to the upper end of the

range, and stir occasionally.  I now get complete conversion top and

bottom in less than an hour.  The stirring does speed loss of

temperature though.

- ---

 My SS keg went to the fabricators today!  I am having false bottom

supports and a nipple welded into it.  I already have the pump, and

plan on doing a pseudo-RIMS using my existing King Kooker, the keg and

the pump, and graduating to 10 gallon batches as well :-)!  Thanks to

Rick Larson for all the info!

       Home of Drew's Brew, Beer Worth It's Malt!

Drew Lynch

Chronologic Simulation, Los Altos, Ca

(415)964-3312 x18

drew@chronologic.com

------------------------------


Beyond momilies

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 10:47:56 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Beyond momilies

If a momily is an opinion presented as fact, what should we call

the following?

Al Korz in HBD #1154 re St. Pat's of Texas.

  [snip]

>Furthermore, I'd like to point out that don's wife is the owner of St. Pat's

>of Texas (brewing supply) and they do not stock Iodophor rather they stock

>a chlorine sanitizer.

        Wrong.  I just last week purchase iodophor from St. Pat's

        of Texas.

 [snip]

>Finally, don has, in a newsletter, questioned the quality of the DeWolf-Cosyns

>Belgian Malts (another item not stocked by St. Pat's of Texas) while on

>the other hand, St. Pat's of Texas turns out to be the sole distributor

>of Breiss malt in the area.

        Wrong again.  I regularly buy Briess malts from another seller

        in the Austin area.

 [snip]

>Please note that this is not a flame.  I'm simply posting data that I've

>collected and am not personally attacking anyone.         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 ^^^^^^^^^

        Perhaps you meant to say ". . . lies that I've made up . . ."

I have no particular stake in St. Pat's, it just one of the three local

homebrew suppliers I use.  I am however amazed at the amount of

mis-information spread by some contributors to HBD.  Momilies are bad

enough, let's at least cut out the completely false statements, Al.

WAK

------------------------------


Noble Hops Wasteful? *NOT*

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 12:11:34 CDT

From: "Roger Deschner  " <U52983@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject: Noble Hops Wasteful? *NOT*

In the last HBD, Tom Nelson said:

>The use of Tettenanger, a finishing hop, in

>the full boil is also unusual and wasteful in that the excellent

>aromatics will be boiled off.

I beg to differ! The use of "noble", low-yeild hops in the full boil

improves your beer. The only "waste" is money, but hops are a relatively

small part of our financial investment in homebrewing, so I only use the

best.

As has been discussed here at some length before, hops contribute much

more than sheer bitterness, even when used early in the boil. The "other

flavors" - not all of which are driven off by an hour of boiling - are a

vital part of the incredible complex of flavors in a truly great beer. I

say, calculate your bittering units, and then throw bales and bales of

Tettenanger, Saaz, or whatever, in, if that's what it takes. The extra

buck or two will be well spent. Leave those high-alpha hops for the

commercial guys who watch the bottom line.

------------------------------


OFest Recipe Formulation

Date: Thu,  3 Jun 93 12:08:08 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: OFest Recipe Formulation

Regarding the use of German vs Belgian Pilsner malt for Fest recipes.

In George Fix's review of Belgian grains he mentions that the Belgian

Pilsner pilsner malt is much lower in SMM, the DMS precursor that is a

good indicator of the level of malty/sulphury flavor in the brew, than

the German malts.  I find this component an important part of the flavor

and aroma profile of a fest beer like Spaten Ur Marzen and would consider

using German malts as the base malts in addition to the  highly praised

Belgian specialty malts.  I would also do a decoction mash.

My read of George's review suggests that for Chec style Pilsners, Fest and

other lagers with a rich malty profile quality German pils malts are a better

choice than Belgian.  Are there other factors which out weigh the low SMM

that make the Belgian a better choice?  Did I miss something?

------------------------------


Iodine testing

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 14:16:28 -0400

From: djt2@po.CWRU.Edu (Dennis J. Templeton)

Subject: Iodine testing

>From yesterday's digest:

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: iodine

I'm sure this has been covered before, but here I go again....

The last batch I made, I did the iodine test two ways:  1. I drained a

little out of the spigot at the bottom of my mash/lauter tun (Gott

cooler with copper-pipe manifold).  This tested completely starch free

after 20 minutes (the first time I tested it).  2. I pushed the spoon

into the top of the mash and let some fluid run into it.  This never

tested clear, even after 1.5 hours.

So which one should I believe?  I got a great (for me) extraction rate

of 31 pts/lb/gal, with wonderfully clear sweet wort, so it would seem

that conversion was indeed complete (maybe at 20 minutes).

<end>

This point is poorly made in the books, I think, but I remeber one text

covering it.  Iodine will react with powdered husk as well as with starch.

In my experience the starch reaction is the purple color that is usually

described, and the reaction with husk particles produces a greenish brown

color. In a thick solution, with excess iodine around, the two results can

be confusing.  If you look closely at the husk reaction, you will probably

notice that the color is not in the solution, but in tiny particles, with

clear fluid in betwen.

I have developed the habit to test only runoff that has been pre-circulated

a little, as Spencer reports above, and I also dilute it a little, maybe

2:1 with water before adding the iodine.

Good luck,

dennis

------------------------------


Oops...

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 14:37:02 CDT

From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>

Subject: Oops...

Thanks to all who let me know that the town in IA is Adel, not Alden.

Tony Johnston

------------------------------


taste of yeast starters

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 13:17:29 PDT

From: ng570@andechs.pnl.gov

Subject: taste of yeast starters

I have a question concerning how a yeast starter should taste, i.e.,

whether contamination has occurred or not. The situation is this:

after propagating a Wyeast 1084 (Irish) package into several bottles of

about 5 oz each (unhopped, O.G. 1.020, fermented completely out), I took one

out last night to pitch into a 1 quart starter so that I could brew this

weekend. Well for once I decided to taste it to see if there were any

problems. Well it was very clean tasting and the 'beer' was very clear (i.e.

not cloudy), however it seemed very acidic. Is this typical for this case

or do I have a possible contamination of lactic or acetic acid bacteria?

I hate to toss out all of these potential starters if I'm just being paranoid,

but I don't want to ruin a perfectly good batch of beer either.

Thanks for the help,

Kirk Peterson

- --

Theory, Modeling, and Simulation

Molecular Science Research Center

Pacific Northwest Laboratory

office - (509) 375-6350

FAX    - (509) 375-6631

------------------------------


Garlic Beer Inquiry

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 16:50:22 EDT

From: casagran@gdstech.grumman.com (Lou Casagrande)

Subject: Garlic Beer Inquiry

Fellow Brewers,

A friend of mine is contemplating making a Garlic brew. Actually, he

wants to take about 1 six-pack out of another brew and add garlic to

it. Does anyone have any advice on the best stage at which to add the

garlic? AdvTHANKSance.

Lou Casagrande

casagran@gdstech.grumman.com

------------------------------


Micro in Alden, Iowa

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 15:28:40 -0600 (CDT)

From: max!chad@uunet.UU.NET (Chad Sheley)

Subject: Micro in Alden, Iowa

HBD;

There has been a small amount of discussion on a micro-brewery in Alden, Iowa,

and subsequently in Adel, Iowa.

Well, I did a very small amount of research and called the City Hall in Alden

and was informed there was no brewery in Alden. (Dispersed amongst much

laughter). Just for reference, the town of Alden is located about 30 miles

north of Ames, Iowa off of highway 35 on highway 20. (Not that it matters now.)

Now for something that I DO know for sure. I live exactly 3 blocks from the

Dallas County Brewing Company in Adel. The other information supplied by other

HBDers is correct. The beer is marketed under the name "Old Depot" in reference

to the restaurant which is housed in the former Adel railroad depot.

The 4 beers that are available _are_ Lager, Porter, Ale, and a Light. The other

beers mentioned are only available on tap in the Old Depot Pub which is part

of the restaurant. These beers are touted as "Beer of the Month" and are

available on a monthly basis, or until the batch runs out.

As far as the restaurant goes, the menu is very diverse. I have only been there

for the lunch which is pretty normal, but the appetizers and dinner entres are

different.

I don't know how most micro-breweries work, but in this case the brewery and

the restaurant seem to be seperate entities. Which is probably good. I have

heard some not-so-great things about the restaurant (ie: service) and since

the newness has worn off (The whole thing is only in it's 2nd year.) the

parking lot has been sorta empty. At least if the restaurant assumes room

temperature, I can still get that beer that I have come to love. :-)

********************************************************************************

*                                              *             __                *

*   Chad A. Sheley                             *            / /___             *

*                                              *            /  ___/            *

*   chad@uis.com                               *          |/ / /  __           *

*                                              *          | / / / / /          *

*   UNIX INTEGRATION SERVICES                  *           / / /_/ / /         *

*   11033 Aurora Ave.                          *            / /_____/ /        *

*   Urbandale, IA 50322                        *             /______  /        *

*   (515) 254-3074                             *                   /_/         *

********************************************************************************

------------------------------


Wort Chiller to Sparge Heater

Date: Fri, 28 May 93 05:24:57 PDT

From: Scott Lord (CompuCom) <v-ccsl@microsoft.com>

Subject: Wort Chiller to Sparge Heater

I have a RIM system that works the same way. I have a 15g covered keg

as a boiler and pump hot water to a 50gal. double wall insulated

storage tank ( it is a old A&W  root beer vat) then use two copper

coils in parallel (25ft long ) that are summered in the vat and

recirculate the mash

through it as a temp. boost .I figured out how to keep my mash from

sticking when running my RIM system I use a third 11gal converted keg

as a "GRANT" what I do is set the flow rate out of my insulated mash

tun to the GRANT so the grain does not compact then pump the mash  out

of the GRANT through the copper coils back to the top of the mash tun.

I did two brews this last weekend both of then where wheat ales.

31gal.

11lb wheat malt

29 lb 2row

5 lb carapils

5 lb crystal 40l

4 tsp. Irish moss last 20 min.

4 oz. Saaz (alpha=4.5) boil

1 oz. Tettnang (alpha=4.0)  30 min.

3 oz. Tettnang (alpha=4.0) end of boil

31 gal

28 lb British 2 row

19 lb wheat malt

4 lb carapils

4 oz. centenals boil

1.5 oz. Haller-tau 30 min.

2.5 oz. Haller-tau  end of boil

mash                                                                  76c5min

 /4min

                                                       72c15min/

                                                       /

                                 67c15min_/    7min.

                               /

                             /

                           / 17min

                         /

50c30min.__/

------------------------------


EDME Brewcraft Barrel/Bleach & SS/St. Pat's of TX correction

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 16:42 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: EDME Brewcraft Barrel/Bleach & SS/St. Pat's of TX correction

Joseph writes:

>I recently purchased an EDME Brewcraft Barrel.  The first batch I put in

>was not great.  The main problem was it was terribly flat.  The barrel is

>6 gallons with the CO2 injectors and a release valve that is supposed to

>keep pressure up to 10 psi.

I think the problem may be that these barrels, most of which are made by

or for English companies, are made for storing and dispensing English-style

ales, which are considerably less carbonated than American-, Belgian- or

German-style beers.  You may be able to modify it to keep the beer at

a higher pressure, but I think that it would just be better to just store

English-style ales in it.

*******************************

George writes:

>  2. At room temperature (and a normal pH), 304 is resistant to chlorine

>     as long as the FAC is below 250 mg/l.

>

>Since our standard 1 oz. bleach per gallon gives a FAC of 100 mg/l, one

>could conclude that chlorine bleach can be used to sanitize ss kegs.

>Careful brewers will reject this conclusion. The factor of 2.5 is cutting

>it too close.

Then John writes:

>cornelius's, and the bungs and figure 8 gaskets on 1/2 barrels.  I had

>bartending experience prior to the use of these kegs where I learned about

>chlorine test strips to determine the sanitizing power of the solution.  I use

>in the ballpark of 50 ppm as determined by these strips and I havent had any

I put two and two together and thought about what my test strips read.

Just as another data point, when I use Bleach solution (bottles,

thermometers, glass carboys, etc.) I use one tablespoon per gallon

of hot water (and yes, I use only cool water for Iodophor solutions).

 Testing with chlorine test strips, as I do periodically, results in

a reading of 200ppm at the start, dropping from there (how quickly it

drops is proportional to how much organic material is stuck to the

item being sanitized -- bottle that still contained the yeast from a

previous batch will turn your 200ppm solution to something way below 50ppm).

Later, George writes:

>The version of iodophor I use is called Accord II, and

>is made by Diversity. This is the version that has the iodine bound up in

>phosphoric acid; the other versions have it bound up in detergents.

I use an "Iodophor" that is sold under the name BTF or B.E.S.T. (same

stuff, judging from the chemical composision on the labels).  It does

not contain phosphoric acid, but also does not contain detergents.

I know there are versions that do have detergents, and these types

are to be avoided for our purposes, but BTF and B.E.S.T. are not of

this type and *are* suitable for homebrewing use.

*******************************

I must appologise to Lynne O'Conner about posting outdated and incorrect

data about St. Pat's of Texas.  Without checking, I incorrectly posted

that they do not carry Iodophor or the DeWolf-Cosyns malts.  I've since

been told by two sources that they do, indeed carry these items.  My

mistake.  Sorry.

The whole issue of posting information for possible commercial gains is

a tricky subject.  Even if we don't identify ourselves as retailers or

having commercial interests in a particular item, could we be posting

information that tends to bias the buying habits of the HBD readership?

I think so.  I have done my best to be fair whenever I post on a topic.

Sure there's a much bigger profit from a package of Wyeast than a package

of Lallemand or Coopers... it's easy to bash dry yeast because many people

have had bad experiences with it.  Most brewers will believe it.  I,

personally, have had some good experiences with Lallemand and Coopers and

have posted favorably about them.  I've had private email which has

indicated that recent shipments of Red Star (can you believe it!?!)

have produced prize-winning beer.  I will re-assert myself to continue

to try to be unbiased in my posts and urge everyone to do the same.

The HBD is one of the best sources of brewing information in the world.

On the Brewing Techniques magazine subscription, you will notice there's

a question something like: "where do you get most of your brewing

information?  Personally, I have to say the Homebrew Digest.  Even the

questions are often as enlightening as the answers, because they make

you think and because they make you put yourself in another brewer's apron

re-think something you may have done 250 times and come up with an even

better way to do it.

I started to brew because I could not buy English Bitter here in the

states.  I continued to brew because I love the art and science of brewing.

I opened a homebrew supply store because I have hopes of someday making

a living related to brewing.  I'm passionate about beer and brewing and

have spent hundreds of hours helping brewers not because I hoped to gain

their business, but because of my love for the art, the science and the

result -- bottom line.

Al.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1156, 06/04/93

*************************************

-------


Foam With Kegs; Forced Carbonation

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 17:09:37 -0700

From: markus@pyramid.com (Mark Parshall)

Subject: Foam With Kegs; Forced Carbonation

In HBD# 1155 John (isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov) writes:

>I believe that problems may arise when brewers use a bleach solution that is

>too concentrated.  I started kegging in 1978 using cornelius style kegs and

      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[stuff deleted]

>bartending experience prior to the use of these kegs where I learned about

 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

    I read John's posting in HBD #1155 and took this opportunity to tap into

    his 15 years of experience kegging beer (pun intended).

    I have put together a Cornelius keg setup in a fridge and have kegged

    4 batches so far. The problem is that when I try to artificially

    carbonate the beer (I tried the 1/3 cup sugar method and didn't get

    adequate carbonation) I end up getting a lot of foam when I dispense the

    beer. I have talked to several people on the subject and get various

    answers to my questions. I have noticed that if I lower the dispensing

    pressure to ~5 psi I will not get near as much foam although at around a

    45 deg F ambient storage temperature (sorry, I've tried the 55 deg F

    celler temp common in UK but I just can't get used to drinking anything

    but stouts at that temperature) I can't seem to keep enough CO2 in

    solution to maintain adequate carbonation and the flow is pretty slow.

    Another guy told me that ~10 psi is what a lot of people use to dispense

    and the rule of thumb is to shoot for a flow rate of around 1-gal/min. At

    10 psi I definitely get a lot of foam.

    I am using 1/4" I.D hose and have one of those cheapy "picnic type"

    faucets like you see on the rental units from your local liquor store.

    I am beginning to think at least part of the problem might be associated

    with the flow through this faucet (the restriction at the QD fitting of

    the Cornelius keg probably doesn't help either). I am planning to order

    some real faucets from Specialty Products and make a more permanent

    installation.

    One guy I talked to claimed that in order to properly carbonate the beer

    you have to 1) Cool the beer below 40 deg F; 2) Crank the CO2 up to

    40-50 psi; 3) "Shake the shit out of it" for 10-15 minutes (I assume this

    means periodically over 15 minutes time). I haven't tried this method yet

    as I have read that this is indeed a way to do it but is more intended

    for getting beer carbonated quickly; The way I have been going about it is

    to 1) Chill to below 40 deg F; 2) Crank the CO2 up to 25-30 psi; 3) let

    it sit for 3-5 days under presure (with the CO2 valve open). Again this

    gets me adequate carbonation but gives me the foam problem. Maybe part

    of the problem might be related to the fact that when I actually go to

    dispense the beer after letting it carbonate I lower the CO2 regulator

    to 10 psi and "burp" the excess presure out of the keg. One guy told me

    this sudden pressure change may be the problem but I have gotten the

    same results if I carbonate and dispense at a common pressure of 10 psi.

    The guy at the local beer store claims that the "head pressure" has to be

    pretty much equal to the "pressure" trying to rise up out of solution and

    that even a difference of +/- 1-2 psi can cause problems. I am hardly a

    physics expert but I would think that these pressures would reach an

    equilibrium on their own (over time). I am also thinking if the pressure

    difference was *that* critical, this would be a much more common problem

    and would therefore be asked more frequently on the HBD. All the people

    I have talked to say that they have never had a problem with foaming.

    Also, this problem of not being able to keep the beer carbonated at low

    storage pressures and the foam problem at high pressures makes me wonder

    how people get away with the "demand cooling" approach using cold plates,

    etc. How can the beer stay carbonated when stored at temperatures

    approaching and exceeding room temperature and not foam when dispensed?

    Is it possible the CO2 will re-dissolve back into solution spontaneously

    in the cooling coils or some such?  Once I get my foam problem solved I

    was thinking about putting one of these things together for portable use.

    Lastly, I was wondering how to control bacterial growth in beer

    dispensing faucets if they were used less frequently (once or twice a

    week)? Will the mold (or whatever) grow in just the nozzle or will it

    spread throughout the dispensing hose? Is there a way to prevent or

    retard this process without having to disconnect and flush the line after

    each use.

    I would greatly appreciate any help that anyone could give on any of the

    above questions.

    Thanks in advance,

    Mark--

- --

      -m-------  Mark Parshall

    ---mmm-----  Pyramid Technology Corporation

  -----mmmmm---  markus@pyramid.com or [decwrl,hplabs,sun,uunet]!pyramid!markus

- -------mmmmmmm-  VOICE: 408/428-8462   FAX: 408/428-8210

------------------------------


Brewing Techniques & Book Reviews

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 09:52:48 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Brewing Techniques & Book Reviews

In addition to Martin Lodahl's comments on whether Brewing Techniques

will review books published by other than the Association of Brewers:

like, f'rinstance?

A major reality: AofB is publishing the bulk of homebrew- or even

micro-brew related books right now.  It would be dishonest to avoid them

and would also mean cutting down severely on the book reviews.

So publish something, folks!

A week or so ago someone asked if there was an e-mail connection for BT.

No.  But considering some of the people involved, I wouldn't be

surprised if Steve broke down and got a connection -- really soon.

Those of you out there who know him: keep nagging.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


what happens when you aerate fermenting wort?

Date: Thu, 03 Jun 93 21:30:04 EDT

From: biogeek@aol.com

Subject: what happens when you aerate fermenting wort?

While racking my latest concoction, a strawberry ale, into the carboy I

splashed the wort around a lot. The problem was that my hoses were all cruddy

so I figured (perhaps mistakenly) that I should just pour the wort through a

filter funnel into the waiting carboy. As the wort was splashing around,

something from the deep recesses of my mind remembered Papazian saying

something about how doing this was a BAD thing. Does anyone know why this is

so bad? Will my precious brew survive? Thanks,

                Daniel Katz, crazed student, homebrewer, armadillo

------------------------------


Cloudy Hose and Stainless Steel

Date: Thu, 03 Jun 1993 21:36:53 -0400 (EDT)

From: SMUCKER@UTKVX.UTCC.UTK.EDU

Subject: Cloudy Hose and Stainless Steel

To clear cloudy hose wrap it in a large sheet of clean paper,  brown paper

or a paper bag is OK.  Seal with tape and place in you oven at 200 deg F.

for 30 to 60 minutes.  Your hose will clear and if you keep it sealed

will be ready to use when you break the seal.

On the discussion of stainless steels while 304 and 316 are both used, 304

being the most common, it is very likely that the welds are made with type

308 or 308-L. Corrosion is most likely in the weld or in the heat effected

zone next to the weld.  Like Fix I don't like bleach in contact with the

stainless I pay for and want to use for years.

Dave Smucker,  Brewing Beer not making jelly!!

------------------------------


in defence of George Fix

Date: Fri, 04 Jun 1993 10:30:09 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: in defence of George Fix

Donald Oconnor writes:

>  If I understand George correctly, he believes repeated use with a bleach

>solution known to be safe, will eventually cause harm.  Poor logic.  If we

>drink a beer a day for 40 years, we won't die from alcohol poisoning.

 I think George has the logic correct:  If you land your canoe on

the beach once nothing happens.  Land it on the beach a thousand times and

the bottom of your boat will be scraped away.  And if I may correct your

first sentence, it should read: "...repeated use with a bleach solution

_believed_ to be safe _may_ eventually cause harm."  Neither is a

certainty, but better safe than sorry.

 ed

____________

Ed Hitchcock/Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology/Dalhousie University/Halifax NS

ech@ac.dal.ca   +-------------------------------------------------------+

  |  I object to that comment!  I know several pinheads  |

  |   and they are fully functional members of society! |

  +-------------------------------------------------------+

 Eschew Labudmilloorsonhead

------------------------------


Propane Cooker

Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 09:21:31 -0400

From: cestes@argos5.DNET.NASA.GOV (Chris Estes)

Subject: Propane Cooker

Hi All...

We're getting ready to move into our new house next month.  My brewing

activities have been banished to the basement!  That works well, except

that I don't relish the idea of carrying 5 gallons of wort down the

stairs after cooking.  Add that to the fact that the new house has an

electric stove and things look grim.

I'd like everyone's input on what kind of propane cooker to get.  I

only make beer in 5 gallon batches, so I don't need a surplus Saturn V

motor up-ended!  What's best?  What kind of gas do I use?  How much should

I expect to spend?  Can I use it in the basement, or do I have to step out-

side on the patio?  Will I have to build a stand to hold my brewpot, or

will it come with something sturdy enough?  You get the idea; I'm totally

in the dark on these things!

TIA for everyone's help (I'm indebted to all for similar advice last year

on the purchase of my kegging setup.  "I'll never wash another bottle!").

Please e-mail directly or post here if you think it'll be of social

benefit!

Thanks,

 -Chris Estes-

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

  Chris Estes                         |  (301)925-4411

  Manager of Production & Operations  |  ARGOS5::CESTES  (6776)

  Service ARGOS                       |  CESTES@argos5.dnet.nasa.gov

  1801 McCormick Drive, Suite 10      |

  Landover, MD  20785                 |

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

PGP is good.  Let's all use it.

- -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

Version: 2.1

mQBNAit31v8AAAECAOJ+K1Tc3oD6OnPsJ59zAOYhoy6pwvcW9Jq7928YDOL5lL/W

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ZXN0ZXNAYXJnb3M1LmRuZXQubmFzYS5nb3Y+

=7XLK

- -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

------------------------------


Red Star Yeast

Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 08:24:19 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Red Star Yeast

The production of Red Star ale and lager dry yeast by Universal Foods

of Milwaukee was terminated a few years ago because consumer

dissatisfaction with these products. At the beginning of 1993

Larry Noakowski of Universal and Crosby + Baker entered into discussions

about bringing these products back with new and improved production

procedures. There was general agreement that yeast samples would be tested,

and any production batch that did not meet standards would be sent back to

Universal. Eventually Dr. Jim Foy of Universal and I came to an agreement

about what precisely these standards would be. In particular, they are

exactly the ones I gave in my article "Evaluation of Pitching Yeast" which

appeared in the 1992 edition of Beer and Brewing.

Dr. Foy decided to start with an ale strain AHY 43391. It is a different

strain than was used previously, and my background checks indicate that

it possibly may be one of the strains in the Tanner collection. These were

used in small and medium sized commercial brewing in the first half of the

20th century.

Two different evaluations were made. The first was on yeast produced in

Dr. Foy's lab in Milwaukee, and the second was on yeast from a full

production run at Universal's plant in Baltimore. The detailed analysis

can be found in reports to C+B. The following is a summary:

    1. Lactics - Some rods were detected in the lab sample, but the total

lactic count satisfied our criteria of <1 cell per million viable yeast cells.

The HLP analysis of the production yeast showed a nil count. Both Dr. Foy

and Larry Noakowski anticipated this result. The production run was done under

sterile conditions, while the lab sample was produced in a standard laboratory

environment.

   2. Viability - This is a strong point of fresh dry yeast. Less than 10%

of the cells stained with Rhodamine B, indicating >90% viability. Dr. Foy

and I are recommending the following hydration procedure:

       a. Use 14 grams of dry yeast per 5 gallons of brew. ***Rigorously***

sterilize everything used in the hydration procedure.

       b. Add the dry yeast to 1/4 - 1/2 cup of water at 90F. Higher

temperatures are not needed with yeast like this which have a high % viability.

Leave for 15 mins.

       c. Combine the hydrated yeast with 1-2 gallons of wort that is as close

to the wort to be fermented as possible. I took samples from the main wort

at the end of the mash/sparge and rapid boiled and rapid cooled it. This was

used for the starter wort.

       d. Aerate the starter as much as possible under of course sanitary

conditions.

       e. Don't forget to properly oxygenate the main wort once it is chilled.

       f. Pitch the starter into the main wort once the latter has been chilled

to the recommended fermentation temperature (65-68F). Yeast with this type

of viability will result in minimal lags. The longest I experienced in my

test brews was 2 hrs.

   3. Attenuation - Red Star's old ale strain was reported to be a poor

attenuator. This is not the case for AHY 43391. One can expect an ADF

in the 76-78% range.

   4. Flavor - This strain leaves a clean, slightly dry finish with a

gentle fruity tone. A German style wheat ale was brewed with it, and

entered in the recent competition in Kenosa, Wisc. It took first

place in the mixed ale category with scores of 41 and 42. The judges

were Cheryl and Jay Schultz (certified). Copies of the score sheets were

sent to C+B along with my reports.

   5. General Recommendations -  I feel this is an excellent yeast for

beginning and intermediate brewers. It will not contribute the sophisticated

flavors that many strains available in liquid form and slants do. On the other

hand, if proper sanitation is used, this strain will not contribute anything

ugly or unpleasant either. This is a yeast where the malt and hops used, and

the way they are processed, will define the finished beer's flavors.

As I hope was clear from my first post, I am being paid by C+B standard

consulting rates to do this work. I also do similar work for others. I am

not, however, involved in the distribution, marketing, or sales of this

or any other products for that matter. In this particular case, this is

actually something I regret. I fear C+B is going to retain "Red Star" on

the label. If I had a vote, which I do not, I would call this new strain

"Pasteur Ale Yeast" in analogly with Universal's widely used, and indeed

first rate, champagne yeast.

I have really enjoyed being on this forum, and I have posted the C+B material

because I thought it might be of interest. There are, on the the other hand,

some distinctly unpleasant elements on HBD that makes it anything other than

fun. Perhaps it is the special nature of this type of communication which

brings out these things.

George Fix

------------------------------


Anagrams...

Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 10:34:18 EDT

From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

Subject: Anagrams...

Greetings:

  OK, OK, I give up.  What is a RIMS? And while I'm at it, what is

a GRANT? Private e-mail if it seems like I'm the only one who doesn't know

these terms....

       dave rose.

------------------------------


Sam Adams revisited

Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 07:42 PDT

From: shane <DEICHMAN@perch.nosc.mil>

Subject: Sam Adams revisited

Fellow zymurgophiles:

  It keeps getting strangerer and strangerer -- a Sam Adams

spot heard last week on a local radio station (San Diego,

Calif.) had our pal Mr. Koch telling the listeners that his

beer had been chosen as the "Best Beer in America" at the GABF,

"THREE years running." (emphasis added)  Now, I've heard those

commercials where he sez "four years...," and even heard one

after the 3 yr. promo.  Looks like Madison Avenue has got a

few ads out that they don't want to pull, and that Mr. Koch

has taken some of the uproar to heart... (however, even in

the "3 yrs running" spot, he still tells us that Sam Adams

is the only U.S. beer imported into Germany).

 -shane

<deichman@perch.nosc.mil>

- --------------------------------------------------------

 oOooOOO  Relax!  Don't Worry!

 ooOOOO|/

 oo    ||   Have a homebrew!

  ....ooO|____|/

- --------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


A Hop question.

Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 08:35:26 -0700

From: sag5004@yak.ca.boeing.com (Ford Prefect)

Subject: A Hop question.

I asked a question recently about a belgium like (I think) style, and some

previous bumblings with trying to make a barley wine... Just made me have

more questions.

I realise that when the wort first comes to a boil there is no hot

break yet.  I have been told (or read I can't remember) that adding

hops before the hot break will cause them to be coated protein goop and

not allow for as much utilization as one might hope for.  There also

seems to be a debate about the use of low alpha acid hops for

bittering.  I there any information out there that could tell me if

there are any know differences between adding the hops at the start of

the boil, and waiting a bit till it really gets going and hot break has

occured?  Also what properties do the hops contribute to the beer when

you add the bitter hops at first boil so they can get all goobered up

with the proteins?

I am not paniced, just curious.

Thanks a bunch.

stuart galt                          boeing computer services

sag5004@yak.boeing.com               bellvue washington

(206) 865-3764                       or home (206) 361-0190

#include <standard/disclaim.h>

I don't know what they say, they don't know what I say...

------------------------------


Faster all-grain

Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 11:52:09 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Faster all-grain

In the search for faster all-grain brewing, I'd like to put forth

something I tried this weekend.  I made two (5-gal) batches of beer,

an IPA and a Porter, from a single mash.  It worked like this:

Mash-in 20 lbs (turned out to be too much) pale ale malt and a little

crystal malt at 67C.  Mash for 1.5 hours (on suggestion of Foster in _Pale

Ale_), mash out to 77C, sparge 4 gallons, dilute with 2 gallons, start

boiling it.  Meanwhile, add .5lb chocolate malt, .25lb black patent, .75lb

crystal malt to mash tun, add 77C water as needed, steep 30min.  Sparge 6

gal porter while IPA is boiling (60 min boil).  Bring Porter to boil, start

chilling IPA.  Rack IPA to primary carboy, combine 2 smaller pots of Porter

into large boiling pot (that had IPA in it), finish Porter boil.  Chill &

rack Porter.  Pitch 1qt yeast starter into each (using same yeast for both,

in this case).  Clean up.  Total elapsed time, from starting mash water

heating, to end of clean up, about 7 hours.

Wait, you say, that's a long time!  Yes, but I got two batches of beer, so

it's only 3.5 hours each.  Also, I'm don't consider myself an "experienced"

all-grain brewer, and it's only slightly longer than I have taken for my

other 5 gal batches.  There are some opportunities for making it shorter:

* Overlap heating the initial strike water with some other activity.  This

  takes almost an hour on my 11,000 BTU stove burner.

* Shorten the mash.  1.5 hours is pretty long.

* Get a more powerful burner.  This would shorten the initial water heating

  period and the time to bring the first wort to a boil.

* Get a second 8 gal pot.  Except I don't know if my stove could really hold

  2 of them.

It seems to me that the critical path in this is:

heat strike water-mash-sparge 1-boil 1-chill 1-finish boil 2-chill 2-

  finish clean up.

Certain things are irreducible: the mash has a minimum length (30 min???)

The boil need to be 60min to for best hop utilization, etc.  I don't think

it would be too hard to get it down to 5 hours for two batches, though.

How did the beer come out?  Well, it's still fermenting.  But I did use too

much malt: I got an IPA at 1.064 and a robust Porter at 1.060!  And I

probably could have bottled several pints of starter solution -- the gravity

of the wort stream when I stopped sparging the Porter was still 1.025

(temperature corrected, of course).

=Spencer W. Thomas   |  Info Tech and Networking, B1911 CFOB, 0704

   "Genome Informatician" |  Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu |  313-764-8065, FAX 313-764-4133

------------------------------


Mashing times

Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 11:02:53 CDT

From: jlf@palm.cray.com (John Freeman)

Subject: Mashing times

I've posted this before, but the question of making mashing more

efficient came up again, so...

I drew up this PERT chart long ago to determine what could be done in

parallel.  I have mashed in as little as 3 1/2 hours - I had no homebrew

to drink while I was doing it...  With homebrew, it takes a little longer.

I tried to draw this to scale, each column representing about three minutes,

each task placed approximately where it belongs in time.  The straight line

represents the critical path, the things you cannot hurry: heating,

mashing, boiling, cooling.  One of the best speedups you can make is to

sparge into your boiler while applying heat (at J).

|-5|-30-|------------90---------------|--15-|--------60--------|----20---|-5-|

     D     /----------H------------/     -     /-------------Q     /-T-/

    / /   /                         /   / /   /               /   /     /

   C   / F                           / K   / N                 / S       /

A-B-----E-----------------------------J-----M-P---------------P-R---------VWX

         /                           / /   L O                 / /       /

          /                         /   / /   /               /   /     /

           G-----------------------I     -     /-------------/     /-U-/

A. Clean mash tun, measure mash water.

B. Heat mash water.

C. Assemble grains, scale, grain mill, etc.

D. Crack grains.

E. Mash.

F. Clean up from cracking.

G. Relax.

H. Measure and heat sparge water.

I. Clean and set up sparge equipment.

J. Sparge into boiler.

K. Heat wort to boil.

L. Weigh hops.

M. Boil wort.

N. Clean up sparge equipment.

O. Proof yeast (dry) or take wort sample for yeast starters.

P. Add hops to boil.

Q. Clean and set up wort chiller.

R. Chill wort.

S. Put hydrometer and thermometer in wort.

T. Put away materials.

U. Clean boiler, strainer, etc.

V. Pitch Yeast.

W. Clean wort chiller.

X. Relax.  Relax.  Relax.

------------------------------


EASYMASHER vs easy masher

Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 12:10 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: EASYMASHER vs easy masher

 > johnc@hprpcd.rose.hp.com

 >Subject: EASYMASH & MALTMILL

 >  I decided what the heck, I'll make an EASYMASHER and see what happens.

 Just for the record, EASYMASHER (like MALTMILL) is a registered trademark and

 technically, can not be "made" by any entity other than JSP.  However, I

 encourage you all to make "easy mashers" to your heart's content.  What

 better way to stimulate the need for a mill.

 >  I did, however, have to recirculate about 1 gal to get a clear beer, but

 that is much better than the copper manifold (about 3 gal).

 As I claim that the runoff runs clear after a few ounces, I thought it was

 worth exchanging mail with John to see what the "problem" might be.

 Turns out the spigot he selected has a 3/8" flow through and the one I use

 has a 1/8".  The flow through is defined as the smallest passage in the

 system, sort of like Kirchoff's law in current flow.

 The smaller opening restricts the maximum flow and seems to be the key to

 speedy clearing.  Even with my smaller flow, I only crack it slightly until

 it runs clear and then run it at this rate for a while before opening it

 full.  Actually, I open it full just to clear the big stuff and then close it

 down.

 Although a 1/8" flow doesn't sound like much, when several feet of 3/8" hose

 are connected to the spigot, the rate is about 10 min per gallon and provides

 a typical sparge rate.

 This is not a condemnation of larger spigots, just a suggesting of how to get

 a clear runnoff more quickly when using one.  To repeat, open it to clear the

 big stuff then close it down to a trickle until it runs clear and then

 gradually open it wider as needed.

 js

------------------------------


Lagering with A Hunter Airstat

Date: Fri,  4 Jun 93 12:06:47 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Lagering with A Hunter Airstat

A Hunter Airstat is a fine device for homebrewers to use for a temperature

controlled environment.  The 40F limitation really isn't a problem unless

one is trying to do an extended lagering near 32F.  I generally ferment at

45F,  diacetyl rest at 48F and lager at 40F.  I really don't have the time

or space to do a March to October Fest Bier fermentation.  When I need

temps near 32F I bypass the Hunter and use the temp control on the fridge

which I have marked with the setting for 34F.  My fridge happens to have

a relly good control that goes to eleven.  The only time I set it for the

low 30s is to clarify beer, both prior to racking to a keg and the first few

days its in the keg.  One needs to take appropriate caution when doing an

extended low temp lagering to ensure that you don't get yeast autolysis.

Another important part of producing a lager is proper wort chilling to inhibit

DMS production and a wort pitch temp at fermentation temp to minimize

production of diacetyl and esters.  Low temp lagering is another piece of the

delicate puzzle we call lager beer.

------------------------------


Re: Garlic Beer Inquiry

Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 10:48:41 -0700

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: Garlic Beer Inquiry

Lou Casagrande asks:

>Does anyone have any advice on the best stage at which to add the

>garlic?

In HBD# 757, I wrote:

 Date: Wed, 6 Nov 91 08:14:52 PST

 From: Richard.Stueven@Corp.Sun.COM (Richard Stueven)

 Subject: Garlic Beer

 Due to numerous requests (four, to be exact) here's the

 "recipe" for gak & laurel's Garlic Beer:

 We didn't keep any notes on the garlic beer, so here's my best

 recollection:

 6# plain light extract syrup (hopped?  who knows...)

 2oz Cascade leaf (60 min)

 2oz Cascade leaf (10 min)

 one Big Thing of garlic (maybe half the size of your fist)

 Whitbread dry ale yeast

 The procedure is the same as for any simple extract beer.  Chop

 up the garlic and throw it into the boil for the full 60

 minutes.  If you don't want quite so much garlic flavor, strain

 the garlic bits out before racking (we didn't).

To which I'll add:

Avoid this recipe.  It was a particularly nasty beer...simply awful.

have fun

gak

Richard Stueven, Castro Valley CA

gak & gerry's garage, brewery, hockey haven and pinball palace

------------------------------


Hop Utilization

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 07:36:55 PDT

From: "Bob Jones"  <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Hop Utilization

I commend Glenn Tinseth's work on hop utilization! I have been looking for

this type of info for years. Rager's numbers are a good first cute, however

I think it's about time for the second cut. Keep up the good work, were all

waiting for the results, that I assume will be published here first. Please

don't tease us and then make us wait for the results in a Zymurgy special

issue or Brewing Techniques. Formal publishing is also a good idea.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


stovetops, fermented black beans

Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 13:07:31 cdt

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@GRIN.EDU>

Subject: stovetops, fermented black beans

Here's my two bits on cruddy stovetops.

bit #1: it seems to me that a lot of the crud comes not from actual boil-

overs, but rather from various kinds of condensation and dripping.  I

wouldn't be surprised if some of it is simply from goopy steam condensing on

the top of the stove (the scientists in the crowd are invited to blast this

to smithereens if untrue) - but beyond that, if you just have a regular ole

gas stove and you like to boil four gallons or so, as I do, then you have to

keep the pot partially covered to maintain a good rolling boil (or is this a

momily?).  The steam that condenses on the lip of the lid on the side that

sticks out over the edge of the pot then dribbles down the side of the pot,

into the eye of the stove where it gets nicely cooked!

bit #2: I haven't tried sloshing the top of the stove with water, or with

dish soap, prior to brewing.  Both ideas have been suggested in HBD and I

certainly think they are worth trying.  As an alternative to oven cleaner for

the top of the stove (AFTER making a mess), may I suggest the more

environmentally-friendly (not to mention epidermally-friendly) baking-soda-

and-water solution?  Just let it sit on the crud for a while, then most of it

comes right up.  For the worst of it you may need steel wool and elbow

grease.  But seriously, baking soda works great.  I've also used it to clean

greasy car batteries, and yes, also ovens!

This is not a beer-related question except that it involves fermentation.  I

have seen several chinese recipes which call for fermented black beans.  I

love black beans, and I love fermenting, so I'd like to make my own.  Does

anyone out there have the slightest idea how to go about this???  T.I.A.

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


The stick I buried won't grow and other stories

Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 13:27:52 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@brahms.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: The stick I buried won't grow and other stories

A few day ago I posted to r.c.b and received no repsonse.  Basically I

buried a Rhizome an inch deep 2 weeks ago and nothing has peeped up yet.

Comments?  Is it dead or did I dod something wrong (I planted it

horizontally).

Second comment is related, but there is a hop growing article that

makes occasional appearence here, and a yeast washing article is often

requested on r.c.b.  Could these be stored in stanford/sierra/pub/

homebrew/docs?  If they are in a different directory there, let me

know.

Thirdly, js commented about the lack of need for pH meters, but if

you have the soft water supply that comes from the large natural

reservoir (that is our sewer) that Chicago uses, pH adjustement is

not necessary.  The hard ground water I use requires considerable

adjustement unless around 1.5 lb of black stuff is used in a

batch.  I will concur that a pH meter (cheapo) is a pain in the butt,

and I am happier using those awful cheap 5-6 papers everyone

complains about.

Fourthly, I must thank Rafael Busto for his joke.  AS the saying goes

it was so funny that the first time I heard it, I fell off my wooly

mammoth.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


SS and Phosphoric Acid

Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 14:16 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: SS and Phosphoric Acid

Don writes:

>George Fix uses a sanitizer containing phosphoric acid for his 304 stainless

>kegs.  Phosphoric acid reacts quite severely with 304 stainless.  should

Back to Cole-Parmer...

Phosphoric Acid (<=40%)  No effect on 304 Stainless Steel

Phosphoric Acid (<=40%)  Minor effect on 316 Stainless Steel

Phosphoric Acid (<=40%)  No effect on 440 Stainless Steel below 120F

Phosphoric Acid (>40%)  No effect on 304 Stainless Steel below 120F

Phosphoric Acid (>40%)  Minor effect on 316 Stainless Steel

Phosphoric Acid (>40%)  Minor effect on 440 Stainless Steel below 120F

Also, the 23rd item on page 1184 is Benzaldehyde, still no sight of Chlorox...

Are we using the same 1991-1992 Cole-Parmer catalog?

Al.

------------------------------


RE: Hunter Airstat Modification

Date: 4 Jun 93 19:25:58 GMT

From: mkenny@bcm1g01.attmail.com

Subject: RE: Hunter Airstat Modification

In HBD1156 Bruce Ray asks how to modify a Hunter Airstat to maintain

temperatures below 40F.

I originally posted this last November and have been using it with

the mod very happily ever since.  I use the airstat to control a

13cf chest freezer. I put the airstat in a manual "HOLD" mode and

simply set the temperature up or down as desired. The airstat is

designed to control a compressor driven refrigeration device (a

room air conditioner) so it is right at home with a refrigerator or

freezer. It turns the attached unit on when it senses a temperature

2 degrees above the setting and off 1 degree below the setting. It

has a built-in timer with a 4 minute delay to keep the attached unit

from cycling too rapidly. At 45F my freezer runs less than 2 hours

total in a 24 hour period and about 3 hours at 35F.

You cannot change the Air Stat range but you can offset the sensor

calibration.  In other words, performing the following modification

will allow you to set the Airstat at 40F yet the fridge/freezer temp

will be maintained at 35F.

The sensor is a thermister that provides 10K ohms of resistance at

25 degrees C. According to the thermister data sheet, at 32 degrees F

the resistance is 27.28K and 22.05K at 41 degrees F. The resistance

decreases as the temperature rises so if you make the air stat think

the sensor is 22k when its really 25k the air stat will say 41 but

the sensor temp will be around 35 degrees F. This is done by simply

putting more resistance in parallel with the sensor. Using ohms law,

        Rt = 22K, Rth = 25K (Thermister), and Rp (parallel resistor) =

                Rth (25K) * Rt (22K)

                --------------------  =  183K Ohms

                Rth (25K) - Rt (22K)

With this resistor in place the the range of the air stat is effectively

shifted about 5 degrees lower.  Just keep in mind that the temperature

reading on the air stat will not match the fridge temp.

The thermisters change in resistance is not linear. It will change about

20k ohms going from -13F to -4F and only 2k ohms going from 68F to 77F.

Therefore the desired range of use should be considered before determining

the magnitude of offset. Although, in the 12 degree swing between 33F and

45F this should not pose a problem.

                              /------------------------------------------/

        |----------|          | Airstat             |-----------------|  |

        /          |          |                     |   12 : 00   40  |  |

        / Sensor   |----------|--(a)     |---|      |-----------------|  |

        /                     |                                          |

        /          |----------|--(b)                                     |

        /          |          |----/                |-----------------|  |

        |----------|          |    |                |  H  |   M  | D  |  |

                              |----/   /-----/      |-----|------|----|  |

                 Submini spst |       / |   | /     | PROG| HOLD | U  |  |

                  Switch  >>> |  *    | |   | |     |-----|------|----|  |

                    (c)       |  |    /   O   /     |  // |  //  | R  |  |

                              |        /-----/      |-----------------|  |

                              /------------------------------------------/

                           180K

                (a) ------///////------o /o----|

                                        (c)    |

                (b) ---------------------------

I installed a 180K ohm resister in series with a sub-mini spst toggle

switch mounted on the front panel just left of the AC outlet and below the

pocket that holds the sensor. It is fairly easy to do since the sensor

leads are readily accessible. This switch lets me use the airstat normally

above 40 degrees when off and down to 34-35 when on. The airstat seems to

sample the sensor about every 5-10 seconds and will indicate the change

in this timeframe.

Cheers,

Mike Kenny

------------------------------


Garlic in Beer: Not meant to be.

Date: Fri, 04 Jun 1993 13:54:29 -0600 (MDT)

From: Mark Taratoot <SLNDW@CC.USU.EDU>

Subject: Garlic in Beer: Not meant to be.

Greetings.

In HBD 1156, Lou Casagrande asks about garlic beer.

Well, I made one (12 oz) bottle of the stuff.  I put a

peeled clove of garlic into one bottle of a golden amber

ale that I had brewed (at bottling time.)  We split this

beer between 5 people for tasting.  After we had all tasted

it, there were still 11 ounces left.  The stuff was bad.

And I LOVE garlic (I usually move the decimal place in

recipes calling for garlic so I increase the garlic content

by an order of magnitude).

Nobody liked this beer.  And 3 of us liked the jalapeno

beers we had made previously.

But, by all means, try it.  You might like it.  Just

don't expect too much.

 -toot

------------------------------


Paulaner Salvator recipe

Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 14:24:08 PDT

From: davep@cirrus.com (David Pike)

Subject: Paulaner Salvator recipe

All right HBDer's,

I'm looking for a Salvator clone recipe. All grain, extract, whatever you

have. We have the technology to brew any recipe. I'll summerize the private

responses back to the HBD.

Thank you.

Dave

------------------------------


Temperature Controllers

Date:         Fri, 04 Jun 93 18:15:55 CDT

From: Darren Evans-Young <DARREN@UA1VM.UA.EDU>

Subject:      Temperature Controllers

Steve Septer:

I have a 23 cu ft chest freezer that I use a temp controller

I got from William's for $49.  It has a range from 20F-80F with

a 4 degree temperature differential. When set to 50F, it will

cool to 46F, shut off, then wait for the temp to rise back to

50F before it comes on again.  I'm very happy with it.

Darren

------------------------------


sanitizer

Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 21:35:00 +0000

From: DAMON_NOEL/HP0800_01@mailhub.cs.itc.hp.com

Subject: sanitizer

I have been using a product called "Starsan" which I obtained from a

local brewpub which uses it in sanitizing their stainless equipment on

a continual basis.  I have to believe that it is not only effective,

but also harmless in  continuing use to their equipment.  I was

told that it is a phosphoric acid product, but no mention was made of

iodine content.  I use it as prescribed, 6 ml per gallon.  At this

concentration it does not require a rinse and seems to have no taste

(I tried it straight, at the use concentration...some people will drink

anything!).  It's been very effective on bottles, tuns, counterflow

chillers, etc.  Does anyone know what the nature of this product really

is?  I can recommend it without reservation based on experience.

------------------------------


Hunter Air-Stat too precise...

Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 16:35:36 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hunter Air-Stat too precise...

Steve Septer writes (paraphrasing):

>My dealer told me that the Hunter Air-stat was TOO precise, shutting on

>and off for every little temperature variation... burning out compressors...

The Hunter Airstat has a reasonable temperature differential built in to

prevent this.  After all, it was designed to control a room air

conditioner which has the same kind of compressor as a

refrigerator/freezer.  Its only limitation is that it doesn't go below

40F.  Someone else in the last HBD requested posting of a mod to make it

go lower.  I too, would appreciate that post.  BTW, I got my Airstat at

Home Depot (a hardware "superstore") for about $19.75.  Home Base (the

competition) also has 'em for the same price.  One of the advantages of

the Hunter vs the Johnson is that the Hunter has a digital temperature

readout of the internal fridge temp (as well as the set point).  Another

is that the sensor is solid state and connected by wires.  The other uses

a capillary tube and makes it a bit harder to get a good door seal (but

this is being real picky).  For those that like that type, Graingers has

several of these to choose from, starting at about $37 (if memory serves).

Mark from HopTech

------------------------------


Calcium Chloride Source?

Date:         Fri, 04 Jun 93 19:28:24 CDT

From: Darren Evans-Young <DARREN@UA1VM.UA.EDU>

Subject:      Calcium Chloride Source?

Does anyone know a source for food grade calcium chloride?

I'd like to use some for water adjustment.

Darren

------------------------------


Iodine test

Date:         Fri, 04 Jun 93 19:32:42 CDT

From: Darren Evans-Young <DARREN@UA1VM.UA.EDU>

Subject:      Iodine test

Personally, I stir my mash at least once to evenly distribute

the temperature and enzymes.  I used to put a drop of mash liquor

on a white plate and then put a drop of iodine next to it and

run them together.  It was hard to read due to particles or because

the beer was dark (porter/stout).  Here's what I do now...

Put a drop of mash liquor on one edge of the plate and tilt the

plate so it runs to the other side.  Put a drop of iodine next

to the starting point of the mash liquor drop.  Run them together and

observe the reaction. A single drop spread out that much, you will

be able to see particles and the liquid and see the color change.

I haven't tried it yet with a really dark beer like stout, but I

don't see why it wouldn't work.

Darren

------------------------------


SS kegs,  beer fests in So. CA

Date: 4 Jun 93 15:06:00 PST

From: John Fitzgerald <johnf@ccgate.SanDiegoCA.NCR.COM>

Subject: SS kegs,  beer fests in So. CA

There is something that I've been wondering, and I've seen this

question posted before, but I'm not sure I've seen the answer.

I know there are a lot of homebrewers using half of a keg for a

brew pot.  What I'm wondering is how do know whether or not the

keg is SS?  Are they layered metal, Aluminum on the outside, but

lined with SS?  I guess I've always thought they were made out of

Al, but I must be wrong.  Are certain kegs made from different

materials?  And with all of this talk about different grades of

SS, is there a cheap/efficient way of determining what grade the

keg is made of?  I'm searching for the "cheapest big SS brewpot",

and cutting a keg in half seems like a decent way to go, but I'd

like to know what it is made of.

Sorry to end on a sad note, but I was majorly bummed to learn that

there was a beer fest (several?) in Temecula, CA, and I never even

knew!  Whoa! Imagine a collective gathering over good brews just

40 miles from your house, with some pretty major HBD players attending

(see HBD #1154, and 1155 for some of the names), and you missed it

without a clue!  Are these things annual events?  Do you need to be

invited?  Do I need to get on somebody's mailing list?

Missing the boat,

John Fitzgerald.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1157, 06/07/93

*************************************

-------


pH adjustment Qs & As

Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 09:35:02 -0400 (EDT)

From: jdg@cyberspace.org (Josh Grosse)

Subject: pH adjustment Qs & As

In HBD 1156, Jack Schmidling asked for process clarifications on my pH

adjustments and measurements:

>  >1) Adjusting the pH of the mash.  (pH 5.0-5.5)

>

>  I presume you mean that you adjust the water to something so that after

>  adding the malt, the pH is 5.0 to 5.5.   I wonder what that something is.

Correct.  After mashing in, I adjust pH downward with gypsum.  The amount

I need to get my pH in range varies depending on the malts I use in the mash,

so it's recipe dependent.  I've yet to need to adjust upward, but, if I did,

I'd use calcium carbonate.

>  My water is 8.1 and drops into that range.  I would be interested in knowing

>  what your numbers are without adjusting.

My water supply's pH varies slightly from day to day.  They use slaked lime,

like many public supplies, but there is some6.

sources (ground/river water).  Today's reading is 9.54.

On my last batch, my notes show unadjusted pH was 5.9.  That batch was 100%

Hugh Baird Pale Malt.

>  >2) Adjusting the pH of sparge water. (ph 5.6-5.8)

>

>  Again, my sparge water is 8.1 and after sparging 10 gallons, it only raises

>  the total pH of the wort a tenth of a point.

I adjust to approximately 5.7 using 88% lactic acid.  I do this to ensure

that I minimize phenols and tannins in my wort.  See any Miller book for the

how-to's, and see Dr. Fix's book (Principles of Brewing Science) for the

whys.

>  >3) Ensuring I don't oversparge. (ph > 5.5)

>

>  It is just as useful to use a hydrometer.  If you stop sparging when the

>  gravity falls below 1.008, you will not likely have any problems.  It will

>  take tons of a water a few points higher to have any effect on the total

>  wort.

I find the pH meter is easy to use; it's already sitting out, and it is a

more accurate indicator of phenol or tannin extraction than specific gravity.

- -----------------------------------------------------------------

Josh Grosse                               jdg@grex.cyberspace.org

------------------------------


Airstat

Date: Sat, 5 Jun 93 10:40 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Airstat

 >From: LPD1002%NYSHESCV.bitnet@UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU

 >I have found the Hunter Airstat as recommended at Builders Square

 For $28.  It only has a low end of 40 Degrees.  That was somewhat

 bothersome since one of the reasons I wanted a fridge was to

 try lagering.

 I have been trying to "lager" a batch with Wyeast Bavarian yeast for almost 3

 months now at 40F and it still is bubbling at the same rate as when I first

 transferred it to the secondary.  It is my not so humble opinion that 40F is

 plenty cold enough for lagering.

 > The other suggestion, a Johnson Controls Portable

 Thermostat is sold at my locat Homebrew store for $64.95. This

 price was somewhat bothersome, but I think it's the one for me.

 It has a wider range (down to 20 degrees) and the owner of the

 homebrew store says he recommends it over the Hunter because he

 knows of some people who used Hunters and had their compressors

 burn out.

 I made an interesting discovery several days ago that may be a clue to that

 problem.  While bottling some beer, I noted the compressor attempted to go on

 but shut down after about 2 seconds.  After a delay of a few minutes, it

 cycled again but went off right away.  I have noticed this before but it

 usually stayed on after several cycles but this time it persisted for over

 thirty minutes and I decided I had a problem.

 The investigation seemed to point to bad advice from the supplier of the

 Airstat and users on this forum.  The instructions say to turn the freezer to

 max cold when using the remote controller.  When I turned the temp controller

 on the freezer down (warmer), there was a click near the low end and the

 compressor went on, stayed on and has not exhibited the problem since.

 > It seems the Hunter is a little TOO precise and kicks

 the compressor on when there is any fluctuation in temperature.

 The freezer I lucked into seems pretty old, so I guess my

 decision is made.

 There could be something wrong with the one you are using because the guard

 band of the Airstat is 3 degrees.  When set at 45 for example, it should go

 on at 47 and off at 44 and mine does exactly that.  Considering my above

 comments, there might also be a problem if it is set to 40F as this is the

 lower limit.

 Frankly, I think it is a terrific little gadget for the money and a real

 testimonial to modern technology.   It even gives a record of daily and

 cumulative usage.

 >From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

 >Subject: Re: iodine

 >  The last batch I made, I did the iodine test two ways:  1. I drained a

 >  little out of the spigot at the bottom of my mash/lauter tun (Gott

 >  cooler with copper-pipe manifold).  This tested completely starch free

 >  after 20 minutes (the first time I tested it).  2. I pushed the spoon

 >  into the top of the mash and let some fluid run into it.  This never

 >  tested clear, even after 1.5 hours.

 I get the feeling from this and the followup comments that stirring is only

 casually considered as part of the mashing process and two or 3 hours mashes

 would lead one to believe that it might even be considered a bad idea.

 I stir my mash every ten minutes when resting and almost continuously if

 heating.  I get conversion times that agree with the specs for the malt being

 used.  For example, the Belgian Pilsner converts in just a tad over the 5

 minutes specified.

 I take my sample by simply pulling the spoon out and letting whatever is on

 it drip into the sample dish.  Not very scientific but I get consistant

 results.

 js

------------------------------


Cornelius Keg as fermenter

Date: Sun, 6 Jun 93 10:23:18 PDT

From: rcristad@weber.ucsd.edu (Riccardo Cristadoro)

Subject: Cornelius Keg as fermenter

 I am interested in using my stainless steel Cornelius Keg as

a primary and secondary fermenter.  I would appreciate any

suggestions from those who have given this a try.

STEVE BOXER

------------------------------


Stuck Run-off

Date: Sun, 6 Jun 93 10:30:14 PDT

From: rcristad@weber.ucsd.edu (Riccardo Cristadoro)

Subject: Stuck Run-off

 My first wheat beer coincided with my first stuck run-off

during the sparge.  I used 5 pounds of 2 row klages and 5 pounds of

wheat malt.  The malt appeared to be crushed correctly.  I have used

my lauter tun a few times before and didn't have a problem with slow

sparges.  If anything, the sparges were a little on the fast side.

I should also mention that I used a infusion type mash w/o a mash

out.  Do I need to mash out when I use that much wheat malt?  I'm

not even sure what could cause a stuck run-off except for too fine

of a crush on the grains.

 I use a Phils style lauter tun. Instead of using the Phill's

false bottom, I used the lid of my bucket and drilled hundreds of

1/8" holes.  There are a few little gaps between the side of the

false bottom and the bucket.  Any ideas or suggestions?

------------------------------


AHA Conference in Portland

Date: Sat, 5 Jun 93 23:08:10 EDT

From: rgarvin@btg.com (Rick Garvin)

Subject: AHA Conference in Portland

Here is the list of people that responded to my entry in HBD about the

AHA Conference in Portland. If you know of anyone else going who is on

the net let me know and I will add them.

There is interest in getting together for beers on Monday night. Any

suggestions? Maybe a walking tour of brew pubs?

Address    Name  Arrival  Hotel

rgarvin@btg.com   Rick Garvin Friday  Marriot

fjdobner@ihlpb.att.com  Frank Dobner Sunday  Riverside

tciccate@carina.unm.edu  Tom Ciccateri Sunday  unknown

uunet!atmel.com!.jlrandreman John Landreman unknown  unknown

Cheers, Rick

Rick Garvin rgarvin@btg.com

BTG, Inc. Navy Programs Division, Vienna, VA 703-761-6630

------------------------------


What differs in American Beers

Date: Mon, 07 Jun 93 07:49:59 EST

From: thutt <thutt@MAIL.CASI.NASA.GOV>

Subject: What differs in American Beers

      We all complain about the lack of variety in American beers, and as

      I was bemoaning this fact to a friend of mine, an excellent

      question popped into my head.  I recently read (forget where) that

      A.B. has about 17 different beers, all basically the similar, while

      many European breweries have the same number, but with a much

      greater, often seasonal variation.

      So, the question is, what exactly are the differences between, any

      two beers made by the same mega-brewery?  (eg: Bugwieser -vs-

      Busch)

      And, another observation:  It seems to me that Miller is the least

      resistant in trying new styles of beer.  Some good (Amber Ale),

      some marginal (Reserve) and some questionable (Clear).  I would

      surmise that if these work out well for Miller, you can bet your

      brew kettle that A.B. & Coors will soon begin brewing a larger

      variety (with real variation) of beers.

------------------------------


"Thick" dry stouts...why?

Date:    Mon, 7 Jun 1993 8:25:25 -0400 (EDT)

From: P_LABRIE@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Paul LaBrie)

Subject: "Thick" dry stouts...why?

This past weekend I attended a local homebrew party where I brought along a

Cornelius keg of my latest dry stout (a variant on the Line/Miller recipes

which I have been consistently happy with).

The comment I always seem to receive at these parties, whether I'm

pouring my own, or an actual Guinness, is that dry stout is "thick". Do beer-

tasters (read "willing amateurs") elsewhere also refer to stouts as "thick" or

is this just a local phenomenon?"

Note: I'm NOT looking for a diatribe on the tasting abilities of the average

American light beer drinker (flame-throwers on stun only). What I am curious

about is whether the dark color and strong bitterness of dry stouts actually

imparts a feeling of "thickness" to some peoples' minds, even though the body

of the beer may be quite thin. "Thick" (to me) implies a comment on texture and

body.  My stouts (luckily) and their commercial counterparts definitely do NOT

have the texture of a syrup or a motor oil so why "thick"?  Any taste & aroma

physiologists out there?  (I'll summarize any private postings).

 - paul -

p_labrie@unhh.unh.edu

------------------------------


Kegging Alternatives

Date: Mon, 07 Jun 1993 09:04:45 EDT

From: hmcook@boe00.minc.umd.edu (Hardy M. Cook)

Subject: Kegging Alternatives

On page 6 of BREWING TECHNIQUES, there is an ad for a 5 liter Mini Keg System.

I am not interested in 5 gallon Cornelius keg systems at this time, but there

are occasions, one or twice a year, that I would like to have kegging ability.

Does anyone have any experience with this kegging system or advice about

kegging alternatives to the 5 gallon Corneilus -- beer balls, batch latches,

and so on.

Also several months ago, I recall a posting about someone in Riverdale,

Maryland, who sold yeast cultures that I have since misplaced.  If anyone

knows of this person, could you please email me privately with address,

telephone number, or other information?

------------------------------


top cropping???

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 93 10:43:40 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: top cropping???

I've got this batch in the fermenter that just won't quit.  The yeast

has been crawling up-and-out for a week now.  Yesterday, I thought it

had settled down and switched the blow-off for an airlock, but NO!  A

few hours later, I took off the airlock and replaced the blow-off.

The airlock was half full of "solid" yeast sludge.  Seems like, with

the proper care, I ought to be able to collect this stuff and reuse

it.  Does anyone have any hints on doing this in a "sterile" fashion?

(I should mention that the blow-off bucket also had about 1/4" of nice

looking yeast slurry on the bottom when I switched it out.)

One thought that occurs to me is to do a "2-stage" blow off, where the

main blow-off tube goes into a sealed, sanitized container with a

second blow-off or airlock.  I could collect the yeast in this

container, and then save it for the next batch.  Does this sound like

a reasonable scheme?

Yours in confusion,

=Spencer W. Thomas   |  Info Tech and Networking, B1911 CFOB, 0704

   "Genome Informatician" |  Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu |  313-764-8065, FAX 313-764-4133

------------------------------


sparging & manifold design

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 93 11:10:03 EDT

From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>

Subject: sparging & manifold design

A while back, there was a discussion about copper manifold sparging

designs.  A few of us had built in a "down pipe" into our design.

This is a pipe that rises from the manifold to a point above the top

of the mash, and is open at the top.  I designed it into mine with two

purposes in mind: to easily underlet mash and sparge water (although

this could be done through the outflow), and to act as a "suction

breaker" in the case that a sparge through a hose to a lower

level was to apply too much suction (by siphon effect) and "set" the

mash.  Others pooh-poohed the need for such a device.

Well, the other night, I got to see the suction-breaker effect in

action.  I was (as previously described) trying to make to batches

from one mash, and was, understandably, trying to make it go as fast

as possible.  So I opened the valve full (3/8 OD pipe/tubing) and let

it run.  At one point, when I glanced over at it, the tubing was full

of bubbles, presumably resulting from air sucked in through the down

tube.  I quickly throttled back the sparge, and the bubbles

disappeared.  So at least it worked to let me know I was going to

fast, and may have helped prevent over-compaction of the mash.

=S

------------------------------


paulaner salvator ideas

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 1993 10:21:51 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: paulaner salvator ideas

It's a great beer, and so is Spaten Optimator.  The premier issue

of Brewing Techniques has an article by Darryl Richman where he

describes the thinking that went into his first place Bock.  The

recipe for the beer appeared in Zymurgy.  I don't remember the

exact amounts, but based on his article and some bocks I've made,

I'd suggest lots of Munich malt and some Aromatic malt too.  If

I remember correctly, Darryl used no pale malt.

More generally, you might consider using proportions of the

following malts:

pale malt

Munich malt

Aromatic malt

U.S cara-pils (dextrin malt)

crystal malt

The starting gravity for your doppelbock should be 1.076.  Hops should

be multiple additions of Hallertauer.  Yeast should be a good liquid

lager yeast such as Wyeast "Bavarian" lager.

Doppelbocks do not have to be so dark as traditional bock.  Color can

be obtained with ample amounts of crystal and Munich malt.  Be careful

with highly roasted malts.  While there is a temptation to use them

for color, I don't think a chocolate malt or burnt malt flavor is

appropriate in a doppelbock.

------------------------------


Re: Homemade cooker (and Easymasher)

Date: Mon, 07 Jun 1993 09:26:21 -0600 (CST)

From: Robert Schultz <Robert.Schultz@usask.ca>

Subject: Re: Homemade cooker (and Easymasher)

I have been using a Coleman camp stove and I am not overly happy with the

results, over an hour to bring 25 litres to boil.  However, if I shroud the pot

I'm sure that I could lower the time to boil.  On the other hand, I think this

is fairly heavy duty work for the Coleman stove and I don't want to start

repairing it the next time I go camping....

SO, I am putting in place pieces for a cooker. I got a 120 litre water heater

from a friend for the cost of removing it from her basement (it is going to cost

me a six pak for the friend that helpeed me carry it out).  I have ripped it

apart keeping in tact the base and burner assembly.  I have an old portable

barbeque which I have scounged the control/regulator and now have to mount to

the base. The last item is to get my welder friend to build a rack strond enough

to hold 50 litres of brew while applying 35,000 BTU.  Total cost should be 2

six paks of brew.

The major obsticle is to determine if I can fire this unit up inside the house?

I have used the Coleman stove inside the house (keep the exhaust fans running)

with no apparent dangers .. it depends how clean this new unit burns (proper

orfice/burner combination).

EasyMasher

==========

As for the building of trademaked/patented items, I am under the impression that

one can build these items for personal use, but you can not sell for profit.

Robert.Schultz@usask.ca

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I'm going off half-cocked? I'm going off half-cocked? ...

Well, Mother was right - You can't argue with a shotgun." - Gary Larson

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

------------------------------


Those Black Beans

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 1993 09:22:53 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Those Black Beans

Someone was asking about Chinese fermented black beans and how to: well,

foist of all, they aren't really black beans.  Second of all, I'm pretty

sure they aren't really "fermented".  There's a problem that arises with

translations from Chinese, not to mention the Chinese habit of employing

picturesque terminology, especially in reference to food.

At any rate (and completely void of beer references): if memory serves,

FBBs are actually produced from soybeans.  They are heavily salted, and

usually in conjunction with ginger.  And as dear old dad pointed out in

reference to "fermented bean curd", protein doesn't "ferment", it

putrifies.  The bean curd and the "black" beans would probably more

accurately referred to as "pickled" or perhaps "salted".  The beans are

available at any decent Asian grocery (don't buy the stuff in jars at

your supermarket --fooey!); the best come in a yellow cardboard tub

(can't remember the brand name offhand, could be Pearl River Bridge).

As nice as the tub is, the beans will stay moist longer if you transfer

them to a tightly closed jar.  Use much more than called for in most

recipes; they seem to be written for the "American" palate; one of my

favorites is beef chow fun made with wide rice noodles, green peppers

and LOTS of black beans.  Yum.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


Wheat beer puzzle: 2 layers?

Date: 7 Jun 1993 10:53:44 U

From: "Westemeier*, Ed" <westemeier@pharos-tech.com>

Subject: Wheat beer puzzle: 2 layers?

One of our local club members reported a puzzling result from his

latest batch.  Since no one here could positively identify what

happened, I thought the collective wisdom of the HBD could at least

offer some plausible theories.

The situation:

A German wheat beer, about 60% wheat, mashed and boiled normally,

and pitched with Wyeast wheat yeast.  Fermented at 75 to 80 degrees

Fahrenheit to get the most spiciness, and racked to a secondary

after 3 days.  Fermentation stopped after 10 days, and when he

looked at it, it seemed to be in two layers.  The top half of the

carboy was dark, and the lower half was much lighter.  Thinking

that it was a case of the yeast simply taking a while to settle

out, he peered through the carboy, using a flashlight.  No, the

top half was definitely much darker, and there was a distinct

dividing line in the middle, separating the layers.

He then used a racking tube to carefully take samples from each

layer.  The top (darker) half was considerably lower in gravity

than the lower half.  Both layers tasted fine, although the

alcohol definitely came through in the taste of the darker, upper

layer.  He bottled the two layers separately, as best he could,

and now seems to have two distinctly different wheat beers from

the same carboy.

Has anyone ever seen this effect before?

Can anyone offer an explanation for it?

- -------------------------------------------

++  Ed Westemeier  ++  Cincinnati, Ohio  ++

++  E-mail:  westemeier@delphi.com       ++

------------------------------


Re: Propane Cooker

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 1993 09:27:31 -0700

From: Bob Konigsberg <bobk@NSD.3Com.COM>

Subject: Re: Propane Cooker

Posting as a followup to Chris Estes question on putting a propane cooker

in his basement.

Aside from the burner size comparisons Chris, I would strongly recommend

that you also install a really good exhaust fan WITH a hood.

Boiling that much wort will release a lot of water vapor into the air,

and it may well condense in places you don't want, providing a breeding

ground for higher concentrations of strange critters that you don't want

in your beer, as well as possibly allowing wood rot to set in in your

home's structure.

In addition, if the burner is any kind of healthy size at all, depending

on its adjustment, you may be risking built up concentrations of Carbon

Monoxide (toxic) and Carbon Dioxide (non-toxic, but oxygen displacing).

I decided not to brew in my basement for those reasons (too cheap to put

in a good exhaust hood I guess :-) ).

Good Luck,

BobK

------------------------------


Phosphoric acid nonsense

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 93 10:33:04 MDT

From: Rick Myers <rcm@col.hp.com>

Subject: Phosphoric acid nonsense

>kegs.  Phosphoric acid reacts quite severely with 304 stainless.  should

Gee - don't let this infomation leak out to soda pop manufacturers!

All that phosphoric acid they are putting in their cola syrup is ruining

their kegs!!!

> Phosphoric Acid (<=40%)               No effect on 304 Stainless Steel

Ah, so that's why the cola manufacturer's aren't worried about it!

Rick "Will drink beer for food" Myers

------------------------------


Yucky Stovetops

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 1993 09:43:02 -0700

From: Bob Konigsberg <bobk@NSD.3Com.COM>

Subject: Yucky Stovetops

The nasty stuff on stove tops falls into two basic categories.

1) A Light film of grease/oil which is left over from other cooking,

   and gets burned in place by the heat of boiling.

CURE: Wash the stove thoroughly BEFORE brewing.

2) Spills that get burned into place.

CURE: Clean up spills right away, even if you have to turn off the

heat and slide the pot to the side for a bit.  They will never get

easier to clean up, only more difficult.

BobK

------------------------------


Re: Btus,Burners, hops not growing

Date:  Mon, 7 Jun 1993 12:00:36 -0400

From: Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@canrem.com>

Subject: Re: Btus,Burners, hops not growing

>Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 09:52:48 -0700 (PDT)

>Subject: Brewing Techniques & Book Reviews

>In addition to Martin Lodahl's comments on whether Brewing Techniques

>will review books published by other than the Association of Brewers:

>like, f'rinstance?

>A major reality: AofB is publishing the bulk of homebrew- or even

>micro-brew related books right now.  It would be dishonest to avoid them

>and would also mean cutting down severely on the book reviews.

        I wasn't suggesting that they be avoided but that

        there might be a few books out there that the AHA

        has decided not to carry that might be of interest.

>From: cestes@argos5.DNET.NASA.GOV (Chris Estes)

>Subject: Propane Cooker

>Hi All...

>We're getting ready to move into our new house next month.  My brewing

>activities have been banished to the basement!  That works well, except

>that I don't relish the idea of carrying 5 gallons of wort down the

>stairs after cooking.  Add that to the fact that the new house has an

>electric stove and things look grim.

        No need to carry hot wort. Chilled it and then

        shipon it down the stairs. I brew either in the

        garage or outside. After cooling the beer is

        shiphoned down the stairs using a 1" shiphon hose.

        Works well and is pretty quick.

>I'd like everyone's input on what kind of propane cooker to get.  I

>only make beer in 5 gallon batches, so I don't need a surplus Saturn V

>motor up-ended!  What's best?  What kind of gas do I use?  How much should

>I expect to spend?  Can I use it in the basement, or do I have to step out-

>side on the patio?  Will I have to build a stand to hold my brewpot, or

>will it come with something sturdy enough?  You get the idea; I'm totally

>in the dark on these things!

        The burner I use is only 60,000btus but has no

        problems with 40-55litress that it boils regularly.

        Since it designed for large scale home canning it

        comes with a very sturdy stand. Many people place

        40gallon drums on it! I don't know if it's available

        outside of Toronto. In my understanding all the

        higher BTU's give you is a faster boil.

>From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@brahms.helios.nd.edu>

>Subject: The stick I buried won't grow and other stories

>A few day ago I posted to r.c.b and received no repsonse.  Basically I

>buried a Rhizome an inch deep 2 weeks ago and nothing has peeped up yet.

>Comments?  Is it dead or did I dod something wrong (I planted it

>horizontally).

        Assuming the weathers fine and the rhizome was alive

        when planted the only thing I can think of is that

        the you planted it upside down. Brush the dirt off

        and check for growth. Depending on type some hops

        are relatively slower growers. My hallertau plants

        grow and develop much slower then either the nugget

        or Mt. Hood.

        Nick

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I drink Beer I don't collect cute bottles!

zen%hophead@canrem.com

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Re: Calcium Chloride Source?

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 93 11:58:46 -0400

From: polstra!larryba@uunet.UU.NET

Subject: Re: Calcium Chloride Source?

In HBD# 1157, Darren asks:

>Does anyone know a source for food grade calcium chloride?

>I'd like to use some for water adjustment.

I got my CaCl2 from "All World Scientific Supply" in Lynnwood, WA.  They

have an 800 number so you can just call 1-800-555-1212 to get it.  I

think I paid $15/500gm for USP grade.  You should be able to look under

chemical supplys in the yellow pages and find someone local.  If not, then

All World does ship.  Also, since you are at a university, try your local

chem student store or ask around the biology section.

Cheers!

P.S. a 55 gal drum of USP CaCl2 costs only $.75/lb - quite a mark up for

stuffing small bottles and labeling...

- --

Larry Barello   uunet!polstra!larryba

------------------------------


Iodophors

Date:    Mon, 7 Jun 1993 10:09:40 -0700 (MST)

From: JLIDDIL@AZCC.Arizona.EDU (Jim Liddil)

Subject: Iodophors

With all the discussion of iodophors I thought I might post the following info

from a tome entitled "Disinfection, Sterilization and Preservation" Ed. by

Seymour S. Block 4th ed 1991.

Iodophor is  acomplex of elemental iodine or triiodide with a carrier that has

at least 3 functions. (1)to increase the solublity of iodine (2) to provide a

sustained release resevoir of the halogen and (3) to reduce the equilibrium

concentration of free molecular iodine.  The carriers are netral polymers such

as polyvinyl pyrrolidone, polyehter glycols, polyvinyl alcohols, polyacrylic

acid, polyamides, polyoxyalkylenes and polysaccharides.  No where does the

article mention the use of phosphoric acid as a iodine complexing agent.  I

have been told by an industry rep that phosphoric acid is added to maintain

alow pH (<9) and aid in cleaning.

Another important feature of aqueous povidone-iodine solutions is that there

exists a maximum concentration of 25.4 mg/L of "free iodine" that arises in a

0.1% solution and can never be exceeded.  So more iodine is not better and is

in fact wasteful.

I suggest this book for anyone who really wants ot know about all the

sanitizing techniques used by brewers.

Jim

------------------------------


Have 6 extra tickets for Stoudt's Fest on Saturday

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 93 13:36 EDT

From: gcw@granjon.att.com

Subject: Have 6 extra tickets for Stoudt's Fest on Saturday

I have 6 extra tickets for the 2PM - 6PM Stoudt's Second Great Eastern

Invitational Microbrewery Festival on June 12 (Saturday) in Adamstown, PA.

Tickets are $15 and includes "Best of the Wurst Buffet" and a glass to

taste all of the fine brews with.

    Geoff Woods

    gcw@granjon.att.com

------------------------------


brewpub opens in Michigan

Date: 7 Jun 1993 13:36:01 -0500

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel.F.McConnell@med.umich.edu>

Subject:  brewpub opens in Michigan

                       Subject:                               Time:12:48 PM

  OFFICE MEMO           brewpub opens in Michigan             Date:6/7/93

GREAT NEWS FOR THE STATE OF MICHIGAN!!!!

Well folks, it's finally happened.  Michigan's first brewpub, The

Eccentric Cafe, will open its doors at noon, Friday June 11, 1993.

Located in downtown Kalamazoo, the brewpub is adjacent to The

Kalamazoo Brewing Co.  Congratulations and thanks to Larry Bell, president,

mover and shaker.

Larry brews a fairly long and interesting, some would say eccentric

line of brews that range from the refreshing (Bell's Beer) to the

massive (Explorer Stout).  I don't have a clue as far as which brews

will be offered in the pub.  Some of us will be traveling from Ann

Arbor to Chicago this Friday for the national competition.  Hummmmm

isn't Kalamazoo on the way?  The usual report will follow....

DanMcC

------------------------------


dry hopping = 100 IBU's ??

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 1993 11:17:43 -0800 (PDT)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: dry hopping = 100 IBU's ??

Summary:

Hop pellet residue that got into my bottles seems to be making the beer

progressively more bitter and undrinkable.

My first try at dry hopping resulted in some suspended pellet material

getting into the bottles.  At first the beer was delicious, with a lovely

fresh hop aroma but 6 weeks later the beer is becoming undrinkable.  Is this

likely to be due to continued extraction of bitterness?  I am under the

impression that hops must be boiled to extract bitterness.  Is an infection

likely?  There's no unpleasant taste, just this very bitter characteristic.

 Peter

------------------------------


Brewpub opens in MI! (fwd)

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 93 14:42:16 EDT

From: perreaul@egr.msu.edu

Subject: Brewpub opens in MI! (fwd)

> > Date: Mon, 7 Jun 93 13:53:50 EDT

> > Subject: Brewpub opens in MI!

> >

> > In case you've been wondering about the deafening silence on the

> > "Michigan Brewers" e-mail list, it's my fault.  For reasons best left

> > unexplained, the error messages that should have been coming to my

> > mailbox were going to another, so I didn't see them until just

> > recently.  Hopefully, it will work this time.  Now, to the business at

> > hand:

> >

> >

> >                        Subject:                               Time:12:48 PM

> >   OFFICE MEMO           brewpub opens in Michigan             Date:6/7/93

> > GREAT NEWS FOR THE STATE OF MICHIGAN!!!!

> >

> > Well folks, it's finally happened.  Michigan's first brewpub, The

> > Eccentric Cafe, will open its doors at noon, Friday June 11, 1993.

> > Located in downtown Kalamazoo, the brewpub is adjacent to The

> > Kalamazoo Brewing Co.  Congratulations and thanks to Larry Bell, president,

> > mover and shaker.

> >

> > Larry brews a fairly long and interesting, some would say eccentric

> > line of brews that range from the refreshing (Bell's Beer) to the

> > massive (Explorer Stout).  I don't have a clue as far as which brews

> > will be offered in the pub.  Some of us will be traveling from Ann

> > Arbor to Chicago this Friday for the national competition.  Hummmmm

> > isn't Kalamazoo on the way?  The usual report will follow....

> >

> > DanMcC

> >

> >

> >

>

>

------------------------------


Miller Lite and American Lagers

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 93 10:53:23 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Miller Lite and American Lagers

I conjecture that the Miller Brewing Co. uses a high gravity system

whereby their beers are brewed at 16 P (SG = 1.065), fermented, and

then aged. Following this, it would seem reasonable that they are diluted,

filtered, and then in the case of Miller Lite, pasteurized. According to

Fred Eckhardt (see page 49 of his TEOBS) the diluted version has an

(equivalent) OG of 7.8 P (SG = 1.031), an IBU of 19.5, and an alcohol

level of 3.3 % by wt. I believe these are accurate numbers, which means

Miller Br. is diluting by a factor of two. What is interesting here is

the Miller Lite that is residing in Miller's ruhr storage tanks. It is

a 16 degree beer with an IBU of 39, and has an alcohol content of 6.6%

by weight (8.25% by vol.). A knockout? You better believe it!

The point of this observation is that the undiluted Miller Lite is what the

original American lagers use to be. If one has any doubts about this, then

check page 38 of Nugy's book. The latter is reference 12 on page 41 of Fred's

book, and reference 6 in my book with Laurie. Nugy's book is full of the

older beer formulations. In particular, on page 38 he gives the recipe for one

of the best selling lagers in the Northeast in the pre-prohibition era.

Here it is:

     100 bbl. (3100 gals.) batch

     4775 lbs. pale malt

     1380 lbs. flaked maize

     50 lbs. domestic hops

     38 lbs. imported hops

     OG = 15P (1.061)

The IBU was not cited, but with a .88 pounds per barrel hop rate it had to be

as high as the undiluted Miller Lite, and maybe higher. This beer could be

distinguished from European lagers because of its use of some unmalted cereal

grains. Note that the flakes are used in this formulation as an adjunct

in the proper sense of that term; i.e., not as a malt replacement but

rather as a specialty grain which is used for special effects. In particular,

the flakes give the beer a residual grainy sweetness that was apparently

valued in lagers in that period. By the way, although Fuller's ESB is a

dramatically different beer, one can still pick up that same "sweetness"

in it. Fullers also uses flaked maize as an adjunct, something Laurie and

I both directly observed last summer in London.

What is a real irony here is that if any of us were to brew Nugy's lager,

and enter it in the American Light category, all *$## would break loose. I

can just see the looks of disbelief as unsuspecting judges tasted this one!

Yet this is exactly the type of beer that originally defined this category.

One final point. It is my belief that Miller Reserve is made exclusively

from malted barley, and in particular no raw barley is used. I would be

willing to bet that the phrase "100% Barley"  was chosen by their marketing

people and not by their brewers. Why is it so lightly flavored? Well folks,

guess what submicron filtration gives you!

George Fix

P.S. Many commercial breweries (including a large one in Ft. Worth) use

a 5% phosphoric acid solution as a final step in cleaning. It is not too

good with organic dirt (caustic solutions are used for that), but it will

really put a nice shine on 304 stainless. It is regarded as being natural

to beer, and not aggressive to equipment. Rinsings is nevertheless used after

its use.

P.P.S. Thanks for all the nice e-mail that was sent. There are a bunch of

really great people on this network!

------------------------------


cherries

Date:     Mon, 7 Jun 93 16:25:33 EDT

From: "Robert J. Napholz" (GC-HSI) <rnapholz@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  cherries

hello all

 in hbd #1157 mark asked about kegging pressure(dispensing)

 I use 8-10 psi(even less for a party) to dispense but 15 psi when not

 in use its a pain but it works well.  Keep your spigot Mark!!

Im considering brewing Papazian "cherries in the snow" p220 TNCJOHB

6 lbs light malt extract

2 oz hallertuer

 .5 oz hallertues finishing

10 lbs sour cherries

1-2 pks ale yeast

however i prefer a partial grain any suggestions ??

how about a Wyeast number ?? can i get away without a starter ???

TIA   rob

------------------------------


Iodine test, unpleasant elements

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 1993 14:17:36 -0700 (PDT)

From: Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG>

Subject: Iodine test, unpleasant elements

I usually dip a turkey baster an inch or two below the surface of the mash

and draw up a tablespoon of liquid.  Then filter several drops through a

coffee filter onto a white plate.  Seems to sufficiently filter out husk

particles; my iodine tests come up negative for starch.

I also wish to second George Fix's comments regarding some of the rather

unpleasant elements that appear on the HBD from time to time.  Judging

from some of the responses that get posted to the HBD and that

general etiquette is to flame in private, I'd hate to see what George gets

by private e-mail.  I certainly don't think he need me to defend him, but

fer chrissakes, its not like the info he posts is advocating anything

unorthodox or harmful.

Lets try to keep this digest to useful ideas and respectful differences of

opinion.  If you have to blow your own horn for some reason, go outside

and away from your keyboard.

BTW George, keep posting. I enjoy reading and can make my own decisions

based on the info provided.

Eric Wade

<ericwade@class.org>

------------------------------


Re: SS Kegs

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 93 16:10:11 -0600

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Re: SS Kegs

Someone queried about differentiating between SS and aluminum in

kegs...

There are many entries in the archives regarding this, but the best

method is probably to obtain a sample of NaOH of KOH (caustic soda or

caustic potash). Put a few drops on the metal to be tested. Within

about 30 seconds, the solution will start to fizz and bubble, evolving

hydrogen gas, if the metal is aluminum. The solution will have no

effect on SS. This should also work with Drano or lye, if you don't

have access to a chem lab.

WARNING: THESE SOLUTIONS ARE VERY DANGEROUS. USE ONLY WITH ADEQUATE

SAFTEY PRECAUTIONS, OR NOT AT ALL IF YOU ARE THE TYPE TO HOLD OTHERS

RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN MISHAPS.

Kelly        <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

------------------------------


Foam with kegging

Date:         Mon, 07 Jun 93 16:51:02 CDT

From: Darren Evans-Young <DARREN@UA1VM.UA.EDU>

Subject:      Foam with kegging

In response to Mark Parshall <markus@pyramid.com>:

Mark,

Your problem can be related to both temperature and pressure.

I had exactly your same problem.  The main cause of foaming

is dispensing with too low a pressure.  However, since a higher

dispensing pressure causes more agitation of your beer, it also causes

the CO2 to come out of solution and foam.  So the trick here is

to increase dispensing pressure but slow down the flow. How do you

do that?  Use a smaller diameter dispensing hose so that it takes

more pressure to push the beer through the smaller hose.  I changed

all my tubing from 1/4" to 3/16". The out connector and the cobra

faucet take 1/4" hose, so you have to have short pieces for connection

plus 2 hose unions that change from 1/4" to 3/16".

 faucet---1/4" line---union---3/16" line---union---1/4" line---keg connector

            6"                    6'                 6"

I use 6' of 3/16" tubing and this has completely eliminated my foaming

problems.  Another thing that will cause foaming is temperature.

At home I have no foaming problems because the keg and dispensing lines

stay inside of my fridge.  However, when I take a keg somewhere, the lines

warm up and the 1st couple glasses drawn are foam until the lines are

cooled by the colder beer.  At homebrew club meetings, I alway watch

for someone to get a beer from a keg and then immediately get one after

them. They get foam, I get beer.

Dont give up on the cobra faucet. My beers draw just like they do in a

bar, nice and slow but with plenty of carbonation and a nice head.

Get you some 3/16" tubing, unions, and hose clamps. Rapids has them.

174-T   Trans 3/16" vinyl tubing  .35/ft

RP220C  1/4" X 3/16" Unions       .90/each

Rapids, Inc.

1-800-553-7906

MasterCard/Visa

I have no affiliation with Rapids, just a satisfied customer.

Darren

------------------------------


Curmudgeons

Date: Mon, 07 Jun 93 16:45:46 -0700

From: "Stephen Hansen" <hansen@gloworm.Stanford.EDU>

Subject: Curmudgeons

cur.mud.geon /(,)k<e>r-'m<e>j-<e>n/ n (1577)

 [origin unknown]

    1 archaic: MISER

    2: a crusty, ill-tempered, and usu. old man-- cur.mud.geon.ly adj

I have noticed that the curmudgeons among us have been getting more

active of late.  You know who you are, so knock it off.  If you don't

like a post's contents or it's tone then send private e-mail and try

and resolve it that way.  If someone posts something misleading you

should give them a chance to correct it themselves.  If you feel you

MUST flame I strongly suggest that you wait 24 hours between writing

the flame and sending it.

The HBD has been something special in network land in terms of its

high s/n ratio and relative lack of flamage.  Please, let's keep it

that way.

Stephen Hansen

Homebrewer, Archivist

------------------------------


Batch sparging

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 93 16:56:49 MDT

From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

Subject: Batch sparging

Rob Thomas asks about batch sparging.  I use this method, out of laziness

mostly.  It works for me but my efficiency isn't near what is claimed here on

the net for many folks.  Of course, I only do a single batch, i.e. I dump all

of the sparge water into the lauter tun, stir it, let it settle, recirculate

a bit, and drain it all off.  Once.  I get around 24 pts/lb/gal.  I expect

that could be raised significantly with a couple of batches, even if the

total amount of sparge water isn't significantly increased.  Of course, as

you increase the number of batches, you approach the continuous inlet of

sparge water method which I, because of my admitted laziness, am trying to

avoid.  I may get really ambitious next time and split my sparge water into

two batches to check the impact on extract efficiency.  Or not.

For those of you using a Bruheat or equivalent as a boiler:  I always pull my

stove out, crawl back there, unplug the stove, plug in the Bruheat, and

proceed to brew with the stove in the middle of the kitchen (don't want to

push it back in, might be a bit too much work!).  My new plan, soon to be

implemented, is to connect a small extension to the back of the stove.  It

will be connected from the terminals on the back of the stove up to a 220V

connector which is mounted on the back of the stove, near the top (much

easier to get at).  There is no modification to the house wiring, or to the

stove, and it can be removed when/if I move.  The added benefit of this is

that my stove will not be out of action for heating sparge water or something

else.  The Bruheat will be in parallel with the stove's load but it is small

compared to the maximum drain from the stove/oven.  If I only use one or two

other heating elements at the same time it should be no problem.  Another

added benefit is that, at most, the stove will only be pulled out a few inches.

DISCLAIMER:  Don't do this!  Working with 220V (221, whatever) is dangerous

and this does not comply with any Electrical Codes that I am aware of.

NO NO NO!  I do not recommend you do this!  It was only a joke (note smileys:

;) :0 :) ).

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1158, 06/08/93

*************************************

-------


Keg experiences (was Re: Foam With Kegs; Forced Carbonation)

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 93 10:23:50 PDT

From: Bob.Clark@Eng.Sun.COM (Bob Clark)

Subject: Keg experiences (was Re: Foam With Kegs; Forced Carbonation)

My 3-tap fridge is based on 1/4" tubing, and ball lock cornelius kegs.

Maximum liquid line length from disconnect to tap is about 4 feet.

My artificial carbonation techique is to put the keg in the fridge, and

hook up the CO2 at about 30 psi once a day.  About half a week of this,

and it's carbonated.  I'm trying a new technique right now of keeping the

keg continuously connected at 30 psi - don't know how quickly this will

work.

When carbonated, I just hook the keg up to my fridge CO2 supply, which

is somewhere around 8-10 psi, continuously connected (if I don't have

any leaks at the time!).  Since I have individual check valves for

each of the three potentially connected kegs, overpressure in one or

more of the kegs is not a problem.  I just start pouring, and live

with the extra foam until everything reaches equilibrium, which doesn't

take too many pints.  If I have not sufficiently carbonated the beer,

another week or so at my normal dispensing pressure is sufficient to

carbonate it properly.

As far as moldy taps go, I just disconnect the liquid line from the

keg, and take the tap off.  This is easy, since there is a knurled

collar and thread system which connects the tap outside of the fridge

to the beer shank , which is the pipe that runs through the sidewall of

the fridge.  I take apart the whole tap, and do a little boiling and a

little rinsing to clean out the mold.

I'll clean a tap if it's been a coupla weeks, or if there are some folks

coming over.  If I get a little lazy, I just never bring up the subject

of mold with company, and they've never noticed anything ;-)

 Bob C.

------------------------------


William's Temperture Controller

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 93 20:40:41 PDT

From: "Joe Stone" <JSTONE@SJEVM5.VNET.IBM.COM>

Subject: William's Temperture Controller

  Darren Evans-Young was happy with the temperature controller

from William's.  Does anyone else have any comments regarding this

unit?  Does this unit have a solid state sensor or the "capillary

tube" sensor?  Is the four degree differential too inaccurate or is

this actually equivalent to the Hunter and Johnson?

Joe

------------------------------


Hop Boil and New Utilization Table

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 93 23:28:54 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hop Boil and New Utilization Table

Someone, sorry but I can't find my note, asked about adding hops before

or after the hot break:

I think the most important thing is the boil time, not worrying about when

the break occurs.  Your utilization will be more affected by the boil time

than any supposed break material coating the hops.  Besides, it doesn't

matter a whit what coats the petals (aka, but wrongly, leaves).  It is the

stuff in the little yellow lupulin glands that counts.  I've never seen any

stuff on the petals in my wort anyway.  There is also the argument that

having the petals and/or hop particles from pellets thrashing around in the

boil is helpful in getting a good break to happen.

Bob Jones commented about the work that Glenn Tinseth is up to taking

a new cut at Rager's numbers:

Glenn and I have corresponded on the subject relative to incorporting his

results in my book.  Until the results are in (which could take a while),

I have taken a stab at modifying Rager's utilization chart.  My revised

figures are based on inputs from many brewers (thanks, BTW, to those from

HBD that responded to my request for comments on Rager's numbers), reviews

of the literature and my own estimates.  The following should not be

considered as an absolute (there aren't any in brewing) but more as a

"work in progress".  The chart is about to be published in my catalog,

but in the spirit of Bob's note and the input HBDers have provided,

I'm willing to share it with all.

The chart lists Rager's original numbers, and three different columns of new

numbers.  The first column is Rager's, the second lists numbers for yeast

with "average flocculation", the third column for yeast with fast

flocculation and the last for yeast with slow flocculation.  Besides the

boil time and wort gravity, the effect of the yeast on the bitterness is

probably the next most important factor and that is why I've included it.

The reason for the three figures is that the faster the yeast settles, the

less time it will be suspended (duh) and therefore has less opportunity to

absorb alpha acids, so the utilization is adjusted upwards.  It follows that

yeast dropping out slowly will absorb more alpha acids and therefore the

utilization should be adjusted downwards.  Also, you can see that I've

discounted any alpha utilization at low boil times.

Boil Time  Rager's   Average Yeast   Fast Yeast    Slow Yeast

           Number    Flocculation    Flocculation  Flocculation

< 5 min       5%           0%            0%            0%

6-10 min      6%           0%            0%            0%

11-15 min     8%           1%            1%            1%

16-20 min   10.1%          4%            5%            3%

21-25 min   12.1%          6%            7%            5%

26-30 min   15.3%         11%           13%            9%

31-35 min   18.8%         13%           16%           11%

36-40 min   22.8%         16%           19%           13%

41-45 min   26.9%         19%           23%           15%

46-50 min   28.1%         20%           24%           16%

> 50 min     30%          21%           25%           17%

I'm sure that I don't have to ask for comments :-) and of course, YMMV.

BTW, for those who don't know what we're referring to, we're talikng about a

chart and formulas published in the Zymurgy special issue on hops.  Also, the

complete formula is published in both Glenn's and my catalogs.  And for those

that don't know, the original article had a formula error in the gravity

adjustment.  It should have read:

GA= (Boil Gravity - 1.050)/0.2.

Also, the example shown is wrong.  It should be:

GA= (1.096 - 1.050)/0.2 = 0.23.

Mark from HopTech

------------------------------


Malt and Hops

Date: 08 Jun 93 06:59:09 EDT

From: CHUCKM@PBN73.CV.COM

Subject: Malt and Hops

Hello All....

   1. What is the difference between caramel and crystal malt. When

      would I use/not use them.

   2. The lower leaves of my Centennial (and Mt. Hood to an extent)

      hop vines are turning a yellowish color. Can anyone help out

      here as to what is happening, is it bad, and how do I stop it.

      I live in the Boston area.

Thanks for your help

Chuck

------------------------------


Strawberry Ale

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 93 8:23:49 EDT

From: U-E68316-Scott Wisler <swisler@c0431.ae.ge.com>

Subject: Strawberry Ale

After reading all the articles on fruit beers over the past month, I

decided to some strawberry ale.  Fresh picked raspberries will have to

wait for mid-summer.  I had a 38 OG, 28 IBU pale ale in clearing in

a secondary secondary fermenter. I bottled 4 gal, then added 1.5# of

chopped and mashed up strawberries to one gallon remaining in my carboy.

After about a week, I strained/racked off the beer with a grain steeping

bag stretched over my racking tube.  The beer, which was once very clear,

now has the appearance of fresh-from-the-farm apple cider (golden brown

and opaque).  It is now in a one gallon glass secondary in the

refridgerator 'clearing'.  I have become curious about the absence of

strawberrys in the previous HBD discussion, or any brewing literature for

that matter.  Strawberries are more pulpy than raspberries, but I really

never expected the cloudy final product.  If anyone else tried this,

another data point would be nice.

BTW, I aquired a 3 barrel SS 'vat', for lack of a better term, that

overwhelms my small scale. (10 gal takes up 3" in the bottom).  It is

36" high by 31" diameter.  It has a drain in the bottom with a sanitary

fitting, a lid with a slot for a mechanical stirrur, and is on a heavy

duty 3 wheel stand.  My eyes got a bit greedy before my brain realized

just how big it was.  Anybody close to Cincinnati interested can private

email me.

Scott Wisler

swisler@c0431.ae.ge.com

------------------------------


Recipe Request

Date: 08 Jun 1993 09:52:09 GMT

From: WAUTS@CWEMAIL.ceco.com

Subject: Recipe Request

Does anyone have a good recipe for a low gravity traditional bitter,

similiar to that served in England.  I don't have a cask but I will be

using an authentic beer engine :-) .  Please respond via private email

if you can help me out.  Thanks.

Tom Stolfi

wauts@cwemail.ceco.com

------------------------------


FULL SAIL ALES

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1993 07:54:04 -0700 (PDT)

From: John Brooks <jbrooks@u.washington.edu>

Subject: FULL SAIL ALES

I am a big fanof Full Sail (brewed in Oregon), especially their Amber Ale.

Does anyone have any information about recipes for either their Amber or

Golden Ales? [malt types, O.G., hop varieties, IBU's, etc.]  Please post

or reply to private e-mail. I will be glad to compile responses and post.

John (jbrooks@carson.u.washington.edu)

- ------------------------

"Don't Worry, Be Hoppy!"

- ------------------------

------------------------------


Foam with kegging

Date: Tue, 08 Jun 1993 09:00:42 MDT

From: John Landreman X1786 <jlandrem@atmel.com>

Subject: Foam with kegging

In HBD #1158 Darren Evans-Young writes the following.

> I had exactly your same problem.  The main cause of foaming

> is dispensing with too low a pressure.  However, since a higher

> dispensing pressure causes more agitation of your beer, it also causes

> the CO2 to come out of solution and foam.  So the trick here is

> to increase dispensing pressure but slow down the flow. How do you

> do that?  Use a smaller diameter dispensing hose so that it takes

> more pressure to push the beer through the smaller hose.  I changed

> all my tubing from 1/4" to 3/16". The out connector and the cobra

> faucet take 1/4" hose, so you have to have short pieces for connection

> plus 2 hose unions that change from 1/4" to 3/16".

I have been able to attach both the cobra tap and disconnect to 3/16" hose

by heating the end of the hose in hot water. This softens the hose enough

to get it on the barbed fitting with out too much effort.

John

------------------------------


RE: Stuck Run-off

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 93 11:30:24 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: Stuck Run-off

Hi All,

  In HBD#1158, Riccardo Cristadoro asks about using kegs as fermenters.

  Some time ago, I obtained some free pin-lock kegs from a friend who

owns a restaurant.  I had an existing ball-lock setup, bought some pin-lock

hose barbs and used the new kegs for awhile, but eventually amassed enough

ball-lock kegs that the pin-locks fell into disuse.  Recently, I've been

using them as secondary fermenters for lagers with great success.

  I removed the pickup tubes, and cut about 1/2" off the end.  Prolonged

secondary at 40F produces a fairly thick yeast sediment, shortening the

tube allows me to transfer from these kegs without picking up the sediment.

I put a ball-lock hose barb on one end of a short length of pressure tubing,

and a pin-lock barb on the other, which allows me to connect a ball-lock

keg directly to the pin-lock via the liquid out fittings.  When the beer

is ready, I put the CO2 tank on the gas in fitting on the pin-lock, and

transfer the beer under pressure from the secondary to a ball-lock keg

that has been purged of oxygen.  The entire five gallon batch is transferred

from one sealed, sanitized, oxygen-free container to another sealed,

sanitized, oxygen-free container in about two minutes.  No worries about

starting a siphon, keeping my mouth off the siphon tube, no oxidation, no

exposure to airborne micro-nasties.

  The best part is that pin-lock kegs take up much less space than carboys,

I can fit three batches of lager in the same fridge that won't take two

carboys at once.

*************************************************************************

  Also in HBD#1158, Riccardo writes about a stuck sparge:

>My first wheat beer coincided with my first stuck run-off

>during the sparge.

             .

             .

>I should also mention that I used a infusion type mash w/o a mash

>out.  Do I need to mash out when I use that much wheat malt?

  Wheat contains a lot of high molecular weight proteins, sparging a wheat

mash is somewhat more problematic than one that contains 100% barley.

Stuck mashes are a fairly common occurence with wheat.

  You didn't mention whether or not you did a protein rest, but I would

*strongly* advise using a protein rest in the future, particularly if

you're not going to use decoction mashing.  Eric Warner recommends a

staggered protein rest in his Classic Style series book, that is, brief

rests at 117F, 122F, and 126F.  At each of those temperatures, a different

class of peptidase (protein reducing enzyme) is activated.  The point is

to break down as much high molecular weight protein during the mash as

possible, in order to reduce the chances of a stuck sparge later.

>I'm

>not even sure what could cause a stuck run-off except for too fine

>of a crush on the grains.

  Lack of heat in the tun is another classic cause, and this relates to

your question on mash-out.  When mashing-out, the temperature of the mash

is raised to ~170F, and held for 5-10 minutes.  Adding heat to the mash

not only stabilizes enzyme activity, it is very helpful in avoiding

a stuck sparge.  Highly recommended for wheat mashes.

  One other little pointer.  When mashing barley, most brewers use a

water to grist ratio of roughly 1 - 1.5 quarts/lb.  When I brew a

weizen, I use 1.5 qts/lb for the mash itself, as a thick mash protects

protein reducing enzymes better than a thin one when the mash is heated.

At mash out, I add quite a bit more water than I typically use for barley

mashes.  Since the mash is finished, enzyme activity is irrelevant, and

the extra water thins the mash and helps keep it from setting during

lautering.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


Microwave for sterilzation

Date:  Tue, 8 Jun 1993 11:59:00 +0000

From: "Bill (W.R.) Crick" <heybc@bnr.ca>

Subject:  Microwave for sterilzation

Ralph Palmer asked about sterilizing in the mircowave.

 At a microwave cooking class that came with my microwave, they

said DO NOT DO ANY CANNING<, JAMS, or PRESERVES IN THE MICROWAVE.

They said stick to boing it on a canner on the stove.

I don't know why, but suspect that there could be an issue

with the microwave not sterilizing well enough?

I have boiled wort in the microwave

in a beer bottle, with a loose cap, and

then capped it while hot, for yeast starters. It seemed to work OK,

with no obvious growie things in the bottles after a

few weeks in the fridge. The starter I made, and the beer seemed

healthy

Bill Crick   Brewius, Ergo Sum

PS: If you have temp probe microwave, you can easily mash a

   few pounds of grain in the microwave. Just program the temps,

  powers, and times you want, including a mash out, and go cut the

 lawn or something. It beeps when its time to sparge;-)

------------------------------


Brewpub in Michigan.

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 93 09:07:23 PDT

From: johng@adx.la.ca.us (John E. Greene)

Subject: Brewpub in Michigan.

>Date: 7 Jun 1993 13:36:01 -0500

>From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel.F.McConnell@med.umich.edu>

>Subject:  brewpub opens in Michigan

>

>>                       Subject:                               Time:12:48 PM

>  OFFICE MEMO           brewpub opens in Michigan             Date:6/7/93

>GREAT NEWS FOR THE STATE OF MICHIGAN!!!!

>>

>Well folks, it's finally happened.  Michigan's first brewpub, The

>Eccentric Cafe, will open its doors at noon, Friday June 11, 1993.

>Located in downtown Kalamazoo, the brewpub is adjacent to The

>Kalamazoo Brewing Co.  Congratulations and thanks to Larry Bell, president,

>mover and shaker.

>

>Larry brews a fairly long and interesting, some would say eccentric

>line of brews that range from the refreshing (Bell's Beer) to the

>massive (Explorer Stout).  I don't have a clue as far as which brews

>will be offered in the pub.  Some of us will be traveling from Ann

>Arbor to Chicago this Friday for the national competition.  Hummmmm

>isn't Kalamazoo on the way?  The usual report will follow....

>

>DanMcC

The last I heard (Jan, 93) it still isn't legal in Michigan to brew beer and

serve it in the same place.  Maybe I am just picking nits here but a brewpub

it a pub where the brewery is part of the pub, no?  Sounds to me like Larry

Bell opened a pub ajacent to his brewery in which he will sell the beer brewed

in his brewery.  Not the same thing as a brewpub.

So either the Law in Michigan has changed in the past 6 months and I don't

know about it or what it being described here is not actually a brewpub.

I would like to know because there is a lot of interest in opening one in

Traverse City should this law ever be changed. :)

 -john (yoosed to be a yooper) greene

------------------------------


Re: Yucky Stovetops

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1993 09:27:12 -0700

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: Yucky Stovetops

>Date: Mon, 7 Jun 1993 09:43:02 -0700

>From: Bob Konigsberg <bobk@NSD.3Com.COM>

>

>2) Spills that get burned into place.

>CURE: Clean up spills right away, even if you have to turn off the

>heat and slide the pot to the side for a bit.  They will never get

>easier to clean up, only more difficult.

Not at all!  A wire brush attachment on your electric drill will do

wonders cleaning up a burned-on mess.  Of course, you'll have to forego

your stove's enamel finish, but you'll end up with a nice burnished

steel finish instead.

have fun

gak

Richard Stueven, Castro Valley CA

gak & gerry's garage, brewpub, hockey haven and pinball palace

------------------------------


Calculating Proper Dispensing Pressure

Date: Tue, 08 Jun 1993 08:56:16 -0700 (MST)

From: Cisco <FRANCISCO@lan.ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: Calculating Proper Dispensing Pressure

There has been enough talk about dispensing pressures for cornelius

keg systems so I thought I'ld throw in some logic on how to calculate

dispensing pressures. I have been kegging for over ten years and

learned a lot by trial and error until I had the luck to run into the

individual who sets up most of the draft systems here in Tucson.

Believe it or not there is some logic to all this and your elevation

from sea level must also be taken into consideration.

Optimum dispensing pressure is 12 lbs. at 36 to 40 degrees. For every

2000 feet above sea level you must add 1 lb. Tucson resides at 2400

ft above sea level so I need to add 1 1/4 lbs to 12 lbs to get a

total of approximately 14 lbs(13 1/4) total dispensing pressure. I

have a chrome tower draft column which will offset 3lbs pressure,

leaving me with 11 lbs(14-3=11) that must be taken up with hose. How

much hose will I need to offset 11 lbs? That depends on the inside

diameter. A hose of 1/4 id. has a 1 lb drop for every 18 inches, so I

would need 198 inches or 16 1/2 feet. That's a lot of hose! A hose

with 3/16 id has adrop of 1 lb for every 4 inches, so I would use 44

inches or 3 ft 8 in. This is what I use.

After you have calculted and assembled your system you can fine tune

the way your system pours a beer by adjusting the pressure no more

than 1 lb above or below the calculated pressure. My CO2 pressure is

set at 13 1/2 lbs and I get a beautiful creamy head about an inch

thick.

One last point is that you should keep your CO2 tank at room

temperature - not in your cooler. If you keep the CO2 tank in the

cooler the CO2 can not form a gas and remains in a liquid state

feeding into your beer and eventually it will overcarbonate it. Read

the dial that states internal tank pressure and when it is stored in

a cooler you'll notice that the dial indicator is in the red zone,

take it out and let it sit at room temperature and the dial will move

above the red zone indicating that the CO2 is allowing gas to form

from the liquid.

My draft system is in an old freezer with a Johnson type controller.

The Hunter airstat just couldn't get the temperatures I wanted.

The new magazine Technical Brewer is great! Keep up the good work!!

The short blurb on dispensing pressures was nice but it left out some

of the fine points of calculating proper pressure.

John Francisco

Francisco@lan.ccit.arizona.edu

May your homebrew always give you good head!

------------------------------


Sanitizers

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 93 11:37 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Sanitizers

As an offshoot of the Bleach/Iodophor/SS discussion, Ulick and I have

exchanged some private email, the last of which had a few points of general

interest:

U>I guess that is the best solution.  I use bleach for

U>sanitizing everything - but the only stainless I use

U>is a spoon.  It does corrode my wort chiller (Cu) and steel

A>I have a copper immersion wort chiller and I don't use any

A>sanitizer on it -- I wash it with water immediately after use,

A>store it in a large plastic bag between uses and sanitize it

A>by dunking it in boiling wort for a few minutes.

U>spoons I use for skimming if I leave them soaking a while.

U>I don`t see why anyone would want to use any chemical

U>when stainless kegs can be boiled anyway.

A>Yes, but the kegs I have, have rubber tops and bottoms, not to mention

A>the rubber seals throughout the beer path (8 seals if you include the

A>large one -- I just reconditioned two kegs... I know) which would probably

A>survive several bouts with boiling, but would eventually lose elasticity

A>and not seal anymore.  Boiling water is a good sanitizer, but is also

A>more dangerous.  Bleach and Iodophor only harm you if you get them in

A>your eyes or mouth -- boiling water will mess you up anywhere it hits

A>you!

Al.

P.S. This last statement is probably of some general interest.  Do you

mind if I post the above email?  Or you could just post it, I don't care.

------------------------------


Are stouts really thick?

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1993 13:22:42 -0400 (EDT)

From: Bryan Kornreich <bkornrei@pennsy.med.jhu.edu>

Subject: Are stouts really thick?

Hi All,

    In response to Paul Labrie's comment that his friends labelled his

not-so-thick stout as a thick beverage, I think I may have an idea what's

going on with them:

   When I first started drinking beer--not too long ago, since I'm only

22-- I also tended to call stouts "thick".  And in fact, I still call that

Guiness stuff in the bottle (though not so much the draught) "thick".

   I guess I can speak from a tiny bit of medical/physiological authority

since I'm a medical student, but I don't know if that's necessary.

     I think the reason is threefold:

 1. It has to do with the strong flavor and bitter aromas of a stout in

comparison with a pilsner, or even an ale.  The burnt chocolate malt and

other strong/bitter flavored ingredients give a greater input into the

bitter taste receptors of the tongue but especially to the olfactory

receptors in the nose. Don't forget--all this burnt grain stimulus is in

addition to the bitterness of the hops. And in an ale, the predominant

odor is fragrant hop--in a stout, burnt grain/coffee/chocolate odors

predominate--and these are bitter aromas.  So even though your stout may

not taste as bitter as some ales, the bitterness of the stout is

multimodal (taste and smell), so it may seem to be more bitter overall.

This bitterness may be manifest as a much more potent and "thicker" input

to the brain.

   It's not at all unlike strong coffee (especially since stouts often

have coffee-type aromas and flavors).  A strong batch of coffee or

expresso will seem thick, even though the liquid itself isn't syrupy--and

indeed they are thick, with flavor.

2.The visual cues of a dark stout, (during the cerebral phase of digestion

for those picky readers) prepare the mind and the gut for receiving a

thick liquid.  In nature, dark liquids (eg: mud, honey...) are often

thick, so the brain associates dark liquids with thick/viscous liquids,

and clear/light colored liquids (eg: water, salt water) with thin liquids.

3.Stouts typically have a thick creamy head, which will make one

subconsciously think that the beverage beneath is itself thick and

creamy--like a milkshake.

   Of course, as experienced beer drinkers, we all know that dark colored

beers are not all thick, though some may be thick tasting.  Just look at

Michelob dark--Michelob with brown food coloring--or here in Baltimore, we

have National Bohemian Dark, which is an even poorer imitation of Michelob

Dark.

I hope I haven't bored you to death,

             Cheers,

                 Bryan

------------------------------


"fermented" beans/american beer/headaches

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 93 12:14:23 cdt

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@GRIN.EDU>

Subject: "fermented" beans/american beer/headaches

Thanks to Jeff Frane for the info re: "fermented" (not) "black" (not) beans.

Seems like I'll either have to go to the Asian market in Des Moines or find

someone who knows how to make the suckers.

The postings in the latest HBD from George Fix and "thutt" re: American mega-

brews reminded me of an interesting experience I had this weekend.  A friend

of mine (who appreciates my homebrew very much) offered me a Coors Extra Gold

to try. So, I said, what the hell.  I was actually pleasantly surprised - the

stuff actually tasted like it had something to do with malt!  So, I had

another.

Now, at this point I actually hadn't had a budmilloors in months.  So I am

wondering if other HBD reader concur with me that this is a slight cut above?

I suppose I could be enterprising and give myself a blind tasting of

megabrews to see if I could pick out the Extra Gold from among them, but hey,

let's get real - when there's homebrew around, why should I torture myself?

The other reason I don't want to do this - and the reason I stopped after two

Extra Golds - was that I got something I don't remember getting in a long

time: a headache!  Now, I normally just have one homebrew a night.  Helps me

sleep well, and makes me get up on time when I have to go to the bathroom.

On occasion I have indulged in two or more homebrews at a time, and I have

gotten warm fuzzies, or even been a little drunk - but no headaches.  (I

don't think I can compare my experiences with really "good" commercial beer,

because it tends to be so expensive I consider it a waste to overindulge in

it - I hardly ever have more than one at a time).

Does anyone else have experience comparable to this?  Anyone get headaches

from homebrew?  Is my non-headachy homebrew due to my use of the blow-off

method (that ought to be good for some lively dialogue!) or is it common for

homebrew not to cause headaches anyway?  Could I be allergic to the

preservatives in commercial beer?  At any rate, now I remember why back in my

youth (creak) I had such a hard time getting drunk on beer.  Two or three

bumilloorses and that was about all I could stand.  Of course, maybe even

back then my palate was crying out, "no, not that swill, please -- get me

some real beer you dolt!!"

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Stratefied Homebrew

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 93 10:37:12 -0700

From: arne thormodsen <arnet@kaibutsu.cup.hp.com>

Subject: Stratefied Homebrew

>Date: 7 Jun 1993 10:53:44 U

>From: "Westemeier*, Ed" <westemeier@pharos-tech.com>

>Subject: Wheat beer puzzle: 2 layers?

>

>One of our local club members reported a puzzling result from his

>latest batch.  Since no one here could positively identify what

>happened, I thought the collective wisdom of the HBD could at least

>offer some plausible theories.

>

>The situation:

>A German wheat beer, about 60% wheat, mashed and boiled normally,

>and pitched with Wyeast wheat yeast.  Fermented at 75 to 80 degrees

>Fahrenheit to get the most spiciness, and racked to a secondary

>after 3 days.  Fermentation stopped after 10 days, and when he

>looked at it, it seemed to be in two layers.  The top half of the

>carboy was dark, and the lower half was much lighter.  Thinking

>that it was a case of the yeast simply taking a while to settle

>out, he peered through the carboy, using a flashlight.  No, the

>top half was definitely much darker, and there was a distinct

>dividing line in the middle, separating the layers.

I had exactly the same thing happen with a steam beer.  The only common

element seems to be the high temp ferment.  I never racked off, and

after a couple of days I began to dump ice on the carboy because it was

getting up to 90 in my apt.  Within a few days of starting with the ice

two distinct layers developed just as you described.  I don't know what

caused it, I eventually stirred up the whole mess and bottled it.  A

month later I flushed 50 bottles of beer down the toilet, which should

speak for itself :-).  I think you've had better luck.

- --arne

------------------------------


Dry Hopping 100 IBUs?

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 93 12:06:43 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Dry Hopping 100 IBUs?

Peter Maxwell writes:

>Summary:

Hop pellet residue that got into my bottles seems to be making the beer

progressively more bitter and undrinkable.

>My first try at dry hopping resulted in some suspended pellet material

getting into the bottles.  At first the beer was delicious, with a lovely

fresh hop aroma but 6 weeks later the beer is becoming undrinkable.  Is this

likely to be due to continued extraction of bitterness?  I am under the

impression that hops must be boiled to extract bitterness.  Is an infection

likely?  There's no unpleasant taste, just this very bitter characteristic.

I suspect what has happened is this:  A significant amount of beta acids got

into your beer either from the dry hopping or the boil.  In the bottling,

racking or some other process, you also introduced a lot of oxygen which

has caused the beta acids to oxidize.  Normally, the beta acids are not

bitter, but when oxidized they become bitter.

I would doubt that you have an infection.  I would also doubt that the

suspended hop particles are the actual culprit, unless we're talking about

*lots* of them.  If there are really a lot, you might now be extracting

tannins, which you might be interpreting as bitterness.  But this is highly

unlikely.  Usually you get this effect *first* and then it mellows into a

nice hoppy aroma.

Next time you should use a hop bag to get rid of the pellet particles and

see what you can do about reducing O2 introduction.

Mark from HopTech

------------------------------


Re: Kegging Alternatives

Date: Tue, 08 Jun 93 16:13:16 -0700

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Re: Kegging Alternatives

>  On page 6 of BREWING TECHNIQUES, there is an ad for a 5 liter Mini Keg Syste

m.

>  I am not interested in 5 gallon Cornelius keg systems at this time, but ther

e

  I currently "keg" in the 5 litre minikegs. Absolutely unbeatable for

ease of use. Simply rinse them, pop them in the oven at about 250 for

half an hour, rinse the outside to cool, fill and plug.  I have two

kinds of tap, a pump, and a CO2 cartridge type.  The CO2 tap has a

valve to shut off gas flow, and I have found that I can store the tap

for two months without losing pressure, simply by turning off the

valve.  Each cartridge will dispense 1.5 5l cans.  I use the hand pump

when reasonably sure that the beer will get consumed rapidly.  If you

are ordering from the place in Pa, they have converted to the smaller

US CO2 chargers.  I don't know how long they will last.

  As I understand it, the outfit in Pa. has a limited supply, as they

purchased the leftover stock of a defunct brewery.  I am considering

going into business selling cans and taps. My cost is about $5.50 a

can, and $15-$20 for the tap depending on type.  These prices would go

down if I was able to order more from the importer.  Supposedly, the

original mfg of the cans was in the US, but is now exclusively in

Germany.  It would be great if we could get them made here again.

  Drew

------------------------------


More on Black Beans (still no beer)

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1993 10:08:00 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: More on Black Beans (still no beer)

I checked on those fermented black beans last night.  As I remembered,

they're actually soybeans, and they are first innoculated with a special

fungus, then dried, and occasionally salted.  These are apparently the

oldest form of what we now know as soy sauce (brown bean sauce is the

intermediary step in soy sauce evolution).  But, anyway, fermented

they're not, at least in the sense that we use the term as brewers.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


Miller reserve

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1993 20:03:32 -0500 (CDT)

From: Hi-keeba! <BIRMINGH@FNALV.FNAL.GOV>

Subject: Miller reserve

         Prof. Fix says:

>One final point. It is my belief that Miller Reserve is made exclusively

>from malted barley, and in particular no raw barley is used. I would be

>willing to bet that the phrase "100% Barley"  was chosen by their marketing

>people and not by their brewers.

         I may be able to shed a little light on that subject, actually.

    About two years ago, I took part in a marketing taste test, the product

    being Miller Reserve Amber Ale (let's just say that I couldn't avoid

    the guy with the clipboard in the mall, and when he offered me beer, I

    didn't want to.)

         Anyway, I was given several little cards with the names of beers

    on them, and told to rank them (I could stack cards to indicate that I

    thought certain beers were more or less interchangeable.) I forget the

    names of all the beers; Samuel Adams was one, the rest were

    undistinguished beers. I don't remember if there were any imports in

    the list, and I wouldn't have recognized most microbrewery products

    then.

         After I ranked the beers, I was given a sample of the ale, then

    told to insert it into my ranking. I put it between the 'premium' megas

    and Sammy's.

         The surveyor then asked several questions, and had me fill out a

    questionnaire. The word "barley" came up several times, but since I was

    not yet a homebrewer, the word "malt" did not. I knew about the

    Reinheitsgebot, however, and thought I should stress "barley good, corn

    and rice bad."

         I'm not saying that I skewed their statistics or anything, but

    considering that I liked the beer and therefore am one of the people

    they want to reach, my words might have been more heavily weighted.

    Also, it's conceivable that there were lots of other people who knew that

    barley malt makes good beer, but didn't know how important the

    difference between raw and malted barley can be.

         So, anyway, this is possibly part of the reason that the Miller

    marketing types use the phrase "Barley" and not "Barley Malt."

                                                      Phillip

------------------------------


victory malt?

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 93 20:47:08 CDT

From: wayne_clark@SEMATECH.ORG

Subject: victory malt?

From: NAME: Wayne Clark

 FUNC: 230

 TEL: 512-356-3994                     <CLARK.WAYNE@A1@VAXEN>

To: "homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com"@INTERNET

          Last week I was in the beer section of the n. Austin Whole Foods

          Market picking up some supplies for my next batch of homebrew.  I

          came across a package of "victory malt" from St. Patricks.  Can

          anyone tell me what this is, and what style of beer it would be

          used for?

          Just curious -

          Wayne

          wayne_clark@sematech.org

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1159, 06/09/93

*************************************

-------


Stoudts Microbrewery Festival

Date: Mon, 17 May 93 16:20:15 EDT

From: "" <allers@hns.com>

Subject: Stoudts Microbrewery Festival

I will be in the Adamstown Pa. area on June 12 for the annual

Microbrewery festival sponsored by Stoudts brewery. If the weather is

good I want to camp out instead of moteling it. Can anyone familiar

with the area recommend a good place to camp?

Dan

------------------------------


William's

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1993 07:50 EDT

From: Kieran O'Connor <OCONNOR%SNYCORVA.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

Subject: William's

I have two of the William's controllers for fridges. I am completely

happy with them.  Im not sure how the innards work--as requested in

yesterday's HBD--but it does an excellent job of keeping the

temperature near to what you set.

Actually--it cools the fridge to below the temp you set--4 degrees--

then allows it to warm up to the set temp--then cools again.

I've used an indoor outdoor thermometer (the kind with a probe) to

check whether the Controller is accurate and it seems to be so.

I tihnk the thing also has a 1 yr guarantee--although I think it might

(hope) be lifetime!  Anyway--it does have a broader range than the

Hunter--the Controller goes from 20-80 degrees F--the hunter low end

range is 40.

If any brewers have further questions on this--feel free to e-mail me.

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Addresses:

Bitnet:  oconnor@snycorva.bitnet

Internet: oconnor@snycorva.cortland.edu

------------------------------


RE: headaches

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 08:30:11 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: headaches

Hi All,

  In HBD#1159 Jonathan G Knight writes:

>The other reason I don't want to do this - and the reason I stopped after two

>Extra Golds - was that I got something I don't remember getting in a long

>time: a headache!

  Yep, same here, one or two Budmillors was always sufficient to give me

a pounding headache the next morning.

>On occasion I have indulged in two or more homebrews at a time, and I have

>gotten warm fuzzies, or even been a little drunk - but no headaches.

>Does anyone else have experience comparable to this?

  Ditto again, my consumption will vary from just one to several at a

time, but regardless of consumption levels, I've never gotten a hangover

from drinking homebrew.

>Is my non-headachy homebrew due to my use of the blow-off

>method (that ought to be good for some lively dialogue!) or is it common for

>homebrew not to cause headaches anyway?

  At the risk of re-starting the blowoff vs. no blowoff thread, I don't think

use of a blowoff system has anything to do with this, as I use 6.5 gallon

carboys as primary fermenters, no blowoff.  IMHO, the reason the mass

produced commercial swill always gave me such awful headaches was due to

their use of artificial preservatives/flavorings.  There just isn't

enough alcohol in 12 ounces of ~4.5% beer to account for getting me that

sick.

  On the other hand, homebrew has plenty of nice, healthy yeast in it.  One

of the reasons people get hangovers is the depletion of vitamin B that

occurs as the body processes alcohol.  Yeast is a great source of vitamin B,

and I think that's one reason I don't get hangovers from drinking homebrew.

  Comments?  Anybody else noticed a homebrew/no hangover connection?

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


RE: Stuck Run-off

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 14:05:24 BST

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: RE: Stuck Run-off

James writes:

"Eric Warner recommends a

staggered protein rest in his Classic Style series book, that is, brief

rests at 117F, 122F, and 126F.  At each of those temperatures, a different

class of peptidase (protein reducing enzyme) is activated."

I could use a little more information here. Where does Warner say these

digestion enzymes come from, ie, from malted wheat itself, or from any

accompanying lager malt (I presume not from either ale malt or unmalted wheat)?

Secondly, does the mashing schedule differ according to whether one is using

malted or unmalted wheat (I presume the latter requires more digestion)?

- --

Conn V Copas

Loughborough University of Technology          tel : +44 509 263171  ext 4164

Computer-Human Interaction Research Centre     fax : +44 509 610815

Leicestershire  LE11 3TU              e-mail - (Janet):C.V.Copas@uk.ac.lut

G Britain                                      (Internet):C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk

------------------------------


Hops/Hot Break and Strawberries

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 09:23:11 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: Hops/Hot Break and Strawberries

To add hops before or after the hot break.  Good question.

I can't say much about the utilization factor, but I *have* found, on

advice from this forum, that if you skim off the hot break you don't have

to worry about boilovers.  I now do this regularly with great success.

Of course, this means that you add the hops *after* skimming off the hot

break (unless you can mechanically figure out a way to leave in the hops

floating amongst all this stuff).

+++++++

Strawberries:

The flavor of strawberries isn't very intense, IMHO.  I have tried using

them in beer without any success and suspect you will need on the order of

20 lbs per 5 gallons to get any strawberry flavor.  Once the sugar ferments

out, the remaining flavors are very subtle.

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


Duties on importing Belgian malts into Can

Date:  Wed, 9 Jun 1993 10:13:14 -0400

From: Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@canrem.com>

Subject: Duties on importing Belgian malts into Can

Hi,

        I checked the following out for both myself and

        because of somebody else question. So I thought I'd

        pass the info on.

                I called customs and got the following info.

                chapter 11.07.10.10.00 covers unroasted

                whole malt [I hope this means pale etc]

                chapter 11.07.20.10.00 covers roasted whole

                malt[RB,black etc I guess]

                Duty on belgian malt is $0.0073[.73cents]per

                kg. for whole malt. Thats $0.37 per 50kg

                bag. If they actually charge you the duty

                the custom service charges would likely

                higher.

                Crushed malt is 1.1cents per kilogram.

                The duties are on belgian malts I didn't ask

                about US malts they maybe [and likely are]

                different. Also any local taxes aren't

                included but at least here in Ontario the

                items are classed foodstuff and not subject

                to tax.[cross your fingers and pray on that

                one]

                Nick

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I drink Beer I don't collect cute bottles!

zen%hophead@canrem.com

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Hop Utilization and temp controllers

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1993 07:38:35 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Hop Utilization and temp controllers

Mark posted his "better estimates" of hop utilization. Thanks for a "seat of

the pants/back of the envelope" estimate. I don't think yeast floculation

has anything to do with hop utilization. I DO know what your saying and DO

understand the resultant effect of yeast floculation, however lets keep the

two seperate. I sure hope Glenn is doing that. I would rather do two

separate calculations.

On a different subject... Those that are looking for a temp. controller, I

use Honeywell temp controllers (yes they have the little tube connected to

them, ie. none electronic). The one I use has a single pole double throw

switch in it. This allows me to control either a cooling source or a heating

source by flipping another switch mounted in the bottom of the unit. This

way I can control warmer temps in the winter for making ales. I use a glow

coil screwed into a light socket for the heat source. Works great! The temp

controller was about $22 from Johnstone's (a local parts supplier).

What's the count from all the regional first rounds?

Bob Jones

------------------------------


MI Brewpubs

Date: 9 Jun 1993 10:08:10 -0500

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel.F.McConnell@med.umich.edu>

Subject: MI Brewpubs

                       Subject:                               Time:9:54 AM

  OFFICE MEMO          MI Brewpubs                            Date:6/9/93

John writes:

>So either the Law in Michigan has changed in the past 6 months

>and I don't know about it or what it being described here is not

>actually a brewpub.

The law WAS recently changed (early 1993 as I recall.....help Spencer!)

and a number of *real* brewpubs are in the planning/development stages.  You

may be correct about the *true* definition of the Eccentric Cafe

since it is at the site of a long standing brewery.  However, an establishment

in which you can sit down at a table or bar and order

a beer that was brewed on-site seems to fit the guidelines in my book.  8-)

BTW this makes the Kalamazoo Brewing Co. not only Michigan's oldest operating

brewery, but Michigan's oldest operating Brewpub.

>I would like to know because there is a lot of interest in opening

>one in Traverse City should this law ever be changed. :)

More good news!   Now if you could serve cider similar to Larry

Mawby's Tatoo............

DanMcC

------------------------------


Clarifying Fruit Beers

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 09:13:11 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Clarifying Fruit Beers

After reading the recent thread on fruit beer I decided to give one

a try.  The batch history (from memory):

   For 5 1/2 gal

   5 lbs Briess 60%wheat/40%barley malt extract

   1 lb  Briess amber barley malt extract

   7 HBU Goldings (I think it was Goldings)

   OG 1.038

   Chimay Yeast repitched from a recent batch

   One week primary fermentation

   Secondary fermentation 4 days

   All fermentation at ~70 F

   5 lbs fresh blackberries macerated w/2 crushed campden tablets.

   Allowed to sit in bucket for 36 hours.

   Fruit put in 7 gal carboy and beer racked on top.  Fermentation

   restarted in 36 to 48 hours.  Slow but steady fermentation for

   about a week.  By then most of the fruit pulp had floated to the

   top of the beer and had lost most of its color, sort of looked

   bleached out.  I then racked under the floating fruit and over the

   sediment back into a 5 gal carboy where it has been for an additional

   week.

   The 5 gal carboy is full up to the neck and I can still see little CO2

   bubbles forming in the neck.  A last check I was getting about 4

   bubbles/hour out the lock.  SG at final racking was 1.010.  There's

   a yeast sediment at the bottom of the carboy.  The beer's a

   *beautiful* pinkish red color. But, its not clarifying.  Not a sign of

   clarification even near the top.  It looks like a huge bottle of

   chilled Celis White (except for the color).

I would like:

   1)  General comments. (Does this read like the way your fruit beers

       behaved?)

   2)  Specific comments about clarity.  Will it clarify eventually?

       How long should I wait?

   3)  If it isn't going to clarify, how can I tell when to bottle?

Sante',  WAK

------------------------------


Calculating % Alcohol

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 08:11:01 PST

From: Bob W Surratt <Bob_W_Surratt@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: Calculating % Alcohol

Hello all!

I know that I've seen this before in the digest, but failed to save it.  I

wanted to know how to calculate the % alcohol by weight & by volume by using the

specific gravity readings.  I just got my hydrometer & now want to put it to

use.

Thanks,

Bob Surratt  Orangevale, CA

------------------------------


phils mill

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 10:49:33 EDT

From: mmlai!lucy!gildner@uunet.UU.NET (Michael Gildner)

Subject: phils mill

I got my free issue of Brewing Techniques the other day and

I noticed an ad for a grain mill called Phil's Mill.  The

ad was very sparse on information but it did say the price

was suprisingly low.  It showed the mill clamped to a table

with a 2 liter bottle for a hopper.  Has anyone seen or used

one of these mills?

Mike Gildner

gildner@mml.mmc.com

------------------------------


IBU, etc. calculations

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 08:34:01 MDT

From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

Subject: IBU, etc. calculations

The last several batches I've brewed were hopped according to a program I

received from a fellow hb'er.  It calculates the IBU's for a "balanced" beer,

based on OG, volume, etc.  It also calculates the IBU's that I would achieve

with certain hop additions (AA%) at a given boil time, etc.  It is very

handy, and I've had no problems hitting my hopping rates right on with this

program.  I typically adjust my IBU's on the hoppy side of "balanced", maybe

10-20% high, and I've been quite happy (hoppy).

The problem is this:  it runs on a PC and I only have PC's available to me

at work, not at home.  Lets just say I get enough of computers during the day.

I'd like a list of these formulae on paper so I can run the numbers the

old-fashioned way at home, during the brew process.  He said he took them out

of an old issue of Zymurgy, presumably the hops special issue.  Does anyone

have this handy and could post a concise list?  I could probably go out and

find the issue, but I'd sort of like to have it this week.  Thanks.

I may just try a type of easysparger in my cooler mash/lauter tun next time

(who sez it has to be done in a pot on the stove?).  Of course, if my extract

efficiency goes way up, my hopping rates will have to be recalculated!

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


Apology from a curmudgeon

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 09:37:34 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Apology from a curmudgeon

in HBD #1158

"Stephen Hansen" <hansen@gloworm.Stanford.EDU> writes:

[snip]

>I have noticed that the curmudgeons among us have been getting more

>active of late.  You know who you are, so knock it off.  If you don't

>like a post's contents or it's tone then send private e-mail and try

>and resolve it that way.  If someone posts something misleading you

>should give them a chance to correct it themselves.  If you feel you

>MUST flame I strongly suggest that you wait 24 hours between writing

>the flame and sending it.

[snip]

My incursion into the Korz/O'Connor fued over sanitizers (HBD#1156

"Beyond momilies") was the tackless outburst of a curmudgeon.  I would

like to add a public apology to the personal ones I've already made.

To all you who had to read my post, please excuse me.

Thankyou, Stephen, for your timely and instructive advice (above).

I will, from here on, try mightily to follow it.   I think the

24 hour waiting period is an especially good idea.

Sante', WAK

------------------------------


Re: The stick I buried won't grow

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 08:24:47 PDT

From: rone@alpine.pen.tek.com (Ron Ezetta)

Subject: Re: The stick I buried won't grow

>A few day ago I posted to r.c.b and received no repsonse.  Basically I

>buried a Rhizome an inch deep 2 weeks ago and nothing has peeped up yet.

>Comments?  Is it dead or did I dod something wrong (I planted it

>horizontally).

  Last year I planted a rather sickly looking Cascade rhizome.  After

  several weeks a couple of weak shoots appeared (while the Mt. Hood

  hops, planted at the same time, were growing vigorously) and grew to

  a whopping two feet tall.  This year, my Cascade hops are still

  weak looking, but have grown to 5 feet tall.

  The rhizome should be planted vertically.  The shoots should bud out

  from the rhizome like branches on a tree.  They may travel horizontally

  and eventually turn upwards.

 -Ron Ezetta-

------------------------------


Those Lite/Light/Lyte Beers

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1993 08:59:43 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Those Lite/Light/Lyte Beers

Some very interesting information about Light beers from Dr. Fix.  I'd

be interested in tasting a lager like that -- it sounds like it would go

a long way toward explaining the popularity of American beers before

Prohibition.  When I started doing all-grain ales, I used a small

portion of flaked maize and the results were as George described.  Hmm,

maybe we should try that again...

At any rate, when the Blitz-Weinhard brewery developed their light beer,

they apparently achieved the lower gravity by Reducing the Amount of

Corn Grits!  What a concept!  And the amazing thing is, the beer is

really very good -- at least if you drink it from the taps at the

brewery.  The flavor profile is definitely improved by cutting down on

the breakfast cerealadditions.

Now if B-W would only try brewing an all-malt lager of their own...

- --Jeff

------------------------------


re:mircowave mashing

Date:  Wed, 9 Jun 1993 12:00:00 +0000

From: "Bill (W.R.) Crick" <heybc@bnr.ca>

Subject:  re:mircowave mashing

I had a few requests of details on my microwave mashing methods,

so I thought I'd post it.

  What I do is something like this, but I'm still developing the

 method.

To mash two pounds of grain in a large plastic bowl.

Add about 1.5litres of water at 130F to grain to get protein rest

of around 122-125F.

Put in microwave with temp probe in middle of mash, suported by

chopsticks across the bowl.

Program following on microwave: (Mine is a Panasonic "Quasar")

o low power 130F

   This will slowly warm it up for a protien rest.

   after about 30 minutes clear program and program

   following:

o medlow 160F

o hold temp 160F 30minutes

o medlow 170F

Wait for the  beep, and then sparge in a sieve, or colander with a

litre or two of 170F water,  into boiling pot.

 Add extract and boil, Add hops .....

NOTES:If you use too high a power level, the outside heats faster than

     the inside, and you get uneven heating. Too low a power, and the

    temperature ramp is too slow.

      My microwave cycles temperature in the hold temp program from

     about 5F below setting to actual setting. IE:for 160F it will

    go down to 155F , add heat to 160F, cool to 155F ....

   This is a good range if you are trying to use a partial mash

  to add maltiness, and body to an extract beer.

To change the  alcohol, body balance , you could  do a 150F step,

or  use a  lower power  to ramp  the temperature  more slowly.  I

usually am  going for body, so  I sometimes  use  a 170F

water  infusion  after the  protein  rest  to  get to  the  mash

temperature faster, and then only  used the microwave to hold the

temp, and do the mash out. I forget the amount, but I think it is

 .75litre  of 170F  water per  pound of  grain, assuming  there is

already .75litres per pound of water for the protien rest.

Bill -nuke it on high for 15 minutes, and then bottle it- Crick

------------------------------


canned beer

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 11:04:48 CDT

From: jlf@palm.cray.com (John Freeman)

Subject: canned beer

Is there any good beer that comes in cans?  I like to have a beer while

fishing, and don't want to risk breaking bottles.  My fishing buddies

showed up with Bud Lite and Pig's Eye last weekend.  So it's either

bring the beer myself or get new friends...

------------------------------


RE:Strawberry ALE

Date: 09 Jun 1993 18:25:28 +0200

From: KENT@lecs.ericsson.se

Subject: RE:Strawberry ALE

>The beer, which was once very clear,

>now has the appearance of fresh-from-the-farm apple cider (golden brown

>and opaque).  It is now in a one gallon glass secondary in the

>refridgerator 'clearing'.  I have become curious about the absence of

>strawberrys in the previous HBD discussion, or any brewing literature for

>that matter.  Strawberries are more pulpy than raspberries, but I really

>never expected the cloudy final product.  If anyone else tried this,

>another data point would be nice.

I have brewed a combination of the "Strawberry Beer" From CATS MEOW - II

and Papazian's "Rocky Racoon Honey Lager".  What I did was make a batch of

Rocky Racoon, but used ALE yeast (I'm still limited to brewing Lagers in the

Winter).  To the recipe I added 1 lb of Crystal Malt, and then steeped 8

pints of pureed fresh Strawberries in the Wort after boil.

As the Cats Meow recipe suggested I added a few tablespoons of Pectic Enzyme

to the primary fermenter to aid clearing.  I also used Gelatin Finings

(for the first time) on this batch since it still a little cloudy after ~ 2

weeks in secondary.  It appears to be clearing well in the bottles,

but has a lot of sediment on the bottom.

The beer did turn out very well, a very pronounced Strawberry smell, and a

pleasant Strawberry flavor.  The only problem was the the primary

fermentation looked really bad with all the chopped up strawberries and

sludge floating around in it.

(I received more than a few comments about what it looked like ;^>).

Jim Kent Ericsson GE

P.S. This post did not really come from Sweden!

------------------------------


Peach wine/beer?

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 10:30 MTS

From: Chuck Coronella <CORONELLRJDS@CHE.UTAH.EDU>

Subject: Peach wine/beer?

My brother's got some peaches, and wants to make wine.  Suggestions anybody?

OTOH, I like fruit beers, so maybe I'll snag some of his peaches to make me a

peachy brew.  Has anyone ever made beer with peaches?  Reactions?

Thanks,

Chuck

------------------------------


Old, old ale

Date: 09 Jun 1993 09:09:00 -0700 (PDT)

From: Philip Atkinson 356-0269 <PATKINSON@galaxy.gov.bc.ca>

Subject: Old, old ale

          Last week I did the weeding thing around the garden and

          discovered an enourmous alecost plant in the herb patch. Well,

          it's just too tempting to pass up so I'm going to have a bash at

          brewing with it. Has anyone tried it as a bittering medium? I

          don't know anyone who was around in the fifteenth century and

          the leaf I tasted was very bitter but much more like wormwood

          than hops. Wormwood is the characteristic bitterness found in

          many aperitifs like Campari and Cinzano Rosso. Please E-Mail

          direct if you can help or are interested. I'll post the results

          when its all done.

          Waes hael

          Phil Atkinson

          Victoria, BC

------------------------------


Re: headaches

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1993 09:53:32 -0700

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: headaches

>From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@GRIN.EDU>

>

>Does anyone else have experience comparable to this?  Anyone get headaches

>from homebrew?  Is my non-headachy homebrew due to my use of the blow-off

>method (that ought to be good for some lively dialogue!) or is it common for

>homebrew not to cause headaches anyway?  Could I be allergic to the

>preservatives in commercial beer?

Here's a data point, for what it's worth...

During the 1991-92 Sharks season, the best beer they served at the Cow

Palace was Meister Brau.  (Insert trendy umlauts as needed.)  While

it's certainly not the best beer in America (oops, apologies to Mr.Koch

and his lawyers) I generally put away four or five or six large cups

(at $4.50 a throw) during a game.

During the 92-93 season, they replaced Meister Brau with Miller Genuine

Draft, got rid of the large cups, and sold the small ones for the large

price.  Half a cup of this stuff gave me a ripping headache, so I drank

7-Up at the games last year.

Next season in the new "Your Company's Name Here Arena at San Jose",

we'll be drinking Gordon Biersch beers, which I'll guarantee are

headache-free.

have fun

gak (The Go Man...GO SHARKS!)

Richard Stueven, Castro Valley CA

gak & gerry's garage, brewpub and hockey haven

------------------------------


Strawberry brews

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1993 10:00 PDT

From: shane <DEICHMAN@perch.nosc.mil>

Subject: Strawberry brews

  Scott (swisler@c0431.ae.ge.com) described in the latest HBD

his experience with adding strawberries to the secondary, and

mentioned the cloudy results.  I've never tried adding

strawberries to my fermenting brew, but I have made

strawberry-flavored vodka (as well as kiwi, raspberry, and

blueberry).  The hard, non-pulpy fruits (like blueberry and

raspberry) worked best, straining out with no residue or

precipitate left in the vodka; strawberries left a pulpy haze

which coagulated when left in the freezer....  Of course, the

taste was quite good (Stolichnaya, da? :-)

vr/ shane

<deichman@perch.nosc.mil>

------------------------------


Re: Malt and Hops/Dispensing Pressure/Beers and Headaches *THEORY*

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 12:32 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Malt and Hops/Dispensing Pressure/Beers and Headaches *THEORY*

Chuck writes:

>   1. What is the difference between caramel and crystal malt. When

>      would I use/not use them.

They are the two names for the same type of malt, one that, while still

wet from germination, has been warmed into the saccharification temperatures

and effectively "mashed in the husk."  Crystal (or caramel) malts add some

residual sweetness (via the added unfermentable sugars that they provide),

some caramel-like flavor, some color (depending on the darkness of the

malt) add a bit of body and increase your head retention a bit.  There

are certain styles for which a lot of crystal malt is not appropriate

(like IPA) and some that require it (like Bitter).  In general, consider

the style you are trying to target with a batch and think about whether

it has some caramel-like sweetness.  If it does, add 1/2 to 2 lbs of

crystal malt.  Crystal malts come in various darknesses, the lighter ones,

of course add less color and caramel flavor, the darker ones more.

>   2. The lower leaves of my Centennial (and Mt. Hood to an extent)

>      hop vines are turning a yellowish color. Can anyone help out

>      here as to what is happening, is it bad, and how do I stop it.

>      I live in the Boston area.

Check a general gardening book (I don't have mine here and I don't recall

what yellowing leaves indicates).  However, hops are one of the few plants

that require Magnesium, a shortage of which will cause the hop leaves to

turn lighter green between the veins, then yellow, then eventually brown.

I've been using MgSO4 (Epsom Salts) for adding Mg, but I don't know if

this is the best thing to use.  I've been adding about 1/2 tablespoon to

each hill every two weeks.

*************************

Cisco writes:

>Subject: Calculating Proper Dispensing Pressure

>One last point is that you should keep your CO2 tank at room

>temperature - not in your cooler. If you keep the CO2 tank in the

>cooler the CO2 can not form a gas and remains in a liquid state

>feeding into your beer and eventually it will overcarbonate it. Read

>the dial that states internal tank pressure and when it is stored in

>a cooler you'll notice that the dial indicator is in the red zone,

>take it out and let it sit at room temperature and the dial will move

>above the red zone indicating that the CO2 is allowing gas to form

>from the liquid.

First of all, I'd like to say, that was great post.  Secondly, I'd

like to mention that I've had no problems with keeping my CO2 tank

in the cooler.  Sure, the high-pressure side is considerably lower

than if I leave the tank out at room temperature, but who cares if

the high-pressure side of the regulator is getting 200psi or 400psi?

As long as the the low-pressure side is at 13.5 or whatever, we're

happy.

***********************

Jonathan writes:

>The other reason I don't want to do this - and the reason I stopped after two

>Extra Golds - was that I got something I don't remember getting in a long

>time: a headache!  Now, I normally just have one homebrew a night.  Helps me

>sleep well, and makes me get up on time when I have to go to the bathroom.

>On occasion I have indulged in two or more homebrews at a time, and I have

>gotten warm fuzzies, or even been a little drunk - but no headaches.  (I

>don't think I can compare my experiences with really "good" commercial beer,

>because it tends to be so expensive I consider it a waste to overindulge in

>it - I hardly ever have more than one at a time).

>

>Does anyone else have experience comparable to this?  Anyone get headaches

>from homebrew?  Is my non-headachy homebrew due to my use of the blow-off

I have a theory on this.  Just for the record, the first (and last) time I

had Coors Extra Gold, I got a splitting headache.  I've never gotten one

from my own homebrew.  I had thought that certain beers gave me headaches

and certain ones didn't.  Then, after a long break from a particular Belgian

beer that I had often enjoyed without a headache, I had one, just one and I

got a headache from it.  Beers that have given me headaches include Bud,

Lowenbrau (US), Leinenkugel and Samuel(tm) Adams(tm) Boston(tm) Lager(tm).

Here's my theory:  Each brand of beer has a considerable amount of ethanol

and smaller amounts of higher alcohols, in different proportions.  I

theorize, that if the human body has not dealt with a particular higher

alcohol for a while, it has trouble with it and you get a headache.  Once

you get used to it, it doesn't bother you, unless you don't have any for

a while.

Comments?

Al.

------------------------------


hbd subscription

Date: Wed, 09 Jun 93 12:34:00 PDT

From: "Goodman, John" <Goodmjo@hvsmtp1.mdc.com>

Subject: hbd subscription

I would like to receive the hbd.   My address is:    goodmjo@hvsmtp1.mdc.com

                    Thank you,

                    John O. Goodman

------------------------------


Headaches from Industrial Brew

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1993 10:37:49 -0800

From: pohl@unixg.ubc.ca (Derrick Pohl)

Subject: Headaches from Industrial Brew

In HBD # 1159, Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@GRIN.EDU> writes about getting

headaches from industrial beer of the Bud/Miller (or in Canada,

Molson/Labatt's) variety.  I can only say yes, yes, yes, I concur exactly.

It's one of the best reasons to go for natural brews, either homebrewed or

commercial.  Another thing that I find happens with industrial beer is that

I always get stuffed up after a few bottles.  Anybody else find that?  And

of course, there's no comparison in the hangover department:  industrial

brew is a virtual death-sentence for the morning after a bout of extreme

indulgence.  I truly do not think these are placebo effects, but I would be

perfectly willing to participate in a properly conducted double-blind

experiment if someone is willing to buy the beer!

- -----

Derrick Pohl (pohl@unixg.ubc.ca)

UBC Faculty of Graduate Studies, Vancouver, B.C.

------------------------------


How Long do Hops Float?

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 12:10:52 PDT

From: John Cotterill <johnc@hprpcd.rose.hp.com>

Subject: How Long do Hops Float?

I currently dry hop during secondary fermentation in a soda keg.  My hops are

placed into a hop bag that is dropped into the keg.  I want to get away from

using the bag.  However, since I do not have a filter in the bottom of the

keg, and don't want to add one, I am concerned that the hops will clog the

dip tube in the keg.  This assumes, however, that they sink to the bottom

of the keg during the 7-10 days they spend in the secondary.  So how long

will they float?

Thanks,

JC

johnc@hprpcd.rose.hp.com

------------------------------


Source of Hop Util. Numbers

Date: 10 Jun 1993 03:03:02 -0600

From: "Manning, Martin P" <manning#m#_martin_p@mcst.ae.ge.com>

Subject: Source of Hop Util. Numbers

If I remember correctly, the data given by Rager in Zymurgy (Special Hop Issue)

as base hop utilization was actually derived from Eckhart's Essentials of beer

Style. Rager merely sketched a line through the three broad ranges of time and

temperature given by Eckhart, and said as much in his article. So, really, most

of the blame for the current numbers should go to Eckhart. In any event, we

still need to have some one get some real utilization data from actual small

scale runs.

I don't think the source of the gravity adjustment equation in Rager's article

was given, though. Glenn Tinseth's catalog (Thanks, Glenn, nice job!) gives a

different equation. The reference gravity is 1.040 vs 1.050, and the adjustment

is not a function of the base utilization (boil time) as is Rager's. Maybe

Glenn (and/or Mark Garetz) could shed some light on the sources and differences

between these adjustment factors.

Also on this subject, I would like to coin a new unit, the EIBU, for Estimated

IBU. Since IBU's, strictly speaking, must be measured in the finished product,

what we are doing with calculations like the above is estimating what (we hope)

the IBU's will be. Presently, recipes which give bitterness in IBU's are

stretching the truth a little.

------------------------------


Wheat Berry Review

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 15:42:37 -0400

From: jpgareri@acs.bu.edu (Joseph Gareri)

Subject: Wheat Berry Review

Monday night, I bottled Tom Childers' Wheat Berry that appeared in HBD 1144.

This is one of the nicest tasting beers I've ever had.  It has a nice

assertive berry taste to it and a good balance with the hop bitterness.

The wheat is evident, but is definately taking a back seat to the berries.

I had to modify the recipe a little because I was unable to get light wheat

DME.  For those who missed it, here is the recipe again.

for 5 gallons:

 5.5 lb  light dried wheat malt extract  *

 1.5 oz  Hallertauer or Northern Brewer (boiling), 7 HBU

  .5 oz   Halleertauer Hersbrucker (finishing), 2-3 HBU

 24-36 oz  frozen raspberries

 16 oz  frozen blackberries **

  1 tsp  vanilla extract

   Belgian ale yeast (Wyeast 1214)

*  I used 7lb Briess Weizen extract (65% wheat/35% barley)

** I used 1 pint fresh blackberries

Thanks Tom again for a great recipe.

Does anyone have any other recipes using fruit?  Last summer, Boston (no TM)

Beer  Works had a great watermelon ale that I was thinking of giving a try.

I'm  considering doing a peach something later in the summer when the peaches

are  ready.  Any recipes would be greatly appreciated.

Joe

------------------------------


Texas Microbreweries

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 13:35:58 PDT

From: "jhutchin.US1" <jhutchin@us.oracle.com>

Subject: Texas Microbreweries

GF & HBD

I am a recent Texas transplant from the Milwaukee and Chicago area. I started

homebrewing when I moved since good micro beer is not available and pub brews

are not legal in Texas.

I buy (when my homebrew is gone) Celis bock and Westend Aussie lager but Texans

need ALE!!

Is there a "grassroots" organization loggying Texas legislature to change the

awful anti PUB BREW laws? Sign me up.

J.Hutchinson

jhutchin@us.oracle.com

------------------------------


Best San Fran pub brews

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 13:42:25 PDT

From: "jhutchin.US1" <jhutchin@us.oracle.com>

Subject: Best San Fran pub brews

HBD

I will be traveling to San Francisco and want to know the BEST brew pubs and/or

microbrewers in Northern CA. Also how does noe get a tour of Anchor Steam

Brewer (a real tour) during the months of June and July?

J.Hutchinson

jhutchin@us.oracle.com

------------------------------


Technical Brewer magazine

Date:         Wed, 09 Jun 93 18:21:11 EST

From: Jonathan Crawshaw <UGU00029@vm.uoguelph.ca>

Subject:      Technical Brewer magazine

Greetings:

Does anyone have an address for Technical Brewer magazine, so that I can

get a sample copy?  Are there any other magazines out there that people

feel are useful or interesting, or possibly both?

Spencer Thomas asked how he could collect yeast from his primary fermenter and

keep it sterile or as uncontaminated as possible.  I would suggest that he keep

his yeast in a plastic container that can be sterilized with chlorine or someth

ing.  Before he uses it, it can be acid-washed with food grade phosphoric acid.

You take the ph down to 2-2.3 by adding acid to the yeast slurry.  If you go to

o low, you can add water to buffer the ph back up again.  Leave the yeast like

this for two hours and then pitch it.  Acid washing seems to be either liked or

disliked by people, and can be controversial to some.

Hope that this helps.

------------------------------


HEADACHES!

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 17:45 CDT

From: fjdobner@ihlpb.att.com

Subject: HEADACHES!

>Jonathan Knight writes:

>Does anyone else have experience comparable to this?  Anyone get headaches

>from homebrew?  Is my non-headachy homebrew due to my use of the blow-off

>method (that ought to be good for some lively dialogue!) or is it common for

>homebrew not to cause headaches anyway?  Could I be allergic to the

>preservatives in commercial beer?  At any rate, now I remember why back in my

>youth (creak) I had such a hard time getting drunk on beer.  Two or three

>bumilloorses and that was about all I could stand.  Of course, maybe even

>back then my palate was crying out, "no, not that swill, please -- get me

>some real beer you dolt!!"

I have very recent experience with this subject. Saturday night I was at a

wedding in Bloomington, Illinois. Nothing but Bud and Miller Lite. Believe

it or not, attendees at the wedding actually had preferences! I had way more

than I usually do (about 7). The next morning when my one year old woke

up at the usual 4:45 am my head was pounding like a pile driver. Two Tylenols

helped but commercial jiz is what kept me from drinking a lot when I did

not know any better. I do not always use a blowoff for my homebrew and still

do not get as severe headaches. But I also do not drink 7 usually. Maybe

the headaches were from the Pirodi cigars we were smoking. Who knows?

The palate pays dearly in this country of ours.

I love homebrew.

Frank Dobner

------------------------------


NEW PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 21:31 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: NEW PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT

                         KEGVIEW (tm)

 No, it's not a downscale housing development for Bubba but KEGVIEW is an easy

 to install level indicator for Cornelius type kegs.

 Tired of a blast of gas, just when you get the C-P bottler all hooked up?

 Have to give that keg a little shake to see if there is enough left to take

 to that party?

 With KEGVIEW installed on your kegs, you need not guess, shake or weigh your

 kegs to find out what is left.

 Email for more info,

 JSP

------------------------------


Questions for the Oracle

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 18:18:23 PDT

From: nexgen!bart@daver (Bart Thielges)

Subject: Questions for the Oracle

I'm new to this forum, so please accept my apologies if my questions seem

ignorant or redundant.

1) Is there an inexpensive source of malt extract in the USA ?  Part of what

 piqued my interest in homebrewing was the low price of canned

 malt extract in England (~$5-7 USD).  Prices are about double

 here.  I'd be willing to purchase large (50 lbs. or so) bulk

 quantities.   I realize that mashing from grain is the

 cheapest, but I'm not ready for that yet.

2) Is there a market for used small scale brewing and kegging equipment ?

 I've checked our local newspaper want ads, the local home and

 microbrew newsletter ("The Celebrator"), and stores which sell

 used restaurant equipment with no luck.  In particular, I'm

 looking for a used CO2 bottle, regulator, and hoses.  Ultimately,

 SOMEONE must want to get rid of their old equipment.

3) I'd like to experiment with adding different sugars to my wort,

 particularly brown sugar or molasses.  Has anyone tried these ?

 Any recommendations on quantities to try ?  How about other

 sugars and their effects ?  Anyone tried dissolving a pack

 after dinner mints into their wort ?  Just kidding about

 the last one !!  You can stop grimacing now.

4) I realize that sterility is very important.  All of the procedures

 that I've read mention that during racking, a siphon should

 be used to transfer the fermented wort.  However, I have

 yet to figure out how to start a siphon without getting my

 mouth on the end of the hose.  One procedure even specified

 "suck on the open end of the hose until you get a mouthfull

 of beer."  Even though I brush twice a day, I still worry that

 I might contaminate through this contact.  Is there any way to

 start a siphon without risking the contamination ?  Or am I

 just being too paranoid ?  Will my batch be ruined ?  And how

 do you know that the light in the fridge goes out when you close

 the door ?

OK, so now it must be obvious that I'm a neurotic miserly penny pinching

flake.  What variety of beer would best fit my personality ?

Bart Thielges

daver!nexgen!bart

------------------------------


Brewing Supplier in Fairbanks Alaska?

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1993 23:21:49 -0800

From: adoval@stmarys-ca.edu

Subject: Brewing Supplier in Fairbanks Alaska?

Could anyone out there inform me of what is available in the way of brewing

supplies and/or advice, support groups, etc. in the vicinity of Fairbanks

Alaska?

Thanks!

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1160, 06/10/93

*************************************

-------


Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1993 01:30:24 -0700

From: Greg Wolodkin <wolo@cory.Berkeley.EDU>

Subject: Re: The stick I buried won't grow

>>buried a Rhizome an inch deep 2 weeks ago and nothing has peeped up yet.

>  Last year I planted a rather sickly looking Cascade rhizome.  After

>  several weeks a couple of weak shoots appeared (while the Mt. Hood

>  hops, planted at the same time, were growing vigorously) and grew to

>  a whopping two feet tall.  This year, my Cascade hops are still

>  weak looking, but have grown to 5 feet tall.

My Cascades have reached about 8 feet now, but the Chinook cuttings

never appeared.  I dug them up recently to find them rotted and full

of little white worm-looking things.  They were planted in the same

soil and received the same attention, so I guess they are either

more temperamental or just defective.  So when do the hop cones

appear?

- --

Subject: NEW PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT

> Tired of a blast of gas [...]

Next to headaches, my second least favorite side effect ;-)

But seriously -- what's the consensus here?  Useful information,

or blatant misuse of the HBD as a low-cost form of advertising?

I just hope that damned Ronco guy doesn't get into homebrew..

> 4) And how do you know that the light in the fridge goes out when

   you close the door ?

FRIDGEVIEW (tm).

Best wishes,

Greg

------------------------------


stuffed up head from industrial beers

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 6:45:49 EDT

From: grctechs!tmcguire@grctechs.grci.com (Terry Mcguire)

Subject: stuffed up head from industrial beers

In HBD #1160 Derrick Pohl writes:

>  Another thing that I find happens with industrial beer is that I always

>  get stuffed up after a few bottles.  Anybody else find that?

And all this time I thought I might be allergic to beer!  I figured (of

course) that I would have to live with it!  I never got stuffed up from

Bourbon (sorry, is that a bad word here?).  Does anyone know the cause

of this annoyance?

thanks!

Terry McGuire

tmcguire@grctechs.grci.com

------------------------------


sanitizers part 2

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1993 22:56:11 -0500

From: donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: sanitizers part 2

3.  Ease of use

Both are easy to use but iodophor has two advantages.

Iodophor is colored due to the iodine.  Iodine reacts (2 electron reduction)

to form iodide ion which is colorless.  Therefore its possible to know by the

color of the solution when the stuff is spent.  However, when used

properly, its very difficult because the color is very faint due to dilution.

Bleach has the disadvantage of being unstable.  Liquid bleach loses it's

oxidizing strength with time after opening.

4.  Flavor and odor and residue

So why are iodine sanitizers so much more popular than chlorine sanitizers

in the food and beverage industry?  It's all over the ads and bottles of

iodophor.

   "TASTELESS"  "ODORLESS"

Chlorine can be detected at very small levels.  Iodine thresholds are much

higher.  All of the other differences between the two are miniscule by

comparison.

Bleach should be rinsed out to insure removal of the residual flavor.

It is not essential to rinse iodophor, but some do.  There was an article in

the New Brewer a couple of issues back in which a brewpub detailed their

sanitation procedure.  They rinse out the residual iodophor.

The two brands of iodophor I use do not contain detergent as was

suggested a few days ago.  Both are designed explicitly for the beer and

beverage industry.  Neither leaves a residue which will impair head

retention etc.

5.  Cost and availability

Household bleach costs about $1/gallon.  Iodophor is typically about $10

per liter.  Bleach has 5 times as much sanitizing strength ounce for ounce.

Therefore, bleach is about 200 times cheaper than iodophor.

Bleach is everywhere.  Iodophor has much more limited availability.

6.  Personal safety

Both oxidizers will kill cells including yours and mine.  Both should be

handled carefully.  But bleach is a stronger oxidant so a little more

dangerous on this point.  More importantly though is the caustic nature of

full strength bleach.  This poses a more serious risk, particularly to eyes.

Iodophor is a safer product than household bleach.

So pick your poison :-)   Both dilute iodophor and dilute bleach can and

have been used as effective sanitizers.  Bleach is cheaper.  Iodophor is

safer to use, more stable, and is tasteless and odorless.  Neither poses a

threat to 304 stainless equipment.

And remember, you need less than 1 teaspoon of bleach in the

entire 5 gallon keg to get the same level of sanitation that iodophor

provides at its recommended dose.

Hope this clears up some of the confusion.

Best regards,

Don

------------------------------


"Wines and Beers of Old New England" - book recommendation

Date:    Thu, 10 Jun 1993 9:17:22 -0400 (EDT)

From: P_LABRIE@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Paul LaBrie)

Subject: "Wines and Beers of Old New England" - book recommendation

Occasionally there have been some posts concerning old beer recipes, old-time

ingredients such as spruce, nettles, etc. For those interested in such things,

I have found the following book a delightful read; if you think you have

problems with homebrewing...you should see what early New Englanders had to go

through to craft beer (a beverage they dearly loved, BTW)! This is very much a

"hands-on" type of book -- be prepared for some interesting recipes.

Here's the info on the book, courtesy of Dartmouth College Online Library

system...(I think that Sanborn C. Brown, the book's author, was a faculty

member at Dartmouth College). I do not know (definitely) if this book is still

in print, however I think it is. Apologies if this has been posted before.

Search S1: FIND TITLE WINES AND BEERS OF OLD NEW ENGLAND

 Result S1: 2 items in the CATALOG file

   Author: Brown, Sanborn Conner, 1913-

    Title: Wines & beers of old New England : a how-to-do-it history /

            Sanborn C. Brown ; drawings by Ed Lindlof.

Collation: xxx, 157 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.

  Imprint: Hanover, N.H. : The University Press of New England, 1978.

    Notes: Bibliography: p.[149]-150.

           Includes index.

     Type: Book

 Language: eng

 Subjects: Brewing -- United States -- History.

           Brewing -- Amateurs' manuals.

           Wine and wine

           Wine and wine making -- Amateurs' manuals.

 - paul -

p_labrie@unhh.unh.edu

------------------------------


Screw off bottles

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 10:01:28 EDT

From: <geotex@engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Screw off bottles

I hope this question isn't too obvious.  But I was wondering why most

literature on homebrewing that I have read says "DO NOT USE TWIST OFF

BOTTLES".

I have used twist offs for about 10 batches and have not had any problems.

BTW, I use Bud/Busch bottles.

Thanks

Alex

geotex@engin.umich.edu

------------------------------


Mail Order Supplies

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 10:08:00 EDT

From: <geotex@engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Mail Order Supplies

Have people had good luck ordering supplies by mail?

I have heard that some ingredients (yeast, hops) my be damaged by

travelling in the mail.

Is there a listing somewhere of suppliers?

Thanks

Alex

geotex@engin.umich.edu

------------------------------


5 l mini kegs

Date: 10 Jun 1993  10:40 EDT

From: dab@cc.bellcore.com (dave ballard)

Subject: 5 l mini kegs

hey now-  there's a brew ha ha ad in Brewing Techniques for a 5 liter

mini kegging system ($40 for 4 5 l kegs and tap thingy).  would anyone

who's tried these things please drop me a not and let me know what

you think?

thanks!

dab

=========================================================================

dave ballard

dab@cc.bellcore.com

=========================================================================

------------------------------


Evaporative Cooling

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 09:59:16 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Evaporative Cooling

Here's an inexpensive alternative to those who want to do summertime

brewing in hot climates but haven't got the $ and/or space for an

extra freezer w/Hunter Airstat etc.

Since my last post on this subject (See HBD#1147), I've done some

more experimenting.  This time I used a fan to blow air by my

glass carboy wrapped in a wet towel.  This allowed me to achieve

the full wet-bulb depression in the fermenter.

  Lastest example:

   Dry-bulb temp, 78F

   Wet-bulb temp, 68F

   Beer in carboy, 68F

I use a lot more water than when using the fan.  Before, when I used

passive evaportion, I would have to add water to the pan every other

day or so.  Using the fan I have to add about a gallon of water

*every* day.

As noted in my earlier post, I brew in a house with central

airconditioning.  The dry-bulb temp inside is generally 76-82F and

the relative humidity is about 55-70%.  In Austin the peak outside

temps now are now 85-95F with relative humidity 75-90%.

Some of you have suggested I simply place the fermenter in front of

an air duct and forget the evaporative cooling.  I don't do this for

two reasons:

  1) My air ducts are in the cieling, making it difficult to place a

     7 gal carboy 'in front' of one.

  2) During the day my AC runs < 50% of the time and less than than at

     night.  Without some insulating system this would lead to fairly

     large fluctuations in fermenter temp.  Recall the ambient room temp

     is up to 80F.

In summary:  Using inexpensive evaporative cooling to *supplement* the

normal refridgerated cooling.  I'm able to take my 76-82F, 55-70% RH

house temps down to 68-72F in the fermenter.  High but acceptable temps

for ales.  Those of you with basements in the low to mid 70s should

be able to get fermenter temps down to 60-65F.  To those of you with

the $ and space for a chest freezer, I'm jealous.

Sante', WAK

------------------------------


Re: Molasses in Beer

Date:         10 Jun 93 11:54:29 EDT

From: "Robert Haddad"  <M-RHADDAD@bss1.umd.edu>

Subject:      Re: Molasses in Beer

> 3) I'd like to experiment with adding different sugars to my wort,

>     particularly brown sugar or molasses.  Has anyone tried these ?

I have brewed with a combination of malt extract and Carob Molasses,

which you can find in most Middle Eastern groceries. I have used, in

5 gal batches, a 16oz jar of the stuff. Its very dark, and sweet, and

ferments out quite well. The carob, which (I think) is a fruit borne

by trees does have a distinctive taste in the beer.

I have also used Mate instead of hops. Mate is an Argentinian tea

(pronounced Ma tay) and can be bought in Latin groceries. It too has

a dinstinctive and pleasant flavor.

> 4) I realize that sterility is very important.  All of the procedures

>     that I've read mention that during racking, a siphon should

>     be used to transfer the fermented wort.  However, I have

>     yet to figure out how to start a siphon without getting my

>     mouth on the end of the hose.

I grab a glass from the kitchen cupboard. I stick my siphon hose

under

the faucet, fill it with water, stick one finger on one end to stop

water from running out, stick the other (open) end in my carboy, then

drain the water which is in the hose into the sink. As the water

drains out, I can see the beer replacing it in the hose. I then take

my glass and fill it with a beer, then stick the hose in my

secondary or my keg, or the bootles I am filling. No problem! no

mess! no contamination!

With my glass-ful of beer, I check the specific gravity, and then

relax and drink it all up.

Robert F. Haddad

m-rhaddad@bss1.umd.edu

------------------------------


Garrett Hildebrand

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 10:08:52 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Garrett Hildebrand

Please forgive the brief use of bandwidth, but my e-mail to Garrett

has been bouncing.

Garrett:

Diversity Chemical usually has a local office in all major cities.

Look the one near you up in the yellow pages. It is best to buy iodophor

in a gallon jug. Don't let them talk you into anything larger.

Accord II was designed for breweries. The version in most homebrew

shops (the one containing the detergent instead of phosphoric acid)

was designed for dairies. If stored in a cool, dry location it will

have a good shelf life. Use 1 oz. per 10 gallons (1 tbsp. per 5 gals.)

Diversity claims 2 min. contact time is sufficient. I use 5-10 mins.

The diluted solution should display a well defined red/yellow color.

If it is white, then dump the solution and start over. This sometimes

happens when attempting to sanitize eqipment that has been cleaned with

an alkaline based agent and not properly rinsed. I would not use iodophor

on plastic tubing. Al Korzonas' recommendation to use bleach followed by

a water rinse is a good one.

Take care.

George Fix

------------------------------


Hop Utilization, Hop Bags

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 9:09:11 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hop Utilization, Hop Bags

Bob Jones writes that he doesn't believe that yeast affects

hop utilization, and would rather see the calculation split

into two:

Well, if Bob is strictly referring to the extraction of alpha

acids during the boil, then he's part right.  I say "part

right" because at what point would we measure the utilization?

Right after you shut off the heat or after the wort has cooled?

The amount of alpha acids in the beer will be drastically

different at these two points, since the solubility varies

widely with temperature.

But the issue of when we measure is the whole point.  IBUs are

measured in finished beer, not wort.  Utilization is

meaningless unless we relate it to the finished product.  The

point of the whole calculation is to predict what we will end

up with in the final beer.  So to my mind, it makes no

difference whether we combine or separate the calculations for

the effect of yeast on the beer.  You're going to have to do

both sets of calculations before you add the hops.  If you

really want to separate the two, use the "average" column from

the table and then adjust your number up or down depending on

your yeast's characteristics.  I used a 20% adjustment factor,

up or down from average, in the table.

John Cotterill writes that he wants to get rid of the bag he

uses for dry hopping and wants to know how long the hops will

float:

Firstly, I have never seen the hops sink if added loose, but

some brewers have told me they will.  I think that CO2 bubbles

form on the petals and hoist them to the surface.  Clogging

of the lines may or may not be a problem, but better to assume

that clogging is a potentiality.  However, having the hops

float on the surface is not the optimal way to get the hop

aroma infused into the beer.  Commercial brewers use a bag,

and that's what we recommend.  If you weight the bag so it

sinks, that's a lot better than just tossing it in.  I have

also tied the bag to the dip tube, but this is difficult.  We

sell a hop bag/hop weight "system" that consists of a draw-

string cotton bag and a solid teflon weight.  The weight

attaches to the free end of the drawstring and that accomplishes

two things:  1) The weight doesn't take up any room in the

bag, and 2) This allows the bag to float up and be suspended

in the middle of the beer to get optimal extraction.

The reason for the teflon weight is it's inert properties, you

can safely boil it to sterilize, but most important is that it

is gentle on glass carboys and won't scratch them or plastic

buckets or stainless tanks.  We considered using a stainless

weight (would have been much cheaper than teflon) but were

concerned that it might break a carboy in the process of

putting it in or getting it out.  The other nice thing about

our design is that to get the hop bag out of the carboy, you

invert the carboy to get the weight to drop through the neck,

grab the weight and pull the bag through.

One more tip:  It helps to wet the bag of hops before putting

it in the beer.  This diplaces a lot of the air and helps make

sure the beer gets into/out of the bag quicker.  Fritz Maytag

also recommends wringing the bag out into the beer when you

remove it.  (If you remove it, I just leave mine in the

serving keg)

Sheesh!  This was a long post and I didnt mean it to be.

Anyway, John, the bottom line is, IMHO, keep the bag.

Mark from HopTech

------------------------------


MI brewpubs and headaches.

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 09:04:10 PDT

From: johng@adx.la.ca.us (John E. Greene)

Subject: MI brewpubs and headaches.

My reason for making the distinction about brewpubs comes from when I toured

Alpine Village Brewery here in Torrance CA.  It is built ajacent to the

Alpine Village Inn which has a huge bar with windows looking into the brewery.

However, there is no door connecting the two.  The Village Inn must buy the

beer from the brewery and it is brought over by leaving the shipping dock of

the brewery and entering the receiving dock of the Village Inn (basically

the back door).  Because of this however, the manager of the brewery was

pretty clear about stating that is why it is not a brewpub.  A minor difference

I guess but a pretty big one when it comes to the law.  It struck me as kind

of odd at the time which is probably why I remember it.

WRT headaches and commercial beer.  I have read a lot of different things

about hangovers and the causes/cures and what seemed to be most common amongst

the majority is two things.

1.  the headache is usually caused by dehydration.  Your brain has dried up

    and hurts because of it.  My guess is that commercial beer tends to

    dehydrate more.  My sinuses give me a lot of trouble and commericial beer

    will clog up my head in no time.  The majority of a hangover headache for

    me is sinus related so a lot of water and some decongestants are the first

    thing I go for in the morning.  Why homebrew would dehydrate less, I don't

    know.

2.  Drinking alcohol does deplete your body of vitamin B.  Homebrew has a lot

    of vitamin B contained in the yeast.  However, I have read that vitamin B

    is used by your body to process food and/or alcohol and probably has very

    little to do with your headache.  The lact of vitamin B I think has much

    to do with why after a night of drinking you eat some breakfast(or lunch)

    and 6 hours later you spew it back up literally unchanged.  I find that

    with homebrew, I never have an upset stomach the next morning.  I feel a

    bit groggy and that is about it.

These are nothing more than two theories that I have come up with after

talking to many 'less-than-qualified' people in the medical field and various

documents on the subject.  Any comments, questions, and/or additions are more

than welcome.

- --john

------------------------------


Phil's Mill Report

Date: 11 Jun 1993 00:36:28 -0600

From: "Manning, Martin P" <manning#m#_martin_p@mcst.ae.ge.com>

Subject: Phil's Mill Report

In HBD #1160, Mike Gildner asks about the Phil's mill. I have seen and used

prototypes of Phil's Mill from Listermann Mfg., and submit this post not as an

advertisement but as a consumer report.

This is a single roll mill, which has the grain pass between the knurled roll

and a plate which curves partially around it. The gap between these two is

adjustable by means of a machine screw and locknut.

The early prototype version I used seemed to work well, i.e. gave a good crush,

and Dan (Listermann) has tested this observation by sifting the grist through a

set of brewery screens, and comparing the (weight) percentages left on each to

published data for 6-roll mills. The results showed that the Listermann mill

could be adjusted to come close to the desired weight percentages, but this may

or may not be the right thing to do, because the mechanics of the one roll mill

crush are obviously much different than a 6-roll. Only more experience with the

mill and brewing with it will tell. A Corona mill, adjusted to a nominal

(compromise) setting gave far more large particles than desired, and a  visual

inspection of the particles revealed that the corona, to no one's surprise,

damaged the husks much more. This could be observed both in the largest

remaining husk particles and in the color of the fines at the bottom of the

stack. In the case of the Corona, these were darker in color, perhaps

indicating that some of the husks were ground into flour.

The early Listermann mill was faulted by those who tried it for being too slow.

The fancy-looking, nickel plated, pre-production prototype that I later saw was

enlarged significantly, having a larger diameter and wider roll. I have not

tried this version out first hand, but it looks like it will do the trick, with

through-put and torque requirements (according to Listermann) similar to a

Corona. Shipment of the first production models is imminent.

Martin Manning

------------------------------


Siphon starters, headaches

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1993 11:32:26 CDT

From: "Roger Deschner  " <U52983@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject: Siphon starters, headaches

To start a siphon, I have used with success a small clear plastic pump

from an aquarium shop. Once the beer starts to flow, you unplug it from

the tubing. They sell them for starting the siphon when you're cleaning

out your fishtank but you don't want to put your fingers in there with

Fang, your pet piranha. They're simple enough that you can sterilize them

with your normal bleach solution procedure.

HEADACHES: Many theories have been espoused:

WORSE HEADACHES--------------LESS HEADACHES

Heavier, Darker Beers        Lighter, Clearer Beers

Factory Made Beers           Naturally Brewed Beers

Adjuncts                     All-Malt

Fire Brewed                  Steam-Heated Brew Kettles

Fermentation By-products     Blow-off tube used

Had a headache already       Didn't have a headache already

Yeah sure. Some of these may have a secondary effect. However, we are

kidding ourselves if we ignore the primary cause of beer headaches:

More total alcohol           Less total alcohol

  in a session                 in a session

Remembering that the amount of alcohol in beer, especially homebrew, can

vary widely, moderation will reliably reduce headaches better than any

other method. Quit kidding.

------------------------------


dry hopping/malt extract/siphoning

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 12:01:02 cdt

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@GRIN.EDU>

Subject: dry hopping/malt extract/siphoning

John Cotterill asked about hops floating during dry hopping.  I have dry

hopped successfully with pellets, although once I got what looked like a jump-

strated fermentation, although I was advised by HBDers that it was really

something else, having to do with CO2 bubbling out of solution (Sorry for the

inept description - I'm a musician, not a chemist).  One post in response to

a question I had asked about dry hopping way back claimed that dry hopping

with pellets can actually provide a sort of "fining" effect as the hop

particles dissolve and sink through the beer.  Don't know if that's true, but

it's an interesting theory.  Another response I got when I asked about dry

hopping was to try leaf hops in a bag weighted down with sanitized marbles.

I really like this idea but haven't tried it yet.  However, it seems to me

that one might be likely to get the best hop flavor this way, and zero

problems with racking too.

Bart Thielges asks about inexpensive malt extracts.  Since there is no

homebrew supply shop in my neck o' the woods, I mail order all the time.

William's Brewing in California and the Home Brewery (several outlets, I use

the one in Missouri) both sell good quality brands of extract in 6 lb.

pouches for $12-14.  Beats the hell out of the price we pay for those 3.3 lb

cans!

Also, about Bart's siphoning question: I personally use the turkey baster

method.  It fits right in the end of standard transfer tubing - I suck a

couple of times, and away we go!  I use this turkey baster ONLY for beer

racking, and I sanitize before & after use.  A friend of mine used to use the

mouth method - and made kick-ass beer, by the way - and he used to rinse his

mouth first with grain alcohol.  Sounds like fun, but it's not for me.  (The

thought has occured to me, though, that I ought to be quaffing a nice single-

malt scotch while brewing, to cut down on the organisms from my mouth that I

might be breathing into my beer, nudge, nudge, wink.)

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Re: canned beer

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1993 10:19:18 -0700

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: canned beer

>From: jlf@palm.cray.com (John Freeman)

>Subject: canned beer

>

>Is there any good beer that comes in cans?

At the risk of reigniting a religious war, I'll recommend Draught

Guinness in a Can.  Of course, it's heresy to drink it from a plastic

cup, but rugged fishermen make do with what they have, nicht wahr?

>My fishing buddies

>showed up with Bud Lite and Pig's Eye last weekend.  So it's either

>bring the beer myself or get new friends...

Hmmm...tough call.

have fun

gak

Richard Stueven, Castro Valley CA

gak & gerry's garage, brewpub and hockey haven

------------------------------


excedrine headache #999

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1993 12:54:33 -0500 (CDT)

From: BadAssAstronomer <STOREY@fender.msfc.nasa.gov>

Subject: excedrine headache #999

    Hi there.

>  In HBD#1159 Jonathan G Knight writes:

>

>>The other reason I don't want to do this - and the reason I stopped after two

>>Extra Golds - was that I got something I don't remember getting in a long

>>time: a headache!

Jim said;

>  On the other hand, homebrew has plenty of nice, healthy yeast in it.  One

>of the reasons people get hangovers is the depletion of vitamin B that

>occurs as the body processes alcohol.  Yeast is a great source of vitamin B,

>and I think that's one reason I don't get hangovers from drinking homebrew.

>  Comments?  Anybody else noticed a homebrew/no hangover connection?

    Same here. I read somewhere, I think Charlie P.'s book, that the

    vitamin B in yeast helps replace what is lost during a bout of

    drinking. I'm pretty sure this is a valid statment. As an

    experiment, I took a vitamin B complex before a night of drinking

    megabrews a few times. I did not have a hangover one single time.

    Amazing! So, you might give this a try, if you're feeling

    particularly spunky. Likewise, I never have any hangovers after

    homebrew or craftbrew.

    scott

------------------------------


Fermentation Lock

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1993 11:32:35 -0700

From: marcil@amex-trs.com (Marci Levie)

Subject: Fermentation Lock

I just started my first batch of homebrew, and it's happily

bubbling along, but I have a newbie question about the

fermentation lock.  I know that you're supposed to add water,

but how far should I fill it, and should I put the lid on it

(the lid that covers the whole fermentation lock, not the

inverted cap over the hole)?

Thanks,

Marci

- --

Marci Levie

marcil@cs90qaserv.csv-tgsc.amex-trs.com

Analysts International Corporation

Phoenix, Arizona

- --

------------------------------


PhilMill

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 13:58 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: PhilMill

Mike writes:

>I got my free issue of Brewing Techniques the other day and

>I noticed an ad for a grain mill called Phil's Mill.  The

>ad was very sparse on information but it did say the price

>was suprisingly low.  It showed the mill clamped to a table

>with a 2 liter bottle for a hopper.  Has anyone seen or used

>one of these mills?

Yes, I've seen and used the very first prototype.  It seemed

simply, but sturdily built and my only concern was with the way

it was clamped to the edge of the table.  In a recent conversation

with Mr. Listerman himself, I've learned that the clamping portion

of the mill has since been improved.  The throughput is a bit

lower than it's formidable competition.  It has a single roller

which crushes the malt against an adjustable, flat plate.  The

crush has been tested using standard screens and has been reported

to be "textbook quality" and "comparable to commercial 4-roller

mills."

The retail price should be between $75 and $85.

If you can't find it locally, email me and I think I can help

you find a mailorder source ;^).

Al.

------------------------------


Hop, Barley, and the Ale'ers...

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 14:12:54 -0600

From: cbacco@ursa5.cs.utah.edu (Corby Bacco)

Subject: Hop, Barley, and the Ale'ers...

Greetings all,

 I'm moving to Colorado (Boulder area) next Teusday and would like

some information on the Brew club in that area, "Hop, Barley, and the Ale'ers"

if I'm not mistaken.  Anyone in HBD land who is a member and can give info

like who to contact and what the club is like.  TIA

 Also, thanks to HBD for all the great info over the last year that

I've been reading.  My brew ,and thus myself and my friends, have definitely

bennifited from it.  Hopefully I'll get back online when I get to Colorado

or I'll be missing out on a LOT of good info.

   Cheers,

       Corby

------------------------------


Liquid CO2

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 16:23 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Liquid CO2

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >Cisco writes:

 >One last point is that you should keep your CO2 tank at room

 >temperature - not in your cooler. If you keep the CO2 tank in the

 >cooler the CO2 can not form a gas and remains in a liquid state

 >feeding into your beer and eventually it will overcarbonate it.

 I meant to comment on this in the original posting.  There is no way a

 refrigerator will keep all the CO2 in a tank liquid.  Furthermore, unless you

 have a siphon type tank or turn it upside down, there is no way you will get

 liquid out of it.  There is always some space above the liquid level and this

 will always be gas.

 js

------------------------------


Brewpub legalization in God's Country (fwd)

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 17:08:12 EDT

From: chuck@synchro.com (Chuck Cox)

Subject: Brewpub legalization in God's Country (fwd)

Al Ford <allen@darwin.sfbr.org> gave me permission to forward this to the HBD:

> Brewpubs are finally legal in Texas!  I just got a copy of the legislation

> as passed by the State legislature (awaiting the Gov`s signature) and it is

> quite generous.  It allows sales for both on- and off-premise consumption

> but does not allow for any off-premise distribution for resale (the

> wholesale beer distributors lobby is too strong to allow that).  Any

> strength beer from low alcohol to barleywine may be produced. The annual

> limit is 5000 bbl. per license.  Serving may be from the bright beer tanks

> as long as their capacity is in whole multiples of barrels (they had to

> slip something completely nonsensical in there somewhere!).  The brewpub

> may be licensed for both beer production and beer, wine, and/or liquor

> sales.  Annual license fee (brewpub only) is $500.  The law will go

> into effect 1 Sep.

>

> The primary person we have to thank for pushing the legislation through is

> Billy Forrester, the owner of the Dog and Duck Pub in Austin.  He has already

> signed a lease on a suitable building in Austin.  Someday I look forward to

> hearing how much the process cost him and where the money went.  State

> Representative Glenn Maxie also deserves our gratitude for authoring and

> sponsoring the bill.

>

> If you know anyone with about $500K to spare, put them in touch with me.

> I know just what to do with it.

- --

Chuck Cox   <chuck@synchro.com>

SynchroSystems / Riverside Garage & Brewery - Cambridge, Mass.

------------------------------


William's Info

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1993 18:40 EDT

From: Kieran O'Connor <OCONNOR%SNYCORVA.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

Subject: William's Info

Yesterday I put in a note aobut William's Brewing and the device they

sell for regulating fridges.  Since I got a few requests, here's the

info:

the price is $49. Call (800) 283-2745, or (510) 895-2739. It is item #

E26.

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Addresses:

Bitnet:  oconnor@snycorva.bitnet

Internet: oconnor@snycorva.cortland.edu

------------------------------


HB in Western PA

Date: 10 Jun 1993 18:41:49 -0500 (EST)

From: STBLEZA@grove.iup.edu

Subject: HB in Western PA

Greetings all...

I'm currectly living in western PA (Indiana, PA, to be exact), and was

wondering if there are Micros, HB'ers, or ANYTHING HB related in the

Indiana, Altoona, Johnstown, or even Pittsburgh area.  If this type of

request is no longer desired on the HBD, forgive, I've been away for awhile.

Also, use the reply method you think will be most productive.

White Belts Motto:  Weavles Wobble but they don't Fall Down

+*****************************************+***********************************+

|                                         |1,000,000 Lemmings Can't be Wrong! |

| WARNING:  Highly Toxic Mentallity       |-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-|

| The Surgeon General has determined that |Jacobus Jager Draake         |

| this E-Mail Poster has a state of mind  |(AKA J. Hunter Heinlen)            |

| that could prove hazardous to even      |(Bitnet:STBLEZA@IUP)               |

| casual Internetters.                    |(Internet:STBLEZA@GROVE.IUP.EDU)   |

+=========================================++==================================+

  Yes, I know I exist, it's you that       | The SCA... A Dream to Some,

  I'm worried about.                       |    A Nightmare to Others!

------------------------------


strawberries

Date: 10 Jun 93 16:49:01 MDT (Thu)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: strawberries

Just for one data point, I recently made a mead with 12 lb strawberries in

a 5 gallon batch.  The strawberry character is reasonably strong, but

could be stronger--if I do it again, I'll use 15 lb (i.e., 3 lb/gallon).

To put this in context, I was aiming to have strawberry be the dominant

flavor.  On the other hand, the mead was made with a relatively light

honey, so there isn't a lot of other flavor fighting with the strawberry.

But it does take more strawberries than other berries for comparable

amounts of flavor.

 ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


Microwaves

Date:    Thu, 10 Jun 1993 19:39 EDT

From: Phil Hultin <HULTINP@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>

Subject: Microwaves

The problem with sterilizing in the microwave is this:  Microwaves do

not heat a given volume of liquid evenly.  The temperature can be

at boiling in one part of your liquid, and well below it at another.

This means that unless you boil for long enough that the liquid is

thoroughly mixed by convection and by the bubbles rising through it,

you can have living bugs still in there.  This long boil takes just

about as long as doing it on the stove, but when the stovetop boil

is rolling, the WHOLE volume of the liquid is boiling.

However, I can confirm that the mini-mash in the microwave (M-MitM?TM?)

works really well for preparing samples.  I just need a mini-lauter

tun and I can brew on the 1-bottle scale in no time flat!  ;-)  P.

------------------------------


Re: How Long do Hops Float?

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 18:43 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: How Long do Hops Float?

JC writes:

>I currently dry hop during secondary fermentation in a soda keg.  My hops are

>placed into a hop bag that is dropped into the keg.  I want to get away from

>using the bag.  However, since I do not have a filter in the bottom of the

>keg, and don't want to add one, I am concerned that the hops will clog the

>dip tube in the keg.  This assumes, however, that they sink to the bottom

>of the keg during the 7-10 days they spend in the secondary.  So how long

>do Hops float?

I've found that pelletized hops don't even float a week and thus have

avoided them for dryhopping.  I've had whole hops float for three weeks

although I recommend dryhopping for only 7-10 days.  If you're concerned

about clogging, you could put a stainless steel scrubbing pad at the bottom

of the keg, in the little dimple, and then position the liquid dip tube

so that it pins the scrubbie in the dimple.  It would sanitize along

with the rest of the keg.

Al.

------------------------------


sanitizers, the middle section

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1993 23:09:07 -0500

From: donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: sanitizers, the middle section

 2.  Reactivity with 304 stainless

Chlorine by itself is really not the issue with respect to reaction with 304

stainless.  If it were, then iodine would also be a problem because the

chemistry of the two is so similar.  It is the alkalinity (high pH) of bleach

that poses the problem.  Alkaline solutions are caustic, i.e., corrosive.  For

example, lye or soda ash (sodium hydroxide) in water are caustic.

In an indirect way, it actually is soda ash that gives bleach it's caustic

effect.  Sodium hypochlorite is made by bubbling chlorine gas through

water to which soda ash has been added.  (If it's neutral or acidic water it's

called chlorine water and hypochlorous acid is formed which is a stronger

 oxidizer than hypochlorite ion.)  In other words, sodium hypochlorite is

made in a very caustic solution.

The caustic effect is due to the concentration of hydroxide ions which is

directly related with pH.  The higher the hydroxide concentration, the

higher the pH.  If the solution is diluted, the hydroxide concentration drops

concomitantly with the pH and the solution becomes less and less caustic,

eventually to the point where it poses no problem.  For example, lye will

burn your skin but if you dilute it sufficiently it will not.  In the case of

aqueous sodium hypochlorite with 304 stainless, it's simply a matter of

dilution.

So what dilution is needed.  Laboratory tests done with brewing in mind

showed 250 ppm of chlorine at "normal pH" is safe.  "Normal" is

nonsensical with regard to pH.  normal for water? whose water? normal

for bleach solution? what concentration in what water?  all pH values are

'normal'.  If the test was done by simply diluting the bleach with distilled

water then the pH would fall as the concentration of chlorine (as

hypochlorite) fell.  In fact, if you know the pH, you know the chlorine

concentration and vice versa.

250 ppm is 70 times greater than what is needed for sanitizing.

Therefore we can conclude that even the most careless

homebrewer can confidently use household bleach for a single

use without worry about damaging his 304 stainless keg.

How about repeated use?  The arithmetic would seem to be pretty simple.

Since laboratory tests show no effect with a single use, let's put an

appropriate number on it:  ZERO.  Let's do the test 1 billion times (lots of

beer).  The total effect is then

 ZERO times 1 Billion equals  ???

I'll leave this as a homework assignment:-)  In addition we have the

testimonial of John Isenhauer of having used bleach at 50 ppm for 15

years on the same kegs without effect.  Therefore, reasonable people can

only conclude that dilute bleach can be used with 304 stainless repeatedly

without worry.

Now what about the corrosive effect of iodophor on 304 stainless?  Some

who condemn bleach use an iodophor which contains phosphoric acid.

Phosphoric acid will react with 304 stainless.  (My

laboratory tests have confirmed this.)  This is due to the acidity (pH

again).  Ironically, the individual using this iodophor is faced with the

same problem for which he condemns bleach.  Fortunately, the solution for

phosphoric acid sanitizer is the same as that for bleach:  dilution.

The type of iodophor containing phosphoric acid was designed to be used

for the dairy industry, not the beer industry.  Furthermore, it's my

understanding that it is used commercially in 140-160 F water.  I suspect

it works pretty well, but the other iodophors such as BEST and BTF were

specifically designed for the beverage industry and are more suitable for

our purposes.  These iodophors pose no corrosive threat at any

concentration.

(the last part of this post appeared last friday.)

i hope this clears up some of the confusion and lays to rest

some of the needless worry.

take care, don

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1161, 06/11/93

*************************************

-------


headaches

Date:         Fri, 11 Jun 93 05:05:27 EDT

From: John Pedlow <TKSJOHN@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>

Subject:      headaches

NOT about post-overindulgence happenings.

NOT scientific, either.

During the past 10 years, at 2 social functions, Michelob was the only

beer available.  On both occasions about 45 minutes after beginning the

first Mic I developed a "pounding" headache.

Met a Budweiser rep.  Mentioned foregoing to him and also explained

regular Bud did not promote headaches.  Bud-man said only difference

between Bud & Mic is the hops: Mic uses imported hops and Bud uses

domestic.

I am an allergy sufferer (became ill on beer during desensitization

treatments 20 years ago and MD suggested switching to ale --- which

treated me just fine).  Maybe some headaches are related to allergy

to something in the brew... but, maybe not... none of the preceding

passes any scientific test.

John Pedlow

------------------------------


Baird's Malt - data

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1993 12:14:02 +0000

From: G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk (Geoff Cooper)

Subject: Baird's Malt - data

Many HBDers have mentioned that they use Baird's Malt and have asked for

info on it. I am one of the more fortunate on this list in being able to

drive to the maltings at Witham in Essex and buy a few sacks nice and fresh.

When last there I asked for some information, which I now share (extracts of)

with you.

"Hugh Baird & Sons Ltd. has been producing quality malt since 1823."

"To ensure even modification and consistency ... we use only the finest 2-row

 barley specially selected..."

"Production units for our white (unroasted) malts are based on the universally

 acknowledged Saladin system."

UNROASTED MALTS

At Witham (they also have a maltings in Pentcaitland near Edinburgh, Scotland)

they produce 5 unroasted malts, namely: Pale Ale, Premium Pilsen, Standard

Pilsen, Stout, and Wheat.

Analysis:  [ composite symbol ^o used to denote degrees ]

                       Pale     Premium     Stnd       Stout     Wheat

                                Pilsen      Pilsen

Moisture:

   (%) max              3.0       4.5        4.5        4.0       5.5

Extract: Dry

   (L^o/Kg) min         307       307        305        305       310

Total Nitrogen:

   (%) max              1.65      1.65       1.70       1.65      2.20

Colour:

   (^oEBC)              4-6       2-3        3-3.5      2-4       2-5

S.N.R:

   (%)                 36-42     35-40       36-41      36-40     36-45

Distatic Activity

   (^oL) min            45        60          60         50        70

Does anyone know the conversion for extract from L^o/Kg to units most of us

will relate to? What prcisely is S.N.R? And what is this significance of the

figures under Diastatic Activity?

If in the UK you buy a 'generic' lager malt and it is from Baird's, you will

be getting the Standard Pilsen.

SPECIAL MALTS

"Our Roast House is one of the largest and most up-to-date in the world. ...

 Modern roasting cylinders are used ...."

CARAMALT (Carastan)   [ Note that Carapils is a trade mark in the UK and cannot

                        be used commercially, but colloquially is used to

                        to define product a) ]

 Colour:

  a) 20 - 30 )

  b) 35 - 45 ) ^oEBC by IOB method

  c) 50 - 70 )

"These materials are manufactured from germinating malt. ... transferred to a

 roasting cylinder and heated to 65^oC for one hour. ... then raised to 150^oC

 for varying periods. .. This produces a material which, after cooling, has a

 glazed internal appearance, pale brown colour and caramel/toffe-like flavour."

CRYSTAL MALT, also kown as Caramel Malt

 Colour:       ^oEBC by IOB method

  a) 100 - 120

  b) 140 - 160

  c) 180 - 210

  d) 230 - 260

  e) 375 - 425

"The method of manufacture is basically the same as for Caramalt, using the

 same starting material with longer and higher temperature roasting."

AMBER MALT, also known as Brown Malt

 Colour 100 - 140 ^oEBC by IOB method

"This material is produced by roasting kilned malt...,"

CHOLATE MALT

 Colour 900 - 1100 ^oEBC by IOB method

"This is produced by roasting kilned malt. ..."

ROASTED MALT, also know as Black Malt, Farbmalz.

 Colour 1100 - 1300 ^oEBC by IOB method

"This is manufactured from kilned malt by roasting at temperatures up to 250^oC

 ..."

ROAST BARLEY (When exported is described as Roast Material)

 Colour 1100 - 1300 ^oEBC by IOB method

"This is manufactured from barley by roasting at temperatures up to 250^oC. .."

You will see that this also answers the question about what Baird's mean

when they package a product labelled "Roast Material".

I hope that is of help to some, and I expect explanatory notes from those

who can interpret that lot in homebrew terms better than I can.

Happy brewing

Geoff

------------------------------


Priming ingredients

Date:     Fri, 11 Jun 93 8:35:11 EDT

From: "Darren L. Ward" (FSAC-FCD) <dward@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  Priming ingredients

      Has anyone ever primed with confectioners sugar?  If yes, is 4.5 oz.

> the proper amount (ie. typical corn sugar amount).  Is table sugar an

appropriate primer?  I've read that priming with a malt extract produces a

smaller bubble, similar to a stout bubble, how does the processing of sugar

effect the quality of the carbonate that results?

------------------------------


Priming ingredients

Date:     Fri, 11 Jun 93 8:35:11 EDT

From: "Darren L. Ward" (FSAC-FCD) <dward@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  Priming ingredients

      Has anyone ever primed with confectioners sugar?  If yes, is 4.5 oz.

> the proper amount (ie. typical corn sugar amount).  Is table sugar an

appropriate primer?  I've read that priming with a malt extract produces a

smaller bubble, similar to a stout bubble, how does the processing of sugar

effect the quality of the carbonate that results?

------------------------------


Boston/Stamford Brewpubs?

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 08:32:11 -0400

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

Subject: Boston/Stamford Brewpubs?

I'll be in Boston, MA. for a week, and around Stamford, CT. for another.

I'd like some recommendations of Brewpubs in those areas.

Thanks.

[

    For those destined for Las Vegas, NV. - I recommend the Holy Cow Casino

    Cafe & Brewpub - great beers (a Pale Ale, Wheat Beer, Red Ale and

    a Stoudt $2.75/pint, $1.75/10oz glass), great food (relatively inexpensive).

]

- ---

email: sxupjd@fnma.com (NeXT Mail Okay)

Philip DiFalco, Senior Analyst, Advanced Technology

FannieMae, 3900 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 22016     (202)752-2812

------------------------------


Fuller ESB maize (was Miller Lite...)

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 09:20:10 CDT

From: jay marshall <marshall@pat.mdc.com>

Subject: Fuller ESB maize (was Miller Lite...)

George,

In HBD 1158 you made mention of Fullers adding flaked maize to their ESB.  I

like the ESB I get on tap very much, and was taken aback when I tasted

the bottled version - it was much stronger and really tasted quite different.

My question is, since you've evidently been to the source, which is closer

to the product served at the brewery, the U.S. tap or the U.S. bottled?

Also, I got a recipe for a Fuller ESB clone from Rick Melkor (thanks Rick)

that goes as follows:

10# 2-row

1/2# crystal, 60L - 90L

1/2# carapils

1# brown sugar, 60 minutes

2 oz Fuggles, 60 minutes

 .5 oz Kent Golding, 30 minutes

 .5 oz Kent Golding, 5 minutes

1.5 oz Kent Golding, dry hopped in secondary

Yweast London Ale (1028) yeast

OG: 1048

FG: 1012

The resulting beer was very good, but not quite there (compared to the tap

version, which I prefer).  The flaked maize would obviously change the

taste a bit - can you recommend the quantity to use?  Any other comments

on the grain or hop bill would also be appreciated.

thanks very much,

- --

Jay

marshall@pat.mdc.com

------------------------------


Dogbolter(R)

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 10:26:52 -0400

From: jpgareri@acs.bu.edu (Joseph Gareri)

Subject: Dogbolter(R)

I was recently given a Dogbolter(R) kit as a present.  I'm not a

fan of kits, but I'm not inclined to throw something out either.

Has anyone had any experience with either this kit or the commercial

product?  The kit says it originated in 1979 when David Bruce first opened

the GOOSE AND FIRKIN in Southwark UK.  It is supposed to be brewed to an

OG of 1060.

I am hesitant to use the yeast packet that came with the kit, but I'm not

sure what I should replace it with.  Also, the instructions say to add

2 1/2 lb. white sugar along with the extract.  This seems like a lot of

cane sugar for the amount of malt.  I'm guessing the can is 3.3lb.

Any help?  They classify Dogbolter(R) as a "strong ale".

Joe Gareri

Boston, MA

------------------------------


Hop, Barley, and the Ale'ers...

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 08:29:50 -0600

From: John Adams <j_adams@hpfcjca.sde.hp.com>

Subject: Hop, Barley, and the Ale'ers...

I am a member of the "Hop, Barley, and the Ale'rs."  The club president is

John Bates and meetings are at 7:00pm at the University Inn in Boulder on the

4th Tuesday of every Month.

It's a GREAT club.  Being situated in Boulder (the home of the AHA) and

Colorado (the brewing capital of the world) we have some of the very best

home and commerical brewing experts in the club.

Hope to see you at the June 22 meeting!

John Adams

------------------------------


Hop Utilization

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1993 07:32:15 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Hop Utilization

In the previous digest Mark paraphrased me as follows...

>Bob Jones writes that he doesn't believe that yeast affects

>hop utilization, and would rather see the calculation split

>into two..

I did not say "I don't believe you", I will repeat my suggestion that the

calculations and measurements be seperated and give an example of why. If we

assume this yeast flocculation vs hop IBU effect exists and we combine the

two in a table or calculation, and later realize the phase of the moon

effects the yeast side of the equation, then all the hop work is out the

window. By keeping the effects seperate it allows each to be used, verified,

updated, investigated, and argued independently. That's just plain old good

scientific reasearch.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


re twist-offs

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 10:34:00 EDT

From: cjh@diaspar.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Chip Hitchcock)

Subject: re twist-offs

   twist-off caps are said to be put on by something more complicated

than a simple crown capper; the argument (which I find plausible from

comparing the bottles) is that an affordable capper can't be sure of

making a reliable seal around the threads of a twist-top bottle. It's

possible this is a momily---but good bottles aren't that hard to find

(bar bottles of any of the major brands, Sam Adams bottles, ...).

   I suspect that it's more important to have a bottle with a tall collar

(the secondary line of glass around the neck, below the lip that the cap

wraps around), so the capper can get a solid grip; the cap certainly

/looks/ more secure in these cases.

------------------------------


home/commercial brew and hangovers

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 10:48:52 EDT

From: cjh@diaspar.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Chip Hitchcock)

Subject: home/commercial brew and hangovers

   johng@adx.la.ca.us suggests that homebrew may be less dehydrating than

commercial beers; I don't think this is likely. My understanding (from

long-ago physiology) is that alcohol is a diuretic; i.e. it causes the

kidneys to increase their net extraction of water from the bloodstream (so

Bob Shaw was qualitatively right when he observed that you piss five pints

for every four you drink).

   My very rough guess is that the average homebrew is, if anything, /more/

alcoholic than the average commercial beer in this country. My vague

recollection is that standard commercial beers are ~4% w/w (~5%v/v)

alcohol; homebrewers do light fruit beers, milds, and ordinary bitters

which are ~4%v/v, but they also do lots of ESB's, IPA's,

[,doppel,trippel]bocks, imperial stouts, bieres de garde, Belgians, ... all

of which run over 5%v/v, sometimes much higher.

   Certainly dehydration plays a part in hangovers; if you've binged one of

the better protections is aspirin and lots of water /before/ you crash. But

I don't think it connects to lack of hangover in homebrews. Yeast may be

part of the effect, since B vitamins are commonly claimed to be effective

against hangovers; I don't know whether any sound research has been done on

this. But how much yeast is still in suspension in homebrew, especially in

kegged beers? And has anyone noticed a difference in hangovers between

factory beers (aka American light, aka American swill) and commercial beers

with yeast in them (Belgians, Sierra Nevada, ...)? More important, is

anyone on this list willing to drink enough factory beer to test?

------------------------------


brewpubs - Portland, IBS list

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 10:22:58 CDT

From: jay marshall <marshall@pat.mdc.com>

Subject: brewpubs - Portland, IBS list

I've got a friend going to Portland soon who would like to know about

brewpubs in that area.  I would appreciate it if someone would email

some info to me.

On a related note, in Oct 1991 Greg Pryzby made a full list of brewpubs

and micros available.  He had keyed it in from a March 1991 list from

the Institute for Brewing Studies.  Is there an updated list available?

thanks,

- --

Jay

marshall@pat.mdc.com

------------------------------


Date: 11 Jun 93 07:42:00 PST

From: John Fitzgerald <johnf@ccgate.SanDiegoCA.NCR.COM>

Subject:

Let me start off by thanking the HBD'ers that responded to me about

the beer fest in Temecula, CA, and all of the SS keg info.  This

digest sure is a great source of information!

With the recent talk about fruit beers, especially peaches, I thought

I'd mention a 1 gallon experiment batch from last season.  I added  about

1.75 lbs. to the primary of a generic light lager, with fairly good results.

The result is a decent beer with a nice peachy aroma, and somewhat of a

fruity taste, but my palate has trouble distinguishing it as a peach flavor.

What I did learn from this experiment was:

        1. it is worth doing again (and I will as soon as I can harvest

           my mother-in-law's tree!) - 5 gallons if I get enough peaches

        2. I won't put the peaches in the blender this year (what a mess

           trying to strain/siphon).  I've heard that slicing the fruit

           thin enough should  be sufficient for the yeast to get to the good

           stuff.

        3. I will probably add more peaches this time (2 lbs/gal minimum?),

           and probably rack the beer onto them after primary fermentation

           subsides.

        4. I have a lot more learning/experimenting to do.

On another note, I have a sufficient supply of 5 gallon cornelius tanks, but

am having trouble finding a good source for used 3 gallons kegs.  Local shops

sell new ones for an outrageous amount, and I am told used ones are scarce. I

have heard on this digest that BCI (Bev Con International?) is a good source,

but I've given my name & address at least 3 times now to the nice person

on the phone, but have never gotten a catalog from them.  Is there anybody out

there that might be in the reverse situation, that wouldn't mind trading a 3

gallon keg for a 5 gallon keg, for the cost of shipping?

oogy wa-wa,

(for those of you who do not speak Zulu, you'll have to go the 'Brick' in the

D.C. area for some good beer & a translation (great place, a beer drinker's

candy store))

John Fitzgerald.

------------------------------


Re: Iodophor & Belgium headaches

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 11:35:09 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: Iodophor & Belgium headaches

I'm back from beer hunting and wanted to comment on a few items in the last

digest.

In the last digest:


sanitizers part 2

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1993 22:56:11 -0500

From: donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: sanitizers part 2

<5.  Cost and availability

Household bleach costs about $1/gallon.  Iodophor is typically about $10

per liter.  Bleach has 5 times as much sanitizing strength ounce for ounce.

Therefore, bleach is about 200 times cheaper than iodophor.

Brewery cost is closer to $25 per large jug (1-2 gallons?) or about 25 times

as expensive (I cant remember how big the jug is). This is not to dispute the

retail price, but it does differ by a degree of magnitude.

<6.  Personal safety

Both oxidizers will kill cells including yours and mine.  Both should be

handled carefully.  But bleach is a stronger oxidant so a little more

dangerous on this point.  More importantly though is the caustic nature of

full strength bleach.  This poses a more serious risk, particularly to eyes.

Iodophor is a safer product than household bleach.

I think this has been covered before:

My container of Diversity Iodophor indicates irreversable eye damage.

With respect to the corrosive nature of Chlorine on SS I would like to point

out that many homebrewers are not fortunate enough to be using 304 (or better)

SS.  When I began brewing years ago, I bought several 16 qt SS pots from a

local catalog store.  These are the cheap korean products with riveted handles.

The rivets are aluminum.  At one point I used one of these pots as a blowoff

recepticle with a splash of chlorine in the water.  As the blowoff tube

deposited trub and beer into the solution, the pH dropped and the bubble

layer actually corroded straight through the SS in several pin holes.  Now

this may not be an issue with 304 SS but it certainly occurred in a very

short period with cheaper SS.

On another topic:

From: "Roger Deschner  " <U52983@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject: Siphon starters, headaches

<WORSE HEADACHES--------------LESS HEADACHES

<Heavier, Darker Beers        Lighter, Clearer Beers

<Factory Made Beers           Naturally Brewed Beers

<Adjuncts                     All-Malt

<Fire Brewed                  Steam-Heated Brew Kettles

<Fermentation By-products     Blow-off tube used

<Had a headache already       Didn't have a headache already

<Yeah sure. Some of these may have a secondary effect. However, we are

<kidding ourselves if we ignore the primary cause of beer headaches:

<More total alcohol           Less total alcohol

  in a session                 in a session

In general you are correct.  I can personnaly note that some brewers like

Rochefort do not conform to this rule.  Just last Friday I had the pleasure

of consuming too many Rochefort 10's at 11.3% ABV, as well as other high

alcohol Belgium beers.  Much to my delight there was not headache in the

AM, just a well deserved cobweb effect.  Just a data point that the Belgiums

do something different.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Re:CO2, Cherries & B vitamins

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 11:54:06 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re:CO2, Cherries & B vitamins

More comments on the last digest:

Re: B vitamin benefits of botle conditioned beers.  While it is true that

one consumes vitamin B in these beers, I was under the impression that the

alcohol also strips the body of these same nutrients, negating the positive

effects.  Does anyone know if this is true?

Re: CO2 tanks in fridge.  What I have found is a problem with the tank in

the fridge is the corrosive nature of the moisture in the fridge rusting

and damaging the tank and regulator.  For this reason all of my beer fridges

have the CO2 line running through the side of the fridge. It is quite easy

to buy CO2 tubing to fit the drill bit size and just push the tube through

the drill hole.  Its also well worth investing in the regulator cage to

protect the regulator when the dog decides to chew through the Co2 line.

With respect to fruit additions to beer: Phil Seitz and I toured Liefmans

brewery on June 2nd.  We are compiling a detailed record of the trip and

observations that will be forthcoming but FYI: the Liefmans Kriek contains

13 kilos of cherries into 100 Litres of beer.  For the metric impared, this

is the equivelent of 28.6 Lbs per 26.4 gallons. Now this may or may not be

applicable to the homebrewer mortals since I also believe it sits on the

cherries for several years (Phil ,correct me if I am wrong here).

Good brewing & I'll post a review of the Stoudts Festival on Monday,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Commercial Beer side effects

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 08:32:53 MDT

From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

Subject: Commercial Beer side effects

Derrick Pohl writes about getting stuffed up from commercial beer, in

addition to headaches.  I have found this to be true as well, although I

forgot about the effect since I started drinking only good beer.  Sorry, I

don't have any great theories but Al's seems as good as any I've heard.

BTW, Derrick the double blind test won't work very well.  Do you think you

won't be able to tell the difference between, say, a Ballard Bitter and a

Coors Extra Bland?

------------------------------


BrewPubs in Boca Raton, Florida

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 11:16:56 CDT

From: greenbay@vnet.IBM.COM

Subject: BrewPubs in Boca Raton, Florida

Hey, could anybody tell me if there are any good brew pubs in Boca Raton?

I might be going there early next week for business and would be interested

in checking them out if I have the time. Please send me private e-mail on

Monday as I don't know if I'll be able to check this stuff on Tuesday.

Thank you very much,

Bob Crowley (greenbay@vnet.ibm.com)

------------------------------


Iodophors Again?

Date:    Fri, 11 Jun 1993 9:30:02 -0700 (MST)

From: JLIDDIL@AZCC.Arizona.EDU (Jim Liddil)

Subject: Iodophors Again?

% George Writes

% Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 10:08:52 -0500

% From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

% Accord II was designed for breweries. The version in most homebrew

% shops (the one containing the detergent instead of phosphoric acid)

% was designed for dairies.

It is true Accord II is used in brweries but according to the technical rep for

Diversity (George you know who he is) says that Accord II is made with a

surfactant (detergent to the non-scientist) just like all iodophors.  It also

contains an excess of surfactant (detergent) to make sure all the iodine is

bound up prperly and that there is not an excess of free iodine.  It also

contains phosphoric acid, but this is not for complexing the iodine.

The technical rep went on to tell me that Accord II

has the possibility to cause problems with head retention just as any product

containing surfactants (detergent) does.  The question is how much detergent

can you tolerate before decreases in head retention become a problem.

 And Don writes

% The type of iodophor containing phosphoric acid was designed to be used

% for the dairy industry, not the beer industry.

I have to disagree.  I think a more correct statement is that the acid

containing iodophors are designed for commercial industrial use and not home

use.  But the formulations usually contain 20% acid so by the time they are

diluted out the amount of acid is small.

% Furthermore, it's my

% understanding that it is used commercially in 140-160 F water.

The ability of iodine to kill microorganisms is enhanced at higher temperatures

and you can do this at home for steel but not plastics if you don not want them

stained.

% These iodophors pose no corrosive threat at any

% concentration.

But iodine can cause skin irritation in some individuals.  And if absorbed

through an open wound can lead to decreased thyroid function.

Jim Liddil

------------------------------


Re: stuffed up head from industrial beers

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 09:17:51 PDT

From: Bob.Clark@Eng.Sun.COM (Bob Clark)

Subject: Re: stuffed up head from industrial beers

A friend of mine believes that he has an allergy to

grains, and it is something from grains in beer that

causes his head to stuff up.

My homebrew gave him a real dose of congestion.

 Bob C.

------------------------------


More help with tapping systems?

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 18:12:10 PDT

From: nuke@reed.edu (Bill Newcomb)

Subject: More help with tapping systems?

Cisco Writes:

> Believe it or not there is some logic to all this and your elevation

> from sea level must also be taken into consideration.

Is there some sort of reference for this sort of thing? How can I make these

calculations for my own personal system (which is really pretty boring: lame

little plastic nozzle, pvc tubes I can change, good regulator, Cornelius

(ball lock) keg)? It sounds as though a great deal of thought has gone into

this, and I would like to be able to tap that (ouch!).

Thanks in advance...

Bill         (p.s., I'm near sea level)

- --

------------------------------


Re: sanitizers part 2

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1993 09:54:15 -0700

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: sanitizers part 2

>From: donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

>

>And remember, you need less than 1 teaspoon of bleach in the

>entire 5 gallon keg to get the same level of sanitation that iodophor

>provides at its recommended dose.

Eh?  When I started brewing, it was a half-cup per five gallons.  Then

it was one ounce per five gallons.  Now it's one teaspoon per five

gallons.

Pretty soon, I'll get complete sanitation simply by waving the bleach

bottle around in the brewery!  (The Homeopathic Approach)

Seriously, what's the scoop?  Erm...half-scoop?

have fun

gak

Richard Stueven, Castro Valley CA

gak & gerry's garage, brewpub and hockey haven

------------------------------


Cornelius keg fittings

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1993 10:34:38 -0700 (PDT)

From: Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG>

Subject: Cornelius keg fittings

I think I am finally getting to the point where I can no longer put off

going to a kegging system.  I asked Santa for a set up last Xmas but I

must not have been a good enough boy.  My question relates to the merits

of the ball-lock vs. pin-lock fittings.  Does anyone have an opinion (gad,

what an open ended question that could turn out to be) on which system is

better and why?  Are used kegs more readily available in one type over the

other?  I understand the kegs can be converted from pin to ball and vice

versa, true?

Eric Wade

<ericwade@class.org>

If you like, please respond by private e-mail.  If I get enough response

I'll summarize for the HBD.

------------------------------


yeah, but...

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1993 12:35:00 -0500 (CDT)

From: BadAssAstronomer <STOREY@fender.msfc.nasa.gov>

Subject: yeah, but...

Roger says:

>HEADACHES: Many theories have been espoused:

>

>WORSE HEADACHES--------------LESS HEADACHES

>

>Heavier, Darker Beers        Lighter, Clearer Beers

>Factory Made Beers           Naturally Brewed Beers

>Adjuncts                     All-Malt

>Fire Brewed                  Steam-Heated Brew Kettles

>Fermentation By-products     Blow-off tube used

>Had a headache already       Didn't have a headache already

>

>Yeah sure. Some of these may have a secondary effect. However, we are

>kidding ourselves if we ignore the primary cause of beer headaches:

>

>More total alcohol           Less total alcohol

>  in a session                 in a session

>

>Remembering that the amount of alcohol in beer, especially homebrew, can

>vary widely, moderation will reliably reduce headaches better than any

>other method. Quit kidding.

    I think this was assumed. I know it was by me. My comment, perhaps

    more clearly stated, was that in *small* amounts, commercial brew

    is more likely to yield headaches than homebrew. I was thinking

    quantities of 2 or less beers.

    scott

------------------------------


Starting a siphon

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 13:34:50 EDT

From: Tom.Barstow@East.Sun.COM (Tom Barstow - Sun BOS Software)

Subject: Starting a siphon

Bart Thielges asks:

>> 4) I realize that sterility is very important.  All of the procedures

>>     that I've read mention that during racking, a siphon should

>>     be used to transfer the fermented wort.  However, I have

>>     yet to figure out how to start a siphon without getting my

>>     mouth on the end of the hose.  One procedure even specified

>>     "suck on the open end of the hose until you get a mouthfull

>>     of beer."  Even though I brush twice a day, I still worry that

>>     I might contaminate through this contact.  Is there any way to

>>     start a siphon without risking the contamination ?  Or am I

>>     just being too paranoid ?  Will my batch be ruined ?  And how

>>     do you know that the light in the fridge goes out when you close

>>     the door ?

I bought a plastic stopcock that I use as my mouthpiece when starting

a siphon.  Sanitize both it and the siphon hose, stick the stopcock

into the hose, open the valve, elevate the end of the hose, and

suck.  When the beer is within a few inches of the end of the tube,

close the valve.  Kink the hose near the end, remove the contaminated

stopcock from the still-sanitized hose, and plunge the end of the hose

in the target container.  Works very well.

Tom

------------------------------


solstice and wild yeasts

Date: 11 Jun 1993 13:21:28 -0500 (EST)

From: Sandy Cockerham <COCKERHAM_SANDRA_L@Lilly.com>

Subject: solstice and wild yeasts

I recall reading somewhere that the almanac talks about the summer solstice

being a bad time to start a batch of beer. As I faintly remember, it has

something to do with lots of wild yeasts wafting through the breeze. The time

listed was about a week following.

Since that date is coming very shortly (June 21 or 22, I think), can anyone who

is "up" on this kind of topic elaborate ?

Sandy C.

From: COCKERHAM SANDRA L            (MCVAX0::RX31852)

To:   VMS MAIL ADDRESSEE            (IN::"homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com")

------------------------------


Hops Strawberrys and extracts

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 14:56

From: RON.admin@admin.creol.ucf.edu (RON)

Subject: Hops Strawberrys and extracts

I have some questions I would like to put to your learned readership.

I am currently residing in Central Florida.  I am interested in trying to

grow some of my own hops.  Has anyone out there had any experience

growing hops this far south?  Where can I get hop rhizomes?  Are there

some heat resistant varieties that may have a better chance of

surviving?  Is there some recommended reading material available on

the cultivation of hops?

I've read the last couple of issues of HBD(I've only just become aware

of it's existence) and the articles on strawberry brews stuck out as I

have just bottled a batch of strawberry ale.  I added my mashed

strawberries during the last ten minutes of the boil.  If you add the

strawberry to the cooled wort I agree you will enhance the strawberry

flavoring but aren't you also taking a chance on adding any wild strains

of yeast into the wort as well?

As to Bart Thielges inquiry about inexpensive malt extracts, I buy pure

malt unhopped extract in 3 lb. cans for $6.25 ea(you must buy by the

case, 12 cans for $75 shipping incl).  I get it from a company called

Specialty Products Inc. located in Chapel Hill, S Carolina.  If he wants

more specific information he can e-mail me.

ron@admin.creol.ucf.edu

------------------------------


Re: sanitizers and SS

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 16:16:18 -0600

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Re: sanitizers and SS

The only thing worse than a lack of information is a plethora of

misinformation. A recent posting contained some misinformation

regarding sanitizers and corrosion.  Although I am not an expert in

these subjects, I would like to clear up some of the more obvious

errors:

In HBD #1161, donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

says:

>Chlorine by itself is really not the issue with respect to reaction

>with 304 stainless.

Chlorine (and its dissociation products) ARE the problem.  The

relative concentrations of these species are determined in part by pH.

>If it were, then iodine would also be a problem

>because the chemistry of the two is so similar.

Similar, but by no means identical.

>It is the alkalinity (high pH) of bleach that poses the problem.

It is NOT the alkalinity that is the problem. SS is relatively inert

in caustic solutions (I believe many breweries and other food

processing plants use concentrated NaOH to clean/sterilize their SS

equipment.)

> Alkaline solutions are caustic, i.e., corrosive.  For example, lye or soda

ash (sodium hydroxide) in water are caustic.

Caustic is not a synonym for corrosive.

>(stuff deleted, pretty much accurate)

>If the solution is diluted, the

>hydroxide concentration drops concomitantly with the pH and the

>solution becomes less and less caustic, eventually to the point

>where it poses no problem.  For example, lye will burn your skin but

>if you dilute it sufficiently it will not.  In the case of aqueous

>sodium hypochlorite with 304 stainless, it's simply a matter of

>dilution.

One must be careful when gauging the effects of dilution on pH.

Many complex solutions (including bleach, and wort) are "buffered",

thus dilution will not necessarily change the pH significantly.

>(more stuff deleted)

>How about repeated use?  The arithmetic would seem to be pretty

>simple.  Since laboratory tests show no effect with a single use,

>let's put an appropriate number on it:  ZERO.  Let's do the test 1

>billion times (lots of beer).  The total effect is then

>        ZERO times 1 Billion equals ???  I'll leave this as a

>homework assignment:-)

This type of math, however simple, is very dangerous. No material

has a corrosion rate of ZERO in any solution.  It may be so small as

to be unmeasurable, but it is not zero. Thus, the correct math would

be:

(something very small) times (something very big (1 Billion?))

equals (something which is NOT zero, and may in fact be quite

appreciable)

>Some who condemn bleach use an iodophor which contains phosphoric

>acid.  Phosphoric acid will react with 304 stainless.  (My

>laboratory tests have confirmed this.)

I have seen several references that indicate that phosphoric acid is

corrosive to SS only at high (>40%?) concentrations. I am guessing

that the concentration of phosphoric acid in Iodophors is much lower

than this (I may be wrong.)

>This is due to the acidity (pH again).

It is NOT due to the pH, but the chemical species involved!!

>i hope this clears up some of the confusion and lays to rest some of

>the needless worry.

Please note that I agree with (what I believe is) don's bottom line:

household bleach, when used at low concentrations, will not harm SS.

Contrary to what don states, I have heard (sorry, I can't remember

where) that hypochlorite in a HIGH ph (alkaline) solution is SAFER for

SS. Most municipal water supplies are alkaline, this may explain why

bleach in muni water solutions are OK on stainless.  I have used 1 tsp

in 5 gallons water with a 10 minute contact time to sterilize my

Cornelius kegs for several years now, and have observed no pitting or

other form of corrosion.

Perhaps it would be a good idea for posters to this forum to include

(1) Their relevant education, training, experience, etc., and/or

(2) References for their assertions.

In this spirit, I will state that my formal education includes a B.S. in

Chemical Engineering, 1985

Information on Chlorine chemistry may be found in:

Chlorine, its manufacture, properties, and uses, JS Sconce, Ed. 1962

Information on corrosion of stainless steel:

Corrosion of Stainless Steels, AJ Sedriks, 1979

Corrosion Engineering, Fontana & Greene, 1967

(Geez... sorry I wrote so much!)

Kelly

------------------------------


All Grain Systems

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1993 16:57:00 -0700 (PDT)

From: bmv@plaza.ds.adp.com (Brian M. Vandewettering)

Subject: All Grain Systems

I'm trying to gather as much info as I can on all grain brewing

systems before putting my own system together.  I've read several

books on the subject but haven't come to a decision on the following

items:

+ Boiling Kettle - what are the disadvantages of cutting up an old keg?

  Is a false bottom neccessary?  For a 15 gallon capacity (10 gallon

  beer batch) what should I look for in material thickness and other

  features.

+ Propane burner - Is 35K BTU's big enough?  How long to heat 12 gallons

  of wort?

+ Wort Chillers - Right now I'm using a homemade immersion type.  What

  are the advantages of the other style?

+ Thermometers - Where do you find thermometers that are accurate to +/-

  2 degrees?

+ Refrigeration/Fermenting - Idealy one would build a walk-in or two.

  How do persons of ordinary means accomodate large numbers of fermenters

  and kegs?

Thanks,

 -Brian

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brian Vandewettering (ADP Dealer Services R&D) Portland, OR

bmv@plaza.ds.adp.com

- --------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Hop Utilization (again???)

Date: Sat, 12 Jun 93 1:36:20 PDT

From: tinsethg@ucs.orst.edu (Glenn Tinseth)

Subject: Hop Utilization (again???)

Sorry to beat a cheesy hop into the compost, but here are my two cents on the

subject. Bob Jones is right in questioning Mark Garetz's publishing of

utilization vs boil time data that differs with respect to the flocculant

characteristics of the yeast. Yeast effects on overall alpha acid utilization

have absolutely nothing to do with boil time.

My preliminary data show that although many things affect the overall util %

(eg wort gravity, wort pH, kettle geometry, boil temp, divalent cation conc,

yeast strain, whether or not the beer is fined, filtered, or lagered, and

more), none of these things affect the shape of the utilization curve. The

literature and my early data indicate that the isomerization of alpha acids in

the boil is a first order reaction. Those of you familiar with kinetics know

that this means that Rager's (Eckhardt's?) and Garetz's numbers are just not

right as far as the shape of the curve goes. Maybe someone who is *much*

better than I at ASCII graphics could post the shape of a first order curve

for A -> B. Things like I mentioned above affect the final number (util%-max)

and *maybe* the rate constant, but certainly not the order of the reaction.

As I mentioned in a previous posting, I hope to have something comprehensive

re: hop utilization by the fall and at Bob Jones' urging will publish here

first (at least a thumbnail version).

Now for an embarassing moment. Due to my lack of UNIX expertise, several

catalog requests were lost in the ether. If you sent me mail in the last week

please resend it to tinsethg@ucs.orst.edu. I will be on vacation until the

22nd so please be patient. Roy Styan: sorry for the big delay but I will make

it worth your while when I return!

Please hit me with further util questions (Edwards and Liddil, I got your mail

and am working at responses to your questions) and I'll try to help.

Glenn

------------------------------


excellent mead yeast

Date: Sat, 12 Jun 93 9:30:34 EDT

From: Mark A Fryling <mfryling@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

Subject: excellent mead yeast

Howdy,

     With all the recent posts on the network regarding summer brewing and

specifically the use of summer fruits in brewing, I felt compelled to share

some info about the excellent results we've had on our last few batches of

mead.  In particular I've found that Lalvin 71B-1122 (s. cerevisiae) is a very

good yeast for meads and melomels (mead with fruit).  The reason I like this

stuff so much is that the samples seem to be quite fresh (high apparent

percentage of viable cells), the fermentation is active and very quick, and the

strain is not overly attenuative so that a slight residual sweetness remains in

the finished product (sorry but I dont have numbers on SG and FG).  We've now

made two batches of a spiced mead (no fruit) and both were completely clear and

ready to bottle after spending 1 wk in the primary and only about 3 wks. in the

secondary.  Other yeasts I have tried (including Red Star Pasteur Champagne,

and Eppernay 2) have taken much longer to clear out and have finished a bit dry

for my taste.

     We also experienced very quick (about 5 wks.) clearing on our the one

melomel we made using this strain (a Kiwi mead with 8lbs honey and 12lbs

crushed kiwi fruit).  A strawberry melomel (8-10lbs light honey and 15lbs

frozen strawberries picked last weekend) is on the list for tomorrow.

     Here is the basic spiced mead recipie:

         "Spicy Lemon-Ginger Mead"

     10-15lbs light (clover, orange blossom etc) honey

          Bring to a boil with 2gal good brewing water

     1/4 oz good flavor hops (I like cascade or hollertau)

          boil 15 min

     4 oz grated fresh ginger

     1/4 oz good aroma hops (like hollertau, tettnang, or saaz)

     a strong tea made from 1 oz dried lemongrass, and several (5 or so) bags

     of your favorite blend (we have used chammomile and constant comment)

          Add these at the end of the boil and steep for 15 min

          Cool to ca. 75F and dilute to 5gal

          Add 1.25 tsp yeast energizer, and 2 pkgs (10g total) of Lalvin

          S. Cerevisiae rehydrated according to instructions.

          When completely cleared in secondary, bottle with 3/4c glucose if a

          sparkling mead is desired

Believe it or not, this stuff tastes great after only a month or two in the

bottle.  It has a mouthfeel thats not unlike a medium sweet champagne, but of

course, the flavor is mead all the way.

For melomel, I generally cut back to about 8lbs of honey and replace the sugar

with 8-15 lbs of crushed fruit.  My best results, though done with different

yeast, have been with black rasberries (fresh picked then frozen before use),

and a combination of peaches and strawberries (yummy).  I've heard of different

techniques, but we've had

good luck and no unwanted innoculations just adding the thawed and crushed

fruit to the hot honey wort just at the end of the boil and steeping (read

pasturizing) the fruit for 15min.  Oh, BTW the spices should also be cut back

or deleted all together to let the fruit character come through.

If anyone else has experience with this Lalvin S. Cerevisiae I'd like to know

about it.

Mead is a wonderful drink for all seasons and is easy and inexpensive to make.

Cheers,

Mark  Fryling

Dept. of Chemistry

Ohio State Univ.

<mfryling@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

"Never let your sense of morality prevent you from doing what's right"

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1162, 06/15/93

*************************************

-------


Texas Micros & Brewpubs

Date: Sat, 12 Jun 93 10:18:03 EDT

From: drwho2959@aol.com

Subject: Texas Micros & Brewpubs

In HBD1160 J.Hutchison<jhutchin@us.oracle.com> writes the following

about Texas micros and brewpubs:

"...good micro beer is not available..."

This is quite simply UNTRUE!!  I live in Houston, and frequently

visit several excellent beer bars with literally SCORES of micro

draft taps, including Anchor, Sierra Nevada, August Schell, and

Boston Beer Company products.  The Gingerman in Houston was called

"One of the best beer bars in America" by none other than the

famed British beer-hunter, Michael Jackson, in his influential Pocket

Guide to Beer.

Texas micros available include Celis products (the White won a GOLD

MEDAL at the last GABF!), Texas Brewing Co, and (debatably) Shiner

Bock.  Several new micros are now in their final planning stages.

The number of Texas micros is likey to double within the next year.

Check the Southwest Brewing News for the latest news on micros.

"...and pub brews are not legal in Texas."

This will become UNTRUE as of Sept. 1, 1993, thanks to the combined

lobbying efforts of The Houston Public News, The Southwest Brewing News,

my Home Brew University BBS system, and concerned homebrewers and beer

lovers all over the state.  Several brewpubs are quite far along in their

planning.  I expect to see at least 5 operating brewpubs in the Lone Star

State by Jan. 1, 1994.  Again, check the Southwest Brewing News for the

latest brewpub news.

"I buy (when my homebrew is gone) Celis bock and Westend Aussie lager

but Texans need ALE!!"

Look around - we already HAVE ale!!

"Is there a 'grassroots' organization loggying Texas legislature to

change the awful anti PUB BREW laws? Sign me up."

The law has already been changed.  Next time, try looking around and

finding out what's going on before you start complaining.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------*

|              Andrew Patrick                                          |

|       SysOp,                  Houston Correspondent & Distrib. Mgr.  |

|  Home Brew Univ. BBS                  Southwest Brewing News         |

|(713)465-0265,14.4kbps,V42bis      Internet: andinator@delphi.com     |

*----------------------------------------------------------------------*

------------------------------


Source needed for fritted glass disks

Date: Sat, 12 Jun 1993 07:09:38 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Source needed for fritted glass disks

I have been developing a set of rubber stamps for marking beer caps (neat

idea huh?) and I'm up against a sourceing problem.  The optimum inks for

marking metal are solvent-based and require special stamp pads.  The pad

is a small jar about 1" i.d. with a pad of heavy felt that serves as a

reservoir covered by a fritted glass disk that evenly distributes the ink

onto the stamp.

My problem is that these special pads are too expensive to be a good deal

for people that want to use the stamps with the best inks, $5 @ in

quantity.  I want folks to have the best for the least cost, and this is

too much...

So: Can anybody out there in ScienceLand give me a lead for a source of

fritted glass disks?  They are used by glass-blowers for coarse filters

and bubblers (like in gas washing bottles).  All I need is an address or

phone # of a supplier (like Corning) for lab glassware parts.  If I can

get these cheap enough, I'd like to just toss them in with stamps.

BTW, fritting is a process like sintering metal, but applied to glass.

Powdered glass is heated and then pressed to loosely bond the granules.

The result is a porous piece of glass, like an acquarium bubbler.  There

is a more exotic process by which soft soda-glass and quartz powder is

sintered with more pressure and then the soft glass is etched away with

hydrofloric acid yeilding a much finer porosity.  The resulting part can

then be slowly heated to fuse the quartz solid.  The piece shirnks without

distortion during the fusing and can yeild extremely high mechanical

tolerances.  I thought it was the neatest trick in the world....  There,

know you may know something new.  I need the crude fritted stuff in 1"

disks.

Thanks for any help

Paul de Armond

paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu

------------------------------


sanitizers part I

Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1993 11:14:07 -0500

From: donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: sanitizers part I

sorry about the reverse order of the 3 parts.

During the ongoing debate about the relative merits of iodine vs chlorine

based sanitizers there has been quite a lot of data provided, some of which

was either misinterpreted or misunderstood.  I'll summarize the relevant

data, explain more carefully the misunderstandings, and present some

additional technical information.

Here's a list of the criteria by which to judge a sanitizer for homebrewers.

 1.  Effectiveness in killing bacteria, etc.

 2.  Reactivity with materials such as 304 stainless

 3.  Ease of use

 4.  Flavor, odor, and other effects of residues

 5.  Expense, availability

 6.  Personal safety

The distinction between the 2 sanitizers is most blurry with regard to

items 1 and 2.  Making a case for one over the other is much easier when

looking at the other factors.

 1.  Sanitizing strength

Both chlorine and iodine sanitizers kill bacteria as a result of their

oxidizing power.  A strong oxidizer is a good sanitizer.  Chlorine in all

its oxidation states (dichlorine, chlorite, hypochlorite, etc) is a

stronger oxidant than the corresponding iodines.  In chemical

terms, it is said that the redox potential of chlorine is greater

than iodine.  Being a stronger oxidant, chlorine sanitizers are

expected to be more effective at killing bacteria.  However

iodine is also a sufficiently strong oxidant to work very

effectively in killing stuff and thus, in a practical sense,

the two cannot be distinguished in this regard.

The recommended dose for iodophor, which contains molecular iodine, is

12.5 mg/l (ppm).  Since each iodine atom weighs 4 times as much as

chlorine and it's the number of atoms that is important, then a chlorine

concentration of 3.5 mg/l will give the same sanitizing effect.  Household

bleach is about 5% sodium hypochlorite by weight.  So how much bleach

do we need in each gallon to get the same sanitizing effect as

iodophor.  Incredibly only 0.02 ounce!  That's 50 times lower than

1 oz/gallon, 25 times lower than 1 tablespoon/gallon.  For those more

familiar with teaspoons, you need only add about 1/2 teaspoon of

bleach in the entire 5 gallon keg to achieve the same level of sanitation

that iodophor provides!  Furthermore this concentration is about 70

times below the known safe level for reactivity with 304 stainless.

By the way, both bleach and iodophor need only be applied for 5 or 10

minutes for sanitizing.

------------------------------


Maybe a stupid question, but...

Date: Sun, 13 Jun 93 17:47 GMT

From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>

Subject: Maybe a stupid question, but...

Like many people I'm paying more attention these days to getting adequate

oxygen levels in my wort prior to fermenation.  Some people are using

aquarium pumps and stones for this job, and the current issue of

BREWING TECHNIQUES includes a proposed setup with activated carbon filter

to remove plastic-type flavors that might be induced from the pump and

tubing.

It would seem to me, though, that the primary concern would be the

introduction of bacteria or wild yeasts, since these pumps are really just

inducing a flow of unfiltered outside air.  This leads me to two questions:

1) Among the people out there who are using the pump/stone arrangement,

is there any sense that higher levels of infection are a problem?

2) Is there a good filter, say 2-micron, that can easily and cheaply be

put into the tube line to filter out evil organisms?

I was pondering these yesterday when I happened to wander into my local

Trak Auto.  Yes, folks, this is probably a stupid idea, but would an in-

line gasoline filter work for this purpose?  They're certainly cheap

enough, and come in a zillion varieties that could easily be attached to

the various hoses.

Looking at a few of these I was impressed at how similar they are in

structure to larger-scale brewing filters.  However, none was labeled with

the level of filtration provided, and there's always the possibility that

some nasty chemicals might be involved.

Begin a truly non-handy type person, could the more ept (as opposed to

inept) out there provide any comments?  Also, do those of you with all

those supply catalogs see any useful alternatives?

Finally, I might add an aside to those who haven't yet considered this

method of aeration: it appears that a new aquarium pump, stone, and tubes

can be had for under $15.  In other words, not a big investment for some

potentially quite beneficial results.

Thanks in advance for any comments!

Phil Seitz

PSEITZ@MCIMAIL.COM

Arlington, Virginia

------------------------------


Headaches

Date:    Sun, 13 Jun 1993 14:12 EDT

From: Phil Hultin <HULTINP@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>

Subject: Headaches

Certainly, the absolute amount of alcohol consumed is the #1 determinant

of headaches and other unpleasant side effects.  Nevertheless, I also

have observed that commercial beers in EQUAL amounts produce much worse

effects than homebrews.  And, that the products of the large breweries

are worse than those of certain microbreweries which do not add stuff

to their products.

As I am a chemist by profession, I will NOT refer to this stuff as

"C*******s".  After all, every substance in everything in the entire

universe is a "C*******".  BUT, I know that several of the specific

items added to commercial brews can have adverse effects on certain

individuals - allergic reactions etc.  So, I do not see anything

odd in the reports of bad headaches from commercial product.

Don't consume much of THAT stuff myself, anyhow.  Don't consume much

at any one time, in fact.  Probably better that way.  P.

------------------------------


COPS in PORTLAND

Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1993 15:56:23 -0400 (EDT)

From: Stephen Brent Peters <sp2q+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: COPS in PORTLAND

Someone told me that she was watching COPS in PORTLAND as they busted

some poor homebrewer for growing pot.  Apparently this guy had an

impressive set-up with lots of groovy stainless steel.  As the camera

panned over the equipment a friendly officer explained how lucky it

was they caught this "creep" because probably hundreds of people were

going blind from drinking his illegal moonshine.  She said the last

camera shot zoomed in on his copy of Papazian's book.  Of course, they

were confiscating everything.

so much for rush limberger's "Liberal Media."

               Steve Peters =  sp2q@andrew.cmu.edu

                  *Oxnar demands a _Sacrifice!_*

------------------------------


Yeast and Acid Washes

Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 09:02:38 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: Yeast and Acid Washes

A couple of questions.

1) John "Crazy Experimenter" McHarry figures that since seltzer is acidic

   from the CO2 in solution (carbonic acid?), it would be useful for acid

   washing yeast (and should be reasonably sterile from the store).  Any

   data points out there?

2) What about technical references in this area?

Thanks.

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


mangos & prickly pears

Date: Monday, 14 June 93 09:07:09 CST

From: LLAPV@UTXDP.DP.UTEXAS.EDU

Subject: mangos & prickly pears

I've seen a lot of discussion on strawberries lately, but has anyone out there

tried more exotic fruits in beer, such as mangos or prickly pears?  From

reading about using prickly pears in mead, I understand you can boil it with

the wort.  I'm interested, because mangos are real cheap right now (3 for a

dollar), & it'd be a darned shame to let something as novel as this pass me

by.

Hoping your closets stay cool this summer,

avd

------------------------------


Homebrew clubs in Baltimore MD

Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 10:47:26 EDT

From: Hal Laurent <laurent@tamdno.ENET.dec.com>

Subject: Homebrew clubs in Baltimore MD

I'm looking for information on homebrew clubs in the Baltimore Maryland

area.  If anyone can help, please send me mail at laurent@tamdno.enet.dec.com.

Thanks,

Hal Laurent

------------------------------


FILTERING

Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 09:54 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: FILTERING

 Judging from my experience and that of a brewer who posted an article to

 rec.crafts.brewing, there seems to be a problem with the filters being sold

 to the homebrewing community.

 I won't name my source or his, other than to say they are not the same, in

 order to give them an opportunity to rectify the problem.   I told my source

 and he is looking into it.

 I purchased a filter system with a .5 micron filter and was very disappointed

 with the results, viz. no visible change in the turbidity of the beer after

 filtering.

 Not willing to accept these results, I purchased a known .5 micron filter

 cartridge from McMaster Carr and ran some tests on it which convinced me that

 the .5 micron cartridge that came with the filter, most assuridly was not.

 I ran a gallon of water with one oz (by volume) of corn starch through both

 filters and the results were strikingly different.  The filtrate from the

 McMaster cartridge was sparklingly clear and the other looked about like a

 beer I would want to filter.

 I then ran a batch of stubbornly hazy red wine through the McMaster filter

 and it emerged dazzlingly clear.

 From a physical standpoint, the McMaster cartridge is several ounces heavier

 than the other and takes about 5 times as long to dry out after use.

 Furthermore, it is darker in color and made of cotton.

 The McMaster catalog has a wide variety of filters and cartridges but what is

 notable is that the only string type, submicron filter is cotton.  All the

 synthetic fiber cartridges are 5 microns or larger.

 So, if you are having problems getting what you expected from your submicron

 filter, I suggest you run the above cornstarch test on your filter and if it

 does not come out clear, complain to your supplier or order one from

 McMaster-Carr.

      The part number is 4411K91 and costs $11.82.

 This is a 10" cartridge.  If you have the smaller one, you will have to look

 elsewhere.

       Phone number is (708) 833 0300

 A note on filter use....  It seems assumed that the filter will be used from

 keg to keg and forced by CO2.  The one I have works very well by gravity

 alone, simply inserted in a siphon line from the carboy on a table to the keg

 on the floor with the filter standing on the table.

 I also find that mine has a very large and persistant bubble that, unless

 purged with CO2, could cause aeration if not eliminated.  The simplest way to

 eliminate it is to just run the filter backwards...  by running the beer into

 the "out" connector and out the "in" connector, the canister fills completely

 and the bubble never forms.  The filter will clog up faster this way but for

 the batch sizes we run, it it not relevant.  It is also presumed that one

 would backflush the filter after each batch, which in this case is running

 clean water through it the normal way.

 js

 ZZ

------------------------------


HOMEBREW Digest Distribution List

Date: 14 Jun 93 14:56:35 UT

From: "Petrovsky Andrey "

Subject: HOMEBREW Digest Distribution List

Hi,

Please add my name to your distribution list for HOMEBREW Digest .

andrey.petrovsky@gtegsc3.sprint.com

Thanks

------------------------------


Stoudts Festival

Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 11:22:59 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Stoudts Festival

Here is my completely biased and subjective opinion of this weekends second

annual eastern regional microbrewers festival (Stoudts Fest).

For this years event there were two major changes from the way things were

conducted last year.  Firstly, there were three sessions instead of one and

this was an excellent and neccessary move.  Secondly, the food distribution

was moved into the Stoudts biergarden area, away from the beer serving area.

Both of these changes resulted in a more efficient and orderly event, and

made the task of getting some food much easier.

Each session had 1,000 tickets sold.  The last session that was added later

than the first two, was almost sold out (~950).

Working from memory, there were approximately 25 microbreweries and brewpubs

in attendance, with most serving 2-3 styles of beer.  Attendees received a

Festival tasting glass and a meal ticket for kraut, german wersts and some

of Ed Stoudts excellent fresh bread.

Each session lasted 4 hours.  Attendees were allowed to sample beers at will

without additional cost during this period.  The breweries were not paid for

thier beers, but each brewery did receive a complimentary hotel room and

all brewers and helpers also were fed a prime rib dinner between the Saturday

afternoon and evening sessions.  I personnaly believe this festival combines

the best aspects of the Oregon Brewers Fest with that of the GABF: one entry

admission, no competition medals, as many beers as each brewery wants to bring,

and the added Stoudts touch of a good meal included in the admission price.

The other great thing about this festival is that I love the surrounding

countryside.  It is a great place to camp, bike and do whatever.

My personal favorites from the fest:

McNeil's Brewpub, Brattleboro, Vermont:

This is a hombrewers paradise.  The brewery is a 4 BBl operation, and the beers

are genuinely hand crafted, unfiltered and produced with quality ingrediants.

My favorite was the Helles Bock.  A 16P beer, it is made with Moravian malt,

and german noble hops, hallertau & tettnang.  This beer is a hoppier version

of Sierras Pale Bock.  A very good hoppy american bock.

Zip City, NYC:

Despite some negative press in the past I believe Bob Berg is doing

a good job of making some pretty tasty lagers.  If you wrote off this brewery

in the past, give it another try.

Arrowhead Brewing Co, Chambersburg, PA.

The makers of Red Feather Pale Ale, the brewhaus is a typical Peter Austin

Associates design, using ringwood ale yeast, torrefied wheat flakes, the

Austin hop perculator, and of course open fermenters.  I am not always a fan

of the ringwood family of beers, but each time I have another Red Feather,

I am impressed by the clean snappiness and great hoppiness of the beer.  Of

all the Austin breweries, Arrowhead seems to be the one that controls the

yeasts tendancy to throw diacetyl.

Stoudts Brewing Co:

The success of this brewery continues.  Ed & Carol Stoudt run a tight ship,

with the brewery and GM? run by Tom Rupp.  For the festival, Stoudts had a

Festival beer, a Double Honey Maibock and an Oatmeal Stout.  The Maibock is

amazingly drinkable for about 9% ABV.  The real winners form this brewery

were only found in bottles or on draft on Sunday: Export/Gold, and Bock. Tom

warned me that the bock is thier best effort yet and it was a truley delicous

traditional bock.  Also of note is the Adamstown Amber, a amber lager with

great malt/hop balance.  Tom reminded me that he leans toward balanced beers,

so I avoided pushing my 45 IBU pale ale on him.  Tom is in the process of a

considerable brewery expansion with 90? BBl Unis due soon , a new cold box

and a 30 BBl brewhaus to replace the current 15 BBl. The new sudhaus will be

steam fired as opposed to the current direct fired one.  Hopefully, the

character of the beers will remain the same.

Baltimore Brewing Co:

Yes I am a bit biased here, as most of my labor was devoted to pouring and

explaining these beers to fest goers.  But, from feedback during all three

sessions, the Baltimore Weizen (mit hefe) was terrific.  The characteristic

Paulaner weizen/banana esters were evident, and the 5% ABV made it a nicely

poundable beer.  For people who will be in the Baltimore area, this weizen

is still available and will be followed by a Weizen Bock.

Notable missing brewery from last year:

Great Lakes Brewing Co, Cleveland.  I spoke with the brewer, Andy, who was in

attendance despite his beers absence.  It appears that success has reared its

ugly head again, and the brewery was unable to sacrafice the required kegs and

still supply the pub and its accounts.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this a great festival, espically the Stoudts,

Tom Rupp and all of the helpers who carried kegs and trash cans of water. See

ya next year!

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Recipe for Jalapeno Beer

Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 09:39:55 -0600

From: Vincent Heuring <heuring@riker.cs.colorado.edu>

Subject: Recipe for Jalapeno Beer

My wife wants me to brew up a batch of jalapeno beer!

Yes, folks, it's true. We paid a visit to Fort Collins last week, to

visit the *three* microbrewerys there, and to visit Coopersmiths, the

local brewpub. Coopersmiths has, among their six always-available beers,

a "Chili Beer," and my wife was wild about it. The beer *was* really good.

Extremely dry, light in color, with an immediately noticable pepper flavor.

No hop flavor at all that I could detect, just a very dry pepper bite. Not

particularly hot, either.

Anyway, I thought that bringing a half-gallon home would satisfy her appetite,

but no, we've polished it off, and she still wants me to brew up a batch.

So, does anyone have a partial mash or extract recipe for jalapeno pepper beer?

- ---

 Vincent Heuring   Dep't of Electrical & Computer Engineering

 University of Colorado at Boulder      Boulder CO 80309-0425

 heuring@cs.Colorado.EDU   o) 303-492-8751    h) 303-449-8868

------------------------------


Large Scale Recipies, Hop Utilization, & In-keg Carbination

Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 11:17 PDT

From: Daniel A Conners <Daniel_A_Conners%~WHC110@pnlg.pnl.gov>

Subject: Large Scale Recipies, Hop Utilization, & In-keg Carbination

          NOTE: Please post your responses or reply to me at the

          following address:  gj_vargo@ccmail.pnl.gov  Thanks.

          I have been brewing in 6 finished keg batches for a few

          years.  I seem to have fallen into a rut as my beers

          generally end up as either a Golgen Ale, Red Ale, or Stout.

          All are very drinkable, but I miss the Belgian styles and

          others [i.e. (Chimays), Ayingers, and Felinfoils (SP)].

          Will anyone please post or E-Mail me "PROVEN" large scale

          batch recipies (part of my reluntance to vary significantly

          from the "standards" is the cost of failure - an

          unsatisfactory product deterrs my experimentation).

          Any suggestions on how I may vary my process are also very

          welcome.  The following is a very generic description of the

          process:

          * Bring 125 gallons water to 180 degrees F

            (gypsum added)

          * Transfer to hot water storage tanks

          * Begin mash-in of ~220 lbs (mostly two-row) at a strike

            temperature of 172-174 F (water pumped to bottom of

            mash-tun)

          * Complete mashing over a 20-30 minute period, cover grain

            with 1-2 inches of water

          * Cover mash-tun, rest for 1:15 minutes (grain core

            temperature is ~140-145 F at finish)

          * Sparge (by pumping into sparge ring) with remaining water

            (~150-160 F); valve out to Lauter-back and pump back to

            kettle (last of wort has little sweetness if any); balance

            flows in and out

          * Add additional gypsum, citric acid, and table salt; heat

            to boil.

          * Boil ~35 minutes add first hop pitch (usually

            12-18 oz. of high alpha hop pellets -

            Centennials/Cascades/Fuggels)

          * Continue boiling for ~40 minutes add finish hop pellets

            (usually 8-11 oz.) apply heat for 3-5 minutes to assure

            wort turnover and hop mixing (Tetenger, Willamette,

            Fuggels, Cascade, Centennial)

          * Run thru tube and shell heat exchanger to get wort to

            78 F maximum (prefer 68-72 F); pump to two sterile

            fermenters

          * Grab two 1/2 quart samples for yeast rehydration; take

            hydrometer and temperature readings to determine O.G.

          * Pitch rehydrated Whitbread Ale yeast, Batch 18 (usually

            1-1/2 to 1-3/4 oz. per 1/2 quart starter) warmed to ~85 F

          * Primary ends 3 days later, wort pumped up to elevated

            secondary fermenters; allow to work 10-20 days

          * Gravity feed to 15.5 gallon kegs (Golden Gate style) and

            bung

          * Force carbonate by slowly adding co2 to bottom shank and

            gradually increase pressure to ~25 psi at 60 degree F over

            3 days

          * Chill thoroughly, reduce keg pressure to dispensing

            pressure

          Any comments, suggestions, repremands?

          Secondly, I'm down to my last 8 oz of Whitbread yeast any

          suggestions on a new variety that would compliment the above

          process or a suggested improvement.  How do the hop

          utilization tables I've seen on the Digest fit the larger

          batches?  And lastly, has any one developed a set of co2

          tables out to the 60-70 F range and up to ~30 psi.

          Obviously, the saturation rate is slow at my household

          temperatures (they were off scale of the tables published in

          "The New Brewer" a year or so ago.  Carbination suggestions

          are also welcome.  Thanks for the patience and the extra

          bandwidth.

          Sincerely,

          Dan Conners

------------------------------


canned beer

Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 13:48:46 CDT

From: jlf@palm.cray.com (John Freeman)

Subject: canned beer

Well, thanks to several who responded to me about palatable beer in cans.

My fishing buddy showed up with Summit and Sam Adams this weekend.  Here

is a summary of what people told me.

beer      recommend by

- ----      ------------

Yuengling Black and Tan    Rob Dobson, Timothy Sweet

Miller special reserve amber ale (maybe) Chip Hitchcock

Foster's Lager     Fred Smith

Guinness Stout Pub Draught   Donald G. Scheidt and

      Bryan Kornreich and

      Richard Stueven and

      not Chip Hitchcock

Beck's       Donald G. Scheidt

Heineken     Donald G. Scheidt, Bart Thielges

Tsingtao     Donald G. Scheidt

Lowenbrau     Donald G. Scheidt

reuse a (some) cleaned plastic bottle(s) Donald G. Scheidt

Holsten      Bart Thielges

Weinhard's Ale     Bart Thielges

Ballantine Dark Ale    Bryan Kornreich

drink cheap beer     Bryan Kornreich

I hope I got the credits right, I got mixed up in the middle of making

the list, and already deleted the mail.  My apologies if I got it wrong.

This makes an excellent list to draw from.  Again my thanks to you all.

------------------------------


Slugfest in the Sierras

Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 13:16 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: Slugfest in the Sierras

It came to pass that the garden slugs had become too greedy.

Peaceful coexistence was not working out.  Plant damage was

occurring at an accelerated rate and it wouldn't have been long

until irreversible damage was inflicted.  Granted, all creatures

great and small have a place in the Grand Design but the time had

come to give the slugs their walking papers.

For those who are not gardeners, beer is probably the cheapest and

easiest slug countermeasure.  The method is simple and effective.

Submerge a small container into the ground so that the lip is level

with the ground.  Fill the container with beer.  In effect you're

making a lilliputian beer swimming pool.  At night, the slugs are

attracted to the beer (the malt me thinks).  The slugs drink the

beer, loose their sober composure and fall into the container.

Having never taken swimming classes, the slugs drown.  Are you

listening, Kevorkian?

It was my intention to use homebrew because:  1) a bottle of

homebrew was a small price to pay for slug abatement and  2) I

don't have any Sam Adams(tm).  Planning and executing the mass

murder was easy until I opened the fridge.  To my surprise there

was no homebrew.  None.  Oh sure, there was Baderbrau Pils and

Bock, Celis White, Edelweiss Dunkel, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and

Mackeson's Stout.  But not one stinkin' bottle of homebrew.  It

seemed I was going to treat a bunch of freeloading gastropods to

the good stuff after all.  The question was which beer would be

sacrificed.  Choosing was going to be tough.

My mind quickly went into Beer Assessment Mode.  OK, no way do the

slugs get the Celis or the Mackeson's.  Not the Edelweiss either.

The Baderbrau Pils was exceptionally fresh and so was a keeper.

Remaining was the Baderbrau Bock or the SNPA.  The logical choice

would have been the bock as it was getting old.  But I was afraid

some of the more un-adventuresome slugs, not unlike some humans I

know, might not like "dark beer".  So the poison of the day was to

be SNPA.  I felt this was a sound choice because if drowning didn't

kill the slugs, the bitterness surely would.

chris campanelli

------------------------------


Kegging suppllies

Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 16:04:39 MDT

From: pjd@craycos.com (Phil Duclos)

Subject: Kegging suppllies

 Some of you may not be aware of a recent pricing change by a

supplier of kegging equipment and supplies. About a year ago Foxx Equipment

Company of Denver & Kansas City sent a letter out to homebrew clubs

inviting them to pool their member's orders and offering wholesale prices to

clubs on quantities of 3 or more of any item. This policy has changed.

 The Deep Wort homebrew club was one of the clubs which took Foxx

up on this policy and placed orders for a variety small miscellaneous

parts for kegging. Popular items included both large and small o-rings

for the kegs, faucet parts, shanks, and keg connectors. One member agreed

to act as a focal point and arrange the orders. The orders typically came

to about $200. Quantity savings were passed along to the members and a lot

of hard to get items got supplied. Some people ordered 1 item just because

it was readily available through this service and unavailable otherwise even

though there was no price break. Nobody ordered complete kegging systems or

kegs.

 When our latest order arrived we were surprised to find that we had

been charged retail prices on all items, even those of quantity 3 or more.

A phone call revealed that Foxx's policy had changed. The conversation also

revealed the reasons for this change. Apparently few homebrew clubs responded

to Foxx's offer. Those that did got a good deal. Those that didn't continued

to look elsewhere for those parts or just did without. Foxx was less than

overwhelmed with the response. Also some big homebrew suppliers complained.

Apparently they felt that Foxx was competing with them by offering wholesale

prices to homebrew clubs.

 Now I get a lot of homebrew catalogs and pretty much know what's on

the shelf in the local homebrew stores and I have NEVER seen the parts

that we order in either place. I see complete kegging systems, kegs,

regulators, etc. But faucet knobs, shanks, 1/4" barb gas disconnects, dip

tube o-rings and the like, NEVER. And I think that I understand why. The

homebrew suppliers have limited shelf space and capital and feel that its

better to stock stuff which has a higher turnover. OK, sounds like a good

business decision to me. However, to then turn around and complain to

the supplier of these parts that they are in competition with them is

ridiculous!

 Well, there are alternatives and probably the easiest is to simply

knuckle under and pay the higher prices. However, no policy is ever set in

stone and the better solution, I think, would be to convince Foxx that there

really is a market for quantity sales to homebrew clubs and that they

demand wholesale prices for quantity purchases. The way to do this is to

write to the owner of the company at the following address and express

your opinion:

 Ford Mauer - Owner

 Foxx Equipment Company

 421 Southwest Boulevard

 Kansas City, Missouri 64108

 If you're not interested, don't use this stuff, don't care, like

higher prices or whatever, OK, don't bother. I actually think that there is

a sizeable demand out there that has been thwarted by lack of knowledge and

frustrated by lack of availability.  If I am wrong, OK. I also am not

attacking homebrew suppliers. They are great and work on slim margins and

have limited capital and lots of competition, etc. They also don`t carry

what I need, so I see no conflict. What I am trying to do is make people

aware of a opportunity that they have lost. I think that if enough clubs

respond, Foxx will change their policy.

 This isn't an endorsement for Foxx Equipment Co either. There are

other suppliers such as Rapids, Superior, etc. Foxx has just been the one

we have been dealing with, that's all.

Thanks,

phil duclos

------------------------------


Not me in the picture

Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 20:15:24 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Not me in the picture

I just got my issue of Zymurgy today, and since a lot of you have

already asked, no, that is not me in the picture.  I don't know who it is.

Besides, if it was me I'd be face down!  ;-)

Mark from HopTech

------------------------------


Hop Oils

Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 20:12:44 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hop Oils

                         New Product Announcement

In my article in the Summer '93 Zymurgy (Boost Hop Bouquet with Dry Hopping)

I talked about CO2 extracted hop oils.  As the article stated, measuring the

very tiny amounts of hop oil needed takes lab equipment and lab skills,

beyond those of most homebrewers (but probably not beyond quite a few

Digest readers).  Anyway, the article states that I was working on a solution

to the problem.  It was supposed to have a P.O. Box where you could write

me to keep informed of any progress.  Unfortunately, they edited that part out.

To make a long story short, HopTech now has available CO2 extracted hop oils

that have been formulated in a stable, water-based suspension that are easy to

add to homebrew sized batches.  It is calibrated so that 1 tsp of hop oil equals

1 ppm of hop oil in 5 gallons.  Average usage, depending on the style of beer

and your taste, runs between 1 and 3 ppm.  We sell it in 2 oz bottles,

enough to add 2 ppm to 30 gallons of beer.

We have three varieties available:

Premium British Blend, made with a carefully controlled blend of English and

European hops that allows extremely consistent aroma characteristics from year

to year.  Very floral in character.

British Blend, very similar to the Premium British Blend, but the aroma

characteristics are slightly less consistent from year-to-year, allowing a less

expensive price.

Pure East Kent Goldings.  Wow!  The real thing.  Very smooth and mellow hop

aroma.  Not nearly as floral as the two British Blends.  This is rare,

expensive and worth it.  Limited supply.

For a HopTech catalog or to order, call 1-800-DRY-HOPS M-F or you can email

mgaretz@hoptech.com.  Fax is 510-736-7950.  Or you can ask your favorite

homebrew supplier to carry our products.

Mark from HopTech

------------------------------


Re: Dogbolter

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 10:47:16 BST

From: des@pandora.swindon.ingr.com (Desmond Mottram)

Subject: Re: Dogbolter

Joseph Gareri writes

 ...

> Subject: Dogbolter(R)

>

> I was recently given a Dogbolter(R) kit as a present.  I'm not a

> fan of kits, but I'm not inclined to throw something out either.

>

> Has anyone had any experience with either this kit or the commercial

> product?  The kit says it originated in 1979 when David Bruce first opened

> the GOOSE AND FIRKIN in Southwark UK.  It is supposed to be brewed to an

> OG of 1060.

I've drunk the beer and brewed the kit. The beer is good and the kit is too,

as kits go. Though it's a long way short of the original. The OG seems a bit

high. I thought it was about 1055.

>

> I am hesitant to use the yeast packet that came with the kit, but I'm not

> sure what I should replace it with.  Also, the instructions say to add

> 2 1/2 lb. white sugar along with the extract.  This seems like a lot of

> cane sugar for the amount of malt.  I'm guessing the can is 3.3lb.

The yeast will be OK but if you want to replace it I'd suggest something

like a London Ale yeast - not sure of the yeasts you have available. 1kg of

white sugar is a normal ingredient of UK beer kits. It's to keep costs down

and does nothing to improve the beer. Many people use two kits instead or

brew half the quantity without the sugar. The can is probably 1.8kg.

You could boil it up with 4 pints of water and then add about 2 gallons of

cold water. Take an SG and temperature reading. Aim for an OG of about

1055-1060 and a temperature about 20C. You could add small quantities of hot

or cold water and/or sugar until you get there. Pitch the yeast and follow

the rest of the instructions on the kit. You should get a pretty good beer.

>

> Any help?  They classify Dogbolter(R) as a "strong ale".

>

Yes, it's strong for a British bitter, somewhere around 5.5% abv.

> Joe Gareri

> Boston, MA

>

Desmond Mottram

Swindon, UK

------------------------------


Re: Refrigeration/Fermenting

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 08:56:29 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: Re: Refrigeration/Fermenting

>How do people of ordinary means accomodate large numbers of fermenters

>and kegs?

Well, how do they *acquire* large numbers? <g>

There is an interesting article in one of the earliest books published

("Beer and Brewing"?) with transcripts of the AHA Conference talks.  It is

how someone built a walk-in fermentation room.  If I remember correctly, it

was basically built with stiff insulation boards used in building houses,

with an airconditioning unit inside.  Pretty neat.

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


Fullers ESB

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 9:37:33 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Fullers ESB

Jay,

I saw your fullers question in todays HBD and since I just returned

from the brewery I cant resist answering the question:

<My question is, since you've evidently been to the source, which is closer

to the product served at the brewery, the U.S. tap or the U.S. bottled?

Neither!  In the brewery they serve Fullers ESB Cask Conditioned Ale.

This is near the gravity of the draft US version but is cask hopped with

K. Goldings Hop Plugs (just like homebrewers use).

An interesting point is that the UK bottles/cans and polypins are packaged

with hop oil and therefore do not have hop parts floating.

Also, the London Pride Cask is 4.0 ABV while the canned/bottled version is

4.7.  This is fairly typical in that you are expected to pound 20 oz pints

in the pub.

<10# 2-row

1/2# crystal, 60L - 90L

1/2# carapils

1# brown sugar, 60 minutes

2 oz Fuggles, 60 minutes

 .5 oz Kent Golding, 30 minutes

  .5 oz Kent Golding, 5 minutes

  1.5 oz Kent Golding, dry hopped in secondary

  Yweast London Ale (1028) yeast

  OG: 1048

  FG: 1012

  There is no Fuggles in ESB or any of the Fullers beers.  They use English

  Target, Challenger and Northdown.  EKG is in the finish & cask hopping

  of both Chiswick Bitter (very good bitter) and ESB.  BTW the kettle hops

  are Lupofresh( challenger, 91) pellets from Kent and Worscester.  They

  "Burtonize" the brewing water using mineral salts. A single temp infusion

  is employed. The ESB is 1.052 OG (apparently this was reduced for the US

  market, according to a brewer I was drinking with in the Pub next door).

  I was told they used to use sugar but this is no longer required with the

  new mash tuns.  I missed out on the Maize part so I do not know, but I

  assume George has this correct.  Try 5- 10 % in the mash. Skip the sugar,

  use caramel malts to get the color and sweetness.

  Good brewing,

  Jim Busch

------------------------------


fermentation?...no not yet.

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1993 7:23:39 -0500 (CDT)

From: BadAssAstronomer <STOREY@fender.msfc.nasa.gov>

Subject: fermentation?...no not yet.

    Hi all

    I've got a question about fermentation. Specifically about Wyeast

    American #1056 fermentation. I pitched some of this stuff about,

    oh, 3pm on Sunday (~40 hours ago). So far, nada. Nothing but this

    sorta scummy looking growth on the beer surface. What the hell's

    going on here? I've used Wyeast in the past, but not the American

    Ale. The package swelled just fine and all that. Anyone got any

    ideas?

    scott

------------------------------


Belgian Beers and Brewpubs-any favorites?

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 10:03:23 EDT

From: ethan.mason@mail.trincoll.edu (Ethan Mason)

Subject: Belgian Beers and Brewpubs-any favorites?

I am going to Belgium next week and would like to know what the really good

beers are so I can keep a lookout for them.  I have been there before, but

was so amazed with the quantity of types, that I  just drank all the

different types I could find.  This time, however I would like to be a

little more selective and sniff out the better beers and brewpubs.  Any

personal favorites?

Thank you in advance for your time,

Ethan Mason enroute to beer heaven.

------------------------------


Beer resources on Long Island

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 10:13:52 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Beer resources on Long Island

I'm making a day trip to Cold Spring Harbor (NE corner of Nassau

county) via JFK on Thursday (6/17).  I'm looking for info on

brewpubs, dinner places with a good beer list, and/or good beer stores

somewhere between the two (CSH and JFK) or not too far out of the way.

(Yes, I checked the pub list!)  Please respond by e-mail. Thanks.

Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1163, 06/16/93

*************************************

-------


Phillmill

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 09:51 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Phillmill

 >From: "Manning, Martin P" <manning#m#_martin_p@mcst.ae.ge.com>

 >Subject: Phil's Mill Report

 >The early prototype version I used seemed to work well, i.e. gave a good

 crush, and Dan (Listermann) has tested this observation by sifting the grist

 through a set of brewery screens, and comparing the (weight) percentages left

 on each to published data for 6-roll mills.

 I won't argue that he may have improved on the Corona grind but I have his

 published "data" at hand and am a  bit annoyed at his attempt to claim that

 it is far superior to the crush that is acheived by the MALTMILL (tm).

 His bar charts show that the MM and Corona are just about identical (bad) and

 the Phillmill and the large commercial mill are identical (good).

 Considering the source, I would suggest a less than unbiased evaluation was

 done here.  His chart also shows that an improperly adjusted PM looks just

 like the Corona and the MM.  This would lead one to the obivous conclusion

 that you can prove anything you want by diddling around with them.

 I have never seen a PM but, having only one roller working against a fixed

 plate, would seem to be only a nominal improvement over a rotating plate

 working against a fixed plate as in the Corona.  I won't argue with his

 claims about it but I would be more inclined to believe what Geroge Fix said

 about the MM than what a competitor says about it, viz....

 ..........

 I received Jack's mill in Jan., 1992. Shortly thereafter it was taken to the

 Dallas Brewing Co. (DBC) for the test. The latter was done with a standard

 and well established screen sieving procedure. This is described for example

 in DeClerck, Vol. 2, pages 321-323. It in effect consists weighing out the

 grain fractions that are retained on screen meshes of diminishing width. The

 following is what we measured:

    ASBC          screen               grains retained, % by wt.

   screen no.     width, mm.             MM       DBC Mill

 ------------    ------------           ------    ---------

     10            2.000                 14          13

     14            1.410                 18          20

     18            1.000                 33          32

     30             .590                 25          25

     60             .250                  5           5

    100             .149                  3           2

 Not Retained                             2           3

                                         ----        ----

                                         100         100

 George Fix

 .................

 For the record, Listerman's published data shows the MM retains about 45% on

 the 10 mesh screen and about 50% for the Corona and 10% for his.  I would

 think that any grinding type mill (PM/Corona), as opposed to a true roller

 mill, could be adjusted so that zero is retained on #10 screen.

 I have no problem with healthy competition and it's nice to know that our

 hobby can support this kind of growth but telling fibs about someone else's

 products is not a good idea.

 js

------------------------------


Dogbolter

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 11:24:23 EDT

From: magdek@LONEXA.ADMIN.RL.AF.MIL (Kevin M. Madge)

Subject: Dogbolter

In digest #1162 Joseph Gareri asks for some info on the Dogbolter

homebrew kit.  I've brewed the kit using malt extract instead of corn

sugar.  It's definitely a strong ale.  An excellent brew; I recommend

it.  A friend of mine (Franz Haas) has had the real stuff in England.

His comments are:

 I tasted the homebrew version five years after my last long night at the

 Pheasant and Firkin (I believe it is on Goswell Ave, London) were I was a

 regular.  The homebrew reactivated those long dormant nuerons - this WAS

 the beer of my favorite local pub!! True to form and taste. We used 3lbs

 of malt extract instead of the 2.5lb of sugar.  Good luck.

Franz and I have brewed with the package yeast.

Kevin Magde

magdek@lonex.rl.af.mil

------------------------------


CDC sterilant

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1993 10:24:46 -0600

From: Paul Boor <PBOOR@beach.utmb.edu>

Subject: CDC sterilant

Yo all you high intensity Microbiology types out there in academia/industry --

Here's a thread to tie one on with:

 The Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta recently reviewed its

guidelines for sanitizing IV needles (reviewed in the Morbidity and Mortality

Weekly Report of two weeks ago).  Several large urban areas have tried to get

drug addicts to sterilize needles to decrease AIDS, despite the screams of the

likes of Jesse Helms that fed funds should not be used for such projects...

 Anyway, CDC recommends 1/4 cup/gallon water for sterilizing surfaces,

so I'm with the recent comment of R. Stueven:  Why has the bleach concentration

been plummeting?  Who really knows, like percent kill of E. coli?  I can't

believe that 1 tsp in a keg will do it; that seems about like most urban water

supplies.

 But more importantly, should we be using two different bleach

concentrations for our needles and our Kegs?  Are homebrewers out there

secretly sharing kegs?   How effective are condoms in preventing the spread of

keg-associated STDs??

 Think about it, but right now I gotta run out to the kitchen to make

sure my refrigerator light is still on.

 pboor

------------------------------


Siphons

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1993 08:28:05 -0800

From: adoval@stmarys-ca.edu

Subject: Siphons

Since the basic technique in siphoning is to get the tube filled with

liquid (free of air) before it will flow freely, _first_ fill the tube with

water, pinch one end, place the other end in the wort, lower the pinched

end into a small container and release the water, which will draw out the

wort behind it; pinch again when the water has passed through, and you're

ready to bottle.

adoval@stmarys-ca.edu

------------------------------


Opinions, Facts, and References

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 11:19:09 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Opinions, Facts, and References

In HBD #1162 Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu> write:

[snip]

>Perhaps it would be a good idea for posters to this forum to include

>(1) Their relevant education, training, experience, etc., and/or

>(2) References for their assertions.

[snip]

YES YES! I heartly concur especially with (2) above.  Please post your

references.  A lot of *published* stuff on homebrewing is contratdictory

it helps tremendously if folks cite the original sources.  This way

one can go read the original source and form one's own opion (which can

then be posted on HBD).  This in not to say that opinions an anectdotal

evidence are not import.  They are and should be posted but should also

be clearly marked as such!

Sante' WAK

------------------------------


Re: All Grain Systems

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 09:40:49 -0700

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Re: All Grain Systems

Hi Brian,

  I've been doing all grain since about Christmas, and have recently

gone through several of your questions myself.

>  + Boiling Kettle - what are the disadvantages of cutting up an old keg?

>    Is a false bottom neccessary?  For a 15 gallon capacity (10 gallon

>    beer batch) what should I look for in material thickness and other

>    features.

  An old keg is the cheapest way to get 15 gallon capacity.  The false

bottom is not a requirement, but 10-15 gallons of wort or mash is

*very* heavy, and  you don't want to pick it up.  Therefore, some kind

of bottom outflow is nice, and will require some kind of filtering to

prevent clogging.  Also note that the barrel shaped kegs as opposed to

the cylindrical Sankey kegs are harder to fabricate a false bottom

for.  If you want maximum capacity, and just cut off the very top of

the keg, the hole resulting is smaller than the desired diameter of

the false bottom.  I am currently struggling with this problem.  My

first attempt at a false bottom failed miserably last Sunday.

>  + Propane burner - Is 35K BTU's big enough?  How long to heat 12 gallons

>    of wort?

  It will work, but more is better, to a point.  If you already own

this burner, go ahead and use it, and only replace it if it is

insufficient.  There are basically two main types of burner: 1)

multiflame and 2) single flame.  Type 1 usually has the best

adjustability and gas efficiency and the lowest total heat output.

Type 2 can approach 200K btu, has very poor adjustability and poor gas

efficiency at a low heat level.  What I recommend is actually a hybrid

of the two made by King Kooker (KK does make all three types).  It has

about 20 individual flames, is nicely adjustable, and puts out 145k

btu max.  This is what I have, it will bring 12 gallons to a boil in

15-20 minutes.

   Drew

------------------------------


Dispensing with Foam

Date: 16 Jun 1993 02:13:18 -0600

From: "Manning, Martin P" <manning#m#_martin_p@mcst.ae.ge.com>

Subject: Dispensing with Foam

I sent this post last Friday, but it seems to have gotten lost. Excuse me if it

appears twice.

I have solved the problem of getting the right amount of foam when dispensing

beer from soda kegs through a cobra tap in a unique way. As always, the trick

is to get the pressure at the tap to down to just above ambient by matching the

losses in the delivery line to within about 1 psi of the gauge pressure in the

keg. You can size the line such that this happens, but what about resizing part

of it by putting in a restriction? You can't place the restriction at the end

(by regulating the flow at the tap), because the pressure drop is too abrupt. I

have found, however, that you can place a restriction at the quick disconnect,

to get part of the pressure drop, and let the line take care of the rest.

My Cobra tap has the usual 1/4-in ID tubing, with a 1/4-in flare nut on the

end, which attaches to a ball lock connector. I placed a short piece of 1/4-in

ID copper tube between the cobra tap hose and the connector using a 1/4-in

flare union and two flare nuts. I then squashed the tube (nearly) flat to

create a restriction. The flattened section is about 5/8-in long, and the flow

passage inside is only about 0.020 in or so. With the regulator set for the

desired volumes of CO2, usually 10 to 15 psi for me, it works fine. In fact, I

adjusted the restriction by trial and error to get it to work properly. One

could try using an adjustable restrictor (needle valve?) to accommodate various

tank pressures. Maybe one of the entrepreneurs out there could make a killing

supplying such a thing to the mechanically disinclined.

Martin Manning

------------------------------


Basics/Twist-off Bottles/Bleach, Iodophor & Stainless

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 13:29 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Basics/Twist-off Bottles/Bleach, Iodophor & Stainless

Sorry about some of this being a bit dated, but I've been very busy (and

still am).

Bart writes:

>1) Is there an inexpensive source of malt extract in the USA ?  Part of what

Yes, $6.25/3.3# or $11/6# in single quanitities (email me for the source).

>2) Is there a market for used small scale brewing and kegging equipment ?

> looking for a used CO2 bottle, regulator, and hoses.  Ultimately,

> SOMEONE must want to get rid of their old equipment.

Not really.  Most of us are in this for the long haul.  There are low-cost

solutions.  Kegs can be purchased used and reconditioned (don't forget the

poppets!).  CO2 tanks are CO2 tanks and can be purchased from yard sales,

fire extinguisher places, etc.  Hoses and regulators are best bought new

from either a homebrew supplier or from a beverage supplier -- see your

yellow pages.

>3) I'd like to experiment with adding different sugars to my wort,

> particularly brown sugar or molasses.  Has anyone tried these ?

> Any recommendations on quantities to try ?  How about other

> sugars and their effects ?  Anyone tried dissolving a pack

> after dinner mints into their wort ?  Just kidding about

> the last one !!  You can stop grimacing now.

Hey, whatever floats your boat.  There's been beer made from roosters

(yes, male chickens).  Molasses is pretty strong flavored and thus

only really appropriate in any quantity in a dark beer.  I used 8 fl

oz in my last Imperial Stout and I could have added twice that.  For

a ligher stout, I think that 4floz to 8floz is about right.  Brown

sugar is just white (cane) sugar with molasses added back.  You can

use 1/2# to 1# in Pale Ales for interesting flavors.  In a recent

IPA, I added 2# of Raw Sugar from C&H.  It was too much -- there is

an underlying cidery tone to the beer which I hope will go away.  This

is from the sucrose and not from the "rawness" or "molasses" in the

sugar.  I'm planning to try some experiments with Succanat(tm) as

soon as I have the time.  Given that there's a lot of sucrose in it,

I would suspect that it's use should also be limited.

>4) I realize that sterility is very important.  All of the procedures

> that I've read mention that during racking, a siphon should

> be used to transfer the fermented wort.  However, I have

> yet to figure out how to start a siphon without getting my

> mouth on the end of the hose.  One procedure even specified

> "suck on the open end of the hose until you get a mouthfull

> of beer."  Even though I brush twice a day, I still worry that

> I might contaminate through this contact.  Is there any way to

> start a siphon without risking the contamination ?  Or am I

> just being too paranoid ?  Will my batch be ruined ?  And how

> do you know that the light in the fridge goes out when you close

> the door ?

Don't worry about the fridge light, but do be concerned about sanitation.

Poor sanitation is the only think (just about) that will make your beer

undrinkable.  Here's how I siphon:

1. Fill carboy or bucket with 5 gallons of water and 5 tablespoons of

Household Bleach.

2. Hold the end of the siphon hose (which, by the way, was cleaned and

rinsed thoroghly after the last use) up against the faucet and fill the

hose with tapwater.

3. Shut off the plastic hose clamp (these is really make it easier and

they only cost about $.25) or pinch off the hose to keep the water from

running out.

4. Stick the in-end of the hose in the Bleach water and let the water

running out of the hose start the siphon of the Bleach water.

5. Pinch off the hose and stick both ends in the Bleach water to sanitize

the outside as well as the inside.

6. Let this sit for about 10 minutes.

7. Dump out the carboy or bucket into another bucket for later use if you

need it.  While you are doing this, you need to keep the hose in a sanitary

place -- I either hang it from the ceiling by a string or hand it to an

assistant if I've got one.

8. Rinse the carboy or bucket well (this is the vessel you will be siphoning

into) and rinse the outside of the hose -- don't let the Bleach solution

run out of it... keep it pinched off!  Larger diameter hoses siphon faster,

but don't hold water well... I use a 5/16" OG hose.  Put a gallon or so

of clean water in the vessel -- if your tapwater is not sanitary, final

rinse in boiled water or industrial beer and use a gallon of that in the

vessel instead of tapwater).

9. Dip the rinsed hose (or racking tube, which is what I use -- it's just

easier to keep the end of it at the bottom of the vessel) into the vessel

and use the Bleach water to start the siphon of water through the hose.

Let it run for a minute or so, but don't let it run out!

10. Shut off the hoseclamp or pinch off the tube and move it to the beer

you want to siphon.

11. Use the water or industrial beer to start the siphon of the real beer.

Let the first cup or so go down the drain, cause it's mixed with what

you had in the hose.

12. The above was sort of the "siphon from one carboy to another"

instructions.  After you're done siphoning into the bottling bucket

on top of the priming solution, don't let all the beer run out of the

hose!  Stop it right before the end and then you can use this liquid

to start the siphon for the bottling too.

>OK, so now it must be obvious that I'm a neurotic miserly penny pinching

>flake.  What variety of beer would best fit my personality ?

All of them.

**************************

Alex writes:

>I hope this question isn't too obvious.  But I was wondering why most

>literature on homebrewing that I have read says "DO NOT USE TWIST OFF

>BOTTLES".

>I have used twist offs for about 10 batches and have not had any problems.

Twist off bottles are made for a different kind of capping machine than

we use.  In fact you can buy twist-off caps.  The two reasons that I would

recommend not using twist-off bottles are:

1. they are thinner glass at the top and are more likely to shatter during

capping, and

2. the press-on cappers that we use are not the right kind for this type

of bottle and there's a chance that the cap won't seat properly and there

will be a leak (flat beer).

**********************

There's been a lot of conflicting information posted regarding Bleach,

Iodophor and Stainless Steel.  I'm in the process of thoroughly researching

the "bottom line" and will post (what I hope will be) the definative answer

when I have collected all the data from experts in the appropriate fields.

Stay tuned.

Al.

------------------------------


Hangovers

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1993 11:37:45 -0800

From: pohl@unixg.ubc.ca (Derrick Pohl)

Subject: Hangovers

In HBD #1162, cjh@diaspar.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Chip Hitchcock) writes:

>   Certainly dehydration plays a part in hangovers; if you've binged one of

>the better protections is aspirin and lots of water /before/ you crash. But

>I don't think it connects to lack of hangover in homebrews. Yeast may be

>part of the effect, since B vitamins are commonly claimed to be effective

>against hangovers; I don't know whether any sound research has been done on

>this

This inspires me.  Having been an early contributor to the recent

headache/industrial brew thread, no doubt a frequently arising topic of

discussion, let me launch what is probably another recurring thread:

hangover cures.  Here's mine:  it's common sense, and works wonders.  In

order of importance:

1) Water.  Lots of it.  As much as you can stomach before bed (at least a

pint), put a pint beside the bed for when you wake up, and drink more

(water, that is) after you wake up.

2) Sleep.  As much as you can get away with.  An extra hour or two will

make a world of difference.

3) Acetominophen/Caffeine/Codeine (8 mg) compound tablets.  These are

available over the counter in Canada.  You have to ask the pharmacist for

them.  Generic brands are way cheaper than the Tylenol version.  Take 2 or

3 upon wakening.  The acetominophen is easier on the stomach than aspirin,

the codeine makes life much more pleasant (but can cause nausea in large

amounts, so don't pop those Tylenol 3's you've been saving from your wisdom

tooth operation - they have 30 mg codeine apiece), and as for the caffeine,

see below.

4) Caffeine.  Not only does caffeine have analgesic properties of its own,

it also increases the analgesic power of acetominophen and aspirin by

something like a factor of two.  Put on the coffee pot immediately upon

awakening.

5) Cannabis.  Seriously.  Really helps take the edge off things.  An

effective analgesic, anti-nauseant, and appetite stimulant (see below).

6) Food.  Don't starve yourself, cuz low blood sugar will only make matters

worse.

Of course, there's always the hair-of-the-dog-that-bit-you school....  I

haven't mentioned vitamin B, but I think it's pretty important too.  I've

found I get more of a headache from commercial natural brews that have had

the yeast filtered out than I do from bottle-conditioned beer, be it

commercial or homebrewed.

Happy quaffin'!

- ------

Derrick Pohl (pohl@unixg.ubc.ca)

Vancouver, B.C.

------------------------------


HELP FOR BEGINNERS

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 14:28:16 -0500

From: caudill@crss.com (Patrick Caudill)

Subject: HELP FOR BEGINNERS

My friend and I just got started with a kit (yes, real newbies here) and we

were wondering about good stores in the Oklahoma/Texas/Arkansas/Kansas area

that carry homebrew supplies.  We'd appreciate any pointers that you experts

could give.  Also, suggestions for a good, simple beginners' book would

also be appreciated.  Please e-mail to the following addresses

caudill@crss.com

phcaudil@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu

RYAN@rmg.pge.uoknor.edu

Thanks!

------------------------------


brewing capitol of the world

Date: 15 Jun 1993 15:49:43 -0500 (EST)

From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

Subject: brewing capitol of the world

Every so often I see proclamations in this forum or others that make statements

such as "Portland is Beer Heaven" or (as in yesterday's HBD) "Colorado (the

brewing capital of the world)".

Please, let's not be so provincial.

It is very easy in the current renaissance-in-brewing atmosphere in the US to

get wrapped up in our own little corner of the world and think that we sit on

top of the best beer.  But the truth is that we're not even close.  There is

high quality brew in this country, but there is also a *lot* more mediocre beer

being made, whether you're talking the East Coast, the West Coast, or

somewhere in between.

Beer Heaven (and the Brewing Capitol of the World) in undoubtedly located in

Europe.  I'd nominate Belgium for Heaven, Bavaria for the Capitol, with the

British Isles and the rest of Germany as close also-rans.

The USA is hardly in the race.

If you've been to Europe, you know what I mean.  If you haven't been there,

what are you waiting for?

Steve

------------------------------


counter pressure fillers

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 15:14:06 CDT

From: jay marshall <marshall@pat.mdc.com>

Subject: counter pressure fillers

I'm looking for a counter-pressure filler and was wondering if anybody

has used the one made by Benjamine Machine Products (Modesto CA) that

is advertised in Zymurgy occasionally.  Also, I have heard that the

CPF made by Foxx doesn't work as well as it should.  Can anybody comment?

thanks,

- --

Jay

marshall@pat.mdc.com

------------------------------


Re: Dogbolter

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 13:55

From: CCASTELL.UNIX11@mailsrv2.eldec.com (CCASTELL)

Subject: Re: Dogbolter

Joseph Gareri asked about Dogbolter.  I have used it twice and

have been quite satisfied both times.  The first time I made it

almost according to the instructions.  (I was curious what it

tasted like, never having been to any of David Bruce's pubs.)

The first attempt was:

4 lbs Dogbolter hopped malt extract syrup

2-1/2 lbs corn sugar

1 tsp Irish moss

Brewer's Choice 1098 (British Ale) liquid yeast

(in at least a pint of starter)

yield:  3 gallons

Bring 3 gallons of water to a boil.  Add syrup and sugar,

stirring vigorously until dissolved to avoid scorching.

Boil for 15 minutes, adding Irish moss for final 5 minutes.

Cool.  Strain into carboy.  Pitch yeast.  Rack to secondary

after about a week.  After two weeks in the secondary, rack

to a 3-gallon keg.  Force carbonate.  (I was in a hurry.)

Chill to cellar temperature and serve.

This makes a Strong Pale or Amber Ale.  I took this to a friend's

Christmas party along with a 3 gallon keg of an all-grain stout.

Both were completely consumed, but EVERYONE liked this as opposed

to the slightly smaller group that liked the stout.

For my second attempt, I thought that I'd try a "Winter Warmer".

I thought about using some specialty malts, but figured anything

they might add would be overwhelmed by the malt and alcohol.

Winter Warmer

8 lbs Dogbolter hopped malt extract syrup

3 lbs rice syrup

1 tsp Irish moss

Brewer's Choice 1056 (American Ale) liquid yeast

(in at least a pint of starter)

yield:  5 gallons

Bring 5 gallons of water to a boil.  Add syrups, stirring

vigorously until dissolved to avoid scorching.  Boil for

15 minutes, adding Irish moss for final 5 minutes.  Cool.

Strain into carboy.  Pitch yeast.  Rack to secondary after

about a week.  After two weeks, rack to 5-gallon keg.

Force carbonate.  Chill to cellar temperature and serve.

This mades a very dark Strong Ale.  I took this to the same

friend's Christmas party this past year along with an extract/

specialty malt Christmas ale (spices, oranges, etc.)  Once

again, both were emptied.  However, those who had thought the

stout was too dark/heavy/chewy had no problem drinking this

dark strong ale, which was quite dark and very potent!

Cheers.

Charles Castellow       ccastell@eldec.com

------------------------------


Hop Utilization

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 18:00:52 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hop Utilization

Glenn Tinseth and Bob Jones write about my hop utilization table.

Bob would still like to see the yeast calculation separated from

the boil time utilization, and Glenn basically agrees.  Glenn

goes on to say that the boil time has no effect on the yeast's

absorbtion of alpha acids.

I agree perfectly with Glenn's statement.  I was not meaning to

imply with the table that there was a direct relationship between

the effect of the yeast and *the amount of alpha acid isomerized

per minute of boil time*.  However, the table is NOT a table of

percent alpha isomerized, but is a UTILIZATION FACTOR table. The

utilization as it relates to IBUs in the finished beer.  Just

because Rager only put boil time in the table, doesn't change

what it attempts to accomplish (I verified this by checking

Rager's article just now).  I have simply added another dimension

to the table, for yeast effects.  There is no special magic here,

the yeast calculation is a straight percentage reduction or

increase from the "average" value in the table (20% either way).

Since you multiply this percentage times the "average" value, it

makes no difference in the final calculation whether you combine

the steps as I did, or do them separately as Glenn and Bob

suggest.  I was simply trying to make the IBU calculations easier

by combining the step.  (It also keeps Rager's formula the same).

I can see Bob's point that if the yeast adjustment value is wrong,

the table will need to be updated.  But as Glenn points out, that

is inevitable anyway as we get closer to better utilization

curves.  Also as Glenn points out, there are many more factors

to be considered other than boil time, gravity and yeast.

Eventually, I'm conviced that the whole table will be thrown out

in favor of a much more complicated formula that will take a lot

of these other factors into account.  If one wishes to separate

the yeast adjustment factor out, then use the "average" value

in the table and adjust your utilization up or down to account for

the effect of yeast.

BTW, Rager credits not only Eckhardt for the calculations, but

also Byron Burch and Dave Miller.  Eckhardt only gets sole credit

for the table of beer styles vs. IBUs.

Mark from HopTech

------------------------------


Re: Dogbolter

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 22:50:50 -0400

From: jxs58@po.CWRU.Edu (J. David Stepp)

Subject: Re: Dogbolter

Joe Gareri asks about Dogbolter.  I've brewed this kit twice in the past

few years and really enjoy the end result.  Both times I used 2 cans (8

lbs. total) + 3 lbs. M&F light dry malt.  My OG's were 1.054 and 1.059.  It

is definitely a strong ale (5-6% EtOH) with a full flavor and dark amber

color.  I used their yeast both times.  I've since cultured and plated out

some of the yeast and found no bacterial contamination (on YEPD plates).  I

vote yes, spark it up!  (By the way, I'm an extract/specialty grain brewer

with about 4 years/40 batches under my belt, and a graduate student in a

yeast lab.)

Dave

- --

Dave Stepp

Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology

Case Western Reserve University

Cleve-burg, OH

------------------------------


How Long On Fruit

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 21:49 CDT

From: fjdobner@ihlpb.att.com

Subject: How Long On Fruit

Brewers of Fruit,

I am interested in the experience of those having brewed with cherries.

I brewed a Cherry Weiss with limited success last summer and am

attempting at doing it better this year. I am using very tart cherries

of which I pitted and froze about 30 lbs. last year.

In my current creation, I am using about 11 lbs. for a 5 gallon batch.

The question that I have is how long a period  time is it recommended

to let the fruit sit on the beer?

I have already gone through primary fermentation and have racked the

fermented weiss onto the cherries and would like to know  how long it

is that I must now wait. I am sure the answers will be all over the

board but so be it. This is my wife's beer so I wanna do good.

I will post the recipe. I sought a sweeter end product so I it incorporates

1 lb of crystal and 5 oz of lactose.

Frank Dobner

------------------------------


French Oak

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1993 20:00:14 -0700 (PDT)

From: Thomas Feller <thomasf@ursula.ee.pdx.edu>

Subject: French Oak

This is a post for a friend of mine.

Help!  I'm making a French Biere de Garde for the upcoming AHA convention

in Portland.  I would like to use some French Oak, but I'm  not sure how

much to use.  Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks Kevan and Tom

------------------------------


Rotten egg smell

Date:     16 Jun 93 08:34:08

From: "Rafael Busto"  <SUPERVISOR@bnk1.bnkst.edu>

Subject:  Rotten egg smell

Help! after two days of fermentation a rotten egg smell is

coming out of my bucket. It is a continental light beer, nothing

special.

Should I discarded and start over or should I wait a little

longer?

I think that the response is obvious but I need some inputs.

Thanks in advance

Rafael Busto    rafael@bnk2.bnkst.edu

------------------------------


Brewing Calculations

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 08:31:13 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Brewing Calculations

The June issue of Brewprint, the newsletter of the Boston Wort Processors,

had a article by Bob Jones and one by myself containing numbers relating

to the use of chlorine. I have got some e-mail asking how these numbers were

derived, and the following is an explanation of the ones that appeared in my

article.

The particular bleach I use has "Active ingredient: 5.25% sodium hypochlorite"

on the label. The first term is clear, but the last ones are potentially

ambiguous. I contacted a rep, and was told that the hydrated form of sodium

hypochlorite is used to make this product. Referring to the CRC Handbook of

Chemistry and Physics, one can see this is NaOCl.5H2O. (Sorry folks I can not

do subscripts!) The relevant molecular wts. are (in rounded form):

    Na = 23; Cl = 35.5; O = 16; 5H2O (water of hydration) = 90.

This form of sodium hypochlorite thus has a mole. wt. of 164. The Cl fraction

is 35.5/164 = .217, and the OCl fraction is 51.5/164 = .314. (I can not do

superscripts either so valences are missing!)

I was also told that the term "5.25%" could be taken in the sense of vol/vol.

Therefore, my bleach contains 52500 ppm in the sense of vols. The rep concurred

with this number, although it must be said that storage of bleach at elevated

temperatures can lead to lower values.

If one dilutes bleach by adding 1 ounce in 1 gallon of water, one will get a

sodium hypochlorite concentration of

          52500/128 = 410.2 ppm,

and a Cl concentration of

          410.2*.217 = 89 ppm.

(The OCl concentration is 128.8 ppm). Data published by Siebel suggests at

these levels, 15 min. contact time is sufficient for bacteria relevant to beer.

In an earlier post I mentioned that I do not choose to use this type of soln.

with ss eqpt. I meant this as a statement of personal brewing style, and did

not put it forward as a scientific principle. The same can be said for

iodophor. As a brewer I am sensitive to the active ingredients in these

products, which fortunately are always listed on the label. The products I

feel comfortable with have iodine (1.75%) and phosphoric acid (18.75%) as

the only active ingredients. They are widely used in commercial brewing. I can

see how a toxicologist might feel more comfortable with a version where the

phosphoric acid is replaced with fatty constituents used in soaps, but I see

that too as simply an opinion and not a basic principle.

Roger Bergin, an award winning brewer and full time brewing consultant, is

preparing an article on sanitation that is aimed at small commercial operations

and serious homebrewers as well. He will bring the perspective of a hands on

brewer, something this topic badly needs. This paper will appear in Vol. 3 of

Brewing Techniques. By the way, Vol. 2 will have an article by Martin Lodahl,

which could turn into the most widely read and discussed article in the history

of brewing. He deals with malt extracts.

To head off anticipated flames, let me state that I get paid $0 for being an

editor of BT, and authors get the same compensation.

George Fix

P.S. I talked on the phone with Mark Carpenter of Anchor yesterday, and found

out that Diversity Chem. is not the only one making brewery grade iodophor.

Bergin's article will contain a list of the relevant players for this and

other compounds.

P.P.S. Cushing Hamlen > I still can get through via e-mail. Call me at

817-561-1781.

------------------------------


ppm -> IBU

Date:    Wed, 16 Jun 1993 9:46:55 -0400 (EDT)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: ppm -> IBU

Mark the hop guy,

    How does the ppm of the hops oil relate to IBU?  Or is the oil

designed for finishing only, not bittering?

Russ Gelinas

esp/opal

unh

------------------------------


Subscription Problems // Japanese Beer Club

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 13:48:26 GMT

From: u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil (Markham R. Elliott)

Subject: Subscription Problems // Japanese Beer Club

Fellow Brewers,

First, and foremost, has anyone else out there been mysteriously dropped from

the HBD distribution list for no apparant reason?  I stopped receiving the

Digest with issue #1158, Tuesday 8 June.  For about 4 issues prior to that, I

would receive 2 copies of the day's digest, then on the 8th, they just stopped

coming all together.

I have been FTPing daily to keep current, but the procedure is getting tedious

fast.  Can someone who is "e-mail smart", or involved with the Digest's

publication/distribution help me get straightened out again please, or is the

solution just to re-subscribe and hope I don't get multiple copies daily?

Thanks in advance.

 ... Secondly ...

A colleague at work clipped out an article from a magazine and gave it to me

the other day, I found it worth sharing.  I don't know what publication it

came from, or its date.  So, obviously it is reprinted here without permission.

Japanese Pay $23,000 to Drink Beer at $78 a Pop

  Beer-loving Japanese businessmen shell out a whopping $23,000 just to become

members of a club where they guzzle foreign brews--for nearly $80 a bottle!

  Beer made in Japan tastes so dreadful that big-wigs eagerly pour into Tokyo's

Club Knox, where they can sip beer shipped in from Britain, Switzerland and

Belgium.

  In the ritzy club, the vintage beer from overseas is treated like fine wine,

stored in a wine cellar and served in crystal glasses.

  The oldest vintage in the club's massive collection is 1983 Samischlaus.  The

fancy Swiss beer is brewed just once a year in December.

  The most expensive is a 1985 bottle of the British brew Gales Prize Old Ale--

which goes for $78 a pop.

- -------End of Article-----

Sure glad we don't have to pay prices like that.

Noch einmal, bitte!!  Mark

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 Markham R. Elliott                 u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil

 Information Technology Laboratory                     (601) 634-2921

 Waterways Experiment Station

 Vicksburg, Mississippi  USA

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


RE:filtering with cotton

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 10:40:29 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: RE:filtering with cotton

In the last digest, Jack comments on filters:

snip snip

<Furthermore, it is darker in color and made of cotton.

It would seem to me that despite the improvement in performance that

Jack found with this cartridge, the reusability of a cotton based filter

would be low.  What do you do to clean and store a cotton filter?  I am

not sure I would want to spend $11+ on a filter that I would have to

discard or watch get moldy. If you want a cotton filter , my local HW

store sells one for $5 and I used it successfully on a cask hopped

barley wine and then discarded it.

I would also point out what I posted on rec.crafts.brewing: One must

be careful of the point of conditioning that you filter.  A period of

cold conditioning helps to remove the bulk of yeast in suspension, and

results in better filtration. Other important factors are the % efficiency

of the filter used, and the flow rate.  Too high a flow rate results in

poor filtration with the cartridge filters.

I bought a 5 micron polypro filter from the filter store and it is a

good filter for a polished beer, not a sterile filtered or crystal beer.

Note I said 5, not .5!!  Micro filtered beer is stripped of important beer

constituants, that I definetly want in my beer.

<Not willing to accept these results, I purchased a known .5 micron filter

 cartridge from McMaster Carr and ran some tests on it which convinced me that

  the .5 micron cartridge that came with the filter, most assuridly was not.

I am not of the opinion that the Filter Store is misleading brewers as to the

size of the cartridge.  Why is the McMaster Carr filter a "known" size and

the other not??

Good brewing (flame suit on),

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Liquid Yeasts

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 10:56:07 -0600

From: mgerard@caen.engin.umich.edu

Subject: Liquid Yeasts

I have a question about GW Kent's liquid yeast.  I have been trying to use

this liquid yeast recently because it's not expensive and readily available

(at least in Ann Arbor,MI).  Here's my question:

How big of a starter do you need and what is a "normal" lag time at 75

degrees?  Also should I start with one big starter or should I start with

a small starter (12 ounces) and then transfer to a larger starter (1.5

liters)?

I've used their yeast in four different batches now and it seems like I

need

to make about a 1-1.5 liter starter and let it ferment for 4-5 days before

pitching to get a lag time shorter than 12 hours.

Any advice would be appreciated.  Thanks,

Mike

------------------------------


Full wort boil

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 10:56:20 -0400

From: an982@yfn.ysu.edu (Steven Zabarnick)

Subject: Full wort boil

I finally took the plunge -- I did my first full wort boil

this past weekend. I used a new 33 qt ceramic-on-steel

kettle and a new Brinkman propane burner. The burner

provided excellent control for the boil. I was able to

bring 5 gals to boil in 30 mins, and I was VERY

conservative about turning the flame up high.

My new immersion wort chiller (50 ft of 3/8 inch copper tubing) also worked

well; it brought the wort to pitching temperature in <30 minutes.

I do have some comments and questions about the process,

though. With 5 gals of water and 6 lbs of DME at a rolling

boil, the 33 qt kettle was quite close to full. How does one

do an all-grain boil in a kettle this size, where one needs to boil about 7

gals?

As I boiled out on the porch and set up to chill in the

kitchen, I had to carry the full, hot kettle with copper

tubing protruding. This was much more challenging then

expected. Do most people avoid carrying the hot wort by

chilling in place (using a garden hose)? During chilling

the kettle cover does not completely seal due to the

copper tubing; should I have used plastic wrap to keep out

the nasties?

Steve Zabarnick

------------------------------


Homebrewing in Germany

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 10:58:49 -0400

From: polstra!norm@uunet.UU.NET

Subject: Homebrewing in Germany

IMHO there is no need to homebrew in the kingdom in heaven, this meaning a

anywhere in Germany.  The variety and quality are amazing.

Use the time in Germany to recalibrate your taste buds, watch some soccer,

enjoy the life styles, join the anti-nazi protest marches, etc, etc.

------------------------------


Re: Texas Micros & Brewpubs

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 08:49:58 -0700

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: Texas Micros & Brewpubs

>From: drwho2959@aol.com

>

>I live in Houston, and frequently

>visit several excellent beer bars with literally SCORES of micro

>draft taps, including Anchor, Sierra Nevada, August Schell, and

>Boston Beer Company products.

Well...three out of four ain't bad...

have fun

gak

Richard Stueven, Castro Valley CA

gak & gerry's garage, brewpub and hockey haven

------------------------------


Extract - Gravity Conversion

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 11:01:42 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Extract - Gravity Conversion

I have been working on a sequel to my book on brewing science, one that

is more practical and quantitative in its orientation. A particular problem

that I am facing is the need to find an alternative to listing the complete

Plato/Balling tables relating specific gravity SG to extract E (i.e., %

extract by wt. or if you like degree Plato). What I am looking for are

formulas that can give a digit or so more accuracy than the "factor of 4"

rule. Quite by chance I came across one. I have no idea where it came from,

and in particular can not take credit (or blame!) for it. I mention it in

the forum to solicit reactions. In any case here it is:

       E = 668.72*SG -463.37 -206.347*SG*SG.

This one smells like a curve fit. I bet (this needs to be checked) that a

linear fit of the Plato tables gives the factor of 4 rule, and the above

is a quadratic fit of the data. Presumably it was introduced to capture the

first nonlinear effects.

Example 1. Let SG =1.010. Then the above gives

        E = 668.72*1.01 - 463.37 - 205.347*1.01*1.01 = 2.563.

The Plato Tables (17.5 C version) give 2.562.

Example 2. Let SG = 1.080. Then

        E = 668.72*1.08 - 463.37 - 205.347*1.08*1.08 = 19.331.

The Plato Tables give 19.311.

One can use the quadratic formula to solve the above for SG as a function

of E. Since we are only concerned about the first three significant figures

in E, one step of Newton's method should give a reasonable result not

involving square roots nor choice of sign. This gives the following:

        SG = 1. + E/( 258.6 - .8796*E).

Example 3. Let E =20 P. Then

        SG = 1. + 20/(258.6 - .8796*20) = 1. + .083 = 1.083.

This is the value quoted in the Plato tables.

Has anyone seen any of the formulas before? I am sure that at one point

in brewing history they must have been "well known".

George Fix

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1164, 06/17/93

*************************************

-------


Miller Amber Ale

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 09:20 PDT

From: /O=vmspfhou/S=dblewis/DD.SITE=JSCPROFS/@NASAmail.nasa.gov

Subject: Miller Amber Ale

***************************** PROFS Note *****************************

 From: DBLEWIS --VMSPFHOU            Date and time  06/16/93 11:22:59

 To: POSTMAN --NASAMAIL

 FROM: Dennis B. Lewis <dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

 SUBJECT: Miller Amber Ale

 I recently had the opportunity to try a Miller Amber Ale and I would like to

 pass on a few thoughts: Get a freezing cold one and drink it as fast as you

 can. The beer tasted great while cold with slight fruitiness and some hop and

 malt flavor. I mistakenly thought the Amber Ale would taste better if a little

 warmer. As the beer warmed, I was treated to a rather chemical-like fuzziness

 on the palate that I could only describe as sucking on batteries. A homebrew

 buddy said that's the hop oil they use. Damn shame.

 At our last homebrew club meeting, we had a rep from Miller come and present

 the Amber in full marketing glitz. Lots of FS and free beer. I got a small

 pamphlet entitled "AMBER ALE: Guidebook to Ales." This has got to be one of

 the most inane pieces of misinformation I have ever read. I'll pass on a few

 examples:

      "You've probably heard that ales should be served at warmer

      temperature than other beers. Not true. The tradition of warm

      beer is a cultural oddity of England than a taste issue. In fact,

      if you've seen the Queen frown, it's because she just had some

      warm ale....."

 I think everyone has heard the joke "Why to Brits drink their beer warm?

 Because Lucas makes their refrigerators." but this cultural oddity thing is

 unbelievable!!! I can believe that the Amber Ale should be served ice cold

 because it tastes awful at real ale temps, but that is no reason to skew the

 facts. The pamphlet goes on to say that their masterbrewers recommend that the

 ale be served between 44 and 48 deg F. Hmm, "masterbrewers" said that, eh?

       "Authentic ales differ form lagers and other beers in several

       ways. First, ale is made only from a special ale yeast. Ales are

       also brewed at higher temperature than other beers and have a

       greater hop content. These differences give ale its rich creamy

       head and full-bodied flavor. Ales are also the original beer of

       Europe."

 I thought ale yeast was the common stuff and lager yeast was the special one.

 At least that's the historical development. I think they meant to say

 "fermented" at higher temps and not "brewed". And they really go out on a limb

 with the original beers of Europe thing. I guess the Sumerians and Egyptians

 don't count in our mass-produced, Westerners-only society.

 I'd love to go on about this but I've already given it more thought than it

 deserves. There's a nice little jab on the last page about beers with English

 or Irish sounding names not being "authentic ales". I'm just waiting for the

 response from the rest of the factory beers: something like Coor's Copper and

 Bud Bold, igniting a whole new series of ridiculous sport-related ads.

 *Insert Authentic Disclaimer here*

 Dennis B. Lewis  *  (713) 244-7809  *  NASA/JSC/DH6 Payload Ops

 Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


headaches, reprise; fridges & freezers; Chicago suppliers

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 11:40:17 cdt

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@GRIN.EDU>

Subject: headaches, reprise; fridges & freezers; Chicago suppliers

Greetings!

One of the things I find most enjoyable about HBD is the way a discussion of

some topic of common interest majestically spins itself out over several

days!  It's a lot more informative than those TV miniseries, and considerably

less painful than sitting through Wagner's Ring cycle to boot.

Let me focus the discussion on headaches a bit, if I may, by returning to the

original intent of my question about headaches, which may not have been clear

 ..... first, I am interested in the comparison between homebrew and

Budmilloors (1) assuming relatively equal amounts and (2) in terms of

immediate effect rather than hangovers.  The headache I got from Coors last

weekend hit me immediately after the second beer, and did not produce a

hangover to speak of the next day (I did my drinking in the afternoon).  My

head hurts just from the memory of it!  Anyway, it would be my assumption

that in this case neither the alcohol itself nor a dehydration affect would

be to blame, but I would rather suspect some kind of allergic or other

physical reaction to the beer's ingredients.  I have never known 24 oz. of

homebrew to give me a blinding headache, and it seems to soon after drinking

to blame vitamin B depletion, dehydration, etc.  Sound right to you?

Second, I have been interested in recent discussions of refer/freezer

equipment.  I am planning on haunting garage sales in the near future to pick

something up for my basement so that I can begin brewing a lager here and

there.  I gather that a chest freezer with a temp controller is ideal for

this since you can sit carboys right down in it.  However, I might also like

a place to store fresh whole hops, and for this I would like a plain ole

freezer set at plain ole freezing temps.  I don't see any way around the

necessity of getting two units, but do any of you techno-wizards out there

have another suggestion (for a not-very-techno-person?)

Finally, a friend of mine who lives in Skokie and does not have e-mail access

wants to start brewing.  Would anyone in the Windy City care to e-mail me

vital stats of supply stores in the area (Alt. Garden Supply, Al's store, any

others I don't know about), and TIA.

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Re: Chili Beer

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 09:53:30 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: Chili Beer

One of the advantages of running the Oregon State Fair competition has

been access to winning recipes -- and the permission to reproduce them

at will.  The following beer took 1st Place in the Specialty Beer

category, and is, I thought, a really tasty item.  Ken Kane, of

Portland, seems to brew nothing but spiced and fruit beers, and has

gotten quite innovative and skillful at it.  If memory serves, he's won

this category repeatedly (including a pumpernickel beer and a sage

beer).

"Green Chili Beeritio" -- 5 gallons

7# Alexander's Pale extract

1# Dextrin malt

1# Vienna (presumably Briess)

1/4 oz Kent Golding & 1/4 oz. Clusters after 5 min.

1/4 oz KG & 1/4 oz. Clusters after 20 & 40 min.

1/2 oz. Mt Hood after 58 min.

the grains are mashed at 122F for 30 min; 152F for 10 min; 158F for 20

min.

2 tsp. gypsum in 60 min. boil

2 whole, roasted Hatch Chiis & 2 oz. chopped New Mexico chilis

(presumably in boil)

fermented at 65F for 10 days with Whitbred Lager yeast

===I realize there's a little information missing, but it ought to

provide a good start -- and it was a really tasty beer, for those who

like chili beers.

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


building in brewing facilities

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 11:58:41 CDT

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: building in brewing facilities

We are looking at constructing a house in the near future (9-12 mos.)

and I have recently become an enthusiastic brewer (not yet fanatical

enough for full mash recipes ).  But I acknowledge that I would like to

have facilities available so that, if I get the mash bug, I can do mash

recipes as easily as possible.  Question is: Does anyone out there have

any designs/ideas/hints for building in homebrew equipment (small scale)

into a house?  This equipment might include: range-top modifications,

tap lines for immersion chillers/heat exchangers, built in shelves for

storing etc.  If anyone has made such modifications and has hints,

please let me know before the fact.....

(Thanks and all that)

 Thanks in advance for any comments.

 A big Texas howdy and thanks to Rob Gardner for providing the

opportunity, support etc. for this Digest.

 Thanks to the Texas Legislature for finally issuing (sp?) a

decent law - HB 1445 legalizing brewpubs (come on September 1st!).

     Chris Pencis

------------------------------


chili beer

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 11:04 MTS

From: Chuck Coronella <CORONELLRJDS@CHE.UTAH.EDU>

Subject: chili beer

Vincent Heuring <heuring@riker.cs.colorado.edu> wants to brew a chili beer.

I'd always thought that I'd like to do the same, until I tasted one!!  Just a

week ago, I tried Ed's chili beer, each bottle with a whole Jalapeno in it.

According to the label, Ed's is a microbrewery somewhere in Arizona (can't

remember where), but the beer was actually made by a contract brewer in

Indiana.(?)  Anyway, I was excited to try this brew.  I really like spicy

food, and I'm not above eating Jalapeno's with a meal.  However, this beer was

so intensely hot that I couldn't get past the first sip!!  What a surprise!!

Good luck with the pepper beer Vincent, but, as with any new spice, start off

slowly, and increase the peppers with successive batches until you get a beer

you like.

 -=-=-=-=-=-

On another note, I recently took a trip to Phoenix.  While there, I made a

special point of obtaining various microbrews not available in Utah.  (Except

for Wasatch ales, the list of microbrews not available in Utah is identical to

the list of microbrews.  Utah is the real wasteland of beer!;-)  There's a

shop called Sportsman's, and browsing through there I felt like a kid in a

candy store.  The beer I liked most is Celis White.  Wow!!  What a cornucopia

of flavors.  I've been reading reviews of this beer on the HBD, and it was

great to be able to confirm them personally.

Cheers,

Chuck

------------------------------


headaches

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 11:10:47 -0600 (MDT)

From: Mark Taratoot <SLNDW@CC.USU.EDU>

Subject: headaches

Greetings.

There has been some discussion lately about headaches from

commercial beer.  Here is yet another data point.  I

don't buy beer very often anymore, but my housemate does.  (I

have gotten him into homebrewing, but he does not show as

much enthusiasm as I).  Well, he no longer buys beer in cans.

He says he gets heacaches from canned beer.  At first I

thought that he just meant cheap beer.  But it turns out that

Busch in the bottle does not give him a headache but Busch in

the can does.  He thinks it has something to do with aluminum.

Go figure.

 -toot

------------------------------


The Untouchables

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 10:11:02 -0700

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: The Untouchables

Tuesday night on KTVU-20's presentation of The Untouchables (the _real_

ones, with Robert Stack and Walter Winchell)..."The Cooker In The Sky",

an episode from 1962.

See, these BadGuys got the idea to build a brewery on the sixth floor

of this warehouse in Chicago, because _nobody_ would ever look for a

brewery on the sixth floor of a warehouse.  They picked up three

disassembled tanks at an auction for $2500, after the previous bidder

bid $300.  (These guys were serious!)

They got their "rice, malt, and grain" from a local grain mill, and

they got an "in man" at the Water Commission.

Eliot Ness (Our Hero (feh!)) got wind of this operation, and watched

some of the construction through the building's windows.  He guessed

the brewery's capacity would be "two thousand gallons a day", and that

it would cost "two, maybe three hundred thousand dollars before he's

finished".  It would be the largest illegal brewery ever constructed.

The brewery was short on pipe, so Ness got them some through legal

channels in order to help catch Mr. Big.  Washington heard about this

(by means of Ness sending in an expense voucher for the pipe...Your Tax

Dollars At Work) and was not at all pleased.

The brewery was built in exactly thirty days, and the proud owner gave

his cohorts a tour.  When will the beer be ready?  "Tomorrow, maybe two

days."  Apparently their products would be keg-conditioned.

To my delight, the tour was fairly detailed.  Rice and malt flour were

kept in two bins in the rafters.  The grains were delivered pre-ground

to minimize dust, and were mixed with water on their way to a

steam-heated vat, where the beer was "cooked".  After cooking, the beer

was pumped to another vat, and hops were added while the beer cooled to

room temperature.  It then was pumped through a "chiller" into the

fermenters, where the yeast was added.  After fermentation, barrels

were three-quarters filled with beer, and "the yeast foams to fill the

rest", ensuring minimal spillage.  (So I was right about the

keg-conditioning!)

They had brewed a test batch in preparation for this tour, and they got

ready to draw a pint just as Ness raided!  (Holy cow, this is

exciting!)  Ness took the mug of pale beer, held it up to the light.

"Good color," he said, and took a sip.  "Green but good!"  Then he

opened the tap, and all the beer ran onto the floor.  "Expensive

beer...a quarter-million for one glass."

The punch line (read this in your best Walter Winchell voice):  Five

days later, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn in as the President of

the United States.  The seventeenth plank of his platform:  the repeal

of Prohibition.

have fun

gak

Richard Stueven, Castro Valley CA

gak & gerry's garage, brewpub and hockey haven

------------------------------


bill ridgely/ mail problems

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 10:33:57 PDT

From: eurquhar@sfu.ca

Subject: bill ridgely/ mail problems

Hi Bill,

     got your note but couldn't send you a return message as it was always

returned as wrong address.  Please send me your new address e-mail or

snail-mail.

Thanks for the space                  Eric Urquhart (eurquhar@sfu.ca)

------------------------------


yesst & motorized maltmills

Date: 16 Jun 1993 10:48:10 PST

From: "JSDAWS1@PROFSSR" <JSDAWS1@PB1.PacBell.COM>

Subject: yesst & motorized maltmills

A while back, I posted about an idea I had for holding yeast in a cornelius

keg until brew-day and pitching the sludge in the bottom into the wort.  I

bottled it (an amber wheat ale) last Sunday and noticed a mild but very

definite cloviness.  Once before, I had done this, the only difference

being that I forced the sludge under preasure thru my tapper (which had

been sitting in the fridge for weeks)  That beer was VERY clovy and because

I had a gaping hole in my sanitation, i.e. the tapper, I wrote it off to that

My question is;  are those cornelius cans as sterile as i thought?  I

noticed the bottom is very rough and the lids have lots of crevices. Until

recently, I just sloshed clorine water thru them and rinsed with tap water

with no problems  ...   now I pour boiling water in them and seal em' up but

didn't for this cornelius-can starter.

Recently, a freind & neighboor bought a JS Maltmill <tm>.  It's a WONDERFUL

device and I definitely intend purchasing one.... but ONLY after I figure out

how to motorize it.  Any ideas?   I'm the kinda guy who grabs the correct end

of a screwdriver about 50% of the time so it's got to be an easy, off-the-shelf

kind of solution.

Thanx in advance.

|    If it's good for ancient druids runnin naked thru the woods      |

|   drinkin strange fermented fluids then it's good enough for me.    |

| JACK DAWSON  -  JSDAWS1  -  415 545-0299  -  CUSTOMER BILLING  (BG) |

------------------------------


Air filters, yeast filters

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 11:36:39 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Air filters, yeast filters

On the subject of air filtration when using an air pump, plan old cotton

will filter out all airborn critters. Just make the path length through the

cotton long. People that use these aeriation stone, how do you clean them?

Someone posted several moths ago a source to a SS stone, a much better

choice.

Jack S. experiments with filters is very interesting. Micah claims he has

seen no problems with head retention using the supposed .5um filter and I

have seen poor clarity with it as well when pushing some beers through it.

I have attributed the poor clearing primarily to the quality of the

malt I was using. Fix has recommended against this small (.5um) a

filtration. Well maybe the .5um is really 5um and just what we want. To pull

those hazes out (if protien) one should chill for about a week at about 35

deg f. Now those hazes that pass through the filter, they are from poor

malt. I'd say switch malt manufacturers.

Jack, I would worry about cleaning and reuse of the cotton filter. The

poly filters seems much better in this regard.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Pasteurizing Fruit

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 11:41:28 PDT

From: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards)

Subject: Pasteurizing Fruit

Hello brewmates,

What temperature is required for pasteurization and for how long?

I'm making a few fruit beers this summer and I want to pasteurize the

fruit and add it to the secondary.

I was told that holding the fruit at 160F for 15 minutes will work; but

I have also heard 140F for 10 minutes.  Does anyone have the "real"

numbers.  I know there has been much research on pasteurization, but I

haven't seen many references in brewing texts.  (But then again, I don't

have many brewing texts.)

Any chemists or food industry people out there who can help me out?

Thanks for any help,

 -Alan

 .------------------------------------.

 | Alan Edwards: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov |      Member: The Hoppy Cappers

 |     or: Alan-Edwards@llnl.gov      |      homebrew club, Modesto, CA

 `------------------------------------'

------------------------------


Cornelius fittings, Air filters

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 12:11:54 -0700 (PDT)

From: Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG>

Subject: Cornelius fittings, Air filters

PIN-LOCK VS. BALL-LOCK CORNELIUS KEGS

At the risk of starting a ball v. pin fight (sounds like bowling), I offer

the following summary of the (sometimes contradictory) information I

received to my request on cornelius kegs.

Ball-lock kegs are sometimes referred to as Pepsi type and pin-lock as

coke.  The price for the kegs is about the same for both.  Fittings are

interchangeable but the pin-lock fittings are more expensive.

Some respondents said that the ball-lock fitting required a special tool

for removal while others said the pin-lock required the special tool.  I

invite clarifications by e-mail.

Some found advantage in the shorter pin-lock kegs (more head-space in the

fridge), some liked the taller thinner ball-lock kegs.

Ball-lock fittings might be forced onto the wrong in/outlets on the keg,

not so with the pin-locks.  While both fittings might get gummed-up, the

pin-locks are less likely to break if forced.  Pin-lock fittings are also

more secure when attached.

Ball-lock kegs are more easily vented, easier to dismantle, and might be

more readily available than pin-locks.

To keep S/N level low I'll accept any further information, clarifications

and arguments with the above by e-mail and will summarize for the Digest.

To all who responded to my initial request, many thanks.  If I didn't

include all of the information you sent me, don't think I didn't find it

extremely valuable.  I just wanted to summarize the pin/ball info.

AIR FILTERS

In HBD 1163 Philip Seitz inquired about aeration/oxygenation systems and

filters.  While I intuitively think the filter is a good idea (and the

set-up illustrated in _BT_ mentions filtering out pump stink), why would

one be any more concerned with organisms from pumped air than from

sloshing headspace air?  Is it simply the larger quantities of outside air

passing through the wort from the pump?  Does the filtered and pumped air

offer a cleaner source of oxygen than sloshing headspace air?

As far as sources of filters, Heartland Hydroponics' (800-354-4769) ad in

the current _Zymurgy_ offers "point 22 u.m." filters that fit aquarium

tubing (stand. disclaim.).  Does anyone know anything about these?  Is

this ".22 u.m." and is this a reasonable air filtration size?

I have read about the use of hospital oxygen filters for use in these type

of aeration systems (_Zymurgy_ gadget issue?) but that they are usually

sold only in bulk.  Any sources (homebrew mailorder, etc.) for smaller

quantities of quality filters would be appreciated (Philip, please forward

any useful leads!).

Finally, given a relatively dust-free environment, how often would these

filters need to be changed?

Eric

<ericwade@class.org>

Oakland, CA

------------------------------


Wyeast Bavarian Wheat

Date:         16 Jun 93 12:55:39

From: Jeff Griffin <jgriffin@ag.uidaho.edu>

Subject:      Wyeast Bavarian Wheat

I just received a packet of a new Wyeast, #3068, which is described

as a single-strain Bavarian Wheat yeast(this is distinct from the

#3056, which has two strains).  Does anyone have more information on

this strain?

I also have the #3056; is there a way to reliably separate and

maintain the two strains, or is this just one that I should buy

whenever I decide to brew with it?

Jeff Griffin                 jgriffin@ag.uidaho.edu

Department of Plant, Soil, and Entomological Sciences

University of Idaho                 208-885-7549

------------------------------


Recipes....wanted

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 16:01:19 EST

From: Kristof_Mueller@voyager.umeres.maine.edu

Subject: Recipes....wanted

Hello........I have very recently become interested in homebrewing, in fact

I have yet to brew my first batch.  However I have read Papazian's book,

and am eagerly awaiting my first beer.  If anyone has a special recipe that

they love, or one they haven't tried, but look interesting or exotic, I

would really appreciate if they would sent it to me.   Thank you all very

much.....

Kris

Kristof_Mueller@voyager.umeres.maine.edu

BEER-BEER:  Starts with a B,  ends with an R....and has two E's.

------------------------------


Starting a Siphon

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 13:21:00 PST

From: John F Myers <John_F_Myers@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: Starting a Siphon

     I've been reading the HBD for a few years. Over that time I've read

     and experimented with a number of ways to start a siphon without the

     worry of infecting my beer.

          Mouthwash

          Wiskey

          Blood pressure bulbs

          CO2

          Water in siphon hose

          Just do it

          etc...

     Then a year ago, by accident I broke my bottling wand and ... A

     mouthpiece was born! Just sanitize and mark one end you plan to suck

     on (for multiple transfers, it's easy to forget which end you used

     when you set it down), start the siphon and bend the siphon hose 180

     degrees when fluid reaches near the end of the siphon hose. At this

     point simply pull off the mouthpiece, add bottling wand or what ever.

     IT'S SIMPLE, CLEAN AND WORKS GREAT!

     One question I would like someone to answer.

     Why does geletin lose it's clearing properties once it  is boiled???

------------------------------


Re: sanitizers part I

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 15:25:34 -0600

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Re: sanitizers part I


Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1993 11:14:07 -0500

>From:

Subject: Re: sanitizers part I

Once again, many of the statements made by donald oconnor

<oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu> just didn't sound right to me. As I'm

no expert on the matter (and by now it's obvious that neither is

don) I referred to an excellent text on the matter, "Disinfection,

Sterilization, and Preservation", by SS Block. (Many thanks to

whomever first recommended this book here.)  With this in hand, I

would like to correct some of the errors which were posted here.

        1.  Sanitizing strength

>Both chlorine and iodine sanitizers kill bacteria as a result of their

>oxidizing power.  A strong oxidizer is a good sanitizer.  Chlorine in all

>its oxidation states (dichlorine, chlorite, hypochlorite, etc) is a

>stronger oxidant than the corresponding iodines.  In chemical

>terms, it is said that the redox potential of chlorine is greater

>than iodine.  Being a stronger oxidant, chlorine sanitizers are

>expected to be more effective at killing bacteria.  However

>iodine is also a sufficiently strong oxidant to work very

>effectively in killing stuff and thus, in a practical sense,

>the two cannot be distinguished in this regard.

Sanitizing can occur by many mechanisms, only one of which is

oxidizing. The sanitizing mechanism for Iodine and Chlorine are

somewhat different, thus we simply cannot compare their relative

sanitizing power by just comparing redox potentials. The only way to

do it is empirically.  Empirical comparisons show that Iodine has 3-6

times the sanitizing power of chlorine.  However, the sanitizing

power of chlorine (and to a lesser extent iodine) is dependant upon

pH (being greater at lower pH), so even this must be taken with a

grain of salt. Also, iodine is not deactivated by organic matter to

the extent that chlorine is. Thus, when sanitizing 'dirty' equipment,

chlorine may be quickly rendered useless, while the iodine will have

much more "staying power".

>The recommended dose for iodophor, which contains molecular iodine, is

>12.5 mg/l (ppm).  Since each iodine atom weighs 4 times as much as

>chlorine and it's the number of atoms that is important, then a chlorine

>concentration of 3.5 mg/l will give the same sanitizing effect.  Household

>bleach is about 5% sodium hypochlorite by weight.  So how much bleach

>do we need in each gallon to get the same sanitizing effect as

>iodophor.  Incredibly only 0.02 ounce!  That's 50 times lower than

>1 oz/gallon, 25 times lower than 1 tablespoon/gallon.  For those more

>familiar with teaspoons, you need only add about 1/2 teaspoon of

>bleach in the entire 5 gallon keg to achieve the same level of sanitation

>that iodophor provides!  Furthermore this concentration is about 70

>times below the known safe level for reactivity with 304 stainless.

Different studies will show different doses for "effective"

sanitizing.  For iodophor, I have seen the 12.5 ppm number, but 25 ppm

is also used often.  However, to get a sanitizing power from chlorine

equivalent to 12.5 ppm of iodophor, 50 ppm of chlorine is generally

recommended. (NOT 3.5 ppm.) 50 ppm would be about equal to 20 ml of

Chlorox bleach per 20 liters of water. (4 tsp. per 5 gal).

We often talk about the S/N ratio here, but we owe it to ourselves to

keep the "Fact/Fallacy" ratio as high as possible as well.

Keep on Brewin',

Kelly <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

------------------------------


Colorado Micro Brewers Festival

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 15:02:26 -0600

From: Michael Howe <howe@gwl.com>

Subject: Colorado Micro Brewers Festival

To all Coloradans,

   The Colorado Micro Brewers Festival is coming up on June 26,27 in Fort

Collins.  This is the first year that it has been extended out to two days.

I went last year and had quite a good time.  The beers and crowds are plentiful.

There are also a few good brewpubs nearby at which you may take in a meal

while quaffing.  I don't have many details handy (other than to show up in

Ft Collins on those days with your drinking hat on).  If there is enough(any)

interest, I can dig around in my morass (sp?) of brewing info and produce

some helpful information.  If memory serves, there are about 15-20 brewpubs

and micros represented (if not more), each of which has at least two of their

brews in tow.  Simple math will tell you that there will be quite a lot of

variety represented.

Perhaps someone out there would like to sink a few with a few fellow

HBD'er.  Let me know.  I'll be the one with rosy cheeks, glossy eyes, and

a big grin:-).

P.S. - I am not connected in any way with the Festival or it's organizers. I

am, however, one hell of a satisfied patron:-).

Michael Howe     e-mail : howe@gwl.com

------------------------------


How much bleach for sanitation?

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 18:12:06 -0800

From: pohl@unixg.ubc.ca (Derrick Pohl)

Subject: How much bleach for sanitation?

Re the recent HBD exchange on how much bleach you need for sanitation:

Papazian in _The Complete Joy of Home-Brewing_ says you can actually get by

with as little as 1/3 of a tsp. in 5 gallons cold water (minimum contact

time 30 minutes).  I use a teaspoon or a little less of bleach per 5 gallon

carboy and a similar concentration for bottles, bungs, hoses, etc., and

have never had a sanitation problem in over two years of brewing (over 15

batches, all with closed primary & secondary fermentation and liquid

yeasts).  Now all this assumes the equipment is spotless to begin with:

organic matter (i.e. dirt and stains) uses up the free chlorine.  To get

things clean I use a solution of 2 heaping tbsp. baking soda per 5 gallons

hot water for the fermentation residue in carboys, bungs and blowoff tubes,

using a brush for any persistent mung (which there rarely is).  The other

equipment I just rinse with hot water after use, occasionally giving them

the baking soda treatment.  For truly stubborn stains and mold (which most

often appear in the bottom of improperly rinsed bottles), I use that

pinkish-purple chlorinated detergent that goes by various names:

Choriclean, Diversol (I think)....  It's the same stuff I used to use in

the dishwasher when I worked at a restaurant during high school.  It truly

kicks butt, cleaning and sanitizing in one go, but is much nastier and more

expensive than bleach and baking soda.

Just one set of beer-addled observations for your consideration....

- -----

Derrick Pohl (pohl@unixg.ubc.ca)

Vancouver, B.C.

------------------------------


Heifeweizen

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 21:27:22 -0700 (PDT)

From: jimt@techbook.com (Jim Titus)

Subject: Heifeweizen

Does anyone out there have a good recipe (to include any special techniques)

for heifeweizen? i enjoy the local micro version (from Widmere in Portland,

OR) but want to try making a batch.

The stuff looks like greywater from an RV holding tank but it tastes

wondeful!

------------------------------


Jalapeno beer

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 21:30:38 PDT

From: bill@oilsystems.com (Bill Vaughan)

Subject: Jalapeno beer

Two years ago, Mary and I were visiting Phoenix and stopped at the Cave Creek

brewery, where one of the specialties is chili beer.  (It was jalapenos then,

but I'm told they've gone to Serranos since.)  We tried the jalapeno beer and

found it quite mild, and absolutely wonderful with hamburgers.

   Four days later, before returning to the Bay area, we went back and found

the beer was substantially more spicy.  On inquiring, I was told that the

amount of spice was related to how long the beer had been in the bottles,

because they use their ordinary golden lager and add a jalapeno in the bottle.

So how long had it been?  The batch had been bottled on Tuesday, which made

Friday's (which we liked a lot) 3 days old.  They also said the heat continued

to increase until the beer had been in the bottle about 60 days.

   I brought some home.  Sure enough, after a couple of months it was real

killer beer.  So bad you had to have another beer! (Without chile.)

   I resolved to make some, but NO WAY was I going to put a pepper in the

bottle, no matter how nice it looked.  So I took a wild stab, guessing that

the effect might be linear (!):  let's see, 1 jalapeno, 12 ounces, 3 days =

16 jalapenos, 5 gallons, 3 weeks.  And that's what I did.  Used my plain-jane

ale recipe, didn't hop it as much as usual, and threw 16 jalapenos into the

secondary for 3 weeks.  (Blanched the peppers with boiling water to sterilize,

but did not cook them or cut them open.  I would cut them open next time

because they insisted on floating for the whole 3 weeks.)

   After 3 weeks, I bottled the beer, and as a bonus had a dish of jalapenos

pickled in beer.  I would have saved them in the fridge but they didn't last

that long.

   The beer turned out very good.  Mild heat, jalapeno flavor just right.

The only problem is that the bottles tend to gush.  Not infected, (the

commercial bottles gush too), just some weird effect of the oils or proteins

from the peppers.  But gushing isn't a problem if you chill the bottles first,

and this is not a beer to be drunk at cellar temp anyway.

So to answer Vincent Heuring's question, just use any light ale or lager

recipe, and put 16 jalapenos per 5 gallons into the secondary for 3 weeks.

Or 32 jalapenos for a week and a half, if it's <really> linear, a hypothesis

I did not test.

------------------------------


Re: Philmill

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 08:56:16 -0400 (EDT)

From: bickham@msc.cornell.edu

Subject: Re: Philmill

Jack writes:

> I have no problem with healthy competition and it's nice to know that our

> hobby can support this kind of growth but telling fibs about someone else's

> products is not a good idea.

I have to agree with Jack - while I object to some of his political

and philosophical stands, he does make a fine roller mill at a reasonable

price.  I was skeptical at first, but the yields speak for themselves.

With a grain bill of 95% Munton and Fison Pale Ale malt and the rest

crystal malt, I get an efficiency of 32, which is very close to the

theoretical maximum of 34.  For a typical weizen grain bill, my efficiency

was 34, which again compares well with the maximum of 36 for malted wheat.

My only objection is that due to the high yields, I've been having

problems overshooting my desired original gravities, but I think I

can find a way to live with the extra maltiness ;-)

Scott

- --

========================================================================

Scott Bickham                             |

LASSP and Materials Science Center   |       bickham@msc.cornell.edu

=========================================================================

------------------------------


JALAPENO BEER

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 16:43:00 +0000

From: ron_hall%80@hp6400.desk.hp.com

Subject: JALAPENO BEER

Item Subject: Jalapeno Beer

In HBD 1163, Vincent Heuring (heuring@riker.cs.colorado.edu) asks:

"Does anyone have a partial mash or extract recipe for jalapeno

pepper beer?"

   Well, following the advice of the HBD community, I have made

two batches in the last year in which I put slices of jalapeno in

a dozen or so bottles at bottling time.  The first batch was

a partial mash-based pale ale, in which I tried both 1/4" thick

slices and 1/8" thick slices.  The 1/4" slices were WAY too hot,

and I happen to like spicy food (and drink) alot.  The 1/8" slices

were just right.  I tried the 1/8" slices in a mash-based Steam beer

recently and the spicing was about right.  Use fat peppers so that the

slices stick in the neck of the bottle when pouring, and try to

leave out the seeds.

    One problem I have had with this method is that I have had several

"gushers".  I am not sure if this is due to contamination on the

peppers, or some reaction from the peppers themselves.  I did not

sterilize the peppers the first time, just rinsed them in hot water.

On the second batch, I gave them a quick dunk in a bleach water,

but did not want to get a bleach flavor in them so I kept it short.

I would probably try a little longer soak in a very weak bleach

or bisulfite solution.  Any ideas out there?

    The gushers do not have any off-flavors, just seem over-carbonated.

By the way, Crazy Ed's in Cave Creek, AZ makes a very good chili

beer using a whole pepper in each bottle.  They are not jalapenos,

something a little weaker.

Good luck.

Ron Hall, Corvallis, Oregon

(ron_hall@hp6400.desk.hp.com)

------------------------------


CP fillers

Date: 17 Jun 1993 09:43:28 U

From: "Westemeier*, Ed" <westemeier@pharos-tech.com>

Subject: CP fillers

Jay marshall <marshall@pat.mdc.com> writes:

> I'm looking for a counter-pressure filler and was wondering if anybody

> has used the one made by Benjamine Machine Products (Modesto CA) that

> is advertised in Zymurgy occasionally.  Also, I have heard that the

> CPF made by Foxx doesn't work as well as it should.  Can anybody comment?

Definitely!

I started with the Foxx CP filler, and after cutting my fingers to shreds,

deforming the valve handles, finding the need for 4 or 5 hands at once, and

generally becoming exasperated, I gave it up.

I still wanted to do CP bottle filling, so I bought one from a very reputable

homebrew supply store.  Similar to the Foxx model, with similar results.

Finally, I bought the BMP model and have been absolutely delighted with it.

It's far easier and more convenient to use, does a superb job (OK, you have

to get the knack of using it, but that only takes 2 or 3 bottles), and is well

worth the price.  It's also easier to clean.  Incidentally, it was designed by

Micah Millspaw, formerly a regular here.

After demonstrating the BMP filler to two of my friends, they were both

sufficiently impressed to buy one themselves.

FWIW, I have heard that the CP filler sold by DeFalco is also excellent, but

I have never seen it and can't vouch for it.  All others I have seen are not

worth much, IMHO.

++  Ed Westemeier  ++  Cincinnati, Ohio  ++

++  westemeier@delphi.com  ++

------------------------------


Brewing Capitol, etc.

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 07:56:43 MDT

From: pyle@intellistor.com (Norm Pyle)

Subject: Brewing Capitol, etc.

Steve Stroud's done it now:

It is very easy in the current renaissance-in-brewing atmosphere in the US to

get wrapped up in our own little corner of the world and think that we sit on

top of the best beer.  But the truth is that we're not even close.  There is

                                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

high quality brew in this country, but there is also a *lot* more mediocre beer

being made, whether you're talking the East Coast, the West Coast, or

somewhere in between.

Beer Heaven (and the Brewing Capitol of the World) in undoubtedly located in

Europe.  I'd nominate Belgium for Heaven, Bavaria for the Capitol, with the

British Isles and the rest of Germany as close also-rans.

The USA is hardly in the race.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Steve, I've always referred to Belgium as "Beer Heaven", but only from what

I've read.  Sadly, I haven't been able to afford a visit.  I have to take

exception to your harsh comments, though.  Your favorite styles of beer may be

Belgian, Bavarian, or British.  My favorites might include American Pale

Ales, along with your list.  My point is that American breweries, the small

to medium sized ones, are producing beer that can stand up to any beers in

the world.  They are different, not better, not worse.  The variety of beer

available to the consumer in the US, I'm told, is much greater than in the UK

or Germany, although I doubt that is true for Belgium.  I wouldn't call it a

race, but the US certainly in the mix, and we are, at least, "close".  Also,

I do believe Michael Jackson would support this position, from what I've read.

I guess it all depends on how you define "Beer Capitol" or "Heaven", etc.  MHO.

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


Re: Fud,cherries and kettle handles

Date:  Thu, 17 Jun 1993 09:54:12 -0400

From: Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@canrem.com>

Subject: Re: Fud,cherries and kettle handles

>Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 09:51 CDT

>From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

>Subject: Phillmill

> I have never seen a PM but, having only one roller working against a fixed

        If you've never seen it then your post sure sounds

        like FUD! Why don't you ask someone who has seen

        both mills to compare? Na that would have cut down

        on your chance to advertise.-(

- ------------------------------

>Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 21:49 CDT

>From: fjdobner@ihlpb.att.com

>Subject: How Long On Fruit

>Brewers of Fruit,

>I am interested in the experience of those having brewed with cherries.

>I brewed a Cherry Weiss with limited success last summer and am

>attempting at doing it better this year. I am using very tart cherries

>of which I pitted and froze about 30 lbs. last year.

        IMHO you should not have pitted the cherries. The

        pits themselves add an interesting not to the beer.

>In my current creation, I am using about 11 lbs. for a 5 gallon batch.

>The question that I have is how long a period  time is it recommended

>to let the fruit sit on the beer?

        Well if you are going to follow what the lambic

        brewers do then you are looking at around 6months.

        The pKriek I made last fall spent almost 6months on

        the fruit the flavour,aroma and colour were

        perfect[Well at least the cherry part-)] Give it

        time.

>Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 10:56:20 -0400

>From: an982@yfn.ysu.edu (Steven Zabarnick)

>Subject: Full wort boil

>As I boiled out on the porch and set up to chill in the

>kitchen, I had to carry the full, hot kettle with copper

>tubing protruding. This was much more challenging then

>expected. Do most people avoid carrying the hot wort by

>chilling in place (using a garden hose)? During chilling

>the kettle cover does not completely seal due to the

>copper tubing; should I have used plastic wrap to keep out

>the nasties?

        Do not move a full kettle. I lost the handle on mine

        and endup with some interesting burns-(. Chill first

        and then shipon. The weight isn't that bad but the

        handles aren't up to doing it too many times.

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I drink Beer I don't collect cute bottles!

zen%hophead@canrem.com

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Thanks for fritted glass leads

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 07:33:55 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Thanks for fritted glass leads

Thanks to everyone who sent me information on sources for fritted glass.

I'm impressed (as always) by the kind and helpful nature of this forum.

If you're coming to Portland, stop by and see me at my booth at the

Jambeeree.  I'll be in #3, way in the back.

Paul.

=================

Special to Greg Kelly:  I'm getting bounces from fourcroy.chem:

>User unknown: Socket operation on non-socket

Must be one of those metric/SAE things...

Thanks again.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1165, 06/18/93

*************************************

-------


Re: Yeast pitching amounts

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 11:00:20 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: Yeast pitching amounts

In the last digest Mike inquires about one of the most important issues

in brewing, yeast growth/pitching quantity:

<From: mgerard@caen.engin.umich.edu

Subject: Liquid Yeasts

<How big of a starter do you need and what is a "normal" lag time at 75

degrees?  Also should I start with one big starter or should I start with

a small starter (12 ounces) and then transfer to a larger starter (1.5

liters)?

The "professional" technique is to pitch a known quantity of cells, usually

12 million cells per ml for a 12P wort.  Add 1 million for each degree P,

especially with high gravity worts.  Some Ale brewers pitch 1/2 this amount.

Most of us have no convenient method of counting cells, nor is it required.

The practical method for homebrewing mortals is to step up the amount in

a 10-1 ratio until an adequate amount of slurry is produced.  IF the yeast

source is 30 ml of slurry, this can be directly pitched into 300ml of

boiled/cooled wort.  The 300 ml should probably be stepped up once more

to result in 1-3 Litres of pitching yeast.  With this amount, you are still

only pitching in a 1-20 (or 3-10 litres) quantity for a 20L batch.  With a

healthy yeast, this will result in minimum lag time of say 3 - 8 hours.

Remember that lag time is also a function of oxygen amounts in the wort.

For this reason, many brewers inject oxygen to increase the yeast growth

during the respiration phase (yeasts will absorb oxygen through the cell

wall, using the oxygen, lipids and carbohydrates/sugars in a process called

sterol synthesis).

If you are culturing yeast, start with a loop of yeast and pitch into about

1.5 ml of wort.  Grow one day, pitch into 15 -50 ml of wort, wait one day,

pitch into 500ml to 1 liter and wait until visable fermentation has begun

to brew (1-2 days).

Some brewers prefer to wait until the starter has finished fermenting and

pour off the still beer, pitching the slurry only.  I have not found this to

be necessary but many swear by it and have very good results with it.

When pitching slurry, the rule of thumb is to pitch between 1/2 and 1 pound

of slurry per BBl of wort, 8-16 oz into 31 gallons.  When I use fresh slurry

off a unitank, I have 2-3 hour lags when pitching this amount.  If you can

befriend a local brewery who makes *clean* beers, this method is unbeatable.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Grain Mills: opinions

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 07:56:42 PDT

From: mills  17-Jun-1993 0920 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Grain Mills: opinions

I'm eventually going to be interested in getting a grain mill as I move closer

to all-grain.  One homebrew supply place I go to has a "corn mill" selling

for about USD$41.00 or so.  It has a hopper (2# capacity) and a crank.  Looking

into the hopper is a rod that looks like a giant screw.  It is easy to adapt

an electric drill to this mill, which is a feature I'm looking for.  This

mill does let you adjust the crush.

I've heard a lot of talk lately on roller-type mills.  I don't reckon that

the one I saw was a roller mill.  What are the pros and cons of different

types of mills?  Also, I've seen talk about the PhilMill and the Maltmill,

what do these sell for?

Thanks,

JC FERGUSON

Digital

LITTLETON MA USA

------------------------------


Amber Wheat Beer

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 12:14:50 -0400

From: aew@spitfire.unh.edu

Subject: Amber Wheat Beer

I've been enjoying the HBD for about two years now and have always

wanted to post one of my original recipes, but untill now I wasn't sure

that I had any that were up to the high quality standards that have

been displayed herein the past. I think this one is finally good enough.

This recipe produces an excellent summer beer. Light in body, but with

a nice hop Flavor and nose to make it enjoyable to drink. I also use

this as the base for my fruit beers. With 5 lbs. of blueberries added

to the secondary it is truely special!

Al's Amber Wheat Beer

Ingredients (5 or 6 gallon batch):

   3.3# Can Mutton and Fisson Light Unhopped Extract

   2.0# Bag of Unhopped Wheat Dry malt

   1.0  oz. Cascade Leaf Hops (Boil)

   0.25 oz. Cascade Leaf Hops (Flavor)Homebrew DigestH

   0.25 oz. Cascade Leaf Hops (Aroma)

   1 tsp. Irish moss

   2 Packages Mutton and Fisson Ale Yeast

Procedure:

   Remove 1 1/4 cup of wheat malt and save in zip-lock bag for priming.

   Bring 1.5 Gallons water and Malts to a boil. When boil starts fully

set your stove timer (watch, hourglass, whatever) to 45 mins. For leaf

hops I don't use a hop bag, you can if it makes you feel good.

 45 Mins: Add Boil Hops - 1.0 oz.

 15 Mins: Add Irish moss - 1 tsp.

 10 Mins: Add Flavor Hops - .25 oz.

  2 Mins: Add Aroma Hops - .25 oz.

  0 Mins: Pour through strainer and funnel(with strainer) directly into

                 carboy with 2+ gallons of cold water as quickly as possible.

          Fill to top with more cold tap water. swirl carboy to mix

                 hot and cold evenly. Pitch yeast.

   Notes. This could also be a blonde wheat ale if M+F malt was replaced with a

   lighter colored malt - say mountmellick unhopped light. Also, If you

      buy hops in 1 oz. packages you could boost the aroma and flavor hops

          to .5 oz. each. This shoudn't bee too much. Or save the extra

 .5 oz.             and make Papazians Avigadro's Expiditious Old Ale

which needs exactly

          .5 oz of cascade hops!

Enjoy!

Al

===============================================================================

Allan Wright Jr.            | Pole-Vaulters Get a Natural High!  | GO Celtics!

University of New Hampshire +--------------------------------------------------

Research Computing Center   | You keep using that word. I do not think it means

Internet: AEW@UNH.EDU       | what you think it means. -The Princess Bride

===============================================================================

------------------------------


Filters, Plato

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 11:34 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Filters, Plato

 >From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

 >It would seem to me that despite the improvement in performance that

 Jack found with this cartridge, the reusability of a cotton based filter

 would be low.  What do you do to clean and store a cotton filter?

 I let it drip for a day and then put it in the oven with just the pilot light

 and it dries completely in a couple of days.  If kept dry, it is not much

 harder to care for that a cotton undershirt.  Some folks have suggested just

 keeping it in the freezer but I would rather dry it.

 >  I am not sure I would want to spend $11+ on a filter that I would have to

 discard or watch get moldy.

 Neither would I and I suspect that I will get a lot of use out it if properly

 taken care of but only time will tell.

 On the other hand, I do not want to pay any price for any filter that does

 not do what it is supposed to do.

 > If you want a cotton filter , my local HW store sells one for $5...

 I doubt that it is a .5 micron filter.

 >I would also point out what I posted on rec.crafts.brewing: One must

 be careful of the point of conditioning that you filter.  A period of

 cold conditioning helps to remove the bulk of yeast in suspension, and

 results in better filtration.

 I took that under advisement but it does not affect the results of my

 cornstarch test.  I was trying to evaluate two filters and as long as the

 conditions were the same, the results were valid.

 >Micro filtered beer is stripped of important beer constituants, that I

 definetly want in my beer.

 I am sure that is true but I do not consider these string wound filters to be

 absolute in any sense.  My guess is that it just might stop more small stuff

 than a corser filter but to believe that nothing over .5 microns gets through

 is wishful thinking.

 <Not willing to accept these results, I purchased a known .5 micron filter

  cartridge from McMaster Carr and ran some tests on it which convinced me that

   the .5 micron cartridge that came with the filter, most assuridly was not.

 >I am not of the opinion that the Filter Store is misleading brewers as to

 the size of the cartridge.

 First of all, who said anything about the Filter Store and who suggested

 anyone was misleading brewers?  I specifically stated that I was leaving out

 the names to give them an opportunity to look into the problem.

 For the record, I did not purchase mine from the Filter Store but I do not

 recall the source for the one in the article.  It is my understanding that

 the Filter Store sells pleated filters and are therefore not relevant to this

 discussion about string wound filters.

 I was simply reporting on the fact that I received the wrong cartridge with

 the filter I bought and laid out the method by which anyone can determine if

 he/she has what is expected.

 >  Why is the McMaster Carr filter a "known" size and the other not??

 For the simple reason that the catalog listed it as .5 micron and the one

 that came with the filter was unmarked and I had not a clue other than the

 suplier's word that it was .5 micron.

 He has since sent me two more that are marked .5 micron but they are exactly

 the same as the one that came with the original and hense, I do not believe

 the marking is correct.

 >From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

 > A particular problem that I am facing is the need to find an alternative to

 listing the complete Plato/Balling tables relating specific gravity SG to

 extract E (i.e., % extract by wt. or if you like degree Plato).

 >       E = 668.72*SG -463.37 -206.347*SG*SG.

 >One can use the quadratic formula to solve the above for SG...

 Perhaps I am missing something but it seems that if we all spoke the same

 language, this problem would go away.

 If it is necessary or useful to brew in Plato or Balling, why not just

 suggest that whoever makes the ubiquitous homebrew hydrometer simply tune in

 and make a cheap instrument that reads in Plato or whatever is more useful.

 As a matter of fact, it seems no more complicated than changing the cal chart

 inside the instrument and it could read all three scales.

 js

------------------------------


Re: Phil Mill Report

Date: 18 Jun 1993 00:42:10 -0600

From: "Manning, Martin P" <manning#m#_martin_p@mcst.ae.ge.com>

Subject: Re: Phil Mill Report

I was well aware of the circumstances and results of the testing done by

Listermann comparing the Phil Mill's output to the Corona and the Maltmill,

which I obtained from Listermann over the phone. I have not seen any sales

literature from Listermann, except magazine ads. Y'all will note, please, that

I did not attempt to compare the Phil Mill to the Maltmill in my recent post,

because the testing done was obviously not rigorous. The Maltmill used was not

the adjustable type, and hence could not be tuned to match anything, right or

wrong. The Corona, however, is a known entity, and it is well understood that a

compromise between damaged husks and poorly crushed grains must be accepted. I

therefore chose to include that portion of the test results.

The data given by Fix comparing the Maltmill to a commercial mill is

impressive, but it did not state (in the excerpt) weather the Maltmill used was

the adjustable type or not, which would be useful information for any one

contemplating a purchase. However, to restate the point I made previously,

trying to match the particle distribution of multiple roll machines with single

roll types may not be the best course of action because the mechanics of the

crushing process are different. This is bourne out by the Corona- the thing to

worry about is the quality of the beer that results.

------------------------------


siphoning sanitation

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 11:37 MTS

From: Chuck Coronella <CORONELLRJDS@CHE.UTAH.EDU>

Subject: siphoning sanitation

Lately there's been quite a lot of talk in the digest regarding the use of

proper sanitation while siphoning.  I'd like to be the guy who says "Hey don't

be so paranoid, keep it in perspective".  I _always_ start my siphon by

sucking with my mouth, and have yet to discover an infection (knock on plastic

keyboard).

Sanitation is relatively unimportant at bottling time.  Relative to racking

off trub, etc. before yeast is pitched, that is.  The best way to prevent an

infection problem is to pitch a large yeast starter.  I'm not saying that it's

OK to use dirty equipment, etc., just keep it in perspective.  I'll bet that

most of us would agree that you don't need to wash your hands with bleach

while brewing, right?  For me, the trouble of starting a siphon by any method

other than sucking on it outweighs the benefit of increased sanitation.

Relaxing too much,

Chuck

------------------------------


Cooling extract wort

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 11:40:45 -0600

From: LPD1002%NYSHESCV.bitnet@UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU

Subject:  Cooling extract wort

Here's another one of those naive questions from a somewhat

inexperienced brewer.  I am an extract/spec. grain brewer.  Usually

after the boil, I would sparge the 1 1/2 gallons of hot wort into

3 1/2 gallons of cold water.  This would still leave me with a

temp too high for pitching.  After reading the ongoing thread

about a month ago on wort chillers, I started to wonder.  Was my

beer spending too much time at DMS temps?  So for my last batch

I took the brew pot off of the stove and put it into a sink that

had been filled with very cold water and ice.  I covered it and

stirred the cold water around it for 10 minutes or so.  Then

I sparged into my 3 1/2 gallons of cold water.  The beer turned

out pretty tasty, so it wasn't infected.  A little chill haze though.

Are there any problems doing this?  Is it a waste of time for such

a small quantity of wort?  Should I just wait 1/2 hour before

pitching or should I really not worry and do whatever I feel

like doing that day?

    Steve Septer

------------------------------


RE: Subscription Problems

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 10:50 EDT

From: LYONS@adc2.adc.ray.com

Subject: RE: Subscription Problems

Experiencing HBD subscription problems,

 ... yes I have also experienced speratic deliveries lately.  In my

situation I have only missed HBD #'s 1158 & 1163.

Chris,

LYONS@ADC3.ADC.RAY.COM

------------------------------


New Homebrew Store in Pittsburgh?

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 14:09:13 -0400 (EDT)

From: Stephen Brent Peters <sp2q+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: New Homebrew Store in Pittsburgh?

Hi There,

If you would like to see a new homebrew store in the Pittsburgh area,

please reply to this message.  If you don't mind, please also include

the area of the city that is the most convenient for you.

               Steve Peters =  sp2q@andrew.cmu.edu

------------------------------


Re: Keg Dispensing/How Long on Fruit/Sulfury Aromas

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 13:13 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Keg Dispensing/How Long on Fruit/Sulfury Aromas

Martin writes:

>I have solved the problem of getting the right amount of foam when dispensing

>beer from soda kegs through a cobra tap in a unique way. As always, the trick

>is to get the pressure at the tap to down to just above ambient by matching the

>losses in the delivery line to within about 1 psi of the gauge pressure in the

>keg. You can size the line such that this happens, but what about resizing part

>of it by putting in a restriction? You can't place the restriction at the end

>(by regulating the flow at the tap), because the pressure drop is too abrupt. I

>have found, however, that you can place a restriction at the quick disconnect,

>to get part of the pressure drop, and let the line take care of the rest.

>

>My Cobra tap has the usual 1/4-in ID tubing, with a 1/4-in flare nut on the

>end, which attaches to a ball lock connector. I placed a short piece of 1/4-in

>ID copper tube between the cobra tap hose and the connector using a 1/4-in

>flare union and two flare nuts. I then squashed the tube (nearly) flat to

>create a restriction. The flattened section is about 5/8-in long, and the flow

>passage inside is only about 0.020 in or so. With the regulator set for the

>desired volumes of CO2, usually 10 to 15 psi for me, it works fine. In fact, I

>adjusted the restriction by trial and error to get it to work properly. One

>could try using an adjustable restrictor (needle valve?) to accommodate various

>tank pressures. Maybe one of the entrepreneurs out there could make a killing

>supplying such a thing to the mechanically disinclined.

Well, it's a good idea, but then again, not really.  The additional fittings

and copper tubing are more areas for bacteria to hide and spoil your beer.

The simplest solution is to slip some kind of pinch-type hose valve onto the

beer line near the keg end of it.  These are the plastic siphon hose shutoff

clamps that most of us have on our siphon hoses.  There are fancier ones with

little wheels (like a rack and pinion) that are even more adjustable or the

stainless steel ones that are used in labs.  As Martin said, though, it needs

quite a bit of hose so the restriction is not too close to the faucet so

it doesn't foam all over the place.

************************

Frank writes:

>In my current creation, I am using about 11 lbs. for a 5 gallon batch.

>The question that I have is how long a period  time is it recommended

>to let the fruit sit on the beer?

First of all, that's a good amount of Cherries -- you will get a decidedly

Cherry aroma and flavor.  I used 12 or 13 (I forget) pounds to make a

5 gallon batch (actually it was 3.75 gallons of beer on 12 or 13 lbs of

cherries WITH the pits) and it worked out very well (won a couple of awards

even).  In any event, I let them sit in the brew for three weeks in my

fruit beer, but it's been something like 8 months for my pKriek

(pure-cultureKreik).  For a regular fruit beer, I think that 3 to 4 weeks

(from my experience) at 65F is the proper amount of time.

>I will post the recipe. I sought a sweeter end product so I it incorporates

>1 lb of crystal and 5 oz of lactose.

I used a couple of pounds of Belgian Caramel Pils and 8 ounces of Lactose

in 15 gallons of finished beer and it turned out pleasantly sweet.

***********************

Rafael writes:

>Help! after two days of fermentation a rotten egg smell is

>coming out of my bucket. It is a continental light beer, nothing

>special.

>Should I discarded and start over or should I wait a little

>longer?

Some strains of yeast have a tendancy to produce sulfury aromas during

fermentation.  There have been quite a few reports of this from Lager

yeasts especially, but I'm sure that some Ale yeasts are capable of

producing sulfury smells and still making great beer.  Give it some

time.  I've had smells go away in the bottle too, but personally, I

feel a lot better when the smell goes away in the ferementer.

Al.

------------------------------


Rotten eggs, Fruit, Siphon

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 14:36:39 EDT

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: Rotten eggs, Fruit, Siphon

In HBD1164 Rafael Bussto asks:

>Help! after two days of fermentation a rotten egg smell is

>coming out of my bucket. It is a continental light beer, nothing

>special.

>Should I discarded and start over or should I wait a little

>longer?

Don't dump it yet!  Sulphur compounds giving off a rotten egg smell

can be a natural byproduct of the yeast during early stages of

fermentation.  If this is the case, just wait a few days and the

rotten egg smell will go away.  (I've noticed a rotten egg smell

during early fermentation stages of a weitzen and with starters

I've used with lager yeasts.  In each case the smell went away after

the primary fermentation and the beers turned out fine with no

detectable sulphury aroma or flavor.)  If the rotten egg smell is

still strong after active fermentation has ceased, then consider

dumping the batch, or using it as slug bait.

Also, Frank Dobner asks:

>In my current creation, I am using about 11 lbs. for a 5 gallon batch.

>The question that I have is how long a period  time is it recommended

>to let the fruit sit on the beer?

>I have already gone through primary fermentation and have racked the

>fermented weiss onto the cherries and would like to know  how long it

>is that I must now wait. I am sure the answers will be all over the

>board but so be it. This is my wife's beer so I wanna do good.

Why not simply wait until the sugars in the cherries ferment out,

which should take from 2 days to a week depending on your yeast and

the fermentation temperature.  Currently, I've been fermenting a

strawberry-rhubarb ale (10 lbs straberries + 1.2 lbs rhubarb)

in which I used a similar process as you, (froze the strawberries,

blanched in boiling water for a few seconds, dumped into a

6.7 gal carboy, boiled the rhubarb with 1/4 lbs DME and added

on top of the partially frozen strawberries, shook, then racked

from primary onto the fruit).  You may not have as vigourous a secondary

as me since I added a little DME, (my small blowoff tube clogged and

I nearly had an explosion).  Active secondary fermentation stopped

after 3 days, (WYEAST 1056, 68F) but I didn't get to rack off the

fruit until 7 days.  I plan on letting it sit in tertiary a week or

so to let the pulp which got through the siphon settle out.

Finally, on starting siphons, I have been using the following method

when siphoning into a carboy.  I use one of those orange carboy caps

with the two tubes sticking out.  In the shorter tube (where the air

lock is suppose to fit) insert a piece of copper tubing (3/8 OD,

about 1 foot long) so that some remains outside and some is inside the

carboy.  (If you are reracking place a 5/16 ID plastic hose on the

bottom of the copper pipe, which is long enough to reach the bottom

of the carboy, to avoid aeration.)  A section of plastic tubing

is used to connect the top of the pipe sticking out of the carboy to a

racking cane (I also use copper tubing for the racking cane). Insert

the racking cane into the kettle with wort, or primary carboy with the

beer to be racked.  Connect a 3/8" ID plastic hose to the smaller

tube (blowoff) extending out of the orange carboy cap.  The siphon can

be started by either sucking on this hose, or attaching it to a

hand pump (as I do).

I sterilize my copper tubing by baking in the oven at 350F for about

1/2 hour and let cool in the oven with the door shut.

The carboy is sanitized using 1 oz bleach / gallon of water,

and is rinse by twice adding about

1/2 gallon of pre boiled water, shaking and dumping.  The plastic

tubing is sanitized also by soaking in the bleach solution and rinsing

with pre-boiled water.

Bill Szymczak

------------------------------


Eric Warner's Wheat beer book

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 11:34 PDT

From: /O=vmspfhou/S=dblewis/DD.SITE=JSCPROFS/@NASAmail.nasa.gov

Subject: Eric Warner's Wheat beer book

***************************** PROFS Note *****************************

 From: DBLEWIS --VMSPFHOU            Date and time  06/17/93 13:37:06

 To: POSTMAN --NASAMAIL

 FROM: Dennis B. Lewis <dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

 SUBJECT: Eric Warner's Wheat beer book

 I recently purchased Eric Warner's book _German Wheat Beers_ and have found it

 to be a tremendous help in quantifying the mysterious tastes of German wheat

 beers. I have a question for anyone out there (maybe someone knows Eric...)

 about the recipe formulations in the back of the book. I calculated the

 extract required from the grain recipes to achieve the desired SG. In almost

 every recipe I came up with an extraction of 40 pts/lb/gal!

 I think that these sound more like malt extract (heavy liquid or light dry)

 numbers. This is not a big problem, but I think the community should be aware

 of this and make corrections to their own grain bills before starting. One

 point of help for corrections is that Eric says the recipes are based on 83%

 extraction from the wheat malt (1.039 max) and 78% from the barley malt (1.035

 max). (numbers in parens are mine)

 Or maybe there is some super German malts that yield 40 pts!

 Dennis B. Lewis  *  (713) 244-7809  *  NASA/JSC/DH6 Payload Ops

 Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


On the Road Again

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 18:06:36 PDT

From: grumpy!cr@uunet.UU.NET (C.R. Saikley)

Subject: On the Road Again

Greetings All,

Next month, I'll be heading to the Czech Republic.

Does anyone know if they make good beer there?

If so, any recommendations?

Please respond via private email.

Thanks,

CR

------------------------------


maltmill vs. phillmill

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 15:01:11 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: maltmill vs. phillmill

>

>arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling) writes:

> >The early prototype version I used seemed to work well, i.e. gave a good

> crush, and Dan (Listermann) has tested this observation by sifting the grist

> through a set of brewery screens, and comparing the (weight) percentages left

> on each to published data for 6-roll mills.

>

> His bar charts show that the MM and Corona are just about identical (bad) and

> the Phillmill and the large commercial mill are identical (good).

>

>George Fix earlier wrote (and jack re-posts):

> I received Jack's mill in Jan., 1992. Shortly thereafter it was taken to the

> Dallas Brewing Co. (DBC) for the test. The latter was done with a standard

> and well established screen sieving procedure. This is described for example

> in DeClerck, Vol. 2, pages 321-323. It in effect consists weighing out the

> grain fractions that are retained on screen meshes of diminishing width. The

> following is what we measured:

>

>    ASBC          screen               grains retained, % by wt.

>   screen no.     width, mm.             MM       DBC Mill

> ------------    ------------           ------    ---------

>     10            2.000                 14          13

>     14            1.410                 18          20

>     18            1.000                 33          32

>     30             .590                 25          25

>     60             .250                  5           5

>    100             .149                  3           2

> Not Retained                             2           3

>                                         ----        ----

>                                         100         100

>

> George Fix

>

I think we're missing the point here.  The Data posted by george

measures by weight the amount of grain passing through sucessively

finer screens.  It is a measure of the consistency of the crush

of the kernel itself, which is important as far a stuck sparges go.

What is more important is how badly the mill shredded the husk

material, and the analyses do not meaure that.  husk material is

light, and will not show up (relatively) in the results, which

are by weight.  A well shredded husk can also be retained by

the medium screens - it is the grain dust which falls though

the finer screens.

The presence of extra grain dust does not cause extra tannin extraction,

the big factor.  It can make your sparge stick.

As far as the maltmill goes, I'm a satisfied customer.

bb

------------------------------


Great Falls

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 16:11

From: RON.admin@admin.creol.ucf.edu (RON)

Subject: Great Falls

A friend recently moved to Great Falls Montana and was hoping

to find a local brew supply store.  Anywhere in the state of Montana

for that matter.

ron@admin.creol.ucf.edu

------------------------------


A Few Observations

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 13:16:59 PDT

From: Martin A. Lodahl <pbmoss!malodah@PacBell.COM>

Subject: A Few Observations

In  HOMEBREW Digest #1164 there were several items that "spoke to

me."  First, William A. Kitch seconded Kelly Jones' call for

references in postings (with which I heartily concur), adding:

>  ...  This in not to say that opinions an anectdotal

> evidence are not import.  They are and should be posted but should also

> be clearly marked as such!

I couldn't agree more.  Opinion and speculation are grand precursors

to knowledge, but aren't themselves knowledge.

Then Dr. George J. Fix caught my attention:

> ... Brewing Techniques. By the way, Vol. 2 will have an article by

> Martin Lodahl, which could turn into the most widely read and

> discussed article in the history of brewing. He deals with malt

> extracts.

Wow!  Well, I hope someone finds it helpful.  At the moment I'm not

sure if it will be discussed, or just dissed and cussed.  We'll see,

pretty soon.

> To head off anticipated flames, let me state that I get paid $0

> for being an editor of BT, and authors get the same compensation.

The compensation is getting to do the research the articles are

based on, and getting to work with the people involved with the

magazine, including Steve Mallery, a truly extraordinary editor-

in-chief.

Finally, Steven Zabarnick set off my alarm bells:

> I finally took the plunge -- I did my first full wort boil

> this past weekend. I used a new 33 qt ceramic-on-steel

> kettle ...

This is the same kind of kettle I use, and I think it falls into the

"best buy" category.  They work great.

> I do have some comments and questions about the process,

> though. With 5 gals of water and 6 lbs of DME at a rolling

> boil, the 33 qt kettle was quite close to full. How does one

> do an all-grain boil in a kettle this size, where one needs to

> boil about 7 gals?

Very carefully.  The tip that someone offered here about tossing a

few hop strobiles or a couple of pellets into the wort before it

begins to boil is a good one, and especially as boil approaches, the

kettle must be watched closely.  I always partially uncover the

kettle at that point, both to avoid boilovers and control the

mechanical action of the boil.  If it becomes too vigorous, it will

splash over the sides.

> As I boiled out on the porch and set up to chill in the

> kitchen, I had to carry the full, hot kettle with copper

> tubing protruding. This was much more challenging then

> expected.

Dangerous, too.  Remember, you're carrying a considerable quantity

of boiling-hot, sugar-laden liquid, in a kettle whose handles are

none-too-strongly attached.  I suspect they're there for handling

the kettle when it's empty, not when it's full.  I had one handle

come off of my kettle, at the best possible time:  I was mashing in

it, and as I began to lift it from the insulated box there was a

sudden *tink!* ...  Total fall was a couple of inches, and while the

mash sloshed around a bit, none spilled.  But it got me to

thinking ...

> ... Do most people avoid carrying the hot wort by

> chilling in place (using a garden hose)?

That's exactly what I do.  I brew in the kitchen (to my wife's

increasing annoyance), and have a quick-disconnect fitting on the

faucet.  I attach a short (10') hose to that, then to the

inflow-side of the immersion chiller.  The outflow I direct into the

carboy I'm going to use as a primary, to which I've added some

<insert favorite sanitizer>.  After collecting that 6.5 gallons, I

rearrange the hoses to use a small Teel pump to recirculate

icewater, to do the rest of the chilling.

> ... During chilling

> the kettle cover does not completely seal due to the

> copper tubing; should I have used plastic wrap to keep out

> the nasties?

This has bothered me since my first batch using an immersion

chiller, but I've never done anything more constructive than fit the

lid on the best way I could, nor have I seen evidence of infection

because of it.

= Martin A. Lodahl      Pacific*Bell Systems Analyst =

= malodah@Pacbell.COM          Sacramento, CA           916.972.4821 =

= If it's good for ancient Druids, runnin' nekkid through the wuids, =

= Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me!  8-)   =

------------------------------


Units

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 13:54:35 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Units

I made an assumption in my chlorine calculations I forgot to mention.

In particular, I assumed that a liter of solution weighed approximately

one kilogram. This is not exact, but for chlorine solutions I believe

it is reasonable. I was forced into this assumption because the Siebel

data was presented in mg/l (units I prefer), while the best I could get

from my bleach friends was liters per million liters. A sentence that

was inadvertently left out of my post was " Lets assume that the 52500 ppm

figure can be taken as 52500 mg/l". Sorry for the omission, and the confusion

it caused.

I used 1 oz. per gallon bleach rate simply as a numerical example. This is

what I have been using (on tubing), but I am very interest in the success

John has been getting with half that rate. This is something I am going to

check out in terms of my system.

George Fix

P.S. Takes to Anthony Johnson and Greg Troxel for asking about the units

I was using.

------------------------------


data point on molasses

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 15:29:05 cdt

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@GRIN.EDU>

Subject: data point on molasses

Al's comments on molasses being better for dark beer are worth noting.  I

recently put 8 fl. oz. in a ginger beer with 6 lbs. Telford's Extra Pale

extract syrup.  It's too much!  Hopefully more bottle conditioning will

improve things.  However, thinking back a number of HBD issues to the

suggestion someone made that brown sugars and molasses have desirable

aromatics that might be lost during a full boil, I put the molasses in for

only the last 15 minutes.  A couple of years ago I made another ginger beer

with 8 fl. oz. molasses and only 4 lbs. of an amber extract.  The molasses

was virtually undetectable even by experienced palates.  So I guess my

limited experience suggests that when using molasses, if you want the

aromatics, use VERY LITTLE during the last part of the boil; if you want a

certain je-ne-say-kwa, dump it in for an hour and you can use more.  And Al's

probably right about sticking to darker beers anyway.

On the aromatic side, though, I used some "demarara" sugar - 1 lb. with 6

lbs. of a light extract - in a British ale last year which was really

wonderful.  I would not hesitate to accent the qualities imparted by that

sugar by moving its addition closer to the end of the boil next time!

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


malt

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 16:34

From: RON.admin@admin.creol.ucf.edu (RON)

Subject: malt

Due to numerous requests for inexpensive extracts.....

Heres an extract that I've had good results with:

Specialty Products International Ltd.

820 North 14th St.

Erwin  North Carolina  28339

919 - 929 - 4277

Pricing for mix and match; hopped or unhopped,

Amber, Light, and Dark, or Canadian Lager.

Shipped with yeast.

$80 / 12 cans east of mississippi

$90 / 12 cans west of mississippi

other products available from free catalog

ps....I'm not a salesman with the company, just always

looking for inexpensive supplies

------------------------------


The Great Grain Mill Saga

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 16:19:33 -0500

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: The Great Grain Mill Saga

I recently bought a JS MaltMill(r), the adjustable model, and

have got a few things to say about using it for two batches. The

first thing I notice is that the quality of the crush you will

get is very sensitive to roller spacing.

When I got it from a local homebrew shop, the rollers weren't

adjusted well at all, and the crush was MUCH too fine.  Didn't

look any better than a Corona, what with all that dust and small

pieces of husk.  Turns out the rollers were way too close

together.  I adjusted it to the reccommended .060" spacing by

using automotive feeler gauges.  Which brings up a good point:

you will not get repeatable results unless you use a metal gague

for setting the gap.  More on this later.  Ayway, I was crushing

DeWolf Two-Row, which of course came from a particular bag, and

a particular lot-number.  The .060" spacing was too loose --

many grains were just cracked in half, but not really crushed. I

adjusted the mill, again with feeler gauges, to .057".  This

provided satisfactory results for the two-row, but was too loose

for the CaraPils.  I adjusted again to .055", and this provided

great results for CaraPils as well as the two-row.  But I think

it'll be too loose for wheat malt, which I haven't tried yet.

Just for fun, I tried .050, and .045 gaps, and the quality of

the crush falls off (by visual inspection, no screens) pretty

rapidly.  Also gets real hard to turn the crank at these close

gaps.

One big advantage I see to a mill like the MaltMill is that it

trivial to reproduce roller spacings.  You just turn the thing

over, and stick in your feeler gauges.  When I set the gaps, I

placed the gauges in the center of the rollers, and turned the

adjustemnt until there was just enough friction to hold the

gauges in place.  Then I tightened the set-screw, and checked to

be sure the rollers hadn't gotten any tighter or looser.  This

takes about 30 seconds.

I tried using a drill to turn the MaltMill too.  This absolves

JSP of all liability associated with the machine, but I did it

anyway.  The drill is a very heavy-duty 1/2" drill, with 0 - 500

RPM speed.  I figure I was running it at maybe 100 RPMs.  The

big thing is I think you get a better crush with a motor because

the rollers are turning so smoothly.  It IS easier to do, but I

think the reason to do it is to get a better crush.  I was told

that Jack used to produce a motorized version.

Things that could stand improvement??  I think the hopper is WAY

too small.  But it'll be easy to make a bigger one from some

scrap lumber.  I was disappointed to find no bronze bushing in

the eccentric "knob" that provides the adjustemnt.  And the

adjuster moves too easily when tightening the set-screw -- you

have to be more careful than you might want to be.  Some kind of

metal clips that could fasten the mill to the top of the bucket

would be good too.

My plans are to mount the MaltMill on a different base, add a

permanent motor of some kind, build a bigger hopper, and come up

with some kind of wire clip, like you may have seen on some

shipping crates, to fasten the base to the pail.  And then brew

LOTS of great beer.  If the eccentric knob wears out, I trust

that Jack will replace it.  But I'd still like to see a bushing

in it.

So, it seems there are now three price-points in the small-mill

market now:  $40 gets you a Corona, $80 get you a PhilMill, and

$120 gets you an adjustable MaltMill.  Bottom line on the

MaltMill??  From my point of view, I'd say if you don't mind the

price, its a good machine, certainly better than a Corona Mill.

There is even a certain retro-grouch homebrew supplier here in

town who is impressed with the results I've gotten with the

adjustable MaltMill. And you won't find a genuine roller mill

anywhere near its price.  ("Genuine" means "two rollers" IMHO)

You can make great, award-winning beer with Corona-Crushed

grain: I've seen it done.  But its less ideal, for sure.  The

other homebrew supplier here in town has a PhilMill on order.  I

expect I'll go out and evaluate it, but I don't need two mills.

And I'll bet I already have the Porsche.

Cheers,

 t

------------------------------


John Bull barley wine kit - what to do with it?

Date:  Thu, 17 Jun 1993 12:26:17 -0400

From: Bill Flowers <waflowers@qnx.com>

Subject: John Bull barley wine kit - what to do with it?

I was just given a John Bull "Barley Wine" kit as a gift.  I don't

want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but the problem I see is that

this won't make anything like a real barley wine.  The kit is a 1.8Kg

can of hopped malt extract.  The instructions call for combining this

with 1Kg of "sugar" (of course, I'd use DME) to make up 14L of wort.

By my calculations this would have an OG of 1.057+/-, unless the syrup

in the can is almost a solid (a can of DME maybe?  NOT!).

While this might be a wonderful ale, it isn't even in the ballpark for

a barley wine.  Does anyone have any experience with this kit?

What I'm thinking of doing is cutting down on the water (I have a

11.5L carboy I could do it in) and increasing the fermentables to at

least get it up to 1.085 (still low for a barley wine from what I

understand, but it would be better), and some extra hops. Perhaps 1Kg

of DME, 500g raw (whole) sugar and 20g Goldings.  Do the initial

fermentation with a good ale yeast and continue the fermentation with

a (well started) champagne yeast.

Comments?

- ---

W.A. (Bill) Flowers                email: waflowers@qnx.com

QNX Software Systems, Ltd.         QUICS: bill     (613) 591-0934 (data)

(613) 591-0931 (voice)             mail:  175 Terrence Matthews

- ---

W.A. (Bill) Flowers                email: waflowers@qnx.com

QNX Software Systems, Ltd.         QUICS: bill     (613) 591-0934 (data)

(613) 591-0931 (voice)             mail:  175 Terrence Matthews

(613) 591-3579 (fax)                      Kanata, Ontario, Canada K2M 1W8

------------------------------


Re: All Grain Systems

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 17:47:04 -0400

From: polstra!larryba@uunet.UU.NET

Subject: Re: All Grain Systems

In HBD#1162,

>I'm trying to gather as much info as I can on all grain brewing

>systems before putting my own system together.  I've read several

>books on the subject but haven't come to a decision on the following

>items:

>

>+ Boiling Kettle - what are the disadvantages of cutting up an old keg?

>  Is a false bottom neccessary?  For a 15 gallon capacity (10 gallon

>  beer batch) what should I look for in material thickness and other

>  features.

Sanke keg works great.  I find it hard to believe that false bottoms

work well with bottom heat systems (e.g. propane burners) so I made a

copper ring out of some 1/2"od tubing, ran it out the side of the keg

through a compression fitting silver soldered as a bulkhead fitting.

I did this twice: one with a large ring around the inner circumference

of the keg, for the kettle: the slotted ring filters out whole leaf

hops fine and for pellets, swirling leaves all the trub and pellet

crud in a pile in the dome of the keg.  I get all but about a quart

of liquid out.  The second one is an 8" ring centered in the keg and

resting on the bottom.  I use that for mashing and lautering.  Again

the slotted ring filters just dandy and I get excellent extract (100%

of expected yeild on my second try).  The kegs cost me $10/ea at a

recycling yard and I cut 10" holes in the top with ajig saw and a

bi-metal blade (make sure you get bi-metal or you will be frustrated!).

>

>+ Propane burner - Is 35K BTU's big enough?  How long to heat 12 gallons

>  of wort?

In spite of what you hear people say, 35kbtu is more than enough.  Bigger

burners are just blowing heat around the side of yoru keg and wasting

propane.  A better solution is to make a heat shield that fits over your

keg.  I made mine out of some 24" flashing.  The shield is about 4"

biggert in diameter than the keg and the top is folded over to seal.

With that in place it takes very little flame to keep 14gal at a roiling

boil.

>

>+ Wort Chillers - Right now I'm using a homemade immersion type.  What

>  are the advantages of the other style?

>

>+ Thermometers - Where do you find thermometers that are accurate to +/-

>  2 degrees?

Go to a kitchen supply and get a digital one for about $19. Fast, accurate

and easy to read.

>

>+ Refrigeration/Fermenting - Idealy one would build a walk-in or two.

>  How do persons of ordinary means accomodate large numbers of fermenters

>  and kegs?

>

My regular refer can handle 1 fermenter and four kegs at one time.

Gotta run.

Cheers!

>Thanks,

>

> -Brian

>

>- -------------------------------------------------------------------------

>Brian Vandewettering (ADP Dealer Services R&D) Portland, OR

>bmv@plaza.ds.adp.com

>- --------------------------------------------------------------------------

>

>

- --

Larry Barello   uunet!polstra!larryba

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1166, 06/21/93

*************************************

-------


Acetaminophen and Hangovers

Date:    Thu, 17 Jun 1993 18:04 EDT

From: Phil Hultin <HULTINP@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>

Subject: Acetaminophen and Hangovers

Derrick Pohl suggests taking a tab of Acetaminophen (the active ingred

in Tylenol and several other similar products) as a pre-treatment

for potential headaches.

This is probably not wise.  One of the side-effects of acetaminophen

is a certain degree of liver toxicity.  This toxic effect is especially

emphasized when taken in conjunction with alcohol.  The studies I

saw (several years back, sorry can't give the reference) suggested

that in extreme cases (ie: heavy drinkers) the toxicity was sufficiently

severe to produce more rapid liver failure than would otherwise be

expected.

I personally have no problem with acetaminophen in general, but I

don't think taking it for drink-related troubles is really advisable.  P.

------------------------------


Bleach and Free Chlorine

Date:    Thu, 17 Jun 1993 18:27 EDT

From: Phil Hultin <HULTINP@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>

Subject: Bleach and Free Chlorine

George Fix discusses the amount of free chlorine produced in

solutions of standard bleach.  However, his assumption that

the percent by weight of "Cl" in NaOCl can be used to give

the amount of dissolved Cl2 (no subs or supers on my machine

either) is false.

The release of elemental chlorine from sodium hypochlorite

is described by the equation:

2 NaOH + Cl2 <-> NaOCl + NaCl + H2O

Where I use <-> to represent the back-and-forth arrows

symbolizing and equilibrium process.

Now, this equilibrium lies far to the right, which is to say,

that comparatively little NaOCl reverts to free Cl2 and NaOH

in solution.  Unfortunately, I don't have the equilibrium

constant available at the moment, but consultation of

"The Merck Index" 10th ed. entry #8463 reveals the statement:

"The hypochlorite ion in solution is remarkably stable."

Which is essentially saying the same thing I put in the

preceding paragraph.

So, when George estimates the amount of Cl2 in solution in

his posting, he is grossly overestimating.  The calculation

of the true Cl2 content is simple, if one has in hand the

relevant equilibrium constant.  The disinfectant action of

bleach is largely due to the power of OCl- ion as a disinfectant

, while the "chlorine" smell of bleach is a consequence of the

extreme sensitivity of the human nose to Cl2: threshold for detection

is 0.2-0.4 ppm.

P.

------------------------------


Re: CDC sterilant

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 16:47:29 -0600

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Re: CDC sterilant

In HBD #1164, Paul Boor <PBOOR@beach.utmb.edu>  asks:

>        The Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta recently

>reviewed its guidelines for sanitizing IV needles (reviewed in the

(stuff deleted)

>        Anyway, CDC recommends 1/4 cup/gallon water for sterilizing

>surfaces, so I'm with the recent comment of R. Stueven:  Why has the

>bleach concentration been plummeting?  Who really knows, like

(stuff deleted)

>        But more importantly, should we be using two different bleach

>concentrations for our needles and our Kegs?  Are homebrewers out

(stuff deleted)

I would guess that something you are going to stick directly into

your vein, you would want to be PDS (pretty damn sterile). On the

other hand, brewing equipment probably need not be quite as sterile,

since it will soon contain an alcoholic, low pH substance

overwhelmed by yeast. Controlling gross infections is probably good

enough. In "Disinfection, Sterilization, Preservation" (SS Block), a

concentration of 50-200 ppm available Chlorine is mentioned for

sanitizing food contact surfaces. This works out to 20-80 ml Chlorox

per 20 liters water (4-16 tsp per 5 gal). I'm not sure what the

appropriate contact time would be.

>        Think about it, but right now I gotta run out to the kitchen

>to make sure my refrigerator light is still on.

More importantly, does your airlock really bubble when you're not

watching it?

Kelly        <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

------------------------------


Mill results

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 19:57:27 -0400 (EDT)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: Mill results

Due to the interest in the introduction of the Philmill, I thought it

would be useful to provide a bit of extra data.

First, a disclaimer:  I belong to the Bloatarian Brewing League, and

Dan Listermann, creator of the Philmill, is a fellow member.

Our club did a comparison, using standard sieves, of the crush produced

by the Corona (properly adjusted), a MALTMILL (tm) (non-adjustable model),

and a Philmill prototype (properly adjusted).  The results differed rather

substantially from the MM sieve results posted here in May by George Fix,

but they tended to point to the PM as being somewhat superior.  I am

personally a satisfied owner of the MM, and I use it often.  I have also

been very impressed by the results I've seen throughout prototype testing

of the PM.  I believe they are both first-class, state-of-the-are examples

of homebrew equipment.  I've tasted beers made with both, and I've very

carefully examined the crush provided with both.  I honestly believe that

anyone would be happy with the purchase of either one.

However, for those who require more hard data, Dan Listermann has told

me that he will be bringing his set of standard analytical sieves to

Portland with him, and will offer to conduct a "crush-off" with all

comers.  Seeing the results first-hand should persuade any skeptics.

++  Ed Westemeier ++  Cincinnati, Ohio

++  westemeier@delphi.com ++

------------------------------


barleywine

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 23:22:10 EDT

From: homebre973@aol.com

Subject: barleywine

Just a quick question to those knowledgeable about the alcohol tolerance of

yeast strain #1084 (Irish Ale).  I've used this to make

a barleywine with an s.g. of 1.098.  After 3 days I racked it to

a secondary with the gravity now at 1.037.  Since I would like a relatively

sweet barleywine, does anyone know what the approximate finishing gravity

would be?  Is this strain of yeast fairly alcohol tolerant?  Thanks.

Andy "Dr. K" not to be confused with Julius Erving!

------------------------------


Hop Oil ppm vs. IBUs

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 21:48:32 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hop Oil ppm vs. IBUs

Russ Gelinas asked (me specifically) if the ppm of hop oil had anything to

do with IBUs.

No.  IBUs are *roughly* equivalent to the milligrams/liter of isomerized

alpha acids in beer.  The alpha acids are responsible for the bitterness

in the beer.  The oils from the hops are responsible for the hop character

and aroma in the beer.  Hop character is imparted by late additions of

hops in the kettle and/or by steeping hops while the wort cools.  Some hop

aroam is also imparted by this, but it is a totally different aroma than

you get with dry hopping.  The aroma imparted by dry hopping resembles the

aroma of the fresh hops.  But no bitterness is imparted by the hop oils,

whether added directly as an oil, or by adding hops late in the boil or by

dry hopping.

Mark from HopTech

------------------------------


Racking off trub, etc.

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 93 9:23:52 CDT

From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>

Subject: Racking off trub, etc.

As promised earlier during the "should we rack off of the trub" thread,

here are results based on two batches I have made, a Steam (tm) and a

Stout:

Steam (racked off of trub) was pretty good, very bitter and highly

hopped.  The beer tht was left over the trub for the primary ferment

seemed to have some phenolic overtones, but was still pretty good.  In

all other respects, the beers were treated identically. Also, the beer

left over the trub didn't seem as clear as the racked beer.  No

clarifying agents were used. (I usually use polyclar (tm?).)

The stout (a new recipe I invented which has black walnuts in it :) )

was not significantly different between the two batches.  Both are

opaque deep brown, almost black.  No noticeable difference in taste

profiles, but the unracked batch has a much more noticeable walnut

aroma, probably from sitting in the primary with them for so long.

The bottom line is that I will probably continue to rack my beers away

from the trub, esp. for those with a lighter flavor profile.  The heavy

ones I probably won't fret over.

- ------------

About filtrations (esp. air filtration)

Has anyone out there in brewdom tried using Acrodiscs (tm)?  These are

disposable membrane catrtridges in a variety of porosities and sizes

that are available through science supply houses (VWR, etc.)  They are

made to fit onto a syringe tip, but could probably be put inline with an

air hose.  Would not be suitable for liquid filtration, because they are

only meant to filter small (several mL) volumes.

- --------------

About flames and commercialism

Let's be polite here in our criticisms, and lets leave the advertising

to the pages of Zymurgy, etc.  If you find something so nifty-difty that

you've gotta tell or you'll burst, why not just describe it in generic

terms, no specific copyrighted names, prices, ordering information, etc.

and just field the private e-mail.  If I wanted commercials, I would

watch TV :( !!!!!

Sensibly yours,

Tony Johnston

Tired Chemist, Inspired Homebrewer

anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu

------------------------------


Re: CP fillers

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 93 10:20:53 EDT

From: chuck@synchro.com (Chuck Cox)

Subject: Re: CP fillers

Ed Westemeier sez...

>

> FWIW, I have heard that the CP filler sold by DeFalco is also excellent, but

> I have never seen it and can't vouch for it.

I can.  I've had one for a couple of years now.

It is an excellent unit, all stainless, and very sturdy.

Highly recommended, and reasonably priced.

- --

Chuck Cox   <chuck@synchro.com>

SynchroSystems / Riverside Garage & Brewery - Cambridge, Mass.

------------------------------


Dogbolter Revisited

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 93 11:03:15 -0400

From: jpgareri@acs.bu.edu (Joseph Gareri)

Subject: Dogbolter Revisited

In Tuesday's HBD (1162), I wrote in with questions about what to do with

a Dogbolter kit.  The response was, to say the least, overwhelming.  I

received 14 responses at last count.  Some folks have asked for a summary,

so I thought it would be in the interest of many to post it here.

The comments were all favorable about Dogbolter being a beer worth making.

Everyone who commented on the product said that it was quite close to the

commercial product and very high in alcohol content (estimates of >8%.)

Many suggestions were received about the supplied yeast.  A few folks

said they have used the yeast and have had very favorable results.  The

favorite substitute was London Ale yeast (Wyeast 1028) with Whitbread a

favorite for dried yeast.

Virtually no one suggested keeping with the recommended 2 1/2 lbs. white

sugar.  Although it was pointed out that some sugar is very common in

English bitters.  Suggestions ranged from 2 to 4 lbs. of either light

or amber unhopped dry malt extract.  The kit makes 3 gallons, but nearly

everyone suggested making it into a five gallon recipe by adding additional

malt or even an additional kit!  Yikes!

Additional hops were suggested to maintain the balance.  Kent Goldings were

the odds on favorite with Fuggles a close second.  The recommendations were

for 1/2 oz. (3-4%) per ounce of additional malt for the boil (60 minute

boil was the most popular), and 1/2 oz. for the finish.

Allen Wright suggested 2 tsp. Irish Moss thrown in during the last 15 minutes

to help settle out the cold break.

Conditioning was recommended according to normal procedures.

I think that's about it.  I hope I didn't miss too much of the valuable info.

Thanks to all the respondents.  I have saved all the text into a file that

I'll keep for a couple of weeks.  If anyone would like to see the unedited

text, I'll happily mail it off to you.

Joe Gareri

Boston  MA

------------------------------


Pushing krauesen and cloudy beer issue

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1993 08:13:55 -0700 (PDT)

From: gregb@amazon.SanDiego.NCR.COM

Subject: Pushing krauesen and cloudy beer issue

 - You know that crud that sticks to the side of your primary fermenter

  after the krauesen dies down? I figure this contains goodies that would

  aid flavor and aroma. Would it be beneficial to push this stuff back down

  into the wort?

 - With all this talk about clarifying agents, is really a big deal if your

  beer is cloudy or is this just an aesthetic issue?

Greg Bruno

gregb@amazon.sandiego.ncr.com

------------------------------


Aluminum cans

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 93 10:10:08 PDT

From: bgros@sensitivity.berkeley.edu (Bryan L. Gros)

Subject: Aluminum cans

A brief article in the paper yesterday (Thurs, San Fran. Chronicle)

mentioned a study done by a company in Austrailia.  They found that

the levels of aluminum from non-cola sodas in cans was six times

higher than the levels found in those sodas from bottles.  For cola

sodas, the levels of Al were three times higher in the drinks from

cans.

The sample size was something like 56 sodas, no absolute levels of

Al were given although it said that the levels found were below

acceptable health standards, and no other drinks were mentioned.

Is the "fear" of aluminum due to the possible relation with

Alzheimers?  Is this also the reason that all homebrewers recommend

stainless steel pots and kegs rather than aluminum, or is there

some heat distribution advantage to SS?  Or non-corrosive advantage?

                              - Bryan

------------------------------


Re: Miller Amber Ale

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 93 10:40:08 PDT

From: "Donald G. Scheidt" <dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com>

Subject: Re: Miller Amber Ale

In HOMEBREW Digest #1165, Fri 18 June 1993, it is written:

>Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 09:20 PDT

>From: /O=vmspfhou/S=dblewis/DD.SITE=JSCPROFS/@NASAmail.nasa.gov

>Subject: Miller Amber Ale

>

> FROM: Dennis B. Lewis <dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

> SUBJECT: Miller Amber Ale

< a very good article on Miller's Amber Ale deleted to save space...>

Now, after talking about local pride in our microbrewers, this is really

something to behold.  Think about these things.  Remember when we couldn't

get Munich Lowenbrau anymore, because Miller started producing it under

license?  (Poetic license, maybe, 'cause it ain't Lowenbrau, and I have

some more of the Munich product at home to prove it!).  Then there was

Coors and its "Killian's Irish Red", licensed from a brewer that hadn't

brewed in nearly three decades.  Now, Miller's at it again, attempting to

brew a "micro-killer".  To give it due credit, it isn't bad, *as long as it

is kept fairly cold* (cold ale?), but it does raise some questions.

This is a very curious product:  a top-fermented ("special" yeast, har har)

ale that tastes worse as it approaches what a lot of us, as somewhat educated

brewers and beer-drinkers, regard as proper ale temperature.  Is this a

point of pride?  I realise that many Americans have a predilection for ice-

cold beverages, but if a product is pitched to an "upscale" market-segment,

why not go for the authenticity?

The "Amber Ale" marketing pamphlet is so full of outright lies and false-

hoods, it puts a certain Boston (tm) Beer (tm) brewer to shame.  "Warm beer

of England" is a misnomer.  It isn't warm, it's at cellar temperature - I

don't think of 55 to 60 degrees F as warm!  So much for Miller's "master-

brewers" (aka "marketing men" who have little or nothing to do with actual

brewing).

>     "Ales are also the original beer of Europe."

Hee hee hee.  So when is Miller going to make gueuze-lambic, using locally-

occuring wild yeasts?  I can't wait to see their mass-market version of

Ninkasi. :-)

As long as we have the likes of Miller continuing to "educate" the public,

we Americans will have a long ways to go before we can be justified in

proclaiming our respective regions to be "Beer Capitol of the Universe".

Homebrewers excepted, of course, since our brew-cellars are, in fact, the

center of the universe. :-)

BTW, at least the Miller Amber Ale didn't give me a headache.  It's probably

the first time in a long time that I actually finished a bottle of a mass-

brewer's product, instead of feeding the rest to the drain.

- --

        __       |                                        |       __

       // /      |  Don Scheidt                           |      // /

      /  / /     |  Boeing IASL, 777 Cab Development      |     /  / /

     / // / /    |  dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com      |    / // / /

    / / // / /   |                                        |   / / // / /

   / / /__/_/ /  |                                        |  / / /__/_/ /

  / / /________/ |                                        | / / /________/

  //___________/ |                                        | //___________/

------------------------------


Miller ale.

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 93 09:27:38 PDT

From: johng@adx.la.ca.us (John E. Greene)

Subject: Miller ale.

It's a bit amusing to read about what miller has written about the differences

between ale and lager.  I was talking with the owner of a brewpub here in

Manhattan beach and he said that when he took a tour of the Miller Brewery he

noticed that their fermenting tanks for the lager were at 65 degrees.  He

tried to ask about this but they would not give him an answer.  I think that

in Miller's case the only true difference between an ale and a lager is

if the yeast ferments at the top or the bottom.

- --john

------------------------------


Downloading files from sierra.stanford.edu

Date: 18 Jun 1993 14:54:24 -0400 (EDT)

From: "PETER JUST, ANTHROPOLOGY, WILLIAMS COLLEGE" <Peter.Just@williams.edu>

Subject: Downloading files from sierra.stanford.edu

Forgive me if this an ignorant question, but:

I have twice downloaded files via ftp from the /pub/homebrew directories

of the sierra.stanford.edu server, specifically cats_meow.2ed.ps.Z.  I take

it from the extensions that this is a PostScript file that has been compressed

with PKZIP.  Yet when I try to unzip the file, PKUNZIP (2.04g) tells me the

file I have is probably not a .zip file.  What am I doing wrong?  How can I

get hold of these files?

Thanks to one and all.

Peter Just  Williams College

internet: peter.just@williams.edu

------------------------------


mashing and other mysteries of homebrewing

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1993 15:32:01 -0500 (CDT)

From: BadAssAstronomer <STOREY@fender.msfc.nasa.gov>

Subject: mashing and other mysteries of homebrewing

    Hi all

    I have a question that's been nagging at me a while. Since I brew

    only using syrup extract, the job of mashing escapes me. I thought

    about mashing once, even tried it. My problem; how in the hell do

    you keep mash at a constant temp? This technique evades me. I

    tried my best to play spin the dial on my electric stove to

    "maintain the mash at 142 F for 7 minutes and raise to 151 F for 3

    minutes" etc. etc. This was quite impossible I found, but I did

    the best I could. The resulting beer turned out ok, but I chalk it

    up to a stroke of luck rather than skill.

    Would anyone out there like to enlighten me? Are these tuns I see

    for sale really worth it?

    Oh yeah, thanks to everyone's help and consolation about my

    American Ale yeast problem. Things *seem* to be going nicely, but

    I won't really know until that first taste :)

    cheers

    scott

------------------------------


hop extraction

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 93 15:44:30 PDT

From: bgros@sensitivity.berkeley.edu (Bryan L. Gros)

Subject: hop extraction

It is written that a high gravity boil will provide less hop

bitterness in the finished beer than a low gravity boil.  All

the equations don't take this into account until you get up

to 1.050 or so, presumably the loss of bitterness at lower

gravity  is not significant.

So what happens if you boil the hops in plain water?  Do malt

sugars or proteins or such provide something necessary for

bitterness extraction (iso-alpha acid conversion?)?  For

extract folks or folks with small pots (on a stovetop), it

would be easier to boil the correct amount of hops in some

water and just strain them into the cooled wort.  It would

even help some grain brewers who have problems siphoning

off the hops (especially with pellets) into the primary.

Of course, it can't be this easy.  I was just wondering why

not!

                            - Bryan

------------------------------


Re: Weizen Yeast

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1993 17:00:52 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: Weizen Yeast

Jeff Griffin wonders:

>

> I just received a packet of a new Wyeast, #3068, which is described

> as a single-strain Bavarian Wheat yeast(this is distinct from the

> #3056, which has two strains).  Does anyone have more information on

> this strain?

>

You are fortunate enough to live somewhere where WYeast is testmarketing

this strain.  It is _not_ related to the 3056, but is a true weizenbier

strain from Weinhenstephan.  I have brewed with it once (got the yeast

directly from Dave), and it is a truly exceptional weizen strain.  If

responses are good in the testing areas, I believe WYeast will add it to

their regular list.

I have had uniformly good responses on the beer; one knowledgeable

importer (and several of his staff, who have reason to know), said it ws

the spitting image of Schneiderweisse.  I say this not to puff myself

up, but to assure you that you have your hands on the real thing.

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


Re: Chili Beer

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 93 9:24:56 PDT

From: deh@rocket.com (Dale E. Higgs)

Subject: Re: Chili Beer

> go, I tried Ed's chili beer, each bottle with a whole Jalapeno in it.

> According to the label, Ed's is a microbrewery somewhere in Arizona (can't

> remember where), but the beer was actually made by a contract brewer in

> Indiana.(?)  Anyway, I was excited to try this brew.  I really like spicy

> food, and I'm not above eating Jalapeno's with a meal.  However, this beer was

> so intensely hot that I couldn't get past the first sip!!  What a surprise!!

     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You wimp! Ed's Cave Creek Chili Beer (It has a serrano in it, not a jalapeno)

is merely soothingly warm.  You should try my chili, it hurts at both ends :)

BTW, don't eat the serrano in ECCCB, all the good stuff has leached out into

the beer and the serrano is horribly bland and disgusting.

A couple years ago I ran across a Northwest microbrewed (real microbrewery)

beer with chipotle (smoked jalapenos) added for flavoring.  Whoever came up

with it did it right, as the beer was light and refreshing with just a hint

of warmth and smokiness at the back of the mouth.  I had forgotten about that

beer until I saw this topic go by.  As I recall, the flyer at the pub (Engine

House #9 in Tacoma, WA) stated that they only added 2 or 3 chipotle per 15 gals

and let it sit for a month or so (don't hold me to that).  I think I'll give

this a try next batch.  A nice lite :) beer with a couple chipotle dropped in

for the secondary.  BTW, chipotle can be found at some Mexican food places,

or you can do like myself and make them at home.  Just buy (or grow) some nice

hot jalapenos, and put them in the smoker over mesquite until they dry out.

Grind them to dust for a seasoning, or leave them whole for your beer!

Bis Spater.

Dale  (deh@rocket.com)

------------------------------


Hopping Rates

Date: 19 Jun 93 11:52:03 EDT

From: Jim Kirk II <70403.3157@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: Hopping Rates

I have tasted beers in the past that were very bitter at first, but finished

sweet afterwards. Ok, yes, I'll admit it. I'm a hophead. My beers start out

bitter and finish bitter. Problem, the lady doesn't like this. Any idea how

I can brew a beer that is bitter at the start, then has a sweeter

aftertaste? <JK>

------------------------------


Business opportunity, Devils

Date: Sun, 20 Jun 93 07:50 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Business opportunity, Devils

 >From: "JSDAWS1@PROFSSR" <JSDAWS1@PB1.PacBell.COM>

 >Recently, a freind & neighboor bought a JS Maltmill <tm>.  It's a WONDERFUL

 device and I definitely intend purchasing one.... but ONLY after I figure out

 how to motorize it.  Any ideas?   I'm the kinda guy who grabs the correct end

 of a screwdriver about 50% of the time so it's got to be an easy,

 off-the-shelf kind of solution.

 I have responded in private but I see here a business opportunity for some

 budding entrepreneur out there.

 For reasons of my I own, I have decided that I do not want to sell motorized

 mills.  However, there is a substantial market out there for serious

 homebrewers and small breweries that would rather make beer than motorize

 mills.  At the present time (see comments below), there is no viable

 alternative to the MM for the low budget operation and someone who wanted to

 repackage them could start a nice cottage industry.

 >From: Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@canrem.com>

 >       If you've never seen it [Philmil] then your post sure sounds

         like FUD! Why don't you ask someone who has seen

         both mills to compare? Na that would have cut down

         on your chance to advertise.-(

 I don't think that was called for.  My post was based on published data.

 However, I now own a Philmil and can speak from personal experience but I

 think it would be more prudent to let the market speak for itself while

 keeping in mind that one must drive a VW to appreciate a Porsche.

 As Perot likes to say, the Devil's in the details, and there is one "detail"

 that I will point out in light of the above discussion on motorizing mills.

 The PM has NO BEARINGS.  The steel roller turns in a 1.5" hole drilled in the

 steel support housing.  The manufacturer's suggestions on how to motorize it

 must be taken with a large grain of salt.

 BTW, what's a FUD?

 >From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

 >Jack S. experiments with filters is very interesting. Micah claims he has

 seen no problems with head retention using the supposed .5um filter and I

 have seen poor clarity with it as well when pushing some beers through it.

 > Fix has recommended against this small (.5um) filtration.....

 I wonder if we havn't got an apples and oranges problem here.  I never asked

 George what type of filter he was using.  He gave me the manufactuere and

 part number but not the type but I bought something else.

 As there are many differnt types of filters, pleated, string wound, ceramic,

 flat, plate, just to name a few, it seems that we need to know which type we

 are talking about to get any sense out of this discussion.

 I have little confidence in the numbers quoted for string wound filters and

 have no experience with any other.

 js

------------------------------


re: Headaches

Date: Sun, 20 Jun 1993 10:03:02 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: re: Headaches

There was a post-thread some time ago about headaches.  There are some

substances, not higher alcohols / fusel oils, that some people are

allergic to and causes headaches.  Cheap red wine frequently has a lot of

this.  Heck if I can remember the name.  If anybody has the last year's

HBD in grep-able form, look back there.

Anyway...  I wonder if the headaches correlate to the brewers who do fast

high gravity brews (the so-called "beer concentrate") and then dilute it

for retail distribution.  This could have all sorts of strange things

going on in the fermenter...

Paul.

------------------------------


re: 5 liter kegs

Date: 21 Jun 1993   7:49 EDT

From: dab@cc.bellcore.com (dave ballard)

Subject: re: 5 liter kegs

hey now-  most of the people who responded to my request for info about

5 liter kegs (thanks guys) wanted me to forward anything else i found to

the hbd.  here is something from r.c.b:

later

dab

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article: 14753 of rec.crafts.brewing

Path: walter!rutgers!uwm.edu!linac!att!bgsuvax!bear

From: bear@andy.bgsu.edu (Michael D. Bear)

Newsgroups: rec.crafts.brewing

Subject: 5 Liter mini-kegging system

Message-ID: <C8qE1n.E47@andy.bgsu.edu>


Date: 16 Jun 93 20:24:57 GMT

Organization: Bowling Green State University, Ohio 43403.

Subject: re: 5 liter kegs

 I recently purchased the 5 liter mini-kegging system advertised by

Brew Ha Ha in Pennsylvania.  I received the kegs in a box that looked kinda

like it was made for them.  The kegs are essentially metal cans made to look

like little barrels.  The order taker said the cans are plastic lined and

the best way to clean them is with a bottle brush bent like a carboy brush.

The cans are painted up with a logo, government warning, etc.  They were used

by a microbrewer called Happy Valley.  The tap is a plastic snap on piece that

has a knob to control the CO2, a screw on cap for the CO2 cartridge and a spout

with dispenser knob.  The keg has a 1" hole in the top and you put a rubber

stopper containing a plastic plug into it.  When installing the tap, you

use the end of the tap to push the plug into the keg.  it just falls into

the beer.  You fish out the plastic plug when the keg is empty.

 I just used the kegs for the first time early this week.  I only

used 2 of the kegs and bottled the rest because I wanted to test how they

worked and compare them to the same beer in bottles.  Also, I have another

batch in secondary that I will do the same thing with.

 They are used much like a large keg.  Use half as much priming sugar

as usual, fill and plug the kegs.  Set them aside for conditioning for 2-3

weeks.  They are conviently sized to put in the fridge beside the milk weather

they are tapped or not.  They are about 13" high with the tap attached.  This

was a little too tall for my fridge.  I had to remove a shelf.

 I tried "Force carbonating" one of mine.  I attached a cartridge,

turned the pressure all the way up and then shook they keg every few minutes

for  about an hour.  I then put it in the fridge with the pressure on.  The

next morning, the beer was carbonated and the cartridge was empty.  I

attached another one and was able to dispense carbonated beer immediately.

The cartridges are 8g seltzer cartridges.  The warn against using CO2

cartridges for guns because they contain oil.  It comes with 10 8g cartridges

and extra packages of 10 are $4.95.  They will also accomodate a larger 16g

cartridge but I don't know where to get those.

 I am quite happy with the system even though I haven't used it much

yet.  If anyone wants more info, just e-mail me.

- --

Michael D. Bear                  bear@andy.bgsu.edu

Computer Technician              ..!osu-cis!bgsuvax!syrinx!root

Bowling Green State University   bear@bgusopie.bitnet

(419) 372-2104

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Hop Report and Apple Weiss

Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 07:46:05 -0500 (CDT)

From: dspalme@mke.ab.com (Diane Palme x2617)

Subject: Hop Report and Apple Weiss

Howdy Y'all!

 Well, as the month of June speeds by (and my e-mail box fills with

requests), I thought I would throw a quick hop update onto the HBD.  Bear with

me, I only get to visit the plants about once a week.

 If you will recall, I planted three varieties of rhizomes, Hallertau,

Tettenanger, and Cascade.  I am *thoroughly* amazed at the speed and vitality

of the Hallertau plant.  I am anxiously awaiting the frantic phone call from

my parents saying that they are being held hostage by this vine.  It is truly

growing in leaps and bounds!  The Cascade is running a close second and is just

about ready to train to a horizontal wire.  These plants are quite stupid,

however, in that they refuse to wrap themselves around a horizontal wire.  They

seem to be much happier running up the poles sunk next to the root.  Hmmmm.

Maybe they just need a good talking to!  As for the Tett, well, I guess the

operative word here is "runt."  It is not more that 4" high and moving *very*

slowly.  It receives the same care and fertiziling as the other two, but it

just seems like it doesn't want to come out and play with the other kids.  Any

suggestions?  As for the weather up here, it has been remarkably cool and quite

wet the past few weeks.  The temperature has finally started to move toward

the 80 degree mark (on a relatively consistent basis), so maybe that has some-

thing to do with it.  Nevertheless, I look forward to some kind of harvest in

a few months.  As a quick side not (directed to those of you who have been

growing/harvesting/brewing with hops for the past few seasons), how does one

calculate the alpha acid content in these hops?  Is trial-and-error (read:

Newton-Raphson method of interpolation) the only way to go?  Any advice will

be appreciated.

[switching gears]

 I was fortunate enough this past weekend to attent the Beer Festival

in lovely Kenosha, Wisconsin, and sampled a beer from the Cherryland Brewery

in Sturgeon Bay, WI.  It was an Apple Ale and was absolutely superb!  Being

the cider fan that I am, I was wondering if any of you brewers out there could

give me some net.wisdom on how to brew a good apple beer.  I am considering

using a standard weiss base and adding copious amounts of apples to the

ferment.  Standard practice seems to recommend something on the order of 4# of

apples (Macintosh, Granny Smith, Washington), I prefer Courtland, to the wort

after the boil is complete, allow to steep ~15 minutes, dump the mess into a

plastic fermenter (or carboy if one can get the apple pieces through the

opening) and then rack off of the fruit once the primary ferment is complete.

Does this sound plausible?  Any better recommendations for a base?  Once

again, any info/suggestions will be appreciated and a summary will be posted

if there is interest.

 Well, this concludes the monthly Hop Report and CFD on Apple beers.

I apologize for the length of the posting, maybe I should do this more often!

:-)

Thanks in advance ...

Diane Palme (dspalme@mke.ab.com)

Dept. Engineer, Central Inspection

Allen-Bradley Co.

(414) 382-2617

- --

 " God does not play dice "

     - Albert Einstein

 " Nor is it our business to proscribe to God

  How he should run the world. "

     - Neils Bohr

------------------------------


Request for Kegging Info

Date: 21 Jun 1993 09:09:09 GMT

From: "Tom Stolfi" <WAUTS@CWEMAIL.ceco.com>

Subject: Request for Kegging Info

From: Tom Stolfi

I have received the ultimate gift for a combined Father's Day & Birthday,

my beautiful wife has set aside enough $$ to get me a kegging setup.  I

have been reading the HBD for 6 months or so and have an idea of what I

want. However, I am asking the experts on HBD for any advice on equipment,

suppliers, setup or anything else to do with kegging.  Thanks in advance.

Tom Stolfi

wauts@cwemail.ceco.com

p.s. Please include your full email address, our reply feature is not working.

------------------------------


References on sanitation

Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 09:56:31 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: References on sanitation

The diversity of opinion regarding appropriate strengths to use for

sanitizing solutions is reflected in the diversity of results found

in the professional literature on this subject. For example, data that

was produced for the general food industry (copies of which can be obtained

from bleach producers) show that highly dilute sodium hypochlorite

solutions can be very effective with selected bacteria. To cite an example,

one study showed that a solution with a 5 mg/l OCl concentration yielded

a total kill (sorry for the barbaric language!) of E. Coli with contact

times ranging from 5 to 10 mins. With the bleach I use, a OCl fraction of 5

mg/l is achieved by diluting ~1 tsp. of bleach in 5gals., i.e., ~1/30 oz.

per gal.

Different studies using different microbes found an altogether different

situation. Permit me to cite the following, which appeared in a professionally

peer reviewed journal devoted to brewing:

    J. Sorenson, et al, "Pediococcus: Some Biocide Studies", Brewers Digest,

    January 1983.

This study looked at the effect of various halogens (chlorine, iodine, etc.)

had on selected strains of pediococcus. The following is but one of their

findings for P. pentosaceous, a highly feared brewery contaminant. They

propagated this microbe, and then added sodium hypochlorite at various

levels of OCl. Their criteria was very simple. They just observed

if the microbes continued to grow ( noted with a + in the below), or stop

growing (noted with a -).

                              Exposure Time (mins.)

       OCl (mg/l)         .5       1.      5.

      -------------      -----   -----    -----

         75               +        +       +

        100               +        +       -

        150               -        -       -

The condition of no growth is a minimal one, what we want is a complete kill.

Nevertheless, I find the results interesting. It should also be pointed out

that various strains of lactos and pedios vary greatly in their resistance

to sanitizers. They also vary greatly in their effect on beer flavors. The

very special lacto strain used by Celis yields a gentle and mellow sour,

while P. pentosaceous produces, among other things, an extremely unpleasant

acid flavor.

With all this diversity is it no wonder people disagree. BTW Brewing Techniques

will carry two articles on sanitation. Vol. 2 is by Dr. Maribeth

Raines, and is oriented to beginning and intermediate homebrewers. Roger

Bergin's article will appear in a later issue, and is oriented to advanced

homebrewers as well as microbrewers. It should also be noted that all full

length articles in BT are confidentially reviewed by professionals in brewing.

In a post that will come out, or already has come out, Phil Hultin argues

that my chlorine calculations had a serious error. From the point of view of

equilibrium chemistry he is absolutely right. In fact, this argument has been

made to me a number of times in the past by professional chemists. The reason

I do not accept it is that it is missing the biological connection. What is

being asserted by me is not that OCl ions are completely disassociating, but

rather as the calculated OCl fraction of the solution increases, so does the

sanitizing power. Similar calculations were used in the reference cited

above. Remarkably, while there is general agreement about the effect of

chlorine being the oxidation of microbe cell walls, the actual mechanisms

are still unclear. The observation that equivalent OCl fractions track strength

is completely empirical. Thanks to Phil for interesting e-mail.

I find myself in the awkward position of having an embarrassing number of

projects with late Aug. and early Sept. due dates that need an embarrassing

amount of work if they are going to be successful. Thus I need to hide for

a couple of months, and work my @#$% off. I hope everyone (especially Don

O'Connor) has an eventful. fun, and rewarding summer. See you folks in Sept.

George Fix

------------------------------


Hop utilization calculation credits

Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 09:03:15 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Hop utilization calculation credits

I would like to comment on the following note from Mark Garetz:

>BTW, Rager credits not only Eckhardt for the calculations, but

>also Byron Burch and Dave Miller.  Eckhardt only gets sole credit

>for the table of beer styles vs. IBUs.

I spoke with Byron about hop utilization calculations about 5-6 years ago.

He said he had just received a letter from Gary Bauer. He sent me a copy of

this note. In that note Gary had very crude numbers for about 4 or 5

boil time with percent utilization. Byron's hop utilization numbers

(essentially Gary's numbers) started appearing right after that. I wonder

where Gary's numbers came from? I would suspect he is THE source for ALL the

current guestimates.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Phone number for Dewolf-Cosyns?

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 93 14:06:52 PDT

From: hartman@varian.CSB.Varian.COM (John Hartman)

Subject: Phone number for Dewolf-Cosyns?

Fellow Digesters--

I have a homebrew store in my area who'd like to carry Dewolf-Cosyns'

Belgain malts.  Does anyone have a phone number or address for them or their

U.S. distibutor?

Much thanks in advance,

John

hartman@varian.varian.com

------------------------------


Those Pesky Siphons

Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 09:46:05 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Those Pesky Siphons

In regard to the discussion (more or less perpetual) about starting

siphons, I have a STRONG recommendation.  Although I was initially

skeptical about the need for such a device (having always used a turkey

baster), I had a succession of problems startings siphons and broke down

and bought a Sucker (TM).  Jeeze, I think I've got the nae right.  At

any rate, the device is based on a large syringe, with a y-connector and

check valves that ensure the siphon flow continues in the proper

direction.  It is not only useful -- unbelievably so -- for starting

siphons, but can also be used for pulling samples from carboys,

transferring the sample directly into a graduated cylinder, for example,

for taking hydrometer readings.  Because it's entirely made of plastic,

it's easy to sanitize (I use iodophor).

Best of all, you can get it by asking right here on the net: it's made

by the never-advertising-in-the-Digest Russ Wigglesworth.  Send your

inquiries to: rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.EDU

This is an unsolicited endorsement.  Really.  I can hear Russ blushing

all the way up here in Portland.

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1167, 06/22/93

*************************************

-------


Mashing raw wheat for Belgian white beers

Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 16:41 GMT

From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>

Subject: Mashing raw wheat for Belgian white beers

Some time back I posted a preliminary recipe for a Belgian white

beer that I had brewed with some success.  A number of other

people went on to brew the same thing, and reported good results.

That recipe called for 60% barley malt, 30% wheat malt, and 10%

raw wheat in the mash, using a single protein rest prior to

saccrification.  This works smoothly and the wheat requires no

special preparation.

I can now report that I have successfully completed a mash of 50%

Belgian pils malt and 50% raw hard red winter wheat (aka wheat

berries).  All grains were ground on a Corona mill, with no

additional preparation.  The mash schedule was as follows:

Mash type:          Upward step mash

Water/grist ratio:  2 quarts/lb

Dough in:           95F for 10 minutes

Protein rests:      117F for 20 minutes

                    122F for 20 minutes

                    126F for 20 minutes

Saccrification:     150F for 10 minutes

                    158F until complete

Technique:

1) All the water is added at dough-in.  I should admit that my

strike temperature was much too hot (115F), and that I overshot

by about 8 degrees F.  I therefore suggest using water that is

97-100F, which you can probably get straight from your tap.  I

used the dough-in period to adjust the pH, which required 3.5

teaspoons of gypsum.  Usually I don't need any, but this is also

the first time I've used a complete step mash instead of

infusion, and I usually use less water per pound of grist.

2) Apply heat to raise temperature to first protein rest and let

sit for 20 minutes.

3) Repeat for second and third protein rests.

4) Saccrification temperatures were my choice--use what you want.

Astute readers will notice that this is exactly the mash schedule

proposed by Eric Warner in his wheat beer book, but without the

decoctions.

The most interesting thing about doing this was that I could

actually feel the grist becoming less gummy with each rest.  What

started as a rather sticky, bottom-clinging mass that looked like

wallpaper paste became a light, fluffy, easy-to-stir and clear

mash of the usual type.  I lautered with 175F water until the

wort running out had dropped to 1.008, and collected 6.75 gallons

@ 1.038, or about 27 points per pound overall from 10 lbs of

grist.  Lautering proceded with no problems at all, and may have

produced a clearer-running wort than usual.  There was plenty of

hot and cold break material in the kettle but I wouldn't say the

quantities were unusually large.

Some warnings and comments:

1) Grinding 5 lbs of raw wheat on a Corona is the most effort-

intensive thing I've done as a homebrewer.  Like grinding putty.

Think twice before planning a 10-gallon batch.

2) You will do a lot of stirring with this mash due to all the

temperature steps.  My brew day took an hour longer than usual,

and lasted from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.  Effort-wise I'd say this is

about equivalent to a single decoction mash.

3) While I'm not sure what an optimal crush for raw wheat might

be, I was uncomfortable with the amount of flour produced when I

set the Corona to grind chunks roughly similar to those from

barley malt.  I therefore used a grind that what I would consider

somewhat coarser than optimal.  Having seen what the protein

rests can do, I'd grind finer next time, as the flour seems to

take care of itself.

This batch included some variations in spicing from my previous

effort, and most notably the use of some hand-imported curacao

orange peel.  Subsequent postings will deal with this, as it's

too early to say what the results will be.

Thanks for assistance with this project go to Jim Busch, still

the Sultan of Wheat Beers.

Phil Seitz

PSEITZ@MCIMAIL.COM

Arlington, VA

------------------------------


Eric Warner's Wheat beer book

Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 13:05:10 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Eric Warner's Wheat beer book

Dennis Lewis writes:

 >  I calculated the extract required from the grain recipes to

 >  achieve the desired SG. In almost every recipe I came up with an

 >  extraction of 40 pts/lb/gal!

Funny you should mention that.  I tried his "Isar Hefe Weizen" last

night.  After coming up with a gravity closer to 1.045 than his

1.055, I did the same calculation, and got an overall expected

extraction of 36.5 for his gravity.  I actually got about 30.  Maybe I

should have sparged for 2 hours insted of 1!-)  Ah well, next time....

(If I will ever spend the time required for that complex multi-step

decoction recipe again!)

=S

------------------------------


Light (Lovibond) Extract

Date: 21 Jun 93 07:05:11 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Light (Lovibond) Extract

Message Creation Date was at 21-JUN-1993 10:27:00

          Greetings,

               I have a question for those of you out there who do not

          consider Malt Extract to be too trivial for comment.

          I wish to make a beer with the lightest possible color as is

          possible with extract.  The style is somewhat uncertain at

          this point in time.  I may use it as a base for fruit beers,

          or it may evolve into a "lawnmower" beer, but mainly it's

          just an experiment to see how light in color it is possible

          to get while using malt extracts. (Someday, if I get the

          time and brewing partners, I'll do it right & get my light

          color by going all-grain.)  I would like to use only

          barley & wheat for my fermentable sugars - no sugar, rice,

          or similar adjuncts.

               What suggetions can you give me for both liquid extract

          (preferrably unhopped) and DME?

          TIA

          Andy A

------------------------------


mark@hoptech.com's advertising on HBD

Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 10:56:08 -0700

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: mark@hoptech.com's advertising on HBD

"Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 20:12:44 PDT

 From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

 Subject: Hop Oils

                         New Product Announcement

"In my article in the Summer '93 Zymurgy (Boost Hop Bouquet with Dry Hopping)

 I talked about CO2 extracted hop oils.  As the article stated, measuring the

 very tiny amounts of hop oil needed takes lab equipment and lab skills,

 beyond those of most homebrewers (but probably not beyond quite a few

 Digest readers).  Anyway, the article states that I was working on a solution

 to the problem.  It was supposed to have a P.O. Box where you could write

 me to keep informed of any progress.  Unfortunately, they edited that part out.

"To make a long story short, HopTech now has available CO2 extracted hop oils

 that have been formulated in a stable, water-based suspension that are easy to

 add to homebrew sized batches. It is calibrated that 1 tsp of hop oil equals

 1 ppm of hop oil in 5 gallons.  Average usage, depending on the style of beer

 and your taste, runs between 1 and 3 ppm.  We sell it in 2 oz bottles,

 enough to add 2 ppm to 30 gallons of beer.

"We have three varieties available:"

Look, Mark. You work, if I recall correctly, out of Emeryville, on the fringes

of UC Berkeley, where programmers and users are as thick as grass. Surely you

have absorbed, by now, the understanding that advertising on the Usenet, and

through electronic media in general, is in bad taste.

Like bombarding every FAX you can find with an advertisement, it is, while

economically attractive and technologically feasible, a shallow use of a media

reserved for more important things than your worship of the almighty dollar.

Please stop advertising on the Home Brew Digest. Everyone knows you're there,

if anyone wants information they can mail you.

Please note that I am, in general, as supportive of personal businesses, as

anyone is. I've done it myself. But you are abusing this forum.

Has it occurred to you that, perhaps, Zymurgy dislikes covert advertising ?

Cyberspace is relatively free of throwaways ( barring bounced email ). Let's

all keep it that way.

- -- richard

The silliest thing I ever read,  richard childers, pascal@netcom.com

Was someone saying "God is dead."

The simple use of The Word

Negates the second, and the third. ( Duke Ellington, _Sacred Concert_ )

------------------------------


keg secrets

Date: 21 Jun 1993 13:05:05 -0500 (EST)

From: Sandy Cockerham <COCKERHAM_SANDRA_L@Lilly.com>

Subject: keg secrets

Does anyone have a neat trick for stabilizing a 3 gallon keg so you can tighten

and untighten the fittings ?  I have not figured out how to work on them. The

5 gallons with the double handles are easy, but the 3 gallons have me stymied.

Thanks,

Sandy C.

From: COCKERHAM SANDRA L            (MCVAX0::RX31852)

To:   VMS MAIL ADDRESSEE            (IN::"homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com")

------------------------------


filtering - mechanisms & tolerances

Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 11:13:58 -0700

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: filtering - mechanisms & tolerances

Jack Schmidling notes :

"Judging from my experience and that of a brewer who posted an article to

 rec.crafts.brewing, there seems to be a problem with the filters being sold

 to the homebrewing community."

This does not surprise me ... there is considerable latitude in circumstances

where one cannot directly verify the statements of the salesperson.

Recently I became interested in this topic, as a consequence of being intro-

 -duced to a hand-pumped camping water filter ( in close proximity to some

naturally-heated sulpher springs, the location of which must remain secret )

and became intrigued by the design of the filter.

Suffice it to say that, between the combination of poor design ( the filter

came apart easily during regular use and did not have support for anything

such as hoseclamps by which to secure it ), and questionable water contents

( giardia was the primary concern, but obviously other microflora and fauna

exist, as well as sulpher and traces of human urine, since there's always

an 'upsteam' )-:, I became intrigued with how much easier it might be to

build and maintain one myself.

I haven't done anything tangible yet, but, noting that others have the same

interest for similar reasons ( I had not overlooked the relevance of these

filters to brewing, yeasts being a microflora ), I thought I'd point out to

those interested, that the Fisher Company sells about fifty pages of filters,

a wide range of architectures ( paper, cone, replaceable disks, cast plastic

housings, etc ), pore sizes and tolerances ( some are tolerant of organic

solvents but a few are not ).

The non-sterile versions are somewhat less expensive ( gamma ray radiation

is a nontrivial procedure to maintain and administer, I'd guess ).

I've called Jack's source in Chicago for a catalog, I'm interested in seeing

what they offer - the prices are much better - but given the question of if

a filter of a given pore diameter is what it claims it is, dealing with a

scientifically professional firm may be advantageous.

Incidentally, I'm not sure what the pore size of gas filters is, but it's

probably pretty big - those are intended to filter out grit, not biological

entities. Petroleum macromolecules might very well be similar in size to

microorganisms ( although, clearly, I am not knowledgeable in this realm ).

"I also find that mine has a very large and persistant bubble that, unless

 purged with CO2, could cause aeration if not eliminated."

Many of the Fisher Company filters have anti-bubble mechanisms built in.

Cole-Parmer might also have some good filters ...

- -- richard

The silliest thing I ever read,  richard childers, pascal@netcom.com

Was someone saying "God is dead."

The simple use of The Word

Negates the second, and the third. ( Duke Ellington, _Sacred Concert_ )

------------------------------


New brewer

Date:    Mon, 21 Jun 93 13:30 CDT

From: "Michael Barre"                             <MBARRE@NOMVS.LSUMC.EDU>

Subject: New brewer

I recently read Tom Kaltenbach's brewing notes from May 25 and as a

newer brewer I found some helpful info therein( esp. the jug-aeration).

Thanks for the notes, Tom.

I have finished my first batch, an Amber kit using Cascade hops and

Superbrau malt extract from a supply shop here in New Orleans, and I am

displeased with the results.  The beer is very sharp with a metallic

aftertaste, almost like a canned beer that has been cold, warm, and cold

again.  The shopkeeper tasted the beer and he says using liquid yeast

instead of the dried (EDME brand) yeast, and pitching the yeast into

cooler wort will take the bite out.  My wort was 90 degrees.

Has anyone experienced this problem, beer with too much bite?  What do

you think of the remedies?

The beer fermented in a new, bleach-sanitized 5 gallon bucket; I think

using a carboy so I could get some blow-off might also help.  I will not

be able to get fermentation temperatures below 75 degrees, at least not

until November.

Thanks in advance.

------------------------------


Miller PR

Date: Monday, 21 June 93 14:06:11 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: Miller PR

Howdy,

Just a comment on Dennis B. Lewis' comments about Miller's Amber Ale PR

brouchure.  You have to wonder what the big brewer's know about beer that

isn't yellow.  Last Christmas, Coors' winter beer was labeled as a stout,

which is very interesting for something that was about the same color as

Bass Ale.

Well, at least it wasn't "clear".

Alan Van Dyke

------------------------------


Sucking on siphon hoses

Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 14:48 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Sucking on siphon hoses

Over the years, several brewers have suggested that sanitation at

bottling time is not very important and that sucking on the siphon

hose with your mouth is an acceptable way to start a siphon.

I would like to again insist that this is very bad advise! Sanitation is

important throughtout the brewing process.  It is true that fermented-out

beer is less prone to noticable amounts of infection, that does not mean

that maintaining good sanitation is overkill.  It is not.

Before I make the next few statements, I want to preface them by saying

that I don't mean to put anyone down or to imply that any of these

statements are directed towards any of the brewers who have recently

or not so recently posted contrary to my advise on the subject.

The reasons that some brewers get by with less-than-ideal sanitation

techniques include:

1. the beer is consumed quickly and an infection does not have enough

   time to produce detectable levels of off-flavors/aromas [this could

   not be done for some styles like Barleywine which require some aging...

   set a beer aside for a year and see if it gets overcarbonated or not],

2. the brewer has been very lucky,

3. the pitching yeast is contaminated with bacteria and there is little

   sugar left for the bacteria introduced during the siphoning to eat

   and make off-flavors/aromas [a very dry, thin beer would indicate

   that there's an infection in there -- if each bottle was equally dry

   then that would indicate the infection was introduced early in the

   process: infected yeast, infected fermenter, etc. -- if some bottles

   are more dry than others, the infection was introduced later in the

   process: dirty bottles, infection introduced while bottling, etc.],

4. the brewer is unfamiliar with the off-flavors/aromas that can be

   produced and is actually enjoying infected beer, and/or

5. the brewer is not sensitive to the particular off-flavors/aromas

   (each person has a slightly different threshold for each flavor/aroma).

I'd like to add that during the 1st round judging in the national competition,

I judged perhaps a dozen beers that had subtle off-aromas that were due

to poor sanitation or infected yeast.  This indicates to me that there are

still a significant percentage of brewers who are lax in sanitation.  These

beers were not awful (actually only one was undrinkable) but the off-aromas

were definately there, whether the brewer knew that they were or not.

If you like the beer you are making and are happy with your process, then

great... more power to you.  On the other hand, it's important to remember

that there are a lot of beginners reading and that it's best to not teach

them anything except proper sanitation techniques.  I've gotten quite

comfortable with my fill-with-water technique and I would be willing to

guess that it takes only 15 seconds longer than sucking on the hose

(assuming that you were sanitizing the inside of your hose as I am).

Al.

------------------------------


Anyone heard of BrewHeat?

Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 93 22:39:52 +0300

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      Anyone heard of BrewHeat?

I'm just back from the UK. The British seem not to mind using plastic in their

homebrewing. They have a mashing aparatus made of a 20 lit polyproylene bucket

with a 2400 watt heating element controled by a thermostat which they call

"BrewHeat" (forgot who makes it). You mash in it, sparge and boil (after the

bucket is emptied). I guess you can also use it as your primary.

I am about to construct one myself. Can anyone think of a good reason why such

a bucket would not be such a great think to use???

Only problem for me right now is that they don't make 20 lit buckets here in

Israel. Only 18 lit. I might have to resort to JS's EasyMasher tm in the end.

Nir.

HolyLand Brewing Inc. (sometimes called Nir's Beer) [both temporary]

Rehovot, Israel.

------------------------------


Brew Supply Store

Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 13:26:42 PDT

From: tlopez@alamo.cam1.unisys.com (Tito Lopez)

Subject: Brew Supply Store

I'm looking for a brew suplly store in Ventura County.  My closest one is in

Woodland Hills, and that's an 80 miles round trip.  I'm also in need of a 35-40

qt. brewing pot for my first full wort boil.  I've checked restaurants & bar

supply equipment, but no luck.

Tito

tlopez@alt.cam1.unisys.com

------------------------------


Re: Cooling extract wort

Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 16:44 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Cooling extract wort

Steve writes:

>Here's another one of those naive questions from a somewhat

>inexperienced brewer.  I am an extract/spec. grain brewer.  Usually

>after the boil, I would sparge the 1 1/2 gallons of hot wort into

>3 1/2 gallons of cold water.  This would still leave me with a

>temp too high for pitching.  After reading the ongoing thread

>about a month ago on wort chillers, I started to wonder.  Was my

>beer spending too much time at DMS temps?  So for my last batch

>I took the brew pot off of the stove and put it into a sink that

>had been filled with very cold water and ice.  I covered it and

>stirred the cold water around it for 10 minutes or so.  Then

>I sparged into my 3 1/2 gallons of cold water.  The beer turned

>out pretty tasty, so it wasn't infected.  A little chill haze though.

Chances are that you're right -- your beer is spending too much time

at DMS-creation temperatures.  10 minutes is a bit short.  I suggest

you keep adding ice till the temperature of the wort drops to below

140F and then add it to your 3.5 gallons of boiled-and-cooled-to-40F water.

This will give you a wort that is at about 70-75F and ready for pitching.

>Are there any problems doing this?  Is it a waste of time for such

>a small quantity of wort?  Should I just wait 1/2 hour before

>pitching or should I really not worry and do whatever I feel

>like doing that day?

It's not a waste of time in my opinion.  I'm a bit confused by your

statement: "...after the boil, I would sparge the 1 1/2 gallons of hot

wort..."  Sparging is the rinsing of grains with hot (170F or so) water

to extract the sugars out of them.  Your statement implies that you

have boiled your grains.  This will not only give you chill haze, but

also make your beer quite astringent (like chewing on grape skins).

I suggest that you remove the grains when the water in the pot reaches

170F and then add your extract.  Also, when you are pouring the hot

wort into the cool water in the fermenter, try to minimize splashing

which will oxidize the beer.  Once the temperature of the wort is below

80F, you can then aerate the wort without significant oxidation.

Al.

------------------------------


Brewery's or Micro's in Dallas, Texas

Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 21:38:24 EDT

From: Bruce=Kiley%SIG%SNI%sig@sni-usa.com

Subject: Brewery's or Micro's in Dallas, Texas

I am traveling in the Dallas, Texas area this week.  I just tried Cowboy

Premium-A Special Amber, very nice beer.  Does anyone know were some BrewPubs

or Micro's are in the area.  I recently read that brewpubs were not legal in

Texas.  Is this still true?

Please reply to brucek@sig.sni-usa.com

Cheers,

Bruce

------------------------------


Wort chilling, Porsches

Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 23:00 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Wort chilling, Porsches

 >From: LPD1002%NYSHESCV.bitnet@UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU

 > After reading the ongoing thread about a month ago on wort chillers, I

 started to wonder.  Was my beer spending too much time at DMS temps?

 After re-reading Darryl Richman's detailed account of the brewing process at

 Pilsner Urquell, I started to wonder if anything at all that we believe about

 brewing is for real.

 PU allows the beer to cool down naturally, in large open pans, in a building

 with "large louvered windows on one long wall".   It takes four hours to cool

 down to a range given as 122F to 140F at which time it is then cooled down to

 pitching temp with a chiller.

 If this extended period at "DMS temps" is harmful to beer, someone had better

 tell the brewmeister at PU.

 >From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

 >Subject: The Great Grain Mill Saga

 I responded to this privately, not realizing that it was coppied to the

 Digest so now I have to do it publicly but I will edit it for public

 consumption.

 >I recently bought a JS MaltMill(r), the adjustable model, and

 have got a few things to say.......

 > The .060" spacing was too loose many grains were just cracked in half, but

 not really crushed. I adjusted the mill, again with feeler gauges, to .057".

 This provided satisfactory results for the two-row, but was too loose

 for the CaraPils.  I adjusted again to .055", and this provided

 great results for CaraPils as well as the two-row.

 This whole discussion about a thousanth of an inch here or there is just too

 anal for my style and view of reality.  I have not adjusted my mill for six

 months and I typically use 4 or 5 different malts in a batch.

 I am glad to see a customer who likes his toy and has the flexibility he was

 looking for but, for the record, I sell roughly equal numbers of fixed and

 adjustable and can only recall two customers who saw the need to upgrade.

 >I tried using a drill to turn the MaltMill too.  This absolves

 JSP of all liability associated with the machine, but I did it

 anyway.  The drill is a very heavy-duty 1/2" drill, with 0 - 500

 RPM speed.  I figure I was running it at maybe 100 RPMs.

 Not only do I absolve myself of liability but I would also like to point out

 that powerful electric drills are not a good choice for powering a mill.

 They have tremendous torque and will destroy rollers if stones or other

 objects find their way into the mill.  If a drill must be used, I would

 suggest a light duty one that will stall on a foreign object.

 The method of choice is a separate motor, pullies and a v-belt adjusted to

 stall at the proper torque.

 >Things that could stand improvement??  I think the hopper is WAY

 too small.

 That is more of a shipping problem than an engineering problem.  Try hanging

 a 5 gal bucket from the ceiling with a hole in the bottom and just let it run

 into the existing hopper.

 >  I was disappointed to find no bronze bushing in the eccentric "knob" that

 provides the adjustemnt.

 The bronze bushing is in the roller where the action is.  The knob has a

 hardened steel shaft that rides in the bushing.

 You ought to check out the new Philmill.  It has no bearings at all.  The

 1.5" roller turns in 1.5" hole drilled in the steel housing.  It sounds like

 a train hitting the breaks.

 The knob is only an adjustment and not a bearing surface. Although not

 milspec, it works and is consistant with keeping the cost reasonable.

 >And the adjuster moves too easily when tightening the set-screw -- you have

 to be more careful than you might want to be.

 I have made improvements in the knob to minimize the movement but as you

 bought it from a dealer, I don't know what vintage it is.  As a result of

 your mail, we are now assigning serial numbers to every MM as it is

 manufactured to keep track of mods and improvements.

 >Some kind of metal clips that could fasten the mill to the top of the bucket

 would be good too.

 The preferred way of using the mill is to clamp the base to the end of a

 table with the business end hanging over the edge and the grain falling into

 the bucket.

 >My plans are to mount the MaltMill on a different base, add a permanent

 motor of some kind,...

 Much better idea than a drill.  You can also screw the board down to a larger

 board with the front hanging over to avoid having to cut the rectangular hole

 in the new board.

 >If the eccentric knob wears out, I trust that Jack will replace it.

 Of course.

 >So, it seems there are now three price-points in the small-mill market now:

 $40 gets you a Corona, $80 get you a PhilMill, and $120 gets you an

 adjustable MaltMill.

 There are at least 500 people out there with fixed mills who would argue that

 you should compare the $80 PM against the $99 MM.

 js

------------------------------


Free B and Punks on Swill

Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 19:38:04 PDT

From: nexgen!bart@daver (Bart Thielges)

Subject: Free B and Punks on Swill

Is the "Brewer's Yeast" that can be bought at a health food store simply

the sludge from the bottom of a fermenter ?  If so, does it make sense

at all to dry my sludge and save it as a source of vitamin B ?  Or

is there something magic about the store bought yeast ?

The thought of saving the yeast for vitamin B came from the recent discussion

of headaches and whether they resulted from yeastless factory beer.  This

weekend I was at a rather rowdy (ahem) music event.  The only beverage

I saw consumed was malt liquor in 32 or 40 ounce bottles.  Yeow !  Ugh !

I'd bet that there were many headaches the next morning.  How do they

make that stuff ?  Is it truely brewed that way or is extra alchohol

added to skanky beer ?  Not that I want to make some myself ("Here, try

my latest homebrew.  Its supposed to taste like King Cobra !"), I'm

just curious.

Thanks for all those who responded to my previous message !

Bart

------------------------------


Lubbock, texas

Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 23:55:26 -0400 (EDT)

From: KLIGERMAN@herlvx.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: Lubbock, texas

Help!

My wife is on work assignment in Lubbock,Texas and cannot find any good

beer.  If anyone is familiar with the area and can suggest a good package

store, restaurant, or other establishment, I will sent her the info. ASAP.

Thanks-- reply by HBD or e-mail.

Andy Kligerman

------------------------------


Erix Warner's Wheat beer book

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 00:34:54 EDT

From: rgarvin@btg.com (Rick Garvin)

Subject: Erix Warner's Wheat beer book

> FROM: Dennis B. Lewis <dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

> SUBJECT: Eric Warner's Wheat beer book

>

> I recently purchased Eric Warner's book _German Wheat Beers_ and have found it

> to be a tremendous help in quantifying the mysterious tastes of German wheat

> beers. I have a question for anyone out there (maybe someone knows Eric...)

> about the recipe formulations in the back of the book. I calculated the

> extract required from the grain recipes to achieve the desired SG. In almost

> every recipe I came up with an extraction of 40 pts/lb/gal!

>

> I think that these sound more like malt extract (heavy liquid or light dry)

> numbers. This is not a big problem, but I think the community should be aware

> of this and make corrections to their own grain bills before starting. One

> point of help for corrections is that Eric says the recipes are based on 83%

> extraction from the wheat malt (1.039 max) and 78% from the barley malt (1.035

> max). (numbers in parens are mine)

>

> Or maybe there is some super German malts that yield 40 pts!

I look at Warner's numbers and see for the Isar Weizen recipe on page 105

the following:

(5 gallons)*(55 SG pts)/(7.525 lbs grain)= 36.5 SG pts/lb.

I never see 36.5 SG pts/lb with my equipment. I brewed a Hefe Weizen a la

Warner on 31 May, 1993. Three weeks after brewing, six days after bottling

this beer took first in a local informally judged "light" beer contest. I

was quite surprised that it was so well received. It even beat Jim Busch's

Weizen and Wit. I voted for Phil Seitz's Wit (I think). So, I am happy with the

quality of the advice found in Warner's book.

The recipe performed as expected for my set up with extraction of

29 SG points/lb for a decoction. I use a 48 qt cooler with the copper

slatted wort collector that we have all seen. I do not beleive that the

geometry of the picnic cooler mash-tun (wider than tall) gives as good

a grain bed, clarity, or extraction as I have gotten with the insulated

Zap-Ap style (taller than wide). But, the cooler is more workable for

14 gallon batches.

German Hefe Weizan

Goals:

 OG: 1.054

 IBU: 12

 Yield: 14 gallons

 Color: light

Ingredients:

 15 lbs Ireks Wheat Malt

 10.5 lbs DeWolf-Cosyns Pils Malt

 2 oz 4.6% German Hallertauer Pellets (assume 25% utilization) 60 min

 Weihenstephan Weizan Yeast (96? 69?)

Results:

 OG: 1.054

 FG: 1.010

Procedure:

1) Preboil all water, chill, and siphon off of sediment.

2) Mash in at 99F, hold for 15 minutes.

3) Boost to 122F, hold for 15 minutes.

4) Perform first decoction with thickest 40% of mash. Heat in 15 minutes

to 160F, hold 15 minutes. Heat in 15 minutes to boiling. Boil for 20 minutes.

Mix back into mash tun over 10 minutes.

5) Hold at 147F for 20 minutes.

6) Perform second decoction with 30% of mash. Heat in 15 minutes

to 160F, hold 15 minutes. Heat in 15 minutes to boiling. Boil for

10 minutes. Mix back into mash tun over 10 minutes.

7) Sparge at 172F to collect 15 gallons.

8) Boil two hours.

9) After hot break occurs collect one gallon of speise (wort) for priming.

10) Add hops for last 60 minutes.

11) Pitch yeast at 58F. Allow temperature to rise to 65F over three days.

12) Bottle with 1 4/5 qts speise per 5 gallons.

This process took about 10 hours from start to clean up excluding pre-boiling

the water. I am quite happy with this beer. It has a smoothnes that I have

not tasted with my other Hefe Weizen's that I attribute to the unhopped

speise. I found Eric Warner's book quite helpful and pretty much followed

his guidelines verbatim. I was surprised at the very easy sparge. I did stir

after one hour and recirc 1/2 gallon. The run-off was clear and I had no

stuck mash problems.

Cheers, Rick

Rick Garvin rgarvin@btg.com

BTG, Inc. Navy Programs Division, Vienna, VA 703-761-6630

------------------------------


Homebrew shops in Philadelphia PA?

Date:    Tue, 22 Jun 93 09:02 PDT

From: SOMAK%FITKJES2.BITNET@SEARN.SUNET.SE

Subject: Homebrew shops in Philadelphia PA?

 A friend of mine is going to Philadelphia in July and he would

 like to know if there are any homebrew shops in town.  What

 about their prices?  Of course he also likes drinking good beer.

 Which are the best brewpubs there?

 Please email me.  Thanks in advance.

 Markku Koivula

 Finland

------------------------------


dogbolter, downloading, mashing, hop extraction & weizen yeast

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 07:31:08 -0400

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: dogbolter, downloading, mashing, hop extraction & weizen yeast

boy, I feel talkative this morning...

Re: Dogbolter Revisited

jpgareri@acs.bu.edu (Joseph Gareri) wrote:

> The recommendations were

> for 1/2 oz. (3-4%) per ounce of additional malt for the boil (60 minute

No I like my hops as much as the next guy, and i've got some friends who might

be called hop-heads and hop-sluts, but .5 oz hops per oz malt is going a bit

too far! ;-)

======

Re: Downloading files from sierra.stanford.edu

"PETER JUST, ANTHROPOLOGY, WILLIAMS COLLEGE" <Peter.Just@williams.edu> wrote:

> of the sierra.stanford.edu server, specifically cats_meow.2ed.ps.Z.  I take

> it from the extensions that this is a PostScript file that has been compressed

> with PKZIP.  Yet when I try to unzip the file, PKUNZIP (2.04g) tells me the

> file I have is probably not a .zip file.  What am I doing wrong?  How can I

Nope...its compressed with the unix compress/decompress utility.

zip files are .zip

======

Re: mashing and other mysteries of homebrewing

BadAssAstronomer <STOREY@fender.msfc.nasa.gov> wrote:

>     My problem; how in the hell do

>     you keep mash at a constant temp?

First, a gas stove is much easier than an electric stove for

mashing...you can turn the heat on and off immediately, without

the long time lag associated with electric burners.

None of my mashes are ever isothermal.  They slowly cool down, and

I slowly warm them back up.

Some people put their mash tun inside an insulated box, or inside

their over, that has been preheated (on the 'warm' setting) to keep it warm.

> Are these tuns I see for sale really worth it?

Depends...do you want to do it manually or buy something to

do it all for you...

======

Re: hop extraction

bgros@sensitivity.berkeley.edu (Bryan L. Gros) writes:

> So what happens if you boil the hops in plain water?  Do malt

> sugars or proteins or such provide something necessary for

> bitterness extraction (iso-alpha acid conversion?)?  For

I seem to recall that boiling the hops with the wort is necessary

to get good protein coagulation in the boil.

======

Re: Weizen Yeast

gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane) writes:

> You are fortunate enough to live somewhere where WYeast is testmarketing

> this strain.  It is _not_ related to the 3056, but is a true weizenbier

> strain from Weinhenstephan.  I have brewed with it once (got the yeast

> directly from Dave), and it is a truly exceptional weizen strain.  If

> responses are good in the testing areas, I believe WYeast will add it to

> their regular list.

That would be a *big* improvement.  Brewers resource has a single

strain weissbier yeast too.  Its about time for this improvement.

I've been lucky enough to get a sample of Weinhenstephen #66, a true

weissbier yeast.  The smell out of the primary was wonderful. And

the taste of the spec. grav. sample had 4-vinyl guiacol all over it.

Even flat, it was delicious.  This is a good yeast to use.

 Tim

- ----

Timothy J. Dalton                                   tjdalton@mit.edu

MIT, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Materials Etching Technology Lab

------------------------------


hot yeast, brewpubs in minn??

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 08:50:36 EDT

From: taylor@e5sf.hweng.syr.ge.com (taylor)

Subject: hot yeast, brewpubs in minn??

Hi people,,  I have a question about boiling an extract wort and

throwing the yeast in when the wort is around 85 to 90 degrees.

I was told that this accelerates the process, but will it hurt the

beer in any way.  I started a batch late at night and didn't have

time to let it cool to 65, 70 degrees.  This was an ale...?????

Everything looks OK......

Can anybody give me a list of brewpubs and supply stores for

homebrewers in the Minnepolis/St. Paul area???

Todd...........

------------------------------


iodophor, chili etc

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 08:40:49 -0400

From: steve@Pentagon-EMH6.army.mil (Steve Lichtenberg x79300)

Subject: iodophor, chili etc

Greetings fellow brewers;

I have been following the recent threads on sanitation and thought it

was time to add my $.02 to the discussion.

I recently made the switch to using iodophor instead of bleach and have been

very happy with the results.

I became very discouraged about a year ago as I ended up with three infected

batches in a row :-(  I finally traced the problem to some grunge left

deep in my wort chiller and had to replace the entire system.  I use a

counterflow chiller (really a coil of copper in a 5 gallon plastic

bucket) and have had some difficulty in keeping hops leaves out of it.

The chlorine solutions I was using were not able to get the organic components

off the chiller and still keep the sanitizing ability.

In additiion to the infections, I blew out two cornelious kegs by generating

pin holes in them from the bleach.  This just got to be too much as

kegs are difficult to come by.  (BTW I have found the best way to obtain

kegs is to find a restaurant that has either just gone out of business

or has just switched their soda system to bag in the box.  You will usually

find several kegs sitting in the dumpster.  The soda companies are

reluctant to pick them up and the restaurant owners have no patience for the

clutter.)

After I switched to iodine, I have had no more problems with infections

and my kegs are in pristine condition.

- ------

The recent discussion on chili beer has proven to be interesting.  I have

not tried to make one yet but I do have some experience with making

pickled jalepenos.  I harvested about eight plants worth last year

from my garden and sliced them with a mandolin (gives uniform thickness)

to about 1/4".  The peppers were then placed in a vinegar/brine solution

and left to sit in the refrigerator.  After about three months they were

hotter than any other pepper I have ever tasted.  The acid inb the brine

solution apparently has a multiplicative effect on the capsicum(sp) oils

in the pepper.  I would imagine that beer would fo the same thing.

THanks for the forum and the ability to speak my peace.  I have learned

more here than I probably could have anywhere else.

- --S

  ^

------------------------------


Apple Bach Blechhh...

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 08:28:30 -0500

From: zentner@ecn.purdue.edu (Mike Zentner)

Subject: Apple Bach Blechhh...

Has anyone else made the mistake of seeing "Apple Bach" in the store and

buying it?  Can anyone point out a redeeming feature of this brew?  Maybe

I'm missing something.

Mike Zentner (of hops?)

------------------------------


Cotton spun filters & efficiency

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 9:53:47 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Cotton spun filters & efficiency

IN the last digest, jack comments more on filters:

>Jack S. experiments with filters is very interesting. Micah claims he has

 seen no problems with head retention using the supposed .5um filter and I

 have seen poor clarity with it as well when pushing some beers through it.

 > Fix has recommended against this small (.5um) filtration.....

< I wonder if we havn't got an apples and oranges problem here.  I never asked

< George what type of filter he was using.  He gave me the manufactuere and

< part number but not the type but I bought something else.

George uses a 3 ucron, DE filter as he notes in the following mail:

Yeast cells vary from 5 to 10 microns. My own filter is a Zahm+Nagel

cartridge which is precoated with DE. The cartiridges come in 3, 1, and

 .45 micron sizes. I use the 3 micron version for my own homebrew. We

also use this size for BRD brew pubs.

< As there are many differnt types of filters, pleated, string wound, ceramic,

< flat, plate, just to name a few, it seems that we need to know which type we

< are talking about to get any sense out of this discussion.

And of course, DE!

>From more email: From tsand@helix.nih.gov Tue Mar  2 08:48:45 1993

I have been filtering my beers for about a year now and have pleased with

the results.

There are two types of filter cartridges that are used for filtering beer.

The first type is a spun (woven) polypropelyne the other is a pleated

polypropelyne. There is a big diference between the two. The spun

polypropelyne has an efficiency rating of 90% (10% of the stuff you are

trying to filter out will get through) the pleated plypropelyne has an

efficiency rating of 99.9% (only 0.1% of the stuff you are trying to filter

out will get through).

The spun cartridges also tend to leak due to the fact that the ends of the

cartridge do not have a gasket on them. The pleated cartridges come with

gaskets and don't leak. The spun cartridges also cannot not be reused as

many times as the pleated because they tend to be harder to back flush. I

have used both types and the pleated polypropelyne is far superior and is

the one I would recommend.

< I have little confidence in the numbers quoted for string wound filters and

< have no experience with any other.

Exactly.  They are not made for this purpose and as such I suggest using

products intended for yeast removal.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Re: Acetaminophen and hangovers

Date:         Tue, 22 Jun 93 09:21:25 CDT

From: Paul Sovcik <U18183@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject:      Re: Acetaminophen and hangovers

I have to reply to this, since I have extensive experience in acetaminophen tox

icity (residency in an ER for  1 yr) and hangovers (used to drink Blatz).

     Acetaminophen is OK to use for hangovers.  It is toxic only in large amoun

ts (over 5 gms/ingestion) and in hepatic failure (advanced cirrhosis).  Avoid h

igh dose long term use and suicide attemps and you'll be fine.  In fact, it is

better than aspirin or ibuprofen because you have less gastric upset, which is

a significant part of a hangover.

     Dont take it before you go to bed, since its duration of action is only ab

out six hours or so...

     My remedy?  Lots of water/OJ before bed. Enough sleep. Some kind of nutrir

oin upon arising. More water. Tylenol 650mg. If its really bad, a Sausage Mcmuf

fin sandwich (grease is good-dunno why.)

- --------------------------------------------------------------

Paul Sovcik                      | Email- U18183@uicvm.uic.edu

University of Illinois at Chicago|

Department of Pharmacy Practice  | "I Take Drugs Seriously..."

Chicago, Il                      |

------------------------------


Short Original Gravity  . . . why ??

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 09:53:20 CDT

From: krueger@comm.mot.com (Kevin Krueger)

Subject: Short Original Gravity  . . . why ??

I recently made the Imperial Stout listed in '92 Minnesota HB Champs recipe

book (from the net) and did not nearly reach the original gravity listed for

the recipe.  I know you don't have to be dead nuts on the recipe, but I was a

ways off.  The recipe stated an OG of ~1.1 and I reached ~1.07.  This recipe

used d.m.e. (9#'s) and some specialty grains (1/2# each of chocolate and

roasted barley) and 3 oz. of Williamette hops for boiling and some Cascade for

finishing.  As I am getting more brews under my belt (and it shows!), I am

more inclined to ask why and I would like to know why I didn't get a higher

OG.  I steeped the specialty grains from cold water to something near 140,

removed them, added the dme and hops and boiled for an hour.  Should I have

boiled longer or was it possibly a function of the dme ?  Are there any other

factors that would reduce my OG ??

Kevin

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1168, 06/24/93

*************************************

-------


MALTMILLs - kegging pressures

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 11:23:05 EDT

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: MALTMILLs - kegging pressures

I'm a VERY satisfied Maltmill owner.  A recent HBDer mentioned

the desire of motorizing his MM.  If you brew 20 gallon batches

this might be a good idea but for 5 gallon batches, why bother.

The MM is very fast (much faster than the Corona) and besides,

rocks are going to damage the rollers if you motorize it.  When

you hand crank you stop instantly when a pebble is encountered and

no damage occurs. For large motorized batches, an occasional roller

replacement might be a hit that you're willing to take.

Setting the MM adjustment with a feeler gauge to get consistent

results is a very good idea.  However, instead of meauring the spacing

at the center of the roller I would suggest taking the measurement at

the adjustable end of the roller instead for increased accuracy.

Remember that only one end adjusts and the other end is fixed.

As for the small MM hopper capacity, this is the mill's only fault. Making

a larger hopper is easy but I think that a mill of this caliber should

have at least a hopper that can comfortably take 5 pounds of grain.

On another subject, a letter in "Brewing Techniques" stated that a keg

saturated with 12 psi CO2 at 40F would contain 2.5 volumes (medium carbonation)

of CO2.  Can some one tell me that the pressure would have to be at 70F to

contain the same 2.5 volumes?

- --Tony Verhulst

------------------------------


Request for reading material/suppliers

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 08:24:56 -0700

From: sag5004@yak.ca.boeing.com (Ford Prefect)

Subject: Request for reading material/suppliers

I am interested in finding some information about how to design a small scale

brew house (1-3bbl (1 bbl is ~ 33 US gallons?)  I am really interested in

information about desired geometry. eg. is a boiler about as tall as it is

wide?  what is the ideal... Ideally I would be able to build a system

that would be flexible enough to make 1bbl batches as well as 2.  I

have looked around Seattle a little, and a local shop carries a nice

2bbl system, but he wants $23.5K.  Also information about people that could

provide various vessels in a small range would be nice too.

Sorry for straying from the homebrew end of things, but I know there are a

few out there that have large systems.

Thanks,

stuart galt                          boeing computer services

sag5004@yak.boeing.com               bellvue washington

(206) 865-3764                       or home (206) 361-0190

#include <standard/disclaim.h>

I don't know what they say, they don't know what I say...

------------------------------


Belgian Malts: Pils -vs- ale

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 09:45:15 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Belgian Malts: Pils -vs- ale

A few weeks ago I did my first partial mash and made my best pale ale

ever.  So I'm jumping right into my first all grain batch.  I could

use a bit of advice from y'all.

In his book _Belgian Ales_, Pierre Rajotte implies that that the basic

malt used for most Belgian ales is a pils malt not an pale ale malt.

I recall him writing that the pale ale malts are used for British ale

contract brewed in Belgium.  However, his recipes simply say "pale malt".

Any way, I'm going for a Belgium double with the following recipe for

5 gals.

  9 lbs Belgian Pils malt

  2 lbs Belgian special-B malt

  1/2 lb glucose

  1/2 lb Piloncillo (Mexican brown sugar)

  7 HBUs Bitter Hops

  1/2 oz American Saaz finishing hops

  OG 1.065 (I hope)

  Chimay yeast

Any comments would be appreciated.  My specific questions are:

   1)  Should I do a protien rest esp. considering I'm using a Pils malt?

   2)  Will I have DMS problems from the Pils malt?  If so how do I

       minimize them?

   3)  I want some malt flavor in the finished beer.  What temp should

       I use for sacrification (sp?)?

Sante'  WAK

------------------------------


The Mills

Date:  Tue, 22 Jun 1993 11:20:24 -0400

From: Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@CANREM.COM>

Subject: The Mills

>Date: Sun, 20 Jun 93 07:50 CDT

>From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

>Subject: Business opportunity, Devils

 >From: Nick Zentena <zen%hophead@canrem.com>

 >       If you've never seen it [Philmil] then your post sure sounds

         like FUD! Why don't you ask someone who has seen

         both mills to compare? Na that would have cut down

         on your chance to advertise.-(

> I don't think that was called for.  My post was based on published data.

        Which part? Asking that you not criticize a product

        you had not seen or asking that an impartial person

        compare both?

        I haven't seen any published data on the Philmil. If

        it's out there I apologize. But the fact remains you

        cannot be considered an impartial person when it

        comes to either mill. All the reports I've seen in

        the digest have been quite favourable of the mill.

        Including one from one of your customers stating the

        crush was better. What does this mean? Nothing yet.

        If your mill is truly better I'm sure that people

        will decide that. But for you to rip a competitors

        product won't help.

> BTW, what's a FUD?

        Fear and uncertainity. There is no need to discuss

        the merits of a product if you can scare away your

        competitors customers.

        Nick

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I drink Beer I don't collect cute bottles!

zen%hophead@canrem.com

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Wyeast 3068 Bavarian Wheat Source

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 10:45:19 CDT

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: Wyeast 3068 Bavarian Wheat Source

I recently visited a supplier here in Austin who carries the Bavarian

Wyeast mentioned by Jeff Frane and Jeff Griffin.  She says that it is

single strain - I tried a bit of a wheat that had been made with the

yeast and it was very nice...(I'll probably try it sometime soon) I dont

have the palate to go into details, but the point is I know where you

can get it if you want it .... let me know.

   Good luck and good beer,

      Chris

======================================================================

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.mer.utexas.edu|

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

======================================================================

------------------------------


Re: Dry-Hopping & Bitterness

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 09:28:26 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: Dry-Hopping & Bitterness

Mark Garetz says:

> No.  IBUs are *roughly* equivalent to the milligrams/liter of isomerized

> alpha acids in beer.  The alpha acids are responsible for the bitterness

> in the beer.  The oils from the hops are responsible for the hop character

> and aroma in the beer.  Hop character is imparted by late additions of

> hops in the kettle and/or by steeping hops while the wort cools.  Some hop

> aroam is also imparted by this, but it is a totally different aroma than

> you get with dry hopping.  The aroma imparted by dry hopping resembles the

> aroma of the fresh hops.  But no bitterness is imparted by the hop oils,

                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> whether added directly as an oil, or by adding hops late in the boil or by

  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> dry hopping.

  ^^^^^^^^^^^^

I would hope that by this, Mark is not saying that NO bitterness is

imparted by late or very late hop additions.  This is simply not true.

One of the few concrete lessons I learned from a short course at UC

Davis was that even steeping hops cold imparts some bitterness.  During

the course we tasted a variety of beers put together by the regular

brewing students, including one in which the ONLY hop addition was a

dry-hopping of Cascades.  There was a very distinct, albeit low,

bitterness contribution.

I also take issue with Mark's assertion that dry-hopping produces a

_different_ hop aroma than late kettle additions.  Dry-hopping certainly

produces more aroma per ounce of hops added, but I have never

experienced or observed anything like the phenomenon Mark describes.  I

hope this isn't taken as a flame, but judging from the bio in the latest

Zymurgy, Mark's experience level as a brewer is not great enough to be

making blanket assertions like this.

=================================================================

Tony Johnston complains:

>

> Let's be polite here in our criticisms, and lets leave the advertising

> to the pages of Zymurgy, etc.  If you find something so nifty-difty that

> you've gotta tell or you'll burst, why not just describe it in generic

> terms, no specific copyrighted names, prices, ordering information, etc.

> and just [editor problem] private e-mail.  If I wanted commercials, I would

> watch TV !!!!!

>

And in the very same Digest I commercialized the Sucker.  Oooh, bad

timing, Jeff.  I also seemed to imply in my commercial that the Sucker

was free.  Dumb.

At any rate, I offered the "commercial" because I thought it was a great

product; it would never have occurred to me to mention it vaguely and

then spend the next three days answering e-mail requesting more specific

information.  Sorry, Tony, I don't have the time!  I think it would have

been tacky for Russ to advertise here, and I respect the Digest

contributors like him who I know have useful items for sale and never

mention them here -- shows a lot of mature restraint.  But, frankly, if

someone invents a better mousetrap I want to know about it.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


Grain Mill comparisons

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 11:37:05 CDT

From: hinz@memphis.med.ge.com (David Hinz)

Subject: Grain Mill comparisons

In yesterday's HBD, Ed W. writes:

- ---

Our club did a comparison, using standard sieves, of the crush produced

by the Corona (properly adjusted), a MALTMILL (tm) (non-adjustable model),

and a Philmill prototype (properly adjusted).  The results differed rather

substantially from the MM sieve results posted here in May by George Fix,

but they tended to point to the PM as being somewhat superior.

- ---

So, what's being said here, by a friend of Phil, is that the PhilMill is

marginally better, when at it's best, than a non-adjustable MaltMill.

No mention of what type of malt (standard size, that the non-adjustable

MM is set for, or big wheat malt, or what?), and so on.

It looks like a case of running a test to get the desired results.  To use

an adjustable PhilMill, an adjustable Corona, and a fixed MaltMill on grain of

an unspecified size seems like the "experiment" was designed to come out with

skewed results.

For the record, I don't have a mill yet, but when I buy one it WILL be an

adjustable MaltMill (hi Jack!), unless something better comes along.  The

test results posted seem to indicate to me that the PhilMill needs help

from a faulty test to look better than MM, so apparently the PhilMill isn't

the answer.

If PhilMill is truly better, then posting the above test was more of a dis-

service to the product than anything else, as it has thrown doubt in at

least my mind as to it's quality.  Let's compare apples to apples, not

apples to kumquats.

Dave "Not buying it" Hinz

------------------------------


summer brewing

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 11:30:48 cdt

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@GRIN.EDU>

Subject: summer brewing

Brewsters,

I am wondering what people think about brewing in the summer, specifically

regarding the increased danger of little airborn animals falling into your

cooling beer.

I've only been brewing a couple of years.  Two summers ago I just didn't brew

because of the heat - my house does not have central air, and the thought of

subjecting everyone to thre or four gallons of boiling wort for on hour plus -

well, I'm not sure I would want to no matter how thristy I was and besides my

wife would probably consider it grounds for divorce.  Last summer I was away,

so brewing was a moot point.  However, last summer was unusually cool here,

and although this summer seems to be warming up, we do occasionally get that

nice cool evening that makes me think of all that beer in the basement that

will be gone probably some time in August if I don't replenish the supply,

stop having friends over, or somehow convince my wife that drinking is bad

for her but not for me.

So, here is the question.  If windows are kept closed during the wort-cooling

period and I am otherwise extra-careful with sanitation, is this enough

protection, or if my windows have been open at all that day, should I

"worry" about the increased risk of infection?  I should add that I do not

have a wort chiller, but I have been using a pretty effective means of

chilling which leaves the cooling wort exposed to air for maybe 30-45

minutes; also, I use liquid yeast in a starter solution and get strong starts

in less than six hours.

TIA as usual for any scientific data, empirical observations, or momilies.

Jonathan Knigh

t

Grinnell Iowa

------------------------------


Hop growing

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 16:10:00 +0000

From: SCHREMPP_MIKE/HP4200_42@hp-ptp.ptp.hp.com

Subject: Hop growing

This is my second year for hop growing. I have one Cascade and one Tettnenger.

Last year the Cascade went wild and the Tett was a "runt". This year, the same

thing is happening. I think the Tett is just a slow growing plant. Any others

out there with the same experience?

As far as calculating the alpha acid content, I started with the typical content

published in TCJOHB, then threw in an extra handful just to be sure. The beer

turned out a little too bitter, so this year I'll stick with the published

numbers. Anyone out there (like HopTech) have a curve of alpha acid content

as a function of "ripeness" of the hops. ie: how important is it to not be a

week early or a week late on the harvest.

On malt mills: I'm personally tired of the calims and counter-claims, factoid

vs factoid, petty bullshit, cry baby, mine's bigger than your's, wanna bet,

(tm), hocus pocus flim-flam. I don't see how we can stop it, but I sure am

tired of it. Why don't you folks (and you ALL know who you are) give us a

break?

Mike Schrempp

freelance beer crafter

------------------------------


Re: Downloading files from sierra.stanford.edu

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 10:09:26 -0700

From: "Stephen Hansen" <hansen@gloworm.Stanford.EDU>

Subject: Re: Downloading files from sierra.stanford.edu

In HBD 1167 "Peter Just" <Peter.Just@williams.edu> writes:

> Forgive me if this an ignorant question, but:

> I have twice downloaded files via ftp from the /pub/homebrew directories

> of the sierra.stanford.edu server, specifically cats_meow.2ed.ps.Z.

> I take it from the extensions that this is a PostScript file that has

> been compressed with PKZIP.  Yet when I try to unzip the file, PKUNZIP

> (2.04g) tells me the file I have is probably not a .zip file.  What am I

> doing wrong?  How can I get hold of these files?

The following is from the archive's index file.

  Files with a .Z suffix are compressed with the "compress" program.

  To uncompress the .Z files, you'll need the "uncompress" program.

  If your system does not have "uncompress" there is a version

  available in pub/sources as 'compress.shar' (or via listserv by

  "get sources compress.shar").

  Files with a .zip suffix are "zipped" with PKZIP or something

  compatible.  You'll need the equivalent to "unzip" them.

  Files with the .uu suffix are uuencoded binary files.  They are

  usually files that have been compressed or zipped (e.g. *.Z.uu, or

  *.zip.uu).  You will need the 'uudecode' program, available in

  pub/sources as 'uudecode.c' (or via listserv by "get sources uudecode.c").

  Files with the .ps extension are PostScript files.

I hope that this helps.

Stephen E. Hansen

Homebrewer, Archivist

- --=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

 Stephen E. Hansen - hansen@sierra.Stanford.EDU | "The church is near,

 Electrical Engineering Computer Facility       |  but the road is icy.

 Applied Electronics Laboratory, Room 218       |  The bar is far away,

 Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4055   |  but I will walk carefully."

 Phone: +1-415-723-1058   Fax: +1-415-725-7298  |      -- Russian Proverb

- --=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

------------------------------


Re: A Few Observations

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 11:23 PDT

From: dougd@uts.amdahl.com (Douglas DeMers)

Subject: Re: A Few Observations

In  HOMEBREW Digest #1166, Martin Lodahl wrote:

>Finally, Steven Zabarnick set off my alarm bells:

>>       ... During chilling

>> the kettle cover does not completely seal due to the

>> copper tubing; should I have used plastic wrap to keep out

>> the nasties?

>This has bothered me since my first batch using an immersion

>chiller, but I've never done anything more constructive than fit the

>lid on the best way I could, nor have I seen evidence of infection

>because of it.

I've always had a similar concern.  Here's what I do.

I use two fresh pieces of aluminum foil over the top of the kettle,

arranged in the following manner.  I set my chiller inlet/outlet tubing

so that they stick up in the middle of the kettle.  I put the first

piece of foil so that more than half of the kettle is covered, and hand

crimp the foil over the lip of the kettle.  I then put the second piece

of foil over the kettle and arrange it such that the edges overlap the

first piece and that there is sufficient "slack" to do some hand

crimping of the foil around the chiller tubes.  Crimp the edges of the

second sheet of foil around the kettle first, and then around the

chiller tubes to make the best seal possible.

Certainly it's not perfect, but it makes me feel a lot better than if

the kettle were open or partially covered by the lid.

Cheers!

- --

Douglas DeMers,      | (408-746-8546) | dougd@uts.amdahl.com

Amdahl Corporation   |                | [sun,uunet]!amdahl!dougd

  [It should be obvious that the opinions above are mine, not Amdahl's.]

  [               Amdahl makes computers, not beer.                    ]

------------------------------


Spruce Beer

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 09:07:06 PDT

From: dra@jsc-ws.sharpwa.com (Darren Aaberge)

Subject: Spruce Beer

A couple of weeks ago I asked about how to use spruce in beer.  After getting

some helpful hints, I brewed a batch of spruce beer. The recipe I ended up with

is:

10 lbs american 2-row

1/2 lb crystal 40l

1/3 lb chocolate malt

1 oz cascade hops (aa=7.6%, 60 min.)

1 pint fresh spruce growths (30 min.)

German Ale Yeast

OG = 1.052

FG = 1.010

I mashed all grains together and did a protien rest at 122 degrees for 30

minutes and then mashed at 148-152 degrees for 1 hour.

I bottled the beer last weekend and was able to sample a couple of glasses.

You can definitely tell that there is something different about this beer,

but if I didn't know that there was spruce in it I probably would not be able

to guess that it was.  Also, Papazian says that spruce beer tastes something

like Pepsi, but I think that takes a big stretch of the imagination.  There is

no detectable hop flavor and very little bitterness in this beer.  Next time I

brew this beer, I will probably increase the hops a little.  I think that I

used the right amount of spruce.

One important lesson I learned is that the hops make a much better filter bed

than the spruce needles.  I brew in a keg with a copper manifold on the bottom

for draining.  Since I added the hops first, they settled first and made a

nice filter bed.  During clean up, I noticed that after I removed the hops,

the needles kept clogging the copper manifold.

Here are some other things that may be of interest:

 Scott Stihler says that you can also dry "hop" with spruce.  He also

 says that he has frozen spruce growths to use latter, but the flavor

 diminishes a little, so you need to use a little more.

 Lisa St. Hilaire says she has also added white fir to spruce beer,

 which has a tangerine-like aroma, but says to avoid using white spruce.

So, that is about all I know about spruce beer.  So far, it seems like a good

beer that is definitly worth brewing.

Darren Aaberge

------------------------------


Trappist temp

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 14:00:40 -0500 (UTC -05:00)

From: Tim LaBerge <LABERGE@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>

Subject: Trappist temp

Hi all,

I'm contemplating brewing up a Trappist ale and was wondering what an

appropriate fermentation temperature would be.  I seem to recall that

"Trappist ales are fermented above 72F", but can anybody be more specific?

Thanks,

Tim LaBerge

------------------------------


Hangovers & acetaminophen

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 12:01:35 -0800

From: pohl@unixg.ubc.ca (Derrick Pohl)

Subject: Hangovers & acetaminophen

Phil writes:

>Derrick Pohl suggests taking a tab of Acetaminophen (the active ingred

>in Tylenol and several other similar products) as a pre-treatment

>for potential headaches.

>

>This is probably not wise.  One of the side-effects of acetaminophen

>is a certain degree of liver toxicity.  This toxic effect is especially

>emphasized when taken in conjunction with alcohol.

Acetaminophen, or any other drug, is indeed nothing to pop on a whim.  But

I didn't say take it before-hand for potential hangovers.  Only take it if

you really do have an established, wicked, morning-after head full of pain.

 All I would recommend by way of preventative, night-before precautions is

lots of water, don't drink on an empty stomach, and don't drink so darn

much (I usually manage to follow at least 2 out of these 3).  Cannabis, if

you're so inclined, can also be effective as a preventative.  Heck, it's a

panacaea - wear it, smoke it, write on it, cook with it.... (see alt.drugs

for more).

If you're waking up with raging hangovers often enough to have to start

worrying about the long-term toxicity of acetaminophen, it's possible that

you're drinking a little too much.  Look for other tell-tale signs such as

memory blackouts, mysterious unexplained bruises, missing items of

clothing, a compulsion to hide bottles in eavestroughs or behind the

furnace, getting fired from your job, or delerium tremens in the absence of

drink.  Any or all of these clues might mean you have a drinking problem

(other than the perennial problem of not brewing often enough).  For the

occasional over-indulgence, I doubt acetaminophen presents a serious risk,

but you could always take a.s.a (aspirin) instead which is also available

in a caffeine-codeine compound.

- -----

Derrick "Not hungover that often, really" Pohl

Vancouver

------------------------------


Hot Cave Creek Beer, Microbrews

Date:    Tue, 22 Jun 93 23:02:21 GMT

From: sbsgrad%sdph.span@Sdsc.Edu

Subject: Hot Cave Creek Beer, Microbrews

From: Steve Slade <sslade@ucsd.edu>

Date sent:  22-JUN-1993 15:52:53 PT

Hi all

I was heartened to learn someone else thought the Cave Creek Chili Beer was

too hot to handle. I proudly brought some to my brother's house for

Memorial Day as an example of an unusual microbrewed beer. My brother, my

wife, and I all tried this at the same time. Now, we all like hot foods,

but this was way too much! I couldn't taste anything for a good 30 minutes

after taking one sip. Maybe I got one of these 6 month old six-packs. Do

they come with date cades?

<downshift>

Our next vacation will take us to the Seattle area. Microbrewery heaven at

last! We'll be taking a side trip from Bellvue, WA (sp?) to Beaverton, OR. Any

suggestions out there for a nice place to have lunch and good beer near the

half-way point?

TIA,

Steve Slade

reply to: sbsgrad%sdph.span@sdsc.edu  or  sslade@ucsd.edu

------------------------------


commericals, bleach disinfectant.

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 17:29:17 PDT

From: mdcsc!gdh@uunet.UU.NET (Garrett Hildebrand)

Subject: commericals, bleach disinfectant.

In HBD # 1167, Tony Johnston says,

>About flames and commercialism

>

>Let's be polite here in our criticisms, and lets leave the advertising

>to the pages of Zymurgy, etc.  If you find something so nifty-difty

that

>you've gotta tell or you'll burst, why not just describe it in generic

>terms, no specific copyrighted names, prices, ordering information,

etc.

>and just field the private e-mail.  If I wanted commercials, I would

>watch TV :( !!!!!

>

>Sensibly yours,

>

>Tony Johnston

>Tired Chemist, Inspired Homebrewer

>anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu

My two cents on this one: Not only do I read HBD to find out about the

mistakes that every one else is making (so I can avoid them :-) ); not

only do I read the HBD so I can try new recipies; not only do I read

the HBD to see old ideas put to new uses, and new ideas for old

problems,

but I also read the HBD to get data and opinions on products which I

might think about purchasing, and to hear about new things which are

offered.

I'd prefer to let people use the real name of products they have tried,

tested or given up on, and I prefer to hear about new offerings. So let

us not get too hasty about getting so generic that we might as well go

back to reading musty old textbooks and hyped-up advertisments which

only indicate how much money was spent on them.

On the other hand, some restraint, as has previously been voiced, is

nice. Infomercials and roastings we don't need.

More sterilization...

- ---------------------

In the same HBD, Kelly Jones responds to Paul Boor with the observation

that needles need to be, "PDS (pretty damn sterile)," while brewing

equipment need only be controlled for, "gross infections."

I note that Kelly states that the concentration of 4-16 tsp per gallon

is sufficient, and I work this out to be in the range of slightly over

one, and up to five, tablespoons per gallon (of bleach). I'll bet that

the range could be accounted for by adding the time factor, as was

suggested by George Fix in the same HBD.

I agree. Here is another data-point: at a local day-care center I saw

a sign posted at the sink which directed employees to clean all food

preparation surfaces with a sponge using a solution of one tablespoon

Chlorox per gallon. They just let the damp surfaces evaporate after

cleaning.

I personally use 1/3 cup per 5 gallons. That is around five tablespoons

(it is actually 5.3333 tablespoons). It seems to work well enough

without corroding either me or the equipment. However, I am looking

forward to the article mentioned by George Fix which is to appear in

Vol. 2 of BTW Brewing Techniques.

Lastly, for fun, in another peek at Kelly's post (or should that be,

"ripost?")...

>>        Think about it, but right now I gotta run out to the kitchen

>>to make sure my refrigerator light is still on.

>

>More importantly, does your airlock really bubble when you're not

>watching it?

Or listening to it?  ;-)

Garrett         <uunet!mdcsc!gdh>

------------------------------


Binghampton, NY

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 7:58:29 CDT

From: raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com (Glenn Raudins)

Subject: Binghampton, NY

Re: Binghampton NY

I have a friend that will be moving to Binghampton, NY in the near future and

is interested in knowing about the beer selection, location of any brewing

stores, homebrew clubs, and cost of living in the area.  Any information

people have, please send to me via E-mail and I will forward the info to

him.

Re: Fruit Beers

In response to an older thread about any interesting fruit beers being made

in the industry.  My vote (for originality) would have to go to the Tied House

in Mountain View.  Their Passion Fruit beer is a new twist.  A good beer for

those who enjoy fruit beers.

Glenn Raudins

raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com

------------------------------


Iodine's Staying Power

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 23:28:08 PDT

From: mikel@netlink.cts.com (Mike Lemons)

Subject: Iodine's Staying Power

I've recently started using iodophor sanitizer.  I've experienced severe

problems with the "staying power" of dilute iodine solutions.

I have some Blue Ridge iodine test paper that can be dipped into the

iodine solution to determine the ppm of free iodine.  I have found these

test papers to be essentially useless.  There are three gray circles on

the vial that are used to compare the color of the test strips.  The

circles are composed of widely spaced dots, like a newspaper photo, and

don't look very much like the color of the test strips after dipping in

iodophor solution.  The three circles correspond to 12.5, 25 and 50 ppm.

The 12.5 ppm circle is so faint that wetting the paper strips with pure

water will make them dark enough to match the circle.  Using the other

two circles, I cannot determine if a solution is closer to 25 or 50 ppm,

only that it is in that range somewhere.

I have determined that the amber color change caused by the iodine

itself is the best measure of how concentrated the sanitizing solution is.

I have used the test papers to verify that when a solution turns clear,

it is indeed free of iodine.

The first thing I did was to create a 12.5 ppm solution by mixing 5/8

tsp of iodophor solution with 1 gallon of water.  In two weeks it had

turned perfectly clear, just sitting in a closed glass bottle!

So I squirted some more iodophor into the bottle to take the

concentration into the 25 to 50 ppm range.  I have a clear plastic tub

with a spring-loaded plunger that squirts sanitizing solution up inside

of empty beer bottles.  After doing 2 or 3 six-packs, the solution will

turn totally clear.  (I just rechecked some of the beer bottles and they

look perfectly clean to me.)  It's a real pain to have to keep stopping

to look for a faint color change in your sanitizer to determine if it is

still working.  I don't think that dilute iodine solutions would last

very long in an airlock, either.

I used to be able to sanitize all of the bottles for a five gallon batch

with the same sanitizing solution when I used sulfites.  To determine if

the solution was still working, all you had to do was lean over it and

take a breath. The coughing and searing pain in your nasal passages left

no doubt as to its potency.  (Yes, I've heard the rumors that sulfites

are ineffective;  That's why I switched to iodine.)

How do chlorine users test the concentration of their solutions?

Where does the iodine go?  It can't evaporate because it's a solid at

room temperature.  Since I have to use higher than recommended

concentrations to get it to last through a few bottles, I'm wondering if

anyone has ever been able to taste iodine in finished beer?

- --

INTERNET:  mikel@netlink.cts.com (Mike Lemons)

UUCP:   ...!ryptyde!netlink!mikel

NetLink Online Communications * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115

------------------------------


Lambic Tasting III in Portland

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 9:08:31 PDT

From: sharp@cse.ogi.edu (Michael Sharp)

Subject: Lambic Tasting III in Portland

Attention Belgian beer lovers:

This year's AHA conference in Portland will be the site of

the third annual lambic tasting.  The tasting will be run

opposite the best of show judging so you won't miss any of

the talks or social gatherings.

The 'menu' includes beers such as Frank Boon's Kriek,Framboise,

Faro, and Gueuze, Cantillon Gueuze, Saison Dupont, Blanche de Brugge,

and Rodenbach.  I wouldn't be supprised if a homebrewed attempt

or two showed up too.

For more information on the tasting send e-mail to

        sharp@cse.ogi.edu

 --Mike

------------------------------


Foaming/Flat Kegged Beer

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 09:11:37 PDT

From: djackson@wv.MENTORG.COM (Darin Jackson)

Subject: Foaming/Flat Kegged Beer

Hello all.

I recently purchased a kegging system and made my own beer chiller.

The chiller is 6' of 1/4" od copper tubing with 3/16" fittings on

either end to connect in from the line out of the keg and to the line

out to the cobra tap. I bent it into a shape that fits into my small

cooler I dedicated to the task and was proud as hell of my $6 portable

chiller. Well, I'm having foaming/flat beer problems.

Over the last 2 years I have collected HBD wisdom regarding this

phenomenon. This morning I read through it and my question was not

answered, so here it is. When I connected the chiller to the line,

I cut the 4' line connected to the cobra tap in half, half for the

keg to chiller and half for the chiller to tap. I have 4' of 3/16 id

hose and 6' of approximately the same id copper total, but the "smooth"

part at the end by the tap is only 2'. I presume that there will be

turbulence caused by the fittings from the copper to the hose. Is 2'

enough to let the beer settle back down? I'm getting all head and almost

no carbonation in the beer. I have tried dispensing with the gas

disconnected, with 12 lbs of gas, with 10 lbs of gas and with 7 lbs of

gas. And, of course, I drank all of the flat beer.

All suggestions will be appreciated.

Darin

darin_jackson@mentorg.com

------------------------------


Protein rest

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 10:47:09 PDT

From: bgros@sensitivity.berkeley.edu (Bryan L. Gros)

Subject: Protein rest

I generally make ales and do about a 10 min protein rest before

heating the mash up to mash temps.  I generally use 2-row from

Briess with maybe a little dextrine malt or wheat and I add

any other adjuncts with the mashout.

I bottled my last batch and the FG was about 1.009.  OG was

about 1.062.  Talk about attenuation.  One reason for the low

FG was that about 30% of the fermentables came from honey in

this batch.  (I used "raw, wild mesquite" honey hoping it would

not ferment completely and would leave a honey taste)

The other thing I'm wondering about is the protein rest.  I

was going to use a cooler to mash in this time, so I added the

grains to some water so the result was a thick grist at

about 53C.  I ran to the store with a friend and one thing led

to another and I came back in about two hours.  The temp. had

dropped a good bit, of course, so I went back to a stove-top

mash  (would have needed a lot of boiling water at this point

to bring it up to 68C for mashing).  What happens during the

protein rest?  If a lot of proteins were broken down or something,

then there went my body and thus, the low FG.

I will wait a couple of weeks and taste it to see how it is.

Thanks for any help.

                                    - Bryan

------------------------------


Anheuser-Busch buys Sierra Nevada

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 11:21:16 EDT

From: rgarvin@btg.com (Rick Garvin)

Subject: Anheuser-Busch buys Sierra Nevada

I was at the brew-pub in progress Bardo in Arlington, VA on Monday night.

In speaking with Bill Stewart the owner (very wacky guy with bottle of Celis

White in his hand) he asked if I had heard the rumor that Anheuser-Busch

was in negotiations with Sierra Nevada Brewing Company for a take over.

What!? He said that this rumor was completely unsabstantiated but came

from someone in the industry.

I called SNBC today at 916-893-3520 and spoke with Peggy. She was surprised

that the rumor had gotten to Washington, DC but she had heard it. She said

that this was absolutely false. Now, our friends at the SEC do not like

companies to deny these things if it is true. So, I beleive her.

Thank You God.

On a bad note, we have been getting some bad Sierra Nevada products on the

east coast. I was given a 6 pack of SN Porter from State Line Liquors in

Northern MD that had a metallic flavor. I also bought a 6 pack of SN Pale Ale

in Alexandria, VA that had that exact flavor. Metallic flavors can have a

number of causes (I am a AHA/HWBTA beer judge of 6 years) but I think that

what I am tasting is beer that has been held at very high temperatures for

long periods. Say, a railroad switch yard for 2 days in the sun. Now, this is

just a guess. I hope that it is not a fermentation or process fault. Comments?

Cheers, Rick

Rick Garvin rgarvin@btg.com

BTG, Inc. Navy Programs Division, Vienna, VA 703-761-6630

------------------------------


Headhunters brewing club meeting (far west Chicago 'burbs)

Date:    Wed, 23 Jun 1993 13:45:33 -0500 (CDT)

From: BIRMINGHAM@FNE683.FNAL.GOV (Phillip J. Birmingham)

Subject: Headhunters brewing club meeting (far west Chicago 'burbs)

     Y'all be sure to come to the July Headhunters meeting. It'll be at seven

PM Friday, July 2 at Greg Lawrence's place, 4 S 245 Wiltshire Lane in Sugar

Grove IL.

     Bring beer or wine, homemade or otherwise, and some sort of munchies,

homemade or otherwise. It should be fun.

     Call Greg at (708) 557-2523 for details.

                                                    Phillip

- --

Phillip J. Birmingham    birmingham@fne683.fnal.gov

BLOWOFF METHOD: brewing technique in which the brewer blows off bottling

until an empty fermenter is needed for the next batch.

------------------------------


NJ Brepubs, Filters

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 14:57:42 EDT"

From: Gary S. Kuyat <gsk@sagan.bellcore.com>

Subject: NJ Brepubs, Filters

Full-Name: Gary S. Kuyat

I wanted to give status on NJ's Brewpub legislation.  It passed the Assembly

unanamously!  The senate still hasn't voted on it, but with this kind of

response from the Assembly, I can't see how it will fail.  It turns out that

you really can't tell when the Assembly or Senate will vote on a given bill,

you just have to keep calling and asking.  I will post again when I have more

info.

On another subject: filters.  I was reading about some not-so-good results

with a so-called .5 micron filter.  I purchased such a filter from the

Braukunst, a mail order place (for me anyway).  I want to start off by saying

that the owner was VERY decent about the troubles I had, and offered to refund

my money if I was dissatisfied.  I would recommend him for all his other

products but until he finds a new source for half micron filters, I would stay

away.

I finally gave up after trying 4 filter elements.  I ordered a similar kit

from the Filter Store+.  Their catalog shows the first element I used as 5

(that FIVE, not half) micron.  The new element looked very different, and was

rated at 99.99% efficiency.  I believe that the Braukunst got shipped 5s

instead of the .5s they ordered.

As I have said the owner of the Braukunst seemed to be TOTALLY HONEST and

never attempted to blame me (and if he'd tried, I probably would have

thought it was my fault!)  He assured me that .5 microns would produce a

crystal clear beer.  He was right!

With the new element, the American Light Ale I filtered was COMPLEATLY

haze FREE!  This was PERFECT!  It didn't seem to filter out any taste, except

a muddy, yeasty taste (probably from yeast!)  The Filter Store filters

were more expensive and the kit did not include disconnects for the keg.

I think the Braukunst is worth calling, but make sure to ask if they have

gotten new filter elements, from a different supplier.

If you have any question about the filter element you're using, I'd say it

CAN'T be .5 microns.  The beer should be totally, UNCLOUDY.  Make sure to chill

it to serving temp or lower before you filter it to get out any chill haze.

- --

 -Gary Kuyat

  gsk@sagan.bellcore.com

------------------------------


Mead recipe request

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 14:54:33 MST

From: schiefferr@postoffice.agcs.com (Ron Schieffer)

Subject: Mead recipe request

Anyone!

I have been searching the network in vane for a mead recipe using

grapes.  I have put a similar notice to this in the mead digest

but did not get any response.  I am hoping that there are more

mead brewing people lurking in this digest.

If you do have a mead recipe using grapes, email the recipe

directly as I do not generally read the HBD on a consistent

basis.  My grape plant is ready for picking (FLAME SEEDLESS)

and some are beginning to dry up on the vine.  I'd sure like

to do something better with them than just eat them :-) .

Your help is appreciated!

- --

- --

     Ron Schieffer @ AG Communication Systems               .

               schiefferr@agcs.com                  ._______|_______.

If you do good every day, you will go to the spirit       /(*)/

world and see other good people on the other side.        o/ /o

If not, you will not see them.      -Joe Flying Bye

------------------------------


Zymurgy Skunk Article

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 15:11:38 edt

From: Barry_Gillott@DGC.ceo.dg.com

Subject: Zymurgy Skunk Article

Message:

Greetings all!  I come to you for help.  The manager of my local beer

store is sincerely interested in my claim that fluorescent lights can

produce skunkiness in some beers.  I'd like him to read an article

that appeared in Zymurgy some years back.  I believe the year was 1989

or 1990, and the article was entitled something like, "Who Put The

Skunk In My Beer?".

  The problem is, I threw the issue out long ago and my AHA

membership expired.  I checked the local library and they weren't

much help.  It was unclear whether they'd do an inter-library loan

on a periodical, especially if I didn't know exactly which issue.

  Do any of you know the exact name of the article, and the exact date

of issue?  To really push my luck, would any of you be willing to fax

me the article?  I think it was around 4 or 5 pages.

  If there are any takers out there, please contact me via email at

my return address or barry@wgn.ceo.dg.com .  Thanks very much.

  Barry

------------------------------


Warner's Extractions / Advertising on the Net

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 07:33:01 -0400

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Warner's Extractions / Advertising on the Net

Re: Eric Warner's Wheat beer book

Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu writes:

> Dennis Lewis writes:

>  >  I calculated the extract required from the grain recipes to

>  >  achieve the desired SG. In almost every recipe I came up with an

>  >  extraction of 40 pts/lb/gal!

>

> Funny you should mention that.  I tried his "Isar Hefe Weizen" last

> night.  After coming up with a gravity closer to 1.045 than his

> 1.055, I did the same calculation, and got an overall expected

> extraction of 36.5 for his gravity.  I actually got about 30.  Maybe I

> should have sparged for 2 hours insted of 1!-)  Ah well, next time....

> (If I will ever spend the time required for that complex multi-step

> decoction recipe again!)

I found exactly the same thing a couple of weeks ago too.

I got curious about his numbers after making a batch of weissbier that

didn't come in to gravity specs (I usually get 29-31 pts/lb/gallon) and ended

up quite a bit shy of Eric's numbers.

For my second batch (last weekend), I modified Eric's grain bill to

1) use what I had laying around the house and 2) use a realistic extraction

rate.

Eric Warner has a recipie for a winning weissbier published in Zymurgy from

last year.  I wonder what he gets for extraction on his

5 or 10 gallon batches...

As for doing a double decoction mash to make weissbier, it seemed pretty

easy to do. It was easier the second time and I'm sure it only

gets easier from here...

====

Re: mark@hoptech.com's advertising on HBD

pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers) writes:

> Look, Mark. You work, if I recall correctly, out of Emeryville, on the

> fringes of UC Berkeley, where programmers and users are as thick as grass.

> Surely you have absorbed, by now, the understanding that advertising on the

> Usenet, and through electronic media in general, is in bad taste.

I personally find Mark's posts on hops very informative.

Plus his announcement of 'new products' keeps us up to date on the latest

product offerings.  I like being aware of what is going on.

I have not seem any excessive use of the net in this case.

Maybe to appease you, a satisifed 3rd party should post about these things ?

But it seems to be an unnecessary step.

I guess in the end, the digest admin. has the final word.

Tim

- ----

Timothy J. Dalton                                   tjdalton@mit.edu

MIT, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Materials Etching Technology Lab

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1169, 06/25/93

*************************************

-------


What valve/pipe fitting for SS keg?

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 10:53:31 EDT

From: Bill Holman <jwh7k@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu>

Subject: What valve/pipe fitting for SS keg?

     After reading the HBD and rec.crafts.brewing for over a year, I have

seen many interesting brewing processes/equipment picked to pieces.  I must

say that the information gained by this process has been both enlightening

and helpful in improving my homebrews.  Many thanks for the quality

information found in this group!

     There is a topic that I have not seen picked apart yet, unless I missed

it from an earlier time.  What type of ball valve/pipe fittings can be used

for a drain on a SS 15.5 gallon keg?  What kind of metal can be used?  I

assume SS would be best, but what about brass or copper?  What is the best

inside diameter of the valve/pipe fitting?  How long should the pipe fitting

be?  How high up should the valve/pipe fitting be placed on the keg?

Basicly, I would like some input on what kind and how to attach the

valve/pipe fitting to the keg.  After extended use, what has worked for you?

     Thanks and hop until you drop.

===========================================================================

  Bill Holman, Clinical Robotics Lab, jwh7k@virginia.edu, (804) 924-8109

  Box 168, UVa Health Sciences Center, Charlottesville, VA, 22908

===========================================================================

------------------------------


Aquarium Pump Airation ala Brewing Techniques

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 09:35:57 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Aquarium Pump Airation ala Brewing Techniques

I would like to construct an airation unit similar to the one in Brewing

Techniques magazine.  The author of the article mentions using a charcoal

filter to remove rubber odors produced by the pump.  During a recent trip to

a department store I discoverd an array of pumps from $5 to $25 dollars but

could not find an in line fliter, the did have boxes of activated charcoal

so making on seems to be a minor issue.  My question what makes one pump

better than another?  Given the short duty cycle required for brewing versus

in an aquarium, durability and noise would be the least of my concerns.  I

would be most interested in the pump that produces the least odor.

Please post to the Net I have had problems with incoming mail.

RE:  Imperial stout that was too thin.  I suspect that the recipe published

was not identical to what was brewed, acommon problem with published recipes,

or the volume info was incorrect.

A beer with an og of 100 sg points * 5 gallons = 500 total sg points

500 sg points / 9 lbs DME = 55.5 sg pts / lb  no way do you get this from DME

        70 sg points * 5 gallons = 350 total sg points

350 sg points / 9lbs DME = 38.8 sg pts / lb  this is more realistic DME yeild

The contribution of the . 5 lb barley and .5 lb specialty grain would be

minimal on total gravity.

If you want 100 sg points from this recipe brew a 3.5 gallon batch

9 lbs DME * 38.88 sg pts/ lb = 350 sg pts

350 sg pts / 100 pts/gallon = 3.5 gallons

Any one have a good all grain Belgian Double recipe?

lmenegoni@nectech.com

------------------------------


More Weizen Stuff

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 11:15:12 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: More Weizen Stuff

Reading the last digest shows that summer is here and many of us are

working hard on wheat beers.  Having just brewed yet another Weizen

broadly ala Warners Isar, and reading the posts, I thought I'd comment

on some of my latest frustrations with Wheat beers.  First some notes

on yesterdays material:

>From Rick Garvin:

<(5 gallons)*(55 SG pts)/(7.525 lbs grain)= 36.5 SG pts/lb.

<I never see 36.5 SG pts/lb with my equipment. I brewed a Hefe Weizen a la

<Warner on 31 May, 1993. Three weeks after brewing, six days after bottling

<this beer took first in a local informally judged "light" beer contest. I

<was quite surprised that it was so well received. It even beat Jim Busch's

<Weizen and Wit. I voted for Phil Seitz's Wit (I think). So, I am happy with

<the quality of the advice found in Warner's book.

I never see this either.  The Weizen that Rick "beat out" (ouch!) only

yielded just under 30 pts/lb.  I increased the pale malt and added a bit

of Munich and last nights yielded only 28.  Both batches were single decoction.

Erics book is certainly a great asset to brewers, and Eric notes that you

should adjust all grain bills based on the performance of your system. Now,

if I can just figure out the performance of my system with wheat malt, *$!%.

FYI:

Hefe Weizen #123, 6/23/93:

59%   De Wolf - Cosyns Wheat Malt

38%   De Wolf - Cosyns Pils Malt

 2.5% De Wolf - Cosyns Munich Malt

  .5% De Wolf - Cosyns Cara Pils Malt

13 IBU Hops, Whole Domestic Perle, 1/2 at start of boil, 1/4 at 60 minutes

1/4 Hersbruker Hallertau Pellets, 15 minutes to end

~21 oz Weihenstephan 66, Weizen Yeast

1/2 Tbls Gypsum in Sparge, 1/2 Tbls in mash

OG 12P

I use a shallow SS lauter tun, with a perforated sheet false bottom, and grain

bed depth of about 1 to 1.5 feet.  Lauters great.

A question for wheat brewers: what kind of grain mill do you use, and how far

(fine) do you grind the Wheat?  I am beginning to wonder if my extract loss

is due to not pulverising the wheat enough.  Pound for pound I should be

getting a much higher extract from Wheat, and I dont. An equivelent Pale Ale

single infusion gives me at least 13P.

Hey, Rick: You better bring that weizen to next months contest where we can

have "BJCP certified judges" pick the real winner :-)!  I just hope they dont

allow Phil's Wit beer in the contest, the competition is getting too stiff

around here!

Good weizen brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Belgium Tripple

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 11:16:11 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Belgium Tripple

Since my latest visit to Belgium last month, I am getting real anxious to brew

an authentic Belgium Tripple.  I though I would consult the HBD for any tips

or opinions on the matter. My goal is a simple one, reproduce Bruges Tripple.

I am aiming for 9-9.5% ABV, light pale color, warming alcohol presence but

not overtly evident alcohol.

So for say 10 gallons:

Pils malt to result in an OG of ~18P (1.073/4)

5-6 lbs glucose/sugar/candi mix (is this close?)

~20-24 IBU Goldings/Saaz/hallertau/Perle/Liberty?

Yeast???? LaChouffe, Westmalle, Duvel? Suggestions excluding Wyeast Belgium :-)

A combination?  I would assume a fresh bottling yeast is required.

So all you high gravity pBelgium brewers out there, what do you think?

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


High Gravity Brewing

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 11:16:55 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: High Gravity Brewing

In an attempt to start a subject that I dont recall reading here in the fairly

recent timeframe I am asking for opinions on high gravity brewing.  What I

mean by this is similar to what the big boys do: Brew a high gravity wort and

dilute with boiled/cooled water into the fermenter.  Now before you get all

upset that this is not the way to make "real" beer, let me point out that I

talked to a few brewmasters in the UK who did just this.  In particular, the

brewer from the Larkins Brewery (located in Kent, took a medal in last years

GBBF), told me he brews his ordinary bitter to an OG of 1.055 and dilutes it

down to 1.035 in the fermenter.  I realize one needs to take into account the

additional caramelization in the kettle with the increased sugar content, but

has anyone done much of this.  I am especially interested in the idea of

brewing pale ales of OG 1.065-1.070 and adding water to result in a 1.055

in the fermenter.  The entire fermentation would be at the lower gravity. An

obvious issue is the pH of the water pushing the wort toward the alkaline

side, would the wort be able to buffer a 10-20% water charge?  Would typical

Sierra Nevada ale yeast be able to work at a slightly more basic pH than a

normal wort?  IT would seem to me that since kettle size is normally the

limiting factor in batch size, this would be a great way to increase volume

of finished product.  I am fortunate in that I oversized/over engineered my

lauter tun to accomadate high gravity brewing, so working with the extra

grains is no problem.

Comments/experiances?

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


RE:

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 10:27:45 CDT

From: serafin@epcot.spdc.ti.com (Mike Serafin)

Subject: RE:

> From: KLIGERMAN@herlvx.rtpnc.epa.gov

> Subject: Lubbock, texas

>

> Help!

> My wife is on work assignment in Lubbock,Texas and cannot find any good

> beer.  If anyone is familiar with the area and can suggest a good package

> store, restaurant, or other establishment, I will sent her the info. ASAP.

> Thanks-- reply by HBD or e-mail.

> Andy Kligerman

My condolences to your wife.  The best place to look for beer is the "Strip",

which is located on the Tahoka Hwy south of town, I don't remember the number

of the highway, but if you take I-27? south Loop 289, you'll be on the Tahoka

Hwy.  I checked out the stores there my last few trips to Lubbock and the

selection is pretty dismal.  They do have a few imports, but not many. This is

about the only place you can find package liquor/beer/wine there are a few

other stores around the outskirts, but they are harder to find. You won't find

any package liqour in the city itself.  I do not know of any restaurants or

bars that have a good selection of beer.  Try to stay away from the "strip"

Friday and Saturday evenings, the lines of cars going there can be a real pain

in the A.

By the way, tell your wife there really is LIFE after Lubbock.

Mike Serafin

------------------------------


metallic tastes

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 10:55:18 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: metallic tastes

Michael Barre writes:

>I have finished my first batch, an Amber kit using Cascade hops and

>Superbrau malt extract from a supply shop here in New Orleans, and I am

>displeased with the results.  The beer is very sharp with a metallic

>aftertaste, almost like a canned beer that has been cold, warm, and cold

>again.  The shopkeeper tasted the beer and he says using liquid yeast

>instead of the dried (EDME brand) yeast, and pitching the yeast into

>cooler wort will take the bite out.  My wort was 90 degrees.

Sounds like chlorine and/or extra-hard water to me.

Did you boil ALL the water used in the brew (before you added it),

and siphon off the precipitate?

bb

------------------------------


Light extracts and "sparging"

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 12:39:49 EDT

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1-1/T09 DTN 225-6171  24-Jun-1993 1227 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Light extracts and "sparging"

>Date: 21 Jun 93 07:05:11 EST

>From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

>Subject: Light (Lovibond) Extract

>          I wish to make a beer with the lightest possible color as is

          possible with extract.

>               What suggetions can you give me for both liquid extract

>          (preferrably unhopped) and DME?

>          TIA

>          Andy A

Andy, from my experience and comments from my local supplier, American Eagle

seems to be the lightest extract (both dry and syrup) on the market.  Their

amber DME seems to be the color of M&F et.al.'s light.

>Cyberspace is relatively free of throwaways ( barring bounced email ). Let's

>all keep it that way.

>- -- richard

>  richard childers, pascal@netcom.com

Seems to me you only helped the advertising cause by repeating the

advertisement in it's entirety in an attempt to prove your point.

Speaking of Mark of Hoptech, I have a question about his recent Zymurgy

article.  The article says that dry hopping with pellets will take longer than

dry hopping with whole hops.  Why?  I would think the opposite would be true

since the lipulin glands are probably ruptured during the pelletizing process.

>Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 16:44 CDT

>From: korz@iepubj.att.com

>Subject: Re: Cooling extract wort

>It's not a waste of time in my opinion.  I'm a bit confused by your

>statement: "...after the boil, I would sparge the 1 1/2 gallons of hot

>wort..."  Sparging is the rinsing of grains with hot (170F or so) water

>to extract the sugars out of them.

Charlie Papazian in TCJOH refers to the dumping of the wort through a strainer

into the fermenter to remove the hops and any other particulates as sparging.

This might be the source of the confusion.  He also recommends scooping out

the specialty grains just prior to the wort coming to a boil.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Re: Short Original Gravity

Date:  Thu, 24 Jun 1993 14:16:37 -0400

From: Bill Flowers <waflowers@qnx.com>

Subject: Re: Short Original Gravity

In HBD #1168, Kevin Krueger wrote:

> The recipe stated an OG of ~1.1 and I reached ~1.07.  This recipe used

> d.m.e. (9#'s) and some specialty grains (1/2# each of chocolate and

> roasted barley) and 3 oz. of Williamette hops for boiling and some

> Cascade for finishing. ... Are there any other factors that would reduce

> my OG ??

I calculate that using that quantity of malt and grains to make 5 gallons

would give you an OG of 1.075.  However using the same quantity to make 4

gallons would be 1.095, close enough to the ~1.1 the recipe quoted.  And if

you made 14L (just shy of 4 gallons), you'd get 1.102.

Perhaps this recipe wasn't for a "standard" volume?

- ---

W.A. (Bill) Flowers                email: waflowers@qnx.com

QNX Software Systems, Ltd.         QUICS: bill     (613) 591-0934 (data)

(613) 591-0931 (voice)             mail:  175 Terrence Matthews

(613) 591-3579 (fax)                      Kanata, Ontario, Canada K2M 1W8

------------------------------


Brewtrip to Cally

Date: 24 Jun 1993 15:16:26 -0600 (CST)

From: CMACK@ssc.wisc.edu

Subject: Brewtrip to Cally

Hi!  I'm off to California for a week to visit my girlfriend's

family, and was hoping to make the most of the trip by trying

microbrews that aren't available on this side of the Mississippi.

Could those in the know suggest brewpubs/other fine establishments,

and beers that I just shouldn't miss?  I'll be in San Francisco

and San Diego in particular.  TIA,

Chris Mack

(CMACK@SSC.WISC.EDU)

------------------------------


Chipotle Ale

Date: 24 Jun 93 13:04:45 U

From: "Michael Blongewicz" <esri!mailgate.boris!mblongewicz@uunet.UU.NET>

Subject: Chipotle Ale

                       Subject:                               Time:11:42 AM

  OFFICE MEMO          Chipotle Ale                           Date:6/24/93

In HBD 1176, Dale HIggs talks about a Northwest Brewery that has brewed a chili

beer with chipotles (that smoked and dried jalpeno).  The only northwest

brewery other than Blongewicz's Garage Brewery and Beer Joint (I'll get back to

that later) that has brewed a beer with chipotles, that I know of, is Rogue.

Their beer is called Mexicali Rose.  In my garage brewery I used 2 oz of whole

or partially crushed chipotles in the last 15 minutes of the boil.  It came out

quite well I thought (must have been okay, everyone at the Uno de Mayo party

drank all 5 gallons of it).  And the warm smokey taste at the very end is just

right for drinking.  I've had Ed's also, and its good, for one or two, but not

much more after that.

Anyway if you want the detail on the Chipotle Ale, just ask

Michael

mblongewicz@esri.com

------------------------------


Raw wheat/Extra-light extract/Superbrau

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 14:07 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Raw wheat/Extra-light extract/Superbrau

I was just on the phone yesterday with a food industry wholesaler

regarding unmalted wheat.  I had read from Jean-Xavier Guinard's

book, Lambic, that the raw wheat that they use for lambieks is

soft, white, low-protein wheat.  Furthermore, he said that the

protein levels were typically 1.8 to 2.1 percent total dry weight.

Now, this did not go over well with the wholesaler -- their wheat

typically has 11 to 14% protein.  I looked up the protein levels

in DeWolf-Cosyns Wheat MALT and they were "10.61% total protein as is"

and "4.85% soluble protein."

Hmmm?  I don't think the protein levels could be that much lower in

unmalted wheat -- malting cannot CREATE proteins, can it?  I suspect

that somehow there was a mixup in the protein levels in Guinard's

otherwise spectacular book -- perhaps a misunderstanding by the

brewers?  Perhaps they were quoting soluble protein and less is

soluble before malting?

In any event, the reason I really posted this was to point out that

the lambiek brewers are using SOFT, WHITE wheat not hard, red wheat.

Just a data point.

****************************

Andy writes:

I wish to make a beer with the lightest possible color as is possible

with extract.

I've found that the lightest of the extracts are Alexander's and

Munton & Fison Extra-Light.  Both are syrups.  I'd like to add that

I've never made a beer from all dry extract, so Light DME might be

even lighter, but I don't have any personal experiences to report.

***************************

Michael writes:

>I have finished my first batch, an Amber kit using Cascade hops and

>Superbrau malt extract from a supply shop here in New Orleans, and I am

>displeased with the results.  The beer is very sharp with a metallic

>aftertaste, almost like a canned beer that has been cold, warm, and cold

>again.  The shopkeeper tasted the beer and he says using liquid yeast

>instead of the dried (EDME brand) yeast, and pitching the yeast into

>cooler wort will take the bite out.  My wort was 90 degrees.

Most often, metallic tastes come from your water.  Not only iron is

responsible for these flavors, but also a lot of Calcium and Magnesium

salts in the wather can give your beer a metallic flavor.  Other

possible culprits are metallic pots and (for all-grain brewers) poorly

stored/old grain.  I don't think that the yeast would make that much

of a difference.

One other comment.  I have heard that Superbrau brand extracts have

a pretty high level of corn sugar in them.  I have not been able to

verify this from either of the two extract composition sources that

I have (from old Zymurgy articles).  I have brewed decent beer with

Superbrau in the past, but if indeed there is corn sugar added, I

would avoid the extract.  You see, malt extract costs between $2 and

$3 per pound.  Corn sugar (dextrose) costs about $.75 per pound.  So

if you're paying full price, you might as well get all malt and add

the sugar yourself if you want.

Al.

------------------------------


hbd startup

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 14:10:00 PDT

From: "SIMPSON, Mark (x-4378)" <Simpson@po2.rb.unisys.com>

Subject: hbd startup

Hi HBDPerson!

Could you please start a new subscription to "The Homebrew Digest" for me?

Thank you very much.

Mark

memmrs@rb.unisys.com

------------------------------


Crush-OfF, Filters

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 16:30 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Crush-OfF, Filters

 >From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

 >However, for those who require more hard data, Dan Listermann has told

 me that he will be bringing his set of standard analytical sieves to

 Portland with him, and will offer to conduct a "crush-off" with all

 comers.  Seeing the results first-hand should persuade any skeptics.

 Hmm...  Wasn't planning on going to Portland.  Hate to make the trip just to

 keep him honest.  Any volunteers to take a brand new MM for the GREAT

 CRUSH-OFF?

 >From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

 >Subject: filtering - mechanisms & tolerances

 >Incidentally, I'm not sure what the pore size of gas filters is, but it's

 probably pretty big....

 I  think you hit on the key.  There is no such thing as "pore size" on a

 string wound filter and I think they amount to nothing more than a lick and a

 promise and Jim Busch's comments seem to confirm my suspicion.  They appear

 to be an attempt to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.

 js

------------------------------


Polypropylene

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 16:05 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Polypropylene

Nir writes:

>I'm just back from the UK. The British seem not to mind using plastic in their

>homebrewing. They have a mashing aparatus made of a 20 lit polyproylene bucket

I suspect that it is Polyethylene (PE), not Polypropylene (PP).  I have yet to

see anything that's been made of PP that is food grade, so I suspect that it

is not food grade.  Since we're on the subject of Polypropylene and food

grade certification, if you buy yeast in plastic vials, check what kind of

plastic it is.  I've seen yeast sold in Polypropylene vials.

Al.

------------------------------


Polypropylene correction...

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 16:42 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Polypropylene correction...

Jim Busch's post reminded me of one instance of food-grade PP -- those

pleated PP filters.  Are you sure the spun ones are PP also?  In any

event, I looked around a lot and called a lot and could not find a PP

food-grade vial.  Why not HDPE, you ask?  Well, I wanted to autoclave

it -- PP is autoclavable as is PC (Polycarbonate -- also not food-grade).

I settled on glass vials with PP caps that have fiber/foil liners.

Al.

------------------------------


RE: Keg Tricks

Date: 25 Jun 93 04:05:50 GMT

From: mkenny@bcm1g01.attmail.com (mkenny )

Subject: RE: Keg Tricks

In HBD1168 Sandy Cockerham writes:

>

>Does anyone have a neat trick for stabilizing a 3 gallon keg so you can

>tighten and untighten the fittings ?  I have not figured out how to work

>on them. The 5 gallons with the double handles are easy, but the 3 gallons

>have me stymied.

Try using the keg inertia.  Firmly attach your wrench and give the end of

it a good wack with a rubber mallot or such.  Filling the keg with water

will amplify this effect.  Just like the old jank the table cloth trick.

Cheers,

Mike Kenny

------------------------------


Help rescue my first batch!

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 23:28:59 -0600 (MDT)

From: J. Michael Diehl <mdiehl@triton.unm.edu>

Subject: Help rescue my first batch!

Last sunday, I started my first batch, an extract.  I'm using a Laaglander

Dutch Dark Beer kit.  But I think I'm in for some problems.

My initial Gravity was only 25; I was told to expect 45, on the scale that is.

I also expected a bit more vigorous bubbling.  I had times when it didn't buble

at all, other times it did pretty well.  Anyway, 2 days after pitching, My

girlfriend and I tasted a bit of the wort.  It tasted like watered-down sour

grapejuice.  I figured that maybe I didn't stir it well enough so after 2 more

days, I stired it up real good and took a gravity reading, a 20. It still tasted

the same, but I bet you could catch a buzz of it! ;^)  Now I suspect that all of

the yeast is dead.  What do I do now?  Thanx in advance.

+-----------------------+-----------------------------+---------+

| J. Michael Diehl ;-)  | I thought I was wrong once. | PGP KEY |

| mdiehl@triton.unm.edu |   But, I was mistaken.      |available|

| mike.diehl@fido.org   |                             | Ask Me! |

| (505) 299-2282        +-----------------------------+---------+

|                                                               |

+------"I'm just looking for the opportunity to be -------------+

|            Politically Incorrect!"   <Me>                     |

+--The family that brews together drinks together.  The family--+

|       that drinks together, stays together.  <Me>             +

+-----If codes are outlawed, only criminals wil have codes.-----+

+----Is Big Brother in your phone?  If you don't know, ask me---+

+Key fingerprint=D5 35 15 4A 06 F9 F0 34 D8 EE 74 73 5A F5 9D 1A+

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


Miller amber ale

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 01:34:22 PDT

From: bill@oilsystems.com (Bill Vaughan)

Subject: Miller amber ale

Well, I never thought I would be defending Miller (ick) but...

Dennis Lewis writes:

> This [Miller pamphlet] has got to be one of the most inane

  pieces of misinformation...

    from Miller: "the tradition of warm beer is a cultural oddity

    of England rather than a taste issue."

  ...This cultural oddity thing is unbelievable!!!

Belgian ale and altbier are both served much colder than English ale.

When I lived in Belgium, no one could believe I liked English ales --

they would all say "What! that flat, warm stuff!"  These were NOT

Americans talking -- they were Belgians, Dutch, Germans and one Swede.

Continental Europeans do not share the British taste for cask-conditioned

55 deg F ale.  (Nor do they share the American taste for ultra-cold beer.)

>   "Authentic ales differ from lagers... in several ways.  First, ale

     is made only from a special ale yeast.'

   I thought ale yeast was the common stuff and lager yeast the special one.

Gee, no doubt in my mind Americans would consider ale yeast special.  Sure

seems Wyeast considers it as special as their lager yeasts, or they might

charge less. :-)

>   "Ales are also the original beer of Europe."

   I guess the Sumerians and Egyptians don't count...

I don't know if they count, but they are respectively Asian and African,

not European.

All in all, I suspect the Miller brochure is mostly factual, just watered

down (like Lite beer) for the American public.  And any facts are better

than the kind of B.S. the public usually gets from our megabreweries.

- --Bill

------------------------------


RE commercials & SCOTCH ALE request

Date:         Fri, 25 Jun 93 09:23:30 EDT

From: Elaine <EBORIS@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>

Subject:      RE commercials & SCOTCH ALE request

In HBD # 1167, Tony Johnston said,

>

>...  If I wanted commercials, I would watch TV :( !!!!!

about this in HBD # 1169, Garret Hildebrand says,

>                   ...but I also read the HBD to get data

>and opinions on products which I might think about purchasing,

>and to hear about new things which are offered.

I agree with Garret 100%!   I LIKE hearing what people think about

products and IMHO I don't think anything posted has even come near

to being as annoying as TV ;-)

( change of subject)

Does anybody have a recipe that is similar in taste to McAndrews

Scotch Ale?  I do mostly extract brewing with added grains, but I

have done an all grain brew that turned out nicely, so I wouldn't

mind trying another.   TIA  --Elaine

Elaine Boris                                  Student Information Systems

Computer Services Specialist                  University of Georgia

706 542-0484                                  Athens  Georgia

------------------------------


Wyeast 3068

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 07:42:57 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Wyeast 3068

Would someone who has used 3068 and feels qualified to describe it's

fermentation characteristics please do so. What wheat beer style is

it best used with? I assume it is German. Does this mean it is a big

phenol and clove producer? Is ther some Brettanomyces critters in there?

I'm getting pretty tired of who's on first when it comes to mills!

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Cherry Brew? from Door County

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 09:51:34 CDT

From: krueger@comm.mot.com (Kevin Krueger)

Subject: Cherry Brew? from Door County

Since I am heading up to Door County (WI) this weekend for some S&R (surf and

relaxation), my mind drifted back to last year when I had a chance to try

a cherry beer from Door County called Cherry Rail.  Has anyone else had this

beer?  Personally, it was a lame beer and it tasted like Miller with cherry

flavoring.

After my first swallow, I knew something was up with this beer,

so I really combed the beer label looking for any clues.  Before I could even

dip into my fish boil:@[, I found the problem.  They brew the beer and then

add cherry flavoring to the beer!  What's up with that?  Is that how they make

their apple beer?  In fact, I am curious if there any fruit beers on the market

that actually use real fruit and not flavored extract.

Which leads me to my other question about bad beer.  In our party, we all

ordered the cherry beer and we all thought it was pretty lame.  I was the only

beer connisseur (sp?) in the bunch, so that leads me to believe that it was

truly bad.  So how does a brewery stay afloat with beer that, IMO, was only

drinkable because I had been in the sun all day?

BTW, I know it was brewed under contract at another house, but that doesn't

make my questions not worth asking.  The label said Door County Brewery and

that was what I remember about it.  That and the fact that I had to order a Dog

Style to wash down my fish boil!

Kevin

------------------------------


Belgian Malts: Pils -vs- ale

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 10:52:32 EDT

From: rgarvin@btg.com (Rick Garvin)

Subject: Belgian Malts: Pils -vs- ale

William Kitch published a recipe in HBD #1169 for a 5 gallon batch of

Belgian Double that uses 2 lbs of Special B malt. Special B is over

200 Lovibond. I used 2 lbs in a 12 gallon batch of Brown Ale on Tuesday

and it was VERY brown. I would recommend 1/2 or 1/3 lb of Special B.

Maybe less.

I really do like the Special B. Tim Artz has gotten some weird comments

back from contests using this malt. One suggested that his beer

(Dunkel Weizen?) had orange peel in it when it had nothing but Special B

as an addition to malt. It may take judges a while to get used to it.

Cheers, Rick

Rick Garvin rgarvin@btg.com

BTG, Inc. Navy Programs Division, Vienna, VA 703-761-6630

------------------------------


foaming/flat kegged beer

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 09:25:27 -0700 (MST)

From: Cisco <FRANCISCO@lan.ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: foaming/flat kegged beer

I forgot to add that when you are dispensing through a coiled chiller

that you not leave the CO2 connected overnight because it will

eventaully cause more CO2 to go into solution. When using copper

dispensing tubing make sure to thoroughly clean it after each use.

For those of you who like their ales served at traditional

temperatures, my previous post several HBD's ago stated that the

optimum dispensing pressure was 12 lbs (adjusted +1lb for every 2000

ft. above sea level) and the length of 3/16 id hose should be 4(1lb.

drop for every four inches)* compensated dispensing pressure. This is

approximately 48 inches with a normal cobra tap or regular beer tap

such as through a refrigerator door. A tower tap has a 3lb pressure

drop across it and must be subtracted from the dispensing pressure

before calculating tube length. All this info is for a dispensing

temperature of 38 to 42 degrees. If you want your dispensing

temperature warmer, say 45 to 55, there are two techniques that can

be applied to adjust the dispensing pressure. Beer that is served

warmer allows more CO2 to escape and increases the pressure in the

keg. This increased pressure can be compensated for by 1).dropping

approximately 2 lb in dispensing pressure or 2).adding another 8 in.

of 3/16 id hose. You'll have to play around a little bit to get it

just right but you should only have to adjust the pressure + or - 1lb.

to tweek it in.

Hope this makes sense,

John Francisco

Francisco@lan.ccit.arizona.edu

>

------------------------------


Portland

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 11:02:14 -0700 (MDT)

From: walter@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Brian J Walter (Brewing Chemist))

Subject: Portland

Howdy folks,

 My wife and I are planning on going to Portland, but need to find

 someone to split a room with to keep costs down.  If anyone is in

 a similar situation and wouldn't mind sharing let me know.

 Good Day,

 Brian

Brian J Walter            |Science, like nature, must also be tamed|  Relax,

Chemistry Graduate Student|with a view towards its preservation.   |Don't Worry

Colorado State University |Given the same state of integrity, it   |  Have A

walter@lamar.colostate.edu|will surely serve us well. -N. Peart    | Homebrew!

------------------------------


Re: Anheuser-Busch buys Sierra Nevada

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 11:44:46 EDT

From: chuck@synchro.com (Chuck Cox)

Subject: Re: Anheuser-Busch buys Sierra Nevada

Rick Garvin sez...

>

> I was at the brew-pub in progress Bardo in Arlington, VA on Monday night.

> In speaking with Bill Stewart the owner (very wacky guy with bottle of Celis

> White in his hand) he asked if I had heard the rumor that Anheuser-Busch

> was in negotiations with Sierra Nevada Brewing Company for a take over.

> What!? He said that this rumor was completely unsabstantiated but came

> from someone in the industry.

>

> I called SNBC today at 916-893-3520 and spoke with Peggy. She was surprised

> that the rumor had gotten to Washington, DC but she had heard it. She said

> that this was absolutely false. Now, our friends at the SEC do not like

> companies to deny these things if it is true. So, I beleive her.

>

> Thank You God.

Hey! It's rumor time.

According to sources at the breweries, A-B did ask both Sierra Nevada

and Anchor (and possibly others) what their selling price was, both

declined.

According to sources in both the brewing and financial worlds, A-B is

seriously considering buying Jim Koch's Boston Beer Litigation Company.

- --

Chuck Cox   <chuck@synchro.com>

SynchroSystems / Riverside Garage & Brewery - Cambridge, Mass.

------------------------------


Yeast culturing / Comments

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 12:46:51 EDT

From: sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com (Omega)

Subject: Yeast culturing / Comments

I am interested in culturing yeast, but don't really know where to start.  TIA

for info/sources of info by private e-mail to "73410@sdlcc.msd.ray.com".

On to the commentary...

What is the point in posting notices of local club meetings here?  99 percent

(or more) of us do not live in your area!

To add my $.02 to the advertising debate; it strikes me as highly inappropriate

to advertise on this list.  It is a waste of bandwidth for those of us who are

looking for an informative forum on tips and techniques.  It also does an

injustice to those who voluntarily restrain themselves on the list and actually

PAY for their advertising.  If a product is good, we will hear about it from

satisfied customers.  'Nuff said.

Carl Howes

------------------------------


HBD advertising

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 11:29:12 PDT

From: ghultin@sfu.ca

Subject: HBD advertising

I think the problem with online advertising is that

it can't be avoided.  When some HBD subscribers advertise their

products and other don't, we all get to see the advertising, as

we are, in a sense, a captive audience.  I think this is where

the feeling that computer nets. like HBD shouldn't contain advertising

comes from/

For those who do use it to advertise products it is a cheap and

effective means of communicating for business purposes.  For those

who use HBD to indulge their passion for homebrew, advertising can

be a pain.  Notice that some people have discriminated between the

'kinds' or 'degree' of blantancy in advertising.  What we have

here is a range of uses, and range of users, and no particular, spoken

agreement of what constitutes acceptable use of a free medium.

The issue of advertising on computer nets. is similar to door-to-door

sales--how much freedom do businesspeople have to talk to you.

some non-HB but definitely D thoughts for you

geoff.

------------------------------


oops wrong email address

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 14:06:03 CDT

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: oops wrong email address

ok to those people who wanted info on the Wyeast single strain bavarian

wheat yeast source but couldnt get mail to me (we've got a screwed up

mail server) - my corrected signiture is listed below....so try again

======================================================================

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu |

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

======================================================================

------------------------------


DMS and PU

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 15:29 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: DMS and PU

A few days ago, Jack wrote about his Pilsner Urquell clone that was

brewed as closely as possible to Darryl Richman's description of the

way Prazdroj Pilsenski (I think that's the spelling?) makes PU.

Well, last night, I had a chance to try some of this beer.  A good

attempt, I must say!  The bitterness was right on, the hop flavor

was clean and accurate (Czech Saaz hops used throughout) and the

malty smoothness was very close.  Amazingly pale for a four-decoction

beer.  On the down-side, the Saaz nose could have been stronger and the

DMS level was a bit high.  This is coincident with my assertion that

a slow cooling would result in increased levels of dimethyl sulfide (DMS).

It was not too bad, however, and small amounts of DMS are acceptable

in Lagers (perhaps, and I'm just guessing here, because the cooler

fermentation causes a less-vigorous production of CO2, which (we

know for a fact) will scrub out excess O2 and DMS from the beer).

The beer had been fermented and lagered at 40F for a while (I forgot

to ask how long).  Perhaps a longer lagering (and maybe if it was

lagered at 32F as in Pilsen) the DMS level would be a bit lower?  Does

anyone know if DMS can be reduced via lagering?  Can someone check

DeKlerck and "Malting and Brewing Science?"  I've already checked "The

Biotechnology of Malting and Brewing" by Hough -- it's not mentioned in

there.

Al.

------------------------------


Hop aroma, alapha acid questions

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 13:40:30 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hop aroma, alapha acid questions


Re: Dry-Hopping & Bitterness

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 09:28:26 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: Dry-Hopping & Bitterness

Mark Garetz says:

> No.  IBUs are *roughly* equivalent to the milligrams/liter of isomerized

> alpha acids in beer.  The alpha acids are responsible for the bitterness

> in the beer.  The oils from the hops are responsible for the hop character

> and aroma in the beer.  Hop character is imparted by late additions of

> hops in the kettle and/or by steeping hops while the wort cools.  Some hop

> aroam is also imparted by this, but it is a totally different aroma than

> you get with dry hopping.  The aroma imparted by dry hopping resembles the

> aroma of the fresh hops.  But no bitterness is imparted by the hop oils,

                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> whether added directly as an oil, or by adding hops late in the boil or by

  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> dry hopping.

  ^^^^^^^^^^^^

:I would hope that by this, Mark is not saying that NO bitterness is

:imparted by late or very late hop additions.  This is simply not true.

:One of the few concrete lessons I learned from a short course at UC

:Davis was that even steeping hops cold imparts some bitterness.  During

:the course we tasted a variety of beers put together by the regular

:brewing students, including one in which the ONLY hop addition was a

:dry-hopping of Cascades.  There was a very distinct, albeit low,

:bitterness contribution.

:I also take issue with Mark's assertion that dry-hopping produces a

:_different_ hop aroma than late kettle additions.  Dry-hopping certainly

:produces more aroma per ounce of hops added, but I have never

:experienced or observed anything like the phenomenon Mark describes.  I

:hope this isn't taken as a flame, but judging from the bio in the latest

:Zymurgy, Mark's experience level as a brewer is not great enough to be

:making blanket assertions like this.

PLEASE don't take any of my comments as a flame either.  This kind of

friendly discussion is what makes HBD interesting.

Well I did say that the HOP OILS impart no bitterness.  But I also did

mean that adding late hops or dry hopping doesn't impart any SIGNIFICANT

amount of bitterness, as is borne out by your own post.  Sorry if sometimes

my wording sounds strong ("none" vs "not much") but my opinion is that it is

so small as not to be considered.  I have found that for most audiences

you generate more questions with "not much" answers than you do with "none"

type answers (HBD readers who are generally very astute may be the exception

to this rule, I'll try and remember.)

As far as the difference between hop aromas in late hop vs. dry hopping,

this is not something I came up with out of the blue.  This is well

documented in brewing literature like Malting and Brewing Science by J.S.

Hough et al as well as by the profesional brewers that I have interviewed.

I can also taste the difference quite distinctly, even if you can't.

It is the heat of the process (in the late boil) that changes the aroma

profile.  I'm also not sure of your statement that "dry-hopping certainly

produces more aroma per ounce of hops added."  Aside from the issue that I

feel that late hopping produces more of a "hop character" and taste than

aroma, (let's just change the wording to "hop effect" for purposes of

discussion), the heat of the wort will certainly extract more oils than

cool beer, but the heat will also cause a lot to evaporate, and there is the

time factor to consider:  Dry hops are in the beer a lot longer than kettle

hops or those in a hop back.  The whole subject is quite complicated, and

I'm the first to admit I have no clue what the real answer is.  It would be

interesting to run some experiments to see the relationship of quantity vs.

time of late hop additions.  I imagine there is an optimal time where the

maximum amount of oil is extracted, but hasn't boiled away yet.  It probably

looks like a bell curve:  the longer the hops are boiled, the more oil is

extracted, but the more oil evaporates.  Shorten the time, less evaporation,

but less extraction.  Also, longer time = more aroma change.  The speed

of wort cooling is also a factor.  Somewhere in the middle, there is probably

an optimum point.

Mike Schrempp asks if I have a curve that would show alpha acids vs. harvest

time.  I'll look and I'll ask some hop growers if they have any data and report

back.  Meanwhile, I don't know that I'd worry too much.  Not all of the cones

on your plant budded at the same time, got the same amount of sun, etc.  So

unless you're willing to harvest each cone indvidually, there is going to be

quite a bit of variation anyway.  In the real hop world, alpha analysis for

each lot of hops has to be done by sampling many different bales and coming

up with an average for the lot.  Cone to cone, alphas (and oils) vary quite

a bit, even from the same lot.  So again, I'm not sure I'd worry too much.

Mark from HopTech

------------------------------


re: Wort Chilling

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 15:15:26 PDT

From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

Subject: re: Wort Chilling

A quick note about the brewing procedures at Pilsner Urquell brewery

and the relationship between their cooling technique and DMS creation:

While it is true that the hot, bittered wort at PU is cooled slowly in

a coolship, which could engender a great deal of DMS production and

retention from latent S-Methyl Methionine (SMM), one must consider that

the preceding boil is exceptionally long and it is likely that most of

the SMM has already been converted to DMS and then evaporated off (see

Fix's "Principle of Brewing Science" for a lot more detail here).

Also, consider that DMS levels of 0.1 mg/l or more are typically

reported in lager beers (3 times the flavor threshold), while ales

generally have DMS levels below the threshold.  *Some* DMS flavor is,

in fact, a defining character of lager beers, and adds to the crisp

flavor profile.

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1170, 06/29/93

*************************************

-------


Advertising in HBD

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 15:59:41 PDT

From: Martin A. Lodahl <pbmoss!malodah@PacBell.COM>

Subject: Advertising in HBD

Time to offer my own opinions concerning advertising in HBD.

The opinion has been advanced that advertising on HBD is a service,

that it provides information brewers find useful.  Where that

argument fails with me is in the fundamental difference between

information presented in the interest of profit, and information

presented solely to share something useful or interesting.  Having

something to gain beyond good beer creates a conflict.  A poster

with a commercial interest in the question will find it quite

difficult not to favor their own solution:  when all you have is a

hammer, everything looks like a nail.  Some posters (Kinney

Baughman, Glenn Tinseth, Russ Wigglesworth, Darryl Richman and

others) have handled this extraordinarily well, from my point of

view, and I read their postings with confidence.  Others leave me

with the uncomfortable feeling that at least some of their postings

(and I can't always tell which ones) contain not real information,

but its counterfeit.  We've learned to expect advertising on the

more conventional media to be less than completely reliable;  for

this quality to slip unannounced into this forum compromises the

credibility of every scrap of information presented here, especially

for the newer brewers who are less prepared to sort fact from

factoid, and don't yet know who's selling what.  The principle of

"caveat lector" has always been useful here (mistakes, sometimes

_big_ ones, are made), but knowing that the posting you're reading

could be an "infomercial" doesn't exactly enhance the forum's value.

Just one man's opinion.

= Martin A. Lodahl      Pacific*Bell Systems Analyst =

= malodah@Pacbell.COM          Sacramento, CA           916.972.4821 =

= If it's good for ancient Druids, runnin' nekkid through the wuids, =

= Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me!  8-)   =

------------------------------


Mash Tun

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 21:53:30 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Mark S. Nelson" <mnelson@eis.calstate.edu>

Subject: Mash Tun

I'm a kit brewer second in the feild ready for the grain. Please give me

your best advice,  I really would like to know how to construct the best

system.

Please send me your simple systems ieas via private e-mail, care of:

the person signed below.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everything you know is wrong.

Mark S. Nelson       nelsonm@axe.humboldt.edu      mnelson@eis.calstate.edu

------------------------------


Request for brewpub information

Date: Sat, 26 Jun 93 07:47:51 EDT

From: Al Gaspar <gaspar@STL-03SIMA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: Request for brewpub information

I am looking for information on starting a brewpub (the laws in Missouri

are beginning to look more attractive).  I would appreciate pointers to

books and other publications that would discuss all the ins and outs of

starting a brewpub.  Thanks much.

Cheers--

Al

- --

Al Gaspar       <gaspar@stl-17sima.army.mil>

USAMC SIMA, ATTN:  AMXSI-TTC, 1222 Spruce St., St. Louis, MO  63103-2834

COMMERCIAL:  (314) 331-4354  AUTOVON:  555-4354

relay1.uu.net!stl-17sima.army.mil!gaspar

------------------------------


Yeast differences!

Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1993 13:48:59 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: Yeast differences!

Hi-

I am a novice brewer.  So far my friends and I have made three batches with

different specialty grains, hops, and extracts.  I have been pretty happy

with the results we get, but there is an odd overtaste (not really

unpleasant but noticable) to the beer.  We

have used dry Whitbread Ale yeast for all three batches. I know that

different yeasts can give different flavors and that liquid yeasts come

highly recommended, so for my next batches I will be using Wyeast American

Ale(#1056), which supposedly gives a cleaner taste.

My question is: Does anyone have a chart/table/list of what characteristics

the various common brewing yeasts (Wyeast, Whitbread, Edme, Red Star) have?

I know that no one yeast is "better" than the others just different.  I

also know that different yeasts work better with different styles.  Any

info would be appreciated--company propaganda sheets are fine too.  Will

summarize results and repost to digest if sufficient interest.

Hoppy brewing, y'all!

patrick <weix@swmed.edu>

p.s. Any other brewers at UT Southwestern? Phone x85050.

------------------------------


root beer

Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1993 14:34:12 -800 (PDT)

From: San Juan Island Lib <sanjuan@wln.com>

Subject: root beer

 I have a library patron who would like to make root beer from

scratch, not using a commercial extract.  We found a Mother Earth News

article which lists sassafras, molasses and dandelion root as ingredients,

but does not give the method or proportions.

Can you help us out with a recipe?

Theresa Gemmer  E-mail address: sanjuan@wln.com

------------------------------


random bizarre question

Date: 26 Jun 93 22:21:01 MDT (Sat)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: random bizarre question

According to my notes, homebrewing was finally legalized in the USA on

October 14, 1978.  Does anyone know *when* (in that day) it was signed,

and/or when (what time) the law took effect?

Email please; I'll summarize if I get >0 replies.  Consider it a contest;

the best reply wins an explanation of why I give a *%$@ about this trivium.

 ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


Local packys/Why so technical?

Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1993 11:37:12 -0400 (EDT)

From: Edward Croft <CROFTE@delphi.com>

Subject: Local packys/Why so technical?

Wow, shortly after I stated that our local packys only supply the

Budmilloors types of beer, one local packy changed. What a smorgasborg.

I can now select from Sierra Nevada, Schell, Anchor, and even Cave Creek.

It seems they may have been reading HBD. They also started carrying limited

homebrew supplies. It's great, now I am able to try some of the great beers

that I have been reading about.

- ------

Why so technical? I get HBD to get ideas on new brews, hear about taste tests,

and get other peoples ideas on how to improve the process. What I have seen

lately is more of a chemistry class on the properties of idophors(?) and

chlorine. I can see relating the impact some of the chemicals have on our

equipment, but don't you think it is getting a bit anal, when we start breaking

down the composition of the chemicals so as to get the optimum cleaning for

the least amount of chemical. Come on guys, I don't see the harm in a quarter

cup of bleach to five gallons of water. It works for me. I don't need to know

how or why. Why don't the chemistry majors come up with the proper amounts

between them and then post the summary. I want to hear more about using wheat

bases for fruit beers, or the proper way to prepare jalepenos for chili beer.

I want to hear about the new mini-keg systems, and yes even malt mills. Though,

we could lighten up a little with the advertising and sniping.

- ------

Sorry about the flamette, but it has been bothering me of late.

It's just that I think we need to see more of the types of input like

Allan Wright's Amber Wheat Beer fruit base in HB1166. I have been contemplating

a fruit beer, and this may do the trick. But, Allan, blueberries in beer?

Let me know how that turns out.

Thanks for letting me get it out of my system.

------------------------------


step infusion mashes

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 8:31:15 EDT

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: step infusion mashes

I am making plans for my first all-grain batch and have a few questions

about mash/lauter tuns.  I am planning on using the slotted copper

manifold for a combined mash & lauter tun.  I seem to have 2 options.

Put it in my mash kettle and make an insulated box to help maintain the

temp. or put it in a 12 gal. rectangular cooler.  Miller, in "The

Complete Handbook of Home Brewing," recommends the insulated box because

it allows you to do a step infusion mash.  I believe I have read in

these electronic pages that most of today's malts are so well modified

that a single infusion mash is fine for most styles.  Most discussion I

have seen concerns whether decoction mashes are worth the effort and

they can be done in a picnic cooler.

So, what's the verdict?  Does anybody do step-infusion mashes?  What are

the benefits?  Does anybody who does single-infusion mashes think

their beers [would | would not] benefit from a step mash?

Thanks for your help!

- --

Jim Grady                        |"Everybody thinks of changing humanity and

Internet: grady@hp-mpg.an.hp.com | nobody thinks of changing himself."

Phone: (508) 659-3409            |                      Leo Tolstoy

------------------------------


new brew shop in nj

Date: 28 Jun 1993   7:38 EDT

From: dab@cc.bellcore.com (dave ballard)

Subject: new brew shop in nj

hey now-  good news for us central jersey homebrewers.  rumor has it (from

chris at old bay) that red bank brewing supply will soon be opening a

shop in highland park called brunswick brewing supply.  i don't have a

date yet, but i'll let you know as soon as i get more info...

dab

------------------------------


Alpha Acids vs. Harvest

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 0:37:09 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Alpha Acids vs. Harvest

Mike Schrempp had asked if I (or anyone) had a curve showing the alpha

acid content vs. harvest time, trying to find out if a week or two's early

or late harvest would make a significant difference.  I said in a previous

post (which might be in this HBD, dunno since it's the weekend) that I

would try and find out.

Looked in my books and literature and talked to a grower late last Friday.

Despite the fact the most hop literature is oriented towards growing hops

rather than using them. one would think the answer would be there.  NOT!

Neither did the grower have any elightenment excpet to say "Why would you

harvest your hops at the wrong time?"  So it's like this:  They don't

harvest their hops before they're ready, so they don't care what the

alphas are before they hravest them.  And for this reason, no one seems to

have studied it.  They HAVE studied how the temperature of the growing

season affects the alphas (with the only positive correlation being high

temps in some month like May, well before harvest, but generally no

conclusive results) and the effect of various fertilizers on alphas (too

much nitrogen has a negative effect), but nothing I can find on harvest

time.  The literature also assumes that if you're a hop grower, you'll

know when the correct time to harvest is, so they don't bother to mention

how to tell when that time is.

Maybe Glenn Tinseth (who is on vacation, I seem to recall) can shed some

light here because the folks that he has direct access to (like Gail

Nickerson) are really hop breeders, not brewers.  Let's hope he reads this

when he gets back on-line.

Forgive me for a bit of a tangent here, but this is kind of like why there

aren't really any good formulas for predicting bitterness based on all the

variables.  The reason is that commercial breweries don't change their

process often, so that is in effect a constant.  They also have a lab to

measure (and tasting panels to confirm) the actual amount of bitterness

they're getting for a given hop addition.  They also have the luxury of

blending batches to correct mistakes and get better consistency.  So their

"formulas" are based on a lot of trial and error with measurement and

subsequent adjustment, with the knowledge that their yeast strain,

fermentation temperature, etc. will all remain constant and can be tightly

controlled.  So do they care to have a formula that they can plug in lots

of variables and get a reasonably accurate bitterness calculation?  No.

So we don't have one either (yet).

Mark from HopTech

------------------------------


Czech Budvar

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 02:16:52 -0400 (EDT)

From: waltman@BIX.com

Subject: Czech Budvar

Earlier this month there was some discussion of the Czech "Budweiser". A couple

of years ago the NY Times had a long aricle about them and A-B. The jist of it

was that Budvar and A-B had signed an agreement in the 1930's dividing the use

of the Budweiser name: A-B got exclusive use in North America, Budvar on the

European Continent and everywhere else (including UK) was open. One interesting

factlet was the A-B was using the Budweiser name _before_ the _current_ brewry

in Ceske Budejovice was opened. This was A-B's claim to use the name.

As for Samuel Adams in Germany, it is the only American beer I have ever

come across. (I had one at the Bier Museem in Heidelberg which was a bit of

a sacrifice since they had Budvar on tap.)

Fred Waltman

waltman@bix.com

------------------------------


AHA National First Round: Kingston, NY

Date: Sun, 27 Jun 93 13:20:38 EDT

From: rgarvin@btg.com (Rick Garvin)

Subject: AHA National First Round: Kingston, NY

Has anyone seen their judging sheets from the AHA first round at

Kingston, NY? I sent in six entries ($48 plus shipping) and have

not seen anything back yet. I understand that there were a huge

number of entries but I would like to drink my last four bottles

of Cherry Trippel if it is a loser.

I bet the only people that have heard anything yet are people

moving onto the second round.

Moping today, Rick

Rick Garvin rgarvin@btg.com

BTG, Inc. Navy Programs Division, Vienna, VA 703-761-6630

------------------------------


Foaming beer from the keg!

Date: Sun, 27 Jun 93 17:46:06 EDT

From: brewerbob@aol.com

Subject: Foaming beer from the keg!

From: BrewerBob@AOL.COM

For: Mark Parshall

Subj: Kegging - Foaming at the tap!

Re: HBD1157

Mark,

I know this note is a bit after the fact, I've been away. Perhaps it will

still be of some help to you with your foaming beer problem.

I think you may have two problems. The reason for the foam may be  too high a

dispensing pressure into too small a tube. A 1/4 inch ID tube will cause a

loss of

more than 1 PSI per foot so ten pounds at the tank will be about six

pounds at the tap for a three foot hose. Smaller IDs will have even

greater loss. A 3/16 will lose up to 3 PSI per foot.

The reason for low carbonation in your beer is improper method. You can

not simply put the gauge at thirty pounds for three days. The guy that

told you to shake was right about that. Try this: Be sure the beer is

very cold. Attach your gas line and set the pressure to twenty-five

pounds (for exact pressures for different styles of beer, see Miller's

book). Now, with the line attached, you will hear bubbles in the tank

when you tip it to it's side. After a few seconds, the bubbles stop. Now

roll the tank on the floor and you will hear more bubbles! Keep doing this

for about ten minutes or until the bubbles don't happen anymore or are very

few with each roll. Now the beer has ABSORBED the CO2! With the pressure

still at 25 PSI, disconect the gas line and put the tank into the fridge for

a day. Then bleed off all pressure, attach your gas line and set it at the

serving pressure you need, about ten pounds for a three foot line.

Oh, by the way, be careful with the CO2 tank when you do this. Do not set it

on it's side! Be very careful that it remains upright or liquid CO2 may try

to find it's way through your valve!

Good luck!         BrewerBob

------------------------------


selective growth media

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 16:21:08 MET DST

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: selective growth media

Hello all,

Here's just a quick note that DIFCO (

Here's just a quick note that DIFCO (US Tel: 800 5210851)

has come out with a growth medium that only

supports the growth of yeasts and moulds.

They sell it to people who want to check

airborn organisms. I just thought some of

you yeast breeders out there might be interested.

I have no other info, as I was just browsing

through a colleagues catalogue when I saw it.

Rob. Thomas.

P.S. usual disclaimers etc, etc, etc.

P.P.S. I don't know if DIFCO will supply to

private parties.

------------------------------


Freezer conversion for keg storage

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 10:34:11 EDT

From: richer@desi.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Al Richer)

Subject: Freezer conversion for keg storage

 Greetings!

 In my wanderings I've managed to pick up a large upright chest freezer

for cooling my kegs, as well as eventually becoming a beer cooler.

Unfortunately for me, the shelves are fixed,as they are actually the

cooling elements..

 I need an opinion.

 I am considering putting the kegs in the freezer on the shelves on their

sides, with the head end raised 2 or 3 inches to provide a bit of clearance

for the CO2 dip tube. Has anyone tried this, or is there a reason that

I shouldn't do it?

  Inquiring minds want to know...

      ajr

     richer@hq.ileaf.com

- --

------------------------------


Keg Manifolds annd Fittings

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 10:32:55 -0700 (MST)

From: Jim Liddil <JLIDDIL@AZCC.Arizona.EDU>

Subject: Keg Manifolds annd Fittings

I obtained a straight sided keg from the scrap metal yard this weekend.  Now I

want to turn it into a boiler/lauter tun.  Has any one ever mounted an

EasyMasher(TM) on a keg?  What other manifold setups work well that can be

easily removed?  When one does large batches of 10 gallons does this mean one

has to sparge for 2 hours.  An suggestions public or private are welcome.

Jim

------------------------------


5 liter kegs--some complications

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 17:27 GMT

From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>

Subject: 5 liter kegs--some complications

Like a number of people I recently purchased a set of 4 5-liter kegs from

Brew Ha Ha (Pottstown, Pa, 1-800-243-2620).  In general I have been happy

with the set, finding it reasonably well made and easy to use.  So far I've

kegged one batch, a bitter.  As with other kegs, Brew Ha Ha recommends using

1/3 to 1/2 cup priming sugar rather than the standard 3/4 cup for bottling.

When I kegged my batch I filled three kegs, and then reprimed and put the

rest into bottles.  The first two kegs worked fine, although the beer coming

out was a bit cloudier than the bottled version.  When I pulled out the

third kegs several days ago, I noticed that one are of the top had bulged

out, and that the corresponding area on the opposite side of the bottom

had also bulged.  The keg would no longer sit flat, and it was hard to get

the dispensing mechanism hooked on.

This would seem to be a problem stemming from excessive pressure.  However,

the beer was a 1.037 bitter that I'd kegged at 1.006 using 10 grams of sugar,

about 1/5 what Brew Ha Ha recommends for a standard beer.  In fact, the beer

itself seemed fine, and was not excessively carbonated.  I could only

conclude that there was a flaw in this particular can that was not visible,

leading to a structural weakness.

I called Randy Martin, the proprietor of Brew Ha Ha, to see whether they'd

be willing to supply a replacement.  It appears there there have been some

other, similar problems, although, none of these fit the description of my

own.  They are now recommending that all kegs be stored in a cool or cold

place, that they be checked periodically (they say the plug will bulge out

before a problem with the can itself develops), and that all kegs should

be filled to within 1" of the top (not less, as more pressure develops).

They also remind people not to use the standard 3/4 cup of priming sugar.

By the way, Randy said he's sending me a replacement.  Assuming no additional

problems develop I can still say that I'm happy with the system, and might

even consider buying another regulator and possible another set of kegs.

Phil Seitz

PSEITZ@MCIMAIL.COM

Arlington, VA

------------------------------


Breckenridge

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 14:30

From: RON.admin@admin.creol.ucf.edu (RON)

Subject: Breckenridge

A friend will be passing through Breckenridge and Denver Colorado soon.

He agreed to pick up some brew for sampling back here in Florida.

Could someone out there send me info. and flavors of some of the

local brewpubs in that area that sell their bottled beer

for outside consumption.

- --

ron@admin.creol.ucf.edu

------------------------------


Re: Short Original Gravity  . . . why ??

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 12:08 PDT

From: lfk@veritas.com (Lynn Kerby)

Subject: Re: Short Original Gravity  . . . why ??

Well I would suspect that recipe.  Simple math reveals that the only

way that OG could be accurate given the ingredients is that the batch

size was 3.5 gallons, not 5.  Your numbers sound right (see below).

   9# DME (@ 1.039 pt/lb/gal)    yeilds     351 pts

   1# dark specialty grains      yeilds      20 pts   (if you are lucky)

                                 total      371 pts

   371 / 5 ~~ 74  or 1.074 (probably very close to what you got)

   371 / 3.5 ~~ 106  or 1.106  (probably very close to what was expected)

   NOTE: '~~' means approximately equal

Happy brewing.

PS - It always helps to sit down with a calculator for a few seconds

     before taking a recipe as gospel.

- --

     Lynn Kerby  -  [apple,amdahl]!veritas!lfk or  lfk@veritas.com

Disclaimer: Any and all opinions expressed herein are my own and do not

            necessarily represent the views of anyone, especially my employer.

------------------------------


Dead beer (No more brewing action)

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 19:13 GMT

From: "Raj A. Upadhyaya" <RUPADHYA+aLIF1%Allstate_Corp+p@mcimail.com>

Subject: Dead beer (No more brewing action)

I am working on a Cherries in the Snow Ale from "The New complete

joy of homebrewing"  I used a Brewer's Choice german ale liquid

yeast, and after three days of initial fermentation I have moved

it to a secondary fermenter.  After that time, the brewing

activity has decreased significantly.  Could the yeast be dead?

Should I add more yeast?  Should I wait more?  It was pretty hot

(around 90 degrees) all three days, could that have killed the

yeast?

This is my third batch and would welcome any replies on this.

Raj Upadhyaya

------------------------------


IPA

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 13:32:01 -0700

From: ek@chem.UCSD.EDU (Ed Kesicki)

Subject: IPA

At the recent Del Mar Fair, I overheard one of the judges talking about the

I.P.A. class;  He was saying that an IPA should be dryhopped to kingdom come,

so that the first thing that registers in the taster's palate and brain is

the dryhopping.

My question:  Is this a generally accepted fact?  Or is it just individual

preference.  I realize that IPA's should be strong and quite aggressively

hopped, but I didn't know one way or the other about dryhopping.  Anyone?

Ed Kesicki

San Diego, CA

------------------------------


Maple Syrup

Date: 28 Jun 93 11:46:00 +1300

From: JORGENS_DAVID@Tandem.COM

Subject: Maple Syrup

     Has anyone tried using "real" maple syrup in any recipes?  Are the

sugars fermentable?  Does anyone have any recipes which call for maple syrup?

How much per five gallon batch should be used?

replies can be sent to: (jorgens_david@tandem.com)

Thanks in Advance

DJ

------------------------------


newsletter stuff

Date: 28 Jun 1993 13:45:13 PST

From: "JSDAWS1@PROFSSR" <JSDAWS1@PB1.PacBell.COM>

Subject: newsletter stuff

*** Resending note of 06/28/93 13:44

SUBJECT: new beer options in SF

Two new developments have recently occurred on the San Francisco beer scene.

The first is a combination Japanese Dim-sum and microbrewery which recently

opened in the Financial District, at 333 Bush (at Montgomery) called the

Cafe Pacifica.  The atmosphere can be best described as Japanese-corpoate-

yuppie.  It's a small place, and the brewhouse is incredibly tiny.  They

produce three beers; a light ale which has a well-balanced malty sweetness

and fragrant hop aroma reminiscent of Devil's mountain railroad Ale, an

amber which is clean and kinda average, and a dark, which has a nice

chocolate finish and is, I believe, an excellent porter.  The food is good

altho not traditional Chinese Dim-sum.  Both the food and beer are reasonably

priced, making it an excellent downtown lunchtime option.

Rumor has it that a wealthy Tokyo restauranteur wanted to serve micro-brewed

beer in his restaurants, but the Japanese laws concerning brewing make it

impossible for micro-breweries to operate there.  Apparently, you must

produce 50 kabillion barrels or more a year to brew in Japan, so he set

his son up in San Francisco to begin brewing American beer for export to

Japan (his restaurants anyway..).  The pub is, apparently, a pilot brewery.

On another front, the new owners of the San Francisco Giants obviously

appreciate good beer, because now in section 15 you can find a stand which

specializes in micro-brewed beers.  Anchor Steam and Anchor wheat are

available on draught.  SNPA, Anchor Porter, and Devil's Mountain Railroad

and Devil's brew are available in the bottle.  Section 15 is located roughly

behind first base.  While a bit pricey, it's not much more expensive than

Schludweiler, and infinitely tastier.

|    If it's good for ancient druids runnin naked thru the woods      |

|   drinkin strange fermented fluids then it's good enough for me.    |

| JACK DAWSON  -  JSDAWS1  -  415 545-0299  -  CUSTOMER BILLING  (BG) |

------------------------------


Belgian Pils malt/ Dubble recipes

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 14:51:54 PDT

From: Gary Rich <garyrich@qdeck.com>

Subject: Belgian Pils malt/ Dubble recipes

In HBD #1169 "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu> queries:

>Subject: Belgian Malts: Pils -vs- ale

>A few weeks ago I did my first partial mash and made my best pale ale

>ever.  So I'm jumping right into my first all grain batch.  I could

>use a bit of advice from y'all.

>In his book _Belgian Ales_, Pierre Rajotte implies that that the basic

>malt used for most Belgian ales is a pils malt not an pale ale malt.

>I recall him writing that the pale ale malts are used for British ale

>contract brewed in Belgium.  However, his recipes simply say "pale malt".

>Any way, I'm going for a Belgium double with the following recipe for

>5 gals.

>  9 lbs Belgian Pils malt

>  2 lbs Belgian special-B malt

>  1/2 lb glucose

>  1/2 lb Piloncillo (Mexican brown sugar)

>  7 HBUs Bitter Hops

>  1/2 oz American Saaz finishing hops

>  OG 1.065 (I hope)

>  Chimay yeast

>Any comments would be appreciated.

For one, this beer is going to be *way* dark.  Special-B is > 200 lovibond.

This dubbel is going to come out darker than an inky stout (thumbnail

says ~85 L).  The Special-B is darn tasty, but 2 lbs may be overpowering.

On the other hand, it might be delicious.  What it won't be is a dubbel.

I've made a couple of all grain dubbels now, and have found a recipe that

seems to be in the ballpark for the style.

8 lbs Belgian Pils

1 lb  Belgian Cara-Munich

1 lb  Belgian Aromatic

1 lb  Munich

~1 lb Some kind of dark sugar (some day I'll find dark candi)

Hops are still under experimentation, but noble hops only.  Saaz,

        Styr-Goldings, Hallertau.

>My specific questions are:

>   1)  Should I do a protien rest esp. considering I'm using a Pils malt?

I usually do with this malt, but a fairly short one.  I hold it at ~123F

until there is a layer of clear stuff floating on top.  Usually this is

about 15 minutes.

>   2)  Will I have DMS problems from the Pils malt?  If so how do I

>       minimize them?

Dr. Fix wrote pretty extensively on the Pils malt in Brewing Techniques #1.

I have my copy at home but I seem to recall that this malt was low in

DMS precursors for a European lager malt, but higher than a pale ale malt.

I haven't experienced any noticable DMS with it, but most of the beers that

I've made with it have been pretty strongly flavored, maybe I missed it.

>   3)  I want some malt flavor in the finished beer.  What temp should

>       I use for sacrification (sp?)?

With 2 lbs of special-B, you are going to have lots of malt flavor, no

matter what temp you use for starch conversion.  In my recipe I use a fairly

low temp rest (~30 minutes at 145F and ~60 minutes at 152) and count on the

Munich/ Cara-Munich to make it nice and malty without being sweet or heavy.

We're both looking at 12lb/5gal recipes.  In my (limited) experience this is

the point where aerating the @#%@ out of it becomes really important.  You

can't begin to rely on splashing into the primary to do the job.  Many methods

have been discussed, but what I use is my son's little asthma medicine

arosolizing machine.  Does an awesome job and has some built in filtration.

I paid $100 for the thing and my son uses it about once a month, so I get some

use out of it too.

=========================================================

A couple of thoughts of my own:

In my continuing quest for the perfect substitute for Belgian dark candi sugar

I thought about dark Karo Syrup <tm>.  It's dark and almost all corn syrup,

but what's the coloring from?  If it's just partially carmelized corn syrup,

it might be a good substitute?  If it's just dye or molasses, I'm not

interested in using it.

In the BT article on Belgian malts, Dr. Fix expresses  concern about the

differences between the fine and coarse grind extract amounts in the Aromatic.

 What does this mean?

------------------------------


Shake, shake, shake your wort!

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 13:57:58 PDT

From: mikel@netlink.cts.com (Mike Lemons)

Subject: Shake, shake, shake your wort!

I recently bought a 1 liter erlenmeyer flask to culture yeast in.  I got

two #9 rubber stoppers, one with a hole and one without.  The stoppers

nearly fall into the flask.  A nine-and-a-half would fit better.  I have

always used sterilized cotton in emtpy wine bottles for yeast cultures,

but the neck on this flask is too wide . . . I have to use an air lock.

First step:  Break the internal seal on a packet of liquid yeast and sit

it on top of an external modem, where it stays at 90 degrees F.  When

the packet swells up, make the starter.

I use 1/4 cup of dried malt extract.  I fill the flask up with water to

the 800 ml mark.  (1000 ml tends to boil over.)  I set it directly on my

gas stove and turn the flame up pretty high.  A long glass stirring rod

would be useful for stirring, but I don't have one, so I use a plastic

chopstick.  I boil it for about ten minutes, put the solid stopper in it

and set it in a sink full of cold water.  (Isn't pyrex wonderful?)

After the mixture had cooled, I started to swirl it around to increase

the dissolved oxygen in the liquid, when it dawned on me, "Why not shake

it instead?"  So I put my thumb over the stopper and just shook the hell

out of it.  I cut open the yeast packet and poured it in and attached

the air lock.

The next day, I had a very vigorous culture with lots of bubbles.  When

I brewed my five gallon batch of beer, I cooled the wort and poured it

into a plastic fermentation vessel with a tight-fitting lid.  Since I

have a solid stopper the size of the hole, I thought, "If it worked for

the starter, why not the wort?"  So I stuck the solid stopper in and

shook up the whole five gallons!  I poured the yeast starter in and

eight hours later, it was bubbling like crazy.  I've always had a

problem with long lag times, even when using liquid yeast and starter

cultures, but shaking the wort took care of it.

WARNING: Do not shake hot wort!  It will oxidize into cardboard.

Repeat: Liquid yeast and starter cultures did not decrease my lag times.

        Wort Aeration did.

- --

INTERNET:  mikel@netlink.cts.com (Mike Lemons)

UUCP:   ...!ryptyde!netlink!mikel

NetLink Online Communications * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115

------------------------------


RE: Belgian pils, summer brewing

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 18:17:28 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: Belgian pils, summer brewing

Hi All,

  Lots o' good stuff in HBD#1169.  William A Kitch writes:

>Any way, I'm going for a Belgium double with the following recipe for

>5 gals.

>  9 lbs Belgian Pils malt

>Any comments would be appreciated.  My specific questions are:

>  1)  Should I do a protien rest esp. considering I'm using a Pils malt?

 The Belgian pilsner malt is highly modified, a protein rest should

not be necessary.

>2)  Will I have DMS problems from the Pils malt?  If so how do I

>      minimize them?

  According to George Fix in his article on Belgian malts that appeared

in Brewing Techniques, the Belgian pilsner malt is low in the precursor

of DMS (can't remember offhand, SMM?), so this should'nt be a problem,

especially if you adhere to standard procedures for minimizing DMS.

  The precursor of DMS is a gas that can be driven off during the boil.

Use a vigorous boil, and leave the pot at least partly uncovered.  When

the boil is finished, chill the wort below 140F as quickly as possible.

A wort chiller is very helpful here.

>3)  I want some malt flavor in the finished beer.  What temp should

>      I use for sacrification (sp?)?

  Use a temperature at the high end of the sugar rest, say 158F or so,

which favors alpha amylase activity and should give you a more dextrinous

wort.

*************************************************************

  Jonathan Knight writes:

>I am wondering what people think about brewing in the summer, specifically

>regarding the increased danger of little airborn animals falling into your

>cooling beer.

  IMHO, this is far more problematic than controlling fermentation

temperatures, which can be dealt with in a number of ways (fridge with

external controller, wet t-shirt method).

>So, here is the question.  If windows are kept closed during the wort-cooling

>period and I am otherwise extra-careful with sanitation,

>I should add that I do not

>have a wort chiller,

  Jonathan, you've pretty much addressed the issues associated with warm

weather brewing.  Pollen and wild yeast counts are higher in warmer weather,

so being extra careful with sanitation and minimizing or eliminating air

circulation during the wort cooling period are very important.  Of course,

using a wort chiller to get to pitching temperatures quickly is also very

helpful.  Also, if possible, try to brew on rainy days, when pollen and wild

yeast counts are reduced.

>TIA as usual for any scientific data, empirical observations, or momilies.

  I brewed about a dozen batches throughout last summer, with no infection

problems at all.

*************************************************************

  Douglas DeMers writes:

>I use two fresh pieces of aluminum foil over the top of the kettle,

>arranged in the following manner.  I set my chiller inlet/outlet tubing

>so that they stick up in the middle of the kettle.

  I built my chiller so that the inlet/outlet tubing are just inside the

edge of the pot.  With the lid on, there is only about 1/2" space left

open, which I also cover with tinfoil.

>Certainly it's not perfect, but it makes me feel a lot better than if

>the kettle were open or partially covered by the lid

  Ditto.  See eliminating air circulation during the wort cooling period

above.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


AHA National Contest

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 21:33:46 EDT

From: rgarvin@btg.com (Rick Garvin)

Subject: AHA National Contest

It was just yesterday that I was grousing about not having received

my judging sheets back from the AHA yet. Well, today they arrived.

I was pleased to find that three of my beers had been promoted to

the second round: Barleywine, Imperial Stout, and Old Ale. The Old

Ale won't impress anyone. I entered a fair 1.064 IPA in this category

because it is a category that does not get many entries.

Overall the judges comments were consistent. This is something that has

gotten better through the years. There was one style that had "xerox"

comments. The two judges should have just signed the same sheet since

the only difference between them was the name. As a judge I understand

the balance that must be struck between collaboration and independant

thinking. This problem was only apparent on one beer.

For each beer that was promoted a button was included that said

"MY BREW KICKS BUTT" and "I'M A 2nd round Brewer." I can feel

the beer snob in me preening. But, then I drank one of those Old Ales:

"Too much hops" "Needs more malt" "Harsh Bitterness". And my favorite

from judge Cliff Beringer "Good beer, harshness might prevent me from

drinking more than 8 pints." Well, not a total loss.

Cheers, Rick

Rick Garvin rgarvin@btg.com

BTG, Inc. Navy Programs Division, Vienna, VA 703-761-6630

------------------------------


Bringing Homebrew into Canada

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 00:51:27 -0400 (EDT)

From: waltman@BIX.com

Subject: Bringing Homebrew into Canada

I have a family re-union this summer in Sault Ste. Marie, ONT., and I would

like to bring some homebrew. Is there any particular problem with importing

homebrew into Canada or should I bottle it all in old Coors bottles with the

labels still on <grin>? I would assume that I would have to pay duty just as

if it is store-bought beer.

Fred Waltman

waltman@bix.com

------------------------------


Tripel

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 10:48:17 +0200

From: dejonge@tekserv.geof.ruu.nl (Marc de Jonge)

Subject: Tripel

In HBD 1170 Jim Busch writes:

>Since my latest visit to Belgium last month, I am getting real anxious to brew

>an authentic Belgium Tripple.  I though I would consult the HBD for any tips

>or opinions on the matter. My goal is a simple one, reproduce Bruges Tripple.

>I am aiming for 9-9.5% ABV, light pale color, warming alcohol presence but

>not overtly evident alcohol.

Here are some data points (I haven't got a complete original recipe

but I've made some pretty succesfull near misses)

Koningshoeven tripel has pilsner malt exclusively (for 8.5% Alc. by Vol.)

don't know about their hops. This tripel is very similar to the Westmalle,

perhaps just a little more body.

West Vleteren uses a large proportion of 'Record' hops, a Belgian Northern

Brewer variety (which I believe is again related to Hallertau) and some

Goldings.

The Brugge tripel contains somewhere around 20% wheat malt (From memory,

I haven't got my notes here).

>So for say 10 gallons:

>Pils malt to result in an OG of ~18P (1.073/4)

>5-6 lbs glucose/sugar/candi mix (is this close?)

>~20-24 IBU Goldings/Saaz/hallertau/Perle/Liberty?

>Yeast???? LaChouffe, Westmalle, Duvel? Suggestions excluding Wyeast Belgium :-)

>A combination?  I would assume a fresh bottling yeast is required.

>So all you high gravity pBelgium brewers out there, what do you think?

One of my best attempts was made using the following (again from memory, but

then there isn't that much to remember)

Pils malt, for an OG of 1090 (infusion mash)

2/3 Belgian Northern brewer 1/3 Kent Goldings, for a bitterness about

half that of traditional Pilsner

yeast cultured from West Vleteren (the dark red caps, like a dubbel),

I expect Westmalle will also do (I haven't tried it)

Fermented somewhat cool, as I wanted the malt to dominate (I think 63F)

Bottled with some of the original wort. No extra yeast added but

next time I might, because carbonation took three weeks.

The result was very close to the Koningshoeven tripel both in flavour and

appearance, definitely one of my best top fermenting brews..

Marc de Jonge                   (dejonge@geof.ruu.nl)

------------------------------


Protein/Nitrogen in Wheat

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 10:52:57 +0000

From: G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk (Geoff Cooper)

Subject: Protein/Nitrogen in Wheat

Al <korz@iepubj.att.com> writes

>I was just on the phone yesterday with a food industry wholesaler

>regarding unmalted wheat.  I had read from Jean-Xavier Guinard's

>book, Lambic, that the raw wheat that they use for lambieks is

>soft, white, low-protein wheat.  Furthermore, he said that the

>protein levels were typically 1.8 to 2.1 percent total dry weight.

>

>Now, this did not go over well with the wholesaler -- their wheat

>typically has 11 to 14% protein.  I looked up the protein levels

>in DeWolf-Cosyns Wheat MALT and they were "10.61% total protein as is"

>and "4.85% soluble protein."

>

> ...                                             I suspect

>that somehow there was a mixup in the protein levels in Guinard's

>otherwise spectacular book -- perhaps a misunderstanding by the

>brewers?  Perhaps they were quoting soluble protein and less is

>soluble before malting?

Alternatively, someone is inadvertently quoting the Nitrogen content as

protein - a plausible error given the correlation. The data I have on Baird's

wheat malt is that it contains a maximum of 2.2% total Nitrogen. Remarkably

close to your figures of "1.8 to 2.1". Just speculation though, but maybe

worth checking.

Geoff

------------------------------


Door County Beers

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 07:28:16 -0500 (CDT)

From: dspalme@mke.ab.com (Diane Palme x2617)

Subject: Door County Beers

Howdy All!

 In yesterday's HBD, I happened to notice an article about the beers of

Cherryland Brewing, Sturgeon Bay, WI.  It talked about how the beer was brewed

and a fruit juice was added at bottling time.  Now, I had the opportunity to

sample some of Cherryland's Apple Bach at the Kenosha Beer Festival two weeks

ago and I was pleasantly surprised.  This stuff was good!  Being the cider

fanatic that I am, I was to the point of hijacking the truck and doing some

serious imbibing.  I also resolved to make an apple beer and the net.wisdom

seems to hold that making a hard cider and a very light beer and combining the

two at bottling time might be the way to go.  I am currently in the process

of making my first cider and if it doesn't turn out quite the way I want, I

may consider the mix and mash thing.  Regardless, I wanted to make one more

point.  I found some bottles of the apple bach in the cooler at my local home-

brew supply store and promptly purchased a six-pack.  The stuff was awful!

Absolutely no flavor of apples (smelled like 'em tho) and none of the crisp

sweetness that so overwhelmed me at the festival.  :-(  Any input as to why

this happened?  The beer is in big, brown bottles and looks like it was stored

at room temp.  If I can manage to drink the beer, I will at least get a set of

nice bottles for my cider.  Oh, and one more thing:  the rest of the beers

from Cherryland are barely passable.  The Gold and Silver Rails are not all

that exciting and the cherry beer seems to go the same way as the apple bach.

Hmmmm.  Enough rambling for one day!

Prosit!

Diane Palme

Department Engineer, Central Inspection

Allen-Bradley Co.

(414) 382-2617

P.S>

The hops are huge!   I am in fear for my parent's life!  :-)

- --

 " God does not play dice "

     - Albert Einstein

 " Nor is it our business to proscribe to God

  How he should run the world. "

     - Neils Bohr

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1171, 06/30/93

*************************************

-------


Re: More Weizen Stuff

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 08:50:53 -0400

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Re: More Weizen Stuff

Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com> wrote:

> I never see this either.  The Weizen that Rick "beat out" (ouch!) only

> yielded just under 30 pts/lb.  I increased the pale malt and added a bit

> of Munich and last nights yielded only 28.

> Both batches were single decoction.

> Erics book is certainly a great asset to brewers, and Eric notes that you

> should adjust all grain bills based on the performance of your system. Now,

> if I can just figure out the performance of my system with wheat malt, *$!%.

My most recent Weissbier (actually a Dunkelwiessbier) had a grain bill of 6

malted lbs wheat, 4 lbs munich and 1 lb pils, and yielded 30 pts/lb/gal with

a double decoction. (OG 15.5P - 1.062) No where near Warner's numbers,

but still acceptable.

> FYI:

> Hefe Weizen #123, 6/23/93:

> 59%   De Wolf - Cosyns Wheat Malt

> 38%   De Wolf - Cosyns Pils Malt

>  2.5% De Wolf - Cosyns Munich Malt

>   .5% De Wolf - Cosyns Cara Pils Malt

> 13 IBU Hops, Whole Domestic Perle, 1/2 at start of boil, 1/4 at 60 minutes

> 1/4 Hersbruker Hallertau Pellets, 15 minutes to end

> ~21 oz Weihenstephan 66, Weizen Yeast

> 1/2 Tbls Gypsum in Sparge, 1/2 Tbls in mash

> OG 12P

I added about 13 IBU also, Hallertau Hersbruker plugs and saaz pellets.

The Weihenstephen #66 is a great yeast to use for a true weissbier!

It really has the correct taste.

> A question for wheat brewers: what kind of grain mill do you use, and how far

> (fine) do you grind the Wheat?  I am beginning to wonder if my extract loss

> is due to not pulverising the wheat enough.  Pound for pound I should be

> getting a much higher extract from Wheat, and I dont. An equivelent Pale Ale

> single infusion gives me at least 13P.

Wheat should give a much higher yield. but it doesn't seem to in my case

either.  The xtractions using wheat are not very different from those with

just 2 row pale.  My previous batch had a poor wheat crush and the extraction

suffered (low 20s).  To avoid problems with the mills at homebrew stores,

I just bought a MALTMILL (tm).  Haven't gotten to use it yet.

For my next weissbier (maybe a weizenbock for the fall) I'm gonna

try and crush the wheat very well and hope that I don't have

lauter problems (I haven't had any so far using a double decoction)

 Tim

====

Timothy J. Dalton                                   tjdalton@mit.edu

MIT, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Materials Etching Technology Lab

------------------------------


High Gravity Brewing

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 8:07:31 CDT

From: raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com (Glenn Raudins)

Subject: High Gravity Brewing

Jim Busch brings up an interesting topic:  High Gravity brewing.

One concern that the big boys have is deareating(sp?) the water before

adding it to the beer but this is because they are adding the water at the

end of the process instead of adding it to the fermenter.

Glenn Raudins

raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com

------------------------------


Half batches in Full size fermenter

Date:         Tue, 29 Jun 93 09:08:52 EDT

From: Elaine <EBORIS@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>

Subject:      Half batches in Full size fermenter

I wanted to try making some cherry stout, but because I am unsure if I

will really like the flavor (I have never tried any, it just sounds good)

and because fresh cherries down here in Georgia are so expensive, I want

to just make half a batch (3 GALS). My secondary fermenter is 6 gals and my

question is, will having that large air space be a problem?

Does anybody have an opinion about using fresh cherries versus canned ones?

    TIA  E.

Elaine Boris                                  Student Information Systems

Computer Services Specialist                  University of Georgia

706 542-0484                                  Athens  Georgia

------------------------------


interested in hi-gravity brews

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 06:24:13 PDT

From: R  29-Jun-1993 0918 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: interested in hi-gravity brews

>Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 11:16:55 EDT

>From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

>Subject: High Gravity Brewing

>

>In an attempt to start a subject that I dont recall reading here in the fairly

>recent timeframe I am asking for opinions on high gravity brewing.  What I

>mean by this is similar to what the big boys do: Brew a high gravity wort and

>dilute with boiled/cooled water into the fermenter.

I'm very interested in any recipes that call for this method of brewing.

I'm also interested in hearing any methods, procedures, gotchas, hints,

etc. that people use for this method.

Currently, I only have a 5gal brew pot which is not sufficient enough to

do all-grain brewing.  I want to do all-grain with a 5 gallon yield, and

the aforementioned method might be doable for me.

I'm interested, in particular, in wheat beer recipes.  I've made myself a

Zapap lauter-tun as explained in "the book" that works quite well.  I've done

a few partial mashes with decent success.

JC FERGUSON

DIGITAL

LITTLETON MA

------------------------------


polypropelene

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 10:59:58 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: polypropelene

Al Korz Writes:

>I suspect that it is Polyethylene (PE), not Polypropylene (PP).  I have yet to

>see anything that's been made of PP that is food grade, so I suspect that it

>is not food grade.  Since we're on the subject of Polypropylene and food

>grade certification, if you buy yeast in plastic vials, check what kind of

>plastic it is.  I've seen yeast sold in Polypropylene vials.

>

>Al.

>

 ...

>Jim Busch's post reminded me of one instance of food-grade PP -- those

>pleated PP filters.  Are you sure the spun ones are PP also?  In any

>event, I looked around a lot and called a lot and could not find a PP

>food-grade vial.  Why not HDPE, you ask?  Well, I wanted to autoclave

>it -- PP is autoclavable as is PC (Polycarbonate -- also not food-grade).

>

>I settled on glass vials with PP caps that have fiber/foil liners.

>

>Al.

 A lot of food storage material is made of polypropelene.  Much of

the Tupperware(tm) like stuff, and juice jugs and so on.  It's heat

resistant and microwaveable.  A lot of lab equipment is also PP, and one

doesn't want plastic leaching into one's slant tubes...

ed

____________

Ed Hitchcock/Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology/Dalhousie University/Halifax NS

ech@ac.dal.ca   +-------------------------------------------------------+

  |  I object to that comment!  I know several pinheads  |

  |   and they are fully functional members of society! |

  +-------------------------------------------------------+

 Eschew Labudmilloorsonhead

------------------------------


Homebrew adventures #8725784509

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 10:09:49 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: Homebrew adventures #8725784509

 Well, last nite was either homebrewer's paradise or nightmare,

haven't quite figured out which yet.

 I got home just after 7 after picking up the kids from Karate,

slapped together some spagetti, and put some water on to boil for beer

and filled the #2 washtub with water, bleach, and bottles.

 About 8, I added the malt extract and then the hops to the boil while

I started siphoning off the latest batch of double-light from the

primary fermenter. While the next batch ( 3-1/2 lbs M&F Light DME, ~

2lbs honey, ~ 1 oz fresh Hollertau hops, EDME yeast) was boiling (cept

for the honey)I bottled about 35 bottles of the aforementioned

double-light, trying to leave about 2-3 gallons in the pan for making

some fruit beer.

 Well, in order to have something to put that beer + fruit IN, I

needed to bottle the fruit mead that's been fermenting for the last

week :

  (3 weeks in primary, racked to secondary [ (2) one-gal apple

juice bottles and a gallon winejug] with (a) 1 lb plums, (b) 1 12 oz

package frozen raspberries, and (c) 1 pint fresh blackberries)

 This proved to be a challenge, cause the siphon was still sitting

(primed) in the beer and I didn't think i wanted to try to start a

siphon in those 1 gal jugs, between the "line loss" and all that fruit

pulp, it didnt seem a good idea. So, I just poured the mead from the

respective jugs through a strainer and funnel into the beer bottles.

Yes, I know it oxegenated the mead a lot, but hey, sue me, OK? If it

comes out *awful* I have something to blame besides my (otherwise)

ineptitude...

 I sampled some of the fruit i strained off the mead - mmmmmmmmmm

 After getting the mead tucked safely into some bottles (and a bit

drooled on the floor ;-), it was time to add the finishing hops and

honey to the batch of beer on the stove and let it steep for a few

minutes and dump it off to the primary and put it in the (pre-chilled

with a coupla frozen gallon milk-jugs of water) water in the sink.

 Well, now there are dirty pots and pans everywhere and about 50 or so

bottles of various fuit meads and beer, empty bottles, the #2 washtub

with clorine water soaking those 3 gal jugs, an empty plastic

fermenter, a bit of mead and beer, and who knows what else on the

kitchen floor.....

 Back to the original batch of double-light beer that's been patiently

waiting for its fruit. Cherries were on sale for $.99/lb raspberries

for $1.19/pint and strawberries for $.59/lb; so that's what I got -

~2-1/2 lbs of cherries to be pitted, about 2 lbs of strawberries to

(whatever you call removing the stem-thingie) and chop, and a pint of

raspberrires to chop up.

 So now we've got bits of cherries and strawberries on the table &

floor to go with all that other stuff and a big cutting board covered

with fruit. After squishing the fruit into the three (separate) gal

jugs, i added a gal of beer to the cherries and 1/2 gal to the

strawberries and 1/2 gal to the raspberries (and added a rubber

stopper and airlock).

 There was enough beer left to bottle 2 more beers of that

double-light, and then loads of clean-up.....

 I finally got done about 1:30 AM. Cant wait to try the results!

jim

------------------------------


mailing list

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 9:00:26 -0600 (MDT)

From: 114067@INCDP1.LANL.GOV

Subject: mailing list

would like to get on email list.

address is 114067@incdp3.lanl.gov.

thanks

------------------------------


Re: Anheuser-Busch buys Sierra Nevada (how about Tsingtao?)

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 8:14:25 PDT

From: "Donald G. Scheidt" <dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com>

Subject: Re: Anheuser-Busch buys Sierra Nevada (how about Tsingtao?)

In HOMEBREW Digest #1170, it is said:

>Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 11:44:46 EDT

>From: chuck@synchro.com (Chuck Cox)

>Subject: Re: Anheuser-Busch buys Sierra Nevada

>

>Rick Garvin sez...

>>

>> I called SNBC today at 916-893-3520 and spoke with Peggy. She was surprised

>> that the rumor had gotten to Washington, DC but she had heard it. She said

>> that this was absolutely false. Now, our friends at the SEC do not like

>> companies to deny these things if it is true. So, I beleive her.

>

>Hey! It's rumor time.

>

>According to sources at the breweries, A-B did ask both Sierra Nevada

>and Anchor (and possibly others) what their selling price was, both

>declined.

>

>According to sources in both the brewing and financial worlds, A-B is

>seriously considering buying Jim Koch's Boston Beer Litigation Company.

Heh, heh.  That would be a master stroke for J.K.:  selling a brewery with

virtually no brewing facilities (a virtual brewery?) to the mighty A-B.

Considering that Miller has already shown us that it is perfectly capable

of producing flavourful beer (it's just been holding back until the market

was right, didn't you know that!? :-), I find it amusing to think that

Budweiser, the master marketer of insipid pale lager, would consider buying

Boston (tm) Beer (tm), something that is essentially a beer-marketing company.

Okay, enough with these rumours; I have something real.  A-B has announced

that it will purchase 5% of China's Tsingtao brewery, or 45 million shares,

part of a semi-privatisation of Tsingtao.  Source:  Seattle Times business

section, 28 June 1993, page 2.  Seriously!  Political repression may

continue, but economic development and growth in the PRC continue to gallop

along, and now the biggest American megabrewer is dipping its toes into the

waters.  Let's hope that this involvement with Tsingtao keeps them busy

enough that they keep their hands off Budvar (aka the Budweiser with

flavour).  Look for even wider availability of Tsingtao in supermarkets

across the land.  (Didn't A-B already have some kind of interest in

Denmark's Carlsberg, or was that import and marketing only?)

- --

        __       |                                        |       __

       // /      |  Don Scheidt                           |      // /

      /  / /     |  Boeing IASL, 777 Cab Development      |     /  / /

     / // / /    |  dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com      |    / // / /

------------------------------


Foaming/Flat Kegged Beer

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 08:25:18 -0700 (MST)

From: Cisco <FRANCISCO@lan.ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: Foaming/Flat Kegged Beer

The second half of this post showed up in Teusday's digest so I'm

guessing that the first half got lost, so I'm reposting the first

half.

> From: djackson@wv.MENTORG.COM (Darin Jackson)

> Subject: Foaming/Flat Kegged Beer

>

> I recently purchased a kegging system and made my own beer chiller.

> The chiller is 6' of 1/4" od copper tubing with 3/16" fittings on

> either end to connect in from the line out of the keg and to the line

> out to the cobra tap. I bent it into a shape that fits into my small

> cooler I dedicated to the task and was proud as hell of my $6 portable

> chiller. Well, I'm having foaming/flat beer problems.

>

 I have 4' of 3/16 id

> hose and 6' of approximately the same id copper total, but the "smooth"

> part at the end by the tap is only 2'. I presume that there will be

> turbulence caused by the fittings from the copper to the hose. Is 2'

> enough to let the beer settle back down? I'm getting all head and almost

> no carbonation in the beer. I have tried dispensing with the gas

> disconnected, with 12 lbs of gas, with 10 lbs of gas and with 7 lbs of

> gas. And, of course, I drank all of the flat beer.

> Darin

Your problem is your dispensing pressure does not match the inside

diameter and length of your dispensing line. I posted an article about

how to calculate this a few weeks ago, email me if you want it sent to

you. To make it simple, an inside diameter of 3/16 has a pressure drop

of 1 pound for every 4 inches. You have 6 ft. of copper tubing and 4

ft. of plastic tubing(all with 3/16 id according to you). This

translate out to 10 feet of 3/16 id tubing or 120 in./4 in. = 30 lbs

pressure that is required to push the beer through the lines without

the carbonation leaving the liquid. The cobra tap does not essentially

have a pressure drop across it that must be taken into account if you

open it FULLY when pouring. If you open it slowly then you are

definitely causing the tap to influence a greater pressure drop

through your dispensing line and foaming will occur. So get used to

opening it quickly and fully.

John Francisco

Francisco@lan.ccit.arizona.edu

 >

------------------------------


Diluting beer ...

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 10:32 EDT

From: LYONS@adc2.adc.ray.com

Subject: Diluting beer ...

>Subject: High Gravity Brewing

>

>In an attempt to start a subject that I dont recall reading here in the fairly

>recent timeframe I am asking for opinions on high gravity brewing.  What I

>mean by this is similar to what the big boys do: Brew a high gravity wort and

>dilute with boiled/cooled water into the fermenter.  Now before you get all

>upset that this is not the way to make "real" beer, let me point out that I

>talked to a few brewmasters in the UK who did just this.  In particular, the

>brewer from the Larkins Brewery (located in Kent, took a medal in last years

>GBBF), told me he brews his ordinary bitter to an OG of 1.055 and dilutes it

>down to 1.035 in the fermenter.  I realize one needs to take into account the

>additional caramelization in the kettle with the increased sugar content, but

>has anyone done much of this.  I am especially interested in the idea of

>brewing pale ales of OG 1.065-1.070 and adding water to result in a 1.055

>in the fermenter.  The entire fermentation would be at the lower gravity. An

>obvious issue is the pH of the water pushing the wort toward the alkaline

>side, would the wort be able to buffer a 10-20% water charge?  Would typical

>Sierra Nevada ale yeast be able to work at a slightly more basic pH than a

>normal wort?  IT would seem to me that since kettle size is normally the

>limiting factor in batch size, this would be a great way to increase volume

>of finished product.  I am fortunate in that I oversized/over engineered my

>lauter tun to accomadate high gravity brewing, so working with the extra

>grains is no problem.

>

>Comments/experiances?

I'm not sure if many would recommend diluting a beer.  However on a

partial mash I was shooting for an OG of 58 and ended up with 90.  I

decided to bottle it and label it as an under hopped Imperial Stout.

I did consider diluting it down to 58 but wondered when it would be

best to dilute it.  What would be the advantage of diluting the beer

prior to active fermentation rather than during the secondary phase?

Chris

LYONS@ADC2.ADC.RAY.COM

------------------------------


High Gravity Brewing

Date:  Tue, 29 Jun 1993 11:49:00 +0000

From: "Bill (W.R.) Crick" <heybc@bnr.ca>

Subject:  High Gravity Brewing

Jim Busch asked about high gravity brewing:

We've tried it with good success.  We originally did a batch with

no  sparge, and  4/3 the  grain bill  ala George  Fix's maltiness

article in HBD year or so back.

This created Pilsener Noel Premium  (PNP), which is a offshoot of

Normal Pilsener Noel (NPN). PNP  definitely had all the maltiness

George predicted.  Almost too much.  The PNP  is more like  a Mai

Bock, than a pilsener? So we  decided to run the same grain bill,

that is 4/3 normal, do a sparge,  and boil down to a normal batch

size. We  watered it down  50%, that is  total of 150%  of normal

batch size. Tastes great. I can't detect any bad artifacts of the

higher gravity  brewing, or the  "watering down" .No one  else has

commented on anything unusual either.

Bill Crick   Brewius, Ergo Sum!

------------------------------


High Gravity Brewing

Date:  Tue, 29 Jun 1993 11:52:00 +0000

From: "Bill (W.R.) Crick" <heybc@bnr.ca>

Subject:  High Gravity Brewing

Sorry about the double post. I missed a critical point.

THIS BEER WAS WATERD DOWN AT BOTTLING TIME!

Jim Busch asked about high gravity brewing:

We've tried it with good success.  We originally did a batch with

no  sparge, and  4/3 the  grain bill  ala George  Fix's maltiness

article in HBD year or so back.

This created Pilsener Noel Premium  (PNP), which is a offshoot of

Normal Pilsener Noel (NPN). PNP  definitely had all the maltiness

George predicted.  Almost too much.  The PNP  is more like  a Mai

Bock, than a pilsener? So we  decided to run the same grain bill,

that is 4/3 normal, do a sparge,  and boil down to a normal batch

size, for fermentation. We watered it  down 50%, that is total of

150% of  normal batch size, when  we bottled it. Tastes  great. I

can't detect any bad artifacts  of the higher gravity brewing, or

the  "watering  down". No  one  else  has commented  on  anything

unusual either.

Bill Crick   Brewius, Ergo Sum!

------------------------------


Bits and pieces

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 12:10:00 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>

Subject: Bits and pieces

Hi ya'll!

Keith mentions:

>Charlie Papazian in TCJOH refers to the dumping of the wort through a strainer

>into the fermenter to remove the hops and any other particulates as sparging.

And I disagree with the esteemed CP on this.  While I'm not one who

thinks you need to rack off the cold break before fermentation begins,

I do believe you need to get as clear a runoff as possible off the hot

break when going to the fermenter.

>This might be the source of the confusion.  He also recommends scooping out

>the specialty grains just prior to the wort coming to a boil.

Hmm... The conventional wisdom here is to remove the grains at 170

degrees to avoid leaching tannins into the wort.  Waiting until just

before the boil is too long.

Jack says:

> Hmm...  Wasn't planning on going to Portland.  Hate to make the trip just to

> keep him honest.  Any volunteers to take a brand new MM for the GREAT

> CRUSH-OFF?

I'll try not to fall into the camp of the humor-impaired here but the

casual reader and, I'm sure Mr. Listerman, would take offense at the

insinuation that Dan is a dishonest person.  This makes two such

swipes at Dan in as many weeks.  And since he isn't here to defend

himself, don't you think we can refrain from comments like this?

Nir writes:

>>I'm just back from the UK. The British seem not to mind using plastic in their

>>homebrewing. They have a mashing aparatus made of a 20 lit polyproylene bucket

To which Al responds:

>I suspect that it is Polyethylene (PE), not Polypropylene (PP).  I have yet to

>see anything that's been made of PP that is food grade, so I suspect that it

>is not food grade.

Al corrected himself later but I've been brewing for years with a

product that is constructed of HD Polypropolene and I'm still alive.

:-)

Jim asks about high gravity brewing...

I've been doing some high-gravity brewing at Tumbleweed for the first

time in my life.  Our biggest problem with it is adjusting for hop

utilization.  We had much better hop character to our beers when we

did full gravity boils.  The hop back helps but, again, I got better

results from the full gravity brews.  Suggestions, anyone?

And then Carl says:

>To add my $.02 to the advertising debate; it strikes me as highly inappropriate

>to advertise on this list.  It is a waste of bandwidth for those of us who are

>looking for an informative forum on tips and techniques.  It also does an

>injustice to those who voluntarily restrain themselves on the list and actually

>PAY for their advertising.  If a product is good, we will hear about it from

>satisfied customers.  'Nuff said.

To which I say, "Amen, Brother".  Discussion of products in this forum

is expected and should be encouraged.  But why not let the customers

debate the various pros and cons of a product?  I personally think the

only time a manufacturer needs to say anything about his product

publicly is AFTER a thread has run its course.  At that point, one

post addressing all the pressing issues would be appropriate.  This

endless harping, hyping, and mentioning of one's own products to keep

threads running ad nauseum is in poor taste, to say the least.

But we've had this discussion before, haven't we?

Cheers!

 ___ ----------------------------------------------------------- ___

|   |                   Kinney Baughman                         |   |

|   |            baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu                 |   |

 / /                                                             / /

  |        "Beer is my business and I'm late for work"            |

   ---------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


RE: More Weizen Stuff

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 09:36:44 PDT

From: rstya@mda.ca (Roy Styan)

Subject: RE: More Weizen Stuff

The best I've done brewing weizen was to get a 34 pts/lb/gal yield.  This

was for a weizen bock, and was brewed with a triple decoction, including

a 30 min. dough in and 20 min. acid rest.  It was a loooooong day - about

11 hours.  I now stick with a single decoction and my normal 30-31 pts/lb/gal,

using the extra time to sample my wares.

My grain mill is a corona, powered by a 23 rpm motor.  I think the low rpms

give a better crush than one normally finds on these mills.  It is left on the

same setting for barley and wheat - breaking a kernel into five or six pieces.

Although flour is eveident, it does not caused problems with the sparge as

long as I go through at least one decoction.

------------------------------


BFD article 1 of 2

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 11:41:38 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: BFD article 1 of 2

Dan:  Please ACK  getting this.

Competition Update:

There will be a HWBTA sanctioned competition at the Topsfield

fair this September, entry deadline is September 8th.  The cost

is $5 per entry or $ 4 per entry if over five are entered.  Prizes

in the form of gift certificates and brewing opportunities at local

micros will be awarded.  Prizes will also be awareded to the first

and second place club, a club must have at least five entries.  This

is a great opportunity to enter a competition, since entries can be dropped

off in Topsfield there is no shiiping cost.  Lee Menegoni will be bringing

entries to Topsfield for BFD members.  If you have a brew your proud of

bring it to the July or August meeting the judges in the club can help

pick the appropriate category to enter it in.  Remeber to save three for

the competition.

Please contact Lee if interested he has entry forms and more details.

Phone H: 603-881-5227 W: 508-635-6282

HWBTA is the Home Wine and Beer Trade Association.

Club Only competitions:

We need to set up a tasting date, entrants can submit more than one

beer but only one per category.

August 9  entry deadline  August 9

 Weiss is Nice  ** categories:

  Berliner Weisse, Weizen/Weissbier, Dunkelweizen, Weizenbock

Its not too late,  the BFD Yeast Bank has a few good cultures appropriate

for the Fest style.

 October 4  entry deadline October 4

 Best of Fest  ** categories:

  Vienna- Amber to deep copper/light brown. Toasted malt aroma and flavor.

   Low malt sweetness. Light to medium body. Hop bitterness "noble-type"

   low to medium. Low hop flavor and aroma, "noble-type" OK. No fruitness,

   esters. Low diacetyl OK.

  Marzenn/Oktoberfest- Amber to deep copper/orange. Malty sweetness, toasted

   malt aroma and flavor dominant. Medium body. Low to medium bitterness. Low

   hop flavor and aroma, "noble-type" OK. No fruitness, esters

 December 6 entry deadline December 6

 Poignant Porter  ** categories:

  Robust Porter- Black. No roast barley character. Sharp bitterness of black

  malt, without high burnt/charcoal-like flavor. Medium to full bodied.

  Malty sweet. Hop bitterness medium to high. Hop flavor and aroma: none to

  medium. Fruitness/esters OK. Low diacetyl OK.

  Brown Porter- Medium to dark brown. No roast barley or strong burnt malt

  character. Light to medium body. Low to medium malt sweetness. Medium hop

  bitterness. Hop flavor and aroma: none to medium. Fruitiness/esters OK.

  Low diacetyl OK.

------------------------------


oops

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 11:53:33 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: oops

Ooops. The competition info article was not intende to be sent to HBD.

------------------------------


storing kegs and sanitizing fermeter lids

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 10:39:32 PDT

From: nexgen!bart@olivea.ATC.Olivetti.Com (Bart Thielges)

Subject: storing kegs and sanitizing fermeter lids

Here's a few of questions for the experts :

1) I haven't been able to find a good way to immerse my fermeter lid (a

 5 gallon white plastic bucket with snap on lid) in the sanitizing

 solution.  I can distort the bucket and jam the lid in part way,

 but this could scratch the sides of the bucket and besides does

 not totally immerse the lid.  Also, I don't have any other vessel

 larger than the bucket.  I've been splashing the sanitizing solution

 all over the lid in the hopes that the contact time is long enough.

 Is it ?  Do I need to buy a larger soaking vessel ?

2) I've been kegging my beer (too lazy to clean bottles :-).  So far, the

 one batch that I completed was consumed all at once during a party.

 However, I imagine that it would be nice to keep a keg around for

 longer periods of time.  I use CO2 to pressurize so oxydation isn't

 a problem but I don't have enough `fridge space to keep the keg

 upright and cooled down for extended periods.  Will repeated cycling

 between 45F and 80F spoil the flavor ?  I'm not really concerned

 about any visual effects, only taste.

3) I bought a used and dirty Cornelius keg.  I scrubbed the interior out as

 well as I could.  Now, I'm worried whether there might be built up

 crud in the feeder tube or the hose fittings.  Would you recommend

 disassembly and cleaning ?  I've circulated sanitizing solution

 through all of these parts.

advTHANKSance,

Bart Thielges

Expert Brewing Novice and Unambiguous Contradictor

------------------------------


How not to make fruit beer...

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 15:42 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: How not to make fruit beer...

I have the forture of having married into fruit trees.  What I mean is,

that my new in-laws have two cherry trees in their yard and they haven't

been bothering to pick them, so I can have them for the trouble of picking.

Last year, I watched half of the cherries get eaten by birds and plotted a

way to keep all the cherries to myself this year.  This last weekend, I

decided to build a cage around the trees to keep the birds out.  The cherries

on one tree were almost ready but on the second tree they were still quite

green.  I decided to build a cage around one tree and then move it over

the other one next weekend when the cherries on the first tree will be ready

to pick.

The materials for this project (1-by-2s, nails, staples and netting) cost me

about $40.  Early Sunday morning, I set out to build the cage.  The cage

was to be 16 feet long and 16 feet wide and 10 feet tall.  Note that this

is much too tall to lift over the trees, so that to move it, one side would

have to be disassembled and then reattached after moving.  Basically, the

design was a box frame made of 1-by-2s with "Bird-X" netting stapled to five

of the six sides.

11 hours and a hundred mosquito-bites later, I can only say this must have

been my stupidest project ever!  After 10.5 hours of baking in the sun and

getting chewed upon by mosquitos, I determined that I was building a large

death-trap for birds (while putting up the netting, several birds flew

into the netting and it was a matter of time before one of them got caught

in the net and died) and that the benefits were not worth the costs.

Costs:

Consider that the frame was simply nailed together and therefore damage to the

wood from disassembly subsequent reassembly means that the lumber would only

be good for maybe three years.  Therefore, the cage would cost about $8 per

year in lumber, nails and staples.  It took 10.5 hours to assemble this

cage, would take probably 4 hours to move it and then another 10.5 hours to

disassmble for winter storage.  A total of 25 hours.  Even at, say $5.00 per

hour, my labor costs were $125.  (Sure, I like to build things, but heck, I

could also spend that time brewing!)  Total cost per year: $133.

Benefits:

I estimate that there are about 60# of cherries on these two trees each year.

The birds get about half, so that the cage gains me about 30# of cherries.

That means that I would be getting 60# of cherries for $2.22/lb, but I would

have to pick them too!  Not to mention, I've still got 15# left in my freezer

from last year that I didn't have time with which to brew.

I spent the last 1/2 hour tearing down the netting down from the frame and

next weekend I'll be taking down the frame.  Chalk one up for experience.

By the way, it looks like a good year for Michigan Cherries.  They are

already in the fruit markets and are priced quite a bit lower than last

year: already-picked are running $1/lb, whereas u-pick last year were $1/lb.

Al.

------------------------------


Specialty Products Intl. part 1

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 12:43 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Specialty Products Intl. part 1

A number of weeks ago, someone posted the name of a supplier of inexpensive

malt extract called: Specialty Products Intl.  If you are like me, you

called and recently got their booklet called "Home Beermakers Guide."

This booklet was written "BY LEIGH P. BEADLE, AUTHOR OF THE BEST SELLER

_Brew_It_Yourself_" a book that was "reviewed" (quite unfavorably) here

on the HBD a few months ago.

First off, I'd like to post a disclaimer:

I am a homebrewing supply retailer and mailorder business owner which

does not carry the products marketed by Specialty Products International,

HOWEVER, these products are available to me for wholesale purchase, so

it is by choice that I do not choose to stock them -- in other words,

I am not really in competition with SPI.  They would have my wholesale

business if I felt they had a good product.

If you have received this booklet and are a relatively experienced brewer,

then you probably got a few laughs out of it.  If you are less-experienced,

then you may have been confused by this book, which is the sole reason for

my posting this review.

Pg1:

"Hundreds of commercial breweries flourished in America around the turn of

the century, and beer-lovers could choose from a variety of lagers and

pilsners.  There are now only 50 left and within a few short years there

may be only five remaining."

Indeed, there were hundreds of breweries around 1900, but "lagers and

pilsners" [sic] were not the only styles they brewed.  Back then, ales

were quite popular also and many styles of ale were available to the

beer-lover.  By the way, pilsners ARE lagers, just one specific style of

lager.  Fear not, the numbers of breweries in the US are growing, not

shrinking.

"It takes only about thirty minutes to mix the ingredients, and a week

later, another thirty minutes to bottle and cap, with nothing to do in

between."

I'll address the boil time issue later, but unless you're not sanitizing

and you're using 1/2 gallon bottles, bottling will take you over two

hours.

Pg2:

"The single stage fermenter, developed since my previous books on home

beer-making, is a great improvement in equipment.  It is made of FDA

food-grade polyethelene..."

Will the wonders of high-technology ever cease!  Will you look at that!

As a by-product of research done for the Space Shuttle project, single-

stage fermenters are now available to us lowly homebrewers.  By the

way Leigh, that's "polyethylene."

Pg3:

"Since the fermenter is filled with CO2 gas the beer is protected against

spoilage because spoilage organisms are air-bourne and cannot live in a

CO2 environment."

Yes, unless you count Lactobacillus and Pediococcus and wild yeasts of

perhaps 30 species from Hafnia to Bayanus, not to mention Cryptococcus

which is water-bourne...

 ...seriously, molds and two species of acetobacter are the most

common spoilage organisms that cannot live in a CO2 environment.

Pg5:

"Always let your equipment drain upside down to dry.  After brewing your

beer, rinse out your fermenter immediately after emptying it so that the

beer does not have time to dry.  The same applies to your siphon hose.

This way, you will not have to sterilize your utensils each time you use

them.  It is a good idea to run a solution of Clorox and water through

your siphon hose and also your fermenter after several batches, again

using the above solution of one tablespoon of bleach to one gallon of

cold water."

Well, I doubt even the beginners on the HBD can see what's wrong with

this picture.  Yes it's a good idea to rinse immediately and I feel that

the concentration of bleach is right, but we all know very well that

sanitation is the most important part of brewing good beer and everything

that will come in contact with your beer should be sanitized (and rinsed

in the case of bleach) immediately before use.

"If you rinse your bottles out with hot water immediately after emptying

them, scrub them with the bottle brush and leave them to dry upside down

and, finally, store them upside down in their carton, it will not be

necessary to resterilize or re-clean them prior to the next brewing."

I would venture to guess that the author of this booklet has a gusher

at least once in every ten bottles with these procedures.  Again, it`s

great idea to rinse right away, but sanitation is required before use.

By the way, that "sterilization" would require the equipment or bottles

to be irradiated or autoclaved.  What the author surely meant was

"sanitized."

To be continued...

Al.

------------------------------


Hangover prevention and treatment

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 11:30:31 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Hangover prevention and treatment

     Slightly suffering as I am at this moment from too much Barolo and Port

(it wasn't a beer night), I thought I would share what I have learned

from some decades of chronic overindulgence in various and varied

fermentations.

     Metabolism of ethyl alcohol (CH3-CH2OH) and the higher so-called

fusel alcohols (CH3-(CH2)n-CH2OH) uses prodigous quantities of WATER

and B-vitamins.  If one arrives at an Emergency room dangerously

intoxicated the first thing one receives is a mega-dose of B-vitamins

in the butt or thigh.  Since alcohol metabolism depletes one's store

of B-vitamins it is very important for us steady imbibers to maintain

high body stores of B-vitamins.  This can be done through proper

nutrition or through balanced, high quality, relatively high dose

supplements.  It is important that we watch our health because it

may seriously affect our ability to drink!  Maintaining good body

stores of B-vitamins will reduce hangover severity by itself, but

personally I pop a couple extra before bed on those nights when I've

had a few.

     For those of you who are serious physical exercisers (again,

general good health increases one's ability to imbibe) know that

dehydration leads to headache and nausea.  In my opinion it is

dehydration that causes these symptoms called "hangover".  The

solution is in fact a solution.  Drink as much water as you can

before you go to bed, and drink water through out the night.  And

I mean QUARTS!  Now some of you may think that this would

necessitate many nighttime excursions, and you are right.  But

it gives you the chance to drink more water, and given the choice

would you rather be a little tired the next day (take a nap) or

hungover?

    Finally, Paul Sovcik recently mentioned a greasy breakfast will

ameliorate a hangover.  I also have found this to be true, though I take

issue with the term "greasy".  Let's just say "fat containing", such as an

egg over medium with a thin slice of sharp cheddar on whole wheat toast.

    In summary: serious drinking demands serious training and

attention to general health and nutrition; take your B-vitamins;

drink lots of water; have breakfast.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

------------------------------


Metallic first batch

Date:    Tue, 29 Jun 93 12:37 CDT

From: "Michael Barre"                             <MBARRE@NOMVS.LSUMC.EDU>

Subject: Metallic first batch

  Thanks Andy, Brian, and Al for your help.  The water I used (tap water

pulled from the Mississippi River) is definitely hard - 12 to 14 mg/l

according to the spring water salesman.

  Brian, I did not boil the water, but tried to remove the chlorine

before adding the wort by filling the sanitized fermentation bucket with

the 3.5 gallons of water two days before the brewing.  I removed the lid

from this bucket only two or three times during that time, to allow the

evaporated chlorine to escape but keep the nasties out.  I know two days

in a bucket WITHOUT a lid is enough time to dechlorinate my water, from

experience with fish tanks; but WITH a lid, I don't know.

  Neither did I siphon off the precipitate.  The s.g. had fallen from

1.048 to 1.010 (corrected to 60F) within 13 days, at which time I

bottled it.  I had a lot of precipitate (from hop pellets) in the

fermentor.  Do you think siphoning into a secondary fermentor would

improve the flavor?  Should I use a hop bag for the pellets?

  Which reminds me, someone posted a question recently about shoving the

flotsam back down into the wort.  After a week of fermentation I

uncovered the wort to scoop some out with my sterilized (boiled for 15

minutes) Pyrex measuring cup to test the s.g.  At that time I pushed

most of the scum from the sides of the bucket back into the liquid with

my sterilized steel spoon.  I don't know if that contributed to my

problem, but I won't do it again.

  When the Ozone man gets here next Monday, I will purchase a glass

carboy with zero hardness (according to the salesman) spring water from

him.  I will use that water and use that carboy as a primary fermentor.

I will purchase better (ale) yeast and extract.  If I use pelletized

hops, I will put them in a bag.  I will jug-aerate the water.  And, I

will use the water-pan-towel-drape fermentator cooler.

  I may or may not use liquid yeast, and may or may not siphon off

into a secondary fermentor after the fermentation settles down.

  Thanks again for the help.

------------------------------


Light (Lovibond) Extract

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 12:43 EDT

From: LYONS@adc2.adc.ray.com

Subject: Light (Lovibond) Extract

>>Subject: Light (Lovibond) Extract

>>

>>          I wish to make a beer with the lightest possible color as is

>>          possible with extract.

>>               What suggetions can you give me for both liquid extract

>>          (preferrably unhopped) and DME?

>>

>>          TIA

>>          Andy A

>

>Andy, from my experience and comments from my local supplier, American Eagle

>seems to be the lightest extract (both dry and syrup) on the market.  Their

>amber DME seems to be the color of M&F et.al.'s light.

>

I seem to recall some HBDers complaining that the American Eagle

dry extract product had significant amounts of corn sugar mixed in

with the malt.  This would certainly make a light beer, but it may

be better to stay with a quality extract, such as M&F or Laaglander,

which claims to be all malt.

------------------------------


RE: Help rescue my first batch!

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 12:46 EDT

From: LYONS@adc2.adc.ray.com

Subject: RE: Help rescue my first batch!

>From: J. Michael Diehl <mdiehl@triton.unm.edu>

>Subject: Help rescue my first batch!

>

>Last sunday, I started my first batch, an extract.  I'm using a Laaglander

>Dutch Dark Beer kit.  But I think I'm in for some problems.

>

>My initial Gravity was only 25; I was told to expect 45, on the scale that is.

>I also expected a bit more vigorous bubbling.  I had times when it didn't

>buble at all, other times it did pretty well.  Anyway, 2 days after pitching,

>My girlfriend and I tasted a bit of the wort.  It tasted like watered-down

>sour grapejuice.  I figured that maybe I didn't stir it well enough so after

>2 more days, I stired it up real good and took a gravity reading, a 20. It

>still tasted the same, but I bet you could catch a buzz of it! ;^)  Now I

>suspect that all of the yeast is dead.  What do I do now?  Thanx in advance.

An OG of 25 and FG of 20 would result in a beer with less than 1%A.

I suspect that your first batch is okay and that you forgot to

correct the OG for temperature.  For example, an SG reading of 25

measured at 185F would translate to a SG of ~55.5 at 60F.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1172, 07/01/93

*************************************

-------


Crushing wheat & Belgian Tripple

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 14:20:15 -0500

From: Todd Enders - WD0BCI <enders@plains.NoDak.edu>

Subject: Crushing wheat & Belgian Tripple

Jim Busch writes:

>A question for wheat brewers: what kind of grain mill do you use, and how far

>(fine) do you grind the Wheat?  I am beginning to wonder if my extract loss

>is due to not pulverising the wheat enough.  Pound for pound I should be

>getting a much higher extract from Wheat, and I dont. An equivelent Pale Ale

>single infusion gives me at least 13P.

>

     Well, as a point of reference, I made a Belgian White with a grain bill

as follows:  5# US 2-row, 2# Wheat malt, 1# Raw wheat.  At the end of the boil

I had 5.5 gal @ 1.047 which is approx. 32.3 pts/lb/gal.  I crush the wheat

rather more fine (+ 1/2 turn on the old Corona) than the barley. (no husk

to worry about with wheat)  Lots of small bits and a good quantity of flour.

The flour pretty well seems to disappear during sacharification.

>Since my latest visit to Belgium last month, I am getting real anxious to brew

>an authentic Belgium Tripple.  I though I would consult the HBD for any tips

>or opinions on the matter. My goal is a simple one, reproduce Bruges Tripple.

>I am aiming for 9-9.5% ABV, light pale color, warming alcohol presence but

>not overtly evident alcohol.

>

     Unless you employ a yeast that produces sufficient esters and finishes

with enough maltiness, the task is not quite so simple. :-)

>So for say 10 gallons:

>Pils malt to result in an OG of ~18P (1.073/4)

>5-6 lbs glucose/sugar/candi mix (is this close?)

>~20-24 IBU Goldings/Saaz/hallertau/Perle/Liberty?

>Yeast???? LaChouffe, Westmalle, Duvel? Suggestions excluding Wyeast Belgium :-)

>A combination?  I would assume a fresh bottling yeast is required.

>

     I suspect the amount of sugar is too high by about a factor of 2.  For

10 gal., about 2-2.5# of straight candi sugar (if it's light candi), or 50/50

sucrose and dark candi would be just about right.

     Yeast is a tricky subject.  One needs a yeast that can tolerate the

alcohol, but yet is not *too* attenuative.  I've used Chimay yeast with some

success (although I still haven't concocted a dubbel or trippel that I'm

altogether happy with).  The yeast was cultured dregs, not Wyeast Belgian

(which may or may not be Chimay).  I've gone as far as 9% with it, without

having to employ fresh yeast at bottling (although your mileage may vary).

     An acquantence once tried to culture from the dregs of Duval.  I

strongly suspect one would have to plate it out, as the starter had a truly

*vile* odour about it.  He *was* careful, BTW.  However, in a matter of a

couple days the starter had a *strong* barnyard droppings odour.  I've always

wanted to try Wyeast European (1338?), but will defer to anyone who has

employed it in a strong ale.

===============================================================================

Todd Enders - WD0BCI                  ARPA: enders@plains.nodak.edu

Computer Center                       UUCP: ...!uunet!plains!enders

Minot State University                  or: ...!hplabs!hp-lsd!plains!enders

Minot, ND  58701                     Bitnet: enders@plains

===============================================================================

------------------------------


Belgian Tripel Discussion and recipe

Date: 29 Jun 1993 15:33:01 -0500 (EST)

From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

Subject: Belgian Tripel Discussion and recipe

Jim Busch asks about possible recipes for a tripel.

The Trappist abbey of Westmalle was the first to introduce the Dubbel and Tripel

style.  Their Dubbel (1060 OG, 6.5% alc. by volume) is a dark, amber-brown color

with a rich maltiness and a hoppy dryness in the finish.  A more impressive

beer, and one that they are better known for, however, is their stronger beer

called Westmalle Tripel.  This is a very pale, strong (1080 OG, 8% alc.) ale,

obtaining its fermentables from pilsner malts and candy sugar.  It is hopped

with English Fuggles, several German varieties, and Saaz.  After several months

warm maturation (50deg F) in tanks, it is re-yeasted and bottle conditioned,

yielding a beer of great complexity.

Although Westmalle Tripel is the classic brew, other excellent varieties of

Tripel include the Trappist-brewed Koningshoeven, and the abbey varieties from

Leffe, Grimbergen, Isebart, and Bruges, among others.  They all possess the

similar Tripel characteristics of a pale colored, high-gravity, complex Belgian

ale.

The exact recipes for the Trappist Tripels are generally a guarded secret.

There are those who think that small amounts of herbs and spices are added as a

flavor nuance.  I know a person who thinks that camomile may be an ingredient,

while Jan Knoop, owner of La Vierge, a specialist beer bar in Maastricht,

Holland, suggested laurel leaves!

I had never seen a recipe for a tripel until a trip to Belgium & the Netherlands

several years ago.  There I found several copies of The National Beer Journal,

a monthly newspaper published by the Nationaal Biermuseum 'De Boom' in Alkmaar,

Holland.  In theback of one of them was an article (in Dutch) about yeast,

including a recipe for a Tripel.

The original recipe was in Dutch.  Here is my translation:

***********

Tripel (2.6 gallon): Recipe by D. Walsh

35 oz  munich malt

53 oz  pilsner malt

1.2 oz  amber malt

10.6 oz  brown sugar

2.5 oz  light candy sugar

1.4 oz  hops (see varieties mentioned above)

0.11 oz  coriander seed

0.07 oz  dried orange peel

yeast

Procedure:  Make a thick mash at 131 deg. F and hold for 45 minutes.  Add

boiling water until the temperature is 145 deg. F and hold one hour.  Raise the

temperature to 162 deg. F and wait another hour.  Hold at 172 deg. F  for 15

minutes.  Sparge to collect 3.6 gallons of wort.  Bring to a boil and add most

of the hops, boiling them for an hour.  The sugar, coriander, orange peel and a

handful of the hops are boiled the last 5 minutes.  Starting gravity is about

1080.

**********

Notes:  I have made this beer a couple of times.  It yields a beer of lovely

complexity.  This recipe makes a beer that is borderline too dark for style and

I would simplify it by substituting all Pils malt for the darker grains.  Also,

use corn or candy sugar for the brown sugar if you wish.  The hopping rate seems

about right if you use low alpha noble hops like Saaz and EK Goldings.  The

number of IBU's that Jim suggested is somewhat lower than in the above recipe.

Some experimentation here may be necessary for your own personal taste.

I think that the spicing is a necessary ingredient and adds interest to the

final product.  Note that it is used only at the nuance level and in quantities

so small that you should use a gram scale for accurate measurement.  Do NOT

overdo the spices if you use them, you only want a subtle touch.

As for the yeast, you are somewhat limited to what you have available.  I agree

with Jim that Wyeast Belgian isn't appropriate (too banana-y).  I have

experimented with  Westmalle yeast cultured out of a bottle brought back from

Belgium, but it behaved as if it were a bottling yeast.  Duvel is also reported

to be a bottling yeast.  I think that La Chouffe would be a good yeast to try,

as might the Celis yeast if you can get your hands on some (they use it for

their Grand Cru).  Has anybody given the Corsendonk Monk's Pale Ale yeast a

try??  The range of yeasts from the New Belgian Brewing Co. in Colorado might

also be of interest if you can get your hands on them.

So a 10 gallon batch might look something like:

22.5 lb Belgian pilsner malt

3.25 lb corn sugar

2.8 oz Saaz leaf hops (alpha ~ 3)

2.8 oz EK Goldings (alpha ~4.5)

12.5 grams coriander seed

8 grams dried orange peel

Assuming 30 pts/lb for the malt and 44 pts/lb for the sugar, you should get an

OG of ~1.080.

Good luck and let un know how it turns out.

Steve Stroud

------------------------------


AB Beer Company (tm)

Date:    Tue, 29 Jun 1993 15:53:26 -0400 (EDT)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: AB Beer Company (tm)

>According to sources in both the brewing and financial worlds, A-B is

>seriously considering buying Jim Koch's Boston Beer Litigation Company.

And he's the kind of person who would sell.  Worse things could happen.

As a side note (heh) for those of you in New England, in the June 23-July 6

edition of Face Magazine, a music-oriented newspaper published in Portland,

Maine, there was a full page ad by Anheiser-Busch about "quality", "natural

vs. artificial" ingredients, and "a major competitor ... willing ... to

slander the entire brewing industry...".  Of course, nowhere in the ad

are the words malt, hops, yeast, water, grain, or anything else involved

in the actual *brewing* of beer ever mentioned.  Just a FYI.

Russ Gelinas

Experimental Space Physics/Ocean Process Analysis Lab

University of New Hampshire, Durham

------------------------------


Re: AB buys SN

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 15:09 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: AB buys SN

Chuck writes:

>Hey! It's rumor time.

>

>According to sources at the breweries, A-B did ask both Sierra Nevada

>and Anchor (and possibly others) what their selling price was, both

>declined.

>

>According to sources in both the brewing and financial worlds, A-B is

>seriously considering buying Jim Koch's Boston Beer Litigation Company.

Perhaps the brewmasters and food chemists at Anheuser-Busch have worked

so hard to remove all traces of beer flavor from their "beer" that they

have forgotten how to brew real beer.  Actually, the fact that the

industrial megabrewers are taking notice of beer with flavor is a good

sign.  All we have to do now is to encourage the good brewers to keep

giving A-B the finger.

Al.

------------------------------


Electrim Bin

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 13:19:33 PDT

From: macdonald@a1vax.enet.dec.com

Subject: Electrim Bin

A few years back I bought an Electrim Bin in Canada. It's a heat resistant

plastic pail capable of holding about eight or nine U.S. Gallons, made in

the UK. It has a built in heating element, with a thermostatic contol

with a scale of 1 through 10 I think, with a mark for "boil". I have used

it with what I think of as "mixed success" in both mashing and in boiling

the wort. In both cases the source of the problem seems to stem

from the inability of the heating element to maintain a steady temp.

For example, in boiling the wort, it will shut down for a minute or two, the

wort will settle back, then it will start up, and the wort will froth and

bubble furiously etc etc.

Now, the advantage is that, with the portable Electrim Bin, in the warmer

weather I can do mashing and boiling out in my garage, away from the kitchen,

where I get complaints from other family members about the odors associated

with brewing. I love the odors; the rest of my family do not. They love the

final result, just don't like the odors associated with brewing, particularly

the hoppy stuff that goes with the boil.

The last brew I made with it was an extract "Canadian Ale" that had the

target OG, fermented out in primary and secondary as expected over about

12 days total at normal temps, but wound up with a strong off taste that

I can't identify in words, not bad enough to trash, but only good enough

for me to drink, and then goes best with some other strong taste, like

chile or a pizza with onions or some such.

Also, this batch is a suspect in the "headache" department, though I am still

tracking that down as a try a few more bottles.

I haven't kept accurate records, but my sense is that brews I have made with

the Electrim Bin have not been as good as stuff I have mashed and boiled

on the stove where I seem to be able to keep a steadier temp.

I'd be interested in hearing of other people's experiences with the Electrim

Bin.

I have just become a HBD reader in the last three months, so don't know if

this is a topic covered somewhere already in the conference. In any case,

your experiences would be helpful. I don't want to try using it again

if others have also had bad experiences with it especially in boiling the wort.

Regards,

Bruce MacDonald

------------------------------


Lauter Tun Manifold

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 13:23:45 PDT

From: Don_Doyle@Novell.COM (Don Doyle)

Subject: Lauter Tun Manifold

I have a question that I hope someone can answer. I am making a manifold for

my lauter tun with copper pipe in which I will make small cuts with a hacksaw.

The question I have is do I make the cuts face up or down or does it matter?

Also, what are the pro's and con's to a manifold type lauter tun.

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Don Doyle

------------------------------


NJ Brewpub News

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 09:27 EDT

From: gcw@granjon.att.com

Subject: NJ Brewpub News

The bill (A-2354/S-614) to legalize brewpubs in the Peoples Republic of

New Jersey has passed the Senate (35-1) and will now go to Gov. Jim

(the tax man) Florio for final signature.

I do not know how the original bill was compromised to get through, but

there were rumors of very low volumns, no distribution outside brewpub and

a copy of the Pennsylvania law where a brewpub can only serve what they

make (ie no other beer, wine or hard booze). The public statement read

"The measure (A-2354/S-614) would create a restricted brewing license for

places where beer and ale may be produced and sold for consumption and

would dedicate the tax proceeds to the prevention of alcohol and drug abuse".

I believe the license fee will be $1000 and $500 more for every 1000 barrels

to a max of 3000 barrels. One person can only hold 2 licenses and the

resident municipality can bar brewpubs, but the brewpub can appeal to the

ABC (Alcohol Beverage Control) following a public hearing (ain't politics

fun!).

NJ figures it will raise $22,700 in annual fees based on the national

averages of 5 brewpubs producing 950 barrels each.

Three cheers for the sponsers of the bill - John H. Ewing (he also sponsered

the homebrew bill that passed last year and came down to NJ's first homebrew

contest and had a couple),  Walter Kavanaugh and Jack Penn all republicians

from Somerset County.

     Geoff Woods

     gcw@granjon.att.com

------------------------------


re:  High Gravity Brewing

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 14:09:33 PDT

From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

Subject: re:  High Gravity Brewing

Jim Busch asks about experiences with high OG brews that are diluted in

the fermenter.  This is what I do when I make Mild.  I recently brewed

12 gallons of wort at about 1.068 gravity and then immediately boiled

and cooled an additional 13 gallons of water, to make a total of 25

gallons of Mild at an adjusted OG of 1.032.  Caramelization is one

factor here, it allows more sweetness to be retained in the final beer

(and a higher final gravity -- mine finished at 1.011).  Along with

caramelization comes increased melanoidin formation with the

concentration of reducing sugars and amino acids.  This will tend to

emphasize the malt character in the beer.  (Decoction mashing can have

an even bigger role here.)

As Papazian notes in one of his recent columns in Zymurgy, going

through the primary at a very high gravity can really enhance the

production of esters, leading to a more characterful beer even when

diluted in the secondary (or at packaging).

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------


Re: Polypropylene

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 00:28:33 -0400 (EDT)

From: Jim Griggers <brew@devine.ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM>

Subject: Re: Polypropylene

In HBD1170, Al writes:

>I have yet to see anything that's been made of PP that is food grade,

>so I suspect that it is not food grade.

>Since we're on the subject of Polypropylene and food grade certification, if

>you buy yeast in plastic vials, check what kind of plastic it is.  I've

>seen yeast sold in Polypropylene vials.

Al, Al, Al!  Don't be so frightened of plastics.  Plastics are our friends. :-)

Seriously, there is nothing that says that PP cannot be food grade.  I am

holding in my hand right now a drinking cup (actually a beer glass from

a St. Pat's Day beer wagon) that is Polypropylene.  It is made by Comet,

item PF14, from Chelmsford, MA.

I also don't think that PP yeast vials are going to poison a 5 gallon batch.

Even if the plastic had serious leaching problems (which I doubt), the dilution

after several starter solutions in which the yeast slurry is pitched, would

make the concentration extremely small.

>Jim Busch's post reminded me of one instance of food-grade PP -- those

>pleated PP filters.  Are you sure the spun ones are PP also?  In any

>event, I looked around a lot and called a lot and could not find a PP

>food-grade vial.  Why not HDPE, you ask?  Well, I wanted to autoclave

>it -- PP is autoclavable as is PC (Polycarbonate -- also not food-grade).

>Al.

So you bought a filter that was marked food-grade? Hmmmm.  Mine from the

Filter Store Plus was not marked in any way other that their part number.

Maybe you bought from another source.

Anyway, polycarbonate, also known as Lexan (TM) can be food grade.  Cuisinart

food processor bowls are made out of it.  Also check out the Superior

Products Catalog.  Many, many of their measuring cups, storage tubs, and

beer pitchers are made of polycarbonate.  The good thing about polycarbonate

is that it is damn near impossible to break the stuff; it holds up much better

than acrylic, and survives industrial type dishwashing.

 -jim griggers   brew@devine.columbiasc.ncr.com

------------------------------


Zymurgy Article Correction

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 21:35:58 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Zymurgy Article Correction

Keith A. MacNeal asked why my article on dry hopping the recent Zymurgy

stated that less hop aroma was extracted from pellets than whole hops.  The

sentence that probably caused the confusion reads (on page 45): "You will

want to use whole hops as opposed to pellets, otherwise you'll still have

to let the beer sit with the hops for about two weeks..."

I guess there was a typesetting mistake.  The sentence was actually two

sentences and should have read:

"You will want to use whole hops as opposed to pellets, otherwise you'll

have hop particles in your beer as you drink it.  If you force carbonate the

beer, you'll still have to let the beer sit with the hops for about two

weeks to allow the hop oil to be extracted into the beer."

Of course I wrote this before I discovered that there actually were hop

bags that keep the pellet particles contained.

Also, later in the article I say, "Pellets give a better aroma yield because

the lupulin glands have been crushed, releasing the hop oil."

I'm going to write to Zymurgy and have them print a correction.  BTW, they

don't believe in having their authors proof the galleys.

Mark from HopTech

------------------------------


AUSTIN HOMEBREW NEWS

Date: Tuesday, 29 June 93 18:42:13 CST

From: LLDSC@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: AUSTIN HOMEBREW NEWS

Howdy,

News from Austin.  Texas finally passed the brewpub legislation.  All

Ann (big hair) Richards has to do is sign it and everything is set to

go.  September 1 is the date.  A couple of brewpubs are already under

construction here in town.

New beer: Celis Grand Cru.  7.5 % alcohol.  They don't give any away

free on their tours though because of the TABC.

                                     Keep on rockin in the free world

                                     Scott Calonico

------------------------------


Spigots, PU

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 01:01 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Spigots, PU

 >From: Bill Holman <jwh7k@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu>

 >Subject: What valve/pipe fitting for SS keg?

 >   What type of ball valve/pipe fittings can be used for a drain on a SS

 15.5 gallon keg?  What kind of metal can be used?  Iassume SS would be best,

 but what about brass or copper?

 I spent a lot of time thinking this one through both from the standpoint of

 the ideal for my own brewery and for something for sale to others with

 minimum tools or time.

 The basic problem presented by everything available is that they are made

 with tapered pipe threads.  Kegs, kettles,  etc. are not heavy enough to

 provide reliable fittings to pipe threads so they must either be welded or a

 compressing fitting must somehow be arranged.

 If one has the tools, this can easily be done by rethreading the parts with

 straight threads and the two pieces simply screwed together with the keg wall

 in between and a leakproof and structurally sound fitting results.

 As re-threading is difficult enough, I have chosen brass parts over SS but

 either is appropriate.  To further keep it simple, I use parts with 1/8" pipe

 size because people are more likely to have a 3/8" drill bit in their tool

 box than much larger ones.

 My system consists of an aircock with a male thread that passes through the

 kettle and a female connector screws on this from the inside.  To this is

 attached the removable copper tubing/ss screen via a compression fitting.

 For detailed info, email for "easymasher".

 >From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

 >Subject: High Gravity Brewing

 >I realize one needs to take into account theadditional caramelization in the

 kettle with the increased sugar content, but has anyone done much of this. I

 am especially interested in the idea of brewing pale ales of OG 1.065-1.070

 and adding water to result in a 1.055 in the fermenter.

 As I now have a ten gallon keg and only a ten gallon fermenter, I brew and

 ferment 8-9 gallons and top off the keg with boiled water at kegging time.

 The end gravity is easy enough to predict and adjust for.  I don't see any

 reason to ferment the water and I need the head space in the fermenter.

 I don't think this is quite the same as the infamous "beer concentrate" of

 previous discussions but it is dangerously close.   The key lies in what went

 into the "concentrate" and if it is strictly Reinheightsgbot, when the water

 is added seems incidental.

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >Subject: DMS and PU

 >A few days ago, Jack wrote about his Pilsner Urquell clone that was

 brewed as closely as possible to Darryl Richman's description of the

 way Prazdroj Pilsenski (I think that's the spelling?) makes PU.

 >Well, last night, I had a chance to try some of this beer.  A good

 attempt, I must say!.....

 >The beer had been fermented and lagered at 40F for a while (I forgot

 to ask how long).

 Two weeks primary and two weeks secondary and about a week in the keg.

 >  Perhaps a longer lagering (and maybe if it was lagered at 32F as in

 Pilsen) the DMS level would be a bit lower?

 I suspect that time is more important then temp but have no way of checking

 both.  I did bottle a sixpack for tasting in about three months which is what

 I recall PU does before shipping.

 >From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

 >Subject: re: Wort Chilling

 >While it is true that the hot, bittered wort at PU is cooled slowly in

 a coolship, which could engender a great deal of DMS production and

 retention from latent S-Methyl Methionine (SMM), one must consider that

 the preceding boil is exceptionally long and it is likely that most of

 the SMM has already been converted to DMS and then evaporated off (see

 Fix's "Principle of Brewing Science" for a lot more detail here).

 For the record, I boiled this beer for 4 hours just as in your article.  I

 started with 16 gallons of wort and ended up with 7 gallons of beer.

 > *Some* DMS flavor is, in fact, a defining character of lager beers, and

 adds to the crisp flavor profile.

 As a sequel to the story, we had lunch Sunday with the Parsons from the Malt

 Shop at Edelweis where PU is on draft.

 I bottled two bottles of my clone just before leaving and ordered 4 glasses

 of PU and two empty glasses and did a real live comparison.

 The color was identical.  My beer was a bit harsher (for lack of a better

 term) and the DMS became more obvious if a small amount was left to warm up

 in the bottom of the Pilsner glass.

 We all agreed that the PU was at least marginally better but that repeating

 the experiment in three months would definately be informative.

 js

------------------------------


Fruitiness

Date:  Tue, 29 Jun 93 12:50 EDT

From: EBMiller@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL

Subject:  Fruitiness

My partial mash brews are acceptable but lack the fruitiness of a

Limerick or Brooklen Brown ale.  To date I have only used dry yeast

(Whitbread, Cooper's or Edme).  Is the flavor I'm looking for yeast

related.  Will Wyeast London give me what I'm looking for?

------------------------------


Re: Japanese Beer Club

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 15:11:30 PDT

From: "Donald G. Scheidt" <dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com>

Subject: Re: Japanese Beer Club

In HOMEBREW Digest #1164, Thu 17 June 1993, we see:

>From: u4imdmre@cpc41.cpc.usace.army.mil (Markham R. Elliott)

>Subject: Subscription Problems // Japanese Beer Club

>

>Japanese Pay $23,000 to Drink Beer at $78 a Pop

> .....

> Beer made in Japan tastes so dreadful that big-wigs eagerly pour into Tokyo's

>Club Knox, where they can sip beer shipped in from Britain, Switzerland and

>Belgium.

(Bear in mind, especially Markham, that I know this is a quoted article, so

I'm commenting on *it*.  No flaming diatribe is intended.  Thanks for the

excerpt, Mark.)

Beer made in Japan tastes "dreadful"?  Funny, it tastes like competently-

made, lightly-hopped lager to me.  There may be some quirky terminology, like

"draft" for unpasteurised beer in bottles, or "stout" for pale lager beer

with a bit more body than some, but hardly "dreadful", especially in com-

parison to some of the American industrial beerlike liquids.  And then

there's Sapporo's "Black Beer", which is most definitely *not* dreadful.

Sounds like more brewing chauvinism at work here.

>Sure glad we don't have to pay prices like that.

Yeah, so am I.  So are most Japanese, 'cause they don't always.  I friend

brought back a bottle of Budvar/Budweiser, bought at a specialty drinks-

shop in Okinawa.  He paid an obscenely high Y320 for it - an astonishing

$2.50 a bottle! Yow!

Seriously, the article was interesting, if for no other reason than to

display a bit of good old Western cultural bias ("Gol durn, them Japanese

sure pay high prices.  How can they afford anything?").  The average

consumer in Japan deals with high enough prices for many things, but beer

is not usually that outrageous, and imports can be found, often in sur-

prisingly good condition and at not-exactly-astronomical prices.  On the

other hand, a bunch of businessmen with a bit of extra money on their hands

seem to have found a novel - and fun! - way of getting rid of it, and at

least they're drinking some good beer - although I'm not sure about paying

$78 for a 'vintage' bottle of Gales Prize Old Ale!  On the other hand, those

entry dues sure are high.  Not surprising in a country where business

associations often blur the distinction between commercial and social

interests, and where memberships in such associations are often perceived

as being more valuable than gold.

ObHomeBrew:  Because of the Japanese quirk of not letting one brew beer

unless one is going to make at least two million hectoliters, an

enterprising importer is selling homebrew equipment and kits, with

instructions to heavily dilute the malt extract, or to only use a small

amount, so it makes a legally "non-alcoholic" beer.  Of course, anyone who

actually buys the kit receives subtle verbal advice to ignore the

instructions if a proper batch of homemade beer is desired ^_^.

- --

        __       |                                        |       __

       // /      |  Don Scheidt                           |      // /

      /  / /     |  Boeing IASL, 777 Cab Development      |     /  / /

     / // / /    |  dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com      |    / // / /

    / / // / /   |                                        |   / / // / /

   / / /__/_/ /  |                                        |  / / /__/_/ /

  / / /________/ |                                        | / / /________/

  //___________/ |                                        | //___________/

------------------------------


re:  Raw Wheat protein content

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 14:44:40 PDT

From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

Subject: re:  Raw Wheat protein content

Al Korzonas asks about the correspondence between JX Guinard's quoting

of unmalted wheat protein at 1.8 to 2.1 % and the reality that all

wheat, malted or otherwise, has more than 10% protein.  JX Guinard is

apparently quoting the amount of "amino nitrogen," which is often

interchanged with protein, and not the protein itself.

(In a very simple chemical assay, protein is made up of carbon, oxygen,

hydrogen, and nitrogen.  It is the last item that distinguishes it from

a carbohydrate, so the nitrogen content of an (organic) substance is

taken as a figure of merit of its protein content.)

The ratio of nitrogen to protein mass is reckoned to be 6.25, so the

equivalent protein to 1.8-2.1% nitrogen is 11.25-13.75%.

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------


food grade PP again

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 06:56:03 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: food grade PP again

Since the last note I sent I've been seeing PP on the bottom of cottage

cheese containers, sour cream containers, and other household items.  There

is food grade polypropelene.

____________

Ed Hitchcock/Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology/Dalhousie University/Halifax NS

ech@ac.dal.ca   +-------------------------------------------------------+

  |  I object to that comment!  I know several pinheads  |

  |   and they are fully functional members of society! |

  +-------------------------------------------------------+

 Eschew Labudmilloorsonhead

------------------------------


"Belgian Ale" and Grand Cru

Date: 30 Jun 93 03:27:36 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: "Belgian Ale" and Grand Cru

Message Creation Date was at 30-JUN-1993 08:02:00

          Greetings,

               I just finished reading Pierre Rajotte's <Belgian Ale>.

          Great book, but it left me with some questions:

          1.   Where can I get "Candi" sugar in the US?  Any mail

          order places?  If I can't get any candi, any suggestions

          for suitable replacements?  I suppose I could always plan a

          field trip to Belgium to buy my own 50 lb bag ...

          2.   It seems like  the yeast selection is of paramount

          importance, yet the book just talks about using an

          alcohol-tolerant strain.  Aside from the Wyeast strain, what

          recommendations does the net have for appropriate yeast

          strains?

          3.   How do I introduce a second yeast?  In his Grand Cru

          recipe, Pierre states,"This recipe is great for two-yeast

          fermentation.  First fermentation takes place with a weak

          attenuating yeast.  In the secondary fermenter, add a second

          wild type, or different higher attenuating yeast."

               Aside from leaving my secondary fermentor outside in

          the hopes of pLambic fermentation, what should I use for a

          "wild type" yeast?

               How does the second yeast accomplish its aeration

          phase?  Hasn't the first yeast already used up the avaiable

          oxygen in the wort?  Should I just pitch with a HUGE volume

          of yeast and not worry about yeast propogation?

          4.   It appears that primary fermentation temperatures are

          fairly high, while secondary fermentation takes place at

          relatively low temperatures (for ales).  Any comments from

          people who've attempted these styles?

          5.   Finally, just how long will I be required to bottle

          condition my attempt at a Grand Cru?  With all the sugar, I

          get the feeling it might take awhile to smooth out the

          flavors.

          TIA

          Andy A

------------------------------


maple in beer

Date:         30 Jun 93 08:47:11 EST

From: "John Shane"  <JSHANE@clover.uvm.edu>

Subject:      maple in beer

Hi..

I tried to send this directly to the person who asked about maple in

beer, but got an undeliverable mail return, so I thought I'd send it

here:

    I am a homebrewer and (note the state I live in) a maple syrup

producer. YES you can brew with maple syrup. A good ballpark

conversion is to remember that a gallon of syrup weighs 11 lbs with a

solids concentration of 66% (66.5% in Vermont, ...God we're

independent cusses) most of which is sugar of some sort, mostly

sucrose. Essentially, you can assume 66% sugar, all of which is

fermentable. Syrup gives an excellent flavor to all beers (in my

opinion), but some basic advice concerning syrup grades: Fancy (Grade

A Light Amber in all states but Vermont (did I mention that we do

thing our own way?) is VERY delicately flavored, and will be

overwhelmed in almost any beer; Grade A Medium Amber is darker and

less delicate, probably good in most lightish recipes; Grade A Dark

Amber is darker still, will leave a more perceptable flavor, Grade B

is even darker, good for beers with more robust formulations. As a

first try, you might want to consider brewing "Rocky Racoon" in "THE

BOOK", replacing the honey in the original recipe with an equivelent

(by sugar content, not syrup volume or weight) amount of medium or

dark amber syrup. Adjust further attempts to taste. NOTE: unless you

spend every waking hour during spring at blast-furnace temperatures

boiling sap (about 40 gals sap to 1 gal syrup) to get the liquid gold

yourself, this will wind up being a very expensive habit. Good Luck

(let me know what you think!).

    John Shane                (802) 656-2907

University of Vermont       jshane@clover.uvm.edu

 Forestry Department

------------------------------


Home brew mailing list

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 18:02:00 EST

From: "Kogan, Michael D." <MDK1@NCH08A.EM.CDC.GOV>

Subject: Home brew mailing list

I'd be interested in joining the home brew mailing list.

    Thank you, Michael Kogan

------------------------------


Use of Erlenmeyer flasks in brewing

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 09:29:25 -0600

From: gmeier@ncsa.uiuc.edu

Subject: Use of Erlenmeyer flasks in brewing

Mike Lemons wrote on the subject of using a 1 liter Erlenmeyer flask and a

solid # 9 stopper in yeast culturing:

>"I use 1/4 cup of dried malt extract.  I fill the flask up with water to

>the 800 ml mark.  (1000 ml tends to boil over.)  I set it directly on my

>gas stove and turn the flame up pretty high.  A long glass stirring rod

>would be useful for stirring, but I don't have one, so I use a plastic

>chopstick.  I boil it for about ten minutes, put the solid stopper in it

>and set it in a sink full of cold water.  (Isn't pyrex wonderful?)"

Pyrex (tm) is wonderful all right, but it is still possible to break it by

going from a flame to cold water too rapidly.  I'd try to ease the

temperature transitions a bit, air cooling the flask for a few minutes

before moving it to not-too-cold water.  What really concerns me is the

practice of stoppering the flask hot and putting it into cold water.  If

the stopper fits tightly, that will create a partial vacuum in the flask,

and standard thickness Erlenmeyer flasks (or any other glassware that has a

flat bottom or flat sides) can't handle vacuum very well (you can get

thick-walled filter flasks that look like an Erlenmeyer and are made for

vacuum use, but they aren't meant to be heated, so that doesn't help).

Better to let clean (filtered?) air into the flask as it cools than to run

the risk of imploding a flask full of very hot solution.  That WILL ruin

your whole day.

Happy brewing,                           Gary Meier

------------------------------


Maple Syrup

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 09:35:56 EDT

From: rossini@hsph.harvard.edu (Anthony Rossini)

Subject: Maple Syrup

>>>>> JORGENS_DAVID@Tandem.COM writes:

 >>      Has anyone tried using "real" maple syrup in any recipes?

 >> Are the sugars fermentable?  Does anyone have any recipes which

 >> call for maple syrup?  How much per five gallon batch should be

 >> used?

I made a batch using grade B maple syrup (about the same price as malt at a

local coop food store), used about 3lbs, with 5.5lbs amber M&F malt syrup.

Used the generic 5 gallon beer recipe, except I messed up badly in hop

choice/usage, and it was overhopped.  That problem has mellowed out, and it

now tastes like a mildly sweeter sierra nevada pale ale, or (pick your

favorite amber) hopped up with a nice maple after taste.

Some book (I think it was CJoHB) mentions not to use this much maple.  Grade

B tastes similar to grade A (the standard stuff), but definitely doesn't

compare well in a side to side comparison (a bit more water and a tad less

sweet).

Don't overhop!  hops + maple is an interesting combination, and probably

isn't for everyone (some friends like it, and others start making gagging

noises... typical.)

 -tony

- --

Anthony Rossini - grad student/statistician/hacker

rossini@biostat.harvard.edu

Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health

677 Huntington Ave, Boston MA 02115  617-432-1056

------------------------------


Re: Why so technical?

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 10:05:54 -0400

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Re: Why so technical?

Edward Croft <CROFTE@delphi.com> wrote:

> Why so technical? I get HBD to get ideas on new brews, hear about taste tests,

> and get other peoples ideas on how to improve the process. What I have seen

> lately is more of a chemistry class on the properties of idophors(?) and

> chlorine.

Brewing is after all a science.  It can be treated as an art, but

for the best results, you must understand that it is a science

and that things that you do at one step will have an impact on

another step.

I see a mix of levels here in the HBD.  There's nothing wrong with

that.  I prefer to see the technical side.  Theres a plethora of

literature out there geared towards the general population

and not enough good technical info, unless you get into the

peer reviewed brewing journals.

> but don't you think it is getting a bit anal, when we start breaking

> down the composition of the chemicals so as to get the optimum cleaning for

> the least amount of chemical.

Not at all.  These are important concerns if you scale up at all.

> I don't need to know how or why.

Fine.  But some of us do.  Skip the articles you're not interested in.

It works for me.

 Tim

- ----

Timothy J. Dalton                                   tjdalton@mit.edu

MIT, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Materials Etching Technology Lab

------------------------------


RE: AHA First Round at Kingston

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 09:41:38 EDT

From: "John R. Calen - Contacting Systems - E.F., N.Y" <calen@vnet.IBM.COM>

Subject: RE: AHA First Round at Kingston

Rick, ohhh yes!! The sheets of the non-advancers are out already. I got mine

back monday, and it's the end of the trail for those brews.

FWIW, I got the sheets back from the cider judging a week earlier, directly

from Boston in a plain envelope. The beer sheets came in the AHA oversized

envelope with a cover letter, a bronze certificate (guess I didn't do _too_

badly after all) and a survey questionnaire.

Come to think of it, the cider rated a silver certificate. Ciders must not

count.

Regards,

John R. Calen -- Hudson Valley HomeBrewers -- calen@vnet.IBM.COM

------------------------------


Yeast culturing slants

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 07:08 PDT

From: /O=vmspfhou/S=dblewis/DD.SITE=JSCPROFS/@NASAmail.nasa.gov

Subject: Yeast culturing slants

***************************** PROFS Note *****************************

 From: DBLEWIS --VMSPFHOU            Date and time  06/30/93 09:10:51

 To: POSTMAN --NASAMAIL

 FROM: Dennis B. Lewis <dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

 SUBJECT: Yeast culturing slants

 I've had a bit of trouble with my slants recently. The poured and cooled tubes

 look great, but when I inoculate one, the solid wort begins to shrink and

 pulls away from the sides of the tube. In one case, some yeast got down in the

 bottom of the tube behind the wort plug and when I opened the cap to relieve

 some of the pressure, the pressure crammed the wort slug into the neck of the

 tube!

 I don't have my notes, so I don't remember how much agar I put in the wort.

 (15 gm in 0.5L sounds vaguely familiar.) Could my problem be too much agar?

 Maybe I should fill my tubes more full so that there is a significant plug at

 the bottom of the tube. The tubes were clean, but maybe I should give them an

 acetone bath prior to filling and sterilizing to remove any trace of oils or

 dust. I'm open to any and all suggestions.

 Dennis B. Lewis  *  (713) 244-7809  *  NASA/JSC/DH6 Payload Ops

 Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Advertising on the HBD.

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 11:13:02 EDT

From: Jim McManus <jjm@Think.COM>

Subject: Advertising on the HBD.

I have to agree with Martin A. Lodahl's message yesterday, but have to add

one thing.  People shouldn't be advertising for profit and the shouldn't be

sending mail off bashing others to reduce profit.  I kept quite during the

whole Sam Adams/Koch mail, but what it comes down to is, who cares how

people publicly advertise outside this list.  It isn't effecting the way

I'm brewing.

*************************************************************************

Jim McManus

Special Systems Manager    Thinking Machines Corp.

jjm@think.com     245 First St

617 234-2674     Cambridge, MA  02142

"A Rugger at heart, a beer drinker by dark"

*************************************************************************

------------------------------


Hunter Airstat

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 08:13:37 PDT

From: djb@suned1.Nswses.Navy.Mil (Dan J Barnard)

Subject: Hunter Airstat

Somehow I lost the directions for using the Hunter Airstat.  If anyone

could email them to me (weekly programming and how to program one

temperature and whatever else it says) I would greatly appreciate it.

  djb@suned1.nswses.navy.mil

                                             Thanks,

                                                       Dan

------------------------------


Blueberries, sparge setups

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 10:16:31 MDT

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Blueberries, sparge setups

Edward Croft <CROFTE@delphi.com> says:

> Allan Wright's Amber Wheat Beer fruit base in HB1166.  I have been

> contemplating a fruit beer, and this may do the trick.  But, Allan,

> blueberries in beer?  Let me know how that turns out.

Why not blueberries?  I made a blueberry brown ale last year that turned

out quite nicely.  The berries gave the beer a subtle, wine-like

character that was very pleasant.  The recipe was posted in HBD #926

(July 18 '92) if you're interested.

Jim Liddil <JLIDDIL@AZCC.Arizona.EDU> and "Mark S. Nelson"

<mnelson@eis.calstate.edu>, respectively, ask:

> I obtained a straight sided keg from the scrap metal yard this weekend.

> Now I want to turn it into a boiler/lauter tun.  Has any one ever

> mounted an EasyMasher(TM) on a keg?  What other manifold setups work

> well that can be easily removed?

> I'm a kit brewer second in the feild ready for the grain. Please give me

> your best advice,  I really would like to know how to construct the best

> system.

There are a number of different lautering options:  an easymasher, a

slotted copper pipe manifold, a false bottom, a separate double-bucket

Zapap-type as described in Papazian.  The subject has been covered at

various times here, maybe it's time for a monthly FAQ?

Anyway, I favor the slotted pipe setup, since it's completely

removable, doesn't require you to drill a hole in your pot, and can be

disassembled for easy cleaning.  I posted plans in HBD #1099 (Mar 17

'93).  The description of the EasyMasher(tm) were originally posted by

Jack Schmidling in HBD #754 (Nov 4 '91), and there was a lot of

discussion and diagrams during March '93.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1173, 07/02/93

*************************************

-------


WANTED: Fuller's, Full Sail recipes

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 10:23:57 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: WANTED: Fuller's, Full Sail recipes

I'm new to this list and generally new to home brewing, though I have

much experience imbibing.  I'm looking for recipes for two of my favorite

beers, Fuller's Ale, and Full Sail Golden.  There's a Full Sail Amber in

Cat's Meow 2, and although it is an excellent beer (after at least a month

in the bottle) it is pretty far from Full Sail Amber (except the color is

right on).  I would prefer all grain recipes, but I'll certainly take what

I can get.  I'm not sure whether posting your responses (I hope there are

responses) to the list is appropriate or not, but you can always contact me

directly.

So far I'm enjoying the list, though there is considerably more

of it than I had anticipated.  I have noted that a lot of requests

for brewpubs in various locations are posted, and just for the

record, I live in Seattle where there are many excellent brewpubs,

microbreweries, and ale houses.  I would be happy to recommend

some if anyone is traveling through.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Papazian Lambic

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 13:04 EST

From: ROSS@mscf.med.upenn.edu

Subject: Papazian Lambic

Date sent:  30-JUN-1993 13:03:56

 I read the appendix concerning Lambic homebrewing in Papizian's new

edition of the Joy of Homebrewing, and it sounded very interesting.  Basically

he suggests warming your dissolved malt extract, pouring into a fermenter,

adding some crushed malted barley (to contribute bacteria), and allowing to

stand overnight causing souring.  The next day you put this back into your

brewpot, and brew as normal.  He suggests fermenting with regular ale yeast

and then adding Brettanomyces lambicus and bruxilles.

 Has anybody actually tried his method.  I've been quite successful

with many of his other methods.  As I only have the time to do extract

brewing, his method sounds interesting.

 Does anybody know of any sources to purchase the lambic cultures?

I know that Alternative Garden Supply (800-444-2837) has Pediococcus

cervisiae and Brettanomyces lambicus.  They sell for $7.45 each plus

shipping (I don't know how much the shipping costs).  Is this a reasonable

price or can I find a better price elsewhere.

 Also, if I wanted to experiment and try some small batches, how long

can I keep the unused portion of the cultures if kept in a refrigerator.

   --- Andy Ross ---

                    University of Pennsylvania

                    ross@mscf.med.upenn.edu

------------------------------


Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 16:53 GMT

From: Edward Dotson <0003963467@mcimail.com>

Subject:

UNSUBCRIBE Edward Dotson

------------------------------


Re: new beer options in SF

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 10:43:09 -0700

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: new beer options in SF

Jack Dawson sez:

>On another front, the new owners of the San Francisco Giants obviously

>appreciate good beer, because now in section 15 you can find a stand which

>specializes in micro-brewed beers.  Anchor Steam and Anchor wheat are

>available on draught.  SNPA, Anchor Porter, and Devil's Mountain Railroad

>and Devil's brew are available in the bottle.

I have it on good authority that Gordon Biersch beers will be available

at the new San Jose Arena when it opens in September.

GO Sharks!

have fun

gak

Cow Palace Section 107/H/3&4

Epicenter Section 209

------------------------------


Pressure/temperature relationship

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 13:56:40 EDT

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1-1/T09 DTN 225-6171  30-Jun-1993 1349 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Pressure/temperature relationship

Someone a couple of issues ago asked what would be the proper pressure to

get the same volume of CO2 at a temperature of 70F.

At the risk of getting technical, there is an easy solution given by the

ideal gas law.  Holding volume and mass constant, the pressure is equal to

the original pressure times the new temperature all divided by the original

temperature.  That is:

P2 = P1*T2/T1

This does not take into account the solubility of the CO2 in the beer, but

it should be close enough for your needs.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Riverside Garage & Brewery

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 14:23:04 EDT

From: Bruce=Kiley%SIG%SNI%sig@sni-usa.com

Subject: Riverside Garage & Brewery

Over the last few weeks I've seen a number of postings from Chuck Cox

<chuck@synchro.com> SynchroSystems / Riverside Garage & Brewery -

Cambridge, Mass.

Does anyone know who or what this is?  Please reply to

brucek@sig.sni-usa.com

Cheers,

Bruce

------------------------------


HBD soul-searching

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 14:01:28 cdt

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@GRIN.EDU>

Subject: HBD soul-searching

In response to Martin Lodahl's post on advertising (and the recent discussion

on same), I find the HBD to be one of the best sources on homebrewing

techniques, gadgetry, etc, largely because of the sheer amount of information

as well as the varying backgrounds of the contributors and the give-and-take

nature of the forum.  I am not myself a terribly advanced brewer, and as such

I wish to point out that Martin's concern for the new brewers taking HBD as

gospel (with regard to infomercials etc.) is well worth noting but perhaps

overemphasized.  From the moment I started reading this forum it was

perfectly obvious to me that not everyone knew what they were talking about

(with all due respect, y'all).  I would think it would be absolutely foolish

to read one post on the HBD about any product and run right out and buy the

thing.  Personally, I prefer to wait for the same topic to recycle itself two

or three times (an inevitability here) to consider the subject adequately

before making any decisions involving the purchasing of equipment.  In the

meantime, I still make pretty good beer!  Also, I personally don't mind

having merchants and manufacturers as contributors, as I find their

perspectives valuable; and I'd rather have a straight-out commercial than an

insidious thinly-veiled info-mercial, as long as it is done BRIEFLY and IN

GOOD TASTE.  The taste issue seems to me to be the central one, and many of

us obviously have differing ideas as to where the boundaries of good taste

may be; but here I would say that if the digest is to continue to be

successful, we should continue to be self-policing in this area.  The bottom

line?  I have to throw my hat in the ring with those who do not favor a "ban"

on any advertising in the HBD.  At the same time, the "industrialists" among

us have to understand that they need to make their comments here within the

boundaries of brevity and good taste, or folks like me may be turned off and

become quite uncharitable with respect to the leeway given to commercial

considerations.

Regarding Edward Croft's complaints about overly-technical posts, I have to

disagree, for reasons similar to those which cause me to be lenient toward

the commercially-inclined.  It has also been perfectly obvious to me since I

started reading the digest that there is FAR more information in here than I

will ever use.  So if some chemists want to get into an arcane discussion I

don't understand very well, it's O.K. with me.  I can either flip past the

articles in question, or just scan for the conclusions without wading through

all the data.  No, I haven't seen anything to make me change my mind about 1/

4 cup chlorine bleach per 5 gallons either, but I am happy that the recent

discussion has made me re-think that aspect of my technique a bit.  The

bottom line?  I am damn glad that there are a lot of people reading and

posting to the HBD who know a lot more than I do!  That's why asking

questions to the combined wizardry of the HBD can be so fruitful.  If the

people who know more than I do (PWKMTID?) were to be constrained to talk down

to my level all the time, what would be the point of their contributing to

the digest?  They are in it for their own edification as well as mine.

To summarize: for me, the more information in the HBD, the better.  I don't

care whether the info comes from those with commercial motives or those with

Ph.D.'s in organic chemistry.  In it's present format and tone, I find I can

sort out the info I can use pretty well.

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Stainless spigots

Date: 30 Jun 1993 14:58:14 GMT

From: "Lee-Paul" <MSMAIL.LEEP@TSOD.lmig.com>

Subject: Stainless spigots

I want to convert a Stainless steel keg to a boiling vessel. Does anyone

know where I can pick up a stainless steel tap to weld into the bottom?

Private emails would be fine, I will consolidate a re post.

------------------------------


freezers, maple syrup

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 14:05:47 cdt

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@GRIN.EDU>

Subject: freezers, maple syrup

For those of you who have chest-freezers with top-opening designs, how do get

the full carboys in and out w/o breaking your backs?

  * * * * *

There seems to be an abiding interest in maple syrup in the HBD.  I haven't

done it, but have often thought of priming a light ale with it.  I'm not

crazy about using large amounts in the boil because of the cost and because

it seems that such a delicate flavor would be destroyed that way.  Can

anybody report on how much maple character is imparted by priming, and how

much syrup to use for this procedure?

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Re: Freezer conversion for keg storage

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 12:21:02 PDT

From: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards)

Subject: Re: Freezer conversion for keg storage

Al Richer, in HBD #1171, wrote:

| In my wanderings I've managed to pick up a large upright chest freezer

| for cooling my kegs, as well as eventually becoming a beer cooler.

| Unfortunately for me, the shelves are fixed,as they are actually the

| cooling elements..

I have a friend who was given an upright freezer with fixed shelves

(cooling elements).  What he did was remove the door and build an extension

out of wood and insulation.  It is now about 2.5 times as deep.  The

original shelves in the back of the freezer now hold beer and wine bottles

and kegs and carboys are in the front extension part.  I think he put

one shelf in the middle of the extension so he could have two levels of

kegs and carboys (I only looked in it once).

The original freezer has no trouble keeping the larger volume cool enough

for fermenting (ales and lagers).

Total cost:  $100

 -Alan

 .------------------------------------.

 | Alan Edwards: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov |      Member: The Hoppy Cappers

 |     or: Alan-Edwards@llnl.gov      |      homebrew club, Modesto, CA

 `------------------------------------'

------------------------------


CO2 Regulator

Date:     Wed, 30 Jun 93 15:20:27 EDT

From: "David C. Skeldon" (CCAC-LAD) <dskeldon@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  CO2 Regulator

I'm currently setting up a kegging system for my beer and I was wondering if

there was any reason why I can't use my O2 regulator from my oxy/acetylene

setup. If threads are the only problem then I could come up with an adapter

but I don't know if there is any difference in the regulator itself.

I was also wondering how long a 5 lb CO2 bottle lasts. I picked up a catalog

from superior and there was quite an array of different size bottles.

Thanks for all of the tips/suggestions/help that comes from this forum.

Dave Skeldon: Owner, Operator, and Brewmeister of Wooddale Brewing Co.

(I'm really just a homebrewer with a fantasy)

(and a label for my bottles)

------------------------------


One more HBD ad comment...

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 14:26:30 CDT

From: Gene Zimmerman <ezimmerm@hp.uwsuper.edu>

Subject: One more HBD ad comment...

Salutations!

     I agree with Martin's Wed. posting about ads on the HBD. I further

suggest anyone caught advertising here have their heads put through

Phil's Malt Mill. Perhaps we could enter the evil doer in that "Crush

Off" Or, better yet, we could get that guy from HopTech to give him

a good talking to.

Tounge in cheek commentary by,

Gene in Duluth (soon to be Laramie)

------------------------------


Homemade Bruheat/HB store in PGH/Advertising in HBD

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 12:36:53 PDT

From: Jurrasic Engineer <fecich@csoa1.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Homemade Bruheat/HB store in PGH/Advertising in HBD

  I'm looking for suggestions from anyone who has tried to make a home-made

'Bru-heat' type mash-tun. I've located the parts (cooler, 1KW element,

thermostat), but I still have a few questions....

>Should the heating element be separated from the grain with screen?

>I will place the thermostat near the element, but will there be a possibility

 of wide temperature variations in the grain?

>Should I include some method of mixing/stirring the grain as I mash?

 Thanks in advance for any suggestions or recommendations.

   Also, there was a recent HBD post about someone opening a new HB store

in the Pittsburgh area. I lost your address, please contact me at

fecich@csoa1.enet.dec.com or fecich@pfsvax.enet.dec.com

  Re: advertising in the HBD.... I'm always looking for new sources of

Homebrew type stuff. Maybe the owners of the HBD mailing list could allow

a once-a-month 'advertising only' issue of the digest. This way people

like me could see info on new products/sales/etc, and others could simply

delete the whole issue. Oh well, its only a suggestion.....

Larry Fecich

DEC Customer Service

Pittsburgh,PA

------------------------------


Re: Technical/Keg pressures/Flash Ferment/Hoppy IPA

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 14:24 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Technical/Keg pressures/Flash Ferment/Hoppy IPA

Edward writes:

>Why so technical? I get HBD to get ideas on new brews, hear about taste tests,

>and get other peoples ideas on how to improve the process. What I have seen

>lately is more of a chemistry class on the properties of idophors(?) and

>chlorine. I can see relating the impact some of the chemicals have on our

I personally enjoy all types of posts from the most basic beginner questions

to the yeast metabolic pathway posts.  Restricting posts to only practical

information (i.e. excluding theoretical discussions or the science of brewing)

would be a great loss to most of us.  Some beginners will always be overwhelmed

by highly technical discussions and some veterans will always be bored by

questions like "why should I aerate my wort?"  However, unless we continue

to cater to both beginners and experts:

1. we'll lose the experts who answer the beginner and intermediate questions, &

2. we'll lose the beginners who will be tomorrow's experts.

>how or why. Why don't the chemistry majors come up with the proper amounts

>between them and then post the summary. I want to hear more about using wheat

This is what should be done in all cases of high-tech disagreement.  As soon

as we see an issue getting to be debated on the digest, let's take the issue

off-line, debate via email, come up with a resolution and then post that.

>bases for fruit beers, or the proper way to prepare jalepenos for chili beer.

>I want to hear about the new mini-keg systems, and yes even malt mills. Though,

>we could lighten up a little with the advertising and sniping.

All one needs to do is ask.  If anyone wants to hear more about a particular

subject, just post a question -- someone's bound to have some info.

************************

BrewerBob writes:

>I think you may have two problems. The reason for the foam may be  too high a

>dispensing pressure into too small a tube. A 1/4 inch ID tube will cause a

>loss of

Yes, but I think you have it backwards.  If the beer is foaming, then either

the beer is overcarbonated, or there is too much pressure when the beer

comes out of the tap -- you therefore need to INCREASE the pressure

loss through the tube.  Either increase the length of the hose or

decrease the inside diameter.  A very good writeup on this whole subject

is in the 1992 AHA National Competition Transcripts by Dave Miller.

Just to summarize his article, the proper way to design a kegging system

is:

1. choose your beer temperature and the amount of carbonation you want,

2. read the proper CO2 pressure from the table in the article or from HBD

backisssues,

3. account for pressure drops across valves and set your CO2 regulator

accordingly,

4. subtract the losses for faucets and towers from the keg pressure,

5. subtract the losses for keg-to-faucet head (the height difference),

6. subtract the losses for altitude (see HBD backissues), and finally

7. determine the proper size and length of hose so the total loss through

the liquid line is equal to the keg pressure.

Another alternative is to do steps 1, 2 and 3 above and then use any

hose length and diameter you want, but add an adjustable restriction in

the liquid line (e.g. an plastic pinch clamp), near the keg, and use

that to create the proper amount of loss in the liquid line.

Regarding force carbonation, you can begin at a higher pressure, but in

eventually, you will need to use the tables to determine what pressure

you need to use for the temperature you've chosen.  Be careful when

you lower the pressure at the gauge (release the pressure in the keg

first) or you will get a lot of foam and some may travel back up your

CO2 line towards the regulator.

*********************

Raj writes:

>I am working on a Cherries in the Snow Ale from "The New complete

>joy of homebrewing"  I used a Brewer's Choice german ale liquid

>yeast, and after three days of initial fermentation I have moved

>it to a secondary fermenter.  After that time, the brewing

>activity has decreased significantly.  Could the yeast be dead?

>Should I add more yeast?  Should I wait more?  It was pretty hot

>(around 90 degrees) all three days, could that have killed the

>yeast?

At 90F, Wyeast #1007, German Ale, would probably have completed

fermenting an average-gravity wort batch, which CITSnow is.  3 days

is not an uncommon fermentation time for such a warm temperature.

If you can, try to use a lower temperature since the likelyhood

of off-flavors is increased as the temperature increases.  90F

will not kill your yeast unless it is a sudden increase from, say,

50F.  By the way, a quick, violent fermentation has been called

a "Flash Ferment."

*********************************

Ed writes:

>At the recent Del Mar Fair, I overheard one of the judges talking about the

>I.P.A. class;  He was saying that an IPA should be dryhopped to kingdom come,

>so that the first thing that registers in the taster's palate and brain is

>the dryhopping.

>

>My question:  Is this a generally accepted fact?  Or is it just individual

>preference.  I realize that IPA's should be strong and quite aggressively

>hopped, but I didn't know one way or the other about dryhopping.  Anyone?

Every judge has their preferences, but the bottom line should be the

style descriptions for the particular competition.  Most competitions

simply use the AHA guidelines.  To the best of my memory, the AHA guidelines

say that a hop nose is acceptable in an IPA, but not required.  Personally,

I like IPAs with a hop nose (within reason) and if I was judging two beers

that were identical in every other way, I would score the one with hop

nose a bit higher.  In general, I feel that if a style says that hop nose

is acceptable, the beer will score higher if it has a reasonable amount of

hop bouquet.

Al.

------------------------------


Talk Techie!

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 14:51:17 CDT

From: Gene Zimmerman <ezimmerm@hp.uwsuper.edu>

Subject: Talk Techie!

Salutations!

   I, for one, enjoy the input these scientists  [create and share with the

HBD. As an English and Comp Sci major, I don't have near the expertise

to calculate flavor profiles or create/cretique mathamatical formulas

for color. I remember once seeing a study someone did about UV rays being

transmitted through different color glass. The author included a graph!

Great stuff! It is said: Farmers make wine; Engineers make BEER! This is

not simple sloppy work we are doing here. We are modern day alchemists!

   Yes, I don't understand much of the Brew Techie stuff, but as I make

an attempt to do so I learn more about what I am doing and therefor become

better at my craft. Indeed, most everyone with access to this fourm is

in some way connected to some kind of technology--often people working

in Universities.

   In short, I like the Brew Techie stuff. Thank you and keep up the good

work!

Gene

------------------------------


Legalizing Homebrew

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 12:56:13 -0700 (PDT)

From: Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG>

Subject: Legalizing Homebrew

In HBD 1171 Dick Dunn asked when (exactly) was homebrewing legalized.

Although he asked for e-mail replies, I did the research so thought I'd

take the credit;-).

26 United States Code sec.5053(e) reads, in part, "Beer for personal or

family use.-- ... any adult may, without payment of tax, produce beer for

personal or family use and not for sale."  The section goes on to mention

limits (essentially 100gal/person, 200/household).  This was enacted as

part of an excise tax amendment, Public Law 95-458, 92 Stat. 1255,

sec.2(b)(1).  The legislation was signed by President Carter on October

14, 1978 (124 congressional Record 38781).  Although I don't have the

exact time the President signed it, it essentially became effective

retroactively to the first moment of the day he signed the legislation

(see Sutherland, _Statutory Construction_,sec.33.10 and 1 USCA sec.106b,

note 3).

Also in HBD 1171 Edward Croft calls for less technical postings.  While

much of the idophor/chlorine concentration thread was above my head, I

have no objections.  I like to see a variety of information at all levels.

 If I don't want to read about blueberry wheatbeer maybe someone else does.

Finally, I'd like to second Martin Lodahl's comments regarding the

commercial aspects of HBD postings.  There are several contributors who

have a finacial stake in the homebrew market who manage to keep their

postings limited to bettering the process of homebrewing without pushing

their products.  I, who have no financial interest, would feel comfortable

recommending a product if I felt it improved my beer, but I might get a

little squeemish about it if I was a close personal friend of the

producer.

My $.02 for the day.

Eric Wade, Law Librarian (US Court of Appeals) and Homebrewer

San Francisco

------------------------------


advertising revisited

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 12:47:37 PDT

From: mdcsc!gdh@uunet.UU.NET (Garrett Hildebrand)

Subject: advertising revisited

In HBD 1171, Martin Lodahl says,

>Time to offer my own opinions concerning advertising in HBD.

>

>The opinion has been advanced that advertising on HBD is a service,

>that it provides information brewers find useful...

Whoa, pardner! Unless I missed something, the sentiment discussed

was that it was OK to mention products by name, and to share

information about them, perhaps even to announce the availability

of a new product. I don't recall anyone saying that use of the HBD

as a free advertising medium is an OK practice.

> ...argument fails with me is in the fundamental difference between

>information presented in the interest of profit, and information

>presented solely to share something useful or interesting.  Having

>something to gain beyond good beer creates a conflict.

Too true.

>... A poster

>with a commercial interest in the question will find it quite

>difficult not to favor their own solution:  when all you have is a

>hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I agree.

>...  Some posters (Kinney

>Baughman, Glenn Tinseth, Russ Wigglesworth, Darryl Richman and

>others) have handled this extraordinarily well, from my point of

>view, and I read their postings with confidence.  Others leave me

>with the uncomfortable feeling that at least some of their postings

>(and I can't always tell which ones) contain not real information,

>but its counterfeit.

Ok, how about this: allow the ones you like and roast the rest! :)

Garrett         <uunet!mdcsc!gdh>

------------------------------


Re: Westmalle yeast/Styrian Goldings/DMS/Nitrogen levels?

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 14:26 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Westmalle yeast/Styrian Goldings/DMS/Nitrogen levels?

Jim Busch asked about the possibility of using Westmalle yeast.

Westmalle is bottled with a very unattenuative bottling strain and

not the primary fermentation strain.  It would not be usable for

much else besides bottling.

***********************

Someone else (sorry again) wrote:

>Hops are still under experimentation, but noble hops only.  Saaz,

>        Styr-Goldings, Hallertau.

Styrian Goldings are neither noble nor are they Goldings, actually.

The only three noble hops (this was confirmed from various sources

in the Brewer's Forum) are Hallertauer, Tettnanger and Saaz.  Styrian

Goldings are actually a Slovanian variety of Fuggles.  They are a

distinct hop in every sense from both Fuggles and Goldings, but are

not related to Goldings other than by name.

************************

Another Jim writes:

>  According to George Fix in his article on Belgian malts that appeared

>in Brewing Techniques, the Belgian pilsner malt is low in the precursor

>of DMS (can't remember offhand, SMM?), so this should'nt be a problem,

>especially if you adhere to standard procedures for minimizing DMS.

>  The precursor of DMS is a gas that can be driven off during the boil.

>Use a vigorous boil, and leave the pot at least partly uncovered.  When

>the boil is finished, chill the wort below 140F as quickly as possible.

>A wort chiller is very helpful here.

You are right in every sense except what is driven off (even your memory

has not failed you -- it is SMM).  It's the DMS that's created that is

driven off in the boil and during the vigorous part of the ferment,

although I don't think that either SMM or DMSO (the two compounds that

DMS can come from) are gasses.

************************

Geoff writes:

>Alternatively, someone is inadvertently quoting the Nitrogen content as

>protein - a plausible error given the correlation. The data I have on Baird's

>wheat malt is that it contains a maximum of 2.2% total Nitrogen. Remarkably

>close to your figures of "1.8 to 2.1". Just speculation though, but maybe

>worth checking.

Yes, indeed.  Is there someone here who can contact Jean-Xavier?  Could you

ask him about this?

Al.

------------------------------


pop bottles

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 21:19:38 EST

From: garrik%pun@sabbagh.com (Eric C. Garrison)

Subject: pop bottles

I have seen postings here and in rec.crafts.brewing that mention using

plastic 2-liter pop bottles for bottling beer instead of regular old

glass bottles.

I bottled one 2 liter bottle worth of my latest, just for an experiment.

If it works out, I may do it again.

My question is, how successful is this?  When you pour out of the bottle,

doesn't all the sediment get kicked up into the beer when you put it

back?  What can you do to avoid this?  Also, doesn't the beer go flat

after resealing like pop would?  I have a pump gizmo that is supposed to

keep pop from going flat (you screw it on instead of the cap and pump

air in to pressurize the bottle).  Is this gizmo necessary?

Eric

------------------------------


Consultant

Date: Thu,  1 Jul 93 08:10:55 EDT

From: Bruce=Kiley%SIG%SNI%sig@sni-usa.com

Subject: Consultant

I am in the process of going through the legal issues of opening up a

microbrewery in the greater Boston area.  Does anyone know of a

professional consultant I can hire to work with me over the next few

months?

Please reply to brucek@sig.sni-usa.com

Cheers,

Bruce

------------------------------


Re : Belgian triples

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 14:59:01 BST

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: Re : Belgian triples

Belgian triples are not a style I brew myself, but there is an interesting

issue of when to add the sugar, if any. With my wines, I've got into the habit

of adding a concentrated syrup on about day 5 of the ferment. I may be deluding

myself, but I fancy that I get a smoother result that way (ie, fewer byproducts

of fermentation). Of course, these byproducts could be just want you want with

some styles of brew.

- --

Conn V Copas

Loughborough University of Technology          tel : +44 509 263171  ext 4164

Computer-Human Interaction Research Centre     fax : +44 509 610815

Leicestershire  LE11 3TU              e-mail - (Janet):C.V.Copas@uk.ac.lut

G Britain                                      (Internet):C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk

------------------------------


Light (Lovibond) Extract

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 10:17:10 EDT

From: kstiles@woomera.att.com

Subject: Light (Lovibond) Extract

>>>          I wish to make a beer with the lightest possible color as is

>>>          possible with extract.

>>>               What suggetions can you give me for both liquid extract

>>>          (preferrably unhopped) and DME?

>>>          TIA

>>>          Andy A

>>

>>Andy, from my experience and comments from my local supplier, American Eagle

>>seems to be the lightest extract (both dry and syrup) on the market.  Their

>>amber DME seems to be the color of M&F et.al.'s light.

>>

>I seem to recall some HBDers complaining that the American Eagle

>dry extract product had significant amounts of corn sugar mixed in

>with the malt.  This would certainly make a light beer, but it may

>be better to stay with a quality extract, such as M&F or Laaglander,

>which claims to be all malt.

Yes, I was the one who complained about American Eagle.  But there

were no follow-ups, so maybe it's just me.  On the other hand,

the yeast starter I used last had SG=1.040 and FG=1.000, or

an amazing cidery 100% apparent attenuation (didn't even need

my calculator for that one).

 -Kevin Stiles

------------------------------


kegging and temperature

Date: Thu, 01 Jul 93 11:09:25 EDT

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: kegging and temperature

Bart Thielges writes:

 "....I don't have enough `fridge space to keep the keg

        upright and cooled down for extended periods.  Will repeated cycling

        between 45F and 80F spoil the flavor ?"

I can't answer the flavor question but I do have a solution for the fridge

space.  I bought a small 1.7 cu. ft. (it's long past time for the U.S. to

go metric) "dorm sized" fridge and a cold plate.  A cold plate is a bunch of

stainless steel tubing buried in about 15 pounds of casted aluminum.

I keep the keg outside the fridge an have a 1/4" line going into the fridge

which is hooked up to the cold plate.  The out line from the cold plate

is 8 feet of 3/16 tubing attached to a cobra tap mounted on the fridge door.

The beer is cooled on demand.

Why 8 feet of 3/16 tubing?  For a keg to maintain 2.5 volumes of CO2 (medium

carbonation) at room temp requires about 29 psi of pressure. The long tubing

is needed to drop the pressure to the proper dispensing pressure so that you

don't get too much foam. 8 feet drops the pressure by 24 pounds and the cold

plate and the tap drops the rest.

I want to thank John Francisco for his article of a few weeks ago recommending

the use of 3/16 tubing to "gracefully" reduce pressure.  I was skeptical

but admit that it worked better than I could have imagined.  It turned my

glass of mostly foam into a proper glass of beer with a nice head.

Also, thanks to the 10 or so people who supplied me with CO2 saturation tables

when I requested them on HBD.  This is a GREAT forum.

- --Tony Verhulst

------------------------------


Defending your cherries

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 9:02:06 EDT

From: U-E68316-Scott Wisler <swisler@c0431.ae.ge.com>

Subject: Defending your cherries

My parent's cherry tree bore fruit this year for the first time that I

can remember.  I also eagerly awaited the ripening, thinking of a nice

cherry brew.  I ran into my mom a

couple weeks ago and she told me the tree was picked clean overnight -

not a single cherry left.  She was understandably angry and thought

someone came and took them.  She considered calling the police ( Please

help me officer, someone picked my cherries in the backyard last night

and I'm pretty darn upset about it), but couldn't decide how to phrase

it so she would be taken seriously.  A relative from Michigan said it

was birds and draping the tree with cheescloth would do the trick.  I'm

glad the previous poster decided that 2x4's wasn't such a good idea.

Sounds like an engineer with tunnel vision - it happens to the best of us.

On another note, regarding forced aeration.  Any of you SCUBA divers out

there might consider that dry, clean, and filtered air in your tank.

Your low pressure bouyance control inflator attachment might be adapted.

I wouldn't go buy a SCUBA tank to aerate your wort, but if you've got one...

Scott Wisler

------------------------------


high-gravity brewing

Date: 01 Jul 1993 08:18:08 PST

From: "JSDAWS1@PROFSSR" <JSDAWS1@PB1.PacBell.COM>

Subject: high-gravity brewing

high-gravity brewing is, I think, very common to beginning brewers.  For

four years, I brewed 5 gal. batches in a 4 gal SS pot from Costco.  I could

boil up 3.5 gal of wort, but pre-boiled 2 gal. of water and added it to the

fermentor prior to boiling the wort.  My Barleywine is fine recipe in the

current issue of Zymurgy is testiment to the fact that you can brew prerfectly

good beer with this method.  I have freinds who still brew this way (some with

even smaller brewpots) and they are making very drinkable brew.

When I went all-grain, I bought an 8 gal. enameled pot and wouldn't go back.

The old pot now boils mash & sparge water.  The two biggest effects I've

seen from high-gravity boils are increased carmelization and decreased hop

utilization.  But IMHO, high-gravity brewing is a perfectly acceptable way

of getting by with a small brewpot or increasing the batch size without

investing further in equipment.

|    If it's good for ancient druids runnin naked thru the woods      |

|   drinkin strange fermented fluids then it's good enough for me.    |

| JACK DAWSON  -  JSDAWS1  -  415 545-0299  -  CUSTOMER BILLING  (BG) |

------------------------------


Weissbier yeast

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 08:32 PDT

From: /O=vmspfhou/S=dblewis/DD.SITE=JSCPROFS/@NASAmail.nasa.gov

Subject: Weissbier yeast

***************************** PROFS Note *****************************

 From: DBLEWIS --VMSPFHOU            Date and time  07/01/93 10:35:14

 To: POSTMAN --NASAMAIL

 FROM: Dennis B. Lewis <dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov>

 SUBJECT: Weissbier yeast

 I'm looking for a good weissbier yeast and I've seen Weihenstephan #66

 mentioned several times on the digest. Where can I get a slant or packet of

 this yeast? And any other sources of true weissbier yeasts would be greatly

 appreciated. Please e-mail me directly and I'll post a compendium of weissbier

 yeast sources. Send me a description of the yeast profile if you can.

 Dennis B. Lewis  *  (713) 244-7809  *  NASA/JSC/DH6 Payload Ops

 Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


high gravity brewing

Date:    Thu, 1 Jul 1993 11:37:48 -0400 (EDT)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: high gravity brewing

  The question I have re. high gravity brewing is whether it is

better to dilute before fermentation or after.  The main difference

as I see it is the effect of high gravity wort on the yeast, moreover

on the yeast by-products.  Maybe I have this wrong, but doesn't

high gravity affect yeast in the same way as high temperature, ie.

increased production of esters, phenols, etc., all those "fruity

and spicy" things?  Another factor is that alcohol level in the

high gravity fermentation may kill the yeast, leaving a high

final gravity.  This may actually be a good thing, as the subsequent

dilution will not result in a beer that is too dry.

  As a data point, my last batch was a high gravity ferment, split

between Belgian ale yeast and Wyeast steam beer yeast.  Both fermented

from 1.060+ down to 1.014.  The Belgian was diluted with .5 gallons

of water at kegging, the steam had 2 gallons added.  Both were very

favorably received.  I think I posted the recipe in the HBD a week or

2 ago.

Russ Gelinas

Experimental Space Physics/Ocean Process Analysis Lab

University of New Hampshire, Durham, USA

------------------------------


Humor-Impaired

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 13:16 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Humor-Impaired

 >From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>

 >> Hmm...  Wasn't planning on going to Portland.  Hate to make the trip just

 to  keep him honest.  Any volunteers to take a brand new MM for the GREAT

  CRUSH-OFF?

 >I'll try not to fall into the camp of the humor-impaired here but the

 casual reader and, I'm sure Mr. Listerman, would take offense at the

 insinuation that Dan is a dishonest person.

 I humbly suggest that you didn't try very hard.  Quite the contrary, you

 turned a humerous comment into an offensive one.  You got into Listerman's

 head and you are telling others how they should interpret my words.

 >This makes two such swipes at Dan in as many weeks.  And since he isn't here

 to defend himself, don't you think we can refrain from comments like this?

 Listerman is well represented by his friend who did indeed start the

 discussion.   Furthermore, he is publishing data that misrepresents my

 product and I will "swipe" at it everytime I see it.

 >This endless harping, hyping, and mentioning of one's own products to keep

 threads running ad nauseum is in poor taste, to say the least.

 I suggest a little introspection on your above comments would be appropriate

 here.  Up to this point, it has been a technical discussion and you have

 turned it into an ad hominem attack.  Sort of like moving out after voting

 the county dry.

 You certainly display will power by not jumping in with your Brew Heat when

 you could with justification but that does not give you the right to be

 unreasonable.  Furthermore, if you were really concerned about "threads

 running ad nauseum", you should have tried email instead of forcing me to

 respond in public.

 js

------------------------------


high-gravity brewing/cherries/CRUSH-OFF

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 13:46 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: high-gravity brewing/cherries/CRUSH-OFF

Glenn writes:

>Jim Busch brings up an interesting topic:  High Gravity brewing.

>

>One concern that the big boys have is deareating(sp?) the water before

>adding it to the beer but this is because they are adding the water at the

>end of the process instead of adding it to the fermenter.

Yes, Glenn, but you didn't mention how to do this... the easiest way is

to boil and cool the water and then siphon it around as if it was beer

(so you don't re-introduce the O2 you boiled out).

******************************

Elaine writes:

>I wanted to try making some cherry stout, but because I am unsure if I

>will really like the flavor (I have never tried any, it just sounds good)

>and because fresh cherries down here in Georgia are so expensive, I want

>to just make half a batch (3 GALS). My secondary fermenter is 6 gals and my

>question is, will having that large air space be a problem?

>Does anybody have an opinion about using fresh cherries versus canned ones?

I used canned cherries once and there was no aroma left in them.  I think

that fresh is the way to go.  By the way, to make 15 gallons of raspberry/

cherry beer, I made up 10 gallons of light ale and then added 5 lbs of

blanched frozen cherries and 5 lbs of blanched frozen raspberries into

each of three 5 gallon fermenters.  I then siphoned 3.3 gallons of the

light ale into the three fermenters.  USE A 1.25" BLOWOFF TUBE OR YOU

WILL HAVE AN EXPLOSION THAT IS NOT VERY PRETTY (RED GUNK ON THE CEILING)!

Incedentally, raspberries are much more flavorful than cherries and the

cherry flavor was not really noticable.  13# of cherries in a 5 gallon

fermenter is what I used for my pKriek.  So for cherries, I recommend

about 3# per gallon of base beer and for raspberries, about 2# per gallon

of base beer.

>> Hmm...  Wasn't planning on going to Portland.  Hate to make the trip just to

>> keep him honest.  Any volunteers to take a brand new MM for the GREAT

>> CRUSH-OFF?

>

>I'll try not to fall into the camp of the humor-impaired here but the

>casual reader and, I'm sure Mr. Listerman, would take offense at the

>insinuation that Dan is a dishonest person.  This makes two such

>swipes at Dan in as many weeks.  And since he isn't here to defend

>himself, don't you think we can refrain from comments like this?

I never thought I'd be disagreeing with Kinney and defending Jack, but

I think that Dan took the first swipe at Jack when he started distributing

a test that compares the Corona with the MaltMill and the Philmill.

In the test, Dan uses a non-adjustable MaltMill and the results appear

to show the MaltMill as being about par with the Corona and the Philmill

about par with a textbook crush.  I don't think that Jack literally meant

to say Dan was dishonest.  I've spoken with both Dan and Jack about each

other's mills and there is definately a rivalry going.  The good part is

that the consumer will be the ultimate victor in this battle -- more

competition means either lower prices or better quality products or both.

[By the way, screen tests don't tell the whole story -- they don't measure

how much pulverized husk material is in the flour.]

Al.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1174, 07/05/93

*************************************

-------


Specialty Products Intl. part 2 of 4

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 13:54 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Specialty Products Intl. part 2 of 4

This is part 2 of my review of "Home Beermakers Guide" by Leigh P. Beadle.

Pg6 INGREDIENTS:

"The beer is made from six basic ingredients: water, malted barley, brewers

corn syrup, bops, sugar and yeast."

Hmmm?  I guess Leigh hasn't heard of Reinheitsgebot (or even

Rheinheitsgebot ;^).  The fact is that brewer's corn syrup is an adjunct

which is quite a bit cheaper than malt extract ($0.74/lb for dextrose versus

$1.77/lb to $3/lb for 100% malt extract).  Some brewers, most notably the

Belgians, use it to make high-alcohol beers without excessive body.  An

all-malt beer with the alcohol level of Scaldis (Bush) would be like

10w40 motor oil!  No, I'm afraid that in this case, it's just to lower

the price and raise the profit margin.  Excessive corn or cane sugar in

a beer will make the beer taste cidery.

"Brewers corn syrup gives body and alcohol and aids in head and CO2 retention."

Typical dextrose-based corn syrup is 100% fermentable (it's all glucose) and

thus will only add alcohol and a cidery flavor.  It will actually reduce

body and reduce head retention.  I've never heard of CO2 retention -- perhaps

something to do with flatulence.  If the syrup does include some dextrins,

it will increase body and head retention, but I would venture to guess that

production of this type of syrup would be more expensive that malt extract

production and thus plain dextrose is probably what is used.

"SUPERBRAU INGREDIENT MIX    The malted barley, brewers corn syrup and hops

are already blended in the correct proportions in the 3.1 lb can for a well

balanced beer.  The unique feature of this mix is that you can vary the

flavor to exactly your own taste in beer.  To do this, you simply extend the

boil in Step 1 beyond the standard 2 minutes.  A two minute boil will give

the flavor of an American premium beer.  If you prefer a more European

flavor, I recommend a high boil for 10 minutes (watch for boil-over)."

Wow!  What a concept?!  Seriously, a two minute boil will not give the

wort time to isomerize the hops (yes, those lumps in the syrup are hops!),

boil off any chlorine in your boil water or coagulate proteins, which

can result in hazy beer.  I also suspect that they are Chinook hop pellets

because that is the only hop pellet that they sell.  Chinook hops have

been reported here in HBD and other forums as having a harsh bitterness

and flavor.

"SUGAR   Note that the can mentions the use of either corn or cane sugar.

Both give the exact same result so use ordinary cane sugar.  It is cheaper

and readily available.  (For a low alcohol beer of 2%, simply leave out

the 2 pounds of sugar in Step 1."

Note also, that in addition to the corn syrup in the can, your are also

instructed to add another 2 lbs of cane sugar.  I would venture to guess

that this brings the maltose level of your wort well below 50%.  I would

also suspect that at this high a level of corn products, the yeast may

have some nutritional trouble with this wort.

Stay tuned...

Al.

------------------------------


sanitzng lids/warm kegs/reconditioned kegs/corrctn/2nd-aries/hop bags/frmntr scum

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 13:51 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: sanitzng lids/warm kegs/reconditioned kegs/corrctn/2nd-aries/hop bags/frmntr scum

Bart writes:

>Here's a few of questions for the experts :

>

>1) I haven't been able to find a good way to immerse my fermeter lid (a

> 5 gallon white plastic bucket with snap on lid) in the sanitizing

> solution.  I can distort the bucket and jam the lid in part way,

I have a sponge set aside for just sanitizing my fermenter lid when I use

the plastic fermenter.  With a rubber glove on, I use the sponge to

sponge-down the lid.  I do this for about 5 minutes then rinse.  Actually,

if you don't overfill your fermenter the kraeusen will not even reach the

lid and if you keep the lid clean, you don't really need to do have it

as sanitized as if it was going to be in contact with the beer.

>2) I've been kegging my beer (too lazy to clean bottles :-).  So far, the

                          ...

> upright and cooled down for extended periods.  Will repeated cycling

> between 45F and 80F spoil the flavor ?  I'm not really concerned

> about any visual effects, only taste.

The temperature changes are not really the problem once the beer is

carbonated, but at higher temperatures, the yeast autolyse faster and you

may get yeasty or sulphury flavors.

>3) I bought a used and dirty Cornelius keg.  I scrubbed the interior out as

> well as I could.  Now, I'm worried whether there might be built up

> crud in the feeder tube or the hose fittings.  Would you recommend

> disassembly and cleaning ?  I've circulated sanitizing solution

> through all of these parts.

I recommend replacing all the rubber in the keg.  Most have 7 rubber parts:

the BIG O-RING, the two poppets, the two small o-rings you see on the

outside and the two o-rings that slip over the two gas and liquid tubes

and sit between the flare on the tubes and the keg (actually, the bottom

half of the connector bodies).  Oh yes, and I recommend also replacing

(if you can) the over-pressure saftey valve.  It has a rubber gasket also.

****************************

I wrote:

>Well, I doubt even the beginners on the HBD can see what's wrong with

       ^^^^^^^

This should have been "I'll bet."

****************************

Michael writes:

>fermentor.  Do you think siphoning into a secondary fermentor would

>improve the flavor?

For an ale, I would say no.  They spend so little time in the fermenter,

that the benefits of a secondary are outweighed by increased risk of

infection (especially in the summer) and aeration.

>Should I use a hop bag for the pellets?

I do, but then I also add 10% to Ragers numbers because of it.  I add another

10% if I use pellets or plugs.

>  Which reminds me, someone posted a question recently about shoving the

>flotsam back down into the wort.  After a week of fermentation I

I recommend against this.  Either Conn or Goeff (sorry, forgot who)

collected some of this scum and checked to see if it was soluble in

water with (I believe) a little bit of ethanol.  The verdict was that

it was not soluble.  I'm quite sure it's mostly hop bits and hop resins

that were extracted from the hops, but did not become soluble.

Al.

------------------------------


Cleaning kegs

Date: Thu, 01 Jul 1993 11:42:22 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>

Subject: Cleaning kegs

Bart sez:

>3) I bought a used and dirty Cornelius keg.  I scrubbed the interior out as

>        well as I could.  Now, I'm worried whether there might be built up

>        crud in the feeder tube or the hose fittings.  Would you recommend

>        disassembly and cleaning ?  I've circulated sanitizing solution

>        through all of these parts.

I'm one of the you-can't-be-too-careful-when-it-comes-to-cleaning-old-kegs

kinds of guys.  One of the results of the great o-ring debate was that

sometimes you get burned with old o-rings and sometimes you don't,

depending on whether that old keg had sprite or rootbeer/coke in it.  If

you don't know, toss all the rubber parts and rebuild to be safe.

You DEFINITELY need to disassemble and clean.  Personally, I've found that

nothing beats boiling up 5 gallons of a hot B-Brite solution, pouring it

into the keg and letting it soak.  After filling the keg, press the little

valve on the liquid side of the keg and the sterilant solution will fill

the dip-tube and clean it, too.  If you don't, the dip tube won't get

cleaned and that COULD be very bad for your beer.

Most homebrew supply shops carry rebuild kits.  Alternative Beverage in

Charlotte, NC does for sure.  1-800-365-2739.  And I'd imagine Al does.

Email him at: korz@iepubj.att.com

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  Kinney Baughman                    |       Beer is my business and

  baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu     |       I'm late for work.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Got a recipe for a Duval approximation, anyone?

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 15:50 CDT

From: timborn@ihlpb.att.com

Subject:  Got a recipe for a Duval approximation, anyone?

From: ihlpb!timborn

Postmark: Your official 'out of the box thinker'


Got a recipe for a Duval approximation, anyone?

Date: Thu Jul 1 15:42:49 1993 IH

To: homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

Subject: Got a recipe for a Duval approximation, anyone?

A Belgian beer imported to the states called Duval (trans.

'devil'?) has always caught my tastebuds just right.

I checked my notebooks/cookbooks and the Cat's Meow, but I

didn't stumble across anything that claimed to approximate

this one.

How does one go about trying to duplicate a given beer?

I don't think my tastebuds are in the league where I can

hoist a class and then pencil a recipe.  How about you?

Have any of you either found a recipe for a Duval-clone or

created one and stashed it away in your notebook?

"Enquiring minds want to know."

Best,

 -tim

t.born@att.com

------------------------------


hops storage

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 16:45:35 cdt

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@GRIN.EDU>

Subject: hops storage

Wizards of Wort:

I plan to try using more whole hops in the near future.  I have read the info

in the hops catalogues of Glenn Tinseth and "Mark from HopTech" - really good

info in there, by the way, thanks guys! - and I am beginning, sadly to

*worry* about storage.  I have the freezer space, so temperature is not a

problem.  Oxygen, on the other hand, is.  One of these gentlemen recommends

storing unused whole hops in a CO2-purged mason jar; the other recommends

"investing" in a vacuum-sealer.

I have neither CO2-capability nor a vacuum sealer.  I know CO2 systems are

pretty expensive, but I don't know a thing about vacuum sealers.  Can anybody

enlighten me?  I really don't want to sink a lot of dough into new equipment

right now.  If I plan on using the hops all up within a short period of time

will this be o.k.?  How long can they sit in a freezer in a non-O2-free

environment and still be reasonably fresh?  If I can't count on using them up

within a short period of time, should I just go with pellets for the longer

shelf-life?  Please, no pellet-vs.-leaf wars here - that isn't what I'm

interested in.  Glenn and Mark, if you're listening, I'd love to have you

clarify the info on storage in your catalogs, and I'd like to hear anyone

else's $.02 worth as well.

A final question on whole hops: when I used them before I had the devil of a

time siphoning the cooled wort out without getting all clogged up, unless I

used bags to contain the hops.  Are bags o.k. or is there some evidence they

cut down on hop utilization?  If it is preferable not to use bags, what

tricks do people have for siphoning w/o clogging?

Hmm... seems like I have a lot more questions about brewing when I'm not

doing any.  Maybe now that several of you have encouraged me to go ahead and

brew on those cool summer nights, I'll get back to business and stop asking

so many questions.

"Just Brew It."

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


zymurgy article

Date: 01 Jul 93 19:26:07 EDT

From: "Elizabeth Gold, zymurgy/Brewers" <75250.1351@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: zymurgy article

As editor-in-chief of zymurgy magazine, I am currently in the final stages of

refining the articles for our 1993 Special Issue.  The theme of this year's

Special is the traditional brewing techniques of England, Germany and America.

I am currently looking for someone to cover two subjects in the English culture

section:

1  Homebrewing in England -- an overview of what it is that makes this brewing

specifically English.  This could include trends, popularity, styles, etc.,

and

2  English Brewing History -- For the other two cultures, this subject covers

the basic history and includes ingredients, development, style, trends, etc.

I know you all are the experts, so I am turning to you for assistance!  If

you're interested, either send me a note through C$S (75250,1351) or call me at

(303) 447-0816.  Deadline for these articles is the week of July 20 and length

is up to the writers -- I just want the subjects covered.

I look forward to hearing from you!

All the best, Elizabeth Gold

------------------------------


large vs. small scale brewing

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 17:57:43 -0600

From: lager!wtm@hellgate.utah.edu (Tom McCollough)

Subject: large vs. small scale brewing

In HBD #1171 Mark Garetz writes:

> Forgive me for a bit of a tangent here, but this is kind of like why there

> aren't really any good formulas for predicting bitterness based on all the

> variables.  The reason is that commercial breweries don't change their

> process often, so that is in effect a constant.  They also have a lab to

> measure (and tasting panels to confirm) the actual amount of bitterness

> they're getting for a given hop addition.  They also have the luxury of

> blending batches to correct mistakes and get better consistency.  So their

> "formulas" are based on a lot of trial and error with measurement and

> subsequent adjustment, with the knowledge that their yeast strain,

> fermentation temperature, etc. will all remain constant and can be tightly

> controlled.  So do they care to have a formula that they can plug in lots

> of variables and get a reasonably accurate bitterness calculation?  No.

> So we don't have one either (yet).

This is such a good observation.  There are many simple, yet

unanswered, questions posed to the HBD.  These are the kinds of

questions that one would think were answered years ago by a brewing

scientist working for a big brewery.  But your observation hits it

right on the nose: the big brewing scientists are busy answering

questions that are more appropriate to "big brewing".  As small scale

brewers, we have quite an opportunity here!

Tom McCollough

wtm@gr.cs.utah.edu

------------------------------


Small Batch too much air? NO!

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 20:09:21 CDT

From: Gene Zimmerman <ezimmerm@hp.uwsuper.edu>

Subject: Small Batch too much air? NO!

Salutations!

   Someone wrote in July 2nd's HBD wondering if 3 gal of beer fermenting

in a 6 gal carboy would cause problems. I assume the person was worried

(GASP!) about oxidation. The CO2 produced by the beer is heaver than

air and will blanket the brew. No need to be concerned. I would

recommend using a starter batch of yeast to get the fermentation going

faster. Good luck!

Gene in Duluth (Soon to be Laramie =)

------------------------------


Hop bags. racking tips

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 18:59:00 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hop bags. racking tips

Michael Barre writes (with lots of stuff deleted):

>Should I use a hop bag for the pellets?

>Which reminds me, someone posted a question recently about shoving the

>flotsam back down into the wort.  After a week of fermentation I

>uncovered the wort to scoop some out with my sterilized (boiled for 15

>minutes) Pyrex measuring cup to test the s.g.  At that time I pushed

>most of the scum from the sides of the bucket back into the liquid with

>my sterilized steel spoon.  I don't know if that contributed to my

>problem, but I won't do it again.

>If I use pelletized hops, I will put them in a bag.

>I may or may not use liquid yeast, and may or may not siphon off

>into a secondary fermentor after the fermentation settles down.

First a disclaimer.  Although I do sell hop bags that keep pellet particles

contained, I'm about to *not* recommend them for Michael's usage.

I assume your problem with the hop pellets is the particles getting into your

finished beer and that you want to use a hop bag to prevent this from

occuring.  While this will certainly do the trick, it will also cause other

"negative" effects.  Most importantly, your hop utilization will suffer

(meaning that you'll get less bittering power).  Also, there are many

benefits to be had to the wort by having the hop particles (whole or pellet)

thrashing around in the wort during the boil (help with protein coagulation

 - aka the hot break) is the main one.  Sorry I can't give you a number on how

to adjust your utilization downwards, there are just too many variables,

which brings me to my next point:  The hop particles will expand quite a bit

when they get wet, so make sure you don't over-fill the bag while they're

still dry.  To give you an example, we sell a 4x6" hop bag and we recommend

only 3/4 of an ounce maximum amount of hop pellets in that bag (which is a

*lot* smaller than 4x6" when dry).  This amount of hops will expand to fill

the whole bag.  Utilization will suffer because the wort can't get to the

hops easily.

Anyway, I recommend you do use a secondary and rack carefully.  The two step

racking process should leave all of the pellet particles in the trub layer on

the bottom.  This is instead of the hop bag.  The hop bags are great for dry

hopping, but I don't like them for the boil.  Also, your racking techniques

will improve with time.  The key is to have a reliable way to suspend the

end of the racking tube just above the trub layer.  I use a rubber stopper

that fits in my carboy with two holes in it:  One for the racking tube and

the other I use to force CO2 into the carboy (at *low* pressures) to push the

beer into the secondary (I use a soda keg for the secondary).  If you don't

have the CO2 around, you still need the second hole to allow your siphon to

work.  There are these orange carboy caps around that do the same thing,

but make sure they fit your carboy before you buy one (mine didn't!).  You

can also use Kinney Baughman's BrewCap system if you want the cadillac system.

Lastly, I have had success with the racking tube securely rubber-banded to a

clothes pin (with some extra rubber bands to make it close tighter) and then

clip this to carboy neck.  The problem with all of these is that you usually

can't see the end of the racking tube once it's in the beer.  The answer:

a ruler.  Measure from the top of the trub layer to the carboy neck's top,

and then measure your racking tube to figure out where on the tube you'll

have to line up with neck top.  As the beer gets close to the tube bottom,

you can usually adjust the tube bottom downwards now that you can see it, so

err a bit on the high side when setting the tube depth.  BTW, I have found

the "orange racking tip" thingy to be essentially worthless.  Ditto

Fermtech's $2 racking tube clothespin.

About the scum:  You're right.  Don't do it again.  This could be responsible

for all of the "off-tastes" in your beer.  The scum has a lot of hop alpha

acids, beta acids and tannins in it, and will also affect your calculations

for utilization if you put it back in the beer (you'll get more bitterness,

but you don't want it, trust me).  If you want a shock, taste some of it.

Liquid yeast:  Yes.  Make the switch.  You won't be sorry.

Mark

------------------------------


Advertising

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1993 19:10:25 -0800

From: ulrich@sfu.ca

Subject: Advertising

 Martin A. Lodahl writes:

>We've learned to expect advertising on the

>more conventional media to be less than completely reliable;  for

>this quality to slip unannounced into this forum compromises the

>credibility of every scrap of information presented here, especially

>for the newer brewers who are less prepared to sort fact from

>factoid, and don't yet know who's selling what.

This sounds like an argument _for_ advertising. Doesn't advertising have

the effect of informing said newer brewers who's selling what and thus

whose postings should be taken with a grain of salt?

Charles Ulrich

------------------------------


Mash Question, Crazy Grain Mill Idea

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 19:15:35 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Mash Question, Crazy Grain Mill Idea

Having just made the switch to all-grain about four batches ago, I have a

question for the more experienced mashers:

I have always adjusted the mineral content of my water "to style" using

gypsum, epsom salts and sodium chloride.  Since going all grain, I have

adjusted the mash water and sparge water in proportion to their volume,

without any regard to their pH - mainly because the pH test strips I bought

(pHydrion 5-7 range) are junk and I haven't bought any replacements yet.

Basically I decided not to worry about it.

I have always gotten decent extractions (except my first batch because I

didn't grind the grain fine enough).  My latest pale ale got around

32 pts/lb/gal.  I just did another batch, but decided to leave out any

mineral additions to see if it would make any difference to the taste of the

beer.  Things proceeded fine but my extraction was down around 28.5 pts.

Could the higher pH of the water (because I didn't add any gypsum) make that

big a difference, or was I just lucky before? BTW, I use EBMUD water, which

is pretty good quality "soft" water and I use a single infusion "picnic

cooler" mash/lauter tun.  Mash temp for both batches was around 154F, sparge

temp of 170F.

Grain mill "crazy" thought:

The other day while waiting in an office supply superstore for some copying

to be completed, I was wandering around and happenned into the "paper

shredder" section.  One happenned to be at the right height for me to look

down into its jaws (it was on top of a trash can).  I had always assumed

these things had blades in them, but they actually have little wheels that

look like 1/4" wide mini rollers from a malt mill, grooved and all.  The

spacing between the rollers seemed about "grain width" and I wondered if one

rigged a suitable hopper if these things could be used as a motorized grain

mill?  The model I saw had plastic rollers (may not last too long with grain)

but some of the more expensive models had metal rollers.  The cheapest ones

were in the $50 range, the most expensive around $100.

Now:  Not wanting to sneak a handful of grain into the office supply store to

try them, does anyone on the Digest own one of these things and be willing to

try some grain and report back?  If it works, this might be a nice already

motorized malt mill for not much money.

(Warned you it was crazy)

Mark

"If architects designed buildings the way programmers wrote programs, a

woodpecker would come along and destroy civilization!"

------------------------------


Jim Koch???  //  Houston brewpubs

Date: Fri, 2 Jul 93 7:28:31 EDT

From: grctechs!tmcguire@grctechs.grci.com (Terry Mcguire)

Subject: Jim Koch???  //  Houston brewpubs

My apologies if you have already beaten this issue into the ground

but I have literally (and figuratively) been out of town.  Why does

Jim Koch have such a bad reputation?  I gather that he likes to sue

people, but I don't have the full story.  I like the beer, although

I have had much better.

Also, can anyone tell me if there are any brewpubs in Houston?  I may

have to spend a month or more down there and I will need some relief

from the heat & humidity.

thanks!

Terry McGuire

tmcguire@grctechs.grci.com

------------------------------


Big brewers & real beer

Date: 2 Jul 1993 08:25:30 U

From: "Westemeier*, Ed" <westemeier@pharos-tech.com>

Subject: Big brewers & real beer

Al K. sez:

> Perhaps the brewmasters and food chemists at Anheuser-Busch have worked

> so hard to remove all traces of beer flavor from their "beer" that they

> have forgotten how to brew real beer.  Actually, the fact that the

> industrial megabrewers are taking notice of beer with flavor is a good

> sign.  All we have to do now is to encourage the good brewers to keep

> giving A-B the finger.

My first reaction was "right on!" but then I had a second thought.  Here

are some data points:

Jim(tm) Koch(tm) and his gang of contract brewers did a truly wondrous

thing for this country.  They made a very high quality beer widely

available to the mass market.  That's GOOD!

The last time I passed through the Denver area, I drove out to Golden

and had some fresh Coors Winterfest at the brewery tasting room.  It was

absolutely outstanding.  Even when I see it at my local supermarket, it's

not bad, and that's GOOD.

Miller is apparently trying to do the same thing on a larger scale

with their new Special Reserve Amber (disclaimer:  I haven't had the

opportunity to try it yet, so the jury is still out).  Again, that's

GOOD (at least from the reports I've been seeing).

The last time I heard a statistic, all the microbreweries and all the

brewpubs and all the homebrewers in America put together only made

a small fraction of one percent of the output of the big 3.  They have

nothing to fear from us, and the renewed interest in GOOD beer can

only help the big guys by making their "pasteurized processed beer

product" more popular.

So far, the big guys haven't done anything to the little guys in

this country except recognize the competition and try to compete

fairly.  Since positive reinforcement generally works better than

negative, maybe we should be telling the big guys how much we appreciate

their efforts to improve quality.  Saying "I'll buy this new product

you make" rather than "I won't buy this old swill you make" seems like

it would have a greater effect.

And yes, I think it's essential that A-B keep its grubby fists off

 the real Budweiser Budvar brewery!

++ Ed Westemeier   Cincinnati, Ohio   westemeier@delphi.com  ++

------------------------------


Orange peel in Belgian brewing

Date: Fri, 2 Jul 93 14:14 GMT

From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>

Subject: Orange peel in Belgian brewing

Steve Stroud's excellent post in Friday's HBD prompted me to write regarding

on ingredient that he mentions: orange peel.

I think the concensus is that brewing Belgian-style beers is tough to do,

and I'm sure that anyone who's seriously worked on this has had more than

their share of disappointments.  I know I have.  It's therefore with some

regret that I must add another complication: there's more than one kind of

orange peel being used in Belgian brewing.

The one we are most familiar with, at least by reputation, is curacao or

bitter orange (the latter term actually being more common).  In its dry

state the peels look like they're made of plaster, and dirty to boot.  The

dried peels are quite stiff, and are more likely to snap than bend.  When

broken they give off a fleeting but enticing aroma of Cointreau, and when

nibbled are noticeably bitter.  Brewers who buy the peels in large quantities

get them in hunks that represent about 1/4 of a single orange's peel.

Bitter orange peel is also available in European herb and spice shops in

smaller chips, and can be bought by the gram.  I have yet to find it here

in the U.S. (and believe me, I've called just about everywhere), and

usually people don't even know what I'm talking about.  The only people who

do are very experienced cooks, who use the peel for certain Provencal

meat dishes.  I believe these oranges are grown in Spain and Northern

Africa.

The less-known orange is called sweet orange.  In fact, I strongly suspect

that it's not too far from your standard, grocery store orange.  These

peels come to brewers in spirals, the kind you'd make if you were trying to

peel an orange in a single shot.  These are more orange colored than the

bitter orange, less dry, less aromatic when crumpled, but are also less

bitter and more orange-tasting.

I recently was able to bring back a small supply of each from Belgium.

The guidelines I received from brewers there are to use the bitter orange

in moderation, up to a maximum of 1 gram per liter of finished beer.  I

think the average use is closer to 0.5 grams/liter.  The sweet orange

can be used more liberally.

So, what do these do for your beer?  We're still in the early experimental

stages, but it appear that the sweet orange is what imparts any acutal

"orange" flavor.  On the other hand, the bitter orange gives no orange

flavor or aroma at all, but if I'm not mistaken does provide a very

noticeable but mellow bitterness--not herbal at all like hops.  I recently

made a white beer using only the bitter orange--.75 grams per liter to

get its full effects--and found it to be sort of richly bitter but absolutely

lacking in orange character.  I added the zest of two oranges to teh

secondary.

The bad news is that the bitter orange appears to be impossible to get over

here, although if you can bring some back it will probaby last you quite

a while.  The good news is that if you can't get the sweet orange you

can probably substitue Sunkist zest without losing too much.

Phillip Seitz

PSEITZ@MCIMAIL.COM

Arlington, VA

------------------------------


In defense of Jim Koch

Date: Fri, 2 Jul 93 11:02:50 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: In defense of Jim Koch

First of all thanks to some excellent tips on high gravity brewing (esp

D. Richman), and on Tripples.  It is subjects like these that keep craft

brewing interesting and exciting long after one has become "advanced".

Of note in the discussion is what I believe is a major factor in producing

high gravity beers and diluting them, that is fermenting the product at

the desired OG and not adding water to the finished ferment.  I am not

doubting the experience related on the diluted Pils, but I agree with

the concept of a cleaner beer if you ferment at the desired OG as opposed

to fermenting and then adding water to the keg. Obviously, if one is

aiming for more esters, a high gravity ferment will help.

Tripples:  I think the best advice is to use all Pils malt, and 2-4 lbs

of sugar noble hops and a clean high gravity yeast.  We are currently

experimenting with LaChouffe so this is a definite possibility.  A test

of Duvel and Westmalle cultures might be in order also.

In defense of Jim Koch:

Despite the well known negative aspects of the BBC and its relations

to other craft brewers, I want to praise him for building a world class

brewery in Jamaica Plains.  While I have not personnaly visited the site

(yet), a noted brewmaster friend has just returned with rave reviews of the

equipment and dedication of the staff.  Apparently both kettles are fired

allowing full decoction mashing to be done.  The variety of beers produced

here is enough to make any homebrewer at home.  Apparently a super bock of

some 40% ABV was made and stored in old Jack Daniels Whisky barrels! The

report indicated a distinct "whisky/oak" character in the sample.  The

brewers are free to experiment and get feedback from the clientel. It is

in this way that some really good recipes are developed and only after

adequate market tests are then contracted out.  From a pure brewers point

of view (no buisness men around) this is what we need more of in small craft

breweries in the US.  It takes some risks to produce some winners.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

PS: I am interested in personal experiences with home made and dispensed

cask conditioned ales.  If anyone is using isinglass and a beer engine,

email me with details and experiences.  Thanks

------------------------------


Brew shops and pubs in Baltimore

Date: 02 Jul 1993 08:37:46 -0800 (PST)

From: "Alon Ben-Shmuel, EUCS, X 6681" <SHMUEL@CSMC.EDU>

Subject: Brew shops and pubs in Baltimore

I'll be moving to Baltimore next month and wanted to know if anyone in Homebrew

land knew of any Brewshops or Brewpubs in the area.  Please respond to me

directly (no need to waste bandwidth).

thanx in advance,

Alon Ben-Shmuel

shmuel@csmc.edu

------------------------------


High gravity brewing

Date: Fri, 2 Jul 93 15:56:00 +0000

From: SCHREMPP_MIKE/HP4200_42@hp-ptp.ptp.hp.com

Subject: High gravity brewing

All my beers are high gravity brewed.

I'm an all grain brewer without the 10 gallon stainless pot. I have one of those

5 gallon (or is it 33qt?) enameled pots. I mash in a 3 gallon Gott round

insulated picnic drink cooler (can only hold 9 lbs of grain, if I was buying

one rather than using the one I already had, I'd go for the 5 gallon version).

I sparge in the same cooler using a false bottom.

Due to the small size of my mash tun, I tend to have think mashes. My process is

to put all the grain in the cooler, and add mash water to fill it up, stirring

along the way. I almost always do a protein rest, then put it all into my

brew pot to bring it to mash temp. This process lets me maximize the water in

the mash (since I fill up the cooler) and lets me stir the whole thig well (in

the brew pot).

I usually get 28-30 points per pound (a new brew unit, the ppp?), with the

lower rates for high temperature sweet mashes, and high rates for lower temp

drier mashes.

I recirculate til clear, then sparge with lots (note no measurement) of hot

(75-80C) water, and keep going until the brew pot is nearly full of sweet wort.

After the boil, I usually have about 3 - 3.5 gallons of wort which I cool using

a counter flow / ice bath chiller. I top up to 5 gallons in the fermenter.

Due to the limitation of 9 lbs in my mash tun, my OG's tend to be below 1.055,

but at the 3.5 gallon stage they are as high as 1.075. I don't make any

corrections for hop utilization, etc.

I like my beers, so I guess I have the perfect brewing system (BrewPerfect tm?).

Mike Schrempp

If I can't even smell my own bad breath, how can I tell if my beer is bad?

------------------------------


vanilla and cardamom

Date: Fri, 02 Jul 93 15:37

From: RON.admin@admin.creol.ucf.edu (RON)

Subject: vanilla and cardamom

Noticed only a few receipes with reference to their use....

Any expieriences using vanilla (not extract but bean) or

cardamom seeds or pods ground up.

Will post results of replies later.........

- --

ron@laser.creol.ucf.edu

------------------------------


re: Electrim Bin

Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1993 07:48:25 -0400 (EDT)

From: jdg@cyberspace.org (Josh Grosse)

Subject: re: Electrim Bin

In HBD 1173, Bruce MacDonald complained that he doesn't like the beers he

makes in his Electrim Bin, and complains of an off-flavor.  He wonders also

if temperature control may affect it.

Well, I've bin a Bin use for a couple of years, and have been able to make

beers without detectable flaws in it.  I use a grain bag for mashing and

sparging.  Bruce didn't say if he uses one as well.  If he doesn't, and

he isn't stirring continuously, non-stop, without a break, he can scorch

grain against the heating element.  This may be the cause of the off-flavor.

I don't have problems with temperature control.  I mash in approximately

3 gallons (imperial), regardless of the size of my grain bill.  I stir

fairly regularly during mashing.  I've stopped using iodine to test my mashes,

and every sugar rest runs for 90 minutes

I've also improved my sparging, which now gives me 34 points / us gallon, by

ensuring that the grain bed is fully compacted in the bag.  I drop the level

of wort way down, untie the grain bag and let it settle on the bottom, watch

my wort slow to a trickle and clear completely.  I then add the wort back in

and add sparge water as needed.  A sparge now takes 2 hours or more.

If your off flavor is "wet cardboard" or "sherry/winey", you're problem may

be oxidation caused by aeration of the wort when it's still hot.  If you

transfer your wort from an un-grainbagged Bin to a lauter-tun, using the

spigot, and you "pour" into a lauter tun when mashing on the stove, this

difference in procedure could be the source of your problem.

- -----------------------------------------------------------------

Josh Grosse                               jdg@grex.cyberspace.org

                                              Ann Arbor, Michigan

------------------------------


Bringing beer into Canada

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1993 22:19:04 -0400 (EDT)

From: jdg@cyberspace.org (Josh Grosse)

Subject: Bringing beer into Canada

In HBD 1171, Fred Waltman (waltman@bix.com) asked:

>I have a family re-union this summer in Sault Ste. Marie, ONT., and I would

>like to bring some homebrew. Is there any particular problem with importing

>homebrew into Canada or should I bottle it all in old Coors bottles with the

>labels still on <grin>? I would assume that I would have to pay duty just as

>if it is store-bought beer.

This spring I talked to Canadian customs and was told the following:

If it's for your own consumption, and you stay longer than 24 hours, you

can bring 24 12-ounce bottles with you free of import duty.  If you are

bringing it in as a gift, you can expect to pay between C$10 and C$13/case,

depending on value determination.  Store bought beer is easy to value, homebrew

would depend on your declaration of strength, I suppose. (Standard, premium,

super-premium?  Alcohol/vol?  Starting gravity?  Customs officer whim?).

Were I you, I'd call Canadian customs in S.S.M. before going, get the name

and title of the person you talked to, and *bring* that persons name with

you when you go, just in case.  What I was told may have no bearing on what

happens to you at that border (I'd checked with Customs in Windsor).  What-

ever you do, be sure to declare your beer.

- -----------------------------------------------------------------

Josh Grosse                               jdg@grex.cyberspace.org

                                              Ann Arbor, Michigan

------------------------------


Re: Blueberries, sparge setups

Date: Fri, 2 Jul 93 16:51:31 EDT

From: neilm@juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Neil Mager )

Subject: Re: Blueberries, sparge setups

 > Edward Croft <CROFTE@delphi.com> says:

 >

 > > Allan Wright's Amber Wheat Beer fruit base in HB1166.  I have been

 > > contemplating a fruit beer, and this may do the trick.  But, Allan,

 > > blueberries in beer?  Let me know how that turns out.

 >

  Boston Beer Works makes a really good Blueberry ale. They even

  put a few blueberry's in your glass. Great beer on a hot summer night

 > Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com> says:

 >

 > Jim Liddil <JLIDDIL@AZCC.Arizona.EDU> and "Mark S. Nelson"

 > <mnelson@eis.calstate.edu>, respectively, ask:

 >

 > > I obtained a straight sided keg from the scrap metal yard this weekend.

 > > Now I want to turn it into a boiler/lauter tun.  Has any one ever

 > > mounted an EasyMasher(TM) on a keg?  What other manifold setups work

 > > well that can be easily removed?

 >

 > > I'm a kit brewer second in the feild ready for the grain. Please give me

 > > your best advice,  I really would like to know how to construct the best

 > > system.

 >

 > There are a number of different lautering options:  an easymasher, a

 > slotted copper pipe manifold, a false bottom, a separate double-bucket

 > Zapap-type as described in Papazian.  The subject has been covered at

 > various times here, maybe it's time for a monthly FAQ?

 >

 > Anyway, I favor the slotted pipe setup, since it's completely

 > removable, doesn't require you to drill a hole in your pot, and can be

 > disassembled for easy cleaning.  I posted plans in HBD #1099 (Mar 17

 > '93).  The description of the EasyMasher(tm) were originally posted by

 > Jack Schmidling in HBD #754 (Nov 4 '91), and there was a lot of

 > discussion and diagrams during March '93.

I compiled a digest of all grain & mash tun lauter tun designs.

Much of the discussion is included in the digest. You can ftp it

from sierra.

- --

===============================================================================

Neil M. Mager

MIT Lincoln Laboratory       Lexington, MA

  Weather Radar - Group 43

Voice                       (617) 981-4803 (W)

Internet                    neilm@juliet.ll.mit.edu

America On Line             neilmm@aol.com

===============================================================================

------------------------------


Re: Lauter Tun Manifold

Date: Fri, 2 Jul 93 18:23 PDT

From: lfk@veritas.com (Lynn Kerby)

Subject: Re: Lauter Tun Manifold

>

>I have a question that I hope someone can answer. I am making a manifold for

>my lauter tun with copper pipe in which I will make small cuts with a hacksaw.

>The question I have is do I make the cuts face up or down or does it matter?

>

Just made one myself a couple of batches ago and I am pleased so far.  I made

mine with the cuts facing down, but I suspect that it really doesn't matter

all that much.  I suppose I could turn it over and find out sometime.

Are you making a manifold with tees, endcaps, elbows, etc or just a coil of

3/8" copper tubing with some slots cut in it?  I went whole-hog and build a

manifold from 1/2" hard copper pipe (I think I saw the original idea on the

HBD a few months ago) that uses 4 tees, 2 elbows, 4 endcaps, some reducing

couplings, a vent pipe riser, and a siphon pipe riser.  The vent pipe and

siphon pipe are soft 3/8" copper.  I didn't solder anything, it is all just

press fit with a little crimping/flaring where necessary to make things

snug.

>Also, what are the pro's and con's to a manifold type lauter tun.

>

I don't know what you plan to lauter in, but I have had a minor problem with

establishing and maintaining proper outflow rates.  I do my lautering in my

mash pot (doing a stove-top style step mash) which is a 6 gallon Vollrath

pot.  At mash-out time, I thin the mash a little more with a couple of

quarts of sparge water, then I drop my lautering manifold in and start a

siphon.  I siphon off a quart or two, recirculate it and away I go.  Again,

the only problem has been establishing a siphon and maintaining a suitable

flow rate.  I think I am going to put a ball valve on my siphon hose and see

if that helps any for the next batch.

I suspect that this is a side-effect of my setup, but I don't suck the grain

bed dry anymore.  I don't consider this good or bad, just different.  I have

been getting excellent yeilds with the manifold, the real test will be

trying to sparge a big oatmeal stout.

>Any info would be greatly appreciated.

>

>Thanks,

>

>Don Doyle

Hope this is helpful,

Lynn Kerby

lfk@veritas.com

------------------------------


plastics and forced carbonation

Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1993 17:49:23 +0501 (EDT)

From: Paul Gibbs <paulrgb@gibbs.oit.unc.edu>

Subject: plastics and forced carbonation

I've been seeing a lot of hype about plastics (food grade or not food

grade?  does it leach monomer in the presence of alcohol?).  Recently a

brewing buddy of mine has just converted his bottling system to 33 oz

seltzer or gingerale plastic bottles(PETE #1 - recycling code on the

bottom).  These bottles have the following advantages:  20 bottles fit

easily into 2 milk crates, so you can bleach and rinse all at once as a

batch;  20 bottles holds a five gallon batch w/ less work - you can fill

them directly after cleaning/sterilizing, and without removing from the

milk crate to cap just screw the lid on snuggly.  They work like a charm!

Also the way the bottle is shaped traps most of the sediment that starts

to role down at the end of the pour - also if you don't want a 33 oz belt

you can recap for later (half a bottle, or so, is still substantially

carbonated the next day).

NOW THE BIG NASTY QUESTION - does it leach monomer?  If so, is it a

biohazard - brain/liver/genital toxic?

If anybody out there has a decent knowledge of

polymers/monomers/plasticizers please write back in to help settle the

plastic questions once and for all - it would be great to see a table of

suitable plastics to use with beer.

Also, I've been thinking about investing in the 5 liter cans (from brew Ha

Ha) - Which I was told are also internally lined with a polymer coating.

Can these be force carbonated - if so what does it involve?

by the way this list serve is really well run - I thoroughly enjoy reading

HBD.

Paul Gibbs (dental student - Chapel Hill, NC)

paulrgb@gibbs.oit.unc.edu

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1175, 07/06/93

*************************************

-------


filter, etc catalogs

Date: Sat, 3 Jul 93 17:34:04 -0700

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: filter, etc catalogs

Another catalog for filters ( and pumps ) is SERFILCO, Ltd ...

 Glenview, IL, US 800 323 5431

 Leola, PA, US  717 656 2161

 Los Angeles, CA, US 213 588 6826

Also, someone asked about Cole-Parmer ( or was it Fisher ? ) so ....

 Cole-Parmer  1 800 323 4340

          647 7600 ( within 708 area code )

    1 708 647 7600 ( within 312 area code )

 Fisher   international company with at least 16

    800 numbers, for the United States alone.

    recommend phone book, or email me for a

    specific area number.

 Omega   1 800 622 2378 ( customer service )

      203 359 1660 ( international )

 ... this represents all of the members of my catalog collection, whom have

materials which I think might be pertinent to brewing. ( Others whom have

alternatives I don't know about are encouraged to post them. ) I use these

catalogs as stimuli to my creativity, as well as resources for tangibles,

and references as to what sorts of technology are commercially available.

( For instance, did you know that teflon-lined plastic tubing is available ?

  Would this be easier to sanitize ? I wonder ... )

Anyone have a reference to a catalog of DC motors or two ? ( For solar-powered

mills, and mashers, of course - using kinetic waveform generators to facilitate

the mash process ... :-)

- -- richard

The silliest thing I ever read,  richard childers, pascal@netcom.com

Was someone saying "God is dead."

The simple use of The Word

Negates the second, and the third. ( Duke Ellington, _Sacred Concert_ )

------------------------------


Re: Electrim bin

Date: Mon, 5 Jul 93 11:22 GMT

From: Andy Phillips <PHILLIPSA@LARS.AFRC.AC.UK>

Subject: Re: Electrim bin

There was a query last about boiling in Electrim bins. I have

the same problem, namely that the thermostat cuts the power too

frequently when boiling, so that the wort never quite reaches

a rolling boil. I got around this by by-passing the thermostat.

The element socket on my bin (I bought this 10 years ago, here

in the UK - yours may be different) fits a standard kettle plug.

I connected this to this mains. The only risk is that the element

is not designed to take continuous power, and heat transfer from

it may also be reduced by burnt-on sugars. However, I've only had

one disaster so far - the element failed during a boil, and I had

to boil the wort in 1 gallon batches on the stove. Moral: always

carry a spare.

Hope this helps

Andy Phillips

Bristol, UK

------------------------------


attenuation and my $.02

Date: Mon, 5 Jul 93 10:35:44 CDT

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: attenuation and my $.02

Ok fellow home brewers...(remember this phrase I'll get back to it), I

have read Papazian in depth and been reading the HBD for about a month

now and I have yet to get a definition of attenuation...something to do

with the production from yeast? Please email me your responses on this

question - if there's interest I'll post something to be entered into a

HBD dictionary reference somewhere.

 Ok back to the start..."fellow home brewers" - we are all here

reading this digest (thanks go out to Rob Gardner) for one key

reason...we enjoy home brewing.  There may be other aspects to that: the

many year experienced 'philanthropist' type spreading his or her

experience through the net, the neophyte (like myself), or others who

see an opportunity to generate interest in a product within their core

market.  Be that as it may, it is quite evident that this bulliten(sp?)is

self-policing (I have yet to see evidence of non-self-censorship or

people getting kicked off the net), some people do a very good job of

letting letting others know that they've gone too far.  Problem is, its

all just somebody's opinion, so what are you going to do about it

anyway.

Bottom Line: be thankful that we have the resource, some of us aren't as

thick skinned as others - so take it easy *please* - thank you very much

for your responses and your time.

    Good luck and good beer,

      Chris

======================================================================

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu |

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

======================================================================

------------------------------


never mind on attenuation

Date: Mon, 5 Jul 93 10:50:15 CDT

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: never mind on attenuation

oops - about 15 mins after I posted about attenuation etc. I figured it

out please forgive the momentary stupidity of the poster...but anyone

out there might clarify: attenuation is a term expressing just how far

you can expect to get from your initial gravity to the final gravity

(how far will the gravity *attenuate*), often expressed as a percentage

with all the way to 1.000 being 100% attenuation.  Any responses and

comments to get my .... out of my .... can be sent via email.

   Good luck and good beer,

      Chris

======================================================================

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu |

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

======================================================================

------------------------------


Pumps, Farmers, Noble,

Date: Mon, 5 Jul 93 11:31 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Pumps, Farmers, Noble,

 >From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@GRIN.EDU>

 >For those of you who have chest-freezers with top-opening designs, how do

 get the full carboys in and out w/o breaking your backs?

 I rigged up a rope and hook arrangement that didn't work very well and found

 that if I put the keg on a chair and then into the freezer, it was

 manageable.  That is until I moved on to a ten gallon keg.   This is going to

 take a few pulleys and a serious hoist.

 However, I have a pump to move beer from fermenter to keg so the only reason

 to have to lift it would be to be able to shake it when carbonating.  It only

 take a few days to carbonate it at 25 lbs so I have been doing it that way.

 I think the pump was one of the best improvements I have made in my brewery

 and it cost nothing.  I just removed the one from the sink in my little used

 motor home.

 .......

 Just noticed you said carboy not keg.  Good luck :)

 >From: Gene Zimmerman <ezimmerm@hp.uwsuper.edu>

 > It is said: Farmers make wine; Engineers make BEER! This is

 not simple sloppy work we are doing here....

 What is often said, aint always so.  Careless, uninformed people can no more

 make good wine than good beer.  Being an engineer, I put everything I know

 into both and know for a fact that you only get out what you put in and

 considering the time invested in a good wine, the rewards can be far greater

 than from a good beer.

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >Styrian Goldings are neither noble nor are they Goldings, actually.

 The only three noble hops (this was confirmed from various sources

 in the Brewer's Forum) are Hallertauer, Tettnanger and Saaz.

 I think a definition of "noble" would be appropriate.  Doesn't sound like

 anything a botonist could get a hold of.

 Just what does it mean?

 js

------------------------------


do-it-yourself mash tuns - some pointers

Date: Mon, 5 Jul 93 10:52:09 -0700

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: do-it-yourself mash tuns - some pointers

"Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 12:36:53 PDT

 From: Jurrasic Engineer <fecich@csoa1.enet.dec.com>

 Subject: Homemade Bruheat/HB store in PGH/Advertising in HBD

"I'm looking for suggestions from anyone who has tried to make a home-made

 'Bru-heat' type mash-tun. I've located the parts (cooler, 1KW element,

 thermostat), but I still have a few questions....

">Should the heating element be separated from the grain with screen?"

">I will place the thermostat near the element, but will there be a possi-

  -bility of wide temperature variations in the grain?"

">Should I include some method of mixing/stirring the grain as I mash?"

    -=*=-

I see some major problems with a lot of mash tun designs I see posted.

Few of them, for instance, make use of any sort of insulator - choosing,

instead, to put the heating element directly in the grain ... as well as

failing to circulate the water through which the heat is transmitted ...

There seems to be room for a better design.

Tossing my hat into the ring, as it were, here's a proposal for a pretty

good - but purely theoretical, as of this time - build-it-yourself mash

tun ... I haven't built it yet, but I've been designing it in my head for

a few months now.

 (1) acquire two nested buckets

  - one, sufficient to hold, say, six gallons

  - one, sufficiently larger, that the first bucket

    can be placed within it, and be separated by at

    least 1" of air space from the second bucket

 (2) assemble buckets, support structures, heating and

  sensing element(s), circulating element(s)

  - cement plastic support structures to bottom of

    larger bucket ( to support weight of the bucket

    intended to sit within )

  - cement heating element(s) to inside of larger

    bucket, on side(s), evenly spaced ( more, smaller

    heating elements, evenly distrubuted, gives a

    better overall control of temperature, as well

    as a degree of fail-safe behavior / redundancy )

  - cement circulating pump(s) inside larger bucket,

    on side(s) - some sort of pump to circulate water

    is absolutely necessary to guarantee that pockets

    of heat and cold do not develop, or that water

    does not become stratified by temperature.

  - cement smaller bucket, atop supports cemented to

    inside bottom of larger bucket, well centered -

    note that heating and circulating components are

    placed such that they can be reached, and not

    beneath the ( now cemented ) bucket.    (-:

    ( a 1" air space may not be sufficient, and a

      2" air gap may prove more desirable. )

  - optionally, cement braces along sides to hold the

    smaller bucket centered, against bumps and such,

    should it prove necessary to move the masher while

    it is full of water - be careful not to obstruct

    water circulation, or reorient circulation to keep

    this from becoming a problem.

 (3) to operate,

  - fill air space with water

  - adjust thermostat to correct temperature

  - turn on circulation pump, heater

  - add water, grain to inside bucket, mash

The advantage of this design is a stable temperature - as a great deal of

thermal mass, in the form of the water jacket surrounding the inner mash

chamber, resists sudden changes in temperature.

Other advantages are the separation of the temperature module, from the

mashing module ... and, with the addition of a two lids ( one to close

off the mashing tun, and the other to cover the whole thing, and keep the

water in the jacket from steaming off - despite this, water will need to

be added periodically to offset evaporation ), and a wrapping of thick

insulating material, you have a perfect mash tun. No flames, no hot spots,

no problems at all.

I haven't solved the problem of circulating the mash yet, but some sort

of mechanical oscillator - one suggestion has been a rotating shaft with

eccentrically shaped washers on it, another has been piezoelectrical

vibrators such as are found in pagers - would suffice, as this would

create kinetic waves that would bounce through the solution and disturb

any sorts of pockets or stratifications that might develop.

This chamber might also be used to cool the wort, also, by using the outer

jacket to contain _cold_ water ... and with the addition of an outlet

valve, with a removable rolled-up screen, bent at one end, into a pipe that

went through both inner bucket and outer bucket, you could sparge, as well

as - after removing the screen and replacing the hot water with cold water

 - pour the wort off of the hot break, all very nicely.

This also has room for added control electronics, so it could become half

of a BrewBot, if anyone wants to make an automated homebrew robot. ( Making

the bottling automated, now _there's_ a challenge ... :-)

Comments ?

- -- richard

The silliest thing I ever read,  richard childers, pascal@netcom.com

Was someone saying "God is dead."

The simple use of The Word

Negates the second, and the third. ( Duke Ellington, _Sacred Concert_ )

------------------------------


Copper question

Date: Mon, 5 Jul 93 14:26:56 EDT

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: Copper question

Well, I have finally started to build a coppper manifold and have a

question.  I see two types of copper pipe in the hardware store; M type

and L type.  What kind do I want?  Do I care?

Thanks.

- --

Jim Grady

Internet: grady@hp-mpg.an.hp.com

Phone: (508) 659-3409

------------------------------


Elaine's question about 3gal batch in 5gal carboy

Date: Mon, 05 Jul 1993 14:59:05 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: Elaine's question about 3gal batch in 5gal carboy

Elaine writes:

I want

>to just make half a batch (3 GALS). My secondary fermenter is 6 gals and my

>question is, will having that large air space be a problem?

Since no one has responded to this, I would like to say that it *should*

*NOT* be a problem.  As far as I can see this is equivalent to using

an open fermenter (or maybe it is even a little better).

A tip for other novices (this includes me): a cheap source for 5gal glass

carboys are stores that sell spring water. They are usually available for

a $7.00 deposit (+/-).

Hoppy brewing!

Patrick Weix

<weix@swmed.edu>

------------------------------


Keg Information Needed

Date: Mon, 05 Jul 93 16:07:07 EDT

From: roberts735@aol.com

Subject: Keg Information Needed

With all the talk on the HBD lately about CO2 pressure, I have grown

interested in kegging.

I have located five 2.5 gallon kegs at a used restaurant supply house.

Two of them have screw-on caps with tapered rubber washers, while three have

clamp-type lids with smaller rubber gaskets/o-rings.

There is also a combination of fittings on the tanks themselves, with some

having pins, and oteers having grooves for snap-rings.

I would appreciate hearing from any kegger out there on the relative merits

of these various types.

The kegs are pretty crudded-up, but I think they will clean.  Are there any

fine ponts to be aware of before sinking money into these kegs?

TIA, and please reply to me with private e-mail, and I will post to the HBD

if there is a consensus opinion. Please private e-mail to  America On Line if

possible.

Robert Stovall

RobertS735@aol.com

------------------------------


Help with homebrew at a party.

Date: Mon, 5 Jul 93 11:49:47 PDT

From: rcristad@weber.ucsd.edu (Riccardo Cristadoro)

Subject: Help with homebrew at a party.

 I am brewing a batch of pale ale for my friend's wedding

this weekend.  Soon, I will keg the beer into a cornelius keg.

My question regards how to keep the beer cold enough in the sun

at the wedding?  Does anybody have experience with portable

homebrew?  I planned to stick the keg in a bucket of ice.  Thanks

for your suggestions.

STEVE

------------------------------


Dangerous Zymurgy suggestion

Date: Mon, 5 Jul 93 11:51:08 PDT

From: rcristad@weber.ucsd.edu (Riccardo Cristadoro)

Subject: Dangerous Zymurgy suggestion

     I recently purchased a back issue of Zymurgy (Gadgets and

Equipment). After reading an article on preserving and freezing

yeast by Maribeth Raines Ph.D. I decided to give her suggestions

a try.

     I only wanted to store my yeast for a few weeks to a month

so I followed her directions for storing the yeast in the fridge.

I mixed yeast from the primary (British #1098) with an equal

amount of a sucrose solution mixed at a ratio of 1 cup of water

to  3/8 sucrose. I understand that the article was mostly about

freezing yeasts, but she also suggests,"On the other hand, if you

plan to use the same yeast within the next few months you can

save the yeast from your primary fermenter and store it with an

equal volume of sucrose (it's cheaper than glycerol) in the

refrigerator.(Zymurgy Special 1992, p. 69)"

     The new solution was placed in the fridge in a sanitize and

closed glass jar.   In a few hours I noticed that the solution

was fermenting away.  So, over the last few days I have been

venting the jar to keep it from exploding.  This situation seems

quite dangerous.  Most of all, I was surprised to see an ale

yeast ferment at 38 degrees.  Should I take that to mean that I

have a wild yeast fermenting away beside the British yeast

strain.

     Any suggestions are appreciated.  Am I doing something

wrong?  Any suggestions or amendments to the article.

STEVE

------------------------------


Cask Question

Date: Mon,  5 Jul 1993 21:37:16 -0400 (EDT)

From: Keith Sabol <ks5v+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: Cask Question

I have a friend who is interested in racking his brew in a wooden (5

Gal.) cask.  Can anyone recommend appropriate amounts of priming sugar

and/or an information source for the required details?

Thanks!

------------------------------


Besieged by baleful bacteria

Date: Mon, 5 Jul 93 21:21:39 MDT

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Besieged by baleful bacteria

Fat Wanda's Brewery & Recording (my basement) is under attack by vicious

bacteria.  I've had a recurring house infection that I can't seem to get

rid of, in spite of the scourings and bleach treatments.  Now it's

gotten to the point I can't even get an uninfected starter!

To the best of my meager knowledge, it's some kind of lactobacillus or

possibly pediococcus infection.  Symptoms are cloudiness, a slight

acidic flavor and aroma, and a tan slime on top of the krausen.  These

all match the symptoms described in Noonan (p.  81).

My starter had been prepared normally, with dry malt and some hops,

boiled, put in clean jars, given a water-bath canning procedure,

then put in the fridge for a few weeks.  I popped a package of WYeast

1056 on Saturday, let it swell for a few hours, then pitched it into a

quart starter and capped with an airlock.  By Monday, the infection was

obvious.

I can't imagine how the infection entered the starter.  The airlock

stopper?  The airlock itself?  Are there any beer-loving strains of

lacto or pedio that can survive canning?  Is there any easy way to ID

the exact beasties that are giving me problems, and if I do will it

help?

This is really getting frustrating.  I now have a batch of porter that

will have to sit overnight until the brew store opens tomorrow and I can

get some fresh yeast.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Looking for a High-Gravity recipe / Watermellon recipe

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 07:02:09 PDT

From: high-gravity recipes anyone?  06-Jul-1993 0959 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Looking for a High-Gravity recipe / Watermellon recipe

Hi y'all,

I'm interested in brewing a high-gravity all-grain brew.  I'm currently

limited by my pot (5gal) and stove.  Can anyone suggest a high-gravity

recipe?  I can boil up to 4gal of liquid...  I do have a lauter-tun (Zapap

type) that works adequately.

 ........

Also, anyone have a watermellon recipe?  I bought a H20 mellon this weekend

for a pahty and we never used it.  It is a 16.3 pounder - i would like to

brew something with it.

Thanks,

JC Ferguson

Digital

Littleton MA USA

------------------------------


Carboys

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 10:50:59 -0400

From: Rich Ryan <ryancr@install4.swin.oasis.gtegsc.com>

Subject: Carboys

I'm looking to purchase a few used carboys. I've tried some of the

local bottled water companies but they seem to use plastic these

days. The homebrew shops I've visited want $16 to $18 for a new

one. Can anyone suggest a different  alternative?

Any suggestions can be emailed to me privately.

Rich Ryan

Chantilly, VA

------------------------------


Miller's recipe question

Date: Tue, 06 Jul 93 11:28:31 EDT

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: Miller's recipe question

After 5 all grain batches, I re-read Miller's "complete" book to see if it

made more sense now (it did).  I have a question about hop rates in a couple

of his recipes (pages 213, 214).  The format of these recipes is:

 xxx AAU hops

 3rd addition 1 ounce (count only half of the AAUs toward your total)

         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

What on earth does that mean?

- --Tony Verhulst

------------------------------


Wedding brews

Date:         Tue, 06 Jul 93 11:42:15 EDT

From: Kern <IZSJ@CORNELLA.cit.cornell.edu>

Subject:      Wedding brews

While I am here in Ithaca NY trying to get a thesis written by the end of the

year, I am also in the process of planning an Oregon wedding for next Spring.

(I fell in love with the place (after working a summer in Portland --it will be

"home" just as soon as I wrap things up here in New York!)  We are getting

married at Timberline Lodge (Mt. Hood) probably around the early part of June

or late May '94.  The reason I am writing to you all is for some advice.  I am

a homebrewer (since my days in Portland) and my fiance and I are avid

appreciators of fine brew.  Thus, we would like to plan our wedding reception

around beer.  Say, for instance, a Duvel-like toast, IPA or an amber during the

meal, followed by something along the lines of a barley wine or Grant's

Imperial Stout.  I am hoping to work something out with one of the micro-

breweries in the area (Widmer, Hood River, Mt. Hood, or even Weinhard?) for

contract batches of both barrels and some custom bottled brews for souvenirs.

(I'm sure it would taste better on the first anniversary than that frozen

wedding cake!)

    I am pretty sure this is "do-able", but the most difficult part is trying

to coordinate everything from 2,000+ miles away!  If any HBDers (esp. you

in the Pacific NW) have any clues, advice, hints, suggestions, (ETC..!)

I would REALLY appreciate it!  Thanks.

                                   KERN

------------------------------


Fourth Annual Colorado Brewers Festival

Date:    Tue, 6 Jul 1993 12:06:48 -0400 (EDT)

From: TAYLOR@sbchm1.chem.sunysb.edu

Subject: Fourth Annual Colorado Brewers Festival

 I attended a Brewer's Festival in Fort Collins, Colorado on

June 26 and 27. I was particularly impressed with Judge Baldwin's Amber

Ale. It was a remarkably pleasant way to spend part of a weekend.

- -------------------------------------------------------------------

Dave Taylor

- -------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


brewpubs in Providence

Date: Tuesday,  6 July 93 11:15:52 CST

From: ADCMR@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: brewpubs in Providence

Hello fellow brewers,

    I will be moving to Providence, Rhode Island in a few weeks and figured

I would plumb the depths before I jumped (not that I haven't already committed

by climbing the ladder).  In any case, I will be living somewhere in the

vicinity of Brown University and would like to know of any brewpubs and

homebrew suppliers in the area.  If there is some sort of a homewbrew club

I would also be interested in that.  Thanks much for any information y'all

can provide me with.

Caleb Rounds

bidding a woeful farewell to glorious Austin, Tejas.

------------------------------


KQED San Francisco Beer Festival

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 16:48:00 +0000

From: ron_hall%80@hp6400.desk.hp.com

Subject: KQED San Francisco Beer Festival

I am surprised that there have been no posts yet about the KQED

San Francisco Beer Festival.   Perhaps it is the format of the thing

that makes it not get the kind of recognition that the GABF or the Oregon

Brewers Festival get, as it may not appeal to some homebrewers.

Let me describe it this way:

     Have you wandered into your local import beer shop and said to

yourself, "boy, I sure wish I could taste ALL of these beers."  Well,

you almost can.  The format of the KQED Beer Fest is that you pay

about $30 for a ticket, then you get to taste all the beer you can in

3 hours.  About 250 beers are represented, mostly imports and microbrews.

I can't remember all of them, but Samuel Smith, Paulaner, Bass, Guinness,

Anchor, Sierra Nevada, and many others serve their full assortment of brews in

1-2 oz tastes, usually poured from bottles. There are also many free food

samples such as french bread, salmon pate, etc., to soak up some of the brew.

     I have to admit that I like the format of the Oregon Brewer's Fest

better, as it is more relaxed and its outdoors.  But I know of no other

festival where you can taste the variety of import beers as the KQED.

Also, the servers are often volunteers who know nothing about the beer,

and the palate tends to become a bit muddled after tasting several

hundred different beers :).   Nevertheless, I always manage to have a

great time.

     The KQED Beer Fest is on July 10 in San Francisco, I believe at

the Armory, south of Market Street near I-80.  Disclaimer:  I have

nothing to do with this Festival, just thought you should know.

Also FYI, KQED is the local public television station.

     Bay Area Locals:  Please post corrections or more specific info if

you know more than this.

Ron Hall, Corvallis, Oregon

ron_hall@hp6400.desk.hp.com

------------------------------


Attenuation of Wyeast 1056

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 10:20:22 PDT

From: hpfcla.fc.hp.com!miata!rlbowen

Subject: Attenuation of Wyeast 1056

   I am formulating a recipe for IPA and in going through the Cat's Meow

   I've noticed several testaments to Wyeast #1056 producing certain aroma

   and flavor characteristics that I desire so I intend to give it a try.

   But, what I couldn't find was any data on its attenuation. Does anybody

   out there have any attenuation data on Wyeast #1056 (Chico Ale yeast

   also known as American Ale yeast)? No need to take up bandwidth, just

   email me direct.

   Thanks,

   Randall

_________________________________________________________________________

Randall Bowen

INTERNET : rbowen@analog.analog.ingr.com

_________________________________________________________________________

------------------------------


High Gravity//South Carolina HB

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 10:30:44 -0700

From: ek@chem.UCSD.EDU (Ed Kesicki)

Subject: High Gravity//South Carolina HB

Here's a data point on high gravity beermaking.  I did this once inadvertently

on my 2nd all grain batch.  I managed to make a wort with an orig. grav of

around 75-80.  I fermented it as such, using Sierra Nevada Yeast.

Came time to bottle, and I got three gallons bottled (out of five total).

Then I decided to bring the last two gallons up to three using tap water,

added an appropriate amount of additional priming sugar, then bottled.

These beers came out totally different.  The undiluted one was very strong

and had that winey flavor (similar to bigfoot barleywine).  The diluted one

turned out to be a reasonably good pale ale.  Very interesting.  I'd be

interested in hearing from someone else who could go through this same

simple process and see if my data point is valid.  Another good point is

that you get an extra gallon without much extra work and without obtaining

any larger equipment--and you get two different beers, to boot.

Also, another thing to consider is hop rate.  My original wort was well

hopped. 11 or 12 AAU's, so the diluted one ended up with a decent bitterness.

Second Thing:  I am moving to Columbia, South Carolina in about a month.

  Anyone have any advice or info on where to get HB stuff around there,

  either in town or by mail order.  I am doing this now in case I don't have

  internet access there.  Thanks.

Ed Kesicki

San Diego, CA

------------------------------


Low gravity all grains

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 18:05:50 GMT

From: Martin Wilde <martin@gamma.intel.com>

Subject: Low gravity all grains

This past weekend I brewed an all grain English Bitter (I know English Ale

on the 4th of July... flame off...).  The target gravity was 1037.  I used

1 qt of water per pound and grain.  Usually I am fairly good at hitting

my target gravities.  Most of my batches are OG of 1045 - 1080.

For a 5 gallon batch I collect 6.5 gallons of extract (stopping when

gravity reaches 1010).  However this time I was only able to collect

5 gallons of extract.  I had to add 2 gallons to the fermenter to get

the gravity down from 1056 to 1039.  What gives?  Is this just the

results of brewing low gravities and having to top off the boiler with

water?

thanks

martin@gamma.intel.com

------------------------------


Full carboys

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 13:19 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Full carboys

Jonathan writes:

>For those of you who have chest-freezers with top-opening designs, how do get

>the full carboys in and out w/o breaking your backs?

Simple... carboy handles.  I've got one on each of my nine carboys.

Al.

------------------------------


orange peels/ranting

Date: Tuesday,  6 July 93 13:59:18 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: orange peels/ranting

Howdy,

In HBD 1175, Phillip Seitz writes about orange peel in Belgian beers.  As a

point of reference, Celis White is brewed with Curacao peels.  They grind it

with coriander in a small grain mill.  If that's the flavor you're shooting

for, that's the orange to use.  I have no idea where Pierre Celis gets it

from, though.

Speaking of Celis, he sold his small brewery in Hoegaarden, Belgium, a few

years back to Interbrew, a huge brewing conglomerate.  With the millions he

made he was able to set up shop here in the states.  If Jim Koch did the same

with A-B, maybe it will allow him to do other things in the world of brewing.

It certainly will give him a lot of fast capital to work with.  And who cares

if A-B is brewing Sam Adams?  If they stay faithful to the quality (believe

it or not, Auggie Busch is big on quality), does it make any difference if

Koch or Busch is in charge?

Happy brewing,

Alan Van Dyke

Austin, TX

------------------------------


OOPS!!!

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 13:54 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: OOPS!!!

I wrote (quoting Michael):

>>Should I use a hop bag for the pellets?

>

>I do, but then I also add 10% to Ragers numbers because of it.  I add another

>10% if I use pellets or plugs.

              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This should have read WHOLE hops or plugs.  I add 10% for the hop bag because

I contend (and have verified empirically) that the decreased agitation of

the hops and decreased circulation of wort through the hops when using a

hop bag require an increase in the amount of hops you use.  I increase another

10% when I use whole hops or plugs because I theorize that the pelletization

process exposes a lot more lupulin than is available in whole or plug forms

of hops.  Again, I have settled on 10% because my experience, with perhaps

75 batches since I started to make these compensations mathematically (instead

of just targeting for a higher IBU in the formulas), has shown that they are

pretty close -- within the tolerances of my tastebuds.  I'd like to verify

these numbers with actual tests, but the cost of these types of tests are a

bit too expensive for me at this time.  Perhaps some day.

Al.

------------------------------


Converting a 1/2 bbl keg...

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 13:38:18 PDT

From: MIke Peckar  06-Jul-1993 1635 <m_peckar@cscma.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Converting a 1/2 bbl keg...

Could someone please send me a copy of that article on converting a 1/2 bbl

SS keg into a lauter/mash/brewing contraption? I've recently acquired a

nice one and would like to look more into donning the welders hat.

Thanks, I tried to locate it in the archives, but got a bit overwhelmed by

the volume...

m_peckar@cscma.enet.dec.com

------------------------------


Freezer controls/Miller Special Reserve

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 16:59:51 EDT

From: sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com (Omega)

Subject: Freezer controls/Miller Special Reserve

I am picking up a chest freezer this weekend, and I will need to put a

controller on it for fermentation/lagering/etc.  While I've seen mentions

of controls by Hunter, Johnson, and Williams in the past, I would like to

get info/pros/cons/raves/flames on these or others.  Given enough response

I will post a summary.  Private e-mail please, to "73410@sdlcc.msd.ray.com"

Had a chance over the fourth to try the new Miller Special Reserve Ale (tm,

no doubt).  Not to my taste, but it was a passable light ale with flavor

characteristics reminiscent of the "regular" Miller pBeer.  Any educated

palates care to tackle whether that is yeast, hopping (I couldn't taste

any), or both?

Carl Howes

------------------------------


Re: HBD soul-searching and hops

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 14:58:26 PDT

From: mdcsc!gdh@uunet.UU.NET (Garrett Hildebrand)

Subject: Re: HBD soul-searching and hops

Regarding Jonathan Knight's HBD 1174 posting on advertisements

and technical posts: right on! Well said.

Regarding my Southern California hop garden, the hop cones have

just started  appearing in the last week. These are Cascade. I

recall someone mentioning a while back not to grow hops near

roses because the bugs on roses are bugs for hops, too. Well, I

have no choice; the only spot in my yard which is good for hops

is right next to the roses.

I also have had no problem. I have enough praying mantis, lady-

bugs and green lacewings running around my yard that little in

the way of spray-on chemicals has been required. But there is

a reason why one would not want to grow hops near roses which

has bee brought to my attention, and which I'll share.

If your roses -- or any other plant near the hops -- are being

treated with any type of systemic insecticide, then beware,

because the systemic in the soil can be absorbed by the hops!

Garrett         <uunet!mdcsc!gdh>

------------------------------


Re: lautering manifold with siphon

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 14:59:52 PDT

From: mdcsc!gdh@uunet.UU.NET (Garrett Hildebrand)

Subject: Re: lautering manifold with siphon

In HBD 1175, Lynn Kerby discusses a lautering manifold in a pot,

>I don't know what you plan to lauter in, but I have had a minor

problem

>with establishing and maintaining proper outflow rates.  I do my

>lautering in my mash pot (doing a stove-top style step mash) which is

a

>6 gallon Vollrath pot.  At mash-out time, I thin the mash a little

more

>with a couple of quarts of sparge water, then I drop my lautering

>manifold in and start a siphon.  I siphon off a quart or two,

>recirculate it and away I go.  Again, the only problem has been

>establishing a siphon and maintaining a suitable flow rate.  I think I

>am going to put a ball valve on my siphon hose and see if that helps

>any for the next batch.

I, too, have a six-gallon Vollrath. I have been thinking about

modifying

it with a valve on the bottom, as has been mentioned by others, and of

trying out the "easysparge" type of system discribed by js and others,

but I haven't found anybody to do the welding, and I also don't know

where to get a suitable stainless valve.

After reading your comments about your lautering manifold and the use

of

a syphon, it sounds like you have gotten around the problem of needing

a

valve on the pot.

How about a little more detail on how this manifold is set up?

Garrett         <uunet!mdcsc!gdh>

------------------------------


Hop bags/mash pH

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 16:41 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Hop bags/mash pH

Mark writes (in reference to not using hop bags for boiling hops):

>Also, there are many

>benefits to be had to the wort by having the hop particles (whole or pellet)

>thrashing around in the wort during the boil (help with protein coagulation

> - aka the hot break) is the main one.

Indeed hop particles will help with protein coagulation, but I feel that you

should wait till after the hot break to add the hops in the first place.

The last time I recall reading about this is in a post from Stuart somewhere

around HBD 1150.  My contention, as that mentioned by Stuart, is that the

hops will do too-good a job coagulating proteins *AROUND THEMSELVES* thereby

reducing the utilization.  Now, if you wait till after the hot break, I

suggest that there will still be some coagulation of proteins around the

hops, but not nearly as much as if the hops were added before the hot break.

Why does this matter?  Well, the theory is that the protein coagulated

around the hops will reduce utilization.  I have not done side-by-side

tests of this, but I do recall a significant increase in hop utilization

when I began to wait for the hot break before adding the hops.  I did not

put the two together till someone on the HBD mentioned it.

>Anyway, I recommend you do use a secondary and rack carefully.  The two step

>racking process should leave all of the pellet particles in the trub layer on

>the bottom.  This is instead of the hop bag.  The hop bags are great for dry

>hopping, but I don't like them for the boil.

I disagree.  I do just the opposite.  I use a hop bag for boiling primarily

to avoid the problems of having to remove the hops from the wort later,

either as you pour the wort into the fermenter (my screen kept clogging

and that made it a real pain!) or when racking.  I just compensate by

adding 10% more hops.  I don't use a hop bag for dryhopping but only use

whole or plug hops because they float.  I've never had any problems

siphoning the beer out from under the whole hops.

>Also, your racking techniques

>will improve with time.  The key is to have a reliable way to suspend the

>end of the racking tube just above the trub layer.  I use a rubber stopper

>that fits in my carboy with two holes in it:  One for the racking tube and

>the other I use to force CO2 into the carboy (at *low* pressures) to push the

>beer into the secondary (I use a soda keg for the secondary).

then later:

>BTW, I have found

>the "orange racking tip" thingy to be essentially worthless.  Ditto

>Fermtech's $2 racking tube clothespin.

Interesting, but I've had no trouble with the orange tip on the end of my

racking cane -- I tip the carboy with a stack of coasters or a block of

wood and then gently lower the cane into the lowest part of the carboy.

I then use masking tape or a rubber band to make sure the cane doesn't

move.  I discard the first two cups or so and the beer runs clear from

there on.  Perhaps you are not getting a good cold break and your trub

layer is very deep.  Then again, you've got hops in your trub and I don't.

On a typical 5 gallon batch, my trub layer is about 1 inch thick, say

between 0.75 and 1.5 inches.  Just for the record, I have not tried

Fermtech's racking tube holder.

In another post, Mark writes:

>I have always gotten decent extractions (except my first batch because I

>didn't grind the grain fine enough).  My latest pale ale got around

>32 pts/lb/gal.  I just did another batch, but decided to leave out any

>mineral additions to see if it would make any difference to the taste of the

>beer.  Things proceeded fine but my extraction was down around 28.5 pts.

>Could the higher pH of the water (because I didn't add any gypsum) make that

>big a difference, or was I just lucky before?

The pH does make a big difference and the luck is that you still got

28.5 points without adjusting the pH.  Those enzymes are pretty picky

about their environment and you could have gotten much worse than 28.5.

Al.

------------------------------


Yield calculator (tm)

Date: 06 Jul 1993 18:52:30 -0600 (CST)

From: RBSWEENEY@msuvx2.memst.edu

Subject: Yield calculator (tm)

As part of my neverending work to improve the spreadsheet program I use to keep

track of my brewing I decided to include an Extraction Rate Calculator (tm) to

automatically compute an extraction yield based on the o.g., total weight of

grains used, gallons of beer produced (pts/lb/gal).  I then decided to go that

one better and include a calculation for the maximum extraction rate based on

some yields found in Dave Miller's book-Brewing the World's GreatBeers (p.

129).  These yields in alpha order are:

Type of malt  Yield

Black   24

British crystal         26

British mild            33

British pale            36

Brown sugar  45

Cara-pils  30

Chocolate         24

Crystal   24

Flaked barley           30

Flaked maize            40

Malt extract (dry)      45

Malt extract (syrub) 35

Munich   28

Pale 2-row  35

Pale 6-row  33

Roasted barley          24

Vienna   32

I can now find the maximum yield for a batch by typing in the type of grain and

the pounds used, then use a lookup table to access the above yields in my

maximum extraction rate formula.  I have also included a formula for the

percentage of maximum yield to give me an idea of the efficiency of my

mashing/sparging operations.  When I plugged some of Miller's recipes from

BTWGBs I computed efficiency ratings of between 81-91% of maximum, which is

what I got on my last couple of batches.  However, since Miller did not include

any source for these yields I was wondering if they look reasonable to the

informed readers of the HBD.  Also he did not include yields for a couple of

grains I have used in the past, such as Wheat malt and Flaked Oats and I was

hoping someone else could supply them.

In the for what its worth department, on my last batch I used an all-at-once

sparging method (you pour in the all the sparge water, mix for 10 minutes, let

it settle and after recirculating until clear, drain the wort into the brewpot)

which was described in the FAQ on grain brewing in the archives (sorry, I can't

remember by who to give proper credit) and got an 85% yield efficiency.  If I

can get this high a percentage with this extremely simple approach I don't

think I will ever go back to the old way.

I will merrily post any interesting reply results received relative to grain

yields.  As always, your constructive comments are greatly apprectiated.

Bob Sweeney

Department of Management Information Systems

Memphis State University

RBSWEENEY@msuvx1.memst.edu

P.S.  Invoking the principle of one CPU, one vote, I would like to see the HBD

include less technical ramblings and more investigative reporting (do we have

someone watching Koch(tm) full time now?), argumentativeness and flaming

characteristic of Phil, Montel, Opera, Hard Copy, Current Affair, etc.

Lets quit this polite and informed, but incessant bickering and really spice

it up so we can have a forum to be proud of.  :)

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1176, 07/07/93

*************************************

-------


Specialty Products Intl. part 3 of 4

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 16:45 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Specialty Products Intl. part 3 of 4

This is part 3 of my review of "Home Beermakers Guide" by Leigh P. Beadle.

Pg8:

"PROCEDURE  Fill your fermenter with 4 gallons of cold water."

No mention of boiling and cooling, so I'm assuming that plain, chlorinated

or bacteria-laden tapwater is recommended.  Chlorinated water, if unboiled

to drive off the chlorine, can result in chlorophenols in your beer which

are detectable to taste at the parts-per-billion level.  Bacteria, well,

we all know what that will do to your beer.

"Add 1/4 teaspoon of gelatin to the water in the saucepan without stirring,

bring to a boil, and turn off the heat.  Add a can of Superbrau Ingredient

Mix and a level teaspoon of salt to the saucepan and stir until completely

dissolved."

Hmm?  Gelatin?  Salt?  My ingredient count is up to 8, how about yours?

Gelatin can reduce chill haze if used correctly, but it should be used

at bottling time and not boiled -- just raised to 140F to sanitize.

Boiling it would render it quite useless for fining-out the tannins

that the author is presumably trying to remove.  It's true that a little

salt can improve flavor (Chlorine ions), but I'd say that this recipe is

already beyond help.

"Add 2 pounds of cane sugar (4 cups), and stir until dissolved.  Reheat

the mix to a boil for 2 minutes, then pour it into the cold water in the

fermenter.  Stir thoroughly or the hot mix will sink to the bottom.  Next,

pour a pack of Superbrau yeast into the beer and after 10 minutes, stir

thoroughly."

No mention of aeration.  To me, "stir thoroughly" is different from aeration.

Even though this is dry yeast that was "imported from overseas," it still

requires that the wort be aerated.  Again this 2 minute boiling time is a

laugh and a half.  By the way, cane and corn sugar will, indeed, create

the same cidery flavors, but they are not actually the same.  Corn sugar

is dextrose (glucose) and cane sugar is mostly sucrose.  Yeast can absorb

glucose directly, but sucrose is a glucose molecule bonded to a fructose

molecule and thus must be split outside the yeast cell by an enzyme that

yeast release (whose name escapes me at the moment) before being absobed

by the yeast.

Pg9:

"To carbonate, add on-half teaspoon of white household sugar to each of your

clean 12 ounce bottles.  You will need 48 bottles.  Use a small funnel and

1/2 measuring teaspoon."

No mention of sanitizing the bottles, spoon, funnel or the sugar.  Bacteria

and wild yeast can and do exist on clean glass, spoons, funnels and in

sugar.  Besides being unsanitary, inconsistent carbonation can be the

result of this procedure, not only from inconsistent amounts of sugar, but

also from incomplete dissolution of the granular sugar.  No, a much better

way of priming is to siphon into another food-grade vessel and add a measured

amount, 1/2 to 3/4 cup dextrose boiled in a cup or two of water.

To be continued...

Al.

------------------------------


subscription request

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 17:13:11 PDT

From: russ@netcom.com ( Russ Mclaren)

Subject: subscription request

Please add me to the list.

Thanks,

Russ

mclaren@ikos.com

------------------------------


Hops: Growin' & Dry

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 18:01:46 -0800

From: pohl@unixg.ubc.ca (Derrick Pohl)

Subject: Hops: Growin' & Dry

Two points re hops - one a question, the other a report:

1) Growin' Hops

I planted two rhizomes about six or seven weeks ago, received from a mail

order company.  One was Nugget, the other Centennial.  Nugget sprouted and

is doing well, but no sign yet of Centennial.  I followed the accompanying

directions, i.e. planted upright with the top of the rhizome about two

inches underground.  I'm sure neither was planted upside down.  Both had

small traces of some sort of mold growing here and there on the skin of the

rhizome (they were shipped wrapped in plastic bags).  They've had plenty of

water and are in a sunny spot, but the soil is not great.  Realizing the

soil was indeed substandard, I fertilized nine days ago and the Nugget,

which had sprouted but was small, responded vigourously.  But still, no

Centennial.

My question is:  is there hope for the Centennial?  How long can a rhizome

conceivably sit underground without sprouting?  Might it appear next year?

Or is it now no more than a decomposing stick?

2) Dryhoppin'

Just wanted to report with considerable glee that my first attempt at

dry-hopping has resulted in a phenomenally hoppy and delightful pale ale!

I think it's the only way to get that bright, in-your-face, almost

citrus-like, aggressive hoppiness characteristic of the finest North

American microbrew.  I threw an ounce of loose Cascade hops into the

secondary and bottled nine days later.  The hops pretty much just floated

on top, even though I tried to push them down a couple times with a

sanitized slotted spoon, and I was worried that not enough hop flavour

would get into the brew, but my fears were groundless.  God knows what the

hop utilization figures might be (though judging from the recent thread on

the issue, even s/he is probably not sure), but the result was exactly the

delicious mega-hoppiness I sought.  And as has been suggested here, one

does obtain a major aroma boost with little additional bitterness.  I also

had no clogging problems with the racking tube.  The hops just floated at

the top, and I siphoned the beer out underneath them.  I look forward to

trying it with my lagers next winter.

So if you haven't tried dry-hopping yet, do it, do it, do it!

- -----

Derrick Pohl (pohl@unixg.ubc.ca)

UBC Faculty of Graduate Studies, Vancouver, B.C.

------------------------------


Oxygenation during secondary rack

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 19:07:02 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Oxygenation during secondary rack

In planning my next batch of beer, the question came up as to

the extent of oxygenation when racking to the secondary.  Anybody

want to estimate the effects?  Other than to be as gentle as

possible any suggestions to minimize the oxygenation?  How about

throwing a small piece of dry ice into the secondary, and letting

it evaporate.  CO2 is heavier than air and as the dry ice sublimates

it should force out all the air.  Should I bother?

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Beer in Chicago, Beer at the ballpark (Philadelphia)

Date: 06 Jul 93 21:59:10 EDT

From: Matthew Mitchell <IEKP898%tjuvm.bitnet@TJUVM.TJU.EDU>

Subject: Beer in Chicago, Beer at the ballpark (Philadelphia)

From:  Matthew Mitchell

Sorry if this rains on anyone's parade, but I was quite disappointed by

Goose Island when I visited Chicago a couple of weeks ago.  Granted I didn't

get to try the Hopscotch Ale which I was looking forward to (it's my kind of

style) but there wasn't anything there that I liked as much as its counter-

part which I had had at Dock Street (Philadelphia) the night before.  Best

example was the weissbier: I actually finished the sampler size at Dock Street

the first weissbier I remember finishing|

Generally, the Goose Island seemed less flavorful.

To change the subject: someone pointed out the micro-brew available at the

Stick.  Veterans Stadium now has a stand on the 200-level which is exclusively

imported beer (and some from Pottsville 8^)  Price is $4.75 a bottle with

a couple of exceptions like Sam Smiths.  Now I didn't check to see if they

actually had everything offered: I'd much rather bring a half-gallon of

lemonade (99c) and maybe a flask if I have to have something alcoholic.

Do we need to compile a Ballpark beer guide???

My recommendation:  Blue Hen beer at Wilmington, Del.

(As I've said before: Lion in Wilkes-Barre is #1 for contract-made beer

  both the late, lamented Trupert  BTW: anyone ever try to match that or

  get the recipe from Joe Ortlieb? and Blue Hen.  Apologies to West End,

  a close #2, if only because the Saranac they sell themselves)

Howzat!?!

Matthew Mitchell     <iekp898@tjuvm.tju.edu>   <iekp898@tjuvm.bitnet>

Former Brewmaster, Penthouse Brewing Co., Haverford PA

makers of Barclay Beer, Penthouse Brown Ale, and Big B Malt Liquor

Inquiring minds want to know:  how the h*** did SCHLITZ win the GABF???

------------------------------


Problems with recent batches---cidery taste

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 20:20:35 -0600 (CDT)

From: jim@n5ial.mythical.com (Jim Graham)

Subject: Problems with recent batches---cidery taste

My apologies if this appears twice---it shouldn't.  It seems that my first

attempt at routing this via a faster UUCP path didn't quite work.  :-(

First, some background:

I'm more or less a beginner....  I still brew from kits (or at least, from

malt extracts+hops), and can't afford the equipment to go beyond this yet.

I've made a fair number of batches, and all (except the most recent two)

came out fantastic.

Now, the problem:

My most recent two batches have a cidery sort of taste to them.  It's not

really what I would call sour, as such, but it is pretty bad.  The owner of

the local homebrew supply shop tells me that sometimes, you'll get a batch

that takes a *LOT* longer to age (he said sometimes even 5 weeks---the

first of these has now been in bottles for roughly 3.5 weeks), and based

solely on my description, he thinks these batches might just need to

continue to age.

Btw, both batches have good carbonation, and at the bottling stage,

everything seemed perfectly normal (from what little I know, at least).

Does this sound like anything people have seen before?  Could these batches

have gone bad on me?  Does this have anything to do with the fact that the

outside temps are no longer just in the 80s and low 90s, but more like 90s,

with heat index readings at/near 110 deg. F?  I do have central air, and

keep the temperature inside at/near 78 deg., but I gather that there's more

to it than just this?

Any idea if these batches will recover?  What about the batch in the

fermenter now?  Is it likely to suffer the same fate?

   --jim

- --

#include <std_disclaimer.h>                                 73 DE N5IAL (/4)

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INTERNET: jim@n5ial.mythical.com  |  j.graham@ieee.org     ICBM: 30.23N 86.32W

AMATEUR RADIO:  (packet station temporarily offline)       AMTOR SELCAL: NIAL

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

E-mail me for information about KAMterm (host mode for Kantronics TNCs).

------------------------------


Techincal postings, Continuous brewing

Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1993 23:02:52 -0400 (EDT)

From: waltman@BIX.com

Subject: Techincal postings, Continuous brewing

As a new homebrewer (8th batch in primary) and a very new HBD reader (1 week,

but have been reading archives) I thought I'd add to the discussion of the

technicality of some postings. Even though there are many discussions I do

not follow AT PRESENT -- as my knowledge of the chemistry and biology of

brewing increases I hope to go back and understand them better at a later

date. Similarly, I do not now do any kegging of my beer, so I do a quick

scan of the posts on that subject, but when I do have decide to take the

plunge it will be nice to have this information available. In the mean time,

that is why the PageDown key was invented. So keep the technical posts

coming and help me changed from a receipe follower to a brewing engineer

and scientist.

As for advertising, I do think a policy is required. Some of the posts

remind me of the benchmark wars I've seen in other forums.  As Mark Twain

has been paraphrased "There are lies, damned lies and benchmarks."

Announcements of new products by their distributors are great. So are third

parties comments of "I used X and it was great" or "I tried Y and it was

lousy." Distributors of products should not make negative comments about

competing products and personal remarks should be avoided.

On another note, does anyone have any references or information on continous

brewing? My father is a mathematician and one class of problems he studies

is the theory of chemostats -- which is essentially a continuous fermentor.

Private e-mail is fine.

Lastly, thank you to all who responded with advice on my question regarding

importing homebew into Canada. I will let you all know how things turned

out after the family re-union/

Fred Waltman.

waltman@bix.com

------------------------------


Lee Slezak in '94

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 22:01 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: Lee Slezak in '94

I feel the compulsion to waist bandwidth for a wholly personal reason:

Lee Slezak, if you are still breathing, I need the talk to you.  Contact

me asap.

chris campanelli

------------------------------


Weissbeir Yeast Cultures

Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1993 06:55:00 EDT

From: hmcook@boe00.minc.umd.edu (Hardy M. Cook)

Subject: Weissbeir Yeast Cultures

Concerning Dennis Lewis's question about Weissbeir yeasts:

You might try Brewer's Resource at 1-800-8-brewtek for slants of wheat

yeasts.

 CL-90  Belgian Wheat -- A top fermenting yeast which produces a

    soft, bread like flavor and leaves a sweet,

    mildly estery finish.

 CL-92  German Wheat --  A true, top fermenting Weizenbier yeast, Spicy,

    clovy and estery.  High attenuative.

 CL-94  American Wheat - Offers a smooth, slightly sweet wheat beer,

    with a full, clean, underattenuated malt

    flavor.

I have purchased the German and the American but have not had a chance to

use these two cultures yet.  The other cultures I purchased from BrewTek

have worked great.

Hope this helps.

- --Hardy M. Cook

  HMCook@boe00.minc.umd.edu

PS: the German Wheat is a single strain culture unlike the Wyeast variety.

------------------------------


Yeast info, steam beer recipe request, and a chest off-getting.

Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1993 07:46:52 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: Yeast info, steam beer recipe request, and a chest off-getting.

Thanks to all who responded to my recent request for info on yeast strain

variance. Unfortunately the compiled information is greater than 8k which

precludes posting it on the HBD whole; however, I found this information to be

of great interest Given the certainty of this topic's reemergence, I was

wondering if anyone else would like to see a Yeast FAQ for storage on the

archive. I could and would submit the strain variances, proper rehydrating

techniques, and culture methods as a FAQ resource.  Can someone tell me how to

go about this or who to contact? If there is no interest in an archive

submission, I will chop the info up into 4 sections (Dry, Liquid Ale, Liquid

Lager, and Misc/Wine/Funky_Belgian_Fungi/etc) and force it on the digest

readership as a whole.

One more request:I wanna make a Steam(tm) beer! I have looked at the recipe in

Papazian's New Testament for The Sun Has Left Us on Time Lager, but am unsure

of the fermentation times. Does one lager a steam beer? How cool does room

temperature have to be? Please deluge me with your favorite award winning

recipes! Thanks!

Patrick Weix

UT Southwestern at Dallas

weix@swmed.edu

P.S. Not to start a flame war or anything but why do people submit

recipes that they have not tried? I hate to read an interesting recipe only

to see "I'll let you know if this works" or some variant of same at the end.

Show some restraint and tell us if it works after you've had a glass or three!

Glad to get that off my chest!

P.P.S. The above does not of course reply to harebrained ideas about

papershredder/maltmills etc. That sort of free exchange of ideas and

brainstorming makes the HBD great! (I use harebrained in the best intentioned

way of course >(:p <--rabbit sticking out tounge?!?!).

------------------------------


Oxidation

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 09:51:06 EDT

From: <geotex@engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Oxidation

Greetings.

There has been a lot of talk about oxidation lately.

Would someone be so kind as to give me an explanation

of what exactly it is.  I realize it has something to

do with having hot wort exposed to oxygen (aerated).

Is cooling the hot wort (before adding it to the cold

water in the fermenter) the best way to prevent this

problem?

Fill me in!

Thanks

Alex Ramos

geotex@engin.umich.edu

------------------------------


Re: Cask Question

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 15:41:17 BST

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: Re: Cask Question

Keith asks about wooden casks. I don't use one myself, but obviously they are

not going to hold a great deal of pressure in the first place and, secondly,

are likely to lose pressure with time. So you need a strategy in which (a) you

are prepared to drink the brew quickly and young and (b) you encourage a

prolonged secondary ferment in the cask. My advice would be to use finings both

to hasten drinkability, but more importantly, to slow the primary fermentation

down before it has gone quite to completion. This seems to result in earlier

condition than that which is achieved simply by priming the cask. Lastly,

(heresy button on) an attenuative dried yeast could be used to ensure prolonged

fermentation.

- --

Conn V Copas

Loughborough University of Technology          tel : +44 509 263171  ext 4164

Computer-Human Interaction Research Centre     fax : +44 509 610815

Leicestershire  LE11 3TU              e-mail - (Janet):C.V.Copas@uk.ac.lut

G Britain                                      (Internet):C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk

------------------------------


starters,pH adjustment

Date:         Wed, 07 Jul 93 09:06:40 CDT

From: Dave Justice <DD24005@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU>

Subject:      starters,pH adjustment

 Hi all,

  I've been reading HBD for a few months now and my brewing has improved

  as a result. This is a fantastic forum and I wouldn't change a thing.

  For this, my first post, I have one datapoint and one question.

   Datapoint: I've been getting much quicker and visibly impressive

              yeast starters going by using boiled or canned wort saved

              from previous (all-grain) batches.  I usually pitch the

              starter before retiring at night and with this method,

              I'm seeing a good 1/2" to 3/4" krausen in the starter

              the next morning.  No combination of DME and yeast

              nutrients ever worked this well for me, I was lucky to see

              any decent krausen after 1.5 days or so.

   Question: Lately I've taken to adjusting the pH of my sparge water

             using acid blend. Exactly what is that stuff? It takes

             about 3/8 tsp. per 5 gallons to get the pH of my tap water

             into the 5.5 to 5.8 range. My beers are turning out just

             fine, but it hasn't seemed to improve my extraction. I

             think there are other more significant factors at work

             there.

   Comments?

------------------------------


use of oxygen regulators with CO2 (DON'T).

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 11:02:56 -0600

From: gmeier@ncsa.uiuc.edu

Subject: use of oxygen regulators with CO2 (DON'T).

David Skelton writes:

>"I'm currently setting up a kegging system for my beer and I was wondering if

>there was any reason why I can't use my O2 regulator from my oxy/acetylene

>setup. If threads are the only problem then I could come up with an adapter

>but I don't know if there is any difference in the regulator itself."

        I wouldn't do it.  I don't know if there is any difference in the

regulator itself, but regulators for oxygen service should never be allowed

to be contaminated with anything potentially flammable (oil or other

hydrocarbons are the most common problem).  A contaminated regulator, when

put back into service with high pressure oxygen, presents an explosion

hazard.  Regulators are so expensive that I assume somebody somewhere will

hook up your oxygen regulator to an oxygen tank again.  In the same issue

of HBD, Al wrote:

>"Regarding force carbonation, you can begin at a higher pressure, but in

>eventually, you will need to use the tables to determine what pressure

>you need to use for the temperature you've chosen.  Be careful when

>you lower the pressure at the gauge (release the pressure in the keg

>first) or you will get a lot of foam and some may travel back up your

>CO2 line towards the regulator."

So it looks like contamination of the regulator is a real risk.

Gary Meier

FMC Corporation

Box 8

Princeton, NJ 08543                             (609) 951-3448

------------------------------


Re: brewing capitol of the world

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 8:15:39 PDT

From: "Donald G. Scheidt" <dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com>

Subject: Re: brewing capitol of the world

In HOMEBREW Digest #1164, Thu 17 June 1993, we find:

>From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

>Subject: brewing capitol of the world

>

>It is very easy in the current renaissance-in-brewing atmosphere in the US to

>get wrapped up in our own little corner of the world and think that we sit on

>top of the best beer.  But the truth is that we're not even close.  There is

>high quality brew in this country, but there is also a *lot* more mediocre beer

>being made, whether you're talking the East Coast, the West Coast, or

>somewhere in between.

Partly true.  Microbrews hold a fraction of the market, and the big three

or four lager brewers hold a huge share of the market among them.  However,

in the last 12 years, we've gone from 50 operating breweries in the USA to

over 350 - and about 300 of these are putting out some quality products.

In terms of volume, the USA is the brewing giant of the world - we 'Merkins

brew more in quantity than any other country, although we don't consume

more per capita (viz. Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic).  In terms of

quality, though, we're still re-learning lessons forgotten long ago, a

result of Prohibition.

The current wave of American beer-bragging is due to a recent phenomenon -

we finally have beer to brag about!  For years, Europeans could visit us

here, and while we Americans could crow over their material life-style,

they could justifiably sneer at the mediocre, flavourless American beers.

Now we have good brews again (although some of the praise is not fully

justified), and we've come a long way.  As local people become accustomed,

I hope they'll be able to relax and enjoy the good things being made with

a quiet sense of pride.  Some of our recent converts to Good Beer still

have a bit to learn about the Rest Of The World; just give 'em some time.

>Beer Heaven (and the Brewing Capitol of the World) in undoubtedly located in

>Europe.  I'd nominate Belgium for Heaven, Bavaria for the Capitol, with the

>British Isles and the rest of Germany as close also-rans.

>The USA is hardly in the race.

Much has been said about the "beer-belt" of brewing that stretches from the

UK across much of north-central Europe.  The origins of most of our well-known

beer-styles are in these lands.  It's kind of ironic to brag about "locally-

produced" pale ale, stout, or pilsener, knowing the origins of these styles.

We might be able to make a case for Anchor Steam, it being a style all its

own, but most of our beer is derived from some style imported from across

the Atlantic.  Lager from Germany and Austria, pilsner from Bohemia, bitter

ale from the UK; even our basic barley and hops were originally imports,

transplanted here.  What was that about "our victuals and especially our ale

being spent", entered in the log of a little boat called the "Mayflower"...?

Hey, we've even imported actual brewers!  Does "Celis" ring a bell?

>If you've been to Europe, you know what I mean.  If you haven't been there,

>what are you waiting for?

For a lot of folks, it's a matter of priorities.  Raising a family, paying

the rent or mortgage, or even a touch of good old xenophobia:  all may con-

tribute to settling for what's available in "my own back yard".  In some

cases, this has eventually hardened into an attitude that it's just plain

"disloyal" to consume foreign products, because if it was American-made,

it was good enough.  Well, it often wasn't "good enough", as GM and Ford

discovered in the 70s and 80s, and the big brewers are discovering as they

fight for stagnating or declining market share, while the micros keep on

growing, and the homebrewers keep on making their own.  For those who go

abroad, though, visit the old centers of brewing - and take one or two

bottles of good New American micro-brew with you, to show the natives that

maybe we are catching on, finally.  I've done it once or twice.

BTW, beer chauvinism is alive and well in Germany.  They don't much care

for beers from outside of Germany, with the very occasional exception.  Of

course, they may just be a teensy little bit justified, at least on

occasion, in thinking that their country, especially the southern part, is

some sort of center of brewing.

Actually, I keep thinking that my brew-cellar is the brewing capitol of my

own immediate neck of the universe (Maritime Pacific and Redhook notwith-

standing).  Don't all homebrewers regard their cellars this way ... ? ;-)

- --

       // /      |  Don Scheidt                           |      // /

      /  / /     |  Boeing IASL, 777 Cab Development      |     /  / /

     / // / /    |  dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com      |    / // / /

------------------------------


Re: KQED San Francisco Beer Festival

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 11:18:34 -0400

From: David Adams <tmc!david@uunet.UU.NET>

Subject: Re: KQED San Francisco Beer Festival

Ron Hall writes...

> I am surprised that there have been no posts yet about the KQED

> San Francisco Beer Festival.   Perhaps it is the format of the thing

> that makes it not get the kind of recognition that the GABF or the Oregon

> Brewers Festival get, as it may not appeal to some homebrewers.

> Let me describe it this way:

> ...

One of the Boston NPR stations, WBUR (Boston University Radio?) has been

running essentially the same event for a few years, calling it "A Brewer's

Offering".  Part of the price is tax deductible, and you get a free Pilsner

glass (at least you did two years ago.)

If you are in the Boston area, 90.9 FM is where you can get details.  The

event is more condusive to getting mildly trashed on quality brew than it is

to actually doing some judging.  Noise, banners, munchies, bands playing,

CROWDS, more noise, too much to choose from, no space for taking notes.  That

said, though, it's a fun time for what it is.

I, for one, am heading to Portland this year.  See y'all at Tom McCall

park...

Dave

=====================================================================

   /vvvvvvv/   David Adams               :

   /       /   Monitor Company           :

   -|-     |   Information Engineering   :   This space intentionally

   OO---&) |                             :

   (       |   david@monitor.com -OR-    :         left blank

    |      |      uunet!tmc!david        :

=====================================================================

------------------------------


Bruheat etc.

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 11:32:09 -0400

From: steve@Pentagon-EMH6.army.mil (Steve Lichtenberg x79300)

Subject: Bruheat etc.

Hey now --

In HBD 1176 Richard Childers described hid ideas for building a

mash/brew kettle.  While this was quite detailed it seemed overly complicated

(maybe a case of overanalysing a simple problem :-) ).

The final product described in Richard's post sounds suspiciously like

a commercial steam jacketed kettle as used by almost every restaurant in

the world.  These kettels are a dfouble walled stainless steel vessel

which circulates live steam through the gap between the walls and are

available in sizes from 3 gallon all the way up to 100+ gallons.

I have been thinking that it would make an ideal mash/boil vessel and

have been actively searching the used restaurant equipment dealers in

the area for one.  I have found many in a variety of sizes but they

are all a little too expensive right now.  In addition, I need one

with a built in boiler (not many people have steam boilers in their houses)

this adds to the price considerably.  Used kettles in the 5 -10 gallon range

that fit my requirements are available for around $300-500.  I would like to

find one for around 100 -150 in fair condition that can be cleaned up.

The principle advantages of using steam to heat your wort are

 1.  Speed.  Since steam has about 6 times more latent heat than water at

the same temperature, it will bring 10 gallons of liqquid to a boil in a few

minutes.

 2.  Ability to maintain a rolling boil without having to worry about

scorching.  Since there is a maximum temperature that steam can maintain

it is much more difficult to scorch and/or caramelize sugars in the

process.

I do see some potential difficulties in trying to mash in this type of

vessel though.  Since steam is generally much higher in temperature than

the target temps of the mash and the heat generated in the kettle is

evenly distributed throughout the interior spaces it would be

a little difficult to maintain targeted temperatures.  Constant monitoring

and adjustment would be necessary to avoid overshooting.

i still think that a steam kettle would be worth investigating.

Anyone out there wiht any experience using one is welcome to respond.

- --S

  ^

 [ABrewers do it while they mash

------------------------------


RE: Copper question

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 08:52:53 -0800 (PDT)

From: Dave Gilbert <solomon!solomon.aha.com!dave@yoda.eecs.wsu.edu>

Subject: RE: Copper question

Jim Grady writes:

> Well, I have finally started to build a coppper manifold and have a

> question.  I see two types of copper pipe in the hardware store; M type

> and L type.  What kind do I want?  Do I care?

Well I don't know what the M and L stand for, but last weekend when I was

constructing my copper manifold, I discovered the hard way what the

differences are between the two types of flexible copper pipe available

to me.  (deep breath, don't you love run on sentences)

To make a long story short, the two types of copper pipe that I found

are both the same O.D.(5/8ths I think), but one has much thicker walls

and is, (with my limited skills) impossible to bend smoothly and in

has some sort of greasy film on the inside.  The other pipe has much thinner

walls and is bright and clean on the inside.  The thinner walled pipe

can be easily bent into just about any configuration that you need.

So, to sum it all up, get the thinner walled pipe, your life will

be much more fulfilling, and your neighbors won't cover their childern's

ears when they walk past your garage.

Hope this helps.

Dave Gilbert       dave@aha.com

Advanced Hardware Architectures Inc.

Moscow, Idaho

------------------------------


Re: KQED San Francisco Beer Festival

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 09:38:51 -0700

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: KQED San Francisco Beer Festival

In HBD# 1176, Ron Hall gives us this well-intentioned misinformation:

>     The KQED Beer Fest is on July 10 in San Francisco, I believe at

>the Armory, south of Market Street near I-80.  Disclaimer:  I have

>nothing to do with this Festival, just thought you should know.

>also FYI, KQED is the local public television station.

>

>     Bay Area Locals:  Please post corrections or more specific info if

>you know more than this.

Here's the scoop, courtesy of the California Celebrator:

 July 10 San Francisco CA

  11th Annual KQED International Beer & Food Festival,

  1-4pm, Concourse, 8th & Brannan.  $35 (members save on

  advance orders).  250 beers, micro pavilion, lots of

  food & music.  415-553-2200 for info.

The Concourse is on Brannon between 7th and 8th.  Get there

early...there's usually a block-long line at the door!

See you there...

have fun

gak (gak & gerry's garage, brewery and hockey haven, Castro Valley CA)

P.S.  July 17-18 Mountain View CA

                 California Small Brewers Festival at the Tied House.

                 Call 415-965-2739 for info.

------------------------------


RE:Homebrew Digest #1176 (July 07, 1993)

Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1993 09:46:31 -0700 (MST)

From: cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu (John Mare)

Subject: RE:Homebrew Digest #1176 (July 07, 1993)

A few weeks back while in one of my favourite "real ale" pubs ("The Brewery

Tap") in Glasgow, Scotland, I was told by the proprietor that he had read in

the Glasgow Herald that A-Busch had bought a controlling interest in

Budweiser Budvar! Bad, bad news if true!

John M.

------------------------------


carboy -> chest freezer

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 10:00:42 PDT

From: greg@bandit.berkeley.edu (Greg Jesus Wolodkin)

Subject: carboy -> chest freezer

Jonathan G Knight writes:

>For those of you who have chest-freezers with top-opening designs, how do

>get the full carboys in and out w/o breaking your backs?

You could use a milk crate to "protect" the carboy, providing handles

for it at the same time.  Now all you need is a block and tackle over

the freezer and you're all set ;-)

Cheers,

Greg

------------------------------


Little Hole

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 12:05 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Little Hole

 >From: mdcsc!gdh@uunet.UU.NET (Garrett Hildebrand)

 >I, too, have a six-gallon Vollrath. I have been thinking about

 modifying it with a valve on the bottom, as has been mentioned by others, and

 of trying out the "easysparge" type of system discribed by js and others,

 but I haven't found anybody to do the welding, and I also don't know

 where to get a suitable stainless valve.

 Two points here.  If you use the easymash concept, no welding is required and

 you can get by just fine with brass fittings available at any hardware store.

 >After reading your comments about your lautering manifold and the use

 of a syphon, it sounds like you have gotten around the problem of needing

 a valve on the pot.

 It has been pointed out by several that the easymash screen can just as well

 be put on the end of a long piece of copper tubing that rises up out of the

 kettle and connects to a hose.  It produces a siphon and the screen is far

 easier to make than the tubing manifold.

 Having said that, a spigot on the bottom of a kettle just seems to add a

 touch of class and convenience that I could not live without.  I will never

 understand the reluctance of some people to drill a hole in a kettle that

 they bought specifically for the purpose of brewing, when that little hole

 will make the kettle a "real" brew kettle.

 js

------------------------------


Hot break

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 10:17:14 PDT

From: dra@jsc-ws.sharpwa.com (Darren Aaberge)

Subject: Hot break

In hbd 1159, Al says this about adding hops to the boil to help with protein

coagulation:

>Indeed hop particles will help with protein coagulation, but I feel that you

>should wait till after the hot break to add the hops in the first place.

>The last time I recall reading about this is in a post from Stuart somewhere

>around HBD 1150.  My contention, as that mentioned by Stuart, is that the

>hops will do too-good a job coagulating proteins *AROUND THEMSELVES* thereby

>reducing the utilization.  Now, if you wait till after the hot break, I

>suggest that there will still be some coagulation of proteins around the

>hops, but not nearly as much as if the hops were added before the hot break.

>

>Why does this matter?  Well, the theory is that the protein coagulated

>around the hops will reduce utilization.

I always wait until after the hot break to add hops for this reason.  However,

I also always find myself wanting very badly to add the hops to avoid a

boil over.  Does anyone else have an opinion on this?  Has anyone done a side

by side analysis of this?  I have observed that even waiting until after the

hot break to add hops, they still get coated with protein.

Darren Aaberge

------------------------------


Re: Besieged by baleful bacteria / infection survey / adverts

Date: Wed, 07 Jul 93 09:51:48 -0700

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Re: Besieged by baleful bacteria / infection survey / adverts

Jeff Benjamins bacteria problem:

Acck!

  I just got rid of a nasty infection which ruined 6 5 gallon batchs.

It's almost enough to send you back to the liquor store for commercial

beer.  I think that our problems differ in source, but not in result.

My contamination was occurring due to a contaminated primary

fermenter, and a desire to dump less bleach into the environment.

  Anyway, I think my soulution may work for you as well.  I became a

serious anal retentive when it comes to sanitization.  I bleach the

shit out of everything(1 cup/[3-5] gallons).  I use long contact times

on everything, at least 15 minutes, including the fermentation locks,

rubber stoppers, my rubber gloves, everything. I rinse with

*chlorinated* tap water.

  Three points with you method: 1) Try reboiling your canned starter

wort just prior to use.  You may have bacteria collecting around the

lid of the jar, creating an infection upon opening.  Put the lid on

the boiling pot prior to turning off the heat, so even the lid is

steam sterilized.  2) Put a drop of bleach in each fermentation lock

used, so bacteria will not be able to "swim" through it.. 3) Let the

Wyeast package swell until you are sure it will burst, then a little

more.  Get that population as high as possible before exposing it to

your environment.

====================================================================

Infections in general:

  About 6 months ago I posted a request for people's infection rates

and sanitization methods.  I did this because I had heard so much

about other folks problems, and had had none myself, and was curious

about my good fortune.  Well, I guess I forgot to "knock on wood"

before posting "I've never had a contaminated batch" :-(  Anyway, I

got 30 responses but was unable to find a reasonable thread of

cause/effect.  I will mail out a compressed, uuencoded tarfile of the

responses if anyone is interested.

=====================================================================

Advertising:

 How about this: Once a month, each person who sells a product may

post a "I sell this product" message. No claims, no hype, no prices,

no details, just a clear statement of intent to sell.  Interested

parties may then send them private email requesting info on their

product. These people should then refrain from taking part in

discussions on their or competing products.  People with personal or

financial interest (close friends of sellers, etc) should show similar

restraint. Recomendations from satisfied customers in responses to

queries from other list members would always be welcome.

         Drew Lynch

   Chronologic Simulation

     (415)965-3312 x18

    drew@chronologic.com

------------------------------


Specialty Products Intl. part 4 of 4

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 09:49 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Specialty Products Intl. part 4 of 4

This is part 4 of my review of "Home Beermakers Guide" by Leigh P. Beadle.

Pg10:

"To establish a siphon you must such on the end of the siphon hose while it

is lower then the opposite end."

Actually, the author is not only showing that they know nothing about

microbiology, but also that they know nothing about physics.  For a

siphon to work, the position of the inlet does not matter as long as it is

under the level of the liquid.  The level of the siphon outlet must

be below the level of the top of the liquid and is NOT AT ALL DEPENDENT

ON THE LEVEL OF THE INLET!  Back to microbiology.  Besides the zillions

of bacteria on your hands, there are hundreds of zillions of bacteria

in your mouth.  Sucking on a siphon hose with your mouth is probably

one of the best ways to infect your beer with lactobacillus which is

everpresent in the human mouth.  Lactobacillus will eat sugars that

the yeast have left behind and cause your beer to gush about four

to six weeks after bottling.

"Unlike commercial beers, which start deteriorating as soon as they are

bottled, your home-made beer has an unlimited shelf life.  This is

because of the natural preservative quality of the yeast."

No, the author's beer has an unlimited shelf life because the author

has infected their beer by using an unsanitized fermenter and by sucking

on unsanitized siphon hoses and there is nothing left in the beer to

spoil.  Also, the bacteria and wild yeast have produced so many off-flavors,

combined with the chlorophenols from the tapwater, that any further

spoilage would not be noticeable.  Please also note that there are

commercial beers such as Sierra Nevada and Bell's that do have yeast

in them.  It is unfair (besides being wrong) to include these fine

beers when criticizing the industrial megabrewers.

Pg13:

"Types of Beer... CANADIAN LAGER  Throughout the world pilsner beers

represent the highest class of beer.  This recipe will produce a refreshing,

non-filling beer with rich European flavor and aroma."

I will not debate the highest class of beer, although I, personally, prefer

Belgian and English ales over pilsners.  Given that the author says:

"Do not ferment your beer in rooms that are less than 60 degrees..."

none of these kits are for making lagers.  They are for making (to use

the expression very loosely) ales.  Also, if it has a "rich European

flavor and aroma," then why call it "CANADIAN LAGER?"

"AMBER  This beer is traditionally brewed during the Octoberfest season

in Germany and is made using lightly roasted malt.  It has an amber color

and heavier malt flavor than most beers."

I think the author incorrectly believes that this is an Octoberfest recipe.

Octoberfest is a lager and is traditionally brewed FOR Octoberfest not

DURING.  It has traditionally been brewed in March for consumption in

October.  Nonetheless, at fermentation temperatures above 60F, what will

probably be made is a very watery and cidery scottish ale.

Pg15:

"For a European-style beer, simply increase the boiling time for the

Ingredient Mix.  For a Heineken or Becks style beer, give the mix a

high boil for 10 minutes... A fifteen minute boil produces a strong

British ale, and a 20 to 40 minute boil with the Dark Mix makes a

moderate or strong stout.  for a richer stout, leave out a gallon of

the cold water..."

The magic of brewing, eh?  Gosh, I never new it was so simple.

Beginners: please just forget you ever read the above quote -- it is

so wrong, I can't even begin to correct it.

Pg21:

"SOME FINAL THOUGHTS   The unique feature of our Ingredient Mixes is that

they contain 1/2 ounce of fresh, uncooked hops.  (These are the lumps you

see in the syrup when you pour it out.)  This gives you an infinite variety

of beer flavor which you tailor to your own taste simply by extending the

normal 2 minute boil."

"The beer should be consumed within a month after bottling..."

Hey, what happened to unlimited shelf life???

"...This is because the yeast may slowly convert some of the remaining

sugars in the beer and cause it to become thinner flavored and may

over-carbonate it.  If the carbonation remains normal after 3 weeks in

the bottle, no problem."

No, it means that you have been lucky and did not infect your beer too

bad.  Of course it's not the yeast that continues to eat the sugars,

it's the bacteria, but I don't think Leigh P. Beadle has ever bothered

to learn about bacteria, despite the fact that he is the author of

some "best selling" books on brewing.  Yeah, right.

This is a comedic brochure, right?  This company doesn't really exist, does

it?  Did Chris Campanelli write this for laughs?  No, I'm afraid this is

a real company and they are really misguiding beginners into brewing a

"beer" that tastes worse than the industrial megabrews.  The prices are

reasonable, but are not the best available through mailorder.  They do have

a Pure Malt Extract (without lumps, and allegedly without corn syrup)

for the same price as the mercifully named "Complete Ingredient Mixes"

but you must buy it by the case and the price is still higher per pound

than Northwestern (100% malt) Malt Extracts.

Al.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1177, 07/08/93

*************************************

-------


Cheap carboys

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 09:52 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: Cheap carboys

The cheapest place I've found (so far) for carboys is St. Pat's of Texas.

They sell seven gallon carboys for $10.00 (add $5 for S+H) and it comes

in one of those styrofoam egg/pod things.  Although most homebrewers

prefer the seven gallon carboy because of the extra headspace, I buy them

because I like to wear the way-cool styrofoam pod on my head when I take

a shower.  You should try it some time.

I don't have their number handy.  I seem to remember seeing their ad in

the Zymurgy classifieds.  If you can't find it there, email me and I'll

dig it up.

chris "mushroom head" campanelli

------------------------------


attenuation definitions

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 14:33:58 CDT

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: attenuation definitions

I recieved a number of responses on my attenuation question and I

realized that the definition which I left hanging on HBD was weak at

best.  Thanks go out to Paul Jasper, Dick Dunn, Chip Hitchcock, and

Spencer Thomas for their quick responses (in addition, thanks to George

Fix for the info which Spencer Thomas quoted to me and by me here).

   good luck and good beer,

     Chris Pencis

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu


Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 11:13:35 EDT

Subject: attenuation definitions

There's "apparent attenuation" and "real attenuation".  The

difference comes about because alcohol has a specific gravity less

than 1 (about .8).  Real attenuation is the percent of sugars

converted to alcohol.  So, if you had a 10% (by weight) sugar solution

(about 1.040), and got 100% real attenuation, the resulting specific

gravity would be about 0.991 (corresponding to about 5% alcohol by

weight).  The apparent attenuation of this brew would be 122% !

George Fix published a set of equations relating apparent and real

attenuation and alcohol content last year.  To wit:

>     A = alcohol content of finished beer in % by wt.

>     RE = real extract of finished beer in deg. Plato

>

> Since A and RE are generally not known to us, additional approximations

> are needed. The following are due to Balling, and have proven to be

> reasonable. Let OE and be defined as follows:

>

>     OE = original extract (i.e., extract of finished wort in deg. Plato)

>     AE = apparent extract (i.e., measured deg. Plato of finished beer).

>

> Then

>

>     RE = .1808*OE + .8192*AE,

>

> and

>

>     A = (OE-RE)/(2.0665-.010665*OE).

>

The "tricky part" here is the expression of the sugar content in

degrees Plato.  This is a fancy term for % sugar by weight, and

corresponds roughly to "degrees gravity" divided by 4.  That is, a

1.040 wort has an extract of 10 degrees Plato.

He goes on to calculate an example:

> To take Walter's specific case, first note that from Plato tables an OG of

> 1.045 is equivalent to

>

>     OE = 11.25 deg. Plato,

>

> while a FG of 1.010 is equivalent to

>

>     AE = 2.5 deg. Plato.

>

> Therefore,

>

>       RE = .1808*11.25 + .8192*2.5 = 4.08 deg. Plato,

>

> and

>

>        A = (11.25 - 4.08)/(2.0665 - .010665*11.25) = 3.68 % wt.

The apparent attenuation is 75% (from 1.040 to 1.010), the real

attenuation is (11.25 - 4.08)/11.25 = 64%.

=S

======================================================================

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu |

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

======================================================================

------------------------------


Low SG -- what might the cause(s) be?

Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1993 13:55:32 CDT

From: "Bret D. Wortman" <wortman@centurylub.com>

Subject: Low SG -- what might the cause(s) be?

    Greetings, all.  I'm a novice who has just started my second batch (a

    5 gallon batch that has managed to foam over the fermentation lock on a

    6 1/2 gallon carboy, but I digress).

    Both of my first two batches used kits -- syrup -- and no sugar.  The

    first used a 3.3lb Munton & Fison Pilsner kit with 1.4 lb Light Amber

    Malt kicker.  The second used 1.8kg Muntons IPA Bitters with 1.4 lb

    Lilght Amber Malt kicker.

    In each case, the SG after sparging and after getting the total volume

    of liquid to ~5 gallons was around 1.015.  This seems awfully low to

    me, as it'll result in beer that has (at most) around 1.5% alcohol

    content.

    What might I be doing wrong, or what should I be looking for?  I

    carefully noted the 5 gallon mark on my carboy so I'm sure I'm not

    making more than I think I am....

    WordMan

+------------------------+------------------------------------------------

| Bret D. Wortman        | "I want to live shipwrecked and comatose,

| wortman@centurylub.com |  Drinking fresh mango juice.

| wortman@decus.org      |  Goldfish shoals nibbling at my toes,

| NLC Events Team Chair  |  Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun."

+------------------------+------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


attenuation/hop nobility/2.5 gal kegs/cask priming/infection

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 14:40 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: attenuation/hop nobility/2.5 gal kegs/cask priming/infection

Chris asks about attenuation and then posts that he's got it fugured out.

I just want to mention that this is APPARENT ATTENUATION -- that is, the

percentage difference between the original gravity and the final gravity.

The reason that it is only the APPARENT attenuation is because the yeast

is making alcohol which is lower specific gravity than water.  Therefore,

to determine the actual attenuation (which can be quite a bit less than

the apparent), you must distill-off the alcohol and replace it with an

equivalent amount of distilled water.  Don't bother though, because virtually

all attenuation values and final gravities you see in homebrewing books,

here and in magazines are apparent ones.

************************

Jack writes:

> >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

>

> >Styrian Goldings are neither noble nor are they Goldings, actually.

> The only three noble hops (this was confirmed from various sources

> in the Brewer's Forum) are Hallertauer, Tettnanger and Saaz.

>

> I think a definition of "noble" would be appropriate.  Doesn't sound like

> anything a botonist could get a hold of.

>

> Just what does it mean?

It's not a botanical term, rather a brewing term simply made-up by (I believe)

German brewers.  Hallertauer, Tettnanger and Saazer appear to have simply

been grouped together quite a while ago and labeled "noble hops."

***************************

Robert writes:

>I have located five 2.5 gallon kegs at a used restaurant supply house.

>Two of them have screw-on caps with tapered rubber washers, while three have

>clamp-type lids with smaller rubber gaskets/o-rings.

Grab them.  They are very rare -- you can always replace the fittings you

don't like with ones you like (i.e. you can switch them all to ball-lock).

>There is also a combination of fittings on the tanks themselves, with some

>having pins, and others having grooves for snap-rings.

I suspect that the grooved ones are actually ball-lock.  The pin ones are

pin-lock.  Coke uses pin-lock and Pepsi uses ball-lock.  I personally like

the ball-lock ones because they are easier to recondition (you can simply

use a 12-point socket for the fittings, whereas for the pin-lock you need

to buy ($40) or build yourself a tool to remove the fittings.

>The kegs are pretty crudded-up, but I think they will clean.  Are there any

>fine ponts to be aware of before sinking money into these kegs?

Check the seams inside and out -- be careful to release all the pressure

before removing the lid -- you could injure yourself quite seriously if

you don't.  If the seams are all pitted and cracked, you may have to pay

more to have them re-sanititary-welded than to buy new ones.  You really

should replace all the rubber.  If the lids don't have overpressure release

valves, you should get some.  There were some posts about two or three

years ago that said that the Cornelius company will exchange lids without

valves for new lids.  All my lids had valves, so I didn't keep the post.

There are many hidden rubber gaskets that you should replace.  There are

eight including the gasket on the overpressure valve.  The issue is not

one of sanitation, but more so of soda (root beer, grape) smells that

would enter your beer.  Some have suggested boiling, but I've tried it

and I could still smell root beer in the rubber.  To completely recondition

a keg with new rubber (including a new overpressure valve -- the rubber

does not come separately) will run you about $10, but I feel it's worth

it.  See a recent HBD for a post I authored which explained where the

gaskets were.

**************************

Keith writes:

>I have a friend who is interested in racking his brew in a wooden (5

>Gal.) cask.  Can anyone recommend appropriate amounts of priming sugar

>and/or an information source for the required details?

I suggest using about 1/4 to 1/3 cup corn sugar.

*************************

Jeff writes:

>Fat Wanda's Brewery & Recording (my basement) is under attack by vicious

>bacteria.  I've had a recurring house infection that I can't seem to get

>rid of, in spite of the scourings and bleach treatments.  Now it's

>gotten to the point I can't even get an uninfected starter!

I suspect it is in the air.  You could try to get an air cleaner and keep

all the doors closed and the air conditioning off while you brew (give

the dust some time to settle and the air cleaner to do it's stuff).

Alternatively, you could wait till fall, when your air will go back to

being less microbiologically active.

Al.

------------------------------


Hops vs. Protein and Hop Storage

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 13:04:51 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hops vs. Protein and Hop Storage

Al writes in response to my post:

:Mark writes (in reference to not using hop bags for boiling hops):

:>Also, there are many

:>benefits to be had to the wort by having the hop particles (whole or pellet)

:>thrashing around in the wort during the boil (help with protein coagulation

:> - aka the hot break) is the main one.

:

:Indeed hop particles will help with protein coagulation, but I feel that you

:should wait till after the hot break to add the hops in the first place.

:The last time I recall reading about this is in a post from Stuart somewhere

:around HBD 1150.  My contention, as that mentioned by Stuart, is that the

:hops will do too-good a job coagulating proteins *AROUND THEMSELVES* thereby

:reducing the utilization.  Now, if you wait till after the hot break, I

:suggest that there will still be some coagulation of proteins around the

:hops, but not nearly as much as if the hops were added before the hot break.

:

:Why does this matter?  Well, the theory is that the protein coagulated

:around the hops will reduce utilization.  I have not done side-by-side

:tests of this, but I do recall a significant increase in hop utilization

:when I began to wait for the hot break before adding the hops.  I did not

:put the two together till someone on the HBD mentioned it.

I don't buy this.  Number one, if it really did boost utilization, you can

bet the big breweries would be using it.  I've never seen any reference to

it.  Number two, I've never noticed any protein coating the hop petals

or particles and even if it did, it wouldn't matter cause there isn't any-

thing of value in there anyway.  Now if we're talking microscopically

around the resins, maybe there's a possibility.  But the biggest problem I

have with it is waiting for the hot break.  Besides the fact that a lot

of newbies don't even know what it is or what it looks like, I don't want

to keep sampling my wort to see the break so I know when to add hops.

Then I'd have to figure out how many boil minutes remained and adjust my

hopping rate accordingly in real time.  What if I didn't get a break until

30 minutes into 1 hour boil?  I'd be getting a *lot* less ultilization from

the shorter boil time than any better utilization advantage I might have got

by waiting.

:

:>Anyway, I recommend you do use a secondary and rack carefully.  The two step

:>racking process should leave all of the pellet particles in the trub layer on

:>the bottom.  This is instead of the hop bag.  The hop bags are great for dry

:>hopping, but I don't like them for the boil.

:

:I disagree.  I do just the opposite.  I use a hop bag for boiling primarily

:to avoid the problems of having to remove the hops from the wort later,

:either as you pour the wort into the fermenter (my screen kept clogging

:and that made it a real pain!) or when racking.  I just compensate by

:adding 10% more hops.  I don't use a hop bag for dryhopping but only use

:whole or plug hops because they float.  I've never had any problems

:siphoning the beer out from under the whole hops.

Floating hops does not make for good oil utilization.  The best method is

to keep the hops suspended in the middle of the beer using a bag and weight

system (tie the weight to the drawstring instead of putting it in the bag).

This is what Anchor does and I have found it works well for me and other

brewers I know.  I don't know of any commercial brewers that boil their

hops in a bag, but they do use them for dry hopping.  But what works for

you works for you.

:

:>Also, your racking techniques

:>will improve with time.  The key is to have a reliable way to suspend the

:>end of the racking tube just above the trub layer.  I use a rubber stopper

:>that fits in my carboy with two holes in it:  One for the racking tube and

:>the other I use to force CO2 into the carboy (at *low* pressures) to push the

:>beer into the secondary (I use a soda keg for the secondary).

:

:then later:

:>BTW, I have found

:>the "orange racking tip" thingy to be essentially worthless.  Ditto

:>Fermtech's $2 racking tube clothespin.

:

:Interesting, but I've had no trouble with the orange tip on the end of my

:racking cane -- I tip the carboy with a stack of coasters or a block of

:wood and then gently lower the cane into the lowest part of the carboy.

:I then use masking tape or a rubber band to make sure the cane doesn't

:move.  I discard the first two cups or so and the beer runs clear from

:there on.  Perhaps you are not getting a good cold break and your trub

:layer is very deep.  Then again, you've got hops in your trub and I don't.

:On a typical 5 gallon batch, my trub layer is about 1 inch thick, say

:between 0.75 and 1.5 inches.  Just for the record, I have not tried

:Fermtech's racking tube holder.

So you get a couple of cups of trub?  Isn't this exactly what the orange

racking tube tip is suppossed to prevent?  I guess it doesn't work for

you either!  :-)  I suggest you try leaving it off once and I'll bet your

results will be identical.  My trub layer isn't any deeper than yours, and

I don't have hops in it.  My strainer works fine.  I also use a "settling

tank" between the kettle and the primary.  I use my old plastic fermenter

with the spigot in the bottom.  I cool the wort, pour through the strainer

into the bucket, put the top on and let the cold break settle out.  Then

I attach a hose to the spigot and run the wort into my carboy through a

homemade "wort squirter" to help aerate it.  I usually only have .5" of

trub at the end of the primary.  And for the record, the problems I found

with Fermtech's tube holder were that 1) The tube tended to come out of

molded holder clip and 2)  The spring didn't hold the clip to the carboy

steady enough with the weight of the racking hose (works fine with just

the racking tube, but that isn't very practical).  I rubber banded the heck

out of it to get it to work and ended up in the same place as my clothespin,

but wasted $2 in the meantime.

Jonathan Knight asked about hop storage:

I was the one that recommended an "investment" in a home vacuum sealer,

and, BTW, also recommended CO2 or nitrogen purged mason jars as an

alternative.  The reason I recommended a home sealer is that they not

only are nice for storing hops, but are also useful for sealing other

things like DME, grains and minerals.  Anyway, what's more important

in Jon's post is the whole issue of hop storage.  I'm working on a longer

post that will address this issue and will post it in a few days.

Mark

------------------------------


sugar in beer

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 13:15:48 PDT

From: bgros@sensitivity.berkeley.edu (Bryan L. Gros)

Subject: sugar in beer

Sugar added to certain beers (british ales and belgian ales) have

been discussed here before.  Was there a consensus as to the best

thing to use that is available in the states?  Brown sugar?  What

is best for a brown ale versus a belgian double or triple?  In the

belgian ale book the author says the brown color of the double is

from the sugar, so I'm not sure what the homebrewer is to do.

Is rock candy anything more than just sucrose?  If so, would it

dissolve in the boil?

Thanks.

                                     - Bryan

------------------------------


high-gravityVSpartial boils/carboys/Miller's AAUs/thermostats/pts-lb-gal

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 15:21 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: high-gravityVSpartial boils/carboys/Miller's AAUs/thermostats/pts-lb-gal

JC writes:

>I'm interested in brewing a high-gravity all-grain brew.  I'm currently

>limited by my pot (5gal) and stove.  Can anyone suggest a high-gravity

>recipe?  I can boil up to 4gal of liquid...  I do have a lauter-tun (Zapap

>type) that works adequately.

Although I picked JC's post (sorry JC), there are a number of posters who

seem to be confused by this "high-gravity" brew thread.  There's a big

difference between partial boil (which could also be called high-gravity

boil) and high-gravity ferment.  I believe that the original post that

started this thread asked about what kind of compensation had to be made

for a high-gravity ferment.  Well, a number of brewers have posted that

a higher gravity ferment will result in a beer with more esters.  I have

found this to be true, but have not tried diluting the resulting beer

into a medium-gravity beer.  I think what JC is asking about (as well as

a couple of others) is a partial-boil recipe.  One in which, say, 3-gallons

of wort are boiled and then this is diluted into a 5-gallon batch in the

fermenter.  You see, there's a big difference between diluting before

fermentation and diluting after fermentation.  In either case you need to

use some math to figure out how much hops to add to achieve the bitterness

you want in the final beer.  I suggest (although they are being disputed

by some) that Jackie Rager's numbers in the Hops Special Issue of Zymurgy

are still very good if you compensate, as I do, for hop bags and whole

hops (adding 10% more if you use a hop bag and 10% more again if you use

whole or plug hops in stead of pellets).

In both cases (partial boil and high-gravity ferment) you need to pick

the IBUs you want and then use 5-gallons for the volume in the formula.

When it comes to figuring the boil gravity, calculate it for the boil

volume.  For example: 6 lbs of Northwestern in 3 gallons of water will

give you about a 1080 gravity boil.  Use that for the gravity adjustment.

Dr. Bob Technical's Amazing Wheel of Beer is great for approximating

the contribution of a large variety of grains (beware that some extracts

contribute a bit more points some less).

*******************************

Rich writes:

>I'm looking to purchase a few used carboys. I've tried some of the

>local bottled water companies but they seem to use plastic these

>days. The homebrew shops I've visited want $16 to $18 for a new

>one. Can anyone suggest a different  alternative?

Some water companies offer a choice of glass or plastic.  Call around.

******************

Tony writes:

>After 5 all grain batches, I re-read Miller's "complete" book to see if it

>made more sense now (it did).  I have a question about hop rates in a couple

>of his recipes (pages 213, 214).  The format of these recipes is:

>

> xxx AAU hops

> 3rd addition 1 ounce (count only half of the AAUs toward your total)

>         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

What he means is that a shorter boil will extract less bitterness from

the hops you add.  What he means is that this late addition of hops will

contribute less to the total bitterness of this beer.

************************

Carl writes:

>I am picking up a chest freezer this weekend, and I will need to put a

>controller on it for fermentation/lagering/etc.  While I've seen mentions

>of controls by Hunter, Johnson, and Williams in the past, I would like to

I have two Hunters and I'm very happy with them.  Indeed they only go down

to 40F, but I will never serve any lower than that and if I need to lager

lower than that, I would just use the fridge thermostat for the temps below

40F.  The big advantages of the Hunter are the lower price, ease of use,

solid-state sensor (a wire connects the sensor to the controller) and the

4 minute cycle delay (to protect your compressor).

***********************

Bob writes:

>As part of my neverending work to improve the spreadsheet program I use to keep

>track of my brewing I decided to include an Extraction Rate Calculator (tm) to

>automatically compute an extraction yield based on the o.g., total weight of

>grains used, gallons of beer produced (pts/lb/gal).  I then decided to go that

>one better and include a calculation for the maximum extraction rate based on

>some yields found in Dave Miller's book-Brewing the World's GreatBeers (p.

>129).  These yields in alpha order are:

 .

 .

 .

>Malt extract (dry)     45

>Malt extract (syrup) 35

Well, I feel that dry extracts vary between 42 and 45 pts/lb/gal and there

is quite a bit more variability in syrups (from 32 up to even 40 for

Northwestern.)

***************************************************************************

DISCLAIMER: I *do* own a homebrew shop/mailorder house, I *do* sell the

Amazing Wheel of Beer, I *do not* yet sell either of the three thermostats,

but when I do I *will* carry all three and finally I carry a *variety* of

extracts but use Northwestern a lot, so I happen to know it's pts/lb/gal

offhand and know it's higher than most.

Al.

------------------------------


Date: Wed,  7 Jul 93 16:40:35 EDT

From: Bruce=Kiley%SIG%SNI%sig@sni-usa.com

Subject:

Does anyone have a set of plans of detailed description on how to build beer

cases out of wood?

Please reply to brucek@sig.sni-usa.com

Thanks in advance,

Bruce

------------------------------


HB Digest Back issue helpKK

Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1993 16:43:46 -0400 (EDT)

From: BILLOK@delphi.com

Subject: HB Digest Back issue helpKK

H

P

P

P

P

P

P

------------------------------


Hop bags/mash Ph

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 17:16:00 -0400 (EDT)

From: garvin@grebyn.com (Rick Garvin)

Subject: Hop bags/mash Ph

korz@iepubj.att.com writes:

> Indeed hop particles will help with protein coagulation, but I feel that you

> should wait till after the hot break to add the hops in the first place.

> The last time I recall reading about this is in a post from Stuart somewhere

> around HBD 1150.  My contention, as that mentioned by Stuart, is that the

> hops will do too-good a job coagulating proteins *AROUND THEMSELVES* thereby

> reducing the utilization.  Now, if you wait till after the hot break, I

> suggest that there will still be some coagulation of proteins around the

> hops, but not nearly as much as if the hops were added before the hot break.

>

> Why does this matter?  Well, the theory is that the protein coagulated

> around the hops will reduce utilization.  I have not done side-by-side

> tests of this, but I do recall a significant increase in hop utilization

> when I began to wait for the hot break before adding the hops.  I did not

> put the two together till someone on the HBD mentioned it.

There is another issue at stake here. These protein molecules are

contributors to haze. We all like our beers to clear without filtering,

so we want to use all of the tools we have to coagulate these proteins.

If you place your hops in the wort before the boil and the hot

break occurs you will not get the full benefit of the hot break. The hard

resins from the hops will bind with protein molecules that would have

otherwise coagulated without their aid.

For me the extra coagulation power is secondary to any added efficiency

in utilization. I am also an avowed user of pellitized hops. I do not

put my hops or my dates in bags.

Cheers, Rick

------------------------------


Keeping Soda Kegs Cool

Date: 8 Jul 1993 05:16:40 -0600

From: "Manning, Martin P" <manning#m#_martin_p@mcst.ae.ge.com>

Subject: Keeping Soda Kegs Cool

 For keeping kegs cool , there is a simple, low cost alternative to a bucket of

ice-   insulate!  All you need is a larger version of the foam plastic

single-can insulators that are popular among the canned beer crowd. The

insulator I use is made from a polyethylene foam sleeping pad, of the type used

by backpackers.  These can be purchased at sporting goods stores for about ten

dollars, and are big enough to make a couple of insulators, if you get one

longer than about 55 inches. Use contact cement to join the ends of a piece of

the pad, which has been cut to the propper width (the height of the keg), and

length (about 3/16" shy of having the ends meet when it's wrapped around the

keg). To use the insulator, just slip it down over the top of the keg when you

remove it from cold storage.

Martin Manning

------------------------------


Re: KQED Festival

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 15:51:26 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Mark S. Nelson" <mnelson@eis.calstate.edu>

Subject: Re: KQED Festival

I have one very serious objection to the way this festival is being run.

That is the fact that it only runs for three hours.  Who came up with that

brilliant idea?

I have always found that the best brew/food festivals are the ones that

allow you plenty of time to relax and enjoy the offerings.  To charge

$30.00 for what is billed as the largest event of its kind, then to allow

barely enough time to get started, is pretty bad.

Personally, I'll save my money for the smaller festivals that give you for

fun and enjoyment.

- --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 ...And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart

"I drink therefor I am!"

Mark S. Nelson      nelsonm@axe.humboldt.edu      mnelson@eis.calstate.edu

------------------------------


Home Brew U BBS: CHANGES!!

Date: Wed, 07 Jul 93 21:44:04 EDT

From: drwho2959@aol.com

Subject: Home Brew U BBS: CHANGES!!

Announcing a new "campus" of the popular BBS dedicated exclusively to

Home Brewing and Beer Appreciation:

HOME BREW U. - MIDWEST

(708)705-7263, N,8,1

1200-14400 bps, V.42bis

I plan to run the new campus in much the same manner as the old one.

The focus is on BEER (making it, buying it, drinking it, and ENJOYING it!)

While a large library of beer-related files is available, the REAL

strength of this BBS is in the quality of brewing knowledge contained

in the message base.  So please remember to take a look at the messages,

and feel free to ask questions.  Many novice brewers have gotten prompt

help and advice from the HBU message base.

Beer lovers in the Southern USA should note that the original Home Brew U.

continues to operate in Houston, Texas, with a new Sysop and a new phone

number: (713)923-6418.  Its name has been changed to 'Home Brew U -

Southwestern Campus'.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------*

| Sysop                    Andrew Patrick                      Founder |

| Home Brew U-Midwest                            Home Brew U-Southwest |

| (708)705-7263     Internet: andinator@delphi.com       (713)923-6418 |

*----------------------------------------------------------------------*

------------------------------


Specialty Products

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 23:16:57 EDT

From: <geotex@engin.umich.edu>

Subject:  Specialty Products

Does anyone have any experience with Specialty Products Inc.? They have

their "SuperBrau" malt extracts for $80 for 12 3.1 lb. cans.  They are

%100 malt.  Seems like a good deal to me. Any thoughts.

please reply by e-mail or post if you think it's of interest to others.

Alex Ramos

geotex@caen.engin.umich.edu

------------------------------


water/racking tip/belgian ale

Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 01:24:08 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: water/racking tip/belgian ale

In HBD #1171 Mark Garetz writes:

> Forgive me for a bit of a tangent here, but this is kind of like why there

> aren't really any good formulas for predicting bitterness based on all the

> variables.  The reason is that commercial breweries don't change their

> process often.

 ...

> So do they care to have a formula that they can plug in lots

> of variables and get a reasonably accurate bitterness calculation?  No.

> So we don't have one either (yet).

A lot of it has to do with your water, and how it affects hop

utilization.  Boil Time / AAU tables are a start, but don't

take water qualiity into account.

- ------------------------------

>Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com> writes:

>err a bit on the high side when setting the tube depth.  BTW, I have found

>the "orange racking tip" thingy to be essentially worthless.

gotta disagree with this one.  the orange racking tip thingy gets

me at least 1/2" more clean wort out of a 5 gal carboy before it

starts picking up trub (out of the post-boil pre-ferment wort,

which doesn't cake down).

- ------------------------------

>I think the concensus is that brewing Belgian-style beers is tough to do,

>and I'm sure that anyone who's seriously worked on this has had more than

>their share of disappointments.

I can't seem to brew high-gravity ale that doesn't turn out belgian-like.

High ferment temp is the big thing.  Put an electric blanket around

your fermenter for the first day or two.   Add a pound of sugar or

two, any type (but different tastes).  If you add finish/dry hops, saaz

works best.  It's a lot easier to enjoy the irreproducible results than

it is to worry about consistency.  Relax and don't worry, because

belgian ales are not well-defined and you can get away with a lot in

a competition.

prosit!

bb

------------------------------


Schlitz

Date:     Thu, 8 Jul 93 8:07:23 EDT

From: "Peter J. Burke" (FSAC-PMD) <pburke@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  Schlitz

Schlitz took an award at the GABF because it is a great

beer. Just because it is not a microbrewery doesn't

make it garbage.

My two cents.

Pete Burke

------------------------------


Copper Manifold System

Date: 08 Jul 1993 08:16:08 GMT

From: "Tom Stolfi" <WAUTS@cwemail.ceco.com>

Subject: Copper Manifold System

From: Tom Stolfi                                   WAUTS    - CWE1IIN

To: Jeff Benjamin                                BENJI    - CWEMAIL

Subject: Copper Manifold System

Jeff,

Since the HBD has been filled with the copper manifold/easy masher/zapap

thread I thought I'd send you a note thanking you for your help.

I have been using a copper manifold system for my two last batches (it works

works very well :-)) that is based on your design.  I only changed one thing,

instead of soldering a copper 1/2" to 3/8' reducer I purchased a larger

(I can't recall the size) vinyl tube that fits over the 1/2" pipe.  The

vinyl tube needs to be heated in hot water in order to fit it on the

copper pipe but creates an airtight fit.  Using a large plastic hose clamp,

with adjustable click stops, on the tightest setting that allows liquid to

flow lauters six gallons in 45 minutes.  The only drawback is that you need to

brace the tubing where it comes out of the standpipe or it bends over. I used

some copper wire and it worked OK but I am trying to come up with a better

solution.  I thought you might be interested in any modifications of your

system.   Thanks.

Tom Stolfi                                           wauts@cwemail.ceco.com

Commonwealth Edison Co                               Waukegan, IL

------------------------------


Siphoning

Date: 8 Jul 93 04:04:57 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Siphoning

Message Creation Date was at  8-JUL-1993 08:44:00

          Greetings,

               I recently brewed a relatively light batch which is

          still sitting in the primary fermenter.  I plan to run an

          experiment on this beer.  I will split the beer into two

          separate carboys for secondary fermentation.  I will have a

          bed of raspberries in one of the carboys in the attempt to

          create a fruit beer without loosing the fruit aroma.  In the

          other secondary carboy the beer will ferment w/o any fruit.

          This way I can compare and determine the exact contribution

          of the raspberries.

               Now the questions:

          1. Is 2 lb raspberries/gallon of beer a reasonable amount?

          2. Should I use a Campden tablet overnight in the

          raspberries to prevent introducing any new bacteria in the

          secondary fermenter?

          3. Siphoning:  If I siphon first into one carboy and then

          into the second, I'm afraid I may end up with differing

          beers.  I would think the first carboy would get the lighter

          beer and the second a heavier beer (and more trub remnants).

               I was thinking of a "Y" siphoning connector.  The beer

          being siphoned would hit the "Y" connector and then branch

          out down two paths into the two carboys.  I would end up

          using 3 lengths of 3/8 " tubing along with the "Y" connector

          to accomplish the siphon.

               Does anyone know if this would work, or is it doomed to

          abject failure?

               If it would work, does anyone know where I could

          procure a "Y" connector?

          TIA

          Andy A

------------------------------


Hops and hot break

Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 08:25 CDT

From: othon@ial7.jsc.nasa.gov (Bill Othon.LinCom)

Subject: Hops and hot break

Darren Aaberge discusses hops and hot break, and I have some

questions:

1) from the FAQ file, what and when is hot break?

2) do you wait for hot break before adding bittering hops (the

hops usually added at the beginning of the boil). Or are we

talking aromatic hop addition here?

T-54 days till legal brewpubs in Texas....

 -Bill

                                            //    |__|    //

=====================================      /  /   |  |   /  /

Bill Othon <othon@ial7.jsc.nasa.gov>      /    ---|  |---    /

Tetherologist                             /                  /

LinCom Corporation - Houston Division      /  ////    ////  /

(713) 483-1858                              //    /  /    //

                                                   //

------------------------------


Duval, Fuller's ESB and Full Sail Ales

Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 07:23:07 -0700 (PDT)

From: John Brooks <jbrooks@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Duval, Fuller's ESB and Full Sail Ales

In reply to the HBD inquiries of Domenick Venezia (6/30/93) and Tim Born

(7/1/93) about recipes, I offer the following:

Duvel - Ingredients: pale malt; Saaz and Styrian hops (30 B.U.); top

fermenting yeast; brewing sugar for bottle fermentation; O.G. 1.070,

degrees Plato 17.5; 8.5% alcohol by volume; unpasteurized.

Fuller's E.S.B. (export) - Ingredients: pale ale and crystal malt; flaked

maize; caramel and brewing sugar; Challenger, Northdown and Target

bittering hops, Goldings aromatic hops; O.G. 1.060, degrees Plato 14.8

(ale that is kegged/casked for domestic consumption is O.G. 1.054);

alcohol by volume 6.0%.

Redhook's E.S.B. is reputed to be a take-off on Fuller's (and at 50,000

barrels this year, successfully so) - Ingredients: 2-row Klages malt,

caramel malt (60L); Willamette and Tettnanger hops; O.G. 1.054; 4.3%

alcohol by weight; no pasteurization; another interesting point about all

of Redhook's products is that carbonation comes from their primary

fermentation in airtight vessels (no secondary fermentation, bottle

fermentation or CO2 injection).

Full Sail Golden Ale - Ingredients: Oregon 2-row Klages malt, caramel and

Cara-pils malt; Oregon Tettnanger and Halletauer hops.

Full Sail Amber Ale - Ingredients: 2-row pale malt, caramel and chocolate

malts; Kent Goldings and Willamette hops.

The source for the info on Duvel and Fuller's is "The European Beer

Almanac" by Roger Protz, 1991, Lochnar Publishing, Scotland.  The sources

for Redhook and Full Sail are those companies published product sheets.

I would be interested any more detailed info anyone may have on Full Sail

Amber (O.G.'s, B.U.'s, etc.).  When I downloaded Cat's Meow, I found

a reference to Full Sail Amber in the index, but not in the text.  Please

post or reply to private e-mail.

John Brooks

jbrooks@carson.u.washington.edu

------------------------------


Hunter Airstats are a myth!

Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 10:14:34 CDT

From: hinz@memphis.med.ge.com (David Hinz)

Subject: Hunter Airstats are a myth!

Greetings.

I've just recently started lagering, and I found it impossible to find

a Hunter Airstat anywhere in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area.  Everyone I talk

to at home supply type stores (Menards, etc) give me that look of "Yeah, right,

temperature controller...uh huh....sure....that's OK"  You know, that look.

Anyway, if someone could e-mail me an address or phone number for Hunter, or

a mail-order source for these things, I'd appreciate the heck out of it.

On another note:  I've got 33 pounds of strawberries ordered, anyone have a

good recipe for a strawberry ale, wine, mead, or whatever?  Thanks!

Dave Hinz

------------------------------


Summary of a large scale home system

Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 09:10:13 -0700

From: sag5004@yak.ca.boeing.com (Ford Prefect)

Subject: Summary of a large scale home system

I guess that I have waited long enough for the replies to trickle

in...  The executive summary was lots of "me too" replies :-)

Basically when you scale up in size you need to think long and hard

about the following:

Anything >1bbl will you will probably need pumps (or a very tall

gravity system :-)  And need to make sure you can move around large

quantities of hot fluids in a timely maner.

How to handle large amounts of grain, floorspace and other bits.  e.q.

How do you crush and handle and dispose of a the huge amount of grain

you will be using.

I was warned to not forget about losses (of product) in the transfer

and handling process.

One person wrote that he would write up his experiences in brewing in

a 2bbl brewhouse when he get a spare moment.  Look for it in an upcoming

issue of the HBD...  (sorry, I don't know when)

"It is not as easy as one might think to design a plug and play system of

this size."  I know that the system that I use now has sort of evolved to

what it is now, and the problem with doing this in a large scale is that

it gets expensive fast.

 - ---------

A couple of people replied with stuff that they have for sale.  All

has been posted in the HBD

A guy in Ohio has a 112 SS vessel, and another guy Arizona has a few

leftover pieces (kegs, boiler and vessel, and a fermenter)  [Sorry I

am not posting their names because I didn't ask permission too]

 - ----------

It appears that boiler geometry is use whatever is convenient to

fabricate or buy.  You should stick to using standard sizes of

stainless sheets ( basically 4x 6,8,or 10 feet) because this stuff is

$$$ and you don't want to waste any.

I was warned against getting the lauter geometry 'too vertical' and was

given a rough number of 1-3 feet is a good depth for a grain bed.

Sorry, about the disjointed ramblings, but this is what I know at this time.

I was really hoping that there would be a journal article I could read, but

no such luck :-(  I will report back periodically if I learn anything

new.

Thanks to

Scott Wisler (swisler@c0431.ae.ge.com)

Jim Busch (busch@daacdev1.stx.com)

Kinney Baughman (baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu)

Ray Brice (ray@hwr.arizona.edu)

and to the many nameless others that I accidently deleted.

Later,

ps.  I am getting married on the 24th so I wont be reading my mail for

a couple of weeks after that.

stuart galt                          boeing computer services

sag5004@yak.boeing.com               bellvue washington

(206) 865-3764                       or home (206) 361-0190

#include <standard/disclaim.h>

I don't know what they say, they don't know what I say...

------------------------------


More on "sparging" and light extracts

Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 09:42:18 PDT

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1-1/T09 DTN 225-6171  08-Jul-1993 1228 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: More on "sparging" and light extracts

>Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 12:10:00 -0400 (EDT)

>From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>

>Subject: Bits and pieces

>Hi ya'll!

>Keith mentions:

>>Charlie Papazian in TCJOH refers to the dumping of the wort through a strainer

>>into the fermenter to remove the hops and any other particulates as sparging.

>And I disagree with the esteemed CP on this.  While I'm not one who

>thinks you need to rack off the cold break before fermentation begins,

>I do believe you need to get as clear a runoff as possible off the hot

>break when going to the fermenter.

I was merely trying to point out that CP called this sparging which is

probably what the original poster meant when he used the term.

By the way, it seems to me that you agree with CP on this.  The "sparging" of

the wort into the primary seems to remove most of the hotbreak material along

with the hops.

>>This might be the source of the confusion.  He also recommends scooping out

>>the specialty grains just prior to the wort coming to a boil.

>Hmm... The conventional wisdom here is to remove the grains at 170

>degrees to avoid leaching tannins into the wort.  Waiting until just

>before the boil is too long.

This sounds like a momily to me.  I haven't noticed an astrigency problem with

beers I've made to date using this method and I know of several other brewers

who use this method with success.

>Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 10:39:32 PDT

>From: nexgen!bart@olivea.ATC.Olivetti.Com (Bart Thielges)

>Subject: storing kegs and sanitizing fermeter lids

>Here's a few of questions for the experts :

>1) I haven't been able to find a good way to immerse my fermeter lid (a

> 5 gallon white plastic bucket with snap on lid) in the sanitizing

> solution.  I can distort the bucket and jam the lid in part way,

> but this could scratch the sides of the bucket and besides does

> not totally immerse the lid.  Also, I don't have any other vessel

> larger than the bucket.  I've been splashing the sanitizing solution

> all over the lid in the hopes that the contact time is long enough.

> Is it ?  Do I need to buy a larger soaking vessel ?

I simply fill the primary up to capacity and snap on the lid and let it soak.

Just before I'm ready to go, I wipe down the lid with a sponge that has been

soaking in the sanitizing solution.  Seems to work OK so far.  Wiping stuff

down was recommended by a local supply shop.  I think the physical action

of the wipe would offset the minimal contact time.

- ------------------------------

>Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 12:43 EDT

>From: LYONS@adc2.adc.ray.com

>Subject: Light (Lovibond) Extract

>I seem to recall some HBDers complaining that the American Eagle

>dry extract product had significant amounts of corn sugar mixed in

>with the malt.  This would certainly make a light beer, but it may

>be better to stay with a quality extract, such as M&F or Laaglander,

>which claims to be all malt.

I hadn't heard that.  I've used American Eagle for a few batches and noticed

no characteristic cidery taste.  It also claims to be all malt.  The use of

corn sugar might explain the low price, though.

Keith A. MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1178, 07/09/93

*************************************

-------


flat beer

Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 12:37:51 -0400

From: Rich Ryan <ryancr@install4.swin.oasis.gtegsc.com>

Subject: flat beer

Let me start by saying I'm a neophyte in the homebrew

field. I just bottled my first batch three weeks ago.

The beer tastes fine other than being somewhat flat.

Papazian's troubleshooting section came to two conclusions:

1) I left an excessive amount of sterilant in the bottles or

2) I'm storing the beer at excessively cool temperatures.

I used B-brite to sanitize the bottles and equipment and

was very diligent to make sure I washed it all off. As far

as storing the beer goes, it hasn't gone below 70 since it

was bottled. Can anyone suggest any other possible reasons

for the lack of carbonation?

I also read somewhere else in Papazian's book that you should

leave about an inch of air space in each bottle. I noticed that

I have more like two inches of air space in each bottle. Could

this have some effect on the carbonation. It would seem that

as I increase the air space in each bottle the carbonation

should increase as well.

Rich Ryan

------------------------------


A Handy Table for Keg Pressure

Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 09:59:50 PDT

From: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards)

Subject: A Handy Table for Keg Pressure

Hello fellow brewmeisters,

While we're on the subject of kegging and pressure, I've come up with a

formula and a table for determining what pressure to apply to achieve a

certain carbonation level.  I believe that this table is more useful

compared to the other table that has appeared on the HBD and elsewhere.

It's smaller (fits easily in an 80 column window), but contains all the

needed information in a more obvious arrangement.  (It makes more sense

to me to ask "what pressure do I need" rather than "what do I get if I

use this pressure").  Besides, it can do any temperature.

You can print the table out and stick it in your brewing logbook or on

the side of your kegs.

TABLE

Look at the row that corresponds to your keg temperature, and read the

number at the column corresponding to the desired carbonation level.

That number is the pressure to apply to the beer, in PSI.

             PRESSURE REQUIRED FOR DESIRED CARBONATION

                      Volumes of CO2 desired

Temp   2.0  2.1  2.2  2.3  2.4  2.5  2.6  2.7  2.8  2.9  3.0

 32F   3.5  4.4  5.4  6.3  7.3  8.2  9.2 10.1 11.0 12.0 12.9

 34F   4.3  5.3  6.3  7.3  8.2  9.2 10.2 11.2 12.1 13.1 14.1

 36F   5.1  6.2  7.2  8.2  9.2 10.2 11.2 12.3 13.3 14.3 15.3

 38F   6.0  7.0  8.1  9.1 10.2 11.2 12.3 13.3 14.4 15.4 16.5

 40F   6.8  7.9  9.0 10.1 11.2 12.3 13.4 14.4 15.5 16.6 17.7

 42F   7.7  8.8 10.0 11.1 12.2 13.3 14.4 15.5 16.7 17.8 18.9

 44F   8.6  9.7 10.9 12.1 13.2 14.4 15.5 16.7 17.8 19.0 20.1

 46F   9.5 10.7 11.8 13.0 14.2 15.4 16.6 17.8 19.0 20.2 21.3

 48F  10.4 11.6 12.8 14.0 15.3 16.5 17.7 18.9 20.1 21.4 22.6

 50F  11.3 12.5 13.8 15.0 16.3 17.6 18.8 20.1 21.3 22.6 23.8

 52F  12.2 13.5 14.8 16.1 17.3 18.6 19.9 21.2 22.5 23.8 25.1

 54F  13.1 14.4 15.7 17.1 18.4 19.7 21.1 22.4 23.7 25.0 26.3

 56F  14.0 15.4 16.7 18.1 19.5 20.8 22.2 23.6 24.9 26.3 27.6

 58F  15.0 16.4 17.8 19.2 20.6 21.9 23.3 24.7 26.1 27.5 28.9

 60F  15.9 17.3 18.8 20.2 21.6 23.1 24.5 25.9 27.4 28.8 30.2

 62F  16.9 18.3 19.8 21.3 22.7 24.2 25.7 27.1 28.6 30.0 31.5

 64F  17.8 19.3 20.8 22.3 23.8 25.3 26.8 28.3 29.8 31.3 32.8

 66F  18.8 20.3 21.9 23.4 25.0 26.5 28.0 29.6 31.1 32.6 34.1

 68F  19.8 21.4 22.9 24.5 26.1 27.6 29.2 30.8 32.4 33.9 35.5

 70F  20.8 22.4 24.0 25.6 27.2 28.8 30.4 32.0 33.6 35.2 36.8

 72F  21.8 23.4 25.1 26.7 28.4 30.0 31.6 33.3 34.9 36.5 38.2

 74F  22.8 24.5 26.2 27.8 29.5 31.2 32.9 34.5 36.2 37.9 39.5

 76F  23.8 25.5 27.2 29.0 30.7 32.4 34.1 35.8 37.5 39.2 40.9

 78F  24.9 26.6 28.4 30.1 31.8 33.6 35.3 37.1 38.8 40.5 42.3

 80F  25.9 27.7 29.5 31.2 33.0 34.8 36.6 38.3 40.1 41.9 43.7

             PRESSURE REQUIRED FOR DESIRED CARBONATION

                      Volumes of CO2 desired

Temp   2.0  2.1  2.2  2.3  2.4  2.5  2.6  2.7  2.8  2.9  3.0

 01C   4.2  5.2  6.2  7.2  8.1  9.1 10.1 11.1 12.0 13.0 14.0

 02C   5.0  6.0  7.0  8.0  9.0 10.0 11.0 12.0 13.0 14.0 15.0

 03C   5.7  6.8  7.8  8.9  9.9 10.9 12.0 13.0 14.0 15.1 16.1

 04C   6.5  7.6  8.6  9.7 10.8 11.9 12.9 14.0 15.1 16.1 17.2

 05C   7.3  8.4  9.5 10.6 11.7 12.8 13.9 15.0 16.1 17.2 18.3

 06C   8.1  9.2 10.3 11.5 12.6 13.7 14.9 16.0 17.1 18.2 19.4

 07C   8.8 10.0 11.2 12.3 13.5 14.7 15.8 17.0 18.2 19.3 20.5

 08C   9.6 10.8 12.0 13.2 14.4 15.6 16.8 18.0 19.2 20.4 21.6

 09C  10.4 11.7 12.9 14.1 15.4 16.6 17.8 19.0 20.3 21.5 22.7

 10C  11.3 12.5 13.8 15.0 16.3 17.6 18.8 20.1 21.3 22.6 23.8

 11C  12.1 13.4 14.7 16.0 17.2 18.5 19.8 21.1 22.4 23.7 25.0

 12C  12.9 14.2 15.6 16.9 18.2 19.5 20.8 22.1 23.5 24.8 26.1

 13C  13.7 15.1 16.4 17.8 19.2 20.5 21.9 23.2 24.5 25.9 27.2

 14C  14.6 16.0 17.4 18.7 20.1 21.5 22.9 24.3 25.6 27.0 28.4

 15C  15.4 16.8 18.3 19.7 21.1 22.5 23.9 25.3 26.7 28.1 29.6

 16C  16.3 17.7 19.2 20.6 22.1 23.5 25.0 26.4 27.8 29.3 30.7

 17C  17.1 18.6 20.1 21.6 23.1 24.5 26.0 27.5 29.0 30.4 31.9

 18C  18.0 19.5 21.0 22.6 24.1 25.6 27.1 28.6 30.1 31.6 33.1

 19C  18.9 20.4 22.0 23.5 25.1 26.6 28.1 29.7 31.2 32.7 34.3

 20C  19.8 21.4 22.9 24.5 26.1 27.6 29.2 30.8 32.4 33.9 35.5

 21C  20.7 22.3 23.9 25.5 27.1 28.7 30.3 31.9 33.5 35.1 36.7

 22C  21.6 23.2 24.9 26.5 28.1 29.8 31.4 33.0 34.6 36.3 37.9

 23C  22.5 24.2 25.8 27.5 29.2 30.8 32.5 34.1 35.8 37.5 39.1

 24C  23.4 25.1 26.8 28.5 30.2 31.9 33.6 35.3 37.0 38.7 40.3

 25C  24.3 26.1 27.8 29.5 31.3 33.0 34.7 36.4 38.1 39.9 41.6

REFERENCE

Volumes of CO2:

British style beers    = 2.00 - 2.40

Most other beers       = 2.40 - 2.85

High-carbonation beers = 2.85 - 2.95

FORMULA

If you use a spreadsheet or a programmable calculator for your brewing

endeavors, this formula works very well (it was used to create the table):

Pressure = F(Temperature, Volume)

P = -16.6999 - 0.0101059 T + 0.00116512 T^2

    + 0.173354 T V + 4.24267 V - 0.0684226 V^2

C-SHELL

For you Unix users, here's the above formula converted to a C-shell script

called "pressure":

- ---------------------------------CUT-HERE----------------------------------

#!/bin/csh -f

if ($#argv != 2) then

  echo "pressure:  calculate pressure needed to acheive a certain volume"

  echo "           of C02 in solution."

  echo "Usage:  pressure volume temperature (F)"

  exit 1

endif

set vol  = $1

set temp = $2

set eqn1 = "scale=2;(-16.6999-0.0101059*$temp+0.00116512*$temp*$temp+0.173354"

set eqn2 = "*$temp*$vol+4.24267*$vol-0.0684226*$vol*$vol+.005)/1"

set pressure = `echo "$eqn1$eqn2" | bc`

echo "To get $vol volumes of C02 into solution at $temp degrees F, you need:"

echo "$pressure PSI"

- ---------------------------------CUT-HERE----------------------------------

Have fun,

 -Alan

 .------------------------------------.

 | Alan Edwards: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov |      Member: The Hoppy Cappers

 |     or: Alan-Edwards@llnl.gov      |      homebrew club, Modesto, CA

 `------------------------------------'

------------------------------


yeast FAQ/filters/temps

Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 10:16:59 PDT

From: ghultin@sfu.ca

Subject: yeast FAQ/filters/temps

I certainly would like a yeast FAQ.  I think that would be a

tremendous help for new/intermediate brewers and for those like

me who simply want to learn more.  FAQs make a great place to

learn enough to ask intelligent questions.

I have a question about filtering beer.  Out of curiosity, I just

made some quasi-czech pilsner at a U-Brew-It-Here place, and they

of course filter their beer to get that commercial look.

Why should I filter, or not filter my homebrew?  What would it do

for my beer?  (by the way, I have chosen not to patronize those

brew-places again, they charge exhorbitant rates).

Finally, I would like some information on warm temp brewing.  If

brewing ales, what are the consquences of fermenting between 18-24

degrees C ?  My apartment is not air-con. nor do I have a basement (!).

Is bacterial contam. my main worry, or will I develop some

interesting, but perhaps 'out of style' flavours?

geoff.

------------------------------


India Pale Ale's

Date: Thu, 08 Jul 1993 10:31:37 -0700 (MST)

From: cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu (John Mare)

Subject: India Pale Ale's

In a recent discussion on India Pale Ales (IPA's) the assertion was made

that these are all high gravity ales. Conventional wisdom tells us

that these ales were brewed at high gravity to allow them to travel well

(ie. by ship to India), and our US beer competitions persist in defining

IPA's as medium to high gravity (OG 1050 to 1065). It is interesting to

observe, however, that in their land of origin IPA's are not in fact high

gravity ales. Some of the truly outstanding examples of this type which I

tasted on a recent beer tour of The British Isles include "Palmer's IPA"

(Dorset, OG 1039, ABV 4.3%), "Robinwood IPA" (Yorkshire, OG 1040, ABV 4.2%),

"Younger IPA" (Edinburgh, OG 1043, ABV 4.5%),  "R&D Deucher's IPA"

(Edinburgh, OG 1048, ABV 3.9%), and "Thompson's IPA" (Devon, OG 1045, ABV

4.6%). The Palmer's IPA has won the "Beer of th Show Award" at a British

Guild of Beer Writer's beertasting, attesting to the fact that in Great

Britain an ale with an OG of 1039 can both qualify as an IPA, and win

awards. Perhaps we should focus less on categories and their physical

parameters, and more on the sheer joy of producing fine ales fitting the

broad spectrum of taste and aroma nuances found in the "real ales" of

Britain.

John M. of "John's Alehouse", where "the ale cures what ails ye"!

------------------------------


Steam Kettle

Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 12:51 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Steam Kettle

 >From: steve@Pentagon-EMH6.army.mil (Steve Lichtenberg x79300)

 >The principle advantages of using steam to heat your wort are

 1.  Speed.  Since steam has about 6 times more latent heat than water at

 the same temperature, it will bring 10 gallons of liqquid to a boil in a few

 minutes.

 That presumes you have an infinite supply of steam.  If you use the same

 burner to create the steam that you would have used to just heat the wort,

 you gain nothing.

 If you have a burner that produces enough steam to bring ten gallons of

 liquid to a boil in a few minutes, you might just as well put the kettle on

 it.

 > 2.  Ability to maintain a rolling boil without having to worry about

 scorching.

 Scorching is only a problem in mashing as a rolling boil by itself precludes

 it.  You may be referring to caramelizing in the boil but that is easily

 controlled by the amount of heat applied.

 Sorry but the steam jacketed brew kettle for the homebrewer sounds like a

 very complicated and expensive solution to a  problem that does not exist.

 That is not to say however, that if it turns you on, go for it.  After all,

 there are the RIMS fundamentalists out there so why not steam boilers in the

 kitchen?

 js

------------------------------


Farmer/Engineer etc.

Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 13:00:31 CDT

From: Gene Zimmerman <ezimmerm@hp.uwsuper.edu>

Subject: Farmer/Engineer etc.

Salutations!

   When I made that comment about Farmers making wine and Engineers making

beer, I was just saying that the creation of beer is more intricate

than the production of wine. The fermentables are already present in

wine, as Brewers, we must coax sugars out of the grains. Granted, winemaking

doesn't seem easy, but I think brewing has the capacity for more complexity.

   I also have a comment for the fellow who has the most unfortunate

infection problem. I noticed you _mentioned_ sanitizing everything you use,

but didn't say you do anything to the yeast packet itself. I dunk mine

in bleach water for a while before opening. I cut the packet with a reciently

bleached pair of scissors. Just a comment. I hope you work it out.

   How many people brew in their basements? Unless it's an enclosed room,

I can't see as it would be very sanitry at all. Most of them are a _little_

damp, dark, and although not warm, a constant temp. I think someday I'll

have a brew set up in a basement, but I've always thought of sheet rocking

off a room and putting ceramic tile on the floor and waist coat.

Gene in Duluth (Soon moving to Laramie, WY (I don't know why...) :)

------------------------------


AdvertisingWyeast

Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 13:18 CDT

From: fjdobner@ihlpb.att.com

Subject: AdvertisingWyeast

Among other thing yesterday, Drew Lewis said:

>........................................................ 3) Let the

>Wyeast package swell until you are sure it will burst, then a little

>more.  Get that population as high as possible before exposing it to

>your environment.

My exeperience with letting the Wyeast go the extent of bursting has

been poor. My original orientation was to treat the directions of letting

the package swell to 1" as a minimum and anything greater than that

was so much the better. I found that once the package is about to burst

the yeast do not respond well in a starter environment. Has anybody else

found that to be true?

Again Drew says:

> How about this: Once a month, each person who sells a product may

>post a "I sell this product" message. No claims, no hype, no prices,

>no details, just a clear statement of intent to sell.  Interested

>parties may then send them private email requesting info on their

>product. These people should then refrain from taking part in

>discussions on their or competing products.  People with personal or

>financial interest (close friends of sellers, etc) should show similar

>restraint. Recomendations from satisfied customers in responses to

>queries from other list members would always be welcome.

I agree wholeheartedly with this recommendation. This would perform many

services to us in this forum. It would allow the commercialists (me being one)

to do their thing in a confined marketplace, would restrict commercial

behaviour to what would be strictly proper and improper, provide product

information to customers, and allow the real artists and scientists

here their needed airtime to talk about their hobby/pastime/professions.

I have truly restrained myself in all the highly shrouded pursuits of

customers on the HBD and I feel good about that. I want others to do the

same, however I see some of us want commercials and some do not. Drew's

recommendation is an excellent one. There was also one just like it by

someone else last week (sorry that I cannot give you credit as well

but I cannot remember your name).

Dear Moderator,

I hereby propose the implementation of the above recommendation. How

do we proceed? Shall I contact you directly?

Frank

------------------------------


re: Specialty Products Intl

Date:         Thu, 08 Jul 93 14:27:13 EDT

From: Elaine <EBORIS@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>

Subject:      re: Specialty Products Intl

About the review of "Home Beermakers Guide" by Leigh P. Beadle

Sad but true:

When I first tried my hand at brewing over 10 years ago I bought an

equipment kit which included Superbrau and L.P. Beadle's ~guide~.

Looking back, I am amazed that I didn't get any truly BAD beers from

following his advice. It took some time (and much better books on

homebrewing) to rid myself of bad brewing techniques I gotten from that

book.

I wish that ~guide~ had been a joke, but no laughs, it just makes me angry

thinking about it.

Elaine Boris                                  Student Information Systems

Computer Services Specialist                  University of Georgia

706 542-0484                                  Athens  Georgia

------------------------------


Not enough body & Brewpubs

Date: 8 Jul 93 13:13 CST

From: Wolfe@act-12-po.act.org

Subject: Not enough body & Brewpubs

     I recently got into homebrewing (plan on doing my fifth batch

 this evening).  I have two questions.  The first has to do with body.

 I like my beer "chewy" (or so my wife claims).  None of my beers

 have been as full-bodied as I would like.  How do I increase the body

 of the beer without necessarily increasing the alcohol content?  Can

 I use dextrine malt without mashing it?  What about Lactose?

     The second question may be due to a related problem.  None of my

 Original Specific Gravities have been as high as I'd expected (given

 similar recipes I've seen).  For example, my last batch was a stout

 (6 lbs. of dark liquid extract, 1 lbs. of dark dried extract, and .75

 lbs. each of crystal malt (L50), black barley, and roasted barley;

 along with about a couple of ounces of Northern Brewer's hops).  I

 estimated the Original Specific Gravity to be around 1.042 which was

 lower than I'd expected.  What could be causing this?  I may be

 putting too much water in the fermeter.  I start my boil with 3.5

 gallons, and I typically fill up the 5 gallon carboy with water and

 the boiled wort (thus compensating for the amount that evaporated

 during the boil).  Could it be due to the type of extract I'm using?

 Could it be my water?  (I have a Culligan water softener.)  Could it

 be due to my estimation method?  (I add a little to the SG reading

 for each degree over 60F according to the error estimates Charlie P.

 gives in his book.  I think it is somewhere around 0.003 for each

 degree.  I can't remember because I've got the formula in a

 database cell somewhere.)

     Finally, I am taking two trips soon and would like some

 information on brewpubs.  Can anybody suggest brewpubs worth

 visiting in Louisville, KY or in San Francisco, CA?

 Ed Wolfe

 WOLFE@ACT-12-PO.ACT.ORG

 Iowa City, IA

------------------------------


Not enough body & Brewpubs

Date: 8 Jul 93 13:13 CST

From: Wolfe@act-12-po.act.org

Subject: Not enough body & Brewpubs

     I recently got into homebrewing (plan on doing my fifth batch

 this evening).  I have two questions.  The first has to do with body.

 I like my beer "chewy" (or so my wife claims).  None of my beers

 have been as full-bodied as I would like.  How do I increase the body

 of the beer without necessarily increasing the alcohol content?  Can

 I use dextrine malt without mashing it?  What about Lactose?

     The second question may be due to a related problem.  None of my

 Original Specific Gravities have been as high as I'd expected (given

 similar recipes I've seen).  For example, my last batch was a stout

 (6 lbs. of dark liquid extract, 1 lbs. of dark dried extract, and .75

 lbs. each of crystal malt (L50), black barley, and roasted barley;

 along with about a couple of ounces of Northern Brewer's hops).  I

 estimated the Original Specific Gravity to be around 1.042 which was

 lower than I'd expected.  What could be causing this?  I may be

 putting too much water in the fermeter.  I start my boil with 3.5

 gallons, and I typically fill up the 5 gallon carboy with water and

 the boiled wort (thus compensating for the amount that evaporated

 during the boil).  Could it be due to the type of extract I'm using?

 Could it be my water?  (I have a Culligan water softener.)  Could it

 be due to my estimation method?  (I add a little to the SG reading

 for each degree over 60F according to the error estimates Charlie P.

 gives in his book.  I think it is somewhere around 0.003 for each

 degree.  I can't remember because I've got the formula in a

 database cell somewhere.)

     Finally, I am taking two trips soon and would like some

 information on brewpubs.  Can anybody suggest brewpubs worth

 visiting in Louisville, KY or in San Francisco, CA?

 Ed Wolfe

 WOLFE@ACT-12-PO.ACT.ORG

 Iowa City, IA

------------------------------


Re: Besieged by baleful bacteria

Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 19:26:01 GMT

From: ccicpg!brian@uunet.UU.NET (Brian Davis)

Subject: Re: Besieged by baleful bacteria

In HBD 1177 Drew Lynch talks about preventing infections...

 >Let the Wyeast package swell until you are sure it will burst,

 >then a little more.  Get that population as high as possible

 >before exposing it to your environment.

The guy who runs our local homebrew shop talked about Wyeast at our last

club meeting.  He said that your best bet is not to pop the nutrient pouch

inside the Wyeast package.  He suggests that you just cut open the outer

package, and poor the yeast into a sterile starter.

He does this becuase the Wyeast nutrient appears to be infected.  Maybe

they can't sterilize the nutrient without destroying it.  He claims that if

you leave the nutrient pouch sitting on a warm kitchen counter, it will swell

up on its own -- and not with yeast!

------------------------------


Burners for Culturing

Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 15:36:46 CDT

From: raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com (Glenn Raudins)

Subject: Burners for Culturing

Does anyone know of a source of burners for use in yeast culturing?  I have

an "alcohol lamp" (a vessel with a large "wick" in it) but would like to find

a burner with a more constant/controllable flame.

Glenn Raudins

raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com

------------------------------


Priming with Maple syrup

Date: Thu, 08 Jul 93 14:35:29 PDT

From: Gary Rich <garyrich@qdeck.com>

Subject: Priming with Maple syrup

> In HBD# 1174, Jonathan Knight of Grinnell, Iowa  reminds me of my latest

attempt

> at a maple beer:

>

> >There seems to be an abiding interest in maple syrup in the HBD.  I haven't

> >done it, but have often thought of priming a light ale with it.  I'm not

> >crazy about using large amounts in the boil because of the cost and because

> >it seems that such a delicate flavor would be destroyed that way.  Can

> >anybody report on how much maple character is imparted by priming, and how

> >much syrup to use for this procedure?

>

> In my latest attempt at this I made a dry stout with

> #7 Domestic 2-row

> #1 flaked barley

> #1 roast barley

> #1 Vermont fancy grade light maple syrup (not that 2% stuff)

> 1.5 oz Northern Brewer @ 60min.

> Wyeast Irish Ale

>

> The syrup being added ~3 minutes before I turned off the fire. I racked and

> bottled as usual and primed with 3/4 cup of the same syrup.  The resulting

beer

> had absolutely no maple character  at all.  What it did have was a big hole

> in the flavor where the maple was planned to be. It also gushed (this is too

> much syrup to prime with) and had too much roast barley tang.  None of this

> stopped my wife and I from drinking it.  My wife commented that she liked

> the strong roastiness.

>

> Unless I can get a quantity of of very dark maple, I don't think I'll try

> this again.  The light stuff just seems to all ferment out. I still think the

> idea of priming with it is a good one, but use a dark syrup that will have

> a higher percentage of non-fermentable sugars.

>

> Gary Rich garyrich@qdeck.com

>

>

------------------------------


Sparge Manifold/100% Wheat Beer/Balling vs. SG

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 17:35:13 -0400

From: rxh6@po.CWRU.Edu (Randall Holt)

Subject: Sparge Manifold/100% Wheat Beer/Balling vs. SG

I don't contribute often to this newsletter, but I have a few things of

interest:

Sparge Manifold

I, also, have built and used the sparge manifold suggested by Jeff

Benjamin back in the 3/16/93 HBD and discussed in recent issues.

One difference in construction, he suggests half-slots every 2 cm, I

made half slots every 0.5 cm. The outflow rate was way too high, but

can be restricted with a screw clamp at the tygon-tube siphon. I felt

that adding more slots would create more evenly distributed flow

throughout the grain, and improve the sparged leeching of maltose

sugars from the grain.  With only two all-grain batches under my

belt, and as both used the sparge-manifold system,  I wouldn't call

myself an expert, but I'm happy.  I am planning to install a drain

spigot in my mash vessel, as siphon starting158F liquor can really

scorch the lips.

100% Wheat Beer

Last winter I asked about 100% wheat malt, for use in an

experimental brew, specifically to benefit a poor afflicted

friend who is allergic to barley.  Many responded that Ireks

sells such, but I was worried that some barley was used in the

mashing to provide a-amylase enzyme.  So, I made the jump to

full-grain (see above) in order to be certain that no barley

contaminants would be included.  But, based on helpful hints from

HBDers, the a-amylase content of malted wheat is low, and so I

used a bit of fungal-extract a-amylase enzyme (at your local

brew-shop/mail outlet) which I think is used in sake fermentation

(?).  Well, the extract rate came to 29 points ( a tad low, possibly

the enzyme), the wort fermented  in the primary for 4 days and 2

weeks in the secondary, bottled up at about 4.5% EtOH. Taste? Well,

it tastes like a tangy whole-wheat bread, with a little alcohol. I fed

some to my barley-allergic friend, who smacked his lips, drank

another sip and set the bottle down. He did not go into anaphylaxis,

but did leave the other 35 bottles of wheat-beer behind. Personally,

I couldn't blame him, but I like the flavor of barley. Not to let it

go to waste, I tried mixing an older porter with two wheats -

dynamite dark wheat. So, it wasn't a total loss, but I wouldn't suggest

anyone bother with the 100 % wheat recipe - maybe some maple

or honey might give a different flavor, but I'd guess that it just

transforms the Wonder Bread flavor into Pancakes with maple syrup

flavor.

Balling (brix)/Specific Gravity Conversions

A couple of weeks ago Pfr. Fix requested the conversion of Balling

sugar density units to specific gravity units. He had a second order

fit, something like P = - 205.347*(SG-1)*(SG-2.25)   (my factoring),

which he inverted via Newtons approximation to get a SG=f(P)

function. The question Dr. Fix had, was (paraphrased) 'Was there a

reason for this function, and did it have some historical significance?'

I think that the significance is evident in the definition of;

" Balling Saccharometer shows directly the per cent of sugar

(sucrose)  by weight at the temperature indicated on the instrument, usually

17.5 degrees."  from CRC HBDK on Chem/Phys.  under Hydrometers and Density

Units.

An table of %Wt vs. Specific Gravity vs. grams solute/liter

solution is given in CRC under Specific Gravity of Aqueous Invert

Solutions, where the %Wt (== Balling points) vs. specific gravity

fits very closely to Dr. Fix's noted 2nd order fit. I believe, then,

(and this is purely a guess) that the historical reasons for the

Balling/SG curve are largely phenomenological, i.e. add sugar up to

percentage of sugar byweight, then measure specific gravity.

Although SG can be determined from partial fractions and pure SG's

at varying  temps (and will eventually lead to an approximation of

the above 2nd order fits - an excercise which I leave to the reader),

SG's vary; the most accurate method depends on laboratory readings.

Again, this last bit is pure conjecture, based on extrapolated

speculation.

My 0.02 on NetAdverts vs. NetComplaints

Frankly, I'd rather ignore a couple of blatant capitalists than suffer

through megabytes of pissing and moaning about abusing the nets.

If you are pissed off at someone for NetAbuse, then  flame them,

not the rest of us on the HDB.

BIBO ERGO SUM

- --

Randall W. Holt  rxh6@po.cwru.edu

------------------------------


Guinness

Date:  Thu, 8 Jul 1993 15:36:26 -0700

From: Leo Reilly <zanadu@well.sf.ca.us>

Subject: Guinness

I am sure that this has already been answered but I have been unable to find

an explanation in previous postings.

1.  Does the NO2 cartridge in the canned Guinness affect more than just the

head of the brew?  It seems to me that the canned Guinness is alot smoother

and less bitter than the traditional bottled stuff.

2.  What does the nitrous oxide actually do to the beer?  I.e. how does it

interact with the brew to give the creamy head and the smoother taste.

3.  Is any other brewer using the NO2 cartridge?  If so, who?

4.  Would it make sense to use the NO2 cartridge in any other brew (lambic?

porter? scottish ale?)

5.  Are any home brewers using the NO2 cartridge for their homebrew, or

contemplating trying it?

I apologize if I am covering old ground, but "enquiring minds want to know"!

------------------------------


unscribe

Date: Thu, 08 Jul 93 21:13:01 EDT

From: gdm15@aol.com

Subject: unscribe

Please cancel my subscription to homebrew.... Thanks

------------------------------


hops storage, victory malt

Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 21:06:59 cdt

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@GRIN.EDU>

Subject: hops storage, victory malt

I have been asking a lot of questions lately, and I have been getting lots of

great replies both on and off line  -- thanks to all!  The generosity

shown by the experienced brewers toward those less experienced is one of the

great strengths of this forum.

Here is one question that didn't get answered, though: if I buy a bunch of

whole hops and use part of the bag, how long can I expect the remainder to

stay fresh in the freezer?  I do not have a CO2 dispenser nor a vacuum sealer,

so I would not be able to purge the container of O2.

And someone else asked this eons ago, but I don't remember seeing an answer

posted to the digest.  What is "Victory malt"??  Does it have to be mashed,

or can it be steeped like specialty malts?  What characteristics does it

impart to the beer?

"Don't worry, be hoppy!"

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


The Boiling Vessel

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 93 08:38:37 EDT

From: gfoerste@bajor.coat.com (Glenn D. Foerster)

Subject: The Boiling Vessel

 I'm kind of new to homebrewing, and need to have a question answered by

people "in the know." The first few batches I have brewed had something of

a funny taste to them. COuld this be the result of using an aluminum pot

for boiling the wort?

gdf

------------------------------


Pike's Place yeast

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 93 08:56:39 edt

From: mtavis@gemini.hyperdesk.com (Mike Tavis)

Subject: Pike's Place yeast

Alright all you Seattle-ites, here's a question for you.

A few months ago a friend of mine brought me a bottle of Pike's Place

back from Seattle.  I tried it and absolutely loved the fruitiness

(esters?) of this ale.  I assumed that it was due to the yeast used in

making the beer, so when another friend went to Seattle I made sure he

brought me back another bottle so I could try and culture the yeast

out of it.

Well last night after several starter solutions and some offerings to

the gods of beer I have what looks like a healthy Pike's Place sample.

My only questions is: Is the yeast I cultured the same yeast used in

fermentation or is a yeast used for bottle conditioning?

Thanks in advance for your help.

- -- Mike

  o o|  Michael Tavis, HyperDesk Corporation

  o o|  Suite 300, 2000 West Park Dr., Westboro, MA  01581

  ---+  E-mail: mike_t@hyperdesk.com        (508) 366-5050

------------------------------


Fermenting in 100 degree weather

Date: 9 Jul 93 03:58:40 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Fermenting in 100 degree weather

Message Creation Date was at  9-JUL-1993 08:41:00

          Greetings,

               This is just a data-point for those looking for

          information on how to cool their carboys on hot days:

               It's been 100 degrees F in Washington, DC for the last

          few days as well as for the next few days to come.  I had

          not brewed a batch in 2 months due to extensive home repairs

          and had grown desparate (i.e. withdrawl symptoms) to brew

          again.  I didn't realize it would be so hot, and I don't

          have central A/C.  I have window units which I turn off when

          I go to work.  What to do?

               I have a basement, but it's only 6 ft below ground

          level - but that's better than nothing.  I placed the carboy

          in a large plastic bucket on the basement floor.  I filled

          the bucket with about 8 inches of water and then covered the

          carboy with a towel.  Then I put a fan right beside the

          carboy blowing constantly.  I attached one of those strip

          thermometers which tells the temperature inside the carboy

          as opposed to the ambient air temperature.  In the mornings

          after the night "lows" were 80 degrees, the thermometer

          would read 70 degrees.  When I would read the thermometer at

          4 PM, it would only rise to 75 degrees.  Acceptable for

          ales.

               I still prefer brewing in winter, but at least it is

          possible to cool a carboy during a summer week-from-hell.

          Cheers,

          Andy A

------------------------------


Re: Starters

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 93 09:26:19 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: Re: Starters

From: Dave Justice <DD24005@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU>

>   Datapoint: I've been getting much quicker and visibly impressive

>              yeast starters going by using boiled or canned wort saved

>              from previous (all-grain) batches.  I usually pitch the

>              starter before retiring at night and with this method,

>              I'm seeing a good 1/2" to 3/4" krausen in the starter

>              the next morning.  No combination of DME and yeast

>              nutrients ever worked this well for me, I was lucky to see

>              any decent krausen after 1.5 days or so.

Well, I don't know if this is good or bad.

Basically, yeast starters are designed with only one purpose in mind:

   to increase the yeast population you pitch into your wort

It has been my impression that there are two basic approaches:

1) Catch the yeast while they are already reproducing, *before* they have

   begun fermentation, and pitch them then.

2) Wait until they have all settled down for a long winter's nap and

   concentrate on pitching the yeast sediment in the starter.

I would personally *worry* if I saw appreciable kraeusen.  Is this silly?

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


Re: Cheap carboys

Date:  Fri, 9 Jul 1993 06:26:42 PDT

From: wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com

Subject: Re: Cheap carboys

It sounds like the seven gallon carboys that St. Pat's of Texas is selling are

"used"  from the chemical industry (where they are used for shipping acid).

Homebrewers in many areas of the country will be able to buy similar carboys

from industrial chemical supply companies, probably at a lower cost since they

don`t have to be shipped.  Apparently these carboys cannot be reused for their

original purpose (I dunno why).  Look in the yellow pages under Chemicals, and

then make some phone inquires.  Note that since these carboys contained acid

they should be handled with caution until you clean then (with baking soda).

Homebrewers in the Rochester, NY area can buy used carboys from Jones Chemical

in Caledonia.  The people at Jones are used to dealing with home wine and beer

makers.

/Don

wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com

------------------------------


Content and Siphons

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 93 09:39:19 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: Content and Siphons

As others have basically said already, there are lots of articles I skip

over, like all the ones on kegging.  But I might want to read it later, and

don't want to keep others who need the info from getting it.

Plus, if I really want info on, say, wort chillers, a well-designed posting

containing a stupid theory works wonders <grin>.

>From: korz@iepubj.att.com

>Back to microbiology.  Besides the zillions of bacteria on your hands,

>there are hundreds of zillions of bacteria in your mouth.  Sucking on a

>siphon hose with your mouth is probably one of the best ways to infect

>your beer with lactobacillus which is everpresent in the human mouth.

>Lactobacillus will eat sugars that the yeast have left behind and cause

>your beer to gush about four to six weeks after bottling.

Well, Al, I appreciate your posting of seriously stupid advice, but the

"start siphon with mouth" issue comes up all the time and many (including

myself) have no problems with this approach.  I always *start* my siphoning

with boiled water in the tube, but whenever it stops for some reason, I end

up using my mouth.  In four years, my only infection has been because I

used an infected starter.  I can just see the testimonials pouring in again.

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


partial-boil is what I'm after

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 93 06:40:42 PDT

From: "I grew up on rock 'n' roll, but these blues won't leave me alone  09-Jul-1993 0932 -0400" <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: partial-boil is what I'm after

Al writes:

>Although I picked JC's post (sorry JC), there are a number of posters who

>seem to be confused by this "high-gravity" brew thread.  There's a big

>difference between partial boil (which could also be called high-gravity

>boil) and high-gravity ferment.  I believe that the original post that

>started this thread asked about what kind of compensation had to be made

>for a high-gravity ferment.  Well, a number of brewers have posted that

>a higher gravity ferment will result in a beer with more esters.  I have

>found this to be true, but have not tried diluting the resulting beer

>into a medium-gravity beer.  I think what JC is asking about (as well as

>a couple of others) is a partial-boil recipe.  One in which, say, 3-gallons

>of wort are boiled and then this is diluted into a 5-gallon batch in the

>fermenter.

You are correct here.  A partial-boil is what I want to do, or, perhaps

it is better worded at a partial-high-gravity-boil, which is diluted in

the primary fermenter.

I'm still looking for all-grain recipes that'll allow me to do this.  I've

done some partial mashes, hence I'm familiar w/ the process to some degree.

Does one just cut the amount of H20 used during the mash process in half to

get a high-gravity wort?  I could probably handle mashing with a full

grain bill and H20 (1 qt/lb), but my pot would be insufficient to handle the

grain sparge through my lauter-tun...

JC

------------------------------


Re: Pin lock fitting removal

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 93 09:12:54 EDT

From: man@lcwdw1.att.com

Subject: Re: Pin lock fitting removal

Al writes:

>I suspect that the grooved ones are actually ball-lock.  The pin ones are

>pin-lock.  Coke uses pin-lock and Pepsi uses ball-lock.  I personally like

>the ball-lock ones because they are easier to recondition (you can simply

>use a 12-point socket for the fittings, whereas for the pin-lock you need

>to buy ($40) or build yourself a tool to remove the fittings.

Some of us more stubborn (and cheap) brewers use Vise-Grips to remove pin

lock fittings from kegs.

Mark Nevar

------------------------------


Re: Low SG

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 93 10:13:46 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: Re: Low SG

>From: "Bret D. Wortman" <wortman@centurylub.com>

>   In each case, the SG after sparging and after getting the total volume

>   of liquid to ~5 gallons was around 1.015.  This seems awfully low to

>   me, as it'll result in beer that has (at most) around 1.5% alcohol

>   content.

In my experience, 9 times out of 10, this happens because people mix the

water and wort in the fermenter, but don't do it well enough.  The result

is that there is layering, and samples are likely to have really low

readings.

What *I* do nowadays when I have to add some water to top things off is to

draw my sample from the wort first.  Then I had the same proportionate

amount of water to my sample as to the wort.

So if I end up with 4 gallons of wort and have to add 1 gallon of water, I

siphon off maybe 4 ounces of wort in the sample tube and then add 1 ounce

of water to it.  It may sound hard but is really very easy if your

fermenter has every gallon marked off and if your sample tube is graduated

as well.

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


Hot Break and Hops

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 93 10:26:40 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: Hot Break and Hops

Well, the question again arises of when to add hops and what is the hot

break, etc.

I used to add hops right away as boiling started and had to be very careful

about boil-overs.

I now wait until a film or scum forms on top of the boiling wort (it

doesn't take very long, maybe 10 minutes into the boil).  With a strainer,

I then remove as much of this is feasible.  Within a few minutes you will

see vigorous boiling with no film/scum on top and you no longer have to

worry about boilovers.  At that point you can add your hops (it gets hard

to strain the film off with hops in your way).

P.S.  I didn't define hot break or anything here, except by accident.

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


What's wrong with my wheat beer?

Date:         Fri, 09 Jul 93 09:25:33 CST

From: Johann Klaassen <C34859JK@WUVMD.Wustl.Edu>

Subject:      What's wrong with my wheat beer?

Howdy -- and here's hoping that someone can help.  I've brewed two batches

now using two cans of M&F's "wheat" syrup, in attempts to make a nice, light

wheat like I'd get at my corner micro (were there one).  However, both of

these batches have turned out *quite* dark -- and I can't explain to myself

quite why that's true.  Could it be that my hour-long boils have darkened

the otherwise light malt (which would shock me)?  Is M&F Wheat always so

very dark (and if so, why)?  And what kind of extract can I use next time

(I really don't have the time, energy, or space to go all-grain) to get the

light color I'm looking for?  I'm pleased with the taste of the stuff I've

been getting, but the darkness has got me weirded out.  Anyone with info

that'll make it clear to me?

TIA --   d8^)  Johann

c34859jk@wuvmd.wustl.edu

------------------------------


sugar in beer

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 93 10:35:53 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: sugar in beer

I was recently re-reading Rajotte's book, thinking about trying for a

"Grand Cru" style, with Celis's yeast (assuming, as has been claimed

here, that the White and Grand Cru use the same yeast).  He seems to

contradict himself on the topic of the exact composition of "candi"

sugar.  On one page, referring to the "rock" kind, he says it's 99%

sucrose.  On the next page, referring to the liquid kind, he say's

it's a mixture of sucrose and invert sugar.  Elsewhere in the "Sugar"

section, he says that brewers prefer invert sugar because it's easier

for the yeast to "eat" (they don't have to break it down first).

Does anyone know whether the inconsistency because that's the way it

really is, or are one or more of the above statements incorrect?

Does anyone know of a good source for invert sugar?  I assume I can

color it by carmelizing some of it.

=S

------------------------------


cider

Date:      Fri, 9 Jul 1993 10:52:41 EDT

From: "Sweet, Timothy" <TSWEET@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU>

Subject:   cider

I'm looking ahead to apple season and would like to make some cider.

Does anyone have advice on this--especially on type of yeast?  Where I

live I can get plenty of unpasteurized fresh-pressed apple juice, so

the raw material will be of good quality.  All replies appreciated.

Tim Sweet

tsweet@wvnvm

------------------------------


220V Airstat

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 93 10:56 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: 220V Airstat

 Now that I have fallen in love with my Airstat controlled "lagering room", I

 want to put one on a window air conditioner, which just happens to be what

 they were developed for.

 I was informed by Hunter that they no longer make the 220V version and I seem

 to be out of luck unless someone got one buy mistake or still has one in

 stock.  If anyone has or is aware of either situation, please let me know.

 For whoever it was looking for a local source, you can call (901) 745 9222

 and they will give you a list by Zip Code.  Not a single source in Chicago

 but what would one expect for such a small town?

 Builder's Square carries them, but not in the city.

 js

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1179, 07/12/93

*************************************

-------


Re: Needs More Malt!

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 09:12:15 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: Needs More Malt!

Wortman (what a great name!) has a problem:

>     Both of my first two batches used kits -- syrup -- and no sugar.  The

>     first used a 3.3lb Munton & Fison Pilsner kit with 1.4 lb Light Amber

>     Malt kicker.  The second used 1.8kg Muntons IPA Bitters with 1.4 lb

>     Lilght Amber Malt kicker.

>

>     In each case, the SG after sparging and after getting the total volume

>     of liquid to ~5 gallons was around 1.015.  This seems awfully low to

>     me, as it'll result in beer that has (at most) around 1.5% alcohol

>     content.

>

>     What might I be doing wrong, or what should I be looking for?  I

>     carefully noted the 5 gallon mark on my carboy so I'm sure I'm not

>     making more than I think I am....

>

>

Bret, your problem is easily resolved: use more malt!!!!!  Instead of

using a 1.4# kicker, use two (2) 3.3# cans of malt.  Your SG will then

fall into the normal range.  Really.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


Irish Moss

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 09:29:59 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Irish Moss

I'm interested in hearing about people's experience using Irish Moss as

a kettle fining agent.  I had been using it off and on for years,

without being able to notice any difference when I remembered to add it.

Eventually, I stop bothering all together, and since I was using 1056

yeast almost exclusively, I hadn't any problems with clarity.

Recently, however, I returned to using an old friend, a culture from a

local microbrewery, and discovered that my beer was no longer as clear

as it should be (thanks to Dr. Fix for pointing this out rather

definitely).  A local brewer mentioned to me that they were switching

back to flaked Irish Moss from the powder and was appalled to learn I

wasn't using it at all.  The ever-helpful Dr. Fix not only sent me some

IM (enough to brew many hectoliters) but a copy of a paper he'd done

analyzing the use of Irish Moss and its effect on hot break, head

retention and body.  Very interesting.

So I used Irish Moss in my most recent brew, and the results were pretty

amazing -- a very dramatic hot break, quite different from what I'm used

to, some strange behavior early in the fermentation (the yeast clumped

into weird shapes near the surface of the wort -- George says this is

normal), and what appears to be extremely good flocculation (earlier

than would be expected, and more thorough).

So, what's different from the past?  Well, for one thing, the "standard"

homebrew texts (e.g., Miller & Papazian) suggest adding 1/4-1/2 tsp for

a five-gallon batch.  Miller pretty much says it's a waste of time,

although it might be useful in British infusion style mashes.  He says

he hasn't observed any changes in other batches.

Well, I'm not surprised.  According to the data George offers, and the

recommendations from Siebel, the optimal addition is 1/8 gm/liter (I

hate those figures, but wotthehell), which turns out to be _about_ 5

gms/10 gallons or 2.5 gms/5 gallons.  Five grams of dried, flaked Irish

Moss is almost exactly one _TABLESPOON_ -- for those who are

kitchen-illiterate, a Tablespoon = 3 Teaspoons.  So the correct addition

of Irish Moss for 5 gallons of beer = 1/2 Tablespoon, _three times_ the

amount suggested by Miller & Papapzian.

Quite a difference.

Another recommendation was given me by the local brewer, and followed,

which was to rehydrate the Irish Moss before adding it to the kettle.

In fact, he suggested rehydrating it a day in advance, but the five

grams turned back into seaweed in 1/2 hour or so; this presumably

reduced the time necessary for it to go to work in the kettle.  It also

meant that the volume was considerably more than a Tablespoon when it

was added.

Frankly, I'm convinced already but will reserve final, passionate

adoration of Irish Moss until the beer is in a glass.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


Drinking around Lancaster, PA

Date: 9 Jul 93 08:09:28 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A%55W3.CCBRIDGE.SEAE.mrouter@seaa.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Drinking around Lancaster, PA

Message Creation Date was at  9-JUL-1993 13:02:00

          Greetings,

               I recently found out that I will soon be traveling to

          Lancaster, PA.  The first thing I have to do is figure out

          just where Lancaster is located.  The second task is to find

          out what brew-pubs or good-beer-bars are in the general

          area.  Rand-McNally will help me with the first task, I'm

          hoping HBD can help me with the second.

          TIA

          Andy A

------------------------------


PET bottles for beer

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 93 14:23:25 EDT

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1-1/T09 DTN 225-6171  09-Jul-1993 1421 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: PET bottles for beer

Paul Gibbs asks about the dangers of using PET in beer.  Personally, I wouldn't

worry about it.  I've seen some British beers bottled in 2 liter PET bottles.

PET is (obviously) widely used in softdrink packaging.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


In defense of Jim Koch, pt 2

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 93 17:24:14 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: In defense of Jim Koch, pt 2

Since I posted a bit last week on Jim Koch's brewery in Jamaica Plains

I received some email disputing the assertion that this place could

possibly be producing quality beers, much less "world class" ones. As

I noted in my earlier post, I was not personally at the brewery so I

was passing on second mouth information.  Since then I have been able

to learn some more details about the facility that Jim has installed at

Jamaica Plains (near Boston).

The brewery is a 15 BBl system manufactured by The Pub Brewing Co.  It

consists of twin copper jacketed fired kettles, one being the usual mash

tun/kettle, the other being a full sized decoction kettle.  This in

itself is unusual in that a brewer would spend money on a full sized

decoction kettle since one usually only needs to decoct about 1/3 to 1/2

of a mash volume.  There is a dedicated lauter tun and I believe a

dedicated whirlpool.  One of the "showpiece" aspects of this system is

that Pub has engineered a bottom driven motor, as opposed to the normal

top mounted drive system seen in many breweries throughout the world. Pub

is apparently quite proud of this development, and probably justifiably

so. The report I received indicated that some of the Unitanks are new and

some are old.  The system was installed in March, 1993.

The "triple bock" that I previously noted is made from an OG of 40 Plato!

I believe triple is an understatement here (the first ever from Jim & Co!).

It is indeed aged in old Jack Daniels whisky barrels.

Word is that the brewing staff is knowledgable and enthusiastic about the

beers being produced.  This is certainly not the same Ringwood system that

was in this facility prior to the Pub system and as such I would say to

those in the Boston area, go try it out and let us know what you think.

(one of these days I have to get to Boston....)

Now I realize some of you could care less if Jim Koch brews beer in gold

lined satin covered vessals, you wouldnt touch it with a ten foot sample

glass and thats OK, its your consumer rights.  I am no fan of Jim Koch's

bastardization of the Lambic name, nor of his blatent misrepresentation

of his achievements at the GABF, but I am merely pointing out that in

this brewery we have someone who has gone the extra step of putting in a

serious system and producing some seriously different and interesting beers

and that is good for craft brewing.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Liquid yeasts

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 93 16:15:48 EDT

From: lyons%adc2@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: Liquid yeasts

When fermenting with liquid yeasts, is there a simple way to use the

slurry on the bottom of the secondary for pitching into a new batch?

Any comments on the amount to use would be helpful.  Also, is there

a method for storing such a slurry for later use?

------------------------------


strike temp

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 14:34:58 -0700 (PDT)

From: engebret@ucssun1.sdsu.edu (aguado e)

Subject: strike temp

Has anyone derived an accurate equation for calculating strike temperatures?

I seem to recall a discussion of this a few months ago on the HBD, but can't

remember if an actual equation was posted.  I have been experimenting with

various mash viscosities and such an equation would be very helpful.

Also, what are the dangers of a slight overshoot with a single-step

infusion mash?  Will a couple of degrees above 156F hurt anything?

Thanks in advance,

Mark Engebretson

engebret@ucssun1.sdsu.edu

------------------------------


All Grain Red?

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 14:50:14 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Mark S. Nelson" <mnelson@eis.calstate.edu>

Subject: All Grain Red?

I've been searching around lately for an all grain recipe for a read ale.

I've also gone through the Cat's Meow, but with no luck (unless I

overlooked something).  Can someone please e-mail your favorite recipe?

It would be very much appreciated.

BTW, I have edited and have available a Word Perfect 2.0 (mac) version of

the Cat's meow if anyone would like a copy.  Or, I can try to upload it to

an ftp library if enough people would be interested.  I have not deleted

or changed anything, just cleaned it up for easier use.

- --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 ...And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart

"I drink therefore I am!"

Mark S. Nelson      nelsonm@axe.humboldt.edu      mnelson@eis.calstate.edu

------------------------------


Starview Brew in York,PA

Date: 10 Jul 93 05:55:13 EDT

From: "Ben Ricci, PA" <71331.3435@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: Starview Brew in York,PA

In the event there may be York, PA area homebrewers lurking in the

shadows...Mike Knaub, President of the York Area Homebrewers Association is now

selling homebrew supplies through his business: Starview Brew. Mike has a

decent selection of leaf hops, malts (syrup and dry), adjuncts and Yeast Lab

liquid yeasts on hand. He's building his inventory all the time too. All you

need is water! <g> Starview Brew is in Mt. Wolf, PA (51 Codorus Furnace Road)

and can be reached at 717-266-5091.

Ben Ricci

71331.3435@compuserve.com

------------------------------


St. Pat's of Texas

Date: Sat, 10 Jul 93 08:30 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: St. Pat's of Texas

The requests for the phone number of St. Pat's of Texas have been

overwhelming.  Again, they sell a seven gallon carboy for $10.  Their

number is (512) 832-9045.

chris campanelli

------------------------------


Wine Grapes

Date: Sat, 10 Jul 93 11:42 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Wine Grapes

 I am looking for a place within a reasonable drive of Chicago to either pick

 grapes or purchase fresh picked grapes or juice.

 The Maltshop in Wisconsin who usually has high quality wine grapes

 anticipates no useful harvest this year because of the cold Spring.

 Anyone have any ideas?

 js

------------------------------


seeking info

Date: 10 Jul 1993 13:44:04 -0500 (EST)

From: Sandy Cockerham <COCKERHAM_SANDRA_L@Lilly.com>

Subject: seeking info

I recently saw info about a new Japanese dim sum restaurant/brewpub opening in

the San Francisco area. The problem is I can't remember where I saw it!

Also, I am seeking info on brewpubs in Hawaii.

I would appreciate it if anyone knowing about either of these 2 things could

send me a post by e-mail.

thanks, sandy c.

From: COCKERHAM SANDRA L            (MCVAX0::RX31852)

To:   VMS MAIL ADDRESSEE            (IN::"homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com")

------------------------------


BEER & SWEAT #5:  8/21/93

Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1993 18:28:52 -0400 (EDT)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: BEER & SWEAT #5:  8/21/93

   *********************

   *  BEER & SWEAT #5  *

   *********************

WHAT:

The 5th Annual Beer & Sweat is a huge summer party of, by, and for

homebrewers.  Sponsored by a consortium of homebrew clubs, it is one of

the largest gatherings of homebrewers on the planet, and it is of

interest to all who live in the midwestern USA.

Please come if you are within driving distance of Cincinnati, and

bring a keg or two of your best homebrew to share.

Beer & Sweat is absolutely free.  There is no admission fee of any

kind, except for a $5 fee if you wish to enter a keg in the competition.

WHEN:

Saturday, August 21, 1993.  Setup will be between 3:00 and 5:00 pm.

WHERE:  At the Drawbridge Estate (home of the Oldenberg

microbrewery).  About five miles south of downtown Cincinnati, in

Ft Mitchell, Kentucky.  Take the Buttermilk Pike exit from Interstate

71/75 and go east one block.

Room rate at the Drawbridge is $70 a night, for up to four persons.

Call 606-341-2800 for reservations, and mention Beer & Sweat to get

this special rate and one of the block of rooms set aside for us.

WHY:

Beer & Sweat is unique in that it is 100% homebrew oriented.  Unlike

the usual gathering of brewers, where everyone keeps opening their

cooler and pulling out another example of a favorite commercial beer,

we stress the homebrewer's craft exclusively.

Beer & Sweat is also almost entirely devoted to DRAFT homebrew.

For example, last year we had almost 30 kegs of top quality homebrew

on hand, almost all containing 5 gallons each.  There were also a few

10 gallon kegs and a few smaller kegs, but with over 150 homebrewers

in attendance, we still had a quantity of beer sufficient to produce

the expected quantity of sweat.

NEW LOCATION THIS YEAR:

Beer & Sweat has grown to the point where we can no longer feel

comfortable mingling with the general public.  Based on a number of

suggestions, we have secured practically the exclusive use of

the Garrison facilities.  Slightly separated from the main Drawbridge

complex, Garrison has an outdoor pool, tennis courts, and recreation

area.  There are also plenty of ice machines and soft drink vending

machines.  Next door to the Oldenberg brewery itself, and close to the

area's biggest and best brewpub, J.D. Brews, this is the perfect spot.

The Drawbridge will have food booths set up (of course you can bring

your own), and we plan to set up a large tent for an outdoor eating and

drinking area.

COMPETITION:

We encourage entries to the B&S Open Draft Homebrew Competition.

We are considering making this an AHA sanctioned competition next

year, so this is kind of a "wet run" to see how well it goes.

For a $5.00 entry fee, you can enter a keg (no bottles) of ANY style

beer.  Get it set up (bring your own CO2 etc.) between 3 and 5 pm, pay

the registration fee, and judging will take place at 5:00 pm.

Any BJCP judge who would like to participate should contact Ed Westemeier

in advance via e-mail at:  westemeier@delphi.com (or by phone at

513-321-2023).  No points, just great draft beer.  Next year we probably

WILL have points available.

First prize in this competition will be a PhilMill donated by the

Listermann Mfg. Co. and second prize will be a Phil's Lautering System

from the same source.  Third prize is a pound of hops.  A prize will

also be awarded to the club with the highest average point total.

After the formal judging of registered entries, ALL kegs present will be

eligible for the popular vote competition, and a prize will also be

awarded for that.

BJCP EXAM:

The BJCP Exam will be conducted at 10:00 am SHARP.  Anyone wishing to join

the ranks of the "official" beer judges should register no later than

July 31.  Test fee for first time exam takers is $40, and $30 if you have

taken it before and want to raise your score.  Contact Keith Wilbourn

by phone at 502-422-6954 or fax him at 502-422-6955.

MORE INFORMATION:

General questions should be directed as follows:

e-mail:  westemeier@delphi.com

phone:  Allan Moellmann at 513-232-9182 anytime during July

phone:  Chuck Boyce at 513-531-8076 after 5 pm weekdays

------------------------------


Yeast Storage

Date: Sat, 10 Jul 93 15:20:46 PDT

From: sc@vcc.com (Steve Casselman)

Subject: Yeast Storage

This question was recently presented.

>     I recently purchased a back issue of Zymurgy (Gadgets and

>Equipment). After reading an article on preserving and freezing

>yeast by Maribeth Raines Ph.D. I decided to give her suggestions

>a try.

>     I only wanted to store my yeast for a few weeks to a month

>so I followed her directions for storing the yeast in the fridge.

>I mixed yeast from the primary (British #1098) with an equal

>amount of a sucrose solution mixed at a ratio of 1 cup of water

>to  3/8 sucrose. I understand that the article was mostly about

>freezing yeasts, but she also suggests,"On the other hand, if you

>plan to use the same yeast within the next few months you can

>save the yeast from your primary fermenter and store it with an

>equal volume of sucrose (it's cheaper than glycerol) in the

>refrigerator.(Zymurgy Special 1992, p. 69)"

>     The new solution was placed in the fridge in a sanitize and

>closed glass jar.   In a few hours I noticed that the solution

>was fermenting away.  So, over the last few days I have been

>venting the jar to keep it from exploding.  This situation seems

>quite dangerous.  Most of all, I was surprised to see an ale

>yeast ferment at 38 degrees.  Should I take that to mean that I

>have a wild yeast fermenting away beside the British yeast

>strain.

>

>     Any suggestions are appreciated.  Am I doing something

>

>wrong?  Any suggestions or amendments to the article.

>

>STEVE

The well documented producure will allow yeast to be stored

for as long as two years. The principle behind it is at 4

degrees C invertase becomes inactive. This means there is

no way for the yeast to metabloize the sucrose. If you are

getting fermentation there are a few things you might not

have made sure of: 1) you can have no other surgers but sucrose,

common errors might include; taking the yeast from the

primary before it is completely fermented, using a low

purity sucrose (it might have glucose in it for example),

and 2) the solution must stay under 4 C at all times.

In your current position I would put your jar in the

refrigerator with the lid on loosely to allow any sugers

other than surcrose to ferment out then close the lid. If

this does not work than your refrigerator may not be keeping

a constant cold temp.

Your problem, of course, could also stem from the introduction

of some wild beast - in which case I would not recommond

repitching the yeast.

I hope this helps.

Steve Casselman

------------------------------


Re: Low SG readings

Date: Sun, 11 Jul 93 15:42:22 EDT

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: Re: Low SG readings

In HBD1178 Bret D. Wortman asks:

>   Both of my first two batches used kits -- syrup -- and no sugar.  The

>   first used a 3.3lb Munton & Fison Pilsner kit with 1.4 lb Light Amber

>   Malt kicker.  The second used 1.8kg Muntons IPA Bitters with 1.4 lb

>   Lilght Amber Malt kicker.

>   In each case, the SG after sparging and after getting the total volume

>   of liquid to ~5 gallons was around 1.015.  This seems awfully low to

>   me, as it'll result in beer that has (at most) around 1.5% alcohol

>   content.

>   What might I be doing wrong, or what should I be looking for?  I

>   carefully noted the 5 gallon mark on my carboy so I'm sure I'm not

>   making more than I think I am....

There are several possibilities.

1  Are you taking your gravity readings when the wort is 60 deg. F?

   Taking readings at higher temperatures will give lower than

   expected readings.  For example, if your reading of 1.015 was

   measured at 110 deg. F your actual SG is 1.023.  If the temperature

   of the wort was 140 deg. F your actual SG would be about 1.027.

2  Your hydrometer is bad.  A simple check is to measure the SG

   of water at 60 degrees F.  It should measure 1.000 (or very close).

3  Assuming that by "sparging" you really mean pouring and straining

   the wort into your carboy, do you vigourously shake the carboy

   to get a homogeneous mix. (I'm assuming that since your just

   beginning, your not boiling all 5 gallons at once and are mixing

   your boiled wort with cold water in the carboy.)  If so, it is

   conceivable that the higher density wort has settled to the bottom

   and you are measuring the gravity of the lower density stuff

   which has stratified on top.

By the way you should have gotten  gravities of about

   1.034 for 3.3 lbs Canned Malt Extract + 1.4 lbs DME

and

   1.038 for 1.8 kg (3.97 lbs) Malt extract + 1.4 lbs DME.

for your 2 batches.

Here, I've used the empirical formula

SG = 1.000 + (lbs of DME + 0.8 * lbs of Malt Extract Syrup) * .0084

for a 5 gallon batch.  This assumes 42 points for DME and 20% less

for syrup.

------------------------------


Spicing for Wheat Beer

Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1993 17:17:19 EDT

From: hmcook@boe00.minc.umd.edu (Hardy M. Cook)

Subject: Spicing for Wheat Beer

I'm planning to make my first spiced wheat beer next week and would appreciate

any help I can get on the spicing.  I'm considering adding the following

during that last five minutes of the boil to my standard beer wheat recipe:

     1/2 oz. Orange peel

     1/2 oz. Crushed whole coriander

     1/2 oz. Chamomile

     1/2 oz. Whole Hallertauer hops

I have decided on these ingredients but would appreciate any suggestions as to

ratios, weights, and time to add to the boil.

Hardy Cook

HMCook@boe00.minc.umd.edu

------------------------------


6oz bottles / Mail order Belgium imports

Date: 11 Jul 93 22:26:35 EDT

From: "Rex K. Perkins" <70651.1611@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: 6oz bottles / Mail order Belgium imports

To: >Internet homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

I am about to start my first mead and was recently pondering the problem of

bottling the stuff. As it is going to be mighty strong, I won't really want to

drink it 12oz at a time. It will also be sparkling, so re-sealable screw caps

won't help either. So, the natural solution would be for smaller bottles.

I was once given a case of European lager in small bottles. I think these were

225ml (8oz), but I'm not sure, so I know they exist. I'm sure I have seen

smaller bottles (6oz?), but I can't think where.

My question is: Where can I get 6-8oz bottles from? I see many home-brew

suppliers carry 12 and 22oz sizes, but no mention of anything smaller. Does

anyone know of a source of such bottles? I guess I'd be looking for 2-4 cases.

************

Reading the current issue of CAMRA's What's Brewing I see several UK companies

offering Belgium beers by mail order. Are there such companies in the US? The

selection of such beers available locally (central MA) is very limited and I

would like to expand my knowledge of these beers. I could ask the UK companies

if they would send to the US, but I expect I would get hit on both UK and US

taxes that way.

Cheers,

Rex K. Perkins

70651.1611@compuserve.com

------------------------------


NO2 is NOT used in Guinness!

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 06:37:18 PDT

From: 12-Jul-1993 0931 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: NO2 is NOT used in Guinness!

>Date:  Thu, 8 Jul 1993 15:36:26 -0700

>From: Leo Reilly <zanadu@well.sf.ca.us>

>Subject: Guinness

>

>I am sure that this has already been answered but I have been unable to find

>an explanation in previous postings.

>

>1.  Does the NO2 cartridge in the canned Guinness affect more than just the

>head of the brew?  It seems to me that the canned Guinness is alot smoother

>and less bitter than the traditional bottled stuff.

Guinness _does_not_ use N02;  it uses N2, nitrogen.  The canned stuff is

all together different then the stout in the bottles.  IMO, the canned stuff

is light and the bottled stuff is heavy.  Guinness names the can stuff "Draught"

and the bottled stuff "stout."

>2.  What does the nitrous oxide actually do to the beer?  I.e. how does it

>interact with the brew to give the creamy head and the smoother taste.

again, N2; my understanding is that the N2 facilitates much smaller bubbles,

hence making that creamy head.

>3.  Is any other brewer using the NO2 cartridge?  If so, who?

Murphey's stout;  same design as guinness.  not sure if this is available

in the US yet;  I've brought some back from Ireland w/ me in the past.

>5.  Are any home brewers using the NO2 cartridge for their homebrew, or

>contemplating trying it?

No, but i have thought about buying a second CO2 cylinder and having it filled

with 40% N2 and 60% CO2 for some winter stouts out of my keg.  Has anyone

done this with success (ie: brewed a stout and dispensed it w/ a nice creamy

head ala guinness?).

JC Ferguson

Digital

Littleton MA USA

------------------------------


Saison Recipe Needed

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 06:56:15 PDT

From: Jamie Ide  12-Jul-1993 0947 <ide@film.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Saison Recipe Needed

    I'd like some advice on formulating a saison recipe.  Better yet, a

    tried and true recipe.

    I've got a bottle of Saison Dupont (new to the US, I think) that I can

    culture from -- does anyone know if I'll get the fermenting yeast?

    I've also got a culture from La Chouffe, which I believe is a similar

    style.

    I'd appreciate any help on the saison style, I haven't been able to

    find much information on it.  I'll summarize any e-mail replies I get.

    Jamie Ide  ide@studio.enet.dec.com

------------------------------


Re: IPAs & Basements

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 10:22:29 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: IPAs & Basements

John Mare makes some excellent points regarding English IPAs:

<From: cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu (John Mare)

<Subject: India Pale Ale's

<In a recent discussion on India Pale Ales (IPA's) the assertion was made

<that these are all high gravity ales. Conventional wisdom tells us

<that these ales were brewed at high gravity to allow them to travel well

<(ie. by ship to India), and our US beer competitions persist in defining

<IPA's as medium to high gravity (OG 1050 to 1065). It is interesting to

<observe, however, that in their land of origin IPA's are not in fact high

<gravity ales. Some of the truly outstanding examples of this type which I

<tasted on a recent beer tour of The British Isles include "Palmer's IPA"

(Dorset, OG 1039, ABV 4.3%), "Robinwood IPA" (Yorkshire, OG 1040, ABV 4.2%),

<"Younger IPA" (Edinburgh, OG 1043, ABV 4.5%),  "R&D Deucher's IPA"

<(Edinburgh, OG 1048, ABV 3.9%), and "Thompson's IPA" (Devon, OG 1045, ABV

<4.6%).

This is absolutely true.  In fact I had troubles locating a IPA as high

as 1.046 OG.  Even "strong ales" tend to be around 1.052 and are regarded

with fear from many pub goers.  It is really sad to find this attitude,

since as a result these beers tend to be some of the oldest and less crisp

cask ales to be found.  Of course, the higher gravity gives them a slight

edge on shelf life.  Note how much residual sugar is in the R&D Deucher

IPA at only 3.9 ABV with an OG of 1.048.  This can be true of the ordinary

bitters too.

Gene asks about basement ferments & sanitary conditions:

<From: Gene Zimmerman <ezimmerm@hp.uwsuper.edu>

Subject: Farmer/Engineer etc

<How many people brew in their basements? Unless it's an enclosed room,

<I can't see as it would be very sanitry at all. Most of them are a _little_

<damp, dark, and although not warm, a constant temp. I think someday I'll

<have a brew set up in a basement, but I've always thought of sheet rocking

<off a room and putting ceramic tile on the floor and waist coat

Well, I ferment in my basement, in an open SS vessal. I do leave the heavy

lid ontop, and remove it to skim yeast.  I still have numerous cobwebs over-

head and it could be much cleaner but it works fine.  Sure, Id love to have

sheetrock and tile too, but Im too busy spending money on SS vessals to do

the tile work.  The key is always lots of clean healthy pitching yeast. You

would not believe how dirty some english and belgium breweries are.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Looking for...

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 09:20 CDT

From: fjdobner@ihlpb.att.com

Subject: Looking for...

I need to reach Craig Vandeventer, Paul Sherrill and Hyrum Laney.

Please contact me at the above e-mail address or call me at

(708)979-5124. Thanks. Your e-mail adresses do not seem to work.

This is homebrewing related.

Frank Dobner

------------------------------


2 holes

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 14:34:00 +0000

From: DAMON_NOEL/HP0800_01@mailhub.cs.itc.hp.com

Subject: 2 holes

In a recent post to Mark at Hoptech in response to a query as to where

one might obtain a two hole stopper for carboys, Mark was kind enough to

tell me of how he ended up drilling a second hole himself.  He said he

used a regular drill, but it chewed up the rubber.  Not having a suitable

drill bit, I tried an alternative, a 1/4 inch piece of brass tubing lying

about, which I filed to an edge on one end and chucked up in a hand drill

on the other. I lubricated the tube with a drop of water.  The thing worked

beyond my wildest hopes and made a hole cleaner than the original.  Altho

the tube was 1/4 inch, the hole it made was smaller such that a piece of

1/4 inch copper tubing fits perfectly.  The tube also just fits the inside

of my keg system CO2 line so I now have a way of starting the syphon system

on carboys for trasnsfer to kegs.  Lab types I know have stoppers available,

but none of the local homebrew suppliers do :-).

------------------------------


it's in the air

Date:    Mon, 12 Jul 1993 11:13:48 -0400 (EDT)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: it's in the air

  For those of you with possible airborne infection problems, one way

to clean the air is to allow steam from boiling sparge water or wort

to fill the brewroom.  As the steam settles out, it will take airborne

particles down with it, much as rain clears out smog.  The heat of the

steam may also help in sanitizing.

Russ Gelinas

esp/opal

unh

------------------------------


Nitrogen / sugar

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 12:30:10 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Nitrogen / sugar

Leo Reilly writes:

>I am sure that this has already been answered but I have been unable to find

>an explanation in previous postings.

>

>1.  Does the NO2 cartridge in the canned Guinness affect more than just the

>head of the brew?  It seems to me that the canned Guinness is alot smoother

>and less bitter than the traditional bottled stuff.

 I believe Guinness draught and Ginness Extra Stout are two

different recipes, the draught recipe being smoother, the Extra Stout

containg a small portion of soured beer.

>2.  What does the nitrous oxide actually do to the beer?  I.e. how does it

>interact with the brew to give the creamy head and the smoother taste.

 N2, not NO2.  It doesn't dissolve (well, not well).  The thick body

and tiny bubbles make for the creamy head.

>3.  Is any other brewer using the NO2 cartridge?  If so, who?

 There are a few british ales using the N2 cartridge (called, I

believe, a "bobo")

>4.  Would it make sense to use the NO2 cartridge in any other brew (lambic?

>porter? scottish ale?)

 A scottish ale perhaps, definitely NOT a lambic.  Any beer which is

cask conditioned and served by hand pump rather than by pressure (ie "Flat"

beers) could be served with this method.

>5.  Are any home brewers using the NO2 cartridge for their homebrew, or

>contemplating trying it?

 Not unless they have a way of canning their beer under N2 pressure.

Most homebrewers use bottle conditiong for carbonation.  Some may have used

a CO2/N2 mix for dispensing Kegs, though.

                        ***********************

Spencer.W.Thomas writes:

>I was recently re-reading Rajotte's book, thinking about trying for a

>"Grand Cru" style, with Celis's yeast (assuming, as has been claimed

>here, that the White and Grand Cru use the same yeast).  He seems to

>contradict himself on the topic of the exact composition of "candi"

>sugar.  On one page, referring to the "rock" kind, he says it's 99%

>sucrose.  On the next page, referring to the liquid kind, he say's

>it's a mixture of sucrose and invert sugar.  Elsewhere in the "Sugar"

>section, he says that brewers prefer invert sugar because it's easier

>for the yeast to "eat" (they don't have to break it down first).

 Invert sugar is split sucrose.  Same components, easier for

yeasties to digest, and perhaps the invert sugar is easier to make into a

syrup (higher solubility rate?).

>Does anyone know whether the inconsistency because that's the way it

>really is, or are one or more of the above statements incorrect?

>Does anyone know of a good source for invert sugar?  I assume I can

>color it by carmelizing some of it.

 Might be able to find invert sugar at the grocery store near the

cakes and frosting mixes.  If not, try food distributors, or your local

mega bakery.  What I did was to dissolve sucrose in a bit of wort, and I

added just a touch of honey and corn syrup.  Then I boiled the s$#@ out of

it to caramelize it.  As the water evaporates it will all froth up and make

a mess, so keep your eyes on it.  To get the caramelized sugars out of the

pan, keep the heat on and add more wort, stir to dissolve.

 The belgian ale I did this way came out tasting right, anyway.

 ed

____________

Ed Hitchcock/Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology/Dalhousie University/Halifax NS

ech@ac.dal.ca   +-----------------------------------------+

  |   Never trust a statement that begins:  |

  |     "I'm not racist, but..."    |

  +-----------------------------------------+

 Diversity in all things.  Especially beer.

------------------------------


Re: Burners for Culturing

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 9:39:17 MDT

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Burners for Culturing

> Does anyone know of a source of burners for use in yeast culturing?  I have

> an "alcohol lamp" (a vessel with a large "wick" in it) but would like to find

> a burner with a more constant/controllable flame.

I use a propane torch.  Overkill, maybe, but it certainly does the job.

I originally bought it for constructing a counterflow wort chiller, and

wouldn't be using it much any more if not for yeast culturing.

A bottle of propane cost about $8 at the hardware store, if memory serves.

The head (valve/nozzle assembly) can be had for about the same, or you

can spend a little more if you want one with a built-in igniter.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Low SG/hop bags again/siphon tip

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 17:20 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Low SG/hop bags again/siphon tip

Bret writes:

>    Both of my first two batches used kits -- syrup -- and no sugar.  The

>    first used a 3.3lb Munton & Fison Pilsner kit with 1.4 lb Light Amber

>    Malt kicker.  The second used 1.8kg Muntons IPA Bitters with 1.4 lb

>    Lilght Amber Malt kicker.

>

>    In each case, the SG after sparging and after getting the total volume

>    of liquid to ~5 gallons was around 1.015.  This seems awfully low to

>    me, as it'll result in beer that has (at most) around 1.5% alcohol

>    content.

It has already been mentioned that perhaps the water that you sparged with

had not mixed very well with the wort at the bottom of the fermenter.  This

is most likely the problem.  However, you should also remember to compensate

for temperature.  Check your hydrometer -- most are calibrated for 60F, but

some are calibrated for 70F.  Once you know what it's calibrated at, you

need to compensate for the temperature of the wort you're measuring.  All I

have handy right now is a sheet that came with one of my very first

hydrometers.  It was calibrated to 60F and here's the temp. compensation

chart:

50F -0.0005

60F  0.0

70F +0.001

77F +0.002

84F +0.003

95F +0.005

105F +0.007

Check back issues of HBD for at least three more charts/formulas for

SG temperature compensation.

**************************

Mark writes (regarding whether or not to wait for the hot break before

adding hops -- the text preceded by >: is part of my post):

>:Why does this matter?  Well, the theory is that the protein coagulated

>:around the hops will reduce utilization.  I have not done side-by-side

>:tests of this, but I do recall a significant increase in hop utilization

>:when I began to wait for the hot break before adding the hops.  I did not

>:put the two together till someone on the HBD mentioned it.

>

>I don't buy this.  Number one, if it really did boost utilization, you can

>bet the big breweries would be using it.  I've never seen any reference to

>it.

Researchers research & publish, whereas brewers brew & usually don't publish.

A problem with articles written by researchers is that much of the information

is not bound to practical applications.  I called the Siebel Institute and

they confirmed that except for hop extracts, the hops are generally not added

at the very beginning of the boil for several reasons including the one I

mentioned.

>Number two, I've never noticed any protein coating the hop petals

>or particles and even if it did, it wouldn't matter cause there isn't any-

>thing of value in there anyway.  Now if we're talking microscopically

>around the resins, maybe there's a possibility.  But the biggest problem I

>have with it is waiting for the hot break.  Besides the fact that a lot

>of newbies don't even know what it is or what it looks like, I don't want

>to keep sampling my wort to see the break so I know when to add hops.

>Then I'd have to figure out how many boil minutes remained and adjust my

>hopping rate accordingly in real time.  What if I didn't get a break until

>30 minutes into 1 hour boil?  I'd be getting a *lot* less ultilization from

>the shorter boil time than any better utilization advantage I might have got

>by waiting.

Mark, you might as well admit you are one of those newbies.  For you and the

others, that don't know what hot break looks like, it looks kind of like

egg drop soup.  No need to sample your wort unless you are boiling in a

keg with a small hole cut in the top of it.  You just look in the pot and

see the flakes churning about.  It begins usually within the first 5 minutes

of the boil as little flakes of off-white globs.  I'm not saying wait 30

minutes (although some brewers do) for your first hop addition -- I usually

wait 10 or 15 minutes and then add my hops.  So my logbook reads:

boil: 70 min

60min --  1oz Nugget Pellets  12.8% AA.

15min --  1/2oz East Kent Goldings Plugs  4.7%AA.

dryhop -- 1oz East Kent Goldings Plugs  4.7%AA.

>:>the bottom.  This is instead of the hop bag.  The hop bags are great for dry

>:>hopping, but I don't like them for the boil.

>:

>:I disagree.  I do just the opposite.  I use a hop bag for boiling primarily

>:to avoid the problems of having to remove the hops from the wort later,

>:either as you pour the wort into the fermenter (my screen kept clogging

>:and that made it a real pain!) or when racking.  I just compensate by

>:adding 10% more hops.  I don't use a hop bag for dryhopping but only use

>:whole or plug hops because they float.  I've never had any problems

>:siphoning the beer out from under the whole hops.

>

>Floating hops does not make for good oil utilization.  The best method is

>to keep the hops suspended in the middle of the beer using a bag and weight

>system (tie the weight to the drawstring instead of putting it in the bag).

>This is what Anchor does and I have found it works well for me and other

>brewers I know.  I don't know of any commercial brewers that boil their

>hops in a bag, but they do use them for dry hopping.  But what works for

>you works for you.

I contend that it is more difficult to get the hop bag into a carboy

than loose hops, more difficult to remove the hop bag than loose hops

from a carboy (not an issue for Anchor, with their open fermenters),

sanitation of the hop bag is not particularly easy (I just sanitize a

funnel and a 1 foot length of plastic HDPE hose and stuff the hops through

it into the carboy) and the total surface area contact of loose hops is

probably greater than that of hops in a hop bag despite the fact that

the very top layer of hops is not immersed in the beer (I'm just basing

my assertion on my observations -- not on any experiments that I've done).

>:>BTW, I have found

>:>the "orange racking tip" thingy to be essentially worthless.  Ditto

>:Interesting, but I've had no trouble with the orange tip on the end of my

>:racking cane -- I tip the carboy with a stack of coasters or a block of

>:wood and then gently lower the cane into the lowest part of the carboy.

>:I then use masking tape or a rubber band to make sure the cane doesn't

>:move.  I discard the first two cups or so and the beer runs clear from

>:there on.  Perhaps you are not getting a good cold break and your trub

>:layer is very deep.  Then again, you've got hops in your trub and I don't.

>So you get a couple of cups of trub?  Isn't this exactly what the orange

>racking tube tip is suppossed to prevent?  I guess it doesn't work for

>you either!  :-)  I suggest you try leaving it off once and I'll bet your

>results will be identical.  My trub layer isn't any deeper than yours, and

I don't think you understand the principle.  When I insert the racking tube

with the orange tip into the fermenter, I'm careful to avoid disturbing

the trub.  The tip sinks partly into the trub and the first two cups of beer

through the racking tube draws the nearby trub in -- subsequent beer is

virtually crystal clear.

>I don't have hops in it.  My strainer works fine.  I also use a "settling

>tank" between the kettle and the primary.  I use my old plastic fermenter

>with the spigot in the bottom.  I cool the wort, pour through the strainer

>into the bucket, put the top on and let the cold break settle out.  Then

That must be some mongo strainer or you must have to dump it after every

gallon of wort -- I stand corrected -- I had theorized that perhaps the

reason for your dissatisfaction with the orange tip racking tube was a very

deep trub layer in the primary.  I try to avoid transfer of beer when I

can, since every additional transfer is one more container to sanitize

(plastic fermenters being even harder to sanitize than stainless or glass)

and an additional invitation for infection.

Al.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1180, 07/13/93

*************************************

-------


fruit/hot break

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 17:30 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: fruit/hot break

Andy writes:

>          1. Is 2 lb raspberries/gallon of beer a reasonable amount?

It may be too intense.  I used 5 lbs of raspberries and 5 lbs of cherries

in a 5 gallon fermenter and then added about 3.5 gallons of beer on top

of them.  One judges comment (from our very own Roger Deschner) was that

the beer didn't have enough "beer flavor" and that the fruit completely

overpowered the malt.  By the way, I presumed that some of the fruit

flavor would subside after a while and the same beer entered in a competition

two months later took first in fruit beers.  Note that raspberries have a

much more dominant flavor/aroma than cherries and this is why I'm speculating

that 2#/gal would be too intense.  If I were to try a balanced raspberry/

cherry beer, I would probably use 2:1 for the cherry/raspberry ratio.

>          2. Should I use a Campden tablet overnight in the

>          raspberries to prevent introducing any new bacteria in the

>          secondary fermenter?

Can`t help you there -- I froze and blanched my fruit for sanitation,

but you are correct in assuming that you'll introduce some microbeasties

with the fruit and you need to deal with them somehow.  I just don't have

any expericence with Campden tablets.

>

>          3. Siphoning:  If I siphon first into one carboy and then

>          into the second, I'm afraid I may end up with differing

>          beers.  I would think the first carboy would get the lighter

>          beer and the second a heavier beer (and more trub remnants).

>               I was thinking of a "Y" siphoning connector.  The beer

>          being siphoned would hit the "Y" connector and then branch

>          out down two paths into the two carboys.  I would end up

>          using 3 lengths of 3/8 " tubing along with the "Y" connector

>          to accomplish the siphon.

>               Does anyone know if this would work, or is it doomed to

>          abject failure?

>               If it would work, does anyone know where I could

>          procure a "Y" connector?

The "Y" would work and you can probably get it from a place that stocks

parts for Recreational Vehicles.  Note that a problem with your experiment

that you haven't mentioned is that the geometries of your fermenters

will be different, no?  You have to account for the space taken up by

the fruit.

***********************

Bill writes:

>1) from the FAQ file, what and when is hot break?

Hot break is coagulated protein.  It is basically cooked protein, but

is formed partly due to the proteins in the wort reacting with tannins

from the grains and (later, for those who do wait for the hot break)

hops.

>2) do you wait for hot break before adding bittering hops (the

>hops usually added at the beginning of the boil). Or are we

>talking aromatic hop addition here?

Personally, I do wait, even for the boiling hops.

*******************************

Dave writes:

>I've just recently started lagering, and I found it impossible to find

>a Hunter Airstat anywhere in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area.  Everyone I talk

>to at home supply type stores (Menards, etc) give me that look of "Yeah, right,

>temperature controller...uh huh....sure....that's OK"  You know, that look.

You might try asking for a thermostat for a window airconditioner.  I have

the Hunter sales brochure and they make something like eight thermostats.

One of them is most definately the Hunter Airstat.  If your retailer

carries Hunter thermostats, they should be able to get the Airstat.  You

could also call the number Jack posted -- sometimes I think homebrew makes

you psychic.

Al.

------------------------------


FWD: Low SG problem resolved!

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 13:17:25 CDT

From: "Bret D. Wortman" <wortman@centurylub.com>

Subject: FWD: Low SG problem resolved!

    Well, I received a *lot* of replies to my question about low OG.

    It turns out that I hadn't mixed the wort well enough with the

    additional water I added to bring my volume to 5 gals.  I started

    another batch this weekend, agitated well (you should've seen me, I

    didn't have a cap for the carboy so I hugged it to my chest, rested it

    on my thighs, and danced around the kitchen for a while--it was a

    sight!), and lo and behold, the OG came out 1.042 -- it was supposed to

    fall between 1.040 and 1.044, so I'll consider that a good measurement.

    Thanks again to all who commented and gave me guidance.  Have one on

    me.  ;-)

    WortMan

+------------------------+------------------------------------------------

| Bret D. Wortman        | "I want to lie shipwrecked and comatose,

| wortman@centurylub.com |  Drinking fresh mango juice.

| wortman@decus.org      |  Goldfish shoals nibbling at my toes,

| NLC Events Team Chair  |  Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun."

+------------------------+------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


U-brew-it-here-place

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 19:05:07 EDT

From: CKXB66B@prodigy.com (MRS BETTINA A BARBIER)

Subject: U-brew-it-here-place

On Thu, 8 Jul 93 10:16:59 PDT, Geoff (ghultin@sfu.ca) said in the course of

a discussion that was really about: Subject: yeast FAQ/filters/temps:

 ->I just made some quasi-czech pilsner at a U-Brew-It-Here place

Geoff,

This is the first I have ever heard about a place of this nature.  My

husband and I are about to move, and it now occurs to me that this might be

a good little sideline to get into in our new location.  How do they get

around the laws concerning selling homebrew, the gallons per year rules,

and all the other regulations that exist to prevent us from all realizing

our dreams and opening brew pubs in our basements?   What state are they

in, and if possible, could you tell me the name of the store and their

address? Do they let the batch ferment there, bottle or keg it and baby-sit

it for you?  Take gravity readings, etc.?  Is your batch guaranteed, or if

there is an infection or the batch tastes like something awful, do you eat

the cost of the brew?And do they have a standard selection of brews you can

do, or do they let you use your imagination?  There are plenty of homebrew

supply shops where we are going, but this idea could really be a winner!

Bettina B, dreaming in CT...about doing something like this in NY

------------------------------


Flat Beer

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 19:05:22 EDT

From: CKXB66B@prodigy.com (MRS BETTINA A BARBIER)

Subject: Flat Beer

On Thu, 8 Jul 93, Rich Ryan <ryancr@install4.swin.oasis.gtegsc.com> said

about: Subject: flat beer:

>The beer tastes fine other than being somewhat flat.  Papazian's

>troubleshooting section came to two conclusions:  1) I left an excessive

>amount of sterilant in the bottles or  2) I'm storing the beer at

>excessively  cool temperatures.  I used B-brite to sanitize the bottles

>and equipment and  was very diligent to make sure I washed it all off. As

>far as storing the beer goes, it hasn't gone below 70 since it was bottled.

Rich, how did you prime the beer at bottling time?  If you rinsed the

bottles well and are keeping them at 70 degrees, either you didn't prime

the beer right or you have a brew that attained so high a level of alcohol

that it killed all your yeast-critters.  Why don't you give us a little

more info...Style brewed, ingredients, OG, FG, type of yeast used and how

long the fermentation took.

>I noticed that I have more like two inches of air space in each bottle.

I would think that with over 2 incles of headspace you would have little

beer bombs ready to explode.  I usually go for less air space rather than

more, based on no real theory but just on our own good results and the hope

that by elimiinating one little 1/2 inch of space in each bottle we might

reduce the amount of bottles to fill and cap (and wash) per batch.  I think

that if this situation continues, you may want to re-bottle the beer,

perhaps by making up a rather large starter, uncapping all the bottles,

putting the beer into a well-sanitized bucket, adding the starter at high

krauzen and re-bottling in a new batch of (already waiting) sanitized

bottles.  I would not use the same bottles again.  Do you have a jet

washer?.  Or you could keg it and force-carbonate it.

Good luck with it...Bettina

------------------------------


Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 19:05:36 EDT

From: CKXB66B@prodigy.com (MRS BETTINA A BARBIER)

Subject:

On Thu, 8 Jul 93 13:18 CDT, Frank (fjdobner@ihlpb.att.com) quoted Drew in:

Subject: AdvertisingWyeast

>>Again Drew says:

>> How about this: Once a month, each person who sells a product may

>>post a "I sell this product" message. No claims, no hype, no prices,

>>no details, just a clear statement of intent to sell.  Interested

>>parties may then send them private email requesting info on their

>>product. These people should then refrain from taking part in

>>discussions on their or competing products.  People with personal or

>>financial interest (close friends of sellers, etc) should show similar

>>restraint. Recomendations from satisfied customers in responses to

>>queries from other list members would always be welcome.

Frank then says:>I agree wholeheartedly with this recommendation.

>This would perform many>services to us in this forum.

>It would allow the commercialists (me being one)

>to do their thing in a confined marketplace, would restrict commercial

>behaviour to what would be strictly proper and improper, provide product

>information to customers, and allow the real artists and scientists

>here their needed airtime to talk about their hobby/pastime/professions.

Bettina chimes in with her non-commercial 2 cents:

I agree, as a newcomer here but a regular on another service (am I allowed

to mention other services I am on?) that the problem of crass commercialism

would be well addressed by this approach.  I have no problem with people

who sell things saying so...who knows, I might just want to buy one!  I

think the caveat should be that the description should fit into a

proscribed amount of space, with details limited to descriptions of

technology used or actual physical characteristics rather than long

laudatory sales pitches about the item, i.e. "Fresh Belgian Yeast straight

from a Trappist brewery and flown in every week on the Concorde, in special

containers of x composition and gathered using y methods, including a

hermetically sealed container of air from near the roof tiles of the

brewery" might be acceptable...but not GUARANTEED TO MAKE TRAPPIST ALES

BETTER THAN THE MONKS DO!!!!!....I am always interested in reading about

new things, and especially in how things work or how they are done, but NOT

in hearing about how great the inventor, seller or best friend of the above

think the whateveritis is.

Bettina B

------------------------------


dark wheat

Date: Monday, 12 July 93 13:39:25 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: dark wheat

Howdy,

Johann Klaassen is worried about how his wheat beer is coming out darker than

expected (HBD 1179).  Just impress your friends with the Dunkelweiss recipe

you developed, & everything should be okay.

However, if you want to do a Weiss, see if you can get Alexander's extract.

I think it's 60% barley / 40% wheat.  I've never personally tried it, but I

hear that it works.

Alan, Austin

------------------------------


Pike Place Yeast

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 12:31:24 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Pike Place Yeast

In HBD #1179 Michael Tavis asks,

> My only questions is: Is the yeast I cultured the same yeast used in

> fermentation or is a yeast used for bottle conditioning?

I called the Pike Place Brewery, and the gentleman that answered (did not

get his name) was very helpfull.  At the tail end of the fermentation

(primary or secondary?) the fermenter is sealed and allowed to

pressurize.  It is then cooled to help dissolve more CO2, and flocculate

the yeast, then they bottle using a counter flow pressure system.  So,

the yeast Michael cultured is what they use to ferment.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Re: J Klaassen's wheat beer

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 14:59:14 EDT

From: LeRoy S. Strohl <lstrohl@s850.mwc.edu>

Subject: Re: J Klaassen's wheat beer

I think you provided the answer - the boil is too. Try your next batch

at twenty five minutes. I have successfully used the M&F Wheat (two cans

with 1 pound of malted wheat mashed in 3cups of 150F water and sparged

to add to wort to make 5 gallons) with 1 1/2 Hallertau plug hops to make

a very satisfying, pale wheat ale. The last batch I added a hop tea of

Hallertau to add to the aroma and liked the results.

------------------------------


electric surface heating elements

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 11:14:11 MST

From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

Subject: electric surface heating elements

I would like to find an electric surface heating element which

could be used for a 6 - 8 gallon boil.  Right now I do a 2.5 gallon

boil using the 1 kW element on my kitchen stove, which takes about 30

to 45 minutes.  All else being equal, seems I could use a 2 - 3 kW

element.

Note that I don't intend to replace the stovetop element.  I want to

make a stand-alone unit that I could use in the garage or outside with a

10 gallon stainless pot.

Thanks in advance.

Joel Birkeland

Motorola SPS

(602) 897-4359

------------------------------


Re:Pike Place Yeast

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 22:46:59 GMT

From: Martin Wilde <martin@gamma.intel.com>

Subject: Re:Pike Place Yeast

In digest #1179, Mike Tavis writes:

> Alright all you Seattle-ites, here's a question for you.

> A few months ago a friend of mine brought me a bottle of Pike's Place

> back from Seattle.  I tried it and absolutely loved the fruitiness

> (esters?) of this ale.  I assumed that it was due to the yeast used in

> making the beer, so when another friend went to Seattle I made sure he

> brought me back another bottle so I could try and culture the yeast

> out of it.

> Well last night after several starter solutions and some offerings to

> the gods of beer I have what looks like a healthy Pike's Place sample.

> My only questions is: Is the yeast I cultured the same yeast used in

> fermentation or is a yeast used for bottle conditioning?

Mike, yes you have the fermentation strain.  Pike Place is a single strain

yeast.

Since they Irish Moss their beer I am suprised you obtained any yeast

from the bottle.  I was told by the brewery - Good luck...  Then I took

them a quart jar and they gave me some yeast...

This strain is a good strong fermenter.  Not much esters and other flavors.

martin (NOT Seattle - But Portland)

------------------------------


Bizarre homebrewer behavior

Date:    Mon, 12 Jul 1993 15:59:37 -0500 (CDT)

From: BIRMINGHAM@FNE683.FNAL.GOV (Yeah, yeah, yeah)

Subject: Bizarre homebrewer behavior

>From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

>.... Although most homebrewers

>prefer the seven gallon carboy because of the extra headspace, I buy them

>because I like to wear the way-cool styrofoam pod on my head when I take

>a shower.  You should try it some time.

         This is the sort of behavior I have come to expect from people who

    use Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (amen) as slug bait. :-)

         Seriously, does anybody know of a cheap *local* (to the Chicago

    area) source for 25-liter acid carboys? I picked one up for ten bucks

    at an antique store last weekend, but I doubt they get many of those.

                                                     Later,

                                                     Phillip

- --

    Phillip J. Birmingham       birmingham@fne683.fnal.gov

    "'Evian' is 'naive' spelled backwards. That's what you are if you buy

    bottled water. Drink gin instead." -- Milk and Cheese's Fourth #1

------------------------------


Extract darkening with boil

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 12:25:24 -0800

From: pohl@unixg.ubc.ca (Derrick Pohl)

Subject: Extract darkening with boil

In HBD #1179, Johann Klaassen writes:

>Could it be that my hour-long boils have darkened

>the otherwise light malt (which would shock me)?

Funny you should mention this, because this very weekend I was at my local

brew store talking to the guy there about brewing with extract.  I usually

brew all-grain, but due to time constraints I'm doing an extract batch

next, and so I was getting some advice on it.  He said that boiling does

indeed darken malt - he thinks it's actually an oxidation process and that

splashing the wort around a lot when hot darkens it even more.  His

solution:  do a mini-mash of your specialty grains first (crystal,

chocolate, etc.), strain the grain out, then boil the hops in that water,

and only add the extract for the last twenty minutes of the boil, thus

minimizing the time the extract is boiling, but still giving you the full

time for the hop boil.

How does this technique sound to the more experienced extract brewers out there?

- -----

Derrick Pohl (pohl@unixg.ubc.ca)

UBC Faculty of Graduate Studies, Vancouver, B.C.

------------------------------


Hot Mash!!!

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 13:54 PDT

From: Charles T Jacob <ct_jacob@pnlg.pnl.gov>

Subject: Hot Mash!!!

          Since there are many of you out there who have created

          "Mashes" (No hard liquor of course) I have an unusual

          request for a hot pepper mash. Not to make beer with

          although it's been done in the past. I make my own Habanero

          (This can also  makes one hot but fruity beer) hot sauce and

          would like to make a sauce using a mash that has aged for 1

          month to a year. Is there anyone out there who could give me

          advice on how to go about making a good mash?? Please E-mail

          me privatly. Winning response gets a homemade bottle of

          sauce to put on your dog while your drinking a homebrew.

          Charley

          Greenbelt, MD

          Internet: ct_jacob@pnl.gov

------------------------------


Not enough body/SF area brewpubs

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 23:55:00 +0000

From: WHEATON_JOHN/HPBOI1_03@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com

Subject: Not enough body/SF area brewpubs

Response to Ed Wolfe

Beer Body

I use at least 1/2 to 1 lb Dextrin malt in my mash for an acceptable level of

body.  This malt must be crushed and mashed with your 2-row.   You can use

dextrin powder and add directly to your boil but I have never experimented with

it as I went to all-grain before I had the chance.

SF area brewpubs

If you can, check out the Anchor Brewing Co. on Potrero Hill in the South part

of the city just off of Hwy 101.   The fresh beer is outstanding, not like your

bottled stuff!  Try a 50-50 mix of Liberty Ale and Old Foghorn Barley Wine,

you'll never be the same.   Pick up a Celebrator magazine when you get there and

you will have an instant guide to the local micros.   Call Anchor Brewing or SF

Brewing Co. on where to get a copy.   For the Jurassic Park of micro brewing you

MUST visit Buffalo Bill's in Hayward, enough said.

John W. - HP

Boise, ID

------------------------------


Re Brewpubs in Providence

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 18:43:34 -0400 (EDT)

From: Edward Croft <CROFTE@delphi.com>

Subject: Re Brewpubs in Providence

Caleb, I tried to answer via private E-mail, but the user ADMCR was rejected.

Anyway, I live about twenty minutes from Providence and as yet I don't believe

that any brewpubs have been started there. The closest that I know of are in

Boston, about 50 minutes drive. As far as suppliers, there are a few within

forty minutes drive from Brown. If you E-mail me once you get to Brown, I will

send them on to you.

Sorry about the bandwidth, but I couldn't get through.

E

------------------------------


Fruit quantities in beer

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 18:49:58 -0400 (EDT)

From: Edward Croft <CROFTE@delphi.com>

Subject: Fruit quantities in beer

I am interested in trying my hand at a couple of fruit beers. I was wondering

if anyone has put together a chart that shows how much fruit to add for five

gallon batch. Also, whether to add to the wort, primary, secondary, or bottle.

Also weather to cut, blanch, or whatever. It would look something like this.

Fruit            WGT.     Conditioning     Wort      Primary   Secondary Bottle

Blueberry        10#        Blanched                              X

Orange           10#        Cooked          X,last 5m

Orange           10#         Cooked       X,last 5m

Prunes           5#          Blanched                   X

Of course, the above are fictional, but maybe someone who knows these things

can fill in the blanks. TIA, Ed

------------------------------


Beer in the White House

Date: Monday, 12 July 1993 14:11 PT

From: scott.powell@amail.amdahl.com

Subject: Beer in the White House

I was digging through some of my old books and I found one I had forgotten

about.  It's titled _The_White_House_Cook_Book.__A_Comprehensive_Cyclopedia_of

_Information_for_the_Home_.  It was first written in 1887 (though I have a

second printing from 1907) by Hugo Zieman (Steward of the White House) and

Mrs. F.L. Gillette.  Here are the beer recipes I found.

Hop Beer

Take five quarts of water, six ounces of hops, boil it three hours; then

strain the liquor, add to it five quarts of water, four ounces of bruised

ginger root; boil this again twenty minutes, strain and add four pounds of

sugar. When lukewarm put in a pint of yeast.  Let it ferment twenty-four hours

it will be ready for bottling.

Ginger Beer

Put into a kettle two ounces of powdered ginger root (or more if it not very

strong), half an ounce of cream of tartar, two large lemons, cut into slices,

two pounds of broken loaf sugar and two gallons of soft boiling water.  Simmer

them over a slow fire for half an hour.  When the liquor is nearly cold, stir

into it a large tablespoon of the best yeast.  After it has fermented, which

will be in about twenty-four hours, bottle for use.

Spruce Beer

Allow an ounce of hops and a spoonful of ginger to a gallon of water.  When

well boiled, strain it and put in a pint of molasses, or a pound of brown

sugar, and a half on ounce or less of the essence of spruce; when cool add a

teacupful of yeast and put into a clean tight cask, and let it ferment for a

day or two, then bottle it for use.  You can boil sprigs of spruce fir in

place of the essence.

Egg Flip, or Mulled Ale

Boil one quart of good ale with some nutmeg; beat up six eggs and mix them

with a little cold ale; then pour the hot ale into it, and pour it back and

forth several times to prevent its curdling; warm and stir it till

sufficiently thick; add a piece of butter or a glass of brandy and serve it

with dry toast. (I'm going to try this at a Homebrew party in August)

>From what I gathered about this book it is a compilation of information from

the recipes and experiences of the White House staff since the time it was

first occupied (circa ????) till 1887.

| Scott B. Powell,  sbp00@amail.amdahl.com     -- I drive the Scoboni --     |

| (insert standard disclaimer here)                                          |

------------------------------


re-using yeast slurry

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 08:01:21 -0400

From: jchism@mtmis1.mis.semi.harris.com (Jami Chism)

Subject: re-using yeast slurry

>When fermenting with liquid yeasts, is there a simple way to use the

>slurry on the bottom of the secondary for pitching into a new batch?

>Any comments on the amount to use would be helpful.  Also, is there

>a method for storing such a slurry for later use?

I have been re-using yeast slurry for several years.  My method is to

add a cup or so of cool water to the slurry after I've racked off of it

and swirl it around, mixing the slurry really good with the water, then

pouring it into a sterilized glass quart jar.  I let this sit at room

temp for several hours until there is noticable seperation, then pour

the top liquid layer off.  I again add about a cup of cool water to the

yeast, mix it up good, cover and let sit at room temp for several hours.

Pour off top layer, pour the resulting yeast cake into a sterile canning

jar, cap and store in the refridgerator until you're ready to brew again.

This is better know as washing yeast and the method can be used with

either dry or liquid yeasts.  I have been usually re-use a package of

yeast anywhere from 7 to 10 brewing sessions before it starts to appear

suspicious.

Cheers,

Jami

------------------------------


Re: Seriously Stupid Advice

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 08:23:27 EDT

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: Re: Seriously Stupid Advice

In HBD1179 John DeCarlo writes:

>Plus, if I really want info on, say, wort chillers, a well-designed posting

>containing a stupid theory works wonders <grin>.

>>From: korz@iepubj.att.com

>>Back to microbiology.  Besides the zillions of bacteria on your hands,

>>there are hundreds of zillions of bacteria in your mouth.  Sucking on a

>>siphon hose with your mouth is probably one of the best ways to infect

>>your beer with lactobacillus which is everpresent in the human mouth.

>>Lactobacillus will eat sugars that the yeast have left behind and cause

>>your beer to gush about four to six weeks after bottling.

>Well, Al, I appreciate your posting of seriously stupid advice, but the

>"start siphon with mouth" issue comes up all the time and many (including

>myself) have no problems with this approach.  I always *start* my siphoning

>with boiled water in the tube, but whenever it stops for some reason, I end

>up using my mouth.  In four years, my only infection has been because I

>used an infected starter.  I can just see the testimonials pouring in again.

I probably shouldn't get involved here, but I'm a bit confused.

Are you saying it's impossible to get an infection using your mouth when

starting a siphon?  Because if it is possible, then why is Al's advice

"seriously stupid"?  The fact that you have not gotten any infections

using a siphon by mouth seems analogous to not getting lung cancer

after smoking for 30 years, or not getting killed while driving

without a seat belt, or not getting an infection while having sex

without a condom.  All these are likely outcomes but since they

are all possible any advice on not smoking, or on wearing seat belts,

or a condom aren't "seriously stupid".  If you believe the chances

of infection are so remote that one shouldn't worry about it,

then why not use your mouth all the time instead of using boiled water?

------------------------------


Re: NO2 is NOT used in Guinness!

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 09:00:26 -0400 (EDT)

From: roman@tix.timeplex.com (Daniel Roman)

Subject: Re: NO2 is NOT used in Guinness!

> >5.  Are any home brewers using the NO2 cartridge for their homebrew, or

> >contemplating trying it?

>

> No, but i have thought about buying a second CO2 cylinder and having it filled

> with 40% N2 and 60% CO2 for some winter stouts out of my keg.  Has anyone

> done this with success (ie: brewed a stout and dispensed it w/ a nice creamy

> head ala guinness?).

It is my understanding that you will need a different type of tap to

completely duplicate the creamy head.  The taps used for Guinness

must add some turbulance or some other effect whereas the standard beer

taps go for smooth flow so as not to knock the CO2 out of solution.  I

have not found a bar owner who would let me take their Guiness tap apart

to find out but I do keep trying.

- --

Dan Roman  Internet: roman@tix.timeplex.com     //

ccMail: roman_d@timeplex.com  GEnie: D.ROMAN1 /X/ Only AMIGA!

------------------------------


NOTE 07/13/93 08:27:54

Date: 13 Jul 1993 08:27:08 GMT

From: "Tom Stolfi" <WAUTS@cwemail.ceco.com>

Subject: NOTE 07/13/93 08:27:54

From: Tom Stolfi

I have a homebrewing friend going to Toronto in August.Can anyone recommend

a few Brewpubs for him to try???  Thanks.

Tom Stolfi

wauts@cwemail.ceco.com

------------------------------


Parking in Portland

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 09:33:22 -0400 (EDT)

From: Jim Griggers <brew@devine.ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM>

Subject: Parking in Portland

I will be attending the AHA's Brewing Frontiers in Portland, Oregon.  When I

picked up my airline ticket yesterday, I discovered yet another cost for

this trip.

I will be flying into Seattle and driving a rental car to Portland.  One

big shock came when my travel agent informed me that the parking charge

at the Marriott is $14 a day.  Parking the car for a week will cost

almost as much as the car rental.  I don't plan on using the car very much

during the conference, but I do want to have a car for a couple of days

to sight-see after the conference and Brewers Festival.

Does anyone have a suggestion on where to park?  Renting the car "by the

day" is out because they have a $75 drop-off charge.  Maybe some other

combination of travel would work (air, bus, rail, boat, ???).

 -jim griggers   brew@devine.columbiasc.ncr.com

------------------------------


RE: Shake, Shake, Shake

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 08:54:35 EDT

From: lyons%adc3@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: RE: Shake, Shake, Shake

I followed Mike Lemons advice in HBD #1171 about shaking the primary

vigorously to airate the wort.  I pitched the liquid yeast (Wyeast

#1338 - European, no starter!) at 79F at stored the primary at 72F

until fermentation kicked in.  With in 12 hours the fermentation was

under way.  Pitching liquid yeast in a well airated wort, at

slightly warm temperatures, will result in short lag times with out

the need for a starter.  Thanks Mike!

------------------------------


RE: Pressure/temperature relationship

Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 09:20:33 EDT

From: lyons%adc3@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: RE: Pressure/temperature relationship

Keith writes in HBD #1174:

>Someone a couple of issues ago asked what would be the proper pressure to

>get the same volume of CO2 at a temperature of 70F.

>

>At the risk of getting technical, there is an easy solution given by the

>ideal gas law.  Holding volume and mass constant, the pressure is equal to

>the original pressure times the new temperature all divided by the original

>temperature.  That is:

>

>P2 = P1*T2/T1

>

>This does not take into account the solubility of the CO2 in the beer, but

>it should be close enough for your needs.

Just want to mention, that you should convert the temperatures (T2 & T1)

to absolute temperatures before taking the ratio.  It does make a

difference in the result.

------------------------------


Irish Moss

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 09:59:12 EDT

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: Irish Moss

Jeff Frane asks:

 I'm interested in hearing about people's experience using Irish Moss as

 a kettle fining agent.  I had been using it off and on for years,

 without being able to notice any difference when I remembered to add it.

 Eventually, I stop bothering all together, and since I was using 1056

 yeast almost exclusively, I hadn't any problems with clarity.

I recently made a steam beer using Papazian's all grain recipe. The recipe

called for Irish moss but I decided to omit it. After a month in secondary the

brew had a permanent haze that just wouldn't go away.  On a hunch, I boiled

1/2 tsp irish moss in a quart of water for 10 munutes and after cooling

added to the secondary and mixed well.   Within minutes globs of solids

formed (I love technical terms :-) and settled to the bottom.  Within 24 hours

the brew was crystal clear - I mean CLEAR!

The beer is currently on tap and is great.

- --Tony Verhulst

P.S. I had done a protein rest (122F for 30 min) and the iodine test was

     negative for starch.

------------------------------


Invert sugar

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 14:22:00 +0000

From: DAMON_NOEL/HP0800_01@mailhub.cs.itc.hp.com

Subject: Invert sugar

Spencer Thomas asks for a source of invert sugar...it's used in candy making.

Any local cake decorating/candy making operation should carry the stuff, also

they sell a substance (I think it's an acid) which you can use to convert

ordinary sugar to invert.  Check the yellow pages for "Candy & Confectionery-

Retail".

------------------------------


Duvel

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 09:17 CDT

From: fjdobner@ihlpb.att.com

Subject: Duvel

The recent post on Duvel got me thinking about something I read in

Jackson's Belgian beers book. On page 216 paragraph 3, it states

"A proportion of dextrose is added before primary fermentation, to boost

alcohol and further attenuation." Well, my understanding of dextrose

is that it is not largely fermentable (by commonly used yeast). How

could the dextrose boost alcohol and further attenuation. Perhaps

its in the type of yeast used. Jean De Clerck at it again. A further

reference to dextrose being used in priming after cold maturation  and

yeast compaction (see last paragraph same page).

It is also interesting to note that the maturation for this top-fermented

product is so low: 30.2F or -2C.

After maturation they drop the temperature to 26.6F (-3C)

for compaction  and precipitation of the yeast bed. All this happens

prior to conditioning. During which the temperature is boosted

to 71.6F (22C). My experience with yeast is after it has sedimented

and been treated in such a cold manner that it doesn't take to

a quick revival. Must be a truly remarkable yeast.

Frank Dobner

------------------------------


Re: 6oz bottles

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 9:31:23 MDT

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: 6oz bottles

> My question is: Where can I get 6-8oz bottles from?

Coca-Cola has recently started selling Coke in 6-packs of 8oz bottles

(at least here in Colorado).  The bottles are nice heavy glass and take

normal crown caps, not screw-ons.  I've used them quite successfully

to bottle strong ales and such.  Check out your local grocery stores.

Donate the bottle contents to your friends if you're not fond of Coke

or if you'd rather try to win a syringe :-/.

The disadvantages are that the glass is clear, so you need a dark case

to store them, and you have to live with the screened "Coke" label.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Irish Moss

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 8:30:36 PDT

From: gbaldw@zaphodusin.com (Gordon Baldwin)

Subject: Irish Moss

In #1079 Jeff Fane asks about others experience with Irish Moss and

recommends using 1 Tablespoon per 5 gallon batch.  I have been having

similar problems with Irish Moss. I use 1/2 to 1 teaspoon per 5 gallons,

and it doesn't seem to make any difference if I add it or not. My beers

are mostly clear with a slight chill haze.  Some have a fairly high

amount of chill haze.

When should the irish moss be added to the boil. I think Papazian

suggests 5 minutes from the end of the boil, and the instructions on the

packet of irish moss I got from the homebrew store say 30 minutes. (It

could be the other way around) From what Jeff is saying it looks like it

should be added as the wort is heating up before the boil. So when is the

best time to add it?

Gordon Baldwin

------------------------------


Good news for micros in New York State

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 11:37:55 -0400 (EDT)

From: bickham@msc.cornell.edu

Subject: Good news for micros in New York State

According to one of the editors of the Schenectady paper, the New

York State legislature actually approved a decrease in the licensing

fee for a microbrewery or brewpub.  It will now be $250, which is

approximately a factor of 10 less than the $2000+ fee one had

to pay last year.  Now if I just had a few hundred thousand for

capital equipment ;-)

Scott

- --

========================================================================

Scott Bickham                             |

LASSP and Materials Science Center   |       bickham@msc.cornell.edu

=========================================================================

------------------------------


Gas (urp!)

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 09:08:02 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Gas (urp!)

JC Ferguson:

> >

>

> >5.  Are any home brewers using the NO2 cartridge for their homebrew, or

> >contemplating trying it?

>

> No, but i have thought about buying a second CO2 cylinder and having it filled

> with 40% N2 and 60% CO2 for some winter stouts out of my keg.  Has anyone

> done this with success (ie: brewed a stout and dispensed it w/ a nice creamy

> head ala guinness?).

>

Although I haven't bought a second tank myself, I have sampled homebrew

served this way -- only it was a brown ale rather than a stout, and the

creaminess and head retention were both truly remarkable.  I don't know

if this qualifies as "cheating", but the end result was terrific.  Only

stubborness (and the fact that the CO2 company is two blocks away)

prevents me from making the conversion.

Jim Busch agrees with John Mare:

>

> John Mare makes some excellent points regarding English IPAs:

>

> <In a recent discussion on India Pale Ales (IPA's) the assertion was made

> <that these are all high gravity ales. [text deleted ]

>

> This is absolutely true.  In fact I had troubles locating a IPA as high

> as 1.046 OG.  Even "strong ales" tend to be around 1.052 and are regarded

> with fear from many pub goers.  It is really sad to find this attitude,

> since as a result these beers tend to be some of the oldest and less crisp

> cask ales to be found.  Of course, the higher gravity gives them a slight

> edge on shelf life.  Note how much residual sugar is in the R&D Deucher

> IPA at only 3.9 ABV with an OG of 1.048.  This can be true of the ordinary

> bitters too.

>

Actually, what's amazing to me is not British "fear" of stronger ales,

but the fact that British brewers can produce such flavorful beers at

such low gravities.  But Jim is right: a British relative went on at

great length about how my 1.050 beer tasted like a barleywine.  You

should have seen his eyes bug when I served him a real strong ale!

I suspect part of the "fear", however, stems from the British propensity

for session drinking.  Beers in the 1.030-1.035 range certainly lend

themselves to spending the whole evening in the pub and still being able

to find one's way home.  (Of course, as Andy Capp has it: "You know

where I live, Chalky knows where I live.  We don't _all_ need to know.")

- --Jeff

------------------------------


Irish moss/hot break?

Date: 13 Jul 1993 12:00:05 -0500

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel.F.McConnell@med.umich.edu>

Subject: Irish moss/hot break?

                       Subject:                               Time:11:54 AM

  OFFICE MEMO          Irish moss/hot break?                  Date:7/13/93

Jeff asks about Irish moss users.  I also used to use it (powdered)

when I remembered (about half the time) and could notice no significant

difference in clarity.  1 full teaspoon/5 gal. for the last 10 or so minutes

of boling.  When I ran out I did not buy more.  My kegs would condition for

about 2 months in the cool cellar.  Recently I have been supplying my

father on a regular basis and the beer now seems disappear twice as fast

(at least!).  In the shortened conditioning phase I had noticed a clarity

problem which I attributed to process changes that I made when I

increased my brew length.  Then I happened to notice the Irish moss

FLAKES at my local supplier.  Since I'm a sucker for anything

new/different I tried them.  Suddenly the clarity problem is GONE.

Imagine that. I am convinced.

But I am confused about one statement

>So I used Irish Moss in my most recent brew, and the results were pretty

>amazing -- a very dramatic hot break...

Hot break?  You make no mention about time of addition.  I always

thought IM was to be added very late in the boil, well after the hot break

had formed.

DanMcC

------------------------------


RE:Homebrew Digest #1180 (July 13, 1993)

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 09:11:25 -0700 (MST)

From: cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu (John Mare)

Subject: RE:Homebrew Digest #1180 (July 13, 1993)

I heartily agree with Jim Busch's assertion that Jim Koch's efforts in

assembling a fine brewery at Jamaica Plains, and taking the trouble to

experiment with a variety of unusual (for the USA) beers is good for craft

brewing. I have visited the brewery, and was very impressed with the

knowledge of our guide, and with the beers we tasted. We don't have to like

the guy to acknowledge that he has helped shift the focus of the common beer

drinkers to something better.

John M.

------------------------------


Publist at sierra

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 11:37:28 EST

From: Andrius Tamulis <ATAMULIS@ucs.indiana.edu>

Subject: Publist at sierra

Yesterday I uploaded the publist from sierra.stanford.edu and noticed that

1) it had out-of-date info. on it - the old Sieben's brewery, more recently

used by Berghoff, in Chicago is now closed. 2) It did not have the info.

I was looking for - I've heard that there is a brewpub in the Evansville, IN

area that brews a chili pepper beer, and I wanted to find it. So - I'd like

to find out how this list is being updeated. Please, please, don't get me

wrong - it was obviously a great chore just to put out such a list, keeping

it current must be impossible. I'd just like an email address to send info

to - like the Berghoff closing in Chicago, and this Evansville brewery,

if I ever find it.

thanks,

andrius

atamulis@ucs.indiana.edu

------------------------------


Irish Moss

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 10:51 MTS

From: Chuck Coronella <CORONELLRJDS@CHE.UTAH.EDU>

Subject: Irish Moss

Jeff Frane brings up the subject of Irish Moss.  I've always used it, but

since my beers are never light colored, it doesn't make a helluva difference.

That I've noticed.

But I'm curious about one thing.  Papazian et al say to add IM 10 - 15 minutes

before the end of the boil.  This seems to contradict what Jeff (Dr. Fix?)

says about helping the hot break.  Doesn't the hot break happen near the

beginning of the boil?

On other thing.  A while ago, I experimented with with larger amounts (like

what Jeff suggests) and I remember having some problem, (Maybe low SG?).  I'll

have to check my notes at home.

Brew hard,

Chuck

------------------------------


Nitrogen

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 12:28 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Nitrogen

 >From: 12-Jul-1993 0931 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

 >5.  Are any home brewers using the NO2 cartridge for their homebrew, or

 >contemplating trying it?

 <No, but i have thought about buying a second CO2 cylinder and having it

 filled with 40% N2 and 60% CO2 for some winter stouts out of my keg.  Has

 anyone done this with success (ie: brewed a stout and dispensed it w/ a nice

 creamy head ala guinness?).

 It is difficult or impossible to mix at home and keep it mixed.  You can buy

 it already mixed in a product called Alagal.  They roll it for hours to mix

 it properly.  I tried it, it's cute but not much can be said beyond that.

 The head seems to form a little strangely but I could detect no particular

 difference in the feel of the carbonation or in the lingering head.

 Contrary to popular notions, the product was developed to make more money not

 better head.  The fact that it does not disolve into the beer means that high

 pressures can be used at the source for rapid dispensing at remote taps.

 Football stadiums and ball parks are the best customers so that should give

 you a clue as to the objective.

 It is impossible to force carbonate beer with this stuff so you definately

 need two separate tanks.  The method I used was to pressure up the keg at 50

 psi with the mix and shake it for a few minutes.  No matter how long you do

 this, there is no noticeable drop in pressure or other indication that

 anything is happening but some nitrogen is disolved.  I then purge the tank

 and carbonate in the usual manner with CO2, then purge again and rest it over

 night with the mix at 30 psi, then reduce to normal dispensing pressure.

 I rented the mix just to experiment with and returned it a few weeks ago as

 another idea of little value to homebrewers.

 js

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1181, 07/14/93

*************************************

-------


astringency/flat beer/filtering/warm ferment/IPAs

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 12:35 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: astringency/flat beer/filtering/warm ferment/IPAs

Keith writes (quoting Kinney, who quoted someone else (sorry)):

>>>This might be the source of the confusion.  He also recommends scooping out

>>>the specialty grains just prior to the wort coming to a boil.

>

>>Hmm... The conventional wisdom here is to remove the grains at 170

>>degrees to avoid leaching tannins into the wort.  Waiting until just

>>before the boil is too long.

>

>This sounds like a momily to me.  I haven't noticed an astrigency problem with

>beers I've made to date using this method and I know of several other brewers

>who use this method with success.

I thought so too on my first few batches, but then a more experienced

brewer pointed out the astringency in my beer.  Upon questioning, it

was traced to my removing the grains when the water came to a boil.

Heck, for my first batch, I boiled them for 60 minutes.  I recall I still

loved the beer, but today, now that my palate is more sensitive I'll bet

I wouldn't enjoy it.

**********************************************

Rich writes:

>Let me start by saying I'm a neophyte in the homebrew

>field. I just bottled my first batch three weeks ago.

>The beer tastes fine other than being somewhat flat.

>

>Papazian's troubleshooting section came to two conclusions:

>1) I left an excessive amount of sterilant in the bottles or

>2) I'm storing the beer at excessively cool temperatures.

You may also have:

1. not stirred the priming sugar well and some of your bottles may be

overcarbonated (did you first dissolve the sugar in a few cups of water

and boil it to sanitize and dissolve the sugar?), or

2. you may not have used enough priming sugar (1/2 to 3/4 cup corn sugar

for a 5 gallon batch -- or use 3/4 to 1.25 cups of DME),

3. or, you may have brewed such a high-alcohol beer that the yeast is

pooped-out (I once brewed an Imperial Stout with an OG of 1120 -- it

never really carbonated at all -- in retrospect, I should have pitched

a more attenuative yeast once the Wyeast #1028 pooped out at 1050).

>I also read somewhere else in Papazian's book that you should

>leave about an inch of air space in each bottle. I noticed that

>I have more like two inches of air space in each bottle. Could

>this have some effect on the carbonation. It would seem that

>as I increase the air space in each bottle the carbonation

>should increase as well.

Yes, too much headspace will give you more carbonation not less.

****************************************

goeff writes:

>I have a question about filtering beer.  Out of curiosity, I just

>made some quasi-czech pilsner at a U-Brew-It-Here place, and they

>of course filter their beer to get that commercial look.

>Why should I filter, or not filter my homebrew?  What would it do

>for my beer?  (by the way, I have chosen not to patronize those

>brew-places again, they charge exhorbitant rates).

The look will change, but the flavor will change also.  A pair of brewers who

have won gobs of awards for their beers (including the Ninkasi Award in 1992),

Steve and Christina Daniel, are strong proponents for filtering.  When you

filter, you must be aware that you can filter too much -- try Miller Brewing

Company's Amber Ale -- not bad in flavor, but all the body has been filtered

out of it!

>Finally, I would like some information on warm temp brewing.  If

>brewing ales, what are the consquences of fermenting between 18-24

>degrees C ?  My apartment is not air-con. nor do I have a basement (!).

>Is bacterial contam. my main worry, or will I develop some

>interesting, but perhaps 'out of style' flavours?

Bacterial contamination as well as wild yeast and mold (however mold should

not be a problem (unless you've got tons of it in your air) if you watch

aeration (molds are aerobes)) can be problems so watch your sanitation.

Higher temperatures will increase the yeast's production of all kinds of

by-products from esters (fruity flavors and aromas) to phenols to higher

alcohols.  If you use a good, clean yeast, you should not have problems

with phenols and higher alcohols too much.  Some yeasts produce more than

others.  I feel that Wyeast #1056 and #1028 are quite clean.  I believe

that diacetyl production is increased at higher temperatures also, so you

may want to avoid high-diacetyl producers like Wyeast #1084 when you brew

at higher temperatures.

*************************

John writes:

>In a recent discussion on India Pale Ales (IPA's) the assertion was made

>that these are all high gravity ales. Conventional wisdom tells us

>that these ales were brewed at high gravity to allow them to travel well

>(ie. by ship to India), and our US beer competitions persist in defining

>IPA's as medium to high gravity (OG 1050 to 1065). It is interesting to

>observe, however, that in their land of origin IPA's are not in fact high

>gravity ales. Some of the truly outstanding examples of this type which I

>tasted on a recent beer tour of The British Isles include "Palmer's IPA"

>(Dorset, OG 1039, ABV 4.3%), "Robinwood IPA" (Yorkshire, OG 1040, ABV 4.2%),

>"Younger IPA" (Edinburgh, OG 1043, ABV 4.5%)...

I believe that the use of the title India Pale Ale has been misused in

Britain as well as in the US.  I feel that the AHA's definition is closer

to the mark on this particular style than are the commercial examples,

but this is just my opinion.

Al.

------------------------------


body/softeners/Guinness cans/Victory malt/strange taste/partial boil

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 12:38 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: body/softeners/Guinness cans/Victory malt/strange taste/partial boil

Ed writes:

>     I recently got into homebrewing (plan on doing my fifth batch

> this evening).  I have two questions.  The first has to do with body.

> I like my beer "chewy" (or so my wife claims).  None of my beers

> have been as full-bodied as I would like.  How do I increase the body

> of the beer without necessarily increasing the alcohol content?  Can

> I use dextrine malt without mashing it?  What about Lactose?

I've used dextrine malt without mashing it and yes, it will increase body.

Lactose will not do much for body (I feel) but will increase residual

sweetness which can be interpreted as increased body.  Malto-dextrin

powder is available and can increase body and mouthfeel, but I haven't

tried using it yet.  Some extracts will give you a higher final gravity

which will give you that "chewyness" that you seek.  The best extract for

this is Laaglander Dried Malt extract.  Northwestern Malt extract also

tends to finish a bit higher, but not nearly as much as Laaglander.

>     The second question may be due to a related problem.  None of my

> Original Specific Gravities have been as high as I'd expected (given

> similar recipes I've seen)....

>                ....Could it be due to the type of extract I'm using?

> Could it be my water?  (I have a Culligan water softener.)  Could it

> be due to my estimation method?  (I add a little to the SG reading

> for each degree over 60F according to the error estimates Charlie P.

> gives in his book.  I think it is somewhere around 0.003 for each

> degree.  I can't remember because I've got the formula in a

> database cell somewhere.)

It could be that you are not stirring well enough when you top your wort up

with water (see a recent HBD).  Another point I'd like to make is that you

should not use softened water for your brewing.  Water softeners work by

adding salts to the water.  If you have bicarbonate hardness, you can reduce

it by boiling and then pouring off the sediment that forms.  A little more

trouble, yes, but I think your beer will taste better.  Note that a high

carbonate water is perfect for brewing stouts like Guinness!

Leo writes:

>I am sure that this has already been answered but I have been unable to find

>an explanation in previous postings.

Search further back -- about two years ago there was much discussion on this

topic.

>1.  Does the NO2 cartridge in the canned Guinness affect more than just the

>head of the brew?  It seems to me that the canned Guinness is alot smoother

>and less bitter than the traditional bottled stuff.

It's not NO2 and I don't believe there's any nitrogen at all in the cans.

The recipe is different for draft Guinness compared to the bottled version.

Jackson gives the bottled version four stars, but I believe only three for

the draft.  The cans are the draft recipe.  To make a long story short,

the cans work because the plastic bubble squirts beer into the can through

a small opening and makes the beer foam.  Please see late 1991 to early 1992

HBDs for more details.

************************

Jonathan writes:

>And someone else asked this eons ago, but I don't remember seeing an answer

>posted to the digest.  What is "Victory malt"??  Does it have to be mashed,

>or can it be steeped like specialty malts?  What characteristics does it

>impart to the beer?

It is somewhere in color and flavor between Munich and Vienna Malts (at

least that's where Briess Malting puts it on their price sheets) and yes,

it must be mashed.

*********************

Glenn writes:

> I'm kind of new to homebrewing, and need to have a question answered by

>people "in the know." The first few batches I have brewed had something of

>a funny taste to them. COuld this be the result of using an aluminum pot

>for boiling the wort?

Some say it can, others say it doesn't, but you need to describe the funny

taste more for us to help you -- is it metallic?  can you relate it to

some kind of food?  do you have hard water?  do you use well water?  what

kind of yeast did you use?  is it sour?  Post more details and I'm sure

someone will be able to help you find the source of this flavor.

**************************

JC writes (quoting me):

>>Although I picked JC's post (sorry JC), there are a number of posters who

>>seem to be confused by this "high-gravity" brew thread.  There's a big

>>difference between partial boil (which could also be called high-gravity

>>boil) and high-gravity ferment.  I believe that the original post that

>>started this thread asked about what kind of compensation had to be made

>>for a high-gravity ferment.  Well, a number of brewers have posted that

>>a higher gravity ferment will result in a beer with more esters.  I have

>>found this to be true, but have not tried diluting the resulting beer

>>into a medium-gravity beer.  I think what JC is asking about (as well as

>>a couple of others) is a partial-boil recipe.  One in which, say, 3-gallons

>>of wort are boiled and then this is diluted into a 5-gallon batch in the

>>fermenter.

>

>You are correct here.  A partial-boil is what I want to do, or, perhaps

>it is better worded at a partial-high-gravity-boil, which is diluted in

>the primary fermenter.

>

>I'm still looking for all-grain recipes that'll allow me to do this.  I've

>done some partial mashes, hence I'm familiar w/ the process to some degree.

>Does one just cut the amount of H20 used during the mash process in half to

>get a high-gravity wort?  I could probably handle mashing with a full

>grain bill and H20 (1 qt/lb), but my pot would be insufficient to handle the

>grain sparge through my lauter-tun...

Hmmm... I seem to have gotten it all wrong.  It's not a partial boil that you

want.  What you really want to do is to sparge into your kettle till it's

about 3/4 full, then boil that down to where you can add more runoff.  Once

you're done sparging boil this down to about 6 gallons and then add the

boiling hops.  If your pot is too small to handle 6 gallons comfortably, you

can do the boil in two parts, splitting your hops in half.   Many breweries

do this when their fermenters are twice the size of their boilers.  You

don't get a high-gravity wort simply by reducing your mash water in half...

you get one by either just taking the first runnings and making a 1 gallon

or 2 gallon batch (then using the second and third runnings for a smaller

beer) or by taking all the runnings from, say 12 or 15 lbs of malt and then

boiling this all down to 4 or 5 gallons.  A partial boil is an extract

procedure where you boil your extracts with only part of your total water

(compensating for the low hop utilization) and then adding water after the

boil in the fermenter.

Al.

------------------------------


BruHeat Insulation

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 13:41:40 EDT

From: gorman@aol.com

Subject: BruHeat Insulation

BruHeat Users/Potential Users:

My first attempt to heat 5 gal. of water in a BruHeat took >1 hr to reach a

boil

I purchased a sheet of 1.5" very dense foam, cut holes for the gauges and

spigot and duct-taped it around the BruHeat.

Next batch took ~30 min to boil.

Also, I'm extract brewing only, but I bet mashing temperatures could be much

more easily maintained and more quickly increased with the insulation.

Bill Gorman

------------------------------


more on sugar in beer

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 10:50:19 PDT

From: bgros@sensitivity.berkeley.edu (Bryan L. Gros)

Subject: more on sugar in beer

I'm trying to find out the constituents or chemistry of different

sugars added to British or Belgian beers.  What I think I need

to determine first, however, is what is the purpose of adding the

sugar?  What are we trying to accomplish?

What is taken as truth about sugar (I think):

  *  Glucose is 100% fermentable and thus adds alcohol and no flavor

  *  Table sugar is sucrose and is mostly fermentable but can add

     a cidery taste if the amount is too much

  *  Brown sugar is sucrose with a little molasses still in it

  *  Turbinado sugar is similar to brown sugar; it is table sugar that

     has not been completly refined.

What is invert sugar?  I thought it was an optical isomer of sucrose,

but sucrose is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose.

Back to the original point.  If the idea behind adding sugar is to

lessen the body of high gravity beers (doubbel, trippel), then it

would seem that glucose is the best bet.  Rajotte's book implies that

invert sugar is more fermentable (than sucrose), but it shouldn't

be more fermentable than glucose.

If the idea is to add some additional flavor, then brown, turbinado,

or candi sugar would be a better bet.  Glucose leaves no flavor and

sucrose leaves an undesirable (usually) flavor.

Where do candi sugar and turbinado come in?  That is, what do they

add that the other sugars don't?

So what did I get wrong?  Sugar is usually a taboo subject with

homebrewers, so I'm not suprised that there is no primer or anything.

Fire away...

                                  - Bryan

------------------------------


beers across the world?

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 12:40:47 PDT

From: mike@notorious.lbl.gov (Michael P. O'Neill)

Subject: beers across the world?

it's been a year since following this newsletter, so if this question

has been answered recently, SORRY!

------------------------------


Wheat beer slants

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 12:57:10 -0700

From: ek@chem.UCSD.EDU (Ed Kesicki)

Subject: Wheat beer slants

I seem to have gotten the number wrong for the Co. that sells pure cultures

of wheat beer yeast.  I called the following, which was incorrect:

1-800-BREWTEK

Got some communications company.

So..What is the real number?

Ed Kesicki

------------------------------


The Tumbleweed Report (part 1)

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 16:28:18 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>

Subject: The Tumbleweed Report (part 1)

What happened to all that free time I was supposed to have this summer?

I promised to summarize some of my experiences at the Tumbleweed Grille for

the forum.  I received dozens of requests to do so, so here goes...

Sorry it's taken so long.  I apologize in advance for the somewhat rambling

nature of what follows but there's a lot I'd like to say and if you wait for

me to organize it into MA thesis form, it'll never get posted!!

Before getting down to all the numbers, allow me to set the stage for you.

You'll never understand why we did what we did if you don't have a grasp on

the problems as they were presented to us.  I'd hope that anyone who decided

to take the jump into commercial brewing would have more money than we did.

At the same time, what follows is proof positive that you can put together a

commercially viable brewpub on a shoestring budget.  From the beginning, the

prime motivating factor behind what we've done at Tumbleweed has been the

fact the operation was designed and built without borrowing a single red

cent!!  If the operation folds tomorrow, we haven't lost any money.  We've

capitalized all equipment as the need arose.  To me, this makes what we're

doing at Tumblewee unique and is why I'm boring you with the details.  We

have almost 30 years combined brewing experience among the three brewers.

And yet 7 months ago none of us could have imagined that we'd be doing things

the way we are now!  But what we're doing is working, so what can you say?

A bit of background on Tumbleweed.  The business started in 1989 as a

Southwestern foods restaurant and is firmly established as such.  Tumbleweed

is a restaurant first.  It is not a bar and doesn't pretend to be one.  This

is important to keep in mind when one considers our weekly sales.  I think

beer sales are significant despite this fact.  I sometimes shudder to think

what could be happening if we were a bar.

The restaurant is located in Boone, NC, a small mountain town in the

northwestern corner of NC.  Population of the town proper is about 13,000.

Appalachian State University has an enrollment of 11,000.  I think there is

about 30,000 people living in the county.  Boone is a summer and winter

vacation destination point.  Believe it or not, Boone is the ski capital of

the South.  There are 4 major slopes (at least for us) within 30 minutes of

town.  In the summer, people come up here to escape the heat off the

mountain.  Last I heard, some 2,000,000 tourists come through town each year.

Much of our business comes from this tourist crowd.  We get hardly any

business from the students.  We're beginning to get a decent following among

the faculty and staff.

Bart Conway, the proprietor at Tumbleweed, began reading about the brewpub

movement in restauranteur publications and thought it was a great idea.  Bart

is as enthusiastic a person as one could ever hope to meet.  He's a man who

definitely appreciates good beer.  But as he contemplated starting his own

brewpub I think it's fair to say he didn't know the difference between malt

and hops.  So here's a man who likes the brewpub idea, owns a restaurant, and

wants to try it, fully admitting he doesn't know that much about making beer.

I have a lot of respect for a man with his intestinal fortitude.

Not knowing the ins and outs, he did not want to invest 100's of thousands of

dollars into a business about which he knew very little.  One day he was

drinking coffee with a homebrewer here in Boone who said, "Sure.  I can brew

beer.  Let's do it."  And so it began.  In February of 1992, Tumbleweed served

its first beer.

They bought a used gas stove, a 10 gallon enameled pot, and turned out the

first few batches of Tumbleweed beer *5 gallons* at a time, bottled them and

walked them down the hill to the restaurant.  (Tumbleweed is officially a

microbrewery because the brewhouse is not attached to the restaurant itself.

We walk the beer - now in 5 gallon cornelius kegs - down to the restaurant

when they run out.)  Shortly they moved to 10 gallon batches.  An assistant

brewer, Cam Hedrick, came on board in the May of 1992, is still there, and

is the only member of the team who is indispensible.  He works forty hours a

week, monitors the day to day operation: kegging, transfers, keeping the

restaurant in stock, keeping records straight so the BATF stays off our backs,

etc.  In July, Cam pushed production up to 30 gallons where things stood when

Burton Moomaw and I were invited to join the operation in November.

When Cam arrived, they were using an immersion wort chiller.  When the 30

gallon kettle was put online, I helped them design a counterflow wort chiller

(1/2" copper tubing inside 5/8" garden hose) which they began using in August.

Being the good mountain man that he is, Bart is an inveterate "horse trader".

And with his own beer online, beer was a hot topic of conversation at the

restaurant.  During the course of one of these "rap" sessions, he scrounged a

30 gallon stainless steel pot that had been used in a restaurant at one of

the country clubs close by.  Now he needed a gas burner.  Somehow this came

up in conversation with the guy who sells the restaurant after dinner mints.

He knew where there was a 350,000 btu burner that wasn't being used and gave

it to Bart.  The moral of the story here is that for a couple of free meals,

the brewery had a stainless steel pot and a gas ring.

In November Brett Deal, the head brewer moved from Boone, Bart called to ask

me if I was interested in working in a kind of head/brewer consultant

capacity.  Already working two jobs, I actually turned him down, promised to

find someone for him, called my brewing buddy, Burton Moomaw, and we decided

to form a very loose "partnership" and split the responsibilities with each

other.  When I'm busy, he brews.  When he's busy, I brew.  And Cam, our

brewery operations manager, always brews.

So here we were.  A couple of homebrewers who had never brewed more than 15

gallons at a time.  Full of ideas and enthusiasm and no commerical brewing

experience.  There were a number of changes to be made.  In fact, it's fair

to say that no part of the existing brewing operation resembles what was

going on in November.  We've changed everything.

(To be continued)

------------------------------


DeWolfe-Cosyns distributor?

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 13:59:05 -0800 (PDT)

From: Dave Gilbert <solomon!solomon.aha.com!dave@yoda.eecs.wsu.edu>

Subject: DeWolfe-Cosyns distributor?

Well, the owner of my local homebrew store (if you can call a 160 mi.

round trip local) has agreed that he will carry DeWolfe-Cosyns malt,

providing I can find him a name, address and phone number for a

distributor.

So, how about it??

Any help will be greatly appreciated!!

Thanx

Dave Gilbert    dave@aha.com

Advanced Hardware Architectures Inc.

Moscow, Idaho

------------------------------


Bartles & James MALT BEVERAGE??

Date:     Tue, 13 Jul 93 17:25:45 EDT

From: tony g <giannone@BBN.COM>

Subject:  Bartles & James MALT BEVERAGE??

Hi,

My wife was reading the label of a Bartles & James 'Premium Berry Cooler' and

she noticed that it said "Malt beverage with natural flavors".

Anyone know how to brew this stuff? I'd sure like to be able to brew something

similar, so my wife can enjoy the fruits :-) of my labor also.

regards,

tony (giannone@bbn.com)

------------------------------


Irish Moss/overshoot/storing yeast under sucrose/7oz bottles

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 17:34 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Irish Moss/overshoot/storing yeast under sucrose/7oz bottles

Jeff writes:

>I'm interested in hearing about people's experience using Irish Moss as

>a kettle fining agent.  I had been using it off and on for years,

>without being able to notice any difference when I remembered to add it.

>Eventually, I stop bothering all together, and since I was using 1056

>yeast almost exclusively, I hadn't any problems with clarity.

I used to use it, but after a discussion with George Fix (which I posted

in HBD a while ago) in which he convinced me that the majority of

mouthfeel and head retention is from proteins and not from dextrins, I

reassessed my use of Irish Moss.  Irish Moss works by electrostatically

attracting protein molecules to itself as it sinks to the bottom of

the kettle.  I was dissatisfied with my head retention at the time, so

I theorized that I might be taking too much of the proteins out of the

wort.  I cut back from a teaspoon to 1/2 teaspoon and then eventually

stopped using it altogether.  Except for my very first few batches, I

have always been very careful to not boil my grains.  (Chill haze needs

big proteins and tannins to form.  Head retention and mouthfeel are

the result of smaller proteins which can be formed from the big proteins

during the protein rest, but that's a whole other issue).  In any event,

I felt that I was getting acceptable clarity and thus did not miss the

use of the Irish Moss.

On the other hand, some of the National 1st-round judges (justifiably)

had a higher standard for clarity and I got some "slight haze" comments.

Now, I'm thinking about perhaps trying Irish Moss again or one of the

other finings, perhaps Polyclar, which (I believe) also works electro-

statically, but is used in the fermenter and instead of proteins it

attracts tannins (please correct me if I've got this wrong, or confirm).

By the way, the yeasts I use are mostly Wyeast #1056 and Wyeast #1028.

************************

Mark writes:

>Also, what are the dangers of a slight overshoot with a single-step

>infusion mash?  Will a couple of degrees above 156F hurt anything?

The way that higher temperature mashes work to make a more dextrinous

wort is that the beta-amylase enzyme is more quickly denatured at the

156-157-158F temperature range than is alpha-amylase.  At the lower

temps (148-149-150-151-152), they both work together to break the

starch molecules down to mostly fermentables, whereas at the higher

temps, it's mostly alpha-amylase at work.  If you overshoot to 158 or

160F for a minute or two, you may denature a bit of your alpha-amylase

faster than at 156F, but you probably couldn't even measure the

difference.

*****************************

Steve writes (in response to a question about storing yeast under sucrose

solution):

>The well documented producure will allow yeast to be stored

>for as long as two years. The principle behind it is at 4

>degrees C invertase becomes inactive. This means there is

>no way for the yeast to metabloize the sucrose. If you are

>getting fermentation there are a few things you might not

>have made sure of: 1) you can have no other surgers but sucrose,

>common errors might include; taking the yeast from the

>primary before it is completely fermented, using a low

>purity sucrose (it might have glucose in it for example),

>and 2) the solution must stay under 4 C at all times.

What I don't understand, is why the sucrose solution then?

I know that long term storage of yeast requires either

sub-zero temperatures or feeding them (so they don't start

eating their neighbors), but if they aren't going to eat

the sucrose, then why have it there at all?

*****************************

Rex writes:

>My question is: Where can I get 6-8oz bottles from? I see many home-brew

>suppliers carry 12 and 22oz sizes, but no mention of anything smaller. Does

>anyone know of a source of such bottles? I guess I'd be looking for 2-4 cases.

I have a possible source for this size of bottle (7oz, I believe -- they

are made of thick glass and have punts too!), but I would have to order a

great number of them.  How much interest is there in bottles such as these?

Please email me directly and if there is sufficient interest, I'll pursue

this source.

Al.

------------------------------


weevils

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 18:24:58 EDT

From: chuck@synchro.com (Chuck Cox)

Subject: weevils

My hop plants have been slowly consumed by something that bites big

chunks out of the stem and leaves.  I thought for a while that it was

the same squirrel that was terrorizing my snapdragons.  However today I

found a bug munching away on a leaf.

A quick perusal of Hops (R.A. Neve) found a picture of the critter.  It

is a Clay-coloured weevil (Otiorrhynchus singularis).  The damage

description matches too.  Unfortunately, Neve doesn't give much advice

about eliminating it.

He states that it is not generally a pest of great importance.  He

suggests organo-phosphorus or carbamate insecticides, then refers to a

report about the possiblity of using parasitic nematodes.  I would

prefer using natural predators instead of insecticides, but Neve seems

uncertain of their usefulness.

Does anyone have any experience eliminating weevils? I now only have one

living plant left, and am concerned that predators may not be effective

on a single plant.  Perhaps I should simply kill the weevils by hand.

- --

Chuck Cox   <chuck@synchro.com>

SynchroSystems / Riverside Garage & Brewery - Cambridge, Mass.

------------------------------


ALES

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 15:49:20 -0700

From: pquint@mail.barrnet.net

Subject: ALES

MC EWAN'S ALE is my favorite and only try. Consistency is a concern, overboil

was a problem...any ideas out there?

------------------------------


Re : Irish Moss

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 12:14:32 BST

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: Re : Irish Moss

My experience has been that Irish Moss improves the _cold_ break, ie, upon

cooling the wort, one obtains a very sharply defined layer of trub, similar

to that which could otherwise be obtained by refrigerating the wort for a

couple of days. I suspect we get told to add the Moss near the end of the boil

for reasons of economy, in other words, to let the combination of heat, hops

and agitation do its stuff first.

Jeff, what do the scientists say about the effects of Irish Moss on body/head

retention? It would be great if it was selective enough to take out the larger

proteins which we don't want and leave the rest, but I presume this is where

some of the reservations arise. In fact, this issue of protein selectivity

applies to a whole range of brewing practices, starting with the use of a

protein rest during mashing, and moving on to issues such as whether to skim

the initial boil or not, whether to use kettle finings or not, even whether to

employ forced wort chilling (at least in stouts), whether to skim/blow-off the

primary, and lastly whether to employ finings after fermentation. I presume a

whole lot of trade-offs are involved here, probably involving glucans and

lipids as well as proteins, and I for one would like to see more definitive

statements than can be found in the homebrewing textbooks.

- --

Conn V Copas

Loughborough University of Technology          tel : +44 509 263171  ext 4164

Computer-Human Interaction Research Centre     fax : +44 509 610815

Leicestershire  LE11 3TU              e-mail - (Janet):C.V.Copas@uk.ac.lut

G Britain                                      (Internet):C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk

------------------------------


Barreling Beer

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 08:04:40 -0400

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

Subject: Barreling Beer

I'd like to barrel my beer.

The only place I have seen barrels for sale was in a catalog ("The Cellar

Homebrew, Supplies & Equipment, 1993 catalog, 1-800-342-1871).  Their oak

barrels ranged in price:  $60/1gal., $93/5gal., $115/10gal.

Seems semi-expensive.

If anyone has a cheaper source for oak barrels, I'd like to know.

Thanks in advance.

- ---

email: sxupjd@fnma.com (NeXT Mail Okay)

Philip DiFalco, Senior SomethingOrOther, Advanced Technology

FannieMae, 3900 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 22016     (202)752-2812

------------------------------


U-Brew-It-Here

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 08:27:23 -0400

From: pgauvin@hq.crad.dnd.ca (Pierre Gauvin)

Subject: U-Brew-It-Here

Here in Ontario, this has been a real growth industry for the last

year.  However, the BIG BEER MAKERS complained about the unfair

competition and in the last provincial budget, the government slapped

a tax of $0.26/litre starting 1 Aug 93.  The tax is scheduled to go up

in the next couple of years.  This will spell the end of a lot of the

U-Brew places.

The way they worked is that you go there, pick a recipe and are

assigned a kettle.  You mix the ingredients and cook the beer, then

the staff puts it in a keg to age after filtering and cooling through

a heat exchanger.  Two weeks later, you come back to bottle.  I

understand that during the interval, the beer is filtered once again

and transfered into another keg.

There are some severe restrictions on the places.  They do not sell

beer.  They sell ingredients and bottles, and rent the equipment to

users.  You are not allowed to sample your beer while bottling so that

the place does not turn into a drinking establishment.  The only way

to sample a beer recipe before brewing is to exchange a bottle with

the person bottling next to you or with friends who brew there.

Costs for a batch of 48 litres (roughly 12 gallons) vary between $60

and $110 CDN depending on the recipes.  This includes the regular

sales taxes and a $25 service charge (equipment rental, storage,

etc...).  The new tax will add more than $12 per batch.  The old price

was half the price of a commercial beerfor a clone of same beers to

about the same price for a more exotic  beer (Chimay clone).  Now the

price will go up to almost 75% of the cost of commercial stuff.

Advantages of U-Brews: -No mess to clean up.  No room required to

store ber or ingredients.

   - No smelling up the house

   - Socializing

   - Its almost impossible to make bad beer

there.

Disadvantages: - Cost: Almost twice as expensive as making beer at

home, especially if you shop around for ingredients

  - Limited choices of beer recipes, with no

cusatomization.

  -Car required to bring back the bottles

  -Cannot experiment with more exotic ingredients such

as ginger, fruits, etc...

  -Cannot lager the beer

Pierre Gauvin

pgauvin@hq.crad.dnd.ca

------------------------------


Re: Parking in Portland

Date:  Wed, 14 Jul 1993 05:34:40 PDT

From: wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com

Subject: Re: Parking in Portland

>Does anyone have a suggestion on where to park [in Portland]?

You might check into private long term parking lots at the airport, which might

be cheaper (though the bus fare to/from the airport might make up for the cost

savings).  Your travel agent ought to be able to help you with this.

Btw, it`s also worth mentioning that the conference hotel does not provide a

free shuttle bus to/from the airport.  There`s a private bus that serves

several of the downtown hotels, however.  Yet another cost to add to your

budget for the week.

/Don

wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com

------------------------------


Darkening Extract;  Brewer's Warehouse;  Nitrogen Regs

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 8:12:37 CDT

From: raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com (Glenn Raudins)

Subject: Darkening Extract;  Brewer's Warehouse;  Nitrogen Regs

In HBD #1181, Derrick Pohl writes:

> He said that boiling does

> indeed darken malt - he thinks it's actually an oxidation process and that

> splashing the wort around a lot when hot darkens it even more.  His

  Since George isn't with us this summer (may the book go well), one of the

reactions at working is the "Browning Reaction(s)".  (Most of this info

comes from George's book via my hazy morning memory.)

  Browning reactions START when the extract is being made.  They continue

while in the can, which means it would be nice if they marked the cans with

date of production.  The Browning reactions result in Melanoidins.  These

reactions will also occuring during your boil.  The oxidation of melanoidins

is where they begin to play a bigger part in the overall beer.  (Not

mentioned above, melanoidins are the dark pigment.)  If you have George's

book, Principles of Brewing Science, the section is only a couple pages long

but well worth reading.

re:  Brewer's Warehouse

  Has anyone out there bought their propane burner?  It appears to be in a

ceramic base of some nature, which probably would solve the need to build a

heat shield.

re:  Nitrogen thread

  Looking at Superior's catalog last night, I noticed Nitrogen regulators.

Just for the knowledge, what is the difference between these and CO2 regs?

Range on the dials?

Glenn Raudins

raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com

------------------------------


Plastic Fermenters

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 09:27:22 -0400

From: "/platinum/homes/hethmon/.signature" <hethmon@cs.utk.edu>

Subject: Plastic Fermenters

I've got a question about plastic fermentation vessels.  The kit I started

with came with a 6.5 gallon plastic pail with a screw down lid for the

primary fermenter.  Though the batches I've brewed so far have come out

good (with the exception of using old Whitbread yeast for one -- yuck!), I

noticed a definite lack of bubbles coming up through the fermentation lock.

I asked at my homebrew store and he said it was hard to make a good seal

between the lid and pail.

I guess my question in all of this rambling is whether this seems reasonable

and whether I should worry or have a homebrew?  I've thought of going to

a glass carboy for a primary fermenter, but I don't have a 6 or 7 gallon one

at the moment.  I've thought of using my 5 gallon size with a blow off tube, but

the thought of my dogs or two year old son drinking from the blow off bucket

has kept me from it so far.

Any comments or suggestions?

thanks,

:  Paul Hethmon   |     anonymous ftp for

:  hethmon@cs.utk.edu  |  Woodworking: cs.rochester.edu

:  University of Tennessee | Brewing info: sierra.stanford.edu

:  Knoxville, Tennessee  |    OS/2 info: ftp-os2.cdrom.com

------------------------------


dextrose, hot break

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 10:03:30 -0400 (EDT)

From: KLIGERMAN@herlvx.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: dextrose, hot break

F.J. Dobner  writes"..my understanding of dextrose is that it is not largely

fermentable (by commonly used yeast)."...

He must be confusing dextrose with some other sugar.  Glucose, dextrose,

corn sugar, and grape sugar are synonymous (The Merck Index 10th Edition)

These are all fermentable by common yeast.

There also seems to be some confusion about what is the hot break and when does

it occur.  I hope someone knowledgeable will clear this up.

Andy Kligerman

------------------------------


RE: Drinking around Lancaster PA

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 09:50:16 EDT

From: chiz@atmel.com (Robert Chizmadia)

Subject: RE: Drinking around Lancaster PA

Very close to Lancaster is Adamstown.  There you will find Stoudt's brewpub.

I recommend the honey nut oatmeal stout.  Depending on how far you want to

travel,  there are two brewpubs in Philadelphia and three in Baltimore.  Philly

is about half an hour, and has the Dock Street brewpub and the Sam Adams

brewpub.  In Baltimore, there is the Baltimore Brewing Company ( which makes a

very unique wiezen-bock ), Sisson's brewpub, and the Wharf Rat. Make sure you

get the Wharf Rat by Camden Yards for microbrew, although with 28 taps the one

is Fell's Point is a fine drinking establishment.  Baltimore is about an hour

and a half away.

------------------------------


Neuweiler's Stock Ale

Date: 14 Jul 93 11:26:36 EDT

From: Matthew Mitchell <IEKP898%tjuvm.bitnet@TJUVM.TJU.EDU>

Subject: Neuweiler's Stock Ale

From:  Matthew Mitchell

Another excellent contract brew from Lion in Wilkes-Barre is the Neuweiler's

Stock Ale, brewed for Neuweiler's of Allentown.  I think they have their

own brewery, right?  They've been around a while and I never looked twice

but at the distributor, I saw markings on the case that looked like Lion's

and had to try.Only $15.00||  8^) =

Anyway, the beer is quite amber, and has a fruity hoppy aroma much like a

good IPA, Taste is excellent, with accent on hop character.  All-malt

according to the label.

So is stock ale a defined style?  The last one I had was the Molson Stock Ale

(which had an anchor in the hexagon molson label  ref to sea voyage like

 in IPA???!)

The label says that the story is that the beer was reserved for stockholders

in the company  Any truth to that??  Is that the same story as UK's

Courage "Directors' Bitter??"

Howzat!?!

Matthew Mitchell     <iekp898@tjuvm.tju.edu>   <iekp898@tjuvm.bitnet>

Former Brewmaster, Penthouse Brewing Co., Haverford PA

makers of Barclay Beer, Penthouse Brown Ale, and Big B Malt Liquor

------------------------------


Hunter Airstat summary available from me.

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 10:54:42 CDT

From: hinz@memphis.med.ge.com (David Hinz)

Subject: Hunter Airstat summary available from me.

Greetings!

About a week ago, I expressed my frustration at not knowing how to get

a Hunter Airstat.  The responses were numerous, and I saved most of them.

(My mail program is flukey sometimes).

If anyone would like a (fwd) of the summary, I'd be happy to e-mail it

to you, and if there's enough interest I could forward it to the Sierra

listserv.

Dave Hinz

ObHomebrewComment:  Don't you just HATE finishing the last bottle of a batch?

It's sort of sad to know that the whole thing is history...

------------------------------


Hot Break Terminology

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 09:11:00 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Hot Break Terminology

Judging from the responses I received in regard to my posting on Irish

Moss, there is some real confusion about the definition of "hot break".

A number of people seemed to think I was advocating adding the IM at the

beginning of the boil, which is not at all the case.

So let's be clear: the hot break is at THE END of the boil, not the

beginning.

I can understand the confusion; not only have recent postings by

theoretically reliable people made the wrong assertion, but the standard

homebrewing texts are remarkably vague on the whole subject.  Although I

found good information in professional brewing texts, the most lucid

explanation is from good old Dave Line, in his Big Book of Brewing, from

which I quote with abandon:

     The "hot break"

     If you take a sample of the wort in a hydrometer jar and hold it up

     to the light it should look reasonably clear; clear, but not

     crystal clear and bright like one would expect in the finished

     beer.

     The change in clarity is brought about by the boiling process. A

     closer inspection of a light coloured wort would show that the

     dullness is caused by a greyish mist of finely dispersed matter.

     The mist is due to the presence of haze forming degraded protein

     matter combined with hop tannins and its derivatives.

     The behaviour of these nitrogenous substances in the copper is

     rather remarkable.  Long vigorous boils will coagulate these gummy

     substances and make them insoluble.  Regularly observing the

     clarity of samples taken throughout the boil will demonstrate

     this fact.  A few minutes after boiling commences, the mist forms a

     haze of small, but visible particles.  The particles grow as the

     boiling ation, coupled with the buffering of hop cones, increases

     the rate at which these gummy substances combine to form even

     larger particles.

     The "hot break" is said to be secured when all the protein matter

     has formed into flocculating compact lumps.  Always check for this

     condition (but not before at least one hour's boil) by removing a

     wineglassful of the wort.

     The thermal cycle of cooling, should, if the break is successful,

     deposit the match head sized particles at the bottom of the glass

     to leave the wort above clear of suspended matter.  If there are

     still minute particles in suspension which have not combined with

     the main masses, then the wort is "undercooked" and boiling must be

     continued.

For those of a more scientific bent, there are similar discussions in

DeClerq, who also recommends visual examination of the wort and says:

"The appearance of the break serves as a guide to the brewer for the

duration of the boil, because it frequently happens that after a good

break has been obtained any further boiling gives a turbid wort."

Recommendations on the use of Irish Moss range from 15 minutes (Dr. Fix)

to 1/2 hour before the end of the boil.

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


step mashing temperature formula?

Date: 14 Jul 93 11:27:32 EDT

From: CHUCKM@PBN73.CV.COM

Subject: step mashing temperature formula?

Hello brewers,

  PErhaps someone can help...

 Does anyone have a formula that will help me with Step infusions in

order to hit proper temperatures.  eg.  I mash in a cooler tun. If I

have X pounds of grain at Y degrees, how much 212 degree water must I add

to raise the temp Z degrees. Given that I know X, Y, and Z all I need to

find out is the 'how much'.

Thanks in advance

chuckm@pbn73.cv.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1182, 07/15/93

*************************************

-------


RE: Extract darkening with boil

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 12:44:58 EDT

From: lyons%adc2@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: RE: Extract darkening with boil

Subject: Extract darkening with boil

>In HBD #1179, Johann Klaassen writes:

>>Could it be that my hour-long boils have darkened

>>the otherwise light malt (which would shock me)?

>Funny you should mention this, because this very weekend I was at my local

>brew store talking to the guy there about brewing with extract.  I usually

>brew all-grain, but due to time constraints I'm doing an extract batch

>next, and so I was getting some advice on it.  He said that boiling does

>indeed darken malt - he thinks it's actually an oxidation process and that

>splashing the wort around a lot when hot darkens it even more.  His

>solution:  do a mini-mash of your specialty grains first (crystal,

>chocolate, etc.), strain the grain out, then boil the hops in that water,

>and only add the extract for the last twenty minutes of the boil, thus

>minimizing the time the extract is boiling, but still giving you the full

>time for the hop boil.

>How does this technique sound to the more experienced extract brewers out

>there?

I believe doing a full boil with only a small fraction of the malt

would drastically increase the hop utilization.

------------------------------


Dextrose

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 12:29 CDT

From: fjdobner@ihlpb.att.com

Subject: Dextrose

My comments of yesterday regarding fermentability of Duvel confused dextrose

and dextrin. Dextrose is completely fermentable and dextrin is not.

Thanks for the many e-mail messages.

Frank

------------------------------


brew places/Toronto

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 9:35:42 PDT

From: ghultin@sfu.ca

Subject: brew places/Toronto

Answering the question about brew-it-here places.

I am writing from British Columbia.  In Canada (generally) a business

is allowed to RENT you equipment for you to brew your beer on

their premises.  You select recipe, get ingredients from bulk barrels,

mix everything together, stand around and wait.

They help you connect hoses to cool beer and pump into a keg.  Later,

you come back and bottle it. (They store it, in primary and secondary

in room-sized coolers, and force carbonate with C02)

Re: Toronto

A bar serving lots of local brews is C'est What? on Front Street.

Also Rotterdams and Amsterdam (2 different places) brew their own.

There are several microbreweries around.  If your pal goes to C'est What,

your pal will discover easily from the bar staff their locations.

geoff.

------------------------------


Parking in Seattle; Hunter Airstat in Milwaukee; DA FLOOD!

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 14:42:10 CDT

From: "Roger Deschner  " <U52983@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject: Parking in Seattle; Hunter Airstat in Milwaukee; DA FLOOD!

Three Amtrak trains run daily from Seattle to Portland. Schedule:

Seattle ---> Portland                 Portland ---> Seattle

 7:30AM       11:30AM #26              7:55AM        11:50AM #796

 9:50AM        2:00PM #11              2:10PM         6:10PM #25

 5:30PM        9:25PM #797             3:50PM         8:05PM #14

I just personally saw the Hunter Air Stat in the Builders Square on I-94

on the south side of Milwaukee. It's in the electrical department, about

an aisle beyond all the light fixtures and ceiling fans. They had plenty

of them, in a display with a bunch of other Hunter stuff, like ceiling

fan mounting brackets, speed controls and such.

And those of you who know I live in Chicago may ask what was I doing in

Milwaukee? Well, I was in Milwaukee to watch Sprecher Brewing Company

(a thriving micro) slide into the river. This same catastrophic monsoon

season which has made Middle America into the Mississippi Ocean, got the

ground so soaked during the last week of June at the Sprecher Brewery

that it gave way and slid into the canal. The building has stayed put, so

far, but has developed an ominous crack through which you can see the

river outside. Access to the front door is by a hurriedly constructed

wooden gangplank. Brewing has continued nervously, but uninterrupted. I

understand Randy Sprecher has accelerated his search for new quarters for

his brewery. The building, fortunately, is rented.

Anyone know of any other washed out or flooded breweries? What about

Dubuque Star, which is on low land by the riverbank?

See everyone in Portland!

- -- Roger Deschner, UIC, CBS, BJCP, ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

------------------------------


Irish Moss - Extract vs All Grain

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 15:58:12 EDT

From: lyons%adc3@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: Irish Moss - Extract vs All Grain

I've noticed in Charlie's book that he lists Irish Moss as an

ingredient for All Grain recipes, but not for Extract recipes.  Am I

correct to conclude that only All Grain recipes will benifit by

using Irish Moss during the last 15 minutes of the boil?

------------------------------


1/2 bbl SS keg as brewpot (again)

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 14:00:11 PDT

From: Mike Peckar  14-Jul-1993 1700 <m_peckar@cscma.enet.dec.com>

Subject: 1/2 bbl SS keg as brewpot (again)

Hi again.  Last week I requested a copy of a bygone HBD article posted on

converting 1/2 bbl kegs. I never got a response. What I did get, however,

is lots of email expressing interest, so I felt compelled to ask again for

the article in question. This time my request is for a repost, though,

since there seems to be lots of interest...

Anyway, in the mean time, I kind of came up with my own idea on what to do

with the rounded stainless steel keg I came across, and since folks asked

via mail, I figured I'd reply here. Basically, what I plan on doing is

cutting the top off, installing a drain faucet, and sealing off the

bunghole. No rocket science there. I am curious what others have done,

though, and how different folk use SS kegs to mash/lauter. What I was

considering was simply attaching a screen to the inside of the drain faucet

kind of like a test tube with the open end sealed around the inlet to the

faucet. My friend who uses this method using a cooler with great results

calls this his "screen penis". I believe he said he got the idea from an

article in a trade magazine, I think it was The Yankee Brew News. Anyhow,

look like a fun project, and I'll keep you informed as this project

progresses. For now, I've already started hacking away at the top...

------------------------------


Don't touch the hops!

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 20:43:05 -0400 (EDT)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: Don't touch the hops!

A note of warning to all novice backyard hop growers:

It's still quite early in the season, but there may be some parts of the

country where people are getting ready to start harvesting hops.

If you've done this before, you can skip to the next message.  If not,

please take a word of advice.  Poking around amongst hop bines is an

activity that usually required both a pair of light cotton work gloves

and (important!) a long-sleeved shirt.

A great many of us are very sensitive to these delightful plants.  I don't

know if it's the physical action of the tiny spines on the bines, or the

hop oil itself, or some combination, but if you're like me, your arms and

hands will be covered with nasty red welts and itch like crazy if you don't

take these simple precautions.

I was reminded of it today, since my Cascades were so heavy that the twine

they were growing up broke last night and I had to replace it with a much

heavier variety.  I have various varieties planted around the deck in back

of my house, and they grow up poles to about 8-10 feet, then up heavy

twine to the eaves of the house.  Crossing over the deck, they add some shade,

and (lucky me!) my wife really likes they way they look.

Again, PLEASE don't try harvesting these beauties with bare arms.  Unless

you're in the small minority that is not sensitive, you'll itch for at

least a couple of days.

Ed Westemeier   Cincinnati, Ohio

------------------------------


pin-lock fittings

Date: 14 Jul 93 16:12:00 PST

From: John Fitzgerald <johnf@ccgate.ScrippsRanchCA.NCR.COM>

Subject: pin-lock fittings

A couple of digests ago there was some mention of a need for a special

tool for removing pin-lock fittings on soda kegs.  Another poster

mentioned the use of vice-grips (sorry for the lack of names of the

posters).  I just wanted to mention that I use a 13/16" open ended

wrench, it slips on the fitting just fine (the shape of the fitting

allows the wrench to fit from one direction without destroying the

pins).

Happy Brewing,

John Fitzgerald

(just mailed off my last 2 Bouncing Baby Dopple-bocks for 2nd round

judging...does anybody know if we will receive additional feedback

from the judges from this next tasting?)

------------------------------


Irish Moss

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 22:14:02 -0700

From: Alex Simons <alexsi@microsoft.com>

Subject: Irish Moss

In HBD #1180, Jeff Frane made some observations about  the use of Irish

Moss. I am in absolute accord with jeff, and have found that adding 1

tablespoon of Irish Moss per 5 gallons makes all the difference. I

would also recommend using the flaked rather than powdered as I have

had better luck with it.

Using several different Wyeast strains as well as Nottingham Ale yeast,

I have found that the Moss aids flocculation immensely. I have also

found it helps to settle the "floaties" I often encounter when using

specialty malts. I was initially worried that I might have settled out

so much yeast as to make carbonation difficult, but have found that in

general, bottled with a the standard amount of Corn Sugar, these ales

take only a few days (5-7) longer to reach a satisfactory level.  And

bottling was never so easy....

I might also add that in the same area, I have had a great deal of

success using Polyclar added during the last 48 hours into the

secondary fermenter. In one batch of a light raspberry wheaten-ale,

which I had split into two carboys, the carboy with the Polyclar came

out substantially cleaner in both appearance and taste than one without.

I am now a fervent fan of both...

Alex Simons

**********************************************

Alexsi@microsoft.com

No fancy insignia, lots of time to other things.....

**********************************************

------------------------------


Hop Storage, Part One

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 23:20:53 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hop Storage, Part One

Here is the post I promised a while ago on hop storage.

Introduction

Hops have three main ingredients that brewers care about:  The alpha

acids, the beta acids and the essential oils.  Normally we concern

ourselves with only two of the three:  alpha acids and the oils.

The alpha acids are bitter, but they don't dissolve well in beer so they

need to be changed into a form that does dissolve well.  In brewing, this

is caused by boiling and the process is known as isomerization.  The

resulting isomerized alpha acids are soluble in beer and are still bitter.

The beta acids are not bitter and they are not isomerized by boiling (nor

are they changed into a bitter form).  They are, however, bitter when

oxidized.

The oils are responsible for the aroma of the hops, and enter into the

beer's flavor profile for short boil times, steeping, used in a hop back or

dry hopped.

All of these three components undergo changes as the hops age.

Hop Harvesting and Processing

All hops are harvested once per year, beginning as early as late August and

continuing through October, depending on the hop variety.  The hops are

dried and in the US, baled in 200 lb bales.  The bales are made by

compressing the hops and then wrapping them in burlap.  Some of the hops

will be ground and pressed into pellets.  Some hops in the UK are compressed

into "plugs" that weigh about 1/2 an ounce.  The level of compression in

these plugs is much higher than the level in the bale.  In Germany, some

hops are compressed into 11 lb "bricks" and then vacuum sealed.  The level of

compression is about 3-4 times that of the US bale.  (And BTW, in the UK

the plugs are known as pellets)

The hops are then stored in huge warehouses at around 30 degrees F (this

temperature differs depending on the broker, and the outside temperature).

They stay there until they are shipped to a brewer or hop supplier.  Most

small brewers buy enough hops at the start of the hop season to last all

year, but they are stored at the hop broker and shipped periodically to

the brewer.  This keeps the brewer from needing a huge cold storage facility.

Also since most small brewers don't have hop analysis equipment, this allows

the hop broker to keep tabs on the alpha acid and oil contents as they

change over time.

Only the megabrewers pay to have their hops shipped refrigerated.

Hop Deterioration

Hops start to lose their alpha acids and oils as soon as they are harvested.

The rate is dependent on the storage temperature, amount of air present and

the hop variety.  Basically, the lower the temperature, the less the hops

deteriorate.  Oxygen also causes the alpha acids to oxidize and one of the

oxidation components is responsible for the "cheesy" aroma of old hops.  The

oxidized alpha acids cannot be isomerized and are no longer bitter.  So O2 is

definitely bad for alpha acids.  If you remember, the beta acids turn bitter

when they are oxidized, so some believe that this makes up for the loss of

alpha acids.  In fact, it has been argued that cold storage and anerobic

conditions are not necessary for bittering hops, as long as the boil is long

enough and open enough to allow the cheesy aroma to escape.  But brewers

aren't buying the argument (who can blame them).

The variety of the hop also plays a major role.  For reasons yet unknown

certain hops store better than others under the same storage conditions.

The American Society of Brewing Chemists has a procedure for measuring the

"storageability" of hops called the Hop Storage Index and involves taking

readings of hops stored at 20C (68F) when "fresh" and six months later.

Unfortunately, this only gives us two points on a curve and compares the

storage properties of one variety vs. the other, but won't help us predict

what happens to the same variety for differing storage times.

The oils also deteriorate and oxidize over time.  It is believed that some

oxidation of the oils is beneficial to the hop aroma.  Since most homebrewers

have no idea what the oil content of their hops are (a fact I'd like to see

changed), they're not aware of the oil losses.  But they should be since

knowing the oil content is just as important for aroma additions as knowing

the alpha acids is for bittering additions.  And consistency of results

aside, a lot of brewers end up using more hops by weight for finishing and

dry hopping than for bittering.  So it makes economic sense to know the oil

content.  (OK, I'll get off my soapbox.)

Hop Storage

So for best storage conditions, the hops should be stored as cold as possible

(30 to -5F) and away from air.  The compression of the hops into bales,

pellets and plugs helps keep all but the surface layers away from air.  Even

so, air still penetrates and causes some oxidation.  The cold temperature

slows the oxidation process.  As was mentioned earlier, some hop varieties

don't store as well as others.  At some point in the season, hop brokers

will take all remaining unsold bales of poor storage hops and turn them into

pellets.  Not only does the pellet keep out a lot of oxygen, but since they

take up so little space they can now be vacuum packed to further slow the

deterioration.

BTW, the reason pellets are so prevalent in the homebrewing trade is that

they deteriorate more slowly than whole hops when stored in less than ideal

conditions.

Now the compression of the whole hops slows the oxidation because it's harder

for the O2 to get at the hops.  But when the bale is broken up to be

portioned into homebrewer sized quantities, the compression is lost.  Now

air can get at the hops much more easily.  The plugs are a good compromise

between pellets and whole hops.

Hop Packaging for Sale to the Homebrewer

Vacuum packing or inert gas packaging in an O2 barrier material is the best.

The common type of O2 barrier packaging is the "boiling bag" which is clear

and made from a lamination of two types of plastic:  The inner layer is a

food grade polyethylene (the same stuff zip lock bags are made from).  It

is *not* a barrier material, but does make a good heat seal and is the main

reason it's there.  The outer layer is made from polyester (aka mylar) and

is what provides the barrier.  The next step up is the aluminized mylar

bag (aka foil bag or pouch) and this adds a layer of aluminum that increases

the barrier protection over 10-fold.  It also more than doubles the cost so

it's not widely used even though it's better.

Some suppliers still insist on selling their hops in polyethylene bags.

These provide almost no barrier protection and you should avoid a supplier

that uses them as they obviously don't care about the quality of the hops.

To tell the bags apart, I assume you know what a zip lock or sandwich bag

feels like.  These are polyethylene.  You can smell the hops right through

the bag (this should tell you something).  The clear barrier bags are

noticeably stiffer and thicker.  They are also "shiny" and not "frosted"

like the polyethylene bags.  The foil bags look either silver or gold.

To be continued...

Mark

------------------------------


Hop Storage, Part Two

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 23:21:41 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hop Storage, Part Two

Hop Storage, continued

What To Do When You Get Them Home

Firstly, if the hops are not packaged properly (and you had no choice but to

buy them) you need to get them in suitable barrier packaging as soon as

possible.  If you're going to brew with them in the next week or so, don't

worry about it, just put them in the freezer for now.  If the hops were

packaged properly, don't open them until you need to.  Store them in the

freezer.  Once you've opened them, the biggest problem is what to do with

the remainder.  If they came in a vacuum sealed bag, the best thing to do is

reseal the bag with a "home quality" vacuum sealer.  These cost anywhere

from $20 on sale to $100 depending on the seal width (and length) and the

amount of heat they put out.  Even the cheapest sealer (the Decosonic from

Best Products) will put out enough heat to seal the standard clear barrier

bags.  They will not unfortunately put out enough heat to seal the aluminized

bags.  Look around in kitchen supply departments and hardware stores and

the best bet is to take an old piece of bag with you and see how it seals.

You can always transfer the hops to the bags that come with the sealer, but

beware that the bags with the cheap Decosonic are not true barrier bags,

but they're better than polyethylene.  If you keg or otherwise have CO2 or

nitrogen available, you can flush some mason jars with the gas, put in the

hops and add a layer of gas and reseal the jar.  I advise you to practice

with the gas as it's very easy to blast your hops all over the room.  And

always always always use a regulator!  If you can't do any of this, put the

hops in a mason jar and put them in the freezer, it's better than nothing.

How Long Will They Last?

Well, like most things in brewing, the answer is "It depends."  If you keep

them cold and free from O2 hops should "last" a few years.  It's not

uncommon for hop brokers to be selling hops from 2 or 3 seasons ago that have

been pelletized and vacuum sealed.  This is not to say that the oils and

alpha acids will be exactly the same as when you purchased them, but the hops

won't be "bad".  There is no practical way I know of to estimate the loss in

oils or alphas.  We could assume from the hop storage numbers listed below

that the relationship is linear and could be therefore calculated, but I'm

not sure that's right.  As I stated earlier, we have only two points on a

curve to go by.  But as a practical matter, you can expect reasonably stable

numbers for about 6 months if you store the hops in the freezer (a non-auto

defrost freezer is best) at -5F and under gas or vacuum packed and in barrier

packaging.  Of course you'll get better results from the better storing hops.

Hop Varieties and Their Storage Numbers

The following table is compiled from several sources, mainly from data

provided by hop brokers and the book "Hops" by R.A. Neve (Neve's data is

by his own admission "suspect" since it was itself compiled from lots

of sources and lots of different storage conditions.  I have used his data

only to fill in gaps in the hop broker's data which was compiled in a more

scientific manner (generally following the ASBC method).  Neve lists only

"words" like "fair" whereas the broker's data is listed as a percentage

alpha acid remaining after 6 months at 20C (68F).  This is how you can tell

the two sources of data from each other).

Variety                 % Alpha Remaining after 6 mo.

                        at 20C or Storage Quality

Cascade                          50%

Fuggle                           63%

Domestic Hallertau               55%

Domestic Hersbrucker             50%

Liberty                          40%

Mt. Hood                         55%

Perle                            85%

Domestic Spalt                   50%

Domestic Tettnanger              58%

Willamette                       63%

Centennial                       63%

Chinook                          68%

Cluster                          83%

Eroica                           60%

Galena                           78%

Domestic Northern Brewer         80%

Nugget                           75%

Czech Saaz                       50%

Tettnang Tettnanger              58%

German Spalt                     55%

Hallertau Hersbrucker            60%

Strisselspalt                    65%

Hallertau Northern Brewer        75%

Hallertauer Mittelfruh           good

Huller Bitterer                  moderate

East Kent Goldings               good

Brewers Gold  (UK)               poor

Wye Northdown                    good

Wye Challenger                   good

Wye Target                       poor

Styrian Goldings                 good (this hop is actually a Fuggle)

Pride of Ringwood                poor

Hope this shed some light on the issue, which reminds me, light can also

cause the hops to deteriorate.  This is not really an issue at home (but

it does finally give us a real justification to determine if the light

really goes out in the fridge!) but it in an issue in you local homebrew

supply.  The hops should not be sitting in a well lighted place if the

packaging is clear.

Mark

------------------------------


New Orleans area trip report

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:54:00 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: New Orleans area trip report

 I just got back from spending a few daze over in and around the

Crescent City, checking our the local brewing vista.

 Note: I'm not an 'official' beer judge. My taste buds aren't real

 sophisticated. Your mileage (highly) likely to vary...

 In New Orleans, there's Dixie Brewery, the South's oldest (190?).

Dixie is located on Tulane Ave, a bit away from downtown and the

quarter. They're renovating right now, so no touring of the facility

was possible

 They make a mediocre lager which was all that was available

when i used to live there. But hey, when I lived there coke(tm) was

 .50 a can, Dixie was .35 a can, you figure out which one a student

buys - But honest, mom; i'm saving money by drinking beer ;-)

 In the last coupla years they've added two new brews:

 Jazz - a nice tasting Amber, good color, really nice Hop nose, not a

 hoppy taste, though. (I dont much go for strong hop taste, but found

 I really liked this strong nose and almost no hop taste combination).

 Of the three brews, this was my favorite - stacks up favorably to

 _any_ beer, as far as a good, drinkable beer.

 Blackened Voodoo Lager - only had one of these, not bad, but i

 wouldn't go outta my way to get one and would take an amber is

 offered the choice. I *like* dark beers, so it's not that i would

 just choose any amber over any dark, either. They claim it's aged in

 cyprus casks. try it, but dont expect too much.

 Also in New Orleans, down on Decatur street, across the street from

the old Jax Brewery (RIP) and about 2 blocks toward Canal street is

the Crescent City BrewPub. Note that their beer cant be sold off the

premises. Get it there or do without. My recommendation - GO GET SOME.

 They serve beer in small mugs (like most pubs/bars), medium (1/2

litre?) pilsner style glasses, and LITER mugs.

 We tried to get a tour of the brewing equipemnt there, but the

Brewmaster was in Germany and the other person we were refered to

declined.

 They brew 4 beers:

 Pilsner - tasted like one to me. I tried a sip of someone else's. Not

 my favorite style of beer so I didn't waste the drinking time on it.

 Red Stallion - a light amber sorta thing, kinda seemed like a cross

 between a pilsner and an amber to me. Pretty tasty. Good beer.

 Dark Forest - Here's a great beer. Dark, good choclate malt taste (at

 least i think that's what it is, see my (dis-)qualifications above).

 I really liked this beer, and consumed several liters just to be sure.

 seasonal speciality brew

 Liberty lager is the current specialty brew - it's kind of a most

 amber-like version of the Red Stallion brew. If it weren't for the

 awesome Dark Forest, i'd been drinking this one. Try it (if you get

 there soon)

 Special mention goes the the Pizza place (cant remember the name)

over on the other side of the quarter at the corner of Decatur and

Barracks. They do _great_ wood-baked pizza and are the only place I

have *ever* seen Chimay trippel (25 oz bottle for $9, compare to reg

bottled beers at $2.50) on the menu on a regular food establishment.

 We stopped by Brew Ha-Ha on magazine street (uptown) and chatted with

the owners for a while. He's a transplant from New York who couldn't

believe that

 there is a brew club, brew pub, brewery, and no homebrew supply store

 rent for an apartment and storefront was only $450 (in NY the same

 storefront alone would be "about $5000")

 So, he took out a $4000 loan and opened a store. He's "quitting my

 day job" after just under a year in business and seemed to be real

 happy and doing well. Nice folks. his girlfriend was brewing out back

 while we were there. Offered some good advice/tips also. Check them

 out if you're in the area.

 And across the lake in Abita Springs is Abita Brewery. (take the

Abita Springs exit from I-12, go north - you go right past the

brewery just before _the_ red light in town) Started by a coupla

homebrewers back in the mid-80s, now distributed/sold  across the

south from Texas to North Carolina, "selling more than we brew".

 We got an extensive tour of the facility (they're expanding the

fermenting stuff to a building down the road). Real nice folks.

Currently three brewers and a total (i think) of 14 employees.

 They grind 1800 lbs of grain into the masher, hold it at ~150 for ~

an hour, sparge to another tank and 'boil'? for about another hour,

then whirlpool it to remove the hops, etc in a third tank for another

hour or so, and filter it into the fermentation tanks.

 They have an ancient bottling machine, just got a new keg

washing/filling setup (used to do them by hand). Pretty interesting

setup.

 They're currently brewing 4 beers also:

 Abita Amber - nice amber beer. good stuff

 Abita Golden - only tried a small bit of this, seemed OK, but nothing

 real notable

 Turbo Dog - an interesting dark beer. kinda (excessively) roasted

 malty tasting to me, you might like it if you like dark beers, hard

 to say. About the name - "yeah, the owners were sitting around

 drinking one day after brewing the first batch and came up with that"

 the current specialty beer is Abita Wheat - this was a real nice

 wheat beer. I liked it a lot (and sampled it repeatedly afterwards

 just to make sure ;-) Give it a try if you get a chance.

Thats it for now. Enjoy!

------------------------------


Purchasing Supplies

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 10:13:30 EST

From: Kristof_Mueller@voyager.umeres.maine.edu

Subject: Purchasing Supplies

I was just wondering,  I am 20 years old, and plan on brewing as soon as I

get my apartment (in Sept.).  I know that legally I cannot brew beer until

I'm 21, but can I buy supplies as a "minor"?  It seems to me that anyone

should be able to buy a bucket and some grains.   Does anyone know the laws

that apply here?  Thanks for your help.

- --Kris

------------------------------


"Seriously Stupid Advice"

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 08:59:06 EST

From: "John DeCarlo" <jad@pegasus.mitre.org>

Subject: "Seriously Stupid Advice"

OK, several people have misread my previous posting, so let me try again:

1) Thank you Al, for posting and then *refuting* seriously stupid advice

from some retailer.  It is definitely the case that some who sell

homebrewing supplies know something about brewing while others know

absolutely nothing and spread bad advice.

2) Starting a siphon with your mouth is probably a bad thing.  However,

while it is certainly *possible* to get an infection in your beer this way,

I personally would put this as not in the top 20 most likely ways of

infecting your beer.  So, I just wanted to say that Al was going a little

overboard in implying that this would certainly result in an infection.

John "I thought everyone was reading this in the context of Al's nice

little series.  Oh well, sorry for the possible misinterpretation." DeCarlo

Fidonet: 1:109/131   Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


sugar

Date: Thursday, 15 July 93 09:17:35 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: sugar

Howdy,

I've seen discussion brewing (haha) on the topic of sugars.  One thing I've

noticed is that folks have been saying brown sugar is white sugar with

molasses added.  Actually, it's more the opposite;  it's sugar without the

molasses-type syrup removed.  When sugar cane is processed (they don't make

brown sugar out of beets cuz it tastes nasty), it basically is in a syrup

form.  It goes through a centrifuge, where the unprocessed white sugar is

removed.  Brown sugar is then extracted from the syrup.  The crystals are

covered with a film of colored, highly refined molasses flavored syrup.

After this, the remaining syrup is what molasses comes from.  You get two

kinds, light & blackstrap.  They take the light off first, then the rest is

blackstrap.  The whole process works out to light to dark, crystals to syrups,

pure sucrose to lotsa leftover goodies.

Turbinado is the stuff that comes off first but is not completely refined.

It's 99% pure sugar.  Light molasses is 90% sugar, & blackstrap is 50%

sugar & 2.8% protein, with lotsa trace materials, including ash, vitamins,

rat hairs, etc.  As with brown sugar, beet molasses is too nasty tasting

to use.

So, that's the sugar scoop.

Alan, Austin

------------------------------


Irish Moss/polyclar

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 10:24:30 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Irish Moss/polyclar

Let me relate a story:  Last fall a fellow brewer (Josh) & I made 10 gallons

of Vienna.  We split the wort into two fermenters, pitched the same

yeast into both, and each took one home.  We fermented at the same

temperature for about the same time.  At this point, our paths

diverged.  Josh fined his with PolyClar, bottled, conditioned, and

then lagered.  I lagered in secondary, then bottled & conditioned.

When it came time to taste, we found that

1. Josh's beer was (slightly) clearer,

2. My beer had more of that yummy malt flavor.

Draw your own conclusion.

=S

------------------------------


Hot Break Terminology

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 10:36:13 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Hot Break Terminology

What Jeff says meshes nicely with some of the books on historical

brewing I've been reading recently (things like _The English Housewife

 ..._, by Gervase Markham around 1600; _Wines & beers of old New

England_,  S. Brown, 1978).  You find statements like "boil it until

it 'breaks'".  This seems to imply that the break happens at the end.

=S

------------------------------


Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 10:50:34 -0400 (EDT)

From: CBRAGG@bentley.edu

Subject:

------------------------------


Mint Beer

Date: 15 Jul 93 10:14 CST

From: Wolfe@act-12-po.act.org

Subject: Mint Beer

     The other day I was eating a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice

 cream that I happened to be washing down with a homebrew (I know,

 it's sick.), when I got an idea for that mint plant in our yard that

 has turned out to be more of a tree than an ornamental plant.  (I

 live in Iowa, and those things must love the rain.  It is HUGE!  I'm

 talking, about 20 stalks almost 3 feet tall.  And I transplanted it

 from a single sprig in April.).  I'm envisioning a mint beer that has

 an aftertaste that kind of makes you cock your head to one side

 and raise an eyebrow (like the ginger beer that I just brewed).

     Anyway, I've looked all over for a recipe and have yet to find

 one for mint beer.  Has anyone out there experimented with mint?

 I've used leaves off of this plant in cooking a lemon herb chicken,

 and it tasted great.  I've also used the leaves in tea.  I was

 thinking about brewing about a gallon of mint tea (to see the ratio

 of mint to water) and using about six times the weight in mint for a

 five gallon batch of beer (six times, rather than five, because I

 figured the malt would cover up some of the mint taste).

     Any suggestions?

     Ed Wolfe

     WOLFE@ACT-12-PO.ACT.ORG

     Iowa City, IA

------------------------------


Anchor Dry Hops

Date: 15 Jul 1993 11:41:20 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

Subject: Anchor Dry Hops

Subject:  Anchor Dry Hops                       Time:10:08 AM    Date:7/15/93

Al Says:

>more difficult to remove the hop bag than loose hops

>from a carboy (not an issue for Anchor, with their open fermenters)

Sorry Al, Anchor only uses the open fermenters for primary fermentation. The

dry hopping occurs in the secondaries which are closed. The hop bags are pillow

case size.

And...

>It's not NO2 and I don't believe there's any nitrogen at all in the cans.

While you are correct that the Draught in the cans is a unique recipe and so

tastes considerably different from what we are used to (the bottled version)

there "is" liquid nitrogen added to the Draught as it is canned. This is used

to increase the pressure in the can to insure that the velocity of the beer

going through the pin hole as it exits the plastic pillow is correct upon

opening. The nitrogen is really a mechanical device in this respect since it

does not dissolve into solution like CO2 does. It should not add any flavor to

the beer but might be said to alter the "taste" as it is responsible for the

creaminess of the head which will certainly be a factor to one's perceptions.

Using the nitrogen/CO2 combined gas (or guinness gas as our local distributor

calls it) will not in itself alter a homebrewed stout's taste or head creation.

You'll need a tap designed to produce the head coupled with the special gas.

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / 474-8126

------------------------------


Jever....?

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 14:10:57 CDT

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: Jever....?

Ok, here's a question from my homebrewing partner...does anyone out

there know anything about the beer Jever...on the label it says

something about using "freisian herbs"  (where's fresia?!) ... does

anyone know what these things are - has anyone tried to replicate this

brew ... in general, can anyone give us the low down on this beer (its

not in Jackson, Finch or anywhere in Papazian) ... thanks.

    good luck and good beer,

     Chris

======================================================================

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu |

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

======================================================================

------------------------------


Trip to Belgium

Date:         Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:04:28 CDT

From: Dave Justice <DD24005@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU>

Subject:      Trip to Belgium

 Greetings! I hope this an appropriate question for this forum. I'm off

 to Europe 2 weeks from today and could use some suggestions on beer and

 brewing related places to visit in Belgium. I'll be there 2-3 days,

 arriving in Oostende and eventually making my way to Bonn, Germany.

 I suppose anywhere in the country is possible since it's fairly small.

 Any recommendations based on your experiences are welcome.

 TIA  - Dave J.

------------------------------


BruHeat Insulation

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:50:40 -0500

From: cwvandev@hwking.cca.cr.rockwell.com (Craig Vandeventer)

Subject: BruHeat Insulation

I also had trouble with the BruHeat holding it's heat. I was constantly

turning on the element to maintain mash temperatures(a royal pain in the

butt). I scorched the element a couple of times even. What I did to fix

the problem was I wrapped 2 layers of pipe insulation tape around the

entire bucket and then taped it down securely with duct tape. I used an

Xacto knife to cut the holes for the spigot and heating element. On my last

mash I didn't have to turn on the heating element to maintain mash temp. It

also boils alot faster now, too.

Craig Vandeventer

------------------------------


stuff

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 11:20:05 PDT

From: sc@vcc.com (Steve Casselman)

Subject: stuff

So let's see ... sucrose is used to store the yeast

so they don't swell and burst from osmosis.

sucrose is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose that

has at least two stable configurations, normal

and inverted. Yeast cannot metabolize (break down)

normal sucrose without first inverting it with

invertase. Inverted sucrose then is more digestable

by the yeast - which means it takes less engery

to metabolize it and therefor there are less side

reactions (and by-products no doubt) in the process.

I also wanted to share an experiment I did regarding

bacteria in the month and on the hands. I took a plate

(agar) and put my thumb and finger prints on one half

and spit on the other half. By far the worst offender

were the thumb prints which grew over night, the finger

prints came next and about day 4 something was growing

out of the spit side. This makes sense since the mouth

does have a changing pH during eating which prohibits

bacteria growth (a good defence for an animal that

eats just about anything). My conclusion is that

contamination comes not when puting lips to hose

but touching said hose with the hands and sticking

that into the carboy.

Also I'm going to be up in portland hangin' with

the gang and am planing to bring my guitar and harp

for acoustic fun if you want to join in!

The number for Brewers Resource is 1-800-8BREWTEK

(the K is silent) 1-800-827-3983

For the people who like chewy beer I sugest roll oats

roll barley or wheat the chewyness comes more from the proteins

than the dextrins.

The hot break begins at the begining of the boil,

anyone unclear on this should bring an all grain

(extracts have small hot breaks) beer just to

boiling and then turn the burner down to observe

the floculation of proteins. IMHO no hops should

be added untill a hot break occurs as hop introduce

nucleation sites that would otherwise be started

by the larger proteins. This will give a brighter

beer. By the way the hot break happends when the

larger protiens come in contact with the interphase

between steam and wort cooking them just as blood

will form a solid when heated. I've seen flocs

the size of dollar bills in my 40-gal brew system

allways at the begining of the boil.

Steve Casselman

- --------------------------------

|Massively Reconfigurable Logic|

|        Out Performs          |

|Massively Parallel Processors |

|Virtual Computer Corporation  |

- --------------------------------

------------------------------


Weihenstephan #66

Date:         15 Jul 93 10:42:21 CST

From: "Dennis Lewis"  <DLEWIS@jscdh6>

Subject:      Weihenstephan #66

I've seen a couple articles lately about German wheat beer yeasts.

Thanks to the person who posted the The Brewer's Resource (BREWTEK)

phone number for the wheat beer strains. The guy I talked to was

extremely helpful.

Is the Weihenstephan #66 weissbier yeast available commercially?

(like from Wyeast or GW Kent...) Phone numbers of known suppliers

would be greatly appreciated.

BTW, we had a wheat beer tasting at my last homebrew club meeting.

Every German wheat beer brewed was fermented with the Wyeast 3056

strain (the 50/50 mix). And without fail, every beer tasted like an

ale with plastic in it. I have used this yeast and found it to be

terribly lacking. If you are planning a wheat beer, do yourself a

HUGE favor and seek out a good yeast (ie, not the 3056).

I have a dunkles weissbier going now with the 3068, and it tastes

terrific! Can hardly wait to bottle this liquid gold.

Dennis Lewis

Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


More sugar

Date: Thursday, 15 July 93 11:03:27 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: More sugar

Howdy,

Here's more info on sugar (I had to look this stuff up).

Invert sugar is primarily used by the food industry.  It's sucrose that has

been broken down into it's two constituent molecules by hydrolyzation.  The

two molecules are dextrose (glucose) & levulose (fructose).  It has

moisture retaining properties good for baked goods, icings, & preserves.  I

can't see why one would want to brew with it, but who knows, you might

discover something really cool & groovy.

I _think_ that candy sugar is 80% white sugar & 20% corn syrup that's been

boiled in water.  Again, I think it is, but am not sure.  Because of variances

in language development & because there is an ocean between us, Belgians

might be using something different & calling it candy sugar.

------------------------------


Re : Irish Moss

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 20:09:40 BST

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: Re : Irish Moss

This Irish Moss thread got me reading a CAMRA brewbook by Wheeler this morning.

Normally, I regard him as a touch light-weight, but he claims that it is

impossible to achieve a decent cold break with home chilling equipment, and

that Irish Moss is a good alternative to forced chilling of the wort in order

to precipitate trub. In fact, this auxiliary fining effect is supposed to

linger on into the bottling stage, where it can be cancelled by oppositely

charged finings such as isinglass. Note that Wheeler doesn't seem to have any

experience with counterflow chillers, BTW. Over to Miller. He ventures that IM

could be useful for ales which have not received a protein rest. As ale malt

is not reputed to contain protein digestion enzymes anyway, I presume the

problem that Miller is really referring to is that of using wheat malt and/or

flaked cereals without a protein rest.

- --

Conn V Copas

Loughborough University of Technology          tel : +44 (0)509 222689

Computer-Human Interaction Research Centre     fax : +44 (0)509 610815

Leicestershire  LE11 3TU              e-mail - (Janet):C.V.Copas@uk.ac.lut

G Britain                                      (Internet):C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk

------------------------------


Re: Parking in Portland

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 09:27:16 -0700

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: Parking in Portland

/Don sez:

>Btw, it`s also worth mentioning that the conference hotel does not provide a

>free shuttle bus to/from the airport.  There`s a private bus that serves

>several of the downtown hotels, however.  Yet another cost to add to your

>budget for the week.

If a bunch of us arrive at the same time, we could share cabs...

Just a thought.

have fun

gak

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1183, 07/16/93

*************************************

-------


Plastin, Hotbreak

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 14:21 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Plastin, Hotbreak

 >From: "/platinum/homes/hethmon/.signature" <hethmon@cs.utk.edu>

 >Subject: Plastic Fermenters

 Oh Boy! This is my favorite topic.

 >I noticed a definite lack of bubbles coming up through the fermentation

 lock. I asked at my homebrew store and he said it was hard to make a good

 seal between the lid and pail.

 It is difficult to get an airtight seal but the necissity to do so is the

 great issue here.

 It seals well enough to keep anything from falling in and few things are

 capable of crawling up, under and into the fermenter via the tiny leaks.

 Furthermore, during fermentation, CO2 is trying very hard to get out through

 these leaks and tends to keep other stuff from getting in.

 The hole in the lid is simply an evil plot by the retailers to force you to

 buy a fermentation lock to fill the hole.  There is enough CO2 generation

 initially to make it look cool but when the pressure drops off, it looks like

 fermentation is done but the gas is just leaking out the easy way.

 I have been fermenting for several years in a SS kettle with a lid that just

 rests on and makes no attempt at an airtight fit and see no need to worry

 about the fit of the lid on the plastic fermenter.

 The idea of using a carboy and blow-off system still gives me a headache.  It

 seems to be another one of those solutions to a problem that does not exist.

 That is not to say that after primary fermentation is complete, that is

 should not be transferred to a carboy for secondary and clearing.

 >From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

 >Subject: Hot Break Terminology

 The definition you quoted reads a lot like Noonan's but is a bit more clear.

 I find it interesting to point out the additional confusion that is created

 by the fact that in order to test for "hot break", the wort must be chilled.

 The stuff at the bottom after chilling, must of necessity be called the "cold

 break".  This leaves us where I proposed several years ago, viz., the hot

 break is a point in time, not stuff.

 It would be beyond reason to call the stuff hot break while hot and cold

 break when cold if it is indeed the same stuff.  One only knows that one had

 a proper "hot break" by chilling the wort and looking for its absence.  The

 stuff on the bottom is irrelevant because you don't know if you got it all

 without looking where it aint no more.

 js

------------------------------


Re: dextrose

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 9:36:34 PDT

From: "Donald G. Scheidt" <dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com>

Subject: Re: dextrose

In HOMEBREW Digest #1182, Thu 15 July 1993,

KLIGERMAN@herlvx.rtpnc.epa.gov (Andy Kligerman) writes:

>Subject: dextrose, hot break

>

>F.J. Dobner  writes"..my understanding of dextrose is that it is not largely

>fermentable (by commonly used yeast)."...

>He must be confusing dextrose with some other sugar.  Glucose, dextrose,

>corn sugar, and grape sugar are synonymous (The Merck Index 10th Edition)

>These are all fermentable by common yeast.

I wonder if someone is confusing dextrose with dextrins here.  Dextrose, of

course, is a sugar, and quite fermentable, thus contributing to alcohol

content and priming/conditioning; dextrins are somewhat sugar-like, and

contribute to body and mouthfeel, but are not very fermentable by beer

yeasts.  Just an attempt to clear up a little possible confusion here,

certainly no flame intended.

- --

        __       |                                        |       __

       // /      |  Don Scheidt                           |      // /

      /  / /     |  Boeing IASL, 777 Cab Development      |     /  / /

     / // / /    |  dgs1300@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com      |    / // / /

------------------------------


Hello? Anyone Home?

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 14:20:36 CDT

From: Gene Zimmerman <ezimmerm@hp.uwsuper.edu>

Subject: Hello? Anyone Home?

Salutations!

   Is anyone getting this newsetter? I haven't recieved one for the past

three days. Hello? Anyone out there? Sorry to waste the bandwidth...

Gene in Duluth

------------------------------


possessed keg and 1.018 is the number of the FG

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 11:04:23 PDT

From: nexgen!bart@olivea.ATC.Olivetti.Com (Bart Thielges)

Subject: possessed keg and 1.018 is the number of the FG

So I thought I'd be smart and start with a kegging system since I could

borrow most of the equipment from a friend who is in quiescent brewing

mode right now.  I've kegged two batches so far and had the same problem

each time.  The beer comes out somewhat transluscent.  It sort of looks

like watered down but dark chocolate milk.  Also, there is a noticable

spicy flavor which some people think tastes like ginger.

When I racked each keg, I also bottled a pint from the batch in a Grolsch

bottle.  The bottled pint turned out very clear and didn't have as strong

of a ginger taste.

Tonight, I'm going to completely disassemble the keg and replace ALL of the

rubber, including the poppets.  I've got a brush to scrub out the dip tube

so I think that it should be completely clean this time.  However, I'm

not completely confident that this keg has been excorcised from whatever

bug is contaminating it, so I've "invested" in some more bottling gear.

The third batch, I plan to put 1/2 into the 5 gallon Cornealius keg and the

other half into bottles.  Am I doing something completly stupid by only

filling the keg half way ?  Of course, I plan to leave the check valve open

long enough after priming to allow enough CO2 to evolve and force the O2

out of the large head space, but I really don't know how long is enough

time.

Speaking of the check valve, I tried to remove it last night, but it seems

to be made of plastic.  My mental torque wrench told me that I was straining

it too much for the material when I tried to remove it.  Is there any

recommended method for removing it ?  Maybe I'll just soak the whole thing

in sanitizer.

On another point, all three of the batches that I have made so far (kits

supplemented with various other unhopped malt extracts) have ended at a

final gravity of 1.018.  This seems to be a strange co-incidence since I

used different amounts of ingredients each time.  Also, the FG seemed

stabilize rather quickly, like 4 or 5 days after pitching the dried package

of yeast included with the kit.

OK, now back to the yellow pages to look for an excorcist.

Bart

------------------------------


international brew transport?

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 07:41:18 PDT

From: mike@notorious.lbl.gov (Michael P. O'Neill)

Subject: international brew transport?

It's been a year since following this newsletter, so if this question

has been answered recently, thanks for your indulgence!

I was glad to find out that the company i read about in

HOMEBREW Digest #773                         Tue 03 December 1991

i.e. Beers Across America, was still in business and was actually

sending brews to all except maybe 4 states;

but they don't (can't) do it outside the states.

I'm interested in sending a sample of a few California

brews to a friend I made while traveling; he lives in Finland.

Anybody have any ideas as to how to do this without having

to open a business and obtain a license and such?

Thanks for any and all replies; please send to

mike@notorious.lbl.gov

------------------------------


re: more on sugar in beer

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 12:00:36 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: re: more on sugar in beer

In HBD #1182 Bryan L. Gros asks about sugars.  Here's what I've

figured out so far.  I'll try to give source where appropriate.

To the best of my knowledge there are two reasons for adding sugar to

beer:  1) to add a certain flavor,  2) to add additional fermentables

without adding much flavor.  These are obviously two different purposes.

In the flavoring catagory are:

  Brown sugar:  Sucrose w/varying amounts of molasses added

  Molasses:  What's left over from refining sugar, strength and

             character of flavor vary w/brand and type.

  Treacle:  I don't know if this is simple a British term for molasses

            or a specific kind (help from the UK please).  Anyway

            Lyle's treacle is called for in some British ale recipes

            and is readilly availble at upscale US grocery stores.

  Turbinado, demerara:  Amber colored sugars, supposedly only partially

            refined. According to FDA types all sugar sold in US must

            be refined so I don't know what these really consists of.

            (Help from you FDA type or food science folks)

            C & H sell a product called "Wash raw sugar" which is

            described as "turginado-style".  I haven't used it but in

            HBD#1141 Paul dArmond says it "doesn't give a cidery taste,

            and at the 1# level leaves a yummy sweet *aftertaste*"

   Piloncillo:  Mexican brown sugar, various color availble.  The ones

            I've found all say refined sucrose.

   Dark sucre-candi:  Philip Seitz says as near as he can tell rock candy=

            sucre-candi.  Piere Rajotte says in _Brewing Belgian Ales_

            that sucre-candi is sucrose.  The dark sucre-candi is

            caramelized before being crystalized.  Nobody seems to have

            a US source.  I've tried camelizing my own sucrose.  It's

            not hard to do.

  I don't know how to assess the flavor added by any of these except to

  try one and taste the finsihed product.  I recently tried a very dark

  piloncillo and didn't like the flavor it added--a sort of tart edge.

In the adding fermentables catagory there are:

  Sucrose:  A double sugar made of one glucose and one fructose molecule.

    Invert sugar is just sucrose that has already been split.  It is used

    in confectionaries for reasons I know nothing about.  Yeast must split

    sucrose inorder to metabolized it.  This happens outside the cell wall

    by enzymes secreted by the yeast (per<Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu>)

    However, if the sugar is already inverted it's less work for the yeast.

    To my mind this doesn't make it more fermentable just more easily

    fermented.

  Glucose aka corn sugar:  A simple sugar directly metabolized by yeast.

  White candi-sugar: Per Rajotte, large crystals of sucrose.

There is stong consensus that too much sucrose adds a characterist cidery

taste.  According to Miller, it's the fructose half of sucrose that's

responsible for the cidery taste.  Hovever, some brewers say that even

glucose will add a cidery taste in large quantities [per,

cjh@diaspar.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Chip Hitchcock)]

Most brewers agree that replacing maltose with glucose or sucrose

in beers meant to derrive their sugar from malt is a bad idea.  At best

you brew will have a thin body and flavor.  On the other had high

gravity Belgian ales call for sugar as an adjunct.  The purpose is to

lighten the body and maltiness of these high gravity beers.  This is

one thing that makes them distinct from say Barley Wine.  Rajotte says

Belgian brewers may add either glucose or sucrose to their high gravity

beers.  Some say the already high maltose content hides the cidery flavor.

Then again maybe it's the lousy weather they have there most of the year,

who knows?

Sante', WAK

------------------------------


re: Parking in Portland

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 08:16:30 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: re: Parking in Portland

If you're coming to Portland, be ready for parking shortages.  The city

Fathers and Mothers decided that persuading everyone to kill their cars

was a good idea for the 21st century, so they passed an ordinance that

limits the number of parking spaces per downtown block.  Ride the bus, eh?

I called the Mariott and spoke with Kim at the front desk.  Here's the deal...

The Mariott has limited parking space, it all valet parking @ $14 per day,

if you have a room there or not...  Right behind the Mariott, connected by

a skybridge, is a city lot @ $9 per day, plus some in/out fees.  I've

heard that Portland has pretty good public transit (hey, Jeff! what's it

like?), so maybe that will help.  Considering what a lot of us will be

doing, riding the bus or light rail or whatever the heck it is that they

have there might be a good idea while we're wearing the knees out of our

trousers looking for more and more good beer.

Paul.

------------------------------


The last bottle

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 07:56:47 PDT

From: tima@wv.MENTORG.COM (Tim Anderson)

Subject: The last bottle

In korz.digest #1182, Dave Hinz writes:

>ObHomebrewComment:  Don't you just HATE finishing the last bottle of a batch?

>It's sort of sad to know that the whole thing is history...

Not at all.  It's wonderful.  Once you've made a bad batch and had to pour beer

down the drain (now there's something to hate!), there is great joy in knowing

that every single bottle has been a source of pleasure.

By the way, I use one clear bottle in each batch, and it's the last one I open.

When my wife sees me trudging up the basement stairs cradling a clear bottle of

beer in trembling hands, she knows to keep a reverent and respectful silence

until the glass is drained.  Hmmm, maybe I should us more clear bottles.

------------------------------


Hop harvest and Chico yeast

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 10:08:37 -0400 (EDT)

From: Tom Rush <trush@mhc.mtholyoke.edu>

Subject: Hop harvest and Chico yeast

I have quite a different report on my hops than the one I posted

last year(large yields and lush plants) the summer has been and

continues to be hostile to all growers. The drought and heat has

been a disaster for farmers and home gardeners alike, the prolonged

heat wave withers plants even if irrigated--it seems worse in this

area since Ct,VT,NY,etc. are hurting but not as badly.

Anyway, my cones are all coming early, very few, and the vines have

stopped growing. The japanese beetles have returned with a vengeance,

they invited potatoe beetles and I have a strange green catapillar

munching on the cones and leaves(this may be a rare type of moth/

butterfly which feeds only on hop vines according to a reference

book)thats all I need a "spotted-owl" endangerd worm and Sierra

will checking on me. I can see where hop growers can have "feast or

famine" cycles. Only consulation my "hersbrucker" is alive and well

which I thought I lost last year(only grew 4 inches after being

stepped on and crushed also the two Saaz I planted this year are

thriving.

Has anyone encounterd or has an answer to the following: I use Chico

yeast cultured from SNPA, use my own hops, aerate after boiling

and cooling to the point of using a sterilized chefs omelet mixer

(reason follows)it foams up the wort 3-4 inches but subsides quickly

and the yeast is perking overnight. The probleml is, the primary

gets stuck by the second day-I transfer to the secondary VERY

CAREFULLY AVOIDING FURTHER AERATION and the batch takes off again.

It works so much in the secondary I can't use an airlock and have a

blow-off tube in a bucket to catch the overflow. The beer comes out

perfect(deeeliciuuus) but the procedure troubles me.

Any suggestions or theories are welcome,

 -tom

------------------------------


Smells like crap!

Date: 15 Jul 1993 10:48:44 -0600 (CST)

From: CMACK@ssc.wisc.edu

Subject: Smells like crap!

Hi -- first I'd like to thank everybody for suggesting breweries

and pubs in San Francisco and San Diego.  Other folks have gone

on about how helpful the people on this list are, so I'll let it

go and get on with my question.

I'm still relatively new to homebrewing, and on my 6th batch

(an Anchor Steam clone), something odd is happening.  I thought

the smell in my basement was coming from somewhere else, but when

I sniffed above the airlock of the primary fermenter, I almost

gagged on this nasty, sulfurous odor.  Maybe it's just my

imagination, and the fermenter isn't actually *distended* from

the gas production, but it still has me spooked about this batch's

chances.  (At least I don't have to worry about oxidation?)

As far as I know, this was a standard extract recipe, not so

different from Papazian's Steam in TNCJoHB.  Can anyone tell me

what's gone wrong?

Thanks,

Chris Mack

------------------------------


Many Topics...

Date: 15 Jul 1993 16:48:58 -0500 (EST)

From: STBLEZA@grove.iup.edu

Subject: Many Topics...

Greetings All, and You Too...

I have a few (heh!) brewing related questions.

First: Is it possible to use high proof (150 proof, 75 % +) alcohol to

sterilize equipment with?  I ask because I have access to Mexican potable

rubbing alcohol, and I couldn't come up with a reason not to use it (since I

won't drink it, I like my health to much).

Second:  Doesn't anyone have any info on Kitzinger Reinzuchthefen Liquid

Culture (fancy name for yeast)?  I found this in a small, local winery, and

wanted to know what it's charecteristics are.  ANY info would be helpful...

Third:  Has anyone on the digest tried to use a double fermentation on beer?

I heard about the process, and was thinking of trying it, but I decided to

consult higher authorities first.  For those un-familar to the process, you

pitch a yeast with a low alcohol tolerance (ale and lager yeasts) into your

primary, then wait until the fermentation slows due to alcohol abundence,

transfer into a secondary, and pitch a second yeast in that has a higher

tolerance (such as a wine or champagne yeast).  What effects would this have?

Is it at all desirable?  Has anyone done this?  Is there any literature on

this topic (I can't find the source that gave me the idea for this)?  Have I

finally gone off the perverbial 'deep end'?

Last, I have some gasoline to throw onto the High Gravity Brewing fire...

In medieval times (circa 16th century and before), it was not uncommon for beer

to be mashed, etc in a small vessel, with water added in the fermenter before

fermentation started.  This allowed for smaller vessels to be used up to the

fermentation stage, allowing brewing to take place more readibly in the home.

If they were able to create beer good enough to write ballads about that are

still sung today using worts produced in this manner, seems to me that we should

have no problems making good beers like this, too...

White Belts Motto:  Weebles Wobble but they don't Fall Down

+*****************************************+***********************************+

|                                         |1,000,000 Lemmings Can't be Wrong! |

|  The only thing that lets me retain     |-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-|

|  my slender grip on reality is the      |Jacobus Jager Draake         |

|  friendship I share with my collection  |(AKA J. Hunter Heinlen)            |

|  of singing potatos.                    |(Bitnet:STBLEZA@IUP)               |

|                                         |(Internet:STBLEZA@GROVE.IUP.EDU)   |

+=========================================++==================================+

WATCH THIS SPACE! DON'T LET IT GET AWAY!   | The SCA... A Dream to Some,

                                           |    A Nightmare to Others!

------------------------------


Carboys

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 07:29:17 -0400

From: Rich Ryan <ryancr@install4.swin.oasis.gtegsc.com>

Subject: Carboys

I received numerous posts in response to my request on where to

find a low cost carboy. A number of individuals suggested a

Corning/Revere Factory Store. They carry 5 gallon carboys for

$9. If you are interested in finding a store in your area you

can call 800-999-3436 0800-2400 EST. I was able to find a few

locations.

Rich

------------------------------


kegging info - Help!

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 17:25:00 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: kegging info - Help!

 Well, I'm taking the plunge into the world of kegs. I found 4 5-gal

soda kegs (with syrup - bleech!) for $5 each, regulator for $15, Co2

tank for $20, and tap/dispenser for $15. (how are these prices, btw?)

 I need to know what I need to do to these tanks before using them

(besides replacing all the rubber seals as someone mentioned), and

where to get parts, rebuild kits, etc. I've got a batch of beer ready

to bottle, er, keg right about now....

thanks,

jim

------------------------------


Use of sucrose solutions in long-term yeast storage

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 15:37:46 PDT

From: Victor Stevko (Human Genome Center, LBL) <stevko@genome.lbl.gov>

Subject: Use of sucrose solutions in long-term yeast storage

The purpose of putting sucrose ( or glycerol/glycerin ) in a yeast culture

to be stored long-term in a freezer is to keep the yeast from exploding.

That is, normally yeast can't survive freezing temperatures - the water

inside the yeast freezes, breaking their outer membranes and killing them.

 Adding 10-15% glycerol will change the osmotic balance of the yeast and

keep them from freezing to death.  It should also keep your stocks liquid

at freezer temperatures.  This is a standard method of keeping bacterial

and yeast stocks long-term in the lab, though we usually freeze to -80 C.

 -20 C, freezer temperature, is fine for stuff you'll use in a year or two,

though.

   ---Vic

------------------------------


Brewers Warehouse propane stove

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 16:21:14 PDT

From: toma@xcski.llnl.gov (Tom Altenbach Room 2039)

Subject: Brewers Warehouse propane stove

Glenn Raudins writes in HBD 1182:

>re:  Brewer's Warehouse

>  Has anyone out there bought their propane burner?  It appears to be in a

>ceramic base of some nature, which probably would solve the need to build a

>heat shield.

 I have purchased two of their stoves. They are solidly constructed

entirely of metal, have sufficient power to easily boil 13 gallons of wort,

and are easy to control at low flame for simmering or mashing too. The base

is NOT ceramic, however I do sit my stoves on top of ceramic tiles in my

brewery. You can call them directly for more info. They have been very helpful

to me when I have phoned, (206-527-5047). [standard disclaimers apply]

 Tom Altenbach

------------------------------


Nitrogen and Carbon Dioxide Regulators.

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 21:05:19 -0400 (EDT)

From: SMUCKER@UTKVX.UTCC.UTK.EDU

Subject: Nitrogen and Carbon Dioxide Regulators.

There have been some question lately about gas regulators.  Some

general information:  Gas regulators are all built on the same

principle but with some important differences for different gases.

For one thing they have different fittings, threads etc. for different

gases.  This is for our safety so that you don't get the wrong regulator

on the wrong gas.  I believe that these difference have been set up by

the American Welding Society and are regulated by the Interstate

Commerce Commission.  As was point out several days ago (I sorry I

lost the author) in the case of oxygen this is so you don't kill someone

by putting a contaminated regulator on a oxygen tank in the

future.

Second oxygen and nitrogen regulator are built to take full

cylinder pressure of 2500 psi plus a safety margin.  Carbon dioxide

regulators on the other hand generally have a different spring in them

to account for the lower pressure from the head space gas over the

liquid carbon dioxide in your cylinder.  Also most carbon dioxide

regulators are designed to limit freeze up, which if it occurs can

allow high pressure gas or even some liquid carbon dioxide to pass.

Not what you want.

A good place to purchase a carbon dioxide regulator is you welding

supply store.  A generic brand for low flow rate should run about $

40.00.  You may have to replace the low pressure gauge because it

likely will be calibrated for flow rate rather that pressure but your

welding dealer will have a replacement gauge and maybe willing the

swap one out.  My was, but then I buy welding supplies too.

Dave Smucker,   Brewing beer,   not making jelley!!

------------------------------


Neuweiler's Stock Ale

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 10:11:24 EDT

From: kstiles@woomera.att.com

Subject: Neuweiler's Stock Ale

Matthew Mitchell writes:

>Another excellent contract brew from Lion in Wilkes-Barre is the Neuweiler's

>Stock Ale, brewed for Neuweiler's of Allentown.  I think they have their

>own brewery, right?  They've been around a while and I never looked twice

A few years ago Neuweiler's started up as an upscale-type beer contract

brewed at Lion in Wilkes-Barre.  They bought the name from Neuweiler's,

which went out of business in the late 60's.  Supposedly, the new

company wanted the name only - the original Neuweiler'a was a

blue collar-type beer, so they didn't use the recipes.  The old

brewery still stands (unused for much of anything?) in Allentown.  It's

a very interesting building with big copper gargoyles and beer mugs.

>So is stock ale a defined style?  The last one I had was the Molson Stock Ale

(which had an anchor in the hexagon molson label ref to sea voyage like

>The label says that the story is that the beer was reserved for stockholders

That's my understanding - it was distributed to stockholders in liu of or

in addition to dividends.  Of course, today it is just marketing hype to

imply it is a higher quality beer.  I don't think it qualifies as a

defined style.  I agree that it's a pretty good bargain - not in the

same class as, say, Stoudts, but a good deal at $12/case here in

Allentown.

 -Kevin Stiles

------------------------------


Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 08:43:54 CDT

From: pyeatt@Texaco.COM (Larry D. Pyeatt)

Subject: Neuweiler's Stock Ale

Subject: weevils

Chuck Cox writes:

> Does anyone have any experience eliminating weevils? I now only have one

> living plant left, and am concerned that predators may not be effective

> on a single plant.  Perhaps I should simply kill the weevils by hand.

This may not be of any use to you, but when I was growing up on

the cotton farm in Texas, we ocassionally had infestations of

boll weevils.  The organic solution was to distribute ladybug eggs.

There is also another insect which will prey on weevils, but I

don't remember what it was.  Check with your county extention

agent (if you have one), maybe he will know something.

Larry D. Pyeatt                    This article does not reflect the views

( pronounced "Johnson" )           of my employer or of myself.  Any simi-

Internet : pyeatt@texaco.com       larity to the views of anyone, real or

Voice    : (713) 975-4056          fictional, is purely coincidental.

------------------------------


yet another question - alternative brew vessels

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 09:28:56 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: yet another question - alternative brew vessels

 I was rooting around in the place i found the kegging

stuff the other day, and noticed several interesting vessels. One was

a 100-gallon coffeepot, complete with electric pump. There were two

other vessels, with stream heating elements surrounding about a 15-20?

gallon reservoir. All were stainless.

 Any ideas if these could be readily used for brewing? Or what I would

need to consider/look out for to decide for myself?

 The 100 gallon coffeepot was a lot cheaper, but it wasn't obvious how

to get a heating element/burner 'under' it as it's built on a(n open)

stand. It does say "max temp 300 degrees F on the plate.

jim

------------------------------


RE: Mint Beer

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 09:40:50 EST

From: Kristof_Mueller@voyager.umeres.maine.edu

Subject: RE: Mint Beer

Hmmm, mint beer, huh?  Why I dont have a recipe, I have tries something like

it.  Colt .45 came out with a product called Colt .45 Cool.  The first sip

was tasty, but everyone I knew who attempted to drink more than 6 ounces

threw up, so just be careful when you make your brew.  I imagine that it

could be good, but  my only experience with a mint beer was not good.

- --Kris

Beer, Beer

Starts with a B

Ends with an R

And has two E's

------------------------------


Mint in beer

Date: 16 Jul 1993 09:09:11 U

From: "Westemeier*, Ed" <westemeier@pharos-tech.com>

Subject: Mint in beer

Ed Wolfe asks about using mint.

I have very vigorous mint plants in my back yard, and use them for my

annual Christmas spiced ale.  I pick about two ounces of fresh mint

leaves and drop them in the kettle just at the end of the boil.  This

gives a mild, but definitely noticeable mint flavor.  If you want a

strong mint flavor, I would suggest three ounces (this is for a five

gallon batch).  This is one of my favorite brews of the year, and I use

other spices as well, but the minty note is what really makes it

special for me.

Ed Westemeier   Cincinnati, Ohio    westemeier@delphi.com

------------------------------


step infusions

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 10:13:34 EDT

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: step infusions

chuckm@pbn73.cv.com asks:

    Does anyone have a formula that will help me with Step infusions in

    order to hit proper temperatures.  eg.  I mash in a cooler tun. If I

    have X pounds of grain at Y degrees, how much 212 degree water must I add

    to raise the temp Z degrees. Given that I know X, Y, and Z all I need to

    find out is the 'how much'.

In my experience the answer of how much is "too much".

I do a protein rest using 1 quart of water to 1 pound of grain at 50C (122F).

I then add 1/2 quart per pound grain of boiling water.  This brings the temp

up to about 60C (140F).  This is a fairly reasonable mash - consistency wise.

I wouldn't want to make it much thinner than that.  Besides, given an 8 or 9

pound grain bill, this brings the total volume up to the limit for

my 5 gallon stainless steelmash tun.  What I wind up doing is puting the mash

on the burner to bring the temp up (stirring constantly) to sachrification

temperature.

I understand that with a cooler tun, this option is not available to you

unless you resort to decoction mashing.

IMHO, With your set up I would recommend mashing only with fully modified malts

and forgetting about step infusion.

However, assuming to have the space in the mash tun and you are willing to

use a much thinner mash, to answer your original question, the formula

would be (check me on this HBDers):

Given:

 - heat = temperature times mass.

 - absolute temerature (kelvin) is 273 plus mash temp (centigrade).

 - water boils at 100C.

 - The US system of weights and measures suck and we should join the rest

   of the world and convert to metric.

Assumption:

 on the eath's surface, weight and mass are numerically identical.

terms:

 sw = starting weight

 st = starting temperature (absolute)

 ft = final temperature (absolute)

 bt = boiling temperature (absolute)

 x  = water at boiling temperature to add

 sw(st) + (bt)x = (sw + x)ft

example:

 Assume

  1 quart of water weighs 2 pounds - about a 10% error, but close

  enough. (1 gallon of water = 7.5 pounds).

  you have a mash of 10 pounds grain and 10 quarts water for

  a total weight of 30 pounds.

  you have a protein rest at 50C (122F) and you want to raise

  it to sachrifcation temperature of 67C (152F).

 30(273+50) + (273+100)x = (30 + x)(273+67)

 9690 + 373x = 10200 + 340x

 510 = 33x

 x = 15.5 pounds of boiling water to add (about 2 gallons).

This is off the top of my head, I haven't actually tried it - I could be wrong.

This formula ignores pesky little things like heat stored by the container

(ya gotta heat the mash tun as well as the mash).

- --Tony Verhulst

------------------------------


Hops for Lambic

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 09:50:22 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Hops for Lambic

I was reading Mark Garetz' article on hop deterioration and storage

(very informative--thanks) and it reminded me of a question I've

always wanted someone to answer.  I've read (Jackson and elsewhere)

that the lambic brewers in Belgium use old hops, like up to 2 years

old!  The most sensible explanation I've read is that the aging

removes most (all?) of the bittering capability of the hops but

they still impart an important flavor to the beer.  So my questions

for you hop experts are:  What's left in two year old hops?  What

varieties are used for lambic?  Should I buy a couple of pounds of

hops now and put them in my 90F garage so I can start brewing

lambic-type beers in two or three years?

Sante' WAK

------------------------------


Reno BrewPubs, homebrew clubs, etc?

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 08:56 MTS

From: Chuck Coronella <CORONELLRJDS@CHE.UTAH.EDU>

Subject: Reno BrewPubs, homebrew clubs, etc?

Just found out yesterday that I'll be moving to Reno in mid August.  At last

I'll be able to brew legally.  (Homebrewing in Utah is decades away from

legalization.)  So what's the beer situation out there?  Brewpubs?  Homebrew

clubs?  Microbreweries?

Thanks, and looking forward to seeing you in Reno (if I can finish my

dissertation in time...),

Chuck

------------------------------


Irish Moss

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 10:42:44 EDT

From: rgarvin@btg.com (Rick Garvin (703-761-6630))

Subject: Irish Moss

Another data point for Irish Moss usage. I have used it off and on over

the last seven years when I remembered. It is recently that I have

become a believer. This spring I began using a 15.5 gallon keg (capacity

15 gallons) as a boiler and a 48 qt Coleman cooler as a mash tun.

Previously I had used a ZapAp for lautering. The switch came about to

reduce HSA and increase capacity; 30 lbs vice 12-17 lbs (mash

thickness dependent).

Well, the classic copper manifold lautering approach does not (for me)

produce as clear a run-off as the ZapAp. I started out with the

cooler/copper manifold approach in 1987 and when I made the switch

to ZapAp I noticed better clarity.

Lately I have been using one Tablespoon of Irish Moss per 12-14

gallons of boiling wort. I have noticed a clearer wort post-boil and better

clarity post-fermentation using the Irish Moss. In my next brew I will

try using one Tablespoon per 5 gallons in my next batch.

Alex (alexsi@microsoft.com) talks of using PolyClar successfully. I

have used it in the past also with dramatic results. My experience has

paralleled that of Dan Carter, BrewMeister at Oxford Brewing Co in

Baltimore. They chill their infusion mashed ales, do a course DE filter

and place the beer in a bright beer tank. Here they chill to 2-4C and add

"two scoops" of PolyClar. What Dan feels he gains by this is prevention

of chill haze without doing a sub-micron filtration thereby negatively

effecting mouthfeel.

Hot Break:

- -------------

It is good to see someone has finally made some sense in the hot break

thread. Steve (sc@vcc.com) has described exactly my observations on

hot break.

> The hot break begins at the beginning of the boil,

> anyone unclear on this should bring an all grain

> (extracts have small hot breaks) beer just to

> boiling and then turn the burner down to observe

> the flocculation of proteins. IMHO no hops should

> be added until a hot break occurs as hop introduce

> nucleation sites that would otherwise be started

> by the larger proteins. This will give a brighter

> beer. By the way the hot break happends when the

> larger protiens come in contact with the interphase

> between steam and wort cooking them just as blood

> will form a solid when heated. I've seen flocs

> the size of dollar bills in my 40-gal brew system

> allways at the begining of the boil.

In my 15 gallon boiler fired by the Kin Kooker rocket engine I see hot

break within 15 minutes. For my recent 60/40 Weizen (I am bring a 5

gallon keg to Portland) I did a one hour boil before adding hops. I did

indeed see protein goobers the size of canned hams within 15 minutes.

Now, in summer time I use a two stage heat exchanger. I use an

immersion chiller with 40 ft of 3/8" soft copper to get the wort to

~100F. Next, I have 20 ft of ice packed 3/8" copper that I gravity feed

the wort through to get the final chill. on a 90F day I have beer going

into my fermenters at 45F. It is really nice to see that condensation on

the fermenters.

Why do you care how I chill my beer? Well in the winter with only an

immersion chiller I get almost no cold break. With the combo chiller I

see a dusting of cold break. Make of this what you want.

Summary:

Hot break: happens at the beginning of the boil. Consists of coagulated

proteins that are insoluble at 212F.

Cold Break: happens when the beer is chilled. Consists of proteins (not

necessarily coagulated) that are insoluble at pitching temperatures.

Chill Haze: happens when beer is chilled to serving temperatures. This

is, essentially, the "colder break" that occurs when beer is chilled below

fermentation temperatures and those proteins that are left over after the

cold break that can precipitate at temperatures somewhere above 32F

come out of solution into suspension.

See you in Portland.

Cheers, Rick

Rick Garvin rgarvin@btg.com

BTG, Inc. Navy Programs Division, Vienna, VA 703-761-6630

------------------------------


Re: Purchasing Supplies

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 10:24:43 CDT

From: Fritz Keinert <keinert@iastate.edu>

Subject: Re: Purchasing Supplies

In #1183, Kristof_Mueller@voyager.umeres.maine.edu asks

> I was just wondering,  I am 20 years old, and plan on brewing as soon as I

> get my apartment (in Sept.).  I know that legally I cannot brew beer until

> I'm 21, but can I buy supplies as a "minor"?  It seems to me that anyone

> should be able to buy a bucket and some grains.   Does anyone know the laws

> that apply here?  Thanks for your help.

The laws may vary from state to state, but it is definitely legal in

Iowa to purchase brewing supplies as a minor, and even to brew and

drink your own beer (in the privacy of your home)! The various alcohol

laws cover purchase of alcohol and public consumption, but not this

case. I think you are not allowed to give this beer to underage

friends, though, even in your own home.

Your best bet is to ask at a good homebrew supply store in your state;

that's what I did here in Iowa. If you ask the police or some other

state agency, they probably won't really know and just tell you "no,

you can't do that". I found that out when I tried to call the Chicago

airport customs office about details on beer importing: they are

supposed to enforce the laws, but they don't really know the details

themselves.

- ---

Fritz Keinert                             phone:  (515) 294-5223

Department of Mathematics                 fax:    (515) 294-5454

Iowa State University                     e-mail: keinert@iastate.edu

Ames, IA 50011

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1184, 07/19/93

*************************************

-------


Kegs to kettles

Date: 16 Jul 1993 12:14:27 U

From: "Westemeier*, Ed" <westemeier@pharos-tech.com>

Subject: Kegs to kettles

Mike writes:

> Hi again.  Last week I requested a copy of a bygone HBD article posted on

> converting 1/2 bbl kegs. I never got a response. What I did get,

> however, is lots of email expressing interest, so I felt compelled to

> ask again for the article in question. This time my request is for a

> repost, though, since there seems to be lots of interest...

OK, I don't know about the original article, but maybe it would be useful

to describe my own equipment.

START WITH THE KEG

Obtain a half-barrel stainless steel keg (the Budweiser ones seem to be

the best, but most should work).  Be sure you obtain one legally, as

these are the property of the brewery and cannot normally be sold except

by a licensed reconditioning firm.  The fact that you can obtain one

easily by simply getting a keg of beer for a party, then failing to

return it to the distributor and forfeiting your ten dollar deposit,

does not mean that you should even consider this method, I strongly

advise against it, and sundry other assorted disclaimers.

CLEAN AND GUT THE BEAST

Make CERTAIN the keg is empty and that there is NO pressure left in it.

Press down hard on the ball bearing in the top to be sure.  Remove the

built-in valve as follows:  Take a small flat blade screwdriver and

insert it just under the lip of the housing.  You will find that a flat

circular strip of spring steel is holding the assembly together.  Pry

under the end of this ring until you can coax it out toward the center,

then grab it with a pair of pliers and pull it completely out.  Then use

your pliers again to grab one of the two opposing lugs, turn the whole

assembly counter-clockwise about half an inch until it lines up with the

openings in the housing.  Then simply lift it up and out of the keg,

tube and all.  This may not sound simple, but if you read this with an

actual keg in front of you, everything will be quite obvious.

PERFORM SURGERY

You need to cut out the top and make a hole in the side.  Here's the way

I did mine:  Draw a 12-inch diameter circle with a magic marker on the

top of the keg, centered.  That's plenty of opening, and allows you to

leave the top rim attached, with its built-in handles.  Mark a spot on

the side, an inch or so up from the bottom rim.  That's where your

spigot will be.  I used my power drill to cut a hole at that spot just

large enough to accommodate a half-inch ID Stainless coupling.  I took

the keg to a friendly neighborhood welder who specializes in TIG

welding, and had him use a plasma cutter to remove the 12-inch circle on

top.  First, he partially filled the keg with water to catch the sparks

dropping inside (made later cleanup much easier).  Then he welded the SS

coupling in the side hole, about half inside the keg and half outside,

grinding and polishing the weld for smoothness.  Cost me $30 and well

worth it.  Stopped at the kitchen gadgets section of a local store and

picked up a pot cover for the top for a few bucks.

SIMPLE PLUMBING

I got a short SS pipe nipple, half-inch thread, and threaded it into the

outside of the coupling.  Attached a ball valve (the kind with the flat

handle, a quarter turn from full off to full on) to that, and a

compression fitting to the outside end of the ball valve. Put a short

length of 3/8 copper tubing in the compression fitting and tightened it

(this is where I attach a hose to drain the kettle).  On the inside of

the keg, I put a Swagelock fitting (like a normal compression fitting,

but you can loosen and tighten it as often as you like) to attach a

piece of 1/4 inch SS tubing.  This tubing runs over to the center of the

keg, then curves down to the bottom, almost touching it.  I took a

circular piece of perforated SS plate about 8 inches in diameter, cut a

hole in the center and put the tubing through it.  End result is that

the perforated plate sits on the bottom of the keg, the tubing comes up

from the bottom, through the plate and over to the fitting in the side.

Put a brass compression washer on the tubing where it just sits on top

of the plate in order to keep it stable.  When the valve is opened to

drain the kettle, the spent hops and hot break material are held back by

the perforated plate, and the kettle drains completely, leaving only an

ounce or so of liquid behind.

|                                   |

|                      KEG WALL-->  |

|                                   |                 |----

|               COUPLING-->   CCCCCCCCCCCCC           |

|        PIPE NIPPLES-->   NNNNNN      NNNNNNN     ||||||||

| SS TUBING-->   ---------SF--             --------|BALL  |CF---

|                |                                 |VALVE |

|                |  ------SF--             --------|      |CF---

|                |  |      NNNNNN      NNNNNNN     ||||||||

|                |  |         CCCCCCCCCCCCC

|                |  |               |

|     PERF.      |  |               |

|     PLATE      |  |               |

- ---       |      |  |             ---

   ---   /|/    W|  |W         ---

      --- PPPPPPP|  |PPPPPPP---

         ------------------

SF = Swagelock fitting

CF = compression fitting

W = compression washer

The stainless steel perforated plate is hard to find.  One source is

Brewer's Warehouse in Seattle.  For about $50 they will sell you a

square sheet that you can cut in quarters and use for four of these.

jobs.

To clean the kettle after use, I just loosen the inner Swagelock

fitting, remove the tubing and perforated plate, then clean everything

thoroughly and reassemble it.  About 10 minutes at most.

This design was originated by Martin Manning, one of our local club

members, and has been used with various adaptations by a number of us.

It works extremely well, and with this beauty sitting on top of a Cajun

Cooker, a converted water heater burner, or a small apartment size gas

stove, you will be the envy of all the other brewers on your street.

If anything is not clear, please ask questions before you start cutting.

Ed Westemeier   Cincinnati, Ohio    westemeier@delphi.com

------------------------------


hot break

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 09:43:18 PDT

From: dra@jsc-ws.sharpwa.com (Darren Aaberge)

Subject: hot break

I think the confusion about when the hot break happens is coming from the fact

that we are trying to pinpoint an exact moment in time that it happens.  In

hbd 1183, Steve Casselman writes:

>The hot break begins at the begining of the boil,

>anyone unclear on this should bring an all grain

>(extracts have small hot breaks) beer just to

>boiling and then turn the burner down to observe

>the floculation of proteins.

the key word here is *begins*.  The hot break does begin at the beginning of

the boil but takes about 60 minutes to complete.  I think the key about adding

hops is to wait until enough of the hot break has occured to give the

uncoagulated proteins nucleation sites of other protein instead of hops.

Darren Aaberge

------------------------------


Sprecher Brewery

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 09:59:31 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Sprecher Brewery

My understanding of what happened at the Sprecher Brewery

in Milwaukee is that a barge ran aground and smacked into

the building.  This little bit of info is from Mrs. Sprecher

(Randy's mom) by way of his sister Cindy (who works here).

This collision may have been the trigger for the events

described by Roger Deschner.  I'll post it as I hear it.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Regulators

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 10:16:57 PDT

From: nuke@reed.edu (Bill Newcomb)

Subject: Regulators

Someone asked about regulators for nitrogen (N2) and carbon dioxide (CO2),

specifically whether there is any difference between the two. The mian

difference between two such regulators in a scientific catalog would

probably be either the range of output pressure adjustability, or the

graduation of the gauges, as CO2 has a much lower primary (tank side)

pressure than N2 (800 vs. 2100). Oh, and the connection to the tank is a

different "nipple" (not my word) for different gases, except that most of

the real inert gases (He, Ar, N2) use the same one (#580). Interestingly,

the CO2 fitting (#320) is also used for some freons.

Caveat: Your homebrew store regulator may not be rated to such a high tank

side pressure, as it may have been designed with CO2 expressly in mind.

Simply connecting the correct nipple for N2 to it (most of the connections

to the regulator are 1/4" NPT) might not be such a good idea. This is based

on a certain regulator I saw once that was mostly machined aluminum. For all

I know, it's probably fine. YMMV.

Bill

- --

------------------------------


Re: Jever Pils

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 13:57:53 EDT

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: Re: Jever Pils

In HBD1183 Chris Pencis asks:

>Ok, here's a question from my homebrewing partner...does anyone out

>there know anything about the beer Jever...on the label it says

>something about using "freisian herbs"  (where's fresia?!) ... does

>anyone know what these things are - has anyone tried to replicate this

>brew ... in general, can anyone give us the low down on this beer (its

>not in Jackson, Finch or anywhere in Papazian) ... thanks.

I had the pleasure of having Jever (pronounced yay-ver) while in

Ekenforde, Germany last year.  This is a beer in the north German

pilsener style, which in general is very dry with lots of hop

bitterness, but Jever is even more so.  I think the "fresnian herbs"

are simply referring to the flavoring hops used, which give a nice

spiciness to this beer.  I'm not sure which type although I would

guess Satz.  When I first tasted this beer I thought it was too

bitter for my tastes, but since returning home, I've been longing

for more.

By the way, Jever is mentioned in Jackson's pocket guide, in

the northern German section (I don't have my copy handy).  It

is one of his 4 star beers.  Fresnia is the name of a province in

Northwestern Germany.

Bill Szymczak

bszymcz@ulysses.nswc.navy.mil

------------------------------


Re:  Irish Moss - Extract vs All Grain

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 11:28:09 PDT

From: mrozek@gandalf.etdesg.TRW.COM (Eric M. Mrozek)

Subject: Re:  Irish Moss - Extract vs All Grain

In hbd #1183 lyons%adc3 asked:

> I've noticed in Charlie's book that he lists Irish Moss as an

> ingredient for All Grain recipes, but not for Extract recipes.  Am I

> correct to conclude that only All Grain recipes will benifit by

> using Irish Moss during the last 15 minutes of the boil?

Up until last Fall, I was only brewing with extract and adjuncts, and I

"always" used Irish Moss.  The "break" material would settle out and I

wouldn't have any chill haze.  The couple of times that I did forget the

Irish Moss, chill haze was a major problem. I'm not sure how much of the haze

was from the extract as opposed to the adjuncts (I always used adjuncts).  In

any case, I strongly recommend using adjuncts if your brewing with extract

(past HBD issues have had lots of discussion on the merits of using adjuncts),

and using Irish Moss (or some other clarifying agent).

------------------------------


Re:   1/2 bbl SS keg as brewpot (again)

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 11:58:40 PDT

From: Mike Peckar  16-Jul-1993 1458 <m_peckar@cscma.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Re:   1/2 bbl SS keg as brewpot (again)

Well, this time around I got lots of great suggestions. Thanks to all who

replied to me directly.  When I've completed my project, I will roll up all

the good advice and repost.

A thorough read of /pub/homebrew/docs/all_grain_equipment.Z in the hbd

archive was invaluable as well. Thanks to Ray Brice for that pointer.

Mike

------------------------------


Irish Moss Fest/Hop storage/Turbo Dog

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 16:33 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Irish Moss Fest/Hop storage/Turbo Dog

lyons writes:

>I've noticed in Charlie's book that he lists Irish Moss as an

>ingredient for All Grain recipes, but not for Extract recipes.  Am I

>correct to conclude that only All Grain recipes will benifit by

>using Irish Moss during the last 15 minutes of the boil?

Both may benefit, but I suspect that some of the hot break that occurred

during the production of the extract has been removed (judging from the

much smaller amount of hot break in extract brews).  I'd also like to

add that I just read the article by George Fix that Jeff referred to in

his post and that, based on George's tests, different forms of Irish Moss

behaved very differently.  All reduced haze in varying amounts, but some

also reduced head retention significantly.  The best results, in my

opinion were from "refined flakes" at a rate of 1/8th grams per liter,

which performed slightly better than "large flakes" and much better than

"powdered flakes."  I'm not sure what type of flakes I was using -- they

were not powdered and were on the order of 2mm wide and 10mm long --

so I'm off in search for a supplier of "refined flakes!"

***********************

Mark writes:

>deteriorate.  Oxygen also causes the alpha acids to oxidize and one of the

>oxidation components is responsible for the "cheesy" aroma of old hops.  The

and then later:

>The oils also deteriorate and oxidize over time.  It is believed that some

>oxidation of the oils is beneficial to the hop aroma.  Since most homebrewers

I've read somewhere that Hallertauer hops benefit from a small amount of

aging (most certainly under controlled conditions), but don't recall where.

I'll look for that source over the weekend and see if I can post something

about it on Monday.

Since I brew pureculture Lambieks, I intentionally have been buying more

hops than I can use and then storing part of them at room temperature in

bags open to the air.  As has been reported in various articles (one

that quickly comes to mind is in the Hops Special Issue of Zymurgy) different

the bouquets of different varieties of hops change differently with age.  I

have at least six varieties of hops aging and I can attest that some age

more gracefully than others.  The dominant bouquet of well-aged Fuggles is

"cheezy."  No doubt about it.  No other hops have as much of this "cheezy"

aroma as do the Fuggles.  Hallertauer and Willamette have a definate "piney"

smell which is quite pleasant, but the Willamette also have a "grape soda"

aroma which is highly distracting when associated with beer.  Goldings seem

to age incredibly gracefully, their "candylike" classic aroma just simply

fades.  Perhaps a bit of a grassy aroma is also evindent, but only very

slightly.  Well-aged Cascades also have the "piney" aroma, but their

characteristic "citrusy" aroma is still noticable, even after two years!

The point I'm trying to make is that "cheezy" aromas are not the only

ones that manifest themselves as hops age.  The other lesson to be learned

here is that for pLambieks, Hallertauer and East Kent Goldings are the

best choices of the hops I happen to have tried (reportedly Saazer hops

are also very good for pLambieks, but I've yet to take them out of

CO2-purged/oxygen-barrier cold storage -- I will when this year's crop

becomes available).  I feel that Willamette and Cascades may be a bad

choice, but the Willamette are not that old yet, so time may tell otherwise.

Also:

>Variety                 % Alpha Remaining after 6 mo.

>                        at 20C or Storage Quality

>Liberty                          40%

>Perle                            85%

While the data I have (from HopUnion) is consistent with all the other

storagability factors Mark listed, the averages I have are 45% for Liberty

and 83% for Perle.

******************************

Jim writes:

> Abita Amber - nice amber beer. good stuff

>

> Abita Golden - only tried a small bit of this, seemed OK, but nothing

> real notable

>

> Turbo Dog - an interesting dark beer. kinda (excessively) roasted

> malty tasting to me, you might like it if you like dark beers, hard

> to say. About the name - "yeah, the owners were sitting around

> drinking one day after brewing the first batch and came up with that"

The story I heard was that it was selling poorly under another name and

when they changed the name to "Turbo Dog" they couldn't brew it fast

enough.

Al.

------------------------------


Hot break & hop utilisation

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 16:42 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Hot break & hop utilisation

Spencer writes:

>What Jeff says meshes nicely with some of the books on historical

>brewing I've been reading recently (things like _The English Housewife

> ..._, by Gervase Markham around 1600; _Wines & beers of old New

>England_,  S. Brown, 1978).  You find statements like "boil it until

>it 'breaks'".  This seems to imply that the break happens at the end.

Then Steve writes:

>The hot break begins at the begining of the boil,

>anyone unclear on this should bring an all grain

>(extracts have small hot breaks) beer just to

>boiling and then turn the burner down to observe

>the floculation of proteins. IMHO no hops should

>be added untill a hot break occurs as hop introduce

>nucleation sites that would otherwise be started

>by the larger proteins. This will give a brighter

>beer. By the way the hot break happends when the

>larger proteins come in contact with the interphase

>between steam and wort cooking them just as blood

>will form a solid when heated. I've seen flocs

>the size of dollar bills in my 40-gal brew system

>allways at the begining of the boil.

With all due respect to Jeff and Spencer, I have to say that in my

experience, the majority of the hot break occurs within the first 15

minutes of the boil.  When I got home yesterday, I checked Papazian,

Miller, Noonan, Fix and Hough (The Biotechnology of Malting and Brewing).

Papazian says: "After a short period of boiling, your wort begins

to exhibit a coudiness and has flakes of coagulated protein floating

in it."  Miller does not say exactly when he feels the break begins

to occur, but does mention that "wort can stand at the boiling point

for any length of time and, unless it is agitated, will remain turbid.

It is the rolling action of the boil which bumps the protein molecules

into one another, causing them to clump together."  From this I'd

like to point out that the geometry of the boiler, whether or not

there are mechanical stirrers and the intensity of the heat source

all are factors in the intensity of the hot break and it may be *that*

which influences various authors' opinions on when the break occurs.

Personally, I noticed a much quicker hot break when I switched from

my electric stovetop to a 12,000BTU gas burner.  I'm only speculating,

but since the Electrim Bins are quite popular in the UK, perhaps Line's

experience has been with these types of heat sources and not with

the significantly hotter heat sources some of us are using (I know

brewer's around here using upwards of 100,000BTU burners!  Jack?

Tim?).

Moving on to Noonan, this is another one of those sources that Jeff

mentioned, that is quite unspecific as to when the hot break occurs.

Fix appears to confirm Jeff's position: "For standard boiling

temperature (100C), the precipitate increases sharply during the

first hour, and often continues to rise (though at a diminishing rate)

for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.  Excessive boil time (3 hours or more) can

lead to a redissolving or the precipitate."  However, this is still

does not contradict my assertion that a large portion of the hot break

occurs during the first 15 minutes of the boil.  Later, he says: "[hot

break] comprises the the coagulated material and gums suspended in

otherwise clear hot wort at the end of the boil."  I'd like to

caution reading this statement as if the "end of boil" means that

that's when the break occurred, rather that at the end of the boil,

this material is *still* suspended in the hot wort.

Finally, Hough also is not clear as to when the break occurs, but

has a very detailed description of the protein reactions during the

boil.  Several interesting points are: "The larger denatured [protein]

molecules tend to exceed their solubility, especially if close to

their isoelectric point [this is dependent on the pH of the wort].

When they coagulate, often tanned by the malt and hop polyphenols,

hop resins tend to adsorb to them and so valuable hop material is

lost.  Indeed it is common for only 30-50% of the alpha acid material

to be represented as iso alpha acids in the wort.  The utilisation

falls to 20-40% by the time that beer goes into package."

Al.

------------------------------


Guinness cans/Protein rest

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 16:46 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Guinness cans/Protein rest

Russ writes:

>>It's not NO2 and I don't believe there's any nitrogen at all in the cans.

>

>While you are correct that the Draught in the cans is a unique recipe and so

>tastes considerably different from what we are used to (the bottled version)

>there "is" liquid nitrogen added to the Draught as it is canned. This is used

I stand corrected... nitrogen is added to the cans, but I think the *liquid*

nitrogen part was created by someone on the HBD.  The most definative post

was a copy of an article posted to the HBD -- here's part of it:

>>>   "The extra ingredient in a can of draught Guinness"

>>>    NEW SCIENTIST, 22 July 1989 p. 34

>>>

>>>    Written by Andy Coghlan

>>>

>>>        According to Alan Frage, the product development director at

>>>Guinness...

>>>

>>>        Draught Guinness owes its creamy texture to a surge of bubbles in

>>>the beer as it passes through a series of tiny holes in the special

>>>dispensing tap.  The tap has a system of tiny holes which creates pressure

>>>differentials.

>>>        These differentials force the gases out of solution and produce a

>>>"surge". Unfortunately, the gasses wil remain in solution if people simply

>>>pour Guinness from the barrel into a glass.

>>>        The new system essentially mimics this process from the inside of a

>>>can.  The device is a plastic chamber with a minute hole at the top, which

>>>sits on the base of the cans.

>>>        For the system to work, the pressure in the can must exceed

>>>atmospheric pressure.  The canners fill the can with beer that is cold

>>>enough, at between 0 C and 1 C, to retain gas that would bubble out of

>>>solution at higher temperatures.

>>>        The canners put 440 milliliters of Guinness in a can that can hold

>>>500 milliliters, in order to leave enough room for the creamy head to form.

>>>They also "dose" the beer with extra nitrogen, which raises the pressure

>>>when the can is opened.

>>>        Once the lid is on, the pressures in the can and inside the chamber

>>>reach an equilibrium that forces beer and gas into the device. When someone

>>>opens the can of beer by pulling the ring-pull, it initiates the same

>>>process that happens in a tap for Draught Guinness.

**************************

Conn writes:

>could be useful for ales which have not received a protein rest. As ale malt

>is not reputed to contain protein digestion enzymes anyway, I presume the

>problem that Miller is really referring to is that of using wheat malt and/or

>flaked cereals without a protein rest.

I just checked Miller's TCHoHB and I can't find where he says that Pale Ale

malt deficient in proteolytic enzymes.  He does say that the higher kilning

temperatures mean that Pale Ale malt is lower (overall) in enzymes, but

does not specifically say that proteolytic enzymes are denatured excessively.

Pale Ale malt actually has less need for proteolytic enzymes because of the

fact that it is more fully modified (than traditional, undermodified Lager

malt) and therefore more of the proteins have been broken down during the

malting process (this is from Papazian's TCJoHB).

An additional piece of interesting data I recalled from re-reading Miller

was that just as there are two main types of amylase enzymes (that break

starches down to dextrins and sugars), similarly there are two main types

of proteolytic enzymes: proteases and peptidases.  The optimum range for

the action of the proteases is 122 to 140F and for peptidases, the optimum

range is 113 to 122F.  The proteases prefer to work on larger proteins and

the peptidases can only break down smaller proteins.  Sound familiar?

Therefore, a higher temperature protein rest will favor the proteases and

leave more small proteins (which we want for head retention, body, etc.)

and a lower temperature protein rest will favor the peptidases and cut

more of the smaller proteins down to amino acids.  Miller does mention

that a high-temperature protein rest could result in a wort low in the

amino acids needed by the yeast for nutrition, but adds that well-modified

grain already has quite a bit of the amino acids already (this is confirmed

in Papazian) and thus should not be a problem.  Since there are few modern,

severely undermodified malts available, I don't think this should be a

problem for us to worry about.  In any event, this is just one more factor

that we should be wary of when considering the big protein/small protein/

amino acid composition of our wort, and not just write "I did a 30 min

protein rest, then raised the temperature to..."

Al.

------------------------------


correct measurement of alcohol?

Date: 16 Jul 93 23:40:54 MDT (Fri)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: correct measurement of alcohol?

Anybody know how to do accurate alcohol measurement?  I'm looking for the

equipment to do a single post-fermentation measurement; I'm trying to get

away from the initial/final SG "potential alcohol" approach.  I know the

principle: distill a known quantity enough to get all the alcohol, add

water to get a known final volume, measure gravity of result.  What I

*don't* know is where to get the equipment to do it with reasonable

accuracy, and the details of the procedure.  It doesn't seem like it

should be rocket science.  (Aside: is there a procedure other than the

one I've described?)

Also, since I mentioned the naughty "d" word in the process...and since

I'm not interested in meeting any of the nice government folks who watch

weapons, beverages, and carcinogens...what are the legal implications of

measuring alcohol by the process I described?

Incidentally, the reason I need to get away from initial/final measure-

ments is that they don't work when you've got lots of fermentable solid

matter (such as fruit pulp) at the start of fermentation.

 ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


6oz bottles, bottling mead

Date: 16 Jul 93 23:19:58 MDT (Fri)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: 6oz bottles, bottling mead

Rex K. Perkins <70651.1611@CompuServe.COM> asked:

> I am about to start my first mead and was recently pondering the problem

> of bottling the stuff. As it is going to be mighty strong, I won't really

> want to drink it 12oz at a time...

Let me interject before we get to the main point: Are you sure you won't

want 12 oz bottles?  My experience is that most of the meads I've made,

I've wanted either in 12's or a combination of 12's and 25's--the latter

for parties, the former for home.  The only exceptions for me have been

a rather dearly obtained prickly-pear melomel, and a very strong, spicy,

sweet metheglin that's almost like a liqueur.

I reason thus:  Most mead is comparable to wine, both in alcoholic strength

(10-12%) and in general character and strength of taste.  The standard size

of a wine bottle is just over 25 oz, and that's just right for two people.

Thus half of that (a standard 12 oz beer bottle) is theoretically right

for one person.

Two more bits, one on either side.  In favor of small bottles, mead is

precious stuff; you don't want to be pouring heavy just 'cause that's the

bottle size you've got.  BUT!...remember that a mere 5-gallon batch is one

*hundred* 6-oz bottles!  If you like bottling as much as most of us do...

need I say more?

But all of that is just an "are you sure...?"

> It will also be sparkling, so re-sealable

> screw caps won't help either. So, the natural solution would be for

> smaller bottles.

 ...

> My question is: Where can I get 6-8oz bottles from?...

Old Foghorn (Anchor's barley wine) comes in 187 ml (6.3 oz) bottles...

that's an excellent way to get some.  Now, you may object "But if I get

the bottles that way, they'll already have something in them!"  This,

however, turns out to be an easy problem...;-)

Thomas Hardy's Ale (another barleywine) comes in 180 ml bottles, so there's

another source, but quite expensive.

Both OF and TH are nice bottles, though.  It's probably not an immediate

solution to your problem (people don't seem to drink much barleywine in

mid-summer) but over the longer term it's a way to acquire nice bottles,

a taste for very strong beer, and either incipient liver damage or a bunch

of friends who are glad to help you obtain empty bottles.

My turn to ask:  Since Anchor has had to obtain the little bottles,

somebody somewhere makes them in substantial-but-not-staggering quantities.

Might it be possible to find out who supplies the bottles to Anchor and see

if they'll supply in few-case quantities?

 ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


Breweries under water/Alsacian (sp?) beers

Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1993 02:09:10 -0400 (EDT)

From: waltman@BIX.com

Subject: Breweries under water/Alsacian (sp?) beers

Roger Deschner (U52983@UICVM.UIC.EDU) asks in HBD #1183 about breweries

clobbered by the Great Flood of '93:

CNN had a story last week about a brewpub near the riverfront in Davenport,

IA that had just opened this year, had had some minor damage in a spring

flood and was pretty much wiped out by the current deluge. I did not catch

the name of the pub or the owner. It was sad to listen to him as he told

how all of the tanks had to be dumped. As a former Iowan, I am proud of

how civilized people are still with all the tribulations. I doubt that here

without running water and/or electricity.

I have always liked Alsacian beers and was wondering if anyone had any ideas

or suggestions for duplication. Thanks in advance.

Fred Waltman.

waltman@bix.com

------------------------------


Going to Israel?

Date:         Sat, 17 Jul 93 10:51:36 +0300

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      Going to Israel?

If you are planning a visit to the HolyLand any time in the present or future,

please give me a call. I'll make sure you won't miss your homebrew while here.

At least I give it a try.

Nir Navot

Tel   972-8-474580

Email LCNAVOT@weizmann.weizmann.ac.il

------------------------------


Recipe Needed

Date:         Sat, 17 Jul 93 11:03:18 +0300

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      Recipe Needed

I need an all grain recipe for a dark, sweet, non-bitter ale of O.G. around

1.040. Yes, I have looked through the Cat's Meow.

Please reply by private Email. Many thanks.

Nir Navot

------------------------------


Burton water treatment

Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1993 08:05:44 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Burton water treatment

I recently bought some  Burton Water treatment salts from

Alternative Beverage.  Unfortunately there is no info on

what is in it or how much to use to attain a target PPM.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Also the stuff contains Papain (not mentioned in the catalog!).

Since Papain acts at pretty low temps (~120-125) I assume that

it is deactivated in a single step infusion mash at ~150-155?

Why would someone add Papain to a water treatment.  Isn't it

generally used in the secondary?  And why wasn't it mentioned

in the catalog?

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Belgian Ale Book Reply - At last

Date: Sat, 17 Jul 93 17:47:50 EDT

From: Joe Rolfe <jdr@wang.com>

Subject: Belgian Ale Book Reply - At last

hi all,

sorry for the long delay - to refresh your memories - many months ago

several people posted directly to me questions about Pierre Rajjottes book

Belgian Ale.  The questions were delvered to Pierre (just after the blizzard)

started this past winter/spring.  Pierre has been very busy looking up

source to give the best answers possible.  I now have the answers in hand.

only a small problem prevents me from posting them here:

they are on MAC formatted disks and hard copy - i have a dos PC - damn

computers.  any way what i am going to do is either scan and ocr them or c

convert the media.  in either case i will post the results to the net of

your choice.  if the original posters could email me at jdr@wang.com i would

thank you : the orignal posters i have are:

Al Korzonas

Conn Copas

Tim Fahrner

Martin Lodahl

Jim Liddel

The document Pierre has given me (today, in person) is about ten pages long

and contains several pointers to other docs.  Sorry if i have missed anyone e

else that has posted questions to me - but Pierre has mentioned that you may

contact him directly in Montreal.  Please do not post messages thru HBD as

of late i do not read this list as often as i would like.  please reply

to me directly at the email enclosed.

again pierre is sorry for the large delay as am i.  we both hope the info

resolves the errors/problems you have had.

later.......and good brewing........

- --

joe rolfe    - President/Brewer - Ould Newbury Brewing Company

jdr@wang.com - X Wang Employee, but still have an account

508-462-1980 - the brewery

------------------------------


Weather in Portland

Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1993 22:43:41 CST

From: "John L. Isenhour" <isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov>

Subject: Weather in Portland

I was interested in how to pack for Portland, and I thought others might

be interested, but not have access to a server, so...

Weather Conditions at 8 PM PDT on 18 JUL 93 for Portland, OR.

Temp(F)    Humidity(%)    Wind(mph)    Pressure(in)    Weather

========================================================================

  68          63%        NORTH at 12       30.17      Partly Cloudy

PORTLAND METROPOLITAN AREA FORECAST

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PORTLAND OR

345 PM PDT SAT JUL 17 1993

TONIGHT...A FEW EVENING SHOWERS TAPERING OFF WITH PARTIAL CLEARING.

LOW 50 TO 55. WEST WIND TO 10 MPH.

SUNDAY...PARTLY SUNNY AFTER MORNING CLOUDS. HIGHS ABOUT 75.

NORTHWEST WIND 10 MPH.

SUNDAY NIGHT...FAIR. LOWS 50 TO 55.

 MONDAY...PATCHY MORNING CLOUDS...OTHERWISE PARTLY CLOUDY.

HIGHS 75 TO 80.

CHANCE OF MEASURABLE RAIN 30 PERCENT TONIGHT AND 10 PERCENT SUNDAY.

If I dont get flamed off the net for posting this and there is a significant

change in the weather conditions, I'll post it in right before the CRAZY TRAIN

leaves Chicago.  I was just interested in the normal HI/LO temp.

cheers,

- --

John L. Isenhour                          internet: isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov

Library Systems, et al      NASA/NSF/ES/HEP decnet: lambic::isenhour

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory       bitnet: isenhour@fnlib

"When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt" - Henry Kaiser

------------------------------


Advertising / Beer in the White House

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 10:48:34 -0600 (CDT)

From: jim@n5ial.mythical.com (Jim Graham)

Subject: Advertising / Beer in the White House

Regarding the subject of adverts here, I think I might have a solution

that would make everybody happy.  I, for one, would prefer to keep a list

of my options in terms of who I buy liquid/dry extract, hops, kits, etc.,

from, and when I eventually get the money and space for mashing, there'll

be a lot more that I'll want to keep up-to-date on.  But not everyone

wants that here on the digest, which is a side I can see, as well (I don't

necessarily agree with it, but I can understand it).

A list could be published here on the digest either every two weeks or

every month (probably once/month would be enough) of all of the people

here who own mail-order homebrew supply shops.  As far as the digest

would be concerned, it ends there.

This list, however, would give an e-mail address for each supplier.  The

suppliers could then keep a mailing list of people who want to receive

new product announcements, price lists, etc., and could then send that

stuff along via private e-mail (this would need to be indicated in the

list published on the digest in order to really work).

In other words, you get the list of the homebrew suppliers here, and a

pointer to the address for getting the rest via e-mail.

Sound like a good idea?

- ----------

Now, regarding the White House beer recipes listed here by

scott.powell@amail.amdahl.com, I've got a few questions.....

First off, are these actually beers, or are they more along the lines of

something like root beer (which, btw, is something I'd like to try brewing

sometime, too, if I ever find out how)?

> Hop Beer

>

> Take five quarts of water, six ounces of hops, boil it three hours; then

> strain the liquor, add to it five quarts of water, four ounces of bruised

> ginger root; boil this again twenty minutes, strain and add four pounds of

> sugar. When lukewarm put in a pint of yeast.  Let it ferment twenty-four hours

> it will be ready for bottling.

Let's see if I've got this right....  Five quarts (not gallons) of water,

a *pint* of yeast, and it only needs to ferment 24 hours?  Is that just

because of the incredibly large amount of yeast?  (Well, wait a minute,

the next recipe doesn't use that much yeast, and it still looks like a

24 hour ferment.)

> Ginger Beer

>

> Put into a kettle two ounces of powdered ginger root (or more if it not very

> strong), half an ounce of cream of tartar, two large lemons, cut into slices,

> two pounds of broken loaf sugar and two gallons of soft boiling water.  Simmer

> them over a slow fire for half an hour.  When the liquor is nearly cold, stir

> into it a large tablespoon of the best yeast.  After it has fermented, which

> will be in about twenty-four hours, bottle for use.

What exactly is ``broken loaf sugar'' ???  Where would one get powdered

ginger root to use for this?  And again, only 24 hours?

Final question---how long would these need to age in the bottle?  Anyone

have any idea?

Thanks,

   --jim

- --

#include <std_disclaimer.h>                                 73 DE N5IAL (/4)

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INTERNET: jim@n5ial.mythical.com  |  j.graham@ieee.org     ICBM: 30.23N 86.32W

AMATEUR RADIO:  (packet station temporarily offline)       AMTOR SELCAL: NIAL

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

E-mail me for information about KAMterm (host mode for Kantronics TNCs).

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1185, 07/20/93

*************************************

-------


Update on cidery beer / siphoning / Spec. Prod. Intl / etc.

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 09:57:33 -0600 (CDT)

From: jim@n5ial.mythical.com (Jim Graham)

Subject: Update on cidery beer / siphoning / Spec. Prod. Intl / etc.

First off, an update to my last post about the two batches that came out

tasting cidery.  Shortly after I'd posted that, I had to run to the local

homebrew supply store anyways, so I took a bottle of one batch with me.

The owner tried it, and most of the cidery taste was gone...or so it

seemed.  He was pretty sure that it just needed to age out.

Well, as time went on, the cidery taste actually started getting worse...or

so it seemed.....  As it turns out, I discovered last night, while dumping

some of the bottles down the drain to re-use when I ran out of bottles

while preparing to bottle some more beer, I noticed (after opening an

entire 6 of the ``bad'' batch's bottles) that some of the bottles from that

batch seemed fine.  Others could kill you by the smell alone.

It seems that the severity of the problem varies from bottle to bottle,

which leads me to believe that there *WAS* an infection, and that it was

caused by improperly sanitized bottles.

But there's only one small problem in that theory---a coincidence that's

just too much to believe.  The next two batches, which also relied simply

on boiling water (as opposed to bleach water, which is what I'm using now),

came out just fine.  Also, the two batches that went bad were both the

same brand, and I'm told that sometimes, quality control within different

companies can cause some brands to behave differently at times.

Could it be, for some reason, that this particular brand of extract is

more susceptible to infection?  Or is it just a wild coincidence?

Oh well, it's more or less a non-issue now....  It's a lesson learned, but

I'm sanitizing bottles with the same strength of (HOT) bleach water that I

use on dishes (pretty strong!)...and no bacteria is going to survive that!

As for the bad batches, I'm basically taking the advice someone here gave

me---keep 'em around until I need the bottles.  Every so often, I put one

in the 'fridge and see if it tastes ok.  I've yet to find one that did

(well, there were those 6 last night, but room temps here aren't exactly

at a level you'd want to drink beer at...78 deg beer doesn't sound too

great!).

- ------------

Now, someone had asked about siphoning into two different carboys at the

same time to do some experimenting, and was wondering about using a

Y-shaped siphon hose, etc., to avoid any possible problems with different

strengths/flavors of beer by siphoning one, then the other.

I have a simple solution for you (as far as I know, there's nothing wrong

with this suggestion...someone please correct me if there is)---use two

siphon hoses side by side.  Nice and simple...and cheap.

- ------------

> From: Elaine <EBORIS@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>

> Subject:      re: Specialty Products Intl

>

> About the review of "Home Beermakers Guide" by Leigh P. Beadle

> Sad but true:

> When I first tried my hand at brewing over 10 years ago I bought an

> equipment kit which included Superbrau and L.P. Beadle's ~guide~.

> Looking back, I am amazed that I didn't get any truly BAD beers from

> following his advice. It took some time (and much better books on

> homebrewing) to rid myself of bad brewing techniques I gotten from that

> book.

I found the review interesting, too...but for different reasons.

When I got into homebrewing early this year, my starter kit also included

the ``guide'' and Superbrau, but with one big difference---the owner of the

store made some modifications to the guide.  He basically went through the

instructions one by one, and said things like:  ``Ok, see where he says to

do this?  IGNORE IT.  Do it this way instead.  See where he says to do

things in this order?  That's backwards.  Here's how you really do it.''

And so on.

When I read the review here, I was going through the changes marked up in

my own copy, and for the most part, they all matched.

Either way, I quit using that particular reference after the first two

batches, anyways (I'd learned the mechanics, which is about all the

modified version of that really covered).

- ------------

Final note....  I'm going to be brewing what I hope will turn out to be a

very nice batch either today or tomorrow.  It looks something like this:

   BierKeller Premium German Malt Extract (Unhopped Dark)........... 3.3 lbs

   Munton & Fison dark malt extract (dry) instead of corn sugar..... 4 cups

   One packet bullion hop pellets

In other words, more or less the instructions on the can, except using malt

extract instead of corn sugar.  I've also got the same basic batch in

bottles right now, except it uses corn sugar (it'll be ready in about

another 8 days or so).

One question:  Is this going to give me a true German bock beer?  Or are

there enhancements I need to make the next time around?  I'd like to brew

a *REAL* bock, and possibly even a doppelbock.  So far, as far as I know,

the closest thing I've had to a real bock was a German import, Fiedlers

Bock im Stein (in those nice re-usable stone bottles).  I like it enough

to know that I'd like to brew a true bock.  I also know enough to know

that if it comes from a store, it probably isn't....

Suggestions?  Comments?

   --jim

- --

#include <std_disclaimer.h>                                 73 DE N5IAL (/4)

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INTERNET: jim@n5ial.mythical.com  |  j.graham@ieee.org     ICBM: 30.23N 86.32W

AMATEUR RADIO:  (packet station temporarily offline)       AMTOR SELCAL: NIAL

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

E-mail me for information about KAMterm (host mode for Kantronics TNCs).

------------------------------


Irish Moss vs. Hog's Nose Cartilage; Jever heard of Friesia?

Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1993 17:38:22 +0700

From: ifby546@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joe H. Barfield)

Subject: Irish Moss vs. Hog's Nose Cartilage; Jever heard of Friesia?

Hi. My name is Joe and I use Irish Moss.

   I boil the wort for about an hour and add the IM anywhere from 10-30

minutes before the end of the boil. I add somewhere between a heaping

teaspoon to a tablespoon to a shake or two of the bag when there aren't any

utinsils handy. Never very much. By the way, I've been brewing on the porch

lately. The sight of a 10 gallon pot on a cajun cooker will often elicit

queries from even the shyest of neighbors. I get a little porch time, meet

some neighbors (they love chucking in the hops), spread the quality beer

gospel, water the lawn with the immersion chiller run-off, and end up with

2 logs of quality beer. Plus, I don't have to scrub boil overs, I just hose

them down.

   Back to the IM.-   Sometimes I do a little experiment: When the boil is

over, I scoop out a cup of stirred up hot wort, pour it into my hydrometer

test jar and watch the hot break settle. Then I cool the wort to, say, 80

degrees, creating a discernible cold break. After rousting the break by

gently stirring, I take another sample and put it in my other hydrometer

test jar. (They are both actually the cheap plastic tube the hydrometer &

thermometer came in.) Five minutes after collection, the break matter

settles out. The sample from the cooled wort is always deeper than the

sample with only the hot break. No surprise, but it's neat to actually see

a quantitative demonstration of what we're talking about when discussing

the hot & cold break.

   I lay out my hops and irish moss before I start the brew. That way I

don't have to think too much. One day my little experiment didn't work. The

hot break sample resembled suspended goo (or "juj", the technical term). It

didn't go anywhere. The cold break sample was even cloudier. I said to

myself "Hmmmm what happened?" whaddya know? The Irish moss was still on the

counter (this was when I still brewed in my kitchen); I hadn't added it. I

am a true believer in Irish Moss. I know it works. So does Break Brite. And

it's a lot easier to find (in my part of town) than ground hog's nose

cartilidge.

Send beer, quick!

Joe "Noise" B. from Austin, brewpub mecca of America - just you wait and see...

p.s. in response to Chris Pencis' query: Friesia is in the Netherlands. I

think.  It's supposed to be chilly there, but the highly productive milk

cattle there dig it that way. Any folks from the Netherlands read the HBD?

If so, send parsley so we can make some Jever! Maybe the Friesian spices

the Jever label referred to were hops. Like those skunky things in

Heineken.

 -JB 4 days b4 printing.

 -------------------------------

Joe Barfield, Publisher, Southwest Brewing News, ifby546@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu

Brewnews from Arkansas, Arizona, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma & Texas.

406 W. 35th, Austin, TX, 78705.  512/467-2225. (FAX)512/282-4936. $12/yr

 ---- "We put the Lick in Publication" ----

------------------------------


hop_storage

Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 19:41:16 PDT

From: tinsethg@ucs.orst.edu (Glenn Tinseth)

Subject: hop_storage

In the July 1 HBD, Jonathan Knight asks about storing whole hops,

(having been caused to worry too much by something he had read in some

hop catalog;^) Let me first apologize for contributing to your stress levels

and second try to assuage any worries about hops instantly turning to a

quivering pile of moldy cheese if improperly stored.

I *have* to worry about storing hops because I need to keep them year

round in top condition, ready to send out. Barrier bags, exclusion of light,

and sub-freezing temperatures are how I slow the inevitable

deterioration of whole hops. I also try to start with the highest quality I

can find. You are already able to provide three of these four requirements:

Buy (or grow) the best hops possible and store them in your freezer (after

first making sure that the light *really* does go out when you shut the

door:) At this point you are doing a better job than even some homebrew

supply retailers I have seen, frequent contributors to the HBD excepted of

course (Al Korzonas packs his hops for his Sheaf and Vine business as

good as I have seen anywhere). Big (and small!) breweries rarely store

their hops properly relying on the fact that they use hops quickly to

prevent problems.

In order to exclude oxygen, two things need to happen: The hops need to be

in a container that won't let O2 (or H2O) in, and that container needs to

be purged of O2 before sealing. Glass mason jars fit the bill for the first

requirement, wide mouth being the easiest to load. Some homebrew

suppliers carry barrier zip-lock bags that will also do the job.The second

requirement is a matter of degree. In my research in P-Chem, I worked

with equipment that could get down to 10e-10 torr. A good bag sealer

should be able to get to 150 torr (0.2 atm) or less. For long term storage I

would say that vacuum removal of the air is the only way to go. However

if you don't keep opened bags of hops around for very long I think that a

vacuum sealer is definitely overkill. Pack a jar (or barrier zip-lock) as

tightly as you can with hops and seal it. Put it in the freezer,

and...RDWHHB. If you happen to have CO2 around go ahead and use it

to purge the air from the jar or bag before packing the hops for added O2

removal.

The bottom line is if you get your hops from a reputable supplier (or grow

them yourself) and use common sense in storing them, you'll have no

problems.

Glenn (tinsethg@ucs.orst.edu)

------------------------------


cider

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 10:26:49 -0400 (EDT)

From: /R=HERLVX/R=AM/U=KLIGERMAN/FFN=KLIGERMAN/@mr.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: cider

Help!

I recently made a cider using the dregs of my last cider which

turned out beautifully clear and dry.  I added nonpreserved apple juice

concentrate directly to the drega in a glass carboy and allowed it to ferment.

After six months it still hasn't cleared and when chilled gets a flocculant

haze.  I tried adding gelatin fining without much success and also tried

rechilling to about 32F.  Has anyone used pectinase with success?  Can I

add pectinase at this stage and if so how much do I add to 5 gallons

and how do I prepare it?  By the way I also added sucrose dissolved in

water to try to clear this.  After about a month a one inch clear layer formed

on the top with a white fluffy haze below.

Thanks

Andy Kligerman

------------------------------


Use of B.E.S.T. Sanitizer

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 10:01:51 +22306512 (CDT)

From: dhholscl@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (David Holsclaw)

Subject: Use of B.E.S.T. Sanitizer

Help!!!

I have had my last three batches head south with a strange medicinal type of a

smell and taste. I pitched the first two but am letting the third sit in the

secondary (hoping the flavor will mellow). I have just figured out that the

beginning of these off-flavors corresponds to my purchase of a bottle of

iodophor. I also noticed that the sanitizing solution seems to have the same

medicinal taste/smell as the beer.

My question is. How do those of you that use iodophor, use it. I have been

using it like bleach: mix up solution in a 5 gal. bucket, let the

utensils,carboy,etc. soak for about twenty minutes, rinse well, use assuming

sanitation.

I have reread the bottle of B.E.S.T and it says that the stuff does not need to

be rinsed, but should air dry. Is the stuff impossible to rinse off?? What is

the networks accepted method for using this stuff?

Do you think the beer is 'safe' to drink. I tastes funky (but after loosing

three batches my supply is dwindling).

I think I'm going back to bleach!! At least until this problem has been

identified.

------------------------------


Hot break

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 12:12:18 EDT

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1-1/T09 DTN 225-6171  19-Jul-1993 1210 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Hot break

While brewing a batch this weekend I kept a somewhat watchful eye on the

boil.  When the wort got to the "egg drop soup look" I stuck a thermometer in

and read a temperature of around 140 deg. F.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Petri dishes - source

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 9:32:12 PDT

From: Bruce Mueller <mueller@sdd.hp.com>

Subject: Petri dishes - source

A while back, some of those interested in yeast culturing were looking for

reasonably priced petri dished.  I received a catalog recently which had

some for a decent price, just above their minimum order amount ($35).  For

100 mm dia by 10 or 20 mm high dishes, with cover, the cost is $41.51/12.

The company info:

J & H Berge, Inc.

The Lab Mart

4111 So. Plainfield, NJ 07080

(908)561-1235

Hope this is useful to a few.

------------------------------


Alcohol as a sterilizing agent

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 11:18:16 CDT

From: "Roger Deschner  " <U52983@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject: Alcohol as a sterilizing agent

Many of us have switched to ordinary vodka for sterilizing critical

things where bleach residue would be bad. Just buy the cheapest rot-gut

store brand vodka in your liquor store. I keep it in a plastic garden

sprayer, and spray things I want to sterilize, such as stoppers,

fermentation locks, etc, and then I always use vodka to fill the

fermentation lock itself. If some gets sucked in, who cares? Why use

vodka and not some other form of alcohol? Because vodka is "food-grade" -

i.e. it is intended to be fit for human consumption. With vodka you are

sure that you are not accidentally using one of the other forms of

alcohol that is SERIOUSLY poisonous.

And for rinsing out carboys, kegs, and such which have been sterilized

with bleach solution, just use the cheapest lawnmower beer. Finally

somebody found a use for Old Milwaukee Light Dry Draft.

------------------------------


Questions on PTS/LB/GAL

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 10:27:26 PDT

From: Don_Doyle@Novell.COM (Don Doyle)

Subject: Questions on PTS/LB/GAL

Could someone help me with extract rates. In Dave Millers book he has

a formula for degree of extract that says DE=SG*GAL/LBS of GRAINS.

What does this tell me?

If someone has other info, it would be very helpful.

As a real example, I brewed 11gals with 26.5 lbs of grains and got

a 1.065. What extraction am I getting and is it good?

Thanks in advance,

Don Doyle

------------------------------


lost pot coating

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 10:57:52 PDT

From: nexgen!bart@olivea.ATC.Olivetti.Com (Bart Thielges)

Subject: lost pot coating

A patch of ceramic coating came off of my 22 quart "ceramic on steel"

brew pot.  Should I never use it again for boiling wort ?  I've only

been making extract brews lately.  Will the iron leech out and ruin my

beer ?

Disaster Bart

Brewing equipment destroyed so far : 1 hydrometer, 1 brewpot

------------------------------


carboys?

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 10:36:59 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: carboys?

 I saw the post about Corning/Revere Factory stores as a source for

 Carboys @ $9. Thanks!

 I called the 800 number (999-3436), but no one I talked to there or

 at the three locations she pointed me to in South Carolina seemed to

 even know what a carboy was, and all three stores denied having

 anything like a glass container for a drinking water dispenser (my

 explanation of what a carboy was).

 Any ideas? Do the stores you found know what a carboy is? Do they

 have them? Do they ship?

jim

------------------------------


cloudy keg beer/high FG/Raw Sugar/Sulfury ferment

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 13:23 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: cloudy keg beer/high FG/Raw Sugar/Sulfury ferment

Bart writes:

>So I thought I'd be smart and start with a kegging system since I could

>borrow most of the equipment from a friend who is in quiescent brewing

>mode right now.  I've kegged two batches so far and had the same problem

>each time.  The beer comes out somewhat transluscent.  It sort of looks

>like watered down but dark chocolate milk.  Also, there is a noticable

>spicy flavor which some people think tastes like ginger.

>When I racked each keg, I also bottled a pint from the batch in a Grolsch

>bottle.  The bottled pint turned out very clear and didn't have as strong

>of a ginger taste.

Well, several things can cause cloudy beer.  Yeast is a common one.  Some

bacterial infections can give you a cloudy beer too.  Since the beer you

bottled cleared nicely, I suspect one of several things.  Both wild,

poorly-flocculating yeast can give you a permanent haze and your pitching

yeast can too.  Remember that your keg is much taller than a bottle and

that it will take proportionately longer for your pitching yeast to settle

into the bottom of the keg than it took in the bottle.  Another problem

may be that you carried over a lot of yeast from your fermenter and thus

have a lot of yeast in the bottom of the keg.  Even after it settles, it

may take a couple of glasses of beer before it starts to flow with good

clarity.  Note that every move of the keg will stir up the yeast a bit

and thus you may get some cloudy glasses for a while.  I've cut about

1 inch off the end of my liquid dip tubes and thus I can't get the last

4 ounces of beer out, but then again, most of that is yeast anyway.

I strongly suggest that you use a tubing cutter or you will have a hard

time getting the tube back into the keg (if you don't want to buy one,

just see if you can bring the tube into a hardware store and use theirs).

It may be better to leave the dip-tube full length because you can eliminate

some of the yeast that would otherwise just sit there in the keg (potentially

autolysing) and minimize the amount of yeast that will get shaken up

when you move the keg.  I don't know which would be better -- ideas?

You may also have an infection, but I suggest you let the beer carbonate

or force-carbonate the beer and then put it in the fridge to help the

yeast settle faster.  Give it about a week for the yeast to settle.  Don't

expect crystal-clear beer for the first glasses.  If this works, then you

don't have an infection problem.  If it doesn't, then you will have look

more closely at your sanitation techniques.

>On another point, all three of the batches that I have made so far (kits

>supplemented with various other unhopped malt extracts) have ended at a

>final gravity of 1.018.  This seems to be a strange co-incidence since I

>used different amounts of ingredients each time.  Also, the FG seemed

>stabilize rather quickly, like 4 or 5 days after pitching the dried package

>of yeast included with the kit.

It depends on the Original Gravity. If the OG was 1070, then perhaps 1018 is

not unreasonable.  Another thing that can cause your OG to be high is

insufficient aeration.  Finally, if you temperature-shock the yeast or

ferment at too-low a temperature, your yeast can settle out prematurely

leaving a high FG.

********************

WAK writes:

>            C & H sell a product called "Wash raw sugar" which is

>            described as "turginado-style".  I haven't used it but in

>            HBD#1141 Paul dArmond says it "doesn't give a cidery taste,

>            and at the 1# level leaves a yummy sweet *aftertaste*"

I put 2# of C&H Raw Sugar (from my local supermarket) in a recent batch

of IPA.  The OG of this beer was 1065 and was hopped with 45 or 50 IBU.  It

turned out, in a word... "cidery" at first.  As it ages, it is smoothing

 -out.  Initially, there were two distinct flavors present -- beer and

this "cidery" flavor.  It was almost as if you mixed some alcohol with

water and a few teaspoons of sugar in a glass and then took a sip of

that, swallowed and then followed this with a sip of a relatively decent

beer.  It was amazing how the flavors were distinct.  They are blending

better now (after two months of aging) but it's still not a good beer.

I now feel that 2 pounds is just too much sucrose for a 5 gallon, 1065 OG

batch.  But maybe it will be great in a few more months.  Perhaps I should

ship it to India and then have them ship it back to me?

****************************

Chris writes:

>I'm still relatively new to homebrewing, and on my 6th batch

>(an Anchor Steam clone), something odd is happening.  I thought

>the smell in my basement was coming from somewhere else, but when

>I sniffed above the airlock of the primary fermenter, I almost

>gagged on this nasty, sulfurous odor.  Maybe it's just my

Some yeasts produce sulphury odors during fermentation -- this is

expecially true for some strains of S. Uvarum (lager yeasts)  -- fear not,

your beer is probably just fine.

Al.

------------------------------


alcohol sanitizer/double ferment/kegs/pLambiek hops

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 13:25 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: alcohol sanitizer/double ferment/kegs/pLambiek hops

Jacobus writes:

>First: Is it possible to use high proof (150 proof, 75 % +) alcohol to

>sterilize equipment with?

Yes, but I've read that the contact time should be quite long -- sorry, I

don't know how long.

>Third:  Has anyone on the digest tried to use a double fermentation on beer?

>I heard about the process, and was thinking of trying it, but I decided to

>consult higher authorities first.  For those un-familar to the process, you

>pitch a yeast with a low alcohol tolerance (ale and lager yeasts) into your

>primary, then wait until the fermentation slows due to alcohol abundence,

>transfer into a secondary, and pitch a second yeast in that has a higher

>tolerance (such as a wine or champagne yeast).  What effects would this have?

>Is it at all desirable?  Has anyone done this?  Is there any literature on

>this topic (I can't find the source that gave me the idea for this)?  Have I

>finally gone off the perverbial 'deep end'?

This has been done and with success.  I wish I had done it on my last

Imperial Stout (which finished at 1050 (down from 1120) and then would

not carbonate -- see what happens when you try to rush a beer?)  It's

a good idea if you want to get some characteristic of a particular ale

or lager yeast, such as the woodyness of Wyeast #1028 or the raspberry

esters of Wyeast #2035 (fermented at 65F) and then finish off the rest

of the sugars with a more alcohol-tolerant yeast.

*************************

Jim writes:

> Well, I'm taking the plunge into the world of kegs. I found 4 5-gal

>soda kegs (with syrup - bleech!) for $5 each, regulator for $15, Co2

>tank for $20, and tap/dispenser for $15. (how are these prices, btw?)

Very good.

> I need to know what I need to do to these tanks before using them

>(besides replacing all the rubber seals as someone mentioned), and

>where to get parts, rebuild kits, etc. I've got a batch of beer ready

>to bottle, er, keg right about now....

I recommend, of course, that you replace all the rubber seals, and then

clean and sanitize (I recommend iodophor for SS -- some disagree with

me) the keg.  I simply fill the kegs with hot water, seal and shake,

dump, repeat.  I do this perhaps 5 or 7 times to get all the syrup

out of the keg.  If there's some dried on, you may have to let it soak.

Don't use hot water with the iodophor -- use cool water!  I know

that B.E.S.T. and B.T.F. iodophors have surficants, which should help

clean a bit also.  I recommend that you use plain water for the first

5 or 7 rinses and then iodophor on the last one.  I rinse then with

a little hot water or industrial beer (a good idea if you suspect your

water to have bacteria in it) -- just a couple of cans of Bud Lite

(nothing will live in that!) swished around and then dumped.  I pump

a half-gallon or so of each rinse out of the keg with CO2 to clean the

inside of the dip tube and connector too.  Note that the makers of

iodophor say that if you let it air-dry, you don't need to rinse out

the iodophor.  I'm usually in a hurry, so I rinse either with hot

tapwater, boiling water or industrial beer that some of the well-meaning,

as-yet-uninitiated have left at my house during a party.

Keg reconditioning parts:  Foxx Equipment, KC, MO -- 1-800-821-2254.

Ask for Scott.  As much as I'd like to say you can get these parts

from me, I have neither the space nor capitol at this time to stock

the 100 or so parts for all the various kegs... perhaps some day...

till then, Foxx is the best place I've found.

**************************

WAK writes:

>always wanted someone to answer.  I've read (Jackson and elsewhere)

>that the lambic brewers in Belgium use old hops, like up to 2 years

>old!  The most sensible explanation I've read is that the aging

>removes most (all?) of the bittering capability of the hops but

>they still impart an important flavor to the beer.  So my questions

>for you hop experts are:  What's left in two year old hops?  What

>varieties are used for lambic?  Should I buy a couple of pounds of

>hops now and put them in my 90F garage so I can start brewing

>lambic-type beers in two or three years?

2 to 3 years old, actually.  This aging removes virtually all the

bittering and (in my experience) flavoring potential of the hops.

It is the preservative quality of the hops that still remains and

is what is desired.  My suggestion is to strike a deal with a

retailer in which you will buy his/her old whole hops (pellets

age much more slowly and unpredictably) at a discount when they

get fresh hops in.  By the way, I used 3 ounces of 1.5 year old

Hallertauers, baked for 20 minutes at 250F.  Also, I suggest that

you use hops such as Hallertauer, Saazer, Tettnanger, Mt. Hood,

Liberty, and East Kent Goldings, and not hops such as Cascades

which have a characteristic aroma that is not normally associated

with Lambieks.  Also, if you age them yourself, high temperature

will increase the rate of aging, but make sure the humidity is

not too high or they may begin to mold.

Al.

------------------------------


RE: Jever? Fresia? More on IPA

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 11:41:58 -0600 (CST)

From: John Mare <cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: RE: Jever? Fresia? More on IPA

Chris Pencis asks about "Jever" and about "Fresia", what is the former,

where is the latter? "Jever Pils" is in my opinion one of the truly

exceptional German Pilsners, brewed in N. Germany near Hamburg. I tasted a

draught version on a recent beer tour of Britain, and was extremely

impressed with its exceptional hop aroma, its pleasant bitterness, and a

good malt presence. The hops used are Hallertau and Tettnanger, the latter

probably imparting the delightful aroma. I hope to find a bottled or kegged

version of this fine lager in the US. Any suggestions?

Friesland is that part of N. Germany adjacent to both Holland and Denmark. I

was not aware of the fact that the hops in "Jever" are from Friesland.

On another subject, Jim Busch in commenting on my earlier post re IPA's

noted the high OG (1.048) of the R&D Deucher's IPA which has a final ABV of

3.9%. Sorry Jim, a typo slipped in! The OG is 1.038, not 1.048 as

posted.This truly exceptional ale by Caledonian Brewery of Edinburgh is

available in Scotland and parts of England as "real ale" in cask (not keg!

They don't keg any of their beer!)

>From John's Alehouse, where "the ale cures what ails ye".

------------------------------


Jever / Oostende / W66

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 15:31:44 -0400

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Jever / Oostende / W66

> From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

> Subject: Jever....?

>

> Ok, here's a question from my homebrewing partner...does anyone out

> there know anything about the beer Jever...on the label it says

> something about using "freisian herbs"  (where's fresia?!) ... does

> anyone know what these things are - has anyone tried to replicate this

> brew ... in general, can anyone give us the low down on this beer (its

> not in Jackson, Finch or anywhere in Papazian) ... thanks.

Not sure if this is the one you mean, but I had

Jever Pils on tap in Eidelstadt (hope I spelled it

right) just outside of Hamburg.  It was local to the area.

I think I also saw some info on Jever in Jackons large beer book

(what ever the name way be), even had a a picture of the Jever

brewmaster holding his 5 litre glass of Jever Pils!!!

Can't help with the Herbs.

> From: Dave Justice <DD24005@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU>

> Subject:      Trip to Belgium

>

>  Greetings! I hope this an appropriate question for this forum. I'm off

>  to Europe 2 weeks from today and could use some suggestions on beer and

>  brewing related places to visit in Belgium. I'll be there 2-3 days,

>  arriving in Oostende and eventually making my way to Bonn, Germany.

>  I suppose anywhere in the country is possible since it's fairly small.

Unfortunately, my experience in Belgium is limited to Oostende, as thats

where I was to drop off a rental and get on the ferry to Dover,

but there is a bar in Oostende, across from the ferry terminal

that served generic 'trappist dark and trappist blonde'

Very good beers.  One of the standouts of European beers,

after a week in southern Germany!

If you can visit this bar, its a great little place, sorry I don't remember

the name. (strange how that happens)

> From: "Dennis Lewis"  <DLEWIS@jscdh6>

> Subject:      Weihenstephan #66

Sorry for the personal note:  Dennis, I've tried emailing you and

all paths bounce.  Please email me a good path or address.

 Tim

- ----

Timothy J. Dalton                                   tjdalton@mit.edu

MIT, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Materials Etching Technology Lab

------------------------------


Re: Jever Corrections

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 15:58:18 EDT

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: Re: Jever Corrections

In the last digest I tried to answer Chris Pencis question about Jever:

>>Ok, here's a question from my homebrewing partner...does anyone out

>>there know anything about the beer Jever...on the label it says

>>something about using "freisian herbs"  (where's fresia?!) ... does

>>anyone know what these things are - has anyone tried to replicate this

>>brew ... in general, can anyone give us the low down on this beer (its

>>not in Jackson, Finch or anywhere in Papazian) ... thanks.

To which I responded:

>I had the pleasure of having Jever (pronounced yay-ver) while in

>Ekenforde, Germany last year.  This is a beer in the north German

>pilsener style, which in general is very dry with lots of hop

>bitterness, but Jever is even more so.  I think the "fresnian herbs"

>are simply referring to the flavoring hops used, which give a nice

>spiciness to this beer.  I'm not sure which type although I would

>guess Satz.  When I first tasted this beer I thought it was too

>bitter for my tastes, but since returning home, I've been longing

>for more.

>By the way, Jever is mentioned in Jackson's pocket guide, in

>the northern German section (I don't have my copy handy).  It

>is one of his 4 star beers.  Fresnia is the name of a province in

>Northwestern Germany.

This beer is also described in Jackson's New World Guide to Beer.

According to Jackson the hops used is Tetnang.  The region in

Germany is called Fresland, not Fresnia.  Jackson also has a

picture of the head brewer holding up a 5 liter glass of Jever.

Bill Szymczak

bszymcz@ulysses.nswc.navy.mil

------------------------------


Counterflow Chiller

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 14:33:26 PDT

From: Robert Pulliam <Robert_Pulliam@rand.org>

Subject: Counterflow Chiller

    If anyone has an easy-to-build plan for a counterflow chiller and

would send me a copy, I'd greatly appreciate it.

         THANKS

Robert J. Pulliam            |+|all thoughts, statements, and opinions,|+|

Los Angeles, CA.             |+|demented or not, should be my own; and |+|

pulliam@monty.rand.org       |+|I'm certainly not associated . . . . . |+|

------------------------------


Is a trip to Yakima worthwhile?

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 17:51:34 -0400 (EDT)

From: Ignatios Alexander <ia0n+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: Is a trip to Yakima worthwhile?

In August I am planning to visit Seattle and make side trips to Portland,

Oregon and Yakima, Washington.  I've been to some brewpubs in Seattle and the

Tumwater (Olympia) brewery .

Is the trip to Yakima worth it to visit Grant's?  Are there other breweries

or brewpubs in Yakima?  What else is there in Yakima?

What are the best breweries and brewpubs in Portland?

Ignatios Alexander

Pittsburgh, PA

------------------------------


Batch #2 and Cheap Carboys

Date:    Mon, 19 Jul 93 17:06 CDT

From: "Michael Barre"                             <MBARRE@NOMVS.LSUMC.EDU>

Subject: Batch #2 and Cheap Carboys

Firstly, I would like to thank everyone who sent suggestions for

improving my brew methods.  Reading TNCJOH more closely, I noticed that

Papazian stated that you MUST use the blow off method for the primary

fermentation when using pellettized hops, which I neglected to do.  My

second batch, made from Wyeast American Ale, Northwestern malt extract,

Cluster hops, spring water and gypsum, has been in the primary fermentor

since Thursday and is beginning to settle down.  It smells as much

cidery as malty, but I am not worrying.

I seem to have found the cheapest carboys.  I called four or five

bottled spring water companies until I found one using glass.  I then

signed up to get 5 gallons of spring water every two weeks (the minimum

obligation) delivered to my house for $4.75 a carboy.  The first 10

gallons were free, and the deposit on the two carboys was $10.50.

Even the dispenser was free.

p.s.  Singing potatoes?

------------------------------


PPP

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 18:27 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: PPP

Boo hoo, there's a parking problem in Portland.

Well I don't know about the rest of you yahoos but I for one and

GLAD there's a parking problem in Portland.  I hope it rains the

whole crummy week (sniff).  Who the hell wants to go to Portland

anyway.  You couldn't PAY me to go there (sniff).  The city is just

a suburb of L.A. anyway and the people there couldn't tell you what

color the sun is.  The beer is lousy, the farm produce sucks, the

seafood is even worse and the scenery reminds you of the Jersey

Turnpike on acid (sniff sniff).  And another thing, don't even

mention the word "slugs".

Glad I say.  Glad.

chris campanelli

------------------------------


Measuring color, how?

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 23:23:58 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Measuring color, how?

I have a beer that is somewhere around the color boundary for brown-

robust porter and would like to enter it in competition in the right category.

However, try as I might I could not find the definition of SRM or EBC

anywhere.  The best I found was Eckhard's conversion between the two.

I have access to spectrophotometers and sticking beer in is trivial if

I know what to do with the absorbance figures when I measure them.  So

can some kind soul out there please email me definitions of either or

both of these color conventions.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


Samuel Smith/Anchor Brewery Yeast

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 93 8:19:08 CDT

From: raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com (Glenn Raudins)

Subject: Samuel Smith/Anchor Brewery Yeast

  Thanks for the responses on burners for use in yeast culturing.  Just about

  everyone suggested a propane torch.  I got one, and it works great. Thanks.

  Samuel Smith and Anchor Brewery of Salisbury  (makers of Bishop's Tipple

 under the name of Gibbs Mew (?))

  I know this may be a shot in the dark, but living the `BAMA beer waste land

  I miss the smooth ale flavor these breweries produce.  Does anyone know of

  a sole who has slants of the yeast from either of these breweries?  It

  doesn't appear that Paul Farnsworth has them judging from his recent list.

Glenn Raudins

raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com

------------------------------


A request

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 93 09:43:04 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: A request

I'd like to request that those of you whose e-mail addresses do not

easily imply a physical location (xxx.com, or xxxxx.yyyyy@compuserve.com,

e.g.) please include your city/state/country (whichever is most

appropriate) in your signature.  It's sometimes hard to give advice or

respond to a query without that information (e.g., when considering

availbility of materials, or fermentation temperatures, etc.).

Besides, I'm curious!

My signature (which I don't normally include, as it takes up extra

space, and "umich.edu" is self-explanatory, right ?:=)

=Spencer W. Thomas   |  Info Tech and Networking, B1911 CFOB, 0704

   "Genome Informatician" |  Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu |  313-764-8065, FAX 313-764-4133

------------------------------


What happened to Sprecher??

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 93 10:17:28 CDT

From: krueger@comm.mot.com (Kevin Krueger)

Subject: What happened to Sprecher??

What happened to Sprecher?  That is a loaded question.

I just caught someone's comment about a barge hitting Sprecher?  Was

this discussed previously?  I went through my old HBD's and didn't see any

discussion about this event, so can someone please fill me in on the latest.

BTW, would the barge have anything to do with the downfall of Sprecher (in

my eyes)?  Yes, I said downfall.  I was there at Sprecher when it was but an

infant . . . when the tours were 5-6 people and the beer was better than sex.

Actually, I was only getting beer at the time, so it's an unfair comparison :@)

Anyway, I think Sprecher has gone downhill based mainly on the quality of the

recent beers I've had and also the fact that they use twist top bottles.  I

was a bar in Milwaukee recently and had their Special Amber and it was weak.

In fact, I even considered drinking Beck's Dark instead!  Even so, that hasn't

been the first time that I thought their brew was weak.  What has happened

to the almighty Sprecher?!?!?!!?

Here is some news from the rumor mill . . . someone in Milwaukee please comment.

The East Side Lakefront down by the River Brewery has burnt down.  Is this true?

I heard it was the brewery and I also heard it was just the store for the

brewery.  Beans and Barley  and the dance hall Esoterica also went up in

flames (for those present and former East Siders.)

Kevin

------------------------------


Hotbreak

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 93 10:32 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Hotbreak

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >but since the Electrim Bins are quite popular in the UK, perhaps Line's

 experience has been with these types of heat sources and not with

 the significantly hotter heat sources some of us are using (I know

 brewer's around here using upwards of 100,000BTU burners!  Jack?

 Tim?).

 Like Pavlov's dog, I respond to my name.

 I don't have a clue as to how to determine tthe BTU's of my heat source but

 it is a NG/forced air furnace I designed for melting aluminum for MM

 castings.  It will melt 4 lbs of aluminum in 20 minutes.  However, it is not

 terribly efficient when used to boil beer because the flame is directed

 horizontally instead of up toward the kettle.  I put a firebrick in at a 45

 deg angle to help facilitate that.  Having said all that, it will boil 14

 gallons of wort furiously and I normally do not run it wide open.

 I previously reported an interesting experience when I recently made a batch

 of EASYBEER on the kitchen stove to verify the procedure in the EASYMASHER

 brewing instructions.  My stove barely will boil 6 gallons of wort but I

 managed to evaporate the required amount of liquid in the 90 minutes alotted

 and produce a decent beer. What was noteworthy was the fact that the

 coagualted protein floating around was several orders of magnitude larger

 than what I am used to seeing in my normal, more vigorous boil.  Clearly the

 size of the so-called "hot break" is totally irrelevant and it is the

 quantity that settles out after chilling that is important.  The vigor of the

 boil seems only to effect the amount of time it takes to achieve the

 evaporation required.

 I would also like to propose that the "hot break" phenomenon could be more

 easily comprehended if we just changed the term to aglomeration, coagualation

 or some other such expression.  "Break" implies that there is some sort of

 sudden transition when, in fact, there is no such thing.  It is a continuous

 process that gradually diminishes as the boil proceeds.

 js

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1186, 07/21/93

*************************************

-------


On sugars

Date: 20 Jul 1993 13:42:51 -0500

From: Chris McDermott <mcdermott@draper.com>

Subject: On sugars

 On sugars

In HBD #1184 William A Kitch says:

>   Dark sucre-candi:  Philip Seitz says as near as he can tell rock candy=

>            sucre-candi.  Piere Rajotte says in _Brewing Belgian Ales_

>            that sucre-candi is sucrose.  The dark sucre-candi is

>            caramelized before being crystalized.  Nobody seems to have

>            a US source.  I've tried camelizing my own sucrose.  It's

>            not hard to do.

Correct; but more specifically it is inverted sucrose. This seems (at least to

me) to be important.

While I have not tried it myself, I know of at least one person that has used

carmalized sucrose in belgians with sucess.  I think that carmalized *inverted*

sucrose would work even better.  If you want to carmalize it yourself you can

do so in a sauce pan over the stove.  Remember to use *low* heat and stir

*continually*.

>There is stong consensus that too much sucrose adds a characterist cidery

>taste.

I agree with this to a point.  My experience leads me to beleive that if

sucrose (or almost any sugar for that matter) is used judiciously that cidery

flavors can be easily avoided.  I think the key is to avoid sugars in all low

gravity beers (say < 1.040) and in moderate (say 1.040 - 1.60) gravity beers

not to exceed 20% extract from sugars.  I think that extract brewers should be

carefull here to really consider that quality of the extract that they are

using.  Some of the cheaper extracts may contain a significant quantity of

non-malt sugars to start with.  In higher gravity brews (say > 1.060) I think

that the amount of sugar that can be used is only limited to what the yeast can

ferment.  What I mean by this is that you could use an infinite amount of

sugar, but after a point even the most ethnol-tolerant strain will quit

fermenting and leave the remaining sugar as is.

>On the other had high

>gravity Belgian ales call for sugar as an adjunct.  The purpose is to

>lighten the body and maltiness of these high gravity beers.  This is

>one thing that makes them distinct from say Barley Wine.

I think everyone would agree with this.  An all-malt tripple having the body of

a dopple bock just wouldn't cut the mustard, so to speak.

>Rajotte says

>Belgian brewers may add either glucose or sucrose to their high gravity

>beers.  Some say the already high maltose content hides the cidery flavor.

I read this in a slightly different light.  What I got out of it is that with a

significantly high proportion of malt to sugar, the yeast would not produce

those cidery flavors.  What's your opinion?

_

Christopher K. McDermott                  Internet:  mcdermott@draper.com

C.S. Draper Laboratory, Inc.              Voice:     (617) 258-2362

555 Technology Square                     FAX:       (617) 258-1131

Cambridge, MA 02139 (USA)

------------------------------


Brewing Techniques, Issue 2

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 93 14:41:00 -0400

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Brewing Techniques, Issue 2

Issue 2 of Brewing Techniques arrived yesterday.

Only 42 pages, but packed with info.

Feature: Diacetyl: Formation, Reduction and Control, George Fix.

Articles: 1) Malt Extracts: Cause for Concern, Martin Ladahl

   2) Methods of Sanitation and Sterilization, Maribeth Raines

   3) Quick Results for Quality Assurance: Simple Lab Methods

             for Microbrewers, Frank Commanday.

Columns: 1) Troubleshooter, Dave Miller

  2) Brewing in Styles: Oktoberfest Alternatives, Roger Bergen

Forum: Blending and the Art of Salvage, Chris Studach

Plus a pile of departments...

Looks good!

I'm glad I subscribed to this one.  The level of writing is geared

towards advanced home brewers and micro's & brewpubs.  Its refreshing

to have a brewing magazine that doesn't talk down to you.

 Tim

#include <standard.disclaimer>

- ----

Timothy J. Dalton                                   tjdalton@mit.edu

MIT, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Materials Etching Technology Lab

------------------------------


The Tumbleweed Report (Part 2)

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 14:51:25 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>

Subject: The Tumbleweed Report (Part 2)

On to the brewing equipment decisions we've made.

The Brewhouse:

The brewhouse is literally a house.  A 12' x 12' bedroom was plumbed and

gas lines run in to give us our brewing room.  The boiler sits on top of

4 or 5 courses of concrete blocks encased by 2 x 4's.  It's located right

by a window.  A window fan vents the place.  It gets a little hot in the

summer.  But we're working on cooling the place down now by adding more

fans to the other windows.  In the winter it's fine.

The old living room (14 x 24') is our "fermentation chamber" and office.

Nothing fancy.  In one corner of the room we have an 8' x 8' walk in

cooler.  Four insulated walls were built in one corner of the room along

with a raised floor on 2 x 4 "floor joists".  Plywood floor and walls.  A

compressor cools the room.  Cost was around $2000.  The restaurant uses

the cooler some but mostly we have it filled with kegs going through

final conditioning before being taken to the restaurant.  We store our

malt and hops in there as well.

In the winter we used a thermostatically controlled heater to keep the

fermentation room around 65 degrees.  This past winter we had temperature

fluctuations of plus or minus 5 degrees.  This isn't ideal, I know.  But

it works.  We've made some modifications to things this summer, so I

think we can do better next winter and hold temps within 5 degrees.

That's good enough by anyone's standards.

During the summer, we use a common, garden variety window air conditioner.

We just put a 11,000 btu air conditioner in a couple of weeks ago and with

temperatures above 90 degrees, the fermentation room has been staying right at

65 degrees.  Again, pretty good.

Fermenters:

When Burton and I arrived in November, Tumbleweed was fermenting in 6 1/2

gallon carboys.  Some of you know that I designed the BrewCap.  Since

Burton was a BrewCap fan, too, the first thing we did was attach BrewCaps

to each of the carboys Tumbleweed had and turned them all upside down. At

one point, we had 50 carboys turned upside down in a two-tiered rack

merrily fermenting away!  For me it was one of the most beautiful sights

I'd ever seen!  But after a month, we realized the care and feeding of 50

glass fermenters was too labor intensive even using BrewCaps.  While the

BrewCap works great for the average home-brewing operation, things were

getting out of hand at the brewery.  Moreover, in December darned if Bart

didn't trade for a 42 gallon stainless steel pot that had been salvaged

from a cheese factory about 40 miles away.  So Burton and I found

ourselves dealing with 40 gallon batches after just one week of brewing

at 30 gallons.

It had become clear that we had to move away from carboys.  And I want to

place the blame squarely on the shoulders of one this forum's esteemed

members for being the prime cause for us having to move up in size.  We

were using Larry Barello's idea for a wort aerator and it was foaming the

beer up so badly (nicely?) that we could only fill a carboy half-full

before moving on to the next one and by the time we had come back to the

first one, the foam usually hadn't settled down so we had to shake and

stir and do whatever to collapse the foam head so we could get the

blasted carboys full!!  Thanks, Larry! :-)  Filling carboys had become a

nightmare.

But what to do?  Glass is one of the best materials in which to ferment

and carboys weren't working out.  Stainless steel would have been great

but we couldn't find them much less afford them.  Bart, on the

recommendation of someone in the brewing industry had purchased three 31

gallon black HD polyethelene drums back in October but we were reluctant

to use them, being well aware of the complaints about fermenting in

plastic.  At the same time, I also know of some world-class brewers who

ferment in plastic.  Darryl Richman comes immediately to mind.  I had

always figured that most of the problems people have with plastic

fermenters stem more from not cleaning and sterilizing them IMMEDIATELY

after using them than anything having to do with the plastic itself.  So

with Bart hounding us to give the drums a try, we took the plunge.

I'm happy to say that, on the whole, they've worked very well for us and

I would heartily recommend them to anyone wanting to brew on this scale.

We use open-head fermenters.  That is to say, the entire lid comes off

the top so you can get down inside them and scrub off the resins and junk

that forms during primary fermentation.  These jewels cost about $50 each

delivered.  Can't beat the price.  Once used, they never see the light of

day again.  Immediately after using them, we fill to the brim with clorox

and water and let 'em pickle until the next time we use them.  We've had

no infections and I don't anticipate any -- at least from the fermenters.

We are currently using 18 fermenters.  We always need one free for

transfers so we can have 527 gallons of beer fermenting at once.  Total

investment in fermenters is roughly $900.

Cam makes up homemade dollys to put them on and we wheel the drums around

the brewhouse from that point on.  The dollys cost about $35 each to

make.  Total investment: around $600.

(To be continued...)

------------------------------


The Tumbleweed Report (Part 3)

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 14:52:47 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>

Subject: The Tumbleweed Report (Part 3)

Brew Kettle:

As mentioned earlier, we found a 42 gallon stainless steel pot that had

been salvaged from a cheese factory.  We had had enough experience with

the 30 gallon fermenter to know that we had to get away from siphoning

through our wort chiller.  So we had a 1" pipe welded about 4" up from

the bottom of the pot to allow for the settling of the hops and trub left

over from the boil.  We have a copper pot scrubber tied around the end of

the pipe that sticks into the kettle.  This keeps the hops from clogging

the pipe and stopping the draining of the wort.

On the other end of the 1" pipe we have a reducing "T" fitting (reduces

down to 1/2") that splits the draining wort into two directions.  First

stop is our hop back.

Hop Back:

If any of you read my article in the Special Gadgets issue of Zymurgy you

know I'm a big fan of the hopback so it was high on our list of

improvements to make to the brewing operation.  We even used the mason

jar hop back for a couple of batches when we were brewing 30 gallons at a

time.  The hassles of changing the hop back every time we switched

carboys caused us to rethink things for the 42 gallon pot.  We settled on

using two 1 gallon stainless steel pressure cookers.  1/2" from the top

we had 5/8" OD holes drilled, into which we placed a 1/2" ID bulkhead

union to receive the 1/2" copper tubing carrying the wort from the

reducing "T".  1/2" from the bottom of the hop back, we had another 5/8"

hole drilled and fitted with its 1/2" bulkhead union.  The wort flows

from it to our counterflow wort chillers.  We tie our hops up in paint

strainer bags, the kind made from mosquito netting, and tie the bag

around the inlet pipe at the top of the pressure cooker.  The vent on the

lid of the pressure cooker was welded shut so when the lid is closed we

have an airtight fit.  Works great.  And the bag of hops gives yet

another filter for the trub that makes it past the chore boy in the

kettle.

Wort Chiller:

We use 30' of 1/2" copper tubing inside of a 5/8" garden hose as a wort

chiller.  In the winter, we can flow full force through the chiller into

the fermenters.  In the summer, we have to prechill our cooling water

to get a decent flow into the fermenters.  On the wort outlet side of the

chillers, we have a gated valve to restrict the flow of wort.  We back

this up or down until we achieve our desired pitching temperature.  We

shoot for 70 degrees.

Kegs:

We keg in cornelius kegs.  We've scrounged them from several sources.

We have right at 80 kegs now.  About half of them we bought for around

$25.  The other half cost us an average of $15 each.  All were rebuilt.

We spent about $130 rebuilding the kegs.  We can do it for less now.  We

have approximately $1600 in kegs + the $130 for rebuilding.

Dispensers:

We dispense in two dual tower keg dispensing units, the kind that holds

one standard 15 1/2 gallon commercial keg.  So we have four beers on tap

at all times.  Again, Bart the scrounge found these used and I assume we

got 'em for a song.  I'm not sure of the price.  But I doubt he paid more

than a hundred or so dollars for each one.  (To be continued...)

I'm off to Seattle Thursday and then to Portland for the AHA

conference.  I'll continue these musings when I get back.  Hope to see

some of you renegades at the conference!

Cheers!

- -----------------------------------------------------------------

  Kinney Baughman                 |  Beer is my business and

  baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu  |  I'm late for work.

- -----------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Re: Jever Pils

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 93 08:49:04 EST

From: boomer@sylsoft.com (Richard Akerboom)

Subject: Re: Jever Pils

In Regards to your letter <9307200700.AA09587@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com>:

> Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 13:57:53 EDT

> From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

> Subject: Re: Jever Pils

>

> In HBD1183 Chris Pencis asks:

>

> >Ok, here's a question from my homebrewing partner...does anyone out

> >there know anything about the beer Jever...on the label it says

> >something about using "freisian herbs"  (where's fresia?!) ...

> [stuff deleted]

>

> I had the pleasure of having Jever (pronounced yay-ver) while in

> Ekenforde, Germany last year.  This is a beer in the north German

> pilsener style, which in general is very dry with lots of hop

> bitterness, but Jever is even more so.  I think the "fresnian herbs"

> are simply referring to the flavoring hops used, which give a nice

> spiciness to this beer.  [stuff deleted]

Had the pleasure of drinking a lot of Jever at our regular pub while

I lived in Germany. I believe the correct phrase that people are refering

to is "Friesisch Herb", which means bitter (or dry, astringent, etc)

in the Frisian style. The Frisian islands are a chain that run along

the North sea coast from the Netherlands along the German coast, perhaps

as far as the Danish border (little shaky on my Geography there).

Jever is very close to the coast, just across the water from these

islands.

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Richard Akerboom       Domain: boomer@sylsoft.com or akerboom@dartmouth.edu

Sylvan Software          uucp: dartvax!sylsoft!boomer

Mechanic St.            Phone: 802-649-2231

P. O. Box 566             FAX: 802-649-2238

Norwich, VT 05055 USA

------------------------------


Noble Aroma Hops

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 12:27:56 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Noble Aroma Hops

Last December I wrote to Al Haunold, who is the acknowledged expert on

hops in the US (he's in charge of Hop Breeding and Genetics for the USDA

in Corvallis, Oregon, and developed, among other things, Liberty and Mt

Hood hops).  I wanted to understand what "noble aroma hop" meant and got

a very authoritative answer.

    I just received your letter regarding the term "noble aroma" hop and

    I will try to answer it.

    The Germans and the Czechs (remember, Saaz--now called Zatec was a

    German town in what is now Czechoslovakia--soon to be only the Czech

    republic)--anyhow they instilled in the older brewing generation

    (turn of the century and earlier) the idea of a "hochfeines Aroma,

    Edel-Aroma" if you know German you would know what it means-- it is

    very hard to translate into English but would be something like

    "super-fine aroma, Noble Aroma, etc"  On and off these terms are

    found in the literature, but there is always a clear distinction

    between continental hops (German, Czech, perhaps also Polish) but

    never are English hops included in this category, nor are the

    Yugoslavian (Slovenian) hops included in this group.

    The EBC (European Brewery Convention) and the IHGC (International

    Hop Growers Congress) have repeatedly used such terms to

    differentiate from kettle-aroma hops (also called kettle hops) and

    the high alpha hops (now often referred to as super-aroma hops).  I

    have simply used the term (admittedly not always consistently) in

    some of my publications to refer to the similarity of our newer

    continental (European-type) aroma hops with the older aroma hops

    which the Germans called Deutscher Edelhopfen--and which they often

    stated can only be grown in certain areas of the world, whre the

    climate, the soil and the know-how of the grower produce such superb

    results.  A lot of it is humbug, but there are certain traits which

    these noble aroma hops share: balanced alpha and beta, relatively

    low alpha and beta (5 to 3, sometimes as low as 2), relatively poor

    storage stability (typically lose 50% of the original alpha through

    transformation), low cohumulone content, low myrcene in the oil

    (below 50% of the oil), high humulene in the oil, ratio of

    humulene/caryophyllene above 3, preferably above 3.25.  Thus we come

    back to Hallertauer mittelfrueher, Tettnanger, Saazer, Lubelski

    (Polish) that is it.  (Hersbrucker is not in that illustrious group

    although they have tried to include it after Hallertauer mittelfrueh

    had to be thrown out because of Verticillium problems -- they also

    tried to include Perle -- not many brewers agree!)  There are now

    two new German hops, Hallertauer Select and Hallertauer Tradition

    which are supposedly noble aroma hops.  Goldings and Fuggle are not

    included, although Fuggle and perhaps Goldings (a large diverse

    group) come close.  We think Mt Hood and Liberty come close also.

I always hate to ruin a perfectly good opinion with data, but certainly

Dr. Haunold comes as close to the Word of God as we can get, I think.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


Mash volume

Date:         Tue, 20 Jul 93  16:33:25 EDT

From: Alexander R Mitchell <ARMITC01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU>

Subject:      Mash volume

Prog/Analyst II C & T

Phone: (502)588-5626

What is the volume of one pound of grain with one quart of mash water?

Any rules of thumb?  I've always had plenty of room in my cooler, so I

never worried about it.

Thanks.

------------------------------


Another data point in the hot break debate

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 93 16:39:44 -0700

From: arne thormodsen <arnet@kaibutsu.cup.hp.com>

Subject: Another data point in the hot break debate

After reading this forum recently, I decided to let my latest all-grain

stout hot break *before* adding the hops.

After half an hour of rolling boil there wasn't a sign of a hot break,

so I added the hops.  Bang!  I got a hot break within 5 minutes.  I

guess this may be showing that hops do promote the coagulation of

proteins.

Since I've never done this before maybe I didn't wait long enough.  I've

always added the hops at the very beginning of boil, and seen the hot

break start within 20 minutes or so.

How can I get the hot break to occur *without* adding the hops?  I'm

on an electric stove, so the boil can't be made *really* turbulent

(it's a big burner, but not that big).  What other options are there?

- --arne

------------------------------


sharing articles?

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 16:48:38 -0700

From: Bob Devine <devine@postgres.Berkeley.EDU>

Subject: sharing articles?

Nearly every club has a newsletter.  However one of the persistant

problems is coming up with a source of articles.

Is there any interest in having a shared collection of articles?

For example, if someone writes about experiences with a new yeast,

that information is likely to be of interest to several newsletters.

Through the wonders of the internet (and other billboards), the

sharing would be very easy.

I giving this as an "idea" posting, not a "I have the time" posting.

Spencer Thomas informed me of the newsletter archive at Cornell but

it is not used for sharing articles.

So, I suggest that when someone writes an article, it be placed in

a convenient spot (perhaps at sierra.stanford.edu).

Bob Devine

------------------------------


Belgian yeast strains

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 01:50:08 PDT

From: jeff@rdii.com (Jeff Cook)

Subject: Belgian yeast strains

A friend of my brought back two Belgian beers from a trip to Europe.

One of the bottles is labeled Maredsous, the other is labeled Lucifer.

>From the sediment of each bottle I have plated out a yeast culture.  Does

anyone know anything about either of these yeast strains.  Will either

of these yeast strains be suitable for fermentation, or are they just

used for bottle conditioning?

Also, does anyone know anything about either of these beers?  I cannot read

either label, and I do not know what style either of these beers are.

Thanks.

------------------------------


uh-oh!

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 09:07:26 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: uh-oh!

 I know my beer has an infection. The question is:

 What to do about the beer and the (plastic) fermenter?

 I was experimenting with adding fruit to beers by racking ~ a gallon

of beer from the primary or secondary to a gallon jug with fruit. One

of the jugs had about 2 lbs of cherries, and apparently (verified by

experiemntal evidence :-) not enough airspace. The airlock clogged,

the pressure built up, and we had to clean cherry beer off the walls.

 Most of the beer and cherries were still in there, so i figured i'd

keep going and see what happened. I racked it to an empty plastic

fermenter (I know, should keep those things filled at all times with

fermenting beer :-). Went off on vacation, came back, and decided to

bottle the stuff last nite.

 The strawberry and raspberry versions seemed fine, but the cherry

beer had a coupla small 'colonies' of white-ish, grayish, blue-ish

thingies floating on the top of the cherries. The wort had an acid

taste.

 Have I just re-invented the ~pLambic beer infection?

 (how can tell if) Is the beer safe to drink?

 Will i ever get the 'bugs' out of that plastic ferementer? I left it

 soaking overnite (so far - still going) in a very strong bleach

 solution, filled to overflowing.

jim

------------------------------


Cheap Carboys

Date: 21 Jul 1993 10:37:34 -0500 (EST)

From: ADM_WWIBLE@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU

Subject: Cheap Carboys

   Well, I've been to two Corning/Revere factory stores (both in VA), and

neither of them had carboys, for $9 or otherwise.

   Someplace I _can_ vouch for is the Williamsburg, VA Pottery.  Huge place,

and well worth driving several hours to go shop at.  They definitely have 5

gal. glass carboys in very good shape, for $10.  I got three.  <g>  Now, I can

start that batch of mead I've always been meaning to try (of course, I never

let it interfere with my regular batches of brew...you have to keep your

priorities straight, after all; besides, I didn't want to use wine yeast in a

container that had beer yeast in it).

   Anyway, there you go.  For people anywhere near VA.  And no, I don't think

they ship.

Will

------------------------------


Keg parts supplies, BCI in Brighton TN

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 07:52:40 PDT

From: 21-Jul-1993 1039 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Keg parts supplies, BCI in Brighton TN

Al writes:

>Keg reconditioning parts:  Foxx Equipment, KC, MO -- 1-800-821-2254.

>Ask for Scott.  As much as I'd like to say you can get these parts

>from me, I have neither the space nor capitol at this time to stock

>the 100 or so parts for all the various kegs... perhaps some day...

>till then, Foxx is the best place I've found.

I've used BCI in Brighton TN (800-284-9410) for my parts and kegging

needs.  They sell all the seals (very cheap) and lots of re-conditioned

equipment.  Reconditioned, tested 10# CO2 tanks for $36 or so.  Recond

5 gal soda kegs for $26.50, etc,etc.  They even sell recond. half-barrels,

Sankey kegs, etc for $35 so odd $$ or so.  Ask for Chuck Young; tell him

that JC from Littleton MA sent ya.  Shipping costs on the heavy bulky

stuff does add up, but, on some items, it is still a good deal (the CO2

tanks especially!).

BTW, I don't think Foxx accepts CC orders, nor does BCI.  My first order

w/ BCI I had to send 'em a personal check up front, then they sent me

my stuff.  Ever since "establishing" myself, I've ordered things and they

bill me (I get the stuff in 3 business days from TN to MA!)

JC

------------------------------


info on Welsh ale and/or bitter

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 10:59:39 EDT

From: Jerry M. Trott <jmt@uncecs.edu>

Subject: info on Welsh ale and/or bitter

The Tom part of Tom and Jerry's Beer is of Welsh extraction.  Because of

this heritage he was interested to note that Thames America Trading

Company Limited is offering Welsh Ale and a Welsh Bitter.

Anybody tried Welsh Ale or Bitter?  What's it like?

We are interested in doing a Welsh brew and any help or suggestions for

sources of extract recipes would be greatly appreciated

 -Jerry

------------------------------


carboys

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 11:11:54 -0400

From: Rich Ryan <ryancr@install4.swin.oasis.gtegsc.com>

Subject: carboys

Jim writes:

>I saw the post about Corning/Revere Factory stores as a source for

>Carboys @ $9. Thanks!

>I called the 800 number (999-3436), but no one I talked to there or

>at the three locations she pointed me to in South Carolina seemed to

>even know what a carboy was, and all three stores denied having

>anything like a glass container for a drinking water dispenser (my

>explanation of what a carboy was).

> Any ideas? Do the stores you found know what a carboy is? Do they

> have them? Do they ship?

You're not the only one a little confused. I visited an outlet store

in Martinsburg, WV and initially the lady at the counter said they

didn't stock them. She asked someone in the back of the store and

came up with two 5 gallon carboys, btw, they call them water

bottles. I bought the last 2 carboys in the store. You may just

have to be a little persistent since it's an item they carry in

other areas. For $9 its a great deal. Good luck.

Rich

------------------------------


Very Smooth Ales

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 10:25:04 CDT

From: root@hpuspma.stpaul.msr.hp.com

Subject: Very Smooth Ales

I am new to homebrewing (on my 5th batch) and am wondering if anyone

out there has any ideas....

I tasted 2 totally AWESOME beers at a brewpub in the Twin Cities called

_Sherlock's Home_, a Scottish Heavy and a Traditional Porter. The beers

were dark in color (pub listed the OG's at 1.046 and 1.042) but extremely

light, creamy and smooth in texture. Does anyone know what the secret is

to this texture?? Could it be some kind of mollasses or maybe a special

carbonation trick. I have tasted beers on tap and in the bottle from

all over (including Scottish Heavy's right from the source in Edinburgh)

and have never had anything like this. I'd like to try and emulate it

with my homebrews.

By the way if you're ever in Minneapolis or St.Paul, check out:

Sherlock's Home - at Shady Oak Drive and Hwy 62 in Minnetonka

Britt's Pub - on Nicolet Ave downtown Minneapolis

Johnny's - on Univ. Ave just East of Hwy 280 betw. Minneapolis/St.Paul

and the Summit Brewery - just across the street from Johnny's

Anybody know of some good brewpubs in Indianapolis or Chicago?

Cheers,

Mike Westra

mwestra@stpaul.msr.hp.com

------------------------------


Guinness Cans

Date: 21 Jul 1993 08:37:05 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

Subject: Guinness Cans

Subject:  Guinness Cans                         Time:8:26 AM     Date:7/21/93

AL Says:

>I stand corrected... nitrogen is added to the cans, but I think the

>*liquid* nitrogen part was created by someone on the HBD.

Well Al, when I went to the unveiling of Pub Draught Guinness in San Francisco

I met the man who designed the plastic pillow. (Sorry but his name escapes me.

It could have been Alan Frage. I'm sure it's in the original article (posted

here) I wrote after the event.) To quote him, "a dollop of liquid nitrogen is

added to the can just prior sealing." I remember trying to visualize this at

the time and I'd still be interested in watching the process. Hope that

clarifies the source.

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / Home (707) 769-0425

------------------------------


Is Pete's a real Micro? / Pub List Changes

Date: 21 Jul 93 13:03:40-0400

From: JOHN.L.HALE@sprint.sprint.com

Subject: Is Pete's a real Micro? / Pub List Changes

I 've been seeing Pete's Wicked Ale in the stores for some time now and

decided to give it a try. Actually I went in for the Wicked Ale and came out

with their Golden Lager. It tasted fine with much more body than most American

lagers.  Now I have a question about this Brewery.

I've heard in the past that some larger breweries were jumping on the micro

bandwagon by selling beers that looked the part.  I was wondering if someone

from St. Paul was familiar with Pete's.  I realize that the term "micro" is

somewhat undefined (I've heard under 15,000 bbl/year), but I'm wondering what

the thoughts are on this.

Next topic: is there an e-mail address to submit additions to the publist?

Thanks,

John Hale

(John.L.Hale@Sprint.Sprint.Com)

------------------------------


Heat Output of Stoves

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 10:01:46 MDT

From: mlh@cygnus.ta52.lanl.gov (Michael L. Hall)

Subject: Heat Output of Stoves

Jack Schmidling says:

> I don't have a clue as to how to determine tthe BTU's of my heat source but

> it is a NG/forced air furnace I designed for melting aluminum for MM

> castings.  It will melt 4 lbs of aluminum in 20 minutes.

Wow, that's a hell of a way to measure the heat output! Actually, you *can* get

an estimate of the heat output from this. Although I realize that Jack was just

using rough numbers and that you can only tell how much heat was *absorbed* by

the aluminum, not how much was put out by the flame, I am going to forge ahead

and figure out what this means in terms of BTUs/hr.

Say that you start out with 1.82 kg (4 lbs.) of Al at 300 K (80 F). First,

raise it to the melting point of Al, 931 K (1217 F):

  Heat = (931 K - 300 K) * 1.82 kg * 215 cal/kg/K = 247,164 cal

Then, melt it:

  Heat = 1.82 kg * 94500 cal/kg = 171,990 cal

Then, figure out the rate:

  Heat output = (247,164 cal + 171,990 cal) / 20 min. = 20,957 cal/min

              = 4,982 BTU/hr

Let's compare this with a stove that will heat 5 gallons of water from

20 C to 100 C in 20 minutes:

  Weight = 5 gal * 8lbs/gal * 1000g/2.2lb = 18,181 g

  Heat output = 18,181 g * 80 cal/g / 20 min = 72,727 cal/min

              = 17,305 BTU/hr

These last numbers were for a stove quoted at 35,000 BTU (probably per

hour), which gives a heat efficiency factor of about 50%. Then again,

this calculation gets the water right to the boiling point, and any

additional heat will go into the production of steam, so the efficiency

could be higher.

Bottom line:

   1. You probably lose up to half your heat in a regular brewing

      setup.

   2. Jack's setup is either lower in heat output or heat efficiency

      than a regular brewing setup. Of course, I realize that these

      numbers were just quoted quickly by Jack and may not be his true

      numbers. This is especially true since Jack also states that his

      setup will "boil 14 gallons of wort furiously". Don't look at me,

      I'm just doing the numbers :-)

Reference numbers:

  Specific heat of Al at 25 C: 0.215 cal/g/K

  Heat of Fusion of Al: 94.5 cal/g

Mike Hall

Thermohydraulic Nut

Los Alamos Atom Mashers

------------------------------


Dry Hopping

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 14:04:54 -0400

From: "Thomas J. Baker" <tjb@wintermute.unh.edu>

Subject: Dry Hopping

I'm dry hopping my steam beer and was wondering how long is too long to dry

hop?  I moved the beer to the secondary and added the hops on Sunday, planning

to go on vacation Tuesday.  As it turns out, I'm now not going on vacation

until Friday which means if I leave the hops in the secondary, I'd be dry

hopping for two solid weeks (last Sunday to next Sunday).  Is this too long?

I've read that dry hopping is best done the last 5 to 7 days.  I could remove

the hops on Friday but I wouldn't be bottling for a least a week after that.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

tjb

------------------------------


Siphoning

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 14:07:48 EDT

From: Kevin V Martin <kmartin@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

Subject: Siphoning

I recently made two changes to my brewing procedures.  I bought a wort chiller

and used hop pellets for the first time.  After cooling my last batch of hot

wort, I tried to syphon the cool wort.  I ended up clogging the syphon with

trub and pellet rements.  Does anybody have a good way to syphon off the good

stuff and leave the trub behind?  Thanks,

Kevin Martin

kmartin@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu

------------------------------


How do I read HB files via FTP?

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 14:49:32 EDT

From: billok@aol.com

Subject: How do I read HB files via FTP?

This is not a question about Home brew but about HOMEBREW Digest.

I am new to the HOMEBREW Digest and the internet.  I would like to

download some back issue's of HB Digest, but I'm having a problem.

I know that back issues can be found via ftp at sierra.stanford.edu

and I can transfer them to my PC (A Gateway 486 running DOS 5.0 and Windows

3.1).  But these files are not readable.  They have names like "HB1173.Z".  I

think the they may be compressed somehow but I am not familiar with UNIX and

I don't know how to read these files.

I would appreciate any help with this, so next time I can ask a question

about beer brewing!

Thanks,

Bill Okula

Rocky Point, NY

BillOk@delphi.com

BillOk@aol.com

------------------------------


Yakima & Portland

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 09:50:44 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Yakima & Portland

Yakima worthwhile?

>

>

> In August I am planning to visit Seattle and make side trips to Portland,

> Oregon and Yakima, Washington.  I've been to some brewpubs in Seattle and the

> Tumwater (Olympia) brewery .

>

> Is the trip to Yakima worth it to visit Grant's?  Are there other breweries

> or brewpubs in Yakima?  What else is there in Yakima?

>

Yakima is smack in the middle of the largest hop-growing area in the

U.S.  I haven't been in the brewery for years, but they used to offer

Grant's beers as cask-conditioned ales.  In those days it was the only

place that this was true, and may still be so.

> What are the best breweries and brewpubs in Portland?

>

>

Well, there's a subject for debate!  Try the Pilsner Room, where John

Harris brews Full Sail beers and his own incredible pilsner.  Try B

Moloch, which is connected to the downtown Widmer brewery, has a wide

range of local micros on draught, and excellent food.  Try the brewpub

at BridgePort, where several of their beers are available as

cask-conditioned ales, and the pizza is excellent.  You can walk from

there to the Portland Brewery, where their beer is quite good (eschew

the Timberline Ale) -- I generally don't drink it anywhere else.

There is also the McMenamin Empire of brewpubs, which are scattered all

over the Portland area and throughout the state.  Several of them

feature movies in conjunction with the beer.  It is occasionally

possible to get a potable beer at one of this places, depending on who

the local brewer is.  A lot of people love their beer; I personally

avoid it whenever possible.

I'm out of touch; there are other brewpubs that have started up which

I've never visited.  One called Star, I believe, and others which I

haven't even heard of.  There is a brewery producing "lagers", the

Liberty Brewery, but frankly the beers I've tasted were terrifically

boring.

There are also two connected breweries in Newport and Ashland, bottling

and kegging their beers as Rogue.  These are terrific, IMO, and brewer

John Maier, once AHA Homebrewer of the Year, is one of the most creative

and consistent brewers in the Northwest.  Teri Fahrendorf makes

excellent beers down in Eugene, which are, I believe, only available at

the brewpub.  Another former homebrewer is brewing good stuff down in

Cave Junction. ?? where?  etc etc etc

Oregon *IS* beer heaven.  Sorry, Chris.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


CO2 Cylinder filling and gas

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 16:06:38 EDT

From: jdsgeoac@osg.saic.com (Karen Jdsgeoac Hyrum GEOACOUSTIC)

Subject: CO2 Cylinder filling and gas

I just had my CO2 cylinder refilled for the second time and I think I

was ripped off.  To 'fill' my cylinder the people connected my small

tank to their big tank for about 30 sec and handed it back to me.  This

was done at a bar.  They did not weigh my my tank or use any pump to

transfer the CO2.  I think all I got was about 875 psi of gas, but not

a full 10 lb CO2 tank.

The first time I filled the tank, I took it to a fire ext. company.  When

they filled the tank it took about 5 min and they used a loud machine

which sounded like a pump.  They also weighed the cylinder before and shut

off the pump when the tank was 10 lbs heavier.

Questions:  What is the proper way to fill a CO2 tank?  Did the bar's method

work?  Is the gas from a fire company safe to consume?

Thanks

Hyrum Laney

jdsgeoac@typhoon.saic.com

------------------------------


Papain -how does it work?

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 23:59:18 EDT

From: demosth236@aol.com

Subject: Papain -how does it work?

Recently I saw papain in my local homebrew supply store for use as a

preventer of chill haze.  I am familiar with papain as a meat tenderizer, and

I know it "digests" proteins, but I was wondering exactly how it works in

beermaking.  Any information would be appreciated.

  Rachel Patrick

  epatrick@pearl.tufts.edu

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1187, 07/22/93

*************************************

-------


hops: Arizona/hermaphrodite/antique

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 12:25:03 MST

From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

Subject: hops: Arizona/hermaphrodite/antique

Arizona Hops:

I am taking a stab at growing hops here in Phoenix.  I planted rhizomes

of Tettnanger, Nugget, Cascade, and Centennial in April in good soil,

using an automatic drip system for watering. The plants grew in fits

and starts, but all except the Tett are about 8 ft long now, with hop

cones on them in various stages of maturity.

If anyone is interested in this experiment, or has tried this and would

like to compare notes, let me know.

Hermaphrodite Hops:

I have discovered that one of the Centennials has a few male flowers

on it.  Is this common?  If so, how do commercial growers prevent

pollenation?

Should I allow the male flowers to pollenate the other cones?  I believe

that Centennial is a hybrid, and therefore that the offspring may not be

true to type.  Still, I was wondering how bad they will be.  Any ideas?

Antique Hops:

A portion of my parent's farm in Oregon was once used for raising hops.

Apparently this was a fairly large scale operation, since there was a

rather large outbuilding dedicated to hop drying (oast?).  The previous

owners probably quit hop farming in the thirties or forties, but some

hop plants have persisted in the wild.

Could anyone hazard a guess as to the variety of these hops?  I suspect

that they are not considered a desirable type any longer, but I would

like to brew a batch with them, for sentimental reasons, and I would like

to get as much information as possible beforehand.

BTW, their farm is in the Willamette Valley.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Joel Birkeland

Motorola SPS

(602) 897-4359

------------------------------


Briess Malt

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 10:34:54 CDT

From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>

Subject: Briess Malt

I'm looking for some input from those of you who have used Briess Malt

Extract successfully or unsuccessfully.  After 6 months of extract

brewing with mostly Northwestern Malt extract, my roommate/brewmate and

I went halvsies on a 60 lb pail of amber Briess in the interest of

economy.  Between the two of us, we have yet to make a decent batch of

brew with it.  In my own humble opinion, I was making pretty good beer

with the northwestern, and I have not grown lax in sanitation or other

brewing technique.  My brews seem to have what I can only describe as a

excessively estery (diacetyl?) aftertaste on the tongue and palate.  As

I do not have a trained beer palate (yet!) it is hard for me to

accurately describe.  On the other hand, my roommate's brews have an

astringent (phenolic) quality up front, with the same aftertaste as

mine.  In between bad Briess brews I have brewed better brews with

Northwestern (don't you just LOVE alliteration?) so I am wondering if I

should waste more of my time/hops/expense/worry/etc using what may be an

inferior (batch of) malt?  (No offense to the Briess Maltsters.)

BTW, I took care to store the malt in a cool, dry place, and the batches

made with malt taken from the freshly opened container were just as bad

as later ones.  My homebrew supplier (Brew and Grow) is staffed by

helpful competent people who I don't think would have mishandled the

Malt (i.e. leaving it in a 150 F warehouse for 5 years and then selling

it to a customer.)

Help,

Anthony Johnston

Hopeless Brewer, Helpless Chemist

anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu

8]-<

------------------------------


Siphoning through counterflow wort chillers

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 08:40:03 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>

Subject: Siphoning through counterflow wort chillers

>From: Kevin V Martin <kmartin@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

>Subject: Siphoning

>I recently made two changes to my brewing procedures.  I bought a wort chiller

>and used hop pellets for the first time.  After cooling my last batch of hot

>wort, I tried to syphon the cool wort.  I ended up clogging the syphon with

>trub and pellet rements.  Does anybody have a good way to syphon off the good

>stuff and leave the trub behind?  Thanks,

Time for my periodic posting on filter-siphoning:

- --------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is my pot-scrubber-in-a-mesh-bag technique for filtering hops:

Buy a copper wound pot scrubber and a fine mesh hop bag.  (Get a Chore

Boy.  They are made from 100% copper.  Also get a rather thick rubber

band.  It also helps to have a copper pick-up tube if you're going to

siphon hot wort into your fermenter.  If you're cooling it first, one

of those plastic pick-up tubes will do the trick.

Tie the pot scrubber around the bottom of the pick-up tube (the end

that's going into the wort).  Then tie the fine mesh hop bag around

that, in effect putting the pot scrubber in a bag.  (Oh, yes, "No see-

um netting" from a camping store works well, also.)

Tie a small 1/4" overhand loop in one end of the rubber band.  Loop the

other big end around and through the handle on your boiling pot.  Now

slip the pick-up tube through the small end of the rubber band.   If

you've tied the small loop small enough, the rubber band will grab the

pick-up tube at whatever position you want.  Suspend the pick-up tube a

couple of inches below the top level of the wort.  Start your siphon.

Note: By siphoning from the top level of the wort, you'll always be

siphoning off the clearest portion of the wort.  As the level of the wort

recedes, slowly inch the pick-up tube down accordingly, always keeping it

an inch or two below the surface.  This technique will give you the

cleanest possible run-off into the fermenter without clogging the siphon.

(There are a couple of gizmos on the market now [one is made by Fermentech]

that clip to the pickup tube, attache to the rim of the brewpot and suspend

the pickup tube off the bottom of the pot.)     The mesh bag/pot scrubber

combo will effectively filter out all the hop leaves and particles.  But

the mesh can still clog and I consider it a flourish to the technique and

not essential.  Should it clog, the easiest thing to do is to just take it

off and resume your siphon with the pot scrubber alone.  An alternative is

to raise the brewpot which increases the flow rate of the siphon.

It's also a good idea to stir the wort, just after the end of the

boil, to create a whirlpool action in the kettle.  This will cause the

precipitate matter to settle out into a cone in the bottom of the

vessel.  At the end of the siphon you'll find a "moat" of wort around

the cone and be able to siphon off almost all of the cleared wort.

Cheers!

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Kinney Baughman                     |       Beer is my business and

  baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu      |       I'm late for work.

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Alcohol as a sterilizing agent

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 09:39:48 -0500

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Alcohol as a sterilizing agent

Well, let's see if the digestifier is

happy now...

Roger Deschner writes about using

cheap vodka for sterilizing, a great

advantage  being that its food-grade,

and alcohol is a beer-component

anyway.

I use the same spray-bottle approach,

but instead of vodka (60 - 80 proof),

I use Everclear(tm) which is like 98

proof grain alcohol, made for spiking

punch or whatever.  Its pretty cheap,

and seems like just the ticket.  You

do get funny looks from liquor-store

clerks when you go in and ask for the

biggest bottle of Everclear they

sell, though...  8-)

 t

------------------------------


Filling CO2 bottles

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 93 09:14:01 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Filling CO2 bottles

When I had my CO2 bottle filled the process was similar to getting a

propane tank filled.  It took a few minutes, lots of noise and the

operator WEIGHED the CO2 tank.  I took it to a gas supply, welding

etc, place.  I called ahead of time and asked if they had CO2 for

dispensing beverages.  The vendor Northeast Airgas, Nashua NH,

indicated that it was "beverage grade" CO2, I paid $13 to get my

tank filled I don't know its capacity, it's about 18" tall and about 5"

diameter.

------------------------------


Beer Color and competitions

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 10:36:38 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Beer Color and competitions

Taste not color should be the deciding factor into which category one

enters a beer.  Color only contributes 4% of total score, 2 out of 50 points

while taste characteristics , flavor and body, contribute ten times more to the

total score.

Suggestion for brown ale yeast:  I brewed a brown ale using 1056 yeast, it

ended up as a brown porter since the yeast was very attenuative.  I think the

recipe is good but the yeast selection wrong.  Any suggestions for a brown ale

yeast?  How attenuative are 1098, 1028 and the Irish (stout) yeasts?

lmenegoni@nectech.com

------------------------------


priming/sanitizing

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 93 07:25:11 -0400

From: Rich Ryan <ryancr@install4.swin.oasis.gtegsc.com>

Subject: priming/sanitizing

I have read that there are three methods (possibly more) for

priming your beer. The first method is to add 3/4 cup of corn

sugar per 5 gallon batch. The second method is to add 1 1/4 cups

dried malt extract. The third method is by adding a measured

amount of gyle. Can someone discuss the pros and cons of each?

Does your beer condition better using one over another?

On another note, I have currently been using B-Brite as a

sanitizer, primarily because that's what my local homebrew

shop recommended. Papazian talks about using chlorine (household

bleach) as a sanitizer. I noticed that B-Brite does not contain

chlorine, bisulfate or organic compounds. Am I wasting my money

on B-Brite or does it do a superior job of sanitizing? Speaking

of chlorine, how can you remove chlorine from your tap water

without buying an expensive filter kit? I am presently boiling

my tap water before using in the brewing process. What minerals

are removed when you boil your water? TIA.

Rich Ryan

GTE

Chantilly, VA

------------------------------


Brewing Techniques

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 08:17:31 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kieran O'Connor <koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: Brewing Techniques

HI--I saw Chris Dalton's article about Brewing Techniques--and had to

drop a quick note

Issue 2 of Brewing Techniques arrived yesterday.

Only 42 pages, but packed with info.

Just what the heck is Zymurgy worth anyway?

These are the articles in summer Zymurgy:

1) Summer Brewin'

2) Boost Hop Bouquet

3) Stalking the Wild Meads

4) Institute for Brewing Studies (essentially a paid promo)

Total: maybe 15 pages.

Then there is the filler middle--buy a shirt for 20$ deal (plus shipping),

the standard row of letters stating how good Zymurgy is and how people

dont know how they brewed without it, and 900 pages of ads.

There really isnt even a reduced price for AHA members for books like

there used to be.

Frankly, I've found Zymurgy to be a bit lame. Most of the stuff in it is

fluff-Brewgal Gourmet?

I guess Im a bit pissed in general at the AHA.  As some of you know I did

some research on brewing in the Spring.  What better place to write than

to the AHA--right? Wrong. I asked some fairly specific questions for

sources and/or ideas--here's what I got:

1) A winner's circle card with a recipe.

2) An application to join the AHA (of which I was a member)

3) A how to brew a batch of beer sheet

4) An index of articles (which, I must say, was helpful).

5) No letter.

So I wrote to you know who--and actually got a reply. he said I know of

no source where I cant point you to!

Then I wrote to the Institute of Brewing Studies, whose prowess is

indicated in this months Zymurgy--no shit--i got the EXACT same handouts!

Anyway, I credit the AHA and Zymurgy with increasing homebrew

awareness--but I dont even recommend it to brewers. i tell them to get

online--its cheaper--especially if they are at a University.

To be honest with you--when mine runs out--I'll use the $29 to buy a

re-new on Brewing Techniques (BT) and use the $5 to go buy a six.

Please don't send me hate mail--if you disagree lets discuss this

intelligently.  Thanks. :-)

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Address: koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu

Syracuse, N.Y. USA

------------------------------


Oostend?

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 93 10:49:36 CDT

From: stevie@spss.com

Subject: Oostend?

Dave Justice <DD24005@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU> (I assume he's not the Braves' all-star

right fielder) asked about suggestions for stops in Belgium, to which Timothy

Dalton replied about Oostende:

>Unfortunately, my experience in Belgium is limited to Oostende, as thats

>where I was to drop off a rental and get on the ferry to Dover,

>but there is a bar in Oostende, across from the ferry terminal

>that served generic 'trappist dark and trappist blonde'

>Very good beers.  One of the standouts of European beers,

>after a week in southern Germany!

>If you can visit this bar, its a great little place, sorry I don't remember

>the name. (strange how that happens)

Having just been in Oostende, I'd recommend (as Jackson does in his Belgian

book) a visit to the Taverne Botteltje.  It's at 19 Louisastraat, about 6 blocks

NW from the ferry terminal, between the Wapenplein and the beach.  After all,

why go to a place offering up 'generic' stuff when you know what you're getting.

Taverne Botteltje has six beers on draft:  DeTroch Kriek, Hoegarden Wit,

Speciale Palm, Grimbergen Dubbel, Jupiler Pils, and Guinness.  If you don't like

that, you can opt for their well kept and served bottle selection.  The thick,

bound, beer menu offers pretty much anything you'd want.  Trappist dark?

Trappist blonde?  You won't be offered anything like that here.  How's about

the full range from Chimay, LaTrappe, Westmalle, Rochefort...?  And if you don't

have at least one bottle of Cantillon (take your pick), you're crazy!  You can

also spend the night in the adjacent hotel, or have a meal in their steak house.

Jackson also recommends the t'Ostens Bierhuis, at 48 Kapucijnenstraat.  I've not

been there (it was a Tuesday, and the joint was closed), but it's probably cool.

It's only about a block from the Taverne Botteltje (Kapucijnenstraat is the next

street to the east).

- ----

Steve Hamburg (stevie@spss.com)

SPSS Inc.

Chicago, IL

------------------------------


Propane vs. Methane: Costwise

Date:         21 Jul 93 16:38:40 CST

From: "Dennis Lewis"  <DLEWIS%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject:      Propane vs. Methane: Costwise

As I sat, tending my mash on my propane-fired Country Cooker, I

wondered if it would be cheaper to fire up the cooker on natural gas

(methane) as opposed to tanks of propane that are liable to give

up the ghost in the middle of your boil.

According to the CRC Handbook:

Heat of Combustion

     Methane (CH4)  = 212.79 kg.cal/gram-molecular-weight

     Propane (C3H8) = 530.57  "  "   "      "        "

     A gram-molecular-weight is a "mass in grams of a substance

          numerically equal to it's molecular weight."

          Essentially, it is one "mole" of this gas.

     gram-molecular-weight of methane = 16.04 g

                              propane = 44.11 g

     1 mole = 22.4 liters at STP (Stnd Temp and Press 25 deg C and

                                          14.7 psi or 1 atm)

This is really nice because the heat output numbers are for

burning the same volume of gas, namely 22.4 L or one mole. So we

can see that propane puts out

                      (530.57/212.79) = 2.493

times as much heat a methane.  That's why people who use methane

note that it takes twice as long as propane-fired burners.  So for

it to be economical, natural gas has to be 2.5 times cheaper than

propane (all other crap being equal).

Now on to the pricing. I pay $8 to fill a 20# tank of propane. I

also pay about $0.65 per 100 cubic feet for natural gas at my

house (The 0.65 is average. There's a base charge and use charges

vary with the season.  My total bill goes from about $1.00 per 100

cu.ft. in the summer to $0.50 cu. ft. in the winter.).  This is

delivered at 4 PSI.  Converting cubic feet to liters:

         100 ft^3 * (30.48 cm)^3 / (1 ft)^3 = 2831600 cm^3

    and 1 liter is 1000 cm^3, so 100 cu.ft. = 2832 L @ 4 psi.

Correcting for the volume change from 4 psi to STP,

            V2 * P2            2832 * 19.7

            ------- = V1       ----------- = 3794.8 L

               P1                  14.7

So, dollar per liter of natural gas is:

             $0.65 / 3794.8 L = $0.00017128 per liter

Now for propane, 20 lbs * 0.4545 lbs per kg = 9.091 kg or 9091 g.

Since 44.11 grams of propane equals a mole and a mole takes up

22.4 L at STP, we can convert directly from grams to liters:

                9091 g * 22.4 L / 44.11 g = 4617 L

So at $8 for 4617 L, we get  $0.001732 per liter.  This means that

propane is ten times more expensive than natural gas. But propane

gives off 2.5 times more heat than methane during combustion.  So

for equivalent heat output, propane is 4 times more expensive.

**Note: The prices are for Houston, Texas. Dealer invoice may not

reflect actual dealer cost. Your mileage may vary.

Dennis Lewis                    <dlewis%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Re-Filling CO2 - Tank to Tank

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 07:06:54 CDT

From: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: Re-Filling CO2 - Tank to Tank

I have a couple of 20 Lbs CO2 tanks. I can get them re-filled for $10

so that's pretty cheap. I also have a 5 LBS tank which is much smaller

and convenient to keep in the refrigerator (I haven't had the guts to

drill through the fridge yet) to carbonate kegs.

     Question: Is it possible to re-fill a 5 LBS tank from a 20 LBS

tank or is this a "don't try this at home kids"?

 .

- -----

Internet: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com

    UUCP: metronet.com!pro-storm!philb

  Bitnet: philb%pro-storm.metronet.com@nosc.mil

------------------------------


CO2 filling

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 10:24:07 CST

From: "John L. Isenhour" <isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov>

Subject: CO2 filling

Hyrum Laney writes:

Subject: CO2 Cylinder filling and gas

>I just had my CO2 cylinder refilled for the second time and I think I

>was ripped off.  To 'fill' my cylinder the people connected my small

>tank to their big tank for about 30 sec and handed it back to me.  This

>was done at a bar.  They did not weigh my my tank or use any pump to

>transfer the CO2.  I think all I got was about 875 psi of gas, but not

>a full 10 lb CO2 tank.

>

>The first time I filled the tank, I took it to a fire ext. company.  When

>they filled the tank it took about 5 min and they used a loud machine

>which sounded like a pump.  They also weighed the cylinder before and shut

>off the pump when the tank was 10 lbs heavier.

>

>Questions:  What is the proper way to fill a CO2 tank?  Did the bar's method

>work?  Is the gas from a fire company safe to consume?

If you got it filled from a bar with a standard regulator on it, you were had.

The way to do it is like you described by the fire ext. company.  They put it

on a scale and force liquid into it, the ones I've seen tend to blow CO2 around

all over while this is happening.  I would never try to xfer liquid CO2 from

one tank to another at any bar I've ever worked at, if they had a really big

tank that could tap liquid (which does not happen when you tap beverages) you

could do it, but not thru a std regulator.  I guess you could turn one CO2 tank

upside down and have a direct superhi pressure hose going to the other one but

it would be crazy to try it IMHO.  I've been getting CO2 from fire ext. places

for 12 years and I'm still alive, as I recall most CO2 found is produced by

commercial breweries anyway (makes sense but I have no refs. on me)

John Isenhour - Portland bound.

home: john@hopduvel.chi.il.us

work: isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov

------------------------------


Re: Yeast Culturing

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 9:09:12 PDT

From: rcristad@weber.ucsd.edu (Riccardo Cristadoro)

Subject: Re: Yeast Culturing

 I would like to take the plunge into yeast culturing.  I

just read Rog Leistad's booklet "Yeast Culturing."  My question is,

where can I get cheap test tubes and other assorted tools recomended

by Leistad?  Does anybody follow the guidelines of this book?

Thanks for your help. BTW way, I split my time between Los Angeles

and San Diego.

STEVE

------------------------------


RE: kettle breaks

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 93 12:00:51 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: RE: kettle breaks

Arne asks about hot breaks:

<From: arne thormodsen <arnet@kaibutsu.cup.hp.com>

<Subject: Another data point in the hot break debate

<After reading this forum recently, I decided to let my latest all-grain

<stout hot break *before* adding the hops.

<After half an hour of rolling boil there wasn't a sign of a hot break,

<so I added the hops.  Bang!  I got a hot break within 5 minutes.  I

<guess this may be showing that hops do promote the coagulation of

<proteins.

<How can I get the hot break to occur *without* adding the hops?  I'm

<on an electric stove, so the boil can't be made *really* turbulent

<(it's a big burner, but not that big).  What other options are there?

One of the factors influencing the coagulation of proteins is the amount

of calcium ions that survive into the kettle.  Depending on your brewing

water and whether or not you use gypsum in the mash, you may have a

calcium deficiency in the kettle.  Some brewers add a small amount of

gypsum directly to the kettle to ensure adequate calcium levels.  Be careful

not to overdue this, as a "chalky" astringincy may result.  I would suggest

a 1/2 tsp for an experiment (into a 5 gallon batch).

Jim Busch

DE HOPPEDUIVEL DRINKT MET ZWIER 'T GEZONDE BLOND HOPPEBIER!

------------------------------


My kind of town, Sam Adams is

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 93 12:05:42 EDT

From: Brew Free Or Die  22-Jul-1993 1206 <hall@buffa.enet.dec.com>

Subject: My kind of town, Sam Adams is

This morning I received a poster advertising The Great New England Brewers'

Festival, which is to take place in Northampton, Massachusetts on Saturday,

July 24th.  I was perusing the poster and came across something that made me

chuckle.  Here is exactly what is printed on a portion of the poster:

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 25 participating microbrewerys and brew pubs bringing

 as many as 3 types of beer a piece.  A sample of participants:

  Northampton Brewery, Ma.

  Portsmouth Brewery, N.H.

  Catamount Brewing Co., Vt.

  John Harvard Brewery, Ma.

  Cambridge Brewery, Ma.

  Boston Beer Co.--Sam Adams, Ma.

  Commonwealth Brewery, Ma.

  Hartford Brewing Co., Ct.

  Frank Jones Brewing Co., N.H.

  Sunday River Brewing Co., Me.

  Mountain Brewers, Vt.

  Vermont Brewing Co., Vt.

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Look at the entry for the Boston Beer Company.  "Sam Adams, Ma."   Ba ha ha!

I know what was intended but, still, it's funny.  I envisioned poor old

Jim Koch, chagrined that a nasty old judge wouldn't let him have exclusive

use of the word "Boston".  "Why, I'll show that old fart," I imagined little

Jimmy saying.  "I'll show them all!  I'll start my own town, and trademark

*that* name!"

If you happen to be passing through Sam Adams, Mass., and see Jim sitting on

his porch, whittling and whistling "I Did It My Way", honk the horn, wave,

and give him a wink.

- --

 Dan Hall   Digital Equipment Corporation   MKO1-2/H10   Merrimack, NH   03054

 hall@buffa.enet.dec.com          ....!decwrl!buffa.dec.com!hall

         "Adhere to Schweinheitsgebot

 Don't put anything in your beer that a pig wouldn't eat"  --David Geary

------------------------------


chlorine

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 08:44:25 PDT

From: dra@jsc-ws.sharpwa.com (Darren Aaberge)

Subject: chlorine

At the risk of starting up the whole "my sanitation method is better than

your sanitation method" discussion, I have a simple question on the use of

chlorine.  Should you use chlorine with hot or cold water?  I have read

somewhere that chlorine has a low boiling point and hot water will boil it

off before it can sanitize.  Is this true?  Is this a momily?

Darren Aaberge

Vancouver, Wa

------------------------------


What's there to drink in Dallas TX?

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 02:10:03 -0800

From: mfetzer%ucsd.edu@chem.UCSD.EDU (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer)

Subject: What's there to drink in Dallas TX?

I'll be down there for a week or so, starting Sunday. Is there anything

worth drinking? Local beers, micros, brewpubs, etc?

Please reply via email, I may not be able to get to the digest in time.

Mike

__

Michael Fetzer                         pgp 2.2 key available on request

Internet:      mfetzer@ucsd.edu        uucp:    ...!ucsd!mfetzer

Bitnet:        FETZERM@SDSC

HEPnet/SPAN:   SDSC::FETZERM           or       27.1::FETZERM

------------------------------


Re: PPP

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 11:32:47 -0700

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: PPP

Chris Campanelli kvetches:

>Well I don't know about the rest of you yahoos but I for one and

>GLAD there's a parking problem in Portland.  I hope it rains the

>whole crummy week (sniff).  Who the hell wants to go to Portland

>anyway.  You couldn't PAY me to go there (sniff).  The city is just

>a suburb of L.A. anyway and the people there couldn't tell you what

>color the sun is.  The beer is lousy, the farm produce sucks, the

>seafood is even worse and the scenery reminds you of the Jersey

>Turnpike on acid (sniff sniff).  And another thing, don't even

>mention the word "slugs".

Couldn't afford a ticket, eh Chris?  :-)

have fun

gak

Richard Stueven       AHA# 22584 |----------| Drink up!  Happy hour is now

Internet:            gak@wrs.com |----GO----|      enforced by law.

ATTMAIL: ...!attmail!gakhaus!gak |---SHARX--|

Epicenter:          209/15/19&20 |----------|                 Jello Biafra

------------------------------


Corning/Revere Factory store carboys.

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 93 09:43:00 -0400

From: paul@grammatech.com (Paul Anderson)

Subject: Corning/Revere Factory store carboys.

>sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

>I saw the post about Corning/Revere Factory stores as a source for

>Carboys @ $9. Thanks!

>

>I called the 800 number (999-3436), but no one I talked to there or

>at the three locations she pointed me to in South Carolina seemed to

>even know what a carboy was, and all three stores denied having

>anything like a glass container for a drinking water dispenser (my

>explanation of what a carboy was).

I bought two 5gal carboys from the Corning/Revere store in

Corning, NY about three months ago.  They too were confused

about what a carboy was.  In any case, I still have the

cardboard boxes which have an identifying label on them

which should help people cut through the confusion when

they speak to the mystified store assistants.

The label reads:

  43109

 Water Btle 5 Gal Rib

 AR    39

    OUR PRICE: 8.99

They also have non-ribbed carboys.

Hope this helps.

Paul Anderson

------------------------------


Fruit Chart, Cointreau extract

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 10:36:06 -0400 (EDT)

From: Edward Croft <CROFTE@delphi.com>

Subject: Fruit Chart, Cointreau extract

Well I didn't get any responses to my previous post. I was looking for a table

that would tell you how much fruit you should add to the wort for the various

types of fruit beers. I was going to use Alan Wrights ale recipe as a base to

try my hand at fruit beers. The problem is where do you start, how much, when

to add, how to prepare. I was looking to see if there was a chart that would

look something like the following:

Fruit    Amt     Conditioning         Wort      Primary     Secondary   Bottle

Apples   10#      Peeled, 1/4rd    x,last 5m

Oranges  5#       Blanched                         x

Prunes   2ea      Rehydrated                                    x

 .....

Since it appears that such a chart does not exist, maybe I should try to take

the initiative. If I could get private E-mail with suggestions on fruits that

people have tried, quantities used per 5 gal batch, Conditioning, and when to

add the fruit to the wort, I'll try to compile the chart. Once I have

everything together and charted, I can repost the completed chart. TIA, for the

help.

***

Spices, etc  has a new line of extracts used in cooking. One of these is a

Cointreau extract. I was wondering if it is possible to use these extracts in

processing beer? With these extracts, you could possibly create whole new

flavours. Possibly even Rum Beer, all the flavour of real rum without the heavy

alchohol. Or how about, Beer Noisette, ah the distinctive hazelnut flavour

eminating from the bottle. Okay, okay, so I'm going off the deep end.

It was just a thought.

Later, Ed.

CROFTE@DELPHI.COM.

------------------------------


Sprecher Update -AND- What a deal! -AND- Hunter Airstat summary

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 93 12:02:47 CDT

From: hinz@memphis.med.ge.com (David Hinz)

Subject: Sprecher Update -AND- What a deal! -AND- Hunter Airstat summary

> I called Sprecher yesterday (I'm in the Milwaukee area) and asked about

> the condition of the brewery.  Yes, they lost a bit of dirt.  According

> to the gentleman on the phone, however, there was no barge involved,

> and there is no crack in the brewing room you can see the river through.

> Tours and brewing are continuing as normal.

>

> So, Sprecher will still be around.  I agree, however, that their beer isn't

> as good as it used to be, but that might just be that my tastes have changed.

>

> <include yesterday's note>

>

> Last night, through a strange sequence of events involving a kitchen fire

> and a county fair (I said it was strange, and NO, it's not my kitchen),

> I happened to become the owner of the mother of all refrigerators.

>

> To the point, I got to talking to a gentleman whose house we had put out

> the previous week, and we got talking about brewing, lagering, firefighting,

> and so on.  My offer to buy his scorched (but working) refrigerator for

 lagering

> progressed into an upright freezer that I passed on.  He told me "What you

need is a milk storage tank; they're temperature regulated around 35 degrees".

> Nifty, I said.

>

> To cut a long story short, he happened to have one....sort of.

>

> So, I paid $10.00 for a 200 gallon all stainless steel huge tank, with the

> refrigeration system torn apart.  Seems he was going to use the compressor

> as an air compressor, then thought better of it.  So, it's been open to

> the air for a couple of years (ozone layer?  what ozone!)

>

> How this works, I think, is that you fill the outer area with water, and

> the freon cools it (through copper piping running around the sides and

bottom).

> The water transfers the cold <sic> to the milk (beer, whatever).

>

>

> Now as I see it, once I get this thing home and into my barn, I have a couple

> of options:

>

> 1> put the compressor back on, get it recharged, and lager in it

> 2> have the mother of all steam-heated mashing kettles

> 3> have the scrap guy come over, and pay me a couple of hundred dollars for

>    the stainless - maybe?

>

> or 4> (insert suggestion here).

>

>

> Now obviously it wouldn't work too well for mashing at my current volume

> (5 gallon batches), as a 1/8" coating on the bottom is all I'd get from 5

> gallons of mash.  So, what the heck shall I do with this?

>

>

> Dave Hinz

>

> PS  I had some trouble getting airstat replies to people, so here's a breif

> summary of the replies I got that looked promising:

>

> (Author's names used without permission....sorry if that offends!)

>

> ---------

>

> From TKACKOWS@ucs.indiana.edu Fri Jul  9 07:23:39 1993

>

> Dave,  The address of the Hunter company is:

>

>      Hunter Fan Company

>      2500 Frisco Avenue

>      Memphis, TN  38114

>

> This information is copied directly from their 1991 ceiling fan catalog (no

> telephone number is listed).  On the back cover of this catalog is depicted

> "other home comfort products for Hunter" such as programmable thermostats and

> digital thermostats.  I hope this helps.

>

> tj

>

> -----------

>

> From thomas@ct.med.ge.com Fri Jul  9 09:17:38 1993

>

> Dave,

> I got a Hunter at Fleet + Farm (the "orange" one) in Oshkosh.  Try giving

> the one in Menomonee Falls a call.  I don't know if Farm + Fleet (the "blue"

> one) carries the Airstat, but I don't believe it does.  You could call.

> I don't know if Builder's Square (West Allis, Racine, elsewhere) carries it.

> Fleet may be reluctant to give you a price over the phone; it is their

> store policy.

>

> Disclaimers

> 1) this was last year

> 2) in Oshkosh, not Menomonee Falls

> 3) it was on a clearance table

>

> Good hunting.

>

> [Dave's note:  locations are in Wisconsin, USA]

>

> ------

>

>

>

> From oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu Fri Jul  9 09:21:29 1993

>

> I saw your post regarding the air stat.  I have a mail order homebrewing

> store in Austin Texas and I carry the hunter air stat.  The price is $39,

> call me if you would like a catalog :  (512) 832-9045.

> Lynne

> St. Patrick's of Texas

>

> [Dave's note:  Note that Lynne didn't post this, I did.  Flames to /dev/null]

>

> -------

>

>

> From trl@photos.wustl.edu Fri Jul  9 09:33:13 1993

>

> >Anyway, if someone could e-mail me an address or phone number for Hunter, or

> >a mail-order source for these things, I'd appreciate the heck out of it.

>

>

> St. Louis Wine & Beermaking

> Koelle B. Paris, Proprietor

> 251 Lamp & Lantern Village

> Chesterfield, MO  63017

> 314/230-8277

>

> I do (an increasing amount of) business here.  Standard disclaimers apply.

  You

> might also look in Granger Catalogs for thermostats.  Every farmer probably

 has

> a Granger catalog.  And many mechanically-oriented tradesman-types like

 plumbers

> will too.

>

> The Hunter AirStat is meant to control window air conditioners.  (That's why

 it

> only goes down to 40F).  If you tell the hardware guys its an external

> thermostat for window air conditioners it'll mean more to `em than

"temperature

> controller".  But I guess there's not much call for air conditioners in

> Milwaukee...  8-)

>

>         t

>

>

> -----

>

> From WAUTS@cwemail.ceco.com Fri Jul  9 09:38:47 1993

> From: Tom Stolfi                                   WAUTS    - CWE1IIN

>

> [.......]  Back to brewing, I purchased an

> Air-Stat down here from Heartland Hydroponics, 708-816-4769, for $21.95 on

> sale.  You might want to give them a call to see what their regular price is.

> I believe North Brewing Supplies, Franklin, WI, sells a thermostat, but not

> the Hunter.  If you want their number email me back and I will bring the

> number to work on Monday.  Hope this helps.

>

> Tom Stolfi

> wauts@cwemail.ceco.com

>

>

> -------

>

>

>

>

> From spencer@goodman.itn.med.umich.edu Fri Jul  9 09:58:47 1993

>

> The problem is that you live too far north, so nobody has air

> conditioners :=)  Now down here in the sweltering southlands of

> "southern lower Michigan", Builder's Square carries them.

>

> Ask for a "thermostat for a window air-conditioner", maybe.  That's

> what it's designed to be.

>

> =S

>

> -----

>

> From jbrooks@u.washington.edu Fri Jul  9 12:22:30 1993

>

>

> David, there is a homebrew shop about three miles from my house that does

> a national mail order business (far bigger than their retail store) and

> publishes a free catalog.  They are:

>

> The Cellar Homebrew

> 1441 Greenwood Ave. N.

> P.O. Box 33525

> Seattle, WA 98133

>

> ph: (206) 365-7660

> fx: (206) 365-7677

> order line: 1-800-342-1871

>

> They list the Hunter on page 8 of their May 1993 catalog:

>         Item #8-402 @ $29.95 (plus shipping)

>

> I'm sure they'll send you a free catalog or answer any questions you have

> (Bruce Johnson is one of the three owners and quite knowledgeable.

>

> Hope this info helps!

>

>    - John

>

> -----

>

> Happy Hunting!

>

> Dave Hinz

>

>

>

>

------------------------------


Pete's Wicked Ale

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 93 12:50:27 CDT

From: jlf@palm.cray.com (John Freeman)

Subject: Pete's Wicked Ale

>

>Date: 21 Jul 93 13:03:40-0400

>From: JOHN.L.HALE@sprint.sprint.com

>Subject: Is Pete's a real Micro? / Pub List Changes

>

>I 've been seeing Pete's Wicked Ale in the stores for some time now and

>decided to give it a try. Actually I went in for the Wicked Ale and came out

>with their Golden Lager. It tasted fine with much more body than most American

>lagers.  Now I have a question about this Brewery.

>

>I've heard in the past that some larger breweries were jumping on the micro

>bandwagon by selling beers that looked the part.  I was wondering if someone

>from St. Paul was familiar with Pete's.  I realize that the term "micro" is

>somewhat undefined (I've heard under 15,000 bbl/year), but I'm wondering what

>the thoughts are on this.

I've been to the Rathskellar room at the Landmark Brewery - maker of

the dreadful Pig's Eye Pilsener.  I was surprised to see they had

Pete's Wicked Ale on tap, so I inquired about it.  They make it on

contract for Pete.  It used to be contract brewed at Schell's in New Ulm, MN,

but exceeded their capacity.  What I don't know is how many other

places contract brew Pete's Wicked Ale around the country.  Of course,

once I discovered the PWA, I didn't drink anything else they had to

offer.

John Freeman

jlf@cray.com

------------------------------


Draught Guinness in Can

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 14:23:52 EDT

From: "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."

Subject: Draught Guinness in Can

Here is a repost of an article on Guinness in a can.

Maybe someone can place this text in the archives.

Rick

The article  is titled:

   "The extra ingredient in a can of draught Guinness"

    NEW SCIENTIST, 22 July 1989 p. 34

    Written by Andy Coghlan

 "Guiness, the maker of the black, creamy beer for which Ireland is

famous, has mangaged the impossible.  The company has succeded in canning a

form of Guiness that, until recently, was available only on draught in

public houses and restaurants.

 The world's seven million Guinness lovers have a choice betwen two

products: draught Guiness, a thick, smooth stout with a creamy-white head

and Guinness Extra, which is available in bottles and cans.  Guinness Extra

has a coarser texture than draught Guinness and a head that is less smooth

and creamy.

 According to Alan Frage, the product development director at

Guinness, the majority of people who drink draught Guinness do not drink

Guiness Extra.  "We knew that draught Guinness in cans would give them the

opportunity to enjoy their favourite brand at home as well as in the pub,"

he said.

 Forage and his colleagues began working to solve this problem in

1984.  After four years of development work costing 5 million pounds,

Forage and his team had perfected a tiny diaphragm, made of plastic, that

cracked the problem.

 They tested more than 100 different techniques before settling on

the so-called "in-can-system". People who buy draught Guinness in cans,

which have been available throughout Britian since March, will find this

system if they slice open the empty can.  The device, which sits on the

base of the tin, helps to mimic the tap in the pub.

 Draught Guinness owes its creamy texture to a surge of bubbles in

the beer as it passes through a series of tiny holes in the special

dispensing tap.  The tap has a system of tiny holes which creates pressure

differentials.

   These differentials force the gases out of solution and produce a

"surge". Unfortunately, the gasses wil remain in solution if people simply

pour Guinness from the barrel into a glass.

 The new system essentially mimics this process from the inside of a

can.  The device is a plastic chamber with aminute hole at the top, which

sits on the base of the cans.

 For the system to work, the pressure in the can must exceed

atmospheric pressure.  The canners fill the can with beer that is cold

enough, at between 0 C and 1 C, to retain gas that would bubble out of

solution at higher temperatures.

 The canners put 440 milliliters of Guinness in a can that can hold

500 milliliters, in order to leave enough room for the creamy head to form.

They alsom "dose" the beer with extra nitrogen, which raises the pressure

when the can is opened.

 Once the lid is on, the pressures in the can and inside the chamber

reach an equilibrium that forces beer and gas into the device. When someone

opens the can of beer by pulling the ring-pull, it initiates the same

process that happens in a tap for Draught Guinness.

 As the ring-pull comes off, the resulting drop in pressure forces

beer and gas out of the chamber through the tiny hole, creating small,

stable bubbles.

 As the bubbles rise up through the liquid, they act as centres

where other bubles form.  This is what causes the characteristic surge. The

nuber of bubbles created and the small diameter of the bubble dictates the

density of the head of the drink and its creaminess.  The smaller the

bubbles, the creamier the texture, says Forage,

 The only remaining problems for the designers related to the

canning process.  They had to invent a filling device that expels oxygen

from the can, because the gas impairs the flavor of the beer.

 Now, Guiness has patented the system and owns the registered

designs of all the engineering equipement that is unique to the packaging

line.

 The secrect for drinkers, says Forage, is to make sure that the can

is cooled in the refrigerator for two hours before serving. Otherwise, the

beer bubbles out uncontrollably as too much gas has come out of solution to

create excessive pressure.  He says that the product is selling much better

than expected"

|||

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1188, 07/23/93

*************************************

-------


BTU's

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 93 13:43 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: BTU's

 >From: mlh@cygnus.ta52.lanl.gov (Michael L. Hall)

 >Subject: Heat Output of Stoves

 >Jack Schmidling says:

 > I don't have a clue as to how to determine tthe BTU's of my heat source but

 > it is a NG/forced air furnace I designed for melting aluminum for MM

 > castings.  It will melt 4 lbs of aluminum in 20 minutes.

 <I am going to forge ahead and figure out what this means in terms of

 BTUs/hr.

 I knew I could count on someone taking the bait.

 >Say that you start out with 1.82 kg (4 lbs.) of Al at 300 K (80 F). First,

 raise it to the melting point of Al, 931 K (1217 F):

 Correction here....  aluminum doesn't pour worth a damn at the melting point.

 I pour at between 1600 and 1700 F.

 > Heat output = (247,164 cal + 171,990 cal) / 20 min. = 20,957 cal/min

  >             = 4,982 BTU/hr

 Needs correction for pouring temp...

 >Let's compare this with a stove that will heat 5 gallons of water from

 20 C to 100 C in 20 minutes:

 Some stove!  My kitchen stove takes over an hour and I suspect electric

 ranges are even worse.

 >  1. You probably lose up to half your heat in a regular brewing

       setup.

 Considering the bricks all around and the crucible are red hot, I would

 suspect the efficiency is far worse than that.

 >  2. Jack's setup is either lower in heat output or heat efficiency

       than a regular brewing setup. Of course, I realize that these

       numbers were just quoted quickly by Jack and may not be his true

       numbers. This is especially true since Jack also states that his

       setup will "boil 14 gallons of wort furiously". Don't look at me,

       I'm just doing the numbers :-)

 You can only use the number you have but here is another one that should help

 a bit.

 The furnace uses about 75 cuft of gas per hour, which comes out to about

 25,000 BTU's in 20 minutes with the gas we get here.

 That compares to 14 cuft for my stove burner and 36 cuft for the water

 heater.

 Hmmm.... seems like I already knew the number but didn't know I knew it.

 >From: jdsgeoac@osg.saic.com (Karen Jdsgeoac Hyrum GEOACOUSTIC)

 >Subject: CO2 Cylinder filling and gas

 >I just had my CO2 cylinder refilled for the second time and I think I

 was ripped off.  To 'fill' my cylinder the people connected my small

 tank to their big tank for about 30 sec and handed it back to me.  This

 was done at a bar.  They did not weigh my my tank or use any pump to

 transfer the CO2.  I think all I got was about 875 psi of gas, but not

 a full 10 lb CO2 tank.

 Why think, just weigh it.  A full 10 lb tank should contain 10 lbs of liquid

 CO2 and the empty weight of the tank is stamped on the outside somewhere.

 js

------------------------------


Brewcap / Spelt

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 10:57:55 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Brewcap / Spelt

Since Mr. Baughman mentioned his Brewcap, I thought I'd ask a question or

three about it.  First, there are two holes, one larger than the other.  The

larger hole fits a siphon hose, airlock, or whatever.  What, exactly, fits

in the smaller opening, or does the smaller oppening fit into a sphon hose?

What sort of clamp do you use to hold it on, just a plastic strap?  A pipe

clamp?  And thirdly, is the material of the Brewcap completely inert in

beer?  I appologize if these questions sound ignorant, but the local

brewshops sell the Brewcaps under the assumption that they are simply for

racking upright carboys (ie stick racking tube in short wider hole, blow into

tall thinner hole to start the siphon).

 On another note, I was in a bulk store  yesterday and noticed what

looked like flaked wheat, but the bag was labelled "Spelt, no wheat".  The

TerriblyUnhelpfulShopkeeper Explained to me that it was "Spelt, it's not

wheat".  Thanks.  When pressed further, she said it was a grain "as old as

time...Biblical times...".  Thanks again.  I looked it up later, and it IS

in fact a wheat, _Triticum spelta_, used mainly for livestock feed.  Of

course, at the bulk store the labell extolled the virtues of the proteins

in Spelt ad nauseum.  Anyway, has anyone used spelt (flaked or otherwise)

in brewing?  If not, would anyone like to know the results of a

side-by-side Wit brew-off between regular flaked wheat and spelt?

 ed

____________

Ed Hitchcock/Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology/Dalhousie University/Halifax NS

ech@ac.dal.ca   +-----------------------------------------+

  |   Never trust a statement that begins:  |

  |     "I'm not racist, but..."    |

  +-----------------------------------------+

 Diversity in all things.  Especially beer.

------------------------------


hop back

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 13:48:22 -0500 (cdt)

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: hop back

In Kinney Baughman's article(s) on his new microbrewery he mentions the

"Mason jar hop-back."  I am sort of familiar with the principle of the hop-

back, but what is the Mason jar thing?  Can anyone enlighten me?

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Dry-Hopping, etc. etc. etc.

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 10:31:46 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Dry-Hopping, etc. etc. etc.

The Tumbleweed Report:  The thing I love about this, Kinney, is that you

are actively disproving the central theme of the brewpub explosion --

"you have to spend a lot of money on fancy stainless steel equipment,

brew boring beer, or forget it."  To avoid libel suits, we will call

this the "California Brewpub Theorem", which *requires* startup costs of

about $500,000 to $750,000.  (The Hart Brewery, which makes Pyramid

ales, was capitalized in about 1984 for $20,000; there is very little

that has changed since then for someone willing to put in some work.)

Bravo, Kinney.

> From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

> Subject: Brewing Techniques, Issue 2

>

> Issue 2 of Brewing Techniques arrived yesterday.

>

> Only 42 pages, but packed with info.

>

Don't forget, that's 42 pages with almost no advertising.  So, it's 42

pages of real information; compare with the most recent issue of

Zymurgy, which is a real embarrassment: what little editorial matter

there is is almost indistinguishable from the vast amounts of

advertising (including the AHA's own catalog stuffed in there), and most

of what passes for editorial is composed of (a) self-promotion and (b)

lists, lists and more lists.

> From: jeff@rdii.com (Jeff Cook)

> Subject: Belgian yeast strains

>

> A friend of my brought back two Belgian beers from a trip to Europe.

> One of the bottles is labeled Maredsous, the other is labeled Lucifer.

>

> Also, does anyone know anything about either of these beers?  I cannot read

> either label, and I do not know what style either of these beers are.

>

Both of these are or have been available in Portland, and are reasonably

good beers.  The Maredsous is unremarkable, and I don't remember much

about it; the Lucifer is a sort of Duvel knock-off, inferior to the

original but still pretty good.  Hey, the trick with those yeast strains

is to culture them out, then add them to a small amount of 1.030,

unhopped wort.  You will be able to tell *a lot* about the flavor

profile by tasting the resulting beer, and you can answer your own

question about whether it seems suitable for brewing.

>

> From: "Thomas J. Baker" <tjb@wintermute.unh.edu>

> Subject: Dry Hopping

>

Whoa, Thomas, get your terminal at 80 characters!

> > > Any suggestions would be appreciated.

> > >

> > >

No te preocupes.  Don't worry.  The amount of time you dry-hop is

dependent on how much hop character you want to draw off.  Seven days

really isn't enough, and two weeks is, IMO, a minimum to actually

express some hop character.  My own experience, going back six or seven

years of dry-hopping, is that six weeks is optimal for a really

distinctive dry-hopped beer, but that's only a recommendation for kegged

beers.  (It also happens to gibe with the recommendation of the brewers

at Sierra Nevada for their Celebration Ale.)  Leave the hops in until

you bottle.

> >

> Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 14:49:32 EDT

>

> This is not a question about Home brew but about HOMEBREW Digest.

>

> I am new to the HOMEBREW Digest and the internet.  I would like to

> download some back issue's of HB Digest, but I'm having a problem.

> I know that back issues can be found via ftp at sierra.stanford.edu

> and I can transfer them to my PC (A Gateway 486 running DOS 5.0 and Windows

> 3.1).  But these files are not readable.  They have names like "HB1173.Z".  I

> think the they may be compressed somehow but I am not familiar with UNIX and

> I don't know how to read these files.

> > >

You need to uncompress them on a Unix system with the "uncompress"

command.  As a fellow-Unix illiterate and DOS user, I sympathize, but

how are you getting ftp service on a non-UNIX system?  Me, I have a

shell account at a local access site and dial them up from my DOS

computer; the UNIX programs run there and if I want to I can transfer

from that computer to mine.  You can probably get a similar arrangement

somewhere near you.

> >

- --Jeff Frane

> >

> >

>

>

------------------------------


Zima Clear Malt Liquor

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 16:44:55 -0400 (EDT)

From: Stephen Brent Peters <sp2q+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: Zima Clear Malt Liquor

Hey Gang,

Us East-Coast types have the good fortune (a little sarcasm, there) of

being the test market for Zima Clear malt liquor.  I haven't tried it.

I hear it tastes like Fresca, and it really is H2O clear.  Has anyone

else seen this, or is it just being dumped in the pittsburgh area?

               Steve Peters =  sp2q@andrew.cmu.edu

                  *Oxnar demands a _Sacrifice!_*

------------------------------


Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 08:21:49 CDT

From: pyeatt@Texaco.COM (Larry D. Pyeatt)

Subject: Zima Clear Malt Liquor

Subject: Degrees of Extract

Don Doyle writes:

> As a real example, I brewed 11gals with 26.5 lbs of grains and got

> a 1.065. What extraction am I getting and is it good?

Well, plugging the numbers into the equation,

DE = 1.065 * 11 / 26.5 = .44

or 44 degrees of extract.  From this, I would guess that you

added some malt syrup or adjunct.

Most malts are "theoretically" capable of producing about 35

degrees of extract.  I usually get around 32 degrees, which is

pretty good.  The degree of extract tells you how effecient your

mash was.  If you are getting less than 30 degrees, there is room

for improvement in your technique.

( My own personal opinion. )

Larry D. Pyeatt                    This article does not reflect the views

( pronounced "Johnson" )           of my employer or of myself.  Any simi-

Internet : pyeatt@texaco.com       larity to the views of anyone, real or

Voice    : (713) 975-4056          fictional, is purely coincidental.

------------------------------


Iodophor use/Pts-per-#/Maredsous+Lucifer/Foxx/Pete's/dryhopping

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 93 15:24 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Iodophor use/Pts-per-#/Maredsous+Lucifer/Foxx/Pete's/dryhopping

David writes:

>I have had my last three batches head south with a strange medicinal type of a

>smell and taste. I pitched the first two but am letting the third sit in the

>secondary (hoping the flavor will mellow). I have just figured out that the

>beginning of these off-flavors corresponds to my purchase of a bottle of

>iodophor. I also noticed that the sanitizing solution seems to have the same

>medicinal taste/smell as the beer.

>

>My question is. How do those of you that use iodophor, use it. I have been

>using it like bleach: mix up solution in a 5 gal. bucket, let the

>utensils,carboy,etc. soak for about twenty minutes, rinse well, use assuming

>sanitation.

>

>I have reread the bottle of B.E.S.T and it says that the stuff does not need to

>be rinsed, but should air dry. Is the stuff impossible to rinse off?? What is

>the networks accepted method for using this stuff?

The reason that often iodophor packages often advertise that iodophor does

not need to be rinsed is because some brewer's water has bacterial problems

and rinsing with the water can re-introduce bacteria.  I've never had problems

with using hot, Chicago tapwater for rinsing, even in the summer (when

everything is more microbiologically active -- that's why the water supply

often has increased levels of chlorine added in the summertime).

I'm quite confident that your problem was not from the iodophor, rather that

the medicinal flavor/aroma came from one of the following sources (in order

of probability):

1. yeast -- I've noticed that some dry yeasts, if not stored in a fridge, after

while, will produce increased levels of phenolics.  Perhaps this is because

there was some more hearty wild yeast in the dry yeast or maybe it's a result

of poor storage.  Other dry yeasts, even when stored properly produce phenolics.

2. airbourne wild yeast infection  -- it seems as if your sanitation technique

is good -- could some wild yeast have gotten in via the air?  Could your

problem correlate with the warmer weather, when the air is more active

microbiologically?

3. wild yeast infection from the water -- maybe you do have a problem with

your rinse water... the solution would be to boil the rinse water or to

air dry the iodophor-sanitized equipment.

******************

Don says he got 11 gallons of 1.065 wort from 26.5 lbs of grain and

wants to know what his extraction rate is and is it good.

Well, the maximum extraction varies depending on the type of grain,

but you got 65 "points" and this translates to:

65*11/26.5 = 26.98

or basically 27 points-per-pound-per-gallon, which is quite good for most

types of base grain.  Some get as much as 30 or even 31 points (Miller

does this partly because he re-circulates the runoff an awful lot and

this not only gives him great numbers, but also it has been reported that

Dave's beer is on the astringent side).

********************

Jeff writes:

>A friend of my brought back two Belgian beers from a trip to Europe.

>One of the bottles is labeled Maredsous, the other is labeled Lucifer.

>From the sediment of each bottle I have plated out a yeast culture.  Does

>anyone know anything about either of these yeast strains.  Will either

>of these yeast strains be suitable for fermentation, or are they just

>used for bottle conditioning?

I don't know whether Lucifer is bottled with the fermentation yeast, but

my guess on the Maredsous is that it is a bottling yeast.  My reason for

this assertion is that Maredsous is made by the same brewery as Duvel

(note the bottle shape is distinctive and the same as Duvel) and I've

read (here in the HBD) that Duvel is packaged with a bottling yeast and

not the fermentation yeast.  Oh, yes, I recall the brewery -- it's

the Moortgat Brewery in Breendonk, if memory serves correctly.

>Also, does anyone know anything about either of these beers?  I cannot read

>either label, and I do not know what style either of these beers are.

Maredsous is an Abbey ale, and it comes in four types which, I believe,

are associated with the Belgian degrees of the OG.  If memory serves,

they are 4, 6, 8 and 10.  I've had only two and the numbers were NOT

on the label (stupid US laws!).  One had a Gold and Black label and the

other had a Gold and Green label.  I'd be interested in the colors of

your label and the number on the bottle, if you could send me email or

post it.  4 Belgian degrees is 1040, 6 is 1060, etc.

I have not tried Lucifer, but have read about it in Jackson's pocket guide,

big book (I forget the name too) and the Great Beers of Belgium book.

Basically, it is a beer of the type that was originated in the beer Duvel.

Duvel means devil and therefore virtually all the breweries that imitated

this beer have chosen names that are associated with the devil: Lucifer,

Satan, etc.

***************************

JC writes:

>BTW, I don't think Foxx accepts CC orders, nor does BCI.  My first order

Hmmm, from Satan to JC...  anyway, Foxx does now accept CC orders.  This

is a pretty recent change.

***************************

John writes:

>I've heard in the past that some larger breweries were jumping on the micro

>bandwagon by selling beers that looked the part.  I was wondering if someone

>from St. Paul was familiar with Pete's.  I realize that the term "micro" is

>somewhat undefined (I've heard under 15,000 bbl/year), but I'm wondering what

>the thoughts are on this.

Pete's Wicked Ale and their other beers are contract brewed by the

August Schell Brewing Company in New Ulm, Minn.  I don't know how

big it is, but it's no industrial megabrewer.

**********************************

Thomas writes:

>I'm dry hopping my steam beer and was wondering how long is too long to dry

>hop?  I moved the beer to the secondary and added the hops on Sunday, planning

>to go on vacation Tuesday.  As it turns out, I'm now not going on vacation

>until Friday which means if I leave the hops in the secondary, I'd be dry

>hopping for two solid weeks (last Sunday to next Sunday).  Is this too long?

>I've read that dry hopping is best done the last 5 to 7 days.  I could remove

>the hops on Friday but I wouldn't be bottling for a least a week after that.

>Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Leave the hops till you can bottle.  The reason I posted that "you should not

dryhop longer than 7 to 10 days" is that, empirically, I've found, that more

than 10 days gives less hop bouquet than 10 days.  This is for 65F or so.

At cooler temperatures (although I haven't done this -- this is based upon

what I've read about commercial breweries procedures), like 50F or so, two

weeks seems to be the consensus.

Al.

------------------------------


Keg Parts

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 93 17:55:19 EDT

From: roberts735@aol.com

Subject: Keg Parts

I have purchased a pair of old but clean Firestone 3-gallon kegs similar to

Cornelius.  In the process of replacing the gasket for the lid, which is

screw-down, and circular, not spring-clamp and semi-oval, I discovered the

regularly mentioned  suppliers do not carry the part.

The Firestone keg was manufactured by a company now called Spartansberg Steel

Company in Spartansberg, South Carolina. They do not have parts, and say the

keg is very old.

Help... does anyone know a source for the gaskets, or a functional

substitute? The other fittings are standard pin-lock, and the kegs are too

fresh to dispose of, even if they are old...

Thanks

Bob Stovall

------------------------------


Beer Hunter NOT on Discovery Ch.

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 93 17:58:50 CDT

From: Gene Zimmerman <ezimmerm@hp.uwsuper.edu>

Subject: Beer Hunter NOT on Discovery Ch.

Salutations!

   I was curious about Jackson's series Beerhunter, so I called my cable

company and asked for the Discovery Channel's phone number and was given:

1-301-986-0444 x5298, this was to put me in touch with the people who

would tell me when this delightfully sounding show would next appear on

this channel. I was asked by a recorded voice to leave a message and my

phone number and was told I was to be called back. I was. The next day I

found on my machine a message from the Discovery Channel saying, "The

Beerhunter will not be running anytime in the future on The Discovery

Channel."

   They did not give any justification for this decision. I was, however,

given the name and number of the distributor, "Channel 4 TV" of London.

This number is 011-44-71-631-4444. They will reportedly sell the video.

   All in all, I was disapointed.

Gene in Duluth

------------------------------


Portland HBD Get Together

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 93 18:21 CDT

From: fjdobner@ihlpb.att.com

Subject: Portland HBD Get Together

I have been exchanging e-mail with Jeff Frane w.r.t a get together in

Portland. Unfortunately this e-mail will probably be discovered after

the conference by those attending. In any case, we are suggesting to meet

at the Elephant & Castle (439 SW 2nd) which is about 9 blocks (short ones

I understand) form the hotel. Good beers on tap and draught and

inexpensive food is to be found. Darts.

The word will undoubtedly get around while there but in any case.....

See you there.

Frank Dobner

------------------------------


Sherlock's Home

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 93 19:21:26 CDT

From: Gene Zimmerman <ezimmerm@hp.uwsuper.edu>

Subject: Sherlock's Home

Salutations!

   In responce to Mike's Thursday inquiry about the cause of the Ale's

stellar taste at Sherlock's Home I have nothing to say. I can say, however,

that I've heard it said Michael Jackson has said the _cask_ conditioned

ales there are the closest thing to his 'domestic' ales he's found in

the U.S.

   This is what was said just the other week when I toured the Summit

Brewery in St. Paul.

'Nuff Said,

Gene in Duluth (We're getting a Mirco!)

------------------------------


Boston area brewpubs

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 93 12:09:33 EDT

From: rook@bbt.com (Tony Rook)

Subject: Boston area brewpubs

I will be in Boston at the end of August and was

wanting some recommendations for some good brewpubs.

------------------------------


BrewTeck CL-26 British Draft Ale

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 93 7:55:57 CDT

From: raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com (Glenn Raudins)

Subject: BrewTeck CL-26 British Draft Ale

  What brewery is the origin of BrewTek's CL-26 British Draft Ale?

  Maribeth, please let us know if the origin is known.

  Having just got the Brewer's Resource catalog, I'd say that they have a

  good selection in the yeast culturing department.  Including the ability

  to by pre-poured slants and petri dishes for your own culturing.

  [Standard disclaimers apply.]

Glenn Raudins

raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com

------------------------------


Alternate source of sugar & flavors

Date:     Fri, 23 Jul 93 8:54:37 EDT

From: "Darren L. Ward" (FSAC-FCD) <dward@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  Alternate source of sugar & flavors

 Has anyone ever though of using a jelly or preserve to flavor a

batch?  Just wondering how it worked, I don't recall seeing any posts

mentioning it.  Might be worth a try.

------------------------------


Hot liquor tanks

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 93 9:29:51 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Hot liquor tanks

I am in the continual process of improving my brewery and I have a

question for the digest:

Has anyone converted a hot water heater into a hot liquor tank?  I

have two options: 220V electric with 2 elements or a gas fired unit.

I was considering the gas fired unit, and thinking of running it

on propane but my question is how do I defeat/replace the thermostat

so that I can "dial up" 180F water?  Can electric units handle this,

or is the time to reheat too great to be practical? I was thinking

that Grainger might have a thermostat replacement, anyone know?

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

DE HOPPEDUIVEL DRINKT MET ZWIER 'T GEZONDE BLOND HOPPEBIER!

------------------------------


Transporting Homebrew in cornelius kegs

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 93 06:39:47 PDT

From: Your recipe is so tasty  23-Jul-1993 0938 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Transporting Homebrew in cornelius kegs

I've been asked to supply homebrew for a party in Salem MA in August.  I have

a keg (cornelius) of wheat brew in my basement aging that is going to be the

one to bring.  I have to transport this from littleton MA to Salem, about 45

miles or so.  I want to do this the day of the party.   Can the keg/brew handle

this?  What kind of settling time, if any, is needed?  I plan to have the

beer pre-chilled, that is, i'll take it from my fridge and bring it to the

party (1 hr drive)...  Should I drop the pressure inside the keg to nearly

zero?  Increase it to 30???

pointer, hints, appreciated.

JC

Digital

Littleton MA 01460

ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com

------------------------------


Crushoff in Portland

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 93 08:54 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Crushoff in Portland

 There have been rumors that a certain grainmill producer plans on conducting

 a mill evaluation of sorts in Portland.  My first reaction was to grab a new

 MALTMILL and head for Portland to defend the fort.  This was based on

 information he is promulgating that portrays the MM as no better then the

 Corona.  Turns out, all his hype is based on unscientific tests that seem to

 prove nothing.  As it is unlikely that the proper equipment will be available

 in Portland, I decided it was not worth the expense and hassle just to prove

 what most of us already know.

 To avoid the feeling of fiddling while Rome is burning, I dropped some

 samples of milled product off at Siebel Institute for an unbiased evaluation

 of the grist of the MALTMILL and the other mill.

 The results confirmed what George Fix reported a year ago and experience on

 over a thousand units has demonstrated.  The adjustable MM provides a grist

 that is comparable to a multistage commercial mill.  The fixed MM provides a

 very satisfactory grist but is a bit coarser and somewhat grain dependant.

 The other mill, when properly adjusted provides a sieve analysis similar to a

 fixed MM on paper but visual analysis shows more husk damage.  Unfortunately,

 the sieve analysis can not tell the difference between small husk particles

 and similar sized malt particles that pass through a sieve.  It was designed

 to test roller mills and not grinders or hybrids such as the other mill.

 For those going to Portland, there will be a MM on display in the TKO

 Software booth and Tom Nelson will have flyers and data sheets to hand out.

 Feel free to fondle it.  I am confident you will conclude that there is far

 more than the nuances of grist variation involved in selecting a grain mill.

 js

------------------------------


Re : syphoning through hops

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 93 17:30:32 BST

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: Re : syphoning through hops

I employ Kinney's tip on using pot scrubbers to prevent hops clogging the

syphon, but my system is more a mesh-bag-in-a-pot-scrubber than

a pot-scrubber-in-a-bag. Reason? It makes sense to apply a series of

progressively finer filters in order to prevent the mesh from clogging too

quickly.

- --

Conn V Copas

Loughborough University of Technology          tel : +44 (0)509 222689

Computer-Human Interaction Research Centre     fax : +44 (0)509 610815

Leicestershire  LE11 3TU              e-mail - (Janet):C.V.Copas@uk.ac.lut

G Britain                                      (Internet):C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk

------------------------------


RE: Priming, sugar vs. malt extract vs. gyle

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1993 09:55:37 -0600 (CST)

From: John Mare <cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: RE: Priming, sugar vs. malt extract vs. gyle

Rich asks for comments about the virtues of corn sugar, dry malt extract and

gyle as priming agents. When I first started brewing I used corn sugar which

worked OK, but then having decided to brew "all malt" only I switched to

gyle which was also good, but less convenient to use. I now use only dried

malt extract for priming. For English or Scottish style ales I use 1.25 cups

light dry extract dissolved in 2 pints water, boiled for 10 minutes, cooled,

& poured into my sanitized "bottling bin" (a plastic fermentor with spigot.

I then siphon the beer from my glass carboy (which allows good mixing

without much oxygenation), allow it to stand for about 15 minutes while

arranging bottles, and then bottle. For American style ales, California

Common beer, or lagers I use 1.33 cups of malt extract which results in

slightly higher carbonation. No more gushers as I had with corn sugar.

John of John's Alehouse.

------------------------------


Sierra Nevada

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1993 13:17:06 -0400 (EDT)

From: Stephen Brent Peters <sp2q+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: Sierra Nevada

My girlfriend is moving to Chico California where Sierra Nevada is

located.  I'm trying to decide if I should go with her, stay in PA, or

go somewhere else.

I have a liberal arts degree from an American University in the top

twenty, and I've been homebrewing like crazy for two years.

How likely is it that I could knock on their front door and get a job

 - any job - with SN?

Any Clues?

               Steve Peters =  sp2q@andrew.cmu.edu

                  *Oxnar demands a _Sacrifice!_*

------------------------------


CO2, Old book, Portland

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 93 11:06:23 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: CO2, Old book, Portland

Several posts have appeared recently about filling CO2 cylinders:

To the poster that got it filled at the bar, yes you got ripped

off.  Go to a welding supply, fire ext. supply or look in the YP

under Carbon Dioxide.  It does pay to shop around as prices vary.

When I bought my second CO2 tank, I asked if it was possible to

fill an empty tank from a full one.  Technically, it will work,

but it was explained to me as being very dangerous!  This was

because the tank being filled will heat up and explode if it

is done too fast and without the proper equipment.  In fact,

most of the welding gas suppliers in my area don't actually fill

tanks anymore, but exchange them.  The filling is done in a central

facility.  Bottom line:  Don't mess with it.  It can be fatal to

you and your neighbors!

On another topic, I was at the UC Davis library's "brewing room"

recently and I came across a very old book by E. R. Southby called

"Practical Brewing".  It had a lot of interesting information on

hops and hopping rates (the only stuff I copied, naturally) but

the book had no date on it.  The library's computer (actually the

Melvyl system) also had no date for the book or the author.  The

book was published in England, I would guess around 1890, but I

like to know for sure.  Does anybody have any clues?  Southby had

died a few years previous to this edition (the third).  If anyone

has any info on Southby or the book, I would appreciate it.  There

were many other old books there and I copied the hops data out of

three.  I'll summarize and post soon.  You'll find it very

interesting.

Related to my trip to Davis, I also got some better info on the

"hop storage curve".  There were two good articles and as soon as

I've had a chance to digest them, I'll post an update to my storage

post.

Lastly, I'll be in Portland for the Oregon Brewer's Festival (but not

the AHA event) at the Hopunion booth if anyone wants to drop by and

chat or say howdy.  How many of us will be there on the weekend?

Should we do a pub crawl on Friday night maybe?

Mark

------------------------------


Hermaphrodite hops/Alcohol as sterilant/Gone to Portland

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 93 14:33 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Hermaphrodite hops/Alcohol as sterilant/Gone to Portland

Joel writes:

>I have discovered that one of the Centennials has a few male flowers

>on it.  Is this common?  If so, how do commercial growers prevent

>pollenation?

Are you sure they are not just immature cones?  I made this mistake

last year.  I thought the "spiked cones" were males... they weren't.

*******************

Tom writes:

>Roger Deschner writes about using

>cheap vodka for sterilizing, a great

>advantage  being that its food-grade,

>and alcohol is a beer-component

>anyway.

>

>I use the same spray-bottle approach,

>but instead of vodka (60 - 80 proof),

>I use Everclear(tm) which is like 98

>proof grain alcohol, made for spiking

According to the latest Brewing Techniques, the contact time for

alcohol sanitation is 30 minutes.

*******************

Inevitably, when I don't post to the HBD for a week, I get a flurry of

private emails that either:

1.  ask if I'm boycotting the HBD for some reason, or

2.  all the people who disagreed with me in the last month

    send me appologies.

Don't, don't, don't panic...  I'm just off to the National Conference.

Hope to see some of you there!

Al.

------------------------------


Blowoff, Iodophor, Sterilizing bottles

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 93 13:58:22 PDT

From: bill@oilsystems.com (Bill Vaughan)

Subject: Blowoff, Iodophor, Sterilizing bottles

Here are a few data points to add to the debates:

Blowoff -- fortuitously, my last batch of "plain jane" got split into its

carboys unevenly.  Consequently, one blew off and one didn't.  Of course, the

best test would have been if I had kegged both carboys or bottled both, but

in fact I kegged the one that did blow off and bottled the other.  Anyhow,

at kegging/bottling time, I could definitely taste the difference between

the with-blowoff and without-blowoff carboys.  The without-blowoff carboy

had a tad more bitterness and was slightly "harsher."

   I have never done this kind of direct comparison before and frankly did

not expect to taste any difference at all.  Surprise.  The only problem is

that I just bought 2 more acid carboys (7-gal) and I can't ever fill them

enough to get a blowoff.  Maybe I shall use water carboys for my delicately-

flavored brews and acid carboys for the chewy dark ales.  I dunno.

Iodophor -- I have been using iodophor (BTF, I think) to sterilize my kegs.

I use the recommended amount for the recommended time and air-dry.  Then I

give the keg the sniff test.  If I smell ANY iodine, I rinse the keg with

boiling water.  So far I have ALWAYS smelled iodine.  I am not about to buy

another bottle of iodophor.  To me, the slightest iodine flavor would spoil

the batch and I hate to throw out 5 gal.  I suspect that boiling water alone

may work -- or else I shall go back to weak clorox followed by boiling water

rinse.  Let's face it -- kegs aren't that expensive.  If I get pinholes in

the s/s after, say, 5 years, the keg has cost me maybe 5 bucks a year.  (Of

course, if it's only ONE year, I'd feel different.)

Sterilizing bottles -- I have always sterilized my bottles in the dishwasher.

I clean the bottles thoroughly with TSP, in the sink, scrub them and rinse them

carefully.  Then they go in the dishwasher for a full wash cycle with NO

detergent, and a HEAT DRY (not air dry) cycle.  Naturally I prepare the

dishwasher first by cleaning all the guck out of it and running it once

while empty.  Bottom line -- Mary and I have never had a bad batch that

could be attributed to unsterile bottles.  (I.e. either the whole batch was

uniformly bad or uniformly good.  We did have an episode where our yeast

starters got infected once.)

   I have mild asthma and Mary has it bad.  We have to be careful about

sulfites.  All you homebrewers, please remember that Campden tablets and

bisulfite sterilants can make your homebrew toxic to those with respiratory

problems.

   BTW, whenever I have a chance I sterilize with boiling water in lieu of

chlorine.  This only works for small stuff like airlocks but is quite

effective and there is no danger of chlorophenol or iodine contamination.

I think it is just common sense to eschew toxic substances wherever possible.

- --Bill

------------------------------


On to Portland!

Date: 23 Jul 1993 14:55:19 U

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

Subject: On to Portland!

Subject:  On to Portland!                       Time:2:43 PM     Date:7/23/93

Well the stickers are made and I'm heading north on Saturday to collect some

beer and find Portland. Come and find me at the conference and I'll present you

with your computer brewer id!

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / Home (707) 769-0425

------------------------------


Helpful Brewers

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 93 14:58:42 PDT

From: Don_Doyle@Novell.COM (Don Doyle)

Subject: Helpful Brewers

I wanted to extend thanks to the brewers that have replied to questions I

have submitted and encourage other brewers to use HBD to also do so. It

will invite new thoughts or re-thinking of those brewers who want to stay

sharp.

Again thanks,

Don Doyle

------------------------------


Old Hops

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1993 09:17:43 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Old Hops

> From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

> Subject: hops: Arizona/hermaphrodite/antique

>

> Antique Hops:

>

> A portion of my parent's farm in Oregon was once used for raising hops.

> Apparently this was a fairly large scale operation, since there was a

> rather large outbuilding dedicated to hop drying (oast?).  The previous

> owners probably quit hop farming in the thirties or forties, but some

> hop plants have persisted in the wild.

>

> Could anyone hazard a guess as to the variety of these hops?  I suspect

> that they are not considered a desirable type any longer, but I would

> like to brew a batch with them, for sentimental reasons, and I would like

> to get as much information as possible beforehand.

>

American hops were not highly thought of in brewing circles until quite

recently, and for good reason.  I would be willing to bet that the stuff

growing on your parents' farm are Clusters in some form or other.  It's

amazing to me that some people are still brewing with these hops, which

used to be considered high alpha -- they have no other redeeming quality

as far as I can tell.  The British referred to American hops as being

"catty", which meant nothing to me until I smelled some Clusters: they

smelled just like a catbox.

I have some terrific old photographs, courtesy of the Oregon Historical

Society, of old hop farming, some dating back to the turn of the

century, and some from the period in which your old hop farmer quit.

During the 20s-40s (judging from the clothing), at least some of the

Oregon hop growers were training their hops along low-lying strings,

- --Jeff

------------------------------


What is a microbrewery?

Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1993 03:12:27 -0400 (EDT)

From: waltman@BIX.com

Subject: What is a microbrewery?

Maybe we should come up with terminology describing individual beers by the

size of the batch. (My understanding that the legal definitions of

microbreweries [for tax purposes]are based on the aggregate annual

production of the entire brewery.) I think this would help differentiate

those beers that are brewed in megabrewery size batches a few times a year

as opposed to those that are brewed more often in smaller batches. This is

not to imply that smaller is better, but I think it could make for more

rational comparisions. Just my $.02 worth.

Fred Waltman

Marina del Rey, CA

waltman@bix.com

------------------------------


Brewing Techniques Info

Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1993 08:42:45 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kieran O'Connor <koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: Brewing Techniques Info

Hi--a fair number of you sent me mail regarding Brewing Techniques. here's

the info:

Brewing Techniques

PO BOX 3222

Eugene, Oregon 97403

(503) 687-8534.

They take credit cards for orders-so it looks like you could just call.

Its 24$/yr for six issues.

You shoudl be able to find it in your local supplier--and the one around

here discounted the first isue since the second issue is now out.

The first issue had 42 pages of text--a fair amount of which was articles:

1)Facftors Affecting Hop Quality,...and Brewers Preference.

2)Belgian Malts--some pratical observations

3) Reinheitsgebot and the fifth ingredient

4) The Troubleshooter--an advice column--w/o the Hbd

5) Brewing in styles--a changing discussion on styles and how to brew them

6) Thinking about recpe formulation

7) Spreadsheet recipe design

8) And a bunch of assorted smaller depts--a book review, and a few others.

Overall I think the first effort was quite good. In fact a few of the

articles mentioned above were written by HBD'ers with extensive knowledge.

BT looks quite promising and I tihnk I got more info from this one issue

than I got from that other thing in a year.

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Address: koconnor@lor.syr.edu

Syracuse, N.Y. USA

------------------------------


Calories and beer

Date: Sat, 24 Jul 93 10:07:18 EDT

From: ab126@freenet.carleton.ca (Jay Cadieux)

Subject: Calories and beer

Does anyone know a formula to calculate the amount of calories in beer,

based on original gravity, terminal gravity, etc.?

- --

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jay A. Cadieux (ab126@freenet.carleton.ca, 1:163/277.1@fidonet.org).

"Be the master of your shadow, not the shadow of your master" - Nietzsche

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Brewing Techniques Update

Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1993 17:31:15 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kieran O'Connor <koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: Brewing Techniques Update

Sorry Folks--BT has a new phone number:

(503) 687-2993.

Fax (503) 687-8534.

Disregard the number in my first post.

And here's another rant aobut that national organization. Did you know (I

did not) that you have to be an AHA member to be a certified beer judge?

Sort of like a bribe--no?

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Address: koconnor@lor.syr.edu

Syracuse, N.Y. USA

------------------------------


northwestern is briess

Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1993 19:15:39 -0500

From: donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: northwestern is briess

curious report on friday of someone making good beer with northwestern

extract but having trouble with briess since they are exactly the same.

northwestern gets briess in drums and pails just like the one the

individual purchased and repackages it in plastic bags in a box.

------------------------------


Crazey Train Update

Date: Sun, 25 Jul 93 02:37 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: Crazey Train Update

Crazy Train Update:  Minot, North Dakota

 - Breweries past and noted: Sprecher, Miller.

 - Honker's Ale quarter barrel was sucked dry by midnite.

 - North Dakota is *really* flat, just in case you're wondering.

 - Saw a Prairie Dog at the geographic center of North America.

 - Kathy Ireland is a real party animal.

 - Miller Clear was delivered at midnight by a Minneapolis beer geek.

 - Someone was quoted as saying: "Oh that skull has hurt me", followed by

an hour of psychotic moaning.

 - Currently listening to Crazy Train tape #5 on player #2.

 - Picked up a cabin boy, who was well paid in beer.

 - Frank "The Pharaoh" Boone makes a jolly breakfast beer.

 - Most of the Belgian beer disappeared in a midnight frenzy.

 - Ed Bronson failed in his efforts to convert a luggage compartment to a

sleeper, twice.

 - The upper Mississippi is really flooded so downstream beware.

 - John Isenhour, who was the 1st and 2nd to pass-out was the 1st to wake

up and start drinking again.

<more to come>

------------------------------


Mashing Specialty Malts, Calculating PPMs

Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1993 12:30:12 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Mashing Specialty Malts, Calculating PPMs

I'm an extract brewer moving to all-grain.  Which specialty malts

must be mashed, e.g., crystal, black, chocolate, cara-pils.

A question for the chemists out there, when calculating water

treatment, how does one calculate quantities of salts to hit

target PPMs?  I always assumed that PPM is based on numbers

of ATOMS, but when I do the arithmetic using molecular weights

and avogadro's number I do not get the same results as Papazian

in TNCJHB and Miller in TCHHB.  Tried both hydrated and anhydrous

gypsum.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1189, 07/26/93

*************************************

-------


RIP OFF

Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1993 16:27:47 -0400 (EDT)

From: SMUCKER@UTKVX.UTCC.UTK.EDU

Subject: RIP OFF

Hyrum Laney

>Questions:  What is the proper way to fill a CO2 tank?  Did the

>bar's method>work?  Is the gas from a fire company safe to

>consume?

Well it sure sounds to be like you got ripped off!  What you most

likely got was your tank filled with 800 psi CO2.  There are two

types of large tanks (50 pound tanks typical)  those which bars

and welders would normally use where they want gas and those

with a liquid tube than runs to the bottom like our kegs so that

liquid is forced out.  The latter type is used mostly for high

pressure fire protection systems.  In industry these are often

called high pressure CARDOX tanks.  You could easily fill a

smaller cylinder from these liquid tube type cylinders.  It is

possible to fill small cylinders from a normal gas type cylinder

but you have to turn them up side down.  Not an easy thing to

dosafely with a cylinder that weights in at about 160 pounds.

There is another type of CO2 storage tank and that is the low

pressure CARDOX tank.  These very large systems use a insulated

tank with a refrigeration system which allows the CO2 to be

stored as a liquid under lower pressure.  These tanks typical run

between 10,000 and 30,000 pounds of storage. (That would handle

a lot of homebrew.)  These large systems are used for major fire

control systems on things like rolling mills used to roll all of the

aluminum for beer cans.  Also tank trucks whichtransport large

amounts of CO2 use this low pressure refrigeration systems.

Back to Hyrum Laney questions the fill you got from the Fire

company may very well have come from on of these low pressure,

refrigerated storage systems.  This would required a pump to

fillyour tank, or to fill fire extingures.

Safety of the gas?  Well, within reason I consider industrial CO2

gas from a welding supply company or the Fire company safe.

(The fire company most likely got their supply from one of the

large industrial gas supply companies.)  Purity levels of

industrial gases are very high and I have only had a problem once

and that was argon which had some cotamination of H2O (water),

that came from the cylinder, remaining from a hydrostatic test.

Screw up the TIG welding very badly, doesn't take much H2O to do

that.  Bottom line of all this I have my 50 pound cylinder filled at

my welding gas supplier--- 50 pounds lasts more that a year,

costs $ 19.00 to fill,  but the 160 pounds filled cylinder

will not fit in the refrigerator.

Dave Smucker,   Brewing beer --- not making jelly!

------------------------------


Zymurgy Hate Mail

Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1993 18:27:02 -0400 (EDT)

From: SMUCKER@UTKVX.UTCC.UTK.EDU

Subject: Zymurgy Hate Mail

Kieran O'Connor" is worried about getting hate mail because he

is critical of Zymurgy.  Hate Mail" ? well I guess I hate Zymurgy

too.  Zymurgy could be so much more that it is.  I think the real

question is that as homebrewing has been growing up into a

wider appeal hobby,  "has Zymurgy been growing up too?"  I don't

think so and that why this forum and new magazines like

Brewing Tech. have so much appeal.

It is time for the staff of Zymurgy to listen to some

constructive criticizing and to start making some

improvements.  After all for many in this forum who are

members of AHA, Zymurgy as the publication of a non profit

organization is our magazine.

Homebrewing has become, some will say always was, a serious

hobby.  While I enjoy jokes about the hobby and brewing in

general the Zymurgy "Don't worry" kick gets real old, real fast.

Most of us want good beer and we do care about what we invest

a lot of time and spend hard earned cash on.  The "don't worry" it

may not taste like what you want but it will be drinkable just

doesn't match up with the serious brewer today.  My

recommendation --- drop it.

I think the ads are useful but once a year would be enough for all

of the AHA ad pages.  Same goes for the filler page listings.  Not

ever club, ever donor needs to be listed each issue.  Put those

pages in articles about brewing.  While on the subject of

articles, include more information and more data, and above all

tell readers where one can get follow up information.  A full

page wasted on someone falling into a pile of hops rather that

more information on dry hopping is just that, a wasted page.

And last, but not least, the Zymurgy staff should, if they haven't

all ready done so, go out at look at the magazines of some other

hobbies.  They will find that the publications try to include has

much information and help as possible in the pages they print,

not just print the same filler again issue after issue.  By the

way, why isn't Zymurgy a monthly magazine?  From the amount

being published in this forum it would not seem that it is a lack

of authors or information. Is the Zymurgy staff too busy living

off a non profit organization?

By the way if you disagree send the hate mail to Kieran

O'Connor.  I intend to stay a member of AHA but would like to

see Zymurgy improve in the '90ies.

Dave Smucker,    Brewing beer,-- not making jelly!

------------------------------


Beer? Just push a button...

Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1993 23:11:59 -0400 (EDT)

From: Wayde Nie <u9106857@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>

Subject: Beer? Just push a button...

 I came across this article while collecting the old newspapers

from around the house for recycling.  I thought you all might be interested.

*****************

Reprinted without permission (Sorry :-) from The Toronto Star, Monday,

July 12, 1993. Page C1 (Business Today)

Beer? Just push a button

By Greg Joyce

THE CANADIAN PRESS

     VANCOUVER - It's a drinker's dream - a machine that

turns water into beer at the push of a button.

     Canadians will soon be able to have beer on tap at

home, thanks to the FH2000 Beer Machine - a device about

the size of a coffee maker, says Tim Crosby, president of

Vancouver-based marketing company Fountain House Holdings

Corp.

     Crosby says the cost of a pint from the machine will

be about $1.50.

     The Beer Machine was introduced last month at a news

conference in England, drawing rave reviews in several

British newspapers.

     Operating instructions are simple, Crosby said

Friday.

     Perhaps too simple for the ale aficionado.

     The machine is attached to the home's water supply -

 most likely near the kitchen sink or wet bar.

     On one side of the machine is attached the beer

syrup. On the other side is a refillable carbon dioxide

cylinder.

     The lager lover simply pushes a button and waits a

few seconds. The carbonated water fills a mixing chamber

at the top of the machine along with a shot of syrup.

     The mixing process takes about 10 seconds and the

golden nectar flows into the waiting glass.

     The alcohol content is now 3.5 per cent but Crosby

said that could be increased later to the more standard

5 per cent.

     After the machine's debut in England, the London-

based Star newspaper headlined the story "Tip-Tap Tipple"

and quoted citizens as approving of the beer's taste.

     Another newspaper quoted British trade leaders as

saying the machine posed a threat to an already

struggling pub industry.

     Crosby said his company planned to try to make the

machine available to Canadian consumers by January. It

was demonstrated for a reporter at the company's downtown

office on Friday.

     "The cost in Canada (for the machine) will be

between $150 to $175 (plus taxes)," said Crosby. He said

the Beer Machine retails for about $200 in Britain.

     Consumers must also buy the carbon dioxide cylinder

and the syrup, which is currently made at a brewery in

Britain and sells there for about $12 a can, said Crosby.

     In Canada, the syrup will be subject to liquor

taxes.

     Fountain House is listed on the Vancouver Stock Exchange.

******************

 I don't think that I'll be givin' up my homebrew for it... (Neat

idea though :-)

 Draw your own conclusions... Standard Disclaimers apply... etc...

                                      ///

                                     (o o)

- ---------------------------------ooO--(*)--Ooo--------------------------------

                  Wayde Nie, u9106857@McMail.CIS.McMaster.CA

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Beer? Just push a button...

Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1993 23:11:59 -0400 (EDT)

From: Wayde Nie <u9106857@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>

Subject: Beer? Just push a button...

 I came across this article while collecting the old newspapers

from around the house for recycling.  I thought you all might be interested.

*****************

Reprinted without permission (Sorry :-) from The Toronto Star, Monday,

July 12, 1993. Page C1 (Business Today)

Beer? Just push a button

By Greg Joyce

THE CANADIAN PRESS

     VANCOUVER - It's a drinker's dream - a machine that

turns water into beer at the push of a button.

     Canadians will soon be able to have beer on tap at

home, thanks to the FH2000 Beer Machine - a device about

the size of a coffee maker, says Tim Crosby, president of

Vancouver-based marketing company Fountain House Holdings

Corp.

     Crosby says the cost of a pint from the machine will

be about $1.50.

     The Beer Machine was introduced last month at a news

conference in England, drawing rave reviews in several

British newspapers.

     Operating instructions are simple, Crosby said

Friday.

     Perhaps too simple for the ale aficionado.

     The machine is attached to the home's water supply -

 most likely near the kitchen sink or wet bar.

     On one side of the machine is attached the beer

syrup. On the other side is a refillable carbon dioxide

cylinder.

     The lager lover simply pushes a button and waits a

few seconds. The carbonated water fills a mixing chamber

at the top of the machine along with a shot of syrup.

     The mixing process takes about 10 seconds and the

golden nectar flows into the waiting glass.

     The alcohol content is now 3.5 per cent but Crosby

said that could be increased later to the more standard

5 per cent.

     After the machine's debut in England, the London-

based Star newspaper headlined the story "Tip-Tap Tipple"

and quoted citizens as approving of the beer's taste.

     Another newspaper quoted British trade leaders as

saying the machine posed a threat to an already

struggling pub industry.

     Crosby said his company planned to try to make the

machine available to Canadian consumers by January. It

was demonstrated for a reporter at the company's downtown

office on Friday.

     "The cost in Canada (for the machine) will be

between $150 to $175 (plus taxes)," said Crosby. He said

the Beer Machine retails for about $200 in Britain.

     Consumers must also buy the carbon dioxide cylinder

and the syrup, which is currently made at a brewery in

Britain and sells there for about $12 a can, said Crosby.

     In Canada, the syrup will be subject to liquor

taxes.

     Fountain House is listed on the Vancouver Stock Exchange.

******************

 I don't think that I'll be givin' up my homebrew for it... (Neat

idea though :-)

 Draw your own conclusions... Standard Disclaimers apply... etc...

                                      ///

                                     (o o)

- ---------------------------------ooO--(*)--Ooo--------------------------------

                  Wayde Nie, u9106857@McMail.CIS.McMaster.CA

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Zima Clear Malt Liquor

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 09:17:46 -0400

From: blosskf@ttown.apci.com (Karl F. Bloss)

Subject: Zima Clear Malt Liquor

Stephen Brent Peters <sp2q+@andrew.cmu.edu>

writes:

[...]

I hear it tastes like Fresca, and it really is H2O clear.  Has anyone

else seen this, or is it just being dumped in the pittsburgh area?

[...]

It's out here in eastern PA also; I suspect much of the East Coast has

seen it.  Fresca?  Hmm, I thought it was more like spiked flat Crystal

Pepsi.  Yech!  Hey, maybe that's the recipe! ;-)

 -Karl

(blosskf@ttown.apci.com)

------------------------------


Re: Sterilizing bottles

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 09:21:48 EDT

From: tmr@fjtld.att.com

Subject: Re: Sterilizing bottles

In the HOMEBREW Digest #1189 of 7/26/93, Bill Vaughan tells us how he

sterilizes his bottles in a dishwasher.  It sounds like a good method,

but he is only sanitizing them, not sterilizing them.  I use the

dishwasher myself to clean empty bottles of homebrew.  When they drip

dry, I store them away.  Before I bottle though, I soak them in a bleach

solution, rinse them and let them drain.  This, I believe, will kill all

the bugs rather than a good washing will.

     Tom Romalewski

------------------------------


Filling CO2 Tanks

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 09:40:16 EDT

From: gorman@aol.com

Subject: Filling CO2 Tanks

Probably the most convenient places to get CO2 tanks filled are fire

extinguisher sales/service companies. They're all over the place, look in the

yellow pages.

Bill Gorman

------------------------------


co2 gas vs. liquid

Date: Sun, 25 Jul 93 20:05:27 CDT

From: kulick@ebs330.eb.uah.edu (jeff kulick)

Subject: co2 gas vs. liquid

CO2 at room temperature vaporizes at about 45 atmospheres, or about

800 psi.  So, a 20 lb tank of co2 gas (which i guess is about

1 cu ft.) has about 45 cu ft of gas.   However, it is rated at about

800 cu ft. capacity, so the liquid form is much denser.

If you pump just a little co2 liquid into the tank, it vaporizes, and

may get 46 or 47 cu ft. You must pump the liquid into the tank, which you

can't do from another co2 tank at room temperature.

So, if you filled it at bar, you didn't get very much.

I've been getting co2 at a welding supply, and they say they

supply the pop companies so I guess their co2 is ok.

,

------------------------------


RE: Zima

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1993 09:04:43 +22306512 (CDT)

From: dhholscl@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (David Holsclaw)

Subject: RE: Zima

Group,

    Don't go out of your way to try the Zima!!

    A friend of mine was given a can of this stuff, so we decided to be open

minded and give it a try. BIG MISTAKE! It was like drinking unflavored

gelatine. My wife, of course, thought it was great. :(  Do you think that is

grounds for divorce? :)

    Even if it is free, it is not worth the time and effort to try this cr*p.

One other thing, I thought this was a Coors product? The can said Zima Brewing

Company? Is this a Coors subsidiary or am I just confused (not unusual).

    Cheers to everyone else NOT in Portland. :)

****************************************************************************

David H. Holsclaw                  Just Say No...

dhholscl@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu          to Sam Adams Beer!

****************************************************************************

------------------------------


CO2 filling,  big stainless

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 10:09:28 CDT

From: hinz@memphis.med.ge.com (David Hinz)

Subject: CO2 filling,  big stainless

Mark at Hoptech<tm> wrote:

- ----

When I bought my second CO2 tank, I asked if it was possible to

fill an empty tank from a full one.  Technically, it will work,

but it was explained to me as being very dangerous!  This was

because the tank being filled will heat up and explode if it

is done too fast and without the proper equipment.  In fact,

most of the welding gas suppliers in my area don't actually fill

tanks anymore, but exchange them.  The filling is done in a central

facility.  Bottom line:  Don't mess with it.  It can be fatal to

you and your neighbors!

- ----

I'd like to add an emphatic second to that.  I've done quite a bit

of high-pressure work, and I've seen some pretty impressive failures

(shown as visual aids on "why you shouldn't do it this way").

When we fill air tanks for our fire department (to about 3000 PSI), we use

what's called a "cascade" system - we have four large tanks, at about

750psi, 1500psi, 2250psi, and 3000psi.  We slowly open the first valve, bring

the tank to 750, close the first valve.  Open the second slowly, etc. etc.

etc.  Once the top one gets down to about 2300, we rotate the tanks, and get

the lowest one filled up to 3000.  Do not try this at home - this is pretty

expensive equipment, and we had a professional (certified) fitter do all of

the plumbing for it.  Only about 3 of us on the department are trained to use

the cascade system.

- -----------

I wrote a few days back about my 200 gallon milk chiller - I'm still looking

for good ideas of what to do with the silly thing.  What do y'all think about

using it as a big lagering vessel?

Silly idea time here (best way to get lots of responses, like the paper-

shredder grain mill),

CAN I FILL IT WITH WATER AND LAGER MY BOTTLES (of beer) UNDER WATER?

The reason I ask this is like this:  At night & on weekends, my electricity

costs 1/6th of the daytime rate.  If I had this thing full of 200 gallons of

water (minus the volume of beer), it would have lots and lots of thermal mass,

and I could probably get by with not running the compressor when power is

expensive.  The tank can chill 200 gallons of milk from cow temperature

(presumably around 37C, 98.6F) to 35F degrees (nice temp, eh?) in less than

an HOUR, so obviously this is a powerful chiller, and will suck lots of

current when running.

Tanks,

Dave Hinz

------------------------------


in defense of sugar & iodophor

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 11:18:01 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: in defense of sugar & iodophor

In the last digest:

From: John Mare <cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: RE: Priming, sugar vs. malt extract vs. gyle

<snip

<No more gushers as I had with corn sugar.

I wont argue the issue of sugar vs wort vs krausen vs DME other to say

dont blame the sugar on your gushers.  Proper carbonation is obtainable

using any of the listed alternatives.  Pick what suits your environment and

ease of use.  When I am brewing tons of beer and have krausen available,

it is great to use.  Usually, 1/2 of each batch I make is primed with

corn sugar due to ease of use. It works fine.

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: CO2, Old book, Portland

<When I bought my second CO2 tank, I asked if it was possible to

<fill an empty tank from a full one.  Technically, it will work,

<but it was explained to me as being very dangerous!

Hummm, this is news to me.  I had my local CO2 shop put together a F-F CO2

coupling and hose for $15.  I hook one end to a 20Lb tank, the other to

a small 2-5 Lb and fill it up.  I guess I dont open the valve all the way

at once, but I have found a freezing/chilling effect as opposed to a heat

build up.  It only will fill 1/4 or so depending on how full the 20Lb is,

but It doesnt seem that dangerous.  The whole process takes about 20 seconds

to "fill".

From: bill@oilsystems.com (Bill Vaughan)

Subject: Blowoff, Iodophor, Sterilizing bottles

<Blowoff -- fortuitously, my last batch of "plain jane" got split into its

carboys unevenly.

The real test between this constant blowoff no blowoff debate is what is the

change if you skim the trub/yeast from the top of the nonblowoff fermenter??

This is how we traditional top fermenting ale brewers do it and it works

great. The point is removal of the trub/hop/yeast junk prior to falling back

in.

<The only problem is that I just bought 2 more acid carboys and I can't

 ever fill them enough to get a blowoff.

 Pitch more healthy cultured yeast and they will blow.

<Iodophor ...So far I have ALWAYS smelled iodine.  I am not about to buy

another bottle of iodophor.

Fine, dont use it for dumb reasons.  My experience over the last year of only

using Iodophor (Diversy)_ at 12.5 ppm (1 0z into 10 gal) is it is the best,

easiest to use non corrosive cleaner on the market.  Fill the keg, add 1/2 oz

let stand 15 minutes, empty and lately I rinse once.  Sometimes hot water,

sometimes cold.  Like Al noted, my water is clean enough for rinsing kegs

without infection.  Using this method, I have dispensed over 15 batches

without any iodine troubles.  I think you may be getting overworked on the

smell thing, or are using too strong a solution.

<If I get pinholes in

the s/s after, say, 5 years, the keg has cost me maybe 5 bucks a year

It will be interesting to see just how much a keg costs in 5 years.

<From: ab126@freenet.carleton.ca (Jay Cadieux)

Subject: Calories and beer

<Does anyone know a formula to calculate the amount of calories in beer,

<based on original gravity, terminal gravity, etc.?

Check the archives, George Fix posted this about a year ago, excellent stuff,

but I dont want to feel guilty by actually calculating that my beer is

400 calories a pint.....it is interesting to see the difference between the

amount of calories from alcohol vs from sugars/dextrins.

Portland....been there, done that,  whats next?? Waaaaaaaaaa,

I miss Bridgeport Blue Heron Cask Ale......One of the top 5 cask ales in the

US.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

DE HOPPEDUIVEL DRINKT MET ZWIER 'T GEZONDE BLOND HOPPEBIER!

------------------------------


OOPS!

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 10:45:24 CDT

From: pyeatt@Texaco.COM (Larry D. Pyeatt)

Subject: OOPS!

I Wrote:

> Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 08:21:49 CDT

> From: pyeatt@Texaco.COM (Larry D. Pyeatt)

>

> Subject: Degrees of Extract

> Don Doyle writes:

>> As a real example, I brewed 11gals with 26.5 lbs of grains and got

>> a 1.065. What extraction am I getting and is it good?

> Well, plugging the numbers into the equation,

> DE = 1.065 * 11 / 26.5 = .44

> or 44 degrees of extract.  From this, I would guess that you

> added some malt syrup or adjunct.

This is wrong.  It should have been:

DE = 65 * 11 /26.5 = 26.98

or 27 degrees.  Not bad, but you could probably get a little better.

most people I talk to are happy to get around 25 degrees.

I use a Recirculating Infusion Mash system, which helps boost my

extraction.  Also, the way the grains are crushed can make a big

difference.

Larry D. Pyeatt                    This article does not reflect the views

( pronounced "Johnson" )           of my employer or of myself.  Any simi-

Internet : pyeatt@texaco.com       larity to the views of anyone, real or

Voice    : (713) 975-4056          fictional, is purely coincidental.

------------------------------


Briess, Northwestern

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 12:02:29 CDT

From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>

Subject: Briess, Northwestern

Thanks to all of those individuals who let me know that kBriess and

Norhtwestern malt extracts are one and the same, the only difference

being the packaging.  Now I have a real problem on my hands, namely

figuring out what the Hell is going on with my brew!!!

A few questions to those who know (or think they do):

1) Can malt extract go bad upon prolonged storage?  How can you tell if

it is bad?  Will molds, or other beasties grow in undiluted malt

extract, or will the osmotic pressure prevent this, much like with

honey?

2)  If malt extract is able to support unwanted life, will any

byproducts of these vermin survive a 60-90 min boil or will they be

evaporated away?

3)  If Briess and Northwestern are one and the same, how is it that both

my brewmate and I have both noticed significant differences in brews

which used equal amounts of either, when all else has been held

constant?

An unrelated question:

I am hoping to receive my M.S. in organic chemistry later this year and

would like to pursue a career in brewing.  Of what value to me would it

be to pursue another degree in fermentation science?  What is the best

way to get a job at a "small" brewery? (Not necessarily micro, but not a

at AB/Coors/Miller?)  I've tried the classifieds, but rarely see

anything listed under BREWING, BEER, or FERMENTATIONS.  Anyone in the

business who could offer advice (or a job), private e-mail would be very

appreciated.

Sincerely,

Anthony Johnston

anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu

------------------------------


Aging "bad batches"

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1993 13:21:17 -0400

From: patterso@mason1.gmu.edu (F. G. Patterson Jr.)

Subject: Aging "bad batches"

> From: jim@n5ial.mythical.com (Jim Graham)

>

> .... As for the bad batches, I'm basically taking the advice someone

> here gave me---keep 'em around until I need the bottles.  Every so

> often, I put one in the 'fridge and see if it tastes ok.  I've yet to

> find one that did ....

My experience is just the opposite.  Every time I've put a batch aside

to give it a chance to age, the problems have disappeared.  I have had

bad initial experiences with using whole grains.  The results were just

awful for months.  But somewhere in the time frame of 6 to 9 months

later, the beer improved and is now VERY good.

------------------------------


calculating ppms

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 10:26:18 PDT

From: Victor Stevko (Human Genome Center, LBL) <stevko@genome.lbl.gov>

Subject: calculating ppms

PPM stands for parts per million, figured (usually) by weights.  It has

nothing to do with molecular weights at all.  So, one PPM of sodium atoms

indicates one gram of sodium atoms per megagram, or 1000kg, of water.

 Where chemistry enters is that these salts are ionic solids - they

dissociate into component ions when dissolved in water.  So, salt (NaCl)

becomes Na+ and Cl- ions.  You should get the PPM of the components by

figuring the percentage weight of each component, and multiplying by the

appropriate factor.  If I add 100 grams of salt to my 1000kg of water, the

sodium will be 23/58 * 100g, or about 40g, and the Cl- will be about 60g,

from the proportion of their atomic masses.  So, my tank of water will be

40 ppm in Na+ and 60 ppm in Cl- ions, when I've dissolved & stirred, since

I started with perfect water.

 Does this help any?  I haven't looked at the charts in the books.

   ---Victor

------------------------------


Various questions

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 10:59:31 PDT

From: Robert Pulliam <Robert_Pulliam@aja.rand.org>

Subject: Various questions

First of all, I would like to thank the many people who responded to

my request for plans to build a counterflow chiller (Thanks.)

Secondly, a few questions:

  1.  For a 30 foot chiller, what might I expect the temperature of the

      exiting water to be.  Must I use a hot water rated hose?

  2.  When calculating my extraction efficiency, do I use the gravity of

      the wort fresh from the tun or after the boil?

  3.  Is there an advantage to using a thick mash compared to using an

      extremely thin one that would give me say 7-8 gallons on first

      runnings without having to add additional sparge water?

        and finally

  4.  I seem to recall a thread somewhere that discussed having to bring

      up the temperature of cold fermented beers near the end of the

      fermentation cycle to help remove somthingorother.  Is this a

      figment of my imagination or something I need to be doing?

Robert J. Pulliam            |+|all thoughts, statements, and opinions,|+|

Los Angeles, CA.             |+|demented or not, should be my own; and |+|

pulliam@monty.rand.org       |+|I'm certainly not associated . . . . . |+|

------------------------------


Geary's Pale Ale

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 15:22:38 EDT

From: lyons%adc3@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: Geary's Pale Ale

I recently sampled Geary's Pale Ale.  I was very impressed by the

flavor profile.  Does anyone on the net have an idea of which yeast

is used or which would most closely match it?

------------------------------


Re: Mark Garetz query about old book, HBD1189

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 16:42:19 EDT

From: LeRoy S. Strohl <lstrohl@s850.mwc.edu>

Subject: Re: Mark Garetz query about old book, HBD1189

The following information was located in the National Union Catalog.

Southby, E.   R.

   A systematic handbook of practical brewing: including a full

   description of the buildings, plant, materials and processes

   required for brewing all descriptions of beer, both from malt alone

   and from mixtures of malt with all descriptions of unmalted grain...

   By E.R. Southby... 2d ed. London, E.R. Southby, 1885.

   (7), viii, 391 p.  23cm.

The catalog copy of this work was provided by the University of Chicago

and I could find no listing of a first editon.

Southby was also the author of an earlier work (1877) entitled:

   Brewing; practically and scientifically considered.

   London, Printed by Unwin Brothers, 1877.

   150 p.

Hope this helps.

*********************************************

roy strohl       lstrohl@s850.mwc.edu

proudly drinking one homebrew at a time

*********************************************

------------------------------


cancel subscription

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1993 18:54:10 -0400 (EDT)

From: VLACICH_@bentley.edu

Subject: cancel subscription

I would like to cancel my subscription.

 thank you,

  jason

------------------------------


Digital vs. lexical yeast

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1993 18:11:13 -0800

From: pohl@unixg.ubc.ca (Derrick Pohl)

Subject: Digital vs. lexical yeast

Is there some reason why most people on the HBD refer to the Wyeast yeasts

by number rather than by name?  Like for instance, are the same numbered

yeasts sold by different names in different parts of the continent?  Or do

the numbers refer to some universal system of identifying strains of yeast?

 Or do people just like the scientific ring to using a number rather than a

name?  If each number has a unique name and the name is the same wherever

Wyeast is sold, then why not use the names?  I for one find it much easier

to remember the names, and when I go to the brewing store I don't ask for a

pouch of "good ol' number 1038" (or whatever), I ask for "London Ale" or

"Bohemian Lager" yeast.  I suppose I could tape an old package up on the

wall by my computer for quick reference, but this seems a little awkward,

and people are liable to think I'm even more obsessed with brewing than

they already do.

Maybe people could at least include the name along with the number for

those of us whose brains haven't entirely melded with our silicon yet.

- -----

Derrick Pohl (pohl@unixg.ubc.ca)

UBC Faculty of Graduate Studies, Vancouver, B.C.

------------------------------


Crushoff in Portland

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 20:23 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Crushoff in Portland

 >From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

 >Subject: Hot liquor tanks

 >Has anyone converted a hot water heater into a hot liquor tank?  I

 have two options: 220V electric with 2 elements or a gas fired unit.

 One problem with a closed water heater you may want to think about is the

 fact that chlorine and other volatiles in the water have nowhere to go.  In

 an open vessel they evaporate continually.

 >From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

 >Subject: Re : syphoning through hops

 >I employ Kinney's tip on using pot scrubbers to prevent hops clogging the

 syphon, but my system is more a mesh-bag-in-a-pot-scrubber than

 a pot-scrubber-in-a-bag. Reason? It makes sense to apply a series of

 progressively finer filters in order to prevent the mesh from clogging too

 quickly.

 All of this, of course, is unnecessary with an easymasher installed in the

 mash tun/boiler.  However, in my one exerience dryhopping in a carboy I

 solved the problem of siphoning by simply sliding the em strainer tube over

 the end of the siphon and being the same diameter, it fit like a glove and

 worked like a champ.

 For those not wanting or needing the em, you can still solve the siphon

 problem with a tube made of screen slid over the end of the siphon with the

 end pinched.  You can slide it up or down to expose as much screen as you

 wish and when you get near the bottom you just push the tube down so only a

 14 inch or so is exposed.

 Just roll a 2 X 6 inch piece of screen over 3/8" diameter rod and pinch and

 bend the las half inch to seal it off.  Slip this over the end of siphon

 tube.  BTW, if you put this on the end of piece of coppur tubing and bend it

 so that the screen lies flat on the bottom and the other end rises over the

 edge of the pot, you have a portable easymasher.

 js

------------------------------


Intro & a question

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 21:35:01 -0700

From: jgibbens@polyslo.csc.calpoly.edu (Jonathan Gibbens)

Subject: Intro & a question

Howdy fellow brewers,

My name is Jon Gibbens and I've been brewing for about 7 months now.  I've been

reading the HBD for about 2 years now and figured it was time to "show my face."

Anyway, all my recipies so far have been your standard Papazian-influenced

dry extract recipies with a little of my own creative flair thrown in for

good measure.  I just got done brewing my 14th batch, a raspberry porter

a la "Goat Scrotum Ale" with 9 lbs of raspberries added for good measure.

My question is:  This last batch was my first batch to go in a plastic fermenter

,all my previous ones have been in glass.  How do you sufficiently aereate

your wort before it goes into the fermenter?  In glass it's easy..just cap

the carboy and start shakin' like mad, turn it this way and that, upside down,

you know the whole story.  I was thinking that maybe the next time I do this,

I'll FIRST put it in a glass fermenter and shake it up, then pour it out

into the plastic fermenter and THEN pitch my yeast.

Now for an obligatory recipie: Being unable to find a recipe anywhere for

a weizenbock, I made up my own.  I'm not sure about the "authenticness",

but who cares?

Wacky Weizenbock

6 lbs Brewmaster Dried Wheat Extract

3 lbs Brewmaster Dried Amber Malt Extract

1/2 lb chocolate malt

2 oz Hallertauer fresh hops (boiling - 1 hour)

1/2 oz Hallertauer fresh hops (flavor - last 20 minutes)

1/2 oz Hallertauer fresh hops (aroma - last 2 minutes)

Wyeast Liquid Wheat Beer Yeast

Prepare according to the standard Papazian method for extract beers.

Starting gravity:  1.61   Starting Potential alcohol:  9%

Ending gravity:    1.16   Ending Potential alcohol:    2%

Primary and Secondary fermentation took 1 month.  I believe that the

high alcohol content (7%) pickled the yeast and stopped fermentation in

it's tracks.  Bottled with 1 1/4 cup DME.

It turned out really good!  Fruity and dark with a very noticeable alcohol

smell.

Anyway, keep on brewin'

Jon Gibbens

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1190, 07/27/93

*************************************

-------


Re: Geary's

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 8:37:56 EDT

From: gkushmer@Jade.Tufts.EDU

Subject: Re: Geary's

Hi.

In response to lyons%adc and Geary's Pale Ale:

David Geary brews with a proprietary yeast.  He doesn't like to say much

about it, although he does have a tendency to explode at you if he

finds out you've used it. ;-)

Cheers,

- --gk

Greg Kushmerek    "They [Australians] don't spell 'beer'

Sr. Researcher/Development  with four X's out of ignorance. . .And

Tufts University   light beer is a creation of the Prince

Medford, MA    of Darkness."

gkushmer@jade.tufts.edu    -Morse, Thames Valley C.I.D.-

------------------------------


BT mag / Foxx Equip CC orders

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 06:13:27 PDT

From: 27-Jul-1993 0908 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: BT mag / Foxx Equip CC orders

re: Brewing Techniques

I too have received and started reading BT #2.  The editor pledged to keep

advertising always less then 50% of the mag's content.  Apparently, a few

people wrote in letters complaining about the size of the mag., but, when

added up, it compares favorably to others.

Hey, if you think Zymurgy is bad with advertising, go check out one of the

Woman's magazines, like Glamour or something.  They are 95% advertising!!

re: Foxx Equip and CC orders

Al is correct, they do accept CC orders...

 BUT...

You must send them a letter, beforehand, authorizing them to use your CC

when you place orders.  In other words, you can't call today and have

something shipping to you immediately!  You need to send in the authorization

letter first.  This is the policy as of yesturday when I placed an order

for some keg parts.

JC FERGUSON   ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com

------------------------------


misc

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 9:26:39 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: misc

In the last digest:

<From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>

Subject: Briess, Northwestern

<questions about extract & a brewing career, snip

First, if you are serious about being a pro brewer, you should really

switch to all grain brewing ASAP.  Its not that much harder or expensive

and you will start to learn what its like to do the real thing.

Secondly, we need more brewers with backgrounds in Chemistry.  This is

not enough by itself, but you can augment this knowledge by inrolling in

Seibels short course in brewing technology or whatever they call it.  It

is a 12 week course in Chicago.  Before or after this, work in a brewery

doing anything to gain knowledge/experience.

<From: Robert Pulliam <Robert_Pulliam@aja.rand.org>

Subject: Various questions

<1.  For a 30 foot chiller, what might I expect the temperature of the

      exiting water to be.  Must I use a hot water rated hose?

Close to water temp.

<2.  When calculating my extraction efficiency, do I use the gravity of

      the wort fresh from the tun or after the boil?

after.

<3.  Is there an advantage to using a thick mash compared to using an

      extremely thin one that would give me say 7-8 gallons on first

     runnings without having to add additional sparge water?

Thin is Ok up to about 2 litres/lb of grain.

<4.  I seem to recall a thread somewhere that discussed having to bring

      up the temperature of cold fermented beers near the end of the

      fermentation cycle to help remove somthingorother.  Is this a

      figment of my imagination or something I need to be doing?

Its called a diacetyl rest.  It reduces (guess what??) diacetyl.  To be

an authentic contential lager, ferment at 48-51F for 1 week, drop temp

2F per day until it is 42F. Rest here 2-4 days (diacetyl rest), then

drop 2F per day until yu hit 31F.  Hold 4-8 weeks depending on style.

Either lager in kegs, and bung to create natural CO2, or krausen with

fresh krausen (fermenting yeast & wort, at 7-15% of volume).  Those who

"bring up" the temp are preeching the American fast lager approach.  This

is where ferments are done quite warm (up to 60F) and lots of diacetyl is

produced that requires reduction by the yeast.  It has been demonstrated that

bringing the temp up to 68-70F for 2 days or so will reduce the diacetyl

to "normal" levels.  Taste tests of experienced panels have shown a prefernece

for the traditional techniques.

<From: lyons%adc3@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: Geary's Pale Ale

Classic Peter Austin brewhaus, Ringwood ale yeast, available from some yeast

culture companies.  A notorious Diacetyl producer.  Torrified wheat is used.

<From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Crushoff in Portland

<One problem with a closed water heater you may want to think about is the

 fact that chlorine and other volatiles in the water have nowhere to go.  In

 an open vessel they evaporate continually.

Excellent point.  I was going to feed it from my whole house carbon filter

that also happens to feed my water line into my kettle.  Chlorine and most

solids will never make it into the tank.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

DE HOPPEDUIVEL DRINKT MET ZWIER 'T GEZONDE BLOND HOPPEBIER!

------------------------------


Hot water tanks

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 10:40:19 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Hot water tanks

> >Has anyone converted a hot water heater into a hot liquor tank?  I

> have two options: 220V electric with 2 elements or a gas fired unit.

>

> One problem with a closed water heater you may want to think about is the

> fact that chlorine and other volatiles in the water have nowhere to go.  In

> an open vessel they evaporate continually.

You can use a hot water heater, but not connected as a household water

heater.  Connect the water input line as usual, but leave the top outlet

open, perhaps with a wide clear open tube connected to the top outlet.

Your actual outlet will be the drain spigot on the bottom of the heater.

Open an inlet valve to fill the heater, but shut off the supply when the

tank is almost full (a clear tube connected to the top outlet will tell you

your tank is full, then you can drain a little).  You may then heat your

water , and volatiles will escape through the top opening.  This will work

best if there is some headspace at the top of the tank.  If you want to get

REALLY fancy, have a split connection at the top outlet tube, one end going

to a stopcock and one end going to a vessel containing a toilet tank float

valve.  That way you can shut off the stopcock, turn on the water input,

and the float valve will stop the inflow of water when the tank is just

over full.

     Disclaimer:  I have not done this.  Although I may someday...

 ed

____________

Ed Hitchcock/Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology/Dalhousie University/Halifax NS

ech@ac.dal.ca   +-----------------------------------------+

  |   Never trust a statement that begins:  |

  |     "I'm not racist, but..."    |

  +-----------------------------------------+

 Diversity in all things.  Especially beer.

------------------------------


Aerating wort

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 09:31:05 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Aerating wort

In HBD #1190 Jonathan Gibbens asks:

[snip]

> How do you sufficiently aereate your wort before it goes into the

fermenter?  In glass it's easy . . .

[snip]

 Here's a simple method.  Take a 6" piece of rigid plastic tubing

(like from an old racking cane) and drill four 1/32" holes in it

about one inch from the end.  Place the exit end of your siphon hose on

the end of the tube at the end where you drilled the holes. Now when

you siphon into your fermenter, air will be drawn in through the

small holes just as with you sink aerater.  I use this method when

siphoning chilled wort into my primary.  By the time I syphon five

gallons into my primary, I have two to four inches of foam on top.

You could also use copper or stainless steel tubing if you like.

              ___________

    wort in -->           |

              _________   |

                      |   |<-- siphon tube

                      |   |

                      |   |

                      || ||

                       | |

                       | |

             air in -->o o<--1/32" holes

                       | |

                       | |

                       | |

                       | |<-- rigid tube (plastic, copper, or SS)

                       | |

                       | |

                        |

                        |

                        //

               foaming wort out

Sante' WAK

------------------------------


Dry-hopping in Cornelius Kegs

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 10:32:28 EDT

From: gorman@aol.com

Subject: Dry-hopping in Cornelius Kegs

Just tried the dry-hopping technique described in the recent Zymurgy.

Whole hops (used Hallertau in a weizen) in a mesh bag placed into a Cornelius

Keg at kegging time. I weighted the bag down with a handful of marbles. I

boiled the bag and marbles (w/o hops) to attempt sanitization.

This produced the most pronounced hop bouquet I've yet experienced from an

ounce of hops. I haven't noticed any off flavors introduced by the bag in the

keg.

Makes sense, the aroma doesn't have anywhere else to go.

N.B. An ounce of whole hops requires more marbles than you might think to get

it to sink. Try a big handful.

Enjoy,

Bill Gorman

------------------------------


More AHA/Zymurgy bashing

Date:         27 Jul 93 10:07:24 CST

From: "Dennis Lewis"  <DLEWIS%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject:      More AHA/Zymurgy bashing

To add to Kieran O'Connor and Dave Smucker's dismay about the AHA

and Zymurgy, I recall that the latest price hike from the AHA

(from $25 to $29, I think) was because Zymurgy was costing so much to

print. So everyone in the AHA was called upon to pay for the wasted

pages full of AHA ads and other self-serving crap, because, evidently,

it wasn't paying for itself.

Does anyone know if _The New Brewer_ is of the same "quality" as

Zymurgy? It's published by the Institute for Brewing Studies (all in

the same office as the AHA, and others) and is billed as a "must-have"

for anyone interested in or working in the micro/brewpub field.

I'm looking forward to my Brewing Techniques subscription. Sounds

like quality work.

Dennis Lewis                    <dlewis%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Zima Brewing Co.

Date:         27 Jul 93 10:25:47 CST

From: "Dennis Lewis"  <DLEWIS%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject:      Zima Brewing Co.

David Holsclaw writes:

>Even if it is free, it is not worth the time and effort to

>try this cr*p.  One other thing, I thought this was a Coors

>product? The can said Zima Brewing Company? Is this a Coors

>subsidiary or am I just confused (not unusual).

I don't think that there is a separate company called Zima Brewing

Co. The "subsidiary" approach is Coor's way of separating itself from

the Zima product, just in case it sucks (from what I understand, it

does). If Zima does not sell, then the company will die a quiet death

at the hands of lawyers and the Coor's name will remain clean.

One thought: maybe we have been too harsh on Zima because we have

been judging it against our standard criteria for beer. I don't think

that Zima claims to be beer, but a malt beverage maybe (?), and it's

probably labeled "malt liquor" because of the goofy alcohol laws we

have in this country. So maybe Zima isn't bad for the *style*

(whatever the hell that may be...), just like Bud is an excellent

example of the American Standard Lager.

Not!

Dennis Lewis                    <dlewis%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Lager under water

Date:         27 Jul 93 10:42:18 CST

From: "Dennis Lewis"  <DLEWIS%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject:      Lager under water

Dave Hinz asks about lagering beer bottles under water in his 200 gal

milk cooler. Technically, it sounds like a great idea. The bottles

are sealed and there's no way to contaminate the beer.

However, I've noticed one thing about my bottle caps: I always boil

a couple extra when bottling and then out the unused ones back in

the bag afterwards. I have noticed that if I don't dry them really

well, they get rust spots. (This may just be the caps I bought this

time....)

The caps are made of regular steel or maybe tin, but not

stainless or aluminum, and are coated with some sort of anodizing (I

guess from the color inside only.) I know they aren't SS or Al

because the magnet in my capper holds onto them.

In the process of capping, the cup that seats the cap may scrape off

enough of the coating to expose the underlying metal. While this rust

would only be on the outside, it would make you think twice about

drinking the contents. I suggest capping a couple bottles of water

and testing it out first.

Dennis Lewis                    <dlewis%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


calories

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 10:56:09 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: calories

Someone wanted a formula. This was posted some time ago.

bb

 .

 .

 .

I know that there have already been answers to this question, including

disclaimers by George Fix and a nice linearized version with analysis

by Robert Bradley, but I thought someone might like to see yet another

version of the formulas. These are the same formulas that George Fix

gave, except that they have been converted to FG and OG (using the

Plato to SG (divide by four) conversion that is not exact acording to

George). This is probably what Robert did, before he linearized them.

Anyway, here they are:

Note that OG and FG are used in the full form (e.g. 1.045). C stands for

the calorie content per 12 ozs., and the [alc] and [ext] subscripts signify

the fractions from alcohol and extract respectively.

Other definitions:

A   = alcohol content of finished beer in % by weight.

RE  = real extract of finished beer in degrees Plato.

OG  = original gravity of the beer.

FG  = final gravity of finished beer.

     76.8 (OG - FG)

A  = --------------

      (1.775 - OG)

RE = 250 (0.1808 OG + 0.8192 FG - 1)

                       (OG - FG)

C_[alc] =  1881.22 FG ------------

                      (1.775 - OG)

C_[ext] =  3550 FG (0.1808 OG + 0.8192 FG - 1.0004)

C  =  C_[alc] + C_[ext]

              [ 0.53 (OG - FG)                                    ]

C  =  3550 FG [ -------------- + (0.1808 OG + 0.8192 FG - 1.0004) ]

              [   1.775 - OG                                      ]

------------------------------


Re: Various questions, White House beer

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 10:14:36 MDT

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Various questions, White House beer

> 1.  For a 30 foot chiller, what might I expect the temperature of the

>     exiting water to be.  Must I use a hot water rated hose?

Well, the closer the exiting water is to 100C, the more efficiency you're

getting.  I've never measured the temp of the water coming out of my

40-foot counterflow chiller, by I can empirically say that it's *hot*.

Hot enough to scald.  The plain old garden hose used in my chiller

seems just fine, though, after 20 or so batches.

> 2.  When calculating my extraction efficiency, do I use the gravity of

>     the wort fresh from the tun or after the boil?

Assuming you add no water during the boil, both measurements should give

you pretty much the same thing.  The amount of water evaporating will be

proportional to the increase in gravity.

I usually measure both:  right after sparging, so I can make any needed

adjustments, and after the boil to make sure of my original gravity.  I

calculate total points of extract right after the sparge using:

 v * p = T

wshere v is volume, p (points) = (gravity-1)*1000, and T is total points

for the batch (e.g.  collected 6 gallons @ 1.055 = 6*55 = 330 points).

You can then solve v*p=T for either v or p, depending on what you're

shooting for (e.g.  if I had wanted a beer at 1.060, I would need to

boil down to 5.5 gals; if I boiled down to 5 gals of beer, my original

gravity would be 1.066.  On the other hand, if I wanted a lighter 1.045

beer, I'd need to add water so I ended up with 7.33 gallons *after* the

boil was completed).

>  4.  I seem to recall a thread somewhere that discussed having to bring

>  up the temperature of cold fermented beers near the end of the

>  fermentation cycle to help remove somthingorother.

I believe this is called the diacetyl rest.  Although diacetyl, which

produces a buttery or butterscotch aroma, is desirable in some styles of

ales, it is usually not wanted in lagers.  Yeast produce diacetyl, but

will re-consume it later in their life cycle if allowed to do so. This

raising of the lager temp is supposed to "reactivate" the yeast to some

extent to encourage them to consume the diacetyl.  If you're brewing

ales, this step isn't necessary.

> >Ginger Beer

>

> >Put into a kettle two ounces of powdered ginger root (or more if it not

> >very strong), half an ounce of cream of tartar, two large lemons, cut

> >into slices, two pounds of broken loaf sugar and two gallons of soft

> >boiling water.  Simmer them over a slow fire for half an hour.  When the

> >liquor is nearly cold, stir into it a large tablespoon of the best

> >yeast.  After it has fermented, which will be in about twenty-four

> >hours, bottle for use.

>

> And again, only 24 hours [of fermentation]?

Yup, or maybe 48.  I don't know about the hop beer recipe, but I make

my ginger ale using an almost identical recipe.  You want a "soft" drink

like this to have much less alcohol and more carbonation than beer; you

achieve this by bottling 24-48 hours after pitching yeast.  Why no

exploding bottles?  I believe the theory is that there is very little

yeast nutrient in the recipe, so in spite of all the sugar the yeast

poop out pretty quickly.

You can also avoid trouble by using strong bottles (champagne bottles

work well, as do 2l plastic soda pop bottles) and refrigerating the

bottles after only a couple of days of conditioning.  I've never had a

ginger bomb yet.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


innoculating a starter from a petri dish

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 12:18:56 CDT

From: atzeiner@iastate.edu

Subject: innoculating a starter from a petri dish

I just started culturing yeast and have two ale yeast cultures in petri

dishes.  Out of curiosity, I used my innoculating loop to scrape up a glob of

yeast and put it into a starter bottle(~1/2 full 12 oz. beer bottle).  I didnt

really see much sign of fermentation, but after about 3 or 4 hours I looked at

it and it seemed to have yeast sediment in it.  I was wondering if it was

possible that there was enough yeasties in the glob that I picked up to make a

decent starter in only a few hours.  How much yeast should you pick up to

innoculate a 6 or 7 oz starter??

------------------------------


a beer poem

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 14:37:08 -0400 (EDT)

From: Stephen Brent Peters <sp2q+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: a beer poem

one night at a bar my drinkin' buddies and I wrote a poem about beer

by passing the pen 'n pad.  Here's what we came up with (slightly

edited)  enjoy.  WARNING!  STRONG LANGUAGE AT THE END.  NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH!

  BEER!

by Steve, Jami, Andy, & Christine

  Canto I

 Beer, beer, beautiful beer

 the more you drink,

 the more you peer(s)

 will admire your debonaire teeth

 as they glint in the glare of

 of the glass of so many bottles

 lost in your sea of despair

 don't forget to tip your waitress

 and kiss her hair

 Canto II

 Drink a porter, drink a stout,

 drink a pilsner, dance and shout

 Chapstick, my flavored amigo,

 perchance a sepulchre?

 Don't take to long, OK? I gotta use it too.

 Barley juice?

 Dionisus fuck you!

 after all, does not wine

 suck donkey dongs?

 yes, I do believe this is true.

               Steve Peters =  sp2q@andrew.cmu.edu

                  *Oxnar demands a _Sacrifice!_*

------------------------------


Diacetyl reduction

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 16:11:50 EDT

From: lyons%adc2@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: Diacetyl reduction

Robert Pullian writes in #1190:

>  4.  I seem to recall a thread somewhere that discussed having to bring

>      up the temperature of cold fermented beers near the end of the

>      fermentation cycle to help remove somthingorother.  Is this a

>      figment of my imagination or something I need to be doing?

   There was some noise on this some time back.  From what I recall

Miller advacates raising the primary fermentation temperature of

lagers after active fermentation has subsided, but before racking to

the secondary.  The belief is that in the absence of oxygen the

yeast will be better able to reduce the diacetyl levels.  I've found

that this advice works great.  What I do is wait until the diacetyl

odor is substantially reduced before racking to the secondary.

Typically two to three days after after fermentation has ceased.

Look at Miller's book for a more indepth explaination.

------------------------------


HOW TO KEG?

Date: 27 Jul 93 13:47:00 -0700

From: KRUSE_NEIL@Tandem.COM

Subject: HOW TO KEG?

Hello,

A friend and I have got a hold of a soda keg and we're supposed to

get some of the other stuff, like the C02 canister and a cold plate...

Now here is my question.  How do we "keg"?  We've been making extract

beers for quite some time, where we add the corn sugar to the wort just

before we bottle.  Now that were gunna try the keg setup do we add the

corn sugar to the wort, let it ferment out completely, then rack to

the keg?  And then since the beer at that point is "flat" how

much C02 and when do you add it?  What keeps the trub out of the

keg?  I think you get where I am coming from.  What I need

are pointers on how to keg from a beginers perspective.

Thanks,     KRUSE_NEIL@tandem.com

------------------------------


RE: Degrees of extract

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 19:33 PDT

From: lfk@zip.veritas.com

Subject: RE: Degrees of extract

In HBD1189 pyeatt@Texaco.COM (Larry D. Pyeatt) writes:

>Don Doyle writes:

>> As a real example, I brewed 11gals with 26.5 lbs of grains and got

>> a 1.065. What extraction am I getting and is it good?

>

>Well, plugging the numbers into the equation,

>DE = 1.065 * 11 / 26.5 = .44

>or 44 degrees of extract.  From this, I would guess that you

>added some malt syrup or adjunct.

>

BZZZT!  The number calculated above is meaningless.  You need to

subtract out the SG of the water before doing multiplication.  Don has

already seen my input on this in private email, but when I saw the

above information I felt that a posting was necessary.  The equation

should be:

 DE = (OG - 1.0) * <gallons of extract> / <pounds of grain>

Plugging Don's numbers in gives us:

 DE = .065 * 11 / 26.5 = .02698 (or approx 27 degrees of extract per

                                 pound of grain)

While this isn't great extraction, it may not be all that bad.  It

could be that Don used several pounds of malt adjuncts that provide

fewer extract points.  When I do these calculations on my own brews I

usually subtract a value based on the expected yeild of malt adjuncts

from the numerator and the amount of said adjuncts from the

denominator in the above equation.  This kind of calculation breaks

down when a significant portion of the extract is from multiple malt

sources such as a 40% wheat mash.  For those types of mashes I treat

the wheat malt as base malt also.  For example; purely hypothetical

but probably not uncommon :-)

  Brew length(BL): 5G

  OG = 1043

  Grain bill: 6.5# 2-Row, 1# 40L (AWght)

  Approximate extract for 1# 40L = 20 (AExt below)

  DEbase = (((OG - 1.0) * BL) - AExt) / (GrainTotal - AWght)

  DEbase = (((1.043 - 1.0) * 5) - 20) / (7.5 - 1)

  DEbase = (215 - 20) / 6.5 = 195 / 6.5 = .030

Let's not forget that the density of water does not increase with

volume (at least not for our purposes).

- --

     Lynn Kerby  -  [apple,amdahl]!veritas!lfk or  lfk@veritas.com

Disclaimer: Any and all opinions expressed herein are my own and do not

            necessarily represent the views of anyone, especially my employer.

------------------------------


CO2

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 22:25 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: CO2

 >From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

 >Hummm, this is news to me.  I had my local CO2 shop put together a F-F CO2

 coupling and hose for $15.  I hook one end to a 20Lb tank, the other to

 a small 2-5 Lb and fill it up.  I guess I dont open the valve all the way

 at once, but I have found a freezing/chilling effect as opposed to a heat

 build up.  It only will fill 1/4 or so depending on how full the 20Lb is,

 but It doesnt seem that dangerous.  The whole process takes about 20 seconds

 First of all, this will only work if we assume that the source tank was a

 siphon type, i.e., dispenses liquid CO2 and not the type one could use for

 beer dispensing.  If you use a top venting tank, all you get is gas and will

 only get the 800 psi that is in the source tank.  This might be enough to

 dispense a bunch of beer but nowhere near what you would get if filled with

 liquid CO2.  It's like filling a tire from a compressor that is shut off.

 When the tire pressure equals the tank pressure, that's all you get.

 Secondly, if you fill with liquid CO2, the head pressure in the receiving

 tank must be vented while filling or you can't fill it at all.  If frosty gas

 was not hissing out while you were filling it, you were not filling it.

 As I mentioned before, the best way to know what is going on is to weigh the

 tank.  If it does not weight 2.5 lbs more after filling than before, it aint

 full.

 js

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1191, 07/28/93

*************************************

-------


HBD Subscription

Date: Sun, 25 Jul 93 17:39:00 BST

From: r.wize@genie.geis.com

Subject: HBD Subscription

I would like to receive the HBD.

 My address is r.wize@genie.geis.com

Thx alot,

Rick Wize

------------------------------


homebrew supply shop ??

Date: 28 Jul 93 07:54:00 EST

From: "BRIAN OWENS" <8160OWENS@indy.navy.mil>

Subject: homebrew supply shop ??

Hi All,  Long time listener, first time caller.

  My question goes to the Brew shop owners (and anyone else interested).

Do you have any data that would tell what size population would support a

homebrew supply shop?    Has a market survey ever been conducted to

determine this type of information?   What size is the city you live in,

and how many homebrew shops are in the area?  Thanks for any info you can

share.

Brian

------------------------------


Aeration

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 09:37:36 EDT

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1-1/T09 DTN 225-6171  28-Jul-1993 0932 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Aeration

If you are doing a partial boil and dumping the hot wort into cold water

you probably don't have to worry too much about aeration (unless you've

preboiled your cold water).  Pouring the hot wort through a sanitized strainer

will also aerate it (as well as help remove hops and break material).  I

used this method for a full boil after cooling with a wort chiller and it

seemed to work OK.

If you don't like the strainer idea and want to siphon, you can simply put

the lid on without an airlock and shake well.  Other folks have used an

aquarium pump and aeration stone.

Someone the other day suggested that washing bottles in a dishwasher would

merely sanitize and not sterilize.  He was right, but sanitizing is all that

is really necessary and is all bleach/iodine/whatever solutions will do anyway.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Extract efficency / Diacetyl Rest

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 08:48:24 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Extract efficency / Diacetyl Rest

Re: Extract efficency - I was under the impression that measuring the pre and

post boil extract effiecency would result in unequal values.  That the post

boil value would be lower due to the precipitation of break materials.

Has any one measured this?  Do they differ?  By how much?

Re: Diacetyl rests - I too use the method described in Noonanan's book on

lagers.  I do a primary at 45F, diacetyl rest for 3 days at 48F then rack to

2ndary and "Hunter lager" at 40F I then chill to near 32F for the last week

before kegging to percipitate out yeast and haze.

Re: Brewing Techniques

I too agree it is a fine magazine and that the 40 or so pages is a lot of

material.  I am not an AHA member, but doesn't the $29 sent to the AHA cover

annual dues and the subscription to Zymurgy?  I too agree that the "don't

worry" philosophy gets old fast.

------------------------------


jever thanks/low head retention/spiced beers

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 9:14:36 CDT

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: jever thanks/low head retention/spiced beers

Hey everyone - first I want to thank everyone for the responses

to my question about Jever...I believe I received something

like 15 or 18 responses (please forgive my not responding to

each individually).  I now own a copy of Michael Jackson's Pocket

Guide where the virtues of Jever are detailed - and yes, Fresia is

in the northernmost regions of Germany (including the Fresian Is.).

Here's my questions:

   I seem to be having trouble with head retention in all of my beers

   including store bought Sierra Nevada Summerfest et al.  I believe

   cause may be residue in my glassware.  However, I wash the glasses

   in the dishwasher with Cascade detergent - I use energy saver settings

   for the dry cycle.  Let me clarify problems - there is sufficient

   carbonation in everything - the bubbles form about a 1/2-1" head on

   pouring but quickly subside to no more than 1/16" head to none at all.

   Any ideas....is this paranoia?

   Secondly - I am considering brewing a spiced ale for Christmas this

   year (its early but a few good months in the bottle and it takes me a

   while to get going anyway).  I have done thread searches on back issues

   of the HBD and have looked in the Cat's Meow and have yet to see a clear

   agreement among brewers/recipes (*is such a thing possible*) as to the

   best way to add the flavoring: dry to the boil, dry hop, spice *tea*,

   or gloegg.  Opinions (open the flood gates...)?  Note: I am an extract

   brewer and am looking for o.g.s from 1040-1060.

   One last thing - I was watching STNG last night and it occurred to me

   to wonder just how the stardates are calculated...any answers?

   Sorry for the longwindedness ... thanks in advance

                good luck and good beer

                                        Chris

======================================================================

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu |

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

======================================================================

------------------------------


My First Batch

Date: 27 Jul 1993 16:05:13 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: My First Batch

Hello Bruce (and all you other Bruces; "Crack Two")

I made my first batch of Homebrew a month ago, and it is yucky.  It was a kit

beer from our local brew shop, Fun Fermentations in Orange Ca, and was supposed

to be an American Lite beer.  The batch seemed to have a cidery smell and taste

the day I bolttled, (took me forever to get the @#&$#*! siphon to work) and

after a month of aging, it doesn't taste any better.  The beer has great color,

a nice head, but the flavor is reminiscent of swamp water cider vinegar.

Does anyone have a clue?  Had a similar batch?  I am wondering if my

fermentation temperature was too high, it was often in the upper 70's in the

house, probably 78.  Yes, it was an ale yeast.  BTW, I had a bottle of Paulener

Salvator the other day, and it had some of the same flavor tones as my beer.

Was that bottle of Salvator too long on the shelf at the store ie. light

damaged?  Is that why it tasted like mine, or is mine actually good? (nah)  And

another thing, Has anyone ever noticed the laxative qualities of homebrew in

general or is this another symptom of my first batch?

John Palmer

PS.  I am really bummed that the Beer Hunter won't be on the Discovery Channel

again, I only have a couple episodes taped, and have been waiting to get the

others.

------------------------------


Re: American Standard Lager

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 9:28:07 MDT

From: Rick Myers <rcm@col.hp.com>

Subject: Re: American Standard Lager

> One thought: maybe we have been too harsh on Zima because we have

> been judging it against our standard criteria for beer. I don't think

> that Zima claims to be beer, but a malt beverage maybe (?), and it's

> probably labeled "malt liquor" because of the goofy alcohol laws we

> have in this country. So maybe Zima isn't bad for the *style*

> (whatever the hell that may be...), just like Bud is an excellent

> example of the American Standard Lager.

>

> Not!

I definitely agree with the "Not!" part.  Bud is NOT an example

of the "American Standard Lager", it is "American PREMIUM

Lager" (yeah, right).  Examples of "standard" lagers are Schlitz,

Pabst, etc.

Rick "Will NOT drink Bud for food" Myers

------------------------------


Re: Hot Water Heaters

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1993 09:14:19 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: Hot Water Heaters

Jack Schmidling responded to Jim Busch:

>

>  >From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

>  >Subject: Hot liquor tanks

>

>  >Has anyone converted a hot water heater into a hot liquor tank?  I

>  have two options: 220V electric with 2 elements or a gas fired unit.

>

>  One problem with a closed water heater you may want to think about is the

>  fact that chlorine and other volatiles in the water have nowhere to go.  In

>  an open vessel they evaporate continually.

>

>

It beats me why this should be a problem.  Jim is simply suggesting

using a hot water heater to provide very hot water for mashing,

sparging, etc.  Why should this be a chlorine problem?

In answer to Jim's question, at least one of the McMenamin brewpubs in

Oregon uses exactly this system -- lots of pipes running out of that

water heater that aren't standard!

Jack, every hot liquor (water) system I've seen in a brewery is closed.

- --Jeff

PS.  I made it to one day of the AHA conference, attending the Board of

Advisors meeting and judging in the 2nd round of the competition.  All

of you stay-at-homes will be glad to know that the weather yesterday was

gorgeous (in the 80s), the programs were interesting, the beer was

excellent, and Portland is better than wherever you are.  Today, of

course (I'm back at work), it's cloudy, it'll probably rain, and all the

beer has spoiled.

------------------------------


FUN

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 11:14 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: FUN

 Aint if fun seeing an article the morning after you submit it.  Knew

 something good had to come from the AHA conference.  Got all those loudmouths

 away from their keyboards. :)   < for the benefit of the humor impaired.

 re: Brewing Techniques

 >I too have received and started reading BT #2.  The editor pledged to keep

 advertising always less then 50% of the mag's content.  Apparently, a few

 people wrote in letters complaining about the size of the mag., but, when

 added up, it compares favorably to others.

 It will be interesting to see how long BT keeps that pledge.  Money and

 sometimes survival have a strange way of making people forget their pledges.

 If a non-profit group like AHA has degenerated to 90% ads, what do you expect

 from a for-profit company like BT?   At the moment, BT can survive on fewer

 ads because they don't pay contributors for articles.  And remember, it is

 alway easy to get fresh new articles for a new publication but down the road,

 they will have all the usual problems of getting stale.

 BT is a breath of fresh air but only subscribers and a much higher

 subscription rate can keep it pure if combined with a rigid policy of ad

 restriction.  However, ad sales people just do not say NO to one more ad.

 >From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

 >Subject: Hot water tanks

 >You can use a hot water heater, but not connected as a household water

 heater.  Connect the water input line as usual, but leave the top outlet

 open, perhaps with a wide clear open tube connected to the top outlet.

 Sounds like you have re-invented the EASYSPARGER.  Not sure why one would

 want to heat a large amount of water and just let it sit or have to keep it

 hot till needed.  The ES allows a continuous flow of hot water at any desired

 temp, evaporates the chlorine, takes up only about .5 cuft of space and needs

 to contain only one gallon of water.

 >In HBD #1190 Jonathan Gibbens asks:

 > How do you sufficiently aereate your wort before it goes into the

 fermenter?  In glass it's easy . . .

 The simplest method is to fill a one gallon jug and shake this a bit and then

 just glug it into the fermenter.  With two jugs, you can be filling one while

 glugging the other.

 The only problem is that this works so well, you will have to beat down the

 foam to get all your wort in and you must, of course, use sanitized jugs.

 I did this for years with great success but now I have a pump and a narrow

 nozzel at the end of the hose which provides aeration as it squirts into the

 fermenter.

 >From: atzeiner@iastate.edu

 >Subject: innoculating a starter from a petri dish

 >I just started culturing yeast and have two ale yeast cultures in petri

 dishes..... I was wondering if it was possible that there was enough yeasties

 in the glob that I picked up to make a decent starter in only a few hours.

 How much yeast should you pick up to innoculate a 6 or 7 oz starter??

 You can, theroetically, innoculate a whole batch with a single cell but this

 and your approach are not recommended for a very good reason.

 One cell of culture yeast would be competing with many cells of uninvited

 stuff, even in a sanitary environment, and would probably lose the race to

 get established.  The larger the amount of culture and the smaller the batch

 size, the better the prospects of winning.

 I would not start more than 50 ml or so with a loop-full of culture.  When

 this is fermenting, you can start 200 ml and to do it right, start 500 ml

 with this.  I would never attempt to start a batch with less that 500 ml of

 working wort.

 You would be much better off to transfer the petri culture to slants and use

 these to start your starter.  I cover the slant with wort and use this as a

 one time, pure culture starter.

 The petri stage can be eliminated entirely if you are confident of the

 qualtiy of the original slant culture.  Just transfer a single innoculation

 to a half dozen slant tubes and use these to start others.  You don't have to

 go back to the original unless you screw up or something changes.

 js

------------------------------


Correction, Bud bashing

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 10:26:52 MDT

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Correction, Bud bashing

Whoops, I just noticed an error in my previous post that might be

confusing.

> > 2.  When calculating my extraction efficiency, do I use the gravity of

> >     the wort fresh from the tun or after the boil?

>

> Assuming you add no water during the boil, both measurements should give

> you pretty much the same thing.  The amount of water evaporating will be

> proportional to the increase in gravity.

The above statement is not correct.  The gravity before the boil is

usually quite different from the gravity after the boil.  After all, one

of the purposes of the boil is to increase the gravity.

What I meant was that the total number of points stays constant.  Using

the v*p=T formula, if T is constant, then v and p are inversely

proportional.  So obviously if v goes down, p (gravity) goes up.

> So maybe Zima isn't bad for the *style*

> (whatever the hell that may be...), just like Bud is an excellent

> example of the American Standard Lager.

>

> Not!

We hear a lot of "Bud bashing" in this forum.  Having drunk my share of

Bud, Miller, Old Style, Red White & Blue, Huber, etc., I'll step out on

a limb and defend the megabreweries (he says, as he dons his asbestos

undies).

Most serious beer people pooh-pooh the "American Standard Lager", but

that style certainly fills a niche.  The term "lawnmower" beer is not

inapproriate, as a Budweiser is exeactly what I feel like drinking after

mowing the lawn on a hot day.  Why not just drink water, some would say.

To my palate, the slight bitterness of American swill is more refreshing.

I would also challenge many skeptical homebrewers to brew a lager as

light and clean as a Bud.  Ingredients are quite different from your

average homebrew (uncured malt, adjuncts, etc.), you need techniques to

minimize wort darkening and esters, and sanitation is paramount, as the

slightest off flavor or aroma will be noticeable.

In fact, early in my homebrewing career I tried to brew a Bud clone, and

didn't even manage to come close.  Becoming a homebrewer actually

increased my appreciation of what the big boys do.

- --

Jeff "still use Milwaukee's Best mostly for cooking" Benjamin

benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


New Brewer

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 11:48:25 CDT

From: pmiller@mmm.com (Philip . Miller)

Subject: New Brewer

Dennis asks:

>Does anyone know if _The New Brewer_ is of the same "quality" as

>Zymurgy? It's published by the Institute for Brewing Studies (all in

>the same office as the AHA, and others) and is billed as a "must-have"

>for anyone interested in or working in the micro/brewpub field.

My wife bought me a subscription to NB last year as a present.  While

the magazine still has a fair amount of advertising (but it's INTERESTING

advertising because it's for bottling lines and 2 bbl systems rather than

cans of syrup), the content is better than the average Zymurgy article

in my opinion.

Typically there will be an interviews or articles written by microbrewers

about some facet of running a brewery.  A couple of issues ago, a brewer

talked about cobbling together a bottling line and the difficulties

therein.  This issue, there was a very interesting article about a pair

of brewpub owners philosophy of running their business.  (Basically, they

said to concentrate on the food and atmosphere because just having good

beer won't pay the bills.)  There are also opening and closing notices

of breweries across the country as well as a page or two describing

events of general interest to the brewing community (such as pending

legislation.)

If I were a microbrewer or a brewpub owner, I think I'd find the $55

subscription fee worth my while but NB falls somewhat short of a "must-

have".

Since much of the information in NB doesn't pertain to me, I'll probably

let the subscription lapse....

Phil Miller

pmiller@mmm.com

------------------------------


Re: innoculating a starter from a petri dish

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1993 13:11:01 -0500

From: tmgierma@raphael.acpub.duke.edu (Todd Gierman)

Subject:  Re: innoculating a starter from a petri dish

atzeiner@iastate.edu (Tue, 27 Jul 93 12:18:56 CDT) writes:

>I just started culturing yeast and have two ale yeast cultures in petri

>dishes.  Out of curiosity, I used my innoculating loop to scrape up a glob of

>yeast and put it into a starter bottle(~1/2 full 12 oz. beer bottle).  I didnt

>really see much sign of fermentation, but after about 3 or 4 hours I looked at

>it and it seemed to have yeast sediment in it.  I was wondering if it was

>possible that there was enough yeasties in the glob that I picked up to make a

>decent starter in only a few hours.  How much yeast should you pick up to

>innoculate a 6 or 7 oz starter??

>

That must have been some glob!  Generally, a good starting volume when

picking colonies (globs) from agar is probably  no more than 2-4

milliliters of media (wort) - remember, less is more.  You will see yeast

sediment in your container (usually a small one, e.g. test tube) and

bubbles trapped at the surface by the next day.  At this point the volume

can be increased 10-20 fold and then doubled each day thereafter, until you

reach your pitching volume (1-2 liters).

Why start with such a small volume and work your way up?  Well, when

culturing unicellar organisms such as yeast, bacteria, or animal cells, a

minimum cell density is often required in order to promote and maintain

vigorous growth.  The stimulation of growth and metabolism  requires the

presence of factors that are secreted into the media (in this case secreted

by the yeast into the wort).  A low cell density probably means a low level

of growth factors.  Thus, you may experience either no growth or an

incredible lag time, when inoculating large volumes.

The schedule that I have suggested for increasing your culture volume

requires nearly a week.  Some planning ahead is required.  You could start

a culture anytime, work it up to a liter, allow the yeast to grow to

saturation, and then stick the culture into the refridgerator for a week or

two, until you are ready to pitch.  Such a scheme would supply you with an

excellent pitching culture, allowing your fermentation to get underway

quite rapidly.  Certainly, 1-2 liters seem like quite a lot, but those

40-ml Wyeast pouches are quite a little, though many people do get by with

that amount.

When picking from a plate, I would suggest that you pick more than one

colony.  Each colony originates from a single cell.  Many commercial yeast

cultures contain more than one strain of yeast (e.g. Whitbread).  The fewer

the colonies picked the better the chance that you have eliminated a strain

from your culture (you know what that means).  Pick from a region where

many colonies have grown together.  Scrape your loop along the entire

region and inoculate your culture.

Hope this proves useful.

Todd M. Gierman

Department of Microbiology

Duke University Medical Center

------------------------------


I'm back/Brewing careers/Chiller h2o/Mash thickness/Zima

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 11:15:22 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: I'm back/Brewing careers/Chiller h2o/Mash thickness/Zima

Well, I return after a few weeks off to change jobs.  In the meantime,

I've brewed a wonderful American Pale Ale called Pyle Style Pale Ale.  It is

all-grain, using Mt. Hood and Cascade hops.  If there is interest, I'd be glad

to post the recipe.

Jim Busch said in the last digest:

><questions about extract & a brewing career, snip

>

>First, if you are serious about being a pro brewer, you should really

>switch to all grain brewing ASAP.  Its not that much harder or expensive

>and you will start to learn what its like to do the real thing.

>

>Secondly, we need more brewers with backgrounds in Chemistry.  This is

>not enough by itself, but you can augment this knowledge by inrolling in

>Seibels short course in brewing technology or whatever they call it.  It

>is a 12 week course in Chicago.  Before or after this, work in a brewery

>doing anything to gain knowledge/experience.

I agree completely.  If you are serious about it, get serious about it.  You

won't impress any brewmeisters with a background in extract brewing.  I have

heard of some brewpubs that extract brew but I can't imagine how they make a

profit; also, there are very few of them.  That said, read on:

I went to a Brewer's Dinner at the Walnut Brewery in Boulder last month and ate,

drank, and talked with the Brewmaster, Head Brewer, and Assistant Brewer.  It

was a wonderful evening, with awesome food and a brewery tour to boot!  The

Brewmaster, Mark Youngquist, is a young professionally trained brewer who

really knows his stuff.  He was very impressive, although he basically works in

a management/advisory role now.  He sets up new breweries (ala the Rock Bottom

Brewery in downtown Denver; also a new one is opening in Minnesota, I think),

fixes up old ones (Boulder Brewing Company, now Rockies Brewing), and solves

problems.  The Head Brewer is an ex-kitchen guy, who knows food at least as well

as he knows beer.  He, with the Assistant Brewer, brews all of the beer sold

at the brewpub.  I think they brew twice a week, which are 12 hour days to do

two batches.  The rest of the time is maintenance, stocking, cleaning, etc. etc.

The Assistant Brewer was off to Minnesota (I think) to become the Head Brewer at

the new Rock Bottom and a new assistant brewer was introduced.  This guy had no,

absolutely no, brewing experience.  I was more than a little surprised.  I guess

the lesson learned is:  anyone can get a job in a brewery if you are willing to

do a lot of hard work for, I guess, very little pay.  If you stick with it, you

can learn a lot and go places.

Jim also comments on Robert Pulliams questions:

><From: Robert Pulliam <Robert_Pulliam@aja.rand.org>

>Subject: Various questions

>

><1.  For a 30 foot chiller, what might I expect the temperature of the

>      exiting water to be.  Must I use a hot water rated hose?

>

>Close to water temp.

I don't think this clears it up.  The exiting water will start out being very

close to boiling with an immersion chiller.  This is because you place the

immersion chiller in the pot while the boil is still active (to sanitize the

chiller).  The temperature will quickly drop several 10's of degrees for the

first few minutes and eventually approach the temperature of the tap water.

counterflow chiller will be a bit different, I think, since the exit water is

only in contact with the hottest wort for the last few seconds.  This one will

probably cause the exit water to start out something less than boiling and

remain near this temperature until all of the hot wort is siphoned.

><2.  When calculating my extraction efficiency, do I use the gravity of

>      the wort fresh from the tun or after the boil?

>

>after.

It doesn't matter (now watch me contradict myself!).  In theory, if you use the

before-boil gravity, use the before-boil volume.  If you use the after-boil

gravity, use the after-boil volume.  The number should be the same.  The real

question is whether to include losses such as liquid trapped in the kettle hops,

or break material left behind in the boiler.  Since everyone is most concerned

with the efficiency of the mash/lautering process, I propose that the

before-boil numbers be used to ignore the later losses.  An overall efficiency

could be calculated which would indicate where your losses are occurring, but I

suggest this is only important to commercial operations.  And remember:  In

practice, the difference between theory and practice is greater than it is in

theory.

><3.  Is there an advantage to using a thick mash compared to using an

>      extremely thin one that would give me say 7-8 gallons on first

>       runnings without having to add additional sparge water?

>

>Thin is Ok up to about 2 litres/lb of grain.

This is the short answer.  I've read about this a bit and, from memory (this is

probably a bad idea), I recall that thick mashes favor one enzyme, while thin

mashes favor the other (good, I didn't try to name which was which!).

In practice, if you have a mash tun without a heat source (or even if you do!)

you can have both.  Start out with a thick mash (maybe 1qt/lb).  When the

temperature drops below your desired range, add hot water to bring it up to

temp, which of course thins the mash.  You can do this several times.  At the

end, you can add lots of hot sparge water to bring the temp up to mashout range.

Then, you can drain the entire contents of the tun without adding sparge water.

This method, and variations on it work for me, a professed lazy brewer, but my

efficiency is only around 23-26 points per pound of grain.  This of course

doesn't bother me in the least since I have more time to play with kids and

wife while brewing.

About Zima:  you guys are all up in arms about nothing.  It is not beer, they

don't sell it as beer.  They sell it as a new alchoholic beverage.  It tastes

sweet, with some citrus overtones.  It does not taste like beer, not even like

Coors Light.  It is selling like crazy, too.  Don't worry about it; it keeps the

barley farmers in business, which is good.

Glad to be back.  Hope you all are glad to have me, or at least aren't

unsubscribing at too fast a rate!

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


St Louis Pubs/Bars

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1993 13:20:20 -0500 (CDT)

From: BadAssAstronomer <STOREY@fender.msfc.nasa.gov>

Subject: St Louis Pubs/Bars

    Hi everyone

    I have plans to be in St. Louis in a couple of weeks. I have plans

    to drink beer while I'm there, and it won't be Bud. If there are

    any brewpubs or bars that I should look up, please e-mail me at

    storey@fender.msfc.nasa.gov

    Boy! This is a great service. Not too many forums in which you can

    ask it's members which bars to hit!

    thanks

    scott

------------------------------


large SS brew put available

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 11:31:15 PDT

From: nexgen!bart@olivea.ATC.Olivetti.Com (Bart Thielges)

Subject: large SS brew put available

This weekend at a flea market I found a very large stainless steel

brew pot.  It is about 28 inches diameter and 20 inches deep.  It has

two handles and a faucet in the side about 1/2 inch from the bottom.

It is used and rather dinged up, but usable.  The guy who is selling it

said he used it to cook large batches of soup.  "You can put the whole

pig in !" he exclaimed.  He was asking $40 for it.  If you live in the

San Jose, CA, USA area and are interested I can get his phone # to you.

You would have to see it in person to be sure it is what you want.  I doubt

he would be willing to ship it.

(Is there a way to limit broadcast of a message like this to only homebrewers

in a specific geographic area ?)

Bart

------------------------------


misc

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 14:43:52 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: misc

I wasnt too clear on a few points made yesterday.  Heres an attempt to

clarify things:

RE: counterflow chilling, the exit temp of the chiller water can be quite

hot.  I have 12 feet of prechiller that exits over 100F, then feeds 50

feet of main line chilling.  This water wasnt measured but is still

warm.  The great part of this thing is it doubles as a wort pipeline

between my brewery in my backyard and my cellar.

<From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: CO2

First of all, this will only work if we assume that the source tank was a

 siphon type, i.e., dispenses liquid CO2 and not the type one could use for

 beer dispensing.  If you use a top venting tank, all you get is gas and will

 only get the 800 psi that is in the source tank.  This might be enough to

 dispense a bunch of beer but nowhere near what you would get if filled with

 liquid CO2.  It's like filling a tire from a compressor that is shut off.

 When the tire pressure equals the tank pressure, that's all you get.

I should of prefaced my comments with: I use four CO2 tanks in my brewery.

3 are 20# tanks used for carbonating and dispensing.  The fourth is a small

tank that I use for traveling (I hate to lug a tank as big as a 5 gal keg).

I can get enough gas into a small tank from a 20# to dispense several 5

gal kegs so this is a convienent way to put gas into a travel tank.  It is

certainly impossible to "fill the small" tank from the big one.

<Just tried the dry-hopping technique described in the recent Zymurgy.

Whole hops (used Hallertau in a weizen)

A nit here since I am a weizen nitter: If you dry hopped it, it isnt a weizen!

It may be an excellent american wheat ale though.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

DE HOPPEDUIVEL DRINKT MET ZWIER 'T GEZONDE BLOND HOPPEBIER!

------------------------------


Wort Chiller Efficiency

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1993 13:13:26 -0800

From: "John C. Post" <jpost@llnl.gov>

Subject: Wort Chiller Efficiency

 Jeff Benjamin sez...

 > 1.  For a 30 foot chiller, what might I expect the temperature of the

 >     exiting water to be.  Must I use a hot water rated hose?

 >Well, the closer the exiting water is to 100C, the more efficiency you're

 >getting.  I've never measured the temp of the water coming out of my

 >40-foot counterflow chiller, by I can empirically say that it's *hot*.

 I don't agree, at least about the hot exit water indicating efficiency.

 What is important is the total energy transfer, which happens

 much more efficiently with a greater delta T between the cooling water and

 the hot wort. Chillers are by definition more efficient at the first contact

 point than the last. A high flow rate of cooling water  with a minimum

 delta T OF THE COOLING WATER between outlet and inlet can be more efficient

 than a lower flow rate and higher delta T, since the efficiency along the

 length of the chiller is more constant and representative to the initial

 efficiency.

 I could be wrong, but this always worked out on the ranch....

 john post

 jpost@llnl.gov

------------------------------


Re: Lager under water

Date:  Wed, 28 Jul 1993 13:22:29 PDT

From: Mark_Davis.osbu_south@xerox.com

Subject: Re: Lager under water

(The caps are made of regular steel or maybe tin, but not

stainless or aluminum, and are coated with some sort of anodizing (I

guess from the color inside only.) I know they aren't SS or Al

because the magnet in my capper holds onto them.

In the process of capping, the cup that seats the cap may scrape off

enough of the coating to expose the underlying metal. While this rust

would only be on the outside, it would make you think twice about

drinking the contents. I suggest capping a couple bottles of water

and testing it out first.)

I had the same problem except I had rust on the bottle caps of the brew that

had been aged for an extended time, so someone suggested putting petrolium

jelly on the caps to keep them from rusting. I have tried this and it works.

All you need to do is take an old rag and put some petrolium jelly on it then

rub a little on each cap after the bottling is finished, it's easy if you have

the bottles in a case container.

Mark Davis   <Mark_Davis.osbu_south@Xerox.com>

------------------------------


Dallas beer info - Thanks!

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1993 15:25:00 -0800

From: mfetzer%ucsd.edu@chem.UCSD.EDU (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer)

Subject: Dallas beer info - Thanks!

Thank you, Craig, Keith and Jay!!

The info I received was right on the nose, and I'm quite sure I couldn't

have found these places without your help.

To the net: the folks above responded with pointers to my query 'where to

drink in Dallas'. The info I got was, there aren't any brewpubs yet (just

recently legalized) but there are some pubs worth going to.

Number one for any Dallas visitors:

        The Gingerman

        2718 Boll St.

        Dallas TX

        (214) 754-8771

Right behind Hard Rock Cafe off McKinney Ave. 50+ beers on tap, and a lot

more than that bottled.

Number two: Head to the West End. Plenty of bars, pubs, lots of outdoor

nightlife, at least in July. :) Live bands playing free outdoors, at 1am on

Sundays and Mondays (the two nights I was there)??? Is this normal? Wow.

There's a brewery there, whose products I didn't get a chance to sample,

but they're available at the Outback Pub, an Aussie/English/yuppie style

pub.

I received recomendations for Flip's restaurant and the London Tavern,

which I also unfortunatly didn't have time to see.

I sampled 3 Texas brews:

Shiner bock, which is not bad but not impressive. An American bock,

basically, but you justhave to have it if you're down there. :)

Celis White, the finest American brewed (as opposed to American style)

wheat beer I've had. It rivals it's Bavarian ancestors, and is unlike the

American wheats made by e.g., Widmer.

Celis Grand Cru, an interesting attempt at a Belgian style. It's too light

in color and body to be a true Grand Cru, but they really have the flavor

down. How do they do this? Anyone know? It tastes like a true lambic. I'd

love to get a bit of that into the raspberry ale I just made. A must try!

Thanks again to the folks that responded to my query. Made life so easy to

zip around a town I've never been too, but knew exactly where to go in. :)

:) :)

Michael

__

Michael Fetzer                         pgp 2.2 key available on request

Internet:      mfetzer@ucsd.edu        uucp:    ...!ucsd!mfetzer

Bitnet:        FETZERM@SDSC

HEPnet/SPAN:   SDSC::FETZERM           or       27.1::FETZERM

------------------------------


Dallas beer info - Thanks!

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1993 15:42:23 -0800

From: mfetzer%ucsd.edu@chem.UCSD.EDU (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer)

Subject: Dallas beer info - Thanks!

Thank you, Craig, Keith and Jay!!

The info I received was right on the nose, and I'm quite sure I couldn't

have found these places without your help.

To the net: the folks above responded with pointers to my query 'where to

drink in Dallas'. The info I got was, there aren't any brewpubs yet (just

recently legalized) but there are some pubs worth going to.

Number one for any Dallas visitors:

_The Gingerman

_2718 Boll St.

_Dallas TX

_(214) 754-8771

Right behind Hard Rock Cafe off McKinney Ave. 50+ beers on tap, and a lot

more than that bottled.

Number two: Head to the West End. Plenty of bars, pubs, lots of outdoor

nightlife, at least in July. :) Live bands playing free outdoors, at 1am on

Sundays and Mondays (the two nights I was there)??? Is this normal? Wow.

There's a brewery there, whose products I didn't get a chance to sample,

but they're available at the Outback Pub, an Aussie/English/yuppie style

pub.

I received recomendations for Flip's restaurant and the London Tavern,

which I also unfortunatly didn't have time to see.

I sampled 3 Texas brews:

Shiner bock, which is not bad but not impressive. An American bock,

basically, but you justhave to have it if you're down there. :)

Celis White, the finest American brewed (as opposed to American style)

wheat beer I've had. It rivals it's Bavarian ancestors, and is unlike the

American wheats made by e.g., Widmer.

Celis Grand Cru, an interesting attempt at a Belgian style. It's too light

in color and body to be a true Grand Cru, but they really have the flavor

down. How do they do this? Anyone know? It tastes like a true lambic. I'd

love to get a bit of that into the raspberry ale I just made. A must try!

Thanks again to the folks that responded to my query. Made life so easy to

zip around a town I've never been too, but knew exactly where to go in. :)

:) :)

Michael

__

Michael Fetzer                         pgp 2.2 key available on request

Internet:      mfetzer@ucsd.edu        uucp:    ...!ucsd!mfetzer

Bitnet:        FETZERM@SDSC

HEPnet/SPAN:   SDSC::FETZERM           or       27.1::FETZERM

------------------------------


Brussels Trip

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 18:13:10 EDT

From: roberts735@aol.com

Subject: Brussels Trip

A close friend, and business associate is going to Brussels for a week, and

asks what beers to bring back for me?  If you could select three or four,

what would  they be?

Thanks

Bob

RobertS735@aol.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1192, 07/29/93

*************************************

-------


Contacting Michael Jackson

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 2:36:41 EDT

From: chuck@synchro.com (Chuck Cox)

Subject: Contacting Michael Jackson

Do you know how to contact Michael Jackson?

Inquiries to Simon & Schuster have been unfruitful.

- --

Chuck Cox   <chuck@synchro.com>

SynchroSystems / Riverside Garage & Brewery - Cambridge, Mass.

------------------------------


HSA and Celis

Date: 29 Jul 93 03:44:36 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A@hq.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: HSA and Celis

The following attachments were included with this message:

__________________________________________________________________

TYPE     : FILE

NAME     : 1192

__________________________________________________________________

Keith writes,

>Subject: Aeration

>If you are doing a partial boil and dumping the hot wort into cold

>water you probably don't have to worry too much about aeration

>(unless you've preboiled your cold water).  Pouring the hot wort

>through a sanitized strainer will also aerate it (as well as help

>remove hops and break material).  I used this method for a full

>boil after cooling with a wort chiller and it seemed to work OK.

     What you will have to worry about is not whether enough

aeration takes place, but if the correct aeration occurs.  It

sounds to me like you would be introducing Hot Side Aeration (HSA).

George Fix had a good article about this in the 1992 Fall Zymurgy

issue.  Basically,  cool the wort to under 86 F (30 C) (Fix's

number) before introducing aeration.  Otherwise, you can seriously

harm the stability of the beer.  This happened to me on some of my

very first batches.  I was extract brewing and pouring relatively

hot wort through a strainer into a carboy with cold water.  The

beer tasted good, but after about 3 to 4 months it really started

to deteriorate.

                   ---------------------------

Michael writes,

>I sampled 3 Texas brews:

>Celis White, the finest American brewed (as opposed to American

>style) wheat beer I've had. It rivals it's Bavarian ancestors, and

>is unlike the American wheats made by e.g., Widmer.

     Celis White is a Belgian Wit (White) beer in style, not a

German wheat beer.  The yeast makes a big difference.

>Celis Grand Cru, an interesting attempt at a Belgian style. It's

>too light in color and body to be a true Grand Cru, but they

>really have the flavor down. How do they do this? Anyone know? It

>tastes like a true lambic.

     I think it is a very good Grand Cru.  I've never felt that

Belgian beers have rigid style parameters (as compared with German

Beers).  I believe the Celis fits into the rather broad Grand Cru

guidelines.  As for tasting like a "true lambic", I can only say

"What?!!!??"

Andy A

------------------------------


No head?

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 09:07:38 EDT

From: lyons%adc3@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: No head?

Chip Pencis writes in HBD #1192

>   I seem to be having trouble with head retention in all of my beers

>   including store bought Sierra Nevada Summerfest et al.  I believe

>   cause may be residue in my glassware.  However, I wash the glasses

>   in the dishwasher with Cascade detergent - I use energy saver settings

>   for the dry cycle.  Let me clarify problems - there is sufficient

>   carbonation in everything - the bubbles form about a 1/2-1" head on

>   pouring but quickly subside to no more than 1/16" head to none at all.

>   Any ideas....is this paranoia?

Make sure you are not using a rinse agent (like "Jet Dry") in your

dishwasher.  Rinse agents will leave a transparent film on glasses

which can destroy the head.

------------------------------


culturing Belgian yeast

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 10:15:16 EDT

From: Mark A Fryling <mfryling@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

Subject: culturing Belgian yeast

Howdy all,

You regulars may remember my post awhile back asking for hints on what beers my

girlfriend should bring me back from her trip to Belgium.  Well she's back and

I have (had) in my posession:

St. Bernardus Abt 12

Chimay Blue

Hoegaarden White and Verboten Vrucht

Duvel (red label)

Orval

Rodenbach

Gordons Highlander Scotch Ale

Mort Subite Frambois

The question I'd like to pose, is does anyone know if the yeast in the

Hoegaarden samples and the Abt 12 is fit to culture and brew with?  I know that

the Chimay is good stuff, and I already learned (from a recent posting) that

the Duvel yeast is not. Ditto for Orval. The others were pasteurized and

filtered.  TIA

BTW, just as a comment, the Gordons Highlander Scotch Ale was absolutely

fantastic.  Surely the finest example of the style I have ever tasted.  Rich,

sweet, malty and oh so strong.  Why in the h*ll is this stuff sold only in

Belgium?  I'd consider all sorts of unspeakable acts to get my hands on a case

of it.

Oh well, any advice is appreciated.  Hopefully I'll be attempting my own

Belgian styles soon.

Mark Fryling

Dept. of Chemistry

The Ohio State University

<mfryling@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

"Theres no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist"

                                             M. Twain

------------------------------


DON'T - Pour hot wort thru a strainer

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 09:15:15 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: DON'T - Pour hot wort thru a strainer

DON'T  POUR HOT WORT THRU A STRAINER TO AIRATE YOUR WORT.  This can produce

unwanted flavors and darkening.  Hot wort should be treated gently.  It

should be cooled before introducing air.

See George Fixes article on Hot Side Airation.

------------------------------


Sparge water aeration and pH

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 10:51:24 -0400

From: steve@snake.appl.wpafb.af.mil (Steve Zabarnick)

Subject: Sparge water aeration and pH

As I'm just getting into the all-grain world, and I've got a few questions.

I'm well aware of the perils of hot-side aeration. My question concerns the

aeration of and oxygen content of sparge water. One common technique in

professional breweries to sprinkle the sparge water from a rotating arm

(similar to the Phil Sparger). I would think that this would do I good job

of aerating the water. The solubility of oxygen in water at 170 F is about

half that at room temperature, so a significant amount can dissolve into

the sprinkling sparge water. Doesn't this result in hot-side aeration of

the wort in the lauter tun? Even without sprinkling, the water will still

have significant dissolved oxygen at 170 F unless first brought near

boiling and cooled.

My other question is about pH measurments of the mash and sparge water. How

important is it to cool the samples before taking this measurement? I've

been using a hand-held pH probe (which is supposed to be temperature

compensated), which I just stick into the mash. Am I getting a correct

measurement without cooling a sample of the mash?

Thanks

Steve Zabarnick

------------------------------


re efficiency calculations

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 10:11:24 EDT

From: cjh@diaspar.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Chip Hitchcock)

Subject: re efficiency calculations

> From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

> <From: Robert Pulliam <Robert_Pulliam@aja.rand.org>

> <2.  When calculating my extraction efficiency, do I use the gravity of

>      the wort fresh from the tun or after the boil?

>

> after.

   It doesn't matter when you try to calculate the efficiency; all you have

to do is measure gravity and volume /at the same time/. Consider, for

example, a wort that is 7 gallons at 1.050 when you quit sparging, and 5

gallons and 1.070 when you stop boiling; regardless of the number of pounds

of grain you used, the efficiencies calculated from these two sets of #'s

will be the same.

   It may be easier to measure gravity after you've boiled and cooled the

wort; I've never seen a table correcting for temperature above ~100F, so

you'd probably have to cool the runoff before measuring. (I'm not even

sure such a table would be correct for all plausible concentrations of

wort; the effect of temperature on the density of pure water is very well

mapped but I couldn't swear this would be valid for water/sugar solutions

at more extreme temperatures.)

------------------------------


Newsletter

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 08:51:49 PST

From: "Gail E. ARMORER" <GEARMORE@uci.edu>

Subject: Newsletter

          Please take my name and address off the newletter

          mailing list as I will no longer be available to

          receive it.  I have enjoyed it greatly!!!! Thanks.

          Gail Armorer

          GEARMORE@UCI.EDU

------------------------------


Re: Dallas beer/Cellis

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 10:05:24 MDT

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Dallas beer/Cellis

> I sampled 3 Texas brews:

> ...

> Celis White, the finest American brewed (as opposed to American style)

> wheat beer I've had. It rivals it's Bavarian ancestors, and is unlike the

> American wheats made by e.g., Widmer.

An interesting comparison, seeing as how Belgian Wit (White) beer is not

related to Bavarian Weizen as far as I know, except for the fact that they

both use wheat.

Belgian Wit traditionally uses 30-40% unmalted wheat and is spiced with

Curacao oranges and corriander.  Bavarian Weizen uses 60-70% malted

wheat, and no spices, but gets its characteristic "spiciness" (often

reminiscent of cloves) from esters produced by special strains of yeast.

By comparison, an "American Wheat" beer typically has 40-50% wheat malt

as its only distinguishing feature from an American pale ale.

> Celis Grand Cru, an interesting attempt at a Belgian style. It's too light

> in color and body to be a true Grand Cru, but they really have the flavor

> down. How do they do this? Anyone know? It tastes like a true lambic.

Ahem...  the Grand Cru is good as well, but I don't think it bears much

relationship to a true lambic.  I vaguely remember hearing someone say

that Pierre Celis does add some sort of souring bug (a Pediococcus,

perhaps?)  to both the White and the Grand Cru, but one bug does not a

lambic make.

Which leads me to my last topic...

> A close friend, and business associate is going to Brussels for a week, and

> asks what beers to bring back for me?  If you could select three or four,

> what would  they be?

A very tough call.  If you like the sour stuff, I recommend either the

Cantillon or Boon lambics.  My favorite trappist-style beers are

Rochefort dubbel and Westmalle trippel.  Try a bottle of Kwak

Pauvel(sp?)  for an example of a good Belgian ale that defines its own

category.

If only you could bring back a pitcher of young lambic from Becasse!

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Hot liquor tanks & slants

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 12:12:53 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Hot liquor tanks & slants

In the last digest:

<From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: Hot Water Heaters

<It beats me why this should be a problem.  Jim is simply suggesting

<using a hot water heater to provide very hot water for mashing,

<sparging, etc.  Why should this be a chlorine problem?

<In answer to Jim's question, at least one of the McMenamin brewpubs in

<Oregon uses exactly this system -- lots of pipes running out of that

<water heater that aren't standard!

<Jack, every hot liquor (water) system I've seen in a brewery is closed.

I agree in principal that chlorine is a nonissue.  A lot of big breweries

dont do anything to remove chlorine (big = 25 BBl in this sense).  The

argument is that the chlorine is driven off in the kettle anyway.  The

only relevent issue to me is solids/heavy metals etc.  I like to remove

this "junk" prior to mashing.  I can see a issue with build up of salts

in a hot water tank, but at one brew every 3 weeks or so I am not concerned.

The hot liquor tanks I am familiar with have a vent tube that overflows

when the tan k is full.  As the water heats this drives some water out

of the tube and the brewer shuts off the inlet valve feeding the tank.

My only decision here is the rebound time for a tank to reheat to 180F.

For this reason, I think I am going to put in a propane fired tank with a

high temp thermostat.

JS writes:

what do you expect

 from a for-profit company like BT?   At the moment, BT can survive on fewer

 Is it true that BT is for profit??  I wonder how "profitable" this kind of

 thing is.  I bet its like brewing, a lot of sweat equity in every issue/batch.

<sounds like you have re-invented the EASYSPARGER.

I dont know if a on demand hot water heater would be capable of providing

26 gallons of 180F water in a 30 minute time frame.  This is my requirement.

In Namur, Belgium , I witnessed such a beast. It fed a SS tank that had

another direct fired burner to boost/maintain the temp.  The brewer would

"ladel" the water over the grains and use a bit spoon/paddle to stir the

lauter.

JS:

<snip on general useful points of culturing, sounds like the instruction manuel

from the Yeast Culture Kit Co.....

<You would be much better off to transfer the petri culture to slants and use

these to start your starter.  I cover the slant with wort and use this as a

one time, pure culture starter.

This is not whats referred to as a "slant". THe first sentence is correct.

The second sentence is a technique of preparing a starter. Covering the

slant is not a good idea in my opinion.  You cover a small sample of yeast

with wort, the slant is where the yeast is maintained and cultured from.

The difference is a slant has agar with yeast growing on it. A starter

has no agar.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

DE HOPPEDUIVEL DRINKT MET ZWIER 'T GEZONDE BLOND HOPPEBIER!

------------------------------


wort aeration

Date: 29 Jul 1993 11:23:15 -0600 (CST)

From: RBSWEENEY@msuvx2.memst.edu

Subject: wort aeration

Many people have mentioned the use of an airstone connected to an aquarium

pump for wort aeration and this is the system I have been using for my last

5 batches with great results.  I have seen vigorous fermentations started in

less than 3 hours after running the pump continuously for an hour after

racking into the primary and pitching.  One way my little system from the way

most of these setups have been described (for example Dave Miller's book

Brewing the World's Great Beers) is that I don't use any type of air filter

on the hose between the airstone and pump.  I do sanitize everything but the

pump using a Iodophor solution and have not had any infection problems.

I did not include an air filter for two reasons: cost and the fact that all

the other aeration methods I am familiar with don't go to trouble of air

filtering so why should I?  I'm not worried, but I was wondering if anyone

else uses a similar system, and if so, why they chose to include or not to

include air filtration.  Email comments would be appreciated and interesting

results can be forwarded to the digest.

Thanks in advance,

Bob Sweeney

Department of Management Information Systems

Memphis State University

------------------------------


diacetyl rest, head retention

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 12:45:04 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: diacetyl rest, head retention

Hi All,

  In HBD#1191, Jim Busch writes:

>Its called a diacetyl rest.  It reduces (guess what??) diacetyl.  To be

>an authentic contential lager, ferment at 48-51F for 1 week, drop temp

                                                              ^^^^

>2F per day until it is 42F. Rest here 2-4 days (diacetyl rest)

>Those who

>"bring up" the temp are preeching the American fast lager approach. This

>is where ferments are done quite warm (up to 60F)

  I'm a little confused here.  I don't ferment lagers warm, 48F-50F, and I've

always used the Noonan method of raising the temperature for the diacetyl

rest (~55F for 2 days), with good results.  Can you clarify this point, Jim?

*************************************************************

  In HBD#1192, Keith A. MacNeal writes:

>If you are doing a partial boil and dumping the hot wort into cold water

>you probably don't have to worry too much about aeration

  If you are doing a partial boil and dumping the hot wort into cold water

you have to worry very much about oxidation.  Splashing *hot* wort around

causes oxidation reactions, which both darken the wort and produce off

flavors in the finished beer.  *Chill* the wort below 80F first before

aeration.  In the absence of high temperature, the oxygen remains in it's

free form, and can be utilized by the yeast during it's reproductive stage.

  From reading this forum and r.c.b, it's clear that this distinction

between oxidation and aeration is confusing to a lot of brewers.  I'm aware

that this practice of adding hot wort to cold water is recommended in a

certain popular book on homebrewing.  IMHO, this is just one of several

pieces of horrible advice contained in said book, and why I recommend to

beginners that they get the "other" book written by the less relaxed, more

worried guy.

>Pouring the hot wort through a sanitized strainer

>will also aerate it (as well as help remove hops and break material).

  I used this method routinely when I did partial boils, pouring my 2 gallons

of *chilled* wort through a sanitized strainer.  As Keith mentions, it is

an effective way to aerate the wort, and does filter hops and trub well.

*************************************************************

  Also in HBD#1192, Lee Menegoni writes:

>Re: Extract efficency - I was under the impression that measuring the pre and

>post boil extract effiecency would result in unequal values.  That the post

>boil value would be lower due to the precipitation of break materials.

>Has any one measured this?  Do they differ?  By how much?

  I compute extract efficiency after the sparge, and take an OG reading

after the boil, and I have found that the post boil number is always

slightly lower, adjusting for volume of course.  My brewpot has graduation

marks on the inside in one gallon increments, which allows me to "eyeball"

the finished volume within a quart or so.  It's *possible* that what I have

observed is nothing more than measurement error, since one quart as a

percentage of five gallons is larger than the observed difference in gravity

readings.  However, if that were so, I would have had cases where the

second reading was higher than the first, but that has never happened.

Intuitively, I believe the post boil value is lower due to the precipitation

of break materials.  The hydrometer, after all, simply measures SG - I don't

think it can distinguish between sugars and soluble proteins.  Comments?

  All that said, the differences I have measured are sufficiently small that

they can be ignored, with respect to getting an OG that's within range for

the style.

*************************************************************

  Chris Pencis writes about head retention:

>I seem to be having trouble with head retention in all of my beers

>I wash the glasses

>in the dishwasher with Cascade detergent

  I wash my beer glasses in the dishwasher with Cascade as well.  Many

commercial dishwashing soaps have something in them that prevents

spotting, but which leave a film.  I suspect that is your trouble.  I keep

a bucket of BBrite under the kitchen sink, rinse the glasses in that, then

rinse well with warm water.  The glasses feel different after this, and

I get good head retention with my beers.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


[fwd: DIXIE CUP 1993 Announcement (long)]

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 12:56:41 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: [fwd: DIXIE CUP 1993 Announcement (long)]

             ANNOUNCING

           THE 10th ANNUAL

             DIXIE CUP

        HOMEBREW COMPETITION

 Yes, folks, it's that time of year again.

 And if you didn't notice, the Houston Foam Rangers

 are trying to get off their backsides and actually

 get this thing organized early this year!

 The 1993 Dixie Cup will be held Ocotber 15 and 16

 at the Houston Holiday Inn West.

 The official Dixie Cup Entry stuff can be requested

 from the folks at DeFalco's Home Wine and Beer Supplies

 5611 Morningside, Houston, TX 77098 (713) 532-8154.

 The contents of the official stuff takes precedence

 over anything in this post (in case I goof).

 ELIGIBILITY

 Anyone can enter, the competition is open to all non-commercial,

 home-produced beers.  Beers produced on the premises of a

 commercial brewery are not eligible.  You may enter as often as

 you wish, but only two entries per category/subcategory per

 person please.

 ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

 Each entry shall consist of 3 bottles, preferrable 11-12 oz.

 All labels must be removed, but caps don't have to be blacked

 out.  An entry label must be attached to each bottle of the

 entry, with all information required on the form filled in.

 (Actually, all we need is you name, a telephone no., full snail

 mail address, category abbreviation, club affiliation, and

 any special ingredients or deviant style info, so you could

 type this up yourself and forgo the "official" form)

 PLEASE USE RUBBER BANDS TO ATTACH THE FORM TO THE BOTTLE.

 A complete recipe form should accompany each entry. (We want to

 print the recipies later in the newsletter, if you win.  You

 can always give it to us after you get a ribbon).

 ENTRY DEADLINE/FEES

 Entries, paperwork and cash moola must be in the hands of the

 staid employees of DeFalco's Home Whine & Beer Supplies no

 later than 4PM, SATURDAY, 9 OCTOBER.  The Fee is $6.00 before

 1 October, $7.00 after.  A $1.00 discount is given to club

 members. (Start your own club?)  DeFlaco's address is

 5611 Morningside, Houston, TX 77005.  Phone: (713) 523-8154

 FAX: (713) 523-5284.

 NO ENTRIES WILL BE ACCEPTED AFTER 9 OCTOBER!

 PACKING/SHIPPING

 It is suggested theat each bottle be wrapped in bubble pack or

 newspaper.  Place one entry (3 bottles) in a small box and

 fill with paper or other packing mat'l.  Line a bigger box

 with a

plastic bag and put all smaller boxes in it.  Pack the

 smaller boxes into the big box with paper or packing mat'l.

 Tie the bag, and seal the box securely.  Label the box FRAGILE

 and THIS END UP appropriately.  We suggest that you ship

 via UPS, if they ask tell them it's bottles, but they're well

 packed.  Try labelling the box KITCHEN SUPPLIES.

 WE SUGGEST THAT YOU SEND YOUR ENTRIES ASAP,  BEERS THAT

 ARRIVE EARLIER SEEM TO DOBETTER IN COMPETITION.

 JUDGING

 Judging will take place in three open sessions 15 & 16 October.

 The first round will be Friday night, the second round and

 best of show judging will be Saturday afternoon.

 WE NEED JUDGES! We expect approx. 650 entries, and need help

 getting the work done.  The competition is AHA/HWBTA

 recognized, and we'll get you as many BJCP points as is humanly

 possible for this gig (1 for judging, etc.).

 AWARDS

 THE DIXIE CUP TROPHY is awarded to the club that garners the

 most points on the following basis: 1st in category - 3 pts.

 2nd in cat. - 2 pts., 3rd in cat. - 1 pt.

 CLUB QUALITY AWARDS are given to the clubs with the top five

 scores (I've never understood how this works) in the

 preliminary round.  The awards are sponsored by

 Crosby and Baker, and

 consist of gift certificates redeemable at any homebrew

 shop that does business with Crosby&Baker.

 1st place $50, 2nd place $35, 3rd place $15.

 INDIVIDUAL AWARDS

 1st place - A magnificent stein and a swell ribbon

 2nd place - A nifty ribbon

 3rd place - A nice ribbon

 BEST OF SHOW

 Best Beer overall - Super Deluxe Pedastal for your stein

 Best All Grain - Deluxe Stein

 Best Extract - Deluxe Stein

 Best Mead -   Deluxe Stein

 MIKE TEMPLETON AWARD given in memory of one of the original

 Foam Rangers, the is awarded to the individual who collects

 the most points using the same scale as the Gulf Coast

 Homebrewer of the Year.

 GULF COAST HOMEBREWER OF THE YEAR is awarded to the brewer

 who accumulates the most points in the Dallas/Fort Worth

 Bluebonnet Brew-off, the New Orleans Crescent City Challenge,

 the Orlando Sunshine Challenge, and the Dixie Cup.  Points

 are awarded as follows: 3 pt.s for 1st place in a category,

 2 pts. for a 2nd place, and 1 pt. for a 3rd place.  The

 Dixie Cup is the last competition of the series, and the

 winner will be announced at the Dixie Cup.

 CATEGORIES (abbreviations for labels given in parens)

 I.  LAGERS

      LIGHT/PALE LAGERS

 1. American Light (AL)

 Continental Lights

 2a. Pilsner (CLP)

 2b. Munich Helles (CLM)

 2c. Dortmund Export (CLD)

     AMBER LAGERS

 3. Oktoberfest/Marzen/Vienna (OV)

 4. Steam Beer (SM)

      DARK LAGERS

 5. Continental Dark (CD)

      SPECIAL STYLE LAGERS

 6a. Traditional Dark Bock (BKD)

 6b. Light Helles Bock (BKL)

 7. Strong Lagers (SL)

 II.  ALES

          LIGHT&AMBER ALES

 8a. Alt Beers (GAA)

 8b. Kolsch Beers (GAK)

 9. Light Ale (LA)

 10a. Classic Pale Ale (CPA)

 10b. India Pale Ale (IPA)

 10c. American Pale Ale (APA)

       DARK ALES

 11.  Brown Ales and Milds (BAM)

 12. California/Texas Brown Ales (CTB)

 13a. Traditional Porter(POT)

 13b. East Coast Porter(POE)

 14. Sweet Stout (SS)

 15. Dry Stout (DS)

       OTHER ALES

 16a. Old Ales (SAO)

 16b. Barley Wines (SAB)

 16c. Imperial Stouts (SAI)

 16d. Trappist Ales (SAT)

 16e. Strong Scotch Ales (SAS)

 17a. Light German Wheat Beers (WLG)

 17b. Light American Wheat (WLA)

 17c. Amber and Dark Wheat Beers (WBD)

 III. UNUSUAL BEER STYLES

 18. Novelty Beers

 19. Fruit Beers

 20. Specialty Beers

 IV. MEAD

 Meads will be judged as Traditional or Flavored

 21. Still Meads (MST)

 22. Sparkling Meads (MSP) note -this was left off

      the mail-out thing!

 Descriptions of the beer styles can be found in the

 offcial stuff.

 Please enter early and often!

- -----------------------------------------------------

   .    _  .     _____________

   |/_|/__/|    /             /

  / / // /  /  / Happy! Happy! /

 /__|O||O|__ / /   Joy! Joy!   /

|/_ /_//_/ _/ | /  ___________/

| | (____) | ||  |/

///___//__/  // _/

(_/         ||

 |  Real    ||/   Sean Lamb (slamb@milp.jsc.nasa.gov)

  /  Beer   //_/   Loral Space Info Systems

   /______//      Houston, Texas, USofA, Earth, Sol

  __|| __||

 (____(____)

------------------------------


dishwasher detergent

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1993 14:08:35 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: dishwasher detergent

Chris Pencis asks:

>Here's my questions:

>   I seem to be having trouble with head retention in all of my beers

>   including store bought Sierra Nevada Summerfest et al.  I believe

>   cause may be residue in my glassware.  However, I wash the glasses

>   in the dishwasher with Cascade detergent - I use energy saver settings

>   for the dry cycle.  Let me clarify problems - there is sufficient

>   carbonation in everything - the bubbles form about a 1/2-1" head on

>   pouring but quickly subside to no more than 1/16" head to none at all.

>   Any ideas....is this paranoia?

Many dishwasher detergents have "sheeting action" or some such, which is

designed to reduce the drip spots on your glassware.  This stuff is indeed

a surfactant which will kill your head retention.  I find in many cases I

can smell the stuff on the glasses, and they have a really squeaky-clean

feel which gives me the heeby-jeebies.  I suggest you either hand wash your

beer glasses or get a detergent (or soap) that does not have a surfactant.

You may have to wipe a few drip spots off your glasses, but your beer is

worth it.

____________

Ed Hitchcock/Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology/Dalhousie University/Halifax NS

ech@ac.dal.ca   +-----------------------------------------+

  |   Never trust a statement that begins:  |

  |     "I'm not racist, but..."    |

  +-----------------------------------------+

 Diversity in all things.  Especially beer.

------------------------------


6 Row Barley Malt

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 12:12 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: 6 Row Barley Malt

 Someone recently posted some comments about megas using adjuncts to cover up

 the foul taste of 6 row barley malt.  I presumed this was a joke until I

 looked over the grain bill of my last two batches which have a very peculiar

 taste.  Turns out, about 1/3 of the base malt in these batches was 6 row.

 Not accepting anecdotal evidence as proof, I set up a set of experiments to

 find the source of the off taste.  Just so happens that I also doughed in

 both batches the night before mashing so I had two possible causes to deal

 with.  I set up the following experiments with my 500 ml pilot brewery:

 #1  100 gr Belgian Munich, doughed in at 10PM.  Mashed in the morning,

 sparged to 700 ml and boiled 60 min with .5 gr Chinook hops to 500 ml.

 Pitched with PU yeast after cooling to room temp and moved to fridge at 40F

 after 12 hours.

 #2  Same as #1 except that mashing immediately followed doughin.

 #3  Same as #1 except used 6 row malt from Minn Malting.

 #4  Same as #2 except used 6 row malt from Minn Malting.

 Results:

 #3 and #4 had the off-taste I noted in the full batches using 6 row malt and

 #1 and #2 were clean.  The samples were tasted every 24 hours for five days

 and nothing changed other than a reduction in sweetness.  The off-taste

 remained in the 6 row beers.

 Not sure how to describe the off-taste but it is quite strong though not

 necessarily unpleasant in the full batches but quite overpowering in the

 samples which were all 6 row malt.   I would incline to call it sort of a

 rancid taste.

 The good news is that the overnight doughin on the Belgian Munich samples had

 a very positive effect on the beer.  It had far more malty flavor and seemed

 richer and fuller in body.  Doughin the night before fits my lifestyle and I

 am now confident that the only affect is to improve the beer so I will make

 it SOP for all future batches.

 The effect on the 6 row samples was to just increase the level of the off

 taste and it even seemed to produce a rather foul odor.

 I suppose it is possible that I got a bad batch of malt but I really doubt it

 as I have had extensive experience with Minn Malting and the malt tastes fine

 on "chew-in".

 >From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

 >Subject: Re: Hot Water Heaters

 >Jack, every hot liquor (water) system I've seen in a brewery is closed.

 Perhaps it is something they should look into.

 >It beats me why this should be a problem.  Jim is simply suggesting

 using a hot water heater to provide very hot water for mashing,

 sparging, etc.  Why should this be a chlorine problem?

 Could, not should.

 >In answer to Jim's question, at least one of the McMenamin brewpubs in

 Oregon uses exactly this system -- lots of pipes running out of that

 water heater that aren't standard!

 My guess is that those non-standard pipes are part of the solution.

 I simply pointed out that, without venting, the water coming out will contain

 exactly the same volatiles as the water going in.  So if removing chlorine is

 necessary to the process, than some other means is necessary if the tank is

 not vented.

 I did not mean to imply that a hot water tank could/should not be used.  Just

 a data point for those contemplating same.

 >From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

 >Subject: Bud bashing

 >I would also challenge many skeptical homebrewers to brew a lager as

 light and clean as a Bud.  Ingredients are quite different from your

 average homebrew (uncured malt, adjuncts, etc.), you need techniques to

 minimize wort darkening and esters, and sanitation is paramount, as the

 slightest off flavor or aroma will be noticeable.

 It is not difficult at all to make lite colored beer if you dilute it with

 enough water.   The most important adjunct to maintain "Bud quality" is corn

 syrup.  This exotic ingredient produces as much alcohol as needed to

 compensate for water dilution at the end and contributes no color.  Virtually

 every characteristic and lack thereof in Bud can be explained by this simple

 expedient.

 js

------------------------------


stuff

Date: Thursday, 29 July 93 13:30:41 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: stuff

Howdy,

The following four issues were brought up in HBD 1192.

Chris Pencis is worried about his glassware.  Soap & detergent are no-no's

for beer glassware, unless you can rinse it off very well with very hot water.

I can tell a difference between my glasses at home that have been washed out

with soap & water & those that have been washed with hot water.  Also,

chilling the glasses supposedly prevents a nice head, but I haven't been able

to tell too much of a difference.  If you are particularly worried about

cleanliness, a quick dunk in chlorine water should take care of any little

bugs.

Also, Chris is wondering when to put the spices in his Christmas ale.  I made

one last year, & I boiled my spices (fresh ginger root, grated orange zest,

dried nutmeg, & a cinnamon stick) in a nylon bag with the extract.  I was

very happy with it.

John Palmer brings up the issue of homebrew as a laxative.  While I personally

have not had that problem, I have talked to people who tried other people's

homebrews & complained that it gave them the runs.  It's almost always folks

who have never had homebrew before, I've noticed.  Maybe it's an overdose of

vitamin B12, but I haven't the slightest.

Michael Fetzer gives a review of Celis Grand Cru.  Celis Grand Cru IS a

true Belgian beer, brewed right here in America.  Pieter Celis brewed beer

originally in Belgium, including the very same beer that he now calls Celis

Grand Cru (it was Hoegaarden Grand Cru in Europe).  I think you may be

noticing a difference because it's good, fresh beer & not something that

went across on ocean on a boat, sat in a warehouse in New York, sat in

another warehouse in your hometown, then sat on a shelf for two months

because people were afraid to try it.  (Whew.)  By the way, it is brewed with

Curacao orange peels & a "secret" ingredient, & has a alchohol content of

~7%, all which give it the interesting flavor you probably noticed.

Happy brewing,

Alan, Austin

------------------------------


Cheap Kegs?

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 18:32:00 +0000

From: ron_hall%80@hp6400.desk.hp.com

Subject: Cheap Kegs?

   I have been searching for a cheap source of Cornelius kegs.  I

noticed in the classified ads of the Celebrator, Brewing Techniques,

and maybe Zymurgy an ad for used pin lock kegs for $17 + shipping and used

ball fitting kegs for $22 + shipping from The Beverage Co., Anderson, CA.

Has anyone ordered or seen any of these?  Are they really beat up?  Have they

been leak checked?   The price seems too good to be true.

   Please reply off-line unless it seems of general interest.

Thanks in advance.

Ron Hall, Corvallis, Oregon

ron_hall@hp6400.desk.hp.com

------------------------------


Re: innoculating a starter from a petri dish

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 15:32:09 -0400

From: polstra!larryba@uunet.UU.NET

Subject: Re: innoculating a starter from a petri dish

In HBD# 1191, "atzeiner" writes:

>I just started culturing yeast and have two ale yeast cultures in petri

>dishes.  Out of curiosity, I used my innoculating loop to scrape up a glob of

>yeast and put it into a starter bottle(~1/2 full 12 oz. beer bottle).  I didnt

>really see much sign of fermentation, but after about 3 or 4 hours I looked at

>it and it seemed to have yeast sediment in it.  I was wondering if it was

>possible that there was enough yeasties in the glob that I picked up to make a

>decent starter in only a few hours.  How much yeast should you pick up to

>innoculate a 6 or 7 oz starter??

>

Depending upon the size of the glob it is entirely reasonable that you see

sediment pretty quickly.  At room temp yeast doubles roughly every three

hours.  I would guess that your 6oz of wort will start fermenting pretty

strongly after about three days.

Usually I start with around 30ml of wort and put my glob o yeast

(from the slant, but occasionally from a plate) in it three days before

brewing.  Within 8 hours the wort is turbid and some sediment is showing.

Usually between 24-48 hours the 20ml is actively bubbling and I can raise

a head by swirling.  Then I pitch into 150ml and twelve hours later I

pitch into my main starter, 500ml.  I try to time the final pitch the evening

before brewing.  If things are going too fast I just let the 180ml (150 + 30)

sit and ferment out.  Usually once the 30 ml is going it only takes 12 hours

(at room temp) to get the next size going.

Another important point to remember is to aerate your growth medium a lot.

This is important for yeast growth.  I do this by pouring the media + yeast

back and fourth between two sterile ball jars (I bake at 350 for a half hour

to sterilize - cover with aluminum foil).

Oh, on last tidbit: I use reclaimed wort from my hot break/hops and dilute

with water to roughly 1.020-25 before canning in ball jars (process for

20-30 minutes in boiling water).  Although the experts claimn that boil

process for 20 minutes doesn't sterilize the media I have never *ever*

had any hopped wort go bad, even stuff stored for over a year at room temp.

- --

Larry Barello   uunet!polstra!larryba

------------------------------


Pale Ale Recipe

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 14:11:19 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Pale Ale Recipe

There was sufficient reponse to post the recipe so here 'tis:

PYLE STYLE PALE ALE

(an American Pale Ale ala Sierra Nevada Pale Ale)

Brewed 7/10/93

Recipe for 5 US gallons (after losses)

5.00 lb American pale malt from Briess

4.00 lb English pale malt from Hugh Baird

0.75 lb Belgian crystal malt from ???

1.00 oz Mt. Hood pellets (a=3.9)

2.00 oz Cascade  pellets (a=5.1)

0.60 oz Cascade  leaf hops (a=5.6)*

        *from Mark Nightingale's garden 1992 crop

1056 Wyeast American Ale yeast dated 6/23/93*

     *made a one quart starter 24 hours in advance

1.00 tsp Irish moss (added in last 10 minutes of boil)

0.75 c   corn sugar for bottling

Mash water was 9 qts of 168F water poured into a room temperature 48 qt

rectangular cooler mash/lauter tun.  Doughed in pale malts only. Mash-in

temperature was 150F after stabilizing.  Mashed at 145-155 (added 1 qt of

180F water when temp dropped to 145F).  Conversion complete in one hour.

Crystal was added at mash-out.  Dumped 20 qts of 180F water into tun and

stirred (mashout and batch sparge in one step).  Sparge was very slow,

nearly stuck twice, so I back flushed the copper manifold to loosen it up

(need to adjust my grainmill!).  Start of boil, the volume was around

32 qts.  Boiled down to 22 qts. at 1.045.

Points of extract = (45pts. * 5.5 gal.) / 9.75 lbs. = 25 pts/lb/gal.

Hopping schedule:

60 min:  0.50 oz MH  IBU =  8.3

30       0.50    MH         4.5

         0.50    Cp         5.8

10       0.50    Cp         2.5

dry      0.50    Cl         1.0  (leave on for 10 days)

                           ----

Approximate Total IBU    = 22.1  (Balanced beer at 1.045 = 20 IBU)

A note about hopping:  I was attempting to get most of my IBUs later in

the boil to reduce some back of the tongue bitterness.  I wanted this to

be a hop flavored beer, rather than just have bitterness to balance the

malt.  On most beers I try for 50-60% of the bitterness at the 60 minute

addition, but as you can see, I did not do that here.  I achieved my goal

I think (see tasting notes).

Full fermentation in 12 hours, high krauesen in 36 hours.  Dry hops were

just thrown on top of beer in secondary.

7/14/93 Racked to secondary and added dry hops, SG = 1.010 (after 4 days)

7/24/93 Bottled                                 FG = 1.008 (after 14 days)

7/27/93 Tasting notes (I like my beer fresh!)

        - About 50% carbonated

        - Hops!  Cascades are all over the place, mostly aroma.  This is not

           a bitter beer, but is loaded with aroma.  I expect some of this

           to fade with time, bringing out the malt.  At this point, the

           hops dominate, which I expected.

        - Very clean tasting, very little esters

        - Still a bit cloudy (need more patience)

        - Color is pale, about like a Sierra Nevada (the lightest colored

           brew I've ever brewed)

        - This is a keeper.  It is rare for me to brew a recipe more than

           once, but this one will happen again.  This is only the second

           in 16 batches that I vow to repeat.  Enter it in a contest?  Hah!

           I wouldn't waste 3 bottles of this on Michael Jackson...

Enjoy!

- --

Norm Pyle, Staff Engineer

npyle@n33.stortek.com

Storage Technology Corporation

2270 South 88th Street

Louisville, CO 80028-0211

(303) 673-8884

------------------------------


Brewery Addresses.

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1993 16:45:39 -0400 (EDT)

From: Stephen Brent Peters <sp2q+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: Brewery Addresses.

Does anyone know of a publication I could look up that would list

mailing addresses for breweries in CA, OR, & WA?

I'm sad to report that Zima seems to be selling well in Pgh.  Several

people I know think it's the greatest thing ever.  After all, lots of

people don't like the taste of (commercial) beer, and Zima doesn't

taste like beer.  It tastes like a bad mixed drink.  I expect they

will do well for a while, then probably people will get bored with

it's zippy image and it will dissapear.

               Steve Peters =  sp2q@andrew.cmu.edu

                  *Oxnar demands a _Sacrifice!_*

------------------------------


Re: innoculating a starter from a petri dish

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 14:36:37 PDT

From: tpm@wdl.loral.com (Tim P McNerney)

Subject: Re: innoculating a starter from a petri dish

My biggest problem with innocualting a starter from a petri dish is that

I don't want to go through 5 different sized, sanitized starters to build

up enough yeast.  I tried innoculating a few ml of wort in a 1 liter flask,

but did not see the activity I was used to with 10 ml testtubes.  I got

the testtubes with presterilized wort from the Yeast Kit Culture Company

(along with 50 ml testtubes) and these worked great.  So my questions are:

1. Did the fact the the wort in the flask was so shallow cause problems with

yeast growth or just with the visible effects?

2. Since I only tried this once, did I just mess up this one innoculation?

3. How do other people build up a healthy sized started with spending half

their life preparing storage vessels?

________________________________

- --Tim McNerney

- --Loral Western Development Labs

- --(408) 473-4748

- --tpm@wdl1.wdl.loral.com

------------------------------


Frisia

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1993 16:02:37 -0800

From: ulrich@sfu.ca

Subject: Frisia

The last week or two there has been much discussion of Frisia (under a

variety of correct and incorrect spellings), so I checked it out. Friesland

is a province of the Netherlands. Ostfriesland (East F.) and Nordfriesland

(North F.) are in Germany. The Frisian Islands are divided among the

Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. The Frisian language (or Friesisch, as

they call it) is more closely related to English than either is to Dutch or

German. It is largely being replaced by Dutch (in the Netherlands) and

German (in Germany).

Charles Ulrich (linguist by trade, brewer by nature)

And now back to beer...

------------------------------


ZIMA

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1993 19:30:35 EDT

From: davanb%URSLIB.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU

Subject: ZIMA

Going against the advice of one wiser than me who suggested

avoiding ZIMA even if free, I gave it a shot simply to be

fair.  Unfortunately for me, my order was followed by a curious,

"Have you tried this yet?  I can't stand it." from the waiter.

Indeed, it stinks.  It tastes exactely like alka-seltzer with a

squirt of lime.  I should have known better: Coors=Crap; therefore

ZIMA=the bastard son of Crap.  Why ask why? --- Drink

real beer!

Dave, a Khyber Passenger in Philly

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1193, 07/30/93

*************************************

-------


Possible solution to commercial posts ?

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1993 13:25:34 +0930

From: Murray Robinson <robinm@mrd.dsto.gov.au>

Subject: Possible solution to commercial posts ?

After reading the discussions about whether or not commercial

posts should be allowed on the Homebrew Digest I checked up on

an automatic mailer package that may hold one solution to the problem.

Mail-Net (automatic mailing list handling software) allows uses to

subscribe to different "channels" of the same news group. For

example, the HBD could have a "commercial" and "non-commercial" channel.

When users subscribe to the newsgroup they would specify which channel

they wish to receive and when posting articles they would specify which

channel the article should go to. Non-commercial submissions would appear

on both channels of the HBD whereas commercial submissions would only appear

on the commercial channel of the HBD.

eg If I wanted to receive both commercial and non commercial postings of the

HBD I would subscribe to the HBD with the following keyword in either the

header or first line of the message: "X-Mn-Key: commercial"

Then if I wanted to post a non commercial submission I would specify the

subject in the header as usual and put the keyword "X-Mn-Key: non-commercial"

in the first line of my message. Similarly if I wanted to post what would be

deemed to be a commercial submission I would specify "X-Mn-Key: commercial"

in the first line of the message.

This approach obviously doesn't solve the fundamental differences of opinion

about the content of the HBD but it does offer some freedom from commercial

posts if that is what you want. Ofcourse the whole system falls down if the

keyword "X-Mn-Key: commercial" is not put on the first line of commercial posts.

Food for thought anyway.

Cheers,

Murray.

------------------------------


Dixie Cup 1993 (long)

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 93 02:22:59 CDT

From: Sean C. Lamb 335-6669 Loral <slamb@milp.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject: Dixie Cup 1993 (long)

            ANNOUNCING

          THE 10th ANNUAL

            DIXIE CUP

       HOMEBREW COMPETITION

Yes, folks, it's that time of year again.

And if you didn't notice, the Houston Foam Rangers

are trying to get off their backsides and actually

get this thing organized early this year!

The 1993 Dixie Cup will be held Ocotber 15 and 16

at the Houston Holiday Inn West.

The official Dixie Cup Entry stuff can be requested

from the folks at

DeFalco's Home Wine and Beer Supplies

5611 Morningside, Houston, TX 77098 (713) 532-8154.

The contents of the official stuff takes precedence

over anything in this post (in case I goof).

ELIGIBILITY

Anyone can enter, the competition is open to all

non-commercial,home-produced beers.

Beers produced on the premises of a commercial

brewery are not eligible.  You may enter as often

as you wish, but only two entries per

category/subcategory per person please.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

Each entry shall consist of 3 bottles, preferrably

11-12 oz. All labels must be removed,

but caps don't have to be blacked out.

An entry label must be attached to each bottle

of the entry, with all information

required on the form filled in.

(Actually, all we need is you name, a telephone no.,

full snail mail address, category abbreviation,

club affiliation, and any special ingredients or

deviant style info, so you could type this up

yourself and forgo the "official" form)

PLEASE USE RUBBER BANDS TO

ATTACH THE FORM TO THE BOTTLE.

A complete recipe form should accompany each entry.

(We want to print the recipies later in the

newsletter, if you win.  You can always give

it to us after you get a ribbon).

ENTRY DEADLINE/FEES

Entries, paperwork and cash moola must be in

the hands of the staid employees of

DeFalco's Home Whine & Beer Supplies no

later than 4PM, SATURDAY, 9 OCTOBER.

The Fee is $6.00 before 1 October, $7.00 after.

A $1.00 discount is given to club

members. (Start your own club?)

DeFlaco's address is

5611 Morningside, Houston, TX 77005.

Phone: (713) 523-8154

FAX: (713) 523-5284.

NO ENTRIES WILL BE ACCEPTED AFTER 9 OCTOBER!

PACKING/SHIPPING

It is suggested theat each bottle be wrapped

in bubble pack or newspaper.  Place one entry

(3 bottles) in a small box and fill with paper

or other packing mat'l.  Line a bigger box

with a plastic bag and put all smaller boxes

in it.  Pack the smaller boxes into the big box

with paper or packing mat'l. Tie the bag, and s

eal the box securely.  Label the box FRAGILE

and THIS END UP appropriately.  We suggest

that you ship via UPS, if they ask tell them

it's bottles, but they're well packed.

Try labelling the box KITCHEN SUPPLIES.

WE SUGGEST THAT YOU SEND YOUR ENTRIES ASAP,

BEERS THAT ARRIVE EARLIER SEEM TO DO

BETTER IN COMPETITION.

JUDGING

Judging will take place in three open sessions

15 & 16 October. The first round will be

Friday night, the second round and

best of show judging will be Saturday afternoon.

WE NEED JUDGES! We expect approx. 650 entries,

and need help  getting the work done.

The competition is AHA/HWBTA recognized,

and we'll get you as many BJCP points as is

humanly possible for this gig

(1 for judging, etc.).

AWARDS

THE DIXIE CUP TROPHY is awarded to the

club that garners the most points on the

following basis:

1st in category - 3 pts.

2nd in cat. - 2 pts.,

3rd in cat. - 1 pt.

CLUB QUALITY AWARDS are given to the clubs

with the top five scores

(I've never understood how this works) in the

preliminary round.  The awards are sponsored by

Crosby and Baker, and consist of gift

certificates redeemable at any homebrew

shop that does business with Crosby&Baker.

1st place $50, 2nd place $35, 3rd place $15.

INDIVIDUAL AWARDS for each category

1st place - A magnificent stein

            and a swell ribbon

2nd place - A nifty ribbon

3rd place - A nice ribbon

BEST OF SHOW

Best Beer overall - Super Deluxe Pedastal

                    for your stein

Best All Grain - Deluxe Stein

Best Extract - Deluxe Stein

Best Mead -   Deluxe Stein

MIKE TEMPLETON AWARD given in memory of

one of the original Foam Rangers, it is

awarded to the individual who collects

the most points at the Dixie Cup using

the same rules as the Gulf Coast

Homebrewer of the Year.

GULF COAST HOMEBREWER OF THE YEAR is awarded

to the brewer who accumulates the most points

in the Dallas/Fort Worth Bluebonnet Brew-off,

the New Orleans Crescent City Challenge,

the Orlando Sunshine Challenge,

and the Dixie Cup.

Points are awarded as follows:

3 pt.s for 1st place in a category,

2 pts. for a 2nd place,

and 1 pt. for a 3rd place.

The Dixie Cup is the last competition

of the series, and the

winner will be announced at the Dixie Cup.

CATEGORIES

   (abbreviations for labels given in parens)

I.  LAGERS

     LIGHT/PALE LAGERS

1. American Light (AL)

Continental Lights

2a. Pilsner (CLP)

2b. Munich Helles (CLM)

2c. Dortmund Export (CLD)

    AMBER LAGERS

3. Oktoberfest/Marzen/Vienna (OV)

4. Steam Beer (SM)

     DARK LAGERS

5. Continental Dark (CD)

     SPECIAL STYLE LAGERS

6a. Traditional Dark Bock (BKD)

6b. Light Helles Bock (BKL)

7. Strong Lagers (SL)

II.  ALES

         LIGHT&AMBER ALES

8a. Alt Beers (GAA)

8b. Kolsch Beers (GAK)

9. Light Ale (LA)

10a. Classic Pale Ale (CPA)

10b. India Pale Ale (IPA)

10c. American Pale Ale (APA)

      DARK ALES

11.  Brown Ales and Milds (BAM)

12. California/Texas Brown Ales (CTB)

13a. Traditional Porter(POT)

13b. East Coast Porter(POE)

14. Sweet Stout (SS)

15. Dry Stout (DS)

      OTHER ALES

16a. Old Ales (SAO)

16b. Barley Wines (SAB)

16c. Imperial Stouts (SAI)

16d. Trappist Ales (SAT)

16e. Strong Scotch Ales (SAS)

17a. Light German Wheat Beers (WLG)

17b. Light American Wheat (WLA)

17c. Amber and Dark Wheat Beers (WBD)

III. UNUSUAL BEER STYLES

18. Novelty Beers

19. Fruit Beers

20. Specialty Beers

IV. MEAD

Meads will be judged as Traditional or Flavored

21. Still Meads (MST)

22. Sparkling Meads (MSP) note -this was left off

     the mail-out thing!

Descriptions of the beer styles can be

found in the offcial stuff.

Please enter early and often!

- --------------------------------------------------------

      .    _  .     _____________

      |/_|/__/|    /             /

     / / // /  /  / Happy! Happy! /

    /__|O||O|__ / /   Joy! Joy!   /

   |/_ /_//_/ _/ | /  ___________/

   | | (____) | ||  |/

   ///___//__/  // _/

   (_/         ||

    |  Real    ||/   Sean Lamb (slamb@milp.jsc.nasa.gov)

     /  Beer   //_/

      /______//      Houston, Texas, USofA, Earth, Sol

     __|| __||

    (____(____)

------------------------------


Dixie Cup 1993 Events

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 93 02:23:38 CDT

From: Sean C. Lamb 335-6669 Loral <slamb@milp.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject: Dixie Cup 1993 Events

            ANNOUNCING

          THE 10th ANNUAL

            DIXIE CUP

       HOMEBREW COMPETITION

Yes, folks, it's that time of year again.

And if you didn't notice, the Houston Foam

Rangers are trying to get off their backsides

and actually get this thing organized

early this year!

The 1993 Dixie Cup will be held

Ocotober 15 and 16  at the

Holiday Inn Houston West.

The official Dixie Cup Entry stuff can

be requested from the folks at

DeFalco's Home Wine and Beer Supplies

5611 Morningside, Houston, TX 77098

(713) 532-8154.

The contents of the official stuff

takes precedence over anything in this

post (in case I goof).

ATTENDING THE DIXIE CUP

HOTEL RESERVATIONS can be had by calling the

Holiday Inn 800 number (don't have it with me)

or by calling the Holiday Inn Houston West

directly at (713) 558-5580. The rate is $52

per room per night, and don't forget

to ask for the Dixie Cup rate, and mention

the quoted rate.  The address of the hotel

is 14703 Park Row, it is on the north side

of Interstate 10 at the junction of Highway 6

on the far west side of Houston.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

   Friday, 15 October

1200-1700      Set-up, call DeFlaco's to help

1745 sharp     Assembly of first round judges

1800-1830      Judge and Steward orientation

1830-2230      1st round judging

2230-2315      Potluck dinner

2315-2400      Fred Eckhardt Epicurean

               Extravaganza

   Saturday, 16 October

0830-1130     Milli-Conference and Breakfast

              ($12) or BJCP EXAM ($40)

1130-1200     Lunch (Free for judges/stewards

                     otherwise $5)

1200-1400     2nd round judging

1400-2000     Pub Crawl/Microbrew Tasting/

              Jambalaya Feast

2200-2400     Awards Ceremony

    Sunday, 17 October

1200 - ?      World's Fastest Hombrewer

              Competition

FRED ECKHARDT EPICUREAN EXTRAVAGANZA

THis year we return to the original sin:

Beer and Chocolate!

MILLI-CONFERENCE

 Presentations by   George Fix,

                    Paul Farnsworth and

                    Pierre Celis

   $12, including breakfast buffet

PUB CRAWL/MICRO TASTING/JAMBALAYA FEAST

  The Pub Crawl will wend its way to the

Orange Show, where the Micro Tasting

will be held.  The Crescent City

Homebrewers are supplying loads of the

most excellent jambalya, and we'll have

as many Micro/Craft brewed beers as we

can scrounge.  The pub crawl is $14,

including the micro tasting.

The micro tasting and food is $3 if

you don't crawl.

We are looking for beer for the micro

tasting, so if you're coming and feel up

to it, bring a couple of sixes of your

favorite local brew.  Also, if you know

a brewer personally, have them contact

us if they feel like getting their

product "exposed" to the Houston Market.

WORLD'S FASTEST HOMBREWER

Come to Malibu Grand Prix and try to

wrest the title from Chuck Cox!

- --------------------------------------------------------

      .    _  .     _____________

      |/_|/__/|    /             /

     / / // /  /  / Happy! Happy! /

    /__|O||O|__ / /   Joy! Joy!   /

   |/_ /_//_/ _/ | /  ___________/

   | | (____) | ||  |/

   ///___//__/  // _/

   (_/         ||

    |  Real    ||/   Sean Lamb (slamb@milp.jsc.nasa.gov)

     /  Beer   //_/

      /______//      Houston, Texas, USofA, Earth, Sol

     __|| __||

    (____(____)

------------------------------


re: clean glasses and head retention

Date:    Fri, 30 Jul 1993 7:30:56 -0400 (EDT)

From: P_LABRIE@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Paul LaBrie)

Subject: re: clean glasses and head retention

RE: Chris' question (and subsequent replies) about head retention, dish-

washing detergents, etc., an old trick to make a "beer clean glass" (i.e

to cut through an existing "film") was to wet the glass then rub good old

fashioned table salt around the inside of the glass.  Typically you can

only reach the upper 1/3 of the glass with your fingers but this seems to

do the trick.  When you've finished with this "salt scrub", be sure to give

the glass a THOROUGH rinsing with plenty of water before pouring your beer.

I worked for several years for a beer distributor who was a zealot about

presenting his product in a "beer clean glass".  As I recall, he used to

give out free bags of trisodium phosphate to his draft customers so that

they might better clean their glassware. "If the bubbles stick to the side,

the glass ain't clean."

 - paul -

------------------------------


bos93.txt

Date: 30 Jul 93 08:24:11 EDT

From: Robin Garr <76702.764@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: bos93.txt

These are the top prizes awarded at Thursday night's banquet at the American

Homebrewers Association convention.

First, second and third prizes in all homebrewing categories follow as a

separate post.

The information in these messages is unofficial, reported during live

coverage of the events on the CompuServe Beer Forum by Sysop Robin Garr.

HOMEBREW CLUB HIGH-POINT AWARD

Sonoma Beerocrats, Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, Calif.

SAKEMAKER OF THE YEAR

Jim Long, Sacramento, Calif.

CIDERMAKER OF THE YEAR

Gabriel Ostriker, Somerville, Mass.

MEADMAKER OF THE YEAR

Walter Dobrowney, Saskatoon, Sask.

THE NINKASI AWARD

Walter Dobrowney, Saskatoon, Sask.

HOMEBREWER OF THE YEAR

Paddy Giffin, Cotati, Calif.

------------------------------


aha93.txt

Date: 30 Jul 93 08:24:29 EDT

From: Robin Garr <76702.764@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: aha93.txt

These are the winners of the 1993 annual American Homebrewers Association

competition, announced Thursday, July 29, 1993, at the final banquet of the

AHA convention in Portland, Oregon.

BARLEY WINE (Sponsor, EDME Ltd.):

Third: Bill Clawson, Diamond Springs, Calif., Gold Country Brewers Assn.

Second: Chuck Boyce, Cincinnati, Bloatarian Brewing League.

First: Ray Call, Stockton, Calif., Sonoma Beerocrats.

BELGIUM-STYLE SPECIALTY (Sponsor, Manneken-Brussel Imports):

Third: Phil Markowski, Norwalk, Conn., Underground Brewers of Connecticut.

Second: Tony Babinec, Flossmoor, Ill., Chicago Beer Society.

First: Brian Bliss, Dallas, North Texas Homebrewers Assn.

BROWN ALES (Sponsor, Premier Malt Products):

Third: John M. Roberts, Jamaica Plain, Mass., American Brown.

Second: Jim Dilldine, Craig, Colo., American Brown.

First: Douglas Brown, Redondo Beach, Calif., Maltose Falcons Homebrewing

Society, English Mild.

ENGLISH STYLE PALE ALE (Sponsor, Wynkoop Brewing Co.):

Third: Matt Hussey and Casey Lott, Portland, Ore., India Pale Ale.

Second: Russell Levitt, Bloomington, Ind., Classic English Pale Ale.

First: Kelly Dunham, Pacifica, Calif., The Brewbirds of Hoppiness, India

Pale Ale.

AMERICAN STYLE ALE (Sponsor, Northwestern Extract):

Third: Daniel R. Bell, Grass Valley, Calif., Foothill Fermenters, American

Pale Ale.

Second: Mike and Dina Kraft, Austin, Texas, Zymurgic Enthusiasts of Austin,

American Pale Ale.

First: Jack H. Denny, Lenexa, Kan., Kansas City Beer Meisters, American Wheat.

ENGLISH BITTER (Sponsor, The Brewery):

Third: Steve Klover, Thornton, Colo., Hop Barley & The Alers, English Special.

Second: Byron Burch, Santa Rosa, Calif., Sonoma Beerocrats, English Extra

Special.

First: Donna Lynn and Brian F. Johnson, Palo Alto, Calif., San Andreas Malts,

English Special.

SCOTTISH ALE (Sponsor, Something's Brewing):

Third: Jay Ankeney, Manhattan Beach, Calif., Maltose Falcons Homebrewing

Society, Scottish Light.

Second: Ted Andersen, Petaluma, Calif., Sonoma Beerocrats, Scottish Heavy.

First: James E. Edgins, Highlands Ranch, Colo., Hop Barley & The Alers,

Scottish Heavy.

PORTER (Sponsor, The Cellar):

Third: Joel Rosen and Nancy Simon, Hermosa Beach, Calif., The Strand

Brewers Club, Robust Porter.

Second: Scott Keohane, Carlisle, Mass., The Boston Wort Processors, Robust

Porter.

First: Marvin Crippen, Seattle, Robust Porter.

ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH STRONG ALE (Sponsor, Wine and Hop Shop):

Third: Rick Garvin, Arlington, Va., Brewers United for Real Potables (BURP),

English Old Ale/Strong Ale.

Second: Mike Schaefer, Wauwatosa, Wis., Brewtown Brewmasters, English Old

Ale/Strong Ale.

First: Ray Call, Stockton, Calif., Sonoma Beerocrats, Strong "Scotch" Ale.

STOUT (Sponsor, Alternative Garden Supply):

Third: Mike Rego, Amherst, N.H., Brew Free or Die Club, Foreign Style.

Second: Chris Stamp, Rock Stream, N.Y., Ithaca Brewers Union, Sweet Stout.

First: David and Melinda Brockington, Seattle, Foreign Style.

BOCK (Sponsor, Yakima Valley Hop Growers):

Third: Alan Barnes, Nashville, Tenn, Mashville Brews, Helles (Light) Bock.

Second: Bob Tullmann, Pine Mountain, Calif., Doppelbock.

First: Ron Kribbs and Rick Skillman, Naples, Fla., Eisbock.

BAVARIAN DARK (Sponsor, Crosby and Baker):

Third: Dennis Kinvig, Toronto, Ont., Canadian Association for Better Ale

and Lager (CABAL), Munich Dunkel.

Second: Tom Altenbach, Tracy, Calif., Draught Board Home Brew Club,

Schwarzbier.

First: Jay Hersh, Medford, Mass., The Boston Wort Processors, Munich

Dunkel.

DORTMUND/EXPORT (Sponsor, Briess Malting Co.)

Third: Thomas J. O'Connor III, Rockport, Me., Maine Ale & Lager Tasters

(MALT).

Second: Rob Brunner, Windsor, Colo., Mash Tongues.

First: Robert Henke, Whitefish Bay, Wis.

MUNICH HELLES (Sponsor, L.D. Carlson Co. [Formally Wines Inc.]):

Third: Richard Kowalski, Wantagh, N.Y., Paumanok United Brewers (PUB).

Second: Keith Weerts, Windsor, Calif., Sonoma Beerocrats.

First: Donald J. Weaver, New Freedom, Pa., Libation Association.

CLASSIC PILSNER (Sponsor, California Concentrates):

Third: Chris Moes, Woodside, Calif., German.

Second: Ron Page, Middletown, Conn., The Boston Wort Processors, German.

First: Steve and Tina Daniel, League City, Texas, Bay Area Mashers (BAM),

German.

AMERICAN LAGER (Sponsor, Coors Brewing Co.):

Third: Charles P. Hessom, Redwood Valley, Calif., Sonoma Beerocrats, American

Standard.

Second: Steve & Tina Daniel, League City, Texas, Bay Area Mashers (BAM),

American Dark.

First: Gene Muller, Westmont, N.J., HOPS, Cream Ale/Lager.

VIENNA OKTOBERFEST/MARZEN (Sponsor, F.H. Steinbart Co.)

Third: Ron Page, Middletown, Conn., The Boston Wort Processors, Marzen/

Oktoberfest.

Second: John M. Roberts, Jamaica Plain, Mass., Marzen/Oktoberfest.

First: John E. Janowiak, Adelphi, Md., Marzen/Oktoberfest.

GERMAN-STYLE ALE (Sponsor, The Beverage People):

Third: Keith Weerts, Windsor, Calif., Sonoma Beerocrats, Dusseldorf-style

Altbier.

Second: Bruce Cornell, Baton Rouge, La., Redstick Brewmasters, Kolsch.

First: Bill Yearous, Galt, Calif., Brew Angels, Dusseldorf-style Altbier.

FRUIT BEER (Sponsor, The Purple Foot):

Third: Kelly Mower and Brent Stromness, Salt Lake City, Zion Zymurgists Hops

(ZZ HOPS) Club.

Second: Vern Wolff, Esparto, Calif., Gold Country Brewers Assn.

First: Gene Muller, Westmont, N.J., HOPS Club.

HERB BEER (Sponsor, Marin Brewing Co.):

Third: Michael Millerick, Fairfield, Conn.

Second: Mike Schaefer, Wauwatosa, Wis., Brewtown Brewmsters Club.

First: Richard Mansfield and Mike Smith, San Jose, Calif., Washoe Zephyr

Zymurgists Club.

SPECIALTY BEER (Sponsor, Beer and Wine Hobby):

Third: Ronald B. Moucka, Fort Collins, Colo., Mash Tongues Club.

Second: Frank F. Miller, Libertyville, Ill.

First: Ron Page, Middletown, Conn., The Boston Wort Processors.

SMOKED (Sponsor, Jim's Homebrew Supply):

Third: George Mika, Warrenton, Va., Brewers United for Real Potables (BURP).

Second: Mike Fertsch and David Koresh (!?), Woburn, Mass., The Boston Wort

Processors, Bamberg-style Rauchbier.

First: Paddy Giffen, Cotati, Calif., Sonoma Beerocrats.

CALIFORNIA COMMON BEER (Sponsor: Anchor Brewing Co.)

Third: Strom C. Thacker, Gainesville, Ga.

Second: Robbie Enrico, Greensburg, Pa., Three Rivers Alliance of Serious

Homebrewers (TRASH).

First: Michael Dennis Bell, Pleasant Hill, Calif.

WHEAT BEER - ALE (Sponsor: American Homebrewrs Association):

Third: Bruce A. Brandt, Casnovia, Mich., Prime Time Brewers, Berliner Weisse.

Second: Steve Dempsey, Fort Collins, Colo., Hop Barley & The Alers Club,

German-style.

First: Walter Dobrowney, Saskatoon, Sask.

TRADITIONAL MEAD (Sponsor, Havill's Mazer Mead Co.):

Third: Paddy Giffen, Cotati, Calif., Sonoma Beerocrats, Still Mead.

Second: Byron Burch, Santa Rosa, Calif., Sonoma Beerocrats, Sparkling Mead.

First: Walter Dobrowney, Saskatoon, Sask., Still Mead.

MELOMEL, CYSER, PYMENT (Sponsor, National Honey Board):

Third: Peter Knight, St. Helena, Calif., Sonoma Beerocrats, Still.

Second: Bob Gorman, Waltham, Mass., The Boston Wort Processors.

First: Gordon Olson, Los Alamos, N.M., Los Alamos Hill Hoppers.

CIDER (Sponsor, Lyon's Brewery of Dublin):

Third: Gabriel Ostriker, Somerville, Mass., Still.

Second: Gabriel Ostriker, Somerville, Mass.. Sparkling.

First: Gabriel Ostriker, Somerville, Mass., Specialty Cider.

SAKE (Sponsor, Hakusan Sake):

Third: Fred Eckhardt, Portland, Ore., Oregon Brew Crew.

Second: Jim Long, Sacramento, Calif., Gold Country Brewers Assn., Sparkling.

First: Jim Long, Sacramento, Calif., Gold Country Brewers Assn.

------------------------------


hot water / starting starters

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1993 11:11:08 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: hot water / starting starters

>I dont know if a on demand hot water heater would be capable of providing

>26 gallons of 180F water in a 30 minute time frame.  This is my

>requirement.

 Perhaps what you need is a flow-through water heater.  That way it

heats the water to the desired temp as it passes through the pipe, no

worrying (not that homebrewers worry) about the time to heat up 40 gallons

of water.

 **************************

 Recently I made some starters the quick and dirty way, since I

realized Friday morning I hadn't started the yeast for Saturday's brewing

session.  I scrapped the slant into a 640 mL Beck's bottle, added 500 mL

sterile wort, capped it, SHOOK VIGOROUSLY for 5 minutes, removed the cap

and put on an airlock.

 The satrter was cloudy with yeast by Saturday Night pitching time,

and the kraeusen was crawling out the airlock (oops!) Sunday morning.  Of

course, this was a fairly fresh slant.  One of my older slants took two

days to get to that point.

____________

Ed Hitchcock/Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology/Dalhousie University/Halifax NS

ech@ac.dal.ca   +-----------------------------------------+

  |   Never trust a statement that begins:  |

  |     "I'm not racist, but..."    |

  +-----------------------------------------+

 Diversity in all things.  Especially beer.

------------------------------


Overnight mashing

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 93 09:16:01 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Overnight mashing

In HBD #1193 Jack Schmidling mentions doing the mash-in the night

before the rest of the mash.  According to Jack, the overnight mash-in

"had far more malty flavor and seemed richer and fuller in body" than

the same recipe using a normal mash-in.

Very interesting experience!  I could certainly go for mashing-in the

night before.  Have others tried this?  With what sucess?  Jack, what

temperature do you mash in at and how does it change overnight?

Sante' WAK

------------------------------


My pale ale recipe

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 93 8:34:43 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: My pale ale recipe

I have to report errors in the pale ale recipe I posted yesterday, if anyone is

paying attention.  The ingredient list showed 2 oz of Cascade pellets; only

1 oz was used.  Also, the hopping schedule showed 0.5 oz of dry hops (Cascade

leaf hops) and it should have shown 0.6 oz.  Sorry for the errata but, hey, I'm

an amateur!

Cheers,

norm

------------------------------


yeast culture miscellany

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1993 11:02:46 -0500

From: tmgierma@raphael.acpub.duke.edu (Todd Gierman)

Subject: yeast culture miscellany

I posted some ideas for yeast culturing in HBD #1192.  For some of the

questions pertaining to yeast culture in #1193, I refer you to those notes.

 I'll add a few more comments here.  But, first the disclaimer.  I am not a

yeast expert; outside of homebrewing I do not work with yeast.  However, I

do a fair amount of culturing of E. coli and animal cells, I have a

reasonable level of knowledge concerning the biochemistry and molecular

biology of yeasts, and I have access to a number of technical writings

concerning yeast physiology and growth.  The methods that I have described

are idealized.  I realize that they are not always suitable to the setup of

most homebrewers.   I urge anyone reading them to take them as guidelines

that can be adapted to one's own system - deviation  is the accepted norm.

>From: tpm@wdl.loral.com (Tim P McNerney)

>Subject: Re: innoculating a starter from a petri dish

>

>My biggest problem with innocualting a starter from a petri dish is that

>I don't want to go through 5 different sized, sanitized starters to build

>up enough yeast.  I tried innoculating a few ml of wort in a 1 liter flask,

>but did not see the activity I was used to with 10 ml testtubes.  I got

>the testtubes with presterilized wort from the Yeast Kit Culture Company

>(along with 50 ml testtubes) and these worked great.  So my questions are:

>

>1. Did the fact the the wort in the flask was so shallow cause problems with

>yeast growth or just with the visible effects?

Probably not, to the first part.  Who knows for sure, to the second.

>2. Since I only tried this once, did I just mess up this one innoculation?

Possibly.  Allow your flamed loop to cool before picking (stab it into a

clear area of the agar - it should sizzle).  A hot loop may kill your

colony on the spot.  For a few mls in a liter, you're talking a long time

before you will even begin to see activity (see my previous posting).

Presumably, you successfully picked a colony, as evidenced by the activity

seen in the "few ml" starter starter.

>3. How do other people build up a healthy sized started with spending half

>their life preparing storage vessels?

Again, my previous posting explains how I do it under ideal conditions.  It

really isn't a matter of five sterile containers, more like two or three.

Here's a suggestion:  start with 2 ml in your sterile tube, add 8 ml the

next day to make 10 ml (assuming your tube holds 12-15 ml), the next day, add

50-100 ml to a thoroughly sanitized, if not sterile, mason jar or juice jar

(glass) (avoid detergents), pitch the 10 ml into the 50-100, bring your

starter up to volume with successive additions over the next two days.  At

each stage you really want to see vigorous growth before increasing the

volume.  A healthy, actively growing culture is the best way to minimize

bacterial growth.  If you add a little bit of yeast to a large volume, you

run the risk of pitching a highly contaminated culture.  Some bacterial

growth (acetobacter for one) may actually inhibit the growth of yeast.

FYI:  During exponential (or log phase) growth, yeast double every 90

minutes @ 30 degree C with vigorous and constant aeration in specialized

media - this does not make for good beer, however.  Log phase can be

divided into three stages based on the rate of cell division (or the

proportion of budded cells within a culture): early log phase (cell-density

< 1 x 10 (E7) cells/ml), mid-log phase (1-5 x 10 (E7) cells/ml), and

late-log phase (5 x 10 (E7)-2 x 10 (E8) cells/ml.  At 2 x 10 (E8) yeast

cultures are considered saturated and the cell enter stationary phase.  So

you can see, if you dilute your culture well below 1 x 10 (E7) cells/ml,

you may lose your log phase growth.  Thus, even a ten-fold dilution may be

detrimental to your growth rate.  Pitching 500 ml of starter into 18.9

liters (5 gallons) constitutes a 38-fold dilution.  A saturated culture @

500 ml may get you to early-log phase.  BTW, bacteria may have a doubling

time 1/3 that of yeast.

>From: Mark A Fryling <mfryling@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

>Subject: culturing Belgian yeast

>The question I'd like to pose, is does anyone know if the yeast in the

>Hoegaarden samples and the Abt 12 is fit to culture and brew with?  I know

>that

>the Chimay is good stuff, and I already learned (from a recent posting) that

>the Duvel yeast is not. Ditto for Orval. The others were pasteurized and

>filtered.  TIA

I have similar questions myself.  I can tell you that I have a wit going

using a Hoegaarden culture.  It has been fermenting quite vigorously for 4

days now.  The fermentation is actually giving off some very pleasant

odors.  I've seen recipes that have used Hoegaarden yeast, so I assume that

it is okay.  I know nothing of Abt 12.  Chimay may be good, but I know of

one person who had a complete failure with it, and his skills are quite

esteemed in our local HB club.  Although the Duvel may be a conditioning

yeast it may not be complete junk.  Watch out for bacteria that may be

lurking in the bottle dregs.  I have tried culturing the Duvel yeast.  I

have succeded in only culturing the bugs instead, which may be

lactobacillus.  I know that the live yeast was present, but the bugs seem

to have overgrown the culture.  Orval is not necessarily junk either.

Michael Jackson writes that Orval does two fermentations with single-cell

cultures and conditions with a 5-strain culture.  I don't know, but what do

you think the chances are that the yeast in the single cell culture is

present among the 5 strains during conditioning?  I'd guess it is there.

You could probably isolate it, but is it worth the trouble?  Probably not.

However, it would be interesting to use the 5-strain culture to condition

that trappist ale that you might attempt someday.  One thing to remember is

that many of the Belgian ales require a variety of yeast strains to yield

the final product.  If you plate them out, be sure to pick many colonies

for your stock culture.

Todd M. Gierman

Department of Microbiology

Duke University Medical Center

------------------------------


Extract Efficency & Duvel Yeast

Date: 30 Jul 1993 22:50:21 -0600

From: "Manning, Martin P" <manning#m#_martin_p@mcst.ae.ge.com>

Subject: Extract Efficency & Duvel Yeast

My personal preference is to measure the extract efficiency at the start of the

boil. It is, as someone said, the efficiency of the mashing and lautering

processes that are of the most interest. At this point, the character of the

wort is set, and you have recovered all of the sugars you are going to get.

A point which no one has brought up is that if you are using any kettle

adjuncts (honey, sugars, etc.), you definitely want to do the calculation

before you add them.

To get a good number, you must be very careful in the measurements taken, and

adjust the measured volume as well as the SG to your reference temperature. I

am amazed at the number of people who fail to include this correction. At 100

C, it will swing the apparent extract yield by 4%. To measure the (hot) volume

in my half-barrel kettle, I use a stainless ruler to get the distance from the

edge of the 12-in hole in the top to the surface of the liquid - to the nearest

mm. I made a calibration curve which I then refer to get the volume, which

should be within 0.12 liter or so.

It goes without saying that an accurate hydrometer is needed as well. I prefer

the type with an integral thermometer and correction read-out. As far as the

correction for temperature goes, the best strategy is to cool the sample to the

reference temperature, or as close as is possible. The correction is indeed

dependent upon the wort gravity as well as its temperature, but the closer you

are to the reference, the smaller the error in ignoring it.

******************

Moortgat's Duvel is fermented with two strains of yeast, in separate un-equal

volumes. One of these two strains is used for the bottle conditioning, after

the yeast from the primary is filtered out. These details are from Jackson,

"The Great Beers of Belgium". I have a Duvel culture which was obtained from a

bottle a couple of years ago, shortly after it appeared in the local market.

Interestingly, the bottles out there now seem to be DOA, as several recent

attempts have yielded nothing. A fresh one from Belgium could be a different

story. The culture I have makes wonderful beer, though. It has a distinctive

Duvel flavor profile, and seems to build a livelier head than most others in my

experience. Two or three times a year, when I regenerate my collection of

twenty or so yeasts in 6-ml tubes of pale, un-hopped wort,  I always observe

these same characteristics.

Martin Manning

------------------------------


Diacetyl rests

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 93 11:40:15 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Diacetyl rests

In the last digest:

<Mark Fryling

<BTW, just as a comment, the Gordons Highlander Scotch Ale was absolutely

<fantastic.

This has been my experience too.  While I have yet to actually visit Scotland,

I have drank scottish ales and the ones in Belgium are always a joy.  I

belive the special Belgium color malts make all of the difference.

<From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

<>an authentic contential lager, ferment at 48-51F for 1 week, drop temp

                                                              ^^^^

>2F per day until it is 42F. Rest here 2-4 days (diacetyl rest)

<I'm a little confused here.  I don't ferment lagers warm, 48F-50F, and I've

always used the Noonan method of raising the temperature for the diacetyl

rest (~55F for 2 days), with good results.  Can you clarify this point, Jim?

I have received a bit of mail on this topic so it seems I have hit a nerve

on lagering.  The final test is in the finished product, and whether any

detectable amounts of diacetyl survive.  The most important factor on this

is yeast strain selection.  G. Fix in the latest issue of Brewing Techniques

lists two tables relating the correlation between production and reduction

of diacetyl levels and yeast strains over time.  Two of the strains, including

the ever popular weihenstephan 34/70 produce much lower levels of diacetyl

than a third strain.  In all of the cases, each yeast is able to reduce the

level of diacetyl but the one that produced a lot initially was not able to

reduce the levels very low.  If one is using a strain that is a big diacetyl

producer, then it would seem that a higher temp diacetyl rest is in order to

acclerate the yeasts ability to metabolize and break down the diacetyl into

the two less bothersome constituants, see Fix's article.  It is my opinion

that if a strain does not produce much diacetyl, like 34/70, and primary

ferementation is carried out at 48F, then there is no need to raise the

temp to further reduce the levels.  Raising the temp to 55F is not that

radical.  Raising it higher is done for rapid fermentation & lagering ala

Dr. Narziss.  This is a natural and easy technique where at the end of

primary at 48F, the attemperater is turned off, allowing the temp to slowely

rise into the upper 50s.  After the rest, the lager period is reduced to 2-

3 weeks time.  If I remember the Fix article, not much reduction of diacetyl

occurs under 40F, so it would seem that this is a lower limit.

I suggest leaving out the 55 stage on a batch using 34/70 and substitute the

brief rest at 42-44F for 2-3 days, and see if anything changes.  Whatever is

easier for you and works is what counts.

Jim Busch

DE HOPPEDUIVEL DRINKT MET ZWIER 'T GEZONDE BLOND HOPPEBIER!

------------------------------


Supply Stores in Berkeley/Oakland CA Area

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 93 12:21:06 -0400

From: parsons1@husc.harvard.edu

Subject: Supply Stores in Berkeley/Oakland CA Area

Greetings, all,

Next week I will be moving from Cambridge (and the wonderful "Modern

Brewer" supply store) to Berkeley CA.  Does anyone know of any good

stores in the area with a decent selection of grains and fresh hops?

Things in San Francisco and Palo Alto (home of Pete's Wicked) would

be accessible to, so far as anything in CA is accessible from anywhere

else.

Thanks in advance,

Jed   parsons1@husc8.harvard.edu

------------------------------


please cancel my subscription

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 93 10:10:31 PDT

From: rcristad@weber.ucsd.edu (Riccardo Cristadoro)

Subject: please cancel my subscription

please cancel my subscription

------------------------------


Barreling Beer

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 93 09:57:08 -0400

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

Subject: Barreling Beer

Could those of you who have barreled their beer, in wooden casks,

please e-mail me (or publish) your advice/experiences.

Thanks.

- ---

email: sxupjd@fnma.com (NeXT Mail Okay)

Philip DiFalco, Senior SomethingOrOther, Advanced Technology

FannieMae, 3900 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 22016     (202)752-2812

------------------------------


Sour Beer (was Re: Dallas beer/Cellis)

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1993 10:51:42 -0700

From: paul@rational.com (Paul Jasper)

Subject: Sour Beer (was Re: Dallas beer/Cellis)

On 29 Jul, 10:05, Jeff Benjamin wrote:

> Subject: Re: Dallas beer/Cellis

>

> > Celis Grand Cru, an interesting attempt at a Belgian style. It's too light

> > in color and body to be a true Grand Cru, but they really have the flavor

> > down. How do they do this? Anyone know? It tastes like a true lambic.

>

> Ahem...  the Grand Cru is good as well, but I don't think it bears much

> relationship to a true lambic.

Well, yes...

> I vaguely remember hearing someone say

> that Pierre Celis does add some sort of souring bug (a Pediococcus,

> perhaps?)  to both the White and the Grand Cru, but one bug does not a

> lambic make.

Hmmm, really?  I've yet to try the Grand Cru - I've been happy enough with

the White, now I've found a regular supply :^).  I'll have to pick some up

this weekend when I re-stock.

> Which leads me to my last topic...

> > A close friend, and business associate is going to Brussels for a week, and

> > asks what beers to bring back for me?  If you could select three or four,

> > what would  they be?

>

> A very tough call.  If you like the sour stuff, I recommend either the

> Cantillon or Boon lambics.

If you *really* like sour beer, get him to bring back some Rodenbach.

The regular Rodenbach is delicious, with a powerful fruity sourness.

They also have a Grand Cru if you can stand it...

I found some Rodenbach at Liquor Barn in San Francisco about 2 years ago,

but haven't seen it anywhere since.  Anyone ever tried to make it?  The

sourness comes from aging in oak, and young and old agings are blended.  The

Grand Cru is just the "old" beer that has been aged for up to two years!

>-- End of excerpt from Jeff Benjamin

- --

- -- Paul Jasper

- -- RATIONAL

- -- Object-Oriented Products

- --

------------------------------


Chili VS Jalapeno

Date: 30 Jul 93 12:54 CST

From: Wolfe@act-12-po.act.org

Subject: Chili VS Jalapeno

     I am ready to harvest a few quarts of chilis and jalapenos from my

  garden.  I've seen a few recipes for jalapeno or serrano peppers in beer,

  but haven't seen any for chilis.  I prefer the taste of chilis (to

  jalapenos) in my cooking.  My question is:  How do jalapenos and

  chilis compare for flavor and burn in beers?  Is there any noticable

  difference between them when they've been roasted and tossed into the

  secondary?  Also, can chilis be safely substituted for Jalapenos in a

  recipe without fear of burning the lips off of one's face?

  Ed Wolfe

  WOLFE@ACT-12-PO.ACT.ORG

  Iowa City, Iowa

------------------------------


Traditional Porter vs East Coast Porter?

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 93 13:58:47 EDT

From: lyons%adc3@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: Traditional Porter vs East Coast Porter?

In HBD #1193 Jim provides us with information on the 10th Annual Dixie

Cup Homebrew Competition.  Thanks Jim, but could you please describe

the differences between a Traditional Porter and an East Coast

Porter.  If you could name some commericial examples I could

experiment with my taste buds.

Thanks!

------------------------------


Efficiency question

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 93 16:18:14 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Efficiency question

James DiPalma mentions that his efficiency seems higher pre boil

than postboil.  I am not going to deny the possibility that

precipitated break material could account for the difference, but is

it also possible that the temperature of the wort might be a factor

in the volume estimation?  If you eyeball the volume of warm post

sparge preboil wort it is going to higher than at postchill

temperature by quite a bit.  The sg at 80C is .971, at 90 .965, and

at 100 .958.  At 20 C it is 998.  (figures actually kg/m3/1000).

I usually measure both - but the initial sg is to see how much to

boil off, I I don't have volumes calibrated well anyway.

Also, why is everyone so concerned about Zima?  It isn't beer and

doesn't pretend to be.  It is aimed at the wine cooler-prepackaged

mixed drink crowd.  A frined brought me back a Canadian drink called

Durango that was a fruit flavored malt beverage a few years ago, so Zima isn't

the first.  It has a similar relationshiop to beer as a single malt

Scotch - an alcoholic drink made of malt, and noone complains about

Scotch.   Give it a break!  If you have to complain about Coor's use a better

reason - like Union relationships, Environmental damage, false advirtising

claims, or the fascist belief of the founder.  Zima is surely one of their

venial sins, and it isn't as bad as Miller Clear, whcih does pretend to be a

beer.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


West Coast Brewery addresses

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 93 18:16:18 EDT

From: dschultz@aol.com

Subject: West Coast Brewery addresses

Stephen Brent Peters asked in HBD 1193 about a publication with

mailing addresses for West Coast Breweries. I have a book titled

"Good Beer Guide/Breweries and Pubs of the Pacific Northwest"

written by Vince Cottone and published by Homestead Book Co.

of Seattle that fits the bill. My copy is (unfortunately) dated 1986, and I

don't know if there is an updated edition available. Email me if  interested.

Dale Schultz

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1194, 08/02/93

*************************************

-------


pts-gal/lb NOT pts/lb/gal

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1993 16:57:54 -0700

From: reeves@lanl.gov (Geoff Reeves)

Subject: pts-gal/lb NOT pts/lb/gal

It occurs to me that a lot of the confusion over extraction rate, or yeild

may be due to the fact the people keep referring to pts/lb/gal (points per

pound per gallon). These are not the correct units and that may be why some

people are confused. The formula used is

        (OSG_beer - SG_water) * Volume_of_Beer / Pounds_of_Grain

Specific gravity is dimensionless but is referred to by "points" in brewing

so the dimensions are gallons/pound or point-gallons/pound (pts-gal/lb for

the abreviation inclined).

I know it doesn't _sound_right but it is. What you are really trying to

find out is how much total disoved sugars did you get out of your total

grain bill. 30 gallons of 1.056 beer has more dissolved sugars than 5 gal

of 1.056 beer so if you have the same extraction rate you need 6 times as

much grain.

I hope this clears up some confusion for someone besides me.

Geoff

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

|    A brewery is like a toothbrush. Everyone should have their own.      |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Geoff Reeves:  Space Science Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory   |

|                reeves@lanl.gov (internet) or  essdp2::reeves (span)     |

|                Phone (505) 665-3877                                     |

|                Fax   (505) 665-4414                                     |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


Date: Sat, 31 Jul 93 00:06:01 GMT

From: uucp@attmail.com

Subject: pts-gal/lb NOT pts/lb/gal

>From uucp Fri Jul 30 17:00 1993

>From uucp Fri Jul 30 17:00 1993 remote from ch2m1

>From uucp Fri Jul 30 17:00 1993 remote from CH2MHILL

>From MGreenwald Fri Jul 30 17:00 1993 remote from SFO

From: CH2MHILL!SFO!MGreenwald@ch2m1.attmail.com


Date: 30 Jul 93 20:59:00 GMT

To: Homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

Subject: pts-gal/lb NOT pts/lb/gal

Message-Protocol: EMAIL

Received: from ch2m1 by attmail; Sat Jul 31 00:05 GMT 1993

Transport-Options:

Subject: Celis in the SF area?

Content-Type: Text

I have had several pints of Celis White at our Oakland pub, Pacific Coast

Brewery, and have fallen in love.  Do any of you SF area HBD'ers know of a

local source for this wonderful stuff in bottles?.

Private email to CH2MHILL!SFO!MGreenwald@CH2M1.Attmail.com  if you'd rather

not waste bandwidth on a regional answer, or post.

TIA,

Mike

P.S. I know the address is huge and screwy, but our gateway router mangles

my reply address.

------------------------------


Sparging, Slants

Date: Sat, 31 Jul 93 07:21 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Sparging, Slants

 >From: steve@snake.appl.wpafb.af.mil (Steve Zabarnick)

 >Subject: Sparge water aeration and pH

 >My question concerns the aeration of and oxygen content of sparge water. One

 common technique in professional breweries to sprinkle the sparge water from

 a rotating arm (similar to the Phil Sparger). I would think that this would

 do I good job of aerating the water.

 I doubt that it would do a "good" job and suspect it is pretty much in the

 noise.  More importantly, sprinkling the sparge water is totally unnecessary

 if the level is kept above the grain an inch or so.  There simply is nothing

 to be gained by spreading it around.  Someone put a shower head in a mash tun

 and they have been used and misuesed ever since.  A homebrew equipment

 manufacturer fell into the same trap and confused the hell out of beginners

 with his rotating gizzmo.

 >My other question is about pH measurments of the mash and sparge water. How

 important is it to cool the samples before taking this measurement? I've

 been using a hand-held pH probe (which is supposed to be temperature

 compensated), which I just stick into the mash. Am I getting a correct

 measurement without cooling a sample of the mash?

 I have never been able to tell from the instructions or in use whether the

 temp compensation means the instrument will function in a wide range of

 environmental temps or if it will measure liquids at a wide range of temps.

 As a result of my confusion, I cool all samples to room temp before

 measuring.

 >From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

 >Subject: Hot liquor tanks & slants

 >I agree in principal that chlorine is a nonissue.  A lot of big breweries

 dont do anything to remove chlorine (big = 25 BBl in this sense).  The

 argument is that the chlorine is driven off in the kettle anyway.

 That is a tough point to argue.  However, it is not the chlorine that is the

 problem in the first place but the byproducts of combining chlorine with

 organics in the water.  There's lots of this stuff in the water by the time

 it gets to your house and the grist supplies a monumental source of organics

 for the chlorine to act upon.  It has also been pointed out that the

 by-products are also volatile and boil off but lots of things are said and I

 have not seen that documented to my satisfaction yet.

 > Is it true that BT is for profit??

 Probably not but certainly not by choice.

 > I wonder how "profitable" this kind of thing is.  I bet its like brewing, a

 lot of sweat equity in every issue/batch.

 That is not the point.  The less profitable it is, the more ads they are

 going to need to survive.

 >I dont know if a on demand hot water heater would be capable of providing

 26 gallons of 180F water in a 30 minute time frame.

 Anything is possible, it just depends on how much heat you have available.  I

 have found that my stove top will produce about 10 gallons per hour at 180F.

 This is the rate that I sparge at and it just marginal for ten gallon

 batches.  If you need more water faster, you just need more heat.

 Just as an aside, in Africa, every place I went had gas fired demand water

 heater in hotel and lodge bathrooms.  These hung on the wall near the

 sink/shower and provided continuous very hot water.

 In Costa Rica, they use and electric shower head (scary huh?) that heats

 water as one showers.  There's lots of stuff out there and it just seems like

 there has to be a better way that holding large amounts of hot water.

 JS:

 <You would be much better off to transfer the petri culture to slants and use

 these to start your starter.  I cover the slant with wort and use this as a

 one time, pure culture starter.

 >This is not whats referred to as a "slant". THe first sentence is correct.

 The second sentence is a technique of preparing a starter. Covering the

 slant is not a good idea in my opinion.  You cover a small sample of yeast

 with wort, the slant is where the yeast is maintained and cultured from.

 The difference is a slant has agar with yeast growing on it. A starter

 has no agar.

 I am using the terms correctly.  It is the fact that I use slants in an

 un-traditional manner that may be confusing.

 I make one-shot agar slants from petri cultures and from other slants but I

 use them as one time starters like most people use Wyeast packs.

 Covering the slant with wort is an ideal way of starting the yeast as long as

 it is not used again.  There is vastly more yeast on the agar then in a

 typical liquid pack and a much stronger culture in introduced into the

 starter flask.

 >From: tpm@wdl.loral.com (Tim P McNerney)

 >Subject: Re: innoculating a starter from a petri dish

 >My biggest problem with innocualting a starter from a petri dish is that

 I don't want to go through 5 different sized, sanitized starters to build

 up enough yeast.

 >3. How do other people build up a healthy sized started with spending half

 their life preparing storage vessels?

 The hard way.  What you perceive as a problem is just a necessary evil.

 However, if you sterilize a pint of wort, you can add this in increments to

 the flask and only sterilize the flask once and the wort once.  Still, there

 seems something very unprofessional about starting 50 ml in a 1000 ml flask

 but no real reason not to.

 js

------------------------------


Agar availability?

Date: Sat, 31 Jul 93 20:25:00 BST

From: r.wize@genie.geis.com

Subject: Agar availability?

I recently have become an all grain brewer and am now using the Brewers

Resource Culture kit.  My question is does anyone know of a recipe or a

source for just Agar?  Most of the catalogs I have seen sell Agar slants but

at a price of about .80 to $1.00 each (then adding shipping it hardly seems

worth it)  I'm sure I could get my hands on some test tubes, it is the Agar

which mystifies me.

Also I noticed alot of discussion about MaltMills in some older HBD's.  I

have just purchased a MaltMill and did my first brew this weekend

(previously I was using a Corona).  My yield increased by about 40%.  It

really has made what was a difficult chore (the corona) into something which

takes about 1/2 the time and has definitely improved my efficiency.  I'm not

sure of the relative merits of the Philmill but definitely sign me up as a

satisfied customer of the MAltMill!!!!

Rick Wize

 Syracuse, NY

------------------------------


Hopping techniques (was Pale Ale Recipe)

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 93 22:14 PDT

From: lfk@veritas.com (Lynn Kerby)

Subject: Hopping techniques (was Pale Ale Recipe)

In HBD1193 Norm Pyle writes:

Lots of recipie specifics trimmed above and below; I want to focus on

this:

> A note about hopping:  I was attempting to get most of my IBUs later in

> the boil to reduce some back of the tongue bitterness.  I wanted this to

> be a hop flavored beer, rather than just have bitterness to balance the

> malt.  On most beers I try for 50-60% of the bitterness at the 60 minute

> addition, but as you can see, I did not do that here.  I achieved my goal

> I think (see tasting notes).

I too have been thinking about trying something like this for quite a

while.  I have been shooting for 60-70% of my IBUs with an initial

addition of hops to the kettle and pick up the rest with 45-20 minute

boil additions (the hops are in for 45 to 20 minutes) depending on the

style I am trying to brew.

I have found that the beers are different when hopped this way.  The

differences that I have noticed are:  1) young beer isn't as harsh for

more bitter styles, 2) more hop flavor comes through in the finished

beer (as would be expected).  I suppose that the technique has the

desired effect of producing a beer with a more well-rounded bitterness

at the expense of some additional hops used in the brew.

Are there other brewers out there that are doing something similar

with their hopping techniques?  I would be interested in hearing about

experiences with beers that get a significant percentage of their IBUs

in later stages of the boil.

 - -

     Lynn Kerby  -  [apple,amdahl]!veritas!lfk or  lfk@veritas.com

Disclaimer: Any and all opinions expressed herein are my own and do not

            necessarily represent the views of anyone, especially my employer.

------------------------------


All About Beer Magazine

Date: Sun, 1 Aug 93 13:56:01 CDT

From: Sean C. Lamb 335-6669 Loral <slamb@milp.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject: All About Beer Magazine

Chuck's post asking about a contact for

Mr. Jackson has roused me from my summer

lethargy enough to type up a short review of

the latest issue of _All About Beer_ magazine.

(I suggested to Chuck that he try this mag

because Jackson writes a column and does

a taste-testing panel for them).

I've been a sbuscriber to AAB for the

last couple of years, mostly to get Jackson's

and Fred Eckhardt's columns.  Often

there has been info that is of value,

 but many articles were just

press-release puffery.  I've read rumors

that the cover of the mag was for sale

to an advertiser.

Mr. Daniel Bradford, late of the AHA

marketing Dept. and the GABF, has

taken over publishing the mag.  Knowing

what we do about these endeavors, this

may or may not speak well for the future

of the mag, but I'm willing to give people

a break now and then (Bob knows I

need 'em).

To the point, the latest issue looks

stupendous, had a decent article by

James Robertson (can you say beer nerd?)

on brew in New Zealand, an hilarious

article by a C. S. Porter on being

out and about with Alan Eames at the

Beer Camp in Cincinatti/Ft. Mitchell,

a great profile of Carol Stoudt and her

brewery in Pennsylvania, and the return

of a beer industry column written by Mr.

Frank McNeirney, who is identified as

the retired director of communciations

and industry affairs for the the Nat`l

Beer Wholsalers Assoc.  All in all

a keeper.  The info on brewpubs and

good pubs new and old is good and

getting better (I wouldn't have

know about the Old Peculier pub in

NYC if I hadn't seen it in AAB.  Came

in handy when I was there a couple of

years ago.) They've even toned

down the length and look of the

industry news section.  I hope that

they can sustain the effort.

Anyone else read this thing and

have any thoughts, opinions or

rants?

- --------------------------------------------------------

      .    _  .     _____________

      |/_|/__/|    /             /

     / / // /  /  / Happy! Happy! /

    /__|O||O|__ / /   Joy! Joy!   /

   |/_ /_//_/ _/ | /  ___________/

   | | (____) | ||  |/

   ///___//__/  // _/

   (_/         ||

    |  Real    ||/   Sean Lamb (slamb@milp.jsc.nasa.gov)

     /  Beer   //_/

      /______//      Houston, Texas, USofA, Earth, Sol

     __|| __||

    (____(____)

------------------------------


beer runs

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 01:31:15 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: beer runs

John Palmer writes:

>another thing, Has anyone ever noticed the laxative qualities of homebrew in

>general or is this another symptom of my first batch?

Letting the fermentation finish and the yeast settle out usually solves

that problem (wait another 2 months at cool temps).  Most new brewers can't

wait that long.  Darker Malts (i.e. roasted barley in stouts) also can cause

a dramatic increase in the amount of toilet paper used.  Severely oxidized

beer also upsets me, and the beginner's "strain the hot wort into the cold

water" method cerainly adds to that.

bb

------------------------------


Wild Hops

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 08:20:16 EST

From: "Thomas Kavanagh, Curator" <TKAVANAG@ucs.indiana.edu>

Subject: Wild Hops

As a recent mover to Indiana, I dutifully re-established my brewery,

planted new hop vines--cascade and nugget--both of which are doing

fine, thank you, and I should harvest in a few weeks. While exploring

my new digs, I discovered what appeared to be wild hops behind the flower

beds. Always interested in wild things--except wild yeasts-- I trained them up

and over a trellis. They are now florishing and are quite long and busy.

But, in contrast to my less than year old cascade, they do not appear to

be flowering at all. What do I have here? Are they really hops? The

vines are called wild cucumbers in these parts, but have all the

markings of hops--fuzzy vines, etc. I tried matching the leaves with the

examples in the Hops special issue of Zymurgy, but no match. Could this

be the basic first year syndrome, and it mightnot be until next year that they

bear fruit? If they do bear fruit in the future, is there any way to test

for AA content without devoting an entire 5 gallon batch to them?

TIA.

tk

------------------------------


Wyeast question

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 10:04:09 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: Wyeast question

 (actaully two questions)

 My wife purchased some Wyeast liquid yeast for the next coupla

 batches of brew. I had read about possible infection of the nutrient

 packs here, so I figured I play it safe and re-hydrate (what do you

 call it since it's already liquid?) it myself. The date on the 'bag'

 said July 1993 - it that the 'manufacture' date, or the 'use-by'

 date?

 I added the 'bag' of yeast to about a cup of slightly dilluted and

 still warm (~80 degrees) wort while the rest was boiling. I've used

 this method inthe past with dry yeast and by the time the wort cools,

 the yeast has a head that's bulging out of the 2 cup container it's

 in. This time, the yeast wasn't doing *anything*, just had a sediment

 on the bottom of the cup. I pitched in into the cooled wort anyway,

 not having much choice. This morning (brewed last nite about 9,

 pitched about 11 PM), theres still no head on the fermenetr.

 Should I wait till this evening and if there's still no head

 re-hydrate and pitch some other yeast?

jim

------------------------------


Brew Pubs in East Detroit.

Date:           Mon, 2 Aug 93 10:30 EDT

From: Gerald_Wirtz@vos.stratus.com

Subject:        Brew Pubs in East Detroit.

     Anyone know of any Brew Pubs in the East Detroit area?

     Thanks - e-mail replys appreciated

     Gerald_Wirtz

------------------------------


The Advertising Channel

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 07:54:40 -0700

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: The Advertising Channel

"Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1993 13:25:34 +0930

 From: Murray Robinson <robinm@mrd.dsto.gov.au>

 Subject: Possible solution to commercial posts ?

"After reading the discussions about whether or not commercial

 posts should be allowed on the Homebrew Digest I checked up on

 an automatic mailer package that may hold one solution to the

 problem."

Look, folks. Let's go through this again.

Home Brew Digest. Note the word 'home'. This is not a channel for free

advertising or would-be get-rich-quick schemes for capitalists lacking

the capital to pay for their advertising, or trying to capitalize on

a free alternative to shelling out their own bucks.

To attempt to distort it into something it is not is to create trouble.

I, personally, will not accept advertising on the Home Brew Digest -

ever.

If you want to start a Commercial Brew Digest, go ahead. But keep your

!@#$ing commercials off of my screen. The Internet is based on the model

of a commonwealth, not on the model of a bunch of cheap-o parasites who

can't pay for their own advertising and have to piggyback on freebies.

The same goes for long and windy lists of who won what where at some

contest over a thousand miles from where I am ... or postings eliciting

entries. Use yer brainz. Post that entries are open and invite people

to mail you for the entry form, instead of posting the entry form to

the entire goddamned planet. If you're too lazy to do this, then move

over and get someone else to do it. Simple etiquette, nothing complex,

just good manners.

No, that wasn't a flame. Just the facts, ladies and gentlemen.

- -- richard

 |                                                                            |

 |        "A cloak is no longer a cloak if it does not keep one warm."        |

 |                                                                            |

 | richard childers                                         pascal@netcom.com |

------------------------------


The FaceMail Project

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 08:41:58 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: The FaceMail Project

I'm just back from Portland.  It was a real mind-bender to meet people

from th digest face-to-face.  I was constantly reevaluating my mental

images of peoples personalities.  I'll have more to say about the

conference later, but first...........

         THE FACEMAIL PROJECT

At my booth I set up an S-VHS camera and passed the word that I would be

videotaping any electronic brewer.  I asked people to hold to 3-5 seconds

of time, just enough to say their name and mug for the camera a little.  I

will be editing the tape into short clips and converting them into

motion-video files, QuickTime for Mac tribesmen and standalone DOS files

for the "rest of us".  The DOS files will probably be converted first.

I will then upload these files (they'll be pretty big) to the archive at

sierra.stanford.edu.  Then you'll be able to download the file and

actually see (and on some systems hear) what various elctronic brewers

look like.

This is an experiment, so we'll see how it goes.  It was remarkably

difficult to pass the word at the conference, so I'll apologize right now

for missing anybody.  If this works out, next year can be better organized...

Paul.

------------------------------


Where to drink in...

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 12:08:04 EDT

From: mberger@wellfleet.com (Michael Berger)

Subject: Where to drink in...

I've been noticing many requests for information on where to drink in...

It may be time to put together a list of good drinking spots in the USA

with comments/reviews from HBD readers.  With all the new brewpubs and

extended selection bars popping up, it can be difficult to discern good

ones from bad ones, hence the inclusion of comments.

As a beer-loving frequent traveller, I'd find such a list helpful.

Any volunteers?

Cheers, mab

------------------------------


Decoction mashing

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 09:41:50 PDT

From: Don_Doyle@Novell.COM (Don Doyle)

Subject: Decoction mashing

I was wondering if many people use decoction mashing and what the

pro's/con's to it are. I have Noonan's book and he swears by decoction

for lager's however can one do an ale this way. I have a little voice

in my head saying "No" because you will impart unwanted flavors i.e.

astringency into the beer, but want feedback on this mashing procedure.

Thanks in advance,

Don Doyle

dond@novell.com

------------------------------


Counterflow Questions

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 12:56:55 EDT

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: Counterflow Questions

I am thinking about turning my immersion chiller into a counterflow

chiller and have a couple of operational questions:

  1. Some have mentioned that they sanitize their counterflow chillers

     by running boiling water through them.  How do you get the boiling

     water in the chiller without scalding yourself?

     For those who use chemical means, I generally use bleach to

     sanitize.  What do you use on a counterflow chiller and how long to

     you let it soak or do you just run the solution through?  What

     concentration do you use?  (I apologize if this sounds like a

     re-opening of the recent sanitation thread.)

  2. Similar to the above, How do you get it started?  I am assuming

     that I will need to siphon the hot wort through the chiller to the

     primary fermenter.

Thanks in advance.

- --

Jim Grady              |"Root beer burps don't have to be said 'Excuse me'."

grady@hp-mpg.an.hp.com |                Robert Grady, age 4.75

------------------------------


KiWheat recipe

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 13:10:07 EDT

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: KiWheat recipe

I recently made a KiWheat beer (Kiwifruit Wheat beer) and I thought I

would share the recipe:

                KiWheat Ale

                -----------

6# William's Weizenmalt Extract (60% wheat, 40% barley)

1.5 oz Hallertauer hops (2.9% alpha acid) - 60 min

1   oz Hallertauer hops - 5 min

0.5 tsp Irish Moss

Wyeast Belgian Ale yeast

O.G. 1.041

Fermented at ~70^F.

After 5 days, I peeled and diced about 7# of kiwifruit, added 2 campden

tablets, and put them in the freezer overnight to help breakdown the

cell walls.

The next day, racked to secondary and added the kiwifruit (brought up to

room temperature.

After 1 week, when the secondary fermentation was complete, I bottled;

F.G. 1.009

Results:

  I had intended to add more hops but miscalculated (and I didn't

  even have a homebrew while I was making it!).  It is a rather light

  beer with a slight kiwi nose.  As you drink it, it has a tartness that

  helps take the place of added hop bitterness.  It does not hold a head

  worth beans.

  If I make this again, I think I will add a few more hops and leave it

  on the kiwis MUCH longer.  I think that after I bottled I saw on the

  digest that krieks are left on the cherries for 2-4 months.  I guess I

  was a little too hasty to have my summer brew before the summer was

  over!

- --

Jim Grady              |"Root beer burps don't have to be said 'Excuse me'."

grady@hp-mpg.an.hp.com |                Robert Grady, age 4.75

------------------------------


Dough-in

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 12:22 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Dough-in

 >rom: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

 >Subject: Overnight mashing

 >In HBD #1193 Jack Schmidling mentions doing the mash-in the night

 before the rest of the mash.  According to Jack, the overnight mash-in

 "had far more malty flavor and seemed richer and fuller in body" than

 the same recipe using a normal mash-in.

 >Very interesting experience!  I could certainly go for mashing-in the

 night before.  Have others tried this?  With what sucess?  Jack, what

 temperature do you mash in at and how does it change overnight?

 I boil my mash water and either chill it or let it cool naturally, depending

 on the time but in either case it is near room temp or cooler when I dough-in

 and IS room temp by morning.

 There is no doubt a multicultural flora ready to do a number on the mash but

 if it is kept cool and kept to a reasonable length of time, it will cause no

 grief.  Mashing and boiling will destroy its viability.  If allowed to get

 established however, it could impart an off flavor even if the  organisms

 that started it are long gone.

 It has been my experience that the aroma in the morning is clean and pleasant

 and not significantly different from the night before.

 For what it is worth, however, in the experiments cited in the original

 article, the mashes made with 6-row developed a putrid aroma by morning and

 the controls using Belgian Munich did not.

 This could also be a clue that the six-row malt I have is rancid or mouldy

 and the whole experiment is for naught.

 I would appreciate hearing from anyone else with comments on six row malt and

 in particular, whoever it was that made the comments about the flavor of this

 type of malt.

 js

------------------------------


nj brewpubs finally legal

Date:  2 Aug 1993  14:29 EDT

From: dab@cc.bellcore.com (dave ballard)

Subject: nj brewpubs finally legal

hey now-  i would appreciate if you non-jersyites would stand up and offer

a small round of applause- on thursday, 7/29 (i think, it may have been

friday) gov. jimbo slapped his autograph on the paper that legalized

brewpubs in new jersey.

i can see it now- in about five years people will be sitting at bars all

over saying, "hey, didn't there used to be brewpubs in california and

colorado?  nahhhh.  must be my imagination.  gimme another piscataway

pilsner..."

;-)

dab

------------------------------


Cider Recipes

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 12:05:25 -0700

From: khenneus@trumpet.calpoly.edu

Subject: Cider Recipes

Hello to all of you out in brew land,

     I've been interested in brewing for about six monthes now

and have made a few batches with one of my friends.

    With the excellent apple growing weather we have had in

California I've been looking into doing a batch of Cider from the

apples I have in a small orchard and this great old cider press

that my grandfather had.  What I would like to get hold of is any

good cider recipes out there.  Spiced or unspiced.

     Sorry this is not a true brewing question but I figured this

would be the best source for info.  Cook books don't always have

things that taste good.

 Thanks For Your Time,

- -------------------------------------------------

Kent Henneuse

Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, CA

khenneus@trumpet.calpoly.edu

- -------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


spigot in stainless kettle

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 12:07:53 MST

From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

Subject: spigot in stainless kettle

I am toying with the idea of buying a large stainless kettle for

brewing purposes, and I would like to know what the consensus is

on the easiest way to put a spigot in it.  What I would like is a

1/2 inch ball valve or equivalent.  The kettle will probably be a

10 gallon Vollrath.

I know that a lot of you out there use a converted keg and weld a

fitting in the side.  Will this be a problem with the Vollrath

kettle, i.e. are the walls thick enough?

I would like to try something like my EASYMASHER (tm), but larger.

However, when I tell the guys at the plumbing store what I want

to do, they really don't know anything about it.  I would hate to buy

a straight pipe tap and die just to make one fitting.

I have seen bulkhead compression fittings advertised, but I can't find

a retail source.  A friend gave me a SWAGELOK (tm) bulkhead fitting,

but it is way too small (1/8 inch Cu tube).

I would prefer not to go the route of the modified keg, because I don't

want to buy a outdoor gas burner and boil outdoors in the Phoenix heat.

Can putting a spigot in a staionless pot really be that difficult?

Surely someone has done this before.

TIA,

- ---

Joel Birkeland

Motorola SPS

birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com

------------------------------


Going Blind

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 12:40:20 PDT

From: djb@suned1.Nswses.Navy.Mil (Dan J Barnard)

Subject: Going Blind

Dear Fellow Homebrewers,

I have an unusual request.  Recently my girlfriend went to child mediation

with her ex because he wants full physical custody of their two children

(7 and 9).  He claimed to the mediator that we let his children drink home-

brew (of course this is absolutely untrue) and that drinking homemade beer

can make you go BLIND!  (Her lawyer said `isn't that true about mastrubation

too?`)  Anyways, the mediator wanted to know if that was true or not.  I

remember a few months back we had some posts on this issue and that the going

blind part was due to something else.  Anyhow, if someone knows the real

information about this issue, or where I can get the real article that talked

about this, or if you have any of these old posts, could you please email

them to me so I can get them to the mediator.

                                           Thanks,

                                                   Dan

By the way this guy is such a dork that to get the kids he tried the excuse

that our house was so dirty that his wife wouldn't even use the bathroom and

that we even ran out of bathroom tissue once - for shame.

------------------------------


Bay Area/Los Gatos

Date: Mon, 02 Aug 93 14:59:00 PDT

From: "Raudins, Glenn D" <gdraudin@hsv10.pcmail.ingr.com>

Subject: Bay Area/Los Gatos

  I am moving from the Alabama Beer Wasteland to the Bay Area/Los Gatos,

suggestions for brewing stores/groups would be appreciated.

Glenn Raudins

raudins@galt.b17d.ingr.com

------------------------------


Toronto Star Article

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 07:40:26 CDT

From: nfarrell@ppco.com (Norman Farrell)

Subject: Toronto Star Article

Re: Wayde Nie's submission of July 12,1993 article from Toronto Star

article on "beer machine".  In the 1970s (I believe), Phillips Petroleum

did some work with Coors on dehydrating beer.  The idea was to reduce

shipping costs with a minimal impact on the product.  Talking to some

of those involved, what I can reconstruct is this:

Fractional crystalization was used to remove water and create a "syrup".

Many panel evaluations were done and the consensus was that the re-

hydrated product was virtually as good as new.  There was a snag however.

Consumer surveys showed that even though people found no problems with the

beer, they would have turned their noses up at the label.  The product

would have to have been labeled "reconstituted beer".  I did not get to

taste any of the product myself.

I believe that Phillips and Coors still hold patents in this area.  I

wonder how the syrup for the Beer Machine is produced and how it is

labeled.

What goes around comes back to haunt you.

Regards.

Norman Farrell(nfarrell@ppco.com)

------------------------------


honey basil ale:  the sequel

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 14:37:56 PDT

From: bgros@sensitivity.berkeley.edu (Bryan L. Gros)

Subject: honey basil ale:  the sequel

I guess summer is the time for sequels, so I made another version

of the honey basil ale that I posted last year (and is in the Cat's

Meow I believe).  The last try (my fourth or fifth batch as a

homebrewer) was too bitter and overpowering as far as the basil.

Since then I have learned about IBUs and how to calculate them, my

beers have become much more balanced and the bitterness more

consistent.  I learned what maltiness tastes like!

anyway, here's this years recipe:

                            Honey-Basil Ale II

3 lbs 2-row barley

2 lbs Munich malt

3 lbs honey  (I used raw, wild mesquite honey from Trader Joe's)

1/2 lb 10L crystal malt

1/2 oz basil  (fresh leaf basil from grocery store or farmer's market)

20 IBU Willamette hops

  Wyeast American Ale yeast

Standard mash and boil.  I added the basil and 3/4 oz hops at the

end of the boil and turned off the heat.  Cooled with immersion

chiller after 5 or 10 minutes.

OG:  82   I added 2.5 qts of water to bring it up to 5 gallons

          with a gravity of 1.062

FG:  8 !!

The final gravity was lower than I had thought, even with the

honey.  Actually, the OG was higher than I had thought also.

Comments:

   The beer is great, not as thin as I feared, and complex.  There

is an alocohol note in the taste, as you might have guessed.  The

beer is smooth.  The bitterness is very slight, the maltiness is

good and the basil is subtle.  There is a slight basil nose.  It is very

drinkable, which means all the alcohol will sneak up behind you and

knock you over the head.  I was very happy with this version.

So for others who want to use herbs:  I think 1/2 oz of basil

in 5 gallons is fine.  A little more wouldn't be bad, but 1 ounce

is definately too much.  I used rosemary once, and it is a stronger

herb, so go lighter.  I would like to hear your experience with

vanilla beans:  I'm thinking of putting one in the fermenter with

a porter.  Is one enough?

                                  - Bryan

------------------------------


Back from Portland/Bud-quality[sic]/Dishwasher glassware

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 17:34 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Back from Portland/Bud-quality[sic]/Dishwasher glassware

Hey!  Back from Portland to the flat land of limited varieties of good

beer on tap (Chicagoland).  First of all, I'd like to commend the Pacific

Northwesterners for having the good taste to support so many fine breweries.

My favorite two beers however are of very limited supply:

1. a 135IBU IPA brewed by Thom Thomlinson (which will, by the way, soon

be available commercially, albeit only in Thom's area -- CO, I believe), and

2. the conference beer, a Nut Brown Ale, made with Hazelnut extract (YUM!).

Other memorable beers were:

hand-pumped Bridgeport Blue Heron Pale Ale,

hand-pumped Pike Place Pale Ale,

hand-pumped Hale's Moss Bay Extra,

Red Hook Summer Rye,

Red Hook Blackhook Porter,

a blueberry ale (if someone knows who the brewery is -- please email),

Vermont Pub & Brewery (Greg Noonan's) Wee Heavy,

Steelhead IPA,

F. Boon Faro, Gueuze and Kriek (at the Belgian tasting -- thanks Mike!),

Cantillon Gueuze (also at the tasting),

Rogue Maier Bock,

Rogue Rogue'n'Berry

Pyramid Pale Ale,

Deshuttes Koelsch,

Squatter's Rocky Mountain Wheat,

Eugene City Brewing Red Tape Ale, and

Schmaltz Alt.

Okay, so not all are Pacific NW brews, but remember, there were beers

brought to the conference from all over the world, not to mention all

the beers at the Oregon Brewer's Festival.

A final point on the Pacific Northwest brews: they were not as hoppy as

I had expected.  This stems from comments by Pacific Northwesterners

after the Milwaukee Conference, that the Midwestern beers are all underhopped.

Well, maybe I agree that the Midwestern beers ARE underhopped, but then, we

should also agree that many PNW beers are underhopped too.

Before a flame war erupts, indeed, the PNW brews are, in general hopper than

most MW beers, but from what I read here a year ago, I expected them to be

twice as hoppy.  On having a large variety of good beers, the PNW has the

MW beat by a mile.  I just hope it doesn't take 20 years for us to catch up!

************************************

Jack writes:

 It is not difficult at all to make lite colored beer if you dilute it with

 enough water.   The most important adjunct to maintain "Bud quality" is corn

 syrup.  This exotic ingredient produces as much alcohol as needed to

 compensate for water dilution at the end and contributes no color.

To make Coors or Old Style or Henry's (yes, there are crap beers in the

PNW too) or Miller, you are correct -- they use corn as an adjunct.

Budweiser is made with rice as an adjunct and I don't think it's that hard

to duplicate.  Brew up a 1044 beer using 2# of rice syrup in place of some

of the lager malt.  Hop it to about 14 IBU using Tettnangers (not that hop

variety really makes that much difference at such low rates) and ferment

it at 50F using Wyeast Pilsen yeast (why it's called Pilsen yeast, I don't

know -- it's from St. Louis).  I tasted a beer made using these guidelines

about two years ago -- it was made from Alexander's Extract, I believe, and

was a dead ringer (in flavor) for Bud.  Filtering would make it even more

authentic as it would lower the body and head retention to be more in line

with Bud.

********************************

I've had luck with getting beer-clean glassware directly from the dishwasher

by using a detergent that did not have a sheeting agent and making sure

that there was none of that liquid sheeting agent in the little reservoir

that's in the dishwasher.

Al.

------------------------------


ULTRA LONG MASHES

Date: Mon, 02 Aug 1993 19:23:05 -0400 (EDT)

From: SMUCKER@UTKVX.UTCC.UTK.EDU

Subject: ULTRA LONG MASHES

Like "William A Kitch"  in HBD 1194    I an interested in the

potential, problems and effects of a mash that extends

beyond the conventional 2 hour time frame.

I am aware that some homebrewers have in fact done this by

what they have called an oven mash.  The way I understand

this is that they bring their mash up to the desired

temperature and then place the mash pot in the oven with the

oven temperature at 140 to 150 F and leave until the next

morning.

I am interested in the effects of doing this but in my case

with a 15.5 gallon keg for a mash pot I don't have an oven big

enough for it to go into.

I insulate may keg after bring it to mash temperature and

typically get about 1 degree C or 1.8 degree F temperature

drop per hour.  My mash would for example drop from 152 F to

about 138 F in 8 hours.

What would be the expected effects of a 6 to 8 hour mash vs.

the typical 2 hours?  At what temperature do you have the

potential for a sour mash effect/problem? -- Something I

don't want for most of my beer.  Do you leach tannins at a low

level at mash temperature such that the 8 hours mash will

have the potential for astringency? -- It is well accepted

that you leach tannins above 168 degrees F.

Thanks in advance for your answers.

Dave Smucker,     Brewing beer -- not making jelly!

------------------------------


Re: please cancel my subscription

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 17:17:20 PDT

From: rcristad@weber.ucsd.edu (Riccardo Cristadoro)

Subject: Re: please cancel my subscription

please cancel my subscription

------------------------------


Celis

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 20:47:08 -0800

From: mfetzer%ucsd.edu@chem.UCSD.EDU (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer)

Subject: Celis

Ok ok... I'm getting a lot of mail from friendly folks pointing out my

mistakes with Celis beers.

First, let me state I'm quite aware of what wit is supposed to be/taste

like. Unfortunately, when I tasted Celis white, I tasted a Bavarian. Having

no idea that Celis is a Belgian, I found nothing wrong with that. Honest.

It tasted more 'weizen' to me than 'wit.' Until I get to try another I'll

have to stick with that. No sourness, orange, or coriander came to mind!

As for Grand Cru, I guess I mistakenly assumed Grand Cru is a style, which

it's not. I compared it to the only other Grand Cru I know, Rodenbach, and

the two are clearly not similar. There is a lambic-ish sourness, and I

assumed all Grand Cru's are 'zuur' beers, which sometimes have lambics

mixed in as far as I know. Someone has suggested that Celis' GC is actually

a Trippel. I don't really know enough about these styles to say, but I

guess I proved what happens when you ass-u-me once again. :)

Thanks to all the folks sending me corrections and/or info. I'd love to

learn more about these styles, so keep it coming.

One thing I will not back off on: Celis' beers are damned good, no matter

what they're supposed to emulate, or be called.

Mike

- --

Michael Fetzer                         pgp 2.2 key available on request

Internet:      mfetzer@ucsd.edu        uucp:    ...!ucsd!mfetzer

Bitnet:        FETZERM@SDSC

HEPnet/SPAN:   SDSC::FETZERM           or       27.1::FETZERM

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1195, 08/03/93

*************************************

-------


Overnight mashing / Extract efficiency

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 9:40:11 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Overnight mashing / Extract efficiency

William Kitch responds to Jack's post about starting the brew session the night

before:

>In HBD #1193 Jack Schmidling mentions doing the mash-in the night

>before the rest of the mash.  According to Jack, the overnight mash-in

>"had far more malty flavor and seemed richer and fuller in body" than

>the same recipe using a normal mash-in.

>

>Very interesting experience!  I could certainly go for mashing-in the

>night before.  Have others tried this?  With what sucess?  Jack, what

>temperature do you mash in at and how does it change overnight?

Actually Jack didn't say he did mash-in the night before, he said he did

"dough-in" the night before.  I suspect he did dough-in at room temperature in

order to dissolve the starch well.  I seem to recall a thread about this months

ago.  I have done overnight mashes myself, ala Dave Line.  It works, I have had

no undesirable effects from this, although it seems ripe for having a sour mash

type of event.  A side note:  Dave Line is (was) on of the more "relaxed"

homebrewing authors around; draw your own conclusions.

Martin Manning writes:

>My personal preference is to measure the extract efficiency at the start of the

>boil. It is, as someone said, the efficiency of the mashing and lautering

>processes that are of the most interest. At this point, the character of the

>wort is set, and you have recovered all of the sugars you are going to get.

>

>A point which no one has brought up is that if you are using any kettle

>adjuncts (honey, sugars, etc.), you definitely want to do the calculation

>before you add them.

This is a point worth mentioning.  If you are brewing a certain style and

really want to nail that OG, measuring before the boil is a must.  At that

point, you can do several things:  boil more/less to adjust the OG, add DME to

adjust the OG, etc.  If you don't care as much about the perfect OG, change the

hopping schedule to balance the beer for more/less malt (this is what I

typically do).  After the boil, you have no such options, you are just

measuring the efficiency of your process.

Cheers,

norm

------------------------------


Re: Decoction mashing

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 93 07:37:08 -0400

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Re: Decoction mashing

Don_Doyle@Novell.COM (Don Doyle) wrote:

> I was wondering if many people use decoction mashing and what the

> pro's/con's to it are. I have Noonan's book and he swears by decoction

> for lager's however can one do an ale this way. I have a little voice

> in my head saying "No" because you will impart unwanted flavors i.e.

> astringency into the beer, but want feedback on this mashing procedure.

Decoction mashing is used for more than just lagers. Eric Warner details

the use of decoction mashing to produce Bavarian Weissbier in

_German Wheat Beer_.  With a large fraction of wheat (> 50%) as part of

the grain bill, decoction mashing makes lautering easier by breaking

down more of the high molecular weight proteins which removes the

'gumminess' typically associated with high percentage malted wheat mashes.

Decoction mashing also tends to increase extract yield.

I've used decoction mashing to make two weissbiers with good success

(using double decoction mashes) and most recently, a triple

decoction to make an Oktoberfest which yielded 32.4 pts-gal/lb (to follow

Geoff's revised unit scheme).

Boiling the grains does not cause a problem with tannin extraction

as long as the pH of the decoction being boiled is correct i.e., acidic,

around 5.5.

 Tim

- ----

Timothy J. Dalton                                   tjdalton@mit.edu

MIT, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Materials Etching Technology Lab

***** Searchlight Casting for Faults in the Clouds of Delusion *****

------------------------------


Re: Counterflow Questions

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 93 07:16:25 -0500

From: zentner@ecn.purdue.edu (Mike Zentner)

Subject: Re: Counterflow Questions

>From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

>Subject: Counterflow Questions

>

>I am thinking about turning my immersion chiller into a counterflow

>chiller and have a couple of operational questions:

>  1. Some have mentioned that they sanitize their counterflow chillers

>     by running boiling water through them.  How do you get the boiling

Use something like a bottling bucket (bucket with a spigot, thought I

never use one of these things for bottling), connect the spigot to the

inlet of your chiller, and let gravity do the work.

>  2. Similar to the above, How do you get it started?  I am assuming

Same thing.

One other note, for those who haven't been around for about a year.

Now you will be running wort through the inside of your chiller.  Make

sure there are no nasties on the inside of your tubing, eg, oils from

machining, mold from letting water sit in it, etc.  To check for oils

take some kind of solvent (rubbing alcohol, paint thinner, etc) and

put some on the end of a Qtip.  Swab arond the inside of your tube.

If there's gunk on it or some dark discoloration, you should think

about cleaning it.

As in the past, I have my designs on line and will mail them to anyone

who wants them for free.

Mike Zentner

------------------------------


Overnight mashing

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 93 09:05:10 EDT

From: mcharry@cwc.com (McHarry)

Subject: Overnight mashing

I have bee mashing overnight in my oven for quite some time now.  I dough

in at room temperature and shove the kettle (my EasyMasher) in the oven set

on warm.  It is a bit too warm at the lowest setting, but that seems not to

be a problem.  The temperature rises overnight to about 160 F.  This seems

to produce a nice, highly fermentable wort with a good extraction rate.  I

have mashed all sorts of stuff this way, including batches with unmalted

wheat flour in them.  No problems.  I just get up in the morning and put

the sparge water on with the coffee.

One other note, I have been draining the lauter tun about half way through

the sparge, refilling with sparge water, and stirring well.  This seems to

prevent any sugars from hiding in gobs of goo, which can be a problem with

some adjuncts.  It seems to raise the yield a bit.

John McHarry

------------------------------


Gelatin question

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 93 09:22:44 EDT

From: lyons%adc2@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: Gelatin question

I have had excellent results obtaining clear beers when using

gelatin during the last three days of secondary fermentation.

However, I have been wondering just what the gelatin does to

the beer.  Is there any concensus on how gelatin affects the

quality of beer (i.e. body, head retention)?

------------------------------


decoction/hopping/misc

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 93 9:42:05 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: decoction/hopping/misc

<From: lfk@veritas.com (Lynn Kerby)

Subject: Hopping techniques (was Pale Ale Recipe)

<Are there other brewers out there that are doing something similar

with their hopping techniques?

Sure.  All my pale ales /ipas are multihopped.  I usually go for

centennial and cascade at 60 minutes boil to the end, about 60% of

the total hop quantity.  then at 30 minutes a aditional 10% or so

goes in, and then tons of cascade from 12 minutes until the end of

boil.

<From: Don_Doyle@Novell.COM (Don Doyle)

Subject: Decoction mashing

<I was wondering if many people use decoction mashing and what the

pro's/con's to it are. I have Noonan's book and he swears by decoction

for lager's however can one do an ale this way. I have a little voice

in my head saying "No" because you will impart unwanted flavors i.e.

astringency into the beer, but want feedback on this mashing procedure.

Decoction is a must for all grain weizens, and is very beneficial for

many styles of lagers, pils and bocks in particular.  It is not worth

the extra effort for ales, esp if you are using domestic 2 row pale or

any ale malt (M&F, Belgium...;).  Its just not worth the effort.  If

you are looking for more body and chewyness, boost your dextrin pool

by using lots of caramel malts. I love the CaraVienna and CaraMunich,

as well as english caramel malts.  Additional munich malts will also

result in more malt/and body.  I even gave up the protein rest on my

pale ales, opting for a infusion at 160, resulting in rests of 152-154

for 60 min, then mash off at 170 and lauter.  I really love making these

"easy" beers.

Best,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


misc

Date: Tue, 03 Aug 93 10:14:06 -0400

From: ""Robert C. Santore"" <rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: misc

>From  HOMEBREW Digest #1195, 08/03/93

 > From: reeves@lanl.gov (Geoff Reeves)

 > It occurs to me that a lot of the confusion over extraction rate, or yeild

 > may be due to the fact the people keep referring to pts/lb/gal (points per

 > pound per gallon). These are not the correct units and that may be why some

 > people are confused. The formula used is

 >

 >        (OSG_beer - SG_water) * Volume_of_Beer / Pounds_of_Grain

 >

 > Specific gravity is dimensionless but is referred to by "points" in brewing

 > so the dimensions are gallons/pound or point-gallons/pound (pts-gal/lb for

 > the abreviation inclined).

Pts/lb/gal and pts-gal/lb are EXACTLY the same thing.  Think about it.

 > From: r.wize@genie.geis.com

 > Subject: Agar availability?

 >

 > I recently have become an all grain brewer and am now using the Brewers

 > Resource Culture kit.  My question is does anyone know of a recipe or a

 > source for just Agar?  Most of the catalogs I have seen sell Agar slants but

 > at a price of about .80 to $1.00 each (then adding shipping it hardly seems

 > worth it)  I'm sure I could get my hands on some test tubes, it is the Agar

 > which mystifies me.

Rick, I find it is much cheaper to buy food grade agar than the stuff

sold as culture media.  You can find it in oriental or natural food stores.

Sometimes the oriental stuff comes in sticks (white or red) which is a less

convienient form.  The best stuff to find is in a flaked form.  Make sure

you use TWICE the recommended amount of agar for a given volume of wort.

I find that if I make it up as recommended the agar throws off a lot of

water that interferes with my using it as a culturing surface (of course

the directions assume that you are going to eat the stuff).  Since you're

from Syracuse I can recommend Discount Natural Foods in DeWitt as a source.

Feel free to contact me if you have any procedural questions.  I've been

culturing yeast for some time.

 > From: Don_Doyle@Novell.COM (Don Doyle)

 > Subject: Decoction mashing

 >

 >

 > I was wondering if many people use decoction mashing and what the

 > pro's/con's to it are. I have Noonan's book and he swears by decoction

 > for lager's however can one do an ale this way. I have a little voice

 > in my head saying "No" because you will impart unwanted flavors i.e.

 > astringency into the beer, but want feedback on this mashing procedure.

The pros include better extraction, less trub, more complete degradation

of proteins to soluble components, more well developed malt flavor in the

finished beer.  The cons include more hassle and more time.  I do not brew

any classic lager styles, but always use decoction for wheat beer and

occassionally use it when I want a richer maltiness.  Give yourself about

twice the amount of time you normally need to do a mash.

 - Bob Santore, Syracuse University

 - rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu

------------------------------


*EXTRA* EARWAX KILLS BEER FOAM

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 10:19:04 -0400 (EDT)

From: dcm2@bofur.unh.edu (ed fromohio)

Subject: *EXTRA* EARWAX KILLS BEER FOAM

I was with my friend ethan last night, enjoying some homebrew.  well,

he poured some into his glass with a marvelous head (maybe even too

much head say about 4", and yes, he poured it correctly, of course, it

was an old mayonaise jar, but that's beside the point).  he then

swirled his finger in his ear and said, "watch this."  whilest

swirling yonder finger in the beer foam, he said, "earwax kills beer

foam," and it did, quite remarkably too...

amazing.. now, it might have been mentioned on this forum before but I

can't remember...  anyway, if there are any follow ups to this

article, please also Cc: them to me, dcm2@kepler.unh.edu... thanks, as

I unsubscribed a day ago, due to my going on vacation for a while...

 -chris

P.S. dumb joke of the day:

 A guy walks into a bar... ouch!

- --

- -- Chris Mackensen (dcm2@kepler.unh.edu or cygnus@unh.edu)

------------------------------


Re: pts-gal/lb NOT pts/lb/gal

Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1993 11:37:25 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Re: pts-gal/lb NOT pts/lb/gal

Geoff Reeves Writes:

>It occurs to me that a lot of the confusion over extraction rate, or yeild

>may be due to the fact the people keep referring to pts/lb/gal (points per

>pound per gallon). These are not the correct units and that may be why some

>people are confused. The formula used is

>

>        (OSG_beer - SG_water) * Volume_of_Beer / Pounds_of_Grain

>

>Specific gravity is dimensionless but is referred to by "points" in brewing

>so the dimensions are gallons/pound or point-gallons/pound (pts-gal/lb for

>the abreviation inclined).

 I hate to nitpick, but the formula pts*gal/lbs is the same as the

formula pts/(lbs/gal).  I know it's mathematical smoke and mirrors, but

just thought I'd point it out.  Of course, we could also write pts*gal*lbs^-1

(that's pounds to the minus one).  Or, for that matter, gal/(lbs/pts),

or...

____________

Ed Hitchcock/Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology/Dalhousie University/Halifax NS

ech@ac.dal.ca   +-----------------------------------------+

  |   Never trust a statement that begins:  |

  |     "I'm not racist, but..."    |

  +-----------------------------------------+

 Diversity in all things.  Especially beer.

------------------------------


Yet Another Grain Mill

Date:  Tue, 3 Aug 1993 07:39:48 PDT

From: wegeng.XKeys@xerox.com

Subject: Yet Another Grain Mill

One of my goals for the Portland Conference was to determine which grain mill I

should buy to replace the Corona that I`ve been borrowing.  At the risk of

starting yet-another flame war, I thought I`d mention that there was a mill on

display at the conference that I don`t remember seeing discussed here before.

This new mill is from Glatt Machining (address: 820 Stanley Drive, College

Place, WA 99324, no phone number given).  This is an adjustable two roller

mill, with a 2.5 pound hopper capacity.  Adjustments are made by loosening one

of two screws (one for coarse adjusments, the other for fine adjustments) and

then moving a scaled plate.  It appeared to be very easy to repeat the settings

on this mill.  The rollers had large groves cut along their lengths, quite

different than the rollers on the PhilMill (I haven`t seen the rollers on the

Malt Mill).  The handle was very easy to turn while crushing.  The crush coming

from this mill looked very good to my eye.  The entire mill is made of heavy

gage metal, with a powder coat finish.  Guarantee is 90 days (defects and

materials).  Cost is $80 plus $5 shipping.

Comparing Glatt Mill to the Phil Mill, I liked the fact that the Glatt Mill has

two rollers, is easy to adjust, and has a integrated hopper.  I didn`t get a

good opportunity to compare it with the Malt Mill, except to note that it is

much less expensive than an adjustable Malt Mill.  Finally, the people from

Glatt semed very honest about their product.  At one point a friend and I took

some grain crushed on a Phill Mill to the Glatt booth, to compare the two

crushes.  The Glatt Mill appeared to give better crush (eyeball determination),

but then the Glatt representitive pointed out that it wasn`t a fair comparision

(even though his mill seemed to win) because we didn`t run the same type of

grain through both mills.  He didn`t have to point this out.

I`m probably going to order a Glatt Malt Mill in a couple days.

/Don

wegeng.xkeys@xerox.com

------------------------------


Wyeast question

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 93 09:08:03 -0600

From: John Adams <j_adams@hpfcjca.sde.hp.com>

Subject: Wyeast question

There is no need to hydrate the liquid yeast (it is already hydrated).  The

problem you are experiencing is that the number of yeast cells in a liquid

packet is far less than that of dry yeast.  It will take more time for

the yeast from the liquid (when pitched directly from the bag) to "get up to

speed."

The best method for liquid yeast to to make a starter thus allowing your

yeast more time to grow before pitching into the fermenter.

To make a yeast starter:

   obtain a 1/2 or 1 gallon juice jug (or any similarly size glass container).

   obtain an appropriate sized rubber stopper and fermentation lock.

   santitize your starter, fermentation lock, and liquid yeast packet.

   boil 1 pint water with 2/3 cup light dry extract for 5 mintutes.

   add 1 point cold water to your starter jug.

   add your "mini wort" to your starter.

      The addtional pint of cold water helps to bring the mixture's temp.

      down to 80-90degress.  I usually fill my sink with more cold water and

      sit the starter jug in the water until the temp. drops to ~70.

   figerously shake the starter to help oxygenate the "mini wort."

   carefully open the liquid packet and add the contents to the starter jug.

   cap with the fermentation lock and wait.

The starter should be ready in about 2 days, I usually prepare my starters

3-4 days prior to brewing.  Remember the liquid yeast in the packet usually

take 1 day to "puff up" so plan for 1 day for the packet + 2 days in the

starter before brewing.

You want the starter to be actively growing before you add it to your

fermenter.  If the yeast activity drops before you are ready to brew then make

another 1/2 batch (1 pint & 1/3 cup extract) to the starter to keep the yeast

growing and active.

Starter's have two maoin advantages:

   1) You lower the risk of contamination in your main fermenter by giving your

      yeast the advantage.

   2) If your yeast gets contaminated then you only lose your starter and NOT

      your 5 gallon (or more) batch of beer.

John Adams

------------------------------


confused hops

Date:    Tue, 3 Aug 1993 11:30:19 -0400 (EDT)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: confused hops

  A warning to those of you growing your own hops: check for male parts.

If you find any, cut them off before the plant self-pollinates.   I

just found some male reproductive parts on my flowering Cascade.  I'm

not happy about it.  My question is, will this plant always be a

hermaphrodite, or does it change yearly?

The nice thing about being a hermaphrodite is, if someone tells you

to "go **** yourself", you can.

Russ Gelinas

esp/opal

unh

------------------------------


Homebrew blindness

Date: 3 Aug 1993 08:34:01 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Homebrew blindness

Dan,

I read your post to the Digest, the answer is no.  There are two (main) types

of alcohol: Ethanol and Methanol.  Hmmm maybe thats spelled ethenol and

methenol... Anyway, Methanol is the one that causes blindness and death.  It is

also called wood alcohol, de-natured alcohol, rubbing alcohol.  It is made by

the fermentation and distallation of cellulose ie wood.  Grain alcohol is made

by the distallation of sugars.  The only way to get serious methanol

contamination of your beer is to not strain the grain husks out of your wort

(at all) in all-grain brewing when its put into the fermenter.  The beer would

be very nasty tasting to say the least.

JP, Metallurgist.

Space Station Materials and Processes

------------------------------


Chilis are Jalapenos

Date: 3 Aug 93 11:29 CST

From: Wolfe@act-12-po.act.org

Subject: Chilis are Jalapenos

     With respect to my last posting on peppers in beer, a number of people

  pointed out that "chili" refers to a genus of plants under which there

  are many species of peppers including jalapenos. (Hey, I'm only a

  statistician.)  The "chili" peppers I grew are actually called "Super

  Chili Pepper, F1 Hybrid." The peppers are about 2.5" long and are

  cone-shaped (similar to a miniature Hungarian Wax pepper, but they turn a

  bright red with age).  They are still green but are already as hot as

  (and better tasting than) my jalapenos.

     The folks that responded to my first posting said that I could

  probably substitute these peppers for jalapenos in any recipe, noting

  that I need to be careful of the variability of heat of different chili

  species.  I'm planning on using a standard amber ale recipe, lightly

  hopped.  Which brings me to my next question.  I've heard of three ways

  to introduce peppers into the brew: 1) boil them with the wort, 2) add

  roasted peppers to the secondary, or 3) add slices of roasted peppers to

  the bottles.  I'm thinking about using method #2 (from Charlie P's book).

  Has anyone used this method successfully?  Does anyone have any

  suggestions for "special ingredients" to sprinkle over the peppers as

  they roast (like garlic)?  Also, How many peppers should I start out

  with?  Should I put the peppers in a steeping bag so I don't get seeds

  and stray pieces of pepper in the bottles?

  Thanks,

  Ed Wolfe

  WOLFE@ACT-12-PO.ACT.ORG

  Iowa City, IA

------------------------------


To those who attended the conference in Portland...

Date: Tue, 03 Aug 93 09:47:57 PDT

From: davidr@ursula.ee.pdx.edu

Subject: To those who attended the conference in Portland...

I'm not a beer-expert... in fact, I'm lucky if I have more than 2

beers a month.  However, I do enjoy a nice brew every once in

awhile.  So... my question is this.

To those who visited our little city to attend the conference:

What did you think of Widmer Bock?  I recently tried this, and

thought it was fantastic... but since I'm used to drinking Henry

Weinhard, or (ACK!) Miller Genuine Draft, I don't have much to

compare to.  I'd like to get the opinion of some of those who are

"in the know" of what a fine beer should taste like.

Thanks,

David Robinson

davidr@ee.pdx.edu

------------------------------


when to harvest hops?

Date: Tue, 03 Aug 93 10:29:16 -0700

From: tims@ssl.Berkeley.EDU

Subject: when to harvest hops?

I have two hop plants, (out of three planted last March),

and I am wondering when to collect the flowers.  There

are already some nice big flowers on the Perle, and lots

of tiny flowers on the Chinook.  should I take each flower off

as it reaches maturity (define that, please), or wait

and harvest the whole mess at one time?

The Perle flowers look to my mind just like what hops should

look like, while the much smaller Chinook flower seems smaller

than I was expecting.   As one would expect, I haven't seen

all that many flowers this first year, perhaps 2-4 oz total.

Thanks,

Tim Sasseen

------------------------------


Ammonia in water supply

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 93 13:44:52 EDT

From: casey@bbt.com (Kevin Casey)

Subject: Ammonia in water supply

I have been brewing for about a year and always boil only about 2 gallons of

the water I use for each batch. The remaining 3 gallons are simply unfiltered

City water. In about 2 weeks they are going to begin putting Ammonia into our

drinking water (CARY, NC). Will this be bad news for homebrewing? All comments

would be appreciated as I would hate to waste time brewing a bad beer. TIA

Kevin Casey

casey@bbt.com

------------------------------


pts/lb/gal /sprinkling spargers/AllAboutBeer/WyeastQuestions

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 93 12:49 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: pts/lb/gal /sprinkling spargers/AllAboutBeer/WyeastQuestions

Geoff writes:

>It occurs to me that a lot of the confusion over extraction rate, or yeild

>may be due to the fact the people keep referring to pts/lb/gal (points per

>pound per gallon). These are not the correct units and that may be why some

>people are confused. The formula used is

>

>        (OSG_beer - SG_water) * Volume_of_Beer / Pounds_of_Grain

>

>Specific gravity is dimensionless but is referred to by "points" in brewing

>so the dimensions are gallons/pound or point-gallons/pound (pts-gal/lb for

>the abreviation inclined).

I feel that it is still correct to say points-per-pound-per-gal if you

remember what it means.  Note that in addition to determining the average

contribution to your OG from y pounds of grain in z gallons of wort, a

more important use of these numbers is to predict an OG when you are

formulating a recipe.  What you want to know is "how many POINTS you will

get if you were to use a POUND of this particular grain to make a GALLON

of wort?"  This can be also read as "POINTS gotten from grain x at a

particular ratio of POUNDS PER GALLON" or finally, "POINTS gained PER POUND

PER GALLON."  Maybe parentheses would help:

 points/(pound/gallon)

********************************

Jack writes quoting Steve:

> >My question concerns the aeration of and oxygen content of sparge water. One

> >common technique in professional breweries to sprinkle the sparge water from

> >a rotating arm (similar to the Phil Sparger). I would think that this would

> >do I good job of aerating the water.

>

> I doubt that it would do a "good" job and suspect it is pretty much in the

> noise.  More importantly, sprinkling the sparge water is totally unnecessary

> if the level is kept above the grain an inch or so.  There simply is nothing

> to be gained by spreading it around.  Someone put a shower head in a mash tun

> and they have been used and misuesed ever since.  A homebrew equipment

> manufacturer fell into the same trap and confused the hell out of beginners

> with his rotating gizzmo.

I've been thinking about this for a while, but not too intensely, since

I make sure to keep the level of the sparge water about 1/2" above the

level of the grain bed.  I feel that all the spray-attachments for sparging

are a waste of money.  There is another reason for keeping the sparge water

level above that of the grain bed: if the level drops below the top of

the grain bed, the grain bed begins to compact.  If you insist on sparging

with a spray head, then you must shell out a few more bucks as well as

add some elbow grease and add a raking mechanism to your grain bed.  I have

an experiment in mind that will take some of the mystery out of this topic,

but I have to find the time to do it!

*******************************

Sean writes:

>lethargy enough to type up a short review of

>the latest issue of _All About Beer_ magazine.

>(I suggested to Chuck that he try this mag

>because Jackson writes a column and does

>a taste-testing panel for them).

>I've been a suscriber to AAB for the

>last couple of years, mostly to get Jackson's

>and Fred Eckhardt's columns.  Often

>there has been info that is of value,

>but many articles were just

>press-release puffery.  I've read rumors

>that the cover of the mag was for sale

>to an advertiser.

It used to be, and maybe still is -- this would be indicated by the

covers that keep repeating periodically -- the one that comes to

mind is the one with the bottle of Harp on the cover over the

background of some cliffs.

>Mr. Daniel Bradford, late of the AHA

>marketing Dept. and the GABF, has

>taken over publishing the mag.  Knowing

>what we do about these endeavors, this

>may or may not speak well for the future

>of the mag, but I'm willing to give people

>a break now and then (Bob knows I

>need 'em).

Hopefully, he has enlisted the services of some knowledgable technical

editors.  I've read a few past issues and have found numerous errors,

for example "...the two Trappist Ales most available in the US are Chimay

and Duvel..."

>To the point, the latest issue looks

>stupendous, had a decent article by...

 <praise deleted>

>Anyone else read this thing and

>have any thoughts, opinions or

>rants?

If I can find a copy, I'll give it another chance.

****************************

Jim writes:

> My wife purchased some Wyeast liquid yeast for the next coupla

> batches of brew. I had read about possible infection of the nutrient

> packs here, so I figured I play it safe and re-hydrate (what do you

> call it since it's already liquid?) it myself. The date on the 'bag'

> said July 1993 - it that the 'manufacture' date, or the 'use-by'

> date?

It's the date the yeast was packaged, having been grown up during the

prior week.

> I added the 'bag' of yeast to about a cup of slightly dilluted and

> still warm (~80 degrees) wort while the rest was boiling. I've used

> this method inthe past with dry yeast and by the time the wort cools,

> the yeast has a head that's bulging out of the 2 cup container it's

> in. This time, the yeast wasn't doing *anything*, just had a sediment

> on the bottom of the cup. I pitched in into the cooled wort anyway,

> not having much choice. This morning (brewed last nite about 9,

> pitched about 11 PM), theres still no head on the fermenetr.

>

> Should I wait till this evening and if there's still no head

> re-hydrate and pitch some other yeast?

You probably won't see much activity for about three or four days.

If your sanitation techniques are impeccable (very difficult to

accomplish in the summer) you stand a chance that it will turn out

alright.  If you suspect your sanitation at all, I suggest you get

some clean dry yeast, rehydrate that and pitch it.  A four day lag

time in the summer means your odds of infection are VERY high.

Al.

------------------------------


Japanese Homebrew?

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 93 11:49:26 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Japanese Homebrew?

Some friends of mine (Japanese) are having a baby in November and I'd like to

brew a Japanese style homebrew to mark the occasion.  This is a bit of a

stretch because I refuse to brew a beer that is too light and tasteless, like

the typical Japanese lager.  I may brew a dark lager, which is not common but

is available in Japan.  I plan to use some rice, but not too much.  How many SG

points can I expect to get from a pound of rice?  Will a 2-row pale malt have

the enzymes to convert the rice?  Any suggestions for hops, or for that matter

a yeast choice?  This could be a real challenge....

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


overnight mashes

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 93 11:09:59 PDT

From: ghultin@sfu.ca

Subject: overnight mashes

The question was asked about experiences with long mash times:

I have done two overnight mashes, and although I have only

just tasted the results from one batch, found no problems.

I mash in a plastic tub swathed in a garbage bag and a

sleeping bag.  When I put the lid on the pail, the temp is

154, in the morning when I take the lid off, the temp has

fallen to 142-146.

I don't know how to tell-other than by taste-if there is

any contamination of this wort, but having tasted the

beer last night, I think it is just fine.

The book Old English Beers and How to Make Them (or something

like that) has recipes calling for 4 hour mashes.  This

is for undermodified grain, granted. But 4 hours, 8 hours,

as far as I can tell, no problem.

geoff.

------------------------------


"Washing" yeast

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 11:14:04 -0800

From: pohl@unixg.ubc.ca (Derrick Pohl)

Subject: "Washing" yeast

A while back (HBD #1181) Jami Chism posted the following method for washing

and storing yeast from the slurry:

>I have been re-using yeast slurry for several years.  My method is to

>add a cup or so of cool water to the slurry after I've racked off of it

>and swirl it around, mixing the slurry really good with the water, then

>pouring it into a sterilized glass quart jar.  I let this sit at room

>temp for several hours until there is noticable seperation, then pour

>the top liquid layer off.  I again add about a cup of cool water to the

>yeast, mix it up good, cover and let sit at room temp for several hours.

>Pour off top layer, pour the resulting yeast cake into a sterile canning

>jar, cap and store in the refridgerator until you're ready to brew again.

>This is better know as washing yeast and the method can be used with

>either dry or liquid yeasts.  I have been usually re-use a package of

>yeast anywhere from 7 to 10 brewing sessions before it starts to appear

>suspicious.

This is great, but knowing that there are always several ways to do

anything in the realm of brewing, I am interested in other people's methods

and observations on this topic, especially on the matter of storing the

yeast for future use.  The typical situation I have in mind is storing

yeast from the slurry for a few weeks, until one has time to brew again.

Also, is the primary or the secondary better for this?

- -----

Derrick Pohl (pohl@unixg.ubc.ca)

UBC Faculty of Graduate Studies, Vancouver, B.C.

------------------------------


Decoction mashing/Overnight mashing

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 93 12:54 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Decoction mashing/Overnight mashing

Don writes:

>I was wondering if many people use decoction mashing and what the

>pro's/con's to it are. I have Noonan's book and he swears by decoction

>for lager's however can one do an ale this way. I have a little voice

>in my head saying "No" because you will impart unwanted flavors i.e.

>astringency into the beer, but want feedback on this mashing procedure.

Not many, probably due to the increased work, the increased time and the

availablity of well-modified lager malts.  When using undermodified malts,

like those used by Pilsenski Prazdroj (sp?), the brewery that makes Pilsner

Urquell, the decoction mashing method is the only way to get a good

extraction efficiency.  The flavor is also a bit different than with

controlled temperature mashing or infusion mashing, or so I've read

(having not done a side-by-side comparison using the same ingredients).

Darryl Richman has hypothesized that: a reason that the decoctions do

not extract copious amounts of astringent tannins from the grain is due

to the pH of the mash.  As yet, there has not been a confirmation of this

theory, but there has been very little argument with it in the HBD.  I

don't see why you could not use it for an ale -- I've tasted a PU-clone

made by Jack, imitating Pilsenski Prazdroj, which did not have noticable

astringency.  The bottom line is, you could do it, but the reasons would

be mostly academic.

***********************************

Jack writes (quoting WAK):

> >Very interesting experience!  I could certainly go for mashing-in the

> night before.  Have others tried this?  With what sucess?  Jack, what

> temperature do you mash in at and how does it change overnight?

>

> I boil my mash water and either chill it or let it cool naturally, depending

> on the time but in either case it is near room temp or cooler when I dough-in

> and IS room temp by morning.

>

> There is no doubt a multicultural flora ready to do a number on the mash but

> if it is kept cool and kept to a reasonable length of time, it will cause no

> grief.  Mashing and boiling will destroy its viability.  If allowed to get

> established however, it could impart an off flavor even if the  organisms

> that started it are long gone.

Very true.  Others in this same issue of HBD suggested overnight

saccharification, which in the microbiologically active air of the

summertime, I feel, will almost guarantee a sour mash.  Indeed, keeping

the mash cool overnight is key to making non-sourmash beer using this

technique.

Al.

------------------------------


Wyeast Suppliers

Date:  Tue, 3 Aug 1993 11:43:44 PDT

From: John_D._Sullivan.wbst311@xerox.com

Subject: Wyeast Suppliers

Hi all,

 I'm in search of a good  mail order source for Wyeast Liq. yeast as the

two local distributors refuse to carry it.  Thanks alot,

    John

------------------------------


Flora & Fauna

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 93 13:37 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Flora & Fauna

Jack writes:

>There is no doubt a multicultural flora ready to do a number on the mash but

I've read that yeast are technically a "slime mold" and that they are

animals, which would make them fauna rather than flora.  I would then

assume that non-slime molds would then also be fauna.  However, what

are bacteria, flora or fauna?  My guess would be, again, fauna.  I have

seen "microflora" and I think I've used the word myself, but I'm playing

with this topic just for fun anyway (so don't take it too seriously).

Al.

------------------------------


The FaceMail Project

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 93 16:49:41 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: The FaceMail Project

Oh!  This is too radical!  Actually seeing (and hearing) fellow

HBDers!?!  Where's the mystery, the romance?  Reduced to a handful of

bits, we'll be ... :-)

(Not me, I wasn't there).

=S

------------------------------


Algebra and extraction rate

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 16:31:05 -0700

From: reeves@lanl.gov (Geoff Reeves)

Subject: Algebra and extraction rate

I got quite a bit of mail regarding my assertion that extraction should

properly be expressed as pt-gal/lb. Basically most people said that I had

forgotten my algebra and that pt-gal/lb == pt/lb/gal. Their arguement

depends on where you mentally draw the parentheses. pt-gal/lb =

pt/(lb/gal). However this is not the common way of expressing things. Think

of gravity. g = 32 feet per second per second.  32 ft/s/s is not the same

as 32 ft similarly energy flux is expressed as

particles/second/steradian/keV or similar units. Dimensional analysis

assumes that a/b/c = a/(b*c). Similarly computer codes that evaluate a/b/c

will evaluate a/b and then divide by c.

Now this may seem nit-picky but it pisses me off when people tell me that I

don't know algebra. I didn't get one of those mail-order physics PhDs.

Finally to pick one more nit, some people said that SG was not

dimensionless but has units of kg/liter. Nope. Specific gravity is density

of liquid divided by the density of pure water at 4 degrees Centigrade.

Since the density of water is 1 kg/liter the magnitude doesn't change going

from density to SG but the UNITS do.

Cheers

Geoff

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

|                   Give me three more units up here nurse.               |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Geoff Reeves:  Space Science Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory   |

|                reeves@lanl.gov (internet) or  essdp2::reeves (span)     |

|                Phone (505) 665-3877                                     |

|                Fax   (505) 665-4414                                     |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


Yeast Trick

Date: Tue, 03 Aug 93 18:47:12 EDT

From: roberts735@aol.com

Subject: Yeast Trick

Is it possible to culture yeast from the last inch or so of a bottle of

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale by pouring it into the starter I am making for a

batch? I am re-hydrating from dry yeast, and adding the beery slurry from the

SNPA. It was the cleanest ale Ihave made yet, very good. Do you suppose I

picked up some viable yeasties?

Bob Stovall

Robert S735@aol.com

------------------------------


Wyeast 1007, (German)

Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1993 20:03:35 -0400 (EDT)

From: SMUCKER@UTKVX.UTCC.UTK.EDU

Subject: Wyeast 1007, (German)

I brewed up a batch of German Dusseldorf style Alt over the

weekend with about 20 % German wheat malt and Wyeast 1007,

(German) and got the strongest fermentation I have ever seen.  This

is in a 15.5 gallon batch and by strongest I mean the speed and

amount of blow off that was generated.  I had between 1.5 and 1.75

gallons of blow off and after it settled I had a least 3/4 of a pint of

yeast.  (Of course the batch is still going strong.)  Am wondering if

this is the effect of the 1007 yeast, the wheat malt or both.  The

fermentation temperature was normal for me in summer at 68

degrees F.  (Self heating took the temperature to 71 even with my

water cooled keg as a fermenter set up.)  Just a data point, we will

see how this beer is in a few weeks/months.

Dave Smucker,    Brewing beer -- not making jelly!

------------------------------


boiling hops longer / blindness / overnight mashes

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 93 21:59:09 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: boiling hops longer / blindness / overnight mashes

lfk@veritas.com (Lynn Kerby) writes about boiling all hops << 1 hour:

>Are there other brewers out there that are doing something similar

>with their hopping techniques?  I would be interested in hearing about

>experiences with beers that get a significant percentage of their IBUs

>in later stages of the boil.

Perhaps It's my water (soft, though certainly not softened),

or the pH, or maybe something else, but I never seems to get

as much bitterness out of my hop additions as would seem to

be correct from HBU/IBU/boil time charts.  For instance, a recent

barleywine with 9.5 oz of fresh goldings/fuggle/N Brewer plugs,

the longest of which was boiled for over an hour (should have had

150+ IBU) was criticized as being way too sweet in a contest.

To compensate, I have taken to longer hop boils.  So far, I have not

had any problem with off-tastes in young beers (even barleywines).

Note also that I use a blowoff, which loses some hop bitterness,

and that I do not use high-alpha american hops.

Many (Most?) breweries (PU and Traquiar I know for sure)

boil the bittering hops 4+ hours.  As long as you have an handle

(from expreience) on how much hop bitterness to expect, I see no

reason to boiling the bittering hops for an extended period of time.

Yes, longer boils diminish hop flavor, but that's what the flavoring

hops are for.

- ------------------------------

djb@suned1.Nswses.Navy.Mil (Dan J Barnard) writes:

Dear Fellow Homebrewers,

>I have an unusual request.  Recently my girlfriend went to child mediation

>with her ex because he wants full physical custody of their two children

>(7 and 9).  He claimed to the mediator that we let his children drink home-

>brew (of course this is absolutely untrue) and that drinking homemade beer

>can make you go BLIND!  (Her lawyer said `isn't that true about mastrubation

>too?`)  Anyways, the mediator wanted to know if that was true or not.

Yes It can...

but no more so that any other beer.  When you're on your 20th pint

of the night...  At least the effect isn't permanent :-)

High temperature fermentation can produce higher amounts of

methyl and fusel alcohols.  When they are concentrated by distilling

at the improper temperature (question: too high or too low?),

the resultant liquor has been known to cause blindness.

- ------------------------------

From: SMUCKER@UTKVX.UTCC.UTK.EDU writes:

>Like "William A Kitch"  in HBD 1194    I an interested in the

>potential, problems and effects of a mash that extends

>beyond the conventional 2 hour time frame.

 ...

>What would be the expected effects of a 6 to 8 hour mash vs.

>the typical 2 hours?  At what temperature do you have the

>potential for a sour mash effect/problem? -- Something I

>don't want for most of my beer.  Do you leach tannins at a low

>level at mash temperature such that the 8 hours mash will

>have the potential for astringency? -- It is well accepted

>that you leach tannins above 168 degrees F.

I have had no problems with an overnight mash, but don't stretch

it past, say, 12 hours.  As long as the temp stays >> 120-130,

everything keeps fine, but it doesn't take the mash more than a

few hours to sour, once it drops back into the 80-100F range.

I have NOT tried mashing in overnight and leaving the beer

in this range for an extended period of time BEFORE mashing.

With such such a practice, the majority of the malt sugars have

not formed yet and souring may be less of a problem.

bb

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1196, 08/04/93

*************************************

-------


more on FaceMail...

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 21:34:47 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: more on FaceMail...

I've had a request via private e-mail to be more forthcoming about the

facemail project, so here goes...

There are several software packages available that produce low-quality,

motion images on your, well maybe not your, but many computer screens.

They go by a number of names, of which Quick Time and Video for Windows

are the most advertised.  As usual with multimedia, the advertising is

overblown and deceptive.... (I will skip my usual rant on the damage done

by advertising hype in my field)

None of these packages do video.  What happens is that the incoming video

stream is sampled and converted into a bitmap for every so many frames.

Very few of the systems offer 30 frame per second (video speed) display

rates.  Those that offer sound with the video interleave digitized audio

with the picture bitmaps at substancial reductions in frame rate.

The net result is much more like the cartoon flip books than true motion

video.  Some systems use special hardware to get the frame rate up, but

this is an expensive compromise.

Most of the animated images occupy only a small portion of the screen, a

postage stamp....

So don't get your hopes up too much...

The good news:  I should be able to prepare complete runtime packages for

DOS, this will require a 33Mhz 386DX with a standard vanilla VGA for

acceptable performance.  These systems should be widely available.  I will

also produce a Quick Time version for the user-interface impaired, uh I

mean the rest of them, uh, you know, the fruit machine people....

Quicktime viewers are reasonably available among the Mac tribes.  The

Quick Time version will be later in arriving, since I have to steal

machine time at another site to convert the video.  Any Quick Time users

out there (Spigot owners?) who want to volunteer to speed up this process

will be very welcome.

So, I should be able to get stand alone programs for DOS and Mac owners

should be able to lay hands on the appropriate drivers.

These motion video (sic) files are pretty big, even when heavily

compressed.  Expect to spend a while downloading them.  Don't even

consider sending them UUencoded....

As I slowly work my way into this project, I'll be posting progress

reports.  The next step will be to do a rough edit on the videotape.  At

that time I'll report how things are looking and approximate runtimes.

With any luck, this will be a Xmas present.  While I was in Portland, I

had a huge backlog of high-priority stuff pile up on me....

patience,

Paul.

------------------------------


re: yeast questions

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 08:06:05 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: re: yeast questions

 Thanks for the all the yeast question replies. I had a coupla other

folks reply directly via email yesterday, so now i've got another question:

 Is the yeast in the Wyeast packet in the inner (break to open) pouch,

or the outer pouch. I got one reply saying it was in the inner packet,

other replies seem to indicate otherwise.

 btw, the beer was gurgling away when I got home yesterday and both

batches have a healthy amount of krausen started. I re-hydrated and

pitched a packet of EDME dried yeast into one of em just in case, and

to see if I could taste the difference in the final beers (assuming

they both survive).

thanks,

jim

------------------------------


AHA results

Date: 04 Aug 93 07:12:24 EDT

From: CHUCKM@PBN73.CV.COM

Subject: AHA results

It seems that Steve and Tina Daniel always take a good share of the AHA

brewing awards.   Too bad they are not plugged into this digest so that

we may pick their brains.  Does anyone out there know these two..they

are obviously doing something very right.   ANd has anyone sampled any of their

brews?

Prost

chuckm@pbn73.cv.com

------------------------------


Ice Beer--now there's a concept!

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 08:41:55 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kieran O'Connor <koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: Ice Beer--now there's a concept!

NY Times, Page D3, August 3, 1993:

 "Our northern neighbor is putting ice in our beer."

Banking on strong performance of a new product called "ice beer" in

Canada, Molson Breweries palns to introduce Molson Ice next week on a

trial basis in Atlanta and Michigan.

Basically they go on to say that they almost freeze the beer--and then

remove the ice crystals. It supposedly leads to a smoother and (this is

true) more alcoholic brew. However, "It is being marketed for its

smoothness and distinctive, full flavored taste. The fact it has higher

alcohol is a fact not a market element" (yeah right!)

Anyway, an interesting "New Brew From Molson," too bad the Germans already

invented it.

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Address: koconnor@lor.syr.edu

Syracuse, N.Y. USA

------------------------------


Re: *EXTRA* EARWAX KILLS BEER FOAM

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 8:45:30 EDT

From: klm@mscg.com (Kevin L. McBride)

Subject: Re: *EXTRA* EARWAX KILLS BEER FOAM

"Chris" writes some nonsense:

> I was with my friend ethan last night, enjoying some homebrew.  well,

> he poured some into his glass with a marvelous head (maybe even too

> much head say about 4", and yes, he poured it correctly, of course, it

> was an old mayonaise jar, but that's beside the point).  he then

> swirled his finger in his ear and said, "watch this."  whilest

> swirling yonder finger in the beer foam, he said, "earwax kills beer

> foam," and it did, quite remarkably too...

and then asks us to reply to an account at UNH that is not owned by

someone named "Chris" (I fingered the account 'cause I had this gut

feeling that something just wasn't right.)

Can you say FORGERY boys and girls?  I thought you could.

Should you reply to this utter tripe, thus filling the innocent

victim's mailbox?  NO.

Just a friendly reminder, folks, that there are some people out here

in net.land who won't think twice about USING you to play their

practical jokes or fight their petty flame wars.  If it looks like a

joke, it probably is.  Don't waste your time.

- --

Kevin

------------------------------


Recipe for Dunkelweizen needed

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 14:11 BST

From: "Andy Phillips, Long Ashton, Bristol, UK" <phillipsa@afrc.ac.uk>

Subject: Recipe for Dunkelweizen needed

I'd like to have a go a making a dunkelweizen soon. I have

a few questions about recipe formulation:

1. What grain should I use, and how much, to get the colour

   right? I can get hold of chocolate, black patent and crystal malt,

   and roast barley. I could probably roast my own malt to give

   an amber malt. I can't buy Cara or (mainland) European speciality

   grains. My best guess is crystal plus some chocolate.

2. Hops? Hallertauer?

3. Yeast? I know of no source of liquid cultures of wheat beer yeasts

   in the UK. I can buy several HefeWeizens, which of these do you

   think would make the best starter: Thurn und Taxis HefeWeizen

   or Roggen, or Erdinger DunkelWeizen? The last of these seems

   to throw a good sediment, so this is my first choice. Are all

   HefeWeizens bottle conditioned, or are some pasteurized?

4. Temperature? Unfortunately, I have no control over this,

   so I may have to wait for autumn before I start. The temperature

   in Bristol today is a sizzling 67F.

Thanks for any help,

Andy Phillips

------------------------------


Home Brewery Info

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 08:51:13 CDT

From: tomt@nano.sps.mot.com (Tom Tomazin)

Subject: Home Brewery Info

Hello.

I am very interested in building a complete home brewery that would make

~10 gallon batches.  I've seen the some adds for complete set-ups for

$800.00 and up.  I'm sure I can do it myself for a lot less.

Since I know someone out there has built one themselves, I'm hoping

that someone can share advice, cost approximations, or even schematics

(in any form, I have access to all platforms).

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Tom

tomt@nano.sps.mot.com

------------------------------


repeat question: Spice Additions

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 9:05:17 CDT

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: repeat question: Spice Additions

Hey folks -

 Last week I posted a question regarding the pros and cons of

different methods of spice addition to a spiced ale (in boil, in

fermenter, as a tea, alcohol derivatives etc) - note: I have

investigated the Cat_s Meow and back HBD issues (back to 950)and have

found no real good "do this...dont do that" kind of information.  I have

also received several requests for a repost/forwarding of this

information.  So (since maybe a good deal of the readership was in

Portland), can anyone still answer this question?  TIA

 In addition I am looking for extract spiced ale recipes w/ o.g.s

at 1040-1060.  I have received one so far that looks promising....thanks

again     good luck and good beer

      Chris

ps. thanks for all the responses to my clean glass question last week.

======================================================================

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu |

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

======================================================================

------------------------------


Minneapolis Brewpubs

Date: 04 Aug 1993 08:59:08 GMT

From: "Tom Stolfi" <WAUTS@cwemail.ceco.com>

Subject: Minneapolis Brewpubs

From: Tom Stolfi                                   WAUTS    - CWE1IIN

To: Open-Addressing Application for Internet Acc INLINE   - CWEMAIL

Subject: Minneapolis Brewpubs

I will be stopping overnight in Minneapolis on my way to Canada for

a well deserved vacation :-).  Could someone recommend a clean cheap place

to stay and give me the lowdown on the Brewpubs in the area.  Thanks.

Tom Stolfi

wauts@cwemail.ceco.com

------------------------------


hops,1007,overnight mash

Date:    Wed, 4 Aug 1993 10:15:42 -0400 (EDT)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: hops,1007,overnight mash

  FYI, male hops flowers are easily distinguished from the female

cones we all know and love.  Whereas mature female flowers are, well,

cones, like pine-cones, male flowers are quite different.  The

male flowers will consist of a number of short stalks, maybe 6 or

so, about 1/2" to 1" long, with a ball (hopefully) at the end of each,

which contains the pollen.  I say hopefully a ball, because if it's

not a ball, it's an small open flower, and the pollen has been (is

being) released.

  Wyeast 1007 (German ale) has produced a very vigorous fermentation

every time I have used it.  Probably a good yeast to use in the summer.

Surprisingly, it can make a very fine Porter.

  Never mashed overnight, but I have mashed and sparged, and then

boiled the next day.  I know it sounds dangerous, but I've seen

no indication of souring.  My mash/sparge technique is such that

exposure of the wort to spoiling organisms is minimized, but then

again, I may have just been lucky.  It is a very convenient way

to brew. I don't think I'd recommend it during the summer though,

or in a less than squeaky clean environment.

Russ Gelinas

esp/opal

unh

------------------------------


Multiple Styles from single mash/boil

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 08:33:14 -0600

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Multiple Styles from single mash/boil

I have just recently begun doing 10gal batches, and am looking for

ways to get two separate styles from a single mash/boil.  For

example, my last batch was a 50% wheat mash. After boiling and

cooling, I separated the wort into two 5gal fermenters. Into one, I

pitched Wyeast 3056 (a Weizen strain).  Into the other, I pitched

Wyeast 1007, with which I have had good luck making wheat beers. In a

few days, I will add some fresh fruit to this batch (perhaps

blackberries or peaches), thus I will end up with two separate batches

from a single mash/boil.

Does anyone have suggestions for other mixed-batch recipes, from a

single mash/sparge/boil?

For example, I had considered making both a Helle- and Dunkel-Weizen

by doing a separate, very small steep of some chocolate malt, boiling

the resulting liquor, and adding this to one of the fermenters. Would

this have worked out? Any other suggestions?

E-mail is fine; I'll post any interesting suggestions.

Kelly   <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

------------------------------


signoff

Date:         Wed, 4 Aug 93 08:31:32 MDT

From: "Garth Hidson (471-7875)" <GARTHH%NAITVM.NAIT.AB.CA@VM.UCS.UALBERTA.CA>

Subject:      signoff

signoff

------------------------------


rebottling

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 10:35:58 EDT

From: chiz@atmel.com (Robert Chizmadia)

Subject: rebottling

Hi,

   As a favor for my upcoming wedding, I decided to brew a batch, print up a

label and give it out.  My usual container for bottling is a two liter glass

container ( carry-out from my local brew pub ).  My problem is I only

bottled 55 12-oz'ers for the wedding, put the rest in 2-liters ( hey, I like to

drink my beer ), and last night my fiancee informed me that I would need 60

bottles because she miscounted.  The beer is an ESB from extract, OG of 1.054

and FG of 1.012, using a Munton and Fison dry yeast.  It was bottled 3 days

ago.

   My question is is it possible to rebottle from the 2-liters to the 12-oz

bottles?  I assuming I will need to re-prime the smaller bottles, and that

enough yeast will still be present to carbonate the beer.  But what effect

will the dissolved CO2 have ?  should I allow the beer to go flat first?

------------------------------


Critters

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 09:54 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Critters

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 <Subject: Flora & Fauna

 >I've read that yeast are technically a "slime mold" and that they are

 animals, which would make them fauna rather than flora.  I would then

 assume that non-slime molds would then also be fauna.  However, what

 are bacteria, flora or fauna?  My guess would be, again, fauna.  I have

 seen "microflora" and I think I've used the word myself, but I'm playing

 with this topic just for fun anyway (so don't take it too seriously).

 And I am responding because I am bored and can't find anything else in this

 issue to argue with.

 Many modern taxonomists prefer to create an entirely new kingdom for all

 fungi and hence they are neither flora nor fauna.

 The general concesus however, is to place fungi in the Plant Kingdom and they

 therefore become flora.  Although some slime mold plasmodium do migrate

 impresively over a substrate, this does not change their taxonomic position

 as flora nor are they any more closly related to yeast than a mushroom.

 Yeasts are somewhat unique in that they are single celled organisms with

 little or no propensity to form colonies.  This is also true of most bacteria

 but they are miles away from each other taxonomically.  Yeast is as

 evolutionarily removed from bacteria as far as humans are from yeast.

 The fundamental difference between bacteria and all the rest of us is that

 they lack a nucleus and all the genetic implications involved it that.

 Bacteria are exceedingly primitive plants in current thinking although some

 would again put them in a kingdom of their own.

 My reference to fauna invading the mash was in terms of flies or other animal

 types that could get it if not covered or small enough to get in under the

 cover.

 js

------------------------------


1007 Wyeast

Date: Wed,  4 Aug 93 11:45:17 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: 1007 Wyeast

I too had a very vigorous fermentation when I used this yeast.  It was

my 3rd or 4th batch and I thought I did something wrong since the fermentation

spewed out of the top of the airlock.  The beer came out fine.

------------------------------


Alcohols

Date: Wed, 04 Aug 1993 12:00:43 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: Alcohols

Hi all,

IHTNPB (I Hate To Nit Pick But):

Methanol=wood alcohol=denatured alcohol, but NOT rubbing alcohol.

Rubbing alcohol is isopropanol(or 2-propanol).

Another thing,

Korz writes us saying:

>Jack writes:

>>There is no doubt a multicultural flora ready to do a number on the mash

but

>I've read that yeast are technically a "slime mold" and that they are

>animals, which would make them fauna rather than flora.  I would then

>assume that non-slime molds would then also be fauna.  However, what

>are bacteria, flora or fauna?  My guess would be, again, fauna.  I have

>seen "microflora" and I think I've used the word myself, but I'm playing

>with this topic just for fun anyway (so don't take it too seriously).

>Al.

To which I say (not that I am taking this seriously), IHTNPB, yeast?, slime

molds? I think not. Yeast are unicellular fungi, and although some yeast

can grow into multinucleate organisms complete with psuedohyphae and other

technical words, they cannot move, aggregate, grow a stalk, or do any of the

other nifty things that slime molds can do.  Slime molds, however, make bad

beer, so I would call it even. Also, to relegate fungi to the animal

(fauna) kingdom or to the plant (flora) kingdom seems to me to be

unnecessarily restrictive.  I believe that the correct scientific term for

anything that is smaller than a mouse and that does not nurse its young is the

word "bug" (from the greek, I believe).

                                      @@@@

                                     (o  o)

         |----------------------ooO---(__)---Ooo----------------------|

         |                                                            |

         | Patrick Weix                        weix@swmed.edu         |

         | UT Southwestern Medical Center      tel: (214) 648-5050    |

         | 5323 Harry Hines Blvd               fax: (214) 648-5453    |

         | Dallas, TX 75235                                           |

         |------------------------------------------------------------|

                                    ||    ||

                                  (__)    (__)

Have fun y'all!

------------------------------


Basic algebra

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 14:07:42 EDT

From: lyons%adc2@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: Basic algebra

>Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 16:31:05 -0700

>From: reeves@lanl.gov (Geoff Reeves)

>Subject: Algebra and extraction rate

>

>I got quite a bit of mail regarding my assertion that extraction should

>properly be expressed as pt-gal/lb. Basically most people said that I had

>forgotten my algebra and that pt-gal/lb == pt/lb/gal. Their arguement

>depends on where you mentally draw the parentheses. pt-gal/lb =

>pt/(lb/gal). However this is not the common way of expressing things. Think

>of gravity. g = 32 feet per second per second.  32 ft/s/s is not the same

Do you mean the acceleration of gravity ... 32 ft/(sec**2) ???

>as 32 ft similarly energy flux is expressed as

>particles/second/steradian/keV or similar units. Dimensional analysis

>assumes that a/b/c = a/(b*c). Similarly computer codes that evaluate a/b/c

>will evaluate a/b and then divide by c.

Is this a joke?  I can't stop laughing!  Actually we shouldn't be laughing

about the mathematically ignorant.  In case that this is not a joke, please

review your concepts of dimensional analysis or seek help.

>Now this may seem nit-picky but it pisses me off when people tell me that I

>don't know algebra. I didn't get one of those mail-order physics PhDs.

Did you get a high school diploma?

------------------------------


Decoction a must?/Mashing techniques

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 12:32 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Decoction a must?/Mashing techniques

Jim (as well as one other poster) writes:

>Decoction is a must for all grain weizens, and is very beneficial for

>many styles of lagers, pils and bocks in particular.  It is not worth

>the extra effort for ales, esp if you are using domestic 2 row pale or

Well, despite the fact that I haven't done an all-grain Weizen, I would

like to propose that perhaps it's a good protein rest that is essential

for a brew with a large percentage of wheat and not necessarily a

decoction mash that's essential.  Indeed, the decoctions will help

convert the starches in wheat, especially raw wheat, but I've tasted

quite a few very good weizens made with temperature-controlled (step)

mashes.

On a semi-related topic: mashing technique nomenclature.  There's a lot

of conflicting information in the books and magazines regarding the

following point.  The point is that:

   "step-infusion mashes == temperature-controlled mashes."

What I mean here by temperature-controlled, is stovetop mashing, where

the burners are used to raise the mash from protein rest to saccharification

rest to mashout.  *I believe* that step-infusion mashing is NOT the same,

rather it is a method whereby hot water is *infused* into the mash to raise

its temperature.  Do I have this nomenclature right?  I've read conflicting

views on this.

This would imply that there are basically four methods of mashing (the last

having multiple variations):

1. single-infusion   --  add a measured amount of water at a calculated

temperature to bring a measured amount of grain to saccharification

temperature.  Mashout is often not done and the hot sparge water is what

effectively ends the conversion.

2. step-infusion  --  add a measured amount of water at a calculated temp

to bring a measured amount of grain to protein rest temperature.  Add

another infusion of hot water to bring the mash to saccharification temp.

Finally, add boiling water to get the mash to mashout temp.

3. temperature-controlled  --  dough-in (cool water) or mash-in (protein

rest temperature) with the full mash volume of water.  Add direct heat to

raise the temperature to other rests.

4. decoction  --  dough-in or mash-in with the full mash volume and then

remove parts of the mash to a kettle in which this "mash fraction," which

is called a decoction, is heated to boiling and then returned to the rest

of the mash to raise it's temperature.  There are several variations to

this (double (two decoctions), triple (three decoctions), etc.) in which

some of the decoctions are replaced by infusions or the entire mash is

moved to a kettle and then direct heat is used in place of one or more

decoctions.  It is interesting to mention that decoction mashing can

be done WITHOUT A THERMOMETER, given enough experience, which I've read

is the reason that it was invented (they did not HAVE thermometers at the

time).

Al.

------------------------------


Substitutions and Bulk Malt Extract

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 15:54:55 -0400

From: <geotex@engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Substitutions and Bulk Malt Extract

Question #1)

I am planning to make a porter whost recipe calls for 5# of dark

malt extract.

I have 3.3# of dark and 1.7# of light.  I have heard that their is

a way I can use the light in place of dark if I add roasted barley,

black patent, or chocolate malt.  Is this wise?  Which should I

use if it is?  How much?  On that note, is there any rule o' thumb

for substitutions like this?

Question #2)

I was at the local health food store (People's Food Coop, Ann Arbor)

yesterday and I noticed that they had bulk "barley malt" they sold by the

pound.  Is this type of stuff ever suitable for brewing?  Anyone ever

try?  It is about $1.50/lb so it seems it would be a cheap experiment

to brew something with it?  Any suggestions?

respond by email if possible

Alex

geotex@engin.umich.edu

------------------------------


starters/Widmer/HopPicking/Flora&Fauna/SNPAyeast/Wyeast1007/HopUtiliz

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 13:49 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: starters/Widmer/HopPicking/Flora&Fauna/SNPAyeast/Wyeast1007/HopUtiliz

John writes:

>To make a yeast starter:

>   obtain a 1/2 or 1 gallon juice jug (or any similarly size glass container).

>   obtain an appropriate sized rubber stopper and fermentation lock.

>   santitize your starter, fermentation lock, and liquid yeast packet.

>

>   boil 1 pint water with 2/3 cup light dry extract for 5 mintutes.

>   add 1 point cold water to your starter jug.

                ^^^^

This had better be boiled and cooled water -- *everything* must be sanitized

(sterilized would be even better -- I use a pressure cooker).

>   add your "mini wort" to your starter.

>      The addtional pint of cold water helps to bring the mixture's temp.

>      down to 80-90degress.  I usually fill my sink with more cold water and

>      sit the starter jug in the water until the temp. drops to ~70.

>

>   figerously shake the starter to help oxygenate the "mini wort."

>   carefully open the liquid packet and add the contents to the starter jug.

>   cap with the fermentation lock and wait.

Good description... I just wanted to highlight the sanitized-cold-water

point.

*****************

David writes:

>What did you think of Widmer Bock?  I recently tried this, and

>thought it was fantastic... but since I'm used to drinking Henry

>Weinhard, or (ACK!) Miller Genuine Draft, I don't have much to

>compare to.  I'd like to get the opinion of some of those who are

>"in the know" of what a fine beer should taste like.

Yes... I did, at that place with three names (something Bakery,

something Restaurant and Widmer Brewery (although it is technically

next door)).  I don't have my tasting notes here, but I remember it

was very good.  I recall it had an OG of 1066 and did have a noticable

alcoholic component to the flavor.  It was really the first American-

made Bock I've tasted which I feel deserved to be called a Bock.

Most I've had don't have that alcoholic component.  If you like

Widmer Bock, you might as well take any remaining Henry's and MDG

out of your fridge and store it warm for rinsing kegs... you'll need

the room for some of the great bottled beers in the PNW!

*************************

Tim writes:

>I have two hop plants, (out of three planted last March),

>and I am wondering when to collect the flowers.  There

Ideally, and if you have the patience, harvest each cone

as it becomes ripe.  Ripe cones are noticably lighter, drier

and "fluffier" than un-ripe.  If it begins to turn yellow

at the tips, then it's over-ripe.  Note that you will still

have to dry them before storing them away.  I don't have my

notes here, but last year, I believe my hops lost 90% of

their weight during drying -- I used a food dessicator, but

I think it was too hot (too rough on them).

***********************

I wrote that yeast are animals.  Apparently, two or three additional

kingdoms have been created in addition to plants and animals.  Yeast

appear now to be neither plants nor animals.

***********************

Bob writes:

>Is it possible to culture yeast from the last inch or so of a bottle of

>Sierra Nevada Pale Ale by pouring it into the starter I am making for a

>batch? I am re-hydrating from dry yeast, and adding the beery slurry from the

>SNPA. It was the cleanest ale Ihave made yet, very good. Do you suppose I

>picked up some viable yeasties?

Yes it's possible, but you need to give it a day or two to start.  You may

have picked up some viable yeasties, but dry yeast is quite a bit faster

starting than the small amount of SNPA yeast (which by the way bears a

striking resemblence to Wyeast #1056), so the SNPA yeast contribution was

probably imperceptable.

********************

Dave writes:

>I brewed up a batch of German Dusseldorf style Alt over the

>weekend with about 20 % German wheat malt and Wyeast 1007,

>(German) and got the strongest fermentation I have ever seen.  This

>is in a 15.5 gallon batch and by strongest I mean the speed and

>amount of blow off that was generated.  I had between 1.5 and 1.75

>gallons of blow off and after it settled I had a least 3/4 of a pint of

>yeast.  (Of course the batch is still going strong.)  Am wondering if

>this is the effect of the 1007 yeast, the wheat malt or both.  The

Both.  The 1007 is notorious for a BIG kraeusen and the wheat malt will

add some head-retaining small proteins.

**********************

Brian writes:

>lfk@veritas.com (Lynn Kerby) writes about boiling all hops << 1 hour:

>>Are there other brewers out there that are doing something similar

>>with their hopping techniques?  I would be interested in hearing about

>>experiences with beers that get a significant percentage of their IBUs

>>in later stages of the boil.

>

>Perhaps It's my water (soft, though certainly not softened),

>or the pH, or maybe something else, but I never seems to get

>as much bitterness out of my hop additions as would seem to

>be correct from HBU/IBU/boil time charts.  For instance, a recent

>barleywine with 9.5 oz of fresh goldings/fuggle/N Brewer plugs,

>the longest of which was boiled for over an hour (should have had

>150+ IBU) was criticized as being way too sweet in a contest.

>

>To compensate, I have taken to longer hop boils.  So far, I have not

>had any problem with off-tastes in young beers (even barleywines).

>Note also that I use a blowoff, which loses some hop bitterness,

>and that I do not use high-alpha american hops.

First off, I virtually always use some flavor hops in the last 15 minutes

of the boil, often 20 to 40% of the IBUs in the last 15 minutes.

Secondly, I use Jackie Rager's formulas, but add 10% since I use a hop

boiling bag and another 10% if I use whole hops in stead of pellets.

I have not had my beers tested for actual IBUs, but my taste buds seem

to confirm that my numbers are right.  My boil hops are usually in for

60 to 90 minutes.

>Many (Most?) breweries (PU and Traquiar I know for sure)

>boil the bittering hops 4+ hours.  As long as you have an handle

>(from expreience) on how much hop bitterness to expect, I see no

>reason to boil the bittering hops for an extended period of time.

I'm quite certain that most breweries don't boil that long, let alone

boil their hops that long.  I've read that the maximum utilization one can

expect from hops is 30% of the alpha acids and according to various

hop utilization tables I've seen, anything more than 60 minutes does

not increase hop utilization significantly.

Al.

------------------------------


RE: Ethan's Earwax

Date: Wed, 04 Aug 1993 14:09:01 -0600 (CST)

From: John Mare <cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: RE: Ethan's Earwax

Ed Fromohio raises a serious problem confronting brewer's and especially

tipplers, namely how to keep earwax out of beer. When I started brewing and

imbibing I too struggled with this problem, but I have it licked! Common

earmuffs (any colour works) do a wonderful job if donned prior to coming in

contact with beer. Since these are hard to come by in Arizona I have

resorted to wearing a swimmer's rubber cap, works wonders! Hope this helps

Ethan.

John from John's Alehouse.

------------------------------


Re: Counterflow Questions

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 10:42:36 PDT

From: hartman@varian.CSB.Varian.COM (John Hartman)

Subject: Re: Counterflow Questions

In HBD #1195 Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com> asks:

>  1. Some have mentioned that they sanitize their counterflow chillers

     by running boiling water through them.  How do you get the boiling

     water in the chiller without scalding yourself?

I'd like to point out a technique I've been using with my counterflow chiller

for about the last 8 batches.  It improves sanitation while reducing the work

involved.

I must say first of all that one needs a hot water pump.  About 5 minutes

before the end of the boil I setup the counterflow chiller: To do this I place

a pick up tube in the boiler and attach its output to the input of my hot water

pump.  The output of the hot water pump is then attached to the input of my

counterflow chiller.  It's important (for priming purposes) to have the pump

upstream of the counterflow.  Otherwise there's too much dead-volume and

priming becomes a nightmare.  Leaving the counter-flowing water turned

off (sic) I start the system from the output-side of the chiller.  Once started

I direct the output back into the boiler.  Within 15 seconds this tepid wort

reaches a temperature of 180F, since it's not being chilled.  I leave the

system pumping this way for 5-10 min.  During this interval the entire chiller

is sanitized.  Any pathogens originally in the chiller are quickly killed

either in place or as they are carried to the boiling vat.

At this point I turn the burner off and the counter-flowing water on.  Within

a minute the effluent drops to pitching temp and I then direct it to the

waiting fermentor.  The nice thing is the system only needs to be plumbed

once--for both sanitizing and chilling.  This saves a lot of time and

minimizes the hassle of sanitizing the chiller.

Comments?

John

Oakland, CA

hartman@varian.varian.com

------------------------------


Hot yeast

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 21:44:22 PDT

From: LIFE'S TOO SHORT TO DRINK CHEAP BEER <UNDERWOOD@INTEL7.intel.com>

Subject: Hot yeast

 Hey all,

 First..I made my first all grain a month ago.  I'm pleased with

 the results...no it wasn't harder but it took a while longer to

 clean up.  Anyway, the plunge has been took.  Now.  I saved the

 leftover yeast slurry in a (hopefully) clean sanitized Mason Jar.

 It went into my beer fridge and nicely settled out into several

 layers of color.  Well my electric bill decided the beer fridge

 had to be shut off.  Now a month later, I have this mason jar

 in a hot fridge in a hot garage (New Mexico is HOT in July)

 full of hoy yeast.  Are they still good?  The top has bowed

 up quite a bit.  Should I throw it away and buy more or if I can

 use it....what now?

    Thanks in advance

     Cu

------------------------------


Beer (the magazine)

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 15:34:01 -0700

From: jimmyp@netcom.com (Jimmy Patrick)

Subject: Beer (the magazine)

I saw the recent article about All About Beer by (sorry, I forgot.)

I just received the premiere issue of a magazine called "Beer the magazine

" It is put out by Bill Owens, founder of Buffalo Bill's in Hayward and

publisher of American Brewer magazine. The book is about beer, not specifi-

cally brewing. But, it may be of interest to some of you. I talked to Bill

about 8 months ago andhe mentioned a Wine Spectator (ie tabloid, high-gloss)

format. The magazine looks way better than I could have imagined.

Some articles:

Hot&Wet - Chili Beer

Wheat Beers - Feature article & reviews

Beerspective - A column by (you guessed it) M. Jackson

Interview with Alan Eames (the Beer King)

Easy Homebrew - Easy Steps to Better brew

etc. etc.

The magazine is fat and contains many articles. It might be worth

a look but again, it is aimed for consumers. I have no financial interest

in the magazine but I thought you all might be interested. E-mail me

for more info.

Jimmy

------------------------------


RE: Yeast = animals?

Date: Wed, 04 Aug 1993 15:38:45 -0600 (CST)

From: John Mare <cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: RE: Yeast = animals?

The perception that bacteria are "plants", and protozoa are "animals" is an

old one, no longer held to be useful or valid. While no single biological

classification is accepted by all, a currently popular one is the so-called

"Five Kingdom System". The imbibers of beer are in the "Animalia", the

hops and barley are in the "Plantae", the yeasts are in the "Fungi", the

unwanted (but sometimes necessary) bacteria are in the "Monera", and the

protozoa (often in the water until boiled) are in the family "Protista".

Another name for the "Monera" is "Prokaryotae", the kingdom in which the

bacteria reside. All monerans are unicellular, and have no no organized

nucleus, in contrast to the multicellular members of the "Plantae". As you

can see there is little sense in persisting with the idea that bacteria are

plants!

The term "microflora" has been and still is widely used to descibe

populations of bacteria, but this usage too is falling away, to be replaced

by the more neutral "microbiota". I hope this helps!

John's Alehouse John

------------------------------


Mead

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 21:59:00 EST

From: "/R=GTC/R=A1/U=BRANNAGJB/O=College Marketing/TN=250-8384/FFN=Gretchen Brannaman/"@mr.gvltec.edu

Subject: Mead

I'm chomping at the bit to get started with my first attempt at a sparkling

mead, but I'm reading about all the micro-nasties in the hot summer air

waiting to destroy my efforts.  Since it takes yeast longer to get going

in mead (thus giving opportunities for intruders) should I wait until Fall

to begin?  I'd hate to wait nearly a year for my mead to ferment only to crack

one open and find that some other critter got to it before my yeast-of-choice

got there!  I'll wait if you all think I'd have better luck. My sanitation

must be OK because I havent had any bad batches of beer.  But I REALLY want

this mead to be wonderful.  Please reply to brannagjb@yogi.gvltec.edu

or publish it if folks are interested.  Thanks   Gretchen

------------------------------


Chiles

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 21:11:13 -0600 (MDT)

From: thomas ciccateri <tciccate@carina.unm.edu>

Subject: Chiles

  For informative reviews of various varieties of Chile Peppers and their

contributions of flavor and heat to food and beer, check out Chile Pepper

Magazine.  Contact: Out West Publishing, Box 4278, Albuquerque, NM 87196,

(505)889-3745.

  Can anyone report the collective review of the grind-off between the

Maltmill and the PhilMill which occurred at the AHA Conference Jambeeree

last Tuesday night ?  Has anyone analyzed the grind from the Glatt Malt

Mill, specifically, do the deep grooves in the rollers tear the husks

apart too greatly ?

  For those lucky enough to have some of the Chile Extract given away

by The Beverage People during the conference, could you please post the

results of its use.

  Regarding yeast starters beginning with a petri dish.  At the Yeast

Culturing class given by Siebel at the conference last Saturday, they

tell commercial brewers to increase volume by no more than 5 times

per step so that the yeast would get accustomed to eating various

sugars as they'll be found in the wort.  The did concede that homebrewers

with low volumes of well-areated wort could get by with step increases

greater x 5.  I go from 5 ml to 50 to 500 then finally to 1500.  Diacytl

or excessive unfermentables don't seem to be a problem.  They also

recommended starter gravities around 1048 unless the target beer is high

gravity.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1197, 08/05/93

*************************************

-------


Help No Hops

Date: Thu, 5 Aug 93 07:01:36 -0600

From: staib@oodis01.hill.af.mil (Major Donald L. Staib;545TG/SEF;)

Subject: Help No Hops

I've been brewing hopped extract kits for years.  Under the

encouragement of HBD and Prodigy BB, I started using un-hopped kits,

and DME to make great all-malt brews (for an extract brewer).  The

problem is, in my haste I left out the hops from my latest brew, I

added Irish Moss to the boil and forgot the hops (thought it seemed

too easy).  I'm now two days into the primary and guess I'm destined

to dry-hop the entire 5 gal batch.

I used two cans of M&F light to make up 5 gal.  I have never

dry-hopped before.  I have 2 ozs. each of Cascade and Chinook. Can

anyone suggest the procedure and amount for me?  Oh, pellet hops is

the type I have.

Enjoy reading all the great information here on the Digest. Thanks for

any and all techniques to remedy this oversight.

The Braumeister in Layton, Utah!       *

                                      // *

                                     [@@]  *

                                    +-[]-+

                                     _[]_

------------------------------


Date: Thu, 5 Aug 93 08:44:07 CDT

From: nfarrell@ppco.com (Norman Farrell)

Subject: Help No Hops

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1196 (August 04, 1993)

Item #1 Another opinion on ALL_ABOUT_BEER:

I recently picked up a couple of issues of ALL_ABOUT_BEER

recently and found the magazine a wothwhile read for

a variety of reasons.  It is not however (in my opinion)

going to replace the other beer and brewing publications I

read.

Micheal Jackson's article are always a great read.  When

NEW_BREWER (otherwise a good mag) did an article on

"women in the brewery" and it was about what

wimpy/pale/fruity beers you should make for ladies,

ALL_ABOUT

BEER was doing a series (not just one article) on women in

the brewing industry from distributors/ importers to

owner/operator/brewers.  Kudos to ALL_ABOUT_BEER.  Shame on

you NEW_BREWER.

Item #2 Wyeast 1007, (German)

>Dave Smucker,    Brewing beer -- not making jelly!

>I brewed up a batch of German Dusseldorf style Alt over the

>weekend with about 20 % German wheat malt and Wyeast 1007,

>(German) and got the strongest fermentation I have ever

seen.

This is the usual experince I (and other club members, Just

Brew It.) have had with this strain.  If you pitch it at the

rate you should, it will crawl out of the fermenter at the

slightest provocation.  We should have such problems with

all

the yeast we use.  The warmer temps you mention will only

agravate the "problem??".

Item #3 HBD #1197.  Subject: Steve and Tina Daniels

chuckm@pbn73.cv.com asks about Steve and Tina.

I have met the Daniels Duo.  Several times: Foam Rangers

meetings, AHA stuff, contests.  They are great people and

talented brewers.  They also do a mean job remodeling houses

(all in their spare time..... HA).  In Foam Rangers circles,

Steve is known as "Negative Man" due a now legendary episode

where he dumped a whole batch of wort (and started over)

just because he forgot to rest the mash at 120 deg F.  Hard

to argue with their track record in contests.

My impression of their contest strategy is that they have

adjusted recipes to directly respond to judges commments and

thus systematically hone their beers to "perfection".  At

least until the beers are very good indeed.  Please look at

LAST YEAR's zymurgy listing the AHA national winners and

their recipes.  I believe you will find 3 Steve and Tina

recipes.  Look at them carefully.  They are in 3 different

categories (of course).  To the casual inspection, at least

2 of them appear virtually identical and the 3rd one very

similar.  What does this tell you??

A.) The same beer can win in more than one category at the

national level.

B.)  Some style descriptions are not very useful in helping

judges distinguish among similar styles.

C.)  The most important parts of the brewing process are not

captured in a recipe.

D.)  Some brewers don't want to give away all their secrets

or don't worry if published recipes allow you to duplicate a

beer.

I don't honestly know the answer.  It may be none of the

above.  Looking at these recipes as a brewer of 15 years, I

don't see how they can be too helpful to novice brewers who

want to follow in the footsteps of true winners like Steve

and Tina.

Item #4 Temperature control

I will soon be fermenting in a modified refrigerator due to

relocating in the Houston area and I am wondering about

fermentation temperature control.  Has anyone tried

immersing the thermostat sensor in the fermenting liquid.  I

would assume that you would want to put the sensor in a

narrow tube with a closed bottom to prevent direct contact

with the liquid but to still get a good temperature reading.

I would also assume that the tube would be glass, stainless

steel or plastic that could be adequately sanitized.  Any

ideas, drawbacks??  Is this already standard practice and I

am reinventing the wheel?

Beer is food.

Norman Farrell(nfarrell@ppco.com)

------------------------------


Recipe Postings

Date: Thu, 5 Aug 93 09:55:15 EDT

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1-1/T09 DTN 225-6171  05-Aug-1993 0953 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Recipe Postings

A recent posting pointed out a problem (to me anyway) with the Cat's Meow.

It's not really a problem with the Cat's Meow, rather with those who post

recipes.  Someone posted a recipe awhile back which made it into the Cat's

Meow.  Later, the poster comes back to HBD and admits it wasn't that good a

beer.

Why post untried recipes?  It's not fair to other brewers to have to flush 5

gallons of beer representing $20-40 worth of ingredients down the drain when

they repeat your mistakes.

Recipe postings are great and so is the idea behind the Cat's Meow, but

please, wait until you've tasted the beer and can comment on it at the very

least. Even posting a recipe and saying it was underhopped or too malty, or

whatever is better than saying, I haven't tried this yet especially when you

have to come back a few months later and say it was a complete flop.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipement Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Old Ale

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 21:47:49 EDT

From: rgarvin@btg.com (Rick Garvin(761-6630))

Subject: Old Ale

Well, I finally got a ribbon at the AHA Nationals. It was nice beingthere

and it was a bit of a surprise. Of the three beers that I entered (Old Ale,

Barley Wine, and Imperial Stout)  the Old Ale was the least good. The

recipe, which follows, was high on the IBU side. This was meant to be a

strong Pale Ale.

You say "Wow! Are the only beers you brew strongly alcoholic? Do

you have a need for lots of VERY strong beer?" Actually, I do not feel

that anything but strong beers can be done justice with the format that

AHA uses for their national. The time between bottling date and Best of

Show judging is at least 4 months! Most beer styles have passed their

peaks by then.

My experience judging American Pale Ales enforces my opinion. All of

these beers lacked fresh hop aroma. Many had cooked vegetable

aromas and flavors. None was superb. The American Wheat that was

awarded First Place was the only beer without faults. In the second

round I expect beers to compete on superlatives, not who has the least

faults. I believe that all of the problem that we tasted were age related.

The good beers in this style that we had in the Washington, DC regional

"The Spirit of Free Beer" had the fresh beer character that is the

trademark of this style.

Maybe the lesson here is enter the regionals with the American Pale

Ales. This style needs the faster turn around. Not to mention cheaper

entry fees and better prizes.

My congratulations to Thom Tomlison for a well run second round and

BOS.

And now, for some beer:

- ----------------------------------------

Garvin's Old Ale

#159

Rick Garvin

Arlington, Virginia

all-grain recipe

Recipe for 7 gallons:

14 pounds British Pale Ale malt

1 pound 40 Lovibond Crystal malt

4 ounces Mt. Hood hop pellets, 3.7% AA. Boil 70 minutes.

1 ounce Mt Hood hop pellets, 3.7% AA. Boil 10 minutes.

1 ounce BC Goldings hop pellets, 5.0% AA. End of boil.

1 tablespoon Irish Moss for last 15 minutes.

16 ounces thick slurry Sierra Nevada strain yeast (Old Dominion

Ale)

3/4 cup corn sugar to prime.

Original specific gravity: 1064

Terminal specific gravity: 1014

Brewing date: 4/19/93

Primary fermentation: 1 week, 65 degrees

Secondary fermentation and lagering: 1 week, 65 degrees

Bottling date: 5/3/93

Brewer's specifics:

Single temperature infusion mash:

Dough in malt with 1.33 qts/lb water (5 gallons) water at 165F for a

sacharification rest 154F-152F for 60 minutes. Sparge to collect 9

gallons.

Boil sweet wort for 30 minutes before adding hops. Chill and pitch.

Cheers, Rick

Rick Garvin rgarvin@btg.com

BTG, Inc. Navy Programs Division, Vienna, VA 703-761-6630

------------------------------


chili beer

Date: Thursday,  5 August 93 09:05:26 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: chili beer

Howdy, y'all!

I see that discussion is beginning of the use of chili peppers in beer again,

& by coincidence, I tried my own Serrano beer last night.  I was brewing a

batch of Czech(oslovakian) Pilsner back in June, when the last discussion of

chilis was going on.  I decided to try it out, but I only wanted a few

bottles.  To do this, I tried the Ed's Cave Creek Chili Beer method, which is

adding a serrano to the bottled product.  I had had Ed's before, & found it

overwhelmingly spicy.  According to one HBD'er, whose name befails me, Ed's

maxed out in spiciness after 60 days.  I'm sure that what I had was at least

that old, so I figured that if I drank it early enough, it would be pleasant

enough.  That was very true!  I bottled it 17 days ago, and the beer was

spicy, but nowhere near overwhelming.  The beer flavor was not obliterated by

the pepper, but the two were well balanced.  A successful experiment.

Some technical notes:  I had orginally intended to use jalapenos, but

discovered that they were, for the most part, too fat to fit into the bottle.

Serranos are much thinner.  According to the Scoville method of measuring

spiciness in chilis, serranos are hotter than jalapenos, but not much, so I

figured they were the way to go.  They were more expensive, but it came out

to 3.5 cents a pepper, so it wasn't like I was going to go broke.  I reviewed

suggestions posted in the HBD about how to make sure the chilis were clean

enough to introduce into the beer.  Since I didn't like any of them, I

decided to just wash them off in good old hot water.  I dropped one in each

bottle, poured the primed beer over it, & capped it off as normal.  I noticed

that the bottle I had last night did not gush, as chili beers often do, plus

it didn't have any tastes that one might associate with bacterial infection;

therefore, I would assume that the serranos were clean enough at bottling

time.  Something to think about.

I also used some chipotles (smoked jalapenos) in a couple of bottles instead

of serranos.  I intend to try one this weekend.  I'll have a review early

next week.

Since chili peppers are, technically, fruit, I was wondering if this method

would work for other fruits.  Has anyone out there bottled fruit with their

beer instead of adding it at an earlier stage?  I'd like to know.  I want to

make a mango beer & a prickly pear beer, but don't want lots of it.

Happy brewing,

Alan, Austin

------------------------------


Starter OGs

Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 09:16:46 -0500

From: Todd Enders - WD0BCI <enders@plains.NoDak.edu>

Subject: Starter OGs

thomas ciccateri <tciccate@carina.unm.edu> writes:

>  [...] At the Yeast Culturing class given by Siebel at the conference

>last Saturday...

<snip>

>They also recommended starter gravities around 1048 unless the target

>beer is high gravity.

>

     Hmmm...  Every starter I ever did was in the 1.045 - 1.050 range.  It

just didn't seem quite logical to make a starter at 1.020  and pitch the

yeast grown therein into a 1.045+ wort.  I would think it would be better

to subject a small number of cells to the initial osmotic stress of adapting

to a given wort than a much larger number of cells to a smaller osmotic

shock.  One might suspect that stressing a large number of cells might lead

to some off-flavour components.  On the face of it, it would appear that

the people at Siebel concur.  What sort of starter gravity do they recommend

for a high gravity beer?

Todd

===============================================================================

Todd Enders - WD0BCI                  ARPA: enders@plains.nodak.edu

Computer Center                       UUCP: ...!uunet!plains!enders

Minot State University                  or: ...!hplabs!hp-lsd!plains!enders

Minot, ND  58701                     Bitnet: enders@plains

===============================================================================

------------------------------


Botched Batch....

Date:     Thu, 5 Aug 93 10:15:08 EDT

From: "Darren L. Ward" (FSAC-FCD) <dward@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  Botched Batch....

 I messed up.  I started a batch (had a good boil going, added my malt

extract, bittering hops after ten minutes) and then realized that my flight

outta town was not at 1pm, but 11:10 am, and that I hadn't packed or dropped

my son off at my mother-in-laws yet and it was 9:15 with an hour drive to the

airport.  So....I turned off the heat, removed the pot and covered it and

put it in the basement.  My question is "what is the best course of action

now?"  Do I start it up with another boil (it was on the stove for only 20

minutes) or do I just add the next bunch of hops (ie. dry hop) and the

yeast and hope for the best???  I realize this post/experience makes me sound

kind of stupid, but, I can deal with that, some answers/suggestions would

be appreciated.

 One more thing, I did this tuesday the 3rd, and today's the 5th and

I'm back.

------------------------------


dark grain, All About Beer

Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1993 10:21:22 -0400 (EDT)

From: /R=HERLVX/R=AM/U=KLIGERMAN/FFN=KLIGERMAN/@mr.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: dark grain, All About Beer

Geotex@engin.umich.edu writes:

>I am planning to make a porter whose recipe calls for 5# of dark

malt extract.  I have 3.3 # of dark and 1.7# of light.....I have

heard that I can use light in place of dark...?

I always buy light malt extract when I make an extract beer because you

can always darken it but its difficult to lighten when you start with

only dark or amber extract.  For a porter I would recommend using black patent

or chocolate malt (possibly about a 1/4lb or the former and 1/2 to 1lb of the

latter, depending on your preference.  IMHO, I would not use much roast since

that is more characteristic of stouts.  Again, you could crush or not crush

the grain depending on your preference for color and steep it in water up to

about 180 F.  Sparge this with hot water and add it to your wort.

BTW, in reference to "All About Beer", it is now produced in Durham, NC the

former beer capital of the Research Triangle !!  The magazine appears to be

quite well done, both colorful and interesting, though not for the technically

oriented. There is even an article on introducing people to homebrewing.

A section called Beer Talk has 5 noted experts and one quest expert rate

5 different beers.  The experts include Fred Eckhardt, the ubiquitous Michael

Jackson, Charlie Papazian, James Robertson and George Saxon.  But the guest

expert really showed herself to be a beer connoisseur.  Not only does she have

an uncanny ability to detect subtle flavors and aromas in beer, she makes

great Indian Food.  She happens to be my wife (;^)!!

All disclaimers apply.

Andy Kligerman

------------------------------


Recipe Aid Request

Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 10:46:14 -0500

From: amilbank@mercury.bih.harvard.edu (Aaron Milbank)

Subject: Recipe Aid Request

I'm interested in brewing an all-grain pale ale that resembles Sierra

Nevada's Pale Ale.  Any suggestions pertaining to choice of grain, yeast,

hops, hops schedule etc.?

Thanks.

Aaron

amilbank@bih.harvard.edu

------------------------------


Cheap 5 gal Carboys in Seattle

Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 07:53:28 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Cheap 5 gal Carboys in Seattle

In the cheap carboys column,

Olshen's Bottle Supply, Inc.

923 S Bayview

Seattle, WA 98134

(206) 622-4143

Brand new, 5 gal glass carboys (they call them "bottles") for $10.67

plus $0.87 tax for a total of $11.54.

I don't know if they ship.  They are just off Airport Way S, barely

north of S. Lander under the freeway.

I have no stake, financial, emotional, or otherwise in this enterprise.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Barreling Beer

Date: Thu, 5 Aug 93 10:42:34 -0400

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

Subject: Barreling Beer

Previously, I asked for Brewers' experiences concerning "barreling" beer

in wooden casks.

With that, I received no responses.

Maybe I need to be more specific with my barreling concerns.

I have a 5 gallon wooden barrel (together with spigot) capable of holding

fluids.  I plan to use my carboy as a primary fermenter (for a nutbrown ale).

When its time to transfer to bottles - I instead want to transfer to the

wooden barrel.  After the beer has conditioned in the barrel for about

a month, I'm going to slam the spigot into the barrel and drink (along with

with 5 gallons worth of friends).

My concern is - Will a standard-fluid-capable-wooden-barrel be able to

withstand the pressures that the beer will produce (during the conditioning

process) over this period of a month?

Thanks in advance.

- ---

email: sxupjd@fnma.com (NeXT Mail Okay)

Philip DiFalco, Senior SomethingOrOther, Advanced Technology

FannieMae, 3900 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 22016     (202)752-2812

------------------------------


dunkleweizen & dual brews

Date: Thu, 5 Aug 93 11:08:20 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: dunkleweizen & dual brews

IN the last digest:

<From: "Andy Phillips, Long Ashton, Bristol, UK" <phillipsa@afrc.ac.uk>

<Subject: Recipe for Dunkelweizen needed

<

1. What grain should I use, and how much, to get the colour

   right? I can get hold of chocolate, black patent and crystal malt,

   and roast barley. I could probably roast my own malt to give

   an amber malt. I can't buy Cara or (mainland) European speciality

   grains. My best guess is crystal plus some chocolate.

60 - 70% wheat malt, pils for the balance except use lots of Caramel/

crystal and a small amount of chocolate.  Stay away for Black at all

costs.  You might try the Hugh Baird Caramel malts, I believe you

can get them in 40, 60 and 80 lovi.

<2. Hops? Hallertauer?

excellent choice, keep IBUs below 18.

<3. Yeast?

Mailorder a culture of Weihenstephan #68 (apparently this is the real

number not 66???).  Several yeast suppliers have this including the

Yeast lab folks, the Yeast Culture Kit folks and apparently the newest

Wyeast weizen.  Most bottled versions are useless to culture from. Weizens

that "throw a good sediment" are usually krausened with lager yeast.

<4. Temperature? 67F.

Good.

*******************`

<From: tomt@nano.sps.mot.com (Tom Tomazin)

Subject: Home Brewery Info

10 gallons....Get two SS 1/2BBl kegs and modify them with adding a spigot.

Lots of designs to pick, cooler, kegs, false bottoms....

**********************

<From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Multiple Styles from single mash/boil

Does anyone have suggestions for other mixed-batch recipes, from a

single mash/sparge/boil?

Sure, how about a barley wine and a small beer from the second runnings.

Or, brew a 1.060 batch, hop it highly, split into two fermenters, dilute

one down to 1.040 and call it a bitter, ferment the other and call it an

IPA.

*************************

<From: chiz@atmel.com (Robert Chizmadia)

Subject: rebottling

2 litres into 12 oz....  Sounds like a lot of work and potential for really

flat and/or oxidized beer.  If you must do this, fill a keg with CO2,

pour the beer into the keg, close and purge the keg with more CO2, shake

and purge the escaping CO2 until flat (or close). Grow healthy krausen beer

(10% of volume to be added into), mix krausen beer at high krausen and

bottle.  The secondary fermentation from the krausen beer *may* be able

to absorb enough O2 to prevent oxidation.  Allow 10 days to condition prior

to dispense.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


decoction/weizens/mash techniques

Date: Thu, 5 Aug 93 11:08:44 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: decoction/weizens/mash techniques

<From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Decoction a must?/Mashing techniques

<Jim (as well as one other poster) writes:

>Decoction is a must for all grain weizens, and is very beneficial for

>many styles of lagers, pils and bocks in particular.  It is not worth

>the extra effort for ales, esp if you are using domestic 2 row pale or

<Well, despite the fact that I haven't done an all-grain Weizen, I would

<like to propose that perhaps it's a good protein rest that is essential

<for a brew with a large percentage of wheat and not necessarily a

<decoction mash that's essential.  Indeed, the decoctions will help

<convert the starches in wheat, especially raw wheat, but I've tasted

<quite a few very good weizens made with temperature-controlled (step)

<mashes

If one is using a upward step mash program (the politically correct term),

you can produce a good wiezen with a wheat content up to 50%.  Depending

on your lauter tun, I would never ever recommend going above this level

of wheat without a decoction.  this is especially true when using domestic

wheat malt with protein levels around 15!  A good protein rest is essential

in both decoction and step mashing.  Now an authentic Bavarian weien must

be of at least 51% wheat malt, and this includes dilution by krausen beer

if you choose this carbonation method.  So if you are adding 10% helles

krausen beer you must account for the dilution effects of the percentage

of wheat in your beer.  I brew weizens of 65-70% wheat malt and a decoction

is really important.  remember the taller your lauter tun, the more grain

compaction that can occur resulting in more time consuming lauters.  I use a

tun that is twice as wide as the depth of grain bed.

Al continues:

<1. single-infusion   --  add a measured amount of water at a calculated

temperature to bring a measured amount of grain to saccharification

temperature.  Mashout is often not done and the hot sparge water is what

effectively ends the conversion.

Correct.  The dominant technique in many american ale houses that do not

employ a fired mash tun (kinda the english methods)

2. step-infusion  --  add a measured amount of water at a calculated temp

to bring a measured amount of grain to protein rest temperature.  Add

another infusion of hot water to bring the mash to saccharification temp.

Finally, add boiling water to get the mash to mashout temp.

Correct.  A typical technique in homebrewing and in breweries that do not

have a fired mash tun but want more control over the saacharafication

temps.  Requires proper mineral balance to maintain proper pH.  Usually

not an issue due to the "buffering" effects of the malt.  A little gypsum

will suffice.

3. temperature-controlled  --  dough-in (cool water) or mash-in (protein

rest temperature) with the full mash volume of water.  Add direct heat to

raise the temperature to other rests.

Correct. "Upward step mash program". My preferred technique with regular

ales.

4. decoction  --  dough-in or mash-in with the full mash volume and then

remove parts of the mash to a kettle in which this "mash fraction," which

is called a decoction, is heated to boiling and then returned to the rest

of the mash to raise it's temperature.  There are several variations to

this (double (two decoctions), triple (three decoctions), etc.) in which

some of the decoctions are replaced by infusions or the entire mash is

moved to a kettle and then direct heat is used in place of one or more

decoctions.  It is interesting to mention that decoction mashing can

be done WITHOUT A THERMOMETER, given enough experience, which I've read

is the reason that it was invented (they did not HAVE thermometers at the

time).

Almost correct.  The "mash fraction" that is boiled is also raised to a

saacharafication rest temp, usually 147-158 or both, and after conversion,

is then denatured through boiling.  This rest is often ommitted by home

brewers and may result in lost efficiency.  Note that in a weizen decoction

program, the main mash sits at protein rest temps for over an hour while the

mash fraction is raised, held, then boiled.

Al continues:

<Yes... I did, at that place with three names (something Bakery,

something Restaurant and Widmer Brewery (although it is technically

next door)).  I don't have my tasting notes here, but I remember it

was very good.  I recall it had an OG of 1066 and did have a noticable

alcoholic component to the flavor.  It was really the first American-

made Bock I've tasted which I feel deserved to be called a Bock.

NOT!  It is an ALE!!!  All of Widmers products are made with the same

Alt bier yeast.  None is a lager, one of my major beefs with the incredibly

successful Widmer brewery.  Even that "HefeWeizen" is the same alt yeast,

super thick and cloudy, echhh.  BTW, there are some really good bocks (lagers)

made by: Gordon Biersch, Sudwerks, Baltimore Brewing, Old Dominion brewing

and Stoudts to name a few.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

<

------------------------------


Brewing Techniques, errors

Date: Thu, 5 Aug 93 11:09:12 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Brewing Techniques, errors

In re: Brewing Techniques issue 2:

Anyone else catch the mistakes in this issue?  Dave Miller claims

that hefeweizens are made with S. Delbrukii, NOT!  It is S. Cerveasae,

see Eric Warners book, Brewing Wheat Beers.  Also, the styles column

claimed that Reinheitsgebot brewers cannot add minerals to the brew.

NOT!  They cant add non natural occuring things in water like acids.

Since calcium is in the water, they can and many do add gypsum to the

mash and/or kettle. CaCl2 is also OK.  Raw acid is not, hence the use

of Lacto to drop pH.

I also think Dave Miller is really really anal on cleaning his wort

chiller.  Hot boiling water, with hot caustics and a rinse with hot

water works.  The important point was cleaning with caustics to remove

the grim, then sanitizing with iodophor or boiling water.  I know of

very few breweries that go to the extreme of an acid rinse between caustic

and sanitation.  Nothing wrong, just really excessive.

Jim

------------------------------


Earwax contributor revisited

Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 08:16:24 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Earwax contributor revisited

In the 05 Aug HBD Kevin McBride accuses the EARWAX contribution as

a sham and FORGERY based upon a finger.

I did a "telnet kepler.unh.edu 25" to make a direct connect with

with sendmail on that machine.  A "VRFY dcm2" (verify) command then

identifies David C. Mackensen as the owner.  A similar test of

cygnus@unh.edu yields dcm2@kepler.unh.edu.  (bofur.unh.edu refused

the telnet connection).  So as far as I can tell DCM owns the accounts

listed in the original post.  However, I agree with Kevin that the

whole structure of the post is suspicious (sic?).  Vacation indeed.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


More on the Glatt Malt Mill

Date:  Thu, 5 Aug 1993 08:24:04 PDT

From: wegeng.XKeys@xerox.com

Subject: More on the Glatt Malt Mill

Patrick Sobalvarro called Glatt Machining, and learned some more information

about their mill.  With his permission I`m forwarding this information to the

HBD.  Based on this information I mailed them a check this morning.

/Don

- --------------------------------------------

Originally-From: pgs@ai.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)

The number [at Glatt Machining] is indeed (509) 529-2084.

I talked to the guy who designed the mill, and he sounded very

conscientious.  Here are some of the things he told me:

The reason it's easy to turn the handle is that the drive is geared so

you have some mechanical advantage (neither of the two other

inexpensive mills available are geared).

The rollers are 4 inches long, steel, and grooved lengthwise.

It takes about ten minutes to grind 10 pounds of malt, in his

experience, if the mill is not motorized.  They designed it with the

idea of motorizing it easily, and connecting a drill to it is supposed

to be pretty straightforward.

Both ends of one roller are adjustable, on what sounded like a sort of

eccentric cam with set-screws.  There is an engraved plate with a

scale on it so you can repeat your adjustment.

The bearings are injection-molded Delrin (a hard plastic designed for

use in bearings).

The construction is metal, the hopper is big, and there are two

mounting holes for attaching the mill to a table.

The current cost is $80 + $5 shipping, when it's sold directly.

They can ship COD, or wait for your check or money order.

I'm sending him a check tonight.

 -P.

------------------------------


weizen pointers

Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 11:10:45 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: weizen pointers

I've brewed a few weizens on and off.  I also read Eric Warner's

excellent "German Wheat Beers" and recommend it highly.  These

points have been made in hbd at various times, but again:

 - Warner argues for a grain bill of 70:30 wheat malt to barley malt.

That ratio is important to producing the desired beer.

 - Warner argues for using a decoction mash.  In addition to the

usual reasons for doing a decoction, it appears that the decoction

mash helps release into the wort flavor precursors for the

desired weizen flavor.  One could do an infusion mash, but I

don't think the desired weizen character would result to the same

degree.

 - You need the right yeast.  One doesn't need s. delbruckii, just an

ale yeast with the right flavoring properties.  It appears that

Martin Schiller and Paul Farnsworth are both sources of a good

weizen yeast, and that wyeast is test-marketing a new yeast.

------------------------------


Steve Daniel

Date: Thu, 5 Aug 93 12:51:19 EDT

From: chuck@synchro.com (Chuck Cox)

Subject: Steve Daniel

CHUCKM@PBN73.CV.COM sez...

>

> It seems that Steve and Tina Daniel always take a good share of the AHA

> brewing awards.   Too bad they are not plugged into this digest so that

> we may pick their brains.  Does anyone out there know these two..they

> are obviously doing something very right.

> ANd has anyone sampled any of their brews?

>

Steve is an excellent brewer from League City, Texas.  He is also a good

friend, and we are in the process of establishing a UUCP link to

synchro.  I expect Steve will be participating in the HBD soon.

Currently he does read the HBD, but can't send messages to the list.

Yes, I have had lots of his beer, it is excellent.

- --

Chuck Cox   <chuck@synchro.com>

SynchroSystems / Riverside Garage & Brewery - Cambridge, Mass.

------------------------------


algebra

Date: Thu, 5 Aug 93 13:03:06 EDT

From: lyons%adc2@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: algebra

My apologies for the algebra remark.  I know better understand

the confusion.  Despite that, my remarks were out of line.

------------------------------


Hops Schedule Equations

Date: 5 Aug 1993 11:32:27 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Hops Schedule Equations

Today's homebrewer likes to dabble with different styles of beer, and to try

duplicating prize winning recipes.  A hops schedule is usually included as a

part of these recipes as is the Wort Gravity and Final Gravity of the brew.

There are occasions where this information is not included or where a

homebrewer may not have a good feel for what the final brew would taste like.

The International Bitterness Unit (IBU) is a better way to define the Hop

charactor of a beer.  The IBU take into account the wort gravity and the amount

of time each hop addition is boiled.  This allows the homebrewer to develop a

hop flavor profile in the beer and plan for different hops to make up the

overall charactor of the beer.

Several months ago, I wrote an Excel Spreadsheet based on Jackie Rager's work

in Zymurgy, that allowed me to get a better idea of what a certain recipe's hop

additions meant to the final level of bitterness in the finished beer.  As a

starting homebrewer, I had little idea of what XX IBUs/HBUs meant to what I

perceived as taste.  By sampling various beers from around the world, and

pulling the bitterness data from Micheal Jackson's, *Pocket Guide to Beer*, I

was able to determine what I liked in terms of hop level.  Next, the question

was, "If I want to make (someone's) recipe, how bitter will that be?"  By using

Rager's equations, I could determine the IBUs and get a better idea of how I

might what to tinker with it.

Much the same idea was presented in a recent issue of *Brewing Techniques*; but

some of the equations seemed different.  So, I called Karl King in Milwaukee to

ask him about that.  He's a nice guy, and had done his homework.  We had both

discovered the several mathematical errors in Jackie's article and had the same

questions about Wort Gravity adjustments.  Rager had stated in Zymurgy that if

the Wort OG is less than 1.05 then the Gravity adjustment is Zero.  This

returns a Gravity of 1.00 to the IBU equation.  Karl King had determined that

it should be (1 point whatever), the OG; and I agreed.  In addition, the Hop

Utilization data presented by Rager was added to by King, and he used two

linear regressions to describe that data in his article in Brewing Techniques.

Karl got the additional utilization data points from the public library

archives in Milwaukee, which seems like a good source, when you think about it.

So, below I am listing the equations first presented by Rager, and later

revised by Karl King and myself.  I was originally going to UUencode my Excel

Spreadsheet, but when decoded, it produced an unreadable (corrupted) GIF, so

forget that.

*The International Bitterness Unit*

The IBU is based upon utilization of the hop oils, specifically the Alpha

Acids.  The alpha acids are released into the wort during the boil and also

into the beer during Dry Hopping.  Unfortunately, the diffusion rate i.e.

utilization rate, data is not available for Dry Hopping, so any contributions

to the total IBUs, however small, from Dry Hopping will not be discussed here.

The equations expressed below take into account the change in Utilization rate

with time, and make use of the influence of wort gravity to that rate.  NOTE:

The 7462 constant is for US units; for grams and liters, use a constant of

1000.

An IBU can be expressed by the equation:

IBU = Wt *%util * %alpha * 7462 / Vol ttl / GA

where Wt is the amount of Hops in ounces, Percents are decimals, Volume is the

total recipe volume, and GA is the Adjusted Gravity.

*The Adjusted Gravity*

The OG needs to be adjusted if it is greater than or equal to 1.05.  Rager

gives the example that if the OG for a 5 gallon recipe is 1.048, but he's only

boiling 2.5 gallons then his apparent gravity is 1.096, or twice the OG.

(That's twice the .048 part)  Therefore, the 1.05 condition needs to be met for

partial boils.  This is done with the following equations.  (VT is total vol,

VB is Boil vol, GB is Boil Gravity)

GB = ((VT/VB) * (OG - 1)) +1  ie. multiplying the degrees of extract by the

volume ratio.

Then, if GB is greater than 1.05,  GA = 1 + (5 * (GB - 1.05))

Otherwise, GA = GB.

*The Utilization Rate* (from Karl King)

If the boiling time is less than 23 minutes, then %U = (0.64 * time) - 2.62

Otherwise, %U = (0.4 * time) + 3

*Doing it Backwards*

What if you say to yourself, I would like most of the hop charactor from

Northern Brewer, Some from Fuggles, and some from Saaz?  Well the IBU equation

can be worked backwards for the amount of Hops that need to be boiled for a

given time.

Wt = (% of total charactor) * (Target total IBUs) *VT / %U / % alpha / 7462

Where the % of the total hop IBUs is expressed as a percent.  Ex. 60% of 50

IBUs total from Northern Brewer would be 0.6 * 50 * VT etc.  The time boiled is

expressed as the percent utilization from the equations above.

I hope this will be useful to all of you as well as correct the mistakes in

Zymurgy.

John Palmer

Space Station M&P

Huntington Beach CA

------------------------------


Secondary Fermentation Questions

Date: 5 Aug 1993 11:37:32 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Secondary Fermentation Questions

I have several novice-type questions about Secondary Fermentation.

Background: All-malt unhopped extract brewing, adding hop pellets, bottled

H2O.

1.  Is racking to a secondary fermenter only/mostly used for Ale yeasts,

Lager Yeasts, or both (ie. yeast is not the criteria)?  When (and other

adverbs) do I need to rack and secondary ferment?

2.  According to Dave Miller, he racks when the bubbles slow down to 1/ 30

seconds (I think).  What span of time has passed (typically) 3 days, a

week?

3. Okay, approx 3 days - a week has passed in the primary fermenter (white

bucket) and I am racking to a glass carboy (6 gal). At this time I would be

adding my dry Hops. Do I need a Blow-Off Tube?  Do I need the Brew-Cap?

4. After secondary ferm'g of 2 weeks, I will rack to my bottling pail and

prime. Is oxygen damage my main concern, or is lambic still a problem?

JP

Space Station M&P

PS. Thanks for all the responses about alcohol types.

Knowledge is good.

Time flies like an Arrow, Fruit flies like a banana. -Groucho

If it doesn't have an acronym, it's not important. -JP

------------------------------


Wyeast 1007

Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1993 13:44:11 -0500 (cdt)

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: Wyeast 1007

There's been a lot of interest in Wyeast 1007 the last couple of issues.

This is one I haven't used myself, yet.  I know it's the "Alt" yeast, and

Russ Gelinas says it makes a nice Porter.  Russ, or anyone else out there,

I'd be interested in more discussion and/or recipes which are a nice match

for this yeast.

TIA,

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


hop boiling times

Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1993 13:56:46 -0500 (cdt)

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: hop boiling times

I would compare the effects of differently timed hop additions to the use of

herbs and spices in certain dishes.  For example, I discovered a while ago

that reserving a large portion of the chile powder/cumin/etc. until the end

of cooking a pot of chili, the presence of these spices was dramatically

enhanced.  The dish is not really "hotter," although people will tell you it

is; it is really the aromatic presence of the spices which can be

overwhelming.

Similarly, if you've ever used wine as an ingredient in spaghetti sauce, you

know that if added at the beginning of the simmer, there will be a certain

something in the end product, but the winey-ness will not be obvious.  On the

other hand, if you add it towards the end, the wine will be more detectable

as wine.  Or if you make a quick-cooking (20 min or so) tomato sauce for

pasta with wine in it, the presence of the wine will be more pronounced than

if simmered in a sauce for a few hours.  Or, if you wanted a pronounced basil

note in a sauce, the way to get it would be to add the basil toward the end

of the simmer.

When making beer, I have found that some of my more pleasing efforts have had

the benefit of mutiple hoppings, for example, 60, 30, 15, 0.  I'm not into

calculating IBU's (yet?), I'm just "cooking" when I make beer - but I'd say

the principle is the same: hops are to malt, etc., what herbs are to "main

ingredients" in cooking (meat, legumes, whatever).

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Re: sanitizing counterflow chiller

Date: Thu, 5 Aug 93 16:11:21 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: Re: sanitizing counterflow chiller

hartman@varian.CSB.Varian.COM (John Hartman) writes:

>I must say first of all that one needs a hot water pump.  About 5 minutes

>before the end of the boil I setup the counterflow chiller: To do this I place

>a pick up tube in the boiler and attach its output to the input of my hot water

>pump.  The output of the hot water pump is then attached to the input of my

>counterflow chiller.

Depending upon what type of pump it is, it could easily be oxidizing your wort.

bb

------------------------------


Personal message

Date: Thu, 05 Aug 93 17:18:08 EDT

From: goldwyn@aol.com

Subject: Personal message

I am the president of the Beverage Testing Institute Inc., an independant

product testing service serving the beverage industry since 1981. I am also

host of America Online's Wine & Dine Online, which is also the home of a

lively homebrewers section. Shawn Ludford is on BTI's staff, he is a brewer,

and he is working with the brewing section. He has just subscribed to HBD.

For several months I have been a subscriber to HBD.

Within a month we expect AOL to give us the ability to easily upload ASCII

files in bulk and upload them into a searchable database.

Shawn and I impressed with the wealth of info in HBD, and we are testing a

method of splitting HBD into separate messages or groups of threaded messages

and putting them into a searchable database for posting on AOL. Do you have

an objection to us doing this? We think that it would be very helpful.

Naturally, we would give HBD proper credit and publish the address. Please

let me know what you think.

By the way, no sense in sending two HBDs to the same office, so please delete

goldwyn@aol.com from the subscriber list, and make sure ludford@aol.com stays

in.

Drink in good health,

Craig Goldwyn, Host, Wine & Dine Online

------------------------------


Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1993 21:07:31 -0400 (EDT)

From: MIKEPOTASKI@delphi.com

Subject:

SUB HOMEBREW MICHAEL POTASKI

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1198, 08/06/93

*************************************

-------


Sour Mash Brewing

Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 21:56:11 -0500

From: tmgierma@raphael.acpub.duke.edu (Todd Gierman)

Subject: Sour Mash Brewing

With all the discussion concerning the overnight mash, I'd like to raise

the issue of the sour mash.  As you may know, the sour mash method ala

Papazian is somewhat similar, the difference being that the mash is

inoculated with about 1/2 pound of raw grain at 135-140 degrees F.  The mash

is then left to sit overnight 15-24 hours, depending on the degree of

sourness desired.  A week and a half ago, I found myself contemplating the

merits of this procedure as I was attempting to produce a slightly sour

Belgian witbier.  I was troubled by the overnight mash:  would I end up

with an extremely attenuated beer, which I guess is somewhat desirable for

the style, by allowing  excessive conversion?  would the bugs even grow at

such a high temperature, this is pretty high for your garden variety

bacillus?  Okay, so I worried and decided to hedge my bet - do the complete

mash and lauter, then add bugs that were cultured several days in advance

from the grain and let it go 12-13 hours.  I figured that the actively

growing bugs would push the souring time ahead.  I examined the cultures

from the grain under the microscope.   All kinds of stuff gets started from

the grains - mainly wild yeast and bacilli, but also some little round guys

all strung together (cocci).  It seemed like there was a lot more in there

than I had wanted.  I worried some more and hedged some more - I started a

culture using sourdough starter, at least I had had some previous

experience with it.  So there I was at 1 a.m. as the wort cooled,

"sourdough or grains? sourdough or grains? Okay, grains it is."  I pitched

the culture from the grains and went to bed.  In the morning, I was sourly

disappointed to see no activity and no souring.  Why, Charlie P. had me

anticipating little fuzzies growing all over my wort.  I wondered whether

the high

temperature had inhibited growth (I had cooled to 115 F before pitching).

So, I figured what the hell and added the sourdough culture and let it go 6

hours

more.  Eventually,  a bacterial scum accumulated on top, but I never

got an impressive souring (I could only wait so long).

It turns out that sourdough starter requires  a symbiotic relationship

between a wild yeast (Candida) and a lactobacillus (sanfrancisco, no less),

and perhaps it comes as no surprise, the sourdough and grain cultures

looked surprisingly similar under the scope.  Now, maybe, my experience

indicates that it's not surprising that little if any spoilage occurs with

other people's overnignt mashes - it's difficult to get it when you're

trying.  I suspect that the high temperature of the mash is not all that

conducive to the growth of lactobacillus.  It is true that there are

species of lactobacilli that do well above 45C, but the sour mash

guidelines are, I believe, roughly 10 C above this.  Besides, are these

stray bugs

the ones I want spoiling my beer?  Traditionally, Lactobacillus brevis is

used in the brewing industry to sour beers, or causes spoilage (also

Pediococcus cervesiae and Lactobacillus pastorianis (a no longer valid

name).  It works well at lower temperatures (ideally 15C).  This seems to

be the bug that one finds in a bottle of Berliner Kindl Weissbier, at least

it won't grow very well above room temperature.  Anyway, maybe the sourness

will come through once the sugars have been fermented.  Does anyone else

have a sour mash theory or experience?  Has anyone added lactic acid or

citric acid to sour a beer?  What are the odds that I could successfully

utilize the lactobacillus culture from the Berliner Kindl?

Thanks.

Todd M. Gierman

Department of Microbiology

Duke University Medical Center

------------------------------


bgros

Date: Fri, 6 Aug 93 08:49 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: bgros

 Brian Gros.....  mail is bouncing to you.  Send me your

 phone number or call me at 312 685 1878

 js

------------------------------


RE dunkelweizen recipes

Date: Fri, 6 Aug 93 10:16:21 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE dunkelweizen recipes

Hi All,

  In HBD#1197, Andy Phillips asks:

>I'd like to have a go a making a dunkelweizen soon. I have

>a few questions about recipe formulation:

>1. What grain should I use, and how much, to get the colour

>   right?

  A dunkelweizen is supposed to have a soft, understated maltiness.  I

use 1/2 pound of chocolate malt, added at mashout.  IMHO, roasted barley

or black patent would lend a sharp, biting sort of flavor.  Since a weizen

is supposed to be lightly hopped, I'd also avoid crystal, the beer may

come out too sweet.

  I also use a pound of 8L-10L Munich malt, which contributes some color

and maltiness.

  From the guidelines for the 1991 AHA Nationals:

  d) German-style Dunkelweizen "Chocolate-like maltiness evident."

>2. Hops? Hallertauer?

 Hallertauer is fine, though I personally prefer Tettnang.  Keep the

hopping levels low, 15 IBUs or so.  Speaking from experience, the

combination of extreme cloviness and high hoppiness is quite unpleasant.

I'd also recommend adding all the hops at once at the beginning of the boil,

late additions are inappropriate for this style.  You don't want a lot of

hop flavor masking the more subtle phenolics found in a weizen, i.e.,

banana, vanilla, etc.

>3. Yeast? I know of no source of liquid cultures of wheat beer yeasts

>   in the UK. I can buy several HefeWeizens, which of these do you

>   think would make the best starter: Thurn und Taxis HefeWeizen

>   or Roggen, or Erdinger DunkelWeizen? The last of these seems

>   to throw a good sediment, so this is my first choice. Are all

>   HefeWeizens bottle conditioned, or are some pasteurized?

  I use the Weihenstephan #66 strain, which does a beautiful job of

producing the clovy, spicy character one expects in a weizen.  I don't

know about availability in the UK.

  Andy, you might have a problem getting a good fermentation strain from

commercial dunkelweizens.  These beers are generally bottle conditioned

with a lager yeast.  I don't know offhand of any specific commercial brand

that has the fermentation strain in the bottle.  Anyone else know?

>4. Temperature? Unfortunately, I have no control over this,

>   so I may have to wait for autumn before I start. The temperature

>   in Bristol today is a sizzling 67F.

  Please forgive me, I have to laugh at the notion that 67F in August is

"sizzling".   Here in New England, it was in the 90s and humid for most

of July, which did not prevent me from brewing three batches of weizen.

The W66 strain is supposed to be fermented at standard ale temperatures,

though mine were fermented at 70F-72F, and came out fine.

  One more note.  If you can get the Belgian wheat malt from DeWolf-Cosyns

malting, do it.  This malt is plumper and contains far less protein than

any German or American wheat malts I have used in the past.  The resultant

high extraction and ease of lautering make this a very nice malt with

which to work.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


Otter Creek Copper Ale

Date: Fri, 6 Aug 93 11:09:55 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Otter Creek Copper Ale

Otter Creek (of Middlebury, VT) makes an interesting "Copper Ale" that

they claim is inspired by Dusseldorf Alt.  It's got a very interesting

flavor, sort of "grainy" (as opposed to malty).  Does anyone know how

they get this flavor?  Is it the malt?  the yeast?  the hops?  Some

combination?

------------------------------


Water and carbonation

Date: Fri, 6 AUG 93 11:34:19 EST

From: DEROSEGA%ML%WPAFB@MLGATE.ML.WPAFB.AF.MIL

Subject: Water and carbonation

A batch of stout I made in February (extract + specialty grains) started

out by having "perfect" carbonation and head retention, but after aging in

the bottles it became overcarbonated to the point of pouring nearly all

foam about 2 months ago.  When I opened a bottle last night, which was

first chilled, I let it sit on the counter for about 5-10 minutes before

pouring, and foam slowly rose to the top and slightly poured over.  Pouring

as slowly as I could still gave me about a 4" head in a 12 oz slant-sided

glass, which I had vigorously rinsed in hot tap water to remove any rinse

agent residue from my dishwasher.  The beer tastes fine, so infection does

not seem to be the culprit.  This leads me to a question for those who know

more about water than I.  I used my city tap water for the brew, which

contains a lot of lime and other minerals (Fairborn, OH).  Is there a

relation between high mineral content of water and increased carbonation as

a function of time?  Could the "yuck" in my water serve as nucleation sites

for bubbles?

Thanks for sharing your observations,

Guy DeRose

Physicist, pilot, homebrewer.

------------------------------


Re: Wyeast 1007

Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 09:47:17 +0700

From: Brian.Smithey@Central.Sun.COM (Brian Smithey)

Subject: Re: Wyeast 1007

>>>>> Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU> writes:

Jonathan> There's been a lot of interest in Wyeast 1007 the last

Jonathan> couple of issues.  This is one I haven't used myself, yet.

Jonathan> I know it's the "Alt" yeast, and Russ Gelinas says it makes

Jonathan> a nice Porter.  Russ, or anyone else out there, I'd be

Jonathan> interested in more discussion and/or recipes which are a

Jonathan> nice match for this yeast.

The "Alt" yeast is #1338 (or something like that), Wyeast calls it

European Ale.  Wyeast 1007 is called German Ale, and I believe is

Wyeast's original ale yeast.  Byron Burch mentions in the special

Yeast issue of Zymurgy that this is a "true top-fermenting" yeast.

I recently brewed a cherry beer with this yeast, fermentation was

quite vigorous and pushed a lot of sticky yeast up through the high

krauesen foam, resulting in a tan/brown cap.  This yeast would

seem quite suitable for the practice of skimming the yeast at

high krauesen for pitching into the next batch.

One thing I did notice with Weast 1007 -- I pitched when quite

warm (80+ F), and after a day of strong fermentation I noticed

a pronounced banana aroma from the fermenter.  When I racked

this beer at about a week the gravity sample had a definite

banana ester character.  I don't know first-hand how this yeast

bahaves at more appropriate fermentation temperatures -- I think

that Byron's article reports it to be a good general-purpose

Ale yeast, fairly clean but with a bit more complexity that

Sierra Nevada's yeast -- but if you're in an area where the

homebrewers suffer from Summer heatwave-induced warm ferments,

be aware that this yeast will give you some banana component.

I'm pretty happy with the yeast-fruity background in this beer,

so you might consider warm fermenting with 1007 when doing fruit

beers.

Brian

- --

Brian Smithey / Sun Microsystems / Colorado Springs, CO

smithey@rmtc.Central.Sun.COM

------------------------------


HBD Garbage

Date: 06 Aug 93 11:38 EST

From: WILSON.TROY@FORUM.VA.GOV

Subject: HBD Garbage

Greetings fellow HBDers!  I've been reading the HBD for over 3 years now

and am finally putting in 2 cents.  Sadly, however, it has little to do

with the beloved art of brewing.  I find myself having to respond to a

post from lyons%adc2@swlvx2.msd.ray.com in HBD 1197 (whoever this person

is). This individual provided the following input to a post by Mr. Geoff

Reeves:

>Is this a joke?  I can't stop laughing!  Actually we shouldn't be laughing

>about the mathematically ignorant.  In case that this is not a joke,

>please review your concepts of dimensional analysis or seek help.

And contintues with:

>Did you get a high school diploma?

In my opinion, these comments are insulting, inflamatory, childish, etc.

and have absolutely *NO* place in this forum.  Whoever you are, you

provided no input to the digest with your post.  By using this forum as a

platform to insult others you do serious damage to the HBD.  How many long

time readers (and experienced brewers) will see your post as the last straw

and no longer subscribe?  I recall the last time such nonsense occurred,

many long time HBDers dropped out because it just wasn't worth tolerating.

Further, how many new brewers have now been frightened into *not* asking

beginner questions for fear of being riddiculed?  As right, wrong or

indifferent as a post may be, there is no justification for attempting to

humiliate the poster.  I believe that Mr. Reeves is due a public appology

for these comments, and I hope other HBDers will join me in this call.

Hopefully my next post will be on a maltier subject...

Troy

wilson.troy@forum.va.gov

Iowa City, IA (living in the swampland)

------------------------------


I want a new factor!

Date: Fri, 6 Aug 93 10:40:13 PDT

From: sc@vcc.com (Steve Casselman)

Subject: I want a new factor!

Having read the latest about pts-gal/lb I keep thinking I

would like to have a factor that when multiplied by the

number of lbs of grain I used would give me the lbs of

extract I would need to get the same OG. This would

be ratio of weight of the grain bill over the weight

of the dissolved solids in the wort (or vice-versa). This

would be dimension-less and would tell me how much grain

I dissolved during my mash, a kind of efficiency. My question is

this derivable from pts-gal/lb and would it be useful? I

believe it would be a useful number for recreating grain

rescipes with extracts.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

|      "Today's Software is Tomorow's Hardware" --- A.S. Tannenbaum       |

|   Virtual Computer Corporation -- FPGA based custom computing systems.  |

| Steve Casselman           E-mail sc@vcc.com         Phone (818) 342-8294|

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Hop Utilization

Date: Fri, 6 Aug 93 13:01:55 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hop Utilization

John Palmer writes:

>*The Utilization Rate* (from Karl King)

>If the boiling time is less than 23 minutes, then %U = (0.64 * time) - 2.62

>Otherwise, %U = (0.4 * time) + 3

I haven't run a lot of values through this formula, but it's obvious

that it's not right.  For example, a 60 minute boil gives you (0.4*60)+3

or 27% utilization.  That's way too high. To quote Gail Nickerson in a

recent conversation I had with her, "The big brewers will tell you they get

25% utilization, but they don't get it.  They actually get between 18 and

22%."  BTW, this is for a 90 minute boil.

The formula also will give a linear slope (for values above 23 minutes

anyway) and that's not right either.  The slope is not first order either,

but looks more like this:

                    *

              *

         *

      *

    *

Forgive my "ascii" representation, but the idea is that it almost looks

first order, but there is a "limiting factor" (suspected to be caused by

the dropping pH of the wort) somewhere at the top end that causes the slope

to be less steep than a true first order slope. Reference is an article by

D.R. Maule in Vol. 72, 1966 of the Journal of the Institute of Brewing.

It's also clear from this article and others that, despite Rager's table

and even my own version of it presented here, boil times of greater than

60 minutes do have an impact on the utilization (the tables assume anything

greater than 50 minutes is the same).

Mark

------------------------------


Rats! Mistake in Last Equation

Date: 6 Aug 1993 10:20:46 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Rats! Mistake in Last Equation

In the last issue of HBD, I wrote:

*Doing it Backwards*

What if you say to yourself, I would like most of the hop charactor from

Northern Brewer, Some from Fuggles, and some from Saaz?  Well the IBU equation

can be worked backwards for the amount of Hops that need to be boiled for a

given time.

Wt = (% of total charactor) * (Target total IBUs) *VT / %U / % alpha / 7462

Where the % of the total hop IBUs is expressed as a percent.  Ex. 60% of 50

IBUs total from Northern Brewer would be 0.6 * 50 * VT etc.  The time boiled is

expressed as the percent utilization from the equations above.

I hope this will be useful to all of you as well as correct the mistakes in

Zymurgy.

DID YOU NOTICE I FORGOT GA?!  AARGH! (kick, kick, kick)

Anyway, it should be:

 Wt = (% of ttl) * (ttl IBUs) * GA * VT / %U / %A / 7462

Ok that should do it,

JP  Entropy is always increasing...

------------------------------


AHA Judging results

Date: Fri, 06 Aug 1993 13:53:00 -0700 (PDT)

From: Philip Atkinson 356-0269 <PATKINSON@galaxy.gov.bc.ca>

Subject: AHA Judging results

          Help!

          Several people from Victoria BC sat the AHA judge's exam at the

          `Wort You Brewin?' competition in Vancouver in April (that's

          five months ago!). The Victoria Mocrobrewery Festival is

          scheduled for October 23 and we need to know how these folks

          faired so they can (or cannot) judge the homebrew competition.

          Can anyone put me in touch with the appropriate authority? Or

          them in touch with me?

          e-mail direct please and thanks in anticipation etc ...

          Phil Atkinson

          Victoria, BC

------------------------------


Re: Barreling Beer

Date: Fri, 6 Aug 93 16:44:50 -0400

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

Subject: Re: Barreling Beer

Thanks for the responses I've receivied concerning Barreling Beer.

Should one sally forth into an adventure of barreling their beer,

prevailing sentiment suggests one should:

        -  read Terry Foster's book, "Pale Ale" (from the "Classic

           Beer Series" book collection).

I plan on barreling my next batch (in the coming month or so) - I'll

keep you all informed of this adventure (unless predilection dictates

otherwise).

- ---

email: sxupjd@fnma.com (NeXT Mail Okay)

Philip DiFalco, Senior SomethingOrOther, Advanced Technology

FannieMae, 3900 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, DC 22016     (202)752-2812

------------------------------


Lactic Briess Malt Extract

Date: Fri, 6 Aug 93 14:42:35 PDT

From: raines@radonc.ucla.edu (Marybeth_Raines)

Subject: Lactic Briess Malt Extract

>Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 12:02:29 CDT

>From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>

>Subject: Briess, Northwestern

>Thanks to all of those individuals who let me know that Briess and

>Northwestern malt extracts are one and the same, the only difference

being >the packaging.  Now I have a real problem on my hands, namely

figuring out >what the Hell is going on with my brew!!!

Rest assured that your brewing is fine and there is indeed a problem

with your Briess malt extract.  I routinely use Briess malt extract

(and some grain adjuncts) to brew 5 gallon test batches to evaluate

new yeast strains for Brewers Resource and have not had a problem

until recently.  About six weeks ago I brewed a Brown Ale and

Continental Lager both of which tasted sour (lactic acid) out of the

primary fermenter.  This nasty flavor has remained in my brew.  As it

turns out several other homebrewers have called Brewers Resource and

complained of a similar problem.  One person picked up this off flavor

in the wort prior to fermenting.  We believe that there is a bad batch

of DME floating around. Brewers Resource has notified Breiss of this

problem and demanded compensation.  Most unsuspecting homebrewers

however are probably stuck with this substandard product and are

attributing this off flavor to some systematic error.  Good luck in

trying to get your 60 lbs replaced.

So much for evaluating some new yeast strains now I'm stuck with some

sour beer which I must doctor in some way to make it drinkable.  I

added a few tablespoons of Hersheys chocolate syrup to the brown ale

(Bosco beer) and my softball team sucked that five gallons down in no

time.  I'm still  pondering what to do with the lager maybe some

fruit; I've yet to taste the lager since I racked it into the

secondary so we'll see.

The real question is do you have DME left and what to do with it?

Maybe you can use it as a substitute for a sour mash and make a

lambic-like beer.  Some other HBD brewers may have some other creative

ideas.

P.S.  In case you all-grain snobs are wondering, yes I do brew all

grain (40 gallons) but moving to a studio apartment in Manhattan a

couple of years ago forced me into extract brewing and you know what I

liked it! I continue to use extract brews for testing yeasts since I

can brew 2 different five gallon batches at once and can do it in

about 3 hours without any help.  Plus it gives us some variety to

what's on tap.

M.B. Raines

<mraines@radonc.ucla.edu >

------------------------------


Dr. Beer

Date:    Fri, 6 Aug 1993 17:19:28 -0500 (CDT)

From: BIRMINGHAM@FNE683.FNAL.GOV (Cree-ee-py Boy)

Subject: Dr. Beer

         I'm thinking of organizing a Dr. Beer session for my edification

    and that of the other Headhunters. I'd like to get hints on what

    effects are good to produce, and how to produce them.

         Please e-mail me at birmingham@fne683.fnal.gov with suggestions. I

    will be typing up a summary which I will e-mail to interested parties,

    or post to the Digest if there is enough interest.

                                                    Thanks,

                                                    Phillip

- --

    Phillip J. Birmingham   "Tampering in God's Domain since 1965!"

    birmingham@fne683.fnal.gov

------------------------------


Prescription Beer

Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 21:16:47 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Prescription Beer

I was talking to an elderly gentleman today and he said

that during prohibition the doctor had told his mother she

had to drink beer every day, so he gave her a prescription for

beer which she had to pick up at the drugstore.  Has anyone

ever heard of this?  Why would a woman be medically required

to take beer daily?  Vitamins?

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Auto Reply from Watch_Mail for 7-AUG-1993 00:00 to 16-AUG-1993 00:00

Date: Sat, 7 Aug 93 03:13:35 EDT

From: 07-Aug-1993 0320 <michaud@star.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Auto Reply from Watch_Mail for 7-AUG-1993 00:00 to 16-AUG-1993 00:00

Hello,

  I am currently out of the office and will return on

 Monday, August 16th. I will respond to your mail at

 that time.

 If you have an issue that cannot wait until I return,

 please contact Linda Benson (STAR::LBENSON).

Regards,

 Peter

------------------------------


Montreal - Breweries/Brewpubs?????

Date: Wed,  4 Aug 93 08:24:41 EDT

From: wiehn@evax.gdc.com

Subject: Montreal - Breweries/Brewpubs?????

Can anyone lead me to any good Brewpubs in Montreal?  Also are any of the

big breweries in Montreal open for tours?????

Thanks!!!

JOHN WIEHN

WIEHN@EVAX.GDC.COM

------------------------------


cooler as a mash tun

Date: Sun, 8 Aug 93 15:15:12 -0600

From: Mike Zulauf <zulauf@orbit.Colorado.EDU>

Subject: cooler as a mash tun

Hello fellow homebrewers!

     After doing several partial mash beers, three batches using my own

design of a wort chiller, and two full boils, I now feel ready to proceed

into the world of all-grain brewing.

     The only real questions I have concern the mash tun.  I am planning

on using some type of cooler.  I would prefer to use one of the cylindrical

ones, as I feel that I could obtain a deeper grain bed, and it would be

easier to fit a false bottom, etc.  What types and sizes have people

used, and how well do they work?  Are there any problems with using a

cooler designed to store cold liquids with hot materials? (ie melting,

off flavors from the plastic, etc.)  What size will be required for

mashing say 20 lbs of grain?  Anything else I should know?

     All responses appreciated,

                                Mike Zulauf

                                zulauf@orbit.colorado.edu

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1199, 08/09/93

*************************************

-------


Bitter rye ale

Date:    Mon, 9 Aug 1993 15:21:34 +0400 (EET-DST)

From: NIKKANEN@ntcclu.ntc.nokia.com (Kari Nikkanen, design engineer)

Subject: Bitter rye ale

I posted a question to r.c.b in june, asking if anyone knew

any beers that are brewed using rye malts, and also mentioned

that I had brewed one rye ale myself.  As an answer for those

who asked me about the recipe, here it comes:

Kari's Bitter Rye Ale

Ingredients (for 10 litres = 2.6 gallons):

4 pounds Finnish sahti malt mixture

(= 85% pilsner malt and 15% crystal malt)

7 ounces Finnish rye (kalja) malt

1/2 pound British crystal malt

1 ounce Northern Brewer hops (60 min boil)

1/4 ounce Fuggles hops (30 min boil)

1/4 ounce Fuggles hops (10 min boil)

1/3 cup priming sugar

yeast from a Tellford kit  (not really recommended,

I'll use liquid yeast next time)

Procedure: 1.5 hours mash at 140-145 , sparge water

temperature about 175 F.  Total boiling time 75 minutes.

Yeast was dehydrated 2-3 hours before pitching.  O.G was

about 1040-42.  Primary fermentation 4 days and secondary 7

days.

Comments:  There are some things I'll change when I brew my

next rye ale.  First, I'll do a temperature controlled mash

with starch conversion at about 150-155 deg F.  I won't use

more than 3-4 ounces rye malt, because the rye malt I use is

very dark and quite bitter, so 7 ounces is simply too much.

The hops I used were not exactly fresh, and didn't have any

alpha rating, so I think 1/2 ounce of fresh Northern Brewer

will be enough next time.  When this beer was only few weeks

old, it was far too bitter and sharp, and the bitterness of

rye malt was (too) clearly distinguisable.  So I let it age.

Now, after 7 months it's much smoother, but a bit thin.  It

has a nice amber colour and a smooth long lasting head, and

even my wife says it's quite drinkable, so with these

suggestions to improve it, I finally dare to post this

recipe.

     Cheers!/Kari

------------------------------


S. delbrukii or S. cerevisiae? Also notes on S. uvarum, S.

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93

From: Tom.Weicht@arrc.ncsu.edu   (respond to deb_neher@ncsu.edu)

Subject: S. delbrukii or S. cerevisiae? Also notes on S. uvarum, S.

carlsbergensis, S. pastorianus.

Re: Jim Busch and BT errors.

     I am a recent arrival to HBD.

     Saccharomyces delbrukii or S. cerevisiae?? I personally

believe both are technically incorrect. From the best that I have

been able to find in the mycological taxonomy literature, the true

name of this organism is Torulospora delbrukii, this is how the

American Type Culture Collection lists it which sparked my interest

and pursuit of this subject. An incorrect but often used synonym is

Saccharomyces. Both genera are in the family Saccharomycetaceae and

subfamily Saccharomycetoideae. The vegetative morphology of both

genera is identical. However, the genera differ in their mode of

conjugation and the morphology of sporulation (fide Barnett, Payne

and Yarrow, 1979, A Guide to Identifying and Classifying Yeast.

Cambridge University Press, New York. (fide = "on the authority

of")). I feel German Wheat Beer by Eric Warner had excellent

coverage of the biochemistry of weissbier yeast as it pertains to

the final product, but failed to give the yeasts the proper

taxonomic treatment. Yeasts from single cell cultures as those used

in fermentation do not under go their sexual cycle and as such a

brewer would not be able to distinguish T. delbrukii from S.

cerevisiae. INDUSTRIAL USERS OF MICROBES, BREWERS INCLUDED,

FREQUENTLY TEND TO IGNORE TAXONOMICAL NOMENCLATURE BECAUSE THEY ARE

MOST INTERESTED IN THE BIOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES IMPORTANT TO THEIR

PROCESS (Beer! in this case).

     An interesting, but just as esoteric discovery I have made

suggests that a better name for S. carlsbergensis (syn.  S.

uvarum) is S. pastorianus. Saccharomyces speciation based on

biochemistry has resulted in much confusion. Therefore, about every

ten years major reordering of the genus occurs. One Italian study

showed that in a university's industrial yeast collection, 144 out

of 1014 isolates had mutated to another species when nutritional

biochemistry was used for speciation. The result was that in The

Yeasts a Taxonomic study-III (Kreger van-Riji (Ed.), 1984) twenty

one species were lumped into S. cerevisiae. A review article

(Vaughan Martini and Martini, 1989, A proposal for correct

nomenclature of the domesticated species of the genus

Saccharomyces; in Biotechnology Applications in Beverage

Production) cited two studies using a molecular genetic technique,

DNA/DNA reassociation, which showed that the III and V (3rd and

5th) chromosomes of S. cerevisiae and S. carlsbergensis were

significantly different and a greater than 80% homology exists

between S. carlsbergensis and S. pastorianus. As S. pastorianus is

the older name it takes precedence (I am assuming and need to

verify before staking a reputation on this statement). To

oenologists S. pastorianus is an agent of wine fermentation in cold

climates.

     AS BREWERS SMALL OR LARGE OUR CONCERN IS THE BIOCHEMISTRY OF

THE YEAST AS IT PERTAINS TO THE FINAL PRODUCT. DON'T let the

taxonomy get you down, but don't slam somebody elses taxonomy when

basing an opinion from a single source either. From extensive

experience wading through the taxonomy of fungi more than one name

can be correct depending on the resource used for identification,

and names are never static. FOR A BREWER MORE INFORMATION IS

OBTAINED FROM AN ISOLATE'S DESIGNATION IN AN INDUSTRIAL CULTURE

COLLECTION SUCH AS "WEIHENSTEPHAN #68" THAN WHEN ONE WORRIES ABOUT

ITS TAXONOMIC POSITION IN THE MYCOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE. A rose by

any other name...

     I really apologize for this long entry, but felt things were

so different from the current popular literature that explanations

and citations were needed.

               Tom Weicht

------------------------------


Stainless Steel disconnects

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 06:23:10 PDT

From: 09-Aug-1993 0920 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Stainless Steel disconnects

I recently acquired some stainless steel disconnects (ball-lock) for my

cornelius kegging system.  The are _much_ smoother then the plastic

disconnects and, as far as i can tell, nearly indestructable.  I have a

plastic one that I cracked (still usable though).  I highly recommend the

stainless steel disconnects.

plastic disc:    about   $3.20

stainless:       about   $8.50

FYI for you keggers out there.

- --

JC Ferguson

ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com

------------------------------


supplying beer at a wedding / beer flavors for late october

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 06:45:38 PDT

From: 09-Aug-1993 0940 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: supplying beer at a wedding / beer flavors for late october

I'm getting married in late october of this year and i'd like to supply

at least some if not all of the beer at my wedding.  With this in mind,

I have a few questions:

1)  In today's sue-your-neighbor environment, what kind of legal issues,

    insurance, etc. do i need to worry about if i serve my home-brewed

    beer at my wedding (on a private estate that is not owned by our

    families)?  This is in the state of Massachusetts.

2)  If it isn't much a legal hassle/worry, I'd like to think about brewing

    some stuff up now.  I'd like to brew one heavier brew, appropriate for

    the season, and perhaps one lighter beer, that would please the occasional

    beer drinker.  Suggestions?  I'm most comfortable w/ extract brewing,

    partial-mashes, and full mashes, in that order.

- --

JC Ferguson

ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com

------------------------------


Re: Prescription Beer

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 07:49:00 -0600

From: Jason Goldman <jason@gibson.sde.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Prescription Beer

Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com> writes:

> I was talking to an elderly gentleman today and he said

> that during prohibition the doctor had told his mother she

> had to drink beer every day, so he gave her a prescription for

> beer which she had to pick up at the drugstore.  Has anyone

> ever heard of this?  Why would a woman be medically required

> to take beer daily?  Vitamins?

I haven't heard of picking up a beer scrip at the pharmacy.  Of course,

we're not in prohibition now.

In any case, my mother's doctor advised her to start drinking beer.  In

her case it was because she was fairly underweight and the beer would

help the problem because of its high carbos.

Jason "Unfortunately, I didn't inherit my mother's weight problem" Goldman

jason@gibson.sde.hp.com

------------------------------


I want a new formula

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1993 10:05:30 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kieran O'Connor <koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: I want a new formula

Acutally, in repsonse to yesterdays question about a formula to convert

all grain recipes to extract--its all right there.

Using the preiously stated forumlas, just use the pts/lb from lquid malt

extract (36 or so) and dryied malt extract (45 or so) (see Miller, p 196).

Substitute into the formula--Degrees of extract= SG of Wort X Gallons

      ______________________

        lbs of malt.

Since you know the degree of extract, and the number of gallons--then your

'X' would be the pounds of grain needed.  it gets messy with dry and

piquid malt extract, but just average it. With this formula, you can

solvbe for any of the values--as long as you have the other three.

Hope this helps.

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Address: koconnor@lor.syr.edu

Syracuse, N.Y. USA

------------------------------


Weihenstephan #68

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 10:18:00 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Weihenstephan #68

I have had some email over the number and taxonomy of the weizen strain,

Weihenstephan #68.  It is indeed 68, and as far as can be determined it

is indeed a S. Cervesae, and not a Delbreuckii:

<From Daniel_F_McConnell@mailgw.surg.med.umich.edu

<S. delbreuckii is indeed an appropriate synonym for Torulaspora delbreuckii,

but according to  Kreger-van Rij (1984) so are about 36 others!    Of the 59

Torulaspora delbreuckii strains studied by Kreger-van Rij for this

clasification,  NONE of them were isolated from beer of any type (rather: raw

came sugar, sheep milk, grape juice, dates, cucumber brine, sour figs.....).

Thus I have my doubts that these yeasts make good beer.

Thanks Dan,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Question about dry hopping

Date: Mon, 09 Aug 1993 09:17:28 -0500 (CDT)

From: "Robert K. Toutkoushian" <TOUTKOUS@vx.cis.umn.edu>

Subject: Question about dry hopping

Hello there:

 I have a question concerning dry hopping. This is my first shot at

this, so please bear with me:

 I am in the process of making a Belgian Ale (just pitched it this

morning :-) ), and the recipe calls for dry hopping w/2 oz. Fuggles hops.

I understand that dry hopping involves adding hops to the wort after

transferring it to a secondary fermenter.

 My problem is that I have a limited amount of brewing equipment,

and no $$$ to expand right now.  I have been using a primary fermenter, and

then once the SG has stabilized, transferred to a second carboy that has a

spicket attached to the bottom for bottling (this carboy does not have a

lid).

 Anyway, I'm somewhat confused on the logistics of dry hopping, given

this equipment.  From what I can gather, dry hopping usually involves

transferring the wort to a secondary fermenter, adding the additional hops

for a few days, and then transferring to something else for bottling.  I

guess that I could transfer the wort to my 2nd carboy and add the hops, but

w/o a lid I don't want to leave it sit around for any period of time exposed

to the air.  I guess I could always transfer it back to the primary

fermenter, but then I'd have to transfer it again for bottling. The other

option that I see is to transfer the wort to the 2nd carboy once the SG has

stabilized, add the hops, let it sit for an hour or two, and then bottle.

 Does anyone have any suggestions?  I am a novice brewer (although

I'm Armenian I'm not Papazian!!), so please excuse any real obvious errors

in my brewing technique, etc. I could also skip the dry hopping altogether,

but I'd like trying new things.  But, if no dry hopping is preferable to

the above option of dry hopping for a short time, I'd like to know that as

well.  Also, if dry hopping is done, and the wort is not filtered again,

won't these hops get into the bottles??  Thanks in advance for any help...

Rob Toutkoushian

University of Minnesota

INTERNET: toutkous@vx.cis.umn.edu

------------------------------


questions

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 09:57:45 -0400

From: steve@Pentagon-EMH6.army.mil (Steve Lichtenberg x79300)

Subject: questions

 Greetings All:

 While setting up a brew session this past weekend, I came up with a few

 questions that I was hoping the good people of the net would help me with.

 First--

I was going to start a batch of yeast in anticipation of brewing later

in the week.  When I went to get my petri dish with the culture on it

out of the fridge, I noticed that the entire surface of the dish was

covered with a green growth of mold :-(.  I had to start from a new slant

with a different strain than I had intended to ues.  Anyone have any

suggestions on how to improve my techniques in handling cultures so that

this type of contamination does not happen again.

Second--

I purchased some plugs of Irish moss from a garden supply store about

a year ago.  These are incredible growers; going from <1" plugs when

originally planted to > 18" clusters in just 1 year.  They make a great

ground cover with a thick compact mass of growth about 1 1/2" tall.  A neat

addition to the landscape.  Now on to the question-- Anyone have any

experience using fresh IM for brewing?  Do I need to dry it  or can it

be used right from the ground?  Any precautions to prevent contamination?

Third--

While watching "Mary Poppins" for the ten thousandth time (can you say

parent of a three year old? ;-)), I noticed  a line that goes "and

doesn't smell like barley water".  My first thought was that this must

be an objectionable perfume but after thinking about it for a few minutes

I realized that this must be a reference to some type of alcoholic

beverage.  Anyone knowledgeable in early 20th century London slang

have any idea as to whether this refers to our favorite malt beverage

or the other venerable potion made from barley malt (for those that

can not figure out the obscure reference, I am talking about 'the good

stuff' Scotch whiskey)..

Thanks for the help---

 Keep brewing-

 --S

   ^

 ENJOY LIFE---THIS IS NOT A REHEARSAL

------------------------------


Prescription Beer

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 08:31:04 -0600

From: John Adams <j_adams@hpfcjca.sde.hp.com>

Subject: Prescription Beer

> I was talking to an elderly gentleman today and he said

> that during prohibition the doctor had told his mother she

> had to drink beer every day, so he gave her a prescription for

> beer which she had to pick up at the drugstore.  Has anyone

> ever heard of this?  Why would a woman be medically required

> to take beer daily?  Vitamins?

Was the Doctor also, by chance, the "pharmacist"?   I've heard other similar

stories regarding the medicinal properties of wine/beer (but only during

prohibition).

John  8^)  Adams

------------------------------


Re: Prescription Beer

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 10:13:17 EDT

From: richk@icad.COM (Richard Kasperowski)

Subject: Re: Prescription Beer

   Domenick Venezia

   ZymoGenetics, Inc.

   venezia@zgi.com

Here in Massachusetts, that prohibition-era law still exists.  There

are a handfull of pharmacies in Boston (as reported in a recent

_Boston Globe_) at which you can fill a prescription for a bottle of

liquor.

------------------------------


A Draft Chili Beer?

Date: Mon,  9 Aug 93 09:06:40 PDT

From: dbell@cup.portal.com

Subject: A Draft Chili Beer?

I've followed with interest the occasional thread on chili beers,

and, since I've enjoyed a few Cave Creek bottles, I'd like to

put up a batch for a party about 10 weeks off. However, I prefer

to (Cornelius) keg my beers, and I'm wondering a bit about just

how much of what variet(ies) of peppers to use! I can certainly

add 48 peppers to the keg, but I think that might be a gross

overkill, besides adding that much more chance of contamination...

What about a chili extract in alcohol? Would enough of the

actives (capsaicins?) be dissolved? Or adding *a few* cut

up/open chilis to the keg? As far as contamination is concerned,

has anyone tried blanching the peppers in boiling water before

adding to the bottles?

Too many questions, not enough time to experiment! Hopefully

the collective wisdom of the Digest can shed some light...

Dave

dbell@cup.portal.com

------------------------------


Wet Milling

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 12:03:02 -0400

From: cm199@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Thomas G. Moore)

Subject: Wet Milling

In Eric Warner's German Wheat Beer book he mentions milling

malted barley wet as to keep the husks intact. This will help com-

bat stuck run-offs during lautering. Has anyone used this method

with wheat beer decoctions? It sounds like a good idea. I was

wondering if this would be practical for the home brewer or even

needed. Comments?

- --

Will work for homebrew!

Thomas G. Moore

cm199@cleveland.freenet.edu

------------------------------


Propane vs NG / Used Cow stuff

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 9:59:08 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Propane vs NG / Used Cow stuff

I have just acquired a 10 gallon stainless steel cream can from an old dairy.

This thing is tapered at the top, but I think it will be fine for a kettle,

which is what I wanted it for.  I fitted it with a nice 1/4 turn gas valve for

draining.  Now I need a way to heat it.  (I currently use a Bruheat as a boiler

but I'd like to speed it up and increase my boiler capacity).

I know all the talk about "Cajun Cooker"s and "King Kooker"s, etc. but I'm a

cheapskate.  Also, I like to tinker and I have a water heater element, designed

for Natural Gas.  I want to use propane because that is the easiest fuel to get

into my garage.  I've been told propane has more potential BTUs and therefore

needs more oxygen.  I think I verified this by firing up this NG element with

propane.  The flame was high, about 6 inches, and yellow.  Also, there was a

lot of soot forming as it burned.  I opened the air inlet all the way and it

helped a little, but it still didn't burn anywhere near clean.  I think I need

to decrease the aperture (jet) that the gas passes through so that I will need

less oxygen.  Does this sound correct?  Anyone else do this successfully?  How?

I'd appreciate any advice on this.

As an aside, old dairy equipment can be used in homebrewing in many areas:

boilers, tuns, even fermenters.  Most of it is stainless so look for it.  I got

a 10 gallon SS vessel for $50, with a lid.  Try to find that price in a yuppie

cooking catalog!

Cheers,

norm

- --

Norm Pyle, Staff Engineer

npyle@n33.stortek.com

Storage Technology Corporation

2270 South 88th Street

Louisville, CO 80028-0211

(303) 673-8884

------------------------------


NO wax nor flames from the "GREAT WHITE NORTH" -- just ICE.

Date: Mon, 09 Aug 1993 11:29:23 -0600 (CST)

From: PISICHKO@UWPG02.UWINNIPEG.CA

Subject: NO wax nor flames from the "GREAT WHITE NORTH" -- just ICE.

Practical jokers aside, this forum should nor degenerate into a free

place for verbal fisticuffs. I enjoy a practical joke - even if it leads

to an earfull. However, like it or not, others do not. Lets keep it clean

please. Not everyone has equal brewing skills nor other skills. Many are

reading this forum to learn from others. If anyone really wants to help

someone with their brewing problem/ math skills then contact the "needy

one" by private e-mail. Be a good samaritan and save us some time and

bandwidth.

The icepack seems to be flowing south of the 49th parallel. Several weeks

ago while in a drought of home-brewed beer, I broke down and bought a couple

of 12-packs of so-called ice beer. It was on sale for 12.?? (Canadian dollars)

per 12 pack. Remember we also pay province and federal tax (7% +7%) on this

to help fund our "free" medical system and other social nets. Now to get back

on subject -- this ice beer was quite smooth, and everyone who drank it at

my home in a "blind test" liked it. The complicating factor was that the beer

was free. Nevertheless, this "ice beer" is certainly smoother in my opinion

that many other Canadian beers.

Now that I have bottled four different batches of beer, I can forget this

commercial stuff and start drinking "real beer". After all, winter is comming

- -- there will be snow here in less than 3 months. Right now there are flooded

basements due to all the rain, but my sump pump is helping to keep mine dry.

As Charlie P. has written   "Relax, have a homebrew"

Ken P.

------------------------------


Re: Beer Rx

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1993 09:45:57 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: Beer Rx

On Prescription Beer

>

> I was talking to an elderly gentleman today and he said

> that during prohibition the doctor had told his mother she

> had to drink beer every day, so he gave her a prescription for

> beer which she had to pick up at the drugstore.  Has anyone

> ever heard of this?  Why would a woman be medically required

> to take beer daily?  Vitamins?

>

I don't know if I want to weigh in on any answer that implies I'm an

"elderly gentleman", but... although my mom didn't carry me during

prohibition, and didn't need a prescription, her doctor did recommend

she drink beer during the period she was nursing.  The idea, as I

recall, was that beer encouraged "let-down", in other words, it helped

her relax and increased milk flow to her handsome baby child.  It is

possible, I suppose, that children of mothers who breastfed while

drinking beer turn into beer snobs; I don't have enough data.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


Prescription for Brew (ref. Domenick Venzia)

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1993 14:11:48 -0400 (EDT)

From: FARMERM@mcl.saic.com

Subject: Prescription for Brew (ref. Domenick Venzia)

  In response to Domenick Venezia's question about a

 prescription for beer. Yes, My wife's grandmother, who

 lives in South America, was prescribed a dark beer w/ a

 raw egg everyday. The dark beer in South America is

 different, however. The refer to it as "malta" and has no

 alcohol in it, its just used for cooking. What the purpose

 of this is, I'm sorry I can't say.

  Speaking of weird stories from prohibition:

 I spoke with my grandfather last year about the strange things

 that went on at that time. There is one incident he mentioned

 that really sticks in my mind. He said that during prohibition,

  people would line up at hardware stores and buy denatured

 alcohol and then go to the grocery store to buy several loaves

 of bread. They would take the alcohol and pour it from one end

 the loaf of bread to the other. After filtering it through

 a few times, it was good enough to drink. Mmm Mmm.

 Happy, Happy

  Beer, Beer

 Mike F.

------------------------------


Address for American Brewmaster in Raleigh, NC?

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 13:11:49 EST

From: John Glasscock <JGLASSCO@ucs.indiana.edu>

Subject: Address for American Brewmaster in Raleigh, NC?

Can someone from the RTP area (Research Triangle Park in

Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC) e-mail me the new address for

American Brewmaster in Raleigh, please?  I moved and lost my

price list for them, and have found them to have the best prices

and best quality overall for (at least my extract) brewing

supplies.

Thanks.

<=^=> <=^=> <=^=> <=^=> <=^=> <=^=> <=^=> <=^=> <=^=> <=^=>

John Glasscock           Ether_Dog^:>

Indiana University       jglassco@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (unix)

100 N. Jefferson         JGLASSCO@UCS.INDIANA.EDU        (vax)

Bloomington, IN  47408   tel: 812-336-0246

------------------------------


Honey Priming Thanks

Date:        Mon, 09 Aug 93 14:21:00 EDT

From: CW06GST <CW06GST@SJUMUSIC.STJOHNS.EDU>

Subject: Honey Priming Thanks

     A couple of months ago I had asked about using honey

as a priming agent.  Thanks to those of you who responded

to my post and prevented me from making glass grenades.

     As it turns out, using honey as a primer works very well,

and follows the same guidelines as any other agent.

     I used 7/8 of a cup of Golden Blossom (tm) honey, and

had good carbonation in about ten days.  The bubbles were a

little different than if using corn sugar or DME.  It was a

lot like champagne bubbles or a sparkling mead.  In any event

it was an interesteing effect and it tasted quite good.

     Here is a copy of the recipe:

3.3 lbs Munton & Fison light malt extract

3.3 1bs Munton & Fison wheat extract (1/2 malt, 1/2 wheat)

3 lbs clover honey (generic supermarket brand)

2 oz. styrian goldings hops (plug) for boil-60 min

1 oz  same for last 2 min

2 pkgs Cooper's dry yeast (rehydrated)

7/8 cup honey for priming

     I had no idea what this beer was going to turn out like,

but it made what I would consider a very fine IPA.  Original

gravity was 1.048.  Final gravity was 1.008.

     Thanks agian for all the help!

Erik Zenhausern

Bronxville, NY

------------------------------


Decoction/Brewing Techniques errors/Secondary Questions

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 13:59 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Decoction/Brewing Techniques errors/Secondary Questions

Jim writes (quoting me):

>>4. decoction  --  dough-in or mash-in with the full mash volume and then

>>remove parts of the mash to a kettle in which this "mash fraction," which

>>is called a decoction, is heated to boiling and then returned to the rest

>>of the mash to raise it's temperature.  There are several variations to

>>this (double (two decoctions), triple (three decoctions), etc.) in which

>>some of the decoctions are replaced by infusions or the entire mash is

>>moved to a kettle and then direct heat is used in place of one or more

>>decoctions.  It is interesting to mention that decoction mashing can

>>be done WITHOUT A THERMOMETER, given enough experience, which I've read

>>is the reason that it was invented (they did not HAVE thermometers at the

>>time).

>Almost correct.  The "mash fraction" that is boiled is also raised to a

>saacharafication rest temp, usually 147-158 or both, and after conversion,

>is then denatured through boiling.  This rest is often ommitted by home

>brewers and may result in lost efficiency.  Note that in a weizen decoction

>program, the main mash sits at protein rest temps for over an hour while the

>mash fraction is raised, held, then boiled.

Oops.  You're right.  On the other hand, the way you worded it, may be

unclear to those unfamiliar.  Permit me to paraphrase Jim:

 The "mash fraction" is moved to a kettle and it's temperature

 raised to 147-158 for a saccharification rest.  It is then

 heated again to boiling before being returned to the main mash.

****************************************

In Marybeth Raines' article on Sanitation, it's a real shame that she

failed to mention iodophor and a recently new sanitizing agent, marketed

under the name "One Step," which is peroxide-based and comes in powder

form.  I would have been very interested in her recommended contact times

for iodophor and OneStep.  I haven't forgotten that I promised to take

all the info I've collected from HBD and personal correspondence regarding

sanitation for homebrewers and post it.  I still intend to do this, but

the arrival of "One Step" has thrown an monkeywrench in the cogs and

delayed my posting.

Jim writes:

>Anyone else catch the mistakes in this issue?  Dave Miller claims

>that hefeweizens are made with S. Delbrukii, NOT!  It is S. Cerveasae,

>see Eric Warners book, Brewing Wheat Beers.

also

Tony writes (from Eric's book):

> - You need the right yeast.  One doesn't need s. delbruckii, just an

>ale yeast with the right flavoring properties.

I've read that S. Delbrukii is used for German Weizens in numerous books

and magazines.  Eric Warner's book is the only one which reportedly

contradicts this.  Despite Eric's proven knowledge of German Wheat beers,

the data seems quite heavily stacked against him.  Comments?

One piece of data from me in Eric's defense: the Troubleshooting Issue of

Zymurgy lists wheat malt as a source for phenolic (clove-like) character.

Perhaps this is the true source of the clove-like character in German

Weizens or maybe it's a combination of this and the yeast.  This is

getting complicated no?  I've yet to find the time to read "German Wheat,"

so I'm afraid I can only go on pieces of info as posted by Jim and Tony.

*******************

John writes:

>1.  Is racking to a secondary fermenter only/mostly used for Ale yeasts,

>Lager Yeasts, or both (ie. yeast is not the criteria)?  When (and other

>adverbs) do I need to rack and secondary ferment?

In my opinion, it's not the yeast that you use (some use lager yeasts at

ale temperatures), but rather the time that the beer will stay in the

primary.  If you will be bottling/kegging within two to three weeks of

pitching, I feel that going to a secondary is an unnecessary sanitation

risk.  If you're adding fruit or making a lager (at, say 45F), then

I think that a secondary would be a good idea.

>2.  According to Dave Miller, he racks when the bubbles slow down to 1/ 30

>seconds (I think).  What span of time has passed (typically) 3 days, a

>week?

It depends on the temperature, how much oxygen you gave the yeast, the

strain of yeast and the amount of nutrients in the wort (worts with a

high percentage of sucrose or corn sugar will have less nutrients).  As

reported recently, Wyeast 1007 (German Ale) is really a quick yeast.

Many dry yeasts are very quick fermenters.  I've used a yeast that I've

cultured from an Orval bottle that regularly takes two months to ferment

out 1055 wort.  Temperatures in the low- to mid-60s will give you slower

ferments, whereas temps in the high-70s can ferment-out the beer in a day.

If you don't give the yeast a good supply of oxygen, they can take much

longer to complete fermentation.

>3. Okay, approx 3 days - a week has passed in the primary fermenter (white

>bucket) and I am racking to a glass carboy (6 gal). At this time I would be

>adding my dry Hops. Do I need a Blow-Off Tube?  Do I need the Brew-Cap?

If you are not adding any fermentables (like fruit) and you have waited

till the fermentation has mostly subsided, then you don't need a blowoff

tube.  A BrewCap(tm) could be used (I'm not sure about 6-gallon carboys)

if you want to bottom-crop yeast from the secondary, but you don't *need*

anything other than an airlock.

>4. After secondary ferm'g of 2 weeks, I will rack to my bottling pail and

>prime. Is oxygen damage my main concern, or is lambic still a problem?

A small amount of oxygen should not be a problem, but you should still

try to minimize aeration as much as you can.  I don't understand your

"is lambic still a problem?" (Personally, if all my beers tasted like

lambieks, I would consider it a mixed blessing!)  Do you mean "can I still

infect my beer?"  The answer to this question is most definately yes.

Assuming you did not infect the beer with attenuative wild yeast or bacteria

earlier in your process, there will be some unfermentable sugars/dextrins

in your beer.  These can still be consumed by some wild yeasts and bacteria.

Granted, at this point in the process, they will add less perceptable flavors/

aromas to your beer than if you infected at pitching time (when there were

a lot more sugars and less alcohol and a higher pH), but you can still

have problems with gushers.

Al.

------------------------------


hops, 1007

Date:    Mon, 9 Aug 1993 15:12:43 -0400 (EDT)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: hops, 1007

   Wyeast 1007 is not their "alt" yeast.  It is called "German Ale".

Their alt yeast has a different number (1338?).  I haven't used 1007

in a couple of years, and the porter made with it is what I remember,

possibly because it came as a surprise that it worked so well.  If

I were to use it again, I'd probably try for a dry, hoppy, very pale

ale, sort of a pilsner-ale.

   Speaking of hops, try putting a freshly picked hops cone into a

bottle of beer.  Instant dry hop aroma, and even some noticeable bitterness

if the beer is one of those "super-premium-extra-light-draft" US brews.

A bottle works better than a glass; the cone gets sloshed around as

the bottle is tipped, and the neck concentrates the aroma.  Try it.

Russ G.

esp/opal

unh

------------------------------


Decoction Mashing

Date: 9 Aug 93 10:48:56 EST

From: "CANNON_TOM" <CANNON_TOM@hq.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Decoction Mashing

Message Creation Date was at  9-AUG-1993 15:29:00

          I've been reading the recent threads on decoction mashing

          which is convenient in that we will be trying our first

          decoction mash on our Dopplebock this weekend.  I've read

          Noonan and Warner and I was wondering if any of you HBDers

          that have tried decoction mashing have any other practical

          tips that will help us ensure success on our first attempt.

          TIA

          Tom Cannon

------------------------------


Light Beer for zymurgy

Date: 09 Aug 93 15:57:12 EDT

From: "Elizabeth Gold, zymurgy/Brewers" <75250.1351@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: Light Beer for zymurgy

Help!  Please send me your recipes for light beer as well as any quick info on

the style.  They're needed to accompany an article in zymurgy.  Your haste

would be MOST appreciated!

All the best,

Elizabeth Gold, zymurgy editor-in-chief

------------------------------


The 7th Annual Great Taste of the Midwest Beer Festival

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1993 15:02:09 -0500 (CDT)

From: "RIKI::EDGELL"@UWMFE.NEEP.WISC.EDU

Subject: The 7th Annual Great Taste of the Midwest Beer Festival

ANNOUNCING....

           The 7th Annual Great Taste of the Midwest Beer Festival

WHEN:  Saturday, Aug 21    1993,  1-6 pm

WHERE:  Olin Terrace, Madison, Wisconsin

COST:  $13 in advance, $15 at the door

Sample over 60 different beers fresh from the brewery! Tempt your palate and

educate your taste buds with ales, lagers, pilsners, stouts and more. All

served by over 30 Midwest brewpubs, micros and regional breweries.

Festival tickets include a commemorative beer glass and UNLIMITED beer samples

Tickets are available by phone (608-256-1100) with MC/VISA

Proceeds benefit Community Radio - WORT

Organized by The Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild.

Participating breweies in this year's beer festival:

August Schell Brewing Co.

Broad Ripple Brewing Co.

Capital Brewing Co.

Cherryland Brewing Co.

Chicago Brewing Co.

Detroit & Mackinac Brewing Co.

Dubuque Brewing & Bottling Co.

Fitzpatrick Brewing Co.

Frankenmith Brewing Co.

Golden Prairie brewing Co.

Goose Island Brewing Co.

James Page Brewing Co.

J.D. Nicks Brewpub

Joe's Brewing Co.

Joseph Huber Brewing Co.

Kalamazoo Brewing Co.

Lakefront Brewing Co.

Lienenkugels Brewing Co.

Melbourne's Brewing Co.

Midcoast Brewing Co.

Millrose Brewing Co.

Minnesota Brewing Co.

Pavichevich Brewing Co.

Pete's Brewing Co.

R.J. Ginseng Beer Co.

Spanish Peaks Brewing Co.

Sprecher Brewing Co.

Stevens Point Brewing Co.

St. Louis Brewing Co.

Summit Brewing Co.

Water Street Brewing Co.

Woodstock Brewing Co.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

1) We sold out shortly after opening last year. So, if you come from out of

town, buy your tickets in advance! We don't want to have to turn away people

who have driven long distances but we will have to if we are full.

2) The festival is at Olin TERRACE not Olin PARK (also in Madison). Olin

Terrace is right downtown at Wilson St. and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. It is

just two blocks from the State Capital Dome and thus easy to find.

3) As mentioned above the ticket cost covers a beer glass with this year's logo

and all the beer you want to sample. There is no messing with beer tickets or

any charge for additional tickets etc. The only additional cost would be if you

purchased brewery merchandise or food from our food vendors (recommended if

you are sampling over 60 beers!)

4) The date listed for our event in "Brewing Technology" is completely wrong.

I believe it is the date we used 3 years ago which is backed up by their

calling it the 4th and not the 7th also. We at the club have no idea where they

got that date and wish to apologize for any inconvenience that may ensue.

5) What great call letters for the community radio station that proceeds are

donated to, WORT, eh!

For further information Contact:

By Mail - The Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild,

          PO Box 1365,

          Madison WI 53701

By Phone - 608-256-1100

By e-mail - edgell@uwmfe.neep.wisc.edu

Dana Edgell,

Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

   The Country that controls Magnetism can Control the World!

         - Dick Tracy

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

edgell@uwmfe.neep.wisc.edu

------------------------------


Cold Plates

Date: Mon, 09 Aug 93 13:15:39 -0700

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Cold Plates

  I recently acquired an 18"x24" Cornelius 3 line cold plate.  It's

pretty grungy, so I filled it with TSP solution an let it soak for a

while.  Should this be enough, or is there some other, more potent,

cleaner I could use?  I don't think it would be possible to feed any

sort of brush through it.

  Also, this thing is more than I need.  I would be open to trading it

for some combination of smaller cold plate(s) and cornelius kegs.

Email or call me if you are interested.

         Drew Lynch

  Chronologic Simulation, Los Altos, Ca.

     (415)965-3312 x18

    drew@chronologic.com

------------------------------


chipotle

Date: Monday,  9 August 93 15:20:23 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: chipotle

Howdy,

In HBD #1198, I reported on my serrano beer being a success.  Saturday

afternoon, my brother & I popped open the two bottles of chipotle beer we

set up.  Bad mistake.  Do not put a chipotle into your bottle of beer.  It

will make a nasty concoction that is undrinkable, unpleasant, & all around

unlikable.

As I reported on the serranos, the beer tasted fine, the pepper came through

nicely but not overpowering, & all in all it was a success.  We also added

one chipotle each to two bottles of the same pilsner.  Twenty days later, we

tried them.  Both beers had changed from the nice golden color to brown,

one looking like an American bock, the other not quite as dark.  Both were

flat, even though they gushed when opened.  The lighter colored of the two

was so spicy that it could not be drunk (we think there was a crack in the

pepper, allowing the seeds direct contact with the beer).  We were unable to

determine quality of taste of this bottle.  The darker one was not too spicy.

However, it was sweetish in taste, & not in a pleasant sense.  The smokiness

came out, but again, it just didn't work.  It was as if it was a completely

different beer from the original, which was a nice, well balanced pilsner.

All in all a bad idea.

I did discover that beers bottled with chili peppers do need to be consumed

rather quickly.  The first serrano bottle I tried was 17 days after

bottling, & was spiced just right.  I tried a second one last night, 21 days

after bottling, & it was pushing the limits on the spiciness scale for me.

A friend who also enjoys spicy foods agreed with me.  This is something to

keep in mine if you are planning the bottling method of chili beer.

So, to sum it up:  Don't consider chipotles.  Serranos may be washed in

water, dropped into the bottle & the primed beer racked onto them.  Drink

within 3 weeks, unless you have a particularly hardy palate.

BTW, I'm taking a trip to Bastrop, TX in September.  Anyone know of any good

brewpubs, breweries, expensive bottled beer bars, hop farms, barley farms,

yeast labs, glassworks or beer coaster factories worth visiting near there?

Happy brewing,

Alan, Austin

------------------------------


chipotle

Date: Monday,  9 August 93 15:20:23 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: chipotle

Howdy,

In HBD #1198, I reported on my serrano beer being a success.  Saturday

afternoon, my brother & I popped open the two bottles of chipotle beer we

set up.  Bad mistake.  Do not put a chipotle into your bottle of beer.  It

will make a nasty concoction that is undrinkable, unpleasant, & all around

unlikable.

As I reported on the serranos, the beer tasted fine, the pepper came through

nicely but not overpowering, & all in all it was a success.  We also added

one chipotle each to two bottles of the same pilsner.  Twenty days later, we

tried them.  Both beers had changed from the nice golden color to brown,

one looking like an American bock, the other not quite as dark.  Both were

flat, even though they gushed when opened.  The lighter colored of the two

was so spicy that it could not be drunk (we think there was a crack in the

pepper, allowing the seeds direct contact with the beer).  We were unable to

determine quality of taste of this bottle.  The darker one was not too spicy.

However, it was sweetish in taste, & not in a pleasant sense.  The smokiness

came out, but again, it just didn't work.  It was as if it was a completely

different beer from the original, which was a nice, well balanced pilsner.

All in all a bad idea.

I did discover that beers bottled with chili peppers do need to be consumed

rather quickly.  The first serrano bottle I tried was 17 days after

bottling, & was spiced just right.  I tried a second one last night, 21 days

after bottling, & it was pushing the limits on the spiciness scale for me.

A friend who also enjoys spicy foods agreed with me.  This is something to

keep in mine if you are planning the bottling method of chili beer.

So, to sum it up:  Don't consider chipotles.  Serranos may be washed in

water, dropped into the bottle & the primed beer racked onto them.  Drink

within 3 weeks, unless you have a particularly hardy palate.

BTW, I'm taking a trip to Bastrop, TX in September.  Anyone know of any good

brewpubs, breweries, expensive bottled beer bars, hop farms, barley farms,

yeast labs, glassworks or beer coaster factories worth visiting near there?

Happy brewing,

Alan, Austin

------------------------------


Mackeson Clone

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 16:26:53 -0400

From: <geotex@engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Mackeson Clone

Hi all!

I really want to brew a Mackeson XXX Stout Clone!

There are a few recipes in The Cat's Meow II that

are supposed to be like Mackeson.

Has anyone tried any of these?

Does anyone have a recipe they they consider very much

like delicious Mackeson?

Please respond by e-mail or to HBD if you think anyone

else is interested.

Alex

geotex@engin.umich.edu

------------------------------


RE: Perscription Beer

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 17:04:48 PDT

From: raines@radonc.ucla.edu (Marybeth_Raines)

Subject: RE: Perscription Beer

 Domenick Venezia recently wrote:

>I was talking to an elderly gentleman today and he said

>that during prohibition the doctor had told his mother she

>had to drink beer every day, so he gave her a prescription for

>beer which she had to pick up at the drugstore.  Has anyone

>ever heard of this?  Why would a woman be medically required

>to take beer daily?  Vitamins?

Some of my british brewing partners contend that Guinness is still

prescribed to women in Britian as a supplement for anemia.  Presumably

Guiness is rich in iron.  They say that many times in the pubs you can

see older women sippin' a pint of Guinness, some of whom don't really

care for it.  IMHO it sure beats Geritol.

M.B. Raines

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1200, 08/10/93

*************************************

-------


RE: I need a new factor!

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 20:47:54 PDT

From: Bob Regent <b_regent@holonet.net>

Subject: RE: I need a new factor!

Steve Casselman asked about the ratio of weight of grains vs the weight of

dissolved extract. This is typically known as the extaction potential (%).

This is the way that the data is presented from the maltster, they dont

represent the  data way that most homebrewers are used to. (pts/lbs/gallon)

My program, Brewer's Calculator, comes with the extraction potentials for most

malts using both the extraction percentage and pt/lb/gallon methods.

It also allows you to enter your own data using either technique, and

automatically converts the  other. (cheap plug, sorry)

To convert from one to the other is easy.

Extract X .461 = pt/lb/gallon - 1

For example, if your grain has an extract potential of 76%, then

76 X .461 = 35  or  (1.035)

This may or may not be usefull in recreating grain recipes using extracts.

You must remember that Syrup extracts contain only about 76% solids and DME is

97.6 so you would have to take that into considerations when formulating.

- --bob

------------------------------


irish moss/ barley water

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1993 09:38:06 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: irish moss/ barley water

Steve Lichtenberg writes:

>Second--

>I purchased some plugs of Irish moss from a garden supply store about

>a year ago.  These are incredible growers; going from <1" plugs when

>originally planted to > 18" clusters in just 1 year.  They make a great

>ground cover with a thick compact mass of growth about 1 1/2" tall.  A neat

>addition to the landscape.  Now on to the question-- Anyone have any

>experience using fresh IM for brewing?  Do I need to dry it  or can it

>be used right from the ground?  Any precautions to prevent contamination?

I've got bad news.  The irish moss you have is not the irish moss used in

brewing.  The irish moss clarifying agent is from a marine alga (seaweed).

>Third--

>While watching "Mary Poppins" for the ten thousandth time (can you say

>parent of a three year old? ;-)), I noticed  a line that goes "and

>doesn't smell like barley water".  My first thought was that this must

>be an objectionable perfume but after thinking about it for a few minutes

>I realized that this must be a reference to some type of alcoholic

>beverage.  Anyone knowledgeable in early 20th century London slang

>have any idea as to whether this refers to our favorite malt beverage

>or the other venerable potion made from barley malt (for those that

>can not figure out the obscure reference, I am talking about 'the good

>stuff' Scotch whiskey)..

 One possibility:  Malted barley infused with warm water was used as

a tonic.  With all those wonderful enzymes coursing through it, it's sure

to cure what ails you.  I can try asking my dad, since his dad published

the books in the first place.

____________

Ed Hitchcock/Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology/Dalhousie University/Halifax NS

ech@ac.dal.ca   +-----------------------------------------+

  |   Never trust a statement that begins:  |

  |     "I'm not racist, but..."    |

  +-----------------------------------------+

 Diversity in all things.  Especially beer.

------------------------------


Wheat beer yeast

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 08:47:47 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Wheat beer yeast

Re: Wheat beer yeast.  The strain of yeast DOES matter to the end product.

This summer HBD contributer Jim DiPalma has brewed some good wheat beers using

a strain of Weinstephen yeast but they lacked the clovey character.  He then

got the "correct" yeast and his brews were excellent with clovey and fruity

tones.  Given his meticulous brewing technique and similarity in recipe the

differences were cleary the product of the yeast used.

RE: Presription beer.  My high school Spanish teacher told us they would

feed their young child beer, which they had warmed to remove alcohol and

CO2, while traveling in South America since the water supply was unreliable.

The beer was rich in carbohydrates too.  I have heard that another reason

to "prescribe" alcohol was to circumvent prohibition.

------------------------------


Prescription Beer

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 08:01:15 PDT

From: tima@wv.MENTORG.COM (Tim Anderson)

Subject: Prescription Beer

My grandmother loves to tell me the story of how Grandpa's homebrew saved my

uncle's life.  She always tells it in a conspiratorial tone, when my parents

aren't around.  Which is pretty cute, since I'm in my mid forties.

My grandparents were Nebraska farmers during prohibition, and like lots of

folks during that time, they were brewers of the best kind of of beer:

available.  Their third child, Charles, had serious digestive problems as an

infant.  He was unable to keep anything down, including his mother's milk.

He was dangerously thin and his parents were resigned to losing him.  One day

as Grandpa was walking him around the room trying to give some comfort, he took

a drink of beer.  Baby Charles smacked his lips, apparently in response to the

smell of the beer.  Grandpa dipped his finger and put it into the baby's mouth.

He sucked eagerly.  The expected reaction didn't occur, so he got a little

more.  After several serious dips from the ol' beer stein he nursed and

didn't lose it.  He binged for a couple of weeks, was fat and healthy and

they took him off the beer without ill effect.

I offer no theories, I just tell 'em the way I hear 'em.  I'd love to add that

Uncle Chuck continues to have his beer with a milk chaser, but it just ain't

so, and I've resolved to keep my stories mostly honest.  But I have noticed

that whenever he's drinking beer, he tends to get awfully friendly with his

wife, and she tends to give him those "drop dead" kinds of looks.

tim

"I said 'mostly', OK?"

------------------------------


RE: moldy dishes, wet milling, weizen yeast

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 11:10:01 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: moldy dishes, wet milling, weizen yeast

Hi All,

  In HBD#1200, Steve Lichtenberg wrote:

>I was going to start a batch of yeast in anticipation of brewing later

>in the week.  When I went to get my petri dish with the culture on it

>out of the fridge, I noticed that the entire surface of the dish was

>covered with a green growth of mold

>Anyone have any

>suggestions on how to improve my techniques in handling cultures so that

>this type of contamination does not happen again.

  I'm not sure your techniques are to blame, I've never had any success

with long-term storage of cultures on petri dishes.  The top and bottom

halves do not form an airtight seal.  After streaking the plates, I seal

them with electrician's tape, and store them in a warm place.  Two or three

days later, the colonies are sufficiently grown to harvest them, I then

innoculate several slants.  After one or two days at room temperature, I

store the slants in the refridgerator, they're good for several months.

  I have noticed that even when I reseal the plates with the tape, within

a week or so fuzzy growths appear that look like mold.  From this, I

concluded that long term storage on petri dishes was not a good idea, and

have been using the above procedure with good results.

  Disclaimer: I'm a software engineer, not a microbiologist (hence the use

of the decidely non-technical term "fuzzy growths"), so would welcome

comments by others more knowledgable.

***************************************************************

  Also in HBD#1200, Thomas G. Moore writes:

>In Eric Warner's German Wheat Beer book he mentions milling

>malted barley wet as to keep the husks intact. This will help com-

>bat stuck run-offs during lautering. Has anyone used this method

>with wheat beer decoctions?

  I tried this exactly once, the first batch of weizen I brewed after

reading Warner's book.

  I sprinkled the barley gently with water, and kept turning it until

it was all lightly moistened.  I ran it through an adjustable Maltmill,

which does an excellent job of keeping husks intact in any event.  This

procedure *does* work, at least in terms of minimizing husk damage.  It

appeared as though each kernel had been gently opened - the water definitely

helped reduce tearing of husks.  The problem was cleaning the mill

afterwards - the grooves in the rollers filled with the "paste" that

resulted from flour and water, which dried quickly and became rock-hard.

It was a major chore to clean up the rollers afterward, so I never tried

this again.  I get a good quality crush with the MM, and use a staggered

protein rest and decoction mashing when brewing weizens, so I haven't had

any problems with cloudy or stuck runoffs.

  If you use a corona, I think this would be worth a try.  It does reduce

husk damage, which is one of the corona's biggest drawbacks, and cleanup

shouldn't be a problem with a mill that doesn't have grooved rollers.

***************************************************************

  Also in HBD#1200, Al Korz writes:

>One piece of data from me in Eric's defense: the Troubleshooting Issue of

>Zymurgy lists wheat malt as a source for phenolic (clove-like) character.

>Perhaps this is the true source of the clove-like character in German

>Weizens or maybe it's a combination of this and the yeast.

  Working from memory here, don't have Warner's book in front of me, but

he writes that an important precursor to the 4-vinyl guaiacol phenolic,

which is responsible for the clove-like flavor, is free ferulic acid.

He goes on to state that ester bonds bind ferulic acid to pentasanes in

the grain (can't recall if he meant wheat or barley), and recommends an

acid rest at 110F to produce ferulic acid in it's free form.

  That said, I've had an interesting time brewing weizens this summer.  I

obtained a Weihenstephan #68 culture early in May, and brewed a couple of

batches, dutifully following Warner's procedures.  While the beers were OK,

neither had the desired clove character.

  I did some investigation, as it turned out, the strain I had obtained was

quite old.  I found out that the strain was the original 1991 vintage, which

apparently "pooped out".  Commercial weizen brewers have experienced the same

problem with this strain.  It was quietly replaced in 1992 by those who

distribute this yeast with a strain that has displayed considerably longer

staying power.  Since then, I have brewed three other batches of weizen,

two dunkels and a pale, with the 1992 vintage, same recipes, same procedures.

These brews are *wonderful*, hit-me-over-the-head clovey, well balanced with

banana, with hints of vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon - everything I love about

weizens.

  So, the moral is: IT'S THE YEAST.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


Re: Irish Moss Question

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 09:10:57 MDT

From: resch@craycos.com (David Resch)

Subject: Re: Irish Moss Question

Steve Lichtenberg writes:

>I purchased some plugs of Irish moss from a garden supply store about

>a year ago.  These are incredible growers; going from <1" plugs when

>originally planted to > 18" clusters in just 1 year.  They make a great

>ground cover with a thick compact mass of growth about 1 1/2" tall.  A neat

>addition to the landscape.  Now on to the question-- Anyone have any

>experience using fresh IM for brewing?  Do I need to dry it  or can it

>be used right from the ground?  Any precautions to prevent contamination?

The "Irish Moss" you bought at a garden supply store is not the same as the

Irish Moss used as a kettle coagulant in home brewing.  The Irish Moss that

we use is actually a marine red algae (Chondrus Crispus, if I am remembering

correctly from my marine biology days).

Dave

------------------------------


Re: A Draft Chili Beer?

Date:  Tue, 10 Aug 1993 06:02:04 PDT

From: wegeng.XKeys@xerox.com

Subject: Re: A Draft Chili Beer?

>However, I prefer

>to (Cornelius) keg my beers, and I'm wondering a bit about just

>how much of what variet(ies) of peppers to use!

>[...]

>What about a chili extract in alcohol?

Have you considered using hot pepper sauce?  A couple years ago someone on the

HBD suggested using Tabasco Sauce (any hot sauce based only on peppers would

do, so experiment to determine which varieties you like best).  You can

determine the amount to add by adding one drop at a time to a pint of beer,

stiring and tasting after each addition, until you determine how many

drops/pint give you the desired degree of hotness.  Then multiply this by the

number of pints of beer that you want to make to determine how many drops to

add to your keg (perhaps subtracting 10% to be safe).

I haven`t tried this, but it would seem to be more predictable than adding

whole peppers (and more repeatable, too).

/Don

wegeng.xkeys@xerox.com

------------------------------


Testing yeast viability and cell density

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1993 08:32:17 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Testing yeast viability and cell density

How does one test yeast viability? Do you stain, then dilute, then estimate

at the fraction of the yeast that are stained (the bad ones) while viewing

at low magnification? Please, someone explain this technique to me in detail.

I am also interested in the techniques used to determine the quantity of

yeast in a starter for proper pitching ratios.

Bob Jones

It was one whole day before I had a beer after returning from Portland! The

best beer I had in Portland was a beer called "Mirror Pond" from Deschutes.

What a great ale, big hops, great malt character and incredible depth and

complexity. All the beers were good and the Portland people seem to be very

serious about their beer.

------------------------------


Bottled Water

Date: 10 Aug 1993 11:29:03 U

From: "Walker John" <jwalker@msmac.prc.hq.nasa.gov>

Subject: Bottled Water

Does anyone have any comments or experiences using bottled spring water for

brewing. How does it compare and are there any obvious advantages or

disadvantages (other than cost).

John Walker

jwalker@prc.hq.nasa.gov

------------------------------


Water and carbonation

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 11:41:34 EDT

From: blazo@aol.com

Subject: Water and carbonation

In HBD 11999, Guy DeRose (DEROSEGA%ML%WPAFB@MLGATE.ML.WPAFB.AF.MIL) writes:

>A batch of stout I made in February (extract + specialty grains) started out

by having "perfect" carbonation and head retention, but after aging in the

bottles it became overcarbonated...The beer tastes fine, so infection does

not seem to be the culprit...  Is there a

relation between high mineral content of water and increased carbonation as a

function of time?  Could the "yuck" in my water

erve as nucleation sites for bubbles?<

I think that the most salient question is:  what was the starting and

finishing gravity of the brew in question?  Ofttimes, "gushing" is caused by

incomplete fermentation or infection (which you feel you have ruled out),

which is not always detectable via tasting.  What is the mineral content of

your water?  All the Burton-on-Trent brews (Double Diamond and Bass, to name

a couple) are made with extremely high mineral content water.  Write back to

us about the O.G. & F.G. & exact recipe, including priming agent & dosage.

------------------------------


Second batch of beer

Date:    Tue, 10 Aug 93 10:49 CDT

From: "Michael Barre"                             <MBARRE@NOMVS.LSUMC.EDU>

Subject: Second batch of beer

  Thanks to the advice given by Mark, Al, and Tom over this forum, my

second batch of beer is good!  I made a Pale Ale using Northwestern

Gold extract, Wyeast (American Ale), Cluster hop pellets (the homebrew

store's suggestion), and Ozone spring water.

  Hot break:  After the water/malt had heated for 25 minutes, it began

changing from very cloudy to egg-drop-soupy.  After 45 mintues it

reached a fast boil and I then added 3/4'ths (1.5 oz.) of the hops.

  Aroma hops:  After another 30 minutes, I added the last 0.5 oz. and

removed the pot to the ice-water-filled-sink.

  Cold break:  After 45 mintues I poured the wort into a settling bucket

(w/out straining), leaving 1/8'th inch of hop residue in the pot.  A

couple of minutes later I poured the wort into the carboy with 3 gallons

of jug-aerated water, leaving behind more residue.

  Liquid Yeast:  It smelled good.  Rehydrated dried yeast does not.  I

pitched the yeast into the 75F wort.  12 hours later no yeast activity

was apparent.  After 24 hours, the beer was swimming and foaming like

crazy.  Fermantation continued for 5 days.  I then racked to a

secondary, losing the siphon once because I didn't realize that the

curve of the siphon tube in the carboy put the racking tip almost 4

inches up off the bottom.

  Irish Moss:  I rehydrated about 2 teaspoons of I.M. and added it to

the secondary before racking, resulting in globs-of-goop all in the

beer, which congregated at the top and bottom after 4 days.

  Racking tip:  I then siphoned the beer into the bottling bucket using

the racking tip in the trub and discarding the first cup or two of beer.

  Bottled Beer:  Clear and tasty!

  Thanks.

------------------------------


OKC brew stores

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 10:48:45 CDT

From: paulb%mist@juliet.ll.mit.edu (Paul Biron)

Subject: OKC brew stores

Does anyone know of any H.B. supply stores in the Oklahoma City/Mustang/Yukon

area. We're moving there in October and I need to know if I should stock up in

Ft. Worth before the move.

Paul Biron

MIT/Lincoln Laboratory

Dallas, TX

------------------------------


New Sanitizing Agent ?

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 09:01:14 -0700

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: New Sanitizing Agent ?

Has anyone experimented with hydrogen peroxide as a sanitation agent ?

I'm not clear on the mechanics of the substance, but, besides reacting

with organic matter, it also super-oxidizes the solution it is added to.

I have heard of hydrogen peroxide being used as a food additive, also.

The theory is that the environment humans evolved in was far more rich

with oxygen than it is now, especially in city environments - and that

this subtle but detectable oxygen deprivation leads to anaerobic bac-

 -teria populations increasing within one's body ... resulting in more

opportunities for infection, lethargy, et caet.

Specific infections I've heard it mentioned in connection with include

herpes and warts ( both anaerobic viruses ), as well as AIDS. I'm not

saying that it's a panacaea, just noting that there is research on this

topic here in the Bay Area.

( I've been trying this - neither hydrogen nor oxygen are poisonous, and

  hydrogen peroxide is recommended by dentists after oral surgery, as a

  dilute mouth rinse - and a wart on one finger *does* appear to be in

  remission. Just a data point. I'm using three droppers-full, twice a

  day, in a glass of Tang, each time. )

In connection with brewing, could it not also be used to oxygenate the

wort ? Just a wild idea, but it makes intuitive sense to me ...

Further experimentation is indicated ...

- -- richard

 |                                                                            |

 |        "A cloak is no longer a cloak if it does not keep one warm."        |

 |                                                                            |

 | richard childers                                         pascal@netcom.com |

------------------------------


Re: Dry Hopping Belgians & Irish Moss NOT

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1993 09:07:49 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: Dry Hopping Belgians & Irish Moss NOT

> From: "Robert K. Toutkoushian" <TOUTKOUS@vx.cis.umn.edu>

> Subject: Question about dry hopping

>

> Hello there:

>

>  I have a question concerning dry hopping. This is my first shot at

> this, so please bear with me:

>

>  I am in the process of making a Belgian Ale (just pitched it this

> morning :-) ), and the recipe calls for dry hopping w/2 oz. Fuggles hops.

> I understand that dry hopping involves adding hops to the wort after

> transferring it to a secondary fermenter.

>

First of all, this is a bizarre recipe, given that Belgian Ales (in all

their utter complexity and diversity) are known for a near-total lack of

hop aroma.  So, forget it this time.

>  My problem is that I have a limited amount of brewing equipment,

> and no $$$ to expand right now.  I have been using a primary fermenter, and

> then once the SG has stabilized, transferred to a second carboy that has a

> spicket attached to the bottom for bottling (this carboy does not have a

> lid).

>

A carboy by definition, I should think, has some sort of lid, doesn't

it?  At any rate, what is generally referred to as a carboy is a glass

bottle (usually 5-7 gallons); there are things I mightcall a "carboy" in

a pinch that are made out of plastic.  Are you referring to a plastic

bucket?  If you can spend the limited $$ necessary to pick up a glass

carboy (around $10-12 max.) you would be doing yourself a service --

unless you have a very sterile area to keep your open secondary in.  An

open primary, maybe, with very vigorous yeast growth, but a secondary is

pretty scary.

Assuming that you have something safe to put your beer in for a

secondary, simply place loose hops in a cheesecloth bag, tie it closed

and stuff it in the secondary.  For simplicity's sake, don't bother

sterilizing rocks or marbles and stuffing them in the bag -- an utter

waste of time, in my book.  If you want a real hoppy flavor, use very

aromatic hops, use lots of them and leave them in for weeks.  When you

bottle, simply rack over into that dubious secondary with the spigot;

the hops will stay in the bag.

Putting hops in for a couple of hours is likely a waste of time and

effort; for that result you could simply add hops at the end of the

boil, or run the hot wort over fresh hops on the way to the fermenter.

But for now, leave them out!

> From: steve@Pentagon-EMH6.army.mil (Steve Lichtenberg x79300)

>

> Second--

> I purchased some plugs of Irish moss from a garden supply store about

> a year ago.  These are incredible growers; going from <1" plugs when

> originally planted to > 18" clusters in just 1 year.  They make a great

> ground cover with a thick compact mass of growth about 1 1/2" tall.  A neat

> addition to the landscape.  Now on to the question-- Anyone have any

> experience using fresh IM for brewing?  Do I need to dry it  or can it

> be used right from the ground?  Any precautions to prevent contamination?

>

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaHHHHHH!!!!

Stop!  Irish moss is NOT MOSS!  The stuff used in brewing is produced

from seaweed (kelp, probably).  It's also not from Ireland.  Leave your

moss on the ground and keep it out of the beer!

Speaking (as you were) of kids' movies, we watched Darby O'Gill and the

Little People the other night.  Those old guys could really suck down

the Guinness.

(Not the little people; they drank whiskey -- just goes to show what

distilled beverages will do to you.)

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


banned brews

Date: 09 Aug 1993 22:06:45 -0600 (CST)

From: RBSWEENEY@msuvx2.memst.edu

Subject: banned brews

A small article in Monday's USA Today caught my attention. Montpelier, Vermont:

"The state is cracking down on strong beers, banning restaurants and stores

from buying more, Dept. of Liquor Control officials say.  Included are malt

beverages with higher than 6% alcohol by volume - such as Sierra Nevada or

Anchor."

I was wondering if any of the digest subscribers in VT could throw some light

on this situation.  Have there been incidents of rowdy Bigfoot Barley Wine

drinkers getting out of control?  Or is this just another example of government

of the people, government of the people, government of the people?

Just curious,

Bob Sweeney

Department of Management Information Systems

Memphis State University

RBSWEENEY@MEMST.MSUVX2.EDU

------------------------------


New Factor

Date: 11 Aug 1993 00:58:04 -0600

From: "Manning, Martin P" <manning#m#_martin_p@mcst.ae.ge.com>

Subject: New Factor

The "new factor" Steve Casselman is looking for is the weight-percent yield of

extract. It is the fraction of the weight of a mash or kettle ingredient which

appears as extract in the wort. A 100% yield will give 46.3 points/lb/gal @

60F, so some typical examples of %-yield are:

Dry Malt Extract at 45 pt/lb/gal = 45.0/46.3 = 0.97 (97%)

2-Row Malted Barley at 34 pt/lb/gal = 34.0/46.3 = 0.734 (73.4%)

The tables published in Dave Miller's book and in Zymurgy can be converted to

%-yield using this factor. Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer" has good table of

%-yield from a number of extract sources, which can be converted to pt/lb/gal,

if desired. Professionals generally use %-yield, and the typical lab analysis

of a sample of malt or other grain will give extract figures in this form.

So, to make 5 gallons of beer of SG 1.048, with an expected yield of 73.4%, the

amount of grain needed is (48 x 5) / (0.734 x 46.3) = 7.06 lb. To convert this

weight to an equivalent amount of dry malt extract, you need 7.06 x (0.734 /

0.97) = 5.34 lb.

Martin Manning

------------------------------


RE: Yeast contaminant: Irish moss: Barley water

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1993 10:18:48 -0600 (CST)

From: John Mare <cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: RE: Yeast contaminant: Irish moss: Barley water

Steve asks about yeast culturing techniques, growing Irish moss, and

drinking barley water. About your agar contamination problem: It is hard to

comment not being familiar with your technique. A few comments may be

helpful. Work in a still (draught-free) place, use a flame (eg. propane

torch) and a platinum loop (ex microbiology kit at a hobby shop). Start from

a clean liquid culture and after flaming the loop streak the surface of your

agar quickly and replace lid. Keep at room temperature for a few days until

colonies are visible, place in plastic bag (eg. sandwich bag) and

refrigerate. When making starters pick individual colonies with a sterile

but cooled loop (dip into clear area of agar plate). DON'T flood agar plate

as has been suggested recently. This is a sure way to pick up the odd

contaminant which may find its way into you surface culture.

"Irish moss" as used in fining during the boil is carageenan, a seaweed

found among other places off the coast of Ireland Scotland and Wales. The

weed is harvested, dried and flaked or pelleted for use as a fining agent.

The "Irish moss" you are growing is another creature unless you have a spot

of ocean at your disposal!

One of the bane's of my early years growing up in the "British Way" was

having to endure "barley water" which my mother prepared because "it was

good for you!" This was simply a mild barley broth, strained, and served

cold when we were well, and hot with added "Marmite" (yeast extract) when we

were ailing! In the Mary Poppins context which you quote there may be a

another more spirituous dimension!

John Mar!, John's Alehouse, Tucson.

------------------------------


Rye ale/"New" Formula/dryhopping/moldy plates

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 13:16 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Rye ale/"New" Formula/dryhopping/moldy plates

Kari writes:

>Comments:  There are some things I'll change when I brew my

>next rye ale.  First, I'll do a temperature controlled mash

>with starch conversion at about 150-155 deg F.  I won't use

>more than 3-4 ounces rye malt, because the rye malt I use is

>very dark and quite bitter, so 7 ounces is simply too much.

Interesting.  Red Hook Brewing Company is currently making a

Summer Rye, which is quite pale.  It's an interesting beer

and although I was at the brewery and got a tour of the new,

*automated* kegging line, I did not get to talk to the brewmaster.

So, I did not get the percentage of rye in this beer or what the

other base malts might be.  Judging from the flavor, I would

say that there may be a considerable percentage of wheat in

this beer.  Could someone from Seattle look into this?

Domenick?  Darryl?

****************************

Subject: I want a new formula

Alas, I've lost the original poster's name, and Kieran did post sort-of

a formula for what the poster wanted, but I feel that just a couple of

number is all that they really needed, so I'm posting my suggestions.

For substituting syrup for pale/pils malt, I recommend multiplying by 0.74

and for substituting dry malt extract for pale/pils malt, multiply by 0.67.

I used 28 pts/lb/gal for the grain, 38 pts/lb/gal for the malt extract syrup

and 42 pts/lb/gal for the dried malt extract.

Actually, everything is dependent on the efficiency of the extraction that

the author of the recipe achieved and on the brand of syrup/DME you use.

A much more accurate way to duplicate all-grain recipes using extract is

to look at the OG of the recipe and figure out how much extract you need

to hit this target.  What I do is use the crystal and roasted malts/grains

as they are listed in the recipe and then subtract their contribution from

the OG.  Here's an example:

 5 gallons of Pale Ale with an OG of 1055 that contains 3/4 lb

 of light crystal malt.

1. subtract away the water (1.000) leaving 0.055

2. let's say you know that you get 0.022 per pound per gallon from your

crystal malt, so you do the math:

 0.022pts * 0.75lbs / 5 gallons = 0.0033pts

3. subtract the 0.0033 from the 0.055 target and you get about 0.057

4. let's say you know you get 0.040 per pound per gallon from Northwestern

Gold Extract, so you decide you will use 6lbs in the 5 gallon batch and

make up the difference with dry extract, so again you do the math:

 0.040pts * 6lbs / 5 gallons = 0.048pts

5. subtract the 0.048 from the 0.057 and you're left with 0.009pts

6. let's say you know you get 0.044 per pound per gallon from M&F DME,

so you do the math:

 0.009pts * 5gallons / 0.044pts = 1.02lbs

So you use 3/4 lb of crystal malt, 6 lbs of NW Gold and 1 lb of M&F DME.

********************************

Rob writes:

> I am in the process of making a Belgian Ale (just pitched it this

>morning :-) ), and the recipe calls for dry hopping w/2 oz. Fuggles hops.

>I understand that dry hopping involves adding hops to the wort after

>transferring it to a secondary fermenter.

>

> My problem is that I have a limited amount of brewing equipment,

>and no $$$ to expand right now.  I have been using a primary fermenter, and

>then once the SG has stabilized, transferred to a second carboy that has a

>spicket attached to the bottom for bottling (this carboy does not have a

>lid).

If you have the room, add whole Fuggles (they float, so it will be easier

to siphon out from under them) to your primary.  Let them sit for 7 to 10

days and then bottle as usual.  If you don't have the room, you can siphon

the beer into your bottling bucket, rinse and re-sanitize your primary and

siphon the beer back onto the hops in the primary.

***********************

 --S (sorry, lost your whole name) writes:

>I was going to start a batch of yeast in anticipation of brewing later

>in the week.  When I went to get my petri dish with the culture on it

>out of the fridge, I noticed that the entire surface of the dish was

>covered with a green growth of mold :-(.  I had to start from a new slant

>with a different strain than I had intended to ues.  Anyone have any

>suggestions on how to improve my techniques in handling cultures so that

>this type of contamination does not happen again.

Molds are aerobic.  Luckily, yeasts are anerobic.  You can put your petri

dish in a "Tupperware" container and then purge the container with CO2.

If you don't have a tank of CO2 handy, you can pour a cup of beer into

a pitcher, loosely cover the top and agitate (cheap beer will work for

this) briskly.  The agitation will cause the CO2 in the beer to come out

of solution and you can then pour-off the CO2 (remember, it's heavier

than air) into the "Tupperware" container.  Work slowly, in a room with

still air (turn off the a/c and let the air settle down) and you'll have

enough CO2 left in the bottom of the container to displace the air that

the molds are breathing.  Just picture the CO2 as an invisible liquid,

like the fog from a fog machine.  Hey, if you have some dry ice available,

you can just plop a piece of it next to the petri dish in the tupperware

(leave the top open a crack till the dry ice disappears or drill a hole

and put in an airlock so the top doesn't blow off).  Don't do this work

in a damp basement where there's more molds in the air.

Al.

------------------------------


Weddings and homebrew

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 14:37:45 -0400

From: ""Robert C. Santore"" <rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: Weddings and homebrew

JC Ferguson writes:

 > I'm getting married in late october of this year and i'd like to supply

 > at least some if not all of the beer at my wedding.  With this in mind,

 > I have a few questions:

 >

 > 1)  In today's sue-your-neighbor environment, what kind of legal issues,

 >

Well, I don't see any difference between serving homebrew or commercial

brew - unless it is unusually potent or something like that - but you never

what what they'll dream up to stick you with.

 > 2)  If it isn't much a legal hassle/worry, I'd like to think about brewing

 >     some stuff up now.  I'd like to brew one heavier brew, appropriate for

 >

I am getting married this Saturday and I'll have six kegs of homebrew at the

wedding.  I brewed two kegs of weizen and two of a bitter that I planned

on serving during the day time.  Both of those brews were on the light side

(O.G. 1.042 or so) so that people won't get schnockered on two glasses.  I

also plan on having one keg of commercial light beer (which, as my brew-

partner is fond of saying, is for those who don't like beer) and one case

of non-alcoholic beer.  Although that sounds like a lot of beer we have 260

people coming.  That averages about 1 pint (or two 8 oz glasses) per person

which I think is a sane amount.  Of course, there is no guaruntee that one

person won't get drunk and I can't police 260 people.  So as an added level

of control we have hired a bartender to police the kegs and keep an eye on

things.  It's not a perfect system but we hoped it would be a nice compromise

between people having responsible fun and not letting it get out of hand.

Estimating that only half the people coming will actually drink beer, that

still comes out to two pints per person.  Consuming that much beer over a

four hour period and in addition to a meal should be within reason.

The extra two kegs are a heavier pale ale (still not too heavy though, maybe

1.050?  I can't remember off hand).  But I am only going to serve that beer

in the evening for people staying overnight - one keg at the rehersal and

one the day of the wedding.  There should be about 40 people for each of

those nights and, again, I think that is a sane amount.

Good luck on your event!  I certainly would recommend getting a head start

on it.  It's not so far away that you should be worrying about stability

problems.  I may have more insight into the wisdom of serving homebrew at

an event like that when I come back from our honeymoon.

 - Bob Santore

rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu

------------------------------


Mini Keg System

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 11:03 CDT

From: akcs.rab@vpnet.chi.il.us (Alan Belke)

Subject: Mini Keg System

This is my first posting to HBD so please be gentle.  First I have

an observation and then a question.

Since I have been receiving HBD I have noticed many times that a

question doesn't seem to get answered.  Then all of a sudden there

is a post from the person who asked the question saying thanks for

the help.  What is the protocol here?  Are answers supposed to be

e-mailed or posted back to the digest?  Since I am interested in

the digest as a learning tool I, obviously, would prefer the dialog

be done in the digest.

Now the question: Has anyone seen, used, or done anything with the

mini keg system advertised by Brew Ha Ha.  It looks very attractive

to me since I brew fairly infrequently (4 times a year or less) and

it would be nice to get out from under bottles.

Thanks,

Al Belke

------------------------------


Weihenstephan #68 & T. Delbrukki

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 16:51:01 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Weihenstephan #68 & T. Delbrukki

In the last digest,

<From: Tom.Weicht@arrc.ncsu.edu   (respond to deb_neher@ncsu.edu)

<Subject: S. delbrukii or S. cerevisiae?

<I am a recent arrival to HBD.

Welcome!

<Saccharomyces delbrukii or S. cerevisiae?? I personally

<believe both are technically incorrect. From the best that I have

<been able to find in the mycological taxonomy literature, the true

<name of this organism is Torulospora delbrukii, this is how the

<American Type Culture Collection lists it which sparked my interest

<and pursuit of this subject. An incorrect but often used synonym is

<Saccharomyces.

<AS BREWERS SMALL OR LARGE OUR CONCERN IS THE BIOCHEMISTRY OF

<THE YEAST AS IT PERTAINS TO THE FINAL PRODUCT. DON'T let the

<taxonomy get you down, but don't slam somebody elses taxonomy when

<basing an opinion from a single source either.

I am not claiming to be an expert on yeast taxonomy, but I do have some

sources. I also do not intend to provoke a flame fest, but here goes..

In the ATCC, S. delbrukki is listed as a valid synonym for T. Delbrukki, but

appears to have been isolated from sources other than beer, ie wine and

tree sap. So , unless other references are available that I am unaware

of, it appears that this organisim is not involved in wort fermentation.

Referring to the Weihenstephan catalog , an english translation of the

catalog, calls the yeast a top fermenting S. cerevisiae. No doubt that

T. Del exists but unless further evidence is found, I will stick with

the designation from the Weihenstephan laboratories.

Tom's comments regarding the importance of the biochemical properties

of the strains in our beer production over the importance of the

taxonomy is quite true.  I am merely attempting to clarify what I have

found to be a confusing aspect of the homebrewing literature.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Irish Moss

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 14:27:06 -0700

From: arne thormodsen <arnet@kaibutsu.cup.hp.com>

Subject: Irish Moss

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 09:57:45 -0400

>From: steve@Pentagon-EMH6.army.mil (Steve Lichtenberg x79300)

>Subject: questions

>

> Greetings All:

>

> While setting up a brew session this past weekend, I came up with a few

> questions that I was hoping the good people of the net would help me with.

>

:

:

>Second--

>I purchased some plugs of Irish moss from a garden supply store about

>a year ago.  These are incredible growers; going from <1" plugs when

>originally planted to > 18" clusters in just 1 year.  They make a great

>ground cover with a thick compact mass of growth about 1 1/2" tall.  A neat

>addition to the landscape.  Now on to the question-- Anyone have any

>experience using fresh IM for brewing?  Do I need to dry it  or can it

>be used right from the ground?  Any precautions to prevent contamination?

"Irish Moss" for beer is a kind of seaweed.  I don't know what kind if

"Irish Moss" you are growing, but it sounds like something entirely

different.  Does the plant grow in solid masses and have a single really

small round leaf at the end of each "blade"?  I've seen a groundcover

like this called "Irish Moss".

- --arne

:

:

>

>Thanks for the help---

> Keep brewing-

> --S

>------------------------------

------------------------------


Bottling Kegged Beer

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 14:50:53 PDT

From: Robert Pulliam <Robert_Pulliam@rand.org>

Subject: Bottling Kegged Beer

Greetings,

  Just another quickie...  How does one go about bottling some of his/

her brew that has been kegged?  Will I lose my fizz?  How/what does a

counterpressure filler work/do?  Can I build my own?  Inquiring minds.

Robert J. Pulliam            |+|all thoughts, statements, and opinions,|+|

Los Angeles, CA.             |+|demented or not, should be my own; and |+|

pulliam@monty.rand.org       |+|I'm certainly not associated . . . . . |+|

------------------------------


Sanitizing swing-top bottles

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 18:16:52 EDT

From: dturner@sca.com (David Turner)

Subject: Sanitizing swing-top bottles

Greetings,

I am preparing to bottle my third batch of HB, using swing-top ("Grolsch")

bottles for the second time.  The first time I used them, I replaced all the

rubber gaskets, as they were several years old and suspect.  I boiled them at

bottling time, i.e., I sanitized them seperately from the bottles.

For this round of bottling, I know the bottles are clean (of grunge), and don't

plan a TSP bath.  A good washing, then a chlorine soak, then bottle.

My question:  can I leave the rubber gaskets on the bottles during the chlorine

soak?  Will they absorb chlorine odor/taste?  Will they deteriorate?  Must I

remove them first, and boil them seperately, as I did the first time?  Was that

more than one question?

Thanks for any/all advice...later...DT

- -----

David Turner

dturner@sca.com

------------------------------


Subject: A Draft Chili Beer?

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 09:22:07 MST

From: vlsiphx!karoshi!vahsen_j@enuucp.eas.asu.edu (Jim Vahsen)

Subject: Subject: A Draft Chili Beer?

On Dave's question about chili beer,

Try using some habanaro(sp) pepper extract, a little dab'le

do ya...  Hot stuff.  Don't think I'd actually throw them in

the keg, but the extract would be OK.  Be aware that these

are considerably hotter than your average chili pepper...

BigJim

vlsiphx!vahsen_j@asuvax.eas.asu.edu

------------------------------


water filter

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1993 15:34:04 -0700

From: Michael.Burgeson@Eng.Sun.COM (J. Michael Burgeson)

Subject: water filter

I was in the plumbing supply store yesterday, and saw filter housings

and cartridges on sale.  I thought this would be the perfect opportunity

to add a water filter to my brewery.

I intend to removing chlorine and particulate matter from my brewing water,

so I was looking at activated carbon filter cartridges.  But one carbon filter

caught my eye because it also claimed to filter at the 0.5 micron level.

Isn't 0.5 microns fine enough to remove most bacteria and micro-flora?

Would someone who is microbiologically literate please comment?

Assuming the output side of the filter was sanitary, wouldn't water filtered

at this level be safe to rinse sanitized brewing equipment, without worrying

about introducing a contaminant?  Or are there contaminants that would pass

through this filter?

The rinse/don't rinse debate has gone on here for a long time, but I never

heard of anyone using filtered water to rinse.  It seems this would be a

great time savings over pre-boiling rinse water, and you have the added

benefit of being able to filter your brewing water.  I hope I'm right

0.5 microns being fine enought to remove bacteria.

BTW, there were 2 different 0.5 micron, activated carbon cartridges on the

shelf, and were priced at $24 and $40.

 - --mik

------------------------------


Suggestions/Thoughts/Recipes for Plum beers/meads?

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1993 16:12:24 MDT

From: "KEVIN SCHUTZ, X-1738, M/S 10125" <kschutz@atmel.com>

Subject: Suggestions/Thoughts/Recipes for Plum beers/meads?

Hi,

I was recently at a local Farmer's Market, and noticed that this year's

crops of Plums are looking pretty good and at fairly decent prices.  I was

wondering if anyone has any good comments, thoughts, and/or recipes for

some Plum beers or Meads.  I'm interested in both beers and meads.

Also, my favorite Plums are the dark purple varieties.  I've seen them labeled

as "Western Purple" Plums.  I'm not sure if that's a real variety or not.

We also have access to some red and green (when ripe) plums.

Thanks in advance,

Kevin

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1201, 08/11/93

*************************************

-------


Chiller conversion

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 18:15:02 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Chiller conversion

I have just invested in a new brew kettle (described in a previous post) which

is a 10 gallon cream can from a dairy.  It is tapered toward the top and

therein brings a small problem.  My immersion chiller will not fit into this

small(er) opening and I'd like to convert it to a counterflow chiller.  It is

about 35 feet of 3/8 inch copper tubing coiled to about a 1 foot diameter.  Any

suggestions?

Actually, one of my ideas was to convert to a chiller (I can't come up with a

descriptive name) in which there is one coil sitting in a bucket of sorts.  The

bucket contains cold water, maybe ice water, and the coil contains the wort.

The cooling liquid could, probably should be flowing in/out.  The wort would be

siphoned through the coil, cooling it.  Stoelting makes something like this for

several hundred dollars, which I refuse to pay.  Anyone done this?  Anything I

should be aware of?

Thanks,

norm

------------------------------


Chipotle

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 21:20:57 EDT

From: thomash750@aol.com

Subject: Chipotle

Alan of Austin says:  "Do not put a chipotle into your bottle of beer."

My experience cooking with chipotles makes it obvious to me that 1 chipotle

per bottle (i.e., *50* or so per 5 gallon batch) is going to blow your head

off (to use technical chile lingo).  Chipotles are *hot* (underlined, in

caps, bold face, etc.).

However, that should not prevent homebrewers from trying chipotles

altogether.  Rogue River Brewery, in Ashland OR, puts out a beer called

"Mexicali Rogue" that is flavored with chipotle.  Very good stuff.

tom

------------------------------


Sam Adams Winter Lager

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 22:02:11 CDT

From: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: Sam Adams Winter Lager

I know old Ed Koch has been taking a few lumps here and on other

forums. But last year he made a Winter Lager that was out of

this world IMHO.

    Does anyone have a recipe for a similar brew? Bob Jones

published a recipe for Boston Lager many months back, I tried

it and it turned out great! But it's not Winter Lager.

    Gotta get started now for those Holiday parties!

    Thanks for your help.

Phil Brushaber

Dallas, Texas (Yeah, it's STILL hot!)

- -----

Internet: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com

    UUCP: metronet.com!pro-storm!philb

  Bitnet: philb%pro-storm.metronet.com@nosc.mil

------------------------------


re: Light Beer for zymurgy

Date: 10 Aug 93 22:09:56 MDT (Tue)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: re: Light Beer for zymurgy

I honestly don't know what to make of this!

Elizabeth Gold (Zymurgy editor-in-chief) writes:

> Help!  Please send me your recipes for light beer as well as any quick info on

> the style.  They're needed to accompany an article in zymurgy.  Your haste

> would be MOST appreciated!

What are we about to get here?  A hasty article about light beer?  The

supposed leader asking the followers to show the way?

What's the hurry, anyway?  Is correctness the handmaiden to expediency?

(Or, as the programmer's saying goes, "If we don't have time to do it

right, how will we ever have the time to do it over???")

Has Ms Gold not read the recent HBD comments about Zymurgy falling down?

 ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


LiBeer Digest

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 23:48:44 EDT

From: chuck@synchro.com (Chuck Cox)

Subject: LiBeer Digest

Introducing LiBeer, the Libertarian Beer Digest.  This is an Internet

mailing list dedicated to the discussion of issues of interest to

libertarian brewers and beer lovers.  This digest was created to provide

a forum for the discussion of libertarian tactics to prevent and

circumvent the rising tide of neo-prohibitionism, especially as applied

to the brewing and drinking of beer.  It is also a social forum and a

good place to post excellent jokes.  The LiBeer Digest is sponsored by

SynchroSystems and the Riverside Garage & Brewery, located in The

People's Republic of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

submissions:   libeer@synchro.com

administrative requests: libeer-request@synchro.com

Please send subscription and unsubscription requests to the

administrative address.

- --

Chuck Cox - BJCP Master Beer Judge   <chuck@synchro.com>

SynchroSystems / Riverside Garage & Brewery - Cambridge, Mass.

------------------------------


extraction rates

Date: 10 Aug 1993 23:49:52 -0600 (CST)

From: RBSWEENEY@memstvx1.memst.edu

Subject: extraction rates

I put together the following list of maximum extraction rates for grains based

on some information obtained from a few extremely charitable HBD subscribers

and from Dave Miller's book Brewing the World's Great Beers.  There are two

numbers listed for a few of the grain due to source discrepancies (Miller's

figures are in lower caps) and I was wondering if someone with more knowledge

than myself about such matters would lend a hand and tell me the *right* number

to use.  Thanks.

boB Sweeney

Type of malt Yield Lovibond

Black      24 540 x

BLACK PATENT 29 540 x

BROWN SUGAR 45 15

CARA-PILS 30 1.5

Chocolate 24 350 x

CHOCOLATE 29 350 x

CRYSTAL  10L 31 10

CRYSTAL  20L 31 20

CRYSTAL  40L 30 40

CRYSTAL  60L 30 60

CRYSTAL  80L 29 80

CRYSTAL 100L 29 100

CRYSTAL 120L 29 120

DEXTRINE POWDER 45 0

Flaked barley 30 1.5 x

FLAKED BARLEY 20 1.5 x

FLAKED MAIZE 39 0.5

FLAKED OATS 25 2.2

HONEY 35 1

LAGER 2-ROW 35 1.7

LAGER 6-ROW 31 1.7

MALT EXTRACT (DRY) 45 ?

MALT EXTRACT (SYRUP) 35 ?

MILD ALE 35 4.2

MUNICH DARK 30 18

MUNICH LIGHT 33 8

PALE ALE 36 3

PILS 2-ROW 35 1.2

PILS 6-ROW 30 2

RICE 39 0

RICE SYRUP 36 0

ROAST BARLEY 29 500 x

Roast barley 24 500 x

VIENNA 30 4

WHEAT 39 1.7

------------------------------


Re: A Draft Chili Beer

Date: 11 Aug 93 06:50:34 EDT

From: Robin Garr <76702.764@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: Re: A Draft Chili Beer

In HB1201, wegeng.XKeys suggests:

 > Have you considered using hot pepper sauce?  A couple years ago someone

 > on the HBD suggested using Tabasco Sauce ...

 > I haven`t tried this, but it would seem to be more predictable than adding

 > whole peppers (and more repeatable, too).

Disclaimer: I haven't tried it either. But I'd be cautious. Tabasco in

particular, and hot sauces in general, have vinegar as a major component.

The best commercial chile-pepper beers (Rogue Mexicali Rogue and a sample

from Fort Collins that Paul Edwards delivered to the AHA in Portland,

thanks, Paul!) are not merely hot but present the distinct flavor of peppers

in a much more complex flavor profile than I believe Tabasco and other

commercial hot sauces would provide.

Robin Garr      |  "I have enjoyed great health at a great age because

Associate Sysop |  every day since I can remember I have consumed a bottle

CompuServe      |  of wine except when I have not felt well.  Then I have

Wine/Beer For   |  consumed two bottles."  -- A Bishop of Seville

76702.764@compuserve.com                                   rgarr@panix.com

------------------------------


Lagers/weizen from extract?

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 13:04:40 +0100 (BST)

From: D S Draper <D.S.Draper@bristol.ac.uk>

Subject: Lagers/weizen from extract?

Hi all, There has been much bandwidth on weizen style beers in the HBD and

on rec.crafts.brewing lately.  I am wondering if anyone out there can

recommend any recipes for weizens or even lagers that are malt-extract

based.  I am keen to start full-grain-ing, but my available space is too

limited--I must wait till some time in the future.  Unfortunately, the

malt extracts available to me here are very few--Young's light dried malt

extract is all my local shop stocks.  I started a thread on UK and US

brewing differences awhile back that resulted in several kind souls

sending me names and addresses from which other malt extract types are

available here in the UK, so that info need not be repeated.  Please send

email to me at d.s.draper@bristol.ac.uk and I will summarize if warranted.

Thanks in advance, Dave

------------------------------


Weihenstephan #68 source

Date: 11 Aug 93 07:33:49 EDT

From: CHUCKM@PBN73.CV.COM

Subject: Weihenstephan #68 source

Greetings...

    I've a few questions regarding weissbier yeast.

     1. Where is a source for Weihenstephan #68 and how much should

        I expect to pay?

     2. dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma) in hbd 1201

        writes that there is a difference in the pre and post 1992

        versions of this yeast. How do I know which one I get?

     3. Wyeast has a new weissbier yeast out (so I've heard... not

        yet seen it in the Boston area yet). How does this relate to

        the Weihenstephan #68?.

Prosit

chuckm@pbn73.cv.com

------------------------------


Re: Sanitation

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 09:09:40 EDT

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: Re: Sanitation

In HBD1200 Al Korzonas writes:

>In Marybeth Raines' article on Sanitation, it's a real shame that she

>failed to mention iodophor and a recently new sanitizing agent, marketed

>under the name "One Step," which is peroxide-based and comes in powder

>form.  I would have been very interested in her recommended contact times

>for iodophor and OneStep.  (....stuff deleted)

While we're still giving out constructive criticism of Maribeth

Raines' article in Brewing Techniques on Sanitation, there was

something else in the article that I didn't understand.  Namely,

the difference between dry and moist heat as a sanitizer. For

example, why does moist heat at 250 deg. F only require 15-30 minutes

to sterilize while dry heat at 350 deg. F requires 60-180 minutes?

I use dry heat to "sterilize" my racking canes which are copper,

and have been baking for only 1/2 hour at 350 deg F.  Do I need to

raise the oven temperature to 400 or 450 degrees to sterilize in

1/2 hour?  Overall, the article was good and I learned something new

in the fractional sterilization process. It could have been better

by perhaps explaining more of the why's of sterilization than

simply the how to's and some references to the statistics posted

would definitely have improved the article.

Also Steve Lichtenberg asked about storing petri dishes and

received some answers in HBD1201.  I've found that whenever mold

starts growing in a petri dish it was always starting from the edge

(in the two or three dishes that went bad on me).  Since then I've

been careful in resealing the dishes after taking a sample.  After

closing the dish (and actually before also)  use a cotton ball

soaked in a bleach solution or alcohol and wipe the rim of the dish.

Pass the edge over a flame which helps dry the bleach (be

careful if you use alcohol and/or a plastic petri dish) before resealing

with parafilm.  I stack the dishes upside down in ziploc bags in

the refrigerator.  I've resealed some plastic plates I purched from

the Yeast Culture Kit and they have survived for over a year now

without any sign of mold.  Actually, the plates which were resealed

have outlasted two of the originally "clean" plates without any

culture, supplied in the Kit.  Five out of six of the other plates I

prepared myself about 4 months ago are still free of contamination.

Bill Szymczak

bszymcz@ulysses.nswc.navy.mil

Gaithersburg, MD

------------------------------


Recipe formulation

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 08:40:00 CST

From: Montgomery_John@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil

Subject: Recipe formulation

Hi all,

As with all the other "first time posters", please be patient with me.

I have questions about formulating my own recipes.

I have about 10 or 11 batches of All Grain brews under my belt (all puns

intended) and have, to date, been following TCJoH and TCHoH recipes. I

am interested in stepping out into the "great unknown" and developing my

own recipes, but seem to be having a hard time finding guidelines for

such.

Should I just "waste" 10 - 15 gallons of brew for each style until I get

it just the way I want it or is there some publication that offers

particulars of and suggestions for recipe formulation? Do I need to

study articles for each of Hops, Malts, Adjuncts, Water, Yeasts, etc...

and postulate from there?

Many, many thanks in advance.

jbm <montgomery_john@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil>

------------------------------


Mini Keg System

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 09:51:00 EDT

From: steve@garnet.spawar.navy.mil (Steve Jacobs)

Subject: Mini Keg System

Al Belke writes:

> Now the question: Has anyone seen, used, or done anything with the

> mini keg system advertised by Brew Ha Ha.  It looks very attractive

> to me since I brew fairly infrequently (4 times a year or less) and

> it would be nice to get out from under bottles.

I recently bought a 5 liter mini-keg system from Brew Ha-Ha. In general,

the system is easy to use. Sanitizing and filling the kegs is very

painless. When priming it is necessary to add 1/2 the normal amount of

priming sugar or you will over-pressure the keg.

I have had some problems dispensing brew from my mini-kegs. The beer is

sometimes too fizzy and all I get is foam (unless I dispense at an extremely

low rate). The CO2 cartridges that are supplied with the system don't last

for the entire keg (although I've heard that larger ones are available).

Despite the minor problems, I'm still very happy with my mini-kegs.

(Standard disclaimers apply)

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                .    _  .     _____________

                |/_|/__/|    /             /

               / / // /  /  / Happy! Happy! /

              /__|O||O|__ / /   Joy! Joy!   /

             |/_ /_//_/ _/ | /  ___________/

             | | (____) | ||  |/

   ______    ///___//__/  // _/

  /      /   (_/         ||

 /--------/   |          ||/   Steve Jacobs (steve@garnet.spawar.navy.mil)

|   HOME   |  /   o     //_/   KSI Inc.

|   BREW   |   /______//       Annandale, Virginia

 /--------/    __|| __||

  /______/   (____(____)

- ------------------------------

------------------------------


Aeration

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 08:54 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Aeration

 Last week I put together an aquarium pump type aerator for the weekend batch

 to see what all the excitement was about myself.

 After following Miller's procedure, I found that the commencement of

 fermentation was, if anything, later than it would have been using my

 standard procedure of simply squirting the wort into the fermenter.

 I usually get fermentation at 40F within 24 hours but this time it took about

 48 hours.

 Several things come to mind:

 One being that I was a victim of entheusiastic promotion based on unsound,

 anecdotal experience and wishful thinking.

 Miller claims to use the same type of system on a large scale commercial

 operation as described for home brewing.  The only exception he takes is that

 some part (presumably the airstone or hoses) are stainless.

 It is simply preposterous to believe that one can get enough oxygen into a

 large batch of beer using an aquarium pump and an airstone for 15 minutes.

 What makes it preposterous is that this is the same system/time recommended

 for a 5 gallon batch.  [I used a total of 30 minutes pumping in my batch

 because 15 seems totally inadequate]

 The idea of getting fermentation started in "3 to 8 hours" was enough to

 tweek my interest but I believe I fell into another trap created by

 non-critical writing; viz., he failed to mention whether he was talking about

 ale or lager and the fermentation temperature.

 I can only now presume that he was talking about ale yeast at room temp and

 my entheusiasm has fallen an order of magnitude.

 To settle the issue, I have constructed a controlled experiment which is now

 in process and I will report back in a few days.

 In the meantime, does anyone have any such experience as Miller reports at

 lager temperatures?

 js

------------------------------


bad cider, Belgian wyeast, hydrogen peroxide

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 09:52:42 -0400 (EDT)

From: /R=HERLVX/R=AM/U=KLIGERMAN/FFN=KLIGERMAN/@mr.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: bad cider, Belgian wyeast, hydrogen peroxide

A couple of items:

I tried posting this from America On-line but never saw it or

a rejection notice.

We recently tried making an apple cider by adding frozen, non-

preserved apple juice over the dregs of a great cider.  After a

number of months it finally cleared after adding pectinase.  However,

while siphoning, I detected a distinct acetic acid smell and taste.

It obviously has turned to vinegar, 5 gallons worth.  We bottled some

and my wife tried to save tthe rest by adding sodium metasulfite then sugar

and fresh yeast to the remaining gallons.  My question is: what organisms

are responsible and does anyone believe it can be saved-- it still has

a good apple aroma buy little alcohol.

I also recently made a Belgian Ale using a recipe in the Belgian Ale book

and Belgian Wyeast (can't remember the number).  Anyway its beautifully clear

in the secondary, smells good, but has a really strange flavor I can't

describe.  I doubt it is contaminated and I feel the flavor is due to

the yeast strain.  Will this dissipate with aging after bottling?  Any

suggestions?

Finally, Rich Childers posts about using hydrogen peroxide as a sanitizing

agent.  It can be used as a sanitizing agent although I would be

careful with it.  Strong solutions will oxidize tissue.  Oxygen is not

innocuous or a cure all.  Most aerobic organisms evolved developing

protection from oxygen, since oxygen, especially peroxides, produce

free radicals.  These are thought to be responsible for some endogenous

cancers, tissue aging, mutation, chromsome damage, and cell death.

I don't want to flame the West Coast but ascribing increased viral

and bacterial infections to lower concentrations of oxygen in the

environment seems to be,

well Californian !!(:^0.

Andy Kligerman

------------------------------


Re:  A Draft Chili Beer?

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 06:55:37 PDT

From: julie@eddie.jpl.nasa.gov (Julie Kangas)

Subject: Re:  A Draft Chili Beer?

wegeng.XKeys@xerox.com writes:

>Have you considered using hot pepper sauce?  A couple years ago someone on the

>HBD suggested using Tabasco Sauce (any hot sauce based only on peppers would

>do, so experiment to determine which varieties you like best).  You can

>determine the amount to add by adding one drop at a time to a pint of beer,

>stiring and tasting after each addition, until you determine how many

>drops/pint give you the desired degree of hotness.  Then multiply this by the

>number of pints of beer that you want to make to determine how many drops to

>add to your keg (perhaps subtracting 10% to be safe).

I have doubts about this.  Hot sauces are not just pure chiles but

contain vinegar and a bunch of other stuff.  If you like that in

your beer....

But, if you're looking for a way to get consistent heat in your beer,

I think the best way is to use capsaicin extract.  It is pure chile

heat without any other flavor and is consistent in heat.  Many

salsa manufacturors use extremely mild chiles and then add capsaicin

extract in order to bring the product up to whatever level of heat

they want.   You can get capsaicin extract from spice companies

specializing in hot foods or 'oddball' stuff.

Julie

------------------------------


water / keg->bottles

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 07:51:34 PDT

From: 11-Aug-1993 1044 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: water / keg->bottles

>Date: 10 Aug 1993 11:29:03 U

>From: "Walker John" <jwalker@msmac.prc.hq.nasa.gov>

>Subject: Bottled Water

>

>Does anyone have any comments or experiences using bottled spring water for

>brewing. How does it compare and are there any obvious advantages or

>disadvantages (other than cost).

According to some brewers, your city water is mostly fine for brewing.  You

may have to adjust it slightly to make it friendly for brewing, but other

then that, city water should be OK.  We can all thank COORS for portraying

the image that pure Rocky Mountain water is the key to making smooth beer.

This isn't the case at all, but, many people believe it is.

>Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 14:50:53 PDT

>From: Robert Pulliam <Robert_Pulliam@rand.org>

>Subject: Bottling Kegged Beer

>

>Greetings,

>

>  Just another quickie...  How does one go about bottling some of his/

>her brew that has been kegged?  Will I lose my fizz?  How/what does a

>counterpressure filler work/do?  Can I build my own?  Inquiring minds.

Well, one day I needed my keg and it was _almost_ empty, so i figured, what

the heck, i'll bottle the balance of it.  I sanitized by bottles in a bleach

solution, sanitized the caps by boiling them, pulled my keg from the fridge,

hooked up the C02, and began filling bottles.  Capped 'em.  Chilled 'em.

No problems with carbonation - it was a little bit under carbonated, but that

was easily fixed by pouring the beer from about 6" away from the glass (a

rough pour, in other words).

JC FERGUSON

ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com

------------------------------


The Alcohols: rubbing, denatured, etc.

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 11:58:18 EDT

From: hpfcla.fc.hp.com!scr!sead.siemens.com!jm (Jeff Mizener)

Subject: The Alcohols: rubbing, denatured, etc.

I read this post and it didn't sound right to me:

 From: WEIX@swmed.edu

 Subject: Alcohols

 Hi all,

 IHTNPB (I Hate To Nit Pick But):

 Methanol=wood alcohol=denatured alcohol, but NOT rubbing alcohol.

 Rubbing alcohol is isopropanol(or 2-propanol).

So I asked my local research pharmacist, who provided me with the following

information:

==========================================================================

Ethanol - CH3-CH2OH - The good stuff - Distilled or fermented from sugar

 (cane, grain, grapes) - If ingested:  drunkeness

Methanol - CH3OH - Wood alcohol in common parlance - Distilled from wood

 pulp - If ingested:  blindness, death

Isopropanol - CH3-CHOH-CH3 - The usual contents of a bottle marked "Rubbing

 Alcohol" - Produced in petroleum cracking - If ingested:  headache,

 nausea, death (less toxic than methanol)

Denatured Alcohol - Ethanol that has had an ingredient added to make it

 unfit for human consumption (and therefore exempt from taxation);

 there are many formulae, examples follow:

 SDA 3A  = 100 gallons ethanol +  5 gallons methanol

 SDA 28  = 100 gallons ethanol + 10 gallons benzene

 SDA 28A = 100 gallons ethanol +  1 gallon  gasoline

 SDA 30  = 100 gallons ethanol + 10 gallons methanol

 The list is endless.  You can get your own formula approved by the

 Treasury Department (or as they say here in Tennessee, The Revenuers)

Hope this clears it up.

Kevin

==========================================================================

Das War's.

Jeff

=============================================================

Jeff Mizener / Siemens Energy & Automation / Raleigh NC

jm@sead.siemens.com / Intelligent SwitchGear Systems

=============================================================

PLEASE:  Reply to this address and not the one in the header.

------------------------------


Fermentation with no kreusen?

Date: 11 Aug 93 11:31:42 EDT

From: CHUCKM@PBN73.CV.COM

Subject: Fermentation with no kreusen?

Hello Brewers...

    Here's my problem, maybe someone can help.

    For 3 years I have done partial mashes and have just switched

to full mash (eg all grain, 3 batches). I mash in a picnic cooler with

a slotted pipe manifold. I boil in a homemade Bruheat-like bucket.

 Now, my problem....

         During fermentation I do not appear to get a kreusen. If I

do get one it comes and goes while I sleep because I never see it.

However, full fermentation takes place and the resulting beer tastes

ok but is much cloudier than I am used to. I have tried two different

strains of wyeast ....European ale and american ale... with the same

results.  My yeast starter had a nice kreusen but nothing in the

fermenter.  Can anyone shed some light on what might be going wrong?

Thanks in advance,

chuckm@pbn73.cv.com

------------------------------


murphy's in a can

Date: 11 Aug 1993  13:00 EDT

From: dab@cc.bellcore.com (dave ballard)

Subject: murphy's in a can

hey now-  at a place called the hog sty bay cafe on grand cayman i ordered

a murphy's stout and got a can that looked identical to a guinness pub

draught can!  it was tall and skinny and had directions about chilling,

opening, etc.  there was also a little logo thingy that proclaimed the

can to be murphy's "draughtflow system" with a patent pending.

has anyone else seen these cans?  it tasted fine, although i detected a

little more "canny" taste than guinness.  is this the same doohicky that

guniss uses or did murphy's invent/copy one of there own?

dab

------------------------------


RE: Water sterilization by filtration

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 10:25:10 -0600 (CST)

From: John Mare <cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: RE: Water sterilization by filtration

Mik asks about the efficacy of a 0.5 micron filter for sterilizing water.

You are right in assuming that most bacteria would be removed by such a

filter, BUT you also identified the problem with this approach, namely

"assuming the output side of the filter is sanitary". Do you have a means of

ensuring this? (not easy unless the whole setup is autoclavable or you have

an ethylene oxide sterilizer handy!). Even then some of the smaller bacteria

eg. mycoplasmas, chlamydia, etc. will pass a 0.5 micron filter. I have

cultured the very hot water from my tap and have not found bacteria. I

therefore use very hot tap water for rinsing, which is probably as safe as

the more expensive and cumbersome use of filtered water. John Mare.

------------------------------


Redhook Rye Beer

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 11:35 EDT

From: gcw@granjon.att.com

Subject: Redhook Rye Beer

Redhook's Rye Beer is unfiltered and made from 10% flaked organic rye,

5% Munich malt and the rest being 2-row Klages. Hops used are Mt. Hood

(bittering and aroma) and Yakima Hersbrucker (aroma). The rye taste does

not stand out, but you know there is something "else" in the beer

besides barley. The beer is light-medium weight is a refreshing summer

beer. This beer is part of Redhook's Blueline Program of limited release

beers. The 1993 rye beer evolved from a trail batch of rye beer brewed

for their 10th anniversary last year.

    Geoff W.

------------------------------


banned brews

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 13:39:26 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: banned brews

I'm sure it's a prime example of stupid, asinine, ridiculous, idiotic,

baseless, half-witted, nonsensical, pointless, typical liquor laws in

action.

------------------------------


keg -> bottle

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 10:50:18 PDT

From: nexgen!bart@olivea.ATC.Olivetti.Com (Bart Thielges)

Subject: keg -> bottle

[Robert Pulliam writes :]

>   Just another quickie...  How does one go about bottling some of his/

> her brew that has been kegged?

Robert :

I recently tried a simple minded method of rebottling.  The background

is that I haven't had good results from my keg and was worried about

losing an entire batch.  What I did was the following :

1) insure that keg was not pressurized.  In my case, the keg was leaking

 so no pressure had built up.

2) Mix in a some boiled corn sugar water.  Since the keg started with 2 1/2

 gallons, I only used 1/3 cup of corn sugar.

3) Siphon some of the beer into bottles.

4) cap bottles.  Repair keg.  reseal keg.

The theory is that the 2nd priming will provide enough carbonation for

the bottled beer and whatever was left in the keg.  This is done at a

potential risk of altering the flavor of what was originally an all malt

brew.  I've never seen anyone else describe this technique.  There might

be a reason why ;-)  Since the keg was leaking, I felt that I should

reprime anyway, and this made a good opportunity to experiment with

rebottling.

Unfortunately, I can't report yet on the results.  I did this just a few

days ago.  I'll try to remember to post the results next week.  At the same

time that I had originally 1/2 filled the keg, I put the other 2 1/5 gallons

into bottles.  Therefore, I have some "reference" bottles that were processed

in the normal way for comparison.  The rebottling was done about 3 days

after I had "kegged" (into a leaking vessel !! ^$*^&%*$)

Bart

(Brewing equipment destroyed this experiment : 0)

------------------------------


Redhook Summer Rye

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 10:44:00 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Redhook Summer Rye

I called the Redhook Brewery and spoke to Thomas Price, a very nice and

helpfull guy.  Sorry, Al, but there is no wheat malt in their Summer

Rye.  Here's the scoop:

10% flaked organic rye

 5% Munich

85% 2-row barley (probably Briess)

Mt. Hood  - bitter hops

Mt. Hood  - aroma hops

Yakima Hersbrucker - aroma hops

I'm heading for the Trollyman tonight to sample this brew.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


chili beer with flavor

Date: Wednesday, 11 August 93 13:50:29 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: chili beer with flavor

Howdy,

In HBD #1201, Don of Xerox & Jim Vahsen make suggestions for kegged chile

beer.  Don suggests Tabasco sauce, & Jim suggests habanero extract.  I would

suggest neither.  Tabasco sauce is not just pureed peppers; it also has

vinegar &, if memory serves me right, salt in it.  Plus, it would add little

to no real chili pepper flavor to the beer, which, to me, is half the point.

Habaneros are so spicy, that you would have to use so little that, again, you

would miss out on the chili pepper taste.  In fact, one big complaint about

habaneros in cooking is that no flavor comes through because the amount used

is so small.  If you're going for no flavor & straight spice, add some fresh

habaneros to the carboy when you start the fermenting process.  If you want

a good, clean pepper taste as well, & something that's not overpowering, I

would suggest adding whole fresh serranos or jalapenos, about 40-50, to the

carboy about one week before kegging.  I may be wrong, but that's how I would

do it.

Happy brewing,

Alan, Austin

------------------------------


post

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 13:31:36 PDT

From: Oh Noo- Mr.Bill <coxc@dpdmai.enet.dec.com>

Subject: post


Grolsch Bottles

Date: 11-Aug-1993

From: Bill Cox (COXC@DPDMAI.ENET.DEC.COM)

Subject: Grolsch Bottles

>I am preparing to bottle my third batch of HB, using swing-top

>"Grolsch")bottles for the second time.   The first time I used them, I

>replaced all therubber gaskets, as they were several years old and

>suspect.  I  boiled them at bottling time, i.e., I sanitized them

>seperately from the bottles.For this round of bottling, I  know the

>bottles are clean (of grunge), and don'tplan a TSP bath.  A good

>washing, then a chlorine soak,  then bottle.My question:  can I leave

>he rubber gaskets on the bottles during the chlorine soak?  Will  they

>absorb chlorine odor/taste?  Will they deteriorate?  Must Iremove

>them first, and boil them  seperately, as I did the first time?  Was

>that more than one question?

I have been bottling with Grolsch bottles(green) that I kept after

drinking the contents and Grolsch "look alikes"(brown) which I bought

at the local brew shop.  Several observations;

The grolsch bottles seem to have a better stainless steel tension wire.

The brown grolsch look alikes oxidize a bit in the dishwasher.

My younger brother claims that the beers he's sampled are better

carbonated using the brown bottles verses the real grolsch green bottles.

I'm still researching whether it's the brew or him talking ;)

I have done 4 brew batches using both green an brown bottles and have

had good luck with cleaning them - rinse bottles after emptying brew;

wash in the dishwasher with the other dishes (put them neck

down thru the slots in the rack-not neck in the pin holders, in the top

rack where the glasses go); store in boxes and sanitize with a bleach

solution (2-5oz./5 gal.) in a bottling bucket- 3 min. contact time just

before bottling; and bottle wash them with a Phil's bottle washer-

making sure to rinse the outside and cap too.  No chlorine taste or

smell- I would notice since the last two batches have been light

lagers.

I have not noticed deteriation-although I have lost a couple of  gaskets

in the dish washer.   I have replaced those.  Still using the original

gaskets that came with the bottles and they have been thru 4 brewings

and 7 washings.

Also, in cases where I have left a half opened brew in the refrig., the

remainder of the contents was carbonated and was very drinkable 5

days later.

- ---Mr. Bill---

------------------------------


Primary Fermentation

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 21:10:00 +0000

From: WHEATON_JOHN/HPBOI1_03@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com

Subject: Primary Fermentation

Item Subject: D:/MEMO/2NDARY.TXT

From: "Robert K. Toutkoushian" <TOUTKOUS@vx.cis.umn.edu>

Subject: Question about dry hopping

>From what I can gather, dry hopping usually involves

transferring the wort to a secondary fermenter, adding the additional hops

for a few days, and then transferring to something else for bottling.  I

guess that I could transfer the wort to my 2nd carboy and add the hops, but

w/o a lid I don't want to leave it sit around for any period of time exposed

to the air.  I guess I could always transfer it back to the primary

fermenter, but then I'd have to transfer it again for bottling. The other

option that I see is to transfer the wort to the 2nd carboy once the SG has

stabilized, add the hops, let it sit for an hour or two, and then bottle.

        Does anyone have any suggestions?....

Rob Toutkoushian

Rob,

Consider using only a primary fermentation and dry hopping after fermentation

nearly ceases, usually after 4-5 days depending on your temperature.  Dry hop

directly into the carboy and let sit for another 1-2 weeks.  This is all done

with an air lock.  I use hop pellets for dry hopping and they settle out real

nice before transfering to my keg or mixing carboy for bottling.  I have found

that the dry hopping aroma affect is much better in the fermenter vs in the

keg.  Just make sure you don't dry hop too early while the fermentation is

very active else you defeat the purpose as the CO2 seems to "scrub" out the

hop essence.

I and many other brewers in our area don't do a secondary but we also do full

boils, do a rapid chill down (15-20 min for 10 gal) and pitch a starter from

liquid yeasts.  I have cut my sediment in the fermenters by half by doing full

boils.

John in boise

------------------------------


Viability/bottled water/aroma hops/1 hoppy Belgian/"anaerobic" DUH!

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 13:51 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Viability/bottled water/aroma hops/1 hoppy Belgian/"anaerobic" DUH!

Bob writes:

>How does one test yeast viability? Do you stain, then dilute, then estimate

>at the fraction of the yeast that are stained (the bad ones) while viewing

>at low magnification? Please, someone explain this technique to me in detail.

George Fix describes the procedure in the 1992 AHA National Conference

Proceedings.  From memory, you seem to have the procedure about right,

but I must defer to the proceedings for details.

>It was one whole day before I had a beer after returning from Portland! The

>best beer I had in Portland was a beer called "Mirror Pond" from Deschutes.

I *saw* Mirror Pond, hand-pumped at the Red Door just down the street from

Red Hook Ale Brewery in Seattle.  Alas, they had just switched to a new

keg and the beer was pouring cloudy, so they were not serving it while I

was there.  I'll make sure to seek it out next time!

*******************************

John writes:

>Does anyone have any comments or experiences using bottled spring water for

>brewing. How does it compare and are there any obvious advantages or

>disadvantages (other than cost).

If your tapwater tastes good and is not too hard, there's no reason to resort

to using bottled water.  If your water is just too hard for some styles, then

you can blend it with distilled water (also available from your bottled

water people).  You should be able to get an analysis of the bottled water

so you can see what it has and doesn't have in terms of minerals.  There

was an issue of Zymurgy that had a few articles on water which desipte a

few minor errors was quite good.  You can use the main article in that

issue to adjust your water to the style of beer you wish to brew.  Note

that you will have to account for whatever minerals are already in your

water.

*************************

Michael writes:

>second batch of beer is good!  I made a Pale Ale using Northwestern

>Gold extract, Wyeast (American Ale), Cluster hop pellets (the homebrew

>store's suggestion), and Ozone spring water.

>  Hot break:  After the water/malt had heated for 25 minutes, it began

>changing from very cloudy to egg-drop-soupy.  After 45 mintues it

>reached a fast boil and I then added 3/4'ths (1.5 oz.) of the hops.

>  Aroma hops:  After another 30 minutes, I added the last 0.5 oz. and

A 30 minute boil will boil-off any aromatics your hops might have added.

Actually, since you used Clusters, you are probably lucky you did.  Clusters

are not considered an aroma hop, but everyone's taste is different.  If

you want hop flavor, add some hops with 15 minutes left in the boil (anything

longer will boil off the flavoring).  If you want hop aroma, add some hops

with 1-5 minutes left in the boil or you can dryhop.  Dryhopping gives you

a lot more aroma per ounce of hops than adding the same amount to the

boiling wort.  I recommend using hops that are generally regarded as aroma

hops for the flavor and the aroma.  The classic Pilsner hop is Saaz, but

Tettnanger is a relatively close approximation.  For German-style aroma hops,

Hallertauer Mittelfruh (the best, but in very scarce supply), other types

Hallertauer ("Tradition" I believe is one), Hersbrucker, Mt. Hood and

Liberty (the last two being American varieties intended to duplicate

Hallertauer Mittelfruh).  English-style aroma bops include East Kent

Goldings (my personal favorite), Fuggles (a little rougher), Willamette

(an American Fuggle relative) and Styrian Goldings (actually Fuggles, but

grown in Slovenia).  The classic American-style hop is the Cascade, with

it's faint grapefruit aroma, it has become the signature of the nose in

several American microbrewed beers, such as Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

Some say that all boiling hops are equal, but I disagree.  Some of the

higher-alpha hops (Chinook, for example), even in the boil, will give a

harsh bitterness.  It appears to me that with some lower-alpha hops you

can't overbitter with them!  Two that I've found with which it is next

to impossible to make an undrinkably bitter beer are East Kent Goldings

and Cascades.  I've already posted about Thom Thomlinson's 135 IBU IPA,

which was made with Cascades: super-bitter, but very drinkable -- YUM!

*****************************

Jeff writes:

>First of all, this is a bizarre recipe, given that Belgian Ales (in all

>their utter complexity and diversity) are known for a near-total lack of

>hop aroma.  So, forget it this time.

Lest we forget Orval, with it's wonderful E.K.Goldings/Hallertauer aroma,

*when* *fresh*.  True, however, hoppy-nosed beers are very rare among Belgian

brewers.

***********************************

I wrote:

>Molds are aerobic.  Luckily, yeasts are anerobic.  You can put your petri

Duh!  What I meant was, that molds need oxygen, yeasts CAN live without it.

Al.

------------------------------


Grain to Extract Conversion

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 21:30:45 EDT

From: weintrau@vs2.uh.cwru.edu

Subject: Grain to Extract Conversion

I am about to create my first all-grain beer with a friend who has made

quite a few all grain beers before.  He has, however, left the recipe to me.

I would very much like to duplicate a favorite Stout recipe of mine, but I do

not know how to make the conversion between an extract recipe and a grain

recipe.

Here is the Stout recipe I want to convert, mostly taken from CP's Toad Spit

Stout:

 Grendel's Stout

3/4 lb crushed british crystal

6 oz. crushed black patent malt

6 oz. crushed roasted barley

3 lbs Munton and Fison dried dark malt extract

4 lbs Mountmellick Famous Irish Stout hopped extract

3 oz. Northern Brewers Hops (3 * 7.0 = 21 AAU) (boil)

1 oz. Fuggles hops (4.3 AAU) (aroma)

1 tsp irish moss

1 pkg Burton Salts

1 pkg EDME Ale Yeast

(Ingredients for 5 gallons)

Water was brought to a boil with all of the grains in a grain bag, steeping.

The grains were removed a bit before the boil began.  At the start of boil,

the extracts were added.

The Northern Brewers was added at three different points in the hour long boil

with the last ounce added 20 min before the end of the boil.  The fuggles was

added over the last five minutes.

OG 1.052

FG 1.022

I would also like to switch to a liquid yeast but would like to keep the

relatively low attenuation of the EDME.

If you have any suggestions, please let me know by direct e-mail, as I

may not have time to look through the HBD between now and when we brew on

Saturday.

Thanks in advance...

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

|  LIFT ME UP AND TURN ME OVER     |  Thanks...                             |

|  LEAD ME ON INTO THE DAWN        |           --The Bug.                   |

|  TAKE ME TO THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN |   (Scott Weintraub/sfw@po.cwru.edu)    |

|  TIE ME UP, LOVE IN A STORM      | ...Truth, Temperance and Tolerance...  |

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


factor, schmactor

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 20:02 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: factor, schmactor

I don't use the "pts/lb/gal" method of calculating efficiency.

Never have, never will.  It's a totally unfriendly method and I

wouldn't be at all surprised if it was devised by some long-dead,

neo-prohibitionist math teacher who is having the last laugh.

I prefer the method of "% Efficiency".  I like it so much that I

wrote a program called the Beer Recipe Formulator and rendered it

unto the masses so that they could revel in it's perfection as I

do.  It runs on MS-DOS 3.2 or higher and requires 640K and a

monochrome monitor.  The software is available via ftp at mthvax.

If you don't know what ftp means (I know I don't) and you have a

computer with a modem, you can download it from a number of sites:

     HBU BBS (708) 705-7263

     Maltose Falcons BBS (818) 342-0530

to name a few.  The version on HBU BBS has the most recent data

files.  The latest version release is 1.1 but 2.0 is coming soon to

a theatre near you.

Did I hear someone say "shameless plug"?  You betcha.

Did I hear someone else say "shareware"?  Yup.

chris campanelli

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1202, 08/12/93

*************************************

-------


Re: murphy's in a can

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 13:26:31 +0000

From: G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk (Geoff Cooper)

Subject: Re: murphy's in a can

dab@cc.bellcore.com (dave ballard) writes

>hey now-  at a place called the hog sty bay cafe on grand cayman i ordered

>murphy's stout and got a can that looked identical to a guinness pub

>draught can!  it was tall and skinny and had directions about chilling,

>opening, etc.  there was also a little logo thingy that proclaimed the

>can to be murphy's "draughtflow system" with a patent pending.

>

>has anyone else seen these cans?  it tasted fine, although i detected a

>little more "canny" taste than guinness.  is this the same doohicky that

>guniss uses or did murphy's invent/copy one of there own?

There are 3 different dohicky systems now patented and used in the UK for

draught beer in a can. The Guinness system has been described here before.

The "draughtflow" system is owned by Whitbread and, for example, is used by

them in Boddingtons. I don't know the commercial relationship 'twixt Murphy's

and Whitbreads.

The draughtflow system has a larger capsule containing pressurised N2. The

'lid' of the capsule contains a tiny hole (in the middle) which is closed,

whilst the can remains under pressure, by the end of a 'peg' protruding from

the centre of the 'base' of the capsule (the 'base' being the opposite side

to the 'lid'). As the can is opened, its pressure drops, the N2 in the capsule

expands thus flexing the lid away from the peg and thereby opening the tiny

hole through which most of the N2 now passes. Hey presto!

If this is the system in Murphy's, there is an interesting demonstration you

might attempt. The nature of the system is such that not all the N2 escapes

and the capsule is still under slight pressure. Identify which is the lid by

locating the hole. Using a suitable implement (eg the edge of a coin) gently

prise the lid off the body of the capsule. With a 'pop' the lid will fly

across the room. OF COURSE be careful about 'flying object'

And if you are the type that hasn't any common sense and sue at the drop of

hat, don't do it, or don't bother sueing - the UK civil laws are different

from the US. :-)

Geoff

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Geoff Cooper                   Phone:  +44 71 975 5178

Computing Services             Fax:    +44 71 775 3221

QMW                            e-mail: G.A.Cooper@uk.ac.qmw

Mile End Road

London, E1 4NS

------------------------------


Zymurgy Light Beer Request

Date: 12 Aug 1993 20:43:51 -0600

From: "Manning, Martin P" <manning#m#_martin_p@mcst.ae.ge.com>

Subject: Zymurgy Light Beer Request

I was just this morning thinking that no one had responded to the posting by

Elizabeth Gold requesting information on amateur-brewed light beer. Today Dick

Dunn did the unthinkable - he asked WHY?

------------------------------


Culturing yeast from bottled beers

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 15:07:09 +0200

From: dejonge@tekserv.geof.ruu.nl (Marc de Jonge)

Subject: Culturing yeast from bottled beers

Recently I came across some interesting statistics of

the 1990 and 1991 open championships for amateur brewers

,organised by "de Roerstok" in tilburg.

They have published a booklet with a lot of information

on the homebrew entered in this competition.

Since questions pop up every now and again about

culturing yeast from bottles, I will summarize a nice

table from this (without permision, so destroy this before

you read it):

The #1 field indicates the total number of entries, #2 is the

number that scored over 6.4 (assuming that these are succesful

attempts), the score is the average score on a scale of

0[Yech]-10[Yum] for the 'over 6.4' beers

(Not quite sure if Yech and Yum are SI units or Imperial)

Beer/brewer     #1  #2  Score

- --------------------------------

Achouffe        3   2   7.5

Arcener tarwe   2   1   6.5

Brugs Tarwe     9   2   7.1

Brugse Tripel   2   2   7.4

Chimay         16   7   7.7

Christoffel     1   1   6.8

Corsendonk      3   2   8.0

Dentergems Wit  2   2   6.9

Dommelsch       3   1   6.6

Drie Ringen     2   1   6.5

Duvel           2   1   6.6

Erdinger Weisse 2   2   6.9

HertogJan Tripel7   3   7.6

Hoegaarden      9   4   7.5

La Trappe       4   3   7.7

Lowenbrau weiss 1   1   7.0

MacChouffe      1   1   8.5

Oerbier         1   1   7.7

Rochefort       1   1   6.6

Schneider       1   1   8.6

Verboden Vrucht 3   3   6.9

Westmalle       9   6   6.9

West Vleteren   5   4   7.6

Wieckse witte   1   1   7.3

Note 1: The fact that a certain yeast gives a good score does

not mean that it is the original brewing yeast of the beer.

For some of the above I'm almost certain that a bottling strain

has been cultured; but then, if it tastes good who cares ?

Note 2: Of the top 12 of 1991 only two beers were brewed with

cultured yeast (Chimay and West Vleteren).

Marc de Jonge (dejonge@geof.ruu.nl)

------------------------------


Re: water filters -- a data point

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 09:36:43 EDT

From: hpfcla.fc.hp.com!scr!sead.siemens.com!jm (Jeff Mizener)

Subject: Re: water filters -- a data point

I have been using a T-10 carbon filter on the cold water line

in my kitchen for 3 years now.  I replace the filter every 6 months

or so.  I extract/adjunct brew and sanitize with bleach.  I rinse

and brew with water out of the tap that has been filtered.  I have

yet to have an infection.  I boil about 2 gallons and top up to five

with water out of the tap.  Searching about madly for a piece of

wood upon which to knock, I say that there has never been a problem

with this method.

The reasoning is that the water coming into the filter and surrounding

the filter on the inlet side is sanitized.  I flush the filter out

by letting the water run for a minute before using it for anything

critical, and bacteria never have a chance to take hold.

I got mine from American Brewmaster and paid less for it (and it's

a big under-sink filter) than something cheaper-looking at the hardware

super-store.

Cheers,  Jeff Mizener

+------------------------------------+

|  Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc. |

|  Somewhere near Lizard Lick, NC    |

|     jm@sead.siemens.com            |

+------------------------------------+

------------------------------


S. cerevisiae & S. delbrueckii

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 14:41:52 +0000

From: G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk (Geoff Cooper)

Subject: S. cerevisiae & S. delbrueckii

There's been a little discussion about the 'correct' name of this yeast. I

know little about the technicallities, but I can add a few more 'facts'. (I

like facts 'cos they can cause such good arguments)

When I first saw reference to S. delbrueckii (yes I first came across it on

HBD), I checked my catalogue from the AFRC National Collection of Yeast

Cultures (NCYC) and found that no such yeast was listed, so I was a bit

confused. My confusion was relieved when I located a couple of yeasts that

had been originally deposited under the name S. delbrueckii, but now were

classified with a different name.

I found S. cerevisiae strain number 92, deposited in 1933 by A.C.Chapman,

original deposit name S. delbrueckii, NCTC 3964. (NCTC = National Collection

of Type Cultures, Collindale). There was no ATCC number. So I concluded that

the S. delbrueckii were really just strains of S.cerevisiae, but that (home)

brewers used the term S. delbrueckii as a convenient 'handle' by which they

could refer to a particular strain (or strains).

I also found Torulaspora delbueckii (perfect form of Candida colliculosa)

with 10 strains listed, all of which had been originaly deposited under a

different name (I was amused by S.inconspicuous.  NRRL Y-7435). One of these,

number 408, had been deposited as S delbueckii var mongolicus.

I think I shall stick with my first assumption, which corresponds nearest to

that of Jim Busch. Perhaps because it gives me a warmer feeling :-). That is,

S. delbrueckii might not be the correct name, but when we use it, we refer to

those yeasts, now considered strains of S. cerevisiae that have particular

properties of interest to us; namely they make good wheat beer.

OK. So that contains a few more facts; what's the truth?

Geoff (who cares about the truth if it makes good beer) Cooper

------------------------------


Petes

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 09:57:10 -0400

From: Rich Ryan <ryancr@install4.swin.oasis.gtegsc.com>

Subject: Petes

> I saw this recipe in the cats meow 2. Can anyone suggest how

> I would convert this to an extract recipe.

Pete's Wicked Clone

      Source:   Richard Stern (rstern@col.hp.com)

                 10/16/92

       Ingredients:

                 8-9 pounds, pale malt

                 1 pound, crystal malt

                 1/4 pound, chocolate malt mash at 155F

                 1/2 ounce, Cascade (60 min boil)

                 1/4 ounce, Chinook (60 min boil)

                 1/2 ounce, Cascade (10 min finish)

                 Wyeast #1056

       Procedure:

       Mash malts at 155 F. Add 1/2 ounce Cascade and 1/4  ounce of Chinook for

       boil. Use 1/2 ounce Cascade to finish.

       Comments:

       I've requested a recipe for Pete's Wicked Ale, but nobody sent one, so I

       guess I'm going to  have to wing  it. This recipe  is based on  the GABF

       program, which says " Pete's has: pale, crystal and chocolate malts, and

       Chinook and Cascade hops. OG: 14P" (Isn't that 1.056?)

       Pete's is pretty malty with a low hop bitterness and  aroma. I think the

       malt combination should  be ok, as  long as I  get enough body  from the

       155F mash temperature.

> Rich Ryan

> Chantilly, VA

> ryancr@swin.oasis.gtegsc.com

------------------------------


Re: Mini Kegs and Briess DME

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 10:18:01 EDT

From: hmcook@boe00.minc.umd.edu (Hardy M. Cook)

Subject: Re: Mini Kegs and Briess DME

Subject: Mini Kegs

I bought, use, and like the 5 liter mini kegs.  Some stores sell imported.

commercial beer in these kegs.  These can be reused if you have a tapper

like the one that comes with the Brew Ha Ha offer and DO NOT use the method

recommended with the purchase.

I too had foaming problems until the found the secret of the tapper.  Once

the pressure gets low, add only a little bit more of CO2 and then turn the

CO2 back to the off position; in other words, don't keep the CO2 pressure

on -- after a few seconds, turn it off and proceed.

Subject: Q: Briess DME

After reading Dr. Raines's posting on HBD concerning contaminated Briess DME,

I wonder if there is a way to identify "bad" lots.  I recently purchased from

Brewers Resource 25 lbs of Briess, Brewers Gold DME.  I first brewed with it

only a few days ago, but I brewed a Trippel with 10 lbs of the Briess.

I would really hate to find out in four months that I brewed with

the contaminated lot.

Hardy M. Cook

HMCook@boe00,minc.umd.edu

------------------------------


Murphy's in cans

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 07:18:33 PDT

From: 12-Aug-1993 1015 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Murphy's in cans

>Date: 11 Aug 1993  13:00 EDT

>From: dab@cc.bellcore.com (dave ballard)

>Subject: murphy's in a can

[...]

>has anyone else seen these cans?  it tasted fine, although i detected a

>little more "canny" taste than guinness.  is this the same doohicky that

>guniss uses or did murphy's invent/copy one of there own?

Yup, sure have seen 'em and I have perhaps 1 or 2 left in my closet.  When

I went to Ireland last year (Oct '92), I grabbed a couple of 4-packs to

bring home w/ me.  When I first sampled it, i thought it was better then

guinness in a can.  Pretty much the same design as guinness, as far as i

can tell.

I've had guinness in a can that one can buy in the states.  the ones i brought

back from ireland, imo, we better tasting then the cans bought in the states.

unscientific datapoint, fwiw! :-).

jc ferguson

------------------------------


To Secondary or not to Secondary

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 09:21:58 -0500 (CDT)

From: cush@msc.edu

Subject: To Secondary or not to Secondary

In HBD1202 John in Boise writes that he and many brewers in his area

do not use a secondary fermentation.

I know this has been discussed several times, but I thought I would throw

in my $.02.  For quite a while I did not do a secondary fermentation:

I fermented in primary for about a week, then bottled.  The result was

beer that primed very quickly, but seemed to have a slight but harsh

flavor undertone.  The bottles also had a fair amount of yeast sediment.

I came to wonder if the harse undertone was a result of yeast autolysis.

I then tried shifting to doing a one-week primary fermentation, followed

by a one-week secondary fermentation.  The secondary step is actually more

of a rest to allow yeast to settle and thus be separated from the brew.

After bottling, the result is brew that primes more slowly, but throws less

yeast sediment.  That harse undertone also appears to be gone, and the

beer is noticeably smoother.

My conclusion: the settling of yeast that occurs in secondary produces a

smoother brew than a single-step fermentation gives.  You can make

a drinkable beer faster using just a primary, but I amusing a secondary

settling step from now on....

- --

 > Cushing Hamlen   | cush@msc.edu

 > Minnesota Supercomputer Center, Inc. | 612/337-3505

------------------------------


re: sanitation 'criticism'

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 10:41:48 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: re: sanitation 'criticism'

>>Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 09:09:40 EDT

>>From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

>>Subject: Re: Sanitation

>>

>>In HBD1200 Al Korzonas writes:

>>

>>>In Marybeth Raines' article on Sanitation, it's a real shame that she

>>>failed to mention iodophor and a recently new sanitizing agent, marketed

>>>under the name "One Step," which is peroxide-based and comes in powder

>>>form.  I would have been very interested in her recommended contact times

>>>for iodophor and OneStep.  (....stuff deleted)

>>

>>While we're still giving out constructive criticism of Maribeth

>>Raines' article in Brewing Techniques on Sanitation, there was

 Well, while we're being 'constructive', I'll add my 2 cents.

 I sent her email about not mentioning B-Brite, which I had acquired

 from my local homebrew shop and later realized was not labelled with

 a 'dosage' recommendation.

 She replied that she didnt know the 'dosage', but would call the

 manufacturer. She did, and replied to me in about 2 hours via email.

 Kudos,

 jim

------------------------------


chipotle

Date: Thursday, 12 August 93 09:31:12 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: chipotle

Howdy,

In HBD #1202, Tom mentions how chipotles may be too spicy for beer.  This was

not the problem with the beer I discussed in #1201.  One of the two bottles

was too spicy; the other was quite tolerable in terms of spiciness.  My

warning is against putting the chipotle pepper directly into the bottle with

the beer.  The results were inconsistent & made an otherwise good beer

undrinkable.  Chipotles themselves, in terms of overall chili pepper spiciness,

are about mid-spicy, according to the measuring technique known as the

Scoville units.  Bell peppers rank low, like around 10, jalapenos (& by

extention, chipotles) are around 2500-5000, serranos around 5000-7000, and

habaneros around 3 billion (my figures may be a little off).  Please don't

get me wrong;  chipotles will hurt you if you just pop one into your mouth.

I'm just saying that if the spiciness of serranos can be controlled, then

the spiciness of chipotles can be controled.

Mexicali Rogue sounds like good stuff.  Any idea how the make it?

Happy brewing,

Alan, Austin (where there's a Tex-Mex restaraunt on every corner)

------------------------------


Grolsch bottles

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 10:35:26 EDT

From: Jim McManus <jjm@Think.COM>

Subject: Grolsch bottles

Mr Cox and Bill were talking about Grolsch bottles and sanitation of them

along with a few other things.

I have been using a mixture of Grolsch, Fischer Amber and regular bottles

with about every batch.  I use the Grolsch and Fischer bottles for myself

and the regular bottles go to friends.  :-)

Anyways, all I do is soak all the bottles in the tub with a good amount of

bleach for an hour, rinse them, and bottle.  Nothing fancy.  I haven't had

a problem yet (10+ batches).  Also, keep in mind, the bottles I get are

from a Package Store that my roomate works at so I'd consider these worst

case type of bottles.

As far as carbonation goes, I notice 0% difference from bottle to bottle.

I keep all my bottle together in the dark, so I wouldn't expect a

difference.  There might be a difference if you had all the bottles exposed

to light I guess.

The bottles are great to use if you can find them.  It beats the heck out

of capping.

jjm

------------------------------


RE: Weihenstephan #68 source

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 10:53:27 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: Weihenstephan #68 source

Hi All,

  In HBD#1202, chuckm@pbn73.cv.com wrote:

>I've a few questions regarding weissbier yeast.

>2. dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma) in hbd 1201

>writes that there is a difference in the pre and post 1992

>versions of this yeast. How do I know which one I get?

  I've received a few similar inquiries via private email, so I thought

I'd post and reassure all concerned.

  The information I have is that the yeast that did not perform well is no

longer commercially distributed.  After about one year, it simply stopped

producing spicy, phenolic flavor characteristics, so it was replaced with

another strain quite some time ago.

  I obtained the older, non-performing strain from the yeast bank of a local

homebrew club, where it had apparently been stocked for a long time.  What

added to the confusion was that a member of this club, who is a mutual

acquaintance of Jim Busch and myself, had a weizen yeast that he listed as

"W66".  The two different numbers, in addition to the disparate performance,

contributed to the false perception that there were two different strains

in circulation.

  I've exchanged email with Jim on this issue, and he's assured me that the

strain currently being distributed as Weihenstephan #68 is displaying

considerably greater staying power than it's predecessor.  Having brewed a

few batches with it, I can personally vouch that this is a great weizen

yeast, and recommend it without reservation.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


Re: Aeration

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 09:29:12 -0600

From: Jason Goldman <jason@gibson.sde.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Aeration


Aeration

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 08:54 CDT

>From:

Subject: Aeration

arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling) writes:

>  Last week I put together an aquarium pump type aerator for the weekend batch

>  to see what all the excitement was about myself.

>

>  After following Miller's procedure, I found that the commencement of

>  fermentation was, if anything, later than it would have been using my

>  standard procedure of simply squirting the wort into the fermenter.

 ...

>

>  The idea of getting fermentation started in "3 to 8 hours" was enough to

>  tweek my interest but I believe I fell into another trap created by

>  non-critical writing; viz., he failed to mention whether he was talking about

>  ale or lager and the fermentation temperature.

>

>  I can only now presume that he was talking about ale yeast at room temp and

>  my entheusiasm has fallen an order of magnitude.

I use the aquarium pump idea in conjunction with my normal methods of

aeration.  I've tried this for numerous batches of ale and one batch of

lager.  My normal aeration method is to splash the beer while siphoning

it into my carboy and periodically stopping the siphon and shaking the

carboy vigorously.  I noticed a slight improvement in lag times for all

of the batches.

Lag time is controlled by a lot of variables.  Pitching volume (and what

stage the pitched yeast are in) probably has a greater effect on lag time

than the aquarium pump.

BTW, I would expect that Miller was almost certainly talking about ale

yeast in his 3-8 hours figure.

Jason

jason@gibson.sde.hp.com

------------------------------


Blackberry Mead

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 14:03:09 -0700

From: drew@eskimo.com (Andrew Cluley)

Subject: Blackberry Mead

 Doew anyone have a good recipe for Blackberry Mead?

E-mail me direct.  Thanks.

                   Drew Cluley  > Seattle Wa. drew@eskimo.com

------------------------------


Re: Water, Chiles

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 9:38:51 MDT

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Water, Chiles

> ...city water should be OK.  We can all thank COORS for portraying

> the image that pure Rocky Mountain water is the key to making smooth beer.

> This isn't the case at all, but, many people believe it is.

Certainly the water is only a small part of what goes into a fine beer,

but the importance of a good water source (especially for large

commercial breweries) can't be underestimated.  I think one of the

reasons that the Pacific Northwest and Colorado have become large

brewing centers *is* for the water -- it simplifies things greatly if

you can just use the city supply.  Water here in Fort Collins is great

right out of the tap; I don't have to pre-boil or add minerals or

anything.

Some slight drift here...

> Habaneros are so spicy, that you would have to use so little that,

> again, you would miss out on the chili pepper taste.  In fact, one big

> complaint about habaneros in cooking is that no flavor comes through

> because the amount used is so small.

And it's a crying shame, too.  Habaneros (also known as Scotch Bonnets)

have a wonderfully fragrant, sweet aroma that complements food, and

probably beer, very well.  Does anyone know of "de-capsiacin-ized"

habaneros or habanero essence without the fierce burn?  Where's the

chile-pepper mailing list?  Why is there a rec.food.sourdough but no

rec.food.chiles?  Thank goodness we have HBD and rec.crafts.brewing.

- --

Jeff "you ought to see my hot sauce collection" Benjamin

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


recipe formulation - relax!

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 09:18:03 -0700

From: tims@ssl.Berkeley.Edu

Subject: recipe formulation - relax!

To the person who was worried about "wasting" 10 - 15 gallons

as they "perfected" a recipe:  My plan for formulating

a recipe is to find one of a similar style, either all-grain

or extract based, and copy its proportions of pounds of

grain or pounds of extract to hops (IBU's).  Add any other

ingredients in the proportions you think, being on the gentle

side (better to underdo than overdo).  I have used this

philosophy for perhaps 15 batches, and have always had very

drinkable results.  I don't worry that "it doesn't taste

exactly like Bass," because I don't care that much - if it

is a well-made beer, they taste great.

As always, R,DW, HAHB!  Cheers,

Tim Sasseen

------------------------------


The Tumbleweed Report (Part 4)

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 12:19:39 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>

Subject: The Tumbleweed Report (Part 4)

Having covered the equipment we're using at Tumbleweed, now I'm really

going to bare my soul concerning the brewing procedures, ingredients,

and recipe decisions we faced.  I find this part particularly interesting

because here is where we found it necessary to scrap ideas that had been

cast in stone for us as homebrewers.  All sorts of factors caused us to

rethink basic procedures.  Clearly, our main concerns were the change in

scale and the economics of trying to make money.  It's funny how money (or

the lack thereof) can influence decisions!

Ingredients and Materials:

The biggest question was whether we were going to continue with the extract

beers Tumbleweed was brewing with and brewing, in all honesty, rather

poorly.  Should we go all-grain?  Or bear down on producing a decent

extract beer?

Since I've been brewng all-grain beers for 12 years, I thought long and

hard about the feasibility of all-grain brewing in 40 or 60 gallon batches.

To go that route we would have had to design an awfully big insulated mash

tun.  We would have had to worry about the ever changing mineral content of

the town water we were using.  We had to worry about where to store and

grind the grain in an already overcrowded space.  As if this wasn't

daunting enough, we would be looking at 12 hour brewing days.  With my

teaching duties at ASU and the demands of operating BrewCo, I frankly

didn't have that kind of time.

So we decided to brew with extracts.  Since this was, in some sense a

"cheat", we figured we'd cut no corners on the rest of the process.  We

would use pure yeast cultures, fresh hops, specialty grain infusions, and

filter our water.

Extracts were appealing because (1) storage was easy (we already had a

walk-in cooler), (2) it cut our brewing day down to 6-8 hours, and (3) we

could count on a certain stability in the malt product and didn't have to

worry about the variability in the quality of grain and the headache of

wrestling with our water.   We had enough to worry about already so far as

redesigning the equipment and getting used to brewing on a larger scale was

concerned.  Later, after we got all these factors under control, we figured we

could consider the move to all-grain.

The decision to brew with extracts still bothers me.  I could see myself

making excuses (like I'm doing now) to my brewing buddies and my newly

acquired peers in the commercial brewing world.  But this was no time

to be dogmatic.  Instead we had to be realistic about the physical brewing

environment and the market we were trying to crack.  I've had enough bad

all-grain beers to know that the decision to go all-grain was not going to

ensure a high quality product.  And I've had enough outstanding extract

beers to know that it *is* possible to brew a decent beer using extracts.

Technique is everything.  We inherited some pretty sorry ingredients when

Burton and I signed on.  The extracts were old and stale.  The hops were

pelletized and God knows how well they were stored before we got them.

Still we brewed with what we had and the difference between what we brewed

and what was brewed before was noticed by all.  The quality improved even

more once we started getting fresh malt, fresher hops, and instituted the

hop back.

Regarding our market, we had to be realistic about what the common drinking

public was going to expect from us.  We figured they wanted a beer that was

a huge cut above Budmiller.  No problem.  But I didn't really expect them

to come in and be disappointed if they weren't drinking beers comparable to

a Pilsner Urquell, a Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout, or a Liberty Ale.

Neither did we expect, nor have we found, very many beer drinkers that are

going to get down to the level of criticism that we have come to expect

from ourselves and our fellow homebrewers.  So, what the hell, we resigned

ourselves to the conclusion that the extracts, though unlikely to produce

that godalmighty awesome beer we all dream about, would allow us to turn

out a fairly reliable, quality beer that would be as good or better than

anything the average guy ever drank out of a bottle and would impress 99%

of the people who walked through our door.

And they have.  Most of the homebrewers who come into Tumbleweed are

surprised to learn they're drinking an extract beer.

We started out using Premier's 100% malt extract.  It comes to us in 5

gallon pails and is as clean as a whistle.  So far we've found that it

doesn't attenuate below 1.012.  The color is not as light as Alexander's,

which we've just began experimenting with.  The Alexander's is very light

in color and attenuates to below 1.010.

Our present feeling is to use the Alexander's on our lighter beers and

stay with the Premier for our heavier ales when we want the higher terminal

gravities.  We like the idea of using two extracts because this gives us

some diversity in the different beers we brew.  We're also playing with

Briess at the moment but the results aren't in as yet.  If we find that

they all produce clean beers then we'll play around with mixing them

together for single batches to add even more complexity to the malt side of

the flavor profiles.

Of course, these aren't just straight extract beers.  We only buy light

malt extract and depend on specialty grain infusions/steepings as the water

comes to a boil to add grain character to the beer.  Nothing new here.

1000's of homebrewers have been doing this for years.

(To be continued)

- ---------------------------------------------------------------

  Kinney Baughman                 |  Beer is my business and

  baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu  |  I'm late for work.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Re: Red Hook's Malt

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 10:05:29 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: Red Hook's Malt

Domenick Venezia writes:

>

> I called the Redhook Brewery and spoke to Thomas Price, a very nice and

> helpfull guy.  Sorry, Al, but there is no wheat malt in their Summer

> Rye.  Here's the scoop:

>

> 10% flaked organic rye

>  5% Munich

> 85% 2-row barley (probably Briess)

                    ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^

Given that the Red Hook Brewery is within 175 miles of Great Western's

Vancouver, WA plant (and in the same state), this seems bizarre if not

completely unlikely.  As far as I've been able to determine over the

years, virtually every west coast brewery gets their base malt fm GW.

Even if the quality of their malt wasn't the question, surely shipping

rates would be.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


Open letter to Zymurgy

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 09:16:17 -0700 (PDT)

From: jal@plaza.ds.adp.com (Jim Larsen)

Subject: Open letter to Zymurgy

The following item, in response to Elizabeth Gold's request for light

beer recipes, bounced on its way to her Compuserve address.

> Elizabeth,

>

> Do you propose publishing in Zymurgy beer recipes which you have neither

> tried nor even tasted?

>

> This is not the sort of responsible journalism that would keep Zymurgy

> at the fore of the homebrewing industry.

>

> Jim

>

>

>

>

------------------------------


Tannic verses

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 11:28:12 MST

From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

Subject: Tannic verses

I was wondering if anyone out there can give me some advice

about treating my water for brewing. Our water here in Phoenix is very

hard and very alkaline, (pH ~ 8).  As I recall, the hardness number is

about 250 (ppm?) and the alkalinity is about 170.

I tried my first partial mash a few weeks ago, tasted the results last night,

and it is OK, but had noticeable tannic astringency.  I recall hearing that

the pH of the sparge water has a strong effect on tannin extraction during

sparging.

For the record, I kept the sparge water at or below 168 deg F, and I had

to cut the sparging short because another user needed the kitchen resources.

The initial runnings were > 1.080, final > 1.020.

TIA for your help.

Joel Birkeland

Motorola SPS

birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com

------------------------------


Rapid chilldowns after boiling

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 07:58:48 -0400 (EDT)

From: GONTAREK@JHUVMS.HCF.JHU.EDU

Subject: Rapid chilldowns after boiling

Hi all!  I've been a homebrewer for about a year now, and since I live in a

small apartment, I can only brew from extracts and partial grain recipes.

A few days ago, I saw a brief post on the HBD where someone said NOT to

dump a boiling hot wort into a carboy filled with cold water.  Why not?

I know Papazian says to do this, and while I would not jump off a bridge

if he told me to, I had never heard otherwise (I am a new subscriber to HBD).

My brews have all been quite good (if I don't say so myself), so I don't

know what the problem is with doing this.  Please, someone, set me straight.

I'd like to get the facts.

Thanks in advance,

Gontarek@jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu

Rick Gontarek

Dept. of Biology

Johns Hopkins Univ.

------------------------------


Re: Recipe Formulation

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 12:19:38 PDT

From: TAN1%SysEng%DCPP@cts27.comp.pge.com

Subject: Re: Recipe Formulation

John Montgomery writes in HBD 1202

>Should I just "waste" 10 - 15 gallons of brew for each style until I get

it just the way I want it or is there some publication that offers

particulars of and suggestions for recipe formulation?

If beer the is drinkable it is never a waste (obvious but worth

mentioning!).  The 1991 Special Styles issue of Zymurgy has a wealth of

information concerning styles.  The Cat's Meow here on the net also has

literally hundreds of recipes classified by style, although not as tightly

classified as the Zymurgy issue. Most issues of Zymurgy also have the style

guidelines describing the characteristics of a style for competition entry.

 There are also many books which have specific recipes included, the

Winners Circle comes to mind offhand, but there are several.

As a final tidbit there are also computer programs which can help you

formulate recipes to duplicate styles. My program, the Brewer's Workshop,

has the style definitions from Zymurgy built in and calculates gravity,

bitterness and color so you can match those characteristics of a particular

style.  Please note that there are other programs that do the same thing, I

am not trying to make this a commercial. People tend to get very touchy on

the net when they smell advertising.

I would recommend starting with the styles issue and working from there.

There were also two good articles in the first issue of Brewing Techniques,

one by Darryl Richman on recipe formulation and another article on recipe

formulation using a spreadsheet.  Hope this gets you started in the right

direction.  Prosit!

Tom Nelson

------------------------------


Irish Moss revisited

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 8:21:33 PDT

From: gbaldw@zaphod.usin.com (Gordon Baldwin)

Subject: Irish Moss revisited

Going back to an earlier discussion about using higher ammounts of Irish

Moss, I have a data point. I brewed last weekend and I upped my IM rate

from 1 teaspoon to 1 Tablespoon per 5 gallon batch. After racking to the

secondary the beer is already a lot clearer. The interesting thing was

the sediment in the bottom of the primary. I use a plastic bucket for

the primary and ususlly the sludge in the bottom is a slurry of hop

particles and other small particle precipitate. Kind of a loose mud

consistancy. With the higher rate of IM it had more the consistancy of

large flake oatmeal. It had large chunks of what I think is protien. I

will be interested in the difference in body. I won't be able to do a

direct comparison as my kegs should be arriving today and the bottles

are going to the recycler. Unless there is someone in the Olympia WA

area that wants 4 cases of well used bottles (I am keeping a couple

cases)

Gordon Baldwin

gbaldw@usin.com

------------------------------


Re: Chiller conversion

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 12:49:07 -0700

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Re: Chiller conversion

>  Actually, one of my ideas was to convert to a chiller (I can't come up

>  with a descriptive name) in which there is one coil sitting in a

>  bucket of sorts.  The bucket contains cold water, maybe ice water, and

>  the coil contains the wort.  The cooling liquid could, probably should

>  be flowing in/out.  The wort would be siphoned through the coil,

>  cooling it.  Stoelting makes something like this for several hundred

>  dollars, which I refuse to pay.  Anyone done this?  Anything I should

>  be aware of?

Norm,

  I did this, and you can have it if you want it.  I am building a

true counterflow chiller tonight. I had to run _huge_ amounts of water

through the damn thing to get sufficient cooling, and that's not PC

out here in drought land.  I put 50' of 3/8" od? copper tubing in a 5

gallon bucket, and attached garden hose fittings to the bucket as

well.  When I tried to attach a hose to the outflow to use the water

in the garden, the top of the bucket kept popping off, if I used

enough cold water flow to chill the wort enough.

         Drew Lynch

  Chronologic Simulation, Los Altos, Ca.

     (415)965-3312 x18

    drew@chronologic.com

------------------------------


Kegged Chili-Beer

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 16:15:18 EDT

From: lanbrew@aol.com

Subject: Kegged Chili-Beer

I have done quite a few chili-beers in the past, including one on draft.

Here's how:

I used 5 ounces of serrano and jalapeno peppers in the last 15 minutes of the

boil.  The peppers were halved and seeded.  Since the batch size was 10

gallons, the heat and flavor from the chilis was very subtle.  My partner

bottled his half and I kegged mine.

Desiring more chili character, I decided to "dry-chili" the brew.  Using a

muslin hop bag and a generic zip-tie, I contained  approx. 1 ounce of dry

whole peppers and 1 ounce of serrano peppers (fresh) halved and seeded.  I

boiled the whole works for about 5 minutes to sanitize and threw it into the

keg.  The beer had already been carbonated and was chilled.

Within three days the brew went from mild to hot, with incredible complexity

and depth.  I opened the keg and removed the bag 'o' chili, re-sealed the keg

and purged the O2.

Afterward, I noticed two things:

1)  The beer did not become tainted one bit in the four months I had it on

tap, so the process, although unorthodox, resulted in no obvious flaws.

2)  Within a week of "dry-chiling" the beer fell brilliantly clear.  Hmm. . .

Overall, a very good experience and I'll try it again.

Lanny

------------------------------


fermenting a lager

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 10:29:43 EDT

From: pacasey@lexmark.com (Patrick Casey)

Subject: fermenting a lager

Is there any way to ferment a lager without using a refridgerator and

one of the fancy thermostats?  For example, what's wrong with shoving

the carboy into the normal fridge?  Does the temperature fluctuate too

much?  Or does the thermal mass of 5 gallons of beer buffer this

temperature change sufficiently?

Thanks!

 - Patrick

Patrick A. Casey      pacasey@lexmark.com

------------------------------


Hot pepper sauce

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 17:21:07 EDT

From: "John R. Calen - Contacting Systems - E.F., N.Y" <calen@vnet.IBM.COM>

Subject: Hot pepper sauce

I've been following the recent thread about hot pepper sauce in brews.

Please forgive me if this has been posted before. The hot pepper sauce itself

is fermented. This is what I remember from a documentary about Tabasco Sauce.

The red peppers, presumably red chiles, are macerated and comprise the

mash. They ferment in wood barrels under a layer of salt which is about

an inch thick.

Particulars are a trade secret, as such I don't know them. The yeast,

any additives, i.e. sugar, and type of wood I'd have to guess.

This all happens on an island in Louisiana, so I'd assume that it's a

rather warm ferment.

The stuff sits for about three years, after which the salt is removed,

the barrel emptied and the mash is infused with vinegar. The whole

magilla is then pressed and bottled.

If you've got some gallon bottles around, a bunch of peppers, and lots of

patience, why not give it a shot? (How's mine? What, are you kidding?)

Regards,

John R. Calen -- calen@vnet.ibm.com (All disclaimers apply)

------------------------------


Re: extraction rates/Klages

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 16:43 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: extraction rates/Klages

RBSWEENEY writes:

>I put together the following list of maximum extraction rates for grains based

>on some information obtained from a few extremely charitable HBD subscribers

>and from Dave Miller's book Brewing the World's Great Beers.  There are two

>numbers listed for a few of the grain due to source discrepancies (Miller's

>figures are in lower caps) and I was wondering if someone with more knowledge

>than myself about such matters would lend a hand and tell me the *right* number

>to use.  Thanks.

<snip>

>MALT EXTRACT (DRY)      45      ?

>MALT EXTRACT (SYRUP)    35      ?

<snip>

The snag is that each manufacturer's extracts have very different numbers.

I've found less variability in dry extracts, but syrups I've used go all

the way from 35 up to 40.

LAGER 2-ROW     35      1.7

LAGER 6-ROW     31      1.7

PALE ALE        36      3

PILS 2-ROW      35      1.2

Again, potential varies by maltster and the condition of the malt when

you get it.  Are there a lot of different malts available to us homebrewers?

You bet:  DeWolf-Cosyns, Crisp Maris Otter, Ayinger, Briess, Great Western,

Minnesota Malting, Gambrinus, Munton & Fison, Golden Promise (not just yet,

but I'm working on it -- it's the malt used by Caledonian Brewing Co. to

make what's marketed in the US as McAndrew's Scotch Ale), Canada Malting...

just to name a few.

Since we're on the subject of malt, I'd like to mention that Klages is no

longer grown commercially.  It's replacement is Harrington.  After a few

years, barley tends to lose it's disease resistance and the growers switch

to a new strain.  Currently, like I said, it's Harrington.  If your retailer

is really selling you Klages, then it's very, very old.  Alas, even the

wholesalers don't really understand this too well and some still contend

that they are wholesaling Klages, so it may not be your retailer's fault,

then again, shouldn't he/she know these kinds of things?  On the bright side,

there's no doubt on the pronounciation of Harrington ;^).

Al.

------------------------------


First Batch

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 19:06:57 -0400 (EDT)

From: CCAMDEN@delphi.com

Subject: First Batch

  Hello to everyone.  I am new here and have read a couple of issues of

the HBD and I plan on checking out back issues.

  This is very timely for me, as I plan on starting my first batch of

homebrew this weekend.  Are there any suggestions that anyone would like to

make to me regarding this first attempt?

  I have read the Papazian book, have assembled my supplies and equipment,

and read the book.  I feel like I am ready.

  I will be making a Nut Brown Ale with a Muntons kit.

  I've noticed some discussion here and at rec.craft.homebrew about chilling

the wort.  Should I be concerned about this? (Although I have made mental

plans to accomplish it if I have to.)

  Any advice that anyone has will be welcomed.

  I am excited, and I'm trying hard to relax, not worry and look forward to

having a homebrew.

Cary Camden  ***Imagine a witty phrase here***

------------------------------


Tabasco pepper question

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 20:42:27 -0400 (EDT)

From: kj <kj@world.std.com>

Subject: Tabasco pepper question

Hi!

As a fan of *hot* food, I've been enjoying the discussion about

using chili peppers in beer.  I love Tabasco(R) sauce, and I was

wondering if anyone knew what kind of pepper is used to make it?

The ingredient list is as follows: Vinegar, Red Pepper and Salt.

I'd like to use those peppers to make a chili beer.  I have access

to the official Tabasco(R) cookbook, but it doesn't identify the

pepper type either. :-(  Any ideas?  kj.

kj -Somewhere in the Terran system

Internet: kj@world.std.com

------------------------------


Home Brew Competition

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 20:52:05 EDT

From: brewerbob@aol.com

Subject: Home Brew Competition

To: All Home Brewers

>From BrewerBob@aol.com

Subj: Homebrew competition

Press Release:

The Northeast Florida Society of Brewers, in conjuction with The Hogtown

Brewer of Gainesville, FL and The Home Brewery of Brooksville, FL, announces

it's 1st Annual First Coast Brewer's Challenge, an AHA sanctioned homebrew

competition open to all home brewers. Entry deadline is October 29, 1993,

with final judging to be held on November 7, 1993. Beer styles for this

competition are Pale Ale and Stout. Fee is $6.00 per entry. First prize will

include $50.00 in beer related merchandize, second prize will include $20.00

in merchandize. Three bottles of beer will be required for each entry.

For information, contest rules and entry forms, contact Bob Gammie (904)

241-8879 (RobertG211@aol.com), Chuck Cummins (904) 292-2166, or Joe Bryant

(904) 399-3367 (Prodigy BPNS42A) or write to: Brewer's Challenge, 354

Magnolia Street, Atlantic Beach, FL  32233.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1203, 08/13/93

*************************************

-------


Stainless Steel Pot

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 22:14:01 -0400

From: patterso@mason1.gmu.edu (F. G. Patterson Jr.)

Subject: Stainless Steel Pot

Last year (the year before?) there was a discussion of the best

place to buy a SS Pot.  Has anyone bought one recently of good

quality for a good price?  I will appreciate a recommendation of

a supplier.

Pat Patterson

Fairfax, Virginia

------------------------------


Re: Chiller Conversion

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 08:25:33 EDT

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: Re: Chiller Conversion

In HBD1202 Norm asks

>  Actually, one of my ideas was to convert to a chiller (I can't come up

>  with a descriptive name) in which there is one coil sitting in a

>  bucket of sorts.  The bucket contains cold water, maybe ice water, and

>  the coil contains the wort.  The cooling liquid could, probably should

>  be flowing in/out.  The wort would be siphoned through the coil,

>  cooling it.  Stoelting makes something like this for several hundred

>  dollars, which I refuse to pay.  Anyone done this?  Anything I should

>  be aware of?

and Drew Lynch responded

>Norm,

>  I did this, and you can have it if you want it.  I am building a

>true counterflow chiller tonight. I had to run _huge_ amounts of water

>through the damn thing to get sufficient cooling, and that's not PC

>out here in drought land.  I put 50' of 3/8" od? copper tubing in a 5

>gallon bucket, and attached garden hose fittings to the bucket as

>well.  When I tried to attach a hose to the outflow to use the water

>in the garden, the top of the bucket kept popping off, if I used

>enough cold water flow to chill the wort enough.

A slight modification of Drew's idea can work very well.

First, I needed an immersion in ice chiller not because of a small

kettle opening but because our tap water in the summer is 80 deg.

F.  What I use (in the summer) is a large plastic bucket (they sell

them at the Price Club for storing toys for about $7 and hold about

20 gallons).  Drill a hole near the bottom so that a flexible

siphon hose can fit snugly (without leaking too much).  This hose

will be connected inside the tub to the copper coil carrying the

wort and outside to your carboy.   Fill the tub with a few gallons

of water and you'll need about 5 gallons of ice (about 45 pounds)

to chill 5 gallons of boiling wort to about 60 deg F.  With a

little more ice and stirring the ice water in the tub you can

get your wort down to 50 degrees F in 15 - 20 minutes (for lagers).

One problem with this procedure is the amount of ice needed.  You

could use less if you first chilled the wort using an immersion (in

hot wort) chiller using tap water and then running it through the

immersion in ice chiller.  (I've done this for my last two batches

and also noticed Rick Garvin has done this when he described his

award winning old ale recipe).  Another

problem with this setup is starting the siphon through the copper

coil.  I found it was too difficult to begin by simply sucking,

which is why I attach the flexible hose coming out of the tub to

a small copper racking cane which fits snugly into one of the holes

on the carboy cap.  Through the other hole I use a hand pump to

begin the siphon.  (Of course you wouldn't have this problem if you

had a spigot at the bottom of your kettle.)

Hope this helps.

Bill Szymczak

bszymcz@ulysses.nswc.navy.mil

------------------------------


Re: Tabasco pepper question

Date:  Fri, 13 Aug 1993 05:56:44 PDT

From: wegeng.xkeys@xerox.com

Subject: Re: Tabasco pepper question

kj says:

>As a fan of *hot* food, I've been enjoying the discussion about

>using chili peppers in beer.  I love Tabasco(R) sauce, and I was

>wondering if anyone knew what kind of pepper is used to make it?

We`re getting off the subject of homebrewing, but since someone may want to

brew some tabasco beer...

Tabasco(tm) sauce is made using tabasco peppers.  There are at least two

varieties, but I`m not sure which variety is used to make the sauce.  The

Tabasco Country Store (a mailorder catalog from the Tabasco sauce people) sells

a "kit" for growing the peppers.  I`ve also seen the seeds in the Tomato

Grower`s Supply Co. catalog (and a catalog from a California supplier: the

Redwood City Seed Company or something like that).  I`ve grown them here in New

York state, and they are *very* hot.

/Don

wegeng.xkeys@xerox.com

------------------------------


Re: Water and mineral content (hardness)

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 08:56 EDT

From: smc@hotsc.att.com

Subject: Re: Water and mineral content (hardness)

> Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com> writes:

>

> Certainly the water is only a small part of what goes into a fine beer,

> but the importance of a good water source (especially for large

> commercial breweries) can't be underestimated...

We are moving into a new house with a well and water softener.  The

water tastes *slightly* salty, (but it maybe that's because I was

expecting it to taste salty), and is clean and clear and free of any

bacteria (at least from our lab test).

A few questions:

 1.  Where is the best place to get a water hardness analysis?

 2.  Given the above info, is there a target for hardness?

     I understand that different beer styles usually call for

     different mineral content.

 3.  Are there better methods for water softening than

     the standard salt method (sodium/calcium exchange)?

I'm an extract brewer (for now), if that helps.

Thanks,

Steve Casagrande

smc@hotsc.att.com

------------------------------


Mexicali Rogue/chipotles

Date: 13 Aug 93 08:58:45 EDT

From: Robin Garr <76702.764@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: Mexicali Rogue/chipotles

In HB1203, Alan in Austin (where there's a Tex-Mex restaurant on every

corner) asks about the procedure Rogue Brewery uses to make its

chipotle-flavored Mexicali Rogue Ale.

I asked the Rogue folks that question at last year's GABF and didn't get a

totally forthcoming answer, but the short of it is, they "dry pepper" with

chipotles in the secondary. How many? "Not too many." How long? "Not very

long." It really is great stuff, and goes ever so well with Tex-Mex and other

spicy stuff. It's starting to turn up here and there around the U.S. in 22-

ounce bottles. I found some at Carlo Russo's World of Wine & Spirits in Fort

Lee, N.J., the other day.

Say hello to Evita's Salsitas for me, Alan. I love that place ...

Robin Garr      |  "I have enjoyed great health at a great age because

Associate Sysop |  every day since I can remember I have consumed a bottle

CompuServe      |  of wine except when I have not felt well.  Then I have

Wine/Beer Forum |  consumed two bottles."  -- A Bishop of Seville

76702.764@compuserve.com                                   rgarr@panix.com

------------------------------


Re: Zymurgy

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 9:42:03 EDT"

From: card@apollo.hp.com

Subject: Re: Zymurgy

I think we should lighten up a bit here regarding Elizabeth Gold's

request for light beer recipe's. Give her a chance and at least

read the article before condemning her. Personally, I'm flattered that

she respects our opinions.

/Mal Card

------------------------------


Malta & "Malzbier"

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 10:21:52 EDT

From: pgs@ai.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)

Subject: Malta & "Malzbier"

    Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1993 14:11:48 -0400 (EDT)

    From: FARMERM@mcl.saic.com

    Subject: Prescription for Brew (ref. Domenick Venzia)

                    In response to Domenick Venezia's question about a

            prescription for beer. Yes, My wife's grandmother, who

            lives in South America, was prescribed a dark beer w/ a

            raw egg everyday. The dark beer in South America is

            different, however. The refer to it as "malta" and has no

            alcohol in it, its just used for cooking. What the purpose

            of this is, I'm sorry I can't say.

I grew up in Puerto Rico, where "malta" was a popular drink for

children, in the way that root beer is here.  I never heard of it

being used in cooking, though.  I'm not sure what the brewing process

is, but malta is available here in the Boston area at major

supermarkets (like Star Market) in the section where they sell

Hispanic foods.  I think the ingredients on the variety I bought

recently were barley, hops, molasses, and water.

I've had it recently, and it's really quite sweet, with just a little

hop bitterness and no hop nose.  The molasses and malt tastes can be

readily distinguished.  It is dark brown or black, with a lot of body,

and forms a brown head that was not retained very long in the brand I

tried.  It's drinkable, if you're in the mood for something very

sweet.

When I was growing up, malta was brewed by a number of major brewers

who distributed in Puerto Rico.  Two Puerto Rican breweries were

"India" and "Corona" (distinct, to my knowledge, from the Mexican

brewer of the same name); they both sold undistinguished (and

indistinguishable) pilseners, and also Malta India and Malta Corona.

But some non-local brewers sold a malta product, as well.  In

particular, I remember that Rheingold sold a "Malta Rheingold," and

there may have been a "Malta Amstel," although I'm not sure; but it

must be admitted that there was no "Malta Miller" or "Malta Budweiser"

(although both of these beers were popular on the island).

Sometimes children would mix malta with milk when drinking it.  Some

people would even go so far as to mix this already very sweet and

heavy drink with sweetened condensed milk (I swear I did not make this

up).  What I find interesting is that, while malta was popular with

some adults, none of the brewers on the island ever seemed to realize

that this might mean that there would be a market for a darker,

sweeter, heavier beer for adults, in addition to the watery pilseners

that they sold.

Close to ten years ago, I did have such a beer that was in fact brewed

in Latin America.  I was doing some consulting in Sao Paulo, where two

of the more popular brands of beer were called "Antarctica" and

"Brahma."  It seemed that most of the beer sold by these brewers was

(the ubiquitous and undistinguished) pilsener, but they also sold a

black beer that they called "Malzbier," pronounced as it would be in

German.  These "Malzbiers" were typically sold in 22-ounce bottles,

and, if memory serves, tasted sort of like a highly sweetened

Doppelbock.  The popular claim was that "Malzbier" was rich in

vitamins and minerals, and thus this beer was recommended to pregnant

women (I suppose fetal alcohol syndrome wasn't so well-documented then

as it is now).  People would often mix a sort of black and tan from a

bottle of "Malzbier" and a pilsener, but I never saw an attempt to

keep the layers separate, as seems to be the practice when mixing a

stout and an ale.

There is a Brazilian beer sold in the United States that is a similar

to these beers -- it's called "Xingu," and I'm sure that a lot of

people reading the HBD will be familiar with it.  However, it is a

little different, in that it isn't nearly as sweet as I remember

"Malzbier" being.

Which brings up a question -- was "Malzbier" indeed what I suspect, a

local mutant style derived from Doppelbock by sweetening or possibly

brewing with an unattentuative yeast, or is such an extremely sweet

black beer known in other parts of the world?  I'd be interested in

hearing about similar styles.

 -P.

------------------------------


Tannic verses

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 09:00:10 -0700 (MST)

From: Cisco <FRANCISCO@lan.ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: Tannic verses

> From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

> Subject: Tannic verses

>

>

> I was wondering if anyone out there can give me some advice

> about treating my water for brewing. Our water here in Phoenix is very

> hard and very alkaline, (pH ~ 8).  As I recall, the hardness number is

> about 250 (ppm?) and the alkalinity is about 170.

>

> I tried my first partial mash a few weeks ago, tasted the results last night,

> and it is OK, but had noticeable tannic astringency.  I recall hearing that

> the pH of the sparge water has a strong effect on tannin extraction during

> sparging.

I brew all grain English style ales here in Tucson which has almost

identical water to Phoenix - it's wonderfull for ales! When I sparge

I add one teaspoon of lactic acid to reduce the PH for sparging. I

just can't seem to remember what it drops the PH to at the moment but

I used the info I got from Miller's book. I noticed that when I

started using lactic acid to reduce my PH for sparging that any tannic

astringency was now gone and the most importantly my extraction rate

improved. Remember not to over sparge because you can still extract

tannins even if you adjust the PH.

John

Francisco@lan.ccit.arizona.edu

------------------------------


Lite, Aeration

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 11:34 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Lite, Aeration

 >From: "Manning, Martin P" <manning#m#_martin_p@mcst.ae.ge.com>

 >I was just this morning thinking that no one had responded to the posting by

 Elizabeth Gold requesting information on amateur-brewed light beer. Today Dick

 Dunn did the unthinkable - he asked WHY?

 I suspect most of us who did respond, did so via email for obvious reasons.

 However, I see no reason not to share my two cents with the Digest so here is

 what I told her, more or less.....

 >Subject: Light Beer for zymurgy

 First of all, please do not dismiss this as a joke.  It is serious and in the

 final analysis, more or less what the commercial brewers do.

 To make a "lite" beer, one makes ones favorite beer and at bottling time,

 simply add an appropriate amount of "brewing water", prime and bottle or keg

 and carbonate as usual.

 "Brewing water" is defined as boiled and cooled or otherwise de-oxygenated

 and sterile water.

 To make a "lite" beer to style, it should be a Pilsner type beer but in the

 generic notion of a lite beer, i.e., lower calories, lower alcohol and easy

 drinkability, any beer can be used.

 I have used as high as a 50:50 ratio of beer to water to produce very nice

 "lawn mower" beer.   I would suggest starting at one gallon in a five gallon

 batch and working up to one's liking.

 As outrageous as this seems to homebrewers, there obviously are people out

 there who like lite and we might as well know how to make it.  I would also

 point out that "lightened" homebrew, if made from a good beer, will out-taste

 the commercial stuff by a mile.

 ..........

 I then pointed out that I developed this process in conjunction with my

 experiments with NA and included my NA process for her edification.

 >From: Jason Goldman <jason@gibson.sde.hp.com>

 >Lag time is controlled by a lot of variables.  Pitching volume (and what

 stage the pitched yeast are in) probably has a greater effect on lag time

 than the aquarium pump.

 That is why I designed my experiment to include only one variable; viz.,

 aeration.   Should be ready for Monday's Digest.

 >BTW, I would expect that Miller was almost certainly talking about ale

 yeast in his 3-8 hours figure.

 Gotta be as I have not heard anyone yet make any such claims for lager since

 posting my comments.

 >From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

 >Subject: Tannic Verses  [cute]

 >I was wondering if anyone out there can give me some advice

 about treating my water for brewing. Our water here in Phoenix is very

 hard and very alkaline, (pH ~ 8).  As I recall, the hardness number is

 about 250 (ppm?) and the alkalinity is about 170.

 >I tried my first partial mash a few weeks ago, tasted the results last

 night, and it is OK, but had noticeable tannic astringency.  I recall hearing

 that the pH of the sparge water has a strong effect on tannin extraction

 during sparging.

 I think we need to turn the Ayatola loose on those who continue to scare

 people about the pH of the sparge water.

 You may indeed have a problem but you can not assume this unless you actually

 do a mash.  My water also has a pH of around 8 but as soon as I dough in the

 malt, it drops below 6.

 As you are making extract beer and sparging adjuncts grains this could

 present different problems but it's worth looking into anyway.

 In any case, mix some malt into your water and check the pH before and after

 before concluding that you need to do something about.

 In an all grain beer, the mash can buffer out the high pH of a lot of sparge

 water without increasing the pH of the runnoff more than a few tenths of a

 point.

 The important thing is to run through your whole process before messing with

 the water.

 >For the record, I kept the sparge water at or below 168 deg F, and I had

 to cut the sparging short because another user needed the kitchen resources.

 The initial runnings were > 1.080, final > 1.020.

 You threw away a lot of beer.

 >From: pacasey@lexmark.com (Patrick Casey)

 >Subject: fermenting a lager

 >Is there any way to ferment a lager without using a refridgerator and

 one of the fancy thermostats?  For example, what's wrong with shoving

 the carboy into the normal fridge?

 Nothing.  Other than the fact that most people can't spare the space in the

 kitchen fridge for the time it take to make a lager.  If you have a spare and

 a carboy fits, you'er in business.

 js

------------------------------


Yeast FAQ

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 13:16:54 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: Yeast FAQ

   Hi to all in HBD land.  I have received several requests both to post the

information that I collected on yeast and to make a Yeast FAQ. I will have to

divide the information into several chunks to post to the HBD.  Almost all of

this data was plagerized from somewhere by me or others; however, I have not

knowingly used any copyrighted stuff. (I was very careful *not* to check

anything for a copyright ;-).)  I have altered the focus of some documents to

more accurately reflect what I feel to be the interests of the *home*brewer.

Some of the information is very basic; some, more technical.  I have tried to

give a basic introduction to what yeast are, how they affect beer taste, and the

proper handling of yeast.

   Some portions of the following were taken from the Wyeast information

circular mailed to me by David Adams; the sections pertaining to yeast culturing

are adapted from an upcoming book by Dr. Fix.  Dr. Fix also provided the section

on the proper method of yeast rehydration.  The information on the "reputations"

of the many yeast strains was collected from the HBD over the years by Doug

O'Brien. Many thanks to David Adams, Dr. George Fix, and Doug O'Brien for

providing me with almost all the materials used to write this summary. Others

are thanked for their contributions where appropriate.  My name is Patrick Weix,

and I am a graduate student in the Genetics and Development program at UT

Southwestern at Dallas. I hope you find this document useful. I would appreciate

any comments and criticisms of a contructive nature before I submit this to

the homebrew archives at sierra.stanford.edu.

   This document is composed of rampant hearsay and rumor. Any attempts to pin

anything on me or my co-conspiritors will be resisted. If all else fails I will

call your boss and ask him why you are reading the HBD at work instead of

grinding out the Fitzsimmons contract. What do they pay you for anyway? Don't

you have anything better to do?...

============================================================================

------------------------------


Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 13:17:24 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject:

SECTION II: Yeast Profiles

Part 1: Dry Ale Yeast

  Ales (Saccharomyces cerevisiae)

 Coopers Ale Yeast

  Good to very good reputation.  The Coopers is quite

  fruity fermented at 65F.  It's not phenolic at all and

  all the flavour is a very clean fruitiness.

 Glenbrew Special Ale Yeast

  Specially designed for use in "all malt" beers.  Contains

  a special enzyme to obtain extremely low terminal

  gravities.

 Doric Ale Yeast

  Ok to very good reputation.

 Edme Ale Yeast

  Starts quick.  Produces some fruity esters.  Attenuative.

  Good reputation

 Lallemand Nottingham Yeast

  This yeast is remarkable for its high degree of

  flocculation.  It settles out very quickly and firmly.

  Very good reputation.  Very fast to create a krausen and

  needed blowoff tube 6 hours after pitching hydrated

  yeast. Quick fermentation at 62F.  It's very clean and

  only very slightly fruity in the keg, but tastes/smells

  nutty in the bottled version.  Nottingham appears to be

  relatively attenuative (more so than the Coopers).

 Lallemand Windsor Yeast

  Produces a beer which is clean and well balanced.

  This yeast produces an ale which is estery to both palate

  and nose with a slight fresh yeast flavour.  Very good

  reputation.  Not a quick as the Nottingham.  Not

  attenuative.  Definite banana smell at racking.

 Munton-Fison Ale Yeast

  Starts quick.  Produces some fruity esters. Attenuative.

  Phenolic taste.  Fair to good reputation.

 Red Star Ale Yeast

  This brand had a very bad reputation in the past,

  and for a while production was suspended. A different

  strain (AHY 43391) was selected by the company and is now being

  sold as Red Star Ale Yeast. The new strain is much

  improved! Reports from Dr. Fix, a brewer's yeast

  consultant, suggest that this is an excellent general

  purpose ale yeast with a clean taste.

  Apparent attenuation 76-78%.

 Whitbread Ale Yeast

  Fast starter.  Distribution switch[ed][ing] to Crosby and

  Baker with [evidently] a change in the yeast.  Very good

  reputation despite past quality problems.

Part 2: Liquid Ale Yeast

------------------------------


Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 13:17:45 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject:

Part 2: Liquid Ale Yeast

 WYeast 1007 German Ale Yeast

  Ferments dry and crisp leaving a complex yet mild

  flavour.  Produces an extremely rocky head and ferments

  well down to 55 deg. F (12 deg. C).  Flocculation is high

  and apparent attenuation is 73-77%.  Optimum fermentation

  temperature: 62 deg. F (17 deg. C).  A good balance of

  sweetness and tartness, with a pronounced green-apple

  note.  A very pleasing yeast.

 WYeast 1024 Belgian Ale Yeast

  Banana estery flavour.  With both clove-like phenolics

  and alcohol spice, the Belgian will tell you right away

  that it's no ordinary yeast.  Tartness often develops

  over time.  Ferment warm or with inadequate aeration and

  you're likely to get a bubblegum-like note.  Intended for

  abbey beers, and works very well for that.  And,

  depending on the wort composition, *lots* of banana

  notes.

 WYeast 1028 London Ale Yeast

  Rich minerally profile, bold woody slight diacetyl

  production.  Medium flocculation.  Apparent attenuation

  73-77%.  Optimum fermentation temperature: 68 deg. F (20

  deg. C).  Complex, woody, tart, with strong mineral

  notes, this one will bite you horribly if you over-hop or

  if your water is high in carbonates.  If you avoid that

  Scylla and Charybdis, it produces ales of marvellous

  complexity and sophistication.  Most of the time you'll

  wish you'd used 1098 or 1056.  Had best results in

  porters.  Over-hopping is especially bad, but if you

  throttle the hops back, the results are indeed

  marvellous.  Used this yeast in a Kolsch once, and it was

  *fantastic*  The wood and mineral notes fused with the

  Hallertauer hops (which were used with some restraint),

  and a couple of months of cool ageing brought out some

  green apple in the aroma as well as the pallette.  It

  tasted a good bit hoppier than it really was, and overall

  was well-balanced and smooth.

 WYeast 1056 American/Chico Ale Yeast

  Ferments dry, finishes soft, smooth and clean, and is

  very well balanced.  Flocculation is low to medium.

  Apparent attenuation 73-77%.  Optimum fermentation

  temperature: 68 deg. F (20 deg. C). The cleanest of the

  bunch, but mutation-prone.  This is Sierra Nevada's

  yeast.  Probably the best available all-around yeast,

  this strain can be used for anything, without

  embarrassment.

 WYeast 1084 Irish Ale Yeast

  Slight residual diacetyl is great for stouts.  It is

  clean smooth, soft and full bodied.  Medium flocculation

  and apparent attenuation of 71-75%.  Optimum fermentation

  temperature: 68 deg. F (20 deg. C).  Soft, round, malty;

  the least attenuative of the Wyeast line.  Very nice for

  any cold-weather ale, at its best in stouts and Scots

  bitters.

 WYeast 1098 British Ale Yeast

  Ale yeast from Whitbread.  Ferments dry and crisp,

  slightly tart and well balanced.  Ferments well down to

  55 deg. F (12 deg. C).  Medium flocculation, apparent

  attenuation 73-75%.  Optimum fermentation temperature: 70

  deg. F (21 deg. C).  Tart, crisp, clean.  Great in pale

  ales and bitters, good in porters.

 WYeast 1338 European Ale Yeast

  Ale yeast from Wissenschaftliche in Munich.  A full

  bodied complex strain finishes very malty.  Produces a

  dense rocky head during fermentation.  High flocculation,

  apparent attenuation 67-71%.  Optimum fermentation

  temperature: 70 deg. F (21 deg. C).  It's clean and

  malty, especially well suited to Altbier.

 Yeast Lab A01 Australian Ale Yeast

  This all purpose strain produces a very complex woody and

  flavourful beer.  Australian origin.  Medium attenuation,

  medium flocculation.  Great for Brown Ales and Porters.

 Yeast Lab A02 American Ale Yeast

  This clean strain produces a very fruity aroma, with soft

  and smooth flavour when fermented cool.  Medium

  attenuation and low flocculation.  This is an all purpose

  ale yeast.

 Yeast Lab A03 London Ale Yeast

  Classic Pale Ale strain, very dry.  A powdery yeast with

  a hint of diacetyl and rich minerally profile, crisp and

  clean.  Medium attenuation and medium flocculation.

 Yeast Lab A04 British Ale Yeast

  This strain produces a great light bodied ale, excellent

  for Pale Ales and Brown Ales, with a complex estery

  flavour.  Ferments dry with a sharp finish.  Medium

  attenuation and medium flocculation.

 Yeast Lab A05 Irish Ale Yeast

  This top fermenting strain is ideal for Stouts and

  Porters.  Slightly acidic, with a hint of butterscotch in

  the finish, soft and full bodied.  Medium attenuation,

  high flocculation.

 Yeast Lab A06 Dusseldorf Ale Yeast

  German Altbier yeast strain finishes with full body,

  complex flavour and spicy sweetness.  Medium attenuation,

  high flocculation.

 Yeast Lab A07 Canadian Ale Yeast

  This strain produces a light bodied, clean and flavourful

  beer, very fruity when fermented cool.  High attenuation,

  medium flocculation.  Good for light and cream ales.

 Yeast Lab A08 Trappist Ale Yeast

  This is a typical Trappist strain, producing a malty

  flavour with a balance of fruity, phenolic overtones when

  fermented warm.  Alcohol tolerant, high attenuation and

  high flocculation.

------------------------------


Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 13:17:57 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject:

Part 3: Lager Yeast (Saccharomyces uvarum)

  Dry Lager Yeast:(generally not recommend--tend to be inconsistent)

  Liquid Lager Yeast: Much preferred over dry types!

 WYeast 2007 Pilsen Lager Yeast

  Our original Lager Yeast Strain.  Specific for pilsner

  style beers.  Known as many things, we call it Pilsen.

  Ferments dry, crisp, clean and light.  Medium

  flocculation. Apparent attenuation from 71-75%.  Optimum

  fermentation temperature: 52 deg. F (11 deg. C).

 WYeast 2035 American Lager Yeast

  American Lager Yeast.  Unlike American pilsner styles.

  It is bold, complex and woody. Produces slight diacetyl.

  Medium flocculation, apparent attenuation 73-77%.

  Optimum fermentation temperature: 50 deg. F (10 deg. C).

 WYeast 2042 Danish Lager Yeast

  Danish Yeast Strain.  Rich, yet crisp and dry.  Soft,

  light profile which accentuates hop characteristics.

  Flocculation is low, apparent attenuation is 73-77%.

  Optimum fermentation temperature: 48 deg. F (9 deg. C).

 WYeast 2112 California Lager Yeast

  Warm fermenting bottom cropping strain, ferments well to

  62 deg. F (17 deg. C) while keeping lager

  characteristics.  Malty profile, highly flocculant,

  clears brilliantly.  Apparent attenuation 72-76%.

 WYeast 2124 Bohemian Lager Yeast

  The traditional saaz yeast from Czechoslovakia.  Ferments

  clean and malty, rich residual maltiness in high gravity

  pilsners, medium flocculation, apparent attenuation

  69-73%.  Optimum fermentation temperature: 48 deg. F (9

  deg. C).

 WYeast 2206 Bavarian Lager Yeast

  Lager yeast strain used by many German breweries.  Rich

  flavour, full bodied, malty and clean.  Medium

  flocculation, apparent attenuation 73-77%.  Optimum

  fermentation temperature: 48 deg. F (9 deg. C).

 WYeast 2308 Munich Lager Yeast

  Lager yeast from Wissenschaftliche in Munich #308.  One

  of the first pure yeast available to American home

  brewers. Sometimes unstable, but smooth soft well rounded

  and full bodied.  Medium flocculation, apparent

  attenuation 73-77%.  Optimum fermentation temperature: 50

  deg.F (10 deg. C).

 Yeast Lab L31 Pilsner Lager Yeast

  This classic strain produces a light lager in both

  flavour and body, fermenting dry and clean.  High

  attenuation and medium flocculation.

 Yeast Lab L32 Bavarian Lager Yeast

  Use this classic strain for medium bodied lagers and

  bocks, as well as Vienna and Marzen styles, rich in

  flavour with a clean, malty sweetness.  Medium

  attenuation and medium flocculation.

 Yeast Lab L33 Munich Lager Yeast

  Wissenschaftliche strain for medium bodied lagers and

  bocks, subtle and complex flavours, smooth and soft, a

  hint of sulphur when fresh.  Medium attenuation and

  medium flocculation.

 Yeast Lab L34 St. Louis Lager Yeast

  This strain produces a round, very crisp and clean fruity

  flavour, with medium body.  High attenuation and medium

  flocculation.  Good for American style lagers.

 Yeast Lab L35 California Lager Yeast

  A California common beer strain, malty with a sweet woody

  flavour and subtle fruitiness.  Medium attenuation and

  high flocculation.

Part 4: Weissen, mead, and barleywine styles.

  Saccharomyces delbrueckii, S. cerevisiae

 WYeast 3056 Bavarian Weissen Yeast

  A 50/50 blend of S. cerevisiae and delbrueckii to produce

  a south German style wheat beer with cloying sweetness

  when the beer is fresh.  Medium flocculation, apparent

  attenuation 73-77%.  Optimum fermentation temperature: 56

  deg. F (13 deg. C).  Problematical to get the right

  flavour, often just produces bland beer, without the

  lactic flavour.

 Yeast Lab W51 Bavarian Weizen

  This strain produces a classic German style wheat beer,

  with moderately high, spicy phenolic overtones

  reminiscent of cloves.  Medium attenuation, moderately

  flocculent.  Evidently much more consistent than WYeast

  at producing a true Weizen flavour.

 The following are available from Brewtek at (800) 8BREWTE:

 (P.S. I swiped the following descriptions of the net myself (PW).)

  CL-90  Belgian Wheat -- A top fermenting yeast which produces a

  soft, bread like flavor and leaves a sweet,

  mildly estery finish.

  CL-92  German Wheat --  A true, top fermenting Weizenbier yeast, Spicy,

  clovy and estery.  High attenuative.

  CL-94  American Wheat - Offers a smooth, slightly sweet wheat beer,

  with a full, clean, underattenuated malt

  flavor.

  Mead Yeast

 Yeast Lab M61 Dry Mead

  Very alcohol tolerant, ferments dry, fruity and clean,

  yet leaves noticeable honey flavour and aroma.

 Yeast Lab M62 Sweet Mead

  This strain has reduced alcohol tolerance, therefore

  produces a very fruity, sweet mead with tremendous honey

  aromas.

  Wine Yeast

 Lallemand Lalvin Wine Yeast

  S. Bayanus.  Good reputation.

 Red Star Pasteur Champagne Yeast

  Very attenuative.  Good for mead.  Good reputation.

 WYeast 3021 Prise de mousse Champagne Yeast

  Institute Pasteur champagne yeast race bayanus.  Crisp

  and dry, ideal for sparkling and still red, white and

  fruit wines.  Also can be used for Barley wines. Optimum

  fermentation temperature: 58 deg. F (14 deg. C).

 WYeast 3028 Wine Yeast

  French wine yeast ideally suited for red and white wines

  which mature rapidly.  Enhances the fruity

  characteristics of most wines.  Optimum fermentation

  temperature: 72 deg. F (22 deg. C).

  Malo-lactic Bacteria

  Leuconostoc oenos

 WYeast 4007 Wine Yeast

  Malo-lactic culture blend isolated from western Oregon

  wineries.  Includes strains Ey2d and Er1a.  Excellent for

  high acid wines and low pH.  Softens wines by converting

  harsh malic acid to milder lactic acid.  Can be added to

  juice any time after the onset of yeast fermentation when

  sulphur dioxide is less than 15 ppm.

------------------------------


Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 13:18:08 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject:

SECTION III: YEAST MANAGEMENT

Part 1: Hydration Procedure For Dry Yeast

a. Use 14 grams of dry yeast (usually 2 packets) per 5 gallons of brew.

   ***Rigorously*** sterilize everything used in the hydration procedure.

b. Add the dry yeast to 1/2 cup of water at 90F (32C). Leave for 15 mins.

c. Combine the hydrated yeast with 1-2 gallons of wort that is as close to

   the wort to be fermented as possible. You can take samples from the main

   wort at the end of the mash/sparge and rapidly boil and cool it.

d. Aerate the starter as much as possible under sanitary conditions.

e. Don't forget to properly oxygenate the main wort once it is *chilled*.

   (Shaking hot wort is dangerous, but even worse it can cause oxidation and

   give your beer funny flavors.)

f. Pitch the starter into the main wort once the latter has been chilled to

   the recommended fermentation temperature (65-68F or 18-20C). Yeast with good

   viability will result in minimal lags. (The longest experienced in test

   brews using the new Red Star Ale Yeast was 2 hrs.)

An alternative but slightly sub-optimal method is to cool the yeast-in-water

mix from "b" to room temperature. Once the wort has been chilled and aerated

(shaking the carboy works well), pitch the yeast. Stir or invert the carboy to

disperse the yeast. Put in the blow-off tube or fermentation lock.

The two most essential things are to:

   1. Sanitize everything in sight.

   2. Aerate your wort to insure rapid initial yeast growth--your best defence

      against secondary infection.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 2: Propagation of Yeast Strains

   or

How to have your very own yeast ranch!

A.    General Comments

There is no single item as important as the selection of a yeast strain, or

if appropriate strains, to be used in commercial brewing. The same applies to

homebrewing. Sensory characteristics -- taste and smell --will normally

determine the type of yeast that is appropriate to any particular beer

formulation. This section contains the necessary procedures for achieving

self-sufficiency in pitching yeast. The part treated in this section is often

called the Hansen pure culture system. The heart of this system is the

so-called "yeast slant".  It is a test tube containing a solidified media

sloped at an angle. Often Petri dishes are used, but the media is level, and

hence the term "slant" is not always appropriate. In any case, yeast cells

are streaked on the surface of the solid media. When refrigerated, these

slants will keep at least 3-4 months before they have to be recultured. Yeast

are taken from the slants, and built up so there is enough to pitch a full

batch. The system also contains procedures for doing the exact opposite,

i.e., adding yeast to slants for storage and future use.

B.   Equipment

The equipment needs for operating a pure culture system with slants are

rather modest. The following are the major items.

  1.  Refrigerator. This is needed for slant and media storage.

  2. Autoclave or pressure cooker. This will be needed to sterilize equipment

and media for yeast work. A pressure cooker will do, but it should have a

pressure gauge attached so that the conditions during sterilization can be

controlled.

  3. Media. The preferred media for slants is malt extract and agar. These

can be obtained from any scientific outlet. Food grade agar is also available

from some oriental markets. The flaked form is easier to work with.

  4. Misc. A number of minor items will also be needed. These include

inoculation loops, glassware, petri dishes, and test tubes.

C.   Propagation of Yeast

   This process consists of transfering some of the yeast on slants to a

   small flask or jar containing wort, then building this up until there is

   enough to pitch a full brew. the most delicate steps are the initial ones.

   Experience has shown that the best results are obtained by using full

   strength hopped wort for propagating yeast. The ideal situation is when the

   wort used in propagation is identical to the wort that will be used in

   brewing.

   Practical experience has also shown that it is best to pitch yeast freshly

   harvested from slants at the maximum acceptable rate. Anticipating the

   results in the next section, this for lager yeast amounts to pitching

   1 volume of yeast *SOLIDS* for each 250 volumes of wort. Thus, we need

   5gal/250 = 0.02gal*128oz/gal = 2.5oz of yeast solids for a 5 gallon batch.

   Using the estimation that yeast solids are 1/10 the total volume of a

   yeast culture, that means that one needs about 25oz or a little more than 3

   cups culture. For ale yeast all of these numbers are reduced by a factor of

   two, so (3/2) to 2 cups of an ale yeast culture would be sufficient.

   In the procedure described below new wort is added just after the end

   of the period of high kraeusen, and in particular after the foam starts

   to recede. The reason for this is to keep the yeast in the aerobic

   exponential growth mode. This will insure a steady buildup of yeast

   cells, and thereby minimize the number of wort charges that are

   required. The importance of taking great care when adding fresh wort

   can not be overemphasized. To avoid infections not only is it necessary

   to properly sanitize equipment, but it also important to sterilize necks

   of vessels and jars by flame or 200 proof alcohol solutions. The easiest

   way to flame a jar at home is with a lighter (esp. the ones for pipe-

   smokers!). Be extremely careful, and don't use both alcohol and a lighter.

   The first four steps described below are done under the cleanest conditions

   possible using 1000 ml. starter jars. At the end of step (iv) there will

   invariably be more than enough yeast in each starter jar to pitch a 25 liter

   brew (about 6gal); i.e., there will be at least 1/10 liter of yeast solids as

   can be checked by visual inspection. These numbers are based on the

   requirements of lager yeast. As will be seen below there will be no harm in

   producing too much yeast in this procedure since at the end only the correct

   amount will be added to the fermenter.

(i) Preparations:

 a. Carefully inspect all the slants that are to be propagated. Those

  which have unusual growth patterns and/or discoloration should be

  discarded. The ideal is thin white yeast layer on top of the solid

  media.

 b. Autoclave the starter jars and the rubber stoppers for the airlocks

  for 5 mins. at 15 psi. Alternatively, use your favorite chemical sanitizing

  agent.

 c. Add 250 ml. (about 8 oz) of wort to each starter jar. Wipe their necks

  with a 200 proof alcohol solution. After this add the airlocks.

 d. Pasteurize the wort by adding the starter jars to a water bath at

  60 C (140 F), and hold this temperature for 20 mins. Cool to 18 C (75 F).

 e. In a clean room with no air movement (turn off fans and air conditioning

  for at least 15 min to give the dust a chance to settle) and then place

  starter jars, yeast slants, inoculation loops, and a 200 proof alcohol

  solution in a clean, quiet spot (i.e. lock the door after first insuring

  that Fido, Fluffy, and Junior are on the other side of it :-) !).

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1204, 08/16/93

*************************************

-------


Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 13:18:19 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject:

   (ii) Inoculation:

   a. For each jar, start by sterilizing its neck. Then sterilize ("flame") the

  inculation loop. Open a slant, quench the loop in clean agar ("sizzle")

  and use the loop to remove some yeast. Remove the airlock and then add the

  yeast to the starter jar. Replace the airlock, and then start work on the

  next jar.

  (iii) Initial Buildup:

   a. Place the starter jars in a location where 68F (18C can be held). Aerate

  twice daily by vigorously shaking jars. 1L Erlenmeyer flasks are excellent

  for this purpose because they permit vigorous swirling without getting the

  wort up by the neck and opening.

   b. A widely used practice is to discard any starter that is not active

  within 48 hours. Certainly if some of the starters are active within this

  period, then the inactive ones should be discarded. In any case, any starter

  not active within 72 hours should definitely be discarded even if this means

  they are all discarded.

 (iv) Second Wort Charge

  a. When the foam has receded prepare 250ml. of fresh sterile and

  aerated wort for each starter.

  b. The new wort is to be added to each starter, and this should be

  done as cleanly as possible.

  c. Before pouring the wort into the starters, it is very important

  to swab the necks of the starter jar and the wort jar with a 200

  proof alcohol solution to prevent contamination or flame them with a

  lighter.

  d. It is also desirable to reduce the temperature to a point closer

  to the temperature that will be used in production if that is

  lower than 18 C. For example, with lagers fermented at 10 C, this

  is usually taken to be 14-15 C.

  e. The starters should be aerated at the start and then again after

  12 hours. New activity should be seen before 24 hrs. Those which

  are not active within 36-48 hours should be discarded.

  f. Increase the volume of wort until you have sufficient volume to pitch.

(v) Pitching the Yeast

  a. At this time you should have a jar with about 500ml (a little more than 2

  cups) of yeast for a 5gal ale batch. I would suggest pitching before the

  krausen (foam) totally dies down so that the yeast are still in rapid growth

  phase. The total volume will vary with batch size, yeast type, and your

  personal experience/whim. Remember to keep yeast notes along with your beer

  notes so that you can learn from experience!

  b. Clean the outside of the jar with 200 proof alcohol or weak bleach and

  allow to dry.

  c. It is not advised that you pitch the old wort and yeast into the fermenter

  because the media has been exposed to air and oxidized, etc, etc. Therefore,

  pour off or siphon off the old media, leaving the yeast on the bottom of the

  flask. Pour this slurry into the primary or resuspend this slurry in

  sterile water and add immediately to the wort.  A short exposure to water

  will not harm the yeast, although they should not be exposed to it for long

  periods or they will lyse.

D.   Preparation of New Slants

Two steps are needed in the preparation of new slants. The first consists of

adding the proper media to test tubes or petri dishes. Once prepared the

slants will store well far a very long time when refrigerated, so many can be

prepared at one time. The second step consists of inoculating the slants with

yeast.

For the homebrewer who cannot afford several refrigerators: Please be advised

that your refrigerator is a haven for bacteria, mold, and wild yeast. Anyone

wishing to store sterile slants in their refrigerator is advised to 1. Wipe

down the slants before storage with ethanol or your favorite sanitizing

solution. 2. Seal the slants with parafilm or electrical tape. 3. Keep the

slants in a ziplock bag.4. Wipe down the bag with ethanol or your favorite

sanitizing solution before opening.

Preparation of Media:

(i) The media consists of dry malt extract and agar. As a

  general rule 4 tablespoons of malt extract and 1

  tablespoon of agar per cup of water will yield 16-18

  slants.

(ii) Bring the water to a boil, and then stir in the malt

  extract. Boil for 10 mins.

(iii) Remove from heat, and then start stirring in the agar.

  This will take some effort, but this usually indicates that

  a good solidification will ultimately be achieved. If your slants

  "sweat" too much, increase the amount of agar you use. Although

  commercial/scientific agar will vary little, I cannot answer for

  "food grade" supplies.

  Gelatin is easier to dissolve, but it sometimes does not

  always give a proper solidification.

(iv) When the agar is dissolved, the malt/agar solution should

  be added to the test tubes, filling each to approximately

  a third of their volume. Add the screw cap, but do not fully

  tighten.

(v) Autoclave the tubes at 15 psi for 5 mins.

(vi) Tighten the caps on the tubes, and place them at a

  30 degree angle. Allow them to solidify at room temperature.

  Solidification should become apparent within a few hours.

  Tubes which are not solid after 24 hrs. should be discarded.

(vii) Refrigerate until needed.

Note: Petri dishes can not be autoclaved, and so alternate procedures are

needed for them. A common practice is to autoclave the malt/ agar solution in

small jars. The agar solution is then poured into the petri dishes. Let the

agar cool until the jars are hot but touchable. If the agar is too hot it

will warp the plates. Swirl it gently to mix but avoid bubbles. It is also a

good idea to leave petri dishes prepared in this way at 25-30 C for 1-2 weeks

to make sure bacteria or molds are not present. Let the poured plates dry

overnight in a clean quiet room. Wipe them down, seal them, and bag them, but

leave them at room temperature for 1 week. The bad bugs, if they are there,

will be visually apparent at the end of that period and the contaminated

plates discarded. While Petri dishes are more trouble than test tubes, they

do offer the distinct advantage of having more surface area and being easier

to store. After the trial period the dishes should be refrigerated.

 Inoculation of Slants:

(i) Collection a small portion of the yeast to be added to the slants.

  It goes without saying that one should strictly

  follow the standard sterilization procedures of all items

  used to collect this yeast.

  (iii) With one hand sterilize the inculation loop (flame or alcohol

  solution). With the other hand open the cap of a slant.

  (iv) Dip the loop into the yeast solution, and remove a small

  amount.

  (v) Slowly insert the loop into the tube avoiding contact with

  either the sides or neck of the tube. Streak the yeast over the

  solid. Only a thin layer is wanted, and one should try to use

  as much of the surface area as possible.

  (vi) Slowly remove the loop avoiding contact with tube walls or

  neck. Add the screw cap back on the tube and tighten.

  (vii) When finished store the tubes at 25 C for one week. Visually

  inspect all tubes at this time both for yeast growth, and

  also for any irregularities. Discard those which are not

  satisfactory.

  (viii) Store the remainder at 2-8 C. After 3-4 mos. of storage,

  unused tubes should either be discarded or recultured; i.e.,

  propagated by the procedures in Section III.2.c and then put on

  on fresh slants. The best idea is to put production yeast on

  slants on a regular basis so that reculturing is not necessary.

 Note: The larger surface area afforded by Petri dishes can be used to

 advantage in the above procedure. In particular, it useful to

 streak out yeast in parallel lines which make angles with each

 other. This allows for a better examination of growth patterns.

 Petri dishes should be sealed after the 1 week trial period with

 electrician's tape and refrigerated.

------------------------------


re:Zymurgy bashing

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 14:26:35 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: re:Zymurgy bashing

IN the last digest:

<Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 09:16:17 -0700 (PDT)

<From: jal@plaza.ds.adp.com (Jim Larsen)

<Subject: Open letter to Zymurgy

<The following item, in response to Elizabeth Gold's request for light

<beer recipes, bounced on its way to her Compuserve address.

  > Elizabeth,

  >

  > Do you propose publishing in Zymurgy beer recipes which you have neither

  > tried nor even tasted?

  >

  > This is not the sort of responsible journalism that would keep Zymurgy

  > at the fore of the homebrewing industry.

I think this is uncalled for. Many of us will agree that the AHA has not

done a very good job of appealing to the more advanced brewers.  I think

we should be welcoming the change in the AHA that is evident by the editor

of Zymurgy requesting technical info from us the HBD community.  It is

quite apparent that there is some technical brewing knowledge right here

and it is a welcome change to see the powers that be asking for input

from us, even if it is on a "light beer style" question (eeechhh).

It is also naive to believe that any publication would have the time or

resources to actually taste or verify the recipes that are given by

people who are supposed to be knowledgeable in the subject matter.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Blackberry Mead Responses

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 11:32:54 -0700

From: drew@eskimo.com (Andrew Cluley)

Subject: Blackberry Mead Responses

 Thank you for your help.  I'm posting these responses so all

 can enjoy.  Sorry for the spacing.  I guess my

 initial estimate of 3-4 lbs of fruit is way too low.

Subject: RE: HBD 1203 (blackberry mead)


Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 8:25:32 EDT

Subject: Blackberry Mead Responses

Hi Drew,

     You are about to embark on a homebrewing experience that will leave you

forever changed.  I brewed a black rasberry mead last season that was probably

the best stuff (beer or mead) that I have ever made.  The recipe was patterned

after Papazians "Purple Haze Hendrix Mead" which was posted in some past

Zymurgy issue (I'm working without my references here).  Pap says in comments

following this recipe that this is one of his all-time favorites and I would

have to second that opinion.  This season my parents and girlfriend gladly

helped to pick about 32 lbs of fresh black rasberries at the local U-pick-um

farm with the understanding that they will all be supplied with the resulting

nectar.  BTW it was an incredible year for rasberries here in Ohio.  My recipe

goes something like this:

          Black Rasberry Melomel

     8-12 lbs of good quality honey (I like raw orange-blossom)

     10-15 lbs of very ripe black rasberries (picked fresh then frozen for a

           days before brewing)

     2.5 tsp pectic enzyme

     1.25 tsp good yeast energizer (I like the stuff that is primarily urea but

           also contains a bunch of B-vitamins and various amino acids)

     Optional:

          1-2 oz fresh ginger (grated or finely sliced)

          1 oz dried lemongrass

     (the reason most of the ingredients have a range of quantities is that I

      varied the recipe a bit this year)

     Procedure:

          - Bring 2 gal of good brewing water to a boil and add honey

          - Boil honey must for 10-15 min (you can skim the scum if you want

            to, but I'm not convinced it makes a difference)

          - Add rasberries, ginger, and lemongrass, stir and turn off heat

          - Cover and let steep (read pasteurize) 20 min

          - Cool, dilute to 5 gal and add pectic enzyme and yeast nutrient

          - Aereate VERY well and pitch your favorite mead yeast ->If you dont

            have a favorite, I can recomend "Lalvin S. Cerevisiae (an eppernay

            type) as an excellent choice.

          - Wait patiently

Notes:

     1. I use two stage fermentation with the racking of the mead coming when

        the CO2 is down to about 1 bubble every 15-30s (usually about 1 wk.)

     2. I have used the Lalvin yeast on my last six or so batches of mead and

        I am very pleased with the speed with wich it starts and finishes.  It

        also flocculates well and besides all that it leaves a nice clean

        slightly sweet finish.  I have been ready to bottle after only about a

        month of fermentation (counting both stages) since I started using this

        yeast.  BTW I think the yeast energizer is critical to this as well.

     3. The above recipe is pretty general.  I used essentially the same

        program to make both strawberry and mullberry melomels as well this

        summer.

Let me know if you have other questions.

Good Brewing,

Mark Fryling

Department of Chemistry

The Ohio State University

<mfryling@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

"Never let your sense of morality prevent you from doing what is right"

 I. Asimov

>From davep@cirrus.com Fri Aug 13 09:35:52 1993

ss

Message-Id: <9308131635.AA01544@sunscreen.cirrus.com>

Subject: Blackberry mead

To: drew@eskimo.com


Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 09:35:10 -0700 (PDT)

Subject: Blackberry Mead Responses

Hi Drew,

Your request for a Blackberry mead recipe caught my eye in the HBD. Being

from Seattle, I know that the blackberries are ready to pick this weekend,

so if you get any recipes, could you forward them to me?

TIA,

Dave

Subject: re: Blackberry Mead


Date: 13 Aug 93 11:08:18 MDT (Fri)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: Blackberry Mead Responses

>  Does anyone have a good recipe for Blackberry Mead?

Not a specific recipe, but based on the variations I've done:  Use around 2

lb fruit per gallon to get a strong fruit character.  Use around 2 lb honey

per gallon.  (I normally use a full gallon of honey--which is a bit under

12 lb--in a 5 gallon batch.)  You can use a fairly strong honey with

berries like this.

That's it--berries, honey, water, and a suitable yeast.  My current

favorite yeast for melomels is "Prise de Mousse".

Crush the berries; you don't actually need to extract the juice.  Use a

plastic-pail primary fermenter.  Assuming you get a good fast start to

fermentation, I'd skim out all the berry-crud and rack it after about a

week.  That should be enough to ferment out most of the berry sugar.  If

you leave the berries in much longer, you'll get too much astringent

character.

You might consider a mixture of berries--say blackberry+raspberry.  Depen-

ding on the type of blackberries and what the growing season was like,

blackberries can be rather bland.  (This surprised me.)

Frozen fruit works just fine; in fact the freezing helps break up the

berries and release the juice.  However, given your location and the

season, I'm guessing you have plenty of fresh fruit.

- ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.


Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 08:08:05 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: Blackberry Mead Responses

Subject: re: blackberry mead

 I'm not sure if I have a 'good' recipe or not - I think I bottled

 some mead with blackberries (i know I did some with raspberries,

 strawberries, and (i think cherries)). I'll check when I get home

 tonite and if i've got one i'll give it a try (thanks for giving me a

 great excuse to try it - been waiting for a long time)...

jim

                   Drew Cluley  > Seattle Wa. drew@eskimo.com

------------------------------


Yeast FAQ possible mix up

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 13:35:43 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: Yeast FAQ possible mix up

Hi all.

I tried to post my yeast FAQ to the HBD today, and one of my messages was

rejected, and the bounced back message was all garbled! I apologize in

advance if any of the other submissions of mine are messed-up or out of

sequence. Rather than try again today and drown the net with garbage, I

will wait until tomorrow and see what came through.

Sorry!

(Well, I am!)

------------------------------


Yeast FAQ part 2 of 7 (read this after intro then continue in seq.)

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 13:52:29 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: Yeast FAQ part 2 of 7 (read this after intro then continue in seq.)

SECTION I: Yeast Characteristics

   Yeast are unicellular fungi. All brewing yeast belong to the genus

   Saccharomyces.  Ale yeast are S. cerevisiae, and lager yeast are S. uvarum

   (formerly carlsbergerensis).  Weizen yeasts are usually 50/50 mixtures of

   cerevesiae and "delbrueckii" (delbrueckii may or may not be an accepted

   toxonomic class, however its use as a label appears widespread, and it is

   used herein for simplicity). You may ask,"If all these yeast are the same

   species, why all the fuss?" The fuss has to do with strain variation. Just

   as all dogs are the same species, yet no one will ever mistake a basset

   hound for a doberman (at least not twice :-). Using different strains can add

   fun and spice to brewing, especially if you have an idea of the differences.

   I originally put together this guide to catalogue the different affects of

   different strains.  This information is in Section II.

   Some yeast strains are more active and vigorous than others.  Lager strains

   in particular do not show as much activity on the surface as many of the

   ale strains.  Most packages provide an adequate quantity of yeast to complete

   fermentation with varying amounts of lag time depending on strain, freshness,

   handling, and temperature.  If you find it too slow, make a starter as

   recommended on the package or as listed in Section III.  In any event, a

   closed fermenter with an airlock is recommended.

Temperature

   The slow onset of visible signs of fermentation can be improved by starting

   fermentation at 75 deg. F (24 deg. C) until activity is evident, then

   moving to your desired fermentation temperature.  A few degrees does make

   a significant difference without adversely affecting flavor.

   The normal temperatures for ale yeast range from 60-75 deg. F (16-24 deg. C)

   A few strains ferment well down to 55 deg. F (13 deg. C). 68 deg. F (20

   deg. C) is a good average. Lager strains normally ferment from 32-75 deg.

   F (0-24 deg. C). 50-55 deg. F (10-12 deg. C) is customary for primary

   fermentation. A slow steady reduction to the desired temperature for

   secondary fermentation typically works well.

   The fermentation rate is directly related to temperature.  The lower the

   temperature, the slower fermentation commences.  Fluctuations in tempera-

   ture such as cooling and warming from night to day can adversely affect

   yeast performance.

Attenuation

   Attenuation refers to the percentage of sugar converted to alcohol.  Apparent

   attenuation of yeast normally ranges from 67-77%.  The attenuation

   is determined by the composition of the wort or juice and the yeast strain

   used.  Each yeast strain ferments different sugars to varying degrees,

   resulting in higher or lower final gravities.  This will affect the resid-

   ual sweetness and body.

   Really, it's slightly more complex than that (isn't everything ?-).There's

   "apparent attenuation" and "real attenuation".  The difference comes about

   because alcohol has a specific gravity less than 1 (about .8).  Real

   attenuation is the percent of sugars converted to alcohol.  So, if you had a

   10% (by weight) sugar solution (about 1.040), and got 100% real attenuation,

   the resulting specific gravity would be about 0.991 (corresponding to about

   5% alcohol by weight).  The apparent attenuation of this brew would be 122%!

   George Fix published a set of equations relating apparent and real

   attenuation and alcohol content last year.  To wit:

   A = alcohol content of finished beer in % by wt.

  RE = real extract of finished beer in deg. Plato

   Since A and RE are generally not known to us, additional approximations are

   needed. The following are due to Balling, and have proven to be  reasonable.

   Let OE and be defined as follows:

   OE = original extract (measured deg. Plato of wort)

   AE = apparent extract (measured deg. Plato of finished beer).

   Then,

   RE = 0.1808*OE + 0.8192*AE, and

    A = (OE-RE)/(2.0665-.010665*OE).

   The "tricky part" here is the expression of the sugar content in degrees

   Plato.  This is a fancy term for % sugar by weight, and corresponds *roughly*

   to "degrees gravity" divided by 4.  That is, a 1.040 wort has an extract of

   10 degrees Plato. He goes on to calculate an example: To take a specific

   case, first note that from Plato tables an OG of 1.045 is equivalent to OE =

   11.25 deg. Plato,  while a FG of 1.010 is equivalent to AE = 2.5 deg. Plato.

   Therefore, RE =0.1808*11.25 + 0.8192*2.5 = 4.08 deg. Plato, and A = (11.25 -

   4.08)/(2.0665 - .010665*11.25) = 3.68 % wt. The apparent attenuation is 75%

   (from 1.040 to 1.010), the real attenuation is (11.25 - 4.08)/11.25 = 64%.

   N.B. Most attenuation figures are given in terms of *apparent* attenuation.

   (Thanks to Chris Pencis quoting Stuart Thomas quoting George Fix).

Flocculation

   Flocculation refers to the tendency of yeast to clump together and settle

   out of suspension.  The degree and type of flocculation varies for different

   yeast. Some strains clump into very large flocculate.  Some flocculate very

   little giving a more granular consistency.  Most yeast strains clump and

   flocculate to a moderate degree.

pH Ranges

   Typical pH range for yeast fermentations begins at about 5.1 and optimally

   4.8.  During the course of fermentation the pH reduces to typically 3.9-

   4.1 and as low as 3.1 in some wines.

Alcohol Tolerances

   The alcohol tolerance for most brewing yeast is as least to 8%.  Barley

   wines to 12% can be produced by most ale strains.  Pitching rates need to

   be increased proportionally to higher gravities.  Alternately, Champagne

   and Wine yeast can be used for high gravities sometimes reaching alcohols

   to 18%.

Smells and Tastes

   Although the principle tastes present in a beer are the result of the malts

and hops used, the strain of yeast used can also add important flavors, good

and/or bad.  Yeast that add little in the way of extra flavors are usually

described as having a "clean" taste.  These yeast are especially useful for

beginners because they permit experimentation with different ingredients

without worrying about yeast influence.  Yeast produce three main classes of

metabolic by-products that affect beer taste: phenols, esters, and diacetyl.

Phenols can give a "spicy" or "clove-like" taste.  Esters can lend a "fruity"

taste to beer.  Diacetyls can give beer a "butterscotch" or sometimes a

"woody" taste.  The desirability of any one of these components depends

largely on the style of beer being brewed.  In addition, there are certain

by-products in these families that are more noxious than the others.  A lot

depends on the individual palette and the effect youUre aiming for.

   A final note: some yeast, especially lager yeast during lagering, can produce

a "rotten egg" smell.  This is the result of hydrogen sulfite production.

Although the scent of this bubbling out of the air-lock is enough to make the

strongest homebrewmeister blanch, fear not! The good news is that this will

usually pass, leaving the beer unaffected.  Relax, etc.

------------------------------


RedHook's Malt

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 11:56:34 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: RedHook's Malt

I wrote in #1202:

> I called the Redhook Brewery and spoke to Thomas Price, a very nice and

> helpfull guy.  Sorry, Al, but there is no wheat malt in their Summer

> Rye.  Here's the scoop:

>

> 10% flaked organic rye

>  5% Munich

> 85% 2-row barley (probably Briess)

                    ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^

Jeff Frane wrote in #1203

> Given that the Red Hook Brewery is within 175 miles of Great Western's

> Vancouver, WA plant (and in the same state), this seems bizarre if not

> completely unlikely.  As far as I've been able to determine over the

> years, virtually every west coast brewery gets their base malt fm GW.

> Even if the quality of their malt wasn't the question, surely shipping

> rates would be.

My original guess that their 2-row was Briess was based on the stacks of

Briess Malt sacks glimpsed through the brewery's window.  A phone call

to Thomas Price clarified the matter.  Redhook gets their wheat malt

from Briess and as Jeff correctly surmissed they get virtually everything

else from Great Western.

Yikes! This is a TOUGH room.

Domenick Venezia

------------------------------


Grolsch bottles & Carbonation

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 15:09:13 -0400

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

Subject: Grolsch bottles & Carbonation

I also use Grolsch bottles (using usual anal sanitation precautions),

and have had no problems with any of my batches.

However, concerning carbonation, I did notice that the few beers that

I put into the fridge, for a little over a weeks time, experienced less

carbonation than the ones I stored in my basement.

The gaskets are relatively new (as the bottles are not even 5 months old).

I was thing that the colder fridge temperatures may have caused the

gaskets to contract enough to make an imperfect seal letting gas escape

from the beer (to outside the bottle), thusly reducing the beer's

carbonation (factor).

- ---

email: sxupjd@fnma.com (NeXT Mail Okay)

Philip DiFalco, Senior SomethingOrOther, Advanced Technology

FannieMae, 3900 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, DC 22016     (202)752-2812

------------------------------


Hard, high pH water treatment for new masher

Date:  Fri, 13 Aug 1993 15:44:00 -0400

From: Bill Flowers <waflowers@qnx.com>

Subject: Hard, high pH water treatment for new masher

I've started mashing and I think I might have a problem: my water supply

has a high pH (8.0-8.2) and is quite hard (250 ppm).  Its perfect for the

fish I keep (rift valley cichlids), but I'm not sure what to do with it for

brewing.  Before I started mashing I never concerned myself with it, but

now I'm mashing and wanting to make pale ales and pilsners instead of

stouts and Munich dunkels, so it is now a concern.  I've got a call into

the lab to get the water analysis details, but I won't have them until

Monday.

I've also got access to lower pH, softer (but still not soft) water here at

the office.  I'll get the details of it on Monday too.

I've read Miller on water treatment, and it just left me more confused than

ever.  Why can't he just say: "Do this if you have this water, do that if

you have some other water"?

What I want is a recipe or flow chart (or hand holding) on what to do with

my mash and sparge water.  Can anyone help me? Or at least put Miller's

explanation in terms I might understand.

- ---

W.A. (Bill) Flowers                email: waflowers@qnx.com

QNX Software Systems, Ltd.         QUICS: bill     (613) 591-0934 (data)

(613) 591-0931 (voice)             mail:  175 Terrence Matthews

(613) 591-3579 (fax)                      Kanata, Ontario, Canada K2M 1W8

------------------------------


cleaning swinger

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 15:31:39 CDT

From: Mark S. Hart <hart@hvhp1>

Subject: cleaning swinger

Full-Name: Mark S. Hart

Just a data point.

I have always used the brown and green swing top/Grolsch bottles.  Being

a procrastinating lazy sort here's the easiest way I've found to clean

them with out a single mishap to date.

Rinse the bottles after emptying

and stick em in the dish washer with the dinner stuff.  Save these bottles

(usually only 5 or 6) until you have enough to bottle the next batch.

When your ready to bottle the next batch wash all the bottles again and toss

1 or 2 ounces of bleach into the washer.  The washer will recycle the bleach

water solution a few times before beginning the rinse cylcle.

Bottle when washer stops and every thing is dry.

I usually don't use any soap on the second washing.  Scoff

all you want but I've done my last 7 or 8 batches this way with no worries

or infections.  Initially I was concerned about the bleach deteriorating

my washers seals so I now dilute the 1 or 2 ounces of bleach in a gallon of

water and dump the whole mess in the washer.  So far everything is O'tay.

I also have noted that the green bottles are superior

in quality to the brown.

See Ya, M. S. Hart

------------------------------


Re: double fermentation (ref. HBD #1184)

Date:  Fri, 13 Aug 1993 16:54:53 -0400

From: Bill Flowers <waflowers@qnx.com>

Subject: Re: double fermentation (ref. HBD #1184)

My apologies for the long delay in responding.  Its amazing how

far backlogged I can get in reading HBD when I go away for

vacation.

Anyway, in HBD #1184, STBLEZA@grove.iup.edu wrote:

> Third:  Has anyone on the digest tried to use a double fermentation on beer?

> I heard about the process, and was thinking of trying it, but I decided to

> consult higher authorities first.  For those un-familar to the process, you

> pitch a yeast with a low alcohol tolerance (ale and lager yeasts) into your

> primary, then wait until the fermentation slows due to alcohol abundence,

> transfer into a secondary, and pitch a second yeast in that has a higher

> tolerance (such as a wine or champagne yeast).  What effects would this have?

> Is it at all desirable?  Has anyone done this?  Is there any literature on

> this topic (I can't find the source that gave me the idea for this)?  Have I

> finally gone off the perverbial 'deep end'?

Nope, you've not gone off the deep end.  I've used this technique (based on

2nd hand information which was supposed to have come from the now retired,

former senior biochemist for John Courage) on my Barley Wine, and it tastes

fantastic! Before pitching the ale yeast, I put 1L of wort in a sanitized

mason jar into the fridge.  About 3 days into the primary fermetation, I

removed the wort from the fridge in the morning to warm up.  That evening I

mixed it with 1L of boiled and cooled water (to get the gravity down to

something more reasonable for a "starter") and pitched some champagne

yeast.  When that was well started I added it to the fermenting barley

wine.

For a beer like this where you want to get the typical ale flavor (esthers)

as well as the higher alcohol content, I highly recommend the technique.

- ---

W.A. (Bill) Flowers                email: waflowers@qnx.com

QNX Software Systems, Ltd.         QUICS: bill     (613) 591-0934 (data)

(613) 591-0931 (voice)             mail:  175 Terrence Matthews

(613) 591-3579 (fax)                      Kanata, Ontario, Canada K2M 1W8

------------------------------


Re: The Tumbleweed Report (Part 4)

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 15:09:34 -0700

From: Richard Stueven <gak@wrs.com>

Subject: Re: The Tumbleweed Report (Part 4)

Kinney laments:

 The decision to brew with extracts still bothers me.  I could

 see myself making excuses (like I'm doing now) to my brewing

 buddies and my newly acquired peers in the commercial brewing

 world.  But this was no time to be dogmatic.  Instead we had to

 be realistic about the physical brewing environment and the

 market we were trying to crack.

Sounds like you've slammed face-first into the Difference Between A

Hobby And A Business.

Good luck, Kinney!

have fun

gak

Richard Stueven, Castro Valley CA

gak & gerry's garage, brewery and hockey haven

------------------------------


Blackberry Mead

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 18:53:51 EDT

From: pblshr@aol.com

Subject: Blackberry Mead

If anyone sent Drew Cluley the recipe for Blackberry Mead, I'd appreciate

getting a copy.

PBLSHR@AOL.COM   (Tom Finan)

------------------------------


Brew Pubs in Vancouver/Victoria

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 16:58:53 PDT

From: b_roach@emulex.com (Brad Roach)

Subject: Brew Pubs in Vancouver/Victoria

I am vactioning in Vancouver and Victoria during September.  If anyone knows

of some good brew pubs or beer bars worth checking out, please pass along the

information.

Thanks,

   __

  /_/             /

 /  /  /_  __  __/

/___/_/ (_(_<_(_/

Brad Roach / QLogic / Costa Mesa, Calif

b_roach@emulex.com

------------------------------


Shipping live yeast

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 22:40:57 -0400 (EDT)

From: Jim Griggers <brew@devine.ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM>

Subject: Shipping live yeast

I bought a "Yeast Culture Kit"  from _*deleted*_ when I was at

the AHA Conference in Portland.  I had been thinking of buying one for

some time, and their "special show price" of $29.90 seemed great.

"Save $10 since the regular price is $34.95 and you save the $5 shipping."

I was told the slants would be inoculated on Monday after they got back

to California.  They would check for viability, and send them out by UPS.

(Conference was July 27 - July 29)

I called _*deleted*_ Thursday, August 12 to check on the yeast.  I

was told it was shipped out Monday, August 9, by surface, which I assumed

was by UPS.

The yeast arrived Friday in a plain manila envelope in the US Mail.  My mail

box is a standard flat-black metal rural box that spends 75% of its time in

direct sunlight.  Today is fairly cool (90F) and mostly cloudy.  The temperature

inside the box was around 105F.  I guess I am lucky in that: 1) I was

home, 2) I checked the mail early, and 3) today has mostly overcast skies.

To quote their catalog: "IMPORTANT NOTE:  Due to the delicate nature of live

yeast and the temperature extremes in many parts of our country, we STRONGLY

recommend 2nd Day Air delivery of your yeast culturing kits. (2nd-Day Air

delivery is the only way we can guarantee your live yeast cultures to be

viable upon reciept)."   They charge $6.00 for this BTW.

I was disappointed.  I know they saved money shipping it by US Mail ($0.52

stamp), but why put the "IMPORTANT NOTE" in their catalog if it does not

matter?  I know the owner will make good on the yeast if it turns out to

be fried, but that is not the point.  I had delayed brewing because I didn't

have any more yeast and I wasn't going to get more Wyeast since I had this

yeast on order. (I drive 80 miles, each way, to Charlotte, NC to buy yeast,

so I usually stockpile.)  If the yeast turns out bad, then it would be

another two weeks before I could expect a replacement.

I guess I am asking the yeast experts out there what they think about the

above conditions in the handling of yeast.  What is affected by high

temperatures of yeast on a slant, other than possibly lower viability?

Can elevated storage temperature cause undesired fermentation characteristics?

I am NOT knocking the shop owner or _*deleted*_, but I am questioning their

choice of shipping.  I have heard nothing but praise about their operation.

The kit I bought is supposed to be the best on the market.  The yeast I

received may be in perfect condition.  I am simply asking for information

regarding yeast handling, since I am certainly not an expert on this subject.

Thanks.

 -Jim Griggers   jdg@devine.columbiasc.ncr.com

 West Columbia, South Carolina

PS.  Since I have not tested or used the yeast in question, I feel that it

     would be unfair to name the shop.

------------------------------


RE: fermenting a lager

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 08:17:44 -0500

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: RE: fermenting a lager

Patrick asks in HBD 1203 about *fermenting* a lager by placing the carboy in a

referigerator without using an AirStat(tm) or other thermostat.  His concern

was temperature fluctuations.

The problem isn't so much with temperature fluctuations as with the mean

temperature, Patrick.  To ferment, you're looking for temperatures in the

45 - 55 F range.  This is too warm for most regerigerators.  They're expecting

to keep things in the 32 - 40F range.  Note that this is ideal for lagering,

but not for the fermentation.  In fact, I have an AirStat(tm) and the main

problem I have with it is that it only goes down to 40F.  Why?  Well, who sets

their air conditioner below 40 degrees?  So, I use the AirStat(tm) to control

in the fermentation and serving range, and just use the built-in regerigerator

thermostat when lagering.  There's a guy in our local brew club who uses a

thermostat he got from Granger -- it controls over the whole range we want,

and costs about the same as the AirStat(tm).  You don't get the fancy LCD

display though.  If you have a Granger catalog, you might check it out.

Hope this helps...

 t

=============================================================================

Tom Leith                           InterNet:   trl@wuerl.WUstl.EDU

4434 Dewey Ave.                   CompuServe:   70441,3536

St. Louis, Missouri  63116

                                                "Tho' I could not caution all

314/362-6965 - Office                            I still might warn a few:

314/362-6971 - Office Fax                        Don't lend your hand

314/481-2512 - Home + Infernal Machine           to raise no flag

                                                 atop no Ship of Fools"

=============================================================================

------------------------------


Brewpot w/Electric Water Heater Element

Date: 14 Aug 93 18:41:56 EDT

From: Harry Covert <73232.167@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: Brewpot w/Electric Water Heater Element

I am about to make a brewpot from a 15.5 gallon SS keg.  Since I want to

brew indoors I would like to heat the pot with an electric water heater

element.  Has anyone else done this, and if so, how did you do it?

Thanks.

------------------------------


Missing Head

Date: Sun, 15 Aug 93 23:36:00 BST

From: r.wize@genie.geis.com

Subject: Missing Head

I have made some decent all grain beer lately but have noticed a significant

difference in the way they hold a head.  I have been very careful to pour

the beers in the same type cleansed glassware so the only variable I can

turn to is the grains.  What makes this unique I believe is that the beers

which do not hold a head are Wheat beers.  My pale ales keep a head for a

good 5 minutes while my wheat beers lose their head within 2 minutes.  Two

comparable grain brews were;

                 Wheat           Pale

 Brit Pale         0               8lbs

 Klages            6lbs            1lb

 Wheat             3.5lbs          .5lb

 Crystal           .5lb            .5lb

Is there something I don't understand here?  I always thought wheat beers

would have longer lasting heads and that is why you add a little wheat to

most recipes.

------------------------------


Fifth annual TRUB open

Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1993 22:07:53 -0500 (EST)

From: MIKE LELIVELT <MJL@UNCVX1.OIT.UNC.EDU>

Subject: Fifth annual TRUB open

A brief announcement for an upcoming competition.

The TRiangle's Unabashed homeBrewers (TRUB) will host its fifth annual TRUB

open on 10/16 of this year in Durham, NC.  All catagories except Sake will be

judged.  If you are interested in obtaining an entry form or in judging for the

competition, send me an e mail message at "mjl@uncvx1.oit.unc.edu".  In the

past we have received more than 75 entries thus judges have received a full

experience point.  Accommodations (read fellow member's sofas) will gladly be

made available to travelling judges who request them.  Prizes in the form of

ribbons and a trophy and a case of Sam Adams whatever for best of show will be

awarded.  MIKE

------------------------------


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Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 05:45:39 EDT

From: Greg Roody - MCS Prod Srvc Mgmt O/S Domain - 508-496-9314  16-Aug-1993 0545 <roody@stowoa.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Auto Reply from Watch_Mail for 13-AUG-1993 11:30 to 31-AUG-1993 08:00

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------------------------------


Homebrew Market Size Data

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 05:51:57 PDT

From: 16-Aug-1993 0845 <macdonald@a1vax.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Homebrew Market Size Data

I have an idea for a product that might be of interest to homebrewers.

While I'm working on a prototype I'm also searching for sources of

informationon the homebrewer marketplace. Data on U.S., Canada, and

Europe is of interest. I'm interested in estimates of the number of

homebrewers, the dollar value of the market, and detail on how the dollars

are spent (supplies,equipment,etc.)

If anyone knows a source or has this sort of information I would love to hear

from you via E-mail.

regards,

Bruce

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1205, 08/17/93

*************************************

-------


WORT AERATION

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 08:51 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: WORT AERATION

              WORT AERATION PRIOR TO PITCHING

                      Jack Schmidling

                        Aug 14, 1993

 There has been a great deal of enthusiastic reporting on the

 use of aquarium air pumps to aerate wort prior to pitching

 yeast and many rather preposterous claims of shortened time

 to the onset of fermentation resulting from the use of same.

 As the author's experience on one batch did not support any

 such claims, a controlled experiment was designed to

 determine the validity of said claims.

 The experiment described herein compares the air pump

 aerator with several other less exotic methods along with an

 un-aerated control batch.

 The wort used was withheld from a batch of Pilsner style

 beer with a gravity of 1.050.  It was re-boiled several days

 after the original batch was pitched so that it could be

 pitched with controlled amounts of kraeusen from the new

 batch.  The re-boiling was to re-established an anaerobic

 environment along with re-sterilizing the wort.

 Prior to pitching, the wort was divided into (4) 500 ml

 samples in sterile, one quart mason jars and aerated in

 various ways as follows:

 #1   Control... No aeration.  Just gently poured from kettle

      into jar.

 #2   Siphon Simulation...  Poured into jar from a height of

      12 inches in a narrow stream to simulate what one would

      get simply by siphoning and letting the stream fall

      into a fermenter.

 #3   Pumped from kettle through nozzle to "squirt" into jar.

      This is the system normally used by the author to

      transfer from kettle to fermenter.

 #4   Aerated with aquarium pump and fine mist airstone.

      Pump was run until foam volume equaled wort volume then

      shut off till the foam collapsed.  This was repeated 5

      times for a total on-time of (2) minutes.  The time was

      based on a very conservative scale down from Miller's

      suggested time of 15 minutes for a 5 gallon batch.  It

      represents about 5 times the amount of air per unit

      wort volume recommended by Miller. (*1)

 The wort was cooled to a temperature of 70F before being

 aerated.  All four samples were pitched with 50 ml of

 working kraeusen.  This active wort was taken as a single

 sample and thoroughly mixed prior to dividing into 4

 individual portions to assure a homogeneous and identical

 yeast in each test.

 The yeast used was Pilsener Urquel recultured from a slant

 obtained from Paul Farnsworth.  (*2)

 After pitching, the four test batches were placed in a

 refrigerator at 40F and checked every four hours for signs

 of incipient fermentation.

 RESULTS............

 No sign of fermentation was detected until the 72 hr check.

 At this time, a small island of bubbles was just visible in

 the center of all four samples.

 To accelerate the conclusion of the experiment, the samples

 were removed from the refrigerator and allowed to rise to

 room temperature (75 F).  They were monitored until the

 entire surface of the fermenters were covered with foam.

 This occurred about 9 hours later on all four samples.

 ...............

                      ALE YEAST

 To take the experiment one step further, a similar but

 abbreviated experiment was conducted with ale yeast.

 Two 500 ml samples of a similar wort were treated as

 follows:

    #5   Control...  No aeration

    #6   Shook jar vigorously until foam volume equaled wort

         volume.  This was allowed to settle and repeated

         (5) times.

 Both samples were pitched with 0.4 grams of granulated EDME

 ale yeast, poured directly on top of the wort.

 They were maintained at a temperature 75 F and monitored

 regularly until the onset of fermentation.  This occurred at

 4.5 hrs in both samples.  The tops of both fermenters were

 covered with foam at 10 hrs total elapsed time.

 CONCLUSION...

 The experiment seems to confirm the author's previous

 experience and points to the conclusion that the method of

 aeration used has no correlation with or effect on the time

 to onset of fermentation.  Contrary to frequently stated

 anecdotal experience, the un-aerated control samples started

 fermenting as soon and with the same vigor as the variously

 aerated samples.  This was true both in the case of cold

 temperature lager yeast and room temperature ale yeast.

 This experiment was not intended to test any other aspects

 of the brewing process that may be affected by wort

 aeration.  Much has been written on the subject and the

 present author's intent was only to study the effects of

 aeration on the onset of fermentation.

 ..............

 *1  Dave Miller on Hung Fermentations, Brewing Techniques,

     May/June 1993

 *2  Dr Paul Farnsworth, Scientific Service, San Antonio, TX

 js

------------------------------


Lager yeast at warm Temp.

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 10:40:20 -0400

From: <geotex@engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Lager yeast at warm Temp.

    I am preparing to brew up a pilsner from Charlie P's book.  I have

  purchased Wyeast American Lager yeast.

    I realize that that I will not obtain a true pilsener without a lagering

  operation, but at this time, I don't have the means to keep the fermentation

  cool. (I hadhoped I would by now).

    So the big question is:  Should I go ahead a brew this batch at a warm

temp. (70+) with the lager yeast?  More specifically, will I get a complete

fermentation from lager yeast at the warm temp?

    Charlie P. says that the lager yeast will do okay at room temp, but I

  wanted to see if anyone had any bad (or good) experiences with this

type of situtation.  (Or, if anyone had any suggestions)

    You can e-mail me to save bandwith.

    Thanks for the input,

    Alex

------------------------------


To: Bart Thielges

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 10:01 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: To: Bart Thielges

Bart--

My machines cannot reach your machines - please call me at 708-430-HOPS

some evening.  Sorry for use of bandwidth.

Al.

------------------------------


Re: Recipe formulation

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 9:32:27 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Re: Recipe formulation

John Montgomery asks about formulating his own recipes.  He says he has 10 or

11 all grainers behind him and wants to strike out creating his own recipes.

This brings up an interesting point to me.  I wonder how many people with this

much experience have done this little experimenting.  I have brewed a total of

16 batches, the last 5 or 6 being all-grainers.  I have been trying new things

with recipes since the second batch.  Now, maybe I'm taking more creative

credit than I'm due, because I usually start with a recipe. I then adjust it

for my setup, ingredients on hand, ingredients available at the local HB shop,

my whims, etc.  Doing this, I've only really screwed up one batch due to poor

recipe formulation, and I used it for boiling brats, etc. so it wasn't a total

loss.

The biggest variability I found was with hops.  Once I found Rager's formulas

in the Zymurgy hops special addition, this went away.  Of course, yeast is a

big contributor, but with some common sense, you probably can't pick a yeast

that will ruin a brew.  The grain affects final flavor in a big way too, but

again, you won't ruin a batch by picking an American 2-row rather than a

Belgian 2-row.  It will be different, and you may prefer one over the other (I

bet I know which one!) but it won't be bad.

With John's experience, he should be experimenting a lot, IMHO.  Maybe I screw

around too much but then I'm not out to win contests.  I'm only out to brew

a beer I really like.  For me that means variety, and variety means

experimentation, which is a major reason I homebrew.  I guess I've rambled

enough about this.  Comments?

norm

- --

Norm Pyle, Staff Engineer                       Storage Technology Corporation

npyle@n33.stortek.com                           2270 South 88th Street

                                                Louisville, CO 80028-0211

                                                (303) 673-8884

------------------------------


Sham(?) Glassware

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 11:32:05 -0500

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Sham(?) Glassware

I've lost track of this company.  Can somebody help me get in touch with them?

Address and/or phone number would be greatly appreciated....

 t

------------------------------


Yeast FAQ corrections

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 12:53 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Yeast FAQ corrections

First off, 3 cheers to Patrick for the effort in compiling all

that yeast information!

I have a few additions and corrections, however:

> Lallemand Nottingham Yeast

>  This yeast is remarkable for its high degree of

>  flocculation.  It settles out very quickly and firmly.

>  Very good reputation.  Very fast to create a krausen and

>  needed blowoff tube 6 hours after pitching hydrated

>  yeast. Quick fermentation at 62F.  It's very clean and

>  only very slightly fruity in the keg, but tastes/smells

>  nutty in the bottled version.  Nottingham appears to be

>  relatively attenuative (more so than the Coopers).

>

> Lallemand Windsor Yeast

>  Produces a beer which is clean and well balanced.

>  This yeast produces an ale which is estery to both palate

>  and nose with a slight fresh yeast flavour.  Very good

>  reputation.  Not a quick as the Nottingham.  Not

>  attenuative.  Definite banana smell at racking.

According to two fellow Brewers of South Suburbia, Dick and Steve,

the Windsor is more powdery (doesn't flocculate as well) as the

Nottingham and thus tends to be more attenuative.

>

> Munton-Fison Ale Yeast

>  Starts quick.  Produces some fruity esters. Attenuative.

>  Phenolic taste.  Fair to good reputation.

I believe I was the one who reported the intense phenolic nose

and flavor with M&F "Muntona" yeast.  It appears, however, that

they have gone to a new strain and a recent batch I made had

none of the phenolics I reported earlier.  I've read that improper

rehydration (rehydration in wort rather than water) can lead to

off flavors, so maybe that was the problem I had with the Muntona

yeast.

>WYeast

First off, it's Wyeast and it's sort of a pun, since Wyeast is the

Native American name for Mt. Hood which is not far from Wyeast Labs.

Also, a frequently asked question is "how do you pronounce Wyeast?"

Well, it's pronounced like "WHY-yeast."

> WYeast 1007 German Ale Yeast

>  Ferments dry and crisp leaving a complex yet mild

>  flavour.  Produces an extremely rocky head and ferments

>  well down to 55 deg. F (12 deg. C).  Flocculation is high

>  and apparent attenuation is 73-77%.  Optimum fermentation

>  temperature: 62 deg. F (17 deg. C).  A good balance of

>  sweetness and tartness, with a pronounced green-apple

>  note.  A very pleasing yeast.

I did not get a green-apple note when I used this yeast.

Perhaps it was just tasted young and it was actually

acetaldahyde which is often found in young beers but

later fades unless the beer is filtered (like Budweiser).

> WYeast 1028 London Ale Yeast

>  Rich minerally profile, bold woody slight diacetyl

>  production.  Medium flocculation.  Apparent attenuation

>  73-77%.  Optimum fermentation temperature: 68 deg. F (20

>  deg. C).  Complex, woody, tart, with strong mineral

>  notes, this one will bite you horribly if you over-hop or

>  if your water is high in carbonates.  If you avoid that

>  Scylla and Charybdis, it produces ales of marvellous

>  complexity and sophistication.  Most of the time you'll

>  wish you'd used 1098 or 1056.  Had best results in

>  porters.  Over-hopping is especially bad, but if you

>  throttle the hops back, the results are indeed

>  marvellous.  Used this yeast in a Kolsch once, and it was

>  *fantastic*  The wood and mineral notes fused with the

>  Hallertauer hops (which were used with some restraint),

>  and a couple of months of cool ageing brought out some

>  green apple in the aroma as well as the pallette.  It

>  tasted a good bit hoppier than it really was, and overall

>  was well-balanced and smooth.

This is one of my two favorites (1056 being the other) and I've

brewed some very high IBU ales with it without the overhopping

problems reported here.  Just 40 datapoints or so.  Also, I'd

like to mention that this yeast was used for the 1992 B.0.S.S.

Challenge 1st place Barleywine, brewed by none other than Brian

and Linda North.

> WYeast 2007 Pilsen Lager Yeast

>  Our original Lager Yeast Strain.  Specific for pilsner

>  style beers.  Known as many things, we call it Pilsen.

>  Ferments dry, crisp, clean and light.  Medium

>  flocculation. Apparent attenuation from 71-75%.  Optimum

>  fermentation temperature: 52 deg. F (11 deg. C).

It is worth mentioning that this yeast strain is reportedly

used quite a bit in St. Louis, if you know what I mean ;^).

> WYeast 2035 American Lager Yeast

>  American Lager Yeast.  Unlike American pilsner styles.

>  It is bold, complex and woody. Produces slight diacetyl.

>  Medium flocculation, apparent attenuation 73-77%.

>  Optimum fermentation temperature: 50 deg. F (10 deg. C).

This yeast allegedly is the one used by August Schell in

new Ulm, MN.

> WYeast 2112 California Lager Yeast

>  Warm fermenting bottom cropping strain, ferments well to

>  62 deg. F (17 deg. C) while keeping lager

>  characteristics.  Malty profile, highly flocculant,

>  clears brilliantly.  Apparent attenuation 72-76%.

Allegedly, the Anchor steam yeast.

> WYeast 2124 Bohemian Lager Yeast

>  The traditional saaz yeast from Czechoslovakia.  Ferments

>  clean and malty, rich residual maltiness in high gravity

>  pilsners, medium flocculation, apparent attenuation

>  69-73%.  Optimum fermentation temperature: 48 deg. F (9

>  deg. C).

Allegedly, one of the four (?) Pilsner Urquell yeasts.

> WYeast 2308 Munich Lager Yeast

>  Lager yeast from Wissenschaftliche in Munich #308.  One

>  of the first pure yeast available to American home

>  brewers. Sometimes unstable, but smooth soft well rounded

>  and full bodied.  Medium flocculation, apparent

>  attenuation 73-77%.  Optimum fermentation temperature: 50

>  deg.F (10 deg. C).

I'd like to mention that I got an intense off aroma (like home

perm solution) with this yeast fermented at 45-50F, but it

miraculously disappeared after four months aging in the bottle

at 40F.

> WYeast 3056 Bavarian Weissen Yeast

>  A 50/50 blend of S. cerevisiae and delbrueckii to produce

>  a south German style wheat beer with cloying sweetness

>  when the beer is fresh.  Medium flocculation, apparent

>  attenuation 73-77%.  Optimum fermentation temperature: 56

>  deg. F (13 deg. C).  Problematical to get the right

>  flavour, often just produces bland beer, without the

>  lactic flavour.

No, no, no.  Lactic sourness is the requisite characteristic

of a *Berliner* weiss, not a Bavarian weizen -- Bavarian weizens

are characterized by clove-like aromas/flavors and often some mild

banana esters.  What the original poster probably meant was:

"Problematic to get the right flavor, often just produces relatively

unattenuated beer, without the clove-like aroma/flavor."  I have

been thinking that perhaps it's the freshness of the Wyeast #3056

that makes the difference in whether you get the clove-like aroma/flavor

or not.  Any other data points?

> Red Star Pasteur Champagne Yeast

>  Very attenuative.  Good for mead.  Good reputation.

Popular yeast for Imperial Stouts and Barleywines due to it's high

tolerance for alcohol.  Some use it by itself, others pitch Pasteur

after their chosen beer yeast poops out.

>Part 1: Hydration Procedure For Dry Yeast

>

>a. Use 14 grams of dry yeast (usually 2 packets) per 5 gallons of brew.

>   ***Rigorously*** sterilize everything used in the hydration procedure.

>

>b. Add the dry yeast to 1/2 cup of water at 90F (32C). Leave for 15 mins.

According to the Lallemand newsletter, the proper temperature for rehydration

is 104F to 110F.  Also, you may want to mention that this should be boiled

and cooled water, so chlorine is boiled off and so the water is sanitized.

You would be surprised at how literally some people take directions!

Al.

------------------------------


Re: rapid chilldowns after boiling

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 13:30 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: rapid chilldowns after boiling

Rick writes:

>Hi all!  I've been a homebrewer for about a year now, and since I live in a

>small apartment, I can only brew from extracts and partial grain recipes.

>A few days ago, I saw a brief post on the HBD where someone said NOT to

>dump a boiling hot wort into a carboy filled with cold water.  Why not?

>I know Papazian says to do this, and while I would not jump off a bridge

>if he told me to, I had never heard otherwise (I am a new subscriber to HBD).

>My brews have all been quite good (if I don't say so myself), so I don't

>know what the problem is with doing this.  Please, someone, set me straight.

>I'd like to get the facts.

I think the most important reason is to avoid aerating the hot wort.  It

would be okay to instead *gently* pour or (even better) siphon the hot wort

into the cold water.  Once the temperature of the wort has dropped to below

80F (that's the commonly agreed upon temperature) you should then aerate

the heck out of the wort, but not while it's still hot.  Before I built

a wort chiller, I used to gently lower blocks of boiled-then-frozen water

into the kettle and then topped up the fermenter with boiled-cooled water.

I noticed a BIG difference in the flavor and stability of my beer.  I think

you will too.

Al.

------------------------------


Sanitation 'crit' - mea culpa

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 14:41:51 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: Sanitation 'crit' - mea culpa

 OOPS!

 It was actually Al Korzonas, from Sheaf & Vine Brewing Supply, that

 called the manufacturer and emailed me the proper dosage (1 tbsp/gal)

 for B-Brite.

 Sorry, Al

 And THANKS!

jim

------------------------------


YACFWCD (Yet another counter flow wort chiller design)

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 11:51:41 -0700

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: YACFWCD (Yet another counter flow wort chiller design)

  After modifying my immersion chiller to be a "coil in a bucket -o-

cold water" chiller, I finally seem to have gotten it right.

 Drew's Counterflow Wort Chiller Design

Parts list:

 50' 5/8" id garden hose

 50' 3/8" od soft copper refridgeration tubing

 6 ea 1.5" long pieces of 1/2" copper pipe

 2 ea copper "T"s to fit above pipe

 2 ea copper end caps for above pipe

 4 hose clamps

        plastic zip ties

Tools Needed:

 sharp knife or clippers

 propane torch, solder and flux

 standard screwdriver

 power drill, 1/8" bit & 3/8" bit

1) Cut off each end of the garden hose, leaving about 8" attached to

   each "hose end"

2) Insert the 6 pieces of copper pipe into the 6 ends of the 2 copper

   tees, and solder in place.

3) Drill a 1/8" hole in the end of each copper end cap.

4) Enlarge these holes to 3/8"

5) attach one end cap to each enlarged "T" so that you can look

   through the "T" and see light through the 3/8" hole in the end cap.

6) straighten the 50' of copper tubing, and feed through the garden hose.

7) slip a hose clamp over each end of the garden hose.

8) slip the copper "T" assembly over the end of the copper tubing, and

   into the garden hose. Attach with clamp.

9)  Solder the copper tubing to the "T" assembly where it passes

    through the hole in the end cap.

10) Using the 2 remaining hose clamps, attach the hose end remnants to

    the "other" end of the "T" assembly.

       copper T   ______________________________________  copper T

  end+-----------+ clamp       Garden Hose        clamp +-----------+end

===============<<<<==copper=tubing=<<<=wort=flow=direction=<<<============

  cap+--+     +--+______________________________________+--+     +--+cap

        |     |                                            |     |

        +     +                                            +     +

       | clamp |                                          | clamp |

       |       |                                          |       |

      Hose end in                                        Hose end out

11) Coil this using your favorite round object as a form. I used my

    old 5 gallon brewpot. Zip tie the coils together.

  I attached 3/8" id plastic tubing to each end of the chiller.  For

the "in" end, I attached a 3/8" od copper racking cane.  I hose

clamped a copper Chore Boy scrubber to the end of the racking cane, to

filter out hop particles.

  To sanitize, I siphon iodophor solution through the chiller into the

carboy. To start the siphon, put a female garden hose to 3/8" hose

barb fitting on the "out" end and attach it to a water source, Place

the "racking cane" into a bucket filled with sanitizer. Then run the

water until all the air is removed from the system, disconnect the

water source, and place the "out end" lower than the "in end" immersed

in sanitizer.  I use this same method to start the siphon from the hot

wort (remember not to blow bubbles into the hot wort though).

  This design works very well.  I was able to drop boiling wort to

within 5 degrees F of the tap water temperature.  I found three

drawbacks: 1) The flow is very slow. It took about 20 minutes to

siphon 5 gallons through the system. 2) a fair amount of wort is left

in the tubing then the siphon quits. 3) a fair amount of wort is left

amongst the hops in the bottom of the brew kettle.  I have a small

food grade pump which I may attach to the outflow of the chiller next

time I use it, which should solve #1 & #2 and help #3.

  I may also add another, bare copper coil between the outflow of the

CF chiller and the carboy.  This coil will be immersed in a small ice

bucket.  This will minimize the amount of ice needed, and get that

final, desireable drop in temperature.

         Drew Lynch

  Chronologic Simulation, Los Altos, Ca.

     (415)965-3312 x18

    drew@chronologic.com

------------------------------


Welding Stainless

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 13:39:37 -0700 (PDT)

From: bmv@plaza.ds.adp.com (Brian M. Vandewettering)

Subject: Welding Stainless

What special considerations are there for welding stainless steel for

brewing equipment?  I've heard that Cadmium rod should be avoided since

it could leach into the hot wort.  Are there other things to consider?

I've heard that you can arc weld stainless.  While heli-arc gives a cleaner

result, are there other reasons not to use a simple arc welder?

 -brian

------------------------------


Re: Water and Mineral Hardness

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 20:15:24 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>

Subject: Re: Water and Mineral Hardness

Steve asks:

>A few questions:

>        1.  Where is the best place to get a water hardness analysis?

Check your local aquarium shop.  They have kits that allow you to test

your own water hardness.

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Kinney Baughman                     |       Beer is my business and

  baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu      |       I'm late for work.

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


re-priming results

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 17:27:38 PDT

From: nexgen!bart@olivea.ATC.Olivetti.Com (Bart Thielges)

Subject: re-priming results

As promised, here are the results from my attempt to recarbonate a partial

batch of ale.  This is a follow up to last week's response to Robert Pulliam's

question about rebottling beer that has altready been kegged.  I can now

comment on the results.

First, some history of the batch.  It was brewed from a Boot's "mild"

kit combined with 4lbs of unhopped amber extract.  The following dates

refer to time relative to the initial priming/kegging/bottling :

day 0 - batch is combined with 1/2 cup corn sugar and mixed in a 5 gallon

 cornelius keg.  2.5 gallons are then siphoned off into bottles.

day 2 - After noticing that the keg does not build up any pressure, I

 finally figure out an error that I made in reassembly.  The error

 is corrected, but I am even more suspicious of the viability of

 the kegged beer.  1/3 cup of corn sugar in boiling water is added

 to re-prime the beer.  About 1 gallon is siphoned off into

 bottles, leaving about 1.5 gallons in the 5 gallon keg.  The

 relief valve at the top of the keg is left open overnight to

 allow air to be replaced with CO2.

day 12  The kegged beer is sampled.  The keg starts with about 20psi

 and is relieved to about 5psi for dispensing.  It is iced

 down from the cellar temperature of 70F to 50F.  It tastes fine.

day 15  The kegged beer is iced down and sampled again.  Now it has

 developed a harsh unpleasant bitter taste.  Making the assumption

 that the lowered pressure has somehow activated a "bad" mode

 of yeast growth, I repressurize to 20psi.

day 16  The taste test.  (see below)

The taste test involved comparing the three different sub-batches.  Batch

A is the originally bottled beer from day 0.  Batch B is the beer rebottled

on day 2.  Batch C is what remained in the keg.  Here's the comments from

the tasters :

Batch Taster 1   Taster 2

- ----- ------------------------------- ---------------------------------

A Tastes good.  mature  Tastes fine, full bodied

B Good, but a little  "green" Like batch A except much more

     carbonation and a little thinner.

C Like batch B, but flat  too bitter, a bit flat

So, one conclusion is that the re-priming technique seems to work well

at the expense of losing some of the body.  If it were re-primed with

DME, perhaps the body could be preserved.  In retrospect, 1/3 cup of

corn sugar was too much for the repriming.

However, I am somewhat baffled about why the beer turned harshly

bitter between days 12 and 15.  This is the second time a kegged

batch turned out with this bitter taste.  The first keg started out

bitter even when filled to 5 gallons.  It did however, have a long

ride in the back of a car soon before tapping.

These bitter kegged beers are somewhat disappointing.  So far, I have

yet to get a good batch of beer from a keg.  My bottled beers do not

exhibit this problem.  Does anyone have any guesses as to why my kegged

batches are turning bitter ?  Surely 100s of homebrewers using cornelius

kegs can't be wrong.

Until I can figure out what is going wrong, Mr. Cornelius Keg is on

probation.

Bart

(brewing equipment destroyed in this experiment : 0)

------------------------------


hydrogen peroxide

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 17:39:59 PDT

From: Victor Stevko (Human Genome Center, LBL) <stevko@genome.lbl.gov>

Subject: hydrogen peroxide

DO NOT DRINK Hydrogen Peroxide!  Gee whiz - look at your logic:  hydrogen

and oxygen aren't poisonous, you say.  Sodium and chlorine ARE, yet table

salt, sodium chloride, is an essential nutrient.  Besides, even granting

your (incorrect) logic, oxygen IS poisonous.  Oxygen damages your body.

Vitamin C is supposed to do its job by being an anti-oxidant - any

connections?  Your body does a great deal of work trying to keep oxygen,

which, yes, is essential, from damaging you beyond repair.  Honest-  I did

a thesis on a related matter.

The super-oxidation of solutions you refer to IS the chemical reaction you

are looking for - it breaks down proteins, lipids (fats), cell walls, etc.

 That's how it kills bacteria as an antiseptic

Data point:  Viruses don't respire aerobically or otherwise.  An anaerobic

virus is a meaningless term.

Data point:  Warts come and go, often spontaneously.

In beer, hydrogen peroxide will kill your yeast.  Remember, it's supposed

to stop infections?

Data point:  There is a POISON label on that bottle oof peroxide.  Why

might it be there?

 Mr. Childers, I am sorry to be so vehement, but I fear you are

doing yourself harm.  Stop drinking hydrogen peroxide, and do deep

breathing exercises, if you want more oxygen.  Call the researchers you

refer to, and ask them about this, if you must.  But do the reseearch

before the experimentation with your health and life - please.

  ---Victor Stevko

  stevko@genome.lbl.gov

------------------------------


SS 55 Gallon Drum

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 19:19:00 +0000

From: WHEATON_JOHN/HPBOI1_03@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com

Subject: SS 55 Gallon Drum

Item Subject: d:/memo/jw55gal

I am in search of expanding my boiling kettle to over 25 gallons.   I have heard

that there are 55 gallon SS drums that are used in the food industry.  Does any

one know where I can get one.  I have checked our local cafeteria but they say

no one uses them anymore.

Any clues?  I did find 55 Gal. SS drum behind a restaurant but it is being used

for old grease.  Yum! that will make for quite a clean up and is my last resort

to ask them for it.

Does anyone have any other suggestions for making a 25< boiling kettle?

Remember, I have a (very) limited brew equipment budget.

John in boise

------------------------------


Strike temperature

Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 9:09 BST

From: "Andy Phillips, Long Ashton, Bristol, UK" <phillipsa@afrc.ac.uk>

Subject: Strike temperature

Until recently, I mashed using a Bruheat boiler (a brewing

bucket fitted with thermostat and element), but I became

dissatisfied with the poor control of temperature, hot spots

near the element etc. I've now bought an insulated mash tun

(actually a picnic chest with tap and slotted pipe sparge

manifold).

This is probably an FAQ, but can someone tell me the

specific heat capacity of crushed malt, so that I can

heat my strike liquor to the right temperature (65C)? Dave Line's

books don't seem to take the mass of grains into account when

calculating strike temperature. Alternatively, could you tell me

waht mass of grains you use and at what temperature, the volume of

water and strike temperature, and the final mash temperature, so

that I can work it out for myself.

Thanks

Andy Phillips

------------------------------


Fruit Beer/calories

Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1993 18:13:18 -0700 (PDT)

From: Marcia Ingrid Hageman <MHAGEMAN@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

Subject: Fruit Beer/calories

Fellow Brewers:

A couple of questions for you.  Thanks in advance for your help!

1.  Fruit Beer - I have a large amount of fresh-picked wild blackberries that

I'd like to preserve for later addition to beer.  What's the best way?  Are

they best frozen, or first made into syrup and canned?  If canned, can I safely

omit sugar, or is that needed for prevention of spoilage?

2.  Fruit Beer - OK, so I've got the berries... now what?  How much fruit is

added to what kind of "base" beer?  Any recipes?

3.  Beer belly - Are there reliable ways of measuring caloric content of

homebrew?  This is of some concern to my wife, who sees my once svelte >; -)

abdomen tending toward flab.

Thanks again,

Kyle Hammon

MHAGEMAN@UOREGON.OREGON.EDU

------------------------------


ICE-BREWED BEER

Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 08:28:03

From: neal.ridgeway@mms.raleigh.nc.us

Subject: ICE-BREWED BEER

A friend of mine just returned home from Canada and he told me of a

new slogan being used by the Canadian breweries.  He said they were

now selling "Ice Brewed" beers!  I asked him if he didn't mean

"Cold Filtered" and he assured me that it wasn't cold filtered or

ice filtered but "Ice Brewed".  He told me he like Labatt's the best,

but also like Molson's, Carling Black Label, and others.

Is this something new in brewing like "Dry Beer" was or are we talking

about the old process of Lagering?

Also - Like JS, I have used an aquarium pump to try to aerate my new

batches of ale.  For me it just never did as well as my old reliable 18 inch

stainless steel 3/8 inch tube with the 4 1/16 inch holes drilled 2

inches from the top.  With my SS Keg/Boiler sitting at approx 3 feet

of the ground, approx 2 feet of 3/8" ID vinyl tubing connecting the

spigot of the boiler to the SS tubing, when I open the spigot and

start pouring 65-70 degree wort into my primary, the air rushing

through the holes in the SS tubing COMPLETELY aerates the wort.  When

finished there is a good 12 inches of foam protruding out of the

fermenter.

Hoppy trails to U.

Neal

neal.ridgeway@mms.raleigh.nc.us

------------------------------


Reusing Yeast Slurry

Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 09:07:14 EDT

From: gorman@aol.com

Subject: Reusing Yeast Slurry

I'd like to try to pour another batch of wort on top of the yeast slurry

that's currently bubbling away in my primary fermenter. It's Wyeast

California Lager.

Any advice via private email on things to do/not do, etc. would be

appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Bill Gorman

America Online

------------------------------


water, beer in BC, homebrew data

Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 8:10:33 PDT

From: ghultin@sfu.ca

Subject: water, beer in BC, homebrew data

I enthusiastically second the kind of info Bill Flowers called

for regarding water alterations.  I have never fooled with my

water, but it would be nice to see some more straightforward

talk and less scientific language (which is difficult for me,

a non-science type to understand).

Beer in BC.  There are several microbreweries in BC. Don't be fooled

by the name however, my experience (limited) with Seattle micros

suggests that BC micros are smaller versions of the big brewers.

Sure, Okanagan Spring, Whistler Breweries make good beer, but

they do not have a diverse range of product, tending to stick with

what sells in our relatively small canadian market. Don't even

bother with Granville Island beers, they aren't worth it. If you've

tried Canadian you've had these supposed micro beers. (actually,

it's not that bad, but the general drift ofmeaning is there).

I do recommend Horseshoe Bay breweries. But Best for Last, go to

Spinnakers Brewpub in Victoria. It is close to downtown, just the

other side of the blue lift bridge, and they have wonderful brew,

and a wonderful variety.  Swann's Brewpub is also a good choice

in Victoria.  I tend to favour Spinnakers, but that's personal choice

for you.

Finally, I would be most interested in any collected database of

homebrew oriented information.  If this collection does get made,

are there any plans to share/post/distribute it? I would enjoy a copy.

geoff.

------------------------------


FWD: It was foamy with a mature flavor ...

Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 12:08:39 EDT

From: carlson@61.267.ENET.dec.com

Subject: FWD: It was foamy with a mature flavor ...

 LONDON (UPI) -- Divers exploring the wreck of a Royal Navy ship that

sank near the Isle of Skye off Scotland during World War II have

recovered a small treasure -- 48 bottles of beer, unopened and unspoiled

after 50 years on the sea bed, officials at the Whitbread brewery said

Tuesday.

 The divers, members of the Hartlepool Diving Club, were exploring

Royal Navy mine-layer HMS Port Napier when they discovered the cache of

Whitbread beer in the ship's galley. When they brought the bottles to

the surface, they sampled the brew and found it still drinkable.

 ``It was foamy with a mature flavor and you could still taste the

beer,'' said Tony Brumwell, one of the divers.

 The divers handed over some of the beer to Whitbread's Castle Eden

brewery for testing.

 ``Beer is not meant to last a long time but our brewers are

interested in analyzing it to test its condition and alcoholic content,''

said Whitbread Regional Director Jim Kerr.

 A fire broke out on the HMS Port Napier in 1942 as it started out on

a mine-laying mission. It sank in 80 feet of water. The navy later

salvaged the mines from the vessel but the ship remains on the sea bed

and is a favorite for exploration by divers.

------------------------------


RE:Grolsch Bottles and Carbonation

Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 12:20:07 EDT

From: "John R. Calen - Contacting Systems - E.F., N.Y" <calen@vnet.IBM.COM>

Subject: RE:Grolsch Bottles and Carbonation

Philip J. Difalco suggests that contracting gaskets from the cold of

his refrigerator may lead to reduced carbonation in his beer.

I disagree.

Assuming that the conditioning is finished, the "problem" is more likely

the vapor pressure of the brew. The apparent carbonation is a function of

temperature and atmospheric pressure.

Basically, beer with a given content of Carbon Dioxide in solution, will bubble

more vigorously when it's warm than when it's cold. (Also on a rainy day

vs. a sunny one. But that difference is slight.)

It's very likely that the one which is 40 degrees F or so cooler than the

other will appear less carbonated.

Getting the thing nice and chilly is a good way to help offset the effects of

an overcarbonated brew. In fact, I've got a batch right now that will gush if

merely cooled, but is manageable once chilled. (Though it still needs

decanting. Hey, I thought it was done!)

Regards,

John Calen

------------------------------


reLYeast culture kits & shipping

Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 13:03:41 EDT

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: reLYeast culture kits & shipping

In the last digest,

<Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 22:40:57 -0400 (EDT)

From: Jim Griggers <brew@devine.ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM>

Subject: Shipping live yeast

<I bought a "Yeast Culture Kit"  from _*deleted*_ when I was at

the AHA Conference in Portland.  I had been thinking of buying one for

some time, and their "special show price" of $29.90 seemed great.

<The yeast arrived Friday in a plain manila envelope in the US Mail.  My mail

box is a standard flat-black metal rural box that spends 75% of its time in

direct sunlight.  Today is fairly cool (90F) and mostly cloudy.  The temperature

inside the box was around 105F.  I guess I am lucky in that: 1) I was

home, 2) I checked the mail early, and 3) today has mostly overcast skies.

I exhanged email with Jim, and just wanted to clarify that the kit in question

was *NOT* from the Yeast Culture Kit Company.  I was a bit concerned of this,

thinking that there is a supplier that is not following the preferred methods

of shipping.  When shipping yeasts in the hot hot summer, it is most definetly

a good practice to fork over the 6 bucks and get fast delivery.  The yeast may

be fine, it may not.  A small test ferment is in order to ascertain the

condition of the yeast.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


withholding grains until after conversion

Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 12:09:24 -0600

From: Mike Zulauf <zulauf@orbit.Colorado.EDU>

Subject: withholding grains until after conversion

Hi everybody!

     Now that I have my Gott insulated mash/lauter tun all set and ready

to go, I have a couple quick questions.

     I have heard from numerous different sources of the benefits of

leaving any crystal malt of the mash until after conversion.  This

supposedly keeps the complex sugars in the crystal malt from being

reduced to simpler, more fermentable ones, and has the effect of

yielding a maltier tasting beer.

     My first question is, how many people do something like this?  Does

it work?

     Also, what other grains would benefit from this treatment?  I've

heard rumbles that dextrine malts might as well, but I would like a

little more reassurance before I try it.

Thanks,

         Mike

         zulauf@orbit.colorado.edu

------------------------------


Visiting Los Angeles

Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 14:00:23 -0400

From: "Phillip Seitz" <p00644@psilink.com>

Subject: Visiting Los Angeles

I will be in the Los Angeles area (mostly mid-town and Orange Co.) from

this Saturday, August 21 through Thursday, August 26, and will likely

have a lot of evening time to burn.  Can anybody recommend any

beer-related venues where I should spend my time?

 More to the point, are there any brewers out there who'd like

to meet up?  A Maltose Falcons meeting?

 Please send any suggestions to me via direct e-mail, and TIA!

********************************************************************************

     Baudouin Albert Charles Leopold Axel Maria Gustave of Saxe-Coburg Gotha

                                 (1930-1993)

                         Fifth King of Belgium, 1950-1993

********************************************************************************

------------------------------


top fermenting infection?

Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 15:58:35 -0400 (EDT)

From: Stephen Brent Peters <sp2q+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: top fermenting infection?

Last may I used the last of my malt extract to make a smoke lager.  I

made the mistake of using yeast that hadn't seen fresh wort in six

months and the fermentation took off very slowly and never picked up

much speed.  It fermented over a month in the fridge with no sign of

stopping, and being an impatient person I took it out so it would

finish up faster.  It didn't.  Even the heat wave didn't finish it

off.

Finally two weeks ago I tasted it.  Sour.  Infected.  Tasted terrible.

So, two days ago I finally get around to dumping it out.  After the

first few inches of beer gurgled out of the carboy I noticed the beer

aroma had improved.  I poured myself a glass, and sure enough the bad

flavor was gone!  What's happening here?  Shouldn't the whole batch be

as bad as the stuff on top?  Has anyone else ever experienced anything

like this?

               Steve Peters =  sp2q@andrew.cmu.edu

                  *Oxnar demands a _Sacrifice!_*

------------------------------


Remove me from your mail list

Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 14:05:56 -0700

From: dons@ca.sandia.gov (sheaffer donald a)

Subject: Remove me from your mail list

Please remove my email address from your daily account.

Thank You.  dons@snll-arpagw.llnl.gov.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1206, 08/18/93

*************************************

-------


yeast FAQ comments/Zymurgy Bashing/more yeast comments

Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 12:38 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: yeast FAQ comments/Zymurgy Bashing/more yeast comments

Patrick writes:

>   a. Place the starter jars in a location where 68F (18C can be held). Aerate

>  twice daily by vigorously shaking jars. 1L Erlenmeyer flasks are excellent

>  for this purpose because they permit vigorous swirling without getting the

>  wort up by the neck and opening.

Yes, but I've read that although fermentation may be done at lower temps,

80F is a better temperature for starters.  Remember, you're trying to

increase your yeast bulk here, not make beer.  Also, 1L Erlenmeyer flasks

are extremely expensive from most places, unless you buy in bulk.  If you're

interested in a source for inexpensive 250ml, 500ml and 1L Pyrex Erlenmeyers

in single-quanitities, email me.

Another interesting point is that if you use a glass airlock, you can

put that in your pressure cooker or autoclave (this is definately NOT

recommended with a polystyrene airlock!).  Jack Schmidling gave me a

great tip that I use when I make starters on the stovetop: put an empty

glass airlock on the flask and let the boiling wort's steam sanitize and

FILL the airlock too!  Again, don't try this with a plastic airlock (YUCK!).

>  d. It is also desirable to reduce the temperature to a point closer

>  to the temperature that will be used in production if that is

>  lower than 18 C. For example, with lagers fermented at 10 C, this

>  is usually taken to be 14-15 C.

Yes and this should be done slowly.  You should *slowly* lower the temperature

of the starter to the temperature of the wort into which you will be pitching.

A few degrees difference is okay, 10 degrees may increase your lag time,

20+ degrees may shock your yeast so they are never quite the same.

>  a. At this time you should have a jar with about 500ml (a little more than 2

>  cups) of yeast for a 5gal ale batch. I would suggest pitching before the

>  krausen (foam) totally dies down so that the yeast are still in rapid growth

>  phase. The total volume will vary with batch size, yeast type, and your

>  personal experience/whim. Remember to keep yeast notes along with your beer

>  notes so that you can learn from experience!

This goes against what I've found to be true.  Pitching *just after* the

kraeusen dies down is just about ideal.  Quoting Mike Sharp:

MS> what I really wanted to address was the 'you should pitch at high

MS> kraeusen' myth.  Research has showed that you actually want to

MS> pitch just after the cells have entered their stationary phase.

MS> (thats the stage after high kraeusen when the yeast begings to

MS> flocculate). The reason for this relates to the glycogen level

MS> (think of it as the cell's gas tank) in the cell.  During high

MS> kraeusen the cells are rather depleated of glycogen and are less

MS> able to multiply.  This results in slow starts, a possible

MS> increase in sulfur dioxide levels, and a host of other problems.

MS>

MS> The reference I have at hand for all of this is:

MS>  Impact of Yeast-Handling Procedures on Beer Flavor Development

MS>  During Fermentation by Pickerell, Hwang, and Axcell

MS>  American Society of BBrewing Chemists Journal,

MS>  49:2, 1991

>  c. It is not advised that you pitch the old wort and yeast into the fermenter

>  because the media has been exposed to air and oxidized, etc, etc. Therefore,

>  pour off or siphon off the old media, leaving the yeast on the bottom of the

>  flask. Pour this slurry into the primary or resuspend this slurry in

>  sterile water and add immediately to the wort.  A short exposure to water

>  will not harm the yeast, although they should not be exposed to it for long

>  periods or they will lyse.

I don't think the spent starter liquid should be oxidized or was exposed to

air.  If you've had activity in the starter, the air in the flask has been

displaced by CO2 created by the yeast.  It's not a big deal if you pour it

off or pitch it.  The main reason for pouring it off is if you want to

make more yeast but you don't have room in your flask.  You can then

pour off the liquid and add fresh, sterile wort.

>(v) Autoclave the tubes at 15 psi for 5 mins.

Actually, 15-20 minutes is recommended.

>(vi) Tighten the caps on the tubes, and place them at a

>  30 degree angle. Allow them to solidify at room temperature.

>  Solidification should become apparent within a few hours.

>  Tubes which are not solid after 24 hrs. should be discarded.

You should let the tubes cool quite a bit in the autoclave/pressure cooker

before you tighten the caps.  If you tighten them when they are too hot,

they will implode.  I let everything cool overnight in the pressure cooker.

>Note: Petri dishes can not be autoclaved, and so alternate procedures are

>needed for them. A common practice is to autoclave the malt/ agar solution in

No, no, no.  You mean disposable, polystyrene petri dishes cannot be

autoclaved.  Polypropylene and glass petri dishes can be autoclaved.  I,

personally, don't like to use disposable anything, so I've found a source

for glass petri dishes.  Email me for a single-quanitity source.

Gosh, I hope I don't sound too negative about Patrick's posts -- they were

a lot of work and, he has said that they are collected from various sources.

These sources are not always 100% on target and therefore some minor errors

are inevitable.  Again I must tip my (HopUnion) hat to Patrick for a

well-done piece of work.

*****************************

Subject: re:Zymurgy bashing

I'm with Jim Busch on this topic -- Zymurgy and the AHA in general have

been making efforts to improve and I, for one, am glad to see that they

are soliciting more input from us.

*****************************

More from Patrick:

>   Yeast are unicellular fungi. All brewing yeast belong to the genus

>   Saccharomyces.

Ahem, since I occasionally brew Pure-culture Lambieks, I take great exception

with this statement.  There are a great many different genus of yeast that

play a role in Lambieks, for example, Brettanomyces.  See J.X. Guinard's

book Lambic for a detailed discussion of all the different microbiota that

work in concert to make this most complex of beers.

Al.

------------------------------


Your favorite supplier?

Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 22:17:10 -0400 (EDT)

From: CCAMDEN@delphi.com

Subject: Your favorite supplier?

OK, my first batch is busy bubbling away. (Is it normal to go in and just

look at it every so often?)  And I am already looking forward to the next

time.

My local homebrew store is really just a health food store with a corner

devoted to brewing and wine making.  However, not only is their stock

limited, but I question how old some of the stuff is.  So I have been

calling a few mail order suppliers and requesting catalogs.  In a few days I

will get 5 or 6 and then I will have to decide who to use.

So, help me out.  Who is your favorite mail order supplier?  Which one seems

to do the best job?  I welcome any and all opinions.

Email replys welcomed.  (I'm sure this would be old hat to most.)

Thanks,   Cary Camden

------------------------------


Boiling

Date: 18 Aug 93 13:16:13 GMT+1100

From: Davin Slade <10692851@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au>

Subject: Boiling

I am only new to the brewing idea so please forgive my ignorance.

When people talk about boiling is this to produce the syrup that you

can buy in the can from the homebrew shop.  ie to make your own taste.

If so i assume you add the yeast later after it as cooled to the

temperature for brewing.

- ------------------------------------------------------------

Davin Slade, 4th Year Civil Engineering, Monash Uni, Oz

10692851@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au or

baldrick@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au

- ------------------------------------------------------------

"It was georgiousness and georgosity in the flesh"

Alexander de Large, A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrik, 1971

- ------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


my own hops

Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 17:22:24 +0200 (MET DST)

From: Matthias Wrase <mwr@cs.tu-berlin.de>

Subject: my own hops

Howdy !

It's time to harvest hops down here in Germany, so I took a look

and found some very good looking plants in close vicinity to my

parents' house. I have two resulting questions:

   1) it's most probable that these are "wild" hops. Are these

      useable for homebrewing anyway ?

   2) if I can use these hops - how can I measure the amount

      of alpha-acid so I know how much to use of them for my

      next batch ?

Thanks in advance for any response !

      Matt

- --

***************************************************************************

* Matthias Wrase                |                                         *

* mwr@cs.tu-berlin.de           |    TU Berlin - only the fittest survive *

* mwr@marie.physik.tu-berlin.de |                                         *

* ag729@freenet.hsc.colorado.edu|                                         *

***************************************************************************

------------------------------


C. cerevisiae taxonomy?

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 07:57:09 -0400 (EDT)

From: Tom.Weicht@arrc.ncsu.edu

Subject: C. cerevisiae taxonomy?

Respond to: deb_neher@ncsu.edu

Re:  S. cerevisiae and taxonomy, 1 of 2 (The most important IMO)

     I originally had this posting over 8K. If I can post more than

     8K per day, the other will follow today. Other wise, the

     other will follow tomorrow. There are more direct answers to

     others posting on this subject in 2 of 2.

     The main point I wanted to make in my first posting was that

in industrial/commercial culture collections taxonomy is often

perverted for a variety of reasons, and as a result, caution should

be used when accepting a classification as RIGHT or dismissing a

classification as WRONG. The requirements for proof of a species

may be beyond what is possible for every isolate used in

fermentation when the current genetic status of commercial yeast

cultures make this difficult at best, and impossible based on

traditional taxonomic approaches. The fermentation sciences do not

hold to the same naming convention as other practical sciences

using mycological taxonomy.  This could ultimately result in few

vegetatively propagated isolates which have been in the industry

for a long time, but incorrectly classified as S. cerevisiae.

     The fungi unlike other organisms can be correctly classified

under more than one latin binomial. The ideal latin binomial for a

fungus is the one reflecting the sex reproductive stage or

teleomorph. However, a fungus (or fungal culture) which does not

readily show this stage, but also, has an asexual reproductive

stage or anamorph will have a latin binomial related to this stage,

these are the Fungi Imperfecti. Therefore, in order to resolve

controversy over a yeast's teleomorphic identity, in the case of

the Saccharomycetaceae, the asci and ascospores would have to be

produced. However, many commercial isolates have lost their ability

to sporulate. This is the result of polyploidy (multiple genomes;

greater than 2x the haploid or diploid) and aneuploidy (a genome

which is not an even multiple of the haploid). This genomic status

is important to the fermenting and baking industries because of the

genetic stability and minimal susceptibility to mutation multiple

genomes confer on an isolate. Laboratory isolates of species of the

Saccharomycetaceae are often relatively stable haploids and

diploids. Because of asporogenous ambiguities many authors address

the species "S. cerevisiae (sensu lato or s.l.)"=" S. cerevisiae

(in the broad sense)" suggesting that it may be a complex of

organisms which deserve other classifications. Therefore, best

source for understanding the asporogenic brewing yeasts will be the

tools of molecular genetic: mapping, probing (genomes, mitochondria

and ribosomes), restriction fragment length polymorphism, and

random polymerase chain reaction patterns (PCR fingerprints).

Fungal genomes are large and the necessary technologies are just

becoming widespread enough so that probably much information will

be available in the next few years. Currently, most research seems

to be with laboratory isolates.

     Based on classical taxonomy, the anamorph of yeasts used in

brewing may be best, or most confidently, classified as Candida

(cerevisiae??). The precedence established in the Sylloge Fungorum

by Saccardo, has the hierarchy of characteristics used to classify

the Fungi Imperfecti as follows: Conidia (spores or buds) take

precedence over mycelial structures. A description of the genus

from Barnett and Hunter, Illustrated Genera of Imperfect Fungi

reads: Mycelium not extensive; conidia (blastospores) hyaline, 1-

celled, ovoid to fusoid, forming short chains by budding. Because

of Saccardo's precedence to spores, I am ignoring mycelium in the

description. The ontogeny of blastospores is identical to budding.

The down side of this classification is that it is uninformative.

This genus is basically a trash can. Candida has members which are

both basidiosporogenous and ascosporogenous.

     When addressing a fungus in standard communications, most

other sciences use a name which applies to the morphological stage

which dominates process. For instance, if a vineyard were

inoculated with Botrytis cinerea, it would be called Botrytis

(anamorph) and not Sclerotinia (teleomorph). Even in brewing, when

addressing the organisms which occur in a lambic, Brettanomyces

(anamorph) is used over Dekkera (teleomorph). That the teleomorph

Saccharomyces is used over an anamorphic classification in

commercial industries could be the result of several circumstances.

First, as stated earlier, the genus Candida is uninformative while

Saccharomyces is more informative because it is a narrower

description. In the above examples where anamorphs are used over

the teleomorph, the anamorphs are very narrow and relate directly

to one teleomorphic genus and are therefore, very descriptive and

informative. The other reason Saccharomyces may be used over an

anamorphic name may relate to a historical precedence. Almost

certainly the past fermentations would have contained asci and

selection toward asporogenous cultures occurred because of man's

selective pressure. Because of this previous association,

Saccharomyces was linked intimately with the nomenclature

surrounding the fermentation process and because changing the

nomenclature denotes less information there has been no strong

pressure to change.

     However, to call an isolate Saccharomyces spp. when only an

asporogenous cultures exists has it liabilities because there is

the connotation of sexual relatedness which may be unavailable.

Further, because of the economic potential of these organisms there

is probably much information not in the public domain. To feel

secure about a particular classification of a particular isolate

used in brewing or to rule another one out is probably not wise.

Older more established collections of asporogenous yeasts are

potentially sources where a few incorrect classifications may be

found because of the fluxes which occur in the taxonomy of the

entire subfamily Saccharomycetoideae. There is no basis upon which

to classify a yeast if it only buds. Modern molecular tools and

researchers studying these yeasts will establish the new basis of

classification by comparing their results with traditional

taxonomy. I doubt any of us have access to the teleomorphs the

fungi in question or can find the appropriate citations describing

these ascii and ascospores in the detail required to make an

independent judgement, and proof if it exists in the literature is

probably buried in an article with a title like "Authentication of

ATCC Strains in the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Complex by PCR

Fingerprinting". I suspect that as more isolates are studied with

the tools of molecular genetics these organisms will be shuffled

and reshuffled for years to come.

Not all isolates are asporogenous, many are only difficultly sporogenous

and some are relatively easily sporogenous. If any body on the HBD has

information on this relative to brewing cultures I would like to  know.

Tom Weicht

(respond to deb_neher@ncsu.edu)

------------------------------


Taxonomy Debate

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 07:59:57 -0400 (EDT)

From: Tom.Weicht@arrc.ncsu.edu

Subject: Taxonomy Debate

REspond to: deb_neher@ncsu.edu

Re:  S. cerevisiae and taxonomy, The debate, 2 of 2.

     I originally had this posting over 8K. I would have preferred

     some of this prefacing 1 of 2 and some of this as post script

     to 1 of 2.

     I would like to start by saying that I appreciate the feed

back from my original posting, and I like debate as a way to refine

my ideas; PLEASE DON'T TAKE ANY OF THIS AS A PERSONAL ATTACK or AN

OUT OF CONTROL FIRE-FIGHT; I plan to be polite. I revisited some of

the ideas and expanded on a few others in my second posting on this

subject; particularly some of the subtleties of mycological

taxonomy and certain areas of conflict and incongruities which have

shaped my thoughts and prejudices on this subject area. Unlike just

about any other area there is the potential for a great amount of

debate on taxonomy.

     First off, I want to say after rereading my original posting,

I feel much of the response coming from it originates from an over

statement of my position:

    "Saccharomyces delbrukii or S. cerevisiae?? I personally

     believe both are technically incorrect. From the best that I

     have been able to find in the mycological taxonomy literature,

     the true name of this organism is Torulospora delbrukii, this

     is how the American Type Culture Collection lists it which

     sparked my interest and pursuit of this subject."

A more appropriate stating would have been:

    "Saccharomyces delbrukii or S. cerevisiae?? I personally

     believe both MAY BE technically incorrect. From the best that

     I have been able to find in the mycological taxonomy

     literature, the true name of this organism is Torulospora

     delbrukii, this is how the American Type Culture Collection

     lists it which sparked my interest and THOUGHTS ON this

     subject."

     Admittedly all I have ever looked up on this subject was the

description of the teleomorph (sexual reproductive stage). Like

several of the other posters (responders) both public and private,

all I have found from the standard data base literature search on

the subject was the reference to wine, and although I was tempted

to acquire the ATCC isolate, I remember refraining because this

isolate had not come from a brewing source. I suspect that if there

is a publication in support of Wyeast, it is probably in molecular

genetics article on S. cerevisiae and will take time to ferret out,

ie. Computer data based searches on the obvious are probably

incomplete. I have not prioritized this subject high enough to have

done this work yet.

By the way I was reexamining my latest Current Contents search and

found this citation.

     Author    JL Huffman

     Title     Authentication of ATCC Strains in the

               Saccharomyces cerevisiae Complex by PCR

               Fingerprinting (Vol16, Pg 316, 1992)

     Source    Experimental Mycology 17: 2 (JUN 1993)

     Page      155

     (It looks like there may have been two sources?? This is how

     I sucked it up from the search.)

     I could conclude that I fell into a Wyeast myth as some of the

posting have suggested. Admittedly, I made the assumption that

there was some truth in their classification. Although there are

fraudulent products available to the HOMEBREWER, I assumed there

was no profit motive in this and thus, no reason to deceive the

HOMEBREWER. (Antidotal reports suggest that since Siebel lost the

contract for the Witbread yeast one distributer still distributes

a yeast under that name; this APPEARS to be FRAUDULENT.) In fact,

wouldn't the market place be more receptive to classifying this

yeast as the classic weisbier yeast? HOWEVER, to base a

classification on a classification in Weihenstephan is to make the

same assumption I made. The only difference is that Weihenstephan

is more sentimentally favored over Wyeast. (See explanation about

asporogenous classification in the previous posting).

     The next issue of The Yeasts a Taxonomic Study will probably

be a good source to settle some of our current issues of debate,

but as the current issue YTS III seems to already have been

surpassed by the research in the area of classification it too will

also become out dated quickly (see the second half of my first

posting where S. carlsbergensis, may be better classified as S.

pastorianus). IMO there will be a explosion in taxonomical

rearrangement as more isolates are tested with the tools of

molecular genetics.

     Because of the asporogenous nature of some isolates classified

as S. cerevisiae the current status of the species is that of a

repository for many isolates which may not be proven true

members of the species. ie. S. cerevisiae has become a taxonomic

trash can to a limited extent. Essentially, this status diminishes

the information that can be concluded based on classification alone.

     It maybe interesting to contact Wyeast and see if they would

share their source for classifying their isolate and if it is

related to the Weihenstephan #68. I will write them a letter when

I have time again to write some thing, and I will share this

response if I get one.

     Again, if there is a source of information about which isolates

are sporogenous please inform me. I would enjoy proving the taxonmic status

of any questionable isolates, and I am happy to change my opinion about

the isolates in question.

     I should include a small biography to let readers know where

I am coming from, but I written a lot and have taken more time than

I have for my brewing hobby. I'm too lazy to say much more than: I have

two degrees in Plant Pathology (under grad and masters) from UC

Davis. I have had two mycology courses in my history, an undergrad

and grad, one of which I have also TA'ed. The grad version was an

eclectic mix of every taxonomical opinion ever sustained in the

discipline for more than one author. I collect slime molds as pets

(for real) and pursue Chantharellus and other edibles in the woods

regularly. I have published one key, but to tomato diseases not

fungi, although a small fungal/pathogen key is part of the whole.

Tom Weicht

(respond to deb_neher@ncsu.edu)

------------------------------


re:WORT AERATION

Date:  Wed, 18 Aug 1993 08:59:00 +0000

From: "Rick (R.) Cavasin" <cav@bnr.ca>

Subject:  re:WORT AERATION

Jack,

Just a little quibble with your experiment.  I wonder if there isn't

one confounding variable you've overlooked, namely, fermenter geometry.

The surface area/wort volume ratio, and the amount of head space in

the quart jar fermenters is radically different than what most people

would encounter in normal sized homebrew batches, even for people

doing open fermentations is buckets. (people using blowoff tubes

would fill their carboys near full, resulting in small surface areas

with almost no headspace). I wonder if the rate of diffusion

of oxygen from the headspace into the wort doesn't compensate for the

lack of aeration in your 'control' sample.  If people were using

half empty carboys as primary fermenters (which I've done actually,

got tired of fiddling with blowoff tubes and such - just split the

batch between two carboys for the primary, then rack back into one

for secondary), the comparison would be more valid.  In the case

of your lager test, is a starter/wort ratio of 1/10 typical?

(don't know, don't do lagers myself)

Cheers, Rick C.

------------------------------


strike temperatures

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 9:22:11 EDT

From: pconti@mercury.hyperdesk.com (Paul Conti)

Subject: strike temperatures

> Andy Phillips writes:

> Subject: Strike temperature

>

> This is probably an FAQ, but can someone tell me the

> specific heat capacity of crushed malt, so that I can

> heat my strike liquor to the right temperature (65C)? Dave Line's

> books don't seem to take the mass of grains into account when

> calculating strike temperature. Alternatively, could you tell me

> waht mass of grains you use and at what temperature, the volume of

> water and strike temperature, and the final mash temperature, so

> that I can work it out for myself.

It depends on the mosture content of the grain, but a good figure is

 .4 c/gram.

You will most likely need to experiment in any case when you run your

numbers.  For single step infusion using my gott cooler with slotted

copper pipes and assumming grain at room temperature (68F), and

further assuming 1qt of water per pound of grain my strike

temperatures are:

Strike Heat       Mash Temp

160F (71.0C)      148F (64.4C)

162F (72.1C)      150F (65.5C)

164F (73.3C)      152F (66.6C)

167F (75.0C)      154F (67.7C)

169F (76.1C)      156F (68.8C)

172F (77.7C)      158F (69.9C)

When I do an upward step infusion I use 24oz of water per pound of

grain with a strike heat of 146F (63.3C) and I get a mash temp around

122F (50C).  For the second step I add an addition 1/2 qt of boiling

water 212F (100C) per pound of grain and my mash goes to 150F (65.5C).

I find it best to add strike water at few degrees higher than I really

want.  I then let it drop to the correct temperature in my mash tun

before adding my grains. This works best for me.  Your mileage may vary.

- --

Paul Conti  | HyperDesk Corporation        | Email: paul_c@hyperdesk.com

------------------------------


re: Welding Stainless

Date: 18 Aug 93 14:49:04 GMT

From: GANDE@slims.attmail.com

Subject: re: Welding Stainless

In HBD1206, Brian Vandewettering asks about welding stainless steel.

A year or so ago I made a boiler out of a Sanke keg and welding a

nipple into the bottom was required. I took the keg to a

"professional" welding shop and inquired. The welders comments re

stainless were:

1. It's considered a white metal and arc welding is very difficult if

   not impossible.

2. MIG welds (Metal Inert Gas) contain cadimum. Poisonous and could

   leach into your brew, the welder said MIG's are never put on

   surfaces to be in contact with food.

3. TIG welds (Tungsten Inert Gas) contains no toxic metals, will weld

   white metals, very strong and non-toxic.  This is what I had put

   on my keg and it's been fine for over a year.

TIG welding is an art, apparantly, so it may cost a little more.  My

job (weld 3 little legs and a nipple, 2 holes cut with a plasma

torch) ran about $45(CANADIAN).

 ....GA

+----------------------------------+

| Internet: gande@slims.attmail.com|

| Glenn Anderson                   |

| Manager, Telecom. Facilities     |

| Sun Life of Canada               |

+----------------------------------+

------------------------------


Yeast Culture Kit Company

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 10:11:40 EDT

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: Yeast Culture Kit Company

Does anybody have the adderss or phone number of the Yeast Culture Kit Company?

- --Tony

------------------------------


Bar Harbor Ale

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 10:45:59 EST

From: Kristof_Mueller@voyager.umeres.maine.edu

Subject: Bar Harbor Ale

I just tried a fantastic microbrew last night.  It is from Bar Harbor,

Maine, my home state.  They have three brews:  Real Ale, Pale Ale, and Coal

Porter (a stout)  They were all good, and I suggest trying some if you are

ever in the area.  They also give tours of there brewery, so check that out

as well.

- --Kris Mueller

Beer,  Beer

Starts with a B

Ends with a R

And has two E's

------------------------------


Yeast

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 10:39 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Yeast

 >From: Jim Griggers <brew@devine.ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM>

 >Subject: Shipping live yeast

 >The yeast arrived Friday in a plain manila envelope in the US Mail.  My mail

 box is a standard flat-black metal rural box that spends 75% of its time in

 direct sunlight..... (I drive 80 miles, each way, to Charlotte, NC to buy

 yeast, so I usually stockpile.)

 One of the great advantages of culturing one's own yeast is that yeast

 purchases become a very rare event, dictated more by wanting to try something

 new than by the brewing schedule.

 An obvious solution to the hot mailbox is to purchase culture yeast in cool

 weather.

 Actually "buying" yeast could become a thing of the past.  I haven't

 purchased any yeast since the last time I used EDME.  They have all come via

 swaps with other homebrewers.

 It occurs to me that yeast swapping could be very effectively supported by

 computer networks.  If we can use them to find out the names of pubs in a

 town to be visited, we should be able to just as effectively find a free

 yeast culture we want.

            ATTN:  YEAST SWAP

 I will start the ball rolling by offering a PU culture for a good European

 red wine culture.

 >I am NOT knocking the shop owner or _*deleted*_, but I am questioning their

 choice of shipping.

 I thought it was YOUR choice.  Didn't they offer air as an option?

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 > WYeast 2124 Bohemian Lager Yeast

 >  The traditional saaz yeast from Czechoslovakia.  Ferments

 >  clean and malty, rich residual maltiness in high gravity

 >  pilsners, medium flocculation, apparent attenuation

 >  69-73%.  Optimum fermentation temperature: 48 deg. F (9

 >  deg. C).

 <Allegedly, one of the four (?) Pilsner Urquell yeasts.

 Two rumors I would like verified here....

 The first is the blending of (4) different beers from (4) different yeasts by

 PU.  This was reported in an article I just read but do not recall where.

 Nothing of this sort was reported by Daryl Richman from his visit to the

 brewery.

 I was told by "someone" and it may have been the owner of Wyeast that they do

 not have a yeast from PU.  It is similar but not one of their yeasts.

 The yeast I use was obtained by Paul Farnswort from PU and in a conversation

 with him, he mentioned nothing about (4) yeasts.  I would not have started

 using it if it was just one of four used.  I will call him but would like

 some backup facts/rumors first.

 js

------------------------------


Heat Capacity of Malt / Infusion Calculations

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 10:34:38 -0600

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Heat Capacity of Malt / Infusion Calculations

In HBD #1206, Andy Phillips asks about the heat capacity of crushed

malt, to be used for calculations of infusion mashes.  I have found

that the number 1350 (where water is about 4200) to work well for me.

I believe the units are J/Kg/K, but this is not important.

Alternately, one could use the dimensionless number 0.32 for the malt,

where water is equal to one.  Of course, this will vary somewhat

depending on the type of malt used, the moisture content of the malt,

etc. but this should be a good starting point.

For those not familiar with these calculations, I will present them

here:

First, let

Cpm= heat capacity of your malt, about 0.32

Cpw= heat capacity of water, 1.0

Mw = mass of water used

Mm = mass of malt used

Tw = temperature of strike water

Tm = beginning temperature of malt (usually room temperature)

Tf = final temperature of mixture (rest temp)

Masses and temperatures can be in any units, as long as you are

consistent.

The basic formula, then, is

(1)  Tf = (Cpm*Mm*Tm + Cpw*Mw*Tw)/(Cpm*Mm+Cpw*Mw)

This can be rearranged in many ways to solve for the desired unknown.

For example, if we want to know the quantity of water to add to result

in a desired protein rest temperature, we can write

(2) Mw = Cpm*Mm*(Tf-Tm)/(Cpw*(Tw-Tf))   or, using the numbers for Cpm&Cpw,

(3) Mw = .32*Mm*(Tf-Tm)/(Tw-Tf)

SO, suppose you have 4Kg of malt at 25C, and you want to add some

quantity of water at 54C to achieve a protein rest temperature of 50C:

Mw = .32*4*(50-25)/(54-50) = 8Kg of water

These formulas can also be used to calculate additional water

quantities to raise the mash temp further. However, different

variables must be used: Instead of Mm, we will substitute Mmash, the

mass of the mash, equal to the total mass of malt and water used so

far; for Tm, we will substitute Tmash; and for Cpm, we must use

Cpmash, calculated as

Cpmash = (Cpm*Mm +Cpw*Mw)/(Mm+Mw)

Thus, the revised formula (2) is

Mw = Cpmash*Mmash*(Tf-Tmash)/(Tw-Tf)

continuing our example, we have Mmash = 4Kg +8Kg = 12Kg, Cpmash =

(.32*4+1*8)/(4+8)= .773.  Suppose our mash temp is still at 50C, and

we want to raise it to 66C for a sacharification rest using some

quantity of water at 100C. Then

Mw = .773*12*(66-50)/(100-50)  = 3Kg of additional (boiling) water.

Some simplifying assumptions have been made here, but they seem to work

out just fine. (So please don't get on my case about enthalpies of

mixing, non-additive Cp's, etc.) You may need to play around with the

value of Cpm to get these eaquations to work out better for you. Also

remember that your mash tun will absorb some heat, resulting in a rest

temperature slightly lower than that predicted here.  You may want to

shoot for a degree or so higher to compensate.  Note that your boiling

water temp may not be 100C.

Equation (1) may be rearranged, if instead it is desired to know, for

example, what water temperature should be used to obtain a given

temperature rest for a given volume of water ( if one is shooting for

some specific mash thickness).

Hope this helps (or did it just confuse the hell out of you?),

Kelly <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

------------------------------


Cold plates and wort chilling

Date:          Wed, 18 Aug 93 11:35:23 CDT

From: inline@vnet.IBM.COM

Subject:       Cold plates and wort chilling

With all the recent talk about cooling wort, I started wondering if

you could use a cold plate to accomplish this. If the tubing inside

the cold plate isn't SS you might get off flavors, or you might

clog the thing up with hop particles, but is it a valid idea ?

Any thoughts/experiences ?

**************************************************************

 Chris Williams

 inline@vnet.ibm.com

**************************************************************

------------------------------


re: Wort Aeration

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 11:47:14 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: re: Wort Aeration

A comment on Jack Schmedling's experiment on wort aeration and my

own experience.

Jack very interesting experiment.  Thanks for running it and posting

results. I have two questions/concerns about the small scale of your

experiments.

  1) I'm curious about the geometry of your small fermenters.

     Specifically I'm wondering about the relative amount of wort

     exposed to air and thereby oxygen.  Let's call the specific area

     exposed to air Aa:  This is

             area exposed to air (sq in)

      Aa =  ---------------------------------

             volume of wort (cubic in)

      For a cylindrical fermenter this number will be:

                     pi*radius^2

      Aa =  -----------------------------

             (height_of_wort)*pi*radius^2

      or

      Aa = 1/height_of_wort

      For my glass primary with wort say 20 inches deep in it Aa = 1/20in

      or 0.05/in.  For a mason jar with 6 inches of wort in it Aa = 1/6in

      or 0.17/in.  So all your small scale fermenters have access to a

      lot more oxygen than my 'full scale' primary fermenter.

  2)  It's my understanding that oxygen is important during the inital

      growth/reproductive phase of the yeast (help here from you

      microbiologists). If you pitched enough active yeast that they

      didn't need to reproduce (to reach the maximum number of

      colonies/ml), then the amount of oxygen present may be irrelavent.

Having made all these theoretical observations here is my practical

experience:  I siphon my cool wort into the primary through a aerating

tube.  The aerating tube is a 6 in long plastic tube w/ 1/32" holes

drilled in the tube wall near one end.  (This end is near the siphon hose

not at the end the wort exits.)  It works just like your sink aerator;

air is drawn into the tube through the 1/32" holes and the wort exits

as a frothy liquid.  When the siphoning is done there is 2 to 6" of

foam on top of the wort.  I pitch an active starter solution.  The

volume of the starter solution (wort+yeast slurry) is 2 cups.  I always

see active fermentation within 12 hours, usually faster. (I don't

get up every four hours to see if my beer is working--Jack you're

dedicated.)  This info is for ale yeast.

Followed this procedure last night.  Pitched yeast at 11:00 pm by

8:00am this morning there was a full krausen.  Bottom line: I agree

with Jack at least for ales.  One doesn't need the air pump system for

ales, if you use a good active yeast starter and aerate wort going

into the fermenter.

Sante' WAK

------------------------------


Irish Ale Yeast

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 12:56:58 EDT

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1-1/T09 DTN 225-6171  18-Aug-1993 1252 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Irish Ale Yeast

The description of Wyeast's Irish Ale yeast recently posted says that is

not very attenuative.  I recently used it for an Imperial Stout (a variation

of Miller's extract/mash recipe in Brewing the World's Great Beers).

Although the OG was a bit lower than the OG in the recipe, the FG was also

a bit lower than the recipe.  The stout tasted quite alcoholic when bottled.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Details re. Hard, high pH water treatment for new masher

Date:  Wed, 18 Aug 1993 12:18:53 -0400

From: Bill Flowers <waflowers@qnx.com>

Subject: Details re. Hard, high pH water treatment for new masher

OK, I got the water analyses for my home and my office.  When I actually had

numbers in my hand and re-read Miller's Complete Handbook chapter on water, I

finally began to understand what I was dealing with and, maybe, what to do.

I'm going to post a lot of details here and some conclusions so someone with

more experience and knowlege can double check me.  Apologies ahead of time for

the length of this.

My home tap water is drawn from two wells.  Unfortunately the regional lab

doesn't do a complete analysis of the well water.  All I got was readings of

some characteristics for the last 7 months.  The averages of the pertinent

numbers are:

pH                            7.8       sulphates (ppm)                68

Total Alkalinity, as CaCO3    250       Total Hardness, as CaCO3      256

There were a few other numbers of no consequence as well.

I wouldn't know what to do with this water, but it doesn't sound great. Luckily

I've got another water source.

The analysis of my office's water was another matter.  I received max, min and

average values for both the raw and treated water, and more information than I

could enter into this message (now I know how much uranium is in the water I

drink).  The important things (I think) are:

                                 Treated Water

                       mg/L (ppm) unless otherwise stated

                              min     max     avg

                              ---     ---     ---

pH                            6.8     9.9     8.3

Total Alkalinity, as CaCO3   17.0    48.0    25.8

Total Hardness, as CaCO3     26.0    72.0    51.7

Chloride, Cl                  3.5     8.0     5.3

Calcium, Ca                 15.00   18.60   16.80

Magnesium, Mg                1.94    2.43    2.28

Potassium, K                0.728   0.820   0.776

Sodium, Na                   2.78    3.78    3.12

Sulphate, SO4               19.60   30.50   24.00

Other values are in the parts per billions or Miller wasn't concerned with them

(or both) so why should I be.  Who cares about immeasurably small traces of

Vanadium when brewing anyway?

This water seems to be rather nice for brewing.  It doesn't seem too far off of

Miller's St. Louis water which he discusses in detail (actually better in some

areas such as sulphate and sodium). Although the pH is sometimes high the

buffering capacity (total alkalinity) seems low so the mash water pH should

drop. In fact, the alkalinity might be too low and I may have to add calcium

carbonate.  It is always easier to add than to take away.  Also, just as Miller

does, I should probably acidify my sparge water.

At least, that's how I interpret these numbers.  How do they look to the

"experts"? How important is it to acidify the sparge water? What happens if I

don't? All I could find was Miller's comment: "It is desirable to keep the pH

of the runoff during sparging below 6.0."

- ---

W.A. (Bill) Flowers                email: waflowers@qnx.com

QNX Software Systems, Ltd.         QUICS: bill     (613) 591-0934 (data)

(613) 591-0931 (voice)             mail:  175 Terrence Matthews

(613) 591-3579 (fax)                      Kanata, Ontario, Canada K2M 1W8

------------------------------


Beer in Portland, Maine & Spokane, WA

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 13:41:32 EDT

From: hpfcla.fc.hp.com!scr!sead.siemens.com!jm (Jeff Mizener)

Subject: Beer in Portland, Maine & Spokane, WA

I'll be going to Portland (ME) and Spokane here pretty soon and would like

pointers to any good brewpubs or drinking esablishments.

Thanks, y'all.

Jeff

=============================================================

Jeff Mizener / Siemens Energy & Automation / Raleigh NC

jm@sead.siemens.com / Intelligent SwitchGear Systems

=============================================================

PLEASE:  Reply to this address and not the one in the header.

------------------------------


Indianapolis

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 11:02:07 PDT

From: Robert Pulliam <Robert_Pulliam@rand.org>

Subject: Indianapolis

Just a short one for those in the Indianapolis area.  Any good "don't

miss" watering holes there?  Please reply by direct e-mail.

          Thanks

Robert J. Pulliam            |+|all thoughts, statements, and opinions,|+|

Los Angeles, CA.             |+|demented or not, should be my own; and |+|

pulliam@monty.rand.org       |+|I'm certainly not associated . . . . . |+|

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1207, 08/19/93

*************************************

-------


Re: Recipe formulation

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 13:11 PDT

From: lfk@veritas.com (Lynn Kerby)

Subject: Re: Recipe formulation

In HBD1206 npyle@n33.stortek.com writes:

>John Montgomery asks about formulating his own recipes.  He says he has 10 or

>11 all grainers behind him and wants to strike out creating his own recipes.

>

>This brings up an interesting point to me.  I wonder how many people with this

>much experience have done this little experimenting.  I have brewed a total of

>16 batches, the last 5 or 6 being all-grainers.  I have been trying new things

>with recipes since the second batch.  Now, maybe I'm taking more creative

>credit than I'm due, because I usually start with a recipe. I then adjust it

>for my setup, ingredients on hand, ingredients available at the local HB shop,

>my whims, etc.  Doing this, I've only really screwed up one batch due to poor

>recipe formulation, and I used it for boiling brats, etc. so it wasn't a total

>loss.

I have to second this question, how many people brew solely from

someone else's recipe?  I have brewed over 20 batches (14 or so that

were all grain) and have never intentionally brewed directly from

someone else's recipe (not even on that first extract batch).  Granted

I have made some mistakes, but I think that experimentation leads to a

better understanding of the flavor contribution of different grains,

hops, and processes.  I have won some awards in competitions, but that

is not my primary objective when formulating a recipe.

I do enjoy reading recipes and have learned a lot about matching style

guidelines by reading other's recipes (esp. those in the volumes of

the Classic Beer Style series).  I look at recipes as guidelines (both

in brewing and in cooking) but I never take a recipe and follow it to

the letter (not even one of my own!).  I too like a little variety in

the beers I drink.  I suppose that I may be tempted to replicate some

of my previous beers if I ever get one that I feel is outstanding, but

I suppose that I am just a likely to try it with a different yeast or

different hops.

Formulating your own recipes really isn't hard, and there has been a

lot of good information published in recent Zymurgys and in the HBD on

how to hit target OGs and the like.  When I look at a recipe, I first

compare the OG, IBUS, color, etc.  with the guidelines for the style,

then look at my inventory (I keep 50-100# of assorted grains, and

several pounds of assorted hops around the house at all times) and see

what I have that can produce a beer in that style.  I break out the

calculator and my brewing notebook and get to work!  Every brew is

different, and I like to think that they are improving as I gain

experience.

This is not intended to knock anyone that is uncomfortable breaking

away from cookbook type brewing.  I hope that it will serve to

encourage others to experiment and post their results (or better yet,

send me some :-).

 - -

     Lynn Kerby  -  [apple,amdahl]!veritas!lfk or  lfk@veritas.com

Disclaimer: Any and all opinions expressed herein are my own and do not

            necessarily represent the views of anyone, especially my employer.

------------------------------


RE: FAQ correction 2124 YEAST

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 15:12:54 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: RE: FAQ correction 2124 YEAST

RE: Yeast FAQ Correction  / 2124 yeast

In the 2nd Brewing Techniques article on Fest Beir "Dave from Wyeast" is

quoted as saying that 2124 is the same as Weinstepen 34/70 is this also

a PU strain indicated by Al K?

------------------------------


Re: Yeast FAQ corrections

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 13:37 PDT

From: lfk@veritas.com (Lynn Kerby)

Subject: Re: Yeast FAQ corrections

In HBD1206 korz@iepubj.att.com writes:

>First off, 3 cheers to Patrick for the effort in compiling all

>that yeast information!

>

Hip-Hip Hooray, Hip-Hip Hooray, Hip-Hip Hooray :-)

>> WYeast 1028 London Ale Yeast

>>  Rich minerally profile, bold woody slight diacetyl

>>  production.  Medium flocculation.  Apparent attenuation

>>  73-77%.  Optimum fermentation temperature: 68 deg. F (20

>>  deg. C).  Complex, woody, tart, with strong mineral

>>  notes, this one will bite you horribly if you over-hop or

>>  if your water is high in carbonates.  If you avoid that

[ Some descriptive text deleted for brevity ]

>This is one of my two favorites (1056 being the other) and I've

>brewed some very high IBU ales with it without the overhopping

>problems reported here.  Just 40 datapoints or so.  Also, I'd

>like to mention that this yeast was used for the 1992 B.0.S.S.

>Challenge 1st place Barleywine, brewed by none other than Brian

>and Linda North.

>

I just tried the 1028 strain on a couple of back to back english style

ales.  The first was a fairly low gravity Bitter that came out fairly

nicely.  It was not overly hopped, yet the hop bitterness came through

nicely.  I did note the woody and mineral flavor notes in this brew.

The second brew was a fairly hoppy IPA and I wish that I had chosen a

different yeast.  I found that the attenuation was a bit much in the

IPA, but it is still very young and may turn out fine in another month

or so.  The IPA currently has a nasty stale veggi character that I

believe is due to using some old Cascades (they have been kept in the

freezer since I bought them though) for dry hopping.  I just replaced

the blend of Cascades and Kent Goldings with some fresh Mt Hood in the

keg and am hoping for the best.

>> WYeast 3056 Bavarian Weissen Yeast

>>  A 50/50 blend of S. cerevisiae and delbrueckii to produce

>>  a south German style wheat beer with cloying sweetness

>>  when the beer is fresh.  Medium flocculation, apparent

>>  attenuation 73-77%.  Optimum fermentation temperature: 56

>>  deg. F (13 deg. C).  Problematical to get the right

>>  flavour, often just produces bland beer, without the

>>  lactic flavour.

>

>No, no, no.  Lactic sourness is the requisite characteristic

>of a *Berliner* weiss, not a Bavarian weizen -- Bavarian weizens

>are characterized by clove-like aromas/flavors and often some mild

>banana esters.  What the original poster probably meant was:

>"Problematic to get the right flavor, often just produces relatively

>unattenuated beer, without the clove-like aroma/flavor."  I have

>been thinking that perhaps it's the freshness of the Wyeast #3056

>that makes the difference in whether you get the clove-like aroma/flavor

>or not.  Any other data points?

>

Right! Bavarian weizens should not have a dominant lactic sourness

(though I find that just a little makes them very refreshing)!

For some more data points, I have brewed a couple of Bavarian weizens

with this strain.  One had virtually no clove or banana aromas or

flavors and really was a bit under attenuated.  The second time I used

it (pitched from the slurry in the secondary on the first batch) I got

a wonderfully clovey/banana weizen character (this beer took 1st place

in the 1993 HWBTA competition in the wheat beer category).  I have

also made a couple of Bavarian weizens with the bavarian wheat strain

from the Yeast Culture Kit Co (don't remember the number but it is

supposed to be the Weinstephen?sp? #66 I think) that had much more

pronounced weizen character.  I certainly believe that the 3056 is a

bit unstable based on my experience and the experience of some others

and I will probably never use it again.  I am looking forward to

trying the new bavarian wheat strain that Wyeast is currently

testing.

Lynn Kerby

lfk@veritas.com

------------------------------


yeast pitch experiment

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 16:59:05 -0400 (EDT)

From: Stephen Brent Peters <sp2q+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: yeast pitch experiment

With my last batch I wanted to pitch as much yeast as possible with

spending as little time as possible playing with it.  Here's what I

did:

1) I boiled up enough hopped 1.020 wort to fill two 16 oz bottles, and

one 32 oz bottle.

2) mixed a packet of wyeast belgian with one of the 16 oz bottles in

the bottom of a very sanitized carboy.

3) the next day I added the entire 32 oz bottle to the carboy.

4) at 8am the next day (brew day) I added the last 16 oz bottle to the

carboy

5) at 4pm that day I finally added the cooled wort to the carboy,

areated by splashing it through the funnel/strainer combination.  The

wort was 1.063 gravity.

6) when I came home that night at 9pm the beer had an inch and a half

of krausen on it.  So, about five hours for a very vigorous takeoff.

7) by the next day the krausen had fallen and now only a week later it

is almost ready to bottle.  This is by far the fastest fermentation I

have ever had with liquid yeast.

conclusions:

I had never used more that 16 oz of starter before because of the

hassles pouring from bottle to bottle.  I also used to have trouble

pitching at high krausen (timing, timing) , but by using the carboy it

is possible to get the yeast up to speed by adding more wort a few

hours before the brewing will happen.

comments?

               Steve Peters =  sp2q@andrew.cmu.edu

           -* Sing along now, "See you, in C-U-B-A!" *-

------------------------------


Calcium Chloride/Yeast compilation

Date:         18 Aug 93 16:07:46 CST

From: "Dennis Lewis"  <DLEWIS@jscdh6.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject:      Calcium Chloride/Yeast compilation

I've looked high and low thru all of Houston (where I live) and I

can't find a supplier of food-grade CaCl2 anywhere. Does anyone out

there in HBDLand have a source for calcium chloride? E-mail is ok.

>From NitPickLand:

>From: WEIX@swmed.edu

>

>SECTION I: Yeast Characteristics

>

 <snip>

>  Saccharomyces.  Ale yeast are S. cerevisiae, and lager yeast are S.

>  uvarum (formerly carlsbergerensis).  Weizen yeasts are usually

>  50/50 mixtures of cerevesiae and "delbrueckii" (delbrueckii may or

   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 <snip>

NO, NO, NO!!! The 50/50 mix is a bastardization of the true weissbier

style dreamed up by someone at Wyeast. The true weissbier yeasts are

a pure strain--delbrueckii, if you will. Wyeast has just started

marketing a pure strain weissbier under the number 3068, which if is

the Weihenstephan #68 everyone raves about (assuming the numbering

scheme holds as it has for Weihenstephan 206 and 308....)  Please, oh

please correct this before submitting this.

I have use both and the 3056 (50/50 crud) PALES in comparison to the

3068. I've tossed every culture of 3056 that I could find.

Dennis Lewis                    <dlewis%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Microbreweries of Oregon (Portland)

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 14:50:06 -0700 (PDT)

From: Lorne Cheeseman <lorne@unixg.ubc.ca>

Subject: Microbreweries of Oregon (Portland)

Hello,

I am new to this list so please excuse me if this is a FAQ. I am planning

on going down to Oregon within the next couple weeks, Portland to be exact,

and am interested in visiting some good microbreweries and brewpubs while I

am there. I would really appreciate it if anyone could send me some

suggestions and contacts etc. please reply by E-mail to lorne@unixg.ubc.ca.

Thanks in advance

Lorne Cheeseman

------------------------------


Use of Chilis in Beer

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 15:37:12 MDT

From: Kevin Schutz <kschutz@atmel.com>

Subject: Use of Chilis in Beer

Hello everyone,

With all of the recent discussion going on about variations of Chili beer's

and how to go about imparting chili flavoring to the beer, I just wanted to

throw in my 2 cents worth.

First of all, let me begin by saying that I have not ever tried to brew a

chili beer and I currently have no plans to attempt one (the chili beers

I've tried, Mexacali Rogue and Cave Creek,  just don't do much for me).

That aside, I do consider myself an avid chili lover.  As such, one of the

first things one quickly learns is that individual chilis vary greatly in

flavor and "heat" intensity.  This holds not only for different varieties, but

also within specific varieties.  Unless you know the source of the chilis, it's

difficult to judge this variation below using the chilis.  You can come pretty

close to grouping chilis based on "heat" if you pay attention to the aroma

(from the oils in the skins) while roasting/peeling the chilis.

Also, when I mention "source" above, I really mean that you need to know the

source.  I've found that chilis vary dramatically even on different plants

within my garden.  Chilis can vary greatly (like any other crop) based upon

micro-climate conditions, water, soil conditions, growing season, etc.  If you

get your chilis at a market or grocery store, odds are that you're getting a

mix of chilis from various sources.

Hint for home growers:  I've found that if you like really hot chilis, cut back

on the watering once the blossom sets.  Don't kill the plants, but cut back on

the amount of water they receive.  The chilis may be smaller, but they really

seem to get hotter.

That said, I would have to agree (in principal) with Alan in Austin (HBD#1203)

about warning against spicing beers directly using chilis in the bottle.

The results, while perhaps good, would be inconsistent (bottle to bottle).

I would think that the technique of "dry peppering" or "dry-chiling" as

mentioned by Lanny (HBD#1203) and Robin Garr (HBD#1204) would result in much

better flavor control.  Likewise, adding your chilis to the later stages of

the boil could work too.  The idea for consistency is to expose the entire

batch to the same chili mix.  Of course, if you like the idea of not knowing

what to expect, keep the mystery behind the beers and spice using individual

chilis in the bottles!

Kevin

------------------------------


Message to Dan L.

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 17:45 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: Message to Dan L.

This post is to Dan L. (lark@wildcat.mcpc).  I can't seem to reach your

site.  Please send me your phone number or something.

------------------------------


Aeration.  What the pros say...

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 21:21:01 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>

Subject: Aeration.  What the pros say...

The latest in Jack's continuing vigil against the accursed momilies of

brewing focuses on aeration.

He writes:

> There has been a great deal of enthusiastic reporting on the

> use of aquarium air pumps to aerate wort prior to pitching

> yeast and many rather preposterous claims of shortened time

> to the onset of fermentation resulting from the use of same.

   (snip, snip)

> The experiment seems to confirm the author's previous

> experience and points to the conclusion that the method of

> aeration used has no correlation with or effect on the time

> to onset of fermentation.  Contrary to frequently stated

> anecdotal experience, the un-aerated control samples started

> fermenting as soon and with the same vigor as the variously

> aerated samples.  This was true both in the case of cold

> temperature lager yeast and room temperature ale yeast.

I'm not sure what Jack's claims are here.  But I'll point out several

points of interest that may affect his "scientific" experiment.

I shall cling to Jack's statement that his experiment "seems" to confirm

his experience because his conclusions run counter to what the literature

has long accepted as fact.  Not wanting to allow another momily into the

annals of brewing literature, I'll briefly point out that underaerated wort

can have definite deleterious effects on the flavor of the beer (increased

ester production, for one) and adverse effects on the speed of fermentation

(read increased lag times and the resultant risk of contamination,

prolonged fermentation times (speaking from experience here), and the

production of several components that do not contribute to the flavor

profile of what we normally call "beer".

But don't take my word for it.  Here is what the pros say about the matter.

>From _Malting and Brewing Science_:

p.633

"To increase the oxygen content, air is often bubbled into the medium, but

this has little or no effect if the bubbles escape rapidly.  Small bubbles

provide a larger surface area for oxygen transfer, while baffles built onto

the walls of the vessel help to arrest the loss of bubbles.  Shaking or

swirling the medium has the effect of increasing the effective surface area of

the liquid presented to the atmosphere.  Furthermore, a vortex produced by an

agitator has the same effect.

   The rate at which oxygen passes from atmosphere into solution depends on:

(1) the degree to which the medium is saturated with oxygen, (2) the area of

the interface between atmosphere and medium and (3) the ease with which oxygen

passes through the interface.  The rate is expressed by Kla(C*-Cl) where

Kl - The ease of passage with which oxygen passes through the interface.

a  - The area of interface.

C* - the oxygen concentration at which atmosphere and medium are in

     equilibrium.

Cl - The actual concentration of oxygen in the medium.

They then measured oxygen absorption rates as follow:

Vessel     Vol. of medium                         Air flow        KlaC*

                                                  (l/min)     (mM-O2/l/min)

18 x 150 mm        10 ml       Stationary           -            0.03

  test tube

Erlenmeyer flask   20 ml       Stationary           -            0.32

  500 ml

Erlenmeyer flask   20 ml       Eccentric shaker     -            1.1

  500 ml                        (250 rev/min)

Indented           20 ml       Eccentric shaker     -            2-9.5

 Erlenmeyer flasks              (250 rev/min)

  500 ml

100 ml             50 ml       Reciprocal shaker    -            .78-1.5

                                 (80-100 strokes/min)

1000 ml           200 ml       Reciprocal shaker    -             .22-.78

                                 (80-100 strokes/min)

Baffled Tank     1460 ml       Stirred:

  3.5 l                         750 rev/min         5.8           3.6

                               1100 rev/min         6.1           6.33

I interpret KlaC* as being the amount of O2 absorbed into the beer using

the various processes above, though I could be wrong.  It comes as no

surprise that the different methods achieve different levels of oxygen

absorption.  It's interesting to note that the surface area of the samples

exposed to the air makes a big difference in the rate of oxygen absorption.

Perhaps this lends credence to the theory that one of the best things you

can do to aerate the wort is let it fan out over the sides of the vessel as

one siphons into the fermenter.

------------------------------


Aeration.  What the pros say... (part 2)

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 21:22:09 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>

Subject: Aeration.  What the pros say... (part 2)

The authors of _Malting and Brewing Science_ also make the following

observations concerning the absorption of air into beer:

p. 634

"The role of oxygen in brewery fermentations has received study using

fermenters of 30 brl capacity.  Wort of SG 1.044 was pitched at .2 lb/brl at

64 degrees F and the degree of oxygenation prior to pitching was selected in

the range 5-100% saturation.  The weight of yeast crop was hyperbolically

related to the initial oxygen concentration of the wort.  Above about 20%

oxygen saturation, little is acieved if the wort is completey saturated with

air.  Below this level, the yeast crop is greatly influenced by the initial

level of oxygen and, with the strain of yeast used, it seemed likely that no

growth of yeast would occur in the absence of oxygen...the rate of

fermentation was related to oxygen saturation in a manner very similar to that

shown (below)."

Max.  |

yeast |

yield |

(g/l) |

      |

  15 -|

      |

      |

      |                   *      *      *       *

      |

  10 -|     *

      |

      |   *

      |

      |  *

   5 -|

      |

      |__________|__________|__________|__________|__

                25         50         75         100

                Oxygen saturation (%)

p.635

"It is now well established that different strains of brewing yeast have

different requirements for molecular oxygen.  Furthermore, most, if not

all, of the molecular oxygen consumed by the brewing yeast is used for the

production of unsaturated fatty acids and sterols, which are essential

constituents of the yeast cell membrane...Where insufficient O2 is

available for membrane synthesis, yeast cells fail to grow and loss of

membrane integrity results in cell death.  These changes are also

associated with an increased production of esters...The concentration of

oxygen at 100% air saturation is inversely proportional to the specific

gravity; thus an air saturated wort of SG 1.040 contains 8.5 mg/l O2,

whweras a wort of SG 1.070 contain 7.9 mg/l O2.

p.646

"The amount of yeast added to the wort at the time of pitching greatly

influenced the speed of fermentation. (Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!-krb)

For instance top yeast pitched at 1 lb/brl into wort at 63 degrees F

attenuated to 75% in 84 hr.  At four times this pitching rate the same

attenuation was reached in 44 hr."

p. 647

"The effects of rousing or agitating fermentation vessels include aeration

and mixing.  BOTH TEND TO HASTEN FERMENTATION (emphasis mine), aeration by

supplementing the dissolved oxygen supplied by the wort, and mixing by

bringing yeast in the head and yeast that has sedimented into suspension.

The overall action is to increase yeast crops and speed fermentation.

p. 648

"Wort composition greatly influences the speed of fermentation, the extent

of fermentation, the amount of yeast produced, and the quality of the beer

produced.  The wort constituents which play a major role include

fermentable carboydrates, assimilable nitrogenous compounds and accessory

food factors.  Amino acids normally limit growth...

p. 664

"With respect to the main fermentation, the control on the speed of

attenuating to satisfactory gravities depends on (1) wort composition,

especially the level of alpha-amino nitrogen and the spectrum of

fermentable sugars, (2) DISSOLVED OXYGEN (emphasis mine), (3) temperature,

(4) pressure, and (5) yeast concentration.....With respect to the effect of

these variables on flavor, it has been shown that dissolved oxygen content

can be important.  Reducing the level from 8 to 3 mg )2/l causes

significant increases (2-4 fold) in the esters ethyl acetate (winey/lacquer

like), isoamyl acetate (banana esters) and ethyl caproate.  Acetaldehyde

rises seven-fold.  Level of zinc ions up to .08 mg/l may be necessary for

satisfactory fermentations."

Sorry to take up so much space quoting scientific literature but I kept

coming up with references that pointed to the importance of a well-

oxygenated wort. Besides Jack's experiment, I have been interested in this

topic of late because I have become aware that we have not been aerating

our worts enough at Tumbleweed and it appears to be a factor in several of

the flavor problems we've had.

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Kinney Baughman                     |       Beer is my business and

  baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu      |       I'm late for work.

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


New (first!) Brewpub in Kansas City

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 22:31:28 CDT

From: "Bret D. Wortman" <wortman@centurylub.com>

Subject: New (first!) Brewpub in Kansas City

    I had the thrill of a lifetime this past weekend.  Dining and drinking

    at a restaurant that hadn't officially opened yet.

    To top it all of, the restaurant in question was Kansas City's first

    brewpub.

    I won't dwell on the food (which was wonderful, especially the brewer's

    bread appetizers made from spent grains) but will get to the *real*

    reason for visiting The 75th Street Brewery at 75th and Wornall in the

    Waldo area.

    The beer.

    75th Street currently has three beers on tap that are brewed locally,

    with a fourth coming in September.  "Cow Town Wheat" is a very light,

    very refreshing wheat ale.  It's made from Kansas-grown wheat and

    Munich malts with Hallertauer and Saaz hops.

    "Yardbird's Saxy Golden Ale" commemmorates KC's contribution to jazz

    and bebop.  A light, *very* smooth golden ale, this one uses Vienna

    and Munich malts withy Cascade hops.  A pint of this is probably the

    most refreshing thing the house serves.

    "Possum Trot Brown Ale" is a nicely nutty, unmistakably malty classic

    brown ale.  It uses cluster and cascade hops and I couldn't pry the

    malt combination from the Brew Master (who just *loves* showing off the

    setup to appreciative homebrewers -- maybe others will have more luck.

    ;-)

    The September addition is called "Muddy Mo Stout" and is billed as a

    dry, Irish-style stout.  It gives me a good excuse to make sure I go

    back next month.  ;-)

    In addition to these on-site brews, 75th Street also offers three guest

    beers.  A hometown favorite, Boulevard, has contributed their "Bully!

    Porter" to this effort.  Brewed by Brewmaster John McDonald, it's an

    outstanding porter.  My limited beer vocabulary just ain't up to

    describing it any more than this.

    Additionally, there's a pair of brews from Anchor Brewing Company.  On

    tap, we have their "Liberty Ale".  75th Street is the only place in KC

    where you can get this beer on tap.  They also sent some of their "Old

    Foghorn" barleywine.  *Man*, this stuff is absolutely *indescribable*.

    Again, you can't get it anywhere else in KC on tap, and it's a nice

    twist to the menu.

    Anyone coming near KC, give me a holler and I'll help arrange a tour of

    the place for you, or call them directly at 1-816-523-HOPS.

    Okay, I'll say it.  The service staff was unbelievably friendly.  I

    don't think I *ever* saw someone standing around looking upset.

    Everyone was smiling.  Even when things went wrong for us (hey, the

    place wasn't officially open yet, and it was "investor's party night"),

    everyone was pleasant and bent over backwards to make sure we were

    taken care of and happy.  I can't recall the last time I was pampered

    like that.

    My waiter's name was Ken.  Ask for him.  You won't regret it.

    WortMan

    Disclaimer:  I have nothing to do with The 75th Street Brewery, save as

    a satisfied customer.  I don't own any part of the company, nor do I

    work there.  I know the brewmaster by first name, but he probably

    wouldn't remember me if I walked up to him in a crowded shopping mall,

    so who really cares?  ;-)

+------------------------+------------------------------------------------

| Bret D. Wortman        | "Stomach hairballs are nature's little way of

| wortman@centurylub.com |  saying `Bad puddy cat!  Stop licking yourself!'"

| wortman@decus.org      |              --Berke Breathed, "Outland"

+------------------------+------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Sunken Treasure

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 01:31:22 -0400 (EDT)

From: waltman@BIX.com

Subject: Sunken Treasure

In HBD #1206 carlson@61.267.ENET.dec.com tells us about beer recovered from

a WWII minelayer:

About a year ago there was a radio comercial about thousands of bottles of

Bass Ale that went down with the Titanic. Probably not in as good of

condition, though <grin>.

Fred Waltman

Marina del Rey, CA

waltman@bix.com

------------------------------


hop harvest question

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 93 07:38:09 EDT

From: mlobo@sentry.foxboro.com (Michael T. Lobo)

Subject: hop harvest question

Greetings:

2 Questions re: hop harvest..

1. Do you need to dry the hops before use, or is the drying a method of

preservation?

2. How do you tell when the hops are "ripe"?

FYI:  I planted 3 different types of hops this year.  The centennial are the

only plant to grow buds so far ~ 30 buds.  The hallertau plant grew the fastest

& biggest, but no buds.  The perle only grew about 6 ft. and stopped growing

about 4 weeks ago.

regards,

Michael

 _________________________________________________________

 Michael T. Lobo   Ph: (508) 549 2487  Fax: (508) 549 4379

 Foxboro Co.

 33 Commercial Street  MS C41-1H

 Foxboro MA. 02035

 _________________________________________________________

------------------------------


Water Analysis

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 93 08:13:24 -0400

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Water Analysis

Bill Flowers <waflowers@qnx.com> wrote:

>                                  Treated Water

>                        mg/L (ppm) unless otherwise stated

>

>                               min     max     avg

>                               ---     ---     ---

> pH                            6.8     9.9     8.3

> Total Alkalinity, as CaCO3   17.0    48.0    25.8

> Total Hardness, as CaCO3     26.0    72.0    51.7

>

> Chloride, Cl                  3.5     8.0     5.3

>

> Calcium, Ca                 15.00   18.60   16.80

> Magnesium, Mg                1.94    2.43    2.28

> Potassium, K                0.728   0.820   0.776

> Sodium, Na                   2.78    3.78    3.12

> Sulphate, SO4               19.60   30.50   24.00

> This water seems to be rather nice for brewing.

This sounds very much like the water that I get at home, untreated,

straight from the tap.  Total hardness and alkalinity are in the 40-80

range. pH is typically 8.  (I don't have the #'s with me so

I can't quote values).

> Although the pH is sometimes high the

> buffering capacity (total alkalinity) seems low so the mash water pH should

> drop. In fact, the alkalinity might be too low and I may have to add calcium

> carbonate.  It is always easier to add than to take away.  Also, just as

> Miller does, I should probably acidify my sparge water.

With such soft water, I never get an alkaline mash.

Where most people have to do an acid rest, I do not.

I frequently have to increase the mash pH as it is too acidic.

Calcium carbonate works well for this. (Added to the mash)

I acidfy my sparge water using 1/4 teaspoon of acid blend in 5 gallons.

That works well, dropping pH to mid 5's.

I've found this sort of water great to brew with.  Adding desired minerals

is much easier than taking them out!

 Tim

- ----

Timothy J. Dalton                                   tjdalton@mit.edu

MIT, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Materials Etching Technology Lab

------------------------------


Barley Water Response

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 08:17:00 EST

From: "/R=FDACB/R=A1/U=RIDGELY/O=HFM-400/TN=FTS 402-1521/FFN=Bill Ridgely/"@mr.cber.fda.gov

Subject: Barley Water Response

  Awhile back, someone requested information about a Victorian-era English

  drink called "barley water". I believe this was several weeks ago, and the

  reference was to some dialog in the movie "Mary Poppins".

  I remembered seeing something about this drink in my historical references,

  but it took awhile to find it. I'll post the information here for general

  interest. The passage is from the book "Food and Drink in Britain" by C.

  Anne Wilson (Barnes & Noble, 1974):

     It [barley water] had a long history as an invalid beverage. In the

     sixth centruy A.D., Anthimus had recommended a thin drink made of barley

     with pure warm water as beneficial for fever patients. The later

     medieval version in France had the name tisane (from the Greek ptisana

     for barley water), and it was sweetened with sugar and seasoned with

     licorice and sometimes also figs. Adapted for English use, it more often

     comprised barley boiled in water with licorice, herbs and raisins. It

     was still a licorice-flavored drink in the first part of the seventeenth

     century but soon afterwards was brought up to date by the substitution

     of lemon juice for licorice.

  The author went on to mention that there was no longer a barley water

  tradition in the English-speaking world, but that a popular version called

  "horchata" was still enjoyed in Spain and parts of Latin America.

  BTW, Wendy and I very much appreciated the favorable response to the Chicha

  & Chang presentation at the AHA Conference. It was a lot of fun to do, and

  we were gratified so many people were willing to expand their horizons

  beyond the "barley, hops, and yeast" tradition. Sorry the chicha arrived

  late (shipping problems), but at least a fair amount finally got consumed.

  Gak & Gerry were seen making a significant dent in the keg following the

  banquet Thursday night.

  Bill Ridgely (Brewer, Patriot, Bicyclist)                  __o

  ridgely@a1.cber.fda.gov                                   -/<,

  ridgely@cber.cber.fda.gov                              ...O/ O...

------------------------------


Pronunciations

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 09:01:46 -0400 (EDT)

From: roman@tix.timeplex.com (Daniel Roman)

Subject: Pronunciations

Does there exist either electronically (preferably) or in print a list

of common beer terms and their phonetic spelling?  I've been brewing for

five years and still have friends ask me how to pronounce "Saaz" or

"Maerzen" and I can only shrug my shoulders.  I did see the Beer Hunter

series and alot of the pronunciations may have been given there but I'd

like to have a reference of some sort.  My college edition American

Heritage does not help too much with alot of beer terms which are really

proper names.  Maybe a German or Czech dictionary is what I need :-)

- --

Dan Roman  Internet: roman@tix.timeplex.com (prefered address) //

ccMail: roman_d@timeplex.com  GEnie: D.ROMAN1@genie.geis.com /X/ Only AMIGA!

------------------------------


Boiling

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 93 09:58:01 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Boiling

We boil our wort for several reasons:

1. To sanitize it -- there are any number of "nasty" organisms that

would just love to chomp on the sugars in unfermented wort.  If you

boil the wort (and any other water that goes into the fermenter), you

reduce this risk.

2. To add hop bitterness -- because we started with "all grains",

because we used unhopped extract, because we want a bitterer beer

than the hopped extract will give us.  Extraction of hop bitterness

requires boiling for at least 30 minutes, and preferably an hour.

3. To add hop flavor and aroma -- hopped extracts usually have a low

level of hop flavors and aromas.  Boiling hops from 0 to 20 minutes

adds these (the longer the boil, the lower the aroma, but you don't

get appreciable flavor with less than 5-10 minutes).

4. When mashing grains to get part or all of the wort, the boil

precipitates proteins that would otherwise cloud the beer and

potentially produce unpleasant flavors.  This requires 60-90 minutes,

typically.

5. To reduce the volume and concentrate the wort -- again, when

all-grain brewing, you typically get more liquid from the "mash" than

you want to make beer, unless you're making a very light beer.

But, even if # 2-5 don't apply to you, a 15 minute boil to sanitize the

wort is always called for.

------------------------------


Homebrew suppliers, brewpubs in RTP area

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 93 09:59:52 EST

From: Tim Brickman <Tim_Brickman@rml.niaid.pc.niaid.nih.gov>

Subject: Homebrew suppliers, brewpubs in RTP area

I'm relocating to the Research Triangle Park area of N. Carolina soon, and

would appreciate information on homebrew suppliers, brewpubs, etc. in that

region.

    Thanks!

    Tim

------------------------------


St. Louis Supplier

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 09:08:09 -0500

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: St. Louis Supplier

Cary --

An important consideration is the distance between you and the supplier.  For

instance, I get UPS from Cincinnati in two days, but it takes five or six from

either coast.  Anyway, here's our local supplier.  She's trying to make it a

full-time business and we all want her to succeed.  She has a large selection

of extracts, a growing selection of malt, and all the yeast, hops, books, and

gadgets you could want...

 t

St. Louis Wine & Beermaking

Koelle B. Paris, Proprietor

251 Lamp & Lantern Village

Chesterfield, MO  63017

314/230-8277

Standard disclaimers apply.

=============================================================================

Tom Leith                           InterNet:   trl@wuerl.WUstl.EDU

4434 Dewey Ave.                   CompuServe:   70441,3536

St. Louis, Missouri  63116

                                                "Tho' I could not caution all

314/362-6965 - Office                            I still might warn a few:

314/362-6971 - Office Fax                        Don't lend your hand

314/481-2512 - Home + Infernal Machine           to raise no flag

                                                 atop no Ship of Fools"

=============================================================================

------------------------------


Info on BrewPubs and BrewStaurants in the Irvine, Ca. area

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 10:49:31 -0400 (EDT)

From: Chris Sinanian <SINANIAN@Eisner.DECUS.Org>

Subject: Info on BrewPubs and BrewStaurants in the Irvine, Ca. area

howdy folks,

i have to be going into the Irvine, Ca. area for a couple of day's.

I wouldn't mind going to a few brewpubs in the area while i'm there.

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

     thanks,

     Chris Sinanian

     sinanian@eisner.decus.org

------------------------------


WORT AERATION

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 93 10:38 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: WORT AERATION

 >From: "Rick (R.) Cavasin" <cav@bnr.ca>

 >Just a little quibble with your experiment.  I wonder if there isn't

 one confounding variable you've overlooked, namely, fermenter geometry.

 That is one of the problems with any experiment.  The number of variables is

 usually inifnite.  One nails down as many as possible and those deemed

 unrelated to the information being sought are eliminated.  It is frequently a

 subjective choice but that is why the results are published to allow others

 to ponder.

 I would suggest that the geometry of a mason jar is very similar to a typical

 fermenter.  The fact that they were half full is a detail but of no

 consequence in the control sample which turns out to be the most important

 one in the final analysis.

 >The surface area/wort volume ratio, and the amount of head space in

 the quart jar fermenters is radically different than what most people

 would encounter in normal...

 That is true but it remains to be proven that reducing the headspace would

 effect on the final results.

 It is my opinion that geometry differential increases the oxygenation of the

 sample using the airstone because it can be aerated longer before the space

 is filled.  This would only serve to exaggerate the difference between it and

 the control and tend to favor it but the results speak for themslves.

 > In the case of your lager test, is a starter/wort ratio of 1/10 typical?

 (don't know, don't do lagers myself)

 The amount of starter is of no consequence.  It is the amount of yeast in the

 starter that effects the lag time.  The 72 hour lag time at 40 F would

 indicate that, if anything, there was too little yeast.

 >From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

 >  1) I'm curious about the geometry of your small fermenters.

      Specifically I'm wondering about the relative amount of wort

      exposed to air and thereby oxygen.  Let's call.....

 >  So all your small scale fermenters have access to a

       lot more oxygen than my 'full scale' primary fermenter.

 A valid argument but in this case, it only applies to the control sample as

 it enhances the aeration of the others.

 In order to prove YOUR point, you would have to show that the control sample

 had received enough oxygen to provide a normal fermentation by the minimal

 handling it received and/or through the mechanism of the fermenter geometry.

 The experiment proves the former.  I leave it to someone else to scale it up

 to prove the latter.

 >Having made all these theoretical observations here is my practical

 experience:  I siphon my cool wort into the primary through a aerating

 tube.  The aerating tube is a 6 in long plastic tube w/ 1/32" holes

 drilled in the tube wall near one end.  (This end is near the siphon hose

 not at the end the wort exits.)  It works just like your sink aerator;

 air is drawn into the tube through the 1/32" holes and the wort exits

 as a frothy liquid.  When the siphoning is done there is 2 to 6" of

 foam on top of the wort.

 I think that you have made one of the points I was testing for in my

 experiment, vis., the aquarium aerator is an unnecessary complication of the

 home brewing process.

 Having said that, I will point out that with your approach, you only get one

 shot at it.   With the aerator, one can repeat the foam buildup ad infinitum

 but the bottom line is, does it really matter?

 >From: Chris Williams

 >Subject:       Cold plates and wort chilling

 >With all the recent talk about cooling wort, I started wondering if

 you could use a cold plate to accomplish this. If the tubing inside

 the cold plate isn't SS you might get off flavors, or you might

 clog the thing up with hop particles, but is it a valid idea ?

 Any thoughts/experiences ?

 The tubing in the ones I am familiar is ss but the problem is the diameter is

 so small you would need to pressurize or pump the wort through it.  It would

 be tediously slow by gravity.

 js

------------------------------


Proteins

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 93 11:56:52 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Proteins

My last brew (although wonderfully tasty) had problems with both head

retention and chill haze.  It was a pale ale, the first all-grain pale ale

I've done.  The other all-grainers I've done were darker and had no problem

with either.  Is this coincidence or do dark grains helps these problems

somewhat?

It seems to me that large proteins in solution link together at low

temperatures (that's how they keep warm!) and form the chill haze.  I believe

the solution for me is to add a protein rest to my mash cycle to help the

proteinase enzymes break down these large proteins.  Are there other solutions

to this problem, i.e. a certain grain bill, etc.  I'd rather not depend too

much on finings.

I've read that head retention is a function of the proteins in solution as

well, although I don't know the details.  Would this problem be aided by a

protein rest, too?

Cheers,

norm

- --

Norm Pyle, Staff Engineer                        Storage Technology Corporation

npyle@n33.stortek.com                            2270 South 88th Street

"Youth is of course, the problem, as any         Louisville, CO 80028-0211

mature man knows."  -- Michael Jackson           (303) 673-8884

------------------------------


Re: Taxonomy

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 93 14:40:38 -0400

From: djt2@po.cwru.edu (Dennis J. Tempelton)

Subject: Re: Taxonomy

Tom...

your latest taxonomy post may be a little too much

BTW, ATCC has no listing for "Torulospora delbrukii", though it does for

"Torulospora delbrueckii"

I find this a little confusing, since I know the grandson of the

delbru(umlaut)k in question and he has no c in his name.

ATCC searches can be reached by Gopher, with this gopher information

 +INFO: 1ATCC - The American Type Culture Collection

1/Database-local/cultures/atcc  merlot.welch.jhu.edu    70

the real wuestion seems to be should we use weihenstephan 68 or wyeast.

I (the empiricist) cloned out the wyeast bavarian culture as reported in

HBD a year ago and

found that only about 1% of the colonies had a variant morphology and

created an estery beer.  I use this exclusively now.  This low percentage

might explain why wyeast cultures are criticized as bland.

One other question:  What source is there for the Weihenstephan 68 strain??

dennis

=======================================================================

Dennis J Templeton, M.D., Ph.D.         Biomedical Research Building

                                                         Room 909

Phone    (216) 368-1266                  Institute of Pathology

Fax      (216) 368-1300                  Case Western Reserve University

Email    djt2@po.cwru.edu                Cleveland, Ohio 44106

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1208, 08/20/93

*************************************

-------


Strike Temperature / Withholding grains

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 9:35:02 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Strike Temperature / Withholding grains

Andy Phillips asks about specific heat capacity, strike temperature, etc.  I

have made the very same evolution in my brewery (Bruheat -> insulated

mash/lauter tun w/ slotted pipe manifold) and am quite happy with it, Andy.

The strike temperature problem is not much of a problem really.  I add 1 qt. of

168F strike water for every pound of grain to hit around 152F initial mash

temperature.  For you, I'd recommend 1 litre of 75C strike water for every

pound of grain to aim for around 67C initial mash temperature.  If this is too

high for you just lower the strike water temperature a degree or two.  A lot of

this depends on air temp, how much heat your mash tun absorbs, etc.

I've read that the enzymes in the grains are not too sensitive to short

duration temperature extremes.  The thing to do is measure your mash

temperature after you have doughed in the grain, and adjust with cold or hot

water accordingly.  A few times doing this and you'll know what the strike

temperature for your system should be.

Mike Zulauf uses a similar setup and wants to know about holding off specialty

grains until after conversion.  I recommend this with crystal, chocolate,

black, and any other specialty grains.  Crystal malt has already supposedly

already undergone conversion at high temperatures so as to produce the

unfermentable sugars.  Another conversion is not necessary and could very well

have the effect of further reduction of these sugars.  Dark grains which are

added for the color and flavor (not for the sugars) should never be added until

mashout time, IMHO.  The absolute worst brew I've ever made (the only one I've

ever poured out more than I drank) was made with the dark grains in the mash.

For some reason, conversion on that doomed brewed took almost 3 hours and I'm

sure that had a combined effect with the dark grains, but the bottom line was

this brew had a harsh astringency which tasted like chewing on chocolate malt.

Needless to say, I will never add dark grains until mashout again.

Cheers,

norm

- --

Norm Pyle, Staff Engineer                        Storage Technology Corporation

npyle@n33.stortek.com                            2270 South 88th Street

"Youth is of course, the problem, as any         Louisville, CO 80028-0211

mature man knows."  -- Michael Jackson           (303) 673-8884

------------------------------


Water treatments

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 11:43:40 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Water treatments

Since Fuller's ESB is the best ale in the world (flame on dissenters),

I have spent some time exploring the Burton-upon-Trent water.  I went

so far as to contact the Public Water District for Burton and the

British National Rivers Authority.  The PWD sent a comprehensive

analysis of the Burton municipal water supply.  The NRA sent me a slick

pamphlet, and said that the famous brewing water neither originates

from the Burton municipal water nor from the river Trent, but from

shallow wells in the surrounding area.  So I wrote to a number of

brewers in the area asking for their water analysis and/or treatments.

No responses expected for a few weeks.

Just to cover my butt, let me say that I realize Fuller's brewery is

in Chiswick, London and not Burton-upon-Trent, but they do "burtonize"

their water.

So in response to Geoff in #1206, and Bill Flowers in #1205, for whatever

it is worth I submit the following information.

- ---------------------------------------------------------

        Molecular and Formula Weights

        -----------------------------

        Ca++             40.08 g        Calcium

        Mg++             24.31 g        Magnesium

        SO4--            96.06 g        Sulfate

        Na+              22.99 g        Sodium

        Cl-              35.45 g        Chloride

        CO3--            60.01 g        Carbonate

        H2O              18.02 g        Water

        CaSO4.2H2O      172.18 g        Gypsum (hydrated)

        MgSO4.7H2O      246.51 g        Epsom salt

        CaCl2           110.98 g        Calcium chloride (anhydrous)

        CaCl2.2H2O      147.02 g        Calcium chloride dihydrate

        NaCl             58.44 g        Table salt

        Na2SO4          142.02 g        Sodium sulfate (anhydrous)

        Na2SO4.10H2O    322.22 g        Glauber's salt

        MgCl2.6H2O      203.33 g        Magnesium chloride hexahydrate

        1 Gallon H2O   3785.40 g = 3.7854 liters

        Ion Weight Ratios by Compound

        ------------------------------

                                             1g/gal

        Compound        Ions    Wt. Ratio   adds ppm

        ----------      -----   ---------   --------

        CaSO4.2H2O      Ca++    0.233        61.6

                        SO4--   0.558       147.4

                        H2O     0.209

        MgSO4.7H20      Mg++    0.099        26.2

                        SO4--   0.390       103.0

                        H2O     0.512

        CaCl2           Ca++    0.361        95.4

                        Cl-     0.639       168.8

        CaCl2.2H2O      Ca++    0.273        72.1

                        Cl-     0.482       127.3

                        H2O     0.245

        NaCl            Na+     0.393       103.8

                        Cl-     0.607       160.4

        Na2SO4          Na+     0.324        85.6

                        SO4--   0.676       178.6

        Na2SO4.10H2O    Na+     0.143        37.8

                        SO4--   0.298        78.7

        MgCl2.6H2O      Mg++    0.120        31.7

                        Cl-     0.349        92.2

        1g/gal ppm = wt_ratio*1000 / 3.7854 = mg/L

- -------------------------------------------------------

        Burton-upon-Trent Water Recipes

        -------------------------------

        Target Ranges

        -------------------

        Ca++    260-352 (306) ppm

        SO4--   630-820 (725) ppm

        Mg++     24-60  (42)  ppm

        Na+         54  (54)  ppm

        Cl-      16-36  (26)  ppm

        Target                  Recipe for 5 Gallons

        ---------------         ---------------------

        Ca++    260 ppm          0.81 g         NaCl

        SO4--   740 ppm          5.70 g         MgSO4.7H2O

        Mg++     30 ppm         21.10 g         CaSO4.2H2O

        Na+      17 ppm

        Cl-      26 ppm

        Ca++    275 ppm          1.00 g         CaCl2.2H2O

        SO4--   740 ppm          5.70 g         MgSO4.7H2O

        Mg++     30 ppm         21.10 g         CaSO4.2H2O

        Cl-      26 ppm

        Ca++    295 ppm          1.25 g         CaCl2.2H2O

        SO4--   787 ppm          6.00 g         MgSO4.7H2O

        Mg++     31 ppm         22.50 g         CaSO4.2H2O

        Cl-      32 ppm

        Common Names

        ------------

        NaCl            Table Salt

        MgSO4.7H2O      Epsom Salt

        CaCl2.2H2O      Calcium chloride dihydrate

- --------------------------------------------------------

Until I hear back from a brewery or two and get a definitive answer,

please note that the Burton target ranges are from Papazian.

Any errors are my own though I of course take no responsibility for their

consequences.

If anyone is interested in what the municipal water of Burton-upon-Trent

is like I can email a copy.

Domenick

------------------------------


WORT AERATION

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 93 15:49 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: WORT AERATION

 >From: Tom.Weicht@arrc.ncsu.edu

 >Subject: C. cerevisiae taxonomy?

 Respond to: deb_neher@ncsu.edu

 >    I would like to start by saying that I appreciate the feed

 back from my original posting, and I like debate as a way to refine

 >Keith MacNeal

 Digital Equipment Corp.

 Hudson, MA

 I would like to start by saying that this has been a fascinating discussion

 and I am in awe that that such experts condescend to participate in this

 humble forum.

 The only problem I have is following who said what or even if there are two

 different people in there.  I am also delighted to know there is someone else

 out there with pet slime molds but can't figure out who it is.  Mine died and

 I am in need of a slimevet.

 js

------------------------------


"Not much of a beer drinker", "Evolution" of Beer

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 14:43:07 -0800

From: ulrich@sfu.ca

Subject: "Not much of a beer drinker", "Evolution" of Beer

The other day, someone gave an overview of BC microbreweries and said not

to even bother with Granville Island. Yesterday's Vancouver Courier (local

free newspaper) contained an article that I found illuminating. I quote the

second and third paragraphs.

"Granville Island Brewing Co. president Ian Tostenson says consumers will

soon be able to buy GI draft suds in cans. To date, Granville Island

products have only been available on tap and in bottles."

"'Sixty per cent of the beer consumed in B.C. is canned,' Tostenson says.

'I'm not much of a beer drinker, but when I do drink it, I want it in a

can. It's the convenience factor.'"

Would you buy beer from this man?

On a lighter note, I recently saw a cartoon (Catman by Peter Perry in

Terminal City, 8/11-24/93) hypothesizing about "the 'evolution' of beer".

Extrapolating from Dry Beer ("developed after conventional marketing ideas

dried up") and the current fad Ice Beer, he predicts Dry Ice Beer ("Beer

vapors are inhaled. This is for those who are too cool to swallow or afraid

of spilling regular beer in their trendy 4x4s."), followed by Ice T Beer

("After being opened, some cans start rapping and tell you you've won a

pair of rap shorts.") and Mice Beer ("due to the increasing amount of mouse

parts found in big brewery beer"), and eventually Dry Mouse Beer.

Charles Ulrich

------------------------------


Brewpots

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 93 15:04:40 PDT

From: Oh Noo- Mr.Bill <coxc@dpdmai.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Brewpots

GA writes about welding stainless steel, which brings

up my question.  I have been using a 20 cup brew pot

which does not allow me all wort brewing, not to mention

the mess.

I inquired about a buying a new brew pot from Brewers

Warehouse in Seattle, WA.  The following was quoted:

  10 gal. stainless steel brew pot -        $149.00

  brass/copper ball valve,nipple,fitting -  $ 86.00

  cut to fit bottom screen to filter wort - $ 60.00

                                            -------

                                            $295.00

Given this is heavy gauge "restaurant gauge" stainless

and they claim the pot is fabricated in house, is

this worth the price or is this like "killing a fly

with a shotgun"?

The only other pots that I have seen are these thin

cheesy Taiwanese $49.00 20 qt. pots in the local brew shop.

I don't plan to do batches with a outdoor burner

so this rules out a converted keg system.  Good deal

or bad?  Alternatives?

Mr. Bill

------------------------------


RIMS

Date: 19 Aug 93 19:38:59 EDT

From: Greg Demkowicz <71470.171@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: RIMS

I've read what ever posts I could get on RIMS, however I haven't seen

comments about the Rodney Morris system.  Has anyone actually built his

system, or tried adapting his design to 7.5 or 15.5 gal Keg? I'm sure grain

compaction will be a problem with the keg geometry, but to what extent ( I

think Alan Gerhard? used a screen cylinder in the center, to reduce this

affect)?  Also, for minimal HSE, how should the warmed wort exiting the pump

be directed, through a manifold over the mash, or directly into it? Thanks

in advance for any assistance.

Greg Demkowicz

------------------------------


Yeast Culturing Temperature(s)

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 93 21:20:16 -0700

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: Yeast Culturing Temperature(s)

"Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 12:38 CDT

 From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 Subject: yeast FAQ comments/Zymurgy Bashing/more yeast comments

">a. Place the starter jars in a location where 68F (18C can be held) ...

"Yes, but I've read that although fermentation may be done at lower temps,

 80F is a better temperature for starters."

I've been culturing sourdough yeast recently, and the instructions indicate

that the best temperature for culturing *this* yeast is 85 F.

They definitely indicate that 95 F would kill the yeast.

In general, I've found bread yeasts to be pretty closely parallel to ale

yeasts in their operating parameters.

One would hypothesize that, much as there are complementary niches in the

'beer' and 'bread' environments for relatively warm temperatures, there

must also be bread yeasts which complement the colder lager yeasts, which,

apparently, have not yet been discovered ( although Alaskan sourdough yeast

might violate this presumption :-).

They also pointed towards the ( unlit ) oven as a good, unchanging warm

place for yeast-culturing, and I've found this to be true. Mine climbs a

little above 85 F over a day or so, and falls down to around 80 F if I

leave the door open, so it's good to check it out, first, over a few days.

Any microbiologists ( or microbotanists, microzoologists, microflorists :-)

in the crowd whom might care to comment on whether there is a general range

of maximum temperatures over which all known yeasts die, and another general

range of temperatures under which all yeasts become dormant [ excluding 0

Kelvin :-] ?

Didn't someone just post a four-part yeast-culturing FAQ ? Is it in there ?

- -- richard

 |                                                                            |

 |        "A cloak is no longer a cloak if it does not keep one warm."        |

 |                                                                            |

 | richard childers                                         pascal@netcom.com |

------------------------------


Summer Blues - contamination

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 93 07:59 GMT+200

From: Michel Vandenplas <mvdp@maties.sun.ac.za>

Subject: Summer Blues - contamination

Two members of our newly formed brewclub were describing a recurrent

infection that they get during the summer months. The only advice that we

could come up with was for them to throw it out and try again.

How do they prevent this from happening again? Apparently the infection

shows up a few days after fermentation has started and appears as a white

filmy layer on top of the fermenting wort. It feels oily and the beer is

undrinkable, sorry no flavour descri

Any advice would be appreciated - or is this strictly a local problem?.

Regards

Michel

------------------------------


Re: Strike temperature

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 93 8:08 BST

From: "Andy Phillips, Long Ashton, Bristol, UK" <phillipsa@afrc.ac.uk>

Subject: Re: Strike temperature

Many thanks to all those who responded, by E-mail and through HBD,

to my request for info about strike temperature; particularly to

Kelly Jones, whose definitive submission in yesterday's HBD was

exactly what I was after.

Cheers,

Andy Phillips

------------------------------


re: Barley Water

Date: Fri Aug 20 06:30:36 1993

From: darrylri@microsoft.com

Subject: re: Barley Water

Bill Ridgley writes:

> The author went on to mention that there was no longer a barley water

> tradition in the English-speaking world, but that a popular version called

> "horchata" was still enjoyed in Spain and parts of Latin America.

I realize that Bill didn't say this but was quoting someone else.  However,

horchata (pronounced without the leading h sound) is a common drink from

Mexico and is made from ground rice and cinnamon, and is pretty sweet.

In the LA area you can generally get this instead of, say, a soft drink

at a restaurant.  It doesn't sound like it's got very much in common

with barley water, however, in either ingredients or intended use.

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------


wort aeration comment

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 09:33:03 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: wort aeration comment

Thanks to Kinney for his postings from Malting & Brewing Science.  The

literature establishes beyond doubt that wort aeration is an important

factor in final beer quality and flavor.  I wonder whether the usual

homebrew rack and siphon to the carboy adds sufficient oxygen to

the wort?  It seems that the splash tube gadget is a step in the right

direction.  I have used an aquarium pump wort aerator since last

Fall, and feel that this has contributed to shorter lag times

and more vigorous fermentations.  I also feel that aeration is especially

important for stronger beers (SG above 1050 or so).  Admittedly,

I didn't do split test and control batches, but I leave that to

Malting and Brewing Science.  If I have a clean acid carboy available,

because of its greater headspace, I'll rack the just-cooled hopped wort

into it and start the aerator.  Sometimes, the beer head foams up, in

which case I'll leave the aerator on for 5 minutes and swirl the carboy.

Every half-hour or so, I'll repeat the process.  At other times, the

foam head doesn't go all the way to the top, in which case I'll

leave the aerator on for 3 to 6 hours.  It seems to me that aerating

the wort in this fashion is one of those things one can do -- like

using a wort chiller or racking to secondary -- to try to make better

beer.

------------------------------


re: Wort Aeration

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 93 10:07:42 CST

From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: re: Wort Aeration

Thanks to Kenny Baughman for some good data.  (I wish Dover would reprint

_Malting and Brewing Science_ (MBS) in paperback for $35).  I will attempt

to summarize I've learned on this areation thread.  Y'all let me know

if this makes sense.

  1)  Having enough dissolved oxygen (DO) in the wort is extremely

      important for a proper fermentation.  Inadequate DO can lead to

      a) Long lag times w/increased risk of infection

      b) Long or stuck fermentation

      c) Increased production of esters and acetaldehyde leading to

         off flavors.

  2)  A DO level of 20% of oxygen saturation seems to be adequate (MBS

      via Kenny B.)

  3)  100% air saturation is about 20% oxygen saturation.  (Lucky for

      us--or maybe it's not luck!  Could it be Devine intervention?)

  4)  Observations of the lag time by several home brewers (Jack S,

      myself, et al) indicate that techniques such as shaking the

      fermenter, splashing wort on side of fermenter, syphoning

      through an aerating tube, indicate that these techniques

      provide adequate aeration.  HOWEVER, no home brewer has

      measured DO, nor have any tests for unwanted byproducts

      (e.g. esters) been done either qualitative (tasting) or

      quantititative.

   5) Clearly with the air pump method one can achieve 100% air

      saturation, just keep pumping.

My Conclusion:  For 5 gallon sized batches with OG around 1.045

   splashing, shaking, or siphoning through areation tube will provide

   adequate oxygen in the wort.

Sante' WAK

------------------------------


Topping off secondary

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 08:47:57 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Topping off secondary

On Wednesday (took the day off to brew my first all grain batch), a great

mash, a nightmare sparge (suddenly, I was standing barefoot in 1/2 gallon

of hot wort), and a vigorous boil, I ended up with about 4.5 gal of 1.054

wort.  I should have topped off the primary, but somehow it slipped my

mind.  Can I top off the secondary with impunity?  I have a week long dry

hop coming up and I figure to just top off at that time.  Any downside

besides the dilution?

Thanks in advance.  Use private email unless its of general interest.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Hydrogen Peroxide

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 93 09:09:10 -0700

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: Hydrogen Peroxide

"Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 17:39:59 PDT

 From: Victor Stevko (Human Genome Center, LBL) <stevko@genome.lbl.gov>

 Subject: hydrogen peroxide

"DO NOT DRINK Hydrogen Peroxide! ... Honest-  I did a thesis on a related

 matter."

I won't dispute this, in general, but I'd like to note that hydrogen

peroxide can also be used to increase the oxygen content of water one

uses on house plants.

"Data point:  Viruses don't respire aerobically or otherwise.  An anaerobic

 virus is a meaningless term."

I freely admit that this is outside my realm of expertise.

"Data point:  Warts come and go, often spontaneously."

I can only report what I have experienced.

"In beer, hydrogen peroxide will kill your yeast.  Remember, it's supposed

 to stop infections?"

I'd guess this depends on the concentration. It seems possible to me that

as the hydrogen peroxide dissolved into solution, it would become too weak

to kill yeasts en masse, but still sufficient to oxygenate the solution,

at which time it might influence yeast production to surpass that growth

curve represented by the yeast population, had it not had hydrogen peroxide

added.

"Data point:  There is a POISON label on that bottle oof peroxide.  Why

 might it be there?  "

It's not. "Topical solution USP 3%". It's not data if you don't check.

"But do the reseearch before the experimentation with your health and life."

A reasonable request, but sometimes experimentation involves risk.

Others have pointed out the danger associated with free radicals, which are

the latest culprits in the search for the cause of ageing, and have pointed

me to some appropriate magazine articles. ( And I thank them. )

If it's any comfort, I donate blood about once a week, and they'd be the

first to let me know if there was anything wrong with my health. As it so

happens, I seem to have a very healthy cell count and blood chemistry ...

- -- richard

 |                                                                            |

 |        "A cloak is no longer a cloak if it does not keep one warm."        |

 |                                                                            |

 | richard childers                                         pascal@netcom.com |

------------------------------


Mash Out

Date: 20 Aug 93 03:57:01 EST

From: "CANNON_TOM" <CANNON_TOM@hq.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Mash Out

Message Creation Date was at 20-AUG-1993 08:10:00

          I've been a faithful HBD reader for about six months now

          and, though this must be a FAQ, I've seen nothing addressing

          the Mash Out Phase of all grain brewing.  We've done about

          20 all grain brews, and we always do the Mash Out either in

          the Mash Tun or by Sparging in the Lauter Tun with 170 deg

          water.  I know what the Mash Out does for the grain (stop

          enzyme activity) but what does it do for the resultant beer?

          Is there a difference between mashing out in the mash tun

          and lautering with 170 deg water?  Bottom line:  What is

          being gained (or lost if we don't mash out)?  TIA.

          Tom Cannon

          DH Brewery

          Fairfax/Annandale VA

------------------------------


Re: Aeration

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 93 10:44:17 MDT

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Aeration

JS> The experiment seems to confirm the author's previous

JS> experience and points to the conclusion that the method of

JS> aeration used has no correlation with or effect on the time

JS> to onset of fermentation.

KB> ...I'll briefly point out that underaerated wort can have definite

KB> deleterious effects on the flavor of the beer (increased ester

KB> production, for one) and adverse effects on the speed of fermentation

KB> (read increased lag times and the resultant risk of contamination,

KB> prolonged fermentation times...

Information I have heard indicates that you're *both* right.  The

scientific literature, with experiments presumably conducted much more

rigorously than Jack's, says aeration is important.  Jack's experiment,

and anecdotal evidence from some homebrewers, indicates otherwise (at

least as far as lag times are concerned).

According to Jeff Lebesch, the owner of New Belgium Brewing, he uses a

stainless-steel airstone with pure O2 because he says you just can't get

the amount of oxygen you need from air.  That, coupled with the fact

that an aquarium pump/airstone is probably not a very efficient way to

transfer O2 to the wort, indicates that *homebrewers, without special

equipment*, may not be able to get enough oxygen into the wort to make a

difference.

So I submit that the question is not whether O2 is important for yeast,

but whether homebrewers can oxygenate their wort sufficiently without

resorting to difficult or expensive methods.  I'm ignorant of any data

that may prove or disprove this -- does anyone know the volume of air

pushed by an aquarium pump, what the efficiency of gas transfer might be

with an aquarium airstone, O2 vs other gases in air, etc.?

Personally, I've given up on aerating with an aquarium pump, as it

seemed to make no difference in my beer and, since I had no in-line

filter, I was worried about introducing airborne contaminants.  YMMV.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Aeration

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 11:16:12 -0700

From: Michael.Burgeson@Eng.Sun.COM (J. Michael Burgeson)

Subject: Aeration

Thanks Kinney for siting some good sources on the topic of wort

aeration! After reading Jack's article on his aquarium pump/lag time

experiment (HBD #1206, "WORT AERATION"), I meant to respond, but have

been too busy at work to gather information.  So, I'm just going to

post without my sources at hand.

I think its important that we remember, as Kinney pointed out, that

poor lag time is not the only symptom of poor aeration.  "Malting and

Brewing Science" referred to higher ester production.  An article by

Dr. Fix in "Brewing Techniques" about diacetyl cited poor areation as a

possible cause of excess diacetyl production.  I have also seen

references to increased fusel alcohols, and other undesirable

fermentation byproducts resulting from poor areation.

The ideal level of dissolved oxygen in wort at pitching time is 8

mg/l.  Coincidentally, this is approximately  the maximum dissolved

oxygen level you can obtain using air.  This is why I have not started

using oxygen to areate my wort; by simply saturatiing my wort with air,

I am acheiving nearly the ideal dissolved oxygen level, without an

expensive dissolved oxygen meter.

As far as Jack's experimental results, I think it would have been

enlightening to measure the dissolved oxygen levels in his samples.

Due to the small size of his samples, there is proportionally much more

surface area exposed to the air during transfer than in a 5 gallon

sample.  I feel that the dissolved oxygen levels in his samples may

have been closer to the same level than if 5 gallon samples were used.

Also, how did they taste Jack?

One last point: 50ml of starter ("working kraeusen" in Jack's words),

for a 500ml batch is an _adequate_ amount of yeast.  Most homebrewers

under-pitch, since it is not practical to build up to a 2000ml starter

for a 5 gallon batch.  Personally, I usually pitch from a 500-1000ml

starter.  I know from working in a homebrew supply store tha many

people pitch far less; ie. the 50ml straight from a Wyeast packet.

The effects of improper aeration are multiplied when under-pitching.

I do not mean to slam Jack's experiment.  It was a good controlled

experiment, but I think it is incomplete without knowing the dissolved

oxygen levels in the samples, and what the differences in the flavors

were.

 - --mik

------------------------------


[SNYDERC@decus.org: RE: Irvine Brewpubs]

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 93 14:25:53 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: [SNYDERC@decus.org: RE: Irvine Brewpubs]


Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 19:04:00 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Curtis P. Snyder 714-752-4760" <SNYDERC@decus.org>

Subject: [SNYDERC@decus.org: RE: Irvine Brewpubs]

Irvine has no brewpubs itself. However, Dana Point (about 15 miles South)

has Heritage Brewery, which is near the wharf area. I haven't been there,

but I have tried some of their beers bottled and they are pretty good.

Best recommendation however, is Goat Hill Tavern, in Costa Mesa. THey have

about 110 beers on tap, mostly microbrewery types, with a few big shops

(Coors, Bud) thrown in for the huddled masses.  If you have time, Manhattan

Beach Brewery, on Manhattan Beach Blvd in Manhattan Beach, is really good,

with pizza that is perfect.  They are about 30-45 minutes north of Irvine

on the 405 fwy (Dana Point is also on the 405, just south).

------------------------------


Need Keg Supplies.

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 93 14:03:41 CDT

From: Gene Zimmerman <ezimmerm@hp.uwsuper.edu>

Subject: Need Keg Supplies.

Salutations!

   I'm going to cornealius (sp?) keg my beer from now on and am in need

of some hardware. I would like anyone who thinks they have a good supplier

that mails please e-mail me with their address. I have a Pepsi type

keg and I think this  is the "ball" lock type. Am I correct? Anyway,

I'm a student so this will have to be a relitavly cheap adventure.

Thanks in advance!

Gene in Laramie (formerly Duluth)

 ezimmerm@hp.uwsuper.edu

------------------------------


To blow-off or not to blow-off?

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 12:48:42 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: To blow-off or not to blow-off?

I have noted a number of beginning brewers and all-grain neophytes

(like myself) in the HBD lately, and I have a question that may be

of general interest to this group.

What is the feelings out there on whether to employ a blow-off

fermentaion or not?  Just using a 7 gal carboy and not worrying

about boiling off enough to fit in a 5 gal carboy seems like a

lot less stress, but I've always used a blow-off in my extract brews.

And besides, all that brown tar just worries me.

Let's see public responses to this because I think it's of general

interest.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Yeast FAQ Notice, CaCl2 info.

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 16:17:27 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: Yeast FAQ Notice, CaCl2 info.

 Hi HBD,

   First off I would like to thank everyone for pointing out the

 errors/oversights in my Yeast FAQ. Most of the points were valid, and I

 appreciated the input from those with more experience than myself. I should

 be posting the corrected version to the archives in about a week. If anyone

 else has found errors or suspected errors, either with the technical info

 or the yeast "flavor" data, please e-mail me.

   To the gent looking for food-grade CaCl2: I doubt that you will find any.

 The bottle at our lab reads, "Warning: Causes Irritation." This is not to

 warn you off using it if you need to correct your water chemistry. I think

 that the amounts used to alter the concentrations of Ca and Cl in water

 to be used for brewing

 will not irritate you (are you using Miller's section on water ions for

 guidance?). Luckily, most lab grade products are more pure than food grade,

 and you can get an analysis of any contaminant levels shipped with your

 purchase. A good general source for chemicals is SIGMA.

   Ordering is (800) 325-3010

   Customer Service is (800) 325-8070

   Technical Service is (800) 325-5832.

 I don't know what their policies are about shipping to the public, but the

 numbers are toll-free. I don't own any stocks, let alone stock in SIGMA,

 etc. etc. Please check the contaminant levels, and buy the best grade you

 need.

   Here is my info for those who want to reach me about the Yeast FAQ.

 Or anything else.

                                       @@@@

                                      (o  o)

          |----------------------ooO---(__)---Ooo----------------------|

          |                                                            |

          | Patrick Weix                        weix@swmed.edu         |

          | UT Southwestern Medical Center      tel: (214) 648-5050    |

          | 5323 Harry Hines Blvd               fax: (214) 648-5453    |

          | Dallas, TX 75235                                           |

          |------------------------------------------------------------|

                                     ||    ||

                                   (__)    (__)

------------------------------


BRFWare Needed

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 17:59:51 -0500

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: BRFWare Needed

Could I please get some kind soul to put the latest version (V1.1) of

_Brewer's Recipe Formulator_  on an ftp server somewhere???  The version on

the famous mthvax.cs.miami.edu is V1.0, and the author says numerous

improvements have been made...

thanks

 t

------------------------------


Keg Conditioning

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 22:02:31 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Mark S. Nelson" <mnelson@eis.calstate.edu>

Subject: Keg Conditioning

I would like to start keg conditioning my brews and was wondering if

someone could give me some information.

I need to know when I should rack my beer from the primary to the keg for

optimum carbonation.  Is there a formula?  I assume it would be based on

specific gravity readings.

Any help is appreciated.

- --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.

Mark S. Nelson      nelsonm@axe.humboldt.edu      mnelson@eis.calstate.edu

------------------------------


yeast cultural hysteria

Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1993 15:15:59 -0500

From: tmgierma@raphael.acpub.duke.edu (Todd Gierman)

Subject: yeast cultural hysteria

Well, well, well.  After scanning through the ENCYCLOPEDIA MYCOLOGIA in HBD

#1207, what can one say but: "well, well, well."  Yes, it was excessive and

uncalled for - more of an attempt to intimidate than educate, really.

There's no point in attempting to unshroud Mr. Weicht's thesis from its

thicket of scientific jargon and double-speak; for our purposes

(homebrewing, remember?) the point is really moot.  For anyone really

interested in pursuing further information concerning yeast biochemistry,

genetics and (yes) taxonomy, I suggest that you start with a wonderful

little primer put together by one of this century's more noteworthy yeast

experts, namely:  The Life of Yeasts by H.J. Phaff, M.W. Miller and E.M.

Mrak, 2nd edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1978.  This

is a marvelously thorough, yet simple overview of yeasts, including:

historical aspects, morphology and vegitative reproduction, sporulation and

life cycles, genetics, metabolic activities, industrial uses (well, you get

the idea).  Its straight forward approach makes it a pleasure to read for

both scientist and non-scientist alike, I'm sure.  Check your large, local

university or public library.

On a more philosophical note, allow me to quote Phaff et al.,

        Many controversies exist in viewpoints concerning

        biological taxonomy.  Some investigators are "splitters,"

        those inclined to establish many species on the

        basis of relatively minor differences, and others are

        "lumpers," wishing to reduce the number of species.

I propose for the purposes of this forum, that we consider ourselves

"lumpers."  It really does't matter what we call them, as long as everyone

understands what is being talked about.  It becomes increasingly

meaningless in this forum to say it's this genus or that genus, etc, though

for lambics (Brettanomyces/Dekkera) we must make an exception.  The point is

whether it has been used in brewing and what were the consequences. To this

end, I propose dispensing with scientific names as much as possible and

sticking with the common names, the ones that everyone understands and sees

displayed in the local homebrew store.  Let's go even further: instead of

saying Wyeast #3056 or MeV 320 or whatever, why not, as has been previously

requested, refer to them as Wyeast Munich or Bavarian, or Bohemian (use the

number in parentheses) and eliminate cryptic references to its putative

source (these may be inaccurate).  I think this would be far more useful to

those less familiar with the available cultures.

I have a second proposal that merges two suggestions brought up in the last

couple of issues:  sharing yeast cultures via the network and Weihenstephan

68.  In the realm of scientific research, as many of you are aware, it is

customary and considered "good form" to make all reagents available that

have been communicated through publication.  Within reason, these are

freely made available gratis to any colleague who requests them.  I think

that there are many individuals out there who would be quite eager to

obtain a culutre of Weihenstephan 68, myself included.  This network offers

a wonderful means by which to distribute the culture, rather than wait

until who knows when for its release.  Certainly, someone out there has an

agar slant full of this stuff.  Therefore, I am proposing a Weihenstephan

68 chain letter, of a sort.  It works like this:  an individual with a

reliable culture announces it in the HBD; all others interested in

receiving a sample respond via private e-mail; each person responding

denotes themselves as a culturer (one who has the ability to make agar

slants and propagate the yeast) or a non-culturer (self-explanatory);  the

first individual (a culturer himself) selects two non-culturers and one

culturer to receive the yeast on slants via first class mail; once the

designated culturer (recipient) recieves his slant, the information is

posted in the HBD and the process begins anew.  Of course, non-culturers

have no further obligation other than to notify and thank the sender.  Once

three cultures are shipped, the culturer is relieved of any further

obligation, unless colonies do not appear on the slant - then a new attempt

should be made.  Slants should be streaked with more than one colony pick,

in case more than one strain is actually involved, and sent immediately

even before the colonies appear, they may ship better this way.  This

process may take a while before eveyone who wants the culture actually

recieves it, but, because it spreads the burden of culturing and shipping,

it should be fairly painless.  So, is there anyone out there who will come

forward with Weihenstephan 68?  Put me down as a culturer.

Oh, yes, if you must flame me, flame me in the forum.  Please don't waste

my time with private e-mail flames.  Thank you.

Todd Gierman

Dept. of Microbiology

Duke University Medical Center

------------------------------


Canadian Amateur Brewers Association (CABA)

Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1993 23:34:35 -0400 (EDT)

From: Michael Ligas <ligas@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>

Subject: Canadian Amateur Brewers Association (CABA)

If anyone is interested in receiving information about that Canadian

Amateur Brewers Association (CABA) please send me private e-mail and I'll

gladly accomodate you. Take care.

Michael Ligas

Director, CABA

ligas@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca

------------------------------


a fantastic bock

Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1993 20:22:14 -0600 (CDT)

From: jim@n5ial.mythical.com (Jim Graham)

Subject: a fantastic bock

Hey, this is a first...I actually have something other than a beginner's

question to post here!

A few weeks ago, I set out to brew what would be my first true departure

from kits and simple batches with a single tin of malt extract, dried malt

extract or corn sugar, hops, and yeast.  And to make it really worth the

effort <grin>, I decided to (more or less) brew one of the recipes from

TNCJoHB, that being Papazian's Dr. Bock (p. 203).

Now, I couldn't get the exact quantities that he suggested, but I wasn't

particularly worried about that (I'm *NOT* one who follows recipes like

they're cast in stone).  I did have to decide between using lager yeast,

and living with fermenting/aging at around 75 deg F, or just using ale

yeast and not worrying about it.  I chose the ale yeast (after a lot of

debating the subject), based mainly on a comment in the book that said

``Don't be afraid to substitute ale yeast for lager yeast and vice-versa''

(p. 174).

Anyways, here's what it amounted to (for 5 gallons):

9 lb 6 oz (3 tins) of Superbrau amber malt extract syrup   (*)

1/2 lb chocolate malt

2 oz Hallertauer hop pellets (boiling)

1/2 oz Hallertauer hop pellets (flavor)

2 pkgs ale yeast   (**)

approx. 3/4 cup corn sugar (for bottling)

(*) Papazian calls for 8 lbs malt extract syrup

(**) Papazian calls for 1--2 pkgs lager yeast

Anyways, it's been in bottles now for just under 15 days, and even though

just about everyone I talk to says to expect a bock to take a *LONG* time

to age, it's already *WONDERFUL*!!!  It's already the smoothest beer I've

ever brewed, and I've done what I consider to be some really good beer.

Scratch that...it's the smoothest beer/ale/whatever that I've ever tasted,

period.  I can't wait to see what this batch is like after a couple of

months....what little of it is left, that is!  :-)

The flavor is very smooth (creamy actually comes to mind as a better word),

with a lot of malt flavor, and just a hint of a chocolate flavor from the

chocolate malt.  It has virtually no bitterness from the hops (other than

to offset the sweetness of the malt...which, if I read things right, means

I did something right!  :-)  ).  It pours very nicely, with about a 2 cm

head, which holds up very nicely.

It does, however, pack a bit of a punch....much more so than any batch

I've brewed to date.  :-)  It's certainly a batch to be enjoyed in

moderation (which helps it to last longer, too!).

Oh well, just thought I'd pass this success story along.  Later,

   --jim

- --

#include <std_disclaimer.h>                                  73 DE N5IAL (/4)

- --------------------------< Running Linux 0.99 PL9 >--------------------------

INTERNET: jim@n5ial.mythical.com  |  j.graham@ieee.org     ICBM: 30.23N 86.32W

AMATEUR RADIO:  (packet station temporarily offline)       AMTOR SELCAL: NIAL

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

E-mail me for information about KAMterm (host mode for Kantronics TNCs).

------------------------------


More questions

Date: Sun, 22 Aug 93 03:00:43 PDT

From: LIFE'S TOO SHORT TO DRINK CHEAP BEER <UNDERWOOD@INTEL7.intel.com>

Subject: More questions

I brewed my second all grain the other day and differed my procedure just

a little.  Now the questions.  Usually I boil, siphon the wort into a plastic

primary and let sit overnight to settle/cool.  The next morning this gets

racked into the carboy, yeast added, etc.

This batch I used an immersion chiller to cool and then straight into the

carboy it went.  The first method usually leaves about an inch of trub in

the bottom of the bucket.  With the chiller, I left a lot of stuff in

suspension.  Which is the better method?

Also with that previous batch I saved some of the slurry in a mason jar.

Unfortunately the garage fridge got unplugged, now the lid is bowed.

Is this yeast bad?  I will have more slurry here in a day or two.

Whats the proper method for saving this stuff?

   Thanks for the help,  Chuck

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1209, 08/23/93

*************************************

-------


RE: Yeast FAQ; and more

Date: Sun, 22 Aug 93 16:40:01 EDT

From: rgarvin@btg.com (Rick Garvin (703-761-6630))

Subject: RE: Yeast FAQ; and more

The yeast FAQ that Patrick (WEIZ@swmed.edu) posted was a great public

service. I wanted to add my personal experiences with the Wyeast 1028

(London Ale Yeast) and 1056 strains.

Patrick's original post on 1028 said:

> WYeast 1028 London Ale Yeast

>  Rich minerally profile, bold woody slight diacetyl

>  production.  Medium flocculation.  Apparent attenuation

>  73-77%.  Optimum fermentation temperature: 68 deg. F (20

>  deg. C).  Complex, woody, tart, with strong mineral

>  notes, this one will bite you horribly if you over-hop or

>  if your water is high in carbonates.  If you avoid that

>  Scylla and Charybdis, it produces ales of marvellous

>  complexity and sophistication.  Most of the time you'll

>  wish you'd used 1098 or 1056.  Had best results in

>  porters.  Over-hopping is especially bad, but if you

>  throttle the hops back, the results are indeed

>  marvellous.  Used this yeast in a Kolsch once, and it was

>  *fantastic*  The wood and mineral notes fused with the

>  Hallertauer hops (which were used with some restraint),

>  and a couple of months of cool ageing brought out some

>  green apple in the aroma as well as the pallette.  It

>  tasted a good bit hoppier than it really was, and overall

>  was well-balanced and smooth.

Al Korzonas countered:

> This is one of my two favorites (1056 being the other) and I've

> brewed some very high IBU ales with it without the overhopping

> problems reported here.  Just 40 datapoints or so.  Also, I'd

> like to mention that this yeast was used for the 1992 B.0.S.S.

> Challenge 1st place Barleywine, brewed by none other than Brian

> and Linda North.

Lynn Kerby wrote:

> I just tried the 1028 strain on a couple of back to back english style

> ales.  The first was a fairly low gravity Bitter that came out fairly

> nicely.  It was not overly hopped, yet the hop bitterness came through

> nicely.  I did note the woody and mineral flavor notes in this brew.

> The second brew was a fairly hoppy IPA and I wish that I had chosen a

> different yeast.  I found that the attenuation was a bit much in the

> IPA, but it is still very young and may turn out fine in another month

> or so.  The IPA currently has a nasty stale veggi character that I

> believe is due to using some old Cascades (they have been kept in the

> freezer since I bought them though) for dry hopping.  I just replaced

> the blend of Cascades and Kent Goldings with some fresh Mt Hood in the

> keg and am hoping for the best.

I tend to agree with Al on this one. I am a prodigious user of the Wyeast

1056 strain, albeit not their culture. I believe that Seibel has this

strain catalogued as being from the Narraganset brewery and was used by

them in their Porter. It has been reported in this sage journal as being

the Sierra Nevada house strain. I get this yeast from the Washington, DC

local Old Dominion Brewery by the quart. I find this yeast a great

performer yet too bland for many styles. In my search for a characterful

yeast I have settled on the Wyeast 1028. I use the actual Wyeast strain.

I have found the Wyeast 1028 to have the complex woody character that

is ascribed to it above. It does produce many other pleasant esters that

remind me of cask Wadsworth's 6X. I have found it to be a strong

attenuator. The Narragsanset/Sierra Nevada yeast is a VERY strong

flocculator. Once it is done with the job it DROPS! The London Ale

yeast is a bit more dusty so it hangs around and nibbles on them sugars

a bit longer. This may be the character that seemed to accentuate hop

bitterness. I have not found this yeast to be a big diacetyl producer.

On the contrary, I find the Narraganset/Sierra Nevada culture to be a

bigger diacetyl producer. Especially in higher gravity beers. As far

"green apple" acetaldehyde, not in my experience.

An interesting behavior of the 1028 is its "top fermenting character."

Very large colonies of yeast form on top of the krausen. These are the

size of pie plates.

A recent experience with this yeast bears out my description. I made a

batch of 1.052 Pale Ale with this yeast. The recipe follows. The woody

character of the yeast (very apparent) combined with the MT Hood

characteristic resiny character to produce a very pleasant beer. Plenty

of character here for me.

American Pale Ale:

Through KitchenAid Grain Mill:

22 lbs Great Western 2 row

1 lb Dewolf-Cosyns Cara Munich 70 Lovibond

Hop Pellets:

2 oz Perle 8.1% AA 60 minutes

3 oz Perle 8.1% AA 30 minutes

1 oz Mt Hood 3.9% AA 10 minutes

1 oz Cascades 5% AA 5 minutes

1 oz Mt Hood 3.9% AA 0 minutes

1 teaspoon Gypsum

2 tablespoons Irish Moss

OG: 1.052

FG: 1.009

Procedures:

Single step infusion mash at 152-150F with Gypsum. Sparge with 170-190F

water to collect 15 gallons in 2 hours 30 minutes. Boil for 30 minutes

before adding first hop addition. Add Irish moss for last 30 minutes.

Use immersion chiller for 30 minutes while setting up "counter flow"

chiller. Divide unfermented beer between 3 carboys with air locks (blow

off tubes? Not this decade). Add 1/3 gallon yeast starter to each (1.040

OG starter) at 62F. Shake to aerate. Ferment in from of window AC.

Krausen appears over night.

Cheers, Rick

Rick Garvin rgarvin@btg.com

BTG, Inc. Navy Programs Division, Vienna, VA 703-761-6630

------------------------------


Lactic Briess Extract

Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1993 21:48:43 -0500

From: donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Lactic Briess Extract

I've been asked to forward the following information from Briess Malting

Co.

Mary Anne Gruber writes:

After seeing the article on the network about the bad DME from Briess, I

contacted Mr. Roger Briess and this is his response.  "We only recently

became aware that there could be a problem with this particular lot of

DME.  I immediately began an investigation on how this lot received

Quality Control approval and reviewed the production and quality control

procedures to assure this doesn't happen again.

For 117 years Briess has strived for the highest quality and customer

satisfaction.  If everyone who has purchased Briess' CBW GOLD DRY lot

#19CM3-D, in any size container, will mail the label showing this lot

number to the following address, we will gladly replace.  Please allow 3-4

weeks for replacement.

BRIESS MALTING COMPANY

29 S. Columbia Street

Chilton, WI 53014

Attn:  Mary Anne Gruber

          Director Brewing Services

We apologize for all those homebrewers who suffered any loss due to using

this lot of DME."

As a personal note, I can add that none of this lot of gold dry extract

was distributed by St. Patrick's of Texas, either retail or wholesale.

Lynne O'Connor

St. Patrick's of Texas

------------------------------


Mashing in picnic cooler

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 8:27 BST

From: "Andy Phillips, Long Ashton, Bristol, UK" <phillipsa@afrc.ac.uk>

Subject: Mashing in picnic cooler

On Saturday, I mashed for the first time in my new mash tun - an

insulated picnic cooler with slotted pipe sparge manifold - and

was impressed with how much easier it was than with my old Bruheat.

I prewarmed the tun to 80C, then mixed 5.3 kg (11.6 lb) of pale malt

with 13 litres (2.9 Imperial gallons) water at 76C. The resulting

mash started at 66C and dropped to 65C over 90 min. I stirred occasionally

to redistibute any cold spots near the walls. I sparged to 6 (UK)

galls at a gravity of 69 at 20C. My calculations suggest that

I had almost 100% theoretical yield!! My highest with the Bruheat had been

about 85, and usually about 20% of this was unfermantable, probably

due to hot spots near the heating element, killing off the beta-amylase.

The other advantage is that the Bruheat can now be used to heat the sparge

water (no more sparging with pans from the stove), and the runnings from the

mash tun can be sent straight to the Bruheat for boiling. Assuming that

the resulting beer tastes OK, I'm completely sold on the new system.

Andy

------------------------------


Computer Controlled Mashing

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 17:12:54 +0930

From: Murray Robinson <robinm@mrd.dsto.gov.au>

Subject: Computer Controlled Mashing

Has anyone on the net undertaken the process of automating their

mash by using a closed loop control system.

ie: temp sensor --> computer --> solenoid --> gas burner --> brew pot --

         ^                                                             |

         |                                                             |

         ---------------------------------------------------------------

I have used the BruHeat Boiler (hope I can mention the name) for some time

with good results but got a nice little tingle from it the other day so am

no longer keen on electrical heating elements. Instead I now have a 3 ring

gas burner beneath a 40Gal SS keg which enables me to do larger batches which

come up to temperature quicker. What I would like to do with this system

is use the inner ring (or possibly a seperate element) as a pilot flame with

a computer controlled solenoid that would switch gas on/off to the other

rings to maintain the appropriate mash temp.

Ofcourse there are much easier (and cheaper) ways of managing a temperature

controlled mash but a computererised system (at a reasonable price)

provides IMO a great way of documenting and reproducing recipes!

What do people think? Are there other problems with this sort of system such

as exactly where in the mash should you measure the temperature or should the

mash be constantly mixed, etc?

Any info would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Murray.

------------------------------


Barley Water (Cont'd)

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 08:04:00 EST

From: "/R=FDACB/R=A1/U=RIDGELY/O=HFM-400/TN=FTS 402-1521/FFN=Bill Ridgely/"@mr.cber.fda.gov

Subject: Barley Water (Cont'd)

  In the continuing "barley water" debate, Darryl writes:

     >    > The author went on to mention that there was no longer a barley

          >water tradition in the English-speaking world, but that a popular

          >version called "horchata" was still enjoyed in Spain and parts of

          >Latin America.

     >I realize that Bill didn't say this but was quoting someone else.

     >However, horchata (pronounced without the leading h sound) is a common

     >drink from Mexico and is made from ground rice and cinnamon, and is

     >pretty sweet. In the LA area you can generally get this instead of,

     >say, a soft drink at a restaurant.  It doesn't sound like it's got very

     >much in common with barley water, however, in either ingredients or

     >intended use.

  I did a little more reading on the subject, and Darryl is correct. Modern-

  day horchata is rice-based. However, at one time, it apparently was barley-

  based. The term "horchata" comes from the Latin "hordeum", meaning

  "barley". It appears that rice supplanted barley as the grain of choice

  when the Moors introduced rice to Spain in the late middle ages.

  There also appears to be another form of horchata, found mostly in Spain,

  made from chufa, or ground tiger nut - the underground tuber of a plant

  called "earth almond". One reference says this tuber was mentioned in the

  writings of Theophrastus as being harvested by the Egyptians and cooked in

  barley juice. Hence, the original "chufa horchata" appears to have derived

  from this ancient Egyptian tradition.

  Bill Ridgely (Brewer, Patriot, Bicyclist)                  __o

  ridgely@a1.cber.fda.gov                                   -/<,

  ridgely@cber.cber.fda.gov                              ...O/ O...

------------------------------


Gaithersburg, MD Brewpub

Date:         Mon, 23 Aug 93  08:32:31 EDT

From: <NASARC07@SIVM.SI.EDU>

Subject:      Gaithersburg, MD Brewpub

*** Resending note of 08/20/93 10:37

To: EXTERNAL--CMSNAMES Entry Screen (non-

From: Allan Janus

Greetings, all - does anyone in the Washington DC area have any information

on a new brewpub that's been a-building in Gaithersburg for a long, thirsty

time?  I recently moved nearby, and the sight of a brewpub gave me a very

positive viewof the local quality-of-life index.  Now it's the middle of

a mid-Atlantic August, my thirst is great, and the brewpub continues to hold

its peace.  Anyone know the brewer-founder, plans, opening date, etc?

------------------------------


preservatives??

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 8:39:36 EDT

From: Mark A Fryling <mfryling@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

Subject: preservatives??

Howdy,

I have a question for those of you in the know concerning  preservatives and

their toxicity to yeast.  Specifically, I recently bought some catawba and

concord grape juice from one of the lake Erie wineries to use to make some

pyment (grape mead).  After purchasing however, I noticed that the juices are

preserved with "benzoate of soda", which I presume means sodium benzoate.

Questions, a) how persistant is this stuff; i.e. does it become non-toxic or

un-reactive with time like sodium metabisulfite? and b) if it is persistant is

there a threshold level below which my yeasty-beasties should be safe?

     The juice is extremely sweet (not at all like Welch's) and I was thinking

that I would use it at about 2.25L of juice and 6-8 lbs of honey per 3gal of

finished pyment.  One way of testing is to try a small (say 1gal) pilot batch,

and I may do this regardless, but advance info would be helpful.

     I have further interest in this subject because I would like to figure out

another way to make hard cider and cyser this fall without the use of

metabisulfite.  Call me hypersensitive, but I still taste and smell the sulfur

in the hard cider I made last year using campden tablets and then pitching

Wyeast Irish Ale (1084?).  The sulfur aroma is not real obvious, but I'd like

to try to avoid it this year and still ferment with a yeast of known

characteristics instead of leaving it up to the wild beasts.

TIA

Mark Fryling

Dept. of Chemistry

Ohio State Univ.

<mfryling@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

"Never let your sense of morality prevent you from doing whats right"

I. Asimov

------------------------------


sweet gale seed source

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 09:13:52 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: sweet gale seed source

It's getting to be time to start brewing those strong holiday beers.

Does anyone have a source for sweet gale seeds?  Has anyone tried

brewing Rajotte's "Santa Claus Magic Potion" with them?

------------------------------


The Net ADvertiser

Date: 23 Aug 1993 16:12:57 +0200

From: netad@uds01.unix.st.it (NetAdvertiser)

Subject: The Net ADvertiser

*****************************************************************************

Are you trying to sell your car, your home, your drums, your whole Jimi

Hendrix's bootlegs collection?

Are you going to rent your flat at Aspen for the summer time?

Or maybe you are looking for a car, or for a new job, or for friends to

spend all the nights watching Peter Greenaways's movies or playing Diplomacy.

Even if you are offering jobs and managing a commercial company you can

enter the world of:

                T H E    N E T    A D V E R T I S E R

The Net Advertiser is a mailing list created to give  all the Internet

community the opportunity to widespread private sales, rent, offer messages.

Everybody can find a place in The Net Advertiser digest, even commercial

companies.

This is a list maintained by the InfoNet Project, a group of computer science

experts, students and consultants whose aim is the propagation of all kind of

information across the Internet and CREN world.

Advertising in the digest is completely free, except for commercial companies

which must submit a 75 $ fee in order to support the InfoNet Project work.

For any information, subscription and submission write to:

netad@uds01.unix.st.it.

*****************************************************************************

------------------------------


SF area Breweries & Brewpubs

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 08:38:09 -0600

From: Michael Howe <howe@gwl.com>

Subject: SF area Breweries & Brewpubs

Hello HBD'ers,

  I would like any/all information anyone might have about Breweries and

Brewpbus in the San Francisco area.  I know Anchor and Sierra Nevada are

both out in that neck of the woods, but where?  What about "Can't Miss" micros

and brewpubs.  I know the area is rich in drinking potential, thus I would

like to maximize my opportunity.

Also, I would like to obtain the current brewpub list that was recently

compiled.  That could probably answer many of my questions.  I would get it

myself but I don't have FTP access.  Could some kind soul forward that to

me as well.

Feel free to mail to me directly to save precious HBD space...

Thanks in advance,

Michael Howe             e-mail : howe@gwl.com

------------------------------


Mash Out

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 10:01:15 -0500

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Mash Out

>I know what the Mash Out does for the grain (stop enzyme activity)

>but what does it do for the resultant beer?

Provides for repeatability, mostly.  ie: enzyme activity is stopped

after x minutes, period.

>Is there a difference between mashing out in the mash tun

>and lautering with 170 deg water?

Yes.  You won't have enough mass of sparge water at 170 degrees

to raise the entire grain-bed (with its water at, say, 150 degrees)

up to the enzyme-stopping temperature.  And you shouldn't use water

much hotter than 170, for fear of tannins and other off-flavors being

carried into your beer.  This is an argument for mashing in a kettle

on the stove, or going to decoction (did I spell that right?) as opposed

to the straight infusion method.

>Bottom line:  What is being gained (or lost if we don't mash out)?  TIA.

Gained: a little time

Lost: repeatability

yer welcome

 t

=============================================================================

Tom Leith                           InterNet:   trl@wuerl.WUstl.EDU

4434 Dewey Ave.                   CompuServe:   70441,3536

St. Louis, Missouri  63116

                                                "Tho' I could not caution all

314/362-6965 - Office                            I still might warn a few:

314/362-6971 - Office Fax                        Don't lend your hand

314/481-2512 - Home + Infernal Machine           to raise no flag

                                                 atop no Ship of Fools"

=============================================================================

------------------------------


no subject (file transmission)

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 11:08:17 -0400 (EDT)

From: okra@genesis.nred.ma.us (dean goulding)

Subject: no subject (file transmission)

 FWIW - 2 tips that have helped me...

1 - I make a temporary burner liner for my gas stove from two layers

 of aluminum foil.  Cut an asterisk shape the size of your burner

 element in the center of the first and fold under the hole

 in the stovetop for the burner element.

 Leave plenty of excess to cover the enamel stovetop.  Do the

 same with the second sheet, perpendicular to the first.  This

 helps with the stains from burnt wort and the enamel distress

 from 1.5 hours of high heat.  It also helps to have the stove

 spotless to start with.

2 - I sparge using the grainbag-in-a-bucket system.  I've found that

 using two sections of newspaper taped around the bucket w/ masking

 tape makes an effective/recyclable insulation.  Cut an indentation

 if you use a tap at the base.

Pet peeve:  Let's remember that some of us call long distance to download

the HBD.  I'd rather read valuable brewing info than cute tagline drawings

or excessive quotes from the previous HBD.

Question:  For my last 2 batches, I've used Wyeast Chico/Ballantine (1056)

yeast.  This appears to be a bottom fermenting ale yeast.  Isn't that an

oxymoron (ie.jumbo shrimp, military intelligence)?  Aren't yeast segregated

as either top/ale or bottom/lager?  Dr. Fix?

Thanks!  Dean Goulding (okra@genesis.nred.ma.us)

------------------------------


To blow-off or not to blow-off?

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 08:28:57 PDT

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: To blow-off or not to blow-off?

>>>>> On Fri, 20 Aug 1993 12:48:42 -0700 (PDT), Domenick Venezia

<venezia@zgi.com> said:

Domenick> I have noted a number of beginning brewers and all-grain

Domenick> neophytes (like myself) in the HBD lately, and I have a

Domenick> question that may be of general interest to this group.

Domenick> What is the feelings out there on whether to employ a

Domenick> blow-off fermentaion or not?  Just using a 7 gal carboy and

Domenick> not worrying about boiling off enough to fit in a 5 gal

Domenick> carboy seems like a lot less stress, but I've always used a

Domenick> blow-off in my extract brews.  And besides, all that brown

Domenick> tar just worries me.

Domenick> Let's see public responses to this because I think it's of

Domenick> general interest.

Domenick> Domenick Venezia

Domenick> ZymoGenetics, Inc.

Domenick> venezia@zgi.com

You may not see a public response to this, because I have never been

able to successfully post to HBD.  Maybe it will work this time, I

will try.

Although I am not an all grain brewer yet (will be in a couple of

weeks), it seems to me that once you have done your boil and have

racked to a fermenter, it matters not at all how you got your wort.

You will still have malt sugar, water, yeast and hops in a carboy.  If

you used a blowoff fermentation setup before and it worked and you

liked it, keep using it.  BTW, I use a blowoff hose and ferment in a

SS soda keg.  I get tons of krauesen and hop pellet residue in my air

lock bucket.  I really like the blowoff system.

dion

Dion Hollenbeck (619)455-5590x2814     Email: hollen@megatek.com

Senior Software Engineer                      megatek!hollen@uunet.uu.net

Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California    ucsd!megatek!hollen

------------------------------


Stabilizing Cultures For Shipment

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 08:49:53 -0700

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: Stabilizing Cultures For Shipment

"Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1993 15:15:59 -0500

 From: tmgierma@raphael.acpub.duke.edu (Todd Gierman)

 Subject: yeast cultural hysteria

"I have a second proposal that merges two suggestions brought up in the last

 couple of issues:  sharing yeast cultures via the network ... This network

 offers a wonderful means by which to distribute the culture, rather than

 wait until who knows when for its release.  Certainly, someone out there

 has an agar slant full of this stuff."

I like this idea, also, but it is not a new one. I was browsing through the

bread FAQs I could find in gopherspace, over the past few days, and discovered

that there is a very close parallel between bread yeast, and beer yeast,

collectors. Bread yeast collectors also trade yeast samples ... sourdough is

a fairly common variation, as it occurs, differently, all over the world.

Below is a method for preserving bread yeast and stabilizing them for mailing

and long-term storage. I don't *know* that it will work for beer yeast, but

I see no reason why not ... I don't think agar slants are a prerequisite to

successful propogation of a genotype ... just a useful intermediate storage.

Here's another useful intermediate storage that may be much more stable.

The procedure, as described, lacks sanitary safeguards ... but I don't think

this is an unsurmountable problem. A homemade glove box would do nicely. (-:

Aluminum foil might be preferred over wax paper, for sanitary reasons.

> How to dry and restart a culture

>

> ####################################################

> ####################################################

>

>

> from dadams@cray.com (David Adams)

>

> Drying:

>

>   For long term culture storage, store your culture

>   in dried powder form.  Ed Woods book doesn't tell

>   you how to do this right out, but I sort of discovered

>   it on my own.  Actually I believe it is an old trick.

>

>   Spread a three foot long section of wax paper on the

>   Table WAX SIDE UP.  Smear one tablespoon of fresh

>   culture around evenly and

>   thinly over the surface of the wax paper.   Let it

>   dry overnight, and then scrape the dry flakes into

>   a bowl and crunch them (Mortal & pestle style) into

>   small pieces.  Put the powder into a labeled zip lock

>   bag and press the air out.

>

>   The culture forms spores when it starts to dry out.

>   The culture will store in a zip lock bag at normal

>   temperatures like this for 6 months.  It will store

>   even longer in the frezer.

>

>   I find that a zip-lock bag is very convenient way to

>   carry a culture when traveling or moving.  Make sure

>   the bag is labled and don't flaunt those little bags

>   of white powder!

>

>   I find it convenient to do several sheets of wax paper

>   at once.  Then when friends ask for a start I spoon

>   two teaspoons into a new bag, and carry it to work,

>   or where ever I will see them next.

>

>   Another reason I find this convenient is that if you

>   own several different cultures, they don't all have

>   to occupy a bottle in the fridge at once.

>

>   And it is fairly easy to include a small zip-lock

>   with a teaspoon or two of start in a letter.  An

>   easy way to share starts.

>

> Restarting:

>

>   Dr. Wood recomends the following steps for activating

>   dried sourdough cultures:

>

>   Mix a couple of teaspoons of the dried powder with

>   1/2 cup of water at 95 to 100 deg F.  Mix briefly and

>   let stand for 15 min.  Add 1/3 cup of white bread

>   flour, mix well and proof for 24 hours at 85 deg. F.

>   (My start needs 12 hours.)  "The jar lid should

>   not be tightened.  During the first 12 hours the

>   culture should be stirred once or twice as convenient.

>

>   "At the end of 24 hours the culture should start to

>   bubble but the time varies depending on which culture

>   is to be activated.  Regardless, add an additional

>   1/2 cup of 85 deg. F. water and 1/2 cup of flour.

>   Then stir vigorously to whip some air into the mixture.

>   Return it to your warm place for 12 hours.  When

>   the culture has a layer of foamy bubbles on the

>   surface, it is ready to use.

>

>   Some of the cultures will fully activate in 24-48

>   hours, but some may require 3 to 5 days.  During

>   this time, keep the culture at 85 deg. F., add

>   water and flour at about 12 hour intervals and stir

>   briskly."  (Copied by permission from information

>   sheet sent with culture sample from Sourdoughs

>   International.)

>

> ###########################################################

> ###########################################################

Anyone who'd like this or other bread-related FAQs, feel free to email me

separately, I'll have them online for a few weeks, at least.

- -- richard

 |                                                                            |

 |        "A cloak is no longer a cloak if it does not keep one warm."        |

 |                                                                            |

 | richard childers                                         pascal@netcom.com |

------------------------------


Yeast FAQ/Al Korz...

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 10:54:16 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: Yeast FAQ/Al Korz...

Sorry to waste bandwidth.

Al, I have not received any comment on the messages I sent you regarding

your corrections to my Yeast FAQ. Please contact me to tell me if you

got my messages. Has your address changed? Mine remains,

                                      @@@@

                                     (o  o)

         |----------------------ooO---(__)---Ooo----------------------|

         |                                                            |

         | Patrick Weix                        weix@swmed.edu         |

         | UT Southwestern Medical Center      tel: (214) 648-5050    |

         | 5323 Harry Hines Blvd               fax: (214) 648-5453    |

         | Dallas, TX 75235                                           |

         |------------------------------------------------------------|

                                    ||    ||

                                  (__)    (__)

Thanks to all.

------------------------------


Brewpots

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 10:03:32 -0600

From: John Adams <j_adams@hpfcjca.sde.hp.com>

Subject: Brewpots

I just had a 6.5 gallon stainless steel brew pot made for me.  The materials

for a 14 gauge stainless (this is probably thicker than "restaurant gauge")

amounted to $75.  The real "cost" involved is the actual construction.  Getting

someone with stainless cutting/welding experience and the right equipment is

the trick.

My father-in-law is a supervisor at a beef plant where they do all of their

own stainless work.  My pot has a fitted lid, stainless handles fabricated from

1/2" rod (with walnut grips) and a 3/8" stainless threading pipe at the base.

All it cost me was a batch of beer!!!

> Warehouse in Seattle, WA.  The following was quoted:

>   10 gal. stainless steel brew pot -        $149.00

>   brass/copper ball valve,nipple,fitting -  $ 86.00

>   cut to fit bottom screen to filter wort - $ 60.00

                                            -------

                                            $295.00

The prices for the screen/valve seem a bit high but the price for the pot

itself is reasonable (assuming you get a lid).

John Adams

------------------------------


Chang over Chicha

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 12:04:51 EDT

From: rgarvin@btg.com (Rick Garvin (703-761-6630))

Subject: Chang over Chicha

Bill Ridgely writes in HBD #1208:

> Sorry the chicha arrived

> late (shipping problems), but at least a fair amount finally got consumed.

> Gak & Gerry were seen making a significant dent in the keg following the

> banquet Thursday night.

I think that Wendy and Bill did a great job!

Gak & Gerry (serious knuckleheads, party with them if you get the chance)

were seriously polluted by the time they went into Chicha mode. I wonder

if there were any lasting ill effects from the chicha consumption?

Cheers, Rick (3 day Chang fan, give the chicha to Gak & Gerry)

Rick Garvin rgarvin@btg.com

BTG, Inc. Navy Programs Division, Vienna, VA 703-761-6630

------------------------------


WORT AERATION

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 11:37 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: WORT AERATION

 >From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>

 >Subject: Aeration.  What the pros say...

 >The latest in Jack's continuing vigil against the accursed momilies of

 brewing focuses on aeration.

 >I'm not sure what Jack's claims are here.  But I'll point out several

 points of interest that may affect his "scientific" experiment.

 I am not sure what Kinney's point in this lengthy response is but I have

 several reasons to suppose it is something other than objectivity.

 First of all, puting the word scientific in quotes is a rather unprofessional

 way of trivializing the time and effort I put into this.

 Secondly, if he misunderstood the conclusion and objective of the experiment

 before posting this same stuff on r.c.b., he certainly is aware now, that it

 has nothing to do with what I was trying to learn.  We thrashed it out on

 r.c.b. for over a week and to restate the original objections and ad hominems

 without changing a single word, reeks of demagoguery.

 For those who may still be confused, the conclusion follows...

 ............

 CONCLUSION...

 The experiment seems to confirm the author's previous experience and points

 to the conclusion that the method of aeration used has no correlation with or

 effect on the time to onset of fermentation.  Contrary to frequently stated

 anecdotal experience, the un-aerated control samples started fermenting as

 soon and with the same vigor as the variously aerated samples.  This was true

 both in the case of cold temperature lager yeast and room temperature ale

 yeast.

 This experiment was not intended to test any other aspects of the brewing

 process that may be affected by wort aeration.  Much has been written on the

 subject and the present author's intent was only to study the effects of

 aeration on the onset of fermentation.

 ..........

 I will be happy to discuss aeration as related to lag time but, flavor

 profiles, final gravities and other aspects are not part of the study nor is

 the overall need for adequate aeration under question.

 For the record, the imcoming mail is in very close agreement with my

 conclusion.  I have yet to hear from a single person who reports that lag

 time has dropped after switching to an aquarium aerator from whatever they

 were doing before.

 It may seem like nitpicking to prove that aeration does not improve lag time

 if it is necessary anyway for good beer but nit picking is what science is

 all about.

 If someone makes a statement that lists 10 reasons for doing something but

 one of them is wrong, the entire statement becomes suspect.

 If aquarium aerators do not improve (reduce) lag time, it is time to stop

 saying they do, no matter how important aeration is for other reasons.

 If they do, someone else will have to prove it, I tried and could not.

 >From: "CANNON_TOM" <CANNON_TOM@hq.navsea.navy.mil>

 >Subject: Mash Out

 >         Is there a difference between mashing out in the mash tun

           and lautering with 170 deg water?  Bottom line:  What is

           being gained (or lost if we don't mash out)?  TIA.

 Lautering with 170 deg water is not the same as mashing out in the kettle

 because the mash temp never gets anywhere near 170 degs while sparging.

 Bringing the entire mash up to 170 before sparging has the effect of

 increasing the mash temperature during the sparge.  This possibly results in

 a more effective sparge, less possibility of stuck sparges and some chemical

 aspects that I will leave to the experts.

 js

------------------------------


Cream Stout

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 12:01:15 CDT

From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>

Subject: Cream Stout

This past weekend I devoted some time to my OTHER hobby (namely,

drinking good commercial beers) and happened upon some Watney's Cream

Stout.  This was one of the best beers I have ever tasted, and I would

like to brew one similar (as similar as I can get) and would hope for

some pointers from fellow HBD'ers.  Here are my (possibly erroneous)

understandings:

1) Cream stouts have lactose added to sweeten them.  In the boil?  At

bottling? In between?

2) Stouts are traditionally made with darker adjunct grains added such

as roasted barley, chocolate malt, black patent.  As an extract brewer I

would steep the grains before bringing my water to a boil.  Now that I

am hoping to move on to partial and all grain recipes, when does one add

these adjuncts?

3) The Watney's I sampled seemed much lighter in body than other stouts

I hve tried.  Does anyone have any idea of an OG and FG for the style?

Is it the same as the sweet stout in Papazian's general guide lines?

Any helpful information will be appreciated.  If you e-mail me direct, I

will edit the responses and post a summary on Cream Stout to the HBD.

If you post to the HBD, then I will not summarize in the interest of

conserving bandwidth.

Thanks,

Anthony Johnston

anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu

------------------------------


Source for pumps wanted

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 10:19:00 -0700 (PDT)

From: Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG>

Subject: Source for pumps wanted

I'd be interested any any sources and recommendations for pumps to move

both wort and hot water.  I'd like to be able to lift 175 df and above

water to a hot liquor tank (HardSparger(tm), all in good fun Jack!) as

well as run hot water and cleaning solutions through the pump and other

parts of a system like a counter flow chiller. I am aware that the pump

should pull (rather than push) the wort through the chiller to avoid HSA.

It is difficult to tell (at least for this layman) which pumps can handle

the high temperatures, are food grade quality, will deliver an appropriate

throughput, will raise water the 6-8 feet (est), and are available for a

reasonable price.  I've got the Cole-Parmer catalog and think I've

identified an appropriate pump.  Still, I'd like the advice and

recommendations of those who've gone this route already; is there

something better, cheaper?.  If you have a recommendation, please be as

specific as you can regarding source, model number, catalog page number,

price, etc.  SF Bay Area sources also appreciated.

BTW, nice work on the yeast FAQ.  It, and the followup comments are now

part of my brewing library.

Cheers,

Eric <ericwade@class.org>

------------------------------


Re: PU yeast

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 14:52 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: PU yeast

Jack writes:

>Two rumors I would like verified here....

>The first is the blending of (4) different beers from (4) different yeasts by

>PU.  This was reported in an article I just read but do not recall where.

>Nothing of this sort was reported by Daryl Richman from his visit to the

>brewery.

I will try to find my source for this and post, but from my memory, it's

not anything to do with blending of four beer made from four yeasts, rather

PU was (or maybe still is) brewed with a mixed strain.  Again, from memory,

someone, several years ago, got a hold of the PU production yeast and from

it they isolated four different yeasts, which they called A, B, C and D.

I believe that they made test batches and the B and D strains were the most

Pilsner Urquell-like.

Al.

------------------------------


Two Cents on Aeration.

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 12:28:43 PDT

From: sc@vcc.com (Steve Casselman)

Subject: Two Cents on Aeration.

So let me put in my two cents in on aeration. As far as I know

there are two different kinds of fermentation, aerobic and

anaerobic. During aerobic fermentation yeast take sugars and water and

produce CO2 and water. Yeast can only reproduce during the aerobic growth

stage. This means that a yeast cell produces another free roaming off

spring. When the O2 runs out yeast go into anaerobic fermentation. During

this time they consume sugars and water and produce CO2 and alcohols.

At this time they stop reproducing and start budding which produces

a long heavy chain of cells which start to drop due to their weight,

this is called floculation. The trick is to have enought yeast such

that during anaerobic fermention the yeast consume the sugars before

they floculate. This can be done by adding alot of single yeast cells

or by having enough O2 in your wort for the yeast you add to reproduce

to the right levels.

One of the experiments I have done in the past was to take pure

water in a corney and force oxgenate it. I then added this to

my chilled wort. While I never got levels right (the yeast didn't

floculate for a long time) my lag times went down dramaticly.

Lately though I just try and ferment in a large plastic bucket

with a loose fitting lid for the first week then rack to 15 Gal

kegs. We resently made 30 gals of beer and put 20 gals into the

"open" fermentor and ten in the keg. The keg had an air lock.

After the primary fermention we took a gravity reading the

20 gals came out at 1.012 while the keg fermentaion came in

at 1.030.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

|Massively Reconfigurable Logic Out Performs Massively Parallel Processors|

|      "Today's Software is Tomorow's Hardware" --- A.S. Tannenbaum       |

|   Virtual Computer Corporation -- FPGA based custom computing systems.  |

| Steve Casselman           E-mail sc@vcc.com         Phone (818) 342-8294|

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Cleaning gas lines

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 15:21:16 -0500

From: rick@adc.com (Rick Larson)

Subject: Cleaning gas lines

How do you clean your kegging equipment gas lines?

I borrowed a kegging system from a friend and noticed

the gas lines have *a lot* of beer stains.  How should

I clean these lines?

I have iodophor, chlorine, TSP, and boiling water.  I think

one of these should work.

rick

- ---

rick@adc.com

------------------------------


Pronounciation/Mashout

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 16:12 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Pronounciation/Mashout

Sorry, but I've lost who asked for pronounciations of certain words,

specifically, Maerzen and Saaz.

Alas, there is no FAQ on this, but perhaps someone would like to create

one.  I can contribute Maerzen and Saaz to it (note that if you have

an a-umlaut, you can lose the "e" in Maerzen) oh, heck, I'll add a

couple more:

Maerzen  MARE-tzen

Saaz  ZAATS

Kraeusen KROY-zen

Wort  WERT

Trub  TROOB

Gueuze  GUE-ze (a tough one - Jackson says "rhymes with cursor"

    but remember that the English often understate

    their "r"s)

Willamette wil-LAM-met

Boone (Frank) BONE

Spaten  SHPA-ten

Here's a new one on me:

I heard "lauter" pronounced "LOI-ter" at the AHA conference.  Is this

correct?  Should it be spelled laeuter?

***********************************

Tom writes:

          Is there a difference between mashing out in the mash tun

          and lautering with 170 deg water?  Bottom line:  What is

          being gained (or lost if we don't mash out)?

A more important reason for mashout (besides denaturing the enzymes

as Tom mentioned) is to make the runoff more, well, runny (less

viscous).  Yes, 170F sparge water will raise the temperature eventually,

but lautering will be slower than if you had gotten the whole mash up

to 170F before trying to get the sugars away from the husks.

************************************

Domenick writes:

What is the feelings out there on whether to employ a blow-off

fermentaion or not?  Just using a 7 gal carboy and not worrying

about boiling off enough to fit in a 5 gal carboy seems like a

lot less stress, but I've always used a blow-off in my extract brews.

I did two blowoff/non-blowoff experiments using split batches, and the

difference was very noticable.  The non-blowoff sub-batch was more bitter

and astringent than the blowoff sub-batch.  However, I have reason to

believe (I've posted it in the past) that the blowoff method may reduce

your head retention.  I haven't done enough experiments to prove or

disprove this, so it needs some more work.  Has anyone else seen this

(blowoff - head retention) correlation?

Al.

------------------------------


Glatt Machining

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 22:18:33 EDT

From: boskoduck@aol.com

Subject: Glatt Machining

Those of us who were fortunate enough to be at the AHA National in Portland

this year got to see an impressive looking new malt mill made by the company

named in the subject line.  When I got home I immediately ordered one.

Well, that was the 3rd of August.  Today, the 23rd, I got a telephone call

from the owner of Glatt Machining.  He called from Oregom - I live in New

Hampshire - to tell me that he was behind in his orders and would have my

mill out to me by the end of the week.  He said that the response to his mill

has been so good that he can't keep manufacturing fast enough.

He also asked me if I wasa on the internet.  When I said that I had access to

internet mail he asked me to tell "all those internet people" that he was

running behind in filling orders, but would get them out as soon as he can.

I figured that the internet people must be the HBD.

Having done that, I've made good on my promise.

As far as the mill is concerned, its an all metal contruction, and has two

grooved rollers.  It's adjustable and the hopper holds about 2.5 lbs of

grain.  The real surprise is that it's only US$80 per mill plus S&H.  I was

impressed.

Naturally, I have no commercial connection with Glatt Machining or anything

like that, this is meant just as general info.

Nastrovia

 -julian zelazny

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1210, 08/24/93

*************************************

-------


Glatt Machining

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 22:18:33 EDT

From: boskoduck@aol.com

Subject: Glatt Machining

Those of us who were fortunate enough to be at the AHA National in Portland

this year got to see an impressive looking new malt mill made by the company

named in the subject line.  When I got home I immediately ordered one.

Well, that was the 3rd of August.  Today, the 23rd, I got a telephone call

from the owner of Glatt Machining.  He called from Oregom - I live in New

Hampshire - to tell me that he was behind in his orders and would have my

mill out to me by the end of the week.  He said that the response to his mill

has been so good that he can't keep manufacturing fast enough.

He also asked me if I wasa on the internet.  When I said that I had access to

internet mail he asked me to tell "all those internet people" that he was

running behind in filling orders, but would get them out as soon as he can.

I figured that the internet people must be the HBD.

Having done that, I've made good on my promise.

As far as the mill is concerned, its an all metal contruction, and has two

grooved rollers.  It's adjustable and the hopper holds about 2.5 lbs of

grain.  The real surprise is that it's only US$80 per mill plus S&H.  I was

impressed.

Naturally, I have no commercial connection with Glatt Machining or anything

like that, this is meant just as general info.

Nastrovia

 -julian zelazny

------------------------------


Recipe-Honey Creek Summer Wheat

Date: Tue, 24 Aug 93 02:00:54 EDT

From: mustbkept@aol.com

Subject: Recipe-Honey Creek Summer Wheat

                                                 Honey Creek Summer Wheat

Source: Kerwin Manuel (KerwinM@aol.com)

Ingredients:

  7.0 lbs Wheat Malt Extract (60/40)

  1/2 lb  Crystal Malt

  1/8 lb  Chocolate or Black Patent (your preference)

  1.0 lb  Clover Honey (my preference)

  1/2 tsp Gypsum (adjust +/- for your water)

  1.0 oz  Tettnanger for 60min

  1/2 oz  Hallertau Hersbrucker for 30min

  1/2 tsp Irish Moss for 10min

  1/2 oz  Tettnanger-Secondary Dry Hop

  1/2 oz  Hallertau -Secondary Dry Hop

  1-2 pkg Ale Yeast (Wiezen Yeast if you prefer)

Procedure:

Steep crystal and chocolate malts for 30 minutes in 1.5 gals of 150 degree F

water. Sparge into brew pot and add malt extract, honey, gypsum and enough

water to bring volume to 3 gallons. Bring to a boil and add 1 oz Tettnanger,

continue boil & 30 minutes later add 1/2 oz of Hallertau, still boiling 20

minutes later (50 minutes into the boil) add 1/2 tsp of Irish Moss for final

10 minutes.  Total boiling time is 60 min. Pour wort into primary fermenter

filled with 2 gallons of cold water (splashing hot wort into cold water to

aerate).  Pitch yeast when temperature is within range, 70-80 degrees F.

5-7 days in the primary and after fermentation has slowed, transfer to the

secondary fermenter.  Add dry hops (bagged or free floating) to secondary

(I prefer to use a bag..easier to clean-up) and complete fermentation for 4

weeks.  3/4 to 7/8 cup of corn sugar for priming and bottle.  Carbonation

should be ready after at least 5 days (I was anxious to try this batch!)

Comments:

Very smooth, good mouth feel.  Slightly estery. Banana or fruit aroma?

I'll use a real wheat yeast next time. Clear, copper color.  OK head

retention and color.  Very crisp, clean hop bouquet/aroma.  Slightly sweet,

smooth going down.  Alcoholic taste, too much? Small, delicate bubbles.

All disclaimers apply...after all, I'm judging my own creation !  Actually,

several friends (and a couple of strangers) have told me they really like

this one.  I apologize if this recipe seems too explicit for some of you

experienced types...but I remember what it was like just starting out...

recipes or instructions with only partial information...phooey !

Specifics:

Original Gravity:Sorry..didn't take any readings

Final Gravity:

Primary Ferment: 5-7 days

Seconday Ferment: 4 weeks

Type of Fermenter: Plastic

Temp of Ferment: 70-76 degrees F

------------------------------


re: Wort Aeration

Date: Tue, 24 Aug 93 08:00:55 -0400

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: re: Wort Aeration

"William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu> wrote:

>  3)  100% air saturation is about 20% oxygen saturation.  (Lucky for

>      us--or maybe it's not luck!  Could it be Devine intervention?)

In general, neglecting minor components, air is about

79% Nitrogen and 21% Oxygen.  No devine intervention here.

 Tim

- ----

Timothy J. Dalton                                   tjdalton@mit.edu

MIT, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Materials Etching Technology Lab

------------------------------


PU yeast

Date: Tue Aug 24 07:27:30 1993

From: darrylri@microsoft.com

Subject: PU yeast

korz@iepubj.att.com writes:

> Jack writes:

> >Two rumors I would like verified here....

>

> >The first is the blending of (4) different beers from (4) different yeasts by

> >PU.  This was reported in an article I just read but do not recall where.

> >Nothing of this sort was reported by Daryl Richman from his visit to the

> >brewery.

>

> I will try to find my source for this and post, but from my memory, it's

> not anything to do with blending of four beer made from four yeasts, rather

> PU was (or maybe still is) brewed with a mixed strain.  Again, from memory,

> someone, several years ago, got a hold of the PU production yeast and from

> it they isolated four different yeasts, which they called A, B, C and D.

> I believe that they made test batches and the B and D strains were the most

> Pilsner Urquell-like.

In my report on the Pilsner Urquell brewery, I noted that they

were using three yeasts identified as D, H, and W.  I believe

that Miller has reported four strains in use and Jackson, 5.

I was explicitly told that the beer from each yeast is kept

separate until the yeast is cropped, and then the beer is

blended by taste.

I have speculated on this before;  I believe that there is only

one strain in use, but it has a tendency to mutate.  In order to

avoid problems, the PU brewery grows up a pitching slurry and

labels it with a letter (for example, 'A').  They brew beer from

this yeast and attempt to maintain it as if it were a separate

strain in the brewery during successive repitchings.

At some fixed interval, they grow up another batch of yeast

('B') and begin brewing with it, also.  The 'A' yeast eventually

mutates, or it becomes infected, and the brewers are able to

detect it while it isn't very severe.  They can blend off the

results (cutting the flavor contribution to well under the taste

threshold, perhaps a third to a fifth of the level at which they

were able to detect it) and dispose of that batch of yeast. As

this happens somewhat unpredictably, the distribution of letters

assigned to successive yeast batches, and the number of batches

in use, varies.

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------


RE:Source for pumps wanted

Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1993 10:53:45 -0400 (EDT)

From: Wayde Nie <u9106857@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>

Subject: RE:Source for pumps wanted

On Mon, 23 Aug 1993, Eric Wade Said:

>I'd be interested any any sources and recommendations for pumps to move

both wort and hot water....

 Well this isn't exactly a recommendation but maybe it could turn

into a source...

 Has anyone ever looked into using a dishwasher pump? (or maybe even

a washing machine pump?) I would think that since it was designed to move

hot water, soap, detergents and bleach (the washer anyways) around that it

could probably handle wort/beer as well. A dishwasher pump has the added

bonus of being meant for handling dishes someone will eat off of. (hopefully

this means that it's not going to pass on nasties to our beer)

 As far as availability, there are used appliance stores everywhere

and most will sell salvaged parts.

                                      ///

                                     (o o)

- ---------------------------------ooO--(*)--Ooo--------------------------------

                  Wayde Nie, u9106857@McMail.CIS.McMaster.CA

 Tact: The ability to tell someone to go straight to hell, and

  have them go merrily on their way.

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Glatt Machining

Date: Tue, 24 Aug 93 11:01:12 EDT

From: pgs@ai.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)

Subject: Glatt Machining

   Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 22:18:33 EDT

   From: boskoduck@aol.com

   Subject: Glatt Machining

   ...Well, that was the 3rd of August.  Today, the 23rd, I got a

   telephone call from the owner of Glatt Machining.  He called from

   Oregom - I live in New Hampshire - to tell me that he was behind in

   his orders and would have my mill out to me by the end of the week.

   He said that the response to his mill has been so good that he

   can't keep manufacturing fast enough.

Just thought I'd mention that mine arrived this past Friday, so they

certainly are being shipped, however slowly.  I was not in Portland,

so this was my first look at the mill, and it does seem quite

well-made.

I am in the midst of moving, so most of what I own is in boxes and I

can't brew.  But the Boston Wort Processors will be informally

evaluating the Glatt and several other mills in our upcoming Klassic

Klub Krush-off in about two weeks.  I say "informally" because we

aren't prepared, for example, to run the crushed grain through screens

of graduated fineness, but we will take a close look at the crush and

the quality of construction and ease of use of the mills.

 -P.

------------------------------


Re: Source for pumps wanted

Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1993 11:20:26 -0400 (EDT)

From: jeff344@voodoo.lerc.nasa.gov (Jeff Berton)

Subject: Re: Source for pumps wanted

For my recently operational RIMS, I'm using a March Manufacturing seal-less

magnetic drive pump, model MDX-1/2.  The magnetic drive allows seal-less

construction and prevents the fluid from contacting the mechanical

hardware and lubricants.  The materials in contact with the fluid are

food-safe plastics, ceramic, and stainless steel and can withstand a

reported 190 F.  It has 1/2 inch barbed ports for plastic tubing hookups.

It operates on household current at 1/50 HP and can move 5.5 gpm at

zero head, and has a maximum head of 7 feet.  A speed controller built

according to Rodney Morris' schematic in the Zymurgy Gadgets special

issue works fine.

For information about retailers near you, call March at 708-729-7062.  All

retailers in my area were selling this pump for about $95.  C&H Sales Company,

however, sells it for $49.50 via mail order.  C&H can be reached at

800-325-9465.  Their catalog has many reasonably-priced items that may be

used in a RIMS.

Disclaimer:  No connection with March or C&H;  just a satified customer and

             a new RIMS brewer!

- --

Jeff Berton, Aeropropulsion Analysis Office, NASA Lewis Research Center

jeff344@voodoo.lerc.nasa.gov

------------------------------


Weihenstephan distribution

Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1993 12:16:39 -0500

From: tmgierma@raphael.acpub.duke.edu (Todd Gierman)

Subject: Weihenstephan distribution

Richard Childers writes (>Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 08:49:53 -0700,From:

pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers),Subject: Stabilizing Cultures For

Shipment)

>I like this idea, also, but it is not a new one.

>(I) discovered that there is a very close parallel between bread yeast, and

>beer yeast, collectors. Bread yeast collectors also trade yeast samples ...

>sourdough is a fairly common variation...

>

>Below is a method for preserving bread yeast and stabilizing them for mailing

>and long-term storage. I don't *know* that it will work for beer yeast, but

>I see no reason why not ... I don't think agar slants are a prerequisite to

>successful propogation of a genotype ... just a useful intermediate storage.

>

>> How to dry and restart a culture

It is interesting, but if we ever do get this distribution of Weihenstephan

68 off the ground, please, please, please, don't attempt to use this as a

distribution method.  It may work for bread, but it will certainly prove

counterproductive in the propagation of any beer yeast (bread risings are

only a couple of hours and you don't care what's there, fermentations last

days, and you do).  In this case agar slants are a prerequisite to the

propagation of a pure culture, helping to maintain the integrity of the

culture, and, thus, its stability.  There will be a lot of angry HB'ers out

there who expecting a wonderful weizen, end up with something between a

lambic and pond scum instead.  The agar slants allow for the examination

and picking of individual colonies.  Many of the nasties that can spoil

hopped wort (e.g. lactobacillus) frequently fail to grow on the surface of

agar, whereas they can be carried quite well in a dried mass of yeast.  You

will end up with a really nice microfloral garden if you propagate this

way.  When somebody indicates that a culture is available, we can take some

time to establish a protocol for propagation (one that must be adhered to

at all cost).  The worst thing would be to ship people contaminated

cultures.

Todd Gierman

Dept. of Microbiology

Duke University Medical Center

------------------------------


AERATION

Date: Tue, 24 Aug 93 11:17 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: AERATION

 >From: sc@vcc.com (Steve Casselman)

 > When the O2 runs out yeast go into anaerobic fermentation. During

 this time they consume sugars and water and produce CO2 and alcohols.

 At this time they stop reproducing and start budding which produces

 a long heavy chain of cells which start to drop due to their weight,

 this is called floculation.

 I won't argue with the overall thesis but you have the reproductive part a

 little confused.  Budding, i.e. vegatitive propagation, is the ONLY way that

 beer yeast reproduce in the normal fermentation environment.  The parent cell

 forms a bud which drops off at the appropriate moment to grow up and do

 likewise.  I doubt that reproduction ever stops completely until fermentation

 is over but in any case, budding has nothing to do with floculation.

 CORRECTION....

 The following statement fogs my point in the comments I last made on the

 objective of the experiment.  It was not, however part of the original

 CONCLUSION.

 >It may seem like nitpicking to prove that aeration does not improve lag time

 >if it is necessary anyway for good beer but nit picking is what science is

 >all about.

 The objective of the experiment was to test the air pump/airstone and not

 aeration in general.  The fact that the "non-aerated" control started at the

 same time is interesting but can be explained by other mechanisms.

 The statement would be more correct if... artificially enhanced aeration does

 not seem to improve lag time in small batches...

 js

------------------------------


tannins

Date: Tue, 24 Aug 93 12:51:41 -0400

From: Rich Ryan <rich@sc2m044.swin.oasis.gtegsc.com>

Subject: tannins

>Tom writes:

>much hotter than 170, for fear of tannins and other off-flavors being

>carried into your beer.  This is an argument for mashing in a kettle

>on the stove, or going to decoction (did I spell that right?) as opposed

>to the straight infusion method.

Can someone please explain how tannins enter the beer making process?

I've heard of wines with tannins and always thought that they had

something to do with the grapes. Do the tannins originate from the

malt?

Rich Ryan

------------------------------


Blueberry Beer Recipe Request

Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1993 13:20:50 -0400 (EDT)

From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

Subject: Blueberry Beer Recipe Request

Hey:

 Well it is getting to be brewing season for me again and I am

raring to go.  I have come into possession of 12.5 lbs of blueberries and

am interested in making a blueberry beer.  I have searched the archives

using WAIS and looked in Cat's Meow and haven't found what I am looking

for.  The most common problem is that people give the recipe and then say

"This really didn't have any discernable blueberry flavor or color." I am

looking for an all-grain recipe, maybe a wheat beer, with pronounced

flavor and color.  I picked these berries myself and I don't want to waste

all that work.  Some things I am particularly concerned about are 1)when

to add the blubes, 2) How much to add, 3)how long to ferment them, 4) How

to prepare them (ie blanching, pureeing, etc.) 5) What sort of hop rates

are appropriate (I understand that too much hops doesn't go well).

Anyway, all information would be appreciated....

       dave.

------------------------------


Re: Cream Stout

Date: Tue, 24 Aug 93 13:23 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Cream Stout

Anthony writes:

>1) Cream stouts have lactose added to sweeten them.  In the boil?  At

>bottling? In between?

I'm not sure if all cream stouts or all sweet stouts have lactose in them,

but since I've recently done a semi-sweet (demi-sec?) stout that turned out

quite nicely, I can offer a bit of advice.  There are several things to

keep in mind:

1. Lactose is unfermentable by conventional brewing yeast (it may be

fermentable by other yeasts, but I don't know) but I strongly suspect that

it is fermentable by Lactobacillus and/or Pediococcus bacterias, so be extra

careful with sanitation or you'll get glass grenades.

2. You can add it in the boil or boil it in some water to sanitize and add

it anytime up to bottling time, but I recommend adding it at bottling time

because you can: add 4 ounces, taste, add 4 more ounces, taste again...

You can adjust the sweetness to what you want it to be.  Remember that the

beer will taste a bit less sweet when it gains the acidity of carbonation.

3. Lactose is not very sweet.  It appears that the larger the carbohydrate

molecule, the less sweet it is.  Lactose is a pretty big sugar and therefore

not very sweet.  You will need at least 8 ounces net weight in a 5 gallon

batch to make a small difference.

4. How much?  I had a relatively sweetish stout to begin with, having added

a good 2# of various DeWolf-Cosyns crystal malts.  I ended up adding 8 ounces

(net weight) of Lactose to the 5 gallon batch and ended up with a not-too-

sweet stout that was quite good.  I wanted to avoid making a super-sweet

stout since I had just returned from the Caribbean and down there they like

their stouts so sweet (Dragon Stout, for example) you can pour them on

pancakes!

5. Lactose sweetness is different from sweetness gained from malt.  It is

quite noticable and Brian North (a BJCP National judge) immediately pegged

my beer as containing lactose.  The obviousness of the lactose decreases as

the beer ages.

6. Black and Brown malts give your beer quite a bit of acidity, so (unless

your water is high in Carbonates -- this is why Dublin is known for stouts

and not known for it's pale ales) adding some Calcium Carbonate (a tablespoon

or two for a 5 gallon batch) would help take away some of that dark grain

sourness and help make the beer appear sweeter.

Al.

------------------------------


Any Thimbleberry Ale/Mead Recipes?

Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1993 15:51:14 -0400 (EDT)

From: bobml@msd.measurex.com (Bob LaGesse)

Subject: Any Thimbleberry Ale/Mead Recipes?

I just got back from two wondrous weeks of vacation in the Upper Peninsula

of Michigan (i.e the Keewenaw).  One of the "fruits" of this vacation was that

I was able to pick ~10 lbs of thimbleberries while there (only grows wild,

somewhat similar to rasberries in color and flavor only richer and slightly

tarter, IMHO).  I would be greatly appreciative of any recipes that anyone

would be willing to share with me.

Thanks!

- --

Domain: bobml@msd.measurex.com    Bob LaGesse, Senior Engineer

  UUCP: ...!uunet!mxmsd!bobml     Measurex/Management Systems Division

 Voice: (513) 825-3931 X303       1280 Kemper Meadow Drive

   Fax: (513) 825-5393            Cincinnati, Ohio 45240, USA

------------------------------


Job Posting

Date: 24 Aug 1993 16:45:12 -0500 (EST)

From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

Subject: Job Posting

Pat Baker (of Crosby & Baker) has asked me to post the following:

**********************

Crosby & Baker is currently looking for a person to manage the microbrewery &

brewpub supply side of their business.  Their current sales in this market

segment are ~$1 million/year.

They want someone with experience in marketing and distribution.  Good people

management skills are required.  An MBA is desired, but not absolutely

necessary.

The job location will be in Westport, MA, though travel will also be involved.

C&B has hired a consultant to review all sumitted resumes.  If you would like to

be considered for the job or if you'd just like more information, contact Bob

Sleeman, FAX # 508-994-9366.

Thank you.

***********************

------------------------------


CaCl2 source

Date:         24 Aug 93 16:14:35 CST

From: "Dennis Lewis"  <DLEWIS%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject:      CaCl2 source

>From Patrick Weix:

>To the gent looking for food-grade CaCl2: I doubt that you will find

>any. Luckily, most lab grade products are more pure than food grade,

>and you can get an analysis of any contaminant levels shipped with

>your purchase. A good general source for chemicals is SIGMA.

Not for most of us. I called SIGMA and told them I was looking for

pure stuff. For starters, they don't sell to individuals. Then I

mentioned that this was to be used in brewing when asked if I wanted

solid or solution.

**The person I talked to about had a cow when she realized that this

was a food-grade application.**

She didn't have any idea where to get food-grade stuff. Maybe a

pharmaceutical supply, but they wouldn't sell to individuals either.

And she was really worked up about the food thing. Personally, I

don't feel comfortable about non-food grade stuff. The 1% impurities

could be a lot of heavy metals that don't purge themselves from

your body and cause fun stuff like liver damage.

Anyway, I'm still looking for a source of FOOD-GRADE calcium

chloride. There must be a commercial brewer's supply that carries the

stuff, even if I have to buy a 20 lb sack (it doesn't go stale or

anything!).

Dennis Lewis                    <dlewis%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


The word "lauter"

Date:         24 Aug 93 16:19:37 CST

From: "Dennis Lewis"  <DLEWIS%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject:      The word "lauter"

The word "lauter" comes from "laeuter" in German which means "to

purify." The "ae" combination is used when your character set has no

umlauts. And you heard it right at the AHA, it should be pronounced

"LOY-ter". I think that the word is a victim of the English habit of

just dropping the umlauts instead of using the "e" after the vowel.

Dennis Lewis                    <dlewis%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


WORT AERATION

Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1993 15:55:19 -0700 (PDT)

From: Jim Cave <CAVE@PSC.ORG>

Subject: WORT AERATION

      The dialogue concerning Jack Schmidling's wort aeration

experiment continues on the digest.  I have E-mailed Jack directly

concerning his experiment.  However I feel that misconceptions

continue regarding the experiment so I feel compelled to bring my

concerns up on the digest.

      In his experiment, Jack's hypothesis (not actually stated) is

that one or more of the treatments differ in fermentation

characteristics from the control.  We must then disprove that

hypothesis, by testing the null hypothesis, i.e., there are no

differences between treatments. Note you can never "prove" a

hypothesis, only disprove it.

      I feel that Mr. Cavasin's criticism remains valid since Jack

fails to adequately address the alternate hypothesis for his

results:  that is, he can't be certain that oxygen did not enter

the wort (in all treatments) by simple diffusion.  Put another way,

the experiment does not closely mimic the situation in the brewery.

Simple diffusion into the wort in all treatments is certain,

considering the long lag time (72 hours for duration of the

experiment) and the small sample volumes involved.  This indicates

a high surface area to volume ratio.  The yeast in all treatments,

as well as the control, could simply be responding to levels of

oxygen achieved as a result of the simple diffusion from the head

space in the jars (rather than any similarity in aeration of the

samples as a result of treatment procedure).  This would account

for the similar lag times that were found.  Therefore comparisons

between treatments remain uncertain.  BTW, the alternate hypothesis

is the simpler hypothesis.

      There are two ways to alter this experiment The first and

most obvious is to make four full-scale batches (5-10 gallons?).

The valid assumption can then be made that the experiment mimics

the situation in the (home) brewery.  The second way is to prevent

any additional "contamination" of the treatments with oxygen after

they have been set up.  Erlenmyre flasks, completely filled with

wort with the proper treatment (possibly handled under inert gas

such as nitrogen) and fitted with blow-off tubes would be one way

to go.  Before running either experiment, one should go through the

possible alternate hypotheses to see if there might be a reasonable

doubt about any experimental outcome.

      The criticism that the experimental environment does not

mimic the natural situation is a very common criticism of

experiments.  Jack can take comfort in the company he has with

numerous PhD and MSc students in science!

      Cheers!

      Jim Cave, 604-684-8081  "I brew therefore I am"

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1211, 08/25/93

*************************************

-------


Tun size and cheepness

Date: Wed, 25 Aug 93 10:28:55 -0400

From: dd853@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (David Hyde)

Subject: Tun size and cheepness

HBD was a great source of help for keggin info a year or so ago,

so I'm back with more questions.  With the time I save by

kegging  instead of bottling, I figure I can go all-grain and

still not  spend much more time than I used to. I'm acquiring

stuff bit by bit  to start and have run into problems finding

a suitable mash tun. I'd planned on using a cylindrical "picnic

cooler", but haven't been able to find the larger ones.  Not

true...I did find a large  (10 gal?) one at an "exclusive"

outdoor shop, but I didn't have the kind of money they wanted.

I've found 5 gal ones at plenty of places, but that's the

largest around here.

So...three questions:

1.  Would a 5 gal cooler make an adequate mash/lauter tun for

5 gal batches with an average amount of grain?

2.  If not, is there a relatively cheap source for large

coolers?

3.  Can a rectangular cooler make a suitable tun?  I like

the idea of a smaller grain surface area, but could sacrifice

that for economy.

Understand, I'm deep in Southern Maryland, far from

civilization :), but close to DC and Baltimore for supplies.

By the way, I'm currenty using a propane hot water heater

element as a burner.  They're pretty poular around here as

crab cookers, and will boil something like 100 gal of water in

15 sec.  At least that's  how hot they feel leaning over one on

a summer day :)  (That's a joke, but they do work well.)

They're cheap and easy to find around here, and I expect

they would  be elsewhere.

Thanks in advance.

Dave Hyde

DD853.cleveland.freenet.edu

------------------------------


WORT AERATION & Sierra Nevada

Date: Wed, 25 Aug 93 11:07:42 EDT

From: neilm@juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Neil Mager )

Subject: WORT AERATION & Sierra Nevada

America Online has an online, live Brewing discussion the 2nd Thursday

of every month. Participants include knowledgeable folks from

Sierra Nevada. I believe in July, the discussion turned to Wort

aeration. One of the participants from SN said they like to achieve

as high an oxygen saturation as they can - 100% if possible.

They use something called a fishtail which is basically a pipe

with a flattened end which they use to spray the wort into the

fermenters.

- -- Neil

===============================================================================

Neil M. Mager

MIT Lincoln Laboratory       Lexington, MA

  Weather Radar - Group 43

Voice                       (617) 981-4803 (W)

Internet                    neilm@juliet.ll.mit.edu

America On Line             neilmm@aol.com

===============================================================================

------------------------------


Liberty Ale Clone

Date: Wed, 25 Aug 93 10:37:51 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Liberty Ale Clone

I just got some fresh homegrown Cascade hops.  Does any one have an all

grain recipe for a Libery Ale clone?

If yes please post or send to:  my address gets mangled in a post

lmenegon@necis.ma.nec.com

------------------------------


PU, Honey, AERATION

Date: Wed, 25 Aug 93 11:23 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: PU, Honey, AERATION

 >From: darrylri@microsoft.com

 >Subject: PU yeast

 >In my report on the Pilsner Urquell brewery, I noted that they

 were using three yeasts identified as D, H, and W... I have speculated on

 this before;  I believe that there is only one strain in use, but it has a

 tendency to mutate.  In order to avoid problems, the PU brewery grows up a

 pitching slurry and labels it with a letter (for example, 'A').  They brew

 beer from this yeast and attempt to maintain it as if it were a separate

 strain in the brewery during successive repitchings.

 I guess I missed this but if it was in the article, I probably mentally

 voided the information because it sort of cancels out in a practical sense.

 It would be futile for us to compare notes on "strains" considering that the

 brewery is pretty much throwing darts.

 Thank you for clearing this up.

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >Subject: Re: Cream Stout

 >I'm not sure if all cream stouts or all sweet stouts have lactose in them,

 but since I've recently done a semi-sweet (demi-sec?) stout that turned out

 quite nicely, I can offer a bit of advice.

 Having tasted this and several other sweet stouts at a CBS sponsored Stout

 Seminar, I rather liked the beer and made one up for a party.

 However, not wanting to add another odd ingredient to my collection of never

 to use again stuff, I sweetened mine with honey and the result was just what

 I expected.

 My thinking was that honey ferments very slowly in the first place and with

 ale yeast and in a cold fridge, it probably never will ferment out.

 Prior to kegging the stout, I poured two cups of honey (boiled to sterilize)

 into the keg and filled and carbonated as usual.

 If I were to do it again, I would only use one cup of honey as it is a bit

 too sweet for general consumption.  The first few sips are a taste explosion

 but a little goes a long way.  It was made in May and I still have a couple

 gallons left and it is as sweet as the day I keggged it.

 >From: Jim Cave <CAVE@PSC.ORG>

 >Subject: WORT AERATION

 >  The dialogue concerning Jack Schmidling's wort aeration

 experiment continues on the digest.  I have E-mailed Jack directly

 concerning his experiment.  However I feel that misconceptions

 continue regarding the experiment so I feel compelled to bring my

 concerns up on the digest.

 My only concern is the misconception of the objective of the experiment but I

 did learn a great deal from the objective discussions both private and public

 and thank those who contributed.

 I apologize for whatever share I may have had in the unpleasantness that

 developed but simply offer it as a warning of what happens when personal

 garbage is brought to a public forum.  It is all too easy to attack the

 messenger and never get around to the message or so fog it that little else

 is accomplished.

 >There are two ways to alter this experiment The first and

 most obvious is to make four full-scale batches (5-10 gallons?).

 The valid assumption can then be made that the experiment mimics

 the situation in the (home) brewery.

 Considering the objective, viz., the wonders of the airstone, I guess I will

 fall back on anecdotal evidence.  There are only two variables, airstone and

 whatever else one normally does to make good beer.  Anyone who has been

 making good beer and tries the airstone, soon comes to a very practical

 resolution.  If it improves things, he keeps doing it, if not he quits.  The

 mail and posted comments indicate that most people quit.  So much for

 science.

 js

------------------------------


Blueberry Beer

Date: Wed, 25 Aug 93 10:28:57 MDT

From: mlh@cygnus.ta52.lanl.gov (Michael L. Hall)

Subject: Blueberry Beer

Dave (drose@husc.harvard.edu) asks for recommendations for blueberry beers.

Since I made a blueberry beer recently, I thought I would respond. It had no

blueberry color and very little blueberry flavor. My recommendations:

   Make a *very light* base beer. Mine was way too dark/heavy. A light

   wheat beer might be nice. Even then the color will probably not come

   through (but the flavor might). Blueberries tend to have a reddish

   color in solution, and I think that will be the best you can hope

   for.

   Use lots of blueberries. I only used 5 lbs. of frozen blueberries in

   5 gallons and it wasn't nearly enough. I would use about 2-3 lbs. per

   gallon.

   Add fruit only to the secondary, so that flavors and aromas don't get

   scrubbed out by the vigorous fermentation. I did this, and it started

   a pretty good second fermentation due to the sugars in the

   blueberries.

   Using hand-picked blueberries, I would pasteurize them first, by

   heating to 165 F for 20 minutes.

   You may hate to do this, since you have nice fresh-picked blueberries

   and you would like the beer to have natural flavor, but you will

   probably be able to get a better blueberry flavor by using an

   extract. There are various ones on the market; some are probably

   better than others.

   Actually, my final recommendation would be to use a different fruit.

   I don't think that blueberries have that strong of a flavor, and it

   gets swamped by all the beer flavors.

Making a good blueberry beer *can* be done: I had a very good one put out by

some microbrewery that I tried at a recent GABF (Great American Beer Festival).

It had a straw color (not blue), but lots of blueberry flavor. My guess is

that they used an extract.

Good luck, I hope it comes out well...

Mike Hall

Los Alamos Atom Mashers

------------------------------


Victoria Microbrewers Festival

Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1993 09:27:00 -0700 (PDT)

From: Philip Atkinson 356-0269 <PATKINSON@galaxy.gov.bc.ca>

Subject: Victoria Microbrewers Festival

- --Boundary (ID WGjX09Nv1BEbI5SJSFwkHQ)

Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII

- --Boundary (ID WGjX09Nv1BEbI5SJSFwkHQ)

Content-type: MESSAGE/RFC822


press rel

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 11:50:00 PDT

From: "Philip Atkinson"@mr.gov.bc.ca

Subject: press rel

Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII

Posting-date: Wed, 25 Aug 1993 00:00:00 PDT

A1-type: DOCUMENT

    1993 Victoria Microbrewery Festival

    Presented by the

    Campaign for Real Ale Society of British Columbia,

    Victoria Branch (CAMRA Victoria)

    Victoria Conference Centre, Victoria, B.C.

    12-8pm,  October 23, 1993

    Admission:  $5.00 per person, includes souvenir tasting glass

    and Festival programme.

    Beer tickets:   $1.00 each, exchanged for a 4oz. taster.

    Lots of different beers and ciders from registered breweries

    including:

     Granville Island Brewing Horseshoe Bay Brewery

     Nelson Brewing   Okanagan Spring Brewing

     Shaftebury Brewing  Spinnakers Brewpub

     Swan's Brewpub   Vancouver Island Brewing

     Whistler Brewing  Big Rock Brewery

     Red Hook   San Juan Brewing Co.

     Sleeman's   Portland Brewing

     Merridale Cider Works  Wyder's Cider

    ... and we're still working on it!

    Prices are in Canadian funds. With the current exchange rate,

    it works out to a $4.00 US admission fee and about 75 cents

    per taster. AHA home brew competition is on the morning of

    the Festival. Enquiries for both to:

    Phil Atkinson, editor, What's Brewing, 1250 Denman St.,

    Victoria BC, V8T 1L8 (604)386-2818

    INTERNET ID: patkinson@galaxy.gov.bc.ca

- --Boundary (ID WGjX09Nv1BEbI5SJSFwkHQ)--

------------------------------


Bottle labels?

Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1993 17:00:00 EST

From: Gretchen Brannaman 250-8384 <BRANNAGJB@A1.GVLTEC.EDU>

Subject: Bottle labels?

Hello all,

Does anyone out there know of any clever ways that I can label my beer and

mead bottles? I'd like to design them on my computer, but they need to be

easy to remove (peel or soak) so I wont add more to the headache of preparing

bottles for the next batch.

Thanks in advance,

Gretchen Brannaman

brannagjb@a1.gvltec.edu

------------------------------


Please add me to mailing list!

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 13:09:01 EDT

From: frame@msys.com (Frame)

Subject: Please add me to mailing list!

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Donald Terepka

frame@msys.com

------------------------------


pico-Brewery

Date: Wed, 25 Aug 93 11:01:59 PDT

From: MRS1%CRPTech%DCPP@cts27.comp.pge.com

Subject: pico-Brewery

 As a neophyte brewer, I'm about to take the step to all grain brewing.

Several friends and I are considering going in together on a 3 kettle system

from pico-Brewing Systems, Inc. Since this involves a moderate investment of

capitol I was hoping someone out there may have some knowledge of or experience

with their products. Thanks for any input you may have.

Marty Sanders

------------------------------


aeration

Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1993 11:34:11 -0700

From: Bob Devine <devine@postgres.Berkeley.EDU>

Subject: aeration

"William A Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu> wrote:

>  3)  100% air saturation is about 20% oxygen saturation.  (Lucky for

us--or maybe it's not luck!  Could it be Devine intervention?)

Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu> replied in HBD 1211:

| In general, neglecting minor components, air is about

| 79% Nitrogen and 21% Oxygen.  No devine intervention here.

While I do get around, I can honestly say that I haven't been

changing the atmosphere lately (well, at least not on a global scale).

I suspect you meant to write "divine intervention".  :-)

Bob Devine

------------------------------


Free software

Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1993 12:49:05 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Free software

After all the talk about extraction efficiency, and the at times

impolite ferver over pts*gals/lb vs. pts/lb/gal, and the fact that

I've just brewed my first all grain brew, I have written a simple

program to calculate the extraction efficiency of a mash/sparge.

It is cleverly called EXTRACTF and is available free.  I have

executables for DOS, SGI Irix, and SunOS.  There is a short document

and an ASCII data file based on Bob Sweeney's post to HBD, sans Miller's

entries.  Sorry, no source.

Maybe someone who is really willing to try it can contact me, then

tell the general HBD audience if it's worth the hassle of acquisition.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Warm Temp Aging?

Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1993 17:02:41 -0500 (CDT)

From: ROB WILSON <WILSONRS@VAX2.Winona.MSUS.EDU>

Subject: Warm Temp Aging?

I just finished bottling a batch of beer. I have it sitting in my basement

primming. My question is can I leave it at this warm a temp (68-72) to age?

What are some of the possible problems, and will it age at all at this temp

? It is in a dark place so light is no problem. Thanks in advance to all

who help.

Rob Wilson

wilsonrs@vax2.winona.msus.edu

------------------------------


Blueberries/Calcium chloride

Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1993 18:18:44 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>

Subject: Blueberries/Calcium chloride

Mr. Rose asks how to make beer with those blueberries.

I'll tell you what I do with mine.  Up here in the NC Mountains we have

plenty of them and I pick them every year to make liqueur. Nothing better than

a nice snifter of blueberry liqueur in the dead of winter!  I've found liqueurs

one of the best ways to preserve fresh fruit flavors, be they blackberries,

strawberries, raspberries, whatever.

Dennis Lewis is looking for Calcium Chloride.

Isn't common Lite Salt made of Calcium Chloride?  I've always thought

of using it as a source but was never sure about proportions.

Anyone tried it?

Cheers!

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Kinney Baughman                     |       Beer is my business and

  baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu      |       I'm late for work.

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Chlorine, Yeast and My Septic Tank

Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1993 19:07:58 -0400 (EDT)

From: CCAMDEN@delphi.com

Subject: Chlorine, Yeast and My Septic Tank

Hey Everyone;

While this is not a brewing question in the strictist sense, it _is_

related.  All the various discussions about sanitizing have got me wondering.

We just bought a house that has a septic tank, and that is a first for us.

We are sanitizing everything with a weak bleach solution.  For most things,

I use 1 to 2 oz of bleach to 5 gallons of water.  For a few things (cleaning

old bottles) the solution is stronger.  Is all this bleach going down the

drain going to harm whatever magic occurs in the septic tank?  Could it be

offset by pouring the sediment from the first and secondary fermentations

down the drain, too?  (I think is was Heloise that had a hint once about

putting yeast in your septic tank occasionally.)  I have considered dumping

the bleach water in the washing machine as it is on a separate drain line

from the septic tank.  Do I need to (gasp) worry?

Thanks for any and all help.  Answers by email or here in the HBD are

appreciated.

Cary Camden, Huntsville, AL

------------------------------


RE: Irvine Brewpubs

Date: Wed, 25 Aug 93 17:10:30 PDT

From: b_roach@emulex.com (Brad Roach)

Subject: RE: Irvine Brewpubs

  Irvine doesn't have any brew pubs, but in Huntington Beach there is one

worth mentioning. The pub is called Huntington Beach Brewing and it is

located on Main St. about 2 blocks from the pier. The best way to get to

the pub is to drive into Newport Beach and take Pacific Coast Hwy north

to Huntington Beach and make a right turn on Main St.

Cheers,

   __

  /_/             /      QLogic Corporation

 /  /  /_  __  __/       Costa Mesa, Calif

/___/_/ (_(_<_(_/        b_roach@emulex.com

------------------------------


carboy handles

Date: 25 Aug 93 00:29:37 MDT (Wed)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: carboy handles

Can anyone report an actual incident of a carboy handle causing a carboy to

break?  I know there are many cautions about using the carboy handles (the

plastic-coated metal loop handles) to lift full carboys, and I can imagine

that you could induce enough force, through careless use, to crack the neck

of the carboy.  But I've never heard of an actual failure, so I'm curious

what the actual level of risk might be.

Note: I'm not interested in "might be" or "obviously one can see that..."

or stress analyses or whatever.  Those are separate topics; I'm looking

for (preferably) first-hand or (at worst) second-hand reports of actual

failures, and any notable circumstances under which the failures occurred.

 ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


yeast

Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1993 22:32:16 -0500

From: tmgierma@raphael.acpub.duke.edu (Todd Gierman)

Subject: yeast

I like Darryl Richman's line of reasoning concerning the question of the

number of strains used by the Pilsner Urquell Brewery.  It seems in line

with what one might expect for conducting "low tech", low cost passage of a

brewing strain.  In support of this notion, an article by C. Rainbow of

Bass Charrington Ltd. (c. 1970) indicates that it is common practice, at

least in England, for brewers to limit the number of pitches (of a yeast

culture) to five.  He indicates that this is to limit contamination, which

is inevitable in the brewing environment, and to avoid what brewers

apparently refer to as "yeast weakness" (loss of desired properties

coinciding with an increase of mutants in the population.  So, it would

seem likely that the folks at PU hedge their bets a little to avoid costly

down time.

A quick comment on this posting:

>Date: Tue, 24 Aug 93 11:17 CDT

>From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

>Subject: AERATION

>

>

> >From: sc@vcc.com (Steve Casselman)

>

> > When the O2 runs out yeast go into anaerobic fermentation. During

> this time they consume sugars and water and produce CO2 and alcohols.

> At this time they stop reproducing and start budding which produces

> a long heavy chain of cells which start to drop due to their weight,

> this is called floculation.

This seems logical.  I also thought so until further investigation has

shown me that this isn't so.  Actually, the yeast don't go into respiration

mode until the amount of assimilable sugars runs out.  Yeast are constantly

in fermentation mode and the presence of glucose actually inhibits

respiration even when oxygen is present.  Jack's comment on the

reproduction mode is essentially correct.  Some yeast do reproduce via

fission, but you probably won't find this kind in your beer, maybe your

cider though.  Also, I don't think that this description of flocculation is

correct.  Anyway, I'm not sure why one really needs to aerate, though

apparently one does (?)  I think George Fix has said that it is required

for some process other than metabolism.

One final note, let's take a quick market survey concerning those desiring

Weihenstephan, before we push this thing further.  Who wants it? Can you

culture? and what would be your mailing address.  I will compile the

results so that they can be e-mailed to the people who would be culturing

it.  This would save some time and trouble and we could, presumably,

by-pass HBD postings.

Todd Gierman

Dept. of Microbiology

Duke University Medical Center

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1212, 08/26/93

*************************************

-------


BrewCaps (tm?): how and why?

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 10:02:31 MET DST

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: BrewCaps (tm?): how and why?

Hello all,

Could someone enlighten me on the purpose and use of the brew cap?

All I know (well, suspect) is that it is used on a carboy, which is

then turned upside down.

If this is a really obvious question please email me privately.

By the way, I've never seen one either, so a description might be

useful.

Isn't the quest for knowledge a terrible thing!

Rob Thomas.

------------------------------


Tun size, Lables

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 02:29:20 PDT

From: DJM1%CRPTech%DCPP@cts27.comp.pge.com

Subject: Tun size, Lables

Yes! Something I can answer:

Dave asks:

>From: dd853@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (David Hyde)

>Subject: Tun size and cheepness

>3.  Can a rectangular cooler make a suitable tun?  I like

>the idea of a smaller grain surface area, but could sacrifice

>that for economy.

I use a coleman 48qt rectangular cooler with a slot-cut copper manifold, I

think that I picked it up for <$18 on sale....It works just fine for me. The

drain spiggot is just the right size for 3/8" pipe.

Gretchen asks:

>From: Gretchen Brannaman 250-8384 <BRANNAGJB@A1.GVLTEC.EDU>

>Subject: Bottle labels?

>Hello all,

>Does anyone out there know of any clever ways that I can label my beer and

>mead bottles? I'd like to design them on my computer, but they need to be

>easy to remove (peel or soak) so I wont add more to the headache of preparing

>bottles for the next batch.

Just use regular paper (Xerox or computer) and attach with a Glue Stick, the

lable will stay on until you get it near any water.

Daniel Meaney

------------------------------


Chorine & Septic Systems

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 07:18:44 -0400

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Chorine & Septic Systems

CCAMDEN@delphi.com wrote:

> Is all this bleach going down the

> drain going to harm whatever magic occurs in the septic tank?

It might.

The bleach might be diluted enough in the septic system that it will

not harm the bacteria churning away in there..then again, it might not

get diluted.

> I have considered dumping the bleach water in the washing machine

> as it is on a separate drain line from the septic tank.

We have a utility sink on the same drywell as the septic tank.

Thats where I try and put my bleach water, just to keep it out of

the septic system...

 Tim

- ----

Timothy J. Dalton                                   tjdalton@mit.edu

MIT, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Materials Etching Technology Lab

------------------------------


Re: BOTTLE LABELS

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 08:07:43 EDT

From: tmr@fjtld.att.com

Subject: Re: BOTTLE LABELS

Gretchen,

I use a very basic UNIX program called 'pic' to draw my beer labels.

It combines lines, squares, rectangles, circles, ellipses and text

to make a decent beer bottle label.  There are many other graphics

software packages out that will do a much more sophisticated job.

As far as attaching them to the bottles, I used to use undiluted

Elmer's white glue.  I would brush it on to the outside 1/4" edge

of the paper and slap it onto the bottle.  I make up a different front

label for each batch along with the bottling date.  I have a "generic"

back label for all batches.  Thanks to a suggestion from this list, I

switched to using a white glue/paste stick (FaberCastle "uhu stic").

This works just as well and is much easier to apply.

Both glues and labels come off easily after an hour of soaking in water.

     Tom Romalewski

------------------------------


septic systems

Date:           Thu, 26 Aug 93 8:22 EDT

From: Dennis_Birch@vos.stratus.com

Subject:        septic systems

CCAMDEN@delphi.com (Cary Camden) asks about the dangers to his septic system

from dumping his weak bleach sterilizing solution down the drain.  I brewed

quite steadily for two years at a house that was on a septic system (the

house we're in now is on town water and sewer). I used about a tablespoon or

two of bleach per 5 gallons to sanitize my carboys, and a stronger solution

squirted into the bottles and rinsed before bottling.  My thoughts were that

the solution was so weak, and in such small quantity compared to the size of

the holding tank that it should not make a difference.  I had the tank pumped

twice during those two years, and was told both times that there were no

problems whatsoever with the system.  The amount of clean water used in the

brewing process for rinsing equipment off further dilutes this solution.  I

also washed my slurry down the drain after fermentation on the theory that

the animals in it would be beneficial to the breakdown process.  Not

definitive proof, but a datapoint -- I was very comfortable with the ability

of the septic system to handle these relatively small quantities of bleach.

                         Dennis Birch

------------------------------


10 Gallon Picnic Coolers

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 8:16:47 CDT

From: emsieja@ems.b17d.ingr.com (Ed Sieja)

Subject: 10 Gallon Picnic Coolers

David Hyde writes:

 ... stuff deleted...

I'd planned on using a cylindrical "picnic

cooler", but haven't been able to find the larger ones.  Not

true...I did find a large  (10 gal?) one at an "exclusive"

outdoor shop, but I didn't have the kind of money they wanted.

I've found 5 gal ones at plenty of places, but that's the

largest around here.

So...three questions:

1.  Would a 5 gal cooler make an adequate mash/lauter tun for

5 gal batches with an average amount of grain?

  Many people use them with great success, however an average batch will

  push the limits and give little room at the top.  Some view the deeper

  grain bed as an advantage - but I like the extra room the 10gal cooler

  provides, plus it gives me room for brewing higher gravity ales at

  times.

2.  If not, is there a relatively cheap source for large

coolers?

  I got mine at Wal Mart for around $30-$35.  They actually had two sizes

  for the 10gal models.  Both were made by Gott.  One had a push-in top

  and the other had a screw-on top which could double as a stool.  One

  modification I made was to remove the pushbutton spigot and drill the

  hole to fit a regulated spigot (available from most any homebrew supply).

  With this setup I rarely loose more than one degree during a 90 minute

  mash period.

- --

   =========================================================================

    Ed Sieja

    Intergraph Corporation

    Huntsville, AL  35894-0001                         emsieja@ingr.com

   =========================================================================

------------------------------


Brewpubs in Amsterdam or Antwerp?

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 09:18:35 EDT

From: poconnor@lager.tn.cornell.edu (Peter OConnor)

Subject: Brewpubs in Amsterdam or Antwerp?

Hi there,

   Does anyone know of a good brewery/brewpub in Antwerp, Belgium

or Amsterdam,  The Netherlands?  If so, I would appreciate a

response at "poconnor@lager.tn.cornell.edu" as I don't want to

waste HBD bandwidth. -Pete OConnor

------------------------------


Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 09:24:43 -0400

From: Daniel McMahon <dmcmahon@blanche.acq.osd.mil>

Subject: Brewpubs in Amsterdam or Antwerp?

From: dmcmahon

Full-Name: Daniel McMahon@pr

Subject: Ingredients Substitutions

To: homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

I was recently given a recipe for an "excellent Belgian Trippel",

but my local homebrew supply store doesn't have all the exact

ingredients called for.

The two ingredients in question are: (1) Klages malt and

(2) Liberty hops.

Not finding any comparative reference to Klages or Liberty

in Papazian's book, I've decided to substitute Pale malt

and Willamette (5.3%) hops respectively.

What are the special characteristics of Klages malt?

Ditto for Liberty hops.

I've followed the ongoing discourse concerning experimentation

with recipes.  I'm not concerned about deviating from a proven

recipe, I am curious about the specific properties of the two

ingredients I am substituting for.

Any comments/suggestions?  Thanks!

Dan McMahon

dmcmahon@acq.osd.mil

------------------------------


Mailing Strains

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 09:45:01 -0400 (EDT)

From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

Subject: Mailing Strains

Hello:

 I came in late on this Weihenstephan discussion, so I don't really

know what it is all about.  However, I thought it worth mentioning that

there is a cheaper alternative to agar slants for mailing strains, and it

works just as well.  We routinely send out laboratory strains on filter

paper. Basically, you just put a drop of culture on a ~1 cm square piece

of filter paper (probably any absorbent paper would do) and wrap the

square in a piece of sterile foil.  Then pop it into an envelope and send

it off.  When it gets to the other side, they drop the paper on a rich

media plate, incubate for a day or so, and the yeast grow up.  Then you

streak for singles on another plate and you're set. I haven't rigorously

determined the viability of cells dried on paper, but they are very

stable.  It works.

 I can think of two possible disadvantages to this system.  First,

we use autoclaved paper and foil, and a surprising number of households

STILL lack an autoclave.  However, while commercial paper is probably not

sterile, I imagine it is pretty close; the yeast are going to far

outnumber anything else, and when you streak for singles you will get what

you want.  The foil you could always steam, but probably it would also be

close enough to sterile for most peoples purposes.  The second drawback is

that this method requires that you are set up to culture, and to streak

for singles in particular.  However, while this isn't absolutely necessary

in the case of slants, it is certainly advisable.  Anyway, just thought

I'd throw it out there.

    Dave Rose

    Dept. of Cellular and Developmental Biology

    Harvard U.

------------------------------


Re: Tun size and cheepness

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 09:43:32 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Re: Tun size and cheepness

2. I found my 10gal "Gott" cooler at Buildre's Square for $40.

They've got them again this year (it's a summer item).

1. Depends on how much beer and how strong you want to make it.  You

could manage up to about 1.050, but not very far above that.  As an

extreme example, I was able to make only 3 gallons of a 1.090 Scotch

Ale in a 7 gallon picnic cooler.

3. Yes.  I did my first batch in such a cooler, using a slotted copper

pipe manifold for sparging.  Make sure you get one with a drain hole,

though, as siphoning doesn't work very well (speaking from

experience).  I can send you a "plan" for the sparging manifold, if

you are interested.

=S

------------------------------


RE: Tun size

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 09:46:11 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: Tun size

Hi All,

 In HBD#1212 David Hyde asks:

>1.  Would a 5 gal cooler make an adequate mash/lauter tun for

>5 gal batches with an average amount of grain?

  Sure, I've been able to fit ~12 pounds of grain in a 5 gallon tun.

That much grain capacity is adequate for 5 gallon batches of all but very

high gravity beers.  If you want to brew a high gravity beer and 12 pounds

of grain won't get you to the target gravity, you can always just sparge

less and make a smaller batch.  Last winter, I brewed a 4 gallon batch of

bock, OG 1.076, in a 5 gallon tun by draining the tun, re-filling it,

then sparged just 2 gallons.

>2.  If not, is there a relatively cheap source for large

>coolers?

  I bought a 10 gallon Igloo at the local TruValue for $29, the

5 gallon coolers were less expensive.

>3.  Can a rectangular cooler make a suitable tun?

  Yes, lots of people on this forum use rectangular picnic coolers.  There

are fairly comprehensive instructions in the HBD archives.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


Easily removed labels

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 10:31:22 EDT

From: steve@garnet.spawar.navy.mil (Steve Jacobs)

Subject: Easily removed labels

>From BRANNAGJB@A1.GVLTEC.EDU

> Does anyone out there know of any clever ways that I can label my beer and

> mead bottles? I'd like to design them on my computer, but they need to be

> easy to remove (peel or soak) so I wont add more to the headache of preparing

> bottles for the next batch.

I used to use sticky-back (peel off) paper for my labels, but they were

really hard to remove.

There are a couple of methods you could use:

1) Get some gummed laser printer paper. A homebrew shop here in Northern

   Virginia sells gummed paper that will feed in most types of laser

   printers. It works well for me. Just wet the label with a little

   water and stick it on. Soaks off in warm water.

   Brew America in Vienna, Virginia is the only place I've seen that carries

   the gummed paper. I think that they will do mail order. Their number is

   (703) 938-4805. I don't remember the price.

   Standard disclaimer applies.

2) Use regular laser printer paper for your labels, wet the back with milk,

   and stick them to the bottle.

   Sometimes the milk soaks into the paper too much and the label gets too

   wrinkly and the milk attached labels seem to take a little longer to soak

   off than the gummed labels.

There are a couple of companies listed in some of the beer-related magazines

that specialize in multi-color labels, but they tend to be expensive.

For the artistically-impaired, gummed preprinted labels are available from

most homebrew shops. Not a whole lot of variety though.

Steve Jacobs

KSI Inc.

------------------------------


pico-Brewery

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 10:46:34 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: pico-Brewery

Disclaimer: the owners of pico-Brewing Systems are friends of mine.  I

have no financial interest in the company or the system.

That said, I've used the system a few times, and it's a really nice

system.  There are still a few quirks, but it's one of the easiest

breweries I've ever used.  Last weekend, we made 15 gallons of Porter

in a brewing demo at the Michigan Renaissance Festival, under slightly

adverse conditions (only water supply is a garden hose, no sink, just

a drain in the "floor" that kept backing up on us.)  We arrived a

little after 11am, and finished brewing about 3:30.  (The clean-up then

took another hour and a half because of the problems mentioned above.)

It was almost effortless -- We started by running some water into the

hot water kettle and firing up the burner to heat it to mash-in

temperature.  Then we measured the (26 lbs) of grain into the mash

kettle.  After a little while, we pumped hot water into the mash tun,

then heated the mash slightly to our mash temperature.  Then we

transferred the pump to the mash tun and started recirculating.  This

really helps maintain a constant/uniform mash temperature without

stirring.  Tasting the outflow, it appeared we had complete conversion

after about 20 minutes, but we kept the mash going for a little over

an hour (partly because we were explaining how brewing beer worked to

all the people stopping by the booth, as well as telling them we

couldn't sell or give them any samples).

Towards the end of the mash, we started heating more water for

sparging.  Moved the pump back to the hot water kettle, ran a hose

from the outlet of the mash kettle to the boiling kettle, and opened

the valve to start sparging.  Because of the constant recirculation

during mashing, the wort came out "clear" (I put this in quotes,

because it was a pretty black Porter).  We adjusted the valves on the

mash kettle and the hot water kettle to the same flow rate, and

sparged almost to the top of the boiling kettle (under which we turned

on the heat after running a bit of wort in).

As the wort boiled down, we periodically sparged a little more from

the mash tun into it.  At the end of the boil, we put in the immersion

cooler, hooked the pump to the boil kettle, started running water

through the cooler, and recirculated wort past it to chill it.  When

it was cool (about 1/2 hour?) we pumped the wort from the kettle into

our carboys with lots of splashing and foaming.

Cleaning up was pretty easy, as easy as it can be when you're

wrestling 15 gallon containers, and trying to keep from overflowing

the drain, which kept backing up (finally fixed this by wrapping a

rubber glove around the hose and sticking it down the drain).

Good points:

* With the pump, and a good stand, you don't have to ever lift hot

  water or wort.

* Recirculation during mash and cooling means no stirring.

* Temperature wells in the pots make temperature control easy.

* Strainer screens in mash and boiling pot work very well.

* Easy to make 10 gallons, pretty easy to make 15, possible to make

  upwards of 20 (by also boiling in the hot water kettle).

* It's designed by home-brewers, for home-brewers.  They're constantly

  refining and improving the design.

* Good solid construction.

Problems:

* We had a slight problem with grain bed compaction during the mash

  recirculation.  But we had 26 lbs of grain in there, too.

* Hop pellets can clog the pump if you stop it for a while.  This only

  happened when I was rinsing the boiling kettle.  Blowing through the

  hose from the outflow cleared it.

* There's a pretty large "dead" volume under the filter screens.  This

  is probably most serious in the mash tun.  I'd say it's more than a

  gallon.

* The price!

A note: one of my brewing companions, an experienced brewer, had never

used the system before.  He decided, based on that experience, that he

wanted to buy one.

=Spencer W. Thomas   |  Info Tech and Networking, B1911 CFOB, 0704

   "Genome Informatician" |  Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu |  313-764-8065, FAX 313-764-4133

------------------------------


Coolers / GABF/ etc.

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 8:56:44 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Coolers / GABF/ etc.

Dave Hyde asks about rectangular cooler mash tuns.  This is what I use, Dave,

and am very happy with it.  Its very easy to make a manifold for this thing

(mine looks like a fork from the top).  The larger surface area to depth ratio

doesn't seem to be a problem, although I suppose it could cause marginally

lower yields (as the liquid flows through, it passes by less pieces of grain

and therefore pulls through less sugar).  Anyway, you can get them in various

sizes, from 24 quart to 48 quart, and cheap!  Go for it.

The Great American Beer Festival is planned for October 8 and 9 this year in

Denver.  I think it is at Currigan Hall downtown.  Is anyone involved in the

planning of the GABF a participant in this forum?  I'd like to know if there

are any provisions for designated drivers?  I don't recall any in the past, but

logic tells me there must be some plan for this.  It would be extremely

irresponsible for them to plan an event which will undoubtedly produce a large

number of intoxicated people, and not to have a way for them to get home

safely.  Anyone know?  The reason I ask is that my DD from the last few years

(my wife) will be out of town that weekend.  I want to go to it, but not bad

enough to risk my life.

(Bob Devine, I was waiting for your comment.  Good show!)

Someone (sorry!) brought up the question of hot liquor pumps.  I'm interested

in this subject, too (I'm tired of lifting gallons of hot water).  I don't need

to pump my wort, only hot water for sparging, etc. so I'm not too concerned

about sanitation.  Any experience out there with dishwasher pumps or the like?

As usual, I'm looking for something economical as well as useful.

Cheers,

norm

- --

Norm Pyle, Staff Engineer & Brewer               Storage Technology Corporation

npyle@n33.stortek.com                            2270 South 88th Street

"Youth is of course, the problem, as any         Louisville, CO 80028-0211

mature man knows."  -- Michael Jackson           (303) 673-8884

------------------------------


Homebrewing supplies in Germany?

Date:         Thu, 26 Aug 93 19:13:53 +0300

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      Homebrewing supplies in Germany?

Let me give this one another try. A friend of mine will be in Germany next week

and I want to send him somewhere to get me brewing supplies. Anyone know where

to???

Please answer directly to LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL

Thanks, Nir.

------------------------------


Brazil WishList

Date:         Thu, 26 Aug 93 19:20:58 +0300

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      Brazil WishList

Another friend of mine is going to Brazil for a month. Do you know of any

special brews that I can ask her to bring me back (and would be worth the

trouble)?

She told me of a low alcohol beer they have there by the name of Choppe. Does

anyone know how it is made?

Nir

------------------------------


Fridg conversion

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 12:21:00 edt

From: "Hobson, Kevin" <HobsonK@magic.dcrt.nih.gov>

Subject: Fridg conversion

HBDer's,

Please comment on or point me to the FAQ on converting a fridge to use as a

lagering appliance.

What I need is any set of info one of you good folks has put together.  In

particular the temperature guage to retro fix to the box.

I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the product that is always

recommended in this list!  "Air Temp"?  Manuf. and model # would be greatly

appreciated.

Thanks ahead of time!

a direct response would be great/fine.

Kevin 8^)

Division of Computer Research and Technology

National Institutes of Health

hobsonk@magic.dcrt.nih.gov

"Hell, There are no rules here we're trying  to accomplish something"

    T.A. Edison

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

------------------------------


AERATION

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 11:31 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: AERATION

 >From: neilm@juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Neil Mager )

 >Subject: WORT AERATION & Sierra Nevada

  >One of the participants from SN said they like to achieve

 as high an oxygen saturation as they can - 100% if possible.

 This sounds like a rhetorical statement of wishfull thinking as it apparently

 is not possible without injecting pure oxygen.

 >They use something called a fishtail which is basically a pipe

 with a flattened end which they use to spray the wort into the

 fermenters.

 Great minds really do follow the same path.  At the end of the hose coming

 from my wort pump is a short piece of 1/4" copper tubing, the end of which is

 flattened to spray the wort into the fermenter.  However, I wasn't clever

 enough to call it a fishtail.

 Mine is formed into a "U" shape so I can just hang it on the lip of the

 fermenter (after sanitizing of course).  It, like the airstone, creates more

 foam than there is room for so I occasionally un-hang it and use the spray to

 beat down the foam.  This is far faster than waiting for it to collaps by

 istelf.

 >From: tmgierma@raphael.acpub.duke.edu (Todd Gierman)

 >Subject: yeast

 > Jack's comment on the reproduction mode is essentially correct.  Some yeast

 do reproduce via fission, but you probably won't find this kind in your beer,

 maybe your cider though.

 I though fission was another name for budding which makes it equally

 incorrect as an explanation for flocculation.  The other reproductive process

 encountered in yeast (but not beer yeast) involves sporulation and sexual

 reproduction.

 >One final note, let's take a quick market survey concerning those desiring

 Weihenstephan....

 Pray tell, what is Weihenstephan?  One of those thereads I never bothered

 reading.

 js

------------------------------


RE: Bottle labels?

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 08:59:58 PDT

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: RE: Bottle labels?

Gretchen Brannaman 250-8384 <BRANNAGJB@A1.GVLTEC.EDU> asks:

>Does anyone out there know of any clever ways that I can label my beer and

>mead bottles? I'd like to design them on my computer, but they need to be

>easy to remove (peel or soak) so I wont add more to the headache of preparing

>bottles for the next batch.

This is what I do (for whatever it's worth):  I design my labels on the

computer, copy as many of them as will fit onto a single page, and print

that page out.  So now I have a single sheet with 'n' copies of my label

on it.  I then photocopy this page to make as many copies as I need.  I cut

out the labels (not too difficult if you place them on the page wisely) and

affix them to the bottles with a glue stick ( I believe it is the same stuff

we all used as 'paste' to make those wonderful cardboard creations in 1st

grade).  Anyway, the labels fall off with just a quick soak in water (1 minute,

maybe two).

Troy

------------------------------


information sources

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 01:29:59 -0400

From: bjr@po.CWRU.Edu (Brian John Roberts)

Subject: information sources

 Anyone have any good pointers to any sources of inforamtion

describing the design and construction of a home brewery?  I tried to

find a FAQ for this mailing list and even tried the listserv, but my

mail bounced back (anyone know if the listserv still exists)?

Thanks in advance,

- -- Brian

- --

Brian John Roberts               e-mail: bjr@po.cwru.edu

Case Western Reserve University

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

postal: 3658 Shields Road; Canfield, OH; 44406-9504 USA  phone: (216) 792-9844

------------------------------


cylindrical coolers

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 13:07:43 -0400

From: ""Robert C. Santore"" <rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: cylindrical coolers

In HBD 1212 David Hyde writes:

> 1.  Would a 5 gal cooler make an adequate mash/lauter tun for

> 5 gal batches with an average amount of grain?

I use a 5 gal cylindrical cooler for 5 gal batches with good results.

However, I only use it for decoction mashes.  I use an enameled canning

pot in the oven (5 gal) for infusion and temp. controlled.  There are

many equipment combinations that can be used and I'm sure you'll find

your own odd ball favorite.  I can mash 10 pounds of grain comfortably

in the cooler, but obviously you can't use too thin a mash or too

large a quantity of grain without exceeding its capacity.  Basically,

if I'm short of a strike temp. in the cooler, I can adjust the sizes

of my decoctions, and in the pot just put it on the stove for a short

period.  If you intend to rely on boiling water infusions then you need

to leave a little more headspace for temp. adjustments.  Another use I

have for the cylindrical cooler is to store my sparge water.  Getting

double duty out of equipment is a real advantage.  I don't use it as a

lauter tun, but I know people that do.  Just be careful that you have

an adequate false bottom or equivalent - the tap on my cooler plugs too

easily for me to consider it.

> 2.  If not, is there a relatively cheap source for large

> coolers?

The cheapest I've ever seen 10 gal cylindrical coolers new is $38 which

is close to but not quite cheap enough for me (it is more than I've paid

for any other piece of equipment including an 8 gal brew pot or my grain

mill).  However, if I got seriously into high gravity beers or larger batch

sizes I would get one in a second and make sure I could fit it out as a

lauter tun (in other words, it's just a matter of time).

------------------------------


Re: Bottle labels

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 12:57:00 CST

From: "david p. atkins" <atkins@vms2.macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: Re: Bottle labels

>Hello all,

>Does anyone out there know of any clever ways that I can label my beer and

>mead bottles? I'd like to design them on my computer, but they need to be

>easy to remove (peel or soak) so I wont add more to the headache of preparing

>bottles for the next batch.

>

>Thanks in advance,

>Gretchen Brannaman

>brannagjb@a1.gvltec.edu

>

A method I'm going to try is rubber cement.  The labels should peel right

off and any excess cement on the bottle can be removed with a wee bit of

rubbing.  Haven't tried it yet though...give it a whirl.

David Atkins

------------------------------


Cl in H2O ?

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 14:09:39 CDT

From: Gene Zimmerman <ezimmerm@hp.uwsuper.edu>

Subject: Cl in H2O ?

Salutations!

   I've just moved to Laramie, WY from Duluth, MN (Right on the shore

of the largest easliy accessable source of fresh water). Anyway, I

got a hold of the local water engineer, I guess a real chemist is not

needed in their estimation, and he told me they add 1.5 g Cl to 1 L of

H2O and that the time the water reaches town, 20 miles, the level

is about .3 g of Cl per l of H2O. He was telling me about half life

and that the use of Cl in the water was minimal. I asked if there were

micro-orginisms and he also said no. He's sending me a fact sheet.

   One and a half grams of Chlorine per Liter of water seems like a lot to

me, what about others? The city uses two sources of water, river

and underground. Does anyone have anything to say about this?

   I asked about water at the first homebrewer club meeting I attended and

was told the water was usually on the alkaline side, but that was it.

Our Club's name is Snowy Range Foamenters, by the way.

Gene in Laramie, WY

------------------------------


regulator woes

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 15:46:32 -0400 (EDT)

From: Frank Tutzauer <COMFRANK@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu>

Subject: regulator woes

I think my CO2 regulator is on the fritz.  Where would I go to get it

tested, and, possibly, serviced?  Would it be cheaper to buy a new one?

Thanks

- --frank

------------------------------


labels

Date: Thursday, 26 August 93 13:34:10 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: labels

Howdy--

In HBD #1212, Gretchen Brannaman wants suggestions for bottle lables.  Here's

my two cents.

I make small neck lables with a logo on them, instead of big labels that go

on the body of the bottle (except for special "commemorative" batches).  The

advantages are:

1)  Less paper.  Instead of four labels from each sheet of paper, I can get

    around a dozen.

2)  Easy identification.  Since I have about five different kinds of hombrew

    in six-pack holders, I can easily indentify the beer by the neck label

    instead of lifting the bottles to see the labels on the body.

3)  Less trash.  Face it, they end up in the trash, & we need less of that.

The ones I have now are rectangular.  However, I plan to try curved ones,

about the shape of Celis' neck labels, the next time I make some.  I have

a generic logo I use, & I ran off a master sheet.  When I have a freshly

bottled batch, I make a copy of the master, write in the name of the beer,

then xerox those.  Next I just cut them out & use a "Uhu" glue stick to stick

them on.  The glue washes right off with the paper.  Easy.  The rectangle shape

is easy to cut out, but fits on the neck funny.  It depends on what you want.

Enjoy,

Alan, Austin

------------------------------


adios for now!

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 13:04:52 -0700 (PDT)

From: "David D. Hightower" <ddh3789@aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com>

Subject: adios for now!

Hello and goodbye for a while!  I have decided to follow my heart and not

my checking account for a while as I give up my job, desk and terminal for

a pair of rubber boots and a malt shovel.  Keep up the good threads and

flames and never forget that the people tasting your homebrew might just be

interested in hiring you to make beer too!

Good Luck and Good Brewing.

Dave Hightower @ Maritime Pacific Brewing Co.

Seattle, WA

(unsubscribe sent separately, in plain brown wrapper)

- --

Dave

ddh3789@aw108.fsl.ca.boeing.com

------------------------------


yeast faq 1 of 8

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 16:23:27 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: yeast faq 1 of 8

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------------------------------


yeast faq 3 of 8

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 16:24:10 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: yeast faq 3 of 8

SECTION II: YEAST PROFILES

PART 1: DRY ALE YEAST (Saccharomyces cerevisiae)

Coopers Ale Yeast

   Good to very good reputation. The Coopers is quite fruity fermented at 65F.

It's not phenolic at all and all the flavor is a very clean fruitiness.

Glenbrew Special Ale Yeast

   Specially designed for use in "all malt" beers. Contains a special enzyme to

obtain extremely low terminal gravities.

Doric Ale Yeast

   Ok to very good reputation.

Edme Ale Yeast

   Starts quick. Produces some fruity esters. Attenuative. Good reputation

Lallemand Nottingham Yeast

   This yeast is remarkable for its high degree of flocculation. It settles out

very quickly and firmly. Very good reputation. Quick fermentation at 62F. It's

very clean and only very slightly fruity in the keg, but tastes/smells nutty in

the bottled version. Nottingham appears to be relatively attenuative (more so

than the Coopers).

Lallemand Windsor Yeast

   Produces a beer which is clean and well balanced. This yeast produces an ale

which is estery to both palate and nose with a slight fresh yeast flavor. Very

good reputation. Not as quick as the Nottingham. Definite banana smell at

racking.

Munton-Fison Ale Yeast

   Starts quick. Produces some fruity esters. Attenuative. Fair to good

reputation. It is reported that a phenolic taste is no longer a problem due to

some strain changes.

Red Star Ale Yeast

   This brand had a very bad reputation in the past, and for a while production

was suspended. A different strain (AHY 43391) was selected by the company and is

now being sold as Red Star Ale Yeast. The new strain is much improved! Reports

from Dr. Fix, a brewer's yeast consultant, suggest that this is an excellent

general purpose ale yeast with a clean taste. Apparent attenuation 76-78%.

Whitbread Ale Yeast

   Fast starter. Distribution switched to Crosby and Baker with a change in the

yeast. Very good reputation despite past quality problems.

PART 2: LIQUID ALE YEAST

BrewTek CL-10 American Microbrewery #1

   A smooth, clean, strong fermenting ale yeast that works well down to 56F.

BrewTek CL-12 American Microbrewery #2

   Produces an accentuated, rich and creamy malt profile with hints of diacetyl.

BrewTek CL-16 British Pale Ale #1

   Produces a bold, woody and dry character which accentuates mineral and hop

flavors.

BrewTek CL-18 British Pale Ale #2

   A smooth, full flavored, well rounded ale yeast. Mildly estery, it is a

strong fermenter.

BrewTek CL-26 British Draft Ale

   Their (Brewteks) favorite Ale yeast, gives a full bodied, well rounded flavor

with a buttery rich diacetyl.

BrewTek CL-28 Irish Dry Stout

   A top fermenter, leaves a very recognizable character to Dry Stouts with

roasted malts coming through well.

BrewTek CL-30 Belgian Ale #1

   Produces a classic Belgian Ale flavor. Robust and estery with notes of clove

and Plum.

BrewTek CL-32 Belgian Ale #2

   Flanders style yeast. Makes a terrific strong brown and a good base brew for

fruit flavored beers.

BrewTek CL-40 Old German Ale

   For traditional Alt Biers, a strong fermenter which leaves a highly

attenuated, mildly estery flavor.

Wyeast 1007 German Ale Yeast

   Ferments dry and crisp leaving a complex yet mild flavor. Produces an

extremely rocky head and ferments well down to 55 deg. F (12 deg. C).

Flocculation is high and apparent attenuation is 73-77%. Optimum fermentation

temperature: 62 deg. F (17 deg. C). A good balance of sweetness and tartness. A

very pleasing yeast.

Wyeast 1024 Belgian Ale Yeast

   Banana estery flavor. With both clove-like phenolics and alcohol spice, the

Belgian will tell you right away that it's no ordinary yeast. Tartness often

develops over time. Ferment warm or with inadequate aeration and you're likely

to get a bubblegum-like note. Intended for abbey beers, and works very well for

that. And, depending on the wort composition, *lots* of banana notes.

Wyeast 1028 London Ale Yeast

   Rich minerally profile, bold woody slight diacetyl production. Medium

flocculation. Apparent attenuation 73-77%. Optimum fermentation temperature: 68

deg. F (20 deg. C). Complex, woody, tart, with strong mineral notes. It produces

ales of marvelous complexity and sophistication. This yeast was used for the

1992 B.0.S.S. Challenge 1st place Barleywine, brewed by none other than Brian

and Linda North.

Wyeast 1056 American/Chico Ale Yeast

   Ferments dry, finishes soft, smooth and clean, and is very well balanced.

Flocculation is low to medium. Apparent attenuation 73-77%. Optimum fermentation

temperature: 68 deg. F (20 deg. C). The cleanest of the bunch, but

mutation-prone. This is Sierra Nevada's yeast. Probably the best available

all-around yeast, this strain can be used for anything, without embarrassment.

Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale Yeast

   Slight residual diacetyl is great for stouts. It is clean smooth, soft and

full bodied. Medium flocculation and apparent attenuation of 71-75%. Optimum

fermentation temperature: 68 deg. F (20 deg. C). Soft, round, malty; the least

attenuative of the Wyeast line. Very nice for any cold-weather ale, at its best

in stouts and Scotch ales.

Wyeast 1098 British Ale Yeast

   Ale yeast from Whitbread. Ferments dry and crisp, slightly tart and well

balanced. Ferments well down to 55 deg. F (12 deg. C). Medium flocculation,

apparent attenuation 73-75%. Optimum fermentation temperature: 70 deg. F (21

deg. C). Tart, crisp, clean. Great in pale ales and bitters, good in porters.

Wyeast 1338 European Ale Yeast

   Ale yeast from Wissenschaftliche in Munich. A full bodied complex strain

finishes very malty. Produces a dense rocky head during fermentation. High

flocculation, apparent attenuation 67-71%. Optimum fermentation temperature: 70

deg. F (21 deg. C). It's clean and malty, especially well suited to Altbier.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1213, 08/27/93

*************************************

-------


yeast faq 4 of 8

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 16:24:25 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: yeast faq 4 of 8

Yeast Culture Kit A01

   From California. Vendor's suggested uses (VSU): Barley Wine, Brown Ale, Pale

Ale, India Pale Ale, Cream Ale, Porter, Stout.

Yeast Culture Kit A04

   From Oregon. VSU: Dusseldorf Altbier, Kolsch.

Yeast Culture Kit A06

   From Oregon. VSU: Porter, Stout, Imperial Stout.

Yeast Culture Kit A08

   From Dorchester, England. VSU: Barley Wine (high residual sweetness).

Yeast Culture Kit A13

   From Ireland. VSU: Porter, Stout, Imperial Stout.

Yeast Culture Kit A15

   From England. VSU: Brown Ale, Pale Ale, India Pale Ale, Cream Ale, Bitters

and Milds.

Yeast Culture Kit A16

   From Belgium. VSU: Trappist Ales (Abbeys, Doubles, Tripples).

Yeast Culture Kit A17

   From London, England. VSU: Brown Ale, Pale Ale, India Pale Ale, Cream Ale,

Bitters and Milds.

Yeast Culture Kit A34

   From Edinburgh, Scotland. VSU: Barley Wines, Scotch Ale, Scottish Bitters,

Strong Ale.

Yeast Culture Kit A35

   From cental Belgium. VSU: Belgian Whites.

Yeast Culture Kit A36

   From Houffalize, Belgium. VSU: Belgian Ales.

Yeast Culture Kit A37

   From Bavaria, Germany. VSU: Altbier, Kolsch.

Yeast Lab A01 Australian Ale Yeast

   This all purpose strain produces a very complex woody and flavorful beer.

Australian origin. Medium attenuation, medium flocculation. Great for Brown Ales

and Porters.

Yeast Lab A02 American Ale Yeast

   This clean strain produces a very fruity aroma, with soft and smooth flavor

when fermented cool. Medium attenuation and low flocculation. This is an all

purpose ale yeast.

Yeast Lab A03 London Ale Yeast

   Classic Pale Ale strain, very dry. A powdery yeast with a hint of diacetyl

and rich minerally profile, crisp and clean. Medium attenuation and medium

flocculation.

Yeast Lab A04 British Ale Yeast

   This strain produces a great light bodied ale, excellent for Pale Ales and

Brown Ales, with a complex estery flavor. Ferments dry with a sharp finish.

Medium attenuation and medium flocculation.

Yeast Lab A05 Irish Ale Yeast

   This top fermenting strain is ideal for Stouts and Porters. Slightly acidic,

with a hint of butterscotch in the finish, soft and full bodied. Medium

attenuation, high flocculation.

Yeast Lab A06 Dusseldorf Ale Yeast

   German Altbier yeast strain finishes with full body, complex flavor and spicy

sweetness. Medium attenuation, high flocculation.

Yeast Lab A07 Canadian Ale Yeast

   This strain produces a light bodied, clean and flavorful beer, very fruity

when fermented cool. High attenuation, medium flocculation. Good for light and

cream ales.

Yeast Lab A08 Trappist Ale Yeast

   This is a typical Trappist strain, producing a malty flavor with a balance of

fruity, phenolic overtones when fermented warm. Alcohol tolerant, high

attenuation and high flocculation.

PART 3: LAGER YEAST (SACCHAROMYCES UVARUM)

Dry Lager Yeast:(generally not recommended--tend to be inconsistent).

Liquid Lager Yeast: Much preferred over dry types!

BrewTek CL-60 Original Pilsner

   Leaves a full bodied Lager with a sweet, underattenuated finish with a

subdued diacetyl character.

BrewTek CL-62 American Megabrewery

   A strong fermenter, leaves a light, crisp, almost dry finish to Lagers.

Produces a good strong Lager.

BrewTek CL-64 Carlsbergenis

   A Scandinavian Lager strain which leaves a full flavored, slightly sweet and

malty profile.

BrewTek CL-66 N. German Lager

   Exhibits a clean, crisp, traditional Lager character. A strong fermenting and

forgiving Lager yeast.

BrewTek CL-68 East European Lager

   Imparts a smooth, rich, almost creamy character, emphasizing a big malt

flavor and clean finish.

BrewTek CL-86 California Esteem

   Use to recreate "California common beers" leaves a slightly estery, well

attenuated finish.

Wyeast 2007 Pilsen Lager Yeast

   Our original Lager Yeast Strain. Specific for pilsner style beers. Ferments

dry, crisp, clean and light. Medium flocculation. Apparent attenuation from

71-75%. Optimum fermentation temperature: 52 deg. F (11 deg. C). It is worth

mentioning that this yeast strain is reportedly used quite a bit in St. Louis,

if you know what I mean ;^).

Wyeast 2035 American Lager Yeast

   Unlike American pilsner styles. It is bold, complex and woody. Produces

slight diacetyl. Medium flocculation, apparent attenuation 73-77%. Optimum

fermentation temperature: 50 deg. F (10 deg. C). This yeast allegedly is the one

used by August Schell in New Ulm, MN.

Wyeast 2042 Danish Lager Yeast

   Rich, yet crisp and dry. Soft, light profile which accentuates hop

characteristics. Flocculation is low, apparent attenuation is 73-77%. Optimum

fermentation temperature: 48 deg. F (9 deg. C).

Wyeast 2112 California Lager Yeast

   Warm fermenting bottom cropping strain, ferments well to 62 deg. F (17 deg.

C) while keeping lager characteristics. Malty profile, highly flocculant, clears

brilliantly. Apparent attenuation 72-76%. Allegedly, the Anchor steam yeast.

Wyeast 2124 Bohemian Lager Yeast

   Ferments clean and malty, rich residual maltiness in high gravity pilsners,

medium flocculation, apparent attenuation 69-73%. Optimum fermentation

temperature: 48 deg. F (9 deg. C). Allegedly, one of the four (?) Pilsner

Urquell yeasts.

Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager Yeast

   Lager yeast strain used by many German breweries. Rich flavor, full bodied,

malty and clean. Medium flocculation, apparent attenuation 73-77%. Optimum

fermentation temperature: 48 deg. F (9 deg. C).

Wyeast 2308 Munich Lager Yeast

   Lager yeast from Wissenschaftliche in Munich #308. One of the first pure

yeast available to American home brewers. Sometimes unstable, but smooth soft

well rounded and full bodied. Medium flocculation, apparent attenuation 73-77%.

Optimum fermentation temperature: 50 deg. F (10 deg. C). One report of an

intense off aroma (like home perm solution) with this yeast fermented at 45-50F,

but it miraculously disappeared after four months aging in the bottle at 40F.

Yeast Culture Kit L09

   From Bavaria, Germany. VSU: American Dark Lager, American Lager, Bavarian

Dark, Doppelbock, Dortmund/Export, Eisbock, German Bock, German Lagers, German

Schwarzbier, Hellesbock, Munich Helles, Marzen/Octoberfest, Pilsner. (Must be

some yeast! :-)

Yeast Culture Kit L17

   From Pilsen, Czechoslovakia. VSU: American Lagers, Bohemian Pilsner.

------------------------------


yeast faq 5 of 8

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 16:24:40 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: yeast faq 5 of 8

Yeast Lab L31 Pilsner Lager Yeast

   This classic strain produces a light lager in both flavor and body,

fermenting dry and clean. High attenuation and medium flocculation.

Yeast Lab L32 Bavarian Lager Yeast

   Use this classic strain for medium bodied lagers and bocks, as well as Vienna

and Marzen styles, rich in flavor with a clean, malty sweetness. Medium

attenuation and medium flocculation.

Yeast Lab L33 Munich Lager Yeast

   Wissenschaftliche strain for medium bodied lagers and bocks, subtle and

complex flavors, smooth and soft, a hint of sulfur when fresh. Medium

attenuation and medium flocculation.

Yeast Lab L34 St. Louis Lager Yeast

   This strain produces a round, very crisp and clean fruity flavor, with medium

body. High attenuation and medium flocculation. Good for American style lagers.

Yeast Lab L35 California Lager Yeast

   A California common beer strain, malty with a sweet woody flavor and subtle

fruitiness. Medium attenuation and high flocculation.

PART 4: WEISSEN, LAMBIC, MEAD, AND BARLEYWINE STYLES.

BrewTek CL-90 Belgian Wheat

   A top fermenting yeast which produces a soft, bread like flavor and leaves a

sweet, mildly estery finish.

BrewTek CL-92 German Wheat

   A true, top fermenting Weizenbier yeast. Spicy, clovy and estery. Highly

attenuative.

BrewTek CL-94 American Wheat

   Offers a smooth, slightly sweet wheat beer, with a full, clean,

underattenuated malt flavor.

BrewTek CL-100 Brettanomyces Lambicus

   Use to create Belgian Lambic beers. Added after primary fermentation with a

regular ale yeast.

Wyeast 3056 Bavarian Weissen Yeast

   A 50/50 blend of S. cerevisiae and delbrueckii to produce a south German

style wheat beer with cloying sweetness when the beer is fresh. Medium

flocculation, apparent attenuation 73-77%. Optimum fermentation temperature: 56

deg. F (13 deg. C). Problematic to get the right flavor, often just produces

relatively unattenuated beer, without the clove-like aroma/flavor. Perhaps it's

the freshness of the Wyeast #3056 that makes the difference in whether you get

the clove-like aroma/flavor or not.

Yeast Culture Kit M01

   From Bavaria, Germany. VSU: American Wheat, Dunkel Weizen, German Weizen,

Weizenbock.

Yeast Lab W51 Bavarian Weizen

   This strain produces a classic German style wheat beer, with moderately high,

spicy phenolic overtones reminiscent of cloves. Medium attenuation, moderately

flocculant. Evidently much more consistent than Wyeast at producing a true

Weizen flavor.

Mead Yeast

Yeast Lab M61 Dry Mead

   Very alcohol tolerant, ferments dry, fruity and clean, yet leaves noticeable

honey flavor and aroma.

Yeast Lab M62 Sweet Mead

   This strain has reduced alcohol tolerance, therefore produces a very fruity,

sweet mead with tremendous honey aromas.

Wine Yeast

Lallemand Lalvin Wine Yeast S. Bayanus. Good reputation.

Red Star Pasteur Champagne Yeast

   Very attenuative. Good for mead. Good reputation. Popular yeast for Imperial

Stouts and Barleywines due to it's high tolerance for alcohol. Some use it by

itself, others pitch Pasteur after their chosen beer yeast poops out.

Wyeast 3021 Prise de mousse Champagne Yeast

   Institute Pasteur champagne yeast race bayanus. Crisp and dry, ideal for

sparkling and still red, white and fruit wines. Also can be used for Barley

wines. Optimum fermentation temperature: 58 deg. F (14 deg. C).

Wyeast 3028 Wine Yeast

   French wine yeast ideally suited for red and white wines which mature

rapidly. Enhances the fruity characteristics of most wines. Optimum fermentation

temperature: 72 deg. F (22 deg. C).

Wyeast 4007 Wine Yeast

   Malo-lactic culture blend isolated from western Oregon wineries. Includes

strains Ey2d and Er1a. Excellent for high acid wines and low pH. Softens wines

by converting harsh malic acid to milder lactic acid. Can be added to juice any

time after the onset of yeast fermentation when sulfur dioxide is less than 15

ppm.

Yeast Culture Kit M06

   From Montreal, Canada. VSU: Barley Wine (Champagne).

============================================================================

SECTION III: YEAST MANAGEMENT

PART 1: HYDRATION PROCEDURE FOR DRY YEAST

a. Use 14 grams of dry yeast (usually 2 packets) per 5 gallons of brew.

***Rigorously*** sterilize everything used in the hydration procedure. This

should include boiling and cooling the water for rehydration, so that chlorine

is boiled off and the water is sanitized.

b. Add the dry yeast to 1/2 cup of water at 90F (32C). Leave for 15 mins.

c. Combine the hydrated yeast with 1-2 gallons of wort that is as close to the

wort to be fermented as possible. You can take samples from the main wort at the

end of the mash/sparge and rapidly boil and cool it.

d. Aerate the starter as much as possible under sanitary conditions.

e. Don't forget to properly oxygenate the main wort once it is *chilled*.

(Shaking hot wort is dangerous, but even worse it can cause oxidation and  give

your beer funny flavors.)

f. Pitch the starter into the main wort once the latter has been chilled to the

recommended fermentation temperature (65-68F or 18-20C). Yeast with good

viability will result in minimal lags. (The longest experienced in test brews

using the new Red Star Ale Yeast was 2 hrs.)

An alternative but slightly sub-optimal method is to cool the yeast-in-water mix

from "b" to room temperature. Once the wort has been chilled and aerated

(shaking the carboy works well), pitch the yeast. Stir or invert the carboy to

disperse the yeast. Put in the blow-off tube or fermentation lock.

The two most essential things are to:

     1. Sanitize everything in sight.

     2. Aerate your wort to insure rapid initial yeast growth--your best defense

        against secondary infection.

------------------------------


yeast faq 7 of 8

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 16:25:16 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: yeast faq 7 of 8

D. Preparation of New Slants

   Two steps are needed in the preparation of new slants. The first consists of

adding the proper media to test tubes or petri dishes. Once prepared the slants

will store well far a very long time when refrigerated, so many can be prepared

at one time. The second step consists of inoculating the slants with yeast.

   For the homebrewer who cannot afford several refrigerators: Please be advised

that your refrigerator is a haven for bacteria, mold, and wild yeast. Anyone

wishing to store sterile slants in their refrigerator is advised to

   1. Wipe down the slants before storage with ethanol or your favorite

      sanitizing solution.

   2. Seal the slants with parafilm or electrical tape.

   3. Keep the slants in a ziplock bag.

   4. Wipe down the bag with ethanol or your favorite sanitizing solution before

      opening.

Preparation of Media:

(i) The media consists of dry malt extract and agar. As a general rule 4

tablespoons of malt extract and 1 tablespoon of agar per cup of water will yield

16-18 slants.

(ii) Bring the water to a boil, and then stir in the malt extract. Boil for 10

mins.

(iii) Remove from heat, and then start stirring in the agar. This will take some

effort, but this usually indicates that a good solidification will ultimately be

achieved. If your slants "sweat" too much, increase the amount of agar you use.

Although commercial/scientific agar will vary little, I cannot answer for "food

grade" supplies. Gelatin is easier to dissolve, but it sometimes does not always

give a proper solidification.

(iv) When the agar is dissolved, the malt/agar solution should be added to the

test tubes, filling each to approximately a third of their volume. Add the screw

cap, but do not fully tighten.

(v) Autoclave the tubes at 15 psi for 15-20 mins.

(vi) Allow the tubes to cool. They can be left overnight in the autoclave/

pressure-cooker. Tighten the caps on the tubes, and place them at a 30 degree

angle. Allow them to solidify at room temperature. Solidification should become

apparent within a few hours. Tubes which are not solid after 24 hrs. should be

discarded.

(vii) Refrigerate until needed, heeding storage precautions above.

Note: Plastic petri dishes can not be autoclaved, and so alternate procedures

are needed for them. You may use the above techniques with *pyrex* petri dishes

if you so desire. A common practice is to autoclave the malt/ agar solution in

small jars or flasks. The agar solution is then poured into the petri dishes.

Let the agar cool until the jars are hot but touchable. If the agar is too hot

it will warp the plates. Swirl it gently to mix but avoid bubbles. It is a good

idea to leave petri dishes prepared in this way at 25-30 C for 1-2 weeks to make

sure bacteria or molds are not present. Let the poured plates dry overnight in a

clean quiet room. Wipe them down, seal them, and bag them, but leave them at

room temperature for 1 week. The bad bugs, if they are there, will be visually

apparent at the end of that period and the contaminated plates discarded. While

Petri dishes are more trouble than test tubes, they do offer the distinct

advantage of having more surface area and being easier to store. After the trial

period the dishes should be refrigerated.

Inoculation of Slants:

(i) Collection a small portion of the yeast to be added to the slants. It goes

without saying that one should strictly follow the standard sterilization

procedures of all items used to collect this yeast.

(ii) With one hand sterilize the inoculation loop (flame or alcohol solution).

With the other hand open the cap of a slant.

(iii) Dip the loop into the yeast solution, and remove a small amount.

(iv) Slowly insert the loop into the tube avoiding contact with either the sides

or neck of the tube. Streak the yeast over the solid. Only a thin layer is

wanted, and one should try to use as much of the surface area as possible.

(v) Slowly remove the loop avoiding contact with tube walls or neck. Add the

screw cap back on the tube and tighten.

(vi) When finished store the tubes at 25 C for one week. Visually inspect all

tubes at this time both for yeast growth, and also for any irregularities.

Discard those which are not satisfactory.

(vii) Store the remainder at 2-8 C. After 3-4 mos. of storage, unused tubes

should either be discarded or recultured; i.e., propagated by the procedures in

Section III.2.c and then put on fresh slants. The best idea is to put production

yeast on slants on a regular basis so that reculturing is not necessary.

Note: The larger surface area afforded by Petri dishes can be used to advantage

in the above procedure. In particular, it useful to streak out yeast in parallel

lines which make angles with each other. This allows for a better examination of

growth patterns. Petri dishes should be sealed after the 1 week trial period

with electrician's tape and refrigerated.

------------------------------


yeast faq 8 of 8

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 16:25:36 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: yeast faq 8 of 8

PART 3: YEAST WASHING FOR THE HOMEBREWER

Doug O'Brien forwarded the following to me. As it is a topic that pops up

frequently on the HBD, I have included it in this FAQ.

Post follows:

The following notes were taken from a demonstration given to the Oregon Brew

Crew by Dave Logsdon of WYeast Labs, on September 12th. According to Dave, it

was important for healthy yeast to be washed free of trub and hop residue so

that it could be stored for future use. Dave said that the problem with simply

storing the mixed contents from a carboy after fermentation was that the

unwanted particulates would suffocate the yeast over a period of time.

Most breweries, Dave stressed, use an acid wash; the sterile water wash is

much more practical for homebrewers.

Objective: To recover yeast from a finished batch of beer for repitching or

storage for future brewing.

Materials: One primary fermenter after beer has been siphoned off or

otherwise removed.

Three sanitized 1-quart Mason jars with lids, half full of sterile or boiled

water. They should be cooled down, then chilled to refrigerator

temperature (ca. 38^F).

Procedures:

1) Sanitize the opening of the carboy (flame or wipe with chlorine or

   alcohol)

2) Pour the water from one of the quart jars into the carboy. Swirl the

   water to agitate the yeast, hop residue and trub from the bottom.

3) Pour contents from the carboy back into the empty jar and replace the

   cover.

4) Agitate the jar to allow separation of the components. Continue to

   agitate periodically until obvious separation is noticeable.

5) While the viable yeast remains in suspension, pour off this portion into

   the second jar. Be careful to leave as much of the hops and trub behind

   as possible.

6) Agitate the second container to again get as much separation of yeast

   from particulate matter as possible. Allow contents to rest (about 1/2

   hour to 1 hour) then pour off any excess water--and floating hop

   particles--from the surface.

7) Pour off yeast fraction which suspends above the particulate into the

   third container.* Store this container up to 1 month refrigerated. Pour

   off liquid and add wort 2 days before brewing or repitch into a new brew

   straight away.

*It should be noted that in the actual demonstration, Dave eliminated the

 final step; the yeast in the second jar was essentially clean at this stage

 and seemingly fine for storage.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

PART 4: PARALLEL YEAST CULTURES

Rick Cavasin sent me (PW) the following method of "parallel" culturing

liquid yeasts. This should work with most packaged liquid yeasts, not just

Wyeast. The advantages here for the beginner are that (in additon to saving

money) it minimizes the problems of strain drift and contamination that can

plague yeast ranchers. As for the savings, it makes liquid yeast almost as cheap

as dry yeast!

Post follows:

Here's the (poor man's) method for stretching the Wyeast that I (Rick) have been

using successfully.  This method has worked for me with 4 different Wyeast ale

strains (Whitbread, Irish, German, European). It's simple, and requires no

special equipment.  Also, it allows several brewers to swap yeasts with each

brewer propagating one strain.

Briefly, my suggestion consists of converting the original Wyeast package into a

number of 'copies' stored in beer bottles. ie. it is a parallel propagation

rather than a serial propagation

Step 1: Prepare some starter wort (S.G. = 1.020), see Miller's book for recipe.

Basically, you need about 1/2 gallon, but if you make more and can it in mason

jars (using standard canning procedures), you will not have to prepare more at a

later date. Note from PW--Most authorities now recommend using full strength

(1.040), hopped wort for starters.

Step 2: Place 1/2 gallon or so of starter wort in a suitable container (1 gallon

glass jug), pitch (inflated) Wyeast package at correct temp. and fit air lock.

This is the 'master' starter.

Step 3: Allow to ferment to *completion*.  When fermentation has ceased, agitate

the 'beer' to suspend all sendiment, and very carefully bottle it.

You will now have about 6 bottles of very thin beer with a good deal of viable

yeast sediment in each bottle.  Use each bottle as you would use a package of

Wyeast - ie. prepare a starter culture a couple days before brewing.  This is

facilitated by canning wort when you prepare the master starter.  All you need

to in that case is pop open a mason jar of wort, dump it into a sanitized

bottle/jug of appropriate size, pop open one of your bottle cultures, add it,

agitate vigorously, and fit an air lock.

All yeast starters are of the same 'generation', ie. 'twice removed' from the

original Wyeast package (as opposed to the usual 'once removed'). I've had the

bottled cultures remain viable for more than 6 months.

Observe proper sanitation and wort aeration procedures thoughout.

Equipment: 1 gallon jug (for 'master' starter)

           1.5 litre wine bottle (for subsequent starters)

           air lock

           6 beer bottles, caps and capper

Optional equipment: mason jars and canning pot.

Cheers,

Rick C.

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


yeast faq 6a of 8

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 16:42:23 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: yeast faq 6a of 8

PART 2: PROPAGATION OF YEAST STRAINS

or

        HOW TO HAVE YOUR VERY OWN YEAST RANCH!

A. General Comments

   There is no single item as important as the selection of a yeast strain, or

if appropriate strains, to be used in commercial brewing. The same applies to

homebrewing. Sensory characteristics -- taste and smell --will normally

determine the type of yeast that is appropriate to any particular beer

formulation. This section contains the necessary procedures for achieving

self-sufficiency in pitching yeast. The part treated in this section is often

called the Hansen pure culture system. The heart of this system is the so-called

"yeast slant". It is a test tube containing a solidified media sloped at an

angle. Often Petri dishes are used, but the media is level, and hence the term

"slant" is not always appropriate. In any case, yeast cells are streaked on the

surface of the solid media. When refrigerated, these slants will keep at least

3-4 months before they have to be recultured. Yeast are taken from the slants,

and built up so there is enough to pitch a full batch. The system also contains

procedures for doing the exact opposite, i.e., adding yeast to slants for

storage and future use.

B. Equipment

   The equipment needs for operating a pure culture system with slants are

rather modest. The following are the major items.

1. Refrigerator. This is needed for slant and media storage.

2. Autoclave or pressure cooker. This will be needed to sterilize equipment and

media for yeast work. A pressure cooker will do, but it should have a pressure

gauge attached so that the conditions during sterilization can be controlled.

3. Media. The preferred media for slants is malt extract and agar. These can be

obtained from any scientific outlet. Food grade agar is also available from some

oriental markets. The flaked form is easier to work with.

4. Misc. A number of minor items will also be needed. These include inoculation

loops, glassware, petri dishes, and test tubes.

C. Propagation of Yeast

   This process consists of transferring some of the yeast on slants to a small

flask or jar containing wort, then building this up until there is enough to

pitch a full brew. the most delicate steps are the initial ones. Experience has

shown that the best results are obtained by using full strength hopped wort for

propagating yeast. The ideal situation is when the wort used in propagation is

identical to the wort that will be used in brewing.

   Practical experience has also shown that it is best to pitch yeast freshly

harvested from slants at the maximum acceptable rate. Anticipating the results

in the next section, this for lager yeast amounts to pitching 1 volume of yeast

*SOLIDS* for each 250 volumes of wort. Thus, we need 5gal/250 =

0.02gal*128oz/gal = 2.5oz of yeast solids for a 5 gallon batch. Using the

estimation that yeast solids are 1/10 the total volume of a yeast culture, that

means that one needs about 25oz or a little more than 3 cups culture. For ale

yeast all of these numbers are reduced by a factor of two, so (3/2) to 2 cups of

an ale yeast culture would be sufficient.

   In the procedure described below new wort is added just after the end of the

period of high krauesen, and in particular after the foam starts to recede. The

reason for this is to keep the yeast in the aerobic exponential growth mode.

This will insure a steady buildup of yeast cells, and thereby minimize the

number of wort charges that are required. The importance of taking great care

when adding fresh wort can not be overemphasized. To avoid infections not only

is it necessary to properly sanitize equipment, but it also important to

sterilize necks of vessels and jars by flame or 200 proof alcohol solutions. The

easiest  way to flame a jar at home is with a lighter (esp. the ones for pipe-

smokers!). Be extremely careful, and don't use both alcohol and a lighter.

   The first four steps described below are done under the cleanest conditions

possible using 1000 ml. starter jars. At the end of step (iv) there will

invariably be more than enough yeast in each starter jar to pitch a 25 liter

brew (about 6gal); i.e., there will be at least 1/10 liter of yeast solids as

can be checked by visual inspection. These numbers are based on the requirements

of lager yeast. As will be seen below there will be no harm in producing too

much yeast in this procedure since at the end only the correct amount will be

added to the fermenter.

------------------------------


yeast faq 6b of 8

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 16:42:43 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: yeast faq 6b of 8

(i) Preparations:

a. Carefully inspect all the slants that are to be propagated. Those which have

unusual growth patterns and/or discoloration should be discarded. The ideal is

thin white yeast layer on top of the solid media.

b. Autoclave the starter jars and the rubber stoppers for the airlocks for 5

mins. at 15 psi. Alternatively, use your favorite chemical sanitizing agent.

c. Add 250 ml. (about 8 oz) of wort to each starter jar. Wipe their necks with a

200 proof alcohol solution. After this add the airlocks.

d. Pasteurize the wort by adding the starter jars to a water bath at 60 C (140

F), and hold this temperature for 20 mins. Cool to 18 C (75 F).

e. In a clean room with no air movement (turn off fans and air conditioning for

at least 15 min to give the dust a chance to settle) and then place starter

jars, yeast slants, inoculation loops, and a 200 proof alcohol solution in a

clean, quiet spot (i.e. lock the door after first insuring that Fido, Fluffy,

and Junior are on the other side of it :-) !).

(ii) Inoculation:

   For each jar, start by sterilizing its neck. Then sterilize ("flame") the

inoculation loop. Open a slant, quench the loop in clean agar ("sizzle") and use

the loop to remove some yeast. Remove the airlock and then add the yeast to the

starter jar. Replace the airlock, and then start work on the next jar.

(iii) Initial Buildup:

a. Place the starter jars in a location where 68F (18C can be held). Aerate

twice daily by vigorously shaking jars. 1L Erlenmeyer flasks are excellent for

this purpose because they permit vigorous swirling without getting the wort up

by the neck and opening. Also good are 1.5L ex-wine bottles.

b. A widely used practice is to discard any starter that is not active within 48

hours. Certainly if some of the starters are active within this period, then the

inactive ones should be discarded. In any case, any starter not active within 72

hours should definitely be discarded even if this means they are all discarded.

(iv) Second Wort Charge

a. When the foam has receded prepare 250ml. of fresh sterile and aerated wort

for each starter.

b. The new wort is to be added to each starter, and this should be done as

cleanly as possible.

c. Before pouring the wort into the starters, it is very important to swab the

necks of the starter jar and the wort jar with a 200 proof alcohol solution to

prevent contamination or flame them with a lighter.

d. It is also desirable to reduce the temperature to a point closer to the

temperature that will be used in production if that is lower than 18 C. The

temperature should be reduced *slowly*, e.g. few degrees a day. Large shifts in

temperature (>10 deg F or >5 deg C) can cause marked slowing of yeast growth.

e. The starters should be aerated at the start and then again after 12 hours.

New activity should be seen before 24 hrs. Those which are not active within

36-48 hours should be discarded.

f. Increase the volume of wort until you have sufficient volume to pitch.

(v) Pitching the Yeast

a. At this time you should have a jar with about 500ml (a little more than 2

cups) of yeast for a 5gal ale batch. I would suggest pitching *just after* the

krausen (foam) dies down, the logic being that the yeast have amassed glycogen

reserves and are at their healthiest. Some other sources recommend pitching at

high krausen, reasoning that the yeast are in the exponential growth phase.

Whatever you do, avoid overdilution (greater than 10 fold increase in wort

volume) and keep accurate notes. The total volume will vary with batch size,

yeast type, and your personal experience/whim. Remember to keep yeast notes

along with your beer notes so that you can learn from experience!

b. Clean the outside of the jar with 200 proof alcohol or weak bleach and allow

to dry.

c. Pour the yeast slurry carefully into the primary.

------------------------------


yeast faq 2 of 8

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 17:07:56 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: yeast faq 2 of 8

SECTION I: YEAST CHARACTERISTICS

ACTIVITY

   Some yeast strains are more active and vigorous than others. Lager strains in

particular do not show as much activity on the surface as many of the ale

strains. Most packages provide an adequate quantity of yeast to complete

fermentation with varying amounts of lag time depending on strain, freshness,

handling, and temperature. If you find it too slow, make a starter as

recommended on the package or as listed in Section III.

TEMPERATURE

   The slow onset of visible signs of fermentation can be improved by starting

fermentation at 75 deg. F (24 deg. C) until activity is evident, then moving to

your desired fermentation temperature. A few degrees does make a significant

difference without adversely affecting flavor.

   The normal temperatures for ale yeast range from 60-75 deg. F (16-24 deg. C)

A few strains ferment well down to 55 deg. F (13 deg. C). 68 deg. F (20 deg. C)

is a good average. Lager strains normally ferment from 32-75 deg. F (0-24 deg.

C). 50-55 deg. F (10-12 deg. C) is customary for primary fermentation. A slow

steady reduction to the desired temperature for secondary fermentation typically

works well.

   The fermentation rate is closely related to temperature. The lower the

temperature, the slower fermentation commences. Fluctuations in temperature such

as cooling and warming from night to day can adversely affect yeast performance.

ATTENUATION

   Attenuation refers to the percentage of sugar converted to alcohol. Apparent

attenuation of yeast normally ranges from 67-77%. The attenuation is determined

by the composition of the wort or juice and the yeast strain used. Each yeast

strain ferments different sugars to varying degrees, resulting in higher or

lower final gravities. That will affect the residual sweetness and body.

   Really, it's slightly more complex than that (isn't everything ?-).There's

"apparent attenuation" and "real attenuation". The difference comes about

because alcohol has a specific gravity less than 1 (about 0.8). Real attenuation

is the percent of sugars converted to alcohol. So, if you had a 10% (by weight)

sugar solution (about 1.040), and got 100% real attenuation, the resulting

specific gravity would be about 0.991 (corresponding to about 5% alcohol by

weight). The apparent attenuation of this brew would be 122%! George Fix

published a set of equations relating apparent and real attenuation and alcohol

content last year. For example, let

      A = alcohol content of finished beer in % by wt and

     RE = real extract of finished beer in deg. Plato.

Since A and RE are generally not known to us, additional approximations are

needed. The following are due to Balling, and have proven to be reasonable. Let

OE and be defined as follows:

 OE = original extract (measured deg. Plato of wort)

 AE = apparent extract (measured deg. Plato of finished beer).

Then,

      RE = 0.1808*OE + 0.8192*AE,

 and

       A = (OE-RE)/(2.0665-0.010665*OE).

   The "tricky part" here is the expression of the sugar content in degrees

Plato. This is a fancy term for % sugar by weight, and corresponds *roughly* to

"degrees gravity" divided by 4. That is, a 1.040 wort has an extract of 10

degrees Plato. He goes on to calculate an example: To take a specific case,

first note that from Plato tables an OG of 1.045 is equivalent to OE = 11.25

deg. Plato, while a FG of 1.010 is equivalent to AE = 2.5 deg. Plato.

   Therefore,

      RE = 0.1808*11.25 + 0.8192*2.5 = 4.08 deg. Plato,

and

       A = (11.25 - 4.08)/(2.0665 - .010665*11.25) = 3.68 % wt.

The apparent attenuation is 75% (from 1.040 to 1.010), the real attenuation is

(11.25 - 4.08)/11.25 = 64%. N.B. Most attenuation figures are given in terms of

*apparent* attenuation. (Thanks to Chris Pencis quoting Stuart Thomas quoting

George Fix).

FLOCCULATION

   Flocculation refers to the tendency of yeast to clump together and settle out

of suspension. The degree and type of flocculation varies for different yeast.

Some strains clump into very large flocculate. Some flocculate very little

giving a more granular consistency. Most yeast strains clump and flocculate to a

moderate degree. Flocculation simply refers to how well the yeast stick to one

another. A yeast that is more flocculant will fall out of suspension better, but

since it will be in the bottle at least a week before you drink it, it really

doesn't matter so much for clarity. How it does matter is that if the yeast

settle out too quickly, they may leave some chemical reactions unfinished.

Mostly these strains: 1) May not be as attenuative because of shorter contact

time with the sugars, 2) May not finish reducing all the diacetyls, leaving a

butterscotch flavor.

pH RANGES

   Typical pH range for yeast fermentations begins at about 5.1 and optimally

4.8. The pH of wort is usually about 5, depending on the starting pH of the

water and the grains or extracts used. During the course of fermentation the pH

reduces to typically 3.9- 4.1 and as low as 3.1 in some wines. pH may be checked

using pH paper test strips, which are available at many homebrew shops.

Typically there is little need to adjust the pH.

ALCOHOL TOLERANCES

   The alcohol tolerance for most brewing yeast is as least to 8%. Barley wines

to 12% can be produced by most ale strains. Pitching rates need to be increased

proportionally to higher gravities. Alternately, Champagne and Wine yeast can be

used for high gravities sometimes reaching alcohols to 18%. To get the

characteristics of particular beer yeast strains in Barley Wines or Imperial

Stouts, some brewers start with the desired beer strain, brew to 5-8%, and

finish with a champagne or wine yeast.

SMELLS AND TASTES

   Although the principle tastes present in a beer are the result of the malts

and hops used, the strain of yeast used can also add important flavors, good

and/or bad. Yeast that add little in the way of extra flavors are usually

described as having a "clean" taste. These yeast are especially useful for

beginners because they permit experimentation with different ingredients without

worrying about yeast influence. Yeast produce three main classes of metabolic

by-products that affect beer taste: phenols, esters, and diacetyl. Phenols can

give a "spicy" or "clove-like" taste, but can also result in mediciny tastes,

especially if they react with chlorine in the water to make chlorophenols.

Esters can lend a "fruity" taste to beer. Diacetyls can give beer a

"butterscotch" or sometimes a "woody" taste. The desirability of any one of

these components depends largely on the style of beer being brewed. In addition,

there are certain by-products in these families that are more noxious than the

others. A lot depends on the individual palette and the effect you<O~>re aiming

for.

   A final note: some yeast, especially lager yeast during lagering, can produce

a "rotten egg" smell. This is the result of hydrogen sulfite production.

Although the scent of this bubbling out of the air-lock is enough to make the

strongest homebrewmeister blanch, fear not! The good news is that this will

usually pass, leaving the beer unaffected. Relax, etc.

OBTAINING CULTURES AND MISCELLANY

   Most of the dry strains are available by mail-order or at your local homebrew

store.  Wyeast are also widely available (by which I mean, of course, that *my*

local store carries a wide selection). The BrewTek strains and the Yeast Culture

Kit strains are significantly less available, so the company contact numbers are

included as a public service.

BrewTek: (800) 8BRE-WTE

Yeast Culture Kit Company: (800) 742-2110.

------------------------------


septic systems and bleach and yeast

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 06:03:58 -0700

From: ksegal%spf.dnet@gpo.nsc.com (KEN SEGAL EXT. 8920)

Subject: septic systems and bleach and yeast

In reply to the query on bleach doing in your septic system.

A good rule of thumb is no more than 1gal of bleach/month per 1000gal

septic tank.

As far as yeast goes...yeast eats starches which only amount to 7%-8%

of the solid matter in your tank.  Bon apetit.

------------------------------


NOEL@????.hp.com

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 08:58:25 -0500

From: zentner@ecn.purdue.edu (Mike Zentner)

Subject: NOEL@????.hp.com

I tried to reply to your message sending you wort chiller plans,

but your address is wrong.  Please send me your address again if

you still want the plans.

Mike Zentner

------------------------------


Whats Weihenstephan??!

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 10:08:46 -0500 (EDT)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Whats Weihenstephan??!

IN the last digest, Jack asks, Whats Weihenstephan??

Heres German brewing lesson #101:

Weihenstephan is the oldest continuosly operating brewing center

in the world.  It is located north of Munich, in the fabulous

town of Friesing.  Weihenstephan has two breweries, a state run

"industrial" brewery that makes some so so beers, and the small

school brewery that is affiliated with the extremely anal and

respected Weihenstephan brewing school/institute.  They operate

a yeast bank which is the source for many of the most popular

strains of lager and weizen yeasts (Weih 66, and 34/70 for ex).

A single strain of yeast on a cotton ball (dry!) costs about

$200!  Think about that next time you buy the same yeast for

$2-3 from a yeast culture supplier.  Weihenstephan is an extermely

respected and difficult school to be accepted into.  You must

speak fluent German to enter, and a difficult test (oral &

written) is given. As if this isnt enough, you must be an

experienced brewer to atttend.  Often this means you do duty

as a grunt worker in a brewry cleaning tanks to get the

"experience" required.  I believe you also need to do this

aprenticeship under a Diplom Braumeister ( a graduate of

Weihenstephan).   Usually , Diplom Braumeister's never actually

brew after graduation, they often are employed as heads of the

QC division of Bud or Miller.  In germany, they are also fond

of opening hausBraueries (brew pubs).  A very anal & difficult

school.  Dr. Narziss has been the professor/god for quite some

time and authored excellent papers on things such as rapid

high temperature fermentation anad aging of lager beers,

"the Narziss" method of quick lagering as mentioned by Dr.

Fix in BT issue #2.

BTW, Jack, nice Maltmill!  It did get a bit pricy since I

needed the upgraded gear and spacing option, but I now have

it motorized with a 10" pulley on the mill and a 3" pulley

on the motor.  After mounting the mill on an extension of my

workbench, I just pop the trash can under the mill, and

start pouring 65 pounds of grain through the thing.  Now if

I can just engineer a ceiling mounted grain hopper, I'll be

all set (with auger feed of course :-)!!

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Labels and whining (mine)

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 07:58:12 PDT

From: tima@wv.MENTORG.COM (Tim Anderson)

Subject: Labels and whining (mine)

The only labelling I have ever done is to write the batch number on the cap

with a felt pen.  I use a rather complex numbering algorithm:

Batch # = Previous Batch # plus 1

After much research I settled on "1" for my original batch number, Arabic

numerals and base 10.  For example, my latest has "24" written on each

cap, whereas the previous batch had "23".  It is important to use the same

number on each bottle in the same batch.  For easy reference, I keep a chart

on the wall near where I keep my brewing supplies, with a list of all the

numbers from "1" to "100".  At bottling time, I just have to look at the number

on the cap of a bottle from the previous batch, find a number on the chart that

looks the same, and use the next number in the list.  By the time I go to

write the number on that first cap, my adrenaline is really pumping.

I'd be happy to provide more details via email.

tim

ps  I think the Oregon Brewers Festival has gotten WAY too big.  The best

    thing about it was that Samuel (tm) Adams (tm) wasn't invited.

------------------------------


Mark at Lotus

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 09:57 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Mark at Lotus

Mark-- I lost your email and USmail addresses.  Please send again.

Sorry for the use of the bandwidth.

Al.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1214, 08/30/93

*************************************

-------


Wort Aeration

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 11:58:37 EST

From: jdecarlo@homebrew.mitre.org

Subject: Wort Aeration

While I think it is a good idea to do experiments, one of the hardest parts is

interpreting them.  I have personally come across situations where people were

using Wyeast cultures without making starters and observing 48 hour lag times.

While I normally advise making starters, I have twice helped people just

really aerate the wort and see lag times reduce to half a day or so.  So

clearly the amount of aeration of the wort can have an incredibly dramatic

effect on the time required for the onset of fermentation.

For the more gadget-oriented among our community, something like an airstone

can make the process much easier (I know people who have gravity-fed metal

pipes going from a stainless brewpot from a keg to a stainless fermenter, with

no exposure to air along the way--something like this works well for them).

For those of us with minimal equipment, it is obvious that there are easier

ways to aerate the wort, at least to a sufficient level.

But there are so many variables involved.  For instance, if you are making a

barley wine using an ale yeast and want to ensure sufficient oxygen available

to the yeast you might just shake up the fermenter every day for a week or so.

Or you might find it easier to have some sort of pump do the work for you.

Unfortunately, some people tend to either overenthusiastically adopt or reject

new approaches, which can make it more difficult for others to determine the

usefulness for themselves.

IMHO, the bottom line is that most everyone I have brewed with, including

myself, often underpitches the yeast and underoxygenates the wort.  But

whether you sit down and shake up the fermenter or use a small metal tube with

holes drilled in it or a faucet aerator or an airstone with pump probably

depends on your environment more than anything else.

John DeCarlo, MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA--My views are my own

Fidonet:  1:109/131  Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


doppelbock and fruit beers

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 09:21 PDT

From: hbaum@uts.amdahl.com (Michael Hohnbaum)

Subject: doppelbock and fruit beers

Fermentating way in the "lagering chamber" is an OG 1085 doppelbock

(baumerator?)  Yeastlab Bavarian Lager is being used at 50 degrees F.

I am assuming this yeast is going to poop out with a reasonable amount

of sugars remaining due to the alcohol level.  If this is correct, then

how does one get carbonation when bottling a beer of this style?  Will

adding the typical priming sugar (1 cup dme) rejuvenate the yeast enough

to get some carbonation or are the yeast going to be killed off by the

alcohol level?  I won't be bottling this batch until October and don't want

to wait that long to find out if this will work or not.  Any advice would

be appreciated.

Fruit beers:  I've always ignored posts relating to fruit beers with the

attitude of why wreck perfectly good beer by adding fruit.  Well, my wife

and brother have convinced me to attempt a raspberry beer.  What I would

like to do is brew a large batch of wheat beer, then split off a few gallons

to experiment with fruit.  That way if I hate the fruit beer, at least I'll

have a batch of decent wheat beer for my efforts.  So now I'm looking for

advice on adding raspberries to a wheat beer.  From what little I've read,

it appears that adding raspberries to the secondary is one method.  If so,

how much and how do I prepare them?  Also, do I need to adjust the hopping

of the beer when adding fruit?  If so, less boiling, less finishing, or

what? Thanks in advance.

BTW: I am experimenting with raspberries due to a ready supply in the

backyard, fighting the hops for space.  Anyone in the south bay area want

to swap for some homegrown Cascades.  I've got about half a pound more than

I figure to use in the next year.  email me if interested.

                 Michael Hohnbaum  hbaum@uts.amdahl.com

amdahl has no opinions on this topic.  These ramblings are mine and mine alone.

------------------------------


Canadian U-brews

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 10:59:34 CDT

From: Mark S. Hart <hart@hvhp1.mdc.com>

Subject: Canadian U-brews

Full-Name: Mark S. Hart

Salutations,

About 1 1/2 weeks ago I read this article in The Wall Street Journal by

Larry M. Greenberg.  The following is a condensation of that article.

I left out a lot of the quotes from patrons, the explanation of the brewing

process, etc. for brevity.

"It's another night at the U-brew.  What laundromats are to clothes, Canada's

U-brews are to the thirsty and heavily taxed.  Here, for about 90 Canadian

dollars, would-be brewmasters legally can whip up a 13 gallon batch of

potent suds.

In place of commercial breweries' big buildings, elaborate plumbing and

computerized chillers, U-brews offer storefront or warehouse space, huge

metal pots, plastic tubs, lots of well used bottles, recipes and some

know how.

Low tech perhaps, but low cost, too.  U-brews sidestep federal beer taxes

and most provencial taxes.  In a land where levies are huge (a six-pack of

domestic brew goes for the euquivalent of US $5.35) dodging the taxman is a

heady incentive for beer quaffers.

The first U-brew, started six years ago, in London, Ontario, with the idea

that beer lovers would be happy to rent equipment, make a mess away from

home and save money.

A culture has grown at the U-brews, where friends gather, usually on week-

nights.  Most budding brewers say they start because of the savings - then

enjoy the camaraderie.

There's something of a party atmoshpere at the U-brews as friends get

togethor to batch up some brew.  However, It's illegal to drink beer at a

U-brew, a law perhaps honored as much in the breach as in the observance.

Employees at the U-brew will filter and carbonate the beer for customers

before patrons return to cap it on the shops bottling machine.  Some U-brews

even have a microscope to analyze yeast.  Some places are gussied up.  Many

are air-conditioned.  Polished wooden floors, copper cooking pots instead

of stainless steel, and even hanging plants are found in upscale establish-

ments.  Others are more rudimentary, with cracked concrete floors.

The phenomenon hasn't caught on in the U.S., where beer prices are far lower

although Canadian investors recently opened one in Los Angeles, hopin that

aficionados may want to make exotic ales."

Has anyone out there in HBD land ever visited one of these places.  It seems

like a good idea, kind of like HBD put in person.  It could really help

the people who don't have the space or want to purchase equipment.  I would

be interested to hear the reviews of anyone who has visited/tried a U-brew.

Thanks,

Mark.

------------------------------


RE: Brewcap

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 10:21:07 -0600 (CST)

From: John Mare <cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: RE: Brewcap

I too am puzzled by the brewcap (I have 2 but use them simply as carboy

caps). Why would one want to invert the carboy? To drain the sedimented

yeast and hop remnants perhaps? What prevents the weight of beer from

popping the cap off when the carboy is inverted? Any advice on use of this

item will be appreciated.

John M.

------------------------------


Liberty Hops, Pale Malt

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 10:25:43 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Liberty Hops, Pale Malt

Daniel McMahon writes:

>I was recently given a recipe for an "excellent Belgian Trippel",

>but my local homebrew supply store doesn't have all the exact

>ingredients called for.

>The two ingredients in question are: (1) Klages malt and

>(2) Liberty hops.

>Not finding any comparative reference to Klages or Liberty

>in Papazian's book, I've decided to substitute Pale malt

>and Willamette (5.3%) hops respectively.

Pale malt is fine.  In a recent conversation I had with

Mary Ann Grueber from Breiss Malting, she said that Klages

is virtually non-existent these days and has been largely

replaced with Harrington, but there is not any discernable

difference in brewing qualities.  Klages and Harrington

are both pale malts, BTW, so you most likely got Harrington.

Liberty, OTOH, is nothing at all like Willamette.  Liberty

was bred as a domestic replacement for Hallertau Mittelfruh

(virtual umlaut over the u), the classic "noble" aroma hop

from Germany.  If you can't find Liberty (or real German

Hallertau Mittelfruh or Hersbrucker), then good substitutes

are either Mt. Hood or a new hop just released called "Crystal"

Crystal used to be known in the trade as CFJ-Hallertau and like

Liberty and Mt. Hood were bred as Hallertauer replacements.

Also note the domestic "Hallertau" is not very close to the real

thing:  The three that I have mentioned are much, much better.

And of course the real thing (Hallertau) is still the best, but

more costly.

FYI, Willamette is very similar to Fuggles (from which it was

bred) but has a slightly more spicy note than Fuggles.  In general

you can interchange the two.

Mark

------------------------------


Cheap Corny Kegs

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 17:45:00 +0000

From: ron_hall%80@hp6400.desk.hp.com

Subject: Cheap Corny Kegs

I recently posted a request for info about a source of cheap kegs, and I

was swamped with mail asking me to share what I found out.  Well,

here it is.

   I got several responses suggesting DeFalco's of Houston, Texas.

They sell used pin-lock kegs for $15 ea, or 3 for $35, plus shipping.

I also got several responses saying that The Beverage Co. of Anderson,

California has used ball-lock kegs for $22 each or pin-lock kegs for

$17 each, and that several people had gotten these with no problems.

In both cases, the kegs come "as-is" from the soda distributor, still

have pressure in them and therefore are assumed air-tight, and also

have residual soda syrup in them.

   Well, I ordered 3 from DeFalco's, which cost me $35, + $15 shipping,

+ $6 for three new lid o-rings.  They arrived in about a week via UPS,

all shrink-wrapped together.  They were in good shape, no dents or dings,

but with some label scum and REEKING of Coke syrup. They all say "PROPERTY

OF THE COCA_COLA COMPANY", but I assume they were procured legally :).

I have rinsed them several times and replaced the o-rings, and the smell is

almost gone.  Hopefully it will not show up in my first kegged brew.

   I bought a regulator at Steinbart's in Portland for $39, and all the

connecting hardware for another $30.   I got a 5 lb. CO2 bottle at a local

welding supply shop for $65 (permanent lease) and $7.70 for the CO2.

The interesting part came when I took it home and hooked it up. The gas

bottle sputtered and coughed, lost pressure quickly, and smelled like

putrid, skunky beer.  I took it back to the welding shop, and they emptied

it and found a cup or two of skunky beer in it, and naturally said, "Gee,

I've never seen that happen before".  Apparently the the previous user had

run it dry, and beer had backstreamed into the gas bottle.  Lesson of the day

is: (1) don't run your bottle dry and leave it connected, and (2) have check

valves in your gas lines.  Got a new bottle and I'm ready to go.

     The number for DeFalco's is (713) 523-8154.  I don't have the number for

the Beverage Co. handy, but it's in the Celebrator Beer News classifieds.

Standard disclaimers apply.

Ron Hall

ron_hall@hp6400.desk.hp.com

Corvallis, Oregon

------------------------------


Dead Space

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 13:27 CDT

From: fjdobner@ihlpb.att.com

Subject: Dead Space

A simple question that I have regarding mash tun design.

If you use the single or multiple copper pipe manifold arrangement

for either a round or rectangular picninc cooler, don't you have a

lot of dead space (between and under the pipes)

for which a uniform mash temperature would not be possible

by stirring or otherwise?

Frank

ground tiger nut?........................ouch!

------------------------------


Re: Tun size/Klages/Liberty/Fridge Conversion

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 13:42 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Tun size/Klages/Liberty/Fridge Conversion

There have been a few questions regarding tun size and also a mention or

two about grain depth.  I've read (forget which book) that the ideal grain

depth is 12 to 18 inches.  Now, before everyone starts redesigning their

laeuter tuns, I'm willing to bet that the ideal grain bed depth is highly

dependent on the type of false bottom or slotted-pipe or easymasher pipe

that you have in the bottom.  In professional systems, there are debates

raging about whether round holes or slots are better and the cross-sectional

shape of the holes is debated also.  So, I'm just relaying what I've read

but if you record the depth of the grain bed on several batches of various

size (which is what I'll be doing from now on) perhaps we can get enough

data to make some general rules about grain depth versus efficiency, no?

********************

Daniel writes:

>The two ingredients in question are: (1) Klages malt and

>(2) Liberty hops.

>

>Not finding any comparative reference to Klages or Liberty

>in Papazian's book, I've decided to substitute Pale malt

>and Willamette (5.3%) hops respectively.

>

>What are the special characteristics of Klages malt?

>Ditto for Liberty hops.

Klages is a 2-row barley strain that *used* to be grown in the U.S.  It's

replacement is called Harrington.  Basically, what you wanted was a good

2-row Pale malt.  Liberty is a U.S.-grown variety that was selected because

it had qualities similar to Hallertauer Mittelfruh.  If you can't get

Liberty, Mt. Hood is a close cousin or you could use any number of German-,

U.S.- or British Columbian-grown Hallertauer hops.

************************

Kevin asks about fridge conversion:

>I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the product that is always

>recommended in this list!  "Air Temp"?  Manuf. and model # would be greatly

>appreciated.

Hunter AirStat (ask for a window air conditioner thermostat).

Al.

------------------------------


resend of yeast faq 1 of 8 (keeping my fingers crossed)

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 14:16:07 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: resend of yeast faq 1 of 8 (keeping my fingers crossed)

Sorry about the first post of this section: sometimes our mailer acts up!

   Hi to all fellow homebrewers. This is the updated, revised and expanded

version of my recent Yeast FAQ. Almost all of this data was plagiarized from

somewhere by me or others; however, I have not knowingly used any copyrighted

stuff. (I was very careful *not* to check anything for a copyright ;-).) I have

altered the focus of some documents to more accurately reflect what I feel to be

the interests of the *home*brewer. Some of the information is very basic; some,

more technical. I have tried to give a basic introduction to what yeast are, how

they affect beer taste, and the proper handling of yeast. Some portions of the

following were taken from the Wyeast information circular e-mailed to me by

David Adams; the sections pertaining to yeast culturing are adapted from an

upcoming book by Dr. Fix. Dr. Fix also provided the section on the proper method

of yeast rehydration. Most of the information on the "reputations" of the many

yeast strains was collected from the HBD over the years by Doug O'Brien. Many

thanks to David Adams, Dr. George Fix, and Doug O'Brien. I would also like to

thank Al Korzonas for his helpful suggestions on the characteristics of some

yeast strains and for his comments and help in clarifying the sections on

propagation and culturing. Thanks also to the many people who made small

suggestions or requests for clarification. My name is Patrick Weix, and I am a

graduate student in the Genetics and Development program at UT Southwestern at

Dallas <weix@swmed.edu>. I hope you find this document useful.

N.B. This document is composed of rampant hearsay and rumor. Any attempts to pin

anything on me or my co-conspirators will be resisted. If all else fails I will

call your boss and ask him why you are reading the HBD at work instead of

grinding out the Fitzsimmons contract. What do they pay you for anyway? Don't

you have anything better to do?...

============================================================================

INTRODUCTION

   Yeast are unicellular fungi. Most brewing yeast belong to the genus

Saccharomyces. Ale yeast are S. cerevisiae, and lager yeast are S. uvarum

(formerly carlsbergerensis). Another type of yeast you may hear mentioned,

usually in conjunction with weizens, is S. delbrueckii. You may ask, "If all

ale or lager yeast are the same species, why all the fuss?" The fuss is over

strain variation. All dogs are the same species, yet no one will ever mistake a

Basset Hound for a Doberman (at least not twice :-). Using different strains can

add fun and spice to brewing, especially if you have some idea of the

differences. I originally put together this guide to catalogue the different

affects of different strains. This information is in Section II. Section I

outlines the general characteristics of brewing yeast and tries to answer some

of the more frequently asked questions about yeast that seem to cycle onto the

HBD. Section III explains how the homebrewer can culture and maintain yeast

strains in the safety and comfort of his/her own home.

------------------------------


degree of extract

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 14:18:00 CST

From: Montgomery_John@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil

Subject: degree of extract

Hi all,

This is my second post to this digest and I meant to include in my first

posting a "Thank you all" for all the great information I've absorbed

while watching from the sidelines...."Thank you all". :)

That said, on to the matter at hand.

In the May/June issue of Brewing Techniques, "Spreadsheet for Recipe

Design" article, Mr. King shows a column in the spreadsheet labeled Deg

of Extract. Below this are numbers corresponding to various grains and

their respective extraction (rates?).

Eg:

                DEG OF

                EXTRACT

- --------------------------.....

PALE MALT         27

WHEAT             25

etc...            .

                  .

                  .

I checked my only two references (TCJoH,TCHoH) and didn't see anything

that indicated where these numbers came from. Is this something I need

to generate myself, ie. make 1 gallon batches with 1 pound of grain and

check the gravity? Or are the numbers listed fairly standard and for use

in calculations?

I always thought the degree of extraction was dependent on the quality

of grain, quality of crush, mashing efficiency, etc. and would vary.

Can someone please clarify this? Thanks.

jbm

<montgomery_john@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil>

------------------------------


yeast mailing/reproduction/flocculation

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 15:34:21 -0500

From: tmgierma@raphael.acpub.duke.edu (Todd Gierman)

Subject: yeast mailing/reproduction/flocculation

>Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 09:45:01 -0400 (EDT)

>From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

>Subject: Mailing Strains

>there is a cheaper alternative to agar slants for mailing strains, and it

>works just as well.  We routinely send out laboratory strains on filter

>paper. Basically, you just put a drop of culture on a ~1 cm square piece

>of filter paper (probably any absorbent paper would do) and wrap the

>square in a piece of sterile foil.  Then pop it into an envelope and send

>it off.  When it gets to the other side, they drop the paper on a rich

>media plate, incubate for a day or so, and the yeast grow up.

                                Dave Rose

                                Dept. of Cellular and Developmental Biology

                                Harvard U.

I guess this is a viable alternative commonly employed by researchers. It

is mentioned in a section on S.cervesiae research techniques, co-authored

by Richard Wobbe of Harvard Medical School, in Current Protocols in

Molecular Biology.  It looks like a pretty easy and inexpensive way to mail

strains, though as Dave points out, it has some drawbacks for the home

culturer.  As long as the recipient has the means to revive the strain, it

may be worth a try.  My only concern is that this procedure may select

against certain strains present in a multistrain culture.  This is a good

piece of information, though, and some people may be interested in trying

it out.

>Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 11:31 CDT

>From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

>I though fission was another name for budding which makes it equally

> incorrect as an explanation for flocculation.  The other reproductive process

> encountered in yeast (but not beer yeast) involves sporulation and sexual

> reproduction.

We're talking two forms of reproduction here: asexual, achieved by means of

either fission or budding and sexual, involving a mating, of sorts,

resulting in an exchange of genetic material and the subsequent

reassortment of this genetic material to produce spores (more or less).

Fission and budding are two different means of achieving the same end:

production of two genetically identical cells, where previously there was

only one.  I can't give you the mechanics of this at the moment, but both

processes are distinct from one another.  Forgive the use of taxonomy, but

Sacchromyces bud, whereas, for example, Schizosacchromyces undergo fission.

 Neither is an explanation of flocculation.  To my understanding, the

ability to flocculate is incumbent upon the ability to reassociate (or

aggregate) once growth begins to slow.  Perhaps Dave Rose can explain this

more thoroughly.  Whether beer yeasts can sporulate...well your guess is as

good as mine:  some lab strains of S. cervesiae can.

Todd Gierman

Dept. of Microbiology

Duke University Medical Center

------------------------------


EXTRACTF

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 13:21:50 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: EXTRACTF

For those who have or are about to contacted me about EXTRACTF, I am trying to

post it to sierra.stanford.edu, but getting permission to do so is not a

trivial task to the uninitiated.  If you can put the appropriate person(s)

in touch with me I'd appreciate it.  Thanks for the interest.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Announcing MASHOUT '93

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 15:12:00 EST

From: "/R=FDACB/R=A1/U=RIDGELY/O=HFM-400/TN=FTS 402-1521/FFN=Bill Ridgely/"@mr.cber.fda.gov

Subject: Announcing MASHOUT '93

  ANNOUNCING ... MASHOUT '93

  The Mid-Atlantic States Homebrewers

      *   *        *      *

  6th Annual Campout - To Be Held

      September 10-12, 1993

  in Rocky Gap (near Cumberland), MD

  Fun for the Whole Family! - Including:

  - Saturday dinner & Sunday breakfast,

    courtesy of the BURP Homebrew Club

  - Vienna/Oktoberfest Beer Competition

  - Water sports at Rocky Gap Lake

  - Hiking, biking, carousing, game playing,

    finger pointing, eating, drinking, etc

  - Lots of FREE BEER! (Donations of homebrew are

    most welcome)

  Directions: From Washington, DC, head west on I-270/I-70.

  Just past Hancock, MD, bear left onto I-68 toward Cumberland.

  Go past the town of Flintstone, up & over Martin Mountain.

  Watch for signs for Rocky Gap Park and the Pleasant Valley/

  Rocky Gap interchange. Rocky Gap Lake will be on the right.

  At the interchange, go left over the bridge all the way to the

  end (not far) and turn left - this should be the 2nd road. Head

  back up the mountain and turn right at the 1st road, Breakneck

  Road. Follow Breakneck until you're just past the mountaintop.

  Turn right at the 2nd driveway past the mountaintop. A sign will

  be posted to help you identify it. The camping area is right on

  top of the mountain at the end of the driveway.

  What to Bring: Food (for meals not provided by BURP), water

  (there is none on the mountain top), homebrew, camping gear, musical

  instruments, swimwear, bicycles, flying toys, all the other usual

  stuff you'll need for a weekend of camping.

  For further info, please e-mail to the address below. BURP would

  appreciate a response from those interested so we can determine how

  much food to buy (We promise a Special Treat for Saturday dinner).

  See y'all there!                                               Bill

  Bill Ridgely (Brewer, Patriot, Bicyclist)                  __o

  ridgely@a1.cber.fda.gov                                   -/<,

  ridgely@cber.cber.fda.gov                              ...O/ O...

------------------------------


pronunciation of trub

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 16:17:24 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@beethoven.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: pronunciation of trub

In hbd 1210 Al Korz etc. lists the pronunciation of many brewing terms.

I for one have never liked the pronunciation troob for trub.  It is

such a fruity word.  Thankfully, it is also incorrect.  While Websters

unabridged dictionary lists the pronunciation as troob or the rugged

trub, both are incorrect if one uses the German pronunciation.  There

is still doubt as Websters gave two spellings, trub and trueb as

the German speelling for the word meaning dirt or haze or whatever.

These would be pronounced approximately troop and trip.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 14:31:12 PDT

From: MRS1%CRPTech%DCPP@cts27.comp.pge.com

Subject:

list

------------------------------


Nigerian Guinness

Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1993 19:17:21 -0400 (EDT)

From: waltman@BIX.com

Subject: Nigerian Guinness

FYI, from the August 21, 1993 issue of The Economist (in a survey of

Nigeria):

"Guinness, for example, has developed a stout brewed from malt extracted

from millet and sorghum, because of the [Nigerian] government's import ban

on barley malt. It looks the same, tastes different, and has been a smash,

helping make Nigeria Guinness's third-biggest market, after Ireland and

Britain."

I guess necessity is the mother of invention. Anybody ever tasted Nigerian

Guiness or brewed with millet malt? Inquiring minds want to know!

Fred Waltman

Marina del Rey, CA

waltman@bix.com

------------------------------


green chile beer again (notes on Coopersmith's "Sigda's")

Date: 28 Aug 93 20:56:24 MDT (Sat)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: green chile beer again (notes on Coopersmith's "Sigda's")

A late addition to the chile-in-beer discussion, but I got some recipe-

like info.  A couple of folks had already mentioned Coopersmith's in Ft

Collins, CO, which makes "Sigda's Green Chili [sic] Beer".

I think Sigda's is an excellent beer.  The chile and beer flavors blend

nicely.  It's got just the right amount of bite--not enough to hurt, nor to

make it the sole province of chile aficionados, but definitely enough to

leave no doubt that it's a chile beer.  More importantly, it's got a real

character of the chiles.  Compared to Cave Creek, I'd take this any day.

The basic recipe is a pale ale, only light malt (no crystal, etc.), and

lightly hopped.  Ummm, lessee...they're using English malts.  Mash is a

single infusion; don't remember temperatures.

During fermentation, they add chopped green chiles of the sort folks

commonly call "Anaheim".  (They get them frozen in bulk.)  They use 20 lb

"mild" and 30 lb "hot" in an 8 bbl batch.  Keep in mind that the "mild" and

"hot" here are relative to Anaheims, which are all down toward the mild end

of the scale.  The chiles are in hop bags in the fermenter.  Anyway, that's

just for the fermentation...when they transfer to the aging/serving tank,

they remove the Anaheims and add 2 lb of chopped serranos for the aging

period.  This beer is served in-house only, directly from the aging tanks.

That is, none of it is bottled, although you can buy it by the jug to take

home.  It's rather cloudy; they don't make much of an attempt to clarify

it.  (They fine, but don't filter, their beers.)

Just for perspective--since the 8 bbl batch size is a bit awkward for home

brewing:-):  It's about equivalent to a pound of Anaheims and somewhat over

half an ounce of serranos for a five-gallon batch.  (Remember, the weights

refer to prepared [peeled/seeded] chiles.)

It would be interesting to see whether a beer like Sigda's could be bottled

and kept for a while.  I have my doubts; I suspect that the chile taste

would fade or mutate somehow.  I'd also guess that if it could be success-

fully fined or filtered, you'd lose a lot of the character.

[and while I'm at it, a plug: If you have occasion to pass through Ft

Collins, Coopersmith's is well worth a visit.  In addition to the chile

beer (which seems to be regularly available) they'll have half a dozen

others on tap, including some unusual ones:  I caught the tail end of their

raspberry ale today.  There was a blueberry wheat beer in a fermenter so I

suspect that will be available in another two or three weeks.  They'll

also give you a tour of the brewery by someone knowledgable if you're there

on a Saturday afternoon.

I hate to admit it...Ft Collins and Boulder are similar-size towns with four

breweries each, but Ft Collins brews easily win on variety and interest.]

  ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


molds on yeast plates: a solution

Date: Sun, 29 Aug 93 11:55:18 EDT

From: Pierre Jelenc <rcpj@panix.com>

Subject: molds on yeast plates: a solution

A while back, when I was away on vacation, there was a discussion of mold

contamination of yeast plate cultures. Since there hasn't been a definitive

solution yet (I'm not quite caught up though), let me suggest what we resort

to for the protection of plates that must be kept open for long period in our

lab:

>From 0.5 to 1% sodium propionate in the medium will suppress practically all

molds, without affecting the growth or viability of yeasts. The propionate

can be either added before autoclaving, in which case the medium will turn

cloudy, or as a sterile solution just before pouring the plates, in which

case the medium will stay clear. There is no growth difference in either

case.

While not reinheitgebotmaessig, propionate is FDA-(or USDA-?)approved to

prevent molds on foodstuffs.

Pierre

Pierre Jelenc

rcpj@panix.com

------------------------------


Malts for Vienna/Octoberfest/Marzen

Date: 29 Aug 93 14:25:45 EDT

From: Harry Covert <73232.167@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: Malts for Vienna/Octoberfest/Marzen

I just read George and Laurie Fix's book 'Marzen/Oktoberfest/Vienna' and I

recommend it to any other 'Fest beer fans out there.  In the recipes,

though, they call for "German Light Crystal Malt, German Dark Crystal

Malt and English (20 and 120 degree) Caramel Malt".  Our local club is

making a large buy of De Wolf-Cosyns Belgian Malts and am wondering how

their Cara-Vienne and Cara-Munich could substitute for the German light

and dark crystal.  Any other good and available malts that would make a

good substitution?  Also, how about using all Munich Malt as the base of

a 'Fest?  What hop(s) and how much are preferred for this style?  Any

other helpful comments on making a championship 'Fest?  TIA

------------------------------


Attn: James Syniura

Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1993 14:39:13 -0400 (EDT)

From: Michael Ligas <ligas@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>

Subject: Attn: James Syniura

Sorry to use hbd bandwidth for a personal mailing but this appears to be

my only mechanism to reach James.

James:

 I've sent you CABA information twice but it keeps getting bounced

back to me. Apparently your host is unreachable. Send me your snail-mail

address and I'll mail off some stuff to you. Take care.

    - Mike -

------------------------------


R. Morris rims artical.

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 93 12:32:16 MET DST

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: R. Morris rims artical.

Hello again brewers,

Without even waiting for an answer to my previous question about

brewcaps, I going to ask a second:

Does anyone out there have a copy of Rodney Morris' RIMS article

from the Maltose Falcon news letter? And if so, would they also

happen to have an "electronic" version they could send me?

I've read the rims summary from sierra.stanford.edu, but

unfortunately all the brewers who submitted their designs,

described the differences between their setups and Morris'.

Hence, I'm still in the dark as to the exact setup.

ALTERNATIVELY, is there a more internationally available source

of such a full description?

Happy brewing, Rob. Thomas.

------------------------------


Info on the "Brew Cap"

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 93 08:39:22 -0400

From: jsqr@sgi37.wwb.noaa.gov (John Janowiak)

Subject: Info on the "Brew Cap"

Regarding the "Brew Cap"

>From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

>Subject: BrewCaps (tm?): how and why?

>Hello all,

>Could someone enlighten me on the purpose and use of the brew cap?

>All I know (well, suspect) is that it is used on a carboy, which is

>then turned upside down.

>If this is a really obvious question please email me privately.

>By the way, I've never seen one either, so a description might be

>useful.

>Isn't the quest for knowledge a terrible thing!

>Rob Thomas.

The 2-3 advantages (perhaps there are more)  of this system are:

1.  Since the carboy is placed upside down, you can drain off

      the trub as it settles in the neck of the carboy.

2.  You can collect the spent yeast in the same manner.  Thus,

      you can proceed with secondary fermentation in the same

      carboy & avoid having to rack to another (avoiding possible

      contamination & oxidation).

3.  The collected yeast can be captured in a reasonably sanitary

      manner & repitched if you keep it clean & healthy.

The disadvantages that I'm aware of are:

1.  Forget lagers unless you have a walk-in refer - since the carboy

      must be  upside down, it must be mounted on a stand of

      some sort therefore the whole mess will be too tall to fit

      in a refer.

2.  SInce the cap is on the bottom, it seems difficult to dry hop

       or add finings (although I think the manufacturer gives some

       info on how to do this).

3.  Although small (probably) there is a risk that if the blow-off

       tubes get clogged, since the cap can't pop off, the carboy

       may burst.

                                      John Janowiak

------------------------------


Philadelphia brew-pubs

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 93 09:00:24 EDT

From: gorman@aol.com

Subject: Philadelphia brew-pubs

Hello,

I'd appreciate any comments on the beer and food in the Philadelphia

brew-pubs via private email.

TIA

Bill Gorman

America Online

------------------------------


Hordeum Vulgare

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 93 08:01 CDT

From: fjdobner@ihlpb.att.com

Subject: Hordeum Vulgare

Since I do not have access the judgenet yet, I have a comment on the

study guide that was issued and held on file in the archives

and called beerjudgeguide.

A small point but in the first section under grains, Hordeum Vulgare

is identified as 6-row barley. As I have researched under other material

(including Jackson's New World Guide...) Hordeum Vulgare is in fact

2 row barley. N'est pas?

Frank Dobner

decoction?...........ouch again!

------------------------------


the beauty of labels

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 15:13:15 +0200

From: "Nadi Findikli, Ericsson/GE RTP 919-990-7213"

Subject: the beauty of labels

visual presentation is a part of beer as it is of any other food. that is why

we all get so excited when we hit the right shade of amber or just a tint of

red, or whatever turns you on. labels are part of the presentation of beer.

so what if it takes a bit longer to prepare bottles, it is part of the process.

you'll feel better when you present a bottle that looks as nice as the beer in

it tastes.

on a technical note, if you have registration problems with labels prepared on

a word processor, use a drawing or publishing program. these pay much more

attention to dimensions than word processors, which tend to stretch things to

fit the text. publishers also make graphics, border text etc easier to manage.

i say don't be content with writing the name of your beer on the bottle. make

something worth the pain of cleaning labels off bottles.

 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

| Nadi Findikli                    ..            there is a pleasure sure |

| Ericsson/GE, RTP                                          in being mad, |

| findikli@egertp.ericsson.se     `--'         which none but madmen know |

| 919-990-7213                            Dryden, The Spanish Friar, II,i |

 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

------------------------------


Lagering Room

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 93 09:02 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Lagering Room

 Although I like my new "lagering room" (chest freezer/Airstat) a lot and I

 probably will never make ale again,  there was one problem that was bugging

 me.

 The 40F low end temp should be adequate for fermenting and serving beer but

 it just never seemed quite cold enough without using pre-chilled glasses.

 After doing a little judicious temp measuring, I learned that the air

 temperature varies from 5 to 10 degrees above the actual beer temp.  To

 determine your own delta, put a thermometer in a glass containing a pint or

 more of water and watch it for a few days.

 I dug up the article by Mike Kenny on modifying the Hunter for lower temps

 and decided to give it a try.  Upon opening the unit, I "discovered" a temp

 cal pot but found this had only about a two degree range and it was already

 in the middle of that.

 Mike explains how to calculate (Ohms Law) the exact resistance for any temp,

 along with adding a switch to disable the mod.  I took the Schmidling way and

 simply soldered a 150K resistor across the sensor lead terminals and got

 lucky.  When programmed for 40F, the temp in the pint of water is exactly 40F

 now.  The air temp is about 35F but I just ignore that and the beer temp is

 just the way I like it.

 It is a very simple mod and requires nothing more than removing two screws

 and soldering the resistor to very accessible terminals.  Getting it back

 together takes a little "feel" because the battery terminals have to be

 fitted back into their connector but anyone with a little more finesse than a

 gorilla should be able to do it.

 Thanks Mike.    (mkenny@bcm1g01.attmail.com   for details)

 js

------------------------------


Price of pico-brewing system

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 93 07:16:31 PDT

From: 30-Aug-1993 1013 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Price of pico-brewing system

>Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 10:46:34 EDT

>From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

>Subject: pico-Brewery

[...]

>* The price!

What is the price?  Also, what kind of square footage do you need to set

this system up?  Is it all stainless steel?

thanks

JC FERGUSON

------------------------------


campden tablets

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 93 10:24:09 EDT

From: rnapholz@PICA.ARMY.MIL

Subject: campden tablets

hello all

I just purchased some capmden tablet

the label read 16 tablets per quart

can this be right??

any suggestions

do i add these to the boil, primary or secondary

thanks rob

------------------------------


Form of Spices for Holiday Brews?

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 09:27:35 MDT

From: Kevin Schutz <kschutz@atmel.com>

Subject: Form of Spices for Holiday Brews?

Hello All!

With Fall just around the corner, thoughts have been turning toward brewing

up some holiday brews.  I wanted to check with all my fellow brewers to see

if anyone has had any experiences with choosing the appropriate forms of spices

to include in batches.  For example, is it better to use whole cloves or ground

cloves, anise seed or anise extract?  I'm interested in using most of the easily

available spices (Anise, Cardimon, Cinnamon, Clove, Ginger, & Nutmeg come

immediately to mind).

I'd also be interested in suggested amounts of various spices to start with.

I'll probably turn a quick 2.5 gal trial batch within the next week and then

move up to 5 gals.

Thanks in advance for your help!  If I get alot of responses, I'll catalog

the responses and post them.

Kevin Schutz

------------------------------


Brown Ale Bananas Foster recipe

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 11:03:34 -0600 (CST)

From: RBSWEENEY@memstvx1.memst.edu

Subject: Brown Ale Bananas Foster recipe

Here's an interesting little recipe I tried recently with pretty good results:

   Brown Ale Bananas Foster

3/4 lb British crystal malt - 20 Lovibond

6 lbs Pale 6-row

3 oz Southern Country New Orleans Bananas Foster mix*

1/4 lb Chocolate malt

1/2 cup Grandma's mild molasses

*- includes brown sugar, sugar, spice, natural and artificial flavoring:

(orange, lemon, banana, rum flavor, food starch modified and malto dextrin)

caramel color, silicon dioxide

1 oz Kent Goldings plugs (4.7% alpha) - 60 min in boil

1 oz Kent Goldings plugs (4.7% alpha) - 5 min in boil

2 tablespoons Irish Moss - 15 min in boil

Wyeast #1007 (German Ale) -  repitched 11 teaspoons slurry

Mashed all grains in 2.5 gal of 156 water for 90 min (w/ 1/2 tsp gypsum),

sparged with 4.5 gal of 170 water (w/ 1/2 tsp gypsum), added molasses and

Bananas Foster mix and boiled 75 min. (the brewpot smelled like rum and fruit

while it was boiling, something like a fruitcake).  Chilled wort with immersion

chiller for 10-15 min., racked to carboy and pitched yeast.  Left beer in

primary four days at around 70 degrees, then racked to secondary and added 1/2

oz of gelatin finings and kegged three days later using forced carbonation.

Original gravity - 1.042 (78.4% extraction efficiency; if yours is generally

different adjust the recipe accordingly)

Final gravity - 1.009

Alcohol: 3.4% by weight, 4.2% by volume

Color Units/Gal - 25.6 (using calculation described by Dave Miller in Brewing

the World's Great Beers)

I have made a few previous brown ales but this was absolutely the best.  My

experience with commercial brown ales is limited to Newcastle and I'm not one

of its biggest fans--no flavor to speak of, IMO.  This concoction on the other

hand has flavor to spare plus a unique and to my mind wonderful aroma, kind of

a caramel/toffee/rum combination.  Its great even at room temp.

As always, brewer beware, your taste may vary.

Bob Sweeney

Department of Management Information Systems

Memphis State University

------------------------------


GABF

Date: 30 Aug 93 08:06:26 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A@hq.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: GABF

Message Creation Date was at 30-AUG-1993 12:16:00

          Greetings,

               I'll be joining a few friends out in Denver this year

          to finally partake of the GABF.  (I just want to see what

          Jim Koch will offer for my vote for "People's Choice".)

          Since I've not spent any time in the Denver area, nor have I

          been to a GABF before I wish to ask a copule questions:

          1.   Do I need to buy my tickets to the Beer Festival in

          advance?  Do they ever sell out of tickets?

          2.   When I'm tired of the Beer Festival and want to go

          somewhere completely different (i.e. a pub), where should I

          go?  I've read the "On Tap" books for places in Denver as

          well as Ft. Collins, but those books quickly get out of

          date.  I look to the HBD world for guidance.

          Cheers,

          Andy A

------------------------------


aged honey

Date: 30 Aug 93 15:09:00 EST

From: "TIMOTHY LABERGE" <LABERGET@gar.union.edu>

Subject: aged honey

I was talking with a friend the other about mead; he told me that some

German bakers traditionally use honey that has been aged for periods of

at least a year.  The idea is that aged honey has a more intense flavor.

Is there any precedent for the use of aged honey in the making of mead

or mead ale?

Tim LaBerge

Union College

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1215, 08/31/93

*************************************

-------


FZ on beer -- just for fun.

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 23:20:34 CDT

From: "Bret D. Wortman" <wortman@centurylub.com>

Subject: FZ on beer -- just for fun.

    The following taken from "The Real Frank Zappa Book", by Frank Zappa

    with Peter Occhiogrosso, Poseidon Press, 1989. Emphasis removed in may

    places due to the inability to reproduce italics, boldface, and all

    caps all at once.  :-)

    The remainder is quoted from the book:

    I have a theory about beer:  Consumption of it leads to psudo-military

    behavior.  Think about it -- winos don't march.  Whiskey guys don't

    march either (sometimes they write poetry, which is often more

    horrible, though).

    Beer drinkers are into things that are sort of like marching -- like

    football.

    Maybe there's a chemical in beer that stimulates the [male] brain to do

    violence while moving in the same direction as other guys who smell

    like them [marching]--"We, as a group of MEN, will drink this refreshing

    liquid, after which we will get together and beat the snot out of that

    guy over there."

    Beer seems to produce behavioral results which are psycho-chemically

    different from those produced by other alcoholic beverages.

    Alcohol (the part that 'gets you drunk') is only one ingredient.  There

    are other things in beer, and those [herbal and/or biological]

    components could affect the [male] brain, creating this violent

    tendency.

    Go ahead and laugh.  One day you're going to read about some scientist

    discovering that hops, in conjunction with certain strains of 'yeast

    creatures,' has a mysterious effect on some newly discovered region of

    the brain, making people want to kill--but only in groups.  (With

    whiskey, you might want to murder your girlfriend--but beer makes you

    want to do it with your buddies watching.  It's a buddy beverage--for

    buddy activities.)

    Think about it:  "Who IS this 'Mr. Coors'?  What does HE do for a 'good

    time'--and why does a man who owns a beer company need a 'top-secret

    security clearance'?"  Did you see him during the Iran-contra hearings?

    He has a top-secret security clearance.  Do they guys at Anheuser-Busch

    have the same clearance?  And when you see a beer commercial, besides

    'the buddy pitch,' don't they also throw in a little jingoistic,

    bunting-encrusted, flag-waving hoopla,--the all-American beer syndrome?

    Every major industrialized nation has A BEER (you can't be a Real

    Country unless you have A BEER and an airline--it helps if you have

    some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very

    least you need A BEER).

    I think the mutant behaviors exhibited by people 'under the influence'

    should be studied more closely.  Gin drinkers, for example, are a breed

    apart.

    People choose an allegiance to a certain beverage.  Like bourbon

    guys--they're bourbon guys and that's it.  And scotch drinkers?  Forget

    it.  They don't want to know from 'pink gin.'

    In contrast to Mr. Beer Guy, picture a guy who is religiously devoted

    to Chateau Latour.  Is he marching?  He ain't marching.

+------------------------+------------------------------------------------

| Bret D. Wortman        | "Stomach hairballs are nature's little way of

| wortman@centurylub.com |  saying `Bad puddy cat!  Stop licking yourself!'"

| wortman@decus.org      |              --Berke Breathed, "Outland"

+------------------------+------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


mailing strains/flocculation/sporulation

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1993 10:08:46 -0400 (EDT)

From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

Subject: mailing strains/flocculation/sporulation

Hello:

 In response to a post regarding a simple method of preparing yeast

strains for mailing, Todd Gierman noted that it might not be a good way of

mailing multi-strain cultures, since one might be selecting against one of

the strains.  This is a good point, and I certainly wouldn't recommend

shipping mixed cultures on paper.  Using this method, the strain should be

struck for singles on the recieving end, and this would reduce a multi-strain

culture to only one of it's components, unless the colony morphology of

the various strains is very distinct, in which case each could be picked

for re-combination later.  I would think that the best way of maintaining

multi-strain cultures would be to isolate the individual component strains

and store those, where this is possible.  Any mixed culture is going to

change in terms of the relative prevalence of individual strains during

propogation, and if you don't have the individuals stored you run the risk

of losing one or another component.  By maintaining separate cultures and

then mixing them before each use, one should get more reproducible results.

 Todd also asked whether I knew anything about flocculation.  Not

much. Basically, though, the flocculation characteristics of a strain are

a function of the composition of the cell wall; some strains are "sticky",

some aren't.  "Stickiness" of a given strain can increase under certain

circumstances, most notably when cells mate, since the ability of cells to

stick to one another increases the probability that they will mate

successfully.  However, mating is just not something that happens with

brewing strains under normal circumstances.  Flocculence may also increase

as cells run out of nutrients, but I don't have any information to support

this idea.  I always figured that cells were kept in suspension by C02

evolution, and that they settle out when C02 production ceased; in other

words, the "stickiness" of the cells hasn't changed, but they settle

because they aren't getting kicked around any more.  But, again, I don't

have any data to support this view.

 Todd also mentions sporulation.  Yes, at least some brewing

strains are capable of sporulating.  However, sporulation requires

nutritional conditions (starvation for nitrogen and the presence of

acetate as a carbon source) that don't occur in wort.  So, the frequency

of sporulation in beer is around zero.

       Dave Rose.

------------------------------


Currency, Aeration

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 09:21 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Currency, Aeration

 As no one else seems to want to, I will take it upon myself to speak out on

 net protocol.

 The yeast FAQ is a noble effort but I think some self-restraint is in order

 regarding eating up big chunks of the Digest.

 I am not about to criticize anyone for what they post or how often but one

 must keep in mind the fact that what makes the Digest most useful is its near

 real-time currency.  Getting an answer to a question the very next day is a

 powerful reason for participating. When the Digest is flooded with very long

 articles that could be just as easily serialized, the currency is lost.

 Breaking long articles up into small pieces but sending them all out the same

 day only guarantees a bottleneck and deprives readers of the answers they are

 looking for.

 I would like to suggest that users voluntarily limit articles to 200 lines in

 any given day.  That is after all about 20% of a typical Digest and would

 still allow significant participation by others.  That thousand liner the

 other day was just a bit much and I suspect more are on the way.

 It is also obvious that much of the cleaning up of the FAQ could be done by

 email now that the experts have been identified.

 >From: jdecarlo@homebrew.mitre.org

 >Subject: Wort Aeration

 I hate to nit pick over your otherwise rational look at the discussion but I

 think your advice on shaking a fermenting carboy of barleywine every few days

 to aerate it is wishful thinking.  As there would be nothing but CO2 in the

 head space, no oxygenation could take place.

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >Subject: Re: Tun size/Klages/Liberty/Fridge Conversion

 >There have been a few questions regarding tun size and also a mention or

 two about grain depth.  I've read (forget which book) that the ideal grain

 depth is 12 to 18 inches.  Now, before everyone starts redesigning their

 laeuter tuns, I'm willing to bet that the ideal grain bed depth is highly

 dependent on the type of false bottom or slotted-pipe or easymasher pipe

 that you have in the bottom....

 Just to open the discussion, I get the same yields in my half liter pilot

 system as I do in my 10 gallon easymasher.  I recently made a 1 gallon

 version of the easymasher for slightly larger pilot batches and still get the

 same yield.  Grain depth varies from 1 inch to about 10 inches in the three

 systems and I can achieve yields in the 30's with all three.

 My guess is that there is an optimum grain depth for a given geometry of mash

 tuns of commercial sizes but in the small homebrew size, other factors become

 far more important.

 js

------------------------------


re: carbonating doppelbock

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 10:26:35 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: re: carbonating doppelbock

> Question about carbonating a doppelbock with 1.085 OG.

Your yeast may or may not poop out.  However, the best thing to do

is to krauesen by making up a half-gallon of new starter (1.040),

getting a vigorous fermentation going in it, and then pitching the

whole thing.  Of course, since this is a significant fraction of your

total wort volume, you want it to be a high quality wort, similar to

your original wort.

=S

------------------------------


frabjous day (Sept. 1st)

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 9:56:09 CDT

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: frabjous day (Sept. 1st)

kaloo kalay o frabjous day he chortled in his joy!!!

Sept 1st 1993 - Brew Pubs legal in Texas....Here in Austin, according to

the SouthWest Brewing News, there are plans for up to 8 to open between

now and December.  (Please correct or give me an update Joe!)  I plan to

do some in depth examinations of the local fare...any other Austinites

interested in forays into the unknown?  The field will hopefully thin

out sometime soon and we will be left with some quality brew pubs (or

they could all be great from the start - the eternal optimist!).

 Happy brewing Texas!

    Chris

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu |

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

------------------------------


Pico-Brewery

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 10:57:13 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Pico-Brewery

Ok, ok.  My mailbox is overflowing!  Before you flame, keep one thing

in mind: this is NOT an advertisement.  I'm just responding to your

requests.

For more info on the Pico-brewing setup(s), call 1-313-482-8565, and

they will happily send you a brochure.

The most common question was "what is the price?"  The answer is "it

depends".  If you buy a fully loaded 3-kettle system WITH a pump, it

will set you back a cool $900.  There are less expensive options.

Another common question: what's it made of?  The kettles are

constructed from legally obtained 15.5 gallon stainless steel kegs

that are no longer suitable as pressure vessels.  A fair amount of

machining, welding, etc. goes into making them suitable as a brewery.

How big is it?  Imagine three 15-gal kegs sitting side-by-side, about

a foot apart.  That's how much space you need.  It needs to be in a

place where you can run the 200KBTU propane burners, too (or 100KBTU

with natural gas).

=S

------------------------------


Maintenance of Re: Cheap Corny Kegs

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 09:28:30 -0700

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Maintenance of Re: Cheap Corny Kegs

  I recently started kegging my beer in pin lock kegs.  I learned a

couple of useful things.

1) Dissasemble the keg

  a) remove the pin connectors (a 13/16" socket with notches filed in

     the appropriate places makes a nifty pin lock maintenance tool)

  b) Press out the poppets with a nail punch or philips screwdriver.

  c) lift out the long and short downtubes (The short one may be

     stuck in the pin lock fitting)

2) Inspect all parts for cracks, scum, etc.

3) SCRUB out the kegs with TSP solution.  I use about a cup in 5

   gallons of warm water.

4) Rinse everything with clear water

5) Replace the large o-ring, and the two small o-rings.

6) Reassemble the keg

7) Sanitize with iodophor solution

8) Fill with beer :-)

9) Empty :-)))

         Drew Lynch

  Chronologic Simulation, Los Altos, Ca.

     (415)965-3312 x18

    drew@chronologic.com

------------------------------


lager yeasts, air, screens

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1993 12:55:49 -0500 (EDT)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: lager yeasts, air, screens

IN the last digest:

From: jdecarlo@homebrew.mitre.org

Subject: Wort Aeration wrote:

<But there are so many variables involved.  For instance, if you are making a

barley wine using an ale yeast and want to ensure sufficient oxygen available

to the yeast you might just shake up the fermenter every day for a week or so.

Or you might find it easier to have some sort of pump do the work for you.

If you do this, you will *rouse* the yeast which can help to keep the

fermentation going, but will in no way *add* oxygen to the fermentation.

It is a CO2 environment anyway.  Pumps will add oxygen but this inevitably

force the yeast to throw Diacetyl which I do not care for.  BTW, this is

how the Peter Austin Breweries (Wild Goose, Red Feather, Ringwood) actually

*promote* Diacetyl production in thier beers.

From: hbaum@uts.amdahl.com (Michael Hohnbaum)

Subject: doppelbock writes:

<Fermentating way in the "lagering chamber" is an OG 1085 doppelbock

(baumerator?)  Yeastlab Bavarian Lager is being used at 50 degrees F.

I am assuming this yeast is going to poop out with a reasonable amount

of sugars remaining due to the alcohol level.

Healthy lager yeasts *should* be able to ferment to at least 8% ABV.  If

you dont have luck, add krausen yeast (1 litre wort, plus yeast plus 12

hours or so).  Even if you get adequate attenuation, krausen yeast will

aid in bottle conditioning since the primary yeast may well be dead by

then.

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Tun size/Klages/Liberty/Fridge Conversion

<There have been a few questions regarding tun size and also a mention or

two about grain depth.  I've read (forget which book) that the ideal grain

depth is 12 to 18 inches.

I have had great success with this design , a shallow lauter tun.  It is

2 feet wide by two feet high, and is never more than half full even with

65 lbs of malt. I have mashed/lautered 90 lbs in it.

<In professional systems, there are debates

raging about whether round holes or slots are better and the cross-sectional

shape of the holes is debated also.

Not really debates, more a cost benefit issue.  V wire slotted bottom is

undoubtely the *best*, and most expensive.  It is an inverted V, big end

down.  I have found perforated sheet to be more than adequate, even with

weizens of 70% wheat malt (and decoction mashing).

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

DE HOPPEDUIVEL DRINKT MET ZWIER 'T GEZONDE BLOND HOPPEBIER!

------------------------------


Salvaging Flat Beer/Brown Ale Recipes

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 12:53:39 CST

From: "david p. atkins" <atkins@vms2.macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: Salvaging Flat Beer/Brown Ale Recipes

Hello all,

I have two cases of tasty yet discouragingly flat pale ale.  My second

 batch--extract with 1/2 lb. specialty grains, WYeast English Ale Yeast,

 OG 1.046, FG 1.006 and primed with 1 1/4 c. dried malt extract.

 I fear that the yeast was pooped out when bottled--had to keep the batch in

 the secondary carboy for several days longer than anticipated (the joys of

 breaking "inexpensive" cappers).  After 3 weeks, I have a touch of fiz but

 nothing to get excited about.

Any tips on resurrecting this batch?  Also if anyone would proffer some

extract brewing recipes/experiences concerning brewing brown ales in

general, with molasses for an Old Peculiar-esque ale in particular

Thanks,

David Atkins

atkins@macc.wisc.edu

------------------------------


Re: BrewCaps and the questions about...

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1993 16:30:22 -0400 (EDT)

From: Nate Clark <NC6967@conrad.appstate.edu>

Subject: Re: BrewCaps and the questions about...

Attn: John Mare and John Janowiak

I am currently making my second batch of ale using a Brewcap, and I find it

makes priming and bottling a whole lot easier.  To answer John Mare's questions:

As John Janowiak wrote, the trub can be drained off the bottom, after allowing

it to settle in a collection tube.  If you wait about 12-24 hours between

drainings, the collection tube is packed with yeast and no beer escapes.  I have

noticed an increased yeild of about 2-4 bottles per batch.  Not much?  Read

on...

The cap is held on by a re-closable plastic tie.  I have had no trouble with it

popping off.  The cap fits snuggly around my carboy without the tie.

As for making things easier, the Brewcap eliminated my least favorite part of

brewing- the racking and siphoning.  To prime, you place the boiled sugar (or

whatever you use to prime) on top of the inverted carboy and open the valve.

The priming sugar is sucked into the carboy.  My bottle filler fits nicely onto

the end of the collection tube and I don't (generally) spill any brew.  Cleaning

is fairly simple.  I recommend the brewcap, even to new brewers.  It is an

inexpensive way to do, shall we call it "two-stage brewing?" (1 glass carboy and

one Brewcap.)  The stand I made from two old pool chlorine buckets.

But do take into consideration John Janowiak's comments on lagers and hop cones

in the brewcap.  I use hop pellets and have had no trouble.

(There is undoubtedly a little bias in my answer, as BrewCo is located only a

few miles from my window.)

Nate Clark

------------------------------


Micro's in Boulder/Ft.Collins?

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 17:05:01 EDT

From: Eric Soshea <technet!eas@uunet.UU.NET>

Subject: Micro's in Boulder/Ft.Collins?

Any suggestions for Micro's in the Boulder/Ft.Collins area? Email replies

to eas@technet.macom.com    Thanks.

------------------------------


Barley Wine Recipe Request

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 16:40:15 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Barley Wine Recipe Request

I would like to brew a barley wine as this years holiday beer, and I don't

really have any place to start.  This will give me a chance to really check otu

the machismo of my new recycled water heater boiler unit.  I like Thomas Hardy

and Old Foghorn and others but I don't have any problems with brewing a

non-clone, either.  I would like to see something that has actually been brewed

and tasted, rather than a "I've never brewed one, but I'd do this:...".  Sooo,

any favorite barley wine/strong ale recipes out there?  Thanks...

norm

- --

Norm Pyle, Staff Engineer,        Head Brewer,

Storage Technology Corporation    Pyledriver Brewery, A Non-Profit Organization

2270 South 88th Street            1045 Pale Ale Place

Louisville, CO 80028-0211         Longmont, CO 80503-2323

(303) 673-8884                    npyle@n33.stortek.com

------------------------------


temperature control

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 21:56:30 CDT

From: hopduvel!john@linac.fnal.gov (John Isenhour)

Subject: temperature control

Someone asked recently about controlling refer's with an outside

thermostat.  While I got a hunter airstat a while ago, and its not

bad till that darn battery dies, I much prefer a White-Rodgers

Refrigeration Temperature Control.  Its a "hydraulic-action

temperature control readily applicable for all types of commercial

or industrial refrigeration applications".  I got it from a large

plumbing supply store for ~$25.00.  Its a nice unit with a long

capillary bulb and hi/lo ranges set on a dial.  The model of mine is

1609-101 style p-1.

ratings:

a.c. motor rating       120 V   240 V

locked rotor current     84 A      42 A

ampere rating            25 A      22 A

full load current        16 A       8 A

600 V.A.C. pilot duty - 125 volt amperes

I dont expect I'll burn this one out for a while:)

- --

John Isenhour

renaissance scientist and AHA/HWBTA National Beer Judge

home: john@hopduvel.chi.il.us

work: isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov

------------------------------


Beer Hunting in Phoenix

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1993 23:05:40 +22306512 (CDT)

From: afmccaul@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Tony McCauley)

Subject: Beer Hunting in Phoenix

    I have the good fortune of travelling to Phoenix soon.

    When I'm not at the office, I plan to do some beer hunting.  I'm looking

    for suggestions for good bars, brewpubs and package stores.

    Private mail responses are fine.  Send 'em to

        afmccaul@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu

    Thanks for the help.

                Tony  McCauley

 .

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1216, 09/01/93

*************************************

-------


Lager Fermentation Questions

Date: Wed, 1 Sep 93 08:56:22 EDT

From: "Michael K. Lebar" <lebar@ctron.ctron.com>

Subject: Lager Fermentation Questions

I'm currently brewing a lager that has an OG of 1.055.  I pitched Wyeast

#2112 Calofornia liquid lager yeast without making a starter so fermentation

took about 3 days to get going.  The carboy is in a temperature controlled

frig at 51 degress F.  The brew has been fermenting at a moderate rate for

11 days.  This is my first experience with a lager and I was hoping that

the members of the HBD could answer a couple of questions.  Is 11 days too

long (I'm used to ales finishing in 5 to 7 days), if not, what is normal?

When should I rack to the secondary and begin lagering?

Thanks in Advance,

kl

------------------------------


Peach Beer

Date: Wed, 01 Sep 93 09:40:28 EST

From: "Patrick Paul" <paulp@cc.ims.disa.mil>

Subject: Peach Beer

    Over the upcoming weekend I am planing to try and make a peach beer.

    My current design is to make a wheat ale using premier wheat extract (I

    have not make the leap to all grain yet, but soon).  After the initial

    ferment dies down (two to three days in this weather), I will pit, skin

    and dice or puree about twelve pounds of peaches,  freeze the resultant

    pulp overnight, defrost it the next day and then pitch it into the

    carboy with some pectinase.  then bottle with about a cup of malt

    extract when it calms down again.

    My questions are:

    1)  Any advice on hopping rates and types?

    2)  Should I rack it before I add the pulp?

    3)  Should I add the pectinase with the pulp or wait a day or two?

    4)  Is twelve pounds too much for a five gallon batch?

        (all the fruit beers that I have seen call for a lot of fruit)

    5)  Any thought on a good yeast for this?

    6)  Lambic brewers bake the hops first, would this help here?

    7)  I have seen no reference to a peach beer before, does everyone else

    know something that I don't?

    Thanks in advance for your help.

    Patrick S. Paul

    ***********************************************************************

    *            support  People  Eating  Tasty  Animals                  *

    ***********************************************************************

------------------------------


Making starters

Date: Wed, 1 Sep 93 09:39:06 edt

From: Greg_Habel@DGC.ceo.dg.com

Subject: Making starters

Message:

When pouring a small starter into a larger container with more

unfermented wort, should only the yeast from the bottom be

transferred or the entire contents from the first starter?

Thanks much.  Keep brewin.   Greg.

------------------------------


Barley Wine Recipe Request

Date: Wed, 1 Sep 93 11:02:52 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Barley Wine Recipe Request

Well, here's the first place barleywine recipe from the Michigan State

Fair competition.  It was brewed by Dave West, whose barleywine

philosophy is "Use enough ingredients for 7 cases, but only make 2".

It was a blond-gold color, with assertive hopping and a fairly dry

(for a barleywine) finish.  I think I gave it a 43 in the judging.

for 10 gallons

30# Briess 2-row

5# crystal

5# munich

mash all grains 60 min at 160F

90+min boil

4 oz Chinook (11%) 60+min

4 oz Kent Goldings (5.2%) 20 min

4 oz "    " 2 min

4 oz "    " dry hop

Wyeast 3036

O.G. 1.095

F.G. unknown

3 wks at 65F in glass

3 months at 34F in stainless

force carbonated

------------------------------


vienna/fest beer recipe suggestions

Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1993 10:04:22 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: vienna/fest beer recipe suggestions

In a recent HBD, someone raised a question on the use of

Belgian malts in the making of an Ocktoberfest beer.  Here

are some alternate grain bills.

The aim is to produce a beer of starting gravity around 1055,

and as your mileage may vary, you should adjust accordingly.

The color should be around 10 - 12 Lovibond.  For whatever

reason, many homebrewers and brewpubs make a fairly dark

amber Oktoberfest.  Keep in mind that Bass Ale at 10L is a

good color reference.

The following grain bill features Cara-Vienne:

9 pounds pilsner malt

1 pound cara-vienne (20L)

2 ounces Special B

Cara-vienne is a superb crystal malt, so the above grain bill

tries to feature it.  The Special B is in there for some added

coloring, and if you don't have any, then substitute a dark

crystal malt (120L).

George and Laurie Fix present a grain bill along the

following lines:

9 pounds pilsner malt

6 ounces german light crystal malt (10L)

6 ounces german dark crystal malt (60L)

6 ounces (German or British) crystal malt (120L)

At the time they wrote their book, they felt that good quality

pilsner and crystal malt were more readily available than was

good quality Munich malt.  Their recipes were tested in

competition.

Dewolf-Cosyns has a good Munich malt, so why not feature it

in a grain bill:

5 pounds pilsner malt

4 pounds munich malt

1 pound U.S. cara-pils

1/4 pound crystal malt 40L

I haven't tried an all-Munich recipe, but if I did, I'd use a

good quality Munich.  Also, 10 pounds of Munich would

produce a too-dark beer by the above guidelines, so if you're

concerned about the style parameters, consider a blend of

Munich and pale malt.

For hops, use Hallertauer, Tettnang, Saaz, and Styrian

Goldings separately or together.  Aim for bitterness of 22 - 25

IBUs, or roughly 5 - 6 HBUs.

For yeast, use a good liquid lager yeast, and ferment at lager

fermentation temperatures, say 48 - 50 degrees.  If you don't

have a lager fermentation setup, consider using Wyeast

"European" ale yeast as it will produce a malt-accented clean-

tasting ale if used at conventional ale fermentation

temperatures.

------------------------------


peracetic acid/venturi suction

Date: Wed, 01 Sep 1993 12:36:24 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: peracetic acid/venturi suction

I know the peracetic acid thing was flogged to death (or at least ill

health) a few months back.  At the time I paid little attention, due to the

price of H2O2.  However, I can now get my grubby paws on the stuff cheap.

The Lablaws/Superstore/President's Choice line now sells the stuff as a

more environmental bleach alternative.  It comes in 1 gallon jugs and sells

for about the same price as bleach.  I can get white vinegar cheap in large

volumes at Price Club.  So, my question is, can one make an effective

sterilizing agent by simply mixing the two?  And how does this stuff react

with kegs?  I am concerned about using iodophores since my wife is allergic

to iodine, and I would like something a little less cumbersome than boiling

water to sanitize my kegs.

 On  a completely separate note, I finally found a venturi suction

doo-hicky (well, I mean I bought one and didn't have to glom one from the

lab).  I've got it on a quick connect along with my chiller and bottle

washer.  The thing is great!  I run the hose from it to a two-hole bung,

the other hole holds a racking cane.  By creating a partial vacuum in the

carboy I can siphon into it without pre-filling the siphon hose, or without

sucking on it.  I can even transfer beer up hill!  No more lifting heavy

carboys up and down off the counter!  And the best part, the gadget cost me

all of a whopping $4.50 Canadian!  I picked it up at Gordon's Cave a Vin in

Montreal, for those remotely interested.

____________

Ed Hitchcock/Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology/Dalhousie University/Halifax NS

ech@ac.dal.ca   +-----------------------------------------+

  |   Never trust a statement that begins:  |

  |     "I'm not racist, but..."    |

  +-----------------------------------------+

 Diversity in all things.  Especially beer.

------------------------------


kegging systems

Date: Wed, 1 Sep 93 11:06:37 -0500

From: "Jeff M. Michalski, MD" <michalski_jm@rophys.wustl.edu>

Subject: kegging systems

 I am tired of bottles and I've only been homebrewing for 6 months.

 I am interested in purchasing a kegging system but don't know

 the first step to putting one together.  My local brewing supply

 store has a new system, but it is prohibitively expensive.  Any

 suggestions as to what types of equipment I should invest in?

 Are various systems user friendly enough to allow interchange

 of components (ie ball-lock, pin-lock)?  How does one use a

 kegging system to simplify the bottling  process for sediment

 free beer?

JEFF M. MICHALSKI

------------------------------


Kegs becoming overcarbonated with time

Date: Wed, 01 Sep 1993 09:29:52 -0700 (MST)

From: Cisco <FRANCISCO@osmo.ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: Kegs becoming overcarbonated with time

I have posted a few articles on calculating dispensing pressure with

different diameter/length tubing. If you drink 5 gallons of homebrew

within 2 weeks everything works fine. However, if you only drink a

pint of beer a day, like I do, your beer will eventually become

overcarbonated because the nice cold temperature at which you dispense

the beer also allows the beer to absorb more CO2 over time. My kegs, I

have two on tap all the time, sit for 4 to 6 weeks and could absorb

quite a bit of CO2. No amount of adjusting CO2 pressure will correct

this to pour properly. You could disconnect the CO2 and bleed off

some of it from the kegs and dispense but it's a real pain bleeding

off dissolved CO2 - it takes time and patience.

The solution to this problem is to get your CO2 cylinder filled with

Nitrogen/CO2 (30% / 70%) mixture. This is available at any fire

equipment store that fills tanks. By running this mixture your beer

will absorb CO2 alot slower. The only drawback is that Nitrogen is

a very light gas and if you have any possible leaks it will escape,

so check all your fittings with some soapy water when they're under

pressure. This gas mixture is used alot for dispensing beer by

most bars that have many different types of beers on tap.

Hope this is helpfull!!

May your beer give you great head!!

John

Francisco@lan.ccit.arizona.edu

------------------------------


Rootbeer question--how can I sweeten it up?

Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1993 12:13:56 -0400 (EDT)

From: Jeffrey Muday <mudayja@ac.wfunet.wfu.edu>

Subject: Rootbeer question--how can I sweeten it up?

I brewed my grandfather's rootbeer recipe, which uses a small amount of

yeast to impart bottle conditioning.  I added too much yeast and needless

to say started working and continued to ferment going on 3 weeks.  Originally,

the recipe called for imediate bottling, but I was afraid that I would be

making beer grenades.  So, now I'm stuck with a 4-5% alcohol dry rootbeer.

 This rootbeer doesn't have too bad a flavor, but I would like to impart

the expected sweetness of traditional root beer.  Is there any way I can add

more sugar without creating beer grenades? Are there any un-fermentable

sugars that I can safely add?

thanks for your help,

jeff (mudayja@ac.wfunet.wfu.edu)

------------------------------


Canadian U-Brew's

Date: 1 Sep 93 15:31:25 GMT

From: GANDE@slims.attmail.com

Subject: Canadian U-Brew's

In HBD1215, Mark Hart asks about anyone's experience with the

Canadian U-brew's. While I have never brewed beer for myself at one

of these places, I have tried the beer and would rate it as "American

Ale". That is, low hop and malt flavor and aroma and well carbonated.

Typical commercial brew, but then again that's what 90% of the

population drink anyway.

I've brewed for almost 6 years now, all grain, I culture yeast and

grow hops, brew once a week, so I considered myself "experienced".

What a cool idea it would be to get a job at one of these U-brew

places and spread the word about "quality" beer, I thought.  One day

at lunch I ventured over to the U-brew, 2 minutes from my office,

started talking to the proprietor and he hired me on the spot.  I am

now the evening and weekend brewmaster.  They pay me to help people

make beer.  Can it get any better?  (I feel like Tom Hanks in the

movie "Big" where he gets the job at the toy store evaluating

products)

The shop has 8 70 Liter gas fired copper kettles, glycol plate

chillers, 6 counterpressure bottlers, warm and cool fermenting rooms,

filtering rooms, etc, state of the art stuff. All brews are extract

based, with some recipies calling for grain steeps. We do wine too,

and I'm hoping to introduce Mead.

These U-brew places are popular, as the article Mark quoted states,

it's a good "guys night out", no one gets sloshed and drives and

everyone takes beer home. Every night is a brew-party and we quite

often make 300-400 liters of beer.

The U-brew setup is an entire system, start to end, sold by a

Canadian company (no advertising here), if anyone would like more

information, please email the address below and I would be glad to

supply it to you.

 ...GA

+----------------------------------+

| Internet: gande@slims.attmail.com|

| Glenn Anderson                   |

| Manager, Telecom. Facilities     |

| Sun Life of Canada               |

+----------------------------------+

------------------------------


Cornelius keg source?

Date: Wed, 01 Sep 1993 13:02:58 CST

From: "John L. Isenhour" <isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov>

Subject: Cornelius keg source?

I read in (tuesdays?) HBD a post from someone who found a good source for

cornelius kegs.  I saved the digest and also snipped that post into a seperate

file, planning on ordering.  This morning I came in to find a dead disk!  The

last image backup that made it does not have this info.  Could someone please

send me the sources?

tnx!

john

- --

John L. Isenhour                          internet: isenhour@lambic.fnal.gov

Library Systems, et al      NASA/NSF/ES/HEP decnet: lambic::isenhour

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory       bitnet: isenhour@fnlib

                                              home: john@hopduvel.chi.il.us

"When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt" - Henry Kaiser

------------------------------


Secondary Fermentation

Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1993 11:13:50 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Secondary Fermentation

I've had 4.5 gallons of beer in the secondary (glass) for 7 days

with 2 oz of hop pellets and 2 tbsp Polyclar in hot water.

Although fermentation had ceased (no bubbles in >= 5min) in the

primary, the secondary began producing bubbles almost immediately

at the rate of 4/min (after 7 days 2/min).  I've heard Polyclar

liberates dissolved CO2 (is this true?), so is what I am seeing just

that?

Some of the hops are floating, some laying on the bottom, but there

is a recycling going on, where hops are sinking from the top and rising

from the bottom continuously.  We're not talking churning here, but an

obvious low level of activity.

Also the beer does not seem to be clearing appreciably.  Usually by this

time there has been a clarity gradient in the carboy, clearest at top

fading to cloudier at the bottom.  Has something gone horribly wrong?  Or

I am just "worriedly pacing the waiting room"?

I had planned on a 7 day dry hop, but I expected clear beer too.  How

long shoud I wait for clarity, and how long can I dry hop?

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Briess Malt & Sparging Q's

Date: Wed, 1 Sep 93 12:58:45 MDT

From: scojam@scojam.Auto-trol.COM (Scott James.)

Subject: Briess Malt & Sparging Q's

Howdy brewers,

I have some questions about Briess malts:

1) Does the 2-row or 6-row need a protein rest?  I'm told the 6-row doesn't.

   when I bought the 6-row the guy told me it's highly modified.

2) Is the 6-row also known as Klages? is the 2-row?

   I've had different homebrew shop owners tell me "it's pale malt" or

   "it's klages"...I'm confused.

3) Is one of these considered lager malt?

4) Does "pale malt" imply malt to be used in pale ales or the Lovibond of

   the malt in question?

About Sparging:

1) My last beer used 2-row pale malt (above) and had a chill haze when I

   never had it with the 6-row malt beers.  Things I'm considering changing:

   * When heating and recirculating first runnings, don't heat first runnings.

     the first runnings have starch and husk particles (doesn't run clear).

     Currently, I've been heating _all_ runnings.  I typically heat 3 batches

     of 2 gallong runnings.  I've been getting 1.031/lb/gal from the 6-row.

   * acidify sparge water (1/2 tsp. acid blend to get pH=5.2)  sometimes

     I acidify the water, but many times forget. (like in the cloudy beer)

   * sparge water should be 165F, and not 170F or 180F like in the past.

     (but I usually never got the tannins, just very present malt character.)

   * maybe I should use finings (bentonite/polyclar)... I never had to

     in the past and hate to make things more complicated now.

Thanks for any ideas/opinions,

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Scott James    scojam@Auto-Trol.COM

Ham (N0LHX) -:- Guitarist               Auto-Trol Technology

HomeBrewer : Private Pilot (ASEL) Denver, Colorado USA

------------------------------


Nitrogen/CO2 mix

Date: Wed, 01 Sep 1993 12:32:27 -0700 (MST)

From: Cisco <FRANCISCO@osmo.ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: Nitrogen/CO2 mix

I forgot to mention in my earlier post that the Nitrogen/CO2 mixture

is known as a "Beer Mix" at most refill shops. So try asking for the

Beer Mix and see if they understand.

John

Francisco@lan.ccit.arizona.edu

------------------------------


Brewcaps

Date: Wed, 1 Sep 93 17:40:54 EDT

From: U-E68316-Scott Wisler <swisler@c0431.ae.ge.com>

Subject: Brewcaps

I'd like to thank John Janowiak and Nate Clark for their response

to brewcap questions.  I had a miserable bottling experience last friday

evening and was looking to change my process.  After reading both

postings (I've been behind reading the HBD), and pondering all though lunch,

I think this is for me.

>From what I now gather, the brewcap is a `system' and is different from

a carboy cap.  I have an orange carboy cap which has 2 `stems', one for

3/8" and the other for 1/4" (?), and fits snugly over the carboy head.

I currently use it for starting siphons by inserting my racking tube in

the 3/8" stem and pressurizing the other.  It would appear easy to

engineer the rest of the system from what I have read here.  I did

notice the use of inverted brewcaps in the Tumbleweed report but was too

busy at work to think or ask intelligent questions.

Now for a few questions:

I like the idea of primary, secondary, and bottling all in one

container.  It really cuts down on the possibility of oxygen contact in

the various steps.  (the fact that it appears to be less work doesn't

hurt either)  How well does it really work?  I have noticed that trub

and spend yeast pile up on the sides of the carboy (electrostatic

attraction?)  Can you actually drain off (almost) all the trub and spent

yeast and get really clean bottling?

How, exactly, do you dry hop without un-inverting it?

Sucking the priming sugar water in is a neat trick.  (I thought of using

a 1/16" tubing run up through the blowoff tube to do this. of course

you'd have to plug the main blowoff tube to get it to work) How well

does the priming sugar mix into the beer?  Any special techniques for

mixing them together?  Do you suck the unprimed beer ( that you drain to

suck up the primer) back into the carboy?

Do you use an airlock with this technique?  Would someone describe the

setup.  I suppose you could just put the blowoff cane in a bucket of water.

The stuck blowoff issue bothers me because I really don't want a glass

bomb going off in my basement.  Maybe Kinney Baughman at Tumbleweed

could pass on his experience?  I have never had a plugged blowoff tube

because I use a 1 1/4" vinyl tube press fit into the mouth of the carboy

ala Papazian.  The only thing I can think of is to use 3/8" SS tubing

instead of a 3/8" OD, 1/4" ID racking cane to give the blowoff tube more

internal area.

One additional advantage: Easy, no oxidation risk monitoring of final

gravity.

Thanks

Scott Wisler              (by the grace of God, still at)

                           GE Aircraft Engines

                           Cincinnati, OH

Monday, 30% of the engineers were laid off (again).

Question for the day: If we continue to do this (and it shows no signs

of stopping), how long until only one person is left to turn out the lights?

------------------------------


Air versus beer temperatures

Date: Wed, 1 Sep 93 17:20 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Air versus beer temperatures

Jack writes:

> After doing a little judicious temp measuring, I learned that the air

> temperature varies from 5 to 10 degrees above the actual beer temp.  To

> determine your own delta, put a thermometer in a glass containing a pint or

> more of water and watch it for a few days.

There's another factor in the temperature of fermenting beer versus the

ambient (air) temperature around the fermenter and that is that fermentation

is exothermic, meaning that it generates heat.  I think that this may have

been something I did not take into consideration when I brewed a very high

gravity Chimay-clone -- I think the ferment just got too hot.  Anyway, the

point that I wanted to make with this post is that if you have information

about microbrewery X fermenting beer Y at temperature Z, it's probably the

actual beer temperature they are quoting.  On the other hand, if it's a

homebrewer's recipe that says fermented 10 days at T degrees, then it's

probably the ambient temperature and NOT the actual temperature of the

fermenting beer.

So where does this lead us?  Well, perhaps we should make it a point to

specify what temperature we are measureing when we post a recipe, no?

i.e.:

OG 1078

FG 1013

Glass primary, 10 days @ 50F ambient

Glass 2ndary,  30 days @ 50F ambient

Glass 2ndary,  30 days @ 34F ambient

Another factor is wooden kitchen closet floor or cement basement floor!

Then again, having written this, I assume that perhaps the temperatures

listed in some batch lagering operations may actually be the ambient

temperatures, but jacketed fermenters are most certainly reporting the

fermenting beer temperature.

I seem to have posted more issues than answers, no?

Comments?

Al.

------------------------------


blowout tube

Date: 01 Sep 93 17:33:54 -0700

From: mbarre@nomvs.lsumc.edu

Subject: blowout tube

- --Interpart.Boundary.19930901173357810

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; x-DC370=header

Document name: MEMO 08/31/1993 18:19:17.599

      Subject: blowout tube

       Author: Barre, Michael

        Class: MEMO

Document type: MESSAGE

 Attached msg:

- --Interpart.Boundary.19930901173357810

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; x-DC370=body

Someone asked a week or two ago whether or not they needed to use a

blowoff tube on the primary.  Mr. Papazian on TNCJOHB p. 136 says

using a blowoff tube will result in beer with less "bite".  On p. 69

says that if you use pelletized hops and a blowoff tube, you must

filter out the hops with a stainless weave strainer.  And, I

remember reading that a blowout tube was suggested with pelletized

hops, but can't find it in the book now.

- --Interpart.Boundary.19930901173357810

------------------------------


BACK OFF JACK

Date: Wed, 01 Sep 1993 21:08:38 -0500 (CDT)

From: Dave Smucker <TWF99@ISUVAX.IASTATE.EDU>

Subject: BACK OFF JACK

RE: Jack's BLAST on FAQ yeast

While it would have been nicer to post the FAQ on yeast over 2

or 3 days and maybe during mid week when the HBD has been

running light lets not lose sight of the fact that this yeast

information has been some of the best data posted to the

digest.  It was a lot of work to compile this information and

it is very useful to many of us.  This data on yeast, IMHO,

made better use of this forum that your misinformation on

wort aeration.  You don't own this forum, none of us do, and it

is hopefully for the reasonable use of and by all of us.  Brew

more Blast less.

Dave Smucker,  Brewing Beer,  Not making Jelly!!

------------------------------


Trub, trueb

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 02:25:00 +0300

From: ari.jarmala@mpoli.fi (Ari Jarmala)

Subject: Trub, trueb

Ulick Stafford <ulick@beethoven.helios.nd.edu> comments on the

pronunciation of trub:

HO>is still doubt as Websters gave two spellings, trub and trueb as

HO>the German speelling for the word meaning dirt or haze or whatever.

HO>These would be pronounced approximately troop and trip.

Here, as usually, we see (hear?) the anglosaxons ignoring the

German umlauts. The word should actually read trub _with umlauted u_

(u with two dots above it). It can be translitterated with English

alphabet as trueb. The vovel ue in this case is also long.

The correct pronounciation is impossible for an english speaking

person, because in English there is no such vovel as ue. Ue is a

front vovel and it resembles e, but e is a back vovel. Start the

training...

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1217, 09/02/93

*************************************

-------


fermentation temp monitoring/cold room/bandwidth

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 04:32:40 CDT

From: hinz@picard.med.ge.com (David Hinz (hinz@picard.med.ge.com))

Subject: fermentation temp monitoring/cold room/bandwidth

>From hinz Thu Sep  2 04:24:25 1993

To: homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

Subject: fermentation temp monitoring/cold room/bandwidth

Content-Length: 1672

Al K. brings up a good point about keeping an eye on the temperature of

your beer as it ferments.  It's easy to brew someone's recipe, use the same

grains, and then come up with something totally different from what they did,

just because your fermentation temperature was different.

What I did is bought some temperature-sensitive LCD type thingies ('thingies'

is a technical term) that I stick to the side of my carboys, and this tells

me what the temp of the glass, and therefore the beer, is.  It is more

accurate than air temp for all the reasons stated (concrete or wood floor, air

circulation, etc. etc. etc.).  There are so many variables involved, it just

makes sense to monitor the actual product, rather than trying to predict the

temp from other factors.

I think Sheaf & Vine brewing supplies (They're on the net, great service &

prices, I don't work there, etc. etc. etc.) have these, they're a couple of

bucks a piece.

- -----------

I'm in the process of building "the cave", an insulated room in the bottom of

my barn.  Last winter, as an experiment, I put a bucket of water in that `

corner, and it only froze during the coldest week of last winter (below zero

for a week).

I haven't quite figured out how to regulate the temp, but it'll probably be

a temp probe stuck into a carboy full of water or something - that way I get

the most accurate reading, and can run either the A/C or heater from there.

Hopefully, it won't need much of either.

- -----------

About the bandwidth thing & the yeast FAQ.  Yes, the FAQ is fantastic.  I do

agree with the point, however, that it would have been easier on the bandwidth

to have posted one part per day.

------------------------------


trub, acid 'washing' etc

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 13:20:22 MET DST

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: trub, acid 'washing' etc

Hello all,

I'd just like to add my two cents worth here:

Firstly, the pronunciation of trueb for us anglosaxons. The

nearest sound to the ue in trueb is trying to say treeb while

keeping your lips in an o shape. At least if you speak nearly

Queens English: I have no idea what happens if  you start with

a Bronx accent!

If anyone has comments or flames about the above, could they

be constructive about them, AND email me privately. I'll

summarise if it's worth it.

On another matter, although it's a bit late for the yeast FAQ,

(which I also found excellent IMHO) I read in the handbook of

microbiology we have in our library that the predominant

method of "acid washing" yeast is not washing as such.

What they do is suspend the yeast in aqueous acid (sulphuric,

phosphoric or tartaric) at pH 2-2.6, 5-10 degC for 2-4 hours

and then add the WHOLE LOT to the wort. They say that the

limits of temperature and time must be strictly adhered to,

since some yeast deactivation occurs under these conditions.

As a reference point, the Aldrich chemicals catalogue says

that a 1 mol/dm3 aqueous solution of tartaric acid has a pH

of 1-2 at 20degC. (for Aldrich above read Fluka). This

acid is usually available as a powder in wine making shops.

A 1 molar solution is 150 g/l.

Finally, could everyone who wishes to flame people do so

directly to the person in question. If bandwidth is being

abused by posting informative but huge articles, them it is

certainly being abused by people publicly flaming the poster,

and also people publicly flaming the public flamer: especially

if they have nothing else to say. (OK, so my glass house is

falling around my ears!)

That'll do.

Happy brewing,

Rob. T.

------------------------------


Trub, trueb

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 08:24:16 EDT

From: pacasey@lexmark.com (Patrick Casey)

Subject: Trub, trueb

ari.jarmala@mpoli.fi (Ari Jarmala) writes:

  The correct pronounciation is impossible for an english speaking

  person, because in English there is no such vovel as ue. Ue is a

  front vovel and it resembles e, but e is a back vovel. Start the

  training...

So you're saying that an English speaking person can _NEVER_ learn to

pronounce the German ue sound?!?  I beg to differ.

 - Patrick

Patrick A. Casey      pacasey@lexmark.com

------------------------------


Re: Rootbeer question--how can I sweeten it up?

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 9:22:12 EDT

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Rootbeer question--how can I sweeten it up?

Lactose is not fermentable but does not add as much sweetness/lb as

sucrose which can make it a fairly expensive alternative.  The last time

I made root beer, I bottled it in old plastic soda bottles (2 l. PET).

I bottled immediately after pitching the yeast and put the bottles in

the fridge after a week or so.  Anyhow, we don't drink root beer that

quickly and it did get to be pretty dry, openning a bottle would send a

geyser of foam all over the sink but no bottles burst!  I have had

problems with glass bottles bursting when making root beer.

- --

Jim Grady              |"Root beer burps don't have to be said 'Excuse me'."

grady@hp-mpg.an.hp.com |                Robert Grady, age 4.75

------------------------------


Beer ball keg...

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 07:58:06 MDT

From: bacco@md.fsl.noaa.gov (Corby Bacco)

Subject: Beer ball keg...

Hello all,

     I remember some time ago someone posting something

about a kegging system (comercially avialable) made from

Coors beers balls.  One that didn't use CO2, but instead

used some sort of bladder inside the ball.  If anyone saved

the post (or the original poster is still out there) if

you could send the info it would be much appreciated.

   TIA,

      Corby

------------------------------


Clarity/CO2 activity in a dry-hopped beer

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1993 10:14:19 -0500 (CDT)

From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: Clarity/CO2 activity in a dry-hopped beer


Secondary Fermentation

Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1993 11:13:50 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Secondary Fermentation

> I've had 4.5 gallons of beer in the secondary (glass) for 7 days

> with 2 oz of hop pellets and 2 tbsp Polyclar in hot water.

>

> Although fermentation had ceased (no bubbles in >= 5min) in the

> primary, the secondary began producing bubbles almost immediately

> at the rate of 4/min (after 7 days 2/min).  I've heard Polyclar

> liberates dissolved CO2 (is this true?), so is what I am seeing just

> that?

>

> Some of the hops are floating, some laying on the bottom, but there

> is a recycling going on, where hops are sinking from the top and rising

> from the bottom continuously.  We're not talking churning here, but an

> obvious low level of activity.

>

> Also the beer does not seem to be clearing appreciably.  Usually by this

> time there has been a clarity gradient in the carboy, clearest at top

> fading to cloudier at the bottom.  Has something gone horribly wrong?  Or

> I am just "worriedly pacing the waiting room"?

>

> I had planned on a 7 day dry hop, but I expected clear beer too.  How

> long shoud I wait for clarity, and how long can I dry hop?

>

>

> Domenick Venezia

> ZymoGenetics, Inc.

> venezia@zgi.com

>

In response to Domenick's question regarding the use of Polyclar in a

dry-hopped beer:

Adding Polyclar will liberate fairly large quantities of CO2.  If the beer

was fermented at cooler temperatures, there will be more CO2 in solution and

you will experience more foaming.  Keep in mind that Polyclar is an adsorbant

that primarily attacks tannins.  The clarity problem you mentioned may due to

proteins or yeast in suspension.  Bentonite or silica gel work well for

precipitating proteins.  Isinglass finings should be used to precipitate

yeast, although time and patience will also work.

My experience with using pellets to dry hop beer is that some clarity will

be sacrificed and invariably, some of the fine hop powder is carried to the

bottle or keg unless filtration is employed.

This does not occur when dry hopping with flower hops; however, some hop

lupulin glands may survive the journey to your bottle or keg.

Rob Reed

Delco Electronics Corp.

rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com

------------------------------


GABF DD, etc.

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 9:13:41 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: GABF DD, etc.

I wanted to clear up some misinformation that is floating around netland about

the Great American Beer Festival.  I've just talked to Marsha Shermer of The

Shermer Group (don't know if the spelling is correct) who is involved in

marketing the GABF.  She can be reached at (303) 499-9646, which was listed as

Lori Tullberg's number on rec.crafts.brewing.  Lori markets for the Association

of Brewer's and that is not her number (it's Marsha's).  Anyway, the AAB

contracts out a lot of the work to independent companies such as Marsha's.

Now, what I originally was looking for:  Designated Driver information.  Marsha

told me that there is a DD option, sold only at the door.  The cost is $8 for a

DD (pretty steep IMHO for someone to walk around a bunch of drunks and then

drive some of them home!).  I believe the cost for Designated Drinkers is

$18.50 or so.  Oh, one more piece of misinformation to correct:  The GABF is at

Currigan Hall, 14th and Champa in Denver.  r.c.b had it in the Colorado

Convention Center.  Parking downtown is free after 6 pm.  See you at the Fest!

- --

Norm Pyle, Staff Engineer,        Head Brewer,

Storage Technology Corporation    Pyledriver Brewery, A Non-Profit Organization

2270 South 88th Street            1045 Pale Ale Place

Louisville, CO 80028-0211         Longmont, CO 80503-2323

(303) 673-8884                    npyle@n33.stortek.com

------------------------------


Kegging FAQ

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 08:22:26 PDT

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Kegging FAQ

I have become fairly proficient in the use of soda kegs for

fermenting, conditioning and dispensing beer.  In the process, I have

acquired quite a lot of info on the subject.  Also, I have noticed

that both in r.c.b. and HBD, quite a few people have been asking a lot

of kegging questions recently.  While I am not an *expert* on the

subject, I have a lot of info, and would be willing to be a collection

point for other info and to publish a FAQ on kegging.

Do people think this is a worthwhile topic for a FAQ?  If the

consensus says "yes", then I will later solicit for people to send me

info, post the FAQ and upload it to sierra.

dion

------------------------------


Liberty Brewing Company

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1993 13:07:51 -0400 (EDT)

From: roman@tix.timeplex.com (Daniel Roman)

Subject: Liberty Brewing Company

I'm not sure how many of you got a mailing offering investment

opportunities for the Libery Brewing Company which is to be located in

Hoboken, NJ, but I got one and I suspect it was because of my

AHA membership and possibly geographic location (near Hoboken).  A few

friends who'd love to open a brewpub figured this would be an

interesting alternative.  They've called the phone number a few times

and left messages on an answering machine asking for information and

have not received any response.  Does anyone know anything about the

legitimacy of this startup?  The brochure is filled with grand plans and

descriptions of how successful the brewpub concept is.

If anyone wants further details or has information please mail me

direct.

- --

Dan Roman  Internet: roman@tix.timeplex.com (prefered address) //

ccMail: roman_d@timeplex.com  GEnie: D.ROMAN1@genie.geis.com /X/ Only AMIGA!

------------------------------


Homebrew Digest #1217 (September 02, 1993)

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 09:25:57 PDT

From: JZABDER@BCSC02.GOV.BC.CA

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1217 (September 02, 1993)

To: HOMEBREW--INTERNET homebrew@hpfcmi.fc

*** Reply to note of 09/02/93 04:34

System Operations

Thanks for all the information and insight into homebrewing. Would you please

for now remove me from the distribution list as I will be away for some time

and my "A" disk is only so big.

Thanks again

G'day

------------------------------


Yeast FAQs, Bandwidth, et caet

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 09:17:05 -0700

From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard Childers)

Subject: Yeast FAQs, Bandwidth, et caet

"Date: Wed, 01 Sep 1993 21:08:38 -0500 (CDT)

 From: Dave Smucker <TWF99@ISUVAX.IASTATE.EDU>

 Subject: BACK OFF JACK

"While it would have been nicer to post the FAQ on yeast over 2

 or 3 days and maybe during mid week when the HBD has been

 running light lets not lose sight of the fact that this yeast

 information has been some of the best data posted to the

 digest."

Nobody is disparaging the quality of the FAQ. Jack said as much.

But the sucker's huge - eight parts !! - and has been posted and

reposted.

Perhaps instead of accruing every single posting on the topic of

yeasts and calling it a FAQ, one might attempt first to identify

what, exactly, are the Frequently Asked Questions with respect to

yeast ... and then address, exclusively, that smaller set of

concerns.

As it stands now, the Yeast FAQ came across as a book, not a FAQ.

"It was a lot of work to compile this information and

 it is very useful to many of us.  This data on yeast, IMHO,

 made better use of this forum that your misinformation on

 wort aeration. You don't own this forum, none of us do, and it

 is hopefully for the reasonable use of and by all of us.  Brew

 more Blast less."

Ahh, ahh ... no personal attacks, please. Jack's intelligent and

reasonably well-informed ( from a layperson's point of view )

speculations hardly qualify as "misinformation".

"Dave Smucker,  Brewing Beer,  Not making Jelly!!"

- -- richard

                Spontaneous human combustion really burns me up.

   richard childers                                         pascal@netcom.com

------------------------------


Gas and Jack (not all at once!)

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1993 10:53:36 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Gas and Jack (not all at once!)

> From: Cisco <FRANCISCO@osmo.ccit.arizona.edu>

> Subject: Kegs becoming overcarbonated with time

>

> I have posted a few articles on calculating dispensing pressure with

> different diameter/length tubing. If you drink 5 gallons of homebrew

> within 2 weeks everything works fine. However, if you only drink a

> pint of beer a day, like I do, your beer will eventually become

> overcarbonated because the nice cold temperature at which you dispense

> the beer also allows the beer to absorb more CO2 over time.

>

> The solution to this problem is to get your CO2 cylinder filled with

> Nitrogen/CO2 (30% / 70%) mixture.

An alternative solution, which is a teeny bit easier: TURN OFF THE GAS!

Over the last few months I've followed all this concern about tubing

lengths and dispensing pressures et al with an increasing amount of

amusement.  According to all this data, my system doesn't work - but

then it's easy to prove a bumblebee can't fly either.

So when the CO2 level is correct, turn off the gas.  When it begins to

fall off, give it a nudge with a little more gas and turn it off again.

The beer will not overcarbonate and your gas cylinder will probably last

longer.  And you can go back to worrying over whether your beer is any

good, or whether you should have left out the cherry bark in your last

pseudo-lambic.

> From: Dave Smucker <TWF99@ISUVAX.IASTATE.EDU>

> Subject: BACK OFF JACK

>

> RE: Jack's BLAST on FAQ yeast

>

Sorry, I'm with Jack, although I seem to recall being blasted by him a

year or so ago when I suggested something he'd done (an offer for a free

MaltMill) had ruined the day-to-day utility of the HBD.  Or maybe that

was a different Jack Schmidling?

I think that great big files -- even really interesting and useful ones,

are better off being summarized and then made available through FTP and

some other source, then posted directly to the Digest.

<<Omigod, is Frane agreeing with Schmidling?  Head for the shelters!!>>

- --Jeff

------------------------------


FAQs

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 13:15:47 PDT

From: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards)

Subject: FAQs

Jack Schmidling writes (in HBD #1216):

| As no one else seems to want to, I will take it upon myself to speak out on

| net protocol.

|

| The yeast FAQ is a noble effort but I think some self-restraint is in order

| regarding eating up big chunks of the Digest.

Are you an expert on net protocol?  How many newsgroups/digests have you

read where FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions) are discouraged?  In all

the ones I've read, they are encouraged--and for the very reason you give

to the contrary:  space.  In the long run, it saves space if there's a

definitive place to look for info a given subject.  It saves repeated

questions; and it saves repeated answers, especially if the FAQ ends up

in an archive somewhere.  Then, if someone has a question about yeast,

someone else would just send him email saying "Here's how to download

the yeast FAQ".

If it takes a couple of passes to get the information corrected, then so

be it--it is only a one-time deal.  Once the FAQ is complete, it needn't

be posted again; or it could be reposted at long intervals.

| I am not about to criticize anyone for what they post or how often

I am.  What do you think you just did?

I think FAQs are a MUCH better use of space than, say, someone defending

EVERY SINGLE position he's ever taken (right or wrong) with long, drawn

out, and often-repeated arguments.

| but one must keep in mind the fact that what makes the Digest most

| useful is its near real-time currency.  Getting an answer to a question

| the very next day is a powerful reason for participating.  When the

| Digest is flooded with very long articles that could be just as easily

| serialized, the currency is lost.

I, for one, can handle a delay in even a whole day's digest, if it means

I get a very good source of information such as the yeast FAQ.  Take it

easy--it's only a one-time deal (OK two, if you want to be picky and

count the corrected version).

If you look at the dates (and I did), the yeast FAQ only delayed response

by ONE day.  There were articles that were sent on Friday 8-13 that

would've been published in the following Monday's digest (the one with

the FAQ in it), but were delayed until Tuesday.  Big deal.

| I would like to suggest that users voluntarily limit articles to 200

| lines in any given day.  That is after all about 20% of a typical Digest

| and would still allow significant participation by others.  That thousand

| liner the other day was just a bit much and I suspect more are on the

| way.

What if your article needs more than 200 lines to be complete?  I don't

know about you, but I hate to see "(to be continued)" when something

interesting is happening.  The continuity is lost; the interest is lost;

the argument is less effective.

I agree that fast turnaround IS an issue, but the problem is not caused

by one guy posting a large FAQ; and it didn't just start recently.  The

problem is the limit on the digest.  How many of us have experienced long

delays between the time you post and the time you see your article

published?  And then you have to wait for the replies to make it to the

digest.  Last time I posted, a couple of months ago, the publishing delay

was at about two days.  When the delay is just two days, the time until

you see a reply is probably six days, because the odds are that there

will be a weekend in there somewhere.  It looks like the queue must be

small lately; but it does happen sometimes.

Instead of limiting articles even further, I would suggest allowing each

digest to be larger, or not limiting traffic at all.  That way, you WOULD

see your article in the next digest--regardless.  After all, everything

we submit eventually gets posted when the queue catches up; so the total

traffic would be the same, but not delayed.  We may have large digests

one day and small ones the next--that's fine with me.  If there were a

large article posted that you'ld rather ignore, just skip it and go on

to the next one.

If the current limitation is in place because some mailers may choke on

large files (I suspect it is), and if this is a REAL problem and not just

a superstitious holdover from earlier computing days, then I suggest that

the digest be published TWICE a day, for an even faster turnaround.

Actually, I have suggested it to the moderator, but he has a lot of other

things to do (I fully understand).  But maybe if several of us make the

suggestion, he would deem it more important.

| It is also obvious that much of the cleaning up of the FAQ could be done by

| email now that the experts have been identified.

I would suggest that only changes be published until it is finished.

Then post the whole, corrected FAQ.

FAQs are the ULTIMATE in signal to noise ratio.

MORE FAQS, WE NEED MORE FAQS!  Post away!

 -Alan

 .------------------------------------.

 | Alan Edwards: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov |    Huh huh...beer is cool!

 |     or: Alan-Edwards@llnl.gov      |    Yeah...hm hm...it doesn't suck.

 `------------------------------------'

------------------------------


Overcarbonation

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 15:38 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Overcarbonation

 >From: Cisco <FRANCISCO@osmo.ccit.arizona.edu>

 >Subject: Kegs becoming overcarbonated with time

 >if you only drink a pint of beer a day, like I do, your beer will eventually

 become overcarbonated because the nice cold temperature at which you dispense

 the beer also allows the beer to absorb more CO2 over time. My kegs, I

 have two on tap all the time, sit for 4 to 6 weeks and could absorb

 quite a bit of CO2. No amount of adjusting CO2 pressure will correct

 this to pour properly.

 AMEN!

 I just posted my frustration on r.c.b. about the problems I am having with my

 10 gallon keg which lasts (surprise-surprise) twice as long as the 5 gallon

 kegs.  I even went down to a 1/8" i.d. tubing which barely trickeled at 12

 psi and only three feet long.  I concluded that the beer is overcarbonated

 and nothing aside from adding a couple gallons of new, unconditioned beer

 would allow it to dispense properly.

 I have run two 10 gallons batches through this keg and both of them became

 impossible to dispense after they got down to the last 3 or 4 gallons.

 After reading your article, I replaced the hoses with the original 1/4" i.d.

 stuff and reduced the pressure.  However, this has problems also because the

 seals on Cornelius kegs become unreliable below 10 psi.

 I abandoned the nitrogen/CO2 mix because it didn't seem to contribute

 anything to the beer and it's real value seemed only useful in high volume

 commercial operations but my experience with 10 gallon kegs is forcing me to

 rethink it.

 The problem with the mix is that you can not force carbonate with it so one

 needs to maintain two tanks, one for carbonating and one for dispensing.

 This is not the end of the world but is an additional expense and hassle.

 Just for the record, I actually ran three batches through the ten gallon keg

 and had no problem with the first one but it was an ale and kept at basement

 temp.  The problem started with the advent of my "lagering room".

 I should also point out that I had the problem with a five gallon keg but

 thought that I might have overcarbonated it initially.  Furthermore, I have

 had a keg of sweet stout for months in the "lagering room" and it still

 serves properly.

 js

------------------------------


lagers/peaches/keg pressure/dry rootbeer/hazy beer/Briess/chill haze

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 15:51 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: lagers/peaches/keg pressure/dry rootbeer/hazy beer/Briess/chill haze

Michael writes:

>I'm currently brewing a lager that has an OG of 1.055.  I pitched Wyeast

>#2112 Calofornia liquid lager yeast without making a starter so fermentation

<snip>

>the members of the HBD could answer a couple of questions.  Is 11 days too

>long (I'm used to ales finishing in 5 to 7 days), if not, what is normal?

>When should I rack to the secondary and begin lagering?

No, 11 days is not too long.  I fermented my last lager two weeks in the

primary at 50F and then racked to a secondary.  Two weeks after that, the

temp was then dropped to 45F and the beer was bottled 4 or 5 weeks later

(don't have my notes here).  It did take 4 months after bottling for an

off aroma to disppear, but after it did, the beer won a couple of awards.

**********************

Patrick writes:

    6)  Lambic brewers bake the hops first, would this help here?

Lambiek-style homebrewers bake their hops to artificially age the bitterness

out of them.  Real Lambiek brewers use aged hops (2-3 years old).

    7)  I have seen no reference to a peach beer before, does everyone else

    know something that I don't?

Brian and Linda North brewed a spectacular wheat beer with peaches.  Alas,

I don't have any details on it.

I would just like to suggest that in general, if you sanitize fruit before

you cut it up, you save yourself a lot of trouble.  I theorize that any

wild yeast or bacteria will only be on the OUTSIDE of unblemished fruit.

That's why I choose unblemished fruit (as best I can) and sanitize by

freezing and then blanching (quick dip in near-boiling water).

**************************

Cisco writes:

>I have posted a few articles on calculating dispensing pressure with

>different diameter/length tubing. If you drink 5 gallons of homebrew

>within 2 weeks everything works fine. However, if you only drink a

>pint of beer a day, like I do, your beer will eventually become

>overcarbonated because the nice cold temperature at which you dispense

>the beer also allows the beer to absorb more CO2 over time. My kegs, I

>have two on tap all the time, sit for 4 to 6 weeks and could absorb

>quite a bit of CO2. No amount of adjusting CO2 pressure will correct

>this to pour properly. You could disconnect the CO2 and bleed off

>some of it from the kegs and dispense but it's a real pain bleeding

>off dissolved CO2 - it takes time and patience.

I'm sorry, but I must disagree.  If you do the math first and then

choose your hose lengths/widths accordingly, you will not have overcarbonation.

You just must first choose the temperature and the number of volumes you

want in the beer and then choose the pressure, hose lengths, hose diameters

based on the formulas give in HBD back issues and in Dave Millers' very

good article in the 1992 AHA National Conference Proceedings.  If your

beer is overcarbonating, the pressure is too high or (as Jack pointed out)

the temperature may be higher than you think.

********************

Jeff asks how to safely sweeten dry rootbeer.

Well, an obvious answer is Lactose, but there are two things you must be

careful of:

1. Lactose may not be fermentable by yeast, but I'm quite sure it's

fermentable by lactobacillus/pediococcus.  So, if you have any bacteria

in your batch (which you may have considering how dry the rootbeer turned

out) you will get glass grenades by adding lactose.

2. Lactose is not very sweet.  To get the sweetness of a store-bought

rootbeer, you will probably have to add at least a pound, maybe two,

of lactose to 5 gallons of rootbeer.

**************************

Domenick writes:

>I've had 4.5 gallons of beer in the secondary (glass) for 7 days

>with 2 oz of hop pellets and 2 tbsp Polyclar in hot water.

<snip>

>Some of the hops are floating, some laying on the bottom, but there

>is a recycling going on, where hops are sinking from the top and rising

>from the bottom continuously.  We're not talking churning here, but an

>obvious low level of activity.

This is why I use whole hops for dryhopping.

>Also the beer does not seem to be clearing appreciably.  Usually by this

>time there has been a clarity gradient in the carboy, clearest at top

>fading to cloudier at the bottom.  Has something gone horribly wrong?  Or

>I am just "worriedly pacing the waiting room"?

Possible reasons for cloudiness:

1. bacterial infection

2. wild yeast that won't flocculate

3. starch haze

4. could be that the backpressure in the airlock was too high and too

much CO2 was dissolved in the beer -- when you added the hops and Polyclar(tm),

you gave the CO2 nucleation sites and it began to come out of solution

(this is probably the least likely, since I couldn't imagine this happening

for 7 days, or could it?)

**********************************

Scott writes (asking about Briess malt):

>1) Does the 2-row or 6-row need a protein rest?  I'm told the 6-row doesn't.

>   when I bought the 6-row the guy told me it's highly modified.

Briess is quite a bit higher than most malts in Protein level, I, personally,

would give it a protein rest.

>2) Is the 6-row also known as Klages? is the 2-row?

>   I've had different homebrew shop owners tell me "it's pale malt" or

>   "it's klages"...I'm confused.

Klages is no longer grown in the US.  It's replacement is Harrington.  Briess

2-row is Harrington.  I don't know what the current strain of 6-row is being

grown in the US.  I would stick to 2-row if you can.  Most have a high-enough

diastatic power for the amount of adjuncts we homebrewers use (almost none)

and the 2-row has a much lower percent weight of husk and higher percent

weight of starch.  (I think it may even generally have a lower protein

percentage, but from what I recall of the Briess literature, it was the

same for both their 2-row and 6-row.

>3) Is one of these considered lager malt?

Most US base malts are kilned so lightly that I would consider then a lager

malt.

>4) Does "pale malt" imply malt to be used in pale ales or the Lovibond of

>   the malt in question?

It implies slightly warmer kilning temps and thus more color and more

caramelly flavors.

>About Sparging:

>

>1) My last beer used 2-row pale malt (above) and had a chill haze when I

>   never had it with the 6-row malt beers.  Things I'm considering changing:

>

>   * When heating and recirculating first runnings, don't heat first runnings.

>     the first runnings have starch and husk particles (doesn't run clear).

>     Currently, I've been heating _all_ runnings.  I typically heat 3 batches

>     of 2 gallong runnings.  I've been getting 1.031/lb/gal from the 6-row.

Your extract efficiency is commendable, but I agree that maybe recirculating

the first runnings would decrease the husk material in the boil which would

reduce tannin extraction.

>   * acidify sparge water (1/2 tsp. acid blend to get pH=5.2)  sometimes

>     I acidify the water, but many times forget. (like in the cloudy beer)

YES.  Most definately do adjust your sparge water down to the 5.2-5.4 pH

range in the RUNNINGS -- you want the runnings to be around 5.2, not

necessarily the sparge water.  High pH sparge water will, indeed, extract

more tannins from your husks.

>   * sparge water should be 165F, and not 170F or 180F like in the past.

>     (but I usually never got the tannins, just very present malt character.)

Agreed, but a minor point -- 170 is in the ballpark.

>   * maybe I should use finings (bentonite/polyclar)... I never had to

>     in the past and hate to make things more complicated now.

If you do the rest well, you probably won't have to resort to finings.

Al.

------------------------------


Peach beer, Brew-Caps, and trub

Date: Thu, 02 Sep 1993 20:31:07 -0400 (EDT)

From: Nate Clark <NC6967@conrad.appstate.edu>

Subject: Peach beer, Brew-Caps, and trub

In the last installment of HBD, Partick S. Paul asked about peach wheat beer:

 - > 2.)  Should I rack it before I add the pulp?

I have only recently tried a mead, using peaches for flavoring.  I added diced

peaches at the end of the boil right after I removed the "wort?" from the heat.

I was trying to sterilize them without releasing the pectin into the mead.  I

let the peaches stay in the primary, but when I racked to the secondary (wasn't

using a Brewcap)  I removed all of the peaches.  This seems to have worked fine.

The mead is still in the secondary but it is crystal clear.  The samples I've

managed to steal have been excellent :)

 - > 5.)  Any thought on a good yeast for this?

Champagne? :)

On to Brewcaps and clean bottling (questions submitted by Scott Wisler):

Yeah, yeast does tend to cling to the sides of the carboy, but for the most part

it drains off, leaving a translucent film around the neck.  I haven't noticed

too much getting into the bottle (after all, you do need some yeast in the

bottle).  Brew Co. recommends 'twisting' the carboy every so often to loosen

the yeast.  The yeast that insists on clinging to the neck usually stays there

through the bottling process, requiring a carboy brush to remove.

Dry hopping is not recommended.

With a Brewcap and the carboy inverted,  I empty the blowoff tube of sanitizer.

It acts as an airlock, and I don't want it spilling everywhere.  I take the

other tube (the yeast collection tube) and hold the end of it above the level in

the carboy and submerse it in the pot of boiled priming sugar.   I open the

valve and the sugar is sucked down into the primary.  To mix,  I right the

carboy and use the blowoff tube to mix, then invert and bottle.  It seems to mix

evenly.

I appologize for my sloppy use of blowoff tube and hose.  The blowoff tube is a

sturdy pipe that runs from the neck of the carboy, through the fermenting beer

to the air space between the beer and bottom of the carboy.  The blowoff hose

attaches to the blowoff tube.  I don't know how often Kinney reads HBD, but I'll

pass on your comments to him.

"troop?"

Around here, we say trub, it rhymes with tub.  But you are correct, in true

German, it closely resembles troop.  Actually,  I was taught to say it like

trip, but while making the i sound,  I round my lips and don't move them.  Also,

around here (that is, the South) we (me too) have a tendency to hold our vowels

long, which is a no-no (nein-nein?) in German.  Anyone could sound halfway

official saying tryoop, like some people make the y sound in music or coupon

(after all, english is a germanic language.)

I look like I'm kissing when I try to say it!

Also, this is from high school german experience, so I will except criticism.

Nate

------------------------------


Scotch in Barrells

Date: Fri,  3 Sep 93 02:16:00 BST

From: r.mcglew3@genie.geis.com

Subject: Scotch in Barrells

Some months ago someone on the net mentioned that they had been given some

barrells of scotch.  I'm curious if that person ever got to taste the stuff,

or what he plans on doing with it?

Who will be left to turn out the lights?  No-one, they'll just burn out!

Personally, if I was one of the 30% of the GEAE engineers that were laid off

again, I'd quit! (I'm an "alumni" of another GE division).

------------------------------


Wyeat 2112 California

Date: Thu, 02 Sep 1993 20:37:18 -0500 (CDT)

From: Dave Smucker <TWF99@ISUVAX.IASTATE.EDU>

Subject: Wyeat 2112 California

In HBD # 1217  Michael K. Lebar asks about Wyeast 2112

California yeast.

This is a yeast I use a lot for my standard "steam" beer.  One

major difference is that I ferment at ale temperatures i. e. the

mid 60ies.  I also ferment in 15 gallons batches in a stainless

steel keg and this is not the most ideal fermenter geometry.

Taking in to account these items I still consider Wyeast 2112 to

be a slow fermenter compared to ale yeast.  My typical time is

3 weeks and I pitch a large starter. (I start the Wyeast in 1/2

pint which I then pitch in a 5 pint large starter.)  I normally

don't go to a secondary because I'm a "Miller" fan and rack off

the trub 12 to 24 hours after pitching.

When to begin lagering? When you get your final SP or at least

very close.

Dave Smucker,  Brewing Beer,  Not making Jelly!!

------------------------------


A miscellany of things...

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1993 21:09:00 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: A miscellany of things...

In response to recent questions about blowoff.  (oh god!  here's something

that EVERYBODY will have an opinion on...)

I have consistantly used bowoff for several years.  I find that it gives a

slightly smoother taste.  I'm also very sensitive to higher alcohols and

it's my impression that blowoff removes these.  My mad friend, the Revernd

Perry 10X Mills uses an open fermenter.  We frequently share each other's

beers and I can get a headache from his, but not from mine.  Who knows, it

may not have anything at all to do with blowoff, but I think it does...

As regards to exploding carboys, I do think that using the 1" id tube is a

good idea.  I had one batch that I added a couple of ounces of pellet hops

to at the end of boil.  I filled the carboy too full and the hops floated

up into the neck and plugged it up.  I was using a cork with a small

blow-off tube and was concerned that there was no blowoff even though

there there was a lot of visible fermentation.  So (you guessed it), I

pulled the cork and poked a bamboo skewer into the compacted hops.

KA-blooey!  Instant beer geyser!  Beer all over the place and hops stuck

to the ceiling.  If I had the sense that Grid gave a goose, I would have

taken it outside....  It was really spectacular.  Surprised is hardly the

word for my reaction.

If I had been using a large blow-off tube, I could have run a coat-hanger

through the tube and kept it pointed into a bucket.  I don't know how much

pressure a carboy can stand, but there was a lot built up.  A slight

scratch or imperfection in the surface of glass can weaken it

tremendously, as anybody who has cut glass will know.  So my firm opinion

is that the advice in TCJOHB to use a cork and small diameter blow-off

tube should not be followed.  It sure as heck got me into trouble.  There

is no drawback to using a larger tube and many advantages.

Charlie P. may sit at the right hand of Grid and be met by adulatory and

worshipping masses everywhere he goes, but he is wrong on this one.

 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

On a less controversial note, the last time I was in the farmer's Co-op I

looked around for idodine for sanitizing.  I found this stuff called

"Povidone-Iodine Surgical Scrub 7.5% (titratable iodine 0.75%)." It looks

just like BTF, but it doesn't foam as much when you shake the bottle.  The

iodine concentration seems about right for an idophor, but I don't know

what this stuff is.  The only active ingredient is the Povidone.  The

application seems to be a skin disinfectant for vets.  Like when you have

to reach into a cow with both arms up to the shoulder to correct a calf's

presentation during birth.  (Don't laugh, it's only funny from a

distance...)

I couldn't find it listed in my ancient Merck Index, but I suspect

"Povidone" is a commercial name.  Does anybody have a reference on this

stuff?  It's $7/qt., so there is some incentive to find out if it's

usable.  Most of the dairy idophor has weird stuff in it like lanolin

(it's used for a teat dip to prevent mastitis), so it probably shouldn't

be used for brewing.  Unless, of course, you suffer from chapped lips. :-)

Paul.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1218, 09/03/93

*************************************

-------


Beer Mix...

Date: 2 Sep 93 16:06:20 GMT

From: GANDE@slims.attmail.com

Subject: Beer Mix...

John Francisco mentions "beer mix" - CO2 and nitrogen in HBD1217.

Alot of brew pubs use this stuff for a number of reasons (which are

not relevant to this post).

Homebrewers desiring the use of this gas should be aware that they

must use different regulators as the nitrogen is packed in under

higher pressure than CO2. CO2 is normally under 800LBS pressure and

CO2 gages normally top out somewhere around this. Nitrogen on the

other hand is usually under around 2100LBS and require the

appropriate regulator/gages.

To keep you from hooking up the low pressure CO2 regulator to the

beer mix and blowing your head off, the bottles come with a different

valve.  It's female, part number is CGA580.

 ....GA

+----------------------------------+

| Internet: gande@slims.attmail.com|

| Glenn Anderson                   |

| Manager, Telecom. Facilities     |

| Sun Life of Canada               |

+----------------------------------+

------------------------------


Trub: you say potatoe...

Date: Fri, 03 Sep 93 08:57:15 -0400

From: "Phillip Seitz" <p00644@psilink.com>

Subject: Trub: you say potatoe...

Now, I'm all for understanding the origins of things, but just because

a word is pronounced one way in Germany does not mean that it needs to

be mimicked here.  Ask anyone from Coeur d'Alene, ID or Havre de Grace,

MD.  I might also add that, in Belgium at least, they use the German

word but pronounce it a lot like we do--"troob".  Of course, they're

not all that fond of the Germans....

********************************************************************************

     Baudouin Albert Charles Leopold Axel Maria Gustave of Saxe-Coburg Gotha

                                 (1930-1993)

                         Fifth King of Belgium, 1950-1993

********************************************************************************

------------------------------


keg overcarbonation

Date:    Fri, 3 Sep 1993 9:31:30 -0400 (EDT)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: keg overcarbonation

Jack, perhaps your problem with kegs getting overcarbonated is because

the beer hasn't actually finished fermenting.  The fact that it is

happening with (mostly) lagers, which can take much longer than ales

to ferment out, might be an indication.

WRT the yeast FAQ (and any other very large posts): I hate it when someone

injects common sense into an argument, but as my great-grandmother used to

say, "A post a day keeps the flames away".  Post just one section per day.

It allows for timely responses/corrections and it doesn't overload mailers.

Fwiw, I'd also like to see twice-a-day digests.  (I suppose then you could

post twice a day.....)

Russ Gelinas

esp/opal

unh

------------------------------


Povidone cleansers

Date: Fri, 3 Sep 93 08:40:32 -0600

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Povidone cleansers

In HBD #1218, Paul dArmond asks:

>I couldn't find it listed in my ancient Merck Index, but I suspect

>"Povidone" is a commercial name.  Does anybody have a reference on this

>stuff?  It's $7/qt., so there is some incentive to find out if it's

>usable.

Yes, Povidone is an iodiphor, and would work fine as a sterilant.

However, I believe most of these hand-scrub formulations contain a

great deal of detergent along with the Povidone, and thus would

probably not be good for your beer if you were using a "no-rinse"

method.  I believe the sterilants used in brewing contain Povidone,

but an acid or some other non-detergent base.

>Like when you have

>to reach into a cow with both arms up to the shoulder to correct a calf's

>presentation during birth.

Up to your shoulder, or the cow's?

Kelly

------------------------------


Kegging FAQ - Part 1

Date: Fri, 3 Sep 93 9:46:25 EDT

From: richer@desi.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Al Richer)

Subject: Kegging FAQ - Part 1

 Thank you, Dion, for getting me off my butt...

 I've had this file for a while, but never got around to putting it

out in the real world. Finally, i thought I'd save Dion the typing...

      Al Richer

     Kegging Basics; or how to eliminate bottle-washing from your life.

- --

 I have seen the light, and it is made of stainless steel....

 Greetings. After having asked several dozen stupid questions about kegging,

I have decided that I should pull all of this information together into one

article for the amusement and edification of the Digest.

I. Items needed for a kegging setup

 Kegging is the process of packaging beer so it may be dispensed. To this end,

you need a package. The normal container for the homebrewer is the Cornelius

or Firestone stainless-steel premix soft-drink container. It is available from

many sources, including restaurant auctions, scrapyards, cooperative soft-drink

retailers, and other sources. Use your ingenuity, and you will seldom go wrong.

 The other items to go with your keg are used for the dispensing process. They

allow you to dispense the beer under gas pressure, and to connect and disconnect

the equipment from your keg.

 These items are:

  A CO2 cylinder. Most hobbyists purchase a 5 Lb. one.

  If you have the space, though, a 20Lb. cylinder is a

  good bet. It only costs a few more dollars to fill and

  lasts much longer. I have both, the 20Lb. for the keg

  refrigerator, and the 5Lb. bottle for portable use.

  a pressure regulator. This reduces the 800 PSI of gas

  pressure in the CO2 tank to a manageable dispensing

  pressure (usually 12 to 15  pounds).

  Regulator check valve. This device attaches to the outlet

  of your regulator and prevents reverse pressure flow

  from your keg back into the regulator. This can prevent

  a considerable mess, and helps prevent contamination of

  your CO2 lines and fittings.

  Hose with gas-in fitting. These items conduct the gas to

  the keg from the regulator, and allow you to connect the

  gas line to the keg.  The gas-in fittings come in either

  ball or pin lock. Buy whichever fits the keg you obtain,

  as one is as good as the other for the homebrewer.

  Liquid-out fitting and beer faucet. This is the part that

    the beer actually comes out of. It has a fitting like the

  gas-in one, but keyed differently to prevent interchange.

  On the end of the hose from this fitting is a spigot to

  control the flow.

  The liquid-out fitting requires a length of hose attached

  to provide restriction to the pressure in the keg, allowing

  the beer to be dispensed without excessive foaming. What

  I use (with information gleaned from the HBD) is a length

  of 3/16" PVC tubing between the liquid-out fitting and the

  beer faucet. One foot of 3/16" tubing will allow for a 3

  PSI drop in the keg pressure.

  For a standard kegging rig at about 14-16 PSI (chilled keg

  with a light ale), you'd need about 6 feet of 3/16" tubing.

  Vary this as your equipment requires.

  This can be calculated by use of a chart, which shows the

  pressure needed for different carbonation styles at any

  given temperature. These charts are available from the HBD

  or rec.crafts.brewing on the net, or in the homebrew

  archives.

 When it comes to the pressure-regulating items and the gas bottle, don't

scrimp, as cheap or defective fittings can be very dangerous. Gas at 800

PSI is not trivial to handle, and an accident could be fatal.

[Continued in Part II - went over 8K limit]

Alan J. Richer  |  Interleaf, Inc.  |  Waltham, Ma., U.S.A.

Mail: richer@hq.ileaf.com        All Std. Disclaimers Apply

 The Klingon Army knife. Don't leave home without it.

    - Klueless the Scavenger

------------------------------


Siphon pump

Date: Fri, 03 Sep 93 10:00 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: Siphon pump

Hello readers,

Has anyone ever used or heard of using a manual siphon pump like that which is

part of a gasoline siphoning system--several feet of hose which culminates in a

cylindrical bulb pump.  While the hose may be of a dubious quality, what of the

pump?

Could be that special piece of hardware for Unleaded Lager or a nice

Ethyl Lambic.

Happy pumping,

David Atkins

UW-Madison

------------------------------


Povodone-Iodine (i.e. Betadine (tm) as a disinfectant)

Date: Fri, 3 Sep 93 11:16:09 -0400

From: rxh6@po.CWRU.Edu (Randall Holt)

Subject: Povodone-Iodine (i.e. Betadine (tm) as a disinfectant)

According to the PDR, povidone-iodine is a broad spectrum antibiotic

capable of killing gram- and gram+ bacteria, mycobateria, fungi/yeasts,

viruses and protozoa, all in the space of 15-30 seconds of contact.

But, it's recommended for external use only (even if it's the active

ingrediant in Massengill douches).  Supposedly, it washes off skin and

natural fabrics easily.

SO, based on recommendations by the manufacturers, I wouldn't want this

stuff in my gastric system. On the other hand, and at your own risk,

if you think you can wash it off of your brewing equipment, it will

very effectively wipe out all bacteria/yeast/fungi present.  From

personal experience in the lab, it cleans off glassware very easily,

and provided the contact time is relatively short (<30') will clean off

of plastic tubs as well.  If you do try this out on brewing equipment,

I would hazard a guess that residual antiseptic will interfere with

normal yeast activity - so rinse exhaustively.

- --

Randall W. Holt  rxh6@po.cwru.edu

------------------------------


Kegging FAQ - Part 2

Date: Fri, 3 Sep 93 12:12:43 EDT

From: richer@desi.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Al Richer)

Subject: Kegging FAQ - Part 2

[ COntinued from PArt 1] - ajr

II. Preparing to keg - How to get ready.

 If you buy all of your equipment new, than you can skip this part. What I

am going to go into here is the cleaning and overhaul of a standard pin-

lock Firestone keg. Cornelius kegs are similar, but I have not worked with

them and would not speak of them without personal experience.

 WIth a keg that has been used for soft drinks, the rubber parts that are in

contact with the drink become impregnated with the sugar syrups. These will

then flavor any beer you might bring in contact with them, so they need to be

replaced as part of the cleaning and preparation process. These are located

in the bases of the gas-in and liquid-out fittings, and around the lid of the

keg.

 Remove the gas-in and liquid-out fittings, using a 13/16" open-end wrench

inserted through the gaps in the handle surround. Once loosened, these should

remove easily. Once unscrewed, set these aside, and remove the dip tubes from

the fittings welded to the tank. The gas dip tube is rather short, and the

liquid dip tube is the long one that extends to the bottom of the tank. Remove

the o-rings from both of these and replace them with new ones from the hardware

store. O-rings of the proper size are easily availablein the plumbing area

of most good hardware stores. Reinsert the dip tubes and reinstall the fittings,

 tightening them with the wrench. Do not overtighten, as it is unnecessary and

will make it more difficult the next time.

NOTE: The gas-in fitting is the one with two lugs. The liquid-out fitting is

the one with three lugs. I got them mixed up too...8*)

 Replacement of the top gasket is easy. Just open the head by lifting the bail,

then drop the head down into the keg and rotate it to remove the lid from the

keg. The O-ring should come out with the lid. Simply remove it from the lid

and replace it. New ones of these should be available at your homebrew

supplier, or try a pool supplier for a pump O-ring of the proper size. Bring

the old one as a comparison sample.

 CLeaning the keg is rather simple. I usually prepare a solution of washing

 soda and soak a new keg full of it for 24 hours,

 followed by purging the solution

with CO2 through the fittings on the tank. This is followed by 2 gallons of

boiling water, well-agitated in the tank to clear the residue, and purged thru

the fititngs with CO2. The boiling water rinse is also a god way to clean out

a tank before use, along with a weak chlorine rinse for sanitizing.

III. Kegging - The process

 Kegging is considerably simpler than bottling, but has a set of gotchas all

its own.

 The first step is sanitizing the keg. I personally do this with a rinse of

hot water and B-Brite of a gallon or so, shaken in a sealed keg, then expelled

through the keg plumbing with CO2. After this, I do the same thing with

boiling water, again expelling through the plumbing, to clear the B-Brite

residue. One pass is usually sufficient, though if I'm being paranoid, I'll do

it twice. After this step, you must handle the keg in a manner to retain the

sanitation. This means not taking out the lid and laying it down on the work-

bench in the basement. Treat the keg as you would a sanitized bottle ready to

 fill.

Next, add the priming syrup to the keg. I usually use 1/2 cup of sugar to 1 qt.

water, boiled for 10 minutes for sanitation. I cool this to blood temp, then

add it to the keg. Next, with a sanitized siphon hose,siphon your finished

beer into the keg, being careful not to splash, but swirling enough to get a

good mix on the priming sugar. Once filled (keep the beer level below the CO2

inlet, otherwise don't worry), reinsert the lid and cinch it closed. Before

doing this, I usually turn on the CO2 to the keg and purge the airspace above

the beer to clear the residual air in the tank.

 With the keg sealed, pressurize it to 15-16 PSI to seat the head. If it begins

to leak, open and reseat it, which usually cures the problem. Make sure that

the lid isn't angled, which is easy to do and can cause leaking.

 Allow th beer to carbonate for 1-2 weeks before drinking. I usually discard

the first 1/2 mug out of the keg, as it brings the yeast out with it. After

that, it's home free.

     I need a beer after all this typing...

       ajr

_________________________________________________________

 Alan J. Richer              Mail:  richer@hq.ileaf.com

 Interleaf, Inc.             All std. disclaimers apply

 9 Hillside Ave.                  Your mileage may vary

 Waltham,MA. 02154

" It's a nitwit idea. Nitwit ideas are for emergencies.

The rest of the time you go by the Book, which is a

collection of nitwit ideas that worked at least once."

     from "The Mote in God's Eye" , Niven and Pournelle

_________________________________________________________

- --

------------------------------


Test Strip, Povidone

Date: Fri, 3 Sep 93 10:17:45 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Test Strip, Povidone

I'm wondering if anyone out there on the Digest knows what the

methodology used to make "test strips" is:  Specifically, how can

I embed chemical A in a material that will stick to the strip (made

of plastic), allow a color reaction when dipped in chemical B and

retain the color on the strip?  Replies by email to conserve

bandwidth, please.

Paul dArmond writes:

>On a less controversial note, the last time I was in the farmer's Co-op I

>looked around for idodine for sanitizing.  I found this stuff called

>"Povidone-Iodine Surgical Scrub 7.5%

He also says that it is not in his ancient Merck Index.  I believe it is

in my new Merck Index, and if memory serves I just read about it the other

day (of course the book is not where I am at the moment).  But again, from

memory I believe that Povidone is essentially the same stuff as Betadine,

also a topical sterilant, used mainly by hospitals.  I'm not sure if it's

useful in brewing.  This weekend I'll look it up and post anything

interesting.

Mark

------------------------------


Keg FAQ / Haze = Tannins???

Date: Fri, 3 Sep 93 8:18:55 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Keg FAQ / Haze = Tannins???

I'm all for a keg FAQ as I would like to undertake this venture in the future.

In the meantime, I have to fly by all the kegging discussions (and believe me,

the same questions come up again and again) as they don't apply now.  The FAQ

would give us a good reference point and probably cut down on some of the

traffic.

Well, they say that it is better to keep your mouth shut and have everyone

assume you're a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt.  (mouth opening

wide):

This conversation between Al and Scott has me confused.  They talk about chill

haze and tannins as being related.  I thought tannins were to be avoided because

of an astringent flavor component, rather than anything to do with haze.  Are

tannins protein based?  I too have had a chill haze problem with a recent batch

and was surprised to hear talk about acidifying sparge water as a cure.  Well,

have I removed all doubt???

Cheers,

norm

- --

Norm Pyle, Staff Engineer         Head Brewer,

Storage Technology Corporation    Pyledriver Brewery, A Non-Profit Organization

2270 South 88th Street            1500 Elmhurst Drive

Louisville, CO 80028-0211         Longmont, CO 80503-2323

(303) 673-8884                    npyle@n33.stortek.com

------------------------------


Breckenridge Brewery Tour

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 12:32:57 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Breckenridge Brewery Tour

I recently visited the Breckenridge Brewery in (where else?) Denver! The

business started in Breckenridge as a brewpub, and then added the brewery

uptown in a location just across the street from the under-construction

Coors Field (this is a MLBaseball park, not a barley field!).  Its not

exactly the best part of town right now (lots of empty warehouses and run

down buildings) but I'll guarantee in the spring of 94 (Coors Field opens

for the Colorado Rockies) it'll be all glitz and glamour.

They claim that they are a brewery that serves food, not a restaurant that

makes beer.  This is indeed the case, from my observations.  There is at

least as much floor space devoted to the brewery as there is to the

restaurant.  The layout is a bit strange to me, though, as the brewery is

spread out over 3 different areas in the building.  The brewery was not in

operation when I was there but most things are right out in the open so I

did my own tour and showed off my experience to my father-in-law.

They have a monstrous, auger-fed grain mill (I couldn't see where the keep

the grain).  The grist is then augered over to the mash tun, which looks

like it has no heater (i.e. they do a single-step infusion).  The mash-tun

apparently has a water inlet (from a gas fired hot liquor tank) which comes

in from the bottom, so as grain falls from the top, it mixes with water from

the bottom.  The output of this is pumped over to the gas fired boiler.  The

output of the boiler goes through a small chiller (I'm guessing it is cooled

with a refrigerant rather than just with water) before being pumped to the

fermenters.  I looked but couldn't spot a DE filter, I'm sure they use one.

There are also large insulated cooling tanks all around.  From these, the

beer is pumped all the way across the restaurant to the bottling line (and

presumably over to the bar!).  The bottling line is an interesting setup,

behind glass so I couldn't get too close.  One interesting note about the

bottling:  the bottles are sanitized either with steam or a solution, they

are turned upside down, and then pass across 6 or 8 feet of open air before

being filled and capped.  I don't suppose there is much risk of contamination

but the bottling room didn't look particularly clean (at least the floors

were quite grubby).  They then go through the label machine and into cases.

Interesting looking stuff (for this engineer) to say the least.  I don't have

any guesses as the size of the vessels in this place but they were at least

4 times larger than any I've seen in the typical brewpub.  I don't know what

kind of annual output they boast.  All in all, a fun time: good beer, good

food, fun things to look at and dream about.

Oh, the beers:  Avalanche     - Nice malty smooth amber.

                IPA           - Good IPA, hoppy sharp, alcoholic

                Mountain Wheat- More of a pale ale than a wheat, although

                                they use something like 40% wheat malt.  Not

                                a lot of wheat characteristics but a very

                                tasty brew.

                Oatmeal Stout - A wonderful full bodied stout, good stuff.

They also had a guest beer from HC Berger Brewing in Fort Collins, which I

appreciate.  If you're in Denver, check out the BB!

norm

- --

Norm Pyle, Staff Engineer,        Head Brewer,

Storage Technology Corporation    Pyledriver Brewery, A Non-Profit Organization

2270 South 88th Street            1045 Pale Ale Place

Louisville, CO 80028-0211         Longmont, CO 80503-2323

(303) 673-8884                    npyle@n33.stortek.com

------------------------------


What is dark brown surgar?

Date: Fri, 3 Sep 93 11:45 CDT

From: akcs.rab@vpnet.chi.il.us (Alan Belke)

Subject: What is dark brown surgar?

In Dave Miller's "Brewing The World's Great Beers" several of his

recipes (such as Brown and Scotch Ale) call for "1 lb. dark brown

sugar".  Is this the brown sugar you buy at the grocery store or

is it something else?  Thanks for your help.

Al

------------------------------


Talkin' German

Date: Friday,  3 September 93 13:45:27 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: Talkin' German

Howdy,

I didn't want to do this (it's a bandwidth thing), but having a background in

Sociolinguistics, I can't help myself any longer.

Ari Jarmala (HBD #1217) says English speakers can't pronounce the German

umlaut "ue".  Untrue.  Ask the American I know who passes himself off as

German all the time in Berlin.  Also, his phonetic description of the

vowels is a little off.  "u" is a back vowel & "e" is a front vowel, but

where he really trips is assuming that the representation "ue" in "trueb"

has anything to do with that.  It doesn't.  This particular umlaut is

referred to as a high front rounded vowel.  Rob Thomas does a good job of

describing it (HBD #1218).

But most important, I agree with Nate (HBD #1218).  We are mostly Americans

speaking English, so let's talk like Americans speaking English.  If you

really want to say "trueb" in an entirely authentic German manner, your

average Joe Bob on the street is gonna look at you funny & say "Bless you".

Also, we'd have to learn the phonology of about a dozen languages whose

beer styles, as homebrewers, we emulate.  That could get confusing.  American

English is a language that loves to borrow & adapt words from other languages

(yak, skunk, tortilla, kangaroo, Mississippi, etc), & if we spent all of our

time trying to say a word in the original language, we wouldn't understand

each other half of the time.  Also, by saying a word in the orginal phonology,

we're ostracizing those who we should be convincing that there is more than

one kind of beer.  Make it friendly, not foreign.  Use words that sound

comfortable to their ears, not like some hacking sound.  Be proud, say "troob",

and brew more Oktoberfest!

Sorry for the use of the bandwidth for the linguistic lesson, but I just

couldn't take it any longer.

Happy brewin',

Alan, Austin

------------------------------


Re: Briess & protein rests

Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1993 15:26:55 -0500 (EDT)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: Briess & protein rests

IN the last digest:

>

> <<Omigod, is Frane agreeing with Schmidling?  Head for the shelters!!>>

>

> - --Jeff

Yeah, and once a year I agree with Clinton!

>

> Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 15:51 CDT

> From: korz@iepubj.att.com

> Subject: lagers/peaches/keg pressure/dry rootbeer/hazy beer/Briess/chill haze

>

> **********************************

> Scott writes (asking about Briess malt):

>

> >1) Does the 2-row or 6-row need a protein rest?  I'm told the 6-row doesn't.

> >   when I bought the 6-row the guy told me it's highly modified.

>

> Briess is quite a bit higher than most malts in Protein level, I, personally,

> would give it a protein rest.

I used to do this with all of my beers, but now when I brew regular American

or British ale, I do an infusion of 160F water, rest at 153 for an hour and

mash off at 170.  Works fine, and saves a chunk of time since it takes me a

few minutes to raise 65Lbs of mash from 120 to 152.

>

> >About Sparging:

> >

> >   * acidify sparge water (1/2 tsp. acid blend to get pH=5.2)  sometimes

> >     I acidify the water, but many times forget. (like in the cloudy beer)

>

> YES.  Most definately do adjust your sparge water down to the 5.2-5.4 pH

> range in the RUNNINGS -- you want the runnings to be around 5.2, not

> necessarily the sparge water.  High pH sparge water will, indeed, extract

> more tannins from your husks.

I have never ever done this.  I agree with the theory, but like you suggest,

the sweet wort pH is the part we care about, not the sparge per say (the mash

will buffer the pH, depending on the mineral content of your mash/water).

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

DE HOPPEDUIVEL DRINKT MET ZWIER 'T GEZONDE BLOND HOPPEBIER!

------------------------------


First Impressions/Povidone/Peracetic Acid

Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1993 16:12:51 -0400

From: drromer@na2.dow.com (DUANE R ROMER)

Subject: First Impressions/Povidone/Peracetic Acid

I've only been on the HBD list for a week, just in time to catch the

yeast FAQ & all the ensuing flack & counter flack.  I have to say

my initial impression is not very good.  I joined this list because I

thought it's purpose was to discuss homebrewing (which, in my

opinion as a new reader the yeast FAQ was related to), not go

into lengthy diatribes of net protocol.  Maybe I was mistaken?

Paul dArmond asked about povidone.  This is a topical

disinfectant of Iodine absorbed into polyvinylprolidinone (I assume

the surgical scrub is an aqueous emulsion of this).  Thus the

active bactericide is the iodine.

As regards to Ed Hitchcock's question of making peracetic acid:

You can indeed make peracetic acid by simply mixing H2O2 &

acetic acid (I'd be a little careful though & keep it cold while mixing

with efficient stirring).  However in my humble opinion why

bother?  The small amount of bleach that you use to sterilize your

equipment is hardly environmentally significant.  If you're really

worried about it why not just use the peroxide solution?  H2O2

itself is a pretty good disinfectant, although I don't know if it

efficiently kills the organisms that your worried about in brewing.

Excuse me while I slip into my asbestos suit.

Duane Romer

drromer@dow.com

------------------------------


A Hearty Thanks

Date: Fri, 03 Sep 93 16:26:08 EDT

From: jayv379877@aol.com

Subject: A Hearty Thanks

    I have only recently become a subcriber to HBD, and have benefitted

greatly from all that I've read.  The recent barbs thrown re:the yeast FAQ

have not helped me very much though.  I hope you guys can work this out

quickly, because I'd much rather read what you have to say on various other

subjects pertaining to brewing.  Some of what is contributed is above my

caliber, but I'm saving it all the same; and wish to say "thank you" for your

contributions.

    Now, I feel ready to try something more advanced.  I wonder if anyone has

a recipe that will yield something resembling Anchor Steam beer  (If

mentioning this brand name is against the rules, please forgive me, I'm new).

Equipment, techniques, and ingredients are no boundary for me - I just want

to try imitating this beer.  Any help?

Jay Vanni

                "I am your density"  -- George McFly

------------------------------


Diacetyl `n Oxygen/v-wire bottoms

Date: Fri, 3 Sep 93 12:03 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Diacetyl `n Oxygen/v-wire bottoms

Jim writes:

>If you do this [shake the fermenters periodically], you will *rouse*

>the yeast which can help to keep the

>fermentation going, but will in no way *add* oxygen to the fermentation.

>It is a CO2 environment anyway.  Pumps will add oxygen but this inevitably

>force the yeast to throw Diacetyl which I do not care for.  BTW, this is

>how the Peter Austin Breweries (Wild Goose, Red Feather, Ringwood) actually

>*promote* Diacetyl production in thier beers.

I can offer another datapoint.  At the Tadcaster Brewery (Samuel Smiths),

they use a very flocculent yeast which they force back into suspension

using some kind of sprayers (I've never seen them in person, I've just

read about them) which inevitably aerate the fermenting beer.  I had

always thought that it was just their yeast's tendency to flocculate out

of suspension that caused so much diacetyl to remain in their beers, but

this additional datapoint ties in with Jim's comments.

Also Jim writes (quoting me):

><In professional systems, there are debates

>raging about whether round holes or slots are better and the cross-sectional

>shape of the holes is debated also.

>

>Not really debates, more a cost benefit issue.  V wire slotted bottom is

>undoubtely the *best*, and most expensive.  It is an inverted V, big end

>down.  I have found perforated sheet to be more than adequate, even with

>weizens of 70% wheat malt (and decoction mashing).

Not really raging either, but it looked good in print.  Actually, one specific

case I know of is the system at the Weinkeller Brewery in Westmont, IL.  Udo,

the owner told me that he had the standard screen (just round holes) replaced

with "a custom-made screen of my own design."  This screen had a cross-

sectional shape like this:

               ----   ----   ----   ----   ----

               /  /   /  /   /  /   /  /   /  /     side view

                //     //     //     //     //

where the wide part of the Vs was on top.

Another system I saw advertized (I was part of a group that was looking into

building a brewpub and my portion was the equipment, so I got a lot of sales

literature) had a cross-sectional shape like this:

               -----    -----    -----    -----

                    |  |     |  |     |  |         side view

                   |    |   |    |   |    |

                ---      ---      ---      ----

in other words, from the top, they looked like small holes, but from the

bottom they looked like counter-sunk holes and these were round holes in

an offset pattern:

                            O   O   O   O   O

                          O   O   O   O   O        top view

                            O   O   O   O   O

                          O   O   O   O   O

Every manufacturer said they had proof that their design was better than

their competitors.  So, what else is new.

Al.

------------------------------


HOMEBREW COMPETITION ANNOUNCEMENT

Date: Fri, 3 Sep 93 15:05 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: HOMEBREW COMPETITION ANNOUNCEMENT

I'm forwarding this for a friend:

OCTOBER 3RD HOMEBREW COMPETITION

Plan now to enter Evanston First Liquors' Fourth Homebrew Challenge.

Entries are due in the store between September 20th and 27th.

Send entries to:   EVANSTON FIRST LIQUORS' CHALLENGE

                   1019 W. Davis Street

                   Evanston, IL 60201

Judging and an Oktoberfest Gala, Jam-Packed with malty German beers on

draft will be held on Sunday, October 3rd.  (Judges and stewards get

in to the gala free.)

AHA/HWBTA JUDGES AND STEWARDS ARE INVITED TO PARTICIPATE.

Wanna judge but aren't official?  No problem!

New this year: Apprentice Judge Program

We will pair every interested steward with a qualified judge.

For entry forms and information call: Bill/Nick/Bob at 708-328-9651

or stop by the store.

Don't email me for info -- this is all I know -- Al.

------------------------------


Older Chesr Freezers [D [D [D [D [D [D [D [D [D [D [D [D [D [D [C [C [C [Ct [C [

Date: Fri, 3 Sep 93 18:36 CDT

From: akcs.wally@vpnet.chi.il.us (John Walaszek)

Subject: Older Chesr Freezers [D [D [D [D [D [D [D [D [D [D [D [D [D [D [C [C [C [Ct [C [

I know that some people use a chest freezer with some type of

external thermostat to control the temperature.  Has anyone

ever burned out the compressor of a chest freezer due to using

it in a way that it was not intended to be used?  Does anyone

have any experience with older chest freezers say > 10 years

old.  I worry that an older freezer may not have much life

left in it, but then again I think that it may also be built a

whole lot better than the new ones.  Another question, if the freezer

is fairly full with 30-40 gallons of brew at 45-50 degrees, does

the temperature stay fairly constant and require the compressor

to not kick on that often or a better way to phrase that is

Has anyone had their electric bill double or triple after

setting up a chest freezer beer cooler?

Thanks -

Wally

------------------------------


Brewing w/ fruit/juices

Date: Sat, 04 Sep 93 00:03:15 EDT

From: barbm@aol.com

Subject: Brewing w/ fruit/juices

I'm looking for some help from some of you barleywine

brewers out there.  I'm a bit late in putting up this

year's Christmas holiday brew and was thinking about a

barleywine using fruit juice instead of whole fruit.

I've got some basic questions that I hope you folks can

help answer.

1 - Using fruit juice and adding it to the secondary,

will all the fruit flavor/aroma ferment out?  Would it

be best to add at bottling time?  If I add at bottling,

how do I take into consideration the amount of added

sugars?

2 - I've been told (by a local brew shop) that one will

usually end up with off flavors if you add the fruit at

the end of the boil, or in the primary.  Yet, almost all

the recipes I've found call for these methods.  Any

comments from those experienced with fruit brewing?

3 - Finally, would I be better off to just forget the

fruit/juice and use extracts for the flavorings?  If

so, does anyone have any sources for quality extracts?

I'm looking for cranberry and apple, currently.

TIA...Kerwin Manuel...KMANUEL@aol.com or

                                BMJK95A@prodigy.com

------------------------------


Carboy Brush

Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1993 13:31:44 -0500

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Carboy Brush

The last few batches I've done were in 6-1/2 gallon carboys.  These are

real nice, until time comes to clean `em.  I bought a carboy brush from

my friendly homebrew shop, shaped like so:

     0

     |

     |

     |

     |

     |

     +====

I really don't like it very much. It just can't clean the sides very

effectively, although it is a little better in the neck area. Its really

bad trying to clean the yeast-ring left at the surface of the fermenting

wort. When I think I'm through, very often I'll see little brush-marks

form in the "steam" that condenses inside the carboy.  This tells me that

its not *really* clean, so I go back at it.  I figure it should be so

clean, the water just sheets right off, the way you clean your burette in

the analytical chem. lab.  A round brush, like a chimney-sweep uses seems

like it would be much better.  Does such a thing exist for cleaning

carboys??  Or does someone have another idea?

And what's in Bottle Brite?

Thanks,

 t

------------------------------


Aniseed taste in my beer.

Date: 4 Sep 93 15:07:26 GMT+1100

From: Davin Slade <10692851@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au>

Subject: Aniseed taste in my beer.

Ive just finished my first brew.

I kept it bottled for two weeks and decided to try one last night.

It had a aniseed taste to it and i thought that was a bit strange.

ive just used an ordinary of the shelf draught beer.

Does anyone know what i did wrong.

- ------------------------------------------------------------

Davin Slade, 4th Year Civil Engineering, Monash Uni, Oz

10692851@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au or

baldrick@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au

- ------------------------------------------------------------

"It was georgiousness and georgosity in the flesh"

Alexander de Large, A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess, 1966, Stanley Kubrik, 1971

- ------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Albuquerque Brewpub!!!

Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1993 00:12:28 -0600 (MDT)

From: J. Michael Diehl <mdiehl@triton.unm.edu>

Subject: Albuquerque Brewpub!!!

Some time ago, I was told that brewpubs were illegal in New Mexico.  Well the

law must have changed because we now have one.  "Liquid Assets" is a brewpub

which I will be trying soon.  I post this because some time ago, someone on this

list asked me if there were such beasts.  I've since lost his address so I'm

posting.  Well that's all.

Lagers, Mike.

------------------------------


re: Sour bier

Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1993 00:16:48 -0600 (MDT)

From: J. Michael Diehl <mdiehl@triton.unm.edu>

Subject: re: Sour bier

Some time ago, I posted a question about my first batch of bier being sour, or

tart.  I said it tasted like apple cider.  Well, that batch is long gone.  It

seems that age did a lot for it.  Of all the people who tried my bier, not

one complained about it, eventhough it was "potent." ;^)  Perhapse I added too

much sugar and that's what made it both strong and tart?  Comments?

Anyway, this weekend I bottle my second batch.  I split the wort into approx.

3 gal dark bier, and 2 gal dark CHILLI bier.  Seems to have gone well.  There

was some discussion about chilli bier.  If there is any interest, I coult

ellaborate on how I made mine, as if I'm an expert.  Well, gotta go.

Lagers, Mike.

------------------------------


Various Topics

Date: Sat,  4 Sep 93 07:00:00 BST

From: s.quarterman@genie.geis.com

Subject: Various Topics

Here is my two cents worth on the discussion of the long FAQ posting.

I found the information to be _VERY_ informative.  I do not find this

objectionable in the least.  More on various subjects would be very gladly

accepted.  I do not believe that I have access to the sierra system for

downloading as I am on GEnie and do not fully understand the internet link

as of this time.  I have only been on the inet for a short time and can not

respond about the delay but if someone needs information on a subject they

should not be posting a question and hoping for an answer for something

being done within the next day or two.

RE: fruit beers

I recently made a Belgian Abbey style beer.  In a fit of madness, I decided

to make it rasberry.  I purchased a bottle of Rasberry Natural Extract from

The Beverage People (normal disclaimers) and added the 4 oz at bottling

time.  Let me just say that it was definitely RASBERRY.  There are various

flavors and if the peach is not available, it probably will be soon.  I

currently have the rasberry and a sour cherry.  At the AHA conference I got

a small sampler of blueberry.  These can also be added to beer before it is

dispensed.  I like to add the flavors to the weizen that I brew.  I like the

weizen by itself but occasionally will add about 5-6 drops for flavoring.

Nice labeling system Tim.  Sure ya couldn't make it any easier.  I mean come

on now, I have to add with your system (1+1=?)

 [() Steve Quarterman          S.Quarterman@GEnie.geis.com ()]

 [() Portland, Oregon                                      ()]

 To Brew or what To Brew - now that is the question

------------------------------


Re: trueb and the Pink Panther

Date: Fri, 3 Sep 93 16:58:05 EST

From: boomer@sylsoft.com (Richard Akerboom)

Subject: Re: trueb and the Pink Panther

As a german speaker, I know how to pronounce "ue" or the u-umlaut

in trueb, but there is no equivalent sound in English, so how to describe it

to others? I suppose knowing the french equivalent would help some,

but I don't speak French.

Today the answer came to me. Recall the Pink Panther movie with Peter

Sellers where he is asking the clerk at a guesthouse for a room, but

pronounces "room" sort of like "rheum"? That is the closest to the

"ue" that I can come up with in most English speaking people's experience.

Hope this helps.

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Richard Akerboom       Domain: boomer@sylsoft.com or akerboom@dartmouth.edu

Sylvan Software          uucp: dartvax!sylsoft!boomer

Mechanic St.            Phone: 802-649-2231

P. O. Box 566             FAX: 802-649-2238

Norwich, VT 05055 USA

------------------------------


Hydrostatics/liqueur recipe/fruit beers

Date: Sat, 04 Sep 1993 15:06:42 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>

Subject: Hydrostatics/liqueur recipe/fruit beers

2 points about the recent BrewCap thread:

(1) Since I'm philosphically opposed to discussing one of my products in

the open forum, I'd be happy to send info on the BrewCap to anyone who

sends me private email.  If anyone wants to summarize and post on the

digest, that's up to them.

(2) But I must comment on John Mare's question below since it involves

an interesting lesson in hydrostatics, something I've learned a lot

about after playing with upside-down fermenters.

>What prevents the weight of beer from

>popping the cap off when the carboy is inverted? Any advice on use of this

>item will be appreciated.

It was as suprising to me as it is to most people to discover that 5

gallons of beer which weighs close to 50 pounds does not generate 50

pounds of water pressure.  Water pressure is a function of the height

of the vertical column of water.  In general, 3 feet of water

generates 1 psi.  Therefore 5 gallons of beer in an inverted carboy

puts a little less than 1 pound of pressure on the cap at the bottom.

That is, to say the least, a negligible amount of pressure.

That there is so little pressure on the cap also explains why one can

siphon priming sugar into the bottom of the carboy with no problems.

I didn't discover this trick until I had been brewing with the BrewCap

for about a year.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's my procedure for making liqueurs from fruit:

My liqueur experiments are still experiments.  My suggestions are to

be taken as rough outlines of the procedure.  The sugar content of

various fruits varies considerably so there's no way to give precise

measurements for sugar/sweetness levels.  I'd appreciate email on any

improvements to the process that anyone discovers.

For the blueberry liqueur I have going now, I buzzed the berries in a

blender first and added an equal amount of vodka to the puree.  So,

for ex., if I've buzzed up 1 gallon of blueberry puree, I'd pour 1/2

gallon of the puree into two 1 gallon apple cider jugs and fill each

one with vodka.  After a couple of weeks, the puree will sink to the

bottom of the jug.  At this point, I presume it's extracted about as

much of the blueberry flavor as it's going to extract.

Now you need to strain the puree from the vodka.  You must do this in

stages.  First pour it through something relatively coarse like

several layers of cheesecloth.  The penultimate filter for me is

a layer of ladies nylon hose.  The final filter is a coffee filter.

This yields a very clear liquid.

Whip up some simple sugar solution.  1 part water to 1 part cane

sugar.  Add to the vodka/blueberry extract until you like the level of

sweetness.  Sip and enjoy.

- ----------------

Someone asked recently about the best way to make a raspberry flavored

beer.  I know you have plenty of raspberries in your backyard but a

small plug for the raspberry essence that Mark Garetz of Hoptech

sells:  We used it in a raspberry wheat we had on tap at Tumbleweed

this summer and it sold like hotcakes!  Mind you, this is a fruit beer

in a town that had never heard of fruit beers!  We added the essence

at kegging and it imparted a wonderful raspberry fruit flavor to the

beer that was true to the flavor of raspberries.  No artificial

flavors here.  The best thing about it was that it was simple, simple,

simple.

Cheers ya'll,

- --------------------------------------------------------------

  Kinney Baughman                 |  Beer is my business and

  baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu  |  I'm late for work.

- --------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1219, 09/06/93

*************************************

-------


Secondary, dry hopping

Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1993 08:30:29 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Secondary, dry hopping

In the continuing saga of the novice brewer, I have some observations

and questions about secondary fermentation and dry hopping.

I bottled the "churning" batch of beer that I spoke of in a recent HBD.

It did not appear infected, and the SG sample had no off-flavors.  It

appears that the continuous activity was CO2 liberation by Polyclar, and

simply secondary fermentation.

What is a typical reduction of specific gravity in a secondary?  I had not

expected as much as I got:

OSG to primary :  1.054

SG to secondary:  1.020

Final Gravity  :  1.012

I used hop pellets for the dry hop.  They were easy to add to the carboy,

they washed out easily, and they were a pain in the butt to bottle with.

Some of these tiny bits were floating on top, some were seemingly suspended,

some had sunk, none ever compacted on the bottom but would kick up at the

slightest provocation.  They tended to clog the spring loaded bottling

tube, but enough got through so there are little bits of hops in the

bottles.

I dread the thought of trying to add 2 oz of whole hops to a carboy.  I think

they would wash out easily enough, but stuffing them through a 1" hole does

not sound like fun.  I could bag them, but stuffing a bag of hops and

marbles through a 1" hole doesn't seem like fun either.  Has anyone seen

1" tube bags?  How about plugs?  What do you veterans do?

The SG sample was good enough that I think I will try this batch again

quite soon, but change the process to avoid standing barefoot in hot wort,

avoid melting the kitchen floor, and avoid hop pellets somehow.

Thanks to all for your comments to my last posts about blow-off and the

endless churning secondary ferment.

I love this stuff.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1993 14:22:45 -0700

From: Don Put <dput@csulb.edu>

Subject: Secondary, dry hopping

Subject: Lager Sludge

I've got a problem with a lager that I brewed about three months ago.  After

bottling--BTW, this is an extract brew, my last one before going all-grain--

the yeast, Wyeast Bohemian, settled out nicely.  I then lowered the temp to

about 35-38F for continued aging.  Within a day or two a haze developed in

the beer that really is distinctly different from the normal chill haze.  It

further developed until it looked like the flakes in one of those "Christmas

balls" that you shake up and watch the "snow" settle.  It has been about 5

weeks since I bottled and most of this stuff has settled out, forming a 1/4

inch layer that stirs up easy on top of the yeast.  The beer has also

developed a harsh back of the mouth bitterness and finish.  The recipe was

very close to Papazian's "Propensity Pilsner," with the addition of dry-

hopping using Saaz plugs for about seven days.

So, a few questions:

1)  Is this a characteristic of wild yeast contamination?  There has been no

    gushers or over-carbonation.

2)  Is it an undesirable side effect of dry-hopping with plugs?  Maybe I should

    have dropped the entire batch to 35F while still in the secondary to allow

    this "stuff" to settle out.

3)  The beer tasted very fine at bottling and at about 2 weeks after, then this

    strange taste developed.  Will this go away with more aging or should I

    chalk this one up to experience and dump it?  (It is fairly undrinkable at

    this point).

This is the first lager that I attempted having recently acquired a dedicated

lager refrigerator.  I followed Miller's guidelines for fermentation times and

temps.  Any thoughts or ideas from those of you more experienced in the brewing

of lagers will be greatly appreciated.  BTW, a friend in the local brew club,

and a brewer for 8 years, tasted it and was stumped.  However, he drank the

whole bottle I poured him.  He says it starts nicely, then deteriorates into

a "lingering back of the mouth bitterness."  He'd never seen this type of

sediment before.

TIA,

don

dput@csulb.edu

------------------------------


Tadcaster brewery/spraying

Date: Mon, 6 Sep 93 15:43:21 MET DST

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: Tadcaster brewery/spraying

hello all,

Al Korz brought up the Tadcaster brewery, their highly flocculant yeast

and spraying in HBD1219. Well, working on the assumption

that sinceTadcaster is in Yorkshire (UK), and the system sounds like the

"Stone Square" system (aka Yorkshire Stone Square System) that I

just read about in Hough,Briggs, Stevens and Young Malting and Brewing

Science, I thought I'd comment:

the Yorkshire Stone Squares were originally vessels made of stone and

later slate (now often steel). They have a lower compartment separated

from an upper one by a deck. In this deck is a manhole with a raised flange

 and tubes leading to the bottom of the lower compartment.

 During fermentation, the yeast/beer is forced up to the upper

 comparment through the manhole. From here the beer returns to the bottom via

 the pipes and the yeast remains on top. Because of the high flocculance

 of the yeast used, the beer is also pumped up from the bottom to the top

 and literally sprayed through a fish tail head (like on a watering can).

 The only comment made in the book about flavours associated with

 this system is "it is claimed to give a characteristic type of beer".

 Under the heading Diacetyl and 2,3-pentane dione however, they

 say that oxidizing agents (not necessarily O2, could be Cu, Al or Fe ions)

 are necessary. Increasing temperature, or exposing beer containing yeast

 to air increases diacetyl formation. It is also increased by conditions

 leading to rapid yeast growth (eg aeration!). The diacetyl flavour can

 also be caused by lactic acid bacteria, when the problem is called

 Sarcina Sickness.

 Well, that's about all I can remember for the minute,

 Happy brewing,

 Rob T.

------------------------------


chill haze/peracetic acid/anchor steam

Date: Mon, 06 Sep 1993 12:21:14 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: chill haze/peracetic acid/anchor steam

Norm Pyle writes:

>This conversation between Al and Scott has me confused.  They talk about chill

haze and tannins as being related.  I thought tannins were to be avoided because

of an astringent flavor component, rather than anything to do with haze.  Are

tannins protein based?  I too have had a chill haze problem with a recent batch

and was surprised to hear talk about acidifying sparge water as a cure.  Well,

have I removed all doubt???

 Tannins are phenols.  Chill haze can be caused by starch, but

usually is due to phenol-protein compounds.  According to George Fix, the

best way to reduce chill haze is to get the wort of the break material,

which removes half of the haze forming material.

*******

Duane Romer  writes:

>You can indeed make peracetic acid by simply mixing H2O2 &

acetic acid (I'd be a little careful though & keep it cold while mixing

with efficient stirring).  However in my humble opinion why

bother?  The small amount of bleach that you use to sterilize your

equipment is hardly environmentally significant.  If you're really

worried about it why not just use the peroxide solution?  H2O2

itself is a pretty good disinfectant, although I don't know if it

efficiently kills the organisms that your worried about in brewing.

Excuse me while I slip into my asbestos suit.

 Leave the suit behind.  My concern was partly due to the current

Net wisdom that bleach is bad for stainless kegs.  However, I just looked

up the reaction index at the back of the Cole Parmer catalogue, and both

Acetic acid and peroxide are bad, while bleach is listed as "No effect".

Can anyone elaborate?

*******

Jay Vanni writes:

> Now, I feel ready to try something more advanced.  I wonder if anyone has

a recipe that will yield something resembling Anchor Steam beer  (If

mentioning this brand name is against the rules, please forgive me, I'm new).

Equipment, techniques, and ingredients are no boundary for me - I just want

to try imitating this beer.  Any help?

 2 row pale malt, a heafty dose of crstal, bitter with Perle, finish

with Cascade.  Use Wyeast California Lager yeast, fermented at 62 F.  Lots

of hop is the key.  There are a few Anchor Steam recipes in Cat's Meow you

can look up.  Last time I tried Anchor, I noticed a distinct similarity to

Young's Special London Ale, with a rich maltiness, though I didn't do a

side-by-side.

____________

Ed Hitchcock/Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology/Dalhousie University/Halifax NS

ech@ac.dal.ca   +-----------------------------------------+

  |   Never trust a statement that begins:  |

  |     "I'm not racist, but..."    |

  +-----------------------------------------+

 Diversity in all things.  Especially beer.

------------------------------


fermentation temp monitoring/cold room/bandwidth

Date: Mon, 6 Sep 93 13:26:17 -0400

From: Ron Natalie <ron@bds.com>

Subject:  fermentation temp monitoring/cold room/bandwidth

  What I did is bought some temperature-sensitive LCD type thingies ('thingies'

  is a technical term) that I stick to the side of my carboys,

  I think Sheaf & Vine brewing supplies (They're on the net, great service &

  prices, I don't work there, etc. etc. etc.) have these,

My local brewing store has them, but since I have similar things on my fish

tanks (as a matter of fact, before I saw them being sold for brewing I

attempted to peel one off my fish tank and stick it to the fermenter).

You might try your local pet store.

 -Ron

------------------------------


Pressure Regulators

Date: Mon, 06 Sep 93 14:56:10 EDT

From: jayv379877@aol.com

Subject: Pressure Regulators

I'll soon try my hand at brewing some draft beer.  Here's a question re:the

use of a pressure regulator.  (Thanks for the posting Al)

I have what I think is a pressure regulator.  I obtained it from my last job

a couple of years ago from a pile of stuff to be thrown out, thinking I may

need it someday (deja brew?).  Physically it is a 2 1/2" dia brass body with

5 evenly spaced pipe threads tapped around the perimeter.  Into each are

screwed the following: a 0-4000 psi gauge, a 0-30 psi gauge, a relief valve

(stamped as such), a large fitting, and a small fitting.  A "T" handle sticks

out the front.  A label on it says, "NITROGEN AND INERT GASSES."  It's made

by the Victor Equipment Company, and looks to be part no. SR 250 A.  Is this

what I want?  If so, should I have it tested for reliability or accuracy?

Should it be cleaned?  Anything else?

Jay Vanni

------------------------------


Lagering Time In Secondary Fermenter

Date: Mon,  6 Sep 93 15:33:42 CDT

From: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: Lagering Time In Secondary Fermenter

It used to be when I would brew Lagers I would primary in glass

for a couple of weeks at 50 degrees, then transfer to a

Cornelius Keg for secondary at 40 degrees.

        With summer's heat my brewing slowed down. As a result

my "primary" refrigerator became a secondary refrigerator. This

time I did my secondary in glass where I could monitor

the progress. After a two week primary, then a four week

secondary I could still see a few bubbles rising in the glass.

        I thought my secondary was finished, but when I

boosted the temperature from 50 to 60 degrees (to execute a

diacytal rest) the fermenting took off again. So much so that

the bubbles proceeded to fill up my airlock!

        Two questions fellow "Lagermeisters"...

        1. All the sources I read said that secondary

should take place at 50 degrees. My experience would lead me

to belive this is too low.

        2. How long should one typically expect a secondary

to take? When is it safe to bottle or keg?

- -----

Internet: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com

    UUCP: metronet.com!pro-storm!philb

  Bitnet: philb%pro-storm.metronet.com@nosc.mil

------------------------------


TRUE-BAY, BIG BUCKS

Date: Mon, 6 Sep 93 19:16 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: TRUE-BAY, BIG BUCKS

 >From: "Phillip Seitz" <p00644@psilink.com>

 >Subject: Trub: you say potatoe...

 >Now, I'm all for understanding the origins of things, but just because

 a word is pronounced one way in Germany does not mean that it needs to

 be mimicked here.

 Thought I would add a little confusion here.  On saturday I attended a lawn

 party at which my wife and I were the only ones who could not speak German

 and many attendees could speak no English.  I figured this was a good place

 to settle the issue and as I needed a conversations starter, I surveyed them

 on the word "trub", spelling it every way I have seen it.

 The concensus was.....  true-bay, just like it looks but with the 'r' rolled

 accent on the first syllable..

 The root or the word was agreed to have something to do with clouds.

 >From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

 >Subject: keg overcarbonation

 >Jack, perhaps your problem with kegs getting overcarbonated is because

 the beer hasn't actually finished fermenting.  The fact that it is

 happening with (mostly) lagers, which can take much longer than ales

 to ferment out, might be an indication.

 This is possible but I would think by the time I keg them, there aint much

 left.  Furthermore, if I just left it sit, unattended for weeks, I could

 agree but as I monitor the pressure regularly on all kegs and adjust as

 needed, I  wouldn't think it would make any difference whether the CO2 came

 from fermentation or the tank.   But I will keep it in mind.  For the time

 being, I am reducing my dispensing pressure to around five lbs and using

 1/4" tubing till I see which way the wind blows.

 >From: akcs.wally@vpnet.chi.il.us (John Walaszek)

 >Subject: Older Chest Freezers

 > Another question, if the freezer is fairly full with 30-40 gallons of brew

 at 45-50 degrees, does the temperature stay fairly constant and require the

 compressor to not kick on that often

 Keep in mind that it was designed to keep several hundred pounds of meat at

 temperatures near zero. It is loafing when used for beer and will probably

 last forever.

 >Has anyone had their electric bill double or triple after

 setting up a chest freezer beer cooler?

 In the hottest weather, mine runs about 5 hrs per day, set at 40F.  It draws

 about 4 amps which works out to about 2.2 KWH or about 30 cents per day at

 Chicago rates.

 .........

 I have nothing further to add on the netequette front other than passing on

 the data that the mail is running 10:1 in favor of serializing long articles

 and debugging FAQs via email.

 js

------------------------------


PIZZA AND BEER FAQ PART 1

Date: Mon, 6 Sep 93 17:23 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: PIZZA AND BEER FAQ PART 1

BEER AND PIZZA FAQ  (Part 1 of 29)

Q0001:  Which pizza goes best with an Imperial Stout?

A0001:  Don't be a twit.  Anybody who knows anything about beer

will tell you that drinking an Imperial Stout leaves you little

room for anything else.

=====

Q0002:  My wife says that all this pizza and beer is making me fat.

Is this a bad thing?

A0001:  All homebrewers reach this "crossroad" at some point in

their lives.  The real question you have to ask yourself is: do I

want to stay slim and get laid or do I want to enjoy life?

=====

Q0003:  Does Sierra Nevada Pale Ale compliment a pineapple and

Canadian bacon pizza?

A0003:  Of course.

=====

Q0004:  I find that a Pils Urquel is too delicate for a pizza with

the works (including anchovies).  Is there a beer that can stand up

to such a gastronomic deluge?

A0004:  Yes.  Weizens are a good choice as are smoked beers.  The

added benefit is that those late-night belches are exquisite.

=====

Q0005:  I saw Kathy Ireland on the cover of an old issue of

Zymurgy.  Do you think she and Chuck, you know, did it?

A0005:  Many have speculated that since Charlie Papazian has

remained slim then he must have made the wrong choice at the

Homebrewer's Crossroad of Life.

=====

Q0006:  I recently relocated to the Pacific Northwest.  Having been

born and raised in Chicago I find these new beers way too bitter.

What's the deal?

A0006:  Indigenous populants of the Pacific Northwest (IPPN) have

a misplaced sense of hopping rates.  Get used to it.  Furthermore,

never confront them about it as they tend to be overly sensitive.

------------------------------


Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1993 01:10:09 -0400 (EDT)

From: KONSTANTINE@delphi.com

Subject:

Howdy all,

  I'm new to the digest and I love all the info that's available.  I'm

looking for a recipe for Heather Ale and I was wondering if anyone

knows where I can find one.  Thanks again.

            B*B,

              Konstantine.

konstantine@delphi.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1220, 09/07/93

*************************************

-------


trub,trueb,treber and all that.

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 09:14:49 MET DST

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: trub,trueb,treber and all that.

Hello all,

now that we can all approximate the u umlaut (ue) sound, and

incorporate it in the word trub, I ought to point out something

that I discovered last night while reading a german book on

brewing (by Narziss, aka Gott). The german word that means the same

as the English word trub is TRUB. There is NO umlaut!

There is a word Trueb or Trueber which means cloudy, but that isn't

the word used by brewers. There is also Treber, which translates as

draff (ie the grains after sparging).

Hence, the pronunciation is trub, with a germanic t and u, if anyone

really wants to speak English with a German accent (after all, we

call Muenchen Munich, so why should we call trub trub?).

I hope this clarifies things for you all, I've certainly given up.

Rob T.

------------------------------


cancell subscription

Date: Mon,  6 Sep 93 15:07:00 -0500

From: matthew.whiting@channel1.com (Matthew Whiting)

Subject: cancell subscription

Please cancell my subscription to HBD.  My e-mail address on internet

is matthew.whiting@channel1.com.  I have have been receiving HBD on

rec.crafts.brewing and wish to eliminate duplication. Thank you.

- ---

 ~ DeLuxe] 1.25 #12626 ~ Let no man thirst for the lack of real ale.

------------------------------


legality of homebrewing in germany

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 11:12:33 MET DST

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: legality of homebrewing in germany

Hello all again,

Here's just a quick question that hopefully someone can answer:

Is homebrewing generally allowed in Germany?

I had heard that selling books on how to brew were illegal,

but that brewing (home) wasn't. I'm getting more interested in

this problem since it's not beyond the realms of possibility that

I'll be moving there in 4 or 5 years time.

Any german subscibers out there?

Rob. T.

p.s. things are slowly improving in Switzerland: you can now

buy those BrewKing brew bags in some supermarkets. A long way to

go I know, but they're getting there. (I speak as someone who gets

maximum three types of malt straight from Huerlimann [that umlaut again])

------------------------------


Dry hopping induces new fermentation???

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 09:46:03 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Dry hopping induces new fermentation???

I have been reading an old book on brewing: _Brewing_, A.

Chaston Chapman (President of the Institute of Brewing, Fellow of the

Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain and Ireland, Fellow of the

Chemical Society), Cambridge University Press, 1912.

In it, the author states "It had long been known that the addition of

a small quantity of fresh hops to beer in cask was usually followed by

an outburst of fermentation, a fact which did not receive an adequate

explanation until Brown and Morris showd that like most plants they

contain diastase, which, of course, converts some of the malto-dextrin

present into readily fermentable maltose." (p. 54)

=S

------------------------------


fermentation temp monitoring

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 10:07:43 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: fermentation temp monitoring

The fish tank ones don't have a wide enough range.  I found some

reptile thermometer strips that go from about 50 to 100 (F), which is

fine for ales.  I've alse seen ones apparently designed for brewing

with an even better range; maybe this is what Sheaf & Vine is selling?

=S

------------------------------


Treating glass carboys...

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 08:12:32 MDT

From: bacco@md.fsl.noaa.gov (Corby Bacco)

Subject: Treating glass carboys...

Hello,

     I have a friend who can get glass carboys from where he

works.  The catch is that they get them in full of Sulfuric acid.

After they've used the acid he can take the carboy home.  Question:

how should I treat the carboy before using it for brewing?  It's been

suggested to used backing soda to neutralize the acid.  Will that

work?  TIA

 -Corby (Happy to be out of Utah) Bacco

------------------------------


Re: fermentation temp monitoring

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 10:15:57 EDT

From: Ron Natalie <ron@bds.com>

Subject: Re: fermentation temp monitoring

> The fish tank ones don't have a wide enough range.  I found some

> reptile thermometer strips that go from about 50 to 100 (F), which is

> fine for ales.  I've alse seen ones apparently designed for brewing

> with an even better range; maybe this is what Sheaf & Vine is selling?

>

Actually, the beer one (I haven't checked who makes it) that I picked

up to replace the one that was unsucessfully peeled from the aquarium

doesn't have much more of a range than the fishtank ones.  I can't

remember if the low end goes down to the 50's but the high end is

not above 85 I'm sure.

 -Ron

------------------------------


H(ot) S(ide) A(eration)?

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 10:25:13 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: H(ot) S(ide) A(eration)?

As I mentioned in an earlier note, I've been reading _Brewing_,

published in 1912.  The author is President of the Institute of

Brewing, etc., etc., so I presume he's good for the current (1912)

understanding of brewing processes.

In the discussion of cooling (p. 66) he talks about "coolers", or long

shallow pans in which the wort cools by exposure to ambient air, and

(the relatively new-fangled) "refrigerators", which actively chill the

wort by running it over or around tubes filled with a cold liquid.

He then says (emphasis mine) "Certain of the constituents of the wort have the

property of absorbing oxygen from the air at tolerably high

temperatures, and this `hot aeration' as it is called, to distinguish

it from the cold aeration or absorption of oxygen by the cold wort

while passing over the refrigerator, is *very generally regarded as

beneficial*.  It is true that some authorities have questioned its

importance, but I think there is a general consensus of opinion that

these more or less obscure oxidation changes are *desirable* and that

they do exert an appreciable effect on the brightening capacity of the

finished beer."

Now, clearly brewing science has advanced since 1912, and it seems to

be now generally accepted that HSA is bad for the flavor.  But it's

interesting to see how accepted practice changes...

=S

------------------------------


Beer Hunter

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 10:38:13 CDT

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: Beer Hunter

Beer Hunter (not the game - the Michael Jackson series mentioned in a

thread a while ago (mid 1100's I think)) is available on a 3 video set

from the Wireless Catalog (Public Radio).  It is priced about $50.  The

number for the catalog is 800-669-9999.  Before you flame advertizing

and all that - proceeds support Public Radio (a little preemptive strike

there :)).  Hope this info helps those who were looking for copies of

the videos...I also hope that there are copies left when I order mine!

    Good luck and good beer,

      Chris

======================================================================

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu |

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

======================================================================

------------------------------


seasonal ales: dryhopping with spices

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1993 09:05:14 -0700 (PDT)

From: Mark Stewart <mstewart@unssun.scs.unr.edu>

Subject: seasonal ales: dryhopping with spices

 I'm hopping (hoping) to get some feedback on the following:

Am considering a Thanksgiving-type ale that would involve the addition of

some pumpkin pie spice (allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc.).  My question(s)

is, has anyone tried this before, (i.e., dryhopping with this stuff)?

Should I do this after initial fermentation has terminated?  Should I do

this in conjunction with some aromatic hops?  If so, what kind and how

much?  About how much of this pumpkin pie spice should be added for 5

gals?  I'm really just after the aroma of pumpkin pie and am not

interested in altering the flavor toooo much.  Hope there's someone out

there that's played with this kind of thing before.  I would appreciate

any and all feedback on this and can be e-mailed directly at

mstewart@unssun.unr.edu. Thanks much,

Mark

(p.s., am considering using a brown ale recipe that I've made in the past

and the pumpkin pie spice I saw was Schilling brand).

------------------------------


Kegging FAQ is a go!!!

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 10:01:06 PDT

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Kegging FAQ is a go!!!

>From all the responses I have gotten, a kegging FAQ is an overwhelming

YES.  I now officially volunteer to be the keeper of the FAQ.  Please

send me every bit of information about kegging you know not only

including techniques, but also suppliers of kegs and parts.  I have

gathered much of this already, but I will need your help to make it

complete.

I expect that the next 3+ weeks will be for collection.  Then I go on

vacation for 2 weeks and will work on the compilation of results when

I return.  Expect to see it uploaded to sierra.stanford.edu and

announced the middle of October.

dion

------------------------------


Stainless Steel and Chlorine

Date: 7 Sep 1993 10:35:25 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Stainless Steel and Chlorine

In the recent post by Ed Hitchcock, he mentioned the current HBD wisdom of not

using Bleach (chlorine) in Stainless Steel kegs and the current interest in

iodine.  While I would like to know exactly what the Cole Parmer catalog was

refering to with NO EFFECT, it may not pertain to what I am relating here.

Being a metallurgist, (i have a feeling that most of us are college grads of

one form or another, using the convienient computer systems at work,[:o ) I

checked out the Metals Handbook Vol. 13- Corrosion, on Chlorine and Stainless

and here is what I found.

Chlorine (aqueous) is highly corrosive to austenitic stainless steels, which

includes the 304 alloy most commonly used for Food Grade containers. The

mechanism of corrosion homebrewers mostly have to be concerned with is Pitting

Corrosion.  This is caused by localized concentration of chlorine ions.  Those

ions become concentrated by evaporation of water containing chlorine.  The

corrosion is manifested as tiny pits which, due to increased relative

concentration of the chlorine in the pit to the surrounding environment,

quickly put pinholes in your tanks.

To prevent this type of corrosion, the key is good rinsing of the bleach water

from the steel.  First off, let me say that the 1+ tablespoon bleach per gallon

(4ml/liter) is not much in the context of the industrial corrosion that the

Metals Handbook is written to.  Most of what I read dealt with continuous flow

through pipes, etc.  Anyway, If you rinse with warm boiled water until you

don't really smell it, and then prevent water droplets on the sides by either

filling the keg with beer or drying them out with a towel, you will not have

the localized concentration necessary to induce pitting.

One other thing that can be done with Stainless Steel is passivation.  A 20% by

volume solution of (HNO3) Nitric Acid will ensure a uniform oxide film which

will prevent the localized concentration/activity difference which initiates

this form of galvanic corrosion.  But I don't think this should be necessary.

While I am discussing stainless steel, I have a word of caution for those of

you get stainless steel tanks welded with fittings.  There is a

time@temperature range (800-1600F) for austenitic stainless that results in

Sensitization.  This term is used to describe a precipitation of chromium

carbides away from the grain boundaries which results in intergranular

corrosion and brittleness.  You can practically snap it with your hands. This

is a common problem in welding of 304 stainless where the weld zone should be

cooled below 1100F within five minutes or the precipitation will start to

occur.  This also means that heat between 1100-1600F for more than five minutes

should be avoided ie weld time.  If any of you are noticing leaking or cracking

around your fittings, this is what has happened.  The only way to fix it is to

anneal the whole thing at roughly 1950F for 5min/.1inch section size followed

by fairly rapid cooling to avoid Sensitizing it all over again.  By the way,

304L (L for less carbon) does not usually have this problem, nor does 316L or

321.

Hope this wasn't too longwinded.

John Palmer

MDA-SSD M&P

------------------------------


My first all grain batch - a screw up.

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 13:12:22 edt

From: Greg_Habel@DGC.ceo.dg.com

Subject: My first all grain batch - a screw up.

Message:

Well, I attempted my first all grain batch this past weekend.  Using

a rectangular picnic cooler with a copper t'd manifold for mashing

and sparging.  Picnic cooler is a 10 gallon.  Mashed 6lbs highly

modified pale malt and 8 oz crystal with 6 quarts of 168F water for 1

hour.  Did the iodine test.  The color was blackish but it turned to

clear when I stirred it up a bit.  Here's the part I think I screw'd

up.  When sparging with 3 gallons of 170F water, I had a very

difficult time of not disturbing the grain bed.  Most of the time it

was very turbulent.  Anyways, the OG ended up being 1.024!!!! I

quickly went to the fridge and pounded a couple of homebrews, yeast

and all!  Here's my question... how important is it that the grain

bed is kept relatively undisturbed while sparging?  Also, will the

liquid turn colorless near the end of the sparge.  Mine didn't.

How do you add 3 gallons of 170F sparge water without disturbing the

grain bed?  Could it be that my cooler is too large, ie the grain bed

is not deep enough?  I decided to ferment it anyways.  I'd love to

give this another shot this weekend.  Greg.

------------------------------


Re: Root beer

Date: Tue, 07 Sep 93 12:22 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: Re: Root beer

I recall discussions concerning how to condition root beer wihout fermenting

away the sugar.  Since I just skimmed those postings, I did not catch whether or

not pasteurizing was mentioned as  a possible method.  While I have never

pasteurized anything except fruit preserves and can hypothosize on pro's and

con', does anyone have any knowledged experiences to share with the list?

Thanks,

David

------------------------------


(SNPA) Clone. Was re:SN Stout Request

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 13:01 CDT

From: hplabs!mcdcup!tellabs.com!don (Don Leonard)

Subject: (SNPA) Clone. Was re:SN Stout Request

I'm having trouble posting to rec.crafts.brewing so hopefully

this will satisfy most of the recent email requests for this

recipie.

- -- Included File --

OK - I know, I know... the response I posted was for Sierra Nevada

Pale Ale NOT the Stout!!! But someone used SNPA - that means

PALE ALE... well anyway... I got lots of request for the recipie so

here it is:

6.6# light malt extract

 .5# Laaglander DME

12oz Belgian Cara-Vienna 22L

8oz Belgian Cara-Pils 7L

1oz Perle pellet 7.1AA 60min

 .5oz Cascade pellet 5.5AA 30min

 .5oz Cascade pellet 5.5AA 15min

1oz Cascade whole 5.7AA dry hop

1tsp Irish Moss 15min

Wyeast 1056 American Ale

OG = 1050

FG = 1013

Brewing Notes:

Do a full boil (60 min).

Hop rates are based on a 5 gallon boil so if you boil less then

increase the hop rate to compensate.

Crush then steep the grains until ~170 deg, then remove.

Wort was chilled to 68deg before pitching.

Once the grains are removed, shut off the heat and add all of the

extracts. This will avoid scorching the extracts and darkening the

wort. Stir well then add heat and bring to a boil.

Add the dry hops in the secondary for around 5 days. When you rack

the beer to the bottling bucket, tie a sanitized hop bag to the end

of the hose or racking cane that goes into the bucket. This will

catch any stray hop bits that might get sucked into the racking

cane. In practice you wont get much if you use whole hops so you

can omit the bag if you'd like. If you hav'ent tried dry hopping I

encourage you to do so. The hop nose is fantastic and adds so much to

the character to the brew. I don't feel you will be able to match

it with normal finishing hops.

I have not had the chance to compare this to a real SNPA but people

tell me its very close. The OG  is a bit shy of the true mark which

is 1057 so I would increase the DME by maybe 1/2# to compensate.

The mouth feel is a bit heavy from what I remember so you may wish

to reduce the specialty grains somewhat. If your not sure then just

go with it the way it is. You won't be dissapointed.

enjoy!!

Would you believe, someone flamed me for not paying closer attention

to the title of the post I responded to then  - asked me for my SNPA

recipie ???? Sheesh... some people :-)

don

 -- End Of Included Message --

------------------------------


Re: Yeast FAQ Ruckus

Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1993 14:04:06 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: Re: Yeast FAQ Ruckus

Hi All,

Well, I feel that since my post was the cause of all the wasted bandwidth

(either for the FAQ itself if you agree with JS or for the flame-fanning in

response if you don't), that I should speak my piece. To JS's credit, he

originally sent me the piece he went on to post about netiquette by e-mail

a few days before it appeared in the HBD. At the time, I thought it was

just a personal response, so I wrote him back explaining my reasons. I did

not save my exact message, because I did not expect it to make its way into

the public forum, but I will repeat the main points here. The main

reason that I feel compelled to "answer the charges" as it were is that I

dislike the implication that I did not know what I was doing and

furthermore didn't care. I reposted the whole mess because:

 1. It had undergone extensive revision. I change the intro, reformatted

some of the general info sections and expanded others, updated the dry ale

yeast data, expanded and changed the liquid ale yeast, expanded and changed

the liquid lager yeast, updated some of the weizens, clarified some points

in the rehydration section, cleaned up the section on culturing, and added

two whole new sections. Just posting the changes would have meant a lot of

work for me in separating them out, and tons of work for anyone who would

try to make sense of the new info ((cut and paste)^3).

 2. I did not serialize it over several days because:

   a) the variable length of the queue makes it difficult to predict when

something will come out, and

   b) the sections did not fit easily into 8k chunks, making it difficult

to find good stopping points.

 3. As to fine-tuning it by e-mail, I had already been through many rounds

of revisions and updates with every yeast expert who reacted/responded to

the first message as well as many yeast novices who requested

clarifications, simplifications, or expansions of key points.

 4. Given that I had changed it so much and desiring to avoid the infamous

group think phenomenon, I decided RELUCTANTLY to submit the mess to the

collective wisdom of the HBD for another rehashing/trashing.

The deciding point for me was the realization that at the end of one week,

the digest would be at the same place whether I serialized or not.

Even with all the debacle, I am glad that I reposted because I have had

several good responses to info in the updated version. Those hardy souls

and I have communicated by e-mail, and I hope to have the mess ready for

sierra by this weekend. Fear not, I shall not repost the beast again!

  Finally, as for the results of his 10 to 1 poll, I would suggest that

irritated people are 10 times more likely to respond than those who are

satisfied, and that his was the only negative comment that I have received

from anyone regarding either the value of the FAQ or the size. (That is not

an invitation!!) I hope that no one else is discouraged from doing FAQs or

information resources or whatever. It is a great way to learn about a

subject and contribute to the art of homebrewing by computer all at once.

I do apologize for any inconvenience. If anyone needs to reach me, I am

         |------------------------------------------------------------|

         | Patrick Weix                        weix@swmed.edu         |

         | UT Southwestern Medical Center      tel: (214) 648-5050    |

         | 5323 Harry Hines Blvd               fax: (214) 648-5453    |

         | Dallas, TX 75235           Hopfs und Malz, Gott erhalt's   |

         |------------------------------------------------------------|

You know, when I get home tonight, I am going to relax and have *several*

homebrews!

------------------------------


All-grain questions

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 13:04:03 CST

From: "Bill Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: All-grain questions

I went all grain several months ago and will never turn back.  However,

I've got some new problems. I'm sure you experienced all-grainers can help

me solve them.

  1)  I've had haze problems since I started mashing my own

  grains.  Not chill haze, rather ther beer never clarifies properly.

  I know the most likely source is uncoverted starches.  However, my

  mashes all passed the iodine test (sample taken from top of mash tun).

  Is there a better conversion test?  Is there another possible source for

  this haze?

  2)  Sparging questions:

    a) How much recirculation.  "Recirculate until runoff is clear".

    Sounds great in print.  However, for amber or darker beers this is

    not as obvious as is sounds.  In last batch I recirculated the first

    5 qts.  Is this excessive?

    b) When to stop sparging.  "Don't over sparge".  I like this about as

    much as "cook until done".  The three techniques I know of are 1)

    sparge until running reach certain gravity (1.010?), 2) Sparge until

    pH is too high ( > 5.5?), 3)  Sparge until boiler is full.  Both

    Miller and Papazian give mash & sparge water quantities, but the last

    time I used these my final runnings were 1.020, seemed wasteful.

  3) Seperating break material & spent hops from wort.  When I syphon my

    cooled wort from the boiler into the fermenter, my syphon tube clogs

    leaving 1/2 to 1 gallon of wort/trub in the boiler. I usually pore the

    last of this glog into mason jars, allow the trub to settle and decant

    the wort for use as starters.  One quart of glog doen't bother me but

    for my last triple I was left with nearly a gallon.  Again seems

    wasteful.  Techniques?  Equipment?  (I know, Jack, I should drill a

    hole in the bottom of my boiler and install a SS screen w/tubing etc.

    I'm seriously considering this but would like to hear other

    alternatives.)

TIA, WAK

------------------------------


Light struck beer

Date: Tue,  7 Sep 93 13:22:42 PDT

From: TAN1%SysEng%DCPP@cts27.comp.pge.com

Subject: Light struck beer

Cheers to Chris Campanelli and his Pizza and Beer FAQ.  I for one am

looking forward to parts 2 through 29! Nothing like poking some fun at

various flames that have been going on lately.  On to business.  I have

been relagated to brewing outdoors since several years back I had a glass

carboy explode in my bedroom closet (The saddest day of my life - superbowl

stout exploded, taking out the carpet and most of the clothes in the

closet).  Now I have recently gone back to glass fermenters, 6.5 gallon

vice 5 gallon.  I was wondering when light struck beer begins to be a

problem.  My recollection is that hop acid, when exposed to light, will

impart a "Skunky" smell.  If so then even while fermenting you are capable

of light damaging your beer.  Could anyone expound on this for me.  Do I

need to keep my primary fermenter in a box (remember the closet is out!).

TIA.

Tom Nelson

------------------------------


Lager Brewing

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1993 14:17:54 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: Lager Brewing

In response to questions from Phil Brushaber regarding

lager fermentation:  I have been brewing lager beers

for many years and my experience has been better lagers

are brewed at cooler temperatures: I conduct primary

fermentation at 48F and secondary fermentation at

42F.  There is no question that fermentation at

these temperatures takes several months.  Once secondary

fermentation is completed, I typically lager my beers

at 32F-35F for three to four weeks.  An important point

to be made is that during cold fermentation, a substantial

amount of CO2 dissolves into your beer.

An excellent reference on this topic is "Brewing Lager Beers"

by Greg Noonan

>         Two questions fellow "Lagermeisters"...

>         1. All the sources I read said that secondary

> should take place at 50 degrees. My experience would lead me

> to belive this is too low.

>         2. How long should one typically expect a secondary

> to take? When is it safe to bottle or keg?

>

>

>

- --

*********************************************************

 **** Rob Reed                                      ****

  *** IC Design Center                              ***

  *** Delco Electronics Corporation                 ***

 **** Internet: rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com          ****

*********************************************************

------------------------------


Books on Brewing

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1993 17:07:17 -0400 (EDT)

From: Jason C Gerry <jcg@kepler.unh.edu>

Subject: Books on Brewing

    I am curious if there are any good books on home brewing...

I would also like to hear of any important do's and do nots that I should

know about and how much time I need to invest in producing a small amount

of brew.

    I would also like to hear from any people who have tried to market

their beer, their successes, failures, etc.  (personally e-mail me if you

can)

    Jason Gerry

    University of New Hampshire

    jcg@kepler.unh.edu

------------------------------


Re: True-bay

Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1993 17:25:05 -0400 (EDT)

From: Nate Clark <NC6967@conrad.appstate.edu>

Subject: Re: True-bay

Although I thought the issue of trub pronunciation had died down, Jack stirred

up an overwhelming sense of curiousity inside me.  So much, in fact, I just have

to ask one more question...

Where were these german speakers from?  It's possible that they said 'True-bay,'

as german has different dialects just as english does.  However, the word they

are saying is clearly spelled 'truebe.'  It is an adjective form of our brewing

word, trub, a noun (trueb in german), meaning dreary.  It is quite possible

that if these germans were unfamiliar with brewing, they could have related

'dreary' with the weather, thus the German phase 'das truebe Wetter,' the dreary

weather.  Hence the clouds.

My arguement is simple.

In english it's trub (noun).  We have been trying to discover the pronunciation

of the german word Trueb (noun).  Your german friends appearantly were saying

truebe (an adjective).  Under nearly every case using the noun, it would be

spelled Trueb in German.  Therefore, I submit to you that the correct

pronunciation of trueb as we use it in brewing would be closely approximated in

english as "troop," if one remembers to keep the "oo" short.  Of course if you

say trube (rhyming with tube), most american brewers will understand you.

Nate Clark

------------------------------


RE: Old freezer chest

Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1993 15:08:53 -0600 (CST)

From: John Mare <cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: RE: Old freezer chest

Wally,

     I have been using a 18 cubic foot chest freezer which was old when I

bought it for $40 23 years ago. I used it as a freezer until I purchased a

"William's" temperature controller 3 years ago. Now it is my brewchest. In

contrast to when it was a freezer, the motor is now off much of the time

since it only has to maintain 40 - 65!F instead of freezer temperature. I

monitor temperature with a dairy thermometer in a bottle of dilute chlorine,

and find my temperature fluctuations to be minimal. The chest probably

varies by 3 - 4 !F, but the mass of the beer fluctuates hardly at all. There

is no brand name on the chest, but I know it precedes the "frost-free" era

of freezers and refrigerators, and therefore does not possess the more

complicated temperature controls needed for the defrosting process. I theink

you're probably right in assuming that and old (preferably $40) freezer is

the best bet.

John Mar!, John's Alehouse, Tucson, Arizona.

------------------------------


regulator question

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 15:58:48 PDT

From: bgros@sensitivity.berkeley.edu (Bryan L. Gros)

Subject: regulator question

While we're on the subject of kegging...

Most of the kegging setups I've seen at shops have regulators on

the CO2 bottles with two "dials".  What do the two dials read?  Are

two necessary?  I don't want to skimp on the regulator, but I don't

want to buy something unnecessary.

                                  - Bryan

------------------------------


Re: Older Chest Freezers

Date: Tue, 07 Sep 93 18:49:20 EDT

From: brewerbob@aol.com

Subject: Re: Older Chest Freezers

To: akcs.wally

Subj: Older Chest freezers

From: BrewerBob@aol.com

Wally,    I have a chest freezer with a Honeywell temperature controller that

works just great. It turns the power to the freezer on or off. I set the

freezer control to coldest setting. I have used the freezer as high as 63 deg

for fermentation and as low as 40 deg for lagering. Much of the time it is

set at about 50 deg for serving, I have two taps on the lid!

As far as the electric bill is concerned, I really don't know what it costs

me but I would think it would have to be less than it would be if I used the

freezer as a freezer since it is not keeping it as cold and I don't open it

often. My controller keeps the temperature within plus or minus 1.5 degrees

of where it is set for unless I leave the lid open for a long period of time.

BrewerBob

------------------------------


Brewing Competition

Date: Tue, 07 Sep 93 18:41:52 EDT

From: brewerbob@aol.com

Subject: Brewing Competition

To: All Home Brewers

From: BrewerBob@aol.com (Bob Davis)

Subj: Brewing competition - Stout and Pale Ale

Press Release:

The Northeast Florida Society of Brewers, co-sponsored by The Hogtown Brewer

of Gainesville, FL and The Home Brewery of Brooksville, FL, announce the 1st

annual First Coast Brewer's Challenge, an AHA sanctioned homebrew competition

to be held the first week in November, 1993. Competition is open to all home

brewers. Entry deadline is October 29, 1993 with the final judging taking

place on November 7, 1993. Beer styles for this competition are limited to

Stout (all types) and Pale Ale (all types). Fee is $6.00 per entry with three

bottles of beer required for each entry. Prizes include merchandise with at

least $50.00 worth for first and $20.00 for second place.

For information, cantest rules and entry forms, contact Bob Gammie (904)

241-8879 (RobertG211@aol.com on Internet), Chuck Cummins (904) 292-2166 or

Joe Bryant (904) 399-3367 (BPNS42A on Prodigy) or write to: Brewer's

Challenge, 354 Magnolia Street, Atlantic Beach, FL  32233.

End of release...

 - - Folks, here's your chance to see how good that beer you make really is!

Join in the fun and win a prize! At the very least, your beer will be

critiqued by an AHA certified judge and you will be able to see how your beer

rates and will have a basis for braging to your riends. I will be entering my

oatmeal stout and I expect it to do well! Can you beat me?

BrewerBob@aol.com     Bob Davis

------------------------------


RE:  Dry hopping; secondary fermentation.

Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1993 17:04:23 -0600 (CST)

From: John Mare <cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: RE:  Dry hopping; secondary fermentation.

Domenick asks about dry hopping. I use only whole hops for dry hopping in

the secondary (glass carboy). Hops pour in easily with paper funnel, float

near the top, and do not clog my siphon at bottling. There really is no

answer to the question about "typical reduction" in SG in the secondary

since this is a function of when you rack. With ale I rack on day 3 or 4

when the final SG has almost been reached. If I racked earlier, obviously

the SG would still be higher. With lagers brewed at lower temperatures

(50!F) I rack on day 5 or 6 and usually the SG will drop a few more points

in the 3 weeks before I bottle. I hope this helps.

John Mar!, John's Alehouse, Tucson, AZ.

------------------------------


Old Recipes

Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1993 20:52:00 -0400 (EDT)

From: CCAMDEN@delphi.com

Subject: Old Recipes

Sorry to waste the bandwidth (although I have seen sillier things) but since

subscribing to the HBD for the past three weeks, I have been going through

the archives.  I have downloaded about one and one half years worth, and

every so often I see something that makes me write to the original writer.

But in this case, the email bounced.  Here is the post from last December.

>Date: Fri, 4 Dec 92 10:24:18 -0600

>From: hpfcla.fc.hp.com!melkor!rick (Rick Larson)

>Subject: 1992 Minnesota Brew Fest winning recipes

>

>I have compiled the 14 winning recipes (including Best

>of Show) from the 1992 Minnesota Brew Fest.  If anyone

>wants them, let me know via private email.  Please specify

>either PostScript or ASCII (default will be ASCII).

>The recipes will be distributed to the local homebrew

>stores (Minneapolis MN) so you too can brew the winning

>beer.

>

>rick            rick@adc.com

My question is, does anyone have these recipes?  If you do have them, could

you email me the ascii version?

I have my second batch in the secondary, and my third in the primary and I

am trying to line up my next batches.

Thanks in advance.

Cary Camden, Huntsville, AL

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1221, 09/08/93

*************************************

-------


seasonal ales: dryhopping with spices

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 93 07:02:27 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: seasonal ales: dryhopping with spices

Randy Mosher of Chicago, an admitted spice-beer addict recommends

using spice "infusions" -- soak the spices in vodka for a week or two,

then add a measured amount to your beer before bottling.  The nice

thing about this approach is that you can test the spicing level in a

glass of beer before "ruining" your whole batch.  Add drops with a

medicine dropper (one with calibrations), then you can scale up from

the volume of the glass (8 oz?) to the whole batch (5*128 oz).

=S

------------------------------


Homebrew Digest #1221 (September 08, 1993)

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 93 05:33:43 PDT

From: JZABDER@BCSC02.GOV.BC.CA

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1221 (September 08, 1993)

To: HOMEBREW--INTERNET homebrew@hpfcmi.fc

*** Reply to note of 09/08/93 00:47

System Operations

Thanks

    Would you please remove me from the distribution list...Thanks

G'day

------------------------------


iodophor

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1993 08:39:01 -0500

From: donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: iodophor

Sometime ago there was a rather spirited discussion about iodophors.

I didn't have time to add some info at that time but it seems

iodophor is again topical so I'll pass along a little bit of stuff now.

Specifically, it seems clear from Kelly Jones post earlier this week

that there is still confusion regarding acid and detergents in

iodophor.

I spoke with Dr. Landum of National Chemical which is the producer

of BTF iodophor.  Dr. Landum is, like me, a Ph.D. chemist.  This may

be more than anyone wants to ever know about iodophor but it

might help clear up some of the confusion.

There have been several types of iodophor produced over the years

and the general idea behind all of them is the same:  complexed

molecular iodine in some material that will dissolve in water and

then release the iodine to kill a bacterium or virus or yeast cell.  An

organic material is required to form the complex with iodine, but the

organic material needs to be also soluble in water.  This is

characteristic of a surfactant and that's why all iodophors contain

surfactants.  The one in BTF is essentially a large alcohol.  The

surfactant in the iodophor currently under discussion is a little

different according to another post on Monday's digest.

Iodophors can be generally broken down into two classes on the

basis of the production process.  The production

process dictates in part which surfactant(s) is used, which in turn

dictates other features such as the presence of acid.  A "hot" process

was developed in the 30's or 40's and a "cold" process was developed

in the 50's.  Iodophor produced by the older "hot" process does not

release the iodine into water very efficiently at neutral pH but will at

lower pH.  Thus the need to add acid to these iodophors.  Phosphoric

acid has been mentioned here but several other acids have been

used over the years.  The newer process resulted in iodophors which

did not need acid to release the iodine.  BTF and BEST are examples

of these.

Both types are meant to be used in industrial applications.  Both have

roughly the same level of iodine.  The differences have to do with the

surfactants and acid.  The ones containing acid have particular utility

to dairies because of the effect of the acid in dissolving residual milk

stone from the equipment.  This of course is not a consideration for

breweries.  This is not to say that breweries can't use the one with

acid, but breweries use other cleaning procedures.  The disadvantage

of the iodophors which contain acid is that they lather or foam when

agititated, at least more so than the newer iodophors, and this is a

concern for brewery use.

don

------------------------------


re: light struck beer

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 93 08:55:10 CST

From: "Bill Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: re: light struck beer

in HBD #1221 Tom Nelson writes:

[snip]

>I was wondering when light struck beer begins to be a

>problem.  My recollection is that hop acid, when exposed to light, will

>impart a "Skunky" smell.  If so then even while fermenting you are capable

>of light damaging your beer.  Could anyone expound on this for me.  Do I

>need to keep my primary fermenter in a box (remember the closet is out!).

YES YES YES cover your fermenter with a box, brown paper bag or something

else to block light.  As an experiment a few months ago I bottles some

pale ale in a clear bottle.  I placed the bottle in direct sunlight for

30 minutes and the skunk smell was overwhelming!  I find some of the

descriptions of off-smells and flavor a bit arcane, but this one is right

on SKUNK.

WAK

------------------------------


lager time & hot liquor tanks/O2

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1993 10:03:05 -0500 (EDT)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: lager time & hot liquor tanks/O2

IN the last digest:

<In response to questions from Phil Brushaber regarding

lager fermentation:  I have been brewing lager beers

for many years and my experience has been better lagers

are brewed at cooler temperatures: I conduct primary

fermentation at 48F and secondary fermentation at

42F.  There is no question that fermentation at

these temperatures takes several months.

Well.....It only takes 5-7 days at the Old Dominion Brewing Company.

My 1.080 Maibock fermented in 10 days......

The real issue here is a big one in homebrewing: Enough healthy

yeast (most homebrewers underpitch), enough disolved oxygen (

most homebrewers under oxygenate) and a healthy pool of fermentables

in the bitter wort (usually not an issue, but the breakdown of the

composition of the fermentables vs nonfermentables will invariably

dictate the degree of attenuation in the finished product). `

I guess the question is :how long does your *fermentation* take?

ie, how long until the SG has dropped by 75%?  No doubt that some

continual activity/lagering will occur but when everything is

done perfectly, a lager ferment in between 7-10 days.

*******************

Well, I installed a Hot liquor tank (propane water heater) and much

to my delight, it works perfectly!  The way to sparge with it is

to barely open the hot out faucet. This makes the hot water trickle

onto the grains aroung 163F (hottest setting on the heater).  Cold

city water flows in to the bottom of the heater, where the thermostat

quickly fires up the burner.  Within 15 minutes, the outlet temp is

up to 170F!  No modifications required.  This even surpases my

expectations.

I also hooked up a O2 injecter with a silica airstone.  I bubbled at

~1 psi for 1.5-2 hours.  The ferment kicked in within 4 hours, and by

morning, it was as beautiful as any I have seen.  The taste test will

have to wait two weeks.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

DE HOPPEDUIVEL DRINKT MET ZWIER 'T GEZONDE BLOND HOPPEBIER!

------------------------------


Heather Ale

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1993 09:56:00 EST

From: "/R=FDACB/R=A1/U=RIDGELY/O=HFM-400/TN=FTS 402-1521/FFN=Bill Ridgely/"@mr.cber.fda.gov

Subject: Heather Ale

  KONSTANTINE@delphi.com writes:

     >I'm new to the digest and I love all the info that's available.  I'm

     >looking for a recipe for Heather Ale and I was wondering if anyone

     >knows where I can find one.  Thanks again.

  Well, here's another opportunity to root through my dusty tomes. The

  following excerpt is from a book called "The Scots Cellar". I only have

  xeroxed pages from this book (I don't even have the author's name right

  offhand). I'll check with the Library of Congress and try to get a complete

  citation. At any rate, here is a cottage recipe, supposedly from the Isle

  of Orkney, for heather ale:

     "Crop the heather when it is in full bloom - a good large quantity. Put

     the croppings into a large-sized pot, fill up with water, set to boil.

     Boil for one hour. Then strain into a clean tub. Add one ounce of ground

     ginger, half an ounce of hops, and a pound of golden syrup for every

     dozen bottles. Set to boil again and boil for twenty minutes. Strain

     into a clean cask. Let it stand until milkwarm, then add a teacupful of

     good barm (brewer's yeast). Cover with a coarse cloth till next day.

     Skim the barm from the top and pour gently into a tub so that the barm

     may be left in the bottom. Bottle and cork tight. It will be ready for

     use in two or three days. This makes a very refreshing and wholesome

     drink as there is a good deal of spirit in heather."

  The author suggests substituting heather honey for the "golden syrup"

  (which I believe is simply corn syrup). He also suggests using less ginger

  than the recipe specifies, as ginger tends to overpower the subtle flavor

  of the heather. No indication is given as to what comprises a "good large

  quantity" of heather, but the author suggests cropping the heather blossoms

  with as little stalk as possible, as the stalk tends to impart a great deal

  of bitterness.

  I believe there is also a heather ale recipe in the book "The Curiosities

  of Ale & Beer" by John Bickerdyke, but my copy is on loan at the moment.

  If I remember correctly, Bickerdyke's recipe simply calls for adding the

  crushed heather blossoms to a standard beer wort before fermenting.

  If anyone attempts to recreate this ancient brew (I've given some thought

  to it but haven't as yet), please post the results.

     "From the bonny bells o' heather

      They brewed a drink langsyne,

      Was sweeter far than honey,

      Was stronger far than wine."

      Robert Louis Stevenson, "Heather Ale"

  Bill Ridgely (Brewer, Patriot, Bicyclist)                  __o

  ridgely@a1.cber.fda.gov                                   -/<,

  ridgely@cber.cber.fda.gov                              ...O/ O...

------------------------------


various

Date: Wed, 08 Sep 1993 10:34:52 -0400 (EDT)

From: /R=HERLVX/R=AM/U=KLIGERMAN/FFN=KLIGERMAN/@mr.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: various

I will be traveing to San Francisco next weekend and would appreciate it

if anyone would recommend brew pubs or microbreweries to visit.  I've already

been to Anchor.  E-mail responses would be fine to save bandwidth.  (I do not

have access to list servers or archives that I can readily download!)

In response to Greg_Habel concern about his low O.G.  My guess is that he did

a very limited sparge, using only 3 gallons.  I usually sparge with about

5 gallons of water and recirculate the first 2 gallons until it clears.

In regards to the Weix-FAQ.  He did an immeasurable service to many brewers.

For years I have been wanting a handy reference to yeast strains and the band-

width he used was well worth it.  I can't see how people complain when almost

as much bandwidth was taken up on a humorous but almost worthless topic of

how to pronounce "trub."  Get real!

Andy Kligerman

e-mail address:  kligerman%am%herlvx@mr.rtpnc.epa.gov

------------------------------


Thanks from a couple of lurkers

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1993 16:04:05 -0800

From: pbrooks@rig.rain.com (P Brooks)

Subject: Thanks from a couple of lurkers

This is just a quick note of thanks to all the contributors to the HBD over

the last several months.  After reading HBD (and rec.craft.brewing) for a

couple months while making our own, my partner and I decided that all grain

really didn't look _all_ that hard.

So - after digging thru the archived HBD's that I had, and reading

everything that related to mash/lauter tun's, easymashers (tm), conversion,

gott coolers, and a few other threads - we bought a seven gallon gott,

fabricated something like the ascii picture I saw of the easymasher (tm),

bought the grain, hops, et. al. and brewed.  Even though we knew it was

_supposed_ to happen - conversion was just sort of amazing (I mean it

really did turn sweet), and the way the wort cleared after filtering

through the grain bed for a minute or so went just like it was supposed to.

To make a *long* afternoon short - there's a couple things we'd do

different the next time (yes there will be a next time), and with practice

it should go smoother, but most importantly, there's a carboy of beer-to-be

bubbling merrily away in the basement.  Thanks again for all the indirect

help.

ciao,

pb

- ---

pbrooks@rig.rain.com

Renaissance Information Group

------------------------------


Grain Brewing Questions

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1993 12:46:40 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: Grain Brewing Questions

In response to Greg's Grain Brewing problems:

> Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 13:12:22 edt

> From: Greg_Habel@DGC.ceo.dg.com

> Subject: My first all grain batch - a screw up.

> Well, I attempted my first all grain batch this past weekend.  Using

> a rectangular picnic cooler with a copper t'd manifold for mashing

> and sparging.  Picnic cooler is a 10 gallon.  Mashed 6lbs highly

> modified pale malt and 8 oz crystal with 6 quarts of 168F water for 1

> hour.  Did the iodine test.  The color was blackish but it turned to

> clear when I stirred it up a bit.  Here's the part I think I screw'd

> up.  When sparging with 3 gallons of 170F water, I had a very

> difficult time of not disturbing the grain bed.  Most of the time it

> was very turbulent.  Anyways, the OG ended up being 1.024!!!!

A 10 gallon mash/lauter tun is too big for such a small amount of

grain.  IMHO, you need a grain bed a minimum of six to eight inches

deep.  I have found that you will have to add sparge water very

gingerly to a grain bed less than 10 or 12 inches deep.  Many

homebrew authors have their own opinions on this subject, but I

feel the deeper the grain bed, the better. A  5 gallon vertical drink

cooler would be more appropriate for the small mash you described.

A suggestion to avoid disturbing your grain bed is to use something

to slow down or diffuse the water going into your mash-tun: I use

a large plastic bowl with several 1/8" holes placed in the top of my

converted 5 gal drink cooler mash/lauter tun.  Commercial brewers

typically use a sprayer head to diffuse the sparge water as it

enters the lauter tun.

> Here's my question... how important is it that the grain

> bed is kept relatively undisturbed while sparging?  Also, will the

> liquid turn colorless near the end of the sparge.  Mine didn't.

It is very important to keep your grainbed undisturbed during the

sparge, otherwise you can wash a lot of draff into your boiler.

This can lead to off flavors like astringency and/or clarity

problems. There should be very little sugar in your mash at the

conclusion of sparging; however, if you sparge until the runoff

is colorless, you may be oversparging.  There are many ways to

endpoint your sparging operation.  I use George Fix's rule

of thumb, that is use 1.25qt water/# grain for the mash and

use the same amount of sparge water/# grain for sparging. This

implies limiting your runoff to 2.5qts sweet wort/# grain.  Another

way to endpoint your sparge is to taste the wort periodically.

If the runoff is no longer sweet or has an astringent flavor

(like iced tea), you should terminate the runoff.  I

believe you are better off undersparging by a slight amount,

rather than risk tannin extraction as a result of oversparging.

*********************************************************

 **** Rob Reed                                      ****

  *** IC Design Center                              ***

  *** Delco Electronics Corporation                 ***

 **** Internet: rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com          ****

*********************************************************

------------------------------


dry hopping question

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 93 12:11:08 -0500

From: "Jeff M. Michalski, MD" <michalski_jm@rophys.wustl.edu>

Subject: dry hopping question

I have a few questions regarding dry hopping.

  I've brewed a dark, rich, all grain Christmas

ale to which I plan to add 3-4 oz of Willamette pellets.  I've

never dry hopped with pellets and the talk over the net has

begun to worry me.  I planned to rack my beer to a clean carboy

after secondary fermentation (to get it off the yeast sediment

to avoid autolysis) then add the hops and dry hop for 4-6 weeks

at 40 - 45 degrees F.  This was recommended by a homebrewer who

has since left town (ie I cannot ask him for advice regarding

any pitfalls).  The beer I am making is dark ale with an original

gravity of 1.073 to which I want to impart a strong hop aroma.

Is this off base or can I do this without ruining 5 gallons of

a good tasting ale?

JEFF M. MICHALSKI

------------------------------


My opinion on Trub

Date: 8 Sep 1993 10:23:02 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: My opinion on Trub

My Fellow HBDers,

Since this issue is so dear to our hearts, I felt you were entitled to my

opinion. I first read the word in Miller's book, and with my command of the

Michigan dialect of American Standard English, pronouned it TRUB with a short

U. As in: Rub a dub dub, a whole lot of Trub.  I LIKE this pronounciation, it

SOUNDS like the crap at the bottom of the barrel.  I motion that HBD adopts

this version and we get on with it.  Next time I'm in Frankenmuth, I'll raise a

stein with my friends and we'll all sing a polka, but until then, its Trub.

John Palmer

Formerly of Michigan Tech, now stuck in Southern California.

I want get back to the real world.

------------------------------


RED TAIL ALE RECIPE CLONE WANTED

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 93 10:49:01 PST

From: Richard B Foehringer <Richard_B_Foehringer@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: RED TAIL ALE RECIPE CLONE WANTED

HELLO ALL,

DOES ANYONE OUT THERE HAVE A TRIED AND PROVEN RECIPE CLONE FOR "RED TAIL ALE"??

EITHER EXTRACT OR FULL GRAIN IS OK.....THANKS IN ADVANCE!!

DICK FOEHRINGER

------------------------------


Addtn to kegging FAQ/liquid-crystal thermometers/T-giving (spiced) ale

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 93 14:03 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Addtn to kegging FAQ/liquid-crystal thermometers/T-giving (spiced) ale

Al Richer did a good job summarizing the basics of kegging.  I would like

to add a bit more info.  In addition to the big o-ring and the two under

the dip tubes, there are also o-rings on the poppets INSIDE the connectors

(the part of the connector that is screwed onto the keg, over the diptube

 -- not the part of the connector that is at the end of the hose).  I

suggest changing these two poppets (I've yet to find poppets with replacable

o-rings).  Also, there are orings on the outside of the connectors (again

the part of the connectors that screw onto the keg).  The gas-side oring

has never been in contact with syrup, but a leak here would be a big waste

of CO2, so I suggest replacing both.  Finally, there is a gasket, usually a

flat disk in the pressure relief valve.  I've found some keg styles that have

a removable gasket, but have yet to find a replacement, so I just replace the

whole relief valve if possible (some styles of lids don't have a removable

relief valve).  That gives a grand total of eight o-rings/gaskets.  Sure,

were talking about something like $10 in parts, but it beats the heck out of

5 gallons of unintentional, rootbeer-flavored Pilsener.  I've been getting

all my keg parts from Foxx Equipment Company, but I've heard recently they

are not selling retail anymore... I've just called them and they said that

they do still sell retail, but prefer to refer homebrewers to local or

mailorder HB supply shops.  Their Kansas City location number is 800-821-2254.

*********************************

Spencer writes:

>The fish tank ones don't have a wide enough range.  I found some

>reptile thermometer strips that go from about 50 to 100 (F), which is

>fine for ales.  I've alse seen ones apparently designed for brewing

>with an even better range; maybe this is what Sheaf & Vine is selling?

The ones sold by Sheaf & Vine have a range of 40F to 80F.  I think that

this range should be made a bit lower for lagers and a bit higher for

ales.  If your ambient is 75F, then I could easily see the fermentation

driving the temperature above 80F.

***********************************

Mark writes:

>Am considering a Thanksgiving-type ale that would involve the addition of

>some pumpkin pie spice (allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc.).  My question(s)

>is, has anyone tried this before, (i.e., dryhopping with this stuff)?

>Should I do this after initial fermentation has terminated?  Should I do

>this in conjunction with some aromatic hops?  If so, what kind and how

>much?  About how much of this pumpkin pie spice should be added for 5

If you add the spices directly to the brew, you will have to deal with

the particles which won't dissolve.  What I did was to soak the spices

in vodka for two days and then strain the liquid through a coffee filter.

I added this at bottling so I could adjust to taste.  I don't have my

records handy, so I can's say how much I used, but it was a lot more than

I initially anticipated.  Maybe if I had soaked the spices in the vodka

longer, more flavor would have come out of them.  I suggest making up

a bunch of your own extracts and then adding them to an already carbonated

beer of a similar recipe that you intend to use.  Once you know how much you

will need, you can go ahead and brew the batch and then either add the

spice extracts on a per-bottle basis or on a batch basis.

Al.

------------------------------


Re: hazy beer/sparging/separating wort from hops/2-gauge regulators

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 93 14:08 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: hazy beer/sparging/separating wort from hops/2-gauge regulators

Bill writes:

  1)  I've had haze problems since I started mashing my own

  grains.  Not chill haze, rather ther beer never clarifies properly.

  I know the most likely source is uncoverted starches.  However, my

  mashes all passed the iodine test (sample taken from top of mash tun).

  Is there a better conversion test?  Is there another possible source for

  this haze?

It could be starch haze from too hot a sparge water -- unconverted starch

can be liberated from the husks if the sparge water is a lot higher than

168F.  This reminds me of an interesting point I read in Beer & Brewing

Volume 8, from Dave Miller's talk.  We all kind of know this, but then

again we don't think about it this way usually.  There are three stages

in conversion: 1)gelatinization, 2)liquifaction and 3)saccharification.

All three are occurring at the same time... some starch is being geletinized,

which is then liquified by the Alpha-amylase and then saccharified by

the Beta-amylase.  Miller pointed out the danger of relying strictly on

the iodine test because there could still be quite a bit of ungelatinized

starch in the mash which would not be available to the iodine test.  This

is a common reason for low yield, in that a brewer will see a negative

iodine test and mash out, leaving a lot of ungelatinized starch.

  2)  Sparging questions:

    a) How much recirculation.  "Recirculate until runoff is clear".

    Sounds great in print.  However, for amber or darker beers this is

    not as obvious as is sounds.  In last batch I recirculated the first

    5 qts.  Is this excessive?

Miller will say you can't recirculate too much (almost) but it depends

on your setup.  If you have a large underlet (dead space under the screen)

you will have to recirculate more to set the filter bed.  Some users of

particular setups have reported an established filter bed after about a cup.

For dark beers try a smaller vessel (like a test tube) for assessing clarity.

    b) When to stop sparging.  "Don't over sparge".  I like this about as

    much as "cook until done".  The three techniques I know of are 1)

    sparge until running reach certain gravity (1.010?), 2) Sparge until

    pH is too high ( > 5.5?), 3)  Sparge until boiler is full.  Both

    Miller and Papazian give mash & sparge water quantities, but the last

    time I used these my final runnings were 1.020, seemed wasteful.

It was wasteful.  Actually 3 can be your limiting factor, but you can always

boil down some of the wort and then add more runoff.  1 is the one I use, but

if your water is alkaline, you can extract a lot of tannins as the pH rises.

If you do have alkaline water, you should acidify your sparge water to make

sure the pH does not get too high.  Actually, you need less acidification when

you start your sparge (because the grain lowers the pH of the mash) and more

as later in the sparge (as the low pH wort runs out of the lauter tun).

  3) Separating break material & spent hops from wort.  When I siphon my

    cooled wort from the boiler into the fermenter, my siphon tube clogs

    leaving 1/2 to 1 gallon of wort/trub in the boiler. I usually pour the

<snip>

I use a hop bag for my boiling hops (whole AND pellet) and it reduces the

amount of material at the bottom of the kettle significantly.  I must note

that I add 10% to Jackie Rager's formulas to compensate for the lower

utilization I get when I use the hop bag.

***************************

Tom writes:

>closet).  Now I have recently gone back to glass fermenters, 6.5 gallon

>vice 5 gallon.  I was wondering when light struck beer begins to be a

>problem. <snip>

You should keep the fermenter in the dark too -- your beer can be light-struck

while in the fermenter.

*******************************

Bryan writes:

>Most of the kegging setups I've seen at shops have regulators on

>the CO2 bottles with two "dials".  What do the two dials read?  Are

>two necessary?  I don't want to skimp on the regulator, but I don't

>want to buy something unnecessary.

I feel that a two-gauge regulator is unnecessary -- the low-pressure gauge

shows you the pressure after the regulator (the keg side) and the high-

pressure regulator shows you the high-pressure side (the tank side).  However,

the pressure in the tank is going to be pretty much 800psi until all the

liquid CO2 has turned to gas -- then it will drop like a rock.  No, the

only way to know how much CO2 you have left is to weigh the tank.  A 20#

tank means that it will hold 20 pounds of CO2.  Weigh the tank with the

regulator and hoses when it is empty -- write this down (the tank will be

stamped with it's empty weight, but taking off the regulator periodically

is not a good idea -- mess with the fittings as little as you can).  When

you get it back from the filler, it should weigh 20# more (or 5# if it is

a 5# tank, 10#, etc.).

Al.

------------------------------


acid bottles / CF chiller cleaning / ???

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 93 9:13:40 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: acid bottles / CF chiller cleaning / ???

Corby asks how to treat his acid bottles before using them to brew.  It reminds

me of an old rhyme (the origin I do not know):  The solution to pollution is

dilution.  The way I would treat the bottles:  just add water.  There should be

no acid left "in the glass" when the bottle is emptied and rinsed.  I might

store the thing full of water for a day, empty, fill, and store for another

day, to really rinse it well.  Other than that I wouldn't worry.

I found out something (that I already knew!) this past weekend.  Dishwashing

liquid (detergent?) is very corrosive to basic metals.  I knew this because a

few years ago I plumbed some iron gas pipe and did the standard "bubble" test

on the threaded joints.  These threads rusted within a day, although not enough

to cause any problems.  Well, I'm here to say that it works on copper even

better!

I wanted to do a great cleaning on my counterflow wort chiller before coiling

it (just to make sure there was no machine oil or anything in it).  I laid it

out flat and snaked a wire into it.  It only made it about halfway but I

remembered someone on the net recommending using dishwashing liquid to lube it.

The advantage, it was said, was that it was good for taking any oils out with

it when it was rinsed.

So I poured a good amount in the end of the copper tubing and was able to snake

the wire all the way through the tubing.  I then got distracted for a couple of

hours and when I came back to pull some twine through, there was a _large_

amount of corrosion of the copper tubing already happening.  I ended up pulling

the twine through (with cotton balls and disposable cleaning rags) many many

many times before getting the tubing really clean.  The bulk of this work was

getting that green sludge (some sort of copper oxide?) out of the tubing.  I

checked it by cutting off a couple of inches of the tubing and cutting it

lengthwise.  The tubing is now clean but I would do things differently next

time.  If I was to use dishwashing liquid, I'd make sure that I rinsed it out

within the hour.  Or, use something else.  Another lesson learned...

Patrick Weix and Chris Campanelli:  Thanks for the FAQ's!

Cheers,

norm

- --

Norm Pyle, Staff Engineer         Head Brewer,

Storage Technology Corporation    Pyledriver Brewery, A Non-Profit Organization

2270 South 88th Street            1500 Elmhurst Drive

Louisville, CO 80028-0211         Longmont, CO 80503-2323

(303) 673-8884                    npyle@n33.stortek.com

------------------------------


Re: Freezers

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 93 13:00 CDT

From: hplabs!mcdcup!tellabs.com!don (Don Leonard)

Subject: Re: Freezers

>I know that some people use a chest freezer with some type of

>external thermostat to control the temperature.  Has anyone

>ever burned out the compressor of a chest freezer due to using

>it in a way that it was not intended to be used?

I'm not sure about your particular freezer but mine just has a

normal refridg. compressor in it. As long as your temp. regulation

device "short cycle" protection for the compressor, I don't think

you are straining the hardware much more than normal use. A short

cycle protection is nothing more than a timer that prevents the

compressor from turning on until it has sat for a while. The time

length is usually at least 4 min. but could be more. The reason you

need to do this is to allow the high and low pressure sides to

balance before starting the compressor. Not allowing the high side

pressure to equalize puts excessive strain on the motor inside the

compressor.

>Does anyone

>have any experience with older chest freezers say > 10 years

>old.  I worry that an older freezer may not have much life

>left in it, but then again I think that it may also be built a

>whole lot better than the new ones.

Yep, I've got one thats at least 15 years old and it works great.

The only problem with old fridges are that they are not really as

energy efficient as the newer ones.

> Another question, if the freezer

>is fairly full with 30-40 gallons of brew at 45-50 degrees, does

>the temperature stay fairly constant and require the compressor

>to not kick on that often or a better way to phrase that is

>Has anyone had their electric bill double or triple after

>setting up a chest freezer beer cooler?

>

>Thanks -

>Wally

Well, I have noticed an increase in my electric bill but not the

doubling that you refer to. Currently I have a lagering/serving

fridge and a fermentation freezer. They are both at least 12 years

old.

don

------------------------------


Primary Fermetor question

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 93 17:07:12 -0400

From: <geotex@engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Primary Fermetor question

I just started using a blowoff tube on a glass carboy for my

primary.  It works great! I have a 1" diameter tube for the

blowoff and my current batch blew out about 1 pint of liquid.

My only question is: what should I do when I rack to the

secondary?  More specifically, now that the liquid level is

lower than the neck, should I top it off when I rack?

I want to minimize the air exposure, right?  But I am

NOT convinced that adding a pint of water at this stage

would have not effect.

Please respond by e-mail, I need to rack soon.

Thanks

Alex

------------------------------


Fridge Costs

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1993 17:35:08 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kieran O'Connor <koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: Fridge Costs

Some folks have been wondering aobut fridge costs. Here's a neat way to

figure that out.

Most power companies offer free devices (you borrow, but can't keep) which

will measure power consumption. The one I got is for educators (IM a

teacher) and they mail it to you and you mail it bacj when done. The have

other stuff too--all sorts of Science realted gizmos. The power company

here that does it is NY State Electric and Gas (a public utility), but

they sent it to me where I work which is not even in their service area.

You put in the cost of your electricity/KW

hour, then plug the fridge into it.  It runs like a meter, but only when

power is drawn through it, so its accurate for our usage.

i used it once when it was set to 60--and I think it was like 3$/month--at

$.11/KW/hour cost.

Good luck.

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Address: koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu

Syracuse, N.Y. USA

------------------------------


Re: regulator question

Date: Wed, 08 Sep 93 16:05:33 -0700

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Re: regulator question

  The dial closest to the CO2 tank measures tank pressure, the other

measures dispensing pressure. I have yet to empty my first 20lb

cyinder, but I understand that for CO2, the first gauge moves very

little if at all, until the tank is empty, then it drops like a stone.

The best way to determine the remaining CO2 is to weigh the tank, and

then subtract the tare (sp?) weight stamped into the metal near the

neck of the tank.  Only the dispensing gauge is necesary.

         Drew Lynch

  Chronologic Simulation, Los Altos, Ca.

     (415)965-3312 x18

    drew@chronologic.com

------------------------------


Re: Hard, high pH water treatment for new masher (HBD #1205)

Date:  Wed, 8 Sep 1993 16:28:26 -0400

From: Bill Flowers <waflowers@qnx.com>

Subject: Re: Hard, high pH water treatment for new masher (HBD #1205)

Almost a month ago I posted the original message requesting help.

This is a long overdue "thank you" to all those who responded.  Armed

with your advice and a detailed lab report I was finally able to make

sense of what Miller was saying.  Unfortunately I haven't had an

opportunity to apply what I've learned yet (too busy delivering on a

contract), but over the next week I'll make up for it with 3 batches

of beer I plan to start.  :-)

Once again, thanks to all.

- ---

W.A. (Bill) Flowers                email: waflowers@qnx.com

QNX Software Systems, Ltd.         QUICS: bill     (613) 591-0934 (data)

(613) 591-0931 (voice)             mail:  175 Terrence Matthews

(613) 591-3579 (fax)                      Kanata, Ontario, Canada K2M 1W8

------------------------------


questions on making mead / suggestion re: exploding carboy

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1993 18:25:19 -0600 (CDT)

From: jim@n5ial.mythical.com (Jim Graham)

Subject: questions on making mead / suggestion re: exploding carboy

First, a couple of questions regarding making mead.  Then, a suggestion for

the guy who had the carboy explode in the closet.

After reading Papazian's comments on how good the stuff is, I'd like to try

it out.  Is brewing mead any different from brewing beer in a single-stage

fermenter (I don't even own a carboy)?  Is it basically going to be the

normal approximately 7 days in the fermenter and then 15 days (minimum)

aging in bottles?  If not, how long should I expect it to take to

ferment/age out?

Also, how much is it likely to cost to brew?  Is Sam's Wholesale Club most

likely to be the best (i.e., cheapest) source for the honey?  Or is there

a less-expensive source?

Is mead one of those things that, like champagne, is typically only for

certain occasions?  Or is it something that most people would just sit down

and enjoy as they would any other homebrew?  Does this matter?  Do I care?

Who knows.....

I'm thinking about using the first mead recipe in TNCJoHB, which he calls

``Antipodal Mead (Traditional)''.  Does anyone have any suggestions for a

mead that might be a better one to start with?  Or is this a good start?

Btw, adding fruit isn't really much of an option right now, mainly for cost

reasons (I'd have to buy the carboy as a secondary fermenter, plus buy the

fresh fruit at a fruit stand or farmer's market somewhere, etc.).  However,

I'm certainly open for suggestions along this line, too---if nothing else,

for future reference.

> From: TAN1%SysEng%DCPP@cts27.comp.pge.com

> Subject:  Light struck beer (TAN1)

> I have

> been relagated to brewing outdoors since several years back I had a glass

> carboy explode in my bedroom closet (The saddest day of my life - superbowl

> stout exploded, taking out the carpet and most of the clothes in the

> closet).

Just a suggestion---why not wrap the carboy (whether it's outside or in

your closet) in a blanket or something similar?  When it's inside, it would

at least keep the beer limited to making a mess on the floor, as opposed to

trashing the floor, clothes, ceiling, etc....  When it's outside, it would

help prevent the problem of exposure to light.  Whether it's inside or

outside, it would make it far less likely for someone to be hurt (or worse)

by shrapnel.....

I had a beer bottle explode once, and from that day on, I keep all beer

bottles in either a case-box, in a cabinet, or under some sort of towel,

blanket, etc., from the day the bottle is capped until it goes in the

fridge.  If another one explodes, I don't plan on cleaning up glass from

all over the apartment (the one that blew sent glass *EVERYWHERE*---I'm

just glad I wasn't home).

Anyways, that's it for today (or probably next week, by the time this gets

posted to the digest).  Later,

   --jim

- --

#include <std_disclaimer.h>                                  73 DE N5IAL (/4)

- --------------------------< Running Linux 0.99 PL9 >--------------------------

INTERNET: jim@n5ial.mythical.com  |  j.graham@ieee.org     ICBM: 30.23N 86.32W

AMATEUR RADIO:  (packet station temporarily offline)       AMTOR SELCAL: NIAL

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

E-mail me for information about KAMterm (host mode for Kantronics TNCs).

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1222, 09/09/93

*************************************

-------


distribution

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 93 06:08:40 PDT

From: JZABDER@BCSC02.GOV.BC.CA

Subject: distribution

To: HOMEBR2 --INTERNET homebrew@hpfcmi.fc

System Operations

Please remove me from  homebrew digest redistribution list. Thanks for all

the info.

G'day

------------------------------


mini-keg question

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 93 9:19:17 EDT

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: mini-keg question

Here is a question for all you who have used the mini-kegs that are

becoming available:  Is it easy (or even possible) to purge the kegs

with CO2 when you are kegging?  Can you put the dispenser in the keg,

give it a gentle blast (talk about oxymorons) of CO2, and then fill?

Thanks in advance for your help!

- --

Jim Grady              |"Root beer burps don't have to be said 'Excuse me'."

grady@hp-mpg.an.hp.com |                Robert Grady, age 4.75

------------------------------


Gel/Liq/Sacc

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 93 7:24:24 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Gel/Liq/Sacc

Al Korz raises a good point about mashing.  One of the first books I read about

all-grain was from Dave Line, who is (was) admittedly one of the more relaxed

brewing authors around.  He did say more than once (I believe it was in "The

Big Book of Brewing") that once you hit a negative starch test you are _not_

done.  I guess he explained it a bit although I can't recall what his

explanation was.  Miller's explanation via Al seems right on the money:

ungelatinized starch which is undetected by the iodine test.  Maybe this is why

many professional brewers rely more on the mash time rather than a conversion

test.

cheers,

norm

- --

Norm Pyle, Staff Engineer         Head Brewer,

Storage Technology Corporation    Pyledriver Brewery, A Non-Profit Organization

2270 South 88th Street            1500 Elmhurst Drive

Louisville, CO 80028-0211         Longmont, CO 80503-2323

(303) 673-8884                    npyle@n33.stortek.com

------------------------------


What is Malt Liquor?

Date:  Thu, 9 Sep 1993 07:41:09 -0700

From: Richard Buckberg <buck@well.sf.ca.us>

Subject: What is Malt Liquor?

Does anyone have a definition of malt liquor?  What makes some brews malt

liquor, and does anyone have any recipes?

------------------------------


Beer & Brewing Bibliography

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 93 10:11:20 CST

From: "Bill Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Beer & Brewing Bibliography

  I was reading Bill Ridgely's post on Heather Ale in HBD #1222 and

was facinated by the description of this ale.  Anyway, It got me

thinking about books on beer and brewing, new and old.  Most of us

are familiar with the recent books for homebrewers, Miller, Papazian,

etc.  However, there are obviously a lot of other books out there.

I'm wondering about putting together some sort of annotated,

bibliography.  Any interest?  Send me you comments and citations.

WAK

------------------------------


RE: All-grain

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 93 11:32:43 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: All-grain

Hi All,

  In HBD#1221 Greg Habel writes:

>Well, I attempted my first all grain batch this past weekend.  Using

>a rectangular picnic cooler with a copper t'd manifold for mashing

>and sparging.  Picnic cooler is a 10 gallon.  Mashed 6lbs highly

>modified pale malt and 8 oz crystal with 6 quarts of 168F water for 1

>hour.                                                ^^^^

  Was 168F your strike temperature, or the temperature of the mash?

168F is a little high for saccharification rest, you want a mash

temperature of roughly 150F-158F, depending on how much body is desired

in the finished beer.

>Here's the part I think I screw'd

>up.  When sparging with 3 gallons of 170F water, I had a very

>difficult time of not disturbing the grain bed.  Most of the time it

>was very turbulent.  Anyways, the OG ended up being 1.024!!!! I

>quickly went to the fridge and pounded a couple of homebrews, yeast

>and all!  Here's my question... how important is it that the grain

>bed is kept relatively undisturbed while sparging?

  It's fairly important that the grain bed be disturbed as little as

possible once recirculation of the initial runoff is complete and a

filter bed established.  If the grain bed is disturbed, the chances of

particulate matter such as small pieces of grain or husk getting into

the brewpot are increased.

>How do you add 3 gallons of 170F sparge water without disturbing the

>grain bed?  Could it be that my cooler is too large, ie the grain bed

>is not deep enough?  I decided to ferment it anyways.

  Try using something to diffuse the sparge water as you add it.  I mash

and sparge in a cylindrical cooler with a colander mounted on top.

You might try setting a bowl or plate upside down on the grain bed, and

pouring the water slowly onto the bottom of the plate.

>Also, will the

>liquid turn colorless near the end of the sparge.  Mine didn't.

  The runoff will get lighter in color as the sparge progresses, but

it should not get colorless unless you oversparge.

>I'd love to give this another shot this weekend.  Greg

  Please do, and let us know how things worked out.

***************************************************************

Also in HBD#1221, Bill Kitch writes:

>I went all grain several months ago and will never turn back.  However,

>I've got some new problems. I'm sure you experienced all-grainers can help

>me solve them.

> 1)  I've had haze problems since I started mashing my own

> grains.  Not chill haze, rather ther beer never clarifies properly.

> I know the most likely source is uncoverted starches.  However, my

> mashes all passed the iodine test (sample taken from top of mash tun).

> Is there a better conversion test?  Is there another possible source for

> this haze?

  Hmmm, just a hunch, but the fact that the iodine test passed after

mashing yet haze appears in the runoff leads me to believe that unconverted

starch is indeed the culprit, and that you have a filtration or sparging

problem.

  Check your grind, specifically the condition of the grain husks, they

should be intact or nearly so.  The more intact the grain husk, the better

filtration you will get in the lauter tun.  If the husks are excessively

torn or in small pieces, you need to grind a little coarser.  Your extraction

may suffer a little bit, but this is by far the lesser of the two evils,

IMHO.

  Another thing to check is the temperature of the grain bed itself.  I read

somewhere, in one of Miller's books I believe, that granules of unconverted

starch will burst when exposed to temperatures approaching 190F.  This

releases very fine particles of unconverted starch into the wort, which

are all but impossible to filter out in the tun.  Measure the temperature

of the grain bed, not the sparge water or water on top of the bed, and

keep it around 160F or so.

> 2)  Sparging questions:

>   a) How much recirculation.  "Recirculate until runoff is clear".

>   Sounds great in print.  However, for amber or darker beers this is

>   not as obvious as is sounds.  In last batch I recirculated the first

>   5 qts.  Is this excessive?

  Different lautering setups will require different amounts of recirculation,

so it's difficult to say whether a given amount of recirculation is

excessive or not.  I recirculate until the runoff is free of particulate

matter, usually 2 to 3 quarts.  The runoff is not crystal clear at this

point, but it begins to run clear shortly afterwards.

  I think the purpose of recirculation is to set up the filtration by the

grain bed, not to increase yields.  When the runoff is free of small chunks

of grain, you're there.  Of course, this is more difficult to determine

with dark beers.  When in doubt, I'll collect the runoff in a small glass,

and hold it up to the light.  This works for all but the darkest stouts.

>   b) When to stop sparging.  "Don't over sparge".  I like this about as

>   much as "cook until done".  The three techniques I know of are 1)

>   sparge until running reach certain gravity (1.010?), 2) Sparge until

>   pH is too high ( > 5.5?), 3)  Sparge until boiler is full.

  I use a combination of the hydrometer reading and my palate to determine

when to stop.  From experience, when I've collected 5 gallons of wort, I

start taking frequent gravity readings of the runoff.  When the gravity of

the runoff approaches 1.020, I start tasting the sample.  As soon as I detect

a taste like hot tea, I stop sparging.  With my equipment and procedures,

I'll have ~6.5 gallons collected at this point, and the gravity is ~1.010.

Your mileage may vary.

  The problem with oversparging is excessive tannin extraction from the

grain husks.  This is why I use my palate to determine when to stop.  IMHO,

numbers like gravity and pH will vary according to water supply, amount

and type of grain used, etc., so it's risky to rely solely on these

measurements.

> 3) Seperating break material & spent hops from wort.  When I syphon my

>   cooled wort from the boiler into the fermenter, my syphon tube clogs

>   leaving 1/2 to 1 gallon of wort/trub in the boiler. I usually pore the

>   last of this glog into mason jars, allow the trub to settle and decant

>   the wort for use as starters.  One quart of glog doen't bother me but

>   for my last triple I was left with nearly a gallon.  Again seems

>   wasteful.  Techniques?  Equipment?  (I know, Jack, I should drill a

>   hole in the bottom of my boiler and install a SS screen w/tubing etc.

>   I'm seriously considering this but would like to hear other

>   alternatives.)

  Someone else posted this idea a while ago, I can't remember who, try

attaching a copper scouring pad to the end of your racking tube.  These

things are called "Chore Boys" in these parts, they have no soap in them,

are easily sanitized by a brief boil, and cool off enough to handle a few

seconds after removal from boiling water.  I set the end of the racking

tube directly on the surface of the break material, they do a superb job

of filtering hops and trub, I get every drop of wort and have never had one

clog.

  Apologies for the lengthy post, I hope it helps.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


Foaming when adding priming sugar

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 93 9:43:19 MDT

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Foaming when adding priming sugar

I've noticed, at bottling time, when I add my priming sugar to the beer

it tends to foam a bit.  Anyone else notice this or have a theory why?

My guess would be that it is an indication of how much CO2 is dissolved

in the beer -- the sugar somehow causes it to be released.  So

indirectly, it's an indication of how active the yeast in your beer

still are, and perhaps an indication of how well your beer will

carbonate.

BTW, I usually prime with 2/3 cup corn sugar dissolved in a few ounces

of hot water.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Something new

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1993 11:50:42 -0400

From: esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

Subject: Something new

Greetings,

I am an extract brewer with about 10 batches under my belt. Mainly because

of time constraints, I don't think I'll be trying all-grain brewing for

quite some time, but I would like to expand my brewing horizons. Other than

brewing particular beers I haven't done before, are there any techniques

ingredients etc. that you more experienced brewers would suggest I try? The

only half-way unusual ingredient I've added yet was some milk sugar to a

stout which is now fermenting. This request may seem out of left field, but

I thank you in advance for humoring me and for any suggestions.

Please respond by e-mail to :esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

Cheers,

Eugene

------------------------------


2-dial regulator vs. 1 dial

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 93 09:10:50 PDT

From: 09-Sep-1993 1208 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: 2-dial regulator vs. 1 dial

>Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 15:58:48 PDT

>From: bgros@sensitivity.berkeley.edu (Bryan L. Gros)

>Subject: regulator question

>

>While we're on the subject of kegging...

>

>Most of the kegging setups I've seen at shops have regulators on

>the CO2 bottles with two "dials".  What do the two dials read?  Are

2-dial systems usualy have 1 low pressure dial (0-70 PSI or so) and

one high-pressure dial (0-2000 PSI).  The high-pressure dial is the

pressure in your CO2 tank.  The low-pressure dial is the pressure

maintained in your keg.  I guess the only reason for having the high-

pressure dial is to help determine when your tank is nearly spent.

JC Ferguson

------------------------------


REGULATORS

Date:         9 Sep 93 10:04:40 MST

From: "Cisco"  <FRANCISCO@osmo.CCIT.Arizona.EDU>

Subject:      REGULATORS

Glenn Anderson writes:

Homebrewers desiring the use of this gas should be aware that they

must use different regulators as the nitrogen is packed in under

higher pressure than CO2. CO2 is normally under 800LBS pressure and

CO2 gages normally top out somewhere around this. Nitrogen on the

other hand is usually under around 2100LBS and require the

appropriate regulator/gages.

To keep you from hooking up the low pressure CO2 regulator to the

beer mix and blowing your head off, the bottles come with a different

valve.  It's female, part number is CGA580.

*****************************

This is correct ONLY if you're filling your tank with 100% nitrogen

and that definitely doesn't work for dispensing beer(you will

eventually end up with flat beer because the CO2 in suspension will

leave the beer under a blanket of nitrogen). The nitrogen/CO2

mixture is under 1800 lbs pressure and beer dispensing regulators

are rated to be safe up to 2400 lbs(I called several regulator

distributers to be sure). Also no special value is needed for the

special Beer Mix of nitrogen/CO2.

John Francisco

------------------------------


BEER MIX REPLY

Date:         9 Sep 93 10:26:37 MST

From: "Cisco"  <FRANCISCO@osmo.CCIT.Arizona.EDU>

Subject:      BEER MIX REPLY

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

**************************

Cisco writes:

>I have posted a few articles on calculating dispensing pressure with

>different diameter/length tubing. If you drink 5 gallons of homebrew

>within 2 weeks everything works fine. However, if you only drink a

>pint of beer a day, like I do, your beer will eventually become

>overcarbonated because the nice cold temperature at which you dispense

>the beer also allows the beer to absorb more CO2 over time. My kegs, I

>have two on tap all the time, sit for 4 to 6 weeks and could absorb

>quite a bit of CO2. No amount of adjusting CO2 pressure will correct

>this to pour properly. You could disconnect the CO2 and bleed off

>some of it from the kegs and dispense but it's a real pain bleeding

>off dissolved CO2 - it takes time and patience.

I'm sorry, but I must disagree.  If you do the math first and then

choose your hose lengths/widths accordingly, you will not have overcarbonation.

You just must first choose the temperature and the number of volumes you

want in the beer and then choose the pressure, hose lengths, hose diameters

based on the formulas give in HBD back issues and in Dave Millers' very

good article in the 1992 AHA National Conference Proceedings.  If your

beer is overcarbonating, the pressure is too high or (as Jack pointed out)

the temperature may be higher than you think.

***********************************

I'm sorry but I disagree. You obviously have not had any kegs on tap

for any extended length of time to notice the gradual effect of CO2

absorbtion at cold temperatures (if you don't believe this can happen

then you don't believe in the concept of forced carbonation either).

I've been kegging for ten years now and I definitely talk from

experience. Also I was the one that gave formulas in HBD back issues

on calculating pressure, hose lengths/diameters. The calculations

work great if you drink you keg within a few weeks but if you have a

stout on tap that you only drink occasionally it will over time

absorb more CO2. The alternative is the nitrogen/CO2 gas mixture

which slows down the inevitable absorbtion considerably. Someone else

mentioned that all you had to do is turn off your CO2 tank and only

turn it on when the pressure got too low. This will work if you drink

the beer within a few weeks but it will still continue to absorb the

CO2 but at a slower rate than if the gas pressure were left on. I'm

lazy, I don't want to keep turning the gas on & off so I prefer the

nitrogen/CO2 mixture for dispensing. I could also solve this problem

by drinking alot more beer(this is tough with two kegs always on tap!)

but then I drink for quality flavor enjoyment not for quantity.

John

------------------------------


used brewpub equipment

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 93 12:54:15 CDT

From: jay marshall <marshall@pat.mdc.com>

Subject: used brewpub equipment

Fellow HBD'rs,

A buddy of mine is looking at putting together a brewpub here in Texas now

that they are legal.  He would like to find out if anyone knows of points

of contact for locating used brewing equipment, and what the general

availability of used systems is.  He is interested in getting prices

and general installation costs for 2 - 10 bbl systems.

Please respond via private email to save HBD bandwidth.

thanks,

- --

Jay

marshall@pat.mdc.com

------------------------------


replacing keg gaskets, etc.

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 93 11:01:44 PDT

From: 09-Sep-1993 1353 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: replacing keg gaskets, etc.

I don't think it is totally necessary to replace _all_ of the

gaskets in a soda keg.  I have one soda keg that I've used 3

or so times and the only gaskets I replaced was the lid o-ring

and the poppet o-rings, for a total cost of less then $1.00.

Never had the taste of soda in _any_ brews dispensed from the

keg.

The only time I'd suggest replacing more gaskets is if they are

leaking or you are extremely worried about soda flavor in your

brew.  In other words, Relax...

When you get a dirty keg, wash it out really well.  Put boiling

hot H20 with soap and shake it; let it sit over night.  Rinse.

Repeat, hook up the CO2 and dispense, etc.   One thing nice about

stainless is it cleans well.

As for a place to buy parts, I've done business w/ Foxx and BCI.

I like BCI better 'cuz I can call 'em on Monday and have stuff

at my house by Friday.  Although on a couple of occasions, they

have screwed up my order...

BCI:  800-284-9410.

Last I remember, lid o-rings were $0.52, poppet o-rings around

$0.12, etc.  Buy yourself a bunch and you don't have to sweat it

for a while.

JC FERGUSON

"Kegs 'R' Us" :-)

Littleton MA USA

------------------------------


Yeast Washing

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 20:32:48 GMT

From: Martin Wilde <martin@gamma.intel.com>

Subject: Yeast Washing

When I wash yeast I have a hard time separating the cold break (trub) from

the yeast.  I know that there is a color difference (white for trub - offwhite

for yeast), but I think I end up with some trub in the process.  Is the

whole idea behind the wash to just remove the fermented wort from the

yeast/trub and thats all???

thanks

martin

------------------------------


Colorless runoff/low extraction/dryhopping

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 93 14:06 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Colorless runoff/low extraction/dryhopping

Rob writes, quoting Greg:

>> Here's my question... how important is it that the grain

>> bed is kept relatively undisturbed while sparging?  Also, will the

>> liquid turn colorless near the end of the sparge.  Mine didn't.

>

            <edited>

>conclusion of sparging; however, if you sparge until the runoff

>is colorless, you may be oversparging.  There are many ways to

>endpoint your sparging operation.  I use George Fix's rule

>of thumb, that is use 1.25qt water/# grain for the mash and

>use the same amount of sparge water/# grain for sparging. This

>implies limiting your runoff to 2.5qts sweet wort/# grain.  Another

>way to endpoint your sparge is to taste the wort periodically.

>If the runoff is no longer sweet or has an astringent flavor

>(like iced tea), you should terminate the runoff.  I

>believe you are better off undersparging by a slight amount,

>rather than risk tannin extraction as a result of oversparging.

I was just reading Beer and Brewing Volume 8 yesterday and ran

across something in Dave Miller's talk.  I believe he said that

at the end of his sparge, he once tasted the runnings and they

tasted like tea (and looked like tea).  On his next batch, he

acidified his sparge water to 5.7pH with 88% Lactic acid (he said

it didn't take much) and on his following batch, the end of

the sparge was nearly colorless.

********************************************

Regarding Greg's low extraction (5 gal of 1024 from 10# of grain),

Miller said in the same talk that the iodine test is unreliable

and that because of it, some people mash out too early -- see my

hazy beer post in HBD 1222.

********************************************

Jeff writes he plans to dryhop his Christmas ale with 3-4oz of

Willamette pellets for 4-6 weeks.

I feel that you should save the pellets for boiling and get some

whole Willamette hops for dryhopping.   Whole hops will float and

thus it will be much easier to rack out from under them than with

pellets.  Also, 3-4 ounces is quite intense for a 5 gallon batch.

I usually use 1/2 to 2 ounces.  Finally, I feel tat 4-6 weeks is

too long, even at 40-45F.  At 65-70F, I recommend 7 to 10 days

and about two to 2.5 weeks for lagering temperatures.  After a

while, I feel that more hop aromatics are escaping from the beer

to the air than are entering the beer from the hops.  This, of

course, is unless you are planning to do this in a sealed container.

You should probably purge any air that you introduce during dryhopping

as oxygen kills hop aroma.

Al.

------------------------------


(none)

Date: 09 Sep 93 14:22:20 -0700

From: mbarre@nomvs.lsumc.edu

Subject: (none)

Jon Palmer iz riet.  Liek Galager, Ie doen't think wee need tue ad

ennee mor wirdz with simpl spelings but funkee proenunceeashunz tue

the Inglish languej.  Let's uez trub.

Miekel frum Nue Orlins

------------------------------


When should I pick my hops?

Date: 9 Sep 93 12:34:00 -0700

From: CAIN_WILLIAM@Tandem.COM

Subject: When should I pick my hops?

I planted some cascade and nugget hops this spring and the

Cascade's are doing great.  While the nuggets have just started to form

cones, the Cascades have cones that are between 1/2" and 3" long.

I've picked a couple and squeezed them, and they do produce a

plesant scent.  I'm thinking that it's time to pick them, but

how can I know for sure?  Also, what is the best way to dry and

store them?  I have been off of the digest for a couple of months

so any suggestions or compilations of previous posts would be

greatly appreciated.

Bill Cain

------------------------------


CF chiller cleaning, cooler mashing, Glatt mill, etc.

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1993 13:51:56 -0700 (PDT)

From: Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG>

Subject: CF chiller cleaning, cooler mashing, Glatt mill, etc.

COUNTER FLOW CHILLER CLEANING

I'd like a reasonable cleaning and sanitizing procedure for CF chillers.

I'm considering building one but feel that merely hot water and idophor

probably isn't going to keep it clean over time.  On the other hand, I

don't quite feel like going through the clean-in-place process outlined in

the recent BT issue.  What do the rest of you do?

COOLER MASHING

I've been having some trouble reaching my desired mash temp of 154F by

infusing at a ratio of 1.25 qt H2O @ 175F per pound of grist.  I've also

tried using a ratio of 1/1 and adjusting with boiling water.  When this

didn't work I drew of a fraction of the liquid, boiled and returned to the

mash.  I used this method on a porter that came out highly phenolic.  I

thought this was my first experience with an infected batch but a recent

post (sorry forgot who or when) suggested a link between tannins and

phenols.  Could boiling the dark grains cause a phenolic taste in my brew?

I don't notice other taste/mouthfeel components I associate with tannins.

Also, I'm thinking of starting with hotter water and adjusting with cold

water or ice if necessary.  Any potential problems with stating with a too

hot mash?  I understand that the enzymes are not detrimentally affected by

short time periods over their active temperature range, correct?

GLATT MILL

I'd like to hear from anyone who has had a chance to use the Glatt mill,

both those who are pleased as well as those who are not.  I think I'll ask

Santa for a mill for Christmas and whould like to know which one to ask for.

PUMP SOURCES

I repeat my request for sources for wort pumps.  Thank you to Jeff Burton

for the lead on the March Manu. pump from C & H.  I got the C & H catalog

but the pump isn't listed, haven't called them yet.  Where did the rest of

you RIMS and other pump using brewers get your pumps?  Is this a secret

society sort of thing; you can't be part of the club until you find a pump

all by yourself?

Please post the pump sources to the Digest, I received several requests

for forwards after my last post on this.  Also, at the risk of a flame

war, I'd like a public discussion on CF cleaning so we get the pros and

cons of the various methods before I choose one.  E-mail is fine for other

info.

Sorry to be so long winded, its been a while.  TIA.

Eric Wade

<ericwade@class.org>

------------------------------


Hoptech's fruit extracts

Date:  Thu, 9 Sep 1993 17:44:30 -0400

From: Bill Flowers <waflowers@qnx.com>

Subject: Hoptech's fruit extracts

In HBD #1219 (I'm almost caught up with my reading, 30 HBD's in 3 days),

Kinney Baughman (BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu) wrote:

>Someone asked recently about the best way to make a raspberry flavored

>beer.  I know you have plenty of raspberries in your backyard but a

>small plug for the raspberry essence that Mark Garetz of Hoptech

>sells:  We used it in a raspberry wheat we had on tap at Tumbleweed

>this summer and it sold like hotcakes!  Mind you, this is a fruit beer

>in a town that had never heard of fruit beers!  We added the essence

>at kegging and it imparted a wonderful raspberry fruit flavor to the

>beer that was true to the flavor of raspberries.  No artificial

>flavors here.  The best thing about it was that it was simple, simple,

>simple.

I have to second this.  I added a carefully measured quantity of the

raspberry to a bottle of really good cyser and did the same using the

cherry in another bottle (I had lots, so I could spare a few bottles).  It

was excellent, absolutely outstanding! Now I can offer the "original" cyser

as well as delicious apple-raspberry and apple-cherry melomels.  :-)

Also, I'm looking forward to finally making (after a long busy spell with

no brewing) a blueberry-wheat beer using the blueberry extract.  Some time

in the future I'll report on this.  The extract sure smells good!

Mark, thanks for offering these excellent products (along with your

wonderful hops) to the homebrew community.

I have no connection with Mark Garetz or Hoptech other than being a very

hoppy ;-) and satisfied customer.

- ---

W.A. (Bill) Flowers                email: waflowers@qnx.com

QNX Software Systems, Ltd.         QUICS: bill     (613) 591-0934 (data)

(613) 591-0931 (voice)             mail:  175 Terrence Matthews

(613) 591-3579 (fax)                      Kanata, Ontario, Canada K2M 1W8

------------------------------


Scotland/Wales/Ireland

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 93 17:03 CDT

From: othon@ial7.jsc.nasa.gov (Bill Othon.LinCom)

Subject: Scotland/Wales/Ireland

I plan to visit the Celtic lands of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Any

suggestions about breweries or brew pubs in these areas would be

greatly appreciated. Also, I remember reading about a compilation of

pub locations somewhere on the network; please repost the location of

this toothsome database.

Thanks

 -Bill

                                            //    |__|    //

=====================================      /  /   |  |   /  /

Bill Othon <othon@ial7.jsc.nasa.gov>      /    ---|  |---    /

Tetherologist                             /                  /

LinCom Corporation - Houston Division      /  ////    ////  /

(713) 483-1858                              //    /  /    //

                                                   //

------------------------------


homebrew stores near Palo Alto?

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1993 15:41:18 -0700

From: Ken Michael Johnson <kmj@leland.Stanford.EDU>

Subject: homebrew stores near Palo Alto?

Does anyone know of a good homebrew store near Palo Alto.  I've been

to Fermentation Frenzy, and I was not impressed.  I'd like some place

with open bins of all grains and a good mill for the optional grinds.  A

good selection of hops would be nice too.

please e-mail me directly

thanks

kj

------------------------------


New Brewer.

Date: Thu, 09 Sep 1993 22:05:41 ADT

From: PAUL MACDONALD <PMD_VS@ac.nsac.ns.ca>

Subject: New Brewer.

I would like to know the best book for a beginning brewer.  Thank-you!

------------------------------


Radlett, England pubs? / OLD bottle cleaning

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 93 23:28:07 CDT

From: hinz@tidalwave.med.ge.com (David Hinz (hinz@picard.med.ge.com))

Subject: Radlett, England pubs? / OLD bottle cleaning

Greetings!

I may be travelling for several months to Radlett, England, on business

in the near future.  The tasting opportunities are overwhelming, and I

would really appreciate any hints, tips, or suggestions as to places to

go while in the area (like Belgium, for instance ;-)  ), and so on.

Brand names would be great.

Also, what are the laws regarding hand-carrying ale&beer through UK & US

customs?  How much, if at all, can I bring?

- -----------------------

I recently found about a dozen old clear, green, and brown beer bottles

mouldering around in a barn floor.  There's green stuff growing inside

at least the clear ones, and I assume the rest as well.  I soaked them for

a couple of days in soapy water, and am planning to put them in a 5-gallon

pail of bleach water for a few weeks/months.  Anything besides this to try?

I'd hate to use my nice bottle brush on this scuzzy stuff.

The clear bottles will be nice!  Someone here (thanks, someone) posted that

they use one clear bottle per batch, and use that as their last bottle -

kind of a ceremonial type of thing.  Well, I've got 5 or 6 of them now, so

that might hold me for a while, thanks for the great idea!

Dave Hinz

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1223, 09/10/93

*************************************

-------


Iodine or chlorine?

Date:         Fri, 10 Sep 93 11:11:19 +0200

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      Iodine or chlorine?

Could someone help me get this right? Which sanitizer is good and which one is

bad for copper and ss, and which one should I use for ss pots with copper/brass

fittings in them.

Thanks, Nir

------------------------------


Equipment

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 08:35:16 -0400

From: steve@Pentagon-EMH6.army.mil (Steve Lichtenberg x79300)

Subject: Equipment

  Greetings All--

  I just kegged my last batch and wanted to report to all about the changes I

  made in my brewing set up that made life an absolute pleasure.

  I have been brewing in a 40 Quart SS stock pot for a couple of years

  and after fighting with configurations mash vessels etc I have hit

  on what I think is an excellent combination.  I was given a SS keg about

  a year ago and kept meaning to cut the top off or use it in some way for

  brewing.  I finally got it on line for this brew session.  Having

  two large pots on line has to be the best improvement in my brewing

  since I started.  Now I can mash in one vessel while my sparge water

  is heating in the other one and can begin boiling wort before the sparge

  is complete.  The time savings is great!  Additionally, I tried something

  a little different this time.  Since I now have the space for large grain

  bills, I mashed 17 pounds of grain and went to 10 gallon batches instead of

  5 (actually this one was about 7 with a SG of 1.072).  The additional

  work for the larger batch was 0.

   I use a copper manifold in my mash kettle and after modifying

  slightly this time it worked better than I had expected.  I designed

  the manifold so that I can use the standpipe as a racking cane.

  I switched to a copper chore-boy this time instead of using

  a hop bag tied to the end of the racking cane and that also was a

  positive change.  This was the first time I had to slow down my sparge

  rate to get proper cooling into my chiller instead of waiting 3-4 hours

  for the wort to siphon through the it.  All in all the easiest brew

  session ever.

  To all of you considering buying/making equipment I would recommend

  getting the biggest set up you can afford and upgrade when you can.

  The flexibility the larger set up gives you more than makes up for

  the additional expense.  Also keep your eyes and ears open you can

  often get good equipment for little money if you try hard.  I got all

  of my kegs( about 7 of them) free from a restaurant that was going

  out of business and get this 15 gallon keg from a salws rep for one

  of the local breweries.  Keep looking it's out there.

  I didn't think this was going to be this long.  Sorry for the rambling

  Keep brewing-

  --S

    ^

  ENJOY LIFE--THIS IS NOT A REHEARSAL

------------------------------


Using pectin enzyme?

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 14:19:50 +0100 (BST)

From: D S Draper <D.S.Draper@bristol.ac.uk>

Subject: Using pectin enzyme?

Hi all, I am looking for some advice on the timing of using pectin enzyme

in a fruit beer.  Specifics of my recipe are: basic pale ale from malt

extract, 5 UK gallons, low to moderate hop rates; 1 lb frozen raspberries

added to wort just after boiling and left to sit a couple hours before

being strained into fermenter and pitching yeast (a pale-ale yeast

cultured from Hanseatic IPA bottle-conditioned beer).  I've made this

before, and really liked the subtleness of the fruit flavor from this

amount of raspberry, but the beer was very hazy in spite of using

isinglass during secondary fermentation.  For this next attempt, I want to

try pectin enzyme, but I'm uncertain about when to add the enzyme: in the

primary during fermentation, in the primary after fermentation, in the

secondary before finings, in the secondary after finings, or what.  Also,

is a couple of teaspoons to a tablespoon enough for a 5-gal brew?  If you

wish to send email, please do so to D.S.DRAPER@BRISTOL.AC.UK because

"Reply-Mail" doesn't seem to get through to me.

Many thanks, Dave

------------------------------


thanks

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 09:45:58 -0400 (EDT)

From: /R=HERLVX/R=AM/U=KLIGERMAN/FFN=KLIGERMAN/@mr.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: thanks

I wanted to thank everyone who responded by e-mail to my request for info

on brewpubs in the SF area.  Compared to N.C., the S.F. area appears to

offer a plethora of opportunity!! Thanks again.

Andy Kligerman

------------------------------


RE: When should I pick my hops

Date: 10 Sep 1993 09:07:52 U

From: "Westemeier*, Ed" <westemeier@pharos-tech.com>

Subject: RE: When should I pick my hops

Bill Cain writes:

> I planted some cascade and nugget hops this spring and the

> Cascade's are doing great.  While the nuggets have just started to form

> cones, the Cascades have cones that are between 1/2" and 3" long.

> I've picked a couple and squeezed them, and they do produce a

> plesant scent.  I'm thinking that it's time to pick them, but

> how can I know for sure?  Also, what is the best way to dry and

> store them?

There is a lot of information about this in old digests, but the short answer

is this:

When the cones start to feel "papery" rather than "spongy" it's time to pick

them.  That means that if you squeeze a cone gently and the petals seem to be

dried out so they don't spring back to shape like they did a week earlier, then

they are ready.

Other clues:

1.  When a few of the oldest cones (the ones that came out first) begin to turn

slightly brown at the edges.

2.  When you can easily look up a cone and see the bright yellow lupulin glands

at the base of the petals.

Hint:  Wear long sleeves and light cotton gloves when harvesting hops.  The

combination of rough bines and hop oils can be extremely irritating to the

skin.

On the subject of drying, a first year's harvest won't give you enough to worry

about (probably not  more than will fit in the cardboard box that holds a case

of beer).  So just pick them and toss them gently in a cardboard box or two,

preferably not more than about 6 inches deep, and put them in the driest room

of your house, protected from bright light, for a week or two until they are

dry.  It's really that simple.  The fully dried weight will be about 1/8 of the

weight when they were picked.

As to storage, a good practice is to separate them into piles of about one

ounce (dried weight) and squeeze them down to compress them, then wrap tightly

in aluminum foil (making as good a seal as possible) and store in your freezer

until ready to use.

You don't really know the alpha acid percentage of home grown hops, but then

you don't really have to care.  Buy your bittering hops from a dealer, and you

will be told the percentage down to a tenth of a percent.  Use your own hops as

finishing hops for flavor and aroma -- the alpha acid percentage isn't very

important at that point.

Ed Westemeier

Cincinnati, Ohio (where I harvested my hops last week)

westemeier@delphi.com

------------------------------


Hop picking time....

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 07:13:25 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Hop picking time....

It's been a late wet, cold summer out here in the PNW.  Anyone who went to

Portland may remeber the light misty rain on that Thursday.  Well, here it

is well past the end of August and my hops still aren't ready to pick....

It's been a rough summer for them, two freak windstorms with heavy rain

snapped six of my twenty poles (Sob! whimper...), but I only completely

lost four plants.

Everybody who grows hops gets excited towards picking time.  Most of the

books and articles advise to pick when the cones get "papery".  This can be

hard to judge, particularly if one is really antsy to get on with the

harvest.  I have taken to cutting a cone down the middle.  This lets you

see the size and placement of the seeds, as well as the lupulin color and

amount.  The surest sign of all is when some of the cones start to turn

brown at the tips, but then it's too late....

Patience,

Paul.

------------------------------


dry-hopping

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 8:46:37 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: dry-hopping

Al sez:

>Jeff writes he plans to dryhop his Christmas ale with 3-4oz of

>Willamette pellets for 4-6 weeks.

>

>I feel that you should save the pellets for boiling and get some

>whole Willamette hops for dryhopping.   Whole hops will float and

>thus it will be much easier to rack out from under them than with

>pellets.  Also, 3-4 ounces is quite intense for a 5 gallon batch.

>I usually use 1/2 to 2 ounces.  Finally, I feel tat 4-6 weeks is

>too long, even at 40-45F.  At 65-70F, I recommend 7 to 10 days

>and about two to 2.5 weeks for lagering temperatures.  After a

>while, I feel that more hop aromatics are escaping from the beer

>to the air than are entering the beer from the hops.  This, of

>course, is unless you are planning to do this in a sealed container.

>You should probably purge any air that you introduce during dryhopping

>as oxygen kills hop aroma.

I agree with you Al, on virtually every point, and I've dry hopped a lot

of beers.  The part about purging air is not an issue if you properly time

the infusion of the dry hops.  After primary fermentation has died down but

there is still some activity, I rack into my secondary (I guess that

fermentation is about 80-90% complete).  Some CO2 is still be driven off

but in very small quantities.  This is when I add my dry hops (I just throw

them into the secondary loose).  The reasoning is this:  there is not enough

CO2 production to drive off a considerable amount of hop aromatics, but

there _is_ enough to blanket the beer in a short amount of time.  The oxygen

can't hurt the hop aroma because of the CO2 blanket.  This point is a good

time to rack in general because the oxygen has little time to do its damage

and the trub hasn't had time either (typically around 3-5 days for me).

Thankz fir thu addveisse, Miekel.

Eric mentions the clean-in-place process outlined in the recent BT for

counter-flow chillers.  Could you summarize this process for the digest, Eric?

I plan to clean my chiller "in-place", i.e. still attached to my boiler, what

could be easier?  I _would_ like to see how other clean their CF chillers.

Happy hopping,

norm

- --

Norm Pyle, Staff Engineer         Head Brewer,

Storage Technology Corporation    Pyledriver Brewery, A Non-Profit Organization

2270 South 88th Street            1500 Elmhurst Drive

Louisville, CO 80028-0211         Longmont, CO 80503-2323

(303) 673-8884                    npyle@n33.stortek.com

------------------------------


Using undried and unsanitized hops

Date:         Fri, 10 Sep 93 11:14:00 CDT

From: Paul Sovcik <U18183%UICVM@UIC.EDU>

Subject:      Using undried and unsanitized hops

I have a batch of ale that I would like to dry hop with homegrown Fuggles hops.

The problem is, as of now the hops are still on the vine, and I really dont hav

e a good way of drying them. Can I just plop a few handfuls in the fermenter no

w, or do I need to dry them out?

Also, what about the potential for contaminating the beer? Should I microwave t

hem or something, or wear gloves when picking and pitching?

      Thanks in advance!

 -Paul

  Pharmacist and Homebrewer

------------------------------


Re: homebrew stores near Palo Alto?

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 09:19:24 -0700

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Re: homebrew stores near Palo Alto?

>  Does anyone know of a good homebrew store near Palo Alto.  I've been

>  to Fermentation Frenzy, and I was not impressed.  I'd like some place

>  with open bins of all grains and a good mill for the optional grinds.  A

>  good selection of hops would be nice too.

  Brian at FF is waiting for the new harvest to come in before he buys

more hops.  He decided he would rather be in short supply for a while

than have to sell old hops to customers once the new supply comes in.

He also has a true roller mill in the back, and he will gladly grind

any grains for you.  He also has a JS MaltMill for customer use. Open

bins of grain strike me as a terrible idea as they will absorb water

from the air.

  Other options are Fermentation Settlement on Deanza Blvd in in San

Jose, and another shop whose name escapes me on N4th in San Jose

 Drew

------------------------------


Recommendations

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 09:47:17 PDT

From: mri10@mfg.amdahl.com (Michael Inglis)

Subject: Recommendations

I am a new homebrewer, having just bottled my first batch, and

I have a couple of questions regarding my efforts.  After

taking my last Specific Gravity reading, I drank the beer that

I had drawn for the reading.  It tasted surprisingly mellow for

the smell but overall I was very happy with it.  My first question

is:  Will the taste come out more strongly when the bottles have

carbonated? (I know I should just wait and find out first hand but

I am an impatient first-timer)  My second question is specifically

about my next batch.  Last weekend I was in Santa Cruz and visited

the Seabright Brewery where I drank an excellent ale with a very

strong, hoppy taste to it.  I would like to make my next batch have

more of a hopped finish as this first batch did not.  Can

anyone recommend an ale extract recipe that will give a strong

hopped finish?  Thanks and I've appreciated all of the discussion

that goes on here.  It's very inspiring to someone new to the craft.

Mike Inglis

mri10@sim.mfg.amdahl.com

------------------------------


Malt Liqour, Scotland brewpub, & washing old bottles

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 13:52:50 EDT

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1-1/T09 DTN 225-6171  10-Sep-1993 1346 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Malt Liqour, Scotland brewpub, & washing old bottles

In the United States, the definition of Malt Liquor varies from state to

state and is based on alcohol content.  Generally high alcohol content beers

are labelled as malt liquors.  Texas has several "Malt Liquors" which are

not considered high enough alcohol content to be labelled as such in other

states.

I have been to one brewpub in Scotland -- the Rose Street Brewery in downtown

Edinburgh.  I highly recommend it.

To wash bottles, I simply soak them in a mixture of water, bleach, and TSP

(trisodium phosphate -- available anywhere painting supplies are sold).  I

use 1 oz. of bleach/gallon water and follow the recommendations on the back

of the box of TSP for heavy cleaning.  I haven't cleaned anything that had

been sitting around for years, but I have cleaned some moldy, smelly bottles

simply by soaking them in this solution for a day or so (it also does a great

job at removing labels), and rinsing them on the bottle washer attached to

my kitchen faucet.  I've cleaned 6 or 7 cases of bottles using this method

and have never had to use a bottle brush.

Keith A. MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


RE:  The Celtic Lands and their ales

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 12:01:52 -0600 (CST)

From: John Mare <cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: RE:  The Celtic Lands and their ales

Bill asks about breweries and brewpubs worth visiting in Scotland, Ireland

and Wales. Ireland was in my experience a barren land with no variety

available in comparison with Scotland. Drink their fine stouts (Beamish,

Murpheys, Guinness) and get out of there! Wales I don't really know, but

Scotland holds a few precious gems. The "real ale" revolution in in full

swing and all the better pubs in Edinbugh and Glasgow carry guest real ales

from Scotland and England. Because of this brewpubs as we know them are

rare. We only have them because real live cask (as opposed to keg) ale is

impossible to find! Pubs I would highl recommend in Edinburgh (where I used

to live) are Leslie's, The Malt Shovel, The Navaar (Tuesday nights

especially), The Sportsmen's, and the Guildford Arms. A special treat in

Edinburgh is a visit to the Caledonian Brewery, described by Michel Jackson

as "a living brewery museum". Call ahead and arrange a brewery tour of this

delightful gem, and enjoy the outstanding ales. My favourite is Deucher's

IPA! The McEwan's Fountain Brewery is worth avoiding! They make outstanding

ales, charge a hefty fee for the tour, and then show you how computers make

fine beer!

      If you have a car available, a drive into the countryside to Peebles

will take you to the beautiful Traquair House microbrewery (supposedly the

oldest house in Scotland, Bonny Prince Charlie slept there!). Another drive

of about 40 miles east along the river will take you to the Belhaven brewery

also well worth visiting.

      Glasgow has some excellent pubs in the University area. My favourite

is The Brewery Tap on Sauchiehall Street, but there are several in the area.

Use the buses wherever possible for your own safety!

      One final note. If you are heading west from Glasgow to Oban and the

islands by train, you will pass through a little defunct station about 20

minutes before reaching Oban. Hop off and take the next train through

because the station itself is a delightful little brewpub (West Highland

Brewers), and it will be well worth your while to stop and meet the

proprietor, brewer, barman (all one person), and spend about three hours

chatting with the locals! The ales are good, the porter abominable (but

probably a bad batch!). Upon arrival in Oban you will find a number of so-so

pubs, my favourite the Oban Inn, more for its ambience than for the beer (it

is a McEwans tied house). Enjoy, I envy you!

John Mare, John's Alehouse, Tucson.

------------------------------


Malt liquor/Horizons/CO2 dsgrmnt/keg gaskets/Cooler mash/beginner book

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 15:44 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Malt liquor/Horizons/CO2 dsgrmnt/keg gaskets/Cooler mash/beginner book

Richard writes:

>Subject: What is Malt Liquor?

Malt Liquor is a name dreamed up by some neo-prohibitionist lawmaker to

allegedly warn unsuspecting beer drinkers that a particular beer has an

alcohol level above a certain number the lawmaker made up.  It has no

real meaning to brewers or homebrewers because as we know, beers should

be classified by style and not by alcohol level.  Some states require

"Malt Liquor" others don't.  There are even stupider misuses of names

(such as the misuse of the word "ale" in Texas), but despite the fact

that in some states Mickey's and Salvator both have "Malt Liquor" on

the label, they are no more related in flavor than milk and orange juice.

*************************

Eugene writes:

>I am an extract brewer with about 10 batches under my belt. Mainly because

>of time constraints, I don't think I'll be trying all-grain brewing for

>quite some time, but I would like to expand my brewing horizons. Other than

>brewing particular beers I haven't done before, are there any techniques

>ingredients etc. that you more experienced brewers would suggest I try? The

You should try adding crystal malts and dark grains to your beers.  There

are a lot of extract+specialty grain recipes in Charlie's book and in the

Cat's Meow, available from the archives.

***************************

John Franscisco and I seem to have differing experiences with kegging

and overcarbonation.  You'll all be happy to read that we will be working

out our differences off-line and one of us will post the resolution.

***************************

On the subject of whether or not to replace all your gaskets on a used

soda keg or not, I would like to mention that there's a chance that

the keg you got has not had that much use on it's gaskets (i.e. they

were replaced not too long before you got it).  Also, everyone's senses

are different -- perhaps you are not as sensitive to the soda flavors

as I am.  Also, a stout is less likely to gain an off-flavor/aroma than

a cream ale.

There was a disagreement a year or two ago on the HBD in which one poster

insisted that NO gaskets needed replacing and that the flavor and aroma

of the beer would not be affected.  They went as far as sending counter-

pressure filled bottles from their keg to me as well as a couple of other

HBD subscribers.  The person insisted that they could not detect any

soda flavors in the beer they sent me.  I took the beer to a Chicago Beer

Society meeting and had it judged as a light ale by a handful of high-

ranking BJCP-certified judges, who were not warned of the situation.

Without any discussion, all noted an unusual flavor.  Three of the judges,

identified the off-flavor as "a mixture of soda-pop flavors," one even

writing "change the gaskets on your keg."

********************

Eric writes:

>COOLER MASHING

>I've been having some trouble reaching my desired mash temp of 154F by

>infusing at a ratio of 1.25 qt H2O @ 175F per pound of grist.  I've also

>tried using a ratio of 1/1 and adjusting with boiling water.  When this

>didn't work I drew of a fraction of the liquid, boiled and returned to the

>mash.  I used this method on a porter that came out highly phenolic.  I

Polyphenols are indeed what's leached from husk material and then usually

thrown into the general category called "tannins."  Smoked malt, wheat malt

and old, poorly-stored malt often lend phenolic flavors to beer.

A suggestion as to why you cannot reach the proper temperature is that too

much of your strike water is used in heating up your mash tun.  Pre-heat

the mash tun and I'll bet you'll hit your 154F.  I don't suggest using

boiling water to do this as it could warp the plastic of the cooler --

perhaps use 160F water, maybe while you are crushing your malt.  I've seen

some pretty distorted cooler interiors -- be careful.

***********************

PAUL writes:

>I would like to know the best book for a beginning brewer.  Thank-you!

I suggest Charlie Papazian's "The Complete Joy of Homebrewing" as a good

first book.  Avoid, at all cost, any book or pamphlet by Leigh P. Beadle.

Also, older books (since there have been many recent refinements in technique

and supplies) and books from the UK (since there is a bit of a language

difference as well as references to many supplies that are not readily

available in the US) don't make good *FIRST* books.  A lot can be learned

from them, but it's best left for later.

Al.

------------------------------


Slow sparge problems

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 14:04:07 -0400

From: steve@snake.appl.wpafb.af.mil (Steve Zabarnick)

Subject: Slow sparge problems

I've recently joined the exciting world of all-grain brewing. My two full

mashes have been successful, but I've been frustrated by the how slow my

sparging has been. Here is my set-up: 5 gal Gott water cooler as

mash/lauter tun, Phil's phalse bottom, and Phil's Mill. Both batches have

used 9 or 10 lbs of grain (mostly British pale ale malt), with mash at 1 or

1.25 quarts/lb. I've been sparging with 5 gals of 170 F water while keeping

the water level above the grain bed (I skip the mash-out). Both of my

sparges have taken 2 hours with the valve on the cooler full open. I would

like to get this down to about an hour.

Any suggestions? Perhaps I'm crushing the grain too fine-- I've been

adjusting the crush to the point where all of the grains are at least

partially crushed. I've been getting about 31 ppg.

Is the depth of a 10 lb grain bed in a 5 gallon cooler too large for a more

rapid sparge? I don't think this is the problem, as I believe others on the

digest have rapid sparges with the same set-up.

Thanks for any help.

Steve Zabarnick

------------------------------


pump sources

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 10:25:10 PDT

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: pump sources

>>>>> On Thu, 9 Sep 1993 13:51:56 -0700 (PDT), Eric Wade

>>>>> <ericwade@CLASS.ORG> said:

Eric> PUMP SOURCES

Eric> I repeat my request for sources for wort pumps.  Thank you to

Eric> Jeff Burton for the lead on the March Manu. pump from C & H.  I

Eric> got the C & H catalog but the pump isn't listed, haven't called

Eric> them yet.  Where did the rest of you RIMS and other pump using

Eric> brewers get your pumps?  Is this a secret society sort of thing;

Eric> you can't be part of the club until you find a pump all by

Eric> yourself?

As the Morris article in Zymurgy states, pumps are available from W.W.

Grainger and McMaster-Carr.  Sorry to not have the addresses or phones

with me, but my catalogs are at home and I do news from work.

McMaster-Carr is in Santa Fe Springs, CA., call information for phone

number.

Grainger is harder. There is no central place for which you can call

and request a catalog.  Catalogs come from your local office.  How do

you get the number of the local office?  First, look in the phone

book.  If they are not listed, Email me and I will look it up in the

catalog.   Give me the nearest major city to your location.

Dion Hollenbeck (619)455-5590x2814     Email: hollen@megatek.com

Senior Software Engineer                      megatek!hollen@uunet.uu.net

Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California    ucsd!megatek!hollen

------------------------------


Cleaning bottles

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 15:30:44 CDT

From: caa@com2serv.c2s.mn.org (Charles Anderson)

Subject: Cleaning bottles

> I recently found about a dozen old clear, green, and brown beer bottles

> mouldering around in a barn floor.  There's green stuff growing inside

> at least the clear ones, and I assume the rest as well.  I soaked them for

> a couple of days in soapy water, and am planning to put them in a 5-gallon

> pail of bleach water for a few weeks/months.  Anything besides this to try?

> I'd hate to use my nice bottle brush on this scuzzy stuff.

Get a jet wash.  They work great, and after a good soak they can really get

the gunk out of your bottles.  It's a little brass device that hooks up

to a faucet and sprays out a high pressure stream.  I can't imagine cleaning

bottles without one.

 -Charlie (No connection to the makers of the jet wash, just a staisfied

    customer.)

- --

  /-Charles-Anderson-/  | caa@c2s.mn.org                             TIP#068

  /------------------/  | Com Squared Systems,          voice (612) 452-9522

Vidi Vici Veni - I Saw, | 1285 Corporate Center Drive    fax  (612) 452-3607

  I Conquered, I Came   | Suite 170 | Eagan,  MN 55121  (I speak for myself)

------------------------------


KEG FERMENTERS PART 1

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 22:02:16 -0500 (CDT)

From: Dave Smucker <TWF99@ISUVAX.IASTATE.EDU>

Subject: KEG FERMENTERS PART 1

Recently, Dmitry Vosky, ask, via email how I used Stainless

Steel kegs as a fermenter.  He thought my reply would be of

interest to some of you on the net so here is what works for

me:

I use the 1/2 barrel (15.5 gallon) Sanke type keg for a

fermenter.  I had the good fortune to purchase some used kegs

from a used restaurant supply company.  They got the kegs in

some used beer coolers and were willing to sell them for $ 20

each.  I know this is more that the $ 15 deposit that is typical

but a least I have a bill of sale.  In the end this may give me no

legal protection from Bud or Miller but a least I have some

paper.

To use this type of keg you must remove the valve and down

tube assembly.  THIS CAN BE VERY DANGEROUS SO POCEED WITH

GREAT CARE.  IF YOU DO THIS YOU DO SO AT YOU OWN RISK.

The danger is that the keg very likely contains pressure and

even a small amount of pressure can cause you serious injury

from the valve part flying out and into you face.

THE KEY IS TO MAKE VERY SURE ALL OF THE PRESSURE IS

RELEASED.  The way I to do this is to use a large screwdriver to

push down on the ball in the center of the valve assembly.

When you do this you may get covered with old beer!  To prevent

this I wrap the screwdriver in a towel as I press down on the

ball check valve.

Make damn sure you have all of the PRESSURE OUT OF THE KEG

BY DOING THIS RELEASE THING SEVERAL TIMES.

If you don't detect any pressure you are doing something wrong.

I have never see a keg that doesn't have a least a little pressure

and sometimes it is quite high.

Now to remove the valve and down tube you needs some other

tools.  I use a ice pick, a small screwdriver and and some

needle nose pliers.  What you have to do is pick the end of the

spiral type snap ring and then grip it with the pliers.  Once you

have the end of it and pull it towards the center and up and it

should come right out.

Now make sure one more time THAT YOU HAVE RELEASED ALL OF

THE PRESSURE.  It is now very likely the you will have to rotate

the valve assembly so that it's key lines up with the notch in

the keg, (this is a female keyway in the rim of the keg's exit

port.)  To rotate the valve assembly you may need to tap it

lightly with a srew driver.

Now that you have this lined up you can lift the valve assembly

out,  you may need to pry it a little with you screwdriver to get

it started. KEEP YOU FACE OUT OF THE LINE OF FIRE AS YOU DO

THIS.

IF YOU DON'T UNDER STAND THE ABOVE DON'T TAKE ON A SANKE

KEG.  FIND SOME ONE THAT DOES!!

Dave Smucker,  Brewing beer, not making jelly!!

------------------------------


KEG FERMENTERS PART 2

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 22:21:22 -0500 (CDT)

From: Dave Smucker <TWF99@ISUVAX.IASTATE.EDU>

Subject: KEG FERMENTERS PART 2

Assuming you have read and followed part 1 of this post or already

have a 15.5 gallon Sanke keg here is how I use them as a fermenter.

First you need to clean it and you will need to clean it after

each fermentation use.  Here it helps to be able to see inside of

the keg.  To do this I use a auto turn signal/parking light bulb.

I soldered a set of leads to the bulb and I have a small 12 volt

power supply.  I think a 9 volt supply would work also, the bulb

will just not be as bright.  Lowering this inspection light into

you kegs lets you see how clean you have gotten them.  To see

the inside of the top of the keg I use a small inspection mirror.

You should be able to purchase one for a few dollars at a auto

supply store.  They are bigger that what the dentist uses but fit

easily into the keg.

I used to use brushes etc. to get the keg clean but I have now

gone to 100 % chemical cleaning.  I use B - BRITE.  Just added it

to the keg, fill with water and put a # 11 stopper in the bung

hole and invert it and let it sit for 24 hours.  I invert it because

the part that is hard to clean is the inside of the top.  I then

rinse several times and use iodophor sanitizer.  I use only about

2 gallons of sanitizer but roll the keg around for about 4 or 5

minuets.  I then rinse with about 2 gallons of very hot, (boiling)

water because it is next to impossible to drain the last few

drops out of the keg.

You now have clean kegs.  I now use them just like they where a

giant 15 1/2  carboy.  Use  a # 11 stopper with a hole for you

blow off tube.  I use a stopper with a 1/2 inch short copper

tube in the stopper and 1/2 ID plastic tube for the blow off.  I

put this in a 1 gallon jug with about 1 qt. of water in it to act

as an air lock.  I set this jug on a small board set on the top rim

of the keg.

Now for the only real problem with using a keg.  They weigh a

lot when full!  About 150 pounds.  This is not a problem for

sliding or rolling around a concert floor but it is very difficult

to lift the keg on to a stand or table for racking to another keg

or to your 5 gallon cornelius kegs for storage or lagering. I

solve this problem in my case by using a hoist to lift the full

keg and then move a stand under it.  Since I brew in my work

shop I have some hoist points set up on my ceiling beams.  For a

hoist I use a 3/4 ton comealong, but many other hoists would

also work.

I am currently looking for the right size used chest type

freezer that I could mount on wheels, slide under my hoisted

keg.  I would then lower the keg and use the freezer for

temperature control.

I hope this answers some of  questions keg fermenters.   Let me

know if you have any questions.

Dave Smucker,  Brewing beer, not making jelly!!

------------------------------


Hops FAQ?

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 16:23:17 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Hops FAQ?

I would like to submit a request for a hops FAQ, in the style of the yeast FAQ.

My reason for this goes back to recipe formulation.  I have had a pretty

cavalier attitude about recipe formulation in the past but I have to admit, the

two best beers I've made were attempts at copying a certain beer, armed with

OG's, maybe some malt info, and the variety of hops used.  I could make some

guesses as to the IBU's etc., and hit it pretty well with Rager's formulae.

The problem comes along when ingredients aren't available, and substitutes must

be made.  For me, the most obvious flavor component of a beer is the hop

profile (due, in large part to the hop-head slant I put in my brews).  So, the

type of thing I'd like to see:

Cascade - grown in GNW USA. Has a flowery, grapefruit profile.  Most often used

as a finishing hop.  Classic American Pale Ale hop (reference SNPA, Liberty

Ale)  Alpha acid range 4.5 - 5.5.  Good substitute = XXX hop.

It could go into much more detail but this is the type of thing I would hope

for.  This could go a long way toward giving people the confidence to create

more varieties in their homebrewing.  Of course, I would expect IBU

calculations to be part of the FAQ.  I'm sure there are other things that could

be added; I just can't come up with them now.

Any takers?  Does the hops special edition (which I _still_ don't have) contain

all this information?  Even if so, I would guess we could do a better job.  I

would be willing to help out on this project but I don't have the experience of

some of the other HBD contributors.  I also don't know my way around Internet so

archiving should be left to someone else as well.

- --

Norm Pyle, Staff Engineer         Head Brewer,

Storage Technology Corporation    Pyledriver Brewery, A Non-Profit Organization

2270 South 88th Street            1500 Elmhurst Drive

Louisville, CO 80028-0211         Longmont, CO 80503-2323

(303) 673-8884                    npyle@n33.stortek.com

------------------------------


Light-struck beer

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 12:11:00 -0600

From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

Subject: Light-struck beer

 Tom writes:

   >closet).  Now I have recently gone back to glass

   >fermenters, 6.5 gallon >vice 5 gallon.  I was wondering when

   >light struck beer begins to be a problem.

Al replies:

  > You should keep the fermenter in the dark too -- your beer can

  > be light-struck while in the fermenter.

I had my wife buy some quilted material and sew it into a cylinder

a little larger than my carboys, and about four inches taller. The

top seam was sewn over to allow insertion of parachute cord for a

drawstring. This not only protects the fermenting wort from light,

it also helps even out temperature fluctuations caused by my setback

thermostat.

Chuck

 * RM 1.2 00946 *

------------------------------


Yeast FAQ is at sierra!

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1993 02:16:18 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: Yeast FAQ is at sierra!

Hi All,

Just want to spread the word that a plain text version of the updated

FAQ is now at sierra.stanford.edu/pub/homebrew/docs/Yeast.faq.Z. To all

novices, note that this is a *binary* file, so type "bin" on the line

before you type "get" :-) ! And .Z is for unix compress, not zip.

A postscript version is being prepared, with a few added embellishments.

Thanks to all who sent support and/or information!

Hope you find it useful.

Patrick <weix@swmed.edu>

------------------------------


Madden's #1 -- A Famous Prohibition Beer?

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 93 14:26:47 PDT

From: steve@caticsuf.CSUFresno.EDU (Steve Mitchell)

Subject: Madden's #1 -- A Famous Prohibition Beer?

I'm wondering if anybody out there knows anything about a

"famous" beer during prohibition called Madden's (sp?) #1.

I hear that a Homebrewer turned "pro" during Prohibition

and marketed this beer.  It appeared darker than modern

commercial beer and was supposed to be popular on the East

Coast.  Can anybody tell me anything about this beer.  A

recipe would be really nice..

Thanks.

- --steve

------------------------------


Heather beer

Date:         Sat, 11 Sep 93 18:34:17 PDT

From: Ken Miller <KCMILLER%SJSUVM1.BITNET@cmsa.Berkeley.EDU>

Subject:      Heather beer

As Bill Ridgely pointed out, Bickerdyke does indeed include a brief

section on heather beer in _The Curiousities of Ale and Beer_ (1889).

Selections below:

<begin quoted text>

     There is a tradition lingering in the northern parts of this

island, that the Picts possessed the secret of making an ale from

heather. Sir David Smith...mentions a large trough cut in solid rock

at Kutchester, near the Roman wall. "The old peasants," he says, "have

a tradition that the Romans made a beverage somewhat like beer, of the

bells of heather, and that this trough was used in the process of

making it."

<interesting but somewhat lengthy legend concerning Pictish heather

 beer deleted>

     True or false, this is the legend as related in the north, and

certain it is that _a_ heather beer was made until quite recently in

some parts of Scotland and Ireland. The heather, however, is used as

a flavoring rather than as the actual basis for making the drink. The

blossoms of the heather are carefully gathered and cleansed, and are

then placed in the bottom of vessels; wort of the ordinary kind is

allowed to drain through the blossoms, and gains in its passage a

peculiar and agreeable flavour, which is well known to all who are

familiar with heather honey.

     Pennant, in his _Voyage to the Hebrides_, meantions heather

_ale_, and says that the proportions were two-thirds of the plant

to one of hops (hops being sometimes added); and Mr. Weld, in his

_Two Months in the Highlands_, says that "although the art of brewing

Pictish ale is lost, old grouse shooters have tasted a beverage

prepared by shepherds, on the moors, principally from heather flowers,

though honey or sugar, to produce fermentation, was added.

     In some parts of Ireland there is a tradition that the Danes

possessed the knowledge of making an intoxicating liquor from heather

bells....It is possible that there is some connection between this

heather ale and the ale formerly made by the Swedes and flavoured

with the _Myrica gale_....In Yorkshire...a beer is still made called

"gale beer," and is flavoured with the blossoms of a species of heather

found growing on the moors in that part of the country.

<end quoted text>

There you have it. Recipes for Pictish heather beer died with the last

of the Pictish brewers, but late 19th century Celts apparently used

heather as a flavoring for both beer and mead. The second paragraph

above seems to imply using the heather blossoms in a manner similar

to aroma hops (i.e., brief contact with the hot wort); but the last

sentence above is open almost any interpretation. (BTW, can any

botanists out there tell us the common name for _Myrica gale_?)

Anyway, have a happy, hoppy, and (perhaps) heathery brewing...

Ken Miller

kcmiller@sjsuvm1.sjsu.edu

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1224, 09/13/93

*************************************

-------


Mashing, Bashing

Date: Sun, 12 Sep 93 10:30 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Mashing, Bashing

 >From: Greg_Habel@DGC.ceo.dg.com

 <Subject: My first all grain batch - a screw up.

 >  Mashed 6lbs highly modified pale malt and 8 oz crystal with 6 quarts of

 168F water for 1 hour.

 Life is much easier if you use more water, like double that amount.

 >  Did the iodine test.  The color was blackish but it turned to

 clear when I stirred it up a bit.

 If it cleard upon stirring, you were cheating and just spreading it around.

 >When sparging with 3 gallons of 170F water, I had a very

 difficult time of not disturbing the grain bed.

 Place a small bowl on top of the grain to disburse the water.

 > Here's my question... how important is it that the grain

 bed is kept relatively undisturbed while sparging?

 Absolutelly essential for the grain near the strainer.  If the bed is

 distrubed, it can not function as a filter.

 >  Also, will the liquid turn colorless near the end of the sparge.

 Only if the filter bed is undisturbed.

 > Could it be that my cooler is too large, ie the grain bed

 is not deep enough?

 You didn't tell us enough to determine either of the above but in my

 experience the answer is no.   With my equipment and process I get the same

 yields with one inch in a mini easymasher as I get on 10 gallon batches.  My

 yields are consistantly over 30 and I am using the same equipment I used on

 my first batch with a yield in the low 20's.  Technique has a lot more to do

 with yield than equipment.

 >From: WEIX@swmed.edu

 >Subject: Re: Yeast FAQ Ruckus

 >Well, I feel that since my post was the cause of all the wasted bandwidth

 (either for the FAQ itself if you agree with JS or for the flame-fanning in

 response if you don't), that I should speak my piece. To JS's credit....

 Thanks for the credit but if you are going to personalize comments, please

 get the facts straight.  You have fallen into the same trap as the rest of

 the gang that flamed my suggestions.

 NOWHERE did I criticise "the FAQ itself" or any other FAQ or FAQ's in

 general.  They are a great contribution to the database and those who create

 them and contribute to them deserve much credit.

 I simply made a proposal that non-time critical articles be limited to 200

 lines per day to make sure that those that are time critical do not get

 swamped.

 I also suggested that once the FAQ is proposed and interested parties

 identified, it should be debugged as much as possible by email.

 Both of these suggestions got lost in the public discussion because it is so

 much fun to flame that even when none is apparent, some excuse will be found.

 > Finally, as for the results of his 10 to 1 poll, I would suggest that

 irritated people are 10 times more likely to respond than those who are

 satisfied.....

 But that wasn't the point.  I don't know of anyone who was irritated by the

 FAQ.  The 10 to 1 mail was simply people agreeing with my two suggestions.

 Furthermore, the public comments went the other way as most of them

 criticized me (not my suggestions) just me.

 >From: "Bill Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

 >Subject: All-grain questions

 > 2)  Sparging questions:

     a) How much recirculation.  "Recirculate until runoff is clear".

     Sounds great in print.  However, for amber or darker beers this is

     not as obvious as is sounds.  In last batch I recirculated the first

     5 qts.  Is this excessive?

 It depends on you mash tun.  If you have a false bottom, you must at least

 drain away all the liquid under it and this could be gallons.  With an

 easymasher, it's a cup or two.  Your first runoff will of course be much

 darker than the finished beer but in a proper tun, it will run nearly as

 clear.  I think the key word is "recirculate" and it is a bad word.  It

 sounds like it is part of the process to clear the wort.  What you are really

 doing is rejecting the turbid wort but instead of throwing it away you pour

 it back in.

 >   b) When to stop sparging.  "Don't over sparge".  I like this about as

     much as "cook until done"....

 This one is a well spring of expert opinion and words like tanins, pH, tea,

 sweet .008 lurk like evil spirits ready to destroy your prize winning beer.

 The bottom line is the point of deminishing returns.  It become economically

 impracticle to boil down a gallon of wort much below 1.010 to add its

 contribution to to the batch.  So all those other things, be damned, it is a

 waste of time and money to use watery wort unless you need it to lower the

 gravity or increase the boil time.  It is also a waste of raw material to

 throw away runoff over 1.010.

 If you planned things properly, you should have enough wort by the time you

 get that low.  If you need a little more, the evil stuff in it will be so

 diluted that it won't affect the beer anyway.  If it tastes ok but is not

 sweet, what harm can it do?  If it makes you mouth pucker (most unlikely),

 you probably don't want to put much in your beer.

 >  3) Seperating break material & spent hops from wort.  When I syphon my

     cooled wort from the boiler into the fermenter, my syphon tube clogs

     leaving 1/2 to 1 gallon of wort/trub in the boiler. I usually pore the

     last of this glog into mason jars, allow the trub to settle and decant

     the wort for use as starters.  One quart of glog doen't bother me but

     for my last triple I was left with nearly a gallon.

 You can throw it away or let it settle as you did.  That is just good

 tecnique.  If you don't need it for starter, just bring it to a boil to

 sterilize it and add it to the fermenting beer and nothing is lost.

 > (I know, Jack, I should drill a hole in the bottom of my boiler and install

 a SS screen w/tubing etc. I'm seriously considering this but would like to

 hear other  alternatives.)

 Instead of you plastic siphon, get a piece of copper tubing of the same

 diameter, and bend it into an "L" at the bottom.  Put the tubular screen over

 the end and attach your siphon hose to the top and you have a portable

 easymasher... no hole.. no hassle but you still have to suck on the end.

 >From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

 >Subject: lager time & hot liquor tanks/O2

 >I guess the question is :how long does your *fermentation* take?

 ie, how long until the SG has dropped by 75%?  No doubt that some

 continual activity/lagering will occur but when everything is

 done perfectly, a lager ferment in between 7-10 days.

 I don't see how that statement can be made without specifying the

 temperature.

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >Subject: Addtn to kegging FAQ

 >Al Richer did a good job summarizing the basics of kegging.  I would like

 to add a bit more info.  In addition to the big o-ring and the two under

 the dip tubes, there are also o-rings on the poppets .....

 And now for the other side of the story.  I have four 5 gallon kegs and two

 10 gallon ones.   I have never replaced a single "o" ring in any of them.

 Admitedly, the ones with Coke in them smelled pretty bad for awhile and I

 even had the first batch in one come out with a detectable Coke taste but

 that was long ago and never happened since.  I just soaked the lid rings in

 bleach for a few days.   The ones with lemon/lime stuff lose all odor with a

 simple rinse.

 It's good to know the parts a available but like so many things, if it aint

 broken, don't fix it.

 >The ones sold by Sheaf & Vine have a range of 40F to 80F.  I think that

 this range should be made a bit lower for lagers and a bit higher for

 ales.

 Nifty gadget but I destroyed mine removing it.  My problem is I ferment in

 the same kettles I mash and boil in so they must be removed between uses and

 these things can take that sort of abuse.

 js

------------------------------


Cake mixes, and other half-baked ideas

Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1993 15:50:51 -0400 (EDT)

From: CCAMDEN@delphi.com

Subject: Cake mixes, and other half-baked ideas

I have several questions/comments and I will get right to them.

The first is a "cake mix" question.  I recently received a catalog from

The Home Brewery.  They have a liquid malt extract that they call

Yellow Dog(tm).  It is 87% 2-row Klages, 12% malted wheat and 1% chocolate

malt.  I find myself intrigued by this product.  Has anyone in HBD-land ever

used Yellow Dog and if so, what are your comments?

On to another topic.  All my reading of the HBD has made me think about

doing a, if not all-grain batch, then at least a partial grain batch.  My

question is, if I have a recipe that calls for, oh, say 5 lbs of DME, and I

want to try substituing 3 lbs of grain, how much DME should I then use.

Now, I realize that some will say "why not go all-grain?", but I just don't

have the equipment (brewpot).  I can throw together a few things to

experiment with small amounts of grain, but I will still need to use DME.

(OK, let's see; will now I be a "cake-mix-brewer" who only uses part of the

cake-mix and adds his own flour??)

No question this time, just a comment.  My wife and I just got back from

living in Nuernberg (umlaut-less German spelling), Germany for 3 years.

I didn't brew there, there wasn't a need to; here in Huntsville, Al there is

a great need.  One of our favorite places to go was Cheimsee (large alpine

lake about 40 miles east of Munich).  Just south of Ingolstadt, we would

enter a large hops growing region.  We got into the habit of stopping at the

same autobahn rest-stop through the summer and walking to a nearby hops

field (?), where we would shoot some video.  We got some great footage of

the hops as they grew all summer long.  So, what's the point of all this?  A

check of the map tells me that this was smack-dab-in-the-middle of the

Hallertau region.  It was a neat expirence then, and learning more about

these hops now, makes the memories even better.

Email replies to my questions are encouraged, unless you think that everyone

would be interested in the brewing characteristics of Yellow Dog amber malt

extract.

         ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

         /   Cary Camden                                           /

         /   Husband, father, soldier, parrot head...              /

         /   "...not a lawyer, a thief or a banker."               /

         /                                            J. Buffett   /

         ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

------------------------------


Fermentation Frenzy

Date: Sun, 12 Sep 93 17:38:06 EDT

From: donnalynn@aol.com

Subject: Fermentation Frenzy

Hi

This is directed to Ken Johnson who was not happy with our store.

You mentioned that we do not have open bins of grains.  Well you are correct.

The main reason for this is that open bins are one of the best ways to invite

a pest  contamination (especially during the summer months).  Having worked

as a food microbiologist and plant inspector for 5 years I know that an open

bin of a food product is not wise.  If you would like a specific amount that

is not already on the shelves just ask and we will be happy to get it for

you.

As for our hop selection we carry just about every hop type grown.  Sometimes

towards the end of the hop season (just before the next years hops are

picked) certain hop varities are of poor quality and we don't buy  them and

resell poor quality hops.  But if you really want a particular variety

regardless of quality will will order it for you.

I am sorry you were not impressed with our shop as we are here for our

customers and what to make you impressed

Take Care and I hope you will give us another try,

Donna Lynn

Fermentation Frenzy

------------------------------


FAQ's Politics and Protocols

Date: Sun, 12 Sep 93 21:10:24 EDT

From: blazo@aol.com

Subject: FAQ's Politics and Protocols

At the risk of rendering horse flesh into micro-burger I would like to submit

the following:

When someone goes to the trouble of assembling, sometimes with painstaking

detail, the answers to many of the most FAQ's in a given subject, they might

be best served, prior to posting their compilation on our HBD, by querying

the HBD "population" as to their propriety in posting their data.  In this

way, the anticipation of the receipt of the "education" might whet the

appetites of the "cogniscenti", and therefore silence the erstwhile loose

cannons, disparagers or flame-throwers, as the case might be.

It is amazing, when someone goes to the trouble to compile massive amounts of

information to distribute to the "masses", that certain of those masses, you

know who you are, act as iconoclasts, ad nauseum, without even ctitiqueing

the post.  Bandwidth, bandwidth, bandwith.  What's the big deal?  OUR TAXES

PAY (gentle thanks to HP) FOR THE BANDWIDTH!  Lighten up!  Isn't education

worth the BANDWIDTH?

I will not offer up any quasi-pardoning postures for using THE BANDWIDTH to

make this statement, but hope that all of those diligent, hardworking &

concientious people keep on making their posts re:  FAQ's.

 -blazo

------------------------------


Sweden

Date:     Mon, 13 Sep 93 7:08:16 EDT

From: "Peter J. Burke" (FSAC-PMD) <pburke@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  Sweden

Greetings,

I am travelling to Sweden on 15 Sept, and will be in:

Stockholm, Linkoping, Kalskoga, and Gothenburg.

I do not know if Sweden is the mecca of brewing that

other European countries surely are, but would like

to obviously sample their wares.

Does anybody out there have good bars, breweries, restaurant, etc...

info ? I know this is short notice, but would appreciate the

help. Please respond directly to me:

pburke@pica.army.mil

thank you.

SKOAL !!!

(Cheers in Swedish)

------------------------------


sweet gale synonyms/request for collaboration

Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1993 09:31:01 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: sweet gale synonyms/request for collaboration

Here is the little I know about sweet gale.

First, the following terms are synonymous:

   myrica gale

   sweet gale

   bog myrtle

   moor myrtle

I have looked at a number of herb/wildflower catalogs, and one in

particular carried a number of myrtles, but none with the above

names.  One myrtle, the name of which I don't recall now, was described

as having seeds that produce an anise-like flavor.

Spencer Thomas kindly sent to me an old hbd posting from James Spence

that mentioned a source:

***old post excerpt begins here***

Desjardins Herboriste

3303 Ste. Catherine St. E.

Montreal, Quebec H1W2C5

telephone:  (514)-523-4860

Pierre (Rajotte) says 250 gms is $3.56 plus shipping.

***old post ends here***

I phoned Desjardins Herboriste, and they were unwilling to ship outside

of Canada.

Now, what I am hoping for is that some Canadian reader of this post will

order the sweet gale and send it to me.  Any takers?  Please e-mail

privately.  Thanks.

------------------------------


Strange overcarbonation

Date:     13 Sep 93 10:53:43

From: "Rafael Busto"  <SUPERVISOR@bnk1.bnkst.edu>

Subject:  Strange overcarbonation

I just wanted to report something that has ruined my last three

batches (2 ales and 1 lager) Everything looks fine during the

whole process untill you open the first bottle after 2 weeks of

bottleing. As soon as you open it a very thick foam starts to

grow on the bottle itself. In a second look you can tell that

this foam is created from a lot of bubbles that come from the

yeast sediment.

When you pour it to the glass the foam keeps growing and stays

for few minutes untill it becomes liquid.

The flavor of the beer is cidery.

Any clue?

I tried to make my beer as clean as I can. The only things I can

think are:

 - I need a new hose (it has been used over 7 batches)

 - The fermentation was not totally completed (but 3 times in a

  row?)

  Please let me know of similar experiences or solutions.

  Thanks a lot

------------------------------


RE: slow sparge, mashing question

Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 11:33:13 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: slow sparge, mashing question

Hi All,

  In HBD#1224 Steve Zabarnick writes:

>I've recently joined the exciting world of all-grain brewing. My two full

>mashes have been successful, but I've been frustrated by the how slow my

>sparging has been. Here is my set-up: 5 gal Gott water cooler as

>mash/lauter tun, Phil's phalse bottom, and Phil's Mill. Both batches have

>used 9 or 10 lbs of grain (mostly British pale ale malt), with mash at 1 or

>1.25 quarts/lb. I've been sparging with 5 gals of 170 F water while keeping

>the water level above the grain bed (I skip the mash-out). Both of my

                                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>sparges have taken 2 hours with the valve on the cooler full open. I would

>like to get this down to about an hour.

>Any suggestions? Perhaps I'm crushing the grain too fine-- I've been

>adjusting the crush to the point where all of the grains are at least

>partially crushed. I've been getting about 31 ppg.

  Two of the most common reasons for slow/stuck sparges are lack of heat in

the tun, and excessive flour from the crush being too fine.

  Try mashing out next time.  It's possible to step from sugar rest

temperature to ~170F by infusing small amounts of boiling water.  My

procedure is to add enough water so that the water level is 1-2 inches above

the grain bed, while watching the temperature.  When it gets to the desired

range, stir the mash *gently*, just enough to get all the mash constituents

into suspension, avoid splashing.  Seal the cooler, wait about 10 minutes.

The liquid above the grain bed should be clear and dark, and there should

be a light layer of gray material atop the grain bed.  Begin recirculation

of runoff.

  The heat added to the tun by raising to mash out temperature will help

the runoff flow more readily.  Getting the mash constituents suspended in

liquid then allowing them to settle naturally helps avoid both compaction

of the grain bed and channeling, IMHO.  Both of these conditions contribute

to slow/stuck sparges.

  Checking the crush is a good idea, though I'd be more concerned with the

amount of flour and the condition of the grain husks.  If your crush has

a lot of flour and the husks are in many small pieces, then grind a little

coarser.

>Is the depth of a 10 lb grain bed in a 5 gallon cooler too large for a more

>rapid sparge?

  No, this is not the problem, I've used 10+ pounds of grain in a 5 gallon

lauter tun many times, the runoff came out as fast as I allowed it.  On

one occasion, I was brewing a weizen using 10 pounds of grain, half of

which was wheat malt.  I got distracted by something on the radio, bumped

the spigot on my lauter tun to a wide open position without noticing.

I had just started sparging, there was just over a gallon of wort in the

boiler.  When I did notice a couple of minutes later, there was over 3

gallons in the boiler, and the runoff was still flowing strong.  Despite

the high percentage of wheat and the extremely fast runoff rate, the

sparge still did not stick.  The geometry of your tun is not the problem.

  Another thought, there was a thread on HBD last year from someone using

a Phil's phalse bottom who was also getting slow sparges.  If memory serves,

(always a dangerous assumption :-)), there was something about a hose

kinking and trapping air.  I've never seen this device, maybe someone

who has used one can comment.

*****************************************************************

  I also have a question.  A friend of mine who loves to tinker with gadgets

built a RIMS system recently, and has run a couple of pilot brews through

it.  He carefully plotted the time/temperature curve while stepping from

protein rest to sugar rest temperatures, it takes about 30 minutes to step

up roughly 32 degrees, from 122F to 154F.  The problem is that as soon as

the sugar rest is achieved, the mash is already converted!

  Our concern is the length of time spent in the 140F-150F range, and it's

impact on the dextrin pool.  I'm a BJCP judge, a taste test on both brews

confirmed our fears, they were both very thin bodied, bordering on watery.

Yesterday, through the judicious use of insulation, we managed to cut this

time from 30 minutes to just over 15, without changing the heating element

or slowing the recirculation rate.

  My question: is there an optimal rate of stepping from protein rest to

sugar rest temperatures?  2F per minute or some such? I can't find this

information in my brewing library anywhere.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


Re:  Slow sparge problems

Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1993 13:24:33 -0500

From: Chris McDermott <mcdermott@draper.com>

Subject: Re:  Slow sparge problems

 RE> Slow sparge problems

>Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 14:04:07 -0400

>From: steve@snake.appl.wpafb.af.mil (Steve Zabarnick)

>Subject: Slow sparge problems

>

>I've recently joined the exciting world of all-grain brewing. My two full

>mashes have been successful, but I've been frustrated by the how slow my

>sparging has been. Here is my set-up: 5 gal Gott water cooler as

>mash/lauter tun, Phil's phalse bottom, and Phil's Mill. Both batches have

>used 9 or 10 lbs of grain (mostly British pale ale malt), with mash at 1 or

>1.25 quarts/lb. I've been sparging with 5 gals of 170 F water while keeping

>the water level above the grain bed (I skip the mash-out). Both of my

>sparges have taken 2 hours with the valve on the cooler full open. I would

>like to get this down to about an hour.

>

>Any suggestions? Perhaps I'm crushing the grain too fine-- I've been

>adjusting the crush to the point where all of the grains are at least

>partially crushed. I've been getting about 31 ppg.

>

>Is the depth of a 10 lb grain bed in a 5 gallon cooler too large for a more

>rapid sparge? I don't think this is the problem, as I believe others on the

>digest have rapid sparges with the same set-up.

>

>Thanks for any help.

>

>Steve Zabarnick

>

>

>------------------------------

One gotcha to watch out for with Phil's False Bottom is the weight of the grain

bed crushing the outlet tube.  This is especially true if you are using the

*clear* vinyl type tubing, because it becomes very soft at sparge water

temperatures.  If this is indeed the case,  try switching to the opaque type

tubing.  It is much stiffer even at boiling temperatures.

FYI, I use the PFB in a 10 gal Gott cooler with an opaque vinyl outlet tube and

I can complete a sparge in well under thirty minutes if I so choose.

------------------------------


Freezers

Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 13:26 EDT

From: jmarra@rip.att.com

Subject: Freezers

I've read a number of posts mentioning a chest freezer used for

fermentation and lagering.  Is there an advantage to this type

of freezer over an upright freezer, or refrigerator?

I have several soda kegs I plan to ferment in.  Will I be able to fit

more in a large chest freezer vs. upright?

Thanks in advance for any info,

John Marra

jmarra@rip.att.com

------------------------------


Fermentation Frenzy

Date: Sun, 12 Sep 93 17:38:06 EDT

From: donnalynn@aol.com

Subject: Fermentation Frenzy

Hi

This is directed to Ken Johnson who was not happy with our store.

You mentioned that we do not have open bins of grains.  Well you are correct.

The main reason for this is that open bins are one of the best ways to invite

a pest  contamination (especially during the summer months).  Having worked

as a food microbiologist and plant inspector for 5 years I know that an open

bin of a food product is not wise.  If you would like a specific amount that

is not already on the shelves just ask and we will be happy to get it for

you.

As for our hop selection we carry just about every hop type grown.  Sometimes

towards the end of the hop season (just before the next years hops are

picked) certain hop varities are of poor quality and we don't buy  them and

resell poor quality hops.  But if you really want a particular variety

regardless of quality will will order it for you.

I am sorry you were not impressed with our shop as we are here for our

customers and what to make you impressed

Take Care and I hope you will give us another try,

Donna Lynn

Fermentation Frenzy

------------------------------


Tarnished Wort Chiller

Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 14:38:20 -0400

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

Subject: Tarnished Wort Chiller

I made an immersion wort chiller (17 ft. of 1/4 in. copper tubing).

The wort chiller was used for the first time about a month ago.

In that time the tubing had become tarnished.

I used the wort chiller for a batch that was made this weekend.

I put the chiller in the wort during the last 15 minutes of

the boil to ensure sanitization of the chiller.  Cold water was

then passed through the wort chiller for it to cool the wort.

Afterwards, I noticed that the wort chiller was only tarnished in

the places that were not immersed in the wort.

QUESTIONS:

1)  Did the de-tarnishing that took place affect the wort?

    Will it noticeably affect the flavor of the beer?

2)  Should I de-tarnish the wort chiller prior to its next use?

3)  How does one go about de-tarnishing a copper wort chiller?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

- ---

email: sxupjd@fnma.com (NeXT Mail Okay)

Philip DiFalco, Senior SomethingOrOther, Advanced Technology

FannieMae, 3900 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, DC 22016     (202)752-2812

------------------------------


More Mead Questions

Date: 13 Sep 1993 11:29:10 U

From: "Daniels Lab 2" <Daniels_Lab_2.CEMAIL@cemailgate.ce.utexas.edu>

Subject: More Mead Questions

                       Subject:                               Time:11:13 AM

  OFFICE MEMO          More Mead Questions                    Date:9/13/93

I have a few questions to add to Jim's mead questions in #1222.

I've brewed a gingered honey mead and am hoping for some suggestions on

what/when to add some additional ingredients.  The recipe I used (Papazian's)

calls for fresh fruit to be added at the end of the boil.  I have a cherry

extract for winemaking that I want to use.  Should I add this during

fermentation or at bottling?

I would also like to add some spices to the mead when I bottle.  I had planned

to make a tea and add to part of the batch while bottling so I could split the

batch.  My question is, what spices work well (with or without the cherry) and

how strong a tea should I try?  Yeah, I know it's all personal taste and the

amounts always vary depending on potency, process, etc., but a ballpark would

be appreciated from those who already have a little (or more) experience with

this.

Thanks.  Tristan

------------------------------


Decoction: The Thinnest 1/3

Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 14:28:24 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Decoction: The Thinnest 1/3

The recent discussion on wort clarity due to starch problems from too hot

a sparge has caused me to revisit getting to mashout with a decotion mash.

In previous brews I would remove the thinnest 40% or so.  Though quite thin

it would contain a significant fraction of grain.  I would boil this and add

it to the mash vessel and let it mash out at 170-175 for 15 minutes.  These

beers would never get crystal clear.   I suspect that I gelatinized some

starch in the final decotion that did not get converted while the enzymes were

getting deactivated in the mashout.

In future brews I will ensure that there is NO GRAIN in the final decoction

even if I have add water to get the correct volume of water.

RE: Light Struck beer in fermentor.  I cover my 6.5 gallon carboys with a

black plasic trash bag.  I have a small slit in the top for the airlock to go

thru.

Lee Menegoni     lmenegoni@nectech.com

------------------------------


Lautering

Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1993 11:18:06 -0600 (MDT)

From: EZIMMERM@UWYO.EDU

Subject: Lautering

Salutations!

   First, sorry 'bout the poor subject headding on my last post. I'm

still getting used to this VAX os...

   When I toured Summit Brewery in St. Paul I was told they lauter by

_recirculating_ the wort untill it is clear [transparent, i.e. no

cloudyness] and what it sounds like most all grainers here is doing

is to just run the water through once. Is it ok to recirculate the

wort? I would think so as Summit won Gold for their Great Northern Porter...

Wait, a porter could stand the bitterness that might result from the possible

transfer of tannins fromt he husks to the wort... Well, they also make a

great Pale Ale... Any comments on this?

Gene in Laramie

------------------------------


Sparge and .Z

Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 14:14:55 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bizet.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Sparge and .Z

In 1224 Stave Zabarnick complains of slow sparges.  Assuming a holey

bottom the like of a Phil's can work OK (I hated my homemade holey

bucket a la Miller), which I doubt, it helps with any sparging system

to restrict the flow from the get go to a trickle.  There is less

to recirculate before run off is clear, and the lack of compaction

of the bed allows the sparge to continue steadily.  I never sparge longer

than 45 minutes even for 75% wheat mashes with my copper manifold 7 gallon

Gott.  Try restricting the flow next time ans see if it helps.

Patrick Weix of yeast.faq fame gives a very complicated method for

ftping .Z files from stanford.  When I get my copy of hbd each day (my

mail subscription is still not fixed after a month - Oh well), I just

type get 1224, and lo and behold it uncompresses 1224.Z prior to

transfer saving me the need to set up bin or uncompress it in my own directory.

So I guess gettin yeast.faq from homebrew/docs could be as trouble free.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


Mash cooler discoloration & choreboys

Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 16:56:06 EDT

From: U-E68316-Scott Wisler <swisler@c0431.ae.ge.com>

Subject: Mash cooler discoloration & choreboys

This past weekend I wanted to brew 2 consecutive batches and was looking

into how to compress the time involved.  One of the most obvious ways is

to be mashing the second batch while the first is boiling.  The problem

is that I mash and boil in the same pot, with my sparge water held in a

styrofoam cooler.  I have a plastic picnic cooler that I seriously

thought of using but I didn't want permently mash colored.  (Besides,

my wife would throttle me)  So the question to all you cooler

mashers is :  What color did your coolers end up?

Also, the choreboy seems to be working well for many people.  I haven't

found one yet, but I just got my counter-flow chiller working and

used whole hops for the first time.  Clog! (seems like a bad B movie senerio)

I was wondering how people attached the choreboy to the drain.   I guess

I'd just like to know if there was a way that DIDN'T work, so I can

avoid clog problems.

Thanks,

Scott

------------------------------


Yeast Washing

Date: Fri, 6 Aug 93 16:08:02 GMT

From: Martin Wilde <martin@gamma.intel.com>

Subject: Yeast Washing

I have on occasion washed some yeast.  The question I have is how do you tell

the difference from the trub and the yeast?  The yeast is usually an off-white

and the trub white, do I just not worry???

thanks

martin@gamma.intel.com

------------------------------


Re: Brewpubs in the Boston area

Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 17:30:15 EDT

From: robertg211@aol.com

Subject: Re: Brewpubs in the Boston area

My wife and I are going to be in the Boston area for 10days in October and

would like to know of any Brewpubs, Microbreweries or Pubs that are worth

visiting. Thanks in advance!

Either post here or E-mail me  at: RobertG211@aol.com

                                                     Bob Gammie

                                                     Northeast FL Society of

Brewers

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1225, 09/14/93

*************************************

-------


Posting

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 07:39:22 CDT

From: nfarrell@ppco.com (Norman Farrell)

Subject: Posting

I recently made a bathc of steam beer and found myself with a mas temp that

I thought was 4 to 5 degrees F lower than I wanted.  I did not want to add

more water and dilute the enzyme concentration.  I removed 2 quarts of the

mash in a glass measuring cup and heated in the microwave for 7 minutes.

This was long enough to reach boiling.  I returned the "decoction" to the

main mash stirred in and removed another 2 quarts and heated.

It took 3 "decoctions" to get the bulk temperature where I wanted.  7

minutes in the microwave was required to boil each time.  The resulting

beer was wonderful particularly full bodied/satisfying mouthfeel. It was

better in this regard than other beers I have made with inffusion or

step mashing.

Was the amount and heating time I used sufficient to account for the good

results?  Has anyone else tried this?  If it is more likely that everthing

in the process just came together to yield a great beer (ie. my

decoctions were probably of little effect), how long would I have to heat

(and what % of the mash) to do some good?  BTW the brew length was 5 gal.

and the OG was about 1.050.  Thanks for any hints/opinions.

Norman    (nfarrell@ppco.com)

------------------------------


Pumpkin Brown Ale Request

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1993 08:16:02 -0600 (MDT)

From: EZIMMERM@UWYO.EDU

Subject: Pumpkin Brown Ale Request

Salutations!

   I'm going to brew a Brown Ale with some pumpkin flavor and because

I can't find a source of fresh pumpkins I will be using canned. Yes, I

am using pure canned pumpkin ( no xtra water, salt, chemicals, etc. ).

What I need is an idea of how much canned pumpkin would be nice for

a Brown Ale of aoubt 1.04 to 1.06 OG and if anyone can reccomend some

hops for this. I was thinking finnishing with Fuggles... Any ideas?

Gene in Laramie

------------------------------


Beer in Boston

Date: 14 Sep 1993 10:40:05 -0500

From: "Stephen Schember" <stephen_schember@terc.edu>

Subject: Beer in Boston

                       Subject:

Time:10:16 AM

  OFFICE MEMO          Beer in Boston

Date:9/14/93

The Boston metro area now boasts four brewpubs. The original is the

Commonwealth Brewery on Portland St. by the Boston Garden (bitter and

barley wine best choices here imho, but everthing pretty dang good).

The

Boston Beer Works is on Brookline Ave. just across from Fenway park

(IPA

and Hercules strong recommended).  The Cambridge Brewing Company is

in Kendall Square, Cambridge (great pale ale and if you're lucky a

sublime

high octane version of the same, Big Man's Triple). Rounding out the

list is

John Harvard's on Dunster St,. Harvard Square, Cambridge (good Stout

esp.

if on "Cask"). The Sam Adams Brewery tour is allways worth the trip

to Jamaica Plain (a borough of Boston). While you are in J.P. stop at

Doyles

Cafe on Washington St., for more Sam Adams limited runs

(Dunklewiezen,

Cranberry "Lambic", etc.), a healthy selction of taps, and ancient

Boston bar atmosphere. Other recommended watering holes: Cornwall's

in Kenmore Sq., The Sunset G+T(71 Taps!) on Brighton Ave. in

Brighton.

------------------------------


Reader/Indexer for Yeast and Hop FAQ

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1993 08:41:17 -0600 (MDT)

From: EZIMMERM@UWYO.EDU

Subject: Reader/Indexer for Yeast and Hop FAQ

Salutations!

   I was thinking of writing an indexer or data base manager for the

Yeast and upcomming Hop FAQs. I would provide the C source code as well

as a compiled x86 IBM version for those of us more in the brewing than

computing circles. Before I start work on this, however, I want to

know if anyone else is going to do the same thing as I'm a buisy student and

would hate to waste my time solving a problem someone else is solving.

   So, anyone else doing something like this or shall I have a go at

it?

Gene in Laramie

------------------------------


Lautering / Discoloration

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 9:23:37 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Lautering / Discoloration

Gene asks about lautering wrt recirculation.  He assumes most all-grainers just

sparge without recirculation.  It is my perception that most all-grainers _do_

recirculate the wort.  FWIW, I recirculate the wort until it runs relatively

clear, but I don't go to a lot of trubble.  I seem to recall Micah Millspaw

advocating no recirculation at all; something about giving the proteins and

other hot break material a nucleation point.  Contrary to the popular beliefs,

he claimed clearer beer than with recirculation.  Anyone tasted Micah's beer?

Is Bob Jones still on the digest?

Scott asks about discoloring his wife's cooler with wort.  I haven't really

worried about it since I bought the cooler especially for brewing, but I

haven't noticed any real discoloration problems.  I suspect one batch wouldn't

do it any harm, but I would be careful to keep the temperature below about

170F.  Warping of the plastic would probably bug her more than the color.

Now that lager season is here on the front range in Colorado (yesterday was

first snow!), I'm thinking again about a dopplebock.  Anyone with a good

all-grain DB recipe?  Of course, if it was to taste like Salvator I wouldn't

mind ;-).

Cheers,

norm

- --

Norm Pyle, Staff Engineer         Head Brewer,

Storage Technology Corporation    Pyledriver Brewery, A Non-Profit Organization

2270 South 88th Street            1500 Elmhurst Drive

Louisville, CO 80028-0211         Longmont, CO 80503-2323

(303) 673-8884                    npyle@n33.stortek.com

------------------------------


Instant carbonation

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 08:43:19 PDT

From: tima@wv.MENTORG.COM (Tim Anderson)

Subject: Instant carbonation

I recently had an experience that I thought was worth sharing.

I made a pretty ordinary pale ale from DME and adjunct grains.  The process was

the same as all my batches.  I pitched a large quantity (2 liters) of actively

chugging starter (Wyeast London Ale) and aerated with wild abandon.  But then

I always do.

Fermentation started within a few hours, which, of course, had nothing to do

with my method of aeration.  After 9 days, the bubbling in the air lock was

getting slow, and since I had a window of opportunity to bottle, and wouldn't

again for at least another week, I went ahead and did it.  I primed with corn

sugar. I always prime with corn sugar.  I'm proud of priming with corn sugar.

Now here's the good part.  The beer was fully carbonated and fairly tasty in

2 days (!).  My first reaction was, "Oh shit."  I braced for glass grenades.

But they never came.  It's been 6 weeks since bottling, and the beer is just

fine.  Not over-carbonated, no gushers, no off flavors.  Pretty boring stuff.

I am curious why what usually takes a couple of weeks would occur in 2 days

without ill-effect.  My hypothesis is that I caught the yeast at just the right

moment when it was effectively done with the food at hand, was sitting back

with its feet up, enjoying a good cigar and snifter of brandy, but had not yet

gone dormant.  What's this, dessert?  Corn sugar, my favorite!  If so, I

suppose the timing was lucky and had I bottled just a bit sooner, my closet

would look like a war zone.

By the way, this is a basement closet that maintains a constant 62F.

tim

------------------------------


GABF info

Date:          Tue, 14 Sep 93 11:09:43 CDT

From: inline@vnet.IBM.COM

Subject:       GABF info

Can anyone tell me what one of these festivals is like ? With the airline

price wars starting up it might be worth a trip to Denver to check this out.

Are there cheap hotels within walking distance of the festival ? I'm not sure

I would want to be driving around (in the snow even!) if I'd been tasting all

day. Email answers are fine.

Thanks !

**************************************************************

 Chris Williams

 inline@vnet.ibm.com

**************************************************************

------------------------------


Heineken Paranoid of Micros?

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 9:21:47 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Heineken Paranoid of Micros?

Has anyone else heard Heineken's "swipe" at Microbeers

in their latest radio ad?  They have really taken a good

one at our friend Jim Koch:

Guy to bartender: "Hey Tom!  What's this Benedict Arnold

Pittsburgh Lager?"

Mark

------------------------------


Brown Porter / Commercial examples?

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 11:48:56 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Brown Porter / Commercial examples?

What commercially available brews are examples of the "Brown Porter" style

as definded by the AHA?

Brown Porter: Medium to dark brown.  No roast barley or strong burnt malt

character. Light to medium body.  Low to medium malt sweetness.  Medium hop

bitterness.  Hop flavor and aroma; none to medium.  Fruitiness/esters OK.

Low diacetyl OK. OG 1.040-50, % Alc/Vol 4.6-6%, IBU 20-30, Color SRM  20-35

Lee Menegoni  Lmenegoni@nectech.com

------------------------------


help

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 13:26:43 EDT

From: hhoppe@motown.ge.com

Subject: help

help

hhoppe@motown.ge.com

------------------------------


Malt Liquor

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 12:21:58 PDT

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: Malt Liquor

Al writes:

>There are even stupider misuses of names (such as the misuse of the word

>"ale" in Texas)  <snip>

Hey! Don't leave us all in suspense, out with the ugly truth.  Enquiring

minds want to know.  What exactly did the Texas legislature do with "ale"?

Troy

------------------------------


Klages or not to Klages

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 16:19 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Klages or not to Klages

Well, I guess it's time to eat crow... the latest issue of Brewer's

Digest (Aug `93) completely contradicts my previous assertion that

Klages is no longer grown in the US.  It apparently is being grown

in 1993 along with 12 other varieties of malting barley.  The seven

6-row varieties of malting barley being grown in the US in 1993 are:

Azure, B1602, B2601, Excel, Morex, Robust and Russell.  The six 2-row

varieties are: B1202, Crest, Crystal, Harrington, Klages and Moravian III.

Klages appears to be grown in the following states this year: Washington,

Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado.  From the map

in the article, it appears that there is little overlap between barley

strains grown in the Western States (those mentioned above) and the

Midwestern States (N & S Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan).

Excel and Morex appear to be the only ones grown in both the W and MW.

Strangely, there are no 2-row varieties grown in the MW this year!

Sorry about the misinformation.  I had heard from various sources, for

two years in a row now, that Klages was discontinued in 1990.  Unless it

has just rebounded in popularity, I was given incorrect info.

Al.

------------------------------


Homebrew Digest #1225

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 03:04:00 BST

From: mike.keller@genie.geis.com

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1225

>From HBD 1225:

 ||From: CCAMDEN@delphi.com                                      ||

 ||Subject: Cake mixes, and other half-baked ideas               ||

 ||The first is a "cake mix" question.  I recently received a    ||

 ||catalog from The Home Brewery.  They have a liquid malt       ||

 ||extract that they call Yellow Dog(tm).  It is 87% 2-row       ||

 ||Klages, 12% malted wheat and 1% chocolate malt.  I find       ||

 ||myself intrigued by this product.  Has anyone in HBD-land     ||

 ||ever used Yellow Dog and if so, what are your comments?       ||

On GEnie, we used Yellow Dog as the main ingredient in the extract

version of two recipes we designed online, an ale and a porter. We

made up an extract version and an all-grain version, and we used the

Yellow Dog for the extract version because the Home Brewery listed

the ingredients, so we knew the make up.

After we each brewed our own batches, we then swapped via UPS a few

samples of our efforts, and compared them. The result? The Yellow Dog

is just fine, everyone's beer was good, but in the end you get so

much variation in technique that the "cake mix" you use is less

important than how you brew it.

I thought the Yellow Dog was fine extract, and if I had to mail order

I would consider it, but I now have two local homebrew stores, and

I'd rather support them. I can add my own wheat and chocolate, and I

often do!

 mike.keller

------------------------------


oring challenge results

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1993 22:14:46 -0500

From: donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: oring challenge results

For nearly a year now I have avoided posting the results of the

oring challenge even when it seemed appropriate such as the time

George Fix referred to "O'Connor's oring beer."  Quite honestly I

didn't want to hear another damn word about orings.

The oring challenge was never what I said.  I said that the beer had

been in a used keg with a used oring.  I further said the keg had

once held either coke or Dr. Pepper or root beer.  I asked them to

tell me which.  In reality, the beer had never been in a keg.  I

spiked each 12 ounce bottle with 9 ml of Diet Coke.  That's an

incredible 1.35 cans of diet coke per 5 gallon batch.  I simply

poured from bottle to bottle to make it look as if it came from a

keg, sediment free.  The beer was tasted by 5 certified judges and

several others.  NOT A SINGLE PERSON TASTED COKE.  The reason I

did this was to offer a concrete example that the threshold for

coke was too high to believe an oring could soak up enough syrup

to be the culprit.

However, the really remarkable results came from the group of 4

certified judges in Chicago.  They not only did not taste coke, they

IMAGINED TASTING "GRAPE or GINGER ALE" which they surmised

came from the oring.  They surmised the keg had once held grape

or ginger ale.

So what did the oring challenge prove?

Were these judges incompetent?  Far from it.  Quite impressively,

the judge in N. Carolina actually picked up a sweetness that was not

like malt sweetness.  Another judge in the Chicago area tasted 2

bottles a month or two apart and noticed a big difference because

the beer was very oxidized by the time he drank the second.  Two

others, not judges, noticed the rather odd dark color of the spiked

beer.

All I can say with absolute certainty is that

1.  5 certifed judges and several others did not taste 1.35 cans of

Diet Coke in 5 gallons of pale beer even when they were looking for

it.

2.  4 certified judges did IMAGINE tasting grape or ginger ale from

an old oring that never existed.

People can quibble around the edges, but these two facts are

indisputable.

Before you run out to change the poppet valve, I would simply ask

HOW DO YOU GET MORE THAN 1.35 CANS OF DIET COKE INTO THE

POPPET VALVE ORING?

Finally, I agree with Al Korzonis that some people have more flavor

sensitivity than others.  I would only add that some people have

more imagination than others.  Both are essential to the full

enjoyment of beer.  The trick is to have some idea where one ends

and the other begins.

------------------------------


Yeast Washing

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 20:30:25 -0700

From: pascal@netcom.com (The Ghost In The Machine)

Subject: Yeast Washing

martin@gamma.intel.com notes :

"I have on occasion washed some yeast.  The question I have is how do you

 tell the difference from the trub and the yeast?  The yeast is usually an

 off-white and the trub white, do I just not worry???"

I believe the trub is heaviest, and therefore on the bottom, as what is

called, in chemistry, the "precipitate". As it contains a hodge-podge of

materials, it is rarely of a pure color, and tends to be darker in shade.

The yeast - the living yeast cells, not the dead cells, which are amongst

the rest of the "precipitated" materials on the bottom - are in suspension,

and therefore rest in the layer above the precipitate.

The fluid medium in which they both exist provides the third, top layer,

and it is clear, totally transparent, and usually only lightly tinted.

The trick to separating the three is in a two-fold approach.

 (1) Add sufficient fluid to allow the three to separate.

 (2) Adjust the geometry (shape) of the container to help

  expedite separating the layers - IE, use tall, thin

  containers to separate very small amounts.

It also helps to use something like a baster ( large vacumm-bulb gadget

used to suck up fluid under cooking meat and recirculate it over roasts,

usually used only once or twice a year, but has many other uses ... ;-)

with which to carefully remove specific layers, in order or not.

- -- richard

        Truth : the most deadly weapon known to civilization. Possession

        forbidden by employers, governments, and authorities, across the

        known universe. Violation of this regulation punishable by death.

   richard childers                                         pascal@netcom.com

------------------------------


slow sparges

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 12:42:00 -0600

From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

Subject: slow sparges

In HBD 1224 Steve Zabarnick wrote:

SZ) Subject: Slow sparge problems

SZ> two full mashes have been successful, but I've been frustrated

  > by the how slow my sparging has been. Here is my set-up: 5 gal

SZ> been sparging with 5 gals of 170 F water while keeping the water

  > level above the grain bed (I skip the mash-out). Both of my

  > sparges have taken 2 hours with the valve on the cooler full

  > open. I would like to get this down to about an hour.

Steve,

Have you been "floating" the grain on several inches of sparge water

above the false bottom as Charlie P. recommends? I was having slow

sparges (but nowhere near 2 hours), but found that the combination

of first, filling the lauter tun with sparge water about two inches

above the level of the false bottom, and second, maintaining the

sparge water level above the grain level until the sparge is

finished, dramatically decreased sparge time.

Chuck Wettergreen

 * RM 1.2 00946 * Nothing is so smiple that it can't get screwed up.

------------------------------


thin part boiling in decoction

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 08:47:02 MET DST

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: thin part boiling in decoction

Hello all,

I've just been catching up on the last two hbds.

Lee in hbd 1225 mentioned that he boils the THINNEST third during

his decoction mashes, and he attributes unclear beer to boiling

some grains as well.

He goes on to suggest that boiling the grains gelatinised their

starches, and hence led the haze

Well, yes and no!

The accepted "industrial" procedure for decoction involves

taking out the THICKEST third (ie mostly grain), heating it to

conversion temperatures and then to boiling, when, indeed, the

starch gelatinises, the inner structure of the grains is disrupted,

and generally the starch is made more accessible to enzymes.

This boiling mixture is then returned to the main mash.

Why is the thick part boiled? Firstly because of the changes it brings

about in the grains that were boiled, and secondly because

most of the (heat sensitive) enzymes have disolved in the liquor

(that is the thin bit), so that if the thin bit is taken out

and boiled, the enzymes are destroyed and no conversion takes place.

This then leads to low yields AND starch hazes!

Therefore, in conclusion, I'd say that Lee's unclear beer was caused

by NOT BOILING ENOUGH GRAINS and BOILING TOO MUCH LIQUID.

Using the above procedure I've got excellent yields of clear and

NOT astringent beer.

(There are other features of the decoction system that I won't go

into, but in passing, by keeping the boiled part as thick as possible

no tannins are extracted during the boil either.)

Rob. Thomas

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1226, 09/15/93

*************************************

-------


Dormant Yeast / Stuck Fermentation

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 08:01:53 EDT

From: dstotler@cygnus.PPPL.GOV (Daren Stotler)

Subject: Dormant Yeast / Stuck Fermentation

I'm trying to brew the Bock kit sold by the Home Brewery. This is my first

attempt at brewing in my fridge/freezer; I guess I've more to learn. Here

goes:

I had two liquid yeast starters fail (Yeast Labs Bavarian Lager) for unknown

reasons; so I decided to brew with the dry yeast (14 gm) that came with the

kit. It said "European Lager" on the package; I wasn't familiar with the

brand. I rehydrated the yeast (this was clearly successful) and pitched

into the wort @ 65 F. Off it went into the freezer. After 12 hrs., I

set the thermostat to 62 F. The next morning (24 hrs), a vigorous fermentation

was evident. Over the next 12 hrs, I gradually reduced the thermostat to

52 F. This was apparently too much, as the yeast clearly pooped out and

went to sleep.

In an effort to bring the yeast back, I first raised the temperature to

58 F. After a few days with no results, I raised it to 62 F and then stirred

the wort up as best I could. Last night there were a few bubbles coming out

of the airlock, but I suspect that they were just CO2 coming out of solution

since there was no activity when I peeked in this morning.

Does anyone have suggestions for what to try next? More stirring? Yeast

nutrient? Please E-mail me at dstotler@pppl.gov.

                      Thanks,

                        Daren Stotler

                        Princeton Plasma Physics Lab

------------------------------


Re: Pumpkin Brown Ale Request

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 08:29:32 EDT

From: tmr@fjtld.att.com

Subject: Re: Pumpkin Brown Ale Request

Gene,

You say you are going to use "pure canned pumpkin" for your pumpkin brown

ale.  Most canned "pumpkin" I have seen in food stores is really SQUASH!!

It even has a picture of a pumpkin on the label, but if you read the

ingredients, the contents are really squash or pumpkin squash.  This is

what most people use to make pumpkin pie anyway and it tastes like pumpkin,

but it is not the real thing.

I am long overdue to make a batch of homebrew and I eagerly await a recipe

for some Halloween Pumpkin brew.

     Tom Romalewski

------------------------------


stuck fermentation?

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 08:34:54 CDT

From: tobias@wugrav.wustl.edu (Malcolm Tobias)

Subject: stuck fermentation?

  I recently made a lager, and to keep things cool, I put the carboy in

some water and threw in some ice (never enough that I had an ice-water

solution, just enough to cool things down a little).  After 14 days in

the secondary, I went to bottle, but before I could start racking I

noticed the beer was fermenting like crazy.  After a couple of days,

activity has subsided, but I'm puzzled as to what happened.  Is it

possible I lowered the temperature past some critical point that caused

the fermentation to become stuck?  What is this temperature for lagers?

For ales?

malcolm tobias

tobias@wugrav.wustl.edu

------------------------------


Wanted Scoth Ale Recipe

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 06:38:27 PDT

From: RDG3%QA%DCPP@cts27.comp.pge.com

Subject: Wanted Scoth Ale Recipe

Hello out there ..... out there ..... there ......,

I am in the process of trying to emulate the flavor of Ye Ole McEwans Scotch

Ale.  I am an extract brewer that uses added grains.  If there is anyone out

there that has had any success I would be very appreciative if you would share

your recipe with me.

Thank you,

Bob - RDG3@pge.com

"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be."  - Pink Floyd

------------------------------


Local brew shop?

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 10:14:04 -0400 (EDT)

From: "GARY J. INGRAM" <GJINGRAM@delphi.com>

Subject: Local brew shop?

Hi,

I have recently rediscovered my interest in homebrewing, and have found a

local liquor store which sells homebrew kits.  (One of which is currently

bubbling in my basement!)  But, they don't stock any other supplies.

I live in north/central new jersey, in between Morristown and Somerville;

does anyone know of a shop that stocks homebrew supplies near this area, or

is mail order my best bet?

Thanks,

Gary.

gjingram@delphi.com

------------------------------


Decoction procedure

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 08:56:31 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Decoction procedure

Rob Thomas missed the point of my previous post on decotion mashing which

dealt only with the final decoction required to get to mash out.  I made no

mention of the decoctions leading to mash temp since they are well understood

with regards to process and purpose.  What I did attempt to do was better

describe what Noonan's "thinnest 1/3" and its impact on the mash process.

Regardless of the number of prior "thick" decoctions one still needs to raise

the temp from mash range 150sF to mash out 170F.  If grain is in the final

"thin" decotion it will liberate starch during boil.  Since the purpose

of this decoction is to raise the mash temp to deactivate enzyme activity it

is quite possible for the final decotion to introduce more starch than can be

converted by the remaining enzymes in the 10 minutes or so it takes for them

to become deactivated.

My revised decoction procedure is:

Put 5 dead CDs in player, start.

Heat 1 quart water per lb grain to 135F.

Add grain to mash tun.

Check temp for protein rest adjust as needed.

Let mash sit for 10 minutes at protein rest temp.

Check/adjust ph in mash tun.

Kettle mash 40-50% of grain at 155 for 30 minutes, mash is very thick.

Add 1/3- 1/2 quart of water per lb grain in kettle mash, prevents scorching.

Check/adjust ph of kettle mash.  (if too high boil will extract tannins)

Boil kettle mashed grain for 10 minutes.

Add slowly add half the boiled grains to mash tun, stir constantly.

Check temp of mash.

Add 1 pint of boiled grain to mash until desired temp reached.

Check/adjust mash ph.

Let remainder of boiled grains cool add to mash when temp is low enough.

Mash until complete conversion.

Remove as much liquid as possible, take NO GRAIN.

Add water to get liquid to 1/2 - 3/4 quart per lb grain.

Boil liquid.

Add boiling liquid to mash tun and stir.

Check temp of mashout, don't over shoot 170 by much, may liberate starch.

Mash out for 15 minutes.

Lee Menegoni  Lmenegoni@nectech.com

------------------------------


more on decoction

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 17:27:36 MET DST

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: more on decoction

Hello again all,

Firstly, thanks to Lee Menegoni for sending his post (in this digest?)

to me as well, as it allows me to reply promptly, and get the matter

settled quickly.

As he said above (?), I did misunderstand about his thin part description.

Therefore, let me ask another question, did you do a starch test on the

beer or sweet wort to prove the cloudiness was starch?

In retrospect your conclusion about the last boil containing small

amounts of grain and therefore liberating starch seems reasonable,

but only if your yields are usually lowish (otherwise there wouldn't be

any starch left to gelatinise). I haven't had this problem in the

8 or 9 batches I've done, even though I often (usually?) have upto

a cup of solids in ca. a gallon of thin decoct.

Has anyone else got any experience with this problem (I'm getting worried),

or does everyone else who decocts carefully strain the last decoct?

Did you get any more info Lee?

Rob. Thomas

------------------------------


Re: lautering and clarity

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 10:31:12 -0500 (CDT)

From: cush@msc.edu

Subject: Re: lautering and clarity

In HBD 1226, Norm Pyle asks whether anyone has 'put to a test' Micah

Millspaw's claim that mininal or no recirculation increased clarity

of a brew.

Well, I did ask Bob Jones to clarify (sic) Micah's claim, and he said that

Micah would sometimes (jokingly??) say that he would sometimes throw whole

malt into the brew-kettle to increase clarity !!  :-)  Now, this was a joke,

but Micah is quite vehement in his assertion regarding too much recirculation

(and also makes some arguments regarding loss of stability with over

recirculation.

Anyways, to my data point:  last February a brew-partner and I made a Pilsner-

Urquell clone that became known as "Pilsner from Hell".  Why?  Because it seemed

everything that could have gone wrong in the brewing process...DID!  This

included a joint in the copper sparging manifold coming apart, which  then

proceeded to leak large amounts of grain husk material into the boiling

kettle.  We worried (gasp!) about it a little...but decided to place our

fate into the considered opinion of Micah Millspaw.

Bottom line is that the brew was cloudy in the primary.  After we fined

with geletin in secondary and bottled, we have the brightest brew either

of us have produced!!

Also, in general I do little recirculation in my copper manifold sparger (on

the order of a quart), and have had no problem with cloudy brews.

- --

 > Cushing Hamlen   | cush@msc.edu

 > Minnesota Supercomputer Center, Inc. |

------------------------------


re: Pumpkin Brown Ale Request

Date:  Wed, 15 Sep 1993 11:06:35 -0400

From: Bill Flowers <waflowers@qnx.com>

Subject: re: Pumpkin Brown Ale Request

In HBD #1226, EZIMMERM@UWYO.EDU writes:

> I'm going to brew a Brown Ale with some pumpkin flavor and because I

> can't find a source of fresh pumpkins I will be using canned. Yes, I am

> using pure canned pumpkin ( no xtra water, salt, chemicals, etc. ). What

> I need is an idea of how much canned pumpkin would be nice for a Brown

> Ale of aoubt 1.04 to 1.06 OG and if anyone can reccomend some hops for

> this. I was thinking finnishing with Fuggles... Any ideas?

DON'T DO IT!

I tried making a pumpkin ale this past weekend using 3-28 fl. oz. cans of

pure pumpkin.  I discovered that the pumpkin will completely dissolve in

the boiling wort, turning it into the consistency of pumpkin pudding when

cooled.  It made sparging next to impossible, even with my coarsest sparge

filter.  All the pumpkin ended up in the fermenter where most of it has

settled out.  It takes up quite a bit of space, leaving me with less beer.

If I were to do it again I'd wait for pumpkins to be in season, carve up

one or two and use chunks of the meat (after cooking it a bit).

I'll be racking the beer off the pumpkin, etc. into the secondary tonight

where I'll add various spices (cinnamon, allspice, vanilla, etc. -- the

usual pumpkin pie things).  I'm hoping I'll have this ready for Cdn.

Thanksgiving next month.  Not much hope of that I know, but I had no time

for brewing this summer.  :-(

- ---

W.A. (Bill) Flowers                email: waflowers@qnx.com

QNX Software Systems, Ltd.         QUICS: bill     (613) 591-0934 (data)

(613) 591-0931 (voice)             mail:  175 Terrence Matthews

(613) 591-3579 (fax)                      Kanata, Ontario, Canada K2M 1W8

------------------------------


Recirculating mash runoff

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 08:37:04 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Recirculating mash runoff

>Norm responds to Gene,

>

>Gene asks about lautering wrt recirculation.  He assumes most all-grainers

>just sparge without recirculation.  It is my perception that most

>all-grainers _do_ recirculate the wort.  FWIW, I recirculate the wort until

>it runs relatively clear, but I don't go to a lot of trubble.  I seem to

>recall Micah Millspaw advocating no recirculation at all; something about

>giving the proteins and other hot break material a nucleation point.

>Contrary to the popular beliefs, he claimed clearer beer than with

>recirculation.  Anyone tasted Micah's beer?  Is Bob Jones still on the

>digest?

Hi Norm, yep I'm still here, mostly a lurking. The jest of Micah and my

contention was focused at better beer stability. The stability is improved

if there is a higher fraction of lipids in your final packaged product. The

lipids are low to start with in american grown grain. The lipid content is

greatest at first runoff from the mash. Therefore it is best to take the

first runnings. The particulates in the runoff don't seem to cause any

problems with final beer clarity. They may even improve it! This being due

to the particulates acting as nucleation sites for proteins. There is an

interesting discussion coming in the next issue of Zymurgy where this very

issue is addressed by G. Fix G. Noonan and myself and Micah. The issue was

raised by a letter to the Professor. I have read all the text and it does

make for interesting reading.

I'm off on a three week trip to England, Whales and Scotland, a pub crawling.

Cheers,

Bob Jones

------------------------------


re o-rings and taste threshold

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 11:36:21 EDT

From: cjh@diaspar.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Chip Hitchcock)

Subject: re o-rings and taste threshold

oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu asks:

> HOW DO YOU GET MORE THAN 1.35 CANS OF DIET COKE INTO THE

> POPPET VALVE ORING?

Simple. The problem is absorption of flavors, not absorption of total

liquid. I don't know what the ratio of carbonated water to cola syrup is

in fountain-mix systems (I'd guess high single digits from recollections of

helping with setups) but that syrup is mostly sugar; the effect of 1.35

cans of cola could probably be matched by as little as a drop of its

strongest-flavored component.

No, I don't keg. But this isn't kegging; it isn't even simple

chemistry---more like bottle washing.

wrt what the judges tasted: to me, Diet Coke tastes more of the artificial

sweetener than of Coca-Cola; I'm not surprised they thought of ginger ale

or fruit soda when they detected the sweetness.

------------------------------


Esoteric Bottle Caps

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 11:49:14 -0400

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

Subject: Esoteric Bottle Caps

I'd like to get bottle caps, other than the generic (Real Beer) ones

that are sold in the brew supply shops, for bottling my beer .

The Spanish Peaks Brewery bottles have caps that portray a dogs paw

on their caps.  I called them up, but they wouldn't sell me any of

their trademarked caps.

If anyone knows of a source for non-generic bottle caps, or if you

know of some method for imprinting bottle caps, please email me.

Thanks.

- ---

email: sxupjd@fnma.com (NeXT Mail Okay)

Philip DiFalco, Senior SomethingOrOther, Advanced Technology

FannieMae, 3900 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, DC 22016     (202)752-2812

------------------------------


Racking tube 'trubles'

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 11:14 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: Racking tube 'trubles'

Hello readers,

Being new to the world of racking tubes, I ask for some advice and experiences.

On serveral occasions, I've been unble to secure a steady siphon using either a

caroby cap or good old fashion oral vacuation (non-phrase?).  It seems that

regardless of siphon hose diameter and the subsequent inclusion of a metal strip

hose clamp, I cannot maintain a constant seal between the hose and

racking tube (a wholey plastic affair, no copper).

Before the line fills, air gets sucked into the line where the hose and tube

meet.  This steals away the siphon and aerates fermenting(ed) beer.  And I have

tried two diameters of hose, to very little avail.

I had three very stressful goes at transferring 5 gals from a 7 gal. carboy to a

5 gal.  I ended up using plain ol' hose and plain ol' sucking.  What will really

suck is my luck if foibled siphon attempts lead to any contamination.

I have done some experimenting with the tube and see that I must do more.  Any

suggestions to the list or to my email will be welcome.  Bottling is just a few

days away.

Thanks brewers.

David Atkins

UW-Madison

atkins@macc.wisc.edu

+++++Relax, don't worry and try not to get ulcers or migrains or alienate++++++

++++ friends and family whilst trying to figure out how to brew beer.++++++++++

------------------------------


Re: Tarnished wort chillers

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 12:43:31 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Re: Tarnished wort chillers

In HBD 1225 Philip J Difalco asks about tarnished copper immersion

chillers.

 There are different types of "tarnish", the dull kind and the green

kind.  When I first used my immersion chiller I put it away with a few

drops of water still on it.  To my horror (I scare easily) there were green

copper oxide spots on my chiller!  Of course, these wiped off with a soft

cloth.  The green tarnish you don't want in your beer.  The dull red-orange

colour of the copper turns to a bright, almost pink colour when immersed in

an acidic medium, such as wort.  The amount of copper actually being

removed from the chiller is negligible, and traces of copper are actualy

beneficial to yeast metabolism.  My suggestion:  after use, rinse the

chiller under running water (or hose it down under the shower), and wipe it

dry with a tea towel.  Before use, give it another quick rub down to remove

loose oxide.

____________

Ed Hitchcock/Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology/Dalhousie University/Halifax NS

ech@ac.dal.ca   +-----------------------------------------+

  |   Never trust a statement that begins:  |

  |     "I'm not racist, but..."    |

  +-----------------------------------------+

 Diversity in all things.  Especially beer.

------------------------------


Heineken/S.A./FAQs

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 12:25:28 EDT

From: sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com (Omega)

Subject: Heineken/S.A./FAQs

I have heard the Heineken ad mentioned by Mark in #1226 on a Boston

station.  The basic theme struck me as "don't waste your time on all

those strange micros, drink Heineken".  I'd rather experiment, thanks.

As for Jim Koch, in his latest ad he claims to be a microbrewer who

"handcrafts" his product.  Also, his claim that Sam Addams(tm) "won" at

the GABF four years running is back.  Injunction time, GABF organizers???

On the FAQ front, I would like to add that I, and I'm sure many others,

do NOT have ftp access, let alone to sierra!  FAQs posted to the HBD are

of great value, and IMHO the spacing of the installments makes little

difference.

Carl

------------------------------


Vienna malt and Munich malt

Date:  Wed, 15 Sep 1993 12:01:53 -0400

From: Bill Flowers <waflowers@qnx.com>

Subject: Vienna malt and Munich malt

Will these grains convert themselves or must they have an external

enzyme source?

Also, has anyone ever tried making Vienna malt using the method outlined

by Dave Miller in _The Complete Handbook of Home Brewing_?  If so, how

did it turn out?

Vienna malt doesn't seem to be available in Canada except by special order.

I've had some on order now for 10 weeks and it still hasn't arrived

(through my local HB supply store).  When it does it will cost me about $2

per pound!  If I were to bring it in myself it would get here much faster

(about 2 weeks) but cost much, much more.  (The store is bundling it in

with other supplies they are ordering, so the shipping and brokerage fees

will be distributed over the entire shipment.)

Don't suggest using some of those wonderful Belgian malts instead.  They

aren't available here either and my store won't carry them unless there

is a Canadian distributor they can order them from.  :-(

- ---

W.A. (Bill) Flowers                email: waflowers@qnx.com

QNX Software Systems, Ltd.         QUICS: bill     (613) 591-0934 (data)

(613) 591-0931 (voice)             mail:  175 Terrence Matthews

(613) 591-3579 (fax)                      Kanata, Ontario, Canada K2M 1W8

------------------------------


Goodbye, guys...

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 13:53:53 EDT

From: richer@desi.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Al Richer)

Subject: Goodbye, guys...

 Sorry to say this, but I've been laid off from Interleaf. It's been

great dealing with you guys, and good luck to all!

 Dion, have a good time with the FAQ. I'm not gonna be here to help...

      Yours,

     Alan J. Richer

- --

------------------------------


Cooler size

Date:  Wed, 15 Sep 1993 13:21:00 -0400

From: mike.sadul@canrem.com (Mike Sadul)

Subject: Cooler size

Greetings fellow homebrewers!

I have been an avid reader of the HBD for some time now.

Never posted ... until now!

It is because of this digest, that I have decided to move from

extract brewing to all grain (it's cheaper, tastes better, cheaper,

tastes better ...), so you're all to blame! :)

(at least that's what I tell my wife)

I am currently in the process of buying/making equipment.

All the discussions of different techniques and different types of

equipment (and the problems and limitations of each) have made

the choices easier for me.  Much better than a brewing book.

However, ... a few questions remain (otherwise I would still be in

the background :) ). But first a bit of the what and why's:

Because of the time involved with all-grain, I have decided to brew

10 gallon batches.  The "gallons" will probably be US gallons, since

I now keg my beer and despise having to fill 3 or 4 extra bottles

after filling the keg.

(5 Imperial gallons = 22.5L = 18L keg + a few 1-litre bottles)

This takes part of the joy out of using kegs and doesn't adhere to

the KISS rule.

The equipment list (so far):

60 quart kettle and lid from Rapids (friendly staff, great prices,

   quick delivery).

60,000 BTU propane burner, with 144 little holes on the ring burner,

   from a local hardware store.

50' of 3/8" OD copper tubing for an immersion chiller (easy to clean

   and sanitize, hot & cold break remain in kettle after siphoning).

MaltMill (cheque's in the mail Jack :) )

The copper manifold that I built (before I realized I was going to

do 10 gallon batches) for a "regular" cooler (34 quarts?) will be

dismantled and the parts used to build a manifold for a larger cooler.

Question:

What size cooler should I buy?

I want to be able to mash 15 - 25 lbs. of grain AND be able to dump

all of my sparge water into the cooler to do one of those batch

sparges (back to the KISS rule (1 kettle, 1 cooler)).  I can get

either a 68 quart or a 107 quart cooler.  Will the 68 quart be a

little tight?  Will the 107 quart create too shallow of a grain bed?

Will I get flamed for wasting so much bandwith for this one question?

Thanks for all of your help (so far!),

Mike

mike.sadul@canrem.com

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

------------------------------


Texas ales

Date: Wednesday, 15 September 93 13:35:29 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: Texas ales

Howdy,

On 9/15/93, Troy asks for the lowdown on Texas legal definitions on beers.

It's really quite simply.  If it's below 4% alchohol, it's beer.  If it's

above, it's ale.  You have to have a seperate permit to brew each commercially.

The permits are flat fees.  So Anheuser-Busch, which brews beer in Houston,

pays half of what Pierre Celis, who brews beer & ale in Austin, does in fees,

even though A-B produces more in a day than Celis does in a year.

And people wonder why there isn't more happening on the beer front is Texas.

BTW, Celis can't offer samples of Grand Cru at the brewery because it's an ale.

However, they can offer unlimited samples of the others.  Also, he can't sell

his beer directly to the public, only through a retailer, while A-B owns

Sea World of San Antonio, which sells, by coincidence, A-B beers.  The Texas

Lege made a special exemption just for them a full two years before legalizing

brew-pubs & after A-B had been selling beer for years at Whale Jail.

So you can see that even though the new brewpub laws in Texas are quite

limited, we're pretty happy just to have something.

Alan, Austin

------------------------------


The O-ring Challenge

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 14:33 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: The O-ring Challenge

Don asks:

>HOW DO YOU GET MORE THAN 1.35 CANS OF DIET COKE INTO THE

>POPPET VALVE ORING?

Well, it seems to me that Don is not aware of what most Cornelius

Canisters are really used for: post-mix.  Few are used for what's

called pre-mix.  What's the difference.  Pre-mix is pre-mixed at

the bottling plant -- it's the same stuff as the soda in bottles and

cans.  Post-mix is an altogether different animal -- it's syrup!

It is mixed with carbonated water by the dispenser.  It is altogether

conceivable that you could absorb more aromatics than are found

in a case of diet coke into the 8 gaskets that are found in a standard

Cornelius canister.

When I sell a reconditioned keg (which I do myself), I put the used

gaskets and poppets into a 6-mil HDPE bag and tape it to the side of

the keg.  I do this not only to prove that I've changed all the seals,

but also to give the buyer the opportunity to smell them and reassure

themselves that changing them was worth the money they paid.

One time, I was expecting a customer and had no reconditioned kegs

on hand.  Halfway through the reconditioning, I realized that I had

no poppets in stock for this type of keg.  I smelled the original

poppets and they smelled strongly of soda pop.  "Perhaps I could

boil the smell out of them?" I said to myself.  20 minutes of boiling

later, the poppets still smelled of soda pop.  My last resort, was

to take the poppets out of my own personal kegs (which were purchased

new and have never been in contact with syrup) and to give the customer

a discount since they weren't getting all new seals.

Regarding the flavor of cola, try this at home: have someone give you

a blind taste test between Coke and Seven-Up.  Ten of us did this test

and only one of us could consistently identify which was which.  What

does this prove?  That soda pop aromas are non-descript (except for

root beer, maybe) and lemon-lime doesn't taste very different from

cola.  The aroma of cola and the aroma of beer are definately different

and, personally, I prefer to keep them separate.

Finally, that's Korzonas, not Korzonis.  It's Lithuanian, not Greek.

Fairer skin, blander food and better beer (right George?).

Al.

------------------------------


TX laws/Decoctions

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 14:51 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: TX laws/Decoctions

Troy writes:

>Hey! Don't leave us all in suspense, out with the ugly truth.  Enquiring

>minds want to know.  What exactly did the Texas legislature do with "ale"?

Texas requires a beer labeled as "ale" to have an alcohol level of at least

a certain percentage (sorry -- someone from TX please post the percentage).

But it's perfectly okay to have a beer below that alcohol level be called

a "bock."  This is why Celis Pale Bock cannot be caled what it really is,

namely, a Pale Ale (well, I think it's more of a Brown Ale, but that's me).

*************************************

Rob writes:

>The accepted "industrial" procedure for decoction involves

>taking out the THICKEST third (ie mostly grain), heating it to

>conversion temperatures and then to boiling, when, indeed, the

>starch gelatinises, the inner structure of the grains is disrupted,

>and generally the starch is made more accessible to enzymes.

Yes, but according to Noonan, this (using the thick part of the mash

for the decoctions) is only for the first two or three decoctions.

For the final decoction, the one that takes the mash up to the

mash-out temperature, Noonan recommends using the thinnest part of

the mash.  I'm quite sure that this is what Lee was talking about.

It's actually important to gelatinize and burst-open the starch

granules during the first 2 or 3 decoctions, but equally important,

as Lee mentioned, to NOT gelatinize or release any additional

starch during the FINAL decoction.  Any starch that gets liberated

during the final decoction will not have any "live" enzymes left in the

mash (during the mash-out) to convert them to sugar.

Al.

------------------------------


kegging pressure problem

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 19:43:00 +0000

From: MOORE_ED/HP0800_01@mailhub.cs.itc.hp.com

Subject: kegging pressure problem

I am new to kegging and have a problem which I can not figure out.

I have a CO2 cylinder, regulator (purchased new from local Pepsi

supplier) and a pair of used cornelius kegs (with beer).  Somehow,

I have overpressurized my beer.

I have the regulator set for about 15 psi.  When I connect the system

for an extended period of time, the low pressure side RISES to 40 psi.

More confusing yet, the high pressure gauge rises from about 850 psi.

to 950 psi.!

As an experiment, I have left the system connected and turned off the

CO2 cylinder.  Pressure has dropped to about 10 psi as of today.  I

think I have a leak, however, one of the kegs is new and may still be

absorbing CO2.

What problem in my setup can cause the low pressure side to go from

15 psi to 40 psi?  I don't have a clue.

Ed Moore

------------------------------


Brew Club lists

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 15:21:40 -0600 (MDT)

From: EZIMMERM@UWYO.EDU

Subject: Brew Club lists

Salutations!

   When I found out I was moving to Laramie I made a post to the HBD

asking if anyone knew of a homebrew club here. No one did. I did, however,

get one responce asking me to update them when I arrived if there was

a home brew club here as they were keeping some kind of list. Well, I'm

here and there is, but I have forgotten who wanted to know. Write me

if you are interested. Sorry to waste the HBD space...

Gene in Laramie

------------------------------


Using Soda Kegs for Fermentation

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 15:21:55 PDT

From: tpm@wdl.loral.com (Tim P McNerney)

Subject: Using Soda Kegs for Fermentation

A couple of days ago, Dave Smucker mentioned using 1/2 barrel kegs as

fermenters and I was wondering about using soda kegs, also.  I usually

do my primary fermentation in my brewkettle and would like to transfer

directly to a keg for secondary, saving myself the trouble of transfering

to a glass secondary, then a keg at racking time.  It seems to me

that I should just be able to flush the headspace with CO2 and then leave

the relief valve open.  Then I just need to wait for secondary to complete,

close up and pressurize.  The only problems I see with this are:

Chance of infection through the relief valve, but I don't think this would

be a big problem.

Difficulty determining when secondary is done, but so what if I underestimate

the time for secondary.

Does anyone see any other serious problems with this scheme?  Would there

be any problem sealing the valve when I first transfer and then release

the pressure once a day or so (I figure this eliminates the problem of

infection even more)?  Does anyone else use soda kegs for secondary and

if so, does anyone bother trying to attach a fermentation lock?

Thanks.

________________________________

- --Tim McNerney

- --Loral Western Development Labs

- --(408) 473-4748

- --tpm@wdl.loral.com

------------------------------


Heineken and micros

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 18:53:18 EDT

From: gorman@aol.com

Subject: Heineken and micros

Mark writes:

>Has anyone else heard Heineken's "swipe" at Microbeers

>in their latest radio ad?  They have really taken a good

>one at our friend Jim Koch:

>Guy to bartender: "Hey Tom!  What's this Benedict Arnold

>Pittsburgh Lager?"

My anecdotal understanding is that the rise of quality brewing in the US has

hammered "traditional" imports like Heineken most of all.

Does anyone know any numbers?

------------------------------


Pubs/Bars in Paris???!! Pls help!!

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 19:00:08 -0500 (CDT)

From: MEHTA01@swmed.edu

Subject: Pubs/Bars in Paris???!! Pls help!!

Hi.

i will be in Paris for about 5 days next week.

i know that there are some experienced travellers on this net who share a

similar interest for local attractions ;-) so please suggest a couple of GOOD

pubs to go to. Atmosphere is as important as the beer variety :-).

Merci Beaucoup!!

SHreefal Mehta

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1227, 09/16/93

*************************************

-------


local homebrew supplies

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1993 08:46:30 +0000 (U)

From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: local homebrew supplies

                      local homebrew supplies


Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 10:14:04 -0400 (EDT)

Hi Gary...

Subject: local homebrew supplies

i'm very new to all this (still shopping for equipment), but

there is what seems to be a neat place in Red Bank, called

Red Bank Brewing Supply.

Red Bank Brewing Supply

67 Monmouth Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

908/842-7507

They seemed like really helpful people...explained a lot to

me. They claim to actually brew stuff there as well, but

I can't validate that.

I live in Freehold, work at Ft Monmouth, so they are

really quite close.

Hope this helps....

george tempel

------------------------------


o-rings again

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 06:35:40 PDT

From: 16-Sep-1993 0933 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: o-rings again

Another way to break-in a "new" soda keg that you don't feel like replacing

the gaskets on, is to fill the keg with a nice heavy stout or doppelbock.

I've also found that soaking o-rings in soapy water noticebly reduces the

soda smell.

Of course, your mileage may vary;

Also, I fully agree w/ Al:  everyone has different tastes.  If you happen

to have very sensitive tastes, overhaul your keg;  if not, relax, fill it,

and bottoms up!

JC FERGUSON

Littleton MA USA

------------------------------


RE: decoction mashing

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 10:25:11 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: decoction mashing

Hi All,

  Picking up the recent thread on decoction:

  Lee and I discussed this a few days before his post, and I didn't have

the information at hand.  This prompted me to look through my brewing books,

it turns out both Miller and Noonan are quite explicit on the issue of

grain in the final thin decoction causing haze problems.

  From Miller's "Continental Pilsner", p. 52, the context is a discussion

of various decoction techniques:

 "Other variations are even quicker.  For example, some brewers use

a single-decoction mash in which the boost to saccharification is

accomplished by decoction but the final boost to mash-out at 168 degrees

F (75 degrees C) is done by directly heating the mash-tun.  This program

is arguably more sensible than the double-decoction method because

starch released during the second boil may not be converted during the

mash-out rest (the amylase enzymes are rapidly destroyed at such

temperatures) and might cause hazes in the wort and finished beer."

  From Noonan's"Brewing Lager Beer", p. 118:

 "When the starch end-point has been verified, the *very thinnest*

("very thinnest" is italicized in the text) part of the mash is removed

to be boiled."

                   .

                   .

"Because there are fewer starch and albuminous particles in the thinner

portion, there is less risk of these being decomposed during the boiling

and spoiling the runoff."

  Rob Thomas writes in HBD#1227:

>In retrospect your conclusion about the last boil containing small

>amounts of grain and therefore liberating starch seems reasonable,

>but only if your yields are usually lowish (otherwise there wouldn't

>be any starch left to gelatinise).

  I don't think this is the case.  There is always some insoluble starch

in the chunks of grain that amylase enzyme won't touch.  Boiling gelatinizes

this starch, releasing starch that is now soluble but not converted into

the wort.  Thus, the presence of unconverted starch in the wort is not

necessarily a consequence of low yields.

  Rob writes:

>Has anyone else got any experience with this problem (I'm getting worried),

>or does everyone else who decocts carefully strain the last decoct?

  Can't speak for everyone else, I use a 10 gallon cylindrical Igloo cooler

with a copper sparge manifold as a mash/lauter tun.  When it's time for the

final thin decoction I simply open the spigot on the cooler, and drain the

liquid from the tun.  With the exception of the initial cloudy runoff, the

final decoction consists of clear wort and *NO* grain.  I've never had

clarity problems with beers brewed using decoction mashing, in fact, I

believe decoction mashing improves clarity, what with multiple boils

breaking down all that protein.

  My take on all of this is that including *ANY* grain in the final decoction

is risky.  Perhaps the amylase enzyme will convert the starch before it

denatures, perhaps not.  Given the time and effort involved in grain brewing

and decoction mashing, I choose not to take the chance.

  Comments?

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


Adding fruit to the secondary

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1993 10:38:28 -0400 (EDT)

From: bickham@msc.cornell.edu

Subject: Adding fruit to the secondary

I'll be brewing a fruit beer soon and want to add cherries to the

secondary.  Since they are out of season, I'll have to buy them

frozen, but that's fine since a lot of people recommend freezing to

set the pectins.  My questions are:

1. Should crush the cherries or at least macerate the skins before I add

   them to the fermenter.

2.  In one of the recent issues of Zymurgy, someone recommended putting

    the fruit in a pantyhose legging to keep the fruit from forming a

    surface barrier which traps the carbon dioxide.  Has anyone tried

    this?

Thanks, Scott

- --

========================================================================

Scott Bickham

bickham@msc.cornell.edu

=========================================================================

------------------------------


Fining with gelatin

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 10:50:14 -0400

From: jake@apollo.hp.com

Subject: Fining with gelatin

Hi -

Having passed through my "I need gallons of beer to drink...Now!"

phase, and upon entering my "This beer had better be exceptional!"

phase, I have need of some information...

I am planning on splitting my latest concoction between bottles

and keg, and would like to ensure clarity.  As well, it had, upon

moving to secondary, a decidedly overly-yeasty taste, which seemed

to me to be more than simple immaturity.

As a result, I am going to do some gelatin fining to yank some

yeasties.  The bible by Sir Charles recommends fining at bottling

time.  I was wondering if it was acceptable to fine for a week or

so in secondary, so that I can bottle with less sedimentary concerns.

Thanks for any help,

Jack

=====================================================================

   Jack Danahy        |  Cottleston,            | Systems  Software

Senior Software Widget|    Cottleston,          |  Hewlett-Packard

  (508) 436-4120      |      Cottleston Pie.    |Chelmsford, MA 01824

  jake@ch.hp.com      | Things are as they are. |   M/S CHR-03-BC

=====================================================================

------------------------------


Enzymes and Munich malt

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1993 09:53:56 -0500 (CDT)

From: cush@msc.edu

Subject: Enzymes and Munich malt

>In HBD 1227, Bill Flowers askes whether Munich malt contains sufficient

>enzymes to convert themselves:

Last winter I tried making a Munich Dunkle using 100% munich malt.  The

source of the malt claimed that the malt had sufficient enzymes to convert

itself.

Well, to make a long story short, I ended up with a large pot of starchy

porridge..... (that I fed to the compost pile)

When I went back to the supply shop to complain/ask whether the malt

did indeed have sufficient enzyme activity they (jokingly??) asked me

if I was SURE I had not killed my enzymes. (and, as it turns out, spread the

story to a few select members of the local brew-club when they came into the

store after I left...) **

When I got over my apoplexy, we had a productive dialog about mashing

schedules, after which we decided I would try again with a 50/50 munich/pale

malt mixture, and they would call their supplier (Breis??) to inquire again

about the enzyme content of Munich.

I was vindicated!  The second attempt converted nicely, and their supplier

said the malt did NOT have sufficient enzyme activity to convert itself.

(though members of the local brew club still occasionally give me grief

about killing my enzymes...sniff...)

Although I am not SURE about this, I think a reasonable generalization is that

domestic Munich malts to not contain sufficient enzymes to convert themselves,

but munich malts of European source will contain sufficient enzymes.

** Just for fairness, the claims of killing enzymes were made in fun...though

   I DO still get grief for it from club members....

- --

 > Cushing Hamlen   | cush@msc.edu

 > Minnesota Supercomputer Center, Inc. | 612/337-3505

------------------------------


Decoction, Coolers

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 10:00 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Decoction, Coolers

 >From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

 >Subject: Decoction procedure

 >Regardless of the number of prior "thick" decoctions one still needs to

 raise the temp from mash range 150sF to mash out 170F.

 It is my considered opinion that there is no advantage in raising a decoction

 mash to mash out via the decoction mode.  The benefits of decoction arise

 from the mashing at 155F of the previously boiled decoctions.  Once

 saccrification is complete, this last decoction(s) is superfluous.  It is far

 simpler just to heat the whole kettle to mash out.

 >From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

 >Subject: Recirculating mash runoff

 >The lipid content is greatest at first runoff from the mash. Therefore it is

 best to take the first runnings.

 Someone has confused two issues here.  Micah was talking about sparging and

 the advantages of first runoff.  This has little to do with re-circulating

 the runoff.

 In the former, we are talking about running additional water (sparging)

 through the mash to increase the overall volume of wort which will be further

 processed.  Micha's comments discussed the advantages of only using the wort

 that runs from the original mash, without sparging additional water through

 it.

 The re-circulation discussion revolves about the oft proclaimed advantages of

 recirculating the original mash liquid through the filter bed BEFORE

 collecting it for further processing.

 In a proper mash tun, the only objective is to utilize the initial runoff

 which is usually very turbid and full of husk material.  Instead of throwing

 it away, it can be poured back into the mash so that then next time it passes

 through the filter bed it will run clear.  The amount that must be

 recirculated depends on the design of the mash tun and the dead space under

 the false bottom and the flow rate.  It varies from a cup or two to gallons.

 Now, the problem comes from the claims that prolonged re-circulation of the

 runoff before commencing the sparge, has a profound effect on extraction

 rate.  I know of no reason for this to be true unless there is something

 wrong with the design of the mash tun.

 >From: mike.sadul@canrem.com (Mike Sadul)

 >Subject: Cooler size

 >I am currently in the process of buying/making equipment.

 >The equipment list (so far):

 60 quart kettle and lid from Rapids (friendly staff, great prices,

    quick delivery).

 60,000 BTU propane burner, with 144 little holes on the ring burner,

    from a local hardware store.

 50' of 3/8" OD copper tubing for an immersion chiller (easy to clean

    and sanitize, hot & cold break remain in kettle after siphoning).

 MaltMill (cheque's in the mail Jack :) )

 >The copper manifold that I built (before I realized I was going to

 do 10 gallon batches) for a "regular" cooler (34 quarts?) will be

 dismantled and the parts used to build a manifold for a larger cooler.

 >Question:

 >What size cooler should I buy?

 Don't buy one.  In the interest of International good will, I will include an

 EASYMASHER with your MM shipment.  Install it in your kettle and you don't

 need any other equipment.   Mash in your brew kettle, collect the wort and

 clean out the "mash tun" and now call it a "brew kettle".  If you fall in

 love with the system, your next money would be best spent on another smaller

 kettle for mashing and another EM for it.

 You can easily mash 10 gallon batches in the ($40) enamel on steel canner but

 you can only boil 5 gallon batches.  If you are loaded, buy the 10 or 16

 gallon Rapids kettle for your mash tun.

 Any of these kettles also make great fermenters.  The 10 gal is a little

 tight for 10 gallon batches but if you lager, there is not much foam buildup.

 If I had to do it over again, I would have bought two 16 gal kettles but I am

 stuck now with one of each.  I mash and sparge in the 10, boil in the 16 and

 ferment in the ten.   It would be nicer to ferment in the 16 but then I have

 to hold the wort while cleaning and sterilizing it.

 js

------------------------------


RE: soda kegs as fermenters

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 11:02:04 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: soda kegs as fermenters

Hi All,

  In HBD#1227, Tim McNerney asks about using soda kegs for secondary:

>Does anyone see any other problems with this scheme?  Would there

>be any problem sealing the valve when I first transfer and then release

>the pressure once a day or so

  I exclusively use kegs for secondary fermentation, they work great!  My

procedure is to purge the keg with CO2, then rack from primary a day or so

after the krausen has fallen.  Filling the keg with CO2 helps prevent

oxidation of the beer during the transfer.  CO2 is considerably heavier

than oxygen, if you don't tip the keg during racking, it'll pretty much

stay in there for the duration of the transfer.

  Once the beer is transferred, seal the keg, and purge the headspace. Put

a small amount of pressure on the keg, enough to ensure you have a tight

seal around the large o-ring.  For the first day or two, open the relief

valve slightly, and bleed off some of the pressure, once or twice daily.

After the first day or two, you'll find very little gas is released when

you open the valve, as fermentation is very nearly complete.  Drop back

to bleeding the pressure every 2 to 3 days.

  BTW, the relief valves on my kegs are rated to open at 50-60 psi, the

kegs are stamped "130 psi maximum".  Provided the relief valve does not

fail, there is little danger.  Since the pressure is bled periodically,

I don't believe there is any danger at all.  I've done over 30 batches in

this manner over the last 18 months, with no problems.

  There is an added benefit to using kegs as secondaries.  When the time

comes to transfer to a serving keg, the entire batch can be transferred

without siphoning.  Get a length of pressure tubing, and attach a liquid

hose barb to each end.  Purge the receiving keg of oxygen, and make sure

it is tightly sealed.  Bleed all of the pressure off the full keg, then

connect the two kegs via the liquid OUT fitting on each.  Put 15-20 psi

on the full keg, and the beer will start to flow into the receiving keg.

Keep an eye on the flow, it will slow down periodically as pressure

builds in the receiving keg.  Use the relief valve to bleed some pressure

off the receiver, and the flow will resume.  The advantage to this method

is that the entire batch can be transferred in about five minutes to a

serving keg without worrying about starting a siphon, without oxidixing

the beer by splashing during siphoning, and without exposure to airborne

micro-nasties.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


Goofy Texas laws

Date:         16 Sep 93 10:15:13 CST

From: "Dennis Lewis"  <DLEWIS%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject:      Goofy Texas laws

To add to the discussion of Texas beer laws, the word "stout"

implies a strong beer to the TABC (Tx Alc Bev Comm) and so we can't

get Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout because the alcohol content is not

high enough to be called stout! Also, we also have a packaging

restriction relating to the alcohol content. If the brew is < 4%

alcohol, then it has to be packaged in 7, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32 oz

containers or in fractions of a barrel (like 3.375 gal, 7.75 gal,

15.5 gal). I think the factory breweries got a special addition of

the 5 gal beerball size to the list. It cost them a fortune to

schmooze and lobby our legislature.

However, if the brew is > 4%, then it can have any size

package it wants, like 16.9oz (0.5L) for the German imports. This

means that we can't get Anchor Steam on draught because the alc

content is not high enough to be packaged in their 50L kegs.

Unfortunately, Texas is such a huge market that many breweries will

make special versions to get around our stupid laws.

Here's an interesting point (brought up in another forum): since

beer sold here in the USA cannot have an alcholic content labelling

(to protect us from ourselves), is there a restriction on OG

labelling? This is the case with the German beers that I

brought back, and it helps a bit to try to duplicate the style. (I

think it's part of their packaging law to have it on there....)

Dennis Lewis                    <dlewis%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Cascades dying?/Building a basement brewery

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 11:34:55 EDT

From: emeeks@tx.ncsu.edu

Subject: Cascades dying?/Building a basement brewery

Hi folks--

I have a couple of questions, one regarding the apparent death of one of my

hops plants, and another regarding the construction of a basement brewery.

My Cascades plant, after growing to @ 15 ft. and putting out a small number

of cones in its first year, has suddenly started to turn black and shrivel

from the top down (I only had one shoot come up this year). Up to now, I

have been impressed with the ruggedness of this variety, compared to my

dearly-departed Mt. Hood (slugs) and Saaz (spider mites) cuttings. Now,

I think something is consuming my Cascades.

If it matters, after the death of the Saaz plant, I began weekly

applications of "Safer soap" to control the spider mites on the cascades.

In the two months since the demise of the Saaz, the spider mites seemed

to disappear. Is the plant reaching the end of its season or do I have

an interloper?

Also, I will be moving at the end of the month to a house with a basement.

My roomate (and owner of the house) has agreed to help me convert a corner

into a "brew room". The basement has a concrete floor with brick walls and

an unfinished ceiling. Putting in the framing should be inexpensive, since

we have a free source for 2x4's. Can anyone recommend a cheap material to

use for the walls? I'm thinking of something like the plastic used to make

shower walls. The basement is fairly dusty and will also be used for a

workshop and storage area, so I'd like to create a closed area that could be

kept sanitary with periodic "swabbings".

For the record, I don't plan on using an open burner in the basement. My hot

water source will be the house's gas-fired heater, and the boiling of the

wort will take place outside. The brew room will be used for mashing,

fermentation, and beer/equipment storage.

To save bandwidth, email replies are welcome.

'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`''`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`

Ed Meeks (emeeks@tx.ncsu.edu)  "Won't you please tell the man I didn't hurt

anyone, no I'm just tryin' to have me some fun." --John Prine

'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`~~

------------------------------


O-ring Challenge/Keg Pressure

Date:         16 Sep 93 08:42:18 MST

From: "Cisco"  <FRANCISCO@osmo.CCIT.Arizona.EDU>

Subject:      O-ring Challenge/Keg Pressure

Al Korzonas says

>

> Well, it seems to me that Don is not aware of what most Cornelius

> Canisters are really used for: post-mix.  Few are used for what's

> called pre-mix.  What's the difference.  Pre-mix is pre-mixed at

> the bottling plant -- it's the same stuff as the soda in bottles and

> cans.  Post-mix is an altogether different animal -- it's syrup!

> It is mixed with carbonated water by the dispenser.  It is altogether

> conceivable that you could absorb more aromatics than are found

> in a case of diet coke into the 8 gaskets that are found in a standard

> Cornelius canister.

Al is right on with this one! I use all used Pepsi Cornelius kegs and

I know that they contained some of the residual syrup and the guy at

the Pepsi plant told me that's what they contained before I bought

them. He highly recommended that I change all my gaskets, which I did

because they reaked of sweet syrup. Alot of the used kegs on the

market have just been heavily rinsed and contain all the original

gaskets and poppit valves - change all of them! I've had my kegs for

ten years now and finally changed out all the gaskets and poppet

valves again last year just as a preventative measure for possible

leaks that might start forming. You can tell when the main lid gasket

needs to be changed by bending it and looking for cracks starting to

form in the rubber.

John (Cisco)

>

>

> -------------------------------------------------------------------

Ed Moore says:

> Subject: kegging pressure problem

>

> I am new to kegging and have a problem which I can not figure out.

> I have a CO2 cylinder, regulator (purchased new from local Pepsi

> supplier) and a pair of used cornelius kegs (with beer).  Somehow,

> I have overpressurized my beer.

>

> I have the regulator set for about 15 psi.  When I connect the system

> for an extended period of time, the low pressure side RISES to 40 psi.

> More confusing yet, the high pressure gauge rises from about 850 psi.

> to 950 psi.!

>

> As an experiment, I have left the system connected and turned off the

> CO2 cylinder.  Pressure has dropped to about 10 psi as of today.  I

> think I have a leak, however, one of the kegs is new and may still be

> absorbing CO2.

>

> What problem in my setup can cause the low pressure side to go from

> 15 psi to 40 psi?  I don't have a clue.

>

> Ed Moore

>

This sounds really strange. Even when my beer absorbs CO2 after

extended periods (Al & I still have this under investigation) my

pressure on my gauges remain the same as when I first hooked them up.

I'm willing to guess that maybe you have a defective regulator,

especially since both the high side and low side guages are

increasing. I've rebuilt my regulators and have never had the pressure

change on its own.

John (Cisco)

------------------------------


Yet another request for pubs

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 10:17:26 PDT

From: tima@wv.MENTORG.COM (Tim Anderson)

Subject: Yet another request for pubs

I'm going to Europe next month, and I'm feeling pretty cocky about it.

Sampling local beer is high on the agenda.  I'll have short stints in

The Netherlands, Belgium and the Alsace region in eastern France.  I

can't be more specific, because I'll pretty much know where the next stop

is about the time I step off the train.  I'm especially interested in

trying beer I've never heard of, very small brewery beer, and anything

made by monks.  I have no plans to bring any back, or even take pictures.

Any pointers appreciated.

tim

------------------------------


Decoctions

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 12:20:35 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@gauguin.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Decoctions

Quite a discussion going on about decoctions.  As a committed decocter

of most beers I have found that decocted beers tend to be perfectly

clear with no other fining.  However, the one or two times I have gotten

lazy and mashed out in a normal manner (let's call it Warner nethod),

I have produced beers that presented more clearing problems - usually

wheat beers and usually chill haze, than if I had used a thin decoction.

It is nearly impossible to aviod grain when pulling a 40-50% thin mash.

The expectataion is that the starch was well gelatinized by the earlier

decoction.  One is necessary except for very unconverted malt that you

won't find here.  I have never experienced a starch haze, but the great

effect that a thin decoction has on protein coagulation reduces the

boil time to what is needed to extract hop acids and clarity is less of

a problem.  Typically, for the thick decoctions I remove grains with

a sieve, and thin decoctions with a ladle (a small pot), and then return

some of the grains to the rest mash with the sieve.  Once or twice I

set up my cooler with the false bottom in at the start of the mash, and got

the most beautiful runoff for the thin decoction.  However the long time

that the mash was on the bottom caused it to clog and loitering was a

bitch.  In gereral I have found the following procedure to work well

for most barley beers, especially stouts with the high unmalted component.

Dough in at 70-90 with .75 quarts per pound.

Add another .75 qt/lb of hot to boiling water to raise temp into protein

     rest range (122-131).  The amount and temperature of water will

     depend on the heat capacity of your mash tun - in my case quite

     a lot with a 7 gallon Gott

Rest 15-20 min.  Pull 33-40% thick decoction (using sieve and capacity marks

     on the inside of cooler)

Heat decoction to 145. Rest 10 minutes.

Heat decoction to 153. Rest 10 minutes.

Heat decoction to 158. Rest 10 minutes.

Heat to boiling.  Boil 15 minutes.

   ( all heating should be done slowly to prevent hot spots and burning.

     constant stirring is needed while raising the temp, except for boiling,

     when the odd stir will do.  Make sure the decoction isn't too thick)

Return to rest mash.  In my experience the heat capacity of the cooler means

    the temp will always be ~146, but your equipment will vary.  I usully

    rest there for 10 minutes and then raise with either a small thick

    decoction or small infusion of boiling water or on the burner till the

    top of my saccarification range is reached, ~153-155.  Rest here for 10

    minutes.

Pull loiter decoction.  40-50% of the thin mash.  Boil 15-20 minutes.

Return to rest mash- mix in well.  Again temp may be low of strike, thanks

   to heat capacity of cooler.  Dump out into boiler (yes I have heard of

   HSA). Heat to 170.  Put sparge manifold in cooler and dump mash back in.

Start heating sparge water etc.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


Catfish Bait

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1993 13:05:00 EST

From: "/R=FDACB/R=A1/U=RIDGELY/O=HFM-400/TN=FTS 402-1521/FFN=Bill Ridgely/"@mr.cber.fda.gov

Subject: Catfish Bait

  I realize this is "bottom feeding", but I've offered to pass this along

  for private e-mail response.

  "Beer - The Magazine" is doing a piece on the wide variation in commercial

  beer pricing around the country.

  As part of this effort, they are trying to find "The Cheapest 6-Pack in

  America". We're not talking gourmet-quality microbrew here folks. As I

  said, this is strictly bottom feeding.

  If you have any leads on the cheapest factory suds available anywhere,

  please respond privately to the address below.

  Thank you for the use of bandwidth. I'll go wash my hands now...

  Bill Ridgely (Brewer, Patriot, Bicyclist)                    __o

  ridgely@a1.cber.fda.gov                                     -/<,

  ridgely@cber.cber.fda.gov                                ...O/ O...

------------------------------


Viennaless Viennas?

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1993 15:04:09 -0400 (EDT)

From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

Subject: Viennaless Viennas?

Hello:

 I am interested in brewing an Oktoberfest-type all grain beer (OK,

by the time it is ready it will probably be a Decemberfest at the

earliest). I was reading the article in the last Brewing Techniques about

this style.  For those of you who have not read it, it discusses the style

and particularly emphasizes ways in which brewers can "cheat" and still

end up with a reasonable beer.  For example, by not lagering (if you

haven't got the facilities) or by doing a single step infusion mash (which

is the only type of mash some places are equipped to do).  The article

also mentions that Vienna-type malts are not necessary, and that recipes

contained in G. and L. Fix's book on the style use NO Vienna/Munich malts.

This appeals to me, since I like to buy my grain (American 2-row and

Crystal Malt) in bulk to save money, and would like to use what I have

instead of buying small quantities of something else at higher prices. My

question is, though, if you don't use these special malts, what do you use

to get the appropriate color and flavor?  Crystal malt? Home-kilned

mock-Munich a al Dave Miller?  What? (I realize that I could solve this

puzzle by buying and reading the Fix book but I don't have easy access to

it and figured I would try to get the answer for free first (sorry

George)).  Thanks....

       Dave.

------------------------------


Recirculation, debunking the myths

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 12:48:54 PDT

From: florianb@ying.cna.tek.com

Subject: Recirculation, debunking the myths

In yesterday's hbd, cush@msc.edu says,

=>

included a joint in the copper sparging manifold coming apart, which  then

proceeded to leak large amounts of grain husk material into the boiling

kettle.  We worried (gasp!) about it a little...but decided to place our

fate into the considered opinion of Micah Millspaw.

Bottom line is that the brew was cloudy in the primary.  After we fined

with geletin in secondary and bottled, we have the brightest brew either

of us have produced!!

=>

and a second post by bjones@novax.llnl.gov,

=>

contention was focused at better beer stability. The stability is improved

if there is a higher fraction of lipids in your final packaged product. The

lipids are low to start with in american grown grain. The lipid content is

greatest at first runoff from the mash. Therefore it is best to take the

first runnings. The particulates in the runoff don't seem to cause any

problems with final beer clarity. They may even improve it! This being due

to the particulates acting as nucleation sites for proteins.

=>

Both these comments are in keeping with my original post about three years

ago, when I claimed rights to a new method of lautering. This new method,

which I stole from my brother-in-law, involves putting all the sparge

water into the lautering tub at once. Only a minimal amount of recirculation

is used. When I changed to this method, my beer clarity improved, particularly

in the case of ales (which don't lager and thereby settle out for 4 months).

At that time, I couldn't find reference to this method in any of the some

20 books I have on home brewing, nor in the hobby rags. I won over support

from several brewers here on the hbd after they tried it. I highly recommend

the process as it improves the beer and saves time, too.

I still plan to post a description of the method, as soon as I change my

spark plugs. Too bad I have to work for a living.

Florian

------------------------------


Re: racking tube 'trubles'

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 12:59:04 PDT

From: florianb@ying.cna.tek.com

Subject: Re: racking tube 'trubles'

In hbd #1227, David Atkins asks:

=>

Before the line fills, air gets sucked into the line where the hose and tube

meet.  This steals away the siphon and aerates fermenting(ed) beer.  And I have

tried two diameters of hose, to very little avail.

=>

I'm not sure what you're seeing is air. It could be CO2 coming out of

solution at the interface of the plastic racking tube and the siphon

hoze. In any case, this happens often. You can eliminate it by getting

the siphon going and then "thumping" it with your finger really hard at

the place where the two meet and the gas is present.

If this doesn't work, then it might be air due to a poor fit of the

hoze and the racking tube. Put a little glycerin on the racking tube

before fitting the hoze over it.

Luck,

florian

------------------------------


Miller Reserve Amber Ale

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1993 16:10:54 -0500 (EST)

From: ADM_WWIBLE@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU

Subject: Miller Reserve Amber Ale

   Just thought I'd share this tidbit for those not brave enough to dare

the Budmillours swill.  Personally, I'm of the crowd that believes there

is no bad beer...some are just more drinkable than others.  This Amber

Ale they're putting out now is definitely top of the line swill.  Give

it a shot.  Generally I only resort to store bought stuff when I haven't

been able to keep the homebrewing up with my appetite.

   Anyway, this stuff isn't bad.  I was shocked when I looked at who

made it and took a sip.

Will Wible

adm_wwible@vax1.acs.jmu.edu

------------------------------


List of competitions available?

Date: Thu, 16 SEP 93 17:21:6 EST

From: DEROSEGA%ML%WPAFB@MLGATE.ML.WPAFB.AF.MIL

Subject: List of competitions available?

Is there a list of AHA-sanctioned homebrew competitions available anywhere?

I would like to get my latest brew judged so I know what needs improvement

next time, but I need information on what will happen in the next few

months.  I am particularly interested in the midwest USA.

TIA,

Guy DeRose

------------------------------


hydrometer in the primary

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 17:40:06 -0400

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

Subject: hydrometer in the primary

Is there any problem with leaving, an initially sanitized, hydrometer

in the primary during that period of fermentation?

- ---

email: sxupjd@fnma.com (NeXT Mail Okay)

Philip DiFalco, Senior SomethingOrOther, Advanced Technology

FannieMae, 3900 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, DC 22016     (202)752-2812

------------------------------


oring blues

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 16:12:27 EDT

From: man@lcwdw1.att.com

Subject: oring blues

I make beer in 15 gallon batches. I make a session bitter to keep my wife

happy. I make this beer a lot. It is very reproducable. The last time I made

it, I kegged it in 3, 5 gallon soda kegs. One, I dry-hopped and brought to

a family picnic. The second I brought out at a party. I was terribly

disappointed in it. I couldn't pinpoint the taste, but blamed it on a

heat-wave induced high temperature at end of fermentation. One other source I

feared was a contaminated keg. I took a sample out of the third keg. Hmm,

tastes better. I brought a sample from each keg to the judge (my wife).

Two different beers, I was told. I sat on the basement floor hugging keg

number three and staring at number two trying to figure out what went wrong.

Then I saw it, a red oring on the liquid fitting. I had recently acquired a

number of soda kegs, but hadn't replaced all the orings (I ran out). I was a

minor doubter in the "you must replace all orings. They are evil" debate. Up

until this time, I hadn't noticed any problems with beers in these kegs (3 of

10). The orings were original. I replaced it with a new one and guess what?

The two samples tasted the same. I was happy. Better yet, the judge was happy.

This oring had enough leaching capability for my wife, a few beer friends, and

myself to notice. Just a datapoint.

Mark Nevar

------------------------------


Novice mashing questions

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 15:16:04 MST

From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

Subject: Novice mashing questions

I have just completed brewing my second all-grain beer.  I now have a few

questions about the procedure.

First, here are the details of the recipe:

 8 lbs pale lager malt, pre-crushed

 .5 lbs 40L crystal malt

 1 tablespoon Irish Moss, 90 min

 1 oz 5.5 alpha Cascade pellets, 30 min

 .5 oz 7.7 alpha Northern Brewer pellets, 10 min

 .5 oz 7.7 alpha Northern Brewer pellets, 1 min

Mash-in lager malt with 3 gallons water from the coin-op drinking water

machine (to which I added .25 oz gypsum), at 60 C, in 5 gal Easymasher.

Temp stabilized at 55 deg C.  Protein rest for 30 minutes.  Raised temp

to 68 C, held for 1.5 hour conversion. Raised to 75 C, held for 10 min

mash-out.  Added crystal malt.  Sparge with 4 gal coin-op drinking water

with .25 oz. gypsum added.  SG at end of sparge was 1.009, and a barely

perceptible tea-like taste was present in final runnings.

Boiled 1.5 hours with above hop additions in 10 gal pot in which I installed

a home-made Easymasher clone.  Immersion chiller used to reduce temp to

about 15 deg C.  Drained into carboy using copper tube with holes in it

to aerate.

Measured OG 1.054 for 5 gal.  Pitched yeast, placed carboy into temp

chamber mistakenly set to 5 C.  Visible yeast activity after 18 hours,

which increased dramatically after temp re-set to 10 C.

I got the idea for using purified water plus gypsum from G. Fix's

article on Belgian Malts in Brewing Techniques.

My questions:

1) Rather than use the iodine test, I just tasted the mash.  It was sweet

and sticky after about 30 minutes, but I went for 1.5 hours to make sure.

Any problem with this?

2) If I just add gypsum to purified water, do I really need to make pH

measurements?

3) The sparge rate out of the easymasher was pretty fast, so I shut the valve

down just to slow things down.  Was this necessary, or could I just run it

wide open and finish quicker?  Runoff was clear after about 1 quart.

4) After draining the boiling pot, there was a lot of break material and

hop pellet sludge remaining inside, thanks to the screen on the homemade

easymasher clone.  The bitter wort in the carboy was cloudy.  After about

1/2 hour in the temp chamber, the cloudy wort in the carboy had cleared and

precipitated a bunch more break material.  My guess is that the stuff in the

carboy was "cold break" or something similar, and the stuff remaining in the

boiling pot was "hot break".  Sound reasonable?

5) In both of my grain brews, there has been a lot of sludge on top of the

foam in the fermenter.  This appears similar to the stuff that remained on

top of the spent grain after sparging.  Is this related to the protein rest

duration and temperature?  Seems like this came up recently in conversation

here.

6) When I brewed from extracts in the past, I used three types of specialty

grains: crystal malt for sweetness and color, roasted barley for that

coffee-like bite, and black patent for blackness.  Now I have become aware

of a veritable plethora of specialty grains like Cara-Pils, Dextrine, Munich,

Cara Vienne, Aromatic, etc....  Can someone tell me how to use all of these

different types of grains?

I hope this long post is not considered a waste of bandwidth.

Thanks for your help,

Joel Birkeland

Motorola SPS

birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com

------------------------------


Trubles no more, thanks

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 17:39 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: Trubles no more, thanks

Hello again readers.

Thanks to all those good folks who contributed advice and know-how in solving my

racking cane siphon problems.  I received many a suggestion and am indeed

appreciative.

To return the favor, the next time any of you find yourselves in hippy-dippy

Madison, let me know and we'll buy each other a beer (results of homebrewing

still pending)

Happy Brewing,

David Atkins

UW-Madison

P.S.  Go Vols!  Apologies to Scott Wisler.  I'm in the Big Ten as a matter of

geography, not team loyalty.

------------------------------


Decoction procedure

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 12:43:05 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Decoction procedure

Lee describes his decoction procedure in no less than 22 steps, the first being

"Put 5 dead CDs in player, start".  I would have to add step 23 if was to try

this procedure: "Sign divorce papers, say goodbye to kids".  Yow!  If this is

what it takes to do a decoction, I won't be trying a PU clone anytime soon.  My

infusion procedure is something like this:

Put 1 Dire Straits CD in player, start.

Heat 1 qt water per lb grain to 168F.

Add grain and water to mash tun.

Check mash temp, adjust as needed to around 154F.

Go to store or for a bike ride with the family, return.

Iodine test (wasted step?).

Add a few gallons of near boiling water to the mash, stir constantly.

Adjust mashout temp to near 170F.

Mash out for 15 minutes.

Kiss my wife.

I count 10 steps and 3 (4?) of them are unnecessary in terms of the actual

brewing.  Now, I'm not trying to start a flame war, nor am I trying to compare

the merits of simple infusion mashing with decoction mashing.  I just want to

inform some of the extract brewers out there that all-graining doesn't have to

be that tough.  I suppose if you're really out to make a world class pils or

something, that all of Lee's steps are valid, but you've used an entire day to

do it.  My method takes me about 6 hours now start to finish, and that includes

the part about spending some time with the family.  I still get "you're not

going to _brew beer_ this weekend again, are you?".

How about Lee's steps, all you decocters out there?  Is all that pH adjustment

necessary?  Anyone like to compare procedures with his?  Or mine for that

matter?  This is the type of thing I'd like to see discussed here, so that we

can get more ideas on how to make better beer (maybe easier, too).

What about Rob's starch test idea on the finished beer?  Would there be enough

starch in the final beer for the iodine to pick it out?  Too bad I just

finished my Starch Brown Ale (boiled some brats with the last four bottles), or

I would've tried this.

***

Mike, I think the 68 quart cooler will work fine for you for normal brews (as

you say, up to 25 lbs) but for a high gravity brew it might fall short.  The

solution to this is to do a normal sparge for the rare high gravity brew, and

your 68 quart will be fine.

Cheers,

norm

------------------------------


Hops FAQ Call for Papers

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 14:04:41 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Hops FAQ Call for Papers

I have received only positive feedback on the idea of a hops FAQ, so I'm going

ahead with it, partnering with Mark Garetz (mgaretz@hoptech.com).  He's going

to provide the technical expertise and I'm going to help out with some legwork,

etc., as in this post.  Never fear, naysayers, we'll try to work out all the

details via email and post only relevant information to this forum.

The general form of the FAQ will be something like this:

*******************************************************************************

General description of hops (Mark Garetz)

IBU formulae (anyone have Rager's formulae in a nice form?  Other formulae?)

A treatise on growing hops (volunteers?)

A treatise on dry hopping (volunteers?)

A table of sorts with the following information (this will be the bulk of it):

Hop name

Area grown

Taste profile

Common useage (length of boil, type of brew)

Commercial beer examples

Alpha acid range

Good substitutes

Other?

*******************************************************************************

Consider this an official request for information.  I am looking for people to

help fill in these areas, especially actual brewer's information on the last

section.  If you'd like to contribute please email the information to me:

npyle@n33.stortek.com -OR- to Mark at mgaretz@hoptech.com.  I should be the

primary contact, but if you have trouble reaching my email address (this system

is about as reliable as dry yeast), then send it on to Mark.  I suggest that

you don't send the same thing to both of us (except for comm problems), so we

don't have to sort through it all and pick out the dupes.  To make it easier on

us, try to put things in this general order, but if you already have a bunch of

info in a file, send it on and don't worry about it.

One more thing: we are open to suggestions about the format but we'd like to

keep it simple; this is a FAQ, not a detailed research paper or book (Mark's

writing that offline!).  This is your chance to contribute to the digest,

whether you are a relative newbie or a wise old owl!  (Almost) everyone uses

hops, so let's get your feedback.  Hop-heads Unite!

Cheers,

norm "unreformed hop-head"

- --

Norm Pyle, Staff Engineer         Head Brewer,

Storage Technology Corporation    Pyledriver Brewery, A Non-Profit Organization

2270 South 88th Street            1500 Elmhurst Drive

Louisville, CO 80028-0211         Longmont, CO 80503-2323

(303) 673-8884                    npyle@n33.stortek.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1228, 09/17/93

*************************************

-------


Brewing ingredients in Belgium

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1993 16:48:41 -0800

From: pohl@unixg.ubc.ca (Derrick Pohl)

Subject: Brewing ingredients in Belgium

A friend of mine is going to Belgium for a couple of weeks in the near

future.  Are there any exotic brewing ingredients available only in Belgium

that I should ask him to look out for?  For instance, I thought I saw

reference here once to some sort of orange or orange peel used in Belgian

brewing that is hard to get in North America.  I'd like to get a strong

orange or bitter-orange flavour in my Christmas ale.  Does anyone know

anything about this or any other unique ingredients easier to find in

Belgium than here?

(Naturally, I have also asked him to bring back a brew or too.)

- -----

Derrick Pohl <pohl@unixg.ubc.ca>, Faculty of Graduate Studies

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.

------------------------------


yet more on decoction (yawn)

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 13:03:18 MET DST

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: yet more on decoction (yawn)

Hello again everyone,

I've certainly got enough info over the past couple of days to

carry out a considerable number of tests at home. (maybe this weekend).

One last point about the thin decoct:

in "Die Bierbrauerei" by Schuster Weinfurtner and Narziss (1992, vol. 2)

they say that the thin part is 1Kg grain to 4.5 - 5 litres of liquid.

Now that is definately not free of grains! So I read further. They say

that returning this to the main mash gives a temperature of 75 - 77 degC,

with a total of 1 Kg grains / 3 - 3.5 litres liquid. Under these conditions

they claim that by the time the sweet wort reaches the kettle any

starches have been hydrolysed to (soluble) dextrins by the ca. 8 percent

activity alpha amylase remaining. However, as Jim Dipalma said, do we

want to risk it after a whole morning's work?

Rob. Thomas

p.s. I just read further in the book, they say that the mash should be

kept at 75 - 78 degC until there is a negative iodine test. Also:

"Thereby the gelatinised starch liberated during the boiling of

the lautermash is also saccharified".

I test I might try is taking some of what's left in the mash tun during

the last decoct and adding a boiling suspension of starch to it. Presumably

I will see hydrolysis, and eventually a negative iodine test.

Cheers, and thanks all for the discussion,

rob thomas

------------------------------


Local Brew Shop

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 08:57:58 EDT

From: EAJOHNS@FLIC.erenj.com

Subject: Local Brew Shop

From: Eric A. Johnson

      IOSD  FP102/F08  (201)765-2519

Subject: Local Brew Shop

Another New Jersey homebrew shop is:

The Brewmeister

115 N. Union Ave.

Cranford, NJ 07016

(908)709-9295

I am a customer at both The Brewmeister and Red Bank Brewing Supply,

and have been satisfied with the products and assistance provided

at both.  Red Bank currently has a bit larger selection.  Both will

do mail order.

Eric

------------------------------


Miller Reserve Amber Ale

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 09:15:48 -0400

From: Jim Frost <jimf@centerline.com>

Subject: Miller Reserve Amber Ale

ADM_WWIBLE@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU writes:

|   Anyway, this stuff isn't bad.  I was shocked when I looked at who

|made it and took a sip.

I would have to concur, I was favorably impressed too.  That first

taste astounded me, although its flavor seemed to weaken as I drank

through the bottle.  While I wouldn't make it my daily brew it

represents a remarkable feat from Miller and it's definitely worth

trying.  It's a far cry from Clear Beer.

jim frost

jimf@centerline.com

------------------------------


McEwans Scotch Ale Recipe

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1993 09:29:50 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: McEwans Scotch Ale Recipe

In HBD #1227, Bob writes:

> I am in the process of trying to emulate the flavor of Ye Ole McEwans Scotch

> Ale.  I am an extract brewer that uses added grains.  If there is anyone out

> there that has had any success I would be very appreciative if you would share

> your recipe with me.

>

I suggest the following extract based recipe to emulate McEwans Scotch Ale:

9 lbs. light dry malt extract

1.5 lbs. dark caramel malt (90-120L) preferably English

8 oz maltodextrin powder

3 oz black malt

30 to 35 bittering units - this is 9 to 9.5 alpha acid units in a 1.088 gravity

wort boil.  All bittering hops boiled for 45 minutes. no finishing hops.

use WYeast #1084 Irish Ale yeast and rack to secondary as soon as the head falls

or as soon as possible.

In my recollection, McEwans is fairly strong (1.088 O.G.), malty bordering on

sweet, has a pronounced diacetyl character and has big body. The color is dark

brown.

The caramel and black malt provide caramel sweetness and a dark brown color.

Maltodextrin powder and caramel malt provide residual sweetness, i.e., dextrins

and the relatively low hop rate lets the malt come through.  The Irish ale yeast

produces a high diacetyl concentration and early racking prevents the yeast from

reducing too much diacetyl.

********************************************************

 **** Rob Reed                                      ****

  *** IC Design Center                              ***

  *** Delco Electronics Corporation                 ***

 **** Internet: rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com          ****

*********************************************************

------------------------------


Kajun cooker...

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 08:21:32 MDT

From: bacco@md.fsl.noaa.gov (Corby Bacco)

Subject: Kajun cooker...

Hello,

     I know this has been posted before but I didn't save it (didn't have

a kajun cooker at the time), how do you modify the burner on a kajun/propane

cooker so that it burns more efficently at low flame and doesn't produce

so much soot?  TIA

 -Corby

------------------------------


Tuns/Sparging

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1993 10:46:18 -0500 (EDT)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Tuns/Sparging

> Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 10:50:14 -0400

> From: jake@apollo.hp.com

> Subject: Fining with gelatin

>

> As a result, I am going to do some gelatin fining to yank some

> yeasties.  The bible by Sir Charles recommends fining at bottling

> time.  I was wondering if it was acceptable to fine for a week or

> so in secondary, so that I can bottle with less sedimentary concerns.

>

>

I have never used gelatin (or isinglass for that matter), but I have done

some research on using isinglass in real ales.  A pretty good micro near

here is Red Feather Ale, a Peter Austin system, and they use isinglass

in the secondary to drop the yeast prior to packaging.  The brewer told me

to "blend" the isinglass until thick and pasty and stir it in , let stand

12-24 hours prior to packaging.  This is obviously not true real ale, but

>

> Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 10:00 CDT

> From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

> Subject: Decoction, Coolers

>

>  In a proper mash tun, the only objective is to utilize the initial runoff

>  which is usually very turbid and full of husk material.  Instead of throwing

>  it away, it can be poured back into the mash so that then next time it

passes

>through the filter bed it will run clear.  The amount that must be

>  recirculated depends on the design of the mash tun and the dead space under

>  the false bottom and the flow rate.  It varies from a cup or two to gallons.

>

>  Now, the problem comes from the claims that prolonged re-circulation of the

>  runoff before commencing the sparge, has a profound effect on extraction

>  rate.  I know of no reason for this to be true unless there is something

>  wrong with the design of the mash tun.

First of all , Jack, mash tun != lauter tun, at least for most serious brewers

who are using any system other than single infusion or your EasyWidgets. THe

objective of a mash tun is to convert starches to fermentable sugars and

dextrins. The objective of a lauter tun is extract these fermentable sugars and

dextrins without extracting tannins from the malt husks. Anyone who is

"throwing away" the

first runnings is wasting a lot of extract.  Micah is/was of the school that

does not believe in recircing, primarily due to his desire to maximize the

amount of lipids that survive into the ferementer.  I believe in recircing

until the wort clarifies, but still has particulate matter present.  I have

brewed all grain batches in 4 different systems over the past 5 years, and

no matter what the size of the lauter tun, the recirc time is in the order

of 10-15 minutes.  I agree with concept that extract efficiency is not

dependent on recirc time or quantity, provided an adequate amount of

sparging is done to rinse the grains.

> Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 11:34:55 EDT

> From: emeeks@tx.ncsu.edu

> Subject: Cascades dying?/Building a basement brewery

>

> shower walls. The basement is fairly dusty and will also be used for a

> workshop and storage area, so I'd like to create a closed area that could be

> kept sanitary with periodic "swabbings".

The swabbing of the area is most likely overkill as long as you use lots of

healthy yeast and good (not necessarily anal) sanitation.

>

> For the record, I don't plan on using an open burner in the basement. My hot

> water source will be the house's gas-fired heater, and the boiling of the

> wort will take place outside. The brew room will be used for mashing,

> fermentation, and beer/equipment storage.

Think about physical labor requirements.  How many pounds of hot wet mash

are you going to lug into the backyard?  Or if you lauter in the basement,

how many gallons of fluid are you willin to lug upstairs?  Can you do this

yourself, or do you require a partner to brew?

>From Florian:

> Both these comments are in keeping with my original post about three years

> ago, when I claimed rights to a new method of lautering. This new method,

> which I stole from my brother-in-law, involves putting all the sparge

> water into the lautering tub at once. Only a minimal amount of recirculation

Hardly "new".  Its called batch sparging and is the "other" way to sparge.

Usually when this technique is used, the fluid level is allowed to drop below

the grain bed, then the sparge water is dumped in to a few inches above the

grain bed and lautering continues.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

DE HOPPEDUIVEL DRINKT MET ZWIER 'T GEZONDE BLOND HOPPEBIER!

------------------------------


decoction

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 15:01:00 +0000

From: DAMON_NOEL/HP0800_01@mailhub.cs.itc.hp.com

Subject: decoction

With respect to the recent thread on decoction...for those doing kettle

mashing, why not avoid the last thin boil cycle and simply add heat to

complete the mash out?  This would avoid the need to remove any solids

from the thin wort and also eliminate one cycle.

------------------------------


Bass Ale Yeast

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 08:37:02 PST

From: Bob W Surratt <Bob_W_Surratt@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: Bass Ale Yeast

I want to make the Bass Ale recipe listed on page 32 of The Cat's Meow II & was

wondering what style of Wyeast liquid yeast I should use??

Thanks in advance,  Bob

------------------------------


Decoction, Malts

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 11:10 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Decoction, Malts

 >From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

 >Subject: RE: decoction mashing

  > I don't think this is the case.  There is always some insoluble starch

 in the chunks of grain that amylase enzyme won't touch.  Boiling gelatinizes

 this starch, releasing starch that is now soluble but not converted into

 the wort.  Thus, the presence of unconverted starch in the wort is not

 necessarily a consequence of low yields.

 This may be a semantic point and I am not sure of your meaning because cause

 and effect seem to be reversed.  However, unconverted starch in the wort is

 one the CAUSES of low yields.

 >From: cush@msc.edu

 >Subject: Enzymes and Munich malt

 >Although I am not SURE about this, I think a reasonable generalization is

 that domestic Munich malts to not contain sufficient enzymes to convert

 themselves, but munich malts of European source will contain sufficient

 enzymes.

 It has been reported that The Munich malt from Belgium will convert

 completely by itself.  This fact, along with its outstanding taste and easy

 availability make me wonder why anyone would use Bries.

 >From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

 >Raised to 75 C, held for 10 min mash-out.  Added crystal malt.

 I question this strategy but not knowing your reasons, I will simply state

 that I mix all grains together as I weigh them and the crush them together.

 I know of no reason to keep them separate.

 >Measured OG 1.054 for 5 gal.

 Nice yield.  3 cheers for the easymasher.

 >1) Rather than use the iodine test, I just tasted the mash.  It was sweet

 and sticky after about 30 minutes, but I went for 1.5 hours to make sure.

 Any problem with this?

 Nothing other than the waste of time.  Sweet and sticky however, is not good

 enough but 1.5 hours, no doubt is.  The iodine test is far more precise than

 taste but given enough time, it becomes irelevant.  If you don't want to use

 the test, you can just double the specified conversion times for the malt.

 All malt is tested and rated for conversion time and this information is

 available from most sources.

 >2) If I just add gypsum to purified water, do I really need to make pH

 measurements?

 Without making the pH measurement, how do you know that you need to add

 gypsum?  If it aint broke, dont fix it.

 >3) The sparge rate out of the easymasher was pretty fast, so I shut the

 valve down just to slow things down.  Was this necessary, or could I just run

 it wide open and finish quicker?  Runoff was clear after about 1 quart.

 It will clear faster if you slow it down but once it is clear, the rate is

 your option.  There are those who believe that it affects the extraction rate

 and those who do not.  I am of the later opinion.

 >4) After draining the boiling pot, there was a lot of break material and

 hop pellet sludge remaining inside, thanks to the screen on the homemade

 easymasher clone.  The bitter wort in the carboy was cloudy.

 When using an emersion chiller, it should be perfectly clear after chilling

 and sitting for a reasonable amount of time.  Try an extra thrity minutes

 after it is chilled.

 The only time I get cloudy runoff is if I let it suck the kettle dry.  I have

 a pump on mine and it will suck.  It takes very little sediment to make your

 wort that was perfectly clear, look cloudy.  Stop draining as soon as you

 hear the sucking sound.  If the easymasher is installed correctly, this

 should only leave a few qts of stuff on the bottom.  You can pour this into a

 sterile jug and add it back after settling.

 > After about1/2 hour in the temp chamber, the cloudy wort in the carboy had

 cleared and precipitated a bunch more break material.  My guess is that the

 stuff in the carboy was "cold break" or something similar, and the stuff

 remaining in the boiling pot was "hot break".  Sound reasonable?

 Again, if you used an emersion chiller, what is left on the bottom is a

 combination of the two.  What settled out later is what should have settled

 out in the kettle before transferring.

 One other point (as you made the em youself), the mesh size may be a factor

 here.  It is not too critical in the mash tun but in the boiler, there is no

 real filter bed.  For the record, I use and recommend 32 mesh screen.

 >6) When I brewed from extracts in the past, I used three types of specialty

 grains: crystal malt for sweetness and color, roasted barley for that

 coffee-like bite, and black patent for blackness.  Now I have become aware

 of a veritable plethora of specialty grains like Cara-Pils, Dextrine, Munich,

 Cara Vienne, Aromatic, etc....  Can someone tell me how to use all of these

 different types of grains?

 My suggestion is for you to make a batch with none of the above to get a

 handle on the basic beer.  Keep in mind that PU is made from a single malt

 and that is not a bad place to start.  Many of the specialty grains are used

 to make extract beer taste like grain beer and offer little to the all grain

 brewer.   The problem is sorting out the ones that are useful.

 The most obvious are the color malts for obvious reasons.  The next would be

 the roasted malts for that roasted flavor.

 Beyond that, I run out of gas.  I can't taste any of the others when added to

 by beer in the usual amounts and prefer to change the base malt.   Please

 note that I said "I can't taste" and presume that those who can will fill in

 the blanks.

 js

------------------------------


re: Enzymes and Munich malt

Date: Fri Sep 17 07:38:17 1993

From: darrylri@microsoft.com

Subject: re: Enzymes and Munich malt

cush@msc.edu writes:

> >In HBD 1227, Bill Flowers askes whether Munich malt contains sufficient

> >enzymes to convert themselves:

>

> Last winter I tried making a Munich Dunkle using 100% munich malt.  The

> source of the malt claimed that the malt had sufficient enzymes to

> convert itself.

>

> Well, to make a long story short, I ended up with a large pot of starchy

> porridge..... (that I fed to the compost pile)

[...]

> When I got over my apoplexy, we had a productive dialog about mashing

> schedules, after which we decided I would try again with a 50/50

> munich/pale malt mixture, and they would call their supplier (Breis??)

> to inquire again about the enzyme content of Munich.

Real Munich malt (known as Dunkles Malz in Germany) contains enzymes,

and will convert itself in a 100% mash.  For example, Dr. Fix has tried

the experiment with the DeWolf-Cosyns Belgian malts.  The Siebel

Institute ran analyses on the D-C malts when they were importing them

(now they are imported by Schreier Malting), and as I recall, their

Munich malt had a diastatic power of about 60 degrees Lintner.  (Keep in

mind that US 6 row can have 150 Lintner and 2 row Harrington, 110

Lintner.)

Munich malt is traditionally made from the highest quality, low protein,

2 row malt.  By partially drying the green malt at 50-60C for 8 hours

and then raising the temperature to 100C for about 4 hours, melanoidins

(color compounds) are formed by the combination of amino acids and

simple sugars.  The 100C temperature is a minimum needed to form the

melandoidins, but it is low enough, and the conditions within the malt

dry enough, that some enzymatic power is retained.

Briess "Munich" malt is not made the traditional way.  It is regular US

6 row malt that has been roasted at well above 100C after drying to

produce a higher color, more akin to the way chocoalte malt is made.

This high temperature roasting will destroy the enzymatic power of the

malt.  It also doesn't produce the same flavors and aromas.

Your supplier should be able to get a malt analysis of any of the

products they supply, and the diastatic power (in degrees Lintner) will

tell the story.

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------


identifying flavours

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1993 12:26:05 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: identifying flavours

 Trying to hone my judging and production skills, I am always trying

to identify specific off flavours.  At last week's meeting one of the club

members brought a sample of diacetyl diluted in commercial beer.  I think I

now have a handle on what diacetyl smells and tastes like, and IMHO it is

not even remotely buttery or butterscotch.  However, If someone (a beer

judge) tells me that a beer is buttery, I now know what sensation they are

referring to, and I recognize it's contribution to the flavour profile of

Yorkshire ales.

 I am now trying to identify some other flavour/aroma components.

There is a flavour I have come accross recently in a friend's kit beer (all

malt) which has a very sweet cotton-candy flavour, which I presume to be

2-3-Pentanedione.  Again, this does not have a "honey" smell which is

frequently linked to this compound.  I have detected a "clover honey" aroma

in some beers (notably Brick, when it first came out), but this did not

come through in the flavour profile.

 Can anyone help with these compound identification problems:

1.  Does anyone else think Diacetyl (2-3-Butanedione) smells and tastes

nothing like butter or butterscotch?

2.  Does 2-3-Pentanedione taste like cotton candy?  If not, what does?

3.  What actually produces the clover honey aroma (note, this aroma is

fairly specific to clover honey, not honey in general.  Sniff some honey if

you don't believe me...)

 Thanks.

____________

Ed Hitchcock ech@ac.dal.ca | "I'm not from outer space.  I'm from

Anatomy & Neurobiology  |  Iowa.  I just work in outer space."

Dalhousie University, Halifax |     - James T. Kirk

 [Eschew racism.  Drink beer from all nations]

------------------------------


1993 Hop Harvest

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 12:59:30 EDT

From: franc!kstiles@woomera.att.com

Subject: 1993 Hop Harvest

Well, the hops are in and dried.  Anyone interested

in comparing notes?

My hop yield last year, their first season,  was very

dependent on variety.  I assumed that Mt. Hood, Nugget

and Willamette just needed another year to get

established.  However, yields for these varieties were

disappointing again this year:

                      Dried weight (oz)

Variety         1992                    1993

========        ========                ========

Cascade          12                     16

Mt. Hood            5/8                    3/4

Nugget              3/8                  1

Willamette          3/8                    3/4

Chinook          10 1/2                  5 1/2

My location is eastern PA; the hops get a lot of sun

and good rich compost, but I may not have been

diligent enough with the watering.  The Chinook

vines in particular seemed to get scorched this

year, possibly explaining their low yield compared

to last year.  Any hints for getting yield out of the

other varieties.

Also, I'm moving to Orlando next year.  Can you grow

hops there?

 -Kevin Stiles

 -Kevin

kstiles@woomera.att.com

------------------------------


Decotion : epilogue

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 13:45:36 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Decotion : epilogue

The recent thread on decotion mashing is a fine example of using the HBDs

collected resources to better understand the details of brewing.  In this case

we discussed getting to mashout temp in a decotion mash: equipment, methods and

potential problems.  The long strange trip 23 step method to better decoction

wasn't intended to scare people away from grain brewing.  It was intended to

show the steps involved in this advanced all grain brewing process and act

as a point of reference in further discussions involving efficency improvements

in this time consuming process.

Norm fears divorce if he tries decoction mashing:

Decoction mashing does take much longer.  I do 3 or 4 a year in an attempt to

brew a world class Pils or Fest beer, it takes about 6 hours for double

decotion ( strike to protein rest temp decoction 1 to mash temp 2 to mashout)

and about seven for a triple which I don't do anymore.  IMHO the only way to

achieve the malty character of these beers is decotion mashing of under

modified malts.  I have tasted well brewed Pilsners that were made from highly

modified US, British and Belgian lager and pils malts decocted or infused and

they don't have the same character as a brew from decotion mashed under

modified German pils malt.

Re: having a life + brewing

This spring I did a triple decoction Pils, one of my best efforts ever, in

between steps I would attend the annual town meeting.  I didn't miss a single

vote and got to speak on the issue that most impacted the neighborhood I live

in.  Most of my other brews are single or double step mashed ales.  I brew a

beer called "Pride of Cucamunga" it is a not to AHA style single step US 2 row

Cream Ale. It takes about 4 hours start to finish.  Tastes great/ filling.

I also tend to intermingle brewing and household projects and do them on

the weekend day that my SO works.   This Saturday paint the hall + stairwell

and brew some "Pride" next weekend the Dead, they're high stepin' into town.

RE:  "All those PH adjustments"

These are readings, easy with a digital PH meter, more than adjustment and

were included more for theoretical completeness,  this net gang is a tough

crowd to please.  It is important to maintain a low enough PH when you boil

the grains or off flavors will be extracted.  Since I add water to the thick

decotion to minimize scorching and carmelization attention should be paid to

the preboil PH particularly if your water can cause a significant rise in PH.

I have recently constructed an insulated mash/lauter tun, I will post the

description soon.  This will allow me to now:

 Do an Iodine test on liquid drawn from the spigot it is less likely to contain

 grain chunks with ungelatinized starch that can produce false negatives.

 Remove liquid only for the final decotion and eliminate the potential for

 starch haze as discussed previously.

 Reduce a source of hot side airation since I will not be transfering hot

 mash from the kettle into the lauter tun.

------------------------------


Brewing 2-1/2 gallons in a 5 gallon carboy

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 15:28:25 EDT

From: denist@cae.ca (Denis Trudeau 3610)

Subject: Brewing 2-1/2 gallons in a 5 gallon carboy

My friend and I are relatively novice brewers (actually, I am more the novice,

he has been brewing beer for about 2 years now) and we want to attempt to brew

2.5 gallons of beer in a five gallon carboy (we want to brew two types of beer

and feel ten gallons of beer would be a little excessive :) ).

Has anyone out there done this before?  Can anyone think of any possible

problems that may occur?  (Basically we are worried about oxydization)!

Thanks!!

Denis Trudeau

(Peter Taussig)

*** The Brews Brothers ***

------------------------------


How much carbonation is good?

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 15:24:50 EST

From: John DeCarlo                              <jdecarlo@homebrew.mitre.org>

Subject: How much carbonation is good?

I am sure I have asked this question before, but can't find any answers in my

archives.  Anyway, here goes.

It seems that there are two basic options out there for serving beer:

1) Get the carbonation to the level you want it to be in the glass and pour

   gently from the bottle/keg/cask.

2) Overcarbonate in the bottle/keg/cask and pour more violently, pausing

   frequently to let the foam settle down and get a decent amount of liquid in

   the glass.

Now it seems most German lagers use method 2).  What is the advantage to

overcarbonating and then getting back to a more normal level with pouring

correctly?  Is it something to recommend we homebrewers try?  Is it something

that only benefits a few styles?  Do some brewers avoid it only because they

are afraid it won't be poured correctly from the bottle?  Enquiring minds want

to know.

John DeCarlo, MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA--My views are my own

Fidonet:  1:109/131  Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


Re: Pumpkin Pie Ale

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 15:56:00 EST

From: John DeCarlo                              <jdecarlo@homebrew.mitre.org>

Subject: Re: Pumpkin Pie Ale

I had the same experience as Bill Flowers with pumpkin from hell never getting

out of the beer, but the resulting brew won a prize (OK, it was in the "weird

beer" category).  Make a darker ale and they can't see the pumpkin haze.

But what I figured I would do next time is "mash" the pumpkin and put it in a

grain bag or somesuch and just squeeze out the "pumpkin essence".  Just don't

put canned pumpkin right in your wort.

Also, I used the "amount for two pies" rule and used that amount of pumpkin

and that amount of spices.

John DeCarlo, MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA--My views are my own

Fidonet:  1:109/131  Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

------------------------------


Keg secondary -> bottle sanitation

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 15:06:54 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Keg secondary -> bottle sanitation

While discussing bottling from a soda keg secondary one of our club members

told us a sad story.  He had brewed an excellent brew that was chosen to

represent our club in an AHA club competition.  Per usual he used a soda keg

secondary and transfered it to a sanitized, air free serving keg using the

process outlined by Jim Dipalma in a recent post.  He then sanitized a bunch

of bottles a rigid plastic tube and his tap.  He added some boiled corn sugar

solution to the serving keg and stuck the rigid plasic tube in the outlet of

his tap and bottled.  A month later he tasted a bottle, ugh contaminated.

He reviewed his process which he followed many times before.  Someone asked

him did you soak your tap or disassemble and soak?  He never knew that the

picnic tap could be disassembled.   That night I went home inspected one of

my picnic taps, It unscrewed into two pieces and revealed possible places

for contamination to develop.

Next time I bottle from a keg either counter preasure or from primed serving

keg I will disassemble my picnic tap and sanitize.

------------------------------


All Munich malts are not created equal!

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 12:50 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: All Munich malts are not created equal!

Cushing writes:

>Last winter I tried making a Munich Dunkle using 100% munich malt.  The

>source of the malt claimed that the malt had sufficient enzymes to convert

>itself.

>

>Well, to make a long story short, I ended up with a large pot of starchy

>porridge..... (that I fed to the compost pile)

>

>When I went back to the supply shop to complain/ask whether the malt

>did indeed have sufficient enzyme activity they (jokingly??) asked me

>if I was SURE I had not killed my enzymes.

Those people at the supply shop should get their education and attitude

in order or they will be out of business soon.  Just a few data points

that I can offer on the DeWolf-Cosyns Belgian Malts:

name        Lintner Lov

Pale Ale    60      3.21

Pilsner     105     1.83

Wheat               1.75

Munich      50.2    7.83

Aromatic    29.1    25.7

A US 2-row, for comparison:

Schreier    131     1.78

This is how it is listed in the lab tests -- all the rest of the DeWolf-Cosyns

malts either have 0 or a blank under degrees Lintner.  I'm confident that the

Wheat does have diastatic power, but it probably was not tested for it.  The

analysis says that the Aromatic will mash itself, which means that anything

over 29.1 degrees Lintner will mash itself.  I've seen 200 degrees Lintner

reported on some 6-row pilsner malts, but since most of us don't add too much

flaked grains (corn, wheat, oats) I don't think that there's much to worry

about if you have at least 50 Lintner in your base malt.

Al.

------------------------------


problems siphoning

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 12:51:00 -0600

From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

Subject: problems siphoning

In HBD 1226 ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu (David Atkins) wrote:

DA> On serveral occasions, I've been unble to secure a steady siphon

DA> regardless of siphon hose diameter and the subsequent inclusion of a

DA> Before the line fills, air gets sucked into the line where the hose

  > and tube meet.  This steals away the siphon and aerates

  > fermenting(ed) beer.  And I have

David,

This might be air but it is more likely carbon dioxide. You are probably

seeing a combination of the siphon tube not being completely filled with

liquid when the siphon is started, combined with CO2 coming out of

solution while racking.

DA> suggestions to the list or to my email will be welcome.  Bottling is

I've seen a number of people have the same problem and the solution is

amazingly simple. Start your siphon by whatever method you use (I just

take a good "draw" on the end of the tube. Put the end of the tube in

the vessel that you're racking to and immediately grasp the tube where

it is fitted on to the racking cane. About 1-2 inches from where the

tubing joins the racking cane, bend the tubing up, above the level of

the top of the bend in the cane. You might even slightly pinch the

tubing at the top of the bend. You'll see the tubing on the cane side

fill completely with liquid, pushing the air/CO2 out and up over the

"hump" that you've formed. Slowly lower the "hump" down and the entire

tube will fill with liquid and your siphon will proceed normally.

It sound s a lot harder than it is; it's easy to do but hard to

describe. Try it once with water and you'll see how simple it is.

Chuck

 * RM 1.2 00946 *

------------------------------


o-ring defunking

Date:           Sat, 18 Sep 93 10:29 EDT

From: Richard_Loring@vos.stratus.com

Subject:        o-ring defunking

I don't keg and wouldn't know an o-ring from an onion ring (I thought

they were the same thing).  However, for those who would rather not

replace their o-rings, I have a suggestion which may be helpful

in eliminating unwanted odors.

Try placing the offending o-rings in an airtight container (zip-loc bag)

with some balled up newspapers and leave them in the freezer overnight.

The newspapers will "suck-up" the odors.

This works on those wonderful "plastic containers sold at parties" so

it just might do the trick on the ol' o-rings.

Later,

Dick Loring

------------------------------


FAQ's

Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1993 11:04:46 -0500 (cdt)

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: FAQ's

I think the recent trend toward FAQ's is absolutely great.  (Personally, I

don't much care how they get hashed out in the digest.  If I'm interested in

the dicussion I follow it, if not, I scroll past it.  The important thing is

that it gets done!)

The only thing is, I've lost track of how many there are!  Can somebody post

a quick directory of the FAQ's and how to get them?

I remember something about all-grain equipment, the recently completed yeast

FAQ, the keg FAQ in progress, and of course the Cat's Meow.  Are there

others?

Personally, any helpful information for the computer-illiterate would be real

welcome too.  I hook up to my campus VAX through my Macintosh.  I "f.t.p.'d"

to stanford to get the Cat's Meow about a year ago, but it didn't print out

too well.  I saw someone else's copy which looked absolutely beautiful, with

cover art and all, but this is all kind of a mystery to me as to why the

copies came out differently.  I suppose it has something to do with zipping

or compressing or one of those things?

Sorry to flaunt my ignorance.  I eagerly await enlightenment!

Guzzling away,

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Homebrew Digest #1223 (Septemb

Date: Sat, 18 Sep 93 22:41:00 BST

From: p.shaw5@genie.geis.com

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1223 (Septemb

I have recently made my first foray into mini-kegging, with those 5-liter

 jobs that have been available for imported beer for so long.  I was told

 that approx 1/12 a cup corn sugar would suffice.  After 4 weeks of aging, on

two different batches that I bottled at the same time and turned out fine,

both kegs were nearly completely flat.  Luckily my friends were willing to

drink flat beer, but I was wondering if anyone else had any experience in

 priming amounts neccessary for these mini kegs.

While I'm here and dyslurking, I have another question.  Other than

spiritual and philosophical blessings, are there any real, tangible

advantages to priming with DME orusing a gyre to prime?  I'm just an evil

barbarian extract/dry yeast brewer at this stage in my experience and while

lots of the stuff I make is quite decent, the flavors are always strong and

harsh, like a Ben & Jerry's beer.

------------------------------


apple/cinnamon brew

Date: Sun, 19 Sep 93 18:58:04 PDT

From: 19-Sep-1993 2147 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: apple/cinnamon brew

Hi Folks,

Well, here in New England, Autumn is approaching us rapidly;  leaves are

changing, pumpkins are available by the ton, apples are ready, and hot

mulled cider fills the air.

I'm interested in making an apple-cinnamon brew;  seems appropriate for

the season.  My initial thoughts on how to brew this are below.  I'd

appreciate any tips/input on ways I can make this better.  This will be

my first brew w/ fruit.

6-7 lbs light DME

2 oz hallertauer hops

3 oz cinnamon (boil) (I'll use sticks)

3 oz cinnamon (finish)

irish moss

EDME dry-yeast

(5 gallons)

Boil 60 mins; add finishing hops when i remove the brew from the flame.

Likewise for the finishing cinnamon.  I'll probably rehydrate the yeast

too.

Ferment for 4 days or so;  after 4 days, prepare the apples;  i'll cut

'em up, then pastuerize them at 170F.  transfer the brew to a secondary,

dump the apples in.   Ferment for another 4-7 days;  bottle/keg.  As

for priming, I was thinking of using  honey - how much should I use?

Is there a risk of beer bombs if i don't drink the stuff fast enough?

No problem w/ the keg...

Questions:

 - How much apples?  I'm thinking 7-10 lbs

 - Should I include the apple skins?

 - More cinnamon?  less?  my experience tells me that the cinnamon effect

  disappears like hop aroma over time...

Thanks,

JC FERGUSON

Littleton MA USA

------------------------------


WINE GRAPES

Date: Sun, 19 Sep 93 22:03 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: WINE GRAPES

               WINE GRAPES ARE HERE (CHICAGO)

 California wine grapes are now available at North Side Grape Distrubutors,

 6045 W Grand in Chicago.  (312) 622 1167

 This is seasonal operation and only a vacant lot the rest of the year.

 They have a wide variety of California grapes and juice, all kept in about a

 dozen refrigerated semi trailers.

 Cost ranges from $15 to $20 per 32 lbs case.  I just squoze 14 gallons from 4

 cases of Cabernet Sauvignon so you can figure on about 10 lbs to the gallon.

 js

------------------------------


Dublin Porter (old)

Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1993 23:40:36 -0700 (PDT)

From: Jack Thompson <jct@reed.edu>

Subject: Dublin Porter (old)

This afternoon, while browsing through the _Boston Medical and Surgical

Journal_ (Vol. 66, No. 18), p. 383; published Thursday, June 5, 1862 (yes,

1862), I came across the following chemical analysis:

"Ingredients of Dublin Porter.  Dublin porter has been analyzed in an

elaborate manner, and a statement of the results appears in the _Journal

of the Royal Dublin Society_.

One gallon was found to contain of fixed organic matter, 4689.70 parts;

fixed inorganic matter, 297.64; alcohol, 6356.0; sugar, 120.50; albumen,

552.0; extractive matter, 4017.30; silica, 20.30; phosphate of magnesia,

59.71; phosphate of lime, 11.06; phosphoric acid, 44.31; sulphate of

potash, 42.0; potash, 83.16; chloride of sodium, 31.36; soda, 5.74.

Without expressing any opinion as to the medicinal virtues of the porter

examined, the analysis draws attention to the fact that it contains a

large quantity of heat-giving and flesh-forming matters, as well as the

necessary inorganic constituents required in the formation of bone and flesh."

Just another data point.

Jack C. Thompson

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1229, 09/20/93

*************************************

-------


King Kooker mod

Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 08:53:58 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: King Kooker mod

I did the following mod to my King Kooker this week end.  It works great on

the 6-8 gallons I begin to boil.  No black soot on the bottom of the pot, no

black soot when I turn the flame way down, seems like a more efficent burn.

I removed the brass nut that constitutes the burner.

I plugged the existing hole with a sheet rock screw.

I ground the head end of the screw off flush to the nut.

On an adjacent nut surface I drilled a 1/16" hole.

I replaced the brass nut.

Notes:

1)  I removed about 1/8" - 1/4" from the point of the screw prior to

    insertion so it would not prtrude thru the old hole.

2)  I used the surface "after" the one with the original hole making it

    1/8 turn tighter.  I thought this better than 1/8 turn less.

3)  1/16" was the smallest bit I had.  If all you brew is in the 5 gallon

    range and you are trying to improve the fuel efficiency of the Kooker

    a smaller hole may work.  These brass nut are available in hardware

    stores for half a buck so I may try a smaller hole if I find a smaller

    bit.

------------------------------


fermenting with reckless abandon

Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 11:00:39 -0400

From: esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

Subject: fermenting with reckless abandon

Greetings in HBD land,

        I am having a problem with a current all-extract wheat beer I'm

making.  I have made this same recipe several times, but this is only the

second time I have used a liquid yeast (Wyeast Bavarian Wheat).  The

problem is that it's fermenting so wildly, that it blows the sanitizing

solutions out of my one-way valve and then fills the valve with foam.  The

other time I used this yeast, it fermented quickly, but not so violently.

I'm still using the cave-man equipment of a single stage fermenter made out

of high grade plastic.  My question is "Is there a way to slow down the

fermentation a bit?".  If not, is there a way I can clear out some of the

foam while minimizing the risk of polluting my beer?  I've been taking the

valve off, pressing down on the cover so a bit of foam comes out and

replacing the valve (all cleaned out and refilled with more sani solution).

 Should I merely relax, don't worry...?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance, Eugene

------------------------------


Malt/Wort vs. Dextrose Bottle Priming

Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 11:02:14 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: Malt/Wort vs. Dextrose Bottle Priming

In HBD #1229, p.shaw5@genie.geis.com writes:

> While I'm here and dyslurking, I have another question.  Other than

> spiritual and philosophical blessings, are there any real, tangible

> advantages to priming with DME orusing a gyre to prime?  I'm just an evil

> barbarian extract/dry yeast brewer at this stage in my experience and while

> lots of the stuff I make is quite decent, the flavors are always strong and

> harsh, like a Ben & Jerry's beer.

Theory tells us that due to the differences in the way that yeast ferments

malt and corn sugar, that there will be differences in the beer according

to the priming technique you choose: a beer primed with DME or wort will

go through both respiration and fermentation phases of yeast

metabolism.  During yeast respiration, the yeast consume oxygen on their

journey to reproduction.  The corn sugar primed beer will bypass the

respiration phase via the crabtree effect.  Theoretically, the malt

primed beer will have better flavor stability as oxygen has been

scavenged from the bottle during the bottle fermentation.

Some unsolicited advice:  If you switch to pure liquid yeast cultures,

you can make huge advances in your beer quality.  Using some simple,

creative culturing techniques, you can use liquid yeast with minimal

price penalty.  All you really lose is the ability to brew on a whim as

brewing good beer with liquid cultures requires the use of a yeast

starter and its associated leadtime.

***********************************************************************

 **** Rob Reed             Internet: rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com   ****

 **** IC Design Center            Delco Electronics Corporation   ****

***********************************************************************

------------------------------


gas stove conversion & easymasher

Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 10:45 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: gas stove conversion & easymasher

Hello readers,

I recently came into possession of an efficiency apt. size gas stove

w/range top.  The burners are close enough together to use in tandom in bringing

a 33 quart pot to boil...one pot resting on 2 burners.

While a gas stove, I don't have a natural gas hookup in the basement and no room

in the kitchen.  I'm looking into converting the stove to propane--hooking up a

portable tank of the gas to the stove.  Has anyone done this?  If so, what

special hardware and safety precautions will I need?  Don't want to turn a brew

session into a moon shot.  Ventilation is no problem but someone in Monday's

list mentioned possible soot residues with propane.  Is there a way to correct

for this?

Also, the resent postings on decoction tech's. mention a piece of hardware

called an easymasher.  Could someone describe this item?  Uses and where to

find, etc?

Thanks,

David Atkins

atkins@macc.wisc.edu

------------------------------


CO2 Connection Questions

Date:    Mon, 20 Sep 1993 16:19:04 GMT

From: COOK@CDHF2.GSFC.NASA.GOV (Chris Cook)

Subject: CO2 Connection Questions

A question about kegging and counter-pressure bottle fillers.  How do

people change fittings to CO2 systems?

I have one CO2 tank that I use for everything.  That means:

  1)  Storing beer at home in the basement.  Because of leaks, I usually

      keep the CO2 disconnected, repressurizing kegs when they need it.

      The best setup is one gas connection and a long hose.

  2)  Serving beer at group events.  Although for smaller groups I just

      repressurize periodically, for larger events I try to keep CO2

      connections on the popular kegs.  The best setup is a string of gas

      connections spaced closely.

  3)  Counter-pressure bottle filling.  This means one gas connection and

      the CP filler.

The only way I can connect and disconnect this stuff is to get the

wrenches out, and I worry about the wear and tear for the connections and

nylon bushings (which I usually drop at least once).

Is there an easier way to make changes?  Are there quick-disconnects for

the line, or some such?  How do other people work with CP fillers?

Chris Cook

cook@cdhf2.gsfc.nasa.gov

------------------------------


cardamom

Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 10:23:06 CDT

From: lencell@unmc.edu (Lance Encell)

Subject: cardamom

I'm wondering what kind of spice cardamom is?

 -Lance

------------------------------


Beer of the month club

Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 10:21:48 CDT

From: lencell@unmc.edu (Lance Encell)

Subject: Beer of the month club

Could someone fill me in on this beer club.  I hear you can get a case

of beer every month or something.  How does one find out about this?

 -Lance

------------------------------


Sweet Gale (Bog Myrtle)

Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 12:29:21 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Sweet Gale (Bog Myrtle)

Today, I was reviewing some books on brewing before taking them

back to the library, to see what I might want to copy for my files,

and re-encountered this passage from Odd Nordland's _Brewing and Beer

Tradition on Norway_  I should note that the quotations come from

questionaires filled out by Norwegians about their knowledge and

recollection of old brewing practices.

    The important part played by the grut of Central Europe ... has

    already been discussed  From the fourteenth to the seventeenth

    century, the most important ingredient of this mixture of dried leaves

    and spices was bog myrtle, Myrica gale, which will here also be

    referred to as pors [presumably the Norwegian name].

    The bot myrtle was an important plant in medieval Norway, being

    mentioned as early as in fourteenth-century laws. ... rent for

    farms could be paid in bog myrtle ...

    ... bog myrtle occurs as one of the plants that could be used

    for flavouring ale: `To add a strong flavour to the ale, and to

    make it heady, pors was put into it.  ... It was gathered in

    autumn, and the leaves were also taken.' `When this plant was

    used, the ale was strong.  It went to one's head.  They spoke of

    having a "Christmas head".'

    ... In northern Hordaland, small quantities of pors were added to

    the Christmas ale until the turn of the century.

    ... `The ale was flavoured with hops mixed with pors.  It was

    slightly yellowish, and had a fresh, sweet taste.  It was said

    locally that when one drank much of it, it was strongly

    intoxicating, with unpleasant after-effects.'

    ...

    That bog myrtle produces a special effect when added to ale is

    ... well documented in our material, and in earlier sources ...

    Linnaeus ... mention[s] the especially intoxicating effects ...

    ... Does bog myrtle possess the properties that were once ascribed

    to it...? ... chemical analysis has revealed no such properties.

    [One writer] is inclined to believe that there must be some

    substance in the bog myrtle that has the effect described.  But he

    is also open to the suggestion that the belief in a special effect

    gave rise to an increased consumption [that] produced effects of

    the kind described. ... The solution of these problems would ...

    require a compleicated analysis, and as it is of little practical

    value to find the cause of the alleged headaches of bygone ages,

    the question will probably remain unsolved.

It is not clear from this material what part(s) of the plant were

used, except for the mention that "the leaves were also taken."  He

does refer at one point to the shape of the fruit of the plant, so we

might assume that this is what was used.  Certainly, Rajotte refers to

the seeds as the flavoring agent in his Santa's Magic Potion.  In the

American herbal, the most closely related plant is the bayberry, from

which the twigs and roots seem to be used (at least, that's what I can

find in herb shops around here).

=Spencer

------------------------------


Cooler size, Hop yields NOT

Date:  Mon, 20 Sep 1993 12:50:00 -0400

From: mike.sadul@canrem.com (Mike Sadul)

Subject: Cooler size, Hop yields NOT

Thanks to all who responed to my cooler size question, both

publicly and via e-mail.  Many of you requested information

about my equipment (price, where purchased, etc.). I responded

to all, except my mailer said I provided one incorrect

address (didn't tell me which one, though).  If you sent

me e-mail and I didn't reply, please let me know.

Re: hop yields

I purchased hop plants this year (yes, little plants, not

rhizomes) VERY late in the growing season through mail-order from

Richters in Goodwood, Ontario, Canada.

I received one each of Cascade, Mt. Hood and Hallertauer.

I planted them on the last weekend in June about 70 miles

north of Toronto.

The Hallertauer only reached a height of around 7 feet, while

the Cascade grew off the end of its pole (around 12 feet).

I am already preparing for next year by searching for 30 foot

saplings.

The Cascade was/is my only producer, with 3 hops. :(

The hops look very sad hanging there all alone.

Perhaps I can use them in a small (1 oz. wort) test sample. :)

The Weatherman predicted ground frost last night, can hop plants

handle a little cold?

Cheers,

Mike

mike.sadul@canrem.com

------------------------------


Arizona and Utah Brewpubs

Date:           Mon, 20 Sep 93 13:34 EDT

From: Mike_ONeil@vos.stratus.com

Subject:        Arizona and Utah Brewpubs

 My wife and I will be going to Arizona and Utah in a couple of weeks for

vacation and would appreciate any information on brewpubs and microbreweries.

 TIA, MIke

------------------------------


Bass yeast/2.5 gal in a 5 gal carboy/DME priming

Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 14:28 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Bass yeast/2.5 gal in a 5 gal carboy/DME priming

Bob writes:

>I want to make the Bass Ale recipe listed on page 32 of The

>Cat's Meow II & was wondering what style of Wyeast liquid yeast

>I should use??

I recommend that you use Wyeast #1028, London Ale, which is reported to

be the Whiteshield strain (Whiteshield being a bottle conditioned beer

made by Bass -- at least it used to be bottle conditioned -- now, I don't

know).

*****************************

Denis writes:

>we want to attempt to brew

>2.5 gallons of beer in a five gallon carboy (we want to brew two types of beer

>and feel ten gallons of beer would be a little excessive :) ).

>Has anyone out there done this before?  Can anyone think of any possible

>problems that may occur?  (Basically we are worried about oxidation)!

Don't worry, to borrow a phrase from Charlie... when you just add the

wort to the carboy, you will have air in there, but that's when you want

oxygen entering your wort.  Later, when fermentation begins, the air will

be pushed out of the carboy by the CO2 that the yeast produces (CO2 is

heavier than air).  See... no problem!

***************************

p.shaw writes:

>Other than

>spiritual and philosophical blessings, are there any real, tangible

>advantages to priming with DME orusing a gyle to prime?

Personally, I started by using dextrose for priming.  Then I went to DME

because I had read so much about the "EVILS OF ADDING CORN SUGAR TO YOUR

BEER."  Eventually, I switched back to dextrose most because I think

it's easier.

On some of my batches primed with DME, I noticed a sort of floating, "oily"

scum on the top of the beer in the bottle.  Some have written that this is

similar to the kraeusen ring in the fermenter, but I have reason to doubt

it.  I think it's protein from the DME priming solution.  If I'm correct

in this assumption, it should be remedied by force cooling the DME priming

solution so that cold break forms and is not added to the priming vessel

(is left behind).  See what I mean about dextrose being easier?  Since

switching back to dextrose priming, I have yet to see this scum in my

bottles.  I would test this theory myself, but since I'm having trouble

finding time to brew, I would suspect it will take years for this test

to reach the top of my list.  Any takers?

Al.

------------------------------


Specialty malts at mash-out?

Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 16:27:46 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Specialty malts at mash-out?

Jack sez:

>>From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

>

>>Raised to 75 C, held for 10 min mash-out.  Added crystal malt.

>

>I question this strategy but not knowing your reasons, I will simply state

>that I mix all grains together as I weigh them and the crush them together.

>I know of no reason to keep them separate.

I know of a couple.  For crystal malt, the starch -> sugar conversion has

supposedly already taken place in the process.  Crystal malt is kilned at a

high temperature (160F+???), causing the enzymes to convert the starch to

"unfermentable" sugars.  It is then dried, forming sugar crystals within the

kernels, thus the name (one of several).  It is not necessarily a bad thing

to add this to your mash but it is likely that some of the "unfermentable"

sugars in it will be broken down by the enzymes in the mash into fermentable

sugars and some of the desired sweetness will be lost.  Granted, this is

probably a small portion of the sugar in the malt, but some sweetness will be

lost.

For other specialty grains, like chocolate and black patent, I like to add them

at mash-out time as well.  In this case, I've noticed a harshness extracted

from the dark grains if left in for the entire mash cycle.  It has never

appeared to me in my beers when I added the dark grains at mash out.  With dark

grains, the intention for me is to add some color, and roasted flavor.  I can

get a really smooth brown ale with my method, but I like the beer much less if

the dark grains are mashed with the pale malt.  I've also noticed this with at

least one microbrew, although others have not.  It may just be something I'm

sensitive to.  I've not brewed a stout, though, so I don't know how this method

works in that arena.

 ...

Lee, sorry to be a tough crowd.  I _do_ appreciate your explanations re: the pH

adjustments.  Maybe I'm just jealous about your awesomely malty lagers, but I'm

also fortunate that my favorite beer styles (US and UK hoppy ales) can be done

with a simple infusion.

 ...

Fairly often someone (this time Denis Trudeau) asks about brewing small batches

in a large carboy wrt oxidation.  I do this virtually every time:  brew 5

gallon batches in a 7 gallon carboy.  This gives more surface area than, say

2.5 gallons in a 5 gallon carboy because the diameter of the 7 is larger.

Anyway, I have had no discernable oxidation problems and was wondering if

others have had any trouble.  (This question is aside from blowoff

considerations, Al!)

 ...

John asks about carbonation and pouring methods.  Sorry, John I've got no

answers, just more uncertainty.  I've heard a half a dozen ways to "properly"

pour beer.  Here's a sample:

1) Pour down the side of the glass to start (to see how much carbonation is

   there) and finish off at the top with as much turbulence as is necessary

   to create a 1" head.

2) Pour down the middle of the glass to start and then ease off (i.e. pour down

   the side to achieve the magical, mythical 1" head.

3) Pour down the side of the glass (a good beer shouldn't need help in forming

   a nice head).  I believe this one was from M. Jackson, but I can't swear to

   it.

4) Pour down the middle of the glass until full of head.  Stop.  Wait for head

   to drop.  Repeat until you achieve the quintessential 1" head.

There are others, but I suggest:  Pour it the way you like it.  One of the

reasons we homebrew is to do things the way we like them.  Pouring should be no

different.

 ...

Jonathan wants a FAQ for FAQs.  Hmmm, are we getting high-tech or what?

 ...

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1230, 09/21/93

*************************************

-------


Mailing Brew

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 07:47:50 -0400

From: Rich Ryan <ryancr@install4.swin.oasis.gtegsc.com>

Subject: Mailing Brew

I recently received an entry form for an AHA sponsored

homebrew event. Since the event is located miles away I

will have to mail the bottles. A friend of mine said the

US Postal Service has regulations forbidding this. He

said that some of the private carriers may or may not

have similar restrictions. Can anyone tell me definititvely

what the regulations are? If this has already been

discussed before private emails are fine.

Rich Ryan

GTE

Chantilly, VA

ryancr@swin.oasis.gtegsc.com

------------------------------


rebottling

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 08:25:00 CST

From: Montgomery_John@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil

Subject: rebottling

    I have recently bottled (several weeks ago) an entire five gallon

batch of Kolsch in Grolsch bottles (Kolsch in Grolsch ?...Hey, I'm a

poet and don't know it but my feet show it cuz they're Longfellows :) ).

    Anyway, since then, I found that a local brewpub is sponsoring an

Oktoberfest/Homebrew competition and I would really like to enter this

beer for critique. Those who have submitted beers in competitions now

see my dilemma - I can't enter the beer in a Grolsch bottle. So I'm

considering rebottling a number of them in the required brown 12 oz.

longnecks.

    What is the collective wisdom on this? Should I "supercool" the beer

and decant it very slowly into the longnecks so as not to disturb the

brew?...Will I lose the carbonation? Anybody ever done anything like

this?

    Thanks,

     john

<montgomery_john@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil>

------------------------------


someone asks about cardamom

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1993 09:06:12 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: someone asks about cardamom

The dictionary describes cardamom thusly:  "A tropical Asiatic

perennial plant, Elettaria cardamomum, having large, hairy leaves

and capsular fruit, the seeds of which are used as a condiment and

medicine."  Cardamom is used as a seasoning in Asian cooking,

especially Indian cooking.  Specialty food stores carry cardamom

seeds, while your favorite grocery store has crushed cardamom in

the spice section.  When fresh, cardamom has (to me) a lemon-citrus

flavor note.  I've used it as a "secret" ingredient in small amounts

in wit and strong Belgian ale recipes.  While there are lots of ways

to add spices, what has worked for me is adding some in the last

10 minutes of the boil.

------------------------------


slowing fermentation

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 10:55:39 EDT

From: poconnor@lager.tn.cornell.edu (Peter OConnor)

Subject: slowing fermentation

Eugene asks how to slow down an unruly fermentation.  How about cooling down

the fermenting vessel.  It usually slows fermentation without changing the

flavor.  It will mean longer fermentation times.  -Pete

------------------------------


Brewpubs/Micro's

Date: 21 Sep 1993 09:59:09 GMT

From: "Tom Stolfi" <WAUTS@cwemail.ceco.com>

Subject: Brewpubs/Micro's

From: Tom Stolfi                                   WAUTS    - CWE1IIN

To: Open-Addressing Application for Internet Acc INLINE   - CWEMAIL

Subject: Brewpubs/Micro's

If anyone knows of any Brewpubs/Micro's in the Morgantown,West Virginia or

Albuquerque, New Mexico area please forward the info to me via private email

at wauts@cwemail.ceco.com.  Thanks in advance.

Tom Stolfi

wauts@cwemail.ceco.com

------------------------------


Re: Hop Harvest '93 & Beer of the month club

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1993 11:14:00 EST

From: "Pamela J. Day 7560" <DAY@A1.TCH.HARVARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: Hop Harvest '93 & Beer of the month club

I planted my risomes (2 Cascade, 2 Chinook & 1 willamette) in late

April. I live about 40 miles northeast of Boston on the NH border,

so we have a decent growing season. My Chinook did great, they grew

about 15 up the side of my house and I got a sandwich bag full of

hops. The cascade grew well too, about 12 feet, but didn't produce

any hops. The Willamette, was a disappointment, it never came up.

It sent out roots,(I dug it up to check on it) but it never sent

any vines. I was reassured by the people I got them from that it

will do something next year, but I have my doubts. Has anyone else

had a similar experience?

Regarding Beer of the Month Club, I have a subscription to one called

Beer Across America, for details e-mail direct, Day@a1.tch.harvard.edu

Cheers! P. Day

------------------------------


Fusel Alcohols; Lipids

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 09:22:41 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Fusel Alcohols; Lipids

Greetings one and all!

The article I wrote on fusel alcohols that appeared in the last issue of

Zymurgy had the following typographical errors:

     (1) The last part of the second paragraph on page 32 was truncated. It

         should read as follows:

          " ...widespread agreement about the implications that brewing

            procedures and brewing materials have on fusel alcohol levels.

            Some of the most important of these points will be discussed

            in this article."

      (2)  The sentence on page 33 stating that aromatic alcohols were

           volatile should read

            " These are also non-volatile, and are characterized by the

              presence of aromatic rings."

       (3) I have no idea where the crazy structure shown at the bottom

           of page 33 (first column) came from. It is certainly not Tyrsol.

           The correct structure can be found on page 64 of my book on

           brewing science.

I have received a lot of private e-mail concerning the Jones/Millspaw article

that appeared in Zymurgy, and in particular about the general question of

"lipid enhancement". It is well known that lipids can be used by yeast as

a replacement for O2. Turbid wort is rich in lipids, and if this is carried

over to the fermenter, there is less neeed to aerate the wort before pitching.

This has been exploited by high gravity brewers (primarily in the the UK) to

lessen the O2 demand of yeast used to ferment worts with OEs of order 18 P

(1.074). My problem with this practice comes from my experience that fatty

acids derived from trub are major players in beer staling. This may not be a

major issue with homebrew that is afforded pristine care. However, it could

be an issue for beer that is shipped (to competitions or friends), and is

subject to mechanical and/or thermal abuse. In any case, it appears from

my own brewing experiences that failure to properly clarify wort can be

a destabilizing factor for most beers.

George Fix

------------------------------


re Brewpubs in Utah

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1993 10:34:10 -0600 (MDT)

From: Mark Taratoot <SLNDW@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: re Brewpubs in Utah

Mike ONeil asked about brewpubs in Utah and Arizona.

There are three brewpubs that I know of in Utah.  Squatters in Salt

Lake City, Eddie McStiffs in Moab, and Ebenezers in Ogden.

Squatters is the oldest, and they produce some fine offerings.  Last

time I was in SLC, they had cask conditioned real ale.  The stout is

OK.  The pale ale is lacking something, but after all, this is a

3.2% (control) state and I am sure most of their customers do not

like lots and lots of beer flavor.

Ebenezers is housed in a beautiful structure in Ogden.  The beer

is too cold, and it does not have much beer flavor.  They usually

have 4 offerings, one of which is a seasonal brew.

Eddie McStiffs has a tasty stout.  I was not impressed with their

pale.  I guess Utah is not a good place to get pale ale, unless you

make your own.

Hope this helps.

 -toot

------------------------------


Hops in San Francisco Canyon NM

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 10:49:47 MDT

From: seiferth@cs.unm.edu

Subject: Hops in San Francisco Canyon NM

Last year there were a number of people who had visited the canyon

and reported wild hops there.  Has anyone returned this year?

I'd like to go pick some but don't want to make the 5 hour drive

unless it will bear some "fruit".

Justin

seiferth@lyra.plk.af.mil

------------------------------


yeast & oxidation

Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 21:27:59 EDT

From: dassemiri@aol.com

Subject: yeast & oxidation

 I've been a lurker since I subscribed to this digest, and have enjoyed the

letters and information a great deal. Here's my question:

 Has anyone tried to culture the yeast from Double Diamond? Is it used purely

for conditioning, or is this the yeast used for the actual fermentation?

Also:

  I've only made one excursion away from extract brews, using a partial mash,

and I hope to go further in this direction. Can anyone explain the dangers of

oxidation DURING mashing? I thought it was only a concern after fermentation

began, but Miller's book leads me to beleive that this is not the case.

   Thanks and, to all those migratory folks from *P-land... pros't!

   steveinmassachusetts

------------------------------


Competition Announcement

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1993 13:15:05 -0500 (CDT)

From: jack@wubios.wustl.edu (Jack Baty)

Subject: Competition Announcement

 The annual St. Louis Brews Happy Holidays Homebrew Competition will take

 place on 18 December.  Entry deadline is 22 November.  This is an

 AHA-sanctioned competition,

 ASCII files containing competition rules (comprule.txt), entry form

 (compform.txt), and bottle entry forms (bottle.txt) are available via

 anonymous ftp from the /pub subdirectory of sirronald.wustl.edu

 (IP Number: 128.252.150.1).  If you can't use anonymous ftp you can request

 the files from jack@wubios.wustl.edu.

 Additional judges are always welcome.  We will have Beds for Brewers

 available.

- --

Jack Baty  jack@wubios.wustl.edu

Division of Biostatistics   Washington University Medical School   St. Louis

If you don't think too good then don't think too much.

------------------------------


Grain at mash / DME prime /Recirculate

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 09:19:08 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Grain at mash / DME prime /Recirculate

I agree with Al K's comments on DME priming.  Unless one boils it for a half

hour or so and then chills you will get potential haze.  The small amount

of corn sugar used to prime will not cause off flavors.  Since I bottle

from keg secondaries and there is a fair amount of CO2 in the brew already

I use 1/3 cup per keg with my ales.  I don't provide additional carbonation to

lagers with sugar I force carbonated them, I do so because it took me so long

to brew (decoction) and ferment/lager I am concerned I may produce off aromas.

Grain at mash out:  For dark brews I add grains at mash out it makes the

iodine test easier to read.  For lighter colored brews I mash all the grain.

When I sparged my recent brew I used Rob Thomas suggetion of testing for

starch.  When the liquid tested negative I declared this to be "clear" and

began collecing wort even though the run off was some what opaque.  Does the

matter in suspension contain lipids mentioned in a previous post?  Is clear

another of those vague terms that we find in brewing references?

------------------------------


Re:  fermenting with reckless abandon

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 13:32 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re:  fermenting with reckless abandon

Eugene writes:

>        I am having a problem with a current all-extract wheat beer I'm

>making.  I have made this same recipe several times, but this is only the

>second time I have used a liquid yeast (Wyeast Bavarian Wheat).  The

>problem is that it's fermenting so wildly, that it blows the sanitizing

>solutions out of my one-way valve and then fills the valve with foam.  The

>other time I used this yeast, it fermented quickly, but not so violently.

>I'm still using the cave-man equipment of a single stage fermenter made out

>of high grade plastic.  My question is "Is there a way to slow down the

>fermentation a bit?".  If not, is there a way I can clear out some of the

>foam while minimizing the risk of polluting my beer?

The way to slow down your fermentation is to lower the temperature -- if

this is possible with your fermentation room.  If you are fermenting in the

basement, if you patiently search around the basement with a thermometer,

you can usually find a cooler corner.  Greg Lawrence, a fellow local

homebrewer, was having problems with too warm a fermenation room.  His

heat plant was in there, plus the dryer, plus a refridgerator, plus the

beer itself was making a lot of heat.  He solved the problem by building

a sort of foam insulation box, which insulates his fermenters from the

room -- the three uninsulated sides of the box are the cement floor and

two cement walls of the foundation.  This effectively reduced the temp

a good 10 degrees (if I recall correctly).

Another method for fermenting in a cool place if you don't have a cellar

is to ferment outdoors in an insulated box with a thermostatically controlled

heater in there -- be careful to not burn anything down!  Some have used

an old refridgerator with a light bulb for the heat, but recall the light

damage that can result, so you'll have to figure out a way to get the heat

out of the bulb without the light.  Some kind of sheetmetal baffle system

painted with flat black engine (heat resistant) paint, might be the solution.

My initial thought was (no, not the blowoff method, Norm) to suggest a larger

fermenter, but you did mention that you were having this problem specifically

with a *WHEAT* beer.  I suspect that the fact that wheat malt is higher in

the proteins that give good head retention is why the kraeusen may be lasting

so long as to come out through the airlock hole.  If, indeed this is why you

are having this problem, perhaps even a lower fermentation temp may not help.

I used to be a strong supporter of the blowoff method, but I've begun to have

my doubts.  My doubts began when I brewed my 1120 OG Lithuanian Imperial Stout.

The head retention on this beer's kraeusen was so good that not only did the

fermenter blowoff into the 1-gallon blowoff vessel (a plastic milk jug), but

the kraeusen of the blowoff vessel foamed all over the place!  I cleaned up,

dumped the blowoff vessel, added fresh water and let it finish.  When I went

to bottle the beer, I found some blowoff behind the fermenter that had dried

like a piece of styrofoam!  This is when I first began to suspect that perhaps

head-retaining proteins were being lost in the blowoff.

I plan to test this theory.

Despite this, if you cannot contain your kraeusen, I suggest that attaching

a hose (the wider diameter the better -- my blowoff hoses are 1" ID"!) and

putting the "out-end" into a bucket or jug partially filled with water is

safter than skimming or the procedure you described in your post.

Al.

------------------------------


Silver Solder on wort boilers

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1993 14:57:13 -0400 (EDT)

From: Wayde Nie <u9106857@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>

Subject: Silver Solder on wort boilers

Hi All,

 What is the collective net wisdom on using silver solder to

install the fittings into to base of a converted keg style boiler. I

would think that soldering would be less of an undertaking than

paying someone to weld SS.

                                      ///

                                     (o o)

- ---------------------------------ooO--(*)--Ooo--------------------------------

  /|||/            |   Wayde Nie, u9106857@McMail.CIS.McMaster.CA

  <o.O> bleah!     |

  ( v )     snort! |  "I stayed up all night playing poker with Tarot cards...

 --"-"--      |   I got a full house and four people died!"

  *Bill The Owl*   |     Steven Wright

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Silver Solder on wort boilers

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1993 14:57:13 -0400 (EDT)

From: Wayde Nie <u9106857@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>

Subject: Silver Solder on wort boilers

Hi All,

 What is the collective net wisdom on using silver solder to

install the fittings into to base of a converted keg style boiler. I

would think that soldering would be less of an undertaking than

paying someone to weld SS.

                                      ///

                                     (o o)

- ---------------------------------ooO--(*)--Ooo--------------------------------

  /|||/            |   Wayde Nie, u9106857@McMail.CIS.McMaster.CA

  <o.O> bleah!     |

  ( v )     snort! |  "I stayed up all night playing poker with Tarot cards...

 --"-"--      |   I got a full house and four people died!"

  *Bill The Owl*   |     Steven Wright

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Fermenting with wild abandon

Date:         Tue, 21 Sep 93 15:24:31 EDT

From: Aaron Morris <SYSAM@ALBANY.ALBANY.EDU>

Subject:      Fermenting with wild abandon

esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu queries:

> ...                                    "Is there a way to slow down the

> fermentation a bit?".  If not, is there a way I can clear out some of the

> foam while minimizing the risk of polluting my beer?....

Eugene,

   You don't want to slow down your fermentation.  You should use different

equipment.  Rather than using a fermentation valve, substitute a stopper

with a hose that runs into a bottle of H2O with a few campden tablets

disolved in it.  The foam that is clogging your fermentation valve will

pass thorugh the tubing into the jar of water/campden solution.  The system

will be a closed system and will keep any airborne nasties out of your

brew.  When the primary fermentation has settled down, remove the

stopper and replace it with a fermentation valve.  I routinely use such a

set up when brewing mead (which has a rather violent primary fermentation

                                  _________

                                 //-------//

                               _||||_     ||

                              /  ||  /    ||

                             /________/   ||

                             |        |   ||

                             |        |   ||

                             |  BREW  |  /||/

                             |        | |-||-|

                             |        | |H2O |

                             |________| |____|

------------------------------


cheap beer contest

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1993 15:47:55 -0600

From: Paul Boor <PBOOR@beach.utmb.edu>

Subject: cheap beer contest

My nomination for cheap beer goes to Goebel's (tm) lager purchased here in

Galveston, TX at $3.99 for a twelve pak.  It's great stuff, but how it ever

made it down here to our subtropical island from Detroit MI, I haven't the

foggiest.  I had read about "lawnmower beer" in the HBD, but when I put this

stuff in my lawnmower, the thing conked out.  I like drinking it better anyway

        pboor

------------------------------


Re: CO2 Connection Questions

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 15:02:20 PDT

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Re: CO2 Connection Questions

>>>>> "Chris" == Chris Cook <COOK@CDHF2.GSFC.NASA.GOV> writes:

Chris> A question about kegging and counter-pressure bottle fillers.

Chris> How do people change fittings to CO2 systems?

Chris> I have one CO2 tank that I use for everything.  That means:

Chris>   1) Storing beer. 2) Serving beer at group events.

Chris>   3) Counter-pressure bottle filling.

Chris> The only way I can connect and disconnect this stuff is to get

Chris> the wrenches out, and I worry about the wear and tear for the

Chris> connections and nylon bushings (which I usually drop at least

Chris> once).

What nylon bushings?  None of the flare fittings I have have any nylon

bushings and unless you are a gorilla on your wrenches, you should

have no trouble with repeated coupling/uncoupling of flare fittings.

Chris> Is there an easier way to make changes?  Are there

Chris> quick-disconnects for the line, or some such?  How do other

Chris> people work with CP fillers?

Sure, you could use any number of different disconnects, only they

will cost you in the range of $15 to $20 per part at wholesale prices.

I just get out the wrenches every time I want to use the CP filler.

No hassle at all.  You could also get a distribution block which is a

brass block with 6 threaded holes, one input and five output with

check valves and ball valves.  Hook up to your heart's content any

combination of things.

Dion Hollenbeck (619)455-5590x2814     Email: hollen@megatek.com

Senior Software Engineer                      megatek!hollen@uunet.uu.net

Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California    ucsd!megatek!hollen

------------------------------


Cranberry Beer

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 17:31:24 PDT

From: rkaye@denali.csc.calpoly.edu (Mr. Raytrace)

Subject: Cranberry Beer

The holiday season will soon be upon us and it is time to brew up some

ales for Xmas time. I'd like to try my hand at brewing a beer that

uses cranberries. I was a little bit disappointed by Sam Adams'

Cranberry Lambic last year -- I'd like something with more cranberry

bang.

Does anyone have a good recipe for a cranberry ale laying around? Or,

better yet, just some tips on how to use cranberries in the brewing

process. I'm aware of the pectin problem; I'm more curious of what

quantities of cranberries should be used. Also, is it ok to let

the cranberries steep in the wort after the wort is done boiling??

 -ruaok

Robert Kaye -- rkaye@denali.calpoly.edu

------------------------------


cherry beer

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 21:19:36 EDT

From: ae877@freenet.buffalo.edu (Beth Bradley)

Subject: cherry beer

Hi,  I'm new to the list(and really enjoying it) but not too

new to homebrewing.

I have a nice can of Kangabroo Lager and about 4 cups of homemade

cherry juice(also some homegrown cascade hops).  I was going to

put the cherry juice in at the beginning of the boil along

with everything else but after reding the postings about

fruit additves to beer I'm totally confused.  Now I'm

thinking of adding the juice right at the end just before

bottling.  I would appreciate any suggestions.

- --

WHILE WE HAVE PRISONS IT MATTERS LITTLE

WHICH OF US OCCUPIES THE CELLS.  -G.B.S.

------------------------------


Samuel Smith's Pale Ale & Oatmeal Stout

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1993 20:04:24 -0600 (CDT)

From: jim@n5ial.mythical.com (Jim Graham)

Subject: Samuel Smith's Pale Ale & Oatmeal Stout

Note the Reply-To address listed in my .signature---please direct replies

to me as n5ial!jim@gagme.chi.il.us.  This is temporary, but for the next

couple of weeks, it's very important.  I'd set the actual Reply-To field,

but in a digest, it would never appear anyways.....

Anyways, I was wondering if anyone had a recipe (extract or extract plus

specialty grain) for a clone of either Samuel Smith's Old Brewery Pale Ale

or Samuel Smith's Old Brewery Oatmeal Stout.

Alternatively, does anyone have a recipe for a good oatmeal stout?  One

sip from the Samuel Smith's oatmeal stout had me sold on this wonderful

variant....  (I've always been a fan of the Samuel Smith's Pale Ale...at

least, I have been for about 9--10 years or so.)  I must say, even though

I've had some pretty good stout in the past, the oatmeal stout beats all

of the others, hands down.

Oh, I should add this bit---I don't have a carboy.  I have a single-stage

fermenter, and zero money to buy a carboy.  If there is any way at all to

brew either variety in a single-stage process, please gear any responses

in that direction.  Otherwise, I'm still interested, if nothing else, for

future reference.

Thanks,

   --jim

- --

#include <std_disclaimer.h>                                  73 DE N5IAL (/4)

- -------------------------< Running Linux 0.99 PL10 >--------------------------

*** E-mail to me from now until roughly 2 Oct.:  n5ial!jim@gagme.chi.il.us ***

AMATEUR RADIO:  (packet station temporarily offline)       AMTOR SELCAL: NIAL

internet: jim@n5ial.mythical.com  |  j.graham@ieee.org     ICBM: 30.23N 86.32W

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

E-mail me for information about KAMterm (host mode for Kantronics TNCs).

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1231, 09/22/93

*************************************

-------


Grainmill information request

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 04:55:15 CDT

From: BOKENKAM@ucs.indiana.edu

Subject: Grainmill information request

I am covered with shame, embarrassment, and residue.  The

richness of HBD overwhelms me and, having other interests, I

plead guilty to precipitate zapping.  Now, I find that my

grainmill has gone south (where I foolishly sent all that HBD

wisdom) and I am in need.  I seem to remember that a new

grainmill was announced, but heeded not.  Now I quiver to know,

being desirous of fine crush (almost powderlike, with intact

husks) and minimal gelt requirements.   Gods, do not tell me that

there is a FAQ-file; do not overwhelm me with penitential test

results, but respond, I beseech thee, to

Bokenkam@ucs.indiana.edu.

Yr. humble svt.  S. Bokenkamp

------------------------------


CHERRY PORTER

Date:         Wed, 22 Sep 93 09:15:22 EDT

From: Elaine Boris <EBORIS@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>

Subject:      CHERRY PORTER

Greetings & Happy Equinox,

Back in July I had asked about making a half batch of cherry stout

in my 7 gal secondary.   I want to thank, belatedly, everyone for

their input and suggestions.  They encouraged me to give it a try.

I ended up making more of a porter than a stout and I was very

pleased with the sample I had this weekend.  The only problem is

that the carbonation is low, and no head to the beer.  There is

enough so that you wouldn't call it flat and it stays carbonated

even with a slow sipper like myself.

I used cherry extract (w/pits, unpasteurized) because several HBDers

suggested it and also the available cherries looked unwholesome.  I

started with 8 oz that I added to the primary fermenter, but when

I racked to the secondary and sampled a little, it had no cherry

flavor so I added 8oz more.  Now the cherry flavor is there but subtle.

INDEPENDENCE CHERRY PORTER                                          7/05/93

4 GALS                                                     BOTTLED  7/18/93

1     LB    EXTRA DARK DME ( -1 CUP FOR PRIMING)

1     CAN   MUNTON & FISON AMBER HOPPED MALT EXTRACT (3.3LB CAN)

1     LB    CRYSTAL MALT (CRUSHED)

2     CUPS  CHOCOLATE GRAIN MALT (CRUSHED)

1     CUPS  BLACK PATENT GRAIN MALT (CRUSHED)

1     IN    BREWING LICORICE

 .5    TSP   SALT

 .5    TSP   CALSIUM CARB

2     TSP   GYPSUM

1     OZ    NORTHERN BREWERS HOPS PELLETS    60 MIN BOIL

 .5    OZ    NORTHERN BREWERS HOPS PELLETS    30 MIN BOIL

 .5    OZ    KENT GOLDING HOPS PELLETS         5 MIN BOIL

1     PKT   WHITBREAD LIQUID ALE YEAST (WYEAST 1098)

8     0Z    CHERRY EXTRACT

8     OZ    CHERRY EXTRACT - ADDED AFTER RACKED TO SECONDARY FERMENTER

1     CUP  DME FOR PRIMING

STARTING SG . . . . .1.050    (BEFORE EXTRA CHERRY EXTRACT WAS ADDED)

  ENDING SG . . . . .1.022    (OOPS - AFTER PRIMING SUGAR WAS ADDED)

I steeped the crushed grains 45 min in 150 degree water and then sparged

with warm water into my brew kettle.  I had a vigorous fermantation going

about 5 hours (that evening when I checked) later. I racked to the glass

secondary after about 4 days, bubbling had slowed but not stopped and then

bottled about 9 days after that.

Elaine Boris                                  Student Information Systems

Computer Services Specialist                  University of Georgia

706 542-0484                                  Athens  Georgia

------------------------------


Temperature Adjustments

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 09:43:00 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kieran O'Connor <koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: Temperature Adjustments

Awhile back I read Miller's book--and finally took one of his pieces of

advice to heart.  I checked the calibration of both my Thermometers and

my hydrometer.

As it turned out--my hydrometer is ok--and my floating thermometer is.

But my bi-metal probe type thermometer was off by 4 degrees F. It has a

locking nut on it--so I boiled it in distilled water and calibrated it.

At the school I work in--in Cortland NY--we are at 1000 ft elevation, so

my science teacher friend said to calibrate it to 98C for boiling--given

the altitude.

now my question in--if the temps we use, say for mashing (148-158F) need

to be somewhat accurate--do we need to make adjustments across the board?

Shoudl i now lower my mash temps 4 degrees F when I brew in Cortland?

It seems that if I did not--the if I were mashing at 154--the real temp

would be 158F--a significant difference.

Any thoughts?

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Address: koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu

Syracuse, N.Y. USA

------------------------------


Silver soldering

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 09:57:24 EDT

From: poconnor@lager.tn.cornell.edu (Peter OConnor)

Subject: Silver soldering

Hi Brewers,

Wayde Nie asks about using silver solder on a SS wort boiler.

One problem that I see is that silver solder typically doesn't wet

Stainless steel.  You might be able to find some that specifically

does work on SS, but you should be careful to avoid leaded solders and

solders that melt at low temperatures.  You dont want that seal coming

loose in the middle of a boil. 8-).  -Pete

------------------------------


DD yeast/mash oxidation/blowoff

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 8:49:39 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: DD yeast/mash oxidation/blowoff

steveinmass asks about borrowing some yeast from Double Diamond bottles.  I had

a DD last night and didn't notice any yeast.  Shortly after I emptied the

bottle my wife poured hot frying oil in it, so if they were there they died a

horrible screaming death.  May we have a moment of silence...

 ...

I also wasn't too impressed with the pale ale but that's a different story.  Am

I the only one who's noticed this problem with ales from the UK:  they are

overcarbonated!  I'm talking about the common UK ales like DD, Bass, and

Watney's.  Now I know they carbonate them more for the US market but this is

ridiculous.  I like to be able to drink more than one sip between burps and

well, I can't with these beers.  It also doesn't help the taste any.  I much

prefer a good American pale ale these days; the imports can't touch 'em, at

least not the imports that I get (slow dock, slow boat, slow dock, slow

warehouse, slow truck/train, etc. etc.).  Of course, though I love it, SNPA is

overcarbonated IMHO, too.

 ...

Oxidation during the mash is a potential problem area, contrary to old wisdom.

When I first got into brewing, I read that hop constituents were the cause of

oxidation reactions which in turn caused stability problems.  Now, it is

apparent that malt constituents contribute to this as well.  Without getting

into details of which I know little, it will suffice to say that treating a hot

mash the same way you treat hot wort is wise (i.e. no splashing, dumping, etc.).

 ...

Al, I plan to brew a(nother) pale ale in a couple of weeks, and I would

consider trying a blowoff/non-blowoff test with it.  I could conceivably make

about a 8 gallon batch, putting 5 in my 5 gallon carboy (blowoff) and 3 in my 7

gallon carboy (non-blowoff).  The problem with this is that I couldn't then do

a secondary, which is standard at my brewery.  Any suggestions?  Am I wasting

my time?

- --

Norm Pyle, Staff Engineer         Head Brewer,

Storage Technology Corporation    Pyledriver Brewery, A Non-Profit Organization

2270 South 88th Street            1500 Elmhurst Drive

Louisville, CO 80028-0211         Longmont, CO 80503-2323

(303) 673-8884                    npyle@n33.stortek.com

------------------------------


Sam Smith Hops

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 07:56:39 PDT

From: mri10@mfg.amdahl.com (Michael Inglis)

Subject: Sam Smith Hops

Question:  Does anyone know what hop variety is used in Samual Smiths

Pale Ale for flavor/aroma?  I think it may be the same as is used in

Beck's.  Saaz perhaps?  Email is fine for answers.  Thanks.

Mike Inglis

mri10@charon.amdahl.com

------------------------------


thanks/haze/oldish starter(?)/easymasher

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 10:06 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: thanks/haze/oldish starter(?)/easymasher

Hello all,

Thanks to all those folks providing advice on converting a nat. gas stove to LP.

I was fortunate to receive a slew of response will good suggestions and care for

and my apartments well-being.

And now for some more advice:

I may have a haze in my extract/specialty grain beer.  It was several days ago

when I drew a sample to F.G. and taste.  The recipe is a modification of a NCJ

porter (amber extract with crushed crystal, choc, black, and toasted malts).

When we bottle tonight and the beer's clear there will be know worries, but FMI,

for my information, could I inflict a starch or protein haze with specialty

malts?  I had pleasing hot and cold breaks.  If find off flavors w/ haze I know

the verdict.

Speaking of beer, I was unable to brew this past weekend, leaving 2 cups of

yeast lab american ale 'starting' in a wine bottle.  Has anyone or knows of

anyone who has had a starter starting for a week.  Can I salvage it by adding

what I already have to a couple more cups of sterile wort?  Is it too late to

put the bottle in 'fridge to keep?  An air lock has been afixed since the get go

so sanitation may not be an issue.

Speaking of starters, sometime before the end of this decade, I hope to be

competent enough for all-graining.  I haven't gotten any info on the mysterious

easymasher.  If anyone could give me some info. on the item, I'd be grateful (as

in thanks, definitely not dead)

Thanks,

David

atkins@macc.wisc.edu

------------------------------


Blowoff and Silver Solder Comments....

Date: 22 Sep 1993 11:25:11 -0400 (EDT)

From: STBLEZA@grove.iup.edu

Subject: Blowoff and Silver Solder Comments....

Eugene <esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu> wrote:

>        I am having a problem with a current all-extract wheat beer I'm

>making.  I have made this same recipe several times, but this is only the

>second time I have used a liquid yeast (Wyeast Bavarian Wheat).  The

>problem is that it's fermenting so wildly, that it blows the sanitizing

>solutions out of my one-way valve and then fills the valve with foam.  The

As far as the blowoff goes, you could attach a large, sanitized balloon to the

top of your carbouy.  Remember to attach it well (I use Duct Tape), or it will

re-distribute the foam ALL OVER THE ROOM.  Also, it should be large so that it

won't burst (mine are about a foot long un-inflated).  This allows the blowoff

to not be lost, so you keep all of the material it contains (good or bad) while

not letting any nasties in.  Once the foam has gone down, I replace the

balloon with a fermentation lock.  BTW, a large mouthed fermentor won't work

with the balloon since you can't get the balloon over the mouth.  Also, don't

use condoms, they have lubricants and poisons in them.  Hope this helps.

- ------------------------------

Wayde Nie <u9106857@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca> wrote:

>Hi All,

>        What is the collective net wisdom on using silver solder to

>install the fittings into to base of a converted keg style boiler. I

>would think that soldering would be less of an undertaking than

>paying someone to weld SS.

Most silver solders contain more than 40 percent LEAD.  Since we are talking

about food related equipment (at least I assume you intend on drinking your

homebrewed beer), using lead bearing solder does not seem like a good idea.

There are, however, silver solders that don't contain lead, so be certain to

check carefully the solder you use.  Also, all of the non-lead solders that

I've personally dealt with require special equipment and techniques to use them

effectively (this has been mostly Sterling Silver wire used by audiophile

freinds), and are designed for very low resistance electrical components, not

structurial/mechanical support as you intend, so I don't know if it will hold

well.  I have heard of non-silver, non-lead solders designed for food related

and cooking equipment, but I have no idea where to get such things, or how to

use them even if I had them...

- ------------------------------

Both comments appeared in: HOMEBREW Digest #1231, 09/22/93

The Kingdom of AEthelmeark: It can't be far away, and it can't be too soon.

+*****************************************+***********************************+

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| heart, nervous system, and bowels.      |(Internet:STBLEZA@GROVE.IUP.EDU)   |

+=========================================++==================================+

 I can prove, demonstratably, that if none | The SCA... A Dream to Some,

of us looks at the Moon, it does not exist.|    A Nightmare to Others!

------------------------------


partial-mash question(s)

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 11:36:18 -0500 (cdt)

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: partial-mash question(s)

I have 27 extract brews which have at various times been under my belt, and I

am thinking about making this year's Christmas Ale a partial-mash brew.  I

don't have the equipment for all-grain, but I'd like to experiment.  I have

many questions, but I'll start with just one, in the interests of "bandwidth",

and also hoping that by getting responses to my questions one at a time,

eventually I'll get them all answered!

So here is my first question.  I have heard or thought of a couple different

ways of handling the four pounds or so of grain I'll be dealing with.  (1)

Put all the grains in a grain bag, go through the various temperature rests,

and instead of the "mashout" remove the bag and either just squeeze the

liquid out of the bag by mashing (sic) it down in a colander placed across

the top of the kettle or running 170F. water through the bag/colander or

both.  (2) Don't use a bag; at the end of the mash, dump the liquor and

grains into a kettle, then pour back through the colander to catch the grains

and then sparge; (3) get another plastic bucket and drill holes to make the

double-bucket lautering system; (4) fabricate that portable easymasher thing

with the copper tube w/ screen or choreboy attached that rises over the side

of the kettle and can drain into another vessel.  Which method would be

considered preferable, and what are the pro's/con's of each?  Is there a way

I haven't thought of?  Is there one of the above I should definitely NOT do?

Okay, so that was four questions, give me a break.

I would vastly prefer (1) or (2) for the sake of simplicity and minimal

investment of time (not fabricating things), unless I'm likely to produce off-

flavors or I might get such lousy extraction that it will not have been worth

the effort.

Sorry about the FAQ on FAQ's a while back.  Actually, the irony was not lost

on me when I posted my request, so I'm glad if some of you got a chuckle out

of it!

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell Iowa

------------------------------


Beer in Telluride?

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 11:41:27 CDT

From: lencell@unmc.edu (Lance Encell)

Subject: Beer in Telluride?

Anybody know of brew-pubs or micros in the Telluride, CO area or neighboring

towns?  Thanks,

 -Lance

------------------------------


re malt v dextrose

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 12:02:21 EDT

From: cjh@diaspar.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Chip Hitchcock)

Subject: re malt v dextrose

rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com says

>      .  Theoretically, the malt

primed beer will have better flavor stability as oxygen has been

scavenged from the bottle during the bottle fermentation.

Has anyone tested this? Miller suggests leaving very little headspace,

and not capping for a short while after filling, on the grounds that

enough CO2 will evolve to flush out the oxygen; I don't know anyone

who's measured this.

One method /not/ recommended for homebrewers due to messiness: at Old

Dominion, the owner told us his bottling machine squirts a tiny bit of hot

water into each filled bottle to make the beer foam, thus replacing O2 with

CO2. (The machine fills from the bottom and is not very high-speed; I don't

know whether high-speed machines produce enough foam just in handling the

beer.)

------------------------------


Have Brew Keg - What Now?

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 12:23:10 EDT

From: cecil@udc.com (Cecil Clontz)

Subject: Have Brew Keg - What Now?

Greetings Homebrewers,

I am new to this mail list and to homebrewing. I am on my fourth batch of Brew.

I recently aquired a 15 1/2 Gallon Brewery keg (The kind your local beverage

shop sells beer in and keeps your $50.00 deposit til you return). This Keg uses

a tap that pushes down and turns. I have several questions. 1) Where can I

get a tap (other than rent one and dont return it ).   2) can I rig this keg

to use CO2 and use it insted of bottling.  3) If I can use a regular tap,

how do I get the beer carbonated since with oxygen pumped in it will go bad

in a few days.  I know someone out there has the scoop on these ignorant

questions.

Cecil Clontz

Iguana Head Brewery

cecil@udc.com

------------------------------


kegging/infection(?) question

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 09:24:00 PDT

From: David Allison 225-5764 <ALLISON.DAVID@a1gw.gene.com>

Subject: kegging/infection(?) question

First time caller - long time listener

After kegging my beer, which was malty/low bitterness/clear, it became sour

and cloudy very quickly.  Before kegging, I allowed the beer to condition

in the secondary at 32 - 34 F for a couple of weeks and then racked to my

cornelius (sp?) keg.  While racking, I accidentally picked up some trub

(approx. 10 - 20 mL) off of the bottom of the secondary.  The corn. keg was

purged with CO2 prior to racking by filling the keg with 12 ppm BTF

iodophor and displacing it with low psi CO2.  This prevents the beer from

exposure with air.  Anyway... After force carbonation with CO2, two days

later the beer is bitter/sour/cloudy.  I allowed it to set for a couple of

weeks at 32-34 F, thinking that the stuff from the bottom of the secondary

was the culprit and it needed to settle out.  Well... That didn't work.

Any ideas/comments that can help?

Beer history:

All grain - 5 gallons

8# 2-row Belgian malt

1# Belgian caravienna malt

1/2 # Belgian Special B malt

Saaz/Hallertau hops

Wyeast German Ale Yeast (w/ starter)

American Double Mash (90 F -> 122 F -> 152 F)

3.25 gal mash water in 10 gal SS pot

3.25 gal sparge water (170 F) - grain bag/bucket w/spigot method

Immersion wort chiller

Glass primary and secondary

 - 5 day primary at 65 F (blew out air-lock due to high activity of this yeast

as discussed in previous thread)

 - 10 day secondary at 60 F

 - 2-week condition at 32 - 34 F

 - racking as stated above

Thoughts?

Thanks

 - David

(allison2@gene.com)

------------------------------


Easy Masher

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 12:42:28 -0600

From: Paul Boor <PBOOR@beach.utmb.edu>

Subject: Easy Masher

In response to the recent posting by NPyle who seems in search of streamlining

methods (rather than complicating them), I submit my EASY MASHER METHODOLOGY

with which I have brewed upward of 50+ brews, many of them great.

This methods owes its seemingly bizarre beginnings to the 20 year old book by

C.J.J. Berry, a paperback that is still found in some homebrew stores.  The

method also harkens back to postings of several months ago concerning overnight

mashing:

1) Friday night (near midnight): grind up your grain bill.

2) Heat lots of water to 180F; make up a THICK mash in your masher/spargatron

of choice.

3) Stick in your preset AQUARIUM HEATER, put on the top, plug in the heater.

4) Sack out with your significant other, if available.

5) Wake up early and stir one kettle-full of near-boiling water into the

masher/spargatron, bringing temp up toward 170F.

6) Sparge it out with 170F water.

If you insist on taking lots of temps and otherwise wasting precious time, you

will get a strike of about 155F on Friday night.  The masher/spargatron should

be of the insulated variety so frequently discussed on the HBD.  Indeee, in the

years before the great GOTT gave us coolers, I used "wastebin" wrapped up in

blankets a la C.J.J.Berry's original description.  With today's standard

insulated deal, even without tinkering with an aquarium heater, your AM strike

will be in the 125-135 range; the heater keeps it higher.

It is true: "all-graining doesn't have to be that tough!"  This method is

especially well suited to use with English (well-modified) malts and heavier

beers.

Any other easy-mashers out there???

------------------------------


cloning Samuel Smith beers

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 12:30:44 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: cloning Samuel Smith beers

An important part of getting the Samuel Smith taste is by producing elevated

levels of diacetyl in your fermentation process.   Diacetyl production by the

yeast occurs early in the fermentation proccess and is directly related to

temperature.  Diacetyl reduction by the yeast occurs later.

I accidently brewed a SSPA clone from a standard Pale Ale recipe by:

Pitching my starter into wort that was about 10F warmer than fermentation temp.

This produced the elevated levels of diacetyl.

Racking to secondary immediately after primary fermetation ceased and then

adding finings to percipitate the yeast out prematurely.

This reduces the yeast population at the point at which diacetyl gets reduced

The high level produced early coupled with the small yeast population

available for reduction will result in a beer with noticable levels of

diacetyl.

Notes:  I pitch a starter that I step up for about a week, it has about 3/8"

of slurry on the bottom of a 1.5l wine bottle.  I suspect this large yeast

population coupled with the warm temp directly effects the amount of diacety

produced.  If your starter was smaller the wort would cool while its population

expands and the level of diacetyl would be less.

I have also heard that excessive diacetyl is produced in under airated worts

does any one have information on this?

------------------------------


Can the liquid loss in a blow off setup be minimized?

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 13:11:49 EDT

From: lyons%adc1@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: Can the liquid loss in a blow off setup be minimized?

In HBD #1231 Eugene gives the following schematic for a blow-off

setup.

                                  _________

                                 //-------//

                               _||||_     ||

                              /  ||  /    ||

                             /________/   ||

                             |        |   ||

                             |        |   ||

                             |  BREW  |  /||/

                             |        | |-||-|

                             |        | |H2O |

                             |________| |____|

I used such a system recently for a OG 1054 dry stout and lost one

gallon of brew during the blow-off period.  The fermentation was

carried out at 68F using the new Red Star Ale yeast.  The tubing I'm

using between the two containers is the standard 3/8" (ID) siphon tubing.

Does anyone experienced with this technique have any tricks for

minimizing the amount of fluid loss?

Chris

------------------------------


fermentation substrate and flavor...

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 14:54:54 -0500 (CDT)

From: One Lain Meyer <meyer@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu>

Subject: fermentation substrate and flavor...

On a windy day i overheard:

#Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 11:02:14 -0400 (EDT)

#From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

#Subject: Malt/Wort vs. Dextrose Bottle Priming

#

#In HBD #1229, p.shaw5@genie.geis.com writes:

#

#> While I'm here and dyslurking, I have another question.  Other than

#> spiritual and philosophical blessings, are there any real, tangible

#> advantages to priming with DME orusing a gyre to prime?  I'm just an evil

#> barbarian extract/dry yeast brewer at this stage in my experience and while

#> lots of the stuff I make is quite decent, the flavors are always strong and

#> harsh, like a Ben & Jerry's beer.

#

#Theory tells us that due to the differences in the way that yeast ferments

#malt and corn sugar, that there will be differences in the beer according

#to the priming technique you choose: a beer primed with DME or wort will

#go through both respiration and fermentation phases of yeast

#metabolism.  During yeast respiration, the yeast consume oxygen on their

#journey to reproduction.  The corn sugar primed beer will bypass the

#respiration phase via the crabtree effect.  Theoretically, the malt

#primed beer will have better flavor stability as oxygen has been

#scavenged from the bottle during the bottle fermentation.

#

***********************************************************************

 **** Rob Reed             Internet: rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com   ****

 **** IC Design Center            Delco Electronics Corporation   ****

***********************************************************************

If there is oxygen available, then the yeast will continue from glycolysis

thru TCA and ETC, regardless of what substrate you use. (DME or corn sugar)

When the oxygen is depleated then they will reduce the pyruvate from

glycolysis into ethanol and CO2 via Acetaldehyde.

 -OLM

------------------------------


RE: Mailing Brew

Date: 22 Sep 93 15:45:00 CST

From: "DEV::SJK" <SJK%DEV.decnet@mdcgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: RE: Mailing Brew

Hi:  I just joined the club and thought I'd make my debut with my $0.02 on

Rich Ryan's question 'bout sending beer through the mail.

I regularly exchange homebrew with a buddy who has lived in Florida, Oregon,

and Nevada.  The very first time I tried to send him brew, I very cleverly

told the lady behind the counter what was in the package (they will not ask

you, you have to give yourself away).  She promptly pushed the package back

at me and said that sending liquids in bottles via the US Mail is not

something I wanted to get caught doing.  So I went to another post office.

I guess this means that the US Postal Service doesn't want us using them to

send beer.  However, I always do.

I ALWAYS send beers First Class.  It costs a lot (about $1/lb.) but the

packages I sent from Long Beach, CA to Corvallis, OR got there in two or

three days.  For me, this short time for delivery is worth the extra cost.

I like the idea that if my beer is sitting somewhere that is beer-hostile,

it won't be there for long.

Zymurgy had an article not too long ago (issue?) specifically about packaging

beer for sending to contests.  I remember that it specifically did NOT say

whether or not it is legal to send beer via UPS, US Mail, etc.  The article

was written by someone who has done a lot of UNpacking beer for contests and

he recommended that you not get carried away with packaging.  Basically, his

reason for this was that over-packaged bottles were a hassle for him to deal

with.  If you're going to send via US Mail, I would recommend the opposite.

I don't know the legal ramifications of getting beer on other people's mail

and I don't want to know (at least not from a postal inspector knocking on my

door).  I use lots of newspaper for insulation from temp extremes, cushioning,

and absorbtion (though I haven't lost one yet), and two layers of plastic for

"head retention".  Of course, packaging == money, but I want my beer there

quickly, quietly, and safely.

I called UPS ((800) 222-8333) and they said that they do NOT handle beer.

The person I spoke to acted as if she had heard this question many times

(she laughed) but said that they do handle wine "in some states".  This whole

thing may be trickier than I thought.  Is it illegal to send alcohol across

state lines, period?  Is the AHA in big trouble for encouraging this sort

of behaviour?  Somebody MUST do this.  How does Anchor send out their Xmas

Ale?  Or do they only ship within California?  Hmm...

I do have some experiences with UPS which I think are worth sharing.  First,

this very friend with which I exchange beer once worked for UPS unloading

trucks.  According to him, UPS would prefer to suffer some breakage and

compensate the customer rather than slow things down (I realize this is

hearsay and other's experiences may be different).  In support of this, my

friend and I have exchanged only one package via UPS and it was the only

time bottles arrived broken.  Also, it took MUCH longer for the package to

arrive (about 7 days instead of the 3 days which seems to be typical for 1st

Class).  I realize this is condemnation on slim evidence and the main reason

I don't use UPS is the time for delivery, though I can't say for sure that

spoilage has been a problem.  Perhaps they offer a speedier but cheaper

service similar to 1st Class.

Hopes this helps.  I guess Rich's question still stands.  Anyone know the

legal way?

Scott Kaczorowski

sjk%c17fcs.decnet@mdcgwy.mdc.com

------------------------------


Zymurgy and Tix to GABF

Date:         22 Sep 93 16:41:06 CST

From: "Dennis Lewis"  <DLEWIS%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject:      Zymurgy and Tix to GABF

I just got the latest Zymurgy last night (I'm reserving comment until

it gets further inspection.) and a card fell out inviting me to a

*special* AHA-members only beer tasting on October 9 from 2-5pm.

You'll need a valid ID, a GABF ticket stub, and this postcard (no

mention of *needing* an AHA membership card or anything like that).

Anyway, I'm not going to the GABF, but I'd hate for someone to miss

out on such an *exclusive* event because of some silly regulation

like membership in the AHA. So, I'll mail this invitation to the first

person (presumably, a non-AHA member) who e-mails me with their

address.

The early bird gets wormed,

Dennis Lewis                    <dlewis%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


soldering keg fittings

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 08:21:00 -0600

From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

Subject: soldering keg fittings

In HBD 1231, Wayde Nie <u9106857@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>

asked about Silver Solder on wort boilers

WN> What is the collective net wisdom on using silver solder to

  > install the fittings into to base of a converted keg style

  > boiler. I would think that soldering would be less of an

  > undertaking than paying someone to weld SS.

First, I'm not sure that you could get it to effectively bond to the

stainless.

Second, if you did get it to stick, you'd run the risk of having the

solder melt from the heat you're applying to the wort.

Third, solder is composed (I believe) of tin, lead, and antimony. I

don't think I'd want to take the chance of exposing my acidic wort

to that particular composition and risk some of it disolving in my

wort.

The welding shouldn't cost you more that $20 if you find the

stainless pipe nipple for the welder and pre-drill the hole.

You might also check out the brass fittings at a good hardware

store. I'm sure you can find some sort of compression fitting that

will do the trick.

Better yet, offer to trade homebrew for welding. That's what I did.

Chuck

 * RM 1.2 00946 *

------------------------------


wierd yeast activity

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 08:21:00 -0600

From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

Subject: wierd yeast activity

All,

I'm making an all-grain pale ale using Yeast Labs American Ale

yeast (Hey, it's all I had available at the time!).

I have never seen a yeast act this peculiar. I made a starter 9/9.

The yeast was relatively fresh; the good until date was the end of

October. The yeast took 36 hours to start working, and then it was

very subdued.

Once added to the wort (at 70 deg. F) it took 24 hours to give any

evidence of working. After noticing reduced ferm. lock activity

after three days, I racked to secondary.

The yeast acts like it is still in primary fermentation phase. It

still is producing a "cap" of sticky bubbles after about 9 days in

the secondary (at 68 deg.). If I slightly agitate the carboy the

bubbles collapse into large floculante (?) (large pieces of yeast-

beastie stuff that falls to the bottom of the carboy), and then the

bubbles immediately re-form into a cap. Fermentation lock activity

is now at about the once every 30 seconds stage, but the bubbles

persist.

I have never seen anything like this before. Has anyone used this

yeast stain before or experienced this?

Chuck

 * RM 1.2 00946 *

------------------------------


St. Pat's of Texas

Date:    Wed, 22 Sep 93 22:11:52 GMT

From: sbsgrad%sdph.span@Sdsc.Edu

Subject: St. Pat's of Texas

From: Steve Slade <sslade@ucsd.edu>

Date sent:  22-SEP-1993 15:10:39 PT

Could some kind soul please send me, by private email, the phone # for St.

Pat's of Texas? Seems I lost it in the last disc purge/backup.

Thanks,

Steve Slade

reply to: sbsgrad%sdph.span@sdsc.edu  or  sslade@ucsd.edu

------------------------------


Brazing vs Silver-soldering vs TIG welding

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 17:54:49 -0600

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Brazing vs Silver-soldering vs TIG welding

Someone asked about silver-soldering vs welding nipples onto kegs...

Be very cautious of silver solders, as most of them are about 96% tin.

As others have pointed out here, tin is not compatible with hot wort.

A third option is to braze the nipple.  Brazing is similar to

soldering, except that higher temperatures and different alloys are

used.  Because of the higher temps involved, a simple propane torch

will not suffice.  However, I just finished brazing my nipple, (this

is beginning to sound like S&M) using a combination propane/oxygen

torch.  This heats the SS up to bright cherry red, hot enough to

braze.  I believe a MAPP gas torch will also work, I think a MAPP

cylinder can simply be used in place of propane on a standard propane

torch for a hotter flame.  The brazing rod I used was called

Copper-Phosphorous. I checked the MSDS for these and there didn't

seem to be anything in it that would be bad for me or my beer (note

there is _no_ cadmium or other heavy metals in these rods).

All of this equipment/materials can be purchased at any good hardware

store/home center, for much less than the cost of a MIG or TIG setup.

Kelly

------------------------------


Barley diseases

Date:         Wed, 22 Sep 93 17:13:51 PDT

From: MURRAYT@WSUVM1.CSC.WSU.EDU

Subject:      Barley diseases

In the HBD on 14 Sep 93, korz@iepubj.att.com wrote the about production of

various malting barley varieties in the U.S.  I have heard from two different

sources now that most of the malting barley in the midwest and upper great

plains (Minnesota, North & South Dakota) has been damaged/destroyed this year

due to scab.  Scab, or head blight, is caused by a fungus that produces several

mycotoxins, among them vomitoxin, which prevents the sale of contaminated

grain.  One book I read says that "beer made with scabby barley takes on

a 'gushy' or excessive foaming characteristic. However, because of strict

grading standards, scabby barley is not used by the brewing industry today."

As little as 3% scabby barley can be toxic to hogs, but other livestock

do not react the same.  If I remember correctly, some of the mycotoxins

produced by this fungus have been implicated as potential carcinogens too.

The excessive rain this spring and summer in the region is to blame for

the above-normal amounts of scab.  This means that malters will likely be

buying grain from other areas of the country, like Washington, which do not

normally produce large amounts of malting barley. I have not heard whether this

is expected to affect price and/or supply.

Tim Murray

Dept. of Plant Pathology

Washington State University

MURRAYT@WSUVM1.CSC.WSU.EDU

------------------------------


Interactive CD-ROM

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 22:57:18 -0400

From: Marty Hicks <martyh@kitchen.mcad.edu>

Subject: Interactive CD-ROM

Are there any home brewers out there interested in an interactive CD-ROM with

beautiful graphics and animation that describes the history, process and

products of brewing? A group of people including myself has begun thinking

seriously about such a project and has started producing prototypes. How much

money would such a CD be worth to you? Would it be more attractive with a

sponsor? We would appreciate your input.

Marty

- -----------------------------------------------

Jon Martin Hicks   martyh@mcad.edu

- -----------------------------------------------

CERRELUS

Virtual Worlds, Intermedia

2223 Stewart Avenue

Saint Paul, MN 55116

- -----------------------------------------------

Phone: (612) 699-0083   Fax: (612) 699-0083

- -----------------------------------------------

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1232, 09/23/93

*************************************

-------


Re: Barley diseases

Date: 	Thu, 23 Sep 1993 06:05:05 PDT

From: wegeng.XKeys@xerox.com

Subject: Re: Barley diseases

In HBD #1232, Tim Murray writes:

>I have heard from two different

>sources now that most of the malting barley in the midwest and upper great

>plains (Minnesota, North & South Dakota) has been damaged/destroyed this year

>due to scab. [...] I have not heard whether this

>is expected to affect price and/or supply.

I have not heard about this problem, but I do recall hearing that there is

currently about a one year surplus supply of barley in storage in the US.  If

this is true, then the scab problem may not have much affect on the price of

barley.

/Don

wegeng.xkeys@xerox.com

------------------------------


re: Barley Disease

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 08:35:35 -0500

From: Todd Enders - WD0BCI <enders@plains.NoDak.edu>

Subject: re: Barley Disease

In HBD #1232, MURRAYT@WSUVM1.CSC.WSU.EDU writes:

>

>In the HBD on 14 Sep 93, korz@iepubj.att.com wrote the about production of

>various malting barley varieties in the U.S.  I have heard from two different

>sources now that most of the malting barley in the midwest and upper great

>plains (Minnesota, North & South Dakota) has been damaged/destroyed this year

>due to scab.

     I wouldn't go so far as to say most.  Local Ag. reporters have said the

damage runs in the neighborhood of 30% recently.  More worrisome is the fact

that harvest is running *very* late around here due to excessive moisture.

The longer drydown times have left the remainder of the unharvested small

grain crops at risk for diseases, but I haven't heard of large losses due

to this, yet.

     Malting and feed barley aren't the only things effected.  The wheat

crop is also suffering from scab.  This has put some of the export customers

ill at ease about purchasing wheat (cf. China).

>

> [...]

>

>The excessive rain this spring and summer in the region is to blame for

>the above-normal amounts of scab.  This means that malters will likely be

>buying grain from other areas of the country, like Washington, which do not

>normally produce large amounts of malting barley. I have not heard whether

>this is expected to affect price and/or supply.

>

     In the upper Great Plains, the predominant varieties of malting barley

are of the 6-row type (Morex, Larker, Robust), employed primarily by the

big industrial brewers (AB, Miller, Stroh).  In fact, *very* little 2-row

is grown around here (< 5% of total), with most of the 2-row production

coming from the Northwest.  If indeed maltsters are buying from other areas,

6-row malt may be in short supply.  This hasn't manifested itself in higher

prices for malting barley (at least not around here).  The homebrewing

market probably has little to worry about.  However, I suspect the mega

breweries are at least somewhat nervous.

===============================================================================

Todd Enders - WD0BCI                  ARPA: enders@plains.nodak.edu

Computer Center                       UUCP: ...!uunet!plains!enders

Minot State University                  or: ...!hplabs!hp-lsd!plains!enders

Minot, ND  58701                     Bitnet: enders@plains

===============================================================================

------------------------------


MASH TUN = LAUTER TUN

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 08:41 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject:  MASH TUN = LAUTER TUN

 >From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

 >Subject: Tuns/Sparging

 >First of all , Jack, mash tun != lauter tun, at least for most serious

 brewers who are using any system other than single infusion or your

 EasyWidgets.  The objective of a mash tun is to convert starches to

 fermentable sugars and dextrins. The objective of a lauter tun is extract

 these fermentable sugars and dextrins without extracting tannins from the

 malt husks.

 Not sure of your symbolism but if "!=" means not equal, the advent of

 "EasyWidgets" suggests it is time to change the definition.  With an

 easymasher (note lower case) installed, the mash tun becomes the lauter tun

 simply by opening the spigot.

 > I have brewed all grain batches in 4 different systems over the past 5

 years, and no matter what the size of the lauter tun, the recirc time is in

 the order of 10-15 minutes.

 Is it possible that none of those four different systems was an easymasher?

 It takes less than a minute with the em.  Furthermore, I do not see what time

 has to do with the issue.  It is the volume that must be recycled that

 effects the characteristics that were brought up.  If a cup or two has to be

 poured back into the tun, it would have little effect on anything and would

 not even qualify for calling it "recirculating".  If 5 gallons have to be

 recirculated, it is a different ball game.

 I hate to always sound like I am trying to sell something when this subject

 comes up but the fact is, the easymasher has revolutionised home brewing as

 anyone who has ever used one will testify to.  Few of the age old problems

 and concerns apply to it.

 Someone asked what an easymasher is and I waited a discreet amount of time

 hoping someone else would respond but as no one did, here is a brief

 description.  Please note that this device can be easily made from hardware

 store stuff and whether you make one or buy one makes little difference to

 me.  That is the reason for the lower case/upper case business.

 The following is taken from my article on kettle mashing and anyone wishing

 the whole article can receive same via email.

         BRASS

         SPIGOT          FEMALE

           |           CONNECTOR

           |               |

        ________    |      |

        /_____  /   |      |

              | |   |   ____

      ________|_|___****____|_____   COPPER TUBING

     /  _______X____    ____ ____ /     /

    / /             ****____|    / /   /     SS SCREEN

   /_/              |             / /            |

                    |              / /----##################

                    |               /-----##################

                    -----BOTTOM------------------------------

                            FIG. 1

 Fig. 1 shows an exploded view of the spigot and strainer.  The strainer is

 simply a 2 x 6 inch piece of screen, rolled into a six inch tube and clamped

 to the copper tube.  The last half inch is bent over itself to seal it off.

 The copper tube has a double bend in it to allow it to be rotated so that the

 end is right on the bottom leaving almost no wort behind.  It is easily

 removed for cleaning.

 The spigot passes through a clearance hole drilled in the kettle and is

 retained by the female connector and a washer to take up the treads and make

 a tight fit.

 ..............

 >From: franc!kstiles@woomera.att.com

 >Subject: 1993 Hop Harvest

                      Dried weight (oz)

 Variety         1992                    1993

 ========        ========                ========

 Chinook          10 1/2                  5 1/2

 The only hops I had in last year were Chinook but the yield on two vines went

 from less than one dried ounce to about six this year.  I used 50 grams in

 the last 10 gallon batch and the bittering seems about what I expect from a

 similar weight of commercial pellets.

 js

------------------------------


Columbus OH pubs

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 10:00:26 EDT

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: Columbus OH pubs

It looks like I will be in Columbus OH next week.  I would appreciate

any recommendations for pubs/brewpubs.  I saw these in the publist, any

comments?

Ohio -- Columbus:

  Columbus Brewing Co.

    Microbrewery

  Growlers Brewpub - 1380 Bethel Rd; 43220 (614)451-0108

    Brewpub which is now closed

  Hoster Brewing Co

    Brewpub

e-mail responses please. Thanks in advance.

- --

Jim Grady              |"Root beer burps don't have to be said 'Excuse me'."

grady@hp-mpg.an.hp.com |                Robert Grady, age 4.75

------------------------------


Bittering Hops

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 09:38:02 -0500

From: Brian R Seay  </G=Brian/I=R/S=Seay/O=MAC/PRMD=ALCATEL/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=US/@alcatel.aud.alcatel.com>

Subject: Bittering Hops

                       Subject:                               Time:8:28 AM

  OFFICE MEMO          Bittering Hops                         Date:9/23/93

In the spirit of "There are no stupid questions":

All of the hop oils in the lupulin glands of boiling hops are boiled away

during a 60 minute boil.  The hop oils are the source of hop flavor and

aroma, so there should be no hop flavor or aroma contributed by the

boiling hops.  Therefore, one ounce of Northern Brewer @ 10% alpha could

be substituted for two ounces of Willamette @ 5% alpha.  The same

bitterness would be achieved and there would be no perceptable

difference in taste.  Right?  Probably not.  Where is the flaw in my

thinking?

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

 -Brian

------------------------------


A few questions.

Date: 23 Sep 1993 10:44:02 U

From: "Walker John" <jwalker@msmac.prc.hq.nasa.gov>

Subject: A few questions.

1. Does anyone know of an outlet on the east coast for Upper Canada beers?

2. Are there any vendors selling 7 oz. brown bottles.

3. Are there any publications of old recipes of American beers? There are a few

great books for English beers, but I have not seen one for the US. Also, if

anyone has old recipes, either from family or professional brewers, I would

love to see them.

John Walker

jwalker@prc.hq.nasa.gov

------------------------------


Soldering/brazing, etc.

Date: 23 Sep 93 07:00:00 EST

From: "PAUL EDWARDS" <8260PE@indy.navy.mil>

Subject: Soldering/brazing, etc.

To add my couple of pence worth to the soldering discussion:

Those who suggest that brazing is the way to go are on the right track.

Soldering is a much lower temperature process and doesn't provide

nearly the strength that brazing does.

I've successfully brazed fittings on SS pots using "Safety-Silv 1200" rod.

The manufacturer, J. W. Harris, says its suitable for food processing

equipment.  The exact metallurgic composition escapes me, but the major

components are silver and copper, with a small amount of zinc and a tiny

bit of tin.  I've never experienced haze problems or metallic off-flavors

in beers brewed in the pots with this braze.  Flux is boric acid, I believe,

and comes off with hot water and scrubbing with a wire brush.

I've used Safety-Silv 1200 to braze numerous bicycle frames, without a joint

failure, so it provides a fairly strong joint.  I use either Mapp gas with

a Turbo head or one of those propane/oxygen setups from the h/w store.  As

you probably can guess the brazing rod melts in the 1200 deg F range.

I've read that prolonged heating of SS above 1200-1400 degrees can cause

it to become brittle, so be careful.  I'd suggest practicing on the

portion of the keg you've cut off.

Whatever brazing rod you choose, make sure it has no lead and

*** NO CADMIUM ***.  Cadmium fumes will kill quicker than you can say

"Rheinheitsgebot".

One last thing, I wouldn't trust a brazed joint to be "sanitary" in the

same sense that professionally welded and ground would be, so I wouldn't

use this method on fermenters and the like.  Just on Hot liquor tanks,

mash-tuns and boilers.

One final thing, Silver braze flows like water when it reaches liquidus,

and won't fill gaps of more than .001 or so, in my experience.  Make

sure you have a good tight joint before lighting up that torch...

  -- Paul Edwards

------------------------------


Keg Forced Carbonation Confusion

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 8:55:28 PDT

From: John McCaffrey <johnmc@brooktree.com>

Subject: Keg Forced Carbonation Confusion

Boy, am I confused.  I setup my kegging system about a week and a half

ago and had problems getting enough carbonation/head.  I used the method

outlined in Cliff Tanner's Braukunst catalog and after 3 days, my beer

seemed to be carbonated OK but had little or no head.  Since then, I

have researched this further and found that there is no consistency

whatsoever regarding the temperatures and pressures needed for both

force carbonating and dispensing.  Can anyone shed some light on this?

Here are the various methods I've uncovered.....

Braukunst Method:

Chill beer to your liking (40 degrees), determine how carbonated you

want it (2.25 atmospheres for ales, 2.75 atm for lagers), look up your

beer temp and carbonation (in atm) on the big chart and determine the

saturation pressure needed to carbonate (my Red Ale came out to 9.5 psi

at 40 degrees), pressurize to that pressure and let sit for 2-3 days,

dispense at 2-3 psi GREATER than the carbonating pressure.

Charlie P. Method (from TNCJOHB):

Chill beer (40 degrees), pressurize to 25-30 psi, let sit for two

days (or shake vigorously for 5-10 min), then dispense at 5 psi.

Williams Brewing Supply method (from mail order catalog):

Chill beer (no temp specified), pressurize (no pressure specified) and

wait FIVE days, no dispense pressure specified

Bob Clark's Method (from HBD Archives 6/7/93):

Chill beer (no temp specified), pressurize to 30 psi, wait 3-4 days.

Then dispense at 8-10 psi.

Mark Parshall's method (from HBD Archives 6/3/93):

Chill beer (40 degrees), pressurize to 25-30 psi, let sit for 3-5 days,

lower regulator to 10 psi to dispense (he says this generates too much head).

Mark Parshall's friend's method (from HBD Archives 6/3/93):

Chill beer (40 degrees), pressurize to 40-50 psi, shake vigorously for

15 minutes, no dispense pressure specified.

HELP!  What's a kegger to do?

------------------------------


campden/cranberries/oatmeal stout

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 10:57:55 -0500 (cdt)

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: campden/cranberries/oatmeal stout

I'm a couple of days behind in my digest reading.  I suppose you could say

that I am suffering from indigestion.

Anyway, in #1231 Aaaron Morris recommends Campden tablets in the blowoff

bucket.  What does the campden do?  I've never heard of this.

In this same issue, Robert Kaye asks about cranberry ale.  I have a recipe at

home which I haven't tried yet, but it was posted to the HBD a year or so ago

I think.  The author recommended putting frozen cranberries in the pot at the

end of the boil - incidentally, helping the cooling along - and letting them

sit for awhile, then racking the wort off the berries and break material.

Anyone else tried this?

And finally, Jim Graham asks about Oatmeal Stout.  Jim, if you are an extract

brewer, try William's Oatmeal Dark extract.  I used it once and was real

pleased with it.  If you're not an extract brewer, well, then you certainly

don't want MY advice!  I usually follow Al K.'s advice and just do single

stage for ales, especially dark ones, unless I am dry-hopping.

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


silver solder

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 10:08:51 MDT

From: pjd@craycos.com (Phil Duclos)

Subject: silver solder

 Let's get one thing straight, silver solder is not your typical

plumbing or electrical solder. It does not contain lead, although it may

contain other undesirable metals, and it melts at ~1100 F. It does not

contain tin either. It is used for refrigeration, precious metals, etc...

where strength is required. It comes in many melting points and mixtures and

is more like brazing than soldering.  It requires significant heat, and on

stainless, that means an oxy/acetylene torch. Joints are strong, but tend

to be brittle and because of that it may be unsuitable for the roughhouse

brewery environment. It does not meet sanitation requirement per typical

health codes. The technique is difficult to get right so its not for a

beginner to welding. All that said, it is cheaper than TIG and may be a

good choice for someone properly equipped and trained. A nice TIG job on

a brew kettle should only cost $10->20 so, its not unreasonable to have a

really nice job. Trading for beer might be possible too. I plan to add a

sight tube and thermometer to my hot liquor tank and I expect to pay almost

as much for the fittings as the welding job. Its not all that cheap, but it

sure looks nice!

phil duclos

------------------------------


Fuller's water treatment

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 09:55:24 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Fuller's water treatment

A while ago I sent out some requests to a few English Ale Brewers,

most notably Fuller Smith & Turner P.L.C., for information about

their water treatments.  Hey, it was worth a shot.  Fuller's

Brewing Director, R.H. Drury, responded thusly:

 "I am not able to tell you the mineral content of our Brewing

 water for commercial reasons.  Suffice to say it is not the

 typical London analysis which is too high in carbonates and

 is therefore "burtonised" to some extent."

In light of the most recent issue of Brewing Techniques and Karl King's

article on water treatment which shows that "burtonized" water is much

higher in carbonates than London water:

 Ca CO3 SO4 Mg Na Cl

        ------------------------------------------

Burton 275 260 450 40 25 35

London 90 125 40 5 15 20

What is Mr. Drury talking about?  Does he mean that Fuller's water is

"...therefore "burtonised" to some extent" or does he mean London water?

It may be important to note that Fuller's Brewery is in London, and perhaps

he is switching names (Burton <==> London).  On the other hand,  in

Fuller's Cask Conditioned ESB I detect a front of the tongue and behind the

teeth sharpness, a tang, almost a mild "furriness".  High sulfate?

Am I making too much of water treatment?

Since I mentioned the most recent issue of Brewing Techniques, I'd just

like to say that I'm very impressed with the publication.  I actually

found 3 out of 4 of the features and articles of compelling and

immediate interest (at this time I'm not charged up about rye), even so

I found the rye article well written and full of good information. (This

contrasts greatly with articles about labels).  I am particularly looking

forward to the next issue's "Practical Guidelines for Cask Conditioning

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Lambic Cultures

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 13:18:10 EDT

From: steve@garnet.spawar.navy.mil (Steve Jacobs)

Subject: Lambic Cultures

I'm interested in brewing some p-Lambics, can anyone point me to a source

(preferably non-commercial) of the following cultures:

 brettanomyces lambicus

 brettanomyces bruxellensis

 pediococcus damnosus

Thanks,

Steve Jacobs

------------------------------


Subscription Request

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 13:44:59 -0400

From: arndtr@acs.bu.edu (Randy Arndt)

Subject: Subscription Request

New subscription to arndtr@acs.bu.edu

------------------------------


Re: Sam Smith Hops

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 10:43:53 -0700

From: paul@rational.com (Paul Jasper)

Subject: Re: Sam Smith Hops

On 22 Sep,  7:56, Michael Inglis wrote:

> Subject: Sam Smith Hops

>

> Question:  Does anyone know what hop variety is used in Samual Smiths

> Pale Ale for flavor/aroma?  I think it may be the same as is used in

> Beck's.  Saaz perhaps?  Email is fine for answers.  Thanks.

>

>-- End of excerpt from Michael Inglis

"The European Beer Almanac" by Roger Protz lists the ingredients for

Samuel Smith's Old Brewery Pale Ale as "Pale ale and crystal malts.

Fuggles and Goldings hops.  30 units of bitterness.  Top fermenting

yeast."  ABV 5%; degrees Plato 12; OG 1048.  It is fermented in

Yorkshire stone squares.

- --

- -- Paul Jasper

- -- RATIONAL

- -- Object-Oriented Products

- --

------------------------------


Minimizing Blow-off Loss

Date: 23 Sep 93 13:39:00 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A@hq.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Minimizing Blow-off Loss

The following attachments were included with this message:

__________________________________________________________________

TYPE     : FILE

NAME     : BLOW_OFF

__________________________________________________________________

>In HBD #1231 Eugene gives the following schematic for a blow-off

>setup.

                                  _________

                                 //-------//

                               _||||_     ||

                              /  ||  /    ||

                             /________/   ||

                             |        |   ||

                             |        |   ||

                             |  BREW  |  /||/

                             |        | |-||-|

                             |        | |H2O |

                             |________| |____|

>I used such a system recently for a OG 1054 dry stout and lost one

>gallon of brew during the blow-off period.  The fermentation was

>carried out at 68F using the new Red Star Ale yeast.  The tubing I'm

>using between the two containers is the standard 3/8" (ID) siphon tubing.

>Does anyone experienced with this technique have any tricks for

>minimizing the amount of fluid loss?

>Chris

        Sure, switch to a 1" ID plastic hose and move the bucket of water

        to a height about 2 feet above the top of the carboy.  Most of the

        beer kicked out during the blow-off period can't make it out and

        falls back into the carboy.  I use this system for any beer with an

        OG of at least 1.050.  Lower strength beers tend not to kick out

        as much fluid.

        Cheers,

        Andy A

------------------------------


Usage of Silver Solder Alloys

Date: 23 Sep 1993 11:39:04 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Usage of Silver Solder Alloys

Hey Group,

I noticed the post on using Silver based Brazing (soldering)

alloys. This is a good alternative to welding of fittings.

In addition, it allows the use of copper tubing and fittings

into the stainless steel tanks. There is the potential for some

galvanic corrosion of the copper in preference to the silver.

While I cannot predict the rate, I think it will be quite small;

small cathode, big anode, etc.  Be sure to use a flux for Stainless

Steel before attempting to braze or it won't stick. Use a slightly

reducing flame and type 3A flux.

Silver Solder does not contain lead, but some of the alloys

contain Cadmium, which is worse. I don't know if it will leach out,

 but if it does, it will cause heavy metal poisening. The American

Welding Society alloy designations are listed below, don't use

the alloys containing Cadmium.

Here's the table.

Table of Silver-based brazing (soldering) alloys

AWS    Composition(a), %

spec.    Ag          Cu           Zn         Others

BAg-l    44.0-46.0   14.0-16.0   14.0-18.0   23.0-25.0 Cd

BAg-la   49.0-51.0   14.5-16.5   14.5-18.5   17.0-19.0 Cd

BAg-2    34.0-36.0   25.0-27.0   19.0-23.0   17.0-19.0 Cd

BAg-2a   29.0-31.0   26.0-28.0   21.0-25.0   19.0-21.0 Cd

BAg-3    49.0-51.0   14.5-16.5   13.5-17.5   16 Cd, 3 Ni

BAg-4    39.0-41.0   29.0-31.0   26.0-30.0   1.5-2.5 Ni

BAg-5    44.0-46.0   29.0-31.0   23.0-27.0   ...

BAg-6    49.0-51.0   33.0-35.0   14.0-18.0   ...

BAg-7    55.0-57.0   21.0-23.0   15.0-19.0   4.5-5.5 Sn

BAg-8    71.0-73.0   Rem         ...         ...

BAg-8a   71.0-73.0   Rem         ...         0.25-0.50 Li

BAg-13   53.0-55.0   Rem         4.0-6.0     0.5-1.5 Ni

BAg-13a  55.0-57.0   Rem         ...         1.5-2.5 Ni

BAg-18   59.0-61.0   Rem         ...         10 Sn, .025 max P

BAg-l9   92.0-93.0   Rem         ...         0.15-0.30 Li

BAg-20   29.0-31.0   37.0-39.0   30.0-34.0   ...

BAg-21   62.0-64.0   27.5-29.5   ...         6 Sn, 2.5 Ni

(a) Total maximum allowable impurities in each alloy is 0.15%.

AWS         Solidus       Liquidus          Brazing

spec.        temp.         temp.              temp.

          F       C       F      C        F            C

BAg-l    1125    607    1145    618    1145-1400    618-760

BAg-la   1160    627    1175    635    1175-1400    635-760

BAg-2    1125    607    1295    702    1295-1550    702-843

BAg-2a   1125    607    1310    710    1310-1550    710-843

BAg-3    1170    632    1270    688    1270-1500    688-816

BAg-4    1240    671    1435    779    1435-1650    779-899

BAg-5    1250    677    1370    743    1370-1550    743-843

BAg-6    1270    688    1425    774    1425-1600    774-871

BAg-7    1145    618    1205    652    1205-1400    652-760

BAg-8    1435    779    1435    779    1435-1650    779-899

BAg-8a   1410    766    1410    766    1410-1600    766-871

BAg-13   1325    718    1575    857    1575-1775    857-968

BAg-13a  1420    771    1640    893    1600-1800    871-982

BAg-18   1115    602    1325    718    1325-1550    718-843

BAg-l9   1435    779    1635    891    1610-1800    877-982

BAg-20   1250    677    1410    766    1410-1600    766-871

BAg-21   1275    691    1475    802    1475-1650    802-899

Notes: Ag is Silver, Cu is Copper, Zn is Zinc, Cd is Cadmium,

 Ni is Nickel, Sn is Tin, Li is Lithium, and P is Phosporus.

Cadmium is toxic when it gets into the blood stream and causes

 heavy metal poisening, similar to lead, but worse.  While I am

not sure that it will leach out of the soldered joint like lead,

 it might, don't use those alloys.

Solidus is the temperature when the alloy starts to melt upon

heating, Liquidus is the temperature when it is completely melted.

Or conversly, Liquidus is when it starts to solidify on cooling,

 Solidus is when it is completely solid.

John Palmer

MDA-SSD M&P

Support Space Station!

------------------------------


Keg system setup

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 12:48:09 -0400 (EDT)

From: Wayde Nie <u9106857@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>

Subject: Keg system setup

In HBD 1232, Cecil Clontz Sez:

<I recently aquired a 15 1/2 Gallon Brewery keg (The kind your local beverage

<shop sells beer in and keeps your $50.00 deposit til you return). This Keg

<uses a tap that pushes down and turns. I have several questions.

 My housemates and I have been using a CO2 charged, brewers retail

style kegging system for almost a year now and don't know how we ever got

along without it.  This sounds, from your description, to be exactly what

you want. We like this setup as opposed to the cornelius (SP?) one

mainly because it can be used for homebrew and we can dispense commercial

swill for our parties. This leaves our precious brew for us!

 First of all, for your homebrew, I'd find a more suitable sized

keg.  Here in Canada, Brewer's Retail offers a "cylinder"  (22 liters)

which is roughly 5 Gal for $20 deposit.  We have found this size to be

great for our single batches.  Save your 15 1/2 Gal keg to make a good brew

kettle. (As per any of the suggestions in the HBD archives)

<1) Where can I get a tap (other than rent one and don't return it ).

 All of our equipment came from a co called Johnson Enterprises in

Illinois. They were very helpful and supplied us with exactly what we

needed to convert an old fridge. (I have no affiliation with Johnson, just

a satisfied customer, BlahBlahBlahBlah....)

 for a basic fridge conversion you will need:

  i) A CO2 cylinder, ours is a 20lb tank and thats PLENTY.

   It has been on line for almost a year and is still

   quite full.

  ii) A CO2 regulator, IMHO a 2 gauge reg. is comforting and

   really only a few bucks more. (one gauge for tank

   presure (optional) the other is for line presure (a

   must)).

  iii) A "Sankey" coupler. (the twist and push down type)

   this is what connects to your keg. It has two threaded

   connectors, one for beer out :-) and the other for CO2

   in.

   iv) Faucet assembly. This is the actual tap with all the

   necessary hardware for mounting. (fridge door, under

   the bar, beside your bed, etc...8*))

  v) Proper pressure hoses and clamps to hook the whole

   thing together.

 Except for the CO2 tank and fridge, we got the entire setup UPS'ed

across the border and to our front door in about a week for less than $200

Canadian. (Worth *EVERY* penny).

<2) can I rig this keg to use CO2 and use it instead of bottling.

 Yep, we do this routinely! Inside the "beer out" hole of the

sankey you'll find a small rubber "pea" with acts as a backflow valve. If

you carefully poke this pea out (remember, it has to go back in later!) you

can siphon your beer into the keg through this hole. The connectors on

the Sankey seem to have odd threads (at least we can't seem to find a

match locally).  Therefore, we'd recommend buying an extra female

beer line connector to hook your siphoning hose to the sankey.  To carbonate,

put the full keg under about 30 - 40 lbs of pressure from your CO2 tank and

shake like mad (the keg, not you) for about 1-2 min. Repeat this in another

couple of hours and let the keg sit over night under this presure. The next

day, bleed off the excess keg pressure, reduce your CO2 reg. to about

10-15 lbs, and enjoy a *Sediment free* draught homebrew! (**This requires

NO extra sugar at kegging time**) Don't be distressed if the first few draws

are mostly foam, this is normal.  If the foaming continues, play with the

reg pressure.  This is an outline of our process, others may have slightly

different ones, but this works well for us.

<3) If I can use a regular tap, how do I get the beer carbonated since with

<oxygen pumped in it will go bad in a few days.

 This setup uses CO2 and a properly cared for keg will last for

quite some time. (Can't give you solid dates, ours are alway gone within a

couple weeks...(Hick!) Hope all this helps, if you want us to clarify

anything then feel free to EMail us back directly.

PS. here's there phone number.

  Johnson Enterprises, INC,

  Rockford, Illinios

  (800)435-6950

                                      ///

                                     (o o)

- ---------------------------------ooO--(*)--Ooo--------------------------------

  /|||/            |   Wayde Nie, u9106857@McMail.CIS.McMaster.CA

  <o.O> bleah!     |

  ( v )     snort! |  "I stayed up all night playing poker with Tarot cards...

 --"-"--      |   I got a full house and four people died!"

  *Bill The Owl*   |     Steven Wright

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Speaking In Tongues

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 15:25:31 -0400 (EDT)

From: Michael Ligas <ligas@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>

Subject: Speaking In Tongues

===========================================================================

The following list was compiled by schuyler@rest.tasc.com. I'm hoping

that you folks will enjoy it and send me additions and/or corrections. It

might be best if comments were mailed directly to me to avoid a potential

avalanche of posts to the digest. I'll update the list and re-post it when

replies have subsided. Take care. - ligas@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca

===========================================================================

TRAVELLERS' VOCABULARY LIST

Afrikaans:      oke

Albanian:       birre" (e" = e-umlaut, pronounced approx. schwa)

Arabic:         bira (birra)

Armenian:       garejure (transliteration)

Basque:         garagarnoa

Breton:         bier

Bulgarian:      bira

Burmese:        biya (transliteration)

Cantonese:      be1jau2 (1 = high tone; 2 = high falling tone)

Catalan:        cervesa

Croatian:       pivo

Czech:          pivo

Danish:         o/l (o/ = fronted o sound, written o with slash)

Dutch:          bier

English:        beer

Esperanto:      biero

Estonian:       o~lu (o~ = o-tilde, pronounced short unrounded 'o')

Finnish:        olut, (slang: kalja; actually other beverage)

Flemish:        het bier

French:         la bie`re

Frisian:        bier

German:         das Bier

Greek:          mpi'ra (transliteration) ('mp' is pronounced 'b')

Greenlandic:    immiaarag

Hausa:          fita

Hawaiian:       pia or bia

Hebrew:         birah (bira)

Hindi:          biar (transliteration)

Hokkien:        bit3 djiu4

Hungarian:      so~r (o~ = short-o-umlaut; s = "sh"-sound)

Icelandic:      bjo'r (o' = o-acute accent)

Indonesian:     bir

Irish:          beoir

Italian:        la birra

Japanese:       biiru/bieru (r is sort of between USA 'r' and Eng. 'l')

Korean:         maekju (transliteration)

Latin:          cervisia

Latvian:        alu

Lithuanian:     alus

Luxemburgois:   be'ier (e' = e-acute accent)

Madagassian:    labiera (yes, one word)

Malay:          bir

Maltese:        birra

Mandarin:       pi2jiu3 (2 = rising tone; 3 = fall/rise tone)

Nepali:         biyar (transliteration) (from phrase book)

Nepali:         chang (from person who's been there)

Norwegian:      o/l (o/ = fronted o, written o with slash)

Papiamentu:     serbes

Persian:        ab-e-jow (a = slightly rounded; j = as in 'juice')

Pidgin (Papua): bia

Polish:         piwo ('w' is pronounced 'v')

Portuguese:     a cerveja

Quechua:        sirwisa

Raeto-romanian: bi'era (i' = i-acute accent)

Rumanian:       bere

Russian:        pivo

Samoan:         pia

Scots Gaelic:   beo`ir (o` = o-grave accent)

Serbian:        pivo

Singalese:      bire (transliteration)

Slovakian:      pivo

Slovenian:      pivo

Spanish:        la cerveza, la birra (Central America)

Swahili:        pombe

Swedish:        o"l (o" = o with two dots ["med tva prickor"])

Tagalog:        beer

Tasmanian:      beer

Thai:           bia

Tibetan:        chang (transliteration)

Turkish:        bira

Ukrainian:      pivo

Welsh:          cwrw ("w" is pronounced approx. as "u" in "put")

Yiddish:        bier (transliteration)

------------------------------


Temperature Adjustments

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 13:30:53 MDT

From: mlh@cygnus.ta52.lanl.gov (Michael L. Hall)

Subject: Temperature Adjustments

Kieran O'Connor asks about whether he should change his mashing

temperature due to problems in measuring the temperature. I'm not quite

sure which of the following questions he was asking, so I'll answer

both.

  1. "I checked the calibration of both my Thermometers ... my bi-metal

      probe type thermometer was off by 4 degrees F."

      For this case you do need to mash with the corrected temperature.

      For instance, if your thermometer reads 4 degrees high and you

      want to mash at 154 F, then you should make sure that your

      thermometer reads 158 F. In other words, you should correct the

      temperature from your thermometer to get the real temperature.

  2. "I boiled it in distilled water and calibrated it. At the school I

      work in--in Cortland NY--we are at 1000 ft elevation, so my

      science teacher friend said to calibrate it to 98C for boiling --

      given the altitude."

      I'm a little more familiar with this one, since I live at 7300 ft!

      If you're not boiling the water, then the temperature you want

      doesn't change. In other words, if you want to mash at 154 F, you

      heat the water until your corrected thermometer reading is 154 F,

      regardless of altitude. The difference with altitude comes in

      when you boil. Since you're boiling at a lower temperature, you

      might want to boil longer to get the same effect. Our boiling

      temperature is around 198 F, so there's quite a difference here.

Hope this helps,

Mike Hall, Thermohydraulic nut

Los Alamos Atom Mashers

------------------------------


Florida Homebrewer's Weekend

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 15:26:51 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Tim Tillman (BIO)" <tillman@chuma.cas.usf.edu>

Subject: Florida Homebrewer's Weekend

Hello HBDers!

I am trying to arrange a homerbrewer's get together in Florida.  I invision an

overnight camping (not mandatory) kind of event.  There might be a seminar or

two, beer tasting, introduction to brewing for beginners, venders.  What else?

If you are in Florida and are interested in helping in anyway please Email me.

Tim Tillman

tillman@chuma.cas.usf.edu

------------------------------


Hops sale discovered

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 07:55:59 PDT

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject:  Hops sale discovered

Hi fellow brewers -

 I just placed an order for some hops and much to my surprise

was informed that there was a sale on to move out this year's crop and

make way for next year's.  The details are as follows:

Order from HopTech Email to mgaretz@hoptech.com.  Only orders received

over Email and mentioning the HBD discount qualify for a 25% discount

on U.S. grown WHOLE hops only.

I have no affiliation with HopTech other than being a satisfied

customer.

Dion Hollenbeck (619)455-5590x2814     Email: hollen@megatek.com

Senior Software Engineer                      megatek!hollen@uunet.uu.net

Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California    ucsd!megatek!hollen

------------------------------


Re: Mailing Beer/ UPS

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 15:46:00 EST

From: "Pamela J. Day 7560" <DAY@A1.TCH.HARVARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: Mailing Beer/ UPS

 I have found that as far a UPS is concerned, as long as

they don't know it's beer, they don't care. Even if they find out

that it's beer they really don't care. My mother (being totally

without a clue that she shouldn't do this) sent my brother in

Kentucky a case of Sam Adams via UPS. When he got it, he called to

thank her and ask why the she bothered to repack it and why was one

bottle missing. It turns out that a bottle broke during shipment

and UPS repackaged it and sent it on it's merry way, no questions

asked.

Oh well...

Pam

------------------------------


Silver Solder on wort boilers

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 13:15:35 PDT

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Silver Solder on wort boilers

>>>>> On Tue, 21 Sep 1993 14:57:13 -0400 (EDT),

 Wayde Nie <u9106857@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca> said:

Wayde> Hi All,

Wayde>         What is the collective net wisdom on using silver solder to

Wayde> install the fittings into to base of a converted keg style boiler. I

Wayde> would think that soldering would be less of an undertaking than

Wayde> paying someone to weld SS.

Wayde Nie, u9106857@McMail.CIS.McMaster.CA

Having done this, I can testify with some authority.  Silver soldering

SS works, but is *EXTREMELY* difficult to do correctly.  The *MINIMUM*

amount of heat possible to get the solder to flow should be used.

Heat should not be applied for more than about 1 minute at a time,

after which the area should be cooled *IMMEDIATELY* with a sopping wet

rag.  The best flux to use is the white paste kind which comes in the

white 3" diam. plastic jar with a blue top (I forget the name).  Use

the flux sparingly.  If you see that your solder is flowing in one

place, but not all the places which you are trying to solder, you have

oxidized that non-flowing area.  *DO NOT APPLY MORE HEAT* to that

area, cause that is our normal reaction when we see lack of flow.

This is exactly the wrong thing to do.  Stop, cool it off, clean it

off well and start over again.  If you overheat SS, it will become

brittle.

I know about all of what I say since I did all the wrong things.  When

I was done, the joints between the keg and the pipe nipple were

strong, but they still leaked.  Well,  so we went to clean things up

an in the process of melting off the excess solder, a piece of keg as

big as my little finger nail dropped out of the keg wall.  It had

cracked and now I had a large hole to fill in as well.  Finally

changed over to bronze brazing rod and got the job redone and no

leaks.

Bottom line, get it welded.  Don't be cheap and foolish.  Also, when

you get it welded, make sure the welder cools it immediately.  If you

do the welding and leave it to cool naturally, it will heat the

surrounding area for more than the critical 5 minutes and you will get

brittle SS again.

Dion Hollenbeck (619)455-5590x2814     Email: hollen@megatek.com

Senior Software Engineer                      megatek!hollen@uunet.uu.net

Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California    ucsd!megatek!hollen

------------------------------


POC

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 16:57:08 EDT

From: Bob_McIlvaine@keyfile.com

Subject: POC

Subject: Silver Solder

Silver solder can be nasty to solder and can be hazardous

to your health if you get the wrong stuff. For your health's

sake, get the kind that is cadmium free, for your yeast's

health get low, low lead content. The simplest flux is plain

old borax, the chemical not the soap :-)    You can get the

solder and the flux at your local welding supply, consult

them  about the solder for food preparation vessels,

melt point of at least 1200 degreesF. The flux you can get

at hardware stores, drug stores (sometimes), and your

local supplier of chemicals for school science labs. The

actual soldering is tricky, burnish the stainless steel

parts, mix the borax powder with water and apply to the

joint, bring entire joint up to temperature, the borax will

melt. Don't get the joint to hot (easier said than done, with

stainless steel), to hot and the solder will ball up and roll

right off. Some old timers will wrap the solder wire around

the joint and heat indirectly until the solder sweats into the

joint making a very nice fillet. The key is to not oxidixe the

surface that the flux has cleaned, direct heat from a flame

WILL oxidise.

P.S. A welder with mig or tig capabilities will take about 10

minutes to weld the joint with Stainless but will probably

charge an hour minimum, typically $30 to $40 per hour.

Regards,

Mac

------------------------------


Vigorous fermantation

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 14:13:17 -0400

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

Subject: Vigorous fermantation

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end

- ---

email: sxupjd@fnma.com (NeXT Mail Okay)

Philip DiFalco, Senior SomethingOrOther, Advanced Technology

FannieMae, 3900 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, DC 22016     (202)752-2812

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1233, 09/24/93

*************************************

-------


Footnote to Silver Alloys

Date: 23 Sep 1993 14:35:28 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Footnote to Silver Alloys

Hi Group,

As I was reading over (yesterdays) Digest, I realized I was mixing the terms

Brazing and Soldering. The information I posted dealt with Brazing, at 1400F

a much higher temp process.  The brazing alloys I listed will be unaffected

by boiling of the wort, with respect to heat.  As before, don't use the first

few that contain Cadmium, I included them so you would know which ones not to

use.  Someone mentioned Tin and Wort being bad, I have not heard the reason

for this. Please email me if you have any questions, I am not a Welding or

Brazing engineer, just a metallurgical, but I do have good reference books.

John Palmer

Space Station

------------------------------


Zymurgy GABF members only postcard

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 17:33:48 EDT

From: gorman@aol.com

Subject: Zymurgy GABF members only postcard

I'll be making the trip to Denver to visit my sister and attend the GABF.

If somebody sent me their extra Zymurgy postcard for the member's only

tasting, I'd be able to get her in as well.

I'd be overwhelmingly grateful.

Bill Gorman

243 N. Barton St.

Arlington, VA 22201

------------------------------


Re: Silver Solder on wort boilers

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 02:44:02 -0400

From: polstra!larryba@uunet.UU.NET

Subject: Re: Silver Solder on wort boilers

In HBD#1231 Wayde Nie writes:

> What is the collective net wisdom on using silver solder to

>install the fittings into to base of a converted keg style boiler. I

>would think that soldering would be less of an undertaking than

>paying someone to weld SS.

I did just that with my rig.  I was able to assemble my mash/lauter

tun, kettle and hot liqour tanks using brass fittings and silver

bearing solder.  I was able to do it using a regular blow torch.

A couple of things to know:

1. Make sure whatever solder you use is FOOD GRADE!

2. Silver braze (e.g. 15% or so silver) is very strong and harder to use

   Silver bearing solder (3-5% silver) is easier to use but much weaker

3. Get the right kind of flux - ask a welding shop for help.  As I found

   out there are different temperatures and compatibilities to deal with.

4. In short, brass and SS are incompatible with Silver Solder and you will

   probably be frustrated in getting a solid, watertight, durable connection.

   The problem is that the copper in the brass dissolves into the silver

   solder and makes it very brittle.  As your joint cools it will crack.

   You are getting shafted not only by the presence of copper, but the

   differential expansion between brass and SS.

If you can get SS fittings for at least the bulkhead (where you would be

silver soldering to the keg) your job should be much easier.  One

possibility, that I have not explored yet, would be to get some threaded

SS pipe (say 1/2" npt), bore a hole in your keg and just solder the nipple

in place.  Then you could attach your (cheap) brass fittings on either

side.  If you can get some sort of SS fittign with a flange, all the better.

Just in case you are wondering: yes all my joints leak a tad.  Now that I

have several brews behind me the cracks have filled with carmalized sugar

(at least on the kettle)... :-(

- --

Larry Barello   uunet!polstra!larryba

------------------------------


RE:  someone asks about cardamom

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 18:46:11 PDT

From: Bruce Seiler <goshawk!seiler@compass-da.com>

Subject: RE:  someone asks about cardamom

Cardamom is also used by Scandinavians in bread.

Bruce Seiler

seiler@compass-da.com

------------------------------


Mailing brew

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 03:45:00 BST

From: mike.keller@genie.geis.com

Subject: Mailing brew

Scott Kaczorowski comments in HBD 1232:

 ||Zymurgy had an article not too long ago (issue?) specifically ||

 ||about packaging beer for sending to contests.  I remember     ||

 ||that it specifically did NOT say whether or not it is legal   ||

 ||to send beer via UPS, US Mail, etc.  The article              ||

On GEnie we began having regular brew swaps about a year ago. When we

first decided to do this, someone called around to the USPS, UPS and

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (hey, ask _everyone_) about

the legality of shipping beer. Basically, ATF doesn't care as long as

it's not whiskey. USPS said it is AGAINST the LAW to ship alcoholic

bevs through the mail (first class or otherwise).

UPS folks will give you varying answers. I've had them reject a

package of framed photos because I used glass (they prefer plexi).

However, unless you tell them "liquid in glass" they won't know and

might not care; that amount of caring is what varies from counter to

counter. I usually write on the UPS slip "yeast samples" or "brewing

samples." Never questioned.

This week I shipped to a fellow brewer in Canada, so I had to deal

with a customs form as well. Since I had to be honest on the customs

form ("two (2) bottles homemade beer, value $1 each"), I pretty much

had to be honest on the UPS papers too, so I said "Homemade beer

samples for judging." (I know that many winemakers ship samples via

UPS) Flew right through, and he reported getting my beer today (four

days from WV to Ontario).

The bottom line is that UPS is not a gov't agency, not the law, and

the worst they can do is reject your package.

mike keller, food and wine roundtable, GEnie

------------------------------


RE: Mailing Homebrew

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 07:04:00 BST

From: s.quarterman@genie.geis.com

Subject: RE: Mailing Homebrew

Rich Ryan asks about mailing beer......

Our group of folks on GEnie regularly mail beer to each other for our

Swap/Tastings held on-line on Saturday nights.  It is true that the US

Postal Service frowns 8^( very heavily on shipping alcoholic beverages by

mail.  I think it is again BATF regulations.  You can ship by UPS though.

This is what we do.  We just label the boxes as Brewing Supplies and leave

it like that.  We have had no problems to date.

Steve Quarterman -- Portland, Oregon

 S.Quarterman@GEnie.geis.com

            'Artificial Intelligence Beats Real Stupidity'

------------------------------


cloning commercial beers

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 10:54:02 -0600 (CST)

From: Damian Hogan <hogan@tais.telecom.com.au>

Subject: cloning commercial beers

 Hi,

  I was just wondering whether there is an FAQ for cloning

commercial beers. My favorite commercial brew is Victoria Bitter.

If anyone has a recipe for VB or other Aussie beers I would be

very interested in hearing from them.

 Thanks,

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Damian P. Hogan

Telecom Australia

Adelaide,SA AUSTRALIA

email : hogan@tais.telecom.com.au

 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

------------------------------


Re: malt v dextrose

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 7:50:34 EDT

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: Re: malt v dextrose

> > primed beer will have better flavor stability as oxygen has been

> > scavenged from the bottle during the bottle fermentation.

> Has anyone tested this? Miller suggests leaving very little headspace,

> and not capping for a short while after filling, on the grounds that

> enough CO2 will evolve to flush out the oxygen; I don't know anyone

I have not tested this but I use Miller's suggestion mostly for

convenience.  I fill all my bottles and set a cap on each one as I fill

it.  When all the bottles are filled, then I go and fasten the cap on

each one.  As I said, this is mostly for convenience because I don't

need to worry about keeping the bottling wand sanitized or worry about

it leaking or worry about keeping the siphon primed while I am capping.

That said, as I get about 1/2 - 3/4 of the way through bottling, the

bottles that were filled first have started to "burp" as the air is

pushed out by the CO2 produced by the yeasties.

One item that is critical for the success of this method is that my 2 &

4 year old helpers are asleep.

- --

Jim Grady              |"Root beer burps don't have to be said 'Excuse me'."

grady@hp-mpg.an.hp.com |                Robert Grady, age 4.75

------------------------------


Purging Keg Headspaces

Date:    Fri, 24 Sep 1993 13:41:28 GMT

From: COOK@CDHF2.GSFC.NASA.GOV (Chris Cook)

Subject: Purging Keg Headspaces

John McCaffrey <johnmc@brooktree.com> wrote on keg-forced carbonation

confusion (love that phrase) and discussed several major techniques.

One minor thought that may help.  When I carbonate my kegs, I found out

(the hard way, of course) that it is important to completely purge the air

from the headspace.

A while ago I kegged a batch and forgot to purge, just ran the pressure up.

Normally when I force-carbonate I can hear the CO2 going to work, and every

time I shake the key, more CO2 pours into the key.  This time, nothing.

Days later it hadn't carbonated at all, despite having way too much

pressure for dispensing.  Thinking on this, sudden memory struck and I

started purging.  I emptied the headspace from the gas disconnect, charged

it and emptied it, and charged it again up to carbonation pressure.  This

time the beer took some CO2, although still not that much.  After a day of

middling carbonation and overpressurization, I tried two more empty/refill

cycles and suddenly everything was working OK.

This raises a question: what procedures are people using for purging keg

headspaces?  My usual practice when I don't have amnesia is to hook up the

gas supply with the keg lid ajar, open the gas valve halfway and let the

CO2 run into the tank second or two, then pull the lid shut.

When people say "purge the headspace," what procedures are you following?

Chris Cook

cook@cdhf2.gsfc.nasa.gov

------------------------------


Re: Bittering Hops

Date:         Fri, 24 Sep 93 09:55:36 CDT

From: Paul Sovcik <U18183%UICVM@UIC.EDU>

Subject:      Re: Bittering Hops

In regards to the question of if the actual variety of hop really matters for b

ittering purposes:

      I am also interested in the general net opinion on this issue. I have alw

ays wondered about this ever since I read the "Hops" special issue of Zymurgy w

hich describes how one guy set out to brew every style of beer known. He used C

hinook hops as the base bittering hop for every style. The rationale was that b

itterness is bitterness and Chinook hops have the most %AA per dollar.

      So how about it? Am I wasting big money using lots of Czech Saaz for bitt

ering pilsners?

      -Paul

------------------------------


Austin Stuff, Celis

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 10:31:20 CDT

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu.mer.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: Austin Stuff, Celis

Hey out there in HBD land, I just went to the Celis brewery for the

first time a few days ago and I had a great tour.  The tour info was

primarily historical (the story of Pierre Celis and his coming to Texas

and getting the brew kettles) and an intro to the brew process for those

who are not initiated.  The best part of the tour, of course, was the

beer samples - *fresh* from the tap, brewed within 6 weeks, words don't

do the taste justice.  Anyway - the sum total of all of this is - if you

are in the Austin/Central Texas area and haven't gone, you should go.

If you are coming into the Austin area from out of town - make time for

the trip, the brewery is no more than a 30 minute drive from anywhere in

Austin (its actually about 5-10 minutes from I35 and 290).  While on

Austin, anyone know details on the upcoming Austin Brew Ha-Ha

Competition?

 While I'm here - I want to make a spiced beer for holidays and

have decided that the spiced liquour (sp!) is the way to go for me.

Anyone know where I can get some Gloegg or other kind of spice

concentrate for use in such a beer?  If not I'll resort to making my own

and wing it.

 Hope you people up north are enjoying your fall - it'll be 98

again here today and no chance of any turning leaves...

      Chris

======================================================================

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu |

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

======================================================================

------------------------------


Re: Keg Forced Carbonation Confusion

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 11:30:20 EDT

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: Re: Keg Forced Carbonation Confusion

I keep my kegs at room temp and run the beer line into a small fridge that

has a cold plate in it.  I cool my beer on demand.  Being at room temp,

I have to run my kegs at 30 psi for it to have 2.5 volumes (NOT atmospheres -

atmospheres is a unit of pressure) of CO2.  All I do is pressurize the keg

and shake it until I don't hear any more CO2 being absorbed by the brew and

then I know the beer is saturated and ready to go.  This takes 10 to 15

minutes.

The following table has been posted to HBD in the past and is very useful.

- -------------------------------------------------------------------

formula:

Pressure = F(Temperature, Volume)

P = -16.6999 - 0.0101059 T + 0.00116512 T^2 + 0.173354 T V

    + 4.24267 V - 0.0684226 V^2

Here's a table that that function generates:

                      Volumes of CO2 desired

Temp   2.0  2.1  2.2  2.3  2.4  2.5  2.6  2.7  2.8  2.9  3.0

 32F   3.5  4.4  5.4  6.3  7.3  8.2  9.2 10.1 11.0 12.0 12.9

 34F   4.3  5.3  6.3  7.3  8.2  9.2 10.2 11.2 12.1 13.1 14.1

 36F   5.1  6.2  7.2  8.2  9.2 10.2 11.2 12.3 13.3 14.3 15.3

 38F   6.0  7.0  8.1  9.1 10.2 11.2 12.3 13.3 14.4 15.4 16.5

 40F   6.8  7.9  9.0 10.1 11.2 12.3 13.4 14.4 15.5 16.6 17.7

 42F   7.7  8.8 10.0 11.1 12.2 13.3 14.4 15.5 16.7 17.8 18.9

 44F   8.6  9.7 10.9 12.1 13.2 14.4 15.5 16.7 17.8 19.0 20.1

 46F   9.5 10.7 11.8 13.0 14.2 15.4 16.6 17.8 19.0 20.2 21.3

 48F  10.4 11.6 12.8 14.0 15.3 16.5 17.7 18.9 20.1 21.4 22.6

 50F  11.3 12.5 13.8 15.0 16.3 17.6 18.8 20.1 21.3 22.6 23.8

 52F  12.2 13.5 14.8 16.1 17.3 18.6 19.9 21.2 22.5 23.8 25.1

 54F  13.1 14.4 15.7 17.1 18.4 19.7 21.1 22.4 23.7 25.0 26.3

 56F  14.0 15.4 16.7 18.1 19.5 20.8 22.2 23.6 24.9 26.3 27.6

 58F  15.0 16.4 17.8 19.2 20.6 21.9 23.3 24.7 26.1 27.5 28.9

 60F  15.9 17.3 18.8 20.2 21.6 23.1 24.5 25.9 27.4 28.8 30.2

 62F  16.9 18.3 19.8 21.3 22.7 24.2 25.7 27.1 28.6 30.0 31.5

 64F  17.8 19.3 20.8 22.3 23.8 25.3 26.8 28.3 29.8 31.3 32.8

 66F  18.8 20.3 21.9 23.4 25.0 26.5 28.0 29.6 31.1 32.6 34.1

 68F  19.8 21.4 22.9 24.5 26.1 27.6 29.2 30.8 32.4 33.9 35.5

 70F  20.8 22.4 24.0 25.6 27.2 28.8 30.4 32.0 33.6 35.2 36.8

 72F  21.8 23.4 25.1 26.7 28.4 30.0 31.6 33.3 34.9 36.5 38.2

 74F  22.8 24.5 26.2 27.8 29.5 31.2 32.9 34.5 36.2 37.9 39.5

 76F  23.8 25.5 27.2 29.0 30.7 32.4 34.1 35.8 37.5 39.2 40.9

 78F  24.9 26.6 28.4 30.1 31.8 33.6 35.3 37.1 38.8 40.5 42.3

 80F  25.9 27.7 29.5 31.2 33.0 34.8 36.6 38.3 40.1 41.9 43.7

        Volumes of CO2:

        British style beers = 2.0 - 2.4  (I think that 1.0 is more like it)

        Most other beers = 2.4 - 2.85

        High-carbonation beers = 2.85 - 2.95

- --Tony Verhulst

------------------------------


Re: Force Carbonation

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 07:51:16 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Re: Force Carbonation

John McCaffery has asked for some information about force carbonation, so

here goes (I'm sure this will be just one post among many):

Carbonation is the process of dissolving CO2 in water to form carbonic

acid.

Gasses are more soluble at lower temperature, though they get forced out

of solution just before freezing.  This is what makes the bubbles in ice

cubes.  CO2 is pretty soluble, but not instantly so.  Nor does it difuse

rapidly through the beer.  The disolving takes place only at the

gas/liquid interface, so the amount of surface area is important.

There are several implications to these facts.

1) Pressure does not equal carbonation.  It is possible for a keg to be

under high pressure and not have the beer well carbonated.

2) As the pressure/temp/vol CO2 tables imply, as temperature rises (or

falls) the pressure necessary for a certain degree of carbonation rises

(or falls).

3) An upright motionless keg presents the least surface area and thus

provides the worst conditions for carbonation.

Keeping these things in mind, here's how I handle my carbonation--

Sanitize the keg.  Purge it of air by pressurizing to 15 psi and venting

it off several times.  Open the safety release on the lid and then open

the lid just enough to slip in the racking hose.  Bleed CO2 into the

*open* keg at very low regulator setting (2-3 psi).  This is

anti-oxidation voodoo.  Rack the beer into the keg.

Seal the lid, pressurize to 35 psi.  Check for leaks and a good seal.

Shake the keg repeatedly until no more gas will flow at 35 psi.  Put the

keg in the fridge overnight.  When the keg is chilled, hook it back up to

the CO2 at 35 psi and lay the keg on its side with the gas inlet

uppermost.  I don't have a check (one way) valve on my regulator, but I do

have a long (6') clear hose.  I will occasionally get a few drops of beer

moving into the gas line, but it has never been a problem, just some

cleaning after I'm done.  With the keg horizontal (to expose more surface

area) rock and slosh the keg until the regulator stops hissing.  Set the

keg upright.  Take a break.  Repeat until no gas is drawn into the key

when shaking.

At this point the keg is over pressurized and undercarbonated.  The

pressure is 35 psi.  If the pressure is vented to dispensing range, the

beer will have large coarse bubbles, foam a lot and go flat quickly.  Now

I put the beer back into the fridge.  As more gas dissolves, the pressure

will drop.  Over the next day or so, it will drop to 15-20 psi.  At this

point, I keep the keg at dispensing/equilibrium pressure (for me this is

12-15 psi at 47F, your taste may vary).  Depending on which tap and lines

I use, I may have to lower or raise the dispensing pressure to get the

right head.

Something odd happens as the storage time increases.  The bubbles get

smaller, the beading (trails of bubbles) improves, and the carbonation

lasts longer in the glass.  I suspect this is due to the CO2 bonding

(slowly) to things other than water, but you can't prove it by me.  This

improvement in the quality of carbonation over time is puzzling, but pleasant.

I hope this helps out John and others.  I arrived at the process

empirically, 'cause the instructions I had (like his) didn't seem to work

properly.  Shake it up!

agitatedly,

Paul.

------------------------------


Portable taps

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 08:33:28 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Portable taps

For some time, I've been dissatified with my "cobra head" portable tap.

It seems like the hose is too short, too fat.  The tap causes a lot of

turbulence.  I have arrived at the conclusion that these things are just a

kluge.  If I have time, I now remove a tap and line from my dispensing

fridge, but this is both a hassle and a compromise.

Does anyone know of a source for a better hand-tap for field use?  I don't

want to go to the expense of a cold plate or jockey box setup.  I just want a

tap that has a smaller i.d. hose and a tap that was designed for beer,

rather than coffee.  Any help out there?

Paul.

------------------------------


RE: Partial-mash question(s)

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 13:05:01 -0400 (EDT)

From: Scott Benton <sbenton@telerama.pgh.pa.us>

Subject: RE: Partial-mash question(s)

In HBD1232 Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU> wrote:

>So here is my first question.  I have heard or thought of a couple different

>ways of handling the four pounds or so of grain I'll be dealing with.  (1)

>Put all the grains in a grain bag, go through the various temperature rests,

>and instead of the "mashout" remove the bag and either just squeeze the

>liquid out of the bag by mashing (sic) it down in a colander placed across

>the top of the kettle or running 170F. water through the bag/colander or

>both.  (2) Don't use a bag; at the end of the mash, dump the liquor and

>grains into a kettle, then pour back through the colander to catch the grains

>and then sparge; (3) get another plastic bucket and drill holes to make the

I do kind of a hybrid of 1 and 2.  I essentially do the mash in a SS pot that

I put in a picnic cooler for temperature control.  When it comes time to

sparge, I line a plastic colander with my grain bag and pour the mash into

it.  After recycling the first runnings through the grain bed thus created, I

run my 168F water through the grain.  My colander has holes that are too large

for this purpose, so my water goes through too fast, but I seem to get pretty

good extraction this way.  I use 2-2.5 gal of water and 2.5 to 3# of grain for

this process.

I intend to fabricate one of those double bucket systems some year when I get

a few minutes of free time.

Scott D. Benton        sbenton@telerama.pgh.pa.us

------------------------------


Mash Oxidation

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 13:27 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Mash Oxidation

Norm writes:

>Oxidation during the mash is a potential problem area, contrary to old wisdom.

I agree.  Coincidentally, I was re-reading Noonan last night, in preparation

for re-taking the BJCP exam, and in the section on "Why Decoction?" he says

that the boiling of the decoctions helps to de-oxygenate the wort which leads

to the grain bed settling in "layers" at lautering time Noonan claims this

makes for a better filter bed.  I have no experience with this, but thought

it might be of general interest.

For the record, when kettle mashing, I scoop the mash into the lauter tun

with a small pot and try to do this as gently as possible to avoid oxidation.

In general, oxidation is a bad thing -- offhand the only positive oxidation

I can think of at this minute is the protective oxidation on aluminum and

stainless steel.

Al.

------------------------------


yeast behavior

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 12:14:38 PDT

From: bert@crseo.ucsb.edu (Bert Davis)

Subject: yeast behavior

HBDites:

As I am drinking some of the last of the summer's extract-brewed weissen

batches I thought I would report some variation in the results, almost

certainly due to the yeast.

I brewed four 5 gallon batches, dark then light, and light then dark.  I

pitched the 'dregs' from the fermenter, shaken up, from the first dark

batch into the next light batch.  I started over for the next two batches,

also pitching from the first (light) into the second (dark).  The boiling

times, 60 min., were the same for all batches.   The fermentation

temperatures were also approximately the same (~70 F), as were the

temperatures when I pitched (~75 F).  Both light brews and both dark brews

had the same rather simple recipes:

6.6 lbs. NorthWestern Weissen extract

1.5 oz. Saaz (3/4 in boil, the rest at the end)

22 oz. Yeast Lab W51 Bavarian Weizen, primed for the first of each pair

       of brews

======================================================================

>From yeast FAQ:

Yeast Lab W51 Bavarian Weizen

This strain produces a classic German style wheat beer, with moderately

high, spicy phenolic overtones reminiscent of cloves.  Medium attenuation,

moderately flocculent.

======================================================================

The two dark batches had, at the usual reboil stage:

1/2 lb. chocolate malt

1/4 lb. crystal malt

The finished brews made with the fresh yeast were almost overwhelming in

mostly clovelike phenolics while the brews made with the "repitched" yeast

had much more balanced phenolics (some vanilla) and esters (banana), like

commercial weissens, only more intense (and delicious in my opinion). The

'overly' clovelike brews have mellowed with age, but their weissen

character is still not close to the pleasant balance between phenols and

esters found in the other brews and in store-bought European wheat beers.

Regarding this, I can find no illuminating material in Warner's great

monograph on german wheat beer, except that the overall level of phenolic

substances is higher when the entire fermentation is carried out at higher

temperatures.  My working hypotheses are that some change in the yeast or

some substance(s) in the sediment contribute to the (better) character

of the second batches.  Any comments?  Any advice on how I can acheive

second-batch results from the getgo?

Bert Davis

------------------------------


Hop aroma/vs bittering hops in boil

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 13:27:35 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hop aroma/vs bittering hops in boil

Brian R Seay writes:

>Subject: Bittering Hops

                       Subject:                               Time:8:28 AM

>  OFFICE MEMO          Bittering Hops                         Date:9/23/93

>In the spirit of "There are no stupid questions":

>All of the hop oils in the lupulin glands of boiling hops are boiled away

>during a 60 minute boil.  The hop oils are the source of hop flavor and

>aroma, so there should be no hop flavor or aroma contributed by the

>boiling hops.  Therefore, one ounce of Northern Brewer @ 10% alpha could

>be substituted for two ounces of Willamette @ 5% alpha.  The same

>bitterness would be achieved and there would be no perceptable

>difference in taste.  Right?  Probably not.  Where is the flaw in my

>thinking?

Firstly, not *all* of the oils are boiled away (*most* are though and some

are changed into oxidation products, also with aroma).  But enough survive

into the beer to have subtle impacts on the beer's flavor.  Also, the "oil"

is not a single compound but contains upwards of 300 compounds that occur

in differing proportions depending on the variety.  Also, there is the

question of the "bitter flavor" that comes from the alpha acids and their

oxidation products.  The proportions of the alpha acids (which is variety

dependent) has an effect on the quality of the bitter flavor.  The best

documented example of this is the cohumulone level.  It is suspected that

high cohumulone levels lead to a harsher bitterness.  It so happens that

usually "aroma" hops have a low proportion of cohumulone, and the high alpha

hops tend to have higher proportions.

Back to the oils:  So here's what happens.  When you put in a low alpha hop

for bittering, you are usually adding a lot more aroma compounds to the beer

because you are adding a lot more ounces of hops to get the alpha acid content

right.  Converesly, when you use a "high alpha" hop, you add less oils.  Now

I say "usually" because some of the high alpha varieties also have high oils,

but the noble aroma hops (that the studies have been done with that I am

basing my comments on) also have fairly high oil contents but low alphas.

A lot also depends on the beer style.  The aroma compounds left over from

the bittering hops is a lot more likely to be noticed in a well-made lager

than it would be in a pale ale that would typically have more finishing

hops or a stout/heavy beer where lots of flavors will mask the hop

subtleties.  All of the commercial studies on this subject have been done

with lagers.  They have been trying to answer the age-old question "Does

using noble and/or aroma hops for bittering make a difference in the beer's

taste?"  The answer seems to be "Yes."  But again, they are concerened with

lagers.  So, it's not a stupid question.  The pros have been at it for years.

Mark

------------------------------


Minimizing Blow-off Loss

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 12:02:36 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Minimizing Blow-off Loss

I'm the last guy who should be commenting on a blow-off method, but call me a

blowhard.  Andy sez:

>>Does anyone experienced with this technique have any tricks for

>>minimizing the amount of fluid loss?

>

>>Chris

>

>        Sure, switch to a 1" ID plastic hose and move the bucket of water

>        to a height about 2 feet above the top of the carboy.  Most of the

>        beer kicked out during the blow-off period can't make it out and

>        falls back into the carboy.  I use this system for any beer with an

>        OG of at least 1.050.  Lower strength beers tend not to kick out

>        as much fluid.

Aren't you risking a siphon of potentially contaminated water (or sanitizer)

back into your fermenter?

      blowoff hose

         ________

 B____  /________/

       //        //

       ||        ||

       ||        ||

      _||_       ||

     / || /    |~||~|---C

    |  ||  |   |    |

A---|~~||~~|   |    |

    |      |   |____|

    |      |  blowoff bucket

    |      |

    |______|

   fermenter

A is the level of the wort in the fermenter.  C is the level of the liquid in

your blowoff bucket.  B is the point at which the wort is forced up to during

heavy fermentation.  When the fermentation slows, since the mass of the liquid

in the left side of the tube is greater than the mass of the liquid in the

right side of the tube, the direction of motion of the liquid is now right to

left (pulling liquid from the blowoff bucket).  No?

RE: HOPS FAQ, progress is slow, mostly because of the underwhelming response to

my request for information.  I am currently looking for commercial examples and

flavor/aroma profiles for the following hops:

Hallertau Hersbrucker

Hallertau Mittelfruh

Liberty

Mt. Hood

Styrian Goldings

Willamette

Bullion

Centennial

Chinook

Cluster

Galena

Nugget

Perle

Pride of Ringwood

Yes, I realize this is practically a list of every hop ever known to (modern)

man.  The point is that for this FAQ to work I need input from you brewers.  I

haven't tried a lot of these hops and even some of the ones I did try, I didn't

take notes on hop flavor profile, etc.  As far as the flavor profiles, your own

adjectives are what I'm after (i.e. citric, flowery, funky, strong, non-

descript, etc.)  Also, commercial examples of a particular hop would be quite

welcome, but I'd prefer not to get things like "I've heard they use Mt. Hood in

XYZ beer".  If its a rumour it probably doesn't belong in the FAQ.  Part of the

reason for me doing this FAQ is selfish; I want the information.  If it was

solely for that purpose, though, I wouldn't be putting in the kind of time I'm

spending.  The extra effort is for the digest participants; I'm just asking for

a little input.  Is that too much to ask?

As always, we thank you for your support,

norm

------------------------------


Vigorous fermantation (non tarred)

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 16:00:07 -0400

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

Subject: Vigorous fermantation (non tarred)

Sorry about the tar-corrupted file - I only have a slight idea how that may

have happened, but it's too mundane to elaborate.

Basically, I brewed a Scottish Ale (recipe taken from pg. 9-6 of Cats Meow),

brewed using standard extract procedures.  I used Wyeast #1056 (American Ale

yeast), made a starter, and added it to the wort.

I racked to a secondary (carboy) after 9 days.  Today (day 12) the brew is

still actively fermenting (one bubble from airlock about every minute, and tiny

bubbles regularly rise to the beer's surface - as noticed through the carboy).

My basement temp. ranges between 67^F to 70^F (where the beer's fermenting).

Additional Note:  My tarnished Wort Chiller became de-tarnished after the wort

chilling phase for this brew.

QUESTIONS/CONCERNS:

Is this long of a fermentation period abnormal (for #1056)?

How long a fermentation period can I observe before I become worried?

Any/all responses/observations welcome.

Looking through the 1992 HOMEBREW Digest Index (1992.index) I noticed some

articles referencing "Problems with long ferments for WYeast 1056" - however,

I don't have direct ftp access to sierra.stanford.edu, and therefore am unable

to view those HB Digests (Digest #'s: 835, 837, 969->972, 1011, 1012).

(if you want the awk script I used to do the HB Digest Index search, let me

know and I'll email it - usage: searchFor searchString indexFileNames).

- ---

email: sxupjd@fnma.com (NeXT Mail Okay)

Philip DiFalco, Senior SomethingOrOther, Advanced Technology

FannieMae, 3900 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, DC 22016     (202)752-2812

------------------------------


next partial-mash question

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 17:27:33 -0500 (cdt)

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: next partial-mash question

I've had this partial-mash question partially answered from someone already

in private e-mail, but since it's next on my list I'll go ahead and post it

to the think tank anyway.

When partial-mashing, to what extent might it be beneficial to (1) measure &

adjust the ph of the water (2) use the iodine test for conversion?

It sounds to me like most partial-grain people pretty much fly by the seat of

the pants on these matters.

Opinions?

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Cherry Juice Beer

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 17:49 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Cherry Juice Beer

Beth writes:

>I have a nice can of Kangabroo Lager and about 4 cups of homemade

>cherry juice(also some homegrown cascade hops).  I was going to

>put the cherry juice in at the beginning of the boil along

>with everything else but after reding the postings about

>fruit additves to beer I'm totally confused.  Now I'm

>thinking of adding the juice right at the end just before

>bottling.  I would appreciate any suggestions.

It's not a good idea to add the juice early in the boil because boiling

will boil-off many aromatics from the juice and about all you'll get is

alcohol out of the juice's sugars.  The flavor is in the aromatics!

Also, it's not a good idea to add the juice at bottling because it has

sugars in it and you'll get overcarbonated beer.

In addition to the two suggested cherry juice additions there are at least

two more:

1. add the juice in the last 1 minute of the boil, and

2. pasteurize the juice by heating it to 160F  for 10 minutes, cool it,

and add it after the primary fermenation is over.

Suggestion 1) is more likely to set the pectins (I think your homemade

juice has pectins in it) which will make your beer cloudy.

Suggestion 2) is the best because adding the cherry juice (or any fruit)

at pitching time is that the fermentation of the malt sugars and fruit

sugars will produce a lot of CO2 which will scrub the cherry aromatics

out of the beer.

I think that 4 cups may be an un-noticable amount of cherry flavor for

a 5 gallon batch.  I'm about to make a cherry beer and am thinking about

using between 6 and 8 pounds of cherries under 3.5 gallons of beer.  I've

used 13 pounds in a batch of pKriek and the cherry flavor was quite intense.

I've looked through many grocery stores looking for 100% cherry juice,

but no luck -- they are always (in order on the label): water, corn syrup,

white grape juice, cherry juice, preservatives.  That's not what I want

in my beer.  If you can't find more real cherry juice, it would be a shame

to waste the 4 cups you have.  Here's what I suggest:

 * Brew up the batch of beer.

 * When it's done, siphon one gallon onto the four cups of PASTEURIZED juice

   in a sanitized, two-gallon container.

 * Bottle the other four gallons.

 * Wait till the cherry sub-batch is done, bottle that.

Al.

------------------------------


lactic cultures

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 17:04:33 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: lactic cultures

Has anyone successfully produced an acidic belgian ale, such as

Goudenband or Rodenbach?  Perhaps a more appropriate question might be

has anyone successfully reproduced a tart belgian style ale?  Where

might one get appropriate lactic bacteria cultures?  I don't think

pediococcus is what I want, I'm not looking for ropiness.  Has anyone

used a yogurt culture for producing lactic beer?  If so, can these

bacteria stand alcohol and low pH?

____________

Ed Hitchcock ech@ac.dal.ca | "I'm not from outer space.  I'm from

Anatomy & Neurobiology  |  Iowa.  I just work in outer space."

Dalhousie University, Halifax |     - James T. Kirk

 [Eschew racism.  Drink beer from all nations]

------------------------------


Cardamom

Date: Sat, 25 Sep 93 03:30:00 BST

From: r.mcglew3@genie.geis.com

Subject: Cardamom

I don't know about cardamom in beer, but I do know about it in bread.  It

 gives bread a nice sweet flavor, it is my secret ingredient in almost

 any sweet bread that I bake.  Don't know what it will add to beer.

 Almost any spice can be bought less expensively at a store that specializes

 in spices and herbs.  Look in the Yellow pages locally, or in the back of

 a gourmet magazine for mail order.  I've found much greater variety (like

 three different kinds of cinnamom) and better merchandise this way!

------------------------------


Red Tail Ale Clone Request

Date:    Fri, 24 Sep 93 22:41 PDT

From: Thomas A Ludwig                      <IZZYQK4@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU>

Subject: Red Tail Ale Clone Request

Does anyone out there have a recipie for Red Tail Ale or something quite

similar?  Respond via HBD or private e-mail and I'll post a composite

response.

Cheers.

Thom Ludwig at UCLA Neuroscience (IZZYQK4@mvs.oac.ucla.edu)

------------------------------


Silver solder

Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1993 15:18:01 -0400 (EDT)

From: KONSTANTINE@delphi.com

Subject: Silver solder

   I've been following the discussion on silver soldering and decided to

to pull out The Complete Metalsmith by Tim McCreight and look up silver

solder alloys.  Here's what I found.

               Ag     Cu     Zn     Cd     Melt. Pt.

"IT"           80     16      4      0     1490

HARD           76     21      3      0     1425

MEDIUM         70     20     10      0     1390

EASY           60     25     15      0     1325

EASY-FLO       50     15     15     20     1270

   If there are any questions, Ag=silver, Cu=copper, Zn=Zinc, and

Cd=Cadmium.  The Melting Point is degrees fahrenheit.

   These are all high temperature alloys and from personal experience they

will solder stainless.  Keep close tolerances and the joint will be

stronger than the items you are bonding.  As the chart indicates, stay

away from Easy-Flo for food grade applications because Cadmium is very

toxic.

           Later,

               Konstantine.

------------------------------


Brewpub & Microbrew info needed

Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1993 21:54:25 EDT

From: WJCS75A@prodigy.com ( PAUL N HRISKO)

Subject: Brewpub & Microbrew info needed

All,

I'm finally taking a well deserved vacation traveling around the southwest.

Therefore, I'm asking for any information you may have on (good) brewpubs

and microbreweries located in the following states:

New Mexico

Arizona

Nevada

Utah

Colorado

Wyoming

Please e-mail me the info if you can.

Thanks in advance!

Paul N. Hrisko

Prodigy Services Company

>When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro - HST<

------------------------------


HELP!! (mead)

Date: Sun, 26 Sep 93 21:20:26 PDT

From: Keith Hill <khill@eecs.wsu.edu>

Subject: HELP!! (mead)

I was wondering if anyone wout there has mad mead using fruit?  If so

I would like some hints for future batches or help on the following

problem, how to avoid.  I need some opions if the mead I made would still

be good, it had mold on the top of it when I was transfering it to a

secondary. (It sat a little long in the primary)  I was curious for

opinions if it will be good?

Thanks for any help.

K Hill

khill@ren.eecs.wsu.edu

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1234, 09/27/93

*************************************

-------


BRFware

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 11:22 BST

From: "Andy Phillips, Long Ashton, Bristol, UK" <phillipsa@afrc.ac.uk>

Subject: BRFware

Sorry to use the HBD for this, but I couldn't get direct mailings to work:

To: Chris Campanelli

- --------------------

Are you planning a new version of the BRF brewing calculator, of

which I'm a big fan? Can I persuade you to include a US/metric conversion

for those of us on the wrong side of the Atlantic? I get very

confused about the size of US gallons, quarts and pounds.

Thanks

Andy Phillips, Bristol, UK

------------------------------


Pumpkin-pie beer

Date:     Mon, 27 Sep 1993 07:09 EDT

From: JMGARNETT@ATCSD.ESS.HARRIS.COM (JIM)

Subject:  Pumpkin-pie beer

Anyone out there have a good pumpkin recipie?  I don't do my own mashing, so I

need to be able to buy the malt.  How do you cook the pumpkin?  Only leave it

in the wort and filter it out, or should it stay in the fermenter?

Thanks

Jim

------------------------------


Beer/Pubs in Barbados

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 07:46:40 -0400 (EDT)

From: GONTAREK@JHUVMS.HCF.JHU.EDU

Subject: Beer/Pubs in Barbados

 Greetings all! Forgive me if this is not strictly a homebrewing

question, but does anybody know of any good pubs in Barbados?  In two

weeks I'll be going there for my honeymoon, and I wanted some input on

where my new wife and I could go for some chilly ones.  Do they drink

beer there, or is rum the only thing they imbibe?  I would be grateful

for any and all information regarding brewskies and this lovely vacation

spot.  You can e-mail me directly. Cheers!

Rick Gontarek

Dept. of Biology

The Johns Hopkins University

gontarek@jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu

------------------------------


Hops! (and more hops)

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 07:38:08 -0500 (CDT)

From: dspalme@mke.ab.com (Diane Palme x2617)

Subject: Hops! (and more hops)

Hi All!

 Just thought I would throw in my $0.02 on this year's hop harvest.

With three brand new rhisomes put in the ground ~mid-May, I was able to get

enough hops to distribute freely among friends and family.  We planted three

varieties:  Cascade, Hallertau, and Tett.  The Hallertau was the early-on

favorite but in the end, pooped out before putting out many cones.  Total?

Well, maybe 12-15 cones.  That's right, CONES, not ounces.  :-(  The cascade,

on the other hand, did a bang-up job.  The hop vines reminded me of grape

vines, there were so many cones!  Yikes!  We have a standard grocery bag

which has about a 4"layer of cones.  This is verrrrry promising.  The Tett?

Well, it was a shy plant.  Total vine length was about 12".  Yup, that's

right, 12".  Oh well, I'll get 'em next year!

Looking forward to brewing with home-grown hops ...

D.

- --

Diane Palme

Department Engineer, Central Inspection

Allen-Bradley Co.

(414) 382-2617

dspalme@mkelan5.remnet.ab.com

dspalme@mke.ab.com

  " I have found that it is much easier to fake an

    orgasm than to pretend to like basketball. "

Oh yeah, um, what I say is my opinion, um, what I think are my own ideas, uh,

Allen-Bradley has nothing to do with them, uh, yeah.  That's about it.

------------------------------


mailing samples

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 08:53:14 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: mailing samples

 I was at the Post Office Friday and checked out the "mailing liquids"

 issue. They have a big poster on packaging. It specifically includes

 mailing liquids, so obviously that *IS* legal. They say to pack it in

 absrobent padding (in case it breaks, obviously).

 No mention of mailing alcohol being illegal, despite a long list of

 other stuff you cant mail (flammables, toxins, compressed gases,

 explosives, etc)

jim

------------------------------


PHILLY HOMEBREW COMPETITION

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 08:43:15 EDT

From: tmr@fjtld.att.com

Subject: PHILLY HOMEBREW COMPETITION

I recently heard there was going to be a homebrew competition at the Sam

Adams brewery in Philadelphia some time in November.  My first question

is: has anyone heard about it, does anyone have any details about it like

location, date, time, cost, parking and directions.  My second question is:

what does a person do at a homewbrew competition besides watch judges taste

beer?  I`m thinking of taking a friend (a non-homebrewer) and wondered how

interesting it would be for either of us.  I won't have any entries so the

judging might not be the highlight of the day for me.

     Tom Romalewski

------------------------------


Cherry Juice

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 13:31:12 GMT

From: Chris Estes <CESTES@argos5.argosinc.com>

Subject: Cherry Juice

Hi All,

In today's HBD there was a discussion (sorry, no quotes or sources) about

using cherry juice instead of whole cherries.  One respondent mentioned that

he couldn't find 100% cherry juice.  Many health food stores carry Knudeson's

(sp?) and they make a 100% cherry juice.  They also make a variety of other

pure, juices (anyone for a kiwi-papaya weiss?!?).

I've used the cherry juice twice.  The first time was in a light ale.  The

stuff had a real metallic edge to it and wasn't very drinkable (I just dumped

out the last gallon of it yesterday - over a year old!).  It actually turned

out to be passable if consumed on the rocks!  I later made a cherry stout

which was much better.  In both brews, I used about 3 quarts of the stuff.

Personally, I'm not wild about fruit in my beers.  I did my part as a

homebrewer and experimented, and now I'm happily back to malt, hops, water,

and yeast!

 -Chris Estes-

------------------------------


Solder And Brazing

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 09:35:08 EDT

From: Bob_McIlvaine@keyfile.com

Subject: Solder And Brazing

A welder with mig or tig capabilities will take about 10

minutes to weld a keg type joint with Stainless, and

charge an hour minimum, typically $30 to $40 per hour.

Make sure the guy knows how to do stainless and can

handle liquid tight joints. Get all your holes and fittings

ready to weld and he can probably do all your joints in

an hour. If your lucky, you'll find a welder who will do

the job for several pints of good home brew.

Silver solder can be nasty to solder and can be hazardous

to your health if you get the wrong stuff. For your health's

sake, get the kind that is cadmium free, for your yeast's

health get low, low lead content. The simplest flux is plain

old borax, the chemical not the soap :-)    You can get the

solder and the flux at your local welding supply, consult

them  about the solder for food preparation vessels,

melt point of at least 1200 degreesF. The flux you can get

at hardware stores, drug stores (sometimes), and your

local supplier of chemicals for school science labs. The

actual soldering is tricky, burnish the stainless steel

parts, mix the borax powder with water and apply to the

joint, bring entire joint up to temperature, the borax will

melt. Don't get the joint to hot (easier said than done, with

stainless steel), to hot and the solder will ball up and roll

right off. Some old timers will wrap the solder wire around

the joint and heat indirectly until the solder sweats into the

joint making a very nice fillet. The key is to not oxidixe the

surface that the flux has cleaned, direct heat from a flame

WILL oxidise.

Regards,

Mac

------------------------------


Re: Purging Keg Headspaces

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 09:51:47 EDT

From: tmr@fjtld.att.com

Subject: Re: Purging Keg Headspaces

Although Chris Cook writes about purging kegs with CO2, I have been doing

this with my secondary fermenter to eliminate any risk of wort oxidation.

Before racking from the primary to the secondary, I fill my 5 gallon glass

carboy with CO2 using a small 2 or 3 inch long CO2 "charger" used in making

carbonated water.  I place the cartridge into the empty water container,

tighten the cartridge to puncture it and then squeeze the lever on the

bottle to release all the CO2 into the secondary.  With a carboy I use

a rubber or vinyl tube long enough to reach the bottom of the carboy.

Since the CO2 is denser than air it should fill up from the bottom upwards,

diplacing the air on top as it fills.  Then when racking, the wort is

transferred into the secondary under a blanket of CO2 avoiding any contact

with air.

I also use this technique when adding priming sugar/DME.  I purge whatever

air I can out of the primary plastic pail with the CO2 bottle.  In this

case I don't need any tube.  Just fire the CO2 into the secondary starting

all the way at the bottom.  I don't know how well this works since I can't

see the CO2 in the fermenters, but it seems like it should work.  Maybe I'll

lower a match or candle into the CO2 filled pail and see at what level the

flame goes out.

     Tom Romalewski

------------------------------


Troubleshoot my dry hopping!

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 09:06:00 -0600

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Troubleshoot my dry hopping!

Recently, I tried my first dry hop, and I'm not entirely pleased with

the results.  In brief, the brew was half of a 10gal batch of American

Pale Ale.  When secondary was almost complete, I added 1 oz of

homegrown cascade, in a weighted nylon stocking, to the carboy.

Sunday, after 10 days dryhop, I bottled.

I tasted the brew at bottling time, and found a very pronounced excess

bitterness.  I compared this to the other half of the batch, which had

not been dry hopped, and which did not have this bitterness.  So, the

bitterness was a result of the dryhopping.

Questions:

Is this simply a temporary bitterness that will soon mellow?  Or can

dry hopping really add noticeable bitterness?  Did I over dryhop?

How many IBU's can/should dry hops introduce?

By the way, the hop aromatics in the dry-hopped batch are great, so

I'd prefer not to reduce the amount of dry hops, but I'm afraid this

bitterness may have spoiled an otherwise great ale.

Thanks,

Kelly

------------------------------


Wedding Bells

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 10:34:14 -0500 (CDT)

From: Paul Boor <PBOOR@BEACH.UTMB.EDU>

Subject: Wedding Bells

I've been brewing like a madman, the kegs have aged up, and the bride and groom

have tasted and decided which two kegs they want to have at the wedding.  Now

my problem is: How do I set it up at the wedding?

I noticed several earlier posting about beer for weddings, so anyone with

experience please let me know how it went; specifically:

1) transport::  I was going to haul it over a couple of hours before but

  is this enough time?

2) temperature::  THIS  could be a problem.  I was planning on having the kegs

  in a tub with alittle ice on the bottom and cover the whole

  thing with a rug or something.  I don't want it too cold, etc.

3) Tank::       I'll tape the 5lb CO2 tank to the outside of the tub, I guess,

  and cover the regulator to protect it.

Basically I have the standard 5gal kegs, a 5lb tank, and a regular regulator.

Any advise appreciated,

 paul boor

------------------------------


Apple cider in Boulder area...

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 09:46:49 MDT

From: bacco@md.fsl.noaa.gov (Corby Bacco)

Subject: Apple cider in Boulder area...

Hello,

   Does anyone know of a good source of apple cider suitable for

making hard cider in the Boulder area?  Are there any apple orchards

in the area?

Thanks,

    Corby

------------------------------


Blow-off Loss and Cherry Juice

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 08:50:32 PDT

From: tima@wv.MENTORG.COM (Tim Anderson)

Subject: Blow-off Loss and Cherry Juice

Norm sez:

>Aren't you risking a siphon of potentially contaminated water (or sanitizer)

>back into your fermenter?

>

>      blowoff hose

>         ________

> B____  /________/

>       //        //

>       ||        ||

>       ||        ||

>      _||_       ||

>     / || /    |~||~|---C

>    |  ||  |   |    |

>A---|~~||~~|   |    |

>    |      |   |____|

>    |      |  blowoff bucket

>    |      |

>    |______|

>   fermenter

> ...

If you did it this way, you'd have a bigger problem than sanitizer suck-back.

You'd probably blow most of your batch out the hose!  The hose goes just into

top of the carboy thusly:

      blowoff hose

         ________

 B____  /__foam__/

       //        //

       ||        ||

       ||        ||

      _||_       ||

     /    /    |~||~|---C

    | foam |   |    |

A---|~~~~~~|   |    |

    |      |   |____|

    |      |  blowoff bucket

    |      |

    |______|

   fermenter

I agree with raising the effluent bucket above the carboy.  I put mine on a

shelf well above the carboy.  In fact, I intend to get a longer hose (maybe

8 feet) so I can put it way up there.  Most of the foul goo sticks to the

inside of the hose and never makes to the bucket anyway, and I'm hoping I

can get back most of the magic liquid that rides along with the foam.

Added note:  1" ID hose jammed right into the carboy neck is the only

way to go.  (But jam it in just a little!)

A data point for the cherry juice:

Some months back I made a wheat ale with Wyeast Belgian and primed with

pure cherry juice.  It was just some commercial bottled stuff from a

local "natural food" store (no added sugar, preservatives, or camel snot).

I didn't have a clue how much to use.  It wasn't very sweet, so I used

2 quarts to a 5 gallon batch.  Didn't boil, heat, or otherwise incant;

Just dumped it in.  The carbonation came slowly but in the end was over-

carbonated.  The result was tasty and surprisingly kriek-like.  Were I to

do it again, I would use only a quart and resign myself to less cherry

flavor.

tim

------------------------------


CO2 / mead

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 11:25:59 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: CO2 / mead

Chris Cook (cook@cdhf2.gsfc.nasa.gov) writes:

>When people say "purge the headspace," what procedures are you following?

Being totally anal, blanketing the keg with CO2 before you siphon into it,

pressurizing the headspace to 15 PSI and releasing the gas at least 3 times,

once with the keg stright up, once tilted to the side (so that the "IN" gas

fitting is on top), and once swirling the beer in the keg, to make danm

sure you got every last little bit of air out of the headspace.

You should at least be this anal if you are going to force carbonate the

beer by agitating it - any O2 in the headspace is going to making into

solution, and you can easily oxidize 5 gal of beer overnight if you're not

careful (If it doesn't taste as good the next morning as it did the night

before when you carbonated it, then you did something wrong :-).

If you just crank up the pressure and let sit undisturbed for a few days,

it's not a big factor...

- -----

Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu> writes:

>At this point the keg is over pressurized and undercarbonated.  The

>pressure is 35 psi.  If the pressure is vented to dispensing range, the

>beer will have large coarse bubbles, foam a lot and go flat quickly.

>...

>Something odd happens as the storage time increases.  The bubbles get

>smaller, the beading (trails of bubbles) improves, and the carbonation

>lasts longer in the glass.  I suspect this is due to the CO2 bonding

>(slowly) to things other than water, but you can't prove it by me.  This

>improvement in the quality of carbonation over time is puzzling, but pleasant.

I have definitely noticed this, also.  I kind of like the "foamy head, but

little CO2 in the beer" effect that happens just after force carbonation

via agitation (for dry stouts).  It makes for more of a Guinness-like taste.

certainly not appropriate in most brews, though.

- -----

Keith Hill <khill@eecs.wsu.edu> writes:

>I was wondering if anyone wout there has mad mead using fruit?  If so

>I would like some hints for future batches or help on the following

>problem, how to avoid.

If you use watermelon, beware that the pith will not dissolve during

fermentation; rather, it will float on top, forming a sponge-like layer

that easily clogs blowoff apparati.  It also has a red-fireworks effect

(much better than anything you've seen on the 4th of july) when the

pressure is released.  If you figure the carpet cleaning in with the price

of the batch, the cost is prohibitive.  On the + side, what's left

tastes great :-)

bb

------------------------------


Keg aging

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 12:50:47 -0400 (EDT)

From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

Subject: Keg aging

Greetings:

 I have a relatively new keg set up, and I am working on getting a

system that works well for me.  I have read the recent postings on forced

carbonation with interest, but I have an additional question.  Everyone

suggests shaking vigorously to get the CO2 into solution.  However, this

would appear to be at odds with another objective, getting the beer to

clear. In other words, one is also stirring up sediment when shaking.  So,

once the keg is carbonated, how long does in need to sit to get a good

clear final product?  While I try to rack carefully, some stuff invariably

comes along for the ride, particularly if I dry hop.  Also, will chill

haze eventually settle out if I store the kegs cold? How long does this

take? Help.

       Dave Rose.

------------------------------


Accelerating bottle carbonation?

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 13:05:33 EDT

From: lyons%adc1@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: Accelerating bottle carbonation?

Paul dArmond posted an answer to the question on forced carbonation

in kegs (HBD #1234):

> ...

>cubes.  CO2 is pretty soluble, but not instantly so.  Nor does it difuse

>rapidly through the beer.  The disolving takes place only at the

>gas/liquid interface, so the amount of surface area is important.

>

>There are several implications to these facts.

> ...

>3) An upright motionless keg presents the least surface area and thus

>provides the worst conditions for carbonation.

Does this imply that bottled beer would carbonate faster if placed

on its side rather than upright?  Anyone have a data point?

Chris

------------------------------


oatmeal stout extract, mash HSA

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 12:32:24 -0500 (cdt)

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: oatmeal stout extract, mash HSA

Jim, my e-mail to you bounced.

William's Brewing is a big mail-order outfit in San LEandro CA.  Their malt/

oat extract syrup, Oatmeal Dark, is one I used with great success last year.

You can add more specialty grain or extract if you want (I did) but I imagine

it's pretty good just by itself too.  (I have no finacial or other

blahblahblah I'm just a yakkityyakkity O.K.?  Enough of that.)

Here's yet another partial-mash question, raised by the recent thread on

aeration (bad) of the mash.

If I use the colander to strain/sparge my grains into the brew pot, am I not

then subjecting the mash to Hot Side Aeration??  How hard should I work to

avoid this?

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell Iowa

------------------------------


Hydrometer rea

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 14:01:56 EDT

From: uszvnrl6@ibmmail.COM

Subject: Hydrometer rea

- ----------------------- Mail item text follows ---------------

I'm new the the HBD and homebrewing for that matter, but I figure that

someone out there has probably wanted to do this before.

I would like to record temperature and gravity readings using my personal

computer. What I need is a way of obtaining a hydrometer reading that can be

modified, or already provides an 8/16 bit output. I'm not sure if there are

comercially available "electronic" hydrometers, or if what I will have to do

is attach a carbon strip to the scale of the hydrometer, and read a

resistance to determine the gravity. If I use the resistance method, I need

to find someplace that makes a beer scale hydrometer that has a rather large

distance between units of measure. Any assistance would be greatly

appreciated.

response via E-Mail or HBD is acceptable.

Don Zickefoose

Electronic Systems Engineer

InterBold

internet:   USZVNRL6@ibmmail.com

compuserve: 71155,220

------------------------------


Brewpubs in Dartmouth, NH? Need info by 9/30

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 13:34:40 -0500

From: holloway@ezmail1.ucs.indiana.edu (Jan Holloway)

Subject: Brewpubs in Dartmouth, NH? Need info by 9/30

Greetings, brewlist. A friend is going to Dartmouth, NH, on Thursday and

needs your recommendations for local microbreweries/brewpubs. He's leaving

Indiana Thursday, so we need your inspiration post-haste!

If you want to reply to me, please write to holloway@indiana.edu. We who

are staying behind in Indiana thank you.  --Jan

------------------------------


Louis Vierling

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 13:47 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Louis Vierling

Louis-- Can't reach you via email -- please call me some evening

at 708-430-HOPS -- sorry for the bandwidth.

Al.

------------------------------


Mash temperature drop

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 11:58:53 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Mash temperature drop

I have seen little about acceptable temperature drops during mashing.

There is much about target and strike temps, however I'm looking for

an indication of how much of a temperature drop is acceptable over the

course of a mash.  So, for a single step infusion with a target of

153F what is an acceptable temperature drop over an hour?  Can one average

the temp over the mash and then assume that the conversion characteristics

are actually those found with a mash of the average temp.  For example,

if I start at 156F, and drop to 150F over an hour is it safe to assume

that I would have gotten the same result with a constant 153F?

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Utah Brewpubs

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 13:30:15 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Utah Brewpubs

There are four brewpubs in the land of 3.2 beer and the Osmond family :(

The biggest in Wasatch brewery in Park City. About 1/2-1hr up from

Salt Lake.  Worth the visit just to see the location. Beautiful!

They have a number of brews.  I would recommend the

 Slickrock.  Light, hoppy, hazy. Good afternoon brew.

 Ale.  Usually pretty good.  Recently has been excellent. Malty.

  Slightly browned amber. Good heady/hoppy.

 Stout.  I used to love this stuff till I started making better stouts

  Used to seem very thick and creamy. Now...I've had ones I

  could walk on top of.  This would be a swimmer!

 Seasonals...You may still catch the Rasberry.  I think it's slickrock

  with rasberry extract added.  Pretty good though.

  Holiday ales, christmass ale,  fall bock...depends on what

  they are up to at the time.

 There is a Light beer now.  Watered down slickrock is my guess. ugh.

I have not known them to have the

"best quality control"    but hey....it's a brewpub not Miller!

It is the only bottler you could take with you from Utah.

Squatter.  Salt Lake City.

 Mostly a restaurant which brews too.  Hop vines on the patie.

 Good selection of styles.  I don't know what they have going now.

 They've had a cask-conditioned ale which was quite true to style.

 Light ales, cream stouts, ambers...Generally nice beer. More

 adventurous and willing to bring out the flavors of a style, rather

 than catering to "american beer" style consumers.  That's a very

 good thing!  (ps.  that should read SQUATTERS)

Ebeneezers.  Ogden Utah.

 An hour north of salt lake.  A wonderfully built log cabin housing

 a classy restaurant.  Oh by the way, they brew beer upstairs too.

 Haven't tried the food, but the 4 beers we sampled were...well...

 played pretty safe.  Their setup looks very nice and clean...but

 being the extreme hop-head I am, I felt the brews were lacking.

 The pub has only been open a couple of years, and I hit it early on

 so maybe things have changed.  A worthy place to visit all in all.

 They had a light, amber, stout...and a specialty, which changes.

 That may all have changed by now.  (oh..it was a lager at the time)

????Can't remember the name.  In Price Ut.

 A few hours south of Salt Lake.  Never been there. Never had their

beer.  Seen the label on a bottle.  Looked nice. Don't know what the inside

was like.  But I liked the homebrew toot refilled it with!

And finally for the more adventurous...

 The Coyote Brewery in Logan UT. Run my....none other than....

The Wyllie-Man himself.  Fresh brewed beer on tap in a senic basement lounge

decorated in the fashion of the Lambic breweries.  All spiders intact.

Even the aggressive house spiders!  An ever changing array of tastes to delight.

IPA's, Malty ambers, hoppy bitters, Creamy stouts, Potable Porters...

and the occasional experimental adventures... Fruits, spices, one of

the latest being a Pepper Cardamon corrupted Scotch Ale (90 shilling).

The Pumpkin Mash will begin it's life with the full moon!

(really...if you're passing through northern Ut. drop me a line.

We have the biggest vendor of Wasatch beers (other than their home)

here in town, the White Owl tavern.  Nothing like an Owl burger on the deck

friday afternoon with a Big Dog of Ale.  Summers gone, the trees are alive!)

****  PS: I don't have any affilition with any of the breweries, except

my own!  And sharing the kinship of the many other mini breweries found

in basements and closets all over this little valley!!!   ******

***********  John (The Coyote) Wyllie SLK6P@cc.usu.edu 801-753-0825 *********

------------------------------


Smoked Porter

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 19:57:00 +0000

From: ron_hall%80@hp6400.desk.hp.com

Subject: Smoked Porter

I would like to make a Smoked Porter similar to the wonderful stuff put

out by the Alaskan Beer Co. and Greg Noonan's brewery.  I would like to

smoke my own grain, but I have heard or read widely varied recipes on

how to do this.  TCJOHB recommends 1 lb. of smoked 2-row for their Smokey

the Beer recipe, and suggests doing it on a brass screen on the BBQ.

I seem to remember a winning recipe from the national AHA convention that

used 4-5 lbs. of smoked grain for a 5 gallon batch.   Any experiences

out there?  I guess the plan for now is to use 2 lbs. of 2-row, fire up

the Weber, add some Alder chips (that seems to be the smoker's wood of

choice here in the Pacific NW), place the grain on a screen or cookie

sheet, cover and wait until deep roasted color prevails.  Any advice?

Ron Hall

Corvallis, Oregon

ron_hall@hp6400.desk.hp.com

------------------------------


Re: heating SS/Keg Forced Carbonation Confusion/Campden Blowoff

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 15:05 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: heating SS/Keg Forced Carbonation Confusion/Campden Blowoff

Paul writes:

>I've used Safety-Silv 1200 to braze numerous bicycle frames, without a joint

>failure, so it provides a fairly strong joint.  I use either Mapp gas with

>a Turbo head or one of those propane/oxygen setups from the h/w store.  As

>you probably can guess the brazing rod melts in the 1200 deg F range.

>I've read that prolonged heating of SS above 1200-1400 degrees can cause

>it to become brittle, so be careful.  I'd suggest practicing on the

>portion of the keg you've cut off.

I once got a hold of a Cornelius keg which I was told was legal, but in

retrospect, I'm quite sure wasn't.  The source was a guy from one of the

homebrew clubs who said he got a dozen kegs from an aluminum recycler and

that they had been released by the owners.  The kegs still had the:

"WARNING: PROPERTY OF PEPSI COLA BOTTLERS OF ILLINOIS" or some such statment.

I tried removing this label by pulling, but that's not a good way.  Then,

I thought, hey, why don't I burn it off with a propane torch?  The label

burned off quite nicely, but in the process, the SS glowed red-hot.  Upon

cooling, the metal was dark brown and rough.  On the inside of the keg,

there was a rainbow colored area, right where I had been heating.  I never

ended up using that keg and I think it just started to rust in that heated

area.

The bottom line is that I think that it's possible to ruin a SS keg by

overheating, even with a simple propane torch (no oxygen other than that

in the air).

************************

In response to John McCafferey's keg carbonation/dispensing pressure

confusion:

John "Cisco" and I are still working this issue.  We'll report shortly

on our findings.

************************

Johnathan writes:

>Anyway, in #1231 Aaaron Morris recommends Campden tablets in the blowoff

>bucket.  What does the campden do?  I've never heard of this.

The campden tablets sanitize the water in the blowoff bucket.  I believe

they are Sodium or Potassium Metabisulfite.  I'm quite sure the intent

is to sanitize the water in case the cooling of the wort sucks blowoff

water up the blowoff tube into the fermenter.  Since I've switched to

1.25" OD, 1" ID blowoff hoses, there's no fear of this happening, so I

just use plain water.  You could just as well use boiling water in the

blowoff bucket if you wish since after 24 hours, the gas that the campden

tablets make (I forget which it is -- some sulfur-compound) has fizzled-out

and anything that wants to live in your bucket can, so boiling water would

work just as well and is cheaper.  I strongly recommend that you use an

oversized tube for blowoff (ideally, 1" ID) to avoid clogging and explosions.

I might also add, that I'm still debating (with myself) on whether to use

blowoff or not anymore (fear of lost head-retaining proteins).

Al.

------------------------------


Cellar Notes: Radio Program

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 14:26:45 -0400

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@anubis.fnma.COM>

Subject: Cellar Notes: Radio Program

Hugh Sisson & Al Spoler (of Sisson's, The South Baltimore Brewing Co.) can be

heard on WJHU, Baltimore Public Radio, 88.1 FM, every Wednesday at 8:25PM and

Sunday at 12:55PM.  The show explores various topics in the areas of beer, and

at some point is supposed to develop into a Q&A call-in program.

- ---

email: sxupjd@fnma.com (NeXT Mail Okay)

Philip DiFalco, Senior SomethingOrOther, Advanced Technology

FannieMae, 3900 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, DC 22016     (202)752-2812

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1235, 09/28/93

*************************************

-------


Keg Purging w/ CO2

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 10:59:14 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: Keg Purging w/ CO2

cook@cdhf2.gsfc.nasa.gov writes:

> This raises a question: what procedures are people using for purging keg

> headspaces?  My usual practice when I don't have amnesia is to hook up the

> gas supply with the keg lid ajar, open the gas valve halfway and let the

> CO2 run into the tank second or two, then pull the lid shut.

>

> When people say "purge the headspace," what procedures are you following?

>

I purge the keg prior to racking into it by filling the keg with CO2

and opening the vent in the lid.  I repeat this several times.  Then

I rack into the keg with gas still attached to receiving keg (2-3 psi) to

ward off the demons of beer oxidation.  One can also rack into the keg

using the liquid out connector with the appropriate fittings.  You will

have to bleed the gas out of the receiving keg as it fills with beer.

When complete, I pressurize the keg to 10-15 psi, vent and re-pressurize

and repeat 3 or 4 times. *Another* useful technique to exorcise the demons

of beer oxidation is to use the two-hole (orange) carboy cap at racking

and force LOW pressure CO2 into one hole (the side hole) to start the siphon.

After the siphon has started, loosen the carboy cap and maintain a low

flow rate of CO2 to keep a blanket of CO2 on the beer until you're done

racking.

- --

***********************************************************************

 **** Rob Reed             Internet: rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com   ****

 **** IC Design Center            Delco Electronics Corporation   ****

***********************************************************************

------------------------------


decoction (not again!), SN Pale Bock

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 10:04:00 PDT

From: "Moore, Brian" <Moorebw@hvsmtp1.mdc.com>

Subject: decoction (not again!), SN Pale Bock

Hello all,

I've been an HBD reader for a few months now, but this is my first writing

adventure.  I

know the decoction discussion has come and gone, but it did inspire my buddy

and I to

try it.  Although slightly intimidated by the 23 step process, possible

divorces, etc., we

leapt right in.  It all started yesterday...

We started just as we would for a temperature controlled mash.  Infuse about

10 quarts

135 F water with 10.5 pounds grain (9 # Belgian Pilsener Malt, 1 # Belgian

Munich Malt,

and 1/2 # Crystal Malt (30 L)) into a 10 gallon cooler equipped with a

copper sparge

manifold. We hit our protein rest temperature of about 125 F. We held this

for about

thirty minutes then pulled our first decoction (about 1/3 of the total

volume, mostly

grains).  Our plan was to slowly heat this on our propane cooker to about

155 F.  It was

then we realized that the words "slowly heat" and "propane cooker" do not go

together

well.  After an almost instantaneous local boil, we moved the decoction

inside to the

stove.  Here we were somewhere between 140 F and 160 F for about 30 minutes.

Figuring this would be okay, we proceeded to boil for about 20 minutes.  We

slowly

added this back to our mash.

Our mash came to a temperature of about 140 F and stayed firmly there.

After a few

boiling water infusions and another small decoction, we managed to get all

the way to

152 F. Cautiously optimistic, we let it mash for about and hour and a half.

Our iodine

tests never showed complete conversion (maybe because of grain particles in

the

sample?). We pulled our final decoction (all liquid, about 2 gallons) and

heated it to boil

quickly on the propane torch.  Once added back, we began our sparge with

about 4.5

gallons of water. This went fine (sparged till runnings were about 1.010),

as did the boil.

We cooled the wort using an immersion chiller and racked off some

brilliantly clear

wort.  Total time was about 8 hours.

Our original gravity was 1.044. This gives an extraction of about 21

pts/lb/gal (I think).

This is a bit lower than my typical extraction for a temperature controlled

mash (about

25 pts/lb/gal).

My questions are these:

1. Was my extraction so low because of incomplete conversion or some other

reason?

2. Was my temperature control a factor? If so, how do others out there

control

temperatures more precisely?

3. Should my first decoction have been bigger?

4. Does anyone out there have a good recipe to duplicate the Sierra Nevada

Pale

Bock? My wife really likes it and since she gave me no grief about this

decoction

mess...

Sorry about the length and TIA for the info.

                              Brian Moore

                              <moorebw@hvsmtp1.mdc.com>

________________________________________________________________________

                No cool sign off thingy here

________________________________________________________________________

------------------------------


my method of purging O2 from a cornilius keg

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 08:48:45 PDT

From: 28-Sep-1993 1141 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: my method of purging O2 from a cornilius keg

I connect the gas to the liquid poppet, then, while holding the pressure

relief valve up, i crank on the gas.  you can hear the co2 bubble up.  i

do this for maybe 10 or so seconds.  then i pressurize to about 5-7 psi,

check for leaks, then let it condition.

jc

------------------------------


Specialty Malts/Hot Side aeration-oxidation

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 12:56:04 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Specialty Malts/Hot Side aeration-oxidation

>Many of the specialty grains are used

> to make extract beer taste like grain beer and offer little to the all grain

> brewer.   The problem is sorting out the ones that are useful.

 >The most obvious are the color malts for obvious reasons.  The next would be

 >the roasted malts for that roasted flavor.

 >Beyond that, I run out of gas.  I can't taste any of the others when added to

 >by beer in the usual amounts and prefer to change the base malt.   Please

 >note that I said "I can't taste" and presume that those who can will fill in

 >the blanks.

>

 >js

Ok ok.  We all have our opinions.  Jack your approach reminds me of a

brewing friend here who won't budge from his tried and true methods.

Despite all the renovations and improvements my brewery has gone through

much in part due to major learning/ideas/creations developed from net

knowledge.  His brews are all made from the basics:

    Pale malt,  crystal malt,  the three dark malts (choco/roast/black)

He basically rotates between: Pale, golden, amber, stout.

It works for him.  He likes his beer.

Me...I adventure.  I've tried most anything, from pumkin to pepper, to

vast arrays of fruits and spices.  Plus...a number of specialty malts.

Yes they add color and flavor.  They can give an extract brewer a grainier

taste.  But many of them will perform best in the presence of mashing

enzymes.  to an extracter they may just lead to starch and haze.

Here's some examples of ones I use and why  (I've been all-graining for

about 4 years now, so I've tried a couple along the way...)

Basics: Pale malts,  2 row, 6 row.  Basic mashing enzyme power- fermentables

        Vienna 2 row. A slightly darker maltier base malt. Good for ambers

        Munich malt.  2 or 6 row, depending on supplier (see discussions)

            A bit darker still, has enzymes.  Good in strong lagers styles.

        Crystals.  The whole shlew of lovibond ratings.  Use em all. 10-120.

        Don't just settle for generic "crystal". Get the rating, try high and

        low.  I don't think I've ever made a beer w/o crystal.  The higher

        end add a particularly nice heavier maltiness to mid-color brews.

Specialties worth trying (IMHO of course)  Use .5-3 #/5 gallons

        Victory.    Adds a nutty/roasty flavor, but MUCH more subtle than

          the dark malts.  Great for a nut brown, or vienna

        Dextrine.  Want the full body mouth feel in your stouts? That sweet

          chewy kind of character you find in a good full porter.

        Wheat.  Go 50/50 for a real wheat beer, or just a touch to add some

          serious head retention.  I usually toss in a few cups for fun.

        Rye.  A bit more unusual. Not for everyone.  Adds a red tone.

          Try some DARK crystal with about 30% rye in a golden/amber brew.

          It has an unusual flavor. Sort of "bitey" , tart almost.

          Hard to describe by a nice change of pace.  One taster swears by it

Dark malts

        Chocolate, Roasted, Black Patent.  (These should almost be in the

        basics!)  I love chocolate. I bought 30 #'s so I'd NEVER run out.

        Get to know them separately or in combinations. The battle over which

        belongs in porter may never end- black or roast?!!!!  Try a full

        pound, or just toss in a handful to a "light" beer and see what

        happens.  Wonderful things come to life.  Dark grains are NOT only

        for dark beers.  A sublte roast taste can do wonders for a pale.

How to get to know specialty malts...Thoughts to ponder.

    So many variables, so much beer, so much tasting, and brewing...

   Make a lighter beer with just pale and crystal as the base.  Add a

   slightly oversized amount of the specialty malt.  Say 3 or 4 pounds.

    see how it Really tastes.  Then use it in smaller quantities to your

    liking.  Do this SEPARATELY with different batches and different malts,

    then start to mix and match.

  Look to style recipes for what is "appropriate" for a particular style

    and go for it.  Alternate combinations.  Use victory and munich, then

    munich and dextrine, then victory and dextrine.

I have gotten to a point where I don't formulate a recipe ahead of time.

I decide on degree of color, and go to my grain room and mix and match

letting the grains speak to me and call out who wants to give their all

to this particular batch.  I try to add several but NOT ALL types in each

batch. I've had brews with as much as 10 differnt types of malt.  The

resulting flavors can be very complex and perform dances of ectasy on the

taste buds and "brew senses".  Then there is the whole world of hop varieties

to play with, but that's another story.

I know there are many other types of malts out there. Belgian and all,

which I have yet to sample.  There are certainly differnces between

american 2 row and english 2 row, or lager malts.  Worth the prices to

try for that special holiday ferment, or all the time!

NOW A QUESTION:  Hot side aeration.

    I have not seen Fix's article on this, I was wondering if anyone could

summarize the crux of it for me.  The concern is over addind air to a mash

once it's brought up to mashing temp, and then upon sparging and splashing.

I made a copper manifold/rectangular cooler lauter tun ( I love it!)

I added a tube that extends upward at the side away from the spigot.

I can run water through the tubing and sprinkle sparge water gently on top

of the mash with NO disturbance of the grain bed.  One idea which came up

was that I could use this tube to set the grain bed.  I begin the mash

in my brew pot, get it well mixed then add hot water to bring the temp up

and dump the shlew into the cooler.  I can then blow air into the tube at

the top side to mix the contents, allowing the heavier pieces of husk to

settle quickly while anypowder rises to the top.  I've had excellent

sparges using this.  I've even run the tun dry (got distracted) before

finishing the sparge, so I added more water (underlet) and reset the grain

bed by blowing air in. The bubbles rise from below- stirring all the grain

and bits upward.  As they re-settle the heavies drop first and the bed

is re-set.  With this setup I don't see how I could ever have a stuck

sparge.

    But what damage can be caused by bubbling air through a mash?

I know that boiled hot wort is subject to oxidation reactions, but we're

talking about a fair few degrees cooler here.  Do other mashers out there

take efforts to avoid splashing the wort upon sparging?  I stick

a spoon in the line of flow to let the wort travel down the spoon

rather than through the air splashing into the collecting vessel.

Any knowledgable info on this, or personal experiences would be welcomed.

Thanks in advance.   Good brew to you all.

************** John (The Coyote) Wyllie  SLK6P@cc.usu.edu ******************

PS: Pumkin beer is on the way.  Gotta do that seasonal thing.  Hmmm

full moon is on the way.  The carma may lead me to it!

------------------------------


AHA Membership dues and kegging.

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 11:47:43 edt

From: Bill Sadvary <SADVARY@DICKINSON.EDU>

Subject: AHA Membership dues and kegging.

I have an old issue of Zymurgy (1991) and the Application to join the AHA

list a $25 one year membership fee and a $45 fee for two years.

Are these the current fees?  I'd like to join.

 -Bill Sadvary

 Dickinson College

 Carlisle, PA

------------------------------


RE: "Beer" translations

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 10:10:06 -0600 (CST)

From: John Mare <cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: RE: "Beer" translations

The Afrikaans word for beer is "bier" not "oke" as given. "Castle" &

"Lion" biere are the most common, "Windhoek Export" in my view the best. I

will be testing the "biere" in Windhoek and Durban in the next few weeks!

Gesondheid!

John of John's Alehouse, Tucson, AZ.

------------------------------


First All Grain

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 13:43:25 -0400

From: edo@marcam.com (Ed Oriordan)

Subject: First All Grain

I am slowly preparing for my first all grain batch, and would like to ask

a few questions on my proposed recipe.  I am going for a kind of Pete's

Wicked or dark pale ale (this is somewhat of a conversion of my standard

extract brew). 5 gal batch size.

  8 lbs 2-Row Amreican

1/2 lb  Crystal

1/2 lb  Cara-Pils

1/4 lb  Chocolate malt

  1 oz  Norther Brewer (bittering)

  1 oz  Cascade (finishing)

1056 WYeast American

Q1 - I am planning a single step infusion.  Is 2-Row American the

grain I should be using?  If not, what and why?

Q2 - Should I be using more than 8 lbs? Should I use 9 lbs?

Q3 - I have used crystal and chocolate in the past, but never Cara-Pils.

Is there anything I need to know?  I am using it for body (is this a waste

for a single step infusion?) Should I use more than 1/2 lb?

Q4 - Do all four grains require the same grind? I have my own mill so I can

adjust it? Are they all about the same grain size?

Q5 - I am planning on mashing the Cara-Pils and 2-Row and adding the crystal

and chocolate at mashout time, is this correct?

If anybody could give me a hand I'd appreciate it.

Later I'll post what I am planning for the actual brewing procedure if that's

OK.

Thanks

Ed O'  ---->  edo@marcam.com

------------------------------


Chicago Area Brew

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 11:27:13 -0600

From: Michael Howe <howe@gwl.com>

Subject: Chicago Area Brew

Hello all,

    This is yet another request for local brewpub information.  I am planning

a trip to the windy city in about a week.  Busy days and free evenings will

allow me to visit a few local brewpubs.  Are there places that are not to

be missed?  I will probably be staying on the north side of town (i.e. Evanston)

if that is any help.  I would retrieve the brewpub list myself from the

archives, but I don't have FTP access.  Besides, I am very eager to receive

comments along with the recommendations from the 'locals'.

Thanks in advance,

Michael     e-mail : howe@gwl.com

------------------------------


PVC/DWC Tubing - Food Grade?

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 14:25:04 -0400 (EDT)

From: Michael Ligas <ligas@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>

Subject: PVC/DWC Tubing - Food Grade?

To date, I have conducted my mashes in a cylindrical insulated water

cooler (the big orange type) with a false bottom. The system works well as

far as holding a constant temperature, but I have always found it

difficult to stir the mash in a deep and narrow container. Therefore, I

plan to convert a large rectangular picnic cooler into a mash tun for

easier stirring/mixing. Rather than using slotted copper tubing for

drainage, I am considering using either black or white PVC/DWC tubing that

is sealed with either the yellow PVC cement employed in plumbing

procedures, or with silicon sealant (the aquarium type). Now the question:

Is PVC tubing safe for this type of food application?? What about the

yellow sealant? All comments appreciated. Take care.

    - ML -

   ligas@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca

------------------------------


PVC/DWC Tubing - Food Grade?

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 14:25:04 -0400 (EDT)

From: Michael Ligas <ligas@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>

Subject: PVC/DWC Tubing - Food Grade?

To date, I have conducted my mashes in a cylindrical insulated water

cooler (the big orange type) with a false bottom. The system works well as

far as holding a constant temperature, but I have always found it

difficult to stir the mash in a deep and narrow container. Therefore, I

plan to convert a large rectangular picnic cooler into a mash tun for

easier stirring/mixing. Rather than using slotted copper tubing for

drainage, I am considering using either black or white PVC/DWC tubing that

is sealed with either the yellow PVC cement employed in plumbing

procedures, or with silicon sealant (the aquarium type). Now the question:

Is PVC tubing safe for this type of food application?? What about the

yellow sealant? All comments appreciated. Take care.

    - ML -

   ligas@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca

------------------------------


forced carbonation

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 15:30:53 EDT

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: forced carbonation

drose@husc.harvard.edu asks:

> Everyone suggests shaking vigorously to get the CO2 into solution.

> However, this would appear to be at odds with another objective, getting

> the beer to clear. In other words, one is also stirring up sediment when

> shaking.  So, once the keg is carbonated, how long does in need to sit.....

I age the beer in a glass carboy and transfer it to the keg when the beer

is perfectly clear.  Pressurize the keg, shake it to force carbonate and

it's ready to serve - immediately.  If, during the final racking you do

introduce some sediment, the amount is rarely enough to be a factor.

- --Tony Verhulst

------------------------------


Bottle corbonation/mash temp/blowoff tubes

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 16:35:34 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Bottle corbonation/mash temp/blowoff tubes

Chris asks:

>Does this imply that bottled beer would carbonate faster if placed

>on its side rather than upright?  Anyone have a data point?

 When bottle conditioning, the CO2 is being generated in the beer

itself, and comes out of solution to enter the headspace.  In a keg, the

CO2 is in the headspace and has to dissolve into the beer.  Two opposite

scenarios.  In the bottle, the dissolved CO2 and the headspace gas will

tend to find their own equilibrium.  In the keg,you start with a low

dissolved CO2 and high head space CO2 partial pressure.  If you want your

keg carbonation to mimic bottle carbonation, attach a plastic hose from

your CO2 dip tube down to the bottom of the keg, clamp it at the end, and

punch it full of a million pin holes.  Then, start at about 5 psi, upping

the pressure by about 1psi/day for a week.  Of course, it's faster just to

shake the kegs....

*****************************

Domenick Venezia asks:

>I have seen little about acceptable temperature drops during mashing.

>There is much about target and strike temps, however I'm looking for

>an indication of how much of a temperature drop is acceptable over the

>course of a mash.  So, for a single step infusion with a target of

>153F what is an acceptable temperature drop over an hour?  Can one average

>the temp over the mash and then assume that the conversion characteristics

>are actually those found with a mash of the average temp.  For example,

>if I start at 156F, and drop to 150F over an hour is it safe to assume

>that I would have gotten the same result with a constant 153F?

 I think that if you are trying to maintain a specific temperature,

you're acceptable temperature fluctuation is the precision tolerance of

your thermometer.  That said, I think we all have temperature variation in

the mash, and do our damndest to minimize it, unless it is specifically

desired.  I tend to pre-heat my oven to 200^F, then turn it off and put in

the mash tun.  I get almost no heat loss over a two hour mash that way.

Even this way, though, at teh time I put the tun in the oven the bottom and

middle of the mash may be a few degrees warmer than the top and sides.

To answer your question specifically, if your mash drops from 156 to 150

over an hour, *record* it as a drop of 156 to 150 over an hour.  If you

want a mash of 153, either find a way of better insulating the tun, or give

it extra heat boosts every now and again.  Sometimes accuracy requires a

little extra work.  But then, sometimes you can just pop it in the oven...

***************************

On the subject of blowoff tubes:

Recently I have started following Miller's suggestion, racking off the trub

a little while after pitching the yeast, but before primary fermentation

gets going.  This can be tricky, because a good healthy yeast starter will

get going before the trub gets to settle out.  What I do is this:  My

immersion chiller (planispiral) cools the wort rapidly to under 100^F, but

then slows down, as the temperature differential is decreased.  I take the

temperature down to about 80^F, then rack into a carboy (I use the ventury

tube aeration here).  I let it cool a further few hours, then pitch the

yeast.  I wait another few hours, and rack it off the trub while transferring

to the primary, a 23L carboy,  again aerating the wort.  When the kraeusen

forms, it is birght, clean, and white.  No brown gunge at all.  It rises

into the extra headspace the 23L carboy offers, and falls back in, retaining

all those lovely heading proteins.  Moral:  The brown gunge is from the trub,

and is not a product of the kraeusen.  Get to the source of the problem

instead of employing bandaid solutions.  If you use blowoff because you

like to ferment in carboys, get a bigger carboy.  I you use a blowoff to

remove bitterness, rack off the trub instead.

Of course, if you're happy with your beer, ignore this.

____________

Ed Hitchcock ech@ac.dal.ca | "I'm not from outer space.  I'm from

Anatomy & Neurobiology  |  Iowa.  I just work in outer space."

Dalhousie University, Halifax |     - James T. Kirk

 [Eschew racism.  Drink beer from all nations]

------------------------------


Raspberry Stout

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 15:41:37 -0400 (EDT)

From: todd royer <royer@ac.wfunet.wfu.edu>

Subject: Raspberry Stout

This past summer I drank a Raspberry Stout in Crested Butte, CO.  Does

anyone have a recipe for this brew?  Would it be better to use whole

raspberries or raspberry juice?  Is Raspberry Iced Tea Snapple brewed the

same way? (just kidding)  Thanks in advance for your help.

TODD

------------------------------


DME vs. Dextrose - scum ring in bottle

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 11:06:14 MDT

From: scojam@scojam.Auto-trol.COM (Scott James.)

Subject: DME vs. Dextrose - scum ring in bottle

  Al writes:

> On some of my batches primed with DME, I noticed a sort of floating, "oily"

> scum on the top of the beer in the bottle.  Some have written that this is

> similar to the kraeusen ring in the fermenter, but I have reason to doubt

> it.  I think it's protein from the DME priming solution.  If I'm correct

> in this assumption, it should be remedied by force cooling the DME priming

> solution so that cold break forms and is not added to the priming vessel

> (is left behind).  See what I mean about dextrose being easier?  Since

> switching back to dextrose priming, I have yet to see this scum in my

> bottles.  I would test this theory myself, but since I'm having trouble

> finding time to brew, I would suspect it will take years for this test

> to reach the top of my list.  Any takers?

  I made a sweet stout recently and primed with M&F light DME.  I noticed

  a ring around the bottle after 1 1/2 weeks or so.  I figured I had infected

  the whole batch, but it all turned out excellent!  Thanks for posting this

  message, Al.  Now I have a better feel about that ring.  There was also

  oily scum in the beer after the head drops :( after 5 mins or so.  I brewed

  a four gallon batch in a five gallon carboy - little blowoff.  But now I

  suspect the DME was the culprit, rather than unexpelled krausen.

  scott

------------------------------


Dry hopping, bottle carbonation

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 15:12:03 CDT

From: caa@com2serv.c2s.mn.org (Charles Anderson)

Subject: Dry hopping, bottle carbonation

> Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 09:06:00 -0600

> From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

> Subject: Troubleshoot my dry hopping!

>

>

> Questions:

> Is this simply a temporary bitterness that will soon mellow?  Or can

> dry hopping really add noticeable bitterness?  Did I over dryhop?

> How many IBU's can/should dry hops introduce?

I did the same thing with my first full mash Pale Ale.  I added 1oz of

Willamette to the fermenter, it came out with a great hop aroma, but also

an unbelievable bitterness.  BTW I just threw the hops in on top of the

fermenting wort.  It took a long time for my bitterness to go away, and

by that time I didn't think the beer was very good.  (couldn't tell if

wasn't very good to start with too much bitterness)

> Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 13:05:33 EDT

> From: lyons%adc1@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

> Subject: Accelerating bottle carbonation?

>

> Paul dArmond posted an answer to the question on forced carbonation

> in kegs (HBD #1234):

>

> >3) An upright motionless keg presents the least surface area and thus

> >provides the worst conditions for carbonation.

>

> Does this imply that bottled beer would carbonate faster if placed

> on its side rather than upright?  Anyone have a data point?

No because when you are force carbonating the keg, you need the extra CO2

beer contact.  When the bottle is carbonating the yeast are producing CO2

in the beer.

 -Charlie

------------------------------


more cherry juice stuff...

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 17:06:11 CDT

From: jay marshall <marshall@pat.mdc.com>

Subject: more cherry juice stuff...

Chris and Al talk about the difficulties in finding and using cherry juice

for beer.  I too have used the Knudsen's cherry juice, added in the

secondary.  I used two quarts and the result was only a slight cherry

aftertaste.  The beer was good, but I was disappointed with the low level

of cherry flavor (no metallic taste though!).  Adding the cherry juice

kicked off a very strong fermentation and, if I were to do it again, I

would use more juice (or the concentrated version) and reduce the temp

of the secondary to slow down the extra fermentation caused by the new

sugars.

This having been said, however, I don't think I'll be trying the juice

anymore.  The last cherry ale I made was done using HopTech's cherry

flavoring, and I was very pleased.  One tbsp in the keg resulted in a

wonderful cherry flavor.  The beer was a 30% wheat base and hopped using

US Saaz at about 1/2 my usual rate.  Incidentally, this beer was very

popular with my non-HBing friends.

Of course, the usual disclaimers about associations with HopTech apply.  Just

a happy customer...

BTW, for those interested in finding the pure cherry juice, check out Whole

Foods.  That was the only place I could find it.

Jay

marshall@pat.mdc.com

------------------------------


Pete's Wicked Ale Extract Recipe

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 16:26:38 PDT

From: mikel@netlink.nix.com (Mike Lemons)

Subject: Pete's Wicked Ale Extract Recipe

Ingredients for 5 gallons:

        6 lb bag of William's nut brown extract: "includes a blend of

            pale, victory, crystal, chocolate, dextrin, and other malts"

            from Williams Brewing 1-800-759-6025

        6 oz of crushed chocolate malt. (Lovibond 350)

        1 & 1/3 ounce cascade hops.

        1 cup of corn sugar for priming.

Yeast: "Wyeast American/Chico Ale"

Total boiling time: 70 minutes

Hops added : "Cascade"  State: "Whole 1992 4.6%"  Amount: 0.95oz  Boiled for: 70

Hops added : "Cascade"  State: "Whole 1992 4.6%"  Amount: 0.30oz  Boiled for: 10

Initial gravity: 1.043  Final gravity: 1.012

Prepare the chocolate malt in a separate boiling pot containing at least

a gallon of water.  Add the chocolate malt to cold water.  Raise the

temperature to 170 F.  Pour the hot liquid through a strainer into the

main brew pot to remove spent grains.

You probably could substitute a simple pale ale extract with some crystal

malt for the William's nut brown extract.

Tasting Notes:  In a side-by-side comparison with Pete's Wicked Ale, the

two beers were nearly identical.  The homebrew was preferred because the

roasted-coffee-like flavor component was slightly stronger and much more

persistent in the homebrew.  This was probably due to the freshness of

the homebrew. (Who knows how long the Pete's Wicked Ale has been sitting

on a shelf!)

- --

INTERNET:  mikel@netlink.nix.com (Mike Lemons)

UUCP:   ...!ryptyde!netlink!mikel

Network Information eXchange * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115

------------------------------


Good Receipes Please :-)

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 20:33:41 -0300 (ADT)

From: ANDREW GRANT <AGRANT@mta.ca>

Subject: Good Receipes Please :-)

 Hi, I know some of you out there have some really good receipes

for beer.  Could some of them either be put into this news letter or

sent directly to me.

Thanks

- --Andrew  ;-)

PS. My E-mail is  AGrant@mta.ca or ud891@freenet.victoria.bc.ca

------------------------------


Portsmouth, New Hampshire Brewers Festival

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 20:00:05 EDT

From: perryengle@aol.com

Subject: Portsmouth, New Hampshire Brewers Festival

(Apologies if this has already been posted, or for the late date if it

hasn't)

The Strawbery Banke Grande Olde Portsmouth Fall Brewers Festival will be held

on Saturday Oct 2, at Strawbery Banke, in Portsmouth New Hampshire, starting

at 10 am.

Portsmouth is about 1 hour North of Boston and 1 hour South of Portland, on

I-95.  Just take the Portsmouth downtown exit and follow the signs to

Strawbery Banke.

Events include a home brew contest (non-AHA sanctioned), demonstrations by

local suppliers, and samples from the areas micro breweries.  There will be

historic re-enactments, family activities and games, and shows including a

Victorian era magician and a recreation of a Women's Temperance League rally.

Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for children 7-17, and children under 6 are

free.

For more information call Straw

bery Banke at 603-433-1100

Information for this posting was taken from an article in the Exeter News

Letter, Exeter New Hampshire.

------------------------------


Yeast Hydration

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 18:23:11 -0700

From: reeves@lanl.gov (Geoff Reeves)

Subject: Yeast Hydration

Remember a while back we had a discussion about the best liquids for

hydrating yeasts and for starters? The candidates seemed to be wort, sugar

water, or plain water. Does anyone have a copy of those discussions. I know

I can search through old digests but it will save me a lot of time if

someone kept that thread.

My brother-in-law wants do do a research project on beer yeast and thought

he might investigate this question. Are there any other suggestions you all

have for beer yeast research (at the early graduate student level).

Thanks

Geoff

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

|    A brewery is like a toothbrush, everyone should have their own.      |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Geoff Reeves:  Space Science Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory   |

|                reeves@lanl.gov (internet) or  essdp2::reeves (span)     |

|                Phone (505) 665-3877                                     |

|                Fax   (505) 665-4414                                     |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


Re: Automatic hydrometer

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 21:13:41 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Christopher V. Sack" <cvsack@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: Re: Automatic hydrometer

On Tue, 28 Sep 1993, Don Zickefoose wrote:

> computer. What I need is a way of obtaining a hydrometer reading that can be

> modified, or already provides an 8/16 bit output. I'm not sure if there are

> comercially available "electronic" hydrometers, or if what I will have to do

> is attach a carbon strip to the scale of the hydrometer, and read a

> resistance to determine the gravity. If I use the resistance method, I need

I have seen this subject asked before, but I have not yet read of a

workable, ie. inexpensive, solution.  The main problem I see is that you

can not attach anything to the hydrometer itself.  This would effect the

weight/calibration of the hydrometer. The weight could be compensated for

by recalibrating, but the friction of your proposed "slide wire" resistor

might be enough to cause the hydrometer to stick and provide false

readings.  A possible solution to this would be to use a series of photo

receptors that would be uncovered as the hydrometer sinks into the

fermenting beer.  This would require a light source opposie the photo

receptors.  The resolution would depend on the number of photo receptors

that could be attached to a 3" vertical strip, the average length of the

hydrometer drop from 1.000 to 1.060.

Just a suggestion, for what it's worth.

       ___            ___

      /   ) |     /  /   )        |        Christopher V. Sack |

     /      |    /  /             |         Graduate Student   |

    /       |   /  (___   __   __ |        Dept. of Chemistry  |

   /        |  /       ) __ ) /  )|  /    State Univ. of N.Y.  |

  /         | /       / /  / /    | /    Syracuse, NY 13210    |

 (____/*    |/* (____/ (__/ (__/  |/ /  <cvsack@lor.syr.edu>   |

------------------------------


Thanks all!

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 23:14:59 EDT

From: WJCS75A@prodigy.com ( PAUL N HRISKO)

Subject: Thanks all!

A HUGE Thank You to all who responded to my request for brewpubs/microbrews

in the Southwest.  I appreciate it greatly and can't wait to check them out.

Paul Hrisko (wjcs75a@prodigy.com)

>When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.-HST<

------------------------------


shipping beer

Date: 28 Sep 1993 23:25:15 -0500 (EST)

From: RF61384%LTUVAX.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU

Subject: shipping beer

I work at UPS and have rewrapped damaged boxes containing Homebrew

About four years ago a box containing wine broke open and a supervisor

went to check if UPS could ship alcohol. I was told it was ok and the only

time regulations applied is when it is being sold mail order. If its being sold

   the purchaser has to be of age and the seller licensed. No restrictions on pe

   rson to person.

The best thing to pack it in, in my opinion, is a box lined with one inch thick

   styrofoam insulation. Its ridgid so it adds strength to the box wont shift

around, and its cheap and easy to find. Styrofoam popcorn shifts so does balled

newspaper and your bottles wind up against the bottom of the box.

Pack it right - Dont bother writing fragile on the box we dont have time to

read it.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1236, 09/29/93

*************************************

-------


Problems with carbonation

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 12:40:02 -0400 (EDT)

From: Owen Plowman <owen@ca.oracle.com>

Subject: Problems with carbonation

Hello!  We are using this account as guests to ask the following

questions:

1.  We are a couple of new brewers in Toronto and we are experiencing

    some difficulties in getting our beer to carbonate properly. So far we

    have made three batches of beer (all from kits available at the local

    "Brew Your Own" store) and have had mixed success. Our first batch was a

    simple "kit" lager which went four days in primary and thirteen days in

    secondary. While not totally flat this beer did not carbonate fully and

    was somewhat disappointing. The store suggested that we should siphon off

    our beer before adding the carbonation sugar to ensure that all the sugar

    would be fully mixed and not fall into the botom sludge that never gets

    into the bottles.

    Batch number two was the same "kit" lager, with 6 1/2 lbs of fresh

    raspberries added to create a fruity summer beer. The beer fermented four

    days in primary and seventeen days in secondary (with very vigorous

    fermentation going on all the time). The result was great with lots of

    carbonation and a super taste.

    Batch number three was an English Bitter brewed using a bitter "kit" with

    a mixture of grains and hops added to improve the taste. Primary lasted

    four days and secondary fifteen. Carbonation this time was poor with the

    beer being nearly flat.

    In all three cases we used malt sugar (between 2/3 and 1 cup) for eighteen

    litres of beer. The actual taste of all our beers is quite good and we

    have had no problems with contamination at all. We suspect that our

    problem is related to the life cycle of the yeast and that for some reason

    there is not enough left at bottling time to create carbonation. Can some

    of you more experienced brewers offer any ideas on what we are doing wrong

    and how to improve for future batches? Should we be bottling sooner and

    how can we judge when the time is right?

    It's probably best if you reply directly to the mail id we are using

    ("owen@ca.oracle.com") for this question, and then we will summarize to

    the list.

2.  Is there anybody on the list who is familiar with the Widmer Brewing

    Co. in Portland Oregon? They produce a Hefeweizen and we would very much

    appreciate any recipes that closely mimic this beer if somebody has one.

3. We read Bill Flowers note on Hoptech's fruit extracts and are interested in

   finding out more about these. Where is Hoptech located and do you know if

   these same extracts are available in Toronto?

Thanks very much

Doug and Brian

------------------------------


Re: Beer Recipe Formulator

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 13:13 BST

From: "Andy Phillips, Long Ashton, Bristol, UK" <phillipsa@afrc.ac.uk>

Subject: Re: Beer Recipe Formulator

Once again I have to apologize for the following messages,

as my mailer won't accept either correspondent's address.

To: Chris Campanelli:

Glad to hear Version 2 of the Beer Recipe Formulator is on the way.

If you can't include automatic US/metric conversion, how about

having a help screen with conversion tables/formulae for

the arithmetically challenged?

To: Tom Nelson:

Your "Brewer's Workshop" program sounds interesting. Could you

send me some details? My snailmail address is:

Andy Phillips, Velley Cottage, 137 High St, Pensford, Bristol,

BS18 4BH, U.K. Or FAX to +44-275-394281

Thanks

Andy

------------------------------


Buffalo?...

Date: 29 Sep 93 03:32:03 GMT

From: GANDE@slims.attmail.com

Subject: Buffalo?...

Apologies for the deplorable use of BW, can anyone tell me of a

source of grain in Buffalo, N.Y.? I can get Canada Malting 2 row

really cheap here in Toronto, but imported malts are unheard of.

Buffalo is just 'cross the border and worth the drive. EMAIL response

to: gande@slims.attmail.com

TIA....Glenn Anderson

------------------------------


re: Troubleshoot my dry hopping!

Date: Wed Sep 29 06:43:28 1993

From: darrylri@microsoft.com

Subject: re: Troubleshoot my dry hopping!

caa@com2serv.c2s.mn.org (Charles Anderson) writes

> > From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

> > Questions:

> > Is this simply a temporary bitterness that will soon mellow?  Or can

> > dry hopping really add noticeable bitterness?  Did I over dryhop?

> > How many IBU's can/should dry hops introduce?

>

> I did the same thing with my first full mash Pale Ale.  I added 1oz of

                               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> Willamette to the fermenter, it came out with a great hop aroma, but also

> an unbelievable bitterness.  BTW I just threw the hops in on top of the

> fermenting wort.  It took a long time for my bitterness to go away, and

> by that time I didn't think the beer was very good.  (couldn't tell if

> wasn't very good to start with too much bitterness)

This struck a chord in me.  I'd just like to point out that your

hop utilization is going to change dramatically when you go from

a partion boil extract brewing process to a full boil mashing

process.  I discovered when I changed over that I needed about

half as much hops as I had been using in extract beers.

The reason is that if you boil 6 pounds of extract in a gallon and

a half of water, the gravity of that wort is well over 1.100, and

probably somewhere near 1.125.  High gravity worts don't take up

much iso alpha acids from the hops.  When you switch to all grain,

and therefore full wort boils, your gravity will be more like

1.050, and you'll get a lot more bitterness out of your hops.

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------


Zymurgy price error [from Karen Barela]

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 09:50:14 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Zymurgy price error [from Karen Barela]

[I'm probably violating some Compu$erve conditions of use policy, but

since I don't have a C$ account, I don't care.]  I have been waiting

for this notice to show up in the HBD, but it hasn't, so here it is.

(No, I'm not connected with YeastLab.  Just an interested bystander.)

=S

#: 242768 S14/General Homebrewing

    17-Sep-93  10:11:22

Sb: #Zymurgy price error

Fm: Karen Barela/AHA VP 75250,1350

To all AHA members and zymurgy readers:

zymurgy magazine inadvertently printed incorrect prices for G.W. Kent's Yeast

Lab Liquid Yeast Cultures in the New Products section of our 1993 Fall issue.

Please accept our apologies for any confusion this may have caused. G.W. Kent

does not sell directly to homebrewers, which is incorrectly implied in the

information we published.  For information on this product, contact your

retailer directly.  If you have any questions about this error, contact me at

(303) 447-0816.

Sincerely,

Karen Barela

President,

American Homebrewers Association

------------------------------


article on Maine brew pubs and micros

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 10:15:02 EDT

From: LeRoy S. Strohl <lstrohl@s850.mwc.edu>

Subject: article on Maine brew pubs and micros

In the October 1993 issue of -Down East- magazine appears an article

entitled The Ultimate Pub Crawl by Al Diamon. According to the article

**Maine currently ranks fourth in the nation in number of breweries

per, one for every 136,000 of us.** If his notes on the tastings are

accurate, there are some good brews to look forward to if one were to

visit Maine. The article finishes with a Where to Find Maine's Breweries

list:

 Acadia Brewing, 30 Rodick St., Bar Harbor, 288-9513

 Andrews Brewing, Box 4975, Lincolnville, 763-3305

 Bar Harbor Brewing, 22 Fore St, Bar Harbor, 288-4592

 D.L.Geary Brewing, 38 Evergreen Drive, Portland, 878-2337

 Gritty McDuff's Brew Pub, 396 Fore St, Portland, 772-2739

 Kennebunkport Brewing, 8 Western Ave, Kennebunk, 967-4311

 Lake St. George Brewing, RR 1, Box 2505, Liberty, 589-4180

 Sea Dog Brewing, 43 Mechanic Street, Camden, 236-6863

 Sunday River Brewing, 1 Sunday River Road, Bethel, 824-3541

Three summers ago because the weather had turned foul while vacationing

with friends in Rhode Island, we took a drive up to Portland. We spent

far too long in Gritty McDuff's that afternoon and evening. The beer

seemed just right for the day, against all of our better judgment we

stayed overnight in a Holday Inn, went back for more excellent beer and

food for lunch the next day before returning to Rhode Island.

------------------------------


Brewing Partner

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 06:05:11 PDT

From: RDG3%QA%DCPP@encon01.comp.pge.com

Subject: Brewing Partner

A friend of mine (who does not have access to HBD) recently move to Merced

California, and was wondering if there were anyone in the area who was looking

for a brewing partner.  If you know of any local clubs or individuals please

let me know.

Thank you, Bob (RDG3@pge.com)

"All you touch & all you see is all your life will ever be." Pink Floyd

------------------------------


Darn, I had the chance and I missed it -- not.

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 10:20:47 EDT

From: LeRoy S. Strohl <lstrohl@s850.mwc.edu>

Subject: Darn, I had the chance and I missed it -- not.

I heard on the radio as I was coming into work today that Millers has

decided to withdraw their Clear Beer. What a bunch of no-brainers they

must have in their marketing department. I never tried the stuff and

figured I wan't missing anything. You may want to pick up a six for

collector's items because you gotta figure that if there are folks who

will pay $50 for Billy Beer there will be folks eventually wanting to

buy some of the defunct Clear stuff.

------------------------------


Idophor Stains

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 10:28:44 EDT

From: twilloug@brynmawr.webo.dg.com (Tony Willoughby)

Subject: Idophor Stains

Howdy,

My regular habit for sanitize my bottling bucket is to fill it to the rim

with a mild bleach solution.  I've recently tried Idophor for this and after

two days the inside of my bucket looks rusty!  Any way to get rid of this?

If not, will it do any harm?

- --

Tony Willoughby               |

twilloug@brynmawr.webo.dg.com | "...and there's some homebrewed stuff

                              |                      in the promoter's car"

                              |

                              |                                   -Spinal Tap

------------------------------


RE: decoction (not again!)

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 11:30:38 EDT

From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)

Subject: RE: decoction (not again!)

Hi All,

   In HBD#1236, Brian Moore writes:

>the decoction discussion has come and gone

   It's OK Brian, this is one of my favorite brewing topics. :-)

>thirty minutes then pulled our first decoction (about 1/3 of the total

>volume, mostly

>grains).

>Our mash came to a temperature of about 140 F and stayed firmly there.

>3. Should my first decoction have been bigger?

   Yes, you should take 40%-50% of the total volume, mostly grains, for

the first thick decoction.  If the volume pulled is too small, you will

undershoot the saccharification rest temperature.

   Add about 2/3 of the decoction back to the main mash, folding the

mash gently in order to avoid thermal gradients and heat the mash evenly.

Monitor the temperature as you are doing this, add more of the decoction

as needed to hit the saccharification rest temperature.  Seal the mash tun.

There will likely be some of the decoction remaining in the decoction

kettle.  Simply allow it to cool for a few minutes, until it is the same

temperature as the main mash, then add it back to the main mash.

   Another advantage to pulling a larger first decoction is it will improve

extraction somewhat.  Boiling a higher proportion of the grains produces

more gelatinized starch, which the amylase enzymes can convert to sugars

during the second saccharification rest.

>  Our plan was to slowly heat this on our propane cooker to about

>155 F.  It was

>then we realized that the words "slowly heat" and "propane cooker" do not go

>together

>well.  After an almost instantaneous local boil,

                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>1. Was my extraction so low because of incomplete conversion or some other

>reason?

 What happened here is that the amylase enzyme that would have converted

the first thick decoction during the first saccharification rest was

denatured very quickly.  That meant the remaining enzymes in the main mash

had to convert *ALL* of the mash.  Depending on the type of grain used,

there may not have been enzymes remaining to achieve complete conversion.

    The purpose of the first saccharification rest is to convert the

starch in the first thick decoction.  When the decoction is subsequently

boiled, the amylase enzymes are denatured, but conversion has already been

achieved.  The additional soluble starch released by the boil is easily

converted by the remaining enzymes in the main mash during the second

saccharification rest.  This process of releasing additional soluble starch

during the boil, then allowing the amylase enzyme a second phase of

conversion, is the cause of the higher extraction rates achieved through

decoction mashing.

    Pulling the thickest 40%-50% should be roughly 2 - 2.5 gallons of

mash by volume.  This fits easily in a 4 or 5 gallon pot.  Heat the mash

on the stove slowly, monitoring the temperature.  When the desired mash

temperature is reached, find some way of stabilizing it.  I use a cheap

plastic picnic cooler with a trivet in the bottom to avoid melting the

plastic.  Hold for 30 minutes.  Don't worry about the iodine test at this

point, as the boil will re-introduce soluble starch into the decocted mash.

After 30 minutes, add the decoction back to main mash as described above.

>Here we were somewhere between 140 F and 160 F for about 30 minutes

    It's really important to exercise better control over the mash

temperature, if you ever expect to attain any consistent results from your

recipes.

>Sorry about the length

    No problem, like I said, one of my favorite brewing topics.

                                     Cheers,

                                      Jim

------------------------------


Pumpkin reciplease

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 10:31:00 CST

From: Thomas_Joe@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil

Subject: Pumpkin reciplease

Fellow Brewers,

    I subscribed to HBD a few months ago and have only recently started

    reading the info consistently. Therefore, please be lenient with me

    if I breach any protocol or etiquette(I have witnessed some of the

    more serious 'discussions'). Anyway, I have seen people mentioning

    pumpkin brews on occasion and my mouth is beginning to water and my

    mash tun is twitching! I tasted a friend's Frambroise(raspberry

    brew) and it was such a treat that I think this fall warrants a

    pumpkin brew! If anyone has recipes or suggestions for brewing with

    pumpkin PLEASE respond before my taste buds rebel. Also, this will

    be my first batch made with fruit or vegetable so any advice is

    always welcome. I switch back and forth between all-grain and

    partial mashes so any type of recipe will be appreciated.

TIA,

     JOE

(my email address is: Thomas_Joe@lanmail.NCSC.Navy.mil)

"We are never as great as we think WE are, and others are never as bad

as we think THEY are" -Anonymous

- ---------------------- Replied Message Body ----------------------


Date: 9-28-93  1:00am

From: [homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com]:ddn:navy

Subject: Pumpkin reciplease

Subj: Homebrew Digest #1235 (September 28, 1993)

Attach: h:/GATEWAY/IN/HISTORY/47131.att

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

The original message was sent as an attachment because it was too long.

See attached file: 47131.att

------------------------------


Trub racking, Bottles on side, decoction

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 10:33:17 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@bizet.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Trub racking, Bottles on side, decoction

Ed Hitchcock comments on the Miller suggestion of racking off trub.  I

did this for a while, but a few very slow takeoffs convinced me that I

left most of my yeast behind.  If one has consistent yeast habits, it's

OK, but mine are so variable.  Last night I brewed a wheat beer, pitched

at 66F with German Ale yeast slurry top-cropped from my last use of that

yeast and had the characteristic Kraeusen from hell by 8 this morning,

despite the cold <60F in the basement.  Hard to predict when to rack

when other yeast takes up to 18 hours or more.

Ed also comments on use of blowoffs - or actually non use.  I actually

reverted back to a plastic bucket for ales and skim - not to remove brown muck-

I don't believe it causes problems but to top crop yeast.  I suppose I could use

blowoffs in the Burton Union method, but for my boiler 5 gallon carboys are

too small and 6.5 are too big. But I guess I could dilute at pitching for

my weaker beers (15B is really a bit high for the wheat Kolsch I made

yesterday - and I'll diltute at bottling anyway).  I guess I could shell out

for a 6 gallon carboy.

Charles Anderson comments that it won't help carbonation to turn a bottle

on its side.  I won't comment either way, but I did read a published source

recommending this procedure for a few days at warmer temperatures immediatly

after bottling.  I presumed the advantage was to have more yeast sediment

close to all the beer, and to improve natural convection patterns that would

seem pretty lousy in a bottle.  I just bottled beer last night and will turn a

few bottles on their side when I get home and see if there is any difference.

The patch was primed with wort.  I'll report in a week or two.

Decoctions again.  Last night I brewed a beer with 8lb wheat, 2lb Pale ale

(only basic malt I had) and 1lb Cara-pils.  I doughed in with cold water,

and then added hot to reach a temperature of 100 with 16 qt total.

Heated on the burner to 122 and held, and then did the decoction in

reverse, i.e. poured the thin stuff into the mashtun.  The resulting

decoction was huge ~ 60% of the mash.  Heated normally and then returned

over 5 minutes allowing some of the thick mash to cool before adding it.

I rose the small rest mash and the cooler from 117 or so to 155 with

little difficulty.  I also assume that I boiled more grains than usual

and so got a more effective decoction, but also a little more liquid

reducing the amount of enzyme in the rest mash.  Could the latter be a

problem?  Otherwise the extra big decoction seemes to be a good solution

to the problem of doing decoctions on a small scale - i.e. heat loss

during returns.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


Hidebound Brewers, HSA

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 11:13 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Hidebound Brewers, HSA

 >From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

 >Subject: Specialty Malts/Hot Side aeration-oxidation

 >Ok ok.  We all have our opinions.  Jack your approach reminds me of a

 brewing friend here who won't budge from his tried and true methods.

 Despite all the renovations and improvements my brewery has gone through

 much in part due to major learning/ideas/creations developed from net

 knowledge.  His brews are all made from the basics:

 Just for the record, Pilsener Urquel is made from pale malt only and might be

 considered basic beer although, a very highly regarded one.

 My recommendation is that, until one can consistantly produce such a beer,

 there is no point in throwing in a dozen other variables that swamp the

 learning process.   It has nothing to do with stiffling creativity.

 >   But what damage can be caused by bubbling air through a mash?

 Hot Side Aeration.  Exactly what the new wave brewers are cursing.

 > Do other mashers out there take efforts to avoid splashing the wort upon

 sparging?

 I am not sure to what extent HSA is a real problem in small batches but I

 took one simple measure that cost nothing after reading the Fix article.

 My sweet wort travels from the kitchen to the boiling area at basement level

 via plastic tubing which passes through the floor.  It was free-falling the

 last foot or so into the brew kettle.  I added several feet of copper tubing

 at the end so it can deposit the wort at the bottom of the kettle without

 aeration.

 I do indeed change my process as rational new ideas are presented.

 js

------------------------------


Decoction / low extraction

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 10:32:11 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Decoction / low extraction

In a recent post someone tried the 23 step long strange trip decotion method

I posted and and had a couple problems.  I had similar problems when I did my

first decotions.

Slow + propane don't mix... instant boil.. mashed 30 minitues boiled 20.

 Even if you nuked the enzymes with heat the remaining grains have enough

 conversion power to convert the starch to sugar, Belgian Pils malt is

 high in conversion power.  The boil will liberate starch that will improve

 extraction and aid in wort clarity.

Remove 1/3 kettle mash boil add to main mash temp is about 140.

 This is a problem with the Noonan decotion method. You need to kettle mash

 and boil 40% to 50% in order to get the temp in the 150s other wise you end

 up with a rest at 140s and a thin bodied beer.  This is especially a problem

 with highly modified grain like the Belgian stuff since it will convert so

 quickly.  Using under modified malts and two kettle mash steps  results in

 most of the grain being converted at high 150s in the kettle mashes and the

 final fraction in the 140s.

Add boiling water to get to desired mash temp, mash for 1.5 hours, do

iodine test still negative, sparge anyway .. get clear wort extraction

about 22points per lb.

I'm guessing but you may have thinned the the mash too much and not converted

all the starch to sugar.  You also may have severly reduced the enzymes in

the brief boil while kettle mashing.  This could have resulted in all the

enzymes for sugar reduction coming from 2/3 of your grain.

Bottom (2) Line(s):  If doing a decoction with a single kettle mash step.

  Kettle mash and boil about 50% of the grains.

------------------------------


cinnamon in apple cider

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 12:25:21 EDT

From: sean v. taylor <sean@chemres.tn.cornell.edu>

Subject: cinnamon in apple cider

------------------------------


Re: Recipe request

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 14:42:31 -0500 (EDT)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: Recipe request

<Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 20:33:41 -0300 (ADT)

<From: ANDREW GRANT <AGRANT@mta.ca>

<Subject: Good Receipes Please :-)

<Hi, I know some of you out there have some really good receipes

<for beer.  Could some of them either be put into this news letter or

<sent directly to me.

I was meaning to post this anyway:

Pale Ale

2 row american *breiss* base malt, target OG 1.063 (total)

CaraVienna (DeWolf-Cosyns) 12% of grist

Munich     (DeWolf-Cosyns)  6% of grist

Aromatic   (DeWolf-Cosyns)  4% of grist

Biscuit    (DeWolf-Cosyns)  <1% of grist

Gypsum in mash

US Whole Perle, ~8% alpha in Kettle-60 min

Goldings Pellets ~5% 30 min

Goldings Pellets     10 and 2 min

Saazer Whole Plugs ~3% 2 min

Saazer Whole Plugs ~3% dry hopped

Add ~1 qt per lb hot water, gypsum and malt. Hold 20 min at

144F.  Raise to 152-154, hold 45-60 min, raise to 172, lauter.

Boil, hop.....

Counter flow chill,

add ~10% boiled water to dilute to ~1.050

force oxygen, pitch thick Dominion Ale Yeast

FG 1.008, 5.3% ABV

Notes:  Since this is the time of year that I run out of

whole hops (mostly cascade and centennial), I was using up some

inventory of Perle (good kettle hop) and goldings (great flavor

hop).  A brewer friend of mine had a 5oz pack of saazer plugs

that he asked me to use (tough situation), so I brewed up the

above recipe.  I had just made an IPA of 1.060 gravity, so when

this batch ended up at 1.063, I decided to continue my experiments

with pre ferment dilution.  I had already convinced myself prior

to this that I could water down a batch considerably with no

great impact on flavor, so I went for it here.  I am using a

counterflow pipeline to run my wort from the brewery to the

conditioning room, so I merely hooked up the hot liquor tank to

the counterflow pipeline and let 170F water enter the pipeline,

chilling and rinsing the line somewhat.  After topping up the

fermenter, I added O2 and yeast.

Tasting:  A good amber color, almost no detectable biscuit character,

but this may change with more yeast dropping out.  The goldings

flavor comes through real well but not too strong.  The finish

of saazer and goldings adds a bit of complexity to the otherwise

dominant saazer dry hopping.  I had never dry hopped with saaz before,

and it is a great change from the norm.

Malt notes: Despite the well known limitations of  american 2 row

malt, I use it without difficulty.  The key is to tailor your

recipe so that there are abundant flavoring malts/caramel malts to

give the body/dextrins/color desired.  By adjusting the munich and

caramel malts, a very full bodied beer can be brewed with a terminal

gravity as low as 1.008.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

DE HOPPEDUIVEL DRINKT MET ZWIER 'T GEZONDE BLOND HOPPEBIER!

------------------------------


Maize/Cornstarch/CherryJuice

Date: 29 Sep 93 12:21:00 PST

From: "CCA::ELS_DEM" <ELS_DEM%CCA.decnet@consrt.rockwell.com>

Subject: Maize/Cornstarch/CherryJuice

Since my wife prefers light bodied and light colored brews, but doesn't mind

a little alcohol, I have been considering using either maize flakes or corn-

starch as an adjunct to an all-grain ale. (You know how it goes, brew something

the wife likes so she doesn't complain so much when you brew something you

like.)  I have seen numerous references to using maize flakes on this digest.

I have seen a recipe in TNCJOHB that uses cornstarch.  However, does this

differ substantially from just throwing in a pound of so of corn suger before

the boil?  It seems to me that the sugars obtained from mashing cornstarch

would be -- corn sugar.  Using sugar would make the mash a bit smaller, but

would also remove some of the satisfaction of making my own.  What's the

collective wisdom on this?

On another note, I have read with interest the recent posts concerning the

brewing of fruit beers through the addition of pure juice.  I just tried that.

I added three quarts of 100% pure unsweetened cherry juice to the secondary

in a recent batch of pale ale.  It started another ferment, which completed

normally.  Although the juice had a very strong cherry flavor, there was

absolutely NO cherry flavor in the resulting beer.  There is a strange

(but not unpleasant) fruity flavor.  However, I couldn't tell you if it was

cherry, apple, or diet coke.  (This beer has the stickiest head I've ever

seen.  It is actually difficult to wash out of the glass.)  I think I may turn

this batch into my "holiday beer" by making a "tea" made by steeping spices,

e.g. cinnamon, cloves, and allspice, in a quart or so of water, then adding

this "tea" to the keg.  How well will that work?

Cheers,

Don

------------------------------


New Cleaner/Sanitizer - an inquiry

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 16:00:18 -0400 (EDT)

From: Michael Ligas <ligas@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>

Subject: New Cleaner/Sanitizer - an inquiry

I was just reading the recent (Fall, 1993) issue of Zymurgy and noticed an

ad on page 14 from a company called 'LD Carlson' concerning an

"environmentally friendly" cleanser called Straight-A Premium Cleanser and

an "environmentally friendly" sanitizer called One Step that apparently

requires no rinsing and is not an iodophor. Has anyone tried either one of

these products and if so, what are their components? I'm particularily

interested in learning about the composition of the sanitizer. I currently

use an iodophor and have no problems.

------------------------------


wort chiller

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 15:35:30 -0500

From: ccamley@mmm.com (Chris Amley - 3M Telecommunications - 612-736-9461)

Subject: wort chiller

Since I've been reading this list (not more than two months) there have been

several items on wort chillers but I didn't seen anything on the lines of

*why* a wort chiller.  As a new brewer this was not clear to me.  Perhaps other

newbies are wondering also.

The scales have fallen.  I used to add about 2 gallons of cold water to 3

gallons of wort and wait six hours for it to cool to pitching temp (80F).

Now I made a simple immersion chiller.  It went in the wort 10 minutes before

the end of the boil.   It cut cooling time from six+ hours to nine minutes!

Well worth the $32 cost of tubing and connectors, I'd say.

Chris

------------------------------


Xmas ale

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 22:14:39 CET

From: Alan B. Carlson <alanc@adb.gu.se>

Subject: Xmas ale

I am planning on doing a Xmas ale (a bit late to start, perhaps). Situated

in Sweden, I don't have access to spruce, but spruce is a pine tree and

there's plenty of pine trees in Sweden. Last spring I collected some sprigs

and dumped them into a gallon-sized ziplock bag which was subsequently

stowed in the freezer. My first question is how much sprigs should I use

and should I boil them first (separately) or add them to the boil as one

does hops? I usually do 23-26 liter batches (between 6-7 gallons) My second

question is should I hop the wort as I normally do or should I go a bit

lighter - in case the sprigs impart some bitterness of their own? What I

would like to do is come close to last year's Anchor Xmas Ale - btw, has

anyone heard what kind of spice profile Anchor will have this year?

Alan

- ------------------------------------------------------------

Alan B. Carlson                      Phone: +46 31 772 10 73

University of Gothenburg             Fax:   +46 31 772 10 91

Department of Information Systems    email:  alanc@adb.gu.se

Holtermansgatan 1

S-412 96 Gothenburg

SWEDEN

- ------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Subscription request

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 18:30:45 EDT

From: ai420@freenet.carleton.ca (Stephen Gardner)

Subject: Subscription request

Hi,

Please add my name to the HBD subscription list.

Thanks,

Steve

- --

------------------------------


Mash temperatures for Scotch Ale

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 17:37:00 CDT

From: bjw@techsun1.cray.com (Benjamin Woodliff)

Subject: Mash temperatures for Scotch Ale

I'm not particularity fond of Scotch Ale, at least if bottled McEwan's

is a good example of it.  So, not wishing to experiment any more than

absolutely necessary, I'm curious about how much of what I would refer

to as the overpowering "malty sweetness" of McEwan's owes itself to

mashing at somewhat higher temperatures?

I often use British 2-row and typical mash ales between 150-153 degrees F.

>From those that may have some practical experience in this matter, what

characteristics of a good sweet malt flavor can be derived from mashing

highly modified malt at these somewhat higher mash temperatures (ie.

presumably in the 158-160 deg. F range.)?

I'd welcome any input on this matter.  I'm not necessarily looking to

brew a McEwan's clone but would like get a better feel for how much

effect higher temps might have on the development of non-fermentable

sugars and this flavor characteristic.

Thanks,

Ben

------------------------------


oatmeal stout extract / different tastes from different mugs

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 09:22:08 -0600 (CDT)

From: jim@n5ial.mythical.com (Jim Graham)

Subject: oatmeal stout extract / different tastes from different mugs

First off, Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU> writes:

> Subject: oatmeal stout extract, mash HSA

> Jim, my e-mail to you bounced.

Either your site didn't use the Reply-To: address (n5ial!jim@gagme.chi.il.us)

I included, or it didn't like the bang-path (there are sites that can't

handle bang-paths).  Oh well, mail to me at my real address,

jim@n5ial.mythical.com, *SHOULD* be ok by the time this hits the digest.

> William's Brewing is a big mail-order outfit in San LEandro CA.  Their malt/

> oat extract syrup, Oatmeal Dark, is one I used with great success last year.

> You can add more specialty grain or extract if you want (I did) but I imagine

> it's pretty good just by itself too.  (I have no finacial or other  [....]

Does anyone have an address, or better yet, a phone number (1-800 number if

possible) for these folks?  I've got to do an oatmeal stout, and at least

for now, an extract brew is the only way it'll happen.  But oatmeal stout is

just too good as an after-dinner/late-night treat to pass up!

Next subject....  I've noticed that different beer mugs I have will make

various beers appear to taste better/worse.  For example, I have a mug that

I got in San Antonio, TX one time that's basically a giant ceramic coffee

mug (probably around 18 oz).  I've noticed that it's better, by far, for

darker brews (e.g., stout, bock, etc.), but not for pale ales and such.  I

also have a very, very nice stoneware mug that my mom brought back from one

of her trips to Germany (it was West Germany at the time, if that means

anything).  This is the best for the lighter ales, lagers, etc., but is

just ``ok'' for the very dark brews.  I have plain glass mugs, too, that

are ok (but not anything special) for everything (except for the batch I'm

about to bring up in a second)....

Last night, I discovered that a pewter mug that my mom brought back from a

trip to England seems to mask a slight off taste in a batch that I posted

questions about here several months ago (it was very cidery at the time).

In any other mug, there is still a slight hint of a cidery taste on at

least the first few sips of each fresh beer.  From the pewter mug, however,

it's just d*mned good beer with no off tastes at all.

Does anyone have any idea what causes this?  Btw, I'm not the only one who

has noticed it.  When I took some of the bock (I posted an article about

that here, too) to the local homebrew shop for them to try, they also

noticed the difference between the San Antonio ceramic mug and their plain

glass mug.  So I know I'm not imagining things....

Is it just the texture of the mug that changes one's perception of the

flavor?  Or is there some magical property of different types of glass

(or pewter) that actually does change the flavor in some way?

Later,

   --jim

- --

#include <std_disclaimer.h>                                  73 DE N5IAL (/4)

- -------------------------< Running Linux 0.99 PL10 >--------------------------

*** E-mail to me from now until roughly 2 Oct.:  n5ial!jim@gagme.chi.il.us ***

AMATEUR RADIO:  (packet station temporarily offline)       AMTOR SELCAL: NIAL

internet: jim@n5ial.mythical.com  |  j.graham@ieee.org     ICBM: 30.23N 86.32W

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

E-mail me for information about KAMterm (host mode for Kantronics TNCs).

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1237, 09/30/93

*************************************

-------


Help with yeast culturing

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 11:04:32 +0100 (BST)

From: D S Draper <D.S.Draper@bristol.ac.uk>

Subject: Help with yeast culturing

Hello all, please help me with a problem I'm having in culturing yeast

from bottle-conditioned beers.  My goal was to get better flavor than what

is possible using Edme ale yeast, which is all that I can get locally

(liquid yeasts are not sold in the UK).  I'm sorry to make such a long

message, but I am desperate--I've made 14 gallons of undrinkable beer

in the past three weeks.  Here is the history:

Attempt #1: Took a (275ml) bottle of Worthington White Shield, decanted

most of the beer, added a couple heaping spoons of dried malt extract and

one of glucose.  Shook it up, put a wad of sterile cotton in the top.

After several days, it was quite vigorously active. Pitched a batch of

beer that is designed to mimic WWS (from Dave Line's recipe). After quick

startup, the main foamy yeast mat subsided after about 36 hours to be

replaced by a mat with a distinctly different look--the bubbles were much

larger, and had little tendril-like things on the surfaces.  The bubbles

gave the surface of the mat a sort of "tensile cohesion" (for lack of a

better term) that is totally unlike anything I've seen using Edme.  It

also had a very strange smell unlike anything encountered before.  After

it subsided (took about a week), racked to secondary.  Tasted awful, like

cough syrup, with a woody, mediciny flavor--it was the taste equivalent of

the smell noted above.  After a few days in the secondary, with no

improvement in flavor, I concluded it was infected and dumped it out.  I

reckoned that because I had pitched a pretty small volume of active yeast,

something else must have gotten in.  Alternatively, I obviously did next

to nothing with respect to sanitation in this attempt.

Attempt #2: A raspberry ale using a yeast cultured from Hanseatic IPA.

This time, I sterilized a wine bottle rigorously; boiled the malt extract

+ sugar and then cooled it.  I covered the neck of the wine bottle with

some plastic food wrap and a rubber band (the rubber stopper for the

airlock I'd gotten didn't fit).  I sterilized everything in sight this

time, including wiping the neck of the bottle with alcohol prior to

pouring the starter solution into the wort.  This time, again very rapid

takeoff, and everything looked perfectly normal.  Smelled fine too...until

the last day or two in the primary, when that same smell was present in

small amounts.  Racked to the secondary, and the smell was more noticeable

while I was cleaning the primary afterwards.  After a couple of days, when

I added pectin enzyme (just dumped in the powder) and finings, the sample

I removed had that same damn taste.  I let it sit in the secondary for

about 10 days, then bottled--the taste was still there, and stronger.

That was 9 days ago, and last night I tried one, and it tasted like bloody

cough syrup again.  There is no aroma as in #1 though.

Attempt #3 (started before I realized what was happening in #2).  Keg

bitter using 7.5 lbs of Boots unhopped malt extract syrup, some grains,

hops etc.  Yeast cultured from King & Barnes Festive Ale.  This time I

used a 1-liter plastic Volvic water bottle, whose neck could accept the

rubber stopper for my airlock.  Sterilized everything in sight, boiled the

proto-wort as before, got vigorous action in a few days.  Once again, very

rapid takeoff, but this time we had a repeat of #1 in terms of appearance:

the ordinary fluffy mat was overtaken by that slimy-looking, stiffer,

larger-bubbled mat.  I tasted it at several points, but "that taste" from

#1,2 was definitely not present.  48 hrs after racking to the secondary,

when I added finings, the sample had a different unpleasant taste: it is

almost bread-like, in fact sourdough bread is what comes to mind.

 Plodding gamely on, I transferred to my pressure barrel three days ago,

and a sample last night had the sourdough taste even more pronounced.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggghhhhhhhhh!  14 gallons of bad beer.  What am I

doing wrong???  After Attempt #1 I've been extra anal about sterility.

All my beers (53 batches counting these three) have been done with the

same techniques, and I never had the slightest hint of contamination

before.  In reading the net for the past 4 months or so, the conventional

wisdom is that it's child's play to culture from bottles.  Is the problem

with #2 that I capped the starter bottle only with plastic wrap?  Is the

problem with #3 that I used a plastic starter bottle?  I assumed that

because it was a drinking-water bottle that it would be food-grade.  In

both #2 and #3, I tasted the starter solution before pitching it, and it

was not unpleasant.  My next step is to order a pure culture from Brewlab

here in the UK (thanks to Pete Hammond for providing their address) with a

proper glass flask and try that--but we're talking about a 10 quid outlay

for that, and I'm on too tight a budget to spend that much for 5 more

gallons of bad beer.

Once again sorry for using all the bandwidth, I eagerly await

your replies.  Posting is fine, but if you want to email me direct, do so

at d.s.draper@bristol.ac.uk because "reply mail" doesn't seem to get to

me.  Many many thanks, Dave in Bristol

------------------------------


Automatic Hydrometer

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 12:14:00 BST

From: r.mcglew3@genie.geis.com

Subject: Automatic Hydrometer

A while back I moonlighted and wrote a manual for an automatic

 battery monitoring system for diesel submarines.  One part of it

 was an automatic hydrometer.

 Basically, it worked similar to a battery tester with the little colored

 balls.  Each colored ball has a known specific gravity.  The device could

 either have enough photo-receptors for each ball, or the operator could

 start out with the starting gravity and simply count the balls as they

 rise.  The more finely spaced the balls are the more precise the

 measurements.  Using a computer and calculating the slope, a fairly good

 representation of the rate of change should be determined.

 How to find a supply of calibrated balls?? I'll leave that to the net.

------------------------------


nj brewpub law

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 06:10:58 PDT

From: RICH CATENA DTN 321-5170 <catena@arrcee.enet.dec.com>

Subject: nj brewpub law

Does anyone have a copy of the nj brewpub law which was signed a month or two

ago? If it can be emailed that would be great. If no one has it anyone know

who I nedd to contact to get a copy?

thanks,

------------------------------


Spruce Beer

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 10:13:34 EDT

From: abaucom@fester.swales.com

Subject: Spruce Beer

Someone mentioned they might like to make a spruce beer...I thought so too

before I made one.  IMHO the Bruce&Kays Black Spruce Honey Lager from TNCJOHB

would have been a fine beer if only I'd left out the SPRUCE!  In fact, I only

added about a quarter of the spruce (extract) called for!  What I got was 2

cases of Pine-Sol bathroom cleaner...urf!  FWIW...

 -Andrew

------------------------------


Drinking containers.

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 08:25:58 -0600 (MDT)

From: EZIMMERM@UWYO.EDU

Subject: Drinking containers.

Salutations!

   In responce to Jim's article about a different taste with different

mugs I just wanted to say that I remember reading somewhere that

traditionally Bocks have been drunk with stoneware. Wisdom of the ages?

Perhaps this could start a new container thread...

   I have 4 10oz Pilsner glasses and 4 12oz 'crystal' mugs. I'd like

to add a set of 4 stoneware mugs as well as some British 'dimple' pub

style mugs. Oh, I'd also love to have a yard glass. Are Corning

outlets still selling these?

   I haven't had the chance to taste any difference in taste with different

vessles, but an experement would be interesting...

Gene in Laramie

------------------------------


Dry Mead

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 10:02:06 -0500 (CDT)

From: Steve Seaney <seaney@ie.engr.wisc.edu>

Subject:  Dry Mead

Does anyone out there have any suggestions or recipes for an extremely

dry mead?  I plan to make my first one in a few weeks.

Thanks,

Steve

- --

Steve Seaney: 608/262-5328: seaney@engr.wisc.edu

------------------------------


All Grain Oatmeal Stout

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 10:04:32 -0500 (CDT)

From: Steve Seaney <seaney@ie.engr.wisc.edu>

Subject: All Grain Oatmeal Stout

Hello,

I'm planning on brewing my first all grain batch this weekend.  I'd

like to do an oatmeal stout.  Are there any good recipes floating

around for such a brew?  I'm a little concerned that the oatmeal may

mess up the mashing process -- should I be?

Thanks,

Steve

- --

Steve Seaney: 608/262-5328: seaney@engr.wisc.edu

------------------------------


Re: Mash temperatures for Scotch Ale

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 9:08:08 MDT

From: Jason Goldman <jason@gibson.sde.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Mash temperatures for Scotch Ale

bjw@techsun1.cray.com (Benjamin Woodliff) writes:

> I'm not particularity fond of Scotch Ale, at least if bottled McEwan's

> is a good example of it.  So, not wishing to experiment any more than

> absolutely necessary, I'm curious about how much of what I would refer

> to as the overpowering "malty sweetness" of McEwan's owes itself to

> mashing at somewhat higher temperatures?

>

> I often use British 2-row and typical mash ales between 150-153 degrees F.

> >From those that may have some practical experience in this matter, what

> characteristics of a good sweet malt flavor can be derived from mashing

> highly modified malt at these somewhat higher mash temperatures (ie.

> presumably in the 158-160 deg. F range.)?

>

> I'd welcome any input on this matter.  I'm not necessarily looking to

> brew a McEwan's clone but would like get a better feel for how much

> effect higher temps might have on the development of non-fermentable

> sugars and this flavor characteristic.

>

I brew a decent all grain Scotch Ale.  I use a fair amount of dextrin

and crystal malts in the mash and I mash it at 158 degrees F with a

single step, stovetop infusion mash.  This comes out fairly malty and

sweet.  I would not be surprised if some of McEwan's sweetness came from

added sugars (e.g. treacle), though, because mine is malty but not as

'syrupy'.

Jason

jason@gibson.sde.hp.com

------------------------------


CO2 on wort -- infections?

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 09:07:32 -0600 (MDT)

From: EZIMMERM@UWYO.EDU

Subject: CO2 on wort -- infections?

Salutations!

   I've just had the thought that perhaps even the food grade CO2 isn't

filtered and thus has the possibility of containing 'nasties' in the

form of wild yeast or bacteria. I was thinking of this when I read

some of us purge our kegs with CO2. Am I missing something? I know most

bugs need O2 to live, but what about some kind of hybernation sort

of thing? It's not an uncommon thing to find animals that will lay

dormant until the needed resources aboud i.e. those fish that lay in the

dried mud until it rains, fungi and bacteria that can freeze and then

live. Just a thought.

Gene in Laramie

------------------------------


Corn Starch/McEwan's Scotch Ale

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 11:27:14 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: Corn Starch/McEwan's Scotch Ale

 "CCA::ELS_DEM" <ELS_DEM%CCA.decnet@consrt.rockwell.com> writes:

>

> I have been considering using either maize flakes or corn-

> starch as an adjunct to an all-grain ale.

> It seems to me that the sugars obtained from mashing cornstarch

> would be -- corn sugar.  Using sugar would make the mash a bit smaller, but

> would also remove some of the satisfaction of making my own.  What's the

> collective wisdom on this?

I have used cornstarch in Pale Ale's - <15% of the total mash - and have not

experienced the cidery flavor often obtained with adding corn sugar.

Perhaps, the method of commercial preparation of corn sugar introduces

something that results in a cidery flavor.  I believe that ultimately, the

amount of adjuncts - corn or other - that you add has the largest impact on

flavor.

Use of a small amount of corn starch is quite simple: I add it during the

starch conversion rest.  Initially, the mash thickens up like gravy and as the

enzymes begin conversion, the viscosity of the mash returns to normal.

bjw@techsun1.cray.com (Benjamin Woodliff) writes:

>

> I'm not particularity fond of Scotch Ale, at least if bottled McEwan's

> is a good example of it.  So, not wishing to experiment any more than

> absolutely necessary, I'm curious about how much of what I would refer

> to as the overpowering "malty sweetness" of McEwan's owes itself to

> mashing at somewhat higher temperatures?

>

In Greg Noonan's recent book, Scotch Ale, the 120 and 140 shilling

Wee Heavy recipes call for a very high mash temperature - 158F - and

fairly low bittering rates on the order of 30 to 40 bittering units.

These two parameters create  beer with big mouth feel, body and malt

sweetness.  I believe the diacetyl also enhances the perception of

sweetness in McEwan's Scotch Ale.

   Rob Reed                         Internet: rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com

   IC Design Center                        Delco Electronics Corporation

------------------------------


Encl 0 of 1:

Date: 30 Sep 1993 10:51:10 GMT

From: "BRADLEY R. USYAK" <ZINBU@cwemail.ceco.com>

Subject: Encl 0 of 1:

<WP Attachment

Enclosed>

------------------------------


Encl 1 of 1: Document.1:

Date: 30 Sep 1993 10:51:10 GMT

From: "BRADLEY R. USYAK" <ZINBU@cwemail.ceco.com>

Subject: Encl 1 of 1: Document.1:

------------------------------


Re: different tastes from different mugs

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 9:55:14 MDT

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: different tastes from different mugs

jim@n5ial.mythical.com (Jim Graham) writes:

> I've noticed that different beer mugs I have will make

> various beers appear to taste better/worse.

The glass or mug can certainly make a difference in how a beverage

tastes.  Composition, shape, and texture all have an impact on how we

perceive flavor.

You wondered specifically about the texture/material.  Try "drinking"

out of empty glass, ceramic, and pewter cups.  They will all "taste"

different -- I always thought pewter had a kind of tang to it that

could, IMHO, mask slight imperfections in a beer.  And a ceramic mug

will, to me, lend a "fullness" of texture to the tongue that I don't get

from glass.

Also, the vessel's shape can make a big difference.  Different shapes

will concentrate the aroma differently, and smell is a huge part of

taste.  That's why Trappist ale glasses are bowl shaped, weizen glasses

are tall and vase-like, and pilsner glasses are tall and narrow.  In

(northern) Europe, they realize this, and you almost always get served a

beer in a correctly shaped glass.

Serious wine drinkers have known this for years as well.  You can buy

different wine glasses for reislings, chardonnays, cabernet sauvignons,

etc.  I once read a newspaper article about a guy who makes hand- blown

glassware (at $80 a pop) for drinking only certain types of wine.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Hot-Side Aeration

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 12:31:30 -0400

From: jsqr@sgi37.wwb.noaa.gov (John Janowiak)

Subject: Hot-Side Aeration

> NOW A QUESTION:  Hot side aeration.

>    I have not seen Fix's article on this, I was wondering if anyone could

> summarize the crux of it for me.  The concern is over addind air to a mash

> once it's brought up to mashing temp, and then upon sparging and splashing.

The crux of Fix's article on hot side aeration ("HSA") (without going

into the chemistry that I won't pretend to understand) is:

  - It should be considered in the process from the beginning

       of the mash through mash-out.  Avoid a lot of oxygenating

       (splashing, etc.) as much as possible when transfering the

       wort from the lauter tun to the boiling kettle.  He states

       that some theorize that the introduction of a raking

       mechanism in many American brewries that ungently mixed the

       mash to even the temperature in the tun may have contibuted

       to the demise of our brew industry, perhaps as much as

       Prohibition, due to the "hot-side" aeration off-flavors that

       were introduced by such action.

  - A vigorous boil in the kettle is desireable for a good hot break,

       but wort should be handled gingerly when cooling until below

       about 86 F.  Of course aeration is desired when cooled to

       re-oxygenate for the yeast prior to fermentation.

  - Hot-side aeration is more of a concern for high gravity worts.

  - Also, due to scale considerations (sfc. area vs. volume), "HSA"

       should be more of a problem the smaller the batch size - hence,

       beware homebrewers.

In the same issue of Zymurgy, another author or authors contend that

recirculating wort prior top sparging is not a good idea as the potential

for "HSA" exists, and that it doesn't really do much for wort clarity.

They contend (I'm not emotionally involved here) that if yield is the

issue, just add another pound of grain or so to the mash and forget

the recirculation.

                                       John Janowiak

------------------------------


Re: Problems with carbonation

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 11:58 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Problems with carbonation

Doug and Brian write about problems with carbonation (edited):

    "Brew Your Own" store) and have had mixed success. Our first batch was a

    simple "kit" lager which went four days in primary and thirteen days in

    secondary. While not totally flat this beer did not carbonate fully and

    was somewhat disappointing. The store suggested that we should siphon off

    our beer before adding the carbonation sugar to ensure that all the sugar

    would be fully mixed and not fall into the botom sludge that never gets

    into the bottles.

First off, what you made was an ale -- given that it fermented out in 17 days,

I suspect that you fermented somewhere between 65F and 70F (around 20C).

This will make an ale since lagers are really brewed in the high-40's or

in the 50's (Farenheit).  Secondly, it's recommended to rack (siphon) to a

different container for adding the priming sugar not so much because your

priming sugar will stay in the fermenter, but rather because you will

inevitably stir up some of the gunk in the bottom of the fermenter and get

it in your bottles.

    Batch number two was the same "kit" lager, with 6 1/2 lbs of fresh

    raspberries added to create a fruity summer beer. The beer fermented four

    days in primary and seventeen days in secondary (with very vigorous

    fermentation going on all the time). The result was great with lots of

    carbonation and a super taste.

You probably got a lot of carbonation here, either because you bottled a bit

too soon or because the raspberries had some more attenuative wild yeast or

perhaps some bacteria on them.

    Batch number three was an English Bitter...

    ...Carbonation this time was poor with the beer being nearly flat.

    In all three cases we used malt sugar (between 2/3 and 1 cup) for eighteen

    litres of beer...

Well, there's your problem.  If you prime with malt extract, you need to use

more than if you prime with corn sugar (dextrose).  Malt extract, BY WEIGHT,

is only about 80% as fermentable as dextrose which is 100% fermentable, so

3/4 cup corn sugar is about the same as 1.25 cups of malt extract.  I recommend

that you switch to corn sugar for priming since it is cheaper, does not

contain proteins (which could give your beer an unpleasant, but benign ring

around the collar) and dissolves easier in your priming solution.  Also,

another reason you may feel that your beer is undercarbonated is because

most major North American beers are way overcarbonated.  If you want to get

a carbonation level like Miller or Molson, you will have to use 1 cup of

corn sugar or 1.5 cups of malt extract and then use anti foaming agents so

your beers don't gush all over the place.  Either that or you will have to

filter your beers so you remove all head-retaining proteins.  My advice:

try 3/4 cup of corn sugar and get used to the slightly lower level of

carbonation -- it fights less for attention in your mouth with the real

flavor of the beer.

I wrote this in a bit of a hurry, so if it sounds like I'm flaming you, I

appologize -- I didn't mean to.

Al.

------------------------------


Yeast pitching rates

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 11:34:05 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Yeast pitching rates

It has been my experience that underpitching yeast is a common problem

with some homebrewers, and selected micros as well. There appears to

be general agreement in the professional literature that the proper

pitching rate for cold fermented lagers is

           12-16 million viable cellls per ml wort.

I have found this to be the case with my beers as well. It should be noted that

with ales fermented around 20C (68F), half this rate is satisfactory. Wort

gravity is another issue, and I have found that the proper pitching rate should

increase with it. To cite an extreme example, I have been playing around with

several formulations for pre-prohibition Stock Ale. The OGs range from

1.070 to 1.085, and best results were obtained when the ale yeast was

pitched at lager rates.

As for as practical brewing is concerned, the key is to find ways of

getting good estimates for the number of cells actually pitched as well

as estimates of their viability. Rodney Morris has come up with a

straightforward staining procedure for estimating % viability. It

is discussed in detail in my article that appeared in "Just Brew It"

(1992, BP).

The most accurate elementary way to count yeast cells is with a

hemocytometer. Since many homebrewers do not have access to such a

device, pitching by volumes can be used as an alternative. I have

found (using a hemocytometer) that there are approximately

      4.5 billion cells per ml. yeast solids.

This means e.g. to pitch 18 million cells per ml. we need 1 volume

of yeast solids per

       4.5*1000/18 = 250

volumes of wort. Thus, for a 5 gallon = 640 oz. batch one needs

        640/250 = 2.56 oz.

of yeast solids. If these are at least 67%  viable, then this would be

satisfactory for lagers. Half that would be ok for ales with a standard

OG. If the % viability were below 67%, we would be underpitching, something

that would be evident from a longer than desirable lag and/or higher

than normal FG.

With yeast starters or yeast propagated from slants, we will have to estimate

the amount of solids from a solution that is a mixture of yeast and liquid.

Fortunately, the range for proper cells additions is rather wide, so we have

some margin for error here. One can decant off the solution, and then pitch

the proper volume of yeast solids. This should be done, however, under nearly

sterile conditions. I have found with some practice one can get pretty good

at estimating yeast solids in solution, and this avoids the need for decanting.

For all of the yeast strains I have worked with I have found that saturating

chilled wort with O2 gives the best results. Direct DO measurements indicate

that it is possible to dissolve 6-8 mg/l liter in standard gravity wort at

15 C. This decreases as either temperature or wort gravity increases. The

O2 fraction of atmospheric air is ~21% which goes up to ~32% for air dissolved

in wort. This means that saturating  wort with air will lead to a ~third

less O2 than direct O2 injection. This may or may not be a problem depending

on the yeast strain used. It should be emphasized that all the O2 in the world

will not help if the cell count is below the proper levels. Private discussion

with Jack Schmedling has indicated to me that this was a factor in his

interesting experiment on wort aeration.

Too much O2 is toxic to yeast, but this will happen only when O2 levels

reach 20 mg/l or higher. I have found, and there is conformation of this

in the professional literature, that it is impossible to dissolve even half

this amount in wort even at 0 C. Those who have read the book Belgian Ales

will note that I am in disagreement with the results reported there regarding

O2 levels. The results are also in conflict with results in the professional

literature.

 -George Fix

------------------------------


GABF

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 11:34:36 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: GABF

My wife and I will be attending the GABF, and we would be interested

in comparing notes with other homebrewers concerning the beers that

are represented there. Both Laurie and I will be on the professional

panel, so I have no idea how good a condition our palates will be in

either Fri or Sat. nights. Nevertheless, there are a lot of new micros

that will have beers there, and the reaction to these by other brewers

would be of great interest. Look us up if interested.

 -George Fix

------------------------------


Pumpkin Mash- recipe

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 11:31:55 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Pumpkin Mash- recipe

I did a Pumpkin beer last year that was a variation on the CATS EYE

from the Cats Meow.  I did a mash from the grains below and pulled

one gallon off and added the goop mix, pasteurized and feremnted in

a gallon jug.  I named the whole beer "Cats Eye" and the gallon batch

"Pumpkin Mash".  Cats Eye was kegged, and the mash bottled w/ cute labels.

We had a huge party at the house- live bands, costumes..the works on

Halloween and served up both (and a bit more) and had ourselves a jolly 'ol

time.  Then the cops wanted to reclaim the cities flashing light/baracades.

Put a slight damper on things- but they do make good party decorations ;)^

So...being as how we are to experience a full moon tonight...and october

is about to begin, the time is right for pumpkin tonight!

First- last year's recipe for the 7 gal Cats Eye, and 1 gal PumpKin Mash

 10# 2 row Pale Malt

 2 #  40L Crystal

 1 #  Wheat Malt

 .5 # Chocolate

 4 cups (1.5#) Cooked brown rice (ah what the hell!!!)

Boil 2 oz Tettnager- flake

 1 oz Saaz

Finish 1 oz Cascade

 Gypsum in the mash.  Irish moss in the boil.

I won't bother with the full mash routine.  A step up to mash temp- 60 deg C

then 65, then mashout at 70.  Sparge, pull of 1 gal for pumpkin experiment.

Pumpkin Mash:

 13 # pumpkin - degooped.  Take orange flesh, separate out seeds

 (Originally I thought of getting seeds- grinding and mashing.

 anyone have an idea whether that would work? Gotta have starches!)

 2 tbsp cinnamon

 1 tsp nutmeg

 handful of chopped cilantro

 .5 tbsp pickling spice (includes cloves and stuff....)

This was steeped for 1 min in 1 gal of the boiled wort mix.  Tossed the

cascade in here for more steeping.

Both were very yummy and well received.  The cats eye had a hoppy nose,

good head- fresh of the tap- and a deep amber to brown color.  Malty

full mouth feel, but not heavy.  It was intended to be on the lighter side

for public consumption.  The Pumpkin Mash had a creamy mouth feel, and

a spicy aftertaste.  I couldn't really identify the cilantro, but there

was an unusual- but pleasant unique flavor.  It was a very nice blend of

flavors. It was hazy.  Maybe I'll try fining this time. I wouldn't go

overboard on the spices-  but I don't know if you really could get a

"pumpkin flavor",I think it added more of a fullness and feel.

I wouldn't boil the pumkin- treat it like fruit.  It smelled wonderful

when it was steeping.

 -oh.  I used Wyeast's german alt yeast culture for both.

Now this year:  Same yeast...but I'm going to do a double batch (10gal)

Half will be pumpkin, the other half - peach.

MASH:

 10 # 2 row pale malt

 4 # Vienna 2 row

 1 # 120 L Xtal

 1 # 60 L Xtal

 2 # Unmalted Wheat

 2 # Victory

 .25 # Chocolate  (yeah I know everythings changed. It's a new

    year!  Only the pumpkin remains the same!)

I think I'll use some fresh cascade hops (my big producer this year!)

and some Centennial for bittering.  Maybe something diff. in the peach.

Got some year old Kent Goldings from william's. May be just the thing

for a lambic style! (I've got a rasberry brown ale going now. Yum!)

The peaches have been stoned, and frozen. I've got about a 1/3 bushel.

The rest is meading away!  Smells awfully sulfury. But I digress...

Pumpkin Mash:

 A big sized pumpkin (about 1 foot across) and several small ones

 from my garden. Gutted- and deseeded the guts.

(since I'm scaling up this year to 5 gallons)

 5 tbsp cinnamon

 2 tsp nutmeg

 a bunch of cilantro, and a palmful of ground coriander seed.

 1 tbsp pickling spice

This will be steeped as before, and the pumpkin goop strained out

before it's placed in the primary.  Rinse the goop with hot H2O.

Should keep me busy tonight. I usually brew sat afternoons, but I'll

be busy playing rock and roll this weekend, and besides- the carma

of a full moon can't be beat (well, and rainy day is real nice too!).

On an off note- I just saw Michael Hedges last night!  INCREDIBLE!

ok ok.  sorry for all the excess band width. I banter. Let me know if any

one tries any variations of these. I'd love to know how they come out.

If anyone want to swap a pumpkin brau- drop me a line!

RE: Cornstarch in the mash.  I'd think something serving like corn flakes,

or rice would add sugar w/o much body,  but I'd also be inclined to think

that the enzymes would not necessarily break down all the starch all the

way to the equivalent of corn sugar.  It is much more refined, and part

of the process of mashing leaves fully converted and partially converted

products- adding to the fullness of a brew.

Brew on Ye Brethren of Bee, Barley, and Vine.  Happy Hoppiness!

_____________________________________________________________________

                                J. Wyllie (The Coyote)

                                SLK6P@cc.usu.edu

"As long as he's got 8 fingers and 8 toes, he's alright by me."  H.J.S.

_______________________________________________________________________

------------------------------


Smaller Batches

Date: 30 Sep 1993 13:48:13 GMT

From: "Dowd-Brenton" <MSMAIL.DOWDB@TSOD.lmig.com>

Subject: Smaller Batches

     I have a friend who is interested in becoming a homebrewer.  The

biggest obstacle that he sees confronting him, is the fact that he is

not what you would call a "quaffer".  He is interested in variety, and

quality, but not quantity.  When he posed the question of smaller

batches to me, I responded with "I dont see why not", after which he

mentioned that receipes cannot always be simply cut in half to make a

half a batch.  Well, I'm a quaffer, and perfer the larger size batches,

so I thought I would through this question out to the knowledgeable

folks on the net.  Can the receipes simply be proportionatly cut down?

Has anyone tried a 1 or 2 gallon batch?  Good points?  Bad points?

Anything?

     Happy brewing

     Bret

------------------------------


grain mill evaluations (Boston Wort Processors' Krush-off 1/3)

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 14:19:07 EDT

From: pgs@ai.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)

Subject: grain mill evaluations (Boston Wort Processors' Krush-off 1/3)

This article is being posted in three parts, due to the 8K limit for HBD

submissions.  This is part 1 of 3 parts.

The following article is reprinted from Volume VI, Number 10 of "Brewprint,"

the newsletter of the Boston Wort Processors, Boston's oldest brewing club.

This issue was edited by Mike Fertsch.  Complete issues (which would include

the illustrations for this article) can be ordered for $2.00 each from:

    The Boston Wort Processors

    c/o James M. Fitzgerald

    12 Ward Street

    Randolph, MA  02368

This article may be republished without approval so long as proper credit is

given to the Boston Wort Processors.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------

BOSTON WORT PROCESSORS HOLD KLUB KRUSH-OFF

        by Patrick Sobalvarro

To the delicate strains of German "oompah" bands playing Trinklieder, the

Boston Wort Processors held the long-awaited Klub Krush-off on September 12 at

Tim and Heidi's beautiful home in North Reading.  Club members began arriving

with their mills at 2:00 p.m., and hijinks galore ensued as they attempted to

fasten them to the tables thoughtfully provided by their hosts.

Represented were six different mills: a customized Marcato grain mill, a

slightly modified 1989 Corona flour mill, an original 1925 Corona flour mill,

a Schmidling adjustable MaltMill, a Listermann Malt Mill, and a Glatt Malt

Mill.

The intention of the club in holding the Krush-Off was to evaluate these mills

for ease of use and quality of workmanship, as well as to subjectively

evaluate the quality of the crush they provided.  We say "subjectively" here

because graduated screens were not used; the crush was evaluated in each case

by a group of experienced brewers in the club who closely examined the crushed

grains.

The malt that was used for the crush-off was M&F 2-row pale ale malt.  The

operators of each mill received half a pound with which to adjust the mill;

then two more pounds were run through each mill in the actual test.  The

crushed grains themselves were used later that day in brewing an all-grain

demonstration batch for the benefit of the extract brewers in the club.

Some of the mills were run motorized; most of those that were used a well-worn

2.3 amp 3/8" electric hand drill.  In some cases, mills were run both

motorized and by hand; where mills were run by hand, we made an attempt to

evaluate the rate at which the operators cranked them.

We must say first that there was no clear hands-down winner among the mills

brought to the Krush-off, and that the Boston Wort Processors do not endorse

the purchase of any particular mill.  In each case the mills produced crushed

grain that should be adequate to the needs of a demanding homebrewer.  That

said, we did notice considerable differences between the mills, and our

detailed descriptions of the results for each entrant follow.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------

Mill: Customized Marcato                Owner/Operator: Jay Hersh

Approximate cost: $65 (new) + tax.

The Marcato is an Italian grain mill with stainless steel knurled rollers.  It

may be driven with a roller or motorized with a hand drill; in the latter case

an adaptor of the sort used to drive Italian pasta extruders is connected to

the drive.

The customization in this case consisted of the addition of lengthwise grooves

along the rollers to help them pull grains in; additionally, a plastic soda

bottle was taped to the mill as a hopper.  This hopper held exactly two pounds

of grain.

The mill was operated by electric power during the test.  A 2.9 amp electric

hand drill was used for this.  This mill was noticeably noisier than the

others, but this may be because a different drill was used for it than for the

others.  The motorized mill took 2:28 (two minutes and twenty-eight seconds)

to crush two pounds of grain.

The crush committee had the following comments: all kernels were opened; about

half of the husks were cut in half perpendicular to the long axis; the flour

content was "not bad," which is to say, less flour was produced with this mill

than with the modified Corona or the Schmidling MaltMill, but there was a

little more flour than with the other mills.  The committee felt, however,

that the crush was of very good quality, and that good extraction rates could

be expected.

The workmanship of the Marcato mill itself was considered good.  The clamping

system used to secure it to the table appeared to be a little inconvenient,

but the stainless steel rollers quite made up for it.  The mill was easily

adjustable simply by turning a knob, but small motions of the knob led to

large variations in the roller spacing.  The soda-bottle hopper, secured as it

was with tape and cardboard, was deemed "kludgey, but serviceable."

- ----------------------------------------------------------------

Mill: 1989 modified Corona              Owner: Randy Zeitvogel

Approximate Cost: $45 (new) + tax       Operator: Dan Hall

The Corona is a flour mill, made in Latin America, and generally the cheapest

of the available mills.  One round plate a few inches in diameter rotates

against a fixed plate of the same size; both have radially-grooved surfaces.

The modification in this case consisted of extra spacing between the two

plates via the insertion of steel washers.

The mill clamps to a table or counter with a built-in clamp.  The hopper held

two and a half pounds of grain.  When run with a 2.3 amp electric drill, the

mill was less noisy than the Marcato (this may be because a different drill

was used).  The mill took only 24 seconds to crush the two pounds of grain.

The crush committee had the following comments: Every kernel was opened.  The

sizes of the broken pieces of kernel varied more widely than for the Marcato,

but the range was considered acceptable.  Two members of the crush committee

felt that the amount of powder produced by this mill was greater than the

amount of powder produced by the Marcato mill; but a third member felt that

the amount of powder produced was slightly less (Gorman and Keohane vs.

Slack).  The husks were shredded more than by the Marcato; between 80% and 90%

were adjudged to be cut in half perpendicular to the long axis.  The crush

committee nonetheless felt that the crush was of good quality and that a high

extraction rate could be expected.

The workmanship of this mill, with its all-metal construction, was excellent.

It was easy to adjust and appeared to be very durable.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


grain mill evaluations (Boston Wort Processors' Krush-off 2/3)

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 14:21:10 EDT

From: pgs@ai.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)

Subject: grain mill evaluations (Boston Wort Processors' Krush-off 2/3)

This article is being posted in three parts, due to the 8K limit for HBD

submissions.  This is part 2 of 3 parts.

The following article is reprinted from Volume VI, Number 10 of "Brewprint,"

the newsletter of the Boston Wort Processors, Boston's oldest brewing club.

This issue was edited by Mike Fertsch.  Complete issues (which would include

the illustrations for this article) can be ordered for $2.00 each from:

    The Boston Wort Processors

    c/o James M. Fitzgerald

    12 Ward Street

    Randolph, MA  02368

This article may be republished without approval so long as proper credit is

given to the Boston Wort Processors.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------

Mill: 1925 unmodified Corona            Owner: Sarah White

Approximate Cost: Priceless!            Operators: CSMC

This instrument was clearly well-loved by its operators.  They were quick to

point out its many features: how it operated in near silence; how its long

handle nearly ground the grains itself, the turning effort was so low; how the

owner's cat likes it.

The mill was clamped to the table with a "moby C-clamp."  The mill was

operated by hand during the test.  The operator was clocked at 100 rpm.  Only

three-quarters of a pound were ground, in 1:38 (one minute and thirty-eight

seconds).

The operators chose to adjust the mill to minimize the flour resulting from

crushing.  The crush committee noted that there was very little powder in the

resulting crushed malt, but that about 15% of the kernels remained unopened.

The pieces of kernel that were crushed were about the same size as those from

the modified Corona.  All the crushed husks seen were cut in half

perpendicular to the long axis.  The committee expected lower extraction rates

from the crushed malt in this test than in any of the others.

What are we to say of the workmanship of this mill?  This beautiful

instrument, older than most Worts' parents, with its black-enameled wooden

handle and its metallic body hinting of tales, tales it could tell of long

nights making tortillas in some Northern Mexican village, a dream landscape of

desert and night sky and mountains and moonrise, this instrument was of

excellent construction.  By all evidence durable, as well.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------

Mill: Schmidling Adjustable MaltMill    Owner/operator: Chris McDermott

Approximate Cost: $129 (retail) + shipping.

                  (the non-adjustable model is $99 + shipping)

The Schmidling MaltMill is a two-roller malt mill with 10" steel rollers,

finely grooved lengthwise.  The roller spacing can be adjusted at one end of

one roller, so that the rollers are not exactly parallel; the operator said

that this was not a problem, however.  The mill has a 2.25-pound hopper made

of fiberboard, and a fiberboard base made to fit over the top of a grain

bucket.  It was tested twice: once hand-cranked and once motorized.  In both

tests the mill had to be held to the bucket by hand.  The rollers were at

their factory setting of 0.055".

The unmotorized test came first.  The mill was very quiet when cranked by

hand; the operator was timed at approximately 120 rpm.  Two pounds of grain

were crushed in 44 seconds.

When evaluating the hand-cranked crush, the crush committee said that the

crushed kernel pieces were on average finer than those produced by Coronas,

and the variation of sizes was smaller.  Every kernel was opened, and only a

small percentage were cut in half; most were split lengthwise.  The amount of

powder produced appeared to be about the same as the unmodified Corona.  The

committee expected good extraction rates from this crushed malt.

The motorized test used a 2.3 amp electric drill.  Two pounds of grain were

crushed in only 21 seconds, for the day's record.  The crush committee felt,

however, that the crushed grain was not of the same quality as when the mill

was operated by hand.  Approximately 20% of the husks were damaged, and there

was considerably more powder.

The workmanship of the Schmidling mill was considered quite good.  The long

rollers gave it a high rate of crushing, and the construction, although large

parts of it were fiber- or particle-board, was solid.  Some club members felt

that it was more difficult to adjust the spacing on this mill than on other

mills.  Others mentioned that it occasionally proves necessary to replace the

O-rings used in the drive mechanism.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1238, 10/01/93

*************************************

-------


grain mill evaluations (Boston Wort Processors' Krush-off 3/3)

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 14:21:48 EDT

From: pgs@ai.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)

Subject: grain mill evaluations (Boston Wort Processors' Krush-off 3/3)

This article is being posted in three parts, due to the 8K limit for HBD

submissions.  This is part 3 of 3 parts.

The following article is reprinted from Volume VI, Number 10 of "Brewprint,"

the newsletter of the Boston Wort Processors, Boston's oldest brewing club.

This issue was edited by Mike Fertsch.  Complete issues (which would include

the illustrations for this article) can be ordered for $2.00 each from:

    The Boston Wort Processors

    c/o James M. Fitzgerald

    12 Ward Street

    Randolph, MA  02368

This article may be republished without approval so long as proper credit is

given to the Boston Wort Processors.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------

Mill: Listermann Malt Mill              Operator: Pete Langlois

                                        Owner: unidentified

The Listermann Mill, also known as the PhilMill, is a single-roller adjustable

malt mill that crushes grain against a fixed plate.  A 2.5-lb. plastic-bottle

hopper can be affixed to the top.  It is attached to a table with two large

screw-hooks.

We had trouble with the Listermann Mill during the Krush-off, and we are not

sure that it was operating correctly.  The mill was run motorized, with the

same 2.3-amp electric hand drill as in other tests.  However, the crushing

rate was extremely low -- about one pound per ten minutes.

The mill has no bearings, and so the roller is secured in the metal body with

two steel circlips, one on each side of the body.  When the mill was operated

during our test, one of the circlips ground against the metal body, producing

a fine metal powder that soaked up the lubricant.  As a result, the mill began

to make loud metal-on-metal noises, and the test was stopped prematurely,

after fifteen minutes and thirty seconds.  The body of the mill became

noticeably hot during the test.  The rate of crushing, as noted above, was

approximately one pound per ten minutes, which most of the Worts present

deemed unacceptably slow.

Notwithstanding these considerable problems, the crush committee felt that the

Listermann Mill produced the highest-quality crush of all.  No whole kernels

were found; the husks were in good shape; the crushed kernel pieces were of

nearly uniform size, and there was very little powder.  A very high extraction

rate was expected.

The workmanship of the Listermann Mill was not considered very good.  The

hopper, while serviceable, was considered "kludgey," and the screw-hooks for

attachment to the table proved difficult to use and not very secure.  The very

low rate of crushing, and the means of securing the roller in the body, with

its attendant problems, were noted with some distress by those present.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------

Mill: Glatt Malt Mill                   Owner: Patrick Sobalvarro

                                        Operator: Bob Gorman

The Glatt Malt Mill, from Glatt Machining, is a two-roller all-metal mill with

4-inch steel rollers, with wide, shallow, lengthwise grooves.  Both ends of

one roller are adjustable with a semi-circular vernier scale to allow one to

repeat settings.  The rollers are mounted in Delrin bearings.  The drive is

geared, and the mill is built so that the lands of one roller and the grooves

of the other face each other at the crushing surface.  The mill has a 2.5-lb.

hopper, and is intended to be mounted on a table using two 3/8" bolts.  A

chute carries the crushed grain from the bottom of the rollers into the grain

container.

The Glatt Mill was evaluated both hand-cranked and motorized.  In both cases

the rollers were left at their factory-set spacing.  In the hand-cranked test,

the operator was timed at approximately 150 rpm, for the most frenetic

hand-cranking of the day.  Two pounds were crushed in 1:06 (one minute and six

seconds).  In earlier testing, the mill proved very easy to crank by hand,

because of the mechanical advantage afforded by the gearing.

When motorized, with a 2.3-amp electric hand drill, the Glatt Mill crushed two

pounds of grain in 0:45 (45 seconds).

The crush committee found no differences between the two crush samples (from

the hand-cranked and motorized tests) when they were examined side by side.

Both had slightly less powder than the hand-cranked Schmidling mill.  The

granule size was uniform.  The condition of the husks was considered to be the

same or "maybe 5% better" than the hand-cranked Schmidling mill.

The workmanship of the Glatt Malt Mill was considered excellent.  The metal

construction and heavy enamel paint appeared very durable.  The ease of

adjustment and ease of cranking were both noted favorably.

It was noted during the test that some grain pieces sticking to the Glatt

Mill's rear roller were ejected from the back; this amounted to a negligible

amount when two pounds were crushed, but it was messy all the same.  Greg

Glatt has said that he is modifying the chute to entirely cover the rear

roller for this reason.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------

We enjoyed the Krush-off, and for many of us, it was our first opportunity to

see some of the mills we've heard about, and also to see them in action.  It

was good fun, and the beer prepared from the crushed grain will be enjoyed at a

future meeting.

Many Worts helped in the Krush-off, and space does not allow us to list them

all.  Tim and Heidi of course deserve all our gratitude for being such

excellent hosts.  Tim Madigan, the gentleman who timed the hand-crankers, has

my appreciation.  The crush evaluation committee, consisting of Scott Keohane,

Bill Slack, Bob "El Presidente Exigente" Gorman, and various others whom I

have no doubt forgotten, as well as the owners and operators of all the mills

all deserve kudos for making the Krush-off possible.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Pumpkin Ale recipe

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 15:29:17 -0400 (EDT)

From: ANDINATOR@delphi.com

Subject: Pumpkin Ale recipe

In HBD #1237 JMGARNETT@ATCSD.ESS.HARRIS.COM (JIM) writes:

>    pumpkin brew! If anyone has recipes or suggestions for brewing with

>    pumpkin PLEASE respond before my taste buds rebel. Also, this will

>    be my first batch made with fruit or vegetable so any advice is

>    always welcome. I switch back and forth between all-grain and

I won 3rd place in the Novelty Beer category at the 1992 Dixie Cup

Homebrew Competition with this recipe.  To give credit where it is

due, I based this recipe largely on an extract recipe that was printed

in Barley Malt & Vine's (West Roxbury, Mass) store newsletter a few

year's back.  I added 1 lb. light crystal malt and substituted Chico Ale

Wyeast #1056(aka American Ale) for the dried yeast they recommended.

I also modified (increased!) the spices used.

6 # Northwestern Golden malt extract

1 # British crystal malt

2 # sliced up pumpkin (NOT the gross seedy junk, the stuff you carve!)

1.5 oz Fuggles hops for 60 minutes

1 tsp Nutmeg

1 tsp Allspice

1 tsp Cinnamon

1 oz fresh grated Ginger root

Wyeast #1056 (American Ale, allegedly the same yeast used by SNBC)

Add all the spices (including Ginger root) for the last 10 minutes of

the boil.

OK, now there is some controversey over exactly WHEN to add the

pumpkin:  the original newsletter said to add 2 inch cubes of pumpkin

to the brew-kettle 10 MINUTES before the end of the boil, and to

"ferment on" the pumpkin cubes.  In the batch I made for the Dixie

Cup, I put the pumpkin cubes into the brew-kettle 30 minutes before the

end of the boil.  I'm not sure this was a good idea - I think I boiled

off some pumpkin crud ("crud" is a technical term) that got into the

final product.  With the batch I just brewed, I am going to add mashed-up

pumpkin to the secondary carboy, and rack the contents of the primary on

top of it.  I used this method with excellent results on a raspberry

wheat beer recently.

I also used a very different hopping schedule in my most recent batch:

60 minutes - 3/4 oz Willamette (4.5% alpha)

30 minutes - 1/4 oz Willamette

             1/2 oz Cascades (5.5% alpha)

 5 minutes - 1 1/2 oz Cascades

The original recipe said to add finings to clear.  I added 1 teaspoon

of Irish Moss at 60, 30 and 10 minutes before the end of the boil.  I

am also considering finings or some other clarification agent in the

secondary (pumpkin has got some CLOUDY JUNK in it!).

*----------------------------------------------------------------------*

| Sysop                    Andrew Patrick                      Founder |

| Home Brew U-Midwest BBS                    Home Brew U-Southwest BBS |

| (708)705-7263     Internet: andinator@delphi.com       (713)923-6418 |

*----------------------------------------------------------------------*

------------------------------


Smoky Mountains

Date: 30 Sep 93 10:31:00 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A@hq.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Smoky Mountains

Message Creation Date was at 30-SEP-1993 10:31:00

          Greetings,

               I've a friend who will be driving from Wash., DC to the

          Smoky Mountains (NC - Tenn border).  He wants to know what's

          in the area for good drinkin establishments.  Also, if

          there's anything worthwhile to stop at along Rte 81 S.

          Thanks,

          Andy A

------------------------------


chill concentrated wort?

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 14:31:56 EDT

From: pavao@ptsws1 (John D. Pavao)

Subject: chill concentrated wort?

Hello fellow homebrewers,

 I have been an HBD subscriber for about a month and an extract

brewer for about nine months.  Suring that time I have brewed about a

dozen batches.  My usual practice is to transfer the concentrated wort

(about 1.5 gallons) to a carboy containing about 3.5 gallons of cold water

to make up a five gallon batch.  I have heard and read about the value of

quickly cooling the wort to yeast-pitching temperatures.  I am wondering

if I would be better or worse off if I chilled the concentrated wort

before adding it to the cold water in the carboy.  I would very much

appreciate any comments.

  John

------------------------------


McEwan's ale

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 15:49:05 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: McEwan's ale

bjw@techsun1.cray.com (Benjamin Woodliff) writes:

>I'm not particularity fond of Scotch Ale, at least if bottled McEwan's

>is a good example of it.

it's not.

>I'm curious about how much of what I would refer

>to as the overpowering "malty sweetness" of McEwan's owes itself to

>mashing at somewhat higher temperatures?

McEwan's Scotch Ale is sweetened with lactose after fermentation.

On the other hand, McEwan's Export IPA is not, and is a very good example

of a (mild) scotch ale (but it's not an IPA).  Alternatively, MacAndrew's

(strong scotch ale, or wee-heavy) is quite nice, but lacks smokey

character and has too much hop flavor for a scotch ale (but it's yummy).

Traquair House is the definitive example, at $5 a bottle.

Don't get turned off to scotch ales because of McEwans Scotch Ale...

bb

------------------------------


Trophies & NEBFF

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 17:37:26 EDT

From: chuck@synchro.com (Chuck Cox)

Subject: Trophies & NEBFF

I am involved with an upcoming beer festival and am looking for some

nice trophies/plaques/whatever to give the winners in the homebrew

competition.

I am soliciting recommendations for mail-order or local suppliers.  My

requirements are a good catalog, quality merchandise and timely

delivery.

The New England Brewers Fall Festival is on October 23rd in Boston.  It

will be the largest beer festival on the east coast.  We are expecting

over 100 breweries from New England, the US and the world to attend plus

such luminaries as Michael Jackson, Fred Eckhardt and Bert Grant.

If you would like more information about the event, send a request for

"event info" to nebff@synchro.com.  If you would like information about

volunteering to work at the event, send a request for "volunteer info"

to nebff@synchro.com.

- --

Chuck Cox   <chuck@synchro.com>

SynchroSystems / Riverside Garage & Brewery - Cambridge, Mass.

------------------------------


Lactic Acid

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 18:34:20 CDT

From: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: Lactic Acid

In Dallas we have very soft water. In order to avoid an astringent

quality in my beer, I have been more carefully adjusting the

PH of the sparge water. My "acidifying" agent has been Calcium

Sulphate (Gypsum). Problem is with the amount of Gypsum I have to

add to get the PH down, I am adding a lot of Calcium.

        A brewing friend suggested using Lactic Acid. Got a bottle

of Kent brand 88% Lactic Acid. I could use a suggestion from you

Brewing Chemist types....

        Any guess on how much of this 88% Lactic Acid I might use

to adjust the PH in 5 gallons? You know something like: "1 tsp of

88% Lactic acid should lower 5 gallons of liquid by .4 PH degrees".

I could use trial and error but I've got a hunch that someone

out there may have the answer or be familiar with this stuff.

- -----

Internet: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com

    UUCP: metronet.com!pro-storm!philb

  Bitnet: philb%pro-storm.metronet.com@nosc.mil

------------------------------


cold plates

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 17:08:21 -0700

From: Steve Christiansen <steven@sequent.com>

Subject: cold plates

A number of times, in this forum and elsewhere, I've heard of homebrewers

who use cold plates to chill kegged beer to drinking temperature on the

way to the tap.  Sometimes this is done with ice on the cold plate.

In other cases the cold plate is placed in a fridge or freezer.

Now this sounded great to me because I have a fridge space shortage,

and it would be easier to find room for a cold plate than a keg.

But when I asked the guy in the draft department of the local homebrew

shop about cold plates, he told me I wouldn't be happy using one

in that way.  He said I'd have to start with the keg chilled somewhat

to end up with beer that's cold enough.  He gave me the impression that

these things drop the temperature only a few degrees.  I'm inclined

to believe the guy because he could have sold me an expensive cold

plate if he had kept his mouth shut, but before I give up on the idea,

I thought I'd gather more data.

If you use a cold plate to chill beer, how well does it work for you?

Do you need to keep the cold plate at 32F or below to work well?

Are some cold plates better than others?  (recommendations welcome)

Or should I forget about the idea?

Thanks for any info.

- --

Steve Christiansen

Sequent Computer Systems

Beaverton, OR

steven@sequent.com

------------------------------


Williams Brewing

Date: Fri,  1 Oct 93 03:54:00 BST

From: mike.keller@genie.geis.com

Subject: Williams Brewing

 ||Does anyone have an address, or better yet, a phone number    ||

 ||(1-800 number if possible) for these folks?  I've got to do   ||

 ||an oatmeal stout, and at least for now, an extract brew is    ||

 ||the only way it'll happen.  But oatmeal stout is just too     ||

 ||good as an after-dinner/late-night treat to pass up!          ||

Order line for William's Brewing in San Leandro CA: 1-800-759-6025,

M-F 8am-5pm Pacific Time, Saturdays 10-5 PT. Their fax order line, 24

hours, is 1-800-283-2745. They accept Visa, MC and Discover.

Enjoy!

 Mike Keller, Beer Sysop, Food and Wine Roundtable, GEni

------------------------------


Oatmeal Stout, William's Brewing

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 7:17:41 EDT

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: Oatmeal Stout, William's Brewing

First of all, here are the numbers for William's Brewing:

William's Brewing

P.O. Box 2195

San Leandro, CA 94577

Orders:         1.800.759.6025

FAX Orders:     1.800.283.2745

Advice:         1.510.895.2744

Other:          1.510.895.2793

<insert standard disclaimer here>

Here is a recipe for an "oatmeal stout" I made using their extracts.  I

am quite pleased with it.

                Oatmeal Stout

6# William's Oatmeal Dark Extract

1# William's American Dark DME

1# William's Weizenmalt DME (60% wheat, 40% barley)

6 oz. Amber Crystal Malt (60^L)

3 oz. Dark Crystal Malt (120^L)

7.5 HBU Northern Brwer Hop Plugs (1 oz. @ 7.5 %alpha)  - 60 min boil

2.5 HBU E.K. Goldings Hops (whole) (1/2 oz, don't really remember the

        alpha content) - 60 min boil

1/2 tsp Irish Moss - 20 min boil

Wyeast Irish Ale yeast.

1. For the crystal malt, I crushed the malt and put in a straining bag &

   put that in 6.5 gal of water at 120^F.

2. Heated the water to 170^F & removed the heat.

3. Let steep at 170^F for 15 min.

4. Remove grains, bring pot to boil.

5. Remove heat, add malt extracts.

6. Bring to boil, add hops & boil for 60 min.  Add Irish moss 20 min

   from end.

7. etc, etc, etc,

For the new brewers out there, it took me a while to realize that I

needed to do the first part of step 5.  I used to add the extracts while

the heat was applied and no matter how well I tried to stir, I would

scorch some malt onto the bottom of the pan.  Also, it should be obvious

that this is a full-boil.  If you only boil 2-3 gal, you'll have to

increase the amount of hops you use.

- --

Jim Grady              |"Root beer burps don't have to be said 'Excuse me'."

grady@hp-mpg.an.hp.com |                Robert Grady, age 4.75

------------------------------


Brewski (tm.) it's official!

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 9:28:35 EDT

From: LeRoy S. Strohl <lstrohl@s850.mwc.edu>

Subject: Brewski (tm.) it's official!

According to an article on page 66 in the 11 October issue of -Forbe's-

"Brewski" is now a trademark. The guy that brought you those wonderful

LA Gear products has gone into the beer business. "The label on Sandy

Saemann's bottles, currently rolling out nationwide, says 'The Greatest

Name in Beer.' The slogan is 'Brewski, ask for it by name.'"... The

article goes on to talk about the growth of the microbrewery business.

Apparently the guy sees this new venture as a 'lifestyle' marketing

vehicle. "To be blunt about it, Saemann hopes to use suds to sell socks.

His Brewski Brewing Co. plans to market jackets, caps, socks, - even

director's chairs and barbecue sauce - with the winged Brewski logo."

"Brewski catlogs will offer gift packs containing a bottle of beer, two

pilsner glasses and a cap all bearing the Brewski logo. Brewski sells

for about $5 a six pack, versus $4 for Bud and $7 to $8 for other

microbrews. Brewski will be the only microbrew in cans, anotherway of

identifying the beer as a product for people who want to act

bluecollar."  The contract for production will be done by G.Heileman, in

small batches.

Arrgggggh!

A couple of days ago I posted the notice about the demise of Miller

Clear. I had thought about dusting off the old H.L. Mencken quote that

goes something like-

 "No one ever lost money underestimating the taste of the

 American people."

Somehow, it seems more appropriate to apply it this piece about Brewski.

I guess it would have been too much to expect that this guy might have

wanted to talk aoubt the quality of his beer first, and then delve into

the fun of marketing a bunch of tie-ins.

As for me I think I'll have a "homebrewski." I have reason to believe

that it will be better than Saemann's/Heileman's stuff.

------------------------------


Corona Motorization

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 10:43:04 -0400 (EDT)

From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

Subject: Corona Motorization

Hi:

 I have used a corona mill for grinding for the last couple of

years and am pretty satisfied.  I am sure there are nicer mills out there,

but cost is a factor and I am not interested in investing in a new one at

the present time.  However, I recently acquired a variable speed hand

drill, and was anxious to make the small advance of motorizing my present

mill. Sometime ago I ordered, from Northeast Brewer's Supply, for the

price of $1.00, a fitting to allow one to hook up a drill to the Corona.

I had been planning on buying a bolt of the appropriate size and cutting

the head off, but as it was only $1.00, and as I was feeling a little

guilty about the skimpiness of the rest of the order I was making, I got

one. When it arrived, I was somewhat chagrinned to find that it consisted

of a bolt with the head cut off. But no matter. I attached it to my

Corona, chucked on the drill, and set to work.

 I was attempting to approximate the speed of my usual cranking

(which is in the neighborhood of 8 lbs in 12 minutes).  However, the

variable speedness of the drill notwithstanding, I could only attain two

states.  State one consisted of no radial movement, and assorted nasty

sounds and smells emanating from the drill.  State Two consisted of rapid

spinning of the grinder plaste, and an accompanying shower of crushed

grains all over my kitchen.  After alternating between states one and two

for several minutes, I began to fear for both the mechanical integrity of

my drill, and the cleanliness of my kitchen, and I gave up.

 So, what is the deal here.  Do I need a more powerful drill? Or,

am I simply trying to grind too slow.  Perhaps full speed grinding is

required, along with some sort of backup shield to guide the grains to

their appropriate destination. Finally, maybe I just need more practice to

attain an intermediate speed.  Any info would be appreciated.

       Dave.

------------------------------


Small Batches

Date:    Fri, 1 Oct 1993 14:44:24 GMT

From: COOK@CDHF2.GSFC.NASA.GOV (Chris Cook)

Subject: Small Batches

[Bret (MSMAIL.DOWDB@TSOD.lmig.com> asked about brewing smaller batches.  A

couple of years ago I started a similar thread, but I never got around to

posting any obvious results.

In my case, I was trying to make sense of the (then new) Belgian malts.

Aromatic, biscuit and the others all sounded fascinating, but I didn't have

the slightest idea how to use them.  I figured to make a series of small

beer batches, where each was a basic beer with a lot of one specialty malt.

I brewed about 7 or 8 all-grain 1-gallon batches before I ran out of steam.

It was actually a lot of fun.  When you've used to 5 gallon brewing, these

little one-gallon mashes were so easy I'd have three or more going at a

time.  Suddenly my kitchen stove was actually hot enough, my regular pots

and pans were the right size, and I didn't strain my back humping 6-gallon

pots.

I started by scrounging a raft of 1-gallon glass jugs.  I bought a few to

start off, but so many juices and ciders come in 1-gallon glass that you

and your friends can finish the supply pretty easily.  I ended up with 6, I

think.

I didn't get fancy with mashing, limiting myself to simple infusion mashes.

Jack's EASYMASHER or some variation would have been perfect, but I was just

messing around using general kitchen stuff, so I rigged a mash/lauter-tun

by putting a screen in the bottom of an old 1-gallon water thermos, which

worked amazingly well.  I wasn't trying for accurate measurements, but I

think I was getting close to 30 points per pound (per gallon, obviously).

Later I changed to a two-gallon cylindrical cooler, and that allowed me to

add all the sparge water at once, which also helped.  I was worried that

maintaining temperatures with the small mashes would be difficult, but with

the thermos, and mashing in the middle-150s, there wasn't a problem.

In cooking, one way to really understand how a specific spice tastes is to

use too much, and that was my aim for these beers.  My first batch was just

the base beer with no additions.  I think I used just under 2 pounds of

Pale, but, like most people, I don't have my notes with me at work.  The

second batch used somewhat less Pale and a pound of Carapils. In the next

set I brewed another control beer, one with Caravienne and another with

Caramunich, and so on.  All were hopped with what I though was a middling

amount of Cascades.

For each set of batches I made up a quart of yeast starter with some

neutral ale yeast.  When the batches were cooled, I would split this

starter between the batches, and fermentation always started quickly.

The little batches turned out quite interestingly, although not what I'd

expected.  I don't know whether the hops utilization was quite different or

my scales were simply inaccurate, but the beers were all very hoppy, with

strong, although pleasant, bitterness and a great hop aroma.  On the up

side, I found I liked the beers with 'left coast' hop levels.  The down

side was that the high hop levels overshadowed the differences in malts.

I know that my hops scale (a postal scale, actually) isn't that accurate

for my 5-gallon batches - it barely registered for the 1-gallon amounts.  I

tried measuring the hops by volume by measuring 4 ounces, then

interpolating, but I was still only using a large teaspoon or so of pellets

ber patch.  I tried crushing the pellets in the mortar and pestle so that I

could measure more accurately, but it still wasn't very accurate.

That was the only serious problem I had.  If you can find a way to

accurately measure the hops for these small batches, I recommend going for

it.  It was fun and easy.

One other hint.  I did this before the thread about adding specialty malts

at mashout, so I just mashed all the grains.  If I do this again, I'll make

a larger batch of the base beer and perform smaller mashouts with each

specialty malt.  You'd still have to perform separate lauters, but it would

cut out a lot of the running around I did for simultaneous mashes. Another

option would be to get a lauter tun bigger than 1 gallon and play around

with first and second runnings.

Or play around with the different kinds of hops, or different fermenting

temperatures.  Have a ball.

Chris Cook

cook@cdhf2.gsfc.nasa.gov

------------------------------


To protein rest or not to protein rest

Date:  Fri, 1 Oct 1993 08:02:25 PDT

From: John_D._Sullivan.wbst311@xerox.com

Subject: To protein rest or not to protein rest

Hi all,

I just purchased a 55lb bag of M&F Pale 2-row malt, and am planning on making a

couple of batches of pale ale, couple of browns and a couple of porters. I'm

assuming this is a highly modified malt and I can do an infusion mash and skip

the protein rest. Is this assumption correct? Will it make a difference on the

styles, or mash them all alike?

Thanks much,

John

------------------------------


yeast query & bottled experience

Date: Fri, 01 Oct 93 11:10 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: yeast query & bottled experience

Hello readers,

Two queries if I may...

YeastLabs American Ale:

   I recall someone asking for any experiences or reactions to this strain.  I

have 5 gals of pale ale (og 40) in a secondary and the yeast head has yet to

drop.  I racked from underneath the primary's yeast head and a new one grew in

the secondary carboy.  It has diminished some but this is my first experience w/

the yeast and since it has been fermenting for a week, I just want to know what

might be happening.  This batch got off on a rollicking start...I had signs o'

fermentation within 3 hours and a yeast top-layer in about 7-8 hours (the power

of aeration and 4 cups starter).  In sunny Madison, the tilt of the earth has

lower the ambient temp. of my basement to 60-63 F.  Could the lower temp result

in such a slowing of fermentation.  Before I could ferment for 1 week to 9 days

and have clear beer to bottle....but that was before this yeast and temp change

and recipe.

Bottles:

   Has anyone used the 1 pint 6oz Sapporo or Kirin beer bottles for home brew.

They don't appear to be as thick as returnable long necks but their generous

size and easy access make them a temping container.  How would they hold up to

bottle conditioning....3/4 cup corn sugar or 1 1/4 cup malt extract...don't need

to carb. anymore than that.

Thanks,

David Atkins

atkins@macc.wisc.edu

------------------------------


Now, why don't they make it in an ale? ;)

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 12:22:39 EDT

From: "decc::carlson"@tle.enet.dec.com

Subject: Now, why don't they make it in an ale? ;)

 SOFIA (UPI) - One of the largest breweries is beginning production of

a special beer which would help against radioactive contamination, press

reports said Friday.

 The beer, called Lulin Special Light Laer, is supposed to help people

cleanse themselves from radioactive stroncium-85 particles, which enter

the body through the air and various foods, and are deposited in the

bones, reports the daily 24 Chasa.

 Sofia newspapers carried pictures of members of the Defense

Ministry's Civil Defense Department drinking the Pilsen type beer

Thursday.

 Lt. Colonel Valentin Angelov, scientific secretary of the ministry's

Scientific Development Council, told United Press International that

work on the project had begun two years ago.

 ``After the Chernobyl incident, we began intensive work on foodstuffs

and beverages which could help the human body fight radioactive

contamination,'' said Angelov.

 On April 26, 1986, the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, 80 miles

(128 km) north of Kiev, Ukraine, was damaged. Radioactive contamination

spread across eastern and northern Europe.

 Angelov said that the special effect of the beer was due to an

ingredient called Kanta-tonic, which contained some 40 Bulgarian herbs

and was developed jointly by the country's Academy of Sciences and the

Central Laboratory on Radiobiology and Toxicology at the Military

Medical Academy.

 ``All our experiments have shown that the lager greatly promotes the

decomposition of stroncium-85,'' said Angelov.

 According to the managing director of the Lulin brewery, Ivan Mihov,

it is for the first time in the world that such a beverage was being

produced.

 He said great interest had already been shown towards the beer from

abroad, notably from the the United States and Japan.

------------------------------


pint glasses

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 14:35:04 EDT

From: Michael Bruening <mwb2r@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu>

Subject: pint glasses

Reading the discussions about different drinking containers reminded me of a

problem I've had - I have not been able to find traditional English pint

glasses (NOT the dimpled kind with the handle) anywhere in the U.S.  Does

anyone know of a place that sells them, either direct or mail-order?  E-mail

responses are fine.  Thanks.

Michael Bruening

mwb2r@virginia.edu

------------------------------


Cooking with beer recipes

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 17:55 GMT

From: "Graham Truelove@START_Mail*" <Graham_Truelove+aSTART+_Mail*%START@mcimail.com>

Subject: Cooking with beer recipes

From: Graham Truelove on Fri, Oct 1, 1993 2:05 PM

Subject: Cooking with beer recipes

To: Homebrew Digest

FYI: This month's Gourmet magazine, October 1993, gives several new recipes

for cooking with beer - microbrewed or mass-produced (or for that matter

homebrewed).  The article states "The hearty and savory dishes that emerged

from our test kitchens highlighted beer's versatility as an ingredient, its

most notable properties being a subtle bittersweet taste and, for meats, a

tenderizing effect. It's also worth noting that most preparations made with

beer are best accompanied by a tall glass of their most salient ingredient."

Sounds good to me.

Mussels steamed in spiced beer

Beer-braised brisket with root vegetables

Onion and Garlic Beer Soup

Chile con queso y cerveza (Cheese and chili beer dip)

Beer, sun-dried tomato, and olive quick bread

Deep-fried broccoli and carrots in scallion and caper beer batter

Pork chops in beer teriyaki marinade

Stout spice cake with lemon glaze

All the recipes but the last call for pale, light-bodied beers and discourage

the substitution of stronger flavored beers. I haven't tried any yet but the

stout spice cake and the beer-braised brisket both look tempting.

- -- Graham

------------------------------


RE: Drinking Containers

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 14:25:00 EST

From: "Pamela J. Day 7560" <DAY@A1.TCH.HARVARD.EDU>

Subject: RE: Drinking Containers

Hi!

 Gene in Laramie asked if Corning Outlets still carry Yard

glasses, the answer is yes! At least in New Hampshire they do. Yards

run about $30.00, 1/2 Yards about $22.00 and Foots are $15.00. The

1/2 Yards are tough to get because they sell out quickly, but they've

always had the others in stock when I've been in there. $30.00 is a

great price for Yards with a stand, especially when I saw the exact

same one at The Boston Brewer's Festival for $65.00. (Even more

especially when one's cat sacrifices one's yard to the radiator!)

Cheers!

Pam

------------------------------


aeration

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 14:07:37 -0700 (PDT)

From: Jeremy Ballard Bergsman <jeremybb@leland.Stanford.EDU>

Subject: aeration

George Fix writes that as the O2 fraction in wort is ~32%, aerating with

air will lead to 1/3 less dissolved O2.  Shouldn't this be 2/3 less???

Jeremy Bergsman

------------------------------


Papazian's "Amazeing Pale Ale"

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 18:58:42 EDT

From: ab126@freenet.carleton.ca (Jay Cadieux)

Subject: Papazian's "Amazeing Pale Ale"

In 09/30/93's HBD, CCA:ELS_DEM asks about the use of cornstarch as an

adjunct in ale brewing.  He mentions Papazian's "Amazeing Pale Ale"

recipe.

My first all-grain batch was that exact recipe.  The cornstarch converted

well, leaving some corn aromatics in the ferment and in the beer.  These

corn aromatics subsided after about 2 months in the bottle.  There was

no "cidery" taste that you can sometimes get with corn sugar (dextrose).

- --

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jay A. Cadieux (ab126@freenet.carleton.ca, 1:163/277.1@fidonet.org).

"Be the master of your shadow, not the shadow of your master" - Nietzsche

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


cinnamon in apple cider

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 20:25:21 EDT

From: sean v. taylor <sean@chemres.tn.cornell.edu>

Subject: cinnamon in apple cider

 Greetings all on the HBD.  I'm a newcomer (been

reading the digest for a couple of months) and have found the

info very helpful). Now I have a question of my own.

 I recently made a hard apple cider with a friend of mine

and it looks great.  It's almost ready for bottling and we have

a few questions about that.

 1)  Which bottles would be better for bottling--beer

bottles or wine bottles?  We think we want to use wine bottles,

but is there any problem with this?

 2)  We have also considered adding a stick of cinnamon

to each bottle.  Has anybody done this?  Would this affect the

flavor in a bad way (i.e., off flavors due to microorganisms on

the cinnamon, too much cinnamon flavor, etc.)

 Any input at all would be most helpful.

     Thanks,

      Sean Taylor

------------------------------


Modesto Clubs

Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1993 21:30:23 -0400 (EDT)

From: KONSTANTINE@delphi.com

Subject: Modesto Clubs

   >A friend of mine (who does not have access to HBD) recently move to

  >Merced California

  >If you know of any local clubs or individuals please let me know.

  I just looked in the Celebrator (a local brew newspaper) for clubs.

I'm not sure what's in the area of Merced, so some of these may be out of

his area.

          Brew Angles - Lodi

          Ken Matzek (209) 368-2515

          Gold Country Brewers Association - Sacramento

          Phil Steed (916) 383-7702

          San Joaquin Wort Hogs - Fresno

          Dale James (209) 264-5521

          Stanislaus Area Assoc. Zymurgists

          Micah Millspaw (209) 847-9706

          Stanislaus Hoppy Cappers

          Wayne Baker (209) 538-BREW

  I hope there is no problem with me posting these phone numbers.  They

were pulled out of a public forum.  If I'm breaking a net taboo, I'm sorry.

Also, have your friend look up homebrew supplies in the phone book and call

up the closest one.  Most shops are happy to direct you to the nearest club.

That way you learn more about brewing (and spend much more money!).  Good

luck and happy brewing.

          B*B,

            Konstantine.

konstantine@delphi.com

------------------------------


Pitching Rate

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 22:32 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Pitching Rate

 >From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

 >It has been my experience that underpitching yeast is a common problem

 with some homebrewers, and selected micros as well.

 I am sure George's reputation doesn't hang on my corroboration but my recent

 experience leads me to concur emphatically.  I don't know about it being a

 "problem" but it certainly is a significant factor in lag time.

 After pondering all the responses to my wort aeration experiment, I conducted

 one more experiment which makes the connection between aeration and lag time

 even more tenuous.

 To pre-empt more of the same irrelevant discussion, please keep in mind that

 the experimental objective was ONLY to measure lag time as a function of

 aeration and had nothing to do with the well accepted need for oxygenated

 wort for unrelated reasons.

 I normally pitch about 500 ml of active wort built up from a slant culture.

 The first step is to cover the slant with wort so the entire culture is

 available to start the starter.  The slant culture is discarded after one

 use.

 I typically spend about 5 days building up the starter doubling the volume

 ever 24 hrs.  It typically takes about 48 hours before any sign of

 fermentation is apparent in ten gallons of wort at 40F and 8 to 24 hrs for

 ales at room temp.

 On my most recent batch, I built the starter up to 3 liters and fermentation

 was obvious in about 6 hours at 40F.

 My point is not to champion the advantages of fast startup because I don't

 know anymore than what I have read and I doubt that my last batch will taste

 noticeably different from previous ones.

 I am simply pointing out that pitching rates have such a profound affect on

 lag time compared to aeration that any attempt to measure the later effect

 will be swamped by error cause by small variations in the pitching rate.

 js

p.s.  It also seem obvious that pitching liquid yeast in the convenient

starter package as supplied by one manufacturer, is not a very sensible

way to get a beer off an running.

jjs

------------------------------


too high keg pressure?

Date: Sat,  2 Oct 1993 02:52:50 -0400 (EDT)

From: Alexander Samuel McDiarmid <am2o+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: too high keg pressure?

   I have brewed a batch (2) in coke type kegs (5&3 gal) and cannot get

the beer out without overfoaming.  I have standard 1/4 (1/8) internal

Diameter tubes (they fit the barbs) and a beer keg type cheapo spigot.

I bled all the pressure out and it still siphons too carbonated.

help (feel free to reply off line)

------------------------------


Christmas Ale Recipe

Date: Sat, 2 Oct 93 15:54:29 EDT

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: Christmas Ale Recipe

For those who might be looking for a Christmas Ale recipe, here is one

that Curt Freeman and I made 2 weeks ago and I just bottled my share

this afternoon.  We took the spice list from Phil Fleming's Christmas

Ale recipe that Kinney Baughman posted here 2 years ago.  Since we had

had a lot of fun with our first all-grain batch a week or so earlier we

decided to do a partial mash (so we each would get 5 gal) and change it

from a stout base to an amber base.  Anyhow, here is the recipe:

         Christmas Ale for 10 gal

         ------------------------

  9#    Pale Malt                               Mash at 156^F for 90 min

  0.75# Dark Crystal Malt (120^L)          -+

  0.5#  Caramunich Belgian Malt (60-80^L)   +-- add at mash out

  1#    German Dark Crystal Malt (20^L)    -+

  10#   Munton & Fison Light Malt Extract Syrup

  2 oz (15 AAU) Northern Brewer Hop plugs (10 gal remember) - 60 min

  1 oz Hallertauer Hop plugs (steep 10 min)

  1.5# Honey               -----+

  10 cinnamon sticks (3")       |

  12 oz grated ginger root      |

  zest from 12 oranges          +-- Simmer 45 min; then add to wort (after

  4 Tbs Allspice (whole)        |        the boil and steep with Hallertauer

  2 Tbs Cloves (whole)     -----+         hops

  Wyeast German Ale yeast (1007)

We added the crystal malts at mash out in an attempt to retain some

body.  The combination we used was based partly on what I had left over

from previous batches.  We used a rectangular picnic cooler for the

mash/lauter tun.  It did not hold the heat very well compared to the

insulated box method that we used on our all-grain but we feared that

there was too much grain to use the tried & true method.

O.G. 1.056

F.G. 1.010

Fermented at 60^F

At bottling time, it is very good.  The cloves and allspice are more

pronounced over previous batches (I've made Phil's version for the past

2 years) but that may be due to finally following the directions!

- --

Jim Grady              |"Root beer burps don't have to be said 'Excuse me'."

grady@hp-mpg.an.hp.com |                Robert Grady, age 4.75

------------------------------


William's Brewing

Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1993 15:58:32 -0400 (EDT)

From: KONSTANTINE@delphi.com

Subject: William's Brewing

  >> William's Brewing is a big mail-order outfit in San LEandro CA.

  >Does anyone have an address, or better yet, a phone number (1-800

  >number if possible) for these folks?

  OK, here goes.  The address is:

         William's Brewing

         2594 Nicholson St.

         P.O. Box 2195

         San Leandro, Ca.  94577

         Phone: (800) 759-6025

         Fax: (800) 283-2745

     B*B,

       Konstantine.

konstantine@delphi.com

------------------------------


re: Troubleshoot my dry-hopping!

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 9:49:23 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: re: Troubleshoot my dry-hopping!

Darryl has a better eye than I for troubleshooting brewing mistakes.  He keenly

noted the following:

>caa@com2serv.c2s.mn.org (Charles Anderson) writes

>>I did the same thing with my first full mash Pale Ale.  I added 1oz of

>                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>>Willamette to the fermenter, it came out with a great hop aroma, but also

>>an unbelievable bitterness.  BTW I just threw the hops in on top of the

>>fermenting wort.  It took a long time for my bitterness to go away, and

>>by that time I didn't think the beer was very good.  (couldn't tell if

>>wasn't very good to start with too much bitterness)

>

>This struck a chord in me.  I'd just like to point out that your

>hop utilization is going to change dramatically when you go from

>a partion boil extract brewing process to a full boil mashing

>process.  I discovered when I changed over that I needed about

>half as much hops as I had been using in extract beers.

>

>The reason is that if you boil 6 pounds of extract in a gallon and

>a half of water, the gravity of that wort is well over 1.100, and

>probably somewhere near 1.125.  High gravity worts don't take up

>much iso alpha acids from the hops.  When you switch to all grain,

>and therefore full wort boils, your gravity will be more like

>1.050, and you'll get a lot more bitterness out of your hops.

I had the same experience when I went to all-grain and I should have noticed

this.  Shortly thereafter I started basing my hop schedule on IBUs and have no

problems since.  The IBU formulae consider the OG (although the details of

utilization are debatable) and avoid the problem of overhopping with full boils.

norm

------------------------------


Carboys/Yards

Date: Sun, 3 Oct 93 15:11 CDT

From: fjdobner@ihlpa.att.com

Subject: Carboys/Yards

For those interested and living in the Northern Illinois area, the

Corning Factory Store has the following to offer:

5 gallon glass carboys.............$8.99 (ask for cardboard packing)

Yard of Ale Glasses (w/stands)....$29.99

1/2 Yards (w/stands)...............$19.99

Foot of Ale Glasses (w/stands).....$14.99

The yards are cheaper than I have seen before. It is not something

for which I would immediately jump at at, but some would.

They are located in the Piano Factory Mall in St.Charles w/ telephone

number of (708)377-5460. The mall additionally has a housewares outlet

store with other things of interest to homebrewers (canning jars etc...).

Good Luck

Frank Dobner

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1239, 10/04/93

*************************************

-------


Mailing/shipping home brew

Date: Sun, 03 Oct 93 16:39:59 EDT

From: brewerbob@aol.com

Subject: Mailing/shipping home brew

I have checked it all out and I have been the "victim" of the US Postal

Service as well. Here is the real skinny on at least two methods of shipping

alcoholic beverages:

The U.S. Postal Service has regulations forbiding the shipment of any

alcoholic beverage via USPS. (As well as about 100 other items such as

explosives, drugs, toxic materials, etc, etc...) That's all there is to that!

I had a package that I sent (or tried to send) to the state of Washington

that was dropped/hit/crushed/mishandled/etc in spite of the labels on all six

sides stating it was fragile. I received a form stating that I had been a bad

boy and my package was sent straight to Hell (I think that may be the other

Washington!) and I could not even get my postage back!

Shipping by UPS is legal! However, to avoid any hassle with some low paid and

low trained clerk that could easily occur if you identify it as beer, the

best thing to do is identify the contents as "Non-

parishable food products" or "Hobby parts including glass and metal" or

something along those lines. If you must, call it "Live yeast cultures" and

the driver may be more careful with the handling of the box.

I do strongly recommend, however, that you do NOT send it in a beer carton! I

sent a case of twenty sixteen ouncers to Texas in a Tucher box (after all,

they were originally Tucher bottles) along with a second box which was a

plain brown box containing about ten assorted bottles of home brews. The two

were sent at the very same time. The second one arrived just fine, the first

one never arrived. I just hope the driver appriciated my home brew. It was a

Shiner style Bock beer.

I did put in a claim and UPS paid me $100 plus the $11.xx shipping cost. I

split the money with the intended recipient and told him to buy a case or two

of good beer with it!

Good luck with your shipments.

BrewerBob@aol.com

P.S.  By the way, when I ship beer to the AHA competition, I always include a

couple of extra labeled bottles for the crew and I pack the beer bottles in

fresh popcorn so they have something to eat with all that beer. I enclose a

note telling them that the popcorn was popped as the box was being prepared

for shipment so it is fresh. The whole thing starts in a plastic bag inside

the box which is sealed before the box is closed.

------------------------------


Old brew/Babylon

Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1993 22:08:24 -0700 (PDT)

From: Jack Thompson <jct@reed.edu>

Subject: Old brew/Babylon

just reading through Carl S. Pederson's _Microbiology of Food Fermentations_,

the AVI Publishing Co., Inc, Connecticut, 1971, when I came across this

item on p. 211:

"The first evidence of beer manufacture has been traced to to ancient

Babylonia, possibly dating back as far as 5000 to 7000 B.C....Some 18

varities of beer, called bousa, were said to have been prepared in

Babylonia as long ago as 2200 B.C.

 ...At some time barley was moistened and when germination began, it was

crushed with a pestle, roughly ground, and made into loaves with sour

dough or leaven.  They were baked sufficiently to form a crust without

cooking the interior.  When beer was required, the loaves were broken,

mixed with water, and allowed to ferment.  the liquid was pressed,

separated from the dough, and when fermentation was completed, the

resulting acid-alcoholic beverage was called boozah or bousa.

Booze?  Babylonian?

Beer=high tech?

Just another data point.

Jack C. Thompson

------------------------------


Corning Outlets near DC?

Date: Mon, 04 Oct 93 09:39:22 EDT

From: gorman@aol.com

Subject: Corning Outlets near DC?

Recent messages have described the variety of glassware available at Corning

Outlets.

Does anyone know of one of these near the Washington, DC area?

Bill Gorman

------------------------------


re: cold plates

Date:    Mon, 4 Oct 1993 9:01:47 -0500 (CDT)

From: SMITH@EPVAX.MSFC.NASA.GOV (The Ice-9-man Cometh)

Subject: re: cold plates

Regarding chilling beer with a cold plate in a freezer:  This would

probably work for one or two glasses of non-warm beer.  But the thermal

mass of the cold plate is a lot lower than that of the beer going

through it.  A little heat transfer:

Assume an aluminum cold plate at 255K (0 F), 5 gal of beer weighing 19

kg at 290K (62 F), and perfect heat transfer.  No heat transfer to the

freezer during dispensing (worst case, but not by much).  No temperature

change due to CO2 coming out of solution (not sure how much this matters).

Dispensing temperature to be 278K (40 F).

Specific heat of Al alloy: 820 J/kg/K

Specific heat of water (beer): 4184 J/kg/K

Equation:  mp*Cpp*(Tout-Tp) = mb*Cpb*(Tb-Tout)

           where p=plate, b=beer, Tout=dispensing temp.

Solve for mp, mass of plate:

mp = (19 kg)*(4184 J/kg/K)*(290K-278K)/(820 J/kg/K)/(278K-255K) = 51 kg

This means you'd need a 110 lb aluminum cold plate to dispense a whole

keg of beer.  Of course, it's all more complicated than that, because you

get a lot of temperature variation in the output of the plate as it warms.

One way to help this problem would be to put your cold plate in a pan of

antifreeze solution (like what you put in your car).  The bigger the

better, but don't ruin your freezer; water is heavy....

|     James W. Smith, NASA MSFC EP25     |     SMITH@epvax.msfc.nasa.gov     |

|           "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery                       |

|            None but ourselves can free our minds"  --Bob Marley            |

|    Neither NASA nor (!James) is responsible for what I say.  Mea culpa.    |

------------------------------


Cold Plates

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 93 10:03 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Cold Plates

 >From: Steve Christiansen <steven@sequent.com>

 >Sometimes this is done with ice on the cold plate.

 In other cases the cold plate is placed in a fridge or freezer.

 I have used a cold plate for years and assure you that they are totally

 adequate for serving beer when used with ice.  I have noted people using them

 in a fridge but can not imagine how that could work very well.   The

 difference in heat transfer between ice water to aluminum vs refirgerator or

 even freezer air is orders of magnitude.   A freezer might work for one glass

 but that would be about it.  It that is all you want, it might be ok.

 >From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

 >Subject: Corona Motorization

 >I had been planning on buying a bolt of the appropriate size and cutting

 the head off, but as it was only $1.00, and as I was feeling a little

 guilty about the skimpiness of the rest of the order I was making, I got

 one. When it arrived, I was somewhat chagrinned to find that it consisted

 of a bolt with the head cut off.

 This is a constant frustration for manufacturers who get accused of ripping

 off customers for things that seem trivial.  Most people simply do not

 understand the costs of manufacturing which must include purchasing,

 inventory, interest, labor, overhead, markup for retail, taxes, shipping,

 packaging, warranty... the list is endless.  Just what would you charge to

 supply me with a bolt with the head cut off?  You got a bargain.

 > After alternating between states one and two for several minutes, I began

 to fear for both the mechanical integrity of my drill, and the cleanliness of

 my kitchen, and I gave up. So, what is the deal here.  Do I need a more

 powerful drill?...

 You are simply experiencing the limitations of the so-called variable speed

 drills on the market today.  They have very little torque at low speeds and

 are pretty useless for your purpose.  I would suggest getting it to run at

 the proper speed before filling the hopper and then adding grain only as fast

 as it will take it.  This unfortuantely may not maintain enough pressure on

 the plates for a consistant grind but sow's ears do not make silk purses.

 If you can afford a new drill, I highly recommend getting a geard-down

 version of a 1/2" drill.  The power or size of the drill is not as important

 and the gear ratio.  The higher ratio allows the motor to operate at higher

 speed and produce much greater torque.

 You will, BTW, destroy you drill shortly after you smell smoke, if you

 continue.

 js

------------------------------


Re: Pint Glasses

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1993 12:19:16 -0400 (EDT)

From: William Pemberton <wfp5p@holmes.acc.virginia.edu>

Subject: Re: Pint Glasses

> Reading the discussions about different drinking containers reminded me of a

> problem I've had - I have not been able to find traditional English pint

> glasses (NOT the dimpled kind with the handle) anywhere in the U.S.  Does

> anyone know of a place that sells them, either direct or mail-order?  E-mail

> responses are fine.  Thanks.

If you mean the kind of slant sided pint glasses, Market St. Wine Shop

(downtown) has them.  They aren't QUITE traditional English, since they

are a US pint.

- --

Bill Pemberton                           wfp5p@virginia.edu

ITC/Unix Systems                         flash@virginia.edu

University of Virginia                   uunet!virginia!wfp5p

------------------------------


grain mill evaluations (Boston Wort Processors' Krush-off 3/3)

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 93 12:55:46 EDT

From: pgs@ai.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)

Subject: grain mill evaluations (Boston Wort Processors' Krush-off 3/3)

Oops, it was pointed out to me that I neglected to include price

information in the third part of the Krush-off writeup, which included

the descriptions of the Listermann Mill and the Glatt Malt Mill.  The

prices in question are:

Listermann Malt Mill:   $75 + tax

Glatt Malt Mill:        $80 + $5 shipping

A lot of people have sent me mail asking for the address of Glatt

Machining.  Glatt's address has been published here before, but here

it is one more time:

    Glatt Machining

    920 Stanley Drive

    College Place, WA  99324

    (509) 529-2084

 -P.

------------------------------


dryhopping rate

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 93 13:13:25 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: dryhopping rate

Yesterday I bought (and drank) a bottle of Young's Special London Ale.

This beer had the most vegetal hop character that I've ever

encountered in a bottled beer.  I have no idea how fresh it was (don't

know how to read the date code -- does anyone know if the "beer date

decoder" works on this label?), but it sure tasted fresh.

This stuff's got a LOT of dry hops in it.  It tastes about the same as

my IPA with 2 oz E.Kent Goldings hop plugs in 5 gallons, except

fresher!  (I did make the IPA back in the spring, I guess.)

If you're wondering about dry hop rates, you should try this beer.

=Spencer

------------------------------


cleaning/brewing tips

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 93 12:45:35 CDT

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: cleaning/brewing tips

Do you have any tips, hints (such as vortex outflow from bottles

and carboys for rinsing etc) which have made the brewing and especially

the cleaning processes any easier? I'm on batch 8 and I'm looking to

begin streamlining the brew process....email address below. TIA

If there is a demand, I will repost depending upon info recieved.

    Thanks,

     Chris

======================================================================

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu |

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

======================================================================

------------------------------


Re: Christmas Ale Recipe

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 93 14:09:07 EDT

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Christmas Ale Recipe

Spencer Thomas asked if any water is used to simmer with the spices in

the Christmas Ale recipe I posted.

No, there isn't.  I put all the spices in the honey and heated it on low

for 45 min.  The honey gets pretty runny when heated.

Now that I think about it, I think I used a double boiler this time (in

which case there is some water but not with the ingredients!).

Sorry for the confusion.

- --

Jim Grady              |"Root beer burps don't have to be said 'Excuse me'."

grady@hp-mpg.an.hp.com |                Robert Grady, age 4.75

------------------------------


Barley Wine fermentation schedule?

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 93 12:29:37 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Barley Wine fermentation schedule?

My latest brew is an all-grain barley wine, on the weak side.  The OG was

around 1.085 (boiled for many many hours!).  I was trying to get the OG higher,

but that is another story (I now know why many people do partial mash barley

wines!).

Anyway, I used a 1 pint starter from Wyeast London Ale yeast, which was

possibly a bit past high krauesen, in a 5 gallon batch.  The start of obvious

fermentation took over 24 hours, so I suspect I underpitched considerably.

Aeration was done with a venturi tube apperatus, using the falling cooled wort

(new CF chiller worked great!) to suck air into it.  It had a nice 3 inches or

more of foam on the top of the fermenter, so I think aeration was adequate

(maybe not?, read on...).

The kraeusen reached a couple of inches in about 3-4 days, and slowly levelled

off and went down to a 1/4 inch layer of foam after that.  After a week, I

sneaked a taste in the primary.  No off flavors, but _very_ sweet.  I didn't

take a gravity reading.  After another week, 2 weeks total in the primary, I

did a gravity reading and subsequent tasting.  The gravity was 1.055!!!  The

taste was (obviously) still very sweet.  I racked into my secondary, where the

beer will stay for a while, but for how long?  Am I looking at a 6 month

ferment here?  Is this normal for a high OG beer?  The strongest beer I've made

before was OG 1.057 and it acted quite normal (2 weeks to 1.015 or so).

I know this sounds like the standard "how long till I bottle" question, but it

pertains to the high gravity end of it.  I'm in no rush, but this could take

forever.  If this is not normal (which I suspect) should I aerate at this

point, add more yeast, nutrient, what?  Next time (there _will be_ a next time)

should I work extra hard (compared to "standard gravity" ales) at increasing

yeast population and oxygen content?

Thanks,

norm

------------------------------


North Jersey Suppliers

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 93 14:38:46 EDT

From: vella@tvrisc.timeplex.com (Jim Vella 470 XXXX )

Subject: North Jersey Suppliers

I am new to homebrewing and would like to know if there are some good

supply stores in North Jersey, or any good mail order suppliers.

Please respond to vella@tvrisc.timeplex.com

Thanks -

Jim Vella

############################################################

#        James F. Vella       # ascom Timeplex             #

# (vella@tvrisc.timeplex.com) # 470 Chestnut Ridge Road    #

#     201-391-6000 X6707      # Woodcliff Lake, N.J. 07675 #

############################################################

------------------------------


Krush-off / help

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 93 13:24:39 EDT

From: sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com (Omega)

Subject: Krush-off / help

Hi all,

First, thanks to Patrick Sobalvarro and the Boston Wort Processors for the

Krush-off info.  I now know which mill I will buy when the time comes.

On to the question.  I am currently extract brewing, and am attempting my

first lager.  It is based on the Pilsner Urquell clone on page 2-7 of the

Cat's Meow (2nd ed.) with variations due to on my local supplier's advice

and stock.  This is what I used:

5# Briess light malt syrup

1.75# Briess Gold dry malt extract

15.5 AAU Saaz

Wyeast #2007 into 26 oz. ~1.040 starter 48 hours before pitching

Added 1/3 of the hops at 60, 30, and 10 minutes.  Chilled the concentrated

wort (2 gallons) to 70F, added to 2.5 gal. of 70F water, pitched entire

starter (made from more of the Breiss Gold) and topped off to 5 gal. with

more 70F water.  Swirled to mix.  O.G. 1.026, when I expected closer to

1.050.  This is the first time I have used a hydrometer (out of five

batches).  I did correct for temperature.  What am I missing here?  Private

email please to 73410@sdlcc.msd.ray.com.

Happy Brewing,

Carl Howes

------------------------------


Novice all-grainer's comments

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1993 15:23:19 -0500

From: steve@snake.appl.wpafb.af.mil (Steve Zabarnick)

Subject: Novice all-grainer's comments

Now that I have three all-grain batches under my belt (not literally,

yet!), I thought I should pass on a couple of the problems I've encountered

and solved for the benefit for other new all-grainers.

On my first two batches I encountered significant cooling (>5 degrees over

1.5 hours) during mashing in a 5 gallon Gott cooler. On my last batch I

encountered no cooling during a one hour mash. The trick is to preheat the

mash tun; I did this by filling the tun with hot tap water while heating up

the mash water (I do a single infusion mash). Also, I used US 2-row Klages

for the last batch and experienced much faster conversion (<45 mins) than

my other two batches which used English Pale Ale malt, presumably due to

the higher enzymatic activity of the Klages malt. (Has anyone encountered

any flavor differences between these grains?)

I also experienced very slow sparges (2 hours for 5 gallons) during my

first two batches. On this last batch, the sparge slowed to a trickle so

drastic action was called for. I dumped the mash out of my combined

mash/lauter tun (the above Gott cooler with Phil's false bottom), and

discovered that the mash had gotten under the false bottom. After removing

the mash from under the false bottom and dumping it back in the tun, I was

able to run the sparge as fast as I wanted. I believe the mash was getting

under the false bottom during the intense stirring of mash-in. To solve

this problem I may use a separate cooler for mashing and transfer the mash

into the lauter tun at the end of conversion.

Hope this helps prevent someone else from encountering these problems.

Steve Zabarnick

Steve Zabarnick

steve@snake.appl.wpafb.af.mil    OR

zabarnic@udavxb.oca.udayton.edu

------------------------------


Dave Barry observations (fwd)

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1993 15:54:19 -0400 (EDT)

From: Michael Ligas <ligas@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>

Subject: Dave Barry observations (fwd)

- ---------- Forwarded message ----------


Dave Barry observations

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1993 13:28:37 -0400

From: NAME <ECLEMENT@ADMIN2.MEMST.EDU>

Subject: Dave Barry observations

>From Dave B's column yesterday, all about the new standard for testing

soap scum cleaner.

"Oh sure, you've seen TV commercials wherein the Cheerful Housewife,

standing in a bathroom the size of Radio City Music Hall, waltzes up to

a scum-encrusted tile, sprays it with a cleanser, and then wipes it off

to reveal a sparkling shine.  But these commercials are not filmed on

Earth; they're filmed on the Commercial Planet, where everything is different;

where fast-food-chain employees really are happy to serve you; where there

is some meaningful difference between Coke and Pepsi; and where "light"

beer does not taste like weasel spit."

------------------------------


Chillers, Yeast, and Stout

Date: Mon, 04 Oct 93 15:52:48 PDT

From: Robert Pulliam <Robert_Pulliam@rand.org>

Subject: Chillers, Yeast, and Stout

Greetings,

   Just wanted to drop a note of thanks and ask a couple of questions.

First of all thanks to all who gave me info on counterflow chillers a

couple of months ago.  I finally got around to building one last weekend

and it worked great in the test (boiling water) run.  It is 30 ft of

counterflow with an additional 15 ft immersed in ice water.  The water

was siphoned and the whole 5 gal took approximately 33 minutes (any way

to speed that up?) I left a small amount of flame on the burner to ensure

that the water continued to simmer throughout the entire process.  It took

the boiling water down to 55 degrees (great for lagers I guess.) I plan to

try it without the ice bath to see what the temp change is.  Anyway,

thanks again.  Secondly, a question or two.  I plan on brewing a pale ale

this weekend and a stout next weekend.  I would like (read only enough

money allotted by the wife) to generate a starter from a WYeast packet that

would work well for both brews.  Any suggestions?  Also, I am looking for

an all grain recipe for a Murphy's stout.  Anyone?  Class, class.

Anyone?

Robert J. Pulliam            |+|all thoughts, statements, and opinions,|+|

Los Angeles, CA.             |+|demented or not, should be my own; and |+|

pulliam@monty.rand.org       |+|I'm certainly not associated . . . . . |+|

------------------------------


Two Hop Topics

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 93 21:59:59 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Two Hop Topics

There has been a bit of discussion here lately about two hop

topics:  gravity vs. utilization and dry hop bitterness.

Gravity vs. Utilization:

In the research for my book, I have tried to verify the common

homebrew wisdom that high gravity *boils* make a difference in

the hop utilization by attempting to find references in the

commercial brewing literature.  I have not been able to find *any*

mention that wort *boil* gravity makes any difference in hop

utilization.  The gravity at the start of *fermentation* does make

a difference, meaning that low gravity beers get better utilization

than high gravity beers.  Note that this is a fermentation effect,

not a boil gravity effect, and varies depending on the fermentation

technique.  Anyway, the *volume* of the boil *will* make a

difference, which may explain Norm's comments about needing less

hops when switching to all grain (full volume) boils.

I asked Gail Nickerson this question ("Does boil gravity affect

utilization?") and she said (paraphrasing), "No.  Not unless you

were boiling a syrup or something of that consistency.  And if it

did, it would be known because the big boys are all using high

gravity brewing techniques these days."

To summarize, then, it appears that low boil volume (regardless

of the SG) gives less utilization, but *boil* gravity has no effect.

But as the gravity of the *fermenting* wort increases, utilization

decreases - the amount depends on your fermenting methods.

Bitterness from Dry Hopping

I am at loss on this one.  I, for one, have never noticed it.  A

lot of brewers report a pronounced *astringency* but not bitterness.

This will go away in few weeks.  It is possible that some of the

alpha acids in the hops had been converted to iso-alphas, but I

think this is unlikely.  The hops would have gone "cheesy" long

before there was significant conversion from ambient heat, etc.

It is also possible that oxidized beta acids are the culprit.

They are bitter, but again, I would think that the alphas too

would have oxidized along with the betas, and we would be back in

cheese city.  They're also not very soluble.

But here's the real issue:  Brewer's report a *great deal* of

bitterness and they have used 1 oz (or less) of an aroma hop, in

a process without heat or agitation.  If they used the same amount

of hops in the boil, would it have contributed the same amount of

"undrinkable" bitterness?  I think not.  (you have to get way up

there to get "undrinkable" IBUs).

So what's going on?  Obviously something is happening because we

have to assume the brewers with the dry hop bitterness are telling

the truth and that they're not imagining it.  Are they mistaking

astringency for bitterness?  OTOH, those that report this bitter

effect are a minority - a lot of brewers dry hop all the time and

never have this effect, not to mention Anchor Liberty and Sam Adams

Boston Lager, both of which are dry-hopped.  Many, many barrels of

these two brews are produced annually with none of these problems.

Still, it would be nice to get to the bottom of it.

Suggestions?

Mark

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1240, 10/05/93

*************************************

-------


Re : Bitterness from Dry Hopping

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 13:31:44 BST

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: Re : Bitterness from Dry Hopping

If we accept that there is a difference between hop flavour and aroma, then my

experience is that prolonged dry hopping (as in leaving hops in a pressure

barrel) has a relatively short-lived, intense effect upon aroma, but a

long-lived effect on flavour. I personally love the aroma of English Goldings,

but not so much the flavour, which is why I am of the school of thought which

limits dry-hop contact time to less than 2 weeks. As for bitterness, isn't

there a theory that alcohol is an alternative to heat as a means of

isomerisation? Presumably, any effect would also be enhanced by increasing the

contact between the hops and the brew, as with the use of shredded hops or

pellets.

- --

Conn V Copas

Loughborough University of Technology          tel : +44 (0)509 222689

Computer-Human Interaction Research Centre     fax : +44 (0)509 610815

Leicestershire  LE11 3TU              e-mail - (Janet):C.V.Copas@uk.ac.lut

G Britain                                      (Internet):C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk

------------------------------


Krush Off Kwestion

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 08:09:50 CDT

From: pmiller@mmm.com (Philip . Miller)

Subject: Krush Off Kwestion

Many thanks to the Boston Wort Processors et al for the interesting

post on mills.  Just a quick question:  was it a blind judging?

(I.e., did the judges know which mill ground the grains they were

judging?)

Thanks

Phil

pmiller@mmm.com

------------------------------


Beer filtering...

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 9:38:18 EDT"

From: rmm@apollo.hp.com

Subject: Beer filtering...

 Hi,  I have seen a couple of references to filtering

      beer in the digest and I have some questions:

 1.  How fine a filter do you use?

 2.  Where do you find the filters?

 3.  When in the brewing process do you filter?

 4.  How much difference does it make?  Can you

            really clarify beer by sending it through

            a filter once (at the end of secondary)?

 I have a couple of cornelius kegs and a CO2 setup and

      would guess that I should use a counter-pressure fill

      from one keg to the other with a filter in between.

 Any tips, comments or details of personal experience

      will be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.

      -ralph

- --

=============================================================

Ralph Morrison                Chelmsford Systems Software Lab

(508) 436-4217                Hewlett-Packard Corporation

rmm@apollo.hp.com                 Chelmsford, MA 01824

=============================================================

------------------------------


Wort Processors Mill Evaluation

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 08:47 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Wort Processors Mill Evaluation

 Sounds like a fun time was had by all and the context and tone of the report

 indicate that it does not require much serious debate.  However, there are a

 few points that I would like to mention (surprise, surprise) just for

 clarification.

 First of all, the MM used in the evaluation does not represent current design

 which will indeed crush one lb of malt in under 14 seconds with a hand crank

 and 5 lbs per minute with a motor is like falling off a log.

 >The Schmidling MaltMill is a two-roller malt mill with 10" steel rollers,

 finely grooved lengthwise.

 The current design uses a much coarser texture on the rollers that has a

 profound effect on the effeciency of feeding the grain through the rollers.

 > In both tests the mill had to be held to the bucket by hand.

 The MM is supplied on a base with rubber feet for locating it on a plastic

 bucket.  This does not imply that this is the ideal way of using the mill in

 all cases and in particularly when speed tests are being run.  It is far more

 convenient and easy to use if it is clamped to the edge of a work table with

 a simple C-clamp.

 >The unmotorized test came first.  The mill was very quiet when cranked by

 hand; the operator was timed at approximately 120 rpm.  Two pounds of grain

 were crushed in 44 seconds.

 The current design will crush a pound of grain is less then 14 seconds at

 that cranking rate.

 >The motorized test used a 2.3 amp electric drill.  Two pounds of grain were

 crushed in only 21 seconds, for the day's record.

 This figure would be substantially improved with a current design but not

 knowing the RPM I can't even guess.

 > Others mentioned that it occasionally proves necessary to replace the

 O-rings used in the drive mechanism.

 Although a fairly trivial task to replace, the current design, does not

 require the O-ring to drive the passive roller.  We went from two O-rings to

 one and now have eliminated it's need entirely.

 >The Corona is a flour mill.....  When run with a 2.3 amp electric drill, the

 mill was less noisy than the Marcato (this may be because a different drill

 was used).  The mill took only 24 seconds to crush the two pounds of grain.

 I have real problems with this one because it implies that the Corona is

 almost as fast as the MM and this is not consistant with my experience.

 According to my measurements, it takes 93 revolutions of a correctly adjusted

 Corona to process one pound of grain.  This compares to 30 revolutions on the

 MM.  This is the obvious advantage of the 10" long rollers.  For the Corona

 to process grain in roughly the same time, it would have to run 3 times

 faster.  Granted, no RPM's were stated for the drill operated tests, but this

 must be known for a rational evaluation.   If the MM were run 3 times faster

 it would process 9 times more grain then the Corona in a given time.

 By extrapolating the results of the hand cranked Corona....

 >The operator was clocked at 100 rpm.  Only three-quarters of a pound were

 ground, in 1:38 (one minute and thirty-eight seconds).

 It would have to run at about 1200 RPM to process 2 lbs in 24 seconds.

 Theoretically, the MM would crush 40 lbs per minute at that speed.

 I would also point out that, not having any bearings, the Corona would not

 last very long at that speed.

 Finally, a note on crush quality....

 The most misunderstood aspect of the grist resulting from milling of malt for

 brewing is the bogyman known variously as flour, dust, fine particles, powder

 etc.  I would rank the need for unscathed husks as number two.   The emphasis

 on both of these results from the problems created by crude grain grinders

 combined with poorly designed and/or operated mash/lauter tuns.

 The perfect grist for mashing would be molecule sized particles of malt from

 which all the husk has been removed.  It would wet perfectly, disolve

 instantly and produce 100% yield of crystal clear wort.

 In the real world, some of the starch is not converted or disolved and it is

 impossible to prevent some of the husk from getting into the grist.  This

 creates the need to filter the mashed wort and in this hypothetical case, it

 could be run through a submicron filter and produce a nice clear wort with

 very high extraction yield.  The bad news is that mechanical filtration at

 that level is expensive, time consuming and messy.  The good news is, Mother

 Nature has provided a simple and free filter that when properly utilized, is

 just as good.

 By allowing the husks to remain in the grist and providing the proper

 environment for them to settle and layer in the lauter tun, they will filter

 the wort just about as well as a mechanical filter and cost nothing.

 I suppose most of us know all this but what seems to get lost in these types

 of subjective studies of grist from various mills is that the flour bogyman

 is a ghost from the days of flour mills, coffee grinders and poorly designed

 lauter tuns.  A mill that doesn't pulverize the husks, if supported by a

 proper lauter tun can and SHOULD produce a significant amount of very fine

 grist.  That is what makes the difference between acceptable and maximum

 extract efficiency.

 To worry about husks that are broken in half as opposed to remaining whole is

 to miss the whole point.  A husk in two pieces provides more filter pores

 than a whole husk.  Likewise with ten, twenty or a hundred pieces.  The

 problem arrises not from chopping it up into small pieces but from

 pulverizing it into dust.  A roller mill with two or more counter-rotating

 rollers is inherently incapable of pulverizing husks and whatever is done to

 the husks is not likely to create problems.  Grinders and single roller mills

 are candidates for pulverizing husks and must be carefully adjusted to

 minimize this effect.

 As an aside, I have not seen the Glatt but from descriptions, it sounds like

 the intermeshing grooves on the rollers might pose such a problem.

 The sieve tests used by commercial breweries are quantitative and very

 repeatable but are designed to predict or explain problems in very large

 batches and are virtually meaningless for small homebrew sized batches.  It's

 fun to say that one's mill produces text book quality grist but if in the

 final analysis, the beer is no different from that made from grist that has a

 different stasticial spread of particle size, what does it prove?

 I think the bottom line is that a homebrewer can use a roller mill with

 confidence that any problems in processing can probably be looked for

 elsewhere.  Other types of mills require much more judgement and experience

 to get them to do what they were not intended to do.

 js

------------------------------


Update on troubleshoot my Dryhopping

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 08:14:14 -0600

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Update on troubleshoot my Dryhopping

A week ago I posted a request for help with my dryhopping.  I had

noticed a pronounced excess bitterness in a batch of brew which had

been dryhopped 10 days on fresh homegrown cascade. (This was

definitely dryhop bitterness, as it was not present in a second

portion of the batch which had not yet been dryhopped.)

Anyway, thanks to all who responded with help/suggestions.

Second, an update: I sampled this beer again last night, after 8 days

of bottle conditioning.  The bitterness is (almost) completely gone.

I believe I still detect a bit more bitterness than in the undryhopped

batch, but it is certainly not excessive, and works just fine for the

style.  Whatever this bitterness was, it was present immediately after

removing the hop leaves, but gone after 8 days of conditioning.

Third, I was reading yesterday's comments by Mark Garetz on this

subject.  One suggestion of his is that what many report as

'bitterness' may actually be 'astringency'.  I cannot speak for others,

but as a lover of big red wines, my palate can easily recognize

astringency.  What I tasted was bitter, not astringent.

Enjoyin' my brew,

Kelly

------------------------------


Re: Dryhopping bitterness

Date:         Tue, 05 Oct 93 09:36:44 CDT

From: Paul Sovcik <U18183%UICVM@UIC.EDU>

Subject:      Re: Dryhopping bitterness

Could this mysterious bitterness from dryhopping be due to infecton?

Dumping unsanitized hops into fermented beer may introduce some bizzare

microorganism that produces bitter byproducts. Maybe this organism tends to

live on hop flowers?

Just some wild speculation....

 -Paul

------------------------------


Yeast Viability

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 09:53:32 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Yeast Viability

I have been asked if there are alternative methods for estimating

yeast viability that do not require the use of a microscope. I

have been told that the need for a scope in the Morris procedure effectively

eliminates it as an option for most.

Many moons ago I devised an iodine test to estimate % viability. It is

described on pages 144-145 of BEER and BREWING, Vol.6, 1987, Br. Publ.

It is based on the fact that glycogen will stain with iodine, and that

yeast with high glycogen reserves tend to display high % viabilities.

This test is trivial to do, and is not unlike the iodine test used in mashing.

Yeast whose viability exceeds 90% (a highly desirable condition) will

stain with iodine pretty much in the same way as a corn starch solution.

At the other extreme, yeast with viabilities below 50% (an unacceptable

condition) will not stain at all. The problem with the procedure is that

does not provide reliable info for the intermediate cases. Rodney's test

is far more reliable in this regard. I still use the iodine test, but only to

get initial rough estimates. It also should be noted that Rodney's procedure

can be done at 200-400X. Hence, only an elementary "student scope" is needed.

George Fix

------------------------------


molasses

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 09:53:45 CDT

From: lencell@unmc.edu (Lance Encell)

Subject: molasses

I was wondering if anyone has had any bad experiences with molasses; either

when used during the boil or for priming.  I'm thinking of using it in a

Christmas ale with some spices.  I guess what I'm wondering is if molasses

mixes badly with certain spices or certain hops in beer.  Thanks for

any responses,

 -Lance

------------------------------


Christmas Ale Recipies?

Date:     Tue, 5 Oct 1993 08:18 PST

From: BRUCE@ARVAX.Syntex.Com

Subject:  Christmas Ale Recipies?

Greetings!

Looks like it's about time to start those Christmas Ales going!  I realize

there have probably been a few recipies in the HBD lately, but I frankly

don't have the time to wade through every day and pick out the useful

information from this digest.  (Is it just me, or is the signal/noise ratio

on this thing getting pretty high?)  ;)

Anyway, I do enjoy most of the stuff regardless how seemingly inane.

My point is, I'm looking for some Cristmas Ale recipies, so If anyone would

care to send me some suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it.

My email is: BRUCE@ARVAX.SYNTEX.COM

Thanks much, and Happy Brewing!

     BG

     :)

  ***

  |  |)

  |__|

------------------------------


Barely Wine ferment

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1993 11:57:20 -0500 (EDT)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Barely Wine ferment

<From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

<Subject: Barley Wine fermentation schedule?

<My latest brew is an all-grain barley wine, on the weak side.  The OG was

<around 1.085 (boiled for many many hours!)

<Anyway, I used a 1 pint starter from Wyeast London Ale yeast, which was

<possibly a bit past high krauesen, in a 5 gallon batch.  The start of obvious

<fermentation took over 24 hours, so I suspect I underpitched considerably.

<Thanks,

<norm

A timely post since I just finished my first BW (fourth edition of Woblin'

Goblin' Barley Wine) that actually fermented down to 4 degrees Plato!  IT is

also timely in that there is a pretty good article in the latest New Brewer

by J. Maier of the Rogue Brewery in Newport, OR on just this subject.  You

might recall that John is known for his BW, and makes a darn good version

called Old Crustaceon.  Basically, John points out that he max's out his

mash tun to get the highest OG, oxygenates well, pitches *THREE* times

his normal amount of yeast, and ferments 10F higher (70F) than his regular

ales.  Primary for him is 2 weeks, followed by one in secondary and crash

cooling to drop yeast, and kegging with the residual yeast.  I basically

did the same thing.  I maxed out my mash and lauter tuns, actually exceeding

thier capacity, adding the extra mashed grains once i pulled some wort off,

and the bed began to compact (be careful not to compact too much).  I

reduced my yield by about 15% into the fermenter as a method of keeping

the OG up, but still *only* achieved 1.092 (~23 P).  I also continued

to sparge the grains, yielding a Bitter of 1.043.  I counterflowed chilled

the BW to about 70F, hooked up a airstone to bottled O2 and let the oxygen

bubble through the wort for a few hours.  I pitched lots and lots, 2lbs??

of really healthy Dominion Ale Yeast slurry at the start of filling the

fermenter.  The ensuing fermentation was impressive, blowing lots of thick

krausen out the lid of my open fermenter, despite the 15% extra head space

than normal.  I was expecting a quick ferment (for a BW), but on day 4

the SG was around 1.045.  The ferment was still quite active, but had

lost its high krausen mode.  Just to be sure, I added another 1/2 lb or

so of yeast slurry on day 6 and left town for some Dead shows and brew-

pubbin' in Boston.  Upon my return , on day 10 , the SG was around 1.025

and the yeast was still in suspension and active.  I waited until day 13

to keg, and the SG had dropped to around 1.016/4P.  This can be compared

to a 4 day ferment of an ordinary ale (1.052-1.012).  I did measure my

ferment temp during high krausen and it was 80F!!  This is really too

high, and I am looking into a chilled water unit to attemperate the

ferments, butI have found that enough hops can mask some of the high

temp ferment problems.  Two of the kegs were cask hopped with one oz

each of Centennial (same that John used).

None of my previous BWs have finished below 1.024/6P.  I feel the O2

and the quantity of yeast is the difference.

Norm, I have let Bws sit in the secondary for 6 months, shaking the

carboy to rouse the yeast.  I also had a BW that I had to kick start

with a single cell culture of Red Star Champagne yeast, and it worked.

Good luck,

Jim Busch

DE HOPPEDUIVEL DRINKT MET ZWIER 'T GEZONDE BLOND HOPPEBIER!

------------------------------


chilling wort

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 10:35:21 EDT

From: sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com (Omega)

Subject: chilling wort

(John Pavao writes in HBD#1239:)

> (snip)

> I am wondering if I would be better or worse off if I chilled the

> concentrated wort before adding it to the cold water in the carboy.

I would say chill your concentrate first since it will be easier to do.

For my first several batches I added the hot partial wort to the cold

water in the fermenter a la Papazian, but in view of the recent warnings

about HSA I went for chilling the partial boil (in my case about 2

gallons) to pitching temperature before adding it to the carboy for my

latest batch.  This took placing my kettle in a sink full of cold water

and changing the water three times over 45 minutes.  On adding hot

concentrate it took seven hours for the batch to cool to pitching temp on

its own, and a kitchen sink full of cold water had no noticable effect.

An immersion chiller would likely be more effective, but I have not yet

made one.  BTW, I tried sending this by private email but it bounced.

Happy Brewing,

Carl Howes

------------------------------


SPGRAV: program to perform hydrometer corrections at any base

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1993 17:05:55 +0100 (MET)

From: Kurt Swanson <Kurt.Swanson@dna.lth.se>

Subject: SPGRAV: program to perform hydrometer corrections at any base

Someone somewhere sometime somehow posted a nawk script that performed

hydrometers corrections to 600F based upon a order 3 polynomial fit of

corrections calculated from water densities.  I have modified this

script to:

  0 Be metric - welcome to the 18th century!

  0 Perform corrections for _ a_ n_ y hydrometer calibration.

The program is based upon a 3rd order polynomial fit of water density.

It assumes that the hydrometer is calibrated to 200C but can accept

any reasonable temperature.  It would be quite simple to modify this

to accept temperatures in other, historic scales.  Here comes the code:

#!/bin/sh

# This is a shell archive.  Remove anything before the "#!/bin/sh" line

# then unpack it by saving it in a file and typing "sh file"

# (Files unpacked will be owned by you and have default permissions).

# This archive contains the following files:

# ./spgrav

#

if `test ! -s ./spgrav`

then

echo "writing ./spgrav"

cat > ./spgrav << '___END_OF_THIS_FILE'

#!/bin/nawk -f

#

# spgrav - calculates specific gravity of beer wort

#     at any temperature

# usage: spgrav <gravity temperature>

#

# Original author: unknown

# Current author:  Kurt Swanson (kurt@dna.lth.se)

#

# Version 1.0

# Date    10/05/93

#

BEGIN [

if (ARGC != 3 && ARGC != 4) [

     print "spgrav: convert specfic gravity to correct reading based upon"

     print "        hydrometer calibration.  Calibration is assumed to 20/260C"

     print "usage:  spgrav  <gravity  measured-temp [base-temp]>"

     print "example:  spgrav  1.038  35"

     ] # end if

else [

gravity=ARGV[1]

temp=ARGV[2]

if (ARGC == 3) [

        tempc=20

        ]

else [

        tempc=ARGV[3]

]

if (gravity > 2 || temp < 0 || temp > 100 || tempc < 0 || tempc > 100) [

 print "error reading input:  out of useful bounds"

 print "example:  spgrav  1.038 35"

 ] # end if

else [

temp2=temp*temp

temp3=temp*temp*temp

tempc2=tempc*tempc

tempc3=tempc*tempc*tempc

newspgrav = 0.0000162860587*(tempc-temp) - 0.00000584994855*(tempc2-temp2) + /

            0.0000000153243635*(tempc3-temp3)

 print

 print "specific gravity of " gravity " at " temp "/260C ="

 printf("%s %5.4f %s/n/n", "specific gravity of",  /

    gravity + newspgrav, /

    "at " tempc "/260C.");

 ] # end else

 ] # end else

] # end BEGIN

___END_OF_THIS_FILE

else

  echo "will not over write ./spgrav"

fi

echo "Finished archive 1 of 1"

# if you want to concatenate archives, remove anything after this line

exit

------------------------------


Room-mate for GABF 93

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 09:39:55 PDT

From: sc@vcc.com (Steve Casselman)

Subject: Room-mate for GABF 93

Being a member of the Board of Advisors for the

AHA I get some off the wall requests. So's here

is one: Richard Wong is going to the Great American

Beer Fest and wants to know if he can get a room

mate or crash at someones pad. His number is

1-209-477-7748

Steve Casselman

------------------------------


Dry hop "bitterness", Fermentation hop utilization

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1993 09:37:22 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Dry hop "bitterness", Fermentation hop utilization

I also have experienced the dry hop "bitterness" in some of my pale ales as

both Kelly Jones and Darryl Richman noted.  In my tasting notes I described

it as an "astringent harshness" not really a bitterness, and in going over

my brewing records I find a correlation between this dry hop harshness and

the sulfate content of my brewing water.  In both cases, I had hit the

gypsum and/or epsom rather hard.  The good news is that in all cases this

harshness was gone with 4-6 weeks bottle conditioning.  An interesting

"powdery" palate is imparted (I think) by the high sulfates.  It's a front

of the mouth "roughness" vaguely similar to the mouthfeel of spinach.

Mark Garetz writes in #1240 that hop utilization rates are related not to

the boil gravity but to the starting fermentation gravity.  What?  I don't

quite understand what is meant by "fermentation utilization".  Boiling

hops is an extraction technique, I assume that "fermentation utilization"

refers to a breakdown effect.  Mark if you could clarify this I would

appreciate it.  Also, maybe you could speculate on why boiling volume

affects utilization rate (saturated solution of alpha acids?).

Thanks.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


High-gravity ferments

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 12:47 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: High-gravity ferments

Norm writes:

>My latest brew is an all-grain barley wine, on the weak side.  The OG was

>around 1.085 (boiled for many many hours!).

 <snip>

>Anyway, I used a 1 pint starter from Wyeast London Ale yeast, which was

>possibly a bit past high krauesen, in a 5 gallon batch.  The start of obvious

>fermentation took over 24 hours, so I suspect I underpitched considerably.

>Aeration was done with a venturi tube apperatus...

 <snip>

>After another week, 2 weeks total in the primary, I

>did a gravity reading and subsequent tasting.  The gravity was 1.055!!!  The

>taste was (obviously) still very sweet...

I had a similar experience with Wyeast London Ale (#1028), but my OG was

1120 and my FG was 1050.  When I serve this undercarbonated, too-sweet but

still very potent Imperial Stout, I boast that the FG of this beer is higher

than the OG of Budweiser!  I'm afraid I can't answer Norm's question, but I

have a few more points to add to the discussion.  I hope that someone who

has sucessfully gotten a high-gravity ferment to *complete* with London Ale

yeast will post.  My datapoints:

1. I believe that the Best-of-Show beer at the 1992 BOSS Competition was

Brian and Linda North's Barleywine (if not, it was runner up for BOS).

I judged Barleywines and really liked the flavor and balance of this

beer, so much so, that I wrote down the yeast they used: Wyeast London Ale.

No mention of other yeasts, like Pasteur Champagne (available from Wyeast

in liquid form also, by the way).

2. I'm quite sure that my Imperial Stout's OG was quite a bit higher than

Brian and Linda's, so perhaps I was foolish for trying to get it to ferment

out without help from a more alcohol-tolerant yeast like Pasteur Champagne.

1120 -> 1050 is 58% apparent attenuation, which is nowhere near the expected

apparent attenuation of London Ale yeast (73-77%).  This is why I suspect

that the alcohol killed most of the yeast.  At high kraeusen, this batch

foamed a good 3 quarts of beer out of the fermenter, so it seems like the

activity was quite a bit greater than Norm's batch.  The fermentation temp

was about 68-70F and lasted about three weeks.

3. I've read that alcohol-tolerance is related to oxygenation, but Norm seems

to have covered that area quite well, so that's not the problem -- also,

Norm's was an allgrain batch (mine was extract+specialty), so I'm quite

sure there were plenty of nutrients in his Barleywine wort.

I'd really like to find out how to get London Ale yeast to do high-gravity

brews -- I'll definately ask Brian or Linda when I see them next.  Perhaps

a incremental-feeding starter (where you start with a low-gravity starter,

but then step-up to higher and higher gravity worts)?

Al.

------------------------------


PU help

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 13:01 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: PU help

Carl writes (about trying to make a Pilsner Urquell clone):

>5# Briess light malt syrup

>1.75# Briess Gold dry malt extract

>15.5 AAU Saaz

>Wyeast #2007 into 26 oz. ~1.040 starter 48 hours before pitching

>

>Added 1/3 of the hops at 60, 30, and 10 minutes.  Chilled the concentrated

>wort (2 gallons) to 70F, added to 2.5 gal. of 70F water, pitched entire

>starter (made from more of the Breiss Gold) and topped off to 5 gal. with

>more 70F water.  Swirled to mix.  O.G. 1.026, when I expected closer to

>1.050.  This is the first time I have used a hydrometer (out of five

>batches).  I did correct for temperature.  What am I missing here?

You didn't swirl enough.  The heavy, high-OG wort sank to the bottom

and it will take a lot of swirling to mix it up.  Don't worry, the

yeast will do it for you, but you can throw out that 1026 OG reading.

Another comment is on the use of Wyeast #2007 in trying to make a Pilsner

Urquell clone.  Despite the fact that it's called "Pilsen" lager, it's

really "St. Louis" lager (as in Bud)!  What you might try next time, is

Wyeast #2278, "Czech" lager, which should be available in about three weeks.

Al.

------------------------------


Hop utilization VS. Boil gravity

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 13:20 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Hop utilization VS. Boil gravity

Mark writes:

>To summarize, then, it appears that low boil volume (regardless

>of the SG) gives less utilization, but *boil* gravity has no effect.

WRONG!  PERIOD!

I have a two brewing logbooks (with my respective tasting notes) and a file

folder full of BJCP judges' comments that contradict Mark's contention.  I've

been using a slight variation on Jackie Rager's article in the Hops Special

Issue of Zymurgy (adding 10% for leaf hops and another 10% for a hop boiling

bag) and my IBU levels appear to be right on target.  Hundreds of BJCP judges

agree.  If only I could control my maltiness with the same precision I control

my bitterness!

> Suggestions?

Yes.  I suggest you shelve your book project till you have more than

*TWO* years of brewing experience.

Al.

------------------------------


HELP!!

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 14:22:28 EDT

From: mwithers@hannibal.ATL.GE.COM (W. Mark Witherspoon)

Subject: HELP!!

HELP!!!

 I have a problem that came up about a brew I just

started.  Here is the recipe:

 2 lbs of pale malt

 1 lbs of flaked corn

 1 lbs of crystal malt (about 50 l)

 4 lbs of Alexanders Pale Malt

 1 oz of Tettanger Hops (3.8%) (boil @ 45 min)

 1 oz of Liberty Hops (3.2%) (half and half boil/finish)

 Whitbread ale yeast

 OG = 1.052

 I am attempting to make a "Rusty Cream Ale".  But here

is the problem.  I was following the "directions" by Dave Miller

in his book - he recommended 8-12 hours after pitching to rack to

a secondary.  I couldn't do it that soon.  So I did rack at about

24 hours.  Almost immediately the head foamed up and blew the

airlock off the carboy.  Since I was there to watch it.  I quickly

hot water rinsed the original fermenting bucket out (it was full of

spent hops and trub) and resiphoned it back into it.  With in 10

minutes of doing this the head was just about a thick as it was

before I started originally.

 Question: Have I just killed this brew...????  I expected

problems since this was my first attempt at using grains (partial

mash).

 Comment: The hardest part of doing this was knowing when

to stop sparging the mash.  The mash water was the sweetest thing

that I had ever tasted - that wasn't pure sugar.  I watched my

mash temp very carefully, not to get it over 150 F and let it go

about 2 hours since I wasn't sure about my grinding technique.

Please send replies by e-mail since our our news feed of r.c.b. and

r.c.w. have been cut off.

Mark Witherspoon

************************************************************************

|/ /|          W. Mark Witherspoon          | The opions expressed are of my

|   |/ /|      mwithers@hannibal.ATL.GE.COM | own not of my employer...

    |   | ATL  (609)866-6672                |  This sig will self destruct...*

------------------------------


Spice/pumpkin flavors & yeast reuse ????

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 14:22:47 EDT

From: GEORGE SMITH <smith@zeke.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Spice/pumpkin flavors & yeast reuse ????

   I must admit all this talk of pumpkin beer had me making funny faces.

 But, after trying a glass at Boston Beer Works saturday night I am impressed.

 I'm getting ready to make a batch for a Thanksgiving/Christmas ale.

       Now for the ?????

  Being as cheap as I am I reuse my favorite yeast slurry (Wyeast 1056 american)

 I generally rack to the secondary when the primary starts to slow down, usually

 2-3 days after pitching. Then reuse the yeast slurry from the secondary in my

 future batches.

    Seeing how this pumpkin ale will have so many unusuall ingredients and

 spices in it. I was wondering if anyone has had any of these flovors carry

 over to future batches reusing the yeast???  Esp- if I taste at racking to

 the secondary and decide to add more pumkin &/or spices to the secondary.

   Thanks for any/all input.

                                      George

------------------------------


Corning Glasses

Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1993 13:41:10 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Corning Glasses

Just a quickie to say thanx for the tip of the Yards and what-not.

I called them up- told them what I wanted gave 'em my card number

and they said-  "OK fine".  Then  asked,"Did you hear about this on

some network kindof thingy"  I said- proudly- YES!  ( Quoted the HBD-

hope that ain't no breach of net protocol!

 They had received a flood of orders- or calls at least-

and were quite pleased with the attention, and were content to

ship glass items, they just had to look for a box big enough for the

carboy.  Even with shipping it as cheaper than buying one in town!

Thanx for the tips.  Always good to find nice bargains.

Can's wait to fill up my foot with a righteous Oktoberfest!

  J. Wyllie

------------------------------


Cheap Carboy Source in Madison, WI

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1993 14:48:21 -0500 (CDT)

From: Steve Seaney <seaney@ie.engr.wisc.edu>

Subject: Cheap Carboy Source in Madison, WI

Hello,

Can anyone recommend a cheap carboy source in Madison, WI.   The brew

shop's prices are quite ugly.

Thanks,

Steve

- --

Steve Seaney: 608/262-5328: seaney@engr.wisc.edu

------------------------------


dryhopping rate (more)

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 16:24:43 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: dryhopping rate (more)

I said about Young's SLA: It tastes about the same as my IPA with 2 oz

E.Kent Goldings hop plugs in 5 gallons.

I was wrong.  It's got more dry hops than that.  Maybe twice as much?

=S

------------------------------


yeast pitching rates

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1993 13:58:51 -0800 (PDT)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: yeast pitching rates

In HBD 1238 George Fix gives numbers for recommended pitching rates.  The

calculations in terms of weight of yeast solids is interesting, but I would

like ballpark figures to go on, rather than go to all the trouble of

separating and weighing starters.

If I start with a packet of WYEAST, what is the weight/cell count of the

resulting sludge if I put it into (a) one pint and (b) one quart of 1.020

wort and let it ferment to completion?

In other words, how much build-up do I really need?

Further to the "use once" approach, if I put the WYEAST into a quart of

wort, let it ferment out, split this 3 ways for storage, then take one of

the thirds and put IT into a pint of wort, letting it ferment out, what

yeast population/weight do I end up with?  This is my current procedure and

I get reasonable starts, but I'd like to know if I'm really underpitching.

 Peter

------------------------------


Chillhaze/Proteins/Tannins

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 15:48 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Chillhaze/Proteins/Tannins

A while ago, there was this question:

>This conversation between Al and Scott has me confused.  They talk about chill

>haze and tannins as being related.  I thought tannins were to be avoided

>because of an astringent flavor component, rather than anything to do with

>haze.  Are tannins protein based?  I too have had a chill haze problem with

>a recent batch and was surprised to hear talk about acidifying sparge water

>as a cure.

Chill haze and tannins *are* related.  Chill haze is caused by the interaction

of tannins and large proteins which stay in solution at warmer temperatures,

but precipitate into a haze at cooler temperature... hence: chill haze.

How to avoid chill haze?  Well, there are many ways to do this.  Note that

almost all of this applies to extract brewers as well as allgrain brewers,

just use the parts that make sense in your procedure.  I suggest that you

try all the easy (procedural) ones first and then try the clarifying agents

if you still have chillhaze.

1. IN THE MASH

In the mash, you should make sure that your pH is not too high (not too

alkaline) so that you minimize tannin extraction from the grain husks.

If you are using less-modified grain or something with a lot of protein

in it, like wheat malt or raw wheat, you should use a protein rest to break

the big proteins down to amino acids and small proteins.  These small

proteins are essential to head retention and body.  The amino acids are

used by the yeast for nutrition.

2. AT MASHOUT

Make sure your mashout temperature doesn't go too much over 168F to again

minimize tannin extraction from the grain husks.  I believe the 168F

temperature is related more to ungeletinized starch extraction, but reducing

tannin extraction is another reason to avoid too high a mashout temperature.

3. SPARGING

Don't use too hot a sparge water (see #2) or let the pH of the sparge water

get too high (see #1).  You should treat your sparge water the same way you

treated your mash (Gypsum, Lactic acid, etc.) -- it's going to the same

grain bed and will be similarly acidified by the grain, so I think it's better

to use a proportionally equivalent acidification of your sparge water rather

than to simply acidify your sparge water to a particular pH.

4. BOIL

Make sure you have a good rolling boil for at least an hour so you get a good

hot break.  Hot break is basically cooked proteins.  You can also use 1/4 to

1/2 teaspoon of Irish Moss in the boil (flaked appears to be the best), but

too much Irish Moss can *increase* chill haze (see Beer and Brewing 1989 or

1990, I forget which).  Also, I've found empirically, that too much Irish

Moss can take out much of the smaller proteins, thereby reducing head

retention.

5. CHILLING

Chill as suddenly as you can -- the more sudden the cooling, the better the

cold break (again, coagulated proteins).  Note that counterflow or plate

chillers cause a more sudden chilling than immersion chillers (but I still

favor immersion chillers for a variety of other reasons).

6. AFTER FERMENTATION BUT BEFORE BOTTLING

There are a number of things you can do after fermentation is over, but

before you bottle:

 lager - lagering (long storage at cold temperatures) will cause the

  chillhaze to form and settle out.  Lagering a beer made with

  ale yeast can kill it leading to difficulty in bottle

  carbonation.

 add papain - papain, an enzyme made from papaya, can be added to

  break down bigger proteins that have made it to the fermenter;

  I'm not sure, but there's chance that papain could reduce

  head retention and body, since small proteins are primarily

  what give beer head retention and body.

 PVP (Polyclar AT) - PVP, trade name Polyclar AT, is a plastic which

  when added to the fermenter, will electrostatically attract

  tannins as it sinks down to the bottom of the fermenter, only

  to be left behind at bottling with the dead yeast and break.

 silica gel - silica gel, not currenly available to homebrewers, but

  used commercially to work similarly to PVP, but it operates

  on proteins instead.  Just as with papain, it could reduce

  head retention and body.

 bentonite - works similarly to silica gel.  Same (head retention &

  body) warning applies.

 gelatin - primarily works to speed the settling out of yeast, but

  also works similarly to silica gel in settling out proteins.

  Same warning applies.

 isinglass - as far as I know, does little for protein or tannin

  reduction, but noted here for completeness -- added to the

  fermenter or to the keg to speed the yeast settling.  I'd

  like to add the Greg Noonan says that isinglass should not

  be used for lagers, but doesn't explain why -- I don't see

  any reason why it can't be used for lagers as effectively

  as for ales.

 filtering - cold filtering, to be exact.  Cold filtering reduces

  chillhaze by first creating the chillhaze (the cooling) and

  then filtering out the coagulated protein/tannin chains.

  Filtering out chillhaze but leaving some head retention and

  body is difficult.  There's a lot of debate on what the

  correct pore size is and you can easily overfilter your

  beer.

7. AFTER BOTTLING

If you've already bottled a beer and it exhibits chillhaze, you can completely

eliminate chillhaze at serving time by utilizing a non-transparent drinking

vessel.

So there you have it.  You don't have to do all these things to avoid getting

chillhaze.  As I said before, first try the procedural ways and then move

on to the clarifying agents if you still have chillhaze.  If you must resort

to clarifying agents, first try PVP since it leaves those essential proteins

in your beer.  Personally, I would rather tolerate a little haze rather than

filter my beer, but that's me.

Al.

------------------------------


Legality of mailing homebrew

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1993 16:06:58 -0700 (PDT)

From: Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG>

Subject: Legality of mailing homebrew

U.S. Postal Service Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) section C021.2.0

INTOXICATING LIQUORS reads: "Potable beverages of .5% or more alcoholic

content by weight, which are taxable under Chapter 51, Internal Revenue

Service Code, are nonmailable.  If the product conforms to applicable

requirements of the Internal Revenue Service and Food and Drug

Administration and is neither an alcoholic beverage, poisonous, nor

flammable, it may be mailed."

Under Chapter 51 of the Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. sec. 5053(e))

"Beer for personal or family use" is tax exempt (up to certain volume

limitations).

It is my belief that the Postal Service has yet to catch up with the law

that made homebrewing legal which essentially freed the homebrewer from

the tax burden placed on commercial brewers.  My interpretation of the

first sentance of C021.20 is that we can mail homebrew because it is not

subject to taxation.  However the second sentance contradicts the first.

The "product" does conform to IRS requirements but is still an alcoholic

beverage.  I don't know whom to contact regarding this apparent

contradiction in the USPS rules although an address for comments on the

DMM is provided:

Mailing Standards

US Postal Service

475 L'Enfant Plaza SW, RM 8430

Washington DC  20260-2419

On another note, I'm heading off for a weekend on the Mendocino coast.

Between home and the coast I know of both the Hopland (Mendocino) Brewery

and Anderson Valley in Boonville.  Any recommendations along the coast, I

thought there was something in the town of Mendocino would be appreciated.

Looking for quality beery spots of all type (pubs, brewpubs, etc)  TIA.

OBTW, I'm a librarian (and homebrewer, of course), not a lawyer, so please

don't take my interpretations of laws and regulations as legal advice, I

don't give legal advice.

Eric Wade<ericwade@class.org>

------------------------------


Thanks & Smokey Mnts.

Date: Tue, 05 Oct 93 19:25 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: Thanks & Smokey Mnts.

Thanks to all the respondents ot my Sapporo bottle and yankee yeast queries.

Got some good advice and am looking forward to less & less bottling.

To the fortunate person who is to trave the hills of my home, I hope you have a

great trip through the Smokeys.  In reference to you requests for beer in the

Appalachian highlands, I know of only one place close to a brew pub.  Sorry to

say I have vever been to this place and I don't know if it is still open or

standing.  North of Gatlinburg TN, in Cosby TN there is/was a place some buddies

of mine called Fort Marx...Two double wides pushed together with a gravel

parking lot.  Inside you'd find Herr & Frau Marx and their brew-trailer-diner.

Herr Marx brews beer and distills liquors and Frau Marx works wonders with

potatoes and sausages.  I don't know how long the've been in Cosby much less the

US but everytime I hear a Fort Marx story, the place grows more and more

surreal.

Asheville, NC may have some unique places...can't say from experience.  I do

know of some good places in my old stomp of Knoxville, TN.  If you are traveling

that far west out of the mountains I could give you some particulars on

Knoxville or some other places you may be looking into.

Tennessee may have alcohol/beer licensing laws similar to Texas.  Dependening on

how near to a town you are, you may have to settle for McDonalds & Bud.  And

there are still dry towns & counties around.  You may wish to stock up for your

trip.

Let me know if I can be of any help & happy trails,

David Atkins

UW-Madison--it's flat but nice

atkins@macc.wisc.edu

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1241, 10/06/93

*************************************

-------


Montreal brewpubs/watering holes info wanted.

Date:           Wed, 6 Oct 93 7:56 EDT

From: Gerald_Wirtz@vos.stratus.com

Subject:        Montreal brewpubs/watering holes info wanted.

     I'll be heading to Montreal this weekend and would appreciate any

information on and good brewpubs/watering holes in the area.

     Direct replies appreciated.

------------------------------


Date: Wed, 6 Oct 93 09:23:03 -0400

From: Daniel McMahon <dmcmahon@blanche.acq.osd.mil>

Subject:        Montreal brewpubs/watering holes info wanted.

From: dmcmahon

Full-Name: Daniel McMahon@pr

Subject: 5 Ltr Mini Kegs

To: homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

I'm looking for some feedback on the pros and cons of using 5 liter

"mini kegs", as opposed to bottling.  I can get them empty for ~$5

at my local homebrew supply store (or buy them full of Dinkelacker

or Grolsch and drink that first) and buy a CO2 tap for ~$35 to use

with them.

Anyone have any good/bad experiences with these mini kegs?  I intend

some day to step up to 5 gallon Cornelius kegs, but currently:

(1) I don't have another refrigerator to dedicate to brewing and

(2) The total costs for fridge, CO2 tank and connections, and kegs

are prohibitive.  Is this interim step worthwhile?  It seems to be

convenient by saving time and space at minimal initial cost.

Any and all input is appreciated!

Dan McMahon

------------------------------


Lambic Beers and U.S. Microbreweries

Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1993 09:30:54 EDT

From: Matthew Evans <matt@cadif.cornell.edu>

Subject: Lambic Beers and U.S. Microbreweries

I've got a couple questions, hopefully someone out there knows the answer

to these questions:

1)  Is there any U.S. brewery producing a true lambic beer (besides the

Cranberry Lambic from the Boston Brewing Co)?  If not, why not?

2)  I've read before that the various yeasts and bacteria needed for lambic

beers are available in the US, but where is a good commercial source (or

free source) of these microrganisms?

3)  Has anyone tried making a homebrewed lambic in small batches.  If you

have I would really like to talk to you about the process, as Kriek Lambic is

my favorite beer and I would like to duplicate the sour bite found only in

lambic beers.

4)  Are there any good publications about microbreweries?  Particularly I'm

interested in getting some start up information for an Entrepreneurial

Business class at school.

5)  Finally, in this long list of questions, does anyone have the number for

the Celis brewery in Texas that makes Belgian style beers?

Thanks for your help in advance.  Please send responses to me at

mce1@cornell.edu.  Thanks and happy brewing!!!

------------------------------


Fast cooling of high gravity boils.

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 93 10:01:36 EDT

From: lyons%adc1@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: Fast cooling of high gravity boils.

(John Pavao writes in HBD#1239:)

>> (snip)

>> I am wondering if I would be better or worse off if I chilled the

>> concentrated wort before adding it to the cold water in the carboy.

(Carl Howes writes in HBD#1241:)

>I would say chill your concentrate first since it will be easier to do.

>For my first several batches I added the hot partial wort to the cold

>water in the fermenter a la Papazian, but in view of the recent warnings

>about HSA I went for chilling the partial boil (in my case about 2

>gallons) to pitching temperature before adding it to the carboy for my

>latest batch.  This took placing my kettle in a sink full of cold water

>and changing the water three times over 45 minutes.  On adding hot

>concentrate it took seven hours for the batch to cool to pitching temp on

>its own, and a kitchen sink full of cold water had no noticable effect.

>An immersion chiller would likely be more effective, but I have not yet

>made one.  BTW, I tried sending this by private email but it bounced.

I'm one of those who believe it is important to cool the wort ASAP after

boiling is complete (limit DMS).  Keeping this in mind, I add two large

blocks of ice.  This quickly brings the temperature down for pitching the

yeast (yes, ice at 32F will provide more cooling than water at 32F).  If

you believe adding tap water does not create a problem, then ice blocks

made of tap water will not cause a problem and will cool even faster.

The important thing in making the ice blocks is not to introduce any

wild yeasts.  In other words, the water which is to become ice should

be placed in a previously sanitized container which can be completely

CLOSED from the environment (the freezer is teeming with nasty guys that

like to spoil beer).  I use one gallon plastic milk containers and fill

them half way (just below the handle).  They are easily cut with a knife

and the ice block extracted. If you are one of those concerned with using

tap water, then pre-boil the water first (and remember, boiled water will

freeze faster than unboiled water ... less O2).  I think the addition of

ice blocks is a better technique than using an immersion chiller

when doing high gravity boils (which are diluted to final volume after

the boil).  The immersion chiller is the correct choice for full volume

boils, since you do not want to dilute the wort of a full volume boil.

Chris

------------------------------


RE: crush off/hop util/S. Adams

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1993 10:41:32 -0500 (EDT)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: RE: crush off/hop util/S. Adams

I read with interest the ongoing comparisons between mills.  I am more

interested in the comparisons of extract efficiency from the test

brews.  I know that my extract went down when I switched from pre ground

Briess to corona ground, then the extract returned to the preground

equivelent with the adjustable MaltMill. Any results from the test, or

were they all the same in the end??

***************

With respect to Mark's comments on hop utilization and the lack of

professional journels reports on the subject, I believe it is covered

in Malting & Brewing Science, by Hough et al (not sure as I dont own

this excellent set) but it is certainly covered in the German literature

by Dr. Narziss, of the Weihenstephan institute, in Freising.  At any

rate, the correlation between high OG and hop utilization is well

known and accepted by the pro brewers I hang out with.

***************

A while back I posted a bit about Mr. Kochs Jamaica Plains brewery but

had not actually been there. I was there the Saturday before last, and

the Sudhaus is indeed impressive, dual 15 BBl decoction kettles, each

with a grain feed, and water spray.  The guides were a bit annoying,

especially with respect to comments like "everyone knows no good hops

are grown in the US" .  I just couldnt let this one pass, so I pointed

out that if one sampled a Petes Wicked Lager, the US grown Liberty hops

could be compared to the German equivelent.  Needless to say, they were

not pleased to hear the words "Petes.." spoken in the hallowed grounds

of Sam Adams......:-)

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

DE HOPPEDUIVEL DRINKT MET ZWIER 'T GEZONDE BLOND HOPPEBIER!

------------------------------


chilling extract brew

Date: Wed, 06 Oct 93 09:46 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: chilling extract brew

I too do that extract brew.  Here's how I chill.

My method involves a carboy primary--5, 6.5 or 7 gal size.

My primary is a 7 gal carboy...I don't know if I'll ever use a bucket again.

I chill the boil pot in a sink of cold water for a few minutes...ice and those

refreezable faux-ice packets work well in the bath.  Placing about 1.5 gals of

cold water into the carboy, I funnel my extract into the container then fill up

to 5 gals with a heady stream of cold water.  I find that the heady stream 1)

aid aeration and 2) cools wort not just by heat exchange with the water but with

heat exchange with the air...get's real frothy.

Once filled, I bung the carboy shut and for 10 - 20 minutes I prop carboy on

edge of sink and gentle wash the carboy with cold water.  If you don't have one

of those built in sink spray nozzles (like me) use those cheap faucet-shower

attachment hoses you can find at a drug or discount store (a 2-3 feet length of

rubber hose with an exceedingly simple adapter on one end and a shower head on

the other; the shower head is removeable)  I use the hose in cleaning as well as

wort chilling and carboy filling--remember to sanitize though.

While chilling the carboy, rotating it slightly from time to time, I take the

opportunity to shake the container, further aerating the wort.  From the start

of chill to the yeast pitch takes 20-30 minutes.

If you would like info on finding 6-7 gals carboys let me know.  I do business

with a good supplier.  They don't know me, just my credit card number (read as

disclaimer).

Take care,

David Atkins

UW-Madison-Where every morning, leaving the house is its own cold break

atkins@macc.wisc.edu

------------------------------


Hop Utilization and Gravity

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1993 7:51:33 -0700 (MST)

From: Jim Liddil <JLIDDIL@AZCC.Arizona.EDU>

Subject: Hop Utilization and Gravity

%

% Date: Mon, 4 Oct 93 21:59:59 PDT

% From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

% Subject: Two Hop Topics

%

% There has been a bit of discussion here lately about two hop

% topics:  gravity vs. utilization and dry hop bitterness.

%

% Gravity vs. Utilization:

%

% In the research for my book, I have tried to verify the common

% homebrew wisdom that high gravity *boils* make a difference in

% the hop utilization by attempting to find references in the

% commercial brewing literature.  I have not been able to find *any*

% mention that wort *boil* gravity makes any difference in hop

% utilization.  The gravity at the start of *fermentation* does make

% a difference, meaning that low gravity beers get better utilization

% than high gravity beers.  Note that this is a fermentation effect,

% not a boil gravity effect, and varies depending on the fermentation

% technique.  Anyway, the *volume* of the boil *will* make a

% difference, which may explain Norm's comments about needing less

% hops when switching to all grain (full volume) boils.

I suggest you get a copy of Malting and Brewing Science by JS Hough and read

the hop chapter and the wort boiling chapters.  Then I think you will see that

indeed wort gravity does affect hop utilization.

%

% I asked Gail Nickerson this question ("Does boil gravity affect

% utilization?") and she said (paraphrasing), "No.  Not unless you

% were boiling a syrup or something of that consistency.  And if it

% did, it would be known because the big boys are all using high

% gravity brewing techniques these days."

%

Can she provide a reasearch reference for this statement?  As we say in rearch

land "If it isn't published it didn't happen"

% To summarize, then, it appears that low boil volume (regardless

% of the SG) gives less utilization, but *boil* gravity has no effect.

Wrong!

% But as the gravity of the *fermenting* wort increases, utilization

% decreases - the amount depends on your fermenting methods.

What does volume have to do with it?  If alpha acids are in to high a

concentration then utilization goes down due to solubility issues.  But rather

than quote chapter and verse from M and B Science I suggest you read it and

then repost.

%

------------------------------


SPGRAV: program to perform hydrometer corrections at any base

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 93 10:58:22 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: SPGRAV: program to perform hydrometer corrections at any base

This polynomial is much better than the previous one that was posted.

However, why not just go to the source?  The CRC Handbook of Chemistry

and Physics lists the S.G. of water at various temperatures, and these

correspond exactly to the correction factors that come with the

hydrometer, except they go up to 100C.  Of course, there's still the

complicating factor of the sugar in solution to contend with, but I

haven't found any source for this.  A quick experiment I did with some

1.032 sugar solution found that the table was still correct, within

the resolution of my hyrometer, anyway.  (Does anyone know of a source

of S.G. tables for sugar solutions at various concentrations and

temperatures?)

For those of us who don't have a computer sitting in our brewhouse,

here's a table to print out and keep handy.  The correction is

computed by subtracting the table value for a given temperature from

the table value for 15C (which is what MY hydrometer is calibrated

for) and rounded to the nearest "SG point".

Temp C          Correction      Table SG

 0              -1              999.87

 5              -1              999.99

10              -1              999.73

15               0              999.13

20               1              998.23

25               2              997.07

30               3              995.67

35               5              994.06

40               7              992.24

45               9              990.25

50              11              988.07

55              13              985.73

60              16              983.24

65              19              980.59

70              21              977.81

75              24              974.89

80              27              971.83

85              30              968.65

90              34              965.34

95              37              961.92

100             41              958.38

------------------------------


Re: SPGRAV: program to perform hydrometer corrections at any base

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1993 16:08:41 +0100 (MET)

From: Kurt Swanson <Kurt.Swanson@dna.lth.se>

Subject: Re: SPGRAV: program to perform hydrometer corrections at any base

Spencer W. Thomas (Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu) in this HBD writes:

>

> This polynomial is much better than the previous one that was posted.

> However, why not just go to the source?  The CRC Handbook of Chemistry

> and Physics lists the S.G. of water at various temperatures, and these

> correspond exactly to the correction factors that come with the

> hydrometer, except they go up to 100C.

How do you think I got the polynomial.  SPGRAV works with very high

accuracy from 00C to 1000C...  The polynomial is needed instead of the

table because most people make temperature measurements with greater

than 50C accuracy...

- --

Kurt Swanson, Dept. of Computer Science,

Lunds universitet.  Kurt.Swanson@dna.lth.se

------------------------------


Hop substitutions, cheap carboys

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1993 08:16:50 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Hop substitutions, cheap carboys

I'm still trying to perfect that Fuller's clone and I am looking for a good

substitution for British Northdown hops.  I've  used Cluster in the past

but I'm underwelmed by the flavor contribution of Cluster.

How about Styrian Goldings, or Pride of Ringwood?  Both of which are

available locally (Seattle).  Kent Goldings?  Fuggles/Willamette?

How about substitutions for Challenger and Target too?

Since I have never encountered Northdown, Challenger, or Target I'm

working in the dark on substitutions.  Can anyone recommend a good book

on hop characteristics.  Gardening info is wasted pages.

Whoever was looking for cheap carboys in HBD #1241,

St. Patrick's of Texas Brewers Supply

12922 Staton Drive

Austin, TX  78727

(512) 832-9045

7 gallon carboys - $12 - shipped in styrofoam eggs (really cool)

They take about a #6.5 stopper, not the #7 or #7.5 listed in St. Pat's

catalog.  The necks are threaded and included is the original plastic

cap.  The only thing "wrong" with these carboys is that you can't use

those nifty orange carboy cap things with the two tubes.  On the other

hand trying to get a 5 gallon all-grain batch into a 5 gallon carboy

can be quite a trick.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Flavor and aroma hops

Date:  Tue, 5 Oct 1993 23:46:25 -0800

From: scott@fm.gi.alaska.edu (Scott Stihler (USGS analyst))

Subject: Flavor and aroma hops

Greetings all,

I have a question regarding hops. A friend of mine took the AHA beer judge

certification test last April and one of the question he had was "What is the

difference between flavor and aroma hops and give examples?" This question

confuses me. I was under the impression that they are both the same.  I thought

the volatile hop oils which are responsible for aroma are also responsible for

hop flavor. Does anybody know the correct answer to the AHA question and if I'm

totally off base could ya straighten me out?

Cheers,

Scott

------------------------------


Comments on Molasses

Date: Wed,  6 Oct 1993 08:53:14 -0800

From: "John C. Post" <jpost@llnl.gov>

Subject: Comments on Molasses

A few notes on Molasses in Beer...

1) DON'T use sulphured molasses. Yuck!

2) Molasses takes a *long* time to ferment out completely, not as long as

honey, but much longer than malt.

3) If you have time to wait until 2) is complete, it can be a wonderful

accoutrement (College Word!) to the right recipe...I like it best with some

zippy hops, such as Saazer or a nice fresh Cascade.

You might try some Black Treacle for an interesting flavour kick. You can

usually get it at those expensive gourmet stores (Williams-Sonoma comes to

mind...)

john

------------------------------


Re: Barleywine ferment/Dryhopping

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1993 09:59:44 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: Barleywine ferment/Dryhopping

npyle@n33.stortek.com

> Subject: Barley Wine fermentation schedule?

>

>

> Anyway, I used a 1 pint starter from Wyeast London Ale yeast, which was

> possibly a bit past high krauesen, in a 5 gallon batch.  The start of obvious

> fermentation took over 24 hours, so I suspect I underpitched considerably.

Bing, bing, bing.  You win the $64,000 question.  Your very slow (and

possibly incomplete) fermentation is almost certainly a result of

underpitching.  A one-pint starter (presumably stepped up only once from

the Wyeast package) is OK (tho not great) for a "normal" OG, but high

gravity worts require WAY more yeast.  It's not out of the question at

this point for you to make a quickie batch of more normal ale, collect

a couple of pints of furiously fermenting wort, and bung that into your

barleywine.  It worked for me years ago, although it was a little

earlier in the barleywine's life.

garetz@hoptech.com>

> Subject: Two Hop Topics

>

> There has been a bit of discussion here lately about two hop

> topics:  gravity vs. utilization and dry hop bitterness.

>

> Gravity vs. Utilization:

>

> In the research for my book, I have tried to verify the common

> homebrew wisdom that high gravity *boils* make a difference in

> the hop utilization by attempting to find references in the

> commercial brewing literature.  I have not been able to find *any*

> mention that wort *boil* gravity makes any difference in hop

> utilization.

As a datapoint, your text research bears out my own experience with

hopping rates.  High gravity worts generally require higher hopping

rates, but it's because they need higher bitterness levels to balance

the greater body and sweetness of the beer.

>

> Bitterness from Dry Hopping

>

> I am at loss on this one.  I, for one, have never noticed it.  A

> lot of brewers report a pronounced *astringency* but not bitterness.

> This will go away in few weeks.  It is possible that some of the

> alpha acids in the hops had been converted to iso-alphas, but I

> think this is unlikely.  The hops would have gone "cheesy" long

> before there was significant conversion from ambient heat, etc.

I have never experienced either effect in one of my dry-hopped beers.  I

leave the hops in the kegs for many weeks without getting any "cheesy"

quality -- probably because cheesiness is a property of oxidation -- and

I've never noticed any additional bitterness even though I dry-hop

pretty heavily.

On the other hand: I was present at a tasting at UC Davis, of various

beers that had been hopped at varying times.  You should talk to Michael

Lewis about this, since he ran the program, but he, his students and

those of us in the class who were actually brewers, were all surprised

at the discernible bitterness in the one beer that had only been

dry-hopped -- NO bittering hops or aroma hops in the boil.  And, believe

me, in case you don't know Michael Lewis, the QC around  this issue was

very high and the hopping rates were pretty damn low.

Me, I have to assume the problems homebrewers are having is Pilot Error,

and has almost nothing to do with dry-hopping.  Just a guess.

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


First all grain: the procedure

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 93 13:33:22 -0400

From: edo@marcam.com (Ed Oriordan)

Subject: First all grain: the procedure

I am preparing for my first all grain attempt in the next couple of weekends.

This is what I am planning on doing.  At the end I have some questions, that

I would appreciate if anybody could respond to.

Also, if anything looks strange, and you are wondering why I'm doing it, I

probably don't know, so let me know.

My equipment for brewing will be as follows

36 qt cooler

1/2" Slotted copper pipe manifold sparger to 3/8" reducer

10 gallon enamel pot

gas cooker burner type thing

chiller

7 gallon glass primary fermenter with blow-off

5 gallon glass secondary fermenter with air lock

1) Grind grains the night before.

2) Heat 1 qt water per lb grain to 168F. Add some gypsum (2 Tbl.?) to lower pH.

3) Preheat Cooler with hot water.

4) Add grain and water to mash tun (cooler) on top of manifold. Stir.

5) Check mash temp, adjust as needed to around 154F.

6) Close cooler for 1 hour.

7) Open cooler do Iodine test for conversion.  If not converted close

   up longer.

8) Add crystal, chocolate and cara-pils (all specialty grains).

9) Raise temp to 170F (mashout) by adding near boiling (200F) water.

10) Stir till 170F is hit.  Close cooler let sit 15 minutes.

11) Hook 3/8" clear tubing to manifold.  Backflush with some near boiling water

12) Sprinkle 4 galons 180F sparge water (add gypsum to get pH 5 - 5.5) in

    cooler.

13) Start siphon, keep putting liquid back in cooler till get clear run off.

    Siphon into brew kettle. Try for no aeration.

14) From here on I assume it is same as extract, but with more volume

    (note: I already use a cooling coil).

Q1 - Equip - Is 36 qt cooler ok for size (5 gallon batches)? 11.25 lbs grain.

Q2 - Step 7 - If not converted and temp is lower than 154F should I adjust it

back up?  Should I check every 15 minutes or leave closed?

Q3 - Step 8 - Is this the correct time to add specialty grains? Why?

Q4 - Step 10 - Is it ok to stir?  Is 15 minutes good?

Q5 - Step 12 - Should I sprinkle it all in at once or just enough to cover

grain bed and then continue adding so that I maintain a level 2 inches above

the bed? I have a feeling the latter is correct, why? Stuck sparge?

Q6 - Step 13 - I am nervous about the sparge,  I hear stories of it taking a

long time.  Using the manifold will I get a continuous siphon or will I have

to restart it periodically? How fast should I siphon? Will I have to slow the

siphon down?  This step is somewhat of a mystery as to how it actually will

go so some help would be appreciated?  I know I'm washing the sugars off the

grain.  What about astringency? How do I know when I've gone long enough?

How long will this step take (approximately)?

Q7 - All this talk of oxidation.  Where do I have to worry about it?  In the

past the only place I have airated was going into the primary, and the only

place I have specifically not airated is after the yeast kicks in through

bottling.

Thanks a lot

Ed O'

edo@marcam.com

------------------------------


Re: Krush-Off

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 93 12:20:07 EDT

From: wslack.UUCP!wrs@mv.MV.COM (Bill Slack)

Subject: Re: Krush-Off

Phil Miller asks if the crush evaluation was blind at the Boston Wort

Processor Krush-Off.

No, each crush was identified to the Krush Kommittee. A quart jar was filled

from each crush and was used for evaluation. Evaluations were made as the

crush became available. All samples were kept and referred to by the

committee when establishing relative quality of crush. I far as I know, no

one on the committee had any favorite mill or predetermined expectations. I

use a Corona, Bob Gorman ordered a Glatt Mill (don't know if this was before

or after the test) and I don't know what Scott Keohane uses. We all watched

the various tests as they took place. It was all pretty open and there were

lots of opinions expressed by all present. In my opinion, the tests and

evaluations were conducted in a fair and complete manner. A lot of people

put in a lot of effort to pull this off and I think they succeeded.

Bill

__

wrs@gozer.mv.com (Bill Slack)

------------------------------


Maple syrup/sap

Date: Wed, 06 Oct 93 14:14:05 EDT

From: rick621@aol.com

Subject: Maple syrup/sap

Hi all, I'm new to the digest and enjoy reading the thoughts and ideas posted

here. I have been brewing extracts for a few years and now want to try

something different. I also make my own Maple syrup. I have heard of people

using this in beer and also using the uncooked sap instead of water. If

anyone has a receipe, and/or experience with using syrup or sap I would

appreciate your thoughts on the subject. You can post it on the digest or

E-mail me at   Rick621@aol.com

Thanks

------------------------------


Milling about

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 93 13:06 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Milling about

Gang--

Before another flame war ensues regarding commercialism on the HBD,

I'd like to say that Jack has done homebrewing a great service in

providing an affordable (to most) alternative to the Corona and for

doing a great deal of research on the crushing of grain.  I've seen

no less than 8 different designs of MaltMills, each design (usually)

better than the last.  He has shown me grain crushed by various

designs and asked me to choose which samples appeared to be the

best crush.  I'm told he has used my opinions as well as the evaluations

of other homebrewers and experts at the Siebel Institute of Brewing

to improve the design of the MaltMill.  His mill has set a high standard

for other mills that have followed.  Granted, Jack has a financial

interest in having his mill represented well in the HBD, but then

again, if you re-read his latest post, you'll see that there is a

lot of good, mill-independent infomation in there.  I, for one,

appreciate him sharing this information openly.

Al.

Disclaimer: I own a retail store and currently sell three of the mills

in the Krush-off and plan to sell one more of them soon.  I've done

evaluations myself of all but the antique mill in the Krush-off and

have only chosen to not stock one of them due to what I deemed a poor

crush (this was NOT one of the mills that is commercially built as

a homebrewing malt mill).

------------------------------


NO POPCORN, PLEASE!

Date:      Wed, 06 Oct 1993 14:08:58 EDT

From: "Marlene Spears" <hopfen!marlene@uunet.UU.NET>

Subject:   NO POPCORN, PLEASE!

In HBD #1240, brewerbob@aol.com wrote about using *real* popcorn as

packing material for shipping homebrew to competitions.  Please

cease and desist!  Don't send popcorn unless you're shipping to a

friend who doesn't mind receiving it!

When the 1st Round AHA Nats were held in Boston, I was one of the lucky

unpackers.  Over the four sessions, I found *all* sorts of packing

material, including -- oh, ye gods and little fishes! -- *buttered*,

*salted* popcorn, which greased up the bottles, the labels, the entry

forms, the checks, and my hands.  It was really gross, kiddies.  And

if it wasn't salted and buttered, at least the popcorn was stale and

at worst it was moldy.  NO WAY was I about to ingest any of the stuff.

I'm glad I didn't find any bugs or rodents in the boxes!

I only wanted to get the bottles unpacked, tagged, and sorted so I could

dig into the goodies Bill Murphy (site coordinator) had bought -- with

his own funds, since the AHA wasn't reimbursing.  And even parsimonious

and uncooperative Smadams let us have draft brew.  I hear Anchor is

more generous.

If you want to be kind to the unpackers, use shredded newspaper.  It

doesn't have the static electricity problems like styrofoam "popcorn".

After that, make sure your bottles are blank, with the proper labels attached

by rubber bands, with blacked out caps, and without incised lettering;

then make sure your entry forms and payment are included, and have the

box blessed so the UPS box gremlins don't screw it up.

- --

- --------------

marlene@hopfen.rsi.com

------------------------------


Mash out necessary?

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1993 11:20:41 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Mash out necessary?

After drilling into my right knee, steeping my feet in hot wort, melting

the kitchen floor, and nearly removing the tip of my left index and middle

fingers (I am NOT a klutz), I have decided to set aside my "Zap-pap"

food bucket lauter tun and try sparging with a copper manifold.  The

situation is this:  I have a 10 gallon stainless brew kettle and any number

of plastic food buckets, and good warm boxes.  If I mash in a food bucket

in a warm box then I can preheat the sparge water in the brew kettle, but

then have no way to mash out without transfering water and mash all over

the place.  Now, Miller (TCBoHB) is adamant that mash out is absolutely

necessary.  Others are less certain.  Hey, it's going to be boiling in a

few minutes anyway.  What are the opinions from HBD land?  Is it more of a

factor with lauter tun sparges rather than manifold sparges?

Thanks in advance.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Krush Off Kwestion

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 93 14:32:10 EDT

From: pgs@ai.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)

Subject: Krush Off Kwestion

   Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 08:09:50 CDT

   From: pmiller@mmm.com (Philip . Miller)

   Many thanks to the Boston Wort Processors et al for the interesting

   post on mills.  Just a quick question:  was it a blind judging?

   (I.e., did the judges know which mill ground the grains they were

   judging?)

The judging was not blind; the judges did know which mill ground the

grains they were judging.  In fact, they watched the grinding take

place, and some of them even went so far as to make fun of the

operators of the mills.  And, frankly, I noticed that a couple of them

drank a pretty fair amount of beer as the afternoon wore on.  They're

kind of shifty characters to begin with, actually.

 -P.

------------------------------


Cut rate glassware

Date:         Wed, 06 Oct 93 15:00:04 EDT

From: Aaron Morris <SYSAM@ALBANY.ALBANY.EDU>

Subject:      Cut rate glassware

Not wishing to travel to Chicago for carboys, I went to a local Corning

outlet and was ecstatic to find 5 gallon carboys for $8.99, less than

three miles from my home!  That was the good news.  The bad news was

that the local Corning outlet only had 5 gallon carboys and I was

looking for six and three gallon carboys.  The less-than-pleasant sales

person informed me that in no way, shape or form does Corning make

or market anything other than 5 gallon carboys and there was no way in

the world that she could procure for me 6 or 3 gallon carboys.  This

doesn't ring right to me.  Does the outlet in Chicago have 3 and 65

gallon carboys?  Unfortunately, I didn't save the address for the

Corning outlet in Chicago.  If they do have 3 and 6 gallon carboys

available for shipping, would some kind soul please mail to me the

address/phone number of that outlet.  Thanks in advance!

Aaron Morris (SYSAM@ALBNYVM1)

------------------------------


Pumpkin Ale Recipe

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 93 14:47:23 CDT

From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>

Subject: Pumpkin Ale Recipe

Because of the number of requests for Pumpkin Ale I have seen on the HBD

recently, here is one that I particularly enjoy:

Barefoot Pumpkin Ale

Bring to a boil 1qt water.  Add 1 29oz can of pumpkin (I recommend

Libby's because it is 100% pumpkin.  So are most other brands, but make

sure before you use it.)  Stir.  Add 1 3.3 lb can of DMS Malt extract.

Stir.  The temp should come to about 152 F.  Hold at this temp for 40

mins.  While this is going on you can get the rest of the ingredients to

a boil in your brewpot:

1 gallon water

3.3 lbs NW (Briess) Amber malt

Add pumpkin mash (mush?) to the brewpot and bring to a boil.  Add 1 oz

German Hallertauer pellets and 1 oz Hersbrucker plugs.  Boil 45 mins.

Add 1 oz Hallertauer pellets, 2 cinnamon sticks (about 2-2.5 inches

long), 1 tsp ground cardamom, 2 tsp whole cloves, 1 tsp + 1 shake of

nutmeg, 1 tsp ground allspice, 1 tbsp ground ginger, and 1 Tbsp Irish

Moss flakes.  Let boil 10 mins.  Add 0.5 oz Saaz pellets.  Reduce (turn

off heat) and cover brewpot and let steep for 5 mins.

As I recall, sparging this mess to the fermenter was a problem because

the pumpkin is a real fine mush.  I think I just added all of it to my

primary and topped it off to about 5 or 5.5 gals, let it cool and racked

away from the mush that settled out.  This leaves a lot behind.  When I

make this again, I will do a full volume boil and use a wort chiller and

this should cause most of the stuff to drop out.

Yeast:  Whitbread Ale Yeast

OG = 1.040

Racked to secondary @ 1.010

FG = ca. 1.006-8

Tasting notes:  Real nice spice/hops balance.  Good color and very

clear.  I would enter this in a contest, but I bottled it entirely into

large bottles. :)

Comments/suggestions/criticisms(constructive) should be emailed direct

to:

anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu

------------------------------


Re: Chilling Wort

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1993 16:28:00 EST

From: "Pamela J. Day 7560" <DAY@A1.TCH.HARVARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: Chilling Wort

I don't bother trying to chill my wort, instead I make sure that the

water in the fermenter is a cold as I can possibly get it. I either

put it in a spare refrigerator (alas a luxury) the night before I brew

or in the winter I put it out on the porch until it's cold. Depending

upon how cold the water in the primary is, after I pour boiling wort

into it, it's down to anywhere between 65-80F immediatly. If I wind

up having to wait to pitch, it's usually less than an hour.

Good Luck!

pam

------------------------------


Victorian Ales

Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1993 17:51:14 -0500

From: Chris McDermott <mcdermott@draper.com>

Subject: Victorian Ales

 Victorian Ales

What exactly is a Victorian Ale (besides a the obvious: an ale brewed during

the victorian period)?

I'm trying to find information describing this style and the procedures to used

to brew it, but I haven't had much luck.  Can anyone out there help.  A pointer

to a source of literature would be great.  Personal experience would be even

better.

Thanks,

Chris McDermott                                Send mail for PGP public key

mcdermott@draper.com                    * * *

617.258.2362                           *     ********************************

617.381.9768                            * * *                          ******

                                                                      ***  ***

------------------------------


spiced beer

Date: 06 Oct 1993 14:43:14 PST

From: "JSDAWS1@PROFSSR" <JSDAWS1@PB1.PacBell.COM>

Subject: spiced beer

Hi all..   I'm contemplating a spiced X-mas ale for this weekend and would

like some opinions on the quantities and procedures for adding spices.

My recipe is as follows for 5 gal

10 lbs  Hugh-Baird pale malt

1  lb   Hugh-Baird 80L Crystal     mash at 158 for 60 min

1 oz    Kent Goldings   ( 60 min

1/2 oz  Centenials      ( 20 min

Wyeast 1098    ( expecting SG of 1060.. no clue where it might finish

spices ??    cinomon, nutmeg, vanilla

Does using whole vs powdered spices like cinomon and nutmeg make a difference

What about vanilla extract vs. beans.

When to add them ?   at the end of the boil or with priming sugar

Quantities of each spice.   I'm also asuming no finishing hops as that would

interfere with spice flavors.   Any and all opinioons appreciated.

|    Don't anthropomorphize computers...  They don't like it.         |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------- |

| JACK DAWSON  -  JSDAWS1  -  415 545-0299  -  CUSTOMER BILLING  (BG) |

------------------------------


Rager Number Error

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 93 22:10:35 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Rager Number Error

A while ago someone sent me email about the 7462 error in Rager's numbers

that all of us have taken for granted as being correct, but is in fact off

(this is the metric to avoir. conversion constant).  I have inadvertently

erased the note, so if whoever it was could send it again, I would be

grateful.

Mark

------------------------------


Hops (what else?)

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 93 22:07:21 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hops (what else?)

Domenick Venezia asked me to clarify my comments on

"fermentation utilization" and says something to the

effect of "huh? this is an extraction technique".  (Forgive

me for not being able to pull the comments directly, but

I'm not on a system for the next two weeks that allows that.)

The extraction of hop alpha acids and their subsequent

conversion into iso-alpha acids is only one part of the

equation.  There are many post boil events that affect the

final amount of iso-alphas in the finished beer.  Some are:

Yeast type and flocculation characteristics, fermentation time

and temperature, wort gravity, how much the wort pH drops as

it ferments, fermentation methods, lagering or not, filtration

or not, and more.  All of these can combine to make big

differences in the amount of iso-alpha acids left in the beer

by the time it reaches your lips, as opposed to simply the

amount extracted by the boil into the sweet wort.

I also noticed when reading my own post, that I said something

like "as the gravity of the fermenting wort rises..." and I

realized that some might have thought that I was implying that

wort gravity rises as it ferments.  Of course it drops, but

I should have said "the higher the starting gravity of the

wort is at the time you begin fermentation, the lower your

utilization will be."

Interesting to note that Kelly Jones reported that his bitterness

has gone away almost entirely, as I had reprted that other

brewers had noted.

Finally, I'll deal with Al's comments off-line.

Mark

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1242, 10/07/93

*************************************

-------


A couple of proposed experiments

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 93 10:35:34 BST

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: A couple of proposed experiments

Here's some easy experiments for some intrepid soul to perform in order to sort

out two current controversies:

On the 'dry hopping causing bitterness' thing, I occasionally make test brews

that involve pouring boiling water onto a mixture of extract and pellets in a

1L, pre-heated glass bottle. This mix is then fermented, naturally enough with

the hops left in, and definitely turns out bitter. The hot wort spends about 10

mins cooling down from something like 85C to 60C, which theoretically should

cause little isomerisation. Experiment - do the same, but filter the hops out

prior to fermentation, and note the difference.

Experiment 2:

> The perfect grist for mashing would be molecule sized particles of malt from

> which all the husk has been removed.  It would wet perfectly, disolve

> instantly and produce 100% yield of crystal clear wort.

Get hold of some wheat malt (which is husk-free) and pulverise it to flour. Use

this exclusively in the mash, and note its suitability.

- --

Conn V Copas

Loughborough University of Technology          tel : +44 (0)509 222689

Computer-Human Interaction Research Centre     fax : +44 (0)509 610815

Leicestershire  LE11 3TU              e-mail - (Janet):C.V.Copas@uk.ac.lut

G Britain                                      (Internet):C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk

------------------------------


Re: chill concentrated wort

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 93 8:13:38 EDT

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: Re: chill concentrated wort

Sorry to take so long to get back to this but in HBD #1239 (Monday's

issue) John Pavao asks whether it is worthwhile to chill concentrated

wort before diluting it with a carboy of 3.5 gal of cold water.

I brewed for a couple of years this way before going to full batch boils

and I personally liked it.  For me it took out the worry of oxidation

and the task of getting the cold water cold enough that I would be sure

that the mixture would be at yeast pitching temps. In addition,

transferring chilled wort is a great opportunity to aerate the wort

rather than worry about oxidation.

I made an immersion chiller from 50' of copper tubing and some siphon

tubing and some random fittings all for about $30.  I used 50' because

some of the plans I had seen called for 40' and 50' was cheaper than

40'.  Furthermore, I had no idea what else I would use the extra 10' for

and figured it could only help.  I know that there have been great

debates on the optimal length and I have reached no conclusion myself.

- --

Jim Grady              |"Root beer burps don't have to be said 'Excuse me'."

grady@hp-mpg.an.hp.com |                Robert Grady, age 4.75

------------------------------


Oxidation Problems

Date: Thu, 07 Oct 93 07:48:00 PDT

From: "Moore, Brian" <Moorebw@hvsmtp1.mdc.com>

Subject: Oxidation Problems

Hello all,

I recently entered my first Homebrew competition (the Mid-South Fair in

Memphis, TN). I entered an extract based dry stout. It finished second with

a score of 32. The main problem that the judges noted was that it had an

oxidized aroma. I'm trying to figure out where this oxidation came from.

Since this was an extract brew we did nothing I can think of which would

introduce HSA. Our brewing procedure was as follows:

1. Put 8 gallon pot on burner, fill with about 6 gallons of water.

2. Started burner and add specialty grains (in grain bag).

3. Remove grain bag when the water is at about 180 or 190 F.

4. When water boils, add the extract (Briess liquid) and the hops.

5. Boil for 45-60 minutes. Insert immersion chiller for the last 5 minutes.

6. Cool to about 75-80 F.

7. Rack the cool wort into the carboy.

8. Shake the **** out of it to aerate it.

9. Pitch the yeast.

10. After about a week, rack it to the secondary (being careful not to

splash).

11. For bottling, rack it to a bottling bucket, add priming sugar and

bottle.

Our bottle filler is one of those clear plastic tubes with the spring loaded

white thingy on the end (another version of the clear tube with the spring

loaded orange thingy on the end, I guess). This thing does cause the beer to

foam a little on it's way into the bottle.

My questions are these:

1. Is my bottle filler the culprit in my oxidation problems? If so, is there

something better out there?

2. Has anyone out there ever used those oxygen absorbing bottle caps?

3. Is it possible that some extract manufacturers have HSA problems in the

manufacture of the extracts?

                         TIA,

                         Brian Moore

                         <moorebw@hvsmtp1.mdc.com>

------------------------------


Lambic Beers and U.S. Microbreweries

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 93 10:49:14 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Lambic Beers and U.S. Microbreweries

Matthew Evans writes:

 > 1)  Is there any U.S. brewery producing a true lambic beer (besides the

 > Cranberry Lambic from the Boston Brewing Co)?  If not, why not?

No, because the only way to produce a true lambic beer is to do it in

the right part of Belgium.  The local microflora(fauna?) just aren't

right anywhere else in the world.  Now, Jackson mentions a few

breweries who have experimented with "spontaneously fermented" beers

in the Lambic chapters of _The Great Beers of Belgium_ and _The Beer

Companion_, but I don't at the moment recall if any are in the U.S.

One was in Britain.

 > 2)  I've read before that the various yeasts and bacteria needed for lambic

 > beers are available in the US, but where is a good commercial source (or

 > free source) of these microrganisms?

Yes, no, maybe.  The Brettanomyces cultures are available from G.W.

Kent, which is a wholesaler, so you have to get your local HB supplier

to order them.  Sheaf & Vine (email to Al Korzonas

(korz@iepubj.att.com)) also has some cultures (Brett and Pedio).

Nobody seems to have the appropriate Lactobacillus cultures, unless

you can get it from a fellower HBer.

For doing it yourself, the first thing you should do is to run out and

buy a copy of _Lambic_ from the Classic Beer Styles series.  If it's

not at your local HB store, pick up any issue of Zymurgy, you'll find

a publications catalog in the center.

 > 4)  Are there any good publications about microbreweries?  Particularly I'm

 > interested in getting some start up information for an Entrepreneurial

 > Business class at school.

Call the AAB (Association of Brewers).  They have a number of

publications directed at microbrewers (for a fee, of course).  Also

listed in the catalog in Zymurgy.

=S

------------------------------


AHA Styles and Reality

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 09:55:37 -0500

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: AHA Styles and Reality

I've recently gotten hold of the _Zymurgy_ Special Issue on Traditinal Beer

Styles, and I've got a couple of questions or comments or something. 8-)

I like to make a brown ale, patterned after _Pete's_.  I've made three

batches, #2 being the most successful, so far as taste is concerned.  The

grist was as follows:

 7#  DeWolf Ale     8L      56L

 1#  DeWolf Munich  3L       3L

 1#  CaraVienne     22L     22L

 1#  CaraMunich     72L     72L

 6oz Chocolate     498L    174L

                                  ----

                                  327L / 5.75 gallons = 56.9L

In a 5.75 gallon batch, the color is 57L.  Note that the Chocolate is about

3.5% of the grist, and provides about half of the color.  The OG = 1060.  It

seems to me that this brew was indeed a lot like _Pete's_.

The AHA style guideline says OG 1040 - 1055, and color 15 - 22 SRM.  My

understanding is that SRM approximately equals Lovibond.  In the text

describing the American Brown Ale style, it says that up to 5% of the grist

can be Chocolate.  Well folks, if you do that, you'll blow the color every

time.  Observe:

 10#  DeWolf Ale   8L    80L

 .1#  Chocolate  498L    50L (1%)

                             ------

                               130L / 5.75 gallons = 23L

That's as light as I can make it, there's no crystal, and its still too dark

for the guidelines (OK, just barely, but I think the point is made).  I don't

think this brew would be very much like any American Brown Ale I've ever

tried.  If you use 5% Chocolate, you'll end up quite dark at 57L, but you'll

still not have any crystal.

In the back of the same special issue, there are recipies for the competition

winners.  I made a rough calculation of the color the Brown Ale category

winner came out, and I came up with 35L, too dark for the style guidelines.

His OG was reported as 1062.  So, here we have a national competition

*winner* falling well outside the guidelines.  What gives??  Are the AHA

guidelines reliable?  And if you can win an AHA competition without coming

particularly close to the guidelines, why have them in the first place?

Part of my reason for asking is that I might like to enter competitions

myself, and I may also be interested in the AHA BJCP.  But observations like

this make me wonder whether it would be worthwhile.  If the goal of the

competition is to demonstrate brewing prowess, independent of whether the

brew actually pleases anyone, well, then the style parameters make some

sense.  But in that case, wou wouldn't even classify a beer into a category

when its missed color, gravity, or IBUs specified for the category.  In other

words, the competition coordinator looks at the stated parameters and says

"this can't be considered Brown Ale, so it won't even be entered into

competition." and the judges would never taste it (no matter how good it

might be).  In an ideal world, the physical characteristics would actually be

measured at the competition site, but I guess its hard to borrow an HPLC from

the lab for the weekend 8-)

If the point is to look for the beer that is most pleasing, then I think the

distinctions are too fine, and the parameters too narrow.  If there's a third

possibility, I'm not sure what it would be.  Anyway, what I'm getting at is

the guidelines and the brew that won (in that category, that year) seem to be

at odds.  And I'm sure that if I look, I'll find more examples.  Can we

generate some discussion on this topic?  I think it'd be very helpful...

 t

=============================================================================

Tom Leith                           InterNet:   trl@wuerl.WUstl.EDU

4434 Dewey Ave.                   CompuServe:   70441,3536

St. Louis, Missouri  63116

                                                "Tho' I could not caution all

314/362-6965 - Office                            I still might warn a few:

314/362-6971 - Office Fax                        Don't lend your hand

314/481-2512 - Home + Infernal Machine           to raise no flag

                                                 atop no Ship of Fools"

=============================================================================

------------------------------


IMPERIAL STOUT

Date: 6 Oct 93 16:35:15-0400

From: MATTHEW.BOHNE@sprint.sprint.com

Subject: IMPERIAL STOUT

DOES ANYONE HAVE A GOOD RECIPE FOR IMPERIAL STOUT ? I TRIED THE ONE IN THE

"BREWERS BIBLE" BUT IT turned out rather bitter... Any suggestions? I would

love to brew some Moss Stout (brewed in Seattle) any ideas?

Carboy Dieum (G)

Matthew

------------------------------


Low alcohol/near beer

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 10:15:56 -0600 (CST)

From: "Bill Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Low alcohol/near beer

Does anyone have a procedure for producing low or no alcohol

carbonated malt beverages?

My intial thought is to:

 1) brew in the normal fashion

 2) heat to evaporate the alcohol

 3) cool

 4) add priming sugar and fresh yeast

 5) bottle

Is this reasonable?  Has anyone tried this?  Did it work?

Sante' WAK

------------------------------


Really Cool Cooling

Date: Thu, 07 Oct 93 10:26:00 PDT

From: "Moore, Brian" <Moorebw@hvsmtp1.mdc.com>

Subject: Really Cool Cooling

Well here goes,

I've been reading the cooling debate in the previous few HBD's with much

interest. Everyone seems to be on the wort chiller path. Has anyone ever

tried just dropping a chunk (golf-ball sized maybe?) of dry ice into their

hot wort? I've never tried it but have often contemplated it. There seems to

be a veritable plethora of benefits:

1. Quick cooling

2. Cheap

3. All natural CO2 (?)

4. If it works anything like dry ice does in punch, maybe all of the break

material would freeze into a big ball around the dry ice and you could just

lift it out.

Obviously you would want to aerate the wort with an airstone or something to

get oxygen back in for the yeast. Is commercial dry ice pure CO2 or are

there other nasties in there? On the surface, this seems to be a neat idea

so please don't flame me too badly. I'd like to try this but I'm afraid to

ruin a batch of beer. Maybe if somebody else already has, they could stop

me.

                    Thanks,

                         Brian Moore

------------------------------


Beer Bennies/Pyramid Yeast?

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 07:56:56 -0700 (PDT)

From: John Brooks <jbrooks@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Beer Bennies/Pyramid Yeast?

The following was reported in the Seattle Times, entitled "Beer Bennies":

"Oh, to work for Hale's Ales.  The company, with breweries in Kirkland and

Spokane, is preparing to take all its employees on three week "education

tours" of European suds makers.

   This Mother of All Bennies marks the firm's 10th anniversary.  Mike

Hale produced his first ale in Colville, and he now markets 13 draft ales

throughout Washington.

   The firm will take two groups of seven employees on tours of English,

Belgian and German breweries.  One stop: Gales Ales in Horndean, England,

where Hale worked in 1982 before starting his business.

   Of course, the trip coincides with Munich's Oktoberfest.  Hale dryly

notes in a press release that the tours `won't be work.'"

By the way, Hale's makes excellent products, especially their rich, biting

"Moss Bay Extra."  They also have a great T-shirt with their mallard duck

logo.

***********************************

On another Northwest related subject, Pyramid Ales of Kalama, Washington,

perhaps best known for its "Wheaten (tm) Ale," makes a large number of

other superior beers including a double-yeasted Hefeweisen.  One of my

favorites is their "Wheaten Bock Ale" (O.G. 1.061) which is made with five

malted grains and Mt. Hood Hops.  I am going to try a clone and through

some rather involved reconnaissance have managed to come up with a close

approximation of the grain mix.

My missing link is the yeast.  Pyramid claims to use the same

"proprietary" ale yeast on all of their brews (the Hefeweisen is filtered

before undergoing a secondary fermentation with a Danish lager yeast,

which settles in the bottle).  My initial impulse was to try Wyeast

chico/american (1056) or german alt (1007).

I recall reading "net lore" that Sierra Nevada probably got their yeast

from Anchor, that Pete's probably got their yeast from Sierra Nevada, etc.

Does anyone know about the source of the Pyramid strain or have an

educated guess as to a suitable substitute?  Replies by private e-mail or

postings both OK.

John Brooks

University of Washington

(206) 543-9149

P.S. - I have an acquaintance who works for a door and window distributor

called Reeb Distributing, Inc.  Their motto (which is on his business card

and their logo jackets) is: "REEB - we're BEER spelled backwards."

******************************************************************

------------------------------


Re: Victorian Ales

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 08:12:45 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul deArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Re: Victorian Ales

Victorian Ales flourished during the last century, rising to prominence in

the 1830's and dying off in 1900, when they were replaced by the Edwardian

Ales (a much rowdyier and less inhibited ale.) The Victorian Ales

maintained a world-wide Empire.  Indeed, it was said that the sun never

set on a Victorian Ale.  Two of the largest Imperial colonies, India and

Canada, developed their own ales.  Several other areas under the influence

of Victorian Ales were quite important to trade, but never established

their own brewing recognition.  Two of the most notable brewing failures

were Crimean Ale (very bitter and with an indecisive finish, but notable

for the Charge of the Light Beergade, of which it was said, "It's

magnificent, but it's not beer." ) and the First and Second Afghan Brews

(of which the first was a complete disaster.)

One of the notable and lasting characteristics of the Victorian Ales was

their curious moral double-standard.  While being very ostentatious in

church-going, psalm-singing, founding societies for the reformation of

fallen brews, establishing the Boy Stouts, and declaiming on the "Pale

Ale's Burden", the Victorian Ales were not above mistreating natives

(leading in India to the Carboy Rebellion), visiting child brothels or

being whipped to a frothy head with birches.

The origianl Victorian Ale was blended with the lesser known Albertian

Ale, which was of German origin.  One of the results of this marriage was

the Edwardian Ale mentioned above.  The Albertian Ales never really caught

on, but their influence may be seen in the current British Lagers.

for more information on the Victorian Ales, refer to the _Flashman_ books

by George MacDonald Frasier....

------------------------------


Re: Krush-Off extract

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 93 11:37:01 EDT

From: wslack.UUCP!wrs@mv.MV.COM (Bill Slack)

Subject: Re: Krush-Off extract

Jim Busch asks about the extract efficiency from the various mills at the

Krush-Off:

Unfortunately, the crushes were not individually mashed. About 16 pounds of

the Krush-Off residue was mashed in one batch with 2# crystal and 1# Cra-Pils

and after a 75 minute infusion at 154F, a fifteen minute mashout and a normal

sparge, it yielded an eleven gallon wort of 1.048 starting gravity. So I

guess you could figure the_average_ extract efficiency.   ;-)

Doing a club brew-in from the contest remains was as much fun as the contest

itself. We made three batches using Young's ale yeast, a Weihenstephan Alt

yeast and some of the new, improved Red Star (one gallon test batch).

Haven't tasted them yet.

Bill

__

wrs@gozer.mv.com (Bill Slack)

------------------------------


Request for homebrew suppliers

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 12:19:05 -0500 (CDT)

From: Robert Jordan <JORDAN@ANLBEM.BIM.ANL.GOV>

Subject: Request for homebrew suppliers

I've been reading the homebrew digest for several months now, and have been

gathering as much information on homebrewing as I can.  So I'm ready to take

the plunge as it were and get started.  However, I'm having trouble finding

a good list of mail-order homebrew suppliers.  I would appreciate anyone

sending me the address and/or number of the supply places they use.

Private replies are fine.

Thanks in advance--

Robert Jordan

jordan@anlbem.bim.anl.gov

------------------------------


malt mills

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 13:14:33 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: malt mills

Thanks to the Boston homebrewers for their work.  With all respect,

for those doing comparisons, I suggest evaluating the crush blind

and using a series of screens.  If you don't have the screens, it

makes for a good club project.

------------------------------


homebrew

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 93 14:25:37 -0400

From: oldforg4@nysernet.ORG

Subject: homebrew

 To whomever is listening:

        Please send me any info. you can about homebrew and or homebrewDigest.

        Just found you while surfing and am very interested.  Any help you

could

        give would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.

                                Ken D.

                                oldforg4@nysernet.org

------------------------------


Is mashing-out necessary?

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 93 12:46 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: Is mashing-out necessary?

>  Subject: Mash out necessary?

>

>  Now, Miller (TCBoHB) is adamant that mash out is absolutely

>  necessary.  Others are less certain.  Hey, it's going to be

>  boiling in a few minutes anyway.  What are the opinions from HBD

>  land?

>

>  Domenick Venezia

>

YES!  ROO-ROO-ROO.  Stand back!  Make Way!  Spread out!  Free-

thinker comin' through here!

I hereby nominate Mr. Domenick Venezia to be considered for

acceptance into the Brotherhood Of Question Authority Types.  It's

heartening to see someone question The Word.

It is my personal opinion that there are WAY too many homebrewing

books, written by fornicating self-proclaimed experts, and not

enough . . . oh never mind.  Suffice to say I'm one homebrewer who

has yet to be convinced that mashing-out is necessary.  In fact, I

think that mash-outs are an unnecessary step.

Oh sure, I here the sniveling arguments of the imprisoned.  They

usually fall into one of two categories:  "You have to stop enzyme

activity" -or- "it allows you to obtain consistent results".

Oh PUH-leez.  If you skip mash-out, how much extra starch

conversion actually takes place while you sparge?  Is it

noticeable?  And if this additional conversion IS noticeable then

wouldn't you welcome the extra extract?  Consistent results?  Huh?

Just how does mashing-out produce consistent results.

Go ahead and throw stones.  Me and Dom think the Emperor's new

clothes suck.  We're standing-up and farting in the general

direction of homebrewing dogma.  Well, at least I am.  Dom?

chris campanelli

------------------------------


Crushoff/Extraction Rate

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 93 13:46 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Crushoff/Extraction Rate

 More on bodymen......

 Jim Bush suggests that it would be nice to know the extraction rates of the

 various test brews and I suggest that it may be nice but not terribly useful

 unless they were conducted under controlled conditions.

 He also points out that his rate of extracton went down when he switched from

 commercially milled grain to a Corona and back up again when he started using

 a MM.

 That warms the cockles of my heart but I have long felt that extraction rate

 has far more to do with the equipment and process following milling then with

 the milling itself.

 I am in the midst of running controlled experiments to once again test

 extraction efficiency as a function of the grist.  It has always been my

 opinion that a properly designed mill with fixed roller spacing will provide

 the same extract efficiency as an adjustable one set up to produce an

 industry standard type of grist.  I offer an adjustable mill as an option

 because people think they need it.  I don't doubt that, in large commercial

 batches, with the equipment they are stuck with using, that grist will have

 an effect on yield but on small batches the difference falls within the

 measurement error.

 I run these tests on my one gallon pilot system and when using one lb of

 malt, the gravity for one gallon reads directly in pts/lb/gal.

 The three tests just concluded, used l lb of Belgian Pils malt and the

 following mash schedule:

         doughin  2000 ml water at 110F for 15 minutes

         mash at 155F for 45 min

         mashout at 170F for 10 min

         sparge to one gallon with 180F water

 The first two tests were on a fixed mill and an adjustable, set to provide

 industry standard grist.

 The results were within the measurement error.  The fixed mill sample read

 1.031 and the adjustable may have been 1 point higher but on a hydrometer

 with a resolution of 2 points per division, I would call it a draw.

 The next test was inspired by Jim's comments on the Corona and I ran a test

 on the grist from my Corona.  However, ignoring all the wisdom of the Corona

 fans, I set the mill to produce flour.  The rotating plate pressed against

 the fixed plate hard enough to require considerable force to turn with no

 grain in the mill.  It required a great deal of effort to crank with grain in

 it and I am glad I only had to do one pound.  The grist looked like coarse

 flour with some recognizable husk material but it was just random slivers.

 I ran the sample through the same process as above and got exactly the same

 results. 31 pts/lb/gal.  This did not surprise me but I had to do it to prove

 the point to the skeptical.  What did surprise me, was the fact that, of the

 three jugs of wort produced, the Corona produced the most transparent.  The

 very fine husk material, did indeed to a better job of filtering.

 So, whence the bogyman?

 It is my contention that the bogyman is in the mash/lauter tun and not the

 grain mill.  Fortunately, I also sell the mash/lauter tun that makes all this

 possible.

 But back to mills, buy the one that turns you on, forget the "crush-offs" and

 give some serious thought to pushing beyond the traditional plastic buckets

 and picnic coolers.

 js

------------------------------


specialty items question

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 93 11:29:09 PDT

From: kdamrow@Thomas.COM (Kip Damrow)

Subject: specialty items question

Hi there,

Does anyone know of any catalogs for specialy items such as:

glassware, unique bottles, microbrewery stuff, brewery related clothing.

(BTW, I'm not looking for brewing supplies)

Thanks,

Kip

------------------------------


cleaning tips repost

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 93 15:40:47 CDT

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: cleaning tips repost

Just a quick note relating responses to my cleaning tips question, here

are a few ideas which may help some of you make your brewing (cleaning)

process a little more painless (note, these are ideas used by those who

submitted them, not just crazy ramblings)

 - one idea: use plastic buckets for primary and rack off the trub into a

carboy for the secondary - this leaves most of the gunk in an easy to

reach place.

 -use an immersible pump to drive sanitizing solution into bottles with a

hose, use same pump out of water to drive air in...use low concentration

iodaphor which need not be rinsed

 -put clean bottles in dishwasher for *sterilization*, use a little

bleach and heat drying (I assume rinsing in the dishwasher will get rid

of the bleach), Also, open dishwasher and bottle on the door, all

spillage goes in the washer (note: this is not to remove labels etc.)

 -one reply suggested the popular spray bottle washers available, or the

construction of a homemade carboy washer from a plugged up section of

garden hose with holes punched in the end near the plug (use bolt as plug)

 - when draining bottles and carboys, turn the container over and give a

little clockwise twirl and the water will drain out in a vortex,

allowing air in and giving a faster drain (assumes northern hemisphere :))

Thanks to Jack, Drew, Norm, and Chris for their responses, any others

who wish to add their $.02 are greatly encouraged to do so to the

address below.

     Chris

======================================================================

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu |

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

======================================================================

------------------------------


Lambic beers & U.S. Microbreweries

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 93 14:09:02 PDT

From: msharp@Synopsys.COM

Subject: Lambic beers & U.S. Microbreweries

- ----- Begin Included Message -----

Matthew Evans <matt@cadif.cornell.edu> writes:

> Subject: Lambic Beers and U.S. Microbreweries

>

> I've got a couple questions, hopefully someone out there knows the answer

> to these questions:

Content-Length: 3703

In general, the best place for lambic questions is the lambic digest.

Subscription requests can be sent to:

 lambic-request@longs.lance.colostate.edu

> 1)  Is there any U.S. brewery producing a true lambic beer (besides the

> Cranberry Lambic from the Boston Brewing Co)?

To the best of my knowledge no U.S. brewery is producing anything

close to a traditional lambic.

I have just started to work with a very well known/respected pub brewer

on making a pseudo-lambic as a specialty beer.  Don't expect to see it

anytime soon.  Also, don't bother asking me who 'cause I'm not going to

say until he announces the batch publicly.

> Why not?

Assuming for a minute that you mean a pseudo-lambic (real lambics can

only be made just outside of Belgium due to the necessary wild fermentation),

the first reasons that come to mind are:

 o lambics are made using wild yeasts and bacterias that

   will most likely cause endless problems with 'regular'

   batches

 o lambics must be aged for considerably long periods of time

   resulting in high cost and low throughput

 o most pub-goers are content to drink whatever piss flows out

   of the tap as it is (though there are some _very_ good pubs

   there are a few in my geographic area that amaze me as far as their

   ability to stay in business for so long with such sh*t products)

   so why waste time & money on an expensive and difficult style

   when you can cut corners, and make sh*t and money at the same

   time?   (no, I'm not naming names, but I bet some can guess)

 o nobody really knows how to make a lambic outside of Brussels.

   everything done by the readership of the lambic digest is just

   experimentation and has hardly scratched the surface of the

   knowledge necessary to brew such a beer commercially with

   any guarantee of success and repeatability.

 o lambics require (traditionally) cooperage & thats not cheap

 o lots of other issues I'll just let pass so this isn't a whole

   digest in itself.

> 2)  I've read before that the various yeasts and bacteria needed for lambic

> beers are available in the US, but where is a good commercial source (or

> free source) of these microrganisms?

Cultures are easiest to find by special order from G.W.Kent through your

local retailer.  You must be patient when ordering, there are occationally

cycles [like now] when the cultures are backordered.

> 3)  Has anyone tried making a homebrewed lambic in small batches.  If you

> have I would really like to talk to you about the process, as Kriek Lambic is

> my favorite beer and I would like to duplicate the sour bite found only in

> lambic beers.

See the comment on the lambic digest above, "Lambic" by J-X Guinard

(Classic Beer Styles #3), and the paper Martin Lodahl & I wrote for

Beer+Brewing for the Miwaukee Conference (sorry, don't remember the

volume #).

> 4)  Are there any good publications about microbreweries?  Particularly I'm

> interested in getting some start up information for an Entrepreneurial

> Business class at school.

>

> 5)  Finally, in this long list of questions, does anyone have the number for

> the Celis brewery in Texas that makes Belgian style beers?

These two have me confused...  Are you trying to open a lambic pub/micro

brewery?

If so we should talk off line 'cause you need a reality check with respect to

markets and how quickly you'll be out of business.  (yes, I know that sounds

harsh, but better to hear it now than find out later)

If you're really just confused about lambics vs. Belgian Wits (Celis) than

you should get onto the lambic mailing list because we're having a discussion

about Belgian Wits right now.

 --Mike (your friendly lambic digest coordinator/founder)

- ----- End Included Message -----

------------------------------


dry hopping bitterness / Holiday Ale

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1993 00:05:27 -0400

From: patterso@mason1.gmu.edu (F. G. Patterson Jr.)

Subject: dry hopping bitterness / Holiday Ale

Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu> writes:

>

>Recently, I tried my first dry hop, ... and found a very pronounced excess

>bitterness.  I compared this to the other half of the batch, which had

>not been dry hopped, and which did not have this bitterness.  So, the

>bitterness was a result of the dryhopping.

>

>Questions:

>Is this simply a temporary bitterness that will soon mellow?  Or can

>dry hopping really add noticeable bitterness?  Did I over dryhop?

>How many IBU's can/should dry hops introduce?

I read that your batch mellowed (lost  bitterness) in 8 days.  My batch

did not.  I dry hopped a batch of pale ale with Hallertau hops (actually

I added the hops immediately at the end of the boil after turning off

the fire).  The result is the first batch of beer in 15 years of brewing

that is so bad that I am actually pouring it down the drain.  (I should

save the drain and pour it directly into the sewer.)  It is severely

bitter and, frankly, the aroma is not all that great.  The hops were

allowed  to remain in the wort for 7 days.

BRUCE@ARVAX.Syntex.Com writes:

>Subject:  Christmas Ale Recipies?

>

>Greetings!

>

>Looks like it's about time to start those Christmas Ales ....

>My point is, I'm looking for some Cristmas Ale recipies ....

Don't overlook the Cat's Meow recipes, especially the one that

I have copied below.  I substituted 1 oz of Hallertau Hops for

the extra hops in the recipe; also I added an ADDITIONAL 1 teaspoon

of GROUND Cinnamon, and I used only 3 cloves in all.  This recipe

turned out to be superb!  I made it 4 weeks ago for Thanksgiving, and

it is half gone already.  Note that it makes only 4-5 six-packs of

ale.

>                             Quick & Easy Spiced Brown Ale

>

>       Source:   Jeff Benjamin (benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com)

>                 Issue #985, 10/7/92

>

>       Ingredients:

>

>                 MountMellick Brown Ale Kit

>                 3-4 whole cloves

>                 3 whole cinnamon sticks

>                 1/4 teaspoon, nutmeg

>                 4 oranges

>                 1/8 cup, fresh Hallertau hops (leaf)

>

>       Procedure:

>

>       Simmer spices, hops,  and zest of  1 orange in  1 quart water  for 30-45

>       minutes. Make  brown  ale  according to  3.6  gallon  recipe. Add  spice

>       mixture (do  not  strain)  and zest  of  other  three oranges  to  wort.

>       Ferment, strain, and bottle according to kit instructions.

>

>       Comments:

>

>       Since everyone is gearing up  to make Xmas brews  (including me), here's

>       an easy recipe that turns out extremely good.  I'm normally an all-grain

>       brewer, but it's easier  to make large  quantities of extract  brews for

>       parties and things, and the spices tend to cover up  some of the extract

>       qualities. Of course, you  could use the  same spicing technique  for an

>       all-grain batch, too.

>

>       Remember to go  easy on the  spices. The flaw  with a lot  of commercial

>       Xmas brews is that  the spices overwhelm the  flavor of the  beer rather

>       than complement it.

>

>       The flavors balance very  nicely after only a  short aging time,  but it

>       gets better after a couple of months. An excellent holiday beer.

PAT PATTERSON

Fairfax, Virginia

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1243, 10/08/93

*************************************

-------


Dry Ice cooling NOT!

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 10:04:50 -0400

From: djt2@po.cwru.edu (Dennis J. Templeton)

Subject: Dry Ice cooling NOT!

Someone asked about using dry ice for cooling their wort.

Since dry ice liberates humungous amounts of gas you had better be prepared

for a huge overflow of sticky bubbling (and still hot) wort, like a krausen

from hell.

I have tried this for other purposes and it was *definitely* not worth the

trouble.  Note that those of you who put dry ice in your college punch had

a more controlled reaction since the punch was not boiling hot.

Try a cooling coil.

dennis

------------------------------


India Pale Ale request

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 09:06:00 CST

From: Montgomery_John@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil

Subject: India Pale Ale request

This question is directed in particular to kindred brewers in the

beautiful Pacific Northwest.

I recently spent an extended amount of time in the Seattle area -

particularly Silverdale/Poulsbo. While there, my buddy and I ran across

a little place that harbored some 30 microbrewed beers on their tap

wall. Now, coming from a "microbrew" wasteland (panhandle Fl) I was

awestruck (but that's another soapbox).

This place had an India Pale Ale on tap at the time that I was quite

impressed with. I think the brewer was Deschutes(sp?). Is anyone

familiar with this beer and, if so, do you have any all-grain recipes

that attempt to clone this fine brew? I would love to produce some of

that Pac.N.W. finery here in the Southeast.

Thanks a million,

john m.

<montgomery_john@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil>

------------------------------


Removing Foil Labels, Bottle Filling

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 08:54:47 CDT

From: wood@ranger.rtsg.mot.com (Dan Wood)

Subject: Removing Foil Labels, Bottle Filling

I'm setting up a homebrewing "kit" for a friend for Christmas,

including two cases of M*ller longnecks in the waxed cardboard

cases.  I'd like to mimimize the time/effort in removing the

foil labels.  In the past I've tried a variety of solvents, boiling

water, wire brush, razor blade, etc. but never found a combination

that worked well.  Anyone have any tricks for this?  Please don't

suggest other bottle types, I already have the empties, and I'm

a big fan of clear bottles.

I used the spring type bottle filler for many batches until I

tried a simple hose clamp.  I bought one of the 69 cent white plastic

clamps, the kind with the ratcheting latch. I bent the teeth of the

latch out of the way, and simply use hand pressure to shutoff the

flow between bottles.  It is faster, cleaner (no foaming), and

probably minimizes aeration.  Try it, you'll like it.

PS: Anyone tried making a grape mead?  I've had good luck with cherry

and cranberry juice, but I'm leery of making alcoholic grape koolaid.

I've got a gallon of concentrated juice from homegrown grapes (big and

blue, concord maybe?) that I figure would flavor about 4 gallons of

mead.  However, the wife would kill me if the mead didn't turn out: she

wants to waste it on jam.  Any thoughts or experiences are appreciated.

Worry if you must, but by all means, have a homebrew!

Dan Wood, Motorola Inc.    My thoughts, not Moto's

wood@rtsg.mot.com

------------------------------


Hop substitutions

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 8:42:28 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Hop substitutions

Domenick asks about hop substitutions:

>I'm still trying to perfect that Fuller's clone and I am looking for a good

>substitution for British Northdown hops.  I've  used Cluster in the past

>but I'm underwelmed by the flavor contribution of Cluster.

>

>How about Styrian Goldings, or Pride of Ringwood?  Both of which are

>available locally (Seattle).  Kent Goldings?  Fuggles/Willamette?

>

>How about substitutions for Challenger and Target too?

>

>Since I have never encountered Northdown, Challenger, or Target I'm

>working in the dark on substitutions.  Can anyone recommend a good book

>on hop characteristics.  Gardening info is wasted pages.

Domenick, I've been working on the hops faq and I'm starting to come to the

conclusion that there are no hop substitutions.  There are many hops grown to

be genetically similar (Hallertau Mittelfruh being the most copied), and some

of the "copies" are good, and some are bad.  I suppose these copies can be

called substitutes, but its a personal choice.  There is also very little (read

"zero") literature describing flavor profiles of hops.  Unfortunately, we are

all working in the dark until we taste/smell the actual hops, which is why I'm

looking for commercial examples of each hop for the faq (its a tough job but

someone has to do it; I'm hoping this weekends GABF will help!).  BTW, many of

the hops you mention are fairly rare in the US (Northdown, POR) so even less

information is available on them.  So, the news is bad, but I'll wish you good

luck in your search.  Keep us informed.

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


Cider making equipment

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 93 11:15:22 EDT

From: rgsimms@aol.com

Subject: Cider making equipment

Like most newcommers to the HBD, I am looking for information.  Does anyone

have any information on cider making equipment (i.e. crushers and presses)?

How about plans to build one?  I have info from Happy Valley Ranch but don't

want to spend that much.  Please send info to RGSimms@aol.com or post here.

Thanks in advance.

Bob

------------------------------


Mashing out

Date:         Fri, 8 Oct 1993 10:46:44 CST

From: "Dennis Lewis" <DLEWIS%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject:      Mashing out

Thanks, chris and Dom for the refreshing look at what's really

necessary. For those of you who require the opinion of published

brewing experts, Terry Foster _Pale Ales_ says that a mash out

is unnecessary for most ales. Great news for the mash/lauter

tun crowd. He says the only reasons you need to do a mashout

is for a high viscosity wort or for a mash that has been decocted

and some of the filtering properties fo the husks is diminished.

The higher "mash-out" temps will get the sweet liquor to flow

better thru a less than ideal grain bed.

As far as I recall, there was no mention of denaturing enzymes,

completing reactions, etc. I'm going to try it today with my new

mash/lauter.

Dennis Lewis                    <dlewis%jscdh6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Re:  Yeast query

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1993 11:46:31 -0400 (EDT)

From: Scott Benton <sbenton@telerama.pgh.pa.us>

Subject: Re:  Yeast query

In HBD1239 David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu> wrote

>YeastLabs American Ale:

>  I recall someone asking for any experiences or reactions to this strain.  I

>have 5 gals of pale ale (og 40) in a secondary and the yeast head has yet to

>drop.  I racked from underneath the primary's yeast head and a new one grew in

>the secondary carboy.It has diminished some but this is my first experience w/

>the yeast and since it has been fermenting for a week, I just want to know what

>might be happening.  This batch got off on a rollicking start...I had signs o'

>fermentation within 3 hours and a yeast top-layer in about 7-8 hours (the power

>of aeration and 4 cups starter).  In sunny Madison, the tilt of the earth has

>lower the ambient temp. of my basement to 60-63 F.  Could the lower temp result

>in such a slowing of fermentation.  Before I could ferment for 1 week to 9 days

>and have clear beer to bottle....but that was before this yeast and temp change

>and recipe.

This is the first time I used this yeast.  My OG is about 55.  The main

thing I noticed about this strain is its _creaminess_.  With other

yeasts, I usually had a lot of bubbles, that died down relatively

quickly.  With this yeast the kraeusen was dense, creamy, and still

there when I racked to the carboy.  The head built up somewhat in the

carboy, but is now dying down.

Time in primary:  4 days

Time in carboy:   5 days so far

I'm fermenting at about 68F, and I'd say that the fermentation is going

more slowly than I typically see.

BTW, my supplier now only carries Yeast Lab liquid yeasts.  Is the

American Ale yeast the same as the Wyeast??

Scott D. Benton        sbenton@telerama.pgh.pa.us

------------------------------


Re: Mashout Heresy

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1993 09:06:02 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul deArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Re: Mashout Heresy

Amen!  I say !Amen! Brother Chris.

Consistancy is doing things the same.  Not mashing-out (in a consistant

manner) is consistant.

[alternately]

"Consistancy!  We don't need to show you no steenking consistancy!"

[or from another point of view]

"Conversion is conversion is conversion"

                         - Gertrude Beerstein

[finally]

Always killing a chicken at dawn on brewing days would be consistant too.

[coals to Newcastle, or heresy to Worms]

Let's go after the Porter category definition again....

Har de har har,

Paul de Armond

"Monism either exists or it doesn't"

   -- Rev. Perry 10X Mills _An essay against Dualism, Part 1 of 2_

                                                          (unpublished)

------------------------------


IMPERIAL STOUT

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 12:25:42 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: IMPERIAL STOUT

Bitterness in stout comes from two sources: the hops, and the dark

grains.  There are a number of things you can do to reduce it:

1. Cut down the hopping rate.  (Most likely cause of overbitterness.)

2. Use less dark malt.

3. Don't heat your dark grains to boiling (and DON'T boil them), just

steep them for 30 minutes in 160F water, then strain the liquid into

your boiling pot.

You can also add unfermentable sugars, which will make the beer

sweeter and reduce its apparent bitterness by:

1. Add more crystal malt.  Again, steep it in a sufficient quantity of

160F water (2 quarts water/lb of grain).

2. Add lactose.  I've never done this, so I can't recommend amounts.

That all said, Imperial Stout is a fairly bitter style.  I think a

typical one will come in at about 50-80IBUs. It's also very sweet.

Try Samuel Smith's for a classic example.

------------------------------


Is Mashing out necessary

Date: 8 Oct 93 18:02:54 GMT

From: GANDE@slims.attmail.com

Subject: Is Mashing out necessary

Stellar responses from Chris Campenelli re: mashing out and is it

necessary. By golly I don't do it either! For that matter I don't

even adjust my hydrometer readings for temperature variances. I can't

imagine the havoc being played with thoses OG's being off by a point

or 2. Come to think of it, I don't always use a secondary

fermentation. Nor will I bow to the ever gracious concept that one

must recirculate for clear wort. Won't decoct, protein rest, or

upward step infuse, either. Use a Corona not a roller mill and add an

extra handful of grain to make up for the lost extraction. Sparge by

dumping the water on the grain bed, not sprinkled with delicate

droplets, each 0.25ML in size. X:-O

I get 33 Points extraction, consistantly, from Domestic 2 row, and my

beer is consistantly very good based on the lineup consistantly at

the door!

Then again, if you enjoy doing all these things, brew away!!!

 ....

+----------------------------------+

| Internet: gande@slims.attmail.com|

| Glenn Anderson                   |

| Manager, Telecom. Facilities     |

| Sun Life of Canada               |

+----------------------------------+

------------------------------


oxidation/recipe woes/mashout/tun design vs. crush/Brussels?!?

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 12:54 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: oxidation/recipe woes/mashout/tun design vs. crush/Brussels?!?

Brian writes:

>Memphis, TN). I entered an extract based dry stout. It finished second with

>a score of 32. The main problem that the judges noted was that it had an

>oxidized aroma. I'm trying to figure out where this oxidation came from.

<procedure deleted, looked fine to me>

>Our bottle filler is one of those clear plastic tubes with the spring loaded

>white thingy on the end (another version of the clear tube with the spring

>loaded orange thingy on the end, I guess). This thing does cause the beer to

>foam a little on it's way into the bottle.

1. Is my bottle filler the culprit in my oxidation problems? If so, is there

something better out there?

This could be the problem, you could try raising up the bottle to just

below the level of the beer in the priming tank so your siphon runs slower

until the tip of the filler is covered in beer.  That's what I do.

2. Has anyone out there ever used those oxygen absorbing bottle caps?

Yes, but I've only noticed them increasing the life of my hop nose and

increasing the general shelf-live of the beer.

3. Is it possible that some extract manufacturers have HSA problems in the

manufacture of the extracts?

Yes, but it could also be the age of the extract and the storage temperature.

I know that extract syrup tends to darken as it ages and I'll bet that this

is partly caused by oxidation.

*********************************

Tom writes:

>Part of my reason for asking is that I might like to enter competitions

>myself, and I may also be interested in the AHA BJCP.  But observations like

>this make me wonder whether it would be worthwhile.  If the goal of the

>competition is to demonstrate brewing prowess, independent of whether the

>brew actually pleases anyone, well, then the style parameters make some

>sense.  But in that case, wou wouldn't even classify a beer into a category

>when its missed color, gravity, or IBUs specified for the category.  In other

>words, the competition coordinator looks at the stated parameters and says

>"this can't be considered Brown Ale, so it won't even be entered into

>competition." and the judges would never taste it (no matter how good it

>might be).  In an ideal world, the physical characteristics would actually be

>measured at the competition site, but I guess its hard to borrow an HPLC from

>the lab for the weekend 8-)

I have never been involved in a competition (nor would I ever tolerate one)

in which beers were excluded from judging.  This just doesn't happen.  As

far as I know, there are only two reasons for recipe forms:

1. publication of winning recipes, as in the case of the AHA Nationals, and

2. to try to prevent ringers, i.e. if an entry appears to have been a

re-packaged commercial beer, the competition organizers could check to see

if perhaps the recipe proves that the beer should be disqualified -- an expert

brewer can tell if a recipe and a beer really could match or not.  This is

not an easy task and I've yet to see anyone attempt it at a competition.

***********************

Chris writes:

>enough . . . oh never mind.  Suffice to say I'm one homebrewer who

>has yet to be convinced that mashing-out is necessary.  In fact, I

>think that mash-outs are an unnecessary step.

>

>Oh sure, I here the sniveling arguments of the imprisoned.  They

>usually fall into one of two categories:  "You have to stop enzyme

>activity" -or- "it allows you to obtain consistent results".

>

>Oh PUH-leez.  If you skip mash-out, how much extra starch

>conversion actually takes place while you sparge?  Is it

>noticeable?  And if this additional conversion IS noticeable then

>wouldn't you welcome the extra extract?  Consistent results?  Huh?

>Just how does mashing-out produce consistent results.

There, now that Chris and Dom's vapors have dissipated, we can get

on with the mash at hand.  Chris mentioned one of the benefits

of mashout (the debated one), but failed to mention the one on which

most of us agree, namely mashing out raises the temperature of the

mash much quicker than simply pouring sparge water and therefore

more quickly decreases the viscosity of the runnings.  Runnier runnings

mean faster sparging (without a loss of extract efficiency), less chance

of a set mash (stuck runoff) and more efficient extraction of sugars.

Remember, warm honey pours easier than cold honey.

*********************************

Jack writes:

 It is my contention that the bogyman is in the mash/lauter tun and not the

 grain mill.  Fortunately, I also sell the mash/lauter tun that makes all this

 possible.

I think you mean boogyman, but in any event, I must agree that the crush

and the lautering system are interrelated.  If you have a very fine lautering

screen (like the [Ee]asy[Mm]asher), a finer grist is better, whereas if you

have a coarse lautering screen (like the Zapap) you need something more like

the "textbook" crush.  The "textbook" crush (which has been posted here

before) has a wide distribution of particle sizes.  Actually, I feel that

only the husk pieces need to be of various size, that the starch particles

of the grain can be of a consistent (and small) size.  Remember that with

a fine lautering screen, you don't really need to rely on the husks to

create your filter bed.  With a coarse lautering screen, the filter bed

must first be established (before which you would be recirculating your

runnings).  The establishment of the filter bed is basically the setting

up of a network of husk particles where the large ones (the ones that do

not fit through the lautering screen) are at the bottom, and on top of

this lattice of large husks you trap the smaller husks.

So why then not use a very small screen and crush the dickens out of the

malt?  There's one piece of information that is missing, namely that

Jack uses a very thin mash.  This is important because a stiff (thick)

mash would just sit there and not make it through the lautering screen.

You can carry porridge in a sieve, right?

So why not just use a thin mash all the time?  Well, this is up for

debate.  In some cases, it's not possible due to equipment constraints

(high-gravity beers, etc.).  I've read (in Noonan, I believe) that

a stiffer mash favors Beta over Alpha Amylase (could someone check this --

I might have it backwards).

Finally, a fine lautering screen would increase the importance of breaking

down the really gummy components of some mashes (like all the beta-glucans

in an Oatmeal Stout, for example).  If you don't do the protein rest

correctly, you can try to make a really thin oatmeal-containing mash, but

still have a glob of barley-flavored oatmeal with some amber water on top,

that will sit in your lauter tun till it turns to cement.

*********************

Mike writes:

>        o nobody really knows how to make a lambic outside of Brussels.

Woah Mike, surely you mean outside the Zenne Valley!  Frank Boon brews some

very traditional lambieks in the town of Lembeek.

Al.

------------------------------


Fermentables/volume, what is reasonable?

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 11:08:49 PST

From: "Taylor Standlee" <standlee@humanitas.ucsb.edu>

Subject: Fermentables/volume, what is reasonable?

Can anyone give me some advice concerning brewing from high gravity worts.

I prefer like to brew full bodied brew and have been brewing extract/small

scale mash beer.  If I were to brew using 8 lbs of Light Syrup and a mash

of 3 lbs of Pale Malt, 1/2 lb of Dextrine Malt, 1 lb of Amber Crystal Malt

and 1 lb of Dark Crystal Malt, fermented with Wyeast's Chico/California Ale

Yeast for 5 gallons would I run into problems with off-flavors from too

much fermentable sugar or "other problems".

What are the some good parameters for brewing 5 gallon batches in terms of

the amount of fermentables for use with Ale yeasts?

Please reply by e-mail to me directly or via HBD.  THANKS

**********************************************************************

                            Taylor Standlee

                      standlee@humanitas.ucsb.edu

        Department of Germanic & Slavic Languages & Literatures

           Phone: (805)-893-2131        FAX: (805)-893-2374

**********************************************************************

------------------------------


STRAINING YOUR BREW

Date: 8 Oct 93 14:16:04-0400

From: MATTHEW.BOHNE@sprint.sprint.com

Subject: STRAINING YOUR BREW

I have one of those handy brew kits you get for Christmas with the 6 gal.

carboy. I realized after my 1st batch that I was getting a lot of haze in my

beer so I thought I might strain it prior to bottling. What I came up with has

 been REALLY NICE! I used one of those reusable GOLD plated coffee filters

(you can get them at any fancy coffee shop). I setup my 2nd carboy underneath

the 1st and placed the filter inside of a funnel (perfect fit) and drained off

the beer from the top, up to the last inch of trub. The filter is coarse

enough that the beer gets through but fine enough that it catches all the crud

that's still floating about. Since I've gone to this, I have truly had nothing

but crystal clear beer!

carboy diem

------------------------------


JUDGING

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 13:24 CDT

From: arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: JUDGING

 >From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

 >Subject: AHA Styles and Reality

 >Part of my reason for asking is that I might like to enter competitions

 myself, and I may also be interested in the AHA BJCP.  But observations like

 this make me wonder whether it would be worthwhile.

 Your comments provide the incentive to post my observations on the same

 subject.  Last weekend, my wife and I had the pleasure of serving as

 apprentice judges in a local competition.  I went with an attitude inclined

 toward becoming a qualified judge and wanted to learn what it was all about.

 We came home totally convinced that it is not our cup of tea for two reasons.

 First of all, it demands a great deal of time, is a lot of work, most of

 which is very boring and unenlightening.  We did however, gain a very healthy

 sense of gratitude for those dedicated individuals who are far less selfish

 of their time and make competitions possible.

 The real objection however, is based on the program and not the people or the

 results of the judging.

 It is preposterous to think that one can become a qualified judge of the very

 large number of official styles, with the time and qualifications required by

 the current program.  It is designed to create Jacks of all Trades and

 Masters of none.

 The only way one should be qualified to act as a judge of other people's

 beers is if he or she is truly an expert in the style.  The only way one can

 become an expert in a style is to live with it for a significant period of

 time.  Brew it, taste a wide range of commercial and homebrew versions and

 essentially do nothing else for months.  At that point, the candidate should

 be evaluated by another qualified expert in that style and this should

 include the ability to identify a recognized sample of that style in a blind

 tasting of mixed/similar styles.  Only then should that person be certified

 to judge that style and only that style.

 This may sound like a lot of trouble and hassle but I humbly suggest that it

 would be much more personally satisfying.  I would far rather be recognized

 as an expert in a style than have the dubious honor of being a certified

 judge.   I suspect many judges have done what I suggested but one never knows

 who they are because they are all treated equally.

 It may also create problems with judging styles for which no qualified judge

 happens to be present but the fallback position would be noting that point on

 the score sheet.

 Like I said earlier, it's not the people or the results that bother me.  Our

 light lager came in 2nd place and 4th best of show.  The problem is I don't

 know what it means.  Last year we came in first, in the same catagory with a

 much inferior beer.

 >From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

 >Oh PUH-leez.  If you skip mash-out, how much extra starch

 conversion actually takes place while you sparge?  Is it

 noticeable?  And if this additional conversion IS noticeable then

 wouldn't you welcome the extra extract?  Consistent results?  Huh?

 Just how does mashing-out produce consistent results.

 I agree that the reasons you quoted are not very rationial reasons for doing

 a mashout but there is one reason that I think is a good one.  By raising the

 whole mash 20 degrees or so, you stand a far better chance of keeping it in

 the optimum range during the lautering process.

 It's easy enough to do for those who kettle mash but it is probably not worth

 the trouble for the bucket infusers.

 js

------------------------------


BOQAT, farting, stoned, fashion, mash out, and farkleberries.

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1993 11:35:41 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: BOQAT, farting, stoned, fashion, mash out, and farkleberries.

In HBD 1243 Chris Campanelli wrote:

> I hereby nominate Mr. Domenick Venezia to be considered for

> acceptance into the Brotherhood Of Question Authority Types.  It's

> heartening to see someone question The Word.

I of course would welcome acceptance into the esteemed BOQAT, but really,

I feel the nomination is honor enough.  And I would like to state here, while

I have your attention and the pulpit, that although I have worked hard

though the years questioning what little authority I did not ignore, I am

at heart just a little person, a regular guy, who has no wish to become a

cultural icon and no wish to find the Emperor and/or his/her minions on my

doorstep late some rainy night in Seattle.  Also, my father is "Mr."

Domenick Venezia, I'm just Domenick, Dom, Demonick, or Wop-man.

> Go ahead and throw stones.  Me and Dom think the Emperor's new

> clothes suck.  We're standing-up and farting in the general

> direction of homebrewing dogma.  Well, at least I am.  Dom?

In all modesty I must admit to being an accomplished stone thrower myself,

and in my time have let rip with a world-class fart or two, though not in

mixed company, and certainly, as far as I could control it, not in anyone's

general direction, and never, never, never into the wind.  My fashion sense,

much to my parent's chagrin, leans toward the jeans and a tee-shirt look

(kinda Joe Coolish B-), so I wouldn't feign to comment on the Emperor's new

clothes except to say that s/he seems to like them and a lot of people

follow her/his lead.  Really, I just want to brew a Fuller's ESB clone, the

easiest way possible and if that means no mash out, then by god, that's

what I'll do.  Or rather not do.  Mash out I mean.  Not do one.

And a heartfelt thanks to Chris Campanelli (Happy Columbus Day, Paisano)

for the nomination, and without whom none of this would have been possible.

And finally, while looking up "feign" I came across -- well, anyone have a

recipe for farkleberry beer?

Should I apologize about the bandwidth?

Domenick Venezia B->

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Re: Hop substitutions

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 14:19:11 CDT

From: jay marshall <marshall@pat.mdc.com>

Subject: Re: Hop substitutions

Domenick Venezia writes:

>I'm still trying to perfect that Fuller's clone and I am looking for a good

>substitution for British Northdown hops.  I've  used Cluster in the past

>but I'm underwelmed by the flavor contribution of Cluster.

>

>How about Styrian Goldings, or Pride of Ringwood?  Both of which are

>available locally (Seattle).  Kent Goldings?  Fuggles/Willamette?

>

>How about substitutions for Challenger and Target too?

One of my local brewing supply places, DeFalco's Home Wine and Beer Supply

in Houston, has (or at least used to have) a "British Blend" which is made

of... you guessed it!  Northdown, Target, and Challenger!  Pellets only,

though.

Their phone number is (713) 523-8154.  They do mail order (with minimums,

I believe), and they may have an 800 # now.

- --

Jay

marshall@pat.mdc.com

------------------------------


Re: cheap carboys

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 14:28:04 CDT

From: jay marshall <marshall@pat.mdc.com>

Subject: Re: cheap carboys

Domenick Venezia writes:

(referring to St Pat's 7 gallon carboys)

>The only thing "wrong" with these carboys is that you can't use

>those nifty orange carboy cap things with the two tubes.

I've got one, and the other thing that gives me problems sometimes is

the fact that it is much bigger around than a 5 gallon carboy.  This means

that I can't leave a keg in my fridge while the 7 gal carboy is in there.

A buddy of mine has a 6.5 gallon carboy that is taller than a 5 gallon, but

about the same diameter. That would work much better for me at times.

- --

Jay

marshall@pat.mdc.com

------------------------------


smash the mash balderdash

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1993 14:43:24 -0500 (CDT)

From: Paul Boor <PBOOR@BEACH.UTMB.EDU>

Subject: smash the mash balderdash

Hoorah for Domenick Venezia and Chris Campanelli (is this an Italian thing?)!!

I agree the Emperor's butt is showing; we have acessible now such nice grains

that anyone can go to Kmart, buy themselves a cooler (mein GOTT!) and mash.

And they can omit about 24 of the 28 steps proposed by the Emperor's.  The

point to get across to extract brewers is that it's really pretty easy; sure

it's magical (rather than scientific, which it ain't), but that don't make it

difficult.

 Paul Boor

 Charter Member, EasyMasher Society

------------------------------


Science and Hops Utilization 1/2

Date: 8 Oct 1993 12:56:46 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Science and Hops Utilization 1/2

I realize this is a lot of post, but its only 1 day. Can't be that much of a

problem.

Use of Design-of-Experiments Techniques to Determine

Controlling Factors Affecting Hops Utilization and Resulting

Charactor.

- -----------

Fellow Brewing Scientists:

The recent discussions concerning which factors are most

significant to the final Hop Charactor of the beer and how they

can be manipulated by the homebrewer has brought to mind a

company sponsered class I took recently, "Design of

Experiments" (DOE). The methods taught in this class are used

by industry and researchers to better define a process, by

isolating and ranking the controlling factors that make up the

process. These methods can also identify significant

interactions between factors, such as Time and Temperature

acceleration. The beauty of using DOE is that it allows

significance and relationships of process factors to be

determined with far fewer experiments than standard

experimentation and scientific method. For example, let's say a

process was made up of 4 variables and 2 values of each

variable were to be tested. This would require 2 to-the 4th

power or 16 experiments to examine each possibility. Using DOE,

as many as 7 variables at two values could be examined

simultaneously with only 8 experiments! Statistics allows the

significance and relationships of the variables to be

determined.

What I propose to do here is list the methods and tables

necessary to perform 3 sets of DOE:

1.  Determine factors for Alpha Acid Utilization during the

Boil.

2.  Determine factors that affect Alpha Acids during

Fermentation.

3.  Determine factors for Hop Oil Utilization during Dry

Hopping in the Secondary.

The data measured from these experiments would be the parts per

million (ppm) of the Alpha Acids or Hop Oils as determined by

Liquid/Gas Chromatography. Since this equipment is not readily

available, this work would need to be carried out at a

University with the participation of an enthusiastic Homebrew

club.  Perhaps Michael Lewis' class(es) at UC Davis would be

interested.

DOE #1 - Utilization Factors During the Boil

- -----------------------------------------------

Factors to be evaluated:

A. Wort Gravity

B. Wort Volume

C. Time of Boil

D. Wort pH

E. % Alpha Acids of Hop

F. Amount of Hop

G. Interaction of Wort Gravity to Wort Volume

Two values would be tested for each of these factors. The test

table will look like this (below) where Experiment Number is on

the left, and Factors are across the top. The plus 1, minus 1

indicate which value (high or low) for that factor will be used

in that test. The table is rigid, interchange anything and it

will throw the statistical analysis off. The Factor Columns are

identified by the letters given to the Factors listed aboue.

      A    B    G    C    E    F    D

- -------------------------------------

1)   -1   -1    1   -1    1    1   -1

2)   -1   -1    1    1   -1   -1    1

3)   -1    1   -1   -1    1   -1    1

4)   -1    1   -1    1   -1    1   -1

5)    1   -1   -1   -1   -1    1    1

6)    1   -1   -1    1    1   -1   -1

7)    1    1    1   -1   -1   -1   -1

8)    1    1    1    1    1    1    1

Part I- Process Mean

Each test batch will be concocted by using a high or low level

of the factor as the table dictates. Once the data (Alpha Acid

ppm) is collected for each test, the data is averaged in the

following manner:

1. Each Test that used the (low) value of Factor (A) would be

averaged together to yield (Aavg(-1)). In this case, the data

for Tests 1-4 would be used. Likewise, each Test that used the

(high) value of factor (A) would be averaged to yield

(Aavg(+1)). This would be tests 5-8. The other Factors would be

averaged the same way. Ex. (Cavg(+1)) would be tests 2, 4, 6

and 8.

2. If two (or more) samples are tested from each batch, all of

that data would be accounted for in the average. Ex. If three

samples are analyzed from each Test Run (batch), then those

values for Test run (7) would be averaged, i.e. ((7a + 7b + 7c)

/ 3) and that average would be used to determine the overall

average for that factor(value), as described in Step 1.

3. Also, determine the Total data average for all the test

runs. EVERYTHINGavg  This will be used in the prediction

equation later.

4. Next, for each factor, determine the DELTA between the

averages of the High value and the Low value. Ex. (Aavg(+1)) -

(Aavg(-1)) = Adelta.

Include the negative sign if High minus Low gives a negative

number. Calculate deltas for the other Factors, also. This info

would be used later in the Prediction Equation in Part III.

5. OPTIONAL STEP: Divide those deltas by two. This permits

easier analysis if the numbers are large, that's all. It

doesn't change the analysis results and may not be necessary

depending on your numbers.

Example:

   run   A     B     C     M1     M2     Mavg

   --------------------------------------------

   1    -1    -1     1     20     30     25

   2     1    -1    -1     9      11     10

   3    -1     1    -1     26     24     25

   4     1     1     1     15      5     10

   --------------------------------------------

Mavg(+) 10   17.5  17.5

Mavg(-) 25   17.5  17.5

Delta   15     0     0

Delta/2 7.5    0     0

6. Next, the Averages for each Factor(value) will be plotted as

below. This allows the analyst to determine relative

significance. I will plot a generic example, since we don't

have any real numbers and the last example doesn't use enough

factors. I WILL use this plot later to illustrate the analysis.

100 !                    #Plot 1#

    !

    !          *

    !            /

    !              *                *

50  !                              /

    !      *                      /

    !    /             *---*     /          (first rate

    !  *                        /             plot, eh?)

    !                          *

0   !___________________________________

       A-  A+  B-  B+  C-  C+  D-  D+  etc...

What this tells the analyst is that the data average moved

positively for an increase to Factor A; negatively for Factor

B; unchanged for Factor C; and very positively for Factor D.

Factor C would seem to be insignificant to the process.

------------------------------


Science and Hops Utilization 2/2

Date: 8 Oct 1993 13:02:17 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Science and Hops Utilization 2/2

Use of Design-of-Experiments Techniques to Determine

Controlling Factors Affecting Hops Utilization and Resulting

Charactor.

- -----------

Part II- Process Variability.

The next part of the analysis determines the Factors influence

on Variability. The plot above, of course, looks at influence

on Mean.

To perform the variability analysis, several trials of each

experiment run would need to be performed, the data averaged,

and a standard deviation for those trials of that run

calculated. In this project, the extra data could be obtained

by measuring several samples of the same batch of wort, or by

preparing a few batches of each test run and testing each. The

latter would be more statistically significant.

Here is an example data table for 3 factors tested at two

values. M# refers to Measurement result. S is standard

deviation of M1 and M2 of that run. Remember, the plus 1, minus

1 only indicates whether a high or low value for that factor

was tested.

run   A   B   C   M1   M2   Mavg   S

- ---------------------------------------

1    -1  -1   1   20   30   25    7.071

2     1  -1  -1   9    11   10    1.414

3    -1   1  -1   26   24   25    1.414

4     1   1   1   15    5   10    7.071

1. For each factor, the natural log of the standard deviation

will be used in the following equation. A value will be

calculated for each Factor(value) by using each run where that

Factor(value) was used.

2. Avg ln(S A(+1)) = [ln (S run2) + ln (S run4)] / 2

                   = [ln (1.414) + ln (7.071)] / 2 = 1.15

   Avg ln(S A(-1)) = [ln (S run1) + ln (S run3)] / 2

                   = [ln (7.071) + ln (1.414)] / 2 = 1.15

(the simplicity and symmetry of the numbers of this example make this

 confusing, but bear with me)

3. Do this calculation for the other Factor(values) and

generate the following table: where Avg Delta = Avg ln(S A(+1))

 - Avg ln(S A(-1))

             A        B      C

- --------------------------------

Avg (+)    1.15     1.15    1.95

Avg (-)    1.15     1.15    .35

- --------------------------------

Avg Delta    0        0     1.6

4. These results tell the analyst that Factors A and B have no

effect on process variability, but that Factor C does have a

significant effect. In other cases, Avg Delta for A and B may

have been small- 0.2 and 0.6, let's say. Factor C would still

be dominant at 1.6, but Factor B may also be significant to the

process variability at 0.6.

5. IMPORTANT: If a factor's Mean analysis shows no significance

(as in Factor C of Plot 1, a horizontal line) or small

significance, it still may have High significance to process

variability. Therefore, when optimizing the process, the value

of that factor which gave the least variability should be used.

In the case of the table above, (for Factor C) the Avg(-) value

should be used, as it is the smaller number (smaller deviation)

of the two for that factor. Thus Factor C should be utilized at

the lower value in the process.

Part III - Prediction Equation.

The prediction equation allows you to predict the response of

the process from a given combination of factors and values.

Only the factors that have been shown to be signicant (either

process Mean or Variability) are used. Values for the Factors

can be chosen to either Minimize, Maximize or Target the

response of the process.

Let's say we want to Maximize the response, get the best

utilization from the boil. Going back to Part I, chose the

values of the factors that gave the highest data average. In

this case: A+, B-, D+, etc. Furthermore, let's assume that

after doing the analysis per Part II, that Factor C (of the

example in Part I) was shown to be significant to process

variability and that value for least variability was C+. This

would also be used in the following Prediction Equation.

(use the hypothetical Mean values of Plot 1: A+ = 40, B+ = 60,

C+ = 32, D+ = 60; A- = 20, B- = 80, C- = 29, D- = 10) (Also

note that for math example neatness, Factor C (line) is no

longer horizontal, but slightly positive.)

                       Aavg(+) - Aavg(-)

Best = EVERYTHINGavg + -----------------[A+/-] +

                               2

      Aavg(+) - Aavg(-)         Aavg(+) - Aavg(-)

      -----------------[B+/-] + -----------------[C+/-] +

              2                         2

  Aavg(+) - Aavg(-)                 40 - 20        60 - 80

 -----------------[D+/-] = 41.25 + ---------[1] + ---------[-1]

          2                            2              2

       32 - 29         60 - 10

   + -----------[1] + ---------[1] =

          2               2

= 41.25 + 10[1] + (-10)[-1] + 1.5[1] + 25[1] = 87.75  *DONE*

FINAL NOTE:

Design of Experiments is rather complicated. What I have

presented here is a basic use of the system. In the interest of

bandwidth, I will not present the other two experiments for

Primary and Secondary Fermentations. What would be done after

all three phases of investigation were completed; each phase of

Utilization- Boil, Primary and Secondary, would be compared to

determine greatest significance to overall hop charactor.

Indeed, another DOE could be run at that point to determine

that relationship. If any Homebrew Clubs are up to the

challenge, you can contact me by email for the rest of the

info. Furthermore, I will enlist the help of the guy that

actually taught the class, so that all your questions about

applying DOE to this much debated problem can be better

answered and investigated. Thank you for your patience,

John

palmer#d#john.ssd-hb_#l#15&22#r#@ssdgwy.mdc.com

"I'm an engineer, Captain, I canna help myself..." -Scotty

------------------------------


calculating beer color

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1993 15:22:22 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: calculating beer color

In a recent hbd, Tom Leith made a number of points on

brewing to style.  I want to comment on one aspect of his

comments, namely, calculating the color of beer.  To wit:  the

linear math that we use to calculate the "expected" color of

beer is wrong.  This point is made by George Fix in George

and Laurie Fix's "Vienna" book.

As an example, Fix points out that Bass Ale is 10 Lovibond

and Michelob Dark is 17 Lovibond.  Thus, these two beers

serve as benchmarks for evaluating the color range from

amber to dark copper, say.

Suppose we look at a Vienna grain bill for a 5-gallon batch

and its expected color:

9 pounds pilsner malt (1.78 L)  3.29

6 ounces crystal 10L  0.75

6 ounces crystal 60L  4.5

6 ounces crystal 120L  9

Total = 17.54L as the expected color.  Now, as a matter of

fact, the above grain bill will produce a beer close to Bass Ale

in color.  The linear color math is wrong, and overstates the

expected color of the beer.

For light beers, linear color math is a useful approximation;

for dark beers, it's more or less irrelevant; and for amber

beers, it's wrong enough to matter.

As for the grain bill of brown ales, surely crystal malt should

be featured for its color and flavor contributions.  Some

chocolate malt, up to a level of a few ounces, would probably

be okay.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1244, 10/11/93

*************************************

-------


Kegging systems

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 14:40:32 CDT

From: hplabs!mcdcup!tellabs.com!don

Subject: Kegging systems

For anyone who might be interested, I recently put

together a kegging system for a very reasonable amount.

First I orders three soda kegs from DeFalco's in Texas for

35.00 plus shipping. I believe they sell both pin and

ball locks. You can also buy them individually for 15.00

each. I also ordered a set of O-rings for each keg.

Then, I called up BCI Industries and ordered a used,

steel, co2 cylinder for 35.00 plus shipping. I sorta know

this guy who cleaned beer taps at a local bar I frequent

and he was kind enough to give me a ton of assorted clamps,

fittings, bar faucet, sankey tap and a cleaning brush. He also

gave me some 5/16 gas tubing and 3/16 product line with it.

In that box was also some special tools to crush the clamps

and a special wrench to tighten fittings on the bar tap.

All this and two 8 gallon wine kegs for 30 bucks... not bad.

I bought a picnic faucet at the local brewstore for about 5 bucks

and wala... now I have a kegging system. In the process, I also

aquired two SS half barrels. The half barrels, I know

what I can do with :-) but anyone know what I could use the 8

gallon SS wine kegs for??? Be NICE !!!!

They have a single sanke fitting on top just like the half

barrels do.

Below are the names and numbers of those who helped me:

DeFalco's Of Houston

713-523-8154 (Conrad)

BCI

1-800-284-9410 (Chuck)

Both numbers as well as others I called were gleened off the

HBD, many thanks to those who posted them.

I have no affiliation with either of these companys other

than being a satisfied customer. After kegging and force

carbonating two brews - believe you me -- I'm satisfied. Bottling

is a drag!! Does anyone know where to get a good counter

pressure bottle filler??? :-)

good luck!

don

------------------------------


extra copper tubing (was Re: chill concentrated wort)

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 16:52:54 CDT

From: jay marshall <marshall@pat.mdc.com>

Subject: extra copper tubing (was Re: chill concentrated wort)

Jim Grady writes:

>I made an immersion chiller from 50' of copper tubing and some siphon

>tubing and some random fittings all for about $30.  I used 50' because

>some of the plans I had seen called for 40' and 50' was cheaper than

>40'.  Furthermore, I had no idea what else I would use the extra 10' for

                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>and figured it could only help.

I used my extra 10' to cool the water going into the immersion chiller.  This

was to deal with the 85 degree "cold" water temp coming out of the tap here

in Houston during the summer.  I fill the sink up with ice water, and run

water from the tap, through the 10' length in the ice bath, and from there

into the immersion chiller.

- --

Jay

marshall@pat.mdc.com

------------------------------


Re:Rager Number Error

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1993 20:37:05 -0700

From: b_regent@holonet.net

Subject: Re:Rager Number Error

In response to Mark Garetz on Rager's Number Error;

In looking at the conversion between metric and english units,

there does appear to be an error with the conversion factor of

7462. To my best calculation, this factor should be 7490.

In reality, the difference betweens these numbers means nothing

in any practical sense to the homebrewer, as they are so slight.

The error probably occured in the rounding of either Grams to OZ

or liters to gallons.

b_regent@holonet.net (bob)

- ---

 ~ KingQWK 1.05 ~

------------------------------


beer soup

Date: Sat, 09 Oct 1993 10:57:53 -0500 (cdt)

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: beer soup

Awhile back, someone was asking about cardamom, so when I saw this recipe in

the "Old Depot Mail Car" (the newsletter of the Old Depot pub/restaurant &

Dallas County Brewing Company in Adel, Iowa), I couldn't resist posting it.

SWEDISH BEER SOUP

12 oz Old Depot Ale

2 qts. milk

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup molasses

1/4 tsp ginger

10-12 whole cardamom seeds

Rinse kettle in cold water to prevent milk from scorching.  Pou 6 cups of

milk into kettle and bring to a boil, stirring frequently.  Blend the rest of

the milk with the flour to make a smooth, thin paste - add to the boiling

milk stirring briskly to avoid lumps.  Reduce heat and let the soup simmer

ten minutes.  In another pan, bring the Ale, molasses and condiments to a

boil.  Combine the two mixtures while beating vigorously with an eggbeater.

Taste for additional sweetness [but it doesn't say what to do about this].

Serve frothing in soup plates with gingersnaps as a complement.  Serves

eight.

Note: This is a pungent, sweet soup which is served in Sweden as a dessert.

According to old-country custom, it is frequently the Good Friday dessert.

It is one of those dishes you either like very much or not at all.  The woody

covering of cardamom seeds have a peculiarly pleasing aroma in this

combination.

 * * * * * * *

For the record, the Old Depot Ale is light in color and fairly bland (i.e.,

it's purportedly dry-hopped, but it must be at an extremely low rate as it's

not even noticeable, especially by left-coast standards, and it's not very

estery either... to my admittedly undereducated palate it could pass for a

well-made but not very interesting lager -- now the Old Depot Porter, on the

other hand, is quite flavorful, by I don't imagine it would be very good in

this soup).

Another note on cardamom is that there is some lore floating around that

holds cardamom to be one of the "secret" ingredients in Anchor Christmas Ale,

although since it's a different recipe every year, I don't know how reliable

that rumor may be.  Personally, I would try it in beer but haven't yet.

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


underpitching

Date: Sat, 09 Oct 1993 12:18:59 -0500 (cdt)

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: underpitching

The recent thread on pitching rates is of interest to me.  I have been

plagued for the last few batches not so much by long lag times, but by

awfully "gentle" (i.e., not anything remotely deserving the description

"explosive") and sometimes rather l  o  n  g fermentations, often with

slightly high terminal gravities (mid-teens on O.G.'s in the low 40's).

Could this be a function of underpitching?  It has occurred to me that it

could be under-aerating as well, or perhaps both.

For better aeration, I plan to make a "carburetor" out of a plastic tube as

has been described here many times.  I have thought I might also try boosting

my starters a little more.  This would make some sense for me as I have

latley taken to splitting my Wyeast package into several bottled cultures

which are held in the fridge until I re-start them with fresh wort prior to

pitching.

My typical procedure is to boil up one cup of D.M.E. in a solution which,

after some evaporation, turns out around 750-800 ml.  Should I use more

D.M.E. in the first place?  Or should I step-up the first starter into a

second?  If I do that, do I make a stronger solution the second time (as in

more extract per volume of water)?  I'd love to hear from anyone who wishes

to share their experience and expertise on this subject as a fellow-

chronically-underpitching-homebrewer.

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Mash out

Date: Sat, 9 Oct 93 16:40:18 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@chopin.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Mash out

I would be very curious to see Chris Campanelli attempt to brew, let's

say, a wheat beer with 70%+ wheat malt without a mash out (was his post

tongue in cheek or not?).  I know from experience attempting to sparge

after forgetting to mashout, or attempting to remove a lauter decoction

through a false bottom, that any mash with a significent protein content will

cause a stuck sparge without a mash out.  The point of a mash out is to denature

all proteins, not just enzymes.  The viscosity really decreases as well,

and I suspect that extract efficiency improves due to the greater solubility

at higher temperatures.

I am sure that it may be possible to sparge a 100% barley malt mash without

a mashout but I would suspect that the extra time the sparge would

take would be greater than the time saved by ommitting the mash-out, and

perhaps efficiency would be less.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


Hop Utilization

Date: Sat, 9 Oct 93 14:50:50 PDT

From: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards)

Subject: Hop Utilization

Mark Garetz writes (in HBD #1240):

| To summarize, then, it appears that low boil volume (regardless

| of the SG) gives less utilization, but *boil* gravity has no effect.

Al Korzonas replies (in HBD #1241):

| WRONG!  PERIOD!

|

| I have a two brewing logbooks (with my respective tasting notes) and a file

| folder full of BJCP judges' comments that contradict Mark's contention.

Mark Garetz replies (in HBD #1242):

| Finally, I'll deal with Al's comments off-line.

Please, don't take it off-line!  I am very interested in getting to the

truth on the subject of bitterness utilization.  There are a few

contradictions between Mark's research and other brewers' experience,

not to mention "conventional wisedom".  I don't know who to beleive.

Rager's article is clearly in question.  Does anyone know where he got

his utilization numbers?  Where did all those formulae dome from?

Back in June, Glenn Tinseth reported that he was working on a research

project to settle some of these issues scientifically.  He was doing

experiments in a reputable Oregon hop lab.  Whatever came of that?  Is

Glenn still around?

Please, let's get to the bottom of this.

 -Alan

------------------------------


hopfest '94

Date: Sun, 10 Oct 93 11:01:38 EDT

From: adempr@sn520.utica.ge.com (Michael P. Rausch)

Subject: hopfest '94

This is an item that is mostly a concern to central New Yorkers but here it

is anyway:

The Madison County Historical Society is planning a Hopfest for 1994.

There will a planning meeting on:

Thursday Oct. 14, 1993 at 7:00 PM ET  at:

Madison County Historical Society

Cottage Lawn

435 Main St.

Oneida, NY 13421

Phone Barb Evans at 315-363-4136, Tues-Fri 1:00-5:00 pm for further details.

Oneida and Madison Counties (Central New York state) were once a major hop

growing region.  There is some question as to the hop varities that were grown

here.  The Historical Society maintains some hop vines and is harvesting a crop

this year.  Some of these hops may be availible to brew with.

There may be a homebrew contest associated with the hopfest (maybe Nov. 1994).

I expect people from all over the country to attend this colossial event so get

your plane tickets right away. :-)     Thanks.

mike r.

------------------------------


Yeast Question

Date: Sun, 10 Oct 93 19:15:00 EDT

From: roberts735@aol.com

Subject: Yeast Question

I have been following the More-Yeast-Is -Better yeast discussion and have a

question.

Last batch I pitched 3X my normal, and had a great start, but a very fast

finish.  The questions are..  If normal fermentation ends when the sugar is

converted, then the time to completion can be reduced with more yeast...

true?  if so, what is the practical limit to this?  is faster always better?

can there be too fast?

RobertS735@aol.com

------------------------------


funny fermentation

Date: Sun, 10 Oct 93 23:40:20 -0400

From: <geotex@engin.umich.edu>

Subject: funny fermentation

Okay, I am having a problem with my fermentation.

I am brewing an Old Ale.  I did my primary in a 6 gallon

glass carboy.  At about 2 days after fermentation started,

(it took a little long to start) I racked to my 5 gallon

glass secondary.  It was chugging along at about 1 bubbble

every 10 seconds or so.  I did not have time to bottle right

away so it sat in the secondary 2-3 weeks.  Last night,

when I decide to bottle, I opened up my closet and POW!

it was fermenting again at a pretty rigorous level.  I had

to replace the airlock with a blowoff tube.

So my question is:  Is this somewhat common?  It sounds like

it could be an infection to me, but I am not sure.  Ther

e are no off aroumas pouring out.  At this point, I guess

I can only let it continue to ferment and hopefully it

will stop in the next week or so.

Please e-mail me with a reply (if you have one).  I am not

sure how to proceed.

Thanks

Alex

geotex@engin.umich.edu

------------------------------


Mashout & Algebra

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 93 09:05:08 EDT

From: Bob_McIlvaine@keyfile.com

Subject: Mashout & Algebra

Well, with all the controversy on mash-out and

algebra that's been flying around I decided to put

in my $.02. I think we should try to remember that

most of us got into home brewing because we

wanted a better beer and wanted to have some

getting it. I don't use a mash out, I figure it'll be

hot real soon anyway. Then again, (as most

of my cohorts in BFD will tell you) I'm a tech-no

weeny and have an overkill gravity fed,

multi-burner, IC controlled re-circ mashing

pico-brewery in my garage. I built it from

scratch, not because it was required to produce

better brew, but because it was fun, for me at least.

Beer making has been going on for centuries,

without algebra and statistically designed

experiments. But if you enjoy making your

beer and having fun with numbers or you

feel mash-out is the Way, so be it. Just enjoy

your art.

------------------------------


Brewing Equipment suppliers (UK)

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 93 15:18 BST

From: AGENT COOPER <CENSWM@vaxa.hw.ac.uk>

Subject: Brewing Equipment suppliers (UK)

Hi,

First time on this list, but a BIG question (to me anyway)

I've been making my own beer for a few years in 5 gallon batches, using a burco

type boiler etc.

I want to move up in scale a bit and have often wondered about starting my own

micro brewery. But where to start? Does anyone know of some good reference

material/ books on starting a brewing business (small scale, brew pub etc)

Where would I find out about suppliers of hardware etc, I just cant find much

info in the home brew magazines I've been looking at, but I may be looking at

the wrong ones.

What sort of capacity do the brew pubs in the 'States have like, how many

gallons a week etc?

Any general advice welcome.

Stuart

=========================================================================

Stuart Munn

Heriot-Watt University

Edinburgh

Scotland, EH14 4AS

031 451-3265

031 451-3261 FAX

E-Mail censwm@UK.AC.HW.CLUST

=========================================================================

------------------------------


SLOW counterflow

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1993 10:27:51 -0400 (EDT)

From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

Subject: SLOW counterflow

Greetings:

 Well, after 7+ years of cooling my wort in the bathtub, I finally

decided to make a wort chiller.  I decided on a counterflow design because

it is supposed to be more efficient and because I cant imagine it is

really as hard to sterilize as some maintain.  I had a design for one from

one of the zymurgy special issues (all grain brewing?) and it looked

straightforward.  One question I had was what is the optimal length for

the thing?  Zymurgy says 20 ft in their article.  Dave Miller in his book

says it must be at least 40 ft.  I looked into prices for copper tubing,

etc, and determined that, economies of scale being what they are, it was

worth it to build a longer one. I bought 50ft of garden hose (a lot

cheaper than tygon tubing), 50 ft of 1/4" copper tubing, and built a 40 ft

chiller (10 feet of the hose going to the connecting lines).

 Well, I used the contraption a few days later. It certainly did a

fine job of cooling the wort, but it is SLOOOOOW.  It took about 50

minutes for 5 gallons of wort to pass through this baby!  This is not much

faster than my bathtub method (although I recognize that each little bit

of wort cools down very fast indeed, contributing to a good cold break).

All the while the water is running and I am feeling guilty about wasting

so much, and besides I hoped that building this thing would save me some time.

 One possibility that I am considering is that the thing is a lot

longer than it has to be; could i cut it in half and make two chillers,

each of which would run considerably faster?  Or is this slow speed pretty

much the norm for these things?  If so I am seriously considering

"downgrading" to an immersion chiller.

 Another general question that I have is how do people direct the

wort into their counterflow chillers.  In the past I always imagined that

i would just hook it up in series with my hopback, but recent talk about

the evils of hot-side aeration have spooked me on this idea.  The

alternative is to siphon directly from the brew kettle, but this has its

own problems (the old mouth-on-the-siphon-hose conundrum, and the problem

of hops clogging the chiller (yes, I know about the chore boy solution but

it seems to me that that is going to leave a lot of hard-earned wort in

the kettle)).  So, what do people do about that?

 Any and all information would be appreciated.  So far, I am

looking back longingly on my inefficient but simple bathtub...

        Dave.

------------------------------


Schmidling Rebuttal (was JUDGING)

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 93 10:17:03 EDT

From: mferts@taec.com (Mike Fertsch)

Subject: Schmidling Rebuttal (was JUDGING)

arf@genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling) talks about Subject: JUDGING

>Last weekend, my wife and I had the pleasure of serving as apprentice

>judges in a local competition... First of all, it demands a great deal of

>time, is a lot of work, most of which is very boring and unenlightening.

I find that judging helps me learn a lot about brewing and tasting.  I learn

what makes a good example of a style and what makes a bad example.  By

critically evaluating lots of beers (good and bad), I learn how to make

my beer better.  I owe a lot of my brewing success on judging at competitions.

It is neither boring nor unenlightening.

> The only way one should be qualified to act as a judge of other

> people's beers is if he or she is truly an expert in the style.  The

> only way one can become an expert in a style is to live with it for a

> significant period of time.  Brew it, taste a wide range of commercial and

> homebrew versions and essentially do nothing else for months.

Ideally, judges ARE experts in the styles they are judging.  This is

particularly important in BIG competitions where the judge needs to split

the finer hairs, determining which of several remarkable, in-style beers

match a) the published style descriptions, and/or b) the commerical

beers of particular geographical regions.

In most smaller competitions, most entries are not remarkable

reproductions of the world-class beers.  Experts with months of

intensive training are not needed to judge these.  Every judge in the

program knows broadly what pilsners are supposed to taste like.  If a

sour, amber, flat, fruity beer is served to the judge, he/she can

comment on it without living and drinking in Pilsen for months.  Judges

need to know what certain defects taste like, and they need to broadly

know what each style can and can not have in its flavor/appearance

profiles.

> At that point, the candidate should be evaluated by another qualified

> expert in that style and this should include the ability to identify a

> recognized sample of that style in a blind tasting of mixed/similar

> styles.

Many homebrew judges can do this exact thing.  In our club, we often

get together to judge homebrews in a particular style.  We always throw

commerical ringers in the flight.  Served blind, we have several judges

who can a) pick the ringers (usually not too difficult), and b)

identify which specific commercial beers the ringers are.  We had a

specialty beer contest yesterday, and we included an old bottle of

Anchor Christmas beer.  One judged identified it as an Anchor Christmas

Ale, and when asked for the year, said "Tastes like a 1986".  Bingo.

Not bad for a judge that admittedly does not like Anchor Christmas

Ales.

My point here is that certain judges are EXPERTS, and can pick beers out

of a lineup.  These judges are those who have high levels in the BJCP

program, and are often called to judge big competitons and best-of-show

competitions.  Other judges have broad knowledge of the styles, are familar

with good and bad tastes, and know what the words on the style descriptions

mean.  A broad knowledge of styles, a good palate, and a good understanding

of what can go wrong in beers is more than adequate for judging almost

all competitons.  This is what the BJCP fosters.

> Like I said earlier, it's not the people or the results that bother

> me.  Our light lager came in 2nd place and 4th best of show.  The

> problem is I don't know what it means.  Last year we came in first, in

> the same catagory with a much inferior beer.

What did the judges say on their evaluation sheets?  Every year, the

quality of homebrews inproves markedly.  Winners of competitons a few

years ago would not get a second thought if judged today.  If you want

to keep winning, you have to keep improving.

How was this competition run?  How many entries?  Most competitions

have one entry from each style in the best-of-show round.  A second

place light lager is normally not judged in the best-of-show, and would

never be "4th best of show".

Mike Fertsch

------------------------------


brew sights in England/Scotland/Ireland

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 93 07:58:15 PDT

From: Going to England/Scotland/Ireland  11-Oct-1993 1053 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: brew sights in England/Scotland/Ireland

Hi folks,

I'm heading off to Ireland, England and Scotland for 3+ weeks of holiday

(vacation).  I've been to the Emerald Isle twice before on business, so

this time I'll have some time to play.

I'm interested in noteworthy places in these 3 countries in the beer

business.  I'd like to do maybe 2-3 brewery tours (if you recommend one,

please give me all the info on it yo know).  I'd like to go to some

pubs known for serving the best brew, etc.

We're country folk, so we'll be spending much of the time out of the

cities.  I know this probably doesn't go well with going to the best

pubs, but, I digress...  I'd still like to hear about the good pubs,

even if they're in the city.

Please direct your responses to:  ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com

JC FERGUSON

DIGITAL

Littleton MA USA

------------------------------


Regulators,  Beer mix, and enamel pots.

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 93 10:53:10 EDT

From: andrewb6@aol.com

Subject: Regulators,  Beer mix, and enamel pots.

Recently I acquired (read: given by good friend) a two guage oxygen regulator

that had previously been used for welding purposes.  One guage reads from 0

to 90lbs, while the other reads from 0 to about 3000lbs as I recall

(actually, the high pressure side has a dual scale and reads gas flow and/or

pressure).  I realize that the part that fits onto the tank may have the

incorrect thread, however this piece is removeable and I'm sure I can find a

new fitting to match the tank.  Would this regulator be suitable for kegging

purposes?  Can I expect any noticeable off flavors, or contamination problems

due to the fact that this has been used for welding?

I believe the beer mix is a nitrogen and C02 mix, and will reduce the

problems with over carbonation of beer, if the keg is kept on tap for a

prolonged period.  This sounds great, as I prefer my beers with little

carbonation anyway, (I am a native Briton after all).  However, are there any

disadvantages to using a Nitrogen/C02 mix.

Has anyone tried mounting a "Slotted T drain" in an enamel-on-steel pot?

Obviously welding is out of the question, and I imagine that

chipping/splintering of the enamel would be a problem too, but are there any

fittings (perhaps an o-ring or a compression type) that will be strong, seal

well, and still hold up to the rigors of boiling wort?

Thanks in Advance:

Andrew Baird

AndrewB6@aol.com

(A good pilot is one who's made the same number of landings as take-offs!)

------------------------------


GABF Denver

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 93 11:15:53 EDT

From: gorman@aol.com

Subject: GABF Denver

FYI to all attending future Great American Beer Festivals.

The members only tasting on Saturday afternoon at the  GABF was definitely

the place to be. Uncrowded conditions allowed relaxed tasting and

conversation with the brewers. By comparison, Saturday night was a zoo.

Did anyone go on Friday night? What was it like then?

P.S. for Denver-area brewers. The Corning outlet at Castle Rock (off I-25)

has 5 gal carboys for $8.99.

Bill Gorman

------------------------------


Guarenteed Easiest Label Remover

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 93 11:36:00 -0400

From: edo@marcam.com (Ed Oriordan)

Subject: Guarenteed Easiest Label Remover

To remove labels from bottles.  I fill a bucket full of really hot water

and then dump in about half a bottle of ammonia.  Then I put the

bottles in the bucket, and let sit for about 1/2 hour.  After they

have been sitting the labels just about fall of (some actually do).

I then use one of those scotch bright pads to clean of the remaining glue,

while rinsing.

DO NOT - NEVER EVER - MIX chlorine bleach and ammonia.  It produces a toxic

gas.

Ed O'

------------------------------


Booby vs Bogy

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 93 11:20 CDT

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Booby vs Bogy

 mailx -s "Boogy vs Bogy homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >I think you mean boogyman, but in any event.....

 Funny you should mention that because I researched the word which I am using

 in the title of an article I am writing.  "Boogy" is a musical term and

 refers to a type of jazz and a "boogyman" would be someone who plays or

 dances to it although no such word is described in my dictionary.

 "Bogy" is a type of gremlin, hobgoblin or other bad actor who keeps throwing

 wrenches into gear boxes.  It is also the term adopted by fighter pilots to

 identify an enemy plane.   It is pronounced with a long "o" but I find no

 reference to a "bogyman" in my dictionary either.  It seems to be redundant

 corruption and although I try to change people's brewing habits, I don't have

 time to change the American language.

 Unless someone comes up with something convincing, I will stick with bogyman.

 >If you have a very fine lautering screen (like the [Ee]asy[Mm]asher), a

 finer grist is better, whereas if you have a coarse lautering screen (like

 the Zapap) you need something more like the "textbook" crush.

 This is a common misconception of the filtering process as regards lautering

 of mash.

 ALL of the filtering is done by the husk material and the only purpose for

 the screen or false bottom is to keep the big chunks from clogging up the

 spigot while the filter bed is establishing itself.  Once the bed is

 established and the wort runs clear, it serves no purpose whatever.

 If one were to rely on the screen to do the filtering, it would have to be

 huge (about the size [volume] of the grain bed) to avoid getting hopelessly

 clogged in a very short time. This would be particularly true if it were fine

 enough to provide clear wort by itself.

 >There's one piece of information that is missing, namely that

 Jack uses a very thin mash.  This is important because a stiff (thick)

 mash would just sit there and not make it through the lautering screen.

 I can't speak for other methods but the one I champion happens to incorporate

 kettle mashing on the stove top.  This allows a mashout step that greatly

 facilitates thick mashes and minimizes the viscosity by assuring that it is

 at the maximum temperature consistant with good brewing practice.  There is

 no mash consistancy that will not properly flow through the em if at a

 reasonable temperature.

 >You can carry porridge in a sieve, right?

 I think we are debating an issue here, the resolution of which is as near as

 your store room.  Why don't you brew up a batch in the EM I gave you and

 report back on what you find instead of guessing or creating bogymen?

 js

------------------------------


re: Calculating Beer Color

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 93 09:33:56 TZ

From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

Subject: re: Calculating Beer Color

The discussion regarding beer color has now passed through a number of

different fora, and I'd like to get my reply spread back.  Perhaps we

ought to try to keep the predictive and measurement discussion in HBD,

and the elements that affect judging in the Judge Net.

In HBD #1244, Tony makes a number of salient points.

tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570) writes:

> linear math that we use to calculate the "expected" color of

> beer is wrong.  This point is made by George Fix in George

> and Laurie Fix's "Vienna" book.

The original article that the Vienna book quotes is Zymurgy Fall 1988

(v11, #3), if you'd like to read the whole thing.

And his conclusion is right on:

> For light beers, linear color math is a useful approximation;

> for dark beers, it's more or less irrelevant; and for amber

> beers, it's wrong enough to matter.

To go a step further, I have a (complicated) algorithm for predicting

beer color that I feel is ball park accurate for darker beers.  I wrote

about this in the Judge Net (#637, 10/9/93), and which I will restate

below.  However, this algorithm only accounts for malt colors and

whatever additional coloring went on in the brewing processes that

George Fix carried out in writing his article, which I assume (without

any basis in fact) are purely "normal".

DSR> In my commercially available computer program, The Brewer's Planner

DSR> (shameless plug), I use a different technique based upon the curve

DSR> presented in Fix's article.  The basic idea of this algorithm is to

DSR> determine how big a batch would be required to make a proposed grist

DSR> produce a 2-4 SRM beer (where the lb. * lov. / gal. formula is expected

DSR> to work) and then move backwards along Fix's dilution curve to

DSR> determine the antidilution represented by the actual batch size.  It

DSR> gives much better approximations of color, up to the 17 SRM limit of

DSR> that curve.

I will add to this that the published descriptive words I've seen

applied, both from Fix's article and in Eckhardt's "The Essentials of

Beer Style", do not match as the color numbers go up.  I would really

like to know absolutely what 20 and 30 SRM looks like in a beer.

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------


Judges & Competence

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1993 09:45:01 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Judges & Competence

In respect to Jack Schmidling's comments on homebrew judging,

certification, etc.: Well, yeah, that's probably true.

But, on the other hand...

People involved with the Beer Judge Certification Program, the national

competition, etc. are conscious of problems with the program and with

the whole concept of "qualification."  Ideally, as Jack suggests, a

judge would be competent to evaluate a certain style because he/she had

"lived" it.  Ideally, all weizenbier judges should be visiting Bavarians

and all lambic judges should come from Payottenland.  But, the idea of

the certification program is to help competitions provide judges with a

good, broad understanding of beerstyles -- there are necessarily going

to be some holes.

In an attempt to patch over those holes, there is a movement afoot to

develop a specific style certification in addition to the BJCP

certification.  In other words, not only would judge A be a BJCP judge,

but he/she would also have demonstrated specific, enhanced understanding

of, say, barleywines.  The trick, of course, is to develop a program

that assures that such a specific certification would be justified, that

the judges *really* knows what a barleywine is, or can be, or might be,

not simply what one author somewhere said it was.  Not an easy

assignment.

But at least it's being worked on.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


WInemaking books?

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 93 12:49:32 EDT

From: Ed.Green@sunpix.East.Sun.COM (Ed Green - Pixel Cruncher)

Subject: WInemaking books?

Homebrewing has really become popular lately... all the bookstores have

at least one book on it.  I haven't been able to find anything on wine,

though.  Anybody have any particular favorite titles on the topic.

Something with an overview, discussion of absolutely necessary (and

optional) equipment and supplies, and a few good recipes?

Thanks,

 -Ed

------------------------------


Questions: Sparging/H2S/milk stout

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 93 11:31:10 MST

From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

Subject: Questions: Sparging/H2S/milk stout

A few unrelated questions:

1)  Is a continuous sparge really necessary?  Has anyone tried just

draining all of the mash liquor out of the tun, refilling with the

sparge water all at once, letting it sit, and then draining it?  Since

I use a easymasher of the Schmidling design, re-establishing the filter

bed would not really be a problem.  This seems to me to be much easier

than monitoring the flow from my sparge vessel into the mash for

half an hour.

2)  What is it that causes yeast to produce a rotten egg smell during

fermentation?  I recently had a fermentation using Wyeast Chico Ale

which generated a lot of this smell in the primary.  I tasted the beer

when I transfered to the secondary, and it tasted OK, actually very

good, so I am not too worried, just curious.  This is the first time

in maybe 8 batches using this yeast that I ever had this bad smell.

FYI, i used 8 lbs pale malt, and fermented at 65 F.

3)  Stupid question:  If one really wants lactose in their stout, why

not add skim milk to the boil?  Seems to me the protein will precipitate

out in the boil, leaving lactose behind.

Thanks for your help.

Joel Birkeland

Motorola SPS

------------------------------


Brewpubs in Cape Cod area?

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1993 15:33:38 -0500 (CDT)

From: "Andy Schultz @1490" <ASCHULTZ@MADMAX.MPR.ORG>

Subject: Brewpubs in Cape Cod area?

Hi all -  This is yet another request for brewpub info.  I'll be off in

Boston and Cape Cod next week.  Someone a while back posted a listing of

some brewpubs in Boston, so I'll check those pubs out there.  Does anyone

know any places of interest in the Cape Cod area?  I'll be staying near

Hyannis, but anything in the area would be fine.  Sending mail directly

to me is not 100 percent reliable, so sending to the list might be better

if bandwidth allows. Hey, Boston's already taken care of!

Thanks in advance - andy

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

|                                                                             |

|    Andy Schultz                         Internet:  ASCHULTZ@MPR.ORG         |

|    Minnesota Public Radio                  Phone:  612-290-1490             |

|                                                                             |

|                                                                             |

|      'You can play sharp or flat in tune' : Ornette Coleman                 |

|   'It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was          |

|    onto something' : Ornette Coleman  (works for beer too....)              |

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

------------------------------


Date: Mon, 11 Oct 93 16:12:03 -0500

From: Mike Westra <root@hpuspma.stpaul.msr.hp.com>

Subject: Brewpubs in Cape Cod area?

Subject: Wyeast Munich Lager Yeast

Greetings from the Twin Cities:

I am about to attempt my first true lager... using a ferm-fridge

and liquid lager yeast (Wyeast Munich Lager - I don't have the

number with me right now). Can anybody help me...?

I took the yeast out of the fridge without realizing that you

have to wait for a couple of days before the packet swells up

so you can make a starter. I broke the inner vessel, mixed it

all up and let it sit for about an hour before I realized that

it was going to take a few days. I had to leave for a business

trip in two days so I decided to delay the brew session. So I

put the yeast packet back in the fridge.

It is now 2 weeks later. The yeast packet has really swollen up.

I put it in an extra bag in case it explodes. The question:

Can I still use this yeast? (by just letting it warm up and then

making a starter with it?)

Or should I bite the bullet - truck all the way over to the

homebrew store and buy some new yeast?

Any suggestions....? Please reply to mwestra@stpaul.msr.hp.com

Cheers,

Mike Westra

mwestra@stpaul.msr.hp.com

------------------------------


GABF Summary

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 93 14:15:11 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: GABF Summary

Here's my short? summary of the GABF for those of you interested in going in the

coming years:

Highlights:  The winners were announced during Saturday afternoon's special AHA

tasting.  Most of the people who care about this are there in the afternoon.

And this year, we could actually hear them!  I saw the Celis crew when one of

them brought up the Gold Medal and they took pictures.  It was a fun moment.

Lowlights:  Two frat boys doing their best imitation of wine snobs:  "It has a

wonderful bouquet, not presumptuous".  Gag.  Most of the crowd was great.

Interesting (to me) medal winners:

American Pale/Amber Ale:

Gold - Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., Chico CA

(the "blinde" part of the judging must be lost when a beer this indentifyable

is served)

Traditional Bitter:

Gold - None

(I disagree with this practice)

Silver - Boulder Amber, Rockies Brewing Co., Boulder, CO

Barley Wine:

Gold - Old Crustacean, Rogue Ales, Newport, OR

Silver - Old Bawdy Barley Wine, Pike Place Brewery, Seattle, WA

Bronze - Old Wooly, Big Time Brewing Co., Seattle, WA

Hon. Mention - Barley Wine, HOPS! Bistro & Brewery, Scottsdale AZ

             - Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.,

               Chico CA

             - Hercules Strong Ale, Slesar Bros. Brewing Co., d/b/a Boston

               Beer Works, Boston, MA

(Lots of great barley wines...)

Herb, Spice:

Gold - Celis White, Celis Brewery, Austin, TX

(Any doubt?)

Specialty:

Gold - Abbey Trappist Style Ale, New Belgium Brewing Company, Fort Collins, CO

Silver - Winterfest, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, CO

(interesting category to have these two together)

Bock:

Gold - None

(!)

Silver - Bock, Stoudt Brewing Co., Adamstown, PA

Bronze - Samuel Adams Double Bock, Boston Beer Company, Boston, MA

(I can't wait to see the commercials: "The third best bock in America, just two

steps below nothing!".  Maybe not)

For those of you keeping count (like the Olympics!):

Other US - 39 medals

CA       - 26

CO       - 13

WI       -  7

OR       -  6

The big boys did not fair well, even in the "American Lager", "American Light

Lager", and "American Dry Lager" categories.  Sell your stock.  BBC (tm) won a

silver and a bronze; maybe they'll quiet down a little about the GABF.  I doubt

it.  I suppose I ought to mention a brewing related topic:  There was a vendor

there selling a RIMS system built from reconditioned kegs.  It was pretty

interesting, with a uP controlled gas burner to heat the recirculating wort.

It consisted of the mash/lauter tun, a sparge water tank and a boiler on a

steel frame with interconnecting pipes and pumps.  He claimed the mash

efficiency was 30% higher than with a normal infusion mash.  Hmmm $3000 dollars

(really!) to save $4 per batch (this is a 5 gallon system, BTW).  That would

mean I'd break even in 2056, assuming I could get 0% interest if I left the

money in the bank.  I put my credit card in my underwear for safe keeping.

Cheers,

norm

Oh yeah, apologies for the bandwidth.  That seems to be a new rule around

here.

------------------------------


More on Pyramid Yeast

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1993 15:24:20 -0700 (PDT)

From: John Brooks <jbrooks@u.washington.edu>

Subject: More on Pyramid Yeast

Last week, I posted a request for information about the ale yeast used by

Hart Brewing (Kalama, Washington) for its Pyramid Ales.  Nobody responded,

so I called their microbiologist.  I asked whether their proprietary

strain was closer to Wyeast's London (1028) or American (1056).  He said

that theirs was "very attenuative" and implied that it was more like a

Young's.

After reviewing the recent yeast FAQ (which IMHO is a great resource), I

note that Wyeast London, American and British (1098) are all listed with

73-77% apparent attenuation.  My questions for today are:

 - is 73-77% considered highly attenuative?

 - between the 1028 and 1098, which is (a) more attenuative? (b) more

   like Young's.

 - since my goal is to clone Pyramid's Wheaten Bock Ale (O.G. 1.061),

   any educated opinions out there as to which yeast strain would

   be best for this style?

Posts or private e-mail replies both OK; TIA!

John Brooks

University of Washington

ph: (206) 543-9149

fx: (206) 543-7654

****************************************

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1245, 10/12/93

*************************************

-------


carboy handles (summary of [mostly non]responses)

Date: 12 Oct 93 01:13:37 MDT (Tue)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: carboy handles (summary of [mostly non]responses)

A while back, I asked for first-hand negative experiences with "carboy

handles" (the plastic-cushioned wire-loop handles that attach to the necks

of carboys).  Put simply, "Has anyone ever seen one of these suckers snap

the neck off a carboy?"

The answer seems to be "no".  I'm sure a lot of us have heard some anecdotal,

urban-legend, FoaF horror stories, but I've heard no direct accounts of

failures.

I have to qualify that slightly: I did hear from one person who had put a

carboy handle on a 25-liter (6.5 gallon) carboy, and had seen some (my

interpretation) crazing around the neck.  It didn't actually break off, but

he was (justifiably) scared away from using it.  The reason I discount this

one data point is that the carboy handles are not designed to fit that size

of carboy.  Obviously they weigh more, but the main issue is that the neck

diameter is different.

5-gallon (and 3-gallon) carboys, the ones I've been able to check, are 2"

diameter (50-51 mm if you will) within about a mm.  The carboy handles are

designed to fit this; the point is that they need to fit snugly, but not

tightly, so that they hold a circle around the neck without generating any

local points of high stress.  (It's like picking up the carboy by the neck

with your thumb and index finger forming a circle.)  This requires that

they match the neck.  A 25 liter carboy has a neck diameter more like

59-60 mm, which is way more than a standard carboy handle can accommodate;

if you try to force it on, you'll probably end up overtightening it and

cracking the neck.

Summary:

  - This is reality.  I'm reporting results, not telling you what to do.

    If lawyers must be uncaged, they should be on a short leash.  All I'm

    saying is that nobody who responded had any failures with the handles

    on 3 and 5 gallon carboys.

  - A full carboy weighs a bunch; *any* sharp shock--regardless of whether

    a handle is involved--can break it. They are sturdy but not indestruc-

    tible, so be careful but not paranoid.

  - Remember, Mother Nature bats last.

If anyone has any useful evidence to add to this, I'll be glad to

accumulate it and report back.  ("It works for me" is not useful at this

point...because basically, they work for everyone so far.)

 ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


re: Maple syrup/sap

Date: 12 Oct 93 01:49:17 MDT (Tue)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: re: Maple syrup/sap

> ...I have been brewing extracts for a few years and now want to try

> something different. I also make my own Maple syrup...

Hmmm...I think I'd be willing to trade either mead or barleywine for maple

syrup, even (1:1 vol)!

>...I have heard of people

> using this in beer and also using the uncooked sap instead of water...

I have had a maple-syrup mead that was nothing short of remarkable.  It was

one of those things where the mead-maker offered it tentatively, as "you

may find this a bit unusual but I think it's interesting"...I liked it

enough that the next time there was a general mead-tasting among friends,

I said "Be SURE you invite <Z> and tell him to bring a bottle of the

maple!!!"

It does seem to be one of those things that you either like or don't, no

middle ground.  If you don't like real maple syrup, you probably won't like

it.  (If you've grown up with imitation maple, you may well not like it.)

My wife is a Brit; she doesn't care for this mead at all.  But she looks

askance at various other new-world foods.

There's the usual mead-maker's dilemma, applying equally to beer here:

"What will this incredibly-sweet raw substance taste like after there's NO

sugar left in it?"

I'd think the raw sap wouldn't do much.  Isn't the ratio for boiling-down

substantial, like more than >>5 (that is, 2^-5)?  This mead I'm talking

about used syrup at a rate somewhere between >>3 and >>4, so you wouldn't

get that sort of taste level using sap even if you used sap to replace ALL

of the brew water.  (I'm not sure how the difference between mead and beer

affects the situation here...some factors say you'd want more maple flavor

in beer, some say less.)

Maple in beer is obviously an idea with merit, worth exploring, but also

one that will require experimentation to figure out what works.  It seems

you'd want a relatively light (*not* lite!) beer, probably with more malt

and less hops than average, to let the tang of the maple come through with-

out getting swamped by the hops, and let the maple-sugar be accented by

the malt sweetness.  Add a fair bit of crystal?  Probably no really dark

grains.  This is intuition speaking--not direct experience, just back-

ground.

 ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


Re: SLOW counterflow

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 07:54:18 -0500

From: zentner@ecn.purdue.edu (Mike Zentner)

Subject: Re: SLOW counterflow

Dave (drose@husc.harvard.edu) wrote:

>the thing?  Zymurgy says 20 ft in their article.  Dave Miller in his book

>says it must be at least 40 ft.  I looked into prices for copper tubing,

40 feet is excessive, 20 is minimal.  If you go with my suggestion here,

that is, use 3/8 " tubing NOT 1/4, I have had good success with 30 feet.

Length isn't the only important variable, you also have to consider the

diameters of your inner and outer tubing, flow-rates, cold water temperature,

and so on.  Point is, you could probably get by with 10' if you really

cranked up your cold water flow.  If you start going with too long of a tube,

though, some of the crud from the cold break can "gel" in your tubing and

really slow down the rate (recent potato and rye brews demonstrated this

to me).

>worth it to build a longer one. I bought 50ft of garden hose (a lot

>cheaper than tygon tubing), 50 ft of 1/4" copper tubing, and built a 40 ft

>chiller (10 feet of the hose going to the connecting lines).

I did the exact same thing on my FIRST try, without reading anything about

how to build one, etc...  It was a miserable failure, so I upped the diameter

of tubing from 1/4 to 3/8, and it works greaat.

As Usual:

   1)  Make sure the inside of your tubing is free of machine oils

       (mine was not)

   2)  I will supply free my online plans for building a wort chiller to

       anyone who asks.

Mike Zentner      zentner@ecn.purdue.edu

------------------------------


Boiling wort question

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 08:24:21 -0500 (CDT)

From: "Robert K. Toutkoushian" <TOUTKOUS@vx.cis.umn.edu>

Subject: Boiling wort question

Hello:

 I have a question concerning how to properly boil wort.  I have

noticed that often my O.G.'s are considerably lower than what are listed in

similar recipes, even though I have been using the same quantity of

fermentibles, and was wondering if I could be "overcooking" the wort.

 When I first started out, I would combine my extracts & water, bring

to a boil, and leave on low heat for 1 hour.  Lately, I have been

bringing the water to a boil first, then adding my extracts, returning to

boil, and then continue boiling on high for 1 hour.  What leads me to think

that I could be overboiling the wort is that (1) I tend to get a lot of

gunk (i.e. extracts and malts) sticking to the bottom of the boiling pot,

even with frequent stirring, and (2) after 1 hour, the level of the wort

seems a bit lower than the starting level, and I tend to get about 44

bottles out of a supposedly five gallon batch.

 My question to the wise homebrewers out there is this: once you

bring the wort to a boil, do you reduce the heat to keep it at a low boil,

or do you continue to go full blast on high heat?  Also, does it help to

bring the water to a boil before adding the extracts, etc.?  As I noted

above, the O.G. for my last batch were about 0.020 below what I thought

it should have been, and while fermentation took place and all, the gravity

fell from 1.030 to 1.010, which means that the alcohol content is also a

bit lower than I had expected for this particular batch.

 Thanks in advance for any help.  The books that I have seen usually

say something along the lines of "continue boiling for 1 hour," but I guess

there could be degrees of boiling (no pun intended).

Rob Toutkoushian

University of Minnesota

INTERNET: toutkous@vx.cis.umn.edu

------------------------------


Stuck Fermentation? a Beginner's Question

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 07:59 -0600 (MDT)

From: Chris Seiders <SEIDERS@HANDI.MED.UTAH.EDU>

Subject: Stuck Fermentation? a Beginner's Question

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------------------------------


William Younger #3

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 09:51

From: TODDJ.SRVRHOST@test.readmore.com (Todd Jennings)

Subject: William Younger #3

From: toddj@readmore.com (Todd Jennings)

I have heard of a brew by the name of WILLIAM YOUNGER #3; read about it

in a soccer magazine, actually.  In the mag article, the brew is

described as "the ruin of a good many young men".  The article goes on to

refer to the beer as the preferred brew of LAGER LOUTS, the British

football hooligans we hear so much about.

Is there anyone who can tell me what the story is with this apparently

British beer, i.e. what is the style, and where can one get it here in

the States(if anywhere)?  I assume it's a bitter ale, but perhaps I am

off the track here.  Can't wait to find out!!

 -Todd Jennings-     ****

                    |  |>    Cheers!

                    |__|

------------------------------


beer & statistics

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 10:15:41 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: beer & statistics

>>From: Bob_McIlvaine@keyfile.com

>>Subject: Mashout & Algebra

>>

>>most of us got into home brewing because we

>>wanted a better beer and wanted to have some FUN

>>getting it.

 YUP

>>Beer making has been going on for centuries,

>>without algebra and statistically designed

>>experiments.

 But statistics was INVENTED by a brewer, if memory serves, trying to

 produce consistent brew. I'm not sure if that's something to be proud

 of or not ;-)

jim

------------------------------


COPS--again!

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 10:01:17 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kieran O'Connor <koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: COPS--again!

Well--it happened again. in the Syracuse area, WSYT, the local Fox

affiliate showed the infamous COPS episode with the guy with Homebrewing

equipment. Anyone got those addresses available--and did it run in other

areas? This show was on at 10 PM monday nite.

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Address: koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu

Syracuse, N.Y. USA

------------------------------


GABF results

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 9:40:57 CDT

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: GABF results

Thanks to Norm for the interesting post on the GABF...one thing, is this

sort of the AHA nationals for breweries? Is there an AHA nationals for

brewers?  Could someone please take the time and post info on winners in

all categories or e-mail me or perhaps just regular mail me a list of

winners? I'd like to know these things so I could have a good reference

list of just what is a good old amber, barlywine, specialty etc. so I

can better develop my palate.  Any other palate development techniques

other than birth and drinking lots of different beers?  Thanks again,

email address below.  Actually there's a fax # here so if anyone doesn't

want to write or already has the info on paper....

     Thanks - Chris

======================================================================

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu |

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

======================================================================

------------------------------


UK hops

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 10:02:40 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: UK hops

J.S. Hough ("Biotechnology of Malting and Brewing") lists a few

hops used in the UK.  I don't have access to them and haven't

used them.

            alpha

Target      11.5

Northdown   11.2 (seedless)

Yeoman      11.0

Challenger   9.8 (seedless)

Zenith       9.0

These hops are all modern hybrids developed at Wye College in Kent.

Fuller's ESB uses a blend of a number of them.  One reason for the

blend might be that these hops vary in their resistance to diseases

such as wilt, downy mildew, and powdery mildew.

------------------------------


GABF XII Winners

Date: 12 Oct 93 10:57:17 EDT

From: "James Spence/Am. Hmbwrs. Assoc." <70740.1107@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: GABF XII Winners

Okay, here they are.  The winners of the Great American Beer Festival.  Cheers!

If there is not a medal listed in a category, it means that the missing medal

was not awarded in the category.

BREWERY, LOCATION, MEDAL, CATEGORY, BEER NAME

Holy Cow! Casino Cafe Brewery, Las Vegas, Nev., Gold, Classic English Pale Ale,

Holy Cow! Pale Ale

Great Lakes Brewing Co., Cleveland, OH, Silver, Classic English Pale Ale,

Burning River Ale

Pike Place Brewery, Seattle, Wash., Bronze, Classic English Pale Ale, Pike

Place Pale Ale

High Country Brewery, Boulder, Colo., Gold, India Pale Ale, Renegade Red

Anchor Brewing Co., San Fransisco, Calif., Silver, India Pale Ale, Liberty Ale

CooperSmith's Pub & Brewing Co., Fort Collins, Colo., Bronze, India Pale Ale,

Punjabi Pale Ale

Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., Chico, Calif., Gold, American Pale/Amber Ale, Sierra

Nevada Pale Ale

Humbolt Brewery, Arcata, Calif., Silver, American Pale/Amber Ale, Red Nectar

Heritage Brewing Co., Dana Point, Calif., Bronze, American Pale/Amber Ale, Red

Fox

Rockies Brewing Co., Boulder, Colo., Silver, Traditional Bitter, Boulder Amber

Steelhead Brewery & Cafe, Eugene, Ore., Bronze, Traditional Bitter, Emerald

Special Bitter

Rockies Brewing Co., Boulder, Colo., Gold, Scottish Ale, Wrigley Red

Golden Pacific Brewing Co., Inc., Emeryville, Calif., Silver, Scottish Ale,

Golden Gate Red Ale

Dempsey's Sonoma Brewing Co., Petaluma, Calif., Bronze, Scottish Ale, Sonoma

Irish Ale

Big Time Brewing Co., Seattle, Wash., Gold, Blonde Ale, Prime Time

Tied House Cafe & Brewery, Alameda, Calif., Silver, Blonde Ale, Alpine Pearl

Pale

Alaskan Brewing Co., Douglas, Alaska, Bronze, Blonde Ale, Alaskan Pale Ale

Great Lakes Brewing Co., Cleveland, Ohio, Gold, Porter, Edmund Fitzgerald

Porter

Marin Brewing Co., Larkspur, Calif., Silver, Porter, Pt. Reyes Porter

Butterfield Brewing Co., Fresno, Calif., Bronze, Porter, Tower Dark Ale

Dempsey's Sonoma Brewing Co., Petaluma, Calif., Gold, Dry Stout, Ugly Dog Stout

North Coast Brewing Co., Ft. Bragg, Calif., Silver, Dry Stout, Old No. 38 Stout

Jones Street Brewery, Omaha, Neb., Bronze, Dry Stout, Ryan's Irish Stout

Seabright Brewery Pub & Restaurant, Santa Cruz, Calif., Gold, Sweet Stout,

Seabright Oatmeal Stout

Oasis Brewery, Boulder, Colo., Silver, Sweet Stout, Zoser Stout

San Diego's Riptide Brewery, San Diego, Calif., Bronze, Sweet Stout, Oatmeal

Stout

Vermont Pub & Brewery, Burlington, Vt., Gold, Strong Ale, Auld Tartan Wee Heavy

Pacific Coast Brewing Co., Oakland, Calif., Silver, Strong Ale, Imperial Stout

Pizza Deli and Brewery, Cave Junction, Ore., Bronze, Strong Ale, Steelhead Snug

Harbor Old Ale

Rogue Ales, Newport, Ore., Gold, Barley Wine, Old Crustacean

Pike Place Brewery, Seattle, Wash., Silver, Barley Wine, Old Bawdy Barley Wine

Big Time Brewing Co., Seattle, Wash., Bronze, Barley Wine, Old Wooly

Marin Brewing Co., Larkspur, Calif., Gold, Fruit, Vegetable, Bluebeery Ale

Tied House Cafe & Brewery, Alameda, Cal., Silver, Fruit, Vegetable, Passion

Pale

Eske's Brew Pub/Sangre De Cristo Brewing Inc., Taos, N.M., Bronze, Fruit,

Vegetable, Taos Green Chile Beer

Celis Brewery, Austin, Texas, Gold, Herb, Spice, Celis White

Silo Brew Pub, Louisville, Ky., Silver, Herb, Spice, Yuletide Ale

Anchor Brewing Co., San Fransisco, Calif., Bronze, Herb, Spice, Our Special Ale

New Belgium Brewing Co., Fort Collins, Colo., Gold, Specialty, Abbey Trappist

Style Ale

Coors Brewing Co., Golden, Colo., Silver, Specialty, Winterfest

Spanish Peaks Brewing Co. LTD, Bozeman, Mont., Bronze, Specialty, Raspberry

Honey

Alaskan Brewing Co., Douglas, Alaska, Gold, Smoke Flavored, Alaskan Smoked

Porter

Rogue Ales, Newport, Ore., Silver, Smoke Flavored, Welkommen

Stoudt Brewing Co., Adamstown, Pa., Silver, Bock, Bock

Boston Beer Co., Boston, Mass., Bronze, Bock, Samuel Adams Double Bock

Florida Beer Brands, Orlando, Fla., Gold, Amber Lager, Old West Amber

Boston Beer Co., Boston, Mass., Silver, Amber Lager, Samuel Adams Octoberfest

Rhomberg Brewing Co., Davenport, Iowa, Bronze, Amber Lager, Rhomberg Classic

Amber

Miller Brewing Co., Milwaukee, Wis., Gold, Dark Lager, Lowenbrau Dark

Joseph Huber Brewing Co., Inc., Monroe, Wis., Silver, Dark Lager, Berghoff Dark

Blitz-Weinhard's Brewing Company, Portland, Ore., Bronze, Dark Lager, Henry

Weinhard's Dark Beer

Pennsylvania Brewing Co., Pittsburgh, Pa., Gold, Munchner Helles & Dortmunder

Export, Penn Light Lager

Los Gatos Brewing Co., Los Gatos, Calif., Silver, Munchner Helles & Dortmunder

Export, Los Gatos Lager

Stoudt Brewing Co., Adamstown, Pa., Gold, European Pilsner, Pilsener

Sudwerk, Privatbrauerei Hubsch, Davis, Calif., Silver, European Pilsner, Hubsch

Brau Pilsner

Riverside Brewing Co., Riverside, Calif., Bronze, European Pilsner, Golden

Spike Pilsner

Evansville Brewing Co., Inc., Evansville, Ind., Gold, American Lager, Drummond

Bros.

Lone Star Brewing Co., San Antonio, Texas, Silver, American Lager, Lone Star

Brewski Brewing Co., San Diego, Calif., Bronze, American Lager, Brewski Brew

Pub Classic

G. Heileman Brewing Co., La Crosse, Wis., Gold, American Light Lager, Special

Export Light

Lone Star Brewing Co., San Antonio, Texas, Silver, American Light Lager, Lone

Star Light

Brewski Brewing Co., San Diego, Calif., Bronze, American Light Lager, Brewski

Brew Pub Light

Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co., Chippewa Falls, Wis., Gold, American Premium

Lager, Leinenkugel's Limited

Anheuser-Busch, St. Louis, Mo., Silver, American Premium Lager, Budweiser

Stevens Point Brewery, Steven Point, Wis., Bronze, American Premium Lager,

Point Special

Pabst Brewing Co.-Tumwater, Milwaukee, Wis., Gold, American Dry Lager, Olympia

Dry

Jones Brewing Co., Smithton, Pa., Silver, American Dry Lager, Esquire Extra Dry

G. Heileman Brewing Co., La Crosse, Wis., Gold, American Malt Liquor, Mickey's

Malt Liquor

Miller Brewing Co., Milwaukee, Wis., Silver, American Malt Liquor, Magnum

Anheuser-Busch, St. Louis, Mo., Bronze, American Malt Liquor, King Cobra

New England Brewing Co., Norwalk, Conn., Gold, Dusseldorf Altbier, Atlantic

Amber

William & Scott Brewing Co., Culver City, Calif., Silver, Dusseldorf Altbier,

Rhino Chasers

North Coast Brewing Co., Ft. Bragg, Calif., Bronze, Dusseldorf Altbier, Alt

Nouveau

Lonetree Brewing, LTD, Denver, Colo., Gold, American Lager/Ale-Cream Ale,

Country Cream Ale

Genesee Brewing Co., Inc., Rochester, N.Y., Silver, American Lager/Ale-Cream

Ale, Genesee Cream Ale

Minnesota Brewing Co., St. Paul, Minn., Bronze, American Lager/Ale-Cream Ale,

McMahon's Potato Ale

Heavenly Daze Brewery & Grill, Steamboat Springs, Colo., Gold, German Wheat,

Heavenly Hefe Weizen

August Schell Brewing Co., New Ulm, Minn., Silver, German Wheat, August Schell

Weizen

HOPS! Bistro & Brewery, Scottsdale, Ariz., Bronze, German Wheat, HOPS!

Hefe-Weizen

Odell Brewing Co., Ft. Collins, Colo., Gold, American Wheat, Easy Street Wheat

H.C. Berger Brewing Co., Ft. Collins, Colo., Silver, American Wheat, Whistlepin

Wheat

Marin Brewing Co., Larkspur, Calif., Bronze, American Wheat, Marin Hefe Weiss

Champion Brewing Co., Denver, Colo., Gold, English Brown Ale, Home Run Ale

Deschutes Brewery, Bend, Ore., Silver, English Brown Ale, Bond Street Brown Ale

Coyote Springs Brewing Co. & Cafe, Phoenix, Ariz., Bronze, English Brown Ale,

Bison Brown Ale

Walnut Brewery, Boulder, Colo., Gold, American Brown Ale, Old Elk Brown Ale

Butterfield Brewing Co., Fresno, Calif., Silver, American Brown Ale, Brown Ale

Lost Coast Brewery & Cafe, Eureka, Calif., Bronze, American Brown Ale, Downtown

Brown

Evansville Brewing Co., Inc., Evansville, Ind., Gold, Non-Alcoholic, Birell

N.A.

Anheuser-Busch, St. Louis, Mo., Silver, Non-Alcoholic, O'Doul's

Pearl Brewing Co., San Antonio, Texas, Bronze, Non-Alcoholic, Pabst

Non-Alcoholic

------------------------------


will the real bogeyman please stand up

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 10:26:09 -0500 (CDT)

From: Paul Boor <PBOOR@BEACH.UTMB.EDU>

Subject: will the real bogeyman please stand up

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (3rd Edition) defines

bogeyman or variants bogyman, boogeyman or boogyman or boogieman, as a

terrifying specter; a hobglobin.

Jack Schmidling ought to get himself a decent dictionary, especially for those

words he intends to use in the titles of his articles.

------------------------------


Beer Mix, Smoked Porter

Date:         12 Oct 93 08:26:42 MST

From: "Cisco"  <FRANCISCO@osmo.CCIT.Arizona.EDU>

Subject:      Beer Mix, Smoked Porter

Andrew Baird says:

>

> I believe the beer mix is a nitrogen and C02 mix, and will reduce the

> problems with over carbonation of beer, if the keg is kept on tap for a

> prolonged period.  This sounds great, as I prefer my beers with little

> carbonation anyway, (I am a native Briton after all).  However, are there any

> disadvantages to using a Nitrogen/C02 mix.

>

You are correct about the gas mixture of the "beer mix" sold at

refill stores. It definitely cures the well known problem of eventual

overcarbonation when kegs are kept online for extended periods. I also

prefer the English ales and don't like the amount of carbonation that

is so common for American beers. The only drawback to the "beer mix"

is that you can't force carbonate your kegs. I have found that I

prefer to let my ales naturally carbonate, usually takes about 3

weeks, the gas bubbles in solution are very tiny and give a great

long lasting creamy head. I have found over the years that the

addition of 4oz of wheat malt to all my brews gives great head

retention. I'm never in need of having to wait for carbonation

to complete because I always have two kegs on tap with at least

2 kegs waiting to go on tap so my ales are always nicely aged by the

time they finally go on tap.

Smoked Ales:

I recently made a Pecan smoked porter that has turned out wonderfull!

I have a real smoker - where the fire pit sits off to the side of the

smoke chamber- and I smoked 2 pounds of Belgian Bisquit malt for one

hour. The temperature remained 110-120 F. I started 8 charcoal

briquets and when they formed a white ash layer I arranged them in a

double row and placed a one foot piece of pecan wood on top (be sure

that when you smoke anything that the wood does not have ANY remaining

bark attached as this will impart a very bitter flavor). I adjusted

my flues to maintain the temperature for one hour. The grain was then

removed and put into a bowl and covered until the next day when I

ground all the grain. The smoked flavor is not too subtle and not too

overpowering and blends very well with the recipe of my favorite

porter. I just kegged it so it will be awhile before it gets rotated

in line to the taps, there are two kegs ahead of it - one is a

raspberry ale using the extract from Hoptech.

John Francisco (Cisco)

------------------------------


SLOW counterflow

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 9:52:20 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: SLOW counterflow

Dave says about his new counterflow wort chiller:

>   Well, after 7+ years of cooling my wort in the bathtub, I finally

>decided to make a wort chiller.  I decided on a counterflow design because

>it is supposed to be more efficient and because I cant imagine it is

>really as hard to sterilize as some maintain.  I had a design for one from

>one of the zymurgy special issues (all grain brewing?) and it looked

>straightforward.  One question I had was what is the optimal length for

>the thing?  Zymurgy says 20 ft in their article.  Dave Miller in his book

>says it must be at least 40 ft.  I looked into prices for copper tubing,

>etc, and determined that, economies of scale being what they are, it was

>worth it to build a longer one. I bought 50ft of garden hose (a lot

>cheaper than tygon tubing), 50 ft of 1/4" copper tubing, and built a 40 ft

>chiller (10 feet of the hose going to the connecting lines).

>   Well, I used the contraption a few days later. It certainly did a

>fine job of cooling the wort, but it is SLOOOOOW.  It took about 50

>minutes for 5 gallons of wort to pass through this baby!  This is not much

>faster than my bathtub method (although I recognize that each little bit

>of wort cools down very fast indeed, contributing to a good cold break).

>All the while the water is running and I am feeling guilty about wasting

>so much, and besides I hoped that building this thing would save me some time.

Well Dave my counterflow chiller (about a month old) is only slow when my

choreboy (in the kettle) gets clogged with hops (I'm going to shy away from

pellets whenever I can in the future).  The normal, unclogged rate is about 5

gallons in 25 minutes, if memory serves.  The difference is that mine is made

with 3/8" copper tubing, not 1/4".  This is considerable.  When mine slows

down (choreboy cloggage), I turn the cooling water down to a trickle.  The

last time this happened it took less than 10 gallons of water to cool 5

gallons of wort to pitching temperature (but it took over an hour).  Oh, mine

is only 30 feet long and it does a wonderful job.  I suspect I could get away

with a shorter one.  I suggest one of three routes: 1) take it apart and

replace the 1/4" tubing with 3/8" tubing, 2) cut it in half to make two

chillers in parallel, or 3) change it to an immersion chiller (these work very

nicely).  The problem with 2) is that the plumbing is guaranteed to get real

interesting.

Dave goes on talk about other chiller hurdles:

>   Another general question that I have is how do people direct the

>wort into their counterflow chillers.  In the past I always imagined that

>i would just hook it up in series with my hopback, but recent talk about

>the evils of hot-side aeration have spooked me on this idea.  The

>alternative is to siphon directly from the brew kettle, but this has its

>own problems (the old mouth-on-the-siphon-hose conundrum, and the problem

>of hops clogging the chiller (yes, I know about the chore boy solution but

>it seems to me that that is going to leave a lot of hard-earned wort in

>the kettle)).  So, what do people do about that?

I don't have a hop-back but my kettle has a ball valve mounted at the bottom.

I have copper tubing compression fittings to attach my chiller directly out

of the bottom of the kettle.  Since my kettle tap is not exactly at the bottom

of the kettle I use a small brass elbow on the inside of the kettle and it

takes wort almost directly off the bottom of the kettle (very little losses).

Anyway, it is all gravity fed and works like a charm.  I don't know about

hop-backs and such, I'm a low tech (in this respect) dry-hopper.

Joel asks about draining the first runnings, adding sparge water, and draining

again to simplify his sparge.  This works fine, Joel.  If it is easy for you,

do it.  You might even try 3 of these "batch sparges" for more efficiency.  The

only drawback I can think of is that you are losing the original runnings right

away, which help buffer the goods.  It is possible your pH will drop more

quickly during the subsequent sparges, requiring acidification of the sparge

water to avoid tannin extraction.  I've never really had a problem with it

(i.e. no astringent beers) but I don't take my sparges too far.  I usually get

25-27 points which indicates there is a fair amount of sugar and other stuff

left in the grist, which I presume maintains the pH (not a lot of measuring

going on).

good luck,

norm

------------------------------


Batch Sparging

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 11:39:59 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Batch Sparging

Joel Birkeland in 1245 asks about batch sparging.  It is my understanding

that this is the old fashioned way of doing it.  In past times the

first runnings would make a big beer, the second runnings (after

resuspending the mash) a normal beer, and the third runnings - a

mediaeval version of Bud Light.

The reason for continuous sparging is that it is more efficient, and

doesn't have the problem of resetting the bed, but for homebrew purposes

I am sure there would be little problem.  Or alternately get a big

picnic cooler that you can fill with all of your sparge water.

Re Hydrogen sulfide - this is a normal breakdown product when protein

amino acids containing sulphur are decayed - and well, fermentation is

really controlled food decay.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


Judging

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 11:50 CDT

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Judging

 From: mferts@taec.com (Mike Fertsch)

 >It is neither boring nor unenlightening.

 I simply stated my opinion about much of the drudgery that necessarily goes

 along with a competition.  You are entitled to yours.

 >Ideally, judges ARE experts in the styles they are judging.

 That's nice but the real world is NOT ideal.

 > Every judge in the program knows broadly what pilsners are supposed to

 taste like.

 "Every" and "broadly" are the key words here and I won't argue with them but

 my point was that I would rather have my beer judged by an expert in that

 catagory.

 >My point here is that certain judges are EXPERTS, and can pick beers out

 of a lineup.

 I already acknowledged that presumption.  The problem arises from the fact

 that many can not.

 > A broad knowledge of styles, a good palate, and a good understanding

 of what can go wrong in beers is more than adequate for judging almost

 all competitons.  This is what the BJCP fosters.

 Fostering doth not equate to create.  The key here is palate.  The other

 aspects can be memorized in a few hours but palate takes years to develop and

 my guess is that very few judges have it to a confidant degree of certainty.

 This is obvious from the "negotiating" that goes on AFTER they have arrived

 at their own opinion.

 >How was this competition run?  How many entries?.....

 You seemed to have missed the whole point of my posting.  It was run

 competantly, professionally and in a friendly manner that made it a memorable

 experience.

 I simply proposed a system of judge qualification that would be more

 satisfying to me both as a competitor and as a judge.

 >From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

 >In an attempt to patch over those holes, there is a movement afoot to

 develop a specific style certification in addition to the BJCP

 certification.

 Sounds like I hit a nerve.  That's certainly a step in the right direction

 but it seems like putting the cart before the horse.  It would be just as

 rational to qualify experts up front of the overall certification and it

 would fill the ranks of experts much faster.

 >From: andrewb6@aol.com

 >Subject: Regulators,  Beer mix, and enamel pots.

 >Has anyone tried mounting a "Slotted T drain" in an enamel-on-steel pot?

 Obviously welding is out of the question, and I imagine that

 chipping/splintering of the enamel would be a problem too, but are there any

 fittings (perhaps an o-ring or a compression type) that will be strong, seal

 well, and still hold up to the rigors of boiling wort?

 Not sure what a "Slotted T drain" is but if you use a spigot with a male

 thread and a female connector on the inside, you can make a leakproof

 compression fit.  The only hooker is you have to rethread them with

 straight threads as they are normally supplied with tapered pipe threads.

 Drilling holes without chipping is not a problem as long as a small pilot

 hole is drilled first.

 >From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

 >1)  Is a continuous sparge really necessary?  Has anyone tried just

 draining all of the mash liquor out of the tun, refilling with the

 sparge water all at once, letting it sit, and then draining it?  Since

 I use a easymasher of the Schmidling design, re-establishing the filter

 bed would not really be a problem.  This seems to me to be much easier

 than monitoring the flow from my sparge vessel into the mash for

 half an hour.

 What seems intuitive is not always so.  Someone posted an article a year or

 so ago that explained it in terms so simple, that even I could understand,

 why this is not so.

 It has to do with the gradual dilution effect and that the grain is always

 meeting up with a differential between it's remaining sugar and the disolved

 sugar in the sparge water.  The greater this differential is, the more sugar

 will be removed.

 It is also easy to see that in the last batch, after stirring the water and

 mash, the whole liquid will arrive at some gravity.  When the liquid is

 drained, the liquid held by the grain will be that gravity and that sugar is

 lost.  By continually sparging, the gravity of the liquid left in the grain

 will be that of the last running and of no interest.

 js

------------------------------


Re: Wort Processors Mill Evaluation

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 12:53:08 -0400

From: polstra!larryba@uunet.UU.NET

Subject: Re: Wort Processors Mill Evaluation

In HBD #1241, Jack writes about mill issue:

>

> Sounds like a fun time was had by all and the context and tone of the report

> indicate that it does not require much serious debate.  However, there are a

Actually, it sounds like all the mills, with the exception of the original

corona were more than acceptable.  Price, availablility and the volume of

grain to be crushed seemed like the decision points - not crush quality.

> ...

> First of all, the MM used in the evaluation does not represent current design

> which will indeed crush one lb of malt in under 14 seconds with a hand crank

> and 5 lbs per minute with a motor is like falling off a log.

I can vouch for the speed and quality of the current MM design, having purchased

one of the first with the knurled roller.  I am sure one can crush 1lb in 14

seconds with the hand crank, but my arm falls off when doing 20lb crushes and

I take much longer, say 30 sec/lb.

>...

> Finally, a note on crush quality....

>

> The most misunderstood aspect of the grist resulting from milling of malt for

> brewing is the bogyman known variously as flour, dust, fine particles, powder

> etc.  I would rank the need for unscathed husks as number two.   The emphasis

> on both of these results from the problems created by crude grain grinders

> combined with poorly designed and/or operated mash/lauter tuns.

I agree that grit size and uniformity is more important than husk damage.

this is most true about modern 2-row grains.  I have personally used

two lauter designs: a perforated false bottom and a slotted copper manifold.

In both cases too fine a grind is a disaster regardless of the quality of

the husks.  The problems are two fold.  First the flour tends to ball up

and make a dough that is dry inside.  This occurs during mash in and is a

royal pain to get rid off.  I have seen folks try to avoid this by mashing

in a little grain at a  time, stirring vigorously between additions.  Still

when fully mashed in, those pesky balls of dough continue to float to the

surface.  Second problem is the stuck sparge.  I had never seen one until

I used a roller mill that was set way too close (.025") and the sparge locked

up after a couple quarts.  No dribble, nothing.  Just like the valve had been

closed.

The malt mill I have produces a course crush (e.g. looks like cornmeal) with

pretty much intact husks.  I have lautered a 15.5 lb mash and recovered 11.5

gallons of 1.046 wort in 20 minutes.  That is .034pt/lb/gal for you guys

interested in the efficiency game.  Since it was a pils, using only pils

malt, the number wasn't too unexpected.

I guess my point is that with modern, fully modified malts (Please, can

anyone point me to a commercially available malt that isn't?) fine crushes

DON'T GAIN YOU ANYTHING but problems.  Look at malt specifications: they

describe the difference between course and fine crush extract yeilds.

typically the difference is 2% or less.  Smaller numbers are indicators of

higher quality (and degree of modification).

So, to summarize: any of the mills mentioned in the Crush off should

work fine.  I have used homemade roller mills, coronas, corona knockoffs

the malt mill and converted coffee grinders.  The only one that was

consistently bad was the coffee grinder.  All others could be adjusted

to produce great crushes fast lauters and excellent extracts.

>

> The perfect grist for mashing would be molecule sized particles of malt from

> which all the husk has been removed.  It would wet perfectly, disolve

> instantly and produce 100% yield of crystal clear wort.

This is a gross simplification.  Malt contains more than husk, starch and

enzymes.  All the gums, protein, cellulose, etc. are best left in matrix

rather than trying to filter them out.

- --

Larry Barello   uunet!polstra!larryba

------------------------------


Yeast Growth/ Starter Size

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 11:15:51 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Yeast Growth/ Starter Size

>Jonathan Knight

>Grinnell, Iowa

*Jonathan asked about slow starts and long ferments...

>My typical procedure is to boil up one cup of D.M.E. in a solution which,

>after some evaporation, turns out around 750-800 ml.  Should I use more

>D.M.E. in the first place?  Or should I step-up the first starter into a

>second?  If I do that, do I make a stronger solution the second time (as in

>more extract per volume of water)?  I'd love to hear from anyone who wishes

>to share their experience and expertise on this subject as a fellow-

>chronically-underpitching-homebrewer.>>

>

Just a little primer on yeast growth and metabolism:

Growth vs. Time (low and high starting populations)

__________________________________________________________________

        |            *  *

        |         *         *   X   X  X

        |       *          X   *           X

Pop     |      *        X           *           X

(init)  |     *      X                 *            X

 *=HI   |    *     X                      *             X

 X=LO   |   *     X                          *             X

        |*X* X  X                              *             X

- ---------#########-----TIME-----------------------------------------

This is only a cartoon. Had this been a real graph there might be data

to support it.  Take it as you will- can you speak "hypothetical?"

With a low starting population the lag time before exponential growth

is lengthened.  It is during this period that the greatest danger

of infection exists.  A high starting population will result in a narrower

growth curve, whereas the smaller pop. will grow slower, for a longer time.

It is reasonable to believe that the small init. pop will never acheive the

maximum population of the high start.

There are definite benefits to a high starting population, and definite

disadvantages to a slow start.  I can't imagine you could "overpitch" a

wort- unless you collected the yeast from ten brews and added inadequate

fermentables to make them live.  If the yeast run out of nutrients they

may turn to unfavorable metabolic pathways.  But I'd be inclined to think

that if you supply a full bodied wort and sufficient aeration to the number

of yeast collected from as much as a 1 gallon starter will do no harm.

A good process for growing up a starter-

I use a 200 ml starter of about 020 sp gr. for a colony from a plate.

For a liquid yeast- say a 500ml initial starter.  Same sp. gr.

Grow this for a day or two.  Let settle- Collect yeast sediment, add to

a fresh wort of a slightly higher sp. gr.  say 030 in a larger volume-

500 ml (culture),  800 ml (liquid).  Grow up 1 day. Till active ferment.

Brew Day:  Take some of the wort from the sparge and boil quickly. Cool

and combine starter with equal volume of fresh wort.  By the time the boil

and cool are done this will be active.  Cool wort and pitch.  You should

get a good start.

Stepping up the volume and strength of the starters will allow the yeast

to both increase in number and acclimatize to the brew gravity.

    G'luck. Hope this helps.    John (The Coyote) Wyllie SLK6P@cc.usu.edu

------------------------------


bogy vs boogy

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 13:34:08 EDT

From: Bob_McIlvaine@keyfile.com

Subject: bogy vs boogy

I believe both definitions that Jack mentioned

in previous postings are correct at the correct

point in history. I also won't attempt to dispute the

the spelling in either case. But...I have it on rather

good authority that before both of the definitions

mentioned, the phrase "Don't let the boogy man

get you!" was coined. The tribal pirates of the

south sea islands whose commodities included

un-willing slaves (read kidnapped young'ins)

were called Boogymen.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1246, 10/13/93

*************************************

-------


RE: STRAINING YOUR BREW

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 13:05 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: RE: STRAINING YOUR BREW

Matthew writes:

>I have one of those handy brew kits you get for Christmas with the 6 gal.

>carboy. I realized after my 1st batch that I was getting a lot of haze in my

>beer so I thought I might strain it prior to bottling. What I came up with has

>been REALLY NICE! I used one of those reusable GOLD plated coffee filters

>(you can get them at any fancy coffee shop). I setup my 2nd carboy underneath

>the 1st and placed the filter inside of a funnel (perfect fit) and drained off

>the beer from the top, up to the last inch of trub. The filter is coarse

>enough that the beer gets through but fine enough that it catches all the crud

>that's still floating about. Since I've gone to this, I have truly had nothing

>but crystal clear beer!

Crystal clear maybe, but probably quite oxidized.  Does your beer have a

sherry-like aroma?  I think you may want to try to find the source of your

haze (perhaps you are just not waiting for the yeast to settle -- some strains

take quite a while -- maybe just try a different strain).  As the fermented-

out beer falls from the funnel into the 2nd carboy, you are going to introduce

a lot of oxygen (unless you purge the carboy with CO2, perhaps) and this will

give your resulting beer sherry-like or wet-cardboard aromas.

Al.

------------------------------


mashout

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 14:47 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: mashout

Ulick Stafford writes:

>

>  I would be very curious to see Chris Campanelli attempt to brew,

>  let's say, a wheat beer with 70%+ wheat malt without a mash out

>

A very good point.  The recipes that I have been referring to have

little or no wheat malt.  A clarification is needed in this robust

discussion.  We should limit the playing field to mashes which have

little or no wheat malt.

For the record, I am a zealous believer in temperature steps for

mashes that contain a high-percentage of wheat for reasons

explained in Eric Warner's book.

Having narrowed the breadth of definition, I continue to maintain

that a mashout is unnecessary and await rebuttal.

chris campanelli

------------------------------


GABF

Date: 12 Oct 93 15:34:00 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A@hq.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: GABF

The following attachments were included with this message:

__________________________________________________________________

TYPE     : FILE

NAME     : AA

__________________________________________________________________

>From: gorman@aol.com

>Subject: GABF Denver

>FYI to all attending future Great American Beer Festivals.

>The members only tasting on Saturday afternoon at the  GABF was definitely

>the place to be. Uncrowded conditions allowed relaxed tasting and

>conversation with the brewers.

     It was an extremely relaxed session (as compared to the 2 night sessions,

but it also had an annoying aspect as well.  The majority of the brewers

were out accepting their awards and only volunteers were manning the taps.

I received an "I don't know." to the majority of questions I asked during

the AHA-only tasting.  At night, while it was more crowded, at least I could

speak with the brewers.

     FWIW, I'm not a member of AHA, so I had to "sneak" into the elitist

society function.  I had so much fun that I might even join next year.

Nahh! That would take all the fun out of it.

>By comparison, Saturday night was a zoo.

>Did anyone go on Friday night? What was it like then?

     Friday night was quite crowded, but no where near as crowed as Saturday.

To all the AHA duly-appointed royalty.  Why not have more food stands?

With all that beer and so little food available, I found it to be more expedient

to leave Currigan Hall and go to the local Burger King as opposed to waiting

in that one horrific food line.

Cheers,

Andy A

------------------------------


Re: Slow Counterflow

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 16:26:44 -0400 (EDT)

From: William Pemberton <wfp5p@holmes.acc.virginia.edu>

Subject: Re: Slow Counterflow

Dave writes:

> fine job of cooling the wort, but it is SLOOOOOW.  It took about 50

> minutes for 5 gallons of wort to pass through this baby!  This is not much

> faster than my bathtub method (although I recognize that each little bit

> of wort cools down very fast indeed, contributing to a good cold break).

> All the while the water is running and I am feeling guilty about wasting

> so much, and besides I hoped that building this thing would save me some time.

>  One possibility that I am considering is that the thing is a lot

> longer than it has to be; could i cut it in half and make two chillers,

> each of which would run considerably faster?  Or is this slow speed pretty

> much the norm for these things?  If so I am seriously considering

> "downgrading" to an immersion chiller.

You don't mention the diameter of the copper tubing that you used.  I

made a counterflow chiller out of garden hose and 20 feet of 3/8 inch

copper tubing (I think that was the size, it was the largest I could find

that was still flexible enough to work with.)  This cooler works well and

works fast.  The way my brewing is set up, it is about a 15 foot drop from

the boiler to the fermenter.  This cooler takes in from boiling to tap water

cold.  Total siphon time is about 5 minutes for 5 gallons.

>  Another general question that I have is how do people direct the

> wort into their counterflow chillers.  In the past I always imagined that

> i would just hook it up in series with my hopback, but recent talk about

> the evils of hot-side aeration have spooked me on this idea.  The

> alternative is to siphon directly from the brew kettle, but this has its

> own problems (the old mouth-on-the-siphon-hose conundrum, and the problem

> of hops clogging the chiller (yes, I know about the chore boy solution but

> it seems to me that that is going to leave a lot of hard-earned wort in

> the kettle)).  So, what do people do about that?

I've not settled on a method for this.  I've used the chore boy method,

but I've had problems getting a decent flow.  I usually just try to

work around the hops.  Fortunately, I haven't had many problems with

clogging.

- --

Bill

------------------------------


Gas Regulators, from HBD #1245 (October 12, 1993)

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 16:01:49 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Christopher V. Sack" <cvsack@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: Gas Regulators, from HBD #1245 (October 12, 1993)

On Tue, 12 Oct 1993, Andrew Baird wrote:

>

> Recently I acquired (read: given by good friend) a two guage oxygen regulator

> that had previously been used for welding purposes.  One guage reads from 0

> to 90lbs, while the other reads from 0 to about 3000lbs as I recall

> (actually, the high pressure side has a dual scale and reads gas flow and/or

> pressure).  I realize that the part that fits onto the tank may have the

> incorrect thread, however this piece is removeable and I'm sure I can find a

> new fitting to match the tank.  Would this regulator be suitable for kegging

> purposes?  Can I expect any noticeable off flavors, or contamination problems

> due to the fact that this has been used for welding?

>

You would have a regulator that is rated for "non-corrosive gases".

These gases would include:  oxygen, hydrogen, methane, ethylene, ethane,

carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide.  The difference, as

Andrew suspected, is in the connector between the regulator and the tank.

The oxygen would use a CGA 540 connector and the carbon dioxide would use

an CGA 320 connector.  I would also recommend swapping the 0 - 90 psi guage

for a 0 - 40 psi guage, because for beer, one rarely needs more than 25

psi for the carbonation.

You should be able to get the proper connector from a welding supply

shop.  Most welding suppliers also sell regulators and the associated

connectors.  If they don't have it, try a compressed gas vendor.

> I believe the beer mix is a nitrogen and C02 mix, and will reduce the

> problems with over carbonation of beer, if the keg is kept on tap for a

> prolonged period.  This sounds great, as I prefer my beers with little

> carbonation anyway, (I am a native Briton after all).  However, are there any

> disadvantages to using a Nitrogen/C02 mix.

>

I don't know about this mixture.  I have not seen it in the compressed gas

catalog of our local gas vendor (I work part time in the chemistry stock

room), but any gas vendor will mix it up for you, for a price.  Stick to

pure CO2 and use a pressure that provides 1 - 1.5 volumes of dissolved

CO2.  (Most beers contain 2 - 2.5 volumes of CO2)  I have seen a

dissolved gas vs. pressure/temp. table on the HBD,  but I don't know when

it was.

Chris

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

|      ___            ___                   Christopher V. Sack |

|     /   )  |    /  /   )         |         Graduate Student   |

|    /       |   /  (___   __   __ |        Dept. of Chemistry  |

|   /        |  /       ) __ ) /  )|  /     State Univ. of N.Y. |

|  /         | /       / /  / /    | /      Syracuse, NY  13210 |

| (____/*    |/* (____/ (__/ (__/  |/ /    <cvsack@lor.syr.edu> |

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


picobrew to Mike Schrempp

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 16:53:11 EDT

From: Bob_McIlvaine@keyfile.com

Subject:  picobrew to Mike Schrempp

I know HBD isn't for person to person

communication, but due to a glitch in my

internet software I can't send a response

to Mike Schrempp cause my software

won't let me use an internet address

as long as his. So...

Mike, if you read this, send me mail

with your phone# and I'll call you about

my pico brewery.

------------------------------


startup brewing

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 16:37:13 +0000 (U)

From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: startup brewing

                      startup brewing

I'm about to take to plunge and start brewing. I have read

the NCJHB, the latest Zymurgy, and been reading this digest

for some time now.

I'd like to know the following things:

what equipment should I start out with?

plastic vs glass fermenters.

extract 'kits': good ones, bad ones

about how much $$$ for equipment?

how much $$$ for a 5 gallon batch?

can I brew 1/2 a recipe by cutting the ingredients?

Thanks...looking forward to your kind replies.

george

------------------------------


Metric to Avoirdupois Conv.

Date: 12 Oct 1993 14:54:27 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Metric to Avoirdupois Conv.

Talk about deja vu. I had just sent the revised Rager Constant to Mark Garetz

yesterday. For everyone's benefit, I will include the derivation for it here.

What Regent said about the accuracy not being terribly significant to the

results is true, but I'm perspicacious. (yeah, that's it)

        28.3495 grams/oz              gram gal

1000 x ----------------- = 7489.1689 ---------

        3.7854 liter/gal              liter oz

The numbers are correct to four significant digits. Round all you want.

The factor of 1000 is from the fact that SI units are based on Kilograms.

John Palmer

PS. I have received favorable response regarding the DOE posting, so I will

post specifics for the next two experiments in the near future.

- --Since toast always lands butter-side down, and a cat always lands on its

feet, what would happen if you strapped toast to the cat's back and dropped it?

------------------------------


GABF

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 17:32:58 -0600

From: feldman@hal9k.csc.cxo.dec.com (james feldman)

Subject: GABF

A few thoughts on the GABF

I went there Saturday evening.  HUGE line to get in, but it moved reasonably

fast.  The size of the hall was nice in that I wasn't jostled as often.

Interesting toys, like the hi-tech, computer controlled home brew

workstation ;'[)], and the party pigs (a 2 1/4 gallon fermenter/server).

The popcorn was TERRIABLE and had this mutant yellow color.  I ended up buying

the soft pretzils to clear the different beer tastes.  A couple more wash

stations would of been nice too.

Given the larger area, greater number of people and displayers, I would of

appreciated more time to browse the beers.  I guess that's a good reason to join

AHA, so I could of got in that afternoon.  I was on a "rare" bear style hunt

(smoked, alt, oatmeal stouts, fruits).  Liked most of what I had, but

some people seem to think that stout=burnt.  The Cherry Rail was my favorite

fruit beer.  Blue Tail Ale from a Ca. micro was one of my favorites, but it's

not bottled (waaaa!)  Sierra Nevada's Summerfest was a good one too.

I've rambled enough

jim feldman

------------------------------


Beer Drinks

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 19:34:03 EDT

From: sean v. taylor <sean@chemres.tn.cornell.edu>

Subject: Beer Drinks

Greetings,

 I was roaming around an old bookstore the other day and I

came across a book on cooking with beer (can't remember the title,

and didn't buy the book).  In the back, there was a section on beer

drinks.  I also don't remember many specific recipes, but most them

looked like they treated beer as a regular liquor.

 Anyways, I wondered if other people had heard about making

drinks with beer?  Now, I've heard of adding some woodruff or

raspberry liqueur to a Berliner Weiss, a lemon to hefeweizen, and even

mixing fermented apple cider to ale, but I've never heard of beer

being used as merely an additive in some drink concoction.  Has

anybody else?

 Quite frankly, I thought beer was a finished beverage, whereas

hard liquor needed "diluted" by mixing with something else.

 On a similar note, Is something considered part of the beer

if it is added post fermentation?  Or is it more or less a "beer

drink"?

    Just wondering,

     Sean Taylor

------------------------------


Carboy Source/John Pavao

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 18:49 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: Carboy Source/John Pavao

Hello Readers,

Upon recieving 1) many queries for a 7 gal carboy supplier and 2) getting my PC

finally reconnected to the Internet, here's the address for a brew supply

supplier.

 James Page Brewery & Beermaking Supplies

 1300 Quincy ST. NE

 Minneapolis MN, 55413-1541

 1-800-347-4042

You can use this 1-800 # to place orders or request a catalog.  They ship UPS so

I assume Cal. money is as good as WI money.

I'm but a lowly graduate student and profit not from this, much less any other,

professional relationship (disclaimer).  Speaking of disclaimers, how come we

list disclaimers when we post supplier info and not when we expouse the virtues

of a commercially micro-brewed beer?

Page sold a 7 gal. in lieu of 6.5 which had sold out.  As posted

in an earlier HBList, the opennings of the 7 gal are too narrow to use a carboy

cap in starting a siphon.

In reply to John Pavao's request...

 The 7 gal and perhaps (help me out here people) 6.5 gal carboys have

enough head space to use as a primary fermenter w/o a blowtube.  I use an

airlock.  The above supplier also carries long racking canes which will fit 7

gal carboys.

Sorry to take up the extra bandwidth...couldn't get my message directly to John.

David Atkins

UW-Madison

atkins@macc.wisc.edu

------------------------------


Idophor question

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 20:29:28 -0400

From: Eric M. Mrozek <mrozek@horowitz.eecs.umich.edu>

Subject: Idophor question

I just recieved this message from a friend of mine in Los Angeles:

> I just finished a batch of spiced ale. Actually it started as a Belgian Brown

> ale, but I used Idophor(sp?) to clean with and found that I can not tolerate

> Idophor. This stuff is the stuff that gave the flavor to the keg beers at the

> Maltose Falcons meetings that you and I could not stand. So I added lots of

> spices and dry hopped to save the batch (it seems to have worked except that

> the dry hops increased the profile of the allspice and it is taking a while

> to mellow out.

Since I'm in Michigan now, I couldn't taste the original beer, but I remember

very well the offtaste that he's referring to.  I have always disliked the idea

of using Cornelius kegs because every kegged beer I tasted seemed to have a

similar background unpleasentness (which I assumed was due to metal leaching or

"unnatural" CO2 impregnation).

Could someone comment on the use of Idophor (flavor characteristics, threshhold

of dection, poison rating, personal experiences, etc.)?  I know he rinses

thouroughly, so it's not sloppy technique.  In the past we have always

sanitized

with bleach with resonable results.

Eric

------------------------------


Brewpub review

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 17:15:12 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Mark S. Nelson" <mnelson@eis.calstate.edu>

Subject: Brewpub review

The following reviews represent my opinions only.  You can judge for

yourself what they are worth.

The rise in popularity of microbrewing and specifically brewpubs is

beginning to develope and ugly side, and I have recently seen this side in

the form of the Belmont Brewing Company of Belmont Shores, California.

I guess it should come as no suprise that as brewpubs are becoming more

and more trendy, there will be some designed especially to appeal to the

yuppy set.  This is not to say that there is anything at wrong with the

growing popularity of brewpubs.  Being a very frequent patron of any

brewpub within reach, I find the growing numbers to be very reasuring.

However, my experience with Belmont Brewing Company indicates that pubs

that cater specifically to trend followers can lack a certain amount of

quality.

While the pub is in an outstanding location and the interior seems

well-designed, with plenty of seating (actually, quite a lot of seating)

and the staff (well some of the staff) is friendly and attentive, the food

lacks the care and quality one expects in a brewpub.  This is especially

irritating when you consider the high prices.

But on to the most important part, the beer.  The best way to sum up my

impression is this:  If you enjoy the over-powering taste and smell of

yeast, combined with an almost total lack of any hoppy taste, aroma or

bitterness, this is the beer for you.  The following beers were sampled:

Beer Name:  Official Description:

Marathon  "Light bodied ale. Low bitterness. Hint of Aroma"

Strawberry Blond "Just a hint of fruit. Light in body. Low

   bitterness.

Long Beach Crude "For beer lovers who enjoy full flavor.  A hint

   of bitterness and chocolate"

The description of the Marathon Ale is pretty accurate, except that it is

wildely understated.  The strawberry flavor in the Strawberry Blond was

about as subtle as a strawberrypie in the face.  Not unpleasant, but very

overpowering.  Mixed with the heavy taste of yeast makes for a bad

combination.

The L.B. Crude was the best of those sampled.  Really a light stout.  Good

flavor with a lighter body.  Very tasty chilled.  Could be a very good

warm weather stout if it wasn't for the ever-present yeast taste and

smell.  Unfortunately, the taste and smell get worse as you continue to drink.

I can't really describe the brewing setup as I didn't have opportunity to

check it out, but from across the resturant it looked nice.

Another review of yet another L.A. area brewpub will follow shortly.

- --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.

Mark S. Nelson      nelsonm@axe.humboldt.edu      mnelson@eis.calstate.edu

------------------------------


Boogymen and bogymen

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 18:20:52 -0800

From: ulrich@sfu.ca

Subject: Boogymen and bogymen

korz and arf have been debating the spelling and pronunciation of

bo(o)gyman. The American Heritage Dictionary has an entry for "boogieman"

(pronounced either with the vowel of "book" or with the vowel of "boot"),

under which they say "Also boogyman, boogeyman, bogyman, bogeyman" (the

last two pronounced with the vowel of "boat"). All of these refer to a

hobgoblin, as does the word "bogy" (also bogey, bogie). (The spelling they

prefer for the golf and military terms is "bogey".)

In addition to all the above forms, I have heard "boogerman" (with the

vowel of "book" again). Note also that "booger" and "boogie" are both

attested as count nouns corresponding to the mass noun "snot".

Other related words are "bogle", "bugaboo", and "bugbear". All of these

words were borrowed from some Celtic language, either Scottish, Welsh, or

Cornish.

To sum up, there's a lot of dialect variation here and there's no one

"correct" form.

Now excuse me, I need a homebrew.

Charles Ulrich

------------------------------


Re: Booby/Boogy/Bogyman!

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 18:48:44 PDT

From: dbell@cup.portal.com

Subject: Re: Booby/Boogy/Bogyman!

Jack Schmidling posted:

>>From: korz@iepubj.att.com

>>I think you mean boogyman, but in any event.....

>Funny you should mention that because I researched the word which I am using

>in the title of an article I am writing.  "Boogy" is a musical term and

>refers to a type of jazz and a "boogyman" would be someone who plays or

>dances to it although no such word is described in my dictionary.

>"Bogy" is a type of gremlin, hobgoblin or other bad actor who keeps throwing

>wrenches into gear boxes.  It is also the term adopted by fighter pilots to

>identify an enemy plane.   It is pronounced with a long "o" but I find no

>reference to a "bogyman" in my dictionary either.  It seems to be redundant

>corruption and although I try to change people's brewing habits, I don't have

>time to change the American language.

>Unless someone comes up with something convincing, I will stick with bogyman.

Well, Jack, I hope this is convincing - to others!

Retrieved from the Webster server at   chem.ucsd.edu:

boogyman

No definition for 'boogyman'.  Maybe you mean:

  1. bogyman                2. boogeyman

Word: boogeyman

boo-gey-man /'bu.g-eE-,man, 'b:u-geE-/

 also boog-er-man /'bu-g-er- n

[boogey, alter. of booger + man]

(ca. 1850)

:BOGEYMAN

Word: boogerman

boo-gey-man /'bu.g-eE-,man, 'b:u-geE-/

 also boog-er-man /'bu-g-er- n

[boogey, alter. of booger + man]

(ca. 1850)

:BOGEYMAN

Word: bogyman

bo-gey-man

 also bo-gy-man /'bu-g-eE-,man, 'boE-geE-, 'b:u-geE-, 'bu-g-er- n

(ca. 1890)

1: a monstrous imaginary figure used in threatening children

2: a terrifying or dreaded person or thing: BUGBEAR

Looks clear to me...  And all these years I was spelling it -oo-

Dave

dbell@cup.portal.com

------------------------------


GABF Denver

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 20:37:02 -0600

From: John Adams <j_adams@hpfcjca.sde.hp.com>

Subject: GABF Denver

I attended the GABF on Friday evening, the members-only tasting on Saturday,

and an "Evening with Michael Jackson" at the Wynkoop Brewing Co. on Sunday.

Friday Night:

   What a zoo, but's that is what I expected.  Actually I believe it to be

   a little better than last year simply because Currigan Hall is larger.

   Personal Favorites:

      Santa Rosa Brewing Companies Cascades IPA.

         Excellent hop nose and taste.  The perfect amount of bittering hops.

         The best IPA I tried at the fest.

      Dixie Brewing Companies White Moose.

         A white chocolate beer with an incredible chocolate aroma and light

         chocolate taste that's not overpowering.

      Alaskan Brewing Companies Smoked Porter.

         Has always been one of my favorites.  Although last years batch was

         better this is still the best smoked beer at the fest.

      Vermont Pub and Breweries Smoked Porter.

         A very close second to Alaskan's.

      Spring Street Brewing Companies WIT.

         A Belgium white with orange and coriander, very interesting.

Saturday Afternoon:

   I went in prepared with a list of various styles I wished to try.  I was

   interesting in the many pumpkin and certain fruit beers, IPA's and Imperial

   Stouts.

   Personal Favorites:

      Adler Brau's Great Pumpkin Spice.

         This is by far the best pumpkin beer I've ever tried.  It had a very

         nice pumpkin taste with the perfect spices.  The only thing it lacked

         was the whipped cream.

      Hubcap Breweries Killer Bee Honey Ale.

         More of a light mead than an ale.  Not as overpowering as most meads

         but a very light, honey taste.

      Marin Brewing Companies Blueberry Ale.

         A very nice blueberry nose and taste.  I was enjoying this one when

         it took the gold and everyone raised their glasses in salute!

      Pacific Coast Breweries Imperial Stout

         A slightly sweet but full bodied Imperial Stout.

      Vermont Pub and Breweries Avid Tartan Wee Heavy.

         A nice sweet and strong Scottish Ale.

Sunday Evening:

   Michael Jackson presented a tasting of "For The Love Of Good Beer: Denver

   Against The World."  Michael gave an one hour biography and history of

   beer followed by a tasting of 4 "World" beers and 4 "Denver" beers:

      Pilsener Urquell     (Czech Republic)

      Bass Ale             (England)

      Paulaner Oktoberfest (Germany)

      Guinness Stout       (Ireland)

      Home Run Ale         (Champion Brewing Company)

      Altman Amber Ale     (Rockbottom Brewery)

      India Pale Ale       (Breckenridge Brewery)

      Churchyard Ale       (Wynkoop Brewing Company)

------------------------------


Bogymen/Boogymen/Lactic Acid/Low-Alcohol Beer

Date:         Tue, 12 Oct 93 20:25:17 PDT

From: Ken Miller <KCMILLER%SJSUVM1.BITNET@cmsa.Berkeley.EDU>

Subject:      Bogymen/Boogymen/Lactic Acid/Low-Alcohol Beer

Many and multifarious are the ways of the English language. Webster's

Ninth New Collegiate lists all of the following: bogeyman (preferred),

bogyman, boogyman, and buggerman (all with the same meaning); also

bogey, bogy, and bogie (without the -man suffix). So everyone was

right (until they started dissing each other) and we can move on to

another topic...unless maybe someone wants to pronounce it with an

umlaut? :^)

Phil Brushaber solicits non-basic information:

>        A brewing friend suggested using Lactic Acid. Got a bottle

>of Kent brand 88% Lactic Acid. I could use a suggestion from you

>Brewing Chemist types....

I'm not a Brewing Chemist...but I play one on TV (not!)

>        Any guess on how much of this 88% Lactic Acid I might use

>to adjust the PH in 5 gallons? You know something like: "1 tsp of

>88% Lactic acid should lower 5 gallons of liquid by .4 PH degrees".

>I could use trial and error but I've got a hunch that someone

>out there may have the answer or be familiar with this stuff.

Sorry, it isn't that simple. pH is a logarithmic scale, and the

degree of lowering will depend on both the volume and pH of both

the liquid and the acid. If you know the exact pH of your water, it

is possible to calculate the amount of lactic acid needed to lower

5 gallons of it to a specified pH. (When I get my hands on a

Merck Index, I'll post the equation.)

In practice, it's probably easier to use trial and error, since

tap water pH can vary from brewing to brewing (mine varies from

7.2-7.9, according to the water report) and the amount of lactic

acid needed is usually quite small (on the order of < 2 tablespoons).

Dave Miller (in TCHOHB) recommends diluting the lactic acid first,

using a ratio of 3 cups water to 2 tsp lactic acid; this is not

strictly necessary but makes over-acidifying by accident less likely.

I usually wind up using about 2 cups of diluted acid (i.e. about

1+ tsp of 88% concentrated acid) to lower about six gallons of water

to a pH of 5.7 (your mileage will vary).

Bill Kitch speculates:

>Does anyone have a procedure for producing low or no alcohol

>carbonated malt beverages?

>

>My intial thought is to:

> 1) brew in the normal fashion

> 2) heat to evaporate the alcohol

> 3) cool

> 4) add priming sugar and fresh yeast

> 5) bottle

>

>Is this reasonable?  Has anyone tried this?  Did it work?

Gee, I hate to be so negative today, but I don't think you'ld

be very happy with the brew so produced. The problem is with

step 2. The heat that drives off the alcohol will also drive off

other volatile flavor components, leaving your brew poorer for

the experience. Also--and this is pure speculation on my part--

since heat increases the speed of most chemical reactions, certain

reactions (e.g. oxidation reactions) which don't occur at

fermentation/storage temperature might occur rather quickly

at alcohol evaporation temperature. Whatever this does to your

beer, it's not likely to have a positive effect....

As I recall, one of the methods commerical breweries use to

produce no-alcohol beer is a variation on this technique in

which the evaporation is done in a partial vacuum, which allows

the evaporation to occur at lower temperatures. Perhaps one

of the numerous engineer-types on this forum can send you plans

for a vacuum distillation device....

BTW, if you do try this method, be sure not to condense or in any

other way keep the evaporated alcohol...producing distilled alcohol

without the proper paperwork is literally a Federal offense. :^(

Ken Miller (a.k.a. the Library Gnome)

who thinks that "low alcohol" beer is anything with an S.G. < 1.070

kcmiller@sjsuvm1.sjsu.edu

------------------------------


removing beer labels

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 08:07:17 EDT

From: poconnor@lager.tn.cornell.edu (Peter OConnor)

Subject: removing beer labels

A couple of days ago, it was suggested here that beer labels come off

easily after a half hour soak in ammonia and hot water.  I tried it

last night and it works great.  Just be sure to let the bottles soak long

enough.

 -pete

------------------------------


Bacterial Cultures/COPS

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 08:07:47 -0400

From: Michael D. Galloway <mgx@ornl.gov>

Subject: Bacterial Cultures/COPS

hey ...

I've not seen a lot of traffic on the digest regarding the culturing of

and pitching volumes of Brettanomyces cultures.  I've got cultures

of both B. Labicus and B. Bruxellancis (forgive the spelling, I'm a

physicist, not a microbiologist) on slants.  What should I do to prepare

them to pitch.  I'm comfortable culturing up yeasts from slants to

pitching volumes, if that helps.  Also, what are the appropriate

methods of sanitation to use after using the bacterial cultures.

******************************************************

>

>Well--it happened again. in the Syracuse area, WSYT, the local Fox

>affiliate showed the infamous COPS episode with the guy with Homebrewing

>equipment. Anyone got those addresses available--and did it run in other

>areas? This show was on at 10 PM monday nite.

>

Yeah, it aired in Knoxville TN on fox the other night too, at 6:30 pm.  Pure

trash.

Thanks, michael

------------------------------


Maple Brews

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 08:33:08 EDT

From: Bob_McIlvaine@keyfile.com

Subject: Maple Brews

Read the post about maple beers.

I have a friend who makes maple syrup

up in Maine. Recently, he attended a

maple festival and returned with a

cookbook of maple recipes from the

1800's. In the book are two recipes

for maple brews. The recipes include

such ingredients as checkerberries,

pah-sis-o-wah (both members

of the wintergreen family which are

native to New England) and, believe

it or not, hemlock tips (I'm going to

substitute spruce, I think it'll be safer).

Since I missed the checkerberry season

this year,  I'll try it next year.

------------------------------


Compare Contrast Kits vs Scratch

Date: 13 Oct 93 09:12:09-0400

From: MATTHEW.BOHNE@sprint.sprint.com

Subject: Compare Contrast Kits vs Scratch

I have made beer both by kit, and by scratch, and I have had mixed results. I

have used the "Malt Extracts" in the orange cans and I have used the Coopers

Ale Malt Extracts ($15.00 a can, Expensive!). I have made ok beer with the

Orange cans and made a pretty acceptable Oz lager with the other. I tried a

batch from scratch (Imperial stout) and It came out bitter, not to mention I

now have beer all up inside my stove after it over boiled... I followed the

directions provided in my Beer Bible but, I guess things went south somewhere.

What I really would like to do is brew a beer that is simular to the great

beers of Austria (St Augustiner Brau - brewed by Trappist monks in Salzburg

not that crap you get in the bottle imported from Germany). I have also been

contemplating a Heife Wiezen. My problem is this, what would be better:

Brew using a kit? If so:

 which one is best(brewform,Orange, etc)?

 Is it better to buy kits from mail order (cheaper,better quality) ?

 If so who, in your experience has been the best to deal with?

 Any recipes?

Brew from scratch?

 to boil or not to boil?

 Strain vs grain bag

 Note worthy recipes?

Brew kits are much more expensive, but for their ease are they worth it?

Is their quality better than what most can create?

I would really appreciate everyone's input on this, as I would like(as well as

 many others out there) a little wisdom from some of you who have been brewing

for a while.

Carboy Dieum

Thanks,

Matthew Bohne

------------------------------


Re:Carboy handles: A Better Solution?

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 09:22:22 EDT

From: Matthew Evans <matt@cadif.cornell.edu>

Subject: Re:Carboy handles: A Better Solution?

I haven't actually tried the carboy handles that were described, but I think

I lucked out and found a better way to move carboys.  The carboy that I

conveniently "found" was an old glass spring water bottle.  But what made this

carboy even better was that it had its own wooden crate that provides a great

way to lift the carboy when full.  The way the thing is built it also protects

it from being banged around when moving (this carboy has moved over 1000 miles

without any special padding).

You still wind up lifting the carboy from the sides, but you still are a lot

better off than hugging your beer (although I guess there is something to be

said for that too!) to move a full carboy.  If you would like more info, or

dimensions send me a message.  Good luck.

- --Matt Evans

------------------------------


Re: Kegging Systems

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 09:25:45 EDT

From: pblshr@aol.com

Subject: Re: Kegging Systems

In the October 12 issue, someone was kind enough to publish the phone numbers

of two keg sources. I copied them to my clipboard... forgetting I already had

some other junk on it.

Now I can't retrieve the issue again. If you copied the numbers... or if you

posted the numbers, please send them to me, Tom Finan. My address is

PBLSHR@aol.comp

------------------------------


Spain.

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 19:48:19 UTC+0100

From: "David S. Reher" <soso203@sis.ucm.es>

Subject: Spain.

Is there anyone on the list interested in homebrewing that lives in Spain?

I am looking for a homebrewing accesory outlet in Spain. Does anybody

know of one? Thanks.

Antonio S. Reher

soso203@sis.ucm.es

------------------------------


Spain.

Date: Sat,  9 Oct 1993 16:49:53 UTC+0100

From: "David S. Reher" <soso203@sis.ucm.es>

Subject: Spain.

Is there anyone on the list interested in homebrewing that lives in Spain?

I am looking for a homebrewing accesory outlet in Spain. Does anybody

know of one? Thanks.

Antonio S. Reher

soso203@sis.ucm.es

------------------------------


smokin' grains

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 08:51:00 CST

From: Montgomery_John@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil

Subject: smokin' grains

  Reading the past couple of articles regarding smoked porters has

  peaked my interest. I'm considering trying a batch of this stuff.

  The one brewer mentioned he had a real pit smoker (smoke area off to

  the side of the pit fire). I, on the other hand, have one of the tower

  type smokers. Has anyone smoked grains in one of these things? What

  are any special tricks to getting the most out of the smoking?

  I'm wondering if the temp gets too hot in these that one ends up

  burning the grains before achieving smoke flavor in the grain.

  You may email me directly and I'll be glad to post a summary of

  responses (  if I get any :)  ). Thanks...

jm

montgomery_john@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil

------------------------------


Rolling Rock Boch

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 10:05:39 -0400

From: Jim Frost <jimf@centerline.com>

Subject: Rolling Rock Boch

Anyone else try Rolling Rock Boch yet?  If not, do so -- nice color,

taste and aftertaste.

jim frost

jimf@centerline.com

------------------------------


younger's no. 3

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 09:08:33 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: younger's no. 3

In Scotland, McEwan's has an ale known as 80 Shilling or IPA, with

a gravity of 1042.  In England -- spotted in London in The Sun -- you'll

find Younger No. 3, a cask-conditioned ale of SG 1043.  Think of this

as an example of AHA Scottish Export.  In the US, you'll find the

bottled counterparts to these two beers.  The IPA goes by the same

name, and I don't remember the name of the other beer, but it might

be McEwan's Export.  In some parts of the U.S. you might find

McEwan's Scotch Ale, but at SG 1088, this is a much stronger beer.

If anyone has access to the Scotch Ale, send me one :-).

------------------------------


Reply to Chris Seiders' question

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 08:43:16 -0600

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: Reply to Chris Seiders' question

In HBD#1246, Chris Seiders <SEIDERS@HANDI.MED.UTAH.EDU>

writes:

>Subject: Stuck Fermentation? a Beginner's Question

>ICAgICBTaW5jZSB0aGlzIGlzIG15IGZpcnN0IHBvc3QgdG8gdGhpcyBsaXN0LCBw

>bGVhc2UgYmVhciB3aXRoIG1lLiAgSSBhbSBuZXcNCmF0IGJyZXdpbmcsIGFuZCBo

>YXZlIHJlY2VudGx5IHN0YXJ0ZWQgbXkgc2Vjb25kIGJhdGNoIG9mIGJyZXcuICBJ

Yes, I've had this problem myself.

>IGhhdmUNCmVuY291bnRlcmVkIHNvbWUgdGhpbmdzIHdoaWNoIEkgaGF2ZW4ndCBl

>bmNvdW50ZXJlZCBiZWZvcmUgKG5vdCBzdXJwcmlzaW5nIG9uDQpvbmx5IHRoZSBz

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>dmljZS9lbmNvdXJhZ2VtZW50Lg0KSSBzdGFydGVkIGFuIGFsbC1leHRyYWN0IEJy

Fortunately, the solution to this is very easy: just Relax, Don't

Worry, and Have a Homebrew!!

>b3duIE51dCBBbGUgb24gU2F0LiBBZnRlciBib2lsaW5nIHRoZSBleHRyYWN0IGZv

>cg0KMSBociBJIGFkZGVkIGl0IHRvIG15IDUgZ2FsbG9uIGdsYXNzIGNhcmJveSBh

This is pure Hogwash! Don't believe everything Jack tells you!!

>bmQgYnJvdWdodCBpdCB1cCB0byA1IGdhbGxvbnMNCndpdGggd2F0ZXIuICBJIHRo

>ZW4gY29vbGVkIHRoZSBjYXJib3kgaW4gYSB3YXRlci9pY2UgYmF0aCB1bnRpbCBp

Ouch!!  Trying using more Vaseline next time!

>dCBjb29sZWQgdG8NCjc2+EYgYXQgd2hpY2ggcG9pbnQgSSBoeWRyYXRlZCB0aGUg

You're welcome!

Kelly

------------------------------


new at all grain - how 2 make tuns?

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 09:55:00 -0400 (EDT)

From: ERIC FERIS 703-308--8048 <FERIS.ERIC@epamail.epa.gov>

Subject: new at all grain - how 2 make tuns?

          In the last week or so I've been reading this, it's like I've

          stumbled on a treasure trove of brewing knowledge here.  You guys

          are some serious brewers -- just the type of forum I need to

          learn the finer points of making excellent brew.

          I've been brewing with concentrated worts from extracts using

          some grain supplements for a few months and I'm ready to make the

          leap to all-grain brewing.  I'd rather make my own equipment

          whenever possible as much of the ready-made stuff is much more

          pricey than the sum of its parts.  I am wondering about the best

          way to go about making a mash tun and a lauter tun.  I have only

          seen them vaguely described, and never seen a detailed diagram of

          how they are built.  I would prefer to avoid the food bucket

          route as it seems they are a bit on the small side.  I understand

          you can make a mash tun out of a big picnic cooler.  Is that

          right?  If so, how does the heating system work without burning

          the cooler?  Also, how do you keep the heating element from

          burning the grain?

          Thanks for your feedback - it sure is nice to be able to ask real

          experts about this!

          Regards,

          Eric

------------------------------


starter gravity

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 09:43:43 -0500 (cdt)

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: starter gravity

Many thanks to the Coyote for addressing my yeast population concerns in

Wednesday's HBD.

Rather than doing this privately, I shall expose my shameful ignorance to all,

 thinking that having this question answered on-line may be helpful to those

who are either newbies or are like me (want to make better beer but hate

math).

SO: how much extract do I add to how much water to get SG 1020, 1030, etc?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


Beer color and competition

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 11:04:04 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Beer color and competition

RE: A recent HBD post about beer color and competition.

Color is a minor factor in the total score.  It accounts for a maximum

of 2 of 50 points.

------------------------------


Milling and Mashing

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 10:14 CDT

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Milling and Mashing

 >From: polstra!larryba@uunet.UU.NET

 >Subject: Re: Wort Processors Mill Evaluation

 >I agree that grit size and uniformity is more important than husk damage.

 this is most true about modern 2-row grains.  I have personally used

 two lauter designs: a perforated false bottom and a slotted copper manifold.

 In both cases too fine a grind is a disaster regardless of the quality of

 the husks.

 My recently posted tests results with flour made from a Corona indicate that

 a third lauter design is worth looking into.

 >  The problems are two fold.  First the flour tends to ball up and make a

 dough that is dry inside.  This occurs during mash in and is a royal pain to

 get rid off.

 That is most assuridly so and the only problem I had with the Corona flour.

 I can imagine what a real pain it would have been in a full sized batch.

 >Second problem is the stuck sparge.  I had never seen one until

 I used a roller mill that was set way too close (.025") and the sparge locked

 up after a couple quarts.  No dribble, nothing.  Just like the valve had been

 closed.

 Not so with the easymasher.  The flow with the flour was no different than

 with a "normal" crush.

 >The malt mill I have produces a course crush (e.g. looks like cornmeal) with

 pretty much intact husks.  I have lautered a 15.5 lb mash and recovered 11.5

 pretty much intact husks.  I have lautered a 15.5 lb mash and recovered 11.5

 gallons of 1.046 wort in 20 minutes.  That is .034pt/lb/gal for you guys

 interested in the efficiency game.  Since it was a pils, using only pils

 malt, the number wasn't too unexpected.

 Just for the record, Larry's mill is a fixed spacing model and makes a good

 case for my contention that adjustability of spacing, on a well designed

 roller mill, is of no real value to the home brewer.  It is offered as an

 option because people think they need it and the customer is always right.

 js

------------------------------


Over boiling

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 07:52:13 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Over boiling

Rob Toutkoushian asks in #1246 if his low S.G.s could be caused by "over

boiling" his extract based wort.  He further explains that he gets a lot

of "gunk" on the bottom of the brew kettle.

Given that you are indeed following the recipe, and I assume you are doing

a high gravity boil, then perhaps you are burning the wort.  As you

vigorously stir you simply allow fresh wort in contact with the too hot

kettle bottom and burn more of the fermentables to the bottom of the pot.

I don't know your boiling set up but if it's an electric stove you may be

forced to use the highest setting (cherry red) just to get a boil.  Since

you are not boiling to reduce your wort volume perhaps you could cover or

partially cover the kettle (WATCH FOR BOIL OVER) and this might allow you to

turn down the heat.  Also thin bottom pots tend to get hot spots, so

switching to a thicker bottomed kettle may help, though this may not be

financially possible.

Also 44 12 oz bottles, with head space accounted for, is exactly 4 gallons,

and in my experience an uncovered good rolling boil evaporates just about

1 gal/hour.

Good luck, keep us informed.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1247, 10/14/93

*************************************

-------


Stuck Fermentation?

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 09:25 -0600 (MDT)

From: Chris Seiders <SEIDERS@HANDI.MED.UTAH.EDU>

Subject: Stuck Fermentation?

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------------------------------


Beer in Anaheim, CA

Date:        Wed, 13 Oct 93 11:19:41 EST

From: JIM MCNUTT <INJM%MCGILLB.BITNET@VM1.MCGILL.CA>

Subject: Beer in Anaheim, CA

I'll be attending a conference in Anaheim, CA during the middle

of November.  Does anyone have any suggestions for brew-pubs or

good types of beer for that area.  Please email directly to my

email address.  Thanks.

Jim McNutt

------------------------------


Fast, Cool Sparges and Malt Charactor

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 11:29:09 -0400

From: polstra!larryba@uunet.UU.NET

Subject: Fast, Cool Sparges and Malt Charactor

Folks following my postings (sparse as they are) will note that I am a

proponant of fast sparges.  I always let my sparges run as fast as

they can and I typically get very good extract yields from my mashes.

My second to last batch was 20 min for 11 gal at ~34 pt/lb/gal

I also typically skip mash out maybe heating the mash to 158-162 just

to maintain a mash bed temp of 140-150 and to force conversion if the

iodine test is not negative after 20-30 minutes.

Once, a year or two ago, I asked the forums if there were any negative

issues w/regard to fast sparges.  I got no responses.  Well, at the last

Seattle Brews Brothers meeting I was talking with a brewer about malt

charactor and mashing techniques.  Many brew brothers do decotion and

modified decotion mashing claiming improved malt charactor.  This guy's

claim was that fast, cool sparges produce low malt charactor.  He said

that he always runs a very hot sparge (180 or higher) because that

husky graininess makes for more malt charactor.

This guy also suggested an experiment for me to do to test out his ideas:

next time I begin to lauter a 10 gal batch, to set aside 2 gallons of

mash and bring it to a rolling boil before adding it back into the lauter

tun.  I guess this a way of simulating a decotion mash and the carmelization

that occurs during the boils.  He claimed that the change in malt and

physical charactoristics of the mash would be obvious as I brought the 2

gallons to a boil.

The question: What do folks think of this theory and the experiment?  Am I

likely to just end up with a bad starch haze and a puckery beer?  Will I

be safe from a starch haze due to the low temps of my lauter and the fact

that I rarely mash for more than 40-50 minutes (two/three step infusion

mash) there should be plenty of enzyme activity in the mash?

 - Larry Barello

------------------------------


rotten egg smell in fermentation

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 10:39:38 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: rotten egg smell in fermentation

This is approaching Frequently Asked Question statuts on HBD, so

here's a brief explanation.

The rotten egg smell is hydrogen sulfide -- H2S.  Just-fermented

green beer contains detectable levels of hydrogen sulfide, and

the threshold value for this compound in beer is in the 5 - 10

ppb range.  Hydrogen sulfide is present in wort, but is driven

off during the kettle boil.  Sulfur-containing volatiles, including

hydrogen sulfide, are formed by some strains of yeast during

primary fermentation.  The level of hydrogen sulfide is reduced

during beer maturation, and is presumed to take place as a result

of the scrubbing action of carbon dioxide bubbles when produced

in a beer fermentation.  In conclusion, reduction of H2S occurs

during secondary fermentation, and is therefore one reason among

many to consider doing a secondary fermentation.

------------------------------


GABF Size

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 9:40:38 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: GABF Size

Chris asks whether the GABF equates to the AHA nationals for the pros.  I don't

know that much about the AHA, but I think the GABF is open to all professional

brewers, regardless of affiliations.  Many brewers there are Institute for

Brewing Studies members, but not anywhere near all of them.  This thing has

gotten so big, though that it is difficult to get any idea of what's available.

I would like to see several regional ABF's and have the GABF an invitation-only

affair.  The invites would go to the regional winners in each category.  That

way the regionals would be of a more reasonable size and so would the GABF

(used as a national run-off competition).  I went to the Saturday afternoon

tasting and back again Saturday night, and I don't think I made a dent in the

total number of beers there (nor would I try).  Does anyone else think this

thing is a leviathan?  Dr. Fix, I believe you had one of the judging jobs,

which should give you some insight into the organization.  Is my idea feasible,

possible, or a pipe dream?

norm

------------------------------


Re: William Younger's No. 3

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 12:16:00 EDT

From: andrewb6@aol.com

Subject: Re: William Younger's No. 3

Ah, that brew of brews, that nectar of nectars, that heavenly concoction

worthy of any man's affection.

No. 3 is the beer for which I yearn.  You're right it is an British brew,

made by William Younger which is part of the Scottish and Newcastle group.  I

believe it is still made in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is typically consumed

only in Scotland and the North of England.

I must admit in my younger days (not too long ago) I consumed a cask or two

of this beer, but as is typical of so many Britons, we spent many hours

enjoying the brew and little time analyzing and pondering it's complexity.

In other words I can't give you too much in the way of a description.

Commonly thought of as a bitter, it's somewhere between a bitter and a brown

ale.  At first glance it looks black, and when served properly it's topped by

a thin layer of dense creamy head.  However when held up to the light (even

in it's customary pint glass) it reveals a beautiful rich, ruby red color.

It is certainly malty, but not sweet, and is balanced well by bitterness.  As

I recall it has an OG of about 1058.  Michael Jackson gave it a poor review

in his last book, and mentioned that it had a cult following.  This last fact

I can certainly attest to.  Event the casual mention of it's name would cause

a seasoned beer drinker to salivate and become glassy eyed

(much as I am now).  IMHO  it's a fine beer and compliments William Younger's

 Scotch Ale and IPA.  As far as alcohol content goes, maybe Jackson's book

will tell you, but I can't put a number to it (but from experience, nine

pints of No. 3 and you're really under the table).

I'm not so sure about your comments on "Lager Louts".  This beer is as far

from being a lager as budlite is from being full-bodied.  But if a football

hooligan did take to drinking this beer, I would have to consider it his one

redeeming feature.

As far as finding it on this side of the pond--good luck.  Unless things have

changed in the last couple of years, No. 3 is only produced in cask form, and

they don't ship it very far (in

fact I've never seen it in the south of England).  If you find out otherwise,

let me know at

 all-speed.

If you need to know more I'll gladly research it for you :-)   --I'm going

back home for Christmas.

------------------------------


Re: flaked Maize

Date:          Wed, 13 Oct 1993 13:00:39 EST5EDT

From: TSAURET@Hermes.GC.PeachNet.EDU

Subject:       Re: flaked Maize

    Recently a I tried to add flaked maize to my wort, but I was

unable to get the maize to pass the iodine test.  I followed the

instructions from THE JOY OF HOME BREWING, but after two hours gave

up trying to pass the iodine test.  The beer has been in  the bottles

a week now and evrything appears fine.  Has anyone else run into this

problem?   What did I do wrong?  Thanks, Tom Sauret

------------------------------


beware of glycogen depletion

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 14:08:21 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: beware of glycogen depletion

Intermittent posts to hbd have called attention to yeast

pitching rate and the consequences of underpitching.  A

perhaps more serious concern is yeast vitality as measured by

yeast glycogen content.

Glycogen depletion is a consequence of long storage times,

warm storage temperatures, and number of other causes.

Pitching glycogen-depleted yeast can result in problems with

the primary fermentation and the finished beer:

 - sluggish fermentation

 - slow attenuation

 - higher terminal gravity

 - poor flocculation

 - poor alcohol production

 - high diacetyl

 - high SO2

 - high acetaldehyde

 - less flavor stability and shelf life.

All the more reason to build up yeast in some starter wort

before pitching into your beer.

------------------------------


filters

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 15:38:25 EDT

From: cmryglot@disney.CV.COM (Chuck Mryglot X6024)

Subject: filters

To those who filter:

    Is a 5 micron filter small enough to bother with?

5 micron filters are ease to find but I can't seem to find any

that are smaller.   Sears has 5 micron filters for $4.00 each.

   Is it best to use the fiber filter or the resin, or does it

matter?   Also, does filtering have any effect on carbonation?

 Thanks for your help.

 cmryglot@aecmail.cv.com

------------------------------


Re: William Younger #3

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 12:53:23 -0700

From: paul@rational.com (Paul Jasper)

Subject: Re: William Younger #3

On 12 Oct,  9:51, Todd Jennings wrote:

> Subject: William Younger #3

>

> I have heard of a brew by the name of WILLIAM YOUNGER #3; read about it

> in a soccer magazine, actually.  In the mag article, the brew is

> described as "the ruin of a good many young men".  The article goes on to

> refer to the beer as the preferred brew of LAGER LOUTS, the British

> football hooligans we hear so much about.

>

> Is there anyone who can tell me what the story is with this apparently

> British beer, i.e. what is the style, and where can one get it here in

> the States(if anywhere)?  I assume it's a bitter ale, but perhaps I am

> off the track here.  Can't wait to find out!!

>

>-- End of excerpt from Todd Jennings

It doesn't seem very likely that "Lager Louts" would drink Youngers No. 3

(no # sign, since this meaning does not extend to the UK), it being a

dark ale.  Football hooligans in general would be hard pressed to find it

outside of certain areas.  It's made in Edinburgh by Scottish & Newcastle,

one of the large national brewers, but isn't commonly available in their

pubs.  S&N are the brewers of McEwans Export, widely available in the US,

but I doubt that they export a keg version of No. 3 (especially as I've

only seen it in cask-conditioned form).

No. 3 is fairly rich, a little stronger than ordinary ales at OG 1043, and

if served with a head keeps it pretty well.  In good condition it can be

quite delicious.  I'm not sure what style I would attribute to it - it's

too strong for a dark mild and not as strongly flavored as a porter.

Bass have a range of strong canned Scottish beers popular with certain

types of soccer fan.  They include Tennants Super (such beers are often

named like grades of gasoline), also known colloquially as "Doom".  Since

this is also favored by drunks and winos as a quick and cheap way to get

blitzed, I wouldn't really recommend it as a fashionable new trend with

which to associate oneself.   :^)

- --

- -- Paul Jasper

- -- RATIONAL

- -- Object-Oriented Products

- --

------------------------------


Alcohol Percentages

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 15:40:00 PDT

From: "Moore, Brian" <Moorebw@hvsmtp1.mdc.com>

Subject: Alcohol Percentages

Hello out there,

I've got a question not really about homebrew, but about beer in general.

This originally started with my desire to get more exciting microbrewed

beers here in the beer wasteland of Alabama. About the most exotic thing we

can currently buy is the Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Figuring this was a

(good) starting point, I called the local distributor and asked if they were

planning to bring in any of the other Sam Adams beers. The distributor said

they were working on getting another, the Octoberfest, but that there were

some that they could never get (the Double Bock).

According to the distributor, all beers in the state of Alabama must be less

than 4 percent alcohol (I'm not sure if this was buy weight or volume). We

have Guinness, Bass, Hofbrau, etc. I thought that Guinness and some of the

others would be higher than 4 percent.

This leads me to wonder if brewers brew different versions of beer for

different states. Does anyone out there in HBD-land have any knowledge on

this subject?

                                   Brian Moore

------------------------------


carboy disasters

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 15:47:00 PDT

From: "Goodman, John" <Goodmjo@hvsmtp1.mdc.com>

Subject: carboy disasters

Dick Dunn's summary of carboy handle experiences prompted me to send a

warning/bit of painful advice to all of you brewers:

>  - A full carboy weighs a bunch; *any* sharp shock--regardless of whether

>    a handle is involved--can break it. They are sturdy but not indestruc-

>    tible, so be careful but not paranoid.

ABSOLUTELY!!

When a carboy breaks, it tends to form some pretty large shards of glass

that are capable of slashing through skin to the underlying bone quickly and

quite painlessly.  Unfortunately, the repair (Read: Numerous stitches and

probing for glass slivers) involves quite a bit of pain and downtime of the

limb.  I never used a carboy handle or anything similar until after my

accident a few weeks ago.  Luckily, no beer was lost - just a 5 gal carboy.

 Since then, I have kept my carboys in plastic milk crates - great for

transporting the full ones around (especially when wet), and they fit nicely

in my wetbulb container and chest freezer.

Be careful, don't regress to plastic if you break one, and above all - NEVER

SHOW FEAR TOWARDS THE BEER.

John Goodman

------------------------------


Addresses for COPS

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 17:08:44 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kieran O'Connor <koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: Addresses for COPS

Here are addresses for COPS--one for the program creator, and one for the

local affiliate in Syracuse, NY

        COPS c/o STF Productions

        P.O. Box 900

        Beverly Hills, CA 90213

Jeryl Jonza

Program Director, WSYT - Channel 68

1000 James St.

Syracuse, NY 13203

Thanks for the info--Rick

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Address: koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu

Syracuse, N.Y. USA

------------------------------


Re: low O.G. readings and boiling wort question

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 16:16:07 -0500 (CDT)

From: "Robert K. Toutkoushian" <TOUTKOUS@vx.cis.umn.edu>

Subject: Re: low O.G. readings and boiling wort question

Hello again:

 Thanks to everyone for the great suggestions concerning how to

properly add extracts to water when boiling, and reasons why the O.G.

readings I have been getting might be lower than expected.  Let me pass along

what I have learned:

 I had a problem with adding extracts to my boil, in that I have been

getting some of the extracts sticking to the bottom, despite stirring.

Several people have suggested that one should (1) bring the water to a boil,

(2) remove from heat, (3) add extracts, and (4) put back on high heat and

bring to a boil once the extracts have dissolved.  It is important to

then keep on a high boil in order to bring out the proper flavors of the

hops, etc.  Previously, I had been bringing the water to a boil, and

adding the extracts directly to the boiling water while the pot was still

on the stove, hence the scorching and the "gunk".

 Concerning the low O.G. readings, someone pointed out that if I

was doing a partial boil, where I add the wort (extracts + 1.5 gallons

water) to 3.5 gallons of water, then it is probable that the specific

gravity of the wort at the top of the fermenter will be lower than the

sepcific gravity at the bottom if the extracts settle to the bottom.

(er, that word was supposed to be "specific").

 Anyway, thanks to all again...I really appreciate the continued great

advice of the subscribers here!

Rob Toutkoushian

University of Minnesota

INTERNET: toutkous@vx.cis.umn.edu

------------------------------


Re: counter pressure filler (was Kegging systems)

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 17:33:38 CDT

From: jay marshall <marshall@pat.mdc.com>

Subject: Re: counter pressure filler (was Kegging systems)

Don asked about counter pressure fillers:

I got a counter pressure filler from Benjamine Machine Products that

seems to work well.  I posted the same question to the net, also asking

for comments on the Foxx CPF.  The general consensus was that the Foxx

product was not well made, and that the BMP CPF was a good buy.  I got

one, used it, and had a problem with it leaking when the liquid valve

was closed.  Made for quite a mess until I got the process down.  I called

BMP and asked about it, and the guy said it was unusual, but not unheard

of, to have a problem with the valve seat.  He said to take it off, send

it back, and if there was a problem with it he would replace it.  When I

went to take it off I found that it was loose to start with.  I'm thinking

that this may have caused the problem, but I won't have a chance to check

it out until next week.  BTW, the BMP CPF was supposedly designed by

Micah Millspaw who, if you are a long time reader of the HBD, you recognize

his name.  If you don't, he was the source of some very good information and

is now the head brewer at some place in California (I think).

BMP has ads in most (including the latest) issues of Zymurgy.  If you

don't have access to it, let me know and I'll dig it up for you.  Price

was about $55 with shipping.

BTW Don, I tried to email directly to you, but my mailer daemon doesn't

recognize all those !'s in your address.  If you have an address that is

in internet format you might add it to your signature.

- --

Jay

marshall@pat.mdc.com

------------------------------


request

Date:  Wed, 13 Oct 1993 21:02:41 -0700

From: robl <ROBL@outside.com>

Subject:      request

homebrew-request%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com

robl@outside.com

================

Robert Linder

phone 206-487-3656 fax 206-487-3773

================

------------------------------


Handles for 6.5 gal carboys

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 09:31:03 EDT

From: Hal Laurent <laurent@tamrc.ENET.dec.com>

Subject: Handles for 6.5 gal carboys

>From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

>

> I have to qualify that slightly: I did hear from one person who had put a

> carboy handle on a 25-liter (6.5 gallon) carboy, and had seen some (my

> interpretation) crazing around the neck.  It didn't actually break off, but

> he was (justifiably) scared away from using it.  The reason I discount this

> one data point is that the carboy handles are not designed to fit that size

> of carboy.  Obviously they weigh more, but the main issue is that the neck

> diameter is different.

Does anyone make carboy handles big enough to fit the 6.5 gallon carboys?

I would definitely buy one if I could find one.

------------------------------


Hard Cider Recipe?

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 07:48:00 EST

From: "Pamela J. Day 7560" <DAY@A1.TCH.HARVARD.EDU>

Subject: Hard Cider Recipe?

Hello All,

 Does anyone out there have a good recipe for Hard Cider? A

bunch of my homebrewing cohorts and I are going to make some (40 or

so gallons between us) next weekend, if we live through the New England

Brewer's Fall Festival that is. We plan on making the cider ourselves,

as I have access to a cider press, so we don't have to worry about

watered-down commercial cider. Any suggestions would be welcome.

 Oh, BTW for all of you involved in the bogeyman/boogie man

controversy, look up piss-ant in the dictionary. (hint: it has

something to do with splitting hairs!)

Cheers!

Pam

------------------------------


Chris Seiders' article

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 08:43:51 -0400

From: Kevin O'Connor <kocon@ctp.com>

Subject: Chris Seiders' article

This was Chris Seiders' article.  It was base-64 encoded (a MIME encoding

format).  As he says, please bear with him.

Chris, try to tell your mail package to send mail to the digest in clear form.

The message:

- -------------------------------------------

     Since this is my first post to this list, please bear with me.  I am new

at brewing, and have recently started my second batch of brew.  I have

encountered some things which I haven't encountered before (not surprising on

only the second batch) and am looking for some words of advice/encouragement.

I started an all-extract Brown Nut Ale on Sat. After boiling the extract for

1 hr I added it to my 5 gallon glass carboy and brought it up to 5 gallons

with water.  I then cooled the carboy in a water/ice bath until it cooled to

76xF at which point I hydrated the wort by rolling the carboy along the

kitchen floor along with some manual shaking.  I then rehydrated my yeast

(14g) in 1/2 cup of 90xF water for 15 min before adding to the wort.

Fermentation began quickly (within 3 hours) and alot of crap blew out of my

1" blowoff tube (approx 2 quarts blowoff).

Now the problem:

     I noticed that the blowoff stage had pretty much stopped as of last

night (Mon.). I replaced the blowoff tube with a fermentation lock, but it

now appears as if fermentation has stopped completely, ie I don't see bubbles

coming through the lock.  My previous batch was a stout kit and fermentation

seemed to continue through the lock for at least a good week after removing

the blowoff. My carboy is located in a closet which keeps it at about 74xF.

Is this normal?  Should I wait before bottling or go ahead if the

fermentation has stopped?  After only 3 days?  Please, oh veterans of

homebrew, pass down any wisdom you may have on this subject. I am becoming

quite confused/frustrated since I feel like I am still shooting in the dark

with each step. Thanks!

Chris Seiders (SEIDERS@HANDI.MED.UTAH.EDU)

- ----------------------------------------------

I have had an experience like this myself with an unbelievably fast (seeming)

fermentation.  Actually mine may have even been faster, 2 days if memory serves

me.  Check your specific gravity.   If you are down around 1010 or so for a

brown ale,  I would go ahead and bottle.  It won't hurt to let it sit a bit too

as long as there is still CO2 in the head space between the top of the carboy

and the top of the fermenting beer.

The batch that fermented fast on me was good drinking, so hopefully yours will

be too.  Good luck!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                              |        | Why we are here:

Kevin G. O'Connor             |  ////  | To tremble at the terrible beauty

Cambridge Technology Partners | / /_./ | of the stars, to shed a tear at

kocon@ctp.com                 | /  /./ | the perfection of Beethoven's

+1 617-374-8286               |  ////  | symphonies, and to crack a cold

                              |        | one now and then. - D. Letterman

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

------------------------------


Chullhee C Cho  cho@MINERVA.cis.yale.edu

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 07:59:06 -0500

From: zentner@ecn.purdue.edu (Mike Zentner)

Subject: Chullhee C Cho  cho@MINERVA.cis.yale.edu

I tried to send you chiller plans, but your mail keeps bouncing with

unknown QM user

if you want these, send me your real email address.

Mike Zentner   zentner@ecn.purdue.edu

------------------------------


Mini Kegs

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 9:10:34 -0400 (EDT)

From: Josh Stillerman <JAS@HARPO.PFC.MIT.EDU>

Subject: Mini Kegs

Someone gave me a 5 Liter Co2 charged mini Keg recently.

Only it did not come with any directions. (Like how full

to make it, how to tap it, how to adjust the Co2, etc...)

Has anyone used one of these beasts?  Any sugestions would

be greatly appreciated.

       josh

------------------------------


COPS and AHA

Date:    Thu, 14 Oct 1993 10:03:23 -0400 (EDT)

From: R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas)

Subject: COPS and AHA

  For you AHA people out there:  Did your organization ever contact

the producers of COPS, Fox channel 25, or the police department

"featured" in that infamous homebrewing issue of the COPS show?

Seems to me that the defense of the hobby of homebrewing, and the

education of the general public about the hobby, should be among the

highest of the AHA's priorities.  Certainly the fact that the AHA's

president's book (Complete Joy of Homebrewing) was shown in an extremely

negative light on national television should warrant(!) some sort of

response.   Perhaps you could ask your membership for donations to

be used for a 30 second TV ad:

 "Hi, I'm Charlie Papazian, president of AHA and author of TCJOH.  Perhaps

you've seen my book featured in the back seat of a police car on the show

COPS.  While the AHA in no way condones any illegal activity, making beer

and wine for personal comsumption is legal is all 50 states. (ed. true yet?)

  As in all hobbies, the advanced homebrewer requires specific equipment,

much of which looks similar to that used in the illegal process of

distillation.  The AHA does not condone the production of distilled

liquors.  It is illegal and dangerous. But once again, the homebrewing

of  *beer and wine* *is* legal.

  Homebrewing is an enjoyable and creative hobby...founding fathers brewed..

helps the economy....personal freedoms...for more info call..."

 You get the idea.

Russell Gelinas

esp/opal

unh

------------------------------


RE:iodophor & yuppies

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 10:31:02 -0500 (EDT)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: RE:iodophor & yuppies

In the last digest:

<Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 20:29:28 -0400

From: Eric M. Mrozek <mrozek@horowitz.eecs.umich.edu>

Subject: Idophor question

<> I just finished a batch of spiced ale. Actually it started as a Belgian

Brown

> ale, but I used Idophor(sp?) to clean with and found that I can not tolerat

Watch those line lengths...

Iodophor is not to blame for a flavor defect in the beer.  Look for changes

in your technique.  1 oz iodophor per 10 gallons.  I rinse my kegs even

at this concentration.  I do not rinse and rinse and rinse..just once or

twice.  Some dont rinse.  I personnaly like using Iodophor.

<Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 17:15:12 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Mark S. Nelson" <mnelson@eis.calstate.edu>

Subject: Brewpub review

<The rise in popularity of microbrewing and specifically brewpubs is

beginning to develope and ugly side, and I have recently seen this side in

the form of the Belmont Brewing Company of Belmont Shores, California.

<I guess it should come as no suprise that as brewpubs are becoming more

and more trendy, there will be some designed especially to appeal to the

yuppy set.

While I can be critical of many breweries and dont object to Mark being

critical of the beers at this brewery, I do feel Mark is being a bit

naive in his critisim of any establishment targeting certain individuals/

groups of consumers.  This is after all a buisness.  This buisness requires

a hefty capital investment.  People expect a reasonable return on investment,

in a reasonable timeframe.  Is it really suprising that a brewpub in

southern California is targeting the yuppy audience?  Whats wrong with this?

Dont these people have the liquid assets to pay off the breweries debt? How

many other towns have brewpubs oriented to this segment of society? Gorden

Biersch is one of the most successful brewpubs ever and the Palo Alto location

has consistently been bashed for this "yuppy thing".  As Dan prepares to

open his fourth brewery, he's laughing all the way to the bank.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


The Great Boogy Conundrum

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 09:26:44 -0500 (UTC -05:00)

From: ROWLEY@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: The Great Boogy Conundrum

Ulrich, korz and arf commnet on the correct spelling of [boogy]. Well,

the sociolinguist side of me wants to say that all dialectical variants

are equally valid, but the frosted wheat side agrees with the idea that

you all should consult a _good_ dictionary. The use of American Heritage

and Webster's should be avoided at all times. Both of these companies

are so popular because of cheapness and self-censorship.  They both

got contracts in primary and secondary schools nation-wide by kow-towing

to "concerned parents' groups" which objected to inclusion of certain

words and ideas. Instead get ye to an OED, an Oxford unabridged or a

Random House. After seven years in the book biz, I should know. Let's

leave it at that and get back to some brewing :*) (Tip O'Neil nose)

Matthew Rowley

Dept of Anthropology

University of kansas

rowley@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu

------------------------------


More on the GABF

Date: 14 Oct 93 10:10:00 EST

From: "CANNON_TOM" <CANNON_TOM@hq.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: More on the GABF

Message Creation Date was at 14-OCT-1993 10:10:00

          I just got back from my first trip to Denver and my first

          GABF.  First, let me say it was a great experience.  I went

          to all three sessions, and despite the crowds on Friday and

          Saturday nights, I got to taste any beer I wanted with

          minimal difficulty.  Concur completely with the Alaskan

          Brewing Company's Smoked Porter and the Vermont Pub and

          Brewery's Tartan Wee Heavy.  Both deserved their gold

          medals.  Also, any visitor to Denver must spend adequate

          time at The Wynkoop (adequate means as much time as

          possible).  Great beer, great brewpub.

          That said, I was wondering if anybody out there who doesn't

          live in eastern Colorado is happy about the GABF always

          being held in Denver?  This includes brewers and potential

          attendees.  Why not move the thing around the country so

          more people have the chance to go to and participate in the

          event?  I'm sure Denver is convenient to the guys who run

          the festival, but there are beer lovers across the country

          who deserve a chance to try the beers.  It is, after all,

          the Great AMERICAN Beer Festival, so let's send it all over

          America.  I'm sure Charlie P. will appreciate any input.

          Tom Cannon

          DH Brewery

          Fairfax/Annandale VA

------------------------------


Subject: Mashout revisited and pH

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 10:15:48 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Subject: Mashout revisited and pH

After reading all the accounts of mash out free sparges, and in

need of doing a quick lager batch so I'd have krausen for 2 batches

that had been hanging around for a while I tried a quickie brew -

not my usual decoction effort.  I mashed in at 124 (still nervous about

------------------------------


gravity change for 1 pound dme in 6 gallons

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 11:30:29 EDT

From: garti@mrg.xyplex.com (Mark Garti)

Subject: gravity change for 1 pound dme in 6 gallons

to what extent will 1 pound of dme change the gravity of

6 gallons of water (or 1032 wort at 65C-70C).

mrgarti@eng.xyplex.com

------------------------------


Mashout revisited and pH

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 10:37:39 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Mashout revisited and pH

After reading all the accounts of mash out free sparges, and in

need of doing a quick lager batch so I'd have krausen for 2 batches

that had been hanging around for a while I tried a quickie brew -

not my usual decoction effort.  I mashed in at 124 (still nervous about

ommitting the protein rest) by adding the grain (9lb 2 row, 1/2 Cara,

1/2 crystal) to 136F water in my cooler with copper manifold false

bottom.  After 1/2 hour infused boiling water to 146, and after another

1/2 hour infused water to 155.  After an hour total I attempted a runoff

with no mashout and ran into difficulites.  Part of the problem was stuff

coming through somehow - maybe due to mashing in the lauter tun, but

it wasn't long before the runoff died a death.  Naturally I cursed all

those on hbd who said mashout weren't necessary, and cursed my

bad judgement against going against a procedure that worked well

for me.  Eventually I started to sparge after recuirculating much

cloudy reheated runoff, and managed to free up the sparge with a

knife quite well so that the total time was only slightly longer than

it would have been if I'd mashed out and sparged.  It would be fair to note

that the problem hay have been a very thin mash (after all the infusions)

which compacted the bed.  I may try again sometime, but in meantime

will stick to tried and trusted procedures.

Ken Miller incorrectly states that the amount of acid to be added

is dependent on the pH.  It is dependent on the buffering capacity of

the water - basically the amount of carbonates.  A water with a very

high pH >9 may be so because it is so soft, and may require no acid

for a mash to reach the right range.  If the water is fairly hard

acid is needed except for the blackest stouts and porters.  I

suggest the original questioner get pH papers and add conservatively the

first time till the right range is reached.  Thereafter it is much easier.

I am sure it would be possible to do it without indication by getting

a water analysis and working out stoiciometrically how much acid is

needed to neutralize most of the carbonate and then carefully measuring

out that correct amount of acid - carefully noting the concentration

and density of the acid when doing so.  A micropipetter would be needed

unless the acid was diluted, and in the absense of an accurate guage

conversion factors to tablespoons would be needed.  It probably wouldn't

be too gruesome, and I may even do it as an excercise some time - for

100 ppm carbonate per 5 gallon add 2 tablespoons of lactic acid diluted

1-10, unless there is chocolate malt in the grist, add 2.3 that amount

and when the moon is full...

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


Eisbock

Date:  Wed, 13 Oct 1993 23:43:49 -0800

From: scott@fm.gi.alaska.edu (Scott Stihler (USGS analyst))

Subject: Eisbock

Greetings,

Living in Fairbanks, Alaska what could be a better beer to brew than an Eisbock.

Does anybody out there have experience making Eisbocks? If so can you give me

some advice? What is the best way to rack the beer off once ice crystals form?

In terms of IBU's what range is appropriate to the style? I know from Micheal

Jackson's book that the original gravity should be around 1.096 but that's about

all I know. If anybody has more information regarding this style I'd like to

check it out.

Cheers,

Scott

------------------------------


Re: Beer Drinks

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 08:57:02 -0700 (PDT)

From: Shawn_Nunley@Novell.COM (Shawn Nunley)

Subject: Re: Beer Drinks

Sean Taylor asked about Beer Drinks, so here is one that can be fun...

Flaming Dr. Pepper from Hell

This drink requires a shot glass and a tumbler style glass.  Fill the

shot glass with Amerretto (sp?) and the tumbler half full with beer.  The

idea is to have just enough beer to cover the shot glass when you drop

it in the tumbler.  Now, light the Ameretto (2nd try at spelling) and let

it get pretty warm, not too hot.  When the time is right, drop the shot

glass in the tumbler.  That's right, drop the whole shot glass in the tumbler

so that it is standing up on the bottom of the glass.  Now drink the whole

thing as fast as you can.  The Ameretto will pour out with the beer yet

will remain kind of seperated.  The resulting taste is remarkably close to

a Dr. Pepper.  This is a fast drunk, BTW.  Hangover City too.

Shawn

------------------------------


mashout

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 10:14 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: mashout

Tallying the responses from both HBD and email, it appears that

there are quite a few homebrewers out there who do not perform a

mash-out.  More so than I imagined.  And of course, there were the

traditionalists who tried to defend the mash-out ceremony.

Homebrewing makes for strange bedfellows.

>  Chris mentioned one of the benefits of mashout (the debated

>  one), but failed to mention the one on which most of us agree,

>  namely mashing out raises the temperature of the mash much

>  quicker than simply pouring sparge water and therefore more

>  quickly decreases the viscosity of the runnings.  Runnier

>  runnings mean faster sparging (without a loss of extract

>  efficiency), less chance of a set mash (stuck runoff) and more

>  efficient extraction of sugars. Remember, warm honey pours

>  easier than cold honey.

>

>  Al

Ok I'll bite.  Where's the dividing line between "warm honey" and

"cold honey" i.e. at what point do wort sugars flow and not flow?

I skip the mash-out and sparge with 170-180 F water.  I usually

sparge 5 gallons of water in 30-45 minutes.  My mashing

efficiencies are consistently over 80%.  Given these facts I think

it's safe to assume that wort sugars flow without a mash-out.

>  I agree that the reasons you quoted are not very rationial

>  reasons for doing a mashout but there is one reason that I think

>  is a good one.  By raising the whole mash 20 degrees or so, you

>  stand a far better chance of keeping it in the optimum range

>  during the lautering process.  It's easy enough to do for those

>  who kettle mash but it is probably not worth the trouble for the

>  bucket infusers.

>

>  js

Ouch.  An idol's dagger plunges the deepest.  You assume that we

all agree there is an optimum range and that thus there is a need

to be within that range.  I do not support such assumptions.  I

skip the mash-out and consistently get good yields.  It should also

be noted that I use a picnic cooler and never perform a protein

rest (Belgian malts).  I won't tell you how I grind my malt because

I'll be forced to use the "C" word.

Looks like Godzilla and Mothra have teamed-up to combat the

onslaught from BOQAT.  So far BOQAT remains unscathed.  Can Tokyo

withstand another melee?  Tune in tomorrow.  Egg rolls served

during the matinee.

chris campanelli

------------------------------


re: William Younger's No.3 (again)

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 13:00:54 EDT

From: andrewb6@aol.com

Subject: re: William Younger's No.3 (again)

In 1247 re: Younger's No. 3, Tony Babinec writes:

>In Scotland, McEwan's has an ale known as 80 Shilling or IPA, with

a gravity of 1042.  In England -- spotted in London in The Sun -- you'll

find Younger No. 3, a cask-conditioned ale of SG 1043.  Think of this

as an example of AHA Scottish Export.  In the US, you'll find the

bottled counterparts to these two beers.  The IPA goes by the same

name, and I don't remember the name of the other beer, but it might

be McEwan's Export.  In some parts of the U.S. you might find

McEwan's Scotch Ale, but at SG 1088, this is a much stronger beer.

If anyone has access to the S

cotch Ale, send me one :-).

Perhaps I misinterpreted, but it seems that you're implying tha

t McEwan's 80 shilling and/or IPA are the Scottish version of Younger's No.

3.  Not True!

Both t

he 80 shilling (written 80/-, and often referred to as 80 bob) and Younger's

are available in the north of England.  While it is true that No.3 is a cask

conditioned ale and 80/ is served from a keg with a higher level of

carbonation, these are two separate beers (not the same beer dispensed

differently).  No. 3 is darker and to my recollection much more malty.

In my earlier post (which will probably appear in

 this issue) I suggested that No.3 has a gravity in the 50's.  I think

perhaps my thirst was impairing my memory--1043 sounds right.

Incidentally, S&N make scotch ales under the names of McEwan

and Wm. Younger.  Here again, Younger's is cask conditioned and McEwan's is

not.  As to wheth

er they are the same beer masquerading in different containers, I can't

really say, but I suspect not.  I have not seen the IPA over here, but you

are right that the 80/- is sold as McEwans Export.  Incidentally, the canned

version is sold under the name of McEwans Export in Britain, too -- but of

course they're bigger cans  : - )

Not a flame, just a clarification (I hope).

*******************************************************************************

*Andrew Baird        *    A good pilot is one who's made the same number of

 *

*AndrewB6@aol.com    *    landings as take-offs!

 *

*******************************************************************************

------------------------------


hemlock and cranberries

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 12:21 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: hemlock and cranberries

Hello readers.

I recall someone not wanting to use hemlock in a brew recipe.  The hemlock

mentioned in the recipe is not the weed that took Socrates out of circulation.

The non-toxic hemlock is a coniferous tree and harmful only if it falls on

you (confermation for an authority knowledgeable person would be appreciated).

Of course, since I'm not a toxicologist or forestry prof. or Ewel Gibbons

I don't condone or incourage the consumption of this or any other sylva.

I had some spring water once that poured over the fallen trunk of a

hemlock...if beer could ever taste that good.

Also, I'm going to skin the cat's meow in search of extract recipes utilizing

cranberries...'tis the cranberry season.  If anyone has any other

experiences/favorites, I would eagerly read them.

Thanks,

David Atkins

atkins@macc.wisc.edu

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1248, 10/15/93

*************************************

-------


Just the Facts, Please

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 13:20 CDT

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Just the Facts, Please

 >From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

 >In HBD#1246, Chris Seiders <SEIDERS@HANDI.MED.UTAH.EDU>

 writes:

 >>b3duIE51dCBBbGUgb24gU2F0LiBBZnRlciBib2lsaW5nIHRoZSBleHRyYWN0IGZv

 >>cg0KMSBociBJIGFkZGVkIGl0IHRvIG15IDUgZ2FsbG9uIGdsYXNzIGNhcmJveSBh

 >This is pure Hogwash! Don't believe everything Jack tells you!!

 Learn how to read!  It was Korzonas who said:

 >>oaWNoIEkgaGF2ZW4ndCBlbmNvdW50ZXJlZCBiZWZvcmUgKG5vdCBzdXJwcmlzaW5nIG9uDQpvbm

 >>x5IHRoZSBzZWNvbmQgYmF0Y2gpIGFuZCBhbSBsb29raW5nIGZvciBz

 I said:

 >>>mUNCmVuY291bnRlcmVkIHNvbWUgdGhpbmdzIHdoaWNoIEkgaGF2ZW4ndCBl

 >>>bmNvdW50ZXJlZCBiZWZvcmUgKG5vdCBzdXJwcmlzaW5nIG9uDQpvbmx5IHRoZSBz

 >>>ZWNvbmQgYmF0Y2gpIGFuZCBhbSBsb29raW5nIGZvciBzb21lIHdvcmRzIG9mIGFk

 >>>dmljZ

 And if either of you knew what you were talking about you wouldn't say such

 silly things.

 js

------------------------------


Last Year's Hops

Date: 14 Oct 93 20:03:20 GMT

From: GANDE@slims.attmail.com

Subject: Last Year's Hops

It's past harvest time for most hop growers and the '93 crop is

available for purchase at most locations. It seems that one can still

get '92 hops at a really good price since most vendors want to unload

them.

Would anyone know what percent of Alpha Acid has been lost in the

1992 crop, assuming they were stored under optimum conditions? I just

purchased about a pound and would like to adjust my recipes.

TIA....Glenn Anderson

+----------------------------------+

| Internet: gande@slims.attmail.com|

| Glenn Anderson                   |

| Manager, Telecom. Facilities     |

| Sun Life of Canada               |

+----------------------------------+

------------------------------


re:Maple syrup/sap

Date:  Thu, 14 Oct 1993 14:41:00 +0000

From: "Rick (R.) Cavasin" <cav@bnr.ca>

Subject:  re:Maple syrup/sap

I believe it's the Niagara Brewing Co. of Niagara Falls, Ontario

that brews a 'Maple Wheat' beer.  It's around 8 percent alcohol

by volume (if memory serves).  This may be to ensure some

residual sweetness.  The maple flavour is definitely subdued,

and mostly detected in the finish.  A nice enough beer, but

not something I'd go out of my way for (it's fairly pricey too),

but then I've never been big on strong beers.

Perhaps I should get a bottle to refresh my memory re: specifics

of its flavour, etc.

Cheers, Rick C.

------------------------------


Bottle labels

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 14:12:15 CDT

From: hplabs!mcdcup!tellabs.com!don

Subject: Bottle labels

>  I'm setting up a homebrewing "kit" for a friend for Christmas,

>  including two cases of M*ller longnecks in the waxed cardboard

>  cases.  I'd like to mimimize the time/effort in removing the

>  foil labels.  In the past I've tried a variety of solvents, boiling

>  water, wire brush, razor blade, etc. but never found a combination

>  that worked well.  Anyone have any tricks for this?  Please don't

>  suggest other bottle types, I already have the empties, and I'm

>  a big fan of clear bottles.

I've had good luck using a mix of bleach and TSP to clean real grungy

bottles. Make some with real hot water and soak overnight. By morning

most of the lables usually fall off. Some bottles are real tough though

namely, Legacy lager. They get real slimy.

------------------------------


Re: younger's no. 3

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 12:43:34 -0700

From: paul@rational.com (Paul Jasper)

Subject: Re: younger's no. 3

On 13 Oct,  9:08, Tony Babinec 312 329-3570 wrote:

> Subject: younger's no. 3

>

> In Scotland, McEwan's has an ale known as 80 Shilling or IPA, with

> a gravity of 1042.  In England -- spotted in London in The Sun -- you'll

> find Younger No. 3, a cask-conditioned ale of SG 1043.  Think of this

> as an example of AHA Scottish Export.

Pardon?  Unless the AHA styles are even more bizarre than I recall,

Younger's No. 3 is nowhere close to a Scottish Export.  It's more like

a strongish dark mild or a mildish/sweetish porter.

> In the US, you'll find the

> bottled counterparts to these two beers.  The IPA goes by the same

> name, and I don't remember the name of the other beer, but it might

> be McEwan's Export.

McEwan's Export definitely isn't the same beer as Younger's No. 3.

Although they're both brewed by Scottish & Newcastle in Edinburgh,

the former has OG 1046 and is a dark amber color, and the latter is

OG 1043 and dark brown.  Roasted barley vs. crystal malt, I'd say.

I don't know if the IPA is the same or not.  I'm not very impressed

by any of S&N's pasteurized products, so if I have seen the IPA

around I probably just ignored it... :^)

> [...]

>-- End of excerpt from Tony Babinec 312 329-3570

- --

- -- Paul Jasper

- -- RATIONAL

- -- Object-Oriented Products

- --

------------------------------


Belmont Brewing Co.

Date: 14 Oct 93 14:06:00 CST

From: "DEV::SJK" <SJK%DEV.decnet@mdcgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Belmont Brewing Co.

   I have to respond to Mark's comments about the Belmont Brewing

Company.  Let me first admit that while the BBC is one of my favorite

brew pubs, it's mostly because of the location (which is ON the beach

with a fabulous view) and the fact that it is only a 20 minute walk

from my house ;-).  In this light, I'd mostly just like to take the

edge off of some of Mark's comments.

   As far as the food is concerned, it's unfortunately very variable.

The pizzas are all good as is the tortellini with sausage.  The chicken

and mushroom pasta is very bland.  This regrettably leaves very few

choices.  The food, in my opinion, is the BBC's weakest link.

   Now to the beer.  Mark is essentially correct and the beer varies a

little more in quality than it probably should.  The Marathon is to be

avoided.  It is VERY light, and doesn't have enough body or taste to

cover the minor errors which are obviously made with this beer.  The

Strawberry Blond is a Marathon with much too much strawberry flavor.

Cut the berries back a little and you'd have a fine specialty beer, with

the berries covering up some of the problems with the Marathon.  Then

again, they may just be making what people want.  They sell a lot of it.

Order a glass rather than a pint.

   The Sail Ale (not mentioned by Mark) is excellent and is my favorite.

It is described as a pale ale, but it's really more in the Blue Heron

tradition (as opposed to Bass) and is almost, but not quite, an IPA.

(BTW, I hear Bridgeport is thinking about maybe considering the

possibility of sending some of their production from their new

facilities to CA.  Oh please, God, I'll do ANYTHING...  Any real info on

this out there?).  The Crude is also very good, but could be a little

more distinctive.

   Also, I disagree with Mark in that I have always found the BBC's beer

to be a little over-hopped.  Haven't been in a month or so; maybe

they're trying to widen their market by dropping their hop rate.  I also

haven't noticed excessive yeastiness, except maybe in the Marathon which

is always cloudy.

   Concerning prices, I think they are comparable to other restaurants

in the area.  After all, this is L.A. (more or less) and they are on

the beach.  I've always found the service to be better than average.

   There are other points in the BBC's favor, but I think I'll just

say that they've been very consistent, and gotten consistently better,

since they opened.  Two of their four beers are very good and the view

is worth the trip.  Don't write them off completely.

   Mark made one comment that really didn't sit right with me, and that

was his description of the BBC as trendy.  I won't say that it isn't,

because I'm not exactly sure what he means, but don't ALL brewpubs

"cater specifically to trend followers"?  At still less than 1% of the

national beer market, I'd have to say that ALL brewpubs and micros could

be said to fall into the "trend" category.  And if fruit beers are a

trend, then I'm all for being trendy.  If the decor is what Mark meant

by "trendy" (oak, brass, a few plants, fish tank), remember they have an

ocean view and want to show it off.  They necessarily have a lot of

glass.  A traditional English pub would be better off somewhere else.

Besides, who would begrudge a yuppie (do they still exist?) a good beer

once and awhile?  They're misguided maybe, but not evil.  (Buttweiper is

the ugly side of brewing, if you ask me.)  I have a feeling I know what

Mark's next L.A. area brewpub review is going to be like.  No slam

intended, I just don't think he's going to find what he's looking for.

   Mark is really on pretty firm ground as I know others who don't care

too much for the BBC.  On the other hand, I know a lot more people that

do.  So, is the BBC worth the trip?  I think so.  Is it worth a repeat

visit?  That depends on how far you live from Hopland.

Scott Kaczorowski

sjk%c17fcs.decnet@mdcgwy.mdc.com

P.S.  While I'm here, I'd like to make a request:  No more b*g*yman,

please.  If we're going to split hairs, we should at least keep it in

the area of brewing (trub, anyone?).

------------------------------


Maple in beer and wort chiller length

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 17:07:58 EDT

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1-1/T09 DTN 225-6171  14-Oct-1993 1706 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Maple in beer and wort chiller length

For what it's worth, Sam Adams Cranberry Lambic claims to use maple syrup to

balance the tartness of the cranberries.

Please, let's not start again with the Koch bashing.  I'm simply passing on

some info about the use of maple syrup in a commercial beer.

Someone asked about appropriate length for a wort chiller.  When this was

asked awhile ago, I dug out my copy of the Chemical Engineers' Handbook and

posted some equations.  You can probably find it in the HBD archives.  You

need to make some assumptions and decide on the maximum amount of time you

want to spend in cooling the wort to come up with a length.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Oxidation and Filtering

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 14:17:09 -0700

From: arne thormodsen <arnet@kaibutsu.cup.hp.com>

Subject: Oxidation and Filtering

>Date: Tue, 12 Oct 93 13:05 CDT

>From: korz@iepubj.att.com

>Subject: RE: STRAINING YOUR BREW

>

>Matthew writes:

>>I have one of those handy brew kits you get for Christmas with the 6 gal.

>>carboy. I realized after my 1st batch that I was getting a lot of haze in my

>>beer so I thought I might strain it prior to bottling. What I came up with has

>>been REALLY NICE! I used one of those reusable GOLD plated coffee filters

>>(you can get them at any fancy coffee shop). I setup my 2nd carboy underneath

>>the 1st and placed the filter inside of a funnel (perfect fit) and drained off

>>the beer from the top, up to the last inch of trub. The filter is coarse

>>enough that the beer gets through but fine enough that it catches all the crud

>>that's still floating about. Since I've gone to this, I have truly had nothing

>>but crystal clear beer!

>

>Crystal clear maybe, but probably quite oxidized.  Does your beer have a

>sherry-like aroma?  I think you may want to try to find the source of your

>haze (perhaps you are just not waiting for the yeast to settle -- some strains

>take quite a while -- maybe just try a different strain).  As the fermented-

>out beer falls from the funnel into the 2nd carboy, you are going to introduce

>a lot of oxygen (unless you purge the carboy with CO2, perhaps) and this will

>give your resulting beer sherry-like or wet-cardboard aromas.

>Al.

OK, I'll be the heretic.  Hey, new brewers!  DON'T worry about oxidation

when transferring to secondary.  The beer is cool and saturated

(probably supersaturated) with CO2.  If it foams a little when you

transfer it there is virtually no way it will oxidize, because CO2 is

coming out.  If it doesn't foam when you transfer it it was probably in

primary too long and you migh as well bottle it.  I can't see any harm

in what is described here.  Filering hot wort is one thing, filtering

cool fermenting beer is something entirely different.

Relax, have a homebrew, and shove that nasty ol' oxidation bogeyman back

in the closet where it (usually) belongs.

- --arne

------------------------------


hot priming

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 15:02:50 PDT

From: relay.hp.com!daver!nexgen!bart (Bart Thielges)

Subject: hot priming

When I prime my fermented beer with corn sugar, I usually cool the priming

solution to 70F with an ice bath before mixing with the beer.

(Egads !  I've just publically admitted to both priming and use of corn sugar.

There goes my chances of CamRA membership !)

I've always thought that this step is probably not necessary since the

thermal mass of 1 pint of 200F sugar water is nothing compared with 5

gallons @ 70F.  So what if I zap a few yeast cells on the initial contact ?

They don't have very good lawyers anyway.

I've never had the guts to actually risk a batch with this hot combination

experiment.  Has anyone else done this successfully ?  I'd like to

simplify my process.

Thanks,

Bart

Brewing equipment destroyed while typing this message : 0

------------------------------


Adjusting water pH

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 18:02:37 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Christopher V. Sack" <cvsack@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: Adjusting water pH

On Thu, 14 Oct 1993, Ken Miller, responding to Phil Brushaber, wrote:

> Phil Brushaber solicits non-basic information:

>

> ... Text deleted ...

> >        Any guess on how much of this 88% Lactic Acid I might use

> >to adjust the PH in 5 gallons? You know something like: "1 tsp of

> >88% Lactic acid should lower 5 gallons of liquid by .4 PH degrees".

> >I could use trial and error but I've got a hunch that someone

> >out there may have the answer or be familiar with this stuff.

>

> Sorry, it isn't that simple. pH is a logarithmic scale, and the

> degree of lowering will depend on both the volume and pH of both

> the liquid and the acid. If you know the exact pH of your water, it

> is possible to calculate the amount of lactic acid needed to lower

> 5 gallons of it to a specified pH. (When I get my hands on a

> Merck Index, I'll post the equation.)

>

Sorry Ken, it isn't that simple.  Not only is pH logrithmic, the change

of pH depends on the composition of the solution to be adjusted.  The

information you get from Merck Index, Handbook of Chem & Physics etc. will

all be for distilled water.  The dissolved things in tap water (metals,

salts, minerals, organics, etc.) may buffer the water to some extent.

Buffering means that the pH is *more resistant* to change, ie. more acid

is needed to effect a pH drop.

> In practice, it's probably easier to use trial and error, since

  ^^ ^^^^^^^^  ^^^^          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> tap water pH can vary from brewing to brewing .....

> Dave Miller (in TCHOHB) recommends diluting the lactic acid first,

> using a ratio of 3 cups water to 2 tsp lactic acid; ....

>

Both of Ken's statements make good chemical sense.  Remember 88% lactic

acid can cause *serious* burns if splashed on bare skin.

Chris

Besides - "If I knew what I was doing, it wouldn't be research!" Anon.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

|      ___            ___                   Christopher V. Sack |

|     /   )  |    /  /   )         |         Graduate Student   |

|    /       |   /  (___   __   __ |        Dept. of Chemistry  |

|   /        |  /       ) __ ) /  )|  /     State Univ. of N.Y. |

|  /         | /       / /  / /    | /      Syracuse, NY  13210 |

| (____/*    |/* (____/ (__/ (__/  |/ /    <cvsack@lor.syr.edu> |

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


Making drinks with Beeer?

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 22:32:49 EDT

From: blazo@aol.com

Subject: Making drinks with Beeer?

In HBD #1247, sean v. taylor <sean@chemres.tn.cornell.edu>

RE:  Subject: Beer Drinks writes the following:

>Anyways, I wondered if other people had heard about making

drinks with beer?  Now, I've heard of adding some woodruff or

raspberry liqueur to a Berliner Weiss, a lemon to hefeweizen, and even mixing

fermented apple cider to ale, but I've never heard of beer

being used as merely an additive in some drink concoction.  Has

anybody else?

In London, England they mix bitter orange soda with beer and call the

resultant beverage "Shandy".  In some parts of England this is called "Orange

Shandy" and other soda beverages, Cherry, for instance, mixed with beer would

be called "Cherry Shandy".

It is almost shameful to admit it but (shudder) Orange Shandy tastes pretty

darn good as a "lawnmower style" malt beverage.  I know that this probably

offends the sensitivities of most of this audience, but, refuse to judge

until you've tried it.  Mix equal parts Schweppes Bitter Orange with Double

Diamond and see what I mean!

 -blazo

------------------------------


Jim Koch won't shut up!

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 16:46:11 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Jim Koch won't shut up!

Having visited the 1993 GABF, and enjoyed the news that Boston Beer Company did

not win any gold medals, I was dismayed to read the following in "The Brew

Review" (copied without permission, so sue me.  No wait, how about 30 lashes

with a siphon hose?):

"GABF CONTINUES NEGOTIATIONS WITH BOSTON BEER COMPANY"

"Boston Beer Co. has changed their promotional print and point of sales printed

material to comply with the new GABF post-event publicity rules.  However,

Boston Beer Co. intends to continue its non-complying radio advertising,

promoting its late 1980's wins in the Consumer Preference polls.  For the

purposes of avoiding litigation, the Rules Committee has voted to allow the

Boston Beer Co. to participate in the 1993 Festival, in spite of its use of

radio advertising statements regarding Consumer Preference poll awards that do

not meet post-event publicity rules.  The decision was made based on

anticipated agreements and compliance in 1994.  However, the Rules Committee

continues to condition all brewery's participation, including the Boston Beer

Co.'s, in the GABF on compliance with the post-event publicity rules with

respect to any reference to Festival medal awards."

Unfortunately, it sounds like BBC's lawyers have won this round through

coercion and the threat of lawsuits.  Every brewery in the country appears to

be complying with GABF rules except BBC.  This hits me the wrong way.  I have

to admit I continued buying BBC products from time to time because I like the

beer, though I always disliked the business practices (I'm so ashamed).  This

is the last straw, though, and I join the chorus here and now:

BOYCOTT BBC!!!

norm

Opinions expressed above are mine and mine alone.  They do not represent the

opinion of my employer in any way.  (first time for that, sucks doesn't it?)

------------------------------


Re: beginning questions & beggining all-grain questions

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 10:03:19 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Re: beginning questions & beggining all-grain questions

George Tempel asks:

>what equipment should I start out with?

You'll need:

3 gallon pot

racking cane

siphon hose, 6'

racheting hose crimper

air lock

rubber stopper to fit your...

fermenter

bottles

thermometer

1" blowoff hose, 3'

>plastic vs glass fermenters.

I prefer glass.

>extract 'kits': good ones, bad ones

Pick a recipe from Charlie's book.  Don't bother with kits.

>about how much $$$ for equipment?

$50 is a good guess.

>how much $$$ for a 5 gallon batch?

$20 is another good guess.

>can I brew 1/2 a recipe by cutting the ingredients?

Yes.  Remember, George these are my own opinions and you could get a dozen

answers to some of these questions.  The equipment list I gave is a minimum.

Things like a larger pot, a hydrometer, bottle washer, hop bags, etc. could

be considered up front as well.  If you get as hooked as the rest of us,

you'll soon be buying more "stuff", which has been defined as anything you

can use in homebrewing.  "Junk" is defined as anything you thought could be

used in homebrewing but can't.  At least that's how I heard it.

***

Matthew Bohne asks about using kits or not.  I recommend you disregard brewing

kits in general because there are so many good beginning recipes out there.

They are easily done, and make better beer.  TNCJHB and other books are loaded

with them.  Boil or not?  _ALWAYS_ boil, just watch the boilovers.  Don't boil

grains, though, strain them out.  BTW, Imperial Stouts are a fairly bitter

product, with the alcohol bite, the dark grains, etc.  (actually, I don't know

if "bitter" is an accurate descriptor) Maybe you don't like Imperial Stouts.

***

Kelly Jones forgot to mention:

bmN(*&^(--  asdfDA;JFDV--9238VIJNCZ[CVZCXVHnIG9uDQpvbmx5IHRoZSBz

ZWNvbmQgYmF0Y2gpIGFuZCBh2-34798ADFVCV  ;FD=GF9GUG SDFKJzIG9mIGFk

but otherwise his reply to Chris Seider was right on the money.  (you can't

remember everything, Kelly, especially after several homebrews!).

***

Eric Feris asks about tun construction (but makes the mistake that he's talking

to "experts" here).  Eric, this is another place that you could get about 1735

different answers, depending on people's experiences, investments $$$'s, time,

etc.  I use a 48 quart rectangular cooler as a mash / lauter tun.  It has a

copper manifold in the bottom which looks like this (bottom view):

   ____________________________

  | ____|___|__|___|__|___|____|

  ||

  ||___________________________

  | ___|___|___|___|____|______|

__||

__ |

  ||___________________________

  | ___|___|____|____|____|____|

  ||

  ||___________________________

  |_____|____|___|___|___|__|__|

There are numerous small slots cut into the pipe (1/2") with a hacksaw.  The

slots are on the bottom, away from the grain bed.  The pipe drains out the hole

in the cooler and makes a perfect fit with the gasket sold with the cooler.

Another way to do it is Jack's method, which is a single pipe with a piece of

SS screen over the end to keep grain out of the pipe.  In both cases the grain

does the filtering, the "manifolds" only serve to pick up the liquid.  One

thing that needs clarification:  if you build a mash/lauter tun from a cooler

(an inexpensive option) you cannot add heat to it easily.  Nobody I know has a

heating element in their cooler tun, although its not impossible.  Jack and

some others mash in a kettle on the stove, which is handy for adding heat.  A

large SS pot is way more expensive than a cooler, but a cheap canning pot could

be used.  For simple infusion mashes (one temperature) I don't need that

capability.  I add 1 quart of 170F water for each pound of grain in the cooler

and it settles out around my mash temperature 152-154F.  Here it is being used

as a mash tun.  After conversion, I start sparging and it is being used as a

lauter tun.  I see no need for separate tuns.  Good luck in your tun

construction; for me, it is almost as fun as brewing.

Cheers,

norm

------------------------------


Info on Portland area

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 00:22:50 PDT

From: LIFE'S TOO SHORT TO DRINK CHEAP BEER <UNDERWOOD@INTEL7.intel.com>

Subject: Info on Portland area

 Hi all,

 I will be up in the Portland, OR area this weekend and would

 appreciate any info on good brewpubs, micro tours, etc.

 (plus any other touristy things to do )

    Thanks in advance,

    Chuck

------------------------------


Raspberry or Peach beer...

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 10:40:33 +0100

From: steve_t@fleurie.inria.fr (Steven Tollefsrud)

Subject: Raspberry or Peach beer...

I would like to try using raspberry or peach to flavor my next

batch of beer, but I don't know what quantities to use.

How should I vary the hopping levels when using these fruit adjuncts?

Has anybody got a good recipe for an extract based peach or raspberry

beer?

steve tollefsrud

e-mail: steve_T@fleurie.compass.fr

------------------------------


SPRUCE beer

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 07:42:05 EDT

From: pavao@ptsws1 (John D. Pavao)

Subject: SPRUCE beer

Dear Homebrewers,

     I am thinking about making an extract-based batch of spruce beer.

I would be interested in comments about whether it's worth it, and if so,

how much spruce should be used for a five gallon batch.  Thanks in advance.

John

pavao@ptsws1.npt.nuwc.navy.mil

------------------------------


Re: Stuck Fermentation?

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 07:18:17 -0500 (CDT)

From: dspalme@mke.ab.com (Diane Palme x2617)

Subject: Re: Stuck Fermentation?

Chris Seiders <SEIDERS@HANDI.MED.UTAH.EDU> writes:

>ICAgICBTaW5jZSB0aGlzIGlzIG15IGZpcnN0IHBvc3QgdG8gdGhpcyBsaXN0LCBw

>bGVhc2UgYmVhciB3aXRoIG1lLiAgSSBhbSBuZXcNCmF0IGJyZXdpbmcsIGFuZCBo

>YXZlIHJlY2VudGx5IHN0YXJ0ZWQgbXkgc2Vjb25kIGJhdGNoIG9mIGJyZXcuICBJ

>IGhhdmUNCmVuY291bnRlcmVkIHNvbWUgdGhpbmdzIHdoaWNoIEkgaGF2ZW4ndCBl

>bmNvdW50ZXJlZCBiZWZvcmUgKG5vdCBzdXJwcmlzaW5nIG9uDQpvbmx5IHRoZSBz

 Well, I have found that TheosiEHRHWFnoierHeKehfdijef is

of course the best solution to this problem.

>ZWNvbmQgYmF0Y2gpIGFuZCBhbSBsb29raW5nIGZvciBzb21lIHdvcmRzIG9mIGFk

>dmljZS9lbmNvdXJhZ2VtZW50Lg0KSSBzdGFydGVkIGFuIGFsbC1leHRyYWN0IEJy

>b3duIE51dCBBbGUgb24gU2F0LiBBZnRlciBib2lsaW5nIHRoZSBleHRyYWN0IGZv

>cg0KMSBociBJIGFkZGVkIGl0IHRvIG15IDUgZ2FsbG9uIGdsYXNzIGNhcmJveSBh

 Hey!  Didn't I see that on COPS last night?

>bmQgYnJvdWdodCBpdCB1cCB0byA1IGdhbGxvbnMNCndpdGggd2F0ZXIuICBJIHRo

>ZW4gY29vbGVkIHRoZSBjYXJib3kgaW4gYSB3YXRlci9pY2UgYmF0aCB1bnRpbCBp

>dCBjb29sZWQgdG8NCjc2+EYgYXQgd2hpY2ggcG9pbnQgSSBoeWRyYXRlZCB0aGUg

>d29ydCBieSByb2xsaW5nIHRoZSBjYXJib3kgYWxvbmcgdGhlDQpraXRjaGVuIGZs

>b29yIGFsb25nIHdpdGggc29tZSBtYW51YWwgc2hha2luZy4gIEkgdGhlbiByZWh5

>ZHJhdGVkIG15IHllYXN0DQooMTRnKSBpbiAxLzIgY3VwIG9mIDkw+EYgd2F0ZXIg

>Zm9yIDE1IG1pbiBiZWZvcmUgYWRkaW5nIHRvIHRoZSB3b3J0Lg0KRmVybWVudGF0

>aW9uIGJlZ2FuIHF1aWNrbHkgKHdpdGhpbiAzIGhvdXJzKSBhbmQgYWxvdCBvZiBj

 Watch your language young man!  I claim to be fairly

thick-skinned but that's pushing it.

>cmFwIGJsZXcgb3V0IG9mIG15DQoxIiBibG93b2ZmIHR1YmUgKGFwcHJveCAyIHF1

>YXJ0cyBibG93b2ZmKS4NCg0KTm93IHRoZSBwcm9ibGVtOg0KICAgICBJIG5vdGlj

>ZWQgdGhhdCB0aGUgYmxvd29mZiBzdGFnZSBoYWQgcHJldHR5IG11Y2ggc3RvcHBl

>ZCBhcyBvZiBsYXN0DQpuaWdodCAoTW9uLikuIEkgcmVwbGFjZWQgdGhlIGJsb3dv

>ZmYgdHViZSB3aXRoIGEgZmVybWVudGF0aW9uIGxvY2ssIGJ1dCBpdA0Kbm93IGFw

>cGVhcnMgYXMgaWYgZmVybWVudGF0aW9uIGhhcyBzdG9wcGVkIGNvbXBsZXRlbHks

>IGllIEkgZG9uJ3Qgc2VlIGJ1YmJsZXMNCmNvbWluZyB0aHJvdWdoIHRoZSBsb2Nr

>LiAgTXkgcHJldmlvdXMgYmF0Y2ggd2FzIGEgc3RvdXQga2l0IGFuZCBmZXJtZW50

>YXRpb24NCnNlZW1lZCB0byBjb250aW51ZSB0aHJvdWdoIHRoZSBsb2NrIGZvciBh

>dCBsZWFzdCBhIGdvb2Qgd2VlayBhZnRlciByZW1vdmluZw0KdGhlIGJsb3dvZmYu

>IE15IGNhcmJveSBpcyBsb2NhdGVkIGluIGEgY2xvc2V0IHdoaWNoIGtlZXBzIGl0

>IGF0IGFib3V0IDc0+EYuDQpJcyB0aGlzIG5vcm1hbD8gIFNob3VsZCBJIHdhaXQg

>YmVmb3JlIGJvdHRsaW5nIG9yIGdvIGFoZWFkIGlmIHRoZQ0KZmVybWVudGF0aW9u

>IGhhcyBzdG9wcGVkPyAgQWZ0ZXIgb25seSAzIGRheXM/ICBQbGVhc2UsIG9oIHZl

>dGVyYW5zIG9mDQpob21lYnJldywgcGFzcyBkb3duIGFueSB3aXNkb20geW91IG1h

>eSBoYXZlIG9uIHRoaXMgc3ViamVjdC4gSSBhbSBiZWNvbWluZw0KcXVpdGUgY29u

>ZnVzZWQvZnJ1c3RyYXRlZCBzaW5jZSBJIGZlZWwgbGlrZSBJIGFtIHN0aWxsIHNo

>b290aW5nIGluIHRoZSBkYXJrDQp3aXRoIGVhY2ggc3RlcC4gVGhhbmtzIQ0KDQpD

>aHJpcyBTZWlkZXJzIChTRUlERVJTQEhBTkRJLk1FRC5VVEFILkVEVSkNCg0K

 Hmmm.  This sounds like a good recipe.  Maybe you should

substitute 2 oz of ThoE RTOHosehqKJOHlke instead of 1 1/2 oz of

YmVmb3JlIGJvdHRsaW as you mention above.  Otherwise, I am really

not sure what your problem is.

Good Luck!  I look forward to more of your posts!  ;-)

D.

- --

Diane Palme

Department Engineer, Central Inspection

Allen-Bradley Co.

(414) 382-2617

dspalme@mke.ab.com

  " I have found that it is much easier to fake an

    orgasm than to pretend to like basketball. "

Oh yeah, um, what I say is my opinion, um, what I think are my own ideas, uh,

Allen-Bradley has nothing to do with them, uh, yeah.  That's about it.

------------------------------


Carboy "box" / Rock Bock

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 06:45:04 PDT

From: 15-Oct-1993 0941 -0400 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Carboy "box" / Rock Bock

>Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 09:22:22 EDT

>From: Matthew Evans <matt@cadif.cornell.edu>

>Subject: Re:Carboy handles: A Better Solution?

>But what made this

>carboy even better was that it had its own wooden crate that provides a great

>way to lift the carboy when full.  The way the thing is built it also protects

What I use is an old milk crate.  This works nicely for handling full carboys

and usually one get get milk crates for nuthin' if you look hard enough (or

at Kmart for $4).

>Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 10:05:39 -0400

>From: Jim Frost <jimf@centerline.com>

>Subject: Rolling Rock Boch

>

>Anyone else try Rolling Rock Boch yet?  If not, do so -- nice color,

>taste and aftertaste.

Yes, just tried it this past Tuesday night.  Not bad stuff, IMO.  To me, it

tasted quite similar to Miller's answer to the Microbreweries (what was the

name of that brew?).  It hardly, IMO, qualifies as a Bock though!

- ---

JC ferguson

Digital

ferguson@zendia.dec.com

------------------------------


Transporting Homebrew

Date: 15 Oct 93 09:49:37-0400

From: ROBERT.URWILER@sprint.sprint.com

Subject: Transporting Homebrew

I have recently bottled my first two batches of homebrew - one a light

pilsner and the other a bitter ale.  I would like to transport about a case

of these bottles to Thanksgiving dinner (about a 7 1/2 hour car ride).

Is there any danger in terms of exploding bottles during a long trip

such as this?  Also, assuming the sediment becomes disturbed during the

ride, how long should I wait for settlement before opening?

Any tips for protection during transportation would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Robert Urwiler

------------------------------


Not Legal Everywhere

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 09:25:17 -0500

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Not Legal Everywhere

>making beer and wine for personal comsumption is legal is all 50 states.

>(ed. true yet?)

No, not true yet.  In Missouri we are still dangerous criminals producing

powerful, mood-altering drugs.  Let's do keep our facts straight.

 t

------------------------------


Re: 5 micron filters

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 10:55:05 -0500 (EDT)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: 5 micron filters

> Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 15:38:25 EDT

> From: cmryglot@disney.CV.COM (Chuck Mryglot X6024)

> Subject: filters

>

>

> To those who filter:

>

>     Is a 5 micron filter small enough to bother with?

> 5 micron filters are ease to find but I can't seem to find any

> that are smaller.   Sears has 5 micron filters for $4.00 each.

>

>    Is it best to use the fiber filter or the resin, or does it

> matter?   Also, does filtering have any effect on carbonation?

>

I have filtered a little bit of beer.  I still dont filter most of

my beer.  Yeast cells are around 5-10 microns, so a 5 micron filter

will remove most if not all of the yeast.  I would avoid the filters

sold in HW stores, they will be poor in efficiency, and basically

become a $4 one shot deal.  I have used one as a one shot deal for

a real coarse filtering to remove hop pellets.  Invest in a reuseable

5 micron polypro filter from the filter store, 1-800-828-1494. Costs

about $25, good for at least 200 gallons.  Filter flat beer, then

force carbonate.  Filtering has no effect on carbonation provided you

use forced CO2.

If you want to remove protein haze, and reduce head retention, you can

buy a sterile filter of .5microns, but it will cost ~$32.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Mashout

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 06:49:34 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul deArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Mashout

As I recall, the Great Mashout debate started with a question about the

necessity of killing off enzymes at the end of mashing.  It has now taken

a turn into sparging technique.

I would most humbly and obsequiously submit that stuck sparges and

denaturing enzymes are different critters.

How one handles their sparging is dependent on a large number of

variables:  types of grain, crush, mechanical details of the mash/lauter

tun, even (yes) temperature.  Of all of these, the mechanical details of

the mash/lauter tun are probably going to be the most influential for

beers made from mostly barley malt.  High proportions of gooey, floury,

pasty sticky grains will make the details of the sparging setup even more

important.

At the risk of becoming highly technical, allow me to submit the following

High-Tech (tm) illustration:

   |XXXXXXXXXXX|

   |XXXXXXXXXXX|

   |XXXXXXXXXXX|    <- Container full of cooked grass seed and water

   |XXXXXXXXXXX|

   |XXXXXXXXXXX|

   |- - - - - -|    <- The perforated thingy

   |________ __|

           | |      <- The place where the watery stuff falls out

There are a great number of different sizes and shapes of containers to

hold the cooked grass seed:  garbage cans, Alaskan (and the smaller

Texas-size) construction helmets, kitchen sinks, nail kegs, buckets, foot

basins, Rhode Island swimming pools, water beds, etc.  Likewise a great

number of perforated thingies are also used:  soil pipe, panty-hose (both

used and new), buckets that have been used for target practice, hair-nets,

old socks, venetian blinds, storm grates and clever specially designed

appliances that are made in Mexican sweat-shops and then marketed here

with cheesy little "Made in USA" stickers on them.

Most people use some kind of hose where the watery stuff falls out, though

in very backward areas (such as Chicago and San Francisco), it is just

allowed to fall on the floor.  This "drop and mop" technique is claimed to

yeild incredibly high extract rates.

Given the large range of equipment in use, it seems only reasonable to

this author that there will be some variation in practice, including

adjusting the temperature of the cooked grass seed before trying to get

the watery stuff to fall out the hole in the bottom.  What this has to do

with killing off the enzymes (which look like little people in tights with

Pac-Man heads according to one widely published work) continues to elude

me.  I personally don't like to do it, because their pitiful little

screams upset me.  Others with harder hearts may choose to do differently.

Paul de Armond

------------------------------


7 gal carboys, racking canes, SG & DMEDME&SG

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 11:15:03 EDT

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: 7 gal carboys, racking canes, SG & DMEDME&SG

David Atkins writes:

>Page sold a 7 gal. in lieu of 6.5 which had sold out.  As posted

>in an earlier HBList, the opennings of the 7 gal are too narrow to use a carboy

>cap in starting a siphon.

Although the orange carboy caps are too large for the 7 gallon

carboy they can be made air-tight, to start a siphon, by wraping duct

tape tightly around them.

>airlock.  The above supplier also carries long racking canes which will fit 7

>gal carboys.

Another option here is to use the 3/8" coper tubing.  It can be

shaped, is nearly indestructable,

sterilized by heat by baking in the oven, and is exactly the

same size as the plastic ones sold in homebrew stores.

For those asking about DME effects on specific gravity, 1 pound of

DME in 1 gallon of water yealds an SG of about 1.042.  Therefore,

for example 1 pound added to 6 gallons of water will increase the

SG by .042 / 6 = .007 points.

Bill Szymczak

------------------------------


bad COPS & bananas

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 10:18 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: bad COPS & bananas

Hello,

I missed the COPS episode ala Elliot Ness cracking down on the hapless

homebrewer.  I agree with Russell Gelinas that homebrewers should take an active

role in educating whenever the opportunity arises, I question the practicallity

of a nationwide PR campaign.  Perhaps, thinking globally and acting locally

would serve the purpose better.  Local brewclubs can advertise events in local

media & maybe get some newspaper/tv exposer to boot.  Clubs could draft letters

or complaint to deliver to both the local station airing COPs and the shows

producers.  The AHA could do some PR work, having pr/information experts and

spokespersons ready to field reporter queries or to provide talking head sound

bites to local or national tv crews.  But to publicize outside of addressing the

producers of COPS and the local stations that televised the program could be

misguided.  How many people saw the show?  How many people even remember seeing

the show?  Unless there is a groundswell of prohibitionist fervor threatening

your home brewer or local supply store, any negative publicity or perputuated

misunderstandings is probably over-rated.

Well, off my soap box and into the kitchen...Banana esters.  I have a brown ale

with slight banana esters (used Yeast Labs British Ale).  Are these esters a

regular characteritic of the yeast, a result fermentation at 69-73 F ambient, or

both?

While I'm in the kitchen, is there any chance at all I could brew an extract

dopplebock & lager it in a cool basement on a concrete floor?  I want to make a

dopplebock for a gradutation party "The Matriculator" but I don't have a spare

'fridge to lager the bottled products.  Has anyone tried this?  Any minimum

temps. I should pray for?  The current temp. ranges from 59-62F and I it should

get cooler as the sun wanes.

Thanks for any comments and advice concerning homebrew pr and bananas and

dopplebock.

David Atkins

UW-Madison

atkins@macc.wisc.edu

------------------------------


formula request

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 11:47:18 -0400

From: jclayton@TACOM-EMH1.Army.Mil (CLAYTON Joseph A Jr)

Subject: formula request

Greetings,

I would like to second Jonathan Knight's request (HBD 1247) for a way

to calculate the O.G. with malt extracts.  As an avid user of

equations and a terrible deriver of equations, I'd like to be able to

solve for any one of the three factors, quantity of malt extract,

volume of water, and O.G.

By the way, is there any NET consensus on the result of one pound of

DME and LME in a gallon of water?  I've seen a range of 1.035 to 1.045

for DMS and a range of 1.032 to 1.040 for LME.  What's up?

Cheers,

Joe

------------------------------


rotten egg smell in fermentation

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 09:04:53 MST

From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

Subject: rotten egg smell in fermentation

Tony wrote:

>This is approaching Frequently Asked Question statuts on HBD, so

>here's a brief explanation.

(brief explanation deleted)

Thanks for the explanation, Tony.  I appreciate your response, but

I guess I mis-stated my question.

What I was interested in was why this particular batch should smell

like H2S.  I used Wyeast 1056, which is what I have used quite a bit

in the past, without any H2S smell.  The only thing I changed was the

malt, which was DeWolf-Cosyns Pale malt.  The yeast starter did not

smell like H2S, but the primary fermentation did.  This leads me to

speculate that it is not the yeast, but rather something to do with

the formulation of the wort.

Any takers?

Joel

------------------------------


Re: Flaked Maize

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 09:20:22 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: Flaked Maize

Tom Sauret writes:

>

>     Recently a I tried to add flaked maize to my wort, but I was

> unable to get the maize to pass the iodine test.  I followed the

> instructions from THE JOY OF HOME BREWING, but after two hours gave

> up trying to pass the iodine test.  The beer has been in  the bottles

> a week now and evrything appears fine.  Has anyone else run into this

> problem?   What did I do wrong?  Thanks, Tom Sauret

>

Without checking TJOHB for the reference, it sounds as though your

problem was adding "flaked maize to my wort".  Did you really add it to

your wort? and when did you do an iodine test?

If you're adding flaked maize to an extract-based beer, try doing a

little infusion before adding the syrup.  Take your flaked maize, et al,

put it in a cheesecloth bag and soak at about 150F for 1/2 hour or.

Then rinse it with hot water, save the resulting liquor, and add your

extract to that.  Flaked maize shouldn't cause *any* problems with

starch; in fact, George Fix recommends adding it late during the mashing

cycle in an all-grain beer.

How does Charlie phrase it? "Chill out and suck some brew"?

- --Jeff

------------------------------


alcohol percentages, too

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 11:28:00 CST

From: Montgomery_John@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil

Subject: alcohol percentages, too

  I have a question that is a tangent to Brian Moore's posting regarding

  varying alcohol percentages in beers distributed to different states.

  If the maximum percentage of alcohol allowed in a beer distributed to

  my state is 3.5, for instance, what about the beer that might be

  produced in a brewpub in my state? Must they conform to the same

  percentages as the distributors or are there exceptions for an "on

  premises only" beer?

  Just curious...

jm

montgomery_john@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil

------------------------------


Flaming Dr. Pepper

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 13:22:59 EDT

From: gorman@aol.com

Subject: Flaming Dr. Pepper

Shawn Nunley writes:

>Flaming Dr. Pepper from Hell

>This drink requires a shot glass and a tumbler style glass.  Fill the

>shot glass with Amerretto (sp?) and the tumbler half full with beer.  The

>idea is to have just enough beer to cover the shot glass when you drop

>it in the tumbler.  Now, light the Ameretto (2nd try at spelling) and let

>it get pretty warm, not too hot.  When the time is right, drop the shot

>glass in the tumbler.  That's right, drop the whole shot glass in the

tumbler

>so that it is standing up on the bottom of the glass.  Now drink the whole

>thing as fast as you can.  The Ameretto will pour out with the beer yet

>will remain kind of seperated.  The resulting taste is remarkably close to

>a Dr. Pepper.  This is a fast drunk, BTW.  Hangover City too.

I'd always seen 151 rum added atop the Amaretto to aid lighting. And let me

second the opinion of its similarity to Dr. Pepper in taste. Quite startling

when you first have one. You'll definitely not want to waste any microbrewed

beer on this though ;>

Bill Gorman

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1249, 10/18/93

*************************************

-------


Mash & Lauter Tuns/ Yeast Starter Media

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 11:52:46 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Mash & Lauter Tuns/ Yeast Starter Media

There seems to have been a number of questions recently regarding

mash tuns/lauter tuns.  I thought I'd chime in with a basic rundown

on the varieties- and describe my modification to the copper tubing

version.  There are commercial versions out there- but I'll deal with

the home-made varieties.

The most basic equipment needed for mashing is a LAUTER TUN.  A

vessel used to filter  the grains out of the wort (sparging).  I

generally start my grain in my boiling pot (my grinder sits on top

and grinds into the pot. The bottom is flat so I can use my paddle

to mix in the hot tap water and thoroughly mix the grains with the

water. I then add hot water to bring the temp up to mash-conversion

and transfer the slop into my lauter tun.  Some people will adjust

their temps in the lauter tun.  I know I risk HSA- but haven't

observed problems with my approach.  The temps are still WELL below

boiling.  One guy was concerned about how to apply heat to the mash

tun-  bring temps up with hot water. Unless you use a bru-heat type

mash/lauter tun you don't need a heat source IN the tun. I used to

apply direct heat- but it's SO easy to overshoot, or apply uneven heat.

The concept is to establish a FILTER BED out of the grain husks. Big

pieces at the bottom, small toward the top.  This rests on some sort

of filter mechanism-allowing the sweet wort to flow out, leaving the

grain behind. Ideally the system will HOLD a fairly constant

temperature for the duration of the conversion.

The common lauter tun approaches are:

    1.    Grain bag in a bucket with a spigot near the bottom of the

    bucket. Grain bag is held in place with elastic (bungee). Bag is

    mesh material.I used one of these for several years. Worked fine.

    Disadvantage: Size limitation, not insulated, unless you stick it

    in a box. Bag would slip sometimes.

    2.    Zapap:  Bucket w/in a bucket.  Upper has MANY holes in bottom.

    Drill zillions of 1/8 " holes.  Spigot in bottom bucket.  (3/8" MPT=

    male pipe thread, rubber gasket- into 1/2" OD hole  CP)

    Sorta tried one of these once, but not really.  Sould work fine.

    Insulation  is again a problem.  You can fashion a styrofoam lined

    "box" to contain it.

    3.    False bottom.  Bucket or metal pot.  Stainless steel plate

    full of holes like the zapap- is placed an inch off the bottom of

    a pot or bucket. For a pot this requires welding a spigot onto it.

    I never wanted to do this to my pot. I'd probably manage to break

    it off! (clutz)  With a metal pot this would have the advantage of

    enabling direct heat application.

    4.    Copper tubing manifold.  Can be holes, or slits drilled or

    cut into a network of copper tubing- which collects the wort and

    allows it to flow out into the boiling pot. Often set up in a

    cooler,  either round, or  rectangular will work (debate rages!),

    allowing temp. maintenance.

Ok now to attempt some ASCI diagrams- I know they've been done

before...but

Top View:                           Side View:

                                    IN>>> ------------------

        |-------------------|           | Sparge water sprinkles

        |-------------------|       Down|

T-up    |                   |---    Tube|

        |-------------------|           |  Manifold system

        |-------------------|           |--------------------|__Spigot

                                                            OUT>>>

I think we need a verbal description here too.  I have a 48qt

rectangular cooler. I removed the drain valve. Drilled a hole at

the opposite top. Collected suitable hardware for threaded

connections inside and outside the drain- attached a standard

garden hose faucet outside the cooler.  The manifold is made

from 4 lengths of 3/8" tubing sawed through halfway (hack).

Connected with T-pieces and small pieces as needed.  The middle

end pieces are T's. Drain side goes out, the opposite attaches

to the Down tube.  A T at the tops of the down tube exits the

cooler through the hole drilled there, and also attaches to the

Sparge Tube.  This tube extends across the top of the cooler,

and has holes drilled on both sides. The advantages of this tube

and T are that I can place a bucket w/spigot above the cooler

containing hot sparge water, and let is trickle onto the mash bed.

I can control the in-flow rate to match the out-flow rate. Constant

bed height.  I can also remove the sparge tube, close that off and

underlet water into the bed-or if necessary blow air into the

downtube allowing me to RESET the grain bed. The original idea was

to allow me to run water through the manifold to clear it.  I also

fashioned a metal screen to fit over the manifold- kinda like a

false bottom  to make a flatter surface for the grain bed (can you

say "overkill"?). It keeps big grain bits away from the tubing-

aiding the grain bed establishment, and makes it easier to lift

the grain out of the cooler into my healthy compost pile. I don't

know how clear this will be to everyone- but if you have questions

drop me a line and I can elaborate- or snail mail you a hand drawing.

As has been discussed- be sure to use LEAD-FREE solder for the tubing.

I used a propane torch for heating the tubing, then sweated in the

silver solder.

I fashioned mine such that the manifold is removable. A nice benefit

for cleaning. I love the simplicity, and consistency I get.  I have

more than adequate space for as much as a  30# grain mash.  The flow

control is very nice. I don't cause any disturbance of the grain bed

once set. and I don't have to stand over it once the flow rates are

set.  I don't lose temp over a 1-2 hour mash. It is very beneficial

to add hot water to the tun first before adding the grains- preheats,

and allows the grain bed to set better. Boy...makes me wanna go use

it NOW!

Costs: I got the cooler for $5 at a yard sale. Copper tubing was about

the same.  I bought a straight piece, 10' I think. Fittings connectors:

maybe $10-$15 for  solder and all.  I could spend almost that much for

a grain bag! I much prefer my newer system.

****************************************************************

Another Note:  Yeast Culturing:  Someday (after I write my thesis) I

plan to write a pamphlet on culturing for homebrewers (Al!). I have

R. Leistad's, but find it lacking.  No offense to Rog, it's a useful

booklet, but he's not a microbiologist.  That is clear.  And the

organization is a bit strange to me.

As for how much malt/sugar for specific specific gravity readings...

I will do an empirical study and publish a table...BUT in the meantime

 ...Rog's recipe for a starter solution is 1 Tbsp malt (dry),

1/16 tsp yeast nutrient into 1 cup H2O. This translates to 1/4 cup

malt, 1/4 tsp YN per quart, or 1 cup malt, 1 tspYN/gallon.  He does

not state what sp.gr. that makes. I haven't checked.  Paul Farnsworth

suggests 8 tbsp dry malt or 10  tbsp syrup in 2 1/2 cups water. This

 is from the Zymurgy special issue on yeast. There are some good

ideas in there, but they are rather scattered.

FYI 1 quart ~= 1 liter. I'll publish conversion tables too!

Bandwidth- what bandwidth. I don't need no stinking bandwidth!

Brew On!  John (The Coyote) Wyllie  SLK6P@cc.usu.edu

------------------------------


Re: Catching up on mail

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 13:54:33 EDT

From: LeRoy S. Strohl <lstrohl@s850.mwc.edu>

Subject: Re: Catching up on mail

Sean Taylor asked about beer drinks in a recent HBD. Two which I have

encountered are the Shandy and its cousin the Shandy Gaff: the Shandy is

a mix of beer and lemonade (my favorite version of this was the

Tiger-Tops that I had in HongKong in the early 1960's - Tiger is a

pretty good lager made if memory serves in Singapore, and Tops was a

lemon soda that was very popular with the British sailors I'd  met)

the Shandy Gaff is much the same except it is made with ginger ale. The

best ratio for me was just a splash (how do you like that for accuracy)

of either the lemonade or ginger ale. I guess if I were going to

recommend these it would be that they be considered a summertime drink.

JM Montgomery asked about smoking grains - JM I have smoked grains using

just a regular covered/kettle grill. Whatever grains you want to smoke

can be placed in a pouch of aluminum foil, puncture it all over with a

fork to make lots of little holes. Outside of the grill get two or three

charcoal briquets to the point that they are covered with gray ash,

place them on the coals rack and cover the briquets with a couple of

handfuls of previously moistened peat moss. I usually leave them in hte

grill for at least 30 minutes. For my own purposes I think it adds a

nice touch to a couple of my Scotch ale recipes. Hope this works.

Mark Nelson talked about the yuppification of the brewpub business. OK

it seems that you would be wise to think of the business part of it

first - the guy that is running this brewpub is in it for the money.

Yuppies have disposable assets and the guy is glad to take it to pay his

rent, grocery store, wait staff and grain bill. Second if his beer is

not good one of two things will start to happen - people like yourself

will tell him his beer leaves much to be desired and if he doesn't

change you'll stop going to the restaurant and maybe others will too,

and hey who knows, he may go out of business. However, there is a funny

alternate scenario. Lets say he doesn't change his recipes, but the

yuppies keep on coming, and they posture around with talk about hop

bouquets, malt texture, mouth feel and yeast flavors. You probaly don't

want to hang out with this kind of crowd, and you'll have the

satisfaction of knowing that a bunch of effete posers are drinking bad

beer. Keep on making your own, it's probably better anyway.

Roy

------------------------------


Amalyse Enzyme

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 13:04:54 -0500 (CDT)

From: Steve Seaney <seaney@ie.engr.wisc.edu>

Subject: Amalyse Enzyme

I am a bit confused over the use of Amalyse Enzyme (I hope this is

spelled correctly) when brewing all grain beer.  My understanding is

that it contains Alpha Amalyse.

My understanding is that Alpha Amalyse is denatured around 130 degF.

If this is correct what good is the enzyme at mash temps above 140

degF?

I don't have my copy of Papazian or Miller at the moment.  Can someone

help out?

When should Alpha Amalyse be used?

Thanks,

Steve

- --

Steve Seaney: 608/265-3954: seaney@engr.wisc.edu

------------------------------


Wit and Brewing with Liquors  (???)

Date: 15 Oct 93 14:08 EDT

From: smennitt@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Stuart Mennitt)

Subject: Wit and Brewing with Liquors  (???)

    I've just started a batch of Wit based loosely on Miller's recipe.

I'm using 3.3 lbs M&F wheat syrup extract, 2 lbs M&F pale dry extract,

1.5 oz of 2.9% Hallertau hops, and 1 oz ground coriander seed.  The

yeast is Wyeast European Ale.

    I'd like to add a slight orange flavor, and I was considering adding

some triple sec liquor to the ferment.  I've got some Bols brand that

uses curacao and seville oranges for its flavor.

Should this work?

Any idea how much triple sec to add?

    I've also considered using a more "Belgian" yeast for this.  Any

suggestions here?  Would it help to culture a Chimay or Duvel and repitch

with some honey or corn sugar?  Any other "Wit" style extract recipes

out there?  Am I asking too many questions?      Thanks.

- --____________________________________________________

]      Stu Mennitt      smennitt@oasys.dt.navy.mil    [

]  NavSurfWarCen, CarderockDiv     Bethesda, Maryland [

]         was: David Taylor Research Center           [

]     was: David Taylor Naval Ship R&D Center         [

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

- -------

------------------------------


Budweiser wins an award?

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 11:43:15 -0700

From: Ken Michael Johnson <kmj@leland.Stanford.EDU>

Subject: Budweiser wins an award?

I can't believe that Budweiser got an award at the GABF.  I think that they

should change the name of the American Premium Lager catagory to

American Pisswater.  Just a thought.

kj

------------------------------


Re: Idophor summary

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 14:44:00 -0400

From: Eric M. Mrozek <mrozek@horowitz.eecs.umich.edu>

Subject: Re: Idophor summary

123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678

901234567890

> Watch those line lengths...

Please accept my sincerest apologies.  The message appeared clean when I sent

it.  The digest software rejects postings with lines longer than 80

characters, so I didn't expect any problems.

Here's a summary of responses that I have recieved:

> Iodophor has a sort of metallic-chlorine-like taste ...  It's less

objectionable to me than chlorine itself, though. I think the key has to be

to drain thoroughly after sanitizing with the stuff, and to use pretty low

levels to start with. ... 12ppm is easily detectable.  We could do an

experiment...

> The advantage [of idophor] over bleach is that chlorine in very dilute

concentration combined with polyphenols in beer will easily

generate chlorophenol compounds that have a taste perception

threshold in the few parts per billion magnitude.  If you're

finding a harsh medicinal character in the beer, that's

chlorophenolic.  This can be cause by rinsing with city

water with high amounts of chlorine, or can be present

from the start if you brew with water out of the tap....

[This shouldn't be the problem.  Our technique has avoided this in the past.]

> Iodophor is routinely used in restaurants as the final

sanitizing rinse for dishes & glassware, which may be used

immediately for food service.  FDA considers 10ppm iodine

safe for consumption, though iodophor solution also contains

phosphoric acid and isn't very tasty by itself.

> You might want to verify that your friend rinsed out the iodophor.  I

frequently see one of its benefits listed as "no rinse required."  They

certainly tout this in its use in the food industry (from what I have

seen in Superior Products' catalog and on the bottle I have).  George

Fix, in his book "Vienna," says that although no rinse is required he

still recommends rinsing with cheap commercial beer ("Way waste our

own.") - 12 oz. is good for rinsing a 5 gal container.  Dr. Fix

commented that amber and dark beers in particular are more apt to react

to residual sanitizer giving it a flavor that can easily be mistaken as

an infection.  I guess all this is to say that it is probably no

surprise that iodophor causes off-flavors and should indeed be rinsed...

[The original beer was a "Belgian" brown...  I would describe the flavor as

smoothly medicinal rather than infected]

------------------------------


5/2/.5 micron filters

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 15:52:38 EDT"

From: Gary S. Kuyat <gsk@sagan.bellcore.com>

Subject: 5/2/.5 micron filters

Full-Name: Gary S. Kuyat

After playing around with a couple of filtering systems, and counter-pressure

filling bottles with force carbonated, filtered beer, I have these notes on

different filter elements.

5 micron:

 Takes out big chunks, like hop particles. No effect in flavor, no effect in

body, no effect in chill haze. Other than as a pre-filter 5 mic. seems pretty

useless.

2 micron:

 This seems to be the best all around. Removes yeast. Some very slight loss of

body. Clears and "crispens" beer taste. Almost have to say "why wouldn't you

run all your beer through this?" (that is if you're kegging!) Don't try

in-the-bottle carbonation with this, 'cause most all the yeast will be removed!

 .5 micron

 Removes yeast, some body and if your beer is very cold when you filter, this

removes chill haze!  Kinda leaves your beer with a "thin" mouth feel. If you

are making lite beer (and I have) then this is the filter for you! Half mcron

filters are not cheap!  Beer that is cold-filtered through a half micron

really should be put in clear bottles (IMHO) to let your friends hold it up

to the light and see. If you follow "better to look good than to..." this might

just do the trick.

 .1 micron

 Removes beer...

- --

 -Gary Kuyat

  gsk@sagan.bellcore.com

------------------------------


Alabama beer

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 08:21:00 -0600

From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

Subject: Alabama beer

In HBD 1248 Brian Moore <Moorebw@hvsmtp1.mdc.com> wrote:

CN> This originally started with my desire to get more exciting

CN> microbrewed beers here in the beer wasteland of Alabama. About

CN> the most exotic thing we can currently buy is the Samuel Adams

CN> Boston Lager. Figuring this was a (good) starting point, I

CN> called the local distributor and asked if they were planning to

CN> bring in any of the other Sam Adams beers. The distributor said

CN> they were working on getting another, the Octoberfest, but that

CN> there were some that they could never get (the Double Bock).

Sorry to say Brian, I got your SA Octoberfest, and it was delicious!

The first time I tried it, here in the Chicago 'burbs, the bottle

caps had the SA logo and "Alabama" printed on them.

Chuck

 * RM 1.2 00946 * Death is not the end; there remains the litigation..

------------------------------


Pseudo-decoction experiment

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 12:26 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Pseudo-decoction experiment

Larry writes:

>charactor and mashing techniques.  Many brew brothers do decotion and

>modified decotion mashing claiming improved malt charactor.  This guy's

>claim was that fast, cool sparges produce low malt charactor.  He said

>that he always runs a very hot sparge (180 or higher) because that

>husky graininess makes for more malt charactor.

>

>This guy also suggested an experiment for me to do to test out his ideas:

>next time I begin to lauter a 10 gal batch, to set aside 2 gallons of

>mash and bring it to a rolling boil before adding it back into the lauter

>tun.  I guess this a way of simulating a decotion mash and the carmelization

>that occurs during the boils.  He claimed that the change in malt and

>physical charactoristics of the mash would be obvious as I brought the 2

>gallons to a boil.

I think you will increase your chances of a starch haze.  Depending on your

crush, you will have some amount of unconverted starch hiding among the

husks.  Bringing this to a rolling boil will gelatinize this hidden starch

and give your beer a starch haze.  Avoiding this problem is one of the

reasons that Noonan recommends taking only the thin portion of the mash

(just the liquid) for the final decoction (the one leading to mash-out).

Personally, I don't like a husky character in my beer.  Malty is one thing,

but husky is another.  Consider the flavor of wort and the flavor of spent

grains.  Wort tastes malty, spent grain tastes husky.  I prefer only the

former.

Al.

------------------------------


Fast Spargeand Godzilla

Date: Sat, 16 Oct 93 13:26 CDT

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Fast Spargeand Godzilla

 >From: polstra!larryba@uunet.UU.NET

 >My second to last batch was 20 min for 11 gal at ~34 pt/lb/gal

 I also typically skip mash out maybe heating the mash to 158-162 just

 to maintain a mash bed temp of 140-150 and to force conversion if the

 iodine test is not negative after 20-30 minutes....Once, a year or two ago, I

 asked the forums if there were any negative issues w/regard to fast sparges.

 I got no responses.

 I was so impressed and humbled by both postings that I had nothing to say for

 a change.  When someone claims he can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear

 and backs it up with the numbers, it's tough to say something clever.

 >This guy also suggested an experiment for me to do to test out his ideas:

 next time I begin to lauter a 10 gal batch, to set aside 2 gallons of

 mash and bring it to a rolling boil before adding it back into the lauter

 tun.....

 >The question: What do folks think of this theory and the experiment?  Am I

 likely to just end up with a bad starch haze and a puckery beer?

 Not sure the experiment makes any sense but mashout and hot sparges have

 become a ritual with me.  All you have to do is bring your mash to mashout

 temperature to realize that lots of stuff is going on here.  The change in

 color, iodine reaction, viscosity and taste would indicate that the end beer

 ought to be effected.  Whether this is good or bad is your call or the

 competition judges.

 I would suggest that a far more meaningful experiment is the obvious one.

 Brew up a batch using a simple decoction, i.e. boil a couple of gallons after

 the main mash reaches sach temp and dump it in.  Continue the mash as usual

 and mash out at the end.  Sparge slowly with hot water and finish the beer.

 Then report back to us with the difference in your beer from previous

 batches.

 BTW, you "mash out" at 162F might be enough to get you over the hum.  It is

 not exactly a cool mash and most infusions would be far cooller by the time

 sparging is begun.

 >From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

 >Tallying the responses from both HBD and email, it appears that

 there are quite a few homebrewers out there who do not perform a

 mash-out.  More so than I imagined.

 As the vast majority of all grain brewers mash in plastic buckets of one sort

 or another by adding hot water to the grain, it is not surprising that the

 vast majority do not mash out.

 >  I agree that the reasons you quoted are not very rationial

 >  reasons for doing a mashout but there is one reason that I think

 >  is a good one.  By raising the whole mash 20 degrees or so, you

 >  stand a far better chance of keeping it in the optimum range

 >  during the lautering process.  It's easy enough to do for those

 >  who kettle mash but it is probably not worth the trouble for the

 >  bucket infusers.

 >

 >  js

 <Ouch.  An idol's dagger plunges the deepest.  You assume that we

 all agree there is an optimum range and that thus there is a need

 to be within that range.

 No!  I assume that everything I say is taken as gospel and no further

 discussion is necessary.

 >  I do not support such assumptions.  I skip the mash-out and consistently

 get good yields.  It should also be noted that I use a picnic cooler and

 never perform a protein rest (Belgian malts).

 Right!  And there are those out there who claim they make REAL beer with

 extract.  We AGS's just raise our collective noses higher at such nonsense.

 > I won't tell you how I grind my malt because I'll be forced to use the "C"

 word.

 I understand you once had a MM but traded it for a Corona because the grain

 kept coming out of the hopper when you turned the crank.  The  Corona has an

 arrow telling you how to turn the crank and I can understand how

 No-Mashout-Types (NMT's) feel more comfortable with it.

 >Looks like Godzilla and Mothra have teamed-up to combat the

 onslaught from BOQAT.

 Keep in mind that Godzilla is for real but the others are just just fictional

 characters.

 I sometimes wonder why anyone else even bothers posting to this forum,

 anything other than questions.  Unless it comes from me, one can never be

 certain that it is the truth.

 js

------------------------------


help on yeast

Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1993 23:33:45 -0400 (EDT)

From: David J Mendonca <dm82+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: help on yeast

I'm a novice brewer (second batch) who has now learned, don't throw away

the labels to your mixes or yeasts!  My question is about yeast.  I

brewed two days ago a hopped extract for a strong ale.  Before adding

the yeast to the (pre-)wort mix, I put it in water and warmed it.  The

wort was at 70 degrees when I added the yeast.  Forty-eight hours later,

there's been nary a bubble through my fermentation lock.  Would

overwarming have killed the yeast, or was it more likely something else?

 Has anyone ever added a second dose of yeast or does that do funky

things to the batch?  Any help anyone can offer would be much

appreciated.

Thanks,

David

(e-mail dm82@andrew.cmu.edu)

------------------------------


5 Liter Kegs

Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1993 23:56:20 -0400 (EDT)

From: RADAMSON@delphi.com

Subject: 5 Liter Kegs

I've now read a couple new posts re: 5 liter kegs and being a 5

liter expert now, I thought I'd update a post I made from around

then end O'March 93:

"I have received several inquiries regarding the 5 liter metal

keg setups. Here are my datapoints:

The problem with getting Dink, Dab, et.al. cans from the stores

is that the tap you get is a gravity tap that you insert in

bung, flop the keg upside down and 'can-open' a hole in what was

the bottom (and now on top).  Certainly makes the vessel

unreusable.

The solution is these bottom-feed CO2 cartridge taps made by

Beer*King in Germany.  I originally got my tap(s) from Hoster

Brewery (brewpub) in Columbus, OH - but they no longer 'keg'

into 5 liter cans (and, therefore, don't sell the taps anymore).

Dock Street Brewery in Philly kegs into 5 liter cans, but I'm

not sure about the type of tap they sell.  Likewise with

Stoudt's in Adamstown, PA.

A source that I do know of (and have no affiliation with) for

both taps and new empty kegs is:

   Randy Martin, Proprieter

   Brew Ha Ha, Ltd.

   209 High St

   Pottstown, PA 19464

   800-243-2620 (orders)

   215-326-2620 (Dr. Brew)

Randy picked up a bunch of kegs from the now defunct Happy

Valley Brewery (Penn State) and could probably set

you up.  [10/93 Note: These things went fast and I don't know

about current stock.]

The tap has a central stem the height of the can which feeds

brew from the bottom.  There may be a small yeast burst in the

first couple ounces of brew/foam when first tapping, but none

whatsoever afterwards.  The tap has an adjustable CO2 valve that

I "tweak-up" a little at a time to introduce more gas - you

can hear it enter and build up a bit, then back it off to zero.

I put more gas on for overnight storage, haven't had any

leaking.  Also available are Whippets or N20 cartridges to power

your creamy stouts! (I do notice "sweeter" ales when dispensed

with nitrous).  I guess you could also "try" force carbonating,

but stock up well on CO2 carts.

As far as kegging these skippers, I usually fill 3 kegs and a

dozen bottles per 5 gal batch.  And to keep it simple, I still

bulk prime as if doing bottles with either DME or Corn Sugar

(.75 cup) and just fill the cans as I go along.  I use a bottle

filling wand that does not contain a spring - just gravity &

pressure control.  I just drop the wand in the keg and do a

 take-5 for a bit.

Use your own standard priming rate, mine are low-to-fair

carbonation level (British Ales, mostly).  Since the volume is

larger than that of a bottle, the maturation time is increased

(takes longer to reach carbonation), but is well worth it.  I

leave about 1" headspace on the kegs and have had no overcarbs.

Handling and storage is the same as if they were bottles.  The 5

liter is equivalent to about 14 12oz bottles - but it goes in

the fridge better.

For Sanitizing, I just drop a few tbls of Bbrite in, fill and

soak for a couple hours prior to kegging.  So far the hardest

part about these is forcing the bung in after I fill the keg."

[current post again]

About the only problem (sic) I've had is possible

inappropriateness of 5 liters of some beers (at a time).  Like,

I made a great Raspberry Patch Brown Ale, but kegged it all.

Its great to take or have for an event, but I do get my fill of

raspberry fairly early.  The beer is a perfect match for 22 oz

brown or 25 oz champagne bottles.  I will probably only fill 1

keg with my Pumpkin Patch Ale, the rest in bottles.

------------------------------


Yeast nutrients

Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1993 09:51:35 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Yeast nutrients

What are the opinions on using yeast nutrients when preparing starters?

Chris Raymond, here at ZGI, has an experimental brew going in which he

split the starter wort into 2 portions and added "Yeast Nitrogen Base"

to one of them and did the other as normal.  YNB is a commercial

preparation of Ammonium nitrate, trace elements, and amino acids.  It is

added in the amount of about 7g/liter.  Chris grew the starters under the

same conditions then assayed them for total cell counts.  The YNB starter

had a cell density 10 times (!) of the other.  The numbers worked out to

10 x 10**10 cells/liter.  I seem to remember an optimal pitch for 5 gallons

is 4 x 10**10 cells so using YNB you could pitch with a pint and get an

optimal cell count.

Of course something could be wrong with this.  Maybe happy yeast changes

its flavor profile.  Maybe it loses attenuative ability.  Who knows?  And

that of course is the question.  Who knows?  If you do know or even have an

opinion, let's hear it.

Chris is brewing a batch with both starters, so we should be able to do

a side by side comparison of the results.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


COPS: Distilling is dangerous??

Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1993 15:31:51 -0400

From: ukcy@sunyit.edu (Kevin Yager)

Subject: COPS: Distilling is dangerous??

 On Oct 14, 10:03, Russ Gelinas wrote:

 ] Subject: COPS and AHA

 ] distillation.  The AHA does not condone the production of distilled

 ] liquors.  It is illegal and dangerous. But once again, the homebrewing

 ]

 ] Russell Gelinas

 ] esp/opal

 ] unh

 ]-- End of excerpt from Russ Gelinas

Why do you consider distilling to be dangerous?  There is an element of risk

involved with making anything.  (including fried chicken)  Distillers simply

take a fermented product and evaporate and condense the alcohol.

Illegal?  Yes.  Dangerous?   Hardly.

Kevin

------------------------------


mashout necessary?

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 93 14:50 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: mashout necessary?

Tallying the responses from both HBD and email, it appears that

there are quite a few homebrewers out there who do not perform a

mash-out.  More so than I imagined.  And of course, there were the

traditionalists who tried to defend the mash-out ceremony.

Homebrewing makes for strange bedfellows.

>

>  Chris mentioned one of the benefits of mashout (the debated

>  one), but failed to mention the one on which most of us agree,

>  namely mashing out raises the temperature of the mash much

>  quicker than simply pouring sparge water and therefore more

>  quickly decreases the viscosity of the runnings.  Runnier

>  runnings mean faster sparging (without a loss of extract

>  efficiency), less chance of a set mash (stuck runoff) and more

>  efficient extraction of sugars. Remember, warm honey pours

>  easier than cold honey.

>

>  Al

>

Ok, I'll bite.  Where's the dividing line between "warm honey" and

"cold honey" i.e. at what point do wort sugars flow and not flow?

I skip the mash-out and sparge with 170-180 F water.  I usually

sparge 5 gallons of water in 30-45 minutes.  My mashing

efficiencies are consistently over 80%.  Given these facts is it

safe to assume that wort sugars flow without a mash-out?

>

>  I agree that the reasons you quoted are not very rationial

>  reasons for doing a mashout but there is one reason that I think

>  is a good one.  By raising the whole mash 20 degrees or so, you

>  stand a far better chance of keeping it in the optimum range

>  during the lautering process.  It's easy enough to do for those

>  who kettle mash but it is probably not worth the trouble for the

>  bucket infusers.

>

>  js

>

Ouch.  An idol's dagger plunges the deepest.  You assume that we

all agree there is an optimum range and that there is a need to be

within that range.  I do not support such assumptions.  I skip the

mash-out and consistently get good yields.  It should also be noted

that I use a picnic cooler and never perform a protein rest (I use

Belgian malts).  I won't tell you how I grind my malt because I'll

then be forced to use the "C" word.

Looks like Godzilla and Mothra have teamed-up to combat the

onslaught from BOQAT.  So far BOQAT remains unscathed.  Can Tokyo

withstand another melee?  Tune in tomorrow.  Egg rolls served

during the matinee.

chris campanelli

------------------------------


Auto Reply from Watch_Mail for 15-OCT-1993 13:50 to 23-OCT-1993 00:00

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 05:48:02 EDT

From: DEC PHIGS development DTN 381-2275  18-Oct-1993 0550 -0400 <poegel@bgsdev.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Auto Reply from Watch_Mail for 15-OCT-1993 13:50 to 23-OCT-1993 00:00

I'm on vacation from October 16 to October 23, 1993.

I can be reached at

Dixie Landings

Walt Disney World

Lake Buene Vista, Florida

1-407-W-DISNEY (407-934-7639)

For DEC PHIGS issues, please contact Keith Comeford (BGSDEV::COMEFORD)

or Bob Crowling (BGSDEV::CROWLING).

Garry Poegel

------------------------------


Re: Making drinks with Beeer?

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 12:05:01 +0100

From: james@sst.ph.ic.ac.uk (James Kew)

Subject: Re: Making drinks with Beeer?

blazo@aol.com writes:

> In London, England they mix bitter orange soda with beer and call the

> resultant beverage "Shandy".

Do we? If you ask for a shandy in England you will get a half-beer

half-lemonade mixture. Works with both bitter and lager. Not too bad,

actually -- it's how I started getting into beer...

> In some parts of England this is called "Orange

> Shandy" and other soda beverages, Cherry, for instance, mixed with beer would

> be called "Cherry Shandy".

I've never experienced these; not to say they don't exist though. Another

common thing to add to beer is blackcurrant cordial ("Guinness and Black")

or lime cordial (Lager and Lime).

___________________________________________________________________________

James Kew        "This dog and I are incompatible. For a start I think he's

IC, London        the wrong star sign..."     Letter, TVQuick Problems Page

------------------------------


RE: Shandy and making drinks with beer.

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 08:26:27 EDT

From: andrewb6@aol.com

Subject: RE: Shandy and making drinks with beer.

In HBD#1249, blazo@aol.com writes in RE: Making drinks with Beeer?

>In London, England they mix bitter orange soda with beer and call the

resultant beverage "Shandy".  In some parts of England this is called "Orange

Shandy" and other soda beverages, Cherry, for instance, mixed with beer

would be called "Cherry Shandy".

>It is almost shameful to admit it but (shudder) Orange Shandy tastes pretty

darn good as a "lawnmower style" malt beverage.  I know that this probably

offends the sensitivities of most of this audience, but, refuse to judge

until you've tried it.  Mix equal parts Schweppes Bitter Orange with Doub

le

Diamond and see what I mean!

I think it should definitely be referred to as "Orange Sha

ndy" .  Traditionally,

shandy is an even mix of beer and lemonade--where lemonade is something

akin to 7-Up, not the type you find at a lemonade stand here in the US.

I agree, shandy is not to be dismis

sed until you've tried it, and it's a great

compromise if you've got to take it easy '

cos you're driving.  I would avoid the

premixed shandy though -- it's bad, very bad.

x

If you're in Britain and you've got an obliging landlord have him mix it

with beer from the hand

 -pump.  You will probably have more luck with this

xxin the south of England than in the north because (generally speaking)

re-circulating handpumps are more common in the north.  The next customer

wou

ldn't appreciate your lemonade in his best bitter.

Perhaps you may even want to try a "lager an

d lime" -- generally Rose's Lime

Cordial.  Or even lager and black (black currant cordial), or then again

how about a Guinness and black.

BTW, shandy is indeed a traditional English mix.  Inv

ented by a famous big-

game hunter (whose name eludes me for the moment, but I'll look it up),

traveling in Africa.  He found that the traditional English beer (presumably

an IPA) was not as thirst quenching as it was in a more moderate climate,

and started mixing it with other beverages.  Like the ma

n said, "lawnmower

style."

******************************************************************************

* Andrew Baird       *    A good pilot is one who's made the same number of

*

* AndrewB6@aol.com   *    landings as take-offs!

*

******************************************************************************

------------------------------


Re: Beer Drinks

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 07:53:15 -0500 (CDT)

From: dspalme@mke.ab.com (Diane Palme x2617)

Subject: Re: Beer Drinks

In yesterday's HBD, blazo@aol.com writes:

>In London, England they mix bitter orange soda with beer and call the

>resultant beverage "Shandy".  In some parts of England this is called "Orange

>Shandy" and other soda beverages, Cherry, for instance, mixed with beer would

>be called "Cherry Shandy".

>It is almost shameful to admit it but (shudder) Orange Shandy tastes pretty

>darn good as a "lawnmower style" malt beverage.  I know that this probably

>offends the sensitivities of most of this audience, but, refuse to judge

>until you've tried it.  Mix equal parts Schweppes Bitter Orange with Double

>Diamond and see what I mean!

In Germany, people will mix a light-colored beer (insert Pilzen or Weiss

here) and mix it with the equivalent of Sprite (tm) and call it a "Radler."

I believe it is done in a 50/50 ratio.  It is quite tasty on those hot,

summer days and every now and then I will consider doing the same with some

of the swill I see in my parent's 'fridge.  Good stuff!  I recommend it!

Be daring!  Give it a try!

Just my $0.02,

D.

Diane Palme

Department Engineer, Central Inspection

Allen-Bradley Co.

(414) 382-2617

dspalme@mkelan5.remnet.ab.com

dspalme@mke.ab.com

  " I have found that it is much easier to fake an

    orgasm than to pretend to like basketball. "

Oh yeah, um, what I say is my opinion, um, what I think are my own ideas, uh,

Allen-Bradley has nothing to do with them, uh, yeah.  That's about it.

------------------------------


Beer hunting in Belgium: Introduction

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 09:15:49 -0400

From: "Phillip Seitz" <p00644@psilink.com>

Subject: Beer hunting in Belgium: Introduction

Beer Hunting in Belgium

Introduction

      (by Phil Seitz)

      With this post I would like to introduce a seven-part series

on beer and brewing in Belgium, based primarily on research

conducted by Jim Bush and myself during a visit this past summer.

      Our goal is to share as much of the beer and brewing

information we collected as possible, and the final post will

contain information on cafes, stores and other resources for

future visitors.  A few of the posts will go beyond brewing to

offer a broader narrative, particularly in cases like our tour of

the trappist brewery at Rochfort, where we were privileged to do

something that others probably won't be able to.  In these

cases we'll try to offer a vicarious tour, but hopefully without

tiresome comments about what a good time we had, etc.

      To avoid HBD bloat I will send out one "chapter" each day,

although the actual time of appearance will be subject to the

whims of HBD.  The topics covered will be as follows:

Part 1:     Rochfort (Trappist brewing)

Part 2:     Brasserie de Silenrieux (Brewing with spelt and buckwheat)

Part 3:     Liefmans and oud bruins (Sour brown beers)

Part 4:     Brasserie la Caracole (Running a very small brewery)

Part 5:     Oud Beersel (Lambics)

Part 6:     Aged beer tasting (25-year-old Orval and more)

Part 7:     General information (Where to drink and shop)

      This was my seventh trip to Belgium in six years.  At this

point my French is pretty functional, and I have a large number

of friends and connections--many of them beer related.  While

I've been brewing for about 2 years, Jim has been doing so for

much longer and has a much deeper understanding of the processes,

equipment, and problems involved.  So we teamed up, traveling the

Belgian countryside, listening to Jim's substantial collection of

Radiators tapes, and searching for good beer.

      While I can therefore say that Jim and I brought a certain

amount of experience to this task, we are painfully aware of all

the questions we forgot to ask, or couldn't.  You are welcome to

write to either of us with inquiries about the material you'll be

seeing over the next few days, and we'll try to answer as many as

we can.  Please try to be understanding if we fail you.

 I plan to continue visiting Belgium on a regular

basis and welcome suggestions for addition information

that needs to be collected.

      Apologies are also offered for all the typos, misspellings,

and other editorial incongruities you'll undoubtedly find in the

posts that follow.  I've worked them over a bit, but decided that

people would rather have the information now than wait until we

could produce a more elegant piece of writing.

      Above all, we hope the following posts will be informative

and enjoyable to read.

------------------------------


Beer hunting in Belgium: Introduction

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 09:15:49 -0400

From: "Phillip Seitz" <p00644@psilink.com>

Subject: Beer hunting in Belgium: Introduction

Beer Hunting in Belgium

Introduction

      (by Phil Seitz)

      With this post I would like to introduce a seven-part series

on beer and brewing in Belgium, based primarily on research

conducted by Jim Bush and myself during a visit this past summer.

      Our goal is to share as much of the beer and brewing

information we collected as possible, and the final post will

contain information on cafes, stores and other resources for

future visitors.  A few of the posts will go beyond brewing to

offer a broader narrative, particularly in cases like our tour of

the trappist brewery at Rochfort, where we were privileged to do

something that others probably won't be able to.  In these

cases we'll try to offer a vicarious tour, but hopefully without

tiresome comments about what a good time we had, etc.

      To avoid HBD bloat I will send out one "chapter" each day,

although the actual time of appearance will be subject to the

whims of HBD.  The topics covered will be as follows:

Part 1:     Rochfort (Trappist brewing)

Part 2:     Brasserie de Silenrieux (Brewing with spelt and buckwheat)

Part 3:     Liefmans and oud bruins (Sour brown beers)

Part 4:     Brasserie la Caracole (Running a very small brewery)

Part 5:     Oud Beersel (Lambics)

Part 6:     Aged beer tasting (25-year-old Orval and more)

Part 7:     General information (Where to drink and shop)

      This was my seventh trip to Belgium in six years.  At this

point my French is pretty functional, and I have a large number

of friends and connections--many of them beer related.  While

I've been brewing for about 2 years, Jim has been doing so for

much longer and has a much deeper understanding of the processes,

equipment, and problems involved.  So we teamed up, traveling the

Belgian countryside, listening to Jim's substantial collection of

Radiators tapes, and searching for good beer.

      While I can therefore say that Jim and I brought a certain

amount of experience to this task, we are painfully aware of all

the questions we forgot to ask, or couldn't.  You are welcome to

write to either of us with inquiries about the material you'll be

seeing over the next few days, and we'll try to answer as many as

we can.  Please try to be understanding if we fail you.

 I plan to continue visiting Belgium on a regular

basis and welcome suggestions for addition information

that needs to be collected.

      Apologies are also offered for all the typos, misspellings,

and other editorial incongruities you'll undoubtedly find in the

posts that follow.  I've worked them over a bit, but decided that

people would rather have the information now than wait until we

could produce a more elegant piece of writing.

      Above all, we hope the following posts will be informative

and enjoyable to read.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1250, 10/19/93

*************************************

-------


Re:oxidation while racking

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 09:43:32 -0500 (EDT)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re:oxidation while racking

> Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 14:17:09 -0700

> From: arne thormodsen <arnet@kaibutsu.cup.hp.com>

> Subject: Oxidation and Filtering

>

> OK, I'll be the heretic.  Hey, new brewers!  DON'T worry about oxidation

> when transferring to secondary.  The beer is cool and saturated

> (probably supersaturated) with CO2.  If it foams a little when you

> transfer it there is virtually no way it will oxidize, because CO2 is

> coming out.  If it doesn't foam when you transfer it it was probably in

> primary too long and you migh as well bottle it.  I can't see any harm

> in what is described here.  Filering hot wort is one thing, filtering

> cool fermenting beer is something entirely different.

>

> Relax, have a homebrew, and shove that nasty ol' oxidation bogeyman back

> in the closet where it (usually) belongs.

>

> - --arne

>

Wow, supersaturated beer out of the primary??  How do you accomplish this,

with a pressure tank, and bunging with 3+ Palto of residual extract?  Wont

this cause the carboy to explode :-)  Seriously, fermented beer when young

will have around 1 atmosphere of CO2 in solution.  While this will rise

out of solution as the beer is racked, the original posters experience

with a filter is certainly going to introduce some degree of oxidation.

A small degree of splashing into the secondary is OK, putting it through

a filter/funnel is sure disaster.  Its just not worth it, or necessary.

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Brass in the Boil

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 09:49:01 EDT

From: andrewb6@aol.com

Subject: Brass in the Boil

Ooops,  I forgot to add this to my last post.

Are there any negative effects from using brass fittings in boiling wort?

I'm

thinking in particular of a brass Swagelok (sp?) bulkhead fitting.  (Thanks

Joel for the bulkhead tip)

Also, is it safe to assume that a ball valve attached directly to the kettl

e

would be effectively sanitized by heat conducted from the kettle.  I'm

thinking

of using an immersion chiller, so hopefully all I have to do to avoid

worrying

(heaven forbid) about infection is to  attach a sanitized hose to the end of

the ball valve and drain merrily into the fermenter.

Any comments?

Thanks in advance.

******************************************************************************

* Andrew Baird       *    A good pilot is one who's made the same number of

*

* AndrewB6@aol.com   *    landings as take-offs!

*

******************************************************************************

------------------------------


Liquid Yeast: Friend or Fiend?

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 09:06:36 -0500

From: jmp@shoe.wustl.edu

Subject: Liquid Yeast: Friend or Fiend?

Greetings,

Long time listener, first time caller.  I'm afraid that this will have to do

with deep philosphical questions, and therefore I may later regret having

brought it up at all.  But here goes...

I usually ferment my wort with dry yeast, usually with good and reliable

results.  Periodically, I will use WYeast, particularly when I intend to make

several consecutive batches of similar beers, as reusing the yeast slurry

becomes economical.  Such was the case over the weekend.  I was to make a basic

pale ale on Saturday morning.  I had gotten a WYeast American Ale packet, and

burst the inner packet on Thursday evening.  Sure enough, by noon on Saturday

it was nice and puffy.  My 1043 wort was at 70F, and all was well with the

world.  So, I sanitize the yeast package in bleach water, rinse it off,

cut it open, drop liquid into the wort, cap it and swirl it up.  I then

wait for fermentation to begin, but lo! nothing happens and keeps on not

happening until Monday morning.

So far, a dull story.  But the reason for the post is that this the third time

in four instances of liquid yeast use that this happened to me.  The questions

I have are:

Why does this happen?  Up until the instant that I introduce the yeast to the

wort, it behaves as advertised.  After pitching, it appears to literally die.

I will note that all of the worts that have been victim to this behavior have

been revived with dry yeast, and all were completely acceptable, at least to me.

Why does liquid yeast seem so my less robust than dry?  This is the thing

that I wonder most, since as noted above all of my liquid yeast failings

have had dry yeast added and gone on to ferment properly.  Also, I have never

had a wort not ferment after I pitched dry yeast.

Should this happen when I use the liquid yeast _as_directed_on_the_package?

It's not as if I'm just dumping yeast straight from the fridge to the wort.

I know the perceived wisdom hereabouts is to make a starter of some sort,

but WYeast's package says that I should be able to do what I did and get

fermentation.

Should I just admit abject failure and use dry yeasts exclusively?  By

extension, will I make a beer with "666" tatooed on its forehead if I reuse

the slurry from a batch fermented with dry yeast?

Any suggestion is appreciated.

Jerome Peirick

jmp@shoe.wustl.edu

------------------------------


Whitbread dry yeast availability.

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 10:17:50 EDT

From: lyons%adc3@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: Whitbread dry yeast availability.

I have not been able to purchase Whitbread dry ale yeast from

my local distributers for some time.  Is anyone aware of a supply

problem with Whitbread?

Chris Lyons

------------------------------


GABF winners PostScript

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 10:39:02 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: GABF winners PostScript

I spent a while with Word and made a tabular version of the GABF

results.  Then I printed it into a PostScript file.  I have placed it

into the pub/incoming directory at sierra.stanford.edu; it probably

won't migrate to the right place (pub/homebrew/docs) until late this

week, as the archiver said he will be out of town.

=Spencer

------------------------------


Carboy transport/storage

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 10:36:32 EDT

From: gorman@aol.com

Subject: Carboy transport/storage

I've got a friend who took an old wooden swivel office chair with a

wicker/cane seat that was broken and took out all the wicker in the seat.

An inverted carboy fits right through the seat, the back and arms cradle the

carboy, and the casters on the legs allow convenient rolling around.

I'm still looking for one of my own.

Bill Gorman

------------------------------


Last Year's Hops

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 10:01:36 -0500

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Last Year's Hops

Glen Anderson asks:

>Would anyone know what percent of Alpha Acid has been lost in the

>1992 crop, assuming they were stored under optimum conditions? I just

>purchased about a pound and would like to adjust my recipes.

If I understand things right, essentially zero.  No adjustments should be

necessary.  Mark Garetz (our local Hop Expert) may wish to comment.

 t

------------------------------


re:Hard Cider Recipes

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 07:53:05 -0700

From: mchristy%spc.dnet@gpo.nsc.com (Mike Christy TEST SOFTWARE AUTOMATION x8466)

Subject: re:Hard Cider Recipes

Since there have been a few inquiries about hard cider lately, here are some

cider making ideas from the northeast:

A friend of mine usually puts up a couple of 55 gallon wooden kegs each

fall with 40 lbs of brown sugar in each. I believe the sugar is dissolved

in a pan of warm cider then added to the keg. A rubber bung/ air lock is

inserted and he waits for spring. The slower it works off, the better. A temp

of 55 to 40 is ideal.

Other traditional recipes use pears or raisins, or both. Basically you can add

anything which will give the wild apple yeasties more to eat and impart a

flavor to the cider. You may opt to not add anything, which will render a very

dry cider.

My method involves using green 1 gal wine/vinegar jugs. With these small 1 gal

amounts you can experiment and not worry about ruining a whole batch. They also

work off quicker than larger batches. Check with local restaurants about saving

you some. Sterilize, use a rubber stopper/air lock and keep out of sunlight.

My favorite recipe uses 1 gal of cider with 1 rounded cup of brown sugar. Place

in cool basement and wait 8-12 weeks. We've also used canned tropical fruit,

molasses, raisins, white sugar, corn sugar, DME, frozen cranberry juice...

experiment!

Cider can be bottled in champagne bottles, Grolsh style bottles or plain beer

bottles. If you bottle early, you can get a sparkling cider. We've used cork

and regular bottle caps successfully. Dont disturb the sediment when siphoning.

Then there's always the possibility of making apple-jack, which is freezing

hard cider. The water solidifies around a core of alcohol, very potent indeed.

One last note to those who may not know, its important to purchase cider

without any preservatives (pot sorb), or better yet go to a cider mill. They

will usually charge less if you have you own container, and even less if you

bring you own apples. Our local mill is cira 1905 and makes fine cider.

good luck,  and watch out for those cida-ffects - mike

------------------------------


Poly Hose

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 9:08:14 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Poly Hose

I just bought a thick-wall polyethylene hose to run from my lauter tun to my

boiler.  The hose I use now is a thin-wall vinyl hose which has a tendency to

collapse when the hot liquor is flowing through it.  Any experience with this

PE hose?  It is quite stiff, compared to the vinyl, translucent (similar to

the vinyl after coming in contact with boiling wort), and has almost a waxy

feel to it.  Also, it is rated for a fair amount of pressure, but says nothing

about temperature.  Use it or lose it?

Thanks,

Norm

------------------------------


Spruce Beer

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 11:31:06 EDT

From: btalk@aol.com

Subject: Spruce Beer

John Pavao asked about Spruce Beer-

I followed Papazian's recipe using 1 oz Spruce essence.

This quickly became known as Pinesol Ale. It was AWFUL. Way too much Spruce,

you couldn't taste anything else. This is the only homebrew that mostly went

down the drain ...after I got as many people to try it as would dare.

Take it easy on the spruce. I would try maybe 1/3  to 1/2 oz essence in 5 gal

batch. good luck. Let me know how it comes out.                Bob Talkiewicz

------------------------------


re: Gravity Calculations

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 11:19:36 EDT

From: mferts@taec.com (Mike Fertsch)

Subject: re: Gravity Calculations

jclayton@TACOM-EMH1.Army.Mil (CLAYTON Joseph A Jr) asks about gravity

equations:

>As an avid user of equations and a terrible deriver of equations, I'd

>like to be able to solve for any one of the three factors, quantity of

>malt extract, volume of water, and O.G.

My equation is OG = 1 + #pounds of stuff / #gallons of wort * .042 for

dry extract, and

 OG = 1 + #pounds of stuff / #gallons of wort * .036

for liquid extract.

The 0.42 and the 0.36 is the "extraction rate" of dry and liquid

extracts.

This works backwards to get:  (OG-1)/.042 * #gallons = pounds of DME

needed

For more complicated recipes, we can add the result of several

factors:

OG = 1 +(#pounds of material "a" * extraction rate of material "a" +

  #pounds of material "b" * extraction rate of material "b" +

  #pounds of material "c" * extraction rate of material "c" +

  ...) / # of gallons

Thus, a recipe with 3.3# of syrup, 3# of dry extract, and 1# of corn

sugar gives

OG = 1 + (3.3*.036 + 3.0*.042 + 1.0*.044)/5 = 1.058

>By the way, is there any NET consensus on the result of one pound of

>DME and LME in a gallon of water?  I've seen a range of 1.035 to 1.045

>for DMS and a range of 1.032 to 1.040 for LME.  What's up?

I use 0.42 for DME, 0.36 for syrups, .044 for sugar.  Mashed grains

work the same way except the extraction rates are lower (.028-.031).  I

rarely use DMS in my beer, and when I do, I keep them in the parts per

million range.  This does not effect wort gravity significantly! :-)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Mike Fertsch

Work:  617-224-7298  mferts@taec.com       Toshiba, Wakefield MA

Home:  617-932-0567  mikef@hopfen.rsi.com  Home, Woburn MA

------------------------------


GABF

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 11:04:57 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: GABF

Norm writes in HBD#1248:

>Chris asks whether the GABF equates to the AHA nationals for the pros.  I don't

>know that much about the AHA, but I think the GABF is open to all professional

>brewers, regardless of affiliations.  Many brewers there are Institute for

>Brewing Studies members, but not anywhere near all of them.  This thing has

>gotten so big, though that it is difficult to get any idea of what's available.

This is absolutely correct. The only exceptions are breweries which misuse

competition results in ad campaigns. Norm touched on this point in HBD#1249,

and I am in complete agreement with him.

>I would like to see several regional ABF's and have the GABF an invitation-only

>affair.  The invites would go to the regional winners in each category.  That

>way the regionals would be of a more reasonable size and so would the GABF

>(used as a national run-off competition).  I went to the Saturday afternoon

>tasting and back again Saturday night, and I don't think I made a dent in the

>total number of beers there (nor would I try).  Does anyone else think this

>thing is a leviathan?  Dr. Fix, I believe you had one of the judging jobs,

>which should give you some insight into the organization.  Is my idea feasible,

>possible, or a pipe dream?

This is an excellent point. Both Laurie and I were on the professional panel,

and it was our view that there were too many beers per judge, and not enough

categories. In particular, there were over 900 beers entered which were

evaluated by ~40 judges in a 48 hour period. The panel itself had a good

mix of large industrial brewers, microbrewers, consultants, and misc. academic

types. Many of the major brewing countries were represented including the UK,

Germany, and Scandinavia, to cite but three examples. Nevertheless, the work

load was higher than desirable. Of the 900 or so beers entered, only ~150-200

were in serious contention for awards. This is why Norm's point is of great

relevance. Had there been local screening a la AHA nationals, then a better

and more complete evaluation could have been done at Denver. I felt

particularly frustrated by the time constraints, and the effect it had on

the quality of feedback the brewers will be getting from the score sheets.

I usually like to write a couple of paragraphs, particularly with problem

beers. Unfortunately, at the GABF time permitted only "one liners", something

I see as highly unsatisfactory.

To implement Norm's ideas one would need cooperation at the local level. This,

however, IMHO is exactly what the MBAA and the various small brewers

associations should be doing.

I was also uneasy about the number of categories. In particular, there were

no categories for Belgian styles. This forced Pierre Celis to enter both

his white beer (which won) and Grand Cru in the same category, in spite of

the fact that these two beers are dramatically different. In fact, the

category in question, i.e., spices, vegetables, et al, seems to me to be

ill defined, and as a result needs to be reorganized.

Both Laurie and I were upset about the merger of the Vienna and the Festbier

categories. There were ~ 40 enties, 6 of which were world class (three of each

of each type). The Viennas had OGs in the high 40s, while The Fest versions

were all in the high 60s. I have found that when one is evaluating beer based

on 1 oz. samples, there is a skew toward high gravity versions. This is indeed

what happened, for the gold and silver metals went to Festbiers. At the private

AHA tasting we rounded up as many homebrewers as we could find and tasted

the six beers in question, this time with 8 oz. samples. There was general

agreement that the two versions were sufficiently different to warrant

separate categories, and that each of the 6 samples was worthy of an award.

BTW the Viennas won the Gallo test in this informal evaluation, i.e., they

were the beers which the evaluators drank the most of. This is not to say

the Viennas were superior, but rather it underscores the importance in

(amateur or commercial) competitions of not forcing judges to evaluate apples

and oranges in the same category.

These comments are not to reflect negatively on the awards that were actually

given. The silver went to the Festbier that Pittsburgh brewed for Jim Koch.

Those who have read Laurie and my book on this style will know it has been

a long favorite of ours, and this version was a good sample. The gold went

to one of the best Festbiers I have ever tasted. Still we felt terrible about

the 4th place entry (a Vienna brewed in Georgia) for it too was world class,

yet it did not get an award.

George Fix

P.S. The judging was blind, and the entries were known to the judges by

numbers. Brewers on the panel did not evaluate categories where they had

entries. After the awards were announced, members of the panel were permitted

to match up the numbers with breweries, to see how various operations came

out. There were several samples where I though I knew who brewed beer being

evaluated, and even considered disqualifying myself from their evaluation.

It turned out that I was right some of the time, but not in all cases. The

biggest shock came from the American Light category, where some small

operations blew versions from AB, Coors, and Miller out of the water. I judged

this category, and at the end would have sworn that the winners were all

from large industrial brewers. What a pleasant surprise!

------------------------------


priming / banana esters

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 12:32:27 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: priming / banana esters

Bart Thielges writes:

>When I prime my fermented beer with corn sugar, I usually cool the priming

>solution to 70F with an ice bath before mixing with the beer.

>(Egads !  I've just publically admitted to both priming and use of cornsugar.

>There goes my chances of CamRA membership !)

 I understand many british cask conditioned ales are primed with

sugar.  You can relax, your CamRA membership is safe.  I mean, Britain is

not bound by the Reinheitsgebot, remember...

>I've always thought that this step is probably not necessary since the

>thermal mass of 1 pint of 200F sugar water is nothing compared with 5

>gallons @ 70F.  So what if I zap a few yeast cells on the initial contact ?

>They don't have very good lawyers anyway.

>

>I've never had the guts to actually risk a batch with this hot combination

>experiment.  Has anyone else done this successfully ?  I'd like to

 The only reason I cooled my boiled priming solution was I didn't

want to dump boiling liquid into my carboy (I add the priming solution

first then rack the beer into it).  Priming in a keg, however, I have no

qualms about dumping the hot priming solution staright into the keg (after

flushing it with CO2 first...)

   ***********

David Atkins writes:

>Well, off my soap box and into the kitchen...Banana esters.  I have a brown ale

>with slight banana esters (used Yeast Labs British Ale).  Are these esters a

>regular characteritic of the yeast, a result fermentation at 69-73 F ambient,

>or both?

 A hint of banana creeping in under the hop nose is an acceptable

part of british ale.  The isoamyl acetate (banana ester) can be strong if

the temperature is too high (73^F should be OK, but don't let it get

higher), if there is insufficient oxygen in the wort, and if the yeast is

underpitched.  So, aerate that cool wort, pitch lots of yeast, and a whiff

of banana (should not come through in the flavour) is acceptable, some

might say desirable, from a british ale.

____________

Ed Hitchcock ech@ac.dal.ca | "I'm not from outer space.  I'm from

Anatomy & Neurobiology  |  Iowa.  I just work in outer space."

Dalhousie University, Halifax |     - James T. Kirk

 [Eschew racism.  Drink beer from all nations]

------------------------------


Re: O.G. Formula

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 13:06:47 EDT

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: Re: O.G. Formula

Joe writes:

>I would like to second Jonathan Knight's request (HBD 1247) for a way

>to calculate the O.G. with malt extracts.  As an avid user of

>equations and a terrible deriver of equations, I'd like to be able to

>solve for any one of the three factors, quantity of malt extract,

>volume of water, and O.G.

I've used the formula

                  [#DME + 0.8#LME + 0.7#GRAINS]*0.042

 O.G. = 1.000 +  ----------------------------------

            gallons

where # means pounds.  This formula uses 1.042 for a pound of

DME (dry malt extract) in a gallon of water, about 1.034 for

LME (liquid male extract), and about 1.029 for speciality

grains.

>By the way, is there any NET consensus on the result of one pound of

>DME and LME in a gallon of water?  I've seen a range of 1.035 to 1.045

>for DMS and a range of 1.032 to 1.040 for LME.  What's up?

I'm not sure where I've seen the 1.042 figure (probably Charlie

P.'s book) and maybe a Zymurgy issue.  The 0.8 factor represents

an approximate average, and you'll find a variation probably

between 0.75 and 0.85 depending on the manufacturer of the LME.

The 0.7 factor is dependent on the grains, their crush, and your

sparging (straining) technique.

On the other hand, I've compared the above formula to measured

O.G. values for over a dozen extract batches and have had an

average error of about 1 point (0.1%), and a maximum of 4

points, on O.G.'s ranging from 1.026 to 1.057.

Bill Szymczak

------------------------------


RE:Oxidtn/Shandy/Rasberry&Peach/Spruce/Legalities!

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 12:16:29 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: RE:Oxidtn/Shandy/Rasberry&Peach/Spruce/Legalities!

I think we all like to encourage the continuation of the art.  Bad first

attempts have put off more than one newbrewer!  No harm in taking the

trouble to drop a hose to the bottom of a secondary (or stuff one into

the "out" end of a funnel) so we aren't SPLASHING brew from the top

of a carboy.  Fermented beer is a reactive shlew of chemicals. Alcohol

being one of them!  Not to mention that the yeast are quite comfortable

in a relatively aerobic environment.

    I would vote the claim that oxidation can and will happen upon

sloppy transfers- it IS worth taking efforts to avoid it. Buy a longer

hose if needed! The stuff's cheap.  Cheap beer ain't...well...it is...but

Some IS GOING TO HAPPEN- in almost ANY system, but just keep it down

to a managable amount.  Unless you like chewing cardboard!!!    :),

****

 -blazo  talks about how...

In London, England they mix bitter orange soda with beer and call the

resultant beverage "Shandy".  In some parts of England this is called "Orange

Shandy" and other soda beverages, Cherry, for instance, mixed with beer would

be called "Cherry Shandy".

*I was familiar with "shandy" being made with bitter lemon soda. A

similar mix can be made with 7-up or the like.  (the brittish soda has

less sugar than our sodas).  You could have flavor variants, but a

lemon or lemon/lime was the basic.

It is almost shameful to admit it but (shudder) Orange Shandy tastes pretty

darn good as a "lawnmower style" malt beverage.  I know that this probably

offends the sensitivities of most of this audience, but, refuse to judge

until you've tried it.  Mix equal parts Schweppes Bitter Orange with Double

Diamond and see what I mean!

* It is a common afternoon drink,  served frequently to kids (it is half

as strong as a beer!).  Squatters brewpub in Salt Lake serves one. It's

ok.  Good for the yuppies at luncheon business meetings!  I've made 'em.

Even with my own homebrew.  I had to do something with that 5 gallons

of slice I had in the keg I purchased!  Too  sugary though!!!!

Lemon or Lime in a light beer makes a nice summer ferment.  But now's not

the time.  Dark lager season is on the way!

***

Norm says he:

(copied without permission, so sue me.  No wait, how about 30 lashes

with a siphon hose?):

    Tsk,  Tsk,   Tsk.

    What length of tubing?  With or w/o bottling cane attached?

    Do I hear a call for copper tubing?

***

Subject: Raspberry or Peach beer...

I would like to try using raspberry or peach to flavor my next

batch of beer, but I don't know what quantities to use.

How should I vary the hopping levels when using these fruit adjuncts?

Has anybody got a good recipe for an extract based peach or raspberry

beer?

steve tollefsrud

*I've done rasberries in stouts/ pales, primary and secondary.

I now have my first peach on the way.   I can tell you that a flat of

rasberries (4 #) at the end of the boil makes a nice red berry flavor

and pink head in a malty pale ale.

I'm about to keg up my rasberry brown with berries in the secondary.

It's a yummy one!  I think I'll drop in some molasses to balance the

tartness of the berry.

I used  about a half bushel of peaches- pitted, frozen, smushed into

carboy- and secondary beer dropped on top.  I feel that a lighter beer

is more fitting for peach.

    I'm inclined to keep the hopping rate down on a fruit beer to

let the fruit come through. Something semi floral. but not too

overpowering.  Say Williamete rather than Cascade.  Rasberries are

commonly found paired with stouts.  I like seeing the color all

that fruit lends to a brew.  Maybe a light porter if you want dark

flavor in there.

    Freezing fruit- and pectic enzyme can help get the most out of

fruit, and aid in clearing of the brew.

***

Subject: SPRUCE beer

     I am thinking about making an extract-based batch of spruce beer.

I would be interested in comments about whether it's worth it, and if so,

how much spruce should be used for a five gallon batch.  Thanks in advance.

John

pavao@ptsws1.npt.nuwc.navy.mil

*  I will never try this again ( I don't think...???)  I tried

extract (6 oz) for a 10 gallon batch (was supposed to be good

for up to 6 gallons....) and it tasted like PLASTIC.

SO...when in Oregon in the spring I tried picking spruce and the

"spruce" hemlock tree-  fresh green sprigs.

I had a gallon bagful.  Added them like hops, and had a beer

that tasted like sucking sap or something...a chemical flavor

that was not "enjoyable".  I rarely EVER dump a batch..but...

Maybe a very small sprig of spruce... waved above the pot during

the boil, then tossed in the fireplace...  I'll stick with fruit

for now!

**

OK OK       Enough of that "dpdGggc29tZSBtY-ing" on Chris's blip.

  So not everyone is a computer guru.  I don't think we need any

more bw used quoting  gobbledy goop, or discussing men who boogy.

    BTW Thanks for the ACTUAL translation that was posted.

                        THAT HELPED!

***

JC ferguson mentioned a brew which...

tasted quite similar to Miller's answer to the Microbreweries (what was the

name.....

*           Miller Reserve (especially the amber),  100% Barley Draft...

***

>making beer and wine for personal comsumption is legal is all 50 states.

>(ed. true yet?)

No, not true yet.  In Missouri we are still dangerous criminals producing

powerful, mood-altering drugs.  Let's do keep our facts straight.

*   Utah too suffers from Prohibition laws in our "modern" age.

At least Georgia got out from under.  Write your congressman today!

*also note:  Brewking sack ad in Sharper Image quotes:

    "federal govert allows you to make up to 25 gallons of homemade

    beer each year.  NFS in AL,Georgia. Resident of UT,Alabama,

    Oklahoma please consult local authorities before ordering"

Yeah right.  Like I'm gonna ask first!  Like I'm gonna order a

brewbag anyway!  All grain or bust!  (well...occasionall extract...

but only on a weeknight!)  It's $39.95 plus 6 S&H for 25 pints.

They have a "traditional export ale" and "premium lager".  Oh yum.

Damn at 25 gal/yr I could be done brewing in 2 weeks!

Too bad The Sharper Image doesn't have a Sharper grasp of the legality.

It is nice the know that the authorities here are not interested

in enforcing this law.  I have good reason to believe that.

    Unless someone were to get stupid and try to sell it...like

at a deadshow or something...  but hey...that might work....hmmmmm!

***

  If the maximum percentage of alcohol allowed in a beer distributed to

  my state is 3.5, for instance, what about the beer that might be

  produced in a brewpub in my state? Must they conform to the same

  percentages as the distributors or are there exceptions for an "on

  premises only" beer?

  Just curious...

*Unfortunately YES.  At least in my "great" state.  I would hate the

burden and restriction of producing "legal" beer.  The only "illegal"

beer you can purchase (imports and the like) are obtained ONLY thru

a STATE LISCENCED and OPERATED STORE.  But the micros do manage to make

some tasty brews once in while.  I'm glad that my personal "brewery"

is not required to conform to such strick regulations! But then it

ain't open to the general public either.

***

End of blabber for now. John (The Coyote) Wyllie  SLK6P@cc.usu.edu

****************************************************************

------------------------------


Beer Drinks

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 14:12:27 EST

From: John DeCarlo                              <jdecarlo@homebrew.mitre.org>

Subject: Beer Drinks

Check any bartender's guide or list of recipes.  Some that I have tasted in

the past and enjoyed include:

Black Velvet--stout and champagne

Red Eye--beer and tomato juice

Shandy--British lemonade (more like US Sprite than US lemonade) and ale

Unfortunately, most of the beer recipes just call for "beer", since they have

been formulated by people who have only been exposed to one kind of

beer--Worldwide megabrew tasteless pilsener.

Now if we could just get some interesting combinations with good styles.

Anyone know if a Red Eye is better with an IPA, for instance?

John DeCarlo, MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA--My views are my own

Fidonet:  1:109/131  Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

If I were you, who would be reading this sentence?

------------------------------


Re: Making drinks with Beeer?

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 11:13:46 -0700

From: paul@rational.com (Paul Jasper)

Subject: Re: Making drinks with Beeer?

On 14 Oct, 22:32, blazo@aol.com wrote:

> Subject: Making drinks with Beeer?

>

> In HBD #1247, sean v. taylor <sean@chemres.tn.cornell.edu>

> RE:  Subject: Beer Drinks writes the following:

>

> In London, England they mix bitter orange soda with beer and call the

> resultant beverage "Shandy".  In some parts of England this is called "Orange

> Shandy" and other soda beverages, Cherry, for instance, mixed with beer would

> be called "Cherry Shandy".

"Orange Shandy"?  "Cherry Shandy"?  I count myself as a Londoner and I've

never come across either of these.  "Shandy", a half and half mixture of

British lemonade (lemon soda) and beer is quite popular throughout Britain,

especially as a thirst quenching drink on a hot summer day.   Some people

drink "bitter top" - bitter with a splash of lemonade - but they are

usually occasional drinkers who need something to sweeten their beer.

> It is almost shameful to admit it but (shudder) Orange Shandy tastes pretty

> darn good as a "lawnmower style" malt beverage.  I know that this probably

> offends the sensitivities of most of this audience, but, refuse to judge

> until you've tried it.  Mix equal parts Schweppes Bitter Orange with Double

> Diamond and see what I mean!

Yuck!

>-- End of excerpt from blazo@aol.com

- --

- -- Paul Jasper

- -- RATIONAL

- -- Object-Oriented Products

- --

------------------------------


HB law questions

Date: 18 Oct 93 11:32:00 CST

From: "DEV::SJK" <SJK%DEV.decnet@mdcgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: HB law questions

Tom writes:

>>making beer and wine for personal comsumption is legal is all 50 states.

>>(ed. true yet?)

>

>No, not true yet.  In Missouri we are still dangerous criminals producing

>powerful, mood-altering drugs.  Let's do keep our facts straight.

If I remember my beer-lore correctly, I thought Big Jimmy O'Carter made

homebrewing technically legal in this country (correcting an earlier

oversight).  Being but a simple software engineer, my legal credentials

are a good approximation of nil, but I thought federal law superceded

state/local law.  That is, if the Feds say it's OK for me to manufacture

certain kinds of drugs in my kitchen, then it doesn't matter one whit

what Missouri or any other state has to say about it.  Yes?

This reminds of the request (by ?) recently for a recipe/ procedures for

making an eisbock.  Isn't this a form of distillation (intentionally

concentrating the beer by freezing some of the water and drawing whats

left off) and isn't that illegal?  Just wondering...

Scott Kaczorowski

sjk%c17fcs.decnet@mdcgwy.mdc.com

------------------------------


Woodruff Ale

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 11:29:52 -0700

From: froeh@jpats.ecc.naa.rockwell.com (Michael Froehlich)

Subject: Woodruff Ale

I would like to find out how to make a Woodruff Ale.  I had one

at the Oregan Brewers Festival and it was superb.  It had a

pumpkin pie and malt taste that were perfect together.  If anyone

knows what woodruff is (spice or combination of spices???) or

knows how to make a woodruff ale, please answer this call for

help.

      Brewingly Yours,

             Michael Froehlich

/*

*****************************************************************************

**** ==========> Michael Froehlich <============ ****************************

**** ----> froeh@ecr.ecc.naa.rockwell.com) <---- ****************************

**** --------->> (310) 647-1482 <<-------------- ****************************

*****************************************************************************

*/

------------------------------


Beer Drinks

Date:         Mon, 18 Oct 93  14:36:03 EDT

From: Allan Janus <NASARC07@SIVM.SI.EDU>

Subject:      Beer Drinks

I have a short shandy saga:  once in London I had dragged my luggage to

Victoria Station and was absolutely exhausted.  I noticed a vending machine

with shandy available (it's my impression that just saying "shandy" gets you

beer & lemonade).  Perishing with thirst, I raised can to lips, and instantly

recovered my full vigor - nothing like sugared beer to really get you moving.

Other beer drinks -

Dog's Nose - beer and gin; a favorite of seamen in the age of Nelson, and

curiously enough, amongst present-day Japanese.  Keep the gin in the freezer,

use any old lager, great at the beach.

Snake Bite - beer and cider - excellent, but incredibly intoxicating - espec-

ially when you hit the open air.

Black Velvet - Stout and cider - my favorite - it's like a stout milkshake. I

know that BV also refers to Guiness & champagne, but if you ask for BV in a pub

you'll get it with cider.

And of course Red-eye; beer and tomato juice; thanks anyway.

------------------------------


beer sour

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 14:44:01 -0500 (EDT)

From: gelinas@ekman.unh.edu (Russell Gelinas)

Subject: beer sour

   Here's a drink made with beer that's a staple on backpacking trips:

   Bartenders (tm) or similar Whiskey Sour Mix (or Half Sour Mix)

   Whiskey

   Beer

   Add 2 oz. whiskey to 1 package sour mix in a 12 oz. or so cup.

   Dissolve mix.  Add beer.  Watch out, it foams.  A very quenching

   beverage.

Russ Gelinas

ssc/opal

unh

------------------------------


Re: hot priming

Date:  Mon, 18 Oct 1993 11:29:15 PDT

From: Mark_Davis.osbu_south@xerox.com

Subject: Re: hot priming

Bart asks:

>I've always thought that this step is probably not necessary since the

>thermal mass of 1 pint of 200F sugar water is nothing compared with 5

>gallons @ 70F.  So what if I zap a few yeast cells on the initial contact ?

>They don't have very good lawyers anyway.

>

>I've never had the guts to actually risk a batch with this hot combination

>experiment.  Has anyone else done this successfully ?  I'd like to

>simplify my process.

Well Bart this has been my standard practice for the start. I just put the hot

sugar solution in the bottling carboy and rack the beer for the secondary right

on top of it. I have had no problems with it as of yet. As you said before the

thermal mass of 1 pint of 200F sugar water is nothing compared with 5 gallons @

70F.

Mark

P.S.

   I heard that the yeast cells are consulting with a new legal firm.

------------------------------


Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 14:13:34 CST

From: "Andrew B. Deliyannides" <Andrew.B.Deliyannides.1@nd.edu>

Subject:

Anyone have any good ideas on how to blowoff those kraeusen chunkies from

a 5 gal carboy without compromising sanitation? I've heard ghost stories

about little critters creeping up unsealed blowoff tubes, so I've tried

attaching a fermentation lock at the end of a really long blowoff tube. A

clumsy solution: the foam still manages to percolate through the lock,

sometimes clogging and blowing off the lid. It's rather comical. The only

other makeshift idea I have is to simply submerge the end of the blowoff

tube in a bucket of chlorox solution. Sure, you'd have to change the

solution every once in a while once it got polluted, but at least none of

those critters would crawl up the tube. Or is this much ado about nothing?

Is the kraeusen itself protection enough from critters?

ABD

------------------------------


Re:  hot priming

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 11:55:19 PDT

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: Re:  hot priming

Bart asks if anyone has added near-boiling priming syrup to beer.

Yep.  I *usually* cool my syrup down  before it comes in contact with

the beer, but there have been times when I was just too darn impatient.

Result:  screams of about 10,000 yeast dying, then . . . silence.

As far as I can tell, there was no detrimetal effect.  The beer carbonated

quite nicely, no funny tastes, no law-suits from disgruntled yeast-relatives.

 -Troy

------------------------------


Wyeast 2278 / when where?

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 15:20:24 EDT

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Wyeast 2278 / when where?

I have heard mention of a new strain of yeast from Wyeast

 Wyeast 2278 Chech Lager.

My local HB shop can't get it.  Is it available? Where and When can I get

it.  What are its characteristics.

I have heard that this is a good strain for lagers with OG's greater than

1.050  Is this true?

please post replies to the net I have an unreliable mailer.

Lee Menegoni  lmenegoni@nectech.com

------------------------------


Brewpub Review

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 12:17:46 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Mark S. Nelson" <mnelson@eis.calstate.edu>

Subject: Brewpub Review

The opinions expressed below are mine only.  Others can decide what they

are worth.

On a recent visit to the Los Angeles area I had the opportunity to visit

two brewpubs (both fairly new).  This is a review of the Humtington Beach

Brewing Company.

Being that it had been over two years since my last visit to Huntington

Beach, I was very upset by the recent changes to the area around the

intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Main St.  What used to be a

charming area with strong local atmosphere has now been converted into a

stale, sterile tourist scene much like many others in southern Calif.

Most of the old buildings have been torn down and replaced by stuccoed,

pinkish things that are horrible to behold.

However, there are still some hold-outs and the Huntington Beach Brewing

Co. is located in one.  Although the pub is a bit difficult to locate on

the first try, it is worth the search.  HBBC can be found upstairs in one

of the older buildings still standing.  I was immediately impressed by the

old brick, stylish wood furnishings and high, beamed ceilings.  There is

outside, patio seating and plenty of indoor seating as well.

The brewery is located directly behind the bar. The hot liquor tank, mash

tun and kettle are in front, with the fermenting tanks behind.  It seemed

a bit cramped, but very functional.  The crushed grain comes down from the

storeroom in the attic and the holding tanks are in a cooling room adjacent.

They also brew pilsners and lagers.

The beers they had on hand were:

Main Street Wheat:  This is a light, slightly dry wheat.  Very tasty and

refreshing for hot, summer days.  My only complaints with this beer would

be that it was filtered and that it was a little light on the wheat taste.

However, these complaints are minor and would not stop me from happily

drinking it.

Huntington Beach Blond:  This is a light pilsner.  In all honesty, this is

the first pils. I've ever had in a brewpub.  It was a very tasty, American

style pilsner.  Sort of like what the major breweries could do if only

they cared...  Light in the mouth with a pleasent ending.

Bolsa Chica Bitter:  A mild bitter.  Nice red color and crisp taste and

feel.  My favorite of those on hand.

Pacific Porter:  I honestly can't say too much about this one, as it was

the last I sampled.  I do know that I liked it, and happily finished off a

pint before going back to the bitter.

Overall, the beer was very good, as well as the food.  The atmosphere was

friendly and comfortable, although it was during the day.  I'm sure it

gets very crowded at night though.  My only consistant complaint would be

that all the beers I sampled seemed heavily filtered.  Considering their

clientelle, though, this is not suprising.  Again, this complaint is not a

serious problem and I look forward to my next visit.

- --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.

Mark S. Nelson      nelsonm@axe.humboldt.edu      mnelson@eis.calstate.edu

------------------------------


rock bock/sam adams (tm) radio spots/mixed beer drinks

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 12:20:06 MDT

From: Kevin Schutz <kschutz@atmel.com>

Subject: rock bock/sam adams (tm) radio spots/mixed beer drinks

RE:  Rolling Rock Bock

I tried this about a month ago when I saw it a the store.  I was drawn to

the neat bottle.  I thought it was nice (the label is a clear plastic type with

the printing on the plastic, sort of like what some of the bottle waters are

using).  I guess I liked the bottle better than the beer.  I certainly wouldn't

call it a bock.  But it was very drinkable.  The packaging got me to bite on a

6-pack.  I doubt I would get any more though.

RE:  Sam Adams radio spots

Thanks Norm for the update on what GABF was doing in conjunction with Jim's

advertising.  I thought it strange that IMMEDIATELY after the GABF, I started

to hear more of his commercials, something to the effect of "best beer 4 years

running".  Made it sound like he won again.  Then I saw the winners list (I

didn't get to go to the fest).  I can't recall the station I heard it on, but

it had to have been a Denver or Colo Springs station.  It was on the following

Monday though.

Guess this goes to show what $$$ can buy in the way of laywers and creative

marketing types.

RE: Making drinks w/ Beer.

Here's an old set of recipes from my early college days.  I'd like to think

that I'm a bit wiser these days.  The source is an old roommate from Kansas

(nothing seemed to affect this boy!).

Kansas Whirlwind:

1 can Coors Light, drink 1/4 of the can, top off can with Everclear.

Kansas Twister:

1 can Coors Light, drink 1/2 of the can, top off can with Everclear.

Kansas Tornado:

1 can Coors Light, drink 3/4 of the can, top off can with Everclear.

I REALLY don't recommend these, but I thought it could provide some interesting

reference point for someone.  BTW, my roommate typically used the tall cans

(16 ouncers)!  I never could keep up with that one.

Also, when I was over in England (1991), I saw a number of people order up

mixers of a bitter and lemonade.  I can't recall what they were called though.

Seemed like the name varied depending on whether it was a bitter, Special

Bitter or ESB.  Looked strange, but then so did all of the Bud longnecks!  I

never did try one though (or a Bud - does the Bud in England differ from the

Bud found in the States?  I'm sure what I saw was not an import from the USA.

I never thought about until I returned from my trip.).

Kevin

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1251, 10/20/93

*************************************

-------


Re: counter pressure filler (was Kegging systems)

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 12:57:23 CDT

From: hplabs!mcdcup!tellabs.com!don

Subject: Re: counter pressure filler (was Kegging systems)

>

>I got a counter pressure filler from Benjamine Machine Products that

>seems to work well.  I posted the same question to the net, also asking

>for comments on the Foxx CPF.  The general consensus was that the Foxx

>product was not well made, and that the BMP CPF was a good buy.  I got

>one, used it, and had a problem with it leaking when the liquid valve

>was closed.  Made for quite a mess until I got the process down.  I called

>BMP and asked about it, and the guy said it was unusual, but not unheard

>of, to have a problem with the valve seat.  He said to take it off, send

>it back, and if there was a problem with it he would replace it.  When I

>went to take it off I found that it was loose to start with.  I'm thinking

>that this may have caused the problem, but I won't have a chance to check

>it out until next week.  BTW, the BMP CPF was supposedly designed by

>Micah Millspaw who, if you are a long time reader of the HBD, you recognize

>his name.  If you don't, he was the source of some very good information and

>is now the head brewer at some place in California (I think)

Thanks for the mini-review.

>

>BMP has ads in most (including the latest) issues of Zymurgy.  If you

>don't have access to it, let me know and I'll dig it up for you.  Price

>was about $55 with shipping.

I don't have a sub. to Zymurgy but I do receive Brewing Techniques. I'll

check that tonight although the name does'ent sound familiar at all.

If you have the address or someone else has it, could you please email

it to me??? Actually it may be worth posting since others may also be

interested.

>

>BTW Don, I tried to email directly to you, but my mailer daemon doesn't

>recognize all those !'s in your address.  If you have an address that is

>in internet format you might add it to your signature.

Normally the short version is included in my .signature file but I have

not found a way to include it in my posts to HBD. I will try to put this

in manually until I figure a better way to do this. Sorry about that...

don

don@tellabs.com

------------------------------


Yeast viability

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 13:02:46 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Yeast viability

I'm interested in obtaining info on yeast viability. Given a freshly grown

up yeast population, what does the viability curve look like vs time? What

does the curve look like? Does the viability start to drop right after

flocculation? I'm sure there are a lot of factors that effect the viability

like temp. etc. I would be interested in any info. out there.

Thanks,

Bob Jones

------------------------------


beer nuts?

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 16:10:22 -0400

From: paul@ftp.com  (Paul Selkirk)

Subject: beer nuts?

The other day, while roasting some hickory nuts from my neighbor's

tree, I got to wondering if anyone ever brewed with nuts.

Would you mash the nuts (lots of starch in there), or "dry-nut" a

more conventional beer?

What kind of nuts would be good?  The walnut/pecan/hickory family all

taste like they've got a lot of tannins, so they might not be

appropriate.  Maybe almonds, filberts, brazil nuts... (I can see it

now - Rainforest Crunch Beer!)

I've been reading the HBD since the beginning of the year, plus most

of last year's back issues, and I've seen some...unusual...ideas, but

I don't recall anything of this sort.  What say ye?

    paul

------------------------------


My UK trip

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 13:24:34 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: My UK trip

Well I'm back from 3 weeks of pub hoppin in England, Wales and Scotland. I

got to tour 4 brewerys, Young's, Sam Smith's, Calandonion and Traquir House

(it was under reconstruction). The brewerys were all very nice and seemed to

bend the rules more than a bit when I mentioned I was a brewer from the

states. I came back with 4 yeast samples and am looking forward to brewing

some real ales. A few thoughts on things I was surprised about in the UK.

* I expected cellar temp beer and low carbonation. The real ales are cellar

temp (55 deg f) and DEAD flat. The ales may have a head if pulled via a

sparkler on the beer engines.

* All the beers were extremely small gravity compared to our beers here in

the states.

* Your average pub goer will consume 8-10 or more pints a night. They expect

to drink to a glow and keep the glow, not pass out from alcohol.

* All the beers seemed much more subtle than I expected. There was malt and

hops, but with the zero gas levels, they seemed much smaller than our ales

here in the states.

* An Imperial pint was about $2.25.

* The Brits are very fussy about both clarity and a good pour. The fill

damn well better be to the top and they don't want any haze. All the beers

were extremely clear. I expected some floaters, I say NONE.

* I really got use to the no gas, small gravity, cellar temp beers. I could

drink 3-4 pints and was ready for more. We all make such a big deal out of

carbonation in our finished product and would probably throw out a batch

that had a gravity of 1038. Well relax! I'm looking forward to brewing a

real ale (I won't however vent to the atmosphere). I will keep the gravity

very low, the flavor up and serve it cool.

* On a negative note, smoking is not declining in the pub scene. It was a

real challenge to find a corner where I could smell something other than

cigarette smoke.

* I attended a beer festival in Bedford that had 53 real ales on. The beers

were in the center of the room on a scafolding made of steel pipes and wood

planks. The kegs had a piece of muslin cloth that was damp over them and a

fan was blowing across them. How's that for room temp? The kegs all just

gravity drained into the tasters mug. Quit a difference from our tasting,

eh?

Just a few thoughts, hope you enjoyed them. I sure did enjoy experiencing

them.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


hot priming

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 16:07:30 EDT

From: sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com (Carl Howes)

Subject: hot priming

Bart writes in HBD1249:

>When I prime my fermented beer with corn sugar, I usually cool the

>priming solution to 70F with an ice bath before mixing with the beer.

>[snip]

>I've always thought that this step is probably not necessary...

>[snip]

I just sampled a bottle of my latest batch (a porter) last night and

could detect no ill effects from using the primer while hot (~150F) due to

a lack of patience while cooling it.  A bit of off flavor from poor bottle

rinsing, but that's another story (my wife also had one - no off flavor).

>Brewing equipment destroyed while typing this message : 0

Congratulations on your conservation of brewing equipment!! ;-)

Carl

------------------------------


Clean it up

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 16:06:09 EDT

From: lyons%adc1@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: Clean it up

>  " I have found that it is much easier to fake an

>    orgasm than to pretend to like basketball. "

I'm not clear if this implies that someone has a problem with

basketball or with finding the right man?  It may have appeared

cute the first time it was posted, but please keep in mind that

this type of material has little to do with the subject of beer

and is offensive to some folk.  I have also been guilty of making

crude remarks, but have learned that a public forum is not proper

place.  Please clean it up.

Chris

------------------------------


Honey instead of sugar.

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1993 11:27:35 GMT+1100

From: Davin Slade <10692851@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au>

Subject: Honey instead of sugar.

Is it possible to use honey instead of cane sugar or dextrose.

If so how much honey is equivalent to 1 kg of sugar.

What is a good beer to use honey in.

- ------------------------------------------------------------

Davin Slade, 4th Year Civil Engineering, Monash Uni, Oz

10692851@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au or

baldrick@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au

- ------------------------------------------------------------

"It was georgiousness and georgosity in the flesh"

Alexander de Large, A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess, 1966, Stanley Kubrik, 1971

- ------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Re: hot priming

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 23:30 PDT

From: lfk@veritas.com (Lynn Kerby)

Subject: Re: hot priming

>I've always thought that this step is probably not necessary since the

>thermal mass of 1 pint of 200F sugar water is nothing compared with 5

>gallons @ 70F.  So what if I zap a few yeast cells on the initial contact ?

>They don't have very good lawyers anyway.

>

>I've never had the guts to actually risk a batch with this hot combination

>experiment.  Has anyone else done this successfully ?  I'd like to

>simplify my process.

Be bold, fry the little buggers!

I don't bottle much anymore (kegs are great), but I got tired of

waiting for the priming solutions to cool back when I did bottle.  I

tried an experiment where the priming solution was well over 100F and

it worked fine.  Next batch it went in nearly boiling and guess what,

no carbonation whatsoever.  Fooled you!  It worked fine, as you have

guessed, the thermal mass of 1 cup of boiling sugar solution has very

little effect on the thermal mass of 5 gallons of beer.  Your mileage

may vary, but if I ever have a need to bottle an entire batch, I

certainly wouldn't worry about killing the first few 100 million yeast

cells.

>Brewing equipment destroyed while typing this message : 0

How *does* he do it? :-)

Lynn Kerby

lfk@veritas.com

------------------------------


Date:     19 Oct 1993 8:55:22 EST

From: ESPINOS0@ksg1.harvard.edu

Subject:

Please sign me off: Manolo Espinosa

espinos0@ksg1.harvard.edu

------------------------------


Slant/plate recipes

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 07:54:05 CDT

From: nfarrell@ppco.com (Norman Farrell)

Subject: Slant/plate recipes

Okay, all you yeast bankers out there in HDB land, a fellow club member

without HBD access has asked me to pose a question on making slants and

plates for yeast culturing at home.  Tim would like to know what recipe

is used by the Brewers Resource people for their slants (how 'bout it

Dr. Raines)???  Failing that, he would settle for reccomendations from

other successful yeast bankers.  If this is covered in a FAQ, please let

me know and I will gladly fetch it.

Tim thanks you and I thank you, we all thank you.  Private email is okay.

BTW I took 6 pages of notes from George Fix's talk at the Dixie Cup last

weekend.  I am writing them up in the form of a summary for a club newsletter

and would gladly post them if there was interest (and if George Fix doesn't

send me email telling me that I better not).  The topic was the use of fining

agents and is supposed to be included in his new book.  Any interest?

Regards,

Norman (nfarrell@ppco.com)

------------------------------


Beer drinks Belgian style

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 08:53:06 -0400

From: "Phillip Seitz" <p00644@psilink.com>

Subject: Beer drinks Belgian style

Enough with these wimpy British beer drinks.  My friend Olivier DeCamp

(who should have posted this himself) reports enjoying a nice Chimay

Flambee on cool evenings in Belgium.  This consists of Chimay mixed

with high octane whiskey, set aflame.  (Did I get that right, Oli?)

Presumably you wait for the flames to die out before drinking, but the

heat they generate warms the drink nicely.

 Sounds to me like you hug bowl for a while afterward, too.

------------------------------


Beer hunting in Belgium, Part 1: Rochefort

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 09:07:48 -0400

From: "Phillip Seitz" <p00644@psilink.com>

Subject: Beer hunting in Belgium, Part 1: Rochefort

Beer Hunting in Belgium: Part 1 of 7

Rochefort (Abbaye de Notre Dame de St. Remy)

      (by Jim Busch: BUSCH@DAACDEV1.STX.COM)

      Through an amazing stroke of luck and Phil Seitz's wealth of

connections in Belgium circles, we were able to arrange a tour of

this monastery.  It turns out that one of Phil's friends is the

son of the man who assesses brewing taxes for the Rochfort

region, and as a special favor to his father--who is

retiring--the monks allowed our friend to bring several guests

for a very rare look inside the monastery.

      Rochefort is located a modest drive south from Namur.  The

sign next to the door of the abbey reads "No Visitors."  We

knocked and were greeted by a classic brother of the order,

dressed in the traditional robes, sandals and cane, and hunched

over with the burden of his years.  We were led to a spartan

reception/waiting area where the silence of the monastery began

to hang on us.  A short while later, head brewer Brother Antoine

greeted us and we followed him to the brewery.

      The brewery occupies a corner of the monastery, in a tall

room roughly 20 meters long.  Two sparkling traditional copper

"onion dome" kettles were situated on the lower area, while

another traditional copper lauter tun was situated on the far end

of the room on a platform 2 meters above the main floor.  The

area was illuminated by tall stained glass windows, some of which

sported hanging ivy plants.  A large cross was on one wall.  The

traditional copper grant was embedded into the tiled platform

wall, and the brewer still manually operates the grant handles to

equalize the runoff rate from the lauter tun.

      Inside the vessels were a slew of mechanical devices; the

normal rakes and sparge arms in the lauter tun, but lots of

probes and gadgets in the kettle.  The second kettle was

originally used to produce a table beer--a very normal practice

at breweries that make high gravity beers, but a practice that is

becoming less common.  It is no longer used except to heat water

(talk about wasted equipment!).  When lautering, all the original

mash water is allowed to drain from the mash, then additional

water is added.  The table beer, when it was made, came from

later runnings off the mash.

      Three beers are produced at the monastery, and are named for

their strength in Belgian degrees: 6 (7.5%  ABV); 8 (9.2%  ABV);

and 10 (11.3% ABV).  We were also told that all three beers

originate from identical mash bills (that is, the exact same mix

and amount of malt), the difference being in the quantity of

candi sugar added to the kettle.  The mash bill consists of

CaraVienna and Pils malts, with maize being added as an adjunct.

Ground coriander is added to the kettle in addition to pulverized

whole hops, Styrian Goldings for kettle hops, Hersbruker

Hallertau for finish.  This is the first brewery I have ever been

to that goes to the trouble of using whole noble hops and then

pulverizes them prior to addition to the kettle. This is done to

ease the centrifuging of the cast out wort. The original

gravities of the three beers are: 17P, 20P and 25P.

      The cast out wort is passed through the SS centrifuge, then

a plate heat exchanger, and then is dosed with a two-strain yeast

from a small cylindro-conical yeast tank.  The fermentation is

done in what appears to be a tiled open fermenter that was

modified by the addition of a closed SS top.  The top looked to

be quite involved, with piping and controls everywhere.  The two

fermenters occupied a relatively small room.

      After primary fermentation, the beer is filtered using a

Diatomatous Earth filter (DE or Kieselgur filter) and then racked

into maturation tanks.  A brief conditioning period is followed

by the addition of priming sugar and three days later bottling is

done.  The bottles are steam cleaned and sterilized before being

filled in a very large Krones bottling line.  Every piece of

equipment in this brewery was of high quality, well engineered

and of greater capacity than what appeared to be required.  These

monks certainly built it right.

      Rochefort beers are some of the harder-to-find Trappist

beers even in Belgium, and the monastery purposefully perpetuates

this.  The brewing schedule is always the same.  They only brew 3

days a week.  The brewing schedule varies little; 2

weeks of Rochefort 8 (6 days), and 1 week of Rochefort 10 (3

days).  A week of Rochfort 6 (3 days) is thrown in from time to

time.  It is no wonder that the '8' is the most prevalent beer of

the three.  It was the '8' that Brother Antoine opened for us in

his study.  As Michael Jackson has noted, the study is a special

place, adorned by literally hundreds of beer steins from

brewmasters that have visited, many from great breweries in

Germany. Brother Antoine himself is a bit special in that he

seemed genuinely amicable to us and did not typify the Trappist

stereotype monk.  He dressed quite plain and normal, not in the

robes of his other monks. There was even a plastic Jesus with

flickering light on a shelf.

      The beer was fantastic.  The really remarkable thing about

all of the Rochefort beers is the art of creating a significant

amount of alcohol but keeping the flavor perceptions several

percent lower than the actual alcohol.  This is not an easy feat.

      Brother Antoine is one of 24 monks that live in the spacious

monastery. Economically, sales of the beer support the monastery

and its projects.  Even at three days a week of brewing, the

monastery is making boatloads of money.  Brother Antoine proudly

told us of the newly renovated Chapel and we stopped there after

our Rochefort 8's were consumed.  The high cathedral ceiling and

walls are made from the stone blocks of old farmhouses in the

Loire Valley, and the high narrow windows are filled not with

glass but with thin slabs of alabaster.  The pews were being hand

made and carved by local craftsmen as we were there, and the

column capitals had also been elaborately carved.  The floor of

the entrance area is adorned with a very large circular marble

inlay.  The marble was cut into arcs and inlaid and polished.

All of this was being paid for by the brewery.

      Since it was the end of a work day, the workers were

relaxing with a case of Rochefort 8!  It was quite a sight.

      According to Brother Antoine, the other Trappist breweries

have broader financial responsibilities.  In addition to

supporting itself, Chimay also pays the expenses for four other

monasteries or convents, and Brother Antoine believes Chimay

began brewing years ago to provide jobs and economic development

to the people in its region.  This puts their high production

into context.

------------------------------


Re: yeast pitching/filters/names

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1993 10:51:09 -0500 (EDT)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: yeast pitching/filters/names

> Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 15:52:38 EDT"

> From: Gary S. Kuyat <gsk@sagan.bellcore.com>

> Subject: 5/2/.5 micron filters

> Full-Name: Gary S. Kuyat

>

> 5 micron:

>  Takes out big chunks, like hop particles. No effect in flavor, no effect in

> body, no effect in chill haze. Other than as a pre-filter 5 mic. seems pretty

> useless.

>

> 2 micron:

>  This seems to be the best all around. Removes yeast. Some very slight loss of

> body. Clears and "crispens" beer taste. Almost have to say "why wouldn't you

> run all your beer through this?" (that is if you're kegging!) Don't try

 .5 ucronm...

>  Removes yeast, some body and if your beer is very cold when you filter, this

> removes chill haze!  Kinda leaves your beer with a "thin" mouth feel. If you

> ------------------------------

What kind of filters are you using, what is thier efficiency rating and what

are they manufactured from?  All of these factors will effect filtering.  Also,

how fast (psi) so you push the beer from keg to keg, and do you condition it

prior to filtering?

> ------------------------------

> Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1993 09:51:35 -0700 (PDT)

> From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

> Subject: Yeast nutrients

> same conditions then assayed them for total cell counts.  The YNB starter

> had a cell density 10 times (!) of the other.  The numbers worked out to

> 10 x 10**10 cells/liter.  I seem to remember an optimal pitch for 5 gallons

> is 4 x 10**10 cells so using YNB you could pitch with a pint and get an

> optimal cell count.

Usually, cell counts are expressed in cells/ml, so the above numbers look more

impressive than they actually are.  4 million cells/ml is underpitching, even

for ales, although not by much (many UK ale brewers pitch between 5-10 millon

cells/ml).  For lagers, it is 1 million cells/ml/degree plato. So for a 12P

lager, pitch 12 million cells/ml.  For a 17P lager, use at least 17 million

cells/ml, and as it goes even higher, up the density.  The 10 million/ml is a

good pitching rate for most regular beers.  If you have access to thick slurry,

pitch 1 lb per BBL of wort.

> ------------------------------

> Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 09:15:49 -0400

> From: "Phillip Seitz" <p00644@psilink.com>

> Subject: Beer hunting in Belgium: Introduction

>

> on beer and brewing in Belgium, based primarily on research

> conducted by Jim Bush and myself during a visit this past summer.

     ^^^^^^ Who is this guy ???:-)

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

DE HOPPEDUIVEL DRINKT MET ZWIER 'T GEZONDE BLOND HOPPEBIER!

------------------------------


Beer in the appropriate container thread...

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1993 08:50:17 -0600 (MDT)

From: EZIMMERM@UWYO.EDU

Subject: Beer in the appropriate container thread...

Salutations!

   When reading that little thread on the 'right' contianer for each beer

I realized we had neglected 'lawnmower beer' and thought it should be

suggested we use (yep, you guessed it) a YARD glass!

Gene in Laramie

p.s. please forgive the bad pun, but I couldn't resist this one...

------------------------------


Aluminum for sparge water heating?

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1993 10:51:50 -0400 (EDT)

From: Jane M Slipp <jmsst58+@pitt.edu>

Subject: Aluminum for sparge water heating?

Is there any harm in using an aluminum pot to heat water to 168F

for sparging the mash in a lauter tun?

 -steve

------------------------------


Re: Beer Drinks

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 08:01:54 -0700

From: cary@nas.nasa.gov (Matt F. Cary)

Subject: Re: Beer Drinks

In HBD #1250, dspalme@mke.ab.com wrote:

>In Germany, people will mix a light-colored beer (insert Pilzen or Weiss

>here) and mix it with the equivalent of Sprite (tm) and call it a "Radler."

In Germany, they were making "radler"s before Sprite(tm) was available.

Every radler I ever had was beer and lemonade.  I believe that was the

original drink, which literally refers to bicyclists.  Perhaps

in need of a lighter drink than straight beer, they were among the first

to drink lots of them (what German would dilute their beer without

pressing need).  radler is probably now used to mean any beer/soft drink

combination.

OK, now here's a real beer drink for you.  I've heard this referred to

as a Slip, Strip and Go Naked:

   1      12 oz can frozen lemonade emptied into a pitcher

  12oz    gin ( measure using the now empty lemonade can)

   3      12 oz beeers

Mix it all together and you'll experience the name.

This is a summer drink and it's the only gin drink I ever remember(barely)

liking.

Matt Cary

cary@nas.nasa.gov

------------------------------


beer drinks

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 10:36:31 -0500

From: "Jeff M. Michalski, MD" <michalski_jm@rophys.wustl.edu>

Subject: beer drinks

In France, they use beer as a mixer for a drink called "panache".

It consists of roughly equal parts of a white soda and beer.

Occasionally, they will add a splash of grenadine to the glass,

the name of this version escapes me.

JEFF M. MICHALSKI

michalski_jm@rophys.wustl.edu

------------------------------


hot priming solution

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 09:13:36 -0700

From: Ted Manahan <tedm@hpcvcbp.cv.hp.com>

Subject: hot priming solution

Full-Name: Ted Manahan

A couple days ago, Bart Thielges asks:

> When I prime my fermented beer with corn sugar, I usually cool the priming

> solution to 70F with an ice bath before mixing with the beer.

> I've always thought that this step is probably not necessary since ...

> I've never had the guts to actually risk a batch with this hot combination

> experiment.  Has anyone else done this successfully ?

I do it every time. My technique is to boil 1 cup of water, then add

between 1/2 and 2/3 cup corn sugar, turn off the heat, and let it sit

until cool.

Except, I never allow enough time to let it cool.

What the heck, I just pour it through a sanitized (or at least rinsed)

kitchen funnel onto the beer while racking into the priming carboy.

It works for me.

Ted Manahan

tedm@cv.hp.com

503/750-2856

------------------------------


Hot Priming/Keg Request

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 09:18:43 PDT

From: DJM1%CRPTech%DCPP@cts27.comp.pge.com

Subject: Hot Priming/Keg Request

In HDB #1249 Bart asks:

)Subject: hot priming

)I've always thought that this step is probably not necessary since the

)thermal mass of 1 pint of 200F sugar water is nothing compared with 5

)gallons @ 70F.  So what if I zap a few yeast cells on the initial contact ?

)They don't have very good lawyers anyway.

)I've never had the guts to actually risk a batch with this hot combination

)experiment.  Has anyone else done this successfully ?  I'd like to

)simplify my process.

This is the way I've been doing priming since switching to kegs, I've never

had any problem with carbonation.

**************

Does anyone out there on the HBD know where to obtain old (or new, for that

matter) 15 gal kegs....Searches of local Recycling places are a no-go (yeah,

I could actually buy some of that massed-produced swill and keep the keg for

the deposit). TIA-----You can E-Mail me direct.

Dan

------------------------------


beer dinks & drinks

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 11:48 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: beer dinks & drinks

All the talk concerning Shandy's reminded me of the Snakebite--an English

concoction served at pubs--1 part lager to 1 part hardcider.  Gives you those

hangovers where it's difficult to force your eyes open the next day.

I've seen a recipe for a Bloody Mary-esque drink made with beer instead of

vodka.  A brunch drink.  The exact measures escape me.

Also, there's the eternal short & a pint (Irish Whiskey & Guiness)...either as a

boilermaker or drop the shot into the pint.  At the Great Taste of the Midwest,

Three Bells Brewery of Mich. provided an Irish whiskey infused stout in wooden

casks.  Hopefully that wasn't a once in my lifetime occurence.'Tis the season

& the Bushmill's is at the ready.

Happy mixing,

David

------------------------------


regional brewing publications

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 09:57:25 PDT

From: kdamrow@Thomas.COM (Kip Damrow)

Subject: regional brewing publications

Does anyone have phone numbers for regional brewing publications

in the mid-west and the east coast? (similar to Celebrator, on the west coast)

Thanks, Kip.

------------------------------


Distillation and the home-brewer

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1993 10:37:45 -0800

From: "John C. Post" <jpost@llnl.gov>

Subject: Distillation and the home-brewer

Actually, as I remember way back a couple of years ago, there is a classic

beer style (eis-bock?) that *requires* distillation. There was quite a brew-

ha-ha (sic!) as to whether is was legal to make this style or not, as it uses

freeze-distillation (you freeze the fermented-out wort and remove the ice

cake, which leaves the final product awaiting carbonation). Freeze

distillation is technically probably illegal, but, in the spirit of this

thread, probably not dangerous...

------------------------------


Carbonation and Filtration

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1993 10:50:47 -0700 (PDT)

From: davep@cirrus.com (David Pike)

Subject: Carbonation and Filtration

While reading the Fix'es Vienna book last night, I came across the sections

on filtration and carbonation, and I suddenly got confused as to which

order they should occur in.

 1. carbonate then filter

 2. or filter then carbonate

It seems some of the big boys filter and then pump into a conditioning tank

to carbonate, so this would be #2. Other breweries, Anchor for one, end

secondary fermentation with the beer naturally carbonated, and filter

afterwards.

At home, it can be either method. Secondary ferment, then filter, then

carbonate in a keg, then bottle(or drink). Or it can be the other way around,

ie. from the secondary, to the keg for carbonation, then filtration, then

bottling.

Whats the HBD consensus, which method is used, and why?

Cheers!

Dave

------------------------------


lemon beer/yeast nutrient

Date: 19 Oct 1993 13:57:40 U

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel_F_McConnell@mailgw.surg.med.umich.edu>

Subject: lemon beer/yeast nutrient

Subject:  lemon beer/yeast nutrient

Hi All:

>In Germany, people will mix a light-colored beer (insert Pilzen or Weiss

here) and mix it with the equivalent of Sprite (tm) and call it a "Radler."

I believe it is done in a 50/50 ratio.  It is quite tasty on those hot,

summer days and every now and then I will consider doing the same with some

of the swill I see in my parent's 'fridge.  Good stuff!  I recommend it!

Be daring!  Give it a try!

I first became aware of such strange things when I was in Germany too, I

tried it and hated it.  Later back home it occured to me that this might

be a perfect thirst quencher after triathalons......It was!  Don't waste

good beer on this.  The combination of lemon and beer is far better that

other *replacement* crap like Gatoraid or Exceed (tm,tm).  Regular beer

doesn't cut it-too much carbonation.  Besides, you can have a quart or

so, experience the tremendous muscle relaxing effects and rehydrate

without falling down.

While I'm here, I'll bite on the yeast starter question....

from Domenick Venezia

>.............[edit]...................Chris grew the starters under the

same conditions then assayed them for total cell counts.  The YNB starter

had a cell density 10 times (!) of the other.  The numbers worked out to

10 x 10**10 cells/liter.  I seem to remember an optimal pitch for 5 gallons

is 4 x 10**10 cells so using YNB you could pitch with a pint and get an

optimal cell count.

FWIW 10 x 10**10 cells/L isn't really that high.  These values are

usually expressed in cells/mL and this translates to 10 x 10**7/mL or

100 million cells/mL.  A typical normal fermentation may produce cell

counts of 50 million cells/mL which is dependant on strain, O2 levels

etc.  As far as pitching of  4 x 10**10 cells, you don't give a volume

of pitching culture, so lets assume that you mean 1 L.  4 x 10**10 cells

into 19 L (5 gal) will provide about 2 x 10**9 cells/L or 2 X 10**6

cells/mL.  Optimal pitch rates are debatable, but I think it is agreed

that this rate is low for ales (should be 5-10 x 10**6/mL) and extremly

low for lagers (should be 10-15 x 10**6/mL), especially lagers STARTED

at fermentation temperatures near 50F, (not pseudo-steam-start-'em-at-

70-and-cool-'em-to-50-lagers). Noonan recommends even higher rates for

Scotch Ales and other strong beer in his new book.

What kind of lag time did he get?  I'll bet it was on the order of

10-12 hours, not bad, but greater than optimum.

DanMcC

------------------------------


Re: beer drinks

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1993 11:20:31 -0700 (PDT)

From: Kyle Hammon <MHAGEMAN@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

Subject: Re: beer drinks

I have no idea of any history to the drink, but my wife (from the Montana

outback - Jordan Montana, pop. 350)  introduced me to beer and tomato juice.

No, it's not disgusting!  My own modification is Snappy Tom or V-8 with

Luisiana Hot Sauce plus the beer of your choice.

As someone else suggested, this is best done with the beer you find in your

parents fridge... or with the stuff leftover from well-intentioned, but sadly

unevolved offerings at a pot-luck.

Kyle Hammon           "Just Drink It"

MHAGEMAN@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU

------------------------------


beer drinks: velvet hammer

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1993 13:31:06 -0500 (CDT)

From: Paul Boor <PBOOR@BEACH.UTMB.EDU>

Subject: beer drinks: velvet hammer

In younger and wilder days we held lab parties that featured the "velvet

hammer", i.e. half guinness stout and half dry (cheap) champagne, in a punch

bowl with a chunk of dry ice in it, served with small paper cups.

Very delicious, much too powerful, and much too easy-going-down...

------------------------------


Kegging FAQ delayed slightly

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 09:04:26 PDT

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Kegging FAQ delayed slightly

Well, sorry to inform you all that the Kegging FAQ will be delayed a

couple of weeks.  The task of combing through back issues of HBD for

questions and answers is *much* larger than I had anticipated.  I am

about halfway through the articles and can only work on them a short

time each day.  I expect that by the time I am done and preliminary

reviews have been done by people whom I have asked to assist me with a

review process, it will be the end of November, instead of the end of

October as I have previously posted.  I am sorry for the delay, but I

have to work to support my newsfeed habit.

The good news is that the FAQ is not languishing, but making progress

daily.  I think it will be a very worthwhile endeavor, even though my

fingers are growing shorter with prolonged use on the keyboard.  B-]

------------------------------


mashout

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 14:55 CDT

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: mashout

>  I understand you once had a MM but traded it for a Corona

>  because the grain kept coming out of the hopper when you turned

>  the crank.  The Corona has an arrow telling you how to turn the

>  crank and I can understand how No-Mashout-Types (NMT's) feel

>  more comfortable with it.

>

>  js

Well, that's partly true.  I did own a Maltmill but returned to my

old Corona.  Yes, I admit that I couldn't figure out which way the

crank turned.  That and the fact that once I figured out how to

operate the Maltmill, it really didn't do a good job of ringing-out

my wet laundry like I thought it would.

But we seem to be digressing from the original proposal that

mashouts are unnecessary.  What is called for in this debate are

cold, hard facts.  After all, this is HBD not late night cable tv.

In that vein I have summarized my last two year's worth of brewing

records.  What I found was that all grists were composed of Belgian

malts.  Small amounts of wheat were used but never more than 5%.

For background: Corona grind, simple infusion mash, mash & sparge

ala picnic cooler, never a protein rest, never a mashout and rarely

a ph adjustment.

The bottom line remained unchanged: no stuck sparges and mashing

efficiencies over 80%.  Given the simplicity of the efficiency

measurement I think it's safe to say the numbers can be trusted.

Assuming that one is using a grist that does not have a high

percentage of wheat or rye, I remain confident that mashouts are a

waste of time.  But why take my word for it?  Why not give it a try

next time?

Over time, we incorporate new techniques into our brewing

methodology when convinced of the new technique's merit.  I'm

proposing the same action only in the opposite direction in that

techniques can be eliminated when deemed unnecessary.  Such is the

case with mashouts.

chris campanelli

------------------------------


barleywine yeast

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 15:12:09 -0500

From: "Jeff M. Michalski, MD" <michalski_jm@rophys.wustl.edu>

Subject: barleywine yeast

Barlyewine is featured in the latest issue of zymurgy.

The use of a yeast mixture has been suggested by some "experts"

but the author of this article claims he has never used

anything but ale yeast.

Any comments from the HBD?  If a combination of ale and other

yeast are used, should they be combined day one at pitching, or

should the wine or champagne yeast be added after initial fermentation

settles down?  If an ale yeast is considered hearty enough, which

varieties are best?  If an ale yeast isn't enough, which wine or

champagne yeasts are good quality additions?

thanks,

JEFF M. MICHALSKI

michalski_jm@rophys.wustl.edu

------------------------------


lauter tun designs/amylase/Belgian yeasts

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 14:32 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: lauter tun designs/amylase/Belgian yeasts

Wyllie Coyote posted a very good summary of lauter tuns.  I'd like

to add just a few comments:

>    1.    Grain bag in a bucket with a spigot near the bottom of the

>    bucket. Grain bag is held in place with elastic (bungee). Bag is

>    mesh material.I used one of these for several years. Worked fine.

>    Disadvantage: Size limitation, not insulated, unless you stick it

>    in a box. Bag would slip sometimes.

Please note that due to a fluid mechanics phenomenon called "channeling"

it is recommended that the grain bag you use for the above system should

bave relatively "waterproof" sides and only the bottom should be made

of mesh.

>to allow me to run water through the manifold to clear it.  I also

>fashioned a metal screen to fit over the manifold- kinda like a

>false bottom  to make a flatter surface for the grain bed (can you

>say "overkill"?). It keeps big grain bits away from the tubing-

>aiding the grain bed establishment, and makes it easier to lift

>the grain out of the cooler into my healthy compost pile. I don't

Perhaps it makes it easier to remove the grains, but if indeed it keeps the

large particles of grain away from the manifold, then you don't need the

manifold.  As you said yourself, it's the grain bed that does the filtering

and it requires that the large pieces be at the bottom, smaller on top of

those, etc.  If the mesh is holding up the large husk pieces, you should

be establishing your bed on the screen and omitting the manifold.

In all fairness, the commercial devices should have been mentioned.  The

ones that I know of are the Phil's Phalse Bottom, which is similar in

function to the Zapap design, but works a bit differently.  The only

comment I have about this design is that it has been mentioned on the HBD

that the hose has a tendancy to kink where it comes out of the Phalse

Bottom.  Replacing this with an elbow seems to fix the problem.

Another design I know of is available commercially and you can make it

yourself: the EasyMasher(tm) or easymasher.  This design uses a piece of

screen (like stainless windowscreen) formed into a tube and then hoseclamped

to a brass tube that makes its way through the wall of the kettle.  I would

imagine you could mount it in a cooler too.  My concern about this design

is that the runoff is drawn from a very small area of the mash and would

(again, due to channeling) theoretically give lower extraction rates than

a lautering system which takes the runoff from a wider range of the cross-

section of the grain bed.  I must stress *theoretically* since a number of

users have reported very good extraction rates.

There are a number of very expensive commercial systems (made from straight-

sided kegs), which are actually scaled-down versions of full-size commercial

lauter tuns.  I have no experience nor have heard much about them so it's

too soon to tell.  Cost is a big disadvantage.

Finally, the RIMS system should be mentioned.  RIMS stands for Recirculating

Infusion Mash System (I believe) and recent improvements have apparently

increased the capacity of this system.  I know that George Fix was very

impressed with the new design of this system.  It's biggest disadvantage

is cost.

Disclaimer -- I don't sell ANY lauter tuns or commercial devices for the

building of lauter tuns, so I'd say I'm pretty impartial on this.

*****************************

Steve writes:

>I am a bit confused over the use of Amylase Enzyme when brewing all

>grain beer.  My understanding is that it contains Alpha Amalyse.

>

>My understanding is that Alpha Amylase is denatured around 130 degF.

>If this is correct what good is the enzyme at mash temps above 140

>degF?

I assume you are talking about a commercial version of Amylase Enzyme.

I've never used any commercial versions, but you really shouldn't need

any unless you are using a lot of adjunts like boiled rice, oats, wheat

flour, oat flour, cornstarch, unmalted grains, etc.  Malted barley and

malted wheat have more than enough amylase on their own to convert their

starches as well as a reasonable amount of adjuncts.

There's alpha amylase and beta amylase.  Alpha amylase is less temperature

sensitive than beta.  Alpha slowly begins to denature above 140F, I believe,

but will last a couple of hours even at 158F.  Beta amylase also begins

to denature at about 140F also, but denatures quite quickly above 150F.

Alpha amylase converts starches and dextrins into glucose until it reaches

a branch that it can't "eat" leaving a limit dextrin.  Beta amylase works

by cutting large chains of glucose into smaller chains.  If you mash at

the lower end of the 148F to 158F range, the two enzymes will work together

to make a highly fermentable, thin (low body) beer.  If you mash at the

higher end of the range, you will get a less fermentable, heavier (higher

body), slightly sweeter beer.  Something in-between, will get you something

in-between.

The enzymes that denature around 130F would probably be one of the proteolytic

(protein degrading) enzymes.  There are two there also: Peptidase and

Protease, but I forget which does what.  The two of them work together like

the amylase enzymes to break large proteins into small proteins and amino

acids.  At lower protein rest temps, you get more amino acids, less body

and less head-retaining small proteins.  At higher protein rest temps, you

get less amino acids and more small proteins (better head retention and

more body).

***************************

Stu writes:

>suggestions here?  Would it help to culture a Chimay or Duvel and repitch

Chimay is bottled with the fermenting yeast, Duvel (I've been told) is not.

Al.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1252, 10/21/93

*************************************

-------


iodophor/Godzilla/yeast help

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 14:33 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: iodophor/Godzilla/yeast help

Eric writes:

>> Iodophor has a sort of metallic-chlorine-like taste ...  It's less

>objectionable to me than chlorine itself, though. I think the key has to be

>to drain thoroughly after sanitizing with the stuff, and to use pretty low

>levels to start with. ... 12ppm is easily detectable.  We could do an

>experiment...

I don't know about the taste, but I've been told by the manufacturer,

that Iodophor is non-toxic WHEN DRY.  All the instructions regarding

its use around brewing have included the mention of DRYING the sanitized

article.

>immediately for food service.  FDA considers 10ppm iodine

Around here 12.5ppm is what the Health Dept. requires.

>safe for consumption, though iodophor solution also contains

>phosphoric acid and isn't very tasty by itself.

Not all iodophors contain phosphoric acid -- the "phor" has nothing

to do with phosphoric acid -- this is what a chemist told me.

I found a really interesting article in an ASBC publication from

the 50's.  I'll see if I can get around to posting some of the

more interesting parts.

>[The original beer was a "Belgian" brown...  I would describe the flavor as

>smoothly medicinal rather than infected]

Smoothly medicinal sounds to me like stale grain.  Some grains are more

suceptable to developing a phenolic smell/flavor -- I've found that

DeWolf-Cosyns CaraPils is the most likely to develop this problem of all

the grains that I've tried.  I was talking to Tim Norris about this recently

and he suggested that perhaps it's the moisture content, since the CP has

a high moisture content compared to the other DWC grains.  The phenolic

flavor I'm talking about is similar to BandAids(tm).  Is that what you

smelled/tasted?  A little wheat malt can give you this flavor/aroma too.

Any wheat in the recipe?

*************************

Jack writes:

> Keep in mind that Godzilla is for real but the others are just just fictional

> characters.

I agree.  You then, being Mothra, must have just been a figment

of our collective HBD imagination?

**************************

David writes:

>I'm a novice brewer (second batch) who has now learned, don't throw away

>the labels to your mixes or yeasts!  My question is about yeast.  I

>brewed two days ago a hopped extract for a strong ale.  Before adding

>the yeast to the (pre-)wort mix, I put it in water and warmed it.  The

>wort was at 70 degrees when I added the yeast.  Forty-eight hours later,

>there's been nary a bubble through my fermentation lock.  Would

>overwarming have killed the yeast, or was it more likely something else?

How warm did you warm it?  You should rehydrate yeast at between 90 and

110F and then let that slowly cool to your wort temperature before pitching.

I suspect that either you A) didn't aerate your wort enough, in which case

you should aerate the wort and add more yeast, B) shocked the yeast by

rehydrating in too COOL a water, in which case you should wait some more,

C) killed it by heating it over 130F, in which case you should add more

yeast, or D) it has already fermented out the whole batch while you were not

looking (is there a brown ring of crud on the walls of the fermenter, about

an inch wide, just above the level of the wort?  if yes, then it's probably

D).  If the lag time ends up being more than three or four days, then I

would taste the beer before bottling and dump it if it got infected.

Al.

------------------------------


Cranberries attn: M. Blongewicz

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 11:57 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: Cranberries attn: M. Blongewicz

Apologies to subscribers for use of bandwidth...

To Michael Blongenwicz--

 Haven't gotten any cranberry recipies other that two mentioned in the

Cat's Meow.  Sorry I hadn't replied earlier, can't reach you via personal email.

To readers--I'm still in the market for extract recipes using cranberries.  Any

experiences and tips would be appreciated.

Thanks,

David Atkins

UW-Madison

atkins@macc.wisc.edu

------------------------------


Temperature Controls

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1993 16:57:45 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kieran O'Connor <koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: Temperature Controls

Folks--

As far as I know, there are only 3 temperature controllers for

fridges--the Hunter, "The Controller" put out by Williams, and the Penn

Temperature Control (this control needs modification).

Could anyone tell me if there are any others they've used or heard of?

Thanks, its for an article.

BTW--who makes the Hunter Energy Monitor?

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Address: koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu

Syracuse, N.Y. USA

------------------------------


Hot priming and peach beer

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 17:15:42 EDT

From: 19-Oct-1993 1709 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Hot priming and peach beer

Bart Thielges asked about adding hot priming sugar solution to wort for

priming.  I do that all the time and haven't seen a problem yet.  I pour

the boiling corn sugar/water solution into my bottling bucket and then start

siphoning the beer into it.

Steven Tollefsrud asked about a peach beer.  I made one a couple of months

ago when my peach tree started producing.  I used a recipe from Dave Miller's

"Brewing the World's Great Beers".  It's basically a lightly hopped, lightly

colored, wheat & barley beer.  Ferment to near completion in primary and

siphon onto 10 lbs. of crushed peaches in the secondary and let ferment

another couple of weeks.  It has a great peach aroma and a very light and

refreshing taste.  The biggest problem I had with it was separating the beer

from the peaches.  I ended up leaving almost a gallon of beer behind because

of clogging siphons.  This caused a bit of a complication since I primed

for 5 gals -- the beer has to be well chilled to avoid gushers.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


mash procedure

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 13:53:52 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: mash procedure

chris campanelli writes:

>I skip the

>mash-out and consistently get good yields.  It should also be noted

>that I use a picnic cooler and never perform a protein rest (I use

>Belgian malts).

My normal procedure exactly.  It's worked like a charm for the past

20 batches.

>I won't tell you how I grind my malt because I'll

>then be forced to use the "C" word.

"Crack"? "Cremate"?

Oooooooh - "C R U _ _".  (Hint - rhymes with "Lush").

Now if we could just manage to avoid using "Mash", "Sparge",

"Efficiency", and "Lactic", maybe we could keep the hbd down

to a reasonable size...

bb

------------------------------


oxidation confusion

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 08:03:07 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: oxidation confusion

>>

>>> From: arne thormodsen <arnet@kaibutsu.cup.hp.com>

>>> Subject: Oxidation and Filtering

>>>

>>> OK, I'll be the heretic.  Hey, new brewers!  DON'T worry about oxidation

>>> when transferring to secondary.  The beer is cool and saturated

>>> (probably supersaturated) with CO2.  If it foams a little when you

>>> transfer it there is virtually no way it will oxidize, because CO2 is

>>> coming out.

>>>

>>> Relax, have a homebrew, and shove that nasty ol' oxidation bogeyman back

>>> in the closet where it (usually) belongs.

>>>

>>Seriously, fermented beer when young

>>will have around 1 atmosphere of CO2 in solution.  While this will rise

>>out of solution as the beer is racked, the original posters experience

>>with a filter is certainly going to introduce some degree of oxidation.

>>A small degree of splashing into the secondary is OK, putting it through

>>a filter/funnel is sure disaster.  Its just not worth it, or necessary.

>>

 Okay - I give up. How *do* I filter out those bits of gunk, fruit,

 etc from the primary (or secondary) fermenter when ready to bottle,

 without oxidizing? To say nothing of trying to filter out the hops,

 etc *before* going _into_ the primary....

jim

------------------------------


Beer hunting in Belgium: Part 2 (Brasserie de Silenrieux)

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 08:30:37 -0400

From: "Phillip Seitz" <p00644@psilink.com>

Subject: Beer hunting in Belgium: Part 2 (Brasserie de Silenrieux)

Beer Hunting in Belgium: Part 2 of 7

Brasserie de Silenrieux

      (by Jim Busch: BUSCH@DAACDEV1.STX.COM)

      This brewery opened in December 1992, and is still largely

unknown.  A friend of one of our Belgium hosts had just visited

the brewery the month before our we arrived in Belgium, and

reported that they were brewing with unusual grains.  So when a

visit was suggested, we jumped on it.

      It turns out that the government of Belgium had the notion

of developing brewing processes using non-traditional grains,

primarily as a way to stimulate agricultural production and open

markets for local agricultural products.  Early research and

small scale brewing experiments were performed in Canada and at

the university of Louvain-la-Neuve.  Successful beers were

produced using buckwheat and spelt (a wheat relative) as

principal ingredients.  These experiments were underwritten by

subsidies from the Belgian agriculture ministry, starting with

3-liter lab batches and working up to 6 hl batches using the

brewing studies facilities at Louvain-la-Neuve.

      Monetary assistance may also have been provided to the

organizers of the brewery, who have built a truly beautiful

modern facility in the south of Belgium near Chimay and a

vacation lake/camping area.  The brewery consists of three

dedicated production vessels; a mash tun, a special lauter tun,

and the kettle.  The mash tun and kettle are normal enough

stainless steel vessels while the lauter tun (if one can call it

a that--a separator might be more accurate) consists of a large

SS vessel containing a removable circular basket, or strainer,

and the strainer/basket is attached to a crane attached to

overhead support structures.  The strainer has slots in the

bottom and up the sides about 1/2 a meter from the bottom.  The

entire saccrified mash is pumped from the mash tun into the

basket, which is then slowly raised via the crane out of the

lauter tun.  In effect, the basket is used like a giant tea bag,

with the liquid runoff flowing through the slots into the vessel,

leaving the grains in the basket.  The liquid is then pumped over

to the kettle.  There is no sparging performed.  The brewers

admitted to less than ideal extraction of sugars and a generally

difficult separation stage.

      Three SS unitank fermenters are used as primary vessels

while a fourth is used only for mixing the priming sugar prior to

the hand filling of champagne-type bottles.  A typical Belgium

top fermenting "abbey" strain of yeast is used, most likely quite

similar to that employed in numerous Belgium strong ale

breweries, including La Chouffe, La Binchoise and possibly La

Caracole.  Kegs are also used, and are sanitized using forced

steam; a steam hose is just pushed into the kegs and allowed to

vent, resulting in about 120 decibels of noise pollution.

Definitely not my idea of a nice working environment.  The

brewers were a bit frustrated in terms of keg sales since it is

near impossible to break the stranglehold that the giant Belgium

brewing consortium, Interbrew, has on tap handles in the country.

      One of the nice things about the design of this brewery is

that there is a steel catwalk running the entire length of the

brewing vessels, including the unitanks.  This allows the brewer

to do most of his work up top and close to the action.  The

brewery is generally well designed and constructed, although the

brewers noted the difficulty involved in packaging the products.

While the rest of the brewery is quite modern, there is no

bottling  line.  A set of manual bottle fillers are used for the

champagne bottles, and labels were applied to the bottles we

bought the old-fashioned homebrew way--with milk.

      The brewhaus is separated from the tasting room by large

plate glass windows.  The ceiling of the tasting room is brick!

      We were able to sample the brewery's two products, Joseph

and Sara.  Joseph is a blonde beer of 6% ABV.  It consists of

55-60% spelt and the balance pale malt.  The bottle describes the

product as "Bier d'Epeautre" (epautre=spelt).  It is blond with a

big creamy head, typical "abbey" aroma and some citrus notes.

Despite being produced from a large percentage of cereal grains,

the beer retains a high degree of malt/hop/yeast balance.  It is

a broad cross between abbey beers and the ever popular Wits.  The

beer is named after the person in the agriculture ministry who

lobbied for the revival of spelt as a brewing and food grain and

who, not coincidentally, provided the subsidies for the early

brewing experiments.

      Sara is a brune (brown beer), called "Biere de Sarrasin"

(sarrasin=buckwheat).  It is produced from equal parts of

buckwheat and malt and features a caramel aroma intermixed with

the abbey esters with a fairly light caramel finish.  This is a

good beer, but did not approach the quality of the Joseph.  It is

also 6% ABV.

------------------------------


Re: HB law questions

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 09:28:09 EDT

From: Bob Wood <wood@fs09.webo.dg.com>

Subject: Re: HB law questions

Scott Kaczorowski writes:

> If I remember my beer-lore correctly, I thought Big Jimmy O'Carter made

> homebrewing technically legal in this country (correcting an earlier

> oversight).  Being but a simple software engineer, my legal credentials

> are a good approximation of nil, but I thought federal law superceded

> state/local law.  That is, if the Feds say it's OK for me to manufacture

> certain kinds of drugs in my kitchen, then it doesn't matter one whit

> what Missouri or any other state has to say about it.  Yes?

Not true.  (You can decide for yourself whether this is good or bad).

I don't want to rant too much on this, but the U.S. Constitution attempts

to give states the ability to make their own laws, while giving the federal

government jurisdiction over inter-state issues (interstate commerce,

dealing with foreign countries, etc.) and enforcing rights guaranteed by

the constitution.  When the feds want to enact a law which appears outside

their jurisdiction, they generally do it in one of these ways:

  * Pass a constitutional amendment (prohibition, for example).

  * Argue that the issue crosses state boundaries and therefore is already

    within their jurisdiction (FCC, for example).

  * Impose taxes/licensing on some products or services (brewing).

  * Threaten to withhold federal revenue from states unless the states

    pass their own laws for which the feds otherwise have no jurisdiction

    (many highway laws).

In the case of beer brewing, the feds collect taxes on alcoholic beverages.

The change that Carter signed simply said that if you make less than a

certain amount of beer for your own use, the feds won't tax you on it, and

won't require any special licensing.  There is no guarantee that any

particular state won't further restrict home brewing.

I think there is little chance of a U.S. Constitutional amendment being

passed to guarantee the right to brew beer.  Are there active movements in the

more restrictive states to have their state laws changed?

- -- bob wood

------------------------------


Cider

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 16:54

From: MEADE.SRVRHOST@test.readmore.com (Meade Eggleston)

Subject: Cider

Hi all.

I'm planning on making a batch of hard cider.  I'll was going to/may

still use store bought cider.  The only problem is that the only cider I

can find has 1/20 of 1% Potassium Sorbate.  Not being the chemist I

wasn't sure if this stuff would kill the yeast I planned on adding

(Yeast Labs Cider).

What is the Potassium Sorbate suppose to do?

Will it allow me to ferment with my own yeast?

Any unpleasant effect/tastes using cider with it mixed in?

Also, I was wondering about the effects of using Campden Tablets in the

Cider.  I am a little leery about using any

Please e-mail me directly and I'll summarize the responses.

Thanks,

Meade Eggleston

meade@readmore.com

------------------------------


liquid male extract

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1993 08:45:12 -0700

From: reeves@lanl.gov (Geoff Reeves)

Subject: liquid male extract

>This formula uses 1.042 for a pound of

>DME (dry malt extract) in a gallon of water, about 1.034 for

>LME (liquid male extract), and about 1.029 for speciality grains.

      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Yuck! I wouldn't put that stuff in my beer!

Geoff

------------------------------


Liquid Yeast: Friend or Fiend

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1993 07:42:11 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Liquid Yeast: Friend or Fiend

In HBD 1251 Jerome asks if liquid yeast is Friend or Fiend.  FRIEND!!

Liquid yeast is a friend.  My beer got much better when I switched to

liquid yeasts.  Although the Wyeast package says you can just pitch

directly from the package, my experience is that this is not a good idea and

a starter is absolutely necessary.  Why?  The number of yeast cells in the

Wyeast package is very low and results in an incredible under pitch which

can lead to very long lag times raising the risk of infection.

> I had gotten a WYeast American Ale packet, and burst the inner packet

> on Thursday evening.  Sure enough, by noon on Saturday it was nice and

> puffy.  My 1043 wort was at 70F, and all was well with the

 ...snip

> ...wait for fermentation to begin, but lo! nothing happens and keeps on not

> happening until Monday morning.

It has been my experience that Wyeast is ready to pitch after about 24

hrs, sometimes less.  By the time the package is really puffed the

yeast has gone way past high kraesen (sic?), and flocculated.  It's had a

good meal and dozed off.  Pitching this means not only are you under

pitching, but you are under pitching sleeping yeast that will need some

time to wake up.  By using a starter you can pitch more cells and perhaps

better time your pitch to occur just before high kraesen.  So I think that

a 48 hr lag time (Sat-Mon) is not unexpected.

Another thing to watch out for is that dry yeast is often contaminated

with bacteria.  Reusing slurry from a dry yeast fermentation may allow the

bacterial population to build up to infection levels.

Let me suggest that you download the yeast FAQ from sierra.stanford.edu to

get some guidance in propagating a yeast starter.

Liquid yeast is your friend.  You just have to treat 'em right.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Relax, Don't worry, ...

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 10:34:46 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Relax, Don't worry, ...

In 1251 jmp@shoe.wustl.edu related difficulties with Wyeast used

straight.  I remeber using Wyest straight and having 2 day lags,

but so what?  If the system is clean there won't be any contamination.

The last thing I would do is worry and contaminate a $4 culture

with a 30cent sachet of microflora assortment.  And you'll

develop plenty of slurry for a quick fermentation.  If using a

Wyeast one should make a starter, and if it's a lager the starter

should be around a gallon.

Onanother note that I will refer to as Chicago time warp.  How

come a response from js appeared before the posting from Chris  C

to which it responded (in 1250)?

_____________________________________________________________________________

'Hey Ma'am! I'm not an athlete.  I'm a ball | Ulick Stafford, PP-ASEL

player' - John Kruk, Phillies firstbaseman  | Dept of Chemical Engineering,

responding to a woman who told him he was a | Notre Dame, IN 46556

bad athletic role model sitting at a bar    |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

drinking and smoking.                       |

------------------------------


Re: Liquid Yeast

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1993 09:32:42 -0700 (PDT)

From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: Liquid Yeast

Jerome Peirick writes:

Liquid Yeast: Friend or Fiend?

>

> So far, a dull story.  But the reason for the post is that this the third time

> in four instances of liquid yeast use that this happened to me.  The questions

> I have are:

>

> Why does this happen?

> Why does liquid yeast seem so my less robust than dry?

> Should this happen when I use the liquid yeast _as_directed_on_the_package?

> Should I just admit abject failure and use dry yeasts exclusively?

>

Jerome, this happens because you are (a) underpitching and (b) probably

under-aerating.  There is a fairly small quantity of yeast in the

package, which is why the general wisdom is that you need a starter.  A

starter (which is really very simple to put together and use) will get

the cell counts up to something approximating the correct number.  You

will never get counts like that simply pitching from the package.  Dry

yeasts generally have much higher counts, although the percentage of

viable cells in the packages isn't very high.  It is possible to get a

decent fermentation from the packet, but it's asking a lot, and it

requires a very fresh package and extremely thorough aeration of the

wort prior to pitching.

You should: follow the instructions on making a starter wort, and beging

the process of building up your yeast several days before brewing; and

you should shake the bejabbers out of your cooled wort (or follow some

more advanced instructions about using an aquarium pump to aerate -- see

Dave Miller's articles in Brewing Techniques).  You *will* see a

difference in the quality of your beer.  Really.

Scott Kaczorowski writes:

> If I remember my beer-lore correctly, I thought Big Jimmy O'Carter made

> homebrewing technically legal in this country (correcting an earlier

> oversight).  Being but a simple software engineer, my legal credentials

> are a good approximation of nil, but I thought federal law superceded

> state/local law.  That is, if the Feds say it's OK for me to manufacture

> certain kinds of drugs in my kitchen, then it doesn't matter one whit

> what Missouri or any other state has to say about it.  Yes?

>

No.  State law supercedes federal law in this instance.  This is why

each state has been able to set guidelines for alcohol content, drinking

age, etc. (for example, in Oregon and Washington you can only buy

distilled beverages from state-operated liquor stores, while in nearby

California you can buy the stuff virtually anywhere).  On the other

hand, while the federal government prohibited homebrewing, the state

could *not* allow it.  Clear?  No?  Well, it doesn't make any sense to

me either.

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


Amylase

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1993 10:41:14 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Amylase

  ************************************************************

    > >When should Alpha Amalyse be used?

  >Thanks,Steve

  *   Amylase (sp!) is a combination of alpha and beta amylase.  Two

  starchdegrading enzymes- diastatic enzymes.  Most commercial "amylase"

  is actually diastase-  a mix of alpha and beta amylase.  The alpha cuts

  the middle of enzymes (endo-) while beta chops off the ends (exo-).

  Alphas are most active at 65-67 deg C, or 149-153 deg F.  Beta works

  at 52-62 deg C, 126-144 deg F. Alpha inactivates at 67 deg C (153),

  while beta ceases at 65 deg C(149).

      These temps are not exact cutoffs and inactivation takes a period

  of time (40 min-2hrs) to completely eliminate activity.  Both enzymes

  will be active simultaneously. A higher temp mash will result in more

unfermentables (more complex sugars) by favoring the alpha activity,

  whereas a lower temp will favor the beta and smaller more "digestable"

  sugars for the yeast.

      Amylases and other enzymes are present in pale malts (grains) and

  some other grains (munich, vienna...etc).  If you are mashing they

  are there and required for the process.  If you are using extracts

  you don't need to worry about them.  If you do a partial mash, or

  add something like flaked corn (NOT Kellogs!)  or rice you need to

  have enzymes convert the starches to fermentable sugars.  For this

  you can use pale malt, or some purified amylase.  You can add amylase

  to a mash if you are not getting good yields- but probably better to

  work out a system that works more effectively!

      Someone mentioned using flaked corn in an extract beer and making

  tea with it.  What is the point of that?  You are adding starch.

  Corn can lighten a beers body while adding fermentables w/o much color

  or substance,  but where is the advantage in an extract brew?

  Has anyone done this?  Does anyone have a REASON behind doing this?

      Hope some of this helps a bit.      John (The Coyote) Wyllie

                                              SLK6P@cc.usu.edu

  ***

  Kevin asks:

  >Why do you consider distilling to be dangerous?  There is an element

of risk

> involved with making anything.  (including fried chicken)  Distillers

simply

> take a fermented product and evaporate and condense the alcohol.

>

> >Illegal?  Yes.  Dangerous?   Hardly.

>

  *Can you say DEATH & BLINDNESS! Ethyl alcohol goes to a vapor within

  a specific temperature range ( I ain't gonna quote it!) while OTHER

  alcohols vaporize at different temps.  While ethanol won't do us any

  harm...well...maybe a little nausea in excess...a bit of a headache...

  some other alcohols, or components of a ferment could do some harm.

  If it's done right-  sure you can get a fine distilled product. I even

  tried one once- could've dropped it in a NA beer too, but I wanted to

  try it straight.  Tasty it was!  (peeka boo!)

      I don't have all the chemistry here to explain it...but there are

  dangers in distilling.  That is WHY there are real laws about it, and

  why those WILL be enforced, as depicted by such "fine" TV programs.

  Look it up in a library.  Most universities will have something on it.

      "I can't see I can't see"      John (The Coyote) Wyllie

              "Why not?!"                SLK6P@cc.usu.edu

      "I got my eyes shut! Nyuck Nyuck"

  ******************************************************************

------------------------------


WORT CHILLERS

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 12:15:11 -0400 [EDT]

From: greg.demkowicz@circellar.com

Subject: WORT CHILLERS

There's been a lot of posts about what type and size of wort chillers to

use, be it cold water bath, immersion, or counter-flow. Most counter-flow

designs are based on a length of 3/8" copper tubing passing through the

center of a garden hose. This is quite effective, but awkward to use.

So, here's a question for all you Thermodynamic type people: how effective

would a 30 foot length of 3/8" diameter, coiled copper tubing, be in

a 2 foot long, 4" inside diameter, PVC pipe?  Essentially, I want to place

the coil inside the PVC, with the ends of the coil entering and exiting

the capped ends of the PVC.  The cooling water would enter the capped

ends as well, but counter-flow. The "coil" diameter would be about 3.5",

resulting in a circumference of about 11". With each "coil" spaced about

1/4" apart, the length would be about 2 feet.  Of course the length and

size of the copper tubing can be altered, (the PVC diameter is the max. I

can get) but, is the idea feasible? Any comments appreciated.

Greg

------------------------------


Hose vs copper tubing

Date:  Wed, 20 Oct 1993 12:51:00 -0400

From: mike.sadul@canrem.com (Mike Sadul)

Subject: Hose vs copper tubing

Norm writes:

> I just bought a thick-wall polyethylene hose to run from my lauter

> tun to my boiler.  The hose I use now is a thin-wall vinyl hose

> which has a tendency to collapse when the hot liquor is flowing

> through it.

I was also concerned over the use of a plastic hose in the kettle

and the fact that the hose was close to the open flame of the

propane burner near the side of the kettle. Also, The hose flattened

out where it looped up before going into the kettle.

My solution was to use a length of 3/8 copper tubing inside the

kettle and attach the hose to that.

The top of the tubing has an S curve so that I can hang it on

the kettle itself.  It's a tight fit, so it doesn't fall out

if you accidentaly yank the hose.

The bottom of the tube is 1/4 inch off the bottom of the kettle.

This minimizes (eliminates) splashing of the hot wort as it flows

into the kettle.  The outside end curves back up so that the hose

coming in meets it straight on and doesn't droop and flatten out.

'Why I'm not an artist' ASCII graphics to follow:

                       Lid    __

                   ----------+--+--------            #

                   I                   /I/          # Plastic hose

                   I                  | I |        #

                   I                  | I /       #

                   I                  | I|      /

                   I                  | I / __/ Copper tube

                   I                  | I

                   I                  | I

                   I    Kettle        | I

                   I                  | I

                   I                  | I

                   +--------------------+

Mike

mike.sadul@canrem.com

------------------------------


Spruce Beer

Date:         20 Oct 93 13:19:17

From: REGINAH@SOCIOLOGY.lan.mcgill.ca

Subject:      Spruce Beer

    I just wanted to say a word in defense of spruce beer- I made a

batch using Papazian's recipe, with 1 oz of spruce essence, and it

was good.  Yes, it was odd, earthy even, but I grew up drinking the

soda versions of birch and spruce beer.  My spruce beer had similar

taste without the sugar.  It may be that spruce essences and extracts

are highly variable in quality.  For that matter, spruce trees are

probably variable in quality.  If anybody wants to know, I can check

up on the brand name of the essence I used.  If spruce beer sounds

interesting to you, don't be deterred.

                                    Regina Harrison

                                    McGill University

                                    reginah@sociology.lan.mcgill.ca

------------------------------


HB law questions

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1993 13:14:33 -0500

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: HB law questions

Scott Kaczorowski says:

>my legal credentials are a good approximation of nil, but I

>thought federal law superceded state/local law.  That is, if the

>Feds say it's OK for me to manufacture certain kinds of drugs in

>my kitchen, then it doesn't matter one whit what Missouri or any

>other state has to say about it.  Yes?

Federal law supercedes state law except when it doesn't.  What they

often do, and did in this case, was leave further regulation of

brewing to the states.  ie: "Its OK for you to manufacture up to

200 gallons of certain drug-containing beverages in your kitchen

unless your local government objects, in which case you're stuck

with the more restrictive regulations."  Funny how they can write

whatever laws they want...

 t

------------------------------


re: HB law questions

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 13:50:00 EDT

From: mferts@taec.com (Mike Fertsch)

Subject: re: HB law questions

Scott Kaczorowski speculates on the Federal statue allowing homebrewing,

and questions Federal law superseeding local laws.

>If I remember my beer-lore correctly, I thought Carter made

>homebrewing technically legal in this country (correcting an earlier

>oversight). I thought federal law superceded state/local law.

My guess is that the law removed the Federal restriction on brewing.

This is not the same as saying the law grants permission to brew.

Without a Federal restriction, states and localities are allowed to

make their own regulations.  This is why dry towns and dry counties are

allowed to exist.

Mike Fertsch   (mferts@taec.com)

------------------------------


Spruce Beer

Date: 20 Oct 1993 10:19:18 -0800

From: John Scoblic <KFJLS@acad1.alaska.edu>

Subject: Spruce Beer

You guys are giving Spruce Beer a bad rap! I've been making it for four

years and have to keep it quiet that I have a new batch in the fermenter.

My friends hound me for a taste of the elixer. I use Papazian's recipe

with 4 oz of spruce tips picked from a Spruce tree (not hemlock) in the

spring added like hops (in the hops bag). I have NEVER had a bad batch

nor a sappy or any other off flavor.

I have never used essence. Being a purist, I think it poor style but I

would suggest just a hint of Spruce essence and then add more in future

batches.

------------------------------


Hops FAQ nearly ready

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 12:17:10 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Hops FAQ nearly ready

The Hops FAQ is nearing completion but I have one sticking point.  I've used

IBU's so long that I can't recall the definition of HBU.  I looked up AAU in

Miller's and Line's books, and I have that.  Rager says the two are the same,

i.e.  AAU=HBU but Al Korzonas mentioned that he thought one of them was batch

size dependent, based on a 5 gallon batch (and that rang a bell with me).

According to Miller and Line, AAU is just the alpha acid percentage multiplied

by the weight in ounces.  This leaves HBU as being the batch size dependent one

if they are not the same.  This should be simple but I figured the quickest way

to get the answer to this would be here on the HBD.  Thanks for your input.

Expect to see this thing in the next few days.

Old Lucifer (the barley wine from hell that just won't quit!) update: OG=1.039

after 4 weeks.  At this rate I may bottle it before Christmas after all!

norm

------------------------------


Liquid Yeast: Friend or Fiend?

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1993 13:22:47 -0500

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Liquid Yeast: Friend or Fiend?

Jerome Pierick asks in HDB #1251 (essentially) about yeast pitching

rates, and the instructions on the Wyeast packages which say

essentially that sufficient yeast cells for a five gallon batch are

grown in 50 ml of wort.  He goes on to say he has experienced lag

times exceeding 48 hours, and wants to know why this is versus the

dry yeast he's been using.  Finally, he asks about repitching yeast

grown from a dry yeast culture.

Well, I've used Wyeast as directed on the package and I experience

lag times just like Jermome.  IMNSHO, the directions on the Wyeast

package do a great disservice to homebrewers as well as the

company.  Yes, it *will work* but its far from ideal.  According to

various sources summarized by Patrick Weix in the famous HBD Yeast

FAQ (what would we do without those TLAs?) says that you need 1

volume of yeast solids per 250 volumes of wort for lager yeasts,

and 2/3 that rate for ale yeasts.  This translates roughly to 2

cups of yeast slurry in a five gallon batch of ale, or three cups

in a batch of lager.  Compare this with the teaspoon or so you dump

out of a Wyeast package.  When the term "yeast slurry" is used I

thake this to mean the tan stuff that'll settle out of a wort after

fermentation.  The Wyeast package contains about ten teaspoons of

wort, but no where near that much yeast slurry.

Well, I rarely pitch at ideal rates.  Usually I step Wyeast up

twice, using a pint of sterile wort each time.  This yields maybe

1/2 cup of slurry.  Still a far cry from ideal, but much better

than the package directions produce. Usually the beer is fermenting

away the next morning.  When the planets are properly aligned, I

sometimes pour a new wort on top of the yeast cake in my secondary

fermenter to make a second beer.  This is much closer to the ideal

pitching rate, and I get amazing fermentations when I do this. Very

short lag times -- just a couple hours.

So, what's a brewer to do?  If you don't want to take the time to

step your Wyeast up, and I can perfectly well understand why you

wouldn't, you can follow the directions on the package, and

thoroughly aerate your wort.  This works, and makes very tasty

beer.  Just count on longer-than-ideal lag times.  This means

you'll want to be scrupulous about sanitation.  Wear rubber gloves,

use plenty o' bleach, and all that.  If you do these things I think

any pure Wyeast or YeastLabs culture  will produce a better beer

than any dry yeast I know of.  I keep a package of dry yeast around

in case a wort isn't fermenting after 72 hours.  I used one once,

and the beer was OK.  This is I think what Jerome is doing after 36

 - 48 hours.

If you DO continue to use dry yeast, repitching is not recommended.

ALL dry yeast is contaminated with wild yeast and bacteria.  But

there's a lot more good yeast than contaminants, so the yeast

effectively out-competes the other beasts for the goodies in your

wort.  But the contamination is still there, and will increase in

concentration with subsequent reuse of the culture.  The reason you

see such short lag times is that there's lots more yeast in the dry

package than in the Wyeast package.

Hope some of this helps...

  t

------------------------------


grain storage

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 14:32:43 EDT

From: garti@mrg.xyplex.com (Mark Garti)

Subject: grain storage

what are people using to store their grain in?

how long, under good conditions, will the grain be

fresh?  besides rats, are there any problems associated

with buying and keeping 50 lbs of grain?

mrgarti@xyplex.com

------------------------------


Re: Applejack/distilling

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1993 14:41:00 EST

From: "Pamela J. Day 7560" <DAY@A1.TCH.HARVARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: Applejack/distilling

Hello All,

 Because freezing hard cider to make apple jack concentrates

the alcohol in the solution, a physical separation if you

will, technically it's not a distillation. Distillation is used mainly

to purify, as well as separate;concentrating the solution is a

benificial side effect. Applejack is one of those things you can play

dumb over, "jeeze I had no idea it would do that officer! I just

wanted to keep it from going bad.". Any of you who have ever seen a

"still" know that it obviously can't be passed off for anything else.

However, I'm just a lowly research tech., not a lawyer (thank god!)

so I can't quote laws, but as far as I'm concerned making apple jack

wouldn't be illegal because you aren't doing any distillation. BTW,

distilling hard cider would result in apple brandy, not that I wish

to plant ideas into anyone's head.

 While I'm at it, I can see why cops & the law (especially

the ones who haven't got a clue) would confuse homebrew apparatus

with distillation apparatus. Those of you who cool your wort with

copper coils beware, they're the give-away as far identifying

moonshiners!

Cheers!

Pam

------------------------------


Homebrew and the law

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1993 13:00:46 -0700 (PDT)

From: Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG>

Subject: Homebrew and the law

COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu> writes:

>*also note:  Brewking sack ad in Sharper Image quotes:

>    "federal govert allows you to make up to 25 gallons of

>homemad beer each year.

<snip>

>Damn at 25 gal/yr I could be done brewing in 2 weeks!

>Too bad The Sharper Image doesn't have a Sharper grasp of the

>legality.

Correct.  Federal law allows for the production of 200 gallons

per year per household if there are 2 or more adults in the

household or 100 gallons/year if there is only one adult.

Scott writes:

>If I remember my beer-lore correctly, I thought Big Jimmy O'Carter made

>homebrewing technically legal in this country (correcting an earlier

>oversight).  Being but a simple software engineer, my legal credentials

>are a good approximation of nil, but I thought federal law superceded

>state/local law.  That is, if the Feds say it's OK for me to manufacture

>certain kinds of drugs in my kitchen, then it doesn't matter one whit

>what Missouri or any other state has to say about it.  Yes?

As a simple law librarian I can't program my way out of a paper

bag (well I might get that far, but maybe not) but I think I can

clarify this misunderstanding a bit.  The law that Carter signed

exempted homebrew (within limits, e.g. 200 gallons/household)

from excise taxes.  The oversight Scott refers to is that an earlier

law that exempted home winemaking from the excise tax did not do

the same for beer.

Now, exempting homebrew from excise taxes ain't quite the same as

providing a constitutional right to brew.  I guess that since many of our

founding fathers were brewers and nobody had threatened this right, they

didn't seem fit to include it in the Constitution.  This being the case, I

believe state goverments can pretty much do as they please.  On the other

hand, if the feds said homebrewing is illegal, the states couldn't say

otherwise.

=Eric <ericwade@class.org>

------------------------------


Belgian Special B  (Matthew Rowley)

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1993 16:23:09 -0500 (UTC -05:00)

From: ROWLEY@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Belgian Special B  (Matthew Rowley)

Howdy, all.

 I've just snagged some Belgian Special B to use in an Irish red.

This will be the first time I've ever worked with the stuff, but look

forward to it.  Does anyone have any experience using Special B? I thought

that I might put some into my next porter or stout, but would like to hear

from you if you've any suggestions on how/how not to handle this grain:

Temperatures, proportions, that sort of thing.

As to beer drinks: in college, we used to concoct "beer busters": one

can/bottle of commercial beer, one shot o' vodka, a spot of Tabasco:

viola! A beer buster! Looks nasty, tastes like beer, just a little hot.

Very soon after this, I started homebrewing. You draw the connection.

Perhaps explains why I want chilies away from my goddamned brewpot.  ;)

Matt Rowley

Dept of Anthropology

University of Kansas

rowley@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu

------------------------------


Alabama Laws

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 17:18:40 EDT

From: gjsparks@aol.com

Subject: Alabama Laws

Some comments and questions in the HBD concerning whether

xhomebrewing is legal in all 50 states prompted me to investigate

the situation here (to borrow a phrase) in the beer wastelands of

Alabama.  According to Mr. Charles Ball of the Alabama Beverage

Control Board Enforcement Office in Montgomery:  1)  Homebrewing

is strictly illegal in the state of Alabama.  2)  Transporting

any alcoholic beverage into AL (as a personal citizen, not a

distributor, obviously) is strictly illegal;  distributors must

comply

with all of AL's labelling and tax requirements.  3)

Distributors are prevented by law from importing any beer with

greater than 4% alcohol by weight (5% by volume).  4)  Commercial

breweries (microbreweries, brewpubs, et al.) must be built in an

historic building or historic district in which draft

beer was

sold prior to Prohibition (??).

My personal impression is that they don't really care about

enforcing the homebrew laws (unless one were to try and sell it

or some other obvious violation).  This was the extent of the

information I got in the short conversation I had with Mr. Ball;

I am also interested in what the federal regulations are, and how

they interact with the state laws.  If anyone

can provide me with

or direct me to this information, please e-mail me, or if it's

sufficiently interesting, post it here.  Maybe a compilation of

basic regulations for all 50 states could be created?  Thanks.

gjsparks@aol.com

------------------------------


How Bad is Bad Beer?

Date: 20 Oct 93 17:46:57 U

From: "conley" <conley@macgw1.crd.ge.com>

Subject: How Bad is Bad Beer?

Hi Home Brewers,

I have just started Home Brew'n. I haven't even tasted my first batch yet. I

have a couple of questions. (I apologize if they have already come up)

First, what kind of critters can invade a bad batch? What is the worst illness

that you have heard of from drinking 'bad beer'?  I followed all the cleaning

directions (B'Brite) and don't think any thing went wrong but just want to

know.

Second, what is a good McEwan's taste alike? I have had this beer and like it's

style.

Happy Brew'n

Doug.

Douglas J Conley.

GE Corporate Research & Development

conley@crd.ge.com

------------------------------


Stores

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1993 23:30:29 UTC+0100

From: "David S. Reher" <soso203@sis.ucm.es>

Subject: Stores

Can anyone give me addresses for Homebrewing stores in Europe that

serve mail orders? Thank You.

Antonio S. Reher.

Spain.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1253, 10/23/93

*************************************

-------


Wyeast 2308 Munich Unstable?

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 21:12:00 -0600

From: phil.brushaber@lunatic.metronet.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: Wyeast 2308 Munich Unstable?

This weekend I am going to brew a dopplebock (and hope for a taste

like Paulander Salvator). I went with Wyeast Bavarian Yeast, but

I was intreagued with Wyeast Munich.

Wyeast publishes the following description:

2308.  Munich Yeast from Wissenschaftliche in Munich #308.  One of the

first pure yeast available to American homebrewers.  Sometimes

unstable,

but smooth soft well rounded and full bodied.  Medium flocculation,

apparent attenuation 73-77%.  Optimum fermentation temperature:  50

deg.

F (10 deg. C).

Has anybody had experience with this yeast? What is so

unstable about this yeast? How does it manefest its instbility?

------------------------------


Malto-Dextrin Gravity Rating

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 07:40:00 BST

From: s.quarterman@genie.geis.com

Subject: Malto-Dextrin Gravity Rating

I was just wondering if anyone here might have an idea of the amount of

fermentables available when using the malto-dextrin extracts that are

available.  I would like to have a close approximation of the gravity

available from 1 lb in 1 gallon of water.

Also, what temperature would be good to make test solutions of extracts and

water?  I was thinking about dissolving some extracts but do not want to

boil the solution as I would not be guaranteed to be left with 1 gallon of

water.

TIA

Steve Quarterman >><< Portland, Or

 S.Quarterman@GEnie.geis.com

------------------------------


addendum to carboy-handle note - negative datum

Date: 19 Oct 93 01:58:53 MDT (Tue)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: addendum to carboy-handle note - negative datum

I got a followup note from the one person I mentioned in my carboy handle

article the other day who had a problem with the handles: He told me that

he was using the carboy handle on a 6-gallon (not 6.5 / 25 liter, as I'd

reported) and that it has a standard-diameter neck.  He saw some cracking/

crazing around the neck with the handle, so I'd say stay away from using

the handles for this size of carboy.  (It's not one I've encountered--

I've only used the 5-gallon water-cooler size and the 6.5 gallon sulfuric

acid style.)

And, as always, be careful with carboys.  Relax, don't worry...but PAY

ATTENTION.

 ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


name?/forced decoction

Date: 21 Oct 1993 01:41:36 U

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel_F_McConnell@mailgw.surg.med.umich.edu>

Subject: name?/forced decoction

                       Subject:                               Time:1:26 AM

  OFFICE MEMO          name?/forced decoction                 Date:10/21/93

Greetings:

The last batch of beer that I brewed I had intended to be lazy but I was

FORCED to do a decoction-this isn't a bad thing, but plans are plans,

anyway more on that later.  As I brought the mash up to saccharification

temp (67C in this case) I could TELL when I was almost there just by

looking at the mash. Suddenly if became very foamy and just looked

right.  I have noticed this in the past, but this time it hit

me....THERE MUST BE A NAME FOR THIS.  Surely the Germans had (have) a

name for it.  Any guesses?  Like maybe Saccharification with an umlaut or two?

The reason that I did a decoction is less clear.  I used Durst malt, a

high quality German Pilsner malt.  I had planned to mash in at protein

rest temp and then recirculate and bring the mash up to 67C by heating

the tun.  I mashed in at 50C and as I started to recirculate, nothing

but a trickle.  VERY milky looking.  Stirring helped, thinning helped,

but it would always slow and then stop.  OK, OK, OK, I'll decoct.  The

beautiful malt aroma that was produced during that step made me wonder

why I was tempted to do without.  As soon as the main mash came up to

67C, recirculation commenced and things went as expected, although an

hour later than desired.  Sparged wonderfully, no problems here.  This

is the second time I have used this malt and the second time I had this

problem which was solved the same way in both cases.  Since the first

was a Triple and the second was a deviant variation-on-a-Pilsner maybe

this is Gambrinis forcing me to do the right thing-decoct with

continental malt.  Comments?  Don't tell me to switch malts, I still

have most (65 lbs) of a 100 lb sack to go.

This COULD be a Motor-Corona problem although I have never had this

difficulty with Breiss malt. I'll use a Malt Mill in the next go to

eliminate that variable.  Perhaps adding a small percentage of Breiss to

establish a better filter bed or assist in conversion/protein breakdown

may help. Anyone else seen a stuck RIMS only at protein rest temp that

went away at saccharification temp?

DanMcC

------------------------------


Need Advice on Chimay Recipe

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 05:53:06 PDT

From: Jamie Ide  21-Oct-1993 0848 <ide@studio.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Need Advice on Chimay Recipe

    I'd like to brew an all-grain Chimay clone (Grande Reserve) and need

    some advice on the recipe.  Are there any new thoughts on this now that

    Belgian malts are available?  What should I use for the base malt?

    How does the Wyeast Belgian compare to cultured Chimay yeast?  Which am

    I better off using?

    Any help will be appreciated.

    Jamie Ide  ide@studio.enet.dec.com

------------------------------


Yeast Labs Products

Date: 21 Oct 93 14:03:51 GMT

From: GANDE@slims.attmail.com

Subject: Yeast Labs Products

I've recently started using Yeast Labs liquid cultures, as a

replacement for Wyeast.  I have yet to have a batch to sample and

was curious what the apparant attenuation of their yeasts was.  I

checked the FAQ at Stanford and there is no mention of it.  Anyone

know, or know where to get this info on the net?...

TIA...GA

+----------------------------------+

| Internet: gande@slims.attmail.com|

| Glenn Anderson                   |

| Manager, Telecom. Facilities     |

| Sun Life of Canada               |

+----------------------------------+

------------------------------


Beerhunting in Belgium: Part 3 (Liefmans and Oud Bruins)

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 08:56:33 -0400

From: "Phillip Seitz" <p00644@psilink.com>

Subject: Beerhunting in Belgium: Part 3 (Liefmans and Oud Bruins)

[NOTE: My apologies for the long time it has taken for these posts to

materialize; the problem is the long line of posts waiting for Digest

publication.  Having had too many Rocheforts myself, I'm not even sure

which chapters have been posted and which haven't, and apologise if any

of them appear twice.  We'll make sure they all get out.  I only hope it

will have been worth the wait.]

Beer Hunting in Belgium: Part 3 of 7

Liefmans Brewery and Oud Bruins

      (by Phil Seitz)

      Oudenaard is known for its brown beers, particularly its

oud bruins, which have a characteristic tartness.  Local brown

beer breweries include Liefmans, Roman, Claryisse and Cnudde.

The first three are featured in an annual brown beer festival

held in late June.

      The Liefmans Brewery is located just outside Oudenaarde in

a group of aged brick industrial buildings.  Liefmans was

purchased several years ago by the Riva brewing company, and has

seven on-site employees.

      A substantial part of the brewery is now being converted

into a beer museum and reception center.  The brewery is no

longer mashing or boiling wort; instead, wort is prepared at the

Riva Brewery in Dentergem and delivered, sterile, for

fermentation at Liefmans.  Liefmans' antiquated mash tuns and

kettles are being retained as part of the museum.

      Our initial expectation of lessening quality with

industrial ownership appeared to be unfounded.  Our guide, one of

the brewers, said that during the 1980s Liefmans had substantial

quality control problems, and that production had fallen from

30,000 hectoliters in 1980 to 8,000 hectoliters in 1990, which is

approximately when the change of ownership took place.

Production is now picking up (11,000 hectoliters annually) and

quality appears to have stabilized.  The tales we'd heard of

Madame Rose, who lovingly looked after the brewery, sounded like

myths as we heard stories of about what appeared to be a lack of

proper attention to operations.

      Other published information also appears to have been a bit

mythologised.  For instance, Liefmans boiled in room-size square

kettles for an overnight simmer.  These days the beer receives

the standard 1.5-2 hour boil.  This sounded like a concession to

modern times until we saw the kettles, which contained heating

elements so obviously inadequate that it quite likely took all

night just to get the wort to the boiling point.

      The one aspect where there has been a substantial change is

in the cooling.  Prior to Riva Liefmans used two large cool ships

for initial cooling, and during cooling diluted its high-gravity

wort with approximately 1 part water to three parts wort.  From

these cool ships the beer was then pumped over open-air cooling

columns (beudelots?) and into the open fermenters.  Nowadays the

sterile wort goes straight to the fermenters.  We thought that

exposure to beneficial micro-organisms might be sacrificed by

skipping these steps--affecting the trademark sourness of the

beers--but our guide felt the Liefmans' yeast strain was

sufficient to produced the desired flavor.  Tasting was believing

in this case and it appears that the new regime has not resulted

in any major sacrifices.

      The brewery makes two basic beers, one at 5% ABV and one at

6%, from which a variety of blended products are produced.  Both

worts are made entirely from pilsner and caramel malts, and each

is fermented with the same yeast in swimming-pool-sized open

fermenters.  We were there during the first day of fermentation,

and the quantities of foam and yeast running off were truly

impressive.  On day 3 yeast is skimmed and collected for reuse.

      The basic beers then go into steel secondary tanks.  The 5%

beer is run into fermenters loaded by hand with cherries or

raspberries--typically about 1 lb per gallon.  The beer sits on

the cherries for a year or more before being filtered, blended

with about 40% of the 6% beer, pasteurized, sweetened and force

carbonated for bottling.

      The 6% beer itself becomes Goudenband, which receives much

the same treatment but is not blended.  Another beer, Odnar, is

produced by diluting the 6% beer to about 4.5%.  This is sold

locally as a table beer, and presumably is sweetened also.

      We had a chance to taste the unblended beers directly from

the fermenters, and found the product at this stage to be rather

lambic-like in its tartness, though much cleaner overall.

Obviously there is a bacterial component to the yeast being used.

      Another change in recent years is that the Goudenband is no

longer aged before sale.  This is unfortunate, as the brewer

noted that at least six months of down time improves the product

substantially.  We asked why this would be, given that the beers

contain no residual yeast.  He said oxidation from exposure to

air in the head space adds an essential element to the mature

product.  He also said local consumers were aware of the change,

and laid their bottles down prior to consumption.  A taste of

fresh, on-tap Goudenband later on did seem to indicate that a

certain bite was missing.  The cellars shown on page 105 of

Jackson's NEW WORLD GUIDE still have bottle in them, but it is a

bad batch from 1987 that is being retained for purposes of the

beer museum.

      Throughout most of Europe Liefmans products are sold

wrapped in tissue paper.  We happened to be there on the day that

a large number of bottles were being wrapped--by hand.  The

workers' speed was impressive--between 2,000 and 3,000 bottles a

day--but frankly, between the wrapping work and the need to load

and evacuate the fruit from the fermenters by hand, this did not

seem to be a particularly attractive place to work.

      Because the brewery is small it does cater to special

orders and requests.  Liefmans sells beer in bottles up to

magnum-sized, but area residents can bring larger bottles and

leave them to be custom filled.  We saw a storage area with a

fair number of jereboams and larger bottles, each one tagged with

the name of the owner, awaiting pickup.

      Liefmans has an indoor taproom and outdoor terrace fronting

on a canal.  A glass of Goudenband and each of the fruit beers is

included in the tour price.  Their fruit products, always

formidable in my opinion, are truly divine when fresh on tap.

This is particularly true of the framboise (raspberry).

      Tours of the brewery are available by appointment, and cost

100 francs.  We were the only people on the tour.  Our guide

spoke English, and was obviously intimately familiar with the

brewing process, having worked at Liefmans as a brewer for

several years and also having received a degree in brewing

studies in Gent.  The telephone number is 055/31.13.91.

      Other local brown beers include Felix (produced by the

Claryisse brewery), which is similar to Goudenband, and brown ale

from Roman, which is similar in color and body to its neighbors'

products but is hoppier and not at all tart--rather a rich

version of a standard brown ale.

------------------------------


Re: beer drinks & drinks

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 09:16:45 -0400

From: paul@grammatech.com (Paul Anderson)

Subject: Re: beer drinks & drinks

All this talk of odd combinations of drinks reminds me of

a peculiar sounding combination a friend introduced me to

in England:  Guinness and port.  It sounds disgusting,

but tastes amazingly good.  I recall that the ratio was

one glass of port to one pint of draught Guinness.

Happy days,

Paul Anderson.

------------------------------


Re: spruce beer

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 09:45:47 EDT

From: pavao@ptsws1 (John D. Pavao)

Subject: Re: spruce beer

Dear Homebrewers,

     Thanks to those who responded both publicly in HBD and privately to my

question about spruce beer in digest #1249.  Based on the responses,

I plan to brew a batch using the recipe from TNCJOHB which is the one I was

thinking about trying anyway.  For my first attempt I'll use half an ounce of

spruce essence just to see how it goes.  I'll let you know how it comes

out and what kinds of responses I get by those trying it.

     Thanks again for your comments.

John

ptsws1.npt.nuwc.navy.mil

------------------------------


Re: barleywine yeast

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 7:57:37 MDT

From: Jason Goldman <jason@gibson.sde.hp.com>

Subject: Re: barleywine yeast

"Jeff M. Michalski, MD" <michalski_jm@rophys.wustl.edu> writes:

>

> Barlyewine is featured in the latest issue of zymurgy.

> The use of a yeast mixture has been suggested by some "experts"

> but the author of this article claims he has never used

> anything but ale yeast.

>

> Any comments from the HBD?  If a combination of ale and other

> yeast are used, should they be combined day one at pitching, or

> should the wine or champagne yeast be added after initial fermentation

> settles down?  If an ale yeast is considered hearty enough, which

> varieties are best?  If an ale yeast isn't enough, which wine or

> champagne yeasts are good quality additions?

Several of the people I know who make barleywine use 2 yeasts, including

the one whose recipe I started from for my first one (thanks Glenn).  I

start the fermentation with ale yeast and after it's started to slow a

little, I pitch champagne yeast.  I don't recall off the top of my head

which particular yeasts I used.

Jason

jason@gibson.sde.hp.com

------------------------------


layered beer

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 08:57:01 CDT

From: Fritz Keinert <keinert@iastate.edu>

Subject: layered beer

While we are on the subject of beer drinks: does anybody know how to

get two differently colored beers (like Guinness and Bass Ale) in two

layers in the same glass? We tried it once during a party, with no

success.

- ---

Fritz Keinert                             phone:  (515) 294-5223

Department of Mathematics                 fax:    (515) 294-5454

Iowa State University                     e-mail: keinert@iastate.edu

Ames, IA 50011

------------------------------


Clean it up?

Date: 21 Oct 93 15:04:55 GMT

From: GANDE@slims.attmail.com

Subject: Clean it up?

It seems some may take offense to contents of taglines containing

words like "fake", "orgasm" and "basketball", such as Chris's

comments yesterday. Personally, I find these words, when used in the

context that they were to be quite amusing, and after all women have

the right to fake an orgasm too. On the other hand, IMO any game that

you get to more than 100 points in, like basketball, has something

wrong with the rules.

I pay to read the HBD each day and find many things 'offensive' in

it, such as pages and pages of yesterday's quotes with one line

responses, rhetorical discussions with little or no outcome, battles

of ego's, etc.  I don't complain because this is the culture and I

understand. I am a homebrewer, relaxed and tolerant with a sense of

humour. Lighten up, eh.

 ....Glenn Anderson

+----------------------------------+

| Internet: gande@slims.attmail.com|

| Glenn Anderson                   |

| Manager, Telecom. Facilities     |

| Sun Life of Canada               |

+----------------------------------+

------------------------------


Plans for Grain Mill

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 09:17:55 -0500 (CDT)

From: Steve Seaney <seaney@ie.engr.wisc.edu>

Subject: Plans for Grain Mill

Hello,

The other day I saw one of Jack Schmedling's  (sp?) grain mills at a

brew store.  It doesn't appear to be that hard to make.  The cost

seems extremely high.

Has anyone out there ever made a roller mill?  Do you have any plans

handy?

Thanks,

Steve

- --

Steve Seaney: 608/265-3954: seaney@engr.wisc.edu

------------------------------


Benjamin Machine Products address

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 07:25:37 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Benjamin Machine Products address

Here is BMP address FYI.......

Benjamin Machine Products

1121 Doker unit #7

Modesto, Calif. 95351

Fax number 209-523-8874

I believe the last I heard the price of the CP filler was $55. Yep Micah is

the designer of this CP filler, I use one and highly recommend it!

I spoke with Micah earlier this week and ask him how things were going at

the brewery? He said they are selling all the beer they make and are in the

process of expansion. He is a one man show at Murphy's Creek brewery. I

personally haven't had much chance to taste any of their beers, they are not

widely distributed here in the bay area. They seem to find a market in the

gold country large enough to sell most all their beer they make. I plan on

going up and brewing with Micah one of these days and will report back. I

told him I would _not_ clean out any mash tuns!

Bob

------------------------------


Re: Beer Nuts (Matthew Rowley)

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 09:27:35 -0500 (UTC -05:00)

From: ROWLEY@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Re: Beer Nuts (Matthew Rowley)

Paul asks about brewing with nuts (not bold brewing-proper nuts). You've

read my mind, brother. That same question was why I logged on this morning.

I had an idead to throw some roasted almonds in a batch, but refrained

because I've seen all kinds of wierd business go into beers, but never

nuts; I've never seen any recipes for it, either.

 I suspect that the oils in nuts would absolutely kill any head,

though (comparable to doing the nose grease trick to your entire run).

If'n anyone can offer advice otherwise, I'd love to be shown wrong.

Matthew

------------------------------


infected brew and head

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 09:39:24 -0500 (CDT)

From: tomt@nano.sps.mot.com (Tom Tomazin)

Subject: infected brew and head

A couple weekends ago I brewed up 2 batches, a red bitter and an octoberfest.

Last weekend, I racked both into secondaries.  Well, I was a little lax

in my sanitation, and I think the octoberfest is infected.  A day

after racking, the red bitter developed a nice "mini" krausen, while the

octoberfest had none, although it was bubbling frequently.  I let both

go for a couple days, and yesterday I decided to try I revive the

octoberfest.  I gave the carboy several good shakes, and while it developed

some "froth", it quickly dissipated.  Aerating the same batch in the

primary produced a dense head that lingered.  By the way, I used Wyeast

European Ale yeast (in 2 sixteen oz starters) for both batches.

I decided to taste the octoberfest to see if it was sour, and it was (a little)

but didn't really taste too bad.  So I think I have learned two important

lessons here:

1.  Sanitize everything carefully (dah)

2.  The problems that a lot of people have with carbonation and head retention

(including myself) may be related to infections that don't completely foul

the beer, but just add off flavors.  In fact, if I didn't think that this

beer was infected, I might not have even noticed (if it was bottled and

chilled), although I would have noticed the poor head retention.

But why does an infection kill head?  And what can I do with this 5 gallon

batch of infected brew?

Thanks,

Tom

- --

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thomas Tomazin                              Parallel Scalable Processor Design

MOTOROLA SPS, Inc.                          (512) 505-8124

505 Barton Springs Rd. Suite 1055           Austin, Texas 78762

------------------------------


Holiday Ale anyone?

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 08:42:30 -0600 (MDT)

From: EZIMMERM@UWYO.EDU

Subject: Holiday Ale anyone?

Salutations!

   My homebrew club, the famous Snowy Range Foamentors, is going to

have a local homebrewing contest. The beer of the month for December, the

month of the contest, is Holiday Ale. I'm wondering if anyone out

on the Net has any really good extract ale recipes they think might be

good? I'm always preaching the values of a well read HomeBrew Digest to them,

but most of them think they can live with out the wealth of information

available here. Well, I'm going to tap this source and try to win

the contest. Any suggestions?

Gene in Laramie

------------------------------


Brewing with nuts

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 11:26:35 EST

From: Dave Lame <dlame99@prog.c4.gmeds.com>

Subject: Brewing with nuts

Paul Selkirk asks -

"The other day, while roasting some hickory nuts from my neighbor's tree, I got

to wondering if anyone ever brewed with nuts."

I will answer - sort of.

     I make mead, and I'm also a member of the Society for Creative

Anachronism, a medieval recreation group.  I was reading a book called "The

Sacred Bee", all about the history and folklore of bees, mead and honey.  It

had a quote from an eighth century Irish manuscript in which there was a

reference to mead made from "honey of the bee and milk of the hazel".  There

were also references in other places to "hazel milk".  The author went on to

explain that immature hazel nuts had a thin white liquid in them, and that

these eighth century lads would gather the immature hazel nuts and use this

little liquid to add to their mead.

    They would do this because the hazel was a sacred plant which, like honey,

would give eloquence and insight to the imbiber.  So, mead and hazel together

was sure to be a magical drink.

    I couldn't picture people running around finding unripe hazel nuts and

getting a few drops of liquid from each one.  Their old magic was a bit more

practical than that.  Being strongly inclined to recreate something from eighth

century Ireland, which was only 100 years or so later than my own adopted time

period for recreation, I decided to experiment.  Instead of using "hazel milk"

from immature hazel nuts, which would be rather difficult to find and process,

I just decided to throw in some nuts.

    I crushed up the nuts, and I always boil some honey and water together to

put into the primary.  I boiled the honey and water, and poured it over crushed

hazel nuts.  Lo and behold, the boiling water pouring over the nuts released a

lot of oil in them, and it formed a suspension in the top of the primary.  The

result was a milky-white liquid.  This, I realized, was the real "hazel milk"

to which the Irish were referring.

     I have no doubt that this hazel milk made the Irish mead better, and I'm

sure that they attributed this to the magical property of the hazel.  I suspect

that another factor may have been at work.  Their quality control wasn't the

best, and I'm sure that they made many a bad batch, polluted by lots of the

sulfur compounds that produce awful smells.  These sulfur compounds are soluble

in oil much more so than in water.  By adding the "magical" nuts, and skimming

off the oil, they got rid of the sulfur compounds, making the mead taste better.

    Enough history, you might be wondering how well it worked.  I've had mixed

reviews.  There are a couple of problems with using nuts.  First, there is the

flavor of the nuts themselves.  It is very strong and somewhat "woody" in the

final mead.  Not very many people associate this with wines, and a lot of

people just plain don't like it.  Some do like it, but many don't.  I suspect

that it might be somewhat more popular in a beer, especially a darker, heavier,

beer.  Second, there is the oil.  Most beer and wine is made with water and

sugar, adding a fair quantity of fat in there requires special caution.

    I've made two batches so far.  In the first batch, although the mead looked

clear, I actually ended up with floating patches of oil in the glass.  The

residual oil had gotten together and floated to the top after a few months in

the bottles.  In the second batch, I used finings, twice.  I racked it an extra

time, being very sure not to mix it up in transport, so that all the oil would

be on top.  I made sure the siphon was well below the top so that the oil would

not come with the mead.  It worked fairly well.  There was no oil left in my

second batch, although it was not as clear as some of my other efforts.

     One thing you should definitely do, in my opinion, is to use the "hazel

milk", or milk of whatever nut you use, rather than using the whole nut.  I did

that with my second batch, and it was much easier to handle, with no noticeable

change in the nut flavor.  Grind up the nuts and pour boiling water over them,

and use the liquid that forms.  I don't know what is a good amount.  I used two

pounds of nuts for a gallon of mead, but that was just a guess.  I wouldn't use

any more, and next batch I'll probably use less.

    I submitted it for judging.  The judges recommended using oak chips in the

next batch, and they also recommended a long aging period, to let the flavor

mellow somewhat.  The mead was also dry, and they recommended making it

sweeter.  Some experiments mixing sugar into it confirmed this was probably a

very good idea, as the bouquet and flavor were both improved.

    All things considered, mead and nuts were an ok idea, and I intend to do it

some more, but it is definitely a specialty drink.  You will find a few people

who really like it, and a lot of people who would really rather have a nice

amber ale.

    Since I intend to try this some more, I would like to know if anyone else

has used nuts, and how well it worked.  I haven't seen any other references to

nuts in brewing in books written since the eighth century.

------------------------------


Aerating wort

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 08:51:31 PDT

From: todd@ted.hac.com (Todd Thompson)

Subject: Aerating wort

I'm a new brewer and have been reading homebrew digest for a couple of

months. My question has to do with aeration of the freshly pitched wort.

I've made two batches over the last few weeks while reading Papazian and

Miller's books on the subject of homebrewing. Only then did I realize that

I had done no where near the amount of shaking/stirring and bubbling they

suggest. By this time my fermentations had stopped (after only 3 days).

I took off the airlock and replaced it with a stopper and proceeded to shake

and swish the wort (now beer?) around for a few minutes. Immediately the

beer started fermenting again and fermented very slowly for the next couple

of days. Now the questions:

1) Was it a mistake to aerate once fermentation had stopped? (I would

   rather not drink wet cardboard flavored beer!) Have I oxygenated too

   late in the process?

2) How much aeration is necessary? Shaking a five-gallon fermenter even

   for a few minutes can be hard on the back. Besides, some wort always

   spills from around the edges of the lid while shaking. Is it really

   necessary to shake the fermenter for 5 minutes every hour or two for

   the first day? (Sorry I don't have the exact recommendations with me.

   It seemed like alot of shaking to me, though.)

3) Is there a better way to aerate than shaking or the aquarium pump/air

   stone method? It seems like an air stone for aquariums would be

   difficult to sanitize.

Great discussion group! This is my only source of info other than books.

Thanks for your responses in advance :-)!

Todd

toddthom@hac2arpa.hac.com

------------------------------


Polyethylene Mashout

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 10:50 CDT

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Polyethylene Mashout

 >From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

 >I just bought a thick-wall polyethylene hose to run from my lauter tun to my

 boiler.  The hose I use now is a thin-wall vinyl hose which has a tendency to

 collapse when the hot liquor is flowing through it.  Any experience with this

 PE hose?  It is quite stiff, compared to the vinyl, translucent (similar to

 the vinyl after coming in contact with boiling wort), and has almost a waxy

 feel to it.  Also, it is rated for a fair amount of pressure, but says nothing

 about temperature.  Use it or lose it?

 I am using Low Density Polyethylene tubing for transferring wort.  It is FDA

 approved and has a temp range of -70 to 120F and it handles sweet wort temp

 just fine.  It softens up just enough to feel good.  I have a short piece of

 copper tubing on the kettle end that goes to the bottom of the kettle to

 avoid HSA for what ever that is worth.  I also have a ball valve above the

 kettle so I can control the flow rate down there.

 I started out with 1/8" i.d. but the flow rate was too slow so I now use

 1/4".  Not sure what you mean by thick-wall but this is 3/8" o.d. on the 1/4"

 i.d. tubing.

 >From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

 >Over time, we incorporate new techniques into our brewing

 methodology when convinced of the new technique's merit.  I'm

 proposing the same action only in the opposite direction in that

 techniques can be eliminated when deemed unnecessary.  Such is the

 case with mashouts.

 Finally had to get serious and spoil the  fun, didn't you?

 That's tough to argue with, Chris and in the spirit of pioneering, I will

 (might) give it a whirl on my next batch.  The only excuse I have left is

 that the mash cools off very rapidlly in a steel kettle compared to an

 insulated cooler and you might want to offer me a special dispensation.

 js

------------------------------


Beer Drinks, Fruit Beers and Spruce Beers

Date:    Thu, 21 Oct 1993 16:04:11 GMT

From: COOK@CDHF2.GSFC.NASA.GOV (Chris Cook)

Subject: Beer Drinks, Fruit Beers and Spruce Beers

Beer drinks

- -----------

A couple of years ago my wife and I went out Polka dancing with another

couple that had recently returned from Germany.  In between dances we were

dringing from pitchers of Dortmunder Union and Coke.  Without prior

provocation, the husband mixed the two in his glass, calling it a 'Diesel'.

A what? we asked.

Diesel, he said, shrugging, that's what they call it in Germany.

Anything with a name that bad has to be tried.  It wasn't bad.

Fruit Beers

- -----------

I was making wines for years before starting beers, and fruit wines are

easier and quicker than grape wines.  It was simple extract stuff - dump in

a can or two of concentrate with corn sugar, sterilize using camden

tablets, balance the acid and, a day later, pitch dry yeast.

My first attempt to combine canned fruit must ['must' is the wine version

of wort] with beer was a cherry stout.  It was based loosely on Papazian's

recipe, with one 48 oz can of cherry wine concentrate added during the

boil.  Unfortunately, I think I was having a bad sanitation day - the beer

had metallic overtones that spoiled the flavor.  Or maybe boiling the

cherry concentrate was the mistake?

My second attempt was a light raspberry mead, which was fabulous.  It was a

lower-gravity sparkling mead, with one 48 oz can of raspberry must

concentrate and 7.5 pounds of honey for 5 gallons.  Everything was added at

the start of fermentation and I used camden tablets to sanitize, rather

than boiling.  I drank the last bottle years ago, but I remember it being

sparklingly clear, dry with a very pleasant raspberry nose, a subtle

flavor and a very nice reddish color.

Anyone else try using canned fruit must?

Spruce Beer

- -----------

In HBD1251, John (The Coyote) Wyllie <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu> talks about spruce

beer disasters. I've mentioned by love for a good spruce beer before in the

Digest, and with a recent batch I have another datapoint.

I've made variations of Papazian's Goat Scrotum Ale every year, including

spruce most of the time.  While they've all been different, they were all

generally rich, very full-bodied and dark beers, and the spruce just worked

well for me.  Until last year.

My procedure before that was to add a bottle (2 oz?) of spruce essence

with the extracts at the start of the boil.  The kitchen would smell

strongly (and nicely, I thought) all during the boil, and the resulting

spruce flavor was nice without being overpowering.

John mentioned using 6 oz of essence.  I don't know the brand, but that

sounds like a whole lot of essence.

Since I went all-grain, I started getting fancy ideas, and I thought that

maybe I shouldn't be boiling off all those aromatics in the spruce essence.

So for the next batch I added about the bottle at the end of the boil.  All

I can say is that it looked good on paper; the beer was undrinkable, with

strong, raw, somewhat chemical flavors.

I tried again this year with a dark spruce beer that I just got around to

kegging.  This time I made a light-bodied, dry stout with spruce added at

the beginning of the boil.  The spruce flavor is back where I wanted it,

without the harsh overtones.  Unfortunately, I find I don't care for the

flavor in a dry, light-bodied beer, or at least *that* dry, light-bodied

beer.  This fall I'm back to old crankcase 'n spruce.

Chris Cook

cook@cdhf2.gsfc.nasa.gov

------------------------------


uk pubbing

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 11:07:02 -0500 (CDT)

From: BadAssAstronomer <STOREY@fender.msfc.nasa.gov>

Subject: uk pubbing

>Well I'm back from 3 weeks of pub hoppin in England, Wales and Scotland. I

>got to tour 4 brewerys, Young's, Sam Smith's, Calandonion and Traquir House

>(it was under reconstruction). The brewerys were all very nice and seemed to

>bend the rules more than a bit when I mentioned I was a brewer from the

>states. I came back with 4 yeast samples and am looking forward to brewing

>some real ales. A few thoughts on things I was surprised about in the UK.

    You are a dog! :) I practically begged to tour Young's but to no

    avail. I got to see (from the outside anyway) quite a few

    breweries. It's almost hard not to there are so many around.

>* I expected cellar temp beer and low carbonation. The real ales are cellar

>temp (55 deg f) and DEAD flat. The ales may have a head if pulled via a

>sparkler on the beer engines.

    This is true. Almost every beer was cool enough to condensate the

    glass a bit. No head or very little each time.

>* All the beers were extremely small gravity compared to our beers here in

>the states.

    I wouldn't say that this is true of my experience. Although, most

    were of low gravity. I remember one though from Gibbs Mew called

    Bishop's Tipple, that was definitely strong. I had a couple of

    pints and felt just fine.

>* An Imperial pint was about $2.25.

    I was paying about 1.80lb (~$3.25 then) so you got a bargain.

>* The Brits are very fussy about both clarity and a good pour. The fill

>damn well better be to the top and they don't want any haze. All the beers

>were extremely clear. I expected some floaters, I say NONE.

    They were very fussy about their cask served stuff as well. I

    visited one pub and got a cask served Young's Winter Warmer and it

    tasted awful. I had one 2 days prior at the same pub that was

    wonderful. So, I mentioned this to the barkeep, and he quickly

    apologized, covered the cask (mentioning to the others that "it

    was off"), and poured another pint of Young's Porter for me. I was

    more than a little suprised that he just took my word for it.

    All in all, I had a great trip (back in March) and hope to return

    as soon as I save enough money. I would recommend that experience

    to anybody.

    scott

------------------------------


amylase confusion

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 09:48:45 -0700 (PDT)

From: Jeremy Ballard Bergsman <jeremybb@leland.Stanford.EDU>

Subject: amylase confusion

I believe that the confusion over the denaturation temperatures of amylase

enzyme results from the fact that barley alpha amylase and the purified

amylase sold by homebrew shop is a different enzyme, the latter comming

from a fungus (aspergillus?), and originally for use in brewing (?) sake.

There are many sources of enzymes that break down starch (can you say

salivary amylase?), the fungal one is probably the cheapest.  All of these

enzymes will have different optimal conditions and denaturations temps.

The enzyme I use for experimental mini-mashes is called Koji and the

manufacturer gives 122F as the optimal temp., consistant with 130 or so

as the denaturation temp.

Jeremy Bergsman

------------------------------


Hot Priming/Keg Request

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 09:48:03 PDT

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Hot Priming/Keg Request

>>>>> On Tue, 19 Oct 93 09:18:43 PDT,

 DJM1%CRPTech%DCPP@cts27.comp.pge.com said:

Dan> Does anyone out there on the HBD know where to obtain old (or

Dan> new, for that matter) 15 gal kegs....Searches of local Recycling

Dan> places are a no-go (yeah, I could actually buy some of that

Dan> massed-produced swill and keep the keg for the deposit).

Dan> TIA-----You can E-Mail me direct.

Well, it is possible to call around to beer suppliers (retail) and see

if they will be willing to let you pay the deposit and walk out with

an empty keg.  I did this with 4 kegs.  No problem.   Before I did, I

called the wholesale distributor and asked "If I do this, will the

retailer get in trouble?"  The reply was, "No, but someone up the line

will eventually have to pay the $150 value of the keg.  You know that

even though you pay $12 deposit, the kegs are not that cheap and

someone will eventually have to replace them."

I mailed off for some information on a RIMS system from SABCO

Save-a-Barrel and got literature about the kegs which they have

available.  They take commercial used kegs which have been proven

unfit to hold pressure, recondition them, cut out the top and install

a nipple and valve.  They sell from $65 to $150 depending on what

options you get done ($150 gets you the keg, a stainless ball valve

and a stainless thermometer well).  They also have lauter tun screens

available for the kegs.  (I am making the assumption that you want this

for a kettle, not for kegging).

They included a page describing that paying a deposit on a keg and

then taking it away forever is a crime and that some breweries are

taking individuals to court and winning suits (civil) against them for

doing this.  No mention was made of how often compared to the number

of people who actually do this.  Of course, their tactic is to scare

you into buying their product.

If anyone wants to contact them, I can look up the number, or they

advertise in Zymurgy and Brewing Techniques, the ad for the RIMS

system which is microprocessor controlled ( and BTW runs $3000 for the

complete system ).

Dion Hollenbeck (619)455-5590x2814     Email: hollen@megatek.com

Senior Software Engineer                      megatek!hollen@uunet.uu.net

Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California    ucsd!megatek!hollen

------------------------------


re: [beer drinks, the Kansas version....

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 13:30:57 EDT

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: re: [beer drinks, the Kansas version....

Return-Path: <Phyllis=Gunn%FICPO%MASC@vines.erl.gov>


Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 14:01:48 MDT

Subject: re: [beer drinks, the Kansas version....

Coors ain't no beer so how can it qualify as a beer mix!  Now that my

feelings about Coors are known...The day Secretariat won the derby I was

introduced to Bo-Peeps...1/2 Strohs (almost as bad) and 1/2 red wine!

An old Kentucky receipe that works all too well!  Don't recommend it for

anyone over 21.

------------------------------


Low-temp Bottle Conditioning Query

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 14:05:43 -0400 (EDT)

From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

Subject: Low-temp Bottle Conditioning Query

 A friend without access to the net asked me to pass on the

following question.  He doing a real lager for the first time, has

fermented at low temp, bottled, and is now letting the beer condition at

around 45F.  At this temperature, how long can he expect it to take before

the beer is carbonated?  He opened one after 1-2 weeks (yes, that is very

early) and it was flat. Another problem he encountered: when fermenting at

low temp, how does one reliably determine that fermentation is over (i.e.

when fermentation is so slow, how do you decide that it has stopped?).  He

didn't like my answers to these questions: Get kegs so you don't have to

bottle condition, and brew ales so you don't have to wait so long.

      Thanks.

      Dave Rose.

------------------------------


Pubs in Phoenix

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 14:33:21 EDT

From: umehara@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL (M. Umehara)

Subject: Pubs in Phoenix

 I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for

pubs/brewpubs in Phonenix?  Thanks in advance,

Mike

umehara@nadc.nadc.navy.mil

------------------------------


Going all-grain

Date: 21 Oct 93 10:37 CST

From: Wolfe@act-12-po.act.org

Subject: Going all-grain

     I'm ready to start all-grain brewing, and I would like some advice.

     First, I am considering mashing on a burner rather than using a

cooler for a mash tun.  Is the primary reason for using the cooler rather

than a burner the reduced investment in time and money?  I guess I want to

know how much of a hassle is it to mash on the stove as opposed to mashing

in a cooler and if there are any differences in the quality of the brew.

     Second, because I want to mash on the stove I need to invest in a

larger brew kettle.  So far, I've only done high density extract &

partial mash brewing so I've gotten by with only a 2.5 gallon kettle.  I've

found a medium-duty 7.5 gallon SS kettle with a lid and a spigot for about

$100.  I am toying with the idea of moving on to 10 gallon batches in the

future.  Is the kettle described here a worthwhile investment, and could I

still use it to mash grains for a 10 gallon batch of brew?

     Third, I read a comment a while back about trying to get a 5 gallon

batch of all-grain brew into a 5 gallon carboy.  I have three five gallon

carboys (They were cheap!  $7 at a local used stuff store.).  Will I have a

problem using these for my all-grain batches?  When I started doing partial

mashes I got a lot more blowoff in the primary.  Will the blowoff in a 5

gallon carboy be unmanagable with an all-grain batch.  I've been using a

stopper and a racking can as my blowoff valve, but have heard a number of

people report using a 1" pipe attached to the top of the carboy.  Any

insights?

     Finally, I have Miller's and Papazian's books.  Can anyone suggest a

good next book for someone who brews mostly ales that is getting into

serious all-grain brewing (e.g., Foster's _Pale Ale_)?

Ed Wolfe

WOLFE@ACT-12-PO.ACT.ORG

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1254, 10/25/93

*************************************

-------


Late Kettle Hop Additions

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 13:29:18 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Late Kettle Hop Additions

I've been thinking recently about hop additions (all this Hops FAQ stuff has

forced me to think about some of this stuff).  I just realized that there is an

inherent advantage to immersion chillers (my old method) over counter-flow

chillers (my current method).  Yes, the immersion chiller leaves the cold break

in the kettle but it does something else that I have not seen discussed in this

forum.

The immersion chiller cools the wort and hops fairly quickly from 100C to

around 50C (maybe 10 minutes).  The late kettle additions are boiled for a

short time (1-10 minutes) and then within 10 more minutes they are at a

relatively low temperature (50C).  Granted, getting the wort down the final

20C to pitching temperature is pretty slow but the volatile hop compounds

which you are trying to retain with late additions are less reactive between

20C and 50C than they are at 100C.

With the counter-flow chiller the wort and hops remain near 100C the entire

time the wort is being chilled.  From experience I know the kettle is still

extremely hot 20 minutes after turning off the flame.  I would bet that

finishing hops act more like flavoring hops and that flavoring hops act more

like bittering hops with a counter-flow.  Can anyone verify these assumptions?

Do you know of any commercial brewers who use immersion chillers (they clearly

have _some_ advantages)?  Probably not since immersion chillers are less

efficient and I know of few commercial brewers (even micros) who care a lot

about hop aroma.

I may alter my procedure a little bit to compensate for this.  I haven't yet

decided how.  Suggestions?

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


Yeast nutrients/pitching

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 12:34:58 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Yeast nutrients/pitching

Thanks to Jim *Busch* and Daniel F. McConnell on giving some definitive

and consistent numbers concerning optimal pitching rates, ales at

5-10x10**6 cells/ml, and lagers at 10-15x10**6 cells/ml or more.  One thing

that confused me at first and perhaps others was the fact that pitching

rate is defined by the resultant cell density in the batch after pitching.

So what at first may seem to be wildly different numbers between Jim and

Dan's posts are actually the same numbers.

My goal in starting this enquiry was to somehow get my pitching rate into an

acceptable range while NOT being forced to pitch a half gallon or more of

some other wort into a carefully designed recipe.  Remember a half gallon is

10% of a 5 gallon batch and such a volume will affect your results.  I would

like to do an adequate pitch in about a pint of starter.  Also, I wanted

to avoid having to save and pitch yeast slurry from previous batches (Hey,

I want it all).

Generally, I pitch a pint starter (very seriously underpitching) and if I

can get 10 times the pitching rate by using a little YNB (provided the yeast

characteristics remain stable) I figure it's worth it.

If one is not reusing slurry but using a starter what's involved in getting

an adequate lager pitch of 10-15x10**6 cells/ml in a 5 gallon batch?

>Dan asked:

>

> What kind of lag time did he get?  I'll bet it was on the order of 10-12

> hours, not bad, but greater than optimum.

With Wyeast Chico Ale strain he got just what Dan expected, 10-12 hrs.

However, with Wyeast London Ale strain he got a 3 hour lag.

Speaking of lag time, how exactly are we determining the end of lag time?

For my own purposes I have defined the EOLT as 2 bubbles/minute from my

airlock, but this may be misleading in either direction.  Jim?  Dan? fg

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Liquid yeast/Alpha Acid loss/extract OG calculations

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 14:03 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Liquid yeast/Alpha Acid loss/extract OG calculations

Jerome writes:

>I usually ferment my wort with dry yeast, usually with good and reliable

>results.  Periodically, I will use WYeast, particularly when I intend to make

 <edited>

>pale ale on Saturday morning.  I had gotten a WYeast American Ale packet, and

>burst the inner packet on Thursday evening.  Sure enough, by noon on Saturday

>it was nice and puffy.  My 1043 wort was at 70F, and all was well with the

>world.  So, I sanitize the yeast package in bleach water, rinse it off,

>cut it open, drop liquid into the wort, cap it and swirl it up.  I then

>wait for fermentation to begin, but lo! nothing happens and keeps on not

>happening until Monday morning.

Many dry yeast users have reported problems like this when switching to

liquid yeasts.  There are two factors, both which affect lag time, that

are significantly different between dry and liquid yeasts: 1) aeration and

2) cell count.  1. Before drying, the yeast destined for the drier are given

lots and lots of oxygen, so that after rehydration, even if there is a

shortage of oxygen in your wort, the dry yeast cope with this dilemma better.

2. There are many orders of magnitude more yeast in 7gms of dry yeast than

in 1.75 floz of liquid yeast.  You can get by without a starter, but your

luck diminishes as the yeast package gets older since the %viable goes down.

A starter is recommended, but not manditory, for liquid yeast.  I've had

good success with pitching right from the Wyeast package, but I was prepared

for a 48- to 72-hour lag time.  It's a real test of your sanitation!  More

recently (in the last 2-3 years), I've been using starters and get lag times

as short as 12 hours, but sometimes it still takes 24 hours even with a starter.

>Should I just admit abject failure and use dry yeasts exclusively?  By

>extension, will I make a beer with "666" tatooed on its forehead if I reuse

>the slurry from a batch fermented with dry yeast?

Recent data suggests that the bacterial and wild yeast counts of dry yeasts

have gone down considerably from 5 years ago.  Dry yeasts that I've had

success with are Nottingham and Coopers and have heard other brewer's (who's

opinions I highly respect) have success with the new strain of Red Star Ale,

Windsor and Pasteur Champagne.  I don't think you should fear repitching

from dry yeast slurry, but as always, be careful.

*************************

t writes:

>Glen Anderson asks:

>

>>Would anyone know what percent of Alpha Acid has been lost in the

>>1992 crop, assuming they were stored under optimum conditions? I just

>>purchased about a pound and would like to adjust my recipes.

There are a great many factors that affect AA loss: temperature, oxygen,

packaging material, hop variety and type (pellets, plugs, whole).

Assuming optimum conditions (freezer temperatures, N2- or CO2-purged

packaging, oxygen-barrier packaging), I would say that perhaps 95% or

more AA would be retained.  However, optimal conditions are rarely

kept and retailers have only recently started to use oxygen-barrier

packaging, but virtually no one purges their packages with inert gasses.

Note that HDPE, the most common plastic used for packaging, is not

oxygen-barrier.  A good rule of thumb is "if you can smell the hops,

it's not oxygen-barrier packaging."

Regarding hop variety variations, here's a bit of data (thanks to Ralph^2

at Hopunion, USA):

variety                storagabilty

               (% of AA remaining

               after 6 months storage

               at 20 degrees C)

CASCADE                 48-52

CENTENNIAL              60-65

CHINOOK                 65-70

CLUSTER                 80-85

CRYSTAL                 unavailable

EROICA                  55-65

FUGGLE                  60-65

GALENA                  75-80

HALLERTAUER             52-58

HERSBRUCKER (US)        55-65

HERSBRUCKER (HALLERTAU) 55-65

LIBERTY                 35-55

MOUNT HOOD              50-60

NORTHERN BREWER (DOMSTC)70-85

NORTHERN BREWER (HALLRT)70-80

NUGGET                  70-80

PERLE                   80-85

SAAZ (CZECH)            45-55

SPALT (US)              45-55

SPALT (GERMAN)          50-60

STRISSELSPALT           60-70

TETTNANGER (US)         55-60

TETTNANGER (GERMAN)     55-60

WILLAMETTE              60-65

Note that 20C is about 68F, so we're talking about room temperature.

Don't forget that this is just a measure of Alpha Acid retention and

not the essential oils.  The highly volatile aromatics of hops are much

more fragile.  My experience with the CO2-purged, 3mil Oxygen-harrier

packaging I use, has shown that this method of storage (even at 40F)

tends to retain the wonderful hop aromatics, whereas my old method

of storage, Saran Wrap (tm) and foil in the freezer doesn't work as

well.  Also, regarding the type, pellets tend to retain more of everything

(AA and aromatics) than plugs, which retain more of everything than whole.

It's all a matter of exposed surface area.

>If I understand things right, essentially zero.  No adjustments should be

>necessary.  Mark Garetz (our local Hop Expert) may wish to comment.

I would really rather that people not reinforce Mark's self-proclaimed

expertise -- what I posted before is really true:  Mark Garetz only started

brewing about two years ago.  I've been brewing for over 8 years and reading

about brewing even longer and continue to discourage people from calling me

an "expert."  Perhaps in 30 more years.  I've experienced a lot over the

years and read a lot too and have found tons of inconsistency in brewing

literature.  No one can become a brewing expert from a book -- there's too

much conflicting data out there!

***********************************

Mike writes:

>My equation is OG = 1 + #pounds of stuff / #gallons of wort * .042 for

>dry extract, and

>

> OG = 1 + #pounds of stuff / #gallons of wort * .036

>

>for liquid extract.

I've found that various brands of DME are more consistently in the 42 points

range, but that syrups vary from 35 points to almost 40 (for Northwestern).

Also, crystal malts give me extracts in the mid to high 20's, but note that

tbe Belgian and English crystal malts are 2-row, whereas domestic are 6-row

and give quite a bit less extract.  I have some limited data on roasted malts

but have yet to extract (no pun intended) useful data out of them.  Perhaps

I can get a copy of the Karamarkar algorithm ;^).

Al.

------------------------------


Bulk vs. bottle lagering

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 15:51:26 -0400 (EDT)

From: "PETER JUST, ANTHROPOLOGY, WILLIAMS COLLEGE" <Peter.Just@williams.edu>

Subject: Bulk vs. bottle lagering

With the onset of cooler weather I'm beginning to contemplate brewing

lager for the first time.  My guides to this point have been books by

Byron Burch and Dave Miller.  Burch seems to favor lagering in bulk,

Miller seems to think it's alright to do it after priming and bottling.

Is there a consensus on the advantages and disadvantages of the two

methods?

Peter Just  internet: peter.just@williams.edu

------------------------------


nuts in brew

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 14:51:23 CDT

From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>

Subject: nuts in brew

Paul Selkirk asked:


beer nuts?

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 16:10:22 -0400

From: paul@ftp.com  (Paul Selkirk)

Subject: beer nuts?

The other day, while roasting some hickory nuts from my neighbor's

tree, I got to wondering if anyone ever brewed with nuts.

Would you mash the nuts (lots of starch in there), or "dry-nut" a

more conventional beer?

What kind of nuts would be good?  The walnut/pecan/hickory family all

taste like they've got a lot of tannins, so they might not be

appropriate.  Maybe almonds, filberts, brazil nuts... (I can see it

now - Rainforest Crunch Beer!)

I've been reading the HBD since the beginning of the year, plus most

of last year's back issues, and I've seen some...unusual...ideas, but

I don't recall anything of this sort.  What say ye?

    paul

Well I have tried using nuts before in a homebrew, and in my case the

results weren'r worth it.  In the first place, I was using black

walnuts, which are probably one of the hardest nuts to shell.  I mashed

them in (approx 4-6 ounces) with some DMS (diastatic malt syrup) and

proceeded to incorporate the mixture into a sweet stout, which I think

is OK, but the walnut aroma/flavor comes across more as a fault than a

useful addition.  I think that this area deserves more research.

Tony Johnston

Chemist, Homebrewer

------------------------------


humor/channeling

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 16:12:00 EDT

From: sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: humor/channeling

From: dspalme@mke.ab.com [signature file]

>  " I have found that it is much easier to fake an

>    orgasm than to pretend to like basketball. "

May you never have to do either.

From: lyons%adc1@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

> I'm not clear if this implies...finding the right man?

Feeling a little insecure today?

> little to do with the subject of beer and is offensive to some folk.

Oh, lighten up!  It's humor, laugh.

***************

From: EZIMMERM@UWYO.EDU

> p.s. please forgive the bad pun, but I couldn't resist this one...

Forgive what?  All you did was pun at the one yard line...

***************

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

> That and the fact that once I figured out how to operate the Maltmill,

> it really didn't do a good job of ringing-out my wet laundry like I

> thought it would.

> [snip]

> After all, this is HBD not late night cable tv.

Really!???

***************

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

> ...due to a fluid mechanics phenomenon called "channeling"

Which is what?

> ...it has been mentioned on the HBD that the hose has a tendancy to

> kink where it comes out of the [Phil's] Phalse Bottom.  Replacing this

> with an elbow seems to fix the problem.

I saw a Phalse Bottom at my local supplier's recently which came with

an elbow.  Phil must have been listening.

Carl

------------------------------


More beer drinks

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 13:03:12 MDT

From: Kevin Schutz <kschutz@atmel.com>

Subject: More beer drinks

Assuming that any type of beer "drink" qualifies, I almost completely forgot

about some beer shake recipes.  I just remembered them after reading about

the Belgian beer drinks.

The first place I ran across beer shakes was at the Wildnerness Pub in Boulder,

CO.  They serve a Porter (Boulder) shake.  Pretty tasty.  Since that time, I've

experimented with several varieties of porter shakes (using Boulder Porter,

Black Hook, or homebrew), several Linderman's (sp?) for fruit flavors and even

an Anchor Steam shake.  Not bad!

The basic recipe for home use is to get some vanilla ice cream, beer (I'd

recommend some beer that has a strong character so that the flavor will come

through), milk (optional), and a blender.  Blend to taste.

I'd recommend beer shakes to anyone unless they have a problem with lactic acid

or alcohol.

Kevin

------------------------------


Growing Hops

Date:         Thu, 21 Oct 93 20:02:04 EDT

From: Philip Proefrock <PSPROEFR@MIAMIU.ACS.MUOHIO.EDU>

Subject:      Growing Hops

I am interested in growing my own hops for use in my homebrew.  (I don't

plan to use this exclusively, but it would be nice to have hops I had

grown in the beer that I brew.  I expect I would only use the homegrown

hops for one part of the process, say boiling,   and will continue to

buy other varieties for flavor/aroma.)  Does anyone else do this?  Can

you provide some pointers, suggestions as to where I can find seedlings

or seeds, etc.?  What varieties will grow best in the midwest?o I hope

to get starters going indoors this fall, so that I can get them growing

this coming spring.

Thanks in Advance,

Philip Proefrock

psproefr@miamiu.muohio.edu

'More Attitude Than Talent'

Architecture 3+ Graduate Program, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio

------------------------------


Slow CF chiller

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 93 01:09:00 +0300

From: ari.jarmala@mpoli.fi (Ari Jarmala)

Subject: Slow CF chiller

drose@husc.harvard.edu writes about slow CF wort chillers:

HO>I bought 50ft of garden hose (a lot

HO>cheaper than tygon tubing), 50 ft of 1/4" copper tubing, and built

HO>a 40 ft chiller (10 feet of the hose going to the connecting lines).

1/4" tube is very thin. Try larger diameter tube. The gain:

* the cross section area of the tube is the _square_ of the

diameter

* the flow is the cross section area times the speed of wort in the tube

* the resistance to flow is reduced by increasing diameters =>

faster flow

Increase the diameter by a factor of 2 and you get about 6 to 8

times faster volume flow. Maintain the length of the chiller.

The other possibility is to increase the driving force: increase

the height difference.

 - Ari J[rm[l[

------------------------------


beer nuts

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 11:09:00 -0600

From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

Subject: beer nuts

In HBD #1252 Paul Selkirk asked:

PS> Would you mash the nuts (lots of starch in there), or "dry-nut" a

  > more conventional beer?

PS> What kind of nuts would be good?  The walnut/pecan/hickory family

  > all taste like they've got a lot of tannins, so they might not be

  > appropriate.  Maybe almonds, filberts, brazil nuts... (I can see it

  > now - Rainforest Crunch Beer!)

Yes, they do have lots of starch, but also lots of oil. You risk the

possibility of having a "headless" beer. Hey, Euell Gibbons used to make

biscuits from acorn flour, why not give it a try?

Chuck

 * RM 1.2 00946 *

------------------------------


Stainless Steel Kegs in UK?

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 93 13:21 BST

From: AGENT COOPER <CENSWM@vaxa.hw.ac.uk>

Subject: Stainless Steel Kegs in UK?

I need your help!

I want to make a stainless steel brewing set up. I have read about how you

stateside folks, get stainless kegs and cut them up. Yeah great I would like to

do that but you dont seem to get stainless steel kegs here! they are all alloy.

Which is no use.

Does anyone know IF you can get stainless steel kegs in the UK? and if not are

there any UK people who can suggest a cheap source of stainless brew kettles

etc?

I use a plastic brewheat thingy and I think its crap, I want to brew bigger

batches and I want to use gas to heat, cos I like flames!

Please help!

Stuart

censwm@uk.ac.hw.clust                    Edinburgh, Scotland

------------------------------


Beer hunting in Belgium: Part 4 (Brasserie la Caracole)

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 93 08:46:25 -0400

From: "Phillip Seitz" <p00644@psilink.com>

Subject: Beer hunting in Belgium: Part 4 (Brasserie la Caracole)

Beer Hunting in Belgium: Part 4 of 7

Brasserie La Caracole, Namur

      (by Phil Seitz)

In Belgium it is possible to run very small scale commercial

brewing operations, and there are breweries that only sell a few

hundred bottles a year.  Obviously the brewers in this situation

don't make their living this way, but in some cases they gain

valuable experience toward opening larger operations.

      One very small operation is the Brasserie La Caracole, which

is owned by three partners--the minimum allowable when forming a

partnership in Belgium.  One of the partners owns a well-known

local specialty beer store, La Cave de Wallonie, which serves as the

primary outlet for the brewery's products.

      Since I have previously reported on this 4 hl garage brewery

in HBD I will not review the entirety of their operations.

However, my return visit did give us a chance to cover some new

ground, some of which will be of particular interest to small-

scale commercial brewers:

Equipment: The brewery uses a converted steam-jacketed

Army-surplus soup kettle.  The jacket and inner kettle were

separated, with the interior becoming their mash tun and kettle,

and the exterior jacket becoming their lauter tun.  Water is

heated using a European-type flash hot water heater, and is added

to the lauter tun just the way we do it--one dipper at a time.

The fermenters are located in individual closets, which are

heated when necessary and protected by UV lamps.

Yeast: Yeast is obtained fresh from a yeast bank at

Louvain-La-Neuve, and the same yeast is used for their white,

amber, and dark beers.  The yeast comes in a 30 liter sealed

container, with a yeast count of 5 million cells per centiliter.

      Like most breweries this one has a device for cooling and

oxygenating its wort.  However, they've been having a problem

with generation of too many yeast cells during fermentation,

making it difficult to get a clear beer.  They have therefore

decided to temporarily do without oxygenation to see if this will

reduce the respiration phase and the resultant increased cell

count from reproduction.

Malt: The brewers here have lots of good things to say about the

DeWolf-Cosyns malts, which are also available here in the U.S.

Not only do they feel these are the best available in Belgium,

but they also have fewer business problems with this maltings.

When dealing with other sources they report constant problems

receiving the wrong thing.  In addition, they report that while

different maltings produce the same lines of malts, if you order

the same thing (say, caravienne) from each source you're going to

get somewhat different products.  Apparently there are no strict

definitions regarding what a malt should be if its called by a

particular name.  Of course, this would also discourage brewers

from switching malt suppliers once they've gotten used to

something.

      The malts from the Deskamps also got a favorable mention.

They have at least one maltings, in Gembloux.

Spices: The brewery uses two different types of orange peel.

Bitter orange is used for their white beer, and sweet orange for

their strong ales.  The former is a greenish-gray color, quite

bitter in flavor, and provides very little orange flavor in the

beer--only a mellow form of bitterness is imparted.  Bitter

orange is used at a rate of 0.5 grams per liter of finished beer.

      The sweet orange provides a more conventional orange flavor,

and is used in quantities ranging from 0.5 grams/liter to double

that or even more.  Both types of peel are purchased in 50 kg

sacks.

Training: The brewer (one of the three partners) received a 6

year brewing degree from Louvain-La-Neuve.  The first four years

focus on chemistry and biology, and the last two specifically in

brewing.  Presumably this is roughly equivalent to a B.S. and an

M.A.  I can't recall now what his day-job was (the brewery

operates only on weekends), but I believe it dealt with

commercial production of yeast for food products.

Economics: The brewery hopes to move to larger quarters,

preferably a 20 hl facility, and is slowly collecting equipment

and experience.  At the moment it is loosing 60,000 Belgian

francs a month, or about $1,800.  They appear to see this as a

cost to be paid during their education, which is fine as long as

they can afford it.

      Use of fresh yeast for each batch adds 8 francs (about

$0.25) to the price of each 75 cl bottle, but at present the

brewery has no yeast-propagation facilities.  They must also use

new bottles (as opposed to returnables, which are cheaper)

because they don't have space for bottle cleaning.  For that

matter, they don't have electricity or plumbing either, and run a

tube down the street to a sewer when they're brewing.

While the brewery sells at least 50% of its beer through La Cave de

Wallonie, it also sells a substantial portion through what might be

called subscription.  In Belgium there are many fraternal and business

organizations holding meetings throughout the year, and it is a common

practice to have a brewery prepare a batch of beer with special labels

for the occasion.  (Some American wineries also provide this service.)

It can be surprising how much beer can be sold this way, and for a

small brewery the arrangement is ideal--they know how much beer they

need to brew, and they don't have to worry about distribution.  Someone

shows up with a truck, takes several dozen cases, hands over a check,

and the thing is done.  In a business where cultivating and  supplying

retail outlets can be a major chore, the savings in effort is

substantial.  In addition, many of these organizations see it as a

matter of pride to present unusual or high quality beers, and actually

seek out smaller  breweries to work with.  Regional pride plays a strong

role as well.

------------------------------


Carbonation and Filtration; Mashoffs

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 93 08:59:02 -0500

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Carbonation and Filtration; Mashoffs

Dave in HBD#1252 asks:

>While reading the Fix'es Vienna book last night, I came across the sections

>on filtration and carbonation, and I suddenly got confused as to which

>order they should occur in.

> 1. carbonate then filter

> 2. or filter then carbonate

>It seems some of the big boys filter and then pump into a conditioning tank

>to carbonate, so this would be #2. Other breweries, Anchor for one, end

>secondary fermentation with the beer naturally carbonated, and filter

>afterwards.

It is difficult to properly filter fully carbonated beer. Thus option #2

typically gives the best results. I use 5 gal. kegs for storage, and try

to adjust the pressure so that the CO2 content of the beer is 1.6-1.8 vols.

(i.e., liters per liter). This will not filter as well as totally flat beer,

but the differences are not great. After filtration, the CO2 level is increased

to the desired level (2.2-2.4 vols. for ale and 2.5-2.6 vols. for lager) by

direct CO2 injection.

I always use to use a mashoff at 168F for each of my brews. Last year when

visiting Anchor I noticed that they did not mash off. I asked Mark Carpenter

about this and he resonded "Who needs it". Since then I have been working

with a final temperature of 158F, and have seen no negative effects. There

has been no major change in yields, and I still get a fast run off (which I

prefer). I am using propane burners, and with this set up I find I can get a

tighter control of wort color by not mashing off. In short, I think Chris has

got this one right.

 -George Fix

------------------------------


Re: Hot priming, blowoff tube

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 93 09:43:22 CDT

From: hplabs!mcdcup!tellabs.com!don

Subject: Re: Hot priming, blowoff tube

>  Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 11:29:15 PDT

>  From: Mark_Davis.osbu_south@xerox.com

>  Subject: Re: hot priming

>

>

>  Bart asks:

>  >I've always thought that this step is probably not

>necessary since the

>  >thermal mass of 1 pint of 200F sugar water is nothing

>compared with 5

>  >gallons @ 70F.  So what if I zap a few yeast cells on the

>initial contact ?

>  >They don't have very good lawyers anyway.

>  >

>  >I've never had the guts to actually risk a batch with this

>hot combination

>  >experiment.  Has anyone else done this successfully ?  I'd like

>to>  >simplify my process.

I`ve done this for a lot of batches and it works out just fine.

>  ----------------------------->

>  Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 14:13:34 CST

>  From: "Andrew B. Deliyannides" <Andrew.B.Deliyannides.1@nd.edu>

>  Subject:

>

>  Anyone have any good ideas on how to blowoff those kraeusen

>chunkies from

>  a 5 gal carboy without compromising sanitation? I've heard

>ghost stories

>  about little critters creeping up unsealed blowoff tubes,

>so I've tried

>  attaching a fermentation lock at the end of a really long

>blowoff tube. A

>  clumsy solution: the foam still manages to percolate through

>the lock,

>  sometimes clogging and blowing off the lid. It's rather

>comical. The only

>  other makeshift idea I have is to simply submerge the end

>of the blowoff

>  tube in a bucket of chlorox solution. Sure, you'd have to

>change the

>  solution every once in a while once it got polluted, but at

>least none of

>  those critters would crawl up the tube. Or is this much ado

>about nothing?

>  Is the kraeusen itself protection enough from critters?

>  ABD

>

>  ------------------------------

This is exactly what I do. Take a bucket and fill it

1/4 - 1/2 full and submerge the end of the 1" tube in

the water. Give it a shot of bleach to prevent any stuff

from growing in there. Actually a tsp would be more than

enough. I've yet to ever get an infection from using this

method. I've never had to change the solution... well maybe

once or twice when I've used dry yeast.

don

------------------------------


Blanche de Bruges Yeast

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1993 11:49:52 -0300

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Blanche de Bruges Yeast

I got a culture going from the dregs of a bottle of Blanche de Bruges.

Does anyone know whether this is their fermenting yeast, whether it is a

lager bottling yeast, and/or whether there is any hope of there being

lactobacilus still in there?  Anyone?

____________

Ed Hitchcock ech@ac.dal.ca | "I'm not from outer space.  I'm from

Anatomy & Neurobiology  |  Iowa.  I just work in outer space."

Dalhousie University, Halifax |     - James T. Kirk

 [Eschew racism.  Drink beer from all nations]

------------------------------


Re: Beer hunting in Belgium

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 93 11:34:32 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Re: Beer hunting in Belgium

For those of us reading this fine report who are wondering about the

prices quoted:  Currently, the Belgian franc is trading at about 35 to

the dollar.

------------------------------


Scraping hops from the side of my kettle

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 93 09:48:06 -0700

From: goetze@cats.ucsc.edu (Tom Goetze)

Subject: Scraping hops from the side of my kettle

As I was brewing my Holiday Happiness (extract/speciality/spices) last

night, a question about my procedure came to me.  Sometimes after

adding the hops to the boil, a big head of foam forms on top of the boil

which pushes much of the hop pellets up and against the side of my

kettle.  So when the foam subsides (which it actually doesn't always do)

it appears most of hop pellet gunk is stuck to the side of my kettle.

So here is my question:  Should I bother scaping the hops off the side

of my kettle or have all the bittering oils already made their way into

the boil?

      It has been my practice to scape them off in the past, but I was

just curious if I actually needed to put down my homebrew to scape the

hops off.  It sure could save me a couple of minutes drinking time.

Thanks in advance,

tom

------------------------------


Yeast

Date: 22 Oct 93 12:37:00 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A@hq.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Yeast

Message Creation Date was at 22-OCT-1993 12:37:00

          Greetings,

               I've a couple of questions dealing with the propagation

          of yeast as well as yeast washing after fermenting a batch.

          I've had generally good success in these areas in the past,

          but now I'm beginning to wonder about the basic processes

          and inherent assumptions.  If anyone can shed some light on

          the following issues, I'd greatly appreciate it.

          1.   Mutations while propagating yeast:  If I'm attempting

          to propagate the yeast for a Scotch Ale (or other high OG

          beer) from a slant, it will require many cycles of

          propagation to get the required volume of yeast slurry.  I

          read how commercial breweries can re-use a given batch of

          yeast from 5-10 times before replacing.  Well, I'm doing at

          least 5 cycles of yeast propagation for my high-gravity

          beers.  Am I running a risk of introducing a mutant strain

          into my yeast?  Am I running the the risk that, even though

          I have a lot of yeast, it may have reached the point of

          "being tired"?  Aside from ingratiating myself with a

          commercial brewer who will give me quarts of yeast on

          demand, how do I assure that I have enough volume of a

          "healthy" yeast?

          2.   Washing yeast:  In an attempt to solve Question #1, I

          have been experimenting with washing my yeast from one batch

          to use in a second.  I have tried taking yeast from both my

          primary and then my secondary fermentor.  The primary has

          more junk to remove (i.e. vegetable materials & cold break

          [I don't rack the beer off the boil pot into the carboy - I

          jsut strain the COOL wort into the carboy & then rack to a

          secondary after about a week.], but it also has more yeast

          than the secondary carboy.  Because of this, I've done more

          testing with the primary carboy's yeast.  I've been using a

          process I read about on HBD a year ago which uses sterile

          water and (3) 1-quart mason jars.  What I want to know is,

          after I have agitated my sterile water, yeast, trub mixture

          in a mason jar, how long will the yeast remain in suspension

          before precipitating out of solution?  As I understand it,

          the trub should fall out first before the yeast does.

          However, the longer you wait, the more clearly a separation

          between liquid and solids exists.  Is there a general rule

          of thumb for the optimum time at which to decant the yeast

          off the trub?

               My apologies for rambling so long.  Any help in

          shedding light on these issues would be appreciated.

          Cheers,

          Andy A

------------------------------


You can't judge a beer by the bottle, but...

Date: 22 Oct 93 10:13:36-0400

From: ROBERT.URWILER@sprint.sprint.com

Subject: You can't judge a beer by the bottle, but...

I am relatively new to home brewing but have noticed that a majority

of the equipment commercially marketed for the brewer is focused on

the brewing process itself.  Although I agree that the beer is absolutely

the most important aspect of this craft, I find it strange that the

final product (a superior brew) is often presented in a sub-standard

package (in my case, scuffed up old Miller Lite bottles with a caps that say

"real beer").  I have seen the labels offered by my local supplier and by

a few of the mail order catalogs... pretty sad...

It seems to me that there would be an excellent market for custom

packaging supplies for the home brewer such as high quality, custom

screen labeled bottles, caps, and quality wooden cases.  The same

organizations who make custom screen printed coffee cups could produce these

items at a reasonable cost.  I know that I personally would order a couple

gross of high quality bottles with my label(s) in wooden cases given the

opportunity.  Any thoughts or suggestions?

"Perception is nine-tenths of the law..." -unknown-

------------------------------


BEER COCKTAILS, FAQ Part I

Date: 22 Oct 1993 16:15:20 -0500 (EST)

From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

Subject: BEER COCKTAILS, FAQ Part I

Subject: BEER DRINKS, FAQ (Part I)

Q0001:  When I make a beer cocktail should I use the lightest beer possible,

like a Coors light?

A0001:  Of course not.  If you want to add as little flavor as possible to your

drink, you should use water.  Light American lagers are best reserved for

rinsing out carboys or for playing BeerHunter.

Q0002:  What style of beer is best used then?

A0002:  Something dark, with a full aromatic palate and plenty of alcohol.

Several months of intensive research and taste testing by some of Beantown's

more adventurous beer cognoscenti have determined that the best beers to use in

cocktails are those in which mastication of the grains by virgins is a key step

in the brewing process.

Q0003:  Do beers made that process really, uh, exist?

A0003:  What, have you been hiding under a rock?  Do I have to spell it out for

you?  X-I-N-G-U!

Q0004:  Can you give me an example of a Xingu cocktail?

A0004:  Here's one for beginners:

XING-UP (Xingu shandy)

Pour equal amounts of Xingu and 7-up over cracked ice.  Shake well, pour into a

tall frosted glass, add a twist of citrus (lemon, lime, or orange), and insert

aswizzle stick.

Q0005:  That's a nice enough recipe, but don't you have anything a little, uh,

more exotic?

A0005:  Certainly.  Here's one that not only goes great with nachoes, but also

looks great:

BLACK BANANA (Xingu Daiquiri)

Pour 6 oz. of Xingu into a blender.

Add:

 1 oz rum

 1 ripe, peeled banana (for those authentic tropical esters)

 3 oz lime juice

 10 ice cubes

Blend until very smooth

Serve in a cocktail glass (paper umbrella optional).

Q0006:  Can I eat meals with beer cocktails?

A0006:  Don't be a twit.  Anybody who knows anything about food will tell you

that only wine is drunk with meals; cocktails are reserved for finger food like

stuffed mushrooms and cocktail weiners.  Here is a recipe for a beer drink that

goes great with caviar:

XINGU PIRANHA (Wandamatic)

Pour 16oz of Xingu into a blender.

Add:

 6 oz orange juice (fresh squeezed if possible)

 dash of tabasco

 6-8 ice cubes

Blend on medium speed to crack the ice.

Drop in one small tropical fish (your choice of species)

Blend until smooth.  Pour into a chilled glass, insert a straw, and garnish

with a cherry and an orange slice (paper umbrella mandatory).

------------------------------


Yeast in Suspense

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 93 18:31:31 MST

From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

Subject: Yeast in Suspense

I have the following question about yeast in suspension in my beer:

At a given time during fermentation, what proportion of yeast cells

are in suspension compared to those which are resting on the bottom of the

fermenter?  Further, are the cells that have settled out dormant and the

ones in suspension active, in some sense?

This is important when pitching starter cultures and when bottling.

When pitching my starter, should I swirl it around to kick up the

yeast cells that have settled out?  When bottling beer that has been

in the secondary for a long time, should I rouse the yeast also, or

will the individuals remaining in suspension be enough to take care of

bottle conditioning?

TIA for any responses.

- ---

Joel Birkeland

Motorola SPS

birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com

------------------------------


Re: Clean it up

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 93 11:14:26 CDT

From: hplabs!mcdcup!tellabs.com!don

Subject: Re: Clean it up

> Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 16:06:09 EDT

> From: lyons%adc1@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

> Subject: Clean it up

>

> >  " I have found that it is much easier to fake an

> >    orgasm than to pretend to like basketball. "

>

> I'm not clear if this implies that someone has a problem with

> basketball or with finding the right man?  It may have appeared

> cute the first time it was posted, but please keep in mind that

> this type of material has little to do with the subject of beer

> and is offensive to some folk.  I have also been guilty of making

> crude remarks, but have learned that a public forum is not proper

> place.  Please clean it up.

>

> Chris

I still find it pretty cute... :-)

There is more to life than just brewing beer...

Lighten up a bit huh...

don

Uh oh... now I've done it.

------------------------------


Benjamin Machine Products number.

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 93 10:55:57 CDT

From: hplabs!mcdcup!tellabs.com!don

Subject: Benjamin Machine Products number.

I had several requests to email the number

for this company so I figure there must be

sufficiant interest to post it. Their number

is: 209-523-8874

For anyone else who did not follow the thread, this

was about counter pressure bottle fillers and what

types were available.

don

------------------------------


Wort Chillers reply

Date: Sat, 23 Oct 93 10:41:22 EDT

From: U-E68316-Scott Wisler <wisler_scott@ae.ge.com>

Subject: Wort Chillers reply

In HBD 1253, Greg askes abous a wort chiller design:

>how effective would a 30 foot length of 3/8" diameter, coiled copper

>tubing, be in a 2 foot long, 4" inside diameter, PVC pipe?

Very interesting question and design idea.  It is also a very difficult

question to answer quantatively, because the heat transfer coefficient,

h, is difficult to estimate without emperical data.  h depends on the

geometry, material properties, and fluid dynamics of the system.

I would say that the PVC chiller would be less effective than the

in-garden-hose variety for two reasons:  First the flow may

predominately go up the center of the PVC instead of over the copper

coils.  You can get around this by fitting another PVC tube of say 2" dia,

sealed with end caps, inside the copper coil as a center plug (as we say

in the aircraft engine business).  The second reason is that the cooling

flow would be across the copper pipe, rather than along it with the

garden-hose variety.  In the cross-flow case, the cooling water will flow

(relatively) smoothly over the front half of the copper pipe

cross-section.  On the back side, there is a region of seperated flow,

or recirculation.  The heat transfer coefficient drops off in this

recirculation region on the back side of the copper tubing.  Therefore

less of the copper tubing area is useful for heat transfer.

But this probably doesen't answer the really important question:  Will

it work for me?  At the .2 gallon-per-min (gpm) flow rate many CF

chillers have, I don't think you'll have a problem. (I think 25 min per 5

gal is about what I've read here for no pump-assist)  I know of a

pump-assisted 1.0 gpm 30' 3/8 copper-in-garden-hose CF chiller that works

fine.  So if 30' of 3/8" CF has at least 5x in extra cooling capability,

and you don't pump out, I don't see any problem with your idea.

In fact, I think its a pretty darn good one if you are brewing outside

and pipe your wort into the basement.  Mount that on the basement wall

and you don't have to worry about hauling it around, setting it set up

or it being in the way.  I'd encourage you to make it at tell us how it

works...

Keep up the designing !

scott

BTW, for those of you who want credentials, I have a Bachelors and

(will) have Masters (just as soon as I finish my thesis) in

Aerodynamics.  I have special interests in aerothermodynamics and

aeroacoustics.

Scott Wisler

swisler@c0431.ae.ge.com

GE Aircraft Engines

Cincinnati, OH

------------------------------


Long lag times for liquid yeast.

Date: Sat, 23 Oct 93 11:04:37 PDT

From: waltman@netcom.com (Fred Waltman)

Subject: Long lag times for liquid yeast.

Re: The discussion of long lag times with liquid yeast.

My first batch of homebrew was from a Brewtek Kit from Brewers Resource (highly

recommended, BTW, for those starting out) and it came with Wyeast liquid. I

followed all of the instructions, pitched the yeast packet directly (no starter,

of course -- I didn't know what one was), waited a day AND NOTHING HAPPENED!

I was heartbroken. "I've killed my beer", I sobbed on my girlfriends shoulder.

Here I was, all fired up to make beer and I couldn't even follow a receipe

right. Of course, the next morning, when I woke up, things were fermenting along

merrily and the beer turned out great. I must of sat and watched the airlock

bubble for an hour. Anybody who came by was forced to watch as well.

Fred Waltman

waltman@netcom.com

- --

------------------------------


Steam injection

Date: Sat, 23 Oct 1993 18:30:10 -0400 (EDT)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: Steam injection

I recently watched a fellow homebrewer use what I consider an extremely

clever gadget.  He had an ordinary household pressure cooker that he

modified to run a steam line out through a ball valve.  By simply injecting

live, low pressure steam into the bottom of his picnic cooler mash tun while

stirring the mash, he was able to raise the temperature to the desired point

very quickly.  He also used the steam to heat his sparge water in the same

way.  It all seemed so simple and logical that I wondered why I hadn't seen

it mentioned before.

Has anyone experimented with this type of setup?  What were the pros and

cons?

Ed Westemeier

Cincinnati, Ohio

westemeier@delphi.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1255, 10/26/93

*************************************

-------


I want to meet her

Date: Sat, 23 Oct 93 17:50:37 -0700

From: arne thormodsen <arnet@kaibutsu.cup.hp.com>

Subject: I want to meet her

=====

_____________________________________________________________________________

'Hey Ma'am! I'm not an athlete.  I'm a ball | Ulick Stafford, PP-ASEL

player' - John Kruk, Phillies firstbaseman  | Dept of Chemical Engineering,

responding to a woman who told him he was a | Notre Dame, IN 46556

bad athletic role model sitting at a bar    |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

drinking and smoking.                       |

- ------------------------------

=====

Hey, I want to meet the woman who had the nerve to

say this while she was drinking and smoking ;-)

- --arne

P.S. - I'm available, but a bear to get along with :-)

------------------------------


Agrees with COPS show

Date: Sat, 23 Oct 93 18:14:21 PDT

From: mikel@netlink.nix.com (Mike Lemons)

Subject: Agrees with COPS show

>From HBD 1253:

>  *Can you say DEATH & BLINDNESS! Ethyl alcohol goes to a vapor within

>  a specific temperature range ( I ain't gonna quote it!) while OTHER

>  alcohols vaporize at different temps.  While ethanol won't do us any

>  harm...well...maybe a little nausea in excess...a bit of a headache...

>  some other alcohols, or components of a ferment could do some harm.

>  If it's done right-  sure you can get a fine distilled product. I even

>  tried one once- could've dropped it in a NA beer too, but I wanted to

>  try it straight.  Tasty it was!  (peeka boo!)

>      I don't have all the chemistry here to explain it...but there are

>  dangers in distilling.  That is WHY there are real laws about it, and

>  why those WILL be enforced, as depicted by such "fine" TV programs.

>  Look it up in a library.  Most universities will have something on it.

>

>      "I can't see I can't see"      John (The Coyote) Wyllie

>              "Why not?!"                SLK6P@cc.usu.edu

>      "I got my eyes shut! Nyuck Nyuck"

>  ******************************************************************

Wow!  Somebody actually agrees with that stupid COPS show!  I thought I

would never see the day.  I don't know what he expects us to look up.

Somebody doesn't realize that methyl alcohol was intentionally added to

"bathtub gin" during prohibition to increase its intoxicating ability.

Poisonous, but it will get you drunk.

The gorvernment arrests people who operate a still because they want

their alcohol taxes.  If they tell you that they do it for your

protection, just remember that they told Indians the same thing when

they took their land.

- --

INTERNET:  mikel@netlink.nix.com (Mike Lemons)

UUCP:   ...!ryptyde!netlink!mikel

Network Information eXchange * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115

------------------------------


wyeast/spruce/distillation temps/and more...

Date: Sat, 23 Oct 93 20:54:19 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: wyeast/spruce/distillation temps/and more...

In response to the responses to the

"why doesnt wyeast take off quick enough" post(s):

I assume that it is accepted as fast that you need to make

a starter to get the yeast population up to adequate pitching

amounts.

1) the wyeast package misadvertizes that you do not need to.

2) there package should be large enough that you don't need to.

  if the entire idea behind the "pop the inner-pouch, let it

  swell" design was to eliminate the need for a starter, it has

  failed.

3) why can't wyeast make a package that does the aformentioned?

  Industrial yeast propogation is certainly expensive, but more

  from the overhead point of view that the per-unit standpoint.

  It would not cost that much more to put more yeast in the

  package.  perhaps the size of the package is a factor, and

  and more nutrient in a larger pouch would be substantially

  more expensive.  perhaps a cheap plastic pressure relief valve?

4) I find that hopping my starters substantialy cuts down on

  the numer of infected ones.  I still throw out 1/2 of my wyeast

  starters because they do not smell/taste questionable.

  I have NEVER had an infected batch from dry whitbread ale yeast.

5) I am not satisfied with the performance of wyeast as a whole.

  The last pouch I bought took 5 days to swell, then I made a starter

  and it went sour.  I do not lead a life that can adjust my brewing

  schedule around when thedamn package swells.  I'm sure 95% of the

  human population have jobs which are even less flexible than mine.

6) I still buy wyeast and try to use it for those batches which require

  a special flavor from the yeast.  I wish there were an alternative...

  It would not take that much more work to provide us with a packaging

  that has a larger yeast population developed before you open it.

7) I do not dipuste the quality of the yeast when it actually works.

- ------------------------------

> >When should Alpha Amalyse be used?

>Thanks,Steve

> Amylase (sp!) is a combination of alpha and beta amylase.  Two

I think the original poster also asked "how much should be used?".

How many oz of amanlyze enzyme that you buy in a bottle is the

equivalent of that in 1 lb of lager malt at 100 Lintner?

- ------------------------------

>Kevin asks:

>>Why do you consider distilling to be dangerous?  There is an element of risk

>> involved with making anything.  (including fried chicken)  Distillers simply

>> take a fermented product and evaporate and condense the alcohol.

>>Illegal?  Yes.  Dangerous?   Hardly.

> *Can you say DEATH & BLINDNESS! Ethyl alcohol goes to a vapor within

> a specific temperature range ( I ain't gonna quote it!) while OTHER

> alcohols vaporize at different temps.

just for my information, what are those temps?  what's the boiling point

of methanol, ethanol, CH3(n(CH2))OH, and at what temps should distillation

take place?

- ------------------------------

>So, here's a question for all you Thermodynamic type people: how effective

>would a 30 foot length of 3/8" diameter, coiled copper tubing, be in

>a 2 foot long, 4" inside diameter, PVC pipe?  Essentially, I want to place

>the coil inside the PVC, with the ends of the coil entering and exiting

>the capped ends of the PVC.  The cooling water would enter the capped

>ends as well, but counter-flow. The "coil" diameter would be about 3.5",

>resulting in a circumference of about 11". With each "coil" spaced about

>1/4" apart, the length would be about 2 feet.  Of course the length and

>size of the copper tubing can be altered, (the PVC diameter is the max. I

>can get) but, is the idea feasible? Any comments appreciated.

try wrapping the copper tubing around a 2.5" PVC pipe, and place the entire

thing inside the 4" pipe.  seal off the inside of the inner pipe.  the design

could ceratainly be adequate, but in your proposed design, there would be

a large amound of water that would flow near the center of the tube that

would never come near the copper pipe.  It would work, but require more

water.

- ------------------------------

Regina Harrison writes:

>    I just wanted to say a word in defense of spruce beer- I made a

>batch using Papazian's recipe, with 1 oz of spruce essence, and it

>was good.  Yes, it was odd, earthy even, but I grew up drinking the

>soda versions of birch and spruce beer.  My spruce beer had similar

>taste without the sugar.  It may be that spruce essences and extracts

>are highly variable in quality...

Batch #9 of mine was a spruce "steam beer", i.e. bruce & kay's honey

spruce lager, but fermented at ale temps.  I used one 14ml bottle of

Leigh-Williams spruce extract.

quite good indeed, but had a solvent-like flavor when served a low temps -

at 55 it was great!  I defininetly would not use more spruce extract,

and if someone who lives in the Dallas area wants 2 more bottles of it

(I still have 3 more, and would rather "concentrate" on barleywine)

- ------------------------------

mrgarti@xyplex.com writes:

>what are people using to store their grain in?

>how long, under good conditions, will the grain be

>fresh?  besides rats, are there any problems associated

>with buying and keeping 50 lbs of grain?

don't worry about it, at least not if it's uncrushed...

Oh my, I used the C-word! (or is that the un-C-word? :-)

bb

------------------------------


Re: Eisbock

Date: Sun, 24 Oct 93 10:58:59 EDT

From: btalk@aol.com

Subject: Re: Eisbock

The recent talk about distillation got me thinking...

I've got a pretty good recipe fpr Doppelbock and was wondering about Eisbock.

If I WERE to freeze my Doppelbock, would freezing it in a cornelius keg be

agood idea. It seems then I could open it to get the ice out easily. I doubt

the ice would be in one nice chunk. probably more like slush?

How to recarbonate( besides forced co2 in the can)?

Any ideas, if I WERE to try this?

       Bob Talkiewicz

------------------------------


PH Malt, Beer Drinks

Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1993 11:52:00 +22306512 (CDT)

From: dhholscl@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (David Holsclaw)

Subject: PH Malt, Beer Drinks

Greetings,

 I have a question about the use of PH malt and hope that someone out there has

an answer. After receiving back comments on several of my brews, and after

purchasing a PH meter, I come to the realization that my mash PH's are WAY TO

HIGH!! They are in the range of 6.6 - 7.0 for a pale ale. Unless I am mistaken,

they should be more in the range of 5.0 - 5.5.

 I have tried adding several teaspoons of gypsum to the mash but am yet to see

any change.

 It was suggested to me that I try some PH malt. For those of you who have not

seen (or tasted) this stuff, it is barley malt that has been allowed to

partially "rot" for lack of a better term. This creates a very acidic malt that

allows brewers to lower their mash PH and still meet the German Purity Laws.

 My question is, how much should I use in a 5 gallon batch with 9 - 10 lbs. of

other grains? Has anyone else had problems like this with mash PH? What do you

do?

Beer Drink: My favorite starts out with a 32 oz glass with two commercial beers

in it (I wouldn't treat my beer like this). Then you add one or two (depending

on your mood) shots of Canadian Mist and then the trully unique ingrediant. One

raw egg is cracked into the glass and allowed to sit unbroken on the bottom of

the glass. The idea of the drink is to "slam" the whole thing in one drink and

believe me, when you see that raw egg start to slide down the side of the glass

it gives you the incentive to keep all that liquid moving quickly. :) We call

this drink "The Chicken Maker" and it is a New Years tradition. Enjoy!!

------------------------------


The 'C' word

Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1993 10:01:56 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: The 'C' word

Chris Campanelli writes:

>I won't tell you how I grind my malt because I'll

>then be forced to use the "C" word.

Then Brian Bliss writes:

>"Crack"? "Cremate"?

>Oooooooh - "C R U _ _".  (Hint - rhymes with "Lush").

>Now if we could just manage to avoid using "Mash", "Sparge",

>"Efficiency", and "Lactic", maybe we could keep the hbd down

>to a reasonable size...

Chris, correct me if I'm wrong, but I took the 'C' word to be:

"C O R O _ _".    (Hint - ryhmes with "Bologna").

BTW - I found the now infamous "faking orgasm" signoff message by

Diane Palme quite amusing, but I must admit that I am not much of a

fan -- of Basketball.  And I suspect that Chris Lyons' rather prudish

response stems from the striking of some personal and painfull chord.

Chris, ... relax, don't worry, have a homebrew.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Cider Reply

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 03:25:27 -0700

From: mchristy%spc.dnet@gpo.nsc.com (Mike Christy TEST SOFTWARE AUTOMATION x8466)

Subject: Cider Reply

 Martin W. - I cant get back to you cause of the ccm! in your

 address so I'll answer you here... From what I understand, there

 is naturally occurring apple type yeast in the cider which makes

 it "go bad". When I make a batch, I usually dissolve the sugar,

 either white or brown, in a little warm cider first then added it

 back to rest. It seems the yeast have a harder time with the white

 sugar and this seems to leave a sweeter result. They eat almost all

 the brown. The batch I made this weekend used 1/2 cup frozen sliced

 strawberries, 1/2 cup white sugar, 1 gallon cider.... I'll let you

 know how it turns out around new years.

      Good luck - mike

 Martin W. - I cant get back to you cause of the ccm! in your

 address so I'll answer you here... From what I understand, there

 is naturally occurring apple type yeast in the cider which makes

 it "go bad". When I make a batch, I usually dissolve the sugar,

 either white or brown, in a little warm cider first then added it

 back to rest. It seems the yeast have a harder time with the white

 sugar and this seems to leave a sweeter result. They eat almost all

 the brown. The batch I made this weekend used 1/2 cup frozen sliced

 strawberries, 1/2 cup white sugar, 1 gallon cider.... I'll let you

 know how it turns out around new years.

      Good luck - mike

------------------------------


Liquid Yeast: Friend or Fiend

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 08:50:46 EDT

From: Dean Cookson <cookson@mbunix.mitre.org>

Subject: Liquid Yeast: Friend or Fiend

Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com> Writes:

> In HBD 1251 Jerome asks if liquid yeast is Friend or Fiend.  FRIEND!!

>

> Liquid yeast is a friend.  My beer got much better when I switched to

> liquid yeasts.  Although the Wyeast package says you can just pitch

> directly from the package, my experience is that this is not a good idea and

> a starter is absolutely necessary.  Why?  The number of yeast cells in the

> Wyeast package is very low and results in an incredible under pitch which

> can lead to very long lag times raising the risk of infection.

I used to think that too, but.  On each of the last two weekends I've

pitched directly from the packet.  The longer of the two lag times was

about 30 hours.  Quite reasonable in my book.

Dean

------------------------------


Beer hunting in Belgium: Part 5 (Oud Beersel)

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 08:37:03 -0400

From: "Phillip Seitz" <p00644@psilink.com>

Subject: Beer hunting in Belgium: Part 5 (Oud Beersel)

Beer Hunting in Belgium: Part 5 of 7

Oud Beersel - Lambic Day

      (by Jim Busch: BUSCH@DAACDEV1.STX.COM)

      Located just a short drive south of Brussels is the town of

Beersel, where the Vandervelden family has been brewing lambics

since 1882.  We had called these people early in the day. They

had informed us that the brewery only has tours at set times, but

that we would be welcome if we wanted to come a week later and

join a group of 30 people.  We accepted this, but were a bit

disappointed.

      Not being able to visit this brewery, we decided to venture

elsewhere in search of lambic-type beers.  Our first stop was an

accidental discovery in the small town of St. Genesius-Rode,

located south of Brussels and east of Beersel.  There we found

beer hunting heaven, Drinks Wets (209 Steenweg op Halle), a

Belgian version of Liquor Barn.  In this beer store one can find

a entire wall full of lambics, some with the "old style"

white-washed bottles, some with big names like Cantillion and

Frank Boon, and some actually oozing lambic out of the wet cork

(Hannsens).  Our shopping carts quickly filled with lambics,

Belgian specials and Abbey beers and of course, Belgian

glassware.   Fortunately for us, they accepted VISA!  We each

departed with a hefty load of some really diverse beers.  The day

was young and we were already quite pleased with the results.

      We ventured on to Beersel, in search of the cafe that

Michael Jackson notes in his book on Belgium beers (The Three

Fountains).  When we arrived we realized the cafe was closed on

Tuesdays, the day of our visit.  We got a bite to eat next door

and inquired about good beers of the area.  We were informed that

Oud Beersel was the best lambic around and the brewery, being

right on the other side of the town, and a must visit.

      Off we went, and following the Oud Beersel signs we had

little difficulty finding the brewery.  The outside features red

and white tiles with the words: Kriek/Gueuze.  Upon entering, an

older man began a discussion in French with Phil, that I was not

in tune to.  Much back and forth ensued, with the occasional

apology offered from Phil.  Soon I was informed that the

discussion centered on the fact that we had called earlier and

were told NO, only to arrive later anyway.  Phil successfully

explained that we had no idea that Oud Beersel Brewery and the

Vandervelden were the same thing.  It helped at this point to

inquire about purchasing their lambics, and sure enough we were

informed that beer was available for sale, as long as we were

willing to buy it by the case.  No problem.  We got six 750 ml

bottles each of Kriek and Gueuze.

      The beer was stored in the traditional manner, on the side

with a swath of white or pink paint to indicate "up".  After some

discussion, it was decided that labels might help, since we

already were transporting a ton of beer around the country.  The

brewer glued the labels on one by one.

      While Phil was busy taking care of this important activity,

I ran back to the car for my camera, and started shooting

pictures of the place.  Eventually we asked enough questions that

we were given an unofficial tour.  A typical lambic brewery, the

mash tun and boil kettle are weathered insulated cylinders, the

insulation being held on with duct tape.  A vertical system was

in use, where a masonry-built painted grain shoot feeds the mash

tun.  Everything was quite dusty, with wooden planks forming a

second tier walkway for the brewer to work on the top of the

tanks.  I was constantly concerned that I would fall through this

very crude arrangement.  There were two separator/cooling tanks,

if one can call them a tank.  They were basically a coolship in

the shape of a tall bath tub, with slotted plates on the bottom.

This was the traditional cool ship, where the hot and cold breaks

settle out and the initial inoculation of the local microbes

begins.  (One note: this takes place deep in the interior of the

brewery; there appears to be little direct exposure to outdoor

air.)  I recall a comment that the wort sits in this overnight.

After exiting the coolship, the wort is transferred into one of

two large primary fermentation tanks, constructed of metal.

After a primary fermentation period, the beer is racked into

Chestnut casks--the brewer swears by them and recoiled with

horror at the possibility of using oak.  The casks are marked and

stored in the lambic way, noting the dates and contents on the

face of the cask.

      Of note in this brewery is the wall full of hand cooperage

tools from the mid nineteenth century.  Also of note is the old

barrel cleaning device, a frame in which the cask is suspended,

allowing it to be rotated with hot water and chains inside to

"knock" off the gunk.  This is nearly identical to the

arrangement at the Cantillon brewery.

      The brewer himself (presumably Mr. Vandervelden) is getting

on in years, though hardly decrepit.  He informed us that his

young nephew was now in the business, which is likely to stay

open for a good while.  They're not getting rich, but the brewery

makes enough money to stay open and support their families.  Most

sales are to serious beer connoisseurs--the popular market

provides little if any support.

The beers:

In my opinion, these beers are certainly traditional lambics, dry

nearly to austerity, and exhibiting a flavor and aroma profile

that has some horsehair and saddle notes.  This is not to say I

disliked them; on the contrary, they are good, enjoyable lambics.

      The Kriek had definite cherry notes and flavor, but not in

the dominant way that a Frank Boon or Hannsens does.  It is more

of a subdued and blended flavor.  It's color is almost

fluorescent pink.  The gueuze is a good example of a traditional

lambic, but nowhere near as tart and acidic as a Cantillion, nor

as sweet as the Belle Vue-like beers.

      In comparison with other lambic products, the Oud Beersel

beers are less rich than some others (if this is a word that can

be used to describe beers as attenuated as these!).  The beers

are certainly less horsey than the Girardin products, less fruity

than Hanssens, less extreme than Cantillon but also lacking in

some of Cantillon's satisfying lactic character.  Obviously,

though, none of these are what the average lager drinkers are

going to warm up to, and if you're into lambic beers the

differences are ones that you'd enjoy exploring.

      Oud Beersel products do not appear to be widely distributed,

but can be purchased at the brewery, and also in some stores in

Beersel (of which there are not many).  We saw them for sale in

the delicatessen across from the church, next door to the 3

Fountains.

------------------------------


Distillation/Grain Storage/Iodophor

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 10:23:11 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: Distillation/Grain Storage/Iodophor

Coyote writes:

>   *Can you say DEATH & BLINDNESS! Ethyl alcohol goes to a vapor within

>   a specific temperature range ( I ain't gonna quote it!) while OTHER

>   alcohols vaporize at different temps.  While ethanol won't do us any

>   harm...well...maybe a little nausea in excess...a bit of a headache...

>   some other alcohols, or components of a ferment could do some harm.

Isn't Methanol(wood alcohol) the usual culprit in death and blindness cases

resulting from consumption of illegally distilled adult beverages?  I always

thought this was not a result of the distillation process, but due to the

*bad stuff* that the moonshiners put in their mash i.e., "fermentables"

other than corn, potatoes or rice, etc.  Is this true?  Perhaps other alcohols

(fusel alcohols) could result in death in very high concentrations?

Mark Garti writes:

> what are people using to store their grain in?

> how long, under good conditions, will the grain be

> fresh?  besides rats, are there any problems associated

> with buying and keeping 50 lbs of grain?

> mrgarti@xyplex.com

I have found that the food grade containers that deli's use are good

for storage of grains.  I think the square mayonnaise containers work

best.  They are the easy to clean and the lids are fairly easy to

attach and remove.  I recommend filling them to the top and purging

with CO2 to keep the grain as dry as possible.  I have tried to use

containers that pickles and salad dressings are shipped in and could

never get the vinegar odor out.  I suggest using mayo containers or

icing containers from bakeries if you go this route.  Scrub them several

times to make sure they are totally clean.

Question:  Someone posted something regarding IODOPHOR in this or a

previous HBD:  what does the -phor designate in the name IODOPHOR?  I

have used BTF iodophor which doesn't contain phosphoric acid and I have

recently obtained an iodine sanitizing solution that *does* contain

phos. acid.  What gives?

Rob

------------------------------


Grain,

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 09:40 CDT

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Grain,

 >From: garti@mrg.xyplex.com (Mark Garti)

 >Subject: grain storage

 >besides rats, are there any problems associated with buying and keeping 50

 lbs of grain?

 The most serious problem I have is with cereal moths.  They are impossible to

 get rid of once they find you so prevention is the best cure.  Keep the

 containers covered at all times.

 >From: Steve Seaney <seaney@ie.engr.wisc.edu>

 >Subject: Plans for Grain Mill

 >The other day I saw one of Jack Schmedling's  (sp?).....

 ....Schmidling...

 > grain mills at a brew store.  It doesn't appear to be that hard to make.

 It's not if you have all the equipment and skills needed; lots of people have

 but don't confuse making one for your own use with making them to sell to the

 public.

 >The cost seems extremely high.

 I think you mean price as you don't seem to have a handle on the costs

 involved in making them.

 Keep in mind that when one decides to retail something, the stores have to

 mark it up and if you sell through distributors who sell to the stores, they

 also take their cut.  Add your own profit on to that and you will understand

 why the market is not flooded with inexpensive roller mills.

 The two that have come out since the MM should give you a clue.  One has only

 a single roller and both are less then half the size of the MM but are only

 $20 less at the retail level.

 >Has anyone out there ever made a roller mill?

 Yes.  I made one and it cost me $10 and a weekend.  But when strangers

 started to buy them I had to put a value on that weekend.....

 >  Do you have any plans handy?

 What do you need plans for?  Just look at a MM and copy it.  Nothing could be

 simpler :)

 >From: Wolfe@act-12-po.act.org

 >Subject: Going all-grain

 >  First, I am considering mashing on a burner rather than using a

 cooler for a mash tun.  Is the primary reason for using the cooler rather

 than a burner the reduced investment in time and money?

 I won't attempt to define primary reasons but the only reason I know of for

 using a cooler is because the are about the right form factor and being

 inuslated, the retain heat well.  I don't see how it can be less expensive

 than stove top mashing because you must have a kettle in either case.

 > I guess I want to know how much of a hassle is it to mash on the stove as

 opposed to mashing in a cooler and if there are any differences in the

 quality of the brew.

 Both of these are subjective but as there are proponents of both, there is

 good reason to ask.  The cooler requires little attention but has limited

 flexibility while the opposite is true of kettle mashing.

 > Second, because I want to mash on the stove I need to invest in a

 larger brew kettle.  So far, I've only done high density extract &

 partial mash brewing so I've gotten by with only a 2.5 gallon kettle.  I've

 found a medium-duty 7.5 gallon SS kettle with a lid and a spigot for about

 $100.

 It would be fine but you can do just as well with a $40 enamel on steel 8 gal

 kettle for mashing and boiling.  When you want to move up to larger batches,

 just buy a larger boiler and use the original as a mash tun.

 >Third, I read a comment a while back about trying to get a 5 gallon

 batch of all-grain brew into a 5 gallon carboy.

 My suggestion is to use the kettle as a primary fermenter and move the beer

 to the carboy after primary is over and you will have no problem with the

 carboy size.  I have been fermenting in my mash tun for several years now and

 find it terribly convenient.

 > I've been using a stopper and a racking can as my blowoff valve, but have

 heard a number of people report using a 1" pipe attached to the top of the

 carboy.  Any insights?

 Take a Ritilin and pack your blowoff stuff away for one batch and try my

 suggestion.  My guess is you will never unpack it.

 js

------------------------------


barleywine yeast-handling

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 10:12:07 -0500 (CDT)

From: tony@spss.com (Tony Babinec 312 329-3570)

Subject: barleywine yeast-handling

You should be able to brew a barleywine using a suitable ale

yeast.  Pitching a second yeast, such as a champagne yeast, is

not necessary.

The yeast you use must be alcohol-tolerant and moderately

attenuative.  If there is any doubt about these properties in the

yeast you intend to use, then you should try it out in a test

wort first.  Apparent attenuation should be about 70%, as

with any beer you make.

It is important to pitch an adequate amount of yeast, and this

is especially true for barleywines.  As a rule of thumb, for any

ale, consider pitching a one-quart starter.  For the typical 5-

gallon batch, this represents a 1:20 volume pitch, and is easy

to remember.  For high-gravity beers, pitch a half-gallon

starter, which represents a 1:10 volume pitch.

I feel it is important to aerate the wort.  The home-made

aquarium pump aerator works well.

Yeast that work include Wyeast "American" ale and Wyeast

"British" ale.  Regarding "American," consider that Chico

Brewing uses it in all their ales including Bigfoot Ale, a high-

gravity barleywine.  Regarding "British," it is an amalgam of

three yeasts:  one is a fast starter that quits at low alcohol

levels, a second is a slower-starting alcohol-tolerant

fermenter, and the third is a "chainer" that causes the yeast to

flocculate.

So, if you use the right yeast and help them get started, they'll

produce a barleywine with no added champagne or wine

yeast.

------------------------------


Re: 120F sweet wort??

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 11:19:19 -0500 (EDT)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: 120F sweet wort??

In the last digest:

<Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 10:50 CDT

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Polyethylene Mashout

<I am using Low Density Polyethylene tubing for transferring wort.  It is FDA

approved and has a temp range of -70 to 120F and it handles sweet wort temp

just fine.

I can assure you that my sweet wort is above 120F, so I wonder the widom of

using 120F rated tubing in this manner.  I use a cut off plastic turkey baster.

Best, Jim Busch

------------------------------


wort chillers

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 15:32:00 +0000

From: SCHREMPP_MIKE/HP4200_42@ptp.hp.com

Subject: wort chillers

In HBD 1253, Greg Demkowicz asks about coiling a copper tube insid a 4" PVC

pipe to make a counter-flow chiller. Here's my 2cents worth:

Your idea sounds like a lot less frustration than trying to slide 30 feet of

copper pipe through 30 feet of garden hose. I've done it and it isn't fun. If

anyone does try this, definitely use a lubricant, like soap, and plan a for a

few hours of frustration. I'd suggest that you also put a length of 2" PVC

(capped at both ends) down the inside of your cooling coil. This will keep the

cooling water flowing around the copper coils and not down the center of your

chiller.

That being said, I'd also advise you to think through whether it's worth the

effort of brewing with the counter flow device instead of an immersion chiller.

I've gone full circle with wort chillers, from immersion to counterflow, and

finally (just this weekend) back to immersion. I've found that counterflow

chillers are the fastest to cool the wort, but immersion chillers are the

easiest to use.

My counterflow chiller was outside and was hooked to the garden hose. Using it

meant sanitizing it, carrying a pot of boiling wort outside, getting the flow

running, figuring out what to do with the water, and finally cleaning the thing

out. What a pain in the butt!

This weekend I bought the cheapest immersible pump I could get at the hardware

store ($33.95 for 120gallons/hour) and I made a coil out of some 3/8" copper

tubing. I use the pump to circulate water from an ice chest filled with ice and

water (actually I ran the outflow into the kitchen sink, and added cold water

to keep the ice chest topped up). With 20' of plastic tubing (10 at each end of

the chiller), and the chiller (20' of copper), the actual flow rate of the pump

was about 2q/min. I left the recirculating setup running while I sanitized my

carboy. It took about 45 minutes to get from boiling down to 70F, not fast, but

then I'm not into speed-brewing. Plus, the big advantages: no moving a pot of

boiling wort, no sanitization hassles (I put the chiller into the boiling wort),

and no flowing water to put somewhere. All told, a major improvement in lowering

the stress of the brew day.

Mike Schrempp

------------------------------


wyeast2308

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 11:25:19 EDT

From: btalk@aol.com

Subject: wyeast2308

Phil Brushaber asks about this.

I've made two award winning doppelbocks w/ this yeast. First made into

starter culture. Fermented 3 weeks @46-47 F,then 1 wk @ 55F,rack into

secondary & lager ~32 for 3 weeks.

the 1 wk @ 55 is called 'dicetyl rest' (sp?).

 Try longer lagering time if you are able.

  Good luck.       BobTalkiewicz

------------------------------


Plans for Grain Mill

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 08:51:11 PDT

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Plans for Grain Mill

>>>>> On Thu, 21 Oct 1993 09:17:55 -0500 (CDT),

 Steve Seaney <seaney@ie.engr.wisc.edu> said:

Steve> The other day I saw one of Jack Schmedling's (sp?) grain mills

Steve> at a brew store.  It doesn't appear to be that hard to make.

Steve> The cost seems extremely high.

Steve> Has anyone out there ever made a roller mill?  Do you have any

Steve> plans handy?

Well, I can remain silent no longer.  So many people look at a

commercial product and say exactly what Steve has.  What they fail to

recognize is the difficulty of actually tracking down all the

specialized parts and *tools* necessary to duplicate almost any

commercial product available.  How long will it take you to find a

supplier of just the right allen head set screw to attach the handle?

Will you have to get your end mill sharpened before cutting the flat

on the roller to tighten the set screw up to?  How many taps will you

break tapping the hole for the set screw?  How many drills will you

dull?  Do you have the correct router bit to round over the wooden

edges.  How much lubricating oil will you use in milling the grooves

in the rollers?  How many times will you have to re-make the rollers

until you get them made out of just the right kind of steel (or are

you a metallurgist)?  How much electricity will you use running your

machines and lights while you make it?  How much is your time worth?

You probably will take at least 5 times longer to make a roller mill

than a commercial vendor takes.  Do you have a lathe and mill?  How

much wear and tear will you put on these expensive machine tools?

Bottom line, you may be able to make any commercial product for much

less than it is sold for if you ignore everything but the cost of the

materials.  On top of that, you are not trying to make a living out of

it.  If you really figure *everything* in, I would doubt you could

beat the retail price by much if any at all since anyone who intends

to remain in business will be buying in volume and getting prices on

raw materials which you could never come close to at onesey prices.

If you enjoy building things, by all means, you have my whole-hearted

support to go ahead.  I even wish you the good fortune to improve upon

Jack's mill or any other brewing product for the betterment of all of

us brewers.  But, please do not make light of the effort that goes

into producing the great products which are being offered to us.

Knowing what it takes to produce these, I am quite satisfied that we

as home-brewers are getting fair value for our money frome the vast

majority of brewing equipment manufacturers.

Steve, I do not mean to single you out, this thread has popped up so

many times, I just took the opportunity of your post to reply to a

topic which has been bugging me for a long time.

Dion Hollenbeck (619)455-5590x2814     Email: hollen@megatek.com

Senior Software Engineer                      megatek!hollen@uunet.uu.net

Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California    ucsd!megatek!hollen

------------------------------


Filtering / Roller Mills

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 9:59:38 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Filtering / Roller Mills

Jim Sims asks:

>Okay - I give up. How *do* I filter out those bits of gunk, fruit,

>etc from the primary (or secondary) fermenter when ready to bottle,

>without oxidizing? To say nothing of trying to filter out the hops,

>etc *before* going _into_ the primary....

Letting it fall out of suspension, then quiet racking is the usual solution.

Using a racking cane, you leave the bottom 1/2" in the vessel (this is usually

the stuff you don't want).  You could put a hop bag over the end of your

racking cane to help it out.  Using whole hops eases filtering every step of

the way, BTW.

Steve Seaney writes:

>The other day I saw one of Jack Schmedling's  (sp?) grain mills at a

>brew store.  It doesn't appear to be that hard to make.  The cost

>seems extremely high.

>

>Has anyone out there ever made a roller mill?  Do you have any plans

>handy?

Steve, I've made two grain mills, with tons of help from my father-in-law the

tinkerer.  They _are_ hard to make, if you are going to do it right.  The

rollers are the key, and getting a constant distance from the shaft to the

surface of the roller is the hardest part.  We are talking about some very

small tolerances here.  The mill I now use cost about $75 in parts and many

hours of labor.  Jack's mill may or may not be better (I suspect it is a draw)

but it is without a doubt a better "deal".  IMHO, Jack's mill is worth the

price.  On the other hand, if you like making brewing equipment, then build it

yourself.  I did, and I love it!  Oh, I don't have any plans handy, sorry!

norm

------------------------------


Hot Priming/Keg Request

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 12:24:35 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Hot Priming/Keg Request

Dion mentions SABCO as a source of kegs for brewing.  Another vendor,

with possibly lower prices, is pico-Brewing Systems (313)482-8565 /

(313)485-BREW (Fax). I think they actually get their kegs from SABCO.

Disclaimer: the proprietors of pico-Brewing are friends of mine, but

I've got no financial interest in the company.

=Spencer

------------------------------


Beer Drinks

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 12:52:41 EDT

From: Mark Stickler Internet Mail Name <mstickle@lvh.com>

Subject: Beer Drinks

Just remembered a beer drink I had once. I think it was called a "Rocky

Mountain Oyster Cocktail". You take a Pilsner glass, drop a tablespoon

of cocktail sauce in the bottom, drop a raw oyster on top and then fill

with a can of Coors. The idea is to then chug the whole thing without

getting sick. The oyster usually travels down the side of the glass

rather slowly and into your mouth. Not for the faint of heart or queesy.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1256, 10/27/93

*************************************

-------


Hops FAQ, Part 1/5

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 11:13:14 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Hops FAQ, Part 1/5

Here is part 1/5 of the Hops FAQ.  I will send one part per day, but recent HBD

activity may do any number of things to them (1 every other day, 2 in one day,

???).  I'm looking for some Internet guru who can archive this thing for me in

the near future (I have neither the time, inclination to learn, nor the

facilities to do this).  I will make one more revision if necessary, based on

HBD feedback, but don't expect me to double the number of hours I've already

put into this thing.  Anyway, after the next revision, I'd like to email the

whole thing to someone and have them archive it for me.  Any takers?  I hate

to push off some of these hot discussions about mixing beer and Koolaid, but

here goes:

******************************************************************************

HOPS FAQ, Revision 2, 10/25/93

Compiled/edited by Norm Pyle (npyle@n33.stortek.com)

Reviewed/edited by Mark Garetz (mgaretz@hoptech.com)

Reviewed/edited by Al Korzonas (korz@iepubj.att.com)

I do not have the means to credit each passage individually, nor do I think it

would make for good reading were I to do so.  The following people (and

probably many more, sorry if I miss crediting you!) have contributed to this

FAQ (some of them don't even know they contributed!):

Glenn Anderson   (gande@slims.attmail.com)

Scott Barrett    (adiron!partech.com!scott@uunet.UU.NET)

Nick Cuccia      (Nick_Cuccia@talamasca.berkeley.ca.us)

John DeCarlo     (jdecarlo@mitre.org)

Alan Edwards     (rush@xanadu.llnl.gov)

Bill Flowers     (waflowers@qnx.com)

Russ Gelinas     (R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU)

Rick Larson      (rick@adc.com)

Don Leonard      (don@tellabs.com)

John Palmer      (palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com)

Bob Regent       (b_regent@holonet.net)

Peter Soper      (?)

Patrick Weix     (weix@swmed.edu)

Carl West        (eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM)

Ed Westemeier    (westemeier@delphi.com)

Dave Wiley       (wiley@wiley.b11.ingr.com)

Gene Zimmerman   (EZIMMERM@UWYO.EDU)

Also, Messieurs Miller, Papazian, and Rager should not be overlooked.  They

have all contributed to this FAQ, directly and indirectly.

I thank you and the HBD thanks you.  Here 'tis:

- --

Q:  What are hops?

A:  Hops are cultivated flowers (humulus lupulus) used for preservative and

flavoring characteristics in beer.  The bitterness of the hop is used to

balance the sweetness of the malt, and the essential oils add a flavor/aroma

which cannot be achieved by any other plant.  The hop plant is a perennial

spiraling vine which will grow in almost any climate given enough water and

sunlight.  It can climb either string or poles and can reach heights of over

25 feet.  The flowers (or cones as they are called sometimes) are usually

dried before use.

- --

Q: What are the compounds which provide the bittering?  What about the aroma

compounds?

A: Read on:

Bittering Compounds

One of the major contributions hops give to beer is a characteristic

bitterness that provides a counterpoint to the rich sweetness provided by the

malt.  This bitter flavor is extracted from the hops during the boil.  It is

during this time that virtually insoluble Alpha Acids are isomerized

(rearranged without changing their composition) into more soluble and stable

iso-Alpha Acids, the main bittering substance in beer.  Five different

naturally occurring Alpha Acids have been isolated from hops which are:

humulone - CH2CH(CH3)CH2

cohumulone - CH(CH3)2

adhumulone - CH(CH3)CH2CH3

prehumulone - CH2CH2CH(CH3)2

posthumulone - CH2CH3

Although isomerized Alpha Acids are the biggest contributers, hops contain

Beta Acids which also add bitterness to beer.  The Beta Acids are similar to

Alpha Acids both in structure and abundance.  In contrast to Alpha Acids, it

is not isomerized Beta Acids that add bitterness, is the oxidation products

of the Beta Acids that make their presence felt.

Both the Alpha and Beta Acids are very susceptible to oxidation, especially

at temperatures above freezing.  Losses of Alpha Acids of up to 60% are not

uncommon when hops are packaged and stored poorly.  Once Alpha Acids have

been oxidized they can no longer be isomerized into iso-Alpha Acid, thus

decreasing the hop's bittering potential.

For this reason, the "storageability" of each hop variety is often provided,

along with the Alpha and Beta Acid levels, by the hop broker. This parameter

is usually given as a percentage of the Alpha Acids present after 6 months

at 20C.  Some good storage hops (usually high Alpha Acid) lose only 15-20%

of their Alpha Acids:  Cluster, and Galena are among the best.  Most high

quality aroma hops lose anywhere from 35-65% of their bitter acids unless

anaerobic conditions and cold storage (<0c) are provided.

This is why it is imperative for brewers to buy the freshest hops available

and store them in the freezer, properly packaged.

Essential Oils

Hops bring a lot more to beer than bitterness.  The volatile oil, usually

0.5 - 3.0% (vol/wt) of hop cone, is an important part of many types of beer.

Brewers seeking to maximize hop flavor and aroma generally make late kettle

additions (0-15 min.  before cooling) with high quality "aroma" hops.  Dry

hopping, i.e. the addition of hops to the secondary fermenter or serving tank,

is another way to add hop character to a beer although the aroma components

retained by this method differ from those obtained in late kettle additions.

The maximum oil utilization is about 10 - 15% which decreases with increased

boiling time.

The essential oils are what give hops their unique aroma; each variety has

it's own distinct profile.  The smell of hops freshly crushed in your hand is

quite often different than that in a finished beer.  This is due to the fact

that the major components in hop oil, beta-pinene, myrcene, beta-caryophylene,

farnesene and alpha-humulene, are not usually found in beer.  However,

fermentation and the oxidation products of these compounds, especially

humulene epoxides and diepoxides are considered contributors to "hoppy"

flavors and aroma.  The exception here is with dry-hopping, where some of

the hop oil components do survive into the beer intact.

Researchers have not been able to duplicate the complexities of hoppy

character by adding pure chemicals in any proportion or combination.

Consensus is that there is a synergistic blend of several compounds, some

of which may have not yet been discovered.

Hop researchers, using capillary gas chromatography, have detected and

identified more than 250 essential oil components in hops.  Twenty two of

these have been pinpointed as being good indicators of hoppiness potential.

They are subdivided into 3 groups, humulene and caryophyllene oxidative

products, floral/estery compounds, and citrus/piney compounds, as listed below:

Oxidation Products:

caryolan-1-ol

caryophyllene oxide

humulene diepoxide a

humulene diepoxide b

humulene diepoxide c

humulene epoxide I

humulene epoxide II

humulene epoxide III

humulenol II

humulol

Floral/Estery Compounds:

geraniol

geranyl acetate

geranyl isobutyrate

linalool

Citrus/Piney Compounds:

delta-cadinene

gamma-cadinene

citral

limonene

limonene-10-ol

alpha-muurolene

nerol

beta-selenene

- --

End of part 1/5

------------------------------


Re: Liquid male extract

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 11:55:20 MDT

From: Nick_Nikols@Novell.COM (Nick Nikols)

Subject: Re: Liquid male extract

>>This formula uses 1.042 for a pound of

>>DME (dry malt extract) in a gallon of water, about 1.034 for

>>LME (liquid male extract), and about 1.029 for speciality grains.

      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>Yuck! I wouldn't put that stuff in my beer!

>Geoff

I guess this must be from a recipe for Smegmabrau.

Nick

------------------------------


Watney's Red Barrel Clone

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 12:17:02 PST

From: Bob W Surratt <Bob_W_Surratt@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: Watney's Red Barrel Clone

Text item: Text_1

Does anyone have a recipe that they feel comes close to matching

Watney's Red Barrel??  Please E-Mail any to me.  Thanks!  Bob Surratt

------------------------------


Cider/Grain Storg/Sick Beer/NORM!/Sig.lines

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 13:13:00 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Cider/Grain Storg/Sick Beer/NORM!/Sig.lines

*****************

meade@readmore.com

asked about:

Cider

Sorbate/Sulphate

*  Potassium Sorbate is a "stabilizer"  It will not STOP an

active ferment but will inhibit initiation of growth. Both

yeast and bacteria.

You Don't want cider with sorbate.  Find an orchard and get

the fresh pressed- unfiltered stuff.  Much worth it!

*   Sulfating cider-  hell why not!  You DON'T want to BOIL it!

I've done it.  Personally I prefere CYSER to CIDER>  Add honey.

Makes MORE alcohol, and adds a sweeter complexity.  Straight cider

tends to become rather dry.  Cinnamon is a nice addition too.

******************

 garti@mrg.xyplex.com (Mark Garti)

Subject: grain storage

>what are people using to store their grain in?

how long, under good conditions, will the grain be

fresh?  besides rats, are there any problems associated

with buying and keeping 50 lbs of grain?

*   I like metals cans with tight fitting lids.  You can line them

with a plastic bag to close down tighter as grain is used.

IAMS pet food commonly has gifts of cans which will hold about 30#

of grain.  You may find old square metal flour cans.  They fit better

on shelves, and hold- 20#.  Smaller cans are useful for dark and

specialty grains.

Check your local surplus store.  Watch out for anything- wet, dirty,

smelly, or which stored chemicals!  Plastic buckets would work fine too.

Grain will store well under room temp and cooler UNGROUND for long

periods of time.  After grinding grain loses some of its potential.

The big enemy- besides rates, in my case... MICE!-  is MOISTURE.

You want to be sure to keep it dry.  Mold will do bad things to grain.

************************

>First, what kind of critters can invade a bad batch?

What is the worst illness that you have heard of from drinking

'bad beer'?

*   Besides the normal nausea from drinking too much GOOD BEER!...

there are multitudes of wild yeast and bacteria which can invade

and creat off FLAVORS.  But as for getting sick...the only story I

heard of was when toot ended up with a sour stomach after drinking

the sediment from many bottles of spiced beer (clove, cinammon...etc)

and got sick from the excess spice bits reeking havoc in his tumtum.

Relax...Don't fret...Be cautious...but not 'noid! :)  Then have a brew.

***********************

To Norm Pyle- working on the HOPS faq:

*   Have you contacted Steiner's at all?  I wrote for a catalog

and price list and was sent a nice ~200pg HARDCOVER booklet on

hops- varieties- growth- dristribution...etc.  Kinda nice!  and FREE!

ok...it's actually 80 pages, with a spanish and german translation!

I believe they generally cater to BREWERIES not just brewers (like us)

I don't have the address handy- but e-mail me if you want it.

I've tried emailing you- but I get bounced.  I hate getting bounced!

***********************

About the sig. line re: Orgasms and baseball.

I guess some folks are a little sensitive.  Personally I

get a chuckle everytime I see it.  I don't think sig.lines

should be censored- just kept BRIEF!  Maybe a disclaimer at

the beginning- noting parental discresion and what not!

Here's to Screamimg and Squirming!

********************************************************************

         John (The Coyote) Wyllie   SLK6P@cc.usu.edu

***********************   Aaaaaaack! BtC  **************************

------------------------------


re:Brewing with nuts

Date:  Mon, 25 Oct 1993 15:21:00 +0000

From: "Rick (R.) Cavasin" <cav@bnr.ca>

Subject:  re:Brewing with nuts

Dave Lame gives an interesting description of the use of hazel nuts in

a mead:

One caution Dave.  You have assumed that people who lived over a thousand

years ago did not do something because you think it would be impractical,

and then conclude that the only shred of evidence you have (of what they

did) is wrong based on your one experiment, when you admit that it

yielded mixed results.

Perhaps they did collect immature hazel nuts and press the juice from them

(and had some use for the leftover nuts).

Perhaps the juice of the immature hazel nut produces a superior mead.

Perhaps the juice from immature hazel nuts is water soluble.

Maybe your source on the use of hazel nuts in 8th century Irish mead making

is wrong and they never used nuts at all.

Admittedly, it would not be practical for most people to try using immature

hazel nuts, but you shouldn't conclude that the oil produced by pouring

boiling must on mature hazel nuts is the 'real' hazel milk.  If your luck

is anything like mine, somewhere down the road a source for immature hazel

nuts will mysteriously appear. ;)

Good for you for going out and actually trying the experiment!

Cheers, Rick C.

------------------------------


Apparent attenuation ... function of yeast & malt.

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 14:44:49 EDT

From: lyons%adc3@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: Apparent attenuation ... function of yeast & malt.

Glenn Anderson in HBD 1254 askes about apparent attenuation numbers for

various yeasts.  I have had widely different apparent attenuations from

my all grain batches, most likely due to variations in the mash

temperatures from batch-to-batch.  My records show apparent

attenuations ranging from 52% to 78% using the same yeast (Whitbread

dry ale yeast).  I have had very consistent apparent attenuations over

several batches with the same DME & same yeast.  However, I get completely

different apparent attenuations between different brands of DME (AA of

Laaglander <> AA of M&F) with the same yeast.  In my latest batches I have

been using Wyeast 1338 (European) liquid yeast and have gotten apparent

attenuations of 75% with M&F based recipes, and 56% with Laaglander based

recipes.  I guess my point is that although the yeast is important in

determining the apparent attenuation, the percentage of fermentable sugars

in the malt also plays a significant roll in determining the final gravity.

Question:  When companys give apparent attenuation numbers for there

yeasts, is there a standard malt (or recipe) that they are using?

Chris Lyons

------------------------------


Good Head/Spruce BOIL/junk

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 14:01:21 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Good Head/Spruce BOIL/junk

******************************

Tom said:

>The problems that a lot of people have with carbonation and head retention

(including myself) may be related to infections that don't completely foul

the beer, but just add off flavors.

 ...snip...

But why does an infection kill head?  And what can I do with this 5 gallon

batch of infected brew?

*   Good Beer Head (as compared to...*slap*) requires the presense of

proteins to form stable bubbles.  Proteins surround CO2 bubbles and

establish a network structure stabilizing the bubble.  Can you

believe that researchers are funded to study this kind of thing!

Maybe I should apply for a grant...Splitting the Beer Atom!

Bacteria and yeasts may choose to chew on the necessary proteins

for food, or building materials and deplete the beer.

Some of these same protein eaters may also produce products

which result in what we consider "off flavors" or aromas.

But to them...it's just what they do.  Don't blame them-

JUST ELIMINATE THEM!  Call the TERMINATOR!

******************************

Chris Cook praises boiling essence for SPRUCE BEER

>John mentioned using 6 oz of essence.  I don't know the brand,

but that sounds like a whole lot of essence.

*I was thinking about that one.  I think it was a 2 oz bottle.

Good for up to 6 gallons???  Maybe I should have boiled it,

and made a darker beer.  Hmmm.  Still don't think i want to try it

again.  Maybe I'll experiment with smoke instead! (RauchBier!)

BTW:  Not to slam a style..Not me!  Give it a try if it tickles

your pickle.  I'm DEFINITELY not Rheinheitsgebot myself!

Anyone else ever tried Cajun Spice in a brew?  Interesting.

*****************************

Jeremy Bergsman says:

>(can you say salivary amylase?), the fungal one is probably the

cheapest.

*   You're not gonna start telling us to chew our grains in our

mouths and then spit into our boiling kettles are you!

Starts sounding like some wierd indian corn concoction! Hmmmmmm.

So what if we add some fungus to our mashes- MushroomBrew?

*****************************

Oh Nuts...Yeah.  Oil.  Kills head.  Maybe you should spit in it.

            That's coooool.  Huh huh, heh, heh.

*****************************

Oh...and BTW

    Norm mentioned his Barley wine was down to an OG of...

Wait a minute here.   OG= Original Gravity.  How can it be down to...

FG= Final Gravity,    SG= Specific Gravity.  Let's be nittypicky! :)

********************************************************************

~~~~~~~~~~~~  John (The Coyote) Wyllie SLK6P@cc.usu.edu ~~~~~~~~~~~~

**********************   Aaaaaaaack.  BtC  *************************

------------------------------


IPA request

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 15:04:00 CST

From: Montgomery_John@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil

Subject: IPA request

I posted this question before, but got no response, so I thought I'd

give it one more try before abandoning the idea altogether. I'm am

currently on a quest for the Holy Grail of India Pale Ales and am trying

to replicate Hale's IPA. If anyone has any recipe suggestions for

recreating this brew, could you please pass them along? Any suggestions

would be greatly appreciated.

john m.

montgomery_john@lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil

------------------------------


Fermenting Process question

Date: 25 Oct 1993 14:04:08 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Fermenting Process question

Hello Group,

I have made a spiced Christmas Ale (de la Phleming), and I used Wyeast

European Ale. I wanted a malty roundness to support the spices.

I would like your perceptions as to the quality of my fermentation.

I may have rushed things a bit. I squoze the packet early Saturday, by evening

it was plump and I added it to a high gravity starter (I haven't measured it,

but from the remainder's color, I'd guess 1.06) Next morning It was foaming

with a half inch of foam in the pint jar. I made my beer and pitched that

afternoon. I had good activity afterwork the following day (monday). It had a

sluggish fermentation overall judging from the meager three quarters inch

krausen. Most visible churning had ceased by Thursday and the krausen is now

settling back in.

Other particulars:

aeration: Liberal splashing of the bathtub cooled wort into the 7gal carboy.

          And some shaking. a little.

OG: about 1.06 (measured warm and adjusted)

FG: as of sunday 1.03

Temp: Air Stat'd at 69F

Time Elapsed: 7 days as of 5pm Monday Oct.25

I am using the Brewcap system but am having a difficult time getting my

sediment out of that teeny 1/4 inch hose. (hop pellet fine particles)

I need to do that tonight.  I am thinking of going ahead and racking it...

I can wait a while though, probably.

Does my fermentation seem too feeble to you?  This is my first use of Liquid

Yeast, the dry Red Star always had a furious krausen... The three point drop in

gravity looks good, but is that the whole story? I appreciate any and all

comments.

 -John Palmer

** I think sex is more fun than basketball, too.**

** Fishing can be a tossup, though. **

***(Depends on which is biting better)***

------------------------------


New England Brew Pubs

Date:         Mon, 25 Oct 93 17:07:15 EDT

From: Todd Anderson <TAND1698@URIACC.URI.EDU>

Subject:      New England Brew Pubs

Long time reader, first time writer.  I would greatly appreciate any info.

on brewpubs in the Southern New England area.  I've been to a couple in Boston,

so I'm more interested in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Cape Cod areas.

My E-Mail address is TAND1698@URIACC.URI.EDU.

                                Thanks a Bunch!

                                Todd Anderson

                                University of Rhode Island

------------------------------


Re: layered beer

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 16:23:36 -0500

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: Re: layered beer

Fritz Keinert <keinert@iastate.edu> writes:

>While we are on the subject of beer drinks: does anybody know how to

>get two differently colored beers (like Guinness and Bass Ale) in two

>layers in the same glass? We tried it once during a party, with no

>success.

You must use draft guinness, either from a tap or from the can.

Pour a layer of anything else on bottom, then pour the guinness

slowly & carefully over a spoon held against the wall of the glass.

Does it work if you try to put guinness on the bottom?

I'd go out and buy some, but they don't sell the cans in TX.

bb

------------------------------


Update on "RCA"

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 17:52:16 EDT

From: mwithers@hannibal.ATL.GE.COM (W. Mark Witherspoon)

Subject: Update on "RCA"

Ok, folks my Rusty Cream Ale came out.  The verdict...

 It ain't cream ale.  It looks and tastes like

 a Killians Red clone.

To refresh everyone's memory here is the recipe..

 2 lbs of pale malt

 1 lbs of flaked corn

 1 lbs of crystal malt (about 50 l)

 4 lbs of Alexanders Pale Malt

 1 oz of Tettanger Hops (3.8%) (boil @ 45 min)

 1 oz of Liberty Hops (3.2%) (half and half boil/finish)

 Whitbread ale yeast

 OG = 1.052

        FG = 1.012

It appears that the Whitbread yeast that I used was

really atteuntuave.  The % alcohol/vol is around 6.5.

The preliminary tastes puts it nice, smooth, a bit thin

(its' been ageing about 2 weeks).  It should have some

character in about 1-2 months.

Thanks for the reply's about it.

Mark Witherspoon

************************************************************************

|/ /|          W. Mark Witherspoon          | The opions expressed are of my

|   |/ /|      mwithers@hannibal.ATL.GE.COM | own not of my employer...

    |   | ATL  (609)866-6672                |  This sig will self destruct...*

------------------------------


Chapel Hill and Richmond Pubs/Brewpubs

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 19:22:51 EDT

From: sean v. taylor <sean@chemres.tn.cornell.edu>

Subject: Chapel Hill and Richmond Pubs/Brewpubs

Greetings:

 I am going to be in the Chapel Hill, NC area for a few

days in November and I was wondering if anyone out there in the

HBD zone had any advice on good pubs/brewpubs anywhere in the

area.

 On my way down, I am stopping in Richmond for an evening

and I was wondering the same thing (pubs/brewpubs?)

 Any responses would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks,

     Sean Taylor

------------------------------


Sheaf & Vine Brewing Supply

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 11:57 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Sheaf & Vine Brewing Supply

Please excuse the use of bandwidth, but due to the proliferation of

my catalog via electronic means, I have no way of knowing who of you

out there were planning to place a Sheaf & Vine order by mail.

It is with deep regret that I must report Sheaf & Vine Brewing Supply

will be suspending mailorder operations until further notice.

As many of you know, I have been running Sheaf & Vine Brewing Supply

(retail store AND mailorder) singlehandedly, evenings and weekends after

putting in 40+ hours per week at AT&T Bell Laboratories.  The reasons

for suspending the mailorder side are:

1. health -- often I would be up till 3am packaging hops & grains and

  this has really taken a toll on me,

2. no time to spend with my wife -- we just celebrated our 1 year anniversary

  (even on our anniversary day, I met with a potential customer)

  and, most importantly,

3. decrease in quality -- the heavy load of mailorder requests has increased

  turnaround time to unacceptable levels... if I cannot provide

  the best possible service to my customers, I would rather

  suspend operations rather than compromise quality.

If and when I make Sheaf & Vine a full-time business or if retail operations

require the hiring of an employee, I will resume mailorder operations.  Please

accept my appologies.

Al.

------------------------------


Filtering/PitchTiming/GrainStorage/Critters/WyeastMunich/ChimayYeast/HeadKillingInfection

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 13:41 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Filtering/PitchTiming/GrainStorage/Critters/WyeastMunich/ChimayYeast/HeadKillingInfection

Jim writes:

 Okay - I give up. How *do* I filter out those bits of gunk, fruit,

 etc from the primary (or secondary) fermenter when ready to bottle,

 without oxidizing? To say nothing of trying to filter out the hops,

 etc *before* going _into_ the primary....

Once the wort is cool you can splash all you want -- this is the time

to filter out bits of hops and stuff you added during the boil.  I use

hop bags and thus get very little stuff to filter out.  After primary

fermentation, one way to filter the beer is to put a mesh over the end

of the siphon hose.  You can increase your filter surface area by first

putting a sanitized copper scrubbie (like a Choreboy) over the end of

the siphon tube and then covering that with something like a hop bag

(thanks to Al Andrews and/or Kinney Baughman for this tip).

**********************

Domenick writes:

>It has been my experience that Wyeast is ready to pitch after about 24

>hrs, sometimes less.  By the time the package is really puffed the

>yeast has gone way past high kraesen (sic?), and flocculated.  It's had a

>good meal and dozed off.  Pitching this means not only are you under

>pitching, but you are under pitching sleeping yeast that will need some

>time to wake up.  By using a starter you can pitch more cells and perhaps

>better time your pitch to occur just before high kraesen.  So I think that

>a 48 hr lag time (Sat-Mon) is not unexpected.

Actually, the ideal time to pitch is shortly AFTER high kraeusen.  This

is important enough to repost (something from Mike Sharp):

>What I refered to here as the 'stationary phase' is really

>the very beginning of the dormant phase.  In other words,

>let you starter ferment out _then_ pitch it.  Don't let

>it sit too long or you'll have other problems.

>

>As far as the argument that vigorously multiplying yeast will

>start your wort faster, the yeast have a limited supply of glycogen

>and it gets depleated through culture growth (multiplication).

>If you then pitch this starter with an already depleated glycogen

>level into your wort then you'll have more of a lag since the

>cells won't be able to multiply as quickly (due to the low glycogen levels)

>[think of glycogen as the fuel that drives the cell]  By letting

>the cells reach stationary phase they have stopped multiplying,

>begun storing up glycogen again, and just generally getting ready

>to go dormant.

>

>At least thats the Reader's Digest version of what I go out of:

>> Impact of Yeast Handling Procedures on Beer Flavor During Fermentation

>> Pickerell et. all.

>> American Society of Brewing Chemists (ASBC) Journal, Vol 49:2, 1991, pp.87-92

****************************

Mark writes:

>what are people using to store their grain in?

I store it in white, 5-gallon, HDPE pails with gasketted lids (they are a bear

to remove, even with the lid-lifter tool!) at about 60-65 degrees.  You

can get between 25 and 30 pounds of grain in a 5-gallon bucket.  What else

is nice, is that the pails stack much better than 110lb sacks!

***************************

Doug writes:

>First, what kind of critters can invade a bad batch?

Lots, but none that are dangerous.  lactobacillus and pediococcus are the

most common, but you can also have acetobacter, molds and sherry flor.

>What is the worst illness that you have heard of from drinking 'bad beer'?

The worst thing that can happen is you'll like it and develop 'bad taste.'

But seriously, a hangover is about the worst thing you can get.

>Second, what is a good McEwan's taste alike? I have had this beer and like it's

>style.

I assume you mean McEwan's Scotch Ale.  There are very few beers that I know

of that are similar to McEwan's Scotch Ale and are imported into the US.  Note

that if you like MSA, you may also like a beer which is perhaps the lager

counterpart to MSA, namely Doppelbock.  Salvator Doppelbock is a bit less sweet

but in a similar vein.  Celebrator by Ayinger is another good one you might

try.

***************************

Phil writes:

>Has anybody had experience with this yeast (Wyeast Munich Lager #2308)?

I don't know what they mean about the instability, but I can report a

very intense "home perm solution" nose for the first 4 months of lagering.

I fermented at 50F and then later at 45F.  After 4 months, the off aroma

disappeared and the beer did well in a few competitions.

****************************

Jamie writes:

    How does the Wyeast Belgian compare to cultured Chimay yeast?  Which am

    I better off using?

Judging from the flavor of two beers that I recently tasted, one brewed with

Wyeast Belgian and the other brewed with cultured Chimay dregs, I would say

that the yeasts are identical.  There are trade-offs with each: going the

Wyeast route is more expensive but the Chimay dreg route is a bit riskier,

since you don't know how much the bottle was abused on its way to you from

Belgium.

*****************************

Tom writes:

>But why does an infection kill head?

Because part of what gives good head retention are dextrins and other

more-complex carbohydrates which yeast can't eat, but some bacteria can.

The bacteria cut up the large carbohydrates (and perhaps even proteins

- -- but this is just a guess, although small proteins are very important to

head retention) into pieces that are edible by yeast (which is why infected

beers often turn into gushers -- overcarbonation from the yeast eating

stuff you wanted unfermented).

Al.

------------------------------


Hemlock Beer

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 22:03:14 -0400 (EDT)

From: FILTER@xavier.xu.edu

Subject: Hemlock Beer

There seems to be some confusion among some people as to the difference

between Eastern Hemlock (an evergreen found in the far north down to Tennessee

along the mountains,) and the Hemlock(& water Hemlock) 'weedy-type' plant.

The two are not at all related, and I'm not at all sure how they gained the

same name.

The evergreen tree is one of our most beautiful coniferous trees. It has small

perfectly shaped cones.  According to 'Euell Gibbon's Wild Foods Guide,' you

may take a handful of the needles brew a delicious tea. It's good, I've tried

it over the camp fire.  'Peterson's Wild Food Guide' agrees and goes on to

state that a highly nutritious flour can be made from the inner bark.

'Peterson's North American Tree & Shrub Guide' states that both Native

Americans & early frontiersmen brewed tea from the Eastern Hemlock.

Unfortunately, the future of this tree is uncertain because of some ugly,

little insects we've imported into this continent.

The weedy-type plants, Hemlock & Water Hemlock, are easily distinguished from

the evergreen.  They've got leaves, as opposed to needles.  They may only grow

a yard or two tall.  And most of all, they look like Wild Carrot & Queen Anne's

Lace.  In fact, I think they're related to the latter. Both Hemlock & Water

Hemlock are highly poisenous, requiring only a handful of the leaves to do

in the average person.

Rest assured, if you can tell the difference between an evergreen and a

weed, you can use the Hemlock in your brewing(like the spruce.) I've never

made beer from either.            Good Luck, Jeep  (Filter@XU.XAVIER.EDU)

------------------------------


Nut Beer

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 00:32:00 BST

From: r.mcglew3@genie.geis.com

Subject: Nut Beer

I judged specialty beers last year at the HOPS-BOPS HB contest held at

 the Sam Adams Brewpub.  We gave a nut beer 1st place, it really was a good

 beer.  When we first tasted it we were not all that impressed, but after

 some re-calibration of our palates, we gave it a second try and voila.

 I can't remember the recipe, I believe it was either walnut or pecan, and

 I seem to remember that is was a brown ale.  If anyone is connected with

 HOPS, maybe you can look back in your records.

 For anyone that enters a specialty beer in a contest, be aware that the

 judges in that category are subjected to a lot of widely varying beers and

 have a hard time picking the right one, the judges' taste preferences

 really are the major factor.  So, if it doesn't do well, let your own

 taste buds determine if you should do it again.

------------------------------


homebrew club gone stale! oxidation?

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 23:45:06 -0400 (EDT)

From: /R=HERLVX/R=AM/U=KLIGERMAN/FFN=KLIGERMAN/@mr.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: homebrew club gone stale! oxidation?

As a member, former vice president and president, and treasurer of

our local homebrew club over the past half dozen years or so, I have

been disappointed in the direction the club has gone presently.  It

has turned into more of a socializing and drinking club.  Not to be

too negative, I would like to address this problem in our club newsletter.

I'm thus asking for input from people on the HBD to share with me if they have

had similar experiences in their clubs, and possible ways to remedy this

situation.  In particular, I would hope some could share with me some

of the activities that they partake of at their club meetings besides

drinking homebrew.  Specifically, where are meeting held, do they

rotate from house to house or restaurant to restaurant?  Are experiments

done on a club basis?  Etc.  Since this may be of general interest to other

clubs, a reply by digest would seem appropriate.  However, responses can

be e-mailed to : kligerman%am%herlvx@mr.rtpnc.epa.gov

Thanks,

Andy Kligerman

------------------------------


Info on Yeast Labs Liq. Wanted

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 23:54:46 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: Info on Yeast Labs Liq. Wanted

Hi,

I've been lurking (and drinking and brewing and then lurking some more)

since composing the Yeast FAQ. I could find no data on the attenuation of

many of the strains listed in the FAQ. If any one has data/impressions, I

would be glad to amend the FAQ.

  On a totally unrelated note: What are peoples impressions of the EKU

Hefe-Weissen (Weizen, Weixen?). I thought it was great, just my conception

of what a Bavarian Wei*en should taste like, but then it was my first

chance to try the style. (Goes great with pork roast, red cabbage, and hot

German potato salad--just like Grossmutti used to make!).

  I think my confusion over the spelling would be resolved if I knew what

Wei*en stood for. Weiss == white or Weiz == wheat. Anyone? Anyone?

Thanks,

Patrick

<weix@swmed.edu>

Hopfz und Maltz, Gott erhalts!

------------------------------


clarifying in a keg

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 00:55:50 -0600 (CST)

From: SWEENERB@msuvx2.memst.edu

Subject: clarifying in a keg

I am considering skipping the use of a secondary and siphoning straight into

a Cornelius keg as an experiment.  In the past I have used both Polychar and

gelatin as clarifiers, but recently gelatin has been the method of choice.

I like gelatin because it seems to drop out of solution in only a couple of

days and I don't like to wait for beer too long. My current batch is

a wheat beer which has been in the primary for about a week with no activity

for the last day or so.

Have any of you kegger types tried to add clarifiers directly into the

keg and what kind of results/problems can I expect, particularly with respect

to the use of gelatin? Thanks in advance folks.

As always,

Bob Sweeney

Memphis State University

sweenerb@memst.msuvx1.edu

------------------------------


Thoughts on a recipe for standard American beers...

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 13:43:27 PDT

From: "Victor Grigorieff" <VGRIGORI@us.oracle.com>

Subject: Thoughts on a recipe for standard American beers...

Howdy,

I was wondering what kind of a recipe one should use to make a beer like

Bud or Henry's Reserve Ale.  I am guessing that the standard American

mass-produced beer is using a bunch of corn sugar instead of malt.

I usually make beers with 7-10 pounds of malt (per 5-gallon batch), sometimes

substituting honey.  Does anyone have ideas on substituting corn sugar?

Am I on the right track, or are these beers made with extremely light malt

instead.  Any thoughts?

Thanks,

 - Vic

________________________________________________________________________

Victor Grigorieff                                    vgrigori@oracle.com

------------------------------


Faking orgasms and white knights

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 07:50:43 -0500 (CDT)

From: dspalme@mke.ab.com (Diane Palme x2617)

Subject: Faking orgasms and white knights

Hello all.

 I would just like to say "thank you" for those of you out there in

HBD-land who have a sense of humor and enjoy a bit of levity in your morning

e-mail.  It is refreshing to know that a woman is allowed to have a sense

of humor, and even more so, <gasp!> to express it.  For all of you who sent

me personal mail, as well as those of you who posted, thanks.  I'll try to

come up with an even better .sig.  For the person who was offended, well,

um,  pffffftt!  ;-P  :)  :-I  :-D

Returning you to your regularly-scheduled HBD ...

D.

- --

Diane Palme, EIT

Department Engineer, Central Inspection

Allen-Bradley Company

(414)  382-2617

dspalme@mke.ab.com

  "In the beginning, it was the Plan."

You think A-B would be smart enough to accept my opinions as their own?

I mean really!  <sheesh>

------------------------------


Beer hunting in Belgium: Part 6 (Aged beer tasting)

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 08:36:30 -0400

From: "Phillip Seitz" <p00644@psilink.com>

Subject: Beer hunting in Belgium: Part 6 (Aged beer tasting)

Beer Hunting in Belgium: Part 6 of 7

Aged beer tasting

      (by Phil Seitz)

On the last day of our trip we were able to arrange a tasting of

aged beers.  While we did request certain types of beer to

sample, the final selection was made by our host.  We cannot

vouch for the actual age of the beers (the bottles were not

labeled with dates), but can certify that they were certainly

old, and looked it--covered with dust, well sedimented, corks all

moldy, etc.  As it turned out, the effects of ageing were a bit

unpredictable anyway, so what follows here should probably be

taken as a range of possibilities rather than a strict prediction

of the effects of time on unusual beers.

Beer #1: 15 year-old gueuze from the Wets brewery (St. Genesius-

      Rhode); 75 cl corked bottle

      This beer was completely flat, a medium caramel brown in

color with a tart, rich, cherry-like aroma.  It was surprisingly

sweet, and at first taste we were convinced we'd been given a

kriek.  Our host explained to us that in some cases gueuze can

get sweeter with age (!), and that, no, there were no cherries in

this beer.

      The initial flavor was quite full, tart, slightly caramel-

and cherry-like, a bit like Rodenbach Grand Cru or Alexander but

with more of the lambic funkiness, less acidity, and no oakiness.

      The consensus at the table was that the beer had reached a

state of maturity, or peak flavor and character.

      As with older wines, exposure to oxygen produced some

interesting effects.  We drank our glasses over a 20-30 minute

period, and different tastes and flavors would come forward and

then retreat again.  Most notable was a banana-like flavor that

only lasted a few minutes.

      The Wets brewery no longer exists.  A line of gueuze

products is still available under that name, but our host said

these are made by the Brasserie Girardin.  Later comparison

showed that modern Wets and Girardin bottles are identical.

Beer #2: 10-year-old Liefman's Goudenband; 37.5 cl corked bottle

      Here the effects of exposure to oxygen were very dramatic.

Following the initial pour the beer was well carbonated, quite

similar to the current Goudenband in body, but slightly darker

and with brown tints in the head.  Then there was the flavor and

aroma.  As beer snobs we had a hard time coming to agreement--did

it taste more like a washcloth that's been laying around wet for

three days, or just a really bad pair of smelly socks?

      However, within ten minutes all the washcloth smell and

flavor had vented off, leaving the beer with a rather convincing

flavor of cabernet sauvignon.  Slightly fruity, slightly tannic,

very wine-like.  Fortunately it stayed that way, at least until

we were finished with our glasses.  A remarkable performance.

Beer #3: 20-year-old gueuze from the Wets brewery; 75 cl corked

      bottle

      Our host introduced this beer by saying it was the same

style and type as the one we'd previously had, though obviously

the year of production (and therefore some of the microflora used

in the brewing) were different.  In fact, the two beers could

hardly have been more different.

      This beer was also flat, with the color of dark milk

chocolate.  The aroma and flavor were very pronounced, and

featured bitter chocolate, coffee, and strong caramel.  A lot

like drinking strong coffee flavored with cocoa powder and

butterscotch, rather bitter but not overpoweringly so.  In fact,

a lot like Mexican mole sauce.

      Our surprise was evident, and we asked how two ostensibly

similar beers could turn out so differently.  The reply was that,

well, after ten years the development gets unpredictable.  I

can't say I'd drink a beer like this very often, but it was not

objectionable and certainly an interesting experience.

Beer #4: 25-year-old Orval; 33 cl capped bottle

      Unfortunately no aged Trappist beers like Westvleteren Abt

or Chimay Bleu were available, but a stock of Orval had been

retained.  At the time this bottle was produced Orval as 5.6%

ABV; now it's 5.2%.

      Despite the crown cap it had retained plenty of

carbonation.  In fact, it tasted a lot like Orval, particularly

with regard to the "hair tonic" yeast flavors.  If anything, it

had just softened a little, possibly due to the decline in hop

flavors.  Any reasonably experienced beer drinker could have

pegged this as Orval blindfolded.  Was it really bottled in 1968?

I had to wonder.

------------------------------


RE: Steam injection

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 09:56:12 EDT

From: mferts@taec.com (Mike Fertsch)

Subject: RE: Steam injection

Ed Westemeier proposed a method of Steam injection:

>I recently watched a fellow homebrewer use what I consider an extremely

>clever gadget.  He had an ordinary household pressure cooker that he

>modified to run a steam line out through a ball valve.

Be VERY careful modifying pressure cookers.  High pressure steam can be

dangerous!  The last thing you need is a hose rupturing, burning

yourself.

>By simply injecting live, low pressure steam into the bottom of his

>picnic cooler mash tun while stirring the mash, he was able to raise

>the temperature to the desired point very quickly.

>Has anyone experimented with this type of setup?

I once had the privledge of brewing a batch of beer at the Vermont Pub

and Brewery.  The recipe called for a step mash.  The VP&B mashtun is

equipped with hot water valves feeding the top, and steam valves

feeding the bottom.  A combination of hot water and steam heated the

grain for the high temperature step.  They force steam into the bottom

of the kettle - this helps heat the grain to the desired temperature.

One problem was mixing the grain.  As would be expected, the bottom of

the grain bed gets very hot, and needs to be stirred up.  We stirred

like mad (not easy with 1000 pounds of grain!), and also injected CO2

into the kettle from the bottom.  The CO2 gave the grain a little more

mechanical motion and assisted mixing the mash.  (Raising the

temperature was NOT fun - imagine standing on a ladder with a big oar,

stirring the mash.  As the same time, steam and CO2 are comming off the

grain.  If the stirring doesn't fatigue you, the steam doesn't burn

you, or the CO2 asphixiate you, you are destined to fall off the ladder

and break a leg!).  Everything worked out well - the beer was

fantastic!  (no one got hurt, but don't call OSHA!)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Mike Fertsch

Work:  617-224-7298  mferts@taec.com       Toshiba, Wakefield MA

Home:  617-932-0567  mikef@hopfen.rsi.com  Home, Woburn MA

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1257, 10/28/93

*************************************

-------


Hops FAQ, Part 2/5

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 8:30:01 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Hops FAQ, Part 2/5

Hops FAQ, Part 2/5:

- --

Q: Should I use pellets, or plugs, or loose hops?

A: Much has been written about what form of hops should be used. Loose hops are

just that:  loose cones which have been dried after picking.  Plugs are loose

hops which have been subsequently pressed into a bung, generally in 0.5 oz.

sizes.  Pellets are loose hops which have been ground to a fine powder and

then pressed into rabbit-food-sized pellets.

LOOSE HOPS

Advantages:  They are the most natural form of the ingredient.  They float,

which is good for siphoning out from under, and form a natural filter bed.

When they are fresh, they beat all others in terms of aromatic hop oils.

Disadvantages:  They float, so some contact with a still wort (as in dry

hopping) is lost, when compared to pellets.  This problem can be overcome,

though by using weighted hop bags, or it can be ignored.  Since they are loose,

exposure to air is the greatest and they lose quality quickly when compared to

the other forms of hops.  When stored in vaccuum-sealed or CO2 or nitrogen

purged Oxygen barrier bags or jars, this problem can be avoided.  They are

bulkier than other forms.

PLUGS

Advantages:  Are nearly the same as loose hops, in that, when hydrated, they

become whole hop cones again.  Like loose hops, they float.  Unlike loose hops,

they are better protected from air.

Disadvantages:  Few hop varieties come in this form.  Currently, any domestic

varieties are first shipped to England where they are made into plugs and then

shipped back to the U.S.  This may negate any freshness advantage they have

over loose hops (for U.S. varieties)  It is difficult, but not impossible to

separate into increments smaller than 0.5 oz.

PELLETS

Advantages:  Convenient to measure and have the best protection from air.  They

sink, so they get maximum contact in a still wort, as when used for dry

hopping.  This advantage may be mitigated though, if they are subsequently

covered with dead yeast, so later additions are recommended.  They reportedly

contribute 10% more alpha acids to the wort because of maximized surface area,

so are a more efficient use of this relatively expensive ingredient.  They are

generally available in more varieties and are generally a more consistent

product.

Disadvantages:  They sink, so it is sometimes difficult to avoid them when

siphoning.  The extra processing may reduce/change hop aromatics.

Given the pros and cons listed, the choice of which form of hop to use in a

certain application is up the individual brewer.

- --

Q:  What are AAU, HBU, and IBU's?

A:  Alpha Acid Units (AAU) and Homebrew Bittering Units (HBU) are the same.

For the sake of discussion we will use AAU's, which are calculated as follows:

AAU = AA * W

where AA = alpha acid % provided with the hops

       W = weight of the hops in ounces

The units of AAU's would be "percent-ounces".  They are usually considered

"unit-less".  It is generally assumed that, when using AAU or HBU, the batch

size is the standard homebrewing unit of 5 gallons.  If a beer is said to have

10 AAU's of bitterness in it, and it is a 5 gallon batch, there would probably

be no confusion.  If on the other hand, it is a 10 gallon batch, there is

actually half the AAU's per gallon when compared to the 5 gallon batch and the

beer would be quite different.  Another drawback to using AAU's is that they

don't consider the utilization obtained from long, intermediate, or short boil

times.  Fudge factors are sometimes added but at best they offer a rough

approximation.

To solve these problems, the International Bittering Unit (IBU) may be used.

With it, the brewer can get a more accurate approximation of the bitterness

given up by a given quantity of a given AA hop for a given boil time.  It is

batch size dependent so that a 5 gallon batch with 29 IBU's has the same

bitterness as a 50 barrel batch with 29 IBU's.  The equations are commonly

quoted from Jackie Rager's article in the Zymurgy "Hops and Beer" Special

Edition published in 1990.  The tables and formulae follow:

Boiling Time (minutes)   % Utilization

- ----------------------   -------------

less than 5                  5.0

 6 - 10                      6.0

11 - 15                      8.0

16 - 20                     10.1

21 - 25                     12.1

26 - 30                     15.3

31 - 35                     18.8

36 - 40                     22.8

41 - 45                     26.9

46 - 50                     28.1

51 - 60                     30.0

Utilization can be reduced to the following smooth function, as opposed to the

table, which produces many discontinuous lines.  Either can be used with

sufficient accuracy for the homebrewing operation.

%UTILIZATION = 18.10907 + 13.86204 * hyptan[(MINUTES - 31.32275) / 18.26774]

(Of course, you can drop some of those significant figures.)

    If the gravity of the boil exceeds 1.050:

ADJUSTMENT = (BOIL_GRAVITY - 1.050) / 0.2

    otherwise,

ADJUSTMENT = 0

IBU_PER_OZ  = %UTILIZATION * %ALPHA * 7462 / (VOLUME * (1 + ADJUSTMENT));

    UTILIZATION is the percent alpha acids expressed as a decimal fraction

    ALPHA is the percent alpha acids expressed as a decimal fraction

    VOLUME is the final number of gallons in the batch (usually 5).

    To calculate IBU's if you know the number of ounces of hops to be used:

IBU = OUNCES * IBU_PER_OZ

    To predict the number of ounces needed to hit a target IBU:

OUNCES = IBU / IBU_PER_OZ

Jackie Rager's numbers have been used successfully by hundreds of homebrewers

and provide a consistent base with which to work.  It is apparent that his

constant 7462, derived from metric to US conversion, is actually closer to

7490.  The ADJUSTMENT factor could be questioned as well, as it is

intuitively obvious that a gravity of 1.049 does not affect utilization

exactly the same as a gravity of 1.000 (water).  It is assumed that the

utilization table is corrected for this assumption and/or the difference is

small enough that it has little effect on the final bitterness of the beer.

Note also that Mr. Rager's numbers are often used for pellet hops thrown loose

in the boil.  It is common to add 10% more hops if used in a hop bag, and 10%

more than that if loose hops or plugs are used.

It has been reported that since iso-alpha acids possess a slight electrical

charge, they can be lost in many ways.  Among these are absorption into the

yeast cell walls (and subsequent removal of the yeast), attachment to

coagulating proteins (and subsequent removal of this trub), attachment to

filters, etc.  It is unclear if Mr. Rager's utilization numbers have assumed

these losses.  A revised utilization table has been presented by Mark Garetz

and can be used if desired.  It is shown below for reference.

Boiling Time (minutes)   % Utilization

                         (adjusted for

                         average yeast)

- ----------------------   -------------

less than 5                   0.0

 6 - 10                       0.0

11 - 15                       1.0

16 - 20                       4.0

21 - 25                       6.0

26 - 30                      11.0

31 - 35                      13.0

36 - 40                      19.0

41 - 45                      23.0

46 - 50                      24.0

51 - 60                      25.0

The same IBU formulae from above can be used with this table.  It represents

one of the many arguable topics of hops in homebrewing.

- --

Q:  How do I store my hops?

A:  At as low a temperature as possible, likely to be in your freezer.  Also,

attempt to remove as much air as possible from the package and use airtight,

preferably oxygen-barrier packages.

- --

End part 2/5

------------------------------


Re: yeasts

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 10:40:04 -0500 (EDT)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: yeasts

> Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 13:29:18 MDT

> From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

> Subject: Late Kettle Hop Additions

>

 I've been thinking recently about hop additions (all this Hops FAQ stuff has

 forced me to think about some of this stuff).  I just realized that there is an

 inherent advantage to immersion chillers (my old method) over counter-flow

 chillers (my current method).  Yes, the immersion chiller leaves the cold break

 in the kettle but it does something else that I have not seen discussed in this

 forum.

 With the counter-flow chiller the wort and hops remain near 100C the entire

 time the wort is being chilled.  From experience I know the kettle is still

 extremely hot 20 minutes after turning off the flame.  I would bet that

 finishing hops act more like flavoring hops and that flavoring hops act more

 like bittering hops with a counter-flow.  Can anyone verify these assumptions?

 Do you know of any commercial brewers who use immersion chillers (they clearly

 have _some_ advantages)?  Probably not since immersion chillers are less

 efficient and I know of few commercial brewers (even micros) who care a lot

 about hop aroma.

 This is certainly true, the time/temp can be long and high.  Some pro and

 not pro brewers add finish hops to the whirlpool in an effort to get more

 aromatics in the beer.  I whirlpool in the kettle, so when I add late hops,

 it does sit at 200+F for the 15 min whirlpool, and subsequent 35 min chill.

 You will still end up with aromatics, but if you want more, like I do in

 many beers, there is no substitute for dry hopping.

> ------------------------------

> Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 12:34:58 -0700 (PDT)

> From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

> Subject: Yeast nutrients/pitching

>

>

> My goal in starting this enquiry was to somehow get my pitching rate into an

> acceptable range while NOT being forced to pitch a half gallon or more of

> some other wort into a carefully designed recipe.  Remember a half gallon is

> 10% of a 5 gallon batch and such a volume will affect your results.  I would

> like to do an adequate pitch in about a pint of starter.  Also, I wanted

> to avoid having to save and pitch yeast slurry from previous batches (Hey,

> I want it all).

>

> Generally, I pitch a pint starter (very seriously underpitching) and if I

> can get 10 times the pitching rate by using a little YNB (provided the yeast

> characteristics remain stable) I figure it's worth it.

>

> If one is not reusing slurry but using a starter what's involved in getting

> an adequate lager pitch of 10-15x10**6 cells/ml in a 5 gallon batch?

Well, if dilution of the bitter wort is an issue, then decant the still

beer off of the starter/yeast slurry.  If you dont have enough slurry, add

more fresh wort, let ferment out, and decant.  Mike Sharp is a big pro-

ponnent of pitching after high krausen, so the ferment and decant method

makes sense.  With cell densities, you are kinda forced into successive

steps up to get the cell count up, or reuse yeast from a previous ferment.

> > What kind of lag time did he get?  I'll bet it was on the order of 10-12

> > hours, not bad, but greater than optimum.

>

> With Wyeast Chico Ale strain he got just what Dan expected, 10-12 hrs.

> However, with Wyeast London Ale strain he got a 3 hour lag.

>

> Speaking of lag time, how exactly are we determining the end of lag time?

> For my own purposes I have defined the EOLT as 2 bubbles/minute from my

> airlock, but this may be misleading in either direction.  Jim?  Dan? fg

>

3 hours is really great!  I measure the transition by visable krausen on

the top of the wort.  With my brew schedule, I never see the transition,

since I usually cast out into the fermenter at 10PM, pump oxygen for about

2 hours, and go to bed.  By 7AM, the ferment is usually crawling out and

over the floor!  Got to get a bigger fermenter :-)

>

> In fact, I think its a pretty darn good one if you are brewing outside

> and pipe your wort into the basement.  Mount that on the basement wall

> and you don't have to worry about hauling it around, setting it set up

> or it being in the way.  I'd encourage you to make it at tell us how it

> works...

This is how I do it.  I have a 12 foot prechiller counterflow from the

kettle to the pipeline interface.  This feeds 50 feet of counterflow

pipeline, second stage, underground, into basement, cross basement, to

fermentation area, where it goes through 15 feet of ice bath, ball valve

into fermenter.  I over-engineered it for several reasons:

speed, high tap water temp in summer, and hopes of lagering some day.

At the end of the transfer, I hook up 175+F water from my hot liquor

tank and rinse the pipeline, often diluting the cast out wort.

> Subject: Steam injection

>

> I recently watched a fellow homebrewer use what I consider an extremely

> clever gadget.  He had an ordinary household pressure cooker that he

> modified to run a steam line out through a ball valve.  By simply injecting

> live, low pressure steam into the bottom of his picnic cooler mash tun while

> stirring the mash, he was able to raise the temperature to the desired point

> very quickly.  He also used the steam to heat his sparge water in the same

> way.  It all seemed so simple and logical that I wondered why I hadn't seen

> it mentioned before.

>

> Has anyone experimented with this type of setup?  What were the pros and

> cons?

>

Sounds dangerous to me.  How do you know when it is empty?

Best,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


You can't judge a beer by the bottle, but...

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 08:37:28 -0600

From: John Adams <j_adams@hpfcjca.sde.hp.com>

Subject: You can't judge a beer by the bottle, but...

Good point.  If you look in any copy of Zymergy you will find a few

companies that produce custom labels but I've never seen anyone who makes caps,

bottles, or wooden crates.

Personally I make my own labels using a graphics editor, a ray-tracer,

a good collection of gif/jpeg "clip art" of beer labels, and a color printer.

I would also like to find an outfit that produces custom beer coasters.

John Adams

------------------------------


grain storage

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 10:46:34 EDT

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: grain storage

garti@mrg.xyplex.com (Mark Garti) asks:

>what are people using to store their grain in?

>how long, under good conditions, will the grain be

>fresh?  besides rats, are there any problems associated

>with buying and keeping 50 lbs of grain?

>mrgarti@xyplex.com

I store all my specialty grains in a 48 quart picnic cooler (I already have

a good lauter tun :-).  I find this really effective for storing small (1 to

5 pound bags of crystal, roasted, and other malts.  As for base malts, I still

don't have a good method for storage.  I usually by 55 pound bags of Munton

& Fison malts and their bags are plastic lined.  As long as you close the

top well, insects aren't a problem.  Rats are another matter.  With 3 cats

in the house, rodents are not my concern :-) but they could get into that bag

with no problem at all.  A good solution might be a heavy duty 30 gallon

trash container with a tight fitting lid.

- --Tony Verhulst

------------------------------


CF Chiller Effects on Hop Character

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 10:54:14 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: CF Chiller Effects on Hop Character

Norm Pyle writes:

> With the counter-flow chiller the wort and hops remain near 100C the entire

> time the wort is being chilled.  From experience I know the kettle is still

> extremely hot 20 minutes after turning off the flame.  I would bet that

> finishing hops act more like flavoring hops and that flavoring hops act more

> like bittering hops with a counter-flow.  Can anyone verify these assumptions?

 <snip>

> I may alter my procedure a little bit to compensate for this.  I haven't yet

> decided how.  Suggestions?

I noticed a similar change in late hop character when I changed to using a CF

chiller: I found that to obtain the same hop flavor and aroma, I had to add

*more* hops *later* in the process as compared to my previous process that

used an immersion chiller.  One technique that I have found useful is to add

hops *during* the runoff.  After my boil is complete, I stir the wort vigorously

and wait 15 min for the trub and hops to settle.  During the runoff - about

25 min for 5.5 gal - I typically add whole hops in one or two additions.  This

has improved the intensity of my late hop character.  I use a slotted pick-up

tube in the boiler to avoid clogging the chiller.

I feel the CF chiller has pros and cons:  I get a much better cold break with

my CF unit using well water.  My wort exit temp is ~55-60F. Another

benefit is that, given that my chiller and settling tank are disinfected, there

is very little risk of infection because the wort in my boiler is still above

160F at the end of runoff.  On the downside, one must deal with the cold break

in the fermentor and the late hop character is decreased in the 30-40 min.

the wort remains in the boiler.

Rob Reed

------------------------------


milling red hard spring wheat

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 09:13:40 -0600 (CST)

From: Robert Schultz <Robert.Schultz@usask.ca>

Subject: milling red hard spring wheat

 I attempted Phil Seitz's  Beligian White Ale on the weekend.  I now

know what Phil meant by grinding 5 lbs of wheat on a Corona.

 How do the roller mills perform on the hard unmalted grains (wheat, rye,

rice)?  Barley and oats are fairly soft.

Rob.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~ Robert.Schultz@usask.ca, University Studies Group, University of Saskatchewan~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~ "I'm going off half-cocked? I'm going off half-cocked? ...                   ~

~  Well, Mother was right - You can't argue with a shotgun."     - Gary Larson ~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

------------------------------


Miscelaneous

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 10:53:41 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Miscelaneous

With HBD bunged up worse than my sink was last week, should people be

lecturing about humor or criticizing the humorless in the digest

rather than by email?

Re brewing.  Peter Just asks about lagering in bottle vs carboy (or keg).

The advantage of the latter is clarity - and very little sediment, but

a disadvantage is fresh yeast should be added.  The advantage of the former

is timesaving and less trouble with equipment.  However, I think the advantages

of bulk conditioning outweigh the trouble involved (1255).

Robert Urweiler asks about labels.  There was an article in the last Zymurgy,

which was nearly more useful than the entire last BT (IMHO).  Was anyone

else disappointed with it after their first 2 excellent issues?

Scott Weisler resonds to greg with criticism of a PVC pipe design wort chiller.

The problems mentioned are easily overcome with baffles, and the design can

be as or more effective than the garden hose method because the flow is more

turbulent.  I am considering such a device.  However the outer part will

be metal - not PVC - possibly and old paint can or something thicker with

bulhead fittings and pieces of scrap metal for baffles.  Sterilize by

bunging the whole thing in the oven for half an hour.  Pity one can't buy a

nice small shell and tube heat exchanger cheaply.

Ulick Stafford - no sig to conserve bandwidth

------------------------------


Steam injection

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 9:55:19 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Steam injection

Ed Westemeier mentions steam injection for heating sparge water and for step

mashes.  It sounds fine for sparge water heating (although I can think of more

efficient means of heat transfer).  My first thought in using it for stepping

up mash temperature is Hot Side Aeration.  This may or may not be a problem,

though, on second thought.  Does steam contain lots of free oxygen?  It is not

like hot water which can contain dissolved oxygen, but it is pushing along lots

of (hot) air with it.

I suspect it is not a good idea to use steam directly but it gives me an idea

for putting a radiator in my cooler/mash tun.  This way you could add heat to

the cooler for step mashes without the complications of electricity (for some

reason a direct propane flame doesn't seem like a good idea).  I have lots of

3/8" copper tubing in the garage, hmmm...

norm

------------------------------


steam injection

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 12:05:45 EDT

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: steam injection

Ed Westemeier writes:

>I recently watched a fellow homebrewer use what I consider an extremely

>clever gadget.  He had an ordinary household pressure cooker that he

>modified to run a steam line out through a ball valve.  By simply injecting

>live, low pressure steam into the bottom of his picnic cooler mash tun while

>stirring the mash, he was able to raise the temperature to the desired point

>very quickly.......

This, sir, is just too wonderful for words. Thank you.

BTW, what kind of tubing was being used?

- --Tony Verhulst

------------------------------


Requesting Rum Distillation info

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 09:16:50 -0700 (PDT)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@zgi.com>

Subject: Requesting Rum Distillation info

I realize this is a forum for BREWING but the recent mini-thread on

distillation indicated to me there may be some expertise in HBD-land

that I could tap.  I have been presented with a possible commercial

endeavor and am looking for *REAL* information (with references) on the

subject of distillation of spirits, particularly rum.  Please use

private Email.  Thanks.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Beer Drinks

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 09:41:56 PDT

From: b_roach@qlc.com (Brad Roach)

Subject: Beer Drinks

  I don't know if this qualifies as a beer drink, but when I make margaritas

I always add alittle beer before blending.

  The advantages are:  1) the beer tends to hide the Tequila taste, and

2) makes the margaritas more foamy.

   __

  /_/             /

 /  /  /_  __  __/

/___/_/ (_(_<_(_/

------------------------------


Chillers

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 12:20 CDT

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Chillers

 >From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

 >Subject: Late Kettle Hop Additions

 >I've been thinking recently about hop additions (all this Hops FAQ stuff has

 forced me to think about some of this stuff)... The immersion chiller cools

 the wort and hops fairly quickly from 100C to around 50C (maybe 10 minutes).

 The late kettle additions are boiled for a short time (1-10 minutes) and then

 within 10 more minutes they are at a relatively low temperature (50C).

 It is unfortunate that those who do not read rec.crafts.brewing missed the

 recent great debate on immersion vs counter-flow chillers.  Kinney Bauman did

 an admirable job of defending counter-flow in light of its obvious

 shortcomings and naturally lost to the Lighthouse of Wisdom and Truth.

 I won't re-hash the whole argument here but in summary, not a single,

 UNARGUABLE advantage could be brought in defense of counter-flow for home

 brewers and most of the good reasons are only valid in large scale brewing.

 The only advantage to homebrewers was the OPINION that chilling faster made

 for clearer beer but no one had come up with any documentation to prove the

 point.

 Before I get into the virtues of immersion chilling, it is necessary to point

 out that I would no more use a poorly designed immersion chiller than a

 poorly designed anythingelse and most people do not have proper immersion

 chillers.  Mine is installed in the lid of the kettle with quick disconnects

 to water and drain lines.  Once the lid and chiller are in place, they can

 stay there for hours or days without risk of contamination or loss of aroma

 laden vapor.

 Now, ponder the possibilities this allows.  You have an infinite number of

 post boil hopping schedules that you can play with.  For example, shut off

 the heat, put on the lid and throw in some hops.  This hops is at near boil

 temp which kills that herbal taste but the vapor and aroma can not escape.

 When you chill it down, the vapor and aroma are re-absorbed by the wort.

 Let's say you think that some shops should be added at 163.794 degs F and

 allowed to natually cool with the wort.  No problem either.  Maybe you want

 to add some every 10 degs as it cools or how bout chilling it down right away

 and adding it at pitching temp but letting it sit in the kettle for 24 hours

 to absorb the flavor.  There are no end of possibilities to toy with.

 >Do you know of any commercial brewers who use immersion chillers (they

 clearly have _some_ advantages)?

 They have only one disadvantage.... they are ponderous and totally

 impractical in a large operation.   They require a removable lid to get it

 out or an impossible cleaning headache if installed permentantly in the

 kettle.  Counterflow chillers of a modest size can chill any amount of wort

 given enough time.

 It is another good example of what can go wrong when people simply scale down

 what they see in a commercial operation and assume it must be better for

 homebrewers.  The counter-flow "snobs" are simply wrong on this one.

 BTW, you mentioned that the kettle stays hot awhile with the counterflow

 anyway but that is not the argument.  There is no magic as to how long the

 wort stays hot.  The issue CAN be, how hot?  If it falls below pasturization

 temp and is open to the air, there is a risk of contamination.  If it stays

 near boiling, it is no worse than extending the boil that amount of time.

 And keep in mind that PU simply air cools the wort till it reaches lower

 temps.

 The counter-flow afficinados claim that it is the instantaneous chilling of

 each quantum of wort as it passes through the chiller that does the magic.

 While this is certainly something one can not do with immersion chilling, no

 one, (at least in that discussion) was able to prove that it really makes any

 difference.   Judging from the reputation of PU, it doesn't seem to have

 anything to do with how long it takes to get from boiling to 150F, so it

 needs to be proven that fast chilling from there to pitching temp is

 critical.

 To me, the most obvious disadvantage of the counter-flow chiller is that most

 of what would have stayed behind in the kettle ends up in the fermenter

 unless one does an additional settling step.

 So, I hereby challange the counter-flowers to start your engines....

 js

------------------------------


Show and Tell on my UK trip (Samuel Smith's)

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 10:38:24 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Show and Tell on my UK trip (Samuel Smith's)

Thought I would add a few more interesting observations about my recent UK

trip. I dropped in at Samuel Smith's brewery in the afternoon an ask about

a tour. They said they were all booked up. I mentioned I was a brewer from

the states and the receptionist made a phone call and I was in. The tour

was at 7pm that evening. My wife and I showed up in the adjoining pub with

about 12 other people. Our tour began in the tack room. That's where they

keep all the hardware for their horses. We heard all the details about

their award winning horses before we went outside to see and feed and pet

one of them. These are Shires, we're talking big horses here. I could just

see over the horses back. I'm 5'8". Sam Smith's does no advertising and

depends on their horses, which they show around everywhere, and public good

will for their advertising. It seems to work. Afterward we entered the brew

house and I got to see those famous Yorkshire slate squares I have heard so

much about. I finally understand these damn things. One of them was empty

and several of them were in full blown fermentation. They look like this...

                     |          A          |

                     |                     |

                     |------/      /-------| divider

                     |                     |

                     |          B          |

                     |---------------------|

The unfermented wort is filled in chamber B just below the divider. As the

fermentation proceeds, the foam and yeast are pushed up into chamber A.

Because there is the cone shaped thing is the center, the yeast is skimmed

from the beer. After a day of fermentation, they pump all the liquid from B

back to A. This is just to rouse the fermentation. After this they just let

the skimming action take place. Sort of neat, huh. I have no idea how they

clean the B chamber. They told me they never repitch their yeast. They

always grow up a fresh batch. I got to see their impressive steam generator

and their gorgeous copper kettles. Then we entered the lager brewery. Yep

you heard me right. They brew lagers under special contract for Ayinger.

The lager brewhouse had a kettle and mash tun that was gigantic. We saw the

other standard brew stuff, and made our way to the pump room. It is tucked

away under the brewery. You have to almost crawl to get there. It was

easier when leaving :->. We drank their cask ales and saw a movie. After a

few beers I found myself behind the bar pulling my own beers with those

great beer engines. Lots of fun! I tasted NO diacetyl in any of their

beers. I mentioned the skunkyness we get in their beers in the states due

to their use of clear bottles for some beers. They seemed amazed.

Sam Smith's is located in the town of Tadcaster about 30 mins outside of

York. There are about 4 breweries in Tadcaster, Bass, Magnet, Sam Smith's

and John Smith's. All the breweries located there because of the water

quality (the water is very hard). There is alot of rivalry between Sam

Smith's and John Smith's. John was a brother and split off another brewery.

Sort of a family outcast. The John Smith's brewery was sucked up by Courage

in 1970. All of Sam Smith's beers I tasted in England were very good. I had

a pint of their Museum ale in London. It had a distinct woody character to

it. It was drawn from a wooden cask. The taste was sort of a young, green

woody character. Maybe some of you brewers that have experimented with wood

chips in your IPA's would know what I mean. This was not an IPA, however.

Cheers,

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Beer Shelf Life

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 10:54:52 EDT

From: softdesk!suez!trs@uunet.UU.NET (Tom Schwendler)

Subject: Beer Shelf Life

Hello brewers,

I just read that sediment beers (beers with yeast sediment) have a shelf

life of only 3 months.  I know I have kept bottles longer than that, but

does anyone know what the shelf life of homebrewed beer is?  Let's say

assuming you are keeping the beer in a cool dark place, how long should

it store without turning sour, or acidic?  Other than filtration or

pasturization, are there ways the homebrewer can increase the shelf life

of bottled beer?

Thanks for your help,

trs@softdesk.com

Tom Schwendler

Structural Product Manager

Softdesk, Inc.

------------------------------


Hop Storage & Growth/Quaff & Stir

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 12:44:25 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Hop Storage & Growth/Quaff & Stir

***************************

Hop Forms- Stability....

> Also, regarding the type, pellets tend to retain more of everything

(AA and aromatics) than plugs, which retain more of everything than whole.

It's all a matter of exposed surface area.

*   Just a comment here: One of the disadvatages (not to open a can of

worms!  Old debate I know!) to pellets involves the process of

pelletization.  This process involves physical abuse, and some temp.

stress to the hops.  This results in some loss of aromatic qualities

from the hop as compared to fresh cones.  Plugs are a good in between

since the hops are not first chopped, but just pressed into pellets.

So to say that " pellets tend to retain more of everything" is a bit

misleading.  In terms of storage...YES,  in terms of qualities lost

from the time of harvest thru processing, to the store,  NO.

    It is true that handling of flake hops (cones) does have the

potential to reduce quality mroe than handling of pellets. I commonly

find a collection of yellow crystals at the bottom of my flake hop

bags.  So.....my solution.  Grow my own!  See note below....

***************************

From: Philip Proefrock <PSPROEFR@MIAMIU.ACS.MUOHIO.EDU>

Subject:      Growing Hops

>I am interested in growing my own hops for use in my homebrew.  (I don't

plan to use this exclusively, but it would be nice to have hops I had

grown in the beer that I brew.  I expect I would only use the homegrown

hops for one part of the process, say boiling,   and will continue to

buy other varieties for flavor/aroma.)  Does anyone else do this?  Can

you provide some pointers, suggestions as to where I can find seedlings

or seeds, etc.?  What varieties will grow best in the midwest?o I hope

to get starters going indoors this fall, so that I can get them growing

this coming spring.

*   Hop Growing Experience (1 year- first season, but what a thrill!)

"exclusively"-  You'd need a BIG vine yard to keep up- 1 harvest to last

all year.  That's asking a lot.  BUt maybe after a few years.

"boiling"-  Personally I feel I get the best advantage out of the fresh-

ness of my homegrown hops by utilizing them at finishing.  BOUQUET!!!!

Plus I am able to spread out there use more that way.

Planting Time:  Early spring.  March-May depending on location.

Form of starts:  Rhizomes-  segments of roots with sprouts. No Seeds!

(I actually found a seed in one of my cones. I don't know what fertilized

it, but it was a rather odd find! Haven't tried growing it. )

Female plants are propogated.  Males not found- except on research plots.

Plan on some TALL vines.  Very fast growing!  Beautiful sight to watch.

You can actually OBSERVE growth.  3 inches per day at the peak!

The way to plant is dig a plot- fertilize/mulch, and lay the

rhizome in a hole.  Protect from frost until things warm up.

No point in starting them inside.  Just count on several years

till "great growth and production" is observed. Well worth it!

I planted 4 varieties:

    Cascade- Good grower. Excellent production. Hardy. BIG cones!

    Chinook- not too impressive.  A friend had the reverse of these 2

    Mnt Hood- 2nd best growth.  Yummy cones. Also quite hardy

    Perle- Not too impressive.  A bit better than Chinook. I like

    the hop though.

NOTE: This was the first year.  Subsequent years will improve dramatically

I did have quite a bit of pest problems, but the cascade was able to

tough it out!  I'm looking forward to next year! Can't wait till the

start up again!

I got starts from FreshHops in Philomath OR. 503-929-2736. No connection.

Just a happy customer.  There are other sources. Write to them or call

and they will inform you when the starts are ready for shipment.

It's about 2-4 $ rhizome.  I used 2/hill.  There is a book on Growing

Hops- dont have the author at hand.  It's an ok book. More of a

personal account than a hard-fast guide.  Some good info. He did

do some research for it. That shows.  There is a hop primer floating

around somewhere on the net.  I could try to find/post it if desired.

**************************

Stuart from Edinburgh says he:

> uses a plastic brewheat thingy and I think its crap, I want to brew

bigger  batches and I want to use gas to heat, cos I like flames!

*  I'm sure there's a few folks around willing and able to scorch

a few flames.  But that would never happen on HBD...right!  :/

A note for AL...That's one reason why I didn't include the

commercial mash/lauter tuns in my rundown. Not that they don't exist

but just that with a little creativity one can be fashioned

cheaply at home.  I don't have exp w/ the commercial ones...but

they are out there.  Have heard good things about Phil's false butt.

*************************

Tom queries:

wanted to know if....needed to put down my homebrew to scape the

hops off..side of kettle.  It sure could save me a couple of minutes

drinking time.

*   Hold a spoon/paddle in one hand, homebrew in the other and

scrape away.  I don't know for sure- but I would suggest that to

get FULL extraction of hop oils you want to hop material in contact

with hot liquor for the full boil.  I use a mesh- hop bag, so I don't

have that problem.  I do plunge the bag to the bottom several times

during the boil.  But I can do that one handed.  Use a beer mug with a

handle if you don't feel comfortable with your dexterity.  With a

little practice you can master the techniques of continuous drinking

during ANY activity.  If you spill a little into your wort...don't worry.

*************************************************************************

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ John (The Coyote) Wyllie  SLK6P@cc.usu.edu ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*************************** bonk bonk bonk ******************************

------------------------------


Pitching large yeast starters

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 12:05:14 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Bob Jones" <bjones@novax.llnl.gov>

Subject: Pitching large yeast starters

Domenick Venezia's concern about pitching large starters into fermentations

was a concern of mine as well. What I have started doing is wait until the

yeast has dropped and then decant (I have actually been removing the liquid

above the yeast with a small siphon hose) and then add additional food.

Then I do the same again or just pitch straight into the wort. Work G. Fix

and a few others have done, has shown that there are actually ADVANTAGES to

pitching yeast AFTER high kruesen. The viability issue does enter into the

equation if one waits too long before pitching. I can't seem to locate any

info on yeast viability with time.

Bob Jones

------------------------------


Late Hops vs. Chiller, Homegrown Hops

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 12:31:47 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Late Hops vs. Chiller, Homegrown Hops

Norm Pyle asked about immersion vs. counterflow chilling and late hop

additions:

Just my 2 cents:  There's no reason to go back to immersion chilling

for late hop additions, unless you want to.  If you like counterflow

chilling, you can compensate for the effects of long "hot wort time"

by either covering the wort so the volatiles aren't lost or simply

adding a bit more hops.  But in my opinion the difference is likely

to be a small one regardless.  I would think that a much more

significant effect would come from those that cool their wort by

immersing the pot in a sink or bathtub of ice water, which takes

significantly longer than either immersion coils or counter-flow

chilling.  For the record, I use an immersion chiller and also cover

the pot as the wort cools.  A tip is that since the coils don't

allow the actual lid to fit over the pot while cooling, I use

about three strips of Strech-tite (like Saran wrap) to cover the

pot so that I get a good seal.  Now I don't cover to keep in hop

volatiles (but I suppose it does), but to keep airborne nasties out

of the wort during cooling.  I do not cover during the boil.

Philip Proefrock writes:

>I am interested in growing my own hops for use in my homebrew.  (I don't

>plan to use this exclusively, but it would be nice to have hops I had

>grown in the beer that I brew.  I expect I would only use the homegrown

>hops for one part of the process, say boiling,   and will continue to

>buy other varieties for flavor/aroma.)

I would suggest you do just the opposite.  Use the homegrown hops for

aroma additions and use hops you know the alpha acid ratings on for

bittering.  You can at least get a sense of the aroma potential of your

homegrown hops by using your nose, but there's really no practical way

to know how much alpha acid is in there (without a lab analysis).

Mark

------------------------------


Carboy Alert!

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 14:37:55 CDT

From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>

Subject: Carboy Alert!

Just a note of potential concern to you all:

Recently (about 5 mins ago) I was cleaning a carboy recruited from our

stockroom that had previously held some (assumedly) harmless chemical

solutions (KI in DI water and such).  Anyway, after filling with approx

8 liters of water or so and dumping in about 250 g of potassium

hydroxide pellets, I picked up the carboy to swirl and mix the contents.

The second time I lifted the carboy, the entire bottom separated almost

perfectly, dumping the contents.  I am thankful that:

1) This occurred over my lab sink.

2) That the carboy contained only cheap chemicals rather than wort or

(gasp!) finished beer.

3)  That I didn't splash caustic KOH solution all over myself.

In the future, I will (and will recommend to others) to:

1) carefully inspect all new carboys before initial use (and used ones

too.)

2) regularly inspect my old ones

3) exercise due caution when picking up or transferring my carboys.

4) avoid any sudden thermal shock to the glass carboys.

5) Avoid long-term contact with caustic soda soluitions.

I am sure that most of these precautions are obvious and well-known and

the others may seem like overkill, but after seeing the results of a

broken carboy...

anthony johnston

not crying over spilt wort (yet!!)

------------------------------


Favorite Beer Cocktail

Date: 26 Oct 1993 16:22:36 -0500

From: "Stephen Schember" <stephen_schember@terc.edu>

Subject: Favorite Beer Cocktail

                      Subject:                              Time:  4:00 PM

  OFFICE MEMO         Favorite Beer Cocktail                Date:  10/26/93

I know this horse is probably quite dead but here's another wallop. The favorite

(only) beer cocktail in my house is something called "Skip and Go Naked"   which

consists of:

3 Cans Coors extra gold (or similar grade/style beer)

1 8 oz Can frozen Lemonade

8 oz  Jim Beam (+,- to taste and desire to expose oneself to those you are

drinking with)

Ice to bring pitcher up to 2 quarts.

Don't know its origin but it sure is good and goes well with embarassing board

games.

------------------------------


doppelbock

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 13:29 PDT

From: hbaum@uts.amdahl.com (Michael Hohnbaum)

Subject: doppelbock

Around the end of August I asked for advice on priming a doppelbock, due to

the concern that the yeast used to ferment would be wiped out by the high

alchol level.  I received numerous responses, all of which said "pitch some

more yeast when you bottle".  Fortunately I had set aside a bottle of my

original starter to use in a planned beer this winter, so I had yeast available.

I made up a one pint starter, added this yeast and let it ferment.  Then I made

a primer from 3/4 cups dme added this and the yeast to the bottling

bucket with 5 gallons of doppelbock and bottled.  I am happy to report that

a week later the beer was perfectly  carbonated resulting in a very tasty

brew to help me through the upcoming winter.  Thanks to all who provided me

advice on this.

For anyone interested, the recipe:

      Baumerator

10 pounds Briesse 2 row malt

3  pounds munich malt

1/2 pound toasted malt

1/2 pound chocolate malt

1/4 pound roasted barley

1/4 pound black patent malt

1/2 crystal malt 80L

4 ounces Tettenger boiling hops

1/2 ounce Tettenger finishing hops

Yeast Labs Bavarian Lager Yeast

OG 1084, FG 1020

Protein rest 125, Mash 154, Mashout 168

                   Michael Hohnbaum   hbaum@uts.amdahl.com

These opinions do not reflect amdahl's, but are completely mine.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1258, 10/29/93

*************************************

-------


More on steam injection

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 21:27:55 -0400 (EDT)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: More on steam injection

I got deluged with queries about my posting on steam injection, so I'll

try to respond here.

First, I should mention that the originator of the technique is Dan

Listermann, maker of Phil's Philler, Phil's Phalse Bottom, Phil's

Sparger, the Philmill, etc. etc.  Dan is an extremely creative guy, and

he is constantly coming up with something new.

I'm relying solely on memory here, since I wasn't taking notes, but

as best as I can reconstruct it, the setup is like this:

An ordinary pressure cooker (about 2 gallon capacity, I would guess) is

modified by removing the pressure release in the center of the lid (NOT

the safety pressure release, which is offset from the center on this one)

and replacing it with a compression fitting.  From that is run a length

of flexible metal hose (the kind used for a gas line to a kitchen stove,

I think) about 4 or 5 feet long.

At the end of the hose is a fitting that connects to a short (8 inches)

length of 1/4 or 3/8 inch copper tubing.  The other end of the tubing is

pinched shut, and many holes are drilled all over the length of the

tubing (to let out the steam).  A rubber stopper (with a hole drilled

through it) is fitted over the tubing where it connects to the hose.

If you mash in a Gott (Rubbermaid) cylindrical cooler, you have

probably already removed the original valve.  Stick the tubing into the

hole, letting the rubber stopper seal it.  Mix up your grains and mash

water in the cooler as you normally would.  Place the pressure cooker on

your Cajun Cooker, and let the steam raise the temperature of the mash.

Several people expressed fear that the steam would melt the plastic

lining of the cooler, but in fact the steam doesn't touch it.  Of

course, you have to stir the mash constantly while you're raising the

temperature with the steam, in order to circulate it, but it only takes

a few minutes.  Do this as often as you like.  For me that would mean

once, but it's just as easy to do a step temperature infusion with

several steps.

Incidentally, a single filling of the pressure cooker (oops, I mean

steam generator) was much more than enough to mash the grain for a

five gallon batch.  I'll bet it would have handled a ten gallon

batch on that same filling.  It really doesn't add any measurable

amount of water to the mash tun.

After conversion, Dan used his steam generator again to heat the sparge

water, by simply putting the steam probe in a bucket of water and

stirring to circulate the heat.  Then he sparged normally.

Dan says he only put this rig together as a "proof of concept" prototype,

and I don't know if he has any plans to market anything along these lines.

It's an intriguing idea though.

Ed Westemeier

Cincinnati, Ohio

westemeier@delphi.com

------------------------------


"Clean It Up"

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 22:14:50 EDT

From: pblshr@aol.com

Subject: "Clean It Up"

I assure the conversants (combatants) regarding the dialectic on "orgasm vs.

basketball" that far raunchier things are cruising around the net and in the

on-line services.

Nonetheless, I agree that while beer humor is appreciated, other comments

(such as this one) are a waste of space. It's everything I can do as it is to

get through the HBDs in my mailbox. If you're going to make off-color

remarks, at least have the decency to confine them to off-color brews!

------------------------------


Channeling/Steam heat

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 15:34 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Channeling/Steam heat

Carl writes:

>> ...due to a fluid mechanics phenomenon called "channeling"

>

>Which is what?

As I'm sure we all know, liquid flowing through a porous substance

will tend to take the route of least resistance.  Channeling is

one step further in the case of a substance like soil or a grain

bed, in which if a much lower resistance path is found, then the

liquid will tend to flow down that path, or channel.  Two cases

where channeling can cause a measurable loss to our extraction are:

1. when a 100% porous grain bag is used (i.e. as opposed to the

type which is mesh only on the bottom), the runoff tends to go

straight to the side of the bag and then run along the side of

the vessel (between the bag and the vessel) down to the bottom, and

2. if you use a knife to cut a stiff mash -- the runoff will head

straight for those channels you just created and tend to continue

to use those channels, bypassing the other parts of the grain bed.

*****************************

Ed writes:

>clever gadget.  He had an ordinary household pressure cooker that he

>modified to run a steam line out through a ball valve.  By simply injecting

>live, low pressure steam into the bottom of his picnic cooler mash tun while

>stirring the mash, he was able to raise the temperature to the desired point

>very quickly.  He also used the steam to heat his sparge water in the same

>way.  It all seemed so simple and logical that I wondered why I hadn't seen

>it mentioned before.

The only "con" I can think of is the danger of scalding the brewmaster or

his/her family.  Live steam can really do a number on skin and worse on your

eyes.  I once scalded my arm just by removing the kettle lid at full boil

in the wrong direction.  It took a good two weeks for the 1st degree burns to

stop being tender to the touch.

Al.

------------------------------


Beer hunting in Belgium: Part 7 (General information)

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 08:33:31 -0400

From: "Phillip Seitz" <p00644@psilink.com>

Subject: Beer hunting in Belgium: Part 7 (General information)

Beer Hunting in Belgium: Part 7 of 7

General Information

      (by Phil Seitz)

The following information is offered for anybody considering

travel to Belgium.  These are the bars we like, sources we found

useful, and a few additional places we went that you might not

find in the guidebooks.

Cafes:

L'Eblouissant.  27, rue Armee Grouchy, Namur.  081/73.71.39.

      A small cafe run by a very particular publican.  Extensive

beer selection, well cared for.  Good meals during lunch, with

food also available during dinner.  Frequent concerts of Irish

music.  Previously called one of Belgium's best cafes by CAMRA,

now relocated due to high rents but still very comfortable.

Closed Sundays.

Musee de la Biere (The Beer Museum).  19, rue de la Gare B/2,

      Lustin, on Route #947.  081/41.11.02

      A funky place in a small town.  Until last year nobody I

know in the area had ever been there, though everybody knew about

it.  The reason is that is looks a bit weird from the outside.

The exterior has hand-painted signs advertising over 1,000

Belgian beer glasses on exhibit, and God knows how many bottles,

some of them dating from the 19th century.  Looks a little like

those roadside attractions advertising plaster-of-Paris dinosaurs

and two-headed cows.  Admission is 35 francs, which can be

applied to a purchase in the, er, gift shop.  The gift shop

features 11 beers on tap (including the formidable Liefmans'

framboise), as well as a good 100-200 in bottles.  The interior

is crammed with shelves of bottles and glasses, and many of these

will actually be of substantial interest to beer geeks.  Overall,

a very pleasant atmosphere.

      If you speak French, the woman who runs the place is famous

for being talkative and very well informed with regard to beer

issues and developments in Belgium.  The cafe is also home to a

tasting club, the Guilde des Tates-Biere, whose final exam is

rumored to include identification of certain beers by year of

production.

      Lustin is south of Namur, on the Meuse river.  The museum

is open weekends and student holidays only, but special openings

can be arranged for larger groups.

De Stillegentier.  Mechelen.

      We did not visit this cafe, but it was recommended to us as

stocking nearly all the lambic and gueuze products currently on

the market.  Hey, we had to save something for next time!

Beer stores:

La Cave de Wallonie.  6, rue de la Halle, Namur

      Near the Place au marche de legumes.  A specialty beer

store run by one of the brewers of the Brasserie Caracole.  The

proprietor speaks some English, and if time permits is quite

willing to discuss brewing issues and beers.

Drinks Wets.  209 Steenweg op Halle, St. Genesius-Rode.

      02/380.32.27

      This one's a whopper.  We ran into it when we got lost on

the way to Beersel, and Jim accurately described it as the

Belgian liquor barn.  They sell a mind-boggling variety of

Belgian beers and beer glasses, as well as selected imported

beers.  (Good: We found Anchor Liberty.  Bad: They stock Rolling

Rock.)  The proprietors do speak some English, and they take Visa

but no other credit cards.  You'll need a car to get there, but a

truck might be better.  The gueuze/kriek selection alone ran

along an entire 35-foot wall.  Perhaps the most unusual of these

was the Gueuze and Kriek Girardin in polypins.  Just the thing

for Mike Sharp's next party!

      Some notes: check expiration dates.  Some of the old

bottles you'll find are aged; others are just old and out of

date, and taste that way.  Keep an eye out for the Hanssens

gueuze products; we considered these a major discovery, and their

mention met with respect from our more knowledgeable Belgian beer

sources.  The Wets gueuze products are also available (presumably

the owners of the store are the Wets of lambic blending fame,

though we were told by others that the beer is now made by the

still-formidable Brasserie Girardin).

Other stores

1) Spice stores sometimes sell bitter (curacao) orange peel.

It's hard and white, and bitter tasting.  One such store is

L'Herbier in Namur, around the corner from La Cave de Wallonie.

2) Don't forget the ordinary supermarkets.  Most of them sell

dark and light candy sugar in 1 lb boxes, and many have

formidable beer selections, including local brews and glassware.

Jereboams (3- liter bottles) are widely available, and the Sarma

Star hypermarket outside of Namur must stock at least 100

beers--and the glasses.  Keep in mind that a charge for the

deposit on each bottle will be added at the cash register.  On

the other hand, the larger supermarkets take credit cards, so you

can spend now and pay later.

Books

We really only used two books and a map as constant reference

materials.  One book was Michael Jackson's Beers of Belgium,

which is available from a variety of sources.  The other books

was Peter Crombecq's Bier Yaarboek, which is not easy to find

(check better bookstores in Brussels and Flanders).  The former

provided us with general information in a language we could read,

and proved to be reasonably comprehensive in scope, if not always

providing the obsessive depth we craved.  The Crombecq comes in

handy here, with detailed information on the breweries (in

Flemish), as well as lists of all their products and the names

these are sold under.  This is extremely useful information that

beer hunters can draw upon to make sure they don't unwittingly

buy ten bottles of the same beer.

      CAMRA now has a good beer guide to Belgium and Holland,

which lists much of the above information and includes reviews of

cafes.  As far as I know copies are only available in England,

L'Eblouissant had one.

THATS ALL FOLKS!

This concludes our Belgian series.  If you have any questions we

hope you'll let us know; Jim [BUSCH@DAACDEV1.STX.COM] may be

better for the technical brewing ones, and me for the ones on

Belgium in general.

------------------------------


Re: PH Malt

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 8:56:26 EDT

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: Re: PH Malt

In #1256, David Holsclaw asks:

> Has anyone else had problems like this with mash PH? What do you

> do?

WARNING!  I HAVE NOT TRIED THIS.  I JUST VAGUELY REMEMBER READING ABOUT

THIS!

If I remember correctly, Dave Miller talks about using an acid rest in

order to lower the pH of the mash.  This is before the protein rest (&

at lower temps of course).  Using an acid rest is what allowed German

brewers to brew lighter colored beers with the water they had.  Check

out the chapter titled "Mashing In, Acid Rest" (or something like that)

in Dave's "The Complete Handbook of Home Brewing."  Sorry, I don't have

my copy on hand.

- --

Jim Grady              |"Root beer burps don't have to be said 'Excuse me'."

grady@hp-mpg.an.hp.com |                Robert Grady, age 4.75

------------------------------


Post-boil wort handling question.

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 10:04:03 EDT

From: mberger@wellfleet.com (Michael Berger)

Subject: Post-boil wort handling question.

I've been brewing (occasionally) for about three years now.  Just about

every batch I've ever made has had an off taste (except for a particluarly

memorable batch of Bruce's Dogbolter during my "kit" days).  I started

out with new equipment and have good cleaning practices...I sanitize

anything that touches the wort/beer.

After going through the HBD disgests, I've gotten LOTS of great information

on mashing techniques and plan to try some.  However, I think ny problems

come after the mash.  There's very little information on post boil handling

of the wort and I'd like some suggestions on good technique.

After the boil, I let things settle for about 15 minutes.  I then strain

the wort through cheescloth in a colander which is suspended over my

plastic bucket primary.  The straining through the cheescloth takes a

long time since I usually use pelletized hops which combined with the

other solids quickly make up a semi-impermeable barrier.  I then let

it cool overnight and pitch a starter in the morning.  I transfer into

a carboy after the kreusening settles down.  I usually bottle after

the bubbling through my airlock stops.

I'd like some suggestions on better techniques so that I might eliminate

my off-taste.  Thanx in advance for any help.

PS.  How does new pub/store information get submitted to the "publist"

digest????

------------------------------


Tree parts and an occasional herb

Date:         Wed, 27 Oct 93 09:04:02 CDT

From: "Edward F. Loewenstein" <SNREDLOW@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>

Subject:      Tree parts and an occasional herb

Greetings,

   Just wanted to shed some light (hopefully) on a few botanical points

that have come up over the past few weeks.

   First, concerning spruce beer.  Spruce is in the family *Pinaceae*,

genus *picea*.  Pines are in the same family, but the genus *pinus*.

The resins produced by individual species between these genus differ, so

for the gentleman who was planning on substituting pine for spruce, take

care.  Remember, pine resins are used to produce turpentine and lacquer!

Your best bet is to use commercially available extract.

   For those brewers who think they might like to try a conifer flavored

beer but are not sure they would care for the taste and don't want to

risk pouring 5-gallons down the drain, let me suggest you go to a Greek

restrurant and sample some retsina which is a liquor flavored with resins.

The flavor is stronger than that of some spruce beers I have tried, but

essentially the same.

   As far as hemlock (the tree) is concerned,genus *Tsuga*,

it is not related to the famous poison cocktail of antiquity which was

made from the herbaceous poison hemlock, *Centella conium*.

   Concerning the posting a few days ago about Woodruff ale.  I must

assume that the herb added is Sweet Woodruff, a wonderfully aromatic herb

of the genus *Galium*, commonly known as the 'bedstraw family'.  I have

had good luck growing this plant here in central Missouri and believe it

is able to be grown throughout the continental US.  I plan on trying a

Woodruff ale myself in the near future, I'll post the results.

For those who are interested, sweet woodruff is perfectly safe for

consumption.  The FDA has listed it as "safe for use only in alcoholic

beverages."

   Phillip Priefrock recently asked about growing hops in the midwest.  I

can assure you that few plants are easier to grow.  Two years ago I

purchased four rhizomes (root cuttings) from Freshhops (*insert

standard disclaimer*), and harvested over five pounds of flowers this

season.  Freshhops advertizes in Zymurgy, but I don't have a phone

number handy.

   Concerning starting the plants inside during the winter, don't bother.

First of all, the rhizomes are only available in the Spring, and more

important, actively growing hop bines grow VERY quickly and would soon

take over most light tables (mine were all over 25 feet tall this year).

I have had best luckgrowing, cascade, nugget, and pearle.

   Concerned about credentials?  I am a research forester, currently

finishing a PhD at the Univ. of Missouri.

EFL

------------------------------


Plans for Grain Mill

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 10:13:56 -0400

From: matth@bedford.progress.COM

Subject: Plans for Grain Mill

Dion Hollenbeck writes:

[ SNIP of many questions regarding tool availability & time & materials ]

>

>Bottom line, you may be able to make any commercial product for much

>less than it is sold for if you ignore everything but the cost of the

>materials.  On top of that, you are not trying to make a living out of

>it.  If you really figure *everything* in, I would doubt you could

>beat the retail price by much if any at all since anyone who intends

>to remain in business will be buying in volume and getting prices on

>raw materials which you could never come close to at onesey prices.

  Can you tell me why you brew beer then?  Few people I've ever ,et who brew &

keep purchasing *any* kind of equipment ever reach the level where the money

they have spent on the brewing tools/materials makes it cost effective over the

long run compared to just purchasing commercially available brews, even

micro-brews.

>

>If you enjoy building things, by all means, you have my whole-hearted

>support to go ahead.  I even wish you the good fortune to improve upon

>Jack's mill or any other brewing product for the betterment of all of

>us brewers.  But, please do not make light of the effort that goes

>into producing the great products which are being offered to us.

>Knowing what it takes to produce these, I am quite satisfied that we

>as home-brewers are getting fair value for our money frome the vast

>majority of brewing equipment manufacturers.

>

>Steve, I do not mean to single you out, this thread has popped up so

>many times, I just took the opportunity of your post to reply to a

>topic which has been bugging me for a long time.

>

  I haven't gotten the impression that anyone has made light of the effort Jack

or anyone else has put into producing effectvie roller mills designs.  I've

seen & used a MM at one of the HB shops I get supplies from.  Jack did a good

job on it.  Most of the reviews I have seen have been pretty close to the mark

regarding usability of the device.  It gives a great crush but as many people

have indicated the design could be improved upon some.

  Jack's a tinkerer, of that I am sure.  A large majority of HB'ers *are*

tinkerers and would rather spend the time doing something themself than run out

& buy something.  I don't see where this thread is any different than the ones

from people designing/making better wort chillers, lauter tuns, kegging setups,

or lager houses.

  No one said we aren't getting fair value from manufactured brewing equipment.

I would agree that most of it is a good deal.  However:  1) Everyone does things

different and has different needs and 2) most of the time a redesign of an

existing device can be improved upon.  This has been shown time & time again.

  As for your questions regarding tools/time & materials for the task, the same

can be said for *any* serious hobby that needs such things, such as wood

working, electronics, automotive mechanics...  ( I know, I have too many of

these expensive hobbies already!-)

  ObHBD:  I'm working on refinishing my basement & plan to set aside an area

dedicated to brewing & beer storage (with the wife's consent no less!-).  I'd

like to hear from anyone who has done such a thing regarding they're ideas

and/or experiences in a couple of areas:

  1) How do you store carboys when not in use?

     I'm planning on building cabinets to store them upside down to cut down

     on pre-brew cleaning (such as is done for bottles).  Anyone try this yet?

  2) Since it will be in the basement dust could (will) be a problem.  How do

     you keep it to a minimum on a *continual* basis, not just when brewing?

  3) How many square feet does you brewery are take up?

  4) What would you have done differently now that you've got it built and

     have been using it.

  If people desire I'll summarize the responses and post it (if it's small) or

put it in the archives if it's larger.  (I'm also working on getting info

like this out of back HBD issues but that's not exactly the quickest task

I've ever taken up...)

  Thanks for any & all input.

 -Matth

          Matthew J. Harper ! Progress Software Corp. ! [disclaimer.i]

   God created heaven and earth to grow barley and hops. Now he homebrews !-)

------------------------------


PVC wort chillery

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 09:48 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: PVC wort chillery

To the brewer constructing the PVC pipe chiller.

Could filling the hollow of the copper coil with individual packets of reusable

ice (that blue stuff you can freeze/refreeze) serve your needs?  You could find

the small ones (approx 1 X 3 X 1/2) and they may cool things down as well as

help channel water around the coils.

Keep up the shadetree brewing and let us know how your new-fangled chiller works

out.

David

------------------------------


Wyeast

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 10:00:13 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Wyeast

Brian Bliss (1256) writes of disappointment with Wyeast.  I am

quite happy with the products.  The trick is having a supplier who

looks after them with TLC.  My local homebrew store orders on

the one day a week they package, gets the packages by 2 day air,

and refrigerates them immediatly.  The last pack I bought was

2 days old.  I have never had any delay in getting a puff up, and

generally use via a starter in 36 hours.

RE hoppy starters what I do is can all the bottom sludge, boiling with

my bottled wort for priming.  When I have quite a few cans I throw 'em all

into my pot and dilute to 5 or 7 Balling and boil up for a while.  I then

bottle the clear wort, cap, and 'can' for a while.  Hey presto, I have enough

bottles of the hoppiest sterile wort necessary for 3-6 months of starters.

To make a starter all I do is drop a bottle into my chlorine bath to

sterilize the outside and add it to the yeast in a she may bottle, shake

the bejesus out of it and cap with an airlock in a 1.5 stopper.  I will

usually end up adding this to 2 or 3 bottles of starter juice in gallon jug

for lager starters, and I always dump most of the wort off the top

before pitching.

I recently purchased a Maltmill to benefit from Jacks October special.

I am very happy with the crush, although there are one or two minor

problems.  The mill has a hard time with wheat malt (well Briess red

winter wheat, anyway), and I had to dilute with barley to crush.  js

did tell me this was a problem with cara-pils, so for very hard

grain dilution is the solution.  The other problem also related to cranking

is the mill's lack of rigidity and short handle.  I found that I had to kneel

on the mill on the bucket, while holding it with my left hand and cranking

with my right hand.  It was nearly as bad as the Corona (although I was

crushing 17lb of grain for a Doppelbock).  I will have to mount it in some

way prior to its next use.

On that dopplebock, I got impatient and finished my boil too quickly.  I put

it in a acid carboy primary and I guess it was at least 6 gallons.  I added

a blowoff next morning (it was at high kraeusen after less than 8 hours

at 48F - trick pitch with entire sediment from primary of previous lager)

but the blowoff container was inaduquate and it blew over putting a

puddle of doppelbock wort all over my conditioning beer cases in the freezer.

While cleaning the freezer I became very dizzy and light headed, and realized

that I was asphyxiating in the CO2.  I went away got my breath and allowed

the air to mix a bit more.  It occurred to me that ashyxiation could be a

problem in larger breweries.  Comments?

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


Who Put the phor in Iodophor?

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 10:42:24 EDT

From: mferts@taec.com (Mike Fertsch)

Subject: Who Put the phor in Iodophor?

"Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.comasks about the 'phor'

in Iodophor:

>Question:  what does the -phor designate in the name IODOPHOR?  I have

>used BTF iodophor which doesn't contain phosphoric acid and I have

>recently obtained an iodine sanitizing solution that *does* contain

>phos. acid.  What gives?

We've been through this before, but the -phor has NOTHING to do with

phosphoric acid.  The '-phor' suffix means 'carrier of'.  Iodophor

means 'carrier of iodine'.  Period.  FWIW - 'phosphorus' means 'carrier

of light'  ('phos' meaning 'light', and 'phor' meaning carrier).

Phosphorus tends to radiate light.  Check your Webster's dictionary and

look up '-phore'

The fact that SOME iodophors also contain phosphoric acid is purely

coincidental.  My Iodophor has no phosphoric, but I'd prefer one

that does.

Mike Fertsch

------------------------------


re:Beer hunting in Belgium: Part 5

Date:  Wed, 27 Oct 1993 11:12:00 +0000

From: "Rick (R.) Cavasin" <cav@bnr.ca>

Subject:  re:Beer hunting in Belgium: Part 5

In Jim Busch's interesting Belgian travelogue, he mentions:

>After a primary fermentation period, the beer is racked into

>Chestnut casks--the brewer swears by them and recoiled with

>horror at the possibility of using oak.

This is interesting given the fact that Chestnut is one of the

few woods that contain a *really* high amount of tannin.  Oak

has alot lower (with oak, only the bark contains enough tannin

to make extraction for leather tanning worthwhile, Chestnut

wood contains enough to be useful in this application) though

not insignificant amount.

I wonder if chestnut is chosen for this reason, or if the

casks are so old that most of the tannin has already been removed.

Hmmmm....

Cheers, Rick C.

------------------------------


Hops FAQ, Part 3/5

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 9:29:55 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Hops FAQ, Part 3/5

Hops FAQ, Part 3/5:

- --

Q:  Can I grow my own hops?  How?

A:  Read this...

Hops for beer-making grow from the rhizomes of female hop plants.  Rhizomes

look like root cuttings but have buds growing from them that will become new

vines.  Rhizomes also contain stored nutrients to support initial growth.

Hops grow vertically as one or more vines that spiral up a twine or other

support.  Depending on latitude, location, and variety, they sprout from March

or April and grow through the summer and early fall.  A single plant can

easily grow 40 feet tall when it is mature but growth in the first year is

usually much less.  In most instances by the second or third year the plants

will exhibit full growth.  Height is very closely linked to the amount of

sunshine the plant gets.

Hops grow best in full sun and you should pick a spot with the best possible

southern exposure.  Hops grow best in loose, well drained soil.  Blended peat

moss and sand make a good growing environment.  In cases of poor soil

drainage, it can be helpful to create a mound of soil a foot or so tall which

will aid drainage.

Hops need lots of water.  As they grow be sure to give them a very good soaking

at least once a week.  There are reports that once-a-day waterings (up to 6.5

gallons per mound) give greater growth and yield.  Mulch in the summer helps

with weed control and also holds water.  Hops also have big appetites;

composted cow manure is an excellent well-balanced fertilizer for them.

Once a bed has been prepared the rhizomes are planted about 4 inches below

the soil surface with any obvious buds coming from the rhizome oriented to

point upward.

After several inches the new vines should be thinned so that just the most

healthy and vigorous three vines are left to continue growing.  This will be an

ongoing process as new shoots may show up later, but the initial thinning is

important.  It's been reported that the young shoots that are culled may be

steamed and eaten like asparagus.   On the other hand, some growers espouse

cutting the new shoots at all, allowing all vines to grow to full height.

As the vines grow over a foot tall they should be trained to grow up a twine.

This can be done by twisting the vine around the line.  This may have to be

repeated for a few days before the vine gets the idea.  Hops will have a

natural tendency to wrap clockwise looking down.

The most common hops trellis consists of strings running from the roof of a

building down to stakes driven into the soil near the plants.  Another option,

often used by commercial growers, consists of a large central pole, with

strings running from the top of the pole down to the foot of each plant,

similar to the spokes on a wheel.  Expect the string or twine to hold a lot of

weight as the vines grow tall.  A 25+ foot plant may weigh 20+ pounds.

Hop blossoms start out looking like large sand burrs, and then take on a

characteristic cone shape as they grow in size.  The size of a fully developed

cone depends on the variety, varying from 1 to 2 inches long by 1/2 to 1 inch

in diameter.

The hops are fully mature and ready for picking when two changes take place.

First, immature hops have a damp, soft feel and when squeezed slightly tend to

stay compressed.  Mature hops feel more like paper, spring back when squeezed,

and feel noticeably lighter.  The second key test is to pick an average example

hop and cut it lengthwise down the center with a knife.  When ready to pick,

the yellow powder (the lupulin sacs containing the essential oils and bitter

compounds) will be a dark shade of yellow, like the stripes on a highway, and

it will be pungent.  If a light shade of yellow then its likely the hops are

immature.

When ready to pick it is best to snip the stems of the cones with scissors or

a knife to avoid jarring the hops and knocking lupulin powder out or worse,

pulling the center of the cone out with the stem, causing a great loss of

lupulin.  Touching hops plants can cause skin irritation in some people;

gloves and long sleeves can help in this matter.

Just-picked hops are roughly 80 percent water; if left alone they spoil

rapidly.  For proper storage most of the water is removed by drying.  A good

drying method is to lie the hops on a card or screen in an attic.  Just a few

hours during the heat of summer or a few hours more in cooler weather is

enough to dry the hops.  Use a before and after weighing (and trial and error)

to try to achieve about 7-10 percent residual moisture after drying.

After drying, hops keep best at low temperatures and away from oxygen.  A

kitchen freezer easily takes care of temperature but to get the hops away from

oxygen is difficult.  Tightly packing hops in canning jars will minimize the

trapped air but be careful not to use too much force and break the all

important lupulin sacs since this accelerates oxidation.  Purging the canning

jar of oxygen by blowing in carbon dioxide from a kegging system will also

help prolong freshness.

It's common to get 4 or 5 harvests per year by picking the biggest, most

mature hops every 2 weeks or so as the flowers ripen.  Patience and judgement

are important since cones left on the vine too long turn brown and begin to

oxidize and spoil, while immature hops have little lupulin to give.

At the end of the growing season when the leaves have fallen or turned brown,

cut the vines at the surface of the soil and if possible remove the twine.

After cutting back the vines a layer of 3 or 4 inches of mulch and composted

manure can be put over the exposed vines for insulation and nutrition during

the winter.

Japanese beetles are the number one nuisance in many areas.  A common remedy

is to position a "Bag a Bug" type beetle trap about 30 feet directly up wind

from the hop vines.  There is some concern that the "Bag a Bug" traps may

actually attract more beetles than they catch, but that probably depends on

the situation.  Certain plants such as rose bushes may also attract the

beetles, so it's best to keep those plants away from your hops.  Also, the

beetles' larvae live in the ground, and in cases of extreme Japanese Beetle

infestation the surrounding lawn may need to be treated accordingly.  A

number of other pests, such as aphids, can harm hops, and can be treated with

any number of pesticides.  Since you will be consuming these hops, you should

use low toxicity natural pesticides, such as 1% Rotenone dust, for direct pest

control on the plants.  As with any consumable, you should ensure that any

pesticide is well washed before using the hops.

Ladybugs are the best, most natural way to get rid of aphids and a lot of other

bugs.  However, it can be difficult to keep them on your hop plants once you

run out of food for them.  A good idea is to plant some cilantro/coriander

between your hop hills.  Ladybugs are attracted to this plant and it will keep

their attention between feedings of aphids.  You can even harvest the cilantro

(the leaves) for cooking and use the coriander (the seeds) in Witbier.

One other hazard is animals.  A short fence of rabbit wire will keep cats,

dogs, rabbits, etc. at bay, but won't do much against deer.

Rhizomes are available from an increasing number of sources.  American

Brewmaster in Raleigh, NC and Freshops in Philomath, OR are two well-known

suppliers.  Cost is usually a few dollars each.  They should be kept in plastic

bags, moist and cold in your refrigerator until they are planted.

Additional information about hop growing can be found in "Homegrown Hops" by

David R. Beach.  Also, the 1990 special issue of "Zymurgy" is devoted to hops

and contains an article about growing hops by Pierre Rajotte.  The AHA also

has additional hops-oriented publications.

------------------------------


DLB Homebrew Competition

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 11:29:55 -0400

From: cm199@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Thomas G. Moore)

Subject: DLB Homebrew Competition

Announcing DLB Homebrewers 2nd Annual Homebrew Competition on Nov.

20, 1993 in Westlake, Ohio. Judging begins 10:00 am. Entry fee is

$5.00 per entry. Three or more entries-$4.00 per entry. Entries

must be i 10-17 oz. green or brown bottles (Grolsch bottles ok)

without labels. Drop off or ship entries to DLB Vineyards. 30311

Clemens Drive. Westlake, Oh. 44145. Entry deadline is Nov. 17 at

5:00 pm.

For more info or competiton entry forms, contact:

cm199@cleveland.freenet.edu

or

70334.3721@compuserve.com (Pete Wilson-organizer)

This is an AHA sanctioned competition. All entries will be judged

according to the AHA style definitions. Sorry. No mead, cider or

sake will be judged.

- --

Will work for homebrew!

Thomas G. Moore

cm199@cleveland.freenet.edu

------------------------------


Re: Agrees with COPS show, et al.

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 08:15:56 -0700 (PDT)

From: Paul deArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: Re: Agrees with COPS show, et al.

Whoa, now!  Before everybody starts slagging John (the Coyote) Wyllie, let

me say a few words on his behalf:

Mr. Wyllie holds an important position at the ACME (tm) Co, as a product

tester and risk analyst.  Some of you may have seen his product

demonstrations on Saturday morning TV, where he gets run over by

steam-rollers, hit by large spring-powered boxing gloves, zooms around on

jet roller skates, rides enormous sky-rockets, has close encounters with

falling anvils, explosives, catapults, giant mouse traps, etc., and falls

off cliffs a lot.  His expertise in risk assessment in unparalleled and

gives him a unique viewpoint that is denied to many of us.

Higher alcohols are poisonous and many distilling companies adjust their

fermentation processes to produce more of them, since they have

considerable economic value as solvents, paint thinners, etc.  They also

take careful steps to make sure that it doesn't get into the potables.

Some are a little less careful than others; the "cheap booze" hangover is

one result.

Reading Snuffy Smith cartoons does not constitute a good education in

distilling, nor does watching TV.  If you let the temperature on your

slobber box get too high, just be sure that you take the first drink.

As regards to regulations, think for a moment how regulations come about.

The vast majority of regulations come into being because something bad has

happened, and people don't want it to happen again.  So they go to an

enormous amount of trouble to get some pack of legislative critters to

pass a regulation.  Just try getting a law passed that prevents some

fat-cats from ripping off the rest of us, and you will see exactly how

troublesome a process regulation is.

When taxation is involved, it gets even stickier, because the regulating

agencies now have an interest in the outcome.  Can you say "conflict of

interest?"  Higher taxes frequently mean bigger budgets, larger staffs,

higher salaries.  This sometimes leads the regulatory process astray.

Here in Washington State, where the notorious COPS ephisode took place, we

are priviledged to have some of the highest alcohol taxes in the US.  We

also have the Washington Liquor Control Board, which keeps us amused with

continuing tales of pilferage, bribery, crime and corruption.

I remember several years ago, when one of the commissioners was caught red

handed replentishing his private stocks out of a State warehouse.  More

recently, a Seattle TV station ran a muck-raking piece on a "training

conference" that the liquor industry threw for all the State Liquor Store

managers.  It was held at a resort in Coer d'Alene (bad move, taking the

business out of the state) and mostly consisted of getting falling down

drunk while being harangued by liquor sales reps.

I'm waiting to see this on COPS.  I suspect it will be a long wait.

Paul.

------------------------------


Make Your Own ...

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 11:54:50 EST

From: Bob_McIlvaine@keyfile.com

Subject: Make Your Own ...

What with all the comments about making your

own malt mill going round, I had to chime in.

A roller mill is a pretty basic

machanical device. If your looking for ideas for

designs, check out Dave Gingerys' book about

building your own sheet metal roller. He shows

you how to make it with hardware store stuff

and hand tools. This book is part of a series

he wrote about making your own metal working

shop from scrap. The series includes a book

for each of the following: make your own foundry,

uses the foundry and hand tools to make a

metal lathe, use these to make a drill press, use

these to make a milling machine, and use these

to make deeelux accessories for all of the above.

Daves' books are available from Lindsay

Publishing. By the way, I have the entire set and

it can be done.

Be forwarned, as those who have noted in previous

postings, making it for yourself ..IS.. different than

producing a retail product. When I designed the

BruTemp digital brewing thermometer, I found out

first hand!

------------------------------


Wyeast lag times / viability / dry yeast

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 09:20:49 -0700

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Wyeast lag times / viability / dry yeast

  Lately, there has been a bit of liquid yeast bashing going on.  I,

for one, use it nearly all the time.  The only time I revert to dried

yeast is when I decide to brew on short notice.  I encourage

other folks to use liquid yeast as well.

  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there are

several issues not clearly defined, that may well effect brewer's

success using the liquid yeast.

  Wyeast advertises that the older the package, the longer it takes to

swell. The age of the package is an indication of the efficiency of

your retail source.  I purchased a package of Wyeast American Ale last

night from The Fermentation Frenzy in Los Altos Ca. It was dated Oct

20.  I burst the inner pouch at about 7pm last night, and it was quite

swollen by 7am this morning.  I have had older packages take 3-4 days

to reach the same point.

  Aereate, Aereate, Aereate! I use a pump driven CF chiller.  After

reading a few posts on the subject (thanks!) I attached a small

homemade nozzle to the outflow.  I now get huge amounts of foam and (I

assume) dissolved oxygen in the wort.

  I have found that lag times increase drastically with increased

temperature differential between pitched yeast and receiving wort.  I

have gotten < 8 hr lag times pitching just a swollen Wyeast package

(no starter) when the temperatures are well matched.  Remember that

dry yeast benefits from a higher rehydration temperature, and

therefore may be more tolerant of warmer wort.

  I usually do use one or two steps between swollen package and

pitching.  I like to be certain. There is one gotcha here...each step

is an opportunity for infection.  Be vigilant.

  I am also curious as to when people consider the package swollen.

If an older package is procured, folks may see that the package has

marginally increased in size, and then use it -- dont!  Wait until is

is difficult to compress the package between thumb and forefinger.  I

have been tempted to let one package go until it bursts, just to see

how far I can push it.

         Drew Lynch

  Chronologic Simulation, Los Altos, Ca.

      (415)965-3312x18

    drew@chronologic.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1259, 10/30/93

*************************************

-------


YACFC, Yet Another Counter Flow Chiller.

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 11:37:01 -0700

From: "Stephen E. Hansen" <hansen@Sierra.Stanford.EDU>

Subject: YACFC, Yet Another Counter Flow Chiller.

     Last week I decided to build a counterflow chiller (I had been

using an immersion unit previously).  I debated whether to use a garden

hose or a piece of large diameter PVC pipe to enclose the copper tubing

and went with the hose for simplicity's sake.  I have seen one or two

commercial versions of counterflow chillers that use something that

looks like coiled copper in a section of PVC pipe but I couldn't find

end caps that looked like they would work without more work than I

wanted to put in.

    What I did was buy a 50' 5/8" ID garden hose and 50' of 3/8" OD

copper tubing.  In addition I bought two hose end replacement connectors,

one male and one female, and two of those Y hose connectors with the

the built in ball shutoff on each leg of the Y.

    I took the hose and cut it in two with 30' left on the piece with

the male connector.  I slid the copper tubing through the hose from the

cut-off end until about 12" stuck through past the other end.  Then I

cut the copper tubing leaving about 12" on both ends.  The male hose

repair connector went on the cut end.  Getting the last ten feet or so

of tubing through the hose took some elbow grease but persistence paid

off.

    Next I took the Y adapters and slid the copper tubing up the trunk

of the Y and out through one of the legs until I could screw the Y onto

the hose end.  This was a bit tricky but if you counter-twist the hose

before mating the ends it works pretty well.  The hard part was getting

the copper tubing past the ball valves in the Y.  One fit perfectly but

the other had to be drilled out with a 3/8" bit.  The fit of the copper

tubing in the Y is essentially watertight on one of the connectors but

the other leaks a bit.  I'll probably put some silicone sealer in that

one.  Once the Y connectors were on tight I just recoiled hose to about

a 12" diameter and loosely tied the coils together.

     As for the female replacement connector.  That goes on the cut off

end of the 20' piece. giving me a short hose with two female connectors

on each end.  You need this to connect to the inlet of the chiller.

     The remaining copper got turned into a siphon cane and an aerator.

The aerator was build from the description by Spencer Thomas in HBD 1081

and it works great.

     The next day I made an IPAR (an IPA with Rye) and the chiller

worked like a champ.  Compared to my immersion chiller this is MUCH

easier and faster.  The wort outflow wasn't much warmer, if any, than

the tap water inflow.  The tap water flow rate is your temperature

adjustment in this setup and I was able to use a fairly slow flow of

water.  Obviously, with my current water temperature I could have

gotten away with a shorter chiller but the water temp will warm up a

bit in the summer.

     I siphoned the hot wort off the hops and hot break material in the

kettle and into a plastic bucket with a tap valve at the bottom.  The

copper scruber in a mesh bag tied to the end of the copper siphon wand

did a good job of keeping things clear.  I took the bucket full of hot

wort and set it on top of the washing machine.  The chiller sat just

below it on a stool, a 5 gallon carboy sat on the floor.  Plastic

tubing went from the outlet of the tap valve to the inlet of the

chiller.  More plastic tubing went from the outflow to the aerator wand

stuck in the carboy.

Stephen Hansen

Homebrewer, Archivist

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

 Stephen E. Hansen - hansen@sierra.Stanford.EDU | "The church is near,

 Electrical Engineering Computer Facility       |  but the road is icy.

 Applied Electronics Laboratory, Room 218       |  The bar is far away,

 Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4055   |  but I will walk carefully."

 Phone: +1-415-723-1058   Fax: +1-415-723-1294  |      -- Russian Proverb

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

------------------------------


Beer Drinks

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 12:35:03 -0700 (PDT)

From: Eric Wade <ericwade@CLASS.ORG>

Subject: Beer Drinks

Mark Stickler describes a Rocky Mountain Oyster Cocktail (Coors, raw

oyster, etc.).  I always thought Rocky Mountain Oysters were what was left

over after you removed the steer from the bull.  Don't know how they go

with beer though.

Friends of mine who frequent Barclay's pub in Oakland, CA (28 taps of micros,

regionals, and imports only) have been experimenting with topping various

brews with a few ounces of Old Foghorn, e.g., Foggy Night in Dublin

(Guiness & Old Foghorn), etc.

Eric

------------------------------


Immersion chillers / Brewkit ingredients

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 13:09:51 PDT

From: nexgen!bart@olivea.ATC.Olivetti.Com (Bart Thielges)

Subject: Immersion chillers / Brewkit ingredients

For those of you using immersion chillers out there, here's a way to get

much higher performance.  Stirring the hot wort periodically REALLY

speeds the chilling.  If you have enough clearance between the chiller coil

and the sides of the brewpot, you can stir the wort simply by grasping the

ends of the chiller and swishing the wort around.  You will notice that

you'll feel the outflow pipe suddenly get warmer : a sure sign that you've

increased heat transfer.

If you leave the chiller sitting in the bottom of a still brewpot, the

wort will tend to stratify into hot and cold layers.  Since a large

part if not all of the chiller rests on the bottom, convection does not

aid in chilling.  Conduction is the primary mechanism for transferring

heat from the upper layers of wort to the lower coil, and that is sloooow.

I've found that a couple of seconds of swishing once a minute is more than

enough.

Here's a question that's been bothering me for a while.  I have two cans

of hopped malt extract from England (Geordie and Boots).  On the

list of ingredients, both of them list "Barley and Malt extract" as the

first two ingredients.  I thought that "malt extract" was made from

barley.  Why are they listed as two different ingredients ?  Is there

some other fermentable in the can that didn't come from barley ?

Thanks for all of the advice on hot priming.  I used this technique on my

last batch and have yet to recieve the court summons.  The bottles seem

to be carbonating well.

Bart

(Brewing equipment destroyed while hot priming : 0)

------------------------------


Re: #2(2) Homebrew Digest #12...

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 17:29:57 EDT

From: edwards100@aol.com

Subject: Re: #2(2) Homebrew Digest #12...

I recently converted a 15.5 gall. SS keg with  a  ball valve spigot. The end

of the SS nipple with 90 Deg. elbow inside the keg ends about 2 inches away

from the center of the keg.Will the trub that is formed by whirlpooling be

likely sucked out of the drain because of it's location?What is the proper

way to whirlpool? Alternately, would it be easier to remove trub by adjusting

the 90 Deg. elbow so that it's  is just above the settled trub layer if not

whirlpooling?COMMENTS APPRECIATED.

------------------------------


What do 'phor' mean?

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 17:10:46 -0500 (CDT)

From: Cree-ee-py Boy <BIRMINGH@FNALV.FNAL.GOV>

Subject: What do 'phor' mean?

>Question:  Someone posted something regarding IODOPHOR in this or a

>previous HBD:  what does the -phor designate in the name IODOPHOR?  I

>have used BTF iodophor which doesn't contain phosphoric acid and I have

>recently obtained an iodine sanitizing solution that *does* contain

>phos. acid.  What gives?

         My best guess was that it comes from the Greek root '-phoros' for

    'to bear' so that iodophor is a substance that bears iodine. My

    dictionary seems to confirm that.

         I'm not sure what the hell they put phosphoric acid in it phor

    (snicker.) Probably it's to act as a surfactant, as it is an ingredient

    in some soaps and detergents.

         ObDiane'sSig: Not to pile on Mr. Lyons or anything, but I got no

    problem with Diane's .sig. I mean, 'orgasm' comes from a Greek word; it

    HAS to be respectable. :-)

         ObMashoutJihad: For the most part, I'm with Imam Campanelli on

    this issue. My only exception (so far) is for oatmeal stout; skip the

    mashout when so brewing  and the Great Satan known as Set Mash (*ptui*)

    will plague you for hours.

         Later...

- --

    Phillip J. "Noah Webster" Birmingham  birmingham@fne683.fnal.gov

    Just bought a pound of '93 Cascade.. almost never got my head outta

    that bag

------------------------------


Re: Belgian Special B  (Matthew Rowley)

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 17:01:15 +0700

From: Brian.Smithey@Central.Sun.COM (Brian Smithey)

Subject: Re: Belgian Special B  (Matthew Rowley)

>>>>> ROWLEY@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:

Matt>  I've just snagged some Belgian Special B to use in an Irish

Matt> red.  This will be the first time I've ever worked with the

Matt> stuff, but look forward to it.  Does anyone have any experience

Matt> using Special B? I thought that I might put some into my next

Matt> porter or stout, but would like to hear from you if you've any

Matt> suggestions on how/how not to handle this grain: Temperatures,

Matt> proportions, that sort of thing.

Matt> Matt Rowley

Matt> rowley@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu

A while back I bought some Special B to "experiment" with.  I took

an old Anchor Steam clone recpie and replaced 1.5# 40L domestic

crystal malt with 1# Special B.  The resulting beer is roughly the

color of a typical brown ale, and the contribution of the Special B

is pretty apparent -- a sweet toffee flavor, not at all the "burnt"

flavor of darker roasted malts (chocolate, black).  This beer is

probably more like a Scotch ale than a Steam beer, but the big load

of Northern Brewer hops are pretty evident too (note that I haven't

yet used the words "pleasant" or "balanced" to describe this beer :-)

I think a full pound of this stuff would be a great way to get started

on a Scotch ale recipe, but for just about any other style I'd scale

it way back, and I can't think of a reason to EVER use more than a

pound in 5 gal.  I'm planning a sweetish Brown ale next, and expect to

use about 3 oz special B in that one.

While we're on the subject, I just received an order of DeWolf-Cosyns

malts (hi Al!), and would like to hear what others have found with

the other specialty grains -- I'm planning on "kitchen sinking" the

brown ale with some of the buiscit malt, aromatic malt, and chocolate

malt on top of the base pale ale malt and Special B.  Any suggestions?

Brian

- --

Brian Smithey / Sun Microsystems / Colorado Springs, CO

smithey@rmtc.Central.Sun.COM

------------------------------


Spruce essence

Date: Wednesday, 27 October 93 21:00:20 CST

From: LLDSC@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: Spruce essence

I made a spruce beer not too long ago. It was a honey/spruce ale,

going off the recipe in TNCJOH will a few modifications. I was all

set to buy my bottle of spruce essence at my local homebrew shop (It

was a two ounce bottle-I don't remember the brand) when my friendly

homebrew guy told me that I didn't need the whole thing. He said to

ignore what TNCJOH said because it just came out way too powerful.

Being a friendly homebrew guy, he put just a few drops of essence into

a plastic bag and sold that to me (saving me some bucks in the process).

I put the essence in my wort, adding it at the end of the boil (I think).

After brewing, I took a tour of the Celis brewery and, well, to put it

frankly, imbibed a bit that evening. I was a little under the weather

the next day and all I can remember smelling was that damn spruce

essence. Everytime I had one of those damn beers it made my head ache.

My friends, however, seem to enjoy the beers. They didn't think there was

too much spruce in them. So I guess my point is that just a few drops

should do the trick. At least that's my experience.

P.S. I made a Wheat beer with the Wyeast and it came out great.

P.P.S.  Our first brewpubs are opening up late this month/early next

                             Keep on truckin'

                             Scott, UT AUSTIN

LLDSC@UTXDP.DP.UTEXAS.EDU

------------------------------


You can't judge a beer...

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 02:53:00 BST

From: mike.keller@genie.geis.com

Subject: You can't judge a beer...

 ||It seems to me that there would be an excellent market for    ||

 ||custom packaging supplies for the home brewer such as high    ||

 ||quality, custom screen labeled bottles, caps, and quality     ||

 ||wooden cases.  The same                                       ||

In the latest _Barleycorn_ (a bimonthly tabloid for brewing, micros

and brewpubs in the Mid Atlantic states), there is an ad for Graphik

Conspiracy for color labels.

"We will make labels to your specifications, with any design, theme

or lettering...Custom-designed, full color labels start at $90 for

quantities of 150 or more."

Graphik Conspiracy, PO Box 2332, Centreville, VA 22020, 703-222-8492.

I present this for information only. Please note the price quoted is

for "custom-designed," if you have your own design ready to go, it

should be a lot cheaper, but then you could prolly visit any decent

print shop and get good work. Color labels would generally be spot

color, not four color seps work. A brewing friend had a label

designed by a mutual friend who is a printmaker, and had the the

labels (black and grey halftone, no color) printed at a local shop.

Looks nice.

 Mike Keller, Beer Sysop, GEnie

------------------------------


CO2-purging/HBD topics

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 13:00 CDT

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: CO2-purging/HBD topics

Rob writes:

>I have found that the food grade containers that deli's use are good

>for storage of grains.  I think the square mayonnaise containers work

>best.  They are the easy to clean and the lids are fairly easy to

>attach and remove.  I recommend filling them to the top and purging

>with CO2 to keep the grain as dry as possible.

I had thought about purging my grain buckets with CO2 also, but before

I did, I filled a empty bucket with CO2, threw in a humidity meter and

sealed the bucket.  After 15 minutes, it read about 55% humidity.  Granted,

this was a cheap, dimestore humidity meter, but it convinced me that CO2

is not dry.  Instead, I've purchased some, reusable, dessicant canisters

(about $8.00 each from a lab supply place) and put one in the bucket

just after pouring in the grain.  I've measured the humidity inside the

bucket after a day with the dessicant and it was around 25-28%

********************************

Lately, there have been a lot of articles posted on fringe topics.

I suggest that we try to restrain ourselves and try to concentrate

on homebrewing, especially when the digest begins to slow down as it

has recently.  Fast turnaround for questions is rather important since

sometimes many posters are tempted to answer a question when they

notice it hasn't been answered for a while and then suddenly, two

days later, there are ten responses.

Al.

------------------------------


Re: Going all-grain

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 8:31:24 EDT

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Going all-grain

Ed Wolfe asks about all grain equipment in HBD #1254 (sorry to take so

long, I'm behind in my reading :-( ):

I just recently went all-grain and have tried 2 approaches for an

insulated mash/lauter tun.  One was a Coleman 40 qt. rectangular cooler

and the other was a 5 gal SS stockpot in an insulated box.  I found that

over a 90 min mash, the cooler lost ~5 F degrees.  The insulated box

lost 0 F degrees.  I am sticking with the insulated box!  The other

advantage of the insulated box is that I can take the pot out to raise

the temp (say to go from protein rest to sacchrification rest).  Here is

how I built mine:

  1. Buy a Hewlett-Packard 700 series workstation.  Throw out the

     workstation and keep the box. (Note 1)

  2. Get some styrofoam sheets from your local building supply store.  I

     got 2"x2'x8' sheets and some 1"x2'x8' sheets.

  3. Cut the styrofoam to put a 7" layer of styrofoam on the bottom of

     the box.  I found a wallboard saw worked best for cutting the

     styrofoam (especially the 2" stuff!).

  4. The next section is for the pot. Put down enough 2" layers to cover

     the depth of the pot.  Then cut a hole in the middle that just fits

     your mash tun.  Cut the hole a little tight and use a propane torch

     to "seal" the edge so you are not plagued with little styrofoam

     balls every time you put the pot in/out.  My hole is a little

     off-center but the minimum wall thickness is 3".

  5. Cut the styrofoam so there is a 7" layer for the top.

  6. Tape the layers that make up the top together so you don't go crazy

     trying to take the top off.  BTW, I also taped the "pot" section

     together so that the layers don't come apart when I take the pot

     out.

Note 1:  OF COURSE I have a financial interest in Hewlett-Packard!  How

         do you think I got my box?

Second of all, I would recommend getting the stuff to allow 10 gal

batches right away if you expect to go that route.  If you build an

insulated box as I described above, you might need to build that over as

well as buying lots of new pots.  I don't think that 7.5 gal will be

enough for a mash tun for a 10 gal batch though.  With my 5 gal

stockpot, 8# of grain & 8 qts of water (which is a rather thick mash)

takes up about 4 - 4.5 gal.

- --

Jim Grady              |"Root beer burps don't have to be said 'Excuse me'."

grady@hp-mpg.an.hp.com |                Robert Grady, age 4.75

------------------------------


Maiden Voyage + gadget help

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 08:17:17 -0500 (EST)

From: COCKERHAM_SANDRA_L@Lilly.com

Subject: Maiden Voyage + gadget help

Last night I brewed a mild and used my new wort chiller for the

first time.  In my usual fashion, I didn't make sure of details

ahead of time.  I was going to hook up to the laundry faucet in

the basement, but had leaks.  Ended up going outside and hooking up to

my garden hose.  Sooo, one of those neat kitchen faucet adaptors is

in order...  BUT I have to say, these things are great!  If you

don't have one, get one!  BTW, mine is called Phyllis (groan..).

I am modifying a Rubbermaid/Gott 5 gallon water jug for mashing.

I bought a spigot at my local homebrew shop to put on it (twist

to leave open).  I had to enlarge the hole to fit this spigot.

The SAD thing is....the threaded part is too short and

doesn't go all the way through.  I need a longer one!  Does

anyone know where to get these?  Has anyone else had this problem

and come up with a good solution?

Thanks,

Sandy C.

From: COCKERHAM SANDRA L            (MCVAX0::RX31852)

To:   VMS MAIL ADDRESSEE            (IN::"homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com")

------------------------------


airlines, porter, brewbup, Sheath and Vine

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 09:23:05 -0400 (EDT)

From: /R=HERLVX/R=AM/U=KLIGERMAN/FFN=KLIGERMAN/@mr.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: airlines, porter, brewbup, Sheath and Vine

Just a few interesting tidbits:

Yesterday my wife tried to take 4 homebrews on American airlines

out of Raleigh-Durham and was stopped at security.  Although the

bottles were capped, since they had no label she was not allowed to bring

them into the passenger cabin.  They said they could be stowed in the luggage

but we declined, fearing depressurization problems.

On the DIscovery channel last night (Oct.27), they had a small piece

on salvaging 1825 Flagg Porter from a sunken ship off the coast of

England, saving the yeast, bringing it up to "health" for 6 months,

and culturing a true porter using a Victorian era recipe.

Re: Swan V. Taylor's request for info on brewpubs in the Chapel

Hill area.  There are none in Chapel Hill, one in Raleigh (Greenshields),

and one in the Winston-Salem area (Lagerhead or Loggerhead?) that I know

of.  the one in Durham (aka:Weeping Radish,etc.) bit the big one!

Also sorry to hear Al's mailorder is shutting down.

Andy Kligerman

------------------------------


re: Oysters and sports

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 09:52:39 -0400 (EDT)

From: Scott Benton <sbenton@telerama.pgh.pa.us>

Subject: re: Oysters and sports

In HBD1256 Mark Stickler Internet Mail Name <mstickle@lvh.com> said:

>Just remembered a beer drink I had once. I think it was called a "Rocky

>Mountain Oyster Cocktail". You take a Pilsner glass, drop a tablespoon

>of cocktail sauce in the bottom, drop a raw oyster on top and then fill

>with a can of Coors. The idea is to then chug the whole thing without

>getting sick. The oyster usually travels down the side of the glass

>rather slowly and into your mouth. Not for the faint of heart or queesy.

                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This applies to drinking Coors, oyster or no.

In HBD1257  COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu> said:

>About the sig. line re: Orgasms and baseball.

                                     ^^^^^^^^

Actually, it was basketball, but baseball would likely be more difficult to

fake an interest in.  Perhaps, since we're enhancing our sensitivity here,

Diane would like to rank some of her least favorite sports.

Scott D. Benton        sbenton@telerama.pgh.pa.us

------------------------------


Beer hunting in Belgium: Part 7 (General information)

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 09:40:44 -0400

From: "Phillip Seitz" <p00644@psilink.com>

Subject: Beer hunting in Belgium: Part 7 (General information)

(My apologies if this gets posted twice--with a 4 day wait between

posting and appearance I forget.  Must be getting a cold...)

Beer Hunting in Belgium: Part 7 of 7

General Information

      (by Phil Seitz)

The following information is offered for anybody considering

travel to Belgium.  These are the bars we like, sources we found

useful, and a few additional places we went that you might not

find in the guidebooks.

Cafes:

L'Eblouissant.  27, rue Armee Grouchy, Namur.  081/73.71.39.

      A small cafe run by a very particular publican.  Extensive

beer selection, well cared for.  Good meals during lunch, with

food also available during dinner.  Frequent concerts of Irish

music.  Previously called one of Belgium's best cafes by CAMRA,

now relocated due to high rents but still very comfortable.

Closed Sundays.

Musee de la Biere (The Beer Museum).  19, rue de la Gare B/2,

      Lustin, on Route #947.  081/41.11.02

      A funky place in a small town.  Until last year nobody I

know in the area had ever been there, though everybody knew about

it.  The reason is that is looks a bit weird from the outside.

The exterior has hand-painted signs advertising over 1,000

Belgian beer glasses on exhibit, and God knows how many bottles,

some of them dating from the 19th century.  Looks a little like

those roadside attractions advertising plaster-of-Paris dinosaurs

and two-headed cows.  Admission is 35 francs, which can be

applied to a purchase in the, er, gift shop.  The gift shop

features 11 beers on tap (including the formidable Liefmans'

framboise), as well as a good 100-200 in bottles.  The interior

is crammed with shelves of bottles and glasses, and many of these

will actually be of substantial interest to beer geeks.  Overall,

a very pleasant atmosphere.

      If you speak French, the woman who runs the place is famous

for being talkative and very well informed with regard to beer

issues and developments in Belgium.  The cafe is also home to a

tasting club, the Guilde des Tates-Biere, whose final exam is

rumored to include identification of certain beers by year of

production.

      Lustin is south of Namur, on the Meuse river.  The museum

is open weekends and student holidays only, but special openings

can be arranged for larger groups.

De Stillegentier.  Mechelen.

      We did not visit this cafe, but it was recommended to us as

stocking nearly all the lambic and gueuze products currently on

the market.  Hey, we had to save something for next time!

Beer stores:

La Cave de Wallonie.  6, rue de la Halle, Namur

      Near the Place au marche de legumes.  A specialty beer

store run by one of the brewers of the Brasserie Caracole.  The

proprietor speaks some English, and if time permits is quite

willing to discuss brewing issues and beers.

Drinks Wets.  209 Steenweg op Halle, St. Genesius-Rode.

      02/380.32.27

      This one's a whopper.  We ran into it when we got lost on

the way to Beersel, and Jim accurately described it as the

Belgian liquor barn.  They sell a mind-boggling variety of

Belgian beers and beer glasses, as well as selected imported

beers.  (Good: We found Anchor Liberty.  Bad: They stock Rolling

Rock.)  The proprietors do speak some English, and they take Visa

but no other credit cards.  You'll need a car to get there, but a

truck might be better.  The gueuze/kriek selection alone ran

along an entire 35-foot wall.  Perhaps the most unusual of these

was the Gueuze and Kriek Girardin in polypins.  Just the thing

for Mike Sharp's next party!

      Some notes: check expiration dates.  Some of the old

bottles you'll find are aged; others are just old and out of

date, and taste that way.  Keep an eye out for the Hanssens

gueuze products; we considered these a major discovery, and their

mention met with respect from our more knowledgeable Belgian beer

sources.  The Wets gueuze products are also available (presumably

the owners of the store are the Wets of lambic blending fame,

though we were told by others that the beer is now made by the

still-formidable Brasserie Girardin).

Other stores

1) Spice stores sometimes sell bitter (curacao) orange peel.

It's hard and white, and bitter tasting.  One such store is

L'Herbier in Namur, around the corner from La Cave de Wallonie.

2) Don't forget the ordinary supermarkets.  Most of them sell

dark and light candy sugar in 1 lb boxes, and many have

formidable beer selections, including local brews and glassware.

Jereboams (3- liter bottles) are widely available, and the Sarma

Star hypermarket outside of Namur must stock at least 100

beers--and the glasses.  Keep in mind that a charge for the

deposit on each bottle will be added at the cash register.  On

the other hand, the larger supermarkets take credit cards, so you

can spend now and pay later.

Books

We really only used two books and a map as constant reference

materials.  One book was Michael Jackson's Beers of Belgium,

which is available from a variety of sources.  The other books

was Peter Crombecq's Bier Yaarboek, which is not easy to find

(check better bookstores in Brussels and Flanders).  The former

provided us with general information in a language we could read,

and proved to be reasonably comprehensive in scope, if not always

providing the obsessive depth we craved.  The Crombecq comes in

handy here, with detailed information on the breweries (in

Flemish), as well as lists of all their products and the names

these are sold under.  This is extremely useful information that

beer hunters can draw upon to make sure they don't unwittingly

buy ten bottles of the same beer.

      CAMRA now has a good beer guide to Belgium and Holland,

which lists much of the above information and includes reviews of

cafes.  As far as I know copies are only available in England,

L'Eblouissant had one.

THATS ALL FOLKS!

This concludes our Belgian series.  If you have any questions we

hope you'll let us know; Jim [BUSCH@DAACDEV1.STX.COM] may be

better for the technical brewing ones, and me for the ones on

Belgium in general.

------------------------------


Re: Filth in brewing

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 10:21:53 -0400

From: djt2@po.cwru.edu (Dennis J. Templeton)

Subject: Re: Filth in brewing

 Re: Liquid male extract

>>>LME (liquid male extract), and about 1.029 for speciality grains.

>      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

<del>

>I guess this must be from a recipe for Smegmabrau.

Hey! Don't you know kids read this group!

Keep it clean! (and then you won't have this problem)

(Dedicated to Diane "Double Dribble" Palme)

dennis

------------------------------


Judging specialties (was Nut Beer)

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 10:57:17 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Judging specialties (was Nut Beer)

r.mcglew3@genie.geis.com writes:

 >  For anyone that enters a specialty beer in a contest, be aware that the

 >  judges in that category are subjected to a lot of widely varying beers and

 >  have a hard time picking the right one, the judges' taste preferences

 >  really are the major factor.

Speaking as one who recently judged specialty beers in a competition,

I have to mildly disagree with this statement.  We tried hard to

evaluate each beer on its merits, according to the "style" it said it

was supposed to be.  Thus, a "Vanilla Ale" would be expected to have

evident vanilla flavor, blending nicely with some malt, and almost

certainly low hop flavor (this is where my personal taste may come in,

as I can't see vanilla and hops going too well together, although I'm

willing to be conviced otherwise -- send bottles!)  And, of course, it

should be a well-made beer.

Still, the two of us ended up having to negotiate on the top three in

the category (as I recall, the first place was "obvious", but there

were three beers in contention for the next two places).

And, there were beers that were really hard, because we didn't know

what the specialty ingredients "should" taste like.  One example was a

really nice "wild ginger" beer.  It didn't taste anything like ginger,

but neither of us knew what "wild ginger" should taste like.  In any

case, it was a good, well-made, very drinkable beer, that ended up

taking fourth place (out of 12).

=Spencer

------------------------------


Re: PitchTiming

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 09:14:05 -0600

From: c-amb@csc-sun.math.utah.edu

Subject: Re: PitchTiming

> >What I refered to here as the 'stationary phase' is really

> >the very beginning of the dormant phase.  In other words,

> >let you starter ferment out _then_ pitch it.  Don't let

> >it sit too long or you'll have other problems.

> >

O.K. I'll bite.  What are these other problems.  I find that the only

way I can effecively use liquid yeast in my schedule is to pitch it

into a starter in advance and then brew the moment I have the time.

Sometimes it is just after Krausen but other times it is several days

after the yeast has fermented out.

 -Thanks,

Mark Alston

c-amb@math.utah.edu

------------------------------


Re: homebrew club gone stale! oxidation?

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 9:41:24 MDT

From: Jason Goldman <jason@gibson.sde.hp.com>

Subject: Re: homebrew club gone stale! oxidation?

> From: /R=HERLVX/R=AM/U=KLIGERMAN/FFN=KLIGERMAN/@mr.rtpnc.epa.gov

> Subject: homebrew club gone stale! oxidation?

>

> As a member, former vice president and president, and treasurer of

> our local homebrew club over the past half dozen years or so, I have

> been disappointed in the direction the club has gone presently.  It

> has turned into more of a socializing and drinking club.  Not to be

> too negative, I would like to address this problem in our club newsletter.

> I'm thus asking for input from people on the HBD to share with me if they have

> had similar experiences in their clubs, and possible ways to remedy this

> situation.  In particular, I would hope some could share with me some

> of the activities that they partake of at their club meetings besides

> drinking homebrew.  Specifically, where are meeting held, do they

> rotate from house to house or restaurant to restaurant?  Are experiments

> done on a club basis?  Etc.  Since this may be of general interest to other

> clubs, a reply by digest would seem appropriate.  However, responses can

> be e-mailed to : kligerman%am%herlvx@mr.rtpnc.epa.gov

I am familiar with a number of homebrew clubs, each with varying degrees

of formality.  The least formal of these would meet in a different

member's house each month, had an occasional presentation (every 3rd

month or so), and mostly drank and *critiqued* beer and socialized.

Other more formal clubs have a specific meeting place, follow a clear

agenda for each meeting, always have presentations, and treat

socializing as what you do *after* the meeting.

My own club, the Mash Tongues (Ft. Collins) is somewhere in the middle.

Over the last year or so, the number of presentations has dropped off a

little bit and the club has lost alot of focus.  So what did we do?

Well, a number of us who wanted to see more things happen ran for office

and are doing something about that.  We've been fairly successful at

getting the members to contribute ideas and add to our planning sessions

so that the club meetings are more interesting.  Here are some of the

ideas that we've talked about/started:

   * presentations aimed at beginning brewers

      Many of our members are just getting started, so presentations on

      general extract brewing techniques and ingredients are valuable.

   * presentations aimed at sophisticated brewers

      Among the more experienced brewers, there is an interest in

      subjects like decoction mashing and yeast culturing.

   * beer judging sessions

      These sessions teach members about flavor/aroma perception and the

      judging forms, etc.

   * club-only beer selection

      We set up a panel to judge which beer should represent our club in

      the nationals.

   * beer tastings

      Some of the beer drinking at our meetings takes place somewhat

      formally, where a majority of the club members can all taste the

      beer and offer opinions and feedback.

   * presentations by local (professional) brewers

      Here in Ft. Collins, we have a great resource with the multitude

      of local brewers.

Other presentation ideas include brewing gadgets, cooking with beer,

beer styles, a yeast experiment, etc.  Until recently, we've been

meeting in the back of a local bar (which isn't very good) and before

that, we met at the local breweries.  We've finally found space with the

local homebrew shop so we can meet there regularly starting in January.

I think that drinking beer and socializing are an important part of what

I want from my club, but certainly not the only thing.

Jason "That's *Mr* Prez" Goldman

jason@gibson.sde.hp,com

------------------------------


Clarifying in Cornelius Kegs

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 08:43:36 -0700 (MST)

From: Cisco <FRANCISCO@osmo.CCIT.Arizona.EDU>

Subject: Clarifying in Cornelius Kegs

> Bob Sweeny asks:

> From: SWEENERB@msuvx2.memst.edu

>

> Have any of you kegger types tried to add clarifiers directly into the

> keg and what kind of results/problems can I expect, particularly with respect

> to the use of gelatin? Thanks in advance folks.

>

I used to clarify in my kegs using gelatin. It works fine but leaves

a lot of sediment on the bottom that the pickup tube draws upon

giving very cloudy beer for quite a while. My cornelius kegs have

tapered bottoms so the yeast sediment just kept being drawn to the

pickup tube. My solution was to cut one inch off the pickup tube and

that cured a lot of the problem. Now I clarify in a glass carboy with

gelatin and then transfer after a week to the keg just because it

leaves a lot less sludge in the keg. I still cut off an inch on the

pickup tubes on any new (used actually) kegs I acquire, that way any

amount of sludge stays on the bottom where it belongs, not in your

beer (this only wastes about a cup of beer when you've finished the

keg). You'll also notice that if you keep your keg cold that any

slight appearance of protein haze will settle out after a week and the

beer will be sparkling clear, just another great benefit of kegging!

May your beer give you great head!!!!

Cisco (John Francisco)

------------------------------


Hops FAQ, Part 4/5

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 9:47:54 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Hops FAQ, Part 4/5

Hops FAQ, Part 4/5:

- --

Q:  What is dry-hopping?  How do I do it?  How much do I use?  What type?  What

form of hops?

A:  Dry hopping can be defined as adding hops to a cooled wort at sometime

during the fermentation process.  It adds a fresh hops aroma/flavor to the beer

which cannot be matched with hop additions into hot wort.  It is not to be

confused with finish/aroma hopping, which is done on the hot wort while still

in the kettle.  The use of a hop-back, where hot wort is passed through the

hops, is another form of finish hopping; it is not dry hopping.  Dry hopping

gives little or no alpha acids to the wort, so it contributes little or no

bitterness to the final product.

There are several ways to dry hop, if one considers the variations of making

hop teas, etc.  The best time to dry hop is generally considered to be after

primary fermentation has slowed and little CO2 is being driven off the wort.

Dry hopping earlier than this point is inefficient as the volatile hop oils

are scrubbed away by the exiting CO2.  Also, if using pellets, dry hopping

early in the fermentation phase may result in the hops (which will sink to the

bottom) being covered with yeast and inefficient extraction of aroma.

The proper length of time for dry hopping is dependent on the temperature.  At

ale temperatures, 7-14 days of contact time is widely used.  At lager

temperatures, although little data is available, it seems obvious that longer

contact times, on the order of 14-21 days, are called for. It is common to use

0.5 - 2.0 oz. or more in a 5 gallon batch, but as always it is up the

individual's preferences.

Fuggles, Northern Brewer, Saaz, Cascades, all Hallertau variants, and many

other hops have been used successfully.  It should be noted that the aroma of

the beer greatly influences the profile, and that the "correct" aroma hop should

be used to match the style (i.e. English hops for English ales, German hops for

German lagers, etc.).  American brewers have traditionally used hops from all

over the globe so European hops, for example, can be used without much fear of

an ungodly mismatch.

The first and foremost way to dry hop is to simply put the hops into the

fermenter.  The most common worry with this method is about infecting a beer

which is nearly ready to bottle/keg.  Hops are natural preservatives, and

infections from this method are unheard of.  If loose hops or plugs are used,

they will float, and many use a sanitized hop bag and marbles to sink the hops

for maximum contact.  If pellets are used they will sink, but may be difficult

to avoid when bottling/kegging.  Also, the pellet hops can be easily covered by

yeast falling out of suspension, so they should be added after virtually all

fermentation activity has ceased, and a good amount of the yeast has fallen.

Another method used to dry hop is to steep the hops in a warm white alcohol

(grain, vodka, etc.) and sometimes water solution for hours or days, then pour

this solution into the fermenter.  This is a common practice among those who

want to protect against the remote possibility of infection with normal dry

hopping.  It should be noted that as the temperature of the alcohol/water/hops

mixture is raised, the effect approaches that of finish hopping, as the most

volatile hop oils are driven off.

Adding hop oil, a product recently introduced to the homebrewing market, is

another way of "dry-hopping".  It should be done after primary fermentation has

slowed for the same reasons.

These dry hopping methods, and others, will produce different results, mainly

because the desired compounds are so volatile.  The variety of reactions taking

place duration processing and fermentation will affect the results.  The "best"

method is the one which gives the desired result to the individual homebrewer.

A final note about dry-hopping:  the volatile hop compounds will react quickly

with oxygen.  For this reason, extra measures should be taken to avoid mixing

with air during bottling, in order to retain the hop aroma in the bottle for

extended periods of time.  These extra measures may include the use of CO2

purging the bottling vessel, very quiet siphoning, oxygen scavenging caps, and

possibly delayed capping (up to one hour).  This method allows any CO2 coming

out of solution during the bottling process to push the oxygen out of the

bottle before the caps are secured.  This method is used by some homebrewers

but the results are inconclusive.  The simplest method is to use the oxygen

scavenging caps, which requires no extra effort and little extra cost.  For

further reference, the Summer 1993 Zymurgy contains an article by Mark Garetz

on this subject.

- --

Q:  What is a "hop-back"?  How is it used?

A:  A homebrewer's hop-back is a reservoir connected in-line between the kettle

and counter-flow chiller.  It is filled with fresh hops before the flow is

started.  The hot wort flows through the fresh hops and is quickly chilled by

the counter-flow before entering the fermenter.  Many of the volatile hop aroma

compounds are extracted and brought into the fermenter with this process.  It

is generally thought to produce a flavor/aroma profile somewhere between late

kettle additions and dry-hopping.

- --

Q:  Can I use fresh hops rather than dried hops?  How much do I use?

A:  Yes, you can but at best it is a rough guess as to how much.  The rule of

thumb is to use 6 times as much (by weight) as you would dry hops.  A safer

rule would be to do this and to only use them for finish/dry hopping.  This is

because the AA% is unknown, and later additions are less sensitive to AA%.  It

should be noted that homebrewers have had mixed results when using fresh hops

(poor AA approximation for bittering, grassy aroma for finishing).

End part 4/5

------------------------------


Trip Report

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 08:47:50 PDT

From: tima@wv.MENTORG.COM (Tim Anderson)

Subject: Trip Report

My wife and I just got back from 2 weeks in Belgium and The Netherlands,

mostly Belgium.

Q: Is Belgium beer heaven?

A: Yes.

It wasn't a beer hunt, just vacation, but I'm guessing that I consumed 30 or

40 different beers, mostly in towns and small cities, in whatever tavern or

cafe we happened to be walking past when hunger or thirst happened to strike.

High points:

o They ALWAYS served the beer in the appropriate glass.  Not just the right

size and shape, but it also had to have the beer's logo on it.

o Rochefort 8.

o The lady at the desk in our hotel in Leuven was very proud of the fact that

Pierre Celis used to brew beer in her town.  She was pleased that I knew of

his beer.

o The coffee.

o Chimay Bleue was about 2 bucks in a bar, a little over a dollar (33 cl

bottle) in the grocery store (about the same as American Bud).

o Budvar in the grocery stores.

o We rented bikes in Oudenaarde and stopped for a breather at a tavern way

out in the sticks.  I was sucking on a Liefmanns Oud Bruin, and my frau was

attacking a Liefmanns Kriek, both "van het vat" (on tap).  She was the

designated kriek taster; this one turned out to be her favorite.  The beer

delivery guy dropped off a couple of kegs, proceeded to sit down to the bar

and down a couple, hopped back in his truck and was off to his next stop.

o Bartenders are mostly quite knowledgeable about the beer they serve.  And

they drink it while serving.

o Maastricht.

o On schedule trains.

o Domus, a brewpub in Leuven.

o Brand Imperator.

Low points:

o Belle Vue anything.

o Most Belgians drink Jupiler (the country's industrial swill) or Stella

Artois (a regional industrial swill).

o Amsterdam.

Q: Is Heineken better in The Netherlands?

A: I'd probably have to be there at least a month before I could work my way

down to a Heineken.  Although I did try their Tarwebock, and it didn't suck.

I'll submit my impressions of Amsterdam in alt.sex.drugs.rock.and.roll.

tim

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1260, 11/01/93

*************************************

-------


Brass in the boil

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 9:51:56 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Brass in the boil

A week ago, Andrew asked about brass in the boil.  I have a brass fitting

inside of my boiler as well, so I'm also curious to hear the answer.  As far

as your ball valve attached to the outside, if it gets anywhere near as hot as

mine, it will be sanitized.  I put a 4" nipple between my pot and valve to get

it away from the heat (I also hang a wet rag over the nipple to keep it

cooler).  I use a CF chiller with this system, though, so mine gets piping hot

wort run through it (no sanitation worries).

Old Lucifer update:  1.036 after 5.5 weeks.  The yeast (started with Wyeast

London Ale, pitched Wyeast British Ale later) is apparently giving up, since

this beer is starting to get very clear.  As much as I hate to do it, I may

have to punt (i.e. pitch a frog yeast).  And that's SG for the nitpicky

coyote!:)

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


Re: Thoughts on a recipe for standard American beers...

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 9:55:40 MDT

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Thoughts on a recipe for standard American beers...

> I am guessing that the standard American mass-produced beer is using a

> bunch of corn sugar instead of malt....  Am I on the right track, or are

> these beers made with extremely light malt instead.

You're close.  Most American mega-brewers use large percentages of corn

or rice, but usually flaked or powdered grains rather than sugar.  The

corn or rice adjuncts are converted to sugar by the barley enzymes.

This is one way of providing more fermentables without adding much color

or flavor (or cost; processed sugar is comparatively expensive).  Too

much sugar can also produce undesirable "cidery" flavors in your beer.

Also, the mega-brewers (at least around here, Coors and Anheuser-Busch)

often have specially grown varieties of barley that are specially

malted.  Typically, the malt is not cured, or roasted after drying,

resulting in malt that is paler than you can usually find at the

homebrew shop.

My advice on making a mega-brew clone:  use the palest malt you can

find, and use a large portion (maybe 25-30%) of flaked corn or rice

extract.  Most mega-beer also has less alcohol than a typical homebrew,

so shoot for a lower gravity beer, maybe 1.035-40 OG.  This means a

higher ratio of water to grain, which will also lighten it.

Your beer may not end up quite as pale as a Bud, but I'd rather have my

homebrew a few shades darker in color and a few shades higher in taste!

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Carbonation

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 11:57:11 -0400

From: esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

Subject: Carbonation

What's up?

I'm currently brewing a brown ale and would like to ask the HBD brain trust

about how much I should fee my yeast before bottling.  I have always used

3/4 cup of priming sugar for a 5 gallon batch.  I read in the Papazian book

that you could use as much as one cup, but that you have to chill the

bottles and risk some gushers.  Should I read "gushers" as bottle

explosions, or does it refer to overcarbonation?  (I have never had a

bottle explode on my and I would rather keep it that way) I would like this

beer to carbonate earlier than my other batches, if possible.  Once ready,

the beer will not stay around long because I'm brewing it for a party, so

I'm not worried about it sitting too long and building up too much

pressure.  Would using extract rather than priming sugar make it carbonate

faster?  Would I be better off just using the usual 3/4 cup of sugar and

making sure the bottles are at the higher end of the suggested temperature

range?  Should I just stick with my old tried and true method and push off

the party an extra week?

Responses through the digest or directly to me would both be fine.

Thanks in advance.

Eugene

esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

------------------------------


Sorbate, .sigs

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 16:16:29 +0000

From: G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk (Geoff Cooper)

Subject: Sorbate, .sigs

COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu> writes:

>meade@readmore.com asked about:

>Sorbate/Sulphate

>

>*  Potassium Sorbate is a "stabilizer"  It will not STOP an

>active ferment but will inhibit initiation of growth. Both

>yeast and bacteria.

Not quite true. Although sorbate does inhibit yeast (only a small amount is

needed to prevent your starter culture from working on your wort/must) it does

*not* inhibit bateria. Well, not all bacteria if it does stop some.

In particular, some strains of Lactobacilus remain unaffected. In wine/cider

making, sorbate should be avoided in the initial ingredients. It can be added

at (or near) the end of ferment in order to stabilise a brew containing

residual fermentable sugars - you might be wanting a sweet cider. But in wine

making, it should *always* be used in conjunction with campden tablets. (That

might also be true for cider!). The reason: sorbate can be decomposed, by a

bacterium, to create geraniol which gives a very strong smell of geraniums; the

campden is needed to knock out the bacteria.

>You Don't want cider with sorbate.  Find an orchard and get

>the fresh pressed- unfiltered stuff.  Much worth it!

That's very good advice.

********

And dspalme@mke.ab.com (Diane Palme x2617) now signs off with:

                "In the beginning, it was the Plan."

Now that's not funny! Not the slightest hint of the wry little smile twitched

the corners of my mouth like it used to when Diane previously wrote. :-(

( snip, snip...  <- that's the sound of my removing the bit about humourless

  moral policemen and PC speakers. It's the wrong forum. Shrug shoulders,

  carry on ...  )

It's not true either Diane. Didn't John the Evangelist start

        "In the beginning was the wort, and the wort was good ....."

Geoff

------------------------------


DRE, Wyeast, Etna lables

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 08:51:04 PDT

From: ELQ1%Maint%HBPP@cts27.comp.pge.com

Subject: DRE, Wyeast, Etna lables

       Hello All,

   In HBD #1257 Vic asks about brewing a Bud like beer, and its recipe.

  I did a batch very similer with fair results, [although more Miller like]

  and if you notice the ingredients on a Bud it says right there, Rice

  Extract, I used 3 lbs DRE or Dried Rice Extract, 3 lbs DME Light Aust. and

  pitched with Wyeast #2308 Munich, useing DRE instead of sugar will improve

  crispness and will prevent the nasty cider taste of the sugar.

    I have used both Wyeast #2308 Munich and #2306 Baverian and have had good

  results, and strange fermentation rates, but still had good brew.

    One comment on using Ammonia to remove lables, works great one them,

  except, an Etna Lager lable, they use a rubbery glue, the ammonia helps,

  butt... let'em soak a day or two.

  p.s. M. Nelson@HSU? your local, call me 4-8659

                     Ed Quier, ELQ1@MAINT@HBPp

------------------------------


Mash Out (again!)

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 10:42:39 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Mash Out (again!)

I had to add some ammo to the recent mash out wars.  Note that I do not mash

out; I'm looking for reasons to do it.  In that vein, I found these sniglets

in the Winter 1992 Zymurgy, in an article titled "Beer Stability" by Micah

Millspaw (formerly of HBD-fame) and Bob Jones (currently of HBD-fame).

Reproduced without permission (typos are mine):

"What is an unstable beer and why should we be concerned about not brewing one?

Unstable beers are ones that tend to throw a haze and later have flavor staling

and oxidation problems.  Oxidation plays an important role in the formation of

protein haze and melanoidins function as antioxidants to prevent the oxidation

of protein.  Melanoidins are compounds formed by amino acid - carbohydrate

reactions induced by heat.  Oxidation also plays an important part in the

production of colloidal haze, hence the name "oxidation haze", first coined by

Helm, a German brewing scientist, in the early part of this century.  Colloids

are particulate matter in a solution.  Moreover, the formation of chill haze is

considerably increased by oxidation."

"Unstable colloids promote chill haze and permanent haze in beer."

"Melanoidins are stable complexes formed at high (mash-out) temperatures, they

are colloidal in nature and are powerful reducing agents giving an acid

reaction in aqueous solutions."

"Their colloidal nature enables them to 'protect' unstable colloids present in

beer and to prevent haze formation.  At the same time, melanoidins are powerful

reducing agents and this too can prevent beer from throwing a haze.  In

addition, the acid character of melanoidins helps to improve the quality of

beer.  Melanoidins formed at 170 degrees F (76.5 degrees C) are more stable

than those formed at the lower temperatures of conventional mashing.  Adding

specialty malts only in the mash-out can make the mash more efficient by

maximizing the formation of melandoidins, optimizing saccharifications and

eliminating steeping vessels and/or grain bags."

"In 1922, Visez, a brewing scientist at Louvain, in Belgium, showed that

dextrins also act as protective colloids to diminish colloidal haze.  This

means that beer with higher dextrin levels are much less subject to colloidal

haze than beers with low dextrin levels."

"This method of using dark and cystal malts (adding them at mash-out) will

increase the quantity of melanoidins in your finished beer, thereby leading to

smoother and rounder flavors from the specialty grains as well as more stable

and clearer beers.  The use of this mash-out technique also can reduce metallic

flavors that often occur in dark beers but are not actually caused by metal

ions in the brewing process."

So, according to this article (color commentary in parentheses):

1) Oxidation plays an important role in haze and other stability problems (no

   surprise here),

2) Unstable colloids promote haze,

3) Melanoidins are colloidal in nature, and when stable, can protect against

   haze and other stability problems, (melanoidins are our friends)

4) Melanoidins formed at mash-out temperatures are more stable than those

   formed at normal mash temperatures, (mash-out helps our friends?)

5) Specialty grains added at mash-out help with this stable melanoidin

   formation, and contribute to smoother, more stable beer (I knew about the

   smoothness part, didn't know it would help with stability)

6) The higher the dextrin level, the less colloidal haze (mash-out stops

   dextrins from breaking down)

Interesting stuff, eh?  Maybe mash-out helps?  One could argue that if proper

procedures are followed with respect to HSA avoidance, the mash-out may not be

as critical.  On the flip side, I've had haze problems in the past with very

careful attention to HSA (of course, there are other factors involved in

hazes).  If I continue to have haze problems, I may find a way to do a proper

mash-out as an experiment.  I highly recommend this article as well as George

Fix's HSA article in the same issue.  They go into much more than what I've

shown (I just wanted to provide some info on the current discussion).

Norm

------------------------------


Kraeusening

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 10:08:41 -0700

From: haist@cogsci.UCSD.EDU (Frank Haist)

Subject: Kraeusening

    Next weekend I'm going to make my initial foray into all-grain

brewing, but first I'd like to tap some of sage advice from this

group.  My current set-up for fermenting includes two 5-gallon

carboys.  After spending the money for most of the all-grain

equipment, I decided to wait on a 7-gallon cb.  Based on most recipes

it looks like I can expect about 5.5 gallons of wort after the boil.

that will yield about 5 gal after fermenting blowoff.  I'm planning to

take the initial 1/2 gallon excess, store it (via standard canning

procedures for sanitation), and then use it to kraeusen the beer

prior to bottling.  This seems to have three immediate advantages:

1) I can continue my preferred method of primary and secondary

fermentation in glass carboys, 2) I will end up with a true "all-malt"

ale, and 3) the final volume will still be about 5 gallons.  I have

two main questions.  What are people's experiences, good and bad,

with kraeusening?  Second, how accurate is the equation given by

Papazian for determining the amount of wort (I guess now called

gyle) in getting similar carbonation to 3/4 c corn sugar (Appendix

3, pp. 331-332)?  Thanks in advance.

- ---Frank

haist@cogsci.ucsd.edu

------------------------------


HELP

Date: 28 Oct 1993 14:56:24 -0500 (EST)

From: "SHAMAN@WHARTON" <SHAMAN@wharton.upenn.edu>

Subject: HELP

I'm a new brewer working on my second batch. I started this one 7

days ago and so far there has been no fermentation that I can detect--

the airlock hasn't bubbled once. A few days ago someone suggested adding

more yeast but only after starting some of it in warm water. The yeast

bubbled in the water and I poured it into the wort, but still nothing.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks.

Patrick Kelly

shaman@wharton.upenn.edu

------------------------------


Re: Late Kettle Hop Additions

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 13:04:21 MDT

From: bacco@md.fsl.noaa.gov (Corby Bacco)

Subject: Re: Late Kettle Hop Additions

O.K. I'm a little behind on my HBD (lot of traffic on Lambic digest

lately).

   In Tuesday`s HBD Norm asked about extracting more bittering

compounds due to the bulk of the wort sitting at a higher temp longer

with a counter-flow setup.  During a recent beer tasting held here in

Boulder I got to talk with a brewer from one of the newer micros in

the area (Lonetree, I believe) who is a homebrewer turned pro.  I asked

him about the transition and one of the things he mentioned was having

to adjust his hop schedule because hops added late at the micro actually

ended up being in contact with hot wort for quite some time while it

passed through the heat exchanger etc. and therefore bittering compounds

were extracted and the final beer was more bitter than he had wanted.

I believe his solution was to cut back on late additions of hops.

Hope this helps,

              Corby

------------------------------


More Beer. Less Tax.

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 14:17:53 EDT

From: chuck@synchro.com (Chuck Cox)

Subject: More Beer. Less Tax.

The Libertarian Party of Massachusetts has some cool T-shirts left over

that they made for their booth at the New England Brewers Fall Festival.

$13 ($10 donation + $3 S&H) gets you an extra large (only) black on

white Hanes Heavyweight 50/50 T-shirt.  It shows the statue of liberty

holding a beer mug with the legend "More Beer.  Less Tax." across the

top in large letters, and "Libertarian Party of Massachusetts" across

the bottom in tiny letters.

Send your check made out to "Libertarian Party of Mass" to:

Lee Nason, LP Mass, 515 Revere Beach Blvd. #808, Revere, MA 02151

- --

Chuck Cox   <chuck@synchro.com>

SynchroSystems / Riverside Garage & Brewery - Cambridge, Mass.

------------------------------


Re: scraping hops

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 11:57:52 CDT

From: hplabs!mcdcup!tellabs.com!don

Subject: Re: scraping hops

> Scraping hops from the sides of the kettle...

I always scrape them back in. Even if you use bags

like I do, some always seem come through the bags.

If you don't shove them back in you can't expect the

boil to extract their bitterness.

don

------------------------------


IPA/Keg Clarity/Sigs/Distill COPS NOT!

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 13:59:33 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: IPA/Keg Clarity/Sigs/Distill COPS NOT!

**********************

montgomery_john had an IPA Request.

*   no one answered?!  Jeeez, if this ain't one of the most

common types in the Cats Meow don't know what is!  Pale Ales...

A general recipe I've repeated (but never exactly) several times

5 gallon mash

    8 # 2 row pale malt (preferably English malt)

    1.5 # light crystal (20-40L)

BOIL:  1 oz chinook hops (~10 alpha)

        1.5 oz Cascade (or centennial) 4-6 alpha

Finish  1 oz Cascade

A good pale ale yeast.  English brewery maybe.

The key- keep it simple, light, and HOP THE HELL OUT OF IT!

I really like the grassy/flowery bouquet of cascade. Several

variations in hops can be used, but make it bitter, and add

lots of finishing hops.  If you want extract, Williams english pale

is probably a good one.

************************

 -John Palmer's new sig.line:

>** I think sex is more fun than basketball, too.**

** Fishing can be a tossup, though. **

***(Depends on which is biting better)***   OUCH!!  " Pain Captain! "

*Makes me think of that look on Picard's face when that Cardacian (sp?)

interogator kept pressing the red button on the remote!  Sorry wrong group!

*************************

Subject: clarifying in a keg

>Have any of you kegger types tried to add clarifiers directly into the

keg and what kind of results/problems can I expect,...

*   I haven't practiced this.  I live in a cloud.  BUT I would

reccommend adding the clarifier to the carboy- let it sediment, then

rack OFF of the sediment.  Excess goop in the bottom of a keg can

keep your beer cloudy- or worse, clog the exit valve. Bad news!

I would think part of the idea here is to keep sediment OUT of the keg.

*************************

Diane says:

>It is refreshing to know that a woman is allowed to have a sense

of humor, and even more so, <gasp!> to express it. ...snip...I'll try to

come up with an even better .sig.  For the person who was offended, well,

um,  pffffftt!  ;-P  :)  :-I  :-D

*   Well said!  Right-o!  I too think a woman should have the right

to express humor, and experience orgasms as they see fit!  Isn't

it in the constitution somewhere?  ...pursuit of happiness and

whatnot!  Looking forward to the new sig.  Bound to be a winner!

NOTE: THIS coming from the guy who "agrees" with that COPS show. NOT!!!

**************

Mike Fertsch cautions:

>Be VERY careful modifying pressure cookers.  High pressure steam can be

dangerous!  The last thing you need is a hose rupturing, burning

yourself.

*   Oh come-on Mikey.  What worry?  We brewers are immunized from all

harm by the magical virtues imbibed with the beverages we brewed!

Far would it be from me to express or agree with cautions and safeguards!

BUT REALLY:  Good point.  Propane burns can be bad too.  Always wear

shoes when transferring boiling water around.  Ask my left foot!

PUBLIC NOTICE:  I have been accused of agreeing with the show COPS.

Now hold on just a minute there buddy.  Don't put words or anything

but homebrew in my mouth!  I stated (w/o proper proof) that there

"could" be "potential" dangers involved in distilling. Steam can KILL!

for one.  And I've seen some agreement that depending on what's mashed

or added after the fact, harmful items can be included in moonshine.

I'm SURE the government is greedy, and want taxes.  OF course!  BUT...

sometimes there are reasons for laws and regulations.  Just ask

the guy who lit the Altadena fire and DAMNED NEAR burned my parents

house down (neighbors on either side are GONE!) yesterday!

I might never have been able to inherit all those pewter beer steins

they have and quaff my way to severe brain damage!

I DO NOT AGREE WITH THE SHOW COPS. I DISAGREE WITH THE WHOLE CONCEPT

OF THE SHOW. Protraying violent/graphic scenes of husbands bashing

wifes with baseball bats and what not (oh that's americas most wanted...)

and invading peoples homes- many of whom turn out to be innocent....

I don't think the show should be on the air. I don't think they have

been fair to the art of homebrewing.  I even think people should have

the right to grow plants if they want to.

I personally wouldn't reccommend trying distilling at home w/o proper

knowledge and equipment.  I do encourage homebrewing, even of wines!

I wouldn't tell someone how to change a light bulb w/o first cautioning

them to turn OFF the switch FIRST!  Common sense.  Take it as you will.

Now-- off my soapbox...Sorry for any indication of public flaming. I've

seen more than enough flames in the last day to last a lifetime! Tanx CNN

FYI: My cheap dictionary defines DISTILLATION as the process of

separation by vaporizing then condensing a liquid.  I DON'T think that

Ice beer, or any concentration of that type is considered Distilling,

according to the definition.  That is not to say that it is legal.

I think it is less "potentially hazardous", unless you stick your

tongue to the ice...oooooh that smarts!  And if cops invaded your house

and confiscated your latest zymurgy I don't think they'd bust you

for a bucket of frozen beer they way they'll take you down for your

cooling coil! So...that said. I'll shut up and crawl back in my hole now.

////////////////// Run THAT up you flagpole why dontcha! ////////////////

~~~~~~~~~~~~John (The Rambling Coyote) Wyllie SLK6P@cc.usu.edu ~~~~~~~~~~

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

------------------------------


Dopplebock

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 13:18:00 -0600

From: phil.brushaber@lunatic.metronet.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: Dopplebock

I am currently brewing a Dopplebock and am hoping for a final

flavor profile similar to Salvator. I've got a few questions

related to this project and thought you could help me out.

1. How do you get that German super-malty flavor?

My recipe was based pretty much on Miller's suggestion. My

grain bill (for 6.5 gallons) was something like:

4# Alexander's Pale Malt extract

6# American 2-row

3# German Munich

2# American Cara-Pils

2# 70L Crystal Malt

My hopping (7HBU in 5 gals) was exclusively German Hallertau,

and no finishing hops.

Can I expect to get that malty flavor. Or should I have used

some other ingredients?

2. Attenuation of yeast

I used Wyeast Bavarian as my yeast, and used a one gallon starter.

I am told that you can expect about 75% attenuation. Does this refer

to how much of the fermentables it will process regardless of

alcohol in the environment? 75% attenuation would imply that it would

take a 1.040 brew to about 1.010 (I have found this to be true, OK

maybe 1.014). Can I expect this yeast to take my 1.080 start down

to 1.020 (which is where I would like it.)?

3.   Speed of fermentation

This dopplebock is fermenting at 50^F. In five days it has

gone from 1.080 to 1.040, does this seem right? What's your best guess

on how long it will take to get to 1.020? I don't want to get my

expectations too high.

Thanks!

 ... (C) Brushaber Brewing Ltd.

___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.11

- ----

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

| The Lunatic Fringe BBS * 214-235-5288 * 3 nodes * Richardson, TX * 24 hrs |

| UseNet, ILink, RIME, FIDO, Annex, Intelec, LuciferNet, PlanoNet, and more!|

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


"Scotch Ale" by Greg Noonan

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 19:21:16 -0700

From: eurquhar@sfu.ca

Subject: "Scotch Ale" by Greg Noonan

        Looked through the new Classic Beer styles book "Scotch Ales by

Greg Noonan".  It seemed good but I was wondering what the collective

opinion of the HBD readers was.  Is it worth buying ?

Eric Urquhart (eurquhar@sfu.ca)

Centre for Pest Management,

Dept. of Biological Sciences

Simon Fraser University,

Burnaby , B.C. Canada

------------------------------


Homebrew Digest

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 17:57:12 -0500

From: Bruce.Feist@f615.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Bruce Feist)

Subject: Homebrew Digest

Andy Kligerman wrote:

h> Subject: homebrew club gone stale! oxidation?

AK> As a member, former vice president and president, and

AK> treasurer of our local homebrew club over the past half

AK> dozen years or so, I have been disappointed in the direction

AK> the club has gone presently.  It has turned into more of a

AK> socializing and drinking club.

I'm half the newsletter editor of BURP (Brewers United for Real Potables), a

Washington DC metro area homebrew club.  We have this problem as well -- if it

is indeed a problem; I'm not completely convinced of that (I'll get back to

this).  Our club is a large one, with around 300 members; we can easily have

over 60 people at any given meeting.  This introduces problems of its own; it

can be difficult trying to do something educational with this many people.

We're constantly experimenting with new things to do.  We've had educational

programs at the meetings (for instance, identification of off flavors via

doctored beers, and culturing yeast), and also competitions both at the meetings

and offline.  The meetings, BTW, are almost all held at members' homes.

There are also other events which don't occur at the meetings, and which may not

be formally associated with the club.  For instance, some of our members

occasionally have private beer tastings at their homes.  Another example:  our

Most Esteemed Minister of Education, the illustrious Rick Garvin (are you

reading this, Rick?), is currently holding a series of classes in beer judging,

which is subsidized by BURP.

Above I indicated that I wasn't sure that the bias during meetings towards

drinking and socializing was such a bad thing.  When viewed in conjunction with

the other activities, it works out well.  The large groups are best suited for

exactly that; for the educational events which are held at meetings, a sub-group

splits out for a while.  That's good because there aren't all that many topics

that would really be appropriate for *everyone*.  Meanwhile, the drinking lets

us know what everyone is brewing, which is interesting, and the socializing can

lead to more offline activities.

Best club I ever joined!

Bruce

------------------------------


Beer drink...

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 01:56:27 -0600 (MDT)

From: J. Michael Diehl <mdiehl@triton.unm.edu>

Subject: Beer drink...

I recall once having a "black and tan."  I just whish I could remember what

was in it.  It was a dark beer and a light beer floating on each other.

Wonderfull drink, if I'm remembering it right.  Any one know how to make one?

Lagers,

J. Michael Diehl   ;^)  |*The 2nd Amendment is there in case the

mdiehl@triton.unm.edu   | Government forgets about the 1st!  <RL>

Mike.Diehl@f29.n301.z1  |*God is a good Physicist, and an even

    .fidonet.org        | better Mathematician.  <Me>

al945@cwns9.ins.cwru.edu|*I'm just looking for the opportunity to

 (505) 299-2282 (voice) | be Politically Incorrect! <Me>

Can we impeach him yet? |*Protected by 18 USC 2511 and 18 USC 2703.

------------------------------


Re: hops & counterflow

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 7:49:22 EDT

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: Re: hops & counterflow

Norm Pyle and Jim Busch have both mentioned that a lot of aromatics can

be lost from hops if they are added at the end of the boil and you use a

counterflow chiller.

I just bought the gadgets special issue of zymurgy.  Kinney Baughman has

an article about building a hop back.  This is to allow the brewer to

add hop aromatics and then immediately chill the wort with a counterflow

chiller.  In this case, the beer is not exposed to air when the oils are

being added to the volatiles cannot escape.  This might be a good

alternative if you want to continue using a counterflow chiller and get

good hop aroma.  I believe Kinney said that this is what Sierra Nevada

does to get the hop aroma in thier beers (I've also heard that they dry

hop).  I'm sorry, I do not have my copy here; Kinney, did I misquote

you?

WARNING!  Once again, I am offering advice from something I read and

have not tried yet!

- --

Jim Grady              |"Root beer burps don't have to be said 'Excuse me'."

grady@hp-mpg.an.hp.com |                Robert Grady, age 4.75

------------------------------


Re:Beer Shelf Life

Date:  Fri, 29 Oct 1993 05:40:33 PDT

From: John_D._Sullivan.wbst311@xerox.com

Subject: Re:Beer Shelf Life

>Tom Schwendler asks:Other than filtration or

pasturization, are there ways the homebrewer can increase the shelf life

of bottled beer?

I have noticed quart bottles stay fresh much longer than 12 ozers. I'm not sure

if it's due to less headspace/volume or what.  Whaddaya think?

John

------------------------------


Hops FAQ, Part 5/5

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 7:52:48 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Hops FAQ, Part 5/5

- --

Q:  What type of hops are available to the homebrewer?  Where are they grown?

What do they taste/smell like?  Who uses them in commercial beers?  How much

bitterness do they contribute?  How do I use them?  What are good substitutes?

A:  The following table lists many common hops available to the homebrewer:

*******************************************************************************

The following hops are generally considered aroma hops although in recent years

they have started to gain a following in the homebrew community for bittering

as well:

*******************************************************************************

Name:         CASCADE

Grown:        US

Profile:      spicy, floral, citrus (esp. grapefruit) aroma

Typical use:  bittering, finishing, dry hopping for American style ales

Example:      Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Anchor Liberty Ale, Old Foghorn

AA Range:     4.5 - 7%

Substitute:   Centennial

Name:         CRYSTAL (CFJ-HALLERTAU)

Grown:        US

Profile:      mild, pleasant, slightly spicy

Typical use:  aroma/finishing/flavoring

Example:      ???

AA Range:     2 - 5%

Substitute:   Imported Hallertau, Mount Hood, Liberty.

Name:         EAST KENT GOLDINGS

Grown:        UK

Profile:      rounded, pungent aroma

Typical use:  bittering, finishing, dry hopping for British style ales

Example:      Young's Special London Ale, Samuel Smith's Pale Ale

AA Range:     ???

Substitute:   BC Goldings, English Fuggles

Name:         FUGGLES

Grown:        UK, US, and other areas

Profile:      mild, soft, floral aroma

Typical use:  finishing / dry hopping for all ales, dark lagers

Example:      Samuel Smith's Pale Ale, Old Peculiar, Thomas Hardy's Ale

AA Range:     4 - 5.5%

Substitute:   East Kent Goldings, Willamette

Name:         HALLERTAU HERSBRUCKER

Grown:        Germany

Profile:      pleasant, mild aroma

Typical use:  finishing / dry hopping for German style lagers

Example:      ???

AA Range:     3 - 5%

Substitute:   Hallertau Mittelfrueh, Mt. Hood, Liberty, Crystal

Name:         HALLERTAU MITTELFRUEH

Grown:        Germany

Profile:      pleasant, spicy, mild herbal aroma

Typical use:  finishing / dry hopping for German style lagers

Example:      ???

AA Range:     3 - 5%

Substitute:   Hallertau Hersbrucker, Mt. Hood, Liberty, Crystal

Name:         LIBERTY

Grown:        US

Profile:      fine, mild aroma

Typical use:  finishing / dry hopping for German style lagers

Example:      Pete's Wicked Lager

AA Range:     3 - 5%

Substitute:   Hallertau Mittelfrueh, Hallertau Hersbrucker, Mt. Hood, Crystal

Name:         LUBLIN

Grown:        Poland

Profile:      reported to be a substitute for noble varieties.

Typical use:  aroma/finishing

Example:      ???

AA Range:     2 - 4%

Substitute:   Saaz, Hallertau, Tettnanger, Mount Hood, Liberty, Crystal.

Name:         MT. HOOD

Grown:        US

Profile:      mild, clean aroma

Typical use:  finishing / dry hopping for German style lagers

Example:      ???

AA Range:     3.5 - 5.5%

Substitute:   Hallertau Mittelfrueh, Hallertau Hersbrucker, Liberty, Tettnanger

Name:         NORTHERN BREWER

Grown:        UK, US, Germany (called Hallertau NB), and other areas

              (growing region affects profile greatly)

Profile:      fine, fragrant aroma; dry, clean bittering hop

Typical use:  bittering and finishing for a wide variety of beers

Example:      Old Peculiar(UK), Anchor Liberty(US), Anchor Steam(US)

AA Range:     7 - 10%

Substitute:   ???

Name:         SAAZ

Grown:        Czechoslovakia

Profile:      delicate, mild, floral aroma

Typical use:  finishing / dry hopping for Bavarian style lagers

Example:      Pilsener Urquell

AA Range:     3 - 4.5%

Substitute:   None

Name:         SPALT

Grown:        Germany/US

Profile:      mild, pleasant, slightly spicy

Typical use:  aroma/finishing/flavoring

Example:      ???

AA Range:     3 - 6%

Substitute:   Saaz, Tettnanger.

Name:         STRISSELSPALT

Grown:        France -- Alsace area

Profile:      medium intensity, pleasant, similar to Hersbrucker

Typical use:  aroma/finishing

Example:      ???

AA Range:     3 - 5%

Substitute:   Hersbrucker, German Spalt

Name:         STYRIAN GOLDINGS

Grown:        Yugoslavia (Fuggles grown in Yugoslavia), also grown in US

Profile:      similar to Fuggles

Typical use:  bittering, aroma for a wide variety of beers, popular in Europe

Example:      ???

AA Range:     5.5 - 7

Substitute:   Fuggles, Willamette

Name:         TETTNANGER

Grown:        Germany, US

Profile:      fine, very spicy aroma

Typical use:  finishing / dry hopping for German style lagers

Example:      Gulpener Pilsener

AA Range:     4 - 6%

Substitute:   Saaz, Spalt

Name:         WILLAMETTE

Grown:        US

Profile:      mild, spicy, floral aroma

Typical use:  finishing / dry hopping for American / British style ales

Example:      Redhook ESB

AA Range:     4 - 6%

Substitute:   Fuggles

*******************************************************************************

The following hops are generally considered bittering hops:

*******************************************************************************

Name:         BREWER'S GOLD

Grown:        UK, US

Profile:      poor aroma

Typical use:  bittering for ales

Example:      ???

AA Range:     8 - 9%

Substitute:   Bullion

Name:         BULLION

Grown:        UK, US

Profile:      poor aroma

Typical use:  bittering hop for British style ales, perhaps some finishing

Example:      ???

AA Range:     8 - 11%

Substitute:   Brewer's Gold

Name:         CENTENNIAL

Grown:        US

Profile:      spicy, floral aroma, clean bittering hop (Super Cascade?)

Typical use:  general purpose bittering, aroma, some dry hopping

Example:      ???

AA Range:     9 - 11.5%

Substitute:   Cascade

Name:         CHINOOK

Grown:        US

Profile:      heavy spicy aroma, strong bittering hop, astringent in large

              quantities

Typical use:  strong bittering

Example:      ???

AA Range:     12 - 14%

Substitute:   Galena, Eroica, Brewer's Gold, Nugget, Bullion

Name:         CLUSTER

Grown:        US, Australia

Profile:      poor, sharp aroma, clean bittering hop

Typical use:  general purpose bittering (Aussie version used as finishing hop)

Example:      ???

AA Range:     5.5 - 8.5%

Substitute:   Galena, Cascade, Eroica

Name:         EROICA

Grown:        US

Profile:      clean bittering hop

Typical use:  general purpose bittering

Example:      ???

AA Range:     12 - 14%

Substitute:   Northern Brewer, Galena

Name:         GALENA

Grown:        US

Profile:      clean bittering hop

Typical use:  general purpose bittering

Example:      ???

AA Range:     12 - 14%

Substitute:   Northern Brewer, Eroica, Cluster

Name:         NUGGET

Grown:        US

Profile:      heavy, spicy, herbal aroma, strong bittering hop

Typical use:  strong bittering, some aroma uses

Example:      ???

AA Range:     12 - 14

Substitute:   ???

Name:         PERLE

Grown:        Germany, US

Profile:      pleasant aroma, almost minty bittering hop

Typical use:  general purpose bittering for all lagers except pilsener

Example:      ???

AA Range:     7 - 9.5%

Substitute:   ???

Name:         PRIDE OF RINGWOOD

Grown:        Australia

Profile:      citric aroma, clean bittering hop

Typical use:  general purpose bittering

Example:      ???

AA Range:     9 - 11%

Substitute:   ???

- --

******************************************************************************

End, part 5/5

End, Hops FAQ, Rev. 2

------------------------------


Re: Jack & the perfect chiller

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 10:04:50 -0400 (EDT)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: Jack & the perfect chiller

> From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

> Subject: Chillers

>

It is unfortunate that those who do not read rec.crafts.brewing missed the

recent great debate on immersion vs counter-flow chillers.  Kinney Bauman did

>  an admirable job of defending counter-flow in light of its obvious

shortcomings and naturally lost to the Lighthouse of Wisdom and Truth.

Not this again!!

>  I won't re-hash the whole argument here but in summary, not a single,

>  UNARGUABLE advantage could be brought in defense of counter-flow for home

MY UNARGUABLE ADVANTAGE TO A COUNTERFLOW CHILLER: IT TRANSPORTS MY CAST OUT

WORT FROM MY SUDHAUS TO MY FERMENTATION AREA, WITHOUT RISK OF INFECTION. It

also uses less time and water (for my volume of brewing). By using this

technique, I can run all kinds of caustics/acids/boiling water through a

permenently installed pipeline, and rinse hot water through, diluting the

bitter wort.

>  homebrewers.  The counter-flow "snobs" are simply wrong on this one.

Thats it, Jack has spoken, I must trash my equipment, send a Easycheck to the

EasySalesman, get a EasyBrewery, and make easily chilled beer.  Boy was I

stupid to build my own brewery, when Jack had all the answers for me.

>  wort stays hot.  The issue CAN be, how hot?  If it falls below pasturization

>  temp and is open to the air, there is a risk of contamination.  If it stays

>  near boiling, it is no worse than extending the boil that amount of time.

>  And keep in mind that PU simply air cools the wort till it reaches lower

>  temps.

Probably garbage statements, certainly not a big issue if you have plenty of

clean healthy yeast to pitch (like PU).

>

>  To me, the most obvious disadvantage of the counter-flow chiller is that

most

>  of what would have stayed behind in the kettle ends up in the fermenter

>  unless one does an additional settling step.

Where it is scrubbed away during high krausen, and prior to this , is

actually beneficial to yeast metabolism.

Lets hope this thread is less tiresome than what soft drink mix's with

which malt beverage.

Good Chilling,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Wit Bier recipe

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 10:29:32 EDT

From: Keith MacNeal  29-Oct-1993 1021 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Wit Bier recipe

There was a recent question about a recipe for a Wit Bier.  Given that and the

nice articles on Belgian Brewing lately I figured I'd post this recipe.  It's

based on one of Dave Miller's recipes in "Brewing the World's Great Beers" and

some suggestions from HBD and the Cat's Meow.

It was quite popular with my friends this summer.  The only things I might do

differently next time would be switch the yeast to a Belgian Ale yeast and try

one of the German wheat extracts like the one that comes in a 2 kg can

(actually, since I've made the switch to all grain for my last few batches I'd

go all grain instead of using extract).  The American Eagle Amber DME is very

light -- about as light as most other brands' Light DME.  If you use another

brand, get a light.  The only precaution I took with sanitation and the spices

was to swab down my mortar and pestle with a bleach solution before crushing

the coriander in it.  If I remember correctly, the dried orange peel was from

Spice Islands.

3.3 lbs. Munton & Fison Wheat Malt Extract

2 lbs. American Eagle Amber DME

1 oz. American Hallertau hop pellets (4.3% AA)

1 pkg. Wyeast Labs #1007 German Ale Yeast

1 oz. crushed coriander

= oz. dried orange peel

1 cup corn sugar to prime

OG = 1.038

FG = 1.012

Bring 2 gals. water to boil and add extracts. Add 2/3 oz. hops when it returns

to boil and boil for 45 minutes.  Add remaining 1/3 oz. hops and boil 15

minutes.  Cool and strain into 3 gals. cold water in primary.  Pitch yeast and

ferment at 65-680F for about 1 week.  Add coriander and orange peel to

secondary and rack beer on top (either use a 6 gal. secondary or put a blowoff

tube on it -- I clogged the airlock a couple of times before finally putting a

blowoff tube on it).

I bottled mine after 10 days in the secondary.  The beer came out light in

body and color.  The carbonation, light body, and citrusy flavors from the

spices made for a nice light, refreshing brew.  I don't know how it stacks up

to commercial brews of this type since I haven't had an opportunity to taste

any.

Enjoy,

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Advantages of ascorbic acid?

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 10:38:19 -0400

From: lincecum@med-biochem.bu.edu

Subject: Advantages of ascorbic acid?

I have been reading the forum for several weeks now and am impressed

with the depth of experience and willingness to help fellow homebrewers

with their questions.

I have just brewed my first all-grain barley wine and will be aging it

for several months.  Unlike most of my beers which get sucked down by

my thirsty friends as soon as they are carbonated I am a little

concerned about long term oxidation problems with the barley wine.

Will the addition of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) at bottling time improve

the longeviety of the beer?  Also what are the general advantages and

disadvantages of ascorbic acid addition?  Much thanks.

John Lincecum

lincecum@med-biochem.bu.edu

------------------------------


CF Chiller Effects on Hop Character

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 11:00:40 EDT

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: CF Chiller Effects on Hop Character

All this discussion sounds like a good argument for a hop-back.

=S

------------------------------


THE NEW ENGLAND BEER CLUB

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 11:14:41 EDT

From: pavao@ptsws1 (John D. Pavao)

Subject: THE NEW ENGLAND BEER CLUB

Hi,

     Is the NEW ENGLAND BEER CLUB list still active?  If so, could someone

please send me the address to use when requesting a subscription.

Thanks.

John

pavao@ptsws1.npt.nuwc.navy.mil

------------------------------


Re: Chillers

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 09:53:25 -0700

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Re: Chillers

>>>>> On Tue, 26 Oct 93 12:20 CDT, arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling) said:

 Jack>  I won't re-hash the whole argument here but in summary,

 Jack> not a single, UNARGUABLE advantage could be brought in

 Jack> defense of counter-flow for home brewers and most of the

Jack, I'm quite sure that in your case there is _no_such_thing_ as an

UNARGUABLE _anything_ :-)

 Jack>  So, I hereby challange the counter-flowers to start

 Jack> your engines....

Silent long enough I guess....

  I would love to have stayed with my immersion chiller.  It is easier

to sanitize, use and store.  The problem is that it simply did not

work well enough.  My tap water is barely below desired pitching

temperatures most of the year.  As long as the temperature

differential between the wort and water is high, immersion chillers

work great.  As that differential decreases, the advantage goes to CF

chillers.

  The bottom line here (at least for me) is water conservation.

My 50' immersion chiller used in excess of 30 gallons of water to

chill a 5 gallon batch of boiling wort, and my pump driven 40' CF

chiller uses less than half that, _and_ gets the wort colder.  As a

side benefit, I finally get the cornflake sized cold break that I

_never_ witnessed before.

  Also, remember, we all brew a little differently. What is ideal for

one persons style is useless for another.  I cannot think of one thing

I could change in my brewery that would not demand some other

compensating change.  Every method has advantages and drawbacks, and

each brewer must make his or her own choices.

         Drew Lynch

  Chronologic Simulation, Los Altos, Ca.

      (415)965-3312x18

    drew@chronologic.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1261, 11/02/93

*************************************

-------


Growing Hops

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 10:57:21 PDT

From: mri10@mfg.amdahl.com (Michael Inglis)

Subject: Growing Hops

I would very much like to grow my own hops this next season

but I have a slight problem.  I live in a Condo without a

back yard but I have a very large porch that has access to

plent of sunlight (my other plants are very happy :).  If I

was to grow hops, it would have to be from some sort of planter

box.  I would have plenty of room to set up a vine path that

would be adequate but my concern is the planting.  Will planting

the rhizomes in a planter box work?  Has anyone else done

this successfully?

 Also, I brewed an all extract beer several weeks ago

(my third attempt at an SNPA clone) and the OG was 1.030!

(my local homebrew store packaged DME in 3 lb. bags and when

I actually weighed them they came out to about 2 lbs. 10oz :()

Guess where I'm not going anymore for my supplies?  Anyway

my FG after two weeks was 1.016!!  I was a little scared as

I'd never seen such a low gravity loss but I bottled anyway.

What I have now is IMHO an excellent ale that has a pronounced

buttery taste and goes down like water.  The sweetness with a

fairly aggressive hop bitterness combined to make a flavor that

I never expected and it's great.  Just goes to show that even an

apparent disaster can come out smelling roses (figuratively of

course).  Anyone else had horror stories that have come out to

be a surprisingly good brew?

Mike Inglis

mri10@mfg.amdahl.com

------------------------------


Steam/Labels&Coaster/alpha test?/Sheer Carboys

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 12:00:47 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Steam/Labels&Coaster/alpha test?/Sheer Carboys

***********************

Best Jim Busch commented on the idea of steam sterilization

with a pressure cooker:

    "Sounds dangerous to me.  How do you know when it is empty?"

*   No more steam.  Simple.

*   How does a melting pressure cooker and stovetop smell?

*   I've seen what a teakettle can do to a stovetop. Not a pretty sight!

***********************

John Adams said:

>Personally I make my own labels using a graphics editor, a ray-tracer,

a good collection of gif/jpeg "clip art" of beer labels, and a color printer.

*   Sound nifty.  I'd love to see 'em. Are those beer labels YOU

scanned? Or is there a commercial source, or disk copy others can obtain?

>I would also like to find an outfit that produces custom beer coasters.

*   Here's a couple- from an old issue of American Brewer (summer '92)

    American Coaster Co., 527 Wheatfield St.,P.P. Box 710

    North Tonawanda, NY. 14120 (716) 693-6540

NOTE: These fellers are directed at BREWERIES- Bulk orders of 10,000.

I just saw it in a magazine, and besides all my cousins work there (NOT!)

    ADMAT Coasters Johnson city Tennessee,

    Phone (615) 434-2373    Fax (615) 434-2210

There's even a place which does taps! I might have to look into that one!

Labels? Creative Labels 7413 Pulaski Hwy, Baltimore Maryland 21237

        Phone (301) 866-4700    FAX (310) 866-5672

I hope I'm not being too commercial. I always get a flood of e-mail

when I mention these kinds of sources, so I'm shortcutting this time.

***********************

*   Random Comments on Comments... (just a little bw....pain cave?)

> With 3 cats  in the house, rodents are not my concern :-)

but they could get into that bag with no problem at all.

*If you fed the cats more often you might not have them stealing grain!

>put on the lid and throw in some hops.

*Better reverse that.

"Skip and go naked" sounds like a fun name for a drink. But it sounds

like a spruced up SHANDY.  Coors/Lemonaid/Whiskey.  Hmmm.  Skip the board

games.  Play naked twister with vegetable oil!

***********************

Mark said:

> You can at least get a sense of the aroma potential of your

homegrown hops by using your nose, but there's really no practical way

to know how much alpha acid is in there (without a lab analysis).

*   Oh yeah. Nothing like cutting them in half and rubbing your

nose and fingers in it.  sticky sticky.  Smells like fresh buds!

Has there been a practical way of testing developed for the homebrewer?

I know you can send them off...but I'll save my money and guesstimate.

Arf...you were trying to come up with a pH test weren't you?

Didn't you say something about a colorimetric test?  Any luck w/it?

***********************

anthony johnston cried about a broken carboy:

>I am sure that most of these precautions are obvious and well-known and

the others may seem like overkill, but after seeing the results of a

broken carboy...waaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

*   Don't be cautious. Someone might pounce you. Remember homebrew makes

you immune!  KOH would simply run off you skin since you're filled w/EtOH!

*   No really....good advise. How big was the carboy?  Did you shift temps

drastically and suddenly?  Was it scratched?

I once had a 1 gallon EtOH bottle (brown...nice!) that was full of cold

spiced cider- happily fermented out- awaiting bottling. (~45-50 deg)

I had splashed hot water on a barstool from bottle washing, then

placed the jug on the stool.  Just a little bit of hot water was enough

to cleanly sheer the bottom from the rest of the bottle. I was able to

rack the precious fluid out before moving the bottle.  There must have

been an adequate temp differential to shock the glass. I was blessed

by the grace of my brew lord for the survival!  One bottle remains.

Ithink I'll have to celebrate halloween w/it! Pumpkin brew too!'course.

BTW I still have the top of the bottle. Could make a good funnel.

Also: The one batch (in my early days) of beer which became explosive

(scary experience, ~~SHUDDDER~~) I had one bottle which broke/blew

exactly the same way. The bottom sheered off cleanly. The top shot up

into my underarm!  At least it didn't shatter like the one in my car!

(no one was in it at the time.  Good thing.)

The point here...The connection between sides and bottom is a stress

point for bottles.  Thin to thick glass is my guess.  Be wary!

/************************ Hoppy Halloween ************************/

~~~~~~~~~~~~ John (the Coyote) Wyllie SLK6P@cc.usu.edu ~~~~~~~~~~~~

/*****  Dress up as John Barleycorn for the hallowed eve!  *******/

      ------------------ Live On BarleyMan! ---------------

------------------------------


Beer Shelf Life

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 11:39:07 -0700 (PDT)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: Beer Shelf Life

Tom Schwendler asks about shelf life.  3 months life sounds ridiculous to me

unless there is something wrong with the beer.  Award-winning beers are

frequently 6 months old when judged.  From my own experience I am drinking a

beer that I made 12 months ago and it's superb: better than fresh when it

was a little harsh.  Most of my brews end up being 6 months old by the time

the last bottle is drunk and none have shown any sign of going off.

 Peter

------------------------------


Budweiser & Adjuncts

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 12:16:39 PDT

From: Ed.Falk@Eng.Sun.COM (Ed Falk)

Subject: Budweiser & Adjuncts

I heard a Budweiser ad on the radio the other day that really

made my hair curl.  The were BRAGGING about how they added rice

to the beer.  They also mentioned barley as an afterthought.

I worry about the future.

------------------------------


Questions

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 15:52:26 -0400

From: edo@marcam.com (Ed Oriordan)

Subject: Questions

Did my first all grain last weekend.  Everything went well, but now I have

two questions. One on sparging the other on grain.

Sparging -

What is the best way to sparge. Should you?

1) Completely drain the bed, then sparge in one of the following ways?

2) Just match the additions to the drainings?

3) Sprinkle in all the water at once?

4) Others.

I have a feeling that 2 and 3 are going to be a tie.  What's the difference

besides my effort.  As I see it all the water goes through the bed either

way, and if you can maintain the temp why not do 3?  Maybe, more weight

so compacted filter bed?  What about 1? On one hand I would fear compacting

the filter bed, but on the other hand I would be getting the first drawings

that I would assume would be extract rich.  I used a rectangular cooler and

slotted pipe manifold(fantastic tool), so I am not real worried about a

stuck sparge, but I would think clarity could be a problem.  Also method 1

would cause more shifting in the grain bed, perhaps more astringiency?

For a 5 gallon batch I drained off 1 gallon of wort and recirculated this

because it was cloudy.  Was this correct? I ended up with clearer wort,

but I am assuming that the first drawings contain the most extract, which

I then poured on the top of the bed, and now it has to be washed through

the entire bed and out again.

Grain -

As a full mash novice I want to stay with simple infusion mashes for

a while.  What kind of grain does this mean I am restricted to.

I used Pale (2-row english).  The day after I went to another

brew store and they had two Pales(2-row from Germany and from America).

Pale is Pale???  The grain from the second brew store had a lot less

flour already mixed in (i.e. if you dropped a handfull of the english

Pale you saw some flour dust) and appeared to be good clean grain.

Will it be as modified as the english Pale? Is it an oversimplification

to say Pale == you can do an infusion?  I was reading Miller last

night and he explains the difference between Pale, Mild, Vienna, Munich,

Lager, Klages etc.. But what I want to know is, what can I infusion mash

as a base grain for recipe (obviously not specialty grains and adjuncts).

Pale is Pale??? No adjuncts used currently, so I don't need extra enzymes.

Describe how to tell if grain is good? Miller goes into it some (or was it

Noonan?), but what do you look for?

If you are gonna answer my questions I would love to hear how you do it,

and especially why you do it this way and not this way.  I don't

want to just follow recipes or steps, I would like to know why I am going

to do something.

Fun, fun, fun.  If you are contemplating trying all grain, I would recomend

a cajun cooker burner and a slotted copper pipe manifold system.  They made

the job a LOT easier.  Also if you live near a drag-strip, you can slap that

cajun cooker on the back of your car and campaign it as a jet dragster.

NASA called and said the crew of the space shuttle saw it.  Man, is that thing

powerful!!!  Comes with a nifty recipe for a deep fried turkey (is it just me

or does the thought of deep frying a whole turkey sound odd?).

Thanks

Ed O'

edo@marcam.com

------------------------------


Pilsner extract

Date: 29 Oct 93 15:07:00 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A@hq.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Pilsner extract

The following attachments were included with this message:

__________________________________________________________________

TYPE     : FILE

NAME     : PIL

__________________________________________________________________

            Greetings,

                 A few friends and I will be running an experiment in

            recipe formulation where we are trying to match a style with

            extract brewing as well as all-grain.  The problem: the

            all-grain version will require pilsner malt and the extracts

            I've been able to find (DME & LME [No, not Male extract])

            are all based on Pale Malt.  Does anyone out there in

            HBD-land know of Pilsner Malt extracts that are Unhopped and

            (hopefully) no adjuncts?

            TIA,

            Andy A

------------------------------


Hunter Airstats

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 20:52:57 PDT

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hunter Airstats

Thanks to an alert by Kieran O'Connor, I have confirmed that the Hunter

Airstat is no longer being produced and there are no plans for a

replacement product.

For those that don't know, the Hunter Airstat is a reasonably priced "line

voltage thermostat" that was originally designed to add thermostatic

control to a room air conditioner.  Homebrewers, however, have been using

it to control refrigerators/freezers.

The Hunter was unique in it's price range featuring a remote sensor and

digital setpoint and temperature readouts.  Homebrew suppliers are selling

them for $30 to $40, and hardware superstores (such as Home Depot) had

them as low as $19.50.  The main disadvantage of the Hunter was that it

only went down to 40 degrees F, not considered low enough by lager

afficianados.  But it could be easily modified to go lower, and

instructions have been published in this digest.

Homebrew rumor had it that the Hunter has been discontinued due to a lack

of reliability.  Hunter denies this and claims lack of sales is the sole

reason.

Hunter has no more inventory on this item, but some inventory does exist

in hardware stores, and I would bet even more is still in stock at

homebrew shops.  The reason for this post is that if you were thinking of

getting a temperature controller someday, or like me are a happy user of

an Airstat and want a "backup" or two, now is the time to buy.  Armed with

the info that they have been discontinued, you may be able to get an even

better price on any remaining inventory, at least from a hardware store.

I went down to my local Home Depot and bought their remaining two units at

$15 each (one had no packaging and the other's package was pretty beat up).

Some enterprising homebrew supplier might want to contact Hunter about

picking up the manufacturing rights and making them again (and possibly

modifying the software to allow 30 F operation).  Hunter is in Memphis, TN.

Note that you don't have to panic.  There *are* alternatives.  Williams

Brewing in San Leandro sells a Penn line voltage thermostat that has been

modified specifically for Williams, but Penn has "standard" models that

will also work.  WW Graingers has a few pages of these, of which a few are

suitable for our needs and not too expensive.  Most will need to have a

line cord added.  You can also check local heating/air conditioning parts

suppliers.  What you want is a "line voltage thermostat" that is designed

for either "cooling only" or "heating/cooling"  (the key words are the

switch contacts "close on rise").  Sometimes they are listed as SPDT,

which means single pole double throw and is a technical way of saying they

work for heating or cooling.  The switch contacts need to be rated high

enough for your fridge (usually this is not a problem).  And the

temperature range needs to be right.  You also want a "remote bulb" or

"remote sensor" unit.  A "snap action" or "bimetallic" thermostat would

need to be entirely mounted inside the fridge, not very practical.

Lastly, make sure the "differential" is in the 4 degree range or

adjustable to it.  You don't want one with a 25 degree fixed differential.

Disclaimer:  I have no affiliation with Hunter, nor do I sell temperature

controllers of any kind.  I just think that for the price, it was a great

deal, and I really like having the digital temperature readout on my keg

fridge.  And no, none of my "spares" are for sale, so don't ask.

Mark

------------------------------


Grinding Wheat / Chillers

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 8:49:30 MDT

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Grinding Wheat / Chillers

Robert Schultz writes:

>   I attempted Phil Seitz's  Beligian White Ale on the weekend.  I now

know what Phil meant by grinding 5 lbs of wheat on a Corona.

>   How do the roller mills perform on the hard unmalted grains (wheat, rye,

rice)?  Barley and oats are fairly soft.

My homemade roller mill works fine crushing hard stuff like wheat.  I use a

special (simple) modification to my mill when I crush wheat.  The mod is two

blocks of wood which restrict the amount of feed onto the rollers.  It allows

the rollers to crush less grain at any instant.  For example, if the rollers

are 8" long, this takes the working length down to about 5", so only 5" of the

rollers have grain between them at a time.  Without this mod, crushing wheat

causes the motor to stop (and this is a washing machine motor!).  Wheat is

indeed a tougher nut to crack than barley.

**

JS comments about immersion vs. CF chillers:

>The counter-flow "snobs" are simply wrong on this one.

(and other similar comments)

Jack, this is abrasive and counter-productive at best; its out and out flame

bait at worst.  The HBD will now be tied up with tons of inane arguing at a

time when 3 day turn around times are commonplace.  You were the one griping

about the yeast FAQ because you couldn't get a quick turnaround from the HBD.

This will tie up the HBD for much longer than one FAQ.

I brought up this subject for serious discussion, not flame wars.  I appreciate

your well thought out comments regarding versatility of the immersion chiller,

but I would have appreciated more if you had tempered your comments to a civil

level.  Do you talk this way in person?

One of the great advantages of CF chilling is efficiency of the water used.

Has anyone out there measured your cooling water?  It took me over 30 gallons

of cooling water with my immersion chiller, less than half that with my CF

chiller.  That's 6 times the volume of the beer just to cool it with the

immersion chiller!  This is a big reason I like CF chilling.  Combining this

with other water conservation methods can amount to a considerable water

savings in one brewing session.  I'm not claiming one method beats the hell out

of the other, just that there are pros and cons.  You have to pick your poison.

norm

------------------------------


Blindness, Yeast, Polyethelene

Date: Sat, 30 Oct 93 23:32 CDT

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Blindness, Yeast, Polyethelene

 >From: mikel@netlink.nix.com (Mike Lemons)

 >Somebody doesn't realize that methyl alcohol was intentionally added to

 "bathtub gin" during prohibition to increase its intoxicating ability.

 Poisonous, but it will get you drunk.

 >The gorvernment arrests people who operate a still because they want

 their alcohol taxes.  If they tell you that they do it for your

 protection, just remember that they told Indians the same thing when

 they took their land.

 Well put.  Just because methanol boils off when distilling, does not mean

 there is any to boil off in the mash.  For a simple example, ponder making

 brandy....  You start out with a nice drinkable wine and distill it to leave

 most of the water behind.  If there were enough methanol to cause blindness

 in the distillate, you wouldn't want to drink the wine in the first place.

 The same thing applies to whiskey mash.  Methanol comes from petroleum or

 from distilling trees.  That's why it's called wood alcohol.  If you put

 trees in your wine, you might be in trouble.

 The industrial world needs grain alcohol but has enough clout to avoid paying

 taxes on it.  To keep everyone honest, Big Brother mandates that a certain

 amount of methanol is added to industrial ethanol to make it undrinkable.

 The bad guys put this stuff in booz because it is cheap and people got sick

 and might have gone blind.

 There is nothing you can do to a still full of wine to make it produce

 dangerous quantities of methanol and you can consider a kettle full of

 whiskey mash just a very new "wine" for the sake of this discussion.

 ................

 Sorry but I lost the source line (bb Brian Bliss?) for the following..

 >Subject: wyeast/spruce/distillation temps/and more...

 >6) I still buy wyeast and try to use it for those batches which require

   a special flavor from the yeast.  I wish there were an alternative...

   It would not take that much more work to provide us with a packaging

   that has a larger yeast population developed before you open it.

 There is an alternative and its called culturing.  However, it's sort of like

 all grain brewing, viz., sounds real spooky till you try it.  Not only does

 it save big bucks but it becomes as much of an obsession as brewing itself.

 You can do it in the kitchen in simple stuff or a lab full of equipment.  The

 bottom line is, yeast is free, it's clean and you can produce any population

 you feel is needed.  Check out the archives for my article on Culturing for

 Beginners.

 ...........

  Not sure where this one ends and Jim Busch's begins but this is his..

 >From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

 <I am using Low Density Polyethylene tubing for transferring wort.  It is FDA

 approved and has a temp range of -70 to 120F and it handles sweet wort temp

 just fine.

 >I can assure you that my sweet wort is above 120F, so I wonder the widom of

 using 120F rated tubing in this manner.  I use a cut off plastic turkey

 baster.

 As I was unable to find a 20 foot turkey baster, I had to take drastic

 measures.

 I cited the specification for the record and then pointed out that it works

 fine at "sweet wort temp" and presumed we all knew what that meant.  The

 specification is obviously very conservative.

 Furthermore, I would be interested in knowing just what your sweet wort temp

 is as it flows through the tubing.  I suspect it is a lot cooler than you

 think.   By the time mine gets down to the kettle, it probably is around

 there somewhere.  The copper tubing at the end is to protect it from the

 boiling wort not the stuff coming down from the kitchen.

 >From: Robert Schultz <Robert.Schultz@usask.ca>

 >Subject: milling red hard spring wheat

 > I attempted Phil Seitz's  Beligian White Ale on the weekend.  I now

 know what Phil meant by grinding 5 lbs of wheat on a Corona.

 > How do the roller mills perform on the hard unmalted grains (wheat, rye,

 rice)?  Barley and oats are fairly soft.

 I could swear I just answered this but it also appeared in Ulich Stafford's

 comments on his new mm.

 Malted grain is friable and crumbly.  When gently squeezed, it falls apart,

 exposing the malt to mash water.  This is definitely not true of unmalted

 grains.  If you have the strength to run it through a roller mill, the best

 you will get is something like thick oatmeal.  As there usually is no husk

 involved, there is little advantage to a roller mill over a grinder.  I

 suspect, a Corona me be more efficient if your lauter tun can handle the fine

 grinst.  That is, after all what they were designed for but it won't be any

 easier to crank.

 js

------------------------------


Freezing Wort

Date: Sat, 30 Oct 93 19:04:00 -0600

From: phil.brushaber@lunatic.metronet.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: Freezing Wort

Do you see any problem with freezing homemade wort (extract)?

Next weekend I am going to make another try at a Dopplebock. (This

time with German Pilsner grain as the base, not 2-row in my

quest for that malty sweet German flavor).

My lauter tun can not handle more than about 12-13 lbs of grain at

a time. So this weekend I mashed 10 lbs. of German Pilsner. Boiled

it down to about 3 gallons, put it in a 4 gallon kettle, covered

the kettle and stuck it in the deep freeze.

I suppose there are more convenient alternatives to making your own

extract, but I wanted all-german grain.

My plan next weekend is to mash the remaining 13 lbs of grain I will

need to make this Dopplebock, thaw the "extract" and add it to the

boil.

Anyone see any problems with this proceedure. (Other than spending

an extra brewday mashing grain?

- ----

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

| The Lunatic Fringe BBS * 214-235-5288 * 3 nodes * Richardson, TX * 24 hrs |

| UseNet, ILink, RIME, FIDO, Annex, Intelec, LuciferNet, PlanoNet, and more!|

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------------------------------


Beer Drinks

Date: Sun, 31 Oct 93 11:38:21 CST

From: odie@cattle.mn.org (Rick Anderson)

Subject: Beer Drinks

Here's another beer drink to add to the list

1 oz of vodka

1 oz Southern Comfort

2 oz 7-up

1 oz sweet & sour mix

1/4 oz grenadine

2 cups of crushed ice.   Blend all of the above in a blender till it

resembles a slush. Pour into a 20-24 oz glass. Fill the remainder of the

glass with your favorite beer. The drink was introduced to me as a

Combat.  Its a good one.

Rick Anderson

------------------------------


Bread from mash recipe request

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 23:13:33 -0400 (EDT)

From: ed fromohio <NEGATIVE3@unh.edu>

Subject: Bread from mash recipe request

HI, I was wondering if anyone has a recipe or idea for bread from the

spent mash....

any help would be most appreciated,

thanks,

 -chris (dcm@kepler.unh.edu)

P.S. feels good to be back on the net again after a year or so....

------------------------------


Re: Plans for Grain Mill

Date: Sun, 31 Oct 93 13:39:29 PST

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Re: Plans for Grain Mill

>>>>> "matth" == matth  <matth@bedford.progress.COM> writes:

matth> Dion Hollenbeck writes:

matth> [ SNIP of many questions regarding tool availability & time &

matth> materials ]

>>  Bottom line, you may be able to make any commercial product for

>> much less than it is sold for if you ignore everything but the cost

>> of the materials.  On top of that, you are not trying to make a

>> living out of it.  If you really figure *everything* in, I would

>> doubt you could beat the retail price by much if any at all since

>> anyone who intends to remain in business will be buying in volume

>> and getting prices on raw materials which you could never come

>> close to at onesey prices.

matth>   Can you tell me why you brew beer then?  Few people I've ever

matth> ,et who brew & keep purchasing *any* kind of equipment ever

matth> reach the level where the money they have spent on the brewing

matth> tools/materials makes it cost effective over the long run

matth> compared to just purchasing commercially available brews, even

matth> micro-brews.

I brew beer, not because it is cheaper, but because I can make

*exactly * the beer I want to and I will be moving to the boonies soon

and wanted to not be dependent on specialty liquor stores or

microbreweries within 10 min of my house here in urban America.

>>  If you enjoy building things, by all means, you have my

>> whole-hearted support to go ahead.  I even wish you the good

>> fortune to improve upon Jack's mill or any other brewing product

>> for the betterment of all of us brewers.  But, please do not make

>> light of the effort that goes into producing the great products

>> which are being offered to us.  Knowing what it takes to produce

>> these, I am quite satisfied that we as home-brewers are getting

>> fair value for our money frome the vast majority of brewing

>> equipment manufacturers.

>>

>> Steve, I do not mean to single you out, this thread has popped up

>> so many times, I just took the opportunity of your post to reply to

>> a topic which has been bugging me for a long time.

>>

matth>   I haven't gotten the impression that anyone has made light of

matth> the effort Jack or anyone else has put into producing effectvie

matth> roller mills designs.  I've seen & used a MM at one of the HB

matth> shops I get supplies from.  Jack did a good job on it.  Most of

matth> the reviews I have seen have been pretty close to the mark

matth> regarding usability of the device.  It gives a great crush but

matth> as many people have indicated the design could be improved upon

matth> some.

I feel that Steve made light of Jack's efforts because he complained

about the cost and said right after that he could do a good without

much effort (this is a paraphrase).  A lot of other people complain

about the retail prices of equipment like Jack's and state that they

could do as good for a lot less.  I was just pointing out why retail

prices are generally extremely fair and what really goes into making a

product, rather than a one-off copy of someone's design.  If you make

it yourself and it does not last or does not work quite up to snuff,

then you generally don't complain.  Jack and other inventors have to

make a product which works well and lasts, which most of them do.

Dion Hollenbeck (619)455-5590x2814     Email: hollen@megatek.com

Senior Software Engineer                      megatek!hollen@uunet.uu.net

Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California    ucsd!megatek!hollen

------------------------------


RIMS sparge techniques

Date: Sun, 31 Oct 93 13:47:44 PST

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: RIMS sparge techniques

I just did a trial mash in my RIMS system using manual temp control by

turning the heater on and off by hand.  When finished, I did the

sparge, but because of the speed of my pump, it only lasted about 10

min.  I can't control the rate of sparge by only introducing sparge

water slowly because the pump does not do well with pumping dry and it

does not go down to extremely slow either.  I have heard of adding all

the sparge water at once and recirculating for 30 minutes and then

just pumping the resulting wort on out.

Any other ideas.  My extraction rate was a rather poor 22 points per

pound per gallon from domestic 2 row, if I go by Dave Miller's rate of

35 ppg.  Residual grain was slightly sweet after sparge completed.

Thanks for the help.

------------------------------


RIMS sparge techniques

Date: Sun, 31 Oct 93 13:48:13 PST

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: RIMS sparge techniques

I just did a trial mash in my RIMS system using manual temp control by

turning the heater on and off by hand.  When finished, I did the

sparge, but because of the speed of my pump, it only lasted about 10

min.  I can't control the rate of sparge by only introducing sparge

water slowly because the pump does not do well with pumping dry and it

does not go down to extremely slow either.  I have heard of adding all

the sparge water at once and recirculating for 30 minutes and then

just pumping the resulting wort on out.

Any other ideas.  My extraction rate was a rather poor 22 points per

pound per gallon from domestic 2 row, if I go by Dave Miller's rate of

35 ppg.  Residual grain was slightly sweet after sparge completed.

Thanks for the help.

------------------------------


An arguable defense of CF chillers

Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1993 21:34:31 -0400 (EDT)

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>

Subject: An arguable defense of CF chillers

 Jack sez:

> It is unfortunate that those who do not read rec.crafts.brewing missed the

> recent great debate on immersion vs counter-flow chillers.  Kinney Bauman did

> an admirable job of defending counter-flow in light of its obvious

> shortcomings and naturally lost to the Lighthouse of Wisdom and Truth.

To which I must add: Jack, you're a legend in your own mind.

> I won't re-hash the whole argument here but in summary, not a single,

> UNARGUABLE advantage could be brought in defense of counter-flow for home

> brewers and most of the good reasons are only valid in large scale brewing.

> The only advantage to homebrewers was the OPINION that chilling faster made

> for clearer beer but no one had come up with any documentation to prove the

> point.

Oh, I might point out that you can immediately start siphoning into

the fermenter without waiting on the immersion chiller to chill the

wort and THEN siphoning into the fermenter.  But who cares about

saving time?

Moreover, after we all agree on the importance of sanitation, good

recipes, good ingredients, and decent equipment, pray tell what ISN'T

arguable in homebrewing?!  Isn't that why we love this hobby?  Because

of its diversity?

> Now, ponder the possibilities this allows.  You have an infinite number of

> post boil hopping schedules that you can play with.  For example, shut off

> the heat, put on the lid and throw in some hops.  This hops is at near boil

> temp which kills that herbal taste but the vapor and aroma can not escape.

> When you chill it down, the vapor and aroma are re-absorbed by the wort.

Re-absorbed by the wort, huh?  I'm sure you can pull the documentation

out on that one, can't you, Jack?  And while we're pondering

possiblities, ponder the reality of having the hop aroma absorbed

directly into the wort with a nice little hopback hooked inline

between your kettle and CF wort chiller.  Works great for me at home

and my little brewpub in town.

All this is not to say that a well-designed immersion chiller won't

function fine when used properly.  But "not one unarguable advantage

(can) be brought in defense of counter-flow for home brewers"?!  Come

now, Jack.  Methinks you've been dipping into your homebrew a wee much

this evening.

Cheers to one and all!

 ___ ----------------------------------------------------------- ___

|   |                   Kinney Baughman                         |   |

|   |            baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu                 |   |

 / /                                                             / /

  |        "Beer is my business and I'm late for work"            |

   ---------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Re: steam

Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1993 23:34:23 -0800 (PST)

From: Jack Thompson <jct@reed.edu>

Subject: Re: steam

When I was in the US Navy, during the 1960's I was told that the

difference between a fairy tale and a sea story was that a fairy tale

begins: "Once upon a time..." and a sea tale begins: "This ain't no shit...."

As an electrician, I had occassion to spend a few hours, now and again, in

the engine room, where electricity was manufactured by steam turbines.  It

was hot and noisy there, but one learned to read sounds.  A pin hole leak

in a live steam line has a special sound.  Once heard, it is indelible.

One stops moving.  In the fullness of time, a person will reach out for a

broomstick and begin looking for the source of the leak by passing the

broomstick over and around the steam lines.  When the broom stick is cut

in half, the live, pinhole steam leak has been found.

Live steam is a very useful tool, but one which must be brought into play

with caution and understanding.

This ain't no shit.

Jack C. Thompson

who thinks orgasms are fine

------------------------------


RE: Short spigot on Gott

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 05:32:59 PST

From: Jonathan Labaree <jonlab@igc.apc.org>

Subject: RE: Short spigot on Gott

Sandy Cockerham in HB 1260 asks about a too-

short spigot on a Gott mashing setup.

I, too, added a spigot to a cooler and ran into a similar

problem --  I drilled a hole for the spigot and found that

the spigot's threading was not long enough to fit all the

way through.  By this time, I had to find a solution

because I had just forked over a good 14 bucks for the

thing at Sears.  So I drilled a second hole in the outer skin

of the cooler large enough to accommodate the spigot's

largest outside diameter (I used a paddle bit which

chowdered the thing up a bit, but it ain't exactly a

Chippendale to begin with).  Then I fastened the spigot on

the inside skin.  I had to remove quite a bit of the

Styrofoam insulation.  In order to prevent the insulation

from pouring out, I filled the void with a product called

"Great Stuff."  This is an expanding insulation foam that

comes in a can (the package says no CFCs, by the way).  It's

pretty gooey stuff and it doesn't take much to fill the gap

around the spigot to seal in the insulation.

It works quite well, though you must be careful about

preventing grains from getting in as the spigot will clog

very easily.  I use a rectangular plastic needlepoint screen

(cut to fit the bottom of the cooler -- ) which I fasten to the

exposed spigot threads with a bit of picture wire so it stays

in place.  I'm looking for a better solution to that problem,

though.

[Credit goes to Alice and John @ Brewers,Asso.,

Portsmouth, NH for the needlepoint screen idea, thanks!]

Jonathan Labaree

jonlab@igc.org

August West Brewery, Newburyport, MA

------------------------------


Re: Hops FAQ

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1993 09:44:23 -0500 (EST)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: Hops FAQ

A couple of questions/comments wrt the Hops FAQ:

<At the end of the growing season when the leaves have fallen or turned brown,

<cut the vines at the surface of the soil and if possible remove the twine.

<After cutting back the vines a layer of 3 or 4 inches of mulch and composted

<manure can be put over the exposed vines for insulation and nutrition during

<the winter.

I read in Brewing Techniques that if the vines are allowed to remain uncut

at the end of the season, the rootstock will build up energy stores for the

upcoming winter season, and be healthier next year.  This is obviously

not practical for big farms, but due to my inherent procrastination, it is

exactly how my plants are now.  Comments?

<The proper length of time for dry hopping is dependent on the temperature.  At

ale temperatures, 7-14 days of contact time is widely used.  At lager

temperatures, although little data is available, it seems obvious that longer

contact times, on the order of 14-21 days, are called for. It is common to use

0.5 - 2.0 oz. or more in a 5 gallon batch, but as always it is up the

individual's preferences.

OK, how does temperature affect hop aroma wrt dry hopping?  This doesnt seem

intuitively obvious to me.  I also would point out that I have dry hopped

1 BBl batches in the primary (after high krausen and skimming) for a mere

3 days with excellent results, and I know of a local brewpub that has dry

hopped with pellets (I use whole) for one day, filtered and served online

the next, so this will work.  The point is that dry hopping times vary all

over the spectrum, and I suspect if a heavy hand is used in the amounts,

time is less important.  I'm still wondering about the lager comment???

Best,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Spruce beer

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 10:25:36 EST

From: lconrad@epoch.com (Laura Conrad)

Subject: Spruce beer

I think of spruce beer as one of those seasonal things.  I've only

done it with new spruce growth in the spring.  The color, texture and

smell are all quite pleasant to work with.

The recipe I started with (Papazian?) said 1 quart of new spruce

growth, but I just pick a plastic bag full.  You will find that when

you are communing with an actual spruce tree, you will not want to

pick all the easily accessible growth, and you will get tired of

getting scratched by the old growth before you have picked too much of

the less accessible stuff.

I did one batch where I was less careful about not using any old

needles.  It had a much more aggressive and less delicate (although

still not unpleasant) spruce character.

All this is more fun and probably less likely to lead to overspruced

beer than buying bottles of essence at the home brew store.  Of

course, you can only do it in late May and June.

   Laura

------------------------------


Spruce beer

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 10:25:36 EST

From: epochsys!lconrad@uunet.UU.NET (Laura Conrad)

Subject: Spruce beer

I think of spruce beer as one of those seasonal things.  I've only

done it with new spruce growth in the spring.  The color, texture and

smell are all quite pleasant to work with.

The recipe I started with (Papazian?) said 1 quart of new spruce

growth, but I just pick a plastic bag full.  You will find that when

you are communing with an actual spruce tree, you will not want to

pick all the easily accessible growth, and you will get tired of

getting scratched by the old growth before you have picked too much of

the less accessible stuff.

I did one batch where I was less careful about not using any old

needles.  It had a much more aggressive and less delicate (although

still not unpleasant) spruce character.

All this is more fun and probably less likely to lead to overspruced

beer than buying bottles of essence at the home brew store.  Of

course, you can only do it in late May and June.

   Laura

------------------------------


Brew Ha Ha's 5 liter mini keg system

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 10:45:39 EST

From: montanoa@vnet.IBM.COM

Subject: Brew Ha Ha's 5 liter mini keg system

Does anyone has experience (either good or bad) with the 5 liter mini keg

system that Brew Ha Ha sells?  I am looking to puchase one of these things and

want to get a feel for the experiences of others.  I'd appreciate any info--

either here or private email.

Tony Montano

Montanoa@Vnet.IBM.COM

------------------------------


More on steam injection SAFETY!

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 09:07:25 -0700

From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>

Subject: More on steam injection SAFETY!

In HBD #1259 we read:

>I'm relying solely on memory here, since I wasn't taking notes, but as

>best as I can reconstruct it, the setup is like this:  An ordinary

>pressure cooker (about 2 gallon capacity, I would guess) is modified

>by removing the pressure release in the center of the lid (NOT the

>safety pressure release, which is offset from the center on this one)

>and replacing it with a compression fitting.  From that is run a length

>of flexible metal hose (the kind used for a gas line to a kitchen

>stove, I think) about 4 or 5 feet long.

I hate to criticize a great idea, but if this description is accurate,

it could be **very dangerous**.  The thingy in the center of the lid

(a weight covering a small hole) is what regulates the pressure inside

the chamber. (It basically works because the doohickey has a weight of

15 pounds for every square inch of hole that it covers.  Thus if the

pressure inside exceeds 15 PSI, the weight gets pushed aside a little,

venting some steam, and thus reducing the pressure.)  By modifying

this, you are eliminating the pressure regulation of the pot!  Sure

there is still a safety valve, but this is set for a pressure somewhat

higher than the cookers normal 15 psi operating pressure, also, if

this valve becomes clogged (and it does happen) you now have zero

pressure regulation!  Add a little more heat to the cooker, and the

pressure will go way up, until the kettle explodes violently.

Please, if you're going to try this, add the steam outlet somewhere

else on the pot, but DO NOT MODIFY EITHER THE SAFETY RELEASE VALVE NOR

THE PRESSURE REGULATOR!!!!

Lets be careful out there...

Kelly

------------------------------


Re: Plans for Grain Mill

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 9:16:26 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Re: Plans for Grain Mill

Matt Harper wrote:

>Dion Hollenbeck writes:

>

>[ SNIP of many questions regarding tool availability & time & materials ]

[ MORE SNIPS done by me... ]

>>us brewers.  But, please do not make light of the effort that goes

>>into producing the great products which are being offered to us.

>>Knowing what it takes to produce these, I am quite satisfied that we

>>as home-brewers are getting fair value for our money frome the vast

>>majority of brewing equipment manufacturers.

>>

>>Steve, I do not mean to single you out, this thread has popped up so

>>many times, I just took the opportunity of your post to reply to a

>>topic which has been bugging me for a long time.

>>

>  I haven't gotten the impression that anyone has made light of the effort Jack

>or anyone else has put into producing effectvie roller mills designs.  I've

>seen & used a MM at one of the HB shops I get supplies from.  Jack did a good

>job on it.  Most of the reviews I have seen have been pretty close to the mark

>regarding usability of the device.  It gives a great crush but as many people

>have indicated the design could be improved upon some.

Matt, you didn't read the original article (from Steve Seaney) that started the

thread did you? Here is what Dion was talking about:

>The other day I saw one of Jack Schmedling's  (sp?) grain mills at a

>brew store.  It doesn't appear to be that hard to make.  The cost

>seems extremely high.

Now, doesn't that appear to you that Steve is making light of Jack's efforts?

It does to me, which is why I also wrote to defend Jack's mill (having made a

couple of roller mills myself).  All your talk about building it yourself for

the hobby of it all is perfectly accurate.  Just don't make light of the

commercial side.  Dion was right on with his remarks.

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1262, 11/03/93

*************************************

-------


Breweries & Pubs in Manchester UK

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1993 08:22:30 -0800 (PST)

From: alm@ibeam.jf.intel.com (Al Marshall)

Subject: Breweries & Pubs in Manchester UK

If anyone could be of help suggesting breweries or pubs worthy of

visit in the vicinity of Manchester, please reply to:

 ketans@ibeam.intel.com

------------------------------


malt powder

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1993 11:41:53 -0500 (EST)

From: Jill Martz <SAL_MARTZ@sals.edu>

Subject: malt powder

We are relativey new at homebrewing and I was wondering if anyone could

tell me about diastatic malt powder. Can it be used in homebrewing?

What would be the effect?

Reply to: SAL_MARTZ@SALS.EDU

Thanks...Jill

------------------------------


Bottle labels

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 08:42:42 PST

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Bottle labels

I would like to make some labels for my bottles, but a little more

creatively than I currently make with WordPerfect.  A friend has Corel

Draw and that would be fine, but I do not have several hundred dollars

to spend on software.  Can anyone suggest software for DOS or Windows,

(or even X for that matter) which would be suitable to make *really*

nice bottle labels with?  Must have lots of fonts available and it

would be really nice to be able to fit text into any shape (like in a

crescent shaped banner).

thanks,

dion

------------------------------


PH malt / acid rest /  carboy storage

Date: Mon,  1 Nov 93 10:51:37 EST

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: PH malt / acid rest /  carboy storage

RE:  PH malt

The poster claimed to have problems getting his Ph in the appropriate

range even with the addition of a large amount of gypsum.

I am no chemist but this sounds like a water chemistry problem.  I don't know

if the term "buffering" describes what is happening but something in the water

is preventing the gypsum from lowering the Ph.

Brewers I know of with similar, but not as severe, problems with their

private well water do the following.

Boil 7-8 gallons of water the night before brewing.

Let it cool over nite and let the percipitate settle too.

Siphon all but the last couple inches the next morning.

They also use a gallon of distilled water in the mash and the rest from the

 preboiled and siphoned suply thus diluting the offending ingredients.

Don't sparge to the limit, 1.010 temp adjusted, to limit tannin extraction.

They have also had water analysis done and brew styles that are appropriate

for the water chemistry.  There are ways of getting the water analysis done

for free or near free.  Many plumbing supply stores provised this service

if you are shopping for a water treatment system.

Acid rest:

This step is described by Noonan in Brewing Lagers, most texts provide this

information for theoretical completeness, it is rarley done in commercial

brewing.  The recent beer styles book on Wheat Beers also includes a

discussion of multiple steps of acid rest as important in producing certain

compontents of a wheat beers flavor and aroma.  These all involve ezymatic

reactions resulting in the generation of specific acids.

Carboy storage:

After cleaning I cover the carboy opening with a sandwich bag held on with an

elastic band.  I cover the carboy with a second large bag and store it on an

open shelf.

------------------------------


Brewpubs in San Diego?

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1993 12:20:29 -0500

From: holloway@ezmail2.ucs.indiana.edu (Jan Holloway)

Subject: Brewpubs in San Diego?

Greetings, brewfolk. I'm attending a conference in San Diego at the end of

this week (though most of next) and would greatly appreciate your

recommendations for brewpubs and microbreweries in the area.

Thanks in advance!

- --Jan

------------------------------


Re: Homebrew Club Gone Stale? Probably not.

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1993 11:00:29 CST

From: "Roger Deschner  " <U52983%UICVM@UIC.EDU>

Subject: Re: Homebrew Club Gone Stale? Probably not.

Your club is probably doing just fine, as long as you keep everything

in some kind of beery perspective.

The Chicago Beer Society *STARTED* in 1977 as a beer drinking and

socializing club, and wound up with a bunch of us weirdo homebrewers

joining and taking over. We haven't taken over completely, and probably

never will - the Chicago Beer Society continues to bill itself as a beer

appreciation AND homebrewing club. The serious homebrewers operate as a

committee within the club - with a lot of overlap with the aficionado

segment.

Is this an entirely peaceful arrangement? No. There are periodic

disagreements about the future direction of the club, and the answer to

the question: "Which way will it go?" is usually "Yes." And finally, are

we the ideal model? Probably not. But we are quite comfortable with the

fairly large number of Chicago Beer Society events which are not

specifically related to homebrew, as long as things stay in balance. For

instance, this month, November, we are having our annual homebrew

competition, the AHA-sanctioned Spooky Brew Review, and we are also

having our annual International Tasting. I'll be judging at one, and

indulging at the other.

I know I haven't answered your question; in fact, I may have made it more

difficult to answer. Just another perspective, though.

Roger Deschner, Member, Chicago Beer Society.

------------------------------


Re: Post-boil wort handling question.

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 11:26 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re: Post-boil wort handling question.

Michael writes:

>I've been brewing (occasionally) for about three years now.  Just about

>every batch I've ever made has had an off taste (except for a particluarly

>memorable batch of Bruce's Dogbolter during my "kit" days).  I started

>out with new equipment and have good cleaning practices...I sanitize

>anything that touches the wort/beer.

<snip>

>After the boil, I let things settle for about 15 minutes.  I then strain

>the wort through cheescloth in a colander which is suspended over my

>plastic bucket primary.  The straining through the cheescloth takes a

>long time since I usually use pelletized hops which combined with the

>other solids quickly make up a semi-impermeable barrier.  I then let

>it cool overnight and pitch a starter in the morning.  I transfer into

>a carboy after the kreusening settles down.  I usually bottle after

>the bubbling through my airlock stops.

<snip>

It would help make it easier to assess the source your off-flavor if you had

described it a bit more.  In any event, I see two areas in your technique

that could cause off-flavors: 1) Hot-Side Aeration (HSA) and 2) slow cooling.

Both of these problems can be solved simply by building/buying a wort chiller.

You should really avoid aeration of wort until you have cooled it below 80F

(of course some oxidation still occurs, even at 80F, but 80F seems to be a

generally accepted temperature).  Oxidation of hot wort will give you off-

flavors and darken the beer.  The off-flavors associated with HSA are

sherry-like and wet cardboard.  The long time between the time that your

wort stops boiling and the time that it drops below 140F is not good since

DMS (a cooked-corn-like aroma) is being produced while the wort is between

boiling and 140F.  Finally, the long time between the wort dropping below

140F (or so) and the time that the yeast are really going is an invitation

for infection.  No matter how well you sanitize, you probably cannot

sterilize your equipment (or the air around it) and something gets in.  If

you can have your cultured yeast eat up all the sugars and make some alcohol

and lower the pH before the uninvited visitors get established, you can

keep the off-flavors from nasties below the flavor threshold.  A long, slow

cooling of the wort is just an invitation for the nasties to get a jump on

your yeast and to create enough off-flavors to be perceptable.  Get a

wort chiller.

Al.

------------------------------


Evergreens in beer

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 12:35:19 EST

From: franc!kstiles@woomera.att.com

Subject: Evergreens in beer

There has been quite a bit of discussion about spruce beer lately,

with comments about hemlock (the evergreen) tea, and most recently

an interesting botany lesson from Edward F. Loewenstein

<SNREDLOW@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu> on the Pinaceae family.  Every

year when I make my annual Spruce beer I wonder about other

evergreens - pines, hemlock, and especially fir.  I have some

balsalm fir and Douglas fir, but since all references are to

Spruce beer, I've confined my experiments to the picea genus -

Blue, Norway, White and Black Spruces.  I never tried the spruce

extract that you can buy;  maybe too much of that can give you a

solvent taste, but it is virtually impossible to get anything like

that with fresh sprigs.  Most of the flavor seems to be extracted

by the boil - I don't notice much affect from late kettle additions

or "dry sprucing".  You can definitely make a beer that's too

sprucy, but it's not unlike making a beer that's too hoppy - a lot

depends on the preference of the drinker, and in any case the solution

to  "too sprucy" is the same as for "too hoppy":  dilution with

a more conventional beer.

Any insight on the use of evergreens besides spruce?  Will I be

forced to pilot brew a balsalm fir ale?  What would Euell Gibbons

have done?

 -Kevin Stiles

------------------------------


Re: Belgian Special B  (Matthew Rowley)

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 14:16:15 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Re: Belgian Special B  (Matthew Rowley)

Brian comments that Special B would probably make a good start on a

Scotch Ale recipe.  Well, I had the same thought recently.  Tasting

notes follow.

Scottish 120/70

Made 3 gallons 120/- ("Wee Heavy") and 4.5 gallons 70/-

12 lbs Pale Ale Malt (Hugh Baird)

2 lbs Munich Malt (DeWolf-Cosyns)

1 lb Special B (DeWolf-Cosyns)

Single temp infusion mash @ 67C for 1 hour (1 quart H20/lb)

120/-:

    Sparge 4 gallons in two batches.  I drained the mash tun

    once, then added a couple gallons of 77C water and drained it again.

    Boil 1 hour, adding 1 oz Goldings at beginning, and finishing with 1/2

    oz Goldings (10 min). (Target IBUs 35) O.G. 1096.  Force chill, pitch

    YeastLab Irish Ale yeast from 1qt starter.  Fermented at about 55F.

    At 2 weeks, gravity was down to 1032, and I pitched the slurry from

    another quart starter of YeastLab London Ale yeast.  Tasted nicely

    malty and alcoholic.  I'll probably pitch new yeast at bottling

    time, as beer this alcoholic seems to have trouble carbonating.

70/-:

    Sparge 5.5 gallons (normal technique, keeping water about 1" above

    grain).

    Boil 1 hour, with 1 oz Goldings at start and 1/2 oz at finish.

    (Target IBUs 24) O.G. 1038.  Fermented at "cellar temp" (65F?) for

    2 weeks, then "mini-kegged" with gelatin finings, as it seemed to

    still be a little cloudy.  Finished at 1010.

    Tasting notes: nice malty notes, with a medium-low hop bitterness

    (probably a little high for the style).  Color medium amber.  Easy

    to drink a lot of it.

    I served this at a party for a Scottish friend who is leaving

    town, and I was a little nervous about its reception.  However,

    they thought it was pretty closely on target, although the color

    was light.  I got compliments on the beer from all the Brits

    (Scottish and English) present.

------------------------------


Basement Brewing

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 13:30 CST

From: fjdobner@ihlpa.att.com

Subject: Basement Brewing

Mathew Harper asked for tips on planning an area in your basement for

dedicated brewing. I do not have a dedicated area, but rather serves

several purposes. One of the things I did put in was a range hood.

I had heard from other homebrewers that they spend hours wiping down

walss from all the moisture that is generated from the boil. The

moisture is an open invitation for mildew and all types of creapy

crawlers to take root in the floor joists.

I went out looking for a range hood at a garage sale and found one for

$10 at the first place I stopped. I suspended it from the ceiling with

cables. I used a dryer vent package that includes the 4" hose and the

actual vent itself that goes to the outside.

I used it fro the first time two weeks ago. Works like a champ.

I really recommend it. Write me if you want to know more.

Frank

------------------------------


CNY Clubs

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 12:21:07 -0800

From: bpeck@ash.cisco.com (Barrett Peck)

Subject: CNY Clubs

Brewers -

I am a relatively new brewer having made my first beer last month.  I'd

like to get more

info and understand more of what I'm doing and what the beer is doing

throughout the

process.  Is there a club in Syracuse, NY of Brewers?  If so, please let me

know.  This appears

to be something I'd like to get better at doing.

- -- Barrett Peck --

bpeck@cisco.com

------------------------------


Wyeast Packages And Bursting

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 15:48:28 EST

From: John DeCarlo                              <jdecarlo@homebrew.mitre.org>

Subject: Wyeast Packages And Bursting

Drew Lynch mentioned he would be curious to see if the Wyeast package would

burst.  Thus my story.

I forgot about a package of Wyeast American Ale (don't ask me how, but I have

small children).  I ended up using some of my existing yeast stock on that

batch.  Two weeks ago, cleaning up around the computer (I keep them warm by

wrapping in a towel and keeping near the computer until they get big), I found

one that I had "burst" three and a half months earlier.  "What the hey", I

said, and pitched it into a starter anyway.  The package was *less* puffed up

than it would normally be at max--don't ask me why.  The starter tasted and

smelled fine and the beer tasted fine going into the secondary.  I suspect the

yeast suffered but pulled through like troopers.  I *don't* think the current

packages will explode under normal temperatures and pressures.

John DeCarlo, MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA--My views are my own

Fidonet:  1:109/131  Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

If I were you, who would be reading this sentence?

------------------------------


Hops FAQ, Postmortem

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 14:01:35 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Hops FAQ, Postmortem

This is regarding the recently published Hops FAQ.  I welcome all comments so

that I may take one more shot at revising it before turning it over to the

archives.  Keep in mind, though, that it is a list of Frequently Asked

Questions.  The answers are generally available around the net, and were

(mostly) NOT just dreamed up by me.  I tried to present the "net.wisdom" side

of most things, which doesn't imply, by any stretch of the imagination, that

it is correct in every aspect.  Most of the answers have been considered

helpful my many, but in need of some discussion and changing.  That is the

purpose of active involvement in the HomeBrew Digest, not the purpose of the

FAQ.  Take it for what it is and discuss controversial topics on the HBD.  I

will be glad to discuss anything and everything in the FAQ, but I may or may

not wish to make changes to it (editorial privilege?).

I welcome anyone who wants to take it, once archived, and revise it to your

heart's content.  I realize it is not perfect; never will be.  It is the best

that my current time and resources allow and I am happy with it.  Comments

welcome, but see my side of it.  As always we thank you for your support!

I should mention that Glenn Tinseth from The Hop Source, unbeknownst (is that a

word?) to me, wrote the bulk, if not all, of Part 1/5.  He was not credited,

but he will be in Rev. 3.  Sorry, Glenn.  My fault for not keeping better care

of the sources of the info.  I hope you don't feel too ripped off.  In

hindsight, separating the credits from each passage may not have been the best

idea I've ever had.

Cheers,

Norm

P.S. To anyone who may consider doing something like this:  I learned as much

about hops in the last 2 months as I did in the last 2 years.  Lots of work

but worth every minute.

------------------------------


Beer Head/ Best Bitter Recipe/Pnts AAU Calcs?

Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1993 13:03:22 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Beer Head/ Best Bitter Recipe/Pnts AAU Calcs?

******************

Cisco (John Francisco)'s new sig.line says:

>May your beer give you great head!!!!

*   Now that's kinky!  I find it works better the other way around.

*   Question:  Does "liquid male extract" increase head retention?

*****************

Also-  Thanks to the JOKER for offering such a splendid accounting

of a typical workday in the life of Wyllie Coyote.  I just hate it

when I fall to the bottom of those canyons, especially when a big

rock- or worse- LARGE pot of boiling wort- falls on my head.

You think all that sounds bad-  you should see what ACME has offered

me to "smooth" my way through a brewday. Rocket powered Racking canes!

*****************

Ok, but really.  I Brewed a Best Bitter yesterday...following (roughly)

a recipe for an IPA type bitter I posted the other day.

    for 12 gallons

Best Bitter:

    14# 2 Row Pale malt (only had american on hand.)

    1.5# 60L Xtal

    .3 # Victory Malt

    .5 # Wheat malt

BOIL:   2 oz Chinook (13% alpha)

        2 oz Centennial (10%)

        2 oz Cascade (7.3%)

These were all flake hops stored in freezer  ~ 2 months (or more)

FINISH: 2 oz Cascade- homegrown.  Smells YUMMY and fresh.  Good xtal devpt.

German Alt Yeast (dregs from previous ferements)

OG 1.035.  Temp 25 deg C.

Question:  In calculating points what grains are included, or do you just

use the WHOLE grain bill?  I can see wheat, and munich contributing

fermentables, but  what about things like chocolate which don't?

Calculation:    35 sp.gr. x 12 gall.   / 16.33 #'s = 25.72 pts/lb

Is this right?  It seems reasonable to me.  That's within the range I

expect from my cooler/lauter tun.  But I'm not sure If I got the equation

right.  (I always get confused...maybe ACME has a kit...hmm...scratch chin)

AAU's...(13 x 2 )+ 20 + 14.6 = 60.6  => 25.25 AAU  (5 gallon conversion)

QUESTION:  Is this right?  I need to dig up the HopsFaq and check.

This is gonna be one bitter mo-fo.  But ooooooh my house smelled delicious

after the 1.5 hr boil!    Everything is hoppily underway this morning.

I think I need to try a RauchBier before I retire the BBQ&Smoker for the

winter.  Plus it seems a fitting celebration to my folks house surviving

the Altadena fire last week. (what a nightmare!) That'll be MUCH stronger!

/***********************************************************************/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ John (The Coyote) Wyllie SLK6P@cc.usu.edu ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

/* I finally got everything all together, then I forgot where I put it!*/

  *********************************************************************

------------------------------


Plumbing

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 14:31:58 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Plumbing

Well, it appears we have a real HBD plumbing problem on our hands.  I scanned

the HBDs for the last seven days and I was quite impressed.  I expected to see

at least 25% wasted space (wasted space defined as articles which apply not at

all to homebrewing).  The beer drinks thread qualifies (who would _really_ do

any of this to your homebrew?), as do the complaints about people's .sig files.

Those two topics were virtually all of the badness on the HBD recently.  I

expect that amounted to less than 10% of the total HBD bandwidth, a wonderful

S/N ratio, IMHO.

So, what do we do?  Quit posting junk like this one?  Maybe.  Two-a-days are

possible, although I don't know Rob's limitations nor inclinations.  I did

notice his change to Six-a-weeks.  That is a good start and it may prove to be

all that is necessary.  It is the brewing season and that increases brewing

questions, thus HBD traffic.  I suggest no panics yet, use email whenever

general interest is not served, and wait.  I suppose we could ask everyone to

use as much self-restraint as possible with things like "Are there any good

pubs in XXX?", but as I said before the S/N ratio is still quite good.  Long

 .sigs, orgasmic ones or not, should be avoided whenever possible.  Other than

that, I say, "Keep up the good work!".

Old Lucifer update:  OG 1085; SG 1035 after 6 weeks.  I may rename it Old

Energizer Bunny (keeps going, and going,...).  Pitched dry frog yeast this

weekend (I'm a jerk, I know).  Anyone want 5 gallons of all-grain liquid

candy with 6% alcohol?  I want my carboy back!

Norm

------------------------------


Another immersion chiller

Date: 01 Nov 1993 16:46:54 -0700 (MST)

From: "Steven W. Smith" <SMITH_S@gc.maricopa.edu>

Subject: Another immersion chiller

  I've been lurking for awhile, so I thought I'd finally break down and be

sociable. I recently built my first immersion chiller, and it occurred to

me that I may have done something marginally innovative (it could happen).

  The chillers I've seen for sale seem designed to sit in the bottom of a pot.

Mine hangs over either side, so that the coil is suspended near the top -

where it's hot.  The idea being that the cooled wort will fall to the bottom

and encourage circulation, giving faster cooling without stirring.  I've only

used it once, but it worked well (faster than a bathtub full o' icewater).

  For your viewing pleasure, I include the crudest possible ascii rendering of

said chiller.  It can be adjusted for different pot sizes by stretching or

compressing the coils (refrigeration copper tubing).

   //       //

__/  /00000/  /__

  _,_/|

  /o.O;   Steven W. Smith, Programmer/Analyst

 =(___)=  Glendale Community College, Glendale Az. USA

    U     SMITH_S@GC.BITNET

          smith_s@gc.maricopa.edu

          Hoppy trails. (ouch)

------------------------------


Keeping the club healthy

Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1993 18:35:44 -0400 (EDT)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: Keeping the club healthy

Andy Kligerman asked for input about keeping a homebrew

club healthy.

Our club is very healthy, if growth is a good measure.

The Bloatarian Brewing League (of Cincinnati) was founded

by Ray Spangler, 1987 Homebrewer of the Year.

We are extraordinarily lucky to have the support of the

Oldenberg microbrewery and Drawbridge Estate complex.

They give us a meeting room each month at no charge, in

return for putting on a couple of homebrew demonstrations

each year for the Oldenberg Beer Camp.

It seems to me that the best method for keeping a club

from degenerating into a beer drinking club is to have a

well planned program for every meeting.  The socializing

part is great, but there has to be more.  We occasionaly

do a "Dr. Beer" seminar to demonstrate specific off-flavors

in beer, helping to educate members' taste buds.  We also

have an organized tasting each month, wherein members

bring samples of their latest brews which are tasted by

a panel of experts (and anyone else who cares to participate)

with feedback provided as a distinct part of the meeting.

That lets everyone in on the secrets of evaluating beers,

provides a useful function to keep the experienced members

from being bored, educates the newcomers, and keeps things

fairly organized.

We also invite local merchants to attend and give tastings

of special beers, which is great advertising for them (and

almost free) and a treat for us (as well as being educational).

We have various members give presentations on equipment

construction, describe specific beer styles, discuss

yeast culturing, etc.

Road trips are another great tool.  We plan on a meeting

place, then carpool to interesting brewpubs or other places

of interest to homebrewers.  These are very informal, lots

of fun, and a nice supplement to meetings

It's also important to have something planned for each

meeting that involves beginners as well as for the more

advanced members.  That can be an activity related to

identifying a specific problem in a beer or maybe something

about equipment or ingredients.

Make sure that your club leadership includes everyone in

discussions, as beginners can be intimidated by a lot of

the arcana that concern the more advanced brewers.  Try

to define highly technical terms the first time they are

used at each meeting, at least when you have newcomers

present.  Don't criticize the efforts of beginners, but

make them opportunities to suggest ways to improve.

Finally, use the mails.  We have an 8 page monthly

newsletter that covers lots of ground, but you can do

much the same thing with a single sheet of paper that

describes what went on at the last meeting (for those

who missed it) and what is planned for the next one.  Many

people need that kind of reminder between meetings.

Ed Westemeier

Cincinnati, Ohio

westemeier@delphi.com

------------------------------


The Two Millers

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 20:53:00 -0600

From: phil.brushaber@lunatic.metronet.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: The Two Millers

I have both of Dave Miller's books. He seems to have alternate

grain bills for Dopplebock in the two books. In one he suggests

100% Munich as the main grain, in the other he suggests about

80% Lager/Pilsner malt and 20% Munich (about 3 lbs Munich).

(and of course cara-pils and crystal).

I've been going with the Pilsner/Munich mix. Has anyone brewed

with 100% Munich? Flavor profile? Results? Warnings?

 ... All, known to his friends as Captain Capper!

___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.11

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| UseNet, ILink, RIME, FIDO, Annex, Intelec, LuciferNet, PlanoNet, and more!|

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


California Common

Date:  Tue, 2 Nov 1993 06:14:00 PST

From: John_D._Sullivan.wbst311@xerox.com

Subject: California Common

Hi all,

 I'm hoping someone has a good All-Grain recipe for St__m beer or

California Common Beer. Private E-mail please.  Thanks very much,

     John

------------------------------


informal get together in San Diego Dec 7-10?

Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1993 08:24:09 -0600 (CST)

From: Robert Schultz <Robert.Schultz@usask.ca>

Subject: informal get together in San Diego Dec 7-10?

 Any of you folks out there planning to attend the CAUSE '93 conference

in San Diego on December 7-10, 1993?  If yes, email me and maybe we could get

together for brew or two.

 The conference is being held at the Sheraton on Harbor Island.

 I have extracted the list of brew pubs in the San Diego area (circa

1991 ?).  Any of you folks that are familiar with the area have any suggestions

of must see/don't waste your time brew pubs????

Comments appreciated.

Rob.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~ Robert.Schultz@usask.ca, University Studies Group, University of Saskatchewan~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~ "I'm going off half-cocked? I'm going off half-cocked? ...                   ~

~  Well, Mother was right - You can't argue with a shotgun."     - Gary Larson ~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

------------------------------


Re: Hops FAQ

Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1993 09:47:34 -0500 (EST)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: Hops FAQ

Since this Hops thing is a FAQ, I feel obliged to put on my Monty Python act

and NIT, NIT....

> Subject: Hops FAQ, Part 5/5

>

> Name:         CASCADE

> Grown:        US

> Profile:      spicy, floral, citrus (esp. grapefruit) aroma

> Typical use:  bittering, finishing, dry hopping for American style ales

> Example:      Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Anchor Liberty Ale, Old Foghorn

> AA Range:     4.5 - 7%

> Substitute:   Centennial

Centennial is a great hop, adn certainly similar in some respects to Cascade,

but they are not really *substitutes*.  Centennial is much spicier, and

contributes a different citrous essence to the beer.  I usually like to

mix the two hops, and while Centennial is a pretty high alpha hop (~10%)

it can still be used as a dry hop quite successfully.

>

> Name:         CRYSTAL (CFJ-HALLERTAU)

> Substitute:   Imported Hallertau, Mount Hood, Liberty.

"Imported Hallertau" does not mean much today.  The region the hop variety

is grown in is what counts, as "Hallertau" hops are grown all over Germany

as are Tettanger, hence the names, Hersbrueker Hallertau, Hallertau Hallertau,

Tettang Hallertau, Tettanger Tettanger, etc....I encourage brewers to use the

correct terminology, as it is a real difference which hop a brewer uses in

a  given recipe.

>

> Name:         EAST KENT GOLDINGS

> Grown:        UK

> Profile:      rounded, pungent aroma

also "earthy"

> Typical use:  bittering, finishing, dry hopping for British style ales

> Example:      Young's Special London Ale, Samuel Smith's Pale Ale

LaChouffe!!

> AA Range:     ???

4-6%

> Substitute:   BC Goldings, English Fuggles

There is none!!

> Name:         HALLERTAU HERSBRUCKER

Reverse, HERSBRUCKER HALLERTAU

> Grown:        Germany

> Profile:      pleasant, mild aroma

earthy, can be quite spicey, ummmmmm, and quite aromatic, Pils anyone??

> Typical use:  finishing / dry hopping for German style lagers

only "German style lagers" brewed in the US are dry hopped :-) BTW, most

german lagers are finished at 15 minutes to end of boil, not at the very

end as many of us do.  This, in conjunction with the whirlpool, will add

bitterness, and aroma to the beers.  Many german brewers dislike the very

late additions of this hop.

> Example:      ???

Pils.

> AA Range:     3 - 5%

sometimes less than 3, I currently have 2.3-2.6

>

> Name:         HALLERTAU MITTELFRUEH

> Example:      ???

Sam Adams

>

> Name:         MT. HOOD

> Grown:        US

> Profile:      mild, clean aroma

> Typical use:  finishing / dry hopping for German style lagers

> Example:      ???

Mt Hood Ale??

> Name:         NORTHERN BREWER

> Grown:        UK, US, Germany (called Hallertau NB), and other areas

Now we got it right, Hallertau NB.  NB grown in the Hallertau region of

Germany.

>               (growing region affects profile greatly)

Exactly!!

>

> Name:         SPALT

> Grown:        Germany/US

> Profile:      mild, pleasant, slightly spicy

> Typical use:  aroma/finishing/flavoring

Bittering too!!

> Example:      ???

Alt bier of course, thats the bittering hop commonly used.

> Substitute:   Saaz, Tettnanger.

Saaz???

>

> Name:         STYRIAN GOLDINGS

> Grown:        Yugoslavia (Fuggles grown in Yugoslavia), also grown in US

> Profile:      similar to Fuggles

> Typical use:  bittering, aroma for a wide variety of beers, popular in Europe

> Example:      ???

Belgium ales, Rochefort,

>

> Name:         CENTENNIAL

> Grown:        US

> Profile:      spicy, floral aroma, clean bittering hop (Super Cascade?)

> Typical use:  general purpose bittering, aroma, some dry hopping

> Example:      ???

Sierra Neveda Celebration ale, Old Crustaceon Barley Wine (Rogue), Jim Busch

New American Ales :-)

> Name:         PERLE

> Grown:        Germany, US

> Profile:      pleasant aroma, almost minty bittering hop

> Typical use:  general purpose bittering for all lagers except pilsener

> Example:      ???

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

This is good info, just nitting around here,  lots to know about hops.....

Best,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Oatmeal Stout results!

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1993 09:47:17 -0600 (CST)

From: jim@n5ial.mythical.com (Jim Graham)

Subject: Oatmeal Stout results!

Ok, it's been a few weeks now since I brewed my oatmeal stout, and a bit

longer since I asked the HBD for assistance in this area.  Well, we now

have some results...and they're very *GOOD* results.  :-)  Thanks to all

who provided me with valuable information that led up to this batch.

I also have a question regarding the sediment in the bottle, but I'll leave

that to the end.

I went with the following:

6 lbs Oatmeal Dark extract (from William's)

1 lb Dry American Dark extract (also from William's)

1/4 oz English Fuggles (60 minutes)

1 oz English Fuggles (30 minutes)

1 packet Burton Ale liquid yeast (William's)

corn sugar for priming, as always....

The recipe called for 4 oz of Lactose (add during last 10 minutes of boil),

but I didn't have that, so I skipped it.  :-)  This recipe was what the

guy I talked to a William's said would be closest to Sam Smith's Oatmeal

Stout, so that's what I went with (he'd given me a slight variation of this

over the phone---it included Hallertauer hops, which this doesn't).

Result:  I'll do a side-by-side comparison with Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout

tonight, if I can find any (SS isn't easy to find, due to how expensive it

is---the stores don't stock much, and they don't always stock it at all).

But just from memory, I'd have to say that it is either a very close match,

or is dead on.  And it's very, very good.  Yummmm....

It's also particularly appropriate now, since we just got hit with the first

real signs of winter (about a month early, too), and actually went into the

30s last night.  Yuck!  But, in the evenings, I have a nice oatmeal stout

(served at proper cellar temps, thanks to the fact that the apartment isn't

approaching 800F) to warm me up.

Ok, I mentioned a question....  This is the first time I've used liquid

yeast.  I've noticed that the sediment in the bottle seems to be a lot

finer than normal (i.e., much smaller bits, and more of them).  Is this

a characteristic of the liquid yeast?  Or is it just a characteristic of

that particular liquid yeast?  Just curious.  Btw, I haven't really

decided whether it makes pouring the beer easier or more difficult....but

you certainly have to pay a lot more attention to where the sediment is

when you pour (my first glass had a bunch of sediment at the bottom).

Later,

   --jim

- --

#include <std_disclaimer.h>                                  73 DE N5IAL (/4)

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INTERNET: jim@n5ial.mythical.com  |  j.graham@ieee.org     ICBM: 30.23N 86.32W

AMATEUR RADIO:  (packet station temporarily offline)       AMTOR SELCAL: NIAL

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E-mail me for information about KAMterm (host mode for Kantronics TNCs).

------------------------------


Brass in the boil

Date: 2 Nov 1993 08:20:27 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Brass in the boil

Hi Group,

I noticed the Brass post today, and I can come up with an answer I think.

First, are you noticing ANY corrosion? Any roughening of the surface?

IF your fitting is an alloy containing Lead (unlikely) that would be a big

problem. The leaded alloys are UNS # C3X000 series. These alloys are used when

increased machinability is desired.

Hopefully, the brass fitting alloy being used is Red Brass aka UNS # C23000

aka ASTM B43. That alloy is all Copper-Zinc and will pose no health hazard. The

zinc is in solid solution for this alloy and is not subject to leaching. Other

alloys such as Admirility Brass (copper zinc tin) may be in use and are

acceptable.

With Red Brass or Admirility Brass, any corrosion you may be seeing would not

be toxic. Corrosion in this case may be the Brightening of the fitting during

use, the same as your wort chillers.

 -John Palmer

600 laid off the Space Station last Friday, but fortunatly I made the cut.

Invest in the Space Program, folks, tell your congressmen. It promotes good

jobs through transfer of technology for a good future. It also inspires our

children toward higher education. Keep America Strong.

------------------------------


one-pot brews

Date: Tue, 02 Nov 93 11:25:09 EST

From: dweller@GVSU.EDU (RONALD DWELLE)

Subject: one-pot brews

          I just met an older fellow (80+) who's been brewing forever.

          Offered a nice lager (a bit cloudy) which is all he makes.

          Among other things, he said that he never uses two

          containers (primary and secondary fermenters) but instead

          puts the whole batch in 5 gallon carboy, airlocks it, and

          then waits till it's all done. He said that using two

          fermenters (I use a plastic bucket, then a carboy) was

          foolishness and the best chance to get contamination.

          Since all the procedure's I've heard about recommend two--a

          primary and secondary--this fellow's method seems peculiar.

          I wonder if anyone else has experience using only a single

          jug.

          Cheers,

          Ron Dwelle (dweller@gvsu.edu)

------------------------------


sterilization options/procedures

Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1993 11:31:11 EST

From: Y Y Zed <fini@bigvax.alfred.edu>

Subject: sterilization options/procedures

Hi all - I'd like to get some input on the methods you use for sterilizing/

disinfecting equipment and bottles.  I've been told be a few people that

bleach is to be avoided due to the risk of residual bleach solution killing

off yeast.  An alternative is B-Brite, but I don't know how effective it

is at killing everything off compared to bleach, which is very strong.  I'm

relatively new at the game, and since I like to experiment I disinfected the

bottles for my first and second batches with rubbing alcohol and then rinsed

well.  The first batch turned out well, but the second had a weird aftertaste

(due to bacterial infection, I assume).  What's the best method for sterilizing

mass quantities of bottles?  bleach solution in a bathtub?

thanks -

Paul Fini

fini@bigvax.alfred.edu

------------------------------


Frogs?/Cider/Scotch Ales

Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1993 09:33:07 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Frogs?/Cider/Scotch Ales

Norm says:  "...have to punt (i.e. pitch a frog yeast).

    And that's SG for the nitpicky coyote!:)"

*   Pardon my ignorance...What's a "frog yeast"?

*   Norm...sounds like you can use FG pretty soon!

*************************

>You Don't want cider with sorbate.  Find an orchard and get

>the fresh pressed- unfiltered stuff.  Much worth it!

That's very good advice.   * (but of course!!!!  :)    )

*   I submit:  I over-stated sorbate's effectiveness.

*   It inhibits yeast budding=reproduction. Bacteria don't bud.

*   A note on cider sources...and hg apples....There have been cases

of E.coli infections from apples which had fallen, sat on the ground

prior to pressing.  E.coli may be a common component of the flora of

your bowels...but it's better to keep it at that end, not at the other!

    The point here...it may be safer to campden your cider, then pitch.

Rather than try to rely on the normal flora of yeast/bacteria/other bugs

which might reside in fresh cider.  I'll be starting up this years cyser

pretty darn soon (payday!!!   pant...groan...)

    Also:  It's worth bugging your presser to inquire about the types

of apples used.  Many orchards will press what's on hand. That may

vary from day to week.   You might get a better deal if you:

    1. Go in with friends and buy LOTS!  We walk off with up to ~20gals!

    2. Arrange to come in on pressing day.  You get fresher cider, and

        you won't depleat their stock.  Bargain and you might get a better

        deal.  The best I've run into is $2.50 / gallon.

*************************

Eric Urquhart (eurquhar@sfu.ca)

Centre for Pest Management,     *  Sounds like you'd have your work cut

RE: Noonan's Scotch Ale book    *  out to deal with the likes of me!

*   I was quite pleased with it.  The history is interesting...ok so

I found the water chapter kinda boring...and didn't feel like he gave

a good explanation of the process of double mashing...just assumed we

knew all about it!  The book passed around a couple of friends and resulted

in the finest products out of these brewers I've seen in quite some time.

    I made a 90 shilling first runnings, and continued to sparge a 2 penny.

I didn't have the exact ingredients called for, but was pleased with the

result.  A strong- malty sweet, deep rich brew.  I must try it again soon.

I won't bother posting the recipe unless there is a call for it. (i did a

recipe yesterday...)

    One thing I found intersting was that the dark malt flavors came from

roasted malt, not crystal.  I always assumed it would be a heavily xtal'd

grain bill.  Not so.  Also...I would've assumed good 'ol greg would've

promoted the Decoction- being a master of it himself...ok at least a

previous author on the subject.

    I did find the book to be more clearly written than his Lager book.

I think I still like Porter/Pale ale the best.  Mr. Fix's Oktober etc.

is also a very nicely written piece.  I do find these books to inspire

the desire to explore a style in greater detail.  It also gives ideas

on how to name your ferments...even if you drift away from the style a bit!

    /**************************************************************/

    ~~~~~~~~~ John (The Coyote) Wyllie  SLK6P@cc.usu.edu ~~~~~~~~~~~

    /*******************   Brew on you bums!    *******************/

------------------------------


Counterflow chillers

Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1993 8:36:29 -0800 (PST)

From: Jim Cave <CAVE@PSC.ORG>

Subject: Counterflow chillers

 There has been considerable debate recently on the relative merits of

immersion vs. counterflow chillers.  While I do not intend to try and convince

others to switch to the counterflow design, it is the one that I use for the

following reasons:

 1) About 50% of the beers (all-grain) that I brew are lagers.  I prefer

very cold ferments to these beers (45 F).  For much of the year, I can get my

beer close to this temperature with this design.  During the summer months I

use an additional coil (after the counter current) which runs through an ice

bath.  This drops the beer an additional 10 F.  This rapid drop in temperature

makes for remarkable cold breaks.

 2) Much of the trub falls out in the kettle.  I have a hop-back and a

second screen in at the outlet-valve to prevent the occassional errant hop from

entering the chiller.  I give the wort a quick stir to generate a whirl-pool.

The counter-current flows into glass carboys.  I then rack off the trub and

into glass carboys (Yes I rack off the trub; the breweries I have talked to

estimate that they remore 95% or more of their trub prior to ferment).

 3) The unchilled beer remains well above 160F and is therefore sterile.

Gravity checks can be rapidly made at the exit of the chiller and gently re-

introduced to the boiler without fear of contamination.

 4) When 2/3's of the wort remains in the kettle, I throw in hops for

aroma (hot soak).  This gives excellent aroma.  A hop-back in-line with the

chiller would be a better way to go but I have't come up with a rugged design

yet.

 5) With my boils, I always seem to end up with a gravity 4 or 5 points

higher than target (and correspondingly less volume).  I have recently come up

with a gentle way of adjusting gravity.  I fire up the sparge tank and boil

water.  This is introduced with a tube into the boiler with the beer

(when the beer has nearly all gone through the chiller). This gently washes

the hops and trub of fermentable extract.

 One disadvantage that I see with the counter current chiller is that

the Irish moss addition is less effective, as it doesn't really enter the

collecting carboys. Consequently, the beer in the collecting carboys takes

longer to drop bright than it otherwise would in the boiler.  However, as I

mentioned, trub is also settled and filtered out in the boiler.

 I guess you pays your money and takes your chances!!

 Jim Cave 684-684-8081 "I brew.....I am"

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1263, 11/04/93

*************************************

-------


SS Kegs

Date: 2 Nov 93 10:33 CST

From: Wolfe@act-12-po.act.org

Subject: SS Kegs

     Thanks to everyone who responded to my questions about

mashing/lautering.  I located 2 15.5 gallon SS kegs, so I bought them with

the intent of turning one into a mash/lauter tun and the other into a

boiling kettle.  I'll probably be doing 10 gallon batches by the new

year!  The mash/lauter tun will probably be of the EasyMasher variety, and

the boiling kettle will have a spigot so that I can also use it as a

settling tank.

     Can anyone out there offer guidance in converting these kegs?  I need

answers to questions like:  How should they be cut?  Which end should

be cut (on the valved end, I suppose)?  Where on the keg should the cut be

made (top or side)?  How many inches from the bottom should I install the

manifold outlet on the mash/lauter tun (right AT the bottom, I suppose)?

How many inches from the bottom of the boiler should I install the spigot

(i.e., How much sediment can I expect from a 10 gallon batch)?

Thanks in advance,

Ed Wolfe

WOLFE@act-12-po.ACT.org

------------------------------


Counterflow Wort Chillers

Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1993 08:53:10 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@teleport.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Counterflow Wort Chillers

I only chime in because I don't want anyone to get the impression that

just because Jack Schmidling is adamant he is also correct.   There are

a good many reasons why someone would choose a counter-flow wort chiller

over an immersion chiller, that have nothing to do with scale.  If Jack

had come to my presentation last year in Milwaukee, he'd know that.

Briefly, my reasons are simple: it's faster, the wort arrives in the

fermenter at the correct temperature without being unduly exposed to the

air or sitting around in a kettle while I stir the damn thing, and

<important> the only "stuff" that arrives in the fermenter besides the

wort is some cold break, which precipitates out magnificently and from

then on doesn't pose any problems, because IT WILL NOT BE REABSORBED

INTO THE WORT.  The wort does not have to be racked off the cold break.

That presentation, by the way, was published in the last volume from the

AHA, and includes scientific references, instructions on how to build an

inexpensive counter-flow wort chiller, how to siphon bright wort out of

the kettle (hint: whirlpool), and a number of variations on immersion

wort chillers, courtesy of the internet homebrew crowd.

But, once again JACK HAS SPOKEN.  Be advised, however, that in the past

Jack has spoken through his hat more than once.  More than twice, for

that matter.  But I can see it now: "Real brewers only brew all-grain."

"Real brewers culture their own yeast (although once upon a time liquid

yeast was for snobs, remember, Jack?)." and now: "Real brewers use an

immersion chiller."  Pffft.

- --Jeff Frane

------------------------------


Hop Flavor

Date: Tue, 2 Nov 93 11:37:59 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Hop Flavor

I have always had a strong preference for low alpha aroma hops, even for

early additions for bittering. I find that they give (if fresh!) a clean

and mellow bitter, which contrasts with the crude effects I pick up

from high alphas.

There is a large literature on this subject. Perhaps the most influential

has been the paper by Rigby which appeared in the 1970s (ASBC Proc.,1972).

He identified co-humulone as the hop resin that was responsible for the

"high alpha taste". Bishop, et al (J. Inst. Br.,1974) reproduced these results,

and in addition showed the isomerized fraction from co-humulone was

foam negative. The other humulone analogs exert a positive influence

on beer foam. All of this jives with my own brewing experiences. In addition,

all of the high alpha varieties known to me have much higher co-humulone values

than aroma hops.

Recently Wachesbauer (Berlin) has called these results into question. The

original papers appeared in Monatsschrift fur Brauwissenchaft, although

English translations can be found in the 1993 editions of Brauwelt. He

brewed beers with each of the humulone analogs added as pure extracts. No

differences in the hop flavors were detected, although his study confirmed

Bishop's findings about effects on beer foam.

These findings are consistent with the work of Professor Narziss and his

students. They have long insisted it is the hop oils that are the most

important. While most of these are removed during the boil (and possibly

the fermentation as well), residuals coming even from early hop additions have

been measured in finished beer. They tend to have very low flavor thresholds,

so their effect on taste may be way out of proportion to their concentration.

In terms of the hydrocarbon fraction, they cited the ratio

       alpha-humulene/ myrcene

as an important parameter. Values >1.5 were reported to give a "refined flavor"

(for Narziss, flavor= smell and taste), while values <1.0 had the opposite

effect. Some oxidation products such as beta-farnesene and trans-geranoil were

also cited as negative factors. They reported the following:

KEY: Hmfr = Hallentauer Mittelfruh (German), S = Saaz , Cas = Cascade (US),

     Clu = Cluster (US) (Ugh!), BG = Brewer's Gold (German) (Double Ugh!).

UNITS: mg/kg

            HMfr       S      Cas       Clu     BG

           ------    ------  ------    ------ ------

myrcene    2642       1049    3194      2536   7767

humulene   5095       3512    4341      1689   5092

ratio      1.93       3.35    1.36      .67    .66

geranoil     10         12     53        80    186

The numbers speak for themselves. While Clusters are technically a moderate

alpha hop, my experiences with them have been similar to those with BG,

and in both cases the results have not been very happy ones. This is of course

a highly subjective evaluation. What may be "crude" to one palate may be

"complex and interesting" to another.

I talked to Glenn Tinseth on Monday (ordering hops from the new crop), and the

values he reported look good. Particularly impressive are how well the new

aroma varieties (Liberty and Mt. Hood) are doing vis-a-vis the above criteria.

He mentioned that the European aroma hops from the 1993 crop will be

available in ~month.

Glenn also noted that his sales of Styrian Golding have been very slow, and

that many brewers are uncertain what to do with this variety. In this regard,

permit me to cite Michael Jackson's new book (which BTW is excellent). He

mentions this hop quite a few times, and notes it is highly prized in the

UK both as a finishing and dry hop. I competely agree with this, and feel it

does well in select lagers as well. It is certainly worth exploring for those

who have not done so.

 -George Fix

------------------------------


Re:  Kraeusening

Date: Tue, 2 Nov 93 09:06:28 PST

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: Re:  Kraeusening

haist@cogsci.UCSD.EDU (Frank Haist) says:

>    Next weekend I'm going to make my initial foray into all-grain

>brewing, but first I'd like to tap some of sage advice from this

>group.  My current set-up for fermenting includes two 5-gallon

>carboys.  After spending the money for most of the all-grain

>equipment, I decided to wait on a 7-gallon cb.  Based on most recipes

>it looks like I can expect about 5.5 gallons of wort after the boil.

>that will yield about 5 gal after fermenting blowoff.  I'm planning to

>take the initial 1/2 gallon excess, store it (via standard canning

>procedures for sanitation), and then use it to kraeusen the beer

>prior to bottling.  This seems to have three immediate advantages:

>1) I can continue my preferred method of primary and secondary

>fermentation in glass carboys, 2) I will end up with a true "all-malt"

>ale, and 3) the final volume will still be about 5 gallons.  I have

>two main questions.  What are people's experiences, good and bad,

>with kraeusening?  Second, how accurate is the equation given by

>Papazian for determining the amount of wort (I guess now called

>>gyle) in getting similar carbonation to 3/4 c corn sugar (Appendix

>3, pp. 331-332)?  Thanks in advance.

>

>- ---Frank

>haist@cogsci.ucsd.edu

Sounds like a great idea.  I have used Papazian's formula for priming

with gyle in a previous batch and it worked out just fine.  The brew

carbonated quite well.

Miller, on the other hand, suggests that priming with gyle or malt extract

can be unpredictable.  I have primed several times with DME and had no

problems.  I have only primed once with gyle so I cannot comment on its

repeatability.  Note, though, the reason I did not continue with gyle

priming was because it was inconvenient, not for any performance-related

problems.

On the other hand, one advantage to priming with either DME or gyle

instead of corn sugar is that, if you prime with corn sugar the yeast will

exhibit what is known as the Crabtree effect and (even in the presence of

oxygen) will ferment (instead of respire) thus leaving oxygen in your

bottles.  If you prime with DME or gyle, the yeast will first go through

a minor respiration phase, consuming the oxygen, before they transition

to fermentation.

 -Troy

------------------------------


Chiller Tip, Second on Salvator

Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1993 18:52:49 +0100

From: KENT@lecs.ericsson.se

Subject: Chiller Tip, Second on Salvator

I have a small immersion chiller (used some copper tubing I already had) that

was not working quickly enough.  I connect the chiller to the kitchen faucet

while the boiling pot is in one basin of a two-basin kitchen sink.  What I did

to improve the performance of the chiller is run the output back into the

basin with the pot, and run a small siphon from the first basin to the second.

The water coming out of the siphon is really hot!  This cut my cooling times

at least in half. (your mileage may vary - a decent chiller probably wouldnt

gain as much from this).  Much cheaper than building a new one!  I also

appreciated the tips about shaking the chiller to stir the wort (I'm

going to try that next time), and installing the chiller in your kettle

LID (The cops would really bust you for that setup ;^).

I would like to second the recent request for a Salvator type recipe

 .  How do they make that stuff so sweet ? I thought it tasted of

licorice (sp?) as well.  Any time I try to make a high gravity

dark beer it ends up becoming to dry (and sometimes even harsh)

after a few months in the bottle.  (Havent been able to maintain

cold temperatures for real lagering yet ;()

This sig intentionally left blank.

Jim Kent

kent@lecs.ericsson.se

------------------------------


No airlock activity & Black and Tan

Date: Tue, 2 Nov 93 12:53:45 EST

From: Keith MacNeal  02-Nov-1993 1243 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: No airlock activity & Black and Tan

In Homebrew Digest #1261 (November 02, 1993) SHAMAN@WHARTON writes:

;I'm a new brewer working on my second batch. I started this one 7

;days ago and so far there has been no fermentation that I can detect--

;the airlock hasn't bubbled once.

I had this problem in a recent batch.  Turns out I didn't have the lid of my

plastic primary snapped down tightly.  It might have fermented just fine.

Look for other signs of fermentation such as a heavy sediment, signs of

krausen (foam), a drop in the specific gravity.

Also in Homebrew Digest #1261 (November 02, 1993) J. Michael Diehl writes:

>I recall once having a "black and tan."  I just whish I could remember what

>was in it.  It was a dark beer and a light beer floating on each other.

>Wonderfull drink, if I'm remembering it right.  Any one know how to make one?

Take a pint glass and fill it half way with Bass Ale.  Finish filling the

glass with Guinness Stout.  To prevent the layers from mixing while doing

this, pour the Guinness over the back of a spoon.  Other variations can be

made by varying the ale and stout used.

There is a Black & Tan available in bottles.  It's put out by a brewery in

Saranac, NY (USA).  Obviously it's not layered.  I believe the label says they

mix one of their lagers with one of their porters and bottle it.  Not a bad

brew.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Your opinion on kits...?

Date:         Mon, 01 Nov 93 20:31:22 EST

From: Heather <ST101834@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>

Subject:      Your opinion on kits...?

Hello all -

I'm interested in buying my father a (smallish) homebrewing kit for

Christmas.  Although we both love beer, neither of us has ever attempted

to make it before, and I'd like to know what your opinions are:

1) Should I buy a kit? Or are there a few essential pieces I can put together

   myself?

2) What's the approxiamet cost of it all?

3) What are considered "good brands" by the market?

Thanks!      Heather Seal - st101834@brownvm.brown.edu

------------------------------


Making plugs from homegrown hops

Date: Tue, 2 Nov 93 20:37 EST

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Making plugs from homegrown hops

Hi All,

   The recent Hops FAQ has got me wondering again about hop plugs.  For

those of you who are not familiar with them, they consist of dried whole

hops, compressed into a 1-inch diameter cylinder that's 3 or 4 inches long.

The plugs are segmented so that it is easy to break off smaller chunks.

Plugs have the storage and convenience advantages of pelletized hops, and

the advantages of whole hops in the boil (i.e. no pulp to clog filters,

strainers, etc.).  However, they are only available at a few places,

usually only come in 5 or 6 varieties of imported hops, and are a little

more expensive:  $6-$7 for a 5-ounce package.

   Now for my question:  has anybody tried making their own plugs with

homegrown hops?  It seems like you would just need a press of some sort,

and a mold to form the hops into a convenient shape (i.e. plugs).  Any

ideas?

Tom Kaltenbach

Rochester, New York, USA

tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com

------------------------------


Labels and Florida Homebrew Weekender

Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1993 21:05:22 -0500 (EST)

From: "Tim Tillman (BIO)" <tillman@chuma.cas.usf.edu>

Subject: Labels and Florida Homebrew Weekender

>>   One comment on using Ammonia to remove lables, works great one them,

>>   except, an Etna Lager lable, they use a rubbery glue, the ammonia helps,

>>   butt... let'em soak a day or two.

The easiest way to remove labels that I have ound is this.  First, buy a large

plastic garbage can with lid.  You know, the Rubbermaid type.  Then take about

one cup of tri-sodium phosphate and put it into the garbage can.  Fill tha

garbage can about 2/3 - 3/4 full of water.  Add 1 cup of bleach, and mix well.

Next, as you get empty bottles, just put them in the can.  After about one day,

maybe two the labels will slide right off.  Rinse well and their ready

for beer.  Labels with a layer of foil such as Negra Modelo, may take longer.

- -----

BTW, I got no response to my request for homebrewers in Florida to contact

me if they were interested in a homebrewer's weekend meet.  So, I'll ask

again...

Is anyone interested in setting up a Florida homebrewer's weekend meet?  I see

possibly having the following:

            1.  Local venders.  (The Home Brewery, Hart's, Best Brew, others)

            2.  A seminar for new brewers.

            3.  A seminar for advanced brewers.

            4.  A beer contest, if we can get qualified judges.  Possibly

                merchandise prizes.

Who's interested?

Tim Tillman - Assistant Beer SYSOP, GEnie

M.TILLMAN1@genie.geis.com

tillman@chuma.cas.usf.edu

------------------------------


RE: melanoidins

Date: Tue,  2 Nov 93 10:28:48 TZ

From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

Subject: RE: melanoidins

I just want to go on a bit about melanoidins...  Please keep in mind

that I am discussing points in Jones' and Millspaw's article and not

any conclusions Norm Pyle may have come to as a result of them in the

following.

npyle@n33.stortek.com writes, quoting Jones and Millspaw's "Beer

Stability" in Zymurgy winter 1992:

> "Melanoidins are stable complexes formed at high (mash-out)

temperatures, they

> are colloidal in nature and are powerful reducing agents giving an acid

> reaction in aqueous solutions."

Melanoidins can be formed at nearly any temperature, but they really

take off at boiling temperature.  You can (and do) get melanoidin

formation in your malt extract syrup at room temperature, if you wait a

bit.  But they need to be in a "drying" or relatively low moisture

environment to make it happen.  Melanoidin formation, or nonenzymatic

browning (NEB) as it is more generally known in the food industry, is

responsible for a large number of reactions.  Bread crust formation,

meat browning, and baked potato character are all results of NEB.  You

can see that these are surface reactions, where water is being

evaporated out of the food (a drying situation).

That's why microwaved meat is so unappetizing:  there is very little

NEB going on, so there is little of that roasted meat aroma and caramel

brown color.  Similarly, this is not the situation in infusion mashing.

 Decoction mashing, on the other hand, would seem to have more of the

right conditions, and is noted for the malty character of the beers it

produces.

Each combination of an amino acid and a sugar molecule forms a

different melanoidin, so you can see that there are many thousands of

possible resulting ones.  Also, if the reaction is not strongly driven

by the right situation (temperature, low moisture), it has a tendencay

to fall back into its component ingredients.  Unless you have a long

time, temperatures under 100C just won't produce a lot of melanoidins.

Pale malt, for example, is kilned at 80C for a number of hours, and

produces only small amounts of melanoidins.  Darker malts, Viennas and

Munichs, are dried to 10% moisture at 80C and then raised to as much as

120C to enhance the melanoidin formation and, therefore, color and flavor.

In infusion mashed beers, most of the melanoidin content is coming from

the original malt and perhaps the boil, if a kettle is in use that

isn't wetted by wort (where the metal temperature will get

significantly above 100C and the wort will caramelize or undergo NEB).

> beer.  Melanoidins formed at 170 degrees F (76.5 degrees C) are more stable

> than those formed at the lower temperatures of conventional mashing.  Adding

> specialty malts only in the mash-out can make the mash more efficient by

> maximizing the formation of melandoidins, optimizing saccharifications and

> eliminating steeping vessels and/or grain bags."

I would really like to know why holding these grains back is necessary;

 the reaction is less favored at lower temperatures, so little of it

goes on.  When the situation becomes appropriate, there are still

plenty of raw ingredients (simple sugars, amino acids) to continue.

(Narziss, in "der Bierbrauerei" volume 1, claims that only a few

percent of the FAN (free amino nitrogen, a measure of simple amino

acids) and the reducing sugars are consumed in making even the darkest

of malts.)

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------


krausing

Date: Tue, 2 Nov 93 18:41:18 PST

From: klein@physics.Berkeley.EDU (David Klein)

Subject: krausing

On Kraeusining...

I've been toying with the idea of kraeusing my higher gravity beers just

before botteling with fresh yeast (not with raw malt extract as Charlie P

claims is the way to do it).

My reason for doing this follows from reoports of better carbonation of high

gravity brews with fresh yeast at time of priming (this is bottle carbonation

obviously). I have noticed that normal priming levels are unreliable for high

gravity brews and often undercarbonate, and sometimes leave some bottles

with very low carbonation.

I am a practical brewer however, and dont feel like bringing up yeast

solely to krause. I do, however, tend to brew the same day that I bottle

and thus have a starter ready to pitch anyway. BUT my worry is that this

new yeast will like some stuff the old yeast did not, and in a high grav brew

will eat some more of the "unfermentables" leaving me with bottle bombs.

(i tend to bring up different yeast for each brew)

I would like to keep from making and extra starter (but will if needed) so

I was curious what experiences have been with using different yeast to

prime than to ferment.. any bottle bombs? (with high gravity beer in

particular)

also even with another starter, the possibility of mutations, or just young

eager yeast seems to open the door for further attinuation, has anyone

had trouble with bottle bombs when krausing with the same yeast?

Dave

------------------------------


Stainless Steel Kegs in the UK

Date: Wed, 03 Nov 93 05:23:28 EST

From: gbgg5tt5@ibmmail.COM

Subject: Stainless Steel Kegs in the UK

- ----------------------- Mail item text follows ---------------

To: INTERNET--IBMMAIL

From: Paul Slater (PWS)

      (0242-236111) Ext. 2296

      CMS33 @ GBMGRC00, GBGG5TT5 @ IBMMAIL

Subject: Stainless Steel Kegs in the UK

>Does anyone know IF you can get stainless steel kegs in the UK? and if not are

there any UK people who can suggest a cheap source of stainless brew kettles

etc?

I use a stainless steel Burco Boiler (wash boiler) that holds about 6 gallons.

It has an electric element like a kettle and a tap near the bottom. Some have

a tap about half-way up the side which isn't as handy. If I were to modify it

I would fit a proper perforated false bottom, and a simmer control rather than

the on-off thermostat control it already has. I've seen 3 or 4 in second-hand

junk shops, and mine cost 15 pounds. Well worth it, especially when I get

round to modifying it to stop the tap clogging occasionally.

Paul Slater

gbgg5tt5@ibmmail.com

------------------------------


Re: Short bags of DME

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1993 06:25:54 -0500 (EST)

From: "Tim Tillman (BIO)" <tillman@chuma.cas.usf.edu>

Subject: Re: Short bags of DME

Mike I. wrote recently thathe accidentally made a low gravity ale because he

was shorted on the weight of his DME bags.  I suggest that you first contact

the vender and explain the problem before writting them off as a source of

supplies.  It could have been an honest mistake.  If they make the deal good,

and often a small business man will do just that, then he comes out ahead.

If not, well, take your business elsewhere.

Just my opinion.

Tim Tillman, Assistant Beer SYSOP, GEnie.

------------------------------


Re: Sparging Questions

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 7:09:34 EST

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Sparging Questions

In HBD #1261 Ed asks:

> Sparging -

> What is the best way to sparge. Should you?

> 1) Completely drain the bed, then sparge in one of the following ways?

> 2) Just match the additions to the drainings?

> 3) Sprinkle in all the water at once?

> 4) Others.

I have made 3 all-grain batches (you can use that to qualify my answer)

and have tried 2 & 3.  My understanding is that with option 1 you run

the risk of compacting your grain bed and may be more prone to a stuck

sparge.  I think option 2 is the way sparging is most frequently

described and that is what I did for my first 2 batches.  What I have

gleaned from others is that the water level should remain at least 1"

above the top of the grain bed and that water being added should not

disturb the grain bed.  I found that running the sparge water through a

colander does a nice job of keeping the grain bed undisturbed.

On my last batch, I tried option 3; this has also been referred to as

batch sparging.  I put all the sparge water into a picnic cooler with a

slotted copper manifold, added the mash and waited about a half an hour.

Overall, it worked quite well but I would offer this caution.  When I

made my first two batches, I had not preheated enough sparge water so I

did not get as much wort as I expected.  When I did a batch sparge, I

increased the sparge water and I overshot & had to stop draining before

all the sparge water was gone - no more room in the brewpot and I was

not ready to sign up for a 3 hour boil.  Thus I ended up with a lower

gravity wort than I anticipated (1.040 instead of 1.050; still quite

respectable though).  The reason there is any difference between the two

methods is that when you add all the sparge water at once, the sugars

are mixed pretty uniformily through out the sparge water.  When you add

sparge water as you drain off the wort, the first runnings will have

more sugar in them than the last.  Thus if you stop early, you have left

fewer sugars behind.

Once you have your recipe down and know how much sparge water you need,

I don't think it makes too much difference except that batch sparging

will require less attention from the brewer.

- --

Jim Grady       |"Immediately after Orville Wright's historic 12 second

grady@an.hp.com | flight, his luggage could not be located."

                |                       S. Harris

------------------------------


Business Week Article

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 09:21 EST

From: gcw@lydian.att.com

Subject: Business Week Article

In the October 25 Business Week (page 95) there is a article in the

"Developments to Watch" section about gene-splicing and how Shiladitya

Dassarma (professor of molecular genetics at U. Mass (Amherst)) spliced

genes from bacteria that float to oil eating bacterium that didn't so

that these bacterium would stay at the water surface and keep eating

oil. The article goes on to say how "Next may come reengineered yeast

for beer-making. Dassarma says the yeast would float to the top of the

vat to be skimmed off - so the beer wouldn't have to be filtered."

This will most likely work for lager yeast, but for ale yeast I would

think that the dead yeast cells would reduce the available surface area

for the live yeast cells to do there thing.

Geoff Woods

------------------------------


Going all grain,questions

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 09:31:15 EST

From: taylor@e5sf.hweng.syr.ge.com (taylor)

Subject: Going all grain,questions

I have some questions about all grain brewing,  Hopfully I will be able to

brew my first batch of all grain this weekend but first I have some questions.

I plan on using a cooler for a lauter tun, the problem I have is that

my boiling pot is only 3-4 gallons.

My question is, can I make an initial wort of 3 - 3.5 gallons in the cooler

and add more water to my fermenter after the boil to make a 5 gallon batch?

This is what I do for extracts and it works good.  I realize that it's better

 to add water for the hole batch up-front but I don't want to spend alot of

 $$ for equipment until I know what I'm doing.  Or should I just make a 3 gallon

batch to start with?

How much grain would I use if I can add water to the wort later?  Would I use

enough grain for a 5 gallon batch up-front?  Which is ?  What would the brewer

community recommand I do?

How much grain should be used per gallon of water?

What temp is good in the lauter tun and for how long?

Any info would be appreciated..    Todd    I realize this info is availible in

books but I don't have mine a neighbor borrowed it?  I hope I understand the

process.........thanks

------------------------------


maplbrew.txt

Date: Wed, 03 Nov 93 10:44:59 EST

From: Bob_McIlvaine@keyfile.com

Subject: maplbrew.txt

I mentioned that I had a couple of maple

sap brew recipes and several people

asked for them...so here they are.

Taken from a maple sap cook book

found at a sappers festival.

SAP BREW #1:

Leona Foote - Warren , NH

Use the last run sap and boil down about

half way. Boil checkerberry leaves, pip-

sis-o-way and hemlock tips separately

and then add sap. Put in barrell to work,

put in bung when fully worked. In the

middle of summer, during haying, chill

and enjoy. (sorry no amounts were

available on the ingredients.

SAP BREW #2:

Althea Clark - Bridgewater, NH

1 lb. hops

10 lbs. malt

6 yeast cakes

2 oz. checkerberry

Boil down sap, 5 gal. to make 1gal.

Boil enough sap to fill a 50 gal.

barrel. This is an 1885 family recipe

and came with no instructions.

Good Luck!

------------------------------


On making bread (et al) from spent grain

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1993 09:55:51 -0500

From: holloway@ezmail2.ucs.indiana.edu (Jan Holloway)

Subject: On making bread (et al) from spent grain

Chris (dcm@kepler.unh.edu, HBD 1262, 11/3) asks about bread ideas from

spent grain. Good question.

During a spate of all-grain brewing (ah those were the days) I'd wonder

what to do with all the good-looking grain leftovers. I tried 'em as

porridge with half & half and brown sugar. Didn't work. They were too

woody, and they look better than they taste by themselves. After all, by

the time they're leftovers, you've mashed & sparged out most of the flavor.

So I tried mixing quantities of the stuff into a basic bran muffin recipe.

Just substitute some of the grain for some of the flour (I played

quantities by feel). I added lots of raisins to boost the moisture and

counteract the woodiness. But I found the texture pleasantly rough (a

delightful gastrointestinal massage). Most of all, I found the muffins

completed the beer experience in a satisfying way. After all, if you eat

the mash from whence cometh the beer you drink, you're living your beer.

Beer: the complete food.

Bon apetit. --Jan (holloway@indiana.edu)

------------------------------


German Wheat Yeast

Date: Wed, 03 Nov 93 10:03:48 EST

From: andrewwf@aol.com

Subject: German Wheat Yeast

As a long-time reader of the HBD I now have the access to send questions, so

here goes: I have recently finished a pumpkin wheat beer using a german wheat

yeast (complete with clove taste) however it seems that the clove taste might

be a little too strong. I remember reading somewhere that if the yeast is

reused then the clove taste will be mellowed, is this true?

Thanks for the help.

Andrew Fee

------------------------------


Dry hopping temperatures

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 8:33:49 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Dry hopping temperatures

Jim Busch comments on this from the Hops FAQ:

>>The proper length of time for dry hopping is dependent on the temperature.

>>At ale temperatures, 7-14 days of contact time is widely used.  At lager

>>temperatures, although little data is available, it seems obvious that longer

>>contact times, on the order of 14-21 days, are called for. It is common to

>>use 0.5 - 2.0 oz. or more in a 5 gallon batch, but as always it is up the

>>individual's preferences.

>

>OK, how does temperature affect hop aroma wrt dry hopping?  This doesnt seem

>intuitively obvious to me.  I also would point out that I have dry hopped

>1 BBl batches in the primary (after high krausen and skimming) for a mere

>3 days with excellent results, and I know of a local brewpub that has dry

>hopped with pellets (I use whole) for one day, filtered and served online

>the next, so this will work.  The point is that dry hopping times vary all

>over the spectrum, and I suspect if a heavy hand is used in the amounts,

>time is less important.  I'm still wondering about the lager comment???

I've been taught that virtually all reactions, physical and chemical, are

quickened by higher temperatures (I'm sure there are exceptions).  The process

of dry hopping involves aromatic oils dissolving into solution and probably

reacting chemically as well.  Doesn't it seem obvious to you that higher

temperatures cause this process to happen faster, and that lower temperatures

would slow it down?  When making tea, you can certainly dissolve the sugar

quicker in hot tea than in iced tea.

As far as quantities vs. contact times, it is also obvious to me that if you

use more hops you can get away with less contact time.  You have (at least)

three variables (assuming a fixed amount of hop aromatics):  time, temperature,

quantity.  Probably wort composition at that point has an effect as well.  I

was trying to give some guidelines, not write the New Brewing Bible.

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


Hop Vines & extract storage

Date: Wed, 03 Nov 93 09:40 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: Hop Vines & extract storage

Jim Busch mentioned the practice of not cutting hop vines, allowing roots to

store energy.  Im no botanist, but Jim does make a good point.  While my biology

days were some time ago, I believe that the roots store many good plant

things--such as chlorophylls, sugars etc--for their winter slumbers.  When

leaves and vines wither, these elements flow to the roots and await the spring.

If you do any leaf or vine cutting, as for any perennial, wait till they

get all brown and dry before removing...or even wait till spring.

Extract storage:  In planning for the days that I may not live near a homebrew

shop and/or have not yet gotten into the swing of all grain full mash beering,

could anyone offer tips on storing large quantities of liquid or dry extracts.

Thanks,

David Atkins

atkins@macc.wisc.edu

------------------------------


Distilling alchohol

Date:          Wed, 3 Nov 1993 10:01:42 CST

From: MWB5489@age2.age.uiuc.edu

Subject:       Distilling alchohol

With all the talk about leality and taxes and what not I thought I'd

add in my $.02.  I worked at an ethonal plant for a while before

coming back to school.    In the plant we made beer in a continuous

process.  It was not batch.  The alchohol content usually ran between

10 and 11%.  I never tasted it, but I was told that it tasted OK.

Kind of surprizing since the main ingrediants were corn starch that

was converted to dextrose, water, and light steep water (the water

thats left over after soaking on corn for a day and a half).  Oh,

and yeast.  Some of the bear was run through a massive centrifuge

that would separate the yeast from the beer.  We then put the yeast

back in the first fermentor tank. The first tanks we added air.  This

was supposed to help the yeast reproduce.  The later tanks we did not

add air.  The yeasts were supposedly switching over and producing

alchohol.  We ran the 10% beer thru a set of distilation columns at

2000+ GPM.  Fusel oils were removed from the process, at only a few

gallons per HOUR.  There was not fusel oil in the stuff.  We removed

it because if we didn't it would block the column.  The fusel oil

comes off in certain trays which depend upon the pressure

(temperature) that the column runs at.  After the regular column we

distilled it up to 200 proof by adding cyclohexane.  I was told that

the 200 proof mixed 50/50 with water tasted like a very good vodka,

but I never tried it.  To be used in gasoline the proof had to be

199.4 (or was it 199.6?).  The small amount of fusel oils could be

added back in.  When it was sold to add to gasoline it was denatured

with 5% gas.  This is so the BATF is happy and no one will drink it.

If it was sold for industrial used it was denatured with 5% methanol.

If it was not denatured it had to be sold to some that was bonded so

that they would worry about the taxes.  The taxes that are so high are

not paid if the alchohol is not for consumpsion.

    As far as distillation by a private individual, I have a friend

that was making ethonal to run in his car.  He got free starch, free

wood to run his still, etc.  The only thing he had to buy was alpha

amalose to convert the starch.  In order to run his still he had to

buy a $500 liscense.  This allowed him to run the still and use the

ethanol for personal use, ie on his property or in his car.  I don't

know if it meant he could drink it, although I don't see why not.  He

finally gave up.  With the liscense and the alpha amalose as his

major costs he could come out slightly ahead.  After the novelty wore

off and he got tired of putting major amounts of time into it he

quit.  So,....Distillation is legal for individuals, but it costs

big bucks.

Mark W. Blunier   mwb5489@age2.age.uiuc.edu

Graduate work is a test.  It is only a test.

If it had been an actual job it would have decent pay, decent hours,

and benefits.Mark W. Blunier

MWB5489@AGE2.AGE.UIUC.EDU

------------------------------


Hop back effect

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 11:13:56 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Hop back effect

I said:

 > All this discussion sounds like a good argument for a hop-back.

This morning, while I was looking for something else, I found a

relevant comment from Donald O'Connor, who wrote:

 > If you have any doubt about the incredibly vast difference

 > of hop aroma and flavor betwenn using the same type of hop in (I believe)

 > nearly equal amounts in two different ways, just compare Sierra Nevada

 > Pale Ale and Anchor Liberty Ale.  Both use Cascade finishing hops.

 > One is dry-hopped and the other uses a hop back.

------------------------------


Celis Grand Cru a tripel?

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 11:24:15 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Celis Grand Cru a tripel?

I'm writing a "profile" article for our club newsletter on the Belgian

Tripel style, and I like to include some commercial examples.  One

problem is that they have to be beers that are available in Michigan,

and there are only a few that I know of: Affligem and Mateen for sure,

and then some that are less clear.

For example, it seems to me that the Celis Grand Cru is close to a

tripel in style, if perhaps not quite up to the usual alcohol level.

What do you think?

And how about Corsendonk "Monk's Pale"?

Please respond by e-mail, I'll summarize to the digest if I get any

interesting/useful responses.

=Spencer W. Thomas   |  Info Tech and Networking, B1911 CFOB, 0704

   "Genome Informatician" |  Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu |  313-764-8065, FAX 313-764-4133

------------------------------


Missing Hops FAQ 3/5

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 08:30:25 PST

From: todd@ted.hac.com (Todd Thompson)

Subject: Missing Hops FAQ 3/5

Was the Hops FAQ 3/5 ever posted? If so, could somebody please

repost 'cause it never made it here. Thanks.

Prost!

Todd

toddthom@hac2arpa.hac.com

------------------------------


methanol/unmalted wheat/spe

Date: 3 Nov 1993 11:19:51 -0400

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel_F_McConnell@mailgw.surg.med.umich.edu>

Subject: methanol/unmalted wheat/spe

Subject:  methanol/unmalted wheat/spent grain bread/Wilt

>From Jack:

>Well put.  Just because methanol boils off when distilling, does not mean

>there is any to boil off in the mash.  For a simple example, ponder making

>brandy....  You start out with a nice drinkable wine and distill it to leave

> most of the water behind.  If there were enough methanol to cause blindness

> in the distillate, you wouldn't want to drink the wine in the first place.

> The same thing applies to whiskey mash.  Methanol comes from petroleum

>

>There is nothing you can do to a still full of wine to make it produce

> dangerous quantities of methanol and you can consider a kettle full of

> whiskey mash just a very new "wine" for the sake of this discussion.

Yeast produce a number of alcohols during fermentation depending on the source

of

carbon (food), strain, ferment temp. etc etc.  All alcohol causes intoxication

and is

poisonous-some forms much more than others.  Lightin' distillations have been

notorious for containing methanol.  Why?  1-product adulteration by producers,

2-BATF scare tactics, ie. misinformation (anyone actually met a person blinded

by

an honest and clean home distillation?  Or a jug of moonshine for that matter.

NOT

Sterno or Xerox fluid.) 3-poor distillation technique,  or 4-Based on fact.

IMHO the real

questions  are:  Does the fermentation of corn, rye or *other stuff* favor the

increased

production of  methanol over ethanol?  *other stuff* would be very significant.

 I suspect

the answer is yes.  I also suspect that wine/brandy would be less of a problem

in this

regard.

Does the strain of yeast/bacteria (ie sour mash or whatever whiskey

makers do) effect the increased production of methanol over ethanol?  Again I

suspect

the answer is yes.  We all know what happens when beer fermentations are run at

high

temperatures-high alcohol and other byproducts, some strains are much more

prone to

this behavior.  Headaches are a symptom of this alchohol toxcity.

I assume that only GOOD, CLEAN BEER would make GOOD, CLEAN SCOTCH...Ah! a good

question for Michael Jackson.

Distillation will concentrate only what you want it to by collection only

during the

temperature range that you want.  Of course this is technique and equipment

dependant.  For alcohols, methanol comes off first (65C) followed by ethanol

(78.5)

propanol (97), water (100), butanol (117) etc.  Don't drink the methanol,

propanol or

anything that boils higher.  Don't ferment and distill garbage.

 >Malted grain is friable and crumbly.  When gently squeezed, it falls apart,

 >exposing the malt to mash water.  This is definitely not true of unmalted

 >grains.  If you have the strength to run it through a roller mill, the best

 >you will get is something like thick oatmeal.  As there usually is no husk

 >involved, there is little advantage to a roller mill over a grinder.  I

 >suspect, a Corona me be more efficient if your lauter tun can handle the fine

 >grinst.  That is, after all what they were designed for but it won't be any

 >easier to crank.

My last batch of lambik contained 20 lb Breiss 2-row and 10 lb

unmalted wheat which was ground with *much* difficulty.  The

wheat was boiled for 30 min after which it was something like thick

oatmeal.  The kernals burst open and later vanished in the mash.

Since the whole grain would cook (and burst) as well as the ground

grain and probably still look something like thick oatmeal, my new

attitude is *GRIND IT? NOT ME!*  ......at least until I've tried it.

>From: ed fromohio <NEGATIVE3@unh.edu>

>HI, I was wondering if anyone has a recipe or idea for bread from the

>spent mash....

I've tried it, but don't recomend it unless you are very careful to remove

all those nasty little rocks that seem to slip into the grain on occasion.

Ouch!

Did Wilt Chamberlain fake it?  Oh.....but he *likes* basketball.

DanMcC

------------------------------


sake-brewing

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1993 11:46:41 -0500 (EST)

From: Bryan Kornreich <bkornrei@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu>

Subject: sake-brewing

Does anyone know anything about brewing sake?  I'd like to try it 'coz I

love it and I've got a lot of rice.  Any recipies? With its high alcohol

content(15-18%) does it require any sort of distillation?  Or are there

yeast that can pump out that high ethanol content?

     thanks,

         bryan

------------------------------


Yet another Bud ad

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 10:50:26 CST

From: pmiller@mmm.com (Philip . Miller)

Subject: Yet another Bud ad

>I heard a Budweiser ad on the radio the other day that really

>made my hair curl.  The were BRAGGING about how they added rice

>to the beer.

That's nothing!  I heard an ad that made fun of microbrewed beers

and -- heaven forbid -- beers made in people's basements.

Fortunately, I brew in my garage (I only ferment in the basement),

so I wasn't offended.  :-)

Phil

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1264, 11/05/93

*************************************

-------


Re: Plans for Grain Mill

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1993 11:32:26 -0600 (CST)

From: Steve Seaney <seaney@ie.engr.wisc.edu>

Subject:  Re: Plans for Grain Mill

- -----

Dion Writes:

I feel that Steve made light of Jack's efforts because he complained

about the cost and said right after that he could do a good without

much effort (this is a paraphrase).  A lot of other people complain

about the retail prices of equipment like Jack's and state that they

could do as good for a lot less.  I was just pointing out why retail

prices are generally extremely fair and what really goes into making a

product, rather than a one-off copy of someone's design.  If you make

it yourself and it does not last or does not work quite up to snuff,

then you generally don't complain.  Jack and other inventors have to

make a product which works well and last, which most of them do.

- -------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack's mill is a nice piece of work.  My complaint about the cost

doesn't counter the craftsmanship of the work. Jack however is making

a profit in this mill.  There's nothing wrong with profit -- if you

want to pay the price.  Most of the cost associated with the mill is

in labor.  The mill can be made much cheaper if you use your own time

as labor.  Furthermore, if you enjoy making things, the labor can be

fun -- hence enjoyment becomes another reason to build the mill.

Jack's mill is nice, it's not the end all however.  I'm sure we can

put together another mill that will be better in some respects --

perhaps one of these respects will be manufacturability with a minimum

number of tools.  I have never intended to copy Jack's design, I would

rather try to devise a mill that can be built with largely existing

hardware.  It would be nice if anyone could build it -- even w/o

access to a decent mill and lathe. Then people will copy, improve,

copy, improve, ad infinitum.  It's always easy to build something with

all the tools you need.  I've always respected people who do things on

a shoe string budget more then ones that do it by throwing money at

it.  People have been mechanically grinding grain since the 1400's (at

least).  I don't think they had stainless and carbide. Finally, Jack's

mill isn't an invention, it's a craft.  There's nothing that special

or unique to it.  It's simply a good piece of work.

I really don't understand Dion's hangup on building a mill.   Please

go throw water on someone else's parade.  We are having fun over here.

I am still collecting ideas for parts of the mill.  If there are any

interesting ideas for the rollers I'd appreciate a note.   It'd be

nice to use parts that are available at hardware stores, etc.

Thanks,

Steve

- --

Steve Seaney: 608/265-3954: seaney@engr.wisc.edu

------------------------------


Hunter Airstat

Date: Wed, 03 Nov 93 13:35:57 EST

From: Bob_McIlvaine@keyfile.com

Subject: Hunter Airstat

The Hunter Airstat is a relatively simple

electronic device. It has some nice facilities

which monitor the on time for the current

day, previous day, and total usage as well

as maintaining the the temperature.

It also has a digital display for the

temperature. And as noted previously

in these tombs, has been discontinued.

The plans for a similar device are available

for $10 from JB Distributing. The plans

show the details of a device which will

control your fridge temp as set by the

owner. It doesn't have the nifty display and

monitoring features. JB Distributing says

the circuit boards for this design will be

available soon and they have the plans

for a more advanced model on the drawing

boards. They also have plans and circuit

boards for other items like a digital brewers

thermometer with a 30" probe (great for deep

vessels of hot stuff).

For more details contact:

JB Distributing

123 SilverLake Rd.

Hollis, NH 03049

603-465-7633

------------------------------


water adjustment questions

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1993 10:44:00 -0700

From: c-amb@csc-sun.math.utah.edu

Subject: water adjustment questions

I have been going over my water analysis and Dave Miller's book to

figure out what water adjustments I am going to need before my first all

grain.  However, Dave leaves out some quantitative information which I

seem to need.

First let me give you the important numbers (3 year average):

  Bicarbonate   251 ppm

  Calcium        43 ppm

  Sodium          5 ppm

  Sulfate        12 ppm

  Magnesium      17 ppm

Now, as you can see, the bicarb level is quite high.  Moreover, there

is not enough calcium to simply boil off the bicarbs.  Thus, using

Dave's formulas I have calculated that I would need to add approx 2

tsp. of gypsum for 5 gal. of water prior to boiling in order to remove

the excess bicarbonate.  This will also raise the sulfate level to 292

ppm and this is where I start to get nervous.  Dave says that excess

sulfate will add a dry edge to well hopped beers.  Sulfate combined

with sodium makes this quite harsh he tells me. This makes the hophead

in me quite nervous.  However, how much is too much?  Because of my

low sodium level am I o.k. with this high level of sulfates?  Any info

or pointers are greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

 Mark Alston

 c-amb@math.utah.edu

------------------------------


Chilling Out, Hops, Brass

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 11:53 CST

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Chilling Out, Hops, Brass

 I decided to scrap my original responses to the ad hominem comments on my

 remarks about chillers and try something completely different.

 Not only do I have strong feelings about chillers but I also think the

 net.sense.of.humor needs a little thrashing.  I sold my business and retired

 at age forty because I got tired of kissing the world's behind and making

 sure that nothing I ever said offended anyone, anywhere on Earth.

 I make beer and beer stuff and participate in these discussions because it is

 fun and mutually informative.  When things get boring, I inject a little fun

 but everybody has their own idea of what fun is.  If people do not like my

 humor, that's life and I accept it.  The fact that I refuse to use these

 things .... :) is part of the fun because baiting the humor impaired is right

 up there with sex as far as I am concerned.  It might even be as much fun as

 "beer drinks".

 I find that using expressions like "the Lighthouse of Wisdom and Truth" and

 the "World's Greatest Beer" is a great way to bring the real weenies out of

 the closet.  I have little sympathy for people who take them seriously.

 I will bite my lip (fingers) and keep my responses non-personal and offer the

 following summary of the current comments that are worth repeating:

 1.  If the claims of efficiency are correct, water conservation

     is a good argument in defense of the C/F chiller.

 2.  A KB type HOP BACK (tm) will only work properly with a C/F chiller but

     it remains to be proven that it offers any advantage over a immersion

     chiller with a tight fitting lid.

 End of list.  No one even claimed that they make clearer beer this time.

 I refer readers to my previous comments for the counter arguments in favor of

 the immersion chiller.

 >From: ed fromohio <NEGATIVE3@unh.edu

 >Subject: Bread from mash recipe request

 >HI, I was wondering if anyone has a recipe or idea for bread from the

 spent mash....

                       BEER BREAD

      3     cups spent grain (wet)

      1     cup flour

      1     cup warm water

      1     tsp yeast

      1/4   cup sugar

 Mix and let ferment in warm place for several hours or overnight.

 Add 1 tsp salt and nead in or mix flour, one cup at a time, until the dough

 will not stick to the fingers.  This will take about 5 additional cups, the

 amount depending on the water content of the grain.  Then continue to nead or

 mix until a silky texture that does not stick to fingers is achieved.

 Let the dough rise (covered) in a warm place for at least an hour or till it

 doubles in volume.  Then form into loaves and let rise again.  When doubled

 in volume, bake at 375 for 25 min.

 I roll the dough into bars about 2" in diameter and about 10" long and just

 lay them on a baking sheet.  If you bake full size loaves in bread pans, the

 baking time would probably be longer.

 ............

 Since getting a Corona, I now dry the spent grain and grind it up with the

 Corona to get a more acceptable texture.  One cup dry and three cups water

 works out for the above recepie.

 >From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

 >I read in Brewing Techniques that if the vines are allowed to remain uncut

 at the end of the season, the rootstock will build up energy stores for the

 upcoming winter season, and be healthier next year.  This is obviously

 not practical for big farms, but due to my inherent procrastination, it is

 exactly how my plants are now.  Comments?

 No comments here, just the ULTIMATE TRUTH....

 From the plant's point of view, it is best to allow it to grow until it goes

 dorment.  The root stock continues to develop as long as photosynthesis is

 going on.  Once it goes dorment or freezes, the vines are dead and it makes

 no difference what you do with them.  There are practical and economic

 reasons for cutting them earlier but it does compromise overall vigor.

 >From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

 >Subject: Brass in the boil

 >A week ago, Andrew asked about brass in the boil.  I have a brass fitting

 inside of my boiler as well, so I'm also curious to hear the answer.

 Not sure what the question was but as the use of copper seems to be accepted

 since time time immemorial, the question ought to be the safety of using zinc

 in a boiler.

 Zinc is a useful suplement both for humans and yeast so I guess we can assume

 that brass is also.

 js

------------------------------


All-Grain FAQ???

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1993 10:21:26 -0800

From: thomask@ichips.intel.com

Subject: All-Grain FAQ???

With the recent proliferation of FAQ's, I've been wondering about

a similar resource for grains.  What I'm most interested in is

some sort of comparative listing of the characteristics of various

grains.  Color, enzymes, and especially flavor/body profiles like

those recently provided for hop varieties.  Also interesting would

be some sort of interaction guide, noting interesting or perhaps

traditional mixes which achieve certain common goals in mashing.

Does anybody know a good book for this?  Seems like the really

excellent technical guides all focus on a single variety of beer,

which is too restrictive (especially when I tend to throw style

guides to the winds and INVENT)...

thomask@ichips.intel.com

       @cs.washington.edu

------------------------------


Gott cooler fitting

Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1993 12:54:58 -0500 (EST)

From: /R=HERLVX/R=AM/U=KLIGERMAN/FFN=KLIGERMAN/@mr.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: Gott cooler fitting

An easy way to modify a Gott cooler is to remove the spigot, replace it

with a rubber stopper with a hole in the center.  Place a glass. metal or

plastic tube through the center an attach the the valve you want to use

with a length of plastic tubing.  I've done this to make a copper coiled

mash tun, and it is much superior to the 2 bucket method.

Andy Kligerman

------------------------------


replies and such from a newneophyte

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 13:32:26 EST

From: Mark Bunster <mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu>

Subject: replies and such from a newneophyte

Hello all-

maiden post. Excellent digest so far. Packed full of 411...

replies first:

*Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 09:23:05 -0400 (EDT)

*From: /R=HERLVX/R=AM/U=KLIGERMAN/FFN=KLIGERMAN/@mr.rtpnc.epa.gov

*Subject: airlines, porter, brewbup, Sheath and Vine

*

*Just a few interesting tidbits:

*Yesterday my wife tried to take 4 homebrews on American airlines

*out of Raleigh-Durham and was stopped at security.  Although the

*bottles were capped, since they had no label she was not allowed to bring

*them into the passenger cabin.  They said they could be stowed in the luggage

* but we declined, fearing depressurization problems.

 My family's experience with transporting beers has been much smoother. Ah,

 but of course they were labeled. If yer gonna take them, slap a commercial

 label on it just to get it on the plane (in the plane.) I do, however, recall

 at least one occassion where bee> r> s were stowed in luggage on a

 transcontinental flight (smuggled much Maisel's) with no ill effects. Just

 luck I ask the faithful? What say yinz?

* Re: Swan V. Taylor's request for info on brewpubs in the Chapel

* Hill area.  There are none in Chapel Hill, one in Raleigh (Greenshields),

* and one in the Winston-Salem area (Lagerhead or Loggerhead?) that I know

* of.  the one in Durham (aka:Weeping Radish,etc.) bit the big one!

*

 Bummer. So far Weeping Radish is the ony place I've been to in the states

 that serves by the liter krug. (Then again, the MidAtlantic is lame for good

 drinking establishments.)

 As far as I know, the one in Manteo, NC is still open (Manteo is on the Outer

 Banks, across the sound from Nags Head/Kill Devil Hills). Really good German

 style drafts, darts, German pub grub, etc. A great diversion while at the

 beach, and a beautiful drive across the sound if you do it at sunset.

 Neophyte's question, if not adequately covered in the FAQ: what is the

 benefit of mashing, what's>  > generally involved, and what distinguishes a

 mash-out from a normal mash?

 And does anyone else do much substitution of honey for other priming agents?

 In small quantities, it's wonderful! Even in large quantities it's really

 good, but you get a really sweet beer, one that bears little resemblance to

 what the indians called, uh, beer.

 --

 Mark Bunster                      |Exchange conversation if you dare--

 Survey Research Lab--VCU          |Share an empty thought or a laugh.

 Richmond, VA 23220                |

 mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu            |

 (804) 367-8813/353-1731           |                          -edFROM

------------------------------


Re: cost-effecient brew

Date:          Wed, 3 Nov 1993 13:50:56 EST5EDT

From: REGINAH@SOCIOLOGY.Lan.McGill.CA

Subject:       Re: cost-effecient brew

To all you fortunate folks south of the border--

    Brewing may not be less expensive than store-bought for you, but

up here in the land of excessive luxury tax you can make your own far

superior brew for half the cost of commercial beer.  Hard to see why

anyone in their right mind still buys commercial-- they must put mind

altering chemicals in it.

------------------------------


patio hop growing

Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1993 13:58:41

From: axl@cherry-semi.com (Al Lingley)

Subject: patio hop growing

I live in a condo style apartment and have had limited success growing

hops on my deck.  I used a 1x3x1 planter box and ran twine up to my

bedroom window one story up. I would recommend using larger planter

box, as I feel my plants are now root bound. I planted hallertauer which

I have been told is a lower yielding variety.

The first year netted a few shoots about 7 feet in length, due to my planting

late in the spring.  Year 2 (this year) netted many 20 ft. vines and about

3 ounces of dried hops.  My low yield was mainly due to Japanese beatle

infestation.

About the only advice I can give is to water daily (soaking), and shake

those vines at least once a day (beatles).  I fertilized about every

2 weeks with Miracle Grow.

Al Lingley

axl@cherry-semi.com

------------------------------


RE:Post boil wort handling

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 14:14:16 EST

From: mberger@wellfleet.com (Michael Berger)

Subject: RE:Post boil wort handling

My thanks to all those who replied to my recent posting of questions regarding

the handling of the post-boil wort and the off-flavors that can come of it.

The answers were essentially unanimous and I have summarized the

recommendations below.

After the boil is complete, the wort should be chilled using your favorite

chilling technique.  The hot wort should be exposed to air as little as

possible in order to avoid the dreaded HSA (hot side aeration).   HSA is

a common cause of a "cardboard-like" off-flavor.  A rapid chilling of

the wort also reduces the risk of bacterial "action" that could cause other

off-flavors.

After chilling is complete, the wort should be racked into the primary

using a racking tube with a "copper scrubby" on the end to filter out

hops and other solids in the boiler.  At this time, the *chilled* wort

should be aerated.

The primary should be a carboy instead of an open plastic bucket.  You

can set up the carboy as a "blow-off/by" for the primary.  Your chilling

method should have brought the wort temperature down to pitching temp

so you should immediately pitch your starter.

Thanx again.

------------------------------


rice, the other light grain

Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1993 13:28:03 -0500 (CDT)

From: Paul Boor <PBOOR@BEACH.UTMB.EDU>

Subject: rice, the other light grain

Rice has been mentioned recently as a way to emulate

"your bud". I advocate the use of rice in allgrain

brews of all lighter type, and have used it lighten

porters.  It's not just for yaller-beers.

Good rice, like  Indian Basmati, has a nice aroma

as well.  I use a half to a pound, cooked well and

added to the mash with the regular grain bill.

the amazing thing ishow it lowers the finishing

gravity, like down around 1005 for a beer that

might be expected to be 1015.

Rice is used by many commercial brewers, my

favorite being The Utica Club Brewery in Utica

NY, makers of such greats asSaranac Adirondack

Lager.  Try their beer if you get to upstate

New York.  The brewery has also done some

nice contract brews in the past, jumpstarting

such beers as New Amsterdam and Sam Adams

(yes! the boston lager was orginally made

in NY)

------------------------------


Is Pale, Pale?/Pils malt-based extract

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 14:42 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Is Pale, Pale?/Pils malt-based extract

Ed writes:

>As a full mash novice I want to stay with simple infusion mashes for

>a while.  What kind of grain does this mean I am restricted to.

>I used Pale (2-row english).  The day after I went to another

>brew store and they had two Pales(2-row from Germany and from America).

>Pale is Pale???

  <snip>

>Will it be as modified as the english Pale? Is it an oversimplification

>to say Pale == you can do an infusion?  I was reading Miller last

>night and he explains the difference between Pale, Mild, Vienna, Munich,

>Lager, Klages etc.. But what I want to know is, what can I infusion mash

>as a base grain for recipe (obviously not specialty grains and adjuncts).

>Pale is Pale??? No adjuncts used currently, so I don't need extra enzymes.

>Describe how to tell if grain is good? Miller goes into it some (or was it

>Noonan?), but what do you look for?

When you say "simple infusion mashes" you probably mean "mashes with no

protein rest," right?  You can do this with infusion mashing (raising the

temperatures with INFUSIONS of boiling water) or "stovetop" mashing (raising

the temp with a heat source.

Whether or not you need a protein rest is dependent on how well modified

the malt is.  Most modern malts that we get in the stores are well-modified.

Perhaps some of the custom malts that A-B or Miller or Coors use are less

modified, but we certainly won't be getting any of that stuff normally.

You can tell how well modified a malt is by looking at how long the acrospire

has grown (I believe it was Noonan that described this in detail).  What you

do is rub off the husk on the acrospire side of the grain and compare the

length of the acrospire with the length of the whole kernel.  If the acrospire

is 3/4 of the kernel length or more, then the malt is fully modified.  If it

is significantly less than 3/4 of the kernel length, then the malt is less-

than-fully-modified.  You need to do this on a couple of kernels and consider

the average length.

Also, as you probably already know, more highly kilned malts (like Munich malt)

have less remaining enzymes than the less kilned malts (like Pilsner malt)..

Malts like DeWolf-Cosyns Aromatic is reported to be able to convert itself

despite being a highly-kilned malt, whereas I believe that DWC Biscuit is not

able to convert itself.

*******************************

Andy writes:

            extract brewing as well as all-grain.  The problem: the

            all-grain version will require pilsner malt and the extracts

            I've been able to find (DME & LME [No, not Male extract])

            are all based on Pale Malt.  Does anyone out there in

            HBD-land know of Pilsner Malt extracts that are Unhopped and

            (hopefully) no adjuncts?

I think your best bet is perhaps might be Alexander's Malt Extract.  It

and Munton & Fison Extra Pale are the two lightest extracts that I know of.

The difference between the flavor of Pale and Pilsner malts is really just

that the Pale malts tend to have a bit of caramel (just a bit) in the

flavor, thanks to the higher kilning temperatures.  I would suspect that

these two really pale malt extracts will have used the palest malts the

manufacturers had available.  M&F is in England, so maybe the Alexanders

may be the most Pilsner-like of the two.  Another consideration may be

to use German extracts such as Ireks Bavarian Light or Bierkeller Light,

which are probably made from Pilsner malt.

Al.

------------------------------


What's wrong with white hoses?

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 14:07:12 MST

From: "Mark B. Alston" <c-amb@math.utah.edu>

Subject: What's wrong with white hoses?

I am always seeing warnings about soaking hoses in a bleach solution

for too long of a period of time.  These warnings are always in

regards to the hoses turning chalky white.  Well, this in itself does

not seem like such a problem.  I am not too concerned with the

aesthetic problems of white hoses :)  So, is there another concern

that is behind these warnings?  What is the problem with white hoses?

Thanks,

Mark Alston

c-amb@math.utah.edu

------------------------------


AAU, IBU, and published numbers

Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1993 18:42:31 -0400

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: AAU, IBU, and published numbers

 I've been getting lots of use out of the hops FAQ, but I am left

with a nagging question.  I was trying to follow Pierre Rajotte's belgian

ale recipes, but when using the formulae from the hops FAQ the numbers seem

way off.  For example, one recipe calls for 7 HBU's or 22 IBU's of hops.

Another calls for 10 HBU's or 30 IBU's.  Now even being super conservative,

I get 10 HBU's is roughly equal to 38 IBU's.  That's over 25% more!  And

using the equations unmodified, 10 HBU's is in the range of 48 IBU's, or

60% more.  What gives?

 Just so you can frustrate yourselves too, here are the (simplified)

equations I've been using:

 %Util = 13.11 + 13.86 * TANH((T-31.32)/18.23)

 IBU's = %Util * %AA * Qty / Vol / 10

 Where: T is time in minutes,

       %Util is in percentages (ie 0-100, not 0-1)

       %AA is the alpha acid content in percentages

       Qty is the quantity of hops in grams

       Vol is the volume of wort in Litres

       TANH(x) = (e^x - e^(-x))/(e^x + e^(-x)), e being the

  mathematical constant epsilon, roughly 2.71828

 Note the 13.11 value in %Util, versus the 18.11 value in the hops

FAQ.  This is to convert to the modified utilization table presented by

Mark Garetz.

____________

Ed Hitchcock ech@ac.dal.ca | Oxymoron:  Draft beer in bottles. |

Anatomy & Neurobiology  | Pleonasm:  Draft beer on tap.     |

Dalhousie University, Halifax |___________________________________|

------------------------------


Cutting hop vines

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1993 18:03:04 -0500 (EST)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Cutting hop vines

Since I posted a question regarding hop vines/harvesting and the

merits of cutting the vines at harvest, I received this excellent

summary the issues.  I found it interesting, hopefully you will too.

Jim Busch

> Date:         Wed, 03 Nov 93 10:52:27 CST

> From: "Edward F. Loewenstein" <SNREDLOW@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>

> Subject:      Cutting hop vines

 Jim,

   Just read your posting on the homebrew net and hope I can be of some

 help.

   Commercial growers of hops mechanically harvest their hops by cutting

 the vines off at ground line when the hops are ripe and separate the

 cones from the vines via a machine similar to a cotton gin.  Of course

 some of the cones are a bit overripe, some underripe, but some allowances

 must be made for mechanization.

   By picking the cones by hand, as most homegrowers do, you can pick all

 of the cones when they are ripe.  Further, I have found that many hop

 varieties (Cluster, Nugget and Pearle) produce additional flushes of

 flowers following initial harvest.

   Concerning leaving the vines in place after the end of the season.

 indeed, leaving the vines after picking the cones (while the leaves

 are still green) does allow the hop plant to produce and store extra

 carbohydrates in the root system for the following year.  Once the

 plant scenesces (leaves and vine turn brown), no additional benefit

 is derived.  At this time, or shortly thereafter, it is wise to cut

 the vines and clean-up any fallen hop leaves from the area.  The

 reason for this is that fungal organisms overwinter in and on the

 dead plant material and if left can infect/reinfect your plants the

 next growing season.  Typically, downy and powdery mildew and

 verticilium wilt will follow this life cycle.  Insect larvae such as

 aphids can also overwinter in infected dead plant tissue.  I try to

 remove all hop leaves to my compost pile (located well away from my

 hop mounds), or if I have had a problem with an infection, burn any

 infected material (downwind from the mounds).  I also use the dead

 vines to weave wreaths for Christmas decorations.  My wife decorates

 these with dried flower arrangements.  I've also heard of people

 selling these wreaths to craft stores.

   Hope this helps.

 Ed Loewenstein

 SNREDLOW@mizzou1.missouri.edu

 Department of Forestry

------------------------------


Airplane Pressure and Beer

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1993 18:58:02 -0500

From: jeff344@voodoo.lerc.nasa.gov (Jeff Berton)

Subject: Airplane Pressure and Beer

Andy writes:

> Yesterday my wife tried to take 4 homebrews on American airlines

> out of Raleigh-Durham and was stopped at security.  Although the

> bottles were capped, since they had no label she was not allowed to bring

> them into the passenger cabin.  They said they could be stowed in the luggage

> but we declined, fearing depressurization problems.

The cargo bay and passenger cabins of commercial aircraft are both pressurized

and heated.  From a structural point of view, with pressure differentials

dominating fuselage design, it's easier to pressurize everything between the

forward and aft pressure bulkheads, the cargo bay included.  (Bombers' bomb

bays, by the way, which must be able to open at altitude, have all sorts of

additional fuselage pressure structure that is unnecessary on commercial

aircraft.)

At cruising altitudes on commercial airplanes, this cabin/cargo pressure is

maintained at about 11 psi;  that which you'd experience at about 8000 feet

altitude.  So, during the flight, an additional 4 psi would be added to the

pressure differential already experienced by your bottle of homebrew (If more

cabin depressurization occurs, you probably won't be worrying about your

homebrew!).  That's not too large an additional load, considering that a

modestly-primed bottle of homebrew is already experiencing a pressure

differential of about 20 psi at sea level (This is according to my

back-of-the-envelope priming sugar calculation - maybe someone can verify?).

So, taking your homebrew on an airplane, either in the cargo hold or as

carry-on luggage, shouldn't cause the bottle to blow unless you're already

operating on the ragged edge of your bottle cap's safety factor!  Given a

choice, I'd opt for carry-on luggage, since baggage handlers sometimes lack

that delicate touch.

- --

Jeff Berton, Aeropropulsion Analysis Office, NASA

Lewis Research Center jeff344@voodoo.lerc.nasa.gov

------------------------------


Steam injection (one more time)

Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1993 19:05:03 -0400 (EDT)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: Steam injection (one more time)

Boy, am I sorry I ever mentioned this.

Please everyone, calm down and react to what you read, not

what you _think_ you read.

I know that high pressure steam is dangerous.  That's why

I specifically stated that this was low pressure steam.  The

15 psi or less put out by a home pressure cooker is slightly

dangerous, but only if it comes in contact with you or material

that can't handle the temperature.

I know that modifying a pressure cooker's safety release valve

is dangerous.  That's why I specifically stated that we didn't

modify it (that little valve with the weight on it is not in the

center of this particular model.

Dan Listermann, who built this gadget, is still kinda computer-shy,

so he can't handle direct contact yet.  He 's beginning to get

the hang of Compu$pend, but isn't quite up to e-mail yet.  That's

why he asked me to post the original question here, as to whether

anyone else had ever tried this technique.  It appears that he's

the first.  OK, back to the drawing board, and he's working on

a second version that will incorporate some more safeguards and be

less prone to misuse.  The fact remains though, that the initial

attempt worked superbly when used with care!

- -- Ed Westemeier   Cincinnati, Ohio  westemeier@delphi.com

------------------------------


Brewery Liturature

Date:  Wed, 3 Nov 1993 19:07:38 -0800

From: robl <ROBL@outside.com>

Subject:      Brewery Liturature

I'm interested in reading about the breweries that were around in the

pre- and post prohibition area in the United States.  Speciffically

historical accounts of Brewery size, specialty, even examples of their

logos/labels.

I'm rather new to this group (this is my first posting :-) and I'm not

sure if this topic was ever previously discussed, or in the archives.

I'm looking for any titles of books or articles.  Thanks group!

================

Robert Linder

Crystal Point Inc

phone 206-487-3656 fax 206-487-3773

================

------------------------------


how I sparge

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 21:55:44 CST

From: rick@adc.com (Rick Larson)

Subject: how I sparge

Ed asks about sparging:

> What is the best way to sparge.

Welcome to the world of all grain brewing!

Here is how I sparge (68qt cooler/copper manifold) (sorry about the

steps :-).  It may not be the best way, but I works for me.

1. Underlet mash with sparge water.  I connect my hot

   liquor tank to the manifold outlet and fill the cooler

   to the brim.  This will help raise the mash temp to

   mash out.

2. Add specialty grains if used.

3. Stir the mash for even temps.

4. Let sit for 15 minutes.

5. Connect pipe from cooler to brew kettle and draw off about

   1 quart.  I don't recirculate until clear but enough

   to remove the *big* chunks.

6. Carefully pour the quart on the top of the mash water.

7. Slowly drain sparge water into brew kettle.

8. I repeat steps 1-7 until I use all my sparge water

   or the gravity gets below 4P (about 1.020).

I find underletting the sparge water will help reduce HSA.

Bob Jones and Micah Millspaw recommend underletting the mash

for better beer stability in last winters Zymurgy and Norm Pyle

restates Bob and Micah's article a recent digest.

The batch sparge is very easy and helps when I have

other things going on (like wife, kids, house...).  This was

recommended by several other brewers in this digest.

Letting the mash sit for a bit (I use about 15 minutes)

help settle the grain bed.

Chilling out with my counter-flow chiller,

rick

------------------------------


Re: Another immersion chiller

Date: Thu, 04 Nov 1993 08:07:22 -0400

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Re: Another immersion chiller

Steven Smith mentioned his 'hang from the edge of the pot' chiller, which

sounds pretty cool.  I would like to toot my horn once more and promote the

joys of the planispiral chiller.  It's a flat coil (like and electric stove

burner) of 25' of 1/4" OD copper tubing, the last (outer) coil descends to

the bottom of the pot as a support, and the in/out tubes hang over the side

also for support.  The disc/coil is suspended an inch or two below the

surface.  The cooled wort drops to the bottom, warm wort rises up the

sides.  I've never had to stir my wort to get it to chill properly, the

convection currents are sufficient.

____________

Ed Hitchcock ech@ac.dal.ca | Oxymoron:  Draft beer in bottles. |

Anatomy & Neurobiology  | Pleonasm:  Draft beer on tap.     |

Dalhousie University, Halifax |___________________________________|

------------------------------


Too long a fermentation time.?..

Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1993 07:00:03 -0500 (EST)

From: "Richard J. Niziak" <rickn@copley.com>

Subject: Too long a fermentation time.?..

At the end of September, I made a batch of Ocktoberfest and placed

the work, etc into the carboy for fermentation. I have been

extremely busy since than and haven't yet had the time to bottle

it.. Could someone tell me what problems I could run into when

I get around to bottling this weekend ??? Like all the yeast is dead

and I won't get any carbonation, or the beer is overly fermented..??

And hopefully some answers to fix those problems...

Thanks in advance,

##########################################################################

    +

Richard J. Niziak  +

Senior Systems Engineer  +  e:mail    -> rickn@copley.com

Copley Systems   +  land mail -> Copley Systems, Inc

    +        165 University Ave

     +        Westwood, MA 02090

    +        voice mail -> (617)320-8300 x305

    +

##########################################################################

------------------------------


easy wort chilling method

Date: Thu, 4 Nov 93 08:13:48 EST

From: mlobo@sentry.foxboro.com (Michael T. Lobo)

Subject: easy wort chilling method

Greetings:

 After reading todays HBD, I figured I'd put in my 2 cents worth

regarding wort chilling.  I take the KISS approach ( keep it simple, stupid )

After my boil, I take the 20 qt pot and stick the whole thing into my bathtub

full of cold water  ( my cold water is VERY cold ).  I keep the lid on and in

about 30-40 minutes the temp is down to pitching temp & all I do then is

transfer to the primary, pitch the yeast and have a home brew [:^)

regards,

Michael

Michael T. Lobo   508 549 2487

Foxboro Co.

mlobo@foxboro.com  "I Love beer, beer loves me; when I drink too much,

my beer speaks for me" -Monty

------------------------------


remove obrien@aa_macmail.aa.ab.com

Date: Thu, 4 Nov 93 09:42:26 EST

From: hellerpd@brutus.aa.ab.com (Dave(PD) Heller)

Subject: remove obrien@aa_macmail.aa.ab.com

     Please remove all "obrien@aa.ab.com" or "obrien@aa_macmail.aa.ab.com"

 from your mailing list.  It is a disabled account (for the last year)

 and the monthly digests bounce around our mail queue as the automatic

 return fails on the "reply-to" address.

                                         P.D. Heller

                                         Allen Bradley

                                         Ann Arbor, MI 48103

                                         hellerpd@aa.ab.com

------------------------------


Eisbocks legal

Date:  Wed, 3 Nov 1993 22:32:04 -0900

From: scott@fm.gi.alaska.edu (Scott Stihler (USGS analyst))

Subject: Eisbocks legal

I've discovered some interesting information regarding the legalities of making

eisbocks. There has been some question as to the legality of making an eisbock

since it does involve a form of distillation. Well, a friend of mine who is in

the process of opening a microbrewery (Ravens Ridge) here in Fairbanks had an

opportunity to talk to somebody with the BATF. According to this person the

amount of alcohol concentrated would be insuffient to, in their books, be

considered distillation. Therefore, it is legal for homebrewers to brew eis-

bocks. Now you can brew relaxed, not worried and guilt free.

Cheers,

Scott

------------------------------


Clubs

Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1993 11:23:50 -0500 (EST)

From: Kieran O'Connor <koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: Clubs

A note aobut clubs. I recently moved and have been helping ro re-energize

our club in Syracuse, NY. it seems that the way to go is definitley to

plan out in advance what will happen at each meeting. We are trying to

have an educational aspect, then perhaps a tasting, and then the

socializing part. These events are planned out 6 months in advance, and

put in the newsletter for long range planning

Also, try toget free advertizing. The local newspaper and the local

weekly put in free ads. Also, the palce we meet, Clark's Ale House, pays

for 1/2 of any fylers, etc which have his name on it (as the meeting

place). One otherthought we got form the AHA annual book--we made

busniness cards with our name and meeting place--they are in the brew

shops and beer reatilers. People can pick them up as a reminder for the

meeting. They're cheap--about 20$/500.

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Address: koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu

Syracuse, N.Y. USA

------------------------------


Cider

Date: Thu, 04 Nov 93 10:50 CDT

From: Eric Saidel <SAIDEL@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: Cider

Coyote suggests a few ways to get apples/and pressing cheap -

here's another:  if there are orchards in your area there are

certainly *abandoned* orchards in your area - these offer

a bit more challenge, but lots of apples - for free (or almost,

usually the owners are happy if you give them a coupld of

gallons of your sweet cider).

The advantages - this greatly reduces your price to the price

of pressing (it costs us 60 cents a gallon - for something like

140 gallons this year).  And you get more variety - in my experience

it's the variety that makes for good cider.

 - eric saidel

------------------------------


Rye and Spruce

Date: Thu, 4 Nov 93 08:57:26 PST

From: dra@jsc-ws.sharpwa.com (Darren Aaberge)

Subject: Rye and Spruce

The last issue of Brewing Techniques has an article about using rye in beer.

Basically it sounds like you use rye as you would use wheat in a wheat beer.

This article has made me curious about using rye and I was wondering if

anyone has tried it.  If so, what`s it like?  Is it like wheat beer or is it

totally different.

The article gave the following recipe:

8 lbs pale malt

4 lbs rye malt

1/2 oz Centennial (bittering)

3/4 oz Northern Brewer (finish)

1/2 oz Centennial (finish)

2 tsp Irish Moss

Wyeast 1056

Has anyone tried this recipe?  Does anyone know of a source of malted rye?  I

checked my local homebrew shop (Steinbart's in Portland, Oregon), they didn't

have malted rye but they did have flaked rye.

Regarding the recent thread on spruce beer, I have brewed spruce beer using

fresh growths off of a spruce tree.  The flavor you get from it does not

remotely resemble pine-sol.  From reading recent posts it sounds like the

people who are using spruce essence are the ones with bad experiences.  Maybe

this says more about the quality of spruce essence than the flavor of

spruce beer.

Darren Aaberge

------------------------------


College brewers

Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1993 14:01:42 -0500

From: esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

Subject: College brewers

Hola,

        As a college student I've noticed quite a few student brewers on

campus here (Swarthmore College) and I wondered how many of the people in

HBD land are student brewers.  Considering the stereotype of college beer

consumption is keg stands and funneling, it would be interesting to talk

with students who actually drink good (home)brew rather than whatever's on

special.  I've seen _many_ addresses on postings from colleges and

universities, but it seems most of the postings are written by people a bit

older than the average college student.  If you're a student brewer, drop

me a line via direct e-mail.  I hope to do a features type article on

college brewers and sell it to a newspaper or two.

Eugene

esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

------------------------------


help

Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1993 13:08:52 -0600 (CST)

From: Kenneth Wagner <WAGNER@LUB001.LAMAR.EDU>

Subject: help

------------------------------


Re: diastatic malt powder/

Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1993 15:52:28 -0500 (EST)

From: "Tim Tillman (BIO)" <tillman@chuma.cas.usf.edu>

Subject: Re: diastatic malt powder/

In HBD #1263 Jill Martz asks...

>We are relativey new at homebrewing and I was wondering if anyone could

>tell me about diastatic malt powder.

Diastatic Malt Extract is an extract with the ability to hydrolyze starches

into simple sugars.  This is what the enzymes in malted grains do during

the mash cycle of all grain brewing.

------------------------------


Convert to all-grain?

Date: Thu, 4 Nov 93 14:36:48 +0100

From: steve_t@fleurie.inria.fr (Steven Tollefsrud)

Subject: Convert to all-grain?

I've been brewing with extract (usually Munton) on and off

for about 6 years. I started with Williams Brewkits when I

lived in Phoenix, then quit for about 3 years when I lived

in Munich, Germany (seemed a bit pointless because the beer

there is cheaper than water and I was "researching" the

beers, the breweries, and the biergartens, leaving no time

for even extract brewing). My brewing stuff collected dust

in a german keller for three years. Then I moved to the south

of France a couple of years ago and found myself in a relative

beer desert (well, Munich would be a tough act to follow no

matter where I moved). So I dusted off my fermenter and brewkettle,

hunted down the address of a homebrew supply shop in the UK and

picked up where I'd left off in Phoenix. I started with some

basic IPAs and Steam beers, and started experimenting with various

grains and yeast types. The results were surprisingly well received

by the French natives (a discriminating people, especially in matters

of the palate). This was very encouraging.

A colleague at work turned me on to the internet and HBD about

a year ago. I tuned in just about the time of Jack Smegmling's [sp?]

holier than thou pronouncements along the lines that extract brewers

are ignorant, lazy, and not worthy to share the same bandwidth with

real brewers (all-grain). This was very encouraging/.

Even while I put in a couple of cents in defense of extract brewing,

I knew, deep down in my heart, that I would eventually move on to

all-grain brewing myself: the more I learned about brewing, the

more fascinated I became.

My only reservations are:

 1) Cost of grain: Homebrewing is unheard of in France. I have

    to have my extract shipped from England. As I'm paying

    shipping costs for 8-10 lbs of extract per 5 gal. it

    can add up. How much grain is required to make 5 gallons

    of all-grain (say OG 1050) and what is the typical cost

    of the grain ($ or Brit. lbs)?

 2) Time: One excuse I've always used for not brewing

    all-grain is that it is very time intensive. I'm repelled

    by the image of slaving for hours over a steaming kettle,

    though I never knew how much time is really necessary

    to do all-grain brew. With a feisty two year old running

    around the house, I have even less time than before. Are

    we talking half a day or a couple of hours?

 3) Information sources: Just lurking around the HBD provides

    a lot of information. You guys (and ladies) are great!

    But I would need a good, detailed 'How-to' manual. The

    problem is that I don't have a homebrew store to go to

    and would have to order books in English through the

    local French bookstore, ie: without seeing the book first.

    If I were to buy one book that details the equipment and

    procedures, what is the best one to order? Why?

    (publisher please)

Steve Tollefsrud

steve_t@fleurie.compass.fr

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1265, 11/06/93

*************************************

-------


bottle sterilizing...

Date: Thu, 4 Nov 93 16:22:24 EST

From: abaucom@fester.swales.com

Subject: bottle sterilizing...

Paul asks about mass sterilizing bottles... Here's my 1/50 of a $1...

I used to sink 2 cases of bottles in a bleach solution and rinse but MANOMAN is

that time consuming and I suppose could quickly turn one off of brewing BEER!

Check your dishwasher to see if it has a sani-cycle setting. I have used my

dishwasher for many (>10) batches and have yet to have any infections.

I load up the bottom rack of the dishwasher with all the bottles upside down

each on their own peg (it fits about 2 cases) and run through a cycle. I

use the water-miser and sani-cycle settings.  The sani-cycle setting,

according to the dw manual, raises the water temp to >140F for the last 5+

minutes of the rinse.  I don't know if water manages to get up into all

the bottles but the hi temp seems to sanitize them just fine.  Hopefully,

you rinse your bottles out fairly well right after you pour the beer (a sure

sign of a homebrew addict!)  If so, the bottles should be pretty clean to

start with (no furry trees rooted in the bottle!).

BTW, I do use a small amount of dishwashing detergent in the cycle and have

had no problems with beer heads or off-flavors.  But you would have to

experiment since your water may be too hard or soft to completely rinse the

soap away. (a hi-temp cycle with no soap works ok too)

I have not tried a batch in a dw without the hi-temp-setting so I don't

know if it would be sufficient to kill the enemy.

So, If you're thinking of buying a new dishwasher, check to see if it has a

hi-temp (sani) setting.  It's worth the extra $$$.

l8r,

Andrew

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Andrew W. Baucom               Phone: (301) 572-1327

| Swales & Associates, Inc.      FAX: (301) 595-2871

| 5050 Powder Mill Road

| Beltsville, MD 20705           "Rent this space for your quote!"

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


Decoction Mashing

Date: Thu, 4 Nov 93 15:25:00 -0600

From: phil.brushaber@lunatic.metronet.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: Decoction Mashing

Am I missing something here? Recently I asked how to develop that super

malty flavor which comes from German Dopplebocks. Many people were

kind enough to write me privately and suggest decoction mashing

(along with low hop rates) as the answer.

Upon re-consulting Noonan's book on decoction mashing I am a bit confused.

Simply put (although there appears to be nothing "simple" about it) it

seems to me that Noonan suggests starting out with a low temperature

for an initial dough in and then a temperature rise through each of the

enzyme steps (protein, sacrification, mashout). It seems to me that

he must be talking about mashing in a Coleman Cooler or something as

the heat increases are brought about by removing some of the wort

at each step, boiling it away from the grain, and adding it back to

get the next temperature step. I suppose to a "cooler masher" this

allows keeping the mash thick while raising temperatures.

I mash in a large canning kettle kept on a stovetop throughout

the mash. By turning the stove on I can go through all the heat

increase steps without removing ANY of the mash. Since the heat

comes from an external source rather than hot wort or water I can

keep the mash as think as I want.

Am I missing something here? With my setup, won't I be accomplishing

about the same thing as a decoction mash??

 ... 43 years old and still getting a keg out of life!

___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.11

- ----

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

| The Lunatic Fringe BBS * 214-235-5288 * 3 nodes * Richardson, TX * 24 hrs |

| UseNet, ILink, RIME, FIDO, Annex, Intelec, LuciferNet, PlanoNet, and more!|

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


oxygen barrier caps

Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1993 21:55:51 -0600

From: donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: oxygen barrier caps

There was a question a few days ago on rcb about the proper use of

the oxygen barrier caps.  these caps are either sold as PureSeal or

SmartCaps although I think the latter name may no longer be in effect

due to some legal mumbo jumbo.

the caps have a substance which reacts with oxygen.  obviously if the

caps did not have some type of activation barrier, they would react

with O2 in the air and be useless.  The caps are activated by moisture.

therefore they should be kept dry before use.  Each cap has the

capacity to react with 1.2 ml (i presume this is at 1 atmosphere and

a typical brewery ambient temperature).  this equates to about 6 ml

of air which aint much.  in other words, if you boil these caps and

activate them before bottling, you're wasting your money.  the

caps are properly used by capping dry and letting the beer activate

the stuff.

there is no need to boil new caps of any type by the way.  i used to

do this but it's needless paranoia.

these caps really do lower oxygen levels in beer.  as a result, the shelf

life of beer is extended.  this has some value to homebrewers but

of course is of particular value to small breweries.  it allows

breweries like celis to be more flexible in the brewing schedule because

it is now possible to store the beer longer and still maintain a fresh

and delicious brew.

------------------------------


NO SUBJECT

Date: Fri, 05 Nov 93 06:03:07 EST

From: gbgg5tt5@ibmmail.COM

Subject: NO SUBJECT

- ----------------------- Mail item text follows ---------------

To: I1010141--IBMMAIL  Homebrew Digest su

Subject: Extract storage

>Extract storage: In planning for the days that I may not live near a

>homebrew shop and/or have not yet gotten into the swing of all grain full

>mash beering, could anyone offer tips on storing large quantities of liquid

>or dry extracts.

Depends on how long you want to store it. My father bought 56lb of dried

malt extract. Very soon after, he gave up home brewing. The DME was in a

tough polythene sack, tied tightly with string, inside a strong cardboard

drum with a close fitting lid. I found it *13* years later, and that

persuaded me to start home-brewing.

On opening the bag, I found that the 56lbs DME had turned into 56-ish lbs

SSME (Solid Sticky Malt Extract). I assume that it had very slowly been

absorbing moisture, and compacting under its own weight, until it was one

rock-hard lump. I had to use a hammer and chisel to break it up. After 3-4

hours I had weighed out about 50 1lb bags. There were chips of the stuff

within a 15 foot radius of where I was chiselling - thats how tough it was.

However, I did then go on to make a dozen or so good dark malty brews from

it and apart from an occasional excess of treacly taste, slightly lower

attenuation than expected, and difficulty dissolving it (even in boiling

water) I had no problems. Everyone loved the beer too.

Moral: Don't leave it 13 years in a bag in a cardboard drum.

Paul Slater

gbgg5ttg@ibmmail.com

------------------------------


George Fix Chill Haze Talk PART 1 of 2

Date: Fri, 5 Nov 93 07:30:06 CST

From: nfarrell@ppco.com (Norman Farrell)

Subject: George Fix Chill Haze Talk PART 1 of 2

Chill Haze and Fining Agents in Beer

Part 1 of 2

I was fortunate enough to catch George Fix's

presentation at the 1993 Dixie Cup Milli-Conference.

I even had a small enough hangover to take notes.

George Fix spoke on chill haze and some recent work with

common agents used to enhance beer clarity.  I would call

them finning agents.  The work he presented is to be

published in an upcoming sequel/update of Principles of

Brewing Science.  Since the good Dr. Fix scooped himself,

I will try to convey the gist of his talk below

including some tables of results.  I am grateful for

George's enthusiastic cooperation in proofing this posting.

I have added further explanation and consulted other

sources and as I felt was needed.  I have also added

editorial comments (you can tell where).  Sorry to all for

the delay but it was important for George to proof my note

taking.  This posting will be in 2 parts since the size is over

8k bytes.

This talk concerns the causes and treatment of

chill haze that are not the result of some

technical brewing error.  We're talking about

colloidal haze, protein/polyphenol complexes.

We are not talking about:

1. Biological hazes caused by bacteria, non-

culture(wild) yeast or mutant yeast.

2. Starch haze caused by the presence of gums

like beta-glucans or unconverted starch.  Over

sparging, high sparge temperature or alkaline

sparge water can all cause this kind of

permanent haze.

3. Trace metals can also cause haze problems.

Iron levels above 0.05 ppm or cooper above 0.10

ppm are common culprits.  The most likely

source is from your water supply.  Your water

character may be variable throughout the year.

Seasonal haze problems may not be your

imagination.  Your water supply may also change

sources (Norman's does).  Check with your local

water department at different times of the year

to see if this could be a problem.  Norman has

found them more than willing to read off the

most recent analysis over the phone (call the

water plant, not City Hall).

4. Oxidation haze is cause by the

time/temperature history of the beer after it

has been bottled.  Thermal abuse is the enemy

here.  The telltale sign is a dull lackluster

appearance (not you and your drinking buddies;

the beer).  This problem is sometimes termed

"European Import Haze".

We are talking about chill haze resulting from

protein/polyphenol complexes (protein and tannins)

and haze caused by yeast biomass.  Note that chill

proofing and reduction of yeast biomass are two

separate things.  Now, let's discuss some of the

common fining agents.

Irish Moss

Irish moss is (according to Norman's

dictionary) the dried and bleached seaweed of

the red algae variety.  The two most common

species are Chondrus crispus and Gigartina

mamillosa.  The active ingredient is called

carrageen (carragheen) and is sometimes a

synonym for the seaweed itself.

Irish moss is said to aid in precipitating

coagulated proteins.  It is normally added

about 10 minutes before the end of the boil at

the rate of 1/2 to 1 teaspoon per 5 gallons (by

most homebrewers).  Fix adds Irish moss at

15 minutes left in the boil.  Some recipes call for a

"pinch".  The use of Irish moss has several

advantages and raises some concerns for the

(home)brewer.

Advantages:

1. Irish moss is a processing agent; not an

ingredient.  It will not survive the boil

kettle.  For this reason, it can be used under

the "German Beer Purity Law".

2. Infections are not a concern since Irish

moss is added during the boil.

3. A negative charge makes Irish moss selective

for large molecular weight proteins.

Concerns:

Since proteins have important roles in the

fermentation cycle and in the finished beer,

any agent that removes proteins should give

concern in the following areas:

1. Will it remove too many low molecular weight

proteins (amino acids) and have a detrimental

effect on the fermentation?

2. What effect will the protein removal have on

the body, viscosity and head

formation/retention of the finished beer?

The Punch Line

Sorry to say folks, but at the levels employed

by "most" homebrewers, Irish moss has no effect

whatsoever on chill haze, beer foam or

body/viscosity.

So, I should give up using Irish moss? No way.

The problem is not with the material but with

the dosage.  Irish moss dosage rates do not

scale down linearly from commercial to homebrew

brew length.

Norman's digression on scale up/down:

Malt or malt extract is an example of an

ingredient that scales more or less linearly.

Ignoring efficiencies of size and equipment

design, the amount you use (as dictated by

desired initial gravity) can be easily

estimated from the ratio of brew lengths to

pounds of malt(extract).  For instance, if your

brewing buddy has a recipe for 10 gallons of

Old Welding Glove Barley Wine that calls for 25

pounds of malt extract and you only wanted to

make 5 gallons of Old Welding Glove, just use

25 pounds times ( 5 gallons divided by 10

gallons ) equals 12.5 pounds.  Scaling other

things up and down is not always so easy.

Sometimes assuming a simple linear relationship

is way off.

And now, back to George:

Although it is not much of an increase (over

what we normally use), the correct level seems

to be about 1 tablespoon Irish moss for a 10

gallon batch.  The result of experiments was a

good hot and cold break.  Fermentation with a

"picky" yeast, Wyeast Bohemian Lager, produced

little noticeable effects on body, beer foam or

viscosity.  Irish moss is available in several

forms: large flakes, refined flakes and powder.

Use slightly less powder than flakes.

Rehydrate the flakes in plain water before

using.  DO NOT rehydrate the powder.

How good a job does it do?  Let's talk first

about units of haze.  The American Society of

Brewing Chemists has defined the following

scale:

ASBC Haze Units Description

    0                     brilliant

  < 100                   very clear

  < 200                   slight dullness

  < 300                   see through haze

  > 400                   murky

Now, the next time you call your friend's brew

murky, you'll know what your talking about.

The DeClerk Test was used to evaluate

various brews made with the different forms of

Irish moss.  The test is fairly severe: 5 days

at 140 degrees F then 2 days at 32 deg. F and

finally warm up to 50 deg. F and inspect the

beer. The results are below.

Batch                   ASBC Haze Units

Control (no I. M.)              400-500

Powdered I. M.                  100-150

Refined Flake I. M.             150-200

Large Flake I. M.               170-200

As you can see, the proper use of Irish moss

will help with chill haze in your brew.

End of part 1

------------------------------


George Fix Chill Haze Talk Part 2 of 2

Date: Fri, 5 Nov 93 07:31:34 CST

From: nfarrell@ppco.com (Norman Farrell)

Subject: George Fix Chill Haze Talk Part 2 of 2

George Fix Presentation on Chill Haze from the 1993

Dixie Cup Milliconference

Part 2 of 2

Isinglass

>From seaweed to fish parts.  Isinglass is

derived from the internal membrane of certain

fish bladders (a Brazilian catfish and a Saigon

kingfish).  As you buy it, it is almost 100% collagen.

Isinglass has an isoelectric point of >5.0 and will have

a positive charge in any medium whose pH is <5.0 (ie.

in beer with a PH of 4.5).  Yeast will have a negative

charge.  The rest is hopefully easy to figure out.

Effectiveness may vary somewhat with yeast strain.

Isinglass is most effective in  reducing yeast biomass

and is an excellent  compliment to Irish moss.  It is

certainly better than beechwood chips or aluminum slats.

The dosage rate in the UK is 60 mg/l.  Full effect will

take about 48 hours.  It is most commonly used

in Great Britain's cask conditioned ales.

George recommended 30 mg/l for a 5 gallon batch

with preparation as follows.  Drop the PH of

6.0 ounces of sterile water to 2.5- 3.0 PH with

your choice of tartaric, citric or phosphoric

acid.  dissolve 1/2 teaspoon of isinglass.

Hold in refrigerator over night.  Do not let

this material see any temperature above 50

degrees F.  It will decompose and become

useless.  Norman has read other recipes and the

directions on your package may be different.

Siebel has isinglass already mixed with acid

blend ready to go!

Those wishing to observe the German Beer Purity

Law will have to lower the PH with the help of

some critters.   Norman wonders if those

wishing to be vegans should leave all the cask

conditioned ale for the rest of us.

Results of test brews treated as above in soda

kegs with a 3 day contact time showed

significant reduction in yeast biomass:

                                cells/ml in

mg/l isinglass dosage          finished beer

       30                    0.15 - 0.25  X (10)^6

       60                    0.01 - 0.10  X (10)^6

Other Possibilities

Polyvinylpyrdlidone, PVPP, or Polyclar is a

positively charged plastic powder that works

against the protein/polyphenol complexes.

Tannins are adsorbed and fall to the bottom of

the vessel where they can not complex with the

proteins.  PVPP has no effect on foam or body

but does reduce both hop bitterness and beer

color.  Add at the rate of 0.067 ounces per

gallon of finished beer.  PVPP may be added to

the beer at the beginning of storage or mixed

with diatomaceous earth in a filter.

Activated silica gel can also be used.  It acts

by collecting the proteins instead of the

tannins.  Norman assumes that Dr. Fix did not

give it much air time because of limited

availability to homebrewers.

Tannic acid has a large phenolic structure

which selectively reacts with high molecular

weight proteins.  The bottom line is

that this is the "active ingredient" in

beechwood aging.  Don't tell AB/Houston but

there are those who say it does not work very well.

Tannic acid has very little effect on beer foam.

Filtration

Now we're getting serious.  Isn't this what the

big brewers do?  Norman remembers a good

presentation on filtration by Steve Daniel from

the 1992 AHA National meeting.  It may be found

(in written form) in the Just Brew It! book

covering the meeting.  Cartridge filters have

gained popularity with homebrewers and if used

with C02 to push the beer will not cause

aeration problems.  Rinse your filter with

sterile beer first.

Pumping the beer is another matter.  Some pumps

(Little Giant among them) have been found to

introduce air.  Air is drawn into the pump

housing and vigorously forced into the beer.

Not too good, especially when you thought you

were improving your beer.  Plastic filter

housings can develop this capability over time

and damage your beer.  Fix prefers stainless

steel (don't we all) but winces at the price

(don't we all).

You may precoat the filter with sterile (cheap)

beer and diatomaceous earth.  Fix prefers a 3

micron stone (porcelain) filter cartridge over

plastic (polypropylene).

Why a 3 micron filter?  Consider what you are

removing from your beer.  That's right, a

filter will impartially remove all particles

above a certain size from your beer.  A filter

is a dumb device.  In order to be smarter than

your filter, look at the following table and

then we will discuss.

Membrane filter results

                            Filter microns

Property           0.22  0.45  1.0    3.0  Cntrl

Abs. Ext. (deg. P) 2.25   2.3  2.43   2.5    2.5

IBU (mg/l)         26.1  25.9  26.2  27.1   27.5

Color (deg. L)      2.9   3.2   3.9   4.6    4.6

cells (mg/l)        0     0     0    1-10   10^5

The control beer is unfiltered so it gives a

good idea of what you are starting with.  There

isn't much effect on gravity until you drop

below 1 micron.  Bitterness starts to be affected

below 3 microns.

George interjects:

"Remarkably, IBUs are little affected by filtration. The

small differences in the numbers reported are likely

due to errors in measurement. I did these with the

ASBC (chemical extraction) procedure, which is not as

accurate as chromgraphy.  Errors of the order 5% are

not uncommon with the ASBC procedure."

Color takes a hit below 3 microns.  Cell count is

nearly zero at 3 microns.  The results tell you that

filtering to less than 3 microns is stripping color,

flavor and body out of the beer.  Three microns

will not sterile filter (pediococcus is about

0.8 micron BTW) but it will leave the beer

chill haze free but basically intact.  You

don't even want to know the degree to which

some of the Mega brewers are filtering their

beer.  George told the sad tale and his time

ran out.  Next up was Paul Farnsworth to delve

into cask conditioning but that will have to

wait for another day.

As for me, I will revise my use of Irish moss

as a result of this presentation and since I am

an ale fanatic, I will try isinglass next time

I keg (which will be soon).

End of Part 2 of 2

Norman (nfarrell@ppco.com)

------------------------------


Black and Tan

Date:  Fri, 5 Nov 1993 06:09:14 PST

From: John_D._Sullivan.wbst311@xerox.com

Subject: Black and Tan

Hi all,

Keith sez:

>There is a Black & Tan available in bottles.  It's put out by a brewery in

>Saranac, NY (USA).  Obviously it's not layered.  I believe the label says they

>mix one of their lagers with one of their porters and bottle it.  Not a bad

>brew.

This is called Saranac Black and Tan, it's actually a German Lager and Irish

Stout mixed, and it's quite good I think. It's made by FX Matt's in Utica,

NY.They also contract out some beers, such as Sam__l  Ad_ms (tm)- Disclaimer,

etc.etc. (Hope I'm all legal now James).FX also makes a  Saranac Golden

Pilsener (very light, nice hop nose), and a Saranac Lager (deeper color,more

bittering hops, less hop nose). I think all are pretty good.

Be talkin to Ya,

John

------------------------------


Sticking to Business

Date:         Fri, 05 Nov 93 09:58:48 EST

From: Walter O'Briant <WOBRIANT@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>

Subject:      Sticking to Business

I subscribe to HBD because I want to learn more about *beer,

homebrewing, and DIRECTLY related issues*. What gives some

subscribers/readers the idea that it is OK to introduce issues which are

highly personal, have nothing to do with brewing good beer, and far too

often resort to language which is almost certain to be offensive to some

of us because it is vulgar and out of place in this forum?

Let's keep in mind that this is a *public* forum, and that not everyone

has a tolerance for language which is crude in their judgment. In

particular, maybe some of us need to re-think what we include in our

signature line as well as how much space we are consuming with it.

It would also be helpful to me if headers or signatures gave a clearer

indication of where the sender is located.

I look forward to continuing to receive HBD. I'm in the Department of

Philosophy at the University of Georgia, and I've been brewing about

twenty years.

------------------------------


Kegs/Crabs/Salvator/Plugs/etc.

Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1993 08:48:12 -0700

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Kegs/Crabs/Salvator/Plugs/etc.

Ed Wolfe asks about converting some SS kegs for brewing equipment.  I seem to

recall some sage advice in the Zymurgy Gadgets and Equipment issue.  Check it

out.

**

Just curious:  has anyone ever seen a crabtree?  Our yeast apparently know a

bit about it; you'd think a species as advanced as ours would know more than

yeast...  I've seen crabs of all types (except those scratchy ones!) and trees

of many types but no crabtrees.

**

Jim Kent asks about Salvator:

> .  How do they make that stuff so sweet ? I thought it tasted of

>licorice (sp?) as well.  Any time I try to make a high gravity

>dark beer it ends up becoming to dry (and sometimes even harsh)

>after a few months in the bottle.  (Havent been able to maintain

>cold temperatures for real lagering yet ;()

I think you said it right there, Jim.  You need the cold temperatures to knock

the yeast down, where they can't keep working on your sugars.  You might work

especially hard on sanitation, too, as any wild yeast or bacteria may break

down some dextrins into maltose and the like.  Then the yeast will take it from

there.  Cold filtering would help.  Drinking it in the first 3 months works

well, too.  I have the same problem, BTW.

**

Tom Kaltenbach says:

>   The recent Hops FAQ has got me wondering again about hop plugs.  For

>those of you who are not familiar with them, they consist of dried whole

>hops, compressed into a 1-inch diameter cylinder that's 3 or 4 inches long.

>The plugs are segmented so that it is easy to break off smaller chunks.

This either misleading or Tom has seen some plugs I haven't seen.  The standard

plugs come in 0.5 oz. bungs, approx. 1" in diameter, approx. 0.5" long.  They

are stacked, usually, in two columns of 5 (I think), packaged in foil for a

total weight of 5 oz.  My point is that you "break" off a known quantity of

0.5 oz of hops, not just some unknown "smaller chunk".

**

Todd Taylor, I'd make a 3 gallon batch to start.  The problem with making a 5

gallon batch with a small kettle is that you will leave lots of sugar in the

grain because you don't have the means to boil more liquid.  Its not a disaster

but its very inefficient.  It is typical to use about 2 pounds of grain (or

less) per gallon of beer, but it all depends on your goal OG and your extract

efficiency.

Cheers,

norm

------------------------------


Recipe Request

Date: Fri, 5 Nov 93 08:25:01 PST

From: Bob W Surratt <Bob_W_Surratt@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: Recipe Request

Text item: Text_1

     I posted this last week & never heard from anyone.  So here goes

     again.

     I'm looking for a couple of extract recipes to clone Watneys Red

     Barrel AND Red Tail Ale.  I looked in The Cats Meow II, but didn't

     find them.  I'm sure that somebody out there in HBD land has

     attempted to duplicate these.  So if you have and are willing to

     share, please send me a copy of these.  I am an extract brewer, so

     please gear towards that.

     Thanks for listening!!  Bob Surratt  Folsom, CA

------------------------------


Difference between Priming w/ gyle and DME

Date: Fri, 5 Nov 93 11:11:28 -0500

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@fnma.COM>

Subject: Difference between Priming w/ gyle and DME

I don't see too much difference between priming with gyle and DME,

especially if the gyle was originally malt extract based.

Could someone elaborate?

------------------------------


Kriek/Sour Mash

Date: Fri, 5 Nov 93 10:00:09 -0700

From: LPD1002%NYSHESCV.bitnet@UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU

Subject:  Kriek/Sour Mash

After spending far too much money on bottles of kriek for

my girlfriend, I decided that I should try to make a p-Lambic.

Has anyone tried the sour mash method and kriek recipe in the

back of TNCJOHB.  It sounds like it should work, as long as

I can get a hold of the 2 strains of Belgian yeast.

If anyone has had successful results (or unsuccessful) or has

made this type of beer with another method, I'd like to hear

about it.  Direct E-mail will be fine and much appreciated.

At $5.00 a bottle, I can make a lot of my own. ;-)

    Steve Septer

    LPD1002@NYSHESCV.BITNET@UACS2.ALBANY.EDU

------------------------------


Bottle labels

Date: Fri,  5 Nov 93 03:28:00 BST

From: mike.keller@genie.geis.com

Subject: Bottle labels

In HBD 1163 Dion writes:

 ||I would like to make some labels for my bottles, but a little ||

 ||more creatively than I currently make with WordPerfect.  A    ||

 ||friend has Corel Draw and that would be fine, but I do not    ||

 ||have several hundred dollars to spend on software.  Can       ||

 ||anyone suggest software for DOS or Windows, (or even X for    ||

 ||that matter) which would be suitable to make *really* nice    ||

 ||bottle labels with?  Must have lots of fonts available and it ||

 ||would be really nice to be able to fit text into any shape    ||

 ||(like in a crescent shaped banner).                           ||

Well, my first choice would be to ask my friend if I could come over

and play with Corel Draw on his machine.<g> The next option, if you

have Windows already, is to try the Windows Paint program. If you

stick to black and white, you'll be able to get some decent artwork

going for your labels.

The one thing that IS going to cost you some bucks is getting exactly

that "fit text into any shape" feature. That is a most desireable

feature, and I don't know of any low-end software that allows you to

do that.

BTW, I suggest option number one. I'm doing some labels in Corel Draw

right now (I was working on my design as I captured this HBD, so I

mean RIGHT NOW), and placing text on a curve looks really spiffy and

is lots of fun!

 mike keller, beer sysop, food and wine RT, GEnie

 "homebrewers don't just recycle, they refill!"

------------------------------


Bass Ale Recipe and Dry Hop

Date: 5 Nov 1993 08:26:13 U

From: "Bob Knetl" <bob_knetl@amber.spawar.navy.mil>

Subject: Bass Ale Recipe and Dry Hop

                       Subject:                               Time:08:15

  OFFICE MEMO          Bass Ale Recipe and Dry Hopping        Date:11/5/93

Does anyone have a reliable recipe for making a Bass ale using malt extract

(non-all grain recipe).  Also I am finishing up a Bohemian Pilsner and dry

hopping it. In the past I have used whole hop plugs and never worried how long

I left them in the chilled secondary fermenter.  When using hop pellets can you

also leave them in the secoundary until ready to keg/bottle?

Bob Knetl

------------------------------


Judge Forum

Date: Fri, 05 Nov 93 09:46:00 PST

From: "SIMPSON, Mark (x-4378)" <Simpson@po2.rb.unisys.com>

Subject: Judge Forum

Howdy Brewpeople!

I just received my judgemanship certificate from AHA this Spring.  I have

heard rumors that there is

a forum dedicated to this sport.  Does anyone out there know the

subscription address???

Thanks,

Happy Brewing!

Mark Simpson

e-mail:  simpson@rb.unisys.com

------------------------------


SS Keg Conversion, or How I learned to Love All-Grain. Part 1

Date: Fri, 5 Nov 93 09:54:42 PST

From: Mike Peckar  05-Nov-1993 1252 <m_peckar@cscma.ENET.dec.com>

Subject: SS Keg Conversion, or How I learned to Love All-Grain. Part 1

 All it took for me to convert from all-extract to all-grain brewing

was stumbling across an orphan 1/2 bbl rounded stainless steel keg at a

scrap yard. For, not only was I able to easily fabricate a simple brewpot

from this keg, but an entire methodology for all grain brewing using a few

extra contraptions in conjunction with the keg's faucet. Both the

methodology for brewing and a detailed plan for modifying the keg are

explained herein. But first, more about the keg itself.

 The rounded type keg which I used is commonly known as a "Golden

Gate"- type keg. This is to be distinguished from "Sankey" type kegs, which

are characterized by their straight sides, built-in handles on top, and

rounded top and bottom. Both hold 1/2 Barrel, or 15.5 gallons. While the

flat-sided Sankey-type kegs have the advantage of built-in handles, they

have the disadvantage of not having a built-in flat section on the bottom

side for installing the drain faucet, as do the Golden Gate-type kegs. This

may or may not be a problem if you are trying to repeat what I did, but

there is no doubt that trying to install a faucet on the rounded bottom

side of the Sankey-type keg may not work to well without first having a

sleeve welded on. I do know of at least one person who managed to bang a

flat in the bottom of a sankey keg so he could install the faucet with

standard screw-thread plumbing fittings as I did.

 So, with standard parts available at most any hardware store and

simple tools (which if I didn't have, my neighbors or friends did), I was

able to put together not just a big brewpot, but a simple, easy way to brew

10 to 13 gallon all-grain batches with little fuss and no welding. The only

major new investment was for a Propane Burner. I of course had to move my

brewery from the kitchen into the basement, and I located the burner under a

window where a fan could vent the propane fumes, etc. Be warned, though,

that the propane tank's label clearly discourages use of propane indoors.

The keg conversion itself took one Saturday and cost less than $20: In

short, you cut a big hole in the top of the keg and install a drain in the

bottom side using standard 1/2 inch I.D. standard thread plumbing supplies.

I tried to bang out the hardwood bunghole, but it was in there so tight, I

decided to just leave it be.  No problems after 10 batches with that.

 Because I used standard plumbing threads, with a nipple that

extended out into the inside of the keg, I found that I could add removable

accessories to the set-up so that in one vessel I could mash, brew, and

even primary ferment. Only lautering would require the temporary transfer

out of the keg into food buckets.  For sparging, I used a standard toilet

stand-off and attached a couple feet of copper tube, bent it into a

pretzel, and drilled a series of 1/16th inch holes in it.  This screws onto

the inside of the faucet. I also fashioned what I call a "Trub Bypass",

which is nothing more than another copper toilet floor stand-off with a

bend which I attach the same way as the "copper Pretzel". This allows me to

primary ferment right in the keg so I can rack my beer directly from the

faucet, bypassing the trub on the bottom of the keg. It works just great:

input is adjustable from the very bottom of the keg up to about 7 inches

above the bottom. I must rack as soon as possible off primary, though, to

avoid infection. Also, this implies that I do not separate the wort from

the cold break material before pitching. If this sounds distasteful,

optionally you can use this trub bypass to rack off into another primary

fermenter after the boil if you wish. If this be your preferred method,

call the Trub Bypass a "Cold Break Bypass" instead.

 The basic process I use for all grain brewing with my new toys is

as follows: Crush your grain; install the Copper Pretzel, calculate your

water requirements for mashing and put that amount of water in the keg,

Heat sparge water with propane and mash-in. I find no heat is necessary to

maintain mash temp, but I do wrap the keg in a camping pad. Next lauter out

of the spigot into food buckets. You do need another source of hot water

for sparging, such as hot tap water mixed with boiling water in food

buckets. I use my old brewpot on the kitchen stove. Fwiw, I've never needed

more than four food buckets for dealing with all this. Now, clean out the

spent grains and remove the copper pretzel. Install the trub bypass and

pour in the wort from the buckets. Brew as normal. Chill with wort chiller.

Option 1: Aerate, pitch yeast and cover the keg (I use aluminum foil).

After fermentation stops, rack from the spigot directly into Cornelius kegs

(I use a short section of sanitized garden hose fitted to the spigot to

minimize aeration while racking). Or, rack into a bottling bucket, prime,

then bottle. Option 2: after chilling the wort, let the break settle, then

rack from the keg directly into carboys or fermentation buckets, allowing

aeration during transfer.

If you use the keg as a fermentation vessel, you must get the hops out

before you pitch. Simply use muslin bags. This also assures the plumbing

won't clog up on racking. A friend who uses my system and prefers racking

to primary just throws his hops in, but prior to attaching the Trub Bypass,

fastens a Chore-Boy on the end with brass wire to filter out the hops. All

sorts of fun experiments can be made, like centifugal decanting ala the

big boys.

------------------------------


SS Keg Conversion, or How I learned to Love All-Grain. Part 2

Date: Fri, 5 Nov 93 10:03:49 PST

From: Mike Peckar  05-Nov-1993 1301 <m_peckar@cscma.ENET.dec.com>

Subject: SS Keg Conversion, or How I learned to Love All-Grain. Part 2

ASSEMBLING THE EQUIPMENT:

 If you have trouble locating the parts in the list, it may behoove

you go to a plumbing supplier first, as they are sure to have all the

parts. The parts for the drain assembly are the same parts for a standard

faucet you would see on the side of a house for a garden hose. The parts

listed below are what I used; I chose brass fittings, but I see no reason

why you couldn't chose any other standard material that can stand up to the

heat from the propane burner. I found that keeping it as simple as possible

worked well to my benefit since by selecting a standard plumbing thread, it

allowed me to incorporate interchangeable and removable pieces into my

design, making the whole process of brewing simpler and more relaxing!  A

friend prefers the Ball-type, lever-actuated faucets. These are a bit more

expensive, but will definitely decrease the chances of clogging up the

faucet. A good investment, but you'll have to use tubing other than a

garden hose for racking as mentioned above.

Parts:

 1 15.5 gal. Stainless steel Keg, Please obtain it legitimately.

 1 1/2" faucet, flush-mount, brass. Inside-threaded.  $2.25

 1 1/2" x 1" pipe nipple, brass, counter-threaded. $1.17

 1 brass nut to fit pipe nipple. Fits 11/16" wrench. $0.75

 2 washers, ~ID 1" ~OD 1 3/8". Galvanized. had these lying around.

  Comments: You can substitute a faucet with the threaded nipple "built

       in", i.e. the faucet has an outside-threaded extension.

     The problem with these is that there is no flange for flush

      mounting against the outside of the keg. Ideal would be a

     faucet with a flush-mount flange and a built-in nipple extension

     with outside threads. I didn't bother asking for one at the

     plumbing supply shop since I had already bought the above parts.

Parts for optional Copper Pretzel and Trub bypass tube.

 2 1'    Copper floor stand for toilet or sink, w/ brass compression fitting

         on one end and flange to ID 5/8 on other. ($2.25 ea.)

   2     Feet of 5/8 OD soft copper tubing.

 1 1/16" Drill bit. You'll burn out a couple drilling holes.

 Comment: Feel free to use the "slotted pipe" method here, i.e.,

   instead of drilling holes, hacksaw some slots. Also, many

   Homebrewers get fancy and build sparging devices analogous

   to really small septic leach fields. Knock yourself out.

Tools, etc.

 Flair pen.

 11/16" wrench.

 Ear protection.

 Eye protection.

 Power Drill.

 Drill bit, about 1/4", metal-cutting.

 Reciprocating saw ("Sawzall"), preferably variable speed.

 1/2 round metal file or honing wheel insert for power drill

 Emory paper

 3-in-1 oil.

 Bimetal sawblade for reciprocating saw. ($1.89)

 7/8" bimetal hole saw. ($6.97)

 Mandrel for above to fit your power drill. ($7.60)

   Comments: Bimetal blades are a must for cutting stainless steel. You can

      probably hack the drain hole by drilling a bunch of holes with

      the drill and then filing it round, but the $15 investment in

      a good hole saw/mandrel is worth it, and can be re-used in the

      future for such things as installing a beer faucet in your fridge!

      Use a reciprocating saw with variable speeds if you can find

      one. I found that at "6", my saw wouldn't cut at all, but cut

      through the steel like butter at "4".

------------------------------


SS Keg Conversion, or How I learned to Love All-Grain. Part 3

Date: Fri, 5 Nov 93 10:07:31 PST

From: Mike Peckar  05-Nov-1993 1303 <m_peckar@cscma.ENET.dec.com>

Subject: SS Keg Conversion, or How I learned to Love All-Grain. Part 3

Procedure for converting keg:

 Mark off your opening hole with the flair pen. try to find a lid you can

 use and size the hole based on your lid. You only have a little cheese here

 with a Golden Gate-type keg. Drill pilot holes for the saw blade using 1/4"

 drill bit and 3-in-1 oil. Have a helper steady keg while you drill the top

 with bi-metal blade in reciprocating saw. Both you and your helper should

 wear eye and ear protection.  Use oil liberally at cutting edge and rest the

 saw every few minutes to prevent overheating. Relax, have a homebrew.

 Smooth edge with stone or hone then emory paper. Mark hole for faucet from

 inside high enough up from bottom of keg so that the flange will clear the

 bottom. Drill out 7/8" hole, hone, sand, and install faucet, using

 washers & nut w/ 11/16" wrench. The drain hole must be made on a flat

 surface. If using the cylindrically-shaped keg, i.e., Sankey, which does

 not have a flat section for a drain, you will have to bang a flat with a

 hammer or otherwise force a flat.

Procedure for fabricating Copper Pretzel for mashing.

 The Sparging device. Basically a thing that allows the liquid stuff to be

 separated from the solid stuff in the mash. The holes or slots face down.

 sweat or clamp a two foot section of soft copper to flanged end of stand-off.

 Drill holes on one side only. I made three rows of holes with each hole

 about 3/8 inch apart. Optionally, use a hack saw to cut slots perpendicular

 to the length of the tube every 3/4 inch or so. Saw only 1/3rd through the

 diameter of the tube. Hammer down the open end to seal it shut. Carefully

 bend the tube into a pretzel shape, keeping in mind the holes will face

 down, and bending the tube such that gravity will help drain the liquid

 inside the tube, i.e., the part of the tube closest to the crimped end

 should cross over the top of the part of tube closest to the brass fitting.

 Make the thing any shape you want: I chose this design because it doesn't

 require futzing with too many different joints and tees and elbows, etc.

Procedure for fabricating the Trub Bypass for fermenting in the keg.

 This device will allow you to ferment your beer in the same keg in which

 you brew. It allows for the draining of the fermented beer off the trub.

 Or, use it to rack from the keg into primary bypassing the cold break. The

 floor stand is simply a copper tube flared to 5/8" at one end and molded at

 the other, with a 1/2" female compression fitting at one end. It just screws

 right onto the protruding nipple on the inside of the keg. Bend it with

 care so that when attached to the nipple, the flared end sticks up a

 couple of inches from the bottom of the keg. I got a little fancy and bent

 it so it followed the contour of the bottom of the keg into the center and

 then bent up from there. Take care not to kink the tube too badly while

 bending. Adjust the intake height for trub or break bypass simply by

 bending it up or down to the desired height. With practice, you'll get a

 better idea on what height to set it at for particular brews.

Comments on the whole setup.

The biggest advantage is simplicity. A single vessel for all your all-grain

and/or extract needs up to bottling. A lot of friends have expressed

concerns about unsealed fermentations, but as long as pitching rates are

good, and you resist the temptation to "peak", i.e., disturb the headspace,

there should be no problem. An initial purging of the headspace with C02

helps, too. The disadvantage to this system is the fact that since it is

both a mash/lauter tun and brew kettle, the whole process takes longer, as

you have to decoct into buckets and then wait while you rinse out the spent

grains before you can start to brew. Also, since the sweet wort is sitting

in buckets, you can't start heating up the wort before sparging is

complete. To work around this, the next obvious step is a separate

mash/lauter tun. Since you have already built the sparging device, the

logical choice is another half barrel keg with faucet. With two barrels,

you essentially have a traditional brewery, but there are myriad setups and

possibilities for improving on this very simple basic brewing set up, like

a pump system from sparge water transfer, uC controls, ad nauseum.

>From crush to pitch usually takes four hours.

Another important note. At first, I built an easymasher ala Schmidling,

though I prefered to call it a "screen penis". I had a couple problems with

this. First, sparging rate was poor at lower mash temps (compared to what I

got with the copper tubing device); in fact, I had a couple of stuck

sparges. Second, the device didn't have the physical strength to stand up

to mash-in, i.e., it deformed, and once, broke off while I was stirring in

the grains. Its rather difficult to solidly clamp a screen around a pipe,

even when the pipe is outsied-threaded. In Schmidlings's defense, though,

the device was very simple to fabricate and yielded satisfactory results

when it did work, though I got no higher than 30 pts extraction. All things

being equal, the copper tube yielded consistently better results, and,

though it was a PITA to fabricate, it was well worth it.

Mike Peckar, the penurius, paltry, parsimonius, yet pedantic picobrewer.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1266, 11/08/93

*************************************

-------


Distillation

Date: Fri, 05 Nov 1993 12:13:45 EST

From: "Mark T. Berard, Dow Plastics, LAD, TYRIN* CPE R&D"

Subject: Distillation

Hi all,

 Been watching about a month.  Lots to learn, I can see.  I'd like

to comment on the distillation thread.  See examples below.  Mark Blunier

describes the industrial preparation of 200 proof Ethanol, and Daniel McConnell

comments on boiling point of various alcohols.  I'd like to add something to

this. AZEOTROPES. While I agree with most of what has been said in this thread,

i.e. if it isn't in there to start, you shouldn't be able to distill it out,

just knowing the boiling point of various alcohols isn't enough.  Mark's

company probably added cyclohexane to the distillation because water/ethanol

forms a well known azeotrope.  That is, you can't distill off the last 4% of

the water.  You have to add something else to break this up, distill off the

water, and then distill off the other ingredient.  In his case, cyclohexane.

Commonly for "Absolute" Ethanol or "100%" ethanol, benzene is used.  This will

need a tax stamp, etc, but it contains trace benzene, a well know carcinogen.

Not the greatest for drinking.  Well, you say, 96% ethanol is plenty good for

drinking.  True (?). But, water forms lots of three way azeotropes, including

one with methanol and ethanol!  So you might think you are getting rid of any

"bad" alcohol after going over the boiling point of your various nasties, but

you might not be.

Happily you can't really hurt yourself if you mess up making beer, but you

could REALLY HURT YOURSELF (or DIE) if you mess up trying to make your own

distilled alcohol.  So while most of the fears like "you'll go blind",

(Sounds like what I've heard about other activities ;-) are probably just as

Daniel said, scare tactics, there IS some reality in there.  I'd stick to

making great beer!  (If only I could.  I'll have to keep working on that.)

 -Mark

>Subject:       Distilling alchohol

>After the regular column we distilled it up to 200 proof by adding cyclohexane.

>I was told that the 200 proof mixed 50/50 with water tasted like a very good

>vodka, but I never tried it.  To be used in gasoline the proof had to be 199.4

>(or was it 199.6?).

>Mark W. Blunier   mwb5489@age2.age.uiuc.edu

- ------------------------------

>From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel_F_McConnell@mailgw.surg.med.umich.edu>

>Subject: methanol/unmalted wheat/spe

>Distillation will concentrate only what you want it to by collection only

>during the temperature range that you want.  Of course this is technique and

>equipment dependant.  For alcohols, methanol comes off first (65C) followed by

>ethanol (78.5) propanol (97), water (100), butanol (117) etc.  Don't drink the

>methanol, propanol or anything that boils higher.  Don't ferment and distill

>garbage.

Dr. Mark T. Berard                   |    Internet:  mtberard@dow.com

Snailmail:                           |    Voice:     504-353-8418

Dow Chemical, La. R&D, Bldg. 2506    |    FAX:       504-353-6608

PO Box 400, Plaquemine  LA  70765    |          SCIENCE!

------------------------------


Immersion Chiller

Date: Fri,  5 Nov 93 10:12:26 PST

From: DJM1%CRPTech%DCPP@cts27.comp.pge.com

Subject: Immersion Chiller

Just though I would toss my hat into the ring.  I use a "Double Immersion

Chiller".  I have two copper coils, (1) 30' length <the main chiller in the

kettle>, and (1) 20' length. I place the 20' in a bucket/pot that is filled

with ice/water.  The cooling water flows from my faucet to the 20' coil (in

the ice bucket) to the main coil in the brewing kettle and out to the sink.

I used to use a counter flow chiller (the copper-in-a-hose type) but found

that I had to use a very high flow rate of cooling water and a very slow rate

of wortflow to get the temp down to ~70F (50' of counterflow cooler).  I now

use less water (but have to use 2 bags of ice) and it only takes ~15-20 min

to get down to ~75F with minimal cooling water flow.  My counter flow chiller

is now collecting dust.

 Somebody had to come to Jack's defense  ;-)

 Daniel Meaney

------------------------------


Greenplug

Date: Fri, 5 Nov 93 13:16:06 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Greenplug

I saw this gadget that may be of interest to homebrewers like me who have many

fridges and freezers.  This device uses computer circuitry to work out how

much electricity is actually needed to keep a motor running (it cuts up

the sine wave in some way - ask an electrical power engineer).  And not

only does it save around 25-33% of electricity, the motor runs more smoothly

as well (admittedly this was the demonstration motor with no load), and there

is surge and brown out protection.  It was $31 in Builders' Square.  I saw a

similar device in a yuppy environmental catalog at home (amazing the junk mail

fall out from certain magazine subscriptions!) and the price was around $80.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


Northern Brewer Hops

Date: Fri, 5 Nov 93 13:33:59 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Northern Brewer Hops

I received some e-mail asking if Northern Brewer hops suffered any

of the deficiences of Clusters or Brewers Gold. On paper the Northern

Brewer hop runs circles around the latter. I have not personally

brewed with it, however a few months ago Jeff Frane sent me a few

of his brews which used Northern Brewers in a highly advantageous

way. These beers were outstanding, and their hop character was a major

factor. This hop also has a very good reputation in Germany as an

early addition bittering hop.

My post in HBD#1264 had the following spelling errors:

       (1) geraniol (not -oil)

       (2) Hallertauer (not -entauer)

       (3) jibes

We installed a scientific spelling program, but I often forget to use it.

George Fix

------------------------------


hops/Ceils Grand Cru

Date: Friday,  5 November 93 13:25:24 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: hops/Ceils Grand Cru

Howdy, all,

In HBD #1264, George Fix discusses the advantages of low alpha hops over

high alpha hops, using lots of formulas & stuff I got lost over.  But

intially he states he feels that low alpha hops impart a cleaner & more

mellow taste.  So, as a clarification, should larger amounts of low alpha

hops be substituted for high alpha hops to impart these same qualities, or

would I be defeating the purpose?  What about using three times as much

2.5% hops over 7.5% hops to make a Sierra Nevada clone, for example?

Also, Spencer W. Thomas wants to know if Celis Crand Cru is a tripel.  I

don't think so; it's really considered it's own style.  In M Jackson's

NWGTB, he lists Hoegaarden Grand Cru (Celis' previous incarnation) as a

seperate style.  I don't know if it's as strong as a tripel or not; it's

about 7%.

Oh, back to George Fix & Micheal Jackson.  What's his new book's name?

Happy brewin',

Alan, Austin

------------------------------


Liberty/SNPA and Hopbacks

Date: Fri, 5 Nov 93 12:06:48 PST

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Liberty/SNPA and Hopbacks

Spencer.W.Thomas posted:

>I said:

> > All this discussion sounds like a good argument for a hop-back.

>

>This morning, while I was looking for something else, I found a

>relevant comment from Donald O'Connor, who wrote:

>

> > If you have any doubt about the incredibly vast difference

> > of hop aroma and flavor betwenn using the same type of hop in (I believe)

> > nearly equal amounts in two different ways, just compare Sierra Nevada

> > Pale Ale and Anchor Liberty Ale.  Both use Cascade finishing hops.

> > One is dry-hopped and the other uses a hop back.

Two things.  Firstly I'd like to make sure that the order of the comment

doesn't confuse people.  SNPA used the hop back, Liberty is dry hopped.

Notice I used "used" in the above sentence in reference to SNPA.  I have

heard (but not confirmed, yet) that when they opened their new brewery

they were having major problems with the hop back and abandoned it in favor

of dry hopping.  So both may now be dry hopped.  My brew club is touring

Sierra Nevada next weekend, so I'll get a chance to ask and confirm.  I'll

report back.  Also reported that the only beers now hop-backed at Sierra

are the Barley Wine and Celebration (Xmas Ale) because these are produced

in such relatively low volume that they can put up with whatever problems

the hop back caused for the short time involved.

Mark

------------------------------


Beer in Kuwait

Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1993 23:36:52 +0300 (GMT+3:00)

From: dan@eng.kuniv.edu.kw (Daniel Kowalewski)

Subject: Beer in Kuwait

I write to you all as a fellow lover of home brew.  And I am in desperate

need of help.  Desperate.  The predicament that I am about to describe is

not for the beer-loving faint of heart.  I find myself in a country where

all alcohol is illegal.  I've been able to make one small batch of lager

with the most gracious help of a friend who flew in from Belfast with a

couple of bags of hops and a can of malt extract.  And I've been making

do with wine (lots 'o grape juice available) and eth (home made still and

lots 'o sugar).  But you know as well as I that it's just not the same.

I have no access to net news.  And I have just received my first issue of

this forum.  It looks good.  I would appreciate any info on:

1. Growing Hops

2. Malt processing

3. Alternative methods of brewing (ie. no hops - is it possible?)

4. Names and addresses of folks in the home-brew business (supply shops).

   Places I have most access to are Long Beach, Sacramento, Albequerque,

   and Boulder.  Discrete mail order would be great.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.  I will try to sift through some

of the back issues on the above subjects but as the network here is somewhat

precarious in terms of both functionality and real internet functions (like

ftp), the more 'live' forum info I get the better.

As an interesting addendum to the lifestyle in this part of the country:

       A 12oz can of Heineken costs $15 on the black market.

Thanks

         Dan Kowalewski,  dan@eng.kuniv.edu.kw

         A misplaced EE from Cal to Kuwait.

------------------------------


SS keg cutting

Date: Fri,  5 Nov 93 14:11:00 -0600

From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

Subject: SS keg cutting

In HBD Ed Wolfe asked about cutting SS kegs,

EW> Can anyone out there offer guidance in converting these kegs?  I

  > need answers to questions like:  How should they be cut?  Which

Having just gone through this, I can give you some pointers. There

are a lot of ways to do this (like using a plasma torch or having

someone else do it), but this is what worked for me.

Rent or (preferably) borrow and in-line reciprocating saw. The best

known of these is a Sawzall. A Sears or B & D sabre saw will work,

using 10 times as many blades and 20 times as much time(plus you

won't be able to find bimetallic blades). Then buy some (5 maybe)

bimetallic 32 TPI sawzall blades. I could only find 24 TPI and it

worked fine, but I think 32 TPI would work better. The blades must

be bimetallic for heat dissipation or the blades will rapidly wear

out.

Insert a large screwdriver in the spring loaded valve where the tap

goes in the keg. WATCH OUT! The keg will be under pressure from the

decaying beer contained therein. Gas and maybe a few drops of old

beer will shoot out when you do this so cover with a towel first and

avert your eyes!

Also buy a 1/4" tungsten drill bit. Use a nail set or punch to mark

your starting point. Use the drill bit to drill 2 or 3 holes next to

each other so that you have one hole big enough to insert the

Sawzall blade. The saws are usually variable speed so begin slowly

until you get the hang of it. The saws will also cut in circles very

easily so I marked my cut line first with an indelible marker so I

would know where to cut. I got the blades at Ace Hdwr.

EW> end should be cut (on the valved end, I suppose)?  Where on the

  > keg should the cut be made (top or side)?  How many inches from

My keg has an upper rim into which cut-out handles had been formed.

My first cuts were vertical on either side of each handle so that I

could retain them for lifting. I cut down to the top seam on the keg

and then cut around that everywhere except directly below the

handles. If I had it to do again, I would not have cut on the seam,

but rather cut out higher on the domed top so that the I retained

more of the sidewall. You'll have to judge where to cut based on the

construction of your keg.

EW> the bottom should I install the manifold outlet on the

  > mash/lauter tun (right AT the bottom, I suppose)? How many

Can't comment, I only made a boiler.

EW> inches from the bottom of the boiler should I install the spigot

  > (i.e., How much sediment can I expect from a 10 gallon batch)?

My keg has a domed bottom and a rolled rim similar to the top. I

installed a 1/2" X 4" SS pipe nipple butt welded up to a 1/2" hole

drilled into the bottom seam. This provides 1 gallon of liquid that

I have to tip the keg to drain. This isn't a problem because there's

only one gallon in the keg when I'm tipping it.

The pipe nipple was threaded with 1/2" pipe threads. Ace had a brass

ball valve with chrome ball for about $6. A brass 1/2" thread 90

deg angle extension was about $2 and a 1/2" pipe threaded hose

nipple was also about $2. These were also found at ACE.

The bottom rim of my keg fits exactly inside the top rim of my cajun

cooker. This means that the bottom dome (inside the lower rim) is

suspended about 4" above the burner of the cooker. The heat coming

out of the burner is concentrated under the rim. I can get 8 gallons

of 50 degF water to full rolling boil in 30 minutes, BUT I cannot

burn my wort. I've had the burner up to it's full 160,000 btu and

had a hell-of-a boil, but the boil is so vigorous that it doesn't

stay in contact long enough to scorch. My reduction rate is

something like 1 1/2" gallons an hour.

Chuck

 * RM 1.2 00946 * The sex was so good, even the neighbors lit cigarets

------------------------------


Homebrew Digest #1260 (Novembe

Date: Sat,  6 Nov 93 11:46:00 BST

From: r.mcglew3@genie.geis.com

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1260 (Novembe

My point on judging, or rather having your (specialty) beer judged was

simply that specialty beers (i.e. what ever the organizer's can't place in

another category) will be judged more by the judges' likes and dislikes than

any of the other categories.  If I don't like "American Light", I probably

won't judge it.  I like fruit etc. beers and each beer that we tasted we

took the time to savor and try and get into the head of the brewer and

figure out what he or she was trying to achieve.  This took a lot longer per

brew than other categories, but it was worth it.

 Bottom line was, however, with specialty beers just because it doesn't get

raves from the judges doesn't mean that it wasn't good.  If you and your

friends like it brew some more!

------------------------------


Recipe for SA Winter Lager

Date: Sat, 6 Nov 93 07:38:22 EST

From: jwilliam@uhasun.hartford.edu (John Williams)

Subject: Recipe for SA Winter Lager

Does someone have a recipe for SA Winter lager?  I think it is just a

strong lager dry hopped with ?.  An extract recipe would be nice but I

could convert an all-grain recipe.

Mail direct if possible.  Thanks!

John W

------------------------------


Wort Chiller Performance

Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1993 10:22:46 -0600 (CST)

From: Steve Seaney <seaney@ie.engr.wisc.edu>

Subject: Wort Chiller Performance

Hello,

I have an immersion wort chiller I have been using June.  It'll bring

4 gallons of boiling water to 70 degrees in about 8 minutes.  It's a

fairly simple design that I threw together over Memorial Day Weekend.

I don't have any other chillers to compare this too.  Is this a decent

performance?

Steve

- --

Steve Seaney: 608/265-3954: seaney@engr.wisc.edu

------------------------------


BATF Outlaws Steam Injection

Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1993 07:56:48 -0800 (PST)

From: Paul deArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: BATF Outlaws Steam Injection

This showed up in the local paper--

FEDS SIEZE HOMEBREW BOMB FACTORY

(AP Seattle)  Investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and

Firearms led a massive raid on a homemade bomb factory in Tacoma,

Washington last night.  Accompanied by local law enforcement and a camera

crew from the COPS "real-crime" (tm) television show, BATF agents stormed

a residence during the early morning hours.  The object of the raid was a

bomb factory being run by a crazed local homebrewer.

Siezed in the raid were several large stainless steel vessels that were

identified as bomb components, a coil of copper tubing and other parts of

an illegal still, copies of a child porography publication identified as

"Boy's Life", as well as several plastic bags of a leafy green substance

identified by experts as "hop", a dangerous narcotic drug.  The owner of

the house, Mr. Charlie Poopazian, was taken into custody after his house

was crushed into matchwood by a flame-throwing M472 tank disguised as an

Avon lady.  The massive show of force is expected to boost the ratings of

the COPS show, if they can only get Mr. Poopazian to stop screaming and

rolling around on the floor long enough to sign the necesary release

forms.  Mr. Poopazian was yelling over and over again, "It's only hops!",

according to an unidentifed BATF who expressed satisfaction at being able

to extract a confession from the suspect.

The bomb was made of heavy aluminum and fitted with large black bakelite

handles.  An undentified source close to the investigation stated that the

bomb marked a new turning point in international drug terrorism, since it

appeared to operate on "cold fusion" principles.  "This is the first known

case of drug trafficers attempting to build a thermonuclear weapon", said

the source, speaking under conditions of anonymity.  According to this

source, the bomb has been taken to a secret DOE facility known as "Area

51", somewhere in Nevada.

At a press conference after the raid, a BATF spokesman indicated that the

target of the bombing was a mysterious organization known as "Z".  The

suspect had originally been the head of this crime syndicate, which is

based in the Rocky Mountains.  Mr. Poopazian was deposed after a national

"crime conference" held in Portland last summer.  "Our sources indicate

that the suspect was planning the bombing to regain control of his crime

empire.", the spokesman said.  According to confidential sources,

Poopazian was replaced by a cadre of yuppie women dressed in K-mart

business suits.

 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Well, there you have it.  The COPS show will be shown sometime

around Christmas.

 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

At the FBI (Fairhaven Boatworks Inc.), they use a steam generator

for bending wood.  It doesn't have a pressure vessel, so it's probably an

end run around pressure cooker modifications.  The steam generator is just

a coil of 3/8" copper tube over a small propane burner.  There is a piece

of stovepipe around the coil to trap the heat.  The inlet to the coil is

fitted with a needle valve and a fitting so a garden hose can be attached.

The outlet is unrestricted and feeds the steam into a small rubber hose

(which I think is automobile gas line.)

They fire it up and then slowly open the needle valve until steam comes

out the hose.  When it's properly adjusted, you get real hot steam.  If

the valve is opened too much, it starts spitting hot water.

I think Bob Stewart (descended from the sheep-stealing Scottish

clan) built the thing.  In which case, it must be a least a hundred years

old, since Bob is around a hundred and twenty himself.  Actually, nobody

is really sure how old he is, but he was caught last week whistling at a

newspaper picture of a local woman who had just turned 100.  He was making

inappropirate comments about "look at the cute young babe."  Shar took Bob

behind the warehouse and gave him 20 lashes with the cat-o-nine-tails, but

she says that it didn't do much good, 'cause Bob seemed to enjoy it....

Sorry I haven't included a diagram of the steam generator, but the idea of

drawing a coil with ASCII graphics makes me break out in a rash.

Paul.

------------------------------


Address of Siebel Institute

Date:         Sat, 06 Nov 93 19:32:30 +0200

From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL>

Subject:      Address of Siebel Institute

Can someone please send me the address and fax or telephone numbers of Siebel

Institute in Chicago?

Thanks much.

Nir Navot

------------------------------


Nasty Brews

Date: Sat, 06 Nov 1993 18:02:03 -0600 (UTC -06:00)

From: ROWLEY@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Nasty Brews

Hey all,

 I'm taking a course now on the genetics of human behavior, and we

got around to alcoholism last Thursday. It's a four hour seminar, so we

sometimes drift around the topic of the week. One of us mentioned the in-

escapability of drinking alcohol in the field (anthropologists we are), eve

n when what the locals drink may be foul beyond words. I ventured that I'd

drink most anything "homebrewed." Tales from the field then included fermented

milk and cream from no-longer Soviet Georgia (I said I'd drink it, not that

I wouldn't gag), homemade absinthe from Switzerland, fermented kelp from

the Aran Islands. OK, absinthe isn't really nasty, but bitter. I added

scrumpy to the list altho' I've never had any, and I've read of horseflesh

being added to beer in the American Civil War.

 Now then. What other funky, nasty things find their way into our

fermentors around the globe? Anyone ever tried fermented milk? I thought

that was something only seen in the movie "Alien Nation"  What about fish?

I've heard tell that various Eskimo people bury fish for months, then return

to eat it. I guess I'm not looking just for nasty stuff, but also odd things.

Any recipes'd be appreciated, either private e-mail or posting here.

 We were also comparing rates of alcoholism to length of contact with

alcohol. Native Americans are said not have had any alcohol ( I find this

hard to believe since natural fermentation is so common: i forgot a cobbler

on the kitchen sink over the weekend and came back to blackberry melomush

a'bubblin' away). What about Australia? anyone know of aboriginal beer

drinks there? Hawaii? Didn't Cook make beer of breadfruit on landing, which

the Hawaiians thought foul? There was a Polynesian kava drink, but to my

knowledge it wasn't intoxicating. Anyone know?

 Thanks to all who provided info on Belgian Special B. I racked my

Irish red into the secondary a few days ago. Used Guy McConnel's recipe with

a full pound of Special B. Perhaps it was a wee too much. We'll see in about

three weeks how she turned out.

Matt Rowley     Rowley@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu

------------------------------


STRONG Pitching Rates in Lagers

Date: Sun, 7 Nov 93 11:15:00 -0600

From: phil.brushaber@lunatic.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: STRONG Pitching Rates in Lagers

I am here to testify! I have become a believer. I think I now have

an appreciation of what people have been talking about when they

espouse STRONG pitching rates (especially for lagers).

Last week I made a Dopplebock using Wyeast Bavarian. I started

with the foil pack and eventually stepped it up to 1 gallon

of starter. I pitched the whole thing after cooling the wort and

got my usual, fairly strong fermentation after about 10-12 hours.

In 12 days the wort went from 1.080 to 1.030. A couple of days ago

I racked to secondary and saved the yeast slurry at the bottom of

the primary.

Yesterday, I brewed another Dopplebock (wanted to change the

recipe slightly) and used the 1.5 pints of clean, yeast slurry (no

beer, no trub). This time fermentation started in about 3-4 hours.

Again no surprise from what I have read.

Here was the difference. Normally I brew lagers at about 50^-52^

to start and get about a 1-2" head. This time not only was the

onset of fermentation quick, it was extremely vigorous. About a 4-

5" head, actually necessitating a blow off tube on a lager. To

somewhat slow down activity I reduced the fermentation temp to

about 46^. No slow down in activity, still blowing off. I suspect

that this will also be a quick total fermentation, perhaps

something like 10-14 days versus the usual 20-30 I have been

experiencing for lagers.

The opportunity came in brewing with the same yeast a couple of

weeks apart. My guess is that one could not save this slurry very

long even if refrigerated (2 weeks before autolysis?), so unless I

am brewing with the same strain regularly it could make it tough

to achieve the same effect. I feel certain that I am not getting

the same amount of yeast out of even a one gallon starter that I

am out of the slurry from a five gallon batch.

I'm a believer. I now know what "STRONG pitching rates" means. Now

I want to know how I can re-capture the effect if I am not brewing

with the same strain every couple of weeks. Thoughts?

 ... Bubble! Bubble! Bubble! My brew is in trouble!

___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.11

- ----

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| UseNet, ILink, RIME, FIDO, Annex, Intelec, LuciferNet, PlanoNet, and more!|

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------------------------------


Bad off flavor in beers

Date: Sun, 7 Nov 93 15:05:37 -0500

From: <geotex@engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Bad off flavor in beers

Ouch.

Not that I am worrying or anything, but I seem to have

stumbled into my first brewing roadblock.  A few weeks ago,

I posted a message about my Old Ale that was having a vigorous

second ferment about 2 weeks after it stopped fermenting in

my glass primary.  I went ahead and bottled it after it fermented out.

I tasted it this weekend and (not surpisingly) there was a bad

flavor to it.  Furthermore, the stout (which I racked to the same

carboy after the Old Ale was done) had the same off flavor to it when

I bottled yesterday.

The beer has a strong, medicine-like, alcohol-like, flavor to it.

Like someone added some acetone to the secondary.

David Miller's book says this flavor can be attributed to Wild yeast

strains or chlorine reacting with the wort.  I imagine it could also

be some sort of bacteria infection, also.

Has anyone experienced this type of horror before?  I have to track

it down before I can brew again.

I would appreciate any suggestions or comments that might help me

out here.

Thanks!

Alex Ramos

geotex@engin.umich.edu

------------------------------


After bottling, what then?

Date: Sun, 7 Nov 93 15:38:00 -0400

From: barry.miller@som.linet.org (Barry Miller)

Subject: After bottling, what then?

I am new at homebrewing and have my first batch, a Brown Ale in the bottle for

2 weeks and my second batch, a Pale Ale still in the secondary.

Though my Brown Ale has the flavor and characteristics of a brown, it has a

definite "aftertaste", possibly best described as a metallic "bitterness".  The

only metal it has come in contact with is my stainless brewpot so I don't think

that has anything to do with it.

My question is this, and input from the experienced brewers here would be

greatly appreciated by me and I am sure all new brewers.  How does one tell

(can one tell) whether a new batch is lousy or just needs more time in the

bottle?

Thanks,

Barry Miller:  barry.miller@som.linet.org

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------------------------------


use of rye

Date: Sun, 7 Nov 93 18:43:25 PST

From: ng570@andechs.pnl.gov

Subject: use of rye

Darren Aaberge writes:

>Does anyone know of a source of malted rye?  I

>checked my local homebrew shop (Steinbart's in Portland, Oregon), they didn't

>have malted rye but they did have flaked rye.

The only source for malted rye that I know of is The Malt Shop in Cascade, WI

(1-800-235-0026). I haven't tried it yet, but I have a shipment coming this

week and will brew a rye/wheat beer this weekend. One of my favorite beers

from when I lived in Germany was a dunkel rye beer simply called Roggen (rye in

german) and brewed in Schierling (Thurn and Taxis). I will attempt to clone it

by brewing a dunkel weizen and start w/ about 45% rye/20% wheat instead of my

usual 65% wheat. We'll see...

Anyone else have any experience in brewing with rye?

Prost!

Kirk Peterson

ng570@andechs.pnl.gov

------------------------------


Information on Pete's Wicked Ale Recipe

Date: Sun, 7 Nov 1993 18:57:19 -0800

From: royh@netcom.com (Roy Harvey)

Subject: Information on Pete's Wicked Ale Recipe

Dear Homebrew Digest --

Could some provide me a recipe for Pete's Wicked Ale?

Thanks!

Roy Harvey

Mountain View, CA

royh@netcom.com

------------------------------


HBD Morals Police

Date: Sun, 07 Nov 93 20:51:08 EST

From: Bob_McIlvaine@keyfile.com

Subject: HBD Morals Police

Just an observation...

I've seen a lot of people complaining

about submissions to HBD which

have offensive words...

It would seem to my that, to date,

there has been far (far, far) more space

used to complain than was used by the

original comment...sweet irony.

Let's stop wining about

offensive words and talk beer!

------------------------------


It aint easy being green

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 07:51 CST

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: It aint easy being green

 >From: gummitch@teleport.com (Jeff Frane)

 >I only chime in because I don't want anyone to get the impression that

 just because Jack Schmidling is adamant he is also correct.

 Yes, I know how Rush feels.  It's just one of the burdens that the great and

 powerful must carry.  People tend to believe the truth and that is very

 dangerous.

 >There are a good many reasons why someone would choose a counter-flow wort

 chiller over an immersion chiller, that have nothing to do with scale.

 Sounds like a serious challenge....

 >Briefly, my reasons are simple: it's faster....

 I have conceeded that possibility but so is instant coffee.

 > the wort arrives in the fermenter at the correct temperature without being

 unduly exposed to the air

 This, of course, assumes that the kettle is open to the air which in a proper

 installation it is not.  The immersion chiller should be installed in the lid

 to provide a sterile environment while cooling.

 > or sitting around in a kettle while I stir the damn thing....

 Not sure which of the Ten Commandments drives you to "stir the damn thing".

 I turn on my chiller and come back in an hour or several or whenever

 conveninet to transfer the wort.  It makes no difference how long it sits

 there with a tight fitting lid on it.

 >, and <important> the only "stuff" that arrives in the fermenter besides the

 wort is some cold break....

 Now this one troubles me greatly.  What happened to the "hot break"?  I

 respectfully suggest that it is now what you call cold break.  Not sure just

 what you are doing here or how you are drawing off the hot wort but

 everything that is suspended in the solution that can fit through your

 spigot/siphon/line and chiller, will end up in the fermenter.

 For the record, I never said that was bad, just observed that if the wort is

 chilled and settled BEFORE transferring to the fermenter, it will contain

 less "stuff" than if the wort is transfered immediately after the boil.  I

 can't believe you wish to argue that point.

 >, which precipitates out magnificently and from

 then on doesn't pose any problems, because IT WILL NOT BE REABSORBED

 INTO THE WORT.  The wort does not have to be racked off the cold break.

 No arguement.  I have been wanting to ferment a batch on the whole mess

 without even transferring to a fermenter but I don't want to dash anymore

 momilies at the moment.

 >That presentation, by the way, was published in the last volume from the

 AHA, and includes scientific references, instructions on how to build an

 inexpensive counter-flow wort chiller, how to siphon bright wort out of the

 kettle (hint: whirlpool)...

 But what about that evil demon, HSA?

 >But, once again JACK HAS SPOKEN.

 So why bother?  No need for any further discussion.

 > Be advised, however, that in the past Jack has spoken through his hat more

 than once.

 Who, me?

 > More than twice, for that matter.

 Now, that I challenge.

 >  But I can see it now: "Real brewers only brew all-grain."

 YUP!

 >"Real brewers culture their own yeast (although once upon a time liquid

 yeast was for snobs, remember, Jack?)."

 Not sure what those quote marks are supposed to indicate but I never said

 anything like that.  I did not believe the stories about liquid yeast and to

 a large extent, I still do not.  I do however, believe that yeast can be

 eliminated as a source of infection if one cultures one's own yeast.  I sepnt

 a lot of time on the subject and my yeast article has made the process

 understandable to those intimidated by it.  The arguing back and forth was

 part of the learning process but never did I ridicule anyone for not using

 liquid yeast.

 > and now: "Real brewers use an immersion chiller."  Pffft.

 Again, you are taking liberty with the quote marks.

 If anything, I implied that real brewers, i.e. commercial brewers use

 counter-flow chillers, but for reasons primarily based on scale.

 Homebrewers who use counter-flow chillers do it because they like them for

 some reason or other which has little or nothing to do with the quality of

 the beer they produce.

 >From: Steve Seaney <seaney@ie.engr.wisc.edu>

 >Subject:  Re: Plans for Grain Mill

 >Jack's mill is a nice piece of work.  My complaint about the cost

 doesn't counter the craftsmanship of the work. Jack however is making

 a profit in this mill.

 I don't want to beat this one to death but I would like to point out that I

 made the first mill in the spirit of the intrepid experimenter who would not

 take no for an answer.  There simply was nothing available on the market and

 I wanted one.  Having sold my real business and retired, I assure y'all, I

 had no intention of making more than one.    Turns out though, that if you

 build a better mouse trap, people will indeed,  beat a path to your door.

 >I am still collecting ideas for parts of the mill.  If there are any

 interesting ideas for the rollers I'd appreciate a note.   It'd be

 nice to use parts that are available at hardware stores, etc.

 The only roller I found practical is one used in Xerox machines.  It requires

 a bit of ingenuity to make it work, but if you can find them in surplus

 stores, it will save you a lot of grief.

 The conveyer belt ones will work for the passive roller but there is no way

 to put a crank on them.  You can make them from water pipes, rolling pins and

 a host of other stuff for next to nothing and I admire people who do this.

 For those who don't have the time or inclination, well... now there are

 alternatives.

 js

------------------------------


Beer on Airplanes

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 06:57:17 -0700

From: John Adams <j_adams@hpfcjca.sde.hp.com>

Subject: Beer on Airplanes

Last summer I took 3 bottle of homebrew to my friends wedding in Vermont.

I was flying USAir form Denver to Boston.  At baggage checkin I informed

him that I had homebrewed beer in my carry-on and I asked if it would be

alright to take them unboard (I didn't want them to become handled my

baggage handler's).

USAir informed me that it would be alright as long as I wasn't planning on

drinking them onboard.

John Adams

------------------------------


Suggestion for Dion's inexpensive label software

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 10:48:33 EST

From: William Swetnam <wswetnam@capcon.net>

Subject: Suggestion for Dion's inexpensive label software

A few HBDs back, Dion asked for suggestions for an inexpensive software

package with Corel Draw like capabilities.  In Saturday's HBD Mike Keller

suggested draw that was included w/ Windows.  My suggestion, if you can part

with around $89 is Harvard Graphics v2.0 for Windows.  It is a

presentation graphics package which includes a Corel Draw/Adobe Illustrator/

or Aldus Freehand *like* drawing program called F/X.  It CAN have text flow

along a drawn curve.  Draw the curve, draw the line, select them both and

choose a menu option... Done.  The low price is an introductory offer so I

am not sure how long it will last, so check Egghead, CompUSA or you favorite

mail order house...

Will Swetnam

(wswetnam@capcon.net)

------------------------------


College brewers

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 09:29:09 -0600

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: College brewers

Eugene at Swarthmore College writes:

>I've seen _many_ addresses on postings from colleges and universities, but it

>seems most of the postings are written by people a bit older than the average

>college student.

Gee, what makes it seem that way?  Most of the HDB posts come across as at

least thoughtful, and mostly well-informed.  Are these not traits of "college

students"?   Or are these traits found only in those "a bit older"?  And just

how much older is "a bit" anyway?  Sounds to me like RMAMPANT AGE-ISM on the

Swarthmore Campus.  I do hope the administration can do something about this

sad situation  before those infected minds graduate and go forth to perpetuate

myths and sterotypes, to the detriment of all the world.  8-)

 tom leith

 who is "a bit" older than

 the "average" college student

------------------------------


Spent grains = draff

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 10:37:33 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Spent grains = draff

Reading Clive LaPensee's _Historical Companion to House Brewing_ last

night, he claims that the spent grains are called "draff".  I like it.

Right up there with "wort" and "trub".

I haven't finished the book, but it seems to be an interesting

combination of good information and out-and-out misinformation.  It's

the first book aimed at the home-brewer that has an in-depth

discussion of malting your own.

I seem to recall that this book is available through the AHA; I bought

mine from a local HB supplier who had picked up some copies on a trip

to England.

=S

------------------------------


cooling/chilling w/little w

Date: Mon, 08 Nov 1993 11:19:42 +0000 (U)

From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: cooling/chilling w/little w

                      cooling/chilling w/little water?

I've been closely following the chiller wars and, although

all the designs seem fairly straight forward, I have a

question:

Is there another method  that _doesn't_ require gallons

upon gallons of water running from the tap to cool

the wort? I'd rather not keep the local water authorities

in business just to have quickly cooled wort.

Has someone come up with a chiller design that

uses a closed system? Obviously you'd need a pump

to circulate, but perhaps you could use ice as a heat

exchanger for the chiller water? Does anyone know of

a good cheap (and fairly quiet) pump for such an activity?

feel free to post or reply directly...

george tempel

908/544-2673

------------------------------


Need your help!

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 10:58:29 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Need your help!

I'm trying to refine my "double sparge" method.  (Yes, I know this is

a historically used method, but there seems to be very little in the

HB literature that will help me.)  In order to be able to better plan

these batches, I need to do some experiments involving the SG

resulting from various liquor-grain ratios.  The results I get will be

valid for my specific setup, but may vary from the results from other

mashing/sparging setups.

Here's my basic assumption: Given a particular ratio of water to

grain in the mash, if it is fully mixed, and drained without the

addition of any sparge water, then the gravity of the resulting sweet

wort will be essentially constant throughout the draining

(lautering?), and will depend only on the initial water-grain ratio.

The amount you get out depends on the amount of water and grain you

put in, of course, but the gravity shouldn't.  (Initial experimental

evidence is in favor of this hypothesis.)

If I can build a table of water/grain ratio <-> O.G., then I can

easily plan my double sparge batches to get a desired gravity in both

the first runnings batch and the second, sparged batch.

So, I'd like to ask my fellow HBDers for help in this endeavor.

Here's what you'd need to do:

1. Write down the ratio of water to grain when you're ready to start

lautering.  Make sure the mash is uniformly mixed.

2. Take a (temp corrected) SG reading of the first runnings.

3. After a while, but before adding any additional sparge water, take

a second SG reading.

4. If you're willing, drain the entire tun, and record the "final" SG

reading and the volume obtained.

5. Send me e-mail with the following information:

 a. Grain bill

 b. Water/grain ratio (or amount of water added to the mash)

 c. Initial lauter SG

 d. Additional lauter SG readings (and volume of sweet wort

    at that time).

 e. If you know, total amount of sweet wort obtained from first

    runnings.

 f. Your lautering set-up (zapap, copper manifold, easymash, etc.)

I am planning to write this up for (probably) Brewing Techniques, if

the method works as I expect.  Any contributors will be acknowledged,

of course.

=Spencer W. Thomas   |  Info Tech and Networking, B1911 CFOB, 0704

   "Genome Informatician" |  Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu |  313-764-8065, FAX 313-764-4133

------------------------------


THE BEER MACHINE

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 11:10:30 EST

From: taylor@e5sf.hweng.syr.ge.com (taylor)

Subject: THE BEER MACHINE

Has anyone tried or heard off  "THE BEER MACHINE"??

Sold by some place in Seattle.  Sounds sort of different.

Has anyone out there tried this?  I'm wondering if this

process is any good.  THE BEER MACHINE for those who haven't

heard is a 2.5 gallon keg that is a fermenter and a dispenser

all in one.  Just add the beer mix and yeast wait 3-5 days and

put it in the refrigerator for 3-5 days and you have beer.  There is

a small CO2 injecter on top for adding more cabonation.  The injector looks

like those CO2 canisters for pellet guns.  Any info about "THE BEER

MACHINE" available out there??  I'm thinking of buying one to use for

and small keg system.  Brew my own beer and just use it for a dispenser

Todd.........

------------------------------


Help

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 10:46:09 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Help

Please forgive the use of bandwidth. On Monday (11/8/93) I received

e-mail which inadvertently chewed up by our system. I conjecture it

came from Chicago since the Spooky competition was mentioned. It also

had questions about multi-strain yeast cultures. Unfortunately, the

sender could not be identified. Hopefully the later is on HBD, and

if so I would be grateful if they would send another copy of the message.

 -George Fix

------------------------------


Homebrew on IRC

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 09:04:11 -0800 (PST)

From: Gordon Baldwin <gbaldw@usin.com>

Subject: Homebrew on IRC

For those of you with access to the Internet and IRC there has been a

homebrew channel forming most days. Come in and say hi. To get there

join #homebrew.

- --

Gordon Baldwin

gbaldw@usin.com

------------------------------


Homebrew channel on irc

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 08:15:55 -0800 (PST)

From: gbaldw@zaphod.usin.com (Gordon Baldwin)

Subject: Homebrew channel on irc

For those of you with access to the Internet and IRC there is a homebrew

channel that has been forming most days. If you have access come in and

joing #homebrew.

- --

Gordon Baldwin

gbaldw@usin.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1267, 11/09/93

*************************************

-------


Wit Bier recipe clarification and info on pre-packaged Black & Tan

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 12:47:03 EST

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1-1/T09 DTN 225-6171  08-Nov-1993 1243 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Wit Bier recipe clarification and info on pre-packaged Black & Tan

It was pointed out to me that the amount of dried orange peel I posted in

my Wit Bier recipe didn't come out as I intended.  I forgot that some

specialty characters don't come out as intendended when sent out over the net.

Anyway, the amount of dried orange peel I used in my Wit was 1/2 oz.

I mentioned that I had found a pre-mixed, commericially available Black & Tan

but was sketchy on the details.  I saw it again at a local store.  It is

Saranac Black & Tan and is made by the F.X. Matt Brewery.  It is a mix of

stout and lager.  I found it quite tasty.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Isinglass/homegrown plugs

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 12:32 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Isinglass/homegrown plugs

Norman writes (regarding Isinglass):

>with preparation as follows.  Drop the PH of

>6.0 ounces of sterile water to 2.5- 3.0 PH with

>your choice of tartaric, citric or phosphoric

>acid.  dissolve 1/2 teaspoon of isinglass.

>Hold in refrigerator over night.  Do not let

>this material see any temperature above 50

>degrees F.  It will decompose and become

>useless.  Norman has read other recipes and the

The Isinglass that I've found is pre-mixed and I specifically asked the

wholesaler if it needed to be refridgerated.  He said no.  Now, I'm

questioning this because of what Norman wrote.  Could the pre-mixed

isinglass be stabilized somehow or does my distributor need to change

their instructions?

***********************

Tom asks about making hop plugs at home.

How about a *clean* pipe of some kind and a matching "plunger?"  Fill

the pipe with hops, pound the plunger down till the hops compress,

remove the plug.  I haven't tried this, but it seems like it could

work.

Al.

------------------------------


Commercially available hard ciders.

Date: Mon, 08 Nov 93 13:53:09 -0500

From: paul@grammatech.com (Paul Anderson)

Subject: Commercially available hard ciders.

I am conducting a survey of commercially produced hard ciders

available in the US.  Currently I know of the following:

Woodchuck, made in Vermont, two varieties: Amber and Dark.

Woodpecker, imported from the UK

Strongbow, imported from the UK

Dry Blackthorn, imported from the UK

Wyders, made somewhere in the Northwest?

Seven Sisters, made in Idaho.

Does anyone know of any others?  If so, please email me directly.

If at all possible, please include the following information:

Name of cider:

Name and location of brewer:

Where sold:

Price (for what quantity):

Style (dry, sweet, etc):

Carbonation (still, sparkling):

Approx alcohol content (mild -- strong):

Finally, if you got a chance to taste any, let me know what

your opinion was.

BTW, I already asked the same question of cider-digest readers,

but I only got one reply.

Thanks in advance.  If there is sufficient interest, I will

post a summary.

Paul Anderson

paul@grammatech.com

------------------------------


Re: College brewers

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 14:19:13 -0500 (EST)

From: roman@tix.timeplex.com (Daniel Roman)

Subject: Re: College brewers

Eugene:

Since over 75% of students at the average college are under 21 I imagine

that articles on students brewing beer may not contribute favorably to

the homebrewing culture.  Maybe someone at the AHA could comment?

- --

Dan Roman  Internet: roman@tix.timeplex.com (prefered address) //

ccMail: roman_d@timeplex.com  GEnie: D.ROMAN1@genie.geis.com /X/ Only AMIGA!

------------------------------


Kettle Mashing

Date: Mon, 08 Nov 1993 14:56:55 -0500 (EST)

From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: Kettle Mashing

Mike writes:

>  First, sparging rate was poor at lower mash temps (compared to what I

> got with the copper tubing device); in fact, I had a couple of stuck

> sparges. Second, the device didn't have the physical strength to stand up

> to mash-in, i.e., it deformed, and once, broke off while I was stirring in

> the grains. Its rather difficult to solidly clamp a screen around a pipe,

> even when the pipe is outsied-threaded. In Schmidlings's defense, though,

> the device was very simple to fabricate and yielded satisfactory results

> when it did work, though I got no higher than 30 pts extraction. All things

> being equal, the copper tube yielded consistently better results, and,

> though it was a PITA to fabricate, it was well worth it.

In deference to the concept of kettle mashing, I thought I'd add my comments:

My converted SANKE 1/2 BBL. keg has a union welded to the outside.  The 1/2" SS

union has the threads exposed on the inside of the keg so that I can attach a

sparging manifold based built from 3/4" copper pipe.  I use an adapter to neck

the manifold down to 1/2" for connection to the union.  The sparging manifold

is based conceptually on the JSP Easymasher and has numerous slits cut on the

 bottom.

Using this device in my keg gives me the same extraction rate as a false bottom

system and this mash/lauter tun arrangement yields extract in the 28-32 pts/lb

range.  In short, my runoff was clear w/o the use of a screen on the manifold

and I found multi-step infusion mashes to be easy to carry-out.  I find the

manifold fab'ed from 3/4" copper to be quite durable and tolerated stirring

and being "whacked" (brewing jargon) with a wooden paddle.

Finally, IMHO an extraction rate of 30 pts/lb is quite respectable from a

home brewing perspective.

Rob Reed

------------------------------


HopShake/BrewLit/RyeMalt

Date: Mon, 08 Nov 1993 13:52:28 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: HopShake/BrewLit/RyeMalt

Al Lingley                      sez:

axl@cherry-semi.com

>About the only advice I can give is to water daily (soaking), and "shake

those vines at least once a day (beatles)."  I fertilized about every

2 weeks with Miracle Grow.

*   in general shaking/handling can stunt plants growth.  They do

sense "touch" and it causes similar responses as a "wound" in plants

in terms of phytohormone responses (again).  I'm not saying you'll kill

your plants by shaking, just that excessive handling is best avoided.

I had problems with them darned beatles too.  Don't have a good solution,

wish I did.

    Did the beetles all fly away after shaking?  Then what?  They

sneak back on when you turn your back to have a hb!   Hmmmm.

    DOES ANYONE HAVE GOOD METHODS FOR DEALING WITH HOP PESTS/PATHOGENS?

*****

From: robl <ROBL@outside.com>

Subject:      Brewery Liturature

>I'm interested in reading about the breweries that were around in the

pre- and post prohibition area in the United States.  Speciffically

historical accounts of Brewery size, specialty, even examples of their

logos/labels.

*   Twenty Five Years of Brewing (1891) History of American Beer.

    G. Ehret.  TP 573.U7 E3 at Utah State's Library.

    Historical discussion of early brewing -  worldwide stats.

    Neat pictures.

*   References on Beer and Ale: Ancient and Modern Literature (1973)

    I.M. Cooper  TP 570.C66x at USU again.

*Happened across them at the library.  Had the ref.s on hand.  Don't

know where you might find them, but you could- interlibrary loan maybe...?

*****

Has anyone tried this recipe?  Does anyone know`o] a source of malted rye?  I

checked my local homebrew shop (Steinbart's in Portland, Oregon), they didn't

have malted rye but they did have flaked rye.

*   Williams has it.  1800-759-6025.

*********************************** Chus ******************************

/________________________ The COYOTE   SLK6P@cc.usu.edu ______________/

------------------------------


Re: Beer Labels

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 13:25:51 PST

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Re: Beer Labels

>>>>> On 8 Nov 93 15:38:07-0500, uunet!sprint.sprint.com!JOHN.L.HALE said:

P1-Message-Id: US*TELEMAIL;OGJD-5705-8665/27

John> I saw your post in a Homebrew Digest last week concerning

John> software to make beer labels.  I'm also interested in making

John> labels on a PC with a laser printer. If you get some useful

John> replies I'd appreciate it if you could summarize and post to the

John> HBD.  I have the feeling that there isn't a lot of good

John> information on this topic.

Basically, everything people Emailed to me has been posted, but since

I get rec.crafts.brewing and a lot of readers of HBD don't, here is

the summary.

My criteria were (in order of importance):

cost (free is preferable)

DOS or MS Windows (X Windows acceptable, but not preferred)

able to fit text into a defined shape (like a banner)

Suggestions have been:

 Arts and Letters - will do it all, but list price is $699

 Harvard Graphics - will do most, but list price is $89

 MS Windows Paint Program - free with Windows, but is such

  a wimp, I used another option

 Corel Draw - will do it all, but list price $399

 xfig - will do all expect text fitting, is free, but will

  not run on my PC, thereby requiring I do the

  label design at work.

------------------------------


Christmas is just two cases away!

Date: Mon, 08 Nov 93 13:31:03 PST

From: "Beauchamp, Tim" <tbeaucha@spco.com>

Subject: Christmas is just two cases away!

As the holiday roar up and the mercury is slowly dropping, I

find myself in the mood for a nice christmas ale or wassel.

Anyone out there with some good spice ale recipe's that they

have had success with?  The last one I tried ended up with

so much nutmeg and cloves that I felt like I could make a

pretty good cider by steeping the bottle caps afterwards.

Virtually (if not logically)

Tim Beauchamp         |

tbeaucha@netcom.com   |  Finger for PGP Public Key

------------------------------


Re: Beer Labels

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 13:37:32 PST

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Re: Beer Labels

Well I found a mistake in what I said.

dion> Suggestions have been:

dion>

dion>  Arts and Letters - will do it all, but list price is $699

dion>  Harvard Graphics - will do most, but list price is $89

I called and found that the price of $89 on Harvard Graphics is only

if you are upgrading.  Otherwise, it is $237.

------------------------------


keg carbonation

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 15:11:29 PST

From: byars@mdd.comm.mot.com (David A. Byars)

Subject: keg carbonation

>Path: mdisea!not-for-mail

>From: byars@mdd.comm.mot.com (David A. Byars)

>Newsgroups: rec.crafts.brewing

>Subject: keg carbonation

>Date: 8 Nov 1993 09:18:50 -0800

>Organization: Motorola - Wireless Data Group; Seattle, WA

>Lines: 11

>Distribution: na

>Message-ID: <2blv1q$aqv@bugsbunny.mdd.comm.mot.com>

>NNTP-Posting-Host: bugsbunny.mdd.comm.mot.com

I just received a kegging system for my birthday(Cheers to my wife!) The

system is a 7.75 gallon golden gate keg and a 10 lb. co2 bottle. I kegged

a 5 gallon batch and am force carbonating it for a party. My question is:

What are the pros and cons of force carbonation vs. priming?

I understand that force carbonation is faster, but has anyone noticed any

differences in taste? C'mon keggers, give me the wealth of your experience.

Thanks,

dB

------------------------------


sm-ALL Grain/  Sake

Date: Mon, 08 Nov 1993 15:36:34 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: sm-ALL Grain/  Sake

********

taylor@e5sf.hweng.syr.ge.com   Todd:

 wants to make all grain beer with a 3-3.5 boil pot?  Don't think so.

 > I don't want to spend alot of $$ for equipment until I know what I'm doing.

 Or should I just make a 3 gallon batch to start with?

 *   "If you make it, you can brew. "

I think you're dreamin' to try to make a 5 gallon batch with a 3 gallon

boil pot.  You'd need MORE than the volume to boil: i.e. 6 gallons for a

5 gallon batch. Unless you want thin beer!  There are cheap pots out there.

Someone's going to scream at this....but...Get yourself a cheap canning pot

for $5-$20.  Aluminum (cringe...) or ceramic coated steel. Check surplus

stores. They are out there.  Used resturaunt equipment stores can be good 2.

 >How much grain would I use if I can add water to the wort later?

*Can't do that.  You want the water to go THRU the grain. i.e. get sugars.

 >Would I use enough grain for a 5 gallon batch up-front?  Which is ?

 What would the brewer community re"command" I do?

*You want on the order of 6-10# base malt (i.e. pale, munich, vienna..etc)

for 5 gallons.  Depending on how stron you want your brew.

Under your circumstances I would suggest a partial mash. Learn the process

on a smaller scale, then find yourself a bigger pot. There are advantages

to a full volume boil even for the extract brewer- read "hop extraction"

*An example:  Mash 4 # pale malt + adjunct grains (e.g. xtal) and

sparge up to your 3 gallons.  Add several pounds of dry malt extract, or

liquid male (oops...I mean malt) extract. Boil...cool...add to carboy,

bring up volume.  Oh....hop the hell out of it of course!  '^/

> >How much grain should be used per gallon of water?

* See above.  Depends on what you want. American light, or Barley Wine.

>What temp is good in the lauter tun and for how long?

I realize this info is availible in books but I don't have mine

a neighbor borrowed it?  I hope I understand the  process.........thanks

 * Biggest suggestion I can make is...GET YOUR BOOK BACK!!!  You'll

appreciate having it (if it's any good!).  Borrow his boil pot while

you're at it :),   Maybe a couple homebrews, his wife if she's cute...nyuck.

Basics:  Mash in- 50 deg C.  15 min, raise to 60-65 deg C for 1 hour.

Mash-out at 70 deg C, sparge.  Iodine testing is worthwhile until you

have a system down that works for you.  What are you sparging with?

Mashing in?  You want to maintain a constant temperature.

*******

From: Bryan Kornreich <bkornrei@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu>

Subject: sake-brewing

> There is a sake yeast.  I believe it's Wyeast, or maybe the other liquid

yeast manufacturer. (name???)  I would think its a form of a wine yeast.

The thing you need to do is mash the rice. You can't ferment straight

rice.  There are rice extracts on the market (Williams carries one).

You could use some of the snail spit enzyme mix for your mash (commercial

amylase).  I've never done it.  Never even tried sake, just heard "ugh"'s

about the taste.  But hey-  whatever tickles your pickle.

**********************************************************************

|~|~|~|~|~|~|  John (The Coyote) Wyllie SLK6P@cc.usu.edu |~|~|~|~|~|~|

/***** As Long as he's got 8 fingers and toes he's ok by me HJS *****/

------------------------------


HopShake/BrewLit/RyeMalt

Date: Mon, 08 Nov 1993 15:40:10 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: HopShake/BrewLit/RyeMalt

 ********

 tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com asked about making:  Hop Plugs

 *Question:  WHY?

Pack 'em in CO2 purged mason jars, and store in a freezer.  Making

plugs will damage the cones, and probably knock loose a bunch of

lupulin crystals. One of the BIG advantages of homegrown hops is

the freshness, and the ability to control exactly what kind of

treatment they experience.

 Ok: I'll concede. Smaller space, easier measurement. eh.....

 Idea for making them (I've done this with other herbs in the past)

Get a tube- e.g. pvc pipe, and a plunger which will fit tightly.

Maybe a dowel that will fit the ID of the tube. Stuff the length

of tube with cones, then mash them down. You could hammer it or make

a press using a car jack if you're so inclined. Pull the plug, and store.

If you selected a proper length of tubing you could use it as a measure

of the cones-  i.e. make 1 oz plugs.  Cones are not "pre-processed" as

are pellets- i.e. not chopped up first. If you have a vacuum bag sealer

you could put rows of them in bags, and stash away into months worth for

longer term storage.  Personally, I'm not going to do it with mine.

I have a spare fridge in my basement where my kegs and hops reside.

It is a dedicated fridge, and I'm quite content with that.  Besides its

on the tenants electric bill, so do I worry?

********

 David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

 Subject: Hop Vines & extract storage

 >I believe that the roots store many good plant things--such as

chlorophylls, sugars etc--for their winter slumbers.

*   Um...er...chlorophyll in roots? Not likely.  It's that stuff that makes

leaves green.  Sucks sunlight and turns it into useful energy- stored in

sugars/starches...etc.  (also makes leaves yellow/red in fall:)  Most plant

roots don't see too much sunlight.  Try growing a plant in the dark and

see what color it is.  Not green!  Chlorophyll is produced in response to

sunlight.  BUT roots do store nutrients.  Their MAIN ROLE is uptake of

nutrients from the soil and WATER.  Desiduous plants generally don't

photosynthesize in the winter months. They go dormant.

 >When leaves and vines wither, these elements flow to the roots and await

 the spring. If you do any leaf or vine cutting, as for any perennial, wait

 till they get all brown and dry before removing...or even wait till spring.

 *   WELL....there is some truth in that...but...

As a plant senesces (dies) a number of phytohormones are produced and

transported through the plant.  Fruit ripening is a response to these

phytohormones (giberillic acid, ethylene for example).  But there are

some negative shock responses which could occur due to frost damage.

may do better to clip the vine at ground level, then add some good

fertilizer (a good reason to have a healthy compost of grains!) into the

surface soil.  DON't overdo it- expecially w/ chemical fertilizers. Read the

directions! Follow them too!  Use this approach rather than wait for

nutrients to flow down into the roots.  The vines have already devoted

the majority of their goodness in producing those fine fragrant buds

we cherish so.  By the time the plant is wilting it is time to give up

the ghost and separate the vine from the root.  The rhizome will continue

to take up and store nutrients, so it is important to not treat the plant

as being dead after the cones are harvested. Continue watering until

the fall wet-up, or the ground goes cold and hard.  You don't want the

soil soaking when it freezes, but you also don't want the roots to

starve and dry up before they go dormant. Feed them, cover with a good

layer of mulch (peat moss, bark chips...your choice) and call it a

season.  I do not think leaving the vine intact through the winter is

going to do any good, except the risk of fungal infections, or

overwintering of pests in detrital matter.

Keep in mind- part of the root's job is to supply water and nutrients to

the entirety of the vine. After the vine is finished there has to be an

advantage is separation- allowing root nutrients to stay down in the

rhizosphere and be stored for the next seasons growth.

Come spring, mulch in some more compost and keep covered from spring

frosts as the new shoots start up.

NOTE: I have studied plant growth and phytopathology.  I am not an expert,

nor claim to be.  I planted rhizomes this past spring so this is my

first winter to deal with (for my hops). I have read Beach's book, and

agree with much of what he covers. I have gardened fairly extensively

for many years, and like to think my thumbs have a good color tone to

them.  For a first year's growth I felt I had a pretty decent harvest

at least from the cascade. My plants generally treat me quite well, and

I like to return the favor.  Take my words as you will...just don't ask

me anything about distilling. I don't discuss the subject anymore! :(

**********************************************************************

|~|~|~|~|~|~|  John (The Coyote) Wyllie SLK6P@cc.usu.edu |~|~|~|~|~|~|

/***** As Long as he's got 8 fingers and toes he's ok by me HJS *****/

------------------------------


Counter Pressure Fillers - What am I doing wrong?

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 15:23:56 PST

From: John McCaffrey <johnmc@brooktree.com>

Subject: Counter Pressure Fillers - What am I doing wrong?

I've got the Braukunst Counter-Pressure Bottle Filler which, as far as I

can tell, is just like the other CPBF's (Foxx, etc.).  I've followed the

directions (sanitize bottles, chill bottles, purge, fill, cap) and I

still get way too much foam.  The best I can do is fill a bottle with

about 2-4 inches of headspace (after the foam dies down).

Obviously, I'm doing something wrong...what is it?

John McCaffrey

johnmc@brooktree.com

------------------------------


Yeast not starting (sniff)

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 18:18:00 -0500

From: john.fix@hardgood.com (John Fix)

Subject: Yeast not starting (sniff)

I'm using Wyeast Munich yeast, and started the packet on Saturday AM.

By evening, the packet was fully expanded (it was packed 11/3, so it was

VERY fresh).  Anyway, I boiled up one pint of water and a cup of DME,

and pitched the yeast when the wort had cooled to about 80F... I

couldn't find my old guidelines for making a yeast starter solutions, so

I winged it.

Now, it's two days later, and the airlock is still quiet... there was

some surface activity (i.e. the beginnings of yeast activity) and the

airlock looked like it was getting ready to bubble, but basically it has

done nothing.  In the past, I've had bubbles from the airlock, and lots

of foam in the bottle.  I checked this am in my older recipes, and it

looks like I used 32 oz of water last time.... could that be the

problem (i.e. the S.G of the starter is too high for the yeast?).

Thanks!

 -= John =-

- ----

* Hardgoods East PCBoard BBS - Internet and Intelec Connections - Hardware

* Retailers Conference - Home Brewing Specific Files and Conferences & More!

* (914) 961-8749 HST & (914) 961-8590 HST/Dual Standard

------------------------------


Re: Making plugs from homegrown hops

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 21:43 EST

From: tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)

Subject: Re: Making plugs from homegrown hops

Norm Hardy commented in HBD #1266:

> Tom Kaltenbach says:

> >   The recent Hops FAQ has got me wondering again about hop plugs.  For

> >those of you who are not familiar with them, they consist of dried whole

> >hops, compressed into a 1-inch diameter cylinder that's 3 or 4 inches long.

> >The plugs are segmented so that it is easy to break off smaller chunks.

>

> This either misleading or Tom has seen some plugs I haven't seen.  The

> standard plugs come in 0.5 oz. bungs, approx. 1" in diameter, approx. 0.5"

> long.  They are stacked, usually, in two columns of 5 (I think), packaged

> in foil for a total weight of 5 oz.  My point is that you "break" off a

> known quantity of 0.5 oz of hops, not just some unknown "smaller chunk".

I stand corrected.  I used plugs once a few years back, and my memory could

be a little fuzzy.  (It couldn't be the homebrew, could it?  8-)  My

impression was that the 0.5 oz plugs were joined together (i.e. segmented

cylinder) but that was probably just the way they were vacuum-packed in

foil as Norm suggests.

However, Norm's observation means the manufacture of hop plugs would be even

simpler -- has anybody tried it?  Or does anybody know how hop plugs are

manufactured commercially?

Tom Kaltenbach

Rochester, New York, USA

tom@kalten.bach1.sai.com

------------------------------


Re: Hop Back effect

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 20:04:28 PST

From: Martin Wilde <Martin_Wilde@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: Re: Hop Back effect

Text item: Text_3

In HBD 1264 Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu writes:

> This morning, while I was looking for something else, I found a

>relevant comment from Donald O'Connor, who wrote:

>> If you have any doubt about the incredibly vast difference

>> of hop aroma and flavor betwenn using the same type of hop in (I

believe)

>> nearly equal amounts in two different ways, just compare Sierra

Nevada

>> Pale Ale and Anchor Liberty Ale.  Both use Cascade finishing hops.

>> One is dry-hopped and the other uses a hop back.

This is incorrect, I just visited Sierra Nevada a month ago.  They do

not use a hop back or dry hop the Pale Ale.  They just put Cascade hops

in at the end of the boil.  They do however dry hop the Bigfoot.

------------------------------


Extract Storage

Date:         Mon, 08 Nov 93 22:18:34 CST

From: Darren Evans-Young <DARREN@UA1VM.UA.EDU>

Subject:      Extract Storage

>Moral: Don't leave it 13 years in a bag in a cardboard drum.

>

>Paul Slater

>gbgg5ttg@ibmmail.com

I made a beer last month from a 2 year old bag of William's Australian

DME that had solidified into a 5 lb bag of toffee.  I brought 5 gals

of water to a boil and spent the next hour trying to get that sucker

to dissolve.  It finally did.  Since I was expecting sh*t beer, I didn't

write down anything like hop additions, yeast, etc.  Well, the beer came

out great and I'd like to reproduce it, but, so much for keeping records.

Darren

------------------------------


Humour/All-grain questions

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 8:57:50 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Humour/All-grain questions

I appreciate Jack's chiller comments, even if I don't appreciate his "humor".

I guess your style of fun doesn't come across over the Internet, Jack.  I know

you won't do this, but you could always use the obligatory smiley-face to

indicate you are chain-yanking.  They look like this :-).  They are many

variations...

**

Mark Bunster asks:

> Neophyte's question, if not adequately covered in the FAQ: what is the

 benefit of mashing, what's>  > generally involved, and what distinguishes a

 mash-out from a normal mash?

Mashing gives the brewer control (or not) over the types of fermentables and

non-fermentables in the wort.  By changing the mash temperature, you can get a

more or less fermentable wort.  There are different ways to mash which provide

different flavor profiles, etc.  You can buy lots of different types of malt so

your grain bill can have an infinite number of variations.  The debate rages

whether this is good:  Tastes Great!  Less Fun!  More Control!  More Time!

More Fun!  Less Control!  Costs Less!  More Equipment!  etc.

As far as what's involved, you should get a book like The Complete Handbook of

Homebrewing by Miller.  Or just read the HBD for the next 6 months.  A mash-out

is the final step of the mash, where the temperature is raised (a debatable

step in this forum).  It is just one of several steps for all-grain brewing.

Get the book.

**

Steve Tollefsrud writes:

>      can add up. How much grain is required to make 5 gallons

      of all-grain (say OG 1050) and what is the typical cost

      of the grain ($ or Brit. lbs)?

I get fairly poor yields with my all-grain beers, compared to other reports,

but it is 25 pts/pound/gallon.  Use this as your low end, and you come up with

10 pounds of grain needed.  I suspect you are shipping about 7 lbs. of extract

for the same beer right now.

>      to do all-grain brew. With a feisty two year old running

      around the house, I have even less time than before. Are

      we talking half a day or a couple of hours?

We're talking about 5 hours for me, but you need not be present to win.  At

least for the mash, you can go do other things while the enzymes are working

their magic.  The hardest part for you (and me) is keeping the 2 year old out

of it.

>      If I were to buy one book that details the equipment and

      procedures, what is the best one to order? Why?

      (publisher please)

Buy "The Complete Handbook of Homebrewing" by Miller.  I don't have my copy

with, perhaps someone else can provide the ISBN, publisher, etc.

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


BREWING ORGANS

Date: Tue, 9 Nov 93 07:52 CST

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: BREWING ORGANS

 >From: Mike Peckar  05-Nov-1993 1252 <m_peckar@cscma.ENET.dec.com>

 >Subject: SS Keg Conversion, or How I learned to Love All-Grain.

 Nice article.  With a few minor variations, it is pretty much my kind of

 brewing.  It sounds complicated but the bottom line is one can jump into all

 grain brewing with a single piece of equipment.

 I can't however, resist the urge to beg authors to have the courtesy of

 serializing long articles instead of hogging half of the Digest.  Today makes

 the need for this even more obvious with two of them hogging almost all of

 it.  I for one enjoy serials.  Short articles hold my attention far better

 than long ones.

 >  Comments: You can substitute a faucet with the threaded nipple "built

             in", i.e. the faucet has an outside-threaded extension.

             The problem with these is that there is no flange for flush

             mounting against the outside of the keg. Ideal would be a

             faucet with a flush-mount flange and a built-in nipple extension

             with outside threads. I didn't bother asking for one at the

             plumbing supply shop since I had already bought the above parts.

 The part you are looking for is called an "air cock".  It has a flange to

 seat against the outside of the kettle and a male thread that passes through

 it for easy atttachment to the female on the inside.  They come in brass and

 range from 1/8" to 1/2" pipe sizes.

 >Another important note. At first, I built an easymasher ala Schmidling,

 though I prefered to call it a "screen penis". I had a couple problems with

 this. First, sparging rate was poor at lower mash temps (compared to what I

 got with the copper tubing device); in fact, I had a couple of stuck

 sparges.

 Not sure what you mean by lower temps or why you had this problem but it does

 not sound exactly like my design or the results experienced or reported.

 > Second, the device didn't have the physical strength to stand up

 to mash-in, i.e., it deformed, and once, broke off while I was stirring in

 the grains.

 Not sure what deformed or broke but again, I suspect it has something to do

 with the design.  Mine is a SS screen rolled into a 3/8" diameter tube and is

 as stiff as the 3/8" copper tubing it is clamped to.  There is no way it will

 be deformed by stirring.  If you made the assumption that big is better, you

 may have a problem if it was excessivley long.  Mine is only 6 inches long

 and only 4 inches protrude from the end of the copper tubing.

 > Its rather difficult to solidly clamp a screen around a pipe,

 even when the pipe is outsied-threaded.

 Mine uses a SS hose clamp and that problem has never occurred on mine nor has

 it been reported with hundreds I have sold.  There are, BTW, no threads on

 the pipe where the screen is clamped to it.  Possibly, it is the fact that I

 use copper tubing and the SS screen digs into it firmly when the clamp is

 tightened.  This might not be the case with steel pipe.

 > In Schmidlings's defense, though, the device was very simple to fabricate

 and yielded satisfactory results when it did work, though I got no higher

 than 30 pts extraction.

 I suspect lots of people would be delighted with yields like that and you are

 in the range where technique and measurement error cloud the issue.

 js

------------------------------


Yeast blends

Date: 9 Nov 93 15:04:20 GMT

From: GANDE@slims.attmail.com

Subject: Yeast blends

I've been toying with the idea of blending yeast strains to get

'novel' results.  I have a passion for 1056 and pale ales, but would

like to introduce another layer of complexity.  My plan is to make a

starter with both Wyeast 1056 and 1007 (American Ale and German Ale)

 - then brew the house Pale.

Is there a yeast guru on the net that would care to offer comments on

this process? Is there any way to get repeatable results with this

technique?

TIA...Glenn

+----------------------------------+

| Internet: gande@slims.attmail.com|

| Glenn Anderson                   |

| Manager, Telecom. Facilities     |

| Sun Life of Canada               |

+----------------------------------+

------------------------------


Re: BATF outlaws steam injection

Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 15:39:11 +0000 (GMT)

From: D S Draper <D.S.Draper@bristol.ac.uk>

Subject: Re: BATF outlaws steam injection

Paul deArmond's contribution to HBD 1267 of the AP article, FEDS SEIZE

HOMEBREW BOMB FACTORY, was most welcome.  The article was factual in every

detail, with only one exception.  Once again, it is a sad case of

misquoting by the press.  The unfortunate but guilty subject of the raid,

Mr. Poopazian, was misquoted when he was screaming and rolling around on

the floor.  He did NOT say "It's only hops", he said "Relax...don't

worry...have a homebrew!"

I trust that when this show of CUPS is aired, this will be made clear.

Cheers, Dave in Bristol (for another 8 weeks or so)

------------------------------


greenplug

Date: Tue, 9 Nov 93 08:00:23 PST

From: tima@wv.MENTORG.COM (Tim Anderson)

Subject: greenplug


Greenplug

Date: Fri, 5 Nov 93 13:16:06 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Greenplug

Ulick Stafford writes:

>I saw this gadget that may be of interest to homebrewers like me who have many

>fridges and freezers.  This device uses computer circuitry to work out how

>much electricity is actually needed to keep a motor running (it cuts up

>the sine wave in some way - ask an electrical power engineer).  And not

>only does it save around 25-33% of electricity, the motor runs more smoothly

>as well (admittedly this was the demonstration motor with no load), and there

>is surge and brown out protection.  It was $31 in Builders' Square.  I saw a

>similar device in a yuppy environmental catalog at home (amazing the junk mail

>fall out from certain magazine subscriptions!) and the price was around $80.

The recent Consumer Reports has a short article on these.  The upshot is that

they help on old, inefficient refrigerators, but much less than claimed.  And

on newer, more efficient models, the savings is squat.

tim

------------------------------


Brewing books

Date: Tue, 09 Nov 93 11:01:11 EST

From: gbgg5tt5@ibmmail.COM

Subject: Brewing books

- ----------------------- Mail item text follows ---------------

To: I1010141--IBMMAIL  Homebrew Digest su

From: Paul Slater

Subject: Brewing books

Steven Tollefsrud asks for details of a good book. I think the following is

excellent, presenting information clearly and concisely without too much

jargon, but with enough information on home brewing to create excellent

beer.

Title:        Home Brewing, The CAMRA guide

Author:       Graham Wheeler

Publisher:    ALMA books, a subsidiary of CAMRA UK (CAMpaign for Real Ale)

ISBN:         1-85249-107-8

Pages:        180

Price:        64.99 (pounds sterling) (1991 price)

The following chapter headings will give some idea of the depth of information

contained in this book:

History of traditional and commercial brewing; brewing methods; brewing

equipment; malt/malt extract/sugar; hops; yeast; water and water treatment;

mashing and sparging; boiling and cooling; fermentation; finishing;

cleanliness and sterilisation; recipe formulation; malt extract beers;

mashed beers; lager; other brewing techniques; problems; making measurements;

glossary; index.

I would heartily recommend it.

Paul Slater

gbgg5tt5@ibmmail.com

------------------------------


Hot Break/Hops in CF Chiller

Date: Tue, 09 Nov 1993 11:02:12 -0500 (EST)

From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: Hot Break/Hops in CF Chiller

Jack writes regarding use of a CF chiller:

>  Now this one troubles me greatly.  What happened to the "hot break"?  I

>  respectfully suggest that it is now what you call cold break.  Not sure just

>  what you are doing here or how you are drawing off the hot wort but

>  everything that is suspended in the solution that can fit through your

>  spigot/siphon/line and chiller, will end up in the fermenter.

I wanted to comment that my boiler has a spigot several inches above the

bottom of the kettle.  My CF chiller attaches to the spigot via a

flare fitting.  Twelve to fifteen minutes after the boil is concluded, I

begin runoff through the heat exchanger.  By this time, hops and hot break

have settled below the level of the spigot and are not drawn into the runoff.

The price paid is the loss of a few quarts bitter wort: this can be reclaimed

and canned for use as starters if one is so inclined.

Rob Reed

------------------------------


Brewpubs in/near Ithaca, NY

Date: Tue, 09 Nov 93 11:46:59 EST

From: gorman@aol.com

Subject: Brewpubs in/near Ithaca, NY

HBD Land,

Any info on brewpubs in or near Ithaca, NY?

Thanks in advance,

Bill Gorman

------------------------------


BSness/Low Alpha Hops/Chilling Out/Lawsuit!

Date: Tue, 9 Nov 93 9:54:24 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: BSness/Low Alpha Hops/Chilling Out/Lawsuit!

It appears that someone has been offended by recent HBD discussions.  So lets

all stick to business now, and don't offend anyone, and make sure we don't get

too crude and vulgar.  As far as I can tell, this is the first post by this

particular HBD "participant"; which isn't exactly pushing the forum in a

positive direction.  Now that is vulgar.

**

Alan in Austin asks for clarification:

>In HBD #1264, George Fix discusses the advantages of low alpha hops over

high alpha hops, using lots of formulas & stuff I got lost over.  But

intially he states he feels that low alpha hops impart a cleaner & more

mellow taste.  So, as a clarification, should larger amounts of low alpha

hops be substituted for high alpha hops to impart these same qualities, or

would I be defeating the purpose?  What about using three times as much

2.5% hops over 7.5% hops to make a Sierra Nevada clone, for example?

I think I can answer this one, and add some personal experience.  Yes, you

should use more of the lower alpha hops to achieve the same bitterness as less

of the high alpha hops.  As long as you add the lower alpha hops at the same

boil times as you would have added the higher alpha hops, you will in theory,

have the same amount of bitterness.  It will just be a "cleaner", more pleasant

bitterness.

>From personal experience, I brewed a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone with low

alpha hops.  SNPA uses Perle hops for bittering, in the 7 - 9.5% AA range.  I

used Mt. Hood for bittering, at 3.9% AA.  Now I don't know how these two hops

do in Dr. Fix's "ratio test" but I can say that my "clone" was a far superior

beer to the original.  It was very close in all respects, but the hopping I did

was quite an improvement.  This is the real joy of homebrewing.

**

George Tempel asks:

>Is there another method  that _doesn't_ require gallons

upon gallons of water running from the tap to cool

the wort? I'd rather not keep the local water authorities

in business just to have quickly cooled wort.

Lots of people use ice in one way or another, but I suspect that you will spend

more $$s on electricity (and wear and tear) to run your freezer, than you will

on the water.  I try to conserve, but you can't squeeze blood from a turnip (or

something like that).

**

BTW, Jack's "easymasher" is described in at least one back issue of Zymurgy.  I

don't know who "invented" it first, but it sure would be fun to see the look on

the judge's face in court.  "It's a piece of pipe with window screen stuck on

the end?"  "Mash?  Hot liquor?  Loitering?  Well, all that's illegal; you

should be in criminal court, not civil court!"  "You are suing for how much?"

"Well, I've seen a lot stranger things come through my courtroom, I guess."

Norm

------------------------------


Re: Wort Chillers, Redux

Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 08:59:18 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@teleport.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: Wort Chillers, Redux

Without trying to quote from Jack's posting responding to my posting...

Jack, I know the difference between hot and cold breaks -- they happen

under different circumstances.  I leave my hot break behind in the

kettle because at the end of the boil I create a whirlpool (no problem

with HSA, because I don't splash), and then draw the clear (very clear)

wort off from *around* the mountain of protein and hop debris on the

bottom of the kettle.  The cold break is create as the wort passes

through the chiller, and is deposited in the fermenter.

'Nuff said.  My main point is not that my system is inherently the best

- -- on the contrary, my point is that there are a lot of good reasons for

using a counterflow chiller and that dogmatism has no place in brewing.

Keep an open mind, folks.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


Sending beer through the post

Date: Tue, 09 Nov 93 11:59:51 EST

From: gbgg5tt5@ibmmail.COM

Subject: Sending beer through the post

- ----------------------- Mail item text follows ---------------

To: I1010141--IBMMAIL  Homebrew Digest su

From: Paul Slater

Subject: Sending beer through the post

   I want to send some beer overland (and sea) from UK to France.

Does anyone have any recommendations for doing this, or reasons for

not doing it? I am only going to send a couple of bottles.

Paul Slater

gbgg5tt5@ibmmail.com

------------------------------


Siphon Wonder/Trub Effect

Date: 9 Nov 1993 12:27:54 -0500

From: "Stephen Schember" <stephen_schember@terc.edu>

Subject: Siphon Wonder/Trub Effect

                      Subject:                              Time:  11:52 AM

  OFFICE MEMO         Siphon Wonder/Trub Effect             Date:  11/9/93

I'm tempted by the recurring add in Zymmurgy to purchase the "Siphon Wonder from

Down Under"(bla,bla,bla standard disclaimer).  It's a pain in the neck to get a

sterile siphon going even with a hose clip. I'd also like to use something like

this to recirculate cold water through my immersion chiller insead of wasting

tap water. Has any one had any good/bad experiences with this product? Would the

flow be stong enough to cool 5.5 gallons of wort with any expedience ? Can I run

a recirculating cooling system out of one bucket with ice water in it ? Will

Underdog survive ?

 -I remember reading somewhere in the NCJHB that trub inhibited ester production

and fermentation but because of scale these things had little effect on the

homebrewer. Will racking the beer off of irish moss settled trub signifigantly

increase the amout of esters in an ale ? What will

increase ester, production beside high gravity, warmer fermentaions, and ester

happy yeast? Anything else?

 -Oh yeah and best of trip award to Capital City Brewing Co.'s Alt for

DC/Baltimore trip. Any really good Alt making tips also appreciated.

 -thanks

Steve

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1268, 11/10/93

*************************************

-------


need help with water chem

Date:   Tue, 9 Nov 1993 11:08:00 -0500

From: carlo.fusco@canrem.com (Carlo Fusco)

Subject: need help with water chem

Hello Everyone,

After reading someone elses post about water chemistry I decided to look

into my own water supply and it generated 2 questions. I am now hoping

that net wisdom will shed some light on how to fix my problems.

Water parameters

York Region, Ontario, Canada

hardness   160

pH         8.0

Ca   38 ppm

Cl   4  ppm

Mg   16 ppm

K    1  ppm

SiO2 13 ppm

Na   22 ppm

Fe   1  ppm

They could not provide me with Bi/carbonate levels only hardness measured

as calcium carbonate. Everything else is in trace levels.

Question #1

Is 1 ppm Fe to high? Miller states that it gives a metallic flavour, adds

haze and hampers yeast activity. I have noticed that since I moved and

switched to LabYeast from Wyeast that my fermentations are considerably

longer and less vigourous, sometimes 4X longer.

[note: Wyeast is no longer available where I am.]

Miller states that Iron is not wanted in brew water. How do I remove

excess Iron?

Question #2

Since they could not provide me with the bi/carbonate concentrations, I

would have to figure them out. Using standard analytical methods I can

calulate how much hardness is contributed by Ca, Mg, Fe, and Mn [the key

contributers of hardnes]. Did I figure this out correctly?

hardness = 38 ppm Ca * 2.497 + 16 ppm Mg * 4.116 + 1 ppm Fe * 1.792

               + 0 ppm Mn * 1.822

Ca contributes 94.89 ppm hardness as Calcium Carbonate

Mg contributes 65.86 ppm hardness as Calcium Carbonate

Fe contributes 1.792 ppm hardness as Calcium Carbonate

Total calculated hardness is 162.5 ppm, which is pretty close to the 160

ppm reported.

Now assuming that all bi/carbonate is only associated with Ca and it is

all removed by boiling as outlined in Miller. I should then have 0 ppm Ca

left in the water and about 67 ppm bi/carbonate left in the brew water.

Will the addition of Gypsum prior to boiling remove the remaining

bi/carbonate and reintroduce Ca to the brew water? How much Gypsum? Will

the sulfate and sodium conflict and cause a harshness described by Miller?

Will Mg and Fe react like Ca and percipitate out after boiling? If so,

will my Iron/hard water problem be fixed my simply boiling all brew water

before using it.

Thanks for your help

Carlo  <carlo.fusco@canrem.com>

- ---

 * Freddie 1.2.5 * The first full-featured QWK reader for the Mac.

------------------------------


Beer in Kuwait?

Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 09:46:55 -0800 (PST)

From: "Mark S. Nelson" <mnelson@eis.calstate.edu>

Subject: Beer in Kuwait?

I didn't know they allowed beer in Kuwait, or do they?  My suggestion is

to go across to Bahrain.  The beer prices and selection aren't the

greatest, but it's legal.

- --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.

Mark S. Nelson      nelsonm@axe.humboldt.edu      mnelson@eis.calstate.edu

------------------------------


siphoning hot wort?

Date: Tue, 09 Nov 1993 14:31:05 +0000 (U)

From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: siphoning hot wort?

                      siphoning hot wort?

This may be a FAQ, but the title says it all: how does one

siphon hot wort into the primary?

my first brew starts this weekend...

george

908/544-2673

------------------------------


Beer Dandruff

Date: Tue, 9 Nov 93 13:02 CST

From: fjdobner@ihlpa.att.com

Subject: Beer Dandruff

I remember about a half year ago someone posted their experience in using

a starter for their yeast and finding rice-like size pieces of something

at the bottom of their starter vessle after the fermentation ceased. Can

whomever posted that please contact me with their experiences? I have witnessed

the same thing and would like to know what I am up against. I am using the

Yeast Lab Bavarian Lager yeast. The taste of the fermented liquid decanted from

the starter tasted a bit winey. That could be because it is a lager yeast

and the temperature for the starter is about 66-68F.

Any answers?

Frank Dobner

------------------------------


Re: Adding spices to beer

Date:          Tue, 9 Nov 1993 14:31:20 EST5EDT

From: REGINAH@SOCIOLOGY.Lan.McGill.CA

Subject:       Re: Adding spices to beer

Hello out there--

    I just brewed a Christmas Porter loosely based on Papazian's Goat

Scrotum Ale recipe (if anybody's offended, blame him not me), using

cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger.  In trying to figure out the

amounts of each, I reviewed both Papazian's other spiced beer recipes

and his section on spices.  I found a confusing discrepancy.  All the

recipes direct the brewer to add the spices at the beginning of the

boil, but the spice section says to add them 15 minutes before the

end.  I added all of mine at the beginning, figuring that for a

Christmas beer, the more time the merrier, but am still wondering

about this point.  Any opinions?

Regina Harrison

MA student

McGill University

Montreal, Quebec

------------------------------


Dry Hopping BUs???

Date: Tue, 9 Nov 93 14:11:34 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Dry Hopping BUs???

I was reading the 1990 Zymurgy Hops and Beer Special Issue today and an issue

came up that I haven't seen addressed directly.  From the article, "Matching

Hops with Beer Styles", Quentin B. Smith mentions "Occasionally I will dry hop

using Byron Burch's formula for figuring total bittering units".  Earlier in

the article he mentions Burch's book "Brewing Quality Beers", which I assume is

his source for this formula.

Does anyone have Burch's book?  He is certainly an award winning homebrewer but

I've never heard any authoritative word on IBUs from dry hopping.  We have

discussed the perception here in the HBD, but I don't think we have come to

any conclusions.  What exactly does Byron say about this?

Norm

------------------------------


Propane, natural gas, and toxic fumes. (Andrew Baird)

Date: Tue, 09 Nov 93 16:28:00 EST

From: andrewb6@aol.com

Subject: Propane, natural gas, and toxic fumes. (Andrew Baird)

I recently built a burner for brewing.  I built it for (and tested it with)

natural gas.  I've been reading literature on similar *propane* cookers and

they all say for outdoor use only.  I assume this is because toxic levels of

haxardous combustion products are produced, and I'm guessing that carbon

monoxide is the main culprit.  My questions are as follows:

1.  Is CO the ONLY gas/ byproduct I should be worrying about?

2.  Is this a problem with both propane and natural gas?

3.  When they say OUTDOORS ONLY, do I take that literally, or does an open

garage qualify.

I've yet to use this burner for other than testing purposes, and I've been

thinking about buying a CO detector before I brew, but if CO is not the main

culprit, I may be wasting my time.

Incidentally, the burner can heat two kettles at once.  Each unit produces 70

little blue flames that can be controlled so that the flame height ranges

form approx. 1/8" to 1 1/8".  I'm not sure how many BTU's it puts out, but

I'm considering re-jetting it for propane and measuring output (it's too hard

to weigh natural gas).

Any insight to these questions is welcome via HBD or private e-mail.

------------------------------


Head Retention problems

Date:         Tue, 9 Nov 1993 16:31:08 CDT

From: "Dennis Lewis" <DLEWIS%jscdo6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject:      Head Retention problems

Has anyone else experience head retention problems when using malt

extract as a primer? The one beer I primed with DME has no head on

it at all! And it's a single decoction wheat beer! It should have

loads of foam. I keep thinking that something in the extract may

have goofed up the foaming. I've noticed some slight, oily-looking

stuff on some of the un-hopped boils that I do for unhopped yeast

starters. At any rate, I'm going to stick to corn sugar or reserved,

sterile wort from the same batch.

Dennis Lewis                    <dlewis%jscdo6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Inadvertent Lambic

Date:         Tue, 9 Nov 1993 16:39:30 CDT

From: "Dennis Lewis" <DLEWIS%jscdo6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject:      Inadvertent Lambic

I made a batch of aborted vienna lager and the brew turned out to be

infected from the new fermenter I was using (used keg). In the

process of washing out the goo, some flat, ropy-looking stuff came

washing out. It was the color of trub, sort of an off-beige and very

stringy. I examined a piece of it and it was quite resilient with a

faint acidy smell. Any ideas what that might be? I've heard of a

pellicle forming on lambic beers...this stuff looks like it would

form a covering on the ferment.  By the way, the brew wasn't too bad

and was salvaged by mixing with an over-hopped brew and dryhopping

to freshen the taste.

Dennis Lewis                    <dlewis%jscdo6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Insulating a keg boiler

Date:         Tue, 9 Nov 1993 16:44:09 CDT

From: "Dennis Lewis" <DLEWIS%jscdo6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject:      Insulating a keg boiler

Has anyone out there in net-land insulated a 15.5 gal keg boiler?

I'm using a propane cooker and it comes to a boil fairly quick, but

I'd like to insulate it to improve the efficiency. I've heard of

people wrapping the keg in a hot-water-heater insulating jacket (I

think from this forum). Are these the way to go? Will they withstand

boiling temps? Flame retardent? E-mail is great, if it's not of

general HBD interest. Thanks in advance...

Dennis Lewis                    <dlewis%jscdo6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Re: Nasty Brews

Date: Tue, 9 Nov 93 13:48:32 PST

From: julie@bruno.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Julie Kangas)

Subject: Re: Nasty Brews

Rowley@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu asks about nasty brews, including

drinks fermented with milk...

I know of two such drinks:  kefir from the Caucauses and kumis

from Mongolia.  Kefir is a fizzy milk drink that contains a

yeast and a lactobacilli.  It is slightly sour and very refreshing.

The yeast/bacteria colony forms a large clump that is simply

amazing to behold.

Kumis is fermented mare's milk.  I have never tried it.  The

"standard" method of preparation is to put your mare's milk

in a leather bag and hang it outside your yurt. Whenever you or

anyone else enters/leaves the yurt, you give the bag a good

shaking.

The Romans used to ferment fish (cut up fish and let them

rot (er--ferment)).  This is the ancestor of Worchester sauce.

Charlie Papazian reprints an old recipe that uses a dead

rooster as an important ingredient.

The Aztecs and Mayans drank pulque which is fermented maguay.

Don't know about farther north.  South America has a tradition

of corn beer.

Julie

------------------------------


Plugging Your Homegrown

Date: Tue, 9 Nov 93 15:04:55 PST

From: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards)

Subject: Plugging Your Homegrown

Tom Kaltenbach writes (in HBD #1264):

| ... Now for my question:  has anybody tried making their own plugs with

| homegrown hops?  It seems like you would just need a press of some sort,

| and a mold to form the hops into a convenient shape (i.e. plugs).  Any

| ideas?

The closest I've come is to cram as much as I can into baby food jars.

I can get 1/2 oz crammed into the smallest ones (2oz) and usually put an

even 1 oz into the large 6oz jars.  It's convenient to have a pre-mesaured

amount on hand.

I start out by measuring an amount of hops and putting them into a large

glass mixing bowl.  Then I stick the jar down in the hops and stuff them

in with my hand.

There's not much room for air in there; and the lids are air-tight.

I keep them in the freezer.

 -Alan

------------------------------


zymurgy recipe correction

Date: Tue, 09 Nov 1993 19:25:32 -0400 (EDT)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: zymurgy recipe correction

I just received the Special edition of _zymurgy_ and noticed a serious

error in my article.  The article (about reviving old British beers)

is fine.  However, the recipes (on pages 40 and 41) seem to have

suffered from the attentions of a gremlin somewhere between the

translation to American (from the original English) and the final

printing.  Terribly sorry it happened, but the editors are aware of it

and promise to print a correction in the next issue.

All of the recipes list ingredients for making "six US gallons" which

is plainly wrong if you examine the quantities.  In fact, the quantities

shown are for making _one_(UK)_gallon_.

CORRECTION:

To make five US gallons, multiply all quantities by 4.2 (that's close

enough).  This should be obvious, but you never know....

By the way, thanks again to Geoff Cooper for making the article possible

and the opportunity to have the delightful evening I wrote about.

Ed Westemeier

Cincinnati, Ohio

westemeier@delphi.com

------------------------------


A Primer on Czech Beers

Date: Tue, 9 Nov 93 20:01:19 PST

From: grumpy!cr@uunet.UU.NET (C.R. Saikley)

Subject: A Primer on Czech Beers

                A Primer on Czech Beers

A fresh Czech Pilsner, like Pilsner Urquell or Budweiser, is a stunning

example of the level of refinement achievable in lager beer. Perfectly clean,

crisp, and sparkling, these beers provide a venue to show off the two main

flavor components of beer - malt and hops -  with emphasis definitely on the

hops. There are no traces of yeastiness, and fermentation by-products are kept

to a minimum. The slow, cool fermentations, and even slower and cooler lagering

produces a full flavored smoothness which can not be realized by any other

means.

The pale lagers are always brilliantly clear and have a rich golden color.

At 4 degrees Lovibond, they are a shade deeper in color than their Western

European counterparts. They are typically served in tall, half-liter glasses,

crowned with a white frothy head which extends well above the lip of the glass.

The aroma, like the flavor, is purely that of malt and hops.

The prized hops of the Zatec region (Saaz in German) of Bohemia are renown

the world over for their noble qualities, and Czech brewers use them

liberally. The flavor profile is decidedly toward the hop end of the spectrum.

The extremely soft waters of Plzen lend themselves to copious hopping rates,

allowing a clean bitterness to come through in the finished product. Hop

aroma is achieved exclusively by late kettle additions; dry hopping is not

employed.

The full bodied character of these 12 degree Balling beers derives from pale

Moravian and Bohemian malts. Some of the malt sugars are carmelized during

the triple decoction mash and lengthy boil, which deepens the color slightly

and adds depth to the beers' character. The only fermentation by-product

present in perceptible amounts is diacetyl. The concentration is low enough

that it is not distinguishable as a buttery note, but instead it gives the

beer a fuller palate. Even though the malt charge is quite substantial, its

role is essentially that of providing a foundation for the expression of hops,

the dominant element of Czech beers.

While the beers of the Czech Republic may not be as diverse as those of other

brewing nations, the beers that are produced there are classics. They are the

most imitated beers in the world, but most imitators pale by comparison.

There are no finer Pilsners to be found anywhere.

------------------------------


Changes at Pilsner Urquell

Date: Tue, 9 Nov 93 20:00:55 PST

From: grumpy!cr@uunet.UU.NET (C.R. Saikley)

Subject: Changes at Pilsner Urquell

Greetings Brewers,

I hesitated before sending this, since it's not strictly about brewing, and

since the Digest is so crowded these days. But people have generally

responded favorably to my travel stories in the past, so here goes...

Enjoy,

CR

************************************************************************

                Change is Brewing at Pilsner Urquell

These are tumultuous times in Eastern Europe. Communism is practically dead,

the lines on the map have been redrawn, and some nations have plunged into

bloody civil war. The former nation of Czechoslovakia is now split into two

separate countries : the Czech Republic in the west, and the Slovak Republic

in the east. Along with the change in government is an attendant change in

philosophy; the people are opening up to the ideas of the west. Capitalism is

taking hold, and there is a great deal of investment and rebuilding going on.

Even though these are difficult times, a general sense of optimism toward the

future prevails.

There are big changes at Pilsner Urquell as well, but that's getting ahead of

the story. First, a little history. The story of brewing in Plzen goes back

to at least the 13th century, when the burgers of the town were granted

brewing rights by King Wenceslas. The breweries were typically large

homebreweries, and for several centuries, the beer produced was pretty

wretched. During the 19th century great advances in brewing technology took

place in Munich, Vienna, and Copenhagen, and the citizens of Plzen set out

to imitate the beers of Munich. In 1842, the new brewery was established, and

although the beer produced there was not what was expected, it proved to be

very popular. By 1870 the beers of Plzen were exported to Vienna, Paris,

London and Moscow. The rapid growth continued, and by 1913, the brewery's

output exceeded 1 million hectoliters, making it the largest brewery in Europe.

The 20th century has not been so kind to the brewers at Plzen. The first

world war brought an end to their rapid growth, and the time between the

wars was one of stagnation. The second world war put the Soviets in charge of

Czechoslovakia, and separated Eastern Europe from the west. During most of

this century, the brewery's output has remained a constant 1.3 million

hectoliters. The export sales of Pilsner Urquell generated a good deal of

hard currency, but this was siphoned off by the communists. The brewery was

unable to expand or modernize.

The Velvet Revolution of 1989 brought big changes to the nation and to the

brewery. As capitalism was introduced, new ways of thinking were required.

Suddenly they had to be concerned with capitalist concepts such as profit

and efficiency. However, old habits die hard, and some of the old guard

were unable to adapt. There was a lingering attitude that it was easier to

cover oneself by writing lengthy excuse letters rather than solving a given

problem. Unfortunately, the first true taste of capitalism that some employees

experienced was being layed off!

A more positive aspect of the transition is that the brewery is now able to

modernize and expand production, and they have tremendous plans for very

carefully doing so. There is substantial investment in Plzen, most of it

coming from bank loans that the brewery has taken on. They have installed 104

new stainless fermenters ranging in size from 800 to 3600 hectoliters,

which more than doubles their fermentation capacity. To match this equipment,

a new four story complex is under construction which will house modern

filtration, kegging, and bottling equipment. This will be followed by a new

brewhouse. Production projections call for 1.5 million hectoliters this

year, going up to 2 million next year. Interestingly, all of this increase in

production is aimed at the Czech market, which comprises the bulk of their

sales.

All over the country, the larger breweries are investing and expanding, which

of course means that we'll see a shake out of the smaller Czech and Slovak

operations. Already, Pilsner Urquell has gobbled up the nearby Gambrinus,

Domazlice, Cheb, and Karlovy Vary breweries. Undoubtedly more consolidation

will follow.

This may not be as bad as it sounds. Even though it's always a shame to see

smaller enterprises consumed by the big guys, at least the large Czech

breweries have remained true to their traditions. Consequently, Czech brewing

heritage does not have the large discontinuity that we find in America.

Indeed, the American drinker would be surprised to learn that for the most

part, the largest Czech breweries make the best beer.

Amidst all of this change, the brewers in Plzen are committed to keeping one

thing constant, Pilsner Urquell itself. They fully recognize the value of their

150 year old reputation, and would do nothing to compromise it. To this end,

extensive experiments have been undertaken to determine exactly which parts of

the old process must be retained to preserve the character of their world

renown brew. In side by side comparisons, their expert panel of tasters has

found that there are no detectable differences between beer lagered in wood

versus stainless steel. However, they have found that the primary fermentation

must take place in the traditional open wooden barrels, or the character of the

beer is changed. Thus the shiny new fermentation facility is reserved for some

of their other products, but not for the original. Further investigation led to

an interesting experiment with a surprising result.

A standard batch of Pilsner Urquell was brewed and fermented in the normal

fashion, while across town at the Gambrinus brewery, a standard batch of the

similar Gambrinus was brewed and fermented in its usual fashion. Then both

test batches were transferred across town for lagering in stainless at the

other brewery. Upon maturation and tasting, the panel was able to detect

these beers as different from the normal beers. In effect two new beers were

created, somewhere in between the originals. Thus it was concluded that

the convenience of being able to lager Pilsner Urquell at either facility

must be sacrificed for the sake of the beer's quality.

Every aspect of the modernization effort is being scrutinized very carefully.

The brewers rightly feel they are compelled to modernize, but must proceed

with utmost caution. They are simultaneously faced with the challenges of an

unknown world, and a future that is wide open. Let's hope that the stagnation

of the 20th century is over, and that Pilsner Urquell moves into a new era of

growth and prosperity.

The author wishes to thank Mr. Jaroslav Rous, Technical Director of Pilsner

Urquell, for his warmth and hospitality.  His assistance in writing this

article has been invaluable.

------------------------------


re: BREWING ORGANS

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 09:28:29 EST

From: Mike Peckar  10-Nov-1993 0909 <m_peckar@cscma.enet.dec.com>

Subject: re: BREWING ORGANS

in reference to Jack Schmidlings response to my long post on SS kegs...

1. Air Cock, yes. thanks. I also disn't use the proper plumbing jargon to

   describe what I refered to in my article as a "stand off". Its called

   something else, I forget what. Again, its a one foot copper pipe with

   a molded end which a 1/2" brass compresssion ring fits over and a one

   inch flare to 5/8" I.D on the other side. Most hardware stores only

   carry these in PVC anymore, but better ones will have the copper type.

2. The "lower temps" I had trouble at were under 154 degrees. In later

   batches, when I would raise the temp at the end of the mash (Mashout),

   flow would increase significantly with my version of the screen sparger.

   Any batches where the mash temps did not exceed this, it'd get stuck.

3. Yes, my design was very different than what you describe. I can see how

   the easymasher's copper tube provides support for the screen and a

   better clamping surface. Mine was simpler yet that that, though, being

   just a wrap or two of screen clamped to a 1/2" nipple. it was 3/4" in

   diameter and 9 inches long. Too long and too flimsy. It was easy, though.

------------------------------


Ithaca Brewpubs

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1993 09:32:09 -0500 (EST)

From: bickham@msc.cornell.edu

Subject: Ithaca Brewpubs

Bill Gorman writes:

>Date: Tue, 09 Nov 93 11:46:59 EST

>From: gorman@aol.com

>Subject: Brewpubs in/near Ithaca, NY

>

>Any info on brewpubs in or near Ithaca, NY?

Funny that you ask - I was going to post a notice today about the

recent renovations at the Chapter House Brewpub.  Well it hasn't

really been a brewpub for the past few years.  The owners used to

brew the beer at the Vernon Valley, NJ location and bring kegs here

to sell, but for a number of reasons I won't discuss, they stopped

brewing there a few years ago.  They did have the equipment to produce

smaller volumes at their building here, but had decided to brew all of

their beers in New Jersey due to economies of scale.  In the meantime,

their license to brew here had expired and the renewal was held up in

the beauracracy in Albany until recently.

Now for the good news.  The Chapter House brewing equipment was refitted

to brew lagers, and at the same time, the number of taps was increased to

a total of 30.  At the moment, there are 14 commercial beers on tap,

including Sierra Nevada (Pale Ale, Celebration Ale, Stout), Sam Adams

(Lager, Ale, Winter), Fullers ESB, Watney's Cream Stout, and Paulaner

Hefeweizen.  Woodpecker and Woodchuck cider are also available, as well

as several of the Yeungling and Catamount products.  The house brews

are gradually coming on line.  Last night I tasted the porter (which

was being carbonated) and thought it was very nice - it was a little

hoppy for my taste, but it had some body and maltiness.  By the end of

the week, there will be a Maerzen (which I tasted while it was conditioning

and found to be a little light in color and maltiness) and an Amber.

I think the Clements are also planning to brew the Blond Double Bock

which was popular when it was brewed in Vernon Valley.

The Chapter House is located on Stewart Avenue ( the one paved with bricks),

one block North of Buffalo Street (where there is a flashing yellow/red

light) .  It lies in between Cornell and the downtown area, so it shouldn't

be too hard to find.  On the other hand, there is street parking only, so

you might have to park a few blocks away :-(

Have fun!

        Scott

------------------------------


Old beer recipes in Zymurgy

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 09:45:29 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Old beer recipes in Zymurgy

I was reading the latest Zymurgy last night, and happened upon the old

English beer recipes.  (From the Durbin Park club??)  Anyway, the

quantities in these recipes are surely off (1.060 from <3lbs of grain

in 6 gallons???).  If anyone has the correct numbers for these

recipes, could you please post them in this forum?  Thanks.

------------------------------


sm-ALL Grain/  Sake

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 09:52:38 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: sm-ALL Grain/  Sake

You CAN make moderate gravity beers with a small boiler.  Sure, it's

not recommended, and you leave a lot of sugar behind, but it can be

done.  Example: mash 10 lbs of grain in about 3.5 gallons of water,

drain 2.5 gallons of "first runnings" at about 1.090.  Boil down to 2

gallons, then dilute to 5 gallons at 1.045.

Yes, you'll get lousy extraction, yes, you'll get lousy hop

utilization (but this is no different from extract brewing), yes

you'll get some caramelization of the wort sugars.  But it can be

done.

Personally, I wouldn't, though.

=S

------------------------------


Grolsch Tops and Ithica

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 09:26:21 CST

From: laewell@iastate.edu

Subject: Grolsch Tops and Ithica

To Whom it May Concern,

        Bill Gorman asked about brewepubs in Ithaca.  I went to a

place I beleive was called the Charter House in Ithaca on the

outskirts of the Cornell campus.  I had a few glasses of 'Blond Doppel

Bock' that was OUTSTANDING!

        On a different subject.  I was dismayed to find out that the

tops of Grolsch have recently been changed from ceramic to plastic.  I

find the bottles perfect for homebrewing after an appropriate bleach

soak.  Isn't anything sacred anymore?

        Lars Ewell

------------------------------


More on labels

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1993 07:20:03 -0800 (PST)

From: Paul deArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

Subject: More on labels

Since I am an enthusiastic label maker AND a big fan of appropriate

technology, here are two suggestions for putting curved text on labels:

1) If you have access to a PostScript printer, get the PostScript manuals

that are published by Adobe.  They are known as the Red, Green & Blue

books (clever graphics reference, huh?)  The titles are PostScript

Language Reference Manual (red), PostScript Language Program Design

(green), and PostScript Language Tutorial and Cookbook (blue).  I've used

straight PS code for doing interesting things that would be impossible

through many application programs.  Also, you might want to look for

CricketDraw, a Mac program.  It was one of the earliest PS code generators

out there.  Used copies (*with* manual) may be cheap or free, since it has

been superseeded by Freehand, CorelDraw, etc.

                   - or -

2) Do what graphic artists have been doing for years, snip out your text

and make a bunch of cuts most of the way through the strip of paper, so

that you can bend it.  This works best if you use a waxer, rather than

glue, paste or rubber cement.

Impressive ASCII figure:

    _______________________________________________

   |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |

   |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |

   |_______________________________________________|

      ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^

        snip   snip  snip  snip  snip  snip  snip...

Paul.

ps.  The miscreant in "BATF Outlaws Steam Injection" didn't sign the

release, so we'll have to watch the COPS show with one of those blurry

mosaic fogs over his face...

------------------------------


wasting water

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1993 09:56:29 -0600 (CST)

From: tomt@nano.sps.mot.com (Tom Tomazin)

Subject: wasting water

George Tempel asks:

>Is there another method  that _doesn't_ require gallons

>upon gallons of water running from the tap to cool

>the wort? I'd rather not keep the local water authorities

>in business just to have quickly cooled wort.

I use an immersion chiller and collect the outflow water into a 6 gallon

bucket.  When the bucket is full, I dump it into my washing machine and do

a load of underwear.  No waste!  Incidentally, it takes about ~8 gallons of

Texas tap water to cool 5 gallons to about 90 degrees.  I reaffirm that

giving the wort a gentle stir every minute or so greatly improves the

efficiency of the chiller.

- --

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thomas Tomazin                              Parallel Scalable Processor Design

MOTOROLA SPS, Inc.                          (512) 505-8124

505 Barton Springs Rd. Suite 1055           Austin, Texas 78762

------------------------------


Re: Greenplug

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 08:20:59 PST

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Re: Greenplug

>>>>> On Fri, 5 Nov 93 13:16:06 EST, Ulick Stafford

>>>>> <ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu> said:

Ulick> I saw this gadget that may be of interest to homebrewers like

Ulick> me who have many fridges and freezers.  This device uses

Ulick> computer circuitry to work out how much electricity is actually

Ulick> needed to keep a motor running (it cuts up the sine wave in

Ulick> some way - ask an electrical power engineer).  And not only

Ulick> does it save around 25-33% of electricity, the motor runs more

Ulick> smoothly as well

A discussion went on about these in misc.consumers.house a while back.

I had bought one and responded that I did not see a drop in my

electric bill, but my fridge was quieter.  The common consensus seemed

to be that if you have an older fridge (more likely when it is a beer

fridge, than your primary household fridge) you will benefit more from

this device.  Newer, more efficient compressors in fridges now will

not benefit so much.

A couple of months ago, I signed up with my utility company for an

energy monitoring program and last Friday, was loaned a meter.  It has

been hooked up to my fridge for 2 days with the Green Plug and now one

day without.  Definite quantitative results will be forthcoming

tomorrow when the non-Green Plug test period is completed.

Dion Hollenbeck (619)455-5590x2814     Email: hollen@megatek.com

Senior Software Engineer                      megatek!hollen@uunet.uu.net

Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California    ucsd!megatek!hollen

------------------------------


multi-strain brew

Date: 10 Nov 1993 10:50:43 -0500

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel_F_McConnell@mailgw.surg.med.umich.edu>

Subject: multi-strain brew

Subject:  multi-strain brew

Glenn GANDE@slims.attmail.com writes:

>I've been toying with the idea of blending yeast strains to get

>'novel' results.  I have a passion for 1056 and pale ales, but would

>like to introduce another layer of complexity.  My plan is to make a

>starter with both Wyeast 1056 and 1007 (American Ale and German Ale)

> - then brew the house Pale.

I tried this a few years ago in a misguided (read non-controlled)

experiment, back when I was doing more *open* fermentations.

Misguided for two reasons 1) The ENTIRE batch was fermented

with all three strains and 2) I made a pale ale that was WELL hopped.

I used Chico, Whitbread and Whiteshield strains simultaneously pitched.

The beer was good, but since I did not split the batch and taste each

strain individually, obvious differences in taste due to the triple

strain were not apparent. In addition, since I hopped to about 40 IBU,

most of the flavor came from hops, and the subtle yeast nuances were

lost.  OK, maybe I wasn't so smart, but you can learn from my errors.

BTW I repitched this after top cropping and later went back to single strains.

I would recommend that you use either 1056 OR 1007 and another yeast with

MORE character. For instance the combinations 1056/1028, 1007/1028,

1056/1098 or 1007/1098 might be interesting.  BUT be sure to due a pure

culture ferment for each strain as well so you can do a three point taste

comparison. As unpalatable as it might seem, try to keep the hop rate and

dark grain contribution to a minimum.

Consistency in brewing has never been one of my strong suits (way too much

tinkering going on at my house), but if you "brew the house pale" consistently

and reproducibly maybe you can get a handle on the multiple strain effect

without control experiments.

Please post re the results.

DanMcC

------------------------------


Grant's IPA Clone?

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 11:50:54 EST

From: Steve Zabarnick <steve@snake.appl.wpafb.af.mil>

Subject: Grant's IPA Clone?

I recently tasted a bottle of Grant's IPA and was amazed by its being a

dead-ringer for an extract Pale Ale that I brewed this summer (my last extract

before moving to all-grain). My recipe was based on an attempt at an Anchor

Liberty clone posted by someone to HBD previously. Here is the recipe.

6 lbs. Light M&F DME

1 lb. Crystal Malt (unknow Lovibond)

2 oz. Northern Brewer (7.1 AA) for 60 mins.

1 oz. Cascades (5.7 AA) for 10 mins.

1 oz. Cascades (dry hopped in secondary for two weeks)

Wyeast 1056

OG= 1.054

FG=1.011

I'm curious about which ingredients cause these two brews to taste and look so

similar. Does Grant's use Wyeast 1056? Do they use Northern Brewer for

bittering? Do they dry hop? The only difference I could detect was a slighty

different hop aroma; perhaps they don't dry hop with Cascades. I calculate

almost 60 IBU's for my brew (this was a full wort boil); is this similar to

Grant's IPA?

Steve Zabarnick

------------------------------


Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1993 11:59:00 EST

From: "/R=FDACB/R=A1/U=RIDGELY/O=HFM-400/TN=FTS 402-1521/FFN=Bill

Subject: Grant's IPA Clone?

Subject: RE: Nasty Brews (Part 1)

          In HBD #1267, Matt Rowley writes:

               >I'm taking a course now on the genetics of human behavior,

               >and we got around to alcoholism last Thursday. It's a four

               >hour seminar, so we sometimes drift around the topic of the

               >week. One of us mentioned the in-escapability of drinking

               >alcohol in the field (anthropologists we are), even when what

               >the locals drink may be foul beyond words.

          Ah, now you're speaking my language :-) Actually, not all of those

          beverages are "foul beyond words", although many are unusual by

          western standards.

               >I ventured that I'd drink most anything "homebrewed." Tales

               >from the field then included fermented milk and cream from

               >no-longer Soviet Georgia.

          Fermented milk is not so unusual. I'm sure you've eaten cheese and

          yogurt, the most common examples (although these are bacterial

          fermentations for the most part and contain little or no alcohol).

          The specific beverage you're referring to is "kefir", a fermented

          milk which originated in the Caucasian mountains. Milk from sheep,

          goats, and cows is used in its preparation. Fermentation is

          accomplished by lactic acid bacteria and yeast, and the resulting

          beverage contains about 1% alcohol. A similar drink called

          "koumiss" is brewed from mares' milk by Mongol tribes of the

          Asiatic steppes.

               >What about fish? I've heard tell that various Eskimo people

               >bury fish for months, then return to eat it.

          I'm not sure about the Eskimos (who, along with the Australian

          aborigines, are thought to be the only known cultures without a

          history of alcoholic beverages), but the people of Southeast Asia

          have been fermenting fish and shrimp for centuries to create salty

          sauces and pastes. The fermentations are bacterial in nature and

          are controlled by the use of large quantities of salt.

               >Native Americans are said not have had any alcohol ( I find

               >this hard to believe since natural fermentation is so common:

          Fermented beverages were not widely used by native Americans, but

          examples did exist. The Apaches brewed a rather nasty concoction

          called "tiswin" from germinated corn, wheat, and jimson weedd

          (sometimes referred to as "Loco Weed", a poisonous plant of the

          nightshade family). Tiswin's rather potent effects resulted in its

          being outlawed by the federal government in the 1880's.

          Native Americans in the southwest also brewed versions of "pulque"

          and "mezcal" from the stems and core (respectively) of the Agave

          or Century Plant, as well as "tesguino" from germinated corn and

          corn stalk juice. [To Be Continued]

------------------------------


signoff homebrew

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 17:56:45 GMT

From: "R.A.Lewis" <R.A.Lewis@chemistry.hull.ac.uk>

Subject: signoff homebrew

------------------------------


Priming / concise $.02

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 14:19:46 EST

From: sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com (Carl Howes)

Subject: Priming / concise $.02

I plan to bottle my first lager over Thanksgiving weekend.  Particulars since

my post in #1240: Primary at 45F for 3 weeks, secondary at 45F since.  Am I

likely to need more yeast (after Wyeast #2007) for conditioning and, if yes,

what type(s) are least likely to affect the character of the beer?

Also on priming, has anyone else heard of or have more info on the "Crabtree

effect" described by Troy Howard in #1264?  Sounds like a good reason to

abandon use of corn sugar for priming on the face of it.

Private email please, given enough responses I will summarize to save

bandwidth.

$.02 - Humor: laugh or ignore it, "all business" is not a realistic

expectation.  Offensiveness: eschew self righteousness.  js: sarcasm fails in

print for those of us (most?) who don't know you offline.

Carl    Simple address: 73410@sdlcc.msd.ray.com

------------------------------


Counter Pressure Fillers and Foam

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 14:47:29 "EST

From: Gary S. Kuyat <gsk@sagan.bellcore.com>

Subject: Counter Pressure Fillers and Foam

Full-Name: Gary S. Kuyat

After drinking litres of flat beer (you didn't expect me to THROW AWAY that

foam?!?) and having beer colored walls, I have come to the conclusion that

LESS is MORE when it comes to counter pressure bottling.  I find that

pressurizing over 25 lbs. at 40 degrees is too much carbonation, and too much

foam.  I had a tough time getting it through my head, that 20 lbs. at 40 is

fine.  I bottle at 10 lbs. or so after letting the beer "stablize" at 5-6 lbs.

for an hour.  If you can't tap a pint with a reasonable head, you won't be

able to fill bottles without tons 'o foam.  If I remember my Braukunst, their

catalogue had a nice table refering to pressure, temperature and volume of CO2

dissolved.  My tendency was, "The keg is rated to 160!  Heh! Heh!  Pump up the

volumes!"  But this is totally wrong.  If only I had a counter pressure filling

room!

- --

 -Gary Kuyat

  gsk@sagan.bellcore.com

  (908)699-8422

------------------------------


Responses to college brewers

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1993 11:23:42 -0500

From: esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

Subject: Responses to college brewers

Hello brewers,

I have been inundated with messages in response to my post "College

Brewers" (but would welcome more responses).  Many have warned about either

drawing attention to the possibility of exposing underage brewers and thus

spoiling it for them.  Believe me, I do not plan to write an article about

underage brewers, especially since a majority of the responses I received

were from graduate students.  I could easily write a story which only

included student brewers who are 21+.  It seems that the best thing I could

do is write an article and post it to the HBD, thus we can all benefit

without causing undue alarm outside of the homebrewing community.  I have

already received several funny stories about college brewing experiences.

If the digest's collective wisdom (?!) believes that any article would be

harmful to homebrewing's image etc, I may just keep all these stories to

myself. Sorry for the bandwidth, but since questions were posted to the

digest instead of being mailed to me directly, I thought it was

appropriate.

Eugene   esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

------------------------------


Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 15:04:51 EST

From: Mark Bunster <mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu>

Subject: b&t

Two notes on black and tan--

The one that I always see around town is Yeungling Black and Tan. Yeungling

is out of Pottsville PA, and claims to be the oldest brewery in America

(continually brewing I suppose). Anyway, it's a mix of their porter (not bad

but nothing special, although $3.99 a six for it is reasonable) and their

lager (pretty smooth, and again decent for the money). They also make a light

(better than Swiller Lite, but what isn't). around here it must be pretty

popular, for you can get it on draft in at least 5 places i can think of

offhand.

This will likely completely destroy any chances I have of gaining a good rep

as a beer drinker, but I've found that a surprisingly drinkable B&T you can

make yourself uses Guinness and.....

Pabst Blue Ribbon. Call it a Black and Blue if you like.

No, honestly!

- --

Mark Bunster                      |Exchange conversation if you dare--

Survey Research Lab--VCU          |Share an empty thought or a laugh.

Richmond, VA 23220                |

mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu            |

(804) 367-8813/353-1731           |                          -edFROM

------------------------------


Hunter Airstat modifications

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 12:10:57 EST

From: snystrom@aol.com

Subject: Hunter Airstat modifications

A few editions ago, Mark Garetz reported that Hunter will be discontinuting

their airstat thermistor/sensor.

Like many, I raced out and purchased one. NOW I'm looking for someone who

would be kind enough to repost the instructions that will allow xthe Airstate

chill below 40 degrees. They appeared in a b

ack issue of the digest.

According to Mark, it may have been a 10K ohm resistor in series with thex

thermistor/sensor, but he didn't save the posting.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Scott Nystrom

snystrom@aol.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1269, 11/11/93

*************************************

-------


artifical bubbles

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1993 14:23:28 -0500 (CDT)

From: Paul Boor <PBOOR@BEACH.UTMB.EDU>

Subject: artifical bubbles

In reply to David A. Byars' question about force carbonating, I quote

Schultz and Dooley:

 Give it malt, give it hops

 It won't matter what you do

 It's not naturally carbonated

 If it's pumped with C0-2

 This is how we always felt, sir

 Those big bubbles are for seltzer

 Give me Utica, Utica Clu..uh...ub.

(those in upstate New York will know)

------------------------------


AHA email address?

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1993 12:44:29 -0800 (PST)

From: Chuck Coronella <coronell@cs.unr.edu>

Subject: AHA email address?

Howdy:

Does anyone have an email address for the American Homebewers Association?  I

believe that I've seen posts in days (years) past from the AHA...

Thanks

Chuck Coronella

Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering

University of Nevada, Reno

coronell@cs.unr.edu

------------------------------


Black and Tan

Date: 10 Nov 1993 16:03:32 -0500

From: "Stephen Schember" <stephen_schember@terc.edu>

Subject:  Black and Tan

                      Subject:                              Time:  3:54 PM

  OFFICE MEMO          Black and Tan                        Date:  11/10/93

In regard to recent Black and Tan discussions Yeungling also makes a Black and

Tan frequently served as a "cheapie " draft at bars in the NE, and also sold in

16 Oz cans (?!?). It pretty good stuff on tap, a mix of their own Chesterfield

Ale and Yeungling Porter.

------------------------------


SNPA hops/Books/Lawsuit!

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 15:07 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: SNPA hops/Books/Lawsuit!

Aha!!!!

You all looked at me funny when I posted questioning the hop nose of

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, back in January of 1992.  I had said that the

SNPA that we got here in the Midwest seemed to have lost it's wonderful

Cascade nose.  There was no SNPA available in December of 1991, but then

the stuff we got in January was nothing like the stuff we got back in

November of 1991.  Now, Martin writes:

>...I just visited Sierra Nevada a month ago.  They do

>not use a hop back or dry hop the Pale Ale.  They just put Cascade hops

>in at the end of the boil.  They do however dry hop the Bigfoot.

I believe that they did used to use a hopback, but had some trouble with

it so they went to a finishing hop addition as reported by Martin.

And you all thought I was crazy...

*************************

Norm writes:

>Buy "The Complete Handbook of Homebrewing" by Miller.

I feel it's a good book, but still has quite a few errors in it.  I recently

re-read Papazian's "The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing," Miller's "The

Complete Handbook of Homebrewing" and Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer."  While

reading, I was scribbling my disagreements with the books in the margins and

dog-earing the corners of these suspect pages.  The book with the least dog

 -eared pages?  Papazian's.  Miller's and Noonan's were about tied, but had

at least triple the number of suspect pages.  I have been meaning to write

a series of posts or maybe an article on these three books and my disagreements

with them, but heck, I barely have time to brew, so it's on the back burner.

My advice is to buy all three, but read them in the order I listed above.

After reading all three and brewing a dozen batches, you will probably

scribble the same notes in the margins that I did.

*************************

Norm writes that he noticed an EasyMasher-like device in the Gadgets and

Equipment Special Issue of Zymurgy.

I noticed this too, but it was long after I had heard about Jack's

EasyMasher.  If this was to go to court (ha!), it would probably end

up in Jack's favor.  Sorry if I spoiled any Jack-haters' day ;^).

Al.

------------------------------


boiled wort/water ratio

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 13:53:50 PST

From: brian@carbon.cor2.epa.gov

Subject: boiled wort/water ratio

A few nights ago I was brewing up a batch of David Smith's

Porter from the Cat's Meow...a recipe I had made once before

with fine results.

The recipe for 5 gallons calls for adding grains and extract

to 1.5 gallons of water (the amount I used the first time) for

the boil; however, this time I chose to use only 1.25 gallons.

I did this for a couple reasons.  First, I have a relatively small

(4 gallon) brewing kettle and thought it would be easier to

control potential boilovers with a smaller quantity of wort...

which turned out to be true.  Second, recent batches of mine

have taken several hours to cool (1.5 gallons of hot wort

added to 3.5 gallons of cold water) to pitching temperatures,

which has made me nervous about possible infection.  I

thought that adding less hot water to more cold water would

help alleviate this delay, which also turned out to be true as

the mixture was immediately at pitching temperature.

So here's the question. Are there any disadvantages to reducing

the volume of boiled wort? The resulting mixture was noticeably

thicker as I poured it though a strainer into the primary, but

other than having to rinse the hops in a couple extra times, there

were no obvious problems.  I did notice, however, that my O.G.

was somewhat lower than the first version, suggesting I left

some good stuff behind in my spent hops.

Any thoughts?

Brian S.

------------------------------


Brewpot questions / I are a college student!

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 15:10:42 -0700

From: John Glaser <glaser@analog.ece.arizona.edu>

Subject: Brewpot questions / I are a college student!

I have been brewing about a year now, and have some questions/ideas

about brewpots.

1) I just picked up a enameled steel canning pot (8 gal.), but

 it has a few chips in it, maybe about 1-2 square inches

 worth of exposed metal. Will this be a worse problem than

 that created by using 3 gal. boils in my smaller pot. Is

 there anything I can do to cover the chips? (for example,

 using hi-temp enamel like they sell for repairing outdoor BBQ

 grills and such).

2) Has anyone ever considered electroplating the inside of a

 steel or aluminum pot with copper, to allow its use as a

 boiling pot. Is it too expensive, too difficult, etc., or

 could it work? What about anodized aluminum? Anyone know

 anything about this?

Anyway, just started reading the digest, and enjoy it thoroughly.

Also, regarding the earlier post about college students, I am one who

brews out of necessity (of course, who doesn't?). Can't afford to buy

decent beer :(, so I am forced to make all the beer I drink. Oooh,

life is so tough!

John Glaser "glaser@analog.ece.arizona.edu"

------------------------------


Sake

Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 12:23:20 -0400 (AST)

From: robinson@orbit.acrso.ns.ca (John Robinson)

Subject: Sake

A short time ago,

>Bryan Kornreich <bkornrei@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu>

Asked about:

>Subject: sake-brewing

>Does anyone know anything about brewing sake?  I'd like to try it 'coz I

>love it and I've got a lot of rice.  Any recipies? With its high alcohol

>content(15-18%) does it require any sort of distillation?  Or are there

>yeast that can pump out that high ethanol content?

Well, if you want to brew sake, my first suggestion would be to buy and

read Sake, USA by Fred Eckhart.  Without repeating everything he goes

into there, I will outline a few of more salient points about sake

brewing here:

1) You need a large portion of rice infected with a fungal amalyse.

This stuff is called Koji, and you can either make it yourself or buy

it.  I'm using Cold Mountain Koji at the moment, and I got a local shop

to special order it for me.  It needs to be refrigerated and should be

used when fairly fresh.

2) You can use a sherry yeast, or some other alcohol tolerant strain,

though the proper sake yeast is available from Wyeast (in liquid form)

and perhaps from others.  If you use the Wyeast, Fred suggests that you

NOT pop the nutrient pouch inside.  Just clip the package and use as is.

3) In order to make the best sake, you should use highly polished

japanese short grain rice.  Without going into all the whys and

wherefores, long grain rice is not as good.  Brown rice can be used, but

you probably won't recognize the end product as sake.  You can usually

get this rice at an asian food store.  You'll also need to steam the

rice, so you should get a rice steamer while you're picking up the rice.

For a small batch of sake, about 2 gallons, the last addition of rice is

5 lbs, so you need a reasonably large steamer if you want to do large

batches.

4) No distillation is required to achieve high concentrations of

ethanol.  In sake brewing, the koji turns the rice starch to sugar, and

then the yeast ferments it on the spot.  This is similar to adding a

little more sugar to a wine, for example, as the fermentation is

proceeding and has the effect of coaxing the yeast into producing more

and more alcohol.

5) One adds more and more rice to the ferment as time goes on, and Fred

suggest that you mix the freshly steamed rice with the sake using your

hands.  Make sure they're clean, and remember this means you'll have to

do the initial fermentation in a plastic bucket.

6) You may want to look into using a press near the end to press the

lees when you rack to the secondary.  Be sure to top up your secondary

(1 gallon glass jugs work well for sake secondaries).

7) You will need to pasturize the sake.  Fred explains how to do this

and why it is important.

My first batch is well on the way to being completed.  When it is done,

maybe I'll post the results.

Hope this helps...

- --

John Robinson                   Internet: robinson@orbit.acrso.ns.ca

Systems Manager

Atlantic Centre for Remote    "Know the enemy and know yourself;

    Sensing of the Oceans      in a hundred battles you will never

DOD #0069                      be in peril." - Sun Tzu

------------------------------


A new twist in chiller design

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 22:25:05 EST

From: aa680@freenet.carleton.ca (Geoffrey Burd)

Subject: A new twist in chiller design

This past weekend marked the inauguration of my new immersion wort chiller

(after two years of reading the digest and many trips to the archives).  It

uses a design which I have not seen mentioned here before which proved to be

very effective. I used 50' of 1/4" I.D. copper tubing wound in a cloverleaf

shape around 3 48 oz. juice cans, like so:

          __

         /  /

        _/__/_

       /  //  /

       /__//__/

There are about 12 full turns, resulting in a coil height of about 8" and a

diameter of about 12" which fits nicely in my pot. Several positive features

of this design are: Structural stability due to the overlapping of the coils

and the fact the the inlet tube goes down the middle. The overlapping of the

tubing spaces the individual coils to permit better circulation and heat

distribution. Higher "tubing density" within the wort due to the tighter

coiling.

The only disadvantages I can see are: harder to clean and harder (though less

necessary) to stir the wort.

When I get a bigger pot, I plan to rebuild it with more tubing--either as

a parallel system with 3 interleaved tubes, or as a 6-lobed design (or both),

but for my current 20 liter pot this works great (roughly 10 minutes to cool

to pitching temperature--if anyone wants more accurate measurements, let me know

and I'll be more scientific with my next batch!)

- --

Geoffrey Burd

aa680@freenet.carleton.ca

------------------------------


Chillers

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 23:11 CST

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Chillers

 >From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

 >Subject: Hot Break/Hops in CF Chiller

 >I wanted to comment that my boiler has a spigot several inches above the

 bottom of the kettle.  My CF chiller attaches to the spigot via a

 flare fitting.  Twelve to fifteen minutes after the boil is concluded, I

 begin runoff through the heat exchanger.  By this time, hops and hot break

 have settled below the level of the spigot and are not drawn into the runoff.

 The price paid is the loss of a few quarts bitter wort: this can be reclaimed

 and canned for use as starters if one is so inclined.

 The price paid in this discussion is to give up one of the few "unarguable"

 advantages to the CF chiller.  I conceded that a CF chill is propably faster

 than an immersion chiller but if you sit around and wait for the hot break to

 settle, you have lost that advantage.  And just for the record, several

 inches in my 16 gal kettle is several gallons but the easymasher sits on the

 bottom and less than an inch is left behind.

 The fact is that if it is chilled with an immersion chller, the hot/cold

 break will settle to below this level and be much more dense than if settled

 hot.  The trub stays put and only that immediately surrounding the screen get

 drawn out and this can be discarded as it is only the first few ounces.

 >From: gummitch@teleport.com (Jeff Frane)

 Subject: Re: Wort Chillers, Redux

 >Without trying to quote from Jack's posting responding to my posting...

 You really should to get the proper intent sorted out.

 >Jack, I know the difference between hot and cold breaks -- they happen

 under different circumstances.

 I never suggested that you don't know the difference, I suggested that from

 my understanding of what you are doing, the two could become combined in the

 end product.

 > I leave my hot break behind in the kettle because at the end of the boil I

 create a whirlpool... and then draw the clear (very clear) wort off from

 *around* the mountain of protein and hop debris on the bottom of the kettle.

 Apparently, I did not understand your technique but now my vision of the

 "mountain or protein" geive me pause.  I see you standing there with a sipon

 tube with a pot scrubber on the end poking around in the kettle to keep it in

 just the right position, not too close or you suck it up.  Then when you are

 all done, I see this mountain again with a large pool of clear wort around it

 that you can't quite get at for fear of sucking up the crud.  I trust you

 have all this figured out but never having done it that way, thinking about

 it gives me a headache.

 (no problem with HSA, because I don't splash),

 Wishful thinking.  The major air/wort interface is the surface.  The

 continually changing surface area provides orders of magnitude more aeration

 than a little (or even a lot of) splashing.  I am not convinced that either

 will cause any serious harm but don't hide under the splashing blankie.

 > dogmatism has no place in brewing.

 Unless, of course, it comes from me.. :) That's for Norm.

 js

------------------------------


RE: Nasty Brews (Part 2)

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 07:20:00 EST

From: "/R=FDACB/R=A1/U=RIDGELY/O=HFM-400/TN=FTS 402-1521/FFN=Bill Ridgely/"@mr.cber.fda.gov

Subject: RE: Nasty Brews (Part 2)

          Continuing the discussion on Matt Rowley's post in HBD #1267:

               >What about Australia? anyone know of aboriginal beer drinks

               >there? Hawaii? Didn't Cook make beer of breadfruit on

               >landing, which the Hawaiians thought foul? There was a

               >Polynesian kava drink, but to my knowledge it wasn't

               >intoxicating. Anyone know?

          As mentioned in my earlier posting, no known alcoholic beverages

          were made by Australian aborigines, at least according to the

          literature I've seen. I'll happily stand corrected if anyone comes

          up with a reference to the contrary.

          I'm unfamiliar with specifics of the Cook story, but there's no

          reason why breadfruit couldn't be successfully fermented. There's

          no mention in the literature of modern breadfruit fermentations.

          The Polynesians brewed a drink from masticated kava root.

          Unfortunately, like most indigenous beers in which saliva is used

          as the starch-converting agent, the beer is not often seen these

          days. The amylolytic enzymes in saliva are quite efficient,

          however, so my guess is that kava beer had a fair amount of

          alcohol.

               >We were also comparing rates of alcoholism to length of

               >contact with alcohol.

               >I guess I'm not looking just for nasty stuff, but also odd

               >things. Any recipes'd be appreciated, either private e-mail

               >or posting here.

          I'll leave you with two references. The best book I've seen on

          indigenous beers (and other fermented foods) in general is

          Steinkraus, Keith et al, "Handbook of Indigenous Fermented Foods",

          NY, Marcel Dekker, 1983 (Thanks, Eric Urquhart!)

          The best book on the role of alcohol in primitive societies is

          Aasved, Mikal, "Alcohol, Drinking, and Intoxication in

          Preindustrial Society: Theoretical, Nutritional, & Religious

          Considerations", Santa Barbara, Univ. Calif., 1988 (Thanks, Alan

          Eames!)

          I believe the latter is a doctoral dissertation, but you should be

          able to get both of these through interlibrary loan at your

          college.

          Hope this information helps you on your way.

          Sorry I forgot the .sig in my previous posting.

          Bill Ridgely (Brewer, Patriot, Bicyclist)                    __o

          ridgely@a1.cber.fda.gov                                     -/<,

          ridgely@cber.cber.fda.gov                                ...O/ O...

------------------------------


Burners

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 09:06:08 EST

From: Bob_McIlvaine@keyfile.com

Subject: Burners

I'm interested in finding information on gas

burner design.

Can anyone tell me where to find any books

or info on things like port sizing, air mixtures,

orifice sizes, gas pressures, etc.?

------------------------------


native beer

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 09:05:41 EST

From: dweller@GVSU.EDU (RONALD DWELLE)

Subject: native beer

          RE: Bill Ridgely/"@mr.cber.fda.gov/  RE: Nasty Brews

          I had always heard (locally, in Michigan) that the Native

          American Indians made spruce beer (in a very-weak form).

          No?

------------------------------


Keg Insulation

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 09:17:08 EST

From: Bob_McIlvaine@keyfile.com

Subject: Keg Insulation

Dennis Lewis asked about insulation for

15 1/2 gal converted kegs.

Since, presumably, this will be sitting on

a heat source such as 'Cajun Cooker'

normal water heater blankets probably

won't take the heat if the flame leaks up

around the bottom.

There is a type of high temp blanket

used in the foundry industry for insulating

foundry furnices. I've use this with very

good results. Since its rated for use

between 1400F and 2000F it won't burn.

Also, since it sort of resembles a 1"

thick piece of felt its easier to handle and

cut.

I've used it for brew kegs as well as for

refractory lining in a small foundry. With

the foundry you can actually hold the outside

of the foundry while the inside has been

heated enough to melt aluminum between

900F and 1200F.

------------------------------


lousy hop rates in extract brewing

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 8:29:45 CST

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: lousy hop rates in extract brewing

In response to Spencer Thomas in Thursdays HBD...

Just a clarifier - The lousy rates you speak of apply to the partial

boil extract brews.  If you do an extract brew and boil all 5 gallons

(for a 5 gallon batch), your extract rates won't be affected by higher

wort concentrations...IMHO.

  good luck and good brew (whatever way you make it!)

     Chris

======================================================================

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu |

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

======================================================================

------------------------------


Brewpubs in Munich

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 09:07:48 -0600

From: tconklin@rdth2.rdth.luc.edu

Subject: Brewpubs in Munich

Heading out to Munich tonight and wondered if anyone had any favorite

pubs they could recommend. Never been there before so I am really looking

forward to the experience of fresh German brew. Should be a thrill.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

Tom

------------------------------


Brew-pub, what's involved...

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 09:56:12 -0500 (EST)

From: ki!risque.ki.com!bernardi@uunet.UU.NET (Dave Bernardi)

Subject: Brew-pub, what's involved...

Hi,

I'm trying to estimate what it would cost to start a Brew-pub

in the state of Pennsylvania.  I'm new to this mailing list so

if this has been discussed in the past, let's kill it here.

I'm also pretty new to homebrewing.  I've made several batches

(just add water) and a couple that were a combination of extract

and grain and they all turned out pretty good.

I know I have a lot to learn but my goal is to operate a Brew-pub.

My father-in-law already owns a bar so that part is licked.  The

Pennsylvania LCB sent me some info a while back and from what I

remember the a brew-pub license is $2,000/year and you are limited

to ~500 kegs or something like that.

What I'm interested in is equipment.....  I want to brew the beer

myself, not hand a recipe to a brewery and call it mine.  I have

some reference books but I would like to talk to anyone that has

real experience in this.

I assume that since good beer has a shelf life and I won't be

selling large quantities (since a Brew-pub can only sell on-premises),

we would brew small amounts often as opposed to large batches

infrequently.  Just to pick a number my guess would be (1) keg a week

per flavor to start.  The bar is in a resort area and I already

know the locals won't touch it.

I still have a lot of research to do but if anyone knows where

I can find old brewing supplies or have ideas/plans for making

my own, I would appreciate the help.  If I can get this off

the ground, and your ever in Vowinkle, PA. please stop by and

see what you've help create.

Thank you.

Dave Benrardi

- --

########################################################################

# Internet  : bernardi@ki.com                     Dave Bernardi        #

# CompuServe: >INTERNET:uunet.UU.NET!ki!bernardi  Ki Research, Inc.    #

# UUCP      : ...!uunet!ki!bernardi               6760 Alexander Bell  #

# Voice     : 410 290 0355                        Suite  250           #

# FAX       : 410 290 0397                        Columbia, MD 21046   #

############### New Dimensions In Network Connectivity #################

------------------------------


Isinglass, Old British Beers

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 15:15:18 +0000

From: G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk (Geoff Cooper)

Subject: Isinglass, Old British Beers

Al <korz@iepubj.att.com> asks:

>The Isinglass that I've found is pre-mixed and I specifically asked the

>wholesaler if it needed to be refridgerated.  He said no.  Now, I'm

>questioning this because of what Norman wrote.  Could the pre-mixed

>isinglass be stabilized somehow or does my distributor need to change

>their instructions?

I believe the distibutor needs to change their advice, but Norman's figure

of 50F is a bit restrictive. I use isinglass quite a lot and the manufacturers'

instructions (here in the UK that is) say that the storage temperature must not

exceed 20C (68F). The pre-mixed isinglass then stays as a gel - if it spends

any time at high temp it breaks down, becomes more liquid and doesn't work

anywhere near as well. I keep mine in the fridge, and I know of one homebrew

shop that doesn't stock it in summer. For me it's no problem storing it in

there amongst the yeast, hops, white wine, lagers ....

- -------------

Also we were told:

Title:        Home Brewing, The CAMRA guide

Author:       Graham Wheeler

Publisher:    ALMA books, a subsidiary of CAMRA UK (CAMpaign for Real Ale)

ISBN:         1-85249-107-8

Pages:        180

Price:        64.99 (pounds sterling) (1991 price)

              ^^^^^

Oh no it's not! I got one and I certainly wouldn't have paid that for it!

Question: Is it the 4 or the 6 that is the mistype?

- ---------

And the other misprint! I haven't got my copy yet but..

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu:

>I was reading the latest Zymurgy last night, and happened upon the old

>English beer recipes.  (From the Durbin Park club??)

                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^

That's Durden Park.

And From Ed  <WESTEMEIER@delphi.com>:

>All of the recipes list ingredients for making "six US gallons" which

>is plainly wrong if you examine the quantities.  In fact, the quantities

>shown are for making _one_(UK)_gallon_.

>

>CORRECTION:

>To make five US gallons, multiply all quantities by 4.2 (that's close

>enough).  This should be obvious, but you never know....

Or: multiply by 5 to get 6 US gallons.

And, on re-reading my email to Zymurgy, I can only assume that it was my

making the above statement to them that has given rise to the error. Even

though I clearly said that the ingredients were "per imperial gallon".

Lesson: don't make helpful statements.

I can also (from personal experience) strongly recommend trying the recipes.

Geoff

------------------------------


Pilsner Urquell

Date:         Thu, 11 Nov 93 09:43:29 CST

From: Dave Justice <DD24005@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU>

Subject:      Pilsner Urquell

 I just finished reading C.R. Saikley's submissions on Czech beers and

 PU. I found it interesting in that I visited the brewery in August and

 noticed the changes taking place. At any rate, it was his description

 of brilliantly clear that struck a chord in me. I've noticed recently

 the proliferation of beer being sold in 22-24 oz. bottles and cans -

 at least around here anyway - and PU is no exception. I was examining

 one such bottle the other day and noticed some sediment on the bottom.

 I didn't really expect this in a bottle of PU so I had to try it. It

 turned out being the best example of PU I've ever had here in the

 states. Usually the stuff you get here is overly bitter IMO and is

 probably meant to be so for preservation reasons. In this instance the

 diacetyl was noticeable but a great compliment to the hop character as

 C.R. described in his post. The sediment disappears with little

 perturbation and as such the beer is not brilliantly clear. So what is

 the sediment? Is PU exporting something different now or is this an

 abberation? BTW the batch number (?) as stamped on the bottle is 11A2

 if that means anything.

------------------------------


Re: inadvertent lambic, black & tan

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 9:56:31 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: inadvertent lambic, black & tan

> I made a batch of aborted vienna lager and the brew turned out to be

> infected from the new fermenter I was using (used keg). In the

> process of washing out the goo, some flat, ropy-looking stuff came

> washing out. It was the color of trub, sort of an off-beige and very

> stringy. I examined a piece of it and it was quite resilient with a

> faint acidy smell. Any ideas what that might be?

Certainly sounds like some sort of lacto- or peddio- bacterial

infection.  In fact, it sounds identical to an infection that plagues my

brewery from time to time (unfortunately, I don't brew p-lambics :-( ).

I haven't positively identified the bug, but it does form a stringy

beige rope on top of the krausen.  Fortunately, it doesn't have a huge

impact on the beer -- a slight astringency, some sourness, and

cloudiness, but not much in the way of off odor.  BTW, if someone has

ideas on how to combat such a beast, besides the usual "sanitize the

heck out of everything", I'd appreciate the info.

> Guinness and..... Pabst Blue Ribbon. Call it a Black and Blue if you like.

When I was in college, we drank "Sheaf & Shafe" -- one-sixth bottle of

Sheaf Stout mixed with each can of a six pack of Sheaffer (sp?).  Back

then, it seemed like a pretty good way to stretch your beer dollar.

- --

Jeff "still drinks Schlitz on occasion" Benjamin  benji@fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                               Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Beer labels.

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 02:45:00 BST

From: mike.keller@genie.geis.com

Subject: Beer labels.

In 1268 Dion writes a summary of s/w for beer labels:

 ||My criteria were (in order of importance):                    ||

 ||                                                              ||

 ||cost (free is preferable)                                     ||

 ||DOS or MS Windows (X Windows acceptable, but not preferred)   ||

 ||able to fit text into a defined shape (like a banner)         ||

 ||                                                              ||

 ||Suggestions have been:                                        ||

 ||           <snip>                                             ||

 ||Corel Draw - will do it all, but list price $399              ||

 ||                                                              ||

Since the release of Corel Draw 4, Corel Draw 3 (which is still

available) has been priced as low as $125. I've seen this price both

in mail order and in Sam's Club. Comes with lotsa fonts, and lots

more fonts and clip art if you have a CD ROM player.

 mike keller, beer sysop, GEnie

------------------------------


Re: Adding spices to beer

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 09:47:28 -0800

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Re: Adding spices to beer

  I have made Christmas Ales about 4 years in a row now, using about

the same recipe(based on Papzian's Christmas ale recipe, I forget the

name).  What I have varied is when during the boil the spices are

added.  Usually, I try to figure out long it will take to extract the

desired essences from the spice, and how easily they will boil off.

This time, (for 5 gallons) I added 4 cinnanmon sticks at the beginning

of the (60 minute) boil, and added 4oz chopped ginger, and the peel

from 4 oranges and 1 lemon 5 minutes from the end of the boil.  I

assume it will mellow a bit in the bottle, but tasted from the

secondary, the cinnamon and ginger come through like gangbusters.

 Drew

------------------------------


CONVERSION OF MALT M

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 09:49:20

From: rodney.shupe@deepcove.com

Subject: CONVERSION OF MALT M

I'm tring to convert Malt dry messure amounts into amounts of Malt Extracts in

volume messure.  ie: X number of grams/pounds -> Y number of liters/fluid oz.

Can anyone help?

Rodney Shupe  -  rodney.shupe@deepcove.com

------------------------------


small batch brewing

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 14:24:25 EST

From: carlsont@GVSU.EDU (TODD CARLSON)

Subject: small batch brewing

          This fall I started brewing one gallon batches of beer and

          found it to be very enjoyable.  The problems I had with the

          traditional 5 gallon batches were that I did'nt have time to

          process that much beer.  While handling 5 gallons is more

          efficient (less time/bottle), it does take bigger blocks of

          time that I don't have.  The other problem was that I don't

          drink enough beer to go through 5 gal. very fast.  If I made

          an average batch of beer I found myself drinking average

          beer for 6 months.  The alternative (dumping $25 worth of

          beer down the drain) was equally unapealing.  By breewing

          one gal at a time I am able to experiment more often.  My

          beer is improving 5 times faster since I brew 5 times more

          often.  (and it is still improving - I still consider myself

          a beginning brewer)

          My questions for the more experienced brewers are

          1)  Are there any hints for adapting traditional 5 gal

          recipies to a 1 gal size (other than dividing amounts by 5)?

          2)  Why is the 5 gal batch so standard?  Is there any one

          elese like me who finds advantages in small batch brewing?

          Todd Carlson

          carlsont@gvsu.edu

------------------------------


Handling hops/Priming lagers/Crabtree effect/Language in the HBD

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 13:51 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Handling hops/Priming lagers/Crabtree effect/Language in the HBD

Alan writes--

>I start out by measuring an amount of hops and putting them into a large

>glass mixing bowl.  Then I stick the jar down in the hops and stuff them

>in with my hand.

I've read that the amount of bacteria on your hands can be orders of

magnitude more than in your mouth!  Thus, I've taken to handling hops

with a sanitized surgical glove.  I get the hops in quarter bales (whole)

or 11lb vacuum-sealed packages and then go directly into new, oxygen-barrier

bags (I can only assume they are relatively sanitary), purge with CO2,

squish out excess CO2 and then heat seal the bags.  When I use the hops,

I sanitize the SS weighing dish, usually with boiling water, and then pour

the hops back and forth between the dish and the bag till I have the right

amount in the dish.  Thus, I've never handled the hops with bare hands.

Not a problem for boiling or flavoring hops, but it could be a potential

problem area for dryhops.

*********************************

Carl writes--

>I plan to bottle my first lager over Thanksgiving weekend.  Particulars since

>my post in #1240: Primary at 45F for 3 weeks, secondary at 45F since.  Am I

>likely to need more yeast (after Wyeast #2007) for conditioning and, if yes,

>what type(s) are least likely to affect the character of the beer?

I'm primarily an ale brewer, so I don't have much recent lager experience,

but the latest Traditional Bock I did was made with Wyeast #2308 (Munich)

and spent two weeks in the primary and about 8 weeks in the secondary and

did not require any additional yeast at bottling time to produce carbonation.

The beer carbonated well, within two weeks and long before it was ready to

consume (4 months of lagering at 40F in the bottle was needed to make the

perm-solution nose to miraculously disappear!).

The most important point to my response is this:

DON'T CHANGE YEASTS AT BOTTLING TIME!!!

Unless you are 100% sure that the yeast you are adding at bottling is

LESS ATTENUATIVE than the fermentation strain AND that you have no

chance of even trace bacteria in the bottling strain, I recommend

relying on the fermentation yeast for conditioning.  If you add even

a very small amount of bacteria or if you use a more attenuative yeast

at bottling, you will make yourself a couple of cases of glass grenades.

At best, you'll get gushers.  This is especially important for lagers

since they will be stored for a while before consumption.

****************************************

Carl also writes:

>Also on priming, has anyone else heard of or have more info on the "Crabtree

>effect" described by Troy Howard in #1264?  Sounds like a good reason to

>abandon use of corn sugar for priming on the face of it.

Look in George Fix's book, Principles of Brewing Science for more on the

Crabtree effect (although, I believe there's a few missing words in that

paragraph (George?)). However, I don't agree with Carl that it's a good

reason to abandon corn sugar.  I switched from corn sugar to DME priming

and then switched back because I found little difference except for what

I think was protein scum (ring around the collar) in the bottles when I

used DME for priming (note that I did not force-cool the DME priming

solution, perhaps that would have helped).

*****************************************

My view on the issue of questionable language in the HBD is that I feel it

should be avoided.  I'm not offended, rather, I feel that it is rather

"unprofessional" to have such language intermixed amongst world-class

brewing knowledge.  It sort of cheapens the HBD.  The combined knowledge

of us here on the digest (and that includes even the beginners, who can

contribute interesting questions and discoveries, as well as the seasoned,

advanced brewers), far surpasses the knowledge in even the most respected

single book.  To me the HBD is like a living book... in print... each day.

How much respect might we have for Malting and Brewing Science if Hough

et. al. had stuck the occasional four-letter-word? My rule of thumb is,

"does this sound appropriate for a magazine article or a book?"  Let's

continue to have fun, but let's also not write anything that cheapens the

HBD... these are not mutually exclusive goals.

Al.

------------------------------


Beer Labels

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 15:25:21 EST

From: dougy@icad.COM ( Doug Lethin)

Subject: Beer Labels

For beer labels, I also suggest a program called

KeyDrawPLUS for windows. I paid $28.00 for it.

It has features for aligning text to curves, creating perspectives,

extruding text, and other actions that vary text shape. Although it

does not have a feature to shape text to a inputed shape, if the shape is

simple, you could warp the text into that shape.

Drawbacks are :

Its not as user friendly as other programs I have seen, and its user

manual also is not the greatest.

I used it to define a logo for musical group, and the size became so

large, that at times it would use all of my memory and crash my PC.

Memory management was not done well with that program.

Other than that, I would still recommend it.

Doug

------------------------------


Dry Hop Bitterness from Beta Acids?

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 15:45:43 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Dry Hop Bitterness from Beta Acids?

Darren Aaberge replied to my Byron Burch/dry hop question via email:

(Darren, my reply to you bounced!)

DA>Byron Burch says something to the effect of:

DA>

DA>To calculate bitterness

DA>(A)  Multiply the number of ounces of hops per 5 gallons by their alpha

DA>acid rating.

DA>(B)  Divide by 7.25

DA>(C)  If the hops are boiled for more than 45 minutes multiply by 28-30.  If

DA>they are boiled for 15 to 40 minutes multiply by 8-12.  If they are boiled

DA>for less than 15 minutes or are dry hopped multiply by 5.

I ran some quick numbers based on a recent brew.  I was surprised to see

something this simplistic come fairly close to the IBUs from Rager's formulae.

"Fairly close" means within 10 - 15% overall.  This formula appears to take

into account the utilization for different boil times, etc.  Interesting.  The

part about dry hopping, though, deserves further thought and discussion.

DA>He says that these numbers assume a rapid chilling at the end of the boil.

DA>Also, he defines dry hopping as adding hops (and he implies only pellets can

DA>be used) to the fermenter prior to fermentation.  He goes on to qualify this

DA>method of calculating bitterness by saying that it is the system of the

DA>American Society of Brewing Chemists.

I'm going to assume what I've read is true, and that alpha acids (which are

neither soluble nor bitter) will not give up any bitterness without being

isomerized by boiling.  The fact that he adds his dry hops to the fermenter

_prior to fermentation_ may be a clue.  Beta acids do not need isomerization

to become bitter.  The oxidation products of beta acids are soluble and bitter,

although I don't have a good feel for how much bitterness they contribute.

Malting and Brewing Science indicates that they may contribute a considerable

amount.  The common wisdom says that when hops are exposed to oxygen, the alpha

acids oxidize into non-bitter products, and are no longer available to

isomerize into bitter iso-alpha acids.  MABS indicates that oxidized beta acids

in the same hops may counter a considerable amount of the lost alpha acids, and

that the formulae for lost bitterness in old hops may not be accurate.  I don't

have the book (I need more books!) so I am justing passing on what I've been

told on this.

Back to Burch:

At the point where Burch adds his dry hops, there is lots of oxygen in the

wort, or there should be for yeast reproduction.  This will allow the beta

acids to oxidize and become bitter until reproduction uses up all the oxygen

and/or fermentation drives it all off.  This may be where Burch gets his

bitterness from dry hopping, and it may be where others in this forum have

seen it as well.  Long lag times would contribute to the bitterness.

In recent times, I've restricted my dry hopping to _after primary fermentation_

and have had no bitterness associated with it.  This supports my theory, in

that there is no oxygen for beta acid oxidation at that point.  To those who've

reported bitterness from dry-hopping:  when do you dry hop?  Does your data

support my idea?

DA>While all of this is taken from the book "Brewing Quality Beers" by Byron

DA>Burch, none of it is direct quotes.  If you want more information or direct

DA>quotes, let me know.  You may, of course, post any or all of this to the

DA>HBD if you wish.

Direct quotes would be nice, if you have the time and inclination.  Is anyone a

ASBC member?  Is this their method for estimating IBUs?  Enquiring minds want

to know...

Hoppy Trails,

Norm

------------------------------


Hunting (dweebs) over a baited field

Date: 11 Nov 93 17:06:23 -0600

From: mbarre@nomvs.lsumc.edu

Subject: Hunting (dweebs) over a baited field

J.S.,

Keep on Truckin'

------------------------------


Request

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 16:41:04 PST

From: Jack St Clair <Jack_St_Clair@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: Request

Text item: Text_1

Please add me to the HBD mailing list

Thanks,

Jack St.Clair

Jack_st_clair@ccm.hf.intel.com

------------------------------


breweriana

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 18:55 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: breweriana

Some digests ago, a subscriber wished to identify brewery labels and graphics.

Check your local libraries for some of these titles (if your libraries do not

have any of these items, see if they can provide the items via interlibrary

loan).

Periodicals:

American Breweriana Jounal: Official Publication of the American Breweriana

Association, Inc. Colorado Springs Colo.

All About Beer. Anaheim, CA. McMullen Pub.

Beer Can Collectors News Report. St. Louis, Mo. Beer Can Collectors of America.

Breweriana Collector. Los Angeles, CA.

Books:

 Check under the subjects Beer, Brewing, and Breweries at your local

libaries.  There is a publication, whose title escapes me, that provides a

geographic listing of hundreds of breweries that have winked in and out of

existence during the history of the US.  If you wish to research a local history

and see what breweries have been around, try a local historical society as well.

As for the mystery title, I'll try to find it to post at a later date...or if

any other subscribers could post more info, that would be just as dandy.

And to the list has a collective...

1) has there ever been compiled a bibliographic FAQ or book & periodical list

concerning beer, brewing and breweries?

2) if not 1) would there be any interest in having one compiled?

Please feel free to respond personal email as well as to the digest.

Happy beering,

David Atkins

atkins@macc.wisc.edu

------------------------------


Twist off vs opener only

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 20:50:29 -0800 (PST)

From: PGILLMAN@POMONA.CLAREMONT.EDU

Subject: Twist off vs opener only

I was wondering if pressure differences and retention are the reason that

there is a difference in the taste between commercial beers with twist tops

and those with opener only tops. any one have another explanation or support

for this one?

thanks

phil

pgillman@pomona.edu

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1270, 11/12/93

*************************************

-------


Currency symbols

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 93 04:45:49 EST

From: gbgg5tt5@ibmmail.COM

Subject: Currency symbols

- ----------------------- Mail item text follows ---------------

To: I1010141--IBMMAIL  Homebrew Digest su

From: Paul Slater

Subject: Currency symbols

>Title:        Home Brewing, The CAMRA guide

>Author:       Graham Wheeler

>Publisher:    ALMA books, a subsidiary of CAMRA UK (CAMpaign for Real Ale)

>ISBN:         1-85249-107-8

>Pages:        180

>Price:        64.99 (pounds sterling) (1991 price)

>              *****

>

>Oh no it's not| I got one and I certainly wouldn't have paid that for it|

>Question: Is it the 4 or the 6 that is the mistype?

Should have been 4.99 pounds.

Sorry for any character confusion, my system is ebcidically disadvantaged.

Paul Slater

gbgg5tt5@ibmmail.com

------------------------------


hot wort siphoning- thanks

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1993 09:34:08 +0000 (U)

From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: hot wort siphoning- thanks

                      hot wort siphoning: thanks

Thanks for those who helped out with my siphon and chilling

questions.

I didn't really mean how to siphon boiling wort (ouch), but just how to

siphon from the pot into the primary....i ended up just pouring it into the

bucket. I'll rack into a secondary in a little bit.

brew count down begins!

Thanks all!

george

------------------------------


Re: THE BEER MACHINE

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 93 08:55:56 EST

From: aa680@freenet.carleton.ca (Geoffrey Burd)

Subject: Re: THE BEER MACHINE

taylor@e5sf.hweng.syr.ge.com (taylor) asks:

    "Has anyone tried or heard off  "THE BEER MACHINE"??"

They were sold in many stores around here last Christmas (I don't know

how well they sold--the local hardware store still has a couple gathering

dust: I'm waiting for them to be sold off half price!).  I inspected one

and it looked pretty sturdy: it looks like a small barrel on its side

made of brown rigid plastic. It consists of a top and bottom half which

clamp together, and so would be easy to clean.  There is a tap on the front

that looks like the tap on a coffee urn, and a lid on top for adding

ingredients.  During fermentation you attach a pressure regulator which

maintains enough pressure to allow natural carbonation.  For dispensing you

replace it with a CO2 cartridge.

I agree with you that I wouldn't use it as intended since the beer would end

up sitting on the trub, but it would make a great little dispensing keg

provided that it could retain pressure and not leak.

I did try the malt extract that they sell to use with it: it comes in 3

styles in about a 4 pound can.  You're supposed to pour it into the machine,

top up to 10 liters (2.5 USG) with water and pitch the yeast. I tried the

same procedure in my carboy using the dark ale extract.

It was dreadful: the extract was thin and watery and smelled like prune juice.

 Guess what! The resulting beer was thin and watery and tasted like prune

juice.  It's the only batch I've made that even I wouldn't drink!

I still, though, would give the keg a try if I could get it at a good price.

- --

Geoffrey Burd

aa680@freenet.carleton.ca

------------------------------


Mash Temp, Batch Size

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 93 08:03 CST

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Mash Temp, Batch Size

 >From: Mike Peckar  10-Nov-1993 0909 <m_peckar@cscma.enet.dec.com>

 >1. Air Cock, yes. thanks. I also disn't use the proper plumbing jargon to

    describe what I refered to in my article as a "stand off". Its called

    something else, I forget what....

 Shoulder is the word.  On outdoor hose connections, they are round and

 prevent the spigot from being pushed through the wall from outside.

 Unfortunately, they only come in sizes too large for homebrew applications.

 The shoulder on the air cock is hex shaped so a wrench can be applied to

 tighten it.  It presses tightly against the outside of the kettle to provide

 a leak proof fit.

 >2. The "lower temps" I had trouble at were under 154 degrees. In later

    batches, when I would raise the temp at the end of the mash (Mashout),

    flow would increase significantly with my version of the screen sparger.

    Any batches where the mash temps did not exceed this, it'd get stuck.

 Good argument for mashout.  For those who can not or do not want to mashout,

 there is another approach to the problem.  I typically get thrashed for

 suggesting the use of boiling water for sparging because the books recommend

 a temperature of 170F.  However, sparging with very hot water on a cool mash

 will only serve to maintain the mash at a manageable level and at most, raise

 it a few degrees which will cause no harm at all.

 >From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

 >Subject: zymurgy recipe correction

 >All of the recipes list ingredients for making "six US gallons" which

 is plainly wrong if you examine the quantities.  In fact, the quantities

 shown are for making _one_(UK)_gallon_.

 After reading it several times, I was going to write to you and see if you

 would do a testimonial to the fact that those fantastic extract rates were

 the result of using a MM.  It would have made a great ad.

 >From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

 >You CAN make moderate gravity beers with a small boiler.  Sure, it's

 not recommended, and you leave a lot of sugar behind, but it can be

 done..... lousy hop utilization, lousy extraction.....

 Not sure why any of the above need be but what seems to have been left out of

 the discussion is the presumption that one is making 5 gallon batches.

 As far as extraction is concerned, I get the same yield in one gallon test

 batches as I do in ten gallon  batches.  There is no reason why batches

 smaller that 5 gallons can not be made successfully.  You will find a number

 of them in the "Winners Circle" from the last International.

 >From: snystrom@aol.com

 >Subject: Hunter Airstat modifications  NOW I'm looking for someone who would

 be kind enough to repost the instructions that will allow xthe Airstate chill

 below 40 degrees. ...it may have been a 10K ohm resistor in series with thex

 thermistor/sensor, but he didn't save the posting.

 I saved only the hard copy and I am not about to retype it but he used a 180K

 in series with the sensor.  This got him (Mike Kenny) down to 35F.  I used a

 130K but I was only trying to get the readout to agree with the actual liquid

 temp instead of the air temp.

 js

------------------------------


quality under twist-top

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 93 10:05:36 EST

From: cjh@diaspar.HQ.ileaf.com (Chip Hitchcock)

Subject: quality under twist-top

pgillman@pomona.edu asks whether twist tops affect the quality of the

commercial beer underneath.

<enter prejudice mode>

The standard rap on this is "twist tops take special cappers"---i.e.,

homebrewers can't get a tight seal but commercial brewers can. The

difference in beer quality is probably a matter not of connection but of

parallelism: only swill is drunk in such haste that a twist-off top is a

significant selling point.

I have no data, but I suspect that swill actually averages less time

between brewing and drinking than good stuff, due to the amount of swill

sold (higher turnover). There's also the fact that swill is often brewed

closer to the retail seller than good beer is; e.g., if I drank Bud or

Michelob it would have been brewed in Nashua (~50 minutes drive ~north of

Boston); my mother in DC would get it from near Williamsburg VA; my late

grandfather in Jacksonville FL would get it from Tampa FL; in all cases

the beer would have left the brewery the same day it hit the stores. If we

wanted Anchor or Fuller's it would come from CA (taking a few days,

probably in an unrefrigerated truck) or UK (taking several weeks on

ship---except that you can now get draft Fuller's in at least one pub in

Orlando). Both of these factors would reduce any ill effects from

twist-tops---the beer would have less time to oxidize. (It would also have

less time exposed to fluorescent lights, which is a problem in many beer

stores.)

<exit prejudice mode>

The above assumes that beers are shipped when they're ready to drink

and/or that there's no improvement in the bottle (as there often is for

homebrew, due to (among other factors) bottling on-the-yeast and

when-it-stops-bubbling.

------------------------------


Kriek/Sour Mash

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 93 08:26:17 -0700

From: LPD1002%NYSHESCV.bitnet@UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU

Subject:  Kriek/Sour Mash

First, I would like to thank those who responded to my

question of whether or not the p-Lambic recipe in TNCJOHB was

worth the effort.  Unfortunately the responses I got were not

first hand.  1 said they knew someone who brewed it and thought

it was great.  Another said that they had heard just the

opposite.  Another repsonse I got included a catalog for Sheaf

& Vine which had 3 Belgian yeasts for $18.  This would make this

a rather expensive experiment.  I think that unless I hear from

someone who has tried this first hand or has had a good homemade

p-Lambic, I will hold off on this endeavor.

Again, if anyone has tried one of these, please let me know.

    Steve Septer

    LPD1002@NYSHESCV.BITNET@UACS2.ALBANY.EDU

------------------------------


Re: Suggestion for Dion's inexpensive label software

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 07:29:52 PST

From: megatek!hollen@uunet.UU.NET (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Re: Suggestion for Dion's inexpensive label software

Thanks for the follow up on this.  So far, I have been using xfig for

X Windows and placing every character by hand along a curve.  This got

me my initial run of labels, but leaves me needing my computer at work

and having no capabilities at home.  I will look into Harvard

Graphics.

dion

Dion Hollenbeck (619)455-5590x2814     Email: hollen@megatek.com

Senior Software Engineer                      megatek!hollen@uunet.uu.net

Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California    ucsd!megatek!hollen

------------------------------


Re: Greenplug

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 93 05:31:34 PST

From: gabrio@tc.fluke.COM (Steve D. Gabrio)

Subject: Re: Greenplug

>I saw this gadget that may be of interest to homebrewers like me who have many

>fridges and freezers.  This device uses computer circuitry to work out how

>much electricity is actually needed to keep a motor running (it cuts up

>the sine wave in some way - ask an electrical power engineer).  And not

>only does it save around 25-33% of electricity, the motor runs more smoothly

                          ^^^^^^

(snip!)

>From the November issue of Consumer Reports about the GreenPlug and the

Energy Buster:

The controllers didn't even come close to a saving of 25 percent a year.

The Green Plug turned in the greater saving of the two - 8.6 percent on

the antique, 3.5 percent on one of the middle-aged refrigerators.  At the

national average electricity rate, those savings amount to about $20 and

$4 a year, respectively. Savings with the Energy Buster amounted to 4.7

percent (about $11 a year) at best.  Both controllers actually increased

running cost by a few dollars on the brand-new refrigerator and on one

middle-aged model.

- -------------------------------------------------

They who drink beer will think beer.

                  Washington Irving (1783-1859)

                  American author

- -------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


brewing small batches

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1993 12:05:41 -0600

From: gmeier@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Gary Meier)

Subject: brewing small batches

Todd Carlson asked about brewing batches smaller than 5 gallons in order to

save time and permit more experimentation.  I can't address the first

question, since I have only brewed in 5 gallon batches, but I get my fill

of experimentation by trying things after the primary fermentation is

finished.  When I select a recipe I start thinking about modifications that

might work well with that style, and I generally divert a gallon or so

(after brewing) for the experiment.  Must be all that chemistry training

during my misspent youth.  I've had good luck with bottling part of a batch

into bottles each containing a sanitized jalepeno pepper while bottling the

rest normally--two styles of beer with virtually no additional work.  More

typically I'll siphon a gallon or two from the primary into gallon glass

jugs while putting the rest into my usual secondary fermenter.  Most of the

batch finishes normally, while in each of the one gallon secondary

fermenters I'll add fruit (made a killer rasberry ale recently), spices (my

Christmas Ale is coming along nicely) or experiment with things like dry

hopping, all depending on the style of my starting brew.  Transfers,

bottling, etc are done at the same time for everything, so almost no

additional work is required, but I end up with several distinct styles of

beer when it is all over.  Only investment was a couple of extra airlocks

and the time spent drinking the apple juice that came in my gallon jugs.

Gary Meier, Meier's Femtobrewery and Woodshop

(The Boston (tm) Beer (tm) Co. spills more beer in a day than I make in a year).

Gary Meier

FMC Corporation, Agricultural Chemical Group

Box 8

Princeton, NJ 08543                             (609) 951-3448

------------------------------


Beer Labels

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 14:25:55 PST

From: hp-sdd.sdd.hp.com!ucsd!megatek!hollen (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Beer Labels

>>>>> On Thu, 11 Nov 93 15:25:21 EST, uunet!icad.COM!dougy ( Doug Lethin) said:

Doug> For beer labels, I also suggest a program called

Doug> KeyDrawPLUS for windows. I paid $28.00 for it.

I have tried software sellers without luck.  Would you be able to

supply a source for this program, or any more information like author,

so that I can find it?

thanks,

dion

Dion Hollenbeck (619)455-5590x2814     Email: hollen@megatek.com

Senior Software Engineer                      megatek!hollen@uunet.uu.net

Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California    ucsd!megatek!hollen

------------------------------


flame

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 93 12:36:58 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@stravinsky.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: flame

Sorry that the content of this is pure flame, and takes up valuable bandwidth,

but that is partly the reason I am posting it.  I started to notice last

week when hbd was backed up that some people are seriously adicted to

posting, and while much of the information posted is useful some is not.

One poster in particular who I have decided to question is Al Korzanos (sorry

if this is wrong, but it would be nice and professional if posters identified

themselves properly).

Anyway, some of the information this expert posted in 1270 really got my

goat.  He stated that there were fewer errors (well actually, his disagreements)

in Papazian's book.  While this may be true, I don't know that Miller has

disseminated the massive clangers Papazian has.  I don't know how often

the meaning of kraeusening has to corrected - and gypsum in every

water supply, and the now famous pouring of hot wort into cold water in

a carboy.  Papazian's book is a good starter for the nervous, but for anyone

who has brewed before and wants to get a good handle on water treatment and

all-grain, Miller is a better choice.  Noonan is not for beginners, and while

riddled with errors, the people to whom it's aimed can usually work it out.

In his second posting, Mr. Korzanos, advocated the handling of hops with

sanitized surgical gloves, based on the notion that there are more

bacteria on hands than in the mouth - hardly a scientific determination,

and considering the antibacterial properties of hops, I doubt if many bacteria

would survive - and what would they eat?  I imagine stored hops are too acid

for bacteria.  I wonder why someone like me who dry hops by stuffing hops

with by bare hands through carboy openings has never had an infected batch

attributable to dry-hopping?

He then admits he is primarily an ale brewer and does not have much recent

lager experience, but nevertheless responds to someone enquiring about

pitching fresh yeast when bottling a lager (a correct procedure),

DON'T CHANGE YEASTS AT BOTTLING TIME!!!

because his home perm solution carbonated OK.  I can say categorically that

I have made several strong beers, (Ales, actuallY) that have not

carbonated satisfactorily because I failed to add fresh yeast.

The reason Mr Korzanos gives is 'glass grenades', especially for lagers -

those beers with which he is so intimately familiar, without any examples

at all - just his vague suspicion.

Also, I considered the crabtree effect a good reason to abandon corn

sugar, but of course there are other good reasons to stick with it.

One must balance everything.  Some people are quite happy carbonating with

sterile wort or kraeusen, and for lager there is no topping the latter

method (IMHO).  Even Anheuser-Busch do it!!

Of then he really gets on his hobby horse - "unprofessional language" in

HBD.  This self-proclaimed expert and HBD police man was the single complainant

that led me to bleepify my sig.  Somehow it is unprofessional to use a

little colourful language, but giving bad information as a self-proclaimed

expert is not?  Yes, it is terrible that the "world class brewing knowledge"

is mixed up with some colour.  Mr. Korzanos, hbd is not a professionally

written magazine.  If it were most of your postings wouldn't get past

a junior editor.  It is a computer bulletin board, that occasionally has

great info, mixed up with anecdotal advice such as yours and other

subjects not directly homebrew related, and is meant to be more current,

and lively.  I wish you lived by your rule of thumb

 'My rule of thumb is,

 "does this sound appropriate for a magazine article or a book?"'

and didn't make postings with statements like your

DON'T CHANGE YEASTS AT BOTTLING TIME!!! in bold caps, before you criticise

the unprofesssional postings of others.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


New Pub Info/Censor this baby!

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1993 10:50:10 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: New Pub Info/Censor this baby!

Dave Benrardi

wants to start a Brewpub in Penncilvaniae

 ....         in Vowinkle, PA.

                ^^^^^^^^^

      You sure this is a place and not a cartoon character?

But really.  Contact the AHA 303-447-0816 in Boulder CO.  They have some

info you can buy$ regarding the "how to's" of starting a brewery.  I haven't

seen any of 'em me-self.

Look for magazines for the Brewery Industry,

    e.g.  American Brewer, the business of beer.  (510) 538-9500 mornings.

    $5 for a sample issue, $18/yr (in '92). (no connections and all that crap)

They have lost of ads on equipment and supplies for breweries. A bit out

of scale for the average homebrewer.  But I seem to be quoting my one issue

of it a hell of a lot. ;-&     Zymurgy (AHA) commonly has ads for larger

scale brewing gadgets.  Also articles on why you should or shouldn't

start a brewery.  It's quite an ordeal from what I understand.  I'd love

to start a real one here in Loga UT, but I'd hate to be stuck making 3.2

beer  :(

So... you looking for brewpartners??  :)'

I originated in Penn State alooooong time ago.

*******

Al Korz...  sez:

>  How much respect might we have for Malting and Brewing Science if Hough

et. al. had stuck the occasional four-letter-word? My rule of thumb is,

"does this sound appropriate for a magazine article or a book?"

Or a radio station?  A local country station just canned a dj for saying

the big three letter word......yes that's right...while doing a live on

site broadcast from a local fast food restaraunt Lewis Collins exclaimed,

                "God, even I could afford that!"

Can you tell which three letter word the "good" employers objected to?

Yes that's right.  The owner of the station couldn't even tell the

reporter exactly WHAT word the dj had said.

    That's the kind of thing local customs and restrictions can put on

actions and language!  The poor dj was new here, from CA, and didn't know

that use of THAT word was offensive to some. It's not like they gave him

a list of words that were ok, and which weren't. Amazing the think the name

of the Lord has become a swear word in this state.  Hmmmmm......

I wouldn't want that to happen on the holy ground of the HBD.  I do agree

some personal cencorship is valid.  We should curb "ourselves", but is the

hbd to set out a mandade of what is suitable/not?  Make a new faq. 8-`

How about we say- anything that would be acceptable on daytime tv...

nightime...? .....cable....?  Different people will be offended by dif.

words/phrases/inuendoes (sp?).  How far into our cheeks can we stick our

tongues!  (oops - that sounds nasty...)  I mean we are a bunch of beer

swilling, pretzel snarfing, quaffing bagaboos.  I'm sure more than one of

you has posted to the hbd after tying on a bit of a buzz...hic*...

and well...I've generally noticed people to be sillier when they type

than they might be inclined to be when talking.

    So....what's the point of all this blabber...as always...

Lets save bw to a reasonable respect for brew talk, and lets keep it fun...

but reasonable.  Each to their own definition/  w/in general agreement.

So now that I've wasted all this bw blabbering about bw....BREW ON!

*****

Hey- anyone have an address/phone for a supplier carrying the new

Wyeasts.  The Tube yeasts-  no nutrient, just cells. Require starters.

I haven't seen a post on them here yet, but they were listed on the bf.

I'd be intersted in trying that Scottish Ale yeast.

******

NEW QUOTE:

            "You've fallen through the cracks of our quick fix,

             one hour photo, instant oatmeal society.   Lisa S.

*** Uuuurp. Coffee Burp.  Excuse me. *** J (Coyote) W SLK6P@cc.usu.edu ***

------------------------------


Beer labels (and soon other stuff) in the "Web"

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 93 14:16:48 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Beer labels (and soon other stuff) in the "Web"

If you've got Internet access, and are running on a Mac, PC, or Unix

box, you should check out Mosaic, from NCSA.  It gives access to

on-line information via the "World Wide Web", which subsumes gopher,

anonymous FTP, and lots of other stuff. I am putting together a

beer-oriented Web site, and have started with a nice point-and-click

interface to the beer label & coaster images at Sierra.  Open

URL http://guraldi.itn.med.umich.edu/Beer.

------------------------------


Geary's Hampshire Special Ale

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 93 14:22:59 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Geary's Hampshire Special Ale

Has anyone figured this one out?  Clearly very malty, high OG and FG

(from dark crystal?), LOTS of bittering and finishing hops, doesn't

smell dry-hopped.  I don't recognize the aroma hop (but then, I'm

still working on my hop recognition).  Fantastic stuff, IMHO.

=S

------------------------------


No Pot Scrubber

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1993 12:09:41 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@teleport.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: No Pot Scrubber

I have to post this to relieve Jack's mind.  I know he worries about me,

standing around my kettle with a copper pot scrubber on my siphon hose.

No, no, no, Jack!  I've told you before: I have an uptake copper tubing

that run entirely around the inner perimeter of the kettle, and sits

right on the bottom.  Lots of teeny-tiny holes are drilled in the

underside of this coil.  The mountain of matter is *inside* the coil.

The siphon draws up every last drip of wort (another reason I prefer

pelletized hops, as this process is much easier than with loose hops).

It works very well.  So don't worry, Jack!  I'm fine.  Really.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


Wort aeration, again...

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 93 9:13:01 CST

From: "Andrew D. Kailhofer" <a907932@nast0.bdy.wi.ameritech.com>

Subject: Wort aeration, again...

I'm going to start by appologizing to the r.c.b'ers who've seen this

already, but I didn't get much of a bite with this when I posted it

over there (though thanks to the three of you who did respond).

Anyway...

Based on some allegedly good advice, I got an aerator (Whisper 200 air

pump into an good air filter into the wort via an SS tube into a

plastic boilable fish-tank air stone).  I started a brown ale (extract

+ Belgian B, OG ~= 1.048) by pumping about 8 minutes of air through it

in my bucket (Mr.  Carboy is busy with cider---wow! great!) and

pitching with 1 pkg fresh Edme dry yeast rehydrated as usual.

In about 2.5 hours I could detect fermentation (although not very

strong).  That's a little quick, but not too weird.  However, in less

than 12 hours I awakened to find foam oozing from the airlock that

I've been using on my bucket (hey, with 1.7 gal headspace, I figured I

was going to be ok---it's worked for all of the other batches starting

in the bucket).  I rigged up a blow-off tube, and proceeded to observe

the most abbrupt, violent fermentation I've ever seen.  30 hours after

pitching it's pretty much stopped fermenting and ready to rack.

This leads me to believe that aeration is extremely good for the

yeast, but is it good for the beer?  From reading the "Beer & Yeast"

zymurgy (Just got it.  Read the article to the dulcet sounds of my

gurgling blow-off jar.), especially the Guinard, Miranda, and Lewis

article, I see that fermentation in the presense of good O2

concentration may lead to incresed biomass and decreased

flavor/alcohol production.  Does this mean that I just shot myself in

the bucket?  Could someone with a little more experience shed a little

light on this?

< And then a few days later >

Well, after 48 hours my 1.048 OG beer is at 1.012, and I've racked it

off to glass.  It's pretty tasty, too.  If I had to define the taste

(mentally subtracting the yeasty flavors of unclarified beer in the

primary), I would say that it was very straighforward and beery, with

no traces of fuesils---an all-around good flavor.  It's still flat and

yeasty, but it seems quite good.  We'll let it sit for a week in the

secondary and bottle.  So, in about two weeks I'll be able to report

(at least preliminarily) on this power-aeration thing.

I'm going to go back to my original worry, though.  My SG is now such

that it seems "done" according to (my) conventional wisdom.  When one

uses a hydrometer to measure alcohol levels, one is actually measuring

the SG and subtracting potential alcohol levels, right?  To get the

right measurement, aren't we assuming that the yeast does the standard

90%/10% alcohol production/reproductive respiration levels?  Does this

hold true for highly oxygenated wort?  How far to the right does it

shift?  Does it matter (am I misunderstanding some of the

literature?)?  Since it seems to work, I'm more curious than worried,

but...  I really enjoy a little worry---It's part of Science!

< and finally >

It's now Thursday night, and the S.G. is still 1.012, and the yeast

has settled out very nicely.  While it seems a little soon, I expect

to bottle tonight (Friday) so that the beer will be ready during

Wisconsin's gun deer season (my Bambi Blaster Brown :-).  I'm pretty

flabbergasted at how fast it went, and it tastes good, too.

So, other than asking me to be a little less long winded, and to

refrain from making any comments that might offend anybody who was just

too uptight for words, does anyone have any advice?

Andy

- -----

  Andy Kailhofer              Ameritech Services, Inc.   414/678-7793

  a907932@nast0.bdy.wi.ameritech.com                FAX: 414/678-6335

  740 N Broadway, Room 430,  Milwaukee, WI  53202  Member: League for

  uwm.edu!gus!a907932  p*stmaster@ameritech.com   Programming Freedom

------------------------------


books

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 93 13:26:48 EST

From: sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com (Carl Howes)

Subject: books

Al writes:

> I recently re-read Papazian's "The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing,"

Miller's "The Complete Handbook of Homebrewing" and Noonan's "Brewing Lager

Beer."  While reading, I was scribbling my disagreements with the books in

the margins and dog-earing the corners of these suspect pages.

 ...and later...

>My advice is to buy all three, but read them in the order I listed above.

After reading all three and brewing a dozen batches, you will probably

scribble the same notes in the margins that I did.

My caveat is that trying to critique Miller is not going to be possible

unless a substantial number of those batches are all-grain.  Working from

memory, where Papazian and Miller overlap they tend to contradict each

other.

***************

Brian writes:

>Second, recent batches of mine have taken several hours to cool (1.5

gallons of hot wort added to 3.5 gallons of cold water) to pitching

temperatures, which has made me nervous about possible infection.

I had the same problem when I used that process.  Since learning about

Hot Side Aeration (HSA), I now cool the concentrated wort to pitching temp

before mixing.  Takes 35-45 min by immersing the kettle in cold (45F) tap

water in my kitchen sink with two water changes.  The hot/cold mixing is

a piece of bad advice in Papazian's book which I'm sure Al has marked...

> Are there any disadvantages to reducing the volume of boiled wort?

Decreased hop utilization, increased carmelization.  The first can be

compensated for with more hops, the second is inevitable until you can

switch to a full volume boil.  As I recall, Miller's book has a table

for computing the effect of increased S.G. on utilization.

Carl

------------------------------


Making Mead

Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1993 09:48:31 GMT+1100

From: Davin Slade <10692851@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au>

Subject: Making Mead

Can anyone tell me what a good extract to use for making mead.  Is it

better with a heavier or lighter beer.

Also how much honey should i use for 25 litres of mead.

- ------------------------------------------------------------

Davin Slade, 4th Year Civil Engineering, Monash Uni, Oz

10692851@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au or

baldrick@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au

- ------------------------------------------------------------

"It was georgiousness and georgosity in the flesh"

Alexander de Large, A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess, 1966, Stanley Kubrik, 1971

- ------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Albuquerque.

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1993 22:02:43 -0700 (MST)

From: J. Michael Diehl <mdiehl@triton.unm.edu>

Subject: Albuquerque.

     About 2 weeks ago, I posted an article here asking how to make

a Black and Tan.  I got lots of good responses.  But I got one in

particular, from a guy who used to live here in Albuquerque.  If

you are that person, I have lost your address, would you please get

in touch with me.  Thanx in advance.

J. Michael Diehl   ;^)  |*The 2nd Amendment is there in case the

mdiehl@triton.unm.edu   | Government forgets about the 1st!  <RL>

Mike.Diehl@f29.n301.z1  |*God is a good Physicist, and an even

    .fidonet.org        | better Mathematician.  <Me>

al945@cwns9.ins.cwru.edu|*I'm just looking for the opportunity to

 (505) 299-2282 (voice) | be Politicly Incorrect! <Me>

Can we impeach him yet? |*Protected by 18 USC 2511 and 18 USC 2703.

PGP Key = 7C06F1 = A6 27 E1 1D 5F B2 F2 F1  12 E7 53 2D 85 A2 10 5D

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1271, 11/13/93

*************************************

-------


Unprofessional language

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 93 08:50:28 EST

From: Hal Laurent <laurent@tamrc.ENET.dec.com>

Subject: Unprofessional language

In HBD 1270 Al (korz@iepubj.att.com) writes:

> ...

>My view on the issue of questionable language in the HBD is that I feel it

>should be avoided.  I'm not offended, rather, I feel that it is rather

>"unprofessional" to have such language intermixed amongst world-class

>brewing knowledge.  It sort of cheapens the HBD.  The combined knowledge

>of us here on the digest (and that includes even the beginners, who can

>contribute interesting questions and discoveries, as well as the seasoned,

>advanced brewers), far surpasses the knowledge in even the most respected

>single book.  To me the HBD is like a living book... in print... each day.

>How much respect might we have for Malting and Brewing Science if Hough

>et. al. had stuck the occasional four-letter-word? My rule of thumb is,

>"does this sound appropriate for a magazine article or a book?"  Let's

>continue to have fun, but let's also not write anything that cheapens the

>HBD... these are not mutually exclusive goals.

A very interesting comment.  While I've kind of been taking the side of

the "chill out" camp in this debate, your post reminds me of one of

the things I found annoying about Papazian's TNCJOHB: the junior high

school level humor, especially in the recipe names.  I'm not a prude

nor am I easily offended...I just thought it was stupid, and detracted

from the quality of the book.

Hal Laurent

Baltimore Maryland USA

------------------------------


keg pressure questions

Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1993 00:46:52 -0800

From: mfetzer@UCSD.EDU (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer)

Subject: keg pressure questions

Dear diary... it's been a long time since I've written. Eh... I mean,

digest, of course.

Hi folks...

in the last couple of weeks/months, I've aquired a complete kegging system.

I'm using 5 gal soda kegs of the ball lock persuasion...

One of the kegs I got wasn't quite empty, has some 7up in it. So I thought

I'd try my hand at pressurizing/dispensing that before I actually tried

beer.

Well, it's not working... I pressurized the keg at 30psi for 3 or 4 days in

a 50 degree garage... then dropped down to a dispensing pressure of

12-14psi. When I hit the tap, I get 7up gushing from it. Foams like crazy,

but the finished product in the glass is pretty much flat. I.e., all the

CO2 comes out at dispensing time.

What's wrong?

Could it be my dispensing line is too short? I've heard I need a foot for

every 3 lbs of pressure in the keg, and I do have about 4 feet. Does the

length really make that much difference?

Mike

- --

Michael Fetzer                         pgp 2.2 key available on request

Internet:      mfetzer@ucsd.edu        uucp:    ...!ucsd!mfetzer

Bitnet:        FETZERM@SDSC

HEPnet/SPAN:   SDSC::FETZERM           or       27.1::FETZERM

------------------------------


HARD CIDER?

Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1993 13:14:57 -0500 (EST)

From: "Christopher J. Lacenere" <cl38+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: HARD CIDER?

Does any one out there know anything about making hard cider?

I tried just adding some wine yeast to the cider and letting it ferment

for aboout a week but all I got was some spoiled apple cider. Pretty bad

stuff.

Do you boil the cider as you do beer wort to eliminate any bacteria?

What did I do wrong?

Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

------------------------------


Decoction Question

Date: Sat, 13 Nov 93 08:56:00 -0600

From: phil.brushaber@lunatic.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: Decoction Question

I asked this question on other forums but got no response. I KNOW

there is someone out there in HBD land who can help.

I want to do a decoction mash. I now accept that a controlled temp

kettle mash will not substitute for staged boils.

The instructions I received would suggest that you take a portion of

the mash (grains and all) move it to a separate kettle and boil it

for the specified length of time and return it to the main mash. I

was pleased to hear this as when mashing with a kettle which has no

bottom spigot it is extremely difficult to press off enough liquid

wort from the top to boil liquid only. If this is right... (is it?)

then I have another question.

Wouldn't boiling with the grains cause a problem with increased

astringency and the leaching of excess tannins into the beer?

Thanks in advance!

 ... .. If they put malt in beer and malt in milk. Why not beer in milk?

___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.11

- ----

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

| The Lunatic Fringe BBS * 214-235-5288 * 3 nodes * Richardson, TX * 24 hrs |

| UseNet, ILink, RIME, FIDO, Annex, Intelec, LuciferNet, PlanoNet, and more!|

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


How can I test for fusel alcohols?

Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1993 13:23:28 -0500 (EST)

From: smag@echonyc.com (Stefan Smagula)

Subject: How can I test for fusel alcohols?

I brewed a couple of batches this summer during August when it was about

88 degrees F (avg) inside my apartment in Brooklyn.  I know that high

temperature fermentations can lead to fusel alcohols being produced, but

what other factors are there?  And how dangerous are these fusel alcohols?

One of the brews I made had an OG of about 1.080 and fermented very

quickly and was highly attenuated.  It is alcoholically strong.  I drank some

of it and I didn't go blind or anything, but is it safe for me to give it

away to relatives for Christmas?  Is there a taste test or other test I

could perform to check for fusel alcohols?  Thanks a lot.

Smag     smag@echonyc.com

------------------------------


MASHERS and RUST

Date: Sat, 13 Nov 93 13:10 CST

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: MASHERS and RUST

 >From: korz@iepubj.att.com

 >Norm writes that he noticed an EasyMasher-like device in the Gadgets and

 Equipment Special Issue of Zymurgy.

 I dug up that issue to see what you guys were talking about and it is a

 "Slotted T" device, very similar in concept to the easymasher.  It is

 interesting to note though, that the author's main interest in it is to

 filter out hops in the boiler.  When used as a mash tun, he still uses a

 false bottom over it.  I wonder if he ever tried it without the false bottom.

 It takes a bit of reckless spirit but that is how I found out that it was

 totally unnecessary with the easymasher.

 Just for the record, Zymurgy had an EASYMASHER (tm) for review long before

 even that issue (Fall 92) went to press.  I have been assured that it is

 coming soon.

 >From: John Glaser <glaser@analog.ece.arizona.edu>

 >      I just picked up a enameled steel canning pot (8 gal.), but

       it has a few chips in it, maybe about 1-2 square inches

         worth of exposed metal. Will this be a worse problem than

         that created by using 3 gal. boils in my smaller pot.

 You will get a lot of opinions on the evils of exposed iron but I think most

 will agree that it is less of a problem then 3 gal boils.

 > Is there anything I can do to cover the chips? (for example,

   using hi-temp enamel like they sell for repairing outdoor BBQ

   grills and such).

 This is a problem I encounter on a regular basis as I buy them from the

 manufacturer and install EASYMASHERS in them for resale.  Every shipment

 includes several damaged kettles which I clean up as well as possible and

 give them away for the price of the EM alone.  I also used one for years

 with, not only exposed metal but rust, prior to splurging for stainless.

 I do several things to these kettles before giving them away.  I lightly sand

 the damaged area to remove any loose ceramic and then lightly coat the inside

 with Vaseline to prevent rust.  This is wiped off before use and if the

 kettle is kept clean and dry between use, it will remain rust free.  The

 Vaseline or any food grade oil can be reapplied between use if brewing is

 sporadic or the kettle is stored in a damp area.

 The outside damaged areas, after sanding, are sprayed with "STEEL IT" and

 cured.   This is  "High temperature 1200F, anti-rust, stainless steel in a

 can".  I contains "100% stainless steel pigment" and lots of other stuff.

 After drying to the touch, it needs to be cured at 400F for 15 minutes.  You

 can play a torch on the side opposite the paint or it seems, that simply

 using it provides all the cure it needs.

 Although it is listed in the McMaster Carr catalog as FDA approved, it

 doesn't say for what nor does it say anything about this on the can.  As I do

 not wish to lose my happy home over something I give away, I only use it on

 the outside but it may well be safe on the inside when properly cured and

 seasoned.

 js

------------------------------


Air Stat problems

Date: Sat, 13 Nov 93 18:10:35 -0400

From: "Phillip R. Seitz" <p00644@psilink.com>

Subject: Air Stat problems

I have a Hunter Air Stat and a small refrigerator.  As far as I can

tell both are in good working order.  The problem is that when the

temperature reaches the appropriate point the fridge will frequently

make several abortive attempts to go on, or will run for a perhaps 10

seconds before cycling off.  After 3 or 4 attempts the fridge comes on

and stays on.

I can't tell whether this is related to the fridge or the air stat, but

I've wondered if the air stat is cutting the current to the fridge due

to small variations in temperature at the sensor.  I moved the sensor

and got a partial improvement (I think) but the problem persists.

Any recommendations?

------------------------------


making mead

Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1993 18:51:09 -0600 (CST)

From: "Andy Schultz @1490" <ASCHULTZ@MADMAX.MPR.ORG>

Subject: making mead

>>David Slade asked about using extracts for mead, and how much honey to use.

I've got a couple of batches under my belt, and they've all turned out great.

(If you've just been brewing beer, you're missing out - although I'm just

 an extract + grain weenie..:) ).

>From the way your post was worded, I assumed that you were talking about using

malt extract vs. fruit,spruce, etc. extracts.  I've never used any malt extracts

for mead, nor have I ever seen any recipies for mead with malts - sounds

interesting though.  Anybody wanna start a thread on this?

I've used blackberry and rasberry extracts added at bottling time a couple of

times.  The results are ok, but I think I prefer honey-only mead.   I've

used Red Star champange yeast for all of my batches, and I've been

quite pleased with the results.  It ferments out rather dry though, so if you're

looking for a very sweet mead, you may want to try a different yeast, or use

lots of honey.  I've mostly used  the recipies from TNCJOHB, with some minor

variations, althouth I just picked up a booklet called 'Making Mead' by

Bryan Acton/Peter Duncan, which has lots of good looking recipies, but I

haven't tried any of them yet.

I generally use about 14 lbs of honey (the lightest you can find- I get mine

at farmers markets or the local beekeeping supply store) for a 5 gallon US

batch.  Honey weighs about 12 lbs/gallon.  I ferment about 3 weeks or so

before racking into secondary - I haven't had any need for blowoff tube with

the red star yeast - it just fires right up and ferments very steadily

w/o any krausen - no big peak, just a long, solid plateau (sp?) of activity.

Be sure to use yeast nutrient, or the yeast may poop out on you - I had

to feed my first batch in mid-fermentation.  Also throw in some acid blend

to counteract the hotness of the alcohol - they get up to 15 percent or so.

Ready to bottle in six weeks or so - waiting to drink rounds out the flavor

(how we suffer for our art:) ) Good luck - you'll get hooked on mead, I'm sure!

Oops, just remembered your post wanted metric quantities - sorry about

the slip up.....

PS -  Actually, not all my batches turned out great.

     I got silly once, and made a test batch using buckwheat honey, just for

     the (insert least offensive but still appropriate phrase ) of it.

     I wouldn't if I were you :)

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

|                                                                             |

|    Andy Schultz                         Internet:  ASCHULTZ@MPR.ORG         |

|    Minnesota Public Radio                  Phone:  612-290-1490             |

|

|      'You can play sharp or flat in tune' : Ornette Coleman                 |

|                                                                             |

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

------------------------------


Suggested Brewpubs in Munich

Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1993 00:25:05 -0500 (EST)

From: George Romanski <Romanski@world.std.com>

Subject: Suggested Brewpubs in Munich

>Subject: Brewpubs in Munich

>HBD #1270

>Heading out to Munich tonight ..

I hope you will be logging in from Munich.

>  and wondered if anyone had any favorite pubs they could

>recommend.

> ...Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Unfortunately you have just missed the Oktoberfest.  Better

timing next year.

Most tourists visit the Hoffbrauhouse.  It is very close to the

City square at Frauenkirchen.

The place I would recommend is Kloster Andechs.  It is south of

the city and you will need to drive.  Ask at any tourist office for

directions.  This is a monastery and the monks still brew their

own special beer which they drink themselves and sell to the

public.  It will be cold for the beer garden this time of year but

there is plenty of room inside and I would recommend a visit to

their very old highly decorated church at the top of the hill.

The story told by the monks is that back in the 17th century, the

monks were brewing  beer, and the abbot forbade them to drink

during lent.  The beer has a very rich flavour a cross between a

stout and a Guinness.  The monks decided to send a barrel to

Rome to request special permission from the Pope.

The journey took 3 months by horse and cart and needless to say

the beer spoiled.  The Pope tasted some of this beer and said "If

you want to drink 'that' during lent then the church has no

objection."

The last time I visited the place was 1982.  At that time the head

brewer was 92 and still drank four litres of their beer each day

including lent.

George

------------------------------


Glatt Malt Mill

Date: Sun, 14 Nov 93 02:46:00 BST

From: r.mcglew3@genie.geis.com

Subject: Glatt Malt Mill

Anyone have the phone # for Mr. Glatt??

------------------------------


Best extract for mead

Date: 14 Nov 1993 08:27:58 -0700 (MST)

From: "Steven W. Smith" <SMITH_S@gc.maricopa.edu>

Subject: Best extract for mead

Davin Slade <10692851@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au> asks:

>Can anyone tell me what a good extract to use for making mead.  Is it

>better with a heavier or lighter beer.

  IMHO, the best extract for making mead is... honey!  Saves one endless hours

going from flower to flower with a capillary tube, not to mention the aging

required ;-).  Lest I be branded unduly snide, I'm including a recipe that's

been acclaimed by my friends who've tried it.  It's not really "mead" since it

includes fruit (melomel? I dunno) - tasty, sweet high alcohol content beverage

anyway- 5 U.S. gallons:

15 pounds honey  (5 3-pound bottles light amber)

1 pound fresh-frozen unsweetened strawberries

1 pound fresh-frozen unsweetened blackberries

good sized chunk of ginger root, sliced (a few ounces)

1 oz. Fuggles hops.

1 package Montrochet wine yeast.

1 package Polish Mead yeast

1 tsp yeast nutrient.

water to make 5 gallons.

I boiled the honey and ginger root for about 45 minutes in 3 gallons water,

skimming off the white foam, added hops and boiled 15 minutes more.  Smashed

the berries in the packages and poured in when heat was turned off - bring

volume up to 5 gallons.  Started the yeasts in some of the liquid (not wort,

I forgot the word) and pitched when the bulk reached about 75 degrees.

Sorry about the vagueness of the recipe and procedure, consistant results

weren't the goal, just an alternative to what my girlfriend calls my "beer

syrup" - damned sparse appreciation for doppelbock in Coors country...

>Also how much honey should i use for 25 litres of mead.

  A matter of taste, I guess.  I've found that when using 12 pounds or less

honey, the yeast will metabolize all of the sugars and make a dry beverage.

BTW, it's a nightmare to rack into the secondary with all the fruit and hops

floating around... Hope someone gives it a try though.

  _,_/|

  /o.O;   Steven W. Smith, Programmer/Analyst

 =(___)=  Glendale Community College, Glendale Az. USA

    U     SMITH_S@GC.BITNET

          smith_s@gc.maricopa.edu

          "Hark! 'tis the pathetic mewling of users."

------------------------------


Dry Hopping Risks/Alphas/Latin

Date: Sun, 14 Nov 93 10:30:15 PST

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Dry Hopping Risks/Alphas/Latin

Al Korzonas mentioned that bacterial contamination might

be an issue for dry hopping.  A rather extensive study was

run by Jean-Xavier Guinard, Michael Lewis and host of grad

students at Davis on this issue.  It was reported in the

Master Brewers Association of America Technical Quarterly

Vol. 27 No. 3 in an article entitled "The Microbiology of

Dry Hopping".  I also referenced this study in my article

on the topic in Zymurgy.  I'll summarize a bit of it:

They took cultures from the hops and found they contained

wild yeasts of three kinds and many different kinds of

bacteria - some gram positive and negative, mostly

"Enterobacteriaceae" whatever that means.  They then

dry hopped some beer and cultured the beer daily to

see if any of the organisms survived.  None did.  The longest

was still detectable after three days and then died.  It

did not grow during this period, just took three days to die.

I'll now quote from the article's conclusion:  "These results

suggest that the practice of dry-hopping is microbiologically

safe, especially after three days of fermentation."

What we learn from this is that you should dry hop only after

you have a vigorous fermentation going and the beer has a

reasonable alcohol content and low pH.  Adding raw hops to

the primary at pitching time (as recommended by Byron Burch in

his book, for example) is definitely risky!

***********

Norm Pyle stated that "alpha acids aren't bitter."  Just a nit

here, but alphas are indeed bitter.  They just don't dissolve

in beer very well (max 5 mg/ltr or ~5 IBUs).

He also asked "Is this the ASBC's standard method for estimating

IBUs?"  I'm not sure what Norm wanted here, but the ASBC methods

don't "estimate" IBUs, they measure them (at least they *claim* to).

*********

Lastly, a question of my own:  Can someone let me know what the

Latin and/or Greek words and/or prefixes would be for "taste"?

Mark

------------------------------


Airstat modification instructions

Date: Sun, 14 Nov 93 13:54:59 EST

From: snystrom@aol.com

Subject: Airstat modification instructions

Thanks to all the great brews who took the time to search their files for the

modification instruction for the Hunter Airstat. As a new digest member, I

was amazed at the number of replies to my request. I also xxreceived a large

number of requests for the modification instructions, so here they are:

 (Thanks a million, guys!)

>From Mike Kenney in HBD#1157

I originally posted this last November and have been using it with the mod

very happily ever since.  I use the airstat to control a  13cf chest freezer.

I put the airstat in a manual "HOLD" mode and simply set the temperature up

or down as desired. The airstat is designed to control a compressor driven

refrigeration device (a room air conditioner) so it is right at home with a

refrigerator or freezer. It turns the attached unit on when it senses a

temperature 2 degrees above the setting and off 1 degree below the setting.

It has a built-in timer with a 4 minute delay to keep the attached unit from

cycling too rapidly. At 45F my freezer runs less than 2 hours total in a 24

hour period and about 3 hours at 35F.

You cannot change the Air Stat range but you can offset the sensor

calibration.  In other words, performing the following modification will

allow you to set the Airstat at 40F yet the fridge/freezer temp will be

maintained at 35F.

The sensor is a thermister that provides 10K ohms of resistance at  25

degrees C. According to the thermister data sheet, at 32 degrees F the

resistance is 27.28K and 22.05K at 41 degrees F. The resistance decreases as

the temperature rises so if you make the air stat think the sensor is 22k

when its really 25k the air stat will say 41 but the sensor temp will be

around 35 degrees F. This is done by simply putting more resistance in

parallel with the sensor. Using ohms law,

Rt = 22K, Rth = 25K (Thermister), and Rp (parallel resistor) =

                Rth (25K) * Rt (22K)

                --------------------  =  183K Ohms

                Rth (25K) - Rt (22K)

With this resistor in place the the range of the air stat is effectively

shifted about 5 degrees lower.  Just keep in mind that the temperature

reading on the air stat will not match the fridge temp.

The thermisters change in resistance is not linear. It will change about 20k

ohms going from -13F to -4F and only 2k ohms going from 68F to 77F.

Therefore the desired range of use should be considered before determining

the magnitude of offset. Although, in the 12 degree swing between 33F and

45F this should not pose a problem.

                              /------------------------------------------/

        |----------|          | Airstat             |-----------------|  |

        /          |          |                     |   12 : 00   40  |  |

        / Sensor   |----------|--(a)     |---|      |-----------------|  |

        /                     |                                          |

        /          |----------|--(b)                                     |

        /          |          |----/                |-----------------|  |

        |----------|          |    |                |  H  |   M  | D  |  |

                              |----/   /-----/      |-----|------|----|  |

                 Submini spst |       / |   | /     | PROG| HOLD | U  |  |

                  Switch  >>> |  *        | |   | |     |-----|------|----|  |

                    (c)       |  |    /   O   /     |  // |  //  | R  |  |

                              |        /-----/      |-----------------|  |

                              /------------------------------------------/

                           180K

            (a) ------///////------o /o----|

                                        (c)    |

                (b) ---------------------------

I installed a 180K ohm resister in series with a sub-mini spst toggle switch

mounted on the front panel just left of the AC outlet and below the pocket

that holds the sensor. It is fairly easy to do since the sensor  leads are

readily accessible. This switch lets me use the airstat normally above 40

degrees when off and down to 34-35 when on. The airstat seems to

sample the sensor about every 5-10 seconds and will indicate the change in

this timeframe.

***************

>From Jack Schmidling in HBD#1215

 I dug up the article by Mike Kenny on modifying the Hunter for lower temps

and decided to give it a try.  Upon opening the unit, I "discovered" a temp

cal pot but found this had only about a two degree range and it was already

in the middle of that.

 Mike explains how to calculate (Ohms Law) the exact resistance for any temp,

 along with adding a switch to disable the mod.  I took the Schmidling way

and  simply soldered a 150K resistor across the sensor lead terminals and got

 lucky.  When programmed for 40F, the temp in the pint of water is exactly

40F  now.  The air temp is about 35F but I just ignore that and the beer temp

is  just the way I like it.

 It is a very simple mod and requires nothing more than removing two screws

and soldering the resistor to very accessible terminals.  Getting it back

together takes a little "feel" because the battery terminals have to be

fitted back into their connector but anyone with a little more finesse than a

gorilla should be able to do it.

------------------------------


Louis Pasteur

Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1993 20:57:35 -0600 (UTC -06:00)

From: ROWLEY@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Louis Pasteur

Hola, all.

 I just got a catalog from an antiquarian bookstore in Kansas City

called Glenn Books. No I don't work for them: I work at one of the Borders

bookshops, and stand to gain nothing for passing on this info. Anyway, item

238 in their latest catalog is listed as "Pastuer, Louis. Studies on Fer-

mentation, the Diseases of Beer, Their Causes and Means of Preventing Them.

(title). Macmillan, London, 1879. First English edition. 8vo. Original

cloth, front flyleaf lacking, else a very good copy. Contemporary woodcut

portrait of Pastuer added as frontispiece with catalog clipping & notes on re

cto. $300"

 I was drooling until I hit the three bills part. That's a month's

rent for me, a poor grad student. Their address is 323 East 55th Street,

KC, MO  (816)444-4447. I have founf that their are a bit overpriced (!),

but not unreasonable about negotiating. Sorry for the typos: I'm recovering

from a weekend of mead, oatmeal stout, Duvel, Traquair House, MacAndrew's,

SA "Lambic" and a neb. of Corsendonk. Me fingers aren't yet working right.

It just occured to me that I might have been able to afford the book had I

not blown my cash on the beerpool fund. Oh, well. Hope someone can use this.

Matthew Rowley

Dept of Anthropology

University of Kansas

rowley@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu

------------------------------


Re: ASBC and IBU's

Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1993 20:50:29 -0800 (PST)

From: Jeremy Ballard Bergsman <jeremybb@leland.Stanford.EDU>

Subject: Re: ASBC and IBU's

Norm wrote that Byron Burch's methods were based on ASBC methods (according

to Burch) and asked what those were.  I don't have my copy of Malting and

Brewing Science with me, but no homebrewer's method has anything to do with

the ASBC method.  The ASBC method is a MEASUREMENT of the amount of the

amount of bittering compounds in beer.  Methods like Burch's are ways of

trying to produce beers with a certain amount of bitterness.  The units

used by Burch and Rager are the expected IBU of the beer, if such a measurement

were made.

My recollection of the the ASBC method is some kind of organic extraction

of degassed beer (with isooctane?) and single wavelength spectrophotometry

of the resulting organic phase.  Note that even this measure is only a

surrogate for bitterness, as the ratio of bitternesses of the various

bittering compounds is not the same as their ratios of absorbances.

What this means to me is that we, as homebrewers, needn't care how many IBU's

we really would have if we measured our beers.  All we need is a system that

produces a number that is aproximately linearly related to perceived bitterness

and is reproducible from batch to batch.  With such a system one can make

beers to a desired PERCEIVED bitterness, which is all we really care about.

I guess we care about one more thing, namely being able to communicate with

other homebrewers.  In this case IBU's are nice since (I think) most people

can at least convert to these "units".  Personally I find the discontinuity

of the Burch method distasteful; it seems very unrealistic.  The Rager as

modified by Garetz utilization curve seems the most intuitive to me.

Jeremy Bergsman

------------------------------


Re: Propane, natural gas, and toxic fumes

Date:         Sun, 14 Nov 93 19:53:38 PST

From: Ken Miller <KCMILLER%SJSUVM1.BITNET@cmsa.Berkeley.EDU>

Subject:      Re: Propane, natural gas, and toxic fumes

In HBD #1269, Andrew Baird writes:

>I recently built a burner for brewing.  I built it for (and tested it with)

>natural gas.  I've been reading literature on similar *propane* cookers and

>they all say for outdoor use only.  I assume this is because toxic levels of

>haxardous combustion products are produced, and I'm guessing that carbon

>monoxide is the main culprit.  My questions are as follows:

>

>1.  Is CO the ONLY gas/ byproduct I should be worrying about?

>

>2.  Is this a problem with both propane and natural gas?

>

>3.  When they say OUTDOORS ONLY, do I take that literally, or does an open

>garage qualify.

I ran this one by my local homebrew supply retailer. Propane

cookers of the "Cajun Cooker" type are _prodigious_ consumers

of oxygen. No problem outdoors, but a _big_ problem inside

a room without adequate ventilation. Quote: "In a sealed

room, the lack of oxygen would kill you before the carbon

monoxide did."

Note that the above applies specifically to _propane_

burners of the >150,000 BTU variety. I assume that the

number of BTUs, rather than fuel type, is the major

factor in oxygen consumption.

Of course, you probably wouldn't be running this in a sealed

room. I seem to recall, quite recently, a posting from

someone who brews in his basement (presumably with the

doors wide open). And one brewer I know permanently installed

a natural gas burner in his garage. But I would respectfully

suggest, and prudence would dictate, that you not try

operating any reasonably powerful burner inside an enclosed

room without first ensuring beyond any doubt both an adequate

oxygen supply (for both you and the burner) and adequate

ventilation for the exhaust gases. (Remember, CO2 isn't harmful

in and of itself...unless it's all you have to breathe.)

Ken Miller

kcmiller@sjsuvm1.sjsu.edu

DISCLAIMER: All opinions expressed above are mine alone. No one

at SJSU even listens to my opinions, much less endorses them.

------------------------------


Re: good for yeast/good for beer

Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1993 21:22:18 -0800 (PST)

From: Jeremy Ballard Bergsman <jeremybb@leland.Stanford.EDU>

Subject: Re: good for yeast/good for beer

Andy Kailhofer wrote asking about his experience with aerating beer.  Here

in the Bay Area we have three brewpubs called Gordon Biersch (sp?).  (Those

in Pasadena, keep your eyes open.)  They make very good (IMHO), traditional

German Lagers.  I know they use regular Briess and GW malts and I always

wonder how they get their wonderful maltiness.  (It's not decoction mashing

because only some of their beers are decoction mashed and the others are at

least as malty.)  Unrelated to this question I was talking to the brewmaster

of the San Francisco outlet about pitching rates.  He told me that he likes

to underpitch and aerate very well!

Then I had a flash of insight: what if you can get the yeast to undergo a

bit of extra growth?  You can use more malt for the same amount of alcohol.

This might give you a bit more maltiness.  I asked him if this was the reason,

and he almost looked as if I had caught him in bed with my wife or something.

Then he answered that this was just the way he liked to do it; the rhythm of

the brewery or something.  In retrospect it doesn't seem like this would

make much of a difference.  What does the digest think?  What about an

experiment?

Jeremy Bergsman

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1272, 11/15/93

*************************************

-------


Volcano Beer

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 08:13:37 EST

From: cecil@udc.com (Cecil Clontz)

Subject: Volcano Beer

Hello Fellow Homebrewers,

I need some help diagnosing a batch that went from bad to worse.

I made a Czech Pilsner using a can of BREWMART Czech Pilsner extract.

I also used 3 lbs extra light DME. The can came with a dried yeast and

a pilsner enzyme. At 68 degrees I pitched both the yeast and the enzyme.

It took the normal 1-2 days to start foaming but stayed extremely active

for 2 weeks. A local brew shop said bottle it anyway and that it would be

considered a dry beer. I drank 2 sips and decided to dispose of the entire

batch. I could pop the cap and sit the bottle upright in the sink and watch

it empty its self from the bottom up. Help !! What did I do wrong ?

Thanks in advance !

Cecil Clontz

------------------------------


barleywine

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 09:35:39 -0600

From: Brian R Seay  </G=Brian/I=R/S=Seay/O=MAC/PRMD=ALCATEL/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=US/@alcatel.aud.alcatel.com>

Subject: barleywine

                                       barleywine

I am interested in brewing a barley wine from

an O.G. of 1.100 or higher, but don't wan't

F.G. above 1.030.  Does anyone out there in

HBD-land have personal experience using

champagne yeasts for barleywine?  If so, do

you use only champagne, or use ale yeast and

pitch the champagne when the ale yeast poops

out?  Do you wait until the ale yeast completely

poops out?  Do you rack the wort before pitching

the second yeast?  Do you need a starter for

dry champagne yeast that is to be put in a wort

that is already 8 percent alcohol or higher?

Does using champagne yeast by itself produce

a barleywine with less "beer" flavor?

Considering the cost of a batch of barleywine,

I don't want to experience too much "trial and error".

Thanks in advance to those who reply,

Brian Seay

Plano, TX

------------------------------


hard cider/mead

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 09:19 CDT

From: Eric Saidel <SAIDEL@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: hard cider/mead

Here's the recipe I use for hard cider -

put your cider in your fermenter, add sugar (normal

granulated sugar is fine) up to about 11-12% potential

alcohol.  Add yeast and yeast nutrients commensurate with

how much cider you've got.  Seal and wait.  I've got about

30 gallons going right now - needed about 40 pounds of

sugar, and it'll ferment for about 3 months before

bottling.  I bottle with more sugar so it gets a nice

sparkle.

I also do about a case a year in which I bottle with

honey - about a third of a cup for a champagne bottle.

That gives it a nice apple mead flavor.  The best honey,

I find, is wildflower honey.

 - eric

------------------------------


Wort chiller construction help

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 9:56:03 EST

From: William Swetnam <wswetnam@capcon.net>

Subject: Wort chiller construction help

Having read in for the last few weeks I have seen numerous messages about

wort chillers and their construction.  I think I have a good idea as to

the design of my coil, but I still have a few questions about materials

and other things.  I am going to make an immersion chiller and am planning

to set it up as follows: Hose from kitchen sink to copper coil in either a

bucket of ice water or a cooler with ice water, hose from that to my

immersion unit, then hose back to sink for drainage.  My questions are as

follows:

1.  What are the recommendations on size of the copper tubing, 1/4 3/8 or

  1/2 inch.  A quick stop by my local hardware store raised the question of

  fittings, I'm wondering more about what may be the most efficient for heat

  transfer.

2.  Some commercial wort chillers that I have seen do not put the water

  through an ice bath first.  Is there a problem in chilling the wort

  too fast?

3.  I'm planning on using 25' of tubing in my immersion section, is this

  too much, too little?

Private E-Mail would be appreciated unless you think it would be good for

the masses.  I feel I've taken up enough space on a simple query....

Thanks in advance....

Will

------------------------------


Hunter airstat modification

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 10:07:51 EST

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Hunter airstat modification

Here is the uncensored text from HBD on the Hunter Airstat modification.

Some may find the following words offensive:

Chest, down, desire, unit, mount, do.

- --------------------------


RE: Hunter Airstat Modification

Date: 4 Jun 93 19:25:58 GMT

From: mkenny@bcm1g01.attmail.com

Subject: RE: Hunter Airstat Modification

In HBD1156 Bruce Ray asks how to modify a Hunter Airstat to maintain

temperatures below 40F.

I originally posted this last November and have been using it with

the mod very happily ever since.  I use the airstat to control a

13cf chest freezer. I put the airstat in a manual "HOLD" mode and

simply set the temperature up or down as desired. The airstat is

designed to control a compressor driven refrigeration device (a

room air conditioner) so it is right at home with a refrigerator or

freezer. It turns the attached unit on when it senses a temperature

2 degrees above the setting and off 1 degree below the setting. It

has a built-in timer with a 4 minute delay to keep the attached unit

from cycling too rapidly. At 45F my freezer runs less than 2 hours

total in a 24 hour period and about 3 hours at 35F.

You cannot change the Air Stat range but you can offset the sensor

calibration.  In other words, performing the following modification

will allow you to set the Airstat at 40F yet the fridge/freezer temp

will be maintained at 35F.

The sensor is a thermister that provides 10K ohms of resistance at

25 degrees C. According to the thermister data sheet, at 32 degrees F

the resistance is 27.28K and 22.05K at 41 degrees F. The resistance

decreases as the temperature rises so if you make the air stat think

the sensor is 22k when its really 25k the air stat will say 41 but

the sensor temp will be around 35 degrees F. This is done by simply

putting more resistance in parallel with the sensor. Using ohms law,

        Rt = 22K, Rth = 25K (Thermister), and Rp (parallel resistor) =

                Rth (25K) * Rt (22K)

                --------------------  =  183K Ohms

                Rth (25K) - Rt (22K)

With this resistor in place the the range of the air stat is effectively

shifted about 5 degrees lower.  Just keep in mind that the temperature

reading on the air stat will not match the fridge temp.

The thermisters change in resistance is not linear. It will change about

20k ohms going from -13F to -4F and only 2k ohms going from 68F to 77F.

Therefore the desired range of use should be considered before determining

the magnitude of offset. Although, in the 12 degree swing between 33F and

45F this should not pose a problem.

                              /------------------------------------------/

        |----------|          | Airstat             |-----------------|  |

        /          |          |                     |   12 : 00   40  |  |

        / Sensor   |----------|--(a)     |---|      |-----------------|  |

        /                     |                                          |

        /          |----------|--(b)                                     |

        /          |          |----/                |-----------------|  |

        |----------|          |    |                |  H  |   M  | D  |  |

                              |----/   /-----/      |-----|------|----|  |

                 Submini spst |       / |   | /     | PROG| HOLD | U  |  |

                  Switch  >>> |  *    | |   | |     |-----|------|----|  |

                    (c)       |  |    /   O   /     |  // |  //  | R  |  |

                              |        /-----/      |-----------------|  |

                              /------------------------------------------/

                           180K

                (a) ------///////------o /o----|

                                        (c)    |

                (b) ---------------------------

I installed a 180K ohm resister in series with a sub-mini spst toggle

switch mounted on the front panel just left of the AC outlet and below the

pocket that holds the sensor. It is fairly easy to do since the sensor

leads are readily accessible. This switch lets me use the airstat normally

above 40 degrees when off and down to 34-35 when on. The airstat seems to

sample the sensor about every 5-10 seconds and will indicate the change

in this timeframe.

Cheers,

Mike Kenny

------------------------------


Question re: raspberry wheat beer...

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 08:13:49 -0800 (PST)

From: J Paschel <bigstar@augustus.csscr.washington.edu>

Subject: Question re: raspberry wheat beer...

Last week I started an extract batch based on the following recipe:

6 lb can Ireks wheat

1.5 lbs light malt extract

1 lb honey

1 oz Tett (boil)

1/2 oz Cascade (boil)

same as above (finish)

I then cooled the wort, dumped it onto roughly three pounds of frozen

raspberries, and pitched with wyeast weizen (liquid).

Vigorous fermentation started in 18 hours and subsided in three days.

Now my questions:

1) Upon racking to the secondary, I found a noticeable sourness and a

slight tinge of sulfur oder.  Now I realize that Weizens are supposed to

be a bit sour, so I'm not all that worried.  Question is, how does one

distinguish the difference between sourness due to style and sourness due

to infection ?  Also, will sourness mellow in the bottle ??

2) Papazian says a sulfur oder is "normal" depending on yeast types and

conditions and claims it can be rectified by changing temperatures. The

primary was at ~ 65 F and when I racked to 2nd, I put it in a room at

about ~ 60. Will this help ?? Any suggestions ??

3) Lastly, the raspberries haven't (yet) imparted as much fruity sweetness

as I have experienced in some other raspberry Weizens...  Is it possible

to use something akin to a raspberry syrup instead ?

            --==[[ bigstar@u.washington.edu ]]==--

------------------------------


The beer machine

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 11:51:26 EST

From: Bob Ambrose <ambroser@APOLLO.DML.GEORGETOWN.EDU>

Subject: The beer machine

In re: Geoffrey Burd and "The beer machine"

> I tried the same procedure in my carboy using the dark ale extract.

> It was dreadful: the extract was thin and watery and smelled like prune juice.

> Guess what! The resulting beer was thin and watery and tasted like prune

> juice.  It's the only batch I've made that even I wouldn't drink!

> I still, though, would give the keg a try if I could get it at a good price.

What?  And make more "prune beer"?  Why would you want to do that if you won't

even attempt to drink it?  :)  What difference would the keg make as compared

to your carboy? :)

------------------------------


Bishop's Tipple by Dave Line

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 11:15:34 EST

From: beb@pt.com (Bruce Buck)

Subject: Bishop's Tipple by Dave Line

In "Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy", Dave Line gives a recipe for

"Bishop's Tipple", a real ale.  The recipe asks for "1 lb Golden Syrup".

Is Golden Syrup one of those things like Treacle which is unknown in the USA?

Or is it what Americans call Corn Syrup?

Line also advocates sacchrine tablets to give residual sweetness.  I understand

Lactose is a "better" way to provide residual sweetness.  Is there a rule of

thumb for the amount of lactose to add?  I see amounts like 10-12 oz given in

Cat's Meow.  Is it added to the boil?  Is there something like "One sacchrine

tablet = x oz lactose"?

Thanks,

Bruce

------------------------------


Long Ago Lager

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 09:21:15 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@teleport.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Long Ago Lager

I don't usually post recipes, but I thought this particular beer was

interesting enough, and good enough to pass along.  I became intrigued

with using flaked maize after Phil Seitz reported the Rochefort monks

using it in their strong ale, several months back.  I've been using

it as they do, and getting remarkable results.  While researching its

use, I found George Fix's excellent article in the 1985 All-Grain

Special Issue of Zymurgy (an article in high contrast to the articles

on adjunct use in the most recent Special Issue, btw).  In there,

George outlined a pre-Prohibition lager, with a fairly high O.G., and

a decidedly high hopping rate to counteract the slight residual

sweetness imparted by the maize.  I thought I'd take my own shot at

this style of beer, and am extremely pleased with the result.

Because of the use of maize, and the lack of any specialty malts, the

beer is remarkable pale.  It's also quite bright, and refreshing.

Although the OG puts it in the bock range, the high hopping rate and

the lower malt profile creates something altogether different.  I

also made some changes from George's recipe and took some liberties

with history, but in essence, it should be close to what grandpa (or

maybe Greatgrandpa) could have sipped on his way home from work.

To be completely authentic, I should have used Clusters in the boil,

but couldn't bring myself to do it.  And I should have used 6-row

American malt -- but I haven't any use for 6-row, and Belgian 2-row

is what I had in the basement, so...  The next time, I will use

Great Western's 2-row, if only for a slightly closer touch of

authenticity.  The finishing hops are a believable mix of imported

hops (as called for in old recipes for the better lagers), in this

case using Mt Hood as a reasonable substitute for Hallertau.

I followed George's prescription for using the maize, and added it

after the protein rest.  The yeast was Wyeast's #2007, a thoroughly

American lager yeast.  Thoroughly American, too, was the lagering

period, a mere 2 weeks--mostly because of impatience.  I think another

week or so would have helped, but the difference may be insignificant.

For five gallons:

Belgian pilsner malt   8#

Flaked maize           2#

Water (very soft)     3.5 gallons/ treated with 4gms gypsum

Mash in 115F, raise to 127-130.  Hold for 30 min.

Add flaked maize, raise to 154F for approx. 60 min.  Test with iodine.

Boil 90 min.

Hop additions:

  Northern Brewer     2 oz. @ 15 min

  Mt Hood            .5 oz  @ 75 min

  Saaz               .5 oz  @ 75 min

Irish Moss (1/2 Tb. - rehydrated) at 60 min

OG - 1.072

------------------------------


Malt Extract for Mead

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 11:51:13 EST

From: Dave Lame <dlame99@prog.c4.gmeds.com>

Subject: Malt Extract for Mead

    When grain is used with honey to produce a non-sparkling drink, the

resulting beverage is known as braggot. There are references to it in northern

Europe as old as the first century A.D., and there is a reference to it in

Chaucer's "The Miller's Tale."   I've made four batches of the stuff, with some

considerable success.  While not everyone really likes it, some people who

drink it have said it is the best stuff I make.

     My basic recipe calls for one pound of honey and one pound of malt extract

per gallon of braggot, but I have seen variations on the theme with more and

with less of either ingredient.  So, for twenty five liters, I would say about

6 1/2 pounds of each ingredient.

     If you have a recipe for barley wine available, you could just substitute

honey for sugar, and that would almost certainly work perfectly well.

      I prefer amber ale extract, unhopped, for use in braggot, but that is

personal preference.  I'm experimenting with different styles.  I've seen

historical references to both hopped and unhopped beverages, and varying

quantities of fermentables.

     The one complaint about braggot that I hear frequently, and with which I

concur, is that it tastes "thin".  It doesn't have the character of a good beer

or ale, but it doesn't have the clean taste of a pure mead.  In an attempt to

correct this, on the advice of an acquaintance who also makes braggot, I used

buckwheat honey instead of clover honey once.  The resulting product was

certainly not "thin".  In fact, the first person who tasted it suggested it

would taste good on pancakes.

     Returning to my friend who had recommended buckwheat honey, he explained

that you weren't supposed to use all buckwheat honey.  In a five gallon batch,

he recommended five pounds malt extract, four pounds of clover honey, and one

pound of buckwheat honey.  For my next batch, I'll try that.

     Does anyone else have any recommendations?

------------------------------


Mini kegs as a replacement for bottles

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 12:42:37 EST

From: jimg@dcz.gso.uri.edu (James Gallagher)

Subject: Mini kegs as a replacement for bottles

I have seen a few comments about mini kegs (e.g., Brew Ha Ha (?)) and from

the comments made so far they seem to be workable. I was wondering, however,

if they will work well when used to store beer for several months. Has anyone

had any experience with this?

James Gallagher

jimg@dcz.gso.uri.edu

------------------------------


Noche Bueno

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 12:26:28 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Noche Bueno

Good news! Joe Barfield of Southwest Brewing News has just informed me

that Noche Bueno is back. It is being brewed in Monterrey by the

Cuauhtemoc group, and will be distributed in selected test markets by

Guinness Imports. Laurie is currenting forming a flavor panel, and we

will write an article for SWBN summarizing the results along with

related information. I will also post it on HBD.

George Fix

P.S. The many people on this network who live in the Chicago area will

be happy to know that your fine city is one of the test markets.

------------------------------


Yeast culturing--an update

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 18:22:51 +0000 (GMT)

From: D S Draper <D.S.Draper@bristol.ac.uk>

Subject: Yeast culturing--an update

Hiya friends,

A while back, I posted an anguished thread on my troubles culturing yeast

from bottle-conditioned beers for use in my homebrews.  This is a summary

of the experiments I tried in an effort to improve the situation.  I

gratefully acknowledge the very helpful input of the following

respondents (alphabetically listed <g>: Conn Copas, David Gallardo,

Brendan Halpin, Drew Lynch, David Maxwell, Jack Schmidling, and Rob

Thomas.  Thanks a million, guys!!!

Brief recap of the earlier problems: pitched three batches of beer with

cultures from bottles beers; the first was not properly sanitized, so got

an infection.  The second was properly sanitized, but resulted in a wild

yeast infection that can only have come from the yeast that was inside the

bottle.  The third batch had a sour taste that was a mild wild-yeast

infection.  In each case, less than a pint of starter was pitched, just at

high krauesen (I don't know how it's supposed to be spelled <grin>).  The

bottom line here is that 1) one cannot be sure what one is getting in any

bottle-conditioned beer yeast, and 2) less than a pint starter volume of

such yeast is woefully insufficient.

In my experiments, I pitched 1 gallon splits with these <1-pint starters,

and in two cases got great results: in a bitter and in a raspberry pale

ale.  A third 1-gal split had an infection: again it must have been in the

bottle because I was dead careful about everything.  Finally, I pitched a

full batch with a yeast that I'd stepped up from a <1-pint starter to a

half-gallon.  This was a keg bitter that was really good, much better than

any I'd made with Edme dried yeast (the only thing readily available to me

here in the UK).  The yeasts that I got good results from were Eldridge

Pope's Thomas Hardy Country Bitter, and King & Barnes's Festive Ale.  Bad

results came from Hanseatic IPA and Worthington White Label, and an

earlier use of K&B.  However, I do not think that these beers will give

consistently good or bad results; I think it is mostly hit and miss.

My final experiment used a pure culture from Brewlab at the University of

Sunderland, and I have just transferred it to the secondary.  Tasting it

as I did so, I can state with total assurance that is by far the best beer

I've ever made (about 60 batches to date), with a "real beer" flavor that

I've never achieved before, except my two successful experiments above.

UK brewers: try this stuff.  Usual disclaimers, void where prohibited, no

parking, the white zone is for passenger loading and unloading only.

An additional note: The wild yeast taste I got in my first two batches,

which I described as sort of mediciny, is EXACTLY the main flavor I have

gotten from several very reputable beers: Chimay blue, Leffe Blond (both

Belgium), Pschorr-Brau Weisse, and Maisel's Hefe-Weizen (in Bayreuth,

Franconia).  This taste was identified as definetly being wild by my

homebrew suppliers (who run a brewpub, so they know what they're talking

about I reckon), and it is a dead ringer for that in these beers.  Go

figure...

Conclusions:  If using bottle-conditioned yeast, step the starter up to

about a half gallon, and TASTE IT before committing it to your brew--keep

a dried packet or whatever on hand in case of failure.  In future, I will

take the plunge into yeast culturing, isolating good colonies from these

bottled beers, and growing them into starter colonies that I then make

actual starter solutions from.  Getting viable yeast from

bottle-conditioned beers can be done, but one must be careful.

Cheers, Dave in Bristol (until the New Year)

------------------------------


Answers to brewpot questions

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 13:03:46 EST

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1-1/T09 DTN 225-6171  15-Nov-1993 1248 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Answers to brewpot questions

>Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 15:10:42 -0700

>From: John Glaser <glaser@analog.ece.arizona.edu>

>Subject: Brewpot questions / I are a college student!

>1) I just picked up a enameled steel canning pot (8 gal.), but

> it has a few chips in it, maybe about 1-2 square inches

> worth of exposed metal. Will this be a worse problem than

> that created by using 3 gal. boils in my smaller pot. Is

> there anything I can do to cover the chips? (for example,

> using hi-temp enamel like they sell for repairing outdoor BBQ

> grills and such).

The biggest argument against using the enamel on steel pots for brewing in is

that they chip and the chipped areas will leach iron into the brew.  I don't

think there is anything you can do to cover the chips.  The hi-temp enamel for

BBQ grills will not work.  All it is is a high temperature paint and I don't

think anyone would recommend painting the inside of a cooking vessel.

;2) Has anyone ever considered electroplating the inside of a

; steel or aluminum pot with copper, to allow its use as a

; boiling pot. Is it too expensive, too difficult, etc., or

; could it work? What about anodized aluminum? Anyone know

; anything about this?

If the pot is stainless steel, there would be no need to copper plate it.  As

for is it too expensive, too difficult, etc. the answer is all of the above.

Anodized aluminum is stable over a pH range of 4.0 to 9.0.  Heat and agitation

may have an adverse effect.

Bottom line is to either invest in a stainless steel pot, or get another

enamel on steel pot and take care not to chip it.  This is a perfect excuse to

upgrade the size of your brewpot to take advantage of doing full boils.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


HSA / Airstat

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 13:52:07 EST

From: theriaul@sde.mdso.vf.ge.com (Theriault Kenneth M.)

Subject: HSA / Airstat

Carl Writes:

>I had the same problem when I used that process.  Since learning about

>Hot Side Aeration (HSA), I now cool the concentrated wort to pitching temp

>before mixing.  Takes 35-45 min by immersing the kettle in cold (45F) tap

>water in my kitchen sink with two water changes.  The hot/cold mixing is

>a piece of bad advice in Papazian's book which I'm sure Al has marked...

I have not heard about the "problems" with HSA and have been using the

advice from Papazian's book.  Could someone explain why I should use

the "Papazian" method or direct me to a source for the information.

*********************

After all of this interest in the Hunter Airstat, I am kind of interested

in taking a look at one.  Could someone tell me where I can find one?

Thanks in Advance

Ken

******************************************************************************

Kenneth M. Theriault

theriaul@sde.mdso.vf.ge.com

******************************************************************************

------------------------------


Hops in Ice Tea

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 11:32:28 EST

From: cecil@udc.com (Cecil Clontz)

Subject: Hops in Ice Tea

Greetings ,

Most of the beers I brew are Pilsners and I use a lot of Saaz hops.

I love the smell of saaz and enjoy the flavor it gives my beer.

So it was only natural that I wonder how good iced tea would be if

brewed with a small amount of saaz hops. I tried it this past weekend

and was quite pleased with the results. Has anyone else tried this ?

Cecil Clontz

Atlanta Georgia

cecil@udc.com

------------------------------


Making Mead

Date:         Mon, 15 Nov 93 13:34:03 EST

From: Aaron Morris <SYSAM@ALBANY.ALBANY.EDU>

Subject:      Making Mead

It was mead making that got me into hombrewing in the first place.  Being

a beekeeper, I had a surplus supply of honey.  The article I started with

came from Zymurgy and was given to me by my bee landlord (the man who

owns the land on which my hives are located) in hopes that I would brew

it and give him a few bottles as rent.  The article was written by Brother

Adam (the guru of mead making) and was informative but limited in scope.

To augment the article, I picked up a book called 'Making Mead' by Roger

Morse (from Cornell).  I highly recommend this book as a reference.

Concerning suggestions as to what extracts to use, mead contains no

malts of any kind.  Mead is simply a wine that uses honey instead of

fruit.  I have been quite successful brewing straight mead (honey and

water with a champaign yeast), spiced mead (called methylgen sp(?)),

and I've brewed raspberry meads (using fresh raspberries - no extracts

please) that have been supurb!  This summer I brewed a carboy of

peach mead, although I have yet to rack it for a second time and don't

expect to taste it until next spring.  Brewing mead is a much slower

process that beer.  Brother Adam suggests aging for five years, although

my oldest bottle is three years, and there are only five left out of 24.

There are a number of beer recipes that use honey in the wort.  Two of

note from 'The Complete Joy of Homebrewing' are Rocky Raccoon's Crystal

Honey Lager and Holiday Cheer.  Both are excellent!  I entered the former

in a local competition and took third in show.  The latter is a holiday

brew, includes a lot of spices (cinamon, ginger, cloves(?)), orange

peels and honey.  The recipe sounded strange, but the results were

well worth the gamble.  If it sounds good, brew it now and it will be

ready for the holidays.  Rumors have it that Holiday Cheer is Santa's

favorite (next to mead, of course)!

------------------------------


mail order

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 11:05:35 PST

From: pickerel@micom.com (Don Pickerel @ Micom.com)

Subject: mail order

I know this is an faq, but I can't find a good answer

in the FAQ.

I need a couple of sources for mail-order supplies. The

faq says try cats_meow ed1 ( which isn't on the stanford site)

or send for help from the wang server ( which doesn't respond

to my e-mail ).

Can a couple of kind individuals send me some recommendations

via e-mail? Our news reader is running about 4 days late.

I also thought I'd once read something about an online company.

Thanks for any help. My car is dead and I'm getting very dry.

pickerel@micom.com

- --

 -Don-

- ----

------------------------------


Taste by any other name

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 13:33:44 -0600

From: ccamley@mmm.com (Chris Amley - 3M Telecommunications)

Subject: Taste by any other name

In HBD 1271 Mark Garetz asks:

> Can someone let me know what the Latin and/or Greek words and/or prefixes

> would be for "taste"?

I think you are looking for the Latin root "gustus," which enables the

mellifluous phrase:

 De gustubus non est disputandum.

Which is roughly "there is no arguing (or accounting) for taste."  Very useful

as a way of expressing mild disdain.  Sadly, when applied to beer, "gustus"

reminds me of one of the megabrewers' (Schiltz?) old ad campaigns.

Chris

------------------------------


Yeast starters and aeration

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 13:57:57 CST

From: richard_h@SMTPGATE.BCSEW.EDU

Subject: Yeast starters and aeration

Greetings,

When I brew I usually make up a yeast starter (about a liter), and

wait until the starter is foaming away before making up the wort and

then pitching.  This has generally worked quite well and I have had no

reason to complain - noticeable fermentation has always started within

24 hours of pitching the starter.

The other day, as I was brewing up a batch of beer, the following

observations did a mental pile up in my neural net:

 - Yeast reproduction begins as an aerobic process ("Gimme O2!"), for

  about the first 12 hours.  This is why we are told to aerate the

  wort before pitching - the yeast will have a nice oxygen rich

  environment to begin reproduction in.

 - The yeast starter has probably finished the aerobic cycle and is now

  in an anaerobic state ("We don't need no stinkin' O2!") at the time

  it is pitched into the wort.

So, why doesn't the yeast in the starter (anaerobic phase) object to

finding its environment changed by being dumped into the oxygen rich

wort?

Inquiring minds ...

Richard Hargan

richard_h@smtpgate.bcsew.edu

------------------------------


trub separation

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 14:42:04 -0500 (EST)

From: gt6179d@prism.gatech.edu

Subject: trub separation

i recently got miller's book and was wondering if anyone out there has

firsthand knowledge of how separating the trub from the wort before

fermentation improves the beer.  how dramatic is the effect?  does anyone

pitch the yeast BEFORE this step or is it a good idea to wait until the

trub is separated before pitching?  if you pitch the yeast first and wait

long enough for the trub to settle (1 hour..?) before separating from the

beer, is aeration of the beer at this point still okay, since the yeast is

in the respiration stage?  as i recall miller's book (ch.3), he pitched the

yeast before separating the trub.  is this unusual or am i confused as to

the order of these steps?

also, i've noticed strange behavior sometimes when racking beer regarding

my airlock.  just after i fill the carboy with beer and put the airlock

on, the water starts to get sucked into the fermenter, slowly.  i only

have one theory on this, to wit:

i generally rinse the carboy out with hot water from the bathtub

just before filling it with beer.  i'm sure the air in the carboy is fairly

warm compared to ambient conditions outside.  as the beer fills the

carboy, is it unreasonable to assume that the final airspace above the

beer is still warmer than outside and when it cools the pressure drop is

what causes the water in the airlock to get sucked in?  does this ever

happen to anyone else?  can this same thing happen if the room temperature

changes?  i'm an apartment brewer and i sometimes have temperature

fluctuations beyond my control. i'm also not home during the day so i worry

about putting bleach in my airlock for this reason.  i sanitize it but i just

put distilled water in for fear of the dreaded fermenter suck.  any advice

concerning these matters would be appreciated.

just curious

mark bayer

gt6179d@prism.gatech.edu

------------------------------


Fridges

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 14:58:20 -0500 (EST)

From: Kieran O'Connor <koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: Fridges

The problem with using a fridge and an external thermostat is that y ou

have two thermostats going at the same time--the fridge's and the Hunter

(or whatever). The fridge thermostat usually will only allow the fridge

to cool to 38 or 40 or so (F), and the Hunter device will try to continue

to cool, but can't. To solve this--remove the internal thermostat--wire

the two wires together and let the Hunter do the job. Just dont try to

run the fridge with out the Hunter--you'll ruin the compressor

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Address: koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu

Syracuse, N.Y. USA

------------------------------


Pot shots, er..scrubbers

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 14:20 CST

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Pot shots, er..scrubbers

 >From: gummitch@teleport.com (Jeff Frane)

 >  I've told you before:...

 I have a short attention span and at my age, if you didn't say it in the last

 five minutes, you didn't say it.

 > I have an uptake copper tubing that run entirely around the inner perimeter

 of the kettle, and sits right on the bottom.  Lots of teeny-tiny holes are

 drilled in the underside of this coil.  The mountain of matter is *inside*

 the coil.

 Sounds pretty slick.   However, I got flamed because I based my opinion of

 immersion chillers on one mounted in the lid.  Seems it was too sophisticated

 and I was taking advantage of people who were too lazy or hadn't thought of

 doing it that way.  Seems you are guilty of the same sin on the other side of

 the argument.

 >It works very well.  So don't worry, Jack!  I'm fine.  Really.

 That's a relief.  What's your name again?

 >From: phil.brushaber@lunatic.com (Phil Brushaber)

 >Subject: Decoction Question

 >Wouldn't boiling with the grains cause a problem with increased

 astringency and the leaching of excess tannins into the beer?

 Perhaps it's time to look into another momily.  I get trashed every time I

 suggest using boiling water for sparging even though I always use decoction

 for my Pilsners.  Astringency is a knee-jerk response that needs an objective

 look-see.

 >From: "Phillip R. Seitz" <p00644@psilink.com>

 >Subject: Air Stat problems

 >I have a Hunter Air Stat and a small refrigerator.  As far as I can

 tell both are in good working order.  The problem is that when the

 temperature reaches the appropriate point the fridge will frequently

 make several abortive attempts to go on, or will run for a perhaps 10

 seconds before cycling off.  After 3 or 4 attempts the fridge comes on

 and stays on.

 If it is random and runs normally most of the time it is probably the

 overload control on the fridge.  If the compressor is VERY hot when it

 hapens, you have some other problem but if it is only warm, give the little

 black box a rapp with a small hammer.

 Mine does this and I had a digital thermometer on the compressor for weeks

 and there never was a real problem.  I keep a piece of wood handy and whack

 it when it gets flakey.  You can buy replacement controllers for about $30 at

 appliance parts houses.

 >From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

 >Subject: Dry Hopping Risks/Alphas/Latin

 >I'll now quote from the article's conclusion:  "These results

 suggest that the practice of dry-hopping is microbiologically

 safe, especially after three days of fermentation."

 >What we learn from this is that you should dry hop only after

 you have a vigorous fermentation going and the beer has a

 reasonable alcohol content and low pH.

 I think what I learned is that the anti-bacterial characteristics of hops are

 either a myth or greatly exagerated in the brewing folklore.  Clearly, if

 yeasts and bacteria live on the hops and can innoculate a culture dish, it is

 not very bacteriocidal.

 It would have been interesting if there was a control using a handful of

 grass clippings or leaves to find out if it was the nature of the fermented

 beer or the hops that prevented contamination.

 js

------------------------------


Bambi Gas/ 7 up Gas/ Decoction

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 13:21:44 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Bambi Gas/ 7 up Gas/ Decoction

Paul Slater is confused 'cause his system is "ebcidically" disadvantaged.

*   Is that a real word?  How is in pronounced, what does it mean!

******

Geoffrey Burd

Talks about the BrewMachine.  And sez their dark extract tastes like

prune juice.

Sounds like a good base for Klingon Ale.  Add lots of honey!    ?

****     Ok./ On to REAL BREW TALK!

Andy was straining about his Bambi Booster Bomb quick brew he made. :)

(I didn't say "stressing"....but the main theme...is....r e l a x   )

>  Aeration of wort.  Using a gas-bubbler.   ...

My question is how long did it sit with the bubbler bubbling?

(Glad I didn't have to pronounce that.  It might'a come out wierd!)

I would think that you really just want to get the solution full of air

to the max which will dissolve at the beginning of the ferment, then

shut it off, say after a couple hours.  Longer than that shouldn't be

necessary,  unless you have a very high starting gravity.  I know of

several wines/meads of mine which needed to have a big blast of air

before they would take off.

BTW:  This IS something I've tried, so I'm not speaking thru my shoe!

My inclination is to add air until the ferment becomes active, then shut

it off and let the yeast do their thing.  If it ferments strongly you

might drop all you s.g. in a couple days.  I generally like to complete

the ferment with a secondary for an additional week.  Overall most are

2 to 3 weeks duration.  If it's fermented, and has dropped out the yeast,

"heck" go for it!  Bottle away.  You can always let it age longer in the

bottle.  But generally things age/balance better in larger volumes.

Bottom Line:  If it tastes good.  Drink it! and then have another...

*****

Mike sez of a keg of 7-up:

>Well, it's not working... I pressurized the keg at 30psi for 3 or 4 days in

a 50 degree garage... then dropped down to a dispensing pressure of

12-14psi. When I hit the tap, I get 7up gushing from it. Foams like crazy,

but the finished product in the glass is pretty much flat. I.e., all the

CO2 comes out at dispensing time.   What's wrong?

*   Drop 'em baby!  I mean...uh...er...drop the PRESSURE. Yes that's it.

Beer is commonly dispensed at 2-5 psi once carbonated.  If it foams, turn

it down.  HINT:  Drop pressure on keg FIRST, then drop pressure in

regulator.  A very full keg can back beer up the gas line.  Not good. :(

Oh- and I don't care HOW long your dispensing line is!  It's not my

business :)!   I don't think it'll cause any problems you can't compensate

for with adjustments to pressure.

Suggestion:  After carbonation at high pressure, drop off ALL pressure in

the keg. Let it sit for ~30 min, then add 2-5 psi, and try delivery.

This will allow some of the excess gas in the liquid to equilibrate with

the head space.  Once enough gas is dissolved in liquid, you really just

need enough gas to push the beer out the tap.

*****

Question on Decoction:

>Wouldn't boiling with the grains cause a problem with increased

astringency and the leaching of excess tannins into the beer?

*   Part of the decoction mash (as I understand it, as if anyone TRULY does!)

Involves starting the mash at cool temps, allowing the ACID REST which

should adjust the pH addequately to the acid side that tannins are not

extracted during the boil.  It was NOT recommended to add gypsum.

Then you pull off the "heavy third" or whatever of mash.

I used a colander, and pulled off mostly grain from my cooler mash tun.

Put this in my pot, added a bit of water to make it soupy, like oatmeal,

and SLOWLY raise the temp to conversion temp (60-65 deg C). Hold for

15, then raise to a boil.  Add this hot liquid back to the tun, mix,

then repeat.  By the second you should have the whole thing up to temp

for conversion.  So you essentially get 3 conversion steps. Some propose

the third decoction of only liquid.

The mashing enzymes (amylase) are soluble. They will be in the liquid,

mostly.  Part of boiling the grains involves breaking up starch clumps

making them available for conversions, hence the professed increased

extraction rates.  After mashing (last decoction, rest) sparge as usual.

*Disclaimer: I've done 1 real decoction, BUT I've read several books

and articles on it, by the big guys, and some little fries (anyone

ever seen John Alexanders "Brewing Lager"? A few pages to dog-ear there!)

    So of course everything I say is made up and pretend!

    So don't take it as the word of dog / god or anything like that!

"...If they put malt in beer and malt in milk. Why not beer in milk?"

*   Uck.  Before or after fermenting?   Try pepsi and milk. (add rum!)

/ "Who Me?  Covering MY tail!  Nah- Just dont' want anyone yanking it off" /

  John (Coyote) Wyllie SLK6P@cc.usu.edu

________________-------------------------------------_______________________

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1273, 11/16/93

*************************************

-------


Cider,  Mead  /  Strength and Yeast #'s

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 13:45:15 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Cider,  Mead  /  Strength and Yeast #'s

*****

From: "Christopher J. Lacenere" <cl38+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: HARD CIDER?  How to's

*   Don't boil cider. You'll get jello haze!  You can pasteurize,

but easier is to treat cider with campden tables (Na -bisulfate...).

Crush, dissolve, add. Don't breath the gas! Sulfur hurts!

Give it 24 hrs, then pitch a good yeast starter. Champagne is a good one.

Other good things to add:  Grape tannin, yeast nutrient, pectic enzyme...

HONEY!  I've found my ciders to have a fuller, more balanced flavor

when I add honey to the ferment.

    Typical Recipe:  4 gallons cider. Treat w/campden.

    Heat 5 # honey in water- to 1 gallon.  Add other goodies.

    Add honey mix to cider, and pitch yeast.

I usually ferment for a month, and rack several times.  Bottle straight-

apple wine/ Cyser, or sparkle it by priming.

*****

Mead Extract?  There actually is a kit sold by Williams (no connectn..blah)

for making mead. (800-759-6025)  $6.90, everything but the honey.

I've made meads for about 4 years now.  I've never made a Mead w/malt,

but I have made beers with honey. :)   On the order of 2-5 pounds into

a brew.  I like it.  Brown sugar is another favorite.

Suggestion for both Mead and Cider:  Treat it like a wine.  Get a wine

book and learn about acid-testing, stabilization, adjusting sweetness...

    "The art of making wine" Anderson & Hill is a good one.

You'll be able to get much better balanced products that way.  Just

count on time.  The best advice:  Be Patient.  Leave it alone!

Rack several times, to get it cleared properly.

Personally I don't like adding hops to mead anymore. I've tried it, and

found the bitterness out of place in an often sweet beverage. In dry

meads there is nothing to balance the bitter, and it bites thru 2 much.

Considering the potential strength of most wines/meads the added bacterial

inhibition from hops should not be needed.

FYI:  There is a Mead Lovers Digest, and a Cider digest.  They (at least

the MLD) are/is archived at sierra.stanford.   pub/mead

or are distributed by e-mail.  The NEWS group red.crafts.wine commonly

discussed mead/cider from a wine perspective.

*****

From: Jeremy Ballard Bergsman <in%"jeremybb@leland.Stanford.EDU">

Subject: Re: good for yeast/good for beer

>...in the Bay Area we have three brewpubs called Gordon Biersch (sp?).(Those

in Pasadena, keep your eyes open.)

*   Drool pant sputter....Really?  I'm headed that way over X-mas.

Am I too early for their arrival?  I've been to the Crown Brewery,

and the John Bull Pub has some NICE imports on tap.

Do you know what the name of the brewpub will be down there? Location?

I'd love to know!  :)

>Then I had a flash of insight: what if you can get the yeast to undergo a

bit of extra growth?  You can use more malt for the same amount of alcohol.

This might give you a bit more maltiness.  I asked him if this was the reason,

*   I don't think it really works that way.  Product production (e.g. etoh

and co2) are related to the substrate concentration.  The rate will be

affected by the amount of enzyme/~= cell numbers.  BUT the amount of

product will depend on the amount of substrate...i.e.fermentable malt sugars.

*    So I don't think that the brewmeister there really has to worry about

you sleeping with his wife!   Besides, you shouldn't do that on the hbd!

/ "I don't just talk beer,  I AM beer! I think beer, therefore I am-beer" /

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ John (Coyote) Wyllie SLK6P@cc.usu.edu ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

- -------------------_____________________________________-------------------

------------------------------


Not a flame/Enterobacteriaceae

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 14:25 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Not a flame/Enterobacteriaceae

Ulick writes:

>a carboy.  Papazian's book is a good starter for the nervous, but for anyone

>who has brewed before and wants to get a good handle on water treatment and

>all-grain, Miller is a better choice.  Noonan is not for beginners, and while

>riddled with errors, the people to whom it's aimed can usually work it out.

Then we are in agreement.

>In his second posting, Mr. Korzanos, advocated the handling of hops with

>sanitized surgical gloves, based on the notion that there are more

>bacteria on hands than in the mouth - hardly a scientific determination,

>and considering the antibacterial properties of hops, I doubt if many bacteria

>would survive - and what would they eat?  I imagine stored hops are too acid

>for bacteria.  I wonder why someone like me who dry hops by stuffing hops

>with by bare hands through carboy openings has never had an infected batch

>attributable to dry-hopping?

Luck may have a lot to do with it, but indeed, the chances of an infected

batch from dryhopping are quite low provided that the dryhops are added

once the beer has mostly fermented out.  See my Technical Communication in

the first issue of Brewing Techniques for my reasoning.  I posted what I

do and why I do it.  I *sell* hops -- I feel a responsibility to my customers

to give them the best product I can and that includes reducing any risk

of contamination.  If my methods are overkill, then too bad for me, but

I don't see why you need to get upset about what I do.

In a related topic, Mark writes:

>They took cultures from the hops and found they contained

>wild yeasts of three kinds and many different kinds of

>bacteria - some gram positive and negative, mostly

>"Enterobacteriaceae" whatever that means.

It refers to enteric bacteria, which means "bacteria that reside in the

intestines."

Back to Ulick:

>He then admits he is primarily an ale brewer and does not have much recent

>lager experience, but nevertheless responds to someone enquiring about

>pitching fresh yeast when bottling a lager (a correct procedure),

>DON'T CHANGE YEASTS AT BOTTLING TIME!!!

>because his home perm solution carbonated OK.  I can say categorically that

>I have made several strong beers, (Ales, actuallY) that have not

>carbonated satisfactorily because I failed to add fresh yeast.

>The reason Mr Korzanos gives is 'glass grenades', especially for lagers -

>those beers with which he is so intimately familiar, without any examples

>at all - just his vague suspicion.

Read my post again, you obviously missed my point.  Perhaps I was unclear.

With any beer, ale or lager, it is risky to pitch a *different strain* of

yeast at bottling time, because if you pitch a more attenuative yeast strain,

you will have gushers (at best -- depending on the yeasts, you could create

exploding bottles).  My contention was that fresh yeast at bottling time was

not an *absolute* requirement for lagers in general (as you contend) and was

based upon personal experience, the experiences of others in the HBD, and

the experiences of members of local homebrew clubs.

>Also, I considered the crabtree effect a good reason to abandon corn

>sugar, but of course there are other good reasons to stick with it.

>One must balance everything.  Some people are quite happy carbonating with

>sterile wort or kraeusen, and for lager there is no topping the latter

>method (IMHO).  Even Anheuser-Busch do it!!

Did I slam Carl for abandoning corn sugar?  No, I just posted what I did

and some of my reasoning.  Frankly, IMHO, your opinions don't sound so

humble.

I stand behind everything I wrote in those posts.  If you disagree, then

please post civilized rebuttals.

For the record, it's Korzonas, but you can call me...

Al.

(last name omitted for brevity, anonymity and unprofessionalism ;^)

------------------------------


Flying homebrew

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 17:38:18 -0800

From: rknight@qualcomm.com (Bob Knight)

Subject: Flying homebrew

Over the last few weeks I've seen a couple of articles from HBD'ers who

tried taking homebrew on airplanes in their carry-on luggage; one got

stopped by airport security who for some reason objected to his carrying

unlabeled bottles of dangerously murky brown fluid onto an airliner, and

one was simply warned that he should not drink it in flight.

Has anyone else had any good or bad experiences carrying homebrew onto a

plane?  Or, for that matter, checking homebrew in their luggage?

Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching, and I suspect that Enquiring Minds

Want To Know.

Bob

(Desperately searching old Eddie Murphy albums for an obnoxious .sig)

------------------------------


New book for the Chemist in you

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 21:25:39 -0500 (EST)

From: Scott Benton <sbenton@telerama.pgh.pa.us>

Subject: New book for the Chemist in you

The American Chemical Society (ACS) announces the release of

"Beer and Wine Production:  Analysis, Characterization and

Technological Advances"

ACS Symposium Series No. 536.

280 pages

ISBN 0-8412-2714-4 (clothbound)  $59.95

ISBN 0-8412-2724-1 (Paperbound) $24.95 (Available Jan 1994)

"Describes how modern technology is used to produce and maintain the

flavor quality of beer and enhance the quality of wine.  Discusses the

current understanding of the sensory aspects of natural phenolic and

turpenoid compounds in grapes and the sensory effects of certain

competitive spoilage organisms present in fermenting grape juice.

Presents insights into how current analytical, filtration, and enzymes

technologies are used to analyze and process beers and wines.  Also

includes chapters on home brewing and winemaking."

Call Toll free 1-800-227-5558

in Wash, DC      202-872-4363

      or FAX     202-872-6067

The poster has not evaluated this book.  Nor is he affiliated with the

American Chemical Society other than as a member.  Nor does he stand to

derive any benefit, monetary or otherwise, from this posting.  Nor does

he believe that it should be necessary to post such a ridiculous disclaimer.

Scott D. Benton        sbenton@telerama.pgh.pa.us

------------------------------


Sanitation FAQ

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 07:50:34 -0400 (EDT)

From: ELTEE@delphi.com

Subject: Sanitation FAQ

Does anyone know if there's a sanitation FAQ out there?  It seems like every

time I get one problem cleared up I get another one (like the 50 bottles of

butterscotch I now have in the basement).  I'm pretty sure it's not the

yeast, it tasted great when it when into the bottle.

Ken Bair

------------------------------


Treacle & Other Brit Sugars

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 08:31:51 est

From: thutt@mail.casi.sti.nasa.gov

Subject: Treacle & Other Brit Sugars

      I'm getting tired of seeing the Great Treacle Question posed and

      pondered time and time again.  In HBD 1273, Bruce Beck wondered

      what Golden Syrup is (I dunno) and once again mentioned the

      mysterious Treacle.

      No, you cannot buy treacle in the U.S., but that is not the full

      answer.  To get the full answer, we must first find out exactly

      what Treacle is.

      Once and for all, Treacle is simply blackstrap molasses.  You can

      get this in many places in the U.S.

      Demararra, which I also have sitting in my house, is simply a light

      brown sugar with molassess added.  It looks similar to the US brown

      sugar, but is not as moist (I've not opened the package yet, so I

      cannot give taste results).

      The U.K. also has a light brown granular sugar that I have never

      encountered before I went to London in June.  I've not tried it

      either, but I am hoping to use them all in some sweet brown ales

      this season.

      Someone was making a 'Sugars FAQ'.  They may want to update this

      information....

------------------------------


What is "black treacle"

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 09:03:46 -0500

From: Paul Hethmon <hethmon@cs.utk.edu>

Subject: What is "black treacle"

So, I went to my local homebrew shop to pick up the

ingredients for "Old Snead's Stout" (Dave, I'll let you

know how it turns out) and had a bit of a problem. They

didn't know what black treacle was, and neither do I.

So can someone tell me what it is?

|  Paul Hethmon   |     Anonymous ftp for

|  hethmon@cs.utk.edu  |  Woodworking: cs.rochester.edu

|  University of Tennessee |     HomeBrew: sierra.stanford.edu

|  Knoxville, Tennessee  |    OS/2 Info: ftp-os2.cdrom.com

------------------------------


fast ferment/chiller/etc.

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 10:12:47 -0500 (EST)

From: gelinas@ekman.unh.edu (Russell Gelinas)

Subject: fast ferment/chiller/etc.

   Wyeast 1098 (Whitbread ale), dated 11/3/93, fully puffed up 24 hours

after breaking inner seal.  A couple of starters later, it fermented

out 5 gallons of 1.050 wort in 36 hours at 68F, including a 12-24 hr

lag time.  That's healthy yeast.

   Tell me if this makes sense.   Since most homebrewers underpitch,

we don't want to pitch fermenting yeast (ie. high krausen), we want

to pitch reproducing yeast (ie. pre-krausen).  That way when they hit

the fresh (well oxygenated!) wort, they continue to reproduce, ensuring

a large colony and a healthy ferment when it's time.  The way to ensure

this would be to pitch a starter shortly after it has been inoculated,

before the krausen begins.

    In the 1098 case above, the fully-puffed packet was pitched into

a starter that was allowed to ferment out.  1/2 of that starter was

pitched into a new starter.  Before this had a chance to show any

signs of ferment (3-4 hours later), it was pitched into the full 5 gallon

batch.  The relatively long lag time seen may be an indication of the yeasts

intial tendency for reproduction in this scheme.  The very large amount of

yeast that flocculated out after the ferment would also support this theory.

   Btw, none of this was planned; it was purely chance.  Next time it

will be planned.

- ------

   Thanks to the person who recommended hanging an immersion chiller

over the sides of the brewpot, to allow it to sit in the top of the hot

wort (the hottest part).  Not only did the wort cool faster, but the cover

sat tighter, and it did not need to be stirred at all.  Thanks again.

- -----

Russell Gelinas

opal/ssc (EOS)

Univ. of New Hampshire

gelinas@ekman.unh.edu

------------------------------


Noche Bueno

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 08:33:08 -0700

From: John Adams <j_adams@hpfcjca.sde.hp.com>

Subject: Noche Bueno

> Good news! Joe Barfield of Southwest Brewing News has just informed me

> that Noche Bueno is back. It is being brewed in Monterrey by the

> Cuauhtemoc group, and will be distributed in selected test markets by

> Guinness Imports. Laurie is currenting forming a flavor panel, and we

> will write an article for SWBN summarizing the results along with

> related information. I will also post it on HBD.

George I am curious, this has been one of my favorite beers and in the past

4 (5??) years I have been unable to find any nor was I able to find out why

it wasn't being distributed/produced.

While I am very happy to know it will be made again (although it sounds

as like it will be in limited distribution) what was the reason it wasn't

being produced in the past few years?

John Adams

------------------------------


mead recipe - oops

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 09:56 CDT

From: Eric Saidel <SAIDEL@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: mead recipe - oops

I just reread the recipe for apple mead I sent

yesterday - it should say a third of a cup of

honey for every *gallon* of mead (not every

bottle).  Of course doing it by the bottle might

make for some very interesting results :()

 - eric

------------------------------


sanitizing bottle washers

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 11:45:56 -0400 (AST)

From: EKELLY@admin.stmarys.ca

Subject: sanitizing bottle washers

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------------------------------


Filtering update

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 11:34:54 -0500 (EST)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Filtering update

Last Feb, I posted about my experience using a 5 micron cartridge filter

to remove excess yest in an Altbier I made.  Since then, I have recently

filtered 6 cornelious kegs, 3 pale ales, and 3 "Dunkles Wicked Ale" (my

lab is named Dunkles).  I was really happy with the results.  My current

brewing practice is to use a SS open fermenter, skimming the American

yeast off the top as the ferment ends, and skimming the initial junk

off the early fermentation.  Since I keg directly from my primary, I

have been carrying over a significant amount of suspended yeast.  I was

getting a bit tired of the yeasty beer, so I pulled out my 5 micron filter

bought from the Filter Store, and went at it.  Some of the kegs were

carbonated, and while they filtered fine, the flow rate seemed quite slow.

The two flat kegs filtered much quicker.  The resulting beers are a nice

"polished" look, similar to many breweries that filter, but dont overdo it.

One of my main objections to filtering is the need to clean and sanitize

more equipment, drag.  To simplify things, I cleaned and sanitized 3 kegs,

and as I emptied a yeasty keg, I just rinsed the yeast out with real hot

water, and cooled it.  This keg then became one of the receiving tanks for

the next filtered beer.

Since I was filtering two quite different beers, I back flushed the filter

between beer types, and tons of yeast came out.  I still think that a

5 micron filter is perfectly adequate for removing excess yeast.

The best thing is the true beer flavors, malt and hops, come through much

better in the filtered version than in the unfiltered. I think this is

one the suprising things about filtering.

BTW, I used a "quat" based sanitizer, VigilQuat, and stored the filter in

a solution of this sanitizer.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Various

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 11:03:50 -0500 (EST)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Various

> From: D S Draper <D.S.Draper@bristol.ac.uk>

> Subject: Yeast culturing--an update

>

> Brief recap of the earlier problems: pitched three batches of beer with

> cultures from bottles beers; the first was not properly sanitized, so got

> an infection.  The second was properly sanitized, but resulted in a wild

> yeast infection that can only have come from the yeast that was inside the

> bottle.  The third batch had a sour taste that was a mild wild-yeast

> infection.  In each case, less than a pint of starter was pitched, just at

If you dont streak the "yeasts" into single colonies , you were not

"culturing" , just growing whatever is in the bottle.

>

> An additional note: The wild yeast taste I got in my first two batches,

> which I described as sort of mediciny, is EXACTLY the main flavor I have

> gotten from several very reputable beers: Chimay blue, Leffe Blond (both

> Belgium), Pschorr-Brau Weisse, and Maisel's Hefe-Weizen (in Bayreuth,

> Franconia).  This taste was identified as definetly being wild by my

> homebrew suppliers (who run a brewpub, so they know what they're talking

> about I reckon), and it is a dead ringer for that in these beers.  Go

> figure...

Phenols are produced by wild yeasts in large quantities.  Phenolic notes

are often evident in Belgium Ales, and German Weizens.  The more brewpubs I

visit, the less I feel "who run a brewpub, so they know what they're talking

about".  The quality in Micros is far greater than in many Brewpubs, sadly.

>

> Conclusions:  If using bottle-conditioned yeast, step the starter up to

> about a half gallon, and TASTE IT before committing it to your brew--keep

> a dried packet or whatever on hand in case of failure.  In future, I will

> take the plunge into yeast culturing, isolating good colonies from these

> bottled beers, and growing them into starter colonies that I then make

> actual starter solutions from.  Getting viable yeast from

> bottle-conditioned beers can be done, but one must be careful.

Pouring the dregs of a bottle into the pint starter and then into fresh

wort is certainly risky, as your experience attests.  In the US, people

do this with SNPA, but this is a filtered beer that is force carbonated

prior to the addition of fresh bottling yeast, the ferment yeast is not

left in the bottle.  It is also most likely a cleaner brewery than many

in the UK.

> From: richard_h@SMTPGATE.BCSEW.EDU

> Subject: Yeast starters and aeration

>

>  - Yeast reproduction begins as an aerobic process ("Gimme O2!"), for

>   about the first 12 hours.  This is why we are told to aerate the

>   wort before pitching - the yeast will have a nice oxygen rich

>   environment to begin reproduction in.

>

>  - The yeast starter has probably finished the aerobic cycle and is now

>   in an anaerobic state ("We don't need no stinkin' O2!") at the time

>   it is pitched into the wort.

>

> So, why doesn't the yeast in the starter (anaerobic phase) object to

> finding its environment changed by being dumped into the oxygen rich

> wort?

Actually, it does.  If O2 is present, the cells will revert to the respiration

phase, until the O2 is gone, then the anerobic phase returns.  If the

starter is allowed to ferment, the yeast is ready to respire again. This is

why some brewers prefer to let the starter ferment past high krausen, and

decant the still beer off the starter, pitching the slurry.

from JS:

<I think what I learned is that the anti-bacterial characteristics of hops are

<either a myth or greatly exagerated in the brewing folklore.  Clearly, if

<yeasts and bacteria live on the hops and can innoculate a culture dish, it is

<not very bacteriocidal.

I was under the impression that the alpha acids from boiling the hops are

what produce the slight bactericidal agents, not the raw hops themselves.

> From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

> Subject: Bambi Gas/ 7 up Gas/ Decoction

>

> Mike sez of a keg of 7-up:

>

> >Well, it's not working... I pressurized the keg at 30psi for 3 or 4 days in

> a 50 degree garage... then dropped down to a dispensing pressure of

> 12-14psi. When I hit the tap, I get 7up gushing from it. Foams like crazy,

> but the finished product in the glass is pretty much flat. I.e., all the

> CO2 comes out at dispensing time.   What's wrong?

>

> *   Drop 'em baby!  I mean...uh...er...drop the PRESSURE. Yes that's it.

> Beer is commonly dispensed at 2-5 psi once carbonated.  If it foams, turn

> it down.  HINT:  Drop pressure on keg FIRST, then drop pressure in

> regulator.  A very full keg can back beer up the gas line.  Not good. :(

Actually, No.  If one increases the delivery pressure then you are "pushing"

the beer out, as opposed to letting the beer "push itself" out. By letting

the beer "push itself" out, you are decarbonating the beer. You need to

reach equilibrium of , usually, around 2.5 volumes of CO2 in solution, and

maintain 12 psi on the tank.  IF the beer is gushing out at 12 psi, it

is most likely overcarbonated, and indeed the answer is to bleed off excess

pressure, then return to 12 psi.

>

> *   Part of the decoction mash (as I understand it, as if anyone TRULY does!)

> Involves starting the mash at cool temps, allowing the ACID REST which

> should adjust the pH addequately to the acid side that tannins are not

> extracted during the boil.  It was NOT recommended to add gypsum.

First part true, second part false, no problem adding gypsum. It all depends

on your intial water chemistry, amount of dark malts to be used and lager

versus ale yeasts.

>

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


chillers, bottle yeast, Miller's method, Papazian picture

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 11:59:22 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: chillers, bottle yeast, Miller's method, Papazian picture

In hbd1273 William Swetnam asks about chiller construction.  I would

recommend 1/4" copper tubing - it is cheaper to get more surface area

by buying more length of 1/4" than bigger tubing and it is easier to shape.

The reason one should use tubing of a larger diameter for couterflow

chillers (high pressure drop) does not apply to immersion chillers, and

the greater pressure drop across the narrower tubing may help conserve

water where that is an issue.  For clamps I just used a scrap of hose

clamped outside with a regular hose clamp, although I am sure compression

fittings are available.

I have never seen a two stage chiller like you suggest - first through

an ice bath prior to circulating through wort, although I have thought about

it.  For ales in the winter it is unecessary, but for lagers and summer

brewing a better cold break would be nice.  If using such a setup, to conserve

ice, I would recommend not adding ice till the wort is chilled close to tap

water temperature, and then add the ice. What I sometime do, is disconnect my

water once tap temperatures are approached and connect a pump recirculating ice

water.  RE length 25" is fine for the wort chiller, although considering the

length of copper tubing in the average box, you may use a longer length.

Dave Draper relates his experience with culturing from bottle conditioned

beers.  I recently retired an ale yeast cultured from a bottle of Guinness

(purchased in Ireland) because of suspected wild yeast contamination -

gushing.  However, I had used the yeast for many batches top cropping or

bottom cropping along the way.  Contamination with bacteria was an early

problem, again probably because the brewery practice was not perfectly

sterile.  What I did after the first batch and then every second batch or so

was acid wash with ammonium peroxydisulfate solution (a procedure outlined

in 'Brewing Lager Beer' by Gregory Noonan).  I made many excellent batches

(and some less than stellar ones) with this yeast and these procedures.

Keith McNeil worries about chipped enamelled canning pots.  My well used

pot has suffered the odd chip but it doesn't seem to be a problem.  The

chipped areas are well blackened with a thick carbon coat from many burnt

decoctions - much as cast iron cookware is.  So long as one doesn't

clean the pot too well, it is my experience that chips are not a big

problem.

I was in one of those religious Miller vs. Papazian discussions at a

homebrew tasting this weekend and the procedure mentioned by Mark Bayer -

of Miller recommending pitching yeast on trub and then racking prior

to Kraeusen is lovely on paper, and if one's yeast tends to be consistent

good advice, but I remember one batch, an underpitched lager, for which

I did this - racked after 6 hours or so, and had a 5 day wait till krausen

(good job I don't worry too much!).  I prefer not to rack

till after krausen because of risks of infection and yeast loss.

In my last posting in 1271 I mentioned the recommendation in Papazian to

pour the hot wort in cold water in a carboy as being bad advice and

received a number of worried responses, to some of whom email responses

bounced.  I'll quote Charlie himself, RDWHAHB.  While this procedure

is not correct - chilling in a bathtub or with a wort chiller prior to

pouring is recommended, the amount of damage that could be expected due

to hot side aeration is so slight that it is unlikely to be noticable.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


Re: barleywine

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 10:34:48 MST

From: psm@sst10a.lanl.gov (Peter McLachlan)

Subject: Re: barleywine

>I am interested in brewing a barley wine from

>an O.G. of 1.100 or higher, but don't wan't

>F.G. above 1.030.

   If you want to lighten the body of your beer without bad side effects I

recommend adding 15% of your grain and extract weight in honey.  This should

help drive the fermentation to completion.  I get light clover honey in

a local store for a buck a pound.

Cheers,

Peter

------------------------------


A real lager and "kegs"

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 12:44:51 -0500

From: esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

Subject: A real lager and "kegs"

Hello,

        I plan to brew my first real lager in the coming months and am now

considering what new equipment I may need to acquire to do this.  My big

question, is do you need a fridge to brew a real lager?  I thought it would

be ok if I put the carboy in the basement, sitting in a pan of water, with

a big t shirt over it so the t shirt dangled into the pan of water.  My

idea is that shirt would act as a wick and draw the water up over the

carboy and evaporation would keep the carboy cool.  I realize I would not

have any _real_ control over the temparature of the carboy, but it seems it

would work.  Anyone tried this?  Am I kidding myself?

        Second question.  I have seen some plastic "kegs" in  local

home-brew shop which come from Europe.  Supposedly, they can be used to

carbonate in and draft beer from.  Has anyone tried these?  They seem like

only a glorified beer ball.

Thanks in advance,

Eugene                esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

------------------------------


Dispensing from Kegs (was keg pressure questions)

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 11:55:31 -0600

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Dispensing from Kegs (was keg pressure questions)

John Wyllie COYOTE gives some advice on using kegging equipment in response

to Mike Fetzer's question in HBD #1272:

> Beer is commonly dispensed at 2-5 psi once carbonated.

Some veddy British ales served with VERY low carbonation at 50F may be stored

under as little as 2 PSIG, but these will generally be dispensed with a beer

engine (essentially a hand-pump) and not with CO2 pressure.  So storage

pressure in this case has absolutely nothing to do with dispensing.  Some

pubs will dispense this type of ale with a CO2/N2 mixture, but this is a

whole `nother topic. Most beers have considerably more carbonation than these

ales though.  Note that even at 32F, 8 PSIG is required to maintain 2.5

volumes dissolved CO2.  At a more-typical 45F, this jumps to 15 PSIG. The

2-1/2 volume carbonation level is typical of beer-in-general, and although

some might complain that its too fizzy, it seems that most people like it

just fine, no matter where they live. The COYOTE continues...

> If it [the beer -trl] foams, turn it [the pressure -trl] down.  Oh- and I

> don't care HOW long your dispensing line is!  It's not my business :)!

I guess the COYOTE means that MIKE'S difficulty is not the COYOTE's problem.

If your beer foams, there is only one thing wrong -- you are releasing the

CO2 from solution too fast.  This is caused mostly by agitation.  Agitation

can be caused by restrictions in the serving line, and by the beer hitting

the bottom of your glass too fast.  Now for a bit of physics.  Since this is

a recurring topic, I'll post a more complete set of data that I have by the

end of the week.  But for starters, this'll get us in the ballpark.

When storing beer, you want to keep enough pressure on it to maintain the

desired carbonation level.  For most British styles, we're looking for

1-1/2 volumes of dissolved CO2 (or so) and for most lager style beers, were

looking for 2-1/2 volumes (or so).  This can vary according to your taste.

There are various pressure vs. temperature charts* floating around, but  as

an example, my Pilsner was stored and served at 40F, and 2.5 volumes of CO2.

This means I need to store the beer under 14.0 PSIG to maintain carbonation.

Now, since I want to serve directly from my storage vessel (the keg), I

somehow need to "drop" or dissipate the 9 PSI in the dispensing system.  My

beer faucet is about 18" above the center of the keg.  A vertical lift drops

about 1 PSI per 12", so this automatically gets rid of 1-1/2 PSI, leaving me

with 12-1/2.  3/16" ID beer line drops 2.1 PSI per foot of length due to

fluid friction.  So, I need

   12-1/2 PSI

 --------------- = 6 feet  of 3/16 ID beer line

 2-1/10 PSI/Foot

So. I cut a piece of line 5-1/2 feet long to account for drops at various

fittings in the system, and hooked it all up.  Proper flow rate for beer

dispensing is about 2 ounces/second.  And indeed, it takes about 10 seconds

to fill my 22 ounce mug with about 16 ounces of beer, and a nice head.  The

carbonation remains in the beer because the pressure at the faucet is nearly

zero PSIG, and the beer is not violently expelled against the bottom of my

glass.

> I don't think it'll cause any problems you can't compensate for with

> adjustments to pressure.

Kludgy half-way "solutions" are always possible.  Physics, I think, is

preferable.  The only way to use a dispensing system that cannot provide

sufficient resistance is to:

 1) Store under correct pressure

 2) Release all the excess pressure

 3) Dispense n servings

 4) Re pressurize for storage (Go To 1)

If this is what you want to do, it will "work".  But it sure is a hassle,

don't you agree?

Part of Mike's original question:

> I pressurized the keg at 30psi for 3 or 4 days in a 50 degree garage...

> then dropped down to a dispensing pressure of 12-14psi. When I hit the

> tap,  I get 7up gushing from it. Foams like crazy, but the finished

> product in the glass is pretty much flat. I.e., all the CO2 comes out at

> dispensing time.

Three or four days isn't enough time for CO2 to dissolve into the 7UP, even

at 30 PSI, so it really wasn't very carbonated to start with.  To carbonate,

you need to agitate.  I do this by rocking my keg back and forth over a

softball bat until I can't hear the CO2 flowing in anymore.  Thus usually

takes 15 minutes or so of constant agitation.

 so agitation under pressure   ====> carbonation

    agitation without pressure ====> de-carbonation

And you really need your pressure/temperature/dissolved CO2 chart to get it

right.  Anyhow, what carbonation that *was* in the 7UP came out all at once

when the stuff hit the bottom of your glass at 90 miles an hour, leaving you

with pretty flat 7UP.  There have been many articles posted on the topic of

carbonation.

Look for more data from me in a few days.  I'll expand a bit on the topic.

Maybe it'll turn into a keg-dispensing FAQ or something.

 t

 *a nice chart can be ftp-ed from sierra@stanford.edu in

  pub/homebrew/docs/co2.txt

=============================================================================

Tom Leith                           InterNet:   trl@wuerl.WUstl.EDU

4434 Dewey Ave.                   CompuServe:   70441,3536

St. Louis, Missouri  63116

                                                "Tho' I could not caution all

314/362-6965 - Office                            I still might warn a few:

314/362-6971 - Office Fax                        Don't lend your hand

314/481-2512 - Home + Infernal Machine           to raise no flag

                                                 atop no Ship of Fools"

=============================================================================

------------------------------


Decoction & Astringency

Date: 16 Nov 93 18:02:26 GMT

From: GANDE@slims.attmail.com

Subject: Decoction & Astringency

 >From: phil.brushaber@lunatic.com (Phil Brushaber)

 >Subject: Decoction Question

 >Wouldn't boiling with the grains cause a problem with increased

 astringency and the leaching of excess tannins into the beer?

 JS>>Perhaps it's time to look into another momily.  I get

     trashed every time I suggest using boiling water for

     sparging even though I always use decoction for my

     Pilsners.  Astringency is a knee-jerk response that needs an

     objective look-see.

JS and Phil discuss extracted tannis, astringency and 'momilies'.

Later the Coyote man says nope, it's the ACID REST, and I'd go along

with that.

Decoction mashes are done with pre-sparge mash constituents, usually

at a pH 5.3. From my understanding this level of acidity

'discourages' the extraction of tannins, making boiling a portion of

the mash possible, without puckering results.

Further to this one could assume that it would be OK to sparge with

boiling water, which is accurate as long as your grain bed pH doesn't

raise above 5.3, ideally. In the real world, sparging raises mash pH

towards the end of the run and continuing to rinse with boiling water

would leach out tannins.

I made a mini-grain-tea-bag, boiled it for 10 minutes in tap water

(pH 7.0) and it was what I would call astringent.  That's enough

proof for me.  ;)

 ....Glenn Anderson

------------------------------


FAQ

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 10:09:55 -0800

From: rossix!davidmo@openlink.openlink.com (David Moore)

Subject: FAQ

Does a FAQ exist for the homebrew mailing list??

If so, could someone kindly email me a copy??

Thanks,

Dave

=============================================================

David A. Moore  | Phone:   (415) 593-2500

Ross Systems Inc. | E-mail:  davidmo@rossinc.com

------------------------------


mash in temps

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 13:50:28 EST

From: jimg@dcz.gso.uri.edu (James Gallagher)

Subject: mash in temps

I have noticed that many recipes here and elsewhere describe a procedure

where grain is added to water at one temp and then the mash is raised to

another temp. However, there are also recipes where grain is added to water

at a temperature such that the mash does not need a boost to the proper

temperature. Is there any reason not to always use water at a temp such that

the mash will be at conversion temp. or protein rest temp. without

adjustment?

James Gallagher

jimg@dcz.gso.uri.edu

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1274, 11/17/93

*************************************

-------


Dry Czech Pilsner?/Raspberry sweetness/Golden Syrup+saccharin

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 13:58 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Dry Czech Pilsner?/Raspberry sweetness/Golden Syrup+saccharin

Cecil writes:

>I made a Czech Pilsner using a can of BREWMART Czech Pilsner extract.

>I also used 3 lbs extra light DME. The can came with a dried yeast and

>a pilsner enzyme. At 68 degrees I pitched both the yeast and the enzyme.

>It took the normal 1-2 days to start foaming but stayed extremely active

>for 2 weeks. A local brew shop said bottle it anyway and that it would be

>considered a dry beer. I drank 2 sips and decided to dispose of the entire

>batch. I could pop the cap and sit the bottle upright in the sink and watch

>it empty its self from the bottom up. Help !! What did I do wrong ?

Bottled too early, probably, but there are other points in your post that

I would like to address.  1. Pilsners are lagers and I've read that there

currently is no true lager yeast available in dry form (lager yeasts just

don't like to be de-hydrated, I guess).  2. What a two-week ferment has

to do with it being a "dry beer" I don't know.  3. "Pilsner enzyme"

certainly has nothing to do with a real Pilsner -- I believe that dry beers

are indeed brewed with some kind of enzyme that breaks the complex sugars

down to virtually all glucose, so maybe that's what they meant.

There is a chance that you introduced some bacteria with the dried yeast

(some have very high bacterial counts) or the enzyme.  This would explain

why it tasted bad and why fermentation took so long.  I advise to forget

the enzyme next time, wait till fermentation is virtually over (I wait till

there are 2 minutes between glubs) before you bottle and see if the beer

turns out better.

****************************

J writes:

>Last week I started an extract batch based on the following recipe:

>

>6 lb can Ireks wheat

>1.5 lbs light malt extract

>1 lb honey

>1 oz Tett (boil)

>1/2 oz Cascade (boil)

>

>same as above (finish)

>

>I then cooled the wort, dumped it onto roughly three pounds of frozen

>raspberries, and pitched with wyeast weizen (liquid).

>

>Vigorous fermentation started in 18 hours and subsided in three days.

>

>Now my questions:

>1) Upon racking to the secondary, I found a noticeable sourness and a

>slight tinge of sulfur oder.  Now I realize that Weizens are supposed to

>be a bit sour, so I'm not all that worried.  Question is, how does one

>distinguish the difference between sourness due to style and sourness due

>to infection ?  Also, will sourness mellow in the bottle ??

Actually, only Berliner Weiss are sour according to style (and that's due

to an intentional Lactobacillus infection).  The raspberries added some

sourness, I'll bet, but it could also be an infection.  If the beer ferments

out to be super-dry, it is probably a bacterial infection.  There is a

bacteria called Malo-Lactic Bacteria (Wyeast has it) which "converts harsher

malic acid to milder lactic acid" but if the sourness is from a lactic

infection, nothing like this will help reduce the sourness.

>2) Papazian says a sulfur oder is "normal" depending on yeast types and

>conditions and claims it can be rectified by changing temperatures. The

>primary was at ~ 65 F and when I racked to 2nd, I put it in a room at

>about ~ 60. Will this help ?? Any suggestions ??

The sulfur odor will eventually go away if it is from the yeast, but I'm

not sure if you need to keep it in the fermenter or if you can bottle it

and wait for the smell to go away.

>3) Lastly, the raspberries haven't (yet) imparted as much fruity sweetness

>as I have experienced in some other raspberry Weizens...  Is it possible

>to use something akin to a raspberry syrup instead ?

Raspberries will not impart much sweetness.  The sugar in them will ferment

away leaving mostly raspberry aroma.  Some of this aroma will get scrubbed

 -out by evolving CO2 if you add the fruit at pitching time.  I recommend

putting the fruit in after primary fermentation is over.  This will also

reduce the chances of infection.  A raspberry syrup will probably be mostly

corn syrup, which will ferment away also.  What you need to do is to add

some unfermentable sugar to leave some sweetness.  I added 8 ounces of

lactose to a recent 15 gallon batch of raspberry/cherry ale.  It did sweeten

it a little bit, but not much.  I think adding 8 ounces to 5 gallons is more

reasonable for adding some residual sweetness.  BTW, I'm not a biologist,

but I'll bet that Lactose is fementable by Lactobacillus, so be extra

careful with sanitation!

******************************

Bruce writes:

>In "Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy", Dave Line gives a recipe for

>"Bishop's Tipple", a real ale.  The recipe asks for "1 lb Golden Syrup".

>Is Golden Syrup one of those things like Treacle which is unknown in the USA?

>Or is it what Americans call Corn Syrup?

It's a UK thing, as is Treacle.  You can get it (along with Treacle) from some

specialty food stores if you can't get it from your HB supplier.  As for

Tate & Lyle's Golden Syrup.

>Line also advocates sacchrine tablets to give residual sweetness.  I understand

>Lactose is a "better" way to provide residual sweetness.  Is there a rule of

>thumb for the amount of lactose to add?  I see amounts like 10-12 oz given in

>Cat's Meow.  Is it added to the boil?  Is there something like "One sacchrine

>tablet = x oz lactose"?

Line's book was written at a time when there were much fewer choices for

yeast and all the yeasts that he had to choose from were quite attenuative.

A less-attenuative yeast could be all you need.  If you add lactose, you can

add it in the boil, or boil some up and add it at bottling time -- it's

unfermentable, so it doesn't matter as long as you sanitize it.  Adding at

bottling time also allows you to add it to taste, but be aware that the

beer will become a bit more acidic when it carbonates, so you may want to

make it a touch sweeter than you want the final product to be.  See my note

above on Lactose and be aware that Lactose is not very sweet -- much less

sweet than sucrose, fructose or glucose.

Al.

------------------------------


Hops and Bacteria

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 14:48:35 PST

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hops and Bacteria

Jack Schmidling writes (in response to my post):

>I think what I learned is that the anti-bacterial characteristics of hops are

 either a myth or greatly exagerated in the brewing folklore.  Clearly, if

 yeasts and bacteria live on the hops and can innoculate a culture dish, it is

 not very bacteriocidal.

The bacteriocidal constituents of the hops is in the lupulin glands.  Lots of

beasties can live on the petals outside the lupulin glands.  These were whole

hops in the study, so it's not surprising that cultures taken from the hops

would grow stuff since the lupulin glands would, in large part, be intact.

>It would have been interesting if there was a control using a handful of

 grass clippings or leaves to find out if it was the nature of the fermented

 beer or the hops that prevented contamination.

Since at dry-hopping temps it takes quite a few days (more than three) for

stuff to migrate out of the lupulin glands, I would say it points pretty

conclusively to the fact that the beer itself is what did the trick, but

it may have been helped along by the hop constituents already in the beer

from the boil.

I'd have to double check my references, but I think the anti-bacterial

action of the hops is largely bacteriostatic (meaning it prevents further

growth) as opposed to bacteriocidal (meaning it kill the suckers outright).

Again, I could be mistaken on this.  My references are 40 miles away.

Mark

------------------------------


HSA+Papazian Method/Hunter Airstat/trub separation/dueling thermostats

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 14:08 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: HSA+Papazian Method/Hunter Airstat/trub separation/dueling thermostats

Ken writes:

>I have not heard about the "problems" with HSA and have been using the

>advice from Papazian's book.  Could someone explain why I should use

>the "Papazian" method or direct me to a source for the information.

Don't you mean "shouln't use the 'Papazian' method?"  Well, the best

source for Hot-Side Aeration (HSA) info, would certainly be George Fix's

article in a recent Zymurgy (three or four issues ago).  If you are using

a carboy and pouring hot wort through a funnel into the cold water below

and if the wort is really splashing around as it goes into the carboy, then

you probably are getting some HSA.  I used to do something like this and

the result was a sort of sherry-like, wet-cardboard aroma/flavor.  If you

use a plastic bucket as your primary and pour the wort in gently, the

effects will be barely noticable.  I can attest to this because I recently

made a few test batches of some "pre-measured kits" I designed for beginners

and gentle pouring into cool water produced virtually none of these off-flavors

(I followed the beginner instructions just like I wrote them, just to be sure).

I noticed that when I switched from the "hot wort through funnel into carboy"

method to "adding 2 gallons of near freezing, sanitized water into kettle"

method, there was a big difference.  Building an immersion chiller improved

my beer even further with respect to eliminating these off-flavor.

Build or borrow an immersion chiller and see if you can taste the difference.

I think you will notice a big difference.

*****************************

Also Ken writes:

>After all of this interest in the Hunter Airstat, I am kind of interested

>in taking a look at one.  Could someone tell me where I can find one?

Too bad all this interest in the Airstat didn't come sooner... it has been

discontinued by Hunter due to poor sales.  You may still be able to find

a few at your local hardware store or Builder's Square/Home Base/Handy Andy.

Ask for a "window airconditioner thermostat by Hunter Fan Company."  Many

salespeople don't have a clue if you ask for an AirStat.

********************

Mark writes:

>i recently got miller's book and was wondering if anyone out there has

>firsthand knowledge of how separating the trub from the wort before

>fermentation improves the beer.  how dramatic is the effect?  does anyone

There has been a lot of debate on this issue.  Some say that if you use

the blowoff method, you don't need to separate the wort from the trub.

One reason for pitching before separation from the trub is that the yeast

can use some stuff in the trub for nutrition.  If you aerate well, the

yeast can synthesize the materials they need and thus they don't *require*

the trub for nutrition (sterols, I believe).  You can aerate up till the

fermentation begins, but aerating early is best -- why delay?

>also, i've noticed strange behavior sometimes when racking beer regarding

>my airlock.  just after i fill the carboy with beer and put the airlock

>on, the water starts to get sucked into the fermenter, slowly.  i only

>have one theory on this, to wit:

<snip>

Your theory is correct.  The cooling/contraction of the airspace in the

fermenter is what sucks in the airlock water.  I suggest putting in just

enough water in the airlock so it will work both ways (forward and backward).

Once fermentation begins you can add a little more so it does not run

dry due to evaporation.

**************************

Kieran writes:

>The problem with using a fridge and an external thermostat is that you

>have two thermostats going at the same time--the fridge's and the Hunter

>(or whatever). The fridge thermostat usually will only allow the fridge

>to cool to 38 or 40 or so (F), and the Hunter device will try to continue

>to cool, but can't. To solve this--remove the internal thermostat--wire

>the two wires together and let the Hunter do the job. Just dont try to

>run the fridge with out the Hunter--you'll ruin the compressor

I don't think you have to rewire the original thermostat.  Recall

that both thermostats will say "go, compressor, go" when they think

it's too warm.   If you set the original to 40F and the Hunter (or

whatever) to 50F, the Hunter will tell the compressor to "stop" at 50F and

to "go on" at 52F or so.  Meanwhile the original thermostat is still

saying "it's too warm in here" and will be permanently on.  The Hunter

only goes down to 40F without modifications.  As long as you keep the

original thermostat set cooler than the Hunter, you'll be okay.

Al.

------------------------------


trub,censor,...

Date: 16 Nov 93 17:04:52 -0600

From: mbarre@nomvs.lsumc.edu

Subject: trub,censor,...

  1 - In New Orleans, I have only seen the Miller Reserve Lager and

Light, but have heard you all mention ale.  Whine.

  2 - Mark Bayer is worrying about fermenting his beer on top of the

trub.  I brew with extracts and cool the wort in the pot in the sink

full of ice water (takes about 30 minutes), then pull the cool wort off

the settled hop pellet, cold/hot break debris.  Even so, I get over

1/4" of trub in the carboy after the initial settling.  I fermented my

second batch on the trub for over a week, racked to a secondary for

another week or so, and it came out great.

I pulled the third batch into a bottling bucket and let it settle for

45 minutes before siphoning into the carboy.  I got less trub, but the

the beer was not as good.  I haven't settled first again.

  I use (clorinated) tap water in the air lock, and it has never been

sucked in and I haven't had infections.

  3 - Lee M.: what about 'manual "HOLD"'?

  4 - Bob A.: He said he would try the keg, not the extract.

Michael "Dry Yeast Sucks" Barre

------------------------------


1993 Dixie Cup Results Available

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 17:14:48 CST

From: Sean C. Lamb 335-6669 Loral <slamb@milp.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject: 1993 Dixie Cup Results Available

I've finally gotten it together enough to be able to provide the

results of the 1993 Dixie Cup to anyone who is interested.

We had 673 entries this year.  Fred Gibson of the Foam Rangers won

best of Show with his Traditional Porter.  Jeff Humphreys of the

Foam Rangers and DeFlaco's Home Wine and Beer Supply won the high

point award, and to the chagrin of all Foamies, the North Texas

Home Brewwers Assoc. won the Dixie Cup.

A good time was had by all.

Sean Lamb

------------------------------


Small Kegs + Homebrew in Porto Rico

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 17:47:43 CST

From: Mike Westra <root@hpuspma.stpaul.msr.hp.com>

Subject: Small Kegs + Homebrew in Porto Rico

Greeting from St.Paul...

Quick one... Does anyone out there know if there are any

kegging systems smaller than 8 Gallons readily available?

Are they appropriate for homebrewing? This is for a friend

in Puerto Rico - does anyone know of any homebrew and/or

brewing supply stores in San Juan?

Please reply to michael_westra@hpatc2.desk.hp.com.

Thanks and Cheers,

Mike Westra

michael_westra@hpatc2.desk.hp.com

------------------------------


Cider and Mead- Styles / Hops in the hand

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 13:11:00 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Cider and Mead- Styles / Hops in the hand

 - eric makes cider and...

>I also do about a case a year in which I bottle with

honey - about a third of a cup for a champagne bottle.

That gives it a nice apple "mead" flavor.

*   I wouldn't exactly call that a mead. A mead implies FERMENTED honey

with possibly...other stuff.  There is a "product" which tm's the name

MEADE (tm!)  that's actually wine, with honey added at bottling.

***

Someone else said:

> Mead is simply a wine that uses honey instead of "fruit".  I have been

 quite successful brewing straight mead (honey and water with a champaign

 yeast), spiced mead (called methylgen sp(?)),

*   There are a number of types/styles of mead.  The common component

    is HONEY.

    Traditional Mead:  Honey/water=   ~2.5 # /gal

    Sack Mead:  20-25 % more honey than traditnl.

    Metheglin:  Spiced with Gruit.  (herbs, and or hops mixed)

    Sack Metheglin:  Combine above 2

    Pyment-Claree:  Grapes added.

    Hippocras:  Pyment with spices.

    Cyser:   Apples/cider added.

    Muslum, or Melomel:  Fruit added.  Numerous variations

        (other than grape and apple)

    Morat:  Honey water and mulberries.  (This ones a winner with me!)

    Mead Brandy:  Oh...but that's distilling.   **

                                               /--/

    Braggot:  Honey and malt.  1:1

There are other honey/beer/+ drinks listed in Acton's book.

A couple good-ish books:

    Making Mead:  Acton and Duncan

    Brewing Mead: Charlie Pap.  (would be better titles- "History of Mead

        Brewing with just a little bit about actually brewing it")

    AHA Winners Circle has a chapter or recipes on mead.

*****

Lee posted some Hunter info:

>Some may find the following words offensive:

Chest, down, desire, unit, mount, do.

* I'll have you note please, there are NO three letter words in that list!

*****

  js sez:

 >I think what I learned is that the anti-bacterial characteristics of hops are

 either a myth or greatly exagerated in the brewing folklore.  Clearly, if

 yeasts and bacteria live on the hops and can innoculate a culture dish, it is

 not very bacteriocidal.

 * There's a difference between the leaf/flower surface of a plant and

a solution made from extracting the inhibitory components of the lupulin

glands.  If you tested just the surface of the lupilin gland it might have

no microbes, while the leaves had many.

Also: The distinction between "existing" and "replicating".  Many bacteria

and fungi can "sit" in a dormant state, then proliferate when conditions

become more favorable.

I remember this thread starting with whether hands would transfer

contaminants TO hops, and hence, into beer.

Again- the difference between existence, and replication.  There are

resident (generally unharmful) and transient (potentially harmful)

microorganisms on hands and skin.  But if your hands are clean the chance

of transfering danger to brew is low (IMHO).  Resident microbes generally

do not let go very easily.  If you wash well, you should remove most

transient bacteria, and unless you have chicken fat under your nails you

aren't likely to add much to your brew.

I would wager that commercial hops have been handled fairly frequently

before they are broken down to homebrewer size packets.  The hope of

not adding more microbes at dry hopping time seems irrelevant.

The hope of having created an inhospitable environment for other bugs

is more realistic.

*****          John (The Coyote) Wyllie SLK6P@CC.USU.EDU     ****

------------------------------


Golden Syrup

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 23:40:59 -0600

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: Golden Syrup

Bruce Buck asks:

>Is golden syrup one of those things like Treacle which is unknown in the USA?

>Or is is what Americans call corn syrup?

Lyle & Tate are English sugar confectioners, and make both black Treacle

and golden syrup.  We can get Lyle's golden syrup here in Dallas.  It

is a cane sugar product, not corn sugar.  as a substitute, I would

recommend turbinado style (raw) sugar, which is not refined as much as

white sugar, and does not have molasses added back like american brown

sugar does.  I used to get 2 lbs of turbinado sugar at the snuck's

gorcery store in Champaign, Il.  A 12 oz bottle of golden Syrup is $5

here in Dallas.  They add about the same taste.  Guess which one I

(would) prefer...

bb

------------------------------


treacle/hsa/plain text posting/keg dispense

Date: 17 Nov 93 08:11:00 EST

From: "PAUL EDWARDS" <8260PE@indy.navy.mil>

Subject: treacle/hsa/plain text posting/keg dispense

"thutt@mail.casi.sti.nasa.gov" writes:

>I'm getting tired of seeing the Great Treacle Question posed and

>pondered time and time again.  In HBD 1273, Bruce Beck wondered

>what Golden Syrup is (I dunno) and once again mentioned the

>mysterious Treacle.

>No, you cannot buy treacle in the U.S., but that is not the full

>answer.  To get the full answer, we must first find out exactly

>what Treacle is.

>Once and for all, Treacle is simply blackstrap molasses.  You can

>get this in many places in the U.S.

Golden Syrup is a light golden sugar syrup, made by Tate & Lyle.  Has a very

smooth taste.  You could probably make your own by *slightly* by dissolving cane

sugar in a little water to make a syrup, and then carmelizing ever so slightly

to get some color.  My wife uses T&L Golden Syrup in her peanut brittle recipe

instead of corn syrup.

Yes, you can  find Treacle (also made by Tate & Lyle) in the US, but it may be

scarce.  I asked a grocery store to get some for me and they did, no problem.

They still have a few cans. It also available in better HB shops, along with

Golden Syrup.  GW Kent used to supply it, but no more I've been told.  And, no,

I won't buy it and ship to anyone, I'm buying it for myself.

Treacle is most definitely *not* "simply blackstrap molasses".  Anyone who

has tasted Treacle and BS molasses side by side can easily tell the difference.

Treacle is very ssmooth and  not at all harsh tasting like any of the BS

Molasses I've tried.

And, for Paul Hethmon, if a HB shop employee didn't even know what Treacle was,

I'd find a different shop.

"EKELLY@admin.stmarys.ca"  writes:

>[ This message contains the file 'TEMP.WP5', which has been

>uuencoded. If you are using Pegasus Mail, then you can use

>the browser's eXtract function to lift the original contents

>out to a file. If you are not using Pegasus Mail, you will

>have to extract the message and uudecode it manually.]

 -garbage deleted-

Excuse me, but I don't have Pegasus Mail, or the facility for "uudecode", so

next time please speak in plain text.  You may have had something important to

say, but I'll but there's a bunch of others like me who have no way of finding

out.

Ulick Stafford writes:

>In my last posting in 1271 I mentioned the recommendation in Papazian to

>pour the hot wort in cold water in a carboy as being bad advice and

>received a number of worried responses, to some of whom email responses

>bounced.  I'll quote Charlie himself, RDWHAHB.  While this procedure

>is not correct - chilling in a bathtub or with a wort chiller prior to

>pouring is recommended, the amount of damage that could be expected due

>to hot side aeration is so slight that it is unlikely to be noticable.

I gotta disagree with your last statement.  I hadn't done a brew without benefit

of a chiller in a zillion years, but customers bring bottles of their beer to

the local HB shop where I help out.  I've tasted plenty of HB from beginning

brewers who do the CP "partial boil and dump into cold water" immediately

method, and the oxidation is definitely noticeable.  So, some time ago, I tried

it both ways - chilling pot in sink of ice water vs immediately pouring hot wort

into cold water - in a split batch experiment (same yeast, same fermentation

conditions, etc).  The "hot pour" half had a *noticeable*  oxidized flavor not

present in the chilled-then-poured half. I teach beginning HB classes for the

local parks dept, and for the above-mentioned shop, so I emphasize at least

chilling wort in a sink of ice water, if they don't want to buy or make a

chiller of some sort.  Yeah, the "hot pour" batch was drinkable, but the other

was much better, and chilling in a sink of ice water is so easy, and doesn't

take all that long.

CP's book is great, esp for new brewers, but I'm disappointed he didn't update

things more in the NCJOHB, considering all that's been learned since the first

edition was published.

And lastly, all you keggers who can't seem to get your beer to dispense

correctly, may I suggest that you get a copy of the transcript from the 1992 AHA

convention in Milwaukee.  Dave Miller gave a bang-up presentation on dispensing

of kegged beer.  As Tom Leith' post in #1274 pointed out, one must

balance the keg pressure and the resistance in the tap line to get a proper

pour.  Line diameter, material, and length all come into play, along with the

height the beer is lifted from the keg to the faucet.

 -- PSE

Any chiller is better than no chiller!

------------------------------


sanitizing bottle washers

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 09:25:31 -0400 (AST)

From: EKELLY@admin.stmarys.ca

Subject: sanitizing bottle washers

Sorry for the encoded version on November 17. Here is the english

version.

Does anyone know how to sanitize/sterilize a bottle washer. I am

referring to the brass device that attaches to a faucet and

releases a high pressure jet of water into a bottle (or carboy).

This device has a small ball inside the end piece which acts as a

valve to shut off the jet of water when the bottle is removed. It

appears this ball prevents the residual water from draining from

the device after its use. This water seems to be the source of

contamination in a couple of my batches. I am not sure if merely

running water through will flush the contamination. I have tried

injecting bleach into the device followed by an overnight soak

which resulted in the device turning a shade of green.

Any advice or assistance will be appreciated.

Ed Kelly

Saint Mary's University

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

ekelly@admin.stmarys.ca

------------------------------


hard water treatment

Date: 17 Nov 93 09:00:00 EST

From: "TIMOTHY LABERGE" <LABERGET@gar.union.edu>

Subject: hard water treatment

Hi All,

I've just received an analysis of my tap water.

Here are the important numbers:

Chloride  25ppm

Sulfate     38ppm

Calcium 54.5ppm

CaCO3     140ppm

Ph            7.7

The CaCo3 seems high, particularly with the amount of calcium that

is present.  What is my best course of action, other than brewing

only dark beers? E-mail replies are fine.

Tim LaBerge

No fancy sig, just good beer.

------------------------------


Xmas ales (tasting results)

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 15:15:32 CET

From: Alan B. Carlson <alanc@adb.gu.se>

Subject: Xmas ales (tasting results)

------------------------------


Re: Dough in temps

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 09:36:45 -0500 (EST)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: Dough in temps

> From: jimg@dcz.gso.uri.edu (James Gallagher)

> Subject: mash in temps

>

> I have noticed that many recipes here and elsewhere describe a procedure

> where grain is added to water at one temp and then the mash is raised to

> another temp. However, there are also recipes where grain is added to water

> at a temperature such that the mash does not need a boost to the proper

> temperature. Is there any reason not to always use water at a temp such that

> the mash will be at conversion temp. or protein rest temp. without

> adjustment?

>

Good question.  It all depends on your brewing style, equipment, style of

beer to produce, and malt choice (simple, eh...?).  Many lager brewers insist

on a protein rest, certainly weizens need a protein rest.  Many ale brewers

do a single or two step mash, myself included.  With Pale Ale malt, there

is not much need for a step mash, and I use the *shudder* Briess 2 row malt,

one of the *low* quality malts (as do Sam Adams, Dominion Brewery, and

countless other "quality brewers").  I used to go for the upward step mash,

but after noting that Dominion Ale is made from a single infusion, and some

California micro mashes all of 5 minutes at 155 prior to lautering.....I

changed my basic ale mash.  One of the problems of using Briess is it will

convert real fast, sometimes leaving the beer too thin, too low FG.  To

combat this, I have been using more Munich malt (deWulf) to boost the body

and flavor.  I also have tried mashing at 158F , and this has worked well,

esp when I am making high gravity brews, and diluting them in the kettle

and/or fermenter.  One of the major benefits of doughing in at a lower temp

is the acidulation of the mash can occur, prior to saccaharification.  I

just use some Gypsum, and mash at 15X F for 60 min, then raise to 170. Works

for me.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Filtering

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 07:17:00 -0600

From: phil.brushaber@lunatic.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: Filtering

I agree with Jim Busch that filtering can really help your brew.

I would make a couple of observations: 1) Make sure your beer is

about as mature as you want it before filtering. IMHO the beer

does not age much after it has had the yeast removed. 2) Filtering

DOES seem to remove some of the "body" of the beer. As a result,

while I tend to filter my light colored brews, I do not filter

the dark ones.

As part of the message Jim suggests:

>Since I was filtering two quite different beers, I back flushed the filter

>between beer types, and tons of yeast came out.  I still think that a

>5 micron filter is perfectly adequate for removing excess yeast.

Jim... How do you back flush the filter? Normally, between batches

I first run some water through it, then some Idophor, then water again,

and the start filtering again.

 ... Homeless... will work for beer!

___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.11

- ----

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| The Lunatic Fringe BBS * 214-235-5288 * 3 nodes * Richardson, TX * 24 hrs |

| UseNet, ILink, RIME, FIDO, Annex, Intelec, LuciferNet, PlanoNet, and more!|

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


batch sparge, astringency

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 09:29:40 -0500 (EST)

From: gelinas@ekman.unh.edu (Russell Gelinas)

Subject: batch sparge, astringency

   It is known that high temperature is a good way to extract tannins from

grain.  It is also known that low pH inhibits that extraction.  The latter

is the reason decoction mashing does not cause excess tannin extraction.

  Some (myself included) advocate using boiling water for sparging.  This

works well, but as the pH of the mash increases as the wort is run off

(water has a higher pH than the mash), the amount of tannins extracted

will also increase.  One solution would be to use boiling water for the

beginning of the sparge, and "cooler" (whatever that may be) water as the

sparge progresses.  Another solution would be to batch sparge, adding the

boiling water all at once.  As has been noted, sugar extract efficiency

will suffer slightly with a batch sparge, but tannin extraction would

likewise be minimized.

Russell Gelinas

opal/ssc (EOS)

unh

------------------------------


Aluminum Brewpot

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 08:52:29 EST

From: "Mark T. Berard, Dow Plastics, LAD, TYRIN* CPE R&D"

Subject: Aluminum Brewpot

With all this talk about chips in enamel pots I have a question.  I have

been brewing about a year, maybe 6 batches, all extract, some with

specialty grains, etc.  All batches have been pretty good, but nothing

stellar (YET!).  Lower cost and ease of use are important factors for me.

Anyway, I have been using a 22 qt Aluminum brewpot (Al. is much cheaper,

especially for pots this size.)  Is this really a major problem for the

quality of my beer?  Or is a stainless steel pot more like the "charismatic

wooden spoon" thing?  If Aluminum IS a real problem, why?  Please remember

that I am still a beginner, and subtle advantages to my beer will be lost

amoung all the other mistakes I've been making!  Any help of this would be

greatly appreciated!  Thanks.

Mark

Dr. Mark T. Berard                   |    Internet:  mtberard@dow.com

Snailmail:                           |    Voice:     504-353-8418

Dow Chemical, La. R&D, Bldg. 2506    |    FAX:       504-353-6608

PO Box 400, Plaquemine  LA  70765    |          SCIENCE!

------------------------------


No-Hop Beer/Primus-Secondus-Tercius

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 09:53:32 EST

From: oswald@columbia.sparta.com (Don Oswald)

Subject: No-Hop Beer/Primus-Secondus-Tercius

For the person who was looking into brewing in a part

of the world where hopps are not avialable (in hbd 9 nov):

Before the hop became a popular addition to beer, (12th

century in England?-- I don't hve my books here) there

where several other things which were added to beer to

improve its storage life. The only one I have tried is

spruce - about 8 oz of new growth for 60 miniutes of boil

 - leaves the malt sweentess and adds almost a "cola" like

 flavor.  Some early American Beers also used spruce.

Primus-Secundus-Tercius:  An early brewing technique had

several batches of beer made off of the same set of grains.

  The descriptions I have found make is sound like a simple

infusion mash with no sparging, repeated to make several

batchs of decreasing strengh.  The recipes I have found

 make one 80 gallon batch of each of the "three threads"

and use bushals of grain.  Has anyone tried these methods

at a scale closer to resonable?

------------------------------


Microbreweries and Fruit Beer

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 09:59:19 EST

From: Matthew Evans <matt@cadif.cornell.edu>

Subject: Microbreweries and Fruit Beer

I understand that some microbreweries that are brewing

fruit beers.  I am particularly interested in cherry beers,

but does anyone have any info (address and phone numbers)

of these breweries?  Have you tried their beers?

How about brewing your own cherry beer?  I know people have

tried it but how are the results?  Did you use real cherries,

or the Belgian extract?

I am particularly fond of the Belgian Kriek Lambics from

Lindemann's and Liefman's, but I've heard (rumor) that they

aren't lambics but actually brown ales.  Has anyone else heard

that?

Thanks for your help.  Please send me a copy of the postings

to the above address.  Thanks!

------------------------------


flying homebrew

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 9:34:48 CST

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: flying homebrew

I flew Southwest Airlines round-trip Austin to Santa Fe and returned

with a case of various beers (some labeled) from the Santa Fe brewery

(actually in Galisteo).  This was in a brown fold top case box.  The

person at the security gate wanted to look at the bottles and make sure

none had been opened.  I put them in the overhead bin - no problems

there.  Overall - I was not hassled by anyone, of course this could just

be the airline and the specific personell (as I feel will probably be

the case for most people).

     Chris

======================================================================

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu |

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

======================================================================

------------------------------


"Beer, the magazine"

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 06:50:42 PST

From: kdamrow@Thomas.COM (Kip Damrow)

Subject: "Beer, the magazine"

Hey there,

I haven't seen any mention of this, so I'll ask...

Has anyone checked out the first edition of "Beer, the magazine" ?

I was very impressed. Any thoughts?

Kip

------------------------------


Re: Flying Homebrew

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 11:00:38 EST

From: Brett Baumberger <bsb@hpuerca.atl.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Flying Homebrew

Hello Fellow Brewers,

I have been successful taking homebrew on airplanes by simply checking the

box as baggage.  I used boxes acquired via a beer-of-the month club. There

wasn't any breakage, but I did wrap the inner contents of the box in a

couple of trash bags in case the worst happened.  I did not mark the box

fragile or put any other writing on the box that would cause undo

attention.  No questions were asked of me about the contents of the box.

The friends I visited had never tasted homebrew before, and they were

quite impressed.

Brett Baumberger

------------------------------


flying homebrew

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 10:15:36 -0600

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: flying homebrew

I never fly without a bottle, homebrew or otherwise.

They've let me on the plane with homebrew, thogh usually

I just take a couple of bottle of imports.  The only time

security has ever even looked closer was when I had a flask

full of potent Gin and tonic.  The guard just took a whiff to

make sure it wasn't gasoline or something.  Hell, it could

have been everclear!  Once a flight attendant said I wasn't

supposed to drink on the plane, so just keep it low.  Security

guards who do not know what is in the bottle do have a point,

though, so be prepared to check it, chuck it, or chug it.

(the 3 - C's)

The only thing that I have been stopped for, beleive it or

not, was for a set of darts (steel tipped).  It was in

Phoenix, I had already carried them on a flight, and they

wouldn't let me go to a different terminal where I was

supposed to meet someone, and all the lockers were in the

security areas.

"Hello captain.  I'm sorry, this flight IS going to Cuba.

if you don't fly there voulutarily, I'll have to

a) throw this dart at you.

b) make you drink homebrew until you pass out."

bb

------------------------------


cranberry beer recipes wanted

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 08:32:45 PST

From: bloom@inference.com (Ben C. Bloom)

Subject: cranberry beer recipes wanted

I had a remarkable beer discovery experience last night:

 Sam Adams Cranberry Lambic

It was crisp, smooth, and had sensational flavor.

I'd like to give it a try to make a cranberry beer. Any favorite

recipes out there?

Thanks,

Ben Bloom

------------------------------


Golden Syrup

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 08:31:00 -0600

From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

Subject: Golden Syrup

In HBD beb@pt.com (Bruce Buck) asked:

BB> In "Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy", Dave Line gives a recipe

  > for "Bishop's Tipple", a real ale.  The recipe asks for "1 lb

  > Golden Syrup". Is Golden Syrup one of those things like Treacle

  > which is unknown in the USA? Or is it what Americans call Corn

  > Syrup?

I *believe* that Golden Syrup is nothing more than invert sugar. I

came to this conclusion after looking, tasting, and reading the

ingredients. It looked and tasted just like the invert sugar that I

*used* to used as an alcohol booster in my younger make-it-as-

strong-as-you-can college-brewing days.

Invert sugar can be made by adding four pounds of cane/beet (white)

sugar to two pints of water and 2 teaspoons of citric acid. Heat

until it comes to a boil. Watch it, the boilover of this stuff makes

a wort boilover look like nothing. Continue with a low boil for one

hour. Allow to cool, dilute to one gallon.

Chuck

 * RM 1.2 00946 *

------------------------------


Hops FAQ/Barley Wine/Immersion Chiller/HSA/Anti-Bacterial?

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 10:59:09 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Hops FAQ/Barley Wine/Immersion Chiller/HSA/Anti-Bacterial?

Patrick Weix of Yeast FAQ fame has done me (and all of us) a big favor and

archived away the Hops FAQ to the stanford archive site.  It is a new revision

from the one seen here on HBD; there is a little bit of new information, and

some minor corrections.  Try the r.c.b FAQ for instructions on accessing it.

Thanks, Patrick!

**

Brian Seay asks about barley wine fermentation.  I have one in the secondary

that is progressing (slowly) and I've learned a bit from it that I can pass on:

PITCH LARGE NUMBERS OF YEASTIES!!!  AERATE!!!  This is especially important for

high gravity beers.  I think if you do this, you can use a good attentuative

ale yeast and it will work fine.  DON'T USE WYEAST LONDON ALE YEAST (1028)!!!

I'd recommend the Wyeast American Ale yeast (1056) and a large pitching volume

(maybe 1/2 gallon) of active starter.  If this doesn't get to the FG you want,

you can always repitch a wine or champagne yeast later (I did).  My Old Lucifer

is down to 1.029 after pitching a wine yeast a couple of weeks ago (it has been

fermenting since Sep. 18) and is (finally!) starting to get kinda nice...

**

William Swetnam asks some questions about building an immersion chiller:

>1.  What are the recommendations on size of the copper tubing, 1/4 3/8 or

  1/2 inch.  A quick stop by my local hardware store raised the question of

  fittings, I'm wondering more about what may be the most efficient for heat

  transfer.

I recommend 1/4" or 3/8" tubing.  Whatever fittings work are the ones you need.

>2.  Some commercial wort chillers that I have seen do not put the water

  through an ice bath first.  Is there a problem in chilling the wort

  too fast?

No problem chilling too fast.  My water is sooo cold that an ice bath is

definitely overkill.  Its just a question of whether you want to use more water

or electricity for your cooling.  I haven't compared the $$ costs.

>3.  I'm planning on using 25' of tubing in my immersion section, is this

  too much, too little?

Just right (of course, you'll get a hundred opinions on this; you could do a

bunch of physics and math to come up with some perfect answer...).

**

Ken Theriault writes:

>I have not heard about the "problems" with HSA and have been using the

advice from Papazian's book.  Could someone explain why I should use

the "Papazian" method or direct me to a source for the information.

Check out George Fix's article in the Zymurgy Winter 1992 issue...

Jack writes:

> I think what I learned is that the anti-bacterial characteristics of hops are

either a myth or greatly exagerated in the brewing folklore.  Clearly, if

 yeasts and bacteria live on the hops and can innoculate a culture dish, it is

 not very bacteriocidal.

It may be iso-alpha acids (from the boil) which are anti-bacterial, or alchohol

(we know this), or by-products of the (unknown, at least to me) dry-hops/wort

reactions.

> It would have been interesting if there was a control using a handful of

 grass clippings or leaves to find out if it was the nature of the fermented

 beer or the hops that prevented contamination.

I agree.

**

Me:  What ever happened to the Kegging FAQ?

Norm

------------------------------


Re: Treacle & Other Brit Sugars

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 09:45:07 -0800

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Re: Treacle & Other Brit Sugars

>>>>> On Tue, 16 Nov 93 08:31:51 est, thutt@mail.casi.sti.nasa.gov said:

 thutt>       No, you cannot buy treacle in the U.S., but that

 thutt> is not the full answer.  To get the full answer, we

  Up until recently, (two or three weeks ago) I was able to buy small

cans of treacle and golden syrup from my local brewshop.  When I last

tried to purchase it, I was told that there was some sort of embargo

on.

 thutt> must first find out exactly what Treacle is.  Once and

 thutt> for all, Treacle is simply blackstrap molasses.  You

 thutt> can get this in many places in the U.S.

  I have been unable to find any other commercial product which

approachs the rich flavor of the treacle I was purchasing.  It may

simply be a quality issue, but that's enough difference for me.  A

more accurate statement would be "If unable to find treacle,

commercially available molasses is an acceptable substitute"

         Drew Lynch

  Chronologic Simulation, Los Altos, Ca.

      (415)965-3312x18

    drew@chronologic.com

------------------------------


Re: Treacle & Other Brit Sugars

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 11:00:24 -0800

From: "Paul Jasper" <paul@rational.com>

Subject: Re: Treacle & Other Brit Sugars

On 16 Nov,  8:31, thutt@mail.casi.sti.nasa.gov wrote:

> Subject: Treacle & Other Brit Sugars

>

>       I'm getting tired of seeing the Great Treacle Question posed and

>       pondered time and time again.  In HBD 1273, Bruce Beck wondered

>       what Golden Syrup is (I dunno) and once again mentioned the

>       mysterious Treacle.  [...]

>

>-- End of excerpt from thutt@mail.casi.sti.nasa.gov

I just received a copy of "Brew Your Own Real Ale At Home" by Graham

Wheeler and Roger Protz (published by CAMRA books in England, it is

basically a set of recipes for duplicating various British real ales).

It says that Golden Syrup is liquid invert sugar (sucrose from cane

sugar broken down into fructose and glucose for easier fermentation).

- --

- -- Paul Jasper

- -- RATIONAL

- -- Object-Oriented Products

- --

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1275, 11/18/93

*************************************

-------


cold chillin'

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 14:10:10 EST

From: Mark Bunster <mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu>

Subject: cold chillin'

More tidbits--so much info to um, digest...

* >Also, I considered the crabtree effect a good reason to abandon corn

* >sugar, but of course there are other good reasons to stick with it.

* >One must balance everything.  Some people are quite happy carbonating with

* >sterile wort or kraeusen, and for lager there is no topping the latter

* >method (IMHO).  Even Anheuser-Busch do it!!

*

* Did I slam Carl for abandoning corn sugar?  No, I just posted what I did

* and some of my reasoning.  Frankly, IMHO, your opinions don't sound so

* humble.

*

Now, play nicely, first of all.

Second of all, Papazian seems to poo poo the use of corn sugar, and I've

certainly tasted the results of using too much (assuming that's what made it

so cidery), but he (Pap) does allow for reasonable use below 30% of all

fermentable sugars. --Sidequestion-- in priming our bottle of IPA last night,

we used a mix of corn sugar (1/4 cup), LME (3/4#) and honey (2 tbsp) for a

five gallon. When trying to figure out total fermentable sugars, how on EARTH

does one reconcile the different units of measure, or at least compute the

total amount of ferm. sugars??

It (sugar) certainly does the job of giving one good carb and boosting pot.

alcohol, and it's cheaper than dumping additional extract for priming, but

you can overdo it. I suspect it's just another one of those things up for

reasonable debate, EXCEPT: you are not making a Rheinheitsgebot beer when you

use corn sugar, for what that's worth to you.

* Has anyone else had any good or bad experiences carrying homebrew onto a

* plane?  Or, for that matter, checking homebrew in their luggage?

*

Some kind gent in the aviation industry has noted that pressurization extends

to the cargo bays for structural reasons, so you should be safe either way

you want to pack it.

* In my last posting in 1271 I mentioned the recommendation in Papazian to

* pour the hot wort in cold water in a carboy as being bad advice and

* received a number of worried responses, to some of whom email responses

* bounced.  I'll quote Charlie himself, RDWHAHB.  While this procedure

* is not correct - chilling in a bathtub or with a wort chiller prior to

* pouring is recommended, the amount of damage that could be expected due

* to hot side aeration is so slight that it is unlikely to be noticable.

* __________________________________________________________________________

While bottling that IPA I spoke of earlier, we began our first lagering

attempt, having gotten a fridge to run at temps below 60. Anyway, we did what

the fella above recommended--bringing the boilpot directly from stove to tub

full of water and blue ice (this will save some money on ice for sure). After

about 15 minutes it went to fermenter with 3 gal cold water (I know, I know,

soon we'll go buy a pot that will allow for full volume boils) and was

immediately pitching-ready. I would say for maximum compromise betwene full

volume boil and the advantage of having the cold water help cool the wort,

maybe a 4 gal - 1 gal makes good sense. It's primitive, but for us

nontinkerers who are too poor to buy and too stupid to build a cf or

immersion chiller, it works quite well and goes faster than we imagined.

And finally, my perception of the heinousness of Papazian's wort-into-water

error was not that you risk HSA but having your carboy crack and break from

the temperature change.

Peace all, from the city where Clear Beer was testmarketed and unfortunately

received rave reviews.

*         Second question.  I have seen some plastic "kegs" in  local

* home-brew shop which come from Europe.  Supposedly, they can be used to

* carbonate in and draft beer from.  Has anyone tried these?  They seem like

* only a glorified beer ball.

*

Oh yeah, this makes me think of the Beer Machine question. I think the guy

who recommended buying one was thinking of its utility as a dispenser only.

If anyone tries it let us know how it works for you. Yeah, I couldn't imagine

drinking a Ronco-beer and having it taste good.

- --

Mark Bunster                      |Exchange conversation if you dare--

Survey Research Lab--VCU          |Share an empty thought or a laugh.

Richmond, VA 23220                |

mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu            |

(804) 367-8813/353-1731           |                          -edFROM

------------------------------


Old Bay Holiday Homebrew Contest

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 15:23 EST

From: gcw@lydian.att.com

Subject: Old Bay Holiday Homebrew Contest

The Old Bay in New Brunswick, NJ is having their annual "Holiday

Homebrew Contest" on Dec. 11th. The categories are Ale, Lager, Speciality

and Holiday - $5 and 2 bottles per entry - all entry fees go to the

local food banks. The celebrity judging panel to include:

   Carol Stoudt

   Sal Pennacchio

   Jay Mission

   Jim Lutz

   Fran Mead

Deliver your enties to the Old Bay, 61 Church Street, New Brunswick, NJ

908-246-3111. The Old Bay has 10-12 micros on tap, great cajun/creole

food and live blues music at night. Say hello to Chris the bar manager

when you get there!.

     Geoff Woods

------------------------------


Astringency

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 14:54 CST

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Astringency

 >From: GANDE@slims.attmail.com

 >Further to this one could assume that it would be OK to sparge with

 boiling water, which is accurate as long as your grain bed pH doesn't

 raise above 5.3, ideally. In the real world, sparging raises mash pH

 towards the end of the run and continuing to rinse with boiling water

 would leach out tannins.

 That's a nice number but like so many things, it is only a bench mark.  What

 if the pH rose to 5.4 or 5.7... would it make a detectable difference?  I

 doubt it.

 >I made a mini-grain-tea-bag, boiled it for 10 minutes in tap water

 (pH 7.0) and it was what I would call astringent.  That's enough

 proof for me.  ;)

 All that says is that boiling tap water with a pH of 7.0 will make astringent

 tea.   As you did not convert the starch into sugar, the astringency could

 just be the way malt tea tastes without the sweetening effect of conversion.

 In the real world, sparge water is run through the mash which has a powerful

 buffering effect on the water.   I run 10 or more gallons of pH 7 sparge

 water through my mash and it doesn't raise the pH more than a tenth point or

 so.  Furthermore, sparge water temp is not the same as mash temp nor does it

 bear any relationship to making tea with boiling water.

 Finally, it does not address the fact that boiling grain in decoction mashing

 does not seem to produce astringent beer.

 js

------------------------------


beer label software

Date:  Wed, 17 Nov 1993 12:51:34 -0800

From: robl <ROBL@outside.com>

Subject:      beer label software

>Dion asked about inexpensive software for designing beer labels

I have used Microsoft "Publisher" with satisfaction.  It allows you to

curve text instantly and import various bit-mapped images.  Its price

is around the $100 range or lower, so it should meet the criteria of

"inexpensive".  I never got a chance to use it in great length but I was

able to make a "Master" label, I would then go in and change the

name of the particular brew, I would then have the original artwork

copied at the printer and I changed ink colors with the various brews.

Thus keeping things simple, yet each brew had its own look.

I am no longer working where they had the software on the

network--so I'm forced to learn Coral Draw and triple my learning

curve, but my labels will improve proportionally with their custom

"look."  Hope this helps, rob

================

Robert Linder

Crystal Point Inc

phone 206-487-3656 fax 206-487-3773

================

------------------------------


hands across the border

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 14:24:36 EST

From: sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com (Carl Howes)

Subject: hands across the border

The following appeared in #1274 as a uuencoded WordPerfect 5.1 document.

Clear text follows.

Carl

***************

Does anyone know how to sanitize/sterilize a bottle washer. I am

referring to the brass device that attaches to a faucet and

releases a high pressure jet of water into a bottle (or carboy).

This device has a small ball inside the end piece which acts as a

valve to shut off the jet of water when the bottle is removed. It

appears this ball prevents the residual water from draining from

the device after its use. This water seems to be the source of

contamination in a couple of my batches. I am not sure if merely

running water through will flush the contamination. I have tried

injecting bleach into the device followed by an overnight soak

which resulted in the device turning a shade of green.

Any advice or assistance will be appreciated.

Ed Kelly

Saint Mary's University

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

ekelly@admin.stmarys.ca

------------------------------


HSA

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 14:20:11 EST

From: sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com (Carl Howes)

Subject: HSA

Brian (brian@carbon.cor2.epa.gov) wrote:

> ...recent batches of mine have taken several hours to cool (1.5 gallons of

> hot wort added to 3.5 gallons of cold water) to pitching temperatures,

> which has made me nervous about possible infection.

I answered:

> I had the same problem when I used that process.  Since learning about

> Hot Side Aeration (HSA), I now cool the concentrated wort to pitching temp

> before mixing.  Takes 35-45 min by immersing the kettle in cold (45F) tap

> water in my kitchen sink with two water changes.  The hot/cold mixing is

> a piece of bad advice in Papazian's book which I'm sure Al has marked...

Ken (theriaul@sde.mdso.vf.ge.com) responded:

> I have not heard about the "problems" with HSA and have been using the

> advice from Papazian's book.  Could someone explain why I should use

> the "Papazian" method or direct me to a source for the information.

I answered this privately, but read on.

Ulick (ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu) wrote:

> While this procedure is not correct - chilling in a bathtub or with a wort

> chiller prior to pouring is recommended, the amount of damage that could be

> expected due to hot side aeration is so slight that it is unlikely to be

> noticable.

I have seen a huge improvement in flavor stability and beer quality since I

started chilling the concentrated wort.  Have you tried it both ways, Ulick?

For the record, I first heard about HSA in this digest with no explanation.

I stumbled across the source of the information when a friend who

(regrettably) had to give up brewing gave me some back issues of Zymurgy.

There is an article by George Fix on the topic in the Winter 1992 issue.

An earlier rendition of this post seems to have vanished in transit.  If it

resurfaces, apologies for the redundancy.

Carl

------------------------------


Golden Syrup/Black Treacle

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 16:20:26 -0500 (EST)

From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: Golden Syrup/Black Treacle

 thutt@mail.casi.sti.nasa.gov writes:

> Subject: Treacle & Other Brit Sugars

>

>

>       I'm getting tired of seeing the Great Treacle Question posed and

>       pondered time and time again.  In HBD 1273, Bruce Beck wondered

>       what Golden Syrup is (I dunno) and once again mentioned the

>       mysterious Treacle.

>       No, you cannot buy treacle in the U.S., but that is not the full

>       answer.  To get the full answer, we must first find out exactly

>       what Treacle is.

I have used Lyle's Golden Syrup and it has a pleasant mild caramel-like

quality.  Actually I thought its flavor was similar to rock candy.

You *can* get Lyle's Black Treacle and Golden Syrup in a well stocked

homebrew shop.  My homebrew shop in Indy carries these as well as the

imported Demararra sugar.

Rob Reed

------------------------------


Making Hard Cider

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 16:27:17 EST

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Making Hard Cider

Many members of our club make "New England Barrel Cider"

To do we get fresh cider from a local orchard.

Some add sugar , brown or white, to enhance the cidery flavor.

We then pour it in a carboy and let the natural yeast ferment it.

After vigorous fermentation has sudsided it is racked in to a

second carboy to settle.  Raisins or other dried but unpreserved fruit

may be added at this time as well as spices.

Let it settle until spring, then bottle.

------------------------------


Sour Noonan

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 13:44:15 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@teleport.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Sour Noonan

Interesting to note Greg Noonan's article in the special issue of

Zymurgy.  Noonan is now touting sour mashes as the secret ingredient in

Bavarian weizens and Bohemian pilsners -- in spite of a complete lack of

evidence that they are used at all in those areas.  (The acid rest he

mentions is a matter of a few hours or less, not days.)

Funny.  In his book on lager beers, Noonan insisted that one couldn't

have a real European lager taste without a decoction mash (in spite of

the fact that a good many German breweries were doing infusions).  Now

it's sour mashes.  Wonder what's the next big "secret".

- --Jeff

------------------------------


Twist Off Tops

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 14:34

From: TODDJ.SRVRHOST@test.readmore.com (Todd Jennings)

Subject: Twist Off Tops

 -

In HBD #1270, Phil Gillman writes:

> I was wondering if pressure differences and retention are the reason

> that there is a difference in the taste between commercial beers with

> twist tops and those with opener only tops. any one have another

> explanantion or support for this one?

Well Phil, I can't say that *I* have noticed a difference in the taste of

beers based solely on how they are capped.  Maybe my discerning palate

has not yet developed that far(I'm still a rookie homebrewer).  But your

question *does* raise another one in my mind, something I've noticed

recently among the craft-brew community.

Lately, many brewers have seemingly abandoned the "opener only" capping

method in deference to the "twist off" configuration.  Most recent

additions  to the list of Twist Offers include Pete's Wicked, Sierra

Nevada & Geary's.

My question is...WHY?  Are these guys worried that we'll get out to the

picnic ground before we realize we've forgotten our bottle opener?? Or

are  they worried we homebrewers will hoard their bottles for our own

selfish purposes?  Or is it possibly cheaper?

Maybe it's just me, but I'm perceiving a trend toward the commercialism

once pioneered by Augie Busch, Adolph Coors, and all the other nationals

who were trying to get a leg up on their competition.  With the recent

advertising brew-ha-ha at BBC, and now this, I'm worried that we may be

coming to the beginning of the end.  What will be next, rice in place of

malt??

All shared thoughts on this subject, either direct or posted here, will

be appreciated.

Todd "Just call me paranoid" Jennings

toddj@readmore.com

------------------------------


Dry Hopping and Infections

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 16:03:56 CST

From: wood@ranger.rtsg.mot.com (Dan Wood)

Subject: Dry Hopping and Infections

I'm confused.  Nothing new, but maybe you can help.  I realize that I

could have sent this directly to the "Lighthouse of Wisdom and Truth",

but figured someone else might have an opinion.

Anyway, it's pretty clear that the greatest risk of infection is before

fermentation.  No confusion there.  Presumably the bacteria produce bad

flavors, then are overwhelmed by the yeast, PH, and/or alcohol.  Right?

However, the recent dry hop & bacteria thread has made me wonder about

post-ferment.  Some HBD articles have indicated that once fermentation

is complete, the beer is hostile to bacteria, so no worries.

On the other hand, I've read several times that "gushers" are caused by

infections.  The idea there is that the bacteria eat stuff that the

yeast don't, resulting in over carbonation during long term storage.

So, which way is it?

The dry hopping thread sparked my interest, because the only time I've

had a problem with gushers was when I dry hopped.  Two different

batches, plus one of a friends all shared this problem.  We both

abandoned the process after these disasters, but I'll try again if

someone can shed some light here.  Thanks alot.

PS: Jack, when you going to run some experiments with fermenting on the

hot and cold break material?  The momily-busters fan club is getting

impatient.

Regards,   Dan Wood wood@rtsg.mot.com

------------------------------


American Brown Ale

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 15:06:23 PST

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: American Brown Ale

Hi all,

I was browsing through Papazian's book last night and noticed he makes

mention of a style called American Brown ale.  Does anyone know any

commercial examples of this style?  I would be interested in trying a

sample.

Thanks loads,

Troy

------------------------------


Beer Analysis

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 18:50:50 -0500 (EST)

From: Kieran O'Connor <koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu>

Subject: Beer Analysis

In the latest issue of Breweing Techniques I saw something interesting: a

firm which will do beer analysis. I called and here's the poop:

This place will do an analysis of your beer (or any beer for that matter)

for $24. here's what they do: IBU's, Color (SRM), PH, Titratable Acidity,

Alcohol, Apparent Extract, Apparent degree of fermentation and original

extract. Apparently it costs the same to do one as it does the others so

it $24 for the whole deal

They will ask you how many IBU's you intended in your brew--and you will

be able to calculate your hop utilization--something which seems to me to

be worthwhile.

The price is a bit steep--but a club could do this for education--or even

for contest winning beers.

They promise one week turnaround:

Homebrewers Lab Services

PO Box 269

Whitmore, CA 96096

(916) 472-1240.

Anyone had any expericence--yet?

Kieran O'Connor

E-Mail Address: koconnor@mailbox.syr.edu

Syracuse, N.Y. USA

------------------------------


HSA

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 12:42:52 EST

From: sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com (Carl Howes)

Subject: HSA

Ken (theriaul@sde.mdso.vf.ge.com) writes:

>I have not heard about the "problems" with HSA and have been using the

advice from Papazian's book.  Could someone explain why I should use

the "Papazian" method or direct me to a source for the information.

After responding to this privately I realized that the only reason that

I knew the original source of information on HSA is that I found it by

accident in a friend's back issue of Zymurgy.  So, for the curious, get a

copy of the Winter 1992 edition and read George Fix's article.  Then

read the following article, which is related (sorry, forget the authors

names and the magazine is 25 miles away).

Carl

------------------------------


Re: Treacle & Other Brit Sugars

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 18:38 PST

From: lfk@veritas.com (Lynn Kerby)

Subject: Re: Treacle & Other Brit Sugars

In HBD1274 thutt writes:

>      I'm getting tired of seeing the Great Treacle Question posed and

>      pondered time and time again.  In HBD 1273, Bruce Beck wondered

>      what Golden Syrup is (I dunno) and once again mentioned the

>      mysterious Treacle.

>

>      No, you cannot buy treacle in the U.S., but that is not the full

>      answer.  To get the full answer, we must first find out exactly

>      what Treacle is.

Wrong.  It is possible to buy treacle in the U.S. as it is a stocked item at

my local homebrew store.  I don't know when/where the proprietor aquired the

stuff, but he does have both the treacle and the mysterious Golden Syrup

called for in the recipes (from Dave Line's book?).  I don't know if he

could replace it if someone bought it, but it is currently available for

sale in at least one location in the U.S.

Obviously it is not commonly available in the U.S. but that isn't what you

said.

Lynn Kerby

lfk@veritas.com

------------------------------


Pitch timing

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 17:23 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Pitch timing

Russell writes:

>   Tell me if this makes sense.   Since most homebrewers underpitch,

>we don't want to pitch fermenting yeast (ie. high krausen), we want

>to pitch reproducing yeast (ie. pre-krausen).  That way when they hit

>the fresh (well oxygenated!) wort, they continue to reproduce, ensuring

>a large colony and a healthy ferment when it's time.  The way to ensure

>this would be to pitch a starter shortly after it has been inoculated,

>before the krausen begins.

It makes sense, but it's not the way that yeast actually works.  Just "before

the kraeusen begins" the yeast have their glycogen level depleted.  According

to experiments done by Pickerell, Hwang & Axcell (and reported in their

paper: Impact of Yeast-Handling Procedures on Beer Flavor Development During

Fermentation, 1991 American Society of Brewing Chemists, ASBC Journal,

volume 49, no.2.) you want to wait till the high kraeusen has just ended

to pitch your starter.  I have more info on this for anyone who is interested.

Al.

------------------------------


The Crabtree Effect

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 09:12:31 -0500

From: steve@snake.appl.wpafb.af.mil (Steve Zabarnick)

Subject: The Crabtree Effect

Miller's book and previous discussions in the HBD on the Crabtree effect

imply that the effect occurs when ONLY dextrose is available for

fermentation. But, my recent perusing of Malting and Brewing Science (by

Hought et al.) leads me to believe that the effect occurs when dextrose is

in a high concentration, and is not related to dextrose being the exclusive

fermentable available for the yeast. Thus, priming with 3/4 cup of corn

sugar, which adds a relatively low concentration of dextrose to a five

gallon batch, may not induce the Crabtree effect. I'm not sure of the

percent dextrose in the average beer wort, but it is probably near 10%; if

this is correct, then the average beer wort has a higher concentration of

dextrose than does a fermented out beer that is primed with dextrose. If

this reasoning is correct then the Crabtree effect is more likely to occur

in the average wort than in dextrose primed beer.

Any comments? Perhaps we really don't need to be concerned with the

Crabtree effect when priming with corn sugar. This would be supported by

the common knowledge that dextrose primed beers do not appear to exhibit

more oxidation characteristics than beers that are krausened or primed with

fresh wort.

Steve Zabarnick

------------------------------


Golden Syrup

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 10:26:35 EST

From: nathan@monolith.bellcore.com (Nathan Justus)

Subject: Golden Syrup

In response to HBD #1273 - what is Golden Syrup?  Well, true Golden Syrup

is cane sugar syrup.  I would imagine that corn syrup could substitute,

however you might look for GS...my local A&P stocks it occasionally,

and stores like William Sonoma (if you don't have them in your

area, they're kind of yuppie cooking stores).

GS, since all that I've ever seen is imported from the UK, is quite

expensive - expect about US$3.00 for a 1 pound jar/can (I've seen

it in a tin or in a jar).

Nathan Justus

nathan@monolith.bellcore.com

------------------------------


Re: barleywine

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 21:49 PST

From: polstra!larryba@uunet.UU.NET (Larry Barello)

Subject: Re: barleywine

In HBD #1274 Peter writes:

>   If you want to lighten the body of your beer without bad side effects I

>recommend adding 15% of your grain and extract weight in honey.  This should

>help drive the fermentation to completion.  I get light clover honey in

>a local store for a buck a pound.

Has anyone used rice, rice syrup or other cereal grains to lighten the

body of their barley wine?

- --

Larry Barello   uunet!polstra!larryba

------------------------------


Beer Labels

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 15:16:05 EST

From: dougy@icad.COM ( Doug Lethin)

Subject: Beer Labels

   Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 14:25:55 PST

   From: hp-sdd.sdd.hp.com!ucsd!megatek!hollen (Dion Hollenbeck)

   I have tried software sellers without luck.  Would you be able to

   supply a source for this program, or any more information like author,

   so that I can find it?

Dion:

Here is the info you requested.

The name of the company that makes KeydrawPLUS for Windows is Softkey.

Their number is 407-367-0005

If that is not correct, call information in the 617 area code,

and ask for softkey in Cambridge. They just moved here.

Try Electronics Boutiqe. There mail order number is 1-800-800-5166

Good luck, and again, let me know if you have any problems

Doug

------------------------------


dry hopping/hops as preservatives

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 00:05:58 CST

From: d_simon@fallout.lonestar.org

Subject: dry hopping/hops as preservatives

In HBD # 1273, Jack Schmidling writes:

>I think what I learned is that the anti-bacterial characteristics of hops are

>either a myth or greatly exagerated in the brewing folklore.  Clearly, if

>yeasts and bacteria live on the hops and can innoculate a culture dish, it is

>not very bacteriocidal.

>It would have been interesting if there was a control using a handful of

>grass clippings or leaves to find out if it was the nature of the fermented

>beer or the hops that prevented contamination.

It is possible that the hop flowers alone are not acidic enough to inhibit

the bacteria.  I would speculate that the preservative effect of hops

comes from the alpha acids extracted during the boil, and the increase in

acidity.  You don't hear of the preservative qualities of hop aroma

although you do hear of the preservative qualities of hop bitterness.

Darrell Simon

North Texas Home Brewer Association

d_simon@fallout.lonestar.org

------------------------------


1994 Bluebonnet Brew-off

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 00:14:49 CST

From: d_simon@fallout.lonestar.org

Subject: 1994 Bluebonnet Brew-off

The 1994 Bluebonnet Committee presents the 8th Annual

BLUEBONNET BREW-OFF

Yes, YOU and your BEER are welcome in Dallas/Ft. Worth next Spring.

The Bluebonnet Committee prides itself in offering the BEST PRIZES

in the Country! We'd love you to win one or more of our cherished Steins!

* The competition dates will be Friday, March 11 and Saturday, March 12,

  1994

* We will offer all 28 of the 1993 AHA Categories.

* You have four months to go, so join us and GET BREWING!!

Please feel free to pass this on to a friend, club member, or fellow

homebrewer.  As well, please post this at your club meetings and/or

your local HOMEBREW supply shop.

You Can Contact us as follows:

Bluebonnet Brew-Off

PO Box 211721

Bedford, TX 76095

or

d_simon@fallout.lonestar.org

We will follow-up and provide further details as entry times near.

"Just Dave" Girard

Secretary, 1994 Bluebonnet Committee

Note: The 1994 Bluebonnet Committee is a volunteer organization composed of

members from all sponsoring Dallas/Ft. Worth area Homebrew clubs.  The

Bluebonnet Competition is not used as a fundraiser for the DFW area clubs.

All funds are intended for use on the 1994 Bluebonnet Brew-off or future

Bluebonnet Brew-offs.

Darrell Simon

North Texas Home Brewer Association

1994 Bluebonnet Committee

d_simon@fallout.lonestar.org

------------------------------


Xmas beer tasting (part 2)

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 09:47:47 CET

From: Alan B. Carlson <alanc@adb.gu.se>

Subject: Xmas beer tasting (part 2)

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

PLACE SCORE  BEER                  PRICE REVIEWERS' COMMENTS

1.    3.5    Guinness Draught      14.20 Soft, dry, easy to drink, won-

                                         derful bitterness lovely taste

2.    3.0    Banco Juloel          10.60 Sweet and sour like, tar-like

                                         aftertaste, easy to drink, un-

                                         balanced

3.    3.0    Aabro Juloel          10.60 Heavy sweetness, well-balanced

                                         bitterness, "homelike beer"

4.    3.0    Spendrups Juloel      10.60 Dry, good balance, great for

                                         washing down herring

5.    3.0    Carnegie Pale Ale      9.70 Easy to drink, refreshing bitter-

                                         ness

6.    3.0    Lapinkulta  120       11.70 Easy to drink, well-balanced

                                         bitterness, sweet, tame

7.    2.5    Falcon Juloel         10.60 Heavy sweetness, full-bodied,

                                         tastes like Xmas beer, should be

                                          accompanied by a shot of vodka

8.    2.5    Young's Winter Ale    14.30 Sweet, dry licorice aftertaste,

                                         nice when flat

9.    2.5    Tuborg Julebryg       12.50 Amber-colored, stale nose, thin,

                                         bitter aftertaste

10.   2.0    Koenig Ludwig Dunkel  12.50 Perfume-musk nose, thin, bitter

                                         aftertaste

11.   2.0    Pripps Juloel         15.60 Roasted aroma, balanced, a hint

                                         of iodine

12.   2.0    Maclays's Scotch Ale  10.00 Smooth, smells like a wet dog,

                                         sweet, cheap eau de toilette

13.   1.5    Three Hearts Juloel   10.60 Heavy artificial sweetness, sweet

                                         water, candy

14.   1.5    John Bull Bitter      13.70 Perfume nose, one swallow is enough

15.   1.5    Carnegie Porter 1993  12.10 Sweet, burnt taste, bitter

16.   1.0    Anchor Christmas Ale  19.10 Too much of everything, a cup of

                                         coffee left too long on the burner,

                                         most expensive

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

/Alan

------------------------------


Xmas beer tasting (part 1)

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 09:53:12 CET

From: Alan B. Carlson <alanc@adb.gu.se>

Subject: Xmas beer tasting (part 1)

I tried sending this yesterday, but I guess it was too long... so,

I'll try again splitting it into two parts.

I just read a Swedish review of the christmas and winter ales that will

be available here in Sweden this winter. Most of them are from

Scandinavian breweries (and probably unavailable internationally) and

some of them are not what one would commonly find in this class, but

this might be interesting to people anyway. The test was staged by the

Swedish daily called "Svenska Dagbladet" and appeared Wednesday,

November 17th 1993. The panel, which was composed of "both experts and

amateurs on the subject of beer" was led by someone by the name of Eric

Kaellgren. No other indication was given as to their beer-tasting

credentials.  They blindtested 16 different beers and rated them on a

scale of 1 to 5 where 1 implied "poor" and 5 implied "excellent".  All

beers were bottled beers with the exception of Guinness Draught (can)

and all were 33 centiliters in volume with the exception of Pripps

Juloel which was 50 centiliters.

I did the best I could with the translations of the comments. Prices are

in Swedish crowns (a crown is presently worth about 12.2 US cents). Most

of these beers will not be available to the general public for another

week or so, so I haven't tasted the majority of them myself. I hope the

panel is wrong about Anchor's Xmas ale (according to the article it was

the only beer which got a score of 1 from everyone on the panel),

since I really enjoyed last year's version.

Alan

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alan B. Carlson                      Phone: +46 31 772 10 73

University of Gothenburg             Fax:

Department of Information Systems    email:  alanc@adb.gu.se

Holtermansgatan 1

S-412 96 Gothenburg

SWEDEN

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


Zymurgy proof reading

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 10:37:43 EST

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: Zymurgy proof reading

The latest Zymurgy special issue has a German wheat beer recipe that

has at least 2 typos.  It calls for 2 2/5 pounds of pale malt twice

and lists a hop rate of 3/4 grams (note: 28 grams to the ounce).

Spelling checkers are great but does anybody actually read this stuff before it

goes out the door?

Re: recent notes on chilling times.

My home made immersion chiller consists of 50 ft of 3/8 copper tubing.

With constant stiring, I cooled 5 gallons of boiling wort to 70F in

4 minutes last monday.  My tap water (25 miles north of Boston) is pretty cool

this time of year - your milage may vary.

- --Tony Verhulst

------------------------------


help needed carbonating lagers

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 10:55:58 EST

From: Greg D Blankenship <gdblanke@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

Subject: help needed carbonating lagers

     My first lager (Vienna) is about ready to be bottled and I am wondering if

I am going to have any problems carbonating it because of the temperatures that

I fermented at.  The primary fermentation was done at 46 degrees F for 10 days,

then I racked into the secondary and dropped the temperature to 33 degrees F.

It will have been in the secondary 21 days next wednesday.  Since I do not have

a kegging system (yet) that I could force carbonate with I am going to have to

bottle it.  Now my questions

     1)  Will using the standard 3/4 cup of corn sugar be enough to

carbonate it?

     2)  Will there be enough yeast left in the beer after the cold lagering

period?

     3)  If not is it possible to add more yeast before bottling without

creating problems?

     4)  Should I continue cold aging the beer after I bottle it or will this

inhibit carbonation?

BTW  I have a Penn thermostat from Willam's Brewing that works great.  It has a

temp control range of 20 F. to 80 F. and is very simple to use.

Thanks,

greg

------------------------------


Re: Volcano Beer

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 10:44:26 CST

From: Fritz Keinert <keinert@iastate.edu>

Subject: Re: Volcano Beer

Cecil writes:

>I made a Czech Pilsner using a can of BREWMART Czech Pilsner extract.

>I also used 3 lbs extra light DME. The can came with a dried yeast and

>a pilsner enzyme. At 68 degrees I pitched both the yeast and the enzyme.

>It took the normal 1-2 days to start foaming but stayed extremely active

>for 2 weeks. A local brew shop said bottle it anyway and that it would be

>considered a dry beer. I drank 2 sips and decided to dispose of the entire

>batch. I could pop the cap and sit the bottle upright in the sink and watch

>it empty its self from the bottom up. Help !! What did I do wrong ?

Probably nothing.

I had exactly the same experience with Glenbrew Czech Pilsner. In

retrospect, the fact that the beer was slightly carbonated at bottling

should have tipped me off. The taste was good, though. Very good, in

fact. It certainly did not taste infected.

I cooled the entire batch to just above freezing and opened it

carefully.  That reduced the gushing to more of an oozing. I let it

stand for about 20 minutes, filled up the space in each bottle, and

re-capped them.

This worked great. Unfortunately, a few weeks after that, the few

remaining bottles were back to gushing again.

My guess is that the enzyme is responsible. I don't know what is in

it, but I conjecture that it keeps breaking up the higher sugars very

slowly, over a period of weeks and months, so that the yeast keeps

finding new food.

- ---

Fritz Keinert                             phone:  (515) 294-5223

Department of Mathematics                 fax:    (515) 294-5454

Iowa State University                     e-mail: keinert@iastate.edu

Ames, IA 50011

------------------------------


hops address

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 11:55:39 EST

From: dweller@GVSU.EDU (RONALD DWELLE)

Subject: hops address

          Somewhere on HBD, I got "May Nursery, Box 1312, Yakima, WA"

          as a source for hop plants. However, I just got my letter to

          them returned by the USPO as undeliverable.

          Does anyone have an accurate address for May Nursery? or

          another source for hop plants (note that I'm wanting

          "plants" rather than seeds).

          Thanks,

          Ron Dwelle (dweller@gvsu.edu at Internet)

          "I've met many a beer that I didn't like, but I've never met

          a beer I wouldn't drink."

------------------------------


Invert Sugar

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 09:58:51 -0800

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Invert Sugar

  In yesterday's (I hope) HBD, Chuck Wettergreen posted a method for

making invert sugar.  Has anyone used this stuff as a priming agent?

I was curious if the breaking down of the sugars would inhibit the

oxygen generating crabtree effect.  I don't like using most of the

malt based priming agents, as the percentage of fermentables is

unreliable, and produces inconsistant carbonation, however, I hesitate

to revert to corn sugar due the the potential for oxidization of the

bottled product.

         Drew Lynch

  Chronologic Simulation, Los Altos, Ca.

      (415)965-3312x18

    drew@chronologic.com

------------------------------


Re: Fruit Beer

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 11:38:48 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Fruit Beer

You'll find there are almost as many ways to make fruit beers as

there are brewers who have made them, but here are some guidelines

that have worked very successfully for me.

* Use a light beer for a base.  I often use a wheat beer base (50/50

  barley/wheat), since I think the slight fruitiness of the wheat

  complements the fruit well.  This is not a must -- I made a very

  tasty blueberry brown ale once; the recipe is in the Cat's Meow II --

  but the lighter beer helps to really show off the fruit.

* If you use fresh fruit, use LOTS, typically around 1 lb/gallon or

  even more.  My last batch of cherry ale was 9 lbs cherries for

  6 gallons of beer.  I can't say much about using juice or extracts.

* Add fruit to the secondary, after a week or so of primary fermentation,

  to avoid losing precious aromatics due to CO2 scrubbing.

* My general technique is as follows:

  1.  Brew your base beer as usual, let primary ferment complete (a week

      or so).

  2.  Remove any visibly damaged fruit (moldy, broken skin, etc) and

      puree.  Add fruit to your secondary vessel, then rack the beer on

      top of it.  The only sanitizing I do of the fruit is a quick

      sulfite rinse before pureeing.

  3.  Allow to ferment again to completion.  If the fruit contains a lot

      of sugar, this can result in some of the most spectacular

      fermentation you've ever seen!

  4.  Rack off of fruit again, using a copper scrubber and/or hop bag

      over the end of your racking tube to keep things from clogging.

      It will probably clog anyway.  It's a pain.  Anyone have a better

      method?  Anyway, the second racking is to a) Allow any remaining

      fruit bits to settle out, and b) to ensure any residual fruit

      sugar is completely fermented.

  5.  After 2-3 days in the tertiary, bottle as usual.

Regarding Lindemanns and Liefmans, the Liefmans Kriek is based on

their brown ale, so it's not a true lambic.  Lindemanns is a true

lambic, but IMHO it's very much on the sweet side.  For a taste of

what lambics are really like, try to find a Cantillon or a Frank Boon.

Or better yet, visit Brussels!

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Avoiding tannin extraction/Lambics

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 12:59 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Avoiding tannin extraction/Lambics

Russell writes:

>  Some (myself included) advocate using boiling water for sparging.  This

>works well, but as the pH of the mash increases as the wort is run off

>(water has a higher pH than the mash), the amount of tannins extracted

>will also increase.  One solution would be to use boiling water for the

>beginning of the sparge, and "cooler" (whatever that may be) water as the

>sparge progresses.  Another solution would be to batch sparge, adding the

>boiling water all at once.  As has been noted, sugar extract efficiency

>will suffer slightly with a batch sparge, but tannin extraction would

>likewise be minimized.

A third solution would be to acidify your sparge water.  This can be done

using Gypsum (which may not be a good idea if your water already has a

lot of sulfates or if you are brewing something that requires soft water

like a Czech Pilsner) or organic acids such as Lactic.  My personal choice

is the organic acid method AND using 170F sparge water (I've tasted some

NON-astringent beers brewed by JS and I know he uses the boiling sparge

water technique, but I personally feel more relaxed with 170F).

***************************

Matthew writes:

>I am particularly fond of the Belgian Kriek Lambics from

>Lindemann's and Liefman's, but I've heard (rumor) that they

>aren't lambics but actually brown ales.  Has anyone else heard

>that?

Lindeman's is a Lambic, but Liefmans Kriek is a Sour Brown w/Cherries

or Belgian Brown Ale w/Cherries.  You'll need a lot of cherries to

give you flavors like these beers -- something on the order of 12-15

pounds for a 5 gallon batch.

***************************

Ben writes:

>        Sam Adams Cranberry Lambic

>It was crisp, smooth, and had sensational flavor.

I would encourage all homebrewers to discourage anyone from refering to

this beer as "Lambic."  It is by no stretch of the imagination a Lambic.

Lambics are spontaneously fermented by local yeasts and bacteria in the

Zenne Valley in Belgium.  The Sam (tm) Adams (tm) product is nothing more

than a Cranberry Ale and reference to the esteemed appellation "Lambic"

is another unscrupulous marketing ploy by the Boston (tm) Beer (tm)

Company (tm).

I continue my boycott of Samuel Adams products!

Al.

------------------------------


Updated Yeast.FAQ in the Archives!

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 14:19:19 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: Updated Yeast.FAQ in the Archives!

Hi,

  I have just finished updating the yeast.faq, and I put it to

the pub/incoming dir today. It is much improved by the addition

of a list of contents. There are also some refinements of yeast

strain info, and Thomas Manteufel sent me a list of past HBDs with

valuable yeast info--should anyone want a second opinion.:-) I also

took a step into turbulent waters and added a small section on the

importance of aeration in the rapid initial growth of yeast.

  I also feel the need to comment on an aertation commment made in

Thursday's digest, i.e. that it is possible to aerate any time up

until fermentation begins, because I feel that it is slightly to the

side of the point. To wit: Fermentation is what occurs during the

*anaerobic* growth of yeast, so if one aerated, fermentation would

just stop. They would go on living and turning sugars into CO2, but they

would not make any *ethanol*. (They of course being the yeast!)

My point being: aerate early, then leave it alone.

Reading you later,

Patrick Weix

weix@swmed.edu

------------------------------


beginner

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 13:01:19 -0500

From: jeclark@ucdavis.edu (James Clark)

Subject: beginner

I have just become interested in homebrewing and joined this list to find

helpful info for my first batch which I plan to start in December.  So far

the only knowledge I have of the subject comes from _The New Complete Joy

of Homebrewing_.  However, just from reading the first few articles in this

list I have found that even the most basic steps to brewing are a matter of

opinion (i.e. plastic fermenter vs. glass carboy)

Does anyone have any suggestions to give to a confused prospective homebrewer?

Thanks

- --James

  (ez014141@ucdavis.edu)

p.s. If it is innapropriate to ask for information from other members of

the

     list by posting an article, or if there is another adress for this purpose

     please tell me.  I'm new to the internet, so I'm not quite knowledgeable

     of list-serve protocol.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1276, 11/19/93

*************************************

-------


Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 13:25:39 +0800

From: bjones@novax.llnl.gov (Bob Jones)

Subject:

I would like to see some reviews of some of the software packages out there

for brewing related usage. These reviews would be from people who have used

these programs and can list the programs strong and weak points. I think we

all could benefit from these reviews.

Bob Jones

bjones@novax.llnl.gov

------------------------------


Calling Columbus OH Homebrewers

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 15:15:40 -0700

From: Vincent Heuring <heuring@riker.cs.colorado.edu>

Subject: Calling Columbus OH Homebrewers

I want to give "The Gift of Homebrewing" to a relative that lives

in Columbus OH, for Christmas. My plan is to buy the extract, yeast,

and small supplies here in Boulder and send them to him, and to

make arrangements with some homebrew supply store in Columbus to

prepay them for a carboy and boil pot.

Would some kind Columbus homebrewer please mail me the phone numbers

and addresses of a couple of the better supply stores in Columbus?

- ---

 Vincent Heuring   Dep't of Electrical & Computer Engineering

 University of Colorado at Boulder      Boulder CO 80309-0425

 heuring@cs.Colorado.EDU   o) 303-492-8751    h) 303-449-8868

------------------------------


Mo' Betta Decoction

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 16:59:49 EST

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Mo' Betta Decoction

A recent post describes the process they use for decoction in which they use

a strainer to leave liquid behind and add water to the kettle mash.  This

may be a problem for 2 reasons.

1) The ph of this kettle mash may be high and tannin extraction may occur

2) The amount of enzymes in the kettle mash may be low and the conversion

    slow or incomplete

Using the strainer may be a good way of getting the "thickest 1/n" but

I would add enough of the liquid from the main brew pot to keep the

kettle mash from scorching or sticking.  This assumes that the main mash's

PH has been tested and is in range. When its time to boil the

addition of a little more liquid may be needed. Acidified sparge water

is OK as is liquid from the main mash, which is at protein rest temp.

Most brewers I know don't use an acid rest, except after 6 Dead shows, they

do a single decoction using about 40-50% of the grain.  It is important to

do a sufficently long kettle mash since you are deactivating 40-50% of the

enzymes.  They mash out by adding boiling acidified sparge water to the

cooler mash/lauter tun or heat the metal brew put on a stove .

Lee Menegoni

------------------------------


Wyeast London Barleywine/Antibacterial Hops

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 14:37 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Wyeast London Barleywine/Antibacterial Hops

Norm writes:

Brian Seay asks about barley wine fermentation.  <snip>

 ...DON'T USE WYEAST LONDON ALE YEAST (1028)!!!

To which I reply:

BRIAN AND LINDA NORTH BREWED BEST-OF-SHOW BARLEYWINE USING WYEAST LONDON ALE!!!

No, seriously, perhaps Wyeast #1028 is a less alcohol tolerant strain than

some of the others, but it can be used for Barleywines.  I did see Brian and

Linda at the CBS competition, but forgot to ask them the particulars as I

had promised.  Perhaps I should call.

***************************

Several posters have suggested that it's the alpha acids in the hops that

are antibacterial.  I'm confident that the antibacterial qualities of the

hops are in the lupulin, but would hazard a guess that they are not in

the alpha acids.  Recall that Lambiek brewers use aged hops so that they

don't impart bitterness, but (according to J.X.Guinard) their antibacterial

qualities are still available.  It's the oxidation of the alpha acids that

kills the alpha acid's bittering potential (beta acids are a different

story, but better left to another post) and I would imagine that if, indeed,

the alpha acids were responsible for the antibacterial qualities, then the

oxidation would have ruined them as well.

Al.

------------------------------


Bottle washing

Date: 18 Nov 1993 16:54:07 -0500 (CDT)

From: EDM9743@UTARLG.UTA.EDU

Subject: Bottle washing

Hullo.  My name is Erich and my father and I would like any suggestions/info.

on bottle washing machines.  He modified an old dishwasher but I think that

he would like to improve it or replace it with a more suitable machine.

Oh yes, and does anyone have any info. on recipe software for the IBM

(Windows would be perfect but far from required)?

------------------------------


Re: Treacle & Other Brit Sugars

Date:  Thu, 18 Nov 1993 11:16:56 PST

From: Mark_Davis.osbu_south@xerox.com

Subject: Re: Treacle & Other Brit Sugars

>No, you cannot buy treacle in the U.S.,

Hmmm,

   I just purchased Lyle's Treacle form a homebrew store here in California. If

anyone wants the stuff(I would agree that it tastes like a strong Blackstrap

molasses) then they can contact:

   The Home Wine and Brewing shop

   22836 Ventura Blvd.

   Woodland Hills, Ca.

   (818)884-8586

   Store Hours: Fri-Mon 10:30-5:30

   Lyle's Golden syrup is a pure, refined cane syrup(it has a wonderful, rich

caramel flavor). I have been using this in place of Candi sugar(per a

recommendation for a member of the Lambic digest) for Belgian abby ales. Works

wonders for this as I do not have to boil all night to get that caramel flavor.

Cheers,

Mark

- --disclaimer-- I have no ties, either personal or finacial, to the Home Wine

and Brewing shop. Just a happy customer :->

------------------------------


Hard Water

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 16:51:00 +0800

From: rob.skinner@kandy.com (Rob Skinner)

Subject: Hard Water

 Tim writes:

>Here are the important numbers:

>Chloride  25ppm

>Sulfate     38ppm

>Calcium 54.5ppm

>CaCO3     140ppm

>Ph            7.7

>The CaCo3 seems high, particularly with the amount of calcium that

>is present.  What is my best course of action,

  Tim, I would certainly try to reduce the CO3 concentration.

  The other numbers look ok.  By adding 1/8 tsp. CaCl2 / gallon

  of water and boiling it for 20 minutes, you will reduce your

  carbonate to about 35ppm and your calcium to about 52ppm.

  Your chloride level will increase to about 78 ppm.

  I prefer to use calcium chloride rather than calcium sulfate

  because excessively high levels of sulfate can have an adverse

  effect on hop bitterness.  Also, my preference is to use this

  method on the mash water only, and treat my sparge water with

  lactic acid.  I add acid until the pH reaches about 5.3.

  All the chemistry info I use to adjust my water is contained in

  Dave Miller's Compete Handbook Of Homebrewing.

------------------------------


pH and leaching tannins

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1993 09:36:37 -0400

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: pH and leaching tannins

Jack writes:

> That's a nice number but like so many things, it is only a bench mark.  What

> if the pH rose to 5.4 or 5.7... would it make a detectable difference?  I

> doubt it.

>.....

> In the real world, sparge water is run through the mash which has a powerful

> buffering effect on the water.   I run 10 or more gallons of pH 7 sparge

> water through my mash and it doesn't raise the pH more than a tenth point or

> so.  Furthermore, sparge water temp is not the same as mash temp nor does it

> bear any relationship to making tea with boiling water.

>

> Finally, it does not address the fact that boiling grain in decoction mashing

> does not seem to produce astringent beer.

 I know he's only baiting us, but I feel like a sucker this morning.

The mash has a buffering effect, yes.  As the goodies are drawn off,

however, the pH does rise.  This is quite variable, and depends on the

mineral content and buffering ability of your water supply, the types of

grain used, the mashing technique, where the grain was grown and so on.  So

jack has a nice acidic mash, and sparge water with low alkalinity.  Great.

If he tried his technique in, say, southwestern Ontario where the tap water

is very full of carbonates, he would undoubetedly have very different

results.  So as one sparges, the pH rises as the sugars and acidic

compounds are drawn off, and replaced by neutral water.  The 5.3 figure is

a guideline, and indeed a 5.4 pH might produce little or no more

astringency.  It does indicate, however, that your pH is rising, and soon

will reach a level that will extract noticeable quantities of tannins from

the husks.  In the decotion mash, you have a thick mash which has not had

the sugars and acids removed, so the pH stays low.  Where's the problem?

____________

Ed Hitchcock ech@ac.dal.ca | Oxymoron:  Draft beer in bottles. |

Anatomy & Neurobiology  | Pleonasm:  Draft beer on tap.     |

Dalhousie University, Halifax |___________________________________|

------------------------------


The Beer Machine

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1993 10:15:00 -0500 (EST)

From: Jill Martz <SAL_MARTZ@sals.edu>

Subject: The Beer Machine

Just a reply to the person interested if anyone has experience with using

the Beer Machine, my dad recently purchased one along with some kits put

together by the manufacturer. He brewed two of them. The "beer" was a disaster

After forcing us to taste it and asking several people independently what it

smelled like he was told "green olives". He went to the homebrew store and of

course the owner tried to talk him out of using it, but sold him some malt

extracts etc. to make a batch. He attempted this the other day and could not

get it to seal properly. So it appears this "system" has several problems.

If anyone has had success I would appreciate hearing about it so I could pass

it on to my Dad. Thanks.

REply to : SMTP%"SAL_MARTZ@SALS.EDU"

                                       ...Jill

------------------------------


yeast & glycogen

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1993 10:14:32 -0500 (EST)

From: gelinas@ekman.unh.edu (Russell Gelinas)

Subject: yeast & glycogen

>It makes sense, but it's not the way that yeast actually works.  Just "before

>the kraeusen begins" the yeast have their glycogen level depleted.  According

>to experiments done by Pickerell, Hwang & Axcell (and reported in their

>paper: Impact of Yeast-Handling Procedures on Beer Flavor Development During

>Fermentation, 1991 American Society of Brewing Chemists, ASBC Journal,

>volume 49, no.2.) you want to wait till the high kraeusen has just ended

>to pitch your starter.  I have more info on this for anyone who is interested.

A few quick questions.  When is glycogen depleted? During respiration?

During fermentation also?  When is glycogen assimilated?  During fermentation?

Immediately following fermentation?

RussG.

------------------------------


beer labels

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 08:18:00 -0600

From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

Subject: beer labels

Robert linder wrote in HBD 1276:

Rl> I have used Microsoft "Publisher" with satisfaction.  It allows

  > you to curve text instantly and import various bit-mapped

  > images.  Its price

I also have used MS Publisher, but found that Instant Artist is

easier to use, cheaper ($49), and has many many more fonts and

(especially) text and graphic modification features. For example, MSP

has 2 preset text curves; in IA, you draw the curve and IA fits the

text to it.

Chuck

 * RM 1.2 00946 *

------------------------------


Re: Kegging FAQ

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 08:53:20 PST

From: hollen@megatek.megatek.com (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Re: Kegging FAQ

>>>>> "Norm" == npyle  <npyle@n33.stortek.com> writes:

Norm> What ever happened to the Kegging FAQ?

Oops!!  I posted to rec.crafts.brewing yesterday, but neglected to

post to HBD.  Here is what I said.

My employer (to whom I owe my Internet Connection) has had me working

harder than usual and the Kegging FAQ has been put on a back burner

temporarily.  Just about as this happened, I had decided on a

different direction for it.  I had been going through every back issue

of HBD in the issues looking for questions and answers and had only

gotten through half of what is archived.  I finally decided that I

would edit the contributions which have been made (which are

substantial) and get that portion out, and then in a future release,

add what has been gleaned from the archives.  This is now my current

strategy and I hope to have something by the end of this month.

However, the bottom line is that I must keep my employer happy to keep

my Internet connection, or I can't post anything at all.

Sorry for the delay,

dion

Dion Hollenbeck (619)455-5590x2814     Email: hollen@megatek.com

Senior Software Engineer                      megatek!hollen@uunet.uu.net

Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California    ucsd!megatek!hollen

------------------------------


church keys and bad address in ca

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 11:02 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: church keys and bad address in ca

1)  Twist away with Sierra Nevada.  If they can make a better profit off of a

twist off bottle without making a worse beer, I will gladly use my church key

less.  Even Busch Lite comes in reusable bottles.  Don't judge a beer by it's

cap :-).  Of course, upon saying this, some rocket scientists will split my atom

with a scientific study, proving me wrong. :-)

2) James of UCDavis asked for new brewer info.  Well James, your address doesn't

work for me and my internet.  Rather beefy post that many hbd's would just skim

over.  I could save bandwidth with another address so I could post it personal.

Please send email to my address atkins@macc.wisc.edu if you still in the

market for some info.

Happy brewing,

David Atkins

UW-Madison

------------------------------


HSA - another view

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 09:24:13 PST

From: msharp@Synopsys.COM

Subject: HSA - another view

Hi folks,

Since HSA still seems to be a topic of discussion here:

Last night I was at the A-B plat in Fairfield, CA for the quarterly

MBAA meeting.  While there I was able to crawl through the bowels of

the brewery on a VIP tour lead by one of the plant managers who has

been in this business for ~21 years and worked his way up from the ranks.

So what does this have to do with HSA?

Well apparently their are two camps of thought.  The one which George

represented and the one which doesn't believe its anywhere near that

much of a problem.  Upon what do I base this?  During part of the

tour I was directly below the kettles looking at a large tank

(~2 industrial stories high, 10'+ round) and I was told that this was

used for hot wort aeration.  This caught my off a bit so I asked for

a clarification.  I was told that immediately after boiling and prior to

cooling the wort is slowly dripped down through this tank against an

upward flow of 120F air.  This is done to simulate the aeration

effect of the old technology coolers which where just a few stories

of tubing.  Later in the evening I had a long talk about this with

the same man over dinner where we got into why A-B does it this way, etc.

 --Mike

------------------------------


Sour brown crabtree HSA scaremongery

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 12:43:58 EST

From: Ulick Stafford <ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu>

Subject: Sour brown crabtree HSA scaremongery

In hbd 1276 Jeff Frane poo-poo's Gregory Noonan's excellent sour mash

article in the Special Zymurgy (probably the article that makes the publication

worth while, IMNSHO), but seem to be mixing up acid rests and sour mashes.

A sour mash, the procedure for which is well decribed by Noonan, is of part

of the mash and takes place over days at 120F+.  An acid rest is of

the whole mash at around 100F, and uses enzyme reactions to reduce pH.  This

technique may take 20 hours and is only useful for soft water mashes.  The

technique described by Noonan is Reinheitgebot and works for harder water.

Try Howard asks about American Brown Ale.  The excellent Pete's Wicked Ale

won the GABF in 1992, so I assume it is a good example of the style.  May

the pedantics correct me if this is wrong :-).

Steve Zabarnick speculates that the Crabtree effect may not occur in

dextrose primed bottles bacause it is only a small proportion of the

sugar.  However, since all other fermentable sugars are now gone, isn't

it the only fermentable sugar??

Carl Howes was one of many to correct me when I posted

> While this procedure is not correct - chilling in a bathtub or with a wort

> chiller prior to pouring is recommended, the amount of damage that could be

> expected due to hot side aeration is so slight that it is unlikely to be

> noticable.

 I have seen a huge improvement in flavor stability and beer quality since I

 started chilling the concentrated wort.  Have you tried it both ways, Ulick?

I apologize for understating a risk.  I should have said that the beer was

likely to be drinkable, rather than saying that the effect is unlikely to be

noticable.  This was toned thus because I had received email from first time

brewers saying that they had just brewed like this wondering whether they pitch

and batch now?  I am sorry for erring on the side of RDWHAHB rather than erring

on the scaremonger side that is the HBD norm.

Talking about scaremongery Al K responded to my critique of his postings with

a repeat of his 'DON'T CHANGE YEAST AT BOTTLING /em[or your bottles will

explode] ' earlier in the week.

Considering that most yeast are similarily attenuative this is an exaggerated

risk, and I am sure most homebrewers who change yeasts are aware of the danger.

Or are most of the Belgian brewers and Weizen brewers in the world wrong?

(he also spoke of what was appropriate for hbd again, my posting not being,

of course, which shows that he isn't totally cured of his superiority

complex.  Al K should consider that email response to me was running 80:20

in support of my posting, which may indicate that I wasn't the only one who

found his style irksome, just as he finds mine.  Which of us is right,

or is neither of us???).

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


Miscellany/Crabtree

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 9:40:58 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Miscellany/Crabtree

Mark Bunster writes:

>reasonable debate, EXCEPT: you are not making a Rheinheitsgebot beer when you

use corn sugar, for what that's worth to you.

IMNSHO, Rheinheitsgebot was written to circumvent a free market economy (price

controls) and as a protectionist measure against foreign imports.  Oh, and it

also helped keep some bad beer off the streets.  It was later used as marketing

tool and was made to sound like a very good thing.  That's what its worth to

me.

>maybe a 4 gal - 1 gal makes good sense. It's primitive, but for us

nontinkerers who are too poor to buy and too stupid to build a cf or

immersion chiller, it works quite well and goes faster than we imagined.

Too poor maybe, but nobody is too stupid to put together an immersion chiller

(hey, even I did it!).

**

Anyone tried this year's Coors Winterfest?  It is (this is no lie!) robust,

dark brown/red, balanced (surprise), and quite tasty.  There are even some

fruity components that make me wonder if it an ale.  From Coors?  No way!  It

certainly is an order of magnitude better than last year's boring amber lager.

Oh, it is still marketed as a stout, HA!  It is no stout but it is good beer.

**

Troy Howard, American brown ale IS Pete's Wicked Ale IMHO.

**

James Clark writes:

>I have just become interested in homebrewing and joined this list to find

helpful info for my first batch which I plan to start in December.  So far

the only knowledge I have of the subject comes from _The New Complete Joy

of Homebrewing_.  However, just from reading the first few articles in this

list I have found that even the most basic steps to brewing are a matter of

opinion (i.e. plastic fermenter vs. glass carboy)

Does anyone have any suggestions to give to a confused prospective homebrewer?

I suggest you follow the book you are reading.  Homebrewing is an evolutionary

process and if you are like me,  you will continually change your processes and

equipment, ad infinitum.  Don't let endless debate keep you from brewing and

enjoying your beer.

**

Pardon my igorance, but what is the Crabtree Effect supposed to do to my beer,

and why would one avoid it?  It seems it has to do with oxygen production, and

of course I know why I don't want oxygen in my beer at bottling, but could

someone explain the effect in greater detail?

Norm

------------------------------


Sanitation and Priming

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 13:16:58 EST

From: fingerle@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL (J. Fingerle)

Subject: Sanitation and Priming

Somebody (did not save the post) was interested in how to

sanitize the brass "jet washer" he was using to clean his

bottles.  Evidently, he thought that this might be the source

of some recent infections.  I'd like to comment in a tangential

way.

My bottle cleaning procedure is this:  after I decant a beer, I

immeadiately rinse the bottle and store it upside down in a spare

beer case I keep in the kitchen.  When ready to bottle, I use

the jet washer gizmo with hot faucet water to rinse the bottle

out, then let the bottle drain in the dish strainer briefly. I then

place the bottles in the oven and bake them to kill off any nasties.

Generally, I start at the lowest setting, and raise the oven temp

to about 300F or so in 50F increments every 15 minutes or so.

I then let the oven cool several hours, or I crack the oven to speed

the process.

End result, sanitized, and possibly sterile bottles.  The only

downside that I can see is that this temperature cycling might

eventually stress the glass, but so far, I have bottled 19 batches

in this manner, using about 12x24 bottles, so obviously, many

of these have been through the procedure several times.

To give credit where due, this procedure did not originate with

me, I got it off of the digest probably 18 months or so ago.

************************

Now a question.  I'm in the mood to fool around with bottle

priming.  How much should I use to prime

5 gallons with molassass or honey?

Does it make a difference if dark or light molassass is used?

What about various honeys?  Raw vs "processed" for example.

Will the priming material effect the finished beer's taste

(assuming a pale ale)?

Thanks!

------------------------------


Sam Adams Cranberry "Ale"

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 13:21:54 EST

From: lyons%adc1@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: Sam Adams Cranberry "Ale"

>Ben writes:

>>        Sam Adams Cranberry Lambic

>>It was crisp, smooth, and had sensational flavor.

Al writes:

>I would encourage all homebrewers to discourage anyone from refering to

>this beer as "Lambic."  It is by no stretch of the imagination a Lambic.

>Lambics are spontaneously fermented by local yeasts and bacteria in the

>Zenne Valley in Belgium.  The Sam (tm) Adams (tm) product is nothing more

>than a Cranberry Ale and reference to the esteemed appellation "Lambic"

>is another unscrupulous marketing ploy by the Boston (tm) Beer (tm)

>Company (tm).

I have to agree with Ben's comments.  Maybe the "Sam Adams

Cranberry Lambic" is not a true lambic, but it IMHO, it is a very

tasty brew.

>I continue my boycott of Samuel Adams products!

Your loss.  Although Koch may be a slime bag, he makes a decent

product.

Chris

------------------------------


Hop Oils as a Preservative

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 10:51:57 PST

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hop Oils as a Preservative


Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 00:05:58 CST

Darrell Simon writes:

Subject: Hop Oils as a Preservative

>It is possible that the hop flowers alone are not acidic enough to inhibit

>the bacteria.  I would speculate that the preservative effect of hops

comes from the alpha acids extracted during the boil, and the increase in

>acidity.

Yes from the alpha acids, but the acids themselves are quite weak and won't

affect the acidity of the beer noticeably (otherwise we could use a pH

meter to measure alpha acids).

>You don't hear of the preservative qualities of hop aroma

>although you do hear of the preservative qualities of hop bitterness.

Actually there are studies that show that hop oils (responsible for the

aroma) do have a preservative effect and do inhibit the growth of

bacteria.  And for an informal opinion, Fritz Maytag strongly believes

that dry-hopped beers last much longer (like 10-20 years) than beers that

are not dry hopped.  He bases this on tasting his Christmas Ales from

many years ago (that he has in his own collection and that people send

to him).  He claims that a 17 year old Christmas Ale he tasted was still

quite good, but he admits it is not exactly the same as when it was brewed,

but certainly not spoiled.  Also historical data shows that IPAs (the

real ones destined for India by boat) were called for (by contract) to have

a high dry hopping level ("2 lbs of Kent hops per hogshead" which translates

to 2.47 ozs per five gallons).

Mark

------------------------------


Re: Dry Hopping and Infections

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 10:25:32 -0800

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Re: Dry Hopping and Infections

  I have recently gotten past a really bad bacterial contamination

problems that left me with _many_ gallons of beer for use in the meat

smoker. All of these problems were evidenced by very low finishing

gravities, as well as cloudiness, bottle bombs, bad taste, gushers,

etc. I believe that the problems were due to sloppy brewing style, and

not enough attention to sanitation. (I brewed sloppily for 10 years

before I had any problems)

  Two weeks ago, I brewed a ten gallon batch of brown ale.  I got much

better than normal extraction rate, and ended up with 12 gallons of

wort split between two 7 gallon glass carboys, with a starting gravity

of 1.080.  I split a 1 litre starter of fresh Wyeast american ale

between the two.  After one week of fermentation, at 1.030, I racked

to two 5 gallon secondaries.  At this point, the two sub batches were

identical in taste and gravity.  I decided to dry hop one of the two

secondaries.  I sanitized some marbles in a mesh bag, and then filled

the bag with fresh Cascades.  I had a _lot_ of trouble getting the bag

through the neck of the carboy, but eventually it went in.

  This morning, I took gravity readings and tasted both sub-batches.

The non-dryhopped bottle was at 1.024, crystal clear, and tasted

great.  The dry hopped batch was at 1.014, cloudy, and astringent, and

I can only assume, infected.  There are three possiblities that I see:

1) unclean equipment used in the dry hopped sub batch - Very Unlikely

2) bacteria carried on hops into the beer - ???

3) Excessive handling with bare hands introduced bacteria into dry

   hopped batch - very likely

  Since I use a CF chiller, I will be building a hop-back for this

weekend's batch.  I _may_ attempt dry hopping again, but will use

rubber gloves, and no bag or marbles.

  Anyway, I feel that the idea that "bad stuff won't grow in fermented

wort" is incorrect, and care in sanitation need be taken at all steps

prior to drinking the beer.

         Drew Lynch

  Chronologic Simulation, Los Altos, Ca.

      (415)965-3312x18

    drew@chronologic.com

------------------------------


Lactose-Acid brew/ Ciders / REAL Bathtub Brew /BeerMachine

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1993 12:18:40 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Lactose-Acid brew/ Ciders / REAL Bathtub Brew /BeerMachine

*****

Al. sez:

>BTW, I'm not a biologist,

but I'll bet that Lactose is fementable by Lactobacillus, so be extra

careful with sanitation!  ...snip...   If you add lactose, you can

add it in the boil, or boil some up and add it at bottling time -- it's

*unfermentable*, so it doesn't matter as long as you sanitize it.  Adding at

bottling time also allows you to add it to taste, but be aware that the

beer will become a bit more acidic when it carbonates, so you may want to

*   I am a biologist FWIW.  And yes- lactobacillus will ferment lactose.

If you added some yogurt to a lactose brew, you would most likely get

a rather acidic product.   So: Lactose IS fermentable, but NOT by

Saccharomyces (beer yeast), so it can sweeten a beer.

Best idea is to minimize the time the lactose is available to wild

bacteria.  Add it at bottling (to taste) with good asceptic technique.

If you add it to the wort you risk more by having it present longer, where

an infectious bacterium could ferment it and produce acid.  BUT

if these fermenters are not present you should not see any additional

acid as a result of the lactose.  Bottle with usual priming sugar and

lactose and you will NOT see additional acidity upon carbonation

UNLESS there are contaminating organisms present!

Also- allows you to taste test the fermented beer and see how much

sweetening it may require.  You could end up with lots of unfermented sugars

from the ferment, and not need as much, or it could have attenuated enough

that lots of sugar could help.  Depends on your preference.

****

Just got another 5 gallons of fresh squeezed cider.  Yummy.

They made me a deal on pressing day- that if I brought a container

for them to fill it would be cheaper.  The guy wondered where I got

the nice glass carboy.  :)  I don't know if they know what we plan

to do with the liquid!  I doubt good mormons would appreciate such

a use.  Although it IS a method of storing the cider for longer periods!

        Maybe I should call it Armageddon Cider!

Another Note:  I pitched a gallon of cider (unsterilized) with

champage yeast, and it's going like a bat out of "heck" .

I also had another gallon sitting untouched.  It started building

pressure and making bubbles too.

The first smells appley, tastes sweet and yummy (2 weeks)

while the second smells sour, rotten, but tastes ok.

I think I can forced the first to go quick, while the second will

have to age for a long time. (based on past experiments).

A Question:  Anyone have any tips of fast fermenting.

It's been 2 weeks and I hope to race the first cider for thanx.

I was thinking of chilling it down, and clarifying (bentonite?)

then bottling and hoping for a quick carbonation (since it's still

active) and a quick drinking.  I may be begging the issue to hope to

have it so quick, but it tastes good now.  Any ideas/experience?

****

On a humorous horror story note, re: potential names and lost wort:

A brewing collegue called me yesterday in a panic.  He had just

conducted a terrilbe faux pah (SP!  I ain't frech!:)  ie screwed up!

Using the age old method of submerging hot wort/boiling pot in

a bathtub of cold water he gave new meaning to the concept of

"immersion chilling".  He deep sixed the pot.  Yes...that's right kids,

Boil pot was floating.        Boil pot was submerged.

Wort rushed out,      bathtub water rushed in.         Ooooooooooops.

Went from a high gravity stout ...  to....?

He was calling partially to ask whether he should re-boil.

He sterilizes the whole tub with bleach water when soaking bottles.

BUT  He has two kids who bathe in there too!  BOIL IT!  He did.

He also wanted to know if he should add more fermentables upon re-boiling.

He went for brown sugar.  I also suggested honey, dme. He mashes.

I also suggested a few names for the brew:  Deep Six Stout. BathtubBrew.

Submarine Psuedo Stout...among others.  Any more ideas?

I think he's embarassed and wants to forget the incident.  :)

At least he didn't lose the WHOLE batch.  Could have taken it skiing (toot!).

        John (The Coyote) Wyllie   SLK6P@cc.usu.edu     |'^//|

- ----- no  cute quote today.  Just not in the mood....   -------

ALSO:   Saw the BeerMachine  in the Sharper Image catalog.  $99.95 ($8 S&H)

Again quoting the 25 gal/year Federal law.  Ooops.   But Jeepers.  A hunderd

bucks for lame yuppy brew.  Maybe I can find a used machine at the

salvation army, but otherwise I ain't gonna touch it!  To think of all

the gadgets, toys, and brewsupplies available for $100!

Guess we have really "fallen through the cracks of our quick fix,

1 hour photo, instant oatmeal society"  !!  Guess I did have a quote afterall.

------------------------------


Stepping up to a 5 gallon boil

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1993 16:22:23

From: prf@cherry-semi.com (Paul Ferrara)

Subject: Stepping up to a 5 gallon boil

I began reading the HBD only two weeks ago and have already learned

a great deal about the finer points of brewing.

I've decided that if my brew is going to improve any, I need to make

the leap to boiling 5 full gal. and appropriatly chilling.  It's time

to demote my 12qt aluminum pot to lobster boiling, and move on to

something bigger.   I've been considering purchasing a "Bru-Heat"

thermostatically controlled boiler as a replacement brew pot ... my

theory being that for approx the price of a quality 24-30 qt stainless

steel pot, I can get a unit that will boil my wort now,  AND, be used

for my next leap: to all grain brewing.

Would this be a wise investment?  Can the Bru-Heat bring a 5 gal batch

to a reasonably quick boil?  Is it the right way to go for mashing?

Or should I really spend many $$ and buy a stainles steel pot, propane

cooker, picnic cooler mash tun, sparging manifold, etc, etc, etc ....

If this has been discussed at length before, feel free to respond by

private E-mail, or direct me to the proper archive.

Thanks.....Paul

------------------------------


for publication

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 17:13:29 EST

From: tchm@gtx.ummed.edu (Chris Mix)

Subject: for publication

I am new to brewing and my first batch is about 1 week old and

sitting in a glass carbuoy as a single stage fermentation.  As

suggested by Papazian, I reconstituted my yeast by boiling approx.

1-2 cup water, letting it cool to 100-105 farenheit then adding the

yeast and letting them sit for 30 min prior to pitching them.

Within the first 12-18 hrs close to a quart of my beer-to-be came

over into a bucked through a water-locked tube.  I am concerned

because the foam had fallen back into the carbuoy at 24 hrs and

the smaller water lock now atop the carbuoy has passed a bubble

only once every 1-5 min.  I was under the impression most activity

was to occur over 1-2or3 days.  I am aiming for an ale with a Munson

malt extract, 8 oz. crystal malt, 2 oz Kent Gouldings and some

Cascade (hops, not detergent) thrown in 5 min prior to adding the

wort to the carbuoy.  The yeast are starting to settle now and

otherwise things seem to look OK.  Could there be a problem here?

 -Chris Mix

------------------------------


british ale liquid yeast

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 16:20 CDT

From: G.Leake@utxvm.cc.utexas.edu

Subject: british ale liquid yeast

Does anyone know whether British Ale Yeast is the most appropriate liquid

yeast for brewing Northern style Brown Ales?

thanks

George Leake

------------------------------


Panic Over Sugar

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1993 15:04:22 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@teleport.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Panic Over Sugar

You ever notice how easy it is to push the panic button here on the

Digest?  It looks as though it's happened again, this time with people

starting to dither over the correct bottling sugar.

The Crabtree Effect is about as relevant as the Crab Nebula here.  We

are talking, after all, of truly tiny amounts of sugar compared with the

total volume -- even leaving aside the fact that *lots* of beers have

been made with 20-30% of *cane* sugar added, without any problems.

The British and the Belgians regularly prime with sugar, with sucrose,

dextrose, invert sugar and combinations of the above, sometimes with a

bit of caramel thrown in for variety.  I have yet to see any evidence

that this causes a problem.  Sierra Nevada has been using dextrose to

bottle for years, and I can't see that it's cut into their sales much.

Really, folks, relax.  Worrying is one thing, but panic...

==========

And on subject of sugars, and British sugars in particular:  I have to

disagree with the poster who said that demerara sugar was less sticky

than American brown sugar.  At least, I disagree with it as a blanket

statement.  Eric Urquart (no, I know that's not spelled right) was good

enough to send me .5 kilo from British Columbia, and this stuff is much,

much stickier than brown sugar.  It also has an unmistakeable molasses

aroma that could be smelled through the plastic packaging five feet

away.  And yes, I fully intend to use it in brewing.

==========

Larry Barelo inquired about using adjuncts to lighten up a barleywine.

I'm not entirely sure that it would still be a barleywine if it was

lightened up, but I have been using sugar and flaked maize for the same

purpose in my faux-abbeybiers and it really does the job.  It is, I

think, one of the prime differences between barleywines and the Belgian

beers: the former have a very full body, rich and sweet, while the

Belgian beers are deliberately made to have a high alcohol but to be

less satiating.  Really hard to do that with an all-malt recipe.

=========

Todd Jennings laments the increasing appearance of twist-offs in

microbrewed beers.  Although the criticism is well-placed, he mentions

Sierra Nevada as a new offender -- SN has never had anything *but*

twist-off caps on their bottles since they began in, what, 1984?  1983?

Here in the Great NW, the micros are split somewhat.  Red Hook beers

have twist-offs, Full Sail's and BridgePort's are true crown caps, um,

so are Rogue's, Pyramids are twisted, etc.  Then again, I've never had a

bad bottle that I could attribute to twist-offs, so I'm not sure how

valid the conventional wisdom is.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


Acid rest

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 15:05 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Acid rest

Jeff writes:

>Interesting to note Greg Noonan's article in the special issue of

>Zymurgy.  Noonan is now touting sour mashes as the secret ingredient in

>Bavarian weizens and Bohemian pilsners -- in spite of a complete lack of

>evidence that they are used at all in those areas.  (The acid rest he

>mentions is a matter of a few hours or less, not days.)

I have read the article and recall scribbling red ink all over it.  For

those who have not read it, Noonan talks about souring the beer with

naturally occuring bacteria on the husks of malt.  Indeed, this is sour

mashing.  I'd like to point out that it's NOT the "acid rest" that is

used by some brewers.  The "acid rest" is enzymatic (phytase, I believe)

rather than bacterial -- I know Jeff didn't mean this, but it could have

been confusing to some.

Al.

------------------------------


Dry Hopping Infections/Tate & Lyle Golden Syrup and Treacle

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 16:22 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Dry Hopping Infections/Tate & Lyle Golden Syrup and Treacle

Dan writes:

>Anyway, it's pretty clear that the greatest risk of infection is before

>fermentation.  No confusion there.  Presumably the bacteria produce bad

>flavors, then are overwhelmed by the yeast, PH, and/or alcohol.  Right?

Not quite.  The greatest risk is, indeed, before fermentation and from two

sources: 1) infected starter/yeast and 2) airbourne or fermenter-surface

bacteria (in scratches, for example) getting a foothold in your beer

during long lag times.  Unless you *sterilize* everything, and work in a

clean room, you will always have some bacteria and wild yeast in your beer.

The question is, if there will be enough of them to make a difference in

the flavor and if they will survive long enough to make a difference.  If

you pitch a clean, healthy, viable, populous starter into a reasonably

clean wort of a similar temperature, under good conditions (e.g. no grain

dust in the air), your yeast will eat most of the nutrients, consume most

of the oxygen and soon create a blanket of CO2 which will keep away new

airbourne nasties.  The wild yeast and bacteria are there and are creating

off flavors and aromas, but in such small amounts that it does not reach

our perception threshold.  When fermentation is complete, whatever bacteria

have not been killed by the pH and alcohol, are (if everything went well)

again in such small numbers that their products are below the perception

threshold.

>However, the recent dry hop & bacteria thread has made me wonder about

>post-ferment.  Some HBD articles have indicated that once fermentation

>is complete, the beer is hostile to bacteria, so no worries.

Don't worry, but don't be foolish -- maintain good, sanitary technique.

Would you eat a sandwich you dropped on the garage floor?

>On the other hand, I've read several times that "gushers" are caused by

>infections.  The idea there is that the bacteria eat stuff that the

>yeast don't, resulting in over carbonation during long term storage.

Back when I was a beginner, using dry yeasts that have since been found

to have had big problems with bacterial counts (see the Yeast Special

Issue of Zymurgy), I would (with certain yeasts) get gushers after a

few months.  In looking through that early logbook, I can't find a

single batch that ended up a gusher that could not be attributed to

infected dry yeast except for one.  That one batch's problems are quite

involved (clogged blowoff tube, whole cherries added, 8 hours of an

open fermenter, etc. etc.) so data from it is difficult to extract.

In summary, if you pitch good, clean yeast and not shock them, and

maintain good sanitation techniques, you can expect to not have

bacterial problems.  If you choose to add dryhops, do your best to

keep them sanitary (within reason) and don't add them until fermentation

is virtually over.

********************************

Someone (sorry) mentioned something about an embargo regarding the

Tate & Lyle's Syrups.  My understanding is that several months ago,

the US withheld the import of Tate & Lyle's products from the UK

because they would not (or could not) provide proof that they were

not made with Cuban sugar.  The embargo mentioned is obviously our

restrictions on trade with Cuba.  I don't know if the sightings of

the T&L products are just existing stock or if the import restriction

has been lifted.

**************************

Drew writes:

>  In yesterday's (I hope) HBD, Chuck Wettergreen posted a method for

>making invert sugar.  Has anyone used this stuff as a priming agent?

>I was curious if the breaking down of the sugars would inhibit the

>oxygen generating crabtree effect.

I think we need to first talk about the Crabtree effect.  It does not

produce oxygen, rather it is the effect by which yeast abandon

respiration and perform anaerobic fermentation despite available O2

if the concentration of monosaccharides like glucose (dextrose) and

fructose are sufficiently high.  The issue, as it applies to us, is

whether priming with malt extract will cause the yeast to respire the

O2 introduced during bottling or whether priming with corn sugar (glucose)

is equivalent in this respect.  My experience has shown that, given

my procedures, there were no problems with oxidation in my beers,

regardless of whether I primed with malt extract or corn sugar.

I therefore changed back to corn sugar.  With all due respect to

Reinheitsgebot, I prefer Belgian and English beers... beers that would

have Delbruck and Sedlmeyer spinning in their graves.

Al.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1277, 11/20/93

*************************************

-------


Sam Bashing

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 23:06:41 EST

From: snystrom@aol.com

Subject: Sam Bashing

Al writes:

>The Sam (tm) Adams (tm) product is nothing more

>than a Cranberry Ale and reference to the esteemed >appellation "Lambic" is

another unscrupulous marketing ploy >by the Boston (tm) Beer (tm) Company

(tm).

>I continue my boycott of Samuel Adams products!

Al,

I'm glad your boycott has been so successful. I managed to score my first

bottles of "Cranberry Ale" today down here in Florida -- even though the

officials at B (tm) B (tm) C(tm) said there wouldn't be enough for

distribution in our state. <G>

Sure, the lambic is not a lambic and the Octoberfest is not a true

Octoberfest. And Samual Adams isn't the best beer brewed in America four

years running. But I can remember not too many years ago when I refused to

drink ANY American Beer because they all s _ _ _ _ _ _! (censored for

political correctness).

Sam bashing seems to be in vouge these days, but I think I can say most all

of us at one point in our lives enjoyed the beer. And although I, too, have

lost respect for the company due to marketing claims, I find it hard to name

a company whose marketing practices are up to my standards. Budweiser is not

the KING of beers, Hamms "land of sky-blue waters" commercials were filmed in

Northern Califorina and Miller's "Lowenbrau" has little in common with the

product from Europe.

You may not believe anything you read on a bottle from James Koch, and that's

the way it should be. Taste is what counts. Anyone who believes anything they

read without question deserves what they get. And I believe I'll go get

another bottle of Sam's from my fridge. . .

Scott

------------------------------


Invert sugar

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 19:48:00 -0600

From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

Subject: Invert sugar

All,

I've received some questions about my invert syrup recipe and after

checking it I realized that what I posted was wrong (gasp!). The

recipe is:

8 pounds of white cane/beet sugar

2 pints (US) of water

1 tablespoon (=3 tsp) citric acid

mix, heat to boiling (will FOAM! then turn beautiful clear golden color)

cool, then dilute to 1 (US) gallon.

one (US) pint equals 1 (US) pound of sugar

Add too much of this and you'll STILL get that "cidery" taste!

Chuck

 * RM 1.2 00946 * Sleep is an inadequate substitute for coffee.

------------------------------


RE: Stepping up to a 5 gallon boil

Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1993 10:13:38 -0500 (EST)

From: tcm6503@cs.rit.edu (Thomas C Maszerowski)

Subject: RE: Stepping up to a 5 gallon boil

prf@cherry-semi.com (Paul Ferrara) writes:

>to demote my 12qt aluminum pot to lobster boiling, and move on to

>something bigger.   I've been considering purchasing a "Bru-Heat"

>thermostatically controlled boiler as a replacement brew pot ... my

>theory being that for approx the price of a quality 24-30 qt stainless

>steel pot, I can get a unit that will boil my wort now,  AND, be used

>for my next leap: to all grain brewing.

>

>Would this be a wise investment?  Can the Bru-Heat bring a 5 gal batch

>to a reasonably quick boil?  Is it the right way to go for mashing?

  I've been using a Bruheat to boil the full 5 gallons for years. It

does work, but it can be slowwwwwwwww. I recently insulated mine with

that blue foam sheet insulation you can get at home stores. I cut thin

bat and set them up vertically along the outside with cutouts for the

thermostat and spigot. I also cut a piece for the bottom. It cut boiling

time down to the point I was able to go from cold water to final cleanup

in 2 hours. This is approximately half the time it took before. I can't

help with mashing as I'm an extract brewer.

------------------------------


Post boil evaporation of DMS/initiators

Date: Sat, 20 Nov 93 11:05:27 EST

From: U-E68316-Scott Wisler <wisler_scott@ae.ge.com>

Subject: Post boil evaporation of DMS/initiators

 In jack's (flick you in the forehead and see if you jump) post on chillers,

 he advocates sealing the boiler while chilling.  While it pains me to admit

 the idea intriguing, I also immediatly wondered two things.  I waited

 to ask partly because I realized we were being baited, and because I hoped

 to have time to study up on the topics involved.  That not being the case

 (yet), and since the topic has not been addressed, here goes:

 Are you sealing in DMS and/or its precursors during the time the wort is

 still hot?

 I understand that the long boil has many purposes, among them evaporating

 unwanted volatiles like DMS and/or its precursors.  Within my (admittedly

 spotty) understanding of the process, if the wort remains above a certain

 temperature, the reaction which produces DMS will continue until all the

 formation material is depleted.  One's goal therefore is to boil off all

 the DMS possible, and then chill the wort quickly to prevent DMS from being

 further produced.  Note that I did not say as quickly as possible, but

 merely quickly  :)

 What I do not yet understand are the details of the reaction, the precursor

 issues, the critical temperatures involved, how much DMS precursor material

 is left after an hour boil, and the implications of sealing you pot and

 thus preventing evaporation of this compound.

 Further enlightenment would be much appreciated.

 Second, how do you ge the lid off when its chilled.  I know that when I

 leave a pot of hot peas with lid  on the stove overnight (I hate it when I

 do that), its near impossible to get that lid off.  Does the top of your

 lid bow in?

 scott

 swisler@c0431.ae.ge.com

 (In your best TV announcer voice)

 Stay tuned for the next episode of:

           `Bullwinkle at the Bottom'   ...OR...   `Mashed Moose'

------------------------------


Stuff and Nonsense

Date: Sat, 20 Nov 93 9:36:36 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Stuff and Nonsense

Dion, I understand completely about the Kegging FAQ delays.  The boss always

seems to want more work out of you just when you volunteer to do something

outside of work.

**

Mike Sharp:  Are you just going to leave us hanging like that????...

**

J. Fingerle writes:

>My bottle cleaning procedure is this:  after I decant a beer, I

I don't mean to be abrasive but I don't "decant" beer, I pour it.  Decanting is

for that grape stuff.

**

Chris writes:

Chris>I have to agree with Ben's comments.  Maybe the "Sam Adams

Chris>Cranberry Lambic" is not a true lambic, but it IMHO, it is a very

Chris>tasty brew.

You are correct, it is not a true lambic, nor is it a pseudo-lambic,

ersatz-lambic, imitation-lambic, anything-like-a-lambic.  It should not be

called a lambic, no matter how good it tastes.

Al>>I continue my boycott of Samuel Adams products!

Chris>Your loss.  Although Koch may be a slime bag, he makes a decent

Chris>product.

Yes, he makes decent beer.  But so do literally hundreds of good, decent people

who avoid using the strong-arm tactics of the neighborhood bully to sell their

product.  Of the hundreds of brewers attending this year's GABF, the BBC tmtmtm

was the only one in violation of GABF marketing rules.  They were only allowed

to attend because the GABF feared the threat of a lawsuit, which it certainly

does not need.  So, why would you want to buy beer from these people?  You can

buy good beer, better than Koch's, from good people.  I'm with Al on this one:

BOYCOTT SAM ADAMS PRODUCTS!!!

**

Coyote, how about Rub-a-dub-Dubble for that bathtub brew?

**

Al writes:

>Would you eat a sandwich you dropped on the garage floor?

I'm not sure my personal habits are any business of yours, or that they have a

place in the digest, but here's my answer:

Yes, but I wouldn't eat it after dropping it on the garage floor and then

putting it in a carboy for two weeks 8^O ;-)

Norm

------------------------------


cider questions and screw caps

Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1993 13:12:30 -0600 (MDT)

From: Mark Taratoot <SLNDW@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: cider questions and screw caps

Greetings.

Coyote mentions a gallon of cider that has started to spontaneously

ferment and smells bad.  My advice:  LET IT GO WILD!!  Last year

I tossed one of my gallons of cider into a jug and put an airlock

on, just to see what would happen.  It smelled terrible for a month

or two or three.  I let it sit in the cold closet, not wanting to

throw it out and eventually after about 6 months it had cleared quite

a bit.  I was about ready to throw it away, but I racked off the lees

just to finish the experiment.  I tasted a bit... MMMMMMMMM!!!

After about another month or so in the second (third?) jug, I bottled

it with just a tiny amount of priming sugar.  Now this cider is very

nice.  One of the best yet!  I may do five gallons this way with some

extra fermentables this year, but I don't want to start a long project

like that since I will likely be moving in the next 6 months.

Regarding the cider that needs to be served soon:  Kill it with

vodka, heat, or cold, then either force carbonate and use a

counter pressure filler or serve still.  I don't like the sound of

this method.  Other method:  Bottle it a day or three before you serve

it and keep it cool!!!

**********

Regarding twist off caps:

 When I first started brewing I used some twist off caps since my

bottle collection was not complete.  I was using an old-fashioned

bench capper at the time.  I never had any trouble using twist offs.

When my friend left Utah to move to Washington state, he took his

capper :( .  I then started using a wing-style el-cheapo Italian

capper.  I found that this capper did not seal the few screw top bottles

I still used occaisonally as well as the "real" bottles.  (The main

problem with the wing capper is that bottles must have a large

collar for the capper to grab, so many of my bottles were difficult

to cap).

 Now I have an old-fashioned bench capper of my own

that was found BRAND NEW at a second-hand store (Thanks John).  I have

not used screw tops since I have had this capper, but I think it would

cap them fine.  The difference:  Wing cappers grab the bottle and

squeeze the crown onto the bottle while bench cappers just push

the crown down onto the bottle.  Perhaps the cappers that commercial

breweries like SN use cap the bottles like the bench capper and so

screw tops are not a problem.

 I think a bigger problem is cheap, thin-glass bottles.  BTW...

does anyone have any idea of the life expectency of a bottle for beer.

As we re-use bottles, they get pressurized (slowly) and de-pressurized

(quickly).  How much of this stress can an ordinary bottle take?

 -toot

------------------------------


Wanted: Sam Smith Oatmeal Stout clone

Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1993 14:27:50 -0800 (PST)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@ZGI.COM>

Subject: Wanted: Sam Smith Oatmeal Stout clone

***

*** WARNING - WARNING - WARNING - This post may contain flame-bait.

***

*** WARNING - WARNING - WARNING - This post may contain the word orgasm.

*** If you find such words offensive, you have my sympathy.

***

But seriously folks, I'm looking for an all grain Samual Smith's Oatmeal

Stout recipe.

I just went through the Cats Meow 2 and every HBD from 881031 to 1277

looking for postings containing the words "oats" or "oatmeal.  Although

there are many requests and lots of extract recipes there is not a single

all grain recipe reputed to be a Sam Smith clone!  I don't need to tell

you, I was suprised!

So let's see 'em.  (Do it now)  Directly to me or post them to the HBD.

(Don't wait, do it now)  Damn the bandwidth!  (Mail recipe now)  There have

been too few recipes posted recently.  This is what it's all about.

Getting information into the hands of the People!  Freeing the People from

the shackles of AB tyranny!  Power to The People!

Whoa..., flashback.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Bruheat vs. picnic cooler

Date: Sat, 20 Nov 93 16:28:00 +0800

From: rob.skinner@kandy.com (Rob Skinner)

Subject: Bruheat vs. picnic cooler

Paul writes:

>Would this be a wise investment?  Can the Bru-Heat bring a 5 gal batch

>to a reasonably quick boil?  Is it the right way to go for mashing?

>Or should I really spend many $$ and buy a stainles steel pot, propane

>cooker, picnic cooler mash tun, sparging manifold, etc, etc, etc ....

    When I was ready to take the plunge to all-grain,

    several friends talked me into going with the picnic

    cooler setup.  I'm glad they did;  it's the closest you can

    get to unattended brewing.  There is no worry about scorched

    grain, stirring, etc.

    If your worried about the cost, you might be able to get off

    cheaper with the cooler setup.  If you can dig up an old

    cooler, are willing to settle for an enamel pot, and have an

    understanding spouse who will let you use the kitchen stove,

    you can get started for under fifty bucks.

    Word of caution though:  some inexpensive coolers are made of

    plastic that cannot withstand the temperature of boiling

    water.  I use a Coleman with the metal exterior, and it's

    still like new.

------------------------------


Boiler siphoning

Date: Sun, 21 Nov 93 08:01:03 PST

From: hollen@megatek.megatek.com (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Boiler siphoning

I am leaving too much wort behind in my boiler after siphoning to

primary fermenter.  I leave about .75 gal as a combination of what is

held in the hops and what is left because the hop bed causes my siphon

to "break".  I use a Sankey keg as a boiler.  It has a 1/2" pipe

nipple coming in from the side and an elbow and nipple going down into

the botto.  Over the nipple is a screen (1/8" grid) to keep out the

whole hops.  When I let liquid out and there is no hops, then all but

about 1/2 cup of liquid is removed.

1) How much liquid do you leave in your boiler including

 in the hop bed.

2) Any suggestions, or do I just figure in the excess wort

 needed to be left behind?

------------------------------


first all grain! (questions)

Date: Sun, 21 Nov 93 10:43:37 MST

From: "Mark B. Alston" <c-amb@math.utah.edu>

Subject: first all grain! (questions)

Well, I just brewed my first all grain yesterday.  It was a blast!  I

have never done an partial-mash before this all-grain but it went

fairly smoothly anyhow.  However, after having actually done a mash

new questions come up which I didn't even think of before.

I'll post a summary of my procedures and equipment later.  I think

that it might be useful to those thinking about going all grain.  With

the right equipment I think that it can be quite easy.  As I just

found out.

1) I brewed a porter because my water is high in bicarbs and I didn't

   want to worry about messing around with my water too much.

   Since Noonan and Miller and just about everyone else says that a

   dark mash has a higher p.h. I assume that they mean that I should

   add the dark grains to the mash at mash in.  Otherwise, I will have

   a mash which is the same as a pale ale mash and will have p.h.

   problems.  Is this not correct?  This is where I ran into my

   problem.  Having such a dark mash it was impossible to tell what my

   p.h. papers were telling me.  The wort (or is it not called wort

   till after the mash?)  simply stained them a dark color.

   Everything went fine anyhow.  I achived conversion regardless of the

   p.h. but it was still confusing.  How do you all check the p.h. of

   your dark mashes?

2) This dark color brought out another problem.  There would be no way

   to tell if iodine went black or not.  The mash was black on it's own.

   Thus, I could not test for conversion.  I simply let the mash sit

   at conversion temp for almost 2 hours.  The liquid tasted sweet at

   this point so I went on.  I achived an O.G. of 1.061 so I must have

   gotten conversion.  So, how do you check for conversion of a dark mash?

3) For checking my extraction efficiency do I use the total grain

   weight (pale, chocolate, patent, crystal) or what?  It seems that by

   including all the grains dark mashes will always seem less efficient

   than pale mashes even though I might have extracted the same amount

   from the pale malt. Moreover, I boiled off more liquid than I had

   intended and was left with only 4.25 gal or so in my carboy.  So

   according to miller it seems that I should do the following:

       Degrees = (1.061 * 4.25)/10 = .45

   since my total grain bill came to 10 lbs (8 lbs pale malt) and I

   was only left with 4.25 gal.

   What does this mean.  Is this good or bad or what.  Miller gives me

   no idea as to how what numbers I should get.

Thanks for any and all info.

Mark (c-amb@math.utah.edu)

------------------------------


Liquid yeast storage

Date: Sun, 21 Nov 1993 13:25:25 -0500 (EST)

From: "David H. Thomas" <dhthomas@lis.pitt.edu>

Subject: Liquid yeast storage

I am relatively new to brewing (ca. 10 brews) and am using liquid yeast

for the first time.

I'm looking for info concerning the storage of liquid yeast cultures from

one brew to the next.  The folks who sold me the package of liquid yeast

(Wyeast London) told me I could reuse the yeast by storing it. Papazhian

says not a whole lot about this. What precisely do I save? How much do I

save? What do I save it in? Where do I save it?

I seem to recall reading somewhere a bit about this--was it Dave Miller's

book? (The title of which I can't seem to recall).

Any help on this would be useful.

Cheers,

David Thomas

dhthomas@icarus.lis.pitt.edu

"What is this quotation stuff about, anyhow?"

------------------------------


crabtree effect

Date: Sun, 21 Nov 1993 14:37:30 -0500

From: tmgierma@acpub.duke.edu (Todd Gierman)

Subject: crabtree effect

In digest #1277, the question was asked:

>Pardon my igorance, but what is the Crabtree Effect supposed to do to my beer,

>and why would one avoid it?  It seems it has to do with oxygen production, and

>of course I know why I don't want oxygen in my beer at bottling, but could

>someone explain the effect in greater detail?

Quite simply the "Crabtree Effect" is really an observation that goes like this:

In the presence of high glucose concentrations (>0.5%), yeast will continue

to utilize fermentation even when oxygen is introduced into their

environment.  This phenomenon is sometimes called "aerobic fermentation."

I don't know whether this explains the phenomenon of carbonating through

the addition of dextrose.  It may actually be that the addition of dextrose

provides a carbon source at concentrations below 0.5% and now the yeast

respire giving off CO2 and no alcohol (the addition of priming sugar does

not increase alcohol content, right?)

You see, basically, yeast ferment whenever they can and respire only when

they have to (that is, when fermentables are low).  In a glucose based

nutrient system, anyway, yeast grow primarily by fermentation - glucose

itself represses the expression of the enzymes required for respiration.

Once the glucose is depleted to very low levels the yeast then kick into

respiration mode, which requires oxygen and which can result in the

catabolism of alcohol and acetaldehyde in addition to glucose.

Well, you say, "my wort is mainly maltose, so I know they are respiring

until the oxygen is depleted."  There is actually glucose present in your

wort prior to pitching the yeast, as well as other sugars(maltose,

dextrins, etc).  Glucose and fructose enter the yeast cell via passive

diffusion.  Maltose, on the other hand, is actively transported and can be

consumed at a rate that exceeds glucose, in spite of the fact that it must

be broken down enzymatically into two molecules of glucose.

So, do the yeast respire early after pitching?  I seriously doubt it.  Like

I said, in a glucose-based environment they ferment their little hearts out

(figuratively).  Maltose is actually two glucose molecules coupled and once

broken is actually catabolized as ordinary glucose.  So the real question

here is:  does maltose affect yeast metabolism in a manner identical to

glucose (does it also repress respiration)?  I suspect that it does, but do

not know for certain.

Why do we aerate then?  Well, I understand that it is important for the

synthesis of sterols, which, I assume, act, in part, as regulators of

growth.

This is an issue that should be cleared up (fermentation vs. respiration),

as it gets thrown around these threads on a regular basis.  Perhaps,

someone with access to the real brewing literature could better address

this question, i.e. the effect of abundant fermentables on respiration in

yeast.

Todd Gierman

Dept. of Microbiology

Duke University Medical Center

------------------------------


A Defense of Sam Adams

Date: 21 Nov 93 15:02:38 EST

From: "Kevin M. Watts" <75250.2033@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: A Defense of Sam Adams

Chris (responding to Al) writes:

>>    I continue my boycott of Samuel Adams products!

>     Your loss.  Although Koch may be a slime bag, he makes a decent

      product.

A slimebag? Really? Sometimes this guy comes off sounding like Hitler in the

HBD.

You may question his marketing techniques regarding the GABF and his

trademarking of the word "Boston".

Regarding the first...it seems to me that GABF got a heck of a lot of free

advertising since 1986/7 when SA began running those radio spots that mention

"winner three/four years running of the GABF." True, he may not have explained

the ins and outs of the awards process. He should be chastised for it. But if I

remember correctly, GABF didn't complain until much later. Meanwhile, their

attendance has doubled and tripled. The first time I ever heard about GABF was

via those radio commercials, and I've attended two of them now.

Regarding the second...as a marketing slimebag myself, I understand the need to

maintain product identification. A guy walks into the store and sees "Boston

Lager" and "Boston Stock Ale", both SA products, then sees "Boston Bock" or some

other product by another manufacturer, and it stinks. Potential for problems for

SA? You bet. Trademarking is as old as the hills.

The love of Sam Adams inspired my search for good beer. You may disagree with

his techniques, but remember, this is a business. How many brewers go bust every

year? How many make a real profit? And, more to the point, how many micros can

claim the widespread distribution of SA? I walked into a small town bar outside

of Decatur, Alabama last year and they had SA on tap! It certainly did beat a

Bud.

This "slimebag" is the same guy who closed down his plant and took this entire

staff to DisneyWorld to celebrate their anniversary. I don't know the man

personally, but that sounds like a good boss to me.

I suppose I'm about to get flamed by all the pure-of-heart beer geeks out there,

and I'm ready. If you know something I don't about James Koch, something truly

evil, then please let me know. I just think that calling for the boycott of a

very good product and calling people really rude names in a public forum is

silly.

Just a thought. Now lets get back to the real beer stuff.

      -Kevin/Chicago

------------------------------


bottle bomb weizen

Date: Sun, 21 Nov 93 16:29:48 EST

From: ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu (Ulick Stafford)

Subject: bottle bomb weizen

I had my first ever bottle bomb.  It was a weizen and the cause was

quite obvious.  I deliberately followed every step in Warner's book,

even when I questioned it.  One such point was to do with

carbonataion and for 5 gallons he recommends priming with either

1.6 qt of Speise or 1.8 quarts of wort.  Obviously there is more

sugar in the former (21B first runnings from Laeuter tun) than in

the latter , ~13B, but I used the former anyway.   I couldn't bring

myslef to bottle after 2 days - the ferment had been low ~60F, but

I bottled after 4 without bothering to change yeast.  Anyway, after

a week I had a perfect, if overcarbonated Weizen.  A German friend of

mine and another Irishman who lived for a while in Germany thought

it was spot on.

Anyway, while milling grain for a new batch down in my basemnt (now

a 5-10 minute job with the MM instead of the previous 20+ with the

Corona), a bottle blew - a longneck returnable, although probably flawed.

I immediatly made space in my 40F lager for the rest to stop yeast

activity and disolve more CO2.  Later that evening my German friend

called and asked me to bring over some weizen as his party guests wanted to

try it.  I told him of the mishap and he responded that usually one case in

three of commercial weizen in Germany would have a bottle bomb - so it must

be good!  Anyway I brought it over and it was a hit with 'genau richtig'

being a typical comment.  This would seem to prove what a good book Eric

Warner has written.  He won the best weizen in 1992 at the AHA national, I

think, and a brewer following his procedure won this year, although all

the judges said his beer was a gusher.  My next batch - 2 days old now

so about reeady to bottle will be primed with just one quart of Speise.

In 1277.  Lee Menegoni comments that saccarificqation rests for decoction

mashes should be longer because enzymes have been denatured. I'm not sure

if this is the case.  A decoction procedure should involve a rest

at 150-160 for 15 minutes, whcih should be long enough with modern malts

to convert all starches in the decocotion that are available, and the actual

boil will make the other starches much more accessible.  I have found

that 20 minutes after combining the mashes is plenty to complete conversion

with modern malts.  If malt quality is poor, a double or triple decoction

should be employed.

Norm Pyle asks about the Crabtree effect, but Al K gave a good explanation

to which I will only add that when disaccharides such as maltose are

present in high concnetration the yeast cells enter their respiration phase

consuming oxygen, so that they can release extracellular enzymes that then

split the disacchaides into monosaccharides, that can then be absorbed

through the cell walls.  When monosaccharides (well glucose anyway) predominate

the yeast cells do not need to repire as they can absorb the monosaccharides

through their cell walls without the need to excrete enzymes.

I have one question.  Al mentioned that the Crabtree effect will occur if

monosaccharides predominate.  Is this true for fructose, and if so what

happens when sucrose is present?  Would the sucrose become invert (fructose

and glucose) if added to the slightly acid beer as a bottling sugar, or

would the repiration phase be intiated as in the case of maltose or

maltotriose?

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


Lyles Golden Syrup

Date: Sun, 21 Nov 93 15:29:00 -0400

From: barry.miller@som.linet.org (Barry Miller)

Subject: Lyles Golden Syrup

For those who are interested, Lyles Golden Syrup can be purchased from G.B.

Ratto & Company, International Grocers Inc. 821 Oakland St. Oakland, CA

94607-4029.  1-800-325-3483.  The syrup is listed in my catalog as item #2770,

16 oz. tin at $5.95.

Even if you are not interested in the syrup, get a copy of Ratto's catalog.

They have a superb selection of specialty and imported food items, spices etc.

at reasonable prices. (I have no relationship with Ratto's other then as a very

satisfied customer)

Barry Miller

barry.miller@som.linet.com

- ----

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

|  SOM Premium Info Network   516-536-8723 Hayes v.32bis USR DS/Hayes 28.8k |

|  Oceanside, New York -- Home of the Smartnet International Email Network  |

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


sanitation mehtods

Date: 21 Nov 1993 20:45:21 -0800 (PST)

From: p41539@tcville.hac.com (Vernon Hutchens)

Subject: sanitation mehtods

I have been homebrewing for a year now, and I have been sanitizing

everything with a mild bleach solution.  No problems.

A good friend of mine works in the food processing industry, and he

says that I should use hydrogen peroxide to sanitize, like the food

pros do.  Is this a good idea?  I am not motivated to change, but he

won't leave me alone without a rebuttal.

Fisher Hutchens            hutchens@igate1.hac.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1278, 11/22/93

*************************************

-------


HSA

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 09:06:07 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: HSA

Mike Sharp in HBD#1277 correctly points out that there are two schools

of thought about HSA. In its defense is the well established point that

HSA definitely increases the colloidal stability of beer. This has been

demonstrated in the excellent article by Morton in MBAA Tech. Qr., Vol. 23,

1985, to cite but one reference. Since materials oxidized by HSA are derived

from malt (melanoidins, phenols, et al), HSA does find selected application

for light beers having a low malt fraction.

I, on the other hand, remain very negative about HSA. Removing HSA from my

system has lead to a discernible increase in overall beer quality. This is

not only a subjective evaluation, but indeed the performance of beers I have

brewed in sanctioned competitions has dramatically improved since the change

was made. While yeast quality and proper sanitation are by far the two most

important issues, in my system avoidance of HSA comes in third ahead of many

other issues.

George Fix

------------------------------


Sam Adams bashing, etc

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 10:03:03 EST

From: Iron City Beer has Iron in it <ambroser@APOLLO.DML.GEORGETOWN.EDU>

Subject: Sam Adams bashing, etc

>I continue my boycott of Samuel Adams products!

>>Your loss.  Although Koch may be a slime bag, he makes a decent

>>product.

>Yes, he makes decent beer.  But so do literally hundreds of good, decent people

>who avoid using the strong-arm tactics of the neighborhood bully to sell their

>product.

>So, why would you want to buy beer from these people?  You can buy good beer,

>better than Koch's, from good people.

I just had to add my $.02.

In the past year or two, I have not considered S.A. (forget the TM junk) a real

microbrew. To be technical, I'd say it is rather a MINIbrew. I make this

comparison like comparing computers. A Mainframe is Bud, Miller, etc. A Micro

is Mendocino, Celis, and the like. S.A. is more like a Mini, it is bigger than

a Micro but smaller than a Mainframe. Lets face it, once you begin to sell

your brew "all over the country" and have (can afford) radio commercials "all

over the country", you're not a "little guy" any more. S.A. is good, "but [there

are] literally hundreds of good, decent people" out there that make a beer as

good or better than S.A. (IMHO).  As far as "Boston" being a trademark, I don't

think that single word is anybody's trademark. "Boston Beer Company" is Jim's

trademark, but I feel you could call your beer Boston Lager, Boston Ale, etc

and would not be violating any trademarks.  Lastly, saying you are going to

boycott S.A. is fine. It is your choice. But asking other people to boycott it

is rediculous. It would be like saying "Boycott Budweiser because they aren't

really the King of Beers", or on another subject "The Washington Redskins,

Cleveland Indians, and Atlanta Braves have to change their names because they

are demeaning" is just as rediculous. IMHO, I don't drink S.A. because I'd

rather pick up some other obscure name that I haven't tried before, like

Fat Tire Ale, or another well known but true micro brew like Black Hawk Stout

or S.N. Porter. Lets quit all of this Jim Koch and S.A. bashing.

The only thing he can not say any more is "four years running". He can still

say "four years in a row" though. Lets get more politically correct.

Jim Koch may use "slime bag" advertising tactics, but I don't think he IS a

"slime bag".

Time to go to the fridge for some Chimay......

------------------------------


Astringency...

Date: 22 Nov 93 15:04:14 GMT

From: GANDE@slims.attmail.com

Subject: Astringency...

>From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

>Subject: Astringency

 >>From: GANDE@slims.attmail.com

>>Further to this one could assume that it would be OK to sparge with

>> boiling water, which is accurate as long as your grain bed pH

>> doesn't raise above 5.3, ideally. <SNIP)

 >That's a nice number but like so many things, it is only a bench

 >mark.  What if the pH rose to 5.4 or 5.7... would it make a

 >detectable difference?  I doubt it.

I'd have to agree with you regarding a slight raise in pH such as

that.  But,the pH 7.0, boiling water is in fact in contact with the

top 1/2 inch of the grain bed.  I agree that at the bottom of the

mash it's likely to be in the mid 5's due to the grain buffering

action, yet this is not a true statement about the top portion,

especially at the interface beteween the 200+F water and the grain

bed, namely the top half inch or so.

>>...boiled for 10 minutes in tap water

>> (pH 7.0) and it was what I would call astringent.  That's enough

>> proof for me.  ;)

> All that says is that boiling tap water with a pH of 7.0 will make

> astringent tea.   As you did not convert the starch into sugar, the

> astringency could just be the way malt tea tastes without the

> sweetening effect of conversion.

Not sure what you mean, but a major componant of judging beer is

being able to separate flavors. If astringency is present it makes no

difference how sweet (or sour, salty, bitter, etc..) the remainder of

the liquid is.

> In the real world, sparge water is run through the mash which has a

> powerful buffering effect on the water.   I run 10 or more gallons

> of pH 7 sparge water through my mash and it doesn't raise the pH

> more than a tenth point or so.  Furthermore, sparge water temp is

> not the same as mash temp nor does it bear any relationship to

> making tea with boiling water.

As long as pH is measured at the bottom of the grain. Try this. After

about 45 minutes of sparging (in whatever fashion you prefer).

a. add some boiling water to the top of the grain bed.

b. remove about half of a cup of grain/water mixture (from the top)

c. check the pH

I'd bet the temperature is up around 200F and the pH is not much

under 7.0. One can assume that tannins are being extracted and

astringency created. This may seem trivial to a 20 LB mash, but those

that do partial mashes (say a couple of pounds of grain and extract)

may notice the astringency.

> Finally, it does not address the fact that boiling grain in

> decoction mashing does not seem to produce astringent beer.

Yes it does.  My statement is that pH in the mid 5's (optimum 5.3)

will prevent/reduce tannin extraction.  Boiling a pH 5.3 mash portion

is different than adding boiling, pH 7 water to grain.  Not sure what

you mean here.

I am not trying to convince anyone that this is fact. It is my

understanding of how astringency is created and why astringency is

NOT created in decoction mashing.

 ...GA

+----------------------------------+

| Internet: gande@slims.attmail.com|

| Glenn Anderson                   |

| Manager, Telecom. Facilities     |

| Sun Life of Canada               |

+----------------------------------+

------------------------------


Burners ?

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 09:36:37 -0600

From: graham%spock.dnet@SEDSystems.ca

Subject: Burners ?

I have been brewing all grain for several years now, the last few using

a 38 qt. stainless pot.  I am using a large electric stove element

mounted on a piece of .25" aluminium connected to a 240 volt 40 amp

source as my burner.  This has proven to be barely adequate to boil 6-7

us gallons of wort.  Getting the already warm wort up to a boil can

take an hour (45 min if I cover the pot with an old sleeping bag). My

question is what are the alternatives for burners?  Would 2 (or for that

matter 3) small stove elements provide more heat than the single large one?

I suspect that a gas burner would provide more heat and have been

considering stealing the side burner off of the propane BBQ. (After a

massive boil over on the kitchen stove I now brew in the garage, so

ventilation  is not a concern). Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

Reid Graham    "graham@sedsystems.ca"

SED Systems Inc

Saskatoon SK

------------------------------


Re: First All-Grain

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 8:36:43 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Re: First All-Grain

Mark Alston writes:

(Mark, I can't help with your questions on checking pH and starch conversion

on dark mashes, I only do pale mashes, but...)

>3) For checking my extraction efficiency do I use the total grain

>   weight (pale, chocolate, patent, crystal) or what?  It seems that by

>   including all the grains dark mashes will always seem less efficient

>   than pale mashes even though I might have extracted the same amount

>   from the pale malt. Moreover, I boiled off more liquid than I had

>   intended and was left with only 4.25 gal or so in my carboy.  So

>   according to miller it seems that I should do the following:

>

>       Degrees = (1.061 * 4.25)/10 = .45

>

>   since my total grain bill came to 10 lbs (8 lbs pale malt) and I

>   was only left with 4.25 gal.

>

>   What does this mean.  Is this good or bad or what.  Miller gives me

>   no idea as to how what numbers I should get.

I include all of the grain bill in my calculations, which I suspect, is one of

the reasons I get lower extract rates than claims here in HBD land (procedural/

equipment differences accounting for the rest).  Anyway, I would like to see

this answered by those claiming 30+, 32+, etc. points/pound/gallon.  The dark

malts, in my understanding, do not add sugars to the liquor, and really

probably shouldn't be added to the grain bill when measuring efficiency.  I add

them in anyway, but I suspect others do not.  I guess one question would be:

if you don't include all grains in the calculation, which ones do you exclude?

You did the calculation wrong, BTW.  For future reference/comparison:

        Extract = (61 pts * 4.25 gal)/(10 lb)

                =  26 pts...

I get around 25 points using the entire grain bill (of course, higher for pale

beers, lower for dark beers), so you are in the ballpark.  You can probably do

better with a "normal" sparge (I do a batch sparge), but it is a good starting

point.  Also, you apparently measured the final volume in the carboy, which

takes into account losses after the mash/sparge (i.e. volume left in the

kettle, soaked up in the hops, etc.).  For a more accurate measure of your

mash/sparge you should take this reading from the kettle.  At this point, you

more concerned with your mash efficiency, not the efficiency of the entire

brewery.  I think it makes for a better comparison with other brewers, too, to

take the gravity readings from the kettle liquor.

Norm

------------------------------


Re: Hop Oils as a Preservative

Date:     Mon, 22 Nov 93 10:36:13 EST

From: "Glen A. Wagnecz, X6616" <wagnecz@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  Re: Hop Oils as a Preservative

Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com> writes:

>Subject: Hop Oils as a Preservative

>Actually there are studies that show that hop oils (responsible for the

>aroma) do have a preservative effect and do inhibit the growth of

>bacteria.  And for an informal opinion, Fritz Maytag strongly believes

>that dry-hopped beers last much longer (like 10-20 years) than beers that

>are not dry hopped.  He bases this on tasting his Christmas Ales from

Mark-

 Have these beers that last this long been carbonated via

priming or forced carbonated?  I was under the impression that beers

that are carb'd via priming last only about 2-3 months, due to the

presence of the spent yeast sediment in the bottle.  Please "clarify"

whether these long lasting beers were primed or forced and other

necessary specifics.

   Thanks In Advance-

    Glen

P.S. Thanks for the catalog, are the '93 whole hops in yet?

------------------------------


Just made a wort chiller - any break-in required?

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 10:38:08 EST

From: 22-Nov-1993 1037 -0500 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Just made a wort chiller - any break-in required?

I just made myself a wort chiller.  I bought 50' of 3/8" ID copper tubing

($29), a plastic hose, some clamps, etc;  total cost about $37.00 or so.

Now, if there any sort of break-in procedure I need to use to avoid having

any sort of reaction between the fresh copper and my wort?

Thanks,

JC Ferguson

------------------------------


calcium Chloride

Date: 22 Nov 93 11:07:00 EST

From: "TIMOTHY LABERGE" <LABERGET@gar.union.edu>

Subject: calcium Chloride

Thanks to everyone who responded to my request for ways to treat my hard

water.  The gist of most of the replies was "Boil it!".  That said, a

few suggested adding calcium chloride and then boiling.  Does anyone

have a source for this?  What about for lactic acid?

Thanks again,

Tim LaBerge

Union College

No fancy sig--just good beer.

------------------------------


Bay Area Brewoff Competition Announcement

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 09:05:01 +0800

From: bjones@novax.llnl.gov (Bob Jones)

Subject: Bay Area Brewoff Competition Announcement

**************************** Competition Announcement **************************

Well it's that time of year again for the Bay Area Brewoff. The catagories

this year will be :

India Pale Ale

Pale Ale

Bock (Traditional, Helles & Dopplebock)

Porter

Dry Stout

Barleywine/Wheatwine

Holiday beer (specify spices/herbs and special ingredients)

Mead (melomel, cyser, metheglin - sparkling or still)

Competition date : Jan. 22, 1994

Entry fee : $5 per entry.

Entry - Two 12oz. bottle per entry. Label with name, address, phone number &

club affiliation, catagory and sub-catagory if any.

Place : Lyon's Brewery Depot, 7294 San Ramon Rd., Dublin, Ca. 94568

Entries accepted : Jan. 1-8, 1994 (ship to arrive this week)

This is a good competition with good judges, and always a lot of fun. Judges

comments will be sent to all entrants. Prizes and ribbons are awarded.

I'll make this announcement one more time in December. Thanks for listening.

Bob Jones

bjones@novax.llnl.gov

------------------------------


Decoction: Conversion times

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 12:26:12 EST

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Decoction: Conversion times

RE: My suggestion that one should kettle mash longer than 15 minutes.

I should have prefaced my comment on kettle mash times with the fact that I

use under modified German Pilsner, Vienna and Munich malts for brews with a

decoction mash. I have found these take longer than highly modified US or

Belgian malts to convert.  My primary motivation in using these malts is from

George Fixes analysis of the Belgian malts in Brewing Techniques in which he

notes that they are lower in the precursor that produces the malty flavor and

aroma compared to good German malts.  Since I am doing a decotion to develop

these components I use the malt with the greatest potential.

RE single decotion step with 50% of the grain.

If the intent is to produce a rich malty aroma and flavor then why don't

you do 2 decotions of 1/3 each like Noonan?

It takes too long.  With the under modified German malts each decoction adds

45 to 60 minutes to the brewing process.

------------------------------


Coors Winterfest

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 11:08:15 MST

From: Rick Myers <rcm@col.hp.com>

Subject: Coors Winterfest

Norm writes:

> Anyone tried this year's Coors Winterfest?  It is (this is no lie!) robust,

> dark brown/red, balanced (surprise), and quite tasty.  There are even some

> fruity components that make me wonder if it an ale.  From Coors?  No way!  It

> certainly is an order of magnitude better than last year's boring amber lager.

> Oh, it is still marketed as a stout, HA!  It is no stout but it is good beer.

Yes, I've tried it and like it!  However, I feel the balance leaves a

little to be desired - too bitter and too little malt.  I like my

brews bitter, but there's not quite enough malt there to offset the

bitterness.  It is quite a bit darker this year, but, the most

impressive thing is:  THE LABEL!  Check it out!  It's laser-etched

or something like that.  Also new for this year, is a larger bottle

size.  You can get it in the usual 12oz. bottles, or the larger

micro-brewery style bottle of about 26 ounces - I don't remember

the actual size.

Rick

- --

Rick Myers  (rcm@col.hp.com)

Information Technology Specialist

Hewlett-Packard Test & Measurement Organization Information Technology

Colorado Springs, CO

------------------------------


Deadbrew

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 12:57:54 EST

From: dweller@GVSU.EDU (RONALD DWELLE)

Subject: Deadbrew

          Started a 5-gallon batch 7 days ago, all seeming normal. Waited,

          waited, nothing happened. Waited waited patiently. Nothing still

          happened. My guess is that I pitched the yeast and it dropped dead

          (for godknows why).

          Question:  to re-do, I'm guessing that I can just heat to near boil,

          to kill the critters that might have grown, chill, and re-pitch?

          Or should I do something more?

          Toss the wort?

          I'm leaving it sit til I hear from someone (nothing's happening

          anyway).

          Ron Dwelle (dweller@gvsu.edu at Internet)

          "Four Score And Seven Beers Ago

          It was Friday."

------------------------------


Re:Crabtree effect

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 13:12:10 EST

From: carlsont@GVSU.EDU (TODD CARLSON)

Subject: Re:Crabtree effect

          Several recent messages have questioned the type of

          metabolism taking place in bottles primed with dextrose

          (glucose).  The question:

          Is the concentration of glucose in primed beer high enough

          to inhibit respiration (the Crabtree effect)?

          or as stated yesterday:

          >It may actually be that the addition of dextrose provides

          >a carbon source at concentrations below 0.5% and now the

          >yeast respire giving off CO2 and no alcohol (the addition

          >of priming sugar does not increase alcohol content, right?)

          Not an insignificant question since the CO2 yield from

          respirtation is 3 times higher than the CO2 yield from

          fermentation (see equations 1 and 2 below)

          eq 1: fermentation of glucose

               C6H12O6 ------> 2 C2H5OH + 2 CO2

                               (ethanol)

          eq 2: respiration of glucose

               C6H12O6 + 6 O2 --------> 6 CO2 + 6 H2O

          (pardon the lack of subscripts in all chemical formulas)

          Perhaps this analysis will help.  You must also remember to

          include the other character in the respiration reaction -

          oxygen.  Three quarters cup of glucose is about 145 grams

          which (at 180 g/mol) converts to 0.805 moles of glucose.

          Respiration of that much glucose would require 6 times as

          many moles of O2 (4.83 moles of O2).  Assuming ideal gas

          behavior (using PV=nRT, P=1 atm, R=0.0821 L-atm/mol-K, and

          T=298K or 25C) that converts to 118 L of oxygen gas!  But 5

          gal (18.9 L) of beer saturated with O2 at a concentration of

          3.16 mL O2/100 mL of water (as per the CRC Handbook of

          Chemistry and Physics) would contain only 0.597 L of

          dissolved O2.  In other words, aerobic respiration of

          glucose in a closed bottle of O2 saturated beer could only

          account for the consumption of 0.5% of the added glucose.

          It seems to me that primed beer must be carbonated with

          anaerobic fermentation (eq 1).

          If so, then the complete fermentation of the 0.805 moles of

          glucose would produce 1.61 moles each of ethanol and CO2.

          At 46 grams/mol, this increases the ethanol concentation by

          74.1 g or 0.4% (based on 18,900 g for 5 gal of water).  I

          would guess the actual increase would be less at aerobic

          respiration is negligible (see above) and glucose matabolism

          is probably incomplete.  As for the CO2, the 1.61 moles

          produced would increase the pressure to about 2 atmospheres

          or 30 psi (again using PV=nRT) assuming the beer is already

          saturated with CO2.  As for the ethanol, this would be a

          maximum estimate.  What is the desired CO2 pressure of

          finished beer?  Does this sound about right?

          Todd Carlson

          carlsont@gvsu.edu

------------------------------


boiler waste/respiration

Date: 22 Nov 1993 13:03:11 -0500

From: "Daniel F McConnell" <Daniel_F_McConnell@mailgw.surg.med.umich.edu>

Subject: boiler waste/respiration

Subject:  boiler waste/respiration

From: hollen@megatek.megatek.com (Dion Hollenbeck)

>I am leaving too much wort behind in my boiler after siphoning to

>primary fermenter.  I leave about .75 gal as a combination of what is

>held in the hops and what is left because the hop bed causes my siphon

>to "break".  I use a Sankey keg as a boiler.

>2) Any suggestions, or do I just figure in the excess wort

 needed to be left behind?

I had the same problem and recently solved it to my complete

satisfaction.  I was leaving up to a gallon in the boiler

especially when large amounts of hops were used.  It really

bothered me so I installed a copper false bottom in my boiler

that has thousands of 1 mm dia holes and is supported by a ss

grid.  It was purchased from Pico Brewing Systems.  My drain

has a Cu dip tube that goes to the very bottom of the boiler

and will siphon out all but a few ozs of wort.  If you use

whole hops, then most of the trub sticks to the leaves and

acts as a filter.  Pellets can be used in small amounts (I've

used up to 2 oz), but they will plug the false bottom (I'm

told) unless some whole hops are used.  I have had no

problems with carmelization of high gravity initial run off,

although if you use extracts, I would be very careful to

dilute the extract well before adding to the boiler.

*******************************************************

>From Patrick Weix weix@swmed.edu

>Fermentation is what occurs during the

>*anaerobic* growth of yeast, so if one aerated, fermentation would

>just stop. They would go on living and turning sugars into CO2, but they

>would not make any *ethanol*. (They of course being the yeast!)

Not exactly.  High concentrations of sugars REPRESS the

ability of the yeast cell to undergo aerobic respiration even

at high oxygen levels.  This is catabolite repression.

In aerobic conditions the yeast DOES produce ethanol, but it

is oxidized to CO2 and water when the sugar is gone.  In

ANaerobic conditions the yeast can not oxidize the ethanol

produced and it remains in solution.

>My point being: aerate early, then leave it alone.

Still an excellent point.

DanMcC

------------------------------


Re: Defense of Jim Koch

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 13:09:16 EST

From: John DeCarlo                              <jdecarlo@homebrew.mitre.org>

Subject: Re: Defense of Jim Koch

Well, Hitler may have loved his pets and family--we just judge by his actions

<grin>.  Trademarking may be as old as the hills, but "Boston" is a silly

thing to try and trademark (read, you can't) and besides, *no one* knows that

the word Boston is part of any Sam Adams products.  I did a survey of 35

people drinking the stuff and none of them had any idea.  Every single one

thought it was brewed by the Sam Adams brewery.

So, Jim may be a good marketer, but he is not an honest one.  That's basically

what we are judging him on.  Dishonest and disreputable marketing tactics,

whether law suits intended to damage competitors, mislabeled beer styles,

attempts to subvert competitions, or lies in radio ads, can have only a

damaging effect on a company or executives reputation.

The sad part, as so many defenders point out, is that he makes a half-decent

beer.  There are lots of restaurants/bars in the U.S. that carry SA and

nothing else even close in quality (usually megabrews).  If Koch simply

refrained from the underhanded activities he could have a slightly bigger

market and some respect.

Right now, Sam Adams *worst* customers are educated consumers.  They know

there is lots of stuff out there head and shoulders above his and that his

tactics are dishonorable.  It may be a tiny percentage now, but I think lots

of microbreweries out there are learning the lesson from this and emphasizing

good consumer relations through truthful advertising and proper labeling.

John DeCarlo, MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA--My views are my own

Fidonet:  1:109/131  Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

If I were you, who would be reading this sentence?

------------------------------


Spice usage information

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 10:23:33 -0800

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Spice usage information

  Now that you've all already started your Christmas ales, I thought

I'd toss out a little info based on my latest Christmas brew.  I

altered my spice boil schedule based on my guesstimate of how

volatile the desireable compound in the spices were.  Also note that I

use a CF chiller, and take 10 minutes to chill the 5 gallon batch.

You may want to add that time to the times listed below.  The base

beer was a lightly hopped (Cascade/Willamette) high gravity brown ale

(1.080 SG - 1.020 FG), using Wyeast American Ale Yeast

Spice: 4 cinnamon sticks at the beginning of the boil

Result: Warm underlying cinnamon flavor as desired

Spice: 4 ounces coarsely chopped ginger, added 5 minutes prior to end

       of boil.

Result: Walloping fresh ginger taste - too much.  I think this is the

        correct boil time for ginger, but I would reduce the amount to

 1-2 oz.

Spice: Peel from 4 juice oranges and one lemon Added 5 minutes prior

       to end of boil

Result: No discernable orange/lemon flavor.  I will add these at the very

        end of boil, or possibly via a hop back.

         Drew Lynch

  Chronologic Simulation, Los Altos, Ca.

      (415)965-3312x18

    drew@chronologic.com

------------------------------


A handy tip for making an immersion chiller

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 10:34:51 PST

From: Mitch Hendrickson <mitchh@hops.gvg.tek.com>

Subject: A handy tip for making an immersion chiller

As I was making a second immersion chiller this weekend (a gift for a

friend), I found that a 5 gal keg makes an ideal form around which to

wind the copper tubing. I found that I was able to get away without

even using the tubing bender (spring thing).  And it's a lot more

regular than my hand-bent version :-).

FWIW,

 -Mitch

------------------------------


RE: A Defense of Sam Adams

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 12:48:45 EST

From: lyons%adc1@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: RE: A Defense of Sam Adams

Al writes:

>>>    I continue my boycott of Samuel Adams products!

Chris writes:

>>     Your loss.  Although Koch may be a slime bag, he makes a decent

>>     product.

Kevin writes (In Defense of Sam Adams):

>A slimebag? Really? Sometimes this guy comes off sounding like Hitler in the

>HBD.

  ... summarizing additional comments (I'm going on a limb here, but the

      following is my interpertation of Kevin's comments):

  James Koch is not a slimebag, but a successful buisness man doing what

  is necessary to promote a successful product.

  ... (I hope I got that right)

I'm not sure I disagree.  Please note in my initial comment I used the

phrase "MAY BE a slime bag" and not "IS a slime bag".  The general tread on

these forums is that he "is" a slimebag.  I can't say from personnel

experience that this is true ... I don't know.  I do know that Koch

distributes a first rate product and I continue to purchase it as one of

the many quality brews I purchase.  In short, if a manufactor makes a

quality product at a reasonable cost, I'll support it.  It may take

unpopular practices to advertise a product to the mass-public, but a

products cost+quality performance will determine its ultimate fate once it

is sufficiently advertised.  I for one am glad to see that the mass-public

can recognize a quality brew after the many years of drinking the typical

american guzzle beer.

Chris

------------------------------


Siphoning Problems

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 14:05:28 -0500 (EST)

From: SFFG_WWIBLE@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU

Subject: Siphoning Problems

   I've got a glass racking crane, which I stick a flexible plastic hose onto,

the other end into the secondary/bottle filler.

   I used to have problems every now and then with gas building up in the

siphon and eventually stopping the flow.  Then, I figured out that the junction

of the hose with the crane wasn't always completely airtight.  Even a slightly

imperfect fit will result in allowing some air in.  Take a look.  If the gas is

building up at the top of the crane, and you have a similar setup, this might

be the problem.  I have always been able to fix it by twisting the hose just a

little bit, and get a perfect seal.

Will

------------------------------


crabtree redux

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 13:19:09 EST

From: sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com (Carl Howes)

Subject: crabtree redux

It looks like an experiment is in order here.  The question still is whether

or not the Crabtree effect is relevant to priming homebrew.  The

evidence so far is that priming with maltose (from DME, krausen, gyle) will

cause some (all?) of the headspace oxygen to be consumed and priming with

corn sugar will not.  General opinion (from those who expressed one) runs to

"it makes no real difference".  Has anyone tried such an experiment?  If

not, stay tuned and I'll report back in six months or so.  BTW, what good

is a PureSeal (tm) cap considering that it has been shipped/stored in a

20 percent oxygen atmosphere for some indeterminite period before use?

Carl

"Worry now and you will have a *good* homebrew to relax with later" - me

------------------------------


PET soda bottles/Aluminum brewpot

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 13:52:32 EST

From: "Mark T. Berard, Dow Plastics, LAD, TYRIN* CPE R&D"

Subject: PET soda bottles/Aluminum brewpot

Hello all,

 HBD seems mighty unfriendly these days, especially considering that

the holiday season is upon us, but I'll chance another beginners question.

Do people out there use PET Coke(tm) bottles to bottle beer in?  They seem

ideal.  They are obviously gas impermeable.  They come in a variety of

sizes, my favorite being 2 and 3 liter (cuts down on bottling time alot).

The caps seem to hold pressure, and you don't have to worry about breaking

them (should be ideal for travel or mailing them).  Plus, if you over-

carbonate, it shouldn't be that hard to release CO2 without having a

gusher.  I've only used them a couple of times (I normally use champagne

bottles with PE corks).  So, other than the complete lack of charisma, is

there something wrong with them that I'm missing?

On another note, thanks to all who responded to my aluminum pot question.

The consensus is that the acid wort can extract the aluminum, resulting in

a "metallic" taste in the beer (which I don't seem to have.)  Also, several

people noted that the Aluminum/Altzehimers connection was shown to be false,

something about the staining procedures for the brain cells was introducing

the Aluminum. i.e. Aluminum doesn't give you Altzehimers (I never could spell).

Special thanks to Drew Lynch for his post in 1277 on dry hopping.  A actual

experiment!  No snide comments!  A sure sign that HBD is "not dead yet!"

;-)  insert best Monty Python old man voice  ;-)

Thanks and Happy Holidays

Dr. Mark T. Berard                   |    Internet:  mtberard@dow.com

Snailmail:                           |    Voice:     504-353-8418

Dow Chemical, La. R&D, Bldg. 2506    |    FAX:       504-353-6608

PO Box 400, Plaquemine  LA  70765    |          SCIENCE!

------------------------------


Lovibond color scale

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 14:29:13 -0600 (CST)

From: Allen Ford <allen@darwin.sfbr.org>

Subject: Lovibond color scale

Am hoping for some answers (or at least appropriate references in order to

answer) the following questions regarding degrees Lovibond.

Is the scale completely linear?  That is, does 1 lb. of 50L grain result

in twice as much color in a beer as does 1 lb. of 25L grain used in an

identical manner.  Does 1 lb. of 500L grain give 50 times as much color as

1 lb.of 10L grain?

Does dilution of a beer with equal parts water result in a halving of the

color rating?

Do formulas exist that will allow one to accurately predict the final

color of a beer based on the Lovibond rating of the grains going in?

Answers to unasked questions may also be appreciated.

------------------------------


Hunter Airstat / flying brew

Date:  Mon, 22 Nov 1993 14:12:00 -0500

From: mike.sadul@canrem.com (Mike Sadul)

Subject: Hunter Airstat / flying brew

> After all of this interest in the Hunter Airstat, I am kind of

> interested in taking a look at one.  Could someone tell me where

> I can find one?

In Canada, the Hunter Airstat is imported by Melnor Manufacturing

Ltd. and it is sold under a different name.  It is model number C42215

and is called the Hunter Energy Monitor AC.  I found only one store

which carries it, Canadian Tire.  It's a bit pricey at $80, but

if you want it bad enough ...

> Has anyone else had any good or bad experiences carrying homebrew

> onto a plane?  Or, for that matter, checking homebrew in their

> luggage?

Not homebrew, but that other stuff known as store bought brew.

This happened a few years ago, flying out of Halifax, N.S.

I loaded up my carry on with an assortment of different brands

of six packs (cans).  Nothing out of the ordinary, just different

from what is available here.  That was one HEAVY bag.  As my bag went

into the X-ray machine, I glanced over at the video screen. The cans

showed up as a LARGE black blob. The security person rolled her eyes

into her head and looked up at the ceiling. After about half a

minute, I assumed she just wanted me to leave, so I picked up my

bag and walked away. No questions asked.

Mike

mike.sadul@canrem.com        Number of pieces of brewing

                             equipment purchased for this posting: 1

------------------------------


clarifying Wyeast 1028

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 15:44:44 EST

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: clarifying Wyeast 1028

I've never had problems clearing beer until I started using Wyeast #1028

(London Ale).  Is there a fining agent other than Isinglass that will

get this yeast to drop to the bottom?

- --Tony Verhulst

------------------------------


screw caps

Date:         Mon, 22 Nov 93 16:32:32 CST

From: Darren Evans-Young <DARREN@UA1VM.UA.EDU>

Subject:      screw caps

>From: Mark Taratoot <SLNDW@cc.usu.edu>

>

>        Now I have an old-fashioned bench capper of my own

>that was found BRAND NEW at a second-hand store (Thanks John).  I have

>not used screw tops since I have had this capper, but I think it would

>cap them fine.  The difference:  Wing cappers grab the bottle and

>squeeze the crown onto the bottle while bench cappers just push

>the crown down onto the bottle.  Perhaps the cappers that commercial

>breweries like SN use cap the bottles like the bench capper and so

>screw tops are not a problem.

Mark,

I used to think this too...til I tried to cap a screw cap with my

bench capper.  It leaked.  YMMV.  Try your bench capper and let

us know how it worked.

Darren

------------------------------


Iodine test with dark malt

Date:         Mon, 22 Nov 93 16:38:59 CST

From: Darren Evans-Young <DARREN@UA1VM.UA.EDU>

Subject:      Iodine test with dark malt

>From: "Mark B. Alston" <c-amb@math.utah.edu>

>Subject: first all grain! (questions)

>

>2) This dark color brought out another problem.  There would be no way

>   to tell if iodine went black or not.  The mash was black on it's own.

>   Thus, I could not test for conversion.  I simply let the mash sit

>   at conversion temp for almost 2 hours.  The liquid tasted sweet at

>   this point so I went on.  I achived an O.G. of 1.061 so I must have

>   gotten conversion.  So, how do you check for conversion of a dark mash?

Mark,

What I do is put one or two drops of mash liquor on the edge of a

white dish.  Tilt the dish so the dark liquor drips to the opposite

edge of the dish.  Put one or two drops of iodine next to this

long drip mark and tilt til they run together.  Your dark liquor

spread out across a dish will essential be clear so you can see

the reaction with the iodine.

Darren

------------------------------


building a hopback

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 16:19:20 EST

From: Pete Langlois <langlp@us0104tb.boston.NCR.COM>

Subject: building a hopback

    From:  Pete Langlois (Peter.Langlois@BostonMA.NCR.COM)

 Subject:  building a hopback

Drew Lynch writes about planning to build a hopback.

I gave the design that appears in the gadgets issue of Zymurgy a shot.  This

design features a ball jar with holes drilled through the lid, gromets, 3/8

in copper tubing, copper scrubbing pads, etc.

A couple of observations:  The ball jar top is inherently problematic.  I

had real trouble getting clean holes drilled (the lids kept producing little

burrs at the edges). Once the holes were made, the gromets tended to be cut

to ribbons too easily.  No amount of sanding helped. The "air-tightness" of

the design is highly questionable because of the gromets.

                               hot    hot

                abandon        in     out

                gromets       | |      | |

               for stopper  -----------------

                           |  # 13 Stopper   |

                           /-----------------/

                         /    | |       | |    /

                        |     | |       | |    |

                        |               | |    |

                        |               | |    |

                        |             [    ]   |  copper mesh

                        |             [____]   |  w/ hop bag cover

                        |   loose hops here    |

                         ______________________

                               Figure 1

The rest of the design was not too bad, so I adapted it (as in Figure 1)

|-).  A number 13 stopper drilled with care does a marvelous job.  I have

used this changed design with great (IMHO) results.  It is lasting well, and

works well with a pass-through wort chiller.  Also hopping the finishing

hops in this way passes hot wort through the hops minimizing infection

risks.  I sanitize the hop bag by boiling and use iodophors for everything else.

Hope this helps.

PETE

------------------------------


Harsh bitterness/Haze/Extractf

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 19:13:41 -0800 (PST)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@ZGI.COM>

Subject: Harsh bitterness/Haze/Extractf

I tend to do the same recipe until I get it right.  Before I commit to the

third attempt I thought I'd run some things by the community and see what

you-all think.  So my second Fullers ESB clone is now four weeks old and

still hazy with a harsh note to the bitterness. Here's my guess as to what

is going on, correct me if I speak nonsense or drivel.

I think the harsh bitterness, which is slowly mellowing, is from the high

alpha hops (Cluster) that I used to bitter (about 80% of the IBUs are from

Clusters, the rest Kent Goldings).  My guess is that my high sulfate (400ppm)

water treatment and the humulone analogs from the Clusters (a la G.J.Fix in

HBD #1264) combined to to give this harshness.

The first batch had the same harshness which faded in time, and it also

cleared very nicely.  In the latest I ... (small embarrassed cough) ...

forgot to take into account the water retained by the grist so came up

about a gallon short on my sparge.  It gets worse.  I drained the grain

bed dry, then sparged again with an additional 1.5 gallons @ 180F.

Whereas the original 7 gallons of sparge water had been "burtonized", the

last 1.5 gallons had not.  The burtonized sparge water had enough buffering

potential to keep the pH low during that part of the sparge, but the

last 1.5 gallons had no buffering potential at all.  Also the grain bed

was dry, but kept in a warmbox where it stayed above 150F, then I hit it

with 1.5 gallons of pH 7+ water at 180F and I think I pulled out just enough

tannins to create a persistent haze but no noticable astringency, though I

must admit the harsh bitterness may well be masking it.

After 4 weeks of bottle conditioning the haze has cleared from only the top

inch of the brew, and a very definite line of demarcation has formed between

the cleared brew and the hazy brew.  If you've ever seen an aerogel, it kind

of looks like that.  There's no ring around the collar and no off flavors and

I am meticulous in my sanitation, so I doubt that it's an infection.

The recipe was 80% Maris Otter 2-row pale malt, 10% crystal and cara-pils,

and 10% flaked maize.  Everything was mashed because I find steeping a pain.

And of course I do no mash out.  So now that half of you are convinced this

explains the haze, what about the other half?

Also, if anyone remembers EXTRACTF, a small program for calculating

extraction efficiencies, it was finally uncompressed, detarred, and put

Lastly, no one has yet responded to my request (now I'm begging) for a

Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout clone.  A number of people have queued up for

the results, but no one has come through with the goods.

Thanks in advance,

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


Leaches and Kettles

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 22:32 CST

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Leaches and Kettles

 >From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

 >Subject: pH and leaching tannins

 >  I know he's only baiting us, but I feel like a sucker this morning.

 The mash has a buffering effect, yes.  As the goodies are drawn off,

 however, the pH does rise.  This is quite variable....

 Indeed it is and makes it clear that I wasn't baiting anyone and the rest of

 your response makes a mockery of all the absolute dogma that has been

 pronounced on the subject.  Every situation is different and brewers must

 either know exactly what conditions prevail or experiment to find out what

 works best.

 >It does indicate, however, that your pH is rising, and soon will reach a

 level that will extract noticeable quantities of tannins from the husks.

 Rising, yes.. but "soon"?  How can you possibly know that without knowing the

 water chemestry and that of the mash?   And what magic level "extracts

 noticeable quantities of tannins"?  What if I don't reach that level till the

 last pint of sparge water?

 >  In the decotion mash, you have a thick mash which has not had

 the sugars and acids removed, so the pH stays low.  Where's the problem?

 I believe I was the one who suggested that there is no problem.

 >From: prf@cherry-semi.com (Paul Ferrara)

 >Subject: Stepping up to a 5 gallon boil

 >Or should I really spend many $$ and buy a stainles steel pot, propane

 cooker, picnic cooler mash tun, sparging manifold, etc, etc, etc ....

 I may be biased but I think you should buy a 32 qt enamel kettle and put an

 easymasher in it. (total cost about $50)  That is all you need for mashing,

 lautering, boiling and fermenting.  One piece of equipment does everything

 including a super boiler for extract beer till you are ready to move on to

 all grain.   What you save on enamel over ss will pay for the propane cooker

 if you need one.

 If you do go stainless, do not compromise on anything less that 10 gallons

 (not dogma, just experience) and sooner or later, that will be too small for

 boiling but will still make a great mash tun.

 js

------------------------------


Ancient Ale

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 00:17 CST

From: akcs.wally@vpnet.chi.il.us (John Walaszek)

Subject: Ancient Ale

>From Monday 11/22/93 Chicago Tribune page 15:

"Blast from the past"

"Thanks to British archeologists and a Scottish brewery, you soon may

be able to party like a pharaoh.  Cambridge University scientists

studying hieroglyphics and wall paintings at the buried city of

Tell al-Amarana believe they have deciphered the recipe and the

brewing methods for a bread-based ale flavored with anything from

honey to flowers,  Newsweek reports.  The Scottish & Newcastle

Breweries hopes to tap kegs of the strong elixir by next year."

Sounds pretty similar to something Anchor did a few years back.

 - Wally

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1279, 11/23/93

*************************************

-------


twist-offs, and bottlestuff

Date: 23 Nov 93 00:39:15 MST (Tue)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: twist-offs, and bottlestuff

I don't think there's any particular trend to twist-off caps.  Brewers

just choose one or the other when they get going.

Sierra Nevada has *always* used twist-offs, as far as I remember.  I

can't verify that all the way back to the beginning, but I've got an '83

Celebration Ale here, and one of the original Bigfoot with the line-

drawing (no color) label, both of which are twist-off.  [BTW, anybody know

when that first Bigfoot was brewed?  I'm sure it's 86 or earlier.  Is it

time to drink it yet?:-]

As for re-capping twistoffs, it's probably a good-news/bad-news situation.

The good news is that the "threads" on the bottle are pretty fragile, so if

a bottle is getting old, that might be the first place that fails.  The bad

news is that you find out the bottle is getting old *after* you've filled

it and tried to cap it.

In this area, there seems to be a microbrewery preference for the 22 oz

(US arcane measure) longnecks.  They seem to be reasonably sturdy, and the

packing density on storage shelves is pretty good.  I used to like the 25

oz Tooth's Sheaf Stout bottles, but they've changed the bottle (phoo on

the silly CUB stamped label) and it's a lot easier to get bottles from the

variety of products from 4 local breweries plus various west-coast micros

than from one brew shipped half way 'round the world.  5 gal, even with

carboy headspace and sediment, is still more than 2 cases of 22 oz, but I

bottle the rest in 12 oz for taste checks, solo drinking, etc.

- ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


Getting the yeast to drop

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 07:59:18 EST

From: 23-Nov-1993 0757 -0500 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Getting the yeast to drop

>Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 15:44:44 EST

>From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

>Subject: clarifying Wyeast 1028

>

>I've never had problems clearing beer until I started using Wyeast #1028

>(London Ale).  Is there a fining agent other than Isinglass that will

>get this yeast to drop to the bottom?

Tony, you might try chilling your brew (while in the fermenter) to make the

yeast drop.  One micro I toured in the UK does this to clean their beer -

they chill their ale to make the yeast fall...

JC ferguson

------------------------------


Bottle Pressure (was Crabtree Effect)

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 08:38:39 -0600

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Bottle Pressure (was Crabtree Effect)

In HBD 1279, Todd Carlson writes:

    As for the CO2, the 1.61 moles

    produced would increase the pressure

    to about 2 atmospheres or 30 psi (again

    using PV=nRT) assuming the beer is

    already saturated with CO2.  As for the

    ethanol, this would be a maximum estimate.

    What is the desired CO2 pressure of

    finished beer?  Does this sound about

    right?

For most beer styles, 2.5 volumes of CO2 is

normal.  At 70F, beer contains about 2.4

volumes at 28 PSI, and 2.7 volumes at 32 PSI.

This from a chart published by Standard-Keil (a

beverage dispensing equipment manufacturer).

So your calculations are right close,

perfesser.  Thanks.

 t

------------------------------


RE: clarifying Wyeast 1028

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 8:20:31 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: RE: clarifying Wyeast 1028

Anton Verhulst writes:

>I've never had problems clearing beer until I started using Wyeast #1028

(London Ale).  Is there a fining agent other than Isinglass that will

get this yeast to drop to the bottom?

Anton, if memory serves me correctly, 1028 is the stickiest yeast I've ever

used.  I mean it goes to the bottom, and stays there; which makes for great

pouring.  I wonder if you've got another problem unrelated to the yeast???

Norm

------------------------------


Get a life!

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 10:19:00 EST

From: "Pamela J. Day 7560" <DAY@A1.TCH.HARVARD.EDU>

Subject: Get a life!

To those of you have been bashing anyone and everyone that you don't

agree with, I really thought that this was supposed to be a

constructive and informative forum on Homebrewing. Jim Koch is not,

I repeat not a homebrewer, he is a salesman. Frankly, I'm almost as tired

of reading all this "venting" on the Digest as I am of hearing Koch's

commercials on the radio, but I'm not calling for a boycott of the

digest. Why don't you all stop whining out inane opinions and get

back on track and talk about brewing! Most of us out here seem to

be seeking advice and are not out to stroke our own egos by flaming

those we don't agree with. If you don't agree with someone, offer a

polite, constructive and well-thought alternative. Enough mothering,

let's get back to brewing.

Remember, PLAY NICE!

Pam Day

------------------------------


chiller break in

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 10:15:20 EST

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: chiller break in

Assuming you made an Immersion chiller:

The only thing you need to do is ensure ther are no machine oils on the out

side.  When I made an immersion chiller.  I soaked it in a bucket full of hot

water and lots of dish soap, dish soap cuts through oil.  I rinsed it off

and then soaked it in a bucket that I added vinegar to.  The thing came

out looking like a new penny.

When I brew:

After completing my sparge I drain my mash tun into a food grade bucket and

add any extra acidified sparge water.  I soak the chiller in this the low PH

cleans off the metal.  I then put it in the boiling wort, this cause the boil

to subside, when the boil commences again I wait 3-5 minutes before running

the water.  I also capture run off water in the base to my shop vac, in which

I have put my brew pot sitting on top of a couple bricks.  This reduces water

use and reduces cooling time.

------------------------------


sam and wasted wort

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 11:24:57 EST

From: Mark Bunster <mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu>

Subject: sam and wasted wort

* Chris>Your loss.  Although Koch may be a slime bag, he makes a decent

* Chris>product.

*

*Yes, he makes decent beer.  But so do literally hundreds of good, decent people

* who avoid using the strong-arm tactics of the neighborhood bully to sell their

*product.  Of the hundreds of brewers attending this year's GABF, the BBC tmtmtm

* was the only one in violation of GABF marketing rules.  They were only allowed

* to attend because the GABF feared the threat of a lawsuit, which it certainly

* does not need.  So, why would you want to buy beer from these people?  You can

* buy good beer, better than Koch's, from good people.  I'm with Al on this one:

*

* BOYCOTT SAM ADAMS PRODUCTS!!!

Please elucidate on the GABF situation. I always wondered how you could have

the "best beer", since I assumed there were about 500 zillion categories.

What exactly does it win?

Also, I see this thread an awful lot in music--ie, so and so "sold out."

The implication becomes that if you can get it anywhere, it must not be very

good, and the only thing that saves your own beer drinking ego is if you can

prove you know of some great obscure beer produced in a chicken shack by two

dwarf gypsy albino seamstresses with no arms that you can only get three days

of the year cause that's the only time they come to market with it.

Until I see evidence of slave labor, rats in the bottles, or use of a

counterflow chiller (just kidding Mr. Schmid), I need more proof before I

eschew dollar draft Sam's at my local pub.

*

* >Would you eat a sandwich you dropped on the garage floor?

*

why would anyone want to ferment a sandwich??

:-)

*     When I was ready to take the plunge to all-grain,

*     several friends talked me into going with the picnic

*     cooler setup.  I'm glad they did;  it's the closest you can

*     get to unattended brewing.  There is no worry about scorched

*     grain, stirring, etc.

*

Can you describe this method further??

* Subject: Boiler siphoning

*

*

* I am leaving too much wort behind in my boiler after siphoning to

* primary fermenter.  I leave about .75 gal as a combination of what is

* held in the hops and what is left because the hop bed causes my siphon

* to "break".  I use a Sankey keg as a boiler.  It has a 1/2" pipe

* nipple coming in from the side and an elbow and nipple going down into

* the botto.  Over the nipple is a screen (1/8" grid) to keep out the

* whole hops.  When I let liquid out and there is no hops, then all but

* about 1/2 cup of liquid is removed.

*

* 1) How much liquid do you leave in your boiler including

*  in the hop bed.

* 2) Any suggestions, or do I just figure in the excess wort

*  needed to be left behind?

Not to once again discount the folks who like to build stuff for their

brewing (not at all, really), but here's what we do:

1. Boil.

2. grab sanitized saucepan and sanitized strainer, common household kind.

3. fill saucepan with wort and lots of hops, pour into strainer.

4. fill saucepan with wort and as little hops as possible, pour into

strainer.

5. when strainer is full of hops, dump and repeat from #3 until pot is empty.

The whole hops do a really good job of straining everything else, like

pieces of whole hops, pellets from perhaps a finishing, and some of your

specialty malt grains. Just don't set either the saucepan or the strainer

down, to keep things clean.

I'd say we waste about 6 oz of concentrated wort with this method. It takes

two people to work best, though. Maybe some of these machines are to help you

better brew alone, to which I say shame on you--find a friend to help. Cuts

costs, passes time better, spurs a perhaps previously unknown bond between

you. Or (gasp) maybe even try to involve your spouse! Brewing beer alone I

fear would make me pretty much a drunk.

- --

Mark Bunster                      |Exchange conversation if you dare--

Survey Research Lab--VCU          |Share an empty thought or a laugh.

Richmond, VA 23220                |

mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu            |

(804) 367-8813/353-1731           |                          -edFROM

------------------------------


PureSeal caps

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 09:16:00 -0600

From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

Subject: PureSeal caps

In HBD 1279 Carl Howes wrote:

CH> what good is a PureSeal (tm) cap considering that it has been

  > shipped/stored in a 20 percent oxygen atmosphere for some

  > indeterminite period before use?

According to the instructions from the manufacturer, the caps are

moisture activated. They should not be boiled, but rather rinsed

with sanitizing solution and used immediately. If you're real gutsy

you can just use them without sanitizing and give your bottle one

quick shake after capping to let the beer do the activation.

Chuck

 * RM 1.2 00946 *

------------------------------


Tannin extraction

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 13:00:26 -0400

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Tannin extraction

To my comment:

> >  I know he's only baiting us, but I feel like a sucker this morning.

> The mash has a buffering effect, yes.  As the goodies are drawn off,

> however, the pH does rise.  This is quite variable....

Jack rebuts:

> Indeed it is and makes it clear that I wasn't baiting anyone and the rest of

> your response makes a mockery of all the absolute dogma that has been

> pronounced on the subject.  Every situation is different and brewers must

> either know exactly what conditions prevail or experiment to find out what

> works best.

 Ahem.  Absolute dogma?  Now who has been spouting that?  I agree,

and state in my post that situations are different for different brewers.

Jack, on the other hand, has said to (I paraphrase) "ignore the experts and

do it my way," without reference to the fact that it may be fluke that his

way works.  Agreed, as many options should be expressed as possible, but an

explanation, caveat, disclaimer, whatever should be included if known.

> >It does indicate, however, that your pH is rising, and soon will reach a

> level that will extract noticeable quantities of tannins from the husks.

>

> Rising, yes.. but "soon"?  How can you possibly know that without knowing the

> water chemestry and that of the mash?   And what magic level "extracts

> noticeable quantities of tannins"?  What if I don't reach that level till the

> last pint of sparge water?

 Excuse my brevity.  Read: "Tannins are extracted to a greater

degree the more the pH of the mash rises above 5.3, and if unchecked this

rise will lead to astringent flavours.  This rise is dependant on water

chemistry, ingredients and techniques."  There is no "Magic level".  It is

a gradual process, but cumulative.

> >  In the decotion mash, you have a thick mash which has not had

> the sugars and acids removed, so the pH stays low.  Where's the problem?

>

> I believe I was the one who suggested that there is no problem.

 You suggested there was no problem with the sparge, and argued it

by asking why tannins were not extracted during a decoction.

____________

Ed Hitchcock ech@ac.dal.ca | Oxymoron:  Draft beer in bottles. |

Anatomy & Neurobiology  | Pleonasm:  Draft beer on tap.     |

Dalhousie University, Halifax |___________________________________|

------------------------------


yeast wash

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 12:23:42 EST

From: dweller@GVSU.EDU (RONALD DWELLE)

Subject: yeast wash

          Can someeone clarify for me:

          The "yeast.faq" describes the process of washing yeast. You

          pour the sterile water into the carboy, slosh, and pour it

          back into the jar. Then you "agitate the jar to allow

          separation of the components. Continue to agitate

          periodically until obvious separation is noticeable."

          This step doesn't seem to work. The more I agitate, the more

          homogeneous the stuff becomes. Can someone elaborate. Does

          the yeast stay in suspension and everything that settles is

          trub? (It looks like the yeast settles too, no? Or did I

          just wait too long?) I was doing lager yeast--is that maybe

          different from aleyeast? Is the sterile water separate from

          the yeast?

          Tanks,

          Ron Dwelle (dweller@gvsu.edu)

          "Ninety-Nine Bottle of Beer on the Floor."

------------------------------


Glatt malt mill users

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 10:30:37 -0800 (PST)

From: davep@cirrus.com (David Pike)

Subject: Glatt malt mill users

Ok, all you Glatt malt mill users,

please email me directly with your satisfaction rating for this mill. Its

time to give my list to Santa and this may make the final cut.

Cheers,

Dave

------------------------------


"beer" adds

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 10:43:51 -0500

From: jeclark@ucdavis.edu (James Clark)

Subject: "beer" adds

I know this has nothing to do with homebrewing, but neither does the Sam

Adams debate that is ravaging this list right now.  This is just to vent my

frustration:

I am getting a little disgusted with commercials for mega-swill "beers"

that are humorous but that have absolutely nothing to do with the beer

itself.  I mean,  a few years ago they would at least take a five second

breather from the funnies to show a glass with some pale yellow liquid in

it, and actually say something about the swill.  now they don't even do

that.  I doubt very seriously that anyone who is on this list drinks bud

light, but there has to be something else we can do besides just avoiding

the stuff.  I just don't think it's fair that these corporations have so

much power.

- --james

p.s.  maybe I should just avoid all forms of media so that I don't get so

annoyed about this.

------------------------------


new chiller, SA

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 11:30:59 -0500 (EST)

From: gelinas@ekman.unh.edu (Russell Gelinas)

Subject: new chiller, SA

  A great way to clean a new immersion chiller is to boil it in a

solution of vineger and water.  About '*this much* vinegar should

do it :-).  The chiller will come out shiny.

  As for Jim Koch/Sam Adams, we boycotters realize he makes a good beer,

that he's allowed some credit for the microbrewing boom, and he

personally is probably not really a slimeball.  But his marketing

tactics are obnoxious, harmful to the Boston brewing climate, and

ultimately unnecessary.  Personally, I don't much care if he wants

to spend his money on advertising, though I would appreciate a little

more truthfulness.  What irks me is when he uses his money to hire lawyers

for copywrite lawsuits, etc., forcing other breweries to use *their* money

to fend him off.  He would have my $$ to brew and advertise, he won't

get it to run down other breweries.

Russ Gelinas

eos

unh

------------------------------


Anchor "clarifications"

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 10:53:35 PST

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Anchor "clarifications"

Glen A. Wagnecz writes (in response to my post about Anchor's Fritz

Maytag's claims that dry-hopped beers last longer):

> Have these beers that last this long been carbonated via

>priming or forced carbonated?  I was under the impression that beers

>that are carb'd via priming last only about 2-3 months, due to the

>presence of the spent yeast sediment in the bottle.  Please "clarify"

>whether these long lasting beers were primed or forced and other

>necessary specifics.

 >  Thanks In Advance-

>    Glen

>P.S. Thanks for the catalog, are the '93 whole hops in yet?

I don't know how the original Liberty/Christmas Ales were carbonated,

but all of Anchor's current products are "naturally carbonated" which

they do by sealing their secondary fermentation stage so the CO2 goes

into solution instead of escaping to the atmosphere.  I don't believed

they are "krausened" with gyle, just sealed up at the appropriate time

in fermentation.  The beers are all centrifuged to remove the yeast and

then flash pasteurized on the way to bottling.  BTW, the very first,

and only, Liberty/Christmas/Anchor Ale was made with sugar as well as

malt, because "that's the way the Brits did it."

I have heard that the presence of yeast in the bottle also tends to

help the beer keep.  I have some one-year old SNPA that is still fine.

We are shipping some '93 now and will have it all available in a few

weeks.  Please call for details as this is not the politically correct

place to post details.

Mark

------------------------------


Metallic/Mineral Flavor

Date:  Tue, 23 Nov 1993 11:39:00 PST

From: Patrick_Waara.WBST129@xerox.com

Subject: Metallic/Mineral Flavor

Hi,

The last two batches of beer I've made have had an unpleasant (but not

undrinkable) metallic/mineral flavor.  You can taste it on the back of your

tongue and on the roof of your mouth.  Both of these beers are a darker variety

(a brown ale and a stout).  I have only had this happen two other times in the

nearly 100 or so batches I have made, and I cannot figure out what could have

caused it.  The first two times it happened (over two years ago), I blamed it

on adding Bourton Salts or Gypsum to my water.  I stopped adding anything to my

water and the flavor did not reappear until now.  The only difference in these

batches and identical sucessful batches is that I used Wyeast liquid ale yeast

instead of Whitbread dry ale yeast.  I used the Irish ale yeast for the stout

and London Ale yeast for the brown ale.  I have use other Wyeast varieties with

no problems whatsoever.

Can anyone tell me what may have caused this metallic/mineral flavor in these

batches?  Is there some specific thing that can cause this flavor?  It isn't

just a characteristic of these yeasts, is it?

If possible, please respond by mail to Waara.wbst129@xerox.com.  I have been

having difficulty keeping up with the digests lately, so please excuse me if

this has been discussed recently.

~Pat

------------------------------


howto siphon hot wort

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 14:58:11 EST

From: rowan@landfill.rutgers.edu (Andy Rowan)

Subject: howto siphon hot wort

OK, first the preliminaries.  I'm talking about extract brewing, so

keep in mind the restrictions: lazy, uninformed, etc.

Having heard all the hullabaloo about hot side aeration, I want to avoid

it.  Up until now I pour from the kettle, through a funnel, into the carboy

which has 3gal cold water in it.  So siphoning instead of pouring seemed

like a simple solution.  So I tried a couple of stupid ideas, which didn't

work, and now I'm looking for better ideas.

I did my last batch with pellet hops, so I wanted to keep the crud from going

into the carboy.  So I stuck some cheesecloth over the end of the hose

but it slowed the flow so much that I couldn't keep the siphon going.

I guess the pot scrubber idea is worth trying, but will the hop crudge pass

through it?  And how do you keep it on there?

Has anyone come up with a nifty-neato design for something to do this?

Something like a metal tube with a little screen doohickey on the end?

Not being a welder, I don't really want to make a hole in my kettle and

install a spigot so I don't have to siphon...

Andy

==================================================

| Andy Rowan                                     |

| Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis |

| Rutgers University, New Brunswick NJ USA       |

| rowan@ocean.rutgers.edu                        |

==================================================

"Is the glass half empty or half full?"

 I ask her as I fill it.

"It doesn't really matter,

 pretty soon you're bound to spill it."

- --Indigo Girls

------------------------------


Lovibond

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 15:07:14 "EST

From: Gary S. Kuyat <gsk@sagan.bellcore.com>

Subject: Lovibond

Full-Name: Gary S. Kuyat

I remember reading that there was some formula or chart describing how to

mix Michalob (sp?) and water to get x degrees Lovibond.  True or False?  This

probably belongs in a FAQ...  If nobody knows, are there any books with

pictures?

- --

 -Gary Kuyat

  gsk@sagan.bellcore.com

  (908)699-8422

------------------------------


Tarpit Stout && Can we repitch with champagne yeast in secondary?

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 13:25:42 MDT

From: Trever Miller <amby@wooga.cuc.ab.ca>

Subject: Tarpit Stout && Can we repitch with champagne yeast in secondary?

    Here's something we started the other day... questions

    follow at the end.... -- BUG

        ===================================================

 Ye Olde Tarpit Stout

 (Brewed on November 21 1993 by Ambush Bug and Satanic Garden Rake)

 Ingredients:

 Munton & Fison Dark-hopped Malt Extract (3.3 pounds)

 Munton & Fison 3 pound Stout Kit

 4.5 pounds blackstrap molasses (About 60% sucrose and 40% flavoring

 extracts)

 25 grams of Fuggles leaf hops

 a pinch of cinnamon (Just a _pinch_!  Or, Mr. Bug's idea of a "pinch".

 Ie., a small handful)

 Destructions:

 Over a period of about an hour's worth of boiling, the following

 were added:

 Brew pot 1: (Bug's pot)

 Bring 2.5 gallons water to boil

 dump in stout kit

 stir

 dump in 5 grams leaf hops

 stir

 dump in dark malt                  (15 min into boil)

 stir

 dump in 1/2 the rest leaf hops     (35 min into boil)

 stir

 Brew pot 2: (SGR's pot)

 Bring 1.5 gallon water to boil

 dump in 4.5 pounds molasses.  (NOTE:  _Not_ all at once.  Spread

 this out over about the first 1/2 hour of the boil.)

 stir

 dump in 5 grams leaf hops

 stir

 dump in 2 cups corn sugar  (40 min into boil)

 stir

 dump in remaining hops     (45 min into boil)

 stir

 BOIL THE HELL OUT OF IT! (Specifically, about an hour or so.)

 Dump contents of brew pots into primary fermenter.  Stir.  Pad volume with

boiling water to 5 gallons.  Cool down.  Pitch.  GO YEASTIES!!

NOTES:

 November 22, 1993

 4 1/2 pounds of blackstrap molasses may actually have been a tad

excessive.  (This was the thickest, darkest wort I've ever seen on ANY

homebrew.)  That actually makes quite a hefty portion of the total

fermentables, like about 35% or so.  That in itself wouldn't be bad, but

the molasses in that quantity may prove to have a _really_ overpowering

flavor.  You can smell the wort from outside the door of our apartment.

It may have been better to go with lighter molasses, or less of it.

 (Mind you, that may turn out to be a _good_ thing.  I dunno.  I'll

have to sample some when we transfer it to the carboy.  I have a feeling

that once the yeasties finish munching on this one, we may be kicking on

some barley wines for strength.) -- SGR

[Also, we didn't bother to borrow a hydrometer... My guess is we can

eyeball it for when it's time to transfer to secondary etc. -- BUG]

 November 23, 1993

   We have a good fermentation going... approx a 6" head of nice brown foam

 and the hop leaves.   -- BUG

        ===================================================

Query : We pitched the dry yeast that came with the stout kit.  We were

        wondering how one would go about pitching some sort of champagne

        yeast upon transfer to the secondary.  We've already got just

        over 23 litres in the primary, and don't want to add any more

        volume than necessary (won't fit in secondary....).

        If we just pitched in one or two packets of dry champagne yeast

        into it upon transfer to secondary, what's going to happen?

        Will the original yeast be too numerous for the new ones to

        get a foothold?  -- BUG

- --

millertr@cuug.ab.ca (Preferred)        Snail Mail: #557, 918 - 16 Ave NW

      or                                           Calgary, Alberta T2M 0K3

ambush_bug@wooga.cuc.ab.ca

------------------------------


Mail Order

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 12:35:21 PST

From: pickerel@micom.com (Don Pickerel @ Micom.com)

Subject: Mail Order

A public thanks to everyone that took the time to send me info

on mail order supplies. I guess the picture of a fellow brewer

going dry was a scary thought.

I've put the replies together into a list if anyone else is

interested, though it would be nice if it got into an FAQ (

hint).

Also, one of the most recommended places was St. Patrick's of

Texas

in Austin. While talking to Lynne she said she could read e-mail

but

not get anything out, so if there are any volunteers in that

region....

I would offer but it's kind of hard to trouble shoot from S.

Cal.

I will offer any advice I can.

Again thanks.

pickerel@micom.com

- --

 -Don-

- ----

 -Don-

------------------------------


Kegging FAQ

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 16:06:13 -0600

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Kegging FAQ

 I have begun work on a kegging FAQ and I will need a few knowledegable

 contributors and reviewers to help me.  I mean to cover a pretty wide

 range of topics that will include bottle conditioning.  I am especially

 looking for chemists, physicists, cellarmen, and biologists to contribute

 to and review certain parts of the FAQ.  I plan to develop the FAQ over a

 period of several weeks, but I do expect to make progress.  I am also

 interested in submitting the FAQ to _Brewing Techniques_ for publication.

 I do not plan to post every iteration of the FAQ to the two Internet

 Digests.

 A proposed outline is below.

  t

=============================================================================

Tom Leith                           InterNet:   trl@wuerl.WUstl.EDU

4434 Dewey Ave.                   CompuServe:   70441,3536

St. Louis, Missouri  63116

                                                 "Tho' I could not caution all

314/362-6965 - Office                            I still might warn a few:

314/362-6971 - Office Fax                        Don't lend your hand

314/481-2512 - Home + Infernal Machine           to raise no flag

                                                 atop no Ship of Fools"

=============================================================================

 I) Kegging Procedures and Equipment

  a) Introduction

   i)   Kegging vs. Cask Conditioning vs. Bottle Conditioning,

        What Does It Mean, and How Does It Taste?

   ii)  What's the Same wrt Bottling

   iii) What's Different wrt Bottling

  b) Carbonation

   i)   Carbonation Levels

   ii)  What's Meant by "Volumes"

   iii) Chemistry & Physics of Carbonation

        Include ideal gas law, and equations

   iv)  Practical Application of Principles

        Include tables generated from iii

  c) Equipment

   i)   Kegs

   ii)  CO2 Tanks

   iii) Pressure Regulators

   iv)  Dispensing Equipment

   v)   Referigerators and Controls

   vi)  Filters and Such

  d) Putting Product into Kegs

   i)    Sanitation

   ii)   Transfer from Carboy

   iii)  Transfer from Another Keg

   iv)   Filtering

  e) Dispensing

   i)   Maintaining Carbonation

   ii)  Maintaining Sanitation

   iii) From Keg to Glass

   iv)  Troubleshooting

  f) Cask Conditioning

   i)   Introduction

   ii)  Procedures

   iii) Dispensing Equipment

   iv)  Troubleshooting

  g) Equipment Suppliers

  h) References

------------------------------


Date:  Tue, 23 Nov 1993 17:00:20 -0500

From: Larry Atkinson <atkinson@cae33.Mitel.COM>

Subject: Kegging FAQ

Subject: Used Brewery Kegs

I was walking around the local flea market last weekend and came across

an old Labatts brewery keg (labelled 1987). The size looked like the

standard 66L (15.5 gal) keg, but instead of a single fitting on top

for both C02 and beer tap, this one had two circular fittings, one

on the top, presumably for CO2 and another on the side near the bottom

probably for a tap.  On the side about halfway up was a bung.  Here's

the catch. Neither CO2 or tap connection had any hardware connected to it.

Does anyone out there in homebrew land know anthing about this type of keg

especially if and where you can buy the attachments?

I am presently kegging with one 5 gal. pop keg, but up here in Canada

even the used Cornelius kegs go for $80 Cdn ($65 US), so I would hate

to pass up a bargain if the Labatts keg is useable.  Any thoughts or

comments are welcomed.

On a related note, I tried calling Defalcos in Texas about kegs, but

got the same response as another recent poster, that they will not ship

these anymore.  Seems that UPS is just too much of a pain for them.

Does anyone know of an alternate source in the Northern New York area.

Ottawa is only 1 hr from the New York border (and ~3 hrs from Syracuse)

so I figure that a Saturday day trip is not out of the question.

Thanks,

Larry Atkinson

atkinson@cae.mitel.com

------------------------------


kegging pressures

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 16:54:38 -0600

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: kegging pressures

Last week, there was a kegging question, that I fired a from-the-hip answer

to.  The concepts were OK, but I got a constant wrong.  Here is the table of

values I really used when designing my dispensing system.  This will end-up in

the kegging FAQ, but I promised it sooner than that 8-)

 t

Resistance Data - Source: Standard-Keil Catalog

- ----------+----------------------------------------------------

          |    pounds of resistance per running foot

inside    |

diameter  |       Vinyl     Polyethylene    Stainless Steel

- ----------+----------------------------------------------------

3/16"     |        2.20  2.20            -----

1/4"      |         .60   .60  2.00

5/16"     |         .20   .20   .50

3/8"      |         .10          .064   .20

- ----------+----------------------------------------------------

Two feet of vertical lift provides 1 pound of resistance

Two feet of vertical drop adds 1 pound of apparent pressure,

    ie: requires 1 pound additional resistance

Proper flow-rate is two ounces/second at the faucet

The goal: match the resistance of the dispensing line to the pressure

in the keg.  Pressure at the faucet should be very nearly zero.  So,

if your beer is stored under 14 PSIG, and your faucet is 18" above

the center of your keg:

  3/4# resistance due to vertical rise

       1#     resistance due to miscellaneous fittings

      12-1/4# resistance due to 5'7" 3/16" vinyl beer line

     --------

      14 PSI

------------------------------


Rauchbier aroma

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 21:54:40 -0400 (EDT)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: Rauchbier aroma

My personal specialty is a Bamberg-style rauchbier.  The smoke flavor is

something I really enjoy and I always get great comments on it whenever

I make a batch.  My technique is very simple.  I use an ordinary

backyard smoker.  I get the grain slightly damp, smoke it over wood

chips for an hour or so, then let it dry for a few days.  After that, I

mash and brew normally.  Experimentation has shown that the Wyeast

Bavarian Lager yeast works best, and smoking between one-half and

three-quarters of the grain provides the right level of smokiness.

My problem is that although the smoke comes through wonderfully well in

the flavor, my beer is always eliminated in competitions because the

smoke is so subtle in the aroma that it's not in the same league with

the winners.

I have tasted some of the winners at competitions in this category, and

they generally smell and taste like the brewery was burning down around

the batch as it was brewed.  What am I not doing right?

Short of using some sort of "liquid smoke" solution (which I absolutely

refuse to try), is there some trick to get the smoke aroma to express

itself more strongly?

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Ed Westemeier, Cincinnati, Ohio westemeier@delphi.com

------------------------------


calcium chloride

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 16:50:00 +0800

From: rob.skinner@kandy.com (Rob Skinner)

Subject: calcium chloride

     I found that a good source for calcium chloride, lactic acid,

     and any many chemicals needed for various experimentation is

     Chem-Lab Supplies at (714) 630-7902.  Their price for lactic

     acid is $8.75 for 4oz.  Calcium chloride runs $6 for 16 oz.

------------------------------


Hops as preservatives/Dryhopping problem/Brown Ale yeast/dark mash

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 12:12 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Hops as preservatives/Dryhopping problem/Brown Ale yeast/dark mash

Mark writes:

>Actually there are studies that show that hop oils (responsible for the

>aroma) do have a preservative effect and do inhibit the growth of

>bacteria.

Interesting.

>And for an informal opinion, Fritz Maytag strongly believes

>that dry-hopped beers last much longer (like 10-20 years) than beers that

>are not dry hopped.  He bases this on tasting his Christmas Ales from

>many years ago (that he has in his own collection and that people send

>to him).  He claims that a 17 year old Christmas Ale he tasted was still

>quite good, but he admits it is not exactly the same as when it was brewed,

>but certainly not spoiled.

I don't believe this is a valid datapoint.  I contend that Christmas Ales

are often much higher in alcohol and that may skew this data.

>Also historical data shows that IPAs (the

>real ones destined for India by boat) were called for (by contract) to have

>a high dry hopping level ("2 lbs of Kent hops per hogshead" which translates

>to 2.47 ozs per five gallons).

You fail to mention that they had bittering hop rates that would translate

to IBUs in the vicinity of 200.  High dryhopping levels may just have

been required so that there is some hop nose in the final product.  Recall

that these were wooden kegs and that oxygen is known to kill hop nose.

I don't disagree with the initial premise, but the last two examples I feel

are not good supporting arguments.

************

Drew writes:

>  This morning, I took gravity readings and tasted both sub-batches.

>The non-dryhopped bottle was at 1.024, crystal clear, and tasted

>great.  The dry hopped batch was at 1.014, cloudy, and astringent, and

>I can only assume, infected.  There are three possiblities that I see:

>

>1) unclean equipment used in the dry hopped sub batch - Very Unlikely

>

>2) bacteria carried on hops into the beer - ???

>

>3) Excessive handling with bare hands introduced bacteria into dry

>   hopped batch - very likely

I think it may have been 1, 2 or 3, but more likely not bacterial, but

rather wild yeast, and most likely (IMO) the mesh bag.  I, personally,

feel that they are difficult to sanitize well and diffucult to clean well

after use.

*************

George L writes:

>Does anyone know whether British Ale Yeast is the most appropriate liquid

>yeast for brewing Northern style Brown Ales?

It would be appropriate, but if you like diacetyl (butterscotch) you may

want to consider using Wyeast Irish (#1084).  The British is reportedly

the Whitbread triple-strain yeast (with nice, tart overtones), whereas the

Irish Ale is allegedly the Guinness yeast.  I think that either of these

yeasts are a good choice for a Northern-style Brown Ale.

************

Mark A writes:

1) I brewed a porter because my water is high in bicarbs and I didn't

   want to worry about messing around with my water too much.

   Since Noonan and Miller and just about everyone else says that a

   dark mash has a higher p.h. I assume that they mean that I should

   add the dark grains to the mash at mash in.  Otherwise, I will have

   a mash which is the same as a pale ale mash and will have p.h.

   problems.  Is this not correct?

You got everything right except switched the high-low pH deal.  Dark grains

acidify your mash, i.e. LOWER pH, so if you have high carbonate water, you

do want to add the dark grains in the mash.

>   gotten conversion.  So, how do you check for conversion of a dark mash?

You place a drop of mash liquid and a drop of iodine next to each other on

a white plate and then carefully watch as you run one into the other.  It's

not easy to spot color change due to starch/dextrins, but you'll get the hang

of it.

>   according to miller it seems that I should do the following:

>

>       Degrees = (1.061 * 4.25)/10 = .45

>

>  since my total grain bill came to 10 lbs (8 lbs pale malt) and I

>  was only left with 4.25 gal.

You should leave off the water (1.000) when you do this:

 Points = (61 * 4.25)/10 = 25.92

Basically, 26 points/lb/gal.  Not bad -- I would say a decent extraction is

between 25 and 30.

Al.

------------------------------


Crabtree/sterols/peroxide

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 13:27 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Crabtree/sterols/peroxide

Ulick writes:

>I have one question.  Al mentioned that the Crabtree effect will occur if

>monosaccharides predominate.  Is this true for fructose, and if so what

Yes.  If fructose + glucose levels are above a certain level (0.5% I believe)

the yeast will have a tendancy to go into anaerobic fermentation (Crabtree

effect) also.  Note that if Oxygen levels are VERY high (sorry, don't have

my books here) the Pasteur effect can force the yeast to go into respiration.

It is my understanding (from discussions with George Fix) that in a high

monosaccharide, high-O2 environment, the Crabtree and Pasteur effects are

in contention -- I must admit I don't really know all there is to know

about this.

>happens when sucrose is present?  Would the sucrose become invert (fructose

>and glucose) if added to the slightly acid beer as a bottling sugar, or

>would the repiration phase be intiated as in the case of maltose or

Sucrose is converted to a glucose and a fructose pair by the enzyme invertase

which is excreted by the yeast.

BTW, I read somewhere, that sucrose has twice the carbonating potential of

corn sugar (dextrose, glucose), but have never seen it anywhere else.  I

don't think this is true.  Anyone know for sure?

*************

Somone (sorry) asked about sterol synthesis.

I believe the sterols are used in building the cell walls.  Poorly oxygenated

wort is said to reduce the yeast's alcohol tolerance and this may be

related to the sterol synthesis.

************

Fisher writes:

>A good friend of mine works in the food processing industry, and he

>says that I should use hydrogen peroxide to sanitize, like the food

>pros do.  Is this a good idea?  I am not motivated to change, but he

>won't leave me alone without a rebuttal.

You can use B-Brite or One-Step Sanitizer.  They are peroxide-based.

The active ingredient in both is Sodium Percarbonate, which (if I

understand correctly) is sort of like Sodium Carbonate (washing soda)

and Hydrogen Peroxide when it is mixed with water.

Al.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1280, 11/24/93

*************************************

-------


Hello Everyone

Date:     Wed, 24 Nov 93 08:13 EST

From: <GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

Subject:  Hello Everyone

Hello everyone, I'm new to homebrewing and I'm new to HBD but I like

what I see.  I do have 2 questions:

1- I've read that Aluminum should not be used as a brewpot, and that

cast iron is bad also, because both can impart a metallic taste to the

beer.  If I can't use cast iron or aluminum, what am I supposed to

use?

2- What do the readers of HBD think of using Grolsch flip top bottles

to bottle beer. I know homebrew shops carry gaskets for these bottles,

but I've never seen anyone buy them.  Any help would be greatly

appreciated.

3- And, if you live in Northeast PA, 1-Quart A-Treat soda bottles are

wonderful for brewing.  They cap nicely, and you can bottle one quart

at a time.  Makes filling less tedious(sp?)

------------------------------


Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 09:03:06 EST

From: John DeCarlo                              <jdecarlo@homebrew.mitre.org>

Subject:  Hello Everyone

"Glen A. Wagnecz, X6616" <wagnecz@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: Re: Shelf-Life of Beer

"Glen A. Wagnecz, X6616" <wagnecz@PICA.ARMY.MIL> writes:

> I was under the impression that beers

>that are carb'd via priming last only about 2-3 months, due to the

>presence of the spent yeast sediment in the bottle.

Yow!  I don't know where you heard that, but it is actually the reverse, if

anything.  While there are many factors affecting beer stability in the

bottle, the presence of live yeast means that the beer will last *much longer*

in the bottle.

John DeCarlo, MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA--My views are my own

Fidonet:  1:109/131  Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

If I were you, who would be reading this sentence?

------------------------------


ATTN: BEER HUNTERS

Date: Wednesday, 24 November 93 08:30:23 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: ATTN: BEER HUNTERS

Howdy,

Disclaimer:  I'm not interested in SA "politics", so please don't include this

posting in any "Koch bashing".

I have a 6-pack of Noche Buena at home, & am interested in trading 2 bottles

of it for 2 bottles of Sam Adams Cranberry "Lambic".  I figure that someone

out there on the east coast might think this is a fair deal.  For those who

don't know, Noche Buena is brewed by the Cervezaria Moctezuma in Mexico.

It's a deep amber lager, full bodied & mild.  Very good, & it hasn't been on

the American market for a few years now.  It's brewed especially for Christmas.

This is the beer that George Fix referred to in a recent HBD posting.  He would

refer to this beer as a Vienna style, I believe (but I don't want to stick

words into his mouth for him).  Anyway, e-mail me directly if you are

interested.  First come, first serve.  I'm also willing to trade a couple of

bottles of homebrew in the deal, if you are!  BTW, 'cuz of Thanksgiving, it

may be Monday before I respond to any responses.

Peace,

Alan, Austin

------------------------------


Sodium Hydroxide

Date: 24 Nov 93 15:04:07 GMT

From: GANDE@slims.attmail.com

Subject: Sodium Hydroxide

If I wash all my metal brewing equipement with a sodium hydroxide

solution, what's the best process for ensuring that it's all rinsed

off? Can any Microbrewers on the digest offer a 'professional'

opinion that I can take to the bank?

TIA....GA

+----------------------------------+

| Internet: gande@slims.attmail.com|

| Glenn Anderson                   |

| Manager, Telecom. Facilities     |

| Sun Life of Canada               |

+----------------------------------+

------------------------------


Date: 24 Nov 93 15:10:28 GMT

From: cssc!cong@scuzzy.attmail.com (brew )

Subject: Sodium Hydroxide

Subject: Brunswick Brew Club

To CENTRAL NEW JERSEY HOMEBREWERS

There is a new Homebrew club in town, The Brunswick Brew Club.

NO DUES but plenty of FREE info and encouragement.

We are a new club who has developed a simple charter.

We wish to elevate the art of Home Brewing to it's highest level.

If we happen to tip a few beers in the process, even better.

The club meets every third Thursday of the Month at 7:00 PM at

Brunswick Brewing Supply, 727 Raritan Ave (Rt. 27), Highland Park, NJ.

Next Meeting, December 16.

We are an AHA recognized club in search of new members with any level

of experience.  We have some Beer related road trips planned and are

always looking for more road trip ideas.

Everyone attending a Brunswick Brew Club

meeting is invited to bring along a few homebrews for tasting

cong

------------------------------


Frank Jones Brewery

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 10:10:56 EST

From: Mike Peckar  24-Nov-1993 0956 <m_peckar@cscma.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Frank Jones Brewery

A group is forming to attempt to purchase The Frank Jones Brewery in

Portsmouth, NH. The brewery is a 4800 bbl producer that is currently in

recievership and is slated to be auctioned within three weeks. Investors

are being immediately sought. The minimum investment will be five thousand

dollars. Investments will be discounted 10% and put into escrow pending the

results of the auction. The Frank Jones name would be preserved if the deal

goes through. Contact me by email if you are interested in becoming an

investor.

Mike

------------------------------


Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 09:22:04 CST

From: nfarrell@ppco.com (Norman Farrell)

Subject: Frank Jones Brewery

Subject: Beer adverts. and new yeast in secondary

James Clark writes about his displeasure with megabrew adds:

And, I must make a loud second to his complaints.  I suppose

this is flame bait, but here goes.  The mega brews and their

adverts. do all responsible drinkers and homebrewers a great

diservice.  Maybe James is right and it is not enough to simply

not buy their swill.  "Budmiller" is dangerous to our rights.

It offers no sensation of fullness or gustatory ($5 word)

satisfaction until you have drank a lake of it.  These beers

are intended to be and are soda pop for adults.  They are

nothing more than an alcohol delivery system.  They have only

a limited usefulness in our society.  They encourage abuse

by their very characteristics.  I bet the neo-pro's love it.

The "joe/jane six pack" culture plays right into their hands.

There, have I raved enough?  Say yes already.

Trever Miller on adding yeast to the secondary.

Oxygen will be depleted by racking time and yeast added to the secondary

will not respire much.  That is, they will not increase in number

from what you pitch.  So, pitch a vast quantity of yeast slurry.

In order to have enough O2 to start respiration again without

oxidizing the beer you would need to add 2 1/2 to 3 gallons

of fresh wort with the new yeast.  Your fermenter probably will

not handle that!

Hoppy Turkey Day to All

Norman (nfarrell@ppco.com)

------------------------------


Counterpressure Bottler Questions

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1993 10:31:38 -0500 (EST)

From: drose@husc.harvard.edu

Subject: Counterpressure Bottler Questions

Hello:

 I recently recieved a counterpressure bottler as a gift.

Yesterday I got the assorted hoses and connectors that I need to run the

thing, and it didn't take long to find out that I don't really know how to

work it.  There are two general possibilities: I'm hooking it up wrong,

or I'm using it wrong.  So, first, this is how I hooked it up:

 Beer Line in--> ----------------- ---> Vent out

                        ------+  +-------

                              |  |

                              |  |

            Gas in ---> ------|  |-+

   ----+ |  | |

                            | |  | |

            / |  | /

         |  |

         |  |

           |

    V

                          Gas and Beer Out

 My beer line runs direct from the keg to the contraption. My gas

line runs from the tank to a t-fitting, one end of which goes to the keg,

the other to the contraption.

 The way I used it is as follows:  put contraption in bottle. Open

gas valve (noise of gas filling bottle and equilibrating). Open valve for

a while to purge bottle (noise of gas escaping from bottle).  Close valve,

close gas line, open beer line. Wait for beer to fill bottle under

pressure.  Remove contraption and cap immediately.

 The problem: Well, if I thought about it i would have figured out

that since the keg and the bottle are under the same pressure, there is no

reason at all for the beer to move from the keg into the bottle.  In fact,

this is exactly what happens: nothing. Or at least very little.  The beer

enters the bottle slowly or not at all.  I tried using gravity to help me

along, i.e. put keg on table, put bottle on floor.  Besides being very

awkward, this helped very little.

 So, counterpressure experts, what am I missing?  Or is this the

way it "works?" Help.

      Dave Rose.

------------------------------


Two types of Rauch beers

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1993 07:40:26 +0800

From: bjones@novax.llnl.gov (Bob Jones)

Subject: Two types of Rauch beers

>WESTEMEIER@delphi.com asks about smoked Rauchbier aroma

>

>

>My problem is that although the smoke comes through wonderfully well in

>the flavor, my beer is always eliminated in competitions because the

>smoke is so subtle in the aroma that it's not in the same league with

>the winners.

>

>I have tasted some of the winners at competitions in this category, and

>they generally smell and taste like the brewery was burning down around

>the batch as it was brewed.  What am I not doing right?

>

Well I'll get up on my soap box and suggest there are two Rauch beers here.

The ones that are drinkable and ones that win competitions! I have had

several very well made Rauch beers and personally enjoy the subtle play of

smoke and malt flavors and aromas. Now I had the smoked ale at the AHA

nationals that won Paddy Giffen homebrewer of the year. IMNSHO it was too

smokey! We're talken rip your lips off with smoke! There is this numbing

phenomena that goes on at competition judging that desensitizes all judges

palates. So you need to decide if your brewing your Rauch beers to your

taste or for competitions.

Maybe Tom Altenbach would jump in here and tell us a few tales about his

great Rauch beers and his mixed success in putting them in competitions.

Bob Jones

bjones@novax.llnl.gov

------------------------------


Beer ads

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1993 10:40:42 -0500 (EST)

From: "David H. Thomas" <dhthomas@lis.pitt.edu>

Subject: Beer ads

May I suggest to Mr. Clark that he take his television and throw it out

the window, much as they once did at the beginning of SCTV (way back

when). I agree wholeheartedly with him regarding beer advertising, which

is merely the worst aspect of television advertising (or television

itself, for that matter). It's been several years now since I threw out

my television so as not to turn into a quivering blob of mindless animal

matter, and the few occasions I get to see tv remind me all over again

why I did it.

Frankly, I'd much rather kill brain cells hoisting homebrews than

watching tv.

------------------------------


Rauchbier

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 16:18:00 +0000

From: SCHREMPP_MIKE/HP4200_42@ptp.hp.com

Subject: Rauchbier

Ed Westemeier asks about smoke aroma...

I think your problem is that you're losing the aromatic smoke oils during

your boil.

I suggest "dry smoking" your beer. Add a few handfuls of smoke in the secondary

and let it really soak in. Or, you could use an EasySmoker(tm) (sorry Jack, I

beat you to it) made of charred sticks tied aroung the end of a copper pipe.

You can make your own easily or buy one from me (not an advertisement).

Mike Schrempp

------------------------------

Date-Warning: Date header was inserted by HELIX.MGH.HARVARD.EDU

From: "John J. Magee" <magee@HELIX.MGH.HARVARD.EDU>

Subject: Iodine Test: Use or Not?

Last night, for my 3rd all-grain attempt I brewed up 4 gallons of a strong

Scotch Ale, and managed to achieve only about 20 points extraction. This

obviously hurt the necessary beefiness of a Scotch Ale wort; going into the

fermenter the gravity was 56-57 rather than the target 80. Oh well.

Since I've achieved rates of about 25 on my last two batches ( I was counting on

27+ this time due to practice & better technique), I think here the problem

might be traceable to incomplete starch conversion. Why? 'Cause there were

traces of black in my iodine test when I decided to sparge.

'Why decide to sparge when your iodine test showed some black?', you ask. Well,

the mash had been happening for about 1.5 hours (single temp; 152-156 deg.), and

a previous test had shown rampant black. Now the blackness appeared granular-

there were lots of little tiny dots of black rather than a true black color.

I've read Miller, and he says that the iodine test is useless because cellulose

particles react like starch. I decided that those little tiny dots were probably

cellulose particles. I sparged. This was probably stupid. I have a Wee rather

than a Wee Heavy :).

Did I mess up? Are iodine tests useful? It was depressing to be counting on (and

needing for style) my highest extraction rate yet and to end up with a pathetic

one. But the best thing about homebrew is that within broad limits it's always

tasty as long as it's not infected.

**************************************************

John J. Magee     *    magee@helix.mgh.harvard.edu

**************************************************

Research Assistant/Computer Systems

Mass. General Hospital

Neuropsychology

(617) 726 3669

**************************************************

------------------------------


sterilizing bottle caps and Rauchbier

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 11:37:55 EST

From: ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu (Ulick Stafford)

Subject: sterilizing bottle caps and Rauchbier

Chuck Wettergreen suggest sanitizing Pureseal caps prior to use with a

sanitizing solution.  This comment got me wondering.  I never sterilize

my caps by boiling or anything prior to use because of laziness and a

fear that heat my deform the plastic lining.  Are caps a risk?  Has anyone

taking a slant of packaged caps to see what may live on them, or noticed

contamination that could be blamed on unsterilized caps?

Ed Westmeier wants very smoky beer - why not bubble smoke through the

secondary (dry-smoking?)?  Seriously, apart from competition reasons,

why do you want smokier beer?  I personally think Rauchbier, or at least

the commercial stuff, is one of the foulest tasting beers on the market

(acquired taste, maybe?).  I had the stuff at Zekes, a bar in Dowagiac

in Southwestern Michigan with over 150 imports, and was informed by

my homebrewsuppliessupplier that once when he and a group of friends were

there one of them asked for their foulest beer, and without hesitation

the barmaid got a Rauchbier.  I remember that the giggest problem, IMHO, was

an overbearing sweetness.

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


Crabcake Effect / Sam Adams beers

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 11:51:16 EST

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: Crabcake Effect / Sam Adams beers

RE: The CrabCake effect.

Recent studies have shown that moderate to heavy bodied beers, when

consumed in moderation, can lead to the CrabCake Effect in humans.

Stated briefly the precursors to the CrabCake effect are low quality

crabcakes, usally found in frozen food sections, that contain a high

fraction of bread, flour or other grain based filler.  These cakes

when consumed in conjunction with small amounts of beers higher in Final

Gravity than most American Premiums and Light cause an apparent recombination

in the stomach with the consumer suffering from a feeling that one is

filled with a giant CrabCake.  The most obvious outward sympton is the

inability to consume more beer.  Found particularly capable of producing

the CrabCake effect were products produced by the Boston Beer Company, brewers

of Sam Adams beers.  Additional research is being conducted to determine

if the method of chilling the prefermentation product has an impact on

this effect.  Noted Italian chefs have indicated that a similar phenomenon,

The Gnochi Syndrome, can be avoided by the consumption of Red Wine.  Though

red wine with fish is anathema with wine lovers research is under way as to

the effect of white and blush wines on the Crab Cake Effect.

------------------------------


Crabtree/sterols/peroxide

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 12:32:57 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Crabtree/sterols/peroxide

korz@iepubj.att.com writes:

 > BTW, I read somewhere, that sucrose has twice the carbonating potential of

 > corn sugar (dextrose, glucose), but have never seen it anywhere else.  I

 > don't think this is true.  Anyone know for sure?

Per molecule, maybe.  Per weight, no way.  Just count carbons.

1 mole of monosaccharide makes 2 moles ethanol and 2 moles CO2:

 C6H12O6 -> 2 C2H5OH + 2 CO2

1 mole of sucrose (disaccharide) makes 2 moles of monosaccharide:

 C12H22O11 + H20 -> 2 C6H12O6

but they weigh almost the same (1 mole of sucrose (342 grams) is 18

grams lighter than 1 mole each glucose & fructose (360 g total)).

Alternatively, 1 g of glucose makes .489 g CO2 and .511 g ethanol.  1g

of sucrose would make .515g CO2 and .538g ethanol.  So, yes, the

carbonating potential of sucrose is slightly higher (5%) than that of

glucose.

=S

------------------------------


Imprtance of competing chemical reactions?

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 11:23:41 EST

From: lyons%adc1@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: Imprtance of competing chemical reactions?

In HBD #1279 Todd gave the following reactions:

>          eq 1: fermentation of glucose

>

>               C6H12O6 ------> 2 C2H5OH + 2 CO2

>                               (ethanol)

>

>          eq 2: respiration of glucose

>

>               C6H12O6 + 6 O2 --------> 6 CO2 + 6 H2O

One reaction converts sugar to water, while the other converts

sugar to alcohol.  Does this imply that two different batches

of beer, with identical OGs & FGs, could have significantly

different alcohol concentrations based on the initial oxygen

content prior to fermentation?  Would this imply that pitching

a large yeast starter (maybe using the dreggs of the previous

batch) and not aerating the wort would result in a more

potent product?  I'm wondering why the homebrew in which I attempt

to match the OG & FG of some commercial products always seems to

have more of a kick too it?

Chris

------------------------------


PET Bottles

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1993 12:24:07 EST

From: "Mark T. Berard" <mtberard@dow.com>

Subject: PET Bottles

I recently posted asking about PET bottles.  The responses have been very

positive, that is, there don't seem to be any Major problems with using

them.  A few of the key comments are shown below.  Thanks to all who responded.

>From: John Mare <cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu>

Notes that "Several high-quality British brewers are marketing "real ales" in

PET bottles (eg. Sam Smith). I have also encountered a South African

(Mitchells) and Canadian (Wellington) who successfully use these plastic

bottles."

>From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Notes that the bottles are clear and so one must consider UV degradation

of the beer, which "can give it a skunky smell... so you may want to keep

them covered."

>From: John DeCarlo <jdecarlo@homebrew.mitre.org>

>1) They may be oxygen permeable--I wouldn't store in them over a year.

>2) People have reported that some versions (Dr. Pepper?) of soda leave a

>   lingering taste--I use the Seltzer ones primarily.

>3) You can squeeze them to tell if carbonation is complete.

>4) They can stand higher pressures than regular glass bottles, in case you

>   worry. [Heaven Forbid!]

>5) They are perfect for parties--you don't care if you don't bring the bottle

>   back home with you.

Overall the use of PET bottles seems perfectly reasonable.  Just pour your

beer into a nice looking glass before you let your friends see it! ;-)

Dr. Mark T. Berard                   |    Internet:  mtberard@dow.com

Snailmail:                           |    Voice:     504-353-8418

Dow Chemical, La. R&D, Bldg. 2506    |    FAX:       504-353-6608

PO Box 400, Plaquemine  LA  70765    |          SCIENCE!

------------------------------


Ads/ Keg Faq/ Mail Order/ Keg Parts/ Taps and Mac ClipArt/

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1993 11:35:10 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Ads/ Keg Faq/ Mail Order/ Keg Parts/ Taps and Mac ClipArt/

>

> James- grumbleS 'bout beer commercials (but lets NOT start a discussion!)

>

*   Just sit back, enjoy the buxom breasts and bulging bicepts and pretend

it's a Nike commercial.  Crack another hb and wait for Trek to return. :)

 ***

Keg Faq-   add counter pressure filling. Otherwise the outline looks

good.  Let me know if I can help.  :)  Tho- I'm no pro...

 ***

>

> Dan (?)   pickerel@micom.com   had a list of  Mail order supplies:

>

*   I just typed up a list of suppliers from Brewtechniques Vol 1. No. 4

and some from the southwest brewing news.  I could e-mail it to anyone

who asks.  Most of the ones I gathered had 800 numbers and free catalogs.

I do have an extensive list (hard copy) , but never had the motivation to

TYPE it into a database, but BOY that would be nice to have!  NationWide!

 ***

Larry Atkinson was looking for fitting for kegs-  real bar type kegs.

*  I don't know what type the Labatts counts as- but here is a supplier

for bar equipment, including all kinds of fittings and pieces for kegs-

some are useful for soda keg usage too.  Things like shanks and taps.

Oliver D. Ennis  4151-53 Sepulveda Blvd, Culver City, CA. 90230

  800-843-6647

 Foxx Equip.  421 SW Blvd, Kansas City, MO.

 800-821-2254/

 Have some stuff for big kegs.  They might be able to tell you what you need.

*    No connection, just have their catalogs!  Bonk Bonk! Tell 'em Jim!

*****************************   QUESTIONs *********************************

1.  Hey-  Anyone know of a source for nice taps handles. You know the tall

kind of pull taps, to go on a fridge shank, not onto a bar...

good beer brands would be preferable to shlits (- the l   )    Hep' me!?

2.  Anyone have any good beer/brewing related clip art.  Prefereably MAC

format.  PICT is good.  I am especially looking for pictures of HOPS,

BARLEY, KEGS, CASKS, GLASSES, MUGS,  But especially decorative hops and

barley vines, and sheafs.  I have various animals, and some mugs, but

not much to make BEER labels from.

ALSO: I'd really like to find a GOOD picture of a....C O Y O T E..what else!

Ideal would be a COYOTE howling,  maybe even a cactus nearby, or a moon...

If you haven't figured out...trying to get a LOGO together for my "brewery".

I will gladly send homebrew or mead to anyone able to help me sufficiently!

 **********************************************************************

Today is SCOTCH ALE day.  Oh yum.  Gotta go grind!  I get to try my new

belgian malts for the first time!  (Thanx Lynne!)

So many beers to brew, so many beers to sample....whats a guy to do but brew.

                             Chow for Now.

             John (The Coyote) Wyllie  SLK6P@cc.usu.edu

------------------------------


getting wort into primary/chiller cleaning/changing yeast midstream

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 13:34:35 EST

From: Keith MacNeal  24-Nov-1993 1323 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: getting wort into primary/chiller cleaning/changing yeast midstream

JC Ferguson asked about cleaning immersion wort chillers prior to use.  I

soaked mine in a solution of TSP, bleach, and water (the same solution I use

to clean bottles and remove the lables).  It worked great in getting the

grease and grime off.  The only thing I do now to get it ready for use is to

put it in the boiling wort 15 minutes or so before removing it from the heat.

The copper tubing does get a bit brighter after use, but I don't think a

little copper oxide is going to hurt anything in the beer (if it did, we'd

have to scrap all of our copper plumbing).

To get my wort into the primary after chilling, I use the same approach Mark

Bunster outlines in Homebrew Digest #1280 (November 24, 1993).  And if by

chance some of the break material and hop pellets work their way through the

strainer into the fermenter, I relax and have a homebrew.  I know Dave Miller

likes to get the beer off the trub as soon as possible but I really haven't

seen any compelling information that makes me want to start whirlpools and

siphons, drill holes in my brewpot, worry about filters, or add another

racking step (and all its complications) to my process.

In Homebrew Digest #1280 Tever Miller asks about repitching his Tarpit Stout

with champagne yeast.  My response is why?  I brewed an Imperial Stout using

only Irish Ale yeast from Wyeast.  I didn't have any problems with it

fermenting out.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


rauchbier

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 14:23:29 EST

From: Mark Bunster <mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu>

Subject: rauchbier

* My problem is that although the smoke comes through wonderfully well in

* the flavor, my beer is always eliminated in competitions because the

* smoke is so subtle in the aroma that it's not in the same league with

* the winners.

*

* Short of using some sort of "liquid smoke" solution (which I absolutely

* refuse to try), is there some trick to get the smoke aroma to express

* itself more strongly?

*

This is just a thought--no idea whether it will work:

try rigging up some way to smoke your hops. Not necessarily the bittering hops

(although you can try that too), but the finishing hops, the ones that do

much to give aroma. If you don't use finishing hops, maybe try.

Ah, rauchbiers. I remember being treated to one as a 17 year old in Nuernberg

Germany, in a bar near the medieval castle downtown. My grandfather explained

its origins (it's known as a Schlaenkerla there) and handed me a half-litre.

The smell about knocked me down, and I remember the omnipresent feeling that

I was drinking a beer and bacon fat solution. It grew on me, though, and by

the bottom of the glass I was ready for another. My grandfather wisely

demured--when we stood to go I was pretty wobbly.

- --

Mark Bunster                      |Exchange conversation if you dare--

Survey Research Lab--VCU          |Share an empty thought or a laugh.

Richmond, VA 23220                |

mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu            |

(804) 367-8813/353-1731           |                          -edFROM

------------------------------


wyeast types

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1993 12:16:53 -0800

From: oeinkeranen@esd114.wednet.edu

Subject: wyeast types

I was fortunate enough to get a copy of the following Wyeast Yeast Profiles

from Wyeast Labs (1-503-354-1335) courtesy of our good friends at Evergreen

Brewing Supply in Bellevue, Wa. (1-800-789-BREW).  BTW, they (EBS) have an

impressive list of Belgian malts which, as far as I know, no one else in town

carries (and I've been in them all).

WYEAST LABORATORIES YEAST PROFILES

Ales   Saccharomyces cerevisiae

- ----   ------------- ----------

1007  Our original Ale Yeast of German origin.  Ferments dry and crisp leaving

      a complex yet mild flavor.  Produces an extremely rocky head and ferments

      well down to 55xF.  Flocculation is high and apparent attenuation is 73-

      77%.

1084  Irish-style Ale Yeast. Slight residual diacetyl and fruitiness is great

      for stouts.  It is clean, smooth, soft and full-bodied.  Medium

      flocculation and apparent attenuation of 71-75%.

1338  European yeast from Wissenschaftliche in Munich.  A full-bodied complex

      strain, finishes very malty. Produces a dense, rocky head during

      fermentation.  High flocculation, apparent attenuation of 67-71%.

1098  British Ale Yeast from Whitbread.  Ferments dry and crisp, slightly tart

      and well balanced.  Ferments well down to 65xF.  Medium flocculation,

      apparent attenuation 73-75%.

1056  American Ale Yeast.  Ferments dry, finishes soft, smooth and clean, and

      is very well balanced.  Flocculation is low to medium.  Apparent

      attenuation of 73-77%.

1028  London Ale Yeast.  Rich minerally profile, bold crisp slight diacetyl

      production.  Medium flocculation.  Apparent attenuation 73-77%.

1214  Belgian Ale Yeast.  Abbey-style top fermenting yeast suitable for high

      gravity beers, doubles, triples, and barley wines.  Medium flocculant

      strain which clears well.  Apparent attenuaton 71-75%.

Lager   Saccharomyces uvarum

- ----    ------------- ------

2007  Our original Lager Yeast Strain.  Specific for pilsner-style beers.

      Known as many things, we call it Pilsen.  Ferments dry, crisp, clean and

      light.  Medium flocculation.  Apparent attenuation 71-75%.

2308  Munich Yeast from Wissenschaftliche in Munich #308.  One of the first

      pure yeast available to American homebrewers.  Sometimes unstable, but

      smooth, soft, well-rounded and full-bodied.  Medium flocculation,

      apparent attenuation 73-77%.

2042  Danish Yeast Strain.  Rich, yet crisp and dry.  Soft, light profile which

      accentuates hop characteristics.  Flocculation is low, apparent

      attenuation is 73-77%.

2206  Bavarian Yeast Strain used by many German breweries.  Rich flavor,

      full-bodied, malty and clean.  Medium flocculation, apparent attenuation

      of 73-77%.

2035  American Lager Yeast.  Unlike American pilsner styles.  It is bold and

      complex and woody, produces slight diacetyl.  Medium flocculation,

      apparent attenuation of 73-77%.

2124  Bohemian Lager Yeast.  The traditional Saaz yeast from Czechoslovakia.

      ferments clean and malty, rich residual maltiness in high gravity

      pilsners, medium flocculation, apparent attenuation of 69-73%.

2112  California Lager Yeast.  Warm fermenting bottom cropping strain, frements

      well to 62xF while keeping lager characteristics.  Malty profile, highly

      flocculan, clears brilliantly.  Apparent attenuation of 72-76%.

YEAST and BATERIA CULTURE PROFILES    Saccharomyces delbrueckii, s. cerevisae

3056  Bavarian Weissen.  A blend of s. cerevisiae and delbruekii to produce a

      south german style wheat beer with a cloying sweetness, when the beer is

      fresh.  Mdeium flocculation, apparent attenuation of 73-77%.

Wine Yeast

- ---- -----

3021  Prise de mousse, Institute Pasteur champagne yeast race bayanus.  Crisp

      and dry, ideal for sparkling and still wine and fruit wines.  Low

      foaming, excellent barrel fermentation, good flocculating characteristics.

      Ferments well at low (55xF) temperatures.  Also can be used for Barley

      wines.

3028  French (bordeux) wine yeast ideally suited for red and white wines which

      mature rapidly or reds requiring aging.  Moderate foaming, low sulphur

      production over a wide temperature range.  Enhances the fruity

      characteristics of most wines.

Sake Yeast    Saccharomyces sake

- ---- -----    ------------- ----

3134  Japanese Rice Beer Yeast Strain for use in conjunction with Koji

      (Aspergillus oryzae) for making a variety of sake styles.  Full-bodied

      profile with true sake character.

Malo-lactic Bateria

- ----------- -------

Leuconostoc oenos

4007  Malo-lactic culture blend isolated from western Oregon wineries.

      Includes strains Ey2d and Er1a.  Excellent for high acid wines and low

      pH.  Softens wines by converting harsh malic acid to milder lactic acid.

      Can be added to juice any time after the onset of yeast fermentation when

      sulphur dioxide is less than 15 ppm.

BRAND NEW ALE, LAGER, AND LAMBIC YEAST STRAINS (as of 11-18-93)

1968  Special London ALe Yeast.  Highly flocculant ale yeast with rich malty

      character and balanced fruitiness.  High degree of flocculation makes

      this an excellent strain for cask conditioned ales.

1728  Scottish Ale Yeast.  Rich smokey, peaty character ideally suited for

      Scottish style ales, smoked beers and high gravity beers.

2565  Kolsh Yeast.  A hybrid of Ale and Lager characteristics.  This strain

      develops excellent maltiness with subdued fruitiness, and a crisp finish.

      Ferments well at moderate temperatures.

2278  Czech Pils Yeast.  Classic dry finish with rich maltiness.  Good choice

      for pilsners and bock beers.  Sulpher produced during frementation

      dissapates with conditioning.

3068  Wheinstephen Wheat Yeast.  Saccharomyces delbrueckii single strain

      culture for German wheat beers.

3944  Belgian White Beer Yeast.  Rich, phenolic character for classic Belgian

      styles, including Grand Cru.

3273  Brettanomyces bruxellensis.  Belgian lambic style yeast with rich,

       earthy, odiferous character and acidic finish.

Vic Keranen

just in case you are wondering, I don't work for either co. Just a homebrewer

who figured I should pass this on since I haven't seen this info anywhere else.

oeinkeranen@vaxj.esd114.wednet.edu

oeinkeranen@vaxj.esd114.wednet

------------------------------


Grains/Easymashing

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 15:11:00 PST

From: "Moore, Brian" <Moorebw@hvsmtp1.mdc.com>

Subject: Grains/Easymashing

Hello All,

Just a few general grain questions:

First of all, I've been looking at a lot of recipes lately to find some

tasty pale ales and such. Many of these recipes call for something on the

order of 1/2 #  30 (L) Crystal, and 1/2 # 90 (L) Crystal. Would this not be

the same as 1 whole pound of 60 (L) Crystal? Would there be any difference

in the flavors either way?

Secondly, I've been considering buying one or two fifty pound sacks of 2-Row

malt (There's a place in Orlando where you can get a fifty pound sack for

$19.95). Since I don't have a mill, I'm going to buy the grains pre-crushed

(Free crushing). I will probably use them all within a couple of months.

I've heard talk that crushing grains and then keeping them around for a

while will cause the grains to "go stale/bad". What exactly does this mean?

Will the stale/bad grains not give me as much goodness? Will my beer taste

stale? Should I even be concerned or is this more of the boogy/bogyman

talking?

Now on to easymashing ...

Sorry Jack, this isn't about an E(e)asymasher (I'm a cooler man myself).

Here is a technique John Goodman and myself have used to cut our all-grain

brewing time in half. Hopefully this will help some of you out there who are

afraid of the extra time all-graining takes. Since my house is only about 5

miles from work, I go home for lunch (about 10 minute trip). Immediately

upon arrival, I put about 2.5 gallons of water on my propane burner to heat

to about 175 F. In the seven minutes this takes, I put all of my premeasured

grains in the cooler (slotted copper manifold, etc. etc.). Once the water is

heated, I mash-in and put the lid on the cooler (The mash temperature

stabilized at about 158-160). Now I grab a quick sandwich (not necessarily

off of the garage floor) and return to work. Total time: about 45 minutes.

Once back in the office, I work for about 2 to 2.5 hours (this technique

does call for leaving early, although I guess a 3 or 4 hour mash isn't out

of the question). When I get back home, the mash temperature is down to

about 145 F. Next, I heat the sparge water (10 minutes), sparge (30

minutes), begin heating runnings immediately after recirculation, bring to

boil (20 minutes), boil (90 minutes), cool/aerate/pitch yeast (30 minutes).

Total time after work: 3 hours. Done by dinnertime! If only I could find a

way to sparge while I'm at work.

                                   Brian Moore

------------------------------


Thanksgiving

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 14:54:53 MST

From: dwatson@as.arizona.edu (Dan Watson)

Subject: Thanksgiving

Good afternoon fellow brewophiles,

Came upon a copy of "Early American Beverages" (John H. Brown, Bonanza

Books, 1966) the other day.  This delightful history is full of

recipies for beers, wines, mixed, "temperance", and medicinal drinks

from early colonial times to about the Civil War.  In the spirit of

Thanksgiving, I offer this excerpt:

"Common Beer: Two gallons of water to a large handful of hops is the

rule.  A little fresh-gathered spruce or sweet ferm makes the beer

more agreeable, and you may allow a quart of wheat bran to the

mixture; then boil it two or three hours.  Strain it through a seive,

and stir in, while the liquor is hot, a teacup of molasses to every

gallon.  Let it stand till lukewarm, pour it into a clean barrel and

add good yeast, a pint, if the barrel is nearly full; shake it well

together; it will be fit for use the next day.

                               The Way To Live Well, 1849"

   How's that for turnaround time!  of course there were better

brewers around too:

"English Beer, Strong: Malt 1 peck; coarse brown sugar 6 lbs.; hops 4 oz.;

good yeast 1 tea-cup; if you have not malt, take a little over 1 peck

of barley, (twice the amount of oats will do, but are not as good,)and

put into an oven after the bred is drawn, or into a stove oven. and

steam the moisture from them.  Grind coarsely.

   Now pour upon the ground malt 3 1/2 gals. of water at 170 or 172

degrees of heat.  The tub in which you scald the malt should have a

false bottom... bored with gimlet holes... to hold back the malt meal.

When the water is poured on, stir them well, and let it stand 3 hours,

and draw off by a faucet; put in 7 gals. more of water at 180 to 182

degrees ; stir it well, and let it stand two hours and draw it off.

Then put in a gallon or two more of cold water, stir it well and draw

it off; you should have 5 or 6 gals. (sic)  Put the 6 lbs. of coarse

brown sugar in an equal amount of water; mix with the wort and boil 1

1/2 to 2 hours with the hops; you should have eight gals. when boiled.

When cooled to 80 degrees put in the yeast, and let work 18 to 20

hours, covered with a sack; use sound iron hooped kegs or porter

bottles, bung or cork tight, and in two weeks it will be good sound

beer, and will keep a long time; and for persons of a weak habit of

body, and especially females, 1 glass of this with their meals is far

better than tea or coffee, or of all the ardent spirits in the

universe."

I'll Bet!  Happy Thanksgiving Y'all.

                                        Dan Watson

                                        Steward Observatory

                                        Mirror Lab

------------------------------


Box crates, Lids, G.L.V.M., AND Smoke

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 13:41:40 PST

From: ELQ1%Maint%HBPP@cts27.comp.pge.com

Subject: Box crates, Lids, G.L.V.M., AND Smoke

    Hoppy Thanksgiving All you Brew Dudes and Gals,

   A few ago one person asked about crates for beer bottles, I contacted a

   local dairy and was told that the plastic crates are not for sale, I lack

   blocked grey matter to steal, so I made some out of 1x8 and 1x3 pine, cost

   was about $11 for material and produced 4 stout clean boxes, much cheaper

   than a $15 plastic crate and a whole lot cheaper than jail. Size for 30

   bottles, 12oz is 12 1/2"x 15" I.D. If any need plans, just hollar.

     After fighting the lids on my plastic fermenter and disturbing the

   sediment, I bought some lids from a paint store, they are NEW, HDPE, and

   they hav an airtight 2 1/2" bung that is handy for checking progress and

   access for racking. The lid has skirts on the side for easy removal and

   installation. Cost: $2

    Has anyone out there tried using the cousin of hops for flavoring or any

   other value? I refer to Green Leafy Vegetable Matter, its a sick bird,

   [ill-eagle] Results?  I am just curious...

    In HBD #1280 Ed asks about Rauchbier, hey Ed I am going to try this;

     Take some apple wood from my pruning, let dry and "charcoal" in my

    smoker, then add to the primary and let it perk away, just a few

    briquets should have some good clean flavor to it. Any other ideas?

                      Ed Quier, ELQ1@maint@hbpp

                    not my lifestyle, just my name

------------------------------


brewmart danish style pils problem

Date: Thu, 25 Nov 93 09:47:08 EST

From: barling@merlin.anu.edu.au (Pat Barling)

Subject: brewmart danish style pils problem

recently I put down the above kit as per instructions (I only added

light malt extract instead of sugar), included in kit was a special

pilsner enzyme to be pitched in with yeast.

after 2 weeks I racked to a secondary, added finings and bottled

7 days later F.G. 1.006.

last night I noticed that there was a cloudy layer on the top

of every bottle, hygiene is not a problem.

any ideas? is it the enzyme? thanks in advance for any help

pat.

email suggestions to barling@merlin.anu.edu.au

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1281, 11/25/93

*************************************

-------


Partial Mash

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 14:01:22 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Partial Mash

                      Partial Mash for Extract Brewers

To do a partial mash, the extract brewer has to do a small amount of tinkering,

and invest in a small amount of additional equipment.  By doing this, the

brewer can learn the methods of mashing, get an idea of the time involved, and

see a difference in the beer, without having to make large investments in lots

of equipment.  This procedure can be used to modify all-grain recipes which

include uniquely flavored grains, but that require mashing, including but not

limited to Belgian 2-row pale malt, vienna malt, munich malt, biscuit malt,

and victory malt.  It also treats specialty grains such as crystal, chocolate,

etc. in a manner similar to the all-grain setup.  The extract brewer can

substitute pale malt extract for most or all of the relatively large amount of

base pale malt (usually 2-row) and mash the rest of the grains, without

building or buying a large kettle, etc.

An easy setup involves a small (3-6 gallon) cooler of any shape.  These are

found in almost any home and serve nicely as a small mash tun which will hold

liquid and grains at temperatures up to about 170F.  An occasional use in this

manner will not harm it for later use as a cooler.  In order to reclaim the

liquid in it, a simple manifold can be made from two feet of 3/8" soft copper

tubing.  You can crimp the end of the tubing and drill some small holes in it

or cut a few notches in it with a hacksaw.  The openings in the manifold

should face downward so that grain will not plug them up.  Another choice would

be to clamp a small piece of stainless steel screening onto the end of the

uncrimped pipe.  The type of manifold isn't critical, as it is the grain that

actually does the filtering.  This lautering mechanism will pull the liquid out

of the grain using a siphon.

Remember that during mashing/sparging sanitation is unnecessary (although

general cleanliness is always a good idea) because the hot liquor goes

immediately into the kettle for boiling.  The following equipment is

necessary; much of it is probably already used by the extract brewer:

Usually these are the only two items needed to purchase:

2' of soft copper tubing

tincture of iodine (optional)

Most extract brewers have these items around the house:

Small cooler

siphon hose

white plate (optional)

hydrometer

thermometer

kettle

fermenter

etc.

Diagrams:

             SIMPLE MASHING SETUP

                    _____ siphon hose

       ____________/     /

      |   Mash &    |     /

      | Lauter Tun  |      /

      | (aka cooler |       /

      | & tubing)   |        /

      |_____________|         /

                               /

                          |     /          |

                          |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|

                          |   Boiling      |

                          |    Kettle      |

                          |                |

                          |________________|

            SIMPLE COPPER TUBING MANIFOLD

     ___

    / _ /     () (end of tubing, attach siphon hose here)

   / / / /   / /

  / /   / /_/ /

 /_/     /___/

    TOP VIEW

 __       ___

 /-/     /-_-/   (note small slots or holes cut in the bottom surface)

  /-/   /-/ /-/

   /-/_/-/   --

    /___/

    BOTTOM VIEW

               (end of tubing, attach siphon hose here)

                _

               | |

               | |

               | |

               | |

               | |

               | |

 ,------------'  /

 |_|_|_|_|_|_|__/

   (note small slots or holes cut in the bottom surface)

   SIDE VIEW

Up-front work:

Bend the copper tubing (be careful not to kink it) into a shape similar to the

one shown above, keep the up-pipe below the cooler lid level so the lid will

close.  The only reason for the funny bends are to allow the tubing to stand

up by itself while dumping in the grains, etc.  You can do your own versions

of it and probably come up with something better (a partial loop comes to mind).

Put the copper tubing in the cooler to check the fit.

The mash:

Dump the crushed grains (have the homebrew shop crush them for you) on top of

the manifold.  Add hot water per the recipe and "dough-in" the grain.  This

involves making sure that all the big chunks of grain are all moistened.  Check

the temperature and adjust with hot or cold water to get to the proper mash

temperature (usually 150-156F).  The enzymes in the barley will handle short

durations of temperature extremes with no problems, so don't worry.  Just make

sure you have a couple quarts of near boiling water and tap water ready to

adjust the temperature.  When you hit your mash temperature, close the lid and

wait 30 minutes.  Recheck the temperature (it is best to just leave the

thermometer in the mash) and adjust back up with hot water if it has dropped

more than 4 degrees.  Wait another 30-60 minutes and do the iodine test if

desired.  During the mash, you can be heating the sparge water so it will be

ready at the end of the mash.

The iodine test (optional):

With a clean spoon, stir the mash a bit and let settle for 5-10 minutes. Dip

some liquid (a spoonful is plenty) off the top of the mash and pour it onto a

clean white plate.  Drop a drop of the iodine onto the mash liquor.  If the

iodine changes black in any part, there is starch remaining and you should

continue the mash.  If it remains the same red/brown color, starch conversion

is complete and you can continue.  It is probably good to do this test at the

very beginning of the mash, just to see a positive starch test as a reference.

Then do it again after mashing; the starch test should be negative.

The mash-out / sparge:

Dump the ground specialty grains into the cooler.  Then dump all the sparge

water at once into the cooler and stir the mash.  Close the lid for a few

minutes to allow settling.  Note that this is not a true mash-out because the

overall temperature of the mash doesn't rise very much due to the thermal mass

of the goods already in the cooler.  Mash-out for the homebrewer is debatable

at best and it is not important for the beginning masher.  Next open the

cooler, attach the siphon hose, and start a siphon by sucking on the hose or

any other convenient method.  Remember, sanitation is not an issue at this

point because this liquid is heading for the boiling kettle.  Drain off all

the liquid into your kettle.  Note that it is best to have the kettle 2-3 feet

below the mash/lauter tun (cooler) so you can maintain a good strong siphon to

drain the liquor from the grains.

The rest is just like an extract brew.  Add your extract and boil away.  All

of these extra steps will take a couple of extra hours but it will give you

an idea of what all-grain brewing takes, and should increase the variety of

recipes available to brew.  Best of all, it is easy and cheap!

Norm

------------------------------


Whining/Kegging FAQ/Starch test/Sanitizers

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 9:40:23 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Whining/Kegging FAQ/Starch test/Sanitizers

Pam Day writes:

>....... Why don't you all stop whining out inane opinions and get

>back on track and talk about brewing! Most of us out here seem to

>be seeking advice and are not out to stroke our own egos by flaming

>those we don't agree with. If you don't agree with someone, offer a

>polite, constructive and well-thought alternative. Enough mothering,

>let's get back to brewing.

Pam, seeking advice is fine, but you have to put up with the egos of the

advice givers.  That's life.  Deal with it.  This forum is give and take

and it really frosts me when the only reason for a post is to flame/

counter-flame etc.  Give something or take something, but don't whine

about it.

**

Tom Leith writes:

> I have begun work on a kegging FAQ and I will need a few knowledegable

 contributors and reviewers to help me.

Whoa pardner!  You might talk to Dion Hollenbeck and coordinate.  He has been

doing the same thing for the past several weeks.  Also, not to gripe (more

information is always welcome), but your FAQ looks more like a book.  Sounds

great, though.

**

I would add one thing to Mark A's "iodine test on dark mash liquor" problem.  I

always advise people to do an iodine test at the very beginning of the mash

(dark/light doesn't matter), as a reference.  Then do it again at the end of

the mash.  If you know what a positive starch test looks like, it is much

easier to determine a negative starch test.  I still do this sometimes when

I'm bored.

**

Fisher writes:

>A good friend of mine works in the food processing industry, and he

>says that I should use hydrogen peroxide to sanitize, like the food

>pros do.  Is this a good idea?  I am not motivated to change, but he

>won't leave me alone without a rebuttal.

Tell him that there are any number of sanitizers that are perfectly acceptable

for homebrewing.  Off the top of my head:  bleach, iodophor, B-brite, boiling

water/steam, alcohol, many others.  I think the Zymurgy Gadgets & Equipment

issue has a long article about them, but it has some wholes in it as well.

Bleach is probably the cheapest of them all, but they all have different

pros/cons.

Norm

------------------------------


Alternative FAQ Formats

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 22:36:00 EST

From: bobreg@aol.com

Subject: Alternative FAQ Formats

I recently downloaded the Yeast FAQ and found that it was chock full of great

info. However, I found it difficult to use as is, so I decided to create a

booklet out of it with PageMaker. In addition, I also created a Yeast FAQ

Windows Help File. The point of this post is to ask if anyone would find

either of these formats useful?

The booklet file is a HP Laserjet print file of about 93K compressed.

All that is needed to print a booklet on 8.5 X 14 paper (8 sheets) is DOS and

a HP Laserjet. It's a great way to distribute FAQ's to your friends and club

members.

The Windows Help file is about 60K and runs with Windows 3.1, although it

probably would run with 3.0 also. It's loaded with all of the nifty Windows

Help stuff.

The idea here is to create a Help File and Booklet for all of the other

homebrew FAQ's and then upload them to the archives, if there is enough

interest. IS THERE?

If anyone can assist me in getting in touch with the right people to arrange

for uploading at sierra.standford, I would appreciate it.

If you have any comments, email me at b_regent@holonet.net, or to

rec.crafts.brewing.   (bob regent)

------------------------------


200 IBUs/Grains of Paradise

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 21:28:47 PST

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: 200 IBUs/Grains of Paradise

Al Korzonas writes in response to my posting of a

historical reference that IPAs of the time had IBU

ratings of around 200!

My first reaction was that this can't be right!  So

I went back and checked the reference that gave me the

2.47 ozs number (per five gallons) for dry hopping.

I recalled calculating the IBUs for the "ordinary home

ales" and came out with 52 IBUs based on 5% alpha hops

and 20% utilization and Rager's gravity adjustment.  OG

of the ale was 1.080 and hopping rate was 8 lbs/quarter

of malt.  It took 12 quarters to produce this strength

of beer, so 96 lbs of hops was used in 1900 gallons (US)

of wort.

But the same reference also states that "20 lbs per quarter

of the best hops shall be used" for ales and porters brewed

for the India government.

Assuming the same 5% alpha and OG of 1.080, this translates to

203 IBUs at 30% utilization (Rager's formula unmodified).

Using my more conservative utilization of 20%, we still get a

whopping (hopping?) 143 IBUs!

So Al is right (or close anyway).  These musta been some beers!

Buffalo Bill Owens (who started the first US brewpub and coined

the term) brewed an ale called Alimony Ale, "the most bitter

brew in the world" but I never tried any (I've had the real

alimony, thank you).  Has anyone ever brewed or tasted beer this

bitter?  I think I'm going to add some iso alpha extract to

some Anchor Liberty and get it up to 150 IBUs to see what it

tastes like.  I'll let you know if was actually palatable or

not.

BTW, in case anyone's interested, the reference I'm using is

The Manual of Brewing: Scientific and Technical by Egbert Grant

Hooper, 1891.

************************

Now I'll ask a question.  In the recent Zymurgy, an article talks

about hop substitutes, as does Hooper in the aforementioned book.

Here's a quote (talking about hop substitutes):  "Narcotic principles

are little used now except in very low neighborhoods. We have,

however, reason to fear that grains of paradise are still sometimes

employed with the object of increasing the intoxicating character

of the beer, and imparting a ficticious sense of strength."

What is (are) grains of paradise?  I would have assumed opium of

some sort, but a previous sentence reads:  "the substances which

at various times have been used to wholly or partialy replace

hops or intensify the bitter or narcotic character of the beer are

very numerous, and include gentian, quassia, aloes, marsh trefoil,

broom, wormwood, cocculus indicas, grains of paradise, opium,

tobacco, picric acid and strychnine."

Note that grains of paradise is listed separately from opium.

Clues anybody?

(Yes.  Strychnine and picric acid.  Don't try this at home kids.)

Mark

------------------------------


almost there

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1993 21:22:43 -0500

From: jeclark@ucdavis.edu (James Clark)

Subject: almost there

well, we bought our equipment today and will start brewing on friday (if i

can wait that long). we got a carboy for free from a friend and got a great

deal on the rest of our equipment.  altogether, for everything but the

extract, it only cost us about $35!!

we are going to brew the "righteous real ale" in papazian's book.

i just had a few questions:

1) will 5 grams of dry english ale yeast be enough?

2) instead of the dried malt extract we are going to use bulk syrup.  the

owner of the store where we bought everything brews a batch a week and said

that she has never had any problems with the bulk stuff.  anyone out there

think it is a bad idea?

thanks a lot

- --james

------------------------------


brew belt problem

Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1993 11:17:31 -0400 (AST)

From: EKELLY@admin.stmarys.ca

Subject: brew belt problem

I am a very careful brewer and have been brewing successfully for

the last two years without incident. However, my last six batches

have been flops due to contamination. I have exhausted all avenues

and am getting very disgusted. I even sought advice on the net to

ensure my bottle washer is germ free.

I consulted a friend who is a microbiology lab technician and she

has the following theory about the use of brew belts. I have

purchased a brew belt 6 batches ago and coincidentally never had a

good batch since. I consulted a few brewers on the use of brew

belts and they said no problem and to look elsewhere for the

contamination source. I only use the brew belt for 12 to 24 hours

to start the fermentation since by basement is 60 degrees. She

claims that 75 degree wort is a good environment to permit yeast to

grow and overpower the small amount of nasties present in initial

wort. She claims all initial wort has a certain amount of nasties

due to the fact that it is next to impossible to be 100% sterile in

a home environment. She believes that the surface temperature of

the brew belt (100 degrees +/- 5) kills the yeast which is in the

general vicinity of the belt (1 to 2 inches). She claims that this

area which is void (or almost) of yeast is a natural incubator for

nasties which can grow rapidly at 100 degrees with little or no

yeast to worry about.

Any thoughts?

Ed

------------------------------


Re: Counterpressure Bottler Questions

Date: Thu, 25 Nov 93 10:48:30 MST

From: "Mark B. Alston" <c-amb@math.utah.edu>

Subject: Re: Counterpressure Bottler Questions

>The way I used it is as follows:  put contraption in bottle. Open

>gas valve (noise of gas filling bottle and equilibrating). Open valve for

>a while to purge bottle (noise of gas escaping from bottle).  Close valve,

>close gas line, open beer line. Wait for beer to fill bottle under

>pressure.  Remove contraption and cap immediately.

O.K. as I understand what you are doing, you are missing a step.  Here

is the procedure as I am told.  (Keep in mind that I have never done

this, only read about it--story of my life :)

1) open valve to CO2 to presurize bottle.

2) open bleed valve to purge bottle of air.

3) close bleed valve and repressurize bottle.

4) close valve to CO2 5) open liquid valve -- beer will not flow at

   this point since the presures are equal

5) slowly open bleed valve.  This will reduce the presure in the bottle

   and allow the beer to fill it up.

6) When bottle is full: close liquid valve and remove counterflow

7) cap.

That should do it.

Mark

------------------------------


Error in Zymergy

Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1993 11:23:01 -0800 (PST)

From: Jim Cave <CAVE@PSC.ORG>

Subject: Error in Zymergy

 When reading Ed Westemeier's article in zymergy about the old (as in

historical) English recipes, I noted that the extraction/efficiency rates

for these recipes are out of line.  These are for 6 U.S. gal recipes.

For example, the Usher Stout:

 18  oz pale malt.

 6.5  oz carapils

 4  oz black xstal

 2  oz xstal

 2  oz Amber

 2  oz Brown

 ...This to produce 6 gals at 1.056 O.G.  In this instance, I figure the recipe

is out by about a factor of 6 (i.e. the recipe is for 1 U.S. gallon).  The

extraction rate would be about 32 points per pound per gal, which in itself

might be optimistic for yields of only 6 gal.  I'm not sure about the hopping

but that might also be out by a factor of 6.

 This logic does not seem to follow for the Whitbread porter:

 2.5 lbs pale malt

 7  oz brown

 2.5  oz Black   --- 1.060 O.G. 6 gallons

When I follow the logic for the Usher stout in this situation, I get 1.100+,

So....what gives?

 I think Ed is on the digest so perhaps he could comment?

 Jim Cave, Vancouver B.C. Canada.  "In Heaven, there is no Beer

        That's why we drink it here!"

------------------------------


Jim Koch

Date: Thu, 25 Nov 93 16:58 CST

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: Jim Koch

I find it strange that there are people in this forum that judge a

man by the beer that he makes.  Unfortunately, that's not how it's

supposed to work.  You judge a man by his actions, deeds and the

way he treats others.  Jim Koch is no exception.  He should be

judged by his actions and not the beer that his company makes.

I think there are currently enough people out there who have been

sued or threatened with lawsuit by Koch to start a new forum.  Call

it the lit.koch.sued.digest or something like that.  This man is a

monster but unfortunately since I'm an atheist there is no hell for

him to burn in.

I remember years ago when the gay community waged their campaign

against Anita Bryant and her homophobic preachings.  Remember?

Every time she went to speak in a public forum she would get a

cream pie in the face.  Pictures of her with pie on her face got

more media attention than her message.  Eventually she gave up.  A

fiendishly effective tactic if you ask me.

chris campanelli

ps. I too choose to boycott Samuel Adams products.

------------------------------


Tarpit stout && repitching w/diff yeast

Date: Thu, 25 Nov 93 18:15:27 MDT

From: Trever Miller <amby@wooga.cuc.ab.ca>

Subject: Tarpit stout && repitching w/diff yeast

>Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 13:34:35 EST

>From: Keith MacNeal  24-Nov-1993 1323 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

>Subject: [...] cleaning/changing yeast midstream

[...]

>In Homebrew Digest #1280 Trever Miller asks about repitching his Tarpit Stout

>with champagne yeast.  My response is why?  I brewed an Imperial Stout using

>only Irish Ale yeast from Wyeast.  I didn't have any problems with it

>fermenting out.

 My line of thinking was that there's a large amount of fermentables in

 this batch, and I used the dry yeast packet that came with the kit.

 I'm not sure if they'll be able to make full use of all the goodies...

 I have had batches where the provided dry yeast didn't ferment anywhere

 past approx 4%/vol, even though there was ample fermentables, and was

 hoping to get somewhere between 8% and 10% with this batch.

 Perhaps my paranoia is unwarranted, as for the past day or day and

 a half the sounds coming from the primary are akin to a LARGE bowl of

 rice crispies... I guess the yeast really likes it :-)

>

>Keith MacNeal

>Digital Equipment Corp.

>Hudson, MA

- --

millertr@cuug.ab.ca (Preferred)        Snail Mail: #557, 918 - 16 Ave NW

      or                                           Calgary, Alberta T2M 0K3

ambush_bug@wooga.cuc.ab.ca

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1282, 11/26/93

*************************************

-------


Liquid vs. Dry

Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1993 02:53:44 -0800 (PST)

From: Jim Posey <dodger@quack.kfu.com>

Subject: Liquid vs. Dry

A Beginners Query.

I've recently begun brewing and have only used WYEAST Liquid yeasts.

All batches showed activity 12-32 hrs. after pitching, and all have

taken at least twice the stated "normal" time to finish fermenting.

Some simple batches have taken 2 weeks, more complex batches 6 weeks.

My carboy sits in a room heated to 70~ and sanitation doesn't seem

to be a problem. (They all taste great!)   I know the WYEAST is

underpitching, but...  Which is better, all around for the entry-

level brewer, liquid or dry?

email to me at dodger@quack.kfu.com or post any info you think

deserves sharing. Thanks very much in advance.

Jim Posey

ps I enjoy reading everyones opinion, but not over and over again.

------------------------------


200 IBU's and Old British Beer recipes

Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1993 11:38:39 +0000

From: G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk (Geoff Cooper)

Subject: 200 IBU's and Old British Beer recipes

>From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

>Subject: 200 IBUs

>

>Al Korzonas writes in response to my posting of a

>historical reference that IPAs of the time had IBU

>ratings of around 200!

>

>My first reaction was that this can't be right!  So

>

> [snip]

>

>But the same reference also states that "20 lbs per quarter

>of the best hops shall be used" for ales and porters brewed

>for the India government.

>

>Assuming the same 5% alpha and OG of 1.080, this translates to

>203 IBUs at 30% utilization (Rager's formula unmodified).

>Using my more conservative utilization of 20%, we still get a

>whopping (hopping?) 143 IBUs!

Yes. There are references to hopping rates of 20 lbs per quarter, and yes

the formula does equate this to 200 IBUs (but how accurate is the formula

when extrapolated to these extremes?) Rather than adding hop extract to get

some theoretical level of IBU, why not try brewing a beer with this hop rate?

>So Al is right (or close anyway).  These musta been some beers!

They are, I can assure you!

>         Has anyone ever brewed or tasted beer this

>bitter?

Yes. A number of times. The Durden Park Old British Beers book gives the

following recipe for one Imperial gallon (1.2 US gal):

Original India Pale Ale   OG 70

   3lb Pale Malt

   2.5 oz Goldings Hops

An infusion mash and 90 min boil - I leave the detail to you. The recipe

corresponds to the heaviest IPA shipped from Burton-on-Trent in the 1830s

according to the reference. Simmond's of Reading were shipping an almost

identical formulation (2.9lb pale malt plus 2.25oz hops) in 1880.

It should be matured for *at least* eight months (it was a long way to India)

Give it a go Mark

>BTW, in case anyone's interested, the reference I'm using is

>The Manual of Brewing: Scientific and Technical by Egbert Grant

>Hooper, 1891.

Ref: W H Roberts, The Scottish Ale Brewer, 1837, and the Courage

     Brewing Archives.

************************

And while people are publishing recipes from our book :-)

>From: Jim Cave <CAVE@PSC.ORG>

>Subject: Error in Zymergy

>

>        When reading Ed Westemeier's article in zymergy about the old (as in

>historical) English recipes, I noted that the extraction/efficiency rates

>for these recipes are out of line.  These are for 6 U.S. gal recipes.

>For example, the Usher Stout:

>

>        18  oz pale malt.

>        6.5  oz carapils

>        4  oz black xstal

>        2  oz xstal

>        2  oz Amber

>        2  oz Brown

>

ALL RECIPES in the Old Beers Book and when reproduced in Zymurgy are

FOR 1.2 US GALLONS. That is one Imperial gallon

Make the Usher's Stout it's well worth it. Not only that, but I used that

grist formulation (at about a factor of two) to produce an Imperial stout

at OG 106. I tasted it for the first time last week and it is superb.

> This logic does not seem to follow for the Whitbread porter:

>        2.5 lbs pale malt

>        7  oz brown

>        2.5  oz Black   --- 1.060 O.G. 6 gallons

Again, a wonderful beer with a simple recipe.

>So....what gives?

The recipes are out by a factor of 5. And I think it was my fault that the

error arose.

Geoff

[Currently G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk; from 1st Jan 94 will be G.A.Cooper@gre.ac.uk]

------------------------------


beer clip art

Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1993 20:41:27 +0000 (U)

From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: beer clip art

                      beer clip art

coyote...

I too am a Mac/Homebrew person, and would love to share in any

clip art you run across.

As for coyotes, how 'bout some of the stylized southwestern

ones you see in the media now adays? I think there's one you

could modify; it comes with either Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop

as a sample poster, but you could base your stylistic coyote

on that one.

george

------------------------------


re: almost there

Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1993 10:04:26 -0800

From: mfetzer%ucsd.edu@chem.UCSD.EDU (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer)

Subject: re: almost there

James,

congratulations on getting set up!

As to your questions,

yes, 5 grams of dry yeast should be plenty. Some people want to pitch the

larger packets, or two small ones, and the more you get in there, the

better, but 5 is enough. Be sure to aerate *very* well. Doesn't matter how

much yeast you put in if there's  no oxygen for it to use...

no, there should be no problems using the liquid extract instead of dry. I

have heard arguments that syrup is better, because it has not been as

highly refined as the dry, and I've heard counterarguments that syrup is

just dry with water added back. In either case, you don't do *worse* by

using syrup. One caveat: syrup is equivalent to dry plus 20% water, so, if

your recipe calls for 5 lbs dry, you need 6 lbs syrup.

Mike

- --

Michael Fetzer                         pgp 2.2 key available on request

Internet:      mfetzer@ucsd.edu        uucp:    ...!ucsd!mfetzer

Bitnet:        FETZERM@SDSC

HEPnet/SPAN:   SDSC::FETZERM           or       27.1::FETZERM

------------------------------


re: brew belt problem

Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1993 10:04:33 -0800

From: mfetzer%ucsd.edu@chem.UCSD.EDU (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer)

Subject: re: brew belt problem

EKELLY@admin.stmarys.ca writes:

>a home environment. She believes that the surface temperature of

>the brew belt (100 degrees +/- 5) kills the yeast which is in the

>general vicinity of the belt (1 to 2 inches). She claims that this

>area which is void (or almost) of yeast is a natural incubator for

>nasties which can grow rapidly at 100 degrees with little or no

>yeast to worry about.

I've never used one of these gadgets, but I'd say your friend is right.

Beer yeast *does* thrive at 75, and anything over 90 is not good for it. On

the other hand, ~100F is perfect for the nasties to breed in.

Why do you bother with the setup? Even tho your basement may be at 60, if

your wort is at 75 when you pitch, it will take hours if not a couple of

days to equilibrate down to 60. Why not just put a jacket of glass wool

around the carboy/fermenter? When it eventually reaches 60F, it's still

(barely) warm enough to ferment ales.

You might also be able to put some insulation between the brewbelt and the

fermenter, so it doesn't come in direct contact with the wort, or even a

second waterbath that you keep warm, and put the fermenter in that.

One thing's for sure: I'd brew my next batch without the belt, and see what

happens.

Mike

- --

Michael Fetzer                         pgp 2.2 key available on request

Internet:      mfetzer@ucsd.edu        uucp:    ...!ucsd!mfetzer

Bitnet:        FETZERM@SDSC

HEPnet/SPAN:   SDSC::FETZERM           or       27.1::FETZERM

------------------------------


Rauchbier replies & Zymurgy recipe correction

Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1993 18:53:52 -0400 (EDT)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: Rauchbier replies & Zymurgy recipe correction

Many good ideas about my rauchbier aroma question:

Bob Jones suggests that Rauchbiers can be divided into the ones

that are drinkable and ones that win competitions.

He also advises me to decide if I'm brewing them to my taste or

for competitions.

I agree completely.  As a Certified judge myself, I can appreciate

the problem of the jaded palate after a half dozen score sheets.

I think I'll forget the competition aspects of it and just brew

the beer I enjoy.

By the way, I was surprised that so many people asked why I would

bother with the style.  The fact is that the only commercial example

I know of in this country (Kaiserdom) is pure swill.  I don't know

if it's a shelf life problem or what, but if that's your only

experience with the style, you're right to question my sanity.  It's

nothing at all like what you'll find in Franconia.  Brew some

yourself (or come to Cincinnati and try mine) to see what it's really

like.  A fine Oktoberfest with a subtle smokiness that adds to the

flavor and doesn't compete with it.  THAT'S Rauchbier!

Mike Schrempp suggests "dry smoking" by adding a few handfuls

of smoke in the secondary.  This is a marvelous idea, and I'll

give it a try, but I use pretty thick smoke and I don't know if

I can force it through the narrow neck of a carboy.  His other

suggestion sounds more practical.  I've already sent off my $29.95

for an EasySmoker (tm).

Ulick Stafford's idea of bubbling smoke through the secondary is

probably more practical, but I don't feel comfortable with the

infection risk in such an arrangement.  Intriguing thought, though!

Mark Bunster's idea of smoking the finishing hops is also very

intriguing.  It may not have a large effect, but if the smoke is

kept fairly cool, it might work.

Ed Quier's idea of putting apple wood charcoal in the primary is

interesting, but I guess it won't impart much smoke flavor

or aroma.  I'm very curious to hear the results of the attempt,

however!

Thanks to all for the suggestions and interest.

++++++++++++++

ZYMURGY RECIPE ERROR

Jim Cave asks about the (obvious) error in the recipe quantities

in my Zymurgy article.  Others also probably missed the correction

so here it is again:

The quantities shown are for ONE _Imperial_ gallon, NOT 6 US gallons.

To convert to 5 US gallons, multiply everything by 4.2

To convert to 6 US gallons, multiply everything by 5.0

The Zymurgy editor has promised me that a correction will appear in

the next issue.  No one is really sure how it happened, but it is

clear that it would not have occurred if they had sent out proofs

for review prior to printing.  Ah, deadline pressures!

Again, apologies to all for the recipe errors.

Ed Westemeier

Cincinnati, Ohio

westemeier@delphi.com

------------------------------


Cider Problems

Date: Fri, 26 Nov 93 20:07:51 EST

From: sean v. taylor <sean@chemres.tn.cornell.edu>

Subject: Cider Problems

Well, I opened up my first bottle of cider last night and I

was very disappointed.  It was well carbonated, crystal

clear, and altogether okay but for one thing:  it had an

overpowering sulfur flavor.  The good cider flavor was

there, and the added cinnamon was as well, but the sulfur

was the dominant flavor.  Yuck.

 My guess is that I overdid the campden tablets.

Outside of adding them and sterilizing with a weak (as

advised in a winemaking book) solution of metabisulfite,

I don't know how else I could have gotten the sulfur flavor

in there.  Anybody have any other ideas?  I took sweet cider

(read:unfermented) added some cane sugar to raise the S.G.,

some tannin, acid blend, yeast nutrient, and champagne yeast.

It fermented in primary for one week, and in secondary for about

one month.  I bottled and it has set for about one month.

Any ideas on what went wrong?

Does it just need to age longer?

Can I salvage this stuff?

    Thanks for any advice,

    Sean V. Taylor

    sean@chemres.tn.cornell.edu

------------------------------


_very_ low s.g.

Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1993 21:18:50 -0500

From: jeclark@ucdavis.edu (James Clark)

Subject: _very_ low s.g.

my friend and i tried to make our first batch of beer today (try being the

operating word).  it was a semi-disaster, but between a cracked carboy and

burnt malt extract on the bottom of the pan (dude, are we supposed to stir

this?) we got the stuff racked.

here's the problem:  we weren't really that exact with our water.  we just

cooled the wort, dumped it in with some cool water and topped off the

carboy (good thing we had three of them available) so that there was about

three or four inches of air space left.  we thought we had it, but the

starting gravity was way too low.  the recipie says o.g. should be about

1.036 and ours was

1.014.

so, should we just throw it out and start over, or can we introduce some

super- concentrated wort, or should we even worry about it?

or should we just call it "unintentional light beer"?

------------------------------


thanks

Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1993 21:49:16 -0500

From: jeclark@ucdavis.edu (James Clark)

Subject: thanks

i'm sorry, i was going to put this in the last letter, but i forgot:

just in case i forgot to reply to anyone who sent me info,

i really apreciate the help and encouragement i received in reguards to our

first batch (to bad it didn't turn out better, but the blame for that rests

on our heads alone).  i feel like a leach because i get all this help, but

i'm not really able to contribute to the HBD in a positive way (yet).

anyways, thanks again.

- --james

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1283, 11/27/93

*************************************

-------


Undeliverable Mail

Date: 27 Nov 1993 02:31:05 U

From: "MN15-Gateway" <mn15-gateway@mn15-gw.mavd.honeywell.com>

Subject: Undeliverable Mail

Unknown Microsoft mail form. Approximate representation follows.

Message: Homebrew Digest #1282 (November 26, 1993)

Sent: Fri, Nov 26, 1993 2:30 AM

To: Semrau Bill

On Server: MN17-IIO


Date: Sat, Nov 27, 1993 2:31 AM

Reason: Could not be delivered because the destination Microsoft Mail server

Subject: Undeliverable Mail

------------------------------


HSA

Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1993 10:39:19 -0500

From: jeclark@ucdavis.edu (James Clark)

Subject: HSA

i am preparing to start another batch and i want to be a little more

organized than i was with the last one.

one thing that i couldn't figure out was how cold you should get the wort

before pouring it into the carboy.  everyone says to cool it down in ice

water, but they don't say what the final temperature should be.

- --james

------------------------------


re: _very_ low s.g.

Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1993 10:58:48 -0800

From: mfetzer%ucsd.edu@chem.UCSD.EDU (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer)

Subject: re: _very_ low s.g.

/>here's the problem:  we weren't really that exact with our water.  we just

>cooled the wort, dumped it in with some cool water and topped off the

>carboy (good thing we had three of them available) so that there was about

>three or four inches of air space left.  we thought we had it, but the

>starting gravity was way too low.  the recipie says o.g. should be about

>1.036 and ours was

>1.014.

>so, should we just throw it out and start over, or can we introduce some

>super- concentrated wort, or should we even worry about it?

>or should we just call it "unintentional light beer"?

You have 5 gallons of this stuff? Does it smell/taste burnt? (you did

mention burnt malt at the bottom of the pot.)

I guess I would say I'd need more info before I can tell you what to do

with it... what's your setup? I.e., how big a batch of wort can you make at

one shot? What was the recipe? I.e., did you hop this stuff

'appropriately'?

If the proportions are right, you could just brew another batch of wort and

thicken it up a little. If they're all out of whack, or it tastes burnt,

toss it.

On the other hand, if you can make a decent beer out of OG 14 wort,

Anhaeuser Busch will pay you millions for the recipe. :)

>i'm not really able to contribute to the HBD in a positive way (yet).

Heh... just share that super recipe with us so we can share in the wealth. ;)

Mike

- --

Michael Fetzer                         pgp 2.2 key available on request

Internet:      mfetzer@ucsd.edu        uucp:    ...!ucsd!mfetzer

Bitnet:        FETZERM@SDSC

HEPnet/SPAN:   SDSC::FETZERM           or       27.1::FETZERM

------------------------------


golden syrup - the last chapter

Date: Sat, 27 Nov 93 12:01:56 -0800

From: eurquhar@sfu.ca

Subject: golden syrup - the last chapter

Enough with the golden syrup and treacle.  In an attempt to settle this

here is how it's made and what it's made from.

        Golden Syrup is a british style sugar product.  It is made by a

controlled hydrolysis (breakdown) of concentrated (read saturated solution

67% w/v) cane sugar syrup with a strong acid usually hydrochloric acid.

The reaction is terminated after approx. 1 minute by neutralizing the acid

with a strong base usually sodium hydroxide.  This gives the finished syrup

a dark golden colour and caramel flavour with a very slight salty taste as

table salt (sodium chloride) is produced during the reaction.  Treacle is

produced in a similar way just a requires a longer conversion time.  Invert

syrup is produced similarily with an acid such as citric acid or by

enzymatic means.  Both reactions take place in hot syrup to speed the

reaction.  Chuck Wettergreen's recipe is a good example of how invert syrup

is made as it is often not neutralized after the reaction is finished to

your satisfaction ie. is a lvely rich golden colour.  Heed his words about

boilover and make sure that all the sugar and acid is dissolved fully at

low heat before starting the conversion step.  The reaction would work as

well just below boiling except maybe take a little longer.

        Golden syrup but not treacle is made in Vancouver, British Columbia

by Roger's Sugar by the exact same processes as Tate & Lyle in Great

Britain from usually Australian raw sugar.  Tate & Lyle was asked by

Roger's Sugar to setup their plant in British Columbia before the turn of

the century.  No I won't ship any to anyone but ask your major supplier to

call them and inquire.  They are STRICTLY WHOLESALE.  While your at it

inquire about their demerara sugar.  Makes american brown sugar look like

ordinary granulated white sugar.  Once you taste it you'll never go back.

        For what it's worth, before heading back to university I worked as

a quality control technician in the B.C food industry and am quite certain

of my facts.

Eric Urquhart (eurquhar@sfu.ca)

Centre for Pest Management,

Dept. of Biological Sciences

Simon Fraser University,

Burnaby , B.C. Canada V5A 1S6

------------------------------


Beer Labels EPS file

Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1993 15:46:53 +0500 (EST)

From: "David M. Fresco" <fresco@gibbs.oit.unc.edu>

Subject: Beer Labels EPS file

Hello,

Recently someone posted a post script file for making beer labels which a

dutifully extracted from the post.  However, through some reason unknown

to me, neither Photoshop nor MS Word (for mac) could read it as an EPS

file.  Would the poster of this gem please send it out again (or just to

me) along with some brief instructions on how to use it?

Thanks in advance.

David Fresco

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

=  David M. Fresco                                          =

=  Department of Psychology                                 =

=  CB#3270, Davie Hall                      __o             =

=  Chapel Hill, NC 27599                    /<,             =

=  Internet:  fresco@unc.edu              `,/'(*)           =

=             fresco@med.unc.edu         (*) . ./"""        =

=  Voice:  (919) 962-5082               """"                =

=  Fax:    (919) 962-2537                                   =

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

------------------------------


Gravity

Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1993 20:08:43 -0500

From: jeclark@ucdavis.edu (James Clark)

Subject: Gravity

for anyone who got a good laugh at my last post, you'll like this one (i'm

only writing this to redeem my reputation):

i realized that an original gravity of 14 was damn near immpossible barring

any major disasters in the brewing proccess, so thought about it for a

while and then it hit me:  we had poured the 3 1/2 gal. wort into about a

gallon of cold water and then topped the carboy off with cold water.  this

mixed with the wort just enough so we couldn't see the inversion layer we

had created.

sure enough, today we carefully stirred it up with a sterilized coat hanger

and took a reading and it was up to 28.  i guess that's still pretty low,

but our yeast has been going like crazy for the last 18 hours, accounting

for at least a few points.

by the way, (when) will the fermenting beer clear up?

- --james

------------------------------


"Falstaff Tappers"

Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 02:29:57 -0500

From: TiM@world.std.com

Subject: "Falstaff Tappers"

At my not-so-local homebrew haunt, I encountered a person who had several

old "1-case capacity" Falstaff Tappers. They looked like mini-stainless

kegs with a tap on one end. It appeared the keg was intended to lie on its

side. The kegs looked like they would make great homebrew "travel-kegs"

much like the new "party-keg" CO2 cartridge taps. The mini-kegs looked

about 15 years old, but who knows, they were found in an attic.

Does anyone know how to care for these mini-kegs? Can they be re-used

as "travel-kegs" for homebrew? We spent about 15 minutes looking at the

keg, and couldn't figure out exactly how to get the mechanism on the

bottom of the keg unlocked, or how to pressurize the keg if we did.

There must have been quite some expense in setting up to produce all these

"Falstaff Tappers".

Thanks for any responses.t(

TiM@world.std.com Genie>T.ROAIX AOL>BrewTim Prodigy>SSVE83A

------------------------------


Undeliverable Mail

Date: 28 Nov 1993 02:50:20 U

From: "MN15-Gateway" <mn15-gateway@mn15-gw.mavd.honeywell.com>

Subject: Undeliverable Mail

Unknown Microsoft mail form. Approximate representation follows.

Message: Homebrew Digest #1283 (November 27, 1993)

Sent: Sat, Nov 27, 1993 2:42 AM

To: Semrau Bill

On Server: MN17-IIO


Date: Sun, Nov 28, 1993 2:50 AM

Reason: Could not be delivered because the destination Microsoft Mail server

Subject: Undeliverable Mail

------------------------------


brewcap

Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 08:55:02 -0500 (EST)

From: Andy Kurtz <ak35+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: brewcap

hi y'all,

I bought a brewcap last summer and have just gotten around to using it.

So far, despite my trepidation over having 5 gallons of belgian-style

ale tipped upside-down in my study (the bubbling helps me think), it

seems to be working quite fine.  Anyway, I seemed to have lost the

instructions that came with it and I need to know the procedure for

siphoning the priming liquid into the carboy.  Any brewcap users out

there?

thanx, andy

------------------------------


hombrew subscription

Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 11:04:43 -0400 (EDT)

From: HARCH@delphi.com

Subject: hombrew subscription

homebrew-request%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com

thanks

Hal Adams

HARCH@delphi.com

------------------------------


infection?

Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 16:27:46 -0500

From: jeclark@ucdavis.edu (James Clark)

Subject: infection?

our first batch has now been fermenting for about 36 hours and the kreusen

has already stopped.  however, last night it was so active that we were

getting a bubble every two or three seconds into the overflow container.

i sniffed the stuff in the container today and it has a very sweet smell.

does this mean that our beer was infected, or is this just because the

immpurities in the foam smell bad?

also, we have a brown ring around the neck of our container from the

kreusen.  the pictures in papazian's book show just a white foam.  so is

the brown stuff bad news?

thanks

- --james

------------------------------


English pub glasses found

Date: Sun, 28 Nov 93 21:22:18 EST

From: gorman@aol.com

Subject: English pub glasses found

For any Washington DC area brewers:

English pub style glasses (straight sides with a bulge running around t

he glass about 3/4 of the way up) available at Dean & Deluca, 3276 M Street

in Georgetown. Perhaps they're a

lso available in the NY area Dean & Deluca's. $2.50 each.

They look like just the thing to drink a good bit

ter from.

Good Brewing,

Bill Gorman

------------------------------


Durden Park address, hopping rates

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 08:40:34 MET

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: Durden Park address, hopping rates

Hello all,

It seems the Zymurgy issue on Old English Beers has caught the

attention of quite a lot of us (not least because of the unfortunate

mistake concerning volumes). Well, first some questions:

I don't subscribe (and suspect the sub is astanomical to Switzerland),

but have read here various opinions on the publication, ranging

from good to a complete waste of money..... Well, should I ask

Santa Claus for yet another present?

Secondly, has anyone got Harrisons (sp?) address, or alternatively

that of the Durden Park club? (Sorry to whoever supplied me with

it before, our mail server choked and died YET AGAIN recently and

I lost all my saved messages).

Finally, a comment on the hop rates in the Zymurgy issue: I've brewed

a 1055 Pale ale with 3 oz Fuggles and 2 oz Goldings. At bottling

time I regretted it considerably, since it tore the roof of my mouth

off. However, about half a year later (sorry no notes here) it

was wonderful. The hop flavour was unlike what I get by any other

means.

On the same subject, Clive LaPense (sp?) who also write a book on

historical beers, has commented on his recipes in a freebee Brewing

and wine making magazine in Britain. His detractors all questioned

the "ridiculous" hopping rates he gave. His answers were:

1. Let it mature long enough, and

2. Try it.

I would definately agree.

Rob. Thomas.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1284, 11/29/93

*************************************

-------


Demerara Sugar

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1993 08:06:53 -0500 (EST)

From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: Demerara Sugar

 eurquhar@sfu.ca writes:

> While your at it

> inquire about their demerara sugar.  Makes american brown sugar look like

> ordinary granulated white sugar.  Once you taste it you'll never go back.

I have used Demerara sugar by Tate & Lyle and have also used domestic light

and dark brown sugar in homebrewing.  While I found the imported Demerara sugar

interesting, IMO it is not vastly superior to domestic brown sugar.  T&L

Demerara sugar has a smooth, pleasant flavor of molasses.  This character is

easily emulated with a quality domestic light brown sugar or light molasses.

Rob Reed

------------------------------


German Malt sources request

Date:  Mon, 29 Nov 1993 05:44:37 PST

From: Crawford.Wbst129@xerox.com

Subject: German Malt sources request

I have been using the Belgians malts for a while and would like to try some

other malts to see what effect it has on the malty character of my beer.  I

have seen a couple of messages go by that mention good quality German malts.

Does anybody know where I could mail-order some good German malt?

Thanks,

Greg

------------------------------


for James Clark

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 09:14:01 EST

From: 29-Nov-1993 0911 -0500 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: for James Clark

>Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 16:27:46 -0500

>From: jeclark@ucdavis.edu (James Clark)

>Subject: infection?

>

>our first batch has now been fermenting for about 36 hours and the kreusen

>has already stopped.  however, last night it was so active that we were

>getting a bubble every two or three seconds into the overflow container.

>i sniffed the stuff in the container today and it has a very sweet smell.

>does this mean that our beer was infected, or is this just because the

>immpurities in the foam smell bad?

Relax mon.  Everything sounds like it is going in a normal way.

If you want, you can rack it off to a secondary container, but this

isn't necessary.

>also, we have a brown ring around the neck of our container from the

>kreusen.  the pictures in papazian's book show just a white foam.  so is

>the brown stuff bad news?

>thanks

don't worry about it mon!  a brown ring of stuff is perfectly normal.

 -JC

------------------------------


which yeast?

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 09:39:19 EST

From: btalk@aol.com

Subject: which yeast?

I have a doppelbock recipe that has performed well in contests, and in the

quest for the best( also known as the never ending tweak), I started thinking

about choice of yeast. I've used Wyeast 2308 Munich, made into a starter.

Fermented @47 f for 3 weeks, 55f for 1week,back to 47 f for 1 week, then

lager at 32f for 3 -4 weeks.      Does anyone have experience with (or

contrast/compare) Wyeast 2308 munich  vs. Wyeast 2206 Bavarian?

  The 2206 Bavarian description seems to stress the smooth  maltiness that a

doppelbock should have.

  I have a fridge to use for lagering, so low temp ferments aren't a problem

for me.

  Any thoughts here would be appreciated.

THANKS MUCH.

Bob Talkiewicz, Binghamton, NY

------------------------------


Alternative FAQ Formats

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 09:39:58 EST

From: Mark A. Stevens <stevens@stsci.edu>

Subject: Alternative FAQ Formats

In Homebrew Digest #1282, Bob Regent (b_regent@holonet.net) mentioned that he

was creating a PageMaker layout and Windows help file of the Yeast FAQ and

asked if these were useful.

My feeling on this is "No---not the way they are."

While a nicely laid out booklet format for the FAQ might be useful, putting

it up on the net in a vendor-specific format requiring a specific brand and

model of printer is decidedly net-user-hostile. Generally Bob, people put

things up in a format that is NOT limited to one software and/or hardware

vendor's products so that as many people as possible can make use of your

hard work and so when the specific product you geared your work toward is

phased out your work doesn't become a useless disk-space waster.

For most information, ASCII text is the most useful format, so you'll find

that no matter how great a job you do, the ASCII format will still probably

be more often used because EVERY platform and software can handle an ASCII

file. For a layout, PostScript is the most intelligent choice because it

is supported by a wide range of different vendors and because PostScript

file viewers are available for most platforms and because LOTS of different

software can import PostScript. (DVI or TeX are not unreasonable choices,

but not as many people know how to handle DVI or TeX files so these aren't

optimal choices).

For the Windows help files, I'd say these are pretty much useless for two

reasons:

1) Form doesn't follow function. When I'm brewing or culturing yeast, I'm

   doing so in my kitchen, not at my computer. A document like the layout can

   be printed out and taken to the kitchen with me to look at as I perform

   whatever process is being described, a help file is totally useless

   because I don't keep my computer in my kitchen. Simply a mis-application

   of technology.

2) Vendor-specific again. Not EVERYBODY uses or wants to use MS-Windows.

If you really are enamored of hypertext help, then a generically useful

format that allows for information discovery might have some utility.

This means investigating tools like HTML and WWW to put up a net-based

hypertext that anyone anywhere in the world can access with a click

of the mouse. This might require some work, but would be a useful

tool.

In any case, stay away from vendor-specific formats if you want to be

a good net citizen.

Salut!

- ---Mark Stevens

   stevens@stsci.edu

------------------------------


"Closed" fermentation -vs- "Open" fermentation

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1993 9:13:40 -0600 (CST)

From: "SMSD::MRGATE::/"A1::WESTERMAN_ROBERT/""@smsd.jsc.nasa.gov

Subject: "Closed" fermentation -vs- "Open" fermentation

From: NAME: ROBERT B. WESTERMAN

 FUNC: SP52

 TEL: 33742                            <WESTERMAN_ROBERT@A1@SMSD>

To: smtp%"homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com"@mrgate

In the NCJOHB it says there is an advantage to the removal of the very

bitter and brown resinous scum on top of the kraeusen (less of a "bite" and

the "fusel" oils are removed which contribute to what is referred to as

"beer headaches").  A "closed" fermentation system (5 gal carboy with a

overflow tube) facilates this.  I use a 6 gal carboy with an airlock

("open" fermentation system).  Should I switch to a "closed" system and is

there really a noticeable improvement in the flavor of the brew?

------------------------------


HSA again...

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1993 11:26:31 -0400

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: HSA again...

In Austin + Pugsley's article in the special issue Zymurgy they describe

the technique for a good infusion mash.  They say to use enough hot water

to cover the false bottom, then run a stream of strike water and a stream

of crushed malt together, so the malt is thoroughly covered with water when

it gets to the bottom.  Once the mash lands, leave it.  They also say that

the streaming process traps air in the mash, making it more buoyant, so

that it does not jam up the false bottom.  This mention of trapping air in

the mash set off little alarm bells.  Can it be that less air contact is

made this way than gently stirring?  Or is this just the case for large

scale mashes, where "gently" stirring is next to impossible?

____________

Ed Hitchcock ech@ac.dal.ca | Oxymoron:  Draft beer in bottles. |

Anatomy & Neurobiology  | Pleonasm:  Draft beer on tap.     |

Dalhousie University, Halifax |___________________________________|

------------------------------


Please add me to you distribution

Date: 29 Nov 93 10:59:56 EST

From: Steven Grove <70003.3234@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: Please add me to you distribution

Please add me to your distribution of brewing information.  My address is:

70003.3234@CompuServe.COM

Thanks,

Steve Grove

------------------------------


Please relax!!

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 10:16:27 CST

From: biszek@rose.rsoc.rockwell.com (Don Biszek)

Subject: Please relax!!

IN the latest HBD...

 jeclark@ucdavis.edu (James Clark) writes [

Subject: infection?

our first batch has now been fermenting for about 36 hours and the kreusen

has already stopped.  however, last night it was so active that we were

getting a bubble every two or three seconds into the overflow container.

i sniffed the stuff in the container today and it has a very sweet smell.

does this mean that our beer was infected, or is this just because the

immpurities in the foam smell bad?

also, we have a brown ring around the neck of our container from the

kreusen.  the pictures in papazian's book show just a white foam.  so is

the brown stuff bad news?

thanks

 - --james ]

If you are reading Papazian, then why don't you follow his strongest advice,

and Relax!! Your beer will be the same whether or not you worry and post

20 questions about each bubble that perks up!

don

------------------------------


Re: Rauchbier

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 9:37:22 MST

From: Jason Goldman <jason@bluestar.cnd.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Rauchbier

This last May, I took a beer trip to Germany and one of my stops was in

Bamberg, home of Rauchbier.  My only previous experience with this style

was Kaiserdom Rauchbier, which I found to be totally undrinkable.

However, when we were in Germany, a friend of mine (who is not known for

drinking 'weird' beer) recommended Spezial from Bamberg.  Also, Michael

Jackson recommends Schlenkerla in his world guide to beer.  So, we

stopped in at Spezial first.  I was amazed at how good the beer was.

The smoky flavor was clearly there, but balanced perfectly with a

wonderful malty sweetness.  While the smoke was assertive, it wasn't a

sharp, harsh, or chemical-like flavor.  I was talking to my table-mates

(who were all local) about America and beer.  They asked me how I liked

my beer.  I told them that I liked it alot and that I had only had

Rauchbier once before I came to Bamberg and that it had been Kaiserdom.

Before I could say that I hadn't cared for the Kaiserdom, my table-mates

spit on the floor and told me, "Peh!!  That is awful beer.  No, Spezial

is the real Rauchbier."  Then they leaned forward to impart a great

secret:  that the *best* Rauchbier is Schlenkerla.  They proceeded to

draw me a map to get to the place.  One fellow explained that I would

have to have 3 beers when I went there.  He said I might find the first

one a little bit strong.  He wasn't able to tell me if it was strong

with smoke or alcohol.  Anyway, by the time I finished the first one,

I'd be accustomed to the beer and be ready to have a second, where I

could really appreciate the taste.  I asked him why I should drink a

third.  He lookedd at me as if I were crazy, "Because it is so good, of

course."

We made it to Schlenkerla the next day.  This beer was also very malty.

The smoke flavor was slightly heavier and the beer was more alcoholic.

I liked it from the first sip (no need to get acclimated), but my wife

preferred the Spezial because it was mellower.

I judged Smoked beers in the first round of the AHA nationals (in

Denver).  The style includes rauchbiers as well as other styles.  I was

warned that many of the entries would be likely to rip our heads off

with smoke flavor.  Actually, I found two or three good examples of

rauchbier which had assertive yet complementary smoke flavor.  I also

learned that peat smoked beers (like at least one smoked porter and some

smoked Scotch ales) can have a very harsh, phenolic character.  There

were also a couple of entries that had very little smoke character at

all.  One of the other judges was familiar with Bamberg style rauchbiers

and both the other were experienced with other smoked beers.  I think

that we passed on some good beer, none of which were overwhelmingly

smokey.  However, I do believe that this is a style where one person's

evaluation of overwhelming corresponds to another's evaluation as

perfect.

Jason Goldman

jason@bluestar.cnd.hp.com

------------------------------


Dark malt & iodine test/cider vs juice

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 9:59:20 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Dark malt & iodine test/cider vs juice

Mark Alston wrote:

> This dark color brought out another problem.  There would be no way

> to tell if iodine went black or not.  The mash was black on it's own.

> Thus, I could not test for conversion.

One way to avoid this problem is to wait to add the dark malts until

mash-out (or until after conversion).  I do this with my porters,

and have achieved excellent results.  You still get all the color

and roastiness out of the malt, and perhaps get less harsh tannins &c.

out of the black grains.

I've got a question of my own regarding apple cider.  I made my first

batch this fall, using apples from the tree in my back yard.  Boy howdy,

pressing apples is a pain!  Next year I'll probably use fresh,

unpreserved juice to start off with.  However, you see both "apple

juice" and "apple cider" in the stores.  Is there a difference?  If so,

is it chemical, biological, or just legal/regulatory?  And of course,

which will make better hard cider?

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Sour 2-row grain

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 08:17:00 -0600

From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

Subject: Sour 2-row grain

Some time ago, maybe as much as a year ago, someone posted

information about a bag of Schreier two row that ALWAYS produced a

sour batch. I believe they said that the mash smelled sour beginning

right at the mash in. I'd like to talk (e-mail) to whoever posted

those comments. Thanks

Chuck.Wettergreen@Aquila.com

 * RM 1.2 00946 *

------------------------------


Black Treacle and Hunter AirStat

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 05:34:10 PST

From: gabrio@tc.fluke.COM (Steve D. Gabrio)

Subject: Black Treacle and Hunter AirStat

There has been talk recently about Black Treacle and the

Hunter AirStat.  Both items are available at the supply shop in

Seattle that I frequent; The Cellar.  Their order line is

1-800-342-1871.  The Black Treacle is $4.95 for a one pound can.

The Hunter AirStat is $29.95.  They do not, however, sell

orgasms :( or basketballs.

Steve

------------------------------


Caustic washing

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 12:16:33 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Caustic washing

Glenn Anderson asks in HBD#1281 about residuals from caustic (NaOH)

detergents.

First, let me say that a 2% sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution is the

most effective detergent known to me for removing heavy organic soils.

This, however, is not play stuff. Protective gloves and glasses are

definitely required to prevent severe burns.

Pure reaction quality NaOH can be obtained in grocery stores under

various product names. The one most widely available in the Southwest

is called Red Devil. Analysis has shown that it is indeed 100% NaOH,

and contains no impurities. You can get the same stuff from Fisher Scientific,

but at an outrageous price.

Caustics are strong surfactants, and will definitely leave an inorganic

film. Vigorous hot water rinsing may or may not completely remove this film.

Thus in commercial practice a caustic wash is followed by a rinse with a

sequestering agent to remove inorganic residuals. The most popular such

agent by far is phosphoric acid. The main reason for this is that it is a

weak acid that is natural to beer. A widely used sequence goes as follows:

      a. Hot water pre-rinse

      b. Caustic wash

      c. Hot water rinse

      d. Phosphoric acid wash

      e. Hot water rinse

This is generally all that is required of brewing equipment. Cooling apparatus,

fermenters, et al need an additional sanitation sequence.

Misc. Notes:

     1. Large industrial brewers apply the caustic solution at 180-195F. I

        have personally found that a solution at 120-140F is almost as

        effective, and a good deal more practical for hand operations. We are

        now recommending that even small micros and brewpubs use the lower

        temperatures. This has proved to be adequate. See e.g. Dave Miller's

        column in Brewing Techniques.

     2. If you have any doubt about inorganic residuals, apply a standard

        iodophor solution. The former will turn the latter as white as

        snow.

     3. The most widely used iodophor in commercial practice is the version

        which has iodine and phosphoric acid as the only active ingredients.

        This provides some sequestering action to counteract surfactants,

        however the sequestering step (step d above) is still used in the wash

        cycle.

      4. Industrial brewers typically use a 5% phosphoric solution for

         sequestering. I have personally found that a 1% solution is

         adequate for all but extreme cases. While this solution is only

         weakly acidic, gloves are still recommended. The sequesting solution

         can be added at ambient temperature.

George Fix

------------------------------


Re: _very_ low s.g.

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 11:21:21 -0700

From: John Glaser <glaser@analog.ece.arizona.edu>

Subject: Re: _very_ low s.g.

 I think I know why you may have your very low gravity. If you

only boiled a gallon or so, it has a very high density (gravity) and

hence will sink to the bottom of the carboy. I literally saw this

happen with some of my first batches. Eventually, the temperature

differential will cause some mixing, but you will be better off

mixing it immediately after pouring. Actually, you will be really

better off getting a larger pot and a wort chiller. Get some

mail-order brewing supply catalogs for ideas, see the Zymurgy

magazine special issue on gadgets, and beg, buy, or borrow some books

on the subject. A stitch in time etc. :<)

John Glaser (glaser@analog.ece.arizona.edu)

------------------------------


pH Meters

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 09:32:15 EST

From: garti@mrg.xyplex.com (Mark Garti  mrgarti@eng.xyplex.com)

Subject: pH Meters

Are there digital pH meters?  Do they work well, or

need calibration (how often)?  Does anyone know of a

source if they do exist?

Mark

mrgarti@eng.xyplex.com

------------------------------


Noche Buena

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 12:47:52 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Noche Buena

The first words out of my mouth upon first tasting this beer (many moons ago)

was "mucho bueno". Ever since I have been given to misspelling this beer's

name. BTW Noche Buena is the Spanish name for Christmas Eve. I hope my

misspelling did not confuse anyone.

The initial test markets are Az, Tx, Ca, Wa, NM, Nevada, and Chicago. This

distribution may be expanded if sales go well.

Laurie has formed her taste panel, and I will report on the results from

that when they are available. I also have a call into Alberto Jimenez,

the head brewer at Monterrey, to see if if he would share some technical

info about this version of Noche Buena.

George Fix

------------------------------


Guinness clone?

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 13:27:41 EST

From: sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com (Carl Howes)

Subject: Guinness clone?

I will be brewing a stout this weekend with which I hope to emulate

Guinness.  I looked at Papazian, Miller, and Cat's Meow over the weekend

and developed the following extract/specialty recipie:

7 lbs. M&F light DME

1 lbs. flaked barley

1 lbs. roasted barley

0.75 lbs. crystal malt

1.66 oz Chinook hops (12.6%) at 60 min.

A note on my current limitations.  Brewpot: 16qt size, effective maximum

capacity 12qts.  This is why the hopping is so heavy, to compensate for

the very high SG in the pot.  Scaling is based on Papazians' table with the

goal of coming out equivalent to 15AAU in a full volume boil.  The

questions: some sources call for rolled barley, some for flaked.  My local

supplier had never heard of rolled.  Are they the same thing?  Papazian and

Miller both simply specify "high alpha" hops in their "Toad Spit" and "Dry"

stout recipies.  In scanning the back HBDs I have on hand, I find Goldings

(I assume Kent) recommended by Brian Bliss in #1145, and Geoff Cooper in

#1150 states that Guinness uses Target.  Where all the hops are for

bittering, does the variety really matter?  Several sources call for an

addition of soured ale for a Guinness clone.  I assume a lactobacillus

souring, or is this a momily?  TIA.

Carl

------------------------------


LiquidVSdry yeast/Counterpressure filler

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 14:00 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: LiquidVSdry yeast/Counterpressure filler

Jim writes:

>I've recently begun brewing and have only used WYEAST Liquid yeasts.

>All batches showed activity 12-32 hrs. after pitching, and all have

>taken at least twice the stated "normal" time to finish fermenting.

>Some simple batches have taken 2 weeks, more complex batches 6 weeks.

>My carboy sits in a room heated to 70~ and sanitation doesn't seem

>to be a problem. (They all taste great!)   I know the WYEAST is

>underpitching, but...  Which is better, all around for the entry-

>level brewer, liquid or dry?

With the recent arrival of much better dry yeasts, I'd say that perhaps

dry yeast might be better for beginners because it is easier to use.

The slow, long ferment with Wyeast is probably due to under-oxygenation.

A package of dry yeast contains much more yeast than a package of Wyeast

and since the yeast is oxygenated just before drying, dry yeast can cope

better with under-oxygenated wort.  This is a common occurance for dry

yeast users when they first switch to liquid yeast.  A starter will also

help shorten lag time and reduce fermentation time quite a bit.

Did anyone else notice that two first-place winners in the AHA National

Competition were made with EDME dry yeast?!?!  I also happen to know that

the Best of Show winner at the 1993 Chicago Beer Society Spooky Brew

Review was brewed with Red Star Ale Yeast!

*************************************

Dave writes:

        I recently recieved a counterpressure bottler as a gift.

Yesterday I got the assorted hoses and connectors that I need to run the

thing, and it didn't take long to find out that I don't really know how to

work it.  There are two general possibilities: I'm hooking it up wrong,

or I'm using it wrong.  So, first, this is how I hooked it up:

 <I've modified Dave's drawing to be hooked up properly>

        Beer Line in--> ----------------- <-- Gas in

                        ------+  +-------

                              |  |

                              |  |

            Gas out <-- ------|  |-+

            (vent)      ----+ |  | |

                            | |  | |

                            / |  | /

                              |  |

                              |  |

                                |

                                V

                          Gas and Beer Out

The way it should work is to first let CO2 through the "Gas in" leg,

with the "Gas out" valve opened to purge the O2 from the bottle.

Then, close the "Gas out" vent valve to pressurize the bottle.

Next, close the "Gas in" valve and open the "Beer Line in" valve.

Gently opent the "Gas out" valve to fill the bottle.

Once the bottle is full, close the "Beer Line in" valve and remove

the device.

Al.

------------------------------


Milwaukee brew stops?

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 12:25:58 PST

From: dbell@cup.portal.com

Subject: Milwaukee brew stops?

How about some suggestions for worthwhile (non-industrial)

brewpubs and/or microbreweries in the 'beer city'? A couple

of us have to travel there in the next couple of weeks, and

would like to locate some good sites!

Dave

dbell@cup.portal.com

------------------------------


IceBeer/ CP Fill/ Sulfer Cider/ Filter then Bottle?/ Xtal Entity

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1993 14:21:32 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: IceBeer/ CP Fill/ Sulfer Cider/ Filter then Bottle?/ Xtal Entity

***

RE:  commercials and commercial beer:

>These beersare intended to be and are soda pop for adults.

They are nothing more than an alcohol delivery system.  They

have only a limited usefulness in our society.  They encourage

abuse by their very characteristics.

*   E.G.:  Ice Beer by Milooooor.   Ads say it's "ice brewed, till

xtals form, then cold filtered"  makes it "easier to drink"...

implied:  Lots and Lots of it!   Right?

So what the %&$ is the deal here.  Ice brewed?  Now they gots a

special yeast which ferments at FREEZING temps or something?

And what's the point of the xtals. Do they filter them OUT so the

beer is "stronger", then water it down again so it's suitable as

Utah 3.2 near-beer?

I intend to distill,  ugh...uh...ummm.....I mean- "enhance" a brew

this winter, by doing the ice beer thing. Concentrate, yes that's it!

Plastic bucket, outside after fully fermented, then rack away from

the ice.  Keg, and carbonate.  Anyone ever tried it? I would think

that with the colds we've had already, getting it frozen shouldn't pose

a problem.  Hope no cops see it sitting outside! (or high schoolers for

that matter!)

But what does Miller think their process is? Anyone REALLY know, or

is it what I presume, another advertising ploy to impress the ignorant

mindless masses who don't have a clue what REAL brewing is all about?!!!

***

> Dave Rose. asks bout cp filling

>close gas line, open beer line. Wait for beer to fill bottle under

pressure.  Remove contraption and cap immediately.

        The problem: Well, if I thought about it i would have figured out

that since the keg and the bottle are under the same pressure, there is no

reason at all for the beer to move from the keg into the bottle.  In fact,

this is exactly what happens: nothing. Or at least very little.

 ...responded to by Mark

1) open valve to CO2 to presurize bottle.

2) open bleed valve to purge bottle of air.

3) close bleed valve and repressurize bottle.

4) close valve to CO2

    *   Be sure to do this!

5) open liquid valve -- beer will not flow at

   this point since the presures are equal

5) slowly open bleed valve.  This will reduce the presure in the bottle

   and allow the beer to fill it up.

6) When bottle is full:

    *   You might want to first close exit valve, then

 ... close liquid valve and remove counterflow

    *   Even more important. REMEMBER THIS!  Unless you want beer

    flying  everywhere!

7) cap.

    *   Have your cap ready in capper (magnet!  :) and a towel underfoot,

    I've understood this to be a gushing experience.

*   Make the kegs be as cold as possible to reduce foaming.

    Chilling the bottles after sterilization if a good thing too.

    You may want to have another set of hands attached to you,

    or someone else near by for this. I've heard it takes an octopus!

NOW...  "That should do it.... Sounds good."

RE: Setup of lines:  Miller shows two alternatives (BWGB):

        the one you had

                 gas in---|____|-- Beer in

                            |

                           |_|-- Gas out/purge

                          Bottle

and

                 gas in---|____|-- Purge, gas out

                            |

                           |_|--Beer in

                        Bottle

Both have a T connector splitting the gas line between cp-filler and keg.

Therefore they stay under the same pressure.

BTW:  I've haven't done this yet- so yes I'm blowing out my _____

BUT: I've read, discussed, and thought about it a fair bit! So nyah.

***

   Sean V. Taylor has  <<<sulfer cider>>>:

Any ideas on what went wrong?

Does it just need to age longer?        * BINGO!!!

Can I salvage this stuff?

*   Patience grasshopper.  When you can snatch this pebble from my

palm you will be ready to quaff that cider!

*   The ciders I've done and tried were sulfury when young (as with

some wines/fruit meads) and the sulfur aroma dissipated with age.

You could let the bottle breath for a time before drinking too.

Pour it fairly roughly.  But really- age is the best solution.

Mine have set for half a year, to  a year, then were wonderful!

***

A friend is starting to brew, and has access to filter equpt, but

does not keg. He does have a pump, so it could be done.

But why?   My thoughts on filtering leave me in the 2-3 micron

range, big enough for yeast to pass, w/o losing body. (too much)

But not sterile filtering.  If he's gonna bottle he has to be sure

to leave yeast for carbonation, or repitch. Either way there will

be sediment in the bottles.

Question is: Is there any advantage to be gained by filtering that

wouldn't be better served by fining with ---something, anything!---

rather than hassle with filtering.  It just seems so simple a step

to add for a kegger (ya sure, you betcha it's on my x-mas wish list!)

but for a bottler?

ANYONE FILTER WHO DOESN'T KEG?    HOW / WHY / WHEN / WHERE / WHO...what?

***

>Many of these recipes call for something on the

order of 1/2 #  30 (L) Crystal, and 1/2 # 90 (L) Crystal. Would this not be

the same as 1 whole pound of 60 (L) Crystal? Would there be any difference

in the flavo2s;either way?

*   Uh,,, no.       Sorry but it doesn't work that way.

The kilning process darkens the malt to different degrees. Along with

this are changes in the quality of starches, sugars, and colors of the

malt.  Each crystal is considered separately in estimating color.

Lighter crystals will give a sweeter note to beers.

Darker crystals will give less sweetness, more body, and a "toasty"

quality.  Using some from either end gives you the best of both worlds

and using twice from in between gives you some of each...sort of.

Mixing and matching crystals is a favorite pastime in the Coyote grain

room.  A general rule of thumb is are you staying light, or

leaning into ambers, or yet darker.  Stick below 60 (or 80) if you're

working in pale territory, and go higher if you want RED amber beer, or

are into the roastier nut browns.

 ...snip...

>(There's a place in Orlando where you can get a fifty pound sack for

$19.95). Since I don't have a mill, I'm going to buy the grains pre-crushed

(Free crushing).

*   Say what?  $20 for 50#  ! I've seen $30 for 6 row, but that's the best.

What a deal.  Send me their address/phone!  Shipping will kill it tho.

What kind of malt is it?   Belgian NOT I'm sure!

>I've heard talk that crushing grains and then keeping them around for a

while will cause the grains to "go stale/bad". What exactly does this mean?

Will the stale/bad grains not give me as much goodness? Will my beer taste

*   If you store it in a dry, fairly cool location it should be ok.

Some of the enzyme/substrate quality of the grain will decrease.

You can expect lower extraction rates.  Just UP YOUR GRAIN BILL.

If you use the malt within a reasonable amount of time and store it well

(metal cans/plastic buckets...fairly airtight.) and concede to use more

(which at $20/50# = .40 $/# isn't a problem!) you will be fine.

Some people may encourage you purchase their grain mill, or you may

come across a cheap... cor---onet!! or something. And that's handy!

I'd say use within 6 months, and you're alright. Longer than that...

    Brew More OFTEN.  Brew MORE...often. a BREW more often.

- --------------Happy Turkey Gobbling to all!-------------------------

        May your cranberries ferment as well as mine!

~~~~~~~~~ John (The Coyote) Wyllie SLK6P@cc.usu.edu ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The SCOTCH Ale is well underway. A cranberry/spice ale alongside.

Next is Pilsner Time, then to the X-mas Stouts...so much to brew (repeat)

------------------------------


Sierra Nevada and the Hop Back/Yeast

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 13:28:27 PST

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Sierra Nevada and the Hop Back/Yeast

A long while ago I promised some info on Sierra Nevada's use

of the hop back.  I was suppossed to take a tour with my homebrew

club a few weeks ago, but illness prevented me from attending.  I

did finally talk to one of the guys who went, and here's the deal:

Sierra Nevada no longer uses the hop back in production of any of

their beers.  Instead, they have switched to dry hopping.  The

rate of hops was disclosed, but the person I spoke with couldn't

remember, so I'm going to have to ask someone else.  They use

whole hops (everywhere) and put the hops in a hop bag for dry

hopping.  BTW, the reason given for discontinuing the use of

the hop back was that it was too much of a hassle to clean and

sterilize.

Other interesting tidbits:  The question was asked if Wyeast 1056

(aka American and/or Chico) was the same strain as they used.  The

answer was to that they had no idea, but wondered why it would

matter since "you can get our yeast from a bottle of our beer."

Their yeast came from Siebel, and is banked there, so maybe someone

with a connection at Siebel could tell us more.  Also, they claim

never to wash their yeast, and they repitch it about 20 generations

before starting with a fresh culture.

I'll report again when I've had a chance to debrief more of the

club members.

Mark

------------------------------


cool ferment temps, mixing yeasts

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 17:33:01 EST

From: magnan@server1.dfci.harvard.edu (Rick Magnan)

Subject: cool ferment temps, mixing yeasts

Mike Fetzer writes:

> Why do you bother with the setup? Even tho your basement may be at 60, if

> your wort is at 75 when you pitch, it will take hours if not a couple of

> days to equilibrate down to 60. Why not just put a jacket of glass wool

> around the carboy/fermenter? When it eventually reaches 60F, it's still

> (barely) warm enough to ferment ales.

My recent experience with Wyeast 1056 is that 60 is indeed barely warm

enough to ferment.  The beer fermented out pretty well but it was mild.

Does anyone have any recommendations for yeasts that work well at that temp?

Should I think about using lager yeasts?  Maybe a lager/ale combination?

Someone asked a couple weeks ago about mixing yeasts in a batch, a question

I've wanted to ask the HBD community for several years since in making one

of my first beers, a pack of dry lager yeast was purchased by mistake and

used along with a dry ale yeast.  This was one of my better beers of that

era.  I don't recall seeing any responses to the question of blending yeasts.

Its often said that yeast is one of the major factors in the flavor of

beer - seems like this must have been tried at least a few times?

rick

brookline, MA

------------------------------


yeast, cowboy beer

Date: 29 Nov 93 17:03:50 -0600

From: mbarre@nomvs.lsumc.edu

Subject: yeast, cowboy beer

Homebrewers,

  In response to the liquid/dry yeast question, I vote for liquid yeast

only.  The only batch in which I ever used dry yeast (EDME) came out

tasting very metallic.  I tried a bottle that had aged for six months

and it was better, but still only barely drinkable, and this from a guy

who sometimes enjoys mega brews.  The last time I was at the homebrew

store, the proprietor was testing the Doric, Windsor, and Nottingham

(sp?) dried yeasts in side by side comparisons.  He judged the Winsor

and Doric better than the Nottingham, but said he would not use dry

yeast in anything he brews personnaly.

  On the subject of historical beer, I saw "High Plains Drifter" the

other night and wondered to my self, "Self, what kind of beer is

that saloon serving?"  It came from the tap under pressure, the glass

was half full of head, and it was light golden.  I guess it came from

a wooden keg and was pretty harsh.  Anyone know?

------------------------------


New Refrigerators

Date: 29 Nov 93 18:43:34 EST

From: Harry Covert <73232.167@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: New Refrigerators

I just got a new fermentation/lagering fridge but since it's the only one

I have, would it be harmful for me to leave a batch in the fridge that

has been through the fermentation cycle (40s for fermenting, 30s for

lagering), while I do another batch.  In other words, will the

temperature fluctuation hurt the beer after it has been lagered?

I also got a small serving fridge and I plan on putting a tap through the

top.  Any recommendations on how to move that little freezer compartment

out of the way.  The freon lines run through it, so it will be kind of

tricky.  Also, what equipment will I need for the tap?  Thanks

Harry Covert

73232.167@compuserve.com

------------------------------


Date:        Mon, 29 Nov 93 20:45:43 EST

From: "Brynczka, Marc J" <KRNJ%MARISTB@VM.MARIST.EDU>

Subject:

PLEASE SEND ME SOME INFO

------------------------------


Leinenkugel's Winter

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1993 20:39:16 -0600 (CST)

From: THOMAS VODACEK <VODACEK@uwplatt.edu>

Subject: Leinenkugel's Winter

Just had some of Leinenkugel's Winter beer. Not bad.  Reminds me

of my last few batches of oktoberfest that ended up much too dark.

I have heard that one of the megabrewers bought up Leinenkugel's

last year and that regular Leinie"s is no longer brewed in

Chippewa Falls, just specialty seasonal beers.  Can anyone tell me

the true story?

Tom

------------------------------


dark malt extract

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 18:58:52 PST

From: Richard Cox <rcox@hsc.usc.edu>

Subject: dark malt extract

Here's a question I've never quite answered.  What

characteristics -- besides color -- does dark malt extract

contribute to the wort.

I'm an extract brewer with seven batches under my belt

(literally).  My technique with every batch has been to use

the palest possible dry malt extract and add specialty grains

to achieve the desired color, body and sweetness.

Now I'm contemplating brewing my first stout (an oatmeal

stout), and I don't know whether to use dark malt extract

like all the recipes recommend, or to stick with my usual

method.

I'd be grateful for any insight on this.

Thanks,

Richard

------------------------------


Whitbread update

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1993 21:50:56 -0600

From: donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Whitbread update

A month or so ago, Chris Lyons asked about the new Whitbread.

The new Whitbread dry yeast has never been distibuted due to the

inability of the processor to produce a clean product.  Repeated attempts

have failed.  Crosby and Baker states that the new Whitbread will not be

available for at least another 6 months and they are not terribly

optimistic about that given the recent history of contaminated Whitbread.

George Fix has claimed, on the digest and in Zymurgy, that the new

Whitbread is available and that it is clean.  Moreover George claimed to

have received very good scores at homebrew competitions for beers

made with the new Whitbread.  George claimed that new production

procedures are the reason for the new and improved Whitbread.  It's

now glaringly obvious that all of these reports were in error.  I advised

digest readers months ago to view the reports as wishful dreaming

lacking any sound scientific basis because of the patently obvious flaws

in George's methods.

For those who still put credence in George's earlier reports, just ask him

where to buy a pack of the new Whitbread.

For those who are still purchasing Whitbread, please note that Crosby and

Baker, the U.S. distributor, states it was produced well over a year ago.

don

------------------------------


Aluminum Brewpots?

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 03:53:00 BST

From: d.garrison@genie.geis.com

Subject: Aluminum Brewpots?

I am relatively new to homebrewing, having made just two extract batches.

However I am starting to scrounge up the hardware for mashing.  My wife has

a canning setup she has had almost forever.  It has a 2-gallong pot and a 6

gallon pot, both made of aluminum.

Should I use them for boiling my brew?  I know back in the '80s there was

talk of a link between aluminum and Altzheimer's Disease.  I thought that

had been downplayed or disproven, yet I never see aluminum listed in the

brewing books as an alternative.  If safety is not the issue, why can't I

use these?  I would point out that a LOT of jams and jellies have been made

in them, without apparent ill effects.  <At least I don't REMEMBER any loss

of memory! ;^) > They haven't dissolved or corroded.  Why would wort be any

different?

Any feedback will be appreciated.  I really don't relish shelling out bucks

for a new pot when these are already here.

Donald W. Garrison, Attorney at Law

 (Member of the Bar, in both senses!)

D.GARRISON@genie.geis.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1285, 11/30/93

*************************************

-------


Guinness & more

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 06:42:46 -0600

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: Guinness & more

sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com (Carl Howes) writes:

>I will be brewing a stout this weekend with which I hope to emulate

>Guinness.  I looked at Papazian, Miller, and Cat's Meow over the weekend

>and developed the following extract/specialty recipie:

>

>7 lbs. M&F light DME

>1 lbs. flaked barley

>1 lbs. roasted barley

>0.75 lbs. crystal malt

>1.66 oz Chinook hops (12.6%) at 60 min.

>

>A note on my current limitations.  Brewpot: 16qt size, effective maximum

>capacity 12qts.  This is why the hopping is so heavy, to compensate for

>the very high SG in the pot.  Scaling is based on Papazians' table with the

>goal of coming out equivalent to 15AAU in a full volume boil.  The

>questions: some sources call for rolled barley, some for flaked.  My local

>supplier had never heard of rolled.  Are they the same thing?  Papazian and

>Miller both simply specify "high alpha" hops in their "Toad Spit" and "Dry"

>stout recipies.  In scanning the back HBDs I have on hand, I find Goldings

>(I assume Kent) recommended by Brian Bliss in #1145, and Geoff Cooper in

>#1150 states that Guinness uses Target.  Where all the hops are for

>bittering, does the variety really matter?  Several sources call for an

>addition of soured ale for a Guinness clone.  I assume a lactobacillus

>souring, or is this a momily?  TIA.

first of all, omit the crystal malt. guinness is a very dry beer,

regardless of first impressions, and if you brew extract/partial biol,

the beer will probably be too sweet anyway (caramelization).

1.66 oz of chinook may not be enough if you only do a partial boil.

I've tried an tried to dup guinness, but keep underestimating its

bitterness.  I now agree that it doesn't matter what kind of hops

you use if you boil long enough to drive off ALL flavor and leave only

bitterness.  I'm an anti-american/high alpha* hop fenatic myself, and if I

do taste any hop flavor (which you will if you use fresh morris-handbury

hop plugs even after a 60 min boil) in my stout, I like golding best.

(I mean kent goldings - I've haven't used much styrian goldings).

* => N Brewer is a notable exception.

If you use target hops, boil for 90 min.  My long boils, however, may

be producing too clear of a beer for guinness (draft, at least -

guinnes extra stout is actually quite clear, albeit dark).  Don't

use any irish moss.

I've had good luck adding soured beer to the boil (but other flavors

and high hopping rates in those batches may be more the reason), and

bad luck adding lactic acid to the finished product, in varying amounts.

Does the boil drive off most of the lactic acid?  No soured beer is

added to extra stout, only the draft version, to the best of my knowledge.

Guinness has a lot of roasted barley flavor, and 1 lb is not enough,

IMHO, for a "normal mash".  people who add the dark grains at mashout

may differ.

 - brian_13 tries and still hasn't quite imitated guinness_bliss

- ------------------------------

Al K writes:

>Did anyone else notice that two first-place winners in the AHA National

>Competition were made with EDME dry yeast?!?!

I've drank a coupla brews that I would swear were brewed with a chimay

culture but were actually brewed with edme.

- ------------------------------

john wyllie (COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>) writes:

>RE:  commercials and commercial beer:

>>These beersare intended to be and are soda pop for adults.

>They are nothing more than an alcohol delivery system.  They

>have only a limited usefulness in our society.  They encourage

>abuse by their very characteristics.

yeah, but I find it safer than needles, and much more pleasant

than everclear :-)

>So what the %&$ is the deal here.  Ice brewed?  Now they gots a

>special yeast which ferments at FREEZING temps or something?

 ...

>I intend to distill,  ugh...uh...ummm.....I mean- "enhance" a brew

>this winter, by doing the ice beer thing. Concentrate, yes that's it!

I thought that they were freeze-distilled.  What IS the deal?

I thought freeze-distilled meant that they had to be sold as hard

alochol?  But then again, sherry and port wine have brandy added,

but aren't sold as hard alcohol.  Are they trying to force legal

precedent?

>But what does Miller think their process is? Anyone REALLY know, or

>is it what I presume, another advertising ploy to impress the ignorant

>mindless masses who don't have a clue what REAL brewing is all about?!!!

Well, they seem to have pulled zima off.  Seriously, if they like it

(and I've tried it, but much prefer a good gin & tonic), let the yuppies

have it.  Just don't call it "beer" (and they don't).

- ------------------------------

From: donald oconnor <oconnor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

>The new Whitbread dry yeast has never been distibuted due to the

>inability of the processor to produce a clean product.

 ...

>For those who are still purchasing Whitbread, please note that Crosby and

>Baker, the U.S. distributor, states it was produced well over a year ago.

I've seen it distributed by GW Kent, and more recently by C&B.  I thought

the C&B stuff was the "new, improved" whitbread.  Nevermind, they both

worked, I've never had a sour batch from either, and many a good batch.

(what do a few impurities matter if it takes off quikly enough to overpower

them?)  Sadly, the supply seems to be drying up again.

bb

------------------------------


Cider requirements

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 08:43:53 -0500

From: paul.beard@gatekeeper.mis.tridom.com (Paul Beard)

Subject: Cider requirements

 Down here in the mountainous South, we can get a thick, brown apple cider

 (nothing like the pale sweet stuff foisted on kids). Being a big fan of

 Westcountry (England) cider (again, nothing like Woodpecker or Strongbow --

 more like Silas's secret recipe), I'd like to make some of it. Since I

 would guess this is as close as I can get to pressing my own, what steps

 would have to take to get it fermenting? The stuff seems to ferment by

itself, even

 in the refrigerator, so I'm guessing I really just need to control the

 natural process.

 Any suggestions/firsthand experience??

Paul Beard

AT&T Tridom, 840 Franklin Court, Marietta, GA 30067

404 514-3798 * FAX: 404 429-5419 * tridom!paul.beard/beardp@tridom.com

------------------------------


Whitbread Report

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 08:45:58 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Whitbread Report

I started not to reply to O'Conner's flame in HBD#1285, however he

has been responsible for so much misinformation on HBD I could not

let this one pass.

The new Whitbread yeast was initially distributed to various commercial

operations. It proved to be a poor flocculating yeast in unitanks, and the

ADF achieved was lower than desirable (68-72%) in these tanks. Crosby+

Baker decided not to distribute the yeast because of this. There were

absolutely no complaints about the yeast not being clean. The bacterial

and wild yeast counts were exceptionally low. O'Conner is blatantly lying

about that point.

Don writes:

>George Fix has claimed, on the digest and in Zymurgy, that the new

>Whitbread is available and that it is clean.  Moreover George claimed to

>have received very good scores at homebrew competitions for beers

>made with the new Whitbread.  George claimed that new production

>procedures are the reason for the new and improved Whitbread.  It's

>now glaringly obvious that all of these reports were in error.  I advised

>digest readers months ago to view the reports as wishful dreaming

>lacking any sound scientific basis because of the patently obvious flaws

>in George's methods.

The score sheets of the competitions entered are on file with Crosby+Baker.

O'Conner has never asked to see these and check them out. The names of the

judges are on the sheets, and given that many are on HBD I am deeply offended

by O'Conner's wild assertions.

Another reason C+B decided not to distribute the new Whitbread is that they

have been getting good reports on the Mauri and Red Star strains. I recently

entered a bitter in the Spooky competition that was fermented with the Red Star

yeast. It took BOS. I have not received the score sheets (can someone in

Chicago help me here), but copies of these will be sent to Crosby+Baker when

I get them. Those and all the others can be obtained from C+B for those that

are  interested.

George Fix

------------------------------


Refrigerator Conversions

Date: 30 Nov 93 15:06:37 GMT

From: cssc!cong@scuzzy.attmail.com

Subject: Refrigerator Conversions

RE:

>Date: 29 Nov 93 18:43:34 EST

>From: Harry Covert <73232.167@CompuServe.COM>

>Subject: New Refrigerators

>

>

>I also got a small serving fridge and I plan on putting a tap through the

>top.  Any recommendations on how to move that little freezer compartment

>out of the way.  The freon lines run through it, so it will be kind of

>tricky.  Also, what equipment will I need for the tap?  Thanks

>

>Harry Covert

When dealing with freon, caution is warranted.  The most important thing

in relocating the freezer compartment is not to crack the freon lines.

The lines are usually constructed of fairly pliable metals than can allow

some freedom of relocation.  You might try dropping the front of the

freezer compartment down to give you access for your tap line/s in the front.

The freon lines are most likely attached to the box in the back, but if

you have connections in the back and the front you may have some problems.

There will also be some kind of thermostat control attached to the box

that may need to be detached from the box to regain temperature control.

Remember when you alter the unit, the cooling capacity is also altered.

Since older units are less likely to be frost free (that's good for

temp control) moving the freezer may cause heavy frosting.  An Air Stat

or similar temperature control device will be helpful.  In older,

single door fridges the freezer unit is often the cooling unit

for the entire fridge.

As far as equipment needed to install a tap, you will need a

Beer Faucet & Shank (Available from some Homebrew shops and mail order).

The shank should come with a Hose Tail Piece and Coupling Nut.

Make sure the hose tail piece is the same diameter as your dispensing

lines from your kegging system.  Since you wish to install the faucet on the

top of the fridge you will need a dispensing tower on which to attach

the faucet.  The most recent copy of Zymurgy advertises such a device on

the inside back cover.  Bar supply stores will also carry the tower

as well as the faucets and hardware.

It might be easier to install through the door rather than on the top of the

fridge. It would avoid the hassle of moving the freezer and the added

cost of the dispensing tower.

cong

------------------------------


UNSUBSCRIBE

Date: 30 Nov 1993 07:02:26 -0800

From: "Dan Peterson" <dan_peterson@quickmail.apple.com>

Subject: UNSUBSCRIBE

        Reply to:   UNSUBSCRIBE

UNSUBSCRIBE

- --------------------------------------


Date: 11/30/93 0:57

To: Dan Peterson

Subject: UNSUBSCRIBE

!!!! Original Message >= 24K; See following enclosure. Preview follows !!!!

HOMEBREW Digest #1285               Tue 30 November 1993

 FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES

  Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator

Contents:

  Demerara Sugar ("Robert H. Reed")

  German Malt sources request (Crawford.Wbst129)

  for James Clark (29-Nov-1993 0911 -0500)

  which yeast? (btalk)

  Alternative FAQ Formats (Mark A. Stevens)

  "Closed" fermentation -vs- "Open" fermentation

("SMSD::MRGATE::/"A1::WESTERMAN_ROBERT/"")

  HSA again... (Ed Hitchcock)

  Please add me to you distribution (Steven Grove)

  Please relax!! (Don Biszek)

  Re: Rauchbier (Jason Goldman)

  Dark malt & iodine test/cider vs juice (Jeff Benjamin)

  Sour 2-row grain (Chuck Wettergreen)

  Black Treacle and Hunter AirStat (Steve D. Gabrio)

  Caustic washing (George J Fix)

  Re: _very_ low s.g. (John Glaser)

  pH Meters (Mark Garti  mrgarti@eng.xyplex.com)

  Noche Buena (George J Fix)

  Guinness clone? (Carl Howes)

  LiquidVSdry yeast/Counterpressure filler (korz)

  Milwaukee brew stops? (dbell)

  IceBeer/ CP Fill/ Sulfer Cider/ Filter then Bottle?/ Xtal Entity (COYOTE)

  Sierra Nevada and the Hop Back/Yeast (Mark Garetz)

  cool ferment temps, mixing yeasts (Rick Magnan)

  yeast, cowboy beer (mbarre)

  New Refrigerators (Harry Covert)

   ("Brynczka, Marc J")

  Leinenkugel's Winter (THOMAS VODACEK)

  dark malt extract (Richard Cox)

  Whitbread update (donald oconnor)

  Aluminum Brewpots? (d.garrison)

Send articles for __publication_only__ to homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

  (Articles are published in the order they are received.)

Send UNSUBSCRIBE and all other requests, ie, address change, etc.,

  to homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com, BUT PLEASE NOTE that if

  you subscribed via the BITNET listserver (BEER-L@UA1VM.UA.EDU),

  then you MUST unsubscribe the same way!

If your account is being deleted, please be courteous and unsubscribe first.

Archives are available via anonymous ftp from sierra.stanford.edu.

  (Those without ftp access may retrieve files via mail from

  listserv@sierra.stanford.edu. Send HELP as the body of a

  message to that address to receive listserver instructions.)

Please don't send me requests for back issues - you will be silently ignored.

For "Cat's Meow" information, send mail to lutzen@novell.physics.umr.edu

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------


Demerara Sugar

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1993 08:06:53 -0500 (EST)

From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: Demerara Sugar

 eurquhar@sfu.ca writes:

> While your at it

> inquire about their demerara sugar.  Makes american brown sugar look like

> ordinary granulated white sugar.  Once you taste it you'll never go back.

I have used Demerara sugar by Tate & Lyle and have also used domestic light

and dark brown sugar in homebrewing.  While I found the imported Demerara sugar

interesting, IMO it is not vastly superior to domestic brown sugar.  T&L

Demerara sugar has a smooth, pleasant flavor of molasses.  This character is

easily emulated with a quality domestic light brown sugar or light molasses.

Rob Reed

- ------------------------------


German Malt sources request

Date:  Mon, 29 Nov 1993 05:44:37 PST

From: Crawford.Wbst129@xerox.com

Subject: German Malt sources request

I have been using the Belgians malts for a while and would like to try some

other malts to see what effect it has on the malty character of my beer.  I

have seen a couple of messages go by that mention good quality German malts.

Does anybody know where I could mail-order some good German malt?

Thanks,

Greg

- ------------------------------


for James Clark

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 09:14:01 EST

From: 29-Nov-1993 0911 -0500 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: for James Clark

>Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 16:27:46 -0500

>From: jeclark@ucdavis.edu (James Clark)

>Subject: infection?

>

>our first batch has now been fermenting for about 36 hours and the kreusen

>has already stopped.  however, last night it was so active that we were

>getting a bubble every two or three seconds into the overflow container.

>i sniffed the stuff in the container today and it has a very sweet smell.

>does this mean that our beer was infected, or is

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Subject: Homebrew Digest #1285 (November 30, 1993)

------------------------------


Sam Smith Nut Brown Ale - Need Clone

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 10:15:10 -0500

From: mgx@ornl.gov (Michael D. Galloway)

Subject: Sam Smith Nut Brown Ale - Need Clone

Ok ...

I bartered away a batch of beer with a friend, and she wants

a batch of Samual Smith's Nut Brown Ale.  Does anyone have

a tried-and-true all-grain recipe for this delicious ale?

Any suggestion as to what an appropriate yeast would be?

thanks in advance, as always.

michael

------------------------------


Cheap Grains!

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 09:18:00 PST

From: "Moore, Brian" <Moorebw@hvsmtp1.mdc.com>

Subject: Cheap Grains!

Howdy,

Tried to mail this directly to Coyote but it bounced.

*   Say what?  $20 for 50#  ! ...What a deal.  Send me their address/phone!

The place is called Heart's Home Beer and Winemaking Supply (800-392-8322)

(Insert disclaimer of your choice here). The deal is for a 50# sack of Pale

Klages for $19.95. Shipping here to Alabam' is about $12. To Utah, probably

more like $25. Heart's also has neat glass blow-off tubes.

                                   Brian Moore

------------------------------


Desired format for file distribution

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 09:09:15 -0500

From: paul.beard@gatekeeper.mis.tridom.com (Paul Beard)

Subject: Desired format for file distribution

 In reference to Mark Stevens' comments on the need to stay away from

vendor-specific

 file formats, I concur; I am all for PostScript file dumps. I assume most

 of us have access to a PostScript laser printer and as long as we keep

 things at Level I PS for awhile, it should work great.

 If anyone wants to help out the new brewers like myself by assembling some

 references as PostScript files, please feel free. I've never found myself

 researching/reading as much as I have since I got interested in this. Some

 folks think cooking or woodworking are knowledge-intensive; brewing borders

 on wizardry!

Paul Beard

AT&T Tridom, 840 Franklin Court, Marietta, GA 30067

404 514-3798 * FAX: 404 429-5419 * tridom!paul.beard/beardp@tridom.com

------------------------------


Leinenkugel, Weizenbock and H20 ph.

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 10:59:51 EST

From: Mark Stickler Internet Mail Name <mstickle@lvh.com>

Subject: Leinenkugel, Weizenbock and H20 ph.

In HBD 1285 Tom Vodacek writes:

From: THOMAS VODACEK <VODACEK@uwplatt.edu>

Subject: Leinenkugel's Winter

I have heard that one of the megabrewers bought up Leinenkugel's

last year and that regular Leinie"s is no longer brewed in

Chippewa Falls, just specialty seasonal beers.  Can anyone tell me

the true story?

I attended a Pennsylvania Beer Festival recently and, along with a bunch

of micro breweries, Miller and Strohs were present. Miller had their two

all barley malt beers (I liked the ale) and two Leinenkugel beers (one

with a red label and the other with a black label). Miller said they now

own Leinie's but still brew it @ Chippewa Falls. Strohs had three

different lines of beers. One called Augsberger included a "dopplebock"

that had little or no aroma and could not have possibly been a true

dopplebock. There was also a Signature series and a Cream Ale made by

a company in Canada (starts with an "S") that had no label on the bottle,

just raised glass lettering. Nice bottle, okay beer. The best beer was

probably Red Feather Ale made in Chambersburg, Pa.

*****

Just recently returned from Munich and the best beer I had was a weizenbock

from Schneider called Avintinus. It is served in a very unique wheat beer

glass at their beer hall near Marienplatz.

*****

Here's my homebrew related question: I have been brewing for three years

now (all grain for 2 1/2 years) and have not had too many problems. I

and my friends think the beer tastes fine (I also took first place in a

LOCAL contest in the pale beer catagory in '92 with a Dortmunder Export).

However, I usually taste a slight mettalic off-flavor. I think it might

be related to my water ph. Basically my water ain't base, in fact its

acidic. I have a spring feed house and the ph is in the 4.0-5.0 range.

As a result I usually have to add Calcium Carbonate to RAISE me mash ph

rather than gypsum to lower it! Is this really strange? My shower has

a tendency to turn copper blue every several months! This my be a

question for the plumber's digest but its the acidic water slowly

eating away at my copper pipes? I haven't splurged for a complete

water analysis yet but I'm certain the water is soft (I boil it and

get no white residue). Any advice? TIA.

Mark Stickler

------------------------------


Young's yeast

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 08:19:15 +0800

From: bjones@novax.llnl.gov (Bob Jones)

Subject: Young's yeast

        Does anyone out there in HBD land have any experiences with Young's

ale yeast? Maybe someone in the UK has some experiences with this yeast.

Bob Jones

bjones@novax.llnl.gov

------------------------------


Siphon Hot Wort

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 11:36:27 -0500

From: WKODAMA@aba.com

Subject:  Siphon Hot Wort

In #1280, Andy Rowan asked how to keep the pot scrubber on the

end of his siphon.

Use a sanitized, intelligently placed rubber band to keep the

scrubby on, and make sure it's a copper scrubby.

Hoppy trails,

Wesman

------------------------------


Bottling Sanitation Experiment

Date:         Tue, 30 Nov 93 11:11:18 CST

From: Paul Sovcik <U18183%UICVM@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject:      Bottling Sanitation Experiment

Well, after a year of "taking" from the HBD, I will "give" a little back.

In the spirit of Jack Schmidling and true science, I decided to conduct an

experiment that would help me decide on the value of sanitizing my bottles

in terms of homebrew taste.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:  One five gallon batch of porter was prepared using

standard homebrew procedures. At bottling time the bottles were divided into

three groups. Group one was unsantitized bottles that were only rinsed out

after the last homebrew was emptied from them. Group two was santized with

a weak bleach solution with a contact time under 3 minutes and rinsed with

tap water, the bottles in this group were actually filled with about 3 oz.

of solution and this was swirled about once. Group 3 was anally sanitized with

a full soak for 30 min in a weak bleach solution, and then rinsed with tap H2O.

The bottles were then separated and stored under similar aging conditions.

RESULTS:   The anally sanitized batch and the "casually" sanitized batch

 (groups 3 and 2, respectively) did not differ in terms of taste. The unsanitiz

ed batch of bottles (Group 1), however, had a noticable off flavor. This was

confirmed in both an unblinded way (I tasted the marked bottles) and in a

blinded way (I poured for a friend without telling him that one was bad!)

DISCUSSION:  I conclude from my results that sanitation is necessary, but

anal retentive sanitation is not.  Actually, I expected to find that

sanitization was not necessary, and that the unsanitized group would be fine.

I also was surprised that the off-flavor (which I cant identify...it was kind

of a cidery taste most promenent in the aftertaste...a "thinness", if you will)

was prominent in many of my early attempts (about 5 yrs. ago) at brewing.

 Well, just my futile attempt to try an actual (gasp) experiment here,

 instead of relying on the contradictory opinions of "expert" authors.

- --------------------------------------------------------------

Paul Sovcik                      | Email- U18183@uicvm.uic.edu

University of Illinois at Chicago|

Department of Pharmacy Practice  | "I Take Drugs Seriously..."

Chicago, Il                      |

------------------------------


cleaning Easymasher, big tuns

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 09:36:57 -0800

From: tims@ssl.Berkeley.Edu

Subject: cleaning Easymasher, big tuns

Hello Homebrewers,

 I have been using Mr. Schmidling's Easymasher system

for about 5 batches now, and have found it to perform as

advertised, that is, very well and very easy.  I have run into

one small problem, which is that it seems to be getting alittle

clogged after multiple uses, leading to stuck or slow sparges.

Examination shows some of the screen holes plugged.  I have

gone after it with needles and a toothbrush, but does anyone

else have a good method for cleaning?  Also, I could replace

the screen every 5 batches or so.  Hints?

 My other question has to do with setting up my own

pico-brewery, for 10-15 gallon batches.  I would like to

set up a large mash tun, made out of some good metal material,

like a half barrel or someting.  Questions are, what is good

way to set up sparge (would Easymasher work?) or false bottom

the diameter of the tun with holes.  Also, every commercial

brewery I have seen has two tuns, one for mashing, one for

boiling.  Is there a good way to use the one vessel for both

(ala Easymasher)?  I have liked the time savings coming from

starting to boil immediately with the sparge, but I wouldn't

want to be hiking from my garage to stove 2 cups-at-a-

time with sparge output. What do others do?  Lastly, would you

recommend getting a propane burner, or using natural gas,

tapped in from house supply (assuming I could do this or have

this done without turning my house into a Hindenburg.)

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Tim Sasseen

------------------------------


Re: Counterpressure filler

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 09:28:30 -0800

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Re: Counterpressure filler

Al (and net-folk),

  I also have one of the CP fillers like the one you describe.  I

found that one additional step helps keep down foaming: Before I close

the beer flow, I close the gas out valve.  I then close the beer flow,

and reopen the gas out valve slowly.  It adds a little time, but I've

found it reduces the likely hood of last second foam buildup.

  I was curious about a couple of things...

1) What pressure do you run the system at?

2) I was considering replacing the gas in and beer in valves with ball

valves, and adding a ball valve to the gas out line.  It seems to me

that this would save a lot of finger wear and tear.  Has anyone else

tried this?

         Drew Lynch

  Chronologic Simulation, Los Altos, Ca.

      (415)965-3312x18

    drew@chronologic.com

------------------------------


Help!

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 12:48:25 EST

From: yeebot@aol.com

Subject: Help!

I'm not sure this should be posted here, but knowing how hooked up everyone

here is I though I should give it a try. If anyone can suggest a better

suited forum, please...

A) I know a fellow who's interested in brewing a beer specifically for an

Asian market. He'd like to license a brewery with extra capacit

y.x Unfortunately, he doesn't have a recipie, just an idea of what the

end-product should taste like. There are similar beers already on the market

but not from any large brewers. Does anybody know how he would develop a

recipie? A consultant, perhaps? Will the brewery be able to work with him?

Can anybody suggest a brewery, preferably on the west side of the US? Thanks

alot.

B) How do I get in touch with Pierre Celis? (I hate to ask but) does he speak

English, I heard he doesn't?

Michael Yee

Angst Brewing Co., NY

------------------------------


beerhunter - SF BAy area

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 20:52:00 +0000

From: SCHREMPP_MIKE/HP4200_42@ptp.hp.com

Subject: beerhunter - SF BAy area

Item Subject: beerhunter - SF Bay area

For any viewers in the SF Bay Area, Channel 9 (PBS) will be running the

Beerhunter Series next Saturday (12/4) Starting at 3:00 and continuing through

7:30.

Mike Schrempp

------------------------------


Re: Leinenkugel's Winter

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 12:57:09 CST

From: bjw@techsun1.cray.com (Benjamin Woodliff)

Subject: Re: Leinenkugel's Winter

VODACEK@uwplatt.edu comments and queries:

> Just had some of Leinenkugel's Winter beer. Not bad.  Reminds me

> of my last few batches of oktoberfest that ended up much too dark.

The chocolate malt is really emphasized by the brewery-- very distinct,

and the slight boost in alcohol content seems appropriate for a

wintertime beer.  It's a specialty beer, available for only two months:

Nov - Dec '93.

> I have heard that one of the megabrewers bought up Leinenkugel's

> last year and that regular Leinie"s is no longer brewed in

> Chippewa Falls, just specialty seasonal beers.  Can anyone tell me

> the true story?

Jacob Leinenkugel Brewery of Chippewa Falls was purchased by Miller

Brewing Co. in 1988.  Apparently Miller was very interested in

acquiring an established beer with a regionally popular label while the

Chippewa Falls brewery needed capital and increased brewing capacity to

service the heavy beer markets in the Milwaukee-Chicago corridor.  The

aquisition finally broke the 120 or so years of Leinenkugel family

ownership although the family still runs the brewery.  A friendly

arrangement as far as it goes; the expected outcries from loyal drinkers.

The first year, Miller did nothing to affect the product.  A year or so

later they started using the Leinenkugel label on beer made in Milwaukee

using the Leinenkugel recipe.  To the exception of the water that is,

as Chippewa Falls has a world-class pure water spring that the brewery

draws from.  Leinie's regular is made in both locations-- it depends on

distributorship which location your local supply comes from.

Thus far, what you've heard is correct.  Each specialty beer (Leinenkugel's

Limited, Red Lager, Bock, the Dark Lager from last year, and the Winter

Lager from this year) are made exclusively at the Chippewa Falls

brewery.  There are no immediate plans to change this as the brewing

practices of the specialty beers will keep it mostly regionally

successful while Miller continues to probe the mega-market with its own

speciality products for now (e.g. Miller Amber, Reserve, Clear, etc.).

Ben Woodliff

------------------------------


A Wedding, Homebrew, and Texas

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 10:43:42 -0800

From: froeh@texan.ecc.naa.rockwell.com (Michael Froehlich)

Subject: A Wedding, Homebrew, and Texas

Hello Fellow Homebrewers,

    I have made a great decision in my life.  No, it does not concern whether

I will use a counter-flow chiller over a immersion chiller (definitely the

counter-flow).  I have asked a wonderful girl in Texas to be my wife.  The

wedding has been set for July 2, 1994 in Fort Worth, TX.

    I want to provide a substantial amount of the beer for the reception.

I am going to try the logistical equivalent of the Desert Storm in homebrewing

by brewing 50 gallons beer, 10-15 gallons of mead, and 15 gallons of hard cider.

All of the beverages will be in the 5 gallon kegs to allow for easy storage,

transporation, and serving.  It will be  a sizable reception of about

400 guests.  This may not be enough beer but with the Coors Light (ughhh!!)

kegs for the Mother-in-Law, this should be a good start.

    Here is my dilemma, I live in Los Angeles, CA and either have to brew here

and transport there or brew in Texas on the few weekends that I go back.

Either way, I will need a place to store the beer out of the Texas heat. If

anyone can help me by suggesting a storage place or allowing me to brew with

their equipment, I would be most grateful (even compensational with the beer

that is brewed).  Please respond at the E-mail below.

Brewing for a Better Tomorrow,

Michael Froehlich

/*

Michael Froehlich     (310) 647-1482

froeh@ecr.ecc.naa.rockwell.com  or froeh@129.172.56.36

*/

------------------------------


Whitbread-continued

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 13:34:59 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Whitbread-continued

I just got off the phone with Scott Birdwell of DeFalco's of Houston.

His is one the few homebrew shops that got some of the new Whitbread

yeast. DeFalco's is known for its high standards, and for its wide

assortment of products. Scott has been selling the Whitbread yeast

now for several months. Anyone wanting info on how this yeast has

done in homebrewing, as well as comparisons with other strains (he

carries them all- dry and liquid) can contact him at 713-523-8154.

George Fix

------------------------------


Turkey Leftovers & Scrumpy

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 14:49:40 EST

From: rchilder@schwab.com (richard a childers)

Subject: Turkey Leftovers & Scrumpy

( sent to Home Brew Digest )

I was telling a friend of mine about recent efforts to create a cherry

mead, and we started talking about brewing in general.

Amidst our discussion, my friend mentioned "scrumpy".

"Scrumpy" is a British brew, usually beer ( although it can be cider )

to which has been added, in addition to the more conventional fermen-

 -table materials, some sort of meat.

The concept apparently extends back through antiquity. Naturally, the

question of "why" arose.

My friend asserted that the addition of meat to the ferment created a

better head ... foamier, longer-lasting. This, he confided, was straight

from a friend of his, whom brewed at 20 Tank Brewery, here in San Fran-

 -cisco. ( Said friend added turkey to his home brews, not to 20 Tanks'

professional products, I hasten to add. )

I speculate that there might be an element of truth to this - perhaps

the addition of meat, after decomposition in an environment otherwise

devoid of the usual corrupting bacteriological agents, results in free

colloids in the solution, which not only change the taste in a subtle

way, but have the valuable and primary additional consequence of changing

the characteristics of the brew's resulting foam, when poured.

So, if you were wondering what to do with those turkey leftovers, now,

you have a way to get rid of that chunk of breast meat, and contribute

to the cause of brewing science, simultaneously ... (-:

- -- richard

( PS : replies to <pascal@netcom.com>, please. )

------------------------------


cool ferment temps

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 15:12:32 EST

From: U-E68316-Scott Wisler <wisler_scott@ae.ge.com>

Subject: cool ferment temps

Ed talks about having a cold basement and the use of the Brewbelt.

I too have a basement that gets down to around 60 F or below in the winter

and had a slow start on an ale last Janurary.  After 3 days I

figured I had to do something.  My solution was to waterbath the carboy

in a 20 gal plastic trash can.

Total cost: 0$  The trash can was holding Al cans for recycling, and my

neighbor had a `gerbol from hell' that chewed up their fish tank - so he

donated an aquarium heater to the cause.

There was a circumfrential temperature gradient in the trash can, so I will

use 2 heaters next time.  I will also use some bleach in the water during

the secondary fermentation.  But overall it worked pretty well.

The waterbath with aquarium heater is also an effective way to maintain

temperature while growing up yeast starters during the winter.

Ed, thanks for telling us about the Brewbelt problems.

scott

swisler@c0431.ae.ge.com

GE Aircraft Engines

Cincinnati, OH

`I've learned that you shouldn't confuse a black crayon and a tootsie roll'

                                                         -age 6

>From Live and Learn and Pass it On  by H Jackson Brown

------------------------------


Ice beer/Mixing yeast

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 15:07:44 EST

From: Keith MacNeal  30-Nov-1993 1501 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Ice beer/Mixing yeast

Coyote, where have you been?  Ice Beer is getting alot of hype in the Northeast

US and in Canda.  Molson, Labatts, and Genessee are all offering Ice Beer.

They talk about brewing at ice cold temperatures, not fermenting (I considering

brewing to be the entire process from mashing to bottling) so I don't get

too worked up about the advertising terminology (for this and any other

product).  I believe Ice Beer has been discussed a few times in here and

I'm pretty sure someone even verified that "freeze distillation" is not

regulated/prohibited the same way as regular distillation.

Someone asked about mixing yeasts in beer.  I've read that American Cream

Ale and Kolsch styles of beer used both ale and lager yeasts.  The recent

posting about Wyeast strains listed a new Kolsch yeast which has both lager

and ale characteristics.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Soda Ash Residue

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 12:37:16 -0800

From: Dan Needham <dann@hpsadr2.sr.hp.com>

Subject: Soda Ash Residue

I threw some labeled bottles in a sink of hot water last night

and sprinkled some soda ash on top.  In the morning the labels

slipped off nicely but there was a thin opaque film that I rubbed

off the outside of the bottles with hot water.  The film is also

on the inside.  A bottle brush will get some out, but there are still

patches with brush streaks.  Running them through the dishwasher rinse

cycle didn't remove more.

Is the film from the soda ash, the glue on the labels, or water chemicals?

I've usually used chlorinated TSP in the past, and will go back to that

if soda ash is a problem.  Also what is the chemical name for soda ash?

Thanks for your help.

Dan Needham

------------------------------


Noche Buena y Leon/Guiness error/FAQ format

Date: 30 Nov 93 14:21:00 CST

From: "DEV::SJK" <SJK%DEV.decnet@mdcgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Noche Buena y Leon/Guiness error/FAQ format

   All this talk of Noche Buena (anyone know where I can get it in

southern CA?) reminds me of one of the best bottled beers I've ever

had.  It's called Leon and it's brewed in the Mexican state of

Yucatan.  Some buddies and I were out cruising around the jungle and

climbing the odd pyramid or two when we ran across this stuff at a

cerveceria in some town I never knew the name of.  They had Corona and

Leon (?caliente o frio?).  Being familiar with Corona, the only choice

was Leon, whatever that might be.  Well, as it turned out, Leon was a

very tasty dark red Vienna lager. Yar!  My favorite style!  I KNEW all

that chanting "malted beverage malted beverage malted malted beverage

beverage" on the airplane on the way down would please the Maya beer

gods.  Very well-balanced, not very sweet but with lots of body, and

almost no hop aroma.  A little like Spaten Oktoberfest in taste, only

a little drier.  A case of these babies on the veranda at Uxmal in the

rain, jungle all around, a belly full of pollo pibil, and a real

Havana cigar (I know, ruins the taste.  Wait 'til Leon numero cinco

before lighting up.) is heaven indeed.  Stupid guy tricks.  !Muy

fabuloso!

   As I remember it was about $8US a case to begin with, $3 if you

brought all your empties back (!).  They reuse rather than recycle

their bottles.  Either one helluva ("Oh, sorry" -- T. Jones 'A Fairy

Tale') bottle-washer or the worst job in the Beer World.  We looked

around in Merida on our return from deepest darkest Mexico and

couldn't find it.  As Merida is the only thing that even resembles a

city in the area, you'd think it'd be a good market.  I really gotta

wonder where this stuff is brewed.  'Course, we could have missed

it...  We also hunted a LOT for precious bottles of Leon upon our

return to Cancun (having been unable to refrain from quaffing them

within minutes of having said "let's save these"), but to no avail.

Next trip I will make a serious effort to hunt this brewery down.  I

guarantee a case of this stuff will be one of my carry-ons when we

come back from Cancun this September.  Anyone care to trade for some

Cranberry Lambic?  ;-).

   While I'm not working, I had an interesting (embrassing, really)

experience the other night at the house of some buddies'.  These guys

have a keg fridge that is always well-appointed.  They've had SA,

Spaten Okt, Anchor, Newcastle, etc. you get the idea (They live in

Costa Mesa, CA.  Address avail on request).  Well, I went over, helped

myself to a free whatever was on tap, and thought to myself "that's

the darkest beer they've ever had here."  Looked, smelled, and tasted

like a porter.  My first thought was SN Porter (way off!), but it

wasn't sweet enough.  This went on for a while and I finally had to

ask.  The answer was Guiness.  I really felt dumb.  You'd think that

somebody who drinks as much of the stuff as I do (my cat's name is

Guiness) could pick out at least the tanginess of a Guiness.

   There are two things that I can think of that might explain/excuse

me:  1) the keg was at the proper temperature ('bout 55?) so what

little sweetness there is may have come through and 2) while the keg

may have been conditioned at one point with nitrogen (or is it CO2 &

nitrogen?), it was about half gone and was being dispensed with CO2

only.  It definitely did not have a typical Guiness head (big bubbles

that didn't last very long).  At no time did it really taste like

Guiness to me.  Thoughts?  Ridicule?

   And finally (finally!), a comment or two on Mark Steven's comments

on special-format FAQs.  I think that while a rearranged or different

format FAQ IS of limited usefulness (I rearrange my own), this would

mean that much of the stuff already in the archives is of similar low

worth (eg, brfware, brewsheets, images, co2.c, etc.).  I work with

1974 technology (VMS, VT330) and do not have access to even PostScript

(Though I'm not sure.  Hard to tell with the hindrance called "VMS".)

I think it's a mistake to say "let's use something everybody has"

because that is the case, as Mark says, only with flat files. I'd

still like to see what the brewsheet looks like.  If there's enough

interest, and it's acceptable to the good folks at Stanford, then Bob

should get to post his reformatted FAQ.  I think we have a little

pride in having accomplished something here.  Bob spent his own time

on something he thought he himself might find useful.  Having

accomplished this and, in fact, finding it useful, he simply wants to

know if anyone else MIGHT ('s'free, you know) also find it useful.

Nada mas.

   Dos mas cervezas rapido, por favor.  Gracias y buenos noches.

   Scott Kaczorowski

   sjk%c17fcs.decnet@mdcgwy.mdc.com

------------------------------


Used Kegs?

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 14:58:53 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Used Kegs?

Now that it appears DeFalco's won't ship used soda kegs anymore, does anyone

have a good source that will ship small quantities at reasonable prices?  My

local shop wants $35 each for them, which appears pretty high when compared to

DeFalco's $15 + shipping.  Maybe part of the difference is made up in the fact

that the homebrew shop has already replaced the o-rings, etc. and maybe

DeFalco's hasn't (hadn't).  This is no rush, I have two kegs on loan, but it

would be nice to find a good price sometime so I can own my own.

As long as I'm talking kegs, I have a question.  When you shake a keg to

carbonate it, it is inevitable that some of the liquid will be forced into the

gas inlet hose.  I've seen check valves advertised in some magazines, but they

are designed to keep the liquid out of your regulator (a good idea).  They

don't appear to address the issue of contamination via a dirty gas hose.  Do

you sanitize your gas hose?  How?  I don't particularly like the idea of

dissassembling the gas hose every time I do a batch, but if that's what it

takes...

Norm

------------------------------


SS Fitting

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 13:10:00 PST

From: "SIMPSON, Mark (x-4378)" <Simpson@po2.rb.unisys.com>

Subject: SS Fitting

Howdy Brewpeople!

I am trying to rebuild my SS sparge keg, which currently has a brazed-on

galvanized, screw-in fitting

for my 1500 watt, electric hot water heating element, low density type (ala

Rodney Morris' RIM system).

I would like to remove the fitting and replace it with a stainless steel

boss fitting, as I am having corrosion

problems.  Anybody out there have a good source for large SS fittings???

Thanks mucho,

Mark, The Brew-Cat

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1286, 12/01/93

*************************************

-------


no subject (file transmission)

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 16:57:27 EST

From: Steve Scampini <scampini@hp-and.an.hp.com>

Subject: no subject (file transmission)

I have been sitting on the sidelines, reading HBD for a good part

of a year, building up energy to actually ... you know, BREW BEER!

The continued encouragement, support and lent equipment from my

local brewer/engineer friends made it possible to spill wort on my

sneakers this past Saturday.  Other than fumbling around with a

clogged strainer as I poured the wort into the primary carboy,

it wasn't as difficult as I had imagined.  My steam beer

knock off is merrily bubbling in the basement (57 degrees F).

Of course, it may be foreign beastie city in there - only time

will tell.  I think I'm hooked on this brewing thing and hope

to contribute some wildly passionate, learned treatise on some

important beer topic such as the whether to use stick or book

matches to light the cooking stove (just kidding, I love

fanatics).  Anyway, all you almost-brewers out there,

it is not (so far) as mysterious as it sounds!

P.S. A good word for St. Patrick's of Texas for prompt and

courteous service in correcting a minor order problem.

Steve Scampini

------------------------------


Golden Syrup

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 14:22:23 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: Golden Syrup

I've been catching up on some older HBD's and notice a thread on golden

syrup.  There were a few posts indicating that it was a single substance

that could be approximated by creating invert sugar, or caramelising and so

on.  In fact, it's a rather special combination of sugars.  Here's the

information I got out of a book some time ago .....

        It's composition is:

        sucrose         27%

        reducing sugars 47.4%

        other organics   4.4%

        ash              3.2%

        water           18%

        I've seen reference to it in an American book as "golden invert

syrup", as one form of liquid sugar.  At any rate, the sugars make up 74.4%

by weight of the stuff.  If this was in the form of sucrose alone, it would

crystallize out, likewise if it were reducing sugars, glucose would

crystallize.  The proportion (1.75 reducing sugars to 1 of sucrose) produces

a stable liquid.  In the refining process, none of the syrups in process

have a high enough reducing sugar content, so special batches of "invert

syrup" are made (sucrose solution heated in acid environment -> equal

quantities of glucose + fructose).  This is added to other syrups to obtain

the right proportions.

 Peter

------------------------------


hop utilization

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 17:33:26 EST

From: Allan Rubinoff <rubinoff@BBN.COM>

Subject: hop utilization

I brew from malt extract, boiling only about half the wort and then

adding it (after chilling in a water bath) to cold water in the carboy.

I know that one of the problems with this approach is that hop

utilization is less than optimal due to the high gravity of the boil.

It occurs to me that there may be a simple solution to this problem:

boil the hops in plain water for an hour, and then just add the extract

and boil for another 15 minutes to sterilize it.  This should maximize

hop utilization without compromising sanitation.

This seems like such a simple (and obvious) solution, that I wonder why

I've never seen it mentioned anywhere.  Does anybody know of any reason

not to do this?

Thanks in advance,

Allan Rubinoff

------------------------------


Re: Whitbread or Fullers ESB, Please!

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 17:50:23 -0600 (CST)

From: James D Rickard-1 <rick0018@gold.tc.umn.edu>

Subject: Re: Whitbread or Fullers ESB, Please!

Do any of you British Ale fans have all grain recipes for Whitbread Pale Ale

or Fullers ESB taste alikes?  I love the bitter notes in Whitbread, they

say on their label propaganda that they use their own goldings hops.

I've also heard tell that they use unmalted wheat.  Any other suggestions?

------------------------------


cool ferment temps

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 16:48:16 PST

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: cool ferment temps

Rick Magnan asks about an appropriate yeast for fermenting at around

60F.  Try Wyeast 2112 (California Lager).  It is quoted as fermenting well

up to 62F while keeping its lager characteristics.  I, myself, have used it

for ales (a couple of steam beers and a brown ale), and it has performed

well even at 65F.  Since it is a lager yeast it should not have any problem

at 60F.  I have a brown ale made with this yeast ('cause its what I had

on hand) which has been raging at 63F.

Troy

------------------------------


New red star yeast

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 20:18:43 EST

From: lyons%adc3@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: New red star yeast

I have experimented (tried) the new red star yeast on two different

batches and would like to compare notes with anyone else who has

tried it.

My notes include:

   Lag time:    slow (approx. 1 day).

   Attenuation:    78% for all malt extract recipes (using 100% M&F light).

   After taste:    Thought it gave the beer a somewhat phenolic flavor,

                   but this faded after 2 months in the bottle.

   Fermentation:   Very strange primary ferment ... a thick (1") head of

                   yeast (I think this is what it was?) remained on top of

     the beer after the end of the primary ferment.  Had to

     siphon below the yeast cake(?) when racking to the

     secondary.  Never observed this with any other yeast?

Does anyone else have any comments on this particular yeast?

Thanks in advance,

Chris Lyons

------------------------------


RE: Guinness clone?

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 20:48:49 EST

From: lyons%adc3@swlvx2.msd.ray.com

Subject: RE: Guinness clone?

In HBD #1285 Carl gives the following recipe for a stout.

> 7 lbs. M&F light DME

> 1 lbs. flaked barley

> 1 lbs. roasted barley

> 0.75 lbs. crystal malt

> 1.66 oz Chinook hops (12.6%) at 60 min.

I've often wondered if adding flaked barley contributes anything

to an all extract recipe.  I've tried it on three occasions and am not

sure it added anything.  Is this an adjunct that needs to be mashed?

Chris Lyons

------------------------------


RE: Questions from COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu> on filtering

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 20:26 EST

From: Tom Clifton <0002419419@mcimail.com>

Subject: RE: Questions from COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu> on filtering

My thoughts on filtering....  Why bother!  According to Papazian a bit of yeast

helps add to the stability of the brew.  I you have followed the basics of good

wholsome brewing (sanitation) there won't be any bacteria you need to filter

out.  Best of all, if you want good clear beer with no chill haze problems once

you have cabrbonated your brew (primed and waited 7-10 days) all you have to do

is to put the bottles in your 'fridge for two weeks or so at 34-36 degrees and

the chill haze and "stuff" will precipitate out and you will have sparkling

clear brew.  Besides that, if you are brewing with a lager yeast this will give

reason to wait another couple of weeks before drinking all your brew!

Tom

------------------------------


aeration/recipe/smaller batch?

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 22:37:06 -0500

From: jeclark@ucdavis.edu (James Clark)

Subject: aeration/recipe/smaller batch?

to don biszek, who writes

>If you are reading Papazian, then why don't you follow his strongest advice,

>and Relax!! Your beer will be the same whether or not you worry and post

>20 questions about each bubble that perks up!

>don

don,

i assure you that i am not stressed out about our beer, i am merely asking

questions so that i don't make the same mistake twice.  i'm sorry that all

these questions are bothering you, but i will stop asking questions when

a) i run out of them

b) people stop responding because i am bugging them

i guess the answers to these are obvious, but remember that i really have

no clue as to the proper brewing proceedure.

BTW: i have found that a good way to relax is to drink a few sierra

celebration ales (anybody know the % alcohol in those things? they sure are

strong. i also couldn't quite place the flavors.  anyone know what they

add?)

now for the real questions:

1) is it okay (or even advisable) to shake up and thus aerate the beer in

the middle of fermentation?

2) for our next repipe we plan on just improving on the righteous real ale.

i thought a good recipe for 5 gallons would be:

  6.6 lbs John Bull amber malt extract syrup

  3/4 lb. cracked crystal malt

  2 oz.  cascade hop leaves (boiling)

  1 oz. willamette hop leaves (aroma)

  1/2 oz. willamette hop leaves (finishing)

  2 pkgs. (10 oz.) Windsor dry English ale yeast

  3/4 cup corn sugar (bottling)

does anyone know if these proportions are okay? i just kinda thought them

up, so i don't really know if it will work.

3) i want to try a batch without using the blowoff method, but i still want

to use a 5 gallon carboy.  if i make 4 gallons will the kreusen still reach

the top of the carboy or would i be safe to just put the fermentation lock

on?

thanks for all the help so far.  if everyone gets sick of me just stop

answering my questions and i'll take the hint.

- --james

------------------------------


Kirschenbier and stream of consciousness

Date: 01 Dec 1993 00:35:24 -0700 (MST)

From: "Steven W. Smith" <SMITH_S@gc.maricopa.edu>

Subject: Kirschenbier and stream of consciousness

  Whenever I can find cherrys again, I plan to try adding them to my standard

bock.  It seems reasonable (to me) to wash the whole fruit in a mild bleach

solution, rinse, dry, smash (how?), force into a carboy (how?), then siphon

from the primary onto them.  I'm thinking about 10 pounds of cherries to a 5

gallon batch.  Maybe freezing/thawing before smashing? Do the pits matter?  Any

comments appreciated, I'm flying blind.

  Many thanks to the person who suggested that hops have no place in melomel.

I'm eagerly anticipating the next batch without that "something's not quite

right" effect.

  Some beginner's advice on eliminating that pesky air bubble from a racking

cane:  if the wort's flowing at a good rate, a flick (thwack?) (like you'd

deliver to a dog nose encroaching on your pizza) where the bubble is will

cause the air to "break up" and flow down the siphon hose.  As with a dog nose,

it may take several strikes to be fully effective.

  Finally, on megabrew advertising:  I'd much rather see large-breasted,

presumably buzzed young women cavort on the beach than Santa Claus shopping at

K-Mart.  For an extended slow-motion-bikini-volleyball scene, I might even buy

a sixpack to give to visitors I wouldn't waste homebrew on :-)

  _,_/|

  /o.O;   Steven W. Smith, Programmer/Analyst

 =(___)=  Glendale Community College, Glendale Az. USA

    U     SMITH_S@GC.BITNET

          smith_s@gc.maricopa.edu

          "Now 25% less politically correct!"

------------------------------


hopping bracket?

Date: 30 Nov 93 22:02:31 MST (Tue)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: hopping bracket?

Should bracket be hopped at all?

If so, what's a reasonable basis for the hopping rate?  I can think of two

references--the potential alcohol and the malt content--which suggest

values that differ by roughly a factor of two.  That is, if you do hop it,

are you aiming to balance against the residual character of the malt, or

the eventual alcohol, or somewhere in between?

I'd be interested to hear from either folks who have made (what they con-

sider to be) a successful bracket, or anyone who has historical information

on how bracket was really made.  Since it was a fairly old style, was it

really before hopping ale was common?

Mind you, I'm not tied to historical precedent, but I'd like to know what

folks did with it.

 ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


Beer Hunting in Belgium

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 09:02:44 -0600 (CST)

From: winstead%brauerei@cs.tulane.edu (Teddy Winstead)

Subject: Beer Hunting in Belgium

Could somebody please tell me where I can find the "Beer Hunting in Belgium"

series that was posted here recently?  Or could somebody tell me the issue

numbers of the articles so that I can ftp them? Thanks alot!

Happy Brewin' and Drinkin',

Ted

------------------------------


Scrumpy!!

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 13:10:41 MET

From: ROB THOMAS <THOMASR@EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch>

Subject: Scrumpy!!

hello all,

having just finished reading hbd 1286, I have to pick up the bait.

Richard Childers mentioned Scrumpy, and the fact that it contained

meat. Well, Scrumpy is always Cider (ie never beer, as said in hbd1286).

It also does not by definition or tradition contain any form of meat.

SOME scrumpy contains meat (often beef due to sanitation laws). This

arose historically because often rats or even mice fell into the open fermentors

quite regularly. The benefits of the extra meat were noted, and people started

throwing stuff in to simulate the effect. What the effect is, I'm not

sure. Scrumpy is live (ie contains yeast), often unclear (due to lumps

of apple), and more often than not strong. I don't think it is GENERALLY

more fizzy, or with  better head. But I will stand down on that if I

get a flame from a producer of such a product.

Oh my, and I said I'd never flame...... well, it's only a little spark.

Rob. Thomas.

------------------------------


Old British Ales

Date:  Wed, 1 Dec 1993 12:36:34 +0000

From: ANDY PHILLIPS <"/G=andy/S=phillips/OU=cell biology/OU=lars/OU=i a c r/"@AFRC.ac.uk>

Subject:  Old British Ales

On the subject of high hopping rates in the "Old British Beers"

booklet (Durden Park Brewing Club), I recently brewed a barley

wine in a similar style to those in the book.

Ingredients (UK units and malts throughout):

7lb crushed pale malt

7lb    "    lager malt

2lb    "    wheat malt

1lb flaked rice

Mashed with 3.5 gal treated water at final temperature of 65-66C for 90 min in

picnic cooler. Sparged slowly to 3 gal total wort (I sparged a further

4 gal for a second beer). Boiled 90 min with 5 oz Goldings and 2 tsp Irish

Moss. Final yield 2.3 gal at 1.112. Pitched with 500ml starter from Edme

dried yeast. Fermented 6 days, then racked into 2 gallon jars with airlocks.

Fermented a further 21 days, then racked again into jars. Gravity when last

taken was 1.035.

Despite the high hopping rate - I can't remember the IBU rating from BRF,

but it was well over 100 - this is not noticeable bitter. I suspect that

this is partly because the flavour is overwhelmingly malty, and the hop

taste can't get through, and partly because of the lower hop utilization

at high SGs. I don't know whether BRF is capable of an accurate calculation

in the high SG range - the formula used may not be valid.

Moral - don't be frightened to overhop, especially at high SGs. Even if the beer

tastes disgusting at first, it will mellow with age.

Cheers,

Andy Phillips

------------------------------


Turkey Leftovers & Scrumpy

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1993 08:31:44 -0500

From: paul.beard@gatekeeper.mis.tridom.com

Subject: Turkey Leftovers & Scrumpy

I mentioned something this on either r.c.b or alt.beer. The scrumpy my

family knows from the southwest of England is a strong cider, guaranteed to

get you legless is one glass or less. It is not a commercial product, more

like a farmbrew and I was told  that the addition of a dead rat in a sock

(like a teabag and for a similar reasons) was used advaocates by some older

practitioners.

In that region, scrumpy is hard cider and is not for the fainthearted.

There's enough beer down there as it is and they call it beer, nothing

else.

Has anyone else heard anything about this meaty concept? As a vegetarian, I

could never drink the stuff, but I'm not sure I'd want to.

------------------------------


ICE BEER

Date: Wed, 01 Dec 1993 09:27:16 -0500 (EST)

From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: ICE BEER

There has been some discussion regarding ice beer in the last few digests:

My information on the recently in-vogue ice beers is that that these beers

are fermented like their non-ice beer brethren, and then aged at below

freezing temperatures.  While ice crystals are indeed formed, I think

another important effect is the flocculation of certain substances

that could make the beer less than "smooth".  I know that LaBatt's,

Molsen, and AB are making ice beers, but *not all* ice beer

brewers filter out the ice particles that form during aging. Thus,

some ice beers are normal strength and others have higher

than "normal" alcohol content.  Now if we could convince them to

leave out the corn, rice, and heading agents...

Rob Reed

------------------------------


Turkey Leftovers & Scrumpy

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 09:49:29 EST

From: oswald@columbia.sparta.com (Don Oswald)

Subject: Turkey Leftovers & Scrumpy

I read the entry on HomeBrew Digest regarding Scrumpy, and I happen

 to have a

lot of turkey sitting around . . .

Does anyone have a "good" recipe for scrumpy?

I am at least curious about when the bird goes in the brew

- --during the boil or mash?

I supppose the feathers would help strain out the trub :])

Reply to me, and I will summarize to the digest

Also appricieted would be some pointers to document how far

in antiquity the scrunpy practice goes.

Don Oswald

Re-Creational and Recreational Brewing

------------------------------


Re: Ice Beer & Witbread bashing

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1993 10:21:55 -0500 (EST)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: Ice Beer & Witbread bashing

RE: Ice Beer

I believe the process used to mass produce ice beer is as follows:

1. Regular wort fermented (lower initial OG??, Same OG??)

2. Still beer passed through chilled line, forming ice crystals in

suspension.

3. Ice crystals filtered out, along with yeast, proteins, and anything

else that would give residual flavor to the product.

4. Deaeriated water *added* back in to the finished bright beer tank.

Obvious questions arise over the value of adding back in water that was

just iced out.  I have yet to sample one, but the brewers feedback is

that it does taste different, and somewhat better.  Yet another

variation on the mass market products.

*****************

RE: Whitbread & flame baiting

First of all, I could care less about any dry yeast, even though I find

the discussions interesting.  I do care about intelligent debate on the

forum, and hope that we rise above the flame mode.  As I discussed with

Dr. O'conner via private email, I have no problem with different opinion,

provided that the opinions are presented with some technical issues/merits

/procedures, just some supporting evidence.  To just come to the opinion

that so and so is plain wrong without presenting any supporting data is

an example of poor scientific method. I cetainly hope that most of us in

the scientific community approach issues with an open mind, perform tests/

experiments, and then analyze the results.  Maybe Dr. O'Conner has done

this, and has supporting evidence to back up his claims, it is quite

difficult to ascertain this by his posts.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


TSP Disposal

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 10:18:05 EST

From: dturner@ganymede.sca.com (David Turner)

Subject: TSP Disposal

Greetings!

As a new homeowner, I suddenly find myself concerned for the welfare of my

septic tank and well in the presence of my brewing activities.  I have been

convinced that the chlorine I use for sanitizing is dilute enough so as not

to cause problems with my septic tank (and it can only improve the health of

my groundwater well), but I am worried about the Tri-Sodium Phosphate (TSP)

that I occasionally use to clean grungy bottles.  The package has a great many

warnings about eye protection, rubber gloves, etc., leading me to believe that

it is rather toxic (or at least caustic).  I'm not sure I want to be pouring

it down my drain, killing valuable bacteria in my septic system.  Nor do I

want to contaminate my (or my neighbor's) well by dumping it on the ground in

a corner of my property.

So, what's the collected wisdom on this issue?  Is TSP environmentally hostile?

How do fellow homebrewers dispose of this stuff?

Please e-mail me directly (dturner@sca.com) if possible; I need the information

soon!  Eagerly awaiting your replies...DT

- ----

David Turner

dturner@sca.com

------------------------------


Open v. Closed Fermentation

Date: Wed, 01 Dec 93 09:37 CDT

From: David Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: Open v. Closed Fermentation

In response to Robert Westerman's query into open v. closed ferments.  Tried to

post to your private email, but kept receiving return to senders:

I use a similar set-up with a 7 gal primary & 5 gal secondary.  To clear the

beer of whatever ills reside in the gunky parts of the krausen, I use a

technique tauted by Dave Miller.  Once the krausen starts to fall back into the

beer, rack the beer out from underneath the krausen and into your secondary.  I

try to wait till the last minute, allowing some of the cleaner foam the chance

to fall back into the beer...retaining some head retention goodness.  I like to

keep as much beer as possible.

David Atkins

------------------------------


Lovibond Scale

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1993 10:46:40 -0600 (CST)

From: "Bill Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Lovibond Scale

In HBD #1279 Allen Ford asks for formuli to determine beer color.

In HBD #1280 Gary Kuyat recalls some recipe for making lovibond color

samples from Michelob Dark.  I too am looking for this recipe will

someone please post the refernce.  TIA

WAK

------------------------------


Re: Durden Park Beer Club - address

Date:  Wed, 1 Dec 1993 17:25:08 +0000

From: ANDY PHILLIPS <"/G=andy/S=phillips/OU=cell biology/OU=lars/OU=i a c r/"@AFRC.ac.uk>

Subject:  Re: Durden Park Beer Club - address

I have an address for Dr. J. Harrison of the Durden Park Beer Club,

publishers of the booklet "Old British Beers and How to Make Them".

When I bought it (1992) the cost was 3 pounds sterling plus

postage. It would be sensible to allow for inflation and

for the higher cost of overseas postage, although the book is quite small

(40? pages softback).

Dr. John Harrison

5 Dorney Reach Road

Maidenhead

Berks

SL6 0DX

England

Good luck,

Andy Phillips

Long Ashton Research Station, Bristol, UK

------------------------------


Re: Refrigerator Conversions

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 09:38:52 PST

From: Bob.Clark@Eng.Sun.COM (Bob Clark)

Subject: Re: Refrigerator Conversions

 -> From: cssc!cong@scuzzy.attmail.com

 -> Subject: Refrigerator Conversions

 ->

 ->

 -> It might be easier to install through the door rather than on the top of the

 -> fridge. It would avoid the hassle of moving the freezer and the added

 -> cost of the dispensing tower.

A friend of mine made the brilliant suggestion of putting the taps

on the *side* of the fridge, instead of the front.

I think it is a much better way to go.  A front typically has a plastic

surface on it for holding eggs & such, while the side is two metal surfaces

with insulation in between.  Also, you don't have all that hosing moving

around every time you open the door.

 Bob C.

------------------------------


Washing Soda and Glass

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 10:46:09 -0800

From: arne thormodsen <arnet@kaibutsu.cup.hp.com>

Subject: Washing Soda and Glass


Soda Ash Residue

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 93 12:37:16 -0800

>From: Dan Needham <dann@hpsadr2.sr.hp.com>

Subject: Soda Ash Residue

>I threw some labeled bottles in a sink of hot water last night

>and sprinkled some soda ash on top.  In the morning the labels

>slipped off nicely but there was a thin opaque film that I rubbed

>off the outside of the bottles with hot water.  The film is also

>on the inside.  A bottle brush will get some out, but there are still

>patches with brush streaks.  Running them through the dishwasher rinse

>cycle didn't remove more.

>

>Is the film from the soda ash, the glue on the labels, or water chemicals?

>I've usually used chlorinated TSP in the past, and will go back to that

>if soda ash is a problem.  Also what is the chemical name for soda ash?

>

>Thanks for your help.

Soda ash is (if I remember right) Sodium Carbonate, also called washing

soda.  It is alkaline enough to very slightly etch glass.  When you are

washing off the "film" you are probably rubbing off and/or polishing

the etched glass on the surface.  Glass is not as insoluble as people

think, and you shouldn't use really alkaline cleaners on glass.  Read

the labels on some of the harsher spray cleaners sometime, they almost

all say to not use on glass.  Next time, you might use ammonia, which

isn't harmful to glass.  Of course, you need to use it outside.

- --arne

>

>Dan Needham

------------------------------


Copper in a boil/Wheat Yeast Stains

Date:     Wed, 1 Dec 93 14:16:41 EST

From: "Glen A. Wagnecz, X6616" <wagnecz@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  Copper in a boil/Wheat Yeast Stains

Folks-

 I've brewed two batches of wheat beer so far, both of which have

been using extracts and both with Wyeast 3056 Bavarian Weissen liquid

yeast.  I've made 1 qrt. starters with the same composition as the

main ferment before pitching and have had good quick startup's to

fermentation.  I really like the weissen taste, and I'm wondering if

the 3056 is the best strain for this flavor.  I've seen talk of both

Red Star Ale Yeast (dry) and a new "Wheinstephen Wheat yeast (3068?).

What's the opinion out there as to which is the best?

 The second question I've got (thanks for bearing with me!)

is whether or not it would be adviseable to use copper fittings in a

boiler.  I've obtained a SS half keg, ala budweiser (legally) and

I want to use a copper double sided male connector through a hole

in the side of the keg.  This is the kind used for joining two

flare fittings.  One side would connect to 1/2 inch copper tubing

going to a wort chiller, and the other would be slightly inside the

boil.  A cut down nut (also copper) would compress two gaskets

(teflon) to provide a seal.  Would there be any problems with:

toxicity or taste degradation?  Corrosion?  Or would it be better

to spring for a SS fitting?

  Thanks In Advance-

   Glen

------------------------------


Re: Scrumpy

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 12:54:51 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Scrumpy

Richard Childers writes:

> "Scrumpy" is a British brew, usually beer ( although it can be cider )

> to which has been added, in addition to the more conventional fermen-

> -table materials, some sort of meat.

>

> The concept apparently extends back through antiquity. Naturally, the

> question of "why" arose.

According to an article I read on cider, the reason for adding meat

to the fermenting brew was to prevent a stuck fermentation over the

winter months.  The meat provided nitrogen and other nutrients to

help the yeast survive the colder temps.  Today, you can probably

get the same effect by adding some store-bought yeast nutrient (unless,

of course, you actually *like* scrumpy :-).

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Phenolics/Siebel yeast @ SN/Sam Smith's yeast

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 15:05 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Phenolics/Siebel yeast @ SN/Sam Smith's yeast

Jason writes:

>learned that peat smoked beers (like at least one smoked porter and some

>smoked Scotch ales) can have a very harsh, phenolic character.  There

Currently, my basement smells a bit like a decent scotch ale, but not

because I'm brewing one...

 ...I tracked down the aroma to the rubber wheels on my new handtruck.

******************

Mark writes:

>Other interesting tidbits:  The question was asked if Wyeast 1056

>(aka American and/or Chico) was the same strain as they used.  The

>answer was to that they had no idea, but wondered why it would

>matter since "you can get our yeast from a bottle of our beer."

>Their yeast came from Siebel, and is banked there, so maybe someone

>with a connection at Siebel could tell us more.

Siebel's BRY-96 is the same as Wyeast #1056 American Ale.

****************

Michael writes:

>a batch of Samual Smith's Nut Brown Ale.  Does anyone have

>a tried-and-true all-grain recipe for this delicious ale?

>Any suggestion as to what an appropriate yeast would be?

I'm afraid I can only offer speculation on this, and what I

propose is a bit risky, so take these comments with a grain

of salt.  What you want is a high-diacetyl beer.  One of the

biggest diacetyl producers is Wyeast #1084 Irish Ale.  Here's

the risky part: try aerating the beer *during* fermentation.

It's basically what they do at the Tadcaster brewery when they

make Sam Smith's beers.  I've read that the reason they do this

is because their yeast is highly-flocculent (too flocculent)

and they need to get it back into suspension.   What this

aeration has a tendancy to do is to increase diacetyl production.

Another risky proposition: when the beer is pretty much fermented-

out, chill it abruptly to drop the yeast.  Alternatively, you could

use finings, such as Isinglass, to drop the yeast so they have

less opportunity to re-ingest the diacetyl.

Granted, I'm not speaking from experience here, only passing on

information gathered from various sources, so I would be

very interested in any personal experiences with either of the

two "risky" propositions I've put forth here.

Al.

------------------------------


acidic water/Red Feather Ale

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 18:20:38 est

From: Michael Wolter <WOLTER@DICKINSON.EDU>

Subject: acidic water/Red Feather Ale

In response to Mark Stickler's acidic water problem:

We recently had the gizmo installed to neutralize acidic water.  It looks and

works much like a water softener, but is filled with some sort of limestone.

It definitely eliminated the green stain problem.  Hard to say if it made much

difference in the taste of my beer or wine (I like to think that the flavor

improves as I learn more and refine my techniques).  Email me if you have any

questions.

You mentioned a "Red Feather Ale" that's made in Chambersburg.  Do you know

the name of the brewery?  I live pretty close to Chambersburg, and this sounds

like it could be a fun trip!

 -Mike Wolter

 wolter@dickinson.edu

------------------------------


London  supplies

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 18:02:28 PST

From: relay.hp.com!daver!nexgen!bart (Bart Thielges)

Subject: London  supplies

I'll be passing through London next month.  I'd like to bring home some

hard to find supplies.  Does anyone have suggestions for good

homebrew supply stores, particularily in the south Thames (Balham, Brixton,

Clapham, Battersea, etc.) area ?

Last night. I dunked my immersion chiller and monitered the temperature.  It

seemed to stall about 100F.  The reason ?  I forgot to turn the burner off.

Duh !

For those immersion chiller users out there concerned with conserving water,

consider gradually reducing the cold water flow as the wort chills.  At

212F, a high flow can really transport a lot of heat.  However, by the time the

wort is below 100F, you really don't need any more than a trickle.

My time vs. temp, flow curve looks like :

212F + # w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-

4 GPM | #

 | #

 |  #

 |  #

 |   #

 |    #

 |     #

 |      ##

 |       ##

 |   ###

 |      ###

 |         ###########

70F |             ###################################

0.1 GPM +-------------------------------------------------------------#####

 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 min

Where the "#" curve represents both the temp falling from 212-70F and

the water flow rate dropping from 4 to 0.1 gallons per minute.  The "w-w-w"

curve represents the "wasteful" method of leaving the water on full blast

for the whole cooling cycle.  Of course, the wort will cool a little

faster with the full blast method, but not by much.  As you can see, the

water savings are tremendous and is well worth the extra minute or two (at

0.1 gpm no less !) of cooling time.  But you probably already knew this.

This reasoning applies only if the outflow is not re-used.  I've seen many

clever posts by frugal brewers saving the clear water to wash clothes, etc.

My method is to run the outflow hose outside so it waters my trees, but that

doesn't apply now that the rainy season has come to San Jose.

Cheers,

Bart

bart@nexgen.com

------------------------------


Re: Desired format for file distribution

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1993 08:58:53 -0600 (CST)

From: jim@n5ial.mythical.com (Jim Graham)

Subject: Re: Desired format for file distribution

In today's HBD, paul.beard@gatekeeper.mis.tridom.com (Paul Beard) writes:

>  In reference to Mark Stevens' comments on the need to stay away from

> vendor-specific

>  file formats, I concur; I am all for PostScript file dumps. I assume most

>  of us have access to a PostScript laser printer and as long as we keep

>  things at Level I PS for awhile, it should work great.

Bad assumption.  There are still lots of non-PostScript printers out there,

and there are, I'm sure, a lot more folks other than myself who don't have

access to a PS printer.

And before anyone suggests GS, remember that it's output isn't always all

that great (e.g., I have a 24-pin printer that I can drive at 360x360 dpi,

but GS insists on 180x180 dpi ... and when I force the issue, GS forgets

important details, such as the size of the paper, and so on)....besides,

some of us don't have it (I have it archived somewhere, but can't afford

to waste badly-needed disk space on it when I'd never use it anyways).

So, I have a suggestion that might make things a lot easier.  If you're

going to do PS documents, please include an ASCII version.  Yes, some of

the graphics may have to be left out.  Perhaps they could be converted to

GIF files?  I don't know....  I know very little about converting from

one graphics format to another.  But at least the text portion would be

available, where it wouldn't be otherwise.

I would suggest that another alternative format might be TeX.  I could help

in that area, if people are interested.  From TeX's DVI output, you can go

to just about any format you want.  Then you just distribute the TeX source,

and people can do whatever they want with it (including convert it to other

formats, if desired).

Just a thought....

Later,

   --jim

- --

#include <std_disclaimer.h>                                  73 DE N5IAL (/4)

- -------------------------< Running Linux 0.99 PL10 >--------------------------

INTERNET: jim@n5ial.mythical.com  |  j.graham@ieee.org     ICBM: 30.23N 86.32W

AMATEUR RADIO:  (packet station temporarily offline)       AMTOR SELCAL: NIAL

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

E-mail me for information about KAMterm (host mode for Kantronics TNCs).

------------------------------


Scrumpy, Colloids & Foam

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1993 20:45:42 -0800

From: pascal@netcom.com (rIchARd cHildErS)

Subject: Scrumpy, Colloids & Foam

Got a little flack from one or two people ( whom apparently missed the

_very_ explicit request at the end for mail to be sent to me here at

pascal@netcom.com ) suggesting I didn't know what I was talking about.

Let's step through the sequence of thought here ... take small steps.

'collegen' is a term which refers to "fibrous protein which occurs in

vertebrates", according to Webster's 9th New Collegiate Dictionary.

'colloids' are defined as "gelatinous or mucinous substance found in

tissues in disease or normally". Perhaps I selected the wrong word here,

as what I was referring to were the threads of protein of which muscle

and meat are composed ... which I understood to be colloids.

I'm not sure what agents exist within a wort or cider or other solution

( yes, I include _beer_ in the 'scrumpy' category, as well as _cider_ )

of fermenting fermentables, but it is undeniable that they exist, since

meat placed in cider and other fermenting solutions undergoes change and

dissolution.

Such an action must inevitably result in the tissue being teased into

either shorter threads of protein ( muscle is made up of longer threads )

 ... or component molecules.

Such threads as may exist might prove a tangible explanation for better

head ( which is so far strictly hearsay, and I haven't the slightest wish

to test this hypothesis on a perfectly good batch of cider ) on one's

brew. This is strictly a theory, propogated for the interest of those of

you with a scientific bent. ( Jack, maybe a few others. [ flamebait :-] )

Surely people have been putting meat into their fermenting solutions for

_some_ reason over these many centuries. "Why" remains to be answered ...

- -- richard

        Truth : the most deadly weapon known to civilization. Possession

        forbidden by employers, governments, and authorities, across the

        known universe. Violation of this regulation punishable by death.

   richard childers                                         pascal@netcom.com

------------------------------


Microbrewing Equipment

Date: 01 Dec 1993 15:51:29 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Mr. Dudley" <S29711%22681@utrcgw.utc.com>

Subject: Microbrewing Equipment

In the interest of minimizing expenditure, I am interested in purchasing some

used (versus new) microbrewing equipment.  I envision purchasing such equipment

from a micro that's upgraded.

Does anyone know if there exists a "clearing house" or other type of

consignment operation dealing in such equipment?  Alternatively I'd be

interested in finding out if there anyone in the NY, CT, MA area who may be

in a position to sell equipment like this.

Please respond to me directly at the following address:

S29711%22681@utrcgw.utc.com

Thanks

Jeff Dudley

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1287, 12/02/93

*************************************

-------


Corsendonk Monks Ale ?

Date:         Thu, 02 Dec 93 04:52:32 EST

From: John Pedlow <TKSJOHN@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>

Subject:      Corsendonk Monks Ale ?

The local supermarket stocks a few imported brews.  Normally these

go for from $1 to $2 per approx 12 oz bottle.  Corsendonk Monks Ale

is currently being offered in "a hand painted gift bottle imported

from Belgium".  The cost is $44.88 for a 100 oz bottle with a

"save 4.00" appended.

Anyone enjoyed Corsendonk Monks Ale and can share why it is so

expensive?  Can "they" make money stocking a brew this expensive?

What is its shelf life?  And, of course, what does it taste like?

Thank you.

John Pedlow in Buffalo, NY

------------------------------


Re: Durden Park Beer Club - address

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1993 12:02:15 +0000

From: G.A.Cooper@qmw.ac.uk (Geoff Cooper)

Subject: Re: Durden Park Beer Club - address

Andy Phillips writes:

>I have an address for Dr. J. Harrison of the Durden Park Beer Club,

>publishers of the booklet "Old British Beers and How to Make Them".

>When I bought it (1992) the cost was 3 pounds sterling plus

>postage. It would be sensible to allow for inflation and

>for the higher cost of overseas postage, although the book is quite small

>(40? pages softback).

The retail price still remains at 3 pounds with discounts for larger orders.

It is quite small, 56 pages softback, and contains 60 recipes. Since the

recent articles, interest has been shown in it being stocked by more suppliers

in the US - watch this space.

Oh, and yes, John doesn't mind his address being published.

If you wish to write to him, about the book or anything else, Andy has it

correct:

>Dr. John Harrison

>5 Dorney Reach Road

>Maidenhead

>Berks

>SL6 0DX

>England

Geoff

(No disclaimer: Being a member of Durden Park I have a vested interest in the

 book)

------------------------------


mead questions

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 09:28:32 EST

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: mead questions

 I've got a coupla mead and fruit mead batches under my belt. I've

 been kegging my homebrew for about 6 months now, and am wondering

 about kegging future batches of mead. Is there any reason that I

 *shouldnt* keg my mead insterad of bottling? What about using

 stainless vessels for primary or secondary fermentation also, since

 they take up a fermenter for a coupla months?

 First hand experience, no urban legends, please.

 Also, is there a Mead mailing list similar to HBD?

 thanks,

 jim

------------------------------


Wort Processor Krush-Off:  Part II

Date: 02 Dec 1993 10:02:02 -0500 (EST)

From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

Subject: Wort Processor Krush-Off:  Part II

As a followup to the Worts successful Klub Krush-Off in September, the club held

a second Krush-Off at the November meeting.  Several Worts had recently received

'improved' grain mills and we wanted to see for ourselves how good the new mills

really were.

Bob Gorman brought an 'improved' Glatt mill in which the rollers had been

redesigned with a fine knurled covering as opposed to the long grooves in

previous models.  And Dan Listerman sent the club an improved PhilMill for

testing.  The knurl was much coarser than in the previous model.

The malt used for this Krush-off was again pale 2-row.  Each mill was adjusted

for crush quality, then 2 lbs. of malt were run through in a time trial.

Results and comments are shown below:

The Time Trials:

1)  The Knurly GlattMill - Powered by a normal household drill, this mill

crushed the malt in an impressive 26 sec., nearly as fast as the Schmidling

MaltMill (21 sec) in our original Krush-Off.

2)  The original GlattMill - Also powered by a normal household drill, this mill

took 1 min. 6 sec. to crush the same amount of grain. [Note: this mill took 45

sec to crush the same amount of grain in the first Krush-Off.  Obviously there

can be substantial variations in the crush-time depending on how the mills are

adjusted and the speed of cranking]

3)  The New-Improved Listerman PhilMill - When powered by the normal household

drill, this mill refused to budge.  Even when the adjustment screw was backed

off slightly, the operator was afraid to continue, citing fear of drill

burnout.  Not to be dissuaded, however, Tim Dalton dragged out a monster

industrial 5 amp drill.  It didn't hesitate when attached to the mill and

crushed the malt in 38 sec.

General Comments:

The Knurly Glatt was much faster then the Slotted Glatt and also threw a bit

less grain behind the mill then the Slotted one.  But this is still a design bug

and can be easily fixed by extending the drop shoot up higher to cover the back

of the rollers.

The Slotted Glatt gave a very nice crush as we had previously observed,  but

most of the husks were still cut in half width-wise.  I assume this was due to

the large slot size.  The Knurly Glatt also gave a very nice crush, but the

adjustment was slightly off, so although the kernels were cracked many of the

husks still held together.  However a little tweak between the fingers caused

them to fall apart nicely.  But this did give the appearance of un-crushed

kernels and the question was raised as to whether they would open up in the mash

or not.

We did a follow up crush on the Knurly Glatt with the rollers a couple of

notches tighter.  At this point the Knurly Glatt produced a bit more powder then

the Slotted Glatt, although still well within acceptable ranges.

The New-Improved Listerman Mill required a lot more torque to crank then the

Glatt Mills.  It should be noted that the drill used to turn the Glatt mills was

very beat and it took a few seconds to get up to full speed when using the

Glatts which are extremely easy to turn.  However, even if the drill had been

in perfect shape it would still have had a very hard time turning the Listerman

Mill.  The bigger drill was definitely needed and was a whole lot more fun to

use.  Of course, manual operation of the mill is always an option!

The crush of the Listerman was good.  However the adjustment of the rollers was

a little on the tight side, so the crush came out a bit more powdery.  It's too

bad the operators didn't adjust this mill better because we would have liked to

have seen how much powder and husk demolition the New-Improved Listerman Mill

would have produced if properly adjusted.  Nevertheless the crush was still

acceptable.

As a followup it would be interesting to see a qualitative analysis of the

different mills run at different speeds.  It is possible that the slotted

roller design might do much better at a slower speed.

Some personal comments:

The 'improved' mills do appear to be real improvements over the models tested

in the first Krush-Off.  Taking workmanship, ease of use , and quality of crush

into account, I would personally rate the new Glatt mill and the Schmidling

MaltMill about equally.  The MaltMill has faster throughput due to its longer

rollers and this could be important if you crush large amounts of grain.  I

also think that the MaltMill is a more 'mature' mill.  By that, I mean that JS

has been constantly making small improvements to the MaltMill over the last

few years.  Even though the Glatt delivers an excellent crush and is easy to

use, there are a few spots where improvements would make it an even better

product (like raising the height of the back cover plate, redesigning the

handle attachment, and downsizing the cover box that partially obscures one of

the adjustment screws).  Personally I don't think that most homebrewers would

go wrong with either one of these two mills.

Although the new Listerman PhilMill gives a nice crush and is

certainly adequate for most homebrewing, I personally am bothered by its lack

of bearings, given its price, and its means of attachment to a table via

screwhooks is kludgey.

For the money, the Glatt (~$80) appears to be the big winner, especially given

its adjustable rollers.  The comparable adjustable MaltMill retails for ~$129,

although the non-adjustable model is only ~$99.  The Listerman retails

for ~$75.

BTW, I am a satisfied MaltMill customer and have no commercial interest in any

of the above products.

Steve Stroud

------------------------------


Barleywine, temp fluctuation

Date: 02 Dec 1993 08:32:50 -0700 (MST)

From: "Steven W. Smith" <SMITH_S@gc.maricopa.edu>

Subject: Barleywine, temp fluctuation

  Got a couple of burning questions for the oracle (Jack Oracle, yeah, that's

him).  First, what's the difference between beer and barleywine?  Is it

the yeast used, alcohol content, carbonation, whim of the brewer?  If it's

alcohol content, when does doppelbock cross the line and become barleywine?

Are there any commercial barleywines?

  Second: someone recently asked if temperature fluctuations would adversely

affect a lager.  Well? (tap tap tap)... I've had five gallons of doppelbock

in my fridge for 2 months and it's still happily fermenting. It finally slowed

down a bit; 1 bubble every 18 seconds or so.

  3 weeks ago I racked it again and had a taste (ok, a big lager glass).

It's still noticeably sweet, and I'm running _low_ on homebrew.  If it won't

horribly desecrate my first actual lager, I'd like to bring it up to room

temperature (about 74F) for a few days to accelerate fermentation.  It would

also be kinda handy to have the veggie drawers and more than 1 shelf again

after all this time.  The experience has taught me to shop carefully and stack

creatively; also that I'm not as patient as I thought I'd be. TIA

  _,_/|

  /o.O;   Steven W. Smith, Programmer/Analyst

 =(___)=  Glendale Community College, Glendale Az. USA

    U     SMITH_S@GC.BITNET

          smith_s@gc.maricopa.edu

          "Hark! 'tis the pathetic mewling of users."

------------------------------


highly hopped beers

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 10:58:53 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: highly hopped beers

We tasted a bottle of Alimony Ale last night -- Bill Owen's "Bitterest

Beer in America".  Well, it ain't.  It's not a bad beer, but the SN

Celebration Ale and the homebrew raspberry stout we tasted before it

were definitely more bitter.

ObHB: Raspberry Stout (from Hal Buttermore)

2 cans MtMellick Stout

1 lb crystal malt

1 oz galena

2 oz N Brewer

10 lbs Raspberries ("picked by virgins" :-)

Do the obvious thing.  (This is a reduced volume boil recipe.  If you

want to do a full-volume boil, cut the hops, maybe in half.)

Raspberries added to primary.  Probably not sanitized in any way.

I think the original was fermented with Doric dry yeast.

Very tasty, beautiful red-brown head, almost opaque, but lovely red

color when shining a flashlight through about 1/4inch of it.

Raspberries jump into your nose, and follow through in the flavor.  At

this point (brewed summer 1992) it's balanced towards the tart side,

but there's still sufficient sugar to stand up to the hops bitterness

& fruit acidity.  Yum!

=S

------------------------------


Budweiser/Budvar

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1993 11:19:15 -0500

From: paul.beard@gatekeeper.mis.tridom.com (Paul Beard)

Subject: Budweiser/Budvar

Did anyone see the news that Bud, the US megabrewer is looking to=

 buy a

piece of the original Budweiser from Slovakia? They are looking to=

 buy out

their name licensing fee, from the sound of it, as well as get a=

 chance to

distribute their stuff deep in Europe.=20

If only these large companies were as obsessed with quality as they=

 are

with marketshare, like everyone here seems to be=8A

Paul Beard

AT&T Tridom

840 Franklin Court

Marietta, GA 30067

404/514-3672

=46AX  429-5419

tridom!paul.beard/beardp@gatekeeper.tridom.com

------------------------------


60F ferments and Kirschenbeir question

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 11:25:40 EST

From: Keith MacNeal  02-Dec-1993 1103 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: 60F ferments and Kirschenbeir question

In Homebrew Digest #1287 (December 02, 1993) Troy Howard posts:

>Rick Magnan asks about an appropriate yeast for fermenting at around 60F.

>Try Wyeast 2112 (California Lager).  It is quoted as fermenting well up to

>62F while keeping its lager characteristics.

I have successfully brewed with (gasp!) Whitbread dry yeast at 60F.  In the

winter months my basement is too cool to brew ales and the first floor goes

through wide temperature fluctuations due to a setback thermostat.  So, I

ferment on the second floor where the bedrooms are and the thermostat is set

at a constant 60F.

Also in HBD #1287, Steven W. Smith <SMITH_S@gc.maricopa.edu> posted:

>  Whenever I can find cherrys again, I plan to try adding them to my standard

>bock.  It seems reasonable (to me) to wash the whole fruit in a mild bleach

>solution, rinse, dry, smash (how?), force into a carboy (how?), then siphon

>from the primary onto them.  I'm thinking about 10 pounds of cherries to a 5

>gallon batch.  Maybe freezing/thawing before smashing? Do the pits matter?

>Any comments appreciated, I'm flying blind.

After reading some suggestions in here and some books, here is what I did for

a peach ale using fresh peaches.  I washed the fruit under running tap water,

pitted it, put it in large Zip-Loc freezer bags, and put them in the freezer.

The night before I moved the beer from primary to secondary I took the fruit

out of the freezer to thaw.  When thawed I simply squished them all up by hand

while they were still in the bag.  I then poured them from the bag (with the

assistance of a sanitized stainless steel spoon) into the secondary and

siphoned the beer on top of it.  Next time I would use a sanitized funnel made

from a gallon plastic milk jug to help with the transfer.

As you noticed I didn't sanitize the peaches and I pitted them.  Some suggest

using camden tablets to sanitize the fruit (I really wouldn't recommend using

bleach) a couple of days before adding the fruit to the beer.  I counted on

the alcohol content and high yeast population in the beer to prevent infection

and it worked.  I pitted the peaches since the pits are large and I would have

had trouble fitting the peaches down the neck of the carboy if I didn't.

Personally, I wouldn't pit the cherries -- it would be too much work. Freezing

the fruit definitely aided in smashing them up.  I've read that freezing

ruptures the cell walls and makes the fruit sugars easier for the yeast to get

to for fermentation.

Speaking of fermentation, you will get a great deal of activity after adding

the fruit.  Use a 6 gal. carboy with a blowoff tube for a 5 gal. batch with

fruit added.  Even with this setup I ended with a clogged blowoff due to a

peach that didn't get mashed well.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Re: scrupmy

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 12:04:24 -0600

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: Re: scrupmy

rchilder@schwab.com (richard a childers) writes:

>"Scrumpy" is a British brew, usually beer ( although it can be cider )

>to which has been added, in addition to the more conventional fermen-

>-table materials, some sort of meat.

>The concept apparently extends back through antiquity. Naturally, the

>question of "why" arose.

I've always wanted to make bacon stout, but thought that the oils

would kill the head retention.

A nice fresh bottle of sam smith's oatmeal stout has a very bacony

taste to it, and a little real bacon in the brew might be interesting.

bb

------------------------------


John (lotsa)Bull

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 13:04:21 EST

From: sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com (Carl Howes)

Subject: John (lotsa)Bull

jeclark@ucdavis.edu (James Clark) writes:

>1) is it okay (or even advisable) to shake up and thus aerate the beer in

>the middle of fermentation?

>

>2) for our next repipe we plan on just improving on the righteous real ale.

>i thought a good recipe for 5 gallons would be:

>  6.6 lbs John Bull amber malt extract syrup

>[snip]

>

>3) i want to try a batch without using the blowoff method, but i still want

>to use a 5 gallon carboy.  if i make 4 gallons will the kreusen still reach

>the top of the carboy or would i be safe to just put the fermentation lock

>on?

Taking these in order:

1) In the middle of fermentation there should not be any oxygen to aerate

with, and you want to avoid aeration after fermentation begins anyhow.

2) Check the label on that can!  The John Bull syrup that I have seen is

stretched with corn syrup (can you say ripoff boys and girls?)  If you go

with 6 lbs of dry extract you will get more fermentables per pound (any

syrup also contains water) and your cost may be lower pound for pound (I

have found this to be so).

3) It should be fine.  I use a 6.5 gallon carboy for 5 gallon batches and

just put the airlock on.

Carl

------------------------------


BRF IBU algorithm

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 12:15 CST

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: BRF IBU algorithm

Andy Phillips writes:

>  I don't know whether BRF is capable of an accurate calculation

>  in the high SG range - the formula used may not be valid.

The BRF's IBU calculation accomodates high gravities.  The

algorithm is Jackie Rager's.  Is it accurate?  I think it's fairly

accurate.  Can the forumla be improved?  Probably.

Whether you agree or disagree with Rager's algorithm, the fact

remains that it's the only formula around.  If someone has a better

formula, I'm all ears.

Having brewed a couple of barleywines and just a few :) Imperial

Stouts, I agree that high gravity worts need truckloads of hops

just to make the bitterness discernable.

Numerically speaking, if you're getting an IBU value as high as

100, dollars to donuts says the bitterness "retardation" value in

the algorithm is not adequate.  Anyone care to take a stab at

updating the algorithm?

chris campanelli

------------------------------


Red Star Ale Yeast

Date: 2 Dec 1993 10:52:13 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Red Star Ale Yeast

Dave Lyons wrote:

I have experimented (tried) the new red star yeast on two different

batches and would like to compare notes with anyone else who has

tried it.

(His) notes include:

   Lag time:    slow (approx. 1 day).

   Attenuation:    78% for all malt extract recipes (using 100% M&F light).

   After taste:    Thought it gave the beer a somewhat phenolic flavor,

                   but this faded after 2 months in the bottle.

   Fermentation:   Very strange primary ferment ... a thick (1") head of

                   yeast (I think this is what it was?) remained on top of

     the beer after the end of the primary ferment.  Had to

     siphon below the yeast cake(?) when racking to the

     secondary.  Never observed this with any other yeast?

                         ----------------------------

I have also used Red Star a few times and I like it. I have had very clean

tasting beers using it. My statistics are:

   Lag time:  Good, Within 12 hours, often within 6. (I use a Starter)

   Attenuation:  70-ish%, haven't really been concerned with it.

   Primary Ferment: Big Krausen that does stick around, I rack out from

                    underneath it as standard practice. Primary time is

                    usually one week for the IPAs I've been brewing.

John Palmer - MDA-SSD M&P  palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men* are created equal,

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,

that among these are Home Brewing, Women**, and the Pursuit of Science."

* intended at this time to be nonspecific; ** personal preference.

------------------------------


Re: hop utilization

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1993 12:04:52 -0700

From: c-amb@csc-sun.math.utah.edu

Subject: Re: hop utilization

   I brew from malt extract, boiling only about half the wort and then

   adding it (after chilling in a water bath) to cold water in the carboy.

   I know that one of the problems with this approach is that hop

   utilization is less than optimal due to the high gravity of the boil.

I believe that the high gravity is only one factor limiting hop

utilization.  The simple fact that you are boiling the hops in less

than 5 gal of H20 is the main problem.  It seems that as the amount of

alpha acids in the wort increases it reduces the gradient between the

hops and the wort.  Thus, extraction slows down.  Now to mentally

check this idea at the limit points think about boiling your hops in

one or two cups of water.  I imagine that quite quickly you would

reach a maximum bitterness at which you leave quite a lot of alpha

acids in the hops themselves.

This hypothesis would be easily testable by simply boiling a few

ounces of hops in 1 gal of water and diluting this to 5 gal.  and

comparing this to the same amount of hops boiled in 5 gal.  I imaging

that there would be an appreciable difference.

   It occurs to me that there may be a simple solution to this problem:

   boil the hops in plain water for an hour, and then just add the extract

   and boil for another 15 minutes to sterilize it.  This should maximize

   hop utilization without compromising sanitation.

As stated above, I don't think that this eliminates the problem of

reduced efficiency.

My $.02

Mark Alston

------------------------------


Kegging procedures

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 14:22:34 EST

From: howitt@sens.com (Food Processor with Ears)

Subject: Kegging procedures

I have just got myself set up with a Cornelius keg and CO2 cylinder.

I am told that kegged beer should be pressurized with the cylinder

rather than primed and allowed to pressurize itself (as in bottling),

but I don't know any particulars, such as what pressure is advisable,

how long to let it sit, does it need to mature in the keg, etc.  Does

anyone have advice, or is there an FAQ with this information?

thanks and cheers,

Wil Howitt

------------------------------


Hop Utilization

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 12:12:19 PST

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hop Utilization

Allan Rubinoff writes:

>>I brew from malt extract, boiling only about half the wort and then

adding it (after chilling in a water bath) to cold water in the carboy.

I know that one of the problems with this approach is that hop

utilization is less than optimal due to the high gravity of the boil.

The gravity of the boil is not the culprit.  It is the reduced boil

volume.  (I don't want to start another flame fest here.  Let's be

very clear:  In no way am I saying that as beers get higher in

gravity, the utilization doesn't suffer.  It does, and this is

well documented.  *BUT* it is an effect produced by fermentation,

not the gravity of the boil. Allan is diluting his wort back to

a lower gravity before fermentation begins.)

>>It occurs to me that there may be a simple solution to this problem:

boil the hops in plain water for an hour, and then just add the extract

and boil for another 15 minutes to sterilize it.  This should maximize

hop utilization without compromising sanitation.

This will work, but again we have the same problem of lower boil volume.

You will get higher extraction rates for two reasons:  None of the

bittering compounds will be lost on the break (around 7-10%) and the

pH of the plain water should be higher than that of wort.  A higher

pH will improve the isomerization reaction.  (Before you all try

to boost the pH of worts to get better extraction, be forewarned that

this has been tried many times throughout history - it results in awful

beer!)  Whether the pH of the water will also have this effect, I dunno.

I suspect not, since it's not all that higher than wort.

Now, what *will* work is to divide the hops 50/50 between the two boils.

This will maximize the extractions from both.  (This is assuming equal

boil volumes, otherwise divide the hops proportionately to the volume).

The other advantage to this is that you *should* have some hops in

your wort boil to help promote good breaks.

>>This seems like such a simple (and obvious) solution, that I wonder why

I've never seen it mentioned anywhere.  Does anybody know of any reason

not to do this?

Probably because it's really a *lot* simpler to just put in extra

hops to compensate.  All the extra boiling and time isn't worth it (IMHO)

to save a very small amount of money on the extra hops.

Mark

------------------------------


Sake Supplies

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 15:30:16 EST

From: Mark Stickler Internet Mail Name <mstickle@lvh.com>

Subject: Sake Supplies

I know Sake is not really beer but will keep bandwidth to a minimum. I read

Fred Eckhert's book (about six months ago) and now I'm interested in

getting some of the supplies from a retail homebrew supply store. I'm

most interested in the yeast and starter rice (kioji I think) but also

polished rice, etc. Please respond via private email. TIA. Also thanks to

the people who gave me advice on my acidic water problem.

Mark Stickler

mstickler@lvh.com

------------------------------


Pete's recipe and miscelaneous

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 14:34:39 EST

From: ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu (Ulick Stafford)

Subject: Pete's recipe and miscelaneous

I would like to emulate Pete's Wicked Ale.  I plan a batch of 8lb

brewers malt, 1lb crystal, 1/2 lB clocolate and 2oz. blackpatent,

hopped with 11 AAU high alpha (Nugget) bittering, and finished and

dry hopped with Cascade.  I plan to use German Ale yeast.  Comments?

Suggestions?

In hbd 1287 Chris Lyons worries that flaked barley adds nothing to

an extract recipe.  He is probably right - certainly no starch could be

converted, and haze may even form, but perhaps some proteins would be

extracted that would add to head retention.

David Turner worries about TSP in his septic tank.  The reason TSP and

other phosphates are considered pollutants (so much so that their use in

laundery detergents is outlawed in many states, even including Indiana)

is because they are nutrients and help bacteria and algae grow much

better in surafce waters thus depriving fish of oxygen by night.  This

is probably what you want in your septic system, so moderate use should not

be a problem.  Worry more about the chlorine.

Bill Kitch wants to know where George Fix' famous Michelob dark figure is.

I have seen it in many place inclusding recently in a Zymurgy.  I am sure it

is in Fix' Vienna book, but he can comment on that.  However, if you have

access to a spectrophotometer you could use the ASBC method.  Simply,

measure the absorbance of a clear (not turbid) sample of beer at 430 nm,

convert this absorbance to absorbance by 1/2" (i.e. if you measure in a

1cm cuvette multipy the figure by 1.27), and multiply by 10.  For dark

beer you may need to dilute or use a smaller cuvette e.g. I meased

a brown ale of mine with a mere 1/4 lb of black patent in a 2mm cuvette

and got an ABSC reading of 40 - black stuff that.  If you prefer to

use the EBC scale, it is based on absorbance at 530 nm, but I know no

more details about it.  Anyone care to fill in the gap?

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


James Questions, Copper, First Time Info

Date: 2 Dec 1993 12:15:46 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: James Questions, Copper, First Time Info

Hello Group,

Several Items in #1287 caught my eye, I thought I would do a compiled post.

First, some James Questions. :)

>1) is it okay (or even advisable) to shake up and thus aerate the beer in

>the middle of fermentation?

No. Just leave it alone. 1) you are just aerating with CO2, 2) The yeast are

probably done respirating.

>2) for our next repipe we plan on just improving on the righteous real ale.

>i thought a good recipe for 5 gallons would be:

  6.6 lbs John Bull amber malt extract syrup

  3/4 lb. cracked crystal malt

  2 oz.  cascade hop leaves (boiling)

  1 oz. willamette hop leaves (aroma)

  1/2 oz. willamette hop leaves (finishing)

  2 pkgs. (10 oz.) Windsor dry English ale yeast

  3/4 cup corn sugar (bottling)

That's quite a bit of Hops (don't say Hop Leaves, we'll know you are a Newbie)

Are you sure you want that much? Assuming boil times of 60, 15, and 5. And a

starting gravity of 1.05, but only boiling half, I get a total IBU of 30.

Which is not bad, really. I would not recommend the Cascade Hops for the Boil,

though. I like it for the finish, but it is too herbaly for the body, IMHO. Use

the Liberty for Boil and Liberty/Cascade for the finish. Hey, whatever you

want.

2 packages of dry Yeast is too much, especially if...

>3) i want to try a batch without using the blowoff method, but i still want

>to use a 5 gallon carboy.  if i make 4 gallons will the kreusen still reach

>the top of the carboy or would i be safe to just put the fermentation lock

>on?

If you don't want to use a blowoff, two packages is WAY too much. Use one

package and a starter if you want a good fermentation. Even 4 gallons will

probably reach the top with a vigorous fermentation. I would stick with the

blowoff and elevate the outlet hose, so that most of the liquid that get pulled

along with the foam will drain back into the carboy. Or use the higher capacity

plastic buckets for the primary.

                  -----------------------------

Second, Copper in the boil.

>whether or not it would be adviseable to use copper fittings in a

>boiler.  I've obtained a SS half keg, ala budweiser (legally) and

>I want to use a copper double sided male connector through a hole

>in the side of the keg.  This is the kind used for joining two

>flare fittings.  One side would connect to 1/2 inch copper tubing

>going to a wort chiller, and the other would be slightly inside the

>boil.  A cut down nut (also copper) would compress two gaskets

>(teflon) to provide a seal.  Would there be any problems with:

>toxicity or taste degradation?  Corrosion?  Or would it be better

>to spring for a SS fitting?

No problem with toxicity, I doubt any problems with taste, after all, many

breweries use all copper boil kettles. Corrosion of the copper fittings will

occur but I don't see this as a significant problem. You will only see your

fittings staying clean. Eventually they will need replacement.

The alternative is Stainless Steel, but I would weigh your costs. Its your

call.

                         -----------------------

Instructions for the First Time Brewer:

Over the last couple weeks, I have compiled a basically complete, annotated

recipe/list of instructions for the First Time Brewer. It is everything the

first timer needs to know to brew a fool-proof extract ale with dry yeast. I

discuss Sanitization, Ingredients, Equipment, Boiling and Fermentation

Practices, Do's and Don'ts, What that Mold means, and Recommended Reading.

If any of you are a first (or second) timer, or have friends about to take

the plunge, I will be happy to email you a copy. Its 10 pages of ascii text.

I am interested in possibly putting it on the Sierra server when I get some

feedback on it. Maybe Patrick Weix can help me here...

Email me at palmer#d#john@ssdgwy.mdc.com

John Palmer

MDA-SSD M&P

(sigh) yet another turkey sandwich for lunch...

------------------------------


fosel oils & hangovers

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 13:26:08 EST

From: gheiler@Kodak.COM (Greg Heiler)

Subject: fosel oils & hangovers

I`am a new brewster with several batches underway. I've been hearing

about the primary fermentation blow-off method and its advantages. Does

the removal of the fosel oil make a significant difference?

I've bought my equipment through Williams Catalogs and they discourage

people from using the blow-off method for fear that a clogged tube

could cause an excessive pressure built up. I tried to skim at the

appropriate time on my last batch but I was uncomfortable with the

process (i.e contamination concerns).

Looking for comments on whether it makes a noticable difference and if

so, techniques that work the best.

Thanks in Advance;

Greg

------------------------------


Beer sources in Minneapolis

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 16:49:44 EST

From: Mark A Fryling <mfryling@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

Subject: Beer sources in Minneapolis

Hi gang,

This is not specifically a home brewing question, but does anyone out there

know of some stores in Minneapolis with large beer selections?  I will be there

for a couple of days next month on a job interview and I was hoping to see if

there were some interesting regional brews not available in Ohio.  Please reply

directly unless you have something of general interest.

Thanx,

Mark Fryling

<mfryling@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

"Never let your sense of morality prevent you from doing whats right."

I. Asimov

------------------------------


Re: Used Kegs?

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 12:41:01 PST

From: hollen@megatek.com (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Re: Used Kegs?

>>>>> "Norm" == npyle  <npyle@n33.stortek.com> writes:

Norm> Now that it appears DeFalco's won't ship used soda kegs anymore,

Norm> does anyone have a good source that will ship small quantities

Norm> at reasonable prices?

The Beverage Company

P.O. Box 839

Anderson, Ca   96007

(916)347-5475

Ask for Ray

$17 each for pin lock

$23 each for ball lock

Shipping extra (shipped in quantity of 4, added $4 per keg from

Sacramento to San Diego, CA)

Dion Hollenbeck (619)455-5590x2814     Email: hollen@megatek.com

Senior Software Engineer                      megatek!hollen@uunet.uu.net

Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California    ucsd!megatek!hollen

------------------------------


Homebrew Digest #1287 (December 02, 1993

Date: Thursday,  2 December 93 17:15:24 CST

From: LLDSC@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1287 (December 02, 1993

Re: Cherry in beer

I made a batch of cherry stout. I only put 5 pounds of cherries in. The head

was tinted red and there was a bit of cherry taste but not much.

TNCJOHB reccommends at least 10 pounds. I think that should just about do it.

It also says that you should freeze the cherries first and then put them in

the wort after the boil. Let that sit for a few minutes to pasturize the

cherries and kill the nasties (I'm just quoting from the book here).

I did a primary fermentation in a plastic 5 gallon bucket so that I wouldn't

have to worry about getting the damn fruit through the hole.

Of course, this is only IMHO. :-)

(I've never used that Internet-speak before. Check out the newest Time &

U.S. News-the Net is everywhere!

                           Keep on rockin' in the free world.

                           Scott lldsc@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

------------------------------


ice-beer info

Date: Thu, 02 Dec 93 23:12:58 EST

From: dweller@GVSU.EDU (RONALD DWELLE)

Subject: ice-beer info

          Hi folks--

          Just picked the following up off the AP, fyi-------

          Labatt suing U.S. brewers over ice beer

          The Associated Press

          DETROIT -- Canadian brewer John Labatt Ltd. is suing rivals

          Miller Brewing Co. and Molson Breweries USA in U.S. District

          Court alleging trademark infringement over ice beer

          products.

                Toronto, Ontario-based Labatt says it filed for

          trademark protection for the ice brewing process and for the

          resulting product in November 1992. The application is

          pending.

                "Competitors will not be permitted without challenge

          to misappropriate Labatt's rights in this area where Labatt

          has demonstrated clear leadership and innovation," the

          company said.

                In the suit filed Monday in Detroit, Labatt claims

          that Milwaukee-based Miller and Molson, Breweries USA, a

          wholly owned subsidiary of Miller, are guilty of; unfair

          trade practices in the procmotion of their ice beer products

          in the United States.

                Labatt began exporting ice beer to the United States

          in October.

                Miller spokeswoman Susan Henderson called the Labatt

          lawsuit without merit. She said ice beer was developed in

          Germany in the 19th Century and was known as "Eisbock."

          Miller began selling Icehouse last summer.

          MAYBE  I  SHOULD TRADEMARK  "homebrew," EH?

          Cheers,

          Ron Dwelle (dweller@gvsu.edu)

------------------------------


Homebrew Digest #1284 (No

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 14:04:00 -0500

From: bret.lanius@ehbbs.com (Bret Lanius)

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1284 (No

I made a batch of Porter based on TNCJOHB's Sparrow hawk porter.

While it turned out VERY well I was of course wanting to tweak it before

starting the next batch of the same.

Original Recipe:

3.3 lbs         Muton Fison Plain Amber Malt

3.3 lbs         Muton Fison Plaid Dark Malt

1   lb          Crushed Black Patent Malt

1 Oz            Northern Brewers Hops

1 oz            Tettnang Hops

1 tsp           Gyspum

1 Pgk           Irish Ale Yeast

I found the Black to be a bit much and thought I'd substitute chocolate for

half of that, and I plan to dry hop as well.

What I'd really like is to sweeten this brew a bit......

Thought maybe Crystal but I don't know if that would do it!

Suggestions appreciated.....

Bret Lanius                                   INTERNET:bret.lanius@ehbbs.com

- ---

 . JABBER v1.2 #188 . Enlightenment is not a destination, but a journey.

- ----

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Ed Hopper's BBS - Home of uuPCB - Usenet for PC Board - Atlanta, GA       |

| Node 1 - USR HST - 404-446-9462    Node 2 - V.32bis - 404-446-9465        |

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


RE: Questions from COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu> on filtering

Date: 3 Dec 93 00:27:41 MST (Fri)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: RE: Questions from COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu> on filtering

Tom Clifton <0002419419@mcimail.com> writes:

> My thoughts on filtering....  Why bother!  According to Papazian a bit

> of yeast helps add to the stability of the brew...

This sounds backwards!  (doesn't matter whether Charlie said it or not;-)

Conventional wisdom [did JS just twitch?] is that you keep more character

by not filtering, but if you're going to keep the beer for a while you're

better off filtering it.  Be that as it may, what's the reasoning behind

yeast adding stability.

>...I[f] you have followed the basics of good

> wholsome brewing (sanitation) there won't be any bacteria you need to filter

> out...

If only...

No, actually (a) there will be bacteria there regardless of how careful

you've been, and (b) it takes serious filtering to get bacteria out.  As

to point (a), Tom's principle is right, that if you're careful the bacteria

population will be much lower than if you're sloppy.  But it's still sub-

stantial.  You can't get rid of them all; most of what care and sanitation

gives you is keeping the bacteria at bay long enough that the yeast get

the available food in early fermentation...keeping the wolf at bay, as it

were.  On the other side, for point (b), even if you did filter, would you

really want to filter that severely?

- ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1288, 12/03/93

*************************************

-------


Oatmeal Stout & Wyeast 1084

Date: Fri, 03 Dec 93 00:47:11 PST

From: mikel@netlink.nix.com (Mike Lemons)

Subject: Oatmeal Stout & Wyeast 1084

I just made an Oatmeal Stout using Irish Ale yeast.  Others have

remarked that this yeast ferments rather vigorously.  In the words of

Miss Lilly von' Stupf, "It's twue!  It's twue!"

Ingredients:

        6 lb bag of William's Oatmeal Stout extract

        2 lb (approx) Laaglander Light Amber Dried Malt Extract

        10 oz of chocolate malt

Yeast: "Wyeast Irish Ale 1084"

Total boiling time: 60

Hops added: "Bullion" State:"Pellets 9.0%" Amount: 1.00 oz  Boiled for: 60

Hops added: "Hallertau" State:"Old Pellets 3.0%" Amount: 0.50 oz Boiled for: 5

Initial gravity: 1.057

When I poured the cooled wort into the plastic primary, so much foam

built up that I had to skim it off before I could close the lid. I used

a yeast culture and aerated my wort by vigorous shaking.  (IMHO, this is

more effective than a pump and airstone)  I used a blow-off hose for

the first time.  (I don't believe in it.  Hey, I paid for those hops.  I

want all the bitterness out of them I can get!)  Using a blow-off hose

was a problem because of the 1" hole.  A 1" i.d. plastic hose was too

thick to fit and a 1" o.d. hose was too loose.  So I smeared some

silicon sealant on the hose the night before.  Does anyone know a better

way?  I put the other end in a 1 gal jug.  5 hours later, it was bubbling.

At 20 hours, it was pushing globs of foam through the hose at the speed

of 4 feet per minute!  When I switched to an airlock, it had accumulated

half a gallon of wort.  (I think the toughness of the foam was due to

the oatmeal)

I just wanted to warn people to use a blow-off hose when using

high-gravity wort, Wyeast 1084 or oatmeal.  My uncle had an airlock clog

with a Belgian ale.  He came home from work to find his plastic primary

swelled up like a basketball!  When he cracked the lid, it sounded like a

gunshot and hurt his ears.  I heard about someone who had a glass carboy

explode in his closet.  It coated his clothes with beer and glass.

- --

INTERNET:  mikel@netlink.nix.com (Mike Lemons)

UUCP:   ...!ryptyde!netlink!mikel

Network Information eXchange * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115

------------------------------


immersion chiller plans...

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1993 16:54:01 -0800 (PST)

From: Mark Stewart <mstewart@scs.unr.edu>

Subject: immersion chiller plans...

Lots of recent discussion on building immersion chillers has prompted me

to submit this post.  Here's my 'tried-n-true' recipe (for what it's worth):

1) buy 50' coil copper tubing, 3/8" outside diameter, (approx. cost for me

at this posting is $13.99...your price(s) may vary).

2) buy 20' length of food grade vinyl tubing,(mine comes in that length, you

could get by with 16' for this recipe; I save the extra 4' for whatever

comes up in life). (approx. cost for me = $5.99)

3) buy 4 hose clamps (diameter should be small/relative to vinyl tubing

diameter). ($2.00 for 4).

4) buy 2 female hose adapters/repair ends (make sure you get the swivel

kind so you don't have to turn the whole damn chiller to connect to the

water source!). ($1.26 ea.). Also, make sure to toss the clamp portion;

you're only going to need the female part cuz you'll be pushing the vinyl

tubing (warmed) onto it.

Total cost with tax is no more than $25.00 (depending on volatility in the

copper market!). BTW, this $25 gives you TWO chillers: one to keep & one

to sell to that buddy of yours that doesn't get the HBD.

Process...

1) find halfway point of copper coil (25 ft.). Score. Cut with hacksaw.

Now you've got two halves of 25' each. Do this enough times and believe me

you won't need to measure, you'll know that midpoint!

2) here's the special secret: take a Revereware 8 qt. stockpot (the

tried-n-true perfect diameter!) and begin winding 25' of coil around its

outside. The main reason for this pot is that it gives a perfect diameter

for placement into either the kettle OR 5 gal. bucket, depending on your

whim. Do the same for the other 25' of copper. When done, you should have

two coils of nicely (tightly will come after you do a few) wound copper

that resemble oversized SLINKY'S.

3) the art comes in straightening the downtube and out-tubes. Put a coil

back around the pot and gently straighten first the downtube (this is

because you will then determine the out-tube's length after straightening

the downtube) and then the out-tube. Uh-oh, just realized that I'm calling

one the out and the other the down. This is likely to spark some

controversy so I won't say which of these should be for water-in and which

will be for water-out (i.e., some might prefer the top tube as water in

and some might prefer the bottom tube as water out or vice-versa...I'm

just interested in finishing this post!). Anyway, do this for each coil,

hack off the extra copper from the longer of the two vertical tubes on

each, then use a file to smooth the rough area around the openings. The

nice thing about doing things at home is that you can decide yourself how

long you want these vertical tubes to be: I've had some people say, "Mark,

I'm a big guy and I like big things..make my tubes extra big"...I guess

they mean long so I make the tubes long.  Others are a bit more retentive

and say, "Heh-heh (<Beevus/Butthead noise) I need maximum cooling...make

it so my tubes spend all their time in the wort"...their tubes are shortened!

Whatever you do, I find that an ideal length is one that allows for the

juncture where the vinyl meets the copper (haven't quite gotten there yet)

to remain ABOVE the hot wort. This is ideal in that hot wort *COULD* do

*SOMETHING* to the vinyl tubing...(note careful choice of

terminology...almost neutral in nature, to avoid any threads).

4) is this step 4 yet? Cut vinyl in 5 lengths of 4 ft. each. Keep 5th length.

5) submerge end of one length into HOT water to soften.

6) using elbow grease, work soft end up and onto female hose repair end.

(Did I mention that there are often a variety of diameters available and

that the best one to get is about 1/2" to 5/8". I forgot exactly which

diameter I get but suffice it to say that if you get one that's too big,

you'll know soon enough in step #6). Do this for the other chiller's tube

also.

7) once you've gotten this up onto the female repair end as far as your

heart desires, all that's left to do is clamp the other ends to their

respective copper posts...

Well, there you have it...a chiller of your very own, to do with

what you want (i.e., *SWIRL* with, *PUMP* up and down, or *DANCE*

around with aon your head at the local Burger King..I've no doubt left

something out so direct e-mail if necessary with questions/comments. Now

that my secrets are out I'll have to look for another way to fund my

education!

p.s., guess I should throw in a disclaimer about SLINKY'S and those two

idiots from MTV so here it is:

I endorse neither.

M.

****************************************************************************

*  Mark Stewart         "If it isn't published, it didn't happen."  *

*  Dept. of Psychology            "Don't anthropomorphize computers...     *

*  mstewart@unssun.unr.edu               ...they don't like it."           *

****************************************************************************

------------------------------


3 Gal Soda Kegs

Date: Fri, 3 Dec 93 10:11:06 EST

From: jdsgeoac@osg.saic.com (Karen Jdsgeoac Hyrum GEOACOUSTIC)

Subject: 3 Gal Soda Kegs

I am looking for an inexpensive source for a couple of 3 gallon soda

kegs (used).  My local store wants $60 which seems a bit high. Thanks.

Hyrum Laney

jdsgeoac@typhoon.saic.com

------------------------------


starter gravities revisited

Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1993 09:56:07 -0600 (CST)

From: cush@msc.edu

Subject: starter gravities revisited

Ok, I know this has been talked about in the past, but I am going to

re-open this thread and risk flames and/or a flurry of posts.

Conventional 'wisdom' has it that starter gravities should be about 1.020

in order to maximize cell reproduction and hence cell count.  This is of

interest to the producers of dry yeast in order to maximize their bulk

sales and minimize their costs of production.  However, it seems to me

that there is another issue being neglected here: health of the cells thus

produced.

A close reading of Miller indicates that cells will metabolize sugar in

order to build up enough glycogen in their mitochondrea (sp?) to reproduce.

Miller indicates that in a low gravity wort, the 'first order of business' of

the cells is to reproduce...but this leaves the cells with a depleted

glycogen content (read: 'they are tired').  I asked the question about a

year ago whether a higher starter gravity would produce a more vigorous

starter, because after reproduction the yeast would be allowed to process

the remaining sugar in the starter in order to increase their glcogen

supply (read as 'available energy when pitched into a larger volume of

wort').  Yes, the cell count would be smaller, but would this be offset by

the healthier yeast?

I got no replys or takers.

This issue was first brought to my attention by the brewmaster of Sherlock's

home, who says he ALWAYS uses a starter of similar gravity to the wort it

is intended to ferment.

Well, I have been trying starters of gravity about 1.040, and volume about

0.75 liters.  So far I have had very good results, with vigorous ferments,

and lag times on the order of 6-10 hours, whereas I had lag times on the

order of 12-15 hours using starters of SG=1.020.

Yes, this is a challange to the 'net_wisdom': I humbly invite discussion,

comments from anyone else using higher SG starters, and ask others to try

higher SG starters, and post their findings...

- --

 > Cushing Hamlen   | cush@msc.edu

 > Minnesota Supercomputer Center, Inc. | 612/337-3505

------------------------------


wort dilution vs. SG

Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1993 10:01:16 -0600 (CST)

From: cush@msc.edu

Subject: wort dilution vs. SG

Has anyone ever done a study of wort SG as a function of dilution?

Papazian gives some guidelines for dilution, but I am looking for

a curve, or better yet an analytical function fit to experimental data.

- --

 > Cushing Hamlen   | cush@msc.edu

 > Minnesota Supercomputer Center, Inc. | 612/337-3505

------------------------------


Ice Beer

Date:     Fri, 3 Dec 93 11:06 EST

From: <GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

Subject:  Ice Beer

I had the chance to taste Molson Ice a couple of days ago.  Let me

tell you, the beer has no aftertaste whatsoever, but IT HAS NO TASTE

EITHER.  This baby is made just for the American market where people

liek their beers with as little taste as possible.  I thought it was

awful.  Tasted like something severely watered down, and it was so

light in color.  Probably lighter than any light beer I've ever seen.

My initial reaction is unfavorable, obviously.  I won't be buying this

stuff any time soon.  It's 5.6% alcohol, o% taste.

Anyone else had the chance to try any ice beer?

Andy Pastuszak

------------------------------


Liquid Yeast Re-Use

Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1993 12:25:56 -0500 (EST)

From: "David H. Thomas" <dhthomas@lis.pitt.edu>

Subject: Liquid Yeast Re-Use

To all interested individuals, here is the information I received

concerning re-use of liquid yeast.  In addition, Bob Surratt (address

below) advises that there is a Yeast FAQ (which he was unable to forward

to me).  If anyone out there could try and forward said FAQ, or tell me

where to track it down, let me know.


Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 11:29:01 PST

From: Bob W Surratt <Bob_W_Surratt@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: Liquid Yeast Re-Use

     Dave,

     I've reused Wyeast yeast's many times before with no problem.  My

     method is to sanitize a jar,  mayo, mason, etc. and pour in the

     slurry that is left in the "secondary".  You won't want the primary

     trub as it has all the leftovers from fermentation.

     I've kept the yeast for up to 2 months before reuse and it's always

     worked great.  I've also reused it up to 5 times from the initial

     first time.  Just take it out of the fridge when you start your

     recipe so that it can warm up to room temp before pitching.

     Hope this helps.

     Bob Surratt  Orangevale, CA


Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 09:05:26 EST

From: michael.niemann@mail.trincoll.edu (Michael Niemann)

Subject: Liquid Yeast Re-Use

Here is what I do with Wyeast.  I pay $4.00 per pack and split that into

four portions thereby making it $1.00 per batch.

1. Prepare the Wyeast according to package (burst the nutrient bubble and

let it puff up.

2. boil 1 quart of water for 15 min and cool in sanitized bottle (the

refrige is best)

3. prepare 1 pint of starter and boil for 15 minutes, add a pellet of hops

or so.

4.  poor 1 pint of the cold water into a 1.5 liter wine bottle (sanitized

of course), add the starter, add the rest of the cold water.  This should

now be at pitching temperature, so add the Wyeast.

5.  ferment for several days until visible fermentation ends.

6. sanitize four bottles and caps.  Distribute the starter into these

bottles, cap and store in the refrigerator.  They should keep for about a

half a year.

7.  A couple days before you want to brew, make a starter from one of the

bottles and ou are ready to go.

It is important to keep everything sanitized.

I have done this for over half a year so far and have had great success.

BTW this was posted on r.c.b. earlier this year.

Michael

------------------------------


Help with Noche Buena

Date: Fri, 3 Dec 93 12:20:23 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Help with Noche Buena

We will have our flavor panel meet this weekend. I have done some analysis

on samples that have been sent to us, and a preliminary tasting. The alcohol

content is ~4.0 (by wt) which is way down from the 5.75% (by wt.) of the

version that was in circulation in past years. The color is also down (from

12-13 Lov. to 8 Lov.), and the IBUs are down as well ( from high 20s to ~16!).

Our initial impression is that it is a respectable version of a "Vienese

mild". It could not hold a candle to the top 4 or 5 Viennas we evaluated

on the GABF panel. What I have got to do now is to think of a civilized

and polite way of communicating this in our review for SW Brewing News.

Any ideas? Given the folks on the flavor panel, I fear this beer is in for

a rough time this weekend. It is, however, a quite drinkable beer. Some

have picked up some diacetyl tones in the beer's sweet finish. This

may be due to the caramel malts used. In any case, time will tell, for if

it is diacetyl it is going to get raunchy.

There is a rumor that there is an undiluted version out there. Such a

version, if it does exit, would surely be available in Mexico. Does

anyone know anything about this? It is our impression that Guinness

Imports only has the diluted version.

George Fix

------------------------------


CorsenBONK / Kegging Mead/ BarleyWines / Filtering

Date: Fri, 03 Dec 1993 11:56:06 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: CorsenBONK / Kegging Mead/ BarleyWines / Filtering

>From: John Pedlow <in%"TKSJOHN@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU">

?Subject:      Corsendonk Monks Ale ?

>The local supermarket stocks a few imported brews.  Normally these

go for from $1 to $2 per approx 12 oz bottle.  Corsendonk Monks Ale

is currently being offered in "a hand painted gift bottle imported

from Belgium".  The cost is $44.88 for a 100 oz bottle with a

"save 4.00" appended.

>Anyone enjoyed Corsendonk Monks Ale and can share why it is so

expensive?  Can "they" make money stocking a brew this expensive?

What is its shelf life?  And, of course, what does it taste like?

Thank you.

>John Pedlow in Buffalo, NY

 -

*   A brew friend - toot - brought one back from somewhere in the real

world, and said it had been described as being

            "like swallowing a bowling ball"

He was kind enough to share it with me, and it was...well....

like swallowing a think rich syrupy bitey ....bowling ball!

It is hard to refire those tastebud memories, but it was very potent,

malty, and some of those peculiar "sweet ?" notes that you can't

put a finger on.  It was obiously a quality beverage.  It was also

a very small bottle.  I've paid $5 for a single lambic bottle,

but I'd rather try to brew a couple (several!) batches than buy a $50 beer!

Do you have a wife or girlfriend who loves you dearly? The holidays are

upon us?  Creative hint dropping?  Think about it....  :)

***

>From: in%"sims@pdesds1.scra.org" (Jim Sims)

Subject: mead questions

>I've got a coupla mead and fruit mead batches under my belt. I've

 been kegging my homebrew for about 6 months now, and am wondering

 about kegging future batches of mead. Is there any reason that I

 *shouldnt* keg my mead insterad of bottling? What about using

 stainless vessels for primary or secondary fermentation also, since

 they take up a fermenter for a coupla months?

*   I keg my beer, but bottle my meads.  They are easier to store for

x months/years that way, for me at least.

Plus I like to get quicker turnover of my kegs.

BUT:  I have kegged 1/2 a wine once for a party. Sparkling Loganberry Wine.

It worked fine.  I don't know if the acid levels can become a problem

for metals. I know aluminum is bad news, but stainless steel should be

ok.  There is the possibility of leaching metallic tastes.

A friend whose just started kegging beer claims a "keg taste" is

perceptable.  Could be forced CO2, could be the keg, could be contamination?

BUT,  I haven't noticed it, and have been kegging for a year.

There are differences in the "quality" of carbonation between my

bottled and kegged beers.  But I prefere the fine/small bubble creaminess

of the kegs to the bottles.  Plus it sure is easier!

Kegging a mead opens up filtering possibilities that could be a benefit.

BUT  It sure can dissapear faster.  Why not keg half, bottle half :)

> First hand experience, no urban legends, please. * Who us?! Never...<huf>

 Also, is there a Mead mailing list similar to HBD?

Yes- But it's not kosher to post it, so ask me via e-mail.  :)

 thanks,                                You're welcome

 jim                                                        John.

**

Barleywine

the yeast used, alcohol content, carbonation, whim of the brewer?  If it's

alcohol content, when does doppelbock cross the line and become barleywine?

Are there any commercial barleywines?

*   yes. Never tried one (unhappy sigh....yet ;).

Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot.  Heard it's heavenly!

Tried a friends barleywine.  Yum.  Malty, thick, rich, potent.

I WILL try one ...like real soon.

AHA sez:  1.065-1.120 OG.   6- 12 percent alcohol by volume.

Copper or dark brown.  Fruity, bittersweet.  Can use strong beer

yeast, or champagne/wine yeasts.  Aged 6 months to a year.

(but they are not   per-se   "lagered")

Doppels may overlap in strength, but you're also talking lager yeast

vs. ale/wine yeasts.  There are differences. It's a matter of style.

*

>  3 weeks ago I racked it again and had a taste (ok, a big lager glass).

It's still noticeably sweet, and I'm running _low_ on homebrew. ...

*   Get another carboy!  :)

horribly desecrate my first actual lager, I'd like to bring it up to room

temperature *(about 74F)* for a few days to accelerate fermentation. ...

*   Lagers should be warmed at the end of lagering.  But not that warm.

More like 60. It helps them break down (diacetyl I think? Reference-check)

If you are trying to make a true lager...patience is warranted.

They will benefit from long cold .  Clarity, smoothness, balance.

Check the specific gravity.  If it is down to say 15 or less (I usually

end up between 12 and 8) then- give it a bit of warming (cold closet?

or basement handy?) then bottle.  You can continue lagering in bottles.

                                John.

**

filtering and stuff...

>>...I[f] you have followed the basics of good

>> wholsome brewing (sanitation) there won't be any bacteria you

>> need to filter out...

>No, actually (a) there will be bacteria there regardless of how careful

you've been, and (b) it takes serious filtering to get bacteria out.  As

to point (a), Tom's principle is right, that if you're careful the bacteria

population will be much lower than if you're sloppy.  But it's still sub-

stantial*.  You can't get rid of them all; most of what care and sanitation

gives you is keeping the bacteria at bay long enough that the yeast get

the available food in early fermentation...keeping the wolf at bay, as it

were.  On the other side, for point (b), even if you did filter, would you

really want to filter that severely?             Dick Dunn

* I dunno Dick.  At the beginning-  bact/yeast, then LOTS of yeast, and an

unhospitable environment for bacteria.  If they are inhibited early on

they may be pretty well dormant.  Yes I agree it is next to impossible

to ELIMINATE bacteria, but it is also not TOO difficult to GREATLY

REDUCE their presence.  Wild yeasts are also likely floating around.

As for filtering.  Filtering bacteria requires less than a 1 micron filter.

I don't want to do that to my beer.  Filtering DOES present advantages,

but also potential disadvantages.

Chill haze, protein "colloids", some cellular material, and chunks

of anything else still floating around can be filtered out.

A level of 2 to 3 microns will do this. 5 microns will let almost

all cells pass.  as low as .1 micron (bacterial filter- sterilizes) will

clean up a beer, but will also CLEAN UP A BEER.  Body, head retention

and other qualities will be lost.  The intermediate levels (2-3) will

possibly remove some body, but not too much ( I hope).

Much of this clearing can be achieved by adding clarifying agents and such.

But time is also a factor. Filtering is instantaneous. Clarification

can take time.  I keg, and would prefer to have NO sediment if possible.

But I haven't yet taken the filter plung (PICTURE: arms outstretched,

falling back into body of water). It's the expense at this point.

But it may well happen.  Someday.  But I have looked into it!

The question started because a bottling friend has access to the equipment

and wanted to know how and why it could be done.  I wouldn't just

dismiss the idea as some people do, without first examining the pro's

and con's.

 - ---

/** "I gave you a 50:50 chance, and you weren't even close! " MR. BIG **/

______------___John (The Coyote) Wyllie SLK6P@cc.usu.edu_____------______

***

------------------------------


DOING THE MASH

Date: Friday,  3 December 93 12:55:23 CST

From: LLDSC@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: DOING THE MASH

Howdy,

I've been brewing with extracts for about nine months or so now. I've

become fairly comfortable with the process and want to move on to bigger

and better things.

I've been reading the chapter on mashing over and over again in TNCJOH and

think I know what's going on. I'm just wondering if anyone out there has

any tips/experience/advice/warnings to share with me. In particular, I'm

wondering what kind of a lautering tun would be best (igloo cooler, bucket, etc

).

Private e-mail is okay if you think this won't be of interest to the more

experienced out there.

Remember, there's no "i" in Team.

                        Scott LLDSC@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

------------------------------


Frankenmuth German Dark

Date: Fri, 3 Dec 93 14:28:34 EST

From: bgaughan@su19bb.ess.harris.com (Brady Gaughan)

Subject: Frankenmuth German Dark

I just received a 6 pack of this from my Beers Across America subscription,

and I really enjoyed it.  Anyone else out there heard of it, or tried

it?  It's made in (you guessed it) Frankenmuth, Michigan.

Anyone tried to duplicate this beer?

_______________________________________________________________________________

Brady E. Gaughan         Internet:bgaughan@su19bb.ess.harris.com

Harris Corporation

Government Aerospace Systems Div.      "They call me mister know-it-all,

Melbourne, FL                           I am so eloquent.

     Perfection is my middle name...

     and whatever rhymes with eloquent"

_______________________________________________________________________________

------------------------------


Hi there!  Request for help.

Date: Fri, 03 Dec 93 11:42:34 PST

From: Larry Richardson <richards@priacc.com>

Subject: Hi there!  Request for help.

Greetings to my fellow zymurgists.  I am a (very) new subscriber to

this forum, although I've been making beer for nearly 7 years.

As I am new to this forum, I hope the following is an acceptable

question to post to this list.  If not, please excuse the waste of

bandwidth and I promise to never, ever do it again.

I have recently restarted producing beer after a two-year hiatus.

Before I stopped, I had been obtaining my equipment/malt/hops, etc.,

from a local beer/wine supply store.  Now, unfortunately, the only

supply store in the area is a long way away, and geared more to

winemaking.

So.  I've started using mail-order.  The mail order house I'm using

only provides the malt in pouches, which I've never used before.  To

be honest, I'm not sure I like them very much, other than for storage.

My question is, does anyone have a mail-order house they recommend

and/or has anyone who does use the pouches discovered an

easy/efficient way to get all the stuff out of the pouch.

I look forward to reading everything that comes out in this forum, and

I hope to hear from you all about these questions.

Thanks for your time!

Larry

- --

Larry Richardson, Primary Access Corp --  Work: richards@priacc.com

                                          Home: larry9@netcom.com

Chairman/Chairperson/Committee Head, Department of Redundancy and

                                     Repitition Department

- --Time is an Illusion.  Space is an Illusion.  Beer is Good.

------------------------------


Re: Questions from COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu> on filtering

Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1993 11:34:49 -0800

From: "Paul Jasper" <paul@rational.com>

Subject: Re: Questions from COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu> on filtering

On 3 Dec,  0:27, Dick Dunn wrote:

> Subject: RE: Questions from COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu> on filtering

>

> Tom Clifton <0002419419@mcimail.com> writes:

> > My thoughts on filtering....  Why bother!  According to Papazian a bit

> > of yeast helps add to the stability of the brew...

>

> This sounds backwards!  (doesn't matter whether Charlie said it or not;-)

> Conventional wisdom [did JS just twitch?] is that you keep more character

> by not filtering, but if you're going to keep the beer for a while you're

> better off filtering it.  Be that as it may, what's the reasoning behind

> yeast adding stability.

>

>-- End of excerpt from Dick Dunn

Could it be that it is better to have the yeast consume any free oxygen

than to have it oxidize your beer?  Or maybe, if your fermentation is not

complete, any yeast or bacteria still present after the filtration still

has a growth medium.  If your filtration was more successful at filtering

out the yeast, the bacteria will have more chance to dominate if you keep

the beer for a while.

Comments?

- --

- -- Paul Jasper

- -- RATIONAL

- -- Object-Oriented Products

- --

------------------------------


name change

Date:    Fri, 03 Dec 93 13:46 CST

From: "Bitheaded geek"                            <$W$PR42%LUCCPUA.BITNET@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject: name change

Just in case you need to know, my real name is Peter Brauer, and I am

from Chicago.

------------------------------


new brewers

Date: Fri, 3 Dec 93 14:14:38 EST

From: sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com (Carl Howes)

Subject: new brewers

Sorry about the bandwidth, private bounced.  John Palmer, I am willing to

review your first time brewer writeup.

Carl

------------------------------


Re: Sake Supplies

Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1993 11:49:52 -0800

From: mfetzer%ucsd.edu@chem.UCSD.EDU (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer)

Subject: Re: Sake Supplies

>From: Mark Stickler Internet Mail Name <mstickle@lvh.com>

>Subject: Sake Supplies

>

>I know Sake is not really beer but will keep bandwidth to a minimum. I read

>Fred Eckhert's book (about six months ago) and now I'm interested in

>getting some of the supplies from a retail homebrew supply store. I'm

>most interested in the yeast and starter rice (kioji I think) but also

>polished rice, etc. Please respond via private email.

Relying to HBD and privately... Sake *is* beer in the sense that it is made

from grain, just fermented a bit differently...

>From Fred Eckhart's Newsletter (Sake Connection):

Anzen Japanese Imports, Portland OR (503)233-5111

Fun Fermentations, Orange CA (714)532-5125

GEM Cultures, Fort Bragg CA (707)964-2922

Home Winemaking Shop, Woodland Hills CA (818)884-8586

Wine and Beer Magic of Texas, Dallas TX (800)966-4144

Wine Supply Oregon, Portland OR (503)284-2624

Spagnol's, New Westminster BC Canada (800)663-0954

Incidentally, Sake Connection is a fun little newsletter... Fred's willing

to send a free copy or two to anyone interested. If you send me your snail

mail address, I'll give him a list. Won't even cost ya the 29c to request a

copy!

Reply via email to my address below...

Mike

- --

Michael Fetzer                         pgp 2.2 key available on request

Internet:      mfetzer@ucsd.edu        uucp:    ...!ucsd!mfetzer

Bitnet:        FETZERM@SDSC

HEPnet/SPAN:   SDSC::FETZERM           or       27.1::FETZERM

------------------------------


hop utilization and BU's

Date: Fri, 03 Dec 93 16:28:00 PST

From: Robert Milstead <rmilsted@Zellar.Vantage.GTE.COM>

Subject: hop utilization and BU's

This is my first submission to HBD and as I am new to both HBD and Internet,

 I hope I am following protocols, etc.  If not, please turn down the heat on

any

flaming you think I deserve.  BTW, any information on sources for a

Microsoft

Windows based utility for exploring Internet would be appreciated.  Mail me

 direct.

There has been a lot of discussion about Hop utilization and hopping rates

in

the last couple of weeks since I've been eavesdropping on y'all such as the

high hoping rates of I.P.A.s of 100 to 200 BU's and much puzzlement

 expressed over why some beers are not as bitter as expected even though

 a lot of hops were used:

Example:

Andy Phillips writes in #1287:

>Despite the high hopping rate - I can't remember the IBU rating from BRF,

>but it was well over 100 - this is not noticeable bitter. I suspect that

>this is partly because the flavour is overwhelmingly malty, and the hop

>taste can't get through, and partly because of the lower hop utilization

>at high SGs.

He also indicated that he "Boiled 90 min with 5 oz Goldings"

I'm not picking on you Andy, it was just a good example.

The unpredictability of results when hopping may be due more to the

isomerization of the hops than hop utilization.  Isomerization is an

altering

of the molecular structure of the substance in hops that imparts bitterness

to beer.  It is the isomerized molecules that give the bitterness.  Only a

fraction of the hops are isomerized during the boil (around 25% max) and

the degree of isomerization is directly proportional to the length of time

the

hops are in the boil.  Maximum isomerization occurs at around 45 min. of

exposure to the boil.  After one hour isomerization actually begins to

reverse!

Perhaps this explains why Andy's 90 min. boil was not as bitter as expected.

So, actual IBU's can not be calculated without taking %Isomerization into

account.  Since learning this information from the master brewer at a local

contract brewery, my beers have been much more predictable in terms of

bitterness and better overall.  I believe this is because I now brew to a

specific target bitterness (based on style).

Here are some formulas you can apply to calculate the IBU's for your

recipes.

                Hops and bitterness units in beer

1 BU = 1 mg/L of Isomerized Alpha Acid (IA)

In brewing, Isomerization is the process of altering the Alpha

Acid molecule in hops through the application of heat.  The

altered (Isomerized) molecule imparts bitterness to the mash.

The taste threshold for bitterness is around 12 BU.

Anything less can not be detected. (Swill)

Bud                       11 BU

Pilsner Urquell          40 BU

Typical Ale or Lager     20 - 25 BU

                Formulas for Hops and Bitterness

              Hops (g) =        S   *   BU

                     ---------------

                              %I * %A * 1000

where:    S    = Size of batch in litres (There are 18.9 Litres

in 5 gallons)

     BU   = Bitterness Units

     %I   = The percent of Isomerization reached after a specific

         time of boiling. (expressed as decimal) *Note 1

     %A   = Alpha Acid content in percent of the hops being used

         (expressed as decimal)

So, for a 5 gallon batch where:

 -  All bitterness will be from boiling hops and no finishing hops

   will be used

 -  A 45 minute boil of hops results in a 25% Isomerization (.25 )

 -  The hops being used have a 5% Alpha rating (.05)

 -  The bitterness desired is 40 BU's

 18.9   *   40    =      756  = 60.48 grams * .0353 = 2.1 oz. (*Note 2)

 -----------------       ------

 .25 * .05 * 1000         12.5

If you wanted to add 5 more BU's the above for finishing where:

 - A 5 minute boil of hops results in a 5% Isomerization (.05 )

 - The hops being used have a 2.9% Alpha rating (.029)

 18.9   *   5     =      94.5 = 65.2 grams *  .0353 = 2.3 oz. (*Note 2)

 -----------------        ----

 .05 * .029 * 1000        1.45

If you know how much hops you have put into a beer that you liked

in the past you can calculate the bitterness by the formula:

BU = Hops * %I * %A * 1000

            -------------------------------

          S

*Note 1 - 5% of available Alpha Acid will isomerize in 5 minutes,

       25% in 45 minutes.

*Note 2 - There are .0353 ounces (oz.) in a gram.

Hope someone finds this as useful as I did.  Have a homebrew before

attempting any calculations at home.

Think globally, Drink locally.

rmilsted@zellar.vantage.gte.com (Bob Milstead)

------------------------------


Corsendonk Monks Ale ?

Date: Fri, 3 Dec 93 10:42:43 EST

From: richk@icad.COM (Richard Kasperowski)

Subject: Corsendonk Monks Ale ?

   Anyone enjoyed Corsendonk Monks Ale and can share why it is so

   expensive?  Can "they" make money stocking a brew this expensive?

   What is its shelf life?  And, of course, what does it taste like?

   Thank you.

Around Boston, a 24 oz. bottle goes for about $7.50, if memory serves

me right.  If you bought four 24 oz. bottles (96 oz. of beer), that

would cost $30 by my calculations.  Is that 100 oz. bottle worth the

extra money?  (Is the price I remember too low?)  BTW, the 24 oz.

bottles have painted labels, although I can't tell whether they're

hand-painted.

As I recall, the inside of the bottle contains a bottle-conditioned

Belgian ale that tasted pretty good (a beer judge I am not).

- --

Rich Kasperowski     richk@icad.com

------------------------------


address

Date: 03 Dec 93 17:37:55 -0600

From: mbarre@nomvs.lsumc.edu

Subject: address

- --Interpart.Boundary.19931203173756273

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; x-DC370=header

Document name: MEMO 12/03/1993 09:09:52.929

      Subject: address

       Author: Barre, Michael

        Class: MEMO

Document type: MESSAGE

 Attached msg:

- --Interpart.Boundary.19931203173756273

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; x-DC370=body

Ed Quier,

  What is your address.  Mail bounced to ELQ1@maint@hbpp.

Now, back to the show.

- --Interpart.Boundary.19931203173756273

------------------------------


Homebrew Digest #1288 (December 03, 1993)

Date: Fri,  3 Dec 93 15:17:00 -0640

From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com (Roy Rudebusch)

Subject: Homebrew Digest #1288 (December 03, 1993)

UNSUB

------------------------------


hopping out/ionic concentration

Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1993 17:47:49 -0800 (PST)

From: Jeremy Ballard Bergsman <jeremybb@leland.Stanford.EDU>

Subject: hopping out/ionic concentration

Chris Campanelli (and others) have written about high IBU's wondering

whether they are correct, in other words, is the Rager formula correct?

It would seem to me that for a giveln length of boil, say 60', there is

a practiacal, although not absolte, limit to the bitterness one can achieve.

The bittrering effect is limited by the solubility of the notr-yet-isomerized

hop resins, which is low.  Adding more hops doesn't help much past a certain

point since you can't get any more resin in solution to be isomerized.  The

only solution iwould be to boil longer.

Has anyone actually determined the IBU f one of these beers that was made

with a lot of hops?  If not I will add this question to muy upcommingseries

of hop experimental beers (calling you soon Mark).

(Please excuse my inablity to backspace and my poor typing.  Using an

antique telnet.)

- -------------------------------------

A question:

When people write something like, "sulphate levels higher than 200 ppm

enhance hop bitterness." (lets not argue about whether this is a sharp cutovff

obviously it's not) do they mean the concentration in the finished ber or

in the starting water.  People often bndy about numbers like the ionic content

of Burton water, but the perception of bitterness is taking place in the beer

that is probably at least 150% the ion concentration of the staring water.

I do myt calculations for salt additions as follows:

1) Make sure that the mash has sufficient CA, proper pH, and is not overly

buffered by (H)CO3.

2) Add NaCl and MgSO4 as desired for the recipe t the boil, based on what

the final volume will be.  Am I adding less thean others?  Do other people

concentate their ions from the concentrations in the literature in the boil?

Jeremy Bergsman

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1289, 12/04/93

*************************************

-------


immersion chiller plans??

Date: Sat, 4 Dec 93 10:51:30 EST

From: poconnor@lager.tn.cornell.edu (Peter OConnor)

Subject: immersion chiller plans??

In HBD#1289,  Mark Stewart gave plans for an immersion chiller.  Thank you

Mark, but I have one question.  What is the diameter of a Revereware 8 qt.

stockpot?

Pete

------------------------------


Yeast FAQ, other docs, and a sake note

Date: Sat, 04 Dec 1993 10:10:55 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: Yeast FAQ, other docs, and a sake note

Hi,

I am the author of the Yeast FAQ (actually chief editor is a better

description). It does indeed exist. I have noticed that many people post to

the digest asking for infomation on the retrieval of various FAQs or

documents. I say to them: *READ THE HEADER OF THE DIGEST!* Every day it is the

same, and every day it says:

 ->for archives, ftp to sierra.stanford.edu

 ->for archives without ftp access, email listserv@sierra.stanford.edu

  with the body of your message reading HELP.

I am not a major techno, nor do I wish to start a flame, but I would

implore all to skim the instructions at least once.

  That being said, I am going to update the yeast faq in a couple of weeks

and would encourage any and all to send any new strain descriptions or

techniques to me at weix@netcom.com.

 Sake: Isn't that just warm Bud without the hops? Serve me up a glass now!

 +-<:-) <-Pope smiley.

Patrick Weix

------------------------------


BBC and water chemistry

Date: Sat,  4 Dec 93 07:28:00 -0600

From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

Subject: BBC and water chemistry

I just received in the mail an unsolicited four-color bi-fold *I'm not

sure what this is* "advertisement" from The Boston Brewing Company. It

begins on the cover with a history of the Koch Brewing Family.

   "James Koch - Brewer By Descent"

and on the next page

   "Sam Adams - Brewer of Dissent"

a history of Samuel Adams and his revolutionary exploits.

Page three goes on to explain why James named his beer after Sam and why

Patriot James started the company - "I wanted Samuel Adams Boston Lager

to lead another kind of revolution - independence from imported beer."

Page four continues the Koch famly travails from Germany to the land of

opportunity, offers "Come for a tour" AND **offers a FREE Sam Adams T-

shirt and a FREE subscription to the Boston Beer Company Quarterly

Newsletter** !!! The last line on the FREE offer asks me to check *one*

of the following, "I am a: Beer Lover, Retailer, Distributor, Brewer."

I'm not quite sure what to make of this. Could all of Al's talk on

HBD of the "B" word have had an effect?

************************************

On another subject...

My water, according to the city water report, has 300 ppm of carbonates.

When I boil it to precipitate carbonates out, how many (ppm) could I

expect to remain in solution? Also, why does my Ph go UP after I boil

it? Shouldn't precipitating out the carbonates *reduce* hardness and

consequently Ph?

Chuck

 * RM 1.2 00946 *

------------------------------


dilution

Date: Sat, 4 Dec 93 11:16:26 CST

From: piatz@tamarack.cray.com (Steve Piatz)

Subject: dilution

In HBD 1289, Cushing Hamlen asks:

> Has anyone ever done a study of wort SG as a function of dilution?

> Papazian gives some guidelines for dilution, but I am looking for

> a curve, or better yet an analytical function fit to experimental data.

I posted this to the digest a long time ago (that means I don't

remember when).  I think the analysis behind this was fairly

straightforward (and I don't remember that either).  I think it is

correct for dilution prior to fermentation, I don't know about after

fermentation since the alcohol may throw my simplistic approach off.  I

originally did this when I made an imperial stout that boiled off too

much water while getting the hop boil time.  I wanted to get back to

the planned gravity and Papazian's tables didn't cover the range I

needed.

Example usage: assume 5 gallons of 1.100 wort diluted with 1 gallon of

water to get 6 gallons of 1.083 wort.  We added 20% of the original

volume as additional water, intersection of 1.100 row and 20% column.

      |             Dilution By

 O.G. |     5%    10%    15%    20%    25%    30%    35%    40%    45%    50%

- ------|----------------------------------------------------------------------

1.010 |  1.010  1.009  1.009  1.008  1.008  1.008  1.007  1.007  1.007  1.007

1.015 |  1.014  1.014  1.013  1.012  1.012  1.012  1.011  1.011  1.010  1.010

1.020 |  1.019  1.018  1.017  1.017  1.016  1.015  1.015  1.014  1.014  1.013

1.025 |  1.024  1.023  1.022  1.021  1.020  1.019  1.019  1.018  1.017  1.017

1.030 |  1.029  1.027  1.026  1.025  1.024  1.023  1.022  1.021  1.021  1.020

1.035 |  1.033  1.032  1.030  1.029  1.028  1.027  1.026  1.025  1.024  1.023

1.040 |  1.038  1.036  1.035  1.033  1.032  1.031  1.030  1.029  1.028  1.027

1.045 |  1.043  1.041  1.039  1.037  1.036  1.035  1.033  1.032  1.031  1.030

1.050 |  1.048  1.045  1.043  1.042  1.040  1.038  1.037  1.036  1.034  1.033

1.055 |  1.052  1.050  1.048  1.046  1.044  1.042  1.041  1.039  1.038  1.037

1.060 |  1.057  1.055  1.052  1.050  1.048  1.046  1.044  1.043  1.041  1.040

1.065 |  1.062  1.059  1.057  1.054  1.052  1.050  1.048  1.046  1.045  1.043

1.070 |  1.067  1.064  1.061  1.058  1.056  1.054  1.052  1.050  1.048  1.047

1.075 |  1.071  1.068  1.065  1.062  1.060  1.058  1.056  1.054  1.052  1.050

1.080 |  1.076  1.073  1.070  1.067  1.064  1.062  1.059  1.057  1.055  1.053

1.085 |  1.081  1.077  1.074  1.071  1.068  1.065  1.063  1.061  1.059  1.057

1.090 |  1.086  1.082  1.078  1.075  1.072  1.069  1.067  1.064  1.062  1.060

1.095 |  1.090  1.086  1.083  1.079  1.076  1.073  1.070  1.068  1.066  1.063

1.100 |  1.095  1.091  1.087  1.083  1.080  1.077  1.074  1.071  1.069  1.067

1.105 |  1.100  1.095  1.091  1.087  1.084  1.081  1.078  1.075  1.072  1.070

1.110 |  1.105  1.100  1.096  1.092  1.088  1.085  1.081  1.079  1.076  1.073

1.115 |  1.110  1.105  1.100  1.096  1.092  1.088  1.085  1.082  1.079  1.077

1.120 |  1.114  1.109  1.104  1.100  1.096  1.092  1.089  1.086  1.083  1.080

1.125 |  1.119  1.114  1.109  1.104  1.100  1.096  1.093  1.089  1.086  1.083

1.130 |  1.124  1.118  1.113  1.108  1.104  1.100  1.096  1.093  1.090  1.087

1.135 |  1.129  1.123  1.117  1.112  1.108  1.104  1.100  1.096  1.093  1.090

1.140 |  1.133  1.127  1.122  1.117  1.112  1.108  1.104  1.100  1.097  1.093

1.145 |  1.138  1.132  1.126  1.121  1.116  1.112  1.107  1.104  1.100  1.097

1.150 |  1.143  1.136  1.130  1.125  1.120  1.115  1.111  1.107  1.103  1.100

1.155 |  1.148  1.141  1.135  1.129  1.124  1.119  1.115  1.111  1.107  1.103

I suppose you could take the data and pass it to GNUplot if you want

curves.

The program to generate the table follows.

#include <stdio.h>

#define NUM_PERCENT 10          /* number of columns */

#define NUM_GRAVITY 30          /* number of rows */

#define PERCENT_STEP 0.05       /* percentage per column */

#define GRAVITY_STEP 0.005      /* gravity per row */

#define INITIAL_GRAVITY 1.010   /* gravity for first row */

#define INITIAL_PERCENT PERCENT_STEP    /* percentage for first column */

main ()

[

        int i;

        int j;

        float og, fg;

        float dv;

        float dvp;

        printf ("       |             Dilution By/n");

        printf ("  O.G. | ");

        for (j = 0; j < NUM_PERCENT; j++)

            printf ("  %3.0f%% ", 100.0 * PERCENT_STEP * (1 + j));

        printf ("/n");

        printf ("-------|-");

        for (j = 0; j < NUM_PERCENT; j++) printf ("-------");

        printf ("/n");

        og = INITIAL_GRAVITY - GRAVITY_STEP;

        for (i = 0; i < NUM_GRAVITY; i++) [

                og += GRAVITY_STEP;

                printf ("%6.3f | ", og);

                dvp = INITIAL_PERCENT - PERCENT_STEP;

                for (j = 0; j < NUM_PERCENT; j++) [

                        dvp += PERCENT_STEP;

                        fg = (og + dvp) / (1.0 + dvp);

                        printf ("%6.3f ", fg);

                ]

                printf ("/n");

        ]

        exit ();

]

Steve Piatz   Cray Research, Inc.

steve.piatz@cray.com  655F Lone Oak Drive

612-683-5268   Eagan, MN 55121

------------------------------


Dry versus Liquid Yeast

Date: Sat,  4 Dec 93 20:49:00 BST

From: r.wize@genie.geis.com

Subject: Dry versus Liquid Yeast

In recent HBD's there has been a number of comments concerning dry vs.

liquid yeast.  I thought I would share what I tasted on a recent trip to a

couple of Brewpubs in Rochester, NY.  I had the ocassion to eat dinner at a

brewpub called Rorhbachs.  Their beer was verrrrrry good.  They had a

terrific highly hopped lager called Gregory Street Lager.  The beer was one

of the best I have tried to date.  After discussing it with the bartender he

asked me if I would like a tour.  Obviously I was overjoyed at the

opportunity!  The brewmaster was on site and proceeded to show me the

facility.  I found that they used Belgium Malt (all grain process) and

Wyeast to brew the beer.

The next day I had the chance to stop at the Rochester Brewpub and try a

couple of their brews.  I was definitely not as thrilled with their beer

(however, overall it wasn't bad).  As I was looking at the facility I once

again had the opportunity to discuss brewing with the brewmaster.  To my

surprise I found the process to be Malt Extract and Whitbread dry yeast. The

difference between what I had tasted the day before was remarkable, the

liquid yeast was clean while the Whitbread had definitive tastes left in the

beer.

Now the kicker,  I had brewed the day before Thanksgiving an all grain Pale

that I had planned on using a liquid lager yeast (I was attempting a steam).

 However after 2 1/2 days of no activity (I had used a slant of yeast about

3 months old) I decided to attempt to rescue the beer with the only viable

option, a packet of Whitbread dry which had been in the fridge since the

summer.  The brew took off in 3 hours and fermentation was very active.

Last night I racked to the secondary and as usual tried a small glass of

beer.  The beer tasted exactly like the beer in the Rochester Brewpub!!

Although the beer is still drinkable, I definetely have converted myself to

liquid yeast from here on out.

------------------------------


Clarity and slow fermentation in first all-grain batch

Date: 04 Dec 93 16:01:27 EST

From: Richard Nantel <72704.3003@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: Clarity and slow fermentation in first all-grain batch

My first batch of all grain beer was racked two days ago. The recipe

followed was almost exactly Papazian's Amaizeing Pale Ale from The New

Complete Joy of Homebrewing. Two things worry me about this batch. I've

been brewing for nearly two years using malt extracts and have never before

encountered these quirks:

1. The fermentation with Edme's dried yeast, (no starter--too busy that

week) was strong for the first 48 hours and then continued at a slow rate

for another six days. I've never left beer in a primary longer than one

week and yet may have jumped the gun racking this after 8 days. At racking,

my airlock was bubbling about once a minute and the SG was 1.012 for two

consecutive days (down from 1.046), The temperature was a steady 73 degrees

F. Does all-grain brewing produce a slower but longer-fermenting wort?

2. Although I was very careful not to disturb the sediment during

siphoning, this beer is very cloudy. Of course I've assumed some of this

cloudiness is yeast from possibly premature racking. I suspect, though,

that there's a fair amount of particle matter from the grains washed off

during sparging. I sparged through a depth of about 7-8 inches of grain. Is

this cloudiness normal in all-grain brewing?

I'll sample a bottle in one week (if they haven't all exploded from

premature racking). A taste at bottling was promising, featuring a

wonderful hoppy nose yet encounterd brewing with extracts.

Richard Nantel

Montreal, Quebec

Canada

72704,3003@compuserve.com

------------------------------


Re: Ice Beer

Date: Sat, 4 Dec 1993 14:24:42 -0500

From: jeclark@ucdavis.edu (James Clark)

Subject: Re: Ice Beer

>Andy Pastuszak writes:

>I had the chance to taste Molson Ice a couple of days ago.  Let me

>tell you, the beer has no aftertaste whatsoever, but IT HAS NO TASTE

>EITHER.  This baby is made just for the American market where people

>liek their beers with as little taste as possible.

<snip>

>Anyone else had the chance to try any ice beer?

yea, i tried some budweiser ice draft (i was at a friends house and he was

swilling it.  i didn't buy it, HONEST!).  i think this is similar to the

molson ice.  i have to agree with andy.  STAY AWAY FROM THE STUFF.  no tase

at all.  i hear they use more corn to give it a smoother flavor.

this reminds me of something:  five years ago i was involved in an exchange

program with german students.  when they were over here king cobra was

still being advertised on t.v.  the adds said, "goes down smooth with no

after taste."

i remember the german students rolling on the ground with laughter after

hearing this.  i asked one what was so funny (at this time i had never

really tried any beer) and he said, "beer with no aftertaste?  the after

taste is the most important part of the beer!"

three months later i was in germany.  i tasted real beer for the first time

and found out that he was right.

- --james

------------------------------


extract pouch extract extraction

Date: Sat, 4 Dec 93 19:23:22 EST

From: mark.janello@um.cc.umich.edu

Subject: extract pouch extract extraction

Larry Richardson <richards@priacc.com> asked about

easy/efficient ways to get all the extract out of those pouches.

Just put them in the microwave.  I do mine a minute, then squeeze

around awhile, then another minute, &c, until they are quite

warm and very soft and squishy (very fun).  You could also put

them in a sink of hot water or even boil them; I think they

are made of the same stuff that Green Giant Niblets in Butter

Sauce pouches are made of.  At least the pouches I've been

getting are claimed to be boil-proof. Ask your supplier.

When they are all soft cut a corner off and hold by the opposite

corner.  Then you can stir at the same time to avoid scorching.

Some more squeezing will get most of the stuff out and a cup

or so of hot water put in and then shaken around will get the

rest.

Not much more irritating than cans, really

 -mark

mark.janello@um.cc.umich.edu

University of Michigan School of Music

------------------------------


Wort boiler screen

Date: Sat, 4 Dec 93 20:35:04 PST

From: hollen@megatek.com (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Wort boiler screen

I just had a disaster with the screen on my wort boiler plugging with

hops.  I just started all grain 5 gal boils and this is my third

batch.  The previous batches did not plug with hops.  I have a Sankey

keg with the top cut out for a boiler.  I have welded a nipple in the

side, about 2" from the bottom and right over the center is an elbow

and short nipple which dip down to within 1/2" of thte bottom.  The

end of the nipple is covered with a coarse screen.  I have no idea why

it did not plug up the first two times, but did this time.

Here are my questions.  If you are using a Chore Girl or an

EasyMasher, since both of them are just screens, why do they not plug

up?  If you have any other methods, please share them.

------------------------------


Correction of Sierra Nevada Dry Hopping

Date: Sat, 4 Dec 93 22:10:12 PST

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Correction of Sierra Nevada Dry Hopping

I was wrong in my post the other day when I said that Sierra Nevada was

now dry-hopping their pale ale instead of using the hop back.  They are no

longer using the hop back, but they do not dry hop the pale ale.  Martin

Wilde advised me of this via email, and I double-checked with others who

were on the tour.  The only beers that they dry hop are the Bigfoot Barley

Wine and the Celebration Ale.  The pale ale is bitter-hopped with a

combination of Perle and Nugget hops at the beginning of the boil, with

additions of Cascade at 30 minutes to go and at the end of the boil, which

they allow to steep for 20 minutes before chilling the wort.

Sorry for the misinformation.

Mark

------------------------------


A Killians Recipe

Date: Sun, 5 Dec 1993 07:37:34 -0500

From: ukcy@sunyit.edu (Kevin Yager)

Subject: A Killians Recipe

A friend of mine enjoys drinking Killians Red when he is not drinking his own

homebrew.

If anyone has a recipe which produces beer like Killians could you please

Email it to me.

Thank you in advance.

Kevin

ukcy@sunyit.edu

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1290, 12/06/93

*************************************

-------


Snakebite

Date: 6 Dec 93 07:25:00 EST

From: "DAVE SMOLINSKY" <SMOLINSKY@merlin.ndhm.gtegsc.com>

Subject: Snakebite

Hi all,

Back in September I was in Penryhndeudraeth, Wales in the U.K.  I was staying

at a B&B that had it's own small pub.  At around closing time, everyone in the

pub, except for my friends and I that were staying there, were told to leave.

The bartender told me that the law over there states that if you are staying at

a B&B that has a pub, they have to keep the pub open until you decide to call

it quits for the night!!  Isn't that wonderful!!!

Anyhow, after hours I was chatting with the bartender and he told me about a

concoction pubs used to make, but is now illegal.  It was called a *Snakebite*.

It was a combination of equal parts of a lager and a cider (I forget what the

lager was, possibly Tetley's[??], but the cider was Strongbow).  The reason it

was outlawed was because of some chemical reaction that occured that had a not

so nice effect on brain cells.  Anyone ever heard of this or know what it does

to people's brains??  He prepared a small one for me and it tasted pretty good,

but I couldn't tell if it had an effect or not, since I was trying every beer

in the place ;-]

Dave

------------------------------


SS keg question

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 93 8:07:43 EST

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: SS keg question

Sorry if this has been addressed before and I wasn't paying attention.

For those of you who have turned a SS keg into a brewpot, where did you

get the keg?  How much did it cost you?  I've seen references to Sanke

kegs for this.  Are these the only type of kegs to turn into brewpots?

What other kinds have people used?

Private e-mail is fine.

Many thanks in advance.

- --

Jim Grady       |"Immediately after Orville Wright's historic 12 second

grady@an.hp.com | flight, his luggage could not be located."

                |                       S. Harris

------------------------------


FZ, Icehouse Ale

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 93 07:51:54 CST

From: nfarrell@ppco.com (Norman Farrell)

Subject: FZ, Icehouse Ale

I raise a glass of my finest to the music and the memory of Frank Zappa whho

spent his career rebelling against the musical status quo as we homebrewers

rebel against top 40 mega-brew.

I saw an advert. for "Icehouse Ale" in the Houston Chronicle today.  Claimed

to be a new product and the first ice brewed ale (was I supposed to be

impressed?).  I could not tell who was the brewer.  My wife asked "why in the

world would any one make such a beer?"  Anyone out there in HBD land know of

this beer???

Regards,

Norman (nfarrell@ppco.com)

------------------------------


Frankenmuth Dark

Date: Mon, 06 Dec 93 08:32:00 est

From: "Ball, Timothy B" <ballti@uh2372p03.daytonoh.NCR.COM>

Subject: Frankenmuth Dark

I agree that Frankenmuth Dark is excellent.  Actually,   all the Frankenmuth

beers are great.   Try Old Detroit and Frankenmuth's Pilsner.

------------------------------


LaBatt Maximum Ice

Date: Mon, 06 Dec 93 09:47:55 EST

From: btalk@aol.com

Subject: LaBatt Maximum Ice

A friend just brought me a couple bottles of this version of the new ice

beers. This Maximum is 7.1% alcohol by volume!

Still doesn't taste like much , but does have some kick.

This was purchased in Canada.

  Bob Talkiewicz

------------------------------


'Ice' ain't nice...

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1993 10:01:20 -0500 (EST)

From: Darin Bennett <dbennett@mailstorm.dot.gov>

Subject: 'Ice' ain't nice...

Hello all,

In HBD #1289 & #1290 the subject of Molsens' new ICE beer was discussed as

the disaster it must be.  Last weekend a buddy brought by some Miller

'ICEHOUSE' and tried to convince me it was gods' gift to beer.  It seems

to me that this should go in the same bin as the 'dry' fad.  The logo

should read: "We freeze it, so you can't taste it!"  My thanks to those

who led me to homebrew....

Keep brewin'

Darin

)-|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|-(

Darin Bennett                         <|> "I don't pretend to comprehend

Residing in Cyberspace at:            <|>  the universe.  It is much

                                      <|>  bigger than I."

dbennett@mailstorm.dot.gov            <|>                   - A. Einstein

)-|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|-(

------------------------------


Date: 6 Dec 93 15:08:36 GMT

From: cssc!cong@scuzzy.attmail.com (Brian Conger )

Subject: 'Ice' ain't nice...

Subject: Wort Chiller Plans

Pretty good Step By Steps plans for a immersion wort chiller in HBD-1289

by Mark Stewart.  I just have a couple of suggestions.

To avoid possible disaster from the failure of either a hose clamp or a hose,

I extended both the In and Out tubing on the Kettle side of the chiller up

and out of the kettle and bent it 180 degrees, then attached hoses.  Thus no

water could get in the kettle to contaminate the wort if any failure occured.

On the Cold immersion side, instead of the "SLINKY" spiral, I used a tubing

bender (about $1.50 in a hardware store where I bought the tubing) and I

bent the tubing in concentic cirles in a flatter form.  This allow more

coil in the ice bath with a smaller pot.  You Extract brewers could do this

on both coils to allow more coil contact in smaller brew kettles.

Another tool that makes this easier is a tubing cutter.  This leaves no jagged

edges to file and cost about $3.50 - $5.00 at your local hardware store.

cong

------------------------------


Re: Monks Ale, filtering comments

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1993 10:32:39 -0500 (EST)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: Monks Ale, filtering comments

> From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

> Subject: CorsenBONK / Kegging Mead/ BarleyWines / Filtering

>

> He was kind enough to share it with me, and it was...well....

> like swallowing a think rich syrupy bitey ....bowling ball!

The Monks Pale Ale is *broadly* a Tripple, and not bad.  The Monks

Brown Ale is *broadly* a brown abbey ale.  Both are pretty good

ales, brewed by a relative newcomer on the Belgian scene, new as

of around '84.  I actually prefer the Pale.

>

> Barleywine

> the yeast used, alcohol content, carbonation, whim of the brewer?  If it's

> alcohol content, when does doppelbock cross the line and become barleywine?

                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Never!  A doppel should never exhibit the esters that are prominant in an

barleywine.  Also, the doppels tend to be darker than Bwines, although the

AHA judges seem to feel that Bwines need to be quite dark, which I believe

is nonsense.

> AHA sez:  1.065-1.120 OG.   6- 12 percent alcohol by volume.

I think that should be 1.09X - 1.1XX, 8-XX % ABV.

> yeast, or champagne/wine yeasts.  Aged 6 months to a year.

Well, Bigfoot is not aged like this, and I dont age mine either.  It all

depends on your fermentation, if you properly attenuate the beer, the

aging time is greatly reduced.  If you bottle at 1.030, it will need

considerable time to age, but may never be as good as one bottled at 1.020.

My latest is great at brew day + 10 weeks, or keg day + 8 weeks.  It was

darn good at 3 weeks.

>

> *   Lagers should be warmed at the end of lagering.  But not that warm.

> More like 60. It helps them break down (diacetyl I think? Reference-check)

Lagers dont *need* to be treated like this.  A diacetyl rest at 42F can

be used quite successfully.  Much of this depends on the yeast strain and

overall lagering methods.

> **

> filtering and stuff...

>

> As for filtering.  Filtering bacteria requires less than a 1 micron filter.

True.  Less than .8 if I recall.

> I don't want to do that to my beer.  Filtering DOES present advantages,

> but also potential disadvantages.

> Chill haze, protein "colloids", some cellular material, and chunks

> of anything else still floating around can be filtered out.

> A level of 2 to 3 microns will do this. 5 microns will let almost

> all cells pass.

No!  5 microns is extremely effective in removing the yeast biomass. I

assume these are the "cells" you refer to.

> clean up a beer, but will also CLEAN UP A BEER.  Body, head retention

> and other qualities will be lost.  The intermediate levels (2-3) will

> possibly remove some body, but not too much ( I hope).

>

3-5 is a fine level for home and pub brewers.  It might not be perfect for

extended self life, but it is fine for a few months. Below 1 micron, and

the foam stand will be suffer.

> falling back into body of water). It's the expense at this point.

> But it may well happen.  Someday.  But I have looked into it!

It can be done for under $50.  The 5 micron filter carts. are $23, and

a whole house filter can be bought at HW stores for $22.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


work chiller question / 3-gal keg source

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 93 10:29:53 EST

From: 06-Dec-1993 1025 -0500 <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: work chiller question / 3-gal keg source

I made myself an immersion chiller out of 50' of copper tubing (3/8").

It works quite well, i might add.  One question:  do folks use copper

wire to tie the downtube to the coil of copper tubing?  i ask 'cuz my

wort chiller would be more rigid with this, however, it would be more

of a pain to clean.

- ----

3 gallon keg source:  BCI in TN, 3 gal general beverage container is $34.50.

5 gal corlelius is $26.50.  5 gal one-handle is 22.50.  10 gal general beverage

is $43.50 (I'm wondering about this one!  10 gallons!).  phone number is

800-284-9410.  you'll have to pay shipping.  they also deal in used co2

containers, etc,etc,etc and keg parts.

jc ferguson

littleton ma usa

(no affiliation with the company;  just a satisfied customer).

------------------------------


%Utilization / Plumbing Problems

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 93 9:16:41 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: %Utilization / Plumbing Problems

Robert Milstead writes:

> -  A 45 minute boil of hops results in a 25% Isomerization (.25 )

and later...

> - A 5 minute boil of hops results in a 5% Isomerization (.05 )

This is interesting, but I'd like to see your whole utilization (isomerization)

table of Time vs. Isomerization.  The conventional table, posted by Jackie

Rager in Zymurgy, has 26.9% at 45 minutes and 5% at 5 minutes.  This is the

major problem with all of these IBU calculations; the utilization is

debatable.  Mark Garetz claims lower utilization across the board, there is

lots of discussion about gravity adjustments, etc. etc. etc.

Until something big comes along to straighten out the mess, I'll use Rager's

utilization numbers and formula.  Why?  Because it is very widely used in the

homebrew community, making for a good point of reference.  If someone tells me

a beer has 37 IBU, and I know (maybe I have to assume) they are using Rager's

numbers, I have a reference point to use in trying to duplicate it.  Other

adjustments/utilization tables may be more accurate, but the comparisons are

what's important to me.

**

Dion writes:

>I just had a disaster with the screen on my wort boiler plugging with

hops.  I just started all grain 5 gal boils and this is my third

batch.  The previous batches did not plug with hops.  I have a Sankey

keg with the top cut out for a boiler.  I have welded a nipple in the

side, about 2" from the bottom and right over the center is an elbow

and short nipple which dip down to within 1/2" of thte bottom.  The

end of the nipple is covered with a coarse screen.  I have no idea why

it did not plug up the first two times, but did this time.

I have had similar problems, Dion.  My course of corrective action:  use whole

hops whenever possible and always put the hops in a hop bag.  Pellets are

terrible for this problem, and the hop bag will help even with pellets.  I

would like to hear how others deal with clogging in the kettle.

Norm

------------------------------


Haze or Contamination

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 93 10:20:20 CST

From: shaw@visar.wustl.edu (Andrey Shaw)

Subject: Haze or Contamination

Recently, I opened a bottle from my first batch of beer (made 3-4 months

ago).  It was a dark extract beer that had been made without any unusual

problems and which had been sitting in my basement for several months at

room temp.  I have very much enjoyed this beer so almost all of the bottles

were gone within the first month.  Two weeks ago, I found several bottles

and put them into the refrigerator and last night opened one to drink.

What surprised me about this beer was the haziness, which was new; all of

the previous bottles that I drank were clear.  I am puzzled as to why or

how this beer became hazy.  It tasted pretty good so I don't think that it

is bugs.  Could it be protein precipitation from being in the refrigerator?

Is it common for beers to acquire a haze after several months.  Should I

hurry up and drink all of the rest of this batch?  Any helpful comments

will be appreciated.

        On another note, based on comments that I acquired on the HBD, I

rushed out to buy Coors Winter Lager and the Sam Adams Cranberry Lambic.

Maybe its me, but you didn't tell me, I could swear that the Coor winter

lager tastes just like Bud Dry and only when it is in a glass do I really

notice the difference (it is darker). I guess its not bad for a commercial

beer that cost me $4.29 a six pack, but it wasn't anything to get excited

about.  The Cranberry Lambic (sic) was interesting and I did kind of enjoy

it, but almost everyone I asked to taste it thought it was disgusting.  It

again wasn't anything that I would rush out and get.  Interesting and novel

but not great.

andrey shaw

------------------------------


Commercial Beer Matrix, Part 1/2

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 93 9:20:03 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Commercial Beer Matrix, Part 1/2

 -Part 1/2-

The following commercial beer matrix has been gleaned from various posts in

HBD and rec.crafts.brewing.  I find it useful, if not for cloning certain

beers, for finding out what types of ingredients, OGs, etc. are pleasing to

me.  The best beers I have brewed were "clones" of commercial beers.  They

were not exact duplicates, but actually better than the originals (the

advantage of homebrewing decisions vs. making money).

I find it interesting to note that some breweries use only one type of base

malt and crystal for most or all of their beers, and still provide a wide

variety of beers.  This is probably due to the economy of mass buying, but

it shows how versatile you can be using different quantities of base malts

and crystal, and then changing hops and yeast.  I don't know anything about

the water treatments (if any) of these brews, but that could have a

considerable effect as well.

The hops are, I believe, in order of boiling time, as should be evident in

most of these beers by the hop variety.  They are not all completely

accurate, as the growing region of a particular hop can affect its flavor

profile greatly (note that Redhook gives "Yakima Hallertau", which I presume

is the American version of Mittelfrueh, although I'm not positive.  It also

lists "Tettnang", which I'm guessing is Tettnanger Tettnang, grown in

Germany).  You can see that some of this information needs work; also some

of it may be dated.

Note that I only assembled this information into a single matrix; I did not

gather it originally from the breweries.  I would appreciate similar info on

other breweries (large and small), other beers by these breweries, and any

corrections that you note.  If you tour a brewery, take notes!

RedHook Brewery, Seattle, Washington

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Beer Name   | Fermentables  |    Hops            |  Yeast  | O.G. | Comments

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

ESB          | Klages 2-row  | Willamette         | English |1.054 |Flagship

             | Crystal 60L   | Tettnang           |  Ale    |      |Product

             |               |                    |         |      |4.3%ABW

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Ballard      | Klages 2-row  | Eroica             | English |1.045 |3.8%ABW

 Bitter      | Crystal 40L   | Willamette         |  Ale    |      |

             |               | Cascade            |         |      |

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Blackhook    | Klages 2-row  | Willamette         | English |1.047 |3.9%ABW

 Porter      | Crystal 40L   | Eroica             |  Ale    |      |

             | Black Patent  | Cascade            |         |      |

             | Roasted Barley|                    |         |      |

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Redhook      | Klages 2-row  | Clusters           | Belgian |1.050 |4.5%ABW

 Ale         | Crystal 40L   | Willamette         |  Ale    |      |Banana

             | Black Patent  | Eroica             |         |      |overtones

             |               | Cascade            |         |      |

             |               | Yakima             |         |      |

             |               |  Hallertau         |         |      |

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Winterhook   | Custom-kilned | B.C. Goldings      | English |1.057 |4.8%ABW

 Christmas   | 2-row Carastan| Yakima             |  Ale    |      |Recipe

  Ale        | (Hugh Baird)  |  Hallertau         |         |      |changes

             |               | Yakima             |         |      |yearly

             |               |  Cluster           |         |      |yearly

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Wheathook    | Klages 2-row  | Tettnang           | English |1.034 |3.7%ABW

 Wheaten     | English Malted| Hallertauer        |  Ale    |      |German

  Ale        |  Wheat        |  Hersbrucker       |         |      |hops may

             |               | Hallertauer        |         |      |wrong

             |               |  Mittelfrueh       |         |      |

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, Chico, California

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Beer Name   | Fermentables  |    Hops            |  Yeast  | O.G. | Comments

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Summerfest   | Pale 2-row    | Perle              | Lager   |1.046 |3.5%ABW

             | Dextrin malt  | Hallertau          |         |      |Mittel-

             |               |                    |         |      |frueh???

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Pale         | Pale 2-row    | Perle              | Lager   |1.064 |5.2%ABW

 Bock        | Dextrin malt  | Mount Hood         |         |      |A beefier

             |               |                    |         |      |Summerfest

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Pale         | Pale 2-row    | Perle              | Ale     |1.052 |4.4%ABW

 Ale         | Dextrin malt  | Nugget             |         |      |Flagship

             | Crystal malt  | Cascade            |         |      |Product

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Porter       | Pale 2-row    | Nugget             | Ale     |1.058 |4.7%ABW

             | Dextrin malt  | Willamette         |         |      |

             | Crystal malt  |                    |         |      |

             | Chocolate malt|                    |         |      |

             | Black patent  |                    |         |      |

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Stout        | Pale 2-row    | Chinook            | Ale     |1.064 |4.8%ABW

             | Dextrin malt  | Cascade            |         |      |

             | Crystal malt  |                    |         |      |

             | Black patent  |                    |         |      |

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Celebration  | Pale 2-row    | Chinook            | Ale     |1.064 |5.1%ABW

 Ale         | Dextrin malt  | Cascade            |         |      |Dry hopped

             | Crystal malt  | Centennial         |         |      |

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Bigfoot      | Pale 2-row    | Nugget             | Ale     |1.092 |10.1%ABW

 Barley      | Crystal malt  | Cascade            |         |      |Dry hopped

  Wine       |               | Centennial         |         |      |

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 -End Part 1/2-

------------------------------


XXX,yeast,ice,plugged screens

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1993 12:00:33 -0500 (EST)

From: gelinas@ekman.unh.edu (Russell Gelinas)

Subject: XXX,yeast,ice,plugged screens

  With this talk of Noche Buena, I was wondering if anyone has ever seen

a dark malty beer called "XXX" out of Mexico?  It was a take on "Dos Equis",

but I don't know if it was made by the same company.  I wasn't a brewer

back then (10 years ago), but I remember it as being a good beer.

  Without dredging up the dry vs. liquid yeast debate again, I'd like to

point out that the switch from dry to liquid often brings your more subtle

brewing mistakes to the fore.  Something to watch for.

  I'm surprised to hear that Ice Bud/Ice Molson have no flavor, because

the Ice Labatts I tried had lots of flavor, most of it bad.  Strong

phenols.  Enough so I actually checked the bottle for yeast sediment

(of course there wasn't any).  Fwiw, Labatts is suing people over using

the term "ice".

  And, speaking of plugged screens, I've been having a problem with

stuck sparges.  I use the 10 gallon cooler with straining bowl type

of lauter tun.  Worked great for 20 batches, but it just was not

working anymore.  Why, I dunno.  Anyway, after having to pour the whole

mash *back* into the mash-kettle to unset the sparge (HSA anyone?),

I decided that I'd just put a stainless pot scrubber over the cooler

outlet hole, tied on with an elastic, and leave out the strainer bowl.

Well, hey, it worked like a charm!  No clogs, a couple of quarts before

it ran clear.  YMWV, but it's likely to become SOP for me.

Russ Gelinas

eos

unh

------------------------------


Interested in Homebrew Digest

Date: 06 Dec 93 12:19:58 EST

From: Thomas Livaccari <TJL@CSI.compuserve.com>

Subject: Interested in Homebrew Digest

I would be interested in receiving information about Homebrew Digest.

Tom Livaccari

204 West 80th Street, Apt. 5E

New York, NY  10024

------------------------------


Hop bitterness longevity

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 93 10:18:19 MST

From: fmicos!argus!dillinge@uunet.UU.NET (Stephen Dillinger)

Subject: Hop bitterness longevity

I have a question about hop bitterness stability/longevity in my bottled

beers.

The basic "problem" is that the perceived bitterness in my bottled beers seems

to fade rather quickly (over a period of weeks).  A beer that is extremely

bitter one week, is perfect the next, and a couple of weeks later the

bitterness

is very subdued.

I've tried the basic 60 minute boil, 5 minute finish, as well as various

attempts

at dry hopping (which I really like) and hopping at various times during the

boil.  All share the same lack of staying power in the hops...

Could it be the type of hops I use?  (goldings, fuggles, willamette).

Anyone know how I can get a desired level of bitterness and have it stick

around

for awhile?

Thanks in advance for any advice/ideas.

Steve Dillinger             uranus!dillinger@uunet.uu.net

------------------------------


Dry vs. Liquid Yeasts

Date: Mon, 06 Dec 1993 12:09:19 -0500 (CDT)

From: WEIX@swmed.edu

Subject: Dry vs. Liquid Yeasts

Hi,

 I would just like to give a small plug here for the Yeast FAQ. I talk

about the magical aspects known as strain variation. Roughly this means:

"Not all yeast are the same". Not all dry yeast, not all liquid, not all

anything! To those who are disappointed with their variety of dry yeast but

would like to keep using dry yeast, you might try using Red Star Ale Yeast

or Llemand Nottingham or Windsor Dry Yeast.

 Not to slam the Whitbread Dry (slam, slam, slam ), but disatisfaction with

it's performance in my first few batches (it gave an odd taste that I don't

know how to describe) is what drove me to compile the yeast FAQ in the

first place. I wanted something that listed the available strains and their

flavor characteristics.

 Beginning brewers should be especially happy with the Red Star Ale because

of it's fast starting and clean taste.

Patrick, that annoying yeast faq guy.

------------------------------


NaOH a cleaning agent?

Date:  Mon, 29 Nov 1993 13:50:00 -0500

From: carlo.fusco@canrem.com (Carlo Fusco)

Subject: NaOH a cleaning agent?

Glenn Anderson wrote:

 H> If I wash all my metal brewing equipement with a sodium hydroxide

 H> solution, what's the best process for ensuring that it's all rinsed

 H> off? Can any Microbrewers on the digest offer a 'professional'

 H> opinion that I can take to the bank?

I seem to remember George Fix [I think] writing a short blerb on this

topic. I seem to remember that NaOH was used to remove protein build up

inside pipes and tubing and was later rinsed with a weak HCl solution to

nutralize the NaOH. Can any one verify or reject this? What strength NaOH

and HCl were used? Can someone please explain how to the use NaOH as a

cleaning agent?

Thanks,

Carlo

- ---

 * Freddie 1.2.5 * email: carlo.fusco@canrem.com  Sharon,Ontario,Canada

------------------------------


Re: starter gravities revisited

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 93 10:48:52 PST

From: dra@jsc-ws.sharpwa.com (Darren Aaberge)

Subject: Re: starter gravities revisited

Cushing Hamlen asks about gravity of starters in HBD 1289.

I initially used starters with a gravity similar to what I was brewing.  I

was amazed at the difference in lag time between using a starter and not

using a starter.  Then someone on the HBD claimed that starters should be

1.020, so I switched to that gravity for my starters.  It seems like I still

fot short lag times, but the yeast seemed to be very weak and I was getting

high final gravities.

I now use starters that are between 1.030 and 1.040 and am very happy with the

results.

Just my $.02,

Darren Aaberge

------------------------------


Wort dilution vs SG

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 93 12:46:06 PST

From: troy@scubed.scubed.com (Troy Howard)

Subject: Wort dilution vs SG

Chushing Hamlen (cush@msc.edu) asks if there is a curve or

analytic function fit to experimental data to describe wort gravity as

a function of (presumably) dilution volume.

You do not really need experimental data.  This is a rather simple problem.

Wort gravity is a measure of density.  So, using the following notation:

D0 = initial density

V0 = initial volume

Da = density of added liquid (for water Da=1.000)

Va = added volume

Df = final density

then, adding Va of liquid of density Da to a volume V0 of liquid with density

D0, will result in a liquid of density

      (D0V0 + DaVa)

Df = ---------------

       (V0 + Va)

or (in case the spaces don't line up when you read the above)

Df = (D0*V0 + Da*Va)/(V0 + Va)

As an example, if you have 5 gallongs of 1.060 wort, and add one gallon

of water to it, you will have 6 gallons of

(1.060*5gallons + 1.000*1gallon)/(6 gallons) = 1.050 wort.

 -Troy

------------------------------


wort dilution vs. SG

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 93 16:12:44 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: wort dilution vs. SG

Not sure what you want.  You mean "what happens if I add 1 gallon of

water to 4 gallons of 1.040 wort?"  Almost right formula:

 1.040 wort = 40 "points/gallon" = 160 "points" in 4 gallons

 160 points/5 gallons = 32 points/gallon = 1.032 wort

To do it right, you first convert from gravity to degrees Plato.  Fix

posted a cubic approximation to the tables recently.  This gives you

%sugar (by weight as sucrose) (1 deg Plato = 1% sugar w/w).  Multiply

by the mass of the solution (4 gallons * ???lbs/gal * 1.040) to get

the mass of sugar.  Add your gallon of water, and compute the mass

of the new solution (original mass + mass of 1 gallon of water (don't

forget to temperature compensate)).  Then compute the percentage of

sugar in the new solution (100 * original sugar mass / solution mass).

Finally, convert back to S.G. using the Plato table (or formula).

A close approximation to deg Plato is to divide the "points" by 4.

But if you use that, you might as well use the simple method in the

first paragraph.

I haven't compared this to Steve Piatz's table, but his code looks

like my first method.

=S

------------------------------


Help!!!  San Miguel Recipe Wanted.

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1993 15:43:29 -0600 (CST)

From: EVANS@smsd.jsc.nasa.gov

Subject: Help!!!  San Miguel Recipe Wanted.

Hello,

 I'm looking for a recipe that is similar to San Miguel.  As I'm

pretty new at this, I'd prefer an extract-based recipe.  I've checked the

Cat's Meow and haven't found anything.  I'd really appreciate any help

offered.

Please post or respond to "evans@newton.jsc.nasa.gov"  Responding directly

to this post will not work.

Thanks in advance,

Chris Evans

------------------------------


Re:  BBC and water chemistry

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 93 15:00:14 -0700

From: Craig Artley <cartley@dix.Mines.Colorado.EDU>

Subject: Re:  BBC and water chemistry

> Date: Sat,  4 Dec 93 07:28:00 -0600

> From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

> Subject: BBC and water chemistry

>

>

> I just received in the mail an unsolicited four-color bi-fold *I'm not

> sure what this is* "advertisement" from The Boston Brewing Company.

[...]

> Page four

> continues the Koch famly travails from Germany to the land of

> opportunity, offers "Come for a tour" AND **offers a FREE Sam Adams T-

> shirt and a FREE subscription to the Boston Beer Company Quarterly

> Newsletter** !!!

I got one of those in the GABF edition of the local brewspaper, Rocky

Mountain Brews.  I'm still waiting for the T-shirt.  Guess I should have

checked "Distributor" rather than "Beer Lover"....

- ---

Craig Artley    cartley@mines.colorado.edu    (303) 273-3479

Geophysics Dept., Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401

------------------------------


Back To Basics Recipe

Date: Sun, 5 Dec 1993 20:31:50 -0600 (CST)

From: winstead%brauerei@cs.tulane.edu (Teddy Winstead)

Subject: Back To Basics Recipe

Fellow Homebrewers:

My last few batches (Double Bock, Amber Ale, and Papazian's "Holiday Cheer")

have all been severely lacking.  The Double Bock froze in the fridge, and

had to come out (imagine the mess :-( ),resulting in estery off-flavors from

the increased fermentation temps, the Amber Ale suffered from a lack

of hoppiness and a little HSA, and the "Holiday Cheer" is awful (I think

that I should've peeled the ginger) it has a medicinal, phenolic, rough

(almost dirty, like mud) flavor to it.

So here's my query(s):

Could somebody please send me (via e-mail, so as not to clutter this list) a

good, easy recipe (preferably something with some grains added to the boil

for extra body)? Lots of hops, too.  Also, one with a liquid yeast.  Beleive

it or not, I have troubles with liquid yeasts.  They seem to have like a 30

hour lag time which makes me incredibly nervous.

Also, could somebody tell me whether or not it's a good idea to put soap in

the dishwasher when doing your bottles in there?  I'm a little worried that

the dishwasher method's detracting from my beer quality.

Finally, could somebody give me a good, step by step method for cleaning and

rinsing my carboy (since I don't have a hookup for my bottle-washer anymore,

I think that maybe lack of rinsing has contributed to off flavors.

Thanks a million, and happy brewin'

Teddy Winstead

------------------------------


Various Mailing Lists

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1993 17:12:20 -0600 (CST)

From: winstead%brauerei@cs.tulane.edu (Teddy Winstead)

Subject: Various Mailing Lists

Could somebody please e-mail me the addresses for:

The Lambic Mailing List

The Mead Mailing List

The Cider Digest (if it still exists?)

Thanks alot,

Ted

------------------------------


Re: Ice Beer

Date:  Mon, 6 Dec 1993 09:54:00 -0500

From: stephan.marceau@canrem.com (Stephan Marceau)

Subject: Re: Ice Beer

james>yea, i tried some budweiser ice draft (i was at a friends house and he was

james>swilling it.  i didn't buy it, HONEST!).  i think this is similar to the

james>molson ice.  i have to agree with andy.  STAY AWAY FROM THE STUFF.  no

tase

james>at all.  i hear they use more corn to give it a smoother flavor.

james>this reminds me of something:  five years ago i was involved in an

exchange

james>program with german students.  when they were over here king cobra was

james>still being advertised on t.v.  the adds said, "goes down smooth with no

james>after taste."

james>i remember the german students rolling on the ground with laughter after

james>hearing this.  i asked one what was so funny (at this time i had never

james>really tried any beer) and he said, "beer with no aftertaste?  the after

james>taste is the most important part of the beer!"

james>three months later i was in germany.  i tasted real beer for the first

time

james>and found out that he was right.

james>- --james

Ya, it's quite funny, the Labatt Ice beer is the first beer that my wife

actually likes: because of the no after-taste!!! And I have been trying for

so many batches to make something that she would actually enjoy - I guess

I was on the wrong path with berries!!!

I will admit that I do buy the Ice beer for guests who like "tasteless beer",

that's what I call it! That makes them laugh...

Later

Steph

- ---

 * MR/2 1.36 NR * I am free of prejudices. I hate everyone equally.

------------------------------


Mac Clip Art

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1993 20:16:42 +0500 (EST)

From: "David M. Fresco" <fresco@gibbs.oit.unc.edu>

Subject: Mac Clip Art

Hello,

I'm interested in some beer related clip art.  In particular, I'm looking

for a recycle symbol (with the three arrows) in the form of a scalable

pict.  Please send replies to fresco@unc.edu

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

=  David M. Fresco                                          =

=  Department of Psychology                                 =

=  CB#3270, Davie Hall                      __o             =

=  Chapel Hill, NC 27599                    /<,             =

=  Internet:  fresco@unc.edu              `,/'(*)           =

=             fresco@med.unc.edu         (*) . ./"""        =

=  Voice:  (919) 962-5082               """"                =

=  Fax:    (919) 962-2537                                   =

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

------------------------------


Beer Offerings

Date: Mon, 06 Dec 1993 20:44:34 -0400 (EDT)

From: RADAMSON@delphi.com

Subject: Beer Offerings

Fellow Brewers:

I am blessed with a dilemma this season of having an opportunity

to influence the tap offerings of my local pub.  It has been and

will continue to be a brilliant, almost quite proper, Irish Pub.

It even goes by the name of Mustang Sally's.  For the record, it

has to be the freshest, best poured pint of Guinness on Long

Island, NY - and we've hunted quite a few along our search.

Anyway, his other offerings are Bass, Woodpecker Cider,

Kilian's, Bud & Coors.

So, we (my brew partner & I) had an idea of providing a holiday

ale (Anchor Christmas, Sierra Celebration, even SA Winter Lager,

etc) to him to serve.  He could charge whatever for a pint,

except for us, of course.  Our investment is basic:  add a more

beer knowledgable crowd to his clientelle; get the place known

for a rotating special seasonal Micro beer, etc.  I know, skip

the details...

Anyway, he's going along with this so far.  You're saying, "So,

what's the delemma?" - Certainly not the selection!!  I love

this season!

What I'd like to throw at him are some industry marketing blitz

crap that will help convince him that the special beer will sell

(even though he has no cost in the keg (at this point anyway)).

He may have to decide which current tap to remove.  Can anyone

start me in the right direction for trades, articles, etc.?

Thanks in advance,

Richard Adamson,  Brewer, Systems guy, Steeler Fan

  - RADAMSON@delphi.com

------------------------------


Oven-mashing, Over active fermentation, Old Yeast

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1993 21:45:18 -0500 (EST)

From: smag@echonyc.com (Stefan Smagula)

Subject: Oven-mashing, Over active fermentation, Old Yeast

   OVEN-MASHING

I have a tip for those who are thinking about trying to mash for the first

time.  This is how I did my first partial-grain batch.  It was easy!

Instead of buying or making an insulated box, I used my 8 gal.

enamel brewpot, and put it into a warm oven for the steeping periods. I made su

re the oven temperature was near that of the mash with the help of a

thermometer. When I needed to raise the temperature of the grains (I did a

"step-infusion"...I think?), I took the pot out of the oven and heated it

slowly on the stove.  I was happy, my mash was happy :->

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Help! I violated the 11th Commandment:

This same 5 gal. batch (1# of cara-pils, 1# of crystal, 4# pale malt, 11# Dry

Malt Ext. with about 10 oz of various hops, an OG of >1.100) had one

problem: it fermented so fiercely the foam filled all the headspace in my 7

gal carboy and went all over the floor, leaving me with <3 gallons of brew.

It was an expensive mess, but worse, it was a sin ;-)  Is this normal for

high gravity/high hop brews? (this is my first) and how do I avoid it?

Note: I did not separate the hot/cold break from the wort.  I used Wyeast

#1214 (Belgian Ale).  I don't think this problem was due to my mashing

method--the wort tested OK with iodine.

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------

  Any advice on using old yeast?

I cleaned the yeast from the trub of this same batch using the method

outlined in the Yeast FAQ--thanks Weix, the FAQ's awesome!  (Roughly: boil

some water, cool, mix with sediment, let settle, pour off everything but

settled yeast, repeat, and then pour the cleaned yeast into a sanitized

mason jar and store in your fridge).  Now, can I safely use this yeast even

though I cleaned it over a month ago?  I have a microscope--so I could

check for bacteria--but I'm not sure what levels of bacteria are "safe"

(there was a good number of critters in the original Wyeast package!), and

I'm not sure about the viability of yeast stored this long.  Thanks.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

[enter non-professional mode] I think there should be more orgasms, fake

and otherwise, on the HBD!  Sorry about the  l o n g  post.

------------------------------


Yeast FAQ

Date: 06 Dec 93 21:49:30 EST

From: Richard Nantel <72704.3003@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: Yeast FAQ

I'm new to the net and HBD. I'd love to know where I can find a copy of the

Yeast FAQ. If it is anywhere near as informative as the Hops FAQ I found

Compuserve, it will be worth its bytes in gold.

Thanks

Richard Nantel

Montreal, Quebec

Canada

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1291, 12/07/93

*************************************

-------


REAL ice beer

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 08:04:26 -0500

From: kopek@karloff.fstrf.org (kopek.edward)

Subject: REAL ice beer

07129308034200E               0016800000000


Date: 07 Dec 1993 08:03 EST

From: KOPEK.EDWARD (ACTG Data Mgmt Ctr, FSTRF, Amherst, NY)

Subject: REAL ice beer

cc: KOPEK.EDWARD

Subject: REAL ice beer

Attach:

     For anyone who wants to taste a _real_ ice beer, try EKU Kulminator

Urtyp Hell 28 from Germany (That's the entire name of the beer, honest!).

It is concentrated by freezing as are the North American "ice" beers.

But, the flavor (and alcohol) are so concentrated, I found this brew

to be undrinkable, unless diluted with some lighter-bodied beer. (I

never thought I'd say a beer was undrinkable, but try it yourself and

let me know how you feel about it.)

     You should be able to find this Kulminator without too much trouble;

our local supermarket carries it in the imported beer section.  I guess

it's actually a doppelbock in style, except for the freezing treatment.

Oh, and it is reputed to have the highest alcohol content of any commercial

beer.  (Maybe, maybe not).  I know it is around 12%, and it packs a wallop!

     -Ed Kopek, somewhere in Buffalo, N.Y.....

"Thank goodness this morning I woke up, instead of coming to!"

 .

------------------------------


Snakebite

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 13:38:42 +0000 (GMT)

From: ctmn@sabhal-mor-ostaig.ac.uk (Calum T. MacNeill)

Subject: Snakebite

Smolinsky spoke of his little Welsh B&B giving him a taste of

Snakebite and telling him of its illegal status.  I have to say

that this may be the case in England and Wales but us Scots are

smarter than them so we have our own legal system which does not

ban this tipple.  Either that or my local hasn't heard anything

to the contrary!  In fact it is quite common around here to order

a "snakebite black" which is the half lager, half cider mix but

with a dash of blackcurrant.  I have to admit though that neither

of these concoctions really appeal to me.

On a different note I wonder if anyone could help me with the

problem I have with my present batch of 'instant' homebrew.

It's one of these buy your tin of wort with everything included

except water and sugar.  The problem is that primary fermentation

went like a dream, but now that i've transfered it to my pressure

barrel for secondary fermentation nothing's happening, ie no pressure

build up what so ever.  I've tried adding extra yeast but to no

avail. Please help ASAP as this is supposed to be the main attraction

of a Christmas Eve party. HELP!!!!!!!!!

------------------------------


Brigand Ale/beer aging

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 09:08:45 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Brigand Ale/beer aging

Popped the cork on a bottle of this stuff last night.  Wow!  Vinous,

fruity, old-ale aroma, beautiful orange-gold color, creamy head,

strong!, hoppy in back.  Yum!

This is a "Special," a style designation that means almost nothing, as

far as I can tell.  With an OG of 1080, it's more-or-less in the

"strong, blond" category, I'd think.

Jackson says it's best 3-6 months from bottling.  Well, the cork on

this one said it was bottled 2-90.  Still good. There was

some crud on the bottom of the cork, which I carefully cleaned out of

the neck before drinking.  Also yeast "fluffies" in the bottom.

I don't know what this says about aging "on the yeast" versus

filtering, but it certainly indicates that a beer can last more than a

few months (which many of us already knew).  Although it smelt

somewhat aged, it didn't taste "old" in any negative sense.  I wonder

what a new bottle would taste like?

=S

------------------------------


Alpha Acid extraction

Date: Tue, 07 Dec 1993 10:38:29 -0400

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Alpha Acid extraction

 I have been playing with Rager's and Garetz' tables, the equation

from the hops faq and the like, and it occurs to me there is something

missing.  I seem to recall (from the spring issue of American Brewer, I

believe) that increasing the hop rate decreases utilization.  Thus, not

only is the utilization rate not linear with time and boil gravity, it is

also not linear with hopping rate.  Does anyone out there have a polynomial

for this?

____________

Ed Hitchcock ech@ac.dal.ca | Oxymoron:  Draft beer in bottles. |

Anatomy & Neurobiology  | Pleonasm:  Draft beer on tap.     |

Dalhousie University, Halifax |___________________________________|

------------------------------


Commercial Beer Matrix, Part 2/2

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 7:55:10 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Commercial Beer Matrix, Part 2/2

Sorry for the strangeness in the Commercial Beer Matrix, Part 1.  It seems

something between me and the HBD added a "- " to all of the long lines starting

with "----"s.  I don't get it, nor do I know how to prevent it from happening

to Part 2/2.  To clean it up, you'll have to remove the "- " in all those

lines.  Hope this is useful.

 -Part 2/2-

Boston Brewing Company, Boston, Massachusetts

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Beer Name   | Fermentables  |    Hops            |  Yeast  | O.G. | Comments

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Sam          | Klages /      | Tettnanger         | Lager   |1.052 |Flagship

 Adams       |  Harrington   |  Tettnang          |         |      |Product

  Boston     |   2-row       | Hallertauer        |         |      |

   Lager     | Crystal 60L   |  Mittelfrueh       |         |      |

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Sam          | Klages /      | English            | Ale     |1.056 |

 Adams       |  Harrington   |  Goldings          |         |      |

  Boston     |   2-row       | English            |         |      |

   Stock     | Crystal 60L   |  Fuggles           |         |      |

    Ale      |               | Saaz               |         |      |

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Sam          | Klages /      | Hallertauer        | Lager   |1.032 |

 Adams       |  Harrington   |  Mittelfrueh       |         |      |

  Boston     |   2-row       | Saaz               |         |      |

   Lightship | Crystal 60L   |                    |         |      |

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Sam          | Klages /      | Tettnanger         | Lager   |1.081 |First

 Adams       |  Harrington   |  Tettnang          |         |      |runnings

  Double     |   2-row       | Hallertauer        |         |      |only?

   Bock      | Crystal 60L   |  Mittelfrueh       |         |      |

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Sam          | Klages /      | Tettnanger         | Lager   |1.056 |

 Adams       |  Harrington   |  Tettnang          |         |      |

  Octoberfest|   2-row       | Hallertauer        |         |      |

             | Crystal 60L   |  Mittelfrueh       |         |      |

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Sam          | Klages /      | Tettnanger         | Lager   |Varies|Recipe

 Adams       |  Harrington   |  Tettnang          |         |      |Varies

  Winter     |   2-row       | Hallertauer        |         |      |Yearly

   Lager     | Crystal 60L   |  Mittelfrueh       |         |      |

             |               | English            |         |      |

             |               |  Goldings          |         |      |

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anderson Valley Brewery, Booneville, California

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Beer Name   | Fermentables  |    Hops            |  Yeast  | O.G. | Comments

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Poleeko      | Pale 2-row    | Eroica             | Ale     |      |

 Gold        | Crystal 40L   | Nugget             |         |      |

  Light      |               | Northern           |         |      |

   Ale       |               |  Brewer            |         |      |

             |               | Cascade            |         |      |

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Extra        | Pale 2-row    | Nugget             | Ale     |      |

 Special     | Crystal 40L   | Eroica             |         |      |

  Bitter     | Munich malt   | Northern           |         |      |

             |               |  Brewer            |         |      |

             |               | Tettnang           |         |      |

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

High         | Pale 2-row    | Northern           |         |      |

 Rollers     |  (60%)        |  Brewer            |         |      |

  Wheat      | Wheat malt    | Mount              |         |      |

   Beer      |  (40%)        |  Hood              |         |      |

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Boont        | Pale 2-row    | Eroica             | Ale     |      |

 Amber       | Crystal 40L   | Northern           |         |      |

  Ale        | Crystal 80L   |  Brewer            |         |      |

             |               | Willamette         |         |      |

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Centennial   | Pale 2-row    | Nugget             |         |      |

             | Crystal 40L   | Eroica             |         |      |

             | Crystal 80L   | Northern           |         |      |

             | Munich 40L    |  Brewer            |         |      |

             |               | Mount              |         |      |

             |               |  Hood              |         |      |

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Deep         | Pale 2-row    | Nugget             | Ale     |      |

 Enders      | Crystal 40L   | Northern           |         |      |

  Dark       | Crystal 80L   |  Brewer            |         |      |

   Porter    | Chocolate malt| Willamette         |         |      |

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Barney       | Pale 2-row    | Eroica             | Ale     |      |Flagship

 Flats       | Crystal 40L   | Northern           |         |      |Product

  Oatmeal    | Crystal 80L   |  Brewer            |         |      |

   Stout     | Munich malt   | Cascade            |         |      |

             | Chocolate malt|                    |         |      |

             | Wheat malt    |                    |         |      |

             | Roasted barley|                    |         |      |

             | Oats          |                    |         |      |

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anchor Brewing Company, San Francisco, California

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Beer Name   | Fermentables  |    Hops            |  Yeast  | O.G. | Comments

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

- -------------|---------------|--------------------|---------|------|----------

Anchor       | Pale 2-row    | Northern           | Lager   |1.050 |Flagship

 Steam       | Crystal       |  Brewer (US?)      |(Wyeast  |      |Product

             |               |                    | Calif.  |      |Fermented

             |               |                    | lager?) |      |at 55F

             |               |                    |         |      |Lagered

             |               |                    |         |      |at 50F

             |               |                    |         |      |33 IBU

             |               |                    |         |      |Kraeusened

             |               |                    |         |      |3.9% ABW

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Norm

------------------------------


Brain reaction to Snakebites???

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 10:04:59 -0500

From: demillo@juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Robert DeMillo )

Subject: Brain reaction to Snakebites???

> Date: 6 Dec 93 07:25:00 EST

> From: "DAVE SMOLINSKY" <SMOLINSKY@merlin.ndhm.gtegsc.com>

> Subject: Snakebite

>

> Hi all,

>

>Back in September I was in Penryhndeudraeth, Wales in the U.K...

>after hours I was chatting with the bartender and he told me about a

>concoction pubs used to make, but is now illegal.  It was called a *Snakebite*.

>It was a combination of equal parts of a lager and a cider (I forget what the

>lager was, possibly Tetley's[??], but the cider was Strongbow).  The reason it

>was outlawed was because of some chemical reaction that occured that had a not

>so nice effect on brain cells.  Anyone ever heard of this or know what it does

>to people's brains??

You've *got* to be kidding me. This sounds like an

"Old Wives' Tale" made into law.

"Snakebites" are pretty common over here in brewpubs (at

least in the Boston area), and are made from a strong lager

and a cider, as the poster states. Usually the lager is the

lager-of-the-house, and the cider is whatever is available.

(At least one brewpub in Boston makes its own cider: Boston

 Beer Works.)

If there is a chemical reaction that has a bad effect

on people's brain cells, I haven't KnOwitist iT, aNd

eYe drINCK a lT of snAkebytes....

- --

 - Rob DeMillo   | Internet:    demillo@juliet.ll.mit.edu

   MIT Lincoln Lab   | America Online: exgalileo@aol.com

   Weather Sensing - Group 43 | Reality:        617-981-2105 (office)

"Operation Goofy now in effect!"

 --- Tom Servo, "Gamera vs. Gaos," Mystery Science Theater 3000

------------------------------


CO2 buildup during lagering phase

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 10:55:30 EST

From: pacasey@lexmark.com (Patrick Casey)

Subject: CO2 buildup during lagering phase

Hi.  When I made my first and only lager this fall, I had a problem at

bottling time -- the beer foamed a lot when I filled the warm bottles

and later the beer had a way too high level of carbonation.  Here's

what I figure was going on:

At the lager fermentation temps, the CO2 produced by the yeast tended

to stay in solution rather than come out of solution like it does with

my ales at ale fermentation temperatures.  Since I bottled the beer

right out of the fridge after a 2 week primary and 2 week

secondary/lager phase, a lot of CO2 was still dissolved in the beer.

This time I think I'll bring the beer out of the fridge a day or two

before bottling to let most of the CO2 come out of solution.  Seems

like I read in Noonan's book that he says the CO2 can be brought out

of solution by siphoning the cold beer straight from the fridge into a

bottling bucket and then rocking the bucket to coax the CO2 out of the

beer.  What do you folks do?

Thanks in advance,

Patrick

Patrick A. Casey      pacasey@lexmark.com

------------------------------


Re: Snakebite

Date:     Tue, 7 Dec 1993 08:19 PST

From: BRUCE@ARVAX.Syntex.Com

Subject:  Re: Snakebite

I believe you Welsh friend was spinning you a bit of a yarn with that brain

cell story....  (I have always been faxcinated by Wales, BTW...)

However, snakebites are definitely EVIL!!  I have strayed to the DARK SIDE more

times than I care to (or can...) remember.  Many Pubs here in the bay area

have Dry Blackthorn Hard Cider on tap, and are very familiar with snakebites.

I was introduced to them at Jonathan's Roadhouse Pub in Tahoe City while on a

ski trip, and, ever since, I have been hooked.  If a place has the cider on tap,

I know automatically what I'm going to order.

They're a little sweet with some of the milder lagers, so I suggest trying it

with Pilsener Urquell or one of the more robust ales.  They're also pretty good

with Guiness, believe it or not!  I usually get them with the likes of

Red Hook or Bass.

With regard to the brain cell thing, I simply cannot believe that it was

outlawed for killing brain cells.  We all know what does that, and it has

nothing to do with a reaction between cider and beer...

These wonderful concoctions do, however have a tendency to sneak up on you

and bite your behind!  They are tasty, go down smooth, and have quite a kick.

I don't know what the alcohol content of the cider is, but I have ended up

more inebriated than I have intended on several occasions.

I suggest you search out a pub that has a dry cider on tap, and have them pull

a few snakebites for you.  But make sure you have a ride home if you're there

past closing like you were in Wales.

Enjoy!

------------------------------


mead address

Date:         Tue, 07 Dec 93 09:28:44 MST

From: Shirley Thompson <DUSTHOMP@idbsu.idbsu.edu>

Subject:      mead address

In response to Coyote, there is a mead digest at "mead-lovers-request@ekletex.c

om".  Any chance of getting your Loganberry mead recipe?

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's to it and to it again, if you don't do it, when you get to it,

you may never get to it to do it again...

 -----------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------

 Shirley Mae Thompson   | 1910 University Drive | Cren: DUSTHOMP@IDBSU

 User Service Center    | Boise, Idaho   83725  | Internet:

 Boise State University | (208) 385-4357        | dusthomp@idbsu.idbsu.edu

------------------------------


Image files

Date: Tue, 07 Dec 93 10:46:13 CST

From: Al Gaspar <gaspar@STL-17SIMA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: Image files

What do I need to look at the .jpg files in the images directory at the homebrew

archive site?  Can the be converted to other formats?  I'd love to look at some

of these.  Thanks for the help.

Cheers--

Al

- --

Al Gaspar       <gaspar@stl-17sima.army.mil>

USAMC SIMA, ATTN:  AMXSI-TTC, 1222 Spruce St., St. Louis, MO  63103-2834

COMMERCIAL:  (314) 331-4354  AUTOVON:  555-4354

relay1.uu.net!stl-17sima.army.mil!gaspar

------------------------------


dopplebock vs. barleywine

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 11:49:53 EST

From: Keith MacNeal  07-Dec-1993 1147 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: dopplebock vs. barleywine

Someone asked if dopplebocks are barleywines.  The answer is, no there are

differences between the two.  The most basic difference being that a dopplebock

is a lager and a barleywine is an ale.  Lagers are brewed and aged at lower

temperatures than ales.  Dopplebocks are a high alcohol version of lager

while barleywines are high alcohol versions of ale.  Barleywines are

generally higher in alcohol content than dopplebocks (a tripplebock might be

in barleywine range).

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


America OnLine

Date:     Tue, 7 Dec 93 12:29 EST

From: <GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

Subject:  America OnLine

While reading the brewing online text file I noticed that there was no

e-mail address given for the author, so I will post the info here.

There is a brewing forum on America OnLine in the "Wine and Dine"

section.  They keywork "Wine" will get you there.  We have about 10

message bases and coming soon will be an interactive database

containing HBD.

America OnLine currently costs $9.95 for the first four hours of the

month, and $3.95 for each additional hour.  It's at 2400 baud, but

going to 9600 with a month or two.  Internet FTP access, UseNet,

gopher, and archie access will all be coming before the end of the

year.  Internet E-Mail gateway already exists.

I would be happy to get a detailed description of the message bases if

anyone is interested..  I also have a text file conatining AOL

recipes.  I can u/l the file to the archive site on request.

------------------------------


Disappearing Bitterness

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 10:34:17 PST

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Disappearing Bitterness

Stephen Dillinger writes:

>The basic "problem" is that the perceived bitterness in my bottled beers seems

>to fade rather quickly (over a period of weeks).  A beer that is extremely

>bitter one week, is perfect the next, and a couple of weeks later the

>bitterness is very subdued.

I suspect what is happenning is that the iso-alpha acids (responsible for

the bitterness) are dropping out with the yeast (Yeast adsorbs iso-alphas).

Now if you say "Well my beer is clear when I perceive it to be bitter, so

the yeast has already dropped out," I would say that reasonably clear

appearing beer can still have lots of yeast suspended in it.

Try this experiment:  Shake up the beer to re-disperse the yeast and then

taste it.  Yes it will be yeasty, but I'll bet the bitterness returns.

Solutions?  Increase your hopping rate and let the beer settle a bit more

before bottling.  And/or use a more flocculent yeast strain.  I haven't

tried it yet myself, but the new Wyeast 1968 Special London Ale is

reported to be highly flocculent.

Mark

------------------------------


Extract, reply

Date: Tue,  7 Dec 93 10:03:20 PST

From: ELQ1%Maint%HBPP@cts27.comp.pge.com

Subject: Extract, reply

      In HBD#1289 Larry asks about getting all the extract from pouchs.

  I use _Trinity Malt Works_, It comes in 6 lb bags that I put in to a sink

  of hot water to soften. It really flows smooth and is easy to get all the

  good stuff. I stick the box and all on top of my wood stove when I start

  the 5 gal. of water to boil and turn the box several times and I get very

  liquid malt.

   Michael Barre,

     my  home address is;

                   6859 Eggert Rd.

                   Eureka, Ca. 95503   707-444-8659

       Ed Quier. ElQ1@MAINT@HBPP

------------------------------


Different Beers - Same Flavor

Date: Tue, 07 Dec 1993 11:18:00 -0800 (PST)

From: David Allison 225-5764 <ALLISON.DAVID@A1GW.GENE.COM>

Subject: Different Beers - Same Flavor

I am having a problem that perhaps you folks out there in HBD-land could

help me with.  In short (hopefully), my last two brews came out with the

same flavor, but I used different ingredients.

First brew -

8# US 2-row

1# US 6-row

1# rye flake

Hops: approx. 45 IBU (don't have varieties on hand)

Yeast: Wyeast - Calif. Lager Yeast

Second brew -

9# British 2-row

1# Crystal 40L

Hops: approx. 45 IBU (don't have varieties on hand)

Yeast: Wyeast - Chico Ale Yeast

In both brews, I used a 1400 mL yeast starter (very active) and

fermentation started in about 5 hours.  Previously, I had used only only

500 mL starters, with fermentation in 24 hours.

The problem is that both beers have a pronounced flavor component to them

- -- sort of a pear/banana-like aroma and taste (IMO, but it is hard for me

to judge).  At about 40 hours of fermentation, the second brew went from

having a medium-amber color with large aggregates circulating around to a

light-amber color with a lot of small particles circulating.  The

fermentation was very active during this entire period.

Is this characteristic of these yeasts or did something happen to the yeast

during fermentation?  Any ideas?  If I could tell the difference between

phenols, esters, aldehydes, ketones, long-chain alcohols, etc. - I guess I

could troubleshoot the problem better.  But my beer judging needs to

improved.  (another story)  -- BTW, the beers are very drinkable, I just

wasn't looking for that flavor.  Thanks.

David

(allison2@gene.com)

------------------------------


Local Chicago Shops

Date:    Tue, 07 Dec 93 14:15 CST

From: "Peter Brauer 312/915-6157"                 <$W$PR42%LUCCPUA.BITNET@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject: Local Chicago Shops

Is there a list out there anywhere of Chicago areas supply houses?

I only know about my brewmaster, "Brewin' Beer" out by O'Hare.  I

like his shop but am always willing to look at something new.  Thanks.

 .

Also, I am sure that I already missed this being new to this net, but

has anyone tried "Clear Beer?"  My family in Minnesota sent me samples

when I told them  I was making my own because they thought it was neat.

I can't even give this junk away.  One would think that they would assum

e that I only liked something with flavor, body, taste, etc. but there

is no accounting for family.  While I can't in good concience throw it

away (there are people in China going to bed sober after all) but i

can't stomach the junk.  Anyone else tried it?  Are they still making

it or did this particular brewery suffer a timely fire?

------------------------------


Is Stoelting making a magic chiller?

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 13:51:54 PST

From: tpm@wdl.loral.com (Tim P McNerney)

Subject: Is Stoelting making a magic chiller?

I got this flyer from Stoelting which makes the following claims for its

wort chiller:

Chills 5 gallons of wort from 210F to 56F in 15 minutes at .33 GPM.

So basically, 5 gallons of water (.33 * 15) to chill 5 gallons of wort from

210F to 56F.  It seems to me that if you were able to obtain perfect heat

transfer and the water you were using was 32F, the best you could hope to

get is 121F.

Am I missing something here?  Here is the rest of the info:

Wort chiller w/ stainless steel housing.  Counterflow type.  Chill rate:

5 gal. of wort from 210F to 56F in 15 minutes at .33 GPM. 3/8" ID stainless

steel wort line wrapped with copper fins.  Finned tube assembly centered in

3/4" cold water copper line.  8.5" high x 11.25" diameter.

________________________________

- --Tim McNerney

- --Loral Western Development Labs

- --(408) 473-4748

- --tpm@wdl.loral.com

------------------------------


Unsolicited Mail Order Catalogue

Date: Tue, 07 Dec 1993 12:22:23 EST

From: "Mark T. Berard" <mtberard@dow.com>

Subject: Unsolicited Mail Order Catalogue

Hello HBDer's,

 I have a digest (etiquette?) question.  Today I received at work

a mail order homebrew supply catalogue.  I don't recall asking anyone to

send this to me, and if I had, I'm sure I would have asked them to send it

to my home address.  While I appreciate getting this sort of thing, I would

want to get it at home!

 It would appear that they pulled my address from my sig from a

couple of recent postings to HBD.  While I consider this improper, I'm not

sure if it is considered a breech of NET etiquette.  I would have prefered

e-mail asking if I wanted the catalogue.  By including my snail mail address

in my sig, am I asking for this sort of thing?  Could some NET "Miss Manners"

please clue me in to proper behavior in this regard?

Until then, just call me:

Mark "no sig" B.

------------------------------


Noche Buena

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 17:00:10 -0600

From: ccamley@mmm.com (Chris Amley - 3M Telecommunications)

Subject: Noche Buena

In HBD 1289 Dr. Fix asks for a polite way to get across the fact that the

"new" Noche Buena differs from the old in alcohol, color, and bitterness.

It sounds to me like it's not the same beer, and that's what SW Brewing News

should  say: it's not the same beer.   Any published note on this beer should

also raise the question: is it ethical to call  the new beer by the old name?

Of course, the same note should point out the facts of the new beer.

NB use to be available in Southern California around the end of the year and

it seems a real shame that some people will be misled by this practice,

especially given the rarity of Vienna-style brews.

Chris

------------------------------


dilution

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 22:01:20 CST

From: piatz@tamarack.cray.com (Steve Piatz)

Subject: dilution

In HBD 1291 Spencer.W.Thomas writes:

>

> Not sure what you want.  You mean "what happens if I add 1 gallon of

> water to 4 gallons of 1.040 wort?"  Almost right formula:

>   1.040 wort = 40 "points/gallon" = 160 "points" in 4 gallons

>   160 points/5 gallons = 32 points/gallon = 1.032 wort

>

> To do it right, you first convert from gravity to degrees Plato.  Fix

> posted a cubic approximation to the tables recently. This gives you

> %sugar (by weight as sucrose) (1 deg Plato = 1% sugar w/w).  Multiply

> by the mass of the solution (4 gallons * ???lbs/gal * 1.040) to get

> the mass of sugar.  Add your gallon of water, and compute the mass

> of the new solution (original mass + mass of 1 gallon of water (don't

> forget to temperature compensate)).  Then compute the percentage of

> sugar in the new solution (100 * original sugar mass / solution mass).

> Finally, convert back to S.G. using the Plato table (or formula).

>

> A close approximation to deg Plato is to divide the "points" by 4.

> But if you use that, you might as well use the simple method in the

> first paragraph.

>

> I haven't compared this to Steve Piatz's table, but his code looks

> like my first method.

>

To incorporate Spencer's concern for using the more accurate degrees Plato

let's use the following:

 phys_con = pounds/gallon of water

 v = original volume of wort

 og = original specific gravity

 dilution = percent of original volume added as water

Assume that the wort and the dilution water are both at the same

temperature.

 percent_sugar = sg2plato(og)

 mass_sugar = percent_sugar * v * phys_con * og

 original_mass = v * phys_con * og

 new_mass = original_mass + (dilution * v * phys_con)

 new_percent_sugar = mass_sugar / new_mass

Which is:

        (percent_sugar * v * phys_con * og)

    _____________________________________________

    (v * phys_con * og + dilution * v * phys_con)

Which simplifies to:

  = (percent_sugar * og) / (og + dilution)

Which gives:

 fg = plato2sg((percent_sugar * og) / (og + dilution))

After doing all this the resulting table is identical to the more

simplistic approach.  The program follows, the #if SIMPLE determines

which approach to use.

#include <stdio.h>

#define NUM_PERCENT 10  /* number of columns */

#define NUM_GRAVITY 30  /* number of rows */

#define PERCENT_STEP 0.05 /* percentage per column */

#define GRAVITY_STEP 0.005 /* gravity per row */

#define INITIAL_GRAVITY 1.010 /* gravity for first row */

#define INITIAL_PERCENT PERCENT_STEP /* percentage for first column */

double

sg2plato (sg)

double sg;

[

    return 259.0 - (259.0 / sg);

]

double

plato2sg(p)

double p;

[

    return -259.0 / (p - 259.0);

]

main ()

[

 int i;

 int j;

 double og, fg;

 double dilution;

 printf (" |       Dilution By/n");

 printf ("  O.G. | ");

 for (j = 0; j < NUM_PERCENT; j++)

     printf ("  %3.0f%% ", 100.0 * PERCENT_STEP * (1 + j));

 printf ("/n");

 printf ("-------|-");

 for (j = 0; j < NUM_PERCENT; j++) printf ("-------");

 printf ("/n");

 og = INITIAL_GRAVITY - GRAVITY_STEP;

 for (i = 0; i < NUM_GRAVITY; i++) [

  og += GRAVITY_STEP;

  printf ("%6.3f | ", og);

  dilution = INITIAL_PERCENT - PERCENT_STEP;

  for (j = 0; j < NUM_PERCENT; j++) [

   dilution += PERCENT_STEP;

#if SIMPLE

   fg = (og + dilution) / (1.0 + dilution);

#else

   fg = plato2sg(sg2plato(og) * og / (og + dilution));

#endif

   printf ("%6.3f ", fg);

  ]

  printf ("/n");

 ]

 exit ();

]

Steve Piatz   Cray Research, Inc.

steve.piatz@cray.com  655F Lone Oak Drive

612-683-5268   Eagan, MN 55121

------------------------------


hop utilization/Barleywine aging/HopGoRound/hop bags/fading bitterness

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 14:57 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: hop utilization/Barleywine aging/HopGoRound/hop bags/fading bitterness

Robert writes:

>The unpredictability of results when hopping may be due more to the

>isomerization of the hops than hop utilization.

Yes, but isomerization is one of the many factors that collectively

combine to result in a number we call "hop utilization."  I disagree that

it is unpredictable... I feel that for a given system, one can determine

the hop utilization as a function of boil time and other factors.  I say

"for a given system" because among other things, kettle geometry, whether

or not you use a hop bag, and heat source intensity (boil vigor) affect

hop utilization.  I don't know how much each of these factors, or which

ones of them are significant, but for a given system you can figure out

a set of formulas that will give you predictable bittering.

>Isomerization is an altering

>of the molecular structure of the substance in hops that imparts bitterness

>to beer.  It is the isomerized molecules that give the bitterness.  Only a

>fraction of the hops are isomerized during the boil (around 25% max) and

>the degree of isomerization is directly proportional to the length of time the

>hops are in the boil.  Maximum isomerization occurs at around 45 min. of

>exposure to the boil.  After one hour isomerization actually begins to reverse!

>Perhaps this explains why Andy's 90 min. boil was not as bitter as expected.

Could you send me your reference for this... I'd like to read more about it.

I've read many articles that contradict this assertion.  Thanks.

>So, actual IBU's can not be calculated without taking %Isomerization into

>account.  Since learning this information from the master brewer at a local

>contract brewery, my beers have been much more predictable in terms of

>bitterness and better overall.  I believe this is because I now brew to a

>specific target bitterness (based on style).

What all the formulas (the ones Robert posted as well as Ragers, etc.)

calculate are an approximation for the IBUs in the finished product, not

really what gets into the wort.  Here's an excerpt from a talk by Bob Foster

(Coors Brewing Co) talk at the Siebel Institute of Technology:

                      PROCESS UTILIZATION OF ALPHA ACIDS

Formula                   %U = IBU(ppm)/AA added(ppm) * 100

                          ----------------------------------

Kettle Utilization: (EG.) %U = 45IBU(ppm)/92.4 AA added(ppm) * 100

                          %U = (0.4870) * 100 = 48.7%

Fermenter Drop      (EG.) %U = 25IBU(ppm)/92.4 AA added(ppm) * 100

RUH Drop:                 %U = (0.2706) * 100 = 27.1%

Lager Drop:         (EG.) %U = 23.5IBU(ppm)/92.4 AA added(ppm) * 100

                          %U = (0.2543) * 100 = 23.4%

Blending (30% H2O): (EG.) 23.5IBU * 0.70 = 16.5 IBU

                          %U = 16.5 IBU(ppm)/92.4 AA added(ppm) * 100

                          %U = (0.1786) * 100 = 17.9%

Overall Utilization       16.5IBU - 1.0 IBU loss = 15.5IBU

(packaged beer):          %U = 15.5 IBU(ppm)/92.4 AA added(ppm) * 100

                          %U = (0.1678) * 100 = 16.8%

Confusing?  Yes, I agree, and I'm not sure if the numbers were actuals

(measured) or if they were just for example's sake, so we can only take

this information with a grain of salt.  However, if we assume that the

numbers are in the ballpark for a real system (granted, Coors' 650bbl

system), then there are a lot more significant factors than just

percent isomerization.

*************

Jim writes:

>> yeast, or champagne/wine yeasts.  Aged 6 months to a year.

>Well, Bigfoot is not aged like this, and I dont age mine either.  It all

>depends on your fermentation, if you properly attenuate the beer, the

>aging time is greatly reduced.  If you bottle at 1.030, it will need

>considerable time to age, but may never be as good as one bottled at 1.020.

>My latest is great at brew day + 10 weeks, or keg day + 8 weeks.  It was

>darn good at 3 weeks.

I have wondered about this.  I bought a sixpack of Bigfoot back in `91

from a store that is notorious for poor handling.  The bottlecap said 1990.

I tried one immediately and it was harsh and undrinkable.  Very unpleasant.

It tasted like it was very highly alcoholic but not a smooth, warming ethyl

alcohol.  Knowing that high-alchol beers often require aging (Samiclaus

is aged 1 year before distribution), I put the beer aside in a cool

crawlspace and forgot about it.  Six months later, I tried another bottle --

better, but still harsh.  A year after I bought it, I finally tried the

third bottle: nectar!  The harshness smoothed out wonderfully and it had

a very interesting complexity of estery aromas and flavors over a perfectly

balanced malt/bitterness/alcohol base.  I have two bottles left right now,

and I regret that I did not buy more.

When the 1992 Bigfoot came out, I bought a case, this time from a better

store.  I tried a bottle immediately, expecting the harshness, but it

was not there!  I know that SN has been changing their procedures (and maybe

also their recipes) over the years and perhaps they have reduced the OG

or the fermentation temperature or something.  The beer seemed more alcoholic

than the 1990 version, but it was all the smooth, warming ethanol flavor.

Comments?

**************

Norm writes:

>Until something big comes along to straighten out the mess, I'll use Rager's

>utilization numbers and formula.  Why?  Because it is very widely used in the

>homebrew community, making for a good point of reference.  If someone tells me

>a beer has 37 IBU, and I know (maybe I have to assume) they are using Rager's

>numbers, I have a reference point to use in trying to duplicate it.  Other

>adjustments/utilization tables may be more accurate, but the comparisons are

>what's important to me.

I tend to agree.  I recently bought "Dr. Bob Technical's Hop-Go-Round" a

hop version of the Wheel of Beer.  I used it last night to compare my

Rager-derived numbers with the Hop-Go-Round.  For a 60 minute boil in a

1081 wort, they were almost identical, but for a 15 minute boil the H-G-R

said 6 IBU where my Rager-derived numbers said 3 IBU!  I think that the

H-G-R is much too optimistic at the lower end of the utilization curve.

I plan to tape my own scale over the existing utilization scale on the

back of the H-G-R.

********

Further, Norm writes:

>I have had similar problems, Dion.  My course of corrective action:  use whole

>hops whenever possible and always put the hops in a hop bag.  Pellets are

>terrible for this problem, and the hop bag will help even with pellets.  I

>would like to hear how others deal with clogging in the kettle.

I add 10% to Rager's numbers when I use a hop bag (which is always).

***********

Steve writes:

>The basic "problem" is that the perceived bitterness in my bottled beers seems

>to fade rather quickly (over a period of weeks).  A beer that is extremely

>bitter one week, is perfect the next, and a couple of weeks later the

>bitterness is very subdued.

Anytime someone reports something hop-related is good for a while and then

turns bad after a while in the bottle, I suspect oxygen is the culprit.

I'm not sure exactly how or why, but I would recommend that you evaluate

your processes and see if you may be introducing oxygen while the wort

is still hot.  Another thing is that perhaps it is not bitterness that you

are perceiving.  Perhaps it is tannin astringency which *does* go away

after a while.  Perhaps you are extracting a lot of tannins from your

grain and you are underhopping -- while the tannin astringency is still there,

the beer tastes rather balanced -- when it fades, the beer tastes too malty.

Could this be the problem?

Al.

------------------------------


KRUSH-OFF

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 93 00:16 CST

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: KRUSH-OFF

 >From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

 >Subject: Wort Processor Krush-Off:  Part II

 >1)  The Knurly GlattMill - Powered by a normal household drill, this mill

 crushed the malt in an impressive 26 sec., nearly as fast as the Schmidling

 MaltMill (21 sec) in our original Krush-Off.

 Clearly, a mill that is more than twice as large should demonstrate a

 significantly higher throughput at a given rpm than what you have described.

 This test is only valid if they are both run at exactly the same speed and no

 mention of the RPM was made.

 It should further be noted that the MM as shipped is set up for hand cranking

 and the grain guides provide a restricted flow to assure ease of cranking

 with the very large rollers.  To miximize throughput when motorized, the

 grain guides can be trimmed to provide a larger hole that will feed the grain

 as fast as the 10" rollers will take them.

 I have a microbrewery customer that reports a throughput of 17 lbs per minute

 on his MALTMILL.  That's 3.5 secs per lb, roughly 4 times the rate reported

 for the Glatt.

 >From: hollen@megatek.com (Dion Hollenbeck)

 >Subject: Wort boiler screen

 > The end of the nipple is covered with a coarse screen.  I have no idea why

 it did not plug up the first two times, but did this time.

 You were lucky.  If the screen is only as large as the diameter or the

 nipple, all it takes is one petal of a hop flower to clog it.

 >Here are my questions.  If you are using a Chore Girl or an

 EasyMasher, since both of them are just screens, why do they not plug

 up?

 The EM screen is a 6" x 3/8" cylinder and needs far less luck to remain

 clear.

 js

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1292, 12/08/93

*************************************

-------


A newcomers introduction. Danish brewing

Date:         Wed, 8 Dec 1993 10:07:07 MET

From: "HANSEN M"  <0031@et.aarhus.ih.dk>

Subject:      A newcomers introduction. Danish brewing

I have been brewing beer for the last 6-7 years but I am new to HBD

and I sure like what I see !

I am also one of the few Danish home brewers that brew the

'do it all yourself' beer. The normal procedure in this country is

to buy a package that contains all the material you need. But this brew

is based on dry yeast and malt-extract which both contribute to the

reduction of the taste.

I have read HBD #1281 - #1284, and i have got the feeling that most of

you are from America, and that you do not brew your beer the same

way that we do in Denmark.

So first I am going to give you a description of the material and the

procedures of the Danish way of doing these things. I apologise for my

humble English.

We are two students at The Department of Electronics at The

Engineering College of Aarhus, in the middle of Denmark, that have

build our own brewery in his cellar. In this cellar we brew the kind of

beer that is very related to the beer from Pilsen (Czechoslovakia) and

Bayern (Germany). The pilsner is ( as you might know ) most commonly

a relative light beer, but is also brewed in more dark sorts, a little like

the well-known porter. I guess you all know the Danish Carlsberg

Pilsner, which is a very light pilsner. (too light for me that is).

The ingredients we use is 4-5 different kinds of malt, hops, Bog myrtle

( Myrica ), sugar, salt and yeast.

The malt is a substance like syrup with a very fine taste. The sorts that

we can obtain are :

Light Malt for the light flavoured beer.

Dark Malt for the more dark but not necessarily strong beer.

Gold Malt for the semidark and strong beer. This malt is boiled with

    hops in it.

Porter Malt for the very dark and porter-like beer

Barley syrup which i very similar to the light malt but with a little

    different flavour. Unfortunately a rare malt.

These different types of malt is of course used in all kinds of

compounds. They are all bought in 15 kg cans for about $20-$25.

Bog myrtle gives a bitter taste a little like hops, but still different.

Rarely used, or in very small amounts.

The yeast is a liquid yeast for bottom fermentation (Saccharomyes

Carlsbergensis) that we simply pick up at the nearest brewery

according to an ancient Danish rule which says: 'Anyone are

entitled to pick up free yeast for his own personal use at any brewery'.

Use of this yeast makes it necessary to have plenty of cool storage

room for both the yeasting and maturing of the beer, which both must

take place in 5-7 Celsiusdeg. (40-45 F.).

Our solution to this are two modified freezers (new thermostat), one 500

liters and one 300 liters. This gives us a total storing capacity of

aprox. 200-260 liters in the form of 5 old fashioned 40 liters milk cans,

and up to 3 20 liters beer kegs (The type that the commercial breweries

uses).

This capacity gives us, if fully utilized, aprox. 40 liters every 10th

day.

The procedure is this :

The first thing to do, is to make 30-35 liters of boiling water. This is

done in an old milkcan, enhanced with 2 electrical heaters. Meanwhile

the malt, hops, sugar and other spices are weighed out. When the

water boils, the spices are added and carefully stirred. Then,

depending an the malt used, 1 - 1.5 hours must past with frequently

stirring. Light malt must boil longer than darker sorts, to develop the

fine taste it is known for. After the boiling, the wort must be cooled of.

For this purpose we have purchased an old milk cooler which run on

cold water only. This device can cool 40 liters of boiling water to aprox.

5 - 10 Celsiusdeg. in 15 minutes. Then the yeast ( which is reused

several times ) is added ( 0.5 liter ) and the wort is aired up/ventilated (

I don't know the right expression ) by pouring it back and forth a couple

of times. Finally the milkcan's opening is covered by a sterile bathing

cap (the hospital kind), and placed in the freezer (fridge) for yeasting.

Wait, wait, wait for at least 3 weeks.

Then, after the yeasting the beer is gently transported to another

milkcan for maturing ( to avoid the sediment), and stored at the same

temperature of course. This milkcan is closed with a pressursave lid,

and CO2 is added to about 1.5 atm (22 psi). This pressure is

maintained throughout the next 3 weeks (at least). Mostly this is done

by adding CO2 once every 2nd or 3rd day during the first 1 or 2 weeks.

After this maturing the beer is drinkable, but before we drink serious

quantities we remove the pressure from the can, and transport the beer

gently to two beer kegs which we pressurize and store for 5 - 10 days

so that the beer can absorb the right quantity of CO2. After this the beer

is finally a fine, clear and delicate tasting draught beer. The serving is

done from a small refrigerator with a CO2 bottle and a suitable placed

tap. We also posses a transportable box with CO2 and a tap, for feasts

and its like.

This procedure is only the most commonly for unproblematic beer, and

will of course be adjusted for beer with lack of behaviour.

What you have just read is only a superficial description of the

methods and materials we use. I will bee happy to go into details if

anyone would be interested.

Second, it seems to me that most of the stuff you guys write to HBD

looks a little like a closed discussion. So it is very difficult for me to

gain an insight into the methods you use. Therefore I would be very

interested in some basic information about the way that you guys brew

your beer, thank you. ( Some kind of dialouge could be very interesting)

If any of you would want to reply, it might take a couple of days before

I will be able to get back to you, simply because I am looking right into

to heavy examinations.

Do feel free to mail me directly.

Merry Christmas, Morten Hansen

------------------------------


Snakebite2

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1993 09:21:04 +0000 (GMT)

From: ctmn@sabhal-mor-ostaig.ac.uk (Calum T. MacNeill)

Subject: Snakebite2

After further investigation ie I spoke to an ex-barmaid! the

situation regarding the illegality of snakebite in the U.K

does cover the whole of the country and not just England & Wales

as I suggested.

So why can I get it in my local?

Apparently it is O.K to sell it with a dash of blackcurrant

which I would refer to as "snakebite black" but was put

to rights on this matter as it is more commonly known as

Diesel and taken alongside a bottle of Holsten Pils!!!

Just had to clear up my previous errors.

Calum MacNeill

------------------------------


Re: Snakebite

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1993 09:51:21 +0000 (GMT)

From: "J.Waghorn" <ts0jwa@orac.sunderland.ac.uk>

Subject: Re: Snakebite

Well I live in England, work behind a bar & as far as the licensing

law stands, Snakebite is not illegal, it may be frowned upon, and a

friend of mine did say he wasn't able to get it in Merseyside due to

a local byelaw....... (Truth or otherwise of this claim unverified)

And anyway if Snakebite was illegal, would it not also be illegal to

sell someone a half pint of lager & a half pint of cider or any

possible way for them to make a Snakebite, because by selling them I

would be an accessory to the "crime"

Not that any of this bothers me at all as I don't count lager as a

drink & when I drink cider I drink cider - not polluted with any of

this other BS, when I drink beer, I drink gallons (hic)

- --

                               .       .

                              / `.   .' /

                      .---.  <    > <    >  .---.

                      |    /  / - ~ ~ - /  /    |

                       ~-..-~             ~-..-~

                   /~~~/.'                    `./~~~/

         . ''''.    /__/                        /__/

       .'  O    /     /               /       /  /

      (_____,    `._.'               |         ]  //~~~/

       `----.          /       ]     |        /    /__/

             `-.      |       /      |       /      `. ,~~|

                 ~-.__|      /_ - ~ ^|      /- _      `..-'   f: f:

                      |     /        |     /     ~-.     `-. _||_||_

                      |_____|        |_____|         ~ - . _ _ _ _ _>

------------------------------


The Beer Hunter

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1993 07:53:00 -0500

From: paul.beard@gatekeeper.mis.tridom.com (Paul Beard)

Subject: The Beer Hunter

There was some talk on alt.beer or rec.craft.brewing about Micheal

Jackson's series returning to PBS (KQED/SF). I hope everyone knows you can

buy the series on 2 cassettes and watch whenever you like. A colleague and

fellow brewer graciously loaned them to me; they are available from

Discovery, but I dunno how much they are.

Why wait for your local PBS affiliate to get hip?

Paul Beard

AT&T Tridom, 840 Franklin Court, Marietta, GA 30067

404 514-3798 * FAX: 404 429-5419 * tridom!paul.beard/beardp@tridom.com

------------------------------


Different Beers -Same Flavor/ No Carbination (was Snakebite)

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 93 08:45:52 EST

From: oswald@columbia.sparta.com (Don Oswald)

Subject: Different Beers -Same Flavor/ No Carbination (was Snakebite)

ctmn@sabhal-mor-ostaig.ac.uk writes about problems with

gettin a beer to carbinate. Potential causes:

 inperfect seal on the barrell

 dead yeast - (I did this once -left steralization

    solution in the bottle)

 No food for the yeast -- You post did not mention how much

  priming suger you used about a cup is usually

   enough for a 5 gallon batch

And a Suggestion for the next batch:  (assuming you did what I did

with myfirst batchs of "instant homebrew- makes 5 gallons just add

suger and water")Use the exact same kit and procedures, except

substitute amber Dry Malt Extact for the corn suger.  The

resulting beer will have a less cidery taste, more body.

ALLISON.DAVID@A1GW.GENE.COM writes

> In short (hopefully), my last two brews came out with the

>same flavor, but I used different ingredients.

The recipies are both for rather mild beers that would

show the effects of processing   errors or contamination.

 Potential efffects and causes:

 Contaimiination:  The taste could be the hallmark of a

wiild yeast that has taken up residence at your address.

If this is the case, either be very carefull with stearilization

or breew styles which can live with the taste.

 Running Hot: Even a good yeast will produce off flavors

if picthed to hot, or fremented at to hot a temperature.  The

lager yeast esp.

------------------------------


recipe for Amstel light

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 93 08:58:00 EST

From: taylor@e5sf.hweng.syr.ge.com (taylor)

Subject: recipe for Amstel light

Does anyone out there have an extract recipe for Amstel Light.  This is the only

beer my wife will drink for some reason.  I'd like to see if I can make

something close.  I will also take ideas using extracts and all grain recipes

if anyone has one.  What hop to use?, DME?, grain? etc... thanks Todd....

------------------------------


HopTech Fruit Extracts

Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1993 09:22:00 EST

From: Matthew Evans <matt@cadif.cornell.edu>

Subject: HopTech Fruit Extracts

I just got the catalog today from a company

called HopTech.  Mostly they just sell hops,

but they did have some concentrated fruit

extracts.  They are sold in four ounce bottles

and contain enough "stuff" to make about 15

gallons of fruit beer.  They don't have any

sugars in them, so you add them to the beer

right before bottling.  Anyone ever heard of

this stuff or tried it yet.  It is a lot

cheaper than the real fruit itself, so it would

be a good cost savings, but the question is,

will it be good to taste?

------------------------------


Re: Is Stoelting making a magic chiller?

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1993 10:02:27 -0500

From: pgs@thillana.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)

Subject: Re: Is Stoelting making a magic chiller?

   Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 13:51:54 PST

   From: tpm@wdl.loral.com (Tim P McNerney)

   I got this flyer from Stoelting which makes the following claims for its

   wort chiller:

   Chills 5 gallons of wort from 210F to 56F in 15 minutes at .33 GPM.

     ...

   Am I missing something here?  Here is the rest of the info:

     ...

The wording is ambiguous, and I presume that what they meant was that

the wort flows at .33 GPM.  The coolant is another matter!

 -P.

------------------------------


Pale Ale

Date:  Wed, 8 Dec 1993 07:54:59 PST

From: John_D._Sullivan.wbst311@xerox.com

Subject: Pale Ale

Hi All,

 I'm an all-grainer who likes a BIG tasting pale ale, not necessarily in

OG or alcohol level, but very malty and very hoppy. Of course the hoppy part is

easy, and  some yeasts have helped with the malty part. I use M&F pale 2-row

and mash at around 155degF. My idea is to add 1/4 or 1/2 lb pale at mash out,

to add flavor. What would be the pros and cons of this? Or is there something

else I haven't considered?

Thanks much,

  John

  Rochester, NY

------------------------------


Dream Tun

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 93 8:57:52 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Dream Tun

I am a happy all-grain brewer, planning my 21st batch (of which about half have

been all-grain) for the upcoming holidays.  My grain-mill is a home-made roller

mill which should suit my needs forever.  My boiler is a very nice, propane

fired (converted NG water heater element), 10 gallon cream can from an old

dairy.  I have a hop-back, and nice CF chiller to boot.  I ferment happily in

carboys (7g & 5g).

The component I've left out is obviously the mash/lauter tun.  It is a

Rubbermaid 48 quart cooler with copper pipe manifold.  It does what is intended

for it to do, which is to serve well as an insulated single temperature

infustion mash and lautering vessel.  What it does not do, of course, is step

mashes, which would be nice, nor does it offer any easy way to add heat if I

miss my strike temperature for any reason.  Also, it will eventually warp

enough from the heat that I'll need to replace it (it is showing signs of this,

after many batches).

Kettle mash, you say?  I don't want to lose so much heat during mashing that I

have to attend the thing constantly; the best thing about mashing is that I

can go do other things (such as go to work for a half day, as was mentioned

here a few weeks ago).  Also, I have had a lot of trouble with temperature

overshoot when kettle mashing.  I prefer an insulated tun for the non-

attendence feature during a normal infusion mash.  If I am going to do a step

mash or something different, then I certainly wouldn't mind working it.

So, my question is this: if you were able to design the ideal mash/lauter tun

system, for homebrewing applications, how would you do it?  I'd like to do up

to 10 gallon batches, but more capacity than that is not necessary.  Assume

that cost is a factor (always minimize it), but that I have an unlimited

resource in terms of welding, pipe bending, etc. (almost true).  I have propane

in my brewery/garage, 110V (but no 220V), and soon will have hot and cold

running water.  I'm looking for something I can use for a lifetime, that is

versatile, and most of all: neat!

Should I convert a SS half-barrel keg by insulating it and adding a propane

burner?  Steam jacket?  Hot water jacket?  RIMS?  uP controlled (I think this

is overkill, personally)?  How about an insulated vessel with a steam bubbler?

Or a removable radiator (reverse chiller)?

One more thing, how about a sparge water vessel?  I currently use my boiler,

but I have to transfer the water to a bucket, so that I can free up the boiler

for the first runnings.  This is one reason I batch sparge most of the time.

The idea of mixing the grain and strike water as they fall into the tun

(obviating the need for "dough-in") also intrigues me.

I ask this to generate some discussion and maybe something good will come out

of it for many HBD tinkerers.  I'd like to hear what works well for you, but

also what you only dream of making (maybe I'll make it!).  As always, we thank

you for your support.

Norm

------------------------------


re: REAL ice beer

Date: Wed Dec  8 07:35:01 1993

From: darrylri@microsoft.com

Subject: re: REAL ice beer

KOPEK.EDWARD (ACTG Data Mgmt Ctr, FSTRF, Amherst, NY) writes:

>      For anyone who wants to taste a _real_ ice beer, try EKU Kulminator

> Urtyp Hell 28 from Germany (That's the entire name of the beer, honest!).

> It is concentrated by freezing as are the North American "ice" beers.

EKU 28 is not, in fact, concentrated by freeze distillation.  (See

Michael Jackson's "New World Guide to Beer", p. 54.)  It is

brewed from a wort that does achieve at least 28 degrees Plato

(about sg 1.112).

The only true eisbock I'm aware of in Germany is made by the Kulmbacher

Reichelbraeu brewery, a smaller neighbor of EKU's.  Their Bayrische

G'frorns (frozen Bavarian) beer has a calculated OG of 24 degrees

Plato, and the beer is far more drinkable (if that is the right

word) than EKU 28.

The story is that a tank of beer was accidently left out in the

freezing weather and that when opened, this nectar flowed out.

The Niagara Brewery in Canada produces an eisbock with some regularity.

It's an interesting beer, although it makes no attempt to scale the

gravity or alcoholic heights, coming with a mere 8% alcohol by volume.

It tends to have an estery background, which is probably emphasized

by the concentrating process.  Even so, it has a lager character to

it and I don't think many judges would liken it to a barleywine.

> Oh, and it is reputed to have the highest alcohol content of any commercial

> beer.  (Maybe, maybe not).  I know it is around 12%, and it packs a wallop!

No;  EKU 28 has the highest OG of any regularly available beer.  But

Hurlimann's Samichlaus, brewed from a slightly lower OG, is a bit more

fermentable and so has a higher alcoholic result (and a more drinkable

product, IMHO).  This, in spite of the boastful claims on the EKU 28

label ("Das starkste Bier der Welt").

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------


How can I access the FAQ files in beer-l via listserv?

Date:         Wed, 8 Dec 93  11:16:27 EST

From: <ESF01%ALBNYDH2.bitnet@UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU>

Subject:      How can I access the FAQ files in beer-l via listserv?

Hello Homebrew Aficionado's,

   My first brew is chugging away merrily - the CO2 vapors coming out of

my blow off tube smell heavenly.

   I have read Papazian's, "The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing", from

cover to cover and would like now to review the FAQ files for beer-l on

listserv or anonomous ftp somewhere.  I've sent INDEX LISTSERV to

LISTSERV@UA1VM.BITNET to get a list of FILELIST but BEER-L doesn't seem to

be on the master list.

    Can someone either e-mail me directly or I you feel the info would

benefit all, email the list with information on how one can obtain the

previous postings from BEER-L.

TIA :*) [The * is my red nose from drinking too much of homebrew ...

Ed F.

___________

* Edward S. Frommer            ESF01@albnydh2.bitnet         *

* NYS Health Dept.  Bureau of Production Systems Maintenance *

* Vital Records & Vital Statistics Networking Systems        *

* 733 Broadway  Albany, NY 12237-0001   Phone: (518)474-5245 *

------------------------------


Pitching Rates

Date:         Wed, 08 Dec 93 10:59:01 EST

From: John Eustace <3JCE1@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>

Subject:      Pitching Rates

Hi all,

I have a question I'd like to ask concerning pitch rates for lagers.  I've

recently been given the opportunity to help out my local brewpub.  Seems they

have been using dried yeasts for quite some time now, and the new brewmaster

would like to switch over to liquid yeasts.  He has asked me to help him in

this endeavour.  I have a fair bit of experience at culturing yeast for my own

5 gallon batches, but now we're talking about pitching to 180 gallons.

Using the formula for lager pitching in the yeast faq, I have determined that

I need to pitch .72 gallons of slurry.  This figure seems extremely low to me.

So I put it to you, what kind of a fermentation can I expect from such a

pitching rate?  I imagine it will be an extremely slow one.  Any formulas

for determining healthy pitching rates, or any other technical information you

think might be of use would be appreciated.

- ------------------------------------------

I have another, unrelated, request for information, this one on brewery

geometry.  Basically, I am interested in any information you might have on how

kettle and fermenter geometry influence hop utilization and fermentation rates.

TIA and Cheers

JE

------------------------------


Clone for Bahama's Kalik

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1993 11:01:56 -0600 (CST)

From: LAEUGER@smsd.jsc.nasa.gov

Subject: Clone for Bahama's Kalik

A friend of mine asked me if I could brew a beer that emulates a beer he had in

the Bahamas this past summer.  It is called Kalik (spelling questionable) and i`

supposedly the number one beer in that country.  Does anyone know of a recipe

that I could use to try to copy this beer?  Appreciate your suggestions.

                                        Michael Laeuger

------------------------------


Re: Krush-Off Comments

Date: 08 Dec 1993 11:55:31 -0500 (EST)

From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

Subject: Re: Krush-Off Comments

>From:arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

>Subject: KRUSH-OFF

>

>Clearly, a mill that is more than twice as large should demonstrate a

>significantly higher throughput at a given rpm than what you have described.

>This test is only valid if they are both run at exactly the same speed and no

>mention of the RPM was made.

>

>It should further be noted that the MM as shipped is set up for hand cranking

>and the grain guides provide a restricted flow to assure ease of cranking

>with the very large rollers.  To miximize throughput when motorized, the

>grain guides can be trimmed to provide a larger hole that will feed the grain

>as fast as the 10" rollers will take them.

Jack, you have most likely already answered the question.  The hopper hole

opening into the MaltMill is only a fraction of the length of the rollers.  In

addition, there is a large mesh plastic screen that covers the opening (for

safety reasons).  I suspect that both of these factors work to limit the speed

at which the malt kernels can reach the rollers, so I am not surprised that the

MaltMill and GlattMill crush at about the same rate.  It is interesting to

note that the hopper holes of the two mills are about the same size.

BTW, I am sure that you are right that a larger hopper hole would increase the

throughput on a MaltMill, but we tested it as manufactured.  I can

handcrank/crush 8+ lbs of malt in ~2 min. with my unmodified MaltMill.  The

Glatt Mill is a touch slower, but similar.  Does it really make any difference

in the length of my brewday if I spend 2 vs 3 minutes crushing grain??  Not to

me;  either one is a vast improvement over my old Corona!

Steve

------------------------------


Correction

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 93 12:20:40 -0500

From: kopek@karloff.fstrf.org (kopek.edward)

Subject: Correction

08129312031600E               0016500000000


Date: 08 Dec 1993 12:03 EST

From: KOPEK.EDWARD (ACTG Data Mgmt Ctr, FSTRF, Amherst, NY)

Subject: Correction

cc: KOPEK.EDWARD

Subject: Correction

Attach:

     I have been reminded by several HBD readers that EKU is _not_ an

ice beer in the same sense as the ones from Bud, Molson, etc.  The

EKU is frozen to precipitate out protein, but the ice is not removed.

Thus, it is not a true eisbock.  It still tastes pretty darn strong, though.

Sorry for the errant information!

     I guess I need to do more, ahem, research into this ice beer dilemma.

I'll start with a Buffalo Blizzard Bock (Buffalo Brewing Company, Buffalo,

N.Y.)  I'm gonna have one straight, then I'm gonna freeze one and filter

out the ice first.  It may not be a real "eisbock" either, but it'll

be fun to try!

  -Ed (Hit-an-iceberg(eisberg?)) Kopek

 .

------------------------------


EKU 28

Date:     Wed, 8 Dec 93 12:23 EST

From: <GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

Subject:  EKU 28

In HBD #1292 Ed Kopek talked about EKU Kulminator Urtyp Hell 28.

Well consulting with my family in Germany, I got the scoop on whether

EKU 28 is really the strongest commercial beer around.  The story in

Bavaria is that the 28 in EKU 28 is the PROOF of the beer.  You got

it.  28 proof aka 14% alcohol.  I have a bottle saved from when I last

tried the stuff.  If you read the label carefully, you'll notice that

nowhere on the bottle is it referred to as beer.  It is referred to as

malt liquor.

Correct me if I'm wrong(and I know you will), but isn't there a

federal law that says beer can only be a maximum of 6% alcohol?

Anything stronger than that has to be called a Malt Liquor.

Oh well, that my $0.02...

Andy Pastuszak

------------------------------


Chiller model

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 93 12:40:46 EST

From: bszymcz@ulysses.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: Chiller model

Yesterday, Tim writes:

>From: tpm@wdl.loral.com (Tim P McNerney)

>Subject: Is Stoelting making a magic chiller?

>I got this flyer from Stoelting which makes the following claims for its

>wort chiller:

>Chills 5 gallons of wort from 210F to 56F in 15 minutes at .33 GPM.

>So basically, 5 gallons of water (.33 * 15) to chill 5 gallons of wort from

>210F to 56F.  It seems to me that if you were able to obtain perfect heat

>transfer and the water you were using was 32F, the best you could hope to

>get is 121F.

>Am I missing something here?  Here is the rest of the info:

A few weeks ago someone reported that using an immersion chiller

that he was able to reduce 5 gallons of boiling wort to 90F

using only 8 gallons of Texas tap water.  At first, I made an

estimate like yours (assuming Texas tap water is 60F) and

concluded that 118F was the best possible.  Then I tried a

simple model of an immersion chiller.

Let   Ti    = the constant inlet tap water temperature

      Tk(t) = the time varying temperature of the wort in the

              kettle. (Here I'm assuming that the wort is being

       constantly stirred so that its temperature is

       uniform.

      To(t) = the time varying temperature at the outlet of

       the chiller.

      dw    = a small amount of water passing through the coil.

      N     = the amount of wort in the kettle

      dt    = a small time increment

      R     = dw/dt = the rate of flow through the chiller

              (coil).

Furthermore, if the coil is sufficiently long or R is

sufficiently small then we can assume that

     Tk(t) = To(t) = T(t),

that is, the temperature at the outlet is the same as the

temperature in the kettle.

Then

     dw * Ti + N * T(t) = (N+dw) * T(t+dt)        (1)

which simply expresses the fact that dw gallons at Ti added

to N gallons at T(t) will equilibriate to N+dw gallons at

temperature T(t+dt).  Dividing (1) by dt and rearranging terms

yields

   dT   R

   -- = - * (Ti - T)

   dt   N

which in the limit at dt -> 0 becomes a differential equation.

The solution (assuming the initial temp T(0) = 212F) is

   T(t) = Ti + (212-Ti)*exp(-R*t/N) .

The amount of time t required to reduce the temperature from

212 to T is

       N    (212-Ti)

  t =  - log|------|

       R    ( T-Ti )

and the amount of water required is A=Rt.

So if we had such an optimal immersion chiller and constantly

stirred, and the tap water was Ti=40F and we wanted to chill N=5

gallons to T=56F we would need

A = 5 log ((212-40)/(56-40)) = 11.87 gallons.

I have not done a similar analysis for counterflow chillers, but

it seems that either Stoetling was exagerating or counterflow

chillers are more efficient (as far as water conservation is

concerned) than immersion chillers.  Note that if you simply

mixed 11.87 gallons of 40F water with 5 gallons of 212F you

would get 16.87 gallons at 90.98F, so immersion chilling is

somewhat efficient.

Bill Szymczak

bszymcz@ulsses.nswc.navy.mil

------------------------------


Blow-off vrs non-blow-off

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 93 12:41:41 EST

From: bszymcz@ulysses.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: Blow-off vrs non-blow-off

Every now and then people have been debating the use or not of

using a blow-off, so I thought I would add a data point to this

controversy.  I brewed 6 1/2 gallons of IG 1.041 English Special

Bitter style which was siphoned into a 7 gallon carboy  and

pitched about 3/4 quarts of yeast starter.  After about 3-4

hours I reracked the wort, filling one 5 gallon carboy to about

3 inches from the brim, and the other with the remainder.  Both

batches began fermenting after about 10 hours and the filled

carboy began blowing-off after about 12 hours.  Originally, I

had planned to bottle both batches after 7-10 days in primary,

but after 10 days the bloww-off batch was still bubbling every

13 seconds, while the non-blow-off batch seemed finished.  So,

after 11 days I reracked both batches and was shocked to find

the gravity of the blow-off batch to be 1.020, while the

non-blow-off batch was down to 1.011.  The non-blow-off batch

was bottled the next day, while I let the blow-off batch sit in

secondary for another 10 days, at which time it was bottled with

an FG=1.013.  After waiting about 3 weeks I was ready to compare

the batches.  (I conjecture that the blow-off batch was filled

too high and a lot of the healthy yeast got blown out, thereby

slowing the fermentation.)

I found both batches to be similar - IMHO a good example of the

English bitter style, fruity, malty, full to medium bodied with

a nice Kent Golding hop aroma and flavor.  However, although I

am a BJCP judge, I lost my confidence in distinguishing

taste subtleties after failing a self inflicted taste test

during a tour of the Anheiser-Busch brewery in Williamsburg VA

about a month ago.  I could not distinguish between bud,

bud-dry, bud-lite and Michelob.  Well, maybe bud and Michelob has

slightly more lingering aftertastes.  (Remember the Simpson's

episode where Duff, Duff-dry, and Duff-lite were being filled by

the same pipe.)  So, I brought samples to

the BURP homebrew club meeting for a more unbiased comparison.

I did tell them that one was blow-off and one was not, but I

didn't identify which was which.

Some of the members correctly identified the blow-off batch

saying they thought it was slightly smoother, (one correctly

identified the blow-off batch but said she liked the

non-blow-off batch better).  Some incorrectly identified the two

batches and some "punted" and said no difference.  All agreed

that if there was a difference it was minor. Therefore,

despite the wide variations in fermentation times, both batches

came out nearly identical with the blow-off having little or no effect.

Of course, this is just one data point and your mileage may

vary.

Bill Szymczak

------------------------------


Snakebites and secondary fermentation question

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 93 12:48:34 EST

From: Keith MacNeal  08-Dec-1993 1242 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Snakebites and secondary fermentation question

In HOMEBREW Digest #1292 ctmn@sabhal-mor-ostaig.ac.uk (Calum T. MacNeill)

says:

>In fact it is quite common around here to order

>a "snakebite black" which is the half lager, half cider mix but

>with a dash of blackcurrant.

Sounds like the "Purple Nasty" I was introduced to at a Rugby Club in the UK.

>On a different note I wonder if anyone could help me with the

>problem I have with my present batch of 'instant' homebrew.

>It's one of these buy your tin of wort with everything included

>except water and sugar.  The problem is that primary fermentation

>went like a dream, but now that i've transfered it to my pressure

>barrel for secondary fermentation nothing's happening, ie no pressure

>build up what so ever.  I've tried adding extra yeast but to no

>avail. Please help ASAP as this is supposed to be the main attraction

>of a Christmas Eve party. HELP!!!!!!!!!

Sounds to me like you moved it to the secondary a bit too late if you were

looking for it to carbonate itself in the secondary.  The beer may have

completely fermented out in primary.  Trying boiling up a little bit of

corn sugar (I'm not sure of the proper amount since I don't keg, but I think

it is on the order of 1/3 to 1/2 cup) in some water and adding it to the

secondary.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Is Tim McNerney an idiot?

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 93 10:39:49 -0800

From: tpm@wdl.loral.com (Tim P McNerney)

Subject: Is Tim McNerney an idiot?

Why yes, he is.

Thanks for everyone who pointed out the bloody obvious.  The .33 GPM is

for the wort (Gee, Tim, why does the amount of water exactly equal the

amount of wort when you make your calculation?  Must be one of those strange

coincidences, Tim, and not something like an obvious flaw in your logic

yelling out at you.)

A couple of people have asked about information on the Stoelting equipment,

so I guess my post was not completely in vain (though it did my vanity no

good).

 Stoelting, Inc.

 502 HWY 67

 Kiel, WI 53042

 (800) 336-BREW

Their line of products looks VERY nice.  The stats on the wort chiller I

mentioned yesterday should give some idea on some of the stuff they sell.

The only problem is that their stuff is awfully pricey, but if you want

to go first class, this is the way to go.  The aforementioned wort chiller

runs for $314.  They also have kettles from 7-20 gallons with a bottom

drain valve.  Their stuff really looks like the "equipment the pros use"

only shrunk down to homebrew sizes (if only they left their shrinking system

running for a little longer on their prices).

Sorry for wasting space with a stupid question (if you believe their are

no stupid questions, go reread mine) and I hope most everyone took time

to laugh at me via private email (please feel free to send me mail telling

me how clueless I am, even if you didn't read the original article and don't

know what I am talking about).

Thanks.

- --Tim

------------------------------


Trouble Carbonating Lager

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 93 14:22:00 -0500

From: WESTRA_MICHAEL/HPATC2_02@i3125ent.atl.hp.com

Subject: Trouble Carbonating Lager

Hello all,

I am having trouble getting my first 'custom' lager to carbonate in

the bottles. I have read a little bit about adding yeast right to the

bottles and re-capping... but would like a little more help before

I take a chance with 2+ cases of (so far) good beer.

Recipe          Yeast Labs L35 California Lager Yeast

for 5           3.5 lbs GlenBrew Hopped Pilsener Malt Extract

Gallons:        2.5 lbs light dried malt extract

                1 lb American Caramel malt (10^o)

                1 oz. Tettnanger (15 min.) + 1 oz. Saaz (3 min.)

Pitched at 73^o, 5 days primary (plastic) at 55^o, 23 days secondary

(glass) started at 55^o and gradually moved down to 45^o. Total=4 weeks.

O.G. = 1.050  /  F.G. = 1.020  (F.G. after 5 days was also 1.020)

The beer has been in bottles now for three weeks. There is very little

carbonation. I have stored some bottles at 45^o, some at 55^o and even

a couple at 75^o and no luck. The beer tastes good - sweeter/maltier

than a pilsener (the Calif. Lager Yeast is supposed to do that),

noticeable hop flavor/aroma and no off-flavors, but no carbonation.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. (I apologize if this

topic has been covered on the digest in the past... unfortunately I

don't have the opportunity to read 'em all).

Cheers,

Mike Westra

Please reply to: mwestra@stpaul.msr.hp.com  -or-  to the Digest

------------------------------


pasteur yeast: ferment temps?

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1993 11:43:21 -0800

From: mfetzer@UCSD.EDU (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer)

Subject: pasteur yeast: ferment temps?

I'm getting a little pissed at my doublebock, dropped from 70 to 26 like a

stone and then just sat there for the last week or so. All the yeast

dropped out, fermentation stopped. I just pitched some pasteur champagne

yeast, because it will not change the flavor profile, but should ferment

this stuff lower. Now it occurs to me:

what are ideal ferment temps for pasteur champagne yeast?

Mike

- --

Michael Fetzer                         pgp 2.2 key available on request

Internet:      mfetzer@ucsd.edu        uucp:    ...!ucsd!mfetzer

Bitnet:        FETZERM@SDSC

HEPnet/SPAN:   SDSC::FETZERM           or       27.1::FETZERM

------------------------------


Filtering/ BarneyWine

Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1993 12:48:12 -0600 (MDT)

From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

Subject: Filtering/ BarneyWine

Hullo Brewmeisters one and all.

Just thought I'd chime in...as always...

RE: Filtering Discussion:

    I had this debate last night with a couple fellow brewers.

I personally think I'd have something to gain by filtering.

I could probably get by with finings and do just as well.

I have several times come up with a keg of beer with sediments

in the bottom that would easily be filtered out. Otherwise every

time the keg is moved it's stirred up again.

Advantages:  remove dry hop material/ spices/  clumps in general.

Leave most of the yeast behind. Clarify a beer instantly so it can

be carbonated by shaking w/o needing to settle afterwards to clear.

Then it can be moved w/o clouding.

Jim sez he thinks a 5 micron filter is going to remove cells.

Most bacteria are on the order of 1 micron. yeast fall more in

the 3 micron range.  Cells can aggregate and "act" bigger.

But I would contend that a 5 micron filter is definitely not

going to "sterilize" a beer.  And from my understanding (NOT experience)

it will not REMOVE the body of a beer. It may well "thin" things

a bit.  At 3 microns there is more cell removal, but still not

sterilization.  I don't have a problem with lowering the cell

count in a keg.  I force pressurize, so I don't "need" them there,

but I like my B-vitamins, so I don't plan to get rid of them ALL.

***

- ------------------------------------------------------

Barney's Blebbing BarleyWhine:  (planofaction)

10# 6 Row Pale Malt

10# 2 Row Pale malt

4# 2 row vienna

2# aromatic munich-belgian

2# Biscuit-"

1# Crystal- 60L

1# Crystal- 120L

1/2 cup roast

Mash.  Pull first 6.5 gallons of sparge.   Begin boil.

add:    6# Williams english dark extract

        2# Brown sugar

Boil Hops:  1 oz Chinook (13a), 1.5 oz Centennial (10a)

1/2 Boil:   1 oz Cascade (7.3a), 0.5 oz N. Brewer (7.6a)='93!

Finish:     1 oz Homegrown Cascade- alpha unknown!  :)  but stinky!

Abbey Ale yeast culture.  Warm initial ferment. (65-70).

Then cooler into secondary...maybe even down to the 50 deg basement!

Bottle with 1 cup molasses.  Age for a LONG time.  :)

- -----------------------------------------------------------

I'll draw the 2nd runnings of the sparge and make a 2-penny-ish ale.

Burton ale at that.  It may end up getting spiced, or fruited.

Any input?  If I get good extraction this should be OVERKILL. :)

I wonder if I'll have to pitch champ. later to deal with all the

fermentables.  Hope it don't stall!  Some know what a bother that

can be!  (so how's it doing now norm?)

RE: The name.  My girlfriend and I purchased a purple lava lamp, which

she adores.  Endless hours of fascination.  I figured that after drinkin

this concoction- after it's PROPERLY AGED>>>>  one will probably end up

feeling like that flowing purple goo in the lamp.  A kinda warm feeling

all over!

As for the name of the lava lamp itself- you can figure that out!

Just felt like sharing.  I'm psyched. the yeast is pooched, and dropping

into a starter today.  Just got the scottish ale yeast too, can't

wait to use that!  Thur night, or friday day.   My house will be warm!

    Brew on ya'll       John (The Coyote) Wyllie  SLK6P@cc.usu.edu

------------------------------


Hop Teas and Dry Hopping ~#

Date: 08 Dec 1993 20:05:00 -0500 (EST)

From: Delano Dugarm 36478 <ADUGARM@worldbank.org>

Subject: Hop Teas and Dry Hopping ~#

I am brewing a hoppy pale ale, something like Sierra Nevada's

Celebration ale.  I started with a 1065 O.G. wort, and hopped as

follows:

 1 oz Centennial (9.6%) 60 min.

 1 oz Mt. Hood (?%) 60 min.

 1 oz Cascades (5.4%) 10 min.

I fermented with WYeast American Ale, of course, keeping the

temperature mostly below 65.  The question I have is how to

finish it.  The last time I made this I dry hopped with an ounce

of Cascades for a week before bottling, and it turned out quite

well.  My only complaint was that it didn't have the _depth_ of

hop taste that Celebration has.  I'm leaning towards dry hopping

again, but noted a suggestion that you steep hops in a hot water

and add this tea at bottling time for greater flavor and aroma.

Any suggestions on this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Delano DuGarm

adugarm@worldbank.org

------------------------------


Bulk Lab Equipment / Boston Area

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 93 15:33:44 EST

From: mrg@mrg.xyplex.com (Mark Garti  mrgarti@eng.xyplex.com)

Subject: Bulk Lab Equipment / Boston Area

I am planning on buying some pipettes and test tubes from

Whatman LabSales.  I'm looking for some other Boston brewers

who might be interested in splitting the ridiculous quantity

with me.  1 box test tubes = 1000 tubes.  1 box pippetts =

6 pippettes.

Mark

------------------------------


Ice Beer

Date: Wed,  8 Dec 93 13:26:28 PST

From: ELQ1%Maint%HBPP@cts27.comp.pge.com

Subject: Ice Beer

    Just a quick observation and trying to avoid flames, this article on

    "Ice Beers" was in last nights paper, it is on the Labatts -vs- any

    other commerical brewer who uses "Ice" method.

   >"Ice Beer is brewed at temperatures low enough to allow ice crystals

   > to form. It is described as rich tasting but continuing the move away

   > from the heavy beers"

    So, it says right there in print that it is "Rich Tasting". if it wasn't

    in print, I for one would not belive it.  I guess my fellow HBD'ers just

    don't know taste when it hits them.  I also question what "they" refer to

    as heavy beer?  Bud? Heavy beer is not bought, its homebrewed!

   Please try this at home, remember, your not professionals, just

    Homebrewers!

                           ELQ1

------------------------------


Noche Buena - SF Bay Area

Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1993 13:39:00 -0800 (PST)

From: David Allison 225-5764 <ALLISON.DAVID@A1GW.GENE.COM>

Subject: Noche Buena - SF Bay Area

SF Bay Area Beerheads -

Last night I saw cases of Noche Buena at the Price Club (Price Costco =>

stupid name change) in Redwood City for about $16/case.  I'm looking for

just a six-pack in case anyone comes across one.

 - David

(allison2@gene.com)

------------------------------


noche buena by any other name...

Date: Wednesday,  8 December 93 16:40:22 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: noche buena by any other name...

Howdy,

In HBD 1292, Chris Amley brings up the question of using the same beer name

for different beers.  His main concern is that since Noche Buena is brewed

with a different recipe than in the past, it should have a different name.

The fact is, this is an extremely common practice.  Sam Adams claims to

vary their Winter Lager every year, and Anchor actually does vary it's

Our Special Ale.  Add on that a brewery is going to adjust it's

recipes every once in awhile, especially new ones.  Celis Pale Bock is

definitely not the same beer that they first marketed in March of '92; in

fact, it's the 4th version.

I'm not saying it's good or bad, it just is.

Happy brewin',

Alan, Austin

------------------------------


Names

Date:    Wed, 08 Dec 93 16:57 CST

From: "Peter Brauer 312/915-6157"                 <$W$PR42%LUCCPUA.BITNET@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

Subject: Names

I have often wondered, is there any sort of central list of "namebrands"

for homebrews?  I have a couple of friends that all homebrew and we all

have names for our beers, I wondered if anyone keeps a master-list.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1293, 12/09/93

*************************************

-------


ICE beer, mailing lists

Date: 08 Dec 93 18:21:23 EST

From: Richard Nantel <72704.3003@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: ICE beer, mailing lists

Bob Talkiewicz mentions in HB1291>

>A friend just brought me a couple bottles of this version of the new ice

>beers. This Maximum is 7.1% alcohol by volume!

>Still doesn't taste like much , but does have some kick.

>This was purchased in Canada.

The Canadian Beer industry has been for years protected from the influx of

less expensive, American-made beers. With this trade arrangement coming to

an end in 1994, the major breweries (Molson, Labatt) have been coming out

with a `new' beer almost weekly. This is a last-ditch attempt to produce

brand loyalty before the gates open wide.

The latest trend is for high-alcohol brews. The newest addition is Labatt's

XXX with 7.4% alcohol. Strangely enough, and to quote a German aquaintance,

`you have 50 different beers and they all taste alike! The new potent brews

are no exception. Thank goodness for some excellent Quebec microbreweries;

most notably St-Ambroise and Hops Brau.

Teddy Winstead writes>Could somebody please e-mail me the addresses for:

>The Lambic Mailing List

>The Mead Mailing List

I too would appreciate these addresses.

Thanks

Richard Nantel

Montreal, Quebec

Canada

------------------------------


Sake Connection Newsletter

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1993 22:44:15 -0800

From: mfetzer@UCSD.EDU (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer)

Subject: Sake Connection Newsletter

Well, well!

I'm amazed by the huge response I'm getting. Seems as if a lot of people

are into Sake!

I'll be passing a compiled list of all the real mail addresses I've gotten

on to Fred Eckhardt on the 22nd, so you've got until then to get them in!

Many people have only sent email addresses, at this point that doesn't help

much. Maybe there's a way I can digitize a copy of it, or see if Fred's

wordprocessor format is compatible with anything I can get my fingers on,

and I will upload a copy.

Several folks have suggested starting a sake mailing list... I do not have

the ability to start one, nor do I know how to start a listserv operated

mailing list. It seems most sake brewing fans are on usenet, reading

rec.crafts.winemaking. Much more so that homebrew digest, altho sake is

more of a beer than a wine...

Maybe J-Food-L is the place to discuss such things? It has low traffic, but

I'm not sure how many people there actually care about making sake, as

opposed to drinking it and using it in their cooking?

Anyway, send me your ideas and keep sending mailing addresses if you want

to receive a sample of the newsletter!

Mike

- --

Michael Fetzer                         pgp 2.2 key available on request

Internet:      mfetzer@ucsd.edu        uucp:    ...!ucsd!mfetzer

Bitnet:        FETZERM@SDSC

HEPnet/SPAN:   SDSC::FETZERM           or       27.1::FETZERM

------------------------------


Eisbock/pear-banana aromas

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 93 13:43 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Eisbock/pear-banana aromas

Ed writes:

>     For anyone who wants to taste a _real_ ice beer, try EKU Kulminator

>Urtyp Hell 28 from Germany (That's the entire name of the beer, honest!).

>It is concentrated by freezing as are the North American "ice" beers.

According to Jackson, EKU fiercely denies that freeze distillation is used

in the making of Kulminator.  It indeed is a very strong doppelbock.  If

it was made using freeze distillation, then it would be called an Eisbock.

The AHA has an Eisbock category and if memory serves, there was one in the

medals this year -- you might look up the brewer's specifics there.

********

David writes:

>I am having a problem that perhaps you folks out there in HBD-land could

>help me with.  In short (hopefully), my last two brews came out with the

>same flavor, but I used different ingredients.

<recipes deleted>

>In both brews, I used a 1400 mL yeast starter (very active) and

>fermentation started in about 5 hours.  Previously, I had used only only

>500 mL starters, with fermentation in 24 hours.

>

>The problem is that both beers have a pronounced flavor component to them

>- -- sort of a pear/banana-like aroma and taste (IMO, but it is hard for me

>to judge).

My guess would be that this is either a characteristic of the pitching yeast

or you have a monsterous wild yeast infection somewhere in your system.

Does your starter smell like this?   If yes, then you've found your source.

You may try a lower fermentation temperature as ester production (esters give

the fruity aromas/flavors to beers) tends to be lower at lower temps.  If you

still get too much of these esters for your taste from the lower temps, then

I guess you'll have to change yeasts.  If it is a wild yeast infection in your

system (unlikely because of your reported quick starts), you need to check

your sanitation procedures and/or replace scratched plastic equipment.

Al.

------------------------------


nomail

Date:    Thu, 09 Dec 93 07:34 CST

From: "Leslie G. Hunter"                   <KFLGH00%TAIMVS1.BITNET@TAIVM1.TAIU.EDU>

Subject: nomail

set homebrew NOMAIL

------------------------------


Names/Beer festival

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 08:54:19 -0500

From: paul.beard@gatekeeper.mis.tridom.com (Paul Beard)

Subject: Names/Beer festival

My beers will be universally known as Workingman's Reward, whether they be

lagers, ales or porters. My brother-in-law actually silk-screens his

bottles and I will be asking him how he does it. Then its to the drawing

board/computer for a logo design and I'll have a unique gift idea for years

to come.

What I would like to see is a local beer festival with brewers donating

product for tasting (at a price - for charity); maybe some judging, but

more just a good time for a good cause or two.

Does anyone have experience with this type of thing?

Paul Beard

AT&T Tridom, 840 Franklin Court, Marietta, GA 30067

404 514-3798 * FAX: 404 429-5419 * tridom!paul.beard/beardp@tridom.com

------------------------------


Homebrewers in Cambridge, UK

Date: Thu, 09 Dec 93 08:59:08 EST

From: Bob_McIlvaine@keyfile.com

Subject: Homebrewers in Cambridge, UK

Are there any homebrewers in HBD

land from the Cambridge, UK area?

I'm actually trying to get in touch with

some old work mates.

Regards,

Mac

------------------------------


Pale Ale

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 93 09:28:07 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Pale Ale

Adding malt at mash-out will not contribute to malt flavor, but will

very likely give you starch haze.  For a maltier flavor, try one or

more of the following:

1. Switch base malts (e.g., Maris Otter, DeWolf-Cosyns Belgian Pale,

   Hugh Baird)

2. Mash longer (1.5 to 2 hours)

3. Add lightly-kilned malts (Munich, Vienna, toasted malt -- make it

   yourself at 350 for 15 minutes or so) in small amounts

4. Decoction mash.

=S

------------------------------


Dream Tun

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 93 09:31:27 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Dream Tun

A friend uses a pico-brewery(tm) system (3 converted SS half-barrels).

He's insulated the mash-tun with what looks like strips of cedar (from

2-bys, probably).  This apparently works pretty well.  With three

kettles, he's got one for hot liquour, one for mash, and one for

boiling.

=S

------------------------------


Can you say "ack!" ?

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 93 07:59 CST

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: Can you say "ack!" ?

I had a chance over the weekend to try Noche Buena.

I'm sure glad I wasn't the one who paid money for it.

------------------------------


burnt aftertaste

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 93 09:06:26 -0500

From: "Jeff M. Michalski, MD" <michalski_jm@rophys.wustl.edu>

Subject: burnt aftertaste

Hello homebrewers,

In September I brewed my version of a Christmas ale (strong and hoppy).

  The grain bill is as follows:

6 lb pale

3 lb klages

1 lb dark crystal (caramunich)

1 lb chocolate

1 lb carapils

1/4 lb black patent

Near the end of the boil I also added 1 lb of dark brown sugar.

 OG 1072, FG 1021 (wyeast 1056).

It has been in a soda keg after completing primary and secondary

 fermentation for at least 6 weeks.

It has an overwhelming burnt taste to it!  The initial flavor is

 strong malt and ETOH (and a lot of hops!) but the charcoal flavor

 that follows is enough to scare away my guests.  My question is

 will this heavy roast flavor soften with age?  I am tempted to

 pull off the tap and let it sit till next year (there certainly

 are enough hops and ETOH to let it withstand the wait).  Certainly

 next year I am changing the amount of dark grains.

JEFF M. MICHALSKI

michalski_jm@rophys.wustl.edu

------------------------------


Strongest Beers - the facts

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 09:55 EDT

From: Alan_Marshall <AK200032@Sol.YorkU.CA>

Subject: Strongest Beers - the facts

In HBD #1293, darrylri@microsoft.com

D> > Oh, and it is reputed to have the highest alcohol content of any commercial

D> > beer.  (Maybe, maybe not).  I know it is around 12%, and it packs a wallop!

D>

D> No;  EKU 28 has the highest OG of any regularly available beer.  But

D> Hurlimann's Samichlaus, brewed from a slightly lower OG, is a bit more

D> fermentable and so has a higher alcoholic result (and a more drinkable

D> product, IMHO).  This, in spite of the boastful claims on the EKU 28

D> label ("Das starkste Bier der Welt").

Samichlaus used to be the strongest.  It has been passed three times.

The following is posted occasionally (i.e. whenever a "Molson XXX is

the strongest" claim/flame war starts) to alt.beer:

The following reflects my latest revision to the Beer Records FAQ's

section on the Strongest Beer.  I have revised it to reflect the

authenticated current record holder, the past record holder it

surpassed, and the pending record holder, subject to authentication.

(Those wishing to hasten the record authentication process can do so

by sending me a case ;-)  I have included Samichlaus and EKU Kulminator

28 in a section called "Other Notables" as their names will often come

up in arguments about the world's strongest beer.

I will not repost the entire FAQ (bandwidth considerations).  Copies

of the Beer Records FAQ are available from me by email (ak200032@

sol.yorku.ca).  Suggestions and Corrections are always accepted.

Flames:  Relax, just have a brew!  Thanks to Conor O'Neill and Sean

Lamb for their updates!

     -------------------------------------------------------

Strongest Beer:

Current:

The Guinness Book of Records has just accepted a newer contender:

Uncle Igor's Famous Falling over Water, brewed by the Ross Brewery,

in Bristol, UK, which is 17.3% abv.  <Supplied by Conor O'Neill --

conor@inmos.co.uk>

Past:

Roger & Out, brewed at the Frog & Parrot in Sheffield, Great

Britain, from a recipe devised by W. R. Nowill and G. B. Spencer,

is 16.9% abv., and was the old record-holder (GBR, 1992)

Pending:

It has been recently announced that the Boston Beer Company (marketers

of the Samual Adams line of beers) will be marketing a 17.5% "Triple

Bock" beer in the near future.  While Sean Lamb posted that this would

be 17.5% by weight, I would like to see some confirmation on this.

Its abv would be in the low 20% range which would be far in excess of

anything else.

Other notables from the recent past:

Samichlaus Dark 1987 (Brauerei Huerlimann, Zurich, Switzerland) is

the strongest lager at 14.93% abv.  (GBR, 1992)  Michael Jackson

also refers to this as the "world's strongest beer"

Michael Jackson also refers to EKU Kulminator 28 as having the

highest gravity (28 degrees guaranteed, but some have been as high

as 30.54 degrees).  The alcohol content is 13.5% abv.

------------------------------


Maltier Pale Ale

Date: Thu, 09 Dec 1993 10:23:16 -0500 (EST)

From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: Maltier Pale Ale

A post was made in HBD #1293 regarding making a Pale Ale with

a maltier character:

I have found that some of the Wolf-DeCosyns grains such as

CaraVienne and Aromatic will enhance the malty character of

beers.  Without making a comment on the quality of M&F base

malts, I would also suggest experimenting with the Wolf-DeCosyns

Pale malt as your base malt: I believe these grains are some of

finest grains you can buy.

My experience with the Caravienne malt is that it adds a very

pleasing smooth caramel character to your brew and the aromatic

adds a wicked, munich-like character to the aroma and flavor of

your beer.  I believe their Biscuit malt or home-toasted pale

malt adds an interesting malty/toasty character as well.

Rob Reed

------------------------------


Re: Equipment/pitching/filtering/hops

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 10:38:55 -0500 (EST)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: Equipment/pitching/filtering/hops

> From: John_D._Sullivan.wbst311@xerox.com

> Subject: Pale Ale

>  I'm an all-grainer who likes a BIG tasting pale ale, not necessarily in

 OG or alcohol level, but very malty and very hoppy. Of course the hoppy part is

 easy, and  some yeasts have helped with the malty part. I use M&F pale 2-row

 and mash at around 155degF. My idea is to add 1/4 or 1/2 lb pale at mash out,

 to add flavor. What would be the pros and cons of this? Or is there something

 else I haven't considered?

I would skip the addition at mash out in favor of using Munich (imported) and

caramel malts in the mash.  My high gravity beers (diluted into the fermenter)

were attenuating too much, and the addition of Munich and caramel helped.

> From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

> Subject: Dream Tun

>

I favor using a hot water heater for sparge (hot liquor tank), and use the

kettle to mash in.  Transfer the mash to the dedicated lauter tun with

some kind of false bottom (perf sheet works great), insulate the lauter

tun.  The disadvantage is you need a way to transfer the mash.

> From: John Eustace <3JCE1@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>

> Subject:      Pitching Rates

>

> Hi all,

> I have a question I'd like to ask concerning pitch rates for lagers.  I've

> 5 gallon batches, but now we're talking about pitching to 180 gallons.

>

> Using the formula for lager pitching in the yeast faq, I have determined that

> I need to pitch .72 gallons of slurry.

The rule of thumb is one million cells/ml/degree plato of wort.  Pitch yeast

up in a ten to one ratio to grow the slurry, let ferment each step, decant

off the beer, and use the slurry.  For a micro making lagers be sure to use

at least 1 lb of thick slurry per BBl of wort.  It is better to do cell

counts, but this requires a little lab equipment.  John Mallet wrote a

good article on counting cells in the New Brewer Magazine. You dont want

to put 18 gallons of starter into 180, so decant off and use the fresh

slurry.

Bill Szymczak:

> which in the limit at dt -> 0 becomes a differential equation.

> The solution (assuming the initial temp T(0) = 212F) is

>

>    T(t) = Ti + (212-Ti)*exp(-R*t/N) .

>

> The amount of time t required to reduce the temperature from

> 212 to T is

>

>        N    (212-Ti)

>   t =  - log|------|

>        R    ( T-Ti )

>

Neat! Diff_eqs on the digest.  I knew I had that class for some reason.

> non-blow-off batch better).  Some incorrectly identified the two

> batches and some "punted" and said no difference.  All agreed

> that if there was a difference it was minor. Therefore,

> despite the wide variations in fermentation times, both batches

> came out nearly identical with the blow-off having little or no effect.

> Of course, this is just one data point and your mileage may

> vary.

I had these beers and they were indeed *very* similar.  It was a good

experiment.

> From: COYOTE <SLK6P@cc.usu.edu>

> Subject: Filtering/ BarneyWine

>

> Jim sez he thinks a 5 micron filter is going to remove cells.

> Most bacteria are on the order of 1 micron. yeast fall more in

> the 3 micron range.  Cells can aggregate and "act" bigger.

> But I would contend that a 5 micron filter is definitely not

> going to "sterilize" a beer.  And from my understanding (NOT experience)

> it will not REMOVE the body of a beer. It may well "thin" things

> a bit.  At 3 microns there is more cell removal, but still not

> sterilization.

The discussion had nothing to do with sterilazation per say, .5 micron

will result in *sterile filtered beer*.  I can assure you that 4/5

microns removes 90+% of the yeast biomass.  I would bet the number is

closer to 96+%.  The local micro filters to 4 microns and there is never

any residual yeast evident to the eye, nor do they throw sediment from

yeast.  If you want to strip your beer of proteins, go ahead and try a

<1 micron filter, I have read the head retention drops by a factor of

4.

> count in a keg.  I force pressurize, so I don't "need" them there,

> but I like my B-vitamins, so I don't plan to get rid of them ALL.

It also changes the flavor of the beer, bringing out more malt/hop notes

absent from the affects of yeast cells.  I am still experimenting on the

effects of hop aroma wrt filtering.

> - ------------------------------------------------------

> Barney's Blebbing BarleyWhine:  (planofaction)

>

> 10# 6 Row Pale Malt

Why would you ever want 6 row malt in this beer??

> 10# 2 Row Pale malt

Why not 20 #s 2 row?

> 4# 2 row vienna

This will be overwhelmed by the caramel/biscut/roast that follows.  Besides,

the beer should have immense body due to the amount of malt used.

> 2# aromatic munich-belgian

> 2# Biscuit-"

> 1# Crystal- 60L

> 1# Crystal- 120L

> 1/2 cup roast

Personal preference is to skip the roast.

>

> Mash.  Pull first 6.5 gallons of sparge.   Begin boil.

>

> add:    6# Williams english dark extract

>         2# Brown sugar

Wow, you want black beer , right?  I would go with the lightest dry

extract to be found.

>

> Boil Hops:  1 oz Chinook (13a), 1.5 oz Centennial (10a)

> 1/2 Boil:   1 oz Cascade (7.3a), 0.5 oz N. Brewer (7.6a)='93!

> Finish:     1 oz Homegrown Cascade- alpha unknown!  :)  but stinky!

>

> Abbey Ale yeast culture.  Warm initial ferment. (65-70).

> Then cooler into secondary...maybe even down to the 50 deg basement!

Interesting!  A "Belgian Imperial Stout"!!

>

> Bottle with 1 cup molasses.  Age for a LONG time.  :)

molasses may indeed lengthen the aging period.  Maybe do half with sugar

as a comparison.  If you have any way to add oxygen do so.  As gravity

increases, the amount of O2 that can be saturated decreases.

> From: Delano Dugarm 36478 <ADUGARM@worldbank.org>

> Subject: Hop Teas and Dry Hopping ~#

>

> I am brewing a hoppy pale ale, something like Sierra Nevada's

> Celebration ale.  I started with a 1065 O.G. wort, and hopped as

> follows:

>

>  1 oz Centennial (9.6%) 60 min.

>  1 oz Mt. Hood (?%) 60 min.

>  1 oz Cascades (5.4%) 10 min.

If the Hood are from me, they are 6.3%.

>

> I fermented with WYeast American Ale, of course, keeping the

> temperature mostly below 65.  The question I have is how to

> finish it.  The last time I made this I dry hopped with an ounce

> of Cascades for a week before bottling, and it turned out quite

> well.  My only complaint was that it didn't have the _depth_ of

> hop taste that Celebration has.  I'm leaning towards dry hopping

> again, but noted a suggestion that you steep hops in a hot water

> and add this tea at bottling time for greater flavor and aroma.

I would add more flavor hops at 30, 20 min to end of boil, and stick

with the normal dry hopping.  You will increase hop flavor at 20 min

additions.  I prefer cask hopping/dry hopping over my hop tea attempts.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Head Retention, Beer Labels, and less...

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 93 8:44:48 MST

From: Earle M. Williams <earlew@drc.usbm.gov>

Subject: Head Retention, Beer Labels, and less...

I cracked the top on a bottle of Nut Brown Ale last night, aged two weeks,

and i noticed that while the carbonation was good, there was very little

head.  I tried pouring the beer from about 4 inches (10 cm) and it foamed

up nicely, but within about 10 seconds it had settled to a slim memory

of a thick foamy head.  I hadn't really tried for a thick head in this

beer, but it got me to thinking about past brews that had similar

characteristics.  Is there something I can add or delete to my brews that

would encourage more head?  I would appreciate some comments, with or without

puns. :>

I'v put together some slick beer labels using Corel Draw (for  the PC) using

the clip-art that comes with the package.  *Very Impressive*! I noticed

the software selling for about $US140 at a warehouse membership store.  The

collection of clip-art (on CDROM) that comes with this software makes the

purchase more than justifiable.

I was playing with the hop utilization numbers to try and quantify the

hoppiness of my last batch, and i realized that I had no clue as to the

amount of hops in the canned extract.  Anyone have any general or specific

ideas as to how much is added to canned extracts?  This was an Australian

Draft from Cooper's - the first time I've used it, and I hope all works well.

Is the hops in the extract altered further by my wort boil, or is it going

to remain pretty constant?  I'm wondering if it's possible to quantify the

added BU's from canned extract.  Maybe put it in terms of BUL's, or

BitteringUnit-Liters.  Just wondering....

Hoppy Christmas,

Earle

------------------------------


Leinenkugel's true brew

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 93 11:06:11 EST

From: jwilliam@uhasun.hartford.edu (John Williams)

Subject: Leinenkugel's true brew

Subject: returned mail for beer

Status: R

Mail error was: 550 <beer>... User unknown

- --- returned mail follows ---

To: beer

Subject: Leinenkugel's real brew

HB

 I have a friend who wants to serve Leinenkugel at a Christmas

party.  I remeber seeing something in the past month about some of the

Leinenkugel beers being brewed at the original brewery and some not.

Could whoever posted that or has a copy of the post mail it to me?

Thanks.

------------------------------


Re: SS Fitting

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 93 08:22:07 PST

From: hollen@megatek.com (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Re: SS Fitting

>>>>> "Mark" == x-4378  <SIMPSON> writes:

Mark> Howdy Brewpeople!

Mark> I am trying to rebuild my SS sparge keg, which currently has a

Mark> brazed-on galvanized, screw-in fitting for my 1500 watt,

Mark> electric hot water heating element, low density type (ala Rodney

Mark> Morris' RIM system).  I would like to remove the fitting and

Mark> replace it with a stainless steel boss fitting, as I am having

Mark> corrosion problems.  Anybody out there have a good source for

Mark> large SS fittings???

I would suggest a 1 1/4" to 1" bushing.  If you have a SS beer keg, it

is made from 304 stainless and it is imperative that you get your

fitting in 304 also.  You should weld it with 308 wire.  One source

for this is McMaster-Carr in Santa Fe Springs, CA.  I do not have

their current phone number since I am at work, and can only look at a

catalog several years old.  However the part numbers are still good:

 1 1/4" x 1" Hex Bushing 304SS   #4460K16    $9.96

The price should not be too much more than the old price.  One thing

to keep in mind is that the heater elements have NPSM threads

(National Pipe Straight Machine) while the bushings are NPT (National

Pipe Taper).  The 1' threads are both 11 pitch, so they will fit, but

not all bushings will fit your heater.  If someone while making the

bushing ran the tap in too far or not far enough, then you will not

get a snug fit  in the threads by the time your rubber washer is snug.

You may have the threads bottom out too soon and let your washer flap

loose.  If the first one does not work, exchange it for one which does

work.

I was fortunate enough to have a SS supply store here locally when I

went to buy these parts and I went through several fittings before

finding one which would fit.  In fact, the first one I tried did not

fit, so I assumed that *none* would fit, so I bought a 1 1/4" x 3/4"

and reamed out the inside to 1" and cut 11 pitch straight machine

threads in it.  Only then did I find out later that most fittings *do*

fit NPSM to NPT.

The only drawback is that McMaster-Carr may not sell to an individual.

They mostly deal with businesses.  You may be able to get them to send

it COD, or to give them a credit card number.

If you have any questions, I have made a heater chamber a'la Morris

RIMS, have a working RIMS system and have done SS welding on my kegs

for thermometer connections.  I would be more than happy to help out.

dion

Dion Hollenbeck (619)455-5590x2814     Email: hollen@megatek.com

Senior Software Engineer                      megatek!hollen@uunet.uu.net

Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California    ucsd!megatek!hollen

------------------------------


Question Re: _Practical_Brewer_

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 93 11:54:16 EST

From: emeeks@tx.ncsu.edu

Subject: Question Re: _Practical_Brewer_

Hi folks--

Last week I stumbled across a copy of _Practical_Brewer_, a textbook

published by the Master Brewer's Association of America, at a local

used book store. The price was only $5, so I snatched it up. It seems

to provide a good overview of how the "big boys" manufacture beer. However,

I noticed that this edition was published in 1978. Has there been a revised

and updated edition since then? It seems to me that a newer edition might

have a chapter or two on microbrewery operations. Anyone have a newer

edition, and if so, could we compare chapter titles?

Email welcome. Thanks!

- --Ed Meeks (emeeks@tx.ncsu.edu)

------------------------------


Ngoma

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 12:01:43 +1000

From: esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

Subject: Ngoma

Hi hombrewers,

        I recently tasted some African beer called Ngoma.  The beer tastes

great (also has quite a kick to it), but I have a few problems with it.

First, it's very expensive ($33 a case) and second, I think it must be

pasteurized because it claims to be brewed and bottled _in_ Africa.  Does

anyone know what type of beer this is?  Anyone tried to copy it?  I would

be most interested in a recipe.  I'm an extract brewer now, but I'm looking

forward to doing a partial mash as Norm described in the HBD, so all

extract or partial extract recipes are in order.

Thanks in advance and thanks for reading such an obscure posting.

Eugene          esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

------------------------------


EKU KULMINATOR

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 93 09:47:24 PST

From: Jack St Clair <Jack_St_Clair@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: EKU KULMINATOR

Text item: Text_1

In HBD#1292, Ed kopek passed on some date regarding EKU Kulminator Urtyp

Hell 28 as being the epitome of 'Ice Beer' and I just wanted to add to

his comments.  First, the 28 in the title refers to the percent of

alcohol in the beer.  That's right folks, 28% = 56 proof.  The bier is

billed as "Die Starkest Bier Das Welt" (sp) or "The strongest beer in

the world".  It is generally served right out of the freezer as an after

dinner liquor in small two-ounce classes (or the equivalent metric

size).  It pours like, and looks like, maple syrup with absolutely no

head.  It puts a nice finishing touch on a heavy meal.  It is not meant

to quaff in bottle quantities.  Ed is right, it does pack one helluva

wallop

While in Berlin, we did use it to fortify other biers with the

predictable results.  Ruined good bier for the sake of a quick buzz.  If

you want to slip someone a "Mickey", EKU Kulminator Urtyp Hell 28 is one

good way to do it.

At any rate, try it!  It certainly is unique.

Jack St.Clair

Portland, Oregon

Jack_St_Clair@ccm.hf.intel.com

------------------------------


mead list address (corrected) and signing up

Date: 9 Dec 93 10:40:36 MST (Thu)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: mead list address (corrected) and signing up

Shirley Mae Thompson wrote:

> ...there is a mead digest at "mead-lovers-request@ekletex.com"...

                                                    ^^^^^^^

Please - it's mead-lovers-request@eklektix.com.

Pardon some babble...If you're trying to sign up, please be sure you pro-

vide a valid address in the body of your message UNLESS you're sure your

mailer puts a good one in the header.  This means one of the following:

 - ! format address with a machine name registered in the uucp maps

 - ! format path relative to a well-known host

 - @ format (DNS) address

but NOT:

 - mixed ! @ format - this is guaranteed NOT to work

 - % @ format - this *might* work but it's a bad bet

Signup requests are examined by a human, so any plausible format of the

body of the message is OK.

Sorry for the off-topic posting, folks.  I've had to toss some signup

requests because I could neither decipher nor reply to them.

- ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

Coordinator, Mead-Lover's Digest

------------------------------


Tres Equis

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 93 10:10:25 PST

From: Jack St Clair <Jack_St_Clair@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: Tres Equis

Text item: Text_1

In HBD#1291, Russel Gelinas asked the question regarding "XXX" out of

Mexico.  Tres Equis "XXX" does indeed exist and is made by the same

company as Dos Equis "XX".  It is very hard to find in the good ol' U.S.

but can be found in some obscure Mexican Restaurants.  I ask for it

every time I go into a Mexican establishment and sometimes get lucky.

"XXX" is a good beer that just didn't catch on here in the states.

Since I haven't had it in a while, I don't know if it is still being

produced or exported.  Some help here would be appreciated.  I remember

it being quite available in Alamogordo, NM and in El Paso, TX back in

the sixties.  We used to get it in Juarez, Mexico on a regular basis.

Any one knowing any more about this beer might be able to help.  Private

post OK.

Jack St.Clair

Portland, Oregon

Jack_St_Clair@ccm.hf.intel.com

------------------------------


Shops in PGH?

Date: Thu,  9 Dec 1993 13:39:10 -0500 (EST)

From: "Justin J. Lam" <jl62+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: Shops in PGH?

Any good recommendations for supplies in the tri-state area (WV,OH,Pgh PA?)

I plan to visit Country Wines on Babcock Blvd this weekend, but I've

never been there.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Slammer.

Slammer+@CMU.EDU

------------------------------


Dream tun

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 93 11:52:16 MST

From: pjd@craycos.com (Phil Duclos)

Subject: Dream tun

I tried using steam to heat my mash tun last time and liked it a lot. I used

a carefully converted pressure cooker. The result was rapid, even heating

with a lot of convection in the liquid. I felt better about this method than

the direct flame method and consequently did little stirring. My false bottom

traps a gallon or so of liquid so I normally worry about carmelization. The

mash also wasn't diluted as is normally the case with hot water additions. I

use a keg for the mash/lauter tun but I suspect that this method would work

well with a coller setup too.

I liked the setup so well that I chopped my brew rack up to accomodate the

steam heat setup. However I did away with the pressure cooker and built a

steam generator instead. Its basically a large diameter copper pipe with a

burner under it. I ran across a lateral burner from a hot water heater (as

opposed to a circular one) so it fits nice. The water supply is from my hot

liquor tank and the generator really only needs to be filled once. Fire it up

and steam is quickly generated. Open the valve to the mash tun and you're

heating. It is important to watch that you don't run out of water, the burner

is hot enough to destroy the copper pipe if it is empty. There is also a

pressure relief valve on the output of the generator however the pressure

does not rise above 2 psi when heating the mash.

I have yet to insulate the mash tun, but that's next on the list.

Please be careful with pressure cookers and high pressure steam - They are

dangerous! So be careful.

phil

pjd@craycos.com

------------------------------


Old Lucifer update

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 93 11:47:45 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Old Lucifer update

John the Coyote wrote:

>I wonder if I'll have to pitch champ. later to deal with all the

fermentables.  Hope it don't stall!  Some know what a bother that

can be!  (so how's it doing now norm?)

I forgot to report on Old Lucifer after things got better (isn't that just like

the media?  Only reporting the bad stuff).  Well, after pitching wine yeast

(dry, straight out of the packet) things did not progress any for several days,

maybe a week.  Then fermentation picked up and it went from 1.036 to 1.022 in a

couple of weeks (OG was 1.085).  Things settled down and I bottled at 1.022

after a total of 10 weeks fermentation.  Its a fine Bwine now.  I bottled it

without priming sugar for several reasons.  I like my barley wines low in

carbonation.  Most of my homebrews continue to increase carbonation over months

(if they last that long).  I pitched 2 different ale yeasts and a wine yeast so

there are lots of different types of guys in there looking for sugar.  I plan

to keep some of this stuff for several years.  I've read competition judge's

comments that said "reduce priming sugar" on barley wines more than once.  So,

of course it is dead flat now, but it should be great Christmas of 94, and 95,

and 96...  Anyway, my lesson learned is pitch, pitch, pitch, and aerate,

aerate, aerate for high gravity brews!!!

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


NA Beer

Date:     Thu, 9 Dec 93 14:59 EST

From: <GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

Subject:  NA Beer

Anyone know of a good way to make non-alcoholic beer.  I have a friend at

work who doesn't drink, and I was wondering if any of the great beer

styles of the world can be brewed without alcohol.

------------------------------


America Online: CENSORSHIP

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 15:06:30 -40975532 (CST)

From: "J. Andrew Patrick" <andnator@genesis.Mcs.Com>

Subject: America Online: CENSORSHIP

<GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU> writes about

America OnLine in HBD #1292:

>There is a brewing forum on America OnLine in the "Wine and Dine"

>section.  They keywork "Wine" will get you there.  We have about 10

>message bases and coming soon will be an interactive database

>containing HBD.

I must STRONGLY urge HBD readers not to waste their time with the AOL Beer

Forum.  The head of the Wine and Dine forum there, Mr. Craig Goldwyn,

is a egotistical prude who has no hesitation in using blatant censorship

to remove postings that he finds not to his own personal liking.

I was very active in the AOL Beer Forum, until a recent reorganization

caused several of my lengthly postings to be deleted with neither my

knowledge, not my consent.  When I expressed by outrage at this by saying

I was "pissed off", Craig Goldwyn said he had to delete THAT posting

because it used "profanity".  He also went ahead and deleted several

follow-up posts I made because they "no longer made sense" after the

original posting was gone.  He also deleted several messages from other

members criticizing his censorhip.  I thought that this sort of blatant,

transparent censorship went out with the Berlin Wall!

He also deleted messages I left there that he claimed contained

"libellous statements" concerning Jim Koch's Boston Beer Company.

In actual fact, all statements I made concerning the BBC were backed

up by hard evidence from the Home Brew Digest, Boston Globe, and

regional Brews Papers.  I think the deletions had more to do with

a direct verbal threat from Jim Koch to file a libel suit than any

lack of credibility in my sources.

I have ceased all postings to the AOL Beer Forum, and will not change

this policy until I receive a public apology from Mr. Craig Goldwyn.

+--------------+---------------------------------+--------------+

|Sysop         |         Andrew Patrick          |       Founder|

|Home Brew Univ| AHA/HWBTA Recognized Beer Judge |Home Brew Univ|

|Midwest BBS   |Founder and Sysop,HBU BBS Network| Southwest BBS|

|(708)705-7263 |Internet:andnator@genesis.mcs.com| (713)923-6418|

+--------------+---------------------------------+--------------+

------------------------------


fruit flavorings

Date: Thursday,  9 December 93 15:50:23 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: fruit flavorings

Howdy,

In HBD #1293, Matthew Evans asks about the fruit flavorings offered in

HopTech's catalogue.

I've tried a raspberry fruit flavoring from St. Patrick's of Texas.  My

brother & I used it in a wheat beer we brewed this fall.  I don't know if

it is the same stuff that HopTech is marketing, but I can give my opinion of

it.

The flavor came out fine, & was definitely raspberry-ish, but was lacking

a little.  Also, I felt that the flavor softened after a few weeks in the

bottle, almost disappearing.  Also, even though it was obviously red in

color, it added very little color to the beer itself, which disappointed me

because I was hoping for a drink with color.

Overall, I'd have to say that it's an easy & cheap shortcut to producing a

fruit beer, but if you are shooting for something high quality, I'd use

fruit instead.  It's real handy if you only want to make a few bottles of

a fruit beer & the rest a regular beer (which is why we tried the flavoring).

It's also suggested that you can add the flavoring to your glass instead of

bottling.  Even though I haven't tried this but once (when trying to determine

how much in each bottle to add), I think it might be fun to get an idea how

a Sierra Nevada Blueberry Pale Ale or Guiness Raspberry Stout might taste.

Hmm... now that I've piqued my own curiosity...

Alan, Austin

------------------------------


Filtration

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 15:15:22 -0800 (PST)

From: Jim Cave <CAVE@PSC.ORG>

Subject: Filtration

      There has been some limited dialogue on the digest lately

about the relative advantages/disadvantages about filtering beers.

I regularly filter some of my beers, depending how quickly I use

them, how much time I have and for what purpose they will be used.

I have also been able to compare various beers which have been

filtered with unfiltered "control kegs" from the same batches.

Invariably, I have found that filtered beers have a cleaner, more

professional quality and are brilliantly clear, however, these beers

are less stable, the latter feature I believe due to a couple of

aspects of home filtration systems.

      I think I remember that I read in Dave Miller's book on

Pilsners, that this type of beer benefits from filtration, by

removing "green beer" qualities.  However, he notes that the life

of the beer is reduced by stripping the beer of it's yeast.  I

concur with this.  I find that a home-filtered pilsner that has

been kept at serving temperature noticeably deteriorates after

about a month to 6 weeks, depending on how much is left in the keg.

      If one thinks about it, the home filtration system is affected

by our abilities to first, sterilize it and then minimize

oxidation.  Since effective filtration depends on maximizing the

surface to volume ratios of the filtration screen to beer volume,

there is a potential for a "surface" with a lot of bacteria and a

lot of oxygen, as well as a lot of "paper", as in my situation.  I

try and sanitize everything but the pads--I just don't want to risk

ruining the beer with a sanitizer taste.  I then "wash" the pads

with lots of sterile, de-aerated water, to remove as much "paper

taste" as possible.

      I keep beer on the yeast for as long as possible.  In the case

of lagers, this is cold storage (32 F) for as many as 6-8 months.

At these temps., bacterial action and yeast autolysis are

minimized.  I also "lager" ales which must be kept longer term.  I

don't bother filtering dark lagers, Wits (and other belgians) or

English ales.  I do filter pale and amber lagers (including pale

bocks) and American pale ales, particularly if they are to be

consumed at parties.  These are all chilled prior to filtering to

bring out the chill haze.  If this is not done, chill haze is not

removed.  I then either drink the beer as quickly as possible or

keep it very cold.

 Jim Cave Vancouver, B.C. Canada "Drink only beer"

------------------------------


EKU-28

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 93 18:47:49 -0600

From: Brian R Seay  </G=Brian/I=R/S=Seay/O=MAC/PRMD=ALCATEL/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=US/@alcatel.aud.alcatel.com>

Subject: EKU-28

                       Subject:                               Time:6:48 PM

  OFFICE MEMO          EKU-28                                 Date:12/9/93

before my curiosity makes me waste eleven bucks, has ANYONE out there

 ENJOYED EKU-28?  In HBD 580, it was referred to as "vile".

------------------------------


Iodophor / rinsing

Date: Thu, 09 Dec 93 18:26:15 PST

From: Tom Hamilton <tlh@ISI.EDU>

Subject: Iodophor / rinsing

Hi,

does anyone know how long iodophor will retain it's sanitizing

abilities after being diluted in water? Does it evaporate out of

solution similar to chlorine?

Also to George Fix if you're reading this: do you recommend rinsing

iodophor with cheap beer as you did with rinsing dilute chlorine? Or

will tap water rinse and/or drip dry suffice?

cheers,

Tom Hamilton

------------------------------


Re: #1(2) Homebrew Digest #12...

Date: Thu, 09 Dec 93 22:23:25 EST

From: robertw905@aol.com

Subject: Re: #1(2) Homebrew Digest #12...

Please stop sending the Homebrew Digest.

Thank you

------------------------------


Fruit Extracts, Celebration Hopping

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 93 8:50:31 PST

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Fruit Extracts, Celebration Hopping

Matthew Evans writes:

>Subject: HopTech Fruit Extracts

>I just got the catalog today from a company

>called HopTech.  Mostly they just sell hops,

>but they did have some concentrated fruit

>extracts.  They are sold in four ounce bottles

>and contain enough "stuff" to make about 15

>gallons of fruit beer.  They don't have any

>sugars in them, so you add them to the beer

>right before bottling.  Anyone ever heard of

>this stuff or tried it yet.  It is a lot

>cheaper than the real fruit itself, so it would

>be a good cost savings, but the question is,

>will it be good to taste?

In the interests of HBD protocol, I will let others comment

on how these extracts taste.  I just wanted to clear

up Matthew's quantities.

Our Peach and Raspberry come in 4 oz bottles.  Blueberry

Cherry and Pear come in 2 oz bottles.  With the

exception of the Cherry, they are enough to make 5 gallons,

not 15 as Matthew states.  This is at our recommended usage

levels, your mileage may vary, but so far no one has mentioned

that these were wrong (in fact, microbreweries have confirmed

that they are good levels).  The Cherry is more concentrated

and will do about 20 gallons.  All sell for the same price.

***********

Delano DuGarm writes:

>My only complaint was that it didn't have the _depth_ of

>hop taste that Celebration has.  I'm leaning towards dry hopping

>again, but noted a suggestion that you steep hops in a hot water

>and add this tea at bottling time for greater flavor and aroma.

>Any suggestions on this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Add another addition of hops at the end of the boil and let the

wort steep with them for 20 minutes.  (If you use an immersion

chiller, it'll accomplish the same thing.)  Also, use more hops

when you dry hop.

Mark

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1294, 12/10/93

*************************************

-------


Answer these questions, three....

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 11:42:55 +0100

From: steve_t@fleurie.inria.fr (Steven Tollefsrud)

Subject: Answer these questions, three....

Just got my order of brewing supplies shipped from England

to sunny old Southern France where you can't find such things

as home beer brewing is unheard of. The shipping costs were

almost as much as the cost of the supplies (extracts, grains, hops

and yeasts), OUCH! Still, I'm gleefully rubbing my hands together in

anticipation of brewing my next batch, but wanted to bounce a few

questions off the HBD before starting...

Thanks, in advance, for your response(s).

1. Re-using Lager Yeast in Fermenter: I was wondering what risks

or advantages there would be if I ferment a second batch on top

of the yeast left in my primary after siphoning off the previous

batch. I mean to siphon the first batch off, leaving the 1/2 inch

or so of sediment and then immediatly pour on the cooled (80-85 F)

3 gals of wort and top off with water. How much of this 1/2 inch

of trub is live yeast? Would the rest of this dead organic trub

impart off flavors? Would the advantages of having a large yeast

population and a quick start of fermentation outweigh the risk of

off flavors from decaying trub (if there is any)? Would the temps

and sudden introduction of concentrated (3 gal) wort and subsequent

topping off with water shock the yeasties too much?

2. Oatmeal in Stout/Porter: I generally avoid throwing in things

like the kitchen sink. Something of the German Reinheitsgeboet

must have rubbed off during my three years in Munich. But I have

never forgotten the taste of Sammy Smiths Oatmeal Stout and I

noticed several recipes in the Cat's Meow containing different forms

of oatmeal. I'm intrigued. What qualities would oatmeal add?

Any suggestion on quantities? (I can only find rolled oats here)

When should I add it to the boil? Or should it be steeped? Mashed?

3. When/How to Add Specialty Grains: I plan to make the following

extract based stout:

 4 lbs. Muntons Dark Malt Extract Syrup

 4 lbs. Muntons Light Malt Extract Syrup

 1/2 lb. Crushed Crystal Malt

 1/2 lb. Crushed Chocolate Malt

 1/2 lb. Black Patent Malt

 (1 lb rolled oats ???)

 1 oz. Northern Brewer Hops (30 min.)

 1.5 oz Hallertauer loose Hops (dry, in the primary)

None of my homebrew info sources explain when/how to properly

use specialty grains for an extract based brew.

In the past I've just tossed my grains in at the beginning of the

boil and boiled the hell outta them for an hour. Those batches

were VERRRY bitter, though I'm not sure if it wasn't the Northern

Brewer (2 oz, loose) which I was trying out at the same time.

Should I not let the grains get more than 150 degrees F, as in

mash conversion? Should I add them after the boil, below a certain

temperature, and let them steep. What temps? What times?

Thanks again,

Steve Tollefsrud

VALBONNE, FRANCE

steve_t@fleurie.compass.fr

------------------------------


Observations

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 8:41:48 EST

From: Mark A Fryling <mfryling@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

Subject: Observations

Hi Gang,

Just thought I'd throw out a few observations:

     First, on the subject of EKU28 Kulminator, I love the stuff.  It is an

     extremely malty, slightly sweet and very strong dopplebock.  I had always

     thought that it was an eisbock, but I am willing to believe the contrary.

     This stuff is definitely not meant to be quaffed in large quantities but

     as an occasional treat, I think its great.  Personally I prefer it to

     Samichlaus which to my palate has less body and sweetness than is

     necissary to balance the high alcohol content.  Another very high alcohol

     beer that I really like is Thomas Hardy's Ale.  This is a barleywine style

     English ale which is also very sweet and strong with pronounced fruity

     (pineapple?) flavors and aromas.  A buddy of mine was runner up to best

     of show in a local competition with a clone of this (Toxic Thomas').

     Unfortunately, Ohio has wierd laws about high alcohol beers that are still

     on the books from the 3.2% ABV days so we cannot get some of the domestic

     barleywines like Old Foghorn and Bigfoot here but whenever I am out of

     state I keep my eyes peeled.

     Second, I recently helped some friends of mine get started with

     homebrewing and since it was their first experience with the process, I

     decided to use dry yeast for simplicity.  I have used Wyeast from the

     start (about 2.5 years of homebrewing) but since these friends didn't

     know wort from warts, I thought I'd keep it basic.  Anyway, I elected for

     the following recipe:

          4# can Telfords Premium Bitter Hopped Extract

          3.3# bag of NWestern Gold Liquid Malt Xtract (unhopped)

          1 oz homegrown Cascade for finishing

          Red Star Dry Ale Yeast

     I chose the Red Star because of good reports here on the HBD and sure

     enough, I tried a bottle of it last night and it was quite good.  None of

     the estery or phenolic flavors that I have heard about with dry yeast.

     The beer has a nice fruityness and overall is very clean.  Im sure it will

     encourage them to keep up with their new hobby.

     Just my $0.02.

Mark

"Never let your sense of morality prevent you from doing whats right"

I. Asimov

------------------------------


Fountaining Beer

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 09:29:28 -0800

From: Jack Tavares <tavares@ctron.com>

Subject: Fountaining Beer

I opened a bottle of my Christmas Stout (after only 5 days .-)_

And it made the most beautiful black, gingery smellig fountain

that I have seen in a long time. My wife, however, was less impressed

with the mess in made.

I used a recipe from Cats Meow 2 (pg 5-20 in my edition).

If i remember correctly the SG had stabilized at arount 1.14.

That seems high, but my memory might be off.

Now, i am going to let it sit at least another week before I

open up another bottle.

If i have the same problem, is there anything I can do to correct

it?

Jack Tavares

Sorry, but at DoD minimum speed it is impossible to speak. There is just

too much wind noise.  At that speed I am spending all my concentration

allowance on riding, and cannot afford anymore thought for words.

However, when I finish a ride and the bike is in the garage cooling

down, the single word that comes to mind is:

HOMEBREW.

Start planning now for the 94 NECDoDSF!

------------------------------


NA/beer, Garetz fruit extracts

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 09:27:26 EST

From: lconrad@epoch.com (Laura Conrad)

Subject: NA/beer, Garetz fruit extracts

>>  Date:     Thu, 9 Dec 93 14:59 EST

>>  From: <GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

>>  Subject:  NA Beer

>>  Anyone know of a good way to make non-alcoholic beer.  I have a friend at

>>  work who doesn't drink, and I was wondering if any of the great beer

>>  styles of the world can be brewed without alcohol.

Of the commercial non-alcoholic beers I've tried, the only one I

consider even remotely a good copy of its style is the one Miller

makes.  American Pilsener isn't one of my favorite styles, but it is

one of the important beer styles of the world.

Given how remote all the professional attempts at non-alcoholic beers

are from the taste I like in beer, I haven't tried doing it myself.

>>  Garetz fruit extracts:

I ordered the Raspberry and Cherry fruit extracts from Mark Garetz.  I

haven't yet had time to brew a fruit beer with them (I might get to a

Framboise this weekend), but I have experimented with adding drops to

my cyser.  The raspberry worked pretty well, but the Cherry is

definitely concentrated enough to be hard to control in this mode.

Next time I get the urge to try this, I will dilute a dropperfull N to

1, where N is some number like 4 or 5, and add that by drops to my

glass.

In any case, the flavors were certainly good, it was just hard to

squeeze the cyser bottle hard enough to get the level of cherry flavor

I wanted.

   Laura

------------------------------


NA/beer, Garetz fruit extracts

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 09:27:26 EST

From: epochsys!lconrad@uunet.UU.NET (Laura Conrad)

Subject: NA/beer, Garetz fruit extracts

>>  Date:     Thu, 9 Dec 93 14:59 EST

>>  From: <GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

>>  Subject:  NA Beer

>>  Anyone know of a good way to make non-alcoholic beer.  I have a friend at

>>  work who doesn't drink, and I was wondering if any of the great beer

>>  styles of the world can be brewed without alcohol.

Of the commercial non-alcoholic beers I've tried, the only one I

consider even remotely a good copy of its style is the one Miller

makes.  American Pilsener isn't one of my favorite styles, but it is

one of the important beer styles of the world.

Given how remote all the professional attempts at non-alcoholic beers

are from the taste I like in beer, I haven't tried doing it myself.

>>  Garetz fruit extracts:

I ordered the Raspberry and Cherry fruit extracts from Mark Garetz.  I

haven't yet had time to brew a fruit beer with them (I might get to a

Framboise this weekend), but I have experimented with adding drops to

my cyser.  The raspberry worked pretty well, but the Cherry is

definitely concentrated enough to be hard to control in this mode.

Next time I get the urge to try this, I will dilute a dropperfull N to

1, where N is some number like 4 or 5, and add that by drops to my

glass.

In any case, the flavors were certainly good, it was just hard to

squeeze the cyser bottle hard enough to get the level of cherry flavor

I wanted.

   Laura

------------------------------


Sour Cherry Syrup in Stout

Date:    Fri, 10 Dec 1993 8:53:18 -0600 (CST)

From: SMITH@EPVAX.MSFC.NASA.GOV (The Ice-9-man Cometh)

Subject: Sour Cherry Syrup in Stout

A question for you all.  Has anyone used Sour Cherry Syrup (I found it in

the Middle Eastern foods section of the local ethnic market, though it

was made in Yugoslavia) in brewing?

I used it in a cherry stout that I started a couple of weeks ago, adding a

16oz bottle to a 5gal batch after the initial fermentation subsided.  It

foamed up again for a couple of days, due to the sugar, then calmed down;

I tasted it, and there was hardly any cherry component.  It was pretty

seriously cherry-ish in the syrup bottle, though.  Any ideas on how much it'd

take to do the job?  If this will work, it's a whole lot easier than

fooling around with fresh fruit....

|     James W. Smith, NASA MSFC EP25     |     SMITH@epvax.msfc.nasa.gov     |

|    "I'm going home, taking a hot bath, and sleeping alone!"

|                                                 --Omaha the Cat Dancer     |

|    Neither NASA nor (!James) is responsible for what I say.  Mea culpa.    |

------------------------------


RE: fruit flavoring ( Raspberry )

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 09:55:13 EST

From: mlobo@sentry.foxboro.com (Michael T. Lobo)

Subject: RE: fruit flavoring ( Raspberry )

Greetings:

 Alan in Austin ( HBD 1294) laments the lack of color in his raspberry

beer.  I made a raspberry stout using a soda raspberry flavoring made by

Flavorchem in Il. and it is RED!  Straight out of the bottle it tastes

horrible ( but raspberry-ish ) and it will dye everything it touches red.

I used 1/2 the bottle for the stout after fermentation - at bottle time.  I

tasted the stuff at that time and I was afraid I had overdone it with the

flavoring - really strong raspberry flavor.  Well, about 1 month of aging

has improved this beverage.  The stout flavors balance the raspberry quite

nicely, and if I hold a bottle to the light, it has a redish glow - the color

is certainly there.

The flavoring comes in a small bottle ( ~ 2 OZ ) and cost $2.58.

Next time I use it I will use 1/3 bottle - less if I'm making a lighter beer.

regards,

Michael

Michael T. Lobo   508 549 2487

Foxboro Co.

mlobo@foxboro.com  "I Love beer, beer loves me; when I drink too much,

my beer speaks for me" -Monty

------------------------------


New w/question

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 9:56:09 EST

From: "Adrian L. Anderson (Andy" <alanders@mwc.vak12ed.edu>

Subject: New w/question

Brewers,

    I am new to the list and to homebrewing.  Have one batch of

Continental Light, made from a kit, to my credit.  My product

came out fine body and colorwise w/ good carbonation.  The only

problem is a very (ultra - mega) yeasty aftertaste.  Actually

enough to make me shivver after swallowing.  The guy at the

store where I bought the kit said to chill the next batch

before bottling and that should cure the problem.  From reading

the messages here, I suppose my description is a little cryptic

and that without knowing other variables involved it might be

difficult to suggest a solution.  I just thought that maybe

there is a fairly standard cause for excessive yeast flavor.

The fermenting went according to directions as far as time and

specific gravity readings go.

    I read, in one brewing book, a note about skimming the

fermenting froth from the top of the batch as it rises during

the fermentation.  The guy at the store said "No, don't do

that."  Can anyone offer advice on this yeast mystery?

- --

              ____________________________________________

              Andy Anderson                 Winchester, VA

                        alanders@mwc.vak12ed.edu

          "You can't have everything, where would you put it?"

------------------------------


perf sheet

Date:         Fri, 10 Dec 1993 09:41:22 CDT

From: "Dennis Lewis" <DLEWIS%jscdo6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Subject:      perf sheet

In Friday's HBD Jim Busch writes:

"I favor using a hot water heater for sparge (hot liquor tank), and

use the kettle to mash in.  Transfer the mash to the dedicated

lauter tun with some kind of false bottom (perf sheet works great),

insulate the lauter tun.  "

I have a keg that I fitted with a SS screen false bottom and have a

tap coming out of the bottom of the keg as my sweet liquor outlet.

The perf sheet I have is 3/32" holes on 5/32" centers. (I got this

size from the Brewer's Warehouse sheets. They claim it's the

standard microbrewery size. Can anyone verify?)

        |             |  Keg

        |_____________| Screen set in bottom

         /_____  ____/

              | |__________

              /____________

             Tap out the bottom

Anyway, I get a lot of grain particles that bypass the screen,

enough that I have to send the runnings thru a strainer to catch the

big pieces. I have an adjustable MaltMill and have tried it set as

wide as .055" to minimize husk shredding, but I still get

granule-size particles passing the screen. Whaddaya think?

I've considered

* Crushing twice. Once set wide to remove husks, then set close to

pulverize everything.

* Getting a smaller screen size, like 1/16" holes

* Having the screen welded into the keg or fitting some sort of

gasket around the screen. There is a slight gap around the edges,

but it appears to be of less width than the holes. Also, right as

the last of the liquor drains out, I get a huge amount of grain

coming out the tap.

* Putting a small extension on the keg side of the outlet to raise

it about the bottom of the tun floor, letting any crud sit on the

bottom.

Any help on this is greatly appreciated. My beers turn out pretty

good, but my extraction is suffering (28 ppg for the bucket system,

25 ppg for this) and the frustration level is getting pretty high.

Also I've had to add polyclar to the finished beer because the

tannins are a bit high from all the husk material making it into the

kettle and that eliminates a lot of the malty flavor that I worked

so hard for.

Dennis Lewis                    <dlewis%jscdo6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

Homebrew, The Final Frontier.

------------------------------


Head Retention

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 08:43:50 -0700

From: reeves@lanl.gov (Geoff Reeves)

Subject: Head Retention

>From: Earle M. Williams <earlew@drc.usbm.gov>

>Subject: Head Retention, Beer Labels, and less...

>

>

>I cracked the top on a bottle of Nut Brown Ale last night, aged two weeks,

>and i noticed that while the carbonation was good, there was very little

>head.  I tried pouring the beer from about 4 inches (10 cm) and it foamed

>up nicely, but within about 10 seconds it had settled to a slim memory

>of a thick foamy head.

What you need for good head retention are proteins. Proteins are what

provides the surface tension which give the bubbles some strength. However,

proteins can also cause haze so you have to have a ballance. Hops are a

good source of proteins for head retention but you have a Brown Ale so you

have to go easy on the bitterness so use more of a lower alpha acid hop. If

you aren't adding hops at all then a good short-cut is to use just enough

wheet (2-4 oz) to get some proteins but not so much that you get any

noticable wheet flavor. Good hot and cold breaks will be necessary to clear

the beer.

The above has worked for me in practice but I have a question about the

theory. What is the difference between the proteins that aid head retention

and those which produce chill haze? Is it molecular wieght?, length of the

molecule? Why does one class coagulate and precipitate and the other

doesn't or does so to a lesser degree?

Geoff

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

|    A brewery is like a toothbrush, everyone should have their own.      |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Geoff Reeves:  Space Science Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory   |

|                reeves@lanl.gov (internet) or  essdp2::reeves (span)     |

|                Phone (505) 665-3877                                     |

|                Fax   (505) 665-4414                                     |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


BREW PROBLEM..

Date: 10 Dec 93 10:47:03-0500

From: MATTHEW.BOHNE@sprint.sprint.com

Subject: BREW PROBLEM..

I RECENTLY BREWED UP A HOLIDAY BRAU AND ADDED THE USUAL ASSORTMENT OF SPICES

AND THINGS.. AND I HAD SOME STRANGE RESULTS.

WHEN I MOVED EVERYTHING TO THE FERMENT TANK I DIDN'T GET A BUBBLE FOR THE 1ST

DAY, HOWEVER 2 DAYS LATER IT WAS AT FULL CRANK. ON THE 6TH DAY IT BLEW BEER

THROUGH THE VAPOR LOCK SOME 9 FEET INTO THE AIR(RATHER FUN TO WATCH BUT A MESS

TO CLEAN..) THE HEAD PEEKED AND FELL BACK IN, I DRAINED IT TO THE SECOND

FERMENT TANK AND WAITED.. IT BUBBLED SLIGHTLY ONCE AN HOUR, 2 DAYS LATER, I

BOTTLED. IT HAS BEEN 2 WEEKS AND I WENT DOWN TO THE CELLAR AND I NOTICED A

WHITE RING INSIDE OF ALL THE BOTTLES... WHAT IS THIS?? IT ALMOST LOOKS LIKE A

MINI HEAD BECAUSE IT SEEMS TO BE THICKENED FROTH... WILL IT GO AWAY?? SHOULD I

JIGGLE THE BOTTLES AND GET IT TO DROP TO THE BOTTOM? I ALSO NOTICED A THICKER

SEDIMENT IN THE BOTTOM OF MY BOTTLES THAN USUAL. SHOULD I BE CONCERNED? I

OPENED ONE AND GOT THIS MAJOR GUSHER (I SEEM TO BE GETTING A LOT OF THESE

THESE DAYS BOTH WITH OLD AND NEW BEERS) -- SHOULD THEY BE CHILLED LONGER? IS

THERE ANYWAY TO COUNTERACT THIS?

ALL INPUTS WOULD BE APPRECIATED -- PLEASE CC ME DIRECTLY IF POSSIBLE.

THANKS!!

MATTHEW BOHNE

SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS

SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT

------------------------------


Murphy's DraughtFlow System / Stuck Stout

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 07:53:14 -0800

From: royh@netcom.com (Roy Harvey)

Subject: Murphy's DraughtFlow System / Stuck Stout

Two questions:

  1) I just bought a fantastic can(!) of Murphy's Irish Stout that poured like

a dream!  The can is marketed as containing a

   "Unique Draughtflow System" - basically a plastic pressurized insert.

Can someone please explain how this works?  Very Impressed!

  2) I've been working on a Stout of my own that seems to be stuck at 1.030

for some time now.  The airlock is still held high, though bubbling is maybe

once per hour.  I used Wyeast Irish Ale to get it going...  Thanks!

Roy Harvey

Mountain View, CA

royh@netcom.com

------------------------------


RE: Canadian Microbreweries from HD #1294 (December 10, 1993)

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 08:36:19 PST

From: "Ray Siemens" <siemens@unixg.ubc.ca>

Subject: RE: Canadian Microbreweries from HD #1294 (December 10, 1993)

Richard Nantel <72704.3003@CompuServe.COM> writes:

>The latest trend is for high-alcohol brews. The newest addition is Labatt's

>XXX with 7.4% alcohol. Strangely enough, and to quote a German aquaintance,

>`you have 50 different beers and they all taste alike! The new potent brews

>are no exception. Thank goodness for some excellent Quebec microbreweries;

>most notably St-Ambroise and Hops Brau.

I agree, Richard, that much Canadian beer (like much American beer)

tastes alike, but luckily Quebec does not have a monopoly on excellent

micro-breweries.  Last time I was in Montreal I remember drinking some fine

beer, but I also recall sampling more than a few pints in Toronto (Upper

Canada Breweries, Amsterdam & Rotterdam Brew Pub, and many others).  Even

here in Vancouver we have several, my favorite being Granville Island; that

is, aside from what I make in my own kitchen.

Best,

Ray Siemens

University of British Columbia

siemens@unixg.ubc.ca

------------------------------


All grains are not created equal

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 11:44:49 EST

From: Keith A. MacNeal HLO1-1/T09 DTN 225-6171  10-Dec-1993 1142 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: All grains are not created equal

In HBD #1284 Jim Busch made a few comments regarding grains which raised

some questions in my mind.  Apparently Jim feels that all grains are not

created equal (use imported Munich, not domestic, why would you use a 6 row?).

What are the differences between a 6 row and a 2 row malt?  What are the

advantages of using imported vs. domestic (domestic = American I assume).

What should be considered when choosing between say, German, Belgian, British,

and American grains?

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Re: burnt aftertaste, homebrew names

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 9:56:27 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: burnt aftertaste, homebrew names

Jeff M. Michalski <michalski_jm@rophys.wustl.edu> writes:

>  The grain bill is as follows:

>

>  6 lb pale

>  3 lb klages

>  1 lb dark crystal (caramunich)

>  1 lb chocolate

>  1 lb carapils

>  1/4 lb black patent

>

>It has an overwhelming burnt taste to it!  The initial flavor is

>strong malt and ETOH (and a lot of hops!) but the charcoal flavor

>that follows is enough to scare away my guests.  My question is

>will this heavy roast flavor soften with age?

There are a couple of possible causes for a burnt taste.  The first

is simply the amount of dark malts (chocolate & patent).  You basically

have a very dark porter.  In fact, a little roast barley and you'd have

a stout.  If it's a "roasty-burnt" character, that's probably the reason.

This character will tend to smooth with time, so hang on to it and see

how it progresses.  Maybe you should just find some stout drinkers to

share it with!

On the other hand, if it has a very unpleasant burnt taste, and aroma,

it may be due to phenolics, possibly from bad yeast, an infection, or

even somewhat from oxidation.  It's less likely in this case that the

problem will go away, though you still may want to let it sit a few

months and see what happens.

Peter Brauer asked about homebrew "namebrands".  I'm sure there are

quite a few.  The "Organization:"  header in my email (which

unfortunately doesn't show up in the digest) says "Fat Wanda's Brewery

and Recording".  This occasionally results my receiving messages that

ask "Just what in the heck is Fat Wanda's?".  For the record, Wanda is

my partner's golden retriever, who, while not exactly fat, is a little

on the chunky side.  Actually, the full title of the establishment is

"Fat Wanda's Brewery, Recording, Photo, Custom Fly Rods, and Garden-

Fresh Produce".  Dance studio and Diesel Repair to be added soon.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


EKU KULMINATOR

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 12:01:20 -0500 (EST)

From: "Robert H. Reed" <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: EKU KULMINATOR

I just wanted to set the record strait on EKU Kulminator.  Actually

'28' refers to the number of pounds of malt that are used per

1 liter serving.  This works out to be about 1.49 metric tons of

malt per barrel.  This explains the intense maltiness and the high

alcohol level - 198 proof if memory serves me correctly.  It is

used as a gasoline substitute in many European communities.

It is recommended that you wear a wrist or ankle grounding

strap while you are pouring or drinking this beer to minimize

the chance of a spark induced fire.  Just a data point...

Rob Reed

------------------------------


evidence

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 12:24:47 EST

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: evidence

>He also deleted messages I left there that he claimed contained

>"libellous statements" concerning Jim Koch's Boston Beer Company.

>In actual fact, all statements I made concerning the BBC were backed

>up by hard evidence from the Home Brew Digest, Boston Globe, and

>regional Brews Papers.

Although I'm not a lawyer (and I don't play one on TV :-), I'm very sure that

statements in newspapers can in no way be considered hard evidence.

The alleged censorship, if true, is reprehensible (I guess I can sound

like a lawyer :-).

- --Tony Verhulst

------------------------------


EKU 28

Date:     Fri, 10 Dec 93 12:43 EST

From: <GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

Subject:  EKU 28

In HBD #1294 Brian R. Seay wanted to know if anyone likes EKU 28.

I for one like it.  I've had it 3 times, and then the restaurant I

used to get it at closed down.  It has a unique taste.  It's as thick

as maple syrup, really dark, and HEAVY, but had a flavor I could

enjoy.  I think everyone should try it al least once.

Andy Pastuszak

------------------------------


America OnLine: censorship

Date:     Fri, 10 Dec 93 12:48 EST

From: <GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

Subject:  America OnLine: censorship

In HBD #1242 J. Andrew Patrick talks about America OnLine censoring

his messages.

Well, I was on there last night, and they're still talking about you,

or least about someone using profanity in messages.  There is a guide

you receive with your AOL kit, and profanity violates your membership

rules.  If they feel it's profanity, then they have a right to do

something about it.  You agreed to this when you signed up.

Nasty posting about the BBC were probably deleted for fear of a law

suit.  How man people has Jim Koch sued already?

AOL is in the business of making money.  Hell, maybe the moderator

likes Samuel Adams?  Who know, who cares.  What I saw I liked.

------------------------------


FTP-ing from sierra.stanford.edu

Date:         7 Dec 93 18:01:01

From: bwchar@mail.wm.edu (Brett Charbeneau)

Subject:      FTP-ing from sierra.stanford.edu

Help!

    I can't seem to be able to log onto the sierra machine.  I can

telnet to it get the login prompt, but no matter what I try I

continually get an ''incorrect login'' error.  I have tried the

following permutations:

    userid:                 password:

    anonymous               anonymous

    Anonymous               Anonymous

    Anonymous               bwchar@mail.wm.edu

    anonymous               @mail.wm.edu

    bwchar@mail.wm.edu      anonymous

    My home machine is an IBM - what William an Mary confusingly

calls ''gopher''.

    Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Brett Charbeneau                            P.O. Box 1776-MHW

Williamsburg Imprints Program               Williamsburg, VA 23187

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation            Tel: (804) 229-1000

INTERNET: bwchar@mail.wm.edu                FAX: (804) 221-8948

  Why is it that the pioneers always have arrows in their backs?

------------------------------


afrika

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 14:24:06 EST

From: Mark Bunster <mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu>

Subject: afrika

* Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 12:01:43 +1000

* From: esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

* Subject: Ngoma

*

* Hi hombrewers,

*         I recently tasted some African beer called Ngoma.  The beer tastes

* great (also has quite a kick to it), but I have a few problems with it.

* First, it's very expensive ($33 a case) and second, I think it must be

* pasteurized because it claims to be brewed and bottled _in_ Africa.  Does

* anyone know what type of beer this is?  Anyone tried to copy it?  I would

* be most interested in a recipe.  I'm an extract brewer now, but I'm looking

* forward to doing a partial mash as Norm described in the HBD, so all

* extract or partial extract recipes are in order.

*

Must be one of those African Pale Ales, made for those long distances to "the

colonies."

Seriously, though, what kind of beer was it?  From where in Africa does it

come? How did it taste other than having quite a kick (did I ever tell you

about my Uncle Manny who used to bathe once a month in EKU 28?), and did you

really buy a case of it?

- --

Mark Bunster                      |

Survey Research Lab               |             MORE COFFEE

                                  |

mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu            |

367-8813                          |

------------------------------


AB in Wmsbg

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 14:52:48 EST

From: Mark Bunster <mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu>

Subject: AB in Wmsbg

* a nice Kent Golding hop aroma and flavor.  However, although I

* am a BJCP judge, I lost my confidence in distinguishing

* taste subtleties after failing a self inflicted taste test

* during a tour of the Anheiser-Busch brewery in Williamsburg VA

* about a month ago.  I could not distinguish between bud,

* bud-dry, bud-lite and Michelob.  Well, maybe bud and Michelob has

As a former resident of Williamsburg, and a former many-time visitor of AB's

plant there, I thought I'd offer some insights.

 -You get two freebies, which used to be four. You needn't schlep through the

tour to do it, either--just walk a couple hundred feet from the entrance and

yer there.

 -you can get to the brewery from the amusement park next door. There's a

monorail that takes you to it, and the walk is even shorter to the freebie

area (no exhibits to pass by.) Rather than enjoy the hokey atmosphere and

$2.75 AB beers at the "hofbrauhuas", take the monorail, quaff some freebies

(they will politely limit you after your 2nd only if they're paying

attention--never have I been bugged about getting three) and head back to the

park. Return later for more freebies if you desire, as the servers change

shifts regularly, and in summer when it's crowded they're way busy.

OK, OK, so I was a college student back then, and free beer, even AB, was a

deal.

 -If you're really mad at old August and Co., you may also gain free entrance

into the park, which saves you $25 a head. This depends on them still having

a way for you to just shop in their boutique area without paying the whole

tariff. You pay a deposit and must return in two hours to get your money

back. Once in, go directly to the monorail and ride to the brewery. As you

leave the park, your hand will be stamped so you may return to the park.

(people just taking the brewery tour can't get on the monorail and go to the

park.) Drink a beer if you like, then return to the park. Get your money

back, then drive over to the brewery (drink more beer), get back on the

monorail and head for a fun filled day on rides built from money made on all

those suckers who think Bud dry is a taste achievement.

Sorry if this is not germane, but, y'know.

- --

Mark Bunster                      |Exchange conversation if you dare--

Survey Research Lab--VCU          |Share an empty thought or a laugh.

Richmond, VA 23220                |

mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu            |

(804) 367-8813/353-1731           |                          -edFROM

------------------------------


Cranberry Lambic, Maple Syrup, Ngoma & EKU 28

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 14:53:15 EST

From: Mark Stickler Internet Mail Name <mstickle@lvh.com>

Subject: Cranberry Lambic, Maple Syrup, Ngoma & EKU 28

In reference to Sam Adams Cranberry Lambic and the use of Maple Syrup

in beer, I was at a Beer Tasting/Dinner last evening, ala Michael Jackson

in Belguim on the Beer Hunter video, at a local resturant (Allentown, Pa)

where twelve christmas beers were served throughout a six course meal.

This included Anchor, Sierra Nevada, Stoudt's, Dolle Broweries (sp),

Samiclaus, Schildes (Belgium Busch), Dock Street, St. Sylvester, Young's,

several other Belgiums, and the now infamous Cranberry Lambic. The host

pointed out it wasn't a true lambic and said that it had maple syrup added

to balance the tartness of the cranberries. To me it tasted like a Kriek I

attempted last summer, namely not so good. But, for those looking for a

use of maple syrup in homebrewing, this could be your chance.

In HBD1294 Eugene writes:

> I recently tasted some African beer called Ngoma.  The beer tastes

> great (also has quite a kick to it), but I have a few problems with it.

> Does anyone have a recipe?

I have had this beer. It is obviously a lager in the Munich style, very

malty and surprisingly good (well balanced). I would start by using a

bock recipe. Sorry, can't get more specific than that, had just one bottle

of it and that was more than year ago.

Also posted:

> First, the 28 in the title refers to the percent of

> alcohol in the beer.  That's right folks, 28% = 56 proof.

My understanding is that the 28 stands for the OG in degrees Plato and,

as was also posted in HBD1294, the abv is in 13% range.

And also posted:

> before my curiosity makes me waste eleven bucks, has ANYONE out there

> ENJOYED EKU-28?  In HBD 580, it was referred to as "vile".

I like it, but there's no accounting for taste. My bother says he thinks it

has the same aroma as the insect we call a "daddy-long-legger" after the

legs have been pulled off! I guess that qualifies as vile. Please note,

my brother and I haven't pulled the legs off a daddy-long-legger since the

late '60's when I was about 8 years old. (25 years before Beavis and

Butthead).

------------------------------


Re: SS keg question

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 11:57:28 PST

From: hollen@megatek.com (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Re: SS keg question

>>>>> "Jim" == Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com> writes:

Jim> Sorry if this has been addressed before and I wasn't paying attention.

Jim> For those of you who have turned a SS keg into a brewpot, where did you

Jim> get the keg?  How much did it cost you?  I've seen references to Sanke

Jim> kegs for this.  Are these the only type of kegs to turn into brewpots?

Jim> What other kinds have people used?

Jim> Private e-mail is fine.

Jim> Many thanks in advance.

Jim> - --

Jim> Jim Grady       |"Immediately after Orville Wright's historic 12 second

Jim> grady@an.hp.com | flight, his luggage could not be located."

Jim>                 |                       S. Harris

Legal Sankey (straight sided)kegs are available from BCI for about

$42.  Any of the old style rounded kegs are harder to make a stand

for.  Also, the skirt around the bottom of the Sankey kegs makes a

good flame protector.  Another source, but of higher cost is

Sabco-Save-A-Barrel.  I do not have Sabco phone #, but they advertise

the "Brew Magic" RIMS system in Zymurgy.

BCI can be contacted at

Bev-Con International

6400 HIghway 51 South

Post Office Box 396

Brighton, Te.  38011

(901)476-8000

(800)284-9410

Dion Hollenbeck (619)455-5590x2814     Email: hollen@megatek.com

Senior Software Engineer                      megatek!hollen@uunet.uu.net

Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California    ucsd!megatek!hollen

------------------------------


EKU28/mlt_liqu/blwffVSnon-/idiots/dryhopVStea/BurntBeer/head/HppdXtract

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 14:18 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: EKU28/mlt_liqu/blwffVSnon-/idiots/dryhopVStea/BurntBeer/head/HppdXtract

There have been a number of incorrect interpretations of the "28" in

EKU's Kulminator:

>Bavaria is that the 28 in EKU 28 is the PROOF of the beer.  You got

>it.  28 proof aka 14% alcohol.  I have a bottle saved from when I last

and

>his comments.  First, the 28 in the title refers to the percent of

>alcohol in the beer.  That's right folks, 28% = 56 proof.  The bier is

Actually, Darryl has it right:

>brewed from a wort that does achieve at least 28 degrees Plato

>(about sg 1.112).

**********

Andy writes:

>Correct me if I'm wrong(and I know you will), but isn't there a

>federal law that says beer can only be a maximum of 6% alcohol?

>Anything stronger than that has to be called a Malt Liquor.

The laws concerning the labeling of strong beers vary from state to state.

What you say may be true for some states, but I don't know which.

**********

Bill writes:

>Every now and then people have been debating the use or not of

>using a blow-off, so I thought I would add a data point to this

>controversy.  I brewed 6 1/2 gallons of IG 1.041 English Special

>Bitter style which was siphoned into a 7 gallon carboy  and

>pitched about 3/4 quarts of yeast starter.  After about 3-4

>hours I reracked the wort, filling one 5 gallon carboy to about

>3 inches from the brim, and the other with the remainder.  Both

<snip>

>but after 10 days the blow-off batch was still bubbling every

>13 seconds, while the non-blow-off batch seemed finished.  So,

>after 11 days I reracked both batches and was shocked to find

>the gravity of the blow-off batch to be 1.020, while the

>non-blow-off batch was down to 1.011.  The non-blow-off batch

Fermenter geometry is the difference.  Note that some yeasts are

more sensitive to fermenter geometry than others.

<snip>

>the BURP homebrew club meeting for a more unbiased comparison.

>I did tell them that one was blow-off and one was not, but I

>didn't identify which was which.

>Some of the members correctly identified the blow-off batch

>saying they thought it was slightly smoother, (one correctly

>identified the blow-off batch but said she liked the

>non-blow-off batch better).  Some incorrectly identified the two

>batches and some "punted" and said no difference.  All agreed

>that if there was a difference it was minor. Therefore,

I suggest that perhaps the 3-4 hour pause to allow for hot and

cold break settling and the subsequent transfer off the trub

reduced the benefits of blowoff.  I've done this experiment

twice and each time the difference was stunning.  I used a

1 gallon jug, filled 3/4 full and a 5 gallon carboy filled to

the top.  The geometry was not very close.  I would like to

try to retry this test with closer fermenter geometries.  Perhaps

a 5-gallon fermenter and a 6-gallon fermenter?  Perhaps a 3-gallon

and a 1-gallon jug?  I'll have to work on it.

**********

Tim writes:

>Subject: Is Tim McNerney an idiot?

I disagree.

>Sorry for wasting space with a stupid question (if you believe their are

I urge everyone to ask all questions they might have -- if we don't ask

(or are afraid to ask) then we could all lose out on something useful.

**********

Delano writes:

>Subject: Hop Teas and Dry Hopping

<snip>

>hop taste that Celebration has.  I'm leaning towards dry hopping

>again, but noted a suggestion that you steep hops in a hot water

>and add this tea at bottling time for greater flavor and aroma.

A member of a B.O.S.S., Terry Murphree (I hope I got the spelling right),

did an experiment recently in which he split a batch into two 3-gallon

batches.  He dryhopped one half and added hop tea to the other.  The

results were very interesting.  After two or three days in the kegs, the

hop tea batch aroma was noticably stronger.  After an additional month,

the hop tea version had lost all of it's hop aroma and the dryhopped

version beat it hands down.  Both the 2-3 day tasting and 1-month

tasting were unanimous decisions by our club members.

***************

Jeff writes:

>6 lb pale

>3 lb klages

>1 lb dark crystal (caramunich)

>1 lb chocolate

>1 lb carapils

>1/4 lb black patent

>

>Near the end of the boil I also added 1 lb of dark brown sugar.

> OG 1072, FG 1021 (wyeast 1056).

>

>It has been in a soda keg after completing primary and secondary

> fermentation for at least 6 weeks.

>

>It has an overwhelming burnt taste to it!  The initial flavor is

> strong malt and ETOH (and a lot of hops!) but the charcoal flavor

> that follows is enough to scare away my guests.  My question is

> will this heavy roast flavor soften with age?  I am tempted to

I got this once from an all-extract (no specialty grains) batch.

It turns out that I scorched the malt in the kettle.  It never

went away.  I had it in a keg, so I just used it up to flavor some

under-flavored commercial brews.

********

Earle writes:

>characteristics.  Is there something I can add or delete to my brews that

>would encourage more head?

Head retention is a function of small proteins and dextrins in your beer.

Crystal malt will add some dextrins and thus some head retention.  To

have control of your small proteins, you need to mash (although some

extracts may give you better head retention than others -- I don't know

which).  I've been speculating for about a year that the blowoff method

may reduce head retention by blowing off some of these small proteins.

Bill -- any data here?  Protein rests at the lower end (112-122F, I believe)

of the proteolytic range will turn your big proteins into amino acids,

whereas protein rests at the higher end (122-140F) will make less amino

acids, but more small proteins (better head).

*********

Earle also writes:

>I was playing with the hop utilization numbers to try and quantify the

>hoppiness of my last batch, and i realized that I had no clue as to the

>amount of hops in the canned extract.  Anyone have any general or specific

The Extract Special Issue of Zymurgy has a table that lists the hop rates

on many of the hopped extracts at that time (1986?).

Al.

------------------------------


Good to the last drop.

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 15:46:54 CST

From: nfarrell@ppco.com (Norman Farrell)

Subject: Good to the last drop.

With all the talk about getting extract out of the bag (in a box), I am

prompted to write about a procedure invented(?) by a Just Brew It club

member:

                    The "Chopstick Method"

1. Set the plastic bag-o-extract in a sinkful of hot water to soak.

2. Locate a set of chopsticks: nice or disposable, it matters not.

3. Cut/Slice open the top of the extract bag and pour into the ketttle

   as usual.

4. Hold the bag by the top two corners and have a helper position the

   two chopsticks one on each side of the bag up near where you are

   holding onto the bag. Make sure the opening points toward the kettle.

5. Next, your helper will press the two chopsticks together and draw the

   pair of them down the length of the bag towards the kettle.  Stop, of

   course when you get down to the open end of the bag.

If done properly, you will have neatly extruded almost every drop of

extract and will not have it all over you, your helper, your kitchen

and the dog (or cat).

Thanks to Rob Dahlgren, inventor of the chopstick method.

Hope this is helpful.

Norman (nfarrell@ppco.com)

------------------------------


Re: Q: Kegging and Refrigeration

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 14:56:25 PST

From: hollen@megatek.com (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Re: Q: Kegging and Refrigeration

Sorry to post, but mail to Rich bounces:

>>>>> "Rich" == Rich Miani <miani@ibm1> writes:

Rich> thanks for the info re: the kegging faq ....

>> No, refrigeration is not necessary at all unless you do not like room

>> temperature beer.  I had a cooler for a while, but sold it when I

>> found out I liked room temp better.

Rich> What kind of cooler ($$,setup,etc) ? Also, would a frosted mug

Rich> do the trick ?  I don't like my beer ice cold, but I do like it

Rich> a little cooler than room temperature.

Rich> Thanks again,

Rich> Rich

I was able to pick up a *very* used commercial soda cooler for $50.

The kind which has sliding doors and is in stores or taco shops.  Not

anything one could normally get for $50.  A frosted mug might do the

trick, but again, I *like* my beer warm, so I have no data on that.

dion

Dion Hollenbeck (619)455-5590x2814     Email: hollen@megatek.com

Senior Software Engineer                      megatek!hollen@uunet.uu.net

Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California    ucsd!megatek!hollen

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1295, 12/11/93

*************************************

-------


Reply to 12/8/aerlew@drc.usbm.gov

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 16:24:00 PST

From: Patrick Seymour <seymour@ucs.ubc.ca>

Subject: Reply to 12/8/aerlew@drc.usbm.gov

From: Earle M. Williams <earlew@drc.usbm.gov>

Subject: Head Retention, Beer Labels, and less...

I cracked the top on a bottle of Nut Brown Ale last night, aged two weeks,

and i noticed that while the carbonation was good, there was very little

head.  I tried pouring the beer from about 4 inches (10 cm) and it foamed

up nicely, but within about 10 seconds it had settled to a slim memory

of a thick foamy head.  I hadn't really tried for a thick head in this

beer, but it got me to thinking about past brews that had similar

characteristics.  Is there something I can add or delete to my brews that

would encourage more head?  I would appreciate some comments, with or

without

puns. :>

Ahem, regarding your "lack of head" concern...

I have been adding an additional 150-200grams of wheat in the grain bag -

and recent batches have produced great head.

------------------------------


Brew suplies around Chambersburg, PA

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 15:10:00 est

From: "Blahnik, Vance T" <blahnv@uf9455p01.minneapolismn.NCR.COM>

Subject: Brew suplies around Chambersburg, PA

My brother is looking for suppy sorces near Chambersber, PA.   Any help is

gratly appreaciated

Please reply to vance.blahnik@minneapolismn.ncr.com.

Thanks

------------------------------


what makes dark extract dark?

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 17:15:19 -0800 (PST)

From: Peter Maxwell <peterm@aoraki.dtc.hp.com>

Subject: what makes dark extract dark?

Many recipes based on extracts stipulate dark extract (or amber, if it comes

to that).  Full-grain recipes, on the other hand, always use basic malted

barley and add extra things to get dark beers.  So I have two questions:

1.  What is it in a dark or amber extract that differentiates it from a

    light extract?

2.  If I start off with light extract can I simply add more of

    chocolate/black patent, in addition to what might be specified in a

    recipe calling for dark extract, to achieve the same effect?

                        Peter

------------------------------


Kudos and carbonation

Date: 10 Dec 93 22:43:42 EST

From: Richard Nantel <72704.3003@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: Kudos and carbonation

Kudos to all members of HBD. After three weeks on the net, I'm amazed by

the quality of this digest. It has become my primary source of info on

homebrewing.

One question. I'm having carbonation problems. The traditional 3/4 cup

priming sugar per 5 gallons (for most beer styles) produces different

amounts of carbonation in different batches of beer. My latest is an

all-grain pale ale (a variation of Papazian's Amazeing Pale Ale) which,

although delicious, is slightly overcarbonated for the style. Also, this

batch reached carbonation in a mere 7 days.

Other recipes (using the same type yeast) produce beer with about the same

final SG and level of alcohol and will, although primed with the same 3/4

cup per 5 gal ratio of priming sugar, take much longer to carbonate. In

fact, some may never reach a high enough level of carbonation. Others have

become greatly overcarbonated after 3 months in the bottle. The temperature

here is a steady 73%. What's up? (I'm not interested in kegging.)

Richard Nantel

Montreal, Quebec

Canada

PS. Correction to my posting in HBD 1294. Molson produces XXX at 7.3%

alcohol. Not Labatt. Also, due to public pressure, they've raised the price

of this high-potency brew to discourage the cheap-fast-drunk crowd.

------------------------------


Re: AOL: Censorship

Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1993 00:09:58 -40975532 (CST)

From: "J. Andrew Patrick" <andnator@genesis.Mcs.Com>

Subject: Re: AOL: Censorship

Mr. Craig Goldwyn,

I dont think the readership of HBD is going to be very sympathetic to you

telling them that they are not a reputable source of information about

brewing.  Which is what you just did, considering that much of the info

about Jim Koch and the Boston Brewing Co that you considered "libellous"

and deleted from the AOL Beer Forum was originally posted on the HBD!!

+--------------+---------------------------------+--------------+

|Sysop         |         Andrew Patrick          |       Founder|

|Home Brew Univ| AHA/HWBTA Recognized Beer Judge |Home Brew Univ|

|Midwest BBS   |  SW Brewing News Correspondent  | Southwest BBS|

|(708)705-7263 |Internet:andnator@genesis.mcs.com| (713)923-6418|

+--------------+---------------------------------+--------------+

------------------------------


re: EKU-28

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 22:51:29 -0800

From: mfetzer@UCSD.EDU (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer)

Subject: re: EKU-28

People people people!!!

Eku 28: Erste Kulmbacher Unionsbrauerei, 28 degrees plato original gravity.

Not an icebock, at least they say it is not, and it is not billed as such.

Very strong, with a vinous characteristic that's present in some barley

wines, but not to such a degree.

Not a beer to have with your burger at lunch... it's a 'desert beer', just

like there are desert wines. Have it with some icecream?

Everything has a place and a time, and at the right time and in the right

place EKU 28 is the perfect beer. If we're going to throw out EKU 28 as

vile, we have to get rid of a whole slew of beverages that are not intended

for mass consumption.

Beer, it's not just for breakfast any more! EKU 28, it's just not for breakfast.

:*)

Mike

- --

Michael Fetzer                         pgp 2.2 key available on request

Internet:      mfetzer@ucsd.edu        uucp:    ...!ucsd!mfetzer

Bitnet:        FETZERM@SDSC

HEPnet/SPAN:   SDSC::FETZERM           or       27.1::FETZERM

------------------------------


HBD Reader

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 22:00:16 CST

From: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: HBD Reader

Like many of you, I get HBD sent to me in one huge file. Even

when I used to get it through a PCBoard BBS, It would get

broken down into three large files.

I'd like it to be easier to respond to individual notes

within a given day's HBD. Anyone have any experience with

a good reader for HBD? Since this is modestly on subject,

private mail is welcome. TIA Phil

- -----

Internet: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com

    UUCP: metronet.com!pro-storm!philb

  Bitnet: philb%pro-storm.metronet.com@nosc.mil

------------------------------


Date:    Sat, 11 Dec 93 09:11 CST

From: "Leslie G. Hunter"                   <KFLGH00%TAIMVS1.BITNET@TAIVM1.TAIU.EDU>

Subject: .

set Leslie Hunter nomail

------------------------------


Re: Murphy's Irish Stout.

Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1993 11:51:23 -0500 (EST)

From: "THE FOURWHEELIN' 'TALIAN WANNABE JOKEMEISTER." <AD75173%LTUVAX.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

Subject: Re: Murphy's Irish Stout.

I, too just purchased a can of this beer.  I was intrigued by the "pressure

system".  I saw the posting about it on the last HBD, and decided to take a

closer look.  Sure enough, I saw the plastic insert.  I opened the can from

the bottom with the tap of a pointed object (learned from my father to save

cans for a beer can collection) and I can see some plastic apparatus near

the bottom.      That's all I know..

Might as well get insight on something I've been trying:

I got into winemaking before homebrewing, but it takes too long to make wine,

so I'm into making beer now, too.  Anyway, a recipe for sparkling wine says

to prime it with corn sugar when it's done, and put it in 2-liter plastic

bottles.  When the yeast settles out, one can siphon the wine off it and into

champagne bottles.  But this would lose carbonation, right?  Well, the recipe

says to chill the wine till ice starts to form.  In school I learned that cold

liquids effervesce less, so this makes sense.   QUESTION:  has anyone tried

this with beer?  The first time I tried it, I didn't chill it enough, and lost

quite a bit of carbonation.

Aaron Dionne

Lawrence Technological University

Southfield, Michigan

------------------------------


Dream Tun

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 13:49:21 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Dream Tun

My dream tun is beginning to take shape, with suggestions from various HBDers.

I'm currently thinking of a SS half-barrel keg, insulated somehow (cedar

boards?).  I would install a pipe fitting near the bottom with a manifold in

the tun.  The manifold will probably be a set of pipes with holes or slots in

them, facing down.  It will be a dual purpose manifold: 1) steam injection,

and 2) liquor draining.  The holes nearest the fitting will be smaller than

the ones farther away; an attempt to create an even flow of steam from all

holes (this could be more work than its worth, requiring lots of trial and

error).  The steam injection will be the only method for heating the tun,

there will be no direct fire.  This should serve quite well as a mash/lauter

tun for simple infusion and step-mashes.  I expect to have to stir the mash

during temperature increases, but not during rests as it will be insulated.

The other dual purpose vessel I would need is a hot liquor / steam generator

tank.  This would be direct propane fired.  It could be used to heat the

strike water at the start of the mash.  Then the temperature would be turned

up for boiling and the steam piped over to the mash tun for step mashes.  It

would need to be able to be closed tightly and would need an outlet at the

top for steam and another at the bottom for draining the hot water.  I don't

expect much pressure to build up, as the only back pressure would be the

weight of the mash, but I would install a pressure relief valve in case of

operator error.  I would need a valve between the steam outlet and the

manifold because during draining, it would draw air in as the wort passed by

the "T".  It would be nice if this thing was insulated as well for efficiency.

I think this could be a quarter barrel keg, or a soda keg with the rubber

removed.

Any ideas on where to purchase these kegs?  Am I loony?  I could do without

all the standard warnings about steam, pressure, etc.  I know how dangerous

it is.  I wouldn't build this thing if I thought it couldn't be done safely.

I would appreciate any comments on the ease / difficulty I will have in doing

something like this.  BTW, this will all be gravity fed: hot liquor tank,

mash/lauter tun, boiler, fermenter.  One big drawback is that the hot liquor

tank will be a good 7 or 8 feet high (to the top of it).  The other option is

a pump which will push hot water up a few feet (the steam will take care of

itself).  Comments?

Cheers,

Norm

------------------------------


Northern Lagering Methods

Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1993 16:43:09 -0500 (EST)

From: G1400067@nickel.laurentian.ca

Subject: Northern Lagering Methods

Hello,

     I have a friend who has a cottage on the French River in Northern

Ontario. He has been talking about brewing a lager for a long time now, but

he does not have access to a fridge to accomodate the required lagering

temperatures. Recently, he came up with a pretty unique idea for lagering,

without the use of a fridge, but I'm not sure that it's going to work, so I

need some advice. He is going to do a full mash and rack of the cold break

into a glass carboy. The carboy is going to be sealed up in plastic and

placed carefully into the river just before ice-over. The theory here is that

once the river freezes, the water temperature below the ice will be at 4 deg.

C. This sounds pretty good for cold fermentation. He intends to leave the

carboy in the river until ice-out in the spring. He also seems pretty

confident that the carboy will not break at any time during this process.

There is little to no current which runs at his "brewing" location. I was

skeptical to say the least, but for no good reason that I could think of.

What am I missing?

Greg Pyle

g1400067@nickel.laurentian.ca

------------------------------


Looking for Commonwealth Brewery's Porter

Date: Sat, 11 Dec 93 17:21:12 EST

From: CARBACIO@ROO.DNET.ICD.Teradyne.COM (Dave)

Subject: Looking for Commonwealth Brewery's Porter

ISO a great Porter recipe! I'd like to know if anyone can help me duplicate

a Porter I experienced at the Commonwealth Brewery, in Boston. I attended a

banquet there about three years ago and had this black beauty served. This

was before I was into brewing my own, but recall it being light bodied, medium

hopped, and well balanced.

If anyone has this recipe I'd appriciate a copy.

Happy brewing!

------------------------------


Starve a lawyer - boycott Sam Adams beer (long)

Date: Sat, 11 Dec 93 16:11:06 EST

From: chuck@synchro.com (Chuck Cox)

Subject: Starve a lawyer - boycott Sam Adams beer (long)

Since there is renewed interest in Jim Koch's legal shenanigans, I

though some of our newer subscribers might be interested in reading

about my encounter with Koch's rabid lawyers.

Last year I was subpoenaed in relation to his lawsuit against the Boston

Beer Works.  They claimed it was because I had offered to testify as an

expert on behalf of the BBW (I wrote a letter to the BBW attorney

stating my opinion but it was never used).  However it became clear that

they were upset about some unflattering (but factual) postings I had

made about Koch to the net, most likely the HBD.

They subpoenaed me and all of my personal correspondence and written

materials related to the litigants in Koch's various lawsuits.  As it

turns out, the subpoena was quietly dropped when I told their lawyers

that while I would challenge the disclosure of personal correspondence,

as a master beer judge and brewing instructor I would be glad to be

deposed as to the facts of any of my public statements about any of the

litigants.

Koch's habit of taking legal action against his critics is generally a

successful strategy because most folks are too spineless to stand up to

him.  This time it backfired because not only did I fight, I exposed his

tactics to thousands on the net and challenged him to let me testify.

For the record, here are some of the facts that Koch doesn't like folks

to know:

  Sam Adams Boston Lager was designed by brewing consultant Joseph Owades.

  Joe even wrote a paper about it.

  Koch is not the father of the microbrewery revolution.  He is a contract

  brewer who got started years after the revolution had begun.  Until he

  opened a small pilot brewery in Boston a few years ago, all of his beer

  was brewed under contract.  Even today the vast majority of his product

  is contract brewed at distant regional breweries.

  His antics caused the GABF to eliminate the popularity poll.  Subsequent

  misbehaviour caused him to be kicked out of the festival.  Koch only got

  back in by threatening to sue.  In various ads he has misrepresented his

  GABF awards.

  He is being sued by New York state for fraudulent advertising.

  Here is a list of organizations that he has sued or threatened to sue (there

  may be more):

  Boston Beer Works

  Commonwealth Brewing Company

  Boston Brewers Festival

  Great American Beer Festival

By the way, I am told that he has lost his latest appeal in his lawsuit

against the BBW.  The only remaining appeal would be to the supreme

court who has never heard a trademark infringement case.

In my opinion, his lawsuits are frivolous.  As numerous judges have made

perfectly clear, he does not and cannot own the word "Boston".  His

continued litigation proves that he is abusing the legal system in order

to intimidate his competition and critics.

In my opinion, Koch is behaving in an unacceptable manner.  I continue

to encourage beer lovers to avoid Sam Adams products because the profits

are used to the detriment of the brewing renaissance.  As I like to say,

"Starve a lawyer - boycott Sam Adams beer".

Here is a copy of the message I posted at the time:

> From hbd Tue Dec 15 06:12:45 1992

> Date: Mon, 14 Dec 92 15:25:13 EST

> From: chuck@synchro.com (Chuck Cox)

> Subject: Subpoena

>

> Well, I was served an interesting document the other day...

>

> ========================================================================

>

>                  United States District Court

>                    DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

>

> BOSTON BEER COMPANY LIMITED PARTNERSHIP,

> d/b/a THE BOSTON BEER COMPANY

>              V.

> SLESAR BROS. BREWING COMPANY, INC.

> d/b/a BOSTON BEER WORKS

>

> SUBPOENA IN A CIVIL CASE

> CASE NUMBER: 92-10865-K

>

> TO: Charles Cox

>     Synchrosystems

>     44 Western Ave   (wrong address!!)

>     Cambridge, MA  02139

>

> YOU ARE COMMANDED to appear ...

> at the taking of a deposition in the above case.

>

> YOU ARE COMMANDED to produce and permit inspection

> of the following documents ...

>

> Any written correspndence or other documents in your possession which

> refer, relate or allude to Boston Beer Company, Boston Beer Works, or

> Commonwealth Brewing Company and/or any persons connected with Boston

> Beer Company, Boston Beer Works or Commonwealth Brewing Company.

>

> (signed) Richard A. Savrann, Esq.

>

> ========================================================================

>

> As some of you may recall, I wrote a letter to the BBW attorneys this

> summer expressing my opinion about this trademark infringement nonsense.

> While the letter was never used, the BBC attorneys found out about it by

> reading my postings to the net, and now they want to see it.

>

> While issuing the above subpoena is perfectly legal, I think it is also

> indicative of how absurdly litigious Koch & Co have become.

>

> FYI: The above case is an appeal to the original trademark infringement

> case which BBC lost.  They are also suing the CBC for using the word

> 'Boston' on their labels.

>

> Here is a copy of the letter that has them so worried...

>

> ========================================================================

>

>                                                            5 June 1992

>

>           To whom it may concern,

>

>                In my opinion, consumers will not be confused by any

>           similarity between "Boston Beer Works" and "Boston Beer

>           Company".  "Boston Beer Company" is not widely known by

>           consumers, since most identify their products as "Samuel

>           Adams".  In addition, "Boston Beer" is a generic phrase and

>           is part of the name of a variety of businesses,

>           organizations and events in the Boston area.

>

>           Sincerely,

>

>           Charles Cox

>

>           BJCP Master Beer Judge

>

>           Member - Boston Beer Society

>

> ========================================================================

>

- --

Chuck "Boston Beer" Cox   <chuck@synchro.com>

SynchroSystems / Riverside Garage & Brewery - Cambridge, Mass.

------------------------------


misc. answers

Date: Sat, 11 Dec 93 17:35:08 EST

From: ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu (Ulick Stafford)

Subject: misc. answers

Brett Charbeneau wonders how to log into sierra.stanford.edu.  When

asked for a user name respond ftp, and when it asks you for a password as

your complete email address respond r@ .  The @ automatically appends

your site address.  If you are up to no good respond with the address of

someone you don't like :-)

Dennis Lewis has loitering problems.  Perhaps a procedural change would help.

Try laeutering very slowly especially at the start.  This allows the bed to

settle nicely and filter better and not compact.  I find that the most

effective thing that I did to speed up my sparges was to slow them down!

Unfortunately it reads as if Matthew Bohne has a nasty contamination problem.

Ring around the neck and gushing has got to be a nice ... em .. ococcus

infection or something.

Someone (oops can't read my own writing) asks about Murphy cans.  If you

cut open the can you will find that it contains a cylinder with a small

hole.  If you try popping open the cylinder it will go pop and part will

go flying accross the room.  Unless you want your next phone call to be

to an eye specialist or ambulance chasing attorney wear a pair of safety

goggles while doing this.  The container cotains nirogen under pressure

that leaks out through the hole when the can is opened and stirs up the

froth nicely.  This device is patented by an English firm, I think, and is

a cumbersome way of countering Guinness' more elegant device without

a patent infringement.

I loved Mark Bunster's AB busting story.  When I went to the park, I didn't

even know that there was a brewery there.  And I like Kulminator.  Who

was it told the great story a while back about being at a restaurant with

a large group from work?  When he saw that they had good old EKU 28 on

the menu he ordered a bottle.  The rest of the group knowing him to be a beer

connoisseur followed suit.  I believe the repsonse was what one would

expect!!

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


Non-alcoholic beer

Date:         Sat, 11 Dec 93 13:57:33 PST

From: Bob <TATTERSH@WSUVM1.CSC.WSU.EDU>

Subject:      Non-alcoholic beer

In response to the December 9, 1993 posting by GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINC

ETON.EDU regarding non-alcoholic beer:

In September I brewed my first batch of non-alcoholic beer.  Essentially I copi

ed a recipe from Papazian.  With a few ingredient alterations to his Righteous

Real Ale, the procedure is as follows:

On Day 1, boil the malt extract in 2 gallons of water, using Irish Moss as a

settling agent for the final 15-20 minutes.  Without adding any hops in this

initial boiling, cool after a 30-45 minute boil suing whatever cooling method

you prefer. Pitch yeast in your usual fashion once you have added the necessary

 amount of water to equal 5 gallons.

On Day 12, or whenever you are certain fermentation is complete, siphon the

fermented "beer" into a 8 gallon pot.  Bring to a rolling boil.  Add hops in th

e usual time frames.  For my batch I added hops at the 5 and 55 minute marks.

Irish Moss is added at the half hour mark.  The alcohol boils off at 178 degree

s F.  Once the beer has reached a rolling boil stage, you can be certain that t

he alcohol is in the air in your house.  Therefore keeping the windows open or

your exhaust fan on high is essential or you will inhale some of the alcohol

you are trying to avoid in the beer.  Cool the beer, then siphon into a priming

 tank. I strain out the spent hops by personal choice.

On Day 13, after the beer has once again settled, add 1/4 cup yeast, 1 cup corn

 sugar, and a settling agent if desired.  It should be noted that live yeast

must be added at this point, since boiling from several days before kills the

yeast from the fermentation process.  1/4 cup yeast might be a bit much and in

a later batch I used just over 1/8 cup and achieved good results.  I harvested

yeast from the previous batch in this case, but yeast gathered in any fashion

accomplishes the task.  Then I bottled the beer.

About 2 weeks later I tried my concoction.  It was very good.  In this first ba

tch I had not considered how much water I was also boiling off, so I only bottl

ed about 4 resulting gallons of beer.  In a second batch of non-alcoholic beer

I added a gallon of water after the second boil to make up for the water lost.

Of course, I boiled the extra water first to rid it of oxygen before adding it

to the now alcohol-free beer to avoid contamination.

I realize that the shelf life on my non-alcoholic beer should be shorter than

one with alcohol since no alcohol remains to act as a preservative.  However,

the hops should assist in preservation at least to some degree.

The other beer I made was a porter, with Williams English Dark extract.  The sa

me good results occurred.  A number of people have tried both non-alcoholic

beers and pronounced them at least good.  I made companion batches with the

same ingredients, but with the alcohol remaining, just to see if there would

be a difference in taste.  The only difference seemed to be in the subtle taste

 of alcohol in one beer and not in the other.  Other than this, my alcohol-free

 beers taste remarkably similar to the companion batches that have alcohol.

I am also quite certain that no alcohol remains since the porter with alcohol h

as a 5% rating.  One porter has an obvious kick while the other one has none

at all.  The most obvious compliment I have received (and by everyone who has

had one of my non-alcoholic beers) is when they ask if I am sure that there is

no alcohol.  Except for the tiny amount generated by the yeast fermenting the

corn sugar in the priming tank, the answer is yes.  I have however, felt an

interesting dullness around my temples after imbibing a non-alcoholic beer of m

ine which I attribute possible to the sedative nature of the remaining hops.

Usually the effects of hops are hidden by the alcohol in one's beer.  Not being

 a chemist, however, I have no idea if this last statement is correct.

While I am responding to the 12/9/93 request, I would welcome any thoughts on

my process from members of the HBD.  I have only been brewing beer for 3 years

and as you can tell I am an extract brewer.  The more advanced chemistry that

occasionally appears within the HBD is somewhat beyond me, but I enjoy brewing

nonetheless.  My foray into non-alcoholic beers occurred at the time of my

wife's pregnancy so that she could continue to have a "beer" on occasion.  And

I did want one myself from time to time and cannot stand the commercial

attempts at this style.

Two other notes: I used liquid yeast originally in the batch from which I

harvested yeast for the non-alcoholic beers and I have yet to try a lighter

flavored and colored beer with this process.

------------------------------


FTP-ing from sierra.stanford.edu

Date:         11 Dec 93 19:19:54

From: bwchar@mail.wm.edu (Brett Charbeneau)

Subject:      FTP-ing from sierra.stanford.edu

    To all that sent messages aiding me in FINALLY being able to FTP

some files from the HBD archives, a very big thank you!  I am

grateful for all the kind words and encouragement.

    For the record: I was Telnet-ing when I should have been FTP-ing.

Duh....

Brett Charbeneau                            P.O. Box 1776-MHW

Williamsburg Imprints Program               Williamsburg, VA 23187

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation            Tel: (804) 229-1000

INTERNET: bwchar@mail.wm.edu                FAX: (804) 221-8948

  Why is it that the pioneers always have arrows in their backs?

------------------------------


neon beer signs

Date: Sat, 11 Dec 93 18:38:52 CST

From: jpierson@csinc.mn.org (Jim Pierson)

Subject: neon beer signs

Does anyone have neon beer signs or

other beer related "stuff" that they

are wanting to rid themselves of for

a reasonable price?

------------------------------


Aluminum for boil only OK?

Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1993 17:18:31 -0800 (PST)

From: Jim Posey <dodger@quack.kfu.com>

Subject: Aluminum for boil only OK?

Will I impart off flavors, or worse, kill, my new brew if I use a

n aluminum pot to pre-boil and cool water to go into the carboy

that will be mixed with the fresh wort?

Just thought I'd ask after I did it without a thought. (duh)

Hoping, Jim Posey

------------------------------


Brewpots: kegs or REAL stock pots?

Date:         11 Dec 93 19:22:59

From: bwchar@mail.wm.edu (Brett Charbeneau)

Subject:      Brewpots: kegs or REAL stock pots?

    I have seen 24-quart stainless-steel stock pots for sale recently

for as little as $70 (sans lid, mind you).  I *have* been considering

converting a keg into a brew pot, but at this price I am sorely

tempted to just take the plunge.

    Does anybody have any thoughts about my keg vs. pot quandry?

Brett Charbeneau                            P.O. Box 1776-MHW

Williamsburg Imprints Program               Williamsburg, VA 23187

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation            Tel: (804) 229-1000

INTERNET: bwchar@mail.wm.edu                FAX: (804) 221-8948

  Why is it that the pioneers always have arrows in their backs?

------------------------------


Happy Customer

Date: Sat, 11 Dec 93 22:18 CST

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: Happy Customer

 >From: STROUD%GAIA@leia.polaroid.com

 >BTW, I am sure that you are right that a larger hopper hole would increase

 the throughput on a MaltMill, but we tested it as manufactured....  Does it

 really make any difference in the length of my brewday if I spend 2 vs 3

 minutes crushing grain??

 I certainly didn't intend to antagonize a happy customer and I appreciate

 your comments.  I just thought it was useful to point out that the capacity

 for high volume milling is built into the MM whether it is needed or not.  A

 substantial number of MM customers are brew pubs, small breweries and grain

 retailers who crush a great deal of malt and throughput is very important to

 them.

 >From: <GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

 >Anyone know of a good way to make non-alcoholic beer.  I have a friend at

 work who doesn't drink, and I was wondering if any of the great beer

 styles of the world can be brewed without alcohol.

 Here is my semi-annual posting of my thoughts on the subject....

                NON-ALCOHOLIC BEER

                 Jack Schmidling

 Everytime I mention NA beer, people give me funny looks and

 ask questions like, "why would anyone want to do that to

 homebrew?"

 Having been a victim of my hobby some years ago, I drank

 nothing but Kingsbury for almost 10 years.  The thought of

 going back to that is all the motivation I need.  I have

 been limiting myself to one 16 oz glass of beer, per day for

 a couple of years and I no longer consider myself a

 recovering alcoholic.

 However, making beer is so much fun and hombrew tastes so

 good that rather then cheat, I have been experimenting with

 making NA homebrew and have come with a process that works,

 is simple and most "experts" can't identify what is missing.

 The basic process makes a one gallon batch for the skeptical

 but can be scaled up to any size.

 When you have your next batch ready to bottle, syphon off

 one gallon before priming.  Put this in a kettle with (2)

 tablespoons of sugar and bring the temp up to 170 F with the

 lid off, hold it there for 15 min.  Let it cool, uncovered

 until the temp gets below 150 F.  Then cover it and cool it

 to room temp as quickly as possible.  You can put it in a

 sink with running water.

 When room temp, add 1/8 tsp yeast.  I used EDME yeast but I

 presume that any yeast will do.  However, all bets are off

 if you use Red Star.  Let it sit for a while to disolve and

 disperse, then stir well with a sanitized spoon.

 Pour the brew into your favorite bottles and cap.  It is a

 good idea to include at least one plastic bottle to monitor

 cabonation.  When the plastic bottle is hard, refrigerate

 them all.  This usually takes no more than a few days at

 room temp.

 If you are set up for kegging, it is even easier.  Just heat

 up 5 gallons as above, keg it when cool and force carbonate

 it.

 You can also experiment with adding hops during the heating

 step.   I don't particularly like the results but I am not a

 hops freak.

 What does it taste like?  You'll have to try it yourself to

 find out.  However, I would say that it has a slight hint of

 a "cooked" taste.  This taste can be totally masked by the

 addition of a pound of roasted barley in an all grain beer

 or whatever you do to make an extract beer taste like stout.

 This beer improves dramatically with age.  If you can

 refrigerate it for a month or two before drinking, all of

 the off flavors will go away and you will be hard  pressed

 to believe it is what it is.

 Jean Hunter at Cornell has tested a sample on a gas

 chromatagraph and says it contains around 1.3% alcohol.

 This can not legally be called NA but it solves my problem

 completely.  It is below the threshold that drives me to

 continue drinking.

 More recently I have done some additional experimenting and

 think I learned the secret to very low alcohol.  It is not

 some exotic yeast or process, it is simply diluting the beer

 with water.

 After "cooking", I simply add an equal volume of water

 (previously boiled) and keg as usual.  The result is an NA

 that is still amazingly good compared to the industrial

 stuff (NA or otherwise) and half the calories and alcohol

 compared to just de-alcoholizing the beer.  Any off flavors

 from cooking will also be reduced in half.   If you don't

 like 50:50, use what ever suits you.

 js

------------------------------


HopTech Fruit Extracts

Date: Sun, 12 Dec 93 07:18:57 EST

From: brewerbob@aol.com

Subject: HopTech Fruit Extracts

A question was asked about the fruit extracts from HopTech.

I have received the cherry and the raspberry extracts but I have not usd the

raspberry yet (the wheat beer is nearing completion as I type this note,

another few days!).

I used the cherry flavor in a bock beer that is still in lagering but old

enough that I was able to sample one the other day. I am very pleased with

the flavor it imparts but I offer a suggestion that I should have known

myself before I bottled.

I used the amount suggested by Mark Garetz (HopTech) for five gallons. The

flavor is there but it is less than I was looking for. In a lighter beer, it

would probably be fine but in a bock with a "higher than average" hopping

rate, it is lees than desired.

I suggest that you use your own judgement and and put more than the called

for amount in a darker beer and less, perhaps, in a lighter beer. The

instructions advise testing first by using drops of extract in a glass of

beer but I ignored that! (When all else fails, follow the directions!)

In any case, the stuff is great and it is easy to use. Try it, you'll like

it!

BrewerBob in St. Augustine, FL; charter member of the Northeast Florida

Society of Brewers (the SOB's)

------------------------------


Beer Archaeologists

Date: Sun, 12 Dec 1993 08:16:20 -0500 (EST)

From: Andy Kurtz <ak35+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: Beer Archaeologists

Michael Jackson has a really nice piece in the newest Zymurgy (winter

'93) on the Durden Park Beer Circle.  This is the London-area group

dedicated to the preservation of old beer recipes and brewing methods.

Anyway, Jackson concludes the piece with a plug for a booklet the group

puts out called "Old British Beers and How to Make Them."  The address

given, of course, is in England (Berkshire, to be exact).  I was

wondering if anyone knows if the booklet is available stateside?

Also, has anyone heard of people doing the same sort of work in the

U.S.?  I know there are several books on brewing history but has anyone

done any archival research into actual recipes?  It would probably be a

difficult project to undertake, with prohibition putting so many

breweries out of work (Pittsburgh had hundreds of neighborhood breweries

before the crackdown).  But, for that, it would be all the more

interesting.  I know that the tiny town I grew up in (2500 people in

rural Ohio) had its own brewery until just about the turn of the

century.  I wonder what their swill tasted like?

ak

------------------------------


EKU

Date: Sun, 12 Dec 93 15:11:15 +0100

From: dejonge@tekserv.geof.ruu.nl (Marc de Jonge)

Subject: EKU

in HBD#1295 Rob Reed writes:

> I just wanted to set the record strait on EKU Kulminator.  Actually

> '28' refers to the number of pounds of malt that are used per

> 1 liter serving.  This works out to be about 1.49 metric tons of

> malt per barrel.  This explains the intense maltiness and the high

> alcohol level - 198 proof if memory serves me correctly.

No this is not correct, it is over 200 proof, that's why you must

freeze it, to squeeze more alcohol molecules alongside in the bottle.

> It is used as a gasoline substitute in many European communities.

Come on man, everybody in europe knows that gasoline drinking is for

schoolgirls only.

> It is recommended that you wear a wrist or ankle grounding

> strap while you are pouring or drinking this beer to minimize

> the chance of a spark induced fire.  Just a data point...

The new EEC regulation 314159265.359 (sub a ) requires using a flexible

rubber tube attached firmly around both the drinkers neck and the

rim of the glass to prevent dangerous fumes escaping into the

environment.

ObBrewing: Just got a sample of 'de Koninck' brewing yeast, report will

follow in a few weeks...

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Marc de Jonge                             dejonge@geof.ruu.nl

Utrecht University, Geophysics dept, Utrecht, the Netherlands

 -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

------------------------------


Just The Yeast, Man.

Date: Sun, 12 Dec 93 11:57:00 -0600

From: phil.brushaber@lunatic.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: Just The Yeast, Man.

I have been pitching yeast from the sediment collected from

previous batches for some time. Right now I have a Pilsner

(using Wyeast Pilsner 2007) fermenting. It seems to have a

little more trub in it than usual.

I have been collecting the spent sediment from the bottom of

the primary and pouring it into a sterilized Mason jar. After

a short period of refrigeration the liquid kinda forms three

layers: 1) Brown old beer, 2) White Yeast, 3) Tan Trub.

It's easy enough to pour off the old beer and keep the

remaining sediment... HERE'S THE QUESTION. Assuming that

you don't want to pitch all that old trub.

How do you syphon off/separate just the yeast?

Any thoughts, techniques?

- --> Phil Brushaber, Dallas

 ... (C) Footjoy Brewing: Home of Shoe Brew!

___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.11

- ----

=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

The Lunatic Fringe BBS * 214-235-5288 * 3 nodes * Richardson, TX* 24 hrs

UseNet, ILink, RIME, FIDO, Annex, Intelec, LuciferNet, PlanoNet, and more!

=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

------------------------------


Dealing With Plastic Extract Bags

Date: Sun, 12 Dec 93 14:56:59 EST

From: lanbrew@aol.com

Subject: Dealing With Plastic Extract Bags

As a teacher of brewing classes, I use a lot of Northwestern extract.  It is

inexpensive and quite good.  The easiest method I have found for dealing with

the bag is to heat the brewing water and use specialty grains, if applicable.

 When the water is hot or the grains are removed, slit the bag (hold it over

the brewpot) in several places with a sharp knife and drop it into the water.

 Please be sure that you turn the heat off before you do this.

Stir the bag, extract, and everything around for a few minutes, retrieve the

bag with your spoon, and you are done.  The water will have washed all but a

tiny amount of extract out of the bag.  This is quick, easy and effective.

Lanny

------------------------------


Wanted: Canadian Brewers

Date:  Sun, 12 Dec 1993 14:18:00 -0500

From: carlo.fusco@canrem.com (Carlo Fusco)

Subject: Wanted: Canadian Brewers

MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION - THE CANADIAN AMATEUR BREWERS ASSOCIATION

*****************************************************************

WHAT IS CABA?

The Canadian Amateur Brewers Association (CABA) is a Federally

Incorporated non-profit organization whose purpose is to promote

homebrewing as an enjoyable hobby through educational

publications, events, and other activities.

HOW CAN CABA HELP ME?

The Canadian Amateur Brewers Association is dedicated to

improving the skills and knowledge of its members. Members are

invited to participate in the special events organized including

the annual conference, frequent competitions and special

seminars.

For less than the savings from a single batch of homebrew, you

can enroll in the only national club in Canada which will help

you brew better beer.

THE BENEFITS OF JOINING CABA

Newsletter every two months               Annual Conference

Annual Spring Competition                 Fall Competition

Judge training/Tasting seminar            Discounts at retailers

Members Forum

A greater variety of regional activities across Canada will be

planned as CABA's membership increases.

For more information write or phone CABA at:

CABA

19 Cheshire Dr.

Islington, Ontario

M9B 2N7

Phone/Fax: 416-237-9130

Compuserve: 71601,3357

Internet: carlo.fusco@canrem.com

          ligas@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca

Fidonet: Carlo Fusco at 1:229/15

- ---

 * Freddie 1.2.5 * email: carlo.fusco@canrem.com  Sharon,Ontario,Canada

------------------------------


lagering...

Date: Sun, 12 Dec 93 16:41:07 EST

From: abaucom@fester.swales.com

Subject: lagering...

Can someone explain true lagering???  Specifically, what part of the

fermentation should be done at cold temperatures.  Here is what I've done

so far...

1) made ~3/4 quart starter from 4 month old Wyeast Calif Lager slurry that I

   saved from a previous batch in August.

2) The starter took about 36 hours to get cranking but It smelled and tasted

   fine so I went ahead and pitched into a cooled (~70F) batch.

3) Now, I let it stay in the house until the batch was cranking (~20 hours)

   and there was 1.5 inches of kreusen (using a 7gal carboy w/5 gal batch).

   The house is about 60F.

4) Next I moved the batch to the garage which was around 48F degrees.

5) Since then the temp in the garage has dropped to about 38F and the

   fermentation rate (airlock clicks) has slowed way down (30 sec). The batch

   is now 3 days old and there is still some kreusen on top. I have kept the

   carboy close to the wall of the house and have been monitoring the temp

   closely.  I also have a form fitting sytrofoam container that I'm keeping

   it in so any change in temp should be slow. (all appears normal, albeit

   slower)

(Of course I didn't research true lagering before I made this batch,

 that would make too much sense! ;^)

My question is this...

Should the primary fermentation be done at temps higher than those I am using

and then keep the secondary cold for a few weeks/months?

(not that I have any real control over the temp! other than the sacrificial

cold-beers I drink to appease the cold-weather God)

Any input on this subject would be greatly appreciated! :*)

Thanks,

   Andrew

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Andrew W. Baucom               Phone: (301) 572-1327

| Swales & Associates, Inc.      FAX: (301) 595-2871

| 5050 Powder Mill Road          "Soon, the whole world will know the

| Beltsville, MD 20705            joy of my nipples!" - Stimpy

| abaucom@fester.swales.com

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


A Dock Street copy recipe?

Date: Sun, 12 Dec 1993 20:46:23 +0500 (EST)

From: "David M. Fresco" <fresco@gibbs.oit.unc.edu>

Subject: A Dock Street copy recipe?

Greetings,

I'm interested in making some homebrew that resembles Dock Street.

Preferably, this recipe would include malt extracts and speciality grains

(rather than all grain).  Please send recipes to:  fresco@unc.edu

Thanks in advance.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

=  David M. Fresco                                          =

=  Department of Psychology                                 =

=  CB#3270, Davie Hall                      __o             =

=  Chapel Hill, NC 27599                    /<,             =

=  Internet:  fresco@unc.edu              `,/'(*)           =

=             fresco@med.unc.edu         (*) . ./"""        =

=  Voice:  (919) 962-5082               """"                =

=  Fax:    (919) 962-2537                                   =

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1296, 12/13/93

*************************************

-------


Mead questions

Date:    Sun, 12 Dec 93 20:04 CST

From: XLPSJGN%LUCCPUA.BITNET@UICVM.UIC.EDU

Subject: Mead questions

Dear Brewers,

My fiance asked me about three weks ago whether I had any plans to brew

a mead for our honeymoon, and I thought the idea was great.  So I

consulted with Papezian and chose his recipe for the Barckshack Ginger

Mead, adding razberries (sp?) and refraining from additional spices,

like lemongrass or cinnamon.  I adjusted the measurements for a 2 gal

batch, rather than the standard 5 gal.

I'd brewed a mead once before - it was a recipe I'd received from this

forum called something like "quick mead" which was supposed to be

ready within a month... It wasn't!  At least as far as the taste went..

But then again, that was my first batch.  I've been brewing beers for

about four years with some really quite good results - and some dismal

failures (some may remember my troubles with an atrocity I named for the

flooding of Chicago: "Chicago Tunnel Water").  So anyway, here are my

questions for mead enthusiasts:

The mead is now racked into 2 1gal. bottles (one is full to the neck,

the other about only 1/2 full).  OG: 1.055; SG @ racking: 1.010.

The taste before pitching was exquisite, with an almost perfect

balance between the honey, ginger and razberries (about a pound of

those)  However @ racking, the fermentation seemed to have hurt the

flavor, with an off flavor best described as like A & D Ointment!  The

"bouquet" seemed to have soured as well, offering a smell more like

ripe yeasties (like when we clean our carboys after bottling).  Is

this normal and/or will these flavors mellow and balence within a few

months?  That's question #1.

Question #2 is: After I racked to the secondary vessels and fixed them

with fermentation locks, I brought these tanks to the basement storage

area to ferment, settle and clarify for another month or so before

I bottle.  But there are hot water pipes that run through the storage

roomand do give off some heat (I'd estimate that it's a steady 80F

though I've not yet monitored the temperature).  I don't think its

too threatening to the brew, but just to be sure, what is an accept-

able temperature range for meads in the secondary?

Thanks in advance for any and all responses, which can also be emailed

to me at xlpsjgn@luccpua.it.luc.edu or to catfishjon@aol.com.

Whew! that's good brew!

John

------------------------------


Yeast Farming/Ranching

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 07:29:44 -0500

From: mgx@ornl.gov (Michael D. Galloway)

Subject: Yeast Farming/Ranching

I've got a quick question regarding yeast ranching.  I've been ranching

yeastfor a year or so now using the kit from BrewTek but I'm still a

little confused about one subject:  what is the best (optimal) way

to go from a yeast collected from a bottle to a plate (to isolate a

single colony) to a slant?  I've sort of got down the part going from

the bottle to the plate, but what do you do with the single colony

off the plate?  I'd like to build up a decent slant to share with my

friends.  Thanks ...

michael

------------------------------


Murphys pressure device

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 11:31:47 GMT

From: David French <david_f@s3dub.ie>

Subject: Murphys pressure device

As far as I can see the plastic insert in the Murphys can

releases a stream of gas bubbles through the liquid when the

can is opened and "dunked".

As an Irish person orginally living a mile from the Murphy's

Brewery the difference between the new pressurised can and the

real thing from a pub tap is very slight.

David F

------------------------------


Murphy's DraughtFlow System

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 08:19:36 -0500

From: paul.beard@gatekeeper.mis.tridom.com (Paul Beard)

Subject: Murphy's DraughtFlow System

Guinness also offers these in their Pub Draft cans; "like a keg, but easier

to carry" say the ads.

I dunno how they work, but I regard it as the natives viewed the thermos

("How does it know if the drink is hot or cold?"), or as Arthur C. Clarke

said, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from

magic."

Paul Beard

AT&T Tridom, 840 Franklin Court, Marietta, GA 30067

404 514-3798 * FAX: 404 429-5419 * tridom!paul.beard/beardp@tridom.com

------------------------------


boiling specialty grains

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 08:34:41 +0000 (U)

From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: boiling specialty grains

                      boiling specialty grains

Steve Tollefsrud steve_t@fleurie.compass.fr writes in #1295:

>3. When/How to Add Specialty Grains: I plan to make the following

extract based stout:

 4 lbs. Muntons Dark Malt Extract Syrup

 4 lbs. Muntons Light Malt Extract Syrup

 1/2 lb. Crushed Crystal Malt

 1/2 lb. Crushed Chocolate Malt

 1/2 lb. Black Patent Malt

 (1 lb rolled oats ???)

 1 oz. Northern Brewer Hops (30 min.)

 1.5 oz Hallertauer loose Hops (dry, in the primary)

>None of my homebrew info sources explain when/how to properly

use specialty grains for an extract based brew.

In the past I've just tossed my grains in at the beginning of the

boil and boiled the hell outta them for an hour. Those batches

were VERRRY bitter, though I'm not sure if it wasn't the Northern

Brewer (2 oz, loose) which I was trying out at the same time.

Should I not let the grains get more than 150 degrees F, as in

mash conversion? Should I add them after the boil, below a certain

temperature, and let them steep. What temps? What times?

Thanks again,

steve, as a fellow extract brewer (2 batches so far) I can tell

you not to boil the hell outta the speciality grains, as you'll

suck the tannins from the husks, contributing to quite a bitter

tang. Much like overbrewing a _dark_ tea, it's not something

you wanna do.

Hope this helps.

george

------------------------------


chopstick method

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 08:51:33 +0000 (U)

From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: chopstick method

                      chopstick method

> The "Chopstick Method"

 ...

>If done properly, you will have neatly extruded almost every drop of

extract and will not have it all over you, your helper, your kitchen

and the dog (or cat).

 ...

>Thanks to Rob Dahlgren, inventor of the chopstick method.

Hope this is helpful.

Norman (nfarrell@ppco.com)

sorry norm/rob...i've done it too! But we rather _like_

covering ourselves with malt extract (and the cats)!

george

------------------------------


German Malt Types

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 05:44:00 -0600

From: phil.brushaber@lunatic.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: German Malt Types

For several months in my all-grain brewing I have been chasing

that very malty character found in premium German Octoberfest,

Bocks, etc. I have tried decoction but it still doesn't seem to be

getting me there. I wonder if I should use different malts?

My local homebrew supply carries Ireks German Pilsner, Vienna and

Munich. I have been using these in various combinations as called

for in a given recipe. Are there more malty German malts available,

perhaps by mail order? If so, I'd appreciate your dropping

me a note to direct my "hunt". Thanks!

 ... My first brew? More for the crapper than the capper.

___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.11

- ----

=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

The Lunatic Fringe BBS * 214-235-5288 * 3 nodes * Richardson, TX* 24 hrs

UseNet, ILink, RIME, FIDO, Annex, Intelec, LuciferNet, PlanoNet, and more!

=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

------------------------------


hacker-pschorr weiss?

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 09:16:09 +0000 (U)

From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: hacker-pschorr weiss?

                      hacker-pschorr weiss?

Has anyone out there attempted to come close

to the Hacker-Pschorr Weiss? It's a pale yellow

weiss, with lots of body and sediment, and goes

_great_ with a drop of raspberry and wedge of

lemon (that's how I was first introduced to

it back in college at the Brass Rail in Hoboken).

thanks in advance

george

------------------------------


Trading Micros, Long Way Home, etc.

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 09:25:00 EST

From: "Pamela J. Day 7560" <DAY@A1.TCH.HARVARD.EDU>

Subject: Trading Micros, Long Way Home, etc.

Hello All,

 Is there anyone out there who would be willing to trade

any type of micro-brewed beer that is availible only in their area

for anything I can get them up here in the Northeast (Boston & New

England)? My boyfriend & I have a bottle collection that we'd like

to expand, and aren't real fussy ( we'll drink almost anything!) so

if you'd like to try something from around this-a-way let me know,

and we'll work out a deal.

 Re: taking the long way home; This past weekend we found

ourselves driving home from a couple of days skiing in Vermont and

decided to make the trip a brewery/brewpub tour. 1st stop, Mountain

Brewers in Bridgwater, Vt., the makers of Long Trail (Amber Ale, Stout,

Kolsch,I.P.A.) self guided tour, small tap room, great beer! 2nd stop,

Catamount in White River Junction, they have guided tours (we missed

everything but the tasting) and tasting of current products. Both of

these two sell bottled product and other stuff in the "tap room". 3rd

stop, Latchis Hotel, (brewpub has a separate name I don't remember at

the moment) Brattleboro Vt. This place was ok, the beer was tasty but

it had a yuppie-fern bar type atmosphere that was a little stuffy. Last

but certainly not least was McNeil's Brewery in Brattleboro. Great beer,

good food (sandwiches, nachos, nothing fancy), I wish they'd had a places

like this around when I was in college, it looked like it'd be a real fun

place when it was busy. BTW, McNeils should get awards just for the names

of their beers, i.e. Duck's Breath Bitter, Slopbucket Brown, Dead Horse IPA,

to name a few.

 I tried Molson Ice this weekend, $3.00/bottle at some bar in

Killington, (thankfully the bartender goofed and only charged us for

one!) all I can say is YUCK! Absolutly no taste what so ever. I wouldn't

spend the money to give it away to some poor unsuspecting fool.

Ah well, back to work,

Cheers,

Pam

Day@a1.tch.harvard.edu

------------------------------


Northern lagering

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 10:06:33 EST

From: dweller@GVSU.EDU (RONALD DWELLE)

Subject: Northern lagering

          Greg Pyle writes of dunking lager carboy in the French River

          and asks if he's missing something.

          Wouldn't the sucker blow up over the winter (assuming it's

          fermenting)? Happy fish?

          Ron Dwelle (dweller@gvsu.edu at Internet)

          Have a Beery Beery Christmas!

------------------------------


Burnt? not anymore!

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 09:04:00 -0500

From: "Jeff M. Michalski, MD" <michalski_jm@rophys.wustl.edu>

Subject: Burnt? not anymore!

HBDers,

Thank you for your comments about the burnt taste

I had in my Xmas ale last week.  I wanted to bring you

up to date on a dramatic change that took place.  I

drew another pint out of the keg to better characterize

the off taste last Thursday.  The burnt after taste was

GONE!  After only one week!  Now the beer has a wonderfully

smooth character with a mild sweetness balanced by an

appropriate hop bitterness.  The hop aroma is powerful

with a spicy note. (this is the batch I posted a dry-hop

question on several months ago.  I took the plunge and

added 3.5 oz of Willamette pellets to the racked beer.)

I wouldn't believe the dramatic change in the beer character

if I hadn't tasted it myself.  Furthermore, my wife who is

not a beer lover [not even my own 8-(  ] tasted the burnt

taste last week and now thinks the beer is drinkable.  I believe

that the long conditioning and "lagering" at 40F allowed

some of the more bitter, off flavor components to precipitate

to the bottom of the keg.  My first 5 pints or so drew off

this evil stuff and now I have a pretty tasty holiday brew.

Thank you all for your comments anyway.

JEFF M. MICHALSKI

michalski_jm@rophys.wustl.edu

------------------------------


Koch's Non-Alcoholic Beer?

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 10:20 EDT

From: Alan_Marshall <AK200032@Sol.YorkU.CA>

Subject: Koch's Non-Alcoholic Beer?

In HBD 1296:

> Date:         Sat, 11 Dec 93 13:57:33 PST

> From: Bob <TATTERSH@WSUVM1.CSC.WSU.EDU>

> Subject:      Non-alcoholic beer

> In response to the December 9, 1993 posting by

> GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU regarding non-alcoholic beer:

> In September I brewed my first batch of non-alcoholic beer.

> Essentially I copi ed a recipe from Papazian.  With a few ingredient

> alterations to his Righteous Real Ale, the procedure is as follows:

>

> On Day 1, boil the malt extract in 2 gallons of water, using Irish

> Moss as a settling agent for the final 15-20 minutes.  Without adding

> any hops in this initial boiling, cool after a 30-45 minute boil suing

                                                                   ^^^^^

> whatever cooling method you prefer. Pitch yeast in your usual fashion

> once you have added the necessary  amount of water to equal 5 gallons.

That would be Jim Koch's method :-)

------------------------------


Another question re: aluminium pots

Date:    Mon, 13 Dec 93 09:25 CST

From: XLPSJGN%LUCCPUA.BITNET@UICVM.UIC.EDU

Subject: Another question re: aluminium pots

Dear brewers,

Over the years I've developed a boiling technique which, while seeming

to ease the boiling process (actually the removal of steeped specialty

grains from the boil), I've always suspected but never questioned

whether it's harmful to the beer I make.

What I do is steep the grains in 1.5 gal. of cold water in my 3 gal

stainless steel brew pot and bring that to a boil (a la Papezian).

Then, once the water begins to boil, Papezian instructs to remove the

grains from wort before adding the malt extract and hops (I'm not

ready for the all-grain league yet).  But this always was a long and

tedious process, fishing around for all those little grains.  So, I

thought I'd shorten the process by placing a strainer over another

brew pot of the same capacity, but made of aluminium.  I'd sparge the

collected grains, then return the wort to the original stainless steel

pot, reheat to a boil then add the extract(s) and hops.

So the questions are:  1) Is the (temporary) use of the aluminium pot

detrimental to my beer?  even if it's in the pot for 15 minutes max?

and 2) is my method of straining the grains - basically pouring the

wort once through a strainer, and again back into the original pot -

going to effect or hurt (bruise?) the wort... even if I haven't yet

added the extracts and hops?

Thanks in advance for the responses, and thanks to all who responded

earlier to my mead questions.

Cheers!

John

------------------------------


Brewpots: kegs or REAL stock pots?

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 09:57:55 -0600

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Brewpots: kegs or REAL stock pots?

Brett --

IMNSHO, the *minimum* useful size for brewing a five gallon batch is a 32

quart pot (8 gallons).  You can get an enamel 8 gallon canning pot for about

$35 (with lid).  This is what I'm using.  The geometry is poor for doing a 2

hour boil -- too much surface area for the volume.  I boil 75 minutes, and go

from about 7 gallons to about 5-3/4.  The lid is on (_on_ is too strong -- its

over the pot, but plenty of steam esacpes) for the last 15 minutes while the

chiller and the lid get sterilized.  The 8 gallon pot covers two burners on my

stove, and I use `em both during the boil.

I would like to get a ten gallon stainless stock pot, but they cost about $175

new.  So, I'm thinking about going the old keg route instead.  Oh, if you get

a stockpot, get one with a thick bottom.  Some of `em have a copper disk

sandwhiched between layers of stainless, others use aluminum.  That's what you

really want.  Otherwise, the thicker, the better.

Good Luck,

 t

------------------------------


re: northern brewing

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 12:23:46 EST

From: carlsont@GVSU.EDU (TODD CARLSON)

Subject: re: northern brewing

          Lagering under a frozen river/lake sounds like a great idea.

          In fact I was planning to do something simmilar over the

          holidays.  I was going to lager my beer in a tank full of

          water in the garage.  Since the freezing point of beer is

          lower than the freezing point of water, as long a the tank

          doesn't freeze, then the beer will stay unfrozen at 32 F

          (zero C) or higher.  I figure that here (in Michigan) my

          garage should stay warm enough to keep the tank of water

          from freezing.  The water will also act as a large heat sink

          to moderate temperature fluctuations.  If we get a severe

          cold snap I can just bring the beer inside for a bit or rig

          up a heater in the garage.  A friend of mine did this once -

          called it his garage lager.  One concern about lagering

          under the ice would be that too much pressure would build up

          in a closed container from residual fermentation that takes

          place during lagering.  I have not lagered before so I don't

          know how much fermentation to expect at this stage.  I will

          probably use a fermentation lock.

          Todd Carlson

          carlsont@gvsu.edu

------------------------------


Need Receipe for Belgian White Beer

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 09:24:00 -0800 (PST)

From: David Allison 225-5764 <ALLISON.DAVID@A1GW.GENE.COM>

Subject: Need Receipe for Belgian White Beer

I am looking for a all-grain receipe for a Belgian White Beer.  I have the

grains and the new Wyeast Belgian White Beer yeast (thanks to FF in Los

Altos, CA <-- plug).

Does anyone have ideas/receipes/suggestions on mashing protocol, hops,

hopping rates, spices, fermentation temperatures, maturation and bottle vs.

keg conditioning.

I did look at the book "Belgian Ale" and Cats Meow, but didn't see much on this

style. I am looking for something like Haargarden (sp?) or Celis, both of

which are excellent IMHO.

E-mail me directly or post or both.  TIA

 - David

(allison2.gene.com)

------------------------------


Trivia / Jade

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 13:50:53 -0400

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Trivia / Jade

Here's a question for those breweriana afficianados:  Why, specifically, do

bavarian beer mugs have a lid?  IS there a story or tradition behind this?

/

A friend recently compared an experimental batch of mine to a beer called

Jade (I think, though the spelling may be wrong).  He seemed to think it

was a pale Flanders style ale from the north of France.  Anyone have any

further info on this beer (ie style, ingredients, OG, aroma and flavour

profiles, similar beers)?

Thanks.

____________

Ed Hitchcock ech@ac.dal.ca | Oxymoron:  Draft beer in bottles. |

Anatomy & Neurobiology  | Pleonasm:  Draft beer on tap.     |

Dalhousie University, Halifax |___________________________________|

------------------------------


Geysers

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 13:04:15 EST

From: dweller@GVSU.EDU (RONALD DWELLE)

Subject: Geysers

          On Gushing Beer

          The following quote is from the Encyclopedia of Chemical

          Technology:

          "Wild or gushing beer is a defect observed as a rather

          violent over-foaming from the bottle immediately after

          opening; this defect, however, does not affect the taste of

          the beer. The fundamental cause of gushing is attributed to

          the formation of micro-bubbles. It has been demonstrated

          that the application of excess pressure sufficiently forces

          the micro-bubbles back into the solution, eliminating

          overfoaming entirely. Gushing beers have been identified

          with malt made from weathered barley, and trial brews have

          proved that the presence of mycelia (from the mold species

          Fusaria) in the steep will promote the trouble."

          Ain't that the truth?

          Ron (dweller@gvsu.edu at Internet)

          "Five Gallons of Happiness Coming Soon..."

------------------------------


Reusing yeast/adding grains to extract/carbonation

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 12:59:27 EST

From: Keith MacNeal  13-Dec-1993 1238 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Reusing yeast/adding grains to extract/carbonation

In HOMEBREW Digest #1295 steve_t@fleurie.inria.fr (Steven Tollefsrud) asks:

>1. Re-using Lager Yeast in Fermenter: I was wondering what risks

>or advantages there would be if I ferment a second batch on top

>of the yeast left in my primary after siphoning off the previous

>batch.

I haven't done it, but I've read several accounts of people doing this

successfully.  In #1296 someone mentions yeast washing which help avoiding any

worries caused by the trub.

>3. When/How to Add Specialty Grains:

 ...

>None of my homebrew info sources explain when/how to properly

>use specialty grains for an extract based brew.

>In the past I've just tossed my grains in at the beginning of the

>boil and boiled the hell outta them for an hour. Those batches

>were VERRRY bitter, though I'm not sure if it wasn't the Northern

>Brewer (2 oz, loose) which I was trying out at the same time.

The bitterness you noted was not caused by the hops.  It was caused by boiling

the grains.  Boiling extracts tannins which will lead to an astringent taste

in your brew.  I've been sucessful putting the specialty grains into a muslin

bag and putting it into the brewpot along with the cold brewing water.  I then

heat the water and grain and remove the grain bag just before the water comes

to a boil.  Some claim this method may also extract tannin and advocate

bringing the water to 150 deg.F and letting the grains steep.

- ------------------------------

>From: Jack Tavares <tavares@ctron.com>

>Subject: Fountaining Beer

>I opened a bottle of my Christmas Stout (after only 5 days .-)_

>And it made the most beautiful black, gingery smellig fountain

>that I have seen in a long time.

>Now, i am going to let it sit at least another week before I

>open up another bottle.

>If i have the same problem, is there anything I can do to correct

>it?

Letting it sit another week won't solve the problem -- in fact it might

worsen.  One thing you could try is to chill the beer down in the bottle

before opening.  This worked for me with a batch I overprimed by mistake.

- ------------------------------

>From: "Adrian L. Anderson (Andy" <alanders@mwc.vak12ed.edu>

>Subject: New w/question

>Brewers,

>    I am new to the list and to homebrewing.  Have one batch of

>Continental Light, made from a kit, to my credit.  My product

>came out fine body and colorwise w/ good carbonation.  The only

>problem is a very (ultra - mega) yeasty aftertaste.

Were you careful not to pour the yeast sediment from the bottom of the bottle

into your glass?

- ------------------------------

>From: "Dennis Lewis" <DLEWIS%jscdo6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

>Anyway, I get a lot of grain particles that bypass the screen,

>enough that I have to send the runnings thru a strainer to catch the

>big pieces. I have an adjustable MaltMill and have tried it set as

>wide as .055" to minimize husk shredding, but I still get

>granule-size particles passing the screen. Whaddaya think?

>

>I've considered

>* Crushing twice. Once set wide to remove husks, then set close to

>pulverize everything.

>* Getting a smaller screen size, like 1/16" holes

>* Having the screen welded into the keg or fitting some sort of

>gasket around the screen. There is a slight gap around the edges,

>but it appears to be of less width than the holes. Also, right as

>the last of the liquor drains out, I get a huge amount of grain

>coming out the tap.

>* Putting a small extension on the keg side of the outlet to raise

>it about the bottom of the tun floor, letting any crud sit on the

>bottom.

Have you considered recirculating your wort?  The grain bed acts as a filter

and should help clear the wort before it gets to the brewkettle.

- ------------------------------

>From: MATTHEW.BOHNE@sprint.sprint.com

>Subject: BREW PROBLEM..

>WHEN I MOVED EVERYTHING TO THE FERMENT TANK I DIDN'T GET A BUBBLE FOR THE 1ST

>DAY, HOWEVER 2 DAYS LATER IT WAS AT FULL CRANK. ON THE 6TH DAY IT BLEW BEER

>THROUGH THE VAPOR LOCK SOME 9 FEET INTO THE AIR(RATHER FUN TO WATCH BUT A MESS

>TO CLEAN..) THE HEAD PEEKED AND FELL BACK IN, I DRAINED IT TO THE SECOND

>FERMENT TANK AND WAITED.. IT BUBBLED SLIGHTLY ONCE AN HOUR, 2 DAYS LATER, I

>BOTTLED. IT HAS BEEN 2 WEEKS AND I WENT DOWN TO THE CELLAR AND I NOTICED A

>WHITE RING INSIDE OF ALL THE BOTTLES... WHAT IS THIS?? IT ALMOST LOOKS LIKE A

>MINI HEAD BECAUSE IT SEEMS TO BE THICKENED FROTH... WILL IT GO AWAY?? SHOULD I

>JIGGLE THE BOTTLES AND GET IT TO DROP TO THE BOTTOM? I ALSO NOTICED A THICKER

>SEDIMENT IN THE BOTTOM OF MY BOTTLES THAN USUAL. SHOULD I BE CONCERNED? I

>OPENED ONE AND GOT THIS MAJOR GUSHER (I SEEM TO BE GETTING A LOT OF THESE

>THESE DAYS BOTH WITH OLD AND NEW BEERS) -- SHOULD THEY BE CHILLED LONGER? IS

>THERE ANYWAY TO COUNTERACT THIS?

You may have bottled too early.  Did you monitor the specific gravity?

Another possible explanation is that you picked up an infection somewhere in

your process.  Revisit your sanitizing procedures.

- ------------------------------

According to Zymurgy's Beer Professor, aluminum is just fine for the

brewkettle in a homebrewery.  He says the reason the big boys use stainless

steel is because they use very aggressive cleaners which would chew through

aluminum.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Pete's Winter, burnt flavor

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 13:13:23 -0500 (EST)

From: gelinas@ekman.unh.edu (Russell Gelinas)

Subject: Pete's Winter, burnt flavor

    Try Pete's Winter special beer for an excellent example of raspberry

 flavor/aroma in a beer.  The recipe is from a winner in the 1993 AHA

 national homebrewing contest.  IMO, it's a world class brew, at least.

    Re. burnt taste:  Most likely it's from the abundance of dark malt

 in the grain bill, but it could be that you scorched the brown sugar.

 You did remember to turn the heat off and stir well when you added the

 sugar, didn't you?

 Russ Gelinas

 EOS

 UNH

------------------------------


Re: "Cat's Meow"

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 10:00:26 EST

From: "Craig Hicks" <chicks@nas.edu>

Subject: Re: "Cat's Meow"

In the latest HBD, several people refer to the "Cat's Meow."  In the header of

each issue, there is a cryptic message that reads "For 'Cat's Meow'

information, send mail to lutzen@novell.physics.umr.edu"  For the benefit of

newer subscribers such as myself, could someone please explain what it is?  A

recipe file?  Something more?

------------------------------


RE: FTP-ing from sierra.stanford.edu

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 12:39:26 EST

From: cc32859@vantage.fmrco.com (Donald Sharp)

Subject: RE: FTP-ing from sierra.stanford.edu

>From: bwchar@mail.wm.edu (Brett Charbeneau)

>

>Help!

>

>    I can't seem to be able to log onto the sierra machine.  I can

>telnet to it get the login prompt, but no matter what I try I

>continually get an ''incorrect login'' error.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think sierra is not set up to allow telnet

login access, only ftp.  I haven't lately tried myself, but I have

been successful in the past.  Instead of telnet, why not try ftp?  I'd

use the combination anonymous/bwchar@mail.wm.edu if I were you.  Give

it a go and see what happens, depending on the results maybe we can

troubleshoot further.

Don

------------------------------


RE: Answer these questions, three.... (3)

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 13:15:41 EST

From: cc32859@vantage.fmrco.com (Donald Sharp)

Subject: RE: Answer these questions, three.... (3)

>Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 11:42:55 +0100

>From: steve_t@fleurie.inria.fr (Steven Tollefsrud)

>

>3. When/How to Add Specialty Grains: I plan to make the following

>extract based stout:

> 4 lbs. Muntons Dark Malt Extract Syrup

> 4 lbs. Muntons Light Malt Extract Syrup

> 1/2 lb. Crushed Crystal Malt

> 1/2 lb. Crushed Chocolate Malt

> 1/2 lb. Black Patent Malt

> (1 lb rolled oats ???)

> 1 oz. Northern Brewer Hops (30 min.)

> 1.5 oz Hallertauer loose Hops (dry, in the primary)

>

>None of my homebrew info sources explain when/how to properly

>use specialty grains for an extract based brew.

I've been doing extract-based brewing for about 2 years now, and most

of what I know comes from The Complete Joy of Homebrewing and HBD.

I generally add some small amount of specialty grain to my

extract-based brews.  I might add 1-2 pounds of crystal malt at the

maximum, but less than half a pound combined of all other types.  The

thing to remember is that except for crystal, the specialty malts you're

adding are contributing unfermentable starch to the brew.  Crystal

malt is different, in processing it mostly gets converted to

fermentable sugar.  Processing malt in other ways, e.g. roasting it to

achieve darker colors, not only doesn't convert the starch, but in

fact destroys the enzymes in the malt needed to do the conversion.

When you start adding amounts on the order of 1 lb or more adjuncts,

as your recipe suggests, you're going to get a lot of unconverted

starch in the wort, which will eventually end up in the beer.

To avoid this, if you really want to use all these adjucts (which you

well might if you want to brew a nice stout) you might consider (as I

do with almost every batch :-) using a partial-mash process.  You have

to be sure that (at least some of) the extract you use has the ability

to convert the starch to fermentable sugars. The only commercially

available extract that I know of is that has the conversion capacity

is Edme's DMS (Diastatic Malt Syrup.) (This info comes (I think) from

TCJoH, I'd be pleased to hear about other alternatives.)

Anyway, without getting into partial-mashing, the way I treat my

specialty grains is to add them to the cold water at the start of the

process, and then when the water is about to boil, before adding malt

extract or hops, remove as much as possible with a kitchen seive.

This technique comes directly from TCJoH.  The justfication is that

the good stuff (color, flavoring, proteins, whatever you're adding the

grains for) is easily soluable, and doesn't need a lot of boiling to

extract, and that prolonged boiling will just extract some excessively

bitter stuff, probably mostly tannin, from the husks.

Don

------------------------------


British Hop Substitutes

Date: 13 Dec 93 13:55:14 EST

From: Hubert Plummer <71601.3106@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: British Hop Substitutes

I hope some of the vast net knowledge can give me some assistance in finding

these hops, or decent substitutes.  In many recipies for british ales, one

comes across hops that don't appear to be available over here in the US.  So

can anyone provide a source that carries these or perhaps some reasonable

substitutes (yes I am checking the Hops FAQ as you read this).  The hops in

question are:

Challenger

Brambling

Target

Whitbread Goldings

Northdown

Progress

Thanks for any help

Hubert

------------------------------


Oxygen for brewing

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 11:31:35 +0800

From: bjones@novax.llnl.gov (Bob Jones)

Subject: Oxygen for brewing

Is there an inexpensive source for pure oxygen to use in wort oxygenation?

Anyone out there using pure oxygen for wort oxygenation?

Bob Jones

bjones@novax.llnl.gov

------------------------------


Simulating an English beer engine

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 12:13:53 +0800

From: bjones@novax.llnl.gov (Bob Jones)

Subject: Simulating an English beer engine

OK, I think it's about time I report on my latest gadget. Some of you may

remember my recent trip to the UK. I fell in love with the beers there and

have been fooling around with ideas to simulate the flavors and dispensing

methods I experienced there. The cask conditioned ales have some

characteristics that are easy to simulate. Hops, malt, low gas, warm, yeast

but some that aren't. I got home and immediately brewed up a low gravity,

english style ale. When I put it on my draft system, something was missing.

I had kept the CO2 at 0 psi when kegging and brought the gas up to about

5psi to dispense. Tasted OK, but the head was gone of course. The creamy

whipped head is caused by the sparklers on most beer engines in the UK. Ok,

I thought what the beer engine REALLY does is lift or pull the beer from the

keg and force the beer through a series of very small holes. This causes

both foaming and whipping of air into the beer. I reasoned that I could do

the same without a beer engine. What I built is a valve with a piece of

copper tubing at the output of the valve. The end of the copper tubing has a

cap on it. The cap has about 6 holes .020 in diameter in it. This assembly

is placed at the end of about a four foot piece of 1/4" id PVC line. Now to

use this gadget I raise the keg pressure up to about 10 psi, open the valve

and point the output into a glass. As you can imagine, 6 streams of beer

exit and foam and aerate the beer. The glass fills and when you set the

glass down, the beer recombines in the glass from the bottom up, just like

the beers in the UK do. Now it's usually necessary to top the glass off in a

few seconds, they also do this in the UK. After I've dispensed the beer I

reduce the keg pressure back to 0psi.  Bingo, this gadget very closely

simulates the flavors and effect of the English beer engines. The aeration

and head creamy head are bang on to what I tasted in the UK. I now have to

decide how to incorporate this gadget better into my draft system.

I am considering either one of two ideas to make using this concept alittle

easier to use. One would be to keep the keg at about 1psi and add a small

pump to raise the pressure to push the beer through the sparkler. The other

is to push the beer with nitrogen instead of CO2. This way I could leave the

keg at 10psi and not pick up any carbonation. I have been threatening to go

to a mixed gas system, this may be the push over the top. This post is

getting long, I'll stop by sayng, give it a try, you may like it. My

appologies to all the people in the UK on butchering the tradition of cask

condition ales, but I think I have come up with a pretty good simulation.

Fellow brewers, open your eyes, gased ales are not necessarly the best ales.

With no gas, one can make a lower gravity beer and experience the malt and

hop flavors MUCH better. I not saying I'm going to make all my beers now

without CO2, I am saying it really adds another demension to beer.

Cheers,

Bob Jones

bjones@novax.llnl.gov

------------------------------


Re:HeadRetention/ChopstickMethod/InconsistentCarbonation/NorthernLager

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 15:01 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Re:HeadRetention/ChopstickMethod/InconsistentCarbonation/NorthernLager

Goeff writes:

>What you need for good head retention are proteins. Proteins are what

>provides the surface tension which give the bubbles some strength. However,

>proteins can also cause haze so you have to have a ballance. Hops are a

>good source of proteins for head retention but you have a Brown Ale so you

You're right about the proteins, but they have to be small proteins.  Also,

I think you may be confusing something regarding the hops.  I'm quite certain

there are no proteins gained by the beer from the hops, however, there have

been studies that have found a correlation between head retention and a certain

component of the hops (cohumulone, I believe... sorry, don't have my books

here).  Perhaps this is what you've been experiencing.

***************

Norman writes about the "Chopstick Method" for getting all the extract out

of those bagged extracts.  I have alternate method that I've invented and

subsequently am discarding after it's very first use.  I'm posting it as a

warning to potential users.  I call it the "Spoon and Exhaust Hood Method."

It involves pinning the bag between the Exhaust Hood and your Charismatic

Wooden Spoon and then pulling up on the bag.  The problem with this method

is that inevitably the spoon slips off (under) the hood and flings a dollop

of extract against the backstop of the range.  Yuck!

************

Rich writes about inconsistent carbonation despite always using 3/4 cup

of dextrose for priming.

There are two other factors besides the amount of priming sugar that can

cause overcarbonation.  1) unwelcome visitors and 2) bottling too early.

Unwelcome visitors include bacteria and wild yeasts.  You may be introducing

them at bottling time, during fermentation or even as early as at pitching

time.  Bacteria and wild yeasts (S. diastaticus, for example) often can

eat sugars that your primary fermentation yeast cannot.  Thus, once the

primary fermentation is done, the wild yeasts slowly eat the left over

sugars and overcarbonate the beer.  Alternatively, if you have bacteria in

your beer (which often do not produce gasses and thus do not overcarbonate

the beer directly), they can break the larger, unfermentable carbohydrates

into smaller, fermentable sugars which your fermenation yeast can now eat,

thereby overcarbonating.  The second factor is much more easy to solve --

don't bottle too early.  I usually wait till the airlock is bubbling less

than once per minute, often waiting till it's less than once per two minutes.

************

Greg writes:

>need some advice. He is going to do a full mash and rack of the cold break

>into a glass carboy. The carboy is going to be sealed up in plastic and

>placed carefully into the river just before ice-over. The theory here is that

>once the river freezes, the water temperature below the ice will be at 4 deg.

The only potential problem as I see it is that perhaps the ice expansion

could compress the part of the carboy that's sticking through the ice and

break it.  Would the whole thing be under water, or would the top of the

carboy be sticking through the ice?  If the whole thing was under water,

then I'd worry about pressure building up from (very slow) yeast activity

and popping the top.

As an alternative, why not build an insulated box and put a thermostatically

 -controlled HEATER in it?  This could be put outside and use nature to keep

it cold.  The thermostat could be set to 4C and would warm the fermenter when

the temperature in the box gets too cold.

Al.

------------------------------


America's Finest City AHA Competition

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 13:11:00 PST

From: "SIMPSON, Mark (x-4378)" <Simpson@po2.rb.unisys.com>

Subject: America's Finest City AHA Competition

This is it, Brew-Guys and Brew-Gals!!!

The First Annual  "America's Finest City Homebrew

Competition", an AHA Sanctioned Competition will be held on the 12th of

March, 1994!!!  All

recognized AHA beverage styles will be judged.  Refer to Zymurgy for style

guidelines and contest details.

Contact either Skip Virgilio:  (619) 566-7061 or Mark Simpson:  (619)

578-2627.  I can be e-mailed at:

simpson@rb.unisys.com.  All entries must be on site by March 9th.  I will

send a follow-up message when

the mailing and judging site has been established. So, GET BREWING NOW!!!

Cheers!

Mark Simpson;  VP of QUAFF in San Diego

------------------------------


Sabco's RIMS Equipment

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 16:03:56 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: Sabco's RIMS Equipment

The folllowing should be added to my review of the RIMS which appeared

in the Winter issue of Zymurgy. This addition will appear in the next

issue.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

It has come to my attention that Sabco is marketing only a part of

the Conrad Keys/Rodney Morris RIMS system. Missing from Sabco's

product is the grain mill Conrad designed for this system.

This omission could possibly cause problems. Without the right sort of

crush this system could lead to grain compactification and leeching

of undesirables from husks, to cite but two examples. Thus anyone who

is interested in the Sabco system should also give serious consideration to

the purchase of an adjustable roller mill. Do not be afraid to experiment

with roller spacing, for the requirements on grain milling are different

for the RIMS setup as compared to a standard mashing system. The performance

of the system is the best guide to deciding how the grains should be crushed.

The goals are to get a smooth and homogeneous recirculation, yields in the

32-34 pts*gal/lb range, and absolutely no grain astringency in the finished

beer.

George Fix

------------------------------


Re: misc. answers

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 15:31:43 MST

From: "Mark B. Alston" <c-amb@math.utah.edu>

Subject: Re: misc. answers

   Brett Charbeneau wonders how to log into sierra.stanford.edu.  When

   asked for a user name respond ftp, and when it asks you for a password as

   your complete email address respond r@ .  The @ automatically appends

   your site address.  If you are up to no good respond with the address of

   someone you don't like :-)

Try again.  You need to *use* ftp not login *as* ftp.  Brett was

trying to telnet to sierra rather than ftp there.  Thus, the correct

procedure is to ftp to sierra and login as anonymous with your e-mail

address as your passord.  i.e.

1) 'ftp sierra.stanford.edu'

2) enter 'anonymous' as user

3) enter e-mail address as password

Mark

------------------------------


Oregon Nut Brown Ale

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 17:20 CST

From: akcs.wally@vpnet.chi.il.us (John Walaszek)

Subject: Oregon Nut Brown Ale

After looking at the Winter Zymurgy I am intrigued by the

Oregon Nut Brown Ale.  Can anyone who attended the Conference

comment on it.

The recipe calls for 3.3 lbs on Danish Unhopped malt syrup.

Does anyone know whether this is Light, Amber, Dark?

Since the recipe call for 3.3 lbs for a 10 gallon batch I would

replace with 1.5 lbs DME probably Laaglander for a 5 gallon

batch.

Does anyone know where to obtain the Hazelnut extract that was used?

The manufacturer is Stearns and Lehman.

Thanks

 - Wally

------------------------------


scorching in mash tun

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 16:12:40 -0800

From: tims@ssl.Berkeley.EDU

Subject: scorching in mash tun

Dear Dion,

 You sent mail a while ago in response to my pico-brewery

question, and I have another question for you, if you know.

How much do I need to worry about scorching at the bottom of

the mash tun, if that is where I apply gentle heat.  Is it

better to have a screen, and keep the bottom with liquid and

no grist against it (but no stirring of the liquid), or is

it better to put the grist right down on the metal, and use

some sort of slotted pipe (or Easymasher type) manifold/filter?

The heat source is an electric burner attached to the bottom

on the _outside_ of the SS mash vessel.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Tim

------------------------------


Abbey Ale recipe

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 17:16:43 MST

From: abirenbo@redwood.hac.com (Aaron Birenboim)

Subject: Abbey Ale recipe

   would somebody out there be kind enough to send me a nice abbey ale

recipe.  I'm leary of those in rojette's book.  (all grain and

candi-sugar preferred.)

               aaron

------------------------------


winter ale

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 19:57:22 -0400 (EDT)

From: HBUCKS@delphi.com

Subject: winter ale

Does anyone have a receipt for an ale similar to

Young's Winter Ale.  I have been told that it requires a

yeast that is less attentive than usual for this type of

ale.  Can anyone shed any light on that?  Thanks in

advance for replys.

------------------------------


winter ale

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 20:01:44 -0400 (EDT)

From: HBUCKS@delphi.com

Subject: winter ale

Does anyone have a receipt for an ale similar to

Young's Winter Ale.  I have been told it requires a

yeast that is less attentive than usual for this type

of ale.  Can anyone shed any light on that?  Thanks in

advance for replys.

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1297, 12/14/93

*************************************

-------


LAUTER TUN DESIGN

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 21:18 CST

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: LAUTER TUN DESIGN

 >From: "Dennis Lewis" <DLEWIS%jscdo6@jesnic.jsc.nasa.gov>

 >Subject:      perf sheet

 >I have a keg that I fitted with a SS screen false bottom and have a tap

 coming out of the bottom of the keg as my sweet liquor outlet. The perf sheet

 I have is 3/32" holes on 5/32" centers. (I got this size from the Brewer's

 Warehouse sheets. They claim it's the standard microbrewery size. Can anyone

 verify?)

 We exchanged mail on this subject but you failed to mention the hole size of

 the lauter tun false bottom.  It looks to me like another classic example of

 how scaling down commercial equipment to hombrew sized batches just does not

 work very well.  3/32" holes are probably too large for the geometry of a

 homebrew tun.

 I hate to sound like a broken record, but all your problems will go away if

 you build an easymasher for it and throw away the false bottom.  The first

 easy masher I made (long before it was called one) was simply back up for

 what got through the false bottom.  The f/b caused so much grief that I took

 it out and never used it again.  They simply are not necessary or useful in

 homebrew lauter tuns.

 js

------------------------------


River lagering

Date: 13 Dec 93 23:15:31 EST

From: Richard Nantel <72704.3003@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: River lagering

Regarding Greg Pyle's query about lagering under the ice of an Ontario

river.

As an avid homebrewer and flyfisherman, the idea would seem to present two

problems:

1. CO2 would slowly build up within the sealed glass carboy (no airlock)

and could explode;

2. The carboy could be swept away during spring runoff. (Even the most

tranquil summer stream can become a raging torrent after a couple of warm

afternoons.)

Nevertheless, I wish my fellow Canadian good luck with the idea and will

keep an eye open this spring for either a carboy drifting past the island

of Montreal or some not-too-sober trout migrating upstream towards free

beer.

Richard Nantel

Montreal, Quebec

Canada

------------------------------


WINE

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 22:59:43

From: aaron.banerjee@his.com

Subject: WINE

The following is a recipie which I used as a college student.  It doesn't

always produce the best tasting wine (depending on how good a winemaker you

are), but produces alcohol...

                  Banerjee's "Grocery Store" Wine

1.  Buy a 1 gallon jug of apple juice or cider in a glass jar.  Drink 3-4

cups of juice.

2.  Bring 5-6 cups of the remaining juice to a boil with 3-4 cups sugar

to produce a sweet solution.

3.  Add said sweet solution back to the juice.

4.  Add 1 tsp dry yeast (wine yeast is preferrable, but any will do)  Note

that baker's yeast imparts a taste on the wine, and produces less

    alcohol, but it still works if you're desparate.

5.  Seal the top with a stopper or puddy.  the stopper or puddy (clay)

should have a hole as to allow a 1/4" vinyl tube to stick through,         but

not allow any air to get into the juice except for through the         tube.

The end of the tube that sticks through the puddy should not

    extend all the way to the juice, but rather should end in the air     space

between the puddy and the juice.  The other end of the tube          should be

immersed in water.

6.  If you have a bubbler lock, use it and ignore step 5.

7.  Keeping the mixture between 75 and 90 degrees F, wait 2 weeks.  Note:

temperatures above about 100 F seems to kill most yeast.  That is,

don't add the yeast to a really hot mixture.

8.  If you feel like bottling the wine to allow you to start another

batch of wine, do so, otherwise, wait another 2 weeks.

9.  Drink and be merry, for tomorrow the world may end.

10. The second time around, instead of buying another jug of apple juice,

make grape juice in the same jug using 2 cans of frozen grape juice

(preferrably a brand that doesn't contain vitamin C).

11. Hint:  get a hole bunch of jugs going at the same time to get a

constant supply of wine.

Please direct any questions or comments to:

     aaron.banerjee@his.com

         - Aaron.

------------------------------


Norm's Dream tun...

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 04:33:47 -0500 (EST)

From: Wayde Nie <niew@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>

Subject: Norm's Dream tun...

Hi Norm (and the HBD crowd!), I guess I'm a bit of a dreamer too...

I've been thinking of similar systems myself, have you considered a small

gas fired hot water heater for your hot liquor tank?

 It seems to me that you have a closed, well insulated system here

which already has the plumbing to safely handle the gas, water and

combustion fumes. With the addition of the appropriate ball valves, safety

valve and an outlet on the top for your steam supply you have a dual

purpose hot liquor tank/steam generator. You might even fashion some sort

of door for water treatments (it would need to hold some modest pressure

for your steam generator). An added bonus is that the water will be

supplied under some presure so there is no need to elevate your tank to

7-8 feet.

 Does anyone know if a standard hot water tank thermostat is

accurate enought or has the necessary range for this? Anyone think that

we're crazy and are looking for trouble?

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    /|||/           | Wayde Nie                          |

    <o.O>           | Student Consultant                 |   Real Programmers

    ( v )   Aack!   | Computing and Information Services |         use:

   --"-"--          | McMaster University                | "COPY CON PROG.EXE"

   *Bill The Owl*   | NIEW@McMail.CIS.McMaster.CA        |

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

          Ifyoucanreadthis,youspendtoomuchtimefiguringouttaglines.

------------------------------


Re : Simulating an English beer engine

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 13:22:03 GMT

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: Re : Simulating an English beer engine

Bob writes about adding a sparkler to the outlet of his kegging system to

achieve a creamy head. I get the same effect by using one of those

much-maligned plastic pressure barrels (Hambleton Bards's, FWIW). By trial and

error, I have found that the presence of an internal float system makes no

difference to performance, ie, the brew is still milky when served and clears

from the bottom up. Therefore, the most likely source of agitation is the

simple fact of opening the tap by a very small amount, combined with a

top pressure of up to 20 psi. I would imagine that this would be easy to

simulate in a kegging system without going to the trouble of building a

sparkler?

Now here's one for the engineers: I would like to add a sparkler to my

_bottled_ beers. I have tried simply pouring these through a perforated valve,

but the dispense pressure doesn't seem to be great enough to cause a milky

brew. I am now thinking in terms of adding a foot pump device to force the beer

out from a vertically standing bottle. Look out Guinness, your patented draught

beer-in-a-can system is under threat!

------------------------------


Re: Cats Meow

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 08:46:22 EST

From: Mark A. Stevens <stevens@stsci.edu>

Subject: Re: Cats Meow

In Homebrew Digest #1297, Craig Hicks (chicks@nas.edu) asks

what the Cats Meow is.

The Cats Meow 2 is a collection of beer recipes compiled from

past issues of the Homebrew Digest. The current version contains

more than 400 recipes in various styles, including mead and

cider.

To get the Cats Meow, follow the instructions for accessing

the archives at sierra.stanford.edu via anonymous FTP.

Prosit!

===Mark Stevens

   stevens@stsci.edu

------------------------------


carta blanca?

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 08:27:38 +0000 (U)

From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: carta blanca?

                      carta blanca?

my wife very fondly remembers a brew called

carta blanca from a trip she took to mexico (before

we met). I have tried in vain to find it and cannot.

Does anyone know if it still exists, and if not, is

there a clone-recipe, for lack of a better term?

thanks in advance

george

------------------------------


Re: O2 & casks

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 09:40:02 -0500 (EST)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: O2 & casks

> From: bjones@novax.llnl.gov (Bob Jones)

> Subject: Oxygen for brewing

>

> Is there an inexpensive source for pure oxygen to use in wort oxygenation?

> Anyone out there using pure oxygen for wort oxygenation?

Sure!  Despite reading that it is best to use FDA approved O2, I went

out and bought a tank of welding O2 (new).  My local Phd/lab friend

assured me that nothing would "live" in the high pressure O2 environment,

but since the cleanliness of the oxygen is an issue, I push the O2

through a .2 micron filter, then through a silica airstone.  I just

got a scintered SS stone, so that will be tested next brew.  The O2 has

improved my ferments, especially the latest barleywine.  I use a 2 hour

(approx) bubble period, then disconnect (I start the O2 as soon as wort

is hitting the fermenter, and turn it off about 1.5-2 hours later).

> From: bjones@novax.llnl.gov (Bob Jones)

> Subject: Simulating an English beer engine

>

> I am considering either one of two ideas to make using this concept alittle

> easier to use. One would be to keep the keg at about 1psi and add a small

> pump to raise the pressure to push the beer through the sparkler. The other

> is to push the beer with nitrogen instead of CO2. This way I could leave the

> keg at 10psi and not pick up any carbonation. I have been threatening to go

> to a mixed gas system, this may be the push over the top. This post is

> getting long, I'll stop by sayng, give it a try, you may like it. My

> appologies to all the people in the UK on butchering the tradition of cask

> condition ales, but I think I have come up with a pretty good simulation.

I have found that the use of a Guinness slow pour tap (with flow rate

adjustment) can be effective in simulating the cask ale carbonation.  It

works in much the same way as an engine, but using gas to push it through

the sparkler head.  Unfortuneatly, I have heard that Rapids no longer sells

the adjustable model.  This technique has the same problem as Bob's, the

pressure cannot be left on, or the beer will gain CO2.  Its probably easiest

to just keep it at the level desired, and turn it on to dispense, shutting

off the carb after your done for the night.

>

> Fellow brewers, open your eyes, gased ales are not necessarly the best ales.

> With no gas, one can make a lower gravity beer and experience the malt and

> hop flavors MUCH better. I not saying I'm going to make all my beers now

> without CO2, I am saying it really adds another demension to beer.

>

Exactly.

> From: korz@iepubj.att.com

I usually wait till the airlock is bubbling less

> than once per minute, often waiting till it's less than once per two minutes.

If you have good experience with this method, fine. But if you are tweaking

variables all of the time, like I often do, please take a hydrometer reading

to determine when to keg/bottle.  The 'ole bubbles per unit time can be

quite misleading. Now, anyone know where to buy a professional hydrometer

for under $125??  The bummer is you need two, one for OG, and one for FG,

and yet another for "high OG".

Best,

Jim Busch

DE HOPPEDUIVEL DRINKT MET ZWIER 'T GEZONDE BLOND HOPPEBIER!

------------------------------


Why Bavarian beer mugs have lids

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 08:44 CST

From: akcs.chrisc@vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)

Subject: Why Bavarian beer mugs have lids

The REAL reason why bavarian beer mugs have lids (pick one):

It keeps insects out of your beer.

It keeps your friends from wedging a kartoffelpuffer into the

opening of your mug while your not looking.

It pisses the French off.

People won't mistake your beer mug for a spitoon.

You can launch pretzels at the American tourists sitting at the

next table over.

For the same reason women wear swimsuits.

There aren't any pretzels floating in your beer after the polizei

break up the brawl.

Toilets have lids so what the heck.

Gives those gunsmiths something to do between wars.

Tourists will want to buy it.

------------------------------


Rnage hoods, chopsticks--too complicated

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 10:15:49 -0500

From: esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

Subject: Rnage hoods, chopsticks--too complicated

Hi,

        A quick suggestion on how to get all the extracty out of poly bags

(or cans for that matter).  Ladle a bit of the hot (recently boiled) water

into the bag and swish it around until the remaining extract has dissolved

in the water.  Dump the water into your brewpot.  If you're worried about

putting too hot water in the bag, you could even use a bit of hot tap water

and still not risk any infection since it's done before the boil.  The

range hood and chopstick methods seem too complicated for me, but what do I

know, I'm just a college student.

Eugene

esonn1@cc.swarthmore.edu

------------------------------


AHA judging form

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 09:27:00 -0600

From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

Subject: AHA judging form

All,

The AHA beer judging form starts off, after identification of the

style and the judge, with the category "bottle inspection". There

are no points awarded in this category, just comments. I have

several questions, such as:

What is the purpose of this section? Recently I received comments in

this section of "short fill" and "low fill line". I also received a

"nice bottle" comment. I see that this inspection could be

used to inspect for the ring that is supposed to be indicative of

certain types of bacterial infection. I also understand that low

fill *could* be indicative of potential oxidation, although oxygen

absorbing bottle caps *may* negate potential oxidation risk from air

in the bottle. However, if no points are awarded, what's it there

for?

Do oxygen absorbing bottle caps negate the potential for in-bottle

oxidation?

Does actual bottle condition, ie. scratched or sanded, have

anything to do with judging the beer?

TIA,

E-mail comments welcome

Chuck Wettergreen

 * RM 1.2 00946 *

------------------------------


Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 11:16:33 EST

From: dweller@GVSU.EDU (RONALD DWELLE)

Subject:

          Subject: RE: FTP-ing from sierra.stanford.edu

          Don Said:

          >    I can't seem to be able to log onto the sierra machine.

           I can>telnet to it get the login prompt, but no matter what

          I try I>continually get an ''incorrect login'' error.<<<<<<<

          //////////////////////////////---a break in de message, see?

          I too had a bitch trying to ftp or telnet sierra. I suspect

          they lockout the aliens during working hours. I finally got

          all I wanted by sending the "Get" command to "listserv."

          I first sent: "GET  PUB/HOMEBREW INDEX"  (or maybe it was

          just "GET INDEX" to listserv@sierra.stanford.edu at

          Internet).

          Then with the Index, I ordered everything I wanted. I just

          send a message via Internet, addressed to

          "listserv@sierra.stanford.edu" with a one-line message,

          like: "GET pub/homebrew yeast.faq" (pub/homebrew is the

          directory and "yeast.faq" is the text file.). If you send

          anything except the single line, the messages gets squashed

          and bounced back.

             RE other question--  "Cat's Meow" is a zillion receipes.

          I expect to finish trying them in the year 2319, just after

          my 19th liver transplant.

          Ron D(dweller@gvsu.edu at Internet)

          "Yeast me up, Scotty"

------------------------------


party pig?

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 10:37:38 +0000 (U)

From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: party pig?

                      party pig?

Has anyone out there tried the Party Pig? There was

a great review of it in the Winter issue of Zymurgy,

and I'm thinking of picking one up.

How does it compare to small CO2 systems? It looks

attractive in terms of size, capacity, and ease of

use. I really don't want to go around finding kegs,

and this might be a nice bottle minimizer/alternative.

Thanks in advance...

george

------------------------------


Answers to Mead Questions

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 09:39:56 -0700

From: reeves@lanl.gov (Geoff Reeves)

Subject: Answers to Mead Questions

>

>My fiance asked me about three weks ago whether I had any plans to brew

>a mead for our honeymoon, and I thought the idea was great.

>So anyway, here are my questions for mead enthusiasts:

>@ racking, the fermentation seemed to have hurt the

>flavor, with an off flavor best described as like A & D Ointment!  The

>"bouquet" seemed to have soured as well, offering a smell more like

>ripe yeasties (like when we clean our carboys after bottling).  Is

>this normal and/or will these flavors mellow and balence within a few

>months?  That's question #1.

>

>Question #2 is: After I racked to the secondary vessels and fixed them

>with fermentation locks, I brought these tanks to the basement storage

>area to ferment, settle and clarify for another month or so before

>I bottle.  But there are hot water pipes that run through the storage

>roomand do give off some heat (I'd estimate that it's a steady 80F

>though I've not yet monitored the temperature).  I don't think its

>too threatening to the brew, but just to be sure, what is an accept-

>able temperature range for meads in the secondary?

>

>John

I think your two questions are related. The medicinal smell is most likely

caused by phenols which are produced as a byproduct of fermentation. Higher

temperatures tend to increase the level of phenol production. What is "too

high a temperature" depends on your yeast. For most ale yeasts it is

recommended that the fermentation temperature be below 70 deg. For higher

gravity beers (and mead) my feeling is that you need to stay in the lower

range of 55-60 deg because the large amount of alcohol produced increases

the chance of having phenols above the flavor threshold. Sometimes these

compounds do mellow and disappear with time but not usually in a month or

two. Fortunately your mead will last much longer than that. The only thing

I can suggest for a possible quick fix is to leave your mead in the

secondary until you want to drink it (still mead is just as nice as

sparkling) and agitate it frequently. Phenols are volitile so the levels

may reduce some over the next few months.

Geoff

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

|    A brewery is like a toothbrush, everyone should have their own.      |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Geoff Reeves:  NIS-2, Mail Stop D-436, Los Alamos National Laboratory   |

|                reeves@lanl.gov (internet) or  essdp2::reeves (span)     |

|                Phone (505) 665-3877                                     |

|                Fax   (505) 665-4414                                     |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


Just what's hiding in those draftflow cans...

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 11:50:47 -0400 (EDT)

From: ENESTVED@bcvax1.bc.edu

Subject: Just what's hiding in those draftflow cans...

Dear folks of the HBD:

 A coupl eof frineds of mine and I got bored one day and decided

to find out just what makes those "draft-flow" cans work. Mind you, this

was in Reading, England a year ago, but I can't imagine that they've

changed since then. Anyway, we hacked off the top of a can-O-Murphy's and

discovered a two-piece setup of plastic. The top piece stretched from one

side of the can to the other, with round-ended arms to keep it from up-

ending and relaesing all the gas before the can is opened. The bottom

section slipped up into the top, and wasa sort of plug or mushroom-shaped

thing. We decided that openeing the can released the pressure sufficiently

for the bottom piece to slide out (down, that is) of the larger top piece

thereby shooting a dose of CO2 (or whatever they're using - could be

anything, for all I know) through the beer overhead. This ensured that all

the beer got gassed, and pretty thoroughly. I didn't like it quite as much

as a regular draft pint, but our can wasn't quite as cold as they said

it should be on the label. It sounds as if these are  big hit - I may give

it another chance soon. It looked something like this:

Top:  _____ Side:  _____

     / / / /          |     |

    |  | |  |         | | | |

     / / / /          |_| |_|

      ____

------------------------------


Pardon my line-interruption....

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 12:00:32 -0400 (EDT)

From: ENESTVED@bcvax1.bc.edu

Subject: Pardon my line-interruption....

Um, sorry about the rather abrupt ending of that post I tried to send (our

network tends to implode during finals week here at B.C.) Anyway, the whole

plug looks like a poorly-machined capital letter "I" from the side, with

the top half fitting like a larger sleeve over the smaller, bottom half.

>From the top, the gas reservoir looks like a frisbee that's been chopped

off along its top and bottom edges. Anyway, I hope this might be of

interest to the engineering-minded out there. (And can you believe that

they outlawed homebrewing rigs on our campus as of last year? Boy, I didn't

think that this whole thing about repressive administrations was more than

a joke, but now I'm brewing in it....) Have fun....   Will

------------------------------


Bavarian Mug Lids

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 09:14:21 PST

From: Jack St Clair <Jack_St_Clair@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: Bavarian Mug Lids

Text item: Text_1

In HBD#1297 Ed Hitchcock asked the question of: Why lids on Bavarian

Beer Mugs?

The custom goes back to the renaissance days and the lids prevented your

pal from putting a pellet of poison in your porter.  Put that in your

pipe and puff.

Jack St.Clair

Jack_St_Clair@ccm.hf.intel.com

------------------------------


specialty boiling hell out of

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 11:55:21 EST

From: Mark Bunster <mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu>

Subject: specialty boiling hell out of

* >None of my homebrew info sources explain when/how to properly

* use specialty grains for an extract based brew.

* In the past I've just tossed my grains in at the beginning of the

* boil and boiled the hell outta them for an hour. Those batches

* were VERRRY bitter, though I'm not sure if it wasn't the Northern

* Brewer (2 oz, loose) which I was trying out at the same time.

* Should I not let the grains get more than 150 degrees F, as in

* mash conversion? Should I add them after the boil, below a certain

* temperature, and let them steep. What temps? What times?

* Thanks again,

*

>From personal experience, specialty grains give you all the flavor you need

in about 15 minutes at low boil, not an hour at hell temps. Get out as many

as you can (relax etc) and move on. The darker and more "roasty" your grains,

the stronger your preliminary tea, so the fun part there is how roasty you

want your beer--vary time by grains and pers pref.

- --

Mark Bunster                      |Exchange conversation if you dare--

Survey Research Lab--VCU          |Share an empty thought or a laugh.

Richmond, VA 23220                |

mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu            |

(804) 367-8813/353-1731           |                          -edFROM

------------------------------


RIMS and HSA

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 13:00:38 EST

From: Bob Getty <bgetty01@prog.c4.gmeds.com>

Subject: RIMS and HSA

I am planning on building a RIMS over Xmas and want to be clear

on the HSA danger(!?) involved with the system.  Has HSA been a

problem with you RIMS users?  I have read descriptions of foaming

and splashing at the output of the system, so it seems RIMS would

have an HSA problem.

What methods or tricks do people use to get the wort into the mash

tun from the RIMS output?  Morris recommends laying a perforated

1/8'' plastic tray on the grain and piping the wort on top of it.

Any better ideas?  Does anybody keep the wort level above the grain

bed and have the output pipe below the wort water line?

Thanks in advance,

Bob

------------------------------


Yeasty Taste, Gushers

Date: 14 Dec 93 13:19:26 EST

From: jennings@readmore.com (Todd Jennings)

Subject: Yeasty Taste, Gushers

- -- ------------------------------

Adrian Anderson recently posted the following:

>Brewers,

>    I am new to the list and to homebrewing.  Have one batch of

>Continental Light, made from a kit, to my credit.  My product

>came out fine body and colorwise w/ good carbonation.  The only

>problem is a very (ultra - mega) yeasty aftertaste.

One question I have is whether you racked to a secondary fermenter after

the krausen fell, or did you ferment all in one vessel?  You may find

that racking to secondary will eliminate some of the yeasty taste to your

beer.

Also, how long did you allow for conditioning?  You should allow a couple

of weeks in the bottle before drinking, at least.  If you drank your beer

sooner than that, there may not have been enough time for the yeast to

settle out.  Check the bottom of your bottles for the familiar white

yeast ring.

- ------------------------------------------

Matthew Bohne writes:

>Subject: BREW PROBLEM..

>WHEN I MOVED EVERYTHING TO THE FERMENT TANK I DIDN'T GET A BUBBLE FOR

THE 1ST

>DAY, HOWEVER 2 DAYS LATER IT WAS AT FULL CRANK. ON THE 6TH DAY IT BLEW

BEER

>THROUGH THE VAPOR LOCK SOME 9 FEET INTO THE AIR(RATHER FUN TO WATCH BUT

A MESS

>TO CLEAN..) THE HEAD PEEKED AND FELL BACK IN, I DRAINED IT TO THE SECOND

>FERMENT TANK AND WAITED.. IT BUBBLED SLIGHTLY ONCE AN HOUR, 2 DAYS

LATER, I

>BOTTLED. IT HAS BEEN 2 WEEKS AND I WENT DOWN TO THE CELLAR AND I NOTICED

A

>WHITE RING INSIDE OF ALL THE BOTTLES... WHAT IS THIS?? IT ALMOST LOOKS

LIKE A

>MINI HEAD BECAUSE IT SEEMS TO BE THICKENED FROTH... WILL IT GO AWAY??

SHOULD I

>JIGGLE THE BOTTLES AND GET IT TO DROP TO THE BOTTOM? I ALSO NOTICED A

THICKER

>SEDIMENT IN THE BOTTOM OF MY BOTTLES THAN USUAL. SHOULD I BE CONCERNED?

I

>OPENED ONE AND GOT THIS MAJOR GUSHER (I SEEM TO BE GETTING A LOT OF

THESE

>THESE DAYS BOTH WITH OLD AND NEW BEERS) -- SHOULD THEY BE CHILLED

LONGER? IS

>THERE ANYWAY TO COUNTERACT THIS?

IMHO, you definitely bottled to early.  There may have been other

factors, but be sure your specific gravity has leveled off before

bottling next time.

This will help alot.  As far as your froth at the TOP of your bottled

beer goes, it might be that heavy fermentation resumed after bottling,

and the froth might be krausen.  Again, bottling at the right time might

do the trick.

Todd A. Jennings,  A NYC apartment homebrewer  8^)

tjenning@readmore.com

------------------------------


stein lids revealed

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 13:50:50 EST

From: Mark Bunster <mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu>

Subject: stein lids revealed

* Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 13:50:53 -0400

* From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

* Subject: Trivia / Jade

*

* Here's a question for those breweriana afficianados:  Why, specifically, do

* bavarian beer mugs have a lid?  IS there a story or tradition behind this?

Specifically, to keep out air and flies.

Air (and heat) makes for flat beer, flies affect the protein level when they

fall in, destroying the careful balance of flavors. (ahem)

When you drink it a litre at a time, it can go warm on you quick. If you go

to a beer garden in Bavaria (or elsewhere) you'll often see people with the

drip mats over their glasses for the same reason.

I remember seeing a guy in a bar pour 9/10 of his beer, then roll the bottle

sideways back and forth for 10 minutes to build a good head to pour on top.

Everybody has a system.

* was a pale Flanders style ale from the north of France.  Anyone have any

I didn't know Flanders brewed his own beer! No wonder Homer hates him--he

just likes Duff.

- --

Mark Bunster                      |Exchange conversation if you dare--

Survey Research Lab--VCU          |Share an empty thought or a laugh.

Richmond, VA 23220                |

mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu            |

(804) 367-8813/353-1731           |                          -edFROM

------------------------------


AOL, HBD and Censorship

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 14:01:46 EST

From: lanbrew@aol.com

Subject: AOL, HBD and Censorship

I would like to take this opportunity to voice my support of Andrew Patrick

in his quest for a more open-minded approach toward "offensive behavior" on

America Online's Beer and Brewing Forum.

It seems like our civilization in general and computer forums specifically

are getting more and more thin-skinned.  Even in the HBD, which is probably

one of the better self-controlled forums I've seen, people are waiting to

bitch about signature lines, "offensive language", and almost anything Jack

Schmidling writes.  I *like* the fact that some people have the courage to

express themselves in a genuine manner, even if (ESPECIALLY IF) it takes on a

more earthy tone.  Do all of you people who run screaming from the words

"orgasm" or "pissed off" avoid such language in the outside world?  Do you

ever interact in a more casual manner with other people?

A fair number of HBD regulars wish to hold the Digest up to some sort of

"professional standard" which dictates that common language be banned and

that we all speak with more rarified language. Don't you think that this is

more than a little pretentious?  This is, after all, not a professional or

even an amateur publication, but a largely random forum in the format of a

huge ongoing conversation.

Perhaps I am far afield on this one, but when very few vocal or powerful

people have the ability to suppress or censor or in any way affect my freedom

to express myself as I see fit, that is clearly counter to the free exchange

of ideas and just plain wrong!  In the case of AOL vs. Andrew Patrick, we

have a person arbitrarily discarding posts because of some perceived

violation of the bylaws.  I do not feel that it is appropriate to hide under

the cover of "well, he signed up and agreed to the rules, so he got what he

deserved" .  These kinds of rules are infinitely more offensive to me than

any language could ever be and I have a real problem with dim-witted

do-gooders who see nothing wrong with what AOL is doing.

All I ask is that some of you stop and think.

Lan

------------------------------


Gym Locker Mead

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 13:16:42 EST

From: "Mark T. Berard" <mtberard@dow.com>

Subject: Gym Locker Mead

Smelly Mead question:

I have recently tried to make my first mead.  I used 2.5 lb clover honey,

small amount gypsum, yeast nutrient, irish moss.  Boiled in approx 0.5 gal.

water for 15 min and skimmed, ala TNCJHB. Topped off with water in 1 gallon

jug, pitched rehydrated wine yeast, capped with air lock.  Vigorous ferment

by next evening, remained vigorous approx. 2 wks, now has slow ferment.

Started Nov 21, so it's been 3 weeks total so far.  When I racked to the

secondary (@ 2 wks) it smelled awful.  Kind of like dirty socks. I tasted a

little, also awful. Will this get better with age???  Is this just a byproduct

from the yeast ferment that will get scrubbed out by the CO2?  What have I done

wrong (if anything)???

I mentioned to a friend that I was making mead (foolishly, before I had racked

to the secondary), and he got me a gallon of honey from his Dad's hives.

Mainly from Orange trees and basil(?), i.e. mixed flower. Now I'm in a bind,

because I'd like to make some mead for him to give to his Dad, but I don't want

to make a foul brew, and I don't want to wait a year to see if the mead I have

going will get better before I try another batch.

Help!  Any suggestions, or recipes for Orange Blossom Honey based Meads would

be greatly appreciated. Melomel or Methaglyn recipes would be fine, too.  TIA.

Mark        SCIENCE!  mtberard@dow.com

------------------------------


First Cider Attempt

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 08:24:54 PST

From: scottm@hilbert.cypress (Scott Majdecki)

Subject: First Cider Attempt

This is my first attempt at Canadian style sparkling hard cider.

My problem/question is that after ~2 weeks in the primary

I racked to secondary and of course had to sample. It tasted like

a nice, very dry cider, but had an alcohol aftertaste. I'm wondering

what might be the problem, or if the aftertaste will mellow during

secondary.

I started with a simple recipe posted in this digest several

weeks ago:

4 gallons natural cider

add 4 crushed Campden tablets and let sit for 24 hrs

add 5 lbs clover honey diluted to 1 gallon w/ water (boiled 10 min)

add 2 pkgs dry Champagne yeast and yeast nutrient

ferment in primary at ~66F (Active for about 1 1/2 wks)

Rack to secondary.

I plan to leave it in the secondary for 1 week at about 58-60F,

re-rack, secondary 1 more week, prime w/ 3/4cup corn sugar boiled

in 1pt water and bottle.

Any explanation for the alcohol aftertaste.

Thanks ahead for any help.

- --

Scott Majdecki    Email: sdm@cypress.com

Cypress Semiconductor                   Phone: (503)526-1888

8196 SW Hall Blvd., Ste 100             FAX:   (503)626-6688

Beaverton, OR. 97005

------------------------------


Koch's address

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 12:32:54 -0600 (CST)

From: John Edens <johne@sa-htn.valmet.com>

Subject: Koch's address

Does anyone have an address for Koch so that people can

tell him that it isn't nice to tell lies in his advertising

or sue people who run businesses with names similar to his

company name?

------------------------------


maltiness, aluminium

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 12:08:43 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@teleport.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: maltiness, aluminium

Phil Brushaber wants to get more maltiness in his beer.  Phil, the malts

you're talking about are wonderful and you shouldn't have any trouble

getting the desired results with them.  If you aren't getting it: try

lowering your hopping rate and, more importantly, start examining your

water supply.  The Munich water is directly responsible for bringing out

that effect; you should make adjustments to get the same water for your

brewing.  Seems to me that Noonan had some relevant data on this in his

Lager Beer book.  There is more elsewhere (Miller?).

The importance of the right water cannot be overstated.

=====

On the question of aluminium pots, I will confess to having mashed in an

aluminium pot now for nearly a year -- or maybe more, I forget...

Seriously, I don't know if I'm brain-damaged by this pot, but there have

been absolutely no, zero, none, bad affects on the flavor.  My beer, in

fact, is better than ever.

Of course, the kettle isn't as beautiful as my stainless steel 15-gallon

pot, nor my stainless steel keg/kettle, but the beer is fine.

Jeff Frane (I think... aren't I?)

------------------------------


Specialty grain use/Oregon Nut Brown Ale

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 13:40 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: Specialty grain use/Oregon Nut Brown Ale

George and Steve write about using specialty grains:

Steve>>None of my homebrew info sources explain when/how to properly

Steve>use specialty grains for an extract based brew.

Steve>In the past I've just tossed my grains in at the beginning of the

Steve>boil and boiled the hell outta them for an hour. Those batches

George>you not to boil the hell outta the speciality grains, as you'll

George>suck the tannins from the husks, contributing to quite a bitter

George>tang. Much like overbrewing a _dark_ tea, it's not something

George>you wanna do.

Indeed, George!  pH is another important factor.  If you have high-carbonate

water, you may want to add a teaspoon of Gypsum to a gallon of water and

boil it for 5 minutes or so.  Then pour off the water away from the sediment

(Calcium Carbonate) and toss the sediment.  If you have low-carbonate water,

you don't have to do this, you can just warm the tapwater up to 160-170F.

Now, cool the water down to about 160 to 170F, crush the grain, put it in

a grain bag (much easier than trying to remove the grain with a strainer

later), tie off the bag and steep the grains in the 160-170F water for 15

to 30 minutes.  I used to heat the water from 50F with the grain bag in

the liquor, but last time I did this, the bag stuck to the bottom of the

kettle and I burnt a hole in it.  Drat!  I used to use the full 5 gallons

for steeping the grains, but that's not a good idea -- the pH will be way

too high (even with low-carbonate water) and thus you'll extract those

tannins even at 160F.  Also, as Don mentioned, this method is useful for

crystal and the dark malts like Chocolate, Roasted Barley and Black Malt

(aka Roasted Malt).  You would not want to do this with Pale, Pils, Biscuit,

Aromatic, Munich, etc. or flaked barley/oats/etc. since these need to be

mashed to convert their starches.

**************

Wally writes:

>After looking at the Winter Zymurgy I am intrigued by the

>Oregon Nut Brown Ale.  Can anyone who attended the Conference

>comment on it.

Yes.  I think it was the finest specialty beer I've tasted.  Its flavor

was reminiscent of "Eat-it-all" cones!  I plan to make some -- I've yet

to find a source for the Hazelnut extract.  Wally -- I'll let you know

if I find it.

>The recipe calls for 3.3 lbs on Danish Unhopped malt syrup.

>Does anyone know whether this is Light, Amber, Dark?

I haven't looked at the recipe yet.  The beer was perhaps 12-13 degrees L,

so I'd suspect either light or amber.

>Since the recipe call for 3.3 lbs for a 10 gallon batch I would

>replace with 1.5 lbs DME probably Laaglander for a 5 gallon

>batch.

3.3 lbs of syrup is probably equivalent to about 2.65 lbs of DME.

Al.

------------------------------


XMAS STOUT

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 12:24:20 PST

From: Scott Lord (CompuCom) <v-ccsl@microsoft.com>

Subject: XMAS STOUT

Made a Xmas beer last Sunday.

Here it is

Hop Along Xmas Stout

15 gallons

19 1/2  lbs Munton &Fison  Dark extract

1/2       lb. Black Patent Malt

1/2       lb. Chocolate Malt

5       oz.    RoastedBarley

5      oz.     Dark Belgian Crystal   250L

2  - 1oz    Sticks  of Brewers Licorice

1       lb. Treacle black strap molasses

8      oz   Cascade    boil    90min

8     oz    Cascade    finish  15min

8     oz    Cascade   End      2min

3   packs of  Windsor Dry Yeast made in to a starter.

This was a full boil with 15 gal.

Put all dark grains in cold water and raise to 180 F. then remove.

Put in Licorice when water boils 5 min.Then all dark extract goes in.

Boil for 10 min. then first hops goes in 8 oz. what a hop smell.

this was Boiled down to 12 1/2 gallons then the finish hops 8 oz. were added.

Tasted. Not to overly bitter.Put the remainder of the  Hops in 8 more

oz. turned

heat and  pump wort through counterFlow wort chiller.

what a hop nose.

Will let all you know how turns out

this is the most hops I have ever used.

Scott Lord

"WSHBSC |  Beer it's not just for Breakfast any more.

v-ccsl@microsoft

------------------------------


Fruit Extracts

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 13:15:55 -0800

From: goetze@cats.ucsc.edu (Tom Goetze)

Subject: Fruit Extracts

Matthew Evans asks about HopTech Fruit Extracts back on December 8, so

I like to share some related information.  I have not used HopTech's

fruit extracts, but I have used a Blueberry Extract from the Beverage

People (Byron Burch and Nancy Vineyard's place in Santa Rosa).  I don't

know where they get it (or if they make it themselves), but the person I

talked to on the phone told me that it is exactly the same stuff that

Marin Brewing Company uses in its Blueberry Ale (can you say '93 Gold

Medal in Fruit Beer).  So it is possible to make good beer with it.

 To get good results I would recommend staying below 15 IBU's.

The person from Beverage People told me that Marin Brewing Co. uses some

wheat in their ale--but I ventured for the use of rice instead (to be

precise I used 4 lbs Alexander's pale LME, 1.5 lbs dry rice extract and

about 14 IBU's (can't remember the hops)--then add 4oz of fruit extract

at bottling).  I was very happy with this light, extremely drinkable,

blueberry concoction.  I will admit that the blueberry was not tremendously

strong (i.e. could have been a little stronger).  My best guess is that

by adding the fruit extract directly to the hot priming liquid, I may

have reduced the flavor and aroma of the blueberry extract.  So I

suggest adding the extract to cool beer before bottling/kegging.  But in

general, the beer was extememly well received--especially with my

friends who like the lighter beers.

 For heavier beers, I would guess that you might need

substantially more than 4 oz.  Good luck.    tom

------------------------------


What's wrong with Fuggles?

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 15:19:43 -0600

From: ccamley@mmm.com (Chris Amley - 3M Telecommunications)

Subject: What's wrong with Fuggles?

In his book on Pale Ale, Terry Foster includes a table of

hops varieties and suggested uses in Pale Ale.  He

recommends Fuggles hops for aroma/finishing only, and not

for bittering.  Aside from the modest AA content of

Fuggles, is there any other reason why I shouldn't have

used them last week?

Chris

------------------------------


Munton & Fison Address

Date:  Tue, 14 Dec 1993 13:29:00 PST

From: Patrick_Waara.WBST129@xerox.com

Subject: Munton & Fison Address

Can someone send me the address of Munton & Fison?  I have a problem with one

of their products which needs to be brought to their attention.

~Pat

------------------------------


SS Stock pot prices

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 10:26:44 EST

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: SS Stock pot prices

>I would like to get a ten gallon stainless stock pot, but they cost about $175

new.

Well, that may be the retail price but you can do much better.  I bought my 10

gallon stock pot mail order from Rapids Restaurant & Bar Supply for $125,

including lid and shipping.

BTW, stainless steel is a poor conductor of heat and can develop hot spots that

will scorch the wort.  Better quality SS stock pots (Volrath) have aluminum

clad bottoms to help distribute the heat.

I can't recommend Rapids highly enough.  When they they sent me a Polarware

stock pot (no aluminum clad) instead of the advertised Volrath, they sent me

the proper item right away AND arranged and paid for the UPS pick up to

return the incorrect pot.  I have no connection with Rapids other than as

a satisfied customer.

- --Tony Verhulst

------------------------------


Hazelnut extract

Date: 14 Dec 93 17:35:22 EST

From: Richard Nantel <72704.3003@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: Hazelnut extract

Regarding John Walaszek's plans (HB1297) to use hazelnut extract in a nut

brown ale:

I tried that last year. The extract was the type used to make liqueurs (Tia

Maria, etc.) The resulting beer did taste nutty but had an awful `metallic'

aftertaste. Perhaps a hazelnut extract used in baking might be more

appropriate. Good luck. Keep us posted, John.

Richard Nantel

Montreal, Quebec

Canada

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1298, 12/15/93

*************************************

-------


re: Mead questions

Date: 15 Dec 93 01:16:13 MST (Wed)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: re: Mead questions

John (XLPSJGN%LUCCPUA.BITNET@UICVM.UIC.EDU, whatever that might mean!)

writes about mead for his honeymoon:

[startup info deleted]

> The mead is now racked into 2 1gal. bottles (one is full to the neck,

> the other about only 1/2 full).  OG: 1.055; SG @ racking: 1.010.

OK, with starting gravity only 1.055, this is intended to be light.

> The taste before pitching was exquisite, with an almost perfect

> balance between the honey, ginger and razberries (about a pound of

> those)  However @ racking, the fermentation seemed to have hurt the

> flavor, with an off flavor best described as like A & D Ointment!...

Would you consider trading one brand name for another and describing the

taste as "Listerine"?  If so, "do not panic; this is perfectly normal"!

It's the taste of a young mead.  I've been able to avoid it with the right

yeast, but if it happens it's nothing to worry about.

>...The "bouquet" seemed to have soured as well, offering a smell more like

> ripe yeasties (like when we clean our carboys after bottling).  Is

> this normal and/or will these flavors mellow and balence within a few

> months?  That's question #1.

It's hard to tell from the description, but it doesn't sound out of the

ordinary.  Meads *do* take longer to finish, and they get some pretty weird

characters at early stages along the way.  The best I can advise is that if

you smell/taste something that is *obviously* wrong, you've got a concern,

but if you only find something strange, that you can't characterize, don't

worry.

> Question #2...[fermentation temp]

> ...roomand do give off some heat (I'd estimate that it's a steady 80F

> though I've not yet monitored the temperature)...

Meads tend to do OK with higher temps.  (They ferment slower anyway; higher

temps seems to move them along quicker, mostly without bad effect.)  80F

does seem a bit high, not unreasonable but more than you might like.

- ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


Trappist, oatmeal stout, and red ale recipes

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 3:34:20 -0600 (CST)

From: Cree-ee-py Boy <BIRMINGH@FNALV.FNAL.GOV>

Subject: Trappist, oatmeal stout, and red ale recipes

         In HBD 1297, Aaron Birenboim asks:

>   would somebody out there be kind enough to send me a nice abbey ale

>recipe.  I'm leary of those in rojette's book.  (all grain and

>candi-sugar preferred.)

         Well, I don't have it with me, but the recipe in Dave Miller's

    _Complete Handbook of Homebrewing_ is one with which I have had good

    results.

         While we're on the topic of recipes, I've seen requests for

    recipes for both oatmeal stout and red ale. I was brewing both at the

    time, but I hadn't bottled yet so I decided to keep my mouth shut until

    I learned how they turned out. So, without further ado:

         Barney's Flat Oatmeal Stout

         ---------------------------

         6.0   lb DeWolf-Cosyns Pale Ale malt

         1.0   lb (Briess?) roast barley

         1.0   lb flaked barley (the stuff Kent sells)

         1.0   lb Quaker oats (the 5-minute stuff)

           2   oz Northern Brewer pellets (alpha=6.8, 60 min)

         Yeast Labs American Ale yeast (3rd consecutive pitch)

         Single infusion mash in 12 quarts water for 2 hours at 150 degrees

         OG 1051 FG 1014

         Don't be fooled by the name; this is not a Barney Flats clone. I

    just thought it'd be a cool name. (Does anybody know where I can get a

    postscript file of a certain dinosaur covered with tire tracks?)

         Two words for you: SET MASH. I normally do not mash out, and even

    when I do I usually only do a cursory mashout. I strongly recommend you

    get the mash temperature to 170 degrees before running off, and do not

    let it cool. It was so much trouble that I swore at pitching that

    unless this beer was heavenly, I'd never make another. I'm going to try

    to make one with cocoa and coffee this weekend.

         This is an extremely smooth beer, with a goodly but not

    overwhelming roast barley flavor. The only problem is that it is still

    flat after a couple or three weeks in the bottle because I left it in

    the secondary long enough that there was very little yeast in

    suspension. Pouring it from a 1-foot height doesn't generate any head

    to speak of (can *your* beer do this?)

         Butt Pimple Ale

         ---------------

         9.0   lb DeWolf-Cosyns Pale Ale malt

          .5   lb DeWolf-Cosyns Caravienne

          .5   lb DeWolf-Cosyns Biscuit malt

          .25  lb DeWolf-Cosyns Special B

          .25  lb DeWolf-Cosyns caramel pils

          .8   oz 50/50 mix Willamette/Cascade (alpha=6.0 avg, 60 min)

         1.0   oz 50/50 mix Willamette/Cascade (alpha=6.0 avg, 30 min)

          .25 tsp Irish Moss flakes            (15 min)

         1.0   oz 50/50 mix Willamette/Cascade (alpha=6.0 avg, 15 min steep)

         Yeast Labs American Ale yeast (5th consecutive pitch!)

         The respective alphas of the Cascade and Willamette are 7.4 and

    4.6. The 50/50 mix is by weight, and whole hops were used for both.

         Mash in 14 quarts water for 90 minutes at 153 degrees.

         OG 1060 FG 1020

         I call this "Butt Pimple Ale" because it's big, it's red, and it's

    been a pain in the ass.

         This has turned out pretty well. I had some problems with it,

    namely that it stopped fermenting at around 1030, but I racked from the

    7-gallon carboy into a 5-gallon jobber before I measured the SG. So,

    when I moved it closer to the water heater, I had to install a blowoff

    tube. When it stopped blowing off, I installed an airlock and moved it

    back to the normal fermentation area, at which point it began blowing

    off AGAIN.

         This was the fifth re-pitching from this yeast purchase, and the

    yeast seemed to behave differently from previous pitchings. Previously

    a cake of yeast would form on top of the beer and remain there after

    fermentation was complete. Also, the yeast had not seemed to hate the

    lower (60 degrees or so) temperatures quite so much (although my

    roommate turned the heat off over Thanksgiving, so the beer may have

    gotten even colder than that.)

         In any case, this beer has a medium-red color, pretty good body,

    and a slight bite in the finish which I don't think is from hops. It

    has some hop flavor, but I'd like more. It seems to have little hop

    aroma, but I don't trust my nose right now. I'll likely brew this

    again, but perhaps dry-hopped next time.

         I only bottled this beer last night, so things could change. I'll

    tell more when I know it; e-mail me if you want to know more.

- --

 Phillip J. Birmingham   birmingham@fnalv.fnal.gov

 "Tampering in God's Domain since 1965!"

------------------------------


RIMS?

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 07:07:45 CST

From: Al Gaspar <gaspar@STL-17SIMA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: RIMS?

This is a dumb question.  I haven't seen the Zymurgy article that George Fix

wrote.  What does RIMS stand for?  What is a RIMS?  How many RIMS can stand on

the head of a pin?  Thanks.

Cheers--

Al

- --

Al Gaspar       <gaspar@stl-17sima.army.mil>

USAMC SIMA, ATTN:  AMXSI-TTC, 1222 Spruce St., St. Louis, MO  63103-2834

COMMERCIAL:  (314) 331-4354  AUTOVON:  555-4354

relay1.uu.net!stl-17sima.army.mil!gaspar

------------------------------


re: AOL Censorship

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 08:53:06 EST

From: mlobo@sentry.foxboro.com (Michael T. Lobo)

Subject: re: AOL Censorship

Greetings:

 Before a flame war develops, I want to add my $.02 RE: Lan's mail

in HBD 1298

IMHO we should continue to abide by what appears to be an unspoken but

followed forum etiquette.

I like the way things are run and the absence of expletives is welcome -

( you want that, check out alt-tasteless-jokes [:^) )

There's no need to "..all speak with more rarified language."-(Lan)

,nor do I think anyone expects us to.  This is a forum on homebrewing...and in

the words of that _famous_ brewmeister, Charlie P. -

"relax, and have a homebrew"

If you have a problem with a forum/newsgroup/etc, you can unsubscribe or give

the sysop grief and/or appeal to fellow forum readers.  This is the HBD forum-

maybe the AOL problems should be kept there.

Not a flame, just a small brain dump.  If you have the need to flame, mail me

directly.

Michael _I'm going to Munich tomorrow..oh Joy_ Lobo

______________________________

Michael T. Lobo   508 549 2487

Foxboro Co.

mlobo@foxboro.com  "I Love beer, beer loves me; when I drink too much,

my beer speaks for me" -Monty

------------------------------


lagering questions

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 9:11:18 EST

From: Mark A Fryling <mfryling@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

Subject: lagering questions

Howdy,

We (my housemate/brewpartner and I) are about to embark on our first true

lagers and I would like to pick the collective HBD brain.  The plan is to make

first an amber fest-style lager and then a double bock.  I have a very swollen

packet of wyeast bohemian lager yeast which will be made into a 1L starter

tonight so that we will brew thursday or friday.  The fermentation and lagering

will be done in our back room which is now a relatively constant 52 F and will

probably get down into the 45-47 F range in Jan. and Feb.  The questions are:

1)  Should I start fermentation (ie primary) directly in the cold room or

should I begin in the basement (about 62F) and then move to the cold room after

things get really perking? and 2) Does someone out there have some good extract

recipes for these styles?  Something approximating Wurtzburger Hoffbrau's

octoberfest would be nice for the amber and something like Paulaner Salvator

would be great for the Dopplebock.  I already have a mental approximation but

some experienced advice would be appreciated.

Send your replies directly unless you have something of general interest.

Thanx,

Mark Fryling

<mfryling@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

"Patience is a virtue, have it if you can.  Seldom had by woman, never had by

man."

source unknown

------------------------------


Kegs -vs- stock pots

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 8:53:29 CST

From: Will B. Blalock <willb@hp3.imed.com>

Subject: Kegs -vs- stock pots

Full-Name: Will B. Blalock

 I have a few comments concerning an item in the last digest that

questioned the use of kegs -vs- real stock pots.

 No doubt that if you have deep enough pockets for real SS stock

pots, it is the superior choice. Actual pots have extra metal on the bottom

to aid in even heating. They have lids that fit, and are easier to clean.

The problem I am having with pots is that if you try to find one any bigger

than 20 quarts or so, the price seems to escalate exponentially. I have

been checking restaurant supply wearhouses and pots that range from 10 to

20 gallons price from $100 to $200. The formula seems to approximate

$10/gallon (actually a linear progression.)

 My only problem with SS kegs is ... I can't find any!!!

I have called almost every keg retailer in my area and South Houston

and they are telling me the same thing, "Those went out about a year ago."

I called beer brewerys and their distributors only to be turned down. In

short, I may have to buy stock pots since I can't find any SS kegs. There

are plenty with SS casing, but they all now have aluminum casks. My next

and only step is to start putting ads in the local want ads. I may get

lucky, yet I too am begining to wonder if kegs are worth all this trouble,

especially when you consider the job of re-conditioning I have to go

through after finding them.

Will Blalock

Houston Texas

willb@imed.com

------------------------------


Bottle Inspection

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 08:53:20 -0700

From: reeves@lanl.gov (Geoff Reeves)

Subject: Bottle Inspection

>The AHA beer judging form starts off, after identification of the

>style and the judge, with the category "bottle inspection". There

>are no points awarded in this category, just comments. I have

>several questions, such as:

>

>What is the purpose of this section? Recently I received comments in

>this section of "short fill" and "low fill line". e

>

>Chuck Wettergreen

This is one of my pet peeves with respect to judging. The bottle can

actually tell you a lot about possible problems with the beer inside. A

white ring around the neck can indicate bacterial infection. Lots of head

space can sometimes cause oxidation. I've even judged bottles that are half

(yes half) full of trub! Some judges feel they have to write something in

the bottle inspection portion and the most common comment is something

about the fill height. A few years ago as the AHA members generally became

more aware of the problems of oxidation there developed an attitude that

the bottle should ideally be filled exactly to the top with no air at the

top. This idea is absurd! Yes, if the beer is oxidized then lots of air in

the bottle neck could be the problem and it is worth noting on the judging

form. If the beer is not oxidized then you can fill as short as you like

and no one should comment on it. I counter-pressure bottle much of my

bottled beer and the bottle can be only half full and still have no oxygen

in it. I've actually commented on bottles being too full in the bottle

inspection portion. When is a bottle _too_ full? When you have to be

careful opening it. My advice to other judges is that for 99% of the beers

we judge should just have "OK" in the bottle inspection area. My advice to

people having their beer judged is to ignore most bottle inspection

comments unless they are related to the flavor of the beer. Of course no

one asked my advice ;-) Chuck just hit that beer-judge-snobbism nerve.

Geoff

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

|    A brewery is like a toothbrush, everyone should have their own.      |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Geoff Reeves:  NIS-2, Mail Stop D-436, Los Alamos National Laboratory   |

|                reeves@lanl.gov (internet) or  essdp2::reeves (span)     |

|                Phone (505) 665-3877                                     |

|                Fax   (505) 665-4414                                     |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


Pure Oxygen Sources

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 10:01:27 EST

From: "Mark T. Berard" <mtberard@dow.com>

Subject: Pure Oxygen Sources

Recently (HBD #1297) Bob Jones asked about adding pure O2 to his wort:

>From: bjones@novax.llnl.gov (Bob Jones)

>Is there an inexpensive source for pure oxygen to use in wort oxygenation?

>Anyone out there using pure oxygen for wort oxygenation?

And Jim Busch responded (HBD #1298) that he was using a NEW welding O2 supply:

>From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

>Sure!  Despite reading that it is best to use FDA approved O2, I went

>out and bought a tank of welding O2 (new).  My local Phd/lab friend

(snip)

Given the "tinkering" bent of most of the people here, I just wanted to

comment that old equipment shouldn't be used with pure O2, especially

the regulator.  O2 requires a special regulator, and it shouldn't have

been used for ANYTHING else.  O2 is highly oxidating, and so any oil or

grease in your lines, especially the regulator, could ignite and explode.

If this happens in the regulator, you have a nice schrapnel bomb, plus a

ready supply of O2 now feeding the flames in your ruined garage, making

it hard for the rescue team to pull your body out and rush you to the ICU.

Serious bummer.  With equipment designed for the job, no problem.  With the

wrong equipment, this would make a steam supply pressure cooker bomb that

people have worried about here look like childs play.

Also, I agree that nothing will live in the pure O2 environment.  Your only

worry would be contaminant gases.  So I doubt Jim needs to bother with the

0.2 micron filter.  Anyway, relax.  Don't worry.  Have a homebrew.  But

don't hurt yourselves!  Don't let Hazard Hog get you.

Safety Pup   SCIENCE!  mtberard@dow.com

------------------------------


Oxygen and hydrometers

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 11:14:10 EST

From: ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu (Ulick Stafford)

Subject: Oxygen and hydrometers

In hbd 1298 Jim Busch mentions oxygen use.  I would warn him that levels

over 14 ppm can be harmful.  I read this figure in a chemical technology

encyclopedia's section on beer (Kirk-Othmer, I think).  From a practical

point of view, this means that care must be exercised when O2 is used to

oxygenate.  The limit of oxygen solubility when air is used is around

8 ppm, which is related to the partial pressure of oxygen in air, 0.21.

This means that aeration with air, while safe, is less than optimum.

However, wort saturated with oxygen may have over 30 ppm of oxygen (the

dissolved sugars may lessen the amount of oxygen that can dissolve

in wort relative to water, but probably not by toomuch).  Breweries,

naturally, will have the money to pay for dissolved oxygen probes, but these

are not within homebrewers budgets.

Hydrometers - I seem to remember that Cole-Palmer sent me a supplement

to their catalogue that had many hydrometers listed and hte ones I

considered professional were $30-40.  However, I seem to have lost that

supplement.  In their regular catalogue all the hydrometers seem to cover

a large range.  Still, they might be worth a call 1-800-323-4340.

Someone wanted Jim Koch address to send poison pen letters.  The letter I

received from him today mailed without a stamp from Nashua, NH listed

The Boston Beer Works, The Brewery, 30 Germania St., Boston MA 02130 as an

address.  Incidentally I also got a letter from the AHA going on about how

great they are (is this all a sign of insecurity on the part of both

organisations?) and inviting me to the AHA 15th Anniversary Hombrew Rave, to

be held in Denver on December 4, 1993, with a RSVP date of Nov 22.  Still

efficient as ever!

P.S. How come Molson Ice bottles have alcohol content printed on them?  Is

the bureau of anus touchers and fondlers becoming a little less, anal?

__________________________________________________________________________

 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s@&* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.

    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556

                                      |    ulick@darwin.cc.nd.edu

------------------------------


SS pots and welding

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 11:18:37 -0600 (CST)

From: "Bill Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: SS pots and welding

I was wondering if the aluminum and/or copper cladding on the

bottom of the better SS pots made it difficult of impossible

to weld a spigot in place?

WAK

------------------------------


Munton & Fison address...

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 16:04:59 +0100

From: steve_t@fleurie.inria.fr (Steven Tollefsrud)

Subject: Munton & Fison address...

>From: Patrick_Waara.WBST129@xerox.com

>Can someone send me the address of Munton & Fison?  I have a problem with one

>of their products which needs to be brought to their attention.

Munton & Fison plc

Cedars Factory

Stowmarket, Suffolk

England

------------------------------


Re: First Cider Attempt

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 9:34:07 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: First Cider Attempt

Scott Majdecki (scottm@hilbert.cypress) wrote:

> It tasted like a nice, very dry cider, but had an alcohol aftertaste.

> I'm wondering what might be the problem...

Did you take any specific gravity readings?  May I suggest that you

simply made very strong cider.  Let's look at the recipe:

> 4 gallons natural cider

> add 5 lbs clover honey diluted to 1 gallon w/ water

I don't have any of my references here, so I may be a little off on my

numbers, but assume the natural gravity of the cider is ~1.050, and that

1 lb of honey (in 1 gal water) is ~1.032.  Thus your recipe has

50*4+32*5 = 360 "gravity points", divide by the final volume of 5

gallons to get 72.  So your original gravity was ~1.072, which is

somewhere in the neighborhood of 7% potential alcohol.  Pretty potent

stuff.  If you don't want as much alcohol, cut back on or eliminate

the honey entirely.

I have my first batch of cider fermenting myself, and it's original

gravity was 1.070.  It fermented further than any beer I've ever made,

going all the way down to 0.995!  This gives it an alcohol content

of about 8%, and you definitely can taste it.  I'm looking forward to

enjoying it--a little bit at a time.

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


New Book on Hops

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 10:56:23 -0600

From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)

Subject: New Book on Hops

The following reference has just come to my attention:

        Chemestry and Analysis of Hop and Beer Bitter Acids

        M. Verzele and D.DeKeukeleire, Eds.

        Developments in Food Science

        Vol. 27

        Elisvier Sc. Publ., New York and Amsterdam

        1991

        418 pages

I have only had a chance to give this one a quick first reading, but from

this perspective it really looks good. It is loaded with ideas relating

to alpha measurement, some of whom seem elementary and potentially

"homebrewable". The general discussion on hops is technical but quite

good. They appear to take the cohumulone issue head on!

Dr. Verzele is at the prestigious brewing school at Univ. of Ghent in

Belgium. He wrote the outstanding article (IMHO) on hops in the Brewing

Science sequence edited by Pollock.

Given the publisher of this new book, it is likely to be found in many

university libraries.

George Fix

George Fix

------------------------------


Re: Lauter Tun Design

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 12:08:24 EST

From: Jay Hersh <hersh@x.org>

Subject: Re: Lauter Tun Design

from Jack S.... (I know I'm probably gonna regret this :-)

> We exchanged mail on this subject but you failed to mention the hole size of

> the lauter tun false bottom.  It looks to me like another classic example of

> how scaling down commercial equipment to hombrew sized batches just does not

> work very well.  3/32" holes are probably too large for the geometry of a

> homebrew tun.

Jack, what would the scale of the brewery have to do with the sizing of the

holes in the lauter bottom?? This is a function of the size of the grain itself

as the purpose is to server as a seive allowing wort ot pass through but grain

to remain behind?? Can you explain the basis of your comment linking the size

to the scale of the brewery??

> I hate to sound like a broken record, but all your problems will go away if

No, really you don't  :-)

 JaH

------------------------------


RE: chopsticks / RE:Reusing yeast

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 11:58:57 est

From: Bill Sadvary <SADVARY@DICKINSON.EDU>

Subject: RE: chopsticks / RE:Reusing yeast

>1. Re-using Lager Yeast in Fermenter: I was wondering what risks

>or advantages there would be if I ferment a second batch on top

>of the yeast left in my primary after siphoning off the previous

>batch.

I do this all the time, sorta.  I brew one batch with the fresh yeast

(using a yeast starter- fyi) and three days or so later, when I rack

this batch to the carboy, I pitch this yeast into yet another starter.

In a day this starter is real active and ready to be pitched into the

second batch.  I have skipped the creation of the second starter and

just went ahead and pitched the sludge into the 2nd batches' wort.

I've never had any problems with either method and it does allow you to

get two uses out of one yeast pack.  I did get an infection or wild yeast

once when I tried to get a third use by using the sludge of the 2nd batch.

But, they may or may not have been the sludges fault.  So to be safe, I

only go for the dual use.

>        A quick suggestion on how to get all the extracty out of poly bags

>(or cans for that matter).  Ladle a bit of the hot (recently boiled) water

>into the bag and swish it around until the remaining extract has dissolved

>in the water.  Dump the water into your brewpot.  If you're worried about

>putting too hot water in the bag, you could even use a bit of hot tap water

>and still not risk any infection since it's done before the boil.  The

>range hood and chopstick methods seem too complicated for me, but what do I

>know, I'm just a college student.

This is similar to my method but requires rubber gloves (dish gloves,

whatever).  The very first thing I do when I start to brew is to take the

bag of syrup malt extract out of the frig and soak it in the sink 1/2 full

of hot tap water.  Begin heating the brew pot water.  When it reaches about

170 (or so) degrees turn off the heat.  Cut open your bag of M.E. and

slowly dump it into the soon-to-be wort while mixing.  When you reach the

point where not much more is flowing out, open the bag and dip it into the

wort and allow it to fill as much as possible.  Of course, you should have

your gloves on before that step!  Shake the hot liquid around in the bag and

dump it into the wort.  It may take another scoop to get all of the malt

out of the bag.  With this method I can get almost every drop of malt out of

the bag.  And, if you're careful, and once you get used to it, it's really

not messy at all.  ..and it only requires one person.  ..but then what do I

know, I used to be a college student.   ;-)

 -Bill Sadvary

 Dickinson College

 Carlisle, PA

------------------------------


Suggestions for a dark beer?

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 09:04:33 PST

From: "Ray Siemens" <siemens@unixg.ubc.ca>

Subject: Suggestions for a dark beer?

I want to take a stab at brewing a dark, thick beer, much like a Guiness,

and was wondering if anyone out there might have some ideas on the matter.

Recipe favorites would be gladly accepted.

Cheers,

Ray Siemens

University of British Columbia

siemens@unixg.ubc.ca

------------------------------


Scotch Ale

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 09:30:08 PST

From: bgros@sensitivity.berkeley.edu (Bryan L. Gros)

Subject: Scotch Ale

Anyone got a good Scotch Ale recipe to share?  Any secrets for getting

that maltiness?  a wee heavy recipe?

Thanks.

                                    - Bryan

------------------------------


HWBTA Annual Competition

Date: 15 Dec 1993 09:46:08 -0500

From: "Norman Dickenson" <norman.dickenson@Sonoma.EDU>

Subject: HWBTA Annual Competition

                       Subject:                               Time:9:10 AM

  OFFICE MEMO          HWBTA Annual Competition               Date:12/15/93

I recently received entry materials for the annual Home Wine and Beer Trade

Association's  Homebrew Competition.  I have entered this competition for a

number of years as I had perceived it to be a well run

and competitive competition on a national scale.  I am feeling reluctant

to enter this competition this year for several reasons.  Entries are due

by the end of January.  The actual judging will be held at the end of March

and the winners won't be announced until the Association's annual conference

will be held in UK in June.  Homebrew is a fragile product which when brewed

to the *lighter* styles has the potential to change in character fairly

rapidly.  When one is not pasturizing or filtering, shelf life is short.  I

just have problems with any  competition which incorporates exceptionally

long lag periods between the entry date and

the actual competition.  Not announcing the competition results for another

three months seems ridiculous.  Competitions are for the competitors, not for

organizatinal self aggrandizement.  But perhaps I

am missing a piece to this puzzle.  Can anyone shed light on the rationale

for this strange schedule?

 -Norman-

------------------------------


O2, Bottle inspection Quest

Date: 15 Dec 1993 10:00:22 -0800

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

Subject: O2, Bottle inspection Quest

Subject:  O2, Bottle inspection Questions       Time:8:46 AM     Date:12/15/93

>> Anyone out there using pure oxygen for wort oxygenation?

>Sure!  Despite reading that it is best to use FDA approved O2,

>I went out and bought a tank of welding O2 (new)

Two possible issues come to mind. FDA O2 as used for medical applications has

been rumored to contain an anti-fungal agent. I have not been able to get this

firmly confirmed nor denied by my contacts in the medical world. Industrial

grade O2 may not contain any bugs but may contain oil or other contaminants

which do not cause problems with normal applications.

>Does actual bottle condition, ie. scratched or sanded, have

>anything to do with judging the beer?

No, not really. However, there is a school of thought which believes that

presentation is a factor. If you send in a beer which is in a shoddy container

it may indicate a lack of appreciation for the stuff inside and a general

sloppy attitude towards brewing. Mind you, I am not advocating this point of

view just relaying it. I suspect the inspection bit is a hold over from the

early days when many more beers arrived at competitions containing

contaminants. I don't know that it has any value now especially since the AHA

does not consider it point-worthy.

Perhaps a discussion of this on JudgeNet would get other explanations and/or

support or get it removed from the sheets.

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / Home (707) 769-0425

------------------------------


Malt boil

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 13:14:51 EST

From: James Kendall <kendall@ltee.hydro.qc.ca>

Subject: Malt boil

------------------------------


Rule: Re: Homebrew Digest #1295 (December 11, 1993)

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 13:37:10 EST

From: jmuns <jmuns@ccmail.mis.semi.harris.com>

Subject: Rule: Re: Homebrew Digest #1295 (December 11, 1993)

Text item: Text_1

I will be in California from Dec 04 thru Dec 14. I can be reached by email

account "JMUNS" or Voice mail - Work: (407) 724-7402 Home: (407) 543-1323

------------------------------


Rule: Re: Homebrew Digest #1291 (December 07, 1993)

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 13:37:10 EST

From: jmuns <jmuns@ccmail.mis.semi.harris.com>

Subject: Rule: Re: Homebrew Digest #1291 (December 07, 1993)

Text item: Text_1

I will be in California from Dec 04 thru Dec 14. I can be reached by email

account "JMUNS" or Voice mail - Work: (407) 724-7402 Home: (407) 543-1323

------------------------------


Rule: Re: Homebrew Digest #1292 (December 08, 1993)

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 13:37:10 EST

From: jmuns <jmuns@ccmail.mis.semi.harris.com>

Subject: Rule: Re: Homebrew Digest #1292 (December 08, 1993)

Text item: Text_1

I will be in California from Dec 04 thru Dec 14. I can be reached by email

account "JMUNS" or Voice mail - Work: (407) 724-7402 Home: (407) 543-1323

------------------------------


Rule: Re: Homebrew Digest #1294 (December 10, 1993)

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 13:37:10 EST

From: jmuns <jmuns@ccmail.mis.semi.harris.com>

Subject: Rule: Re: Homebrew Digest #1294 (December 10, 1993)

Text item: Text_1

I will be in California from Dec 04 thru Dec 14. I can be reached by email

account "JMUNS" or Voice mail - Work: (407) 724-7402 Home: (407) 543-1323

------------------------------


Rule: Re: Homebrew Digest #1293 (December 09, 1993)

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 13:37:10 EST

From: jmuns <jmuns@ccmail.mis.semi.harris.com>

Subject: Rule: Re: Homebrew Digest #1293 (December 09, 1993)

Text item: Text_1

I will be in California from Dec 04 thru Dec 14. I can be reached by email

account "JMUNS" or Voice mail - Work: (407) 724-7402 Home: (407) 543-1323

------------------------------


Rule: Re: Homebrew Digest #1296 (December 13, 1993)

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 13:37:10 EST

From: jmuns <jmuns@ccmail.mis.semi.harris.com>

Subject: Rule: Re: Homebrew Digest #1296 (December 13, 1993)

Text item: Text_1

I will be in California from Dec 04 thru Dec 14. I can be reached by email

account "JMUNS" or Voice mail - Work: (407) 724-7402 Home: (407) 543-1323

------------------------------


Rule: Re: Homebrew Digest #1297 (December 14, 1993)

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 13:37:10 EST

From: jmuns <jmuns@ccmail.mis.semi.harris.com>

Subject: Rule: Re: Homebrew Digest #1297 (December 14, 1993)

Text item: Text_1

I will be in California from Dec 04 thru Dec 14. I can be reached by email

account "JMUNS" or Voice mail - Work: (407) 724-7402 Home: (407) 543-1323

------------------------------


Rule: Re: Homebrew Digest #1289 (December 04, 1993)

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 13:37:10 EST

From: jmuns <jmuns@ccmail.mis.semi.harris.com>

Subject: Rule: Re: Homebrew Digest #1289 (December 04, 1993)

Text item: Text_1

I will be in California from Dec 04 thru Dec 14. I can be reached by email

account "JMUNS" or Voice mail - Work: (407) 724-7402 Home: (407) 543-1323

------------------------------


bottle "sparkler"/multiple hydrometers/hard cider/lagering

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 13:50:42 EST

From: Keith MacNeal  15-Dec-1993 1338 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: bottle "sparkler"/multiple hydrometers/hard cider/lagering

Regarding some stuff in HOMEBREW Digest #1298:

>From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

>Subject: Re : Simulating an English beer engine

>Now here's one for the engineers: I would like to add a sparkler to my

>_bottled_ beers.

Didn't Guinness do something about this before their Draughtflow system?  Thee

was a syringe packaged with each 4/6 pack of beer.  Upon pouring the beer into

the glass you stuck the syringe down into the glass of beer, sucked beer into

the syringe and without removing the syringe squirted the beer back into the

glass.

- ------------------------------

>From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

>Now, anyone know where to buy a professional hydrometer

>for under $125??  The bummer is you need two, one for OG, and one for FG,

>and yet another for "high OG".

Why are 3 hydrometers necessary?

- ------------------------------

>From: scottm@hilbert.cypress (Scott Majdecki)

>Subject: First Cider Attempt

>This is my first attempt at Canadian style sparkling hard cider.

>My problem/question is that after ~2 weeks in the primary

>I racked to secondary and of course had to sample. It tasted like

>a nice, very dry cider, but had an alcohol aftertaste. I'm wondering

>what might be the problem, or if the aftertaste will mellow during

>secondary.

 ...

>Any explanation for the alcohol aftertaste.

I think it is because you made an apple mead and not hard cider.  All of that

honey you added is going to boost the alcohol content.  It should mellow with

age.  From what I've read, this could take about a year.

- ------------------------------

And now for my own question:

What are the pros and cons of lagering in secondary vs. lagering in the

bottle?

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Cloying Sweetness, Why?

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 11:15:38 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Taylor Standlee" <standlee@humanitas.ucsb.edu>

Subject: Cloying Sweetness, Why?

I tested a bottle from our latest batch of Spiny Lobster Ale, a tried

and true recipe, and was chargrined to find that it had no head retention,

large bubbles that fizzled in the mouth and a cloying sweetness (I hesitate

to say sherry like sweetness because I was very careful not to expose the

hot wort or raw beer to air).  The recipe I follow is:

7 # 2-Row

1 # Amber Crystal

1/2 # Wheat (for head)

1/2 # Dextine

1 oz Chocolate Malt

1/2 tbs Irish Moss

1 oz Hallertau 45 min

1 oz Hallertau 5 min

Wyeast American/Chico Yeast (made into a 1qt starter)

All grains mashed at 152 for 1.5 hours, sparged with 3 gallons of 165 H2O.

1.5 hour boil, hops added as scheduled.  Wort was cooled with a copper wort

chiller to 70 degrees in 35 minutes at which time the yeast was pitched.

Vigorous fermentation began in 6 hours.  Fermentation was conducted in the

garage in at temps between 55-63 degrees.  Bottled with 1 cup of DME.

(Note:  the bottling tank had been used to bottle a batch of root-beer, but

was soaked, steralized, and rinsed 2 times before reuse).

I was very careful in steralizing EVERYTHING.  It has been in the bottle for

2 weeks and this flatish sweet stuff is really depressing me.  Any ideas as

to what went wrong?

****************************************************************

                       Taylor Standlee

                standlee@humanitas.ucsb.edu

    Department of Germanic & Slavic Languages & Literatures

            University of California Santa Barbara

       Phone:(805)-893-2131  FAX: (805)-893-2374

****************************************************************

------------------------------


when to bottle/bottle inspection/Fuggles in the boil

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 14:36 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: when to bottle/bottle inspection/Fuggles in the boil

Jim writes, quoting me:

>> From: korz@iepubj.att.com

>I usually wait till the airlock is bubbling less

>> than once per minute, often waiting till it's less than once per two minutes.

>

>If you have good experience with this method, fine. But if you are tweaking

>variables all of the time, like I often do, please take a hydrometer reading

>to determine when to keg/bottle.  The 'ole bubbles per unit time can be

>quite misleading.

I'd like to discuss this a bit.  The cases where I could see the "bubbles

per unit time" method to be misleading are:

1. if there was a big temperature swing in the middle of the ferment

(which could cause your yeast to go dormant for a while),

2. if you are used to doing ales and then do a lager (which will have a much

lower bubbling rate throughout the ferment -- I think I waited till 5min

between bubbles on the last Bock I did (at 45F)),

3. mixed yeasts (the Whitbread triple-strain (Wyeast #1098) has been reported

to have a slowdown in the middle of the ferment, for example), and

4. high-alcohol (very high OG) brews (I know I should have tested the FG on

a recent Imperial Stout -- I would have done something had I realized that

my FG was 1050 (OG was 1120) *before* I had bottled).

Have I missed some?

I agree that hydrometer readings are a good idea, especially if a particular

batch is extreme or did not behave normally.

Let's discuss this.

**********

Chuck writes:

>The AHA beer judging form starts off, after identification of the

>style and the judge, with the category "bottle inspection". There

>are no points awarded in this category, just comments. I have

>several questions, such as:

>

>What is the purpose of this section? Recently I received comments in

>this section of "short fill" and "low fill line". I also received a

>"nice bottle" comment. I see that this inspection could be

>used to inspect for the ring that is supposed to be indicative of

>certain types of bacterial infection. I also understand that low

>fill *could* be indicative of potential oxidation, although oxygen

>absorbing bottle caps *may* negate potential oxidation risk from air

>in the bottle. However, if no points are awarded, what's it there

>for?

Partly for historical reasons, but I think it may be just to remind

judges to look at the headspace and perhaps the sediment before pouring.

This information can be used later if a problem in the beer is found and

suggestions for improvement are in order.  I use this area also in small,

regional competitions to mention the AHA National rules to the brewer if

they used a raised-design, oversized or swing-top bottle.

>Do oxygen absorbing bottle caps negate the potential for in-bottle

>oxidation?

I don't think they negate it, but I feel that the effects of oxygen on

beer are much more detrimental when the wort is hot than when you are

bottling.  I'm in the midst of an experiment on this topic.  Experiments

have shown that these caps *do* increase hop aroma longevity.

>Does actual bottle condition, ie. scratched or sanded, have

>anything to do with judging the beer?

It should not, but let's be realistic... a scratched, scuffed, old

bar-bottle may start the judges off (subconsciously) on the wrong

foot.  Consider two term papers, one typeset the other printed on an

9-pin printer with an old ribbon.  I'll bet the typeset one has a

measureable advantage.

**********

Chris writes:

>In his book on Pale Ale, Terry Foster includes a table of

>hops varieties and suggested uses in Pale Ale.  He

>recommends Fuggles hops for aroma/finishing only, and not

>for bittering.  Aside from the modest AA content of

>Fuggles, is there any other reason why I shouldn't have

>used them last week?

Cost per AA content -- consider the cost of putting 180 IBU worth of

2.3%AA Saaz in an Imperial Stout!  There has been some debate, here

and elsewhere, about whether the type of hops used in the boil make

a difference.  I, personally, feel that it does make a difference and

avoid using two hops which I have found to give a "rough" bitterness

even if used only for a 60-minute boil:  Chinook and Clusters.  Everyone

has different tastes, however... try them for yourself and see if you agree.

As for Fuggles in the boil -- I use them often.

Al.

------------------------------


Uh Oh!

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 15:45:32 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@teleport.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Uh Oh!

Chris Amley writes:

>In his book on Pale Ale, Terry Foster includes a table of

>hops varieties and suggested uses in Pale Ale.  He

>recommends Fuggles hops for aroma/finishing only, and not

>for bittering.  Aside from the modest AA content of

>Fuggles, is there any other reason why I shouldn't have

>used them last week?

Gee, Chris, I hope you've had all the children you wanted!  You haven't

actually drunk any have you!!!???

Urf.

Terry Foster was waxing a bit snobbish.  Fuggles is, in fact, a fine hop

(so is its clone: Willamette), and makes a very nice late addition.  Of

course the Classic (TM) finishing hop for English ales is East Kent

Golding -- but there are a lot of really good English hops that British

brewers use, including Fuggles.

Really, they're just fine.

- --Jeff

------------------------------


Head Retention

Date: 15 Dec 93 12:14:00 EST

From: "Anderso_A" <Anderso_A@hq.navsea.navy.mil>

Subject: Head Retention

Message Creation Date was at 15-DEC-1993 12:14:00

          Greetings,

               I've been having erratic head retention problems of

          late: i.e. some batches are fine & some are lousy (even

          though carbonation is fine).  I've tried protein rests,

          addition of wheat malt, as well as other malts perported to

          increase head retention but with no concrete results.  Now I

          have a new theory on which I'd like some feed-back.

          Polyclar.  I don't use this on my darker beers & they

          generally have the good head retention.  When I do use the

          Polyclar (2 tsp/5 gal) I do get a clearer beer, but in

          general these "clearer" beers don't keep a head.  Am I

          barking up the wrong tree, or is there a common thread here?

          Basically, do I have a trade-off:  clarity vs. head for my

          light colored beers?

          TIA,

          Andy A

------------------------------


Re: First Cider Attempt

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 19:11:20 EST

From: yeebot@aol.com

Subject: Re: First Cider Attempt

Scott,

My explanation for the alchoholic aftertaste: Alchohol! Probably lots of it.

My last batch made with 4gal cider, 2lbs honey, and Sherry Yeast produced a

batch around 10%. With all that honey in your batch, still producing a "very

dry" cider, my guess is that all that honey has been converted! I wouldn't

doubt your batch is 12%+ alchohol. Your batch will mellow with age, wait at

least a month after bottling for yummy results. I know some who wait at least

a year. A hypothesis: Cider that is made with honey (actually a "Cyser") may

take longer to mellow than ciders made with sugar adjuncts. Mead, made

primarily from honey, has always seemed undrinkable under a year or so.

Anyone with comments/ideas?

Also: Good idea to rack often. Whenever 1/8" to 1/4" of sediment settles.

Question: What's the difference between Canadian, British, New England, etc.

styles of cider?

Letmeknowhowitgoes!

Michael Yee

Angst Brewing Co.

yeebot@aol.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1299, 12/16/93

*************************************

-------


RE:RIMS & HSA

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 19:21:01 -0800

From: b_regent@holonet.net

Subject: RE:RIMS & HSA

In a recent HBD, Bob Getty asks about RIMS and HSA.

I've been using a RIMS for about 2 years now. While I can't definitely

attribute it to some oxidation problems I had, I did take steps to reduce HSA.

Originally, I used a setup similar to the one described, where wort is

returned to a plastic tray will holes in the bottom. The amount of foaming

that occured was quite impressive. Obviously, a lot of air was being

introduced to the hot wort.

About a year ago, I decided to build a return manifold, to alleviate any

HSA problems that I might have had. The manifold sits below the level of

liquid in the tun, so no air can be introduced. There is now absolutely no

foaming that occurs. I have not brewed a beer with any detectable oxidation

problems since installing the manifold. I dont know if I really had a problem

to begin with, but I definitely don't now.

I brew in a 54 quart igloo cooler. The manifold is made from 1/2"id. copper.

 _                                 _

| |-------------------------------| |

| |-------------------------------| |   Top view of copper manifold tubes.

| |             wort/sparge inlet | |

| |            | |                | |

| |------------|-|----------------| |

| |-------------------------------| |

| |                               | |

| |                               | |

| |-------------------------------| |

|_|-------------------------------|_|

After mashing is complete, the wort return line is run into the kettle, and

the sparge liquor line is connected to the manifold inlet.

- --bob

b_regent@holonet.net

- ---

 ~ KingQWK 1.05 ~

------------------------------


KETTLES

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 23:39 CST

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: KETTLES

 >From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

 >IMNSHO, the *minimum* useful size for brewing a five gallon batch is a 32

 quart pot (8 gallons).  You can get an enamel 8 gallon canning pot for about

 $35 (with lid).  This is what I'm using.  The geometry is poor for doing a 2

 hour boil -- too much surface area for the volume.

 The other side of the equation is that you can achieve a great deal of

 evaporaton in a 2 hr boil, you just need to start with more sweet wort.  The

 bottom line is you can increase the yield by extracting more sugar from the

 mash.  You might also try using less heat if you have to keep the lid on.

 >I would like to get a ten gallon stainless stock pot, but they cost about

 $175 new.....

 Not sure how to kill this bit of bum information but they are available from

 several sources for around $100.   Call 800 553 7906 for a catalog from one

 such place.

 js

------------------------------


update

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 21:51:37 -0500

From: jeclark@ucdavis.edu (James Clark)

Subject: update

just thought i'd let everyone know how our beer brewing is going and then

ask a quick question or two.

we made a second batch on saturday and it went a thousand times better than

our first.  before brewing this time i measured off the capacity of our

carboy one gallon at a time and marked it with fingernail polish. (thanks

to whoever suggested this idea) in doing this i found that in our last

batch we had added about 3/4 of a gallon too much water. (go ahead and

laugh...i did)

the boil went almost perfectly and we cooled the wort to about 90F in less

than 15 minutes in an ice water bath.

the only problem we had was that we didn't have a scale to weigh out the

hops, so we had to guess on the amounts.

the o.g. was 58, but that included all the particles from the crystal malt

that immediately settled to the bottom.

the fermentation went very quickly.  on sunday afternoon we were getting

about 3 bubbles a second out of a 1/4" i.d. tube, but on monday the kruesen

was almost gone and we were only getting about a bubble a minute out of the

tube.

so here are the questions:

1) why are wort chillers recomended? isn't an ice water bath almost as

effective?

2) do ales normally have that short of an optimal fermentation time (the

kreusen had settled after only about 36 hours)?

3) because of the high gravity boil the beer is not as bitter as i want it,

so i was thinking about dry hopping in a secondary.  is there a recomended

time to do this or can i do it any time after the kreusen settles?  also,

can someone give me a range for the amount of hops to use in the secondary

(i know i didn't say how bitter our beer is right now, but i just want to

know if most people use 0.5 oz. or 8 oz when they dry hop)?

sorry, my NCJoHB is at my friend's house and he is gone for a few days, so

i couldn't just look up the answers to these.

thanks y'all.

- --james

p.s. not that anynone cares, but i'm with lan and andrew on this AOL thing.

     F*%@ sensorship!

------------------------------


signing on to the list

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 21:26:32 -1000 (HST)

From: Sean Barrett <barrett@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>

Subject: signing on to the list

barrett@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu

------------------------------


Clip art for beer labels

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1993 07:51:45 -0400 (EDT)

From: GONTAREK@JHUVMS.HCF.JHU.EDU

Subject: Clip art for beer labels

Greetings brewfolk! I have a quick question that I was hoping someone could

answer for me: Where (on the net) can I get clip art files that I could

incorporate into a graphics program that i use to make my beer labels?

I am using Canvas on the Mac for graphics, and would like to get my grubby

hands on some cool artwork (pictures, etc) to spice up my labels.  I am

a biologist/homebrewer, not a computer wizard, so bear this in mind when

you respond.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

Rick Gontarek

Gontarek@jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu

Dept. of Biology

The Johns Hopkins University

------------------------------


Champagne Bottles

Date:     Thu, 16 Dec 93 8:38:34 EST

From: "Darren L. Ward" (FSAC-FCD) <dward@PICA.ARMY.MIL>

Subject:  Champagne Bottles

 I'm almost ready to bottle my Mead, anyone know which Champagne

bottles can be capped with a beer cap?  I think this is the best way to go

with a batch that takes a year or so to condition.

------------------------------


Questions

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 93 07:37:00 PST

From: Timothy Sixberry <tsixber@msrapid.kla.com>

Subject: Questions

Hi  fellow homebrewers/ drinkers,

This is my first publication in the digest and I wish I were answering some

questions, but instead I must ask a few this time.  I have been brewing for

about a year and a half and have done both all grain and extract brews.  I

have had good luck with both and not to many problems.  It seems to me

though, that every time I think I have it down,  I read about some new

method or device that is supposed to make the beer come out better.  It

seems to me that the basics of making good beer are very simple, things such

as sterility, accurate temps, good ingredients, a set of routine steps, and

patience.  So my first question is.  If the beer is comming out good,  why

complicate matters?  An expample of what I mean is the use of of oxygen and

a bubbler system to airate the wort prior to pitching.  Is this really

nessasary?  I just shake the hell out of my primary a few times after

pitching the yeast, and I don't seem to have any problems.  Will my beer

actually taste better if I go through this extra hassle?  I can't immagine

how a well mashed, properly fermented and lagered beer could be improved

upon even more.  If my beer gets any better than it already is I don't think

I will be able to stop drinking it.  Thats a scary thought.  What if I made

my beer so good that once I took a drink of it I just could'nt stop?  Man, I

think I'd better go get me a beer to settle my nerves.

He who laughs last, drinks first.

------------------------------


Abita Turbo Dog

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 93 9:49:25 CST

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: Abita Turbo Dog

Hey folks - last night I had two Abita Turbo Dogs with a batch of

K'Pauls Shrimp Creole and I was in heaven.  I have the recipe for the

shrimp, can anyone give me info/recipe on the Abita Turbo Dog?  Extract

recipe, brewery info, anything...........Bueller.......Bueller.......

      Chris

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu |

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

------------------------------


Stein Lids Revealed / New Book on Hops

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 93 10:48:33 -0500

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Stein Lids Revealed / New Book on Hops

Re: stein lids revealed

Mark Bunster <mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu> wrote:

> I remember seeing a guy in a bar pour 9/10 of his beer, then roll the bottle

> sideways back and forth for 10 minutes to build a good head to pour on top.

> Everybody has a system.

Most likely hefeweissbier.  Pour out all but an inch, then shake up the

sediment to get it all out of the bottle and into the glass!

A common technique in Bavaria.

- ----------

Re: New Book on Hops

gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix) wrote:

> The following reference has just come to my attention:

>         Chemestry and Analysis of Hop and Beer Bitter Acids

>         M. Verzele and D.DeKeukeleire, Eds.

>         Developments in Food Science

>        Vol. 27

Also in the same series, Volume 28 is:

 TITLE:   Off-flavors in foods and beverages / edited by George Charalambous.

 IMPRINT: Amsterdam ; New York : Elsevier, 1992.

 PHYSICAL FEATURES: xiv, 749 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.

 SERIES:  Developments in food science ; 28

I haven't had time to look through this one yet, but it might be

interesting.

 Tim

- ----

Timothy J. Dalton                                   tjdalton@mit.edu

MIT, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Materials Etching Technology Lab

    --- Im Himmel ist kein Bier, darum trinken wir es hier. ---

------------------------------


Bottle Inspection

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 93 10:51:03 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Bottle Inspection

When I (rarely) write a comment in the "bottle inspection" part, I do

it before opening the bottle.  It thus serves as a reminder to me

about the state of the bottle, so that IF I find flaws that might be

related, I can refer back to it.  (Short term memory is the first

thing to go....  What was the question, again?)

I've also commented things that are obviously unrelated to the beer

quality, such as a totally grungy bottle.  Someone who wants me to

judge their beer should at least have enough pride in their product to

present me with a clean bottle.  But, as you note, it doesn't affect

the score.

=S

------------------------------


Hydrometers / Haze problems

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1993 09:44:01 -0500

From: cole@nevism.nevis.columbia.edu

Subject: Hydrometers / Haze problems

> Somebody asked why Jim Busch needs three hydrometers:

  The reason is that the length of the tube in the hydrometer

  below the surface of the liquid varies  > INVERSELY <

  proportional to the density of the liquid being measured.

  Since you get your reading from this length, the reading

  also varies inversely proportional to the density, i.e.

    L = c * 1/Rho = L0 + (# of marks) * (distance between marks)

  Writing this in terms of Specific Gravity:

    L = c * (1/rho_water) * (1/SG)

  This is a simplified version of the full expression but

  it makes the point. You can think of it this way: the more

  dense the liquid being measured, the higher the hydrometer

  rises and the smaller the length of tube below the surface.

  This expression can be linearized for small variations around

  a nominal density, that of water. Expressing this variation in

  terms of specific gravity:

    SG = 1 + delta_SG

    L = c * (1/rho_water) * (1 - delta_SG + delta_SG**2 + ...)

  This means that if a hydrometer has to cover a range of specific

  gravities from 1.000 to 1.100 using a linear scale, there will be

  a 10% error in the measurement from one end of the scale to

  the other (due to the delta_SG**2 term). Thus, high precision

  (scientific quality) hydrometers use much shorter scales to improve

  the accuracy of the measurement. There's also the issue of measurement

  precision. If you want precise measurements (better than 0.001 error)

  the hydrometer has to have a larger change in L for the same delta_SG

  than those we use. Thus to cover the same range, the hydrometer becomes

  longer. Conversely, if you want to keep the length within some

  reasonable range, you have to keep the range covered by the hydrometer

  shorter.

  If you look in a scientific equipment catalog there will be hydrometers

  which have smaller ranges than those used by homebrewers and they will

  come in a wide variety of NOMINAL specific gravities.

***************************************************************************

  I have a problem that I would like to consult HBD experts on. Since

  I have been brewing all-grain beers, I have had lots of trouble with haze.

  I have now done 8 all-grain batches. Two batches suffered from

  chill haze, two batches were satisfactory, and the rest suffered from

  haze problems that had nothing to do with chill-haze. These beers are

  cloudy even when warm.

  * At first I used a grain-bag in a bucket style lauter tun. After the first

    three batches I felt that I was not getting sufficiently clear run-off

    and switched to a copper manifold lauter-tun. After doing so, my run-off

    cleared much more quickly.

  * For the last three batches I have PH treated my sparge water to reduce

    tannin extraction and have noticed a significant drop in astringency of

    the runoff at the end of the sparge.

  * For the last few batches I have been careful to limit the amount of

    aeration of the runoff during the sparging process. I no longer try

    to heat the runnings while I sparge as this requires too much pouring

    of the hot liquor, I simply sparge directly through a hose into my

    boiling kettle until I have finished.

  * I have had problems using both German Pilsner Malt (with protein rest)

    and British ale malts so I doubt that I am having protein problems

    (except maybe for those suffering from chill haze).

  * I suspect starch haze problems. For the two worst batches, I added the

    crystal malts at the very end of the mash. On my last batch I was careful

    to do an iodine test before and after addding the crystal and found to

    my surprise that after adding the crystal, the test showed presence of

                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

    starch where the pre-test showed none. Has anyone else observed this

    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

    problem ???

  * I am using a Corona mill and have been setting it to optimize (i.e. reduce)

    husk shredding at the expense of having larger malt fragments and more

    uncrushed kernels. I suspect I may be extracting starch during the

    sparge from some uncoverted chunks of malt. I certainly have to mash much

    longer than Miller would suggest (last batch - 3 hours for 10 # malt,

    6# pale, 3# mild, 1# crystal). I would like to hear from other users of

    the Corona mill re: problems with starch haze / long mashes etc..

  * I am aware of the potential haze problems from infection by wild yeast etc.

    One of my bad batches was fermented at 40 deg. and lagered at 32 for a

    month. I don't know if bacteria or wild yeast could survive these

    temperatures long enough to give me troubles. Also I have not been able

    to detect any significant off-flavors in the two batches which suffered

    the worst haze problems. That doesn't mean that they weren't contaminated

    - I just may not be able to tell. I would be willing to send a couple of

    bottles to someone who thinks he/she can detect off-flavors produced by

    wild yeast fermentation.

   Unfortunately, I have not been able to correlate the source of the haze

   with any of the above changes/variables. My best two batches can between

   two bad batches. I would welcome advice from experienced all-grain brewers.

   Cheers,

   Brian Cole

------------------------------


accurate hydrometers

Date: 16 Dec 93 09:29:59 MST (Thu)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: accurate hydrometers

A while back I got a "bottling hydrometer" to use along with the regular

one.  It helps a lot.  The full-scale range is 0.980-1.020.  (This compares

to about .990-1.170 for a standard brewing hydrometer.)  Cost: about $15,

from William's Brewing.  This is a good middle step between the old stan-

dard full-range hydrometer and expensive lab-grade equipment.

I find it useful for two reasons.  First, obviously the 4+ x expansion of

the scale makes it much easier to read--the 0.001 units on the bottling

hydrometer are more than twice the size of the 0.002 units on the regular

hydrometer.

Second, meads often finish up down around 0.990; it's nice to have some

extra range on the hydrometer below that.  (I suspect the bottom .010 on a

regular hydrometer isn't all that accurate, since there's only a tiny

section of the tube left above the liquid.)

I don't find a real need for an expanded-range hydrometer at the higher

gravities.  Anything that's up there is generally fermenting quickly,

hence changing gravity quickly, hence a precise reading doesn't tell you a

lot.  I use the regular hydrometer for the early stages, then switch to the

bottling hydrometer when things stop changing much.

Note that if you use an expanded-range hydrometer, you need to pay more

attention to the standard cautions about not having glop on the hydrometer

(especially on the part above the fluid line) and about measuring at cali-

bration temperature or applying temperature corrections.  Otherwise you're

just buying precision, not accuracy.

  ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


Hops question

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1993 10:48:37 -0600 (CST)

From: Robert Jordan <JORDAN@ANLBEM.BIM.ANL.GOV>

Subject: Hops question

This is a little late, but what the hey......

I've been reading the recent discussion about hops and utilization and also

this information in the Hops FAQ and I admit to being a bit confused.  I

plan on brewing a beer more or less following Papazian's Righteous Real Ale.

Now, I understand the concepts of IBUs, HBUs, %utilization, etc., but I'm

not sure that I'm using the formula's correctly.  So I plan on boiling

6 lbs. of malt extract in 1.5 gallons water for 45 min. per the recipe.

According to Papzian then, I should get ~19% utilization.  On to the

formulae (also from Papazian)-

IBU = HBU * %UTIL / 6.7

I want a target HBU of 8 so:

IBU = 8 * 19 / 6.7 = 22.7

OK.  Now it's this part that for some reason is bothering me (sorry, Charlie.)

      Weight(in oz) * AA * %Util

IBU = --------------------------

          Volume * 1.34

Now I plan on using Cascade (AA=5.5) for bittering so...

       Weight(in oz) * 5.5 * 19

22.7 = ------------------------

            5 gal * 1.34

So Weight(in oz) = 1.46 oz  --call it 1.5 oz

Have I got it right (assuming I've done the math correctly)?  Sorry if this

question has been answered in the recent discussion.  I suspect that it has, but

I didn't recognize the answer as such.  Thanks in advance--

Rob

RJordan@anl.gov

P.S. Thank's to all who responded to my post a month or two ago about mail

order suppliers.  It turns out that the best AND cheapest shop around is

20 minutes from my apartment....

------------------------------


Stainless Steel Welding

Date: 16 Dec 1993 08:50:25 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Stainless Steel Welding

In HBD1299, Bill Kitch wondered:

I was wondering if the aluminum and/or copper cladding on the

bottom of the better SS pots made it difficult of impossible

to weld a spigot in place?

The answer is Yes, Definitely Impossible - If the weldment has to involve that

cladding. If it will not touch the weldment, then it is not an issue.

The stainless steel weld won't know the cladding is there.

John Palmer

MDA-SSD M&P

PS. Still have the How To Brew Your First Beer instructions. Its Rev.B thanks

to all the great comments I have received. Email me at palmer@ssdgwy.mdc.com

but please be circumspect in the subject line. Example: Document Rev.B

Our Mail Mgr is getting touchy about non work related use of company resources.

------------------------------


Bubbles/time and Threaded neck carboys

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 93 12:09:28 EST

From: U-E68316-Scott Wisler <wisler_scott@ae.ge.com>

Subject: Bubbles/time and Threaded neck carboys

Al and Jim discuss hydrometer measurements vs bubbles per unit time.

The only time I have ever had false indications from the bubbles per

unit time method is brewing ales at the low end of the temperature range.

ie, fermenting in the basement during the winter.

I previoulsy used the bubbles to know when to bottle, and one hydrometer

measurement at the begining of the bottling process make sure I wasn't

mistaken.  I didn't monitor the SG because I felt the risk of

infection/aeration was too high.  Since I switched over to the BrewCap (tm)

system, I can monitor SG carefully, with much less chance of

infection/aeration.

A while back I remember someone mention that their brew was bubbling

`once per hour'.  While I always waited for less activity than once per

minute or two, I can't imagine being carefully transfixed on an airlock

for more than an hour waiting for that second bubble (to get the time

increment).

****************

I have had difficulty siphoning out of my 6.6 gallon acid carboy because

the orange cap (siphon starter) doesn't seal on the threaded neck.  For

those of you in a similiar situation, a solution is to use an O-ring

to help seal the orange cap.  A 2" OD, 3/16 thick O-ring should do the

trick.  It fits in the groove just below the top lip of the carboy.  It

doesn't work quite as well as having a standard neck carboy (the one the

cap was designed for), but its inexpensive and passible.  For those

asking for carboys for Christmas, getting a standard neck will save a

lot of grief, and they come in at least 5, 6, and 6.6 gal sizes.

For clarity, the orange carboy cap has nothing to do with the BrewCap

system and should not be used upside down as it will impart bad flavors

to your brew.  The BrewCap doesn't fit on threaded neck carboys.

scott

------------------------------


sign me up

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 93 12:35:38 EST

From: Matthew Causey <matthewc@hpwasb.wal.hp.com>

Subject: sign me up

------------------------------


Flat Dinosaurs, BJCP,etc.

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1993 10:58 -0600 (MDT)

From: Marc Hugentobler <MARHUG@TELECOM.USU.EDU>

Subject: Flat Dinosaurs, BJCP,etc.

      The creee-eepy man writes he would like images of a certain flattened

      dinosaur. HBD might not be the proper forum to search for such an

      obscure  document even though most of its patrons could probably

      appreciate such an  image. However, being the storehouse of obscure

      information that I am, I  thought it appropriate to oblige. There are

      several Borderline-cultish forums who would like to see the big

      purple menace meet with an untimely demise. Bear in mind I don't know

      that any of them contain the image you seek, but that is the thrill of

      the adventure. They are as follows:

          Jet over to your Usenet gateway and peruse

               Alt.tv.barney

               Alt.tv.dinosaurs.die.die.die

               Alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die

               Alt.sex.bestiality.barney

     For what its worth anyway

     I personally have some questions of the forum many of who seem to be

     certified beer judges. Is there any more information about The BJCP exam

     available besides the outline available by anonymous ftp? More sample

     questions and sample answers would be very helpful. I desperately want

     of qualify but find myself confounded by the amount of information.

     Personal Insights would also prove valuable. Thanks in advance!

          Marc Dee Hugentobler

          Utah State University

          Marhug@telecom.usu.edu

------------------------------


bottle inspection

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1993 13:15:32 -0500 (EST)

From: gelinas@ekman.unh.edu (Russell Gelinas)

Subject: bottle inspection

  The "Bottle Inspection" comments in an AHA competition can also tell

you how well your bottle did in transit.  I had an entry panned, big time,

with comments like "phenolic, astrigent" and the ultimate insult "keep on

trying" :-).  At the time it was the best beer I had ever brewed, and

everyone who tasted it thought so too.  It had no phenols.  I thought it

compared very favorably with the best of brewpub ales.  So what happened?

Well, one strong indication was the comment "low fill line" in the bottle

inspection.  I *knew* I had filled the bottles correctly.  So *something*

happened that "hurt" my beer.  Maybe the cap was loose and it picked up

some "flavor" from the surrounding plastic bag.  Maybe the bottle somehow

got switched with another.  I'll never really know.  But it this case, the

"Bottle Inspection" comment was a valuable diagnostic for the *brewer*.

  FWIW, since I still had 2 bottles of it, I immediately tried one.  It

was fine.  I sent the other off to a certified beer judge, who confirmed

it was a good beer, without any of the phenolic/astrigent defects noted

in the competition report.  He did say it was "out of style" though :-)

Russ Gelinas

eos

unh

------------------------------


wyeast 1098/Whitbread

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1993 13:28:15 -0500 (EST)

From: gelinas@ekman.unh.edu (Russell Gelinas)

Subject: wyeast 1098/Whitbread

  Was it ever settled if Wyeast 1098 has the 3 strains of Whitbread yeast

or just 1 of the strains?  As a data point, I've got a batch in secondary

fermented with 1098 that went from 1.092 to 1.030 in 10 days.  There was

a slowdown at about 5 days, which picked up again within a day.  It is

now in the process of clearing.  So it *acts* like 3 strains....

Russ Gelinas

eos

unh

------------------------------


Making separate messages out of HBD

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 93 13:50 EST

From: Tom Clifton <0002419419@mcimail.com>

Subject: Making separate messages out of HBD

'HBD.BAS 12/16/96 - For Quick Basic - makes individual files of HBD messages

'=========================================================================

'At the risk of aggrivating the Non-IBM PC readers of the Home Brew Digest -

'here is a basic program that I use to break the HBD into separate files

'and adds Digest # to Subject: line.  You can run this from Quick Basic

'which comes with DOS, or compile it as a stand alone, then import them into

'your mail reader (I use LOTUS EXPRESS)

CLS

ON ERROR GOTO BadName                           'If file name is invalid

PATH$ = "C:/MAILSYS/FLD.FLD/"                   'Output directory for files

Seq = 0                                         'Sequence number for files

HBDfile$ = PATH$ + "HBD" + RIGHT$(STR$(Seq), LEN(STR$(Seq)) - 1) + ".TXT"

OPEN HBDfile$ FOR OUTPUT AS #2

LOCATE 10, 10: INPUT "Enter file Name :", File$

OPEN File$ FOR INPUT AS #1

DO WHILE NOT EOF(1)                             'Read input file

   LINE INPUT #1, Read$

   IF LEFT$(Read$, 30) = "------------------------------" THEN GOSUB NewFile

   IF LEFT$(Read$, 17) = "HOMEBREW Digest #" THEN

         Tag$ = " [HBD " + MID$(Read$, (INSTR(Read$, "#")), 5) + "]"

   END IF

   IF LEFT$(Read$, 8) = "Subject:" THEN

         Read$ = Read$ + Tag$

         LOCATE 12, 10: PRINT STRING$(70, 32)

         LOCATE 12, 10: PRINT Read$;

   END IF

   PRINT #2, Read$

   LOOP

CLOSE

END

NewFile:

  LINE INPUT #1, Read$

  LINE INPUT #1, Read$

  Seq = Seq + 1

  CLOSE #2

  HBDfile$ = PATH$ + "HBD" + RIGHT$(STR$(Seq), LEN(STR$(Seq)) - 1) + ".TXT"

  LOCATE 11, 10: PRINT "HBD" + RIGHT$(STR$(Seq), LEN(STR$(Seq)) - 1) + ".TXT"

  OPEN HBDfile$ FOR OUTPUT AS #2

  RETURN

BadName:

  BEEP: LOCATE 10, 10

  LOCATE 10, 27

  PRINT SPACE$(32);

  LOCATE 10, 10

  INPUT "Enter File Name :", File$

  RESUME

------------------------------


early racking question

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1993 11:55:00 -0500 (cdt)

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: early racking question

Having read on HBD that early racking can minimize the reabsorption of

diacetyl by the yeast (the point went unchallenged when it was made, I think -

 is that right?) I decided to try that technique last night with a

(hopefully) Scottish Ale I have fermenting.  When I made the transfer, the

gravity was down from a starting 1060 to about 1040, so it has plenty left to

ferment out.  My question is, since the beer is less than half-done, gravity

wise, isn't there going to be a lot of yeast still to reabsorb that beloved

diacetyl when the secondary is done?

Supplementary info about this brew for those inclined to consider my query,

and some side questions.  This was an extract/specialty grain recipe as

follows:

1 lb. dark crystal malt

1/2 lb. chocolate malt   Steep in grain bag while heating water & remove

2 tsp. gypsum

6 lb. William's English Light Syrup

2 lb. William's EL DME

4 oz. Maltodextrin pwdr.

2 oz. English Fuggles (4.7 A.A.)  boil for 60 minutes

1/2 tbsp. Irish Moss  last 15 minutes

Wyeast "Irish" from starter

Yes I know Wyeast has just come out with a "Scotch" Ale yeast but I haven't

tried it.

A second reason I decided to rack early on was that the bottom of the primary

has the most disgusting looking trub in it I have ever seen.  Really, it

looked like a brown version of what gets stuck like stalagmites in my kids'

noses.  Big CLUMPS of yuck.  Why could this be?  Is it something to do with

maltodextrin powder (I've never used it before)?  Or is it more likely that

it has something to do with the fact that I didn't get a very good cold break

(I attempted to "whirlpool" but I think I did it too late, after some of the

cooling already had taken place, so I probably just re-suspended the break

material.  Duh.)?

Trying to save the yeast from the primary after racking this early was a real

adventure too.  I almost had to call the National Guard to keep it from

taking over my house.  "I'll just throw this stuff in a mason jar," I sez.

Hah!  After watching the foam escape the loosely-fitting (good thing!) lid

and try to crawl out of the sink, I diverted some of it to a starter (give it

something to eat and it will go to sleep) in a 1L flask.  Should have used

the gallon jug - this morning the stopper & airlock had blown off the top of

the flask and it was foaming away merrily.  Having read all kinds of things

about "open fermentation," though, I confidently re-plugged it and cleaned

the outside of the flask.  The rest of it, in the mason jar, I gave a cold

shower.  A brief ice-water bath and then transferred to the fridge, to which

I returned every few minutes to "burp" the jar until the belches were no

longer quite so rowdy.  This morning, thankfully, the jar was intact so we

didn't have to have brown scum for breakfast.

How early did I rack?  On the fourth day of fermentation, to be precise, or

to be even more precise, about three and a half days after fermentation began

(I had a 12-hour lag because I had let the starter sit around too long).  At

this time, the fermentation in the 5-gallon glass primary had subsided so

that the blowoff hose could be removed, the airlock was bubbling at about 1/

5 sec., and the krausen had subsided noticeably although it was far from

gone.

Did I rack too early?  Normally, when I rack to secondary - usually for dry

hopping or for extended settling of a light colored beer so it doesn't sit on

the trub - I wait about a week, at which time the fermentation is mostly

over: bubbles at 2-4/min., krausen disappeared.  Are there any proponents of

"early" racking out there who would like to comment?  Anybody think "early"

racking is a waste of time?  Come on now, let's take the gloves off and have

a few rounds of good clean fun.

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

Beer.  It's just NOT for breakfast.

Any more?

------------------------------


All-grain equipment & Kegging

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 93 18:59:24 CDT

From: JEBURNS@ucs.indiana.edu

Subject: All-grain equipment & Kegging

I have been reading HBD for about two months now and have finally

decided to post a few questions.  I moved from Washington State to

Indiana (my wife is going to grad school here), homebrewing is

fairly popular in WA. There are also quite a few micro-breweries,

my favorite is Red Hook from Seattle.  I just started brewing again

after the move (had to leave my carboys at home), I have found the

HBD to be very helpful, its nice having a net connection.  Anyway

I would like to start ewing all-grain beers, up until this point

I have been using extracts and specialty grains.

Question #1- It seems that there are a lot of people on the HBD who

use the modified picnic cooler method.  This method isn't really

discussed by Miller.  I would like comments on this system both positive

and negative.  Is it only used for single temp mashing?

#2- What are the advantages/disadvantages to using 2-row vs. 6-row malts?

Is American Klages 2-row modified enough to use a single temp mash?

Red Hook uses that type + you can get it pretty cheap ($20 for #50 + shipping)

#3- I don't want to start a "my system is superior to your system" war but,

I would like to hear about different methods that people use.  Basically

I'm looking for a method that I can use in my kitchen ( no 3 billion btu

cookers etc...) and is pretty simple.  I understand the basic process

that is involved but haven't decided on the equipment.  Any suggestions

or warnings about systems that I could build or buy would be appreciated.

Commercial products too (Easymasher, RIMS etc..)

#4- I have two Cornelius kegs that I would like to use.  I can't afford

a CO2 tank and reg. So I would like to use them for parties (drink it all

before any oxidation).  I can order the connectors and a dispenser but

I would have to rig up some sort of a pump to displace the beer. Would

this work?  Any suggestions for pumps?  I was thinking about a foot operated

bike pump. They also make a small CO2 bike pump, how many cartridges would

it take for 5-gallons of brew?

Thats all.  Next time I won't wait until there are so many.

Dave Burns e-mail to jeburns@ucs.indiana.edu

or

1207 Crescent Rd.

Bloomington, IN 47404

Thanks

Dave

------------------------------


TUN DESIGN

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 93 18:11 CST

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: TUN DESIGN

 <From: Jay Hersh <hersh@x.org>

 <from Jack S.... (I know I'm probably gonna regret this :-)

 Just remember, if you do, it's self-inflicted.  As Harry once said, if you

 can't stand the heat.....

 > We exchanged mail on this subject but you failed to mention the hole size of

 > the lauter tun false bottom.  It looks to me like another classic example of

 > how scaling down commercial equipment to hombrew sized batches just does not

 > work very well.  3/32" holes are probably too large for the geometry of a

 > homebrew tun.

 <Jack, what would the scale of the brewery have to do with the sizing of the

 holes in the lauter bottom?? This is a function of the size of the grain itself

 as the purpose is to server as a seive allowing wort ot pass through but grain

 to remain behind?? Can you explain the basis of your comment linking the size

 to the scale of the brewery??

 I probably couldn't before receiving another letter from the originator of

 the thread.  My only argument was that if 3/32" holes work in large tuns but

 not in a small one, it must have something to do with geometry.

 Turns out that grain for a 5 gallon batch "barely covers the bottom" so he is

 forced to make larger batches but apparently not large enough.  So I was on

 the right track but probably for the wrong reason.  The larger holes only

 work well with a large depth to diameter ratio but smaller holes would be

 more forgiving.  I am not sure why one would want larger holes and thereby

 put such constraints on the aspect ratio but therein at least, seems to be

 the answer.

 For the record, the screen I use on the EM has 32 mesh screen and taking the

 wire diameter into consideration, the hole size is roughly ten times smaller

 than the "professional" size.

 > I hate to sound like a broken record, but all your problems will go away if

 <No, really you don't  :-)

 Broken records tend to annoy people and my mission is to share what I have

 learned with others and learn what they have learned from them.

 js

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1300, 12/17/93

*************************************

-------


First batch success

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 08:00:45 -0500

From: paul.beard@gatekeeper.mis.tridom.com (Paul Beard)

Subject: First batch success

Just a short note to say I tasted my first bottle from my first batch and

found it drinkable (actually, pretty good).

I was attempting to emulate a Newcastle Brown style, so I used M+F Nutty

Brown extract, and at the urging of the shop, added 2 Alexander's Malt

Kickers. The yeast was what came with the extract.

Three weeks later, I have 50+ bottles of something that doesn't resemble

Newkie so much as Theakston's OP (in color: almost black, with a gleam of

ruby red when viewed against a light). It's quite malty and a lot stronger

than I expected (I figured 3%, based on TNCJOHB calculations).

You guys are way over my head with a lot of your mashing and whole grain

stuff; I'll likely be an extract man for a while. To get in at this level

is so easy; if you can boil water and read, you're there!

If anyone else is lurking without brewing, get busy.

Paul Beard

AT&T Tridom, 840 Franklin Court, Marietta, GA 30067

404 514-3798 * FAX: 404 429-5419 * tridom!paul.beard/beardp@tridom.com

------------------------------


beer clip art

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 09:02:20 +0000 (U)

From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: beer clip art

                      beer clip art

Rick Gontarek asks about brew clip art:

I have assembled _some_brewing clip art (and now John

'Coyote' Wylie has some too!) for the Mac.

Send me email on what/how/where you want it; I too

use canvas, but also use streamline and color-it

to alter/convert the images if need be. Perhaps we

could swap a brew or two via private carrier?

george

------------------------------


...hydrometers

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 10:26:11 -0400

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: ...hydrometers

>  This means that if a hydrometer has to cover a range of specific

>  gravities from 1.000 to 1.100 using a linear scale, there will be

>  a 10% error in the measurement from one end of the scale to

>  the other (due to the delta_SG**2 term).

 So, why don't they make homebrew hydrometers with a NON-LINEAR

scale?  Would that make too much sense?

____________

Ed Hitchcock ech@ac.dal.ca | Oxymoron:  Draft beer in bottles. |

Anatomy & Neurobiology  | Pleonasm:  Draft beer on tap.     |

Dalhousie University, Halifax |___________________________________|

------------------------------


New Brewer...HELP

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 09:53:33 -0500 (EST)

From: LUKASIK_D@sunybroome.edu

Subject: New Brewer...HELP

New Brewer...HELP

------------------------------


Specific Gravity Notes

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 08:16:07 -0700

From: reeves@lanl.gov (Geoff Reeves)

Subject: Specific Gravity Notes

I've noticed some postings that make me believe some clarification of the

measurement of specific gravity might be appreciated. One representative

example is...

The SG was 1.0XX "but that included all the particles from the crystal malt

that immediately settled to the bottom."

Undisolved particles (including colloids) do not affect the measurement of

specific gravity. A easy to visualize example is to imagine a lake of pure

water with a specific gravity of 1.000. What is the specific gravity of the

water if a boat is floating on the surface? What is the specific gravity if

the boat sinks? What is the specific gravity while the boat is sinking? It

remains 1.000.

The caveat is that anything that sticks to the side of your hydrometer

_will_ affect the specific gravity _measurement_ because it will change the

wieght of the hydrometer. When you pull the hydrometer out if there is

stuff sticking to the side you should let the junk settle and take the

measurement again. The most common thing to stick to the side is bubbles

which will add boyancy to the hydrometer and give you too high a specific

gravity measurement. It may go against your expectations but if you have a

lot of junk floating around that sticks to your hydrometer it actually

gives you too low a SG reading because it will make the hydrometer sink a

little further.

Of course for those that are inclined to excessive worry I should point out

that I brewed for six years before even doing a temperature correction for

SG!

Geoff

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

|    A brewery is like a toothbrush, everyone should have their own.      |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Geoff Reeves:  NIS-2, Mail Stop D-436, Los Alamos National Laboratory   |

|                reeves@lanl.gov (internet) or  essdp2::reeves (span)     |

|                Phone (505) 665-3877                                     |

|                Fax   (505) 665-4414                                     |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


Re: Making separate messages out of HBD

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 10:30:35 -0500 (EST)

From: bobml@msd.measurex.com (Bob LaGesse)

Subject: Re: Making separate messages out of HBD

Here's my contribution for all the Unix "geeks" 8^).  I wrote a 'nawk' script

which splits up the e-mail message.  Typically, I use 'elm' to read my mail

and its "|" subcommand to split the messages into a separate mail file for

later perusing.  The script follows ....

#!/bin/sh

cd $HOME/Mail

rm -f /tmp/hbtemp$$ /tmp/msgcnt$$

if [ $# = 0 ] ; then

    echo2 "/07Usage: unpkmsg /"mail_file_name/""

    exit 1

fi

if [ $# -ge 2 -a "$1" = "-h" ] ; then # add mail header at beginning of file

    cat <<-EOF > /tmp/hbtemp$$

 From Home_Brew `date`

 Received: by `hostname`

 Date: `date "+%a, %d %b %y %X %Z"`

 From: homebrew <homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com>

 Subject: Home Brew Daily Digest

 EOF

    shift

fi

cat >> /tmp/hbtemp$$ # read stdin and add to temp file

if [ -d $1 ]  # create output mail file name

 then mail_filename=$1/`date "+%y%m"`

 else mail_filename=$1

fi

today=`date`

hostname=`hostname`

nawk "/

 BEGIN [

     msgcnt = skipline = 0;

     getline line1;

     getline line2;

     getline line3;

     hostname = /"$hostname/";

     today = /"$today/";

 ]

 /^--*$/ [ /$0 = /"--------/"; ]

 /^From:/ [

     ++msgcnt;

     if (match(/$0, /<.*>/))

  useraddr = substr(/$0, RSTART + 1, RLENGTH - 2);

     else

  useraddr = /$2;

     gsub(/" /", /"_/", useraddr);

     if (skipcnt > 0)

  printf /"From %s %s/nReceived: by %s/n/", /

   useraddr, today, hostname;

 ]

 [

     if (line1 == /"/" && line2 == /"--------/" && line3 == /"/"/

  && /$1 == /"Date:/")

  skipcnt = 3;

     if (skipcnt > 0)

  --skipcnt;

     else

  print line1;

     line1 = line2;  line2 = line3;  line3 = /$0;

 ]

 END [

     print /"Split out/", msgcnt, /"mail messages to =$mail_filename/" /

      > /"/tmp/msgcnt$$/";

 ]

 " < /tmp/hbtemp$$ >> $mail_filename

cat /tmp/msgcnt$$

rm -f /tmp/hbtemp$$ /tmp/msgcnt$$

------------------------------


extract editorials / good enough

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 11:03:21 EST

From: carlsont@GVSU.EDU (TODD CARLSON)

Subject: extract editorials / good enough

          In Papazian's book he says that all malt extracts are not

          created equal and in the recipie section he recomments

          cerain extracts for certain recipies because of their unique

          characteristics.  But I have never seen much in the way of

          specific recommendations (for or against) various malt

          extracts.  So here is your invitation to editorialize.  When

          I go to the beer store and see oodles of different malts,

          which should I try first?  Which should I avoid?  I just

          started my garage lager last night with Bierkeller amber.

          What can I expect? (the label says "preimium german malt",

          but with truth in advertising being what it is ...?).  As

          always responses should use appropriate Intenetiquitte.

          In respons to Tim sixberry's comments/question of yesterday:

          "...the basics of making good beer are very simple ... why

          complicate matters?"

          I second the motion.

          Of course "advanced" beer makers are free to make things as

          complicated as they want.  But I agree that many people get

          forget that others have a different agenda.  We read "relax,

          don't worry, have a homebrew" and then get pages and pages

          and kilobites and kilobites of things to worry about.  I

          suspect that there is a lot of home brew equipment around

          gathering dust in the basements of people who were turned

          off by unnecessary complications.  (IMHO).

          Todd (chill in the sink / aerate by shaking) Carlson

          carlsont@gvsu.edu

------------------------------


Re: cloying sweetness

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 11:04:13 EST

From: Jim Grady <grady@hpangrt.an.hp.com>

Subject: Re: cloying sweetness

Taylor Standee asks about a cloying sweetness and flattish beer after 2

weeks in the bottle:

It sounds to me like the beer just needs more time.  I have often had

batches that were too sweet & flat after only two weeks.  Some of the

factors seem to be:

   1. Temperature where the bottles are sitting &

   2. How much the beer cleared before bottling.  Usually, the more it

      has cleared, the longer it takes (and the less sediment in the

      bottle which means less sediment/more beer in my glass!).

I've never used DME but I hear that DME tends to take longer than corn

sugar.  So, give it a couple of more weeks and it should be fine.

- --

Jim Grady       |"Immediately after Orville Wright's historic 12 second

grady@an.hp.com | flight, his luggage could not be located."

                |                       S. Harris

------------------------------


RE:  James Clark's Update

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 11:31:40 EST

From: Keith MacNeal  17-Dec-1993 1125 <macneal@pate.enet.dec.com>

Subject: RE:  James Clark's Update

>From HOMEBREW Digest #1300:

>From: jeclark@ucdavis.edu (James Clark)

>Subject: update

>3) because of the high gravity boil the beer is not as bitter as i want it,

>so i was thinking about dry hopping in a secondary.  is there a recomended

>time to do this or can i do it any time after the kreusen settles?  also,

>can someone give me a range for the amount of hops to use in the secondary

>(i know i didn't say how bitter our beer is right now, but i just want to

>know if most people use 0.5 oz. or 8 oz when they dry hop)?

I don't think dry hopping will do much for you in terms of bitterness.  It

will give you hop nose and flavor.  I used 1 oz. of Cascade hop plugs to dry

hop 5 gallons of an IPA recently.  I liked it and so did my friends.  The

flavor of the hops really came through.  I've read recipes where more (as much

as 5 oz. of a hop) or less (0.5 oz.) have been used.

Keith MacNeal

Digital Equipment Corp.

Hudson, MA

------------------------------


Re: O2 & stuff

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 11:45:55 -0500 (EST)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: O2 & stuff

> From: reeves@lanl.gov (Geoff Reeves)

> Subject: Bottle Inspection

>

> >The AHA beer judging form starts off, after identification of the

> >

> >What is the purpose of this section? Recently I received comments in

> >this section of "short fill" and "low fill line". e

THis is one of my pet peeves too.  I think the inspection is fine for

rings, yeast cake/cloudiness, etc, but comments on "low fill levels"

can be erroneous.  The problem seems to stem from homebrewers who bottle

condition being sensitive to fill levels, and thinking the "correct" fill

level is within 1/2" of the crown.  When I am competing, I usually fill

from the keg, counterpressure, and acheive a fill level very close to

what you find in a quality micro, 1.5 - 2" below the crown.  This

invariably begets a comment on "low fill".  If the local micro fills

bottles above this line, they can have legal action brought against

them for selling more than 12 oz in a 12 oz bottle.

> ------------------------------

> From: ulick@michaelangelo.helios.nd.edu (Ulick Stafford)

> Subject: Oxygen and hydrometers

>

> In hbd 1298 Jim Busch mentions oxygen use.  I would warn him that levels

> over 14 ppm can be harmful.  I read this figure in a chemical technology

> encyclopedia's section on beer (Kirk-Othmer, I think).  From a practical

> point of view, this means that care must be exercised when O2 is used to

> oxygenate.  The limit of oxygen solubility when air is used is around

> 8 ppm, which is related to the partial pressure of oxygen in air, 0.21.

> This means that aeration with air, while safe, is less than optimum.

> However, wort saturated with oxygen may have over 30 ppm of oxygen (the

> dissolved sugars may lessen the amount of oxygen that can dissolve

> in wort relative to water, but probably not by toomuch).  Breweries,

> naturally, will have the money to pay for dissolved oxygen probes, but these

> are not within homebrewers budgets.

This contradicts the data I have.  Experiments have shown that the maximum

(absolute saturation levels) vary between a low of 4 mg/L (SG = 1.080, T=

30 C) and a high of 7.5 mg/L (SG=1.030, T=15C).  I believe Rajotte has

quoted much higher numbers, but these are not supported by experimentation

using a Zahm and Nagel O2 inline injector.  These data are supported by

another author, Dr. Ingledew, who found levels of 8-9 mg/L as the maximum.

It is certainly well known that the saturation levels of O2 are a function

of temperature and sugar density (OG) so these are important factors in

the equation, but practically speaking, levels above 8 mg/L are not seen

in breweries, nor are they required as typical brewers strains require

O2 levels between 2-8 mg/L.  It is also interesting to note that yeast

will respire the O2 in a matter of hours if not less, at these levels.

I can assure you that a 2 hour bubble of O2 has lead to quite healthy and

successfull ferments (quicker, and cleaner, less esters/fusels).

> Someone wanted Jim Koch address to send poison pen letters.  The letter I

> received from him today mailed without a stamp from Nashua, NH listed

> The Boston Beer Works, The Brewery, 30 Germania St., Boston MA 02130 as an

          ^^^^^^^^^^

   This is obviously a freudian slip, as the works are the

   ones Koch sues all the time.  His is the Boston Beer Co.

> ------------------------------

> From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

> Subject: O2, Bottle inspection Quest

>

> Two possible issues come to mind. FDA O2 as used for medical applications has

> been rumored to contain an anti-fungal agent. I have not been able to get this

> firmly confirmed nor denied by my contacts in the medical world. Industrial

> grade O2 may not contain any bugs but may contain oil or other contaminants

> which do not cause problems with normal applications.

I have recently been told that the brewers O2 goes by the name Therepy??

Anyone heard of this? BTW, the .2 micron filter shows no sign of

contamination yet.

RE:fuggles

> Terry Foster was waxing a bit snobbish.  Fuggles is, in fact, a fine hop

> (so is its clone: Willamette), and makes a very nice late addition.  Of

> course the Classic (TM) finishing hop for English ales is East Kent

> Golding -- but there are a lot of really good English hops that British

> brewers use, including Fuggles.

I also have had good success recently using Willamette as a kettle hop.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


New Brewer...HELP cont.

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 11:52:20 -0500 (EST)

From: LUKASIK_D@sunybroome.edu

Subject: New Brewer...HELP cont.

Sorry, little computer glitch on my end....So to start again.... I am new

to the homebrew scene (two weeks, three batches, lots of fun) and have a few

questions that I hope some more experienced brewers can answer.  My first

batch was a basic Yorkshire Bitter Kit with a lb of dry malt replacing some

of the sugar.  It all went smoothly and was bottled about a week ago.  The

second batch is my own Olde Ale recipe using all malt (11 lbs), some grain

(crystal and choc.) and a lot of hops.  This batch started with an SG of

1.062, was extremely active in about 8 hours, blew CO2 like crazy for the next

20 hours and had the krause (?) settle aftert 2 1/2 days.  I then racked it

into the secondary at which point it slowly bubbled away.  Well, five days

later it is still bubbling at a rate of about every 3 seconds which is

completely different than batch 1 and batch 3 (an Australian Lager using

Ale yeast).  Is this normal activity or have I done something wrong?  Is it

due to using so much malt ext.?  Is it safe to bottle while it is still

fermenting like this?  Is there any good way to get a second SG reading

without the risk of contaminating the brew?  I would really like to get this

batch into the bottle so I can expedite the drinking (hopefully be able to

have a few with friends on New Years!!!)

Other questions:  Are Australian Light Malts supposed to produce a golden

colored beer/ale/lager (this is the color of straw)?  Could someone send me

a recipe for Cider as I have seen this in my first reading of the digest and

think it sounds great?  How close will a dopplebock be to the real thing if I

use ale/beer yeast (I am not yet sett up to do real Lagers)?

The list is great.  I am sure already it will answer many of my questions and

give me the insights I am looking for.  Thanks for the help in advance!!!

Doug

"SodBuster Suds"

------------------------------


Re: Bob's address

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 12:01:59 EST

From: "Adrian L. Anderson (Andy" <alanders@mwc.vak12ed.edu>

Subject: Re: Bob's address

Brewers,

    Not long ago I asked for some help in curing a yeast taste

problem.  One of the responses came to me directly from Bob

Milstead.  I attempted to send a note back with a thank you

and some other information but it was returned.  The address I

used was rmilstead@zellar.vantage.gte.com.  If anyone knows how

to get in touch with Bob or if Bob is reading this, please let

me know.

                        Thanks,

- --

              ____________________________________________

              Andy Anderson                 Winchester, VA

                        alanders@mwc.vak12ed.edu

           "I'm a peripheral visionary... I see into the future

                     but way off to the side."

------------------------------


Cheap do-it-yourself kegging system (correction)

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 16:18:16 +0100

From: steve_t@fleurie.inria.fr (Steven Tollefsrud)

Subject: Cheap do-it-yourself kegging system (correction)

re: CO2 "resevoir"

No, this is NOT the French spelling, it should be "reseRvoir"

normally. Maybe it was the homebrew?!

Relax...

steve tollefsrud

valbonne, france

e-mail: steve_t@fleurie.compass.fr

------------------------------


Cheap do-it-yourself kegging system...

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 16:03:39 +0100

From: steve_t@fleurie.inria.fr (Steven Tollefsrud)

Subject: Cheap do-it-yourself kegging system...

>Dave Burns (jeburns@ucs.indiana.edu) writes...

>I have two Cornelius kegs that I would like to use.  I can't afford

>a CO2 tank and reg. So I would like to use them for parties (drink it all

>before any oxidation).  I can order the connectors and a dispenser but

>I would have to rig up some sort of a pump to displace the beer. Would

>this work?  Any suggestions for pumps?  I was thinking about a foot operated

>bike pump. They also make a small CO2 bike pump, how many cartridges would

>it take for 5-gallons of brew?

The bicycle pump method does work well, but unless you plan to empty

the entire Cornelius keg in one go, don't use this method. It would

corrupt the protective CO2 in the headspace of the keg, oxidizing and

ruining the beer after a day or two.

I have the same situation, I have two Cornelius kegs, and an assortment

of hoses and connectors, but living in France, I do not have convenient

access to compatible CO2 tank and regulator systems. Instead, I devised

the following simple two-keg closed system which preserves the natural CO2

gas generated by the fermentation and uses it as a pressure source. Since

the system is closed and the beer is protected by pure CO2, it can be

kept fresh and carbonated indefinitely.

Parts: 2 Cornelius kegs

 4 Cornelius connectors

   Some sort of valve for dispensing (I found a 3/8" air valve at

  a hardware store, which works nicely)

 ~10' 3/8" food grade clear plastic hose

 a 3/8" water faucet adapter w/ clamp

1. One Cornelius keg will serve as the beer-keg. The second will serve as a

CO2 resevoir. Cut a length of hose long enough to run between the the

two kegs and put Cornelius connectors on both ends. Connect the "INPUT"

side of the beer-keg to the "OUTPUT" side of the CO2 resevoir. When your

beer is fermented and ready to prime, siphon it into the beer-keg and

prime it with triple your normal quantity of priming sugar (I use about

6 cups of malt extract per 5 gals). Fill the CO2 resevoir with enough

alcohol based sterilizing solution to cover the bottom half inch of the

"OUTPUT" pipe (don't use other sterilant: there is a minimal risk that it

could be sucked up into the beer keg if the temperature of the beer keg

drops).

           hose

         _____________

 out    / in      out /    in

  __H___H__         __H___H__

  | |     |         | |     |

  |ooooooo|         | |     |

  |:|:::::|         | |     |

  |:|:::::|         | |     |

  |:|:::::|         | |     |

  |:|:::::|         | |     |

  |:|:::::|         | |     |

  |:|beer:|         | |     |

  |:|:::::|         | | CO2 |

  |:|:::::|         | |     |

  |:|:::::|         | |     |

  |:|:::::|         | |   O |

  |:/:::::|         | /   O |

  |::/::::|         |  /  o |

  |:::/:::|         |:::/:o:|

  |_:::::_|         |_:::o:_|

  beer keg          CO2 resevoir

2. Leave the clamp of the CO2 resevoir loosely open for about 1/2 a

day to allow CO2 from the beer keg to purge the CO2 resevoir keg of air.

3. Clamp shut the CO2 resevoir and allow 1-2 weeks for "conditioning".

4. After beer is conditioned and CO2 resevoir is pressurized, switch the

"polarity" of the hose connection on the CO2 resevoir, so that the hose

is connected to the "INPUT" side of the CO2 resevoir. Construct a beer

dispenser hose out of 3'-5' of hose, one Cornelius connector and the beer

dispensing valve. Connect this to the "OUTPUT" side of the beer keg and

test by dispensing some beer into a glass. If necessary, release pressure

slightly from the CO2 resevoir using the pressure bleeder valve on the

top of the Cornelius keg.

5. To increase the CO2 pressure at any time, construct a second length of

hose with a Cornelius connector at one end and a water faucet connector at

the other. Connect the water faucet end first, then connect the other end

to the "OUTPUT" side of the CO2 resevoir, and force a few pints of water

into the CO2 resevoir (more than the volume of the beer that was consumed).

This should definitely be done when you want to store the beer after having

tapped off a few pints, in order to maintain the carbonation in the beer.

                                                   >|<

tap               hose                  hose      __O_

 >________      _____________     _______________/

 /     out/    / in       in /   /out              water

 :       __H___H__         __H___H__               faucet

 :       | |     |         |     | |

|:  |_   | |     |         |     | |

|:::| |  | |     |         |     | |

|:::|_|  | |     |         |     | |

/:::/    | |     |         |     | |

         |ooooooo|         |     | |

 mug     |:|:::::|         |     | |

         |:|beer:|         |     | |

         |:|:::::|         |     | |

         |:|:::::|         |     | |

         |:|:::::|         |:::::|:|

         |:|:::::|         |:H2O:|:| <-- water added to increase

         |:/:::::|         |:::::/:|     pressure of CO2 by decreasing

         |::/::::|         |::::/::|     volume.

         |:::/:::|         |:::/:::|

         |_:::::_|         |_:::::_|

         beer keg          CO2 resevoir

Advantages:

 1. It's cheap!

 2. Closed system: beer stays preserved indefinitely

 3. Naturally conditioned in the traditional English manner

Disadvantages:

 1. Finding the optimum dispensing pressure is a bit trial & error

 at first with pressure bleeder.

 2. Ties up two Cornelius kegs for one 5 gallon batch.

It isn't elegant, but hey, it's cheap and it works!

Comments?

Steve Tollefsrud

VALBONNE, France

e-mail: steve_t@fleurie.compass.fr

------------------------------


Comments on Several Items

Date: 17 Dec 1993 09:27:44 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Comments on Several Items

Hey Group, Happy Holidays!

I have been trying lots of different commercial beers, lots of Winter Warmer

types, to gain experience with different styles. I have discovered that

I don't care for Pumpkin Ale; I can't finish a Spiced Christmas Ale

(tho I did find out that the Christmas Ale I brewed turned out true to style)

its just too weird; but I did like the Samual Smiths and Young's Winter

Warmers very much. So, I think this style and IPA will be my styles for the

new years brewing.

Okay, More James Questions (why do I like ribbing this guy? I dunno:)

Why Wort Chillers?  Because when you start doing full boils, 5->10 gallons,

that is too much wort to carry to the bathtub.

Short Ale Fermentations?  When you use Extract with lots of active yeast,

then you can have quick fermentations because of the simple sugars present;

compared to All Grain where more complex sugars are present.

How much to Dry Hop?  A good rule of thumb for ANY hop addition is 1 ounce.

YMMV. Also, Cascade hops has a Vibrant nose.

Capping Champagne bottles - All of the domestic champagne bottles can be

recapped with standard bottle caps. There are some French ones that have

bigger openings.

I want a copy of that Shrimp Creole recipe!

A few days ago, someone mentioned that their Bottles had a Milky Layer around

the top of the bottle and thought it might be more foam. From what I have been

told this is Micro Derm, a bad bacterial infection. It is ground dwelling but

can be stirred up into the air by kicking up dust, etc.  It is dangerous but

easily detected due to the milky layer at the top and horrid smell when

opening.

And on Jordans Hops Addition based on Papazian's formulas:

Well I assumed you are making five gallons. Starting with 6 lbs of Pale Malt

Extract (Syrup? DME? =>Syrup), yielding an approximate OG of 1.032. Boiled in

1.5 gallons of water gives an Adjusted Gravity of 1.28. Putting this in my

spreadsheet ala Rager, using 1.5 ounces for 45 minutes gives 21.95 or 22 IBU.

Which seems to be what you wanted. HBU equaling %AA x Wt. = 1.5x5.5 = 8.25

And finally, my opinion on HBD diction and grammar.

I prefer to read concise questions and answers. I can appreciate certain

regular personalities on the Digest who write like they probably speak; it

does add a certain amount of color to the digest and makes it more of a

gathering of friends to discuss a shared hobby. However, writing like you

speak is regarded as poor practice when trying to effectivly communicate.

Imagine if I started writing in Surfer speak, or my semi-native West Virginian

drawl, it would be very tiresome for many of you to read. The same can be said

of expletives and colloquialisms. This is an open forum for the communication

of ideas on homebrewing. Effective communication would seem to be in order.

John Palmer

Space Station M&P

Merry Christmas, a Happy Brew Year and Visualize Whirled Peas.

------------------------------


Sierra Nevada Nirvana

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 09:59:12 -0800

From: mclagan@sfu.ca (scott mclagan)

Subject: Sierra Nevada Nirvana

Last weekend I got my long-awaited chance to try Sierra-Nevada

Pale Ale (We took a trip into Washington). Needless to say, I was

NOT disappointed. Wow! Hops with an attitude. Can a brew get any

better than this? My only mistake was to promise to save a bottle

for my wife :)

Does anyone have a recipe to emulate this wonderful brew? If not,

what is the variety and method of hopping? I suspect it is dry-hopped,

which is something I've been meaning to try.

If numerous recipes are mailed, I will summarize for the digest.

Thanks in advance,

Scott McLagan <mclagan@fraser.sfu.ca>

------------------------------


Rager's polynomial

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 10:17:03 -0800 (PST)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@ZGI.COM>

Subject: Rager's polynomial

The recent thread about hop utilization and Rager's utilization numbers

from Zymurgy past, and Ed Hitchcock's request for a polynomial got me

thinking. Although this is not what Ed was requesting, I ran a least

squares fit on the center points of Rager's utilization ranges and derived

the coefficients of a cubic polynomial.  When plotted against Rager's

ranges this polynomial is everywhere "between the lines" except for less

than about 3 minutes (where it's fairly flat at about 5.5%) and at greater

than 55 minutes (where it tops out at about 30.3%).  So, keeping in mind

the standard disclaimers and the fact that your results may vary, here it is:

u(t)=5.738336 - (2.032614e-01)*t + (2.905735e-02)*t^2 -(3.140576e-04)*t^3

or with less than anal precision:

u(t) = 5.738336 - 0.203261*t + 0.029057*t^2 - 0.000314*t^3

Note that this yields percent values, for fractional quantities divide by

100.0.

For those for who Rager's numbers do not come trippingly off the tongue,

they are:

Minutes  % Util

- -------  ------

 0-5        5.0

 6-10       6.0

11-15       8.0

16-20      10.1

21-25      12.1

26-30      15.3

31-35      18.8

36-40      22.8

41-45      26.9

46-50      28.1

51-60      30.0   Note the double size bin

If one examines a plot of Rager's ranges there appears to be a discontinuity

at 41-45 minutes in an otherwise smooth curve.  My esthetic sense from

the plot is that utilization tops out at about 33-34% at 60 minutes.

One observation is that at time=0 I would expect a 0% utilization.

Plotting the center points of Rager's numbers and extrapolating gives

something around 4%.  By "playing" with Rager's numbers I generated a more

"esthetically pleasing" curve.  I threw out Rager's numbers for 0-20

minutes and substituted 0% at 0 minutes.  I also tossed out his numbers

above 45 minutes and added 3 of my own at 48, 53, and 58 minutes. The

curve so generated agrees extremely well with Rager over the range, 23-43

minutes, but yields higher utilization values at times over 46 minutes,

and lower utilization values at times under 22 minutes.

 Min    Rager    Rager's      Pleasing

                 Poly         Poly

- ----   -----     --------     --------

  0       NA     5.738336     0.000000

  5      5.0     5.409206     1.206269

 10      6.0     6.297400     3.290587

 15      8.0     8.167375     6.102309

 20     10.1     10.78359     9.451752

 25     12.1     13.91049     13.14923

 30     15.3     17.31255     17.00507

 35     18.8     20.75422     20.82957

 40     22.8     23.99995     24.43305

 45     26.9     26.81421     27.62584

 50     28.1     28.96144     30.21824

 55       NA     30.20611     32.02058

 60     30.0     30.31267     32.84317

The more "pleasing" poly (read fantasy) is:

u(t)=3.903961e-02 + (1.290914e-01)*t + (2.213545e-02)*t^2 - (2.529119e-04)*t^3

After all this, a question springs to even my mind, "So what?"  Are there

any other hop utilization numbers besides Rager's out there?  How about

in Malting and Brewing Science?  Help! I need a reality check.

You know, I can get carried away on the weirdest things.

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


hops question revisited

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 12:41:46 -0600 (CST)

From: Robert Jordan <JORDAN@ANLBEM.BIM.ANL.GOV>

Subject: hops question revisited

Thanks to Spencer Thomas for pointing out my misuse of the formulas I asked

about in HBD 1300.  Obviously (now, at least) by using my method it doen't

matter what the %utilization is, the formulas will always give you the same

weight of hops to use.  This must be why I went into Biology and not

Mathmatics.  Anyway, my questions still remains.

Given that I know the ~%utilization, the final volume of my batch, and the

approximate HBUs I want for my beer, how can I calculate the amount of hops

to use?

Again, I apologize if this has been answered recently, but from what I've

read the formula I'm looking for just isn't jumping out at me.

Thanks,

Rob

RJordan@anl.gov

------------------------------


Tun Design

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 13:43:36 EST

From: U-E68316-Scott Wisler <wisler_scott@ae.ge.com>

Subject: Tun Design

 js:

 > It looks to me like another classic example of

 > how scaling down commercial equipment to hombrew sized batches just does not

 > work very well.

 I disagree, as outlined below.  A more appropriate statement would be

`inappropriately scaling down commercial equipment to homebrew sized

batches, without understanding the function of the dimensions, sometimes

does not work very well'.

 js:

 > 3/32" holes are probably too large for the geometry of a homebrew tun.

 Hersh:

 > Can you explain the basis of your comment linking the size

 > to the scale of the brewery??

 js:

 > I probably couldn't before receiving another letter from the originator of

 > the thread.

If the example was truly `classic', would you have difficulty

explaining why?

 js:

 >My only argument was that if 3/32" holes work in large tuns but

 >not in a small one, it must have something to do with geometry.

The switch from the plural to the singular is at odds with the

generality you made two days ago, and therefore cannot be `your only

argument'.

  js:

 >The larger holes only

 >work well with a large depth to diameter ratio but smaller holes would be

 >more forgiving.  I am not sure why one would want larger holes and thereby

 >put such constraints on the aspect ratio but therein at least, seems to be

 >the answer.

It seems to me that the `answer' depends on whether the sieve or the

grain husks do the filtering.  If the husks do the filtering, as you

have advocated in the past, then with an appropriate grain depth, the

size of the holes, within limits, is not too important.  I would say that

in a false bottom tun, a grain bed depth which is appropriate for a given

size hole/porosity is a better geometry characteristic than aspect ratio.

 js:

 >For the record, the screen I use on the EM has 32 mesh screen and taking the

 >wire diameter into consideration, the hole size is roughly ten times smaller

 >than the "professional" size.

TNCJOHB advocates 1/8" holes on the ZapPap tun, which is 25% bigger than

"professoinal" size.  It works just fine for a large number of people.

For Dennis Lewis - the origional poster:

I realize that the Brewer's Warehouse sheets are expensive!  I wouldn't

want to throw it out (If you do, or you have unused scraps, write me).  The

keg is probably too big to lauter in because the bed depth is small.  You

could cut down the screen and make a better false bottom tun, or convert

to the em.  There is a way to use the screen you cut in a converted keg

boiler, so it won't be wasted.

 >Broken records tend to annoy people and my mission is to share what I have

 >learned with others and learn what they have learned from them.

I advocate neither false bottoms or ems, and have yet to design a dream

tun.  (hope you share the final result and thought processes, Norm).

If there is anything I've learned from this digest, its that there are

many equally effective ways of doing all the process in brewing.  To say

that "[false bottoms] are simply not ... useful in homebrew lauter tuns"

is irresponsible, and simply false.

scott

swisler@c0431.ae.ge.com

------------------------------


Cornelius Keg Pressurization

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 13:45:30 CDT

From: JEBURNS@ucs.indiana.edu

Subject: Cornelius Keg Pressurization

From: PO1::"steve_t@fleurie.compass.fr" 17-DEC-1993 13:15:01.92

To: jeburns@ucs.indiana.edu

CC:

Subj: Cheap do-it-yourself kegging system...

>I have two Cornelius kegs that I would like to use.  I can't afford

>a CO2 tank and reg. So I would like to use them for parties (drink it all

>before any oxidation).  I can order the connectors and a dispenser but

>I would have to rig up some sort of a pump to displace the beer. Would

>this work?  Any suggestions for pumps?  I was thinking about a foot operated

>bike pump. They also make a small CO2 bike pump, how many cartridges would

>it take for 5-gallons of brew?

The bicycle pump method does work well, but unless you plan to empty

the entire Cornelius keg in one go, don't use this method. It would

corrupt the protective CO2 in the headspace of the keg, oxidizing and

ruining the beer after a day or two.

I have the same situation, I have two Cornelius kegs, and an assortment

of hoses and connectors, but living in France, I do not have convenient

access to compatible CO2 tank and regulator systems. Instead, I devised

the following simple two-keg closed system which preserves the natural CO2

gas generated by the fermentation and uses it as a pressure source. Since

the system is closed and the beer is protected by pure CO2, it can be

kept fresh and carbonated indefinitely.

Parts: 2 Cornelius kegs

 4 Cornelius connectors

   Some sort of valve for dispensing (I found a 3/8" air valve at

  a hardware store, which works nicely)

 ~10' 3/8" food grade clear plastic hose

 a 3/8" water faucet adapter w/ clamp

1. One Cornelius keg will serve as the beer-keg. The second will serve as a

CO2 reservoir. Cut a length of hose long enough to run between the the

two kegs and put Cornelius connectors on both ends. Connect the "INPUT"

side of the beer-keg to the "OUTPUT" side of the CO2 reservoir. When your

beer is fermented and ready to prime, siphon it into the beer-keg and

prime it with triple your normal quantity of priming sugar (I use about

6 cups of malt extract per 5 gals). Fill the CO2 reservoir with enough

alcohol based sterilizing solution to cover the bottom half inch of the

"OUTPUT" pipe (don't use other sterilant: there is a minimal risk that it

could be sucked up into the beer keg if the temperature of the beer keg

drops).

           hose

         _____________

 out    / in      out /    in

  __H___H__         __H___H__

  | |     |         | |     |

  |ooooooo|         | |     |

  |:|:::::|         | |     |

  |:|:::::|         | |     |

  |:|:::::|         | |     |

  |:|:::::|         | |     |

  |:|:::::|         | |     |

  |:|beer:|         | |     |

  |:|:::::|         | | CO2 |

  |:|:::::|         | |     |

  |:|:::::|         | |     |

  |:|:::::|         | |   O |

  |:/:::::|         | /   O |

  |::/::::|         |  /  o |

  |:::/:::|         |:::/:o:|

  |_:::::_|         |_:::o:_|

  beer keg          CO2 reservoir

2. Leave the clamp of the CO2 reservoir loosely open for about 1/2 a

day to allow CO2 from the beer keg to purge the CO2 reservoir keg of air.

3. Clamp shut the CO2 reservoir and allow 1-2 weeks for "conditioning".

4. After beer is conditioned and CO2 reservoir is pressurized, switch the

"polarity" of the hose connection on the CO2 reservoir, so that the hose

is connected to the "INPUT" side of the CO2 reservoir. Construct a beer

dispenser hose out of 3'-5' of hose, one Cornelius connector and the beer

dispensing valve. Connect this to the "OUTPUT" side of the beer keg and

test by dispensing some beer into a glass. If necessary, release pressure

slightly from the CO2 reservoir using the pressure bleeder valve on the

top of the Cornelius keg.

5. To increase the CO2 pressure at any time, construct a second length of

hose with a Cornelius connector at one end and a water faucet connector at

the other. Connect the water faucet end first, then connect the other end

to the "OUTPUT" side of the CO2 reservoir, and force a few pints of water

into the CO2 reservoir (more than the volume of the beer that was consumed).

This should definitely be done when you want to store the beer after having

tapped off a few pints, in order to maintain the carbonation in the beer.

                                                   >|<

tap               hose                  hose      __O_

 >________      _____________     _______________/

 /     out/    / in       in /   /out              water

 :       __H___H__         __H___H__               faucet

 :       | |     |         |     | |

|:  |_   | |     |         |     | |

|:::| |  | |     |         |     | |

|:::|_|  | |     |         |     | |

/:::/    | |     |         |     | |

         |ooooooo|         |     | |

 mug     |:|:::::|         |     | |

         |:|beer:|         |     | |

         |:|:::::|         |     | |

         |:|:::::|         |     | |

         |:|:::::|         |:::::|:|

         |:|:::::|         |:H2O:|:| <-- water added to increase

         |:/:::::|         |:::::/:|     pressure of CO2 by decreasing

         |::/::::|         |::::/::|     volume.

         |:::/:::|         |:::/:::|

         |_:::::_|         |_:::::_|

         beer keg          CO2 reservoir

Advantages:

 1. It's cheap!

 2. Closed system: beer stays preserved indefinitely

 3. Naturally conditioned in the traditional English manner

Disadvantages:

 1. Finding the optimum dispensing pressure is a bit trial & error

 at first with pressure bleeder.

 2. Ties up two Cornelius kegs for one 5 gallon batch.

It isn't elegant, but hey, it's cheap and it works!

Comments?

Steve Tollefsrud

VALBONNE, France

e-mail: steve_t@fleurie.compass.fr

------------------------------


re: appearance and "pride"

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 11:22:13 PST

From: "Doug Olson, BPDA West, Palo Alto CA" <olson@sx4gto.enet.dec.com>

Subject: re: appearance and "pride"

> I've also commented things that are obviously unrelated to the beer

> quality, such as a totally grungy bottle.  Someone who wants me to

> judge their beer should at least have enough pride in their product to

> present me with a clean bottle.  But, as you note, it doesn't affect

> the score.

Spencer Thomas imagines that I'm presenting him my beer to judge out

of "pride".  Actually, I'm presenting it for feedback about the contents

of the bottle.  I already know if I had to scramble to scrape labels off

the bottles because of the available beers the cleaner bottles happen to

have already been consumed.  I already know how flippin' painful it was

to scrape my fingers as well as the label because I'm cleaning three

bottles for each of the eight beers I'm entering.  I already know, fer

chrissake, that the clean bottle rules exist to prevent unfair identifting

marks from biasing the judges, and not to soothe their aesthetic sensibilities.

What I DON'T know is how true my beer is to style, and that's what I paid

the entry fee to find out.

There's nothing that pisses me off more than getting more comments on a

judging sheet about the state of the bottles than the state of the beer.

DougO

------------------------------


First batch question...not much carbonation?

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 11:55:17 -0800 (PST)

From: scott@nit.PacTel.COM (Scott Robertson)

Subject: First batch question...not much carbonation?

Yes...it's another novice first batch question...

Here's the story: Brewed, fermented, and siphoned into bottling

bucket.  Before siphoning I boiled a pint of water with the

bottling sugar and put that in the bottom of the bucket.  The instructions

didn't say anything about stirring...so I didn't.  After bottling

all of the beer from the spigot at the bottom of the bucket..

I noticed that there appeared to be a separation in the last little

beer in the bottom...beer on top, sugar mixture on the bottom.

So, it's been 5 days, and I tried a bottle that came from near the end of

the bucket.  There was a little pssst when I opened the bottle, but

very little carbonation.  I understand it is a little early to expect

a lot, but is it possible that I screwed up by not mixing the sugar mix

in the bottle bucket?  Is there anyway to test the potential outcome

without waiting?  any insight would be great..

reply to scott@nit.pactel.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1301, 12/18/93

*************************************

-------


Al again?

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 12:44:55 PST

From: barry@odf.UCSD.EDU (Barry Nisly)

Subject: Al again?

Regarding the recent (eternal?) discussion of aluminum stock pots,

I found this while leafing through the William's Brewing Catalog:

 Stainless steel is neutral to acidity, which means it

 will not react with the relatively acid wort.  Aluminum,

 on the other hand, will react with any acid food, be it

 wort or tomato sauce, possibly contributing to off-

 flavor development, particularly in lighter flavored

 beers.  Though aluminum is economical and usable in a

 pinch, it should not be purchased for use in brewing.

FWIW.  No affiliation - just a satisfied customer.

Now if I only had $160 for that 38 qt Vollrath...

Barry

bnisly@ucsd.edu

------------------------------


yards & 1/2 yards

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 15:34:01 -0500

From: "Daniel K. Yee" <yee@a1.relay.upenn.edu>

Subject: yards & 1/2 yards

Hi all,

I've been thinking of getting a yard or 1/2 yard beer glass (with stand)

for my brother as a birthday gift.  What are the best deals out there?

Thanks in advance.

   Dan "Sven" Yee

------------------------------


Re: Flat Dinosaurs, BJCP,etc.

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 15:25:55 EST

From: chuck@synchro.com (Chuck Cox)

Subject: Re: Flat Dinosaurs, BJCP,etc.

Marc Hugentobler sez...

>

>      I personally have some questions of the forum many of who seem to be

>      certified beer judges. Is there any more information about The BJCP exam

>      available besides the outline available by anonymous ftp? More sample

>      questions and sample answers would be very helpful. I desperately want

>      of qualify but find myself confounded by the amount of information.

>      Personal Insights would also prove valuable. Thanks in advance!

>

Sounds like a perfect opportunity to plug JudgeNet...

- --------------------------- JudgeNet info ----------------------------

JudgeNet - the Beer Judge Digest is an Internet mailing list dedicated

to the discussion of issues of interest to beer judges and competition

organizers.  Anyone with an interest in judging or organizing beer

competitions is welcome to join.

submissions:   judge@synchro.com

administrative requests: judge-request@synchro.com

Please send subscription and unsubscription requests to the

administrative address.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

- --

Chuck Cox   <chuck@synchro.com>   List Administrator

SynchroSystems / Riverside Garage & Brewery - Cambridge, Mass.

------------------------------


Samual Smith's quest

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 14:18:42 PST

From: danforth@trinity.llnl.gov (Bill A. Danforth)

Subject: Samual Smith's quest

Hello all,

I am looking for recipes to make clones of two of Sam. Smith's brews.

I would like to brew a Winter Welcome clone and an _Old Brewery Pale Ale_

clone.

As I am currently on Paternity leave (a new boy), email to me would be the

most preferred way to send me the recipes (cc to HBD would also be cool I

think).

Thank you very much in advance,

Bill Danforth

------------------------------


raspberry flavoring

Date: Friday, 17 December 93 16:05:25 CST

From: LLAPV@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: raspberry flavoring

Howdy,

About a week ago I said that I had some hesitations about the fruit flavorings

available on the market for homebrews.  Well, the raspberry wheat beer that

used the flavoring available from St. Patrick's of Texas was entered in the

Hill Country Brew-Ha-Ha last month, & I recieved my results yesterday.  It

actually had very good scores & comments, with positive notes about the

raspberry note of the beer.  I guess my expectations were a little too high.

So I take back what I said.

Happy brewin',

Alan, Austin

------------------------------


Pike Place cask-conditioned ale

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 16:17:56 EST

From: "when the cold winds blow, it'll ease your mind  17-Dec-1993 1611 -0500" <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com>

Subject: Pike Place cask-conditioned ale

For those of you who get Brewing Techniques, there was an article in the

last issue that featured cask-conditioned ales made by Pike Place Brewing

in Seattle.

I just happened to be out there on business this week.  I called 'em up

and asked where they were served.  I went down to the 74th Street Ale House

and sure enough, it was there - served much like the english style:  hand

pump at about 50F or so.  I enjoyed a few pints of this stuff - great brew,

but not quite as nice as the pub cask-conditioned ales served in England.

So far, it is the best I've had in the US that approximates the English

style c-c ale - perhaps more pubs will ask for this stuff!

In addition to that, they had 17 others on tap - this is something us

East coasters (at least me!) are not used to!  Lots and lots of winter

ales, some very nice wheat brews by Hale Brewing (?), etc.

Great brews in the Seattle area - local brew was served all over the

place, even in the Red Lion hotel bar I stayed at.

JC ferguson

------------------------------


Re: #1(2) Homebrew Digest #12...

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 23:13:16 EST

From: pblshr@aol.com

Subject: Re: #1(2) Homebrew Digest #12...

Re: The request for a GIF or PCX of Barney with tire tracks for your

"Barney's Flat Oatmeal Stout,"  America On Line has the file in its graphics

library, if you have access to that source.

If not, E-mail me, and I'll arrange for some kind of transfer.

Tom Finan (member, St. Louis Brews)

------------------------------


a holiday cider recipe...

Date: Sat, 18 Dec 1993 12:13:07 -0800

From: Nick Cuccia <Nick_Cuccia@Talamasca.Berkeley.CA.US>

Subject: a holiday cider recipe...

No, not a recipe for cider, but a recipe that uses cider...

Nick's White Sauce

- ------ ----- -----

2 cups chicken stock

2 Tbsp flour

1 lb butter

1/4 cup minced mushrooms

2 cups hard cider

1/2 lb minced shallots

1.5 Tb minced tarragon

 Nutmeg

In a double boiler, melt 2 Tbsp of the butter. gradually mixing in flour until

well-blended.  Gradually add chicken stock, stirring constantly, and place

mixture directly on burner on low heat. Stirring constantly, bring to a boil,

and continue stirring until sauce starts to thicken.  Remove from burner,

add mushrooms, and simmer for about an hour, stirring occasionally.

While the first mixture is simmering, cut the remaining butter into 1T chunks.

Mix cider and shallots in a saucepan, bring to a boil, and reduce to a glaze.

Remove this pan from heat, and slowly add butter, one piece at a time.  The

butter should not melt completely; the resulting mix should have the consis-

tency of a Bearnease.  Add tarragon and set aside.

Take the original mixture and strain through a fine sieve into a bowl.  Add

the shallot/butter mixture and a pinch of nutmeg, and season to taste.

This sauce is good on chicken, warm or cold veggies, or as a dipping sauce for

bread.

Enjoy!

- --Nick

------------------------------


crown-capping champagne bottles

Date: 19 Dec 93 00:46:36 MST (Sun)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: crown-capping champagne bottles

Regarding the question (sorry, lost the actual reference) on using

sparkling-wine bottles for beer:  You can cap American bottles with

standard beer-bottle crown caps.  American bottles are one size; European

bottles are a slightly larger size and won't work.  If you're scrounging

bottles, you don't usually run across stray Champagne (*real*, as in the

particular region of France) bottles, but you're likely to find Spanish

bottles from inexpensive stuff like Freixenet or Cordoniu.

Specifically, you can *sometimes* manage to cap the European bottles.  It

depends on the particular capper and caps you're using...you might succeed

99 times out of 100, or you might fail every other bottle.  The failure

modes I've seen or heard of with European bottles are:

 - Cap doesn't seat properly, bottle leaks.

 - Capping breaks off a piece of the crown.  The probability of the

   broken-off piece of glass going into the bottle is equal to the

   probability that the bread lands on the floor jelly-side-down.

 - During capping, bottle and cap jam inside capper--leading to

   dilemma of trying to free bottle without cracking it.

(Digression: Sparkling wine bottles are interesting to brewers because

they're about twice the capacity of a regular beer bottle, and because

they're designed to withstand a lot of pressure.)

Empirically, an American sparkling wine, and a beer bottle, seem to have a

27 mm crown.  A European sparkling wine bottle seems to be 29 mm at the

maximum diameter.  This is less than 10% difference, but with some practice

you can spot the wrong bottles quickly even if the labels are missing.  If

the labels are still on, you should be able to get it right away...I've

never seen an American bottle of the "wrong" size nor a European bottle of

the "right" size.  (I'd be glad to know of any counterexamples!)  It appears

to be strictly national--the American arms of French Champagne houses use

American-gauge bottles.  (Somebody can probably get a term paper out of

that fact!)

If you're scrounging lots of bottles, you can easily cut a notch in a block

of wood, plastic, etc, to slip over the crown and check the size...getting

2 mm precision isn't hard.  Or if you've got a dial caliper (even a cheap

one) that will work.

 ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


Re : Cheap do-it-yourself kegging system...

Date: Sun, 19 Dec 93 14:00:50 GMT

From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas@lut.ac.uk>

Subject: Re : Cheap do-it-yourself kegging system...

Steven writes about using 2 Cornelius kegs, and no CO2 bottle, as a low-tech

means of kegging. My reaction? great to see such innovation. Dave Line actually

proposed storing the pressure from the _primary_ fermentation for later use,

which would overcome the need to prime with triple the normal

quantity. I presume that some commercial brewers must be salvaging their CO2.

The idea of using 2 kegs in harness illustrates a more general point:

that of the importance of having a relatively large headspace when attempting

to dispense using natural conditioning alone. So, in theory, if we had a

suitably large keg (say 15 galls), then we could probably dispense 5 galls of

brew without ever needing to re-pressurise. Even better if the keg was

collapsible, so that atmospheric pressure could maintain a near constant

serving pressure.

------------------------------


Brewery Geo/High Grav Brewing/Topping Up the 2ndary

Date:         Sun, 19 Dec 93 11:51:03 EST

From: John Eustace <3JCE1@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>

Subject:      Brewery Geo/High Grav Brewing/Topping Up the 2ndary

Hi All,

Thanks to all who responded to my question about pitching to 180 gals.

However, I didn't get any response to my query about brewery geometry.  Again,

I'm interested in any information you might have of the effects kettle geo-

metry and fermenter geometry have on the brewing process, from hop utilization

to rate of fermentation.  Even a list of sources to explore would be helpful.

I'd also be interested in more information on High Gravity Brewing.  Dr. Fix's

article on Diacetyl production in BREWING TECHNIQUES sparked my interest.  The

idea is to keep FAN levels up by brewing at optimal gravities (1.048) and then

diluting the result at bottling.  I believe he mentioned this practice in ref-

erence to the British Brewing industry.  My questions then, have to do with

when and how one does such a dilution.  For instance, do I do this just before

bottling, or when I rack to the secondary?  Will the dilution raise the pH of

the beer?  And if so what effect will that rise have?

My final question has to do with topping up the secondary.  I've been trying to

manage my boils and fermentations such that I have enough beer to fill the se-

condary, leaving less than an inch between the fermentation lock and the beer.

However, sometimes this doesn't quite work out, and I have to make a choice

as to whether or not I should add brewing water at this stage to top up the

carboy or leave the space in the carboy and hope the beer is still producing

enough CO2 to protect it from oxygen.  What is the consensus on this?  Is

topping up detrimental to the beer or is it at least less harmful than oxygen?

TIA and Cheers

JE

------------------------------


Receipe for Belgian White Beer (Celis White Clone)

Date: Sun, 19 Dec 93 15:40:40 EST

From: yeebot@aol.com

Subject: Receipe for Belgian White Beer (Celis White Clone)

NOTE: PLEASE IGNORE IF ALREADY RECEIVED!!!

Good to see a fellow Hoegaarden lover out there!

I have a full mash recipe I copied off of AOL that was uploaded by Dr Who2959

(We miss you on AOL; how's GEnie?) who in turn captured it off of the SW

Campus of the Homebrew U. BBS Network. It was a conversation between Tony

Storz and Steve Daniel (who seems to know Pierre Celis!) that occured at the

end of September. I hope I didn't forget anyone/thing. Now for the recipe:

Steve writes:

I have talked to Pierre and came up with this recipe:

2.25# 2 row

2.25# 6 row

4# unmalted wheat (hard red)

4 grams orange peel

4 grams corriander

1 ounce Hallertau leaf hops

As you can see, there is a lot of unmalted wheat to convert, therefore

a full mash is needed to make something similar to the real thing.  If

you are uable to do full mashes, try substituting 5 pounds of plain

light extract, and make a mash with 2 pounds each wheat and 6-row.  This will

not be nearly as wheaty as the real thing, but that's life.  Add

the crushed spices and all of the hops only 15 minutes before the end of the

boil.  Stay away from honey and sugar!  They are cheap, but not

worth tainting the flavor of your beer to save a few pennies.

What yeasts to use?

Slants of the Celis/Hoegaarden yeast are floating around the

homebrewer's community. I think there may be some in the Foam Ranger's Yeast

Library. I've heard that Wyeast has a sample of that strain, but

they haven't put it into production. If you can't find a white beer yeast or

are not ready to make a yeast starter from a slant, you might try the Wyeast

Bavarian Wheat Ale yeast.

This may be one of my crazier ideas, but I think it might get you closer

to Celis than using a regular ale yeast. The Wyeast Wheat Ale yeast haso

some Lactobacillus Delbrukii in it which would simulate the secondary

lactic fermentation that Pierre and company do. What do the rest of you

out there think?

P.S. I tried making a white beer yeast starter from some Steendonk

dregs, once. It didn't work.

He continues:

The secret is in the yeast, though.  I'm guessing they said to use amylase

enzyme in the mash as a supplement.  It's not needed in the full mash recipe,

but any more than 50% unmalted wheat will need it.

Now my caveats:

I haven't tried it yet, as I cannot do full mashes right now. I'm starting

small/cheap and currently have Papazian's Hoegaarden "clone" (with a few

minor variations) bubbling happily away in primary. I have also heard rumors

that a lactobacillus bacteria is needed to actually generate something that

can called a "clone". As I am VERY interested in someday brewing a true

Hoegaarden clone, I would like anybody else thoughts/ideas. Good luck. Keep

me informed, I'll tell you how the Pap Wit turns out!

Michael Yee/yeebot@aol.com

Angst Brewing Co.

"Just a glass of wine with dinner, ossifer."

------------------------------


Secondary in Stainless Probs

Date: Sun, 19 Dec 93 17:01:44 CST

From: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: Secondary in Stainless Probs

I've had this problem before and I'm afraid like they used to

say in Poldegeist.... It's baaaaack!

I know that many of your secondary in stainless steel cornelius kegs.

I like to do this as it takes up less space in my lagering refigerator.

This summer I encountered this off-taste problem with a couple of

American Lager's I brewed, did the primary in glass and then the

secondary in stainless. The off-taste is hard to describe. At first

I thought it was astringency, but it is more like a yeasty, metallic

taste. The taste persists even after filtering through a .5 micron

filter. It has happened when I've secondaried in stainless (about

5 total batches) but never when I've secondaried in glass (about

2 batches).

        Has anyone else had problems developing off-tastes in

secondary? Or, I suppose it might be the hops. Has anyone experienced

these kind of tastes when using 100% Cascade hops? I really would

appreciate your insight. I would rather not be crossing by fingers

with each batch.

        Finally, In case I don't get another chance... A Merry

Christmas to all the brewers on HBD. Or as some homebrew wag once

suggested. "A Beery Christmas to all, and a Happy New Beer!"

- -----

Internet: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com

    UUCP: metronet.com!pro-storm!philb

  Bitnet: philb%pro-storm.metronet.com@nosc.mil

------------------------------


RE: Hydrometers and SG

Date: Sun, 19 Dec 93 20:29:40 EST

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: RE: Hydrometers and SG

Brian Cole writes

>> This means that if a hydrometer has to cover a range of specific

>> gravities from 1.000 to 1.100 using a linear scale, there will be

>> a 10% error in the measurement from one end of the scale to

>> the other (due to the delta_SG**2 term).

and Ed Hitchcock responded:

>So, why don't they make homebrew hydrometers with a NON-LINEAR

>scale?  Would that make too much sense?

I thought the same thing as Ed, and so I checked my hydrometer

and sure enough, the markings are non-linear, with shorter

distances between higher gravity levels.  And this is the

no-frills hydrometer that came with my homebrew starter kit 2

1/2 years ago.

Bill Szymczak

------------------------------


White Plastic Homebrew Keg?

Date: Sun, 19 Dec 93 23:17:34 -0800

From: bcyr%spc.dnet@gpo.nsc.com

Subject: White Plastic Homebrew Keg?

Fellow Homebrewers,

I'm thinking of buying a white plastic 5 gallon keg, that I saw

in a local beverage store.  The keg is designed for homebrewing

and has a small replacable CO2 cartridge that goes inside it.

Has anyone tried a homebrew keg similar to this with good

(or bad) luck?

Thanks in advance, Bryan

Lisbon, Maine

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1302, 12/20/93

*************************************

-------


Free Speech Vs. "Professional Language"

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 04:44:29 -40975532 (CST)

From: "J. Andrew Patrick" <andnator@genesis.Mcs.Com>

Subject: Free Speech Vs. "Professional Language"

Much to my surprise, since posting my 1st message about the blatant

censorship that I encountered at the AOL Beer Forum, several HBD

readers have expressed opionions that I "got what I deserved" for

using such terrible language.  Al Korzonas, Michael T. Lobo, and,

GNT_TOX%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINECTON.EDU (whoever that is!) have

written (either publicly or privately) to indicate their opinions that:

1) AOL was justified in censoring me for using "profane" language, and/or

2) The HBD is "demeaned" by those who frequently use "profane" language,

     so we should all use "professional language" here, and/or

3) This is an AOL issue that has no business being discussed in the HBD.

All I did was say that I was "pissed off".  That's the worst of my

alleged "profanity".  Allow me to quote verbatim from Webster's New

Collegiate Dictionary, (c)1974 by G.&C. Merriam Webster Co:

"pissed off - adj. slang: ANGRY, DISAPPOINTED, DISGUSTED <a lot of

guys are _pissed_off_ at me 'cause I came in after them and made

corporal -Norman Mailer>"

Note that even as far back as 1974, Webster's did not feel that the term

deserved being labelled as vulgar or profane.  It would not surprise me

if even the "slang" label has been dropped in more recent editions.

Those of us who live and work on the Net value our electronic freedom of

speech very passionately.  People who know me in the real world know that I

am a very honest and opinionated person, who always says exactly what is on

his mind.  My close friends place high value on this trait.

I believe that I have an inalienable right to express myself in cyberspace

in the same manner as I do in real space.  This is just your basic First

Amendment principle applied to the on-line world.  If I am forced to

drastically alter my on-line persona because of a few prudes who don't

like seeing words like "orgasm" or "pissed off" in the HBD or AOL Beer

Forums, then I am being forced to live a lie, to pretend to be somebody

that I am not.

Is this REALLY what we want??

And if you still feel this discussion does not belong here, then please

keep your flames PRIVATE!!  I can be flamed DIRECTLY at "andnator@genesis.

mcs.com", or on either of my Home Brew U. BBS systems (listed below).

Public flames only serve to waste bandwidth and make the issue you are

are trying to get rid off reappear that much faster.

+--------------+---------------------------------+--------------+

|Sysop         |         Andrew Patrick          |       Founder|

|Home Brew Univ| AHA/HWBTA Recognized Beer Judge |Home Brew Univ|

|Midwest BBS   |  SW Brewing News Correspondent  | Southwest BBS|

|(708)705-7263 |Internet:andnator@genesis.mcs.com| (713)923-6418|

+--------------+---------------------------------+--------------+

------------------------------


Problems with Dark ales

Date: Sun, 19 Dec 93 22:35 CST

From: akcs.wally@vpnet.chi.il.us (John Walaszek)

Subject: Problems with Dark ales

Hello everyone, I am looking for some help in determining why

I am having problems with Dark Ales.  I have brewed about

25 all-grain ales and every attempt at a dark one (3 stouts

and 1 porter) I have ended up very disappointed.  I brew alot of

pale ales and brown ales and these have all been very consistent.

I think my problem may have to do with water chemistry, Lately

I have used pre-boiled Chicago City water.  I usually do not

check ph and don't really add any mineral salts.

The problem is all 4 of these beers have had a distinctly

musky-like aroma and flavor.  None have really tasted as

roasty as I have intended.  The beers seem thin tasting

as well and maybe even faintly sour.  My usual procedure is

add add crushed grain to 3 gallons 175F water.  Rest at

153-155F for 90 minutes.  Sparge for about 45 minutes.

Boil 90 minutes.  Chill using chiller.

These are my last two that I have tried and I felt the recipes

should have produced a very full-bodied creamy roasty

delicious porter and stout.  Instead I find them flawed but

drinkable.

Porter 5.5 gallons OG: 1.052 FG: 1.012

- --------------------------------------

10.00 lbs Belgian 2-row Pale Ale Malt

10.00 oz  Belgian Black Patent Malt

 8.00 oz  Belgian Cara-Vienna Malt

 8.00 oz  English Dextrin

 8.00 oz  Belgian Cara-Munich Malt

 7.00 oz  Belgian Special-B Malt

 1.50 oz  Kent Goldings Pellets ( 60)  5.4%

 1.00 oz  Kent Goldings Pellets ( 30)  5.4%

 0.50 oz  Kent Goldings Pellets ( 15)  5.4%

 Wyeast #1084 Irish Ale

Oatmeal Stout 5.5 gallons OG: 1.052 FG: 1.014

- ---------------------------------------------

 8.50 lb  Belgian 2-row Pale Ale Malt

16.00 oz  Flaked Oats

16.00 oz  Belgian Roasted Barley

 6.00 oz  Belgian Chocolate Malt

 6.00 oz  Belgian Cara-Vienna Malt

 4.00 oz  Belgian Black Malt

 1.00 oz  Bullion Pellets ( 60) 9.2%

 Wyeast #1084 Irish Ale

 Any comments would be helpful, thanks!

 Wally

------------------------------


Reusable 5l kegs ...

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 93 07:31:47 CST

From: palme@am1.icgmfg.mke.ab.com (Palme)

Subject: Reusable 5l kegs ...

Hi All!

I saw a pretty nifty little gadget on the shelf of my local homebrew

shop/microbrewery.  (Ok, ok, so Dan shares floorspace with Lakefront.  Sip

and buy.  Sip and browse.  What a racket!)  It's a reusable 5l stainless

keg, similar to the "party kegs" one can purchase at the liquor store.  A

set of 4 comes with a resuable tapper/dispenser.  (I won't mention the

price, just yet)  So, any thoughts?  Ideas?  Anyone out there *have* one

of these?  It sure would be nice to get away from bottling 2 cases every

time.  I would see putting up two of these kegs per batch and then one

case of bottles for "dispersal."

Comments *always* appreciated ...

D.

- ---

Diane Palme, EIT                             You really think that A-B would

Design Engineer, Special Machines      accept my opinions as their own?

Allen-Bradley Co.    (414) 382-2617          <sheesh!>

dspalme@mke.ab.com

palme@am1.icgmfg.mke.ab.com

 Every now and then my hair color takes over and I cannot

  be held accountable for my actions.

------------------------------


Corona Recipe?

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 09:14:37 -0400 (EDT)

From: Fred Bucalos <BUCALOFJ@SNYONEVA.CC.ONEONTA.EDU>

Subject: Corona Recipe?

 My brother has an affinity for "Corona" Mexican beer.  Does anyone have

a recipe for "Corona" or know of a recipe reference?  Many thanks in advance.

Happy Holidays to all.   :-)

 Fred Bucalos

 e-mail:  bucalofj@snyoneva.cc.oneonta.edu

------------------------------


Re: Al Again?

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 93 09:05:52 EST

From: John DeCarlo                              <jdecarlo@homebrew.mitre.org>

Subject: Re: Al Again?

Interestingly enough, I just saw a cooking show discussing pots and pans.  The

most highly recommended was copper with a stainless steel coating on the

inside.  But the point being emphasized is that copper conducts heat best,

then aluminum, then stainless steel (of the materials on hand for cooking).

Specifically mentioned was that an all-stainless-steel pot will scorch food

easily as the heat will come straight through from the bottom rather than

spread out evenly.  So, there were lots of second-best alternatives, including

stainless with aluminum or copper bottom layers to spread heat evenly and

aluminum pots that were either anodized or had non-stick surfaces applied.

In conclusion, plain aluminum pots are subject to staining or pitting with

acidic foods; plain stainless steel can scorch/burn easily because of poor

heat conductivity; some combination is probably best but properly treated

aluminum shouldn't have the same problems as cheap/plain aluminum.

John DeCarlo, MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA--My views are my own

Fidonet:  1:109/131  Internet:  jdecarlo@mitre.org

When a cow laughs, does milk come out its nose?

------------------------------


Brewpub info desired

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 93 09:27:09 EST

From: gorman@aol.com

Subject: Brewpub info desired

I'd appreciate any comments via private email on brewpubs you've got personal

experience with:

1. Inside th

e San Francisco city limits

2. Anywhere in the Seattle metro area.

Thanks,

Bill Gorman

gorman@aol.com

------------------------------


temp step mash scorching

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 93 07:14:00 -0600

From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

Subject: temp step mash scorching

When doing temp step mashes with my Cajun Cooker (160,000 btu's!)

I've noticed that I frequently get mash sticking to the bottom of

the kettle and charring. This happens even at the lowest levels of

heat and the kettle suspended above the flame on bricks. Now I've

found the solution to this problem.

I purchased a "pizza stone". This is a ceramic disk about 18" in

diameter and about an inch thick (they come square too) that you

place in your oven to heat up and duplicate a pizza oven like found

at your favorite pizza shop. I put this on top of the Cajun Cooker

and turned on the heat. The stone heats up and evenly distributes

the heat. No scorch, no burn, just nice even heat applied uniformly

to the bottom of the pan.

I purchased a "second" in the Chicago burbs at the Piano Factory

outlet mall (Housewares Outlet) in St. Charles for $10.

This store is just down the hall from the Corning Outlet

that sells yards of ale and carboys inexpensively. Obviously, a first

would cost more. They also have giant wooden spoons which are

perfect for stirring stiff mashes...

Chuck

 * RM 1.2 00946 *  Therapy helps but screaming obscenities is cheaper.

------------------------------


New Brewer...Saga Continues

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 10:02:55 -0500 (EST)

From: LUKASIK_D@sunybroome.edu

Subject: New Brewer...Saga Continues

Thanks to all of your who responded dirctly to my first inquiry!  Just thought

I would give you an update:  The third batch, an Australian Ale (which by the

way has changed color and looks much better now) developed a small amount of

white colored mold in the neck of the 6 1/2 gal carboy.  I have no idea what

caused this or if in factt it was mold (?) but since the krausen had settled

I deemed it prudent to rack to a secondary as soon as possible.  Since at this

time I only have one 6 1/2 gal primary and one 5 gal secondary (which had the

Olde Ale in it) we ended up bottling the Olde Ale on Saturday (8 day ferment).

It had an ending SG of 1.022 abd alcohol of 5.25% (a lot lower than I was

hoping for), was still quite sweet but still drinkable.  So far (48 hours) none

of the bottles have blown and I am keeping my fingers crossed as I am planning

on keeping it at room temp for a week before transfering to storage in the

basement.  I am hoping that the alcohol increases and the sweetness mellows

with some ageing in the bottle.  Any thoughts on this?

What could have caused the mold in the neck of the carboy?  I had given it a 2

day sanitation water soak with 2 tbls. of clorine, several good hot rinses with

the bottle washer, and immediately filled it again.  Is it possible that it

wasn't mold in the first place?  Any other possibilities?  The beer by the way

tastes fine (in fact it seems to have more of the bitterness that I am looking

for) and doesn't appear to have any mold in it.  It has dropped to 1.015 SG

in 4 days and currently has about 4% alcohol.  It is clearing nicely in the

secondary and is obtaining a nice light amber color.  I must admit that the

trup was some of the ugliest stuff I have every seen (reminiscent of things

I have seen in my 2 year olds diapers when he has been sick...UCK!!!)

I am remeding the 2 carboy problem by adding additional 5 gals. to I can also

try making some lagers.

About to try the 4th batch...an IPA.

I think I'm hooked!!!!   Need to learn more patience...as my friend said "the

name of this game is waiting"...I wanted to drink the first batch.

Doug

"SodBuster Suds"

------------------------------


Power Sparger

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 09:19:23 -0600

From: trl@photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965)

Subject: Power Sparger

Yesterday I experienced my first-ever set mash.  I was

making an Oatmeal Stout, with 15% oatmeal.  It was the

five-minute Quaker Oats oatmeal.  I lauter in a bottling

bucket with a false-bottom plus a grainbag.  The first

couple of  gallons of runnings didn't take too long, but

after that, it slowed to an  imperceptible trickle.  Rats!!

I need a

   P o w e r  S p a r g e r !!

Rrrright, power sparger, oh yeahhh, arrgh..... (doing best

Tim Allen impression I can muster).

I remembered reading that some large breweries can apply a

partial vacuum underneath their grain bed to hurry things

along, and I was thinking about how I could accomplish this

before the sparge completed on its own.  I decided I

couldn't.  Then I thought maybe I could push the sparge

water through from the top.

I went and got a lid for the bucket, and drilled a 3/8" hole

in the top.  Fetched my CO2 tank from the dispensing system

(I keg), and stuffed a hose into the hole.  I fastened the

lid onto the bucket well-enough to hold a little pressure,

and SLOWLY cracked the low-pressure side valve open.    The

lid bulged up some, and I waited.  Sure enough, the

imperceptible trickle became perceptable, respectable even,

and the sparge finished in about 40 minutes.

I suspect this could be adapted for use with picnic cooler

mash-tuns too.  Anyway, FWIW, it worked once...

 t

------------------------------


Re: Geometry/high gravity

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 10:43:57 -0500 (EST)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: Geometry/high gravity

> From: John Eustace <3JCE1@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>

> Subject:      Brewery Geo/High Grav Brewing/Topping Up the 2ndary

>

However, I didn't get any response to my query about brewery geometry.

Again,

> I'm interested in any information you might have of the effects kettle geo-

metry and fermenter geometry have on the brewing process, from hop

utilization

Mine are of equal height to width (mash tun/kettle, lauter tun/fermenter).

As systems are scaled up, they tend to become more shallow, 2-3 times the

width to height.  I have seen many variations on geometry used in many

good breweries, so I feel there is a lot of leeway for the designer.

Pikes Place uses a fairly tall and narrow 3/4 BBl kettle.  Sierra

uses a classic copper onion dome kettle, these tend to be shallow.

Fermenter geometry can have a impact on the system.  The biggest issue

is where to place the chilling jackets, based on what type of fermenter

you are are using (unitanks should be jacketed differently than open

fermenters).  Even the style of beer and production techniques become

important when scaling up breweries.  Jacketing placement is significant

in terms of convection currents that develop inside the fermenter, and

this is also dependent on geometry.

>

>I'd also be interested in more information on High Gravity Brewing.

I have been diluting 10% in the kettle, boil the last 20 min, and

whirlpool/counter flow.  I have also on occaision, added more water

into the fermenter via my counter flow chiller.  I suggest adding water

to the wort, prior to fermentation.  The pH can change when using much

greater amounts of water, and this might be cause to acidulate the

water.

>re:topping up secondary

I am not a fan of this, but I know many others do so with success.

Top up with boiled water, or save additional wort to add.  I would

advise a CO2 balst into the secondary prior to racking if this is a

concern.

> From: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com (Phil Brushaber)

> Subject: Secondary in Stainless Probs

>

> I know that many of your secondary in stainless steel cornelius kegs.

> I like to do this as it takes up less space in my lagering refigerator.

> This summer I encountered this off-taste problem with a couple of

> American Lager's I brewed, did the primary in glass and then the

> secondary in stainless. The off-taste is hard to describe. At first

> I thought it was astringency, but it is more like a yeasty, metallic

> taste. The taste persists even after filtering through a .5 micron

> filter. It has happened when I've secondaried in stainless (about

> 5 total batches) but never when I've secondaried in glass (about

> 2 batches).

I have had some scale build up problems with my kegs, that required a

good caustic/acid wash schedule.  Not sure if this is the cause of

the taste, check for problem weld areas.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Thanks/Creole/Stouts

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 93 10:21:59 CST

From: chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu (Chris Pencis)

Subject: Thanks/Creole/Stouts

Ok Folks, here we go...

        1. Happy Holidays...for those of you interesed in the creole

recipe, email me and I will reply with it when I get back in Jan.

        2. I got my results back from my first competition (Austin Brew

Ha Ha - my 6th batch, an extract/specialty grain brown ale) and I'm

happy.  My brew came out with a 25, and I think that I would have been

scored higher if I had subclassified the brown ale category (english

american etc) but it was between styles and I felt like I would have

been guessing as to style anyway...(I cant try all these micros to

help me define my styles in Texas - relatively few are sold here).

Point being that I got nice beer reviews, no off flavors or infections.

This makes me feel that I've got the essentials down - I have the HBD

community to thank for this one - THANKS!

        3. Semi-related literature: *A Natural History of the Senses*

by Diane Ackerman.  An excellent book which goes into the nuances of

sensation - particularly relevant to we brewers who are dabbling with

the alchemy of hops, malt etc to produce our magic are the chapters on

smell and taste.  Well worth an afternoon perusal in the library or

bookstore - ISBN 0-679-73566-6. Standard disclaimers apply here - just

a happy reader.

        4. Advice on Stout recipes tried from the Cat's Meow or anywhere

else would be appreciated as I am looking at trying to brew my 1st.  I

have a hankering to make something similar to Sam Smiths (is this dry or

sweet? honest - I need to know....) extract recipes and private e-mail

preferred.

                                Thanks all      Chris

|Chris Pencis     chips@coleslaw.me.utexas.edu |

|University of Texas at Austin  Robotics Research Group      |

------------------------------


Aluminum pots

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 11:32:56 -0600 (CST)

From: "Bill Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Aluminum pots

There's some interesting information on the use of aluminum ware in Dave

Miller's column in the latest _Brewing Techniques_ and in Papazian's Doctor

whater-it-is column in the latest _Zymurgy_.  The summary of both articles

is that there is no evidence that using aluminum kettles will adversly

affect beer flavor.  Commercial brewery's don't use aluminum because it is

attacked by the caustic cleaners that they use.  Certainly stainless steel

is more durable an more inert.  So it sound like this may be just another

myth propagated about the homebrew community.  (FWIW I'm saving up for a

SS pot.)

By the way:  be very careful about what you read in supplier's catalogues.

They often suffer from the same lack of knowledge that the rest of do.

Sante' WAK

------------------------------


Specific Gravity Measurement

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 11:32:53 -0600 (CST)

From: "Bill Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Specific Gravity Measurement

In HBD #1301 reeves@lanl.gov (Geoff Reeves) writes

[snip]

>Undisolved particles (including colloids) do not affect the measurement of

>specific gravity. A easy to visualize example is to imagine a lake of pure

[snip]

This is not correct. Both suspended (undisolved) solids and dissovled solids

will affect the specific gravity measurements.  That is so long as they

remain suspended in solution.  In fact this phenomenon is used to measure

the size of colloidal soil particles.  If you have any doubts about this

try the following.  Take a trub laden sample off of the bottom on you

boiler shake it well to suspend all the solids and quickly measure the

specific gravity (before the junk settles out).  Then leave the sample sit

until the junk has all settled to the bottom of the sample tube.  Now

measure the specific gravity again.  You will find that the second reading

gives a lower Sg than the first.  The difference may or may not be large

enough to be of concern but suspended solid definetly do affect the

measured Sg.

Also on the subject of temperature corrections.  If one is measuring Sg at

ale fermentation temps then the correction is small (.001 or .002)  if,

however, one is measuring the the Sg of sparge runnings or boiling wort the

corrections can be quite large (like .015 or more).  So don't blow off the

correction if you're trying to boil wort down to right OG!  By the way,

sierra.stanford.edu has a file with a table of Sg corrections and a

polynomial fit.  The file is /pub/homebrew/docs/sg_vs_temp.

Sante' WAK

------------------------------


early racking, ice-bath cooling, Barney Bashing

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 10:47:02 -0500 (cdt)

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: early racking, ice-bath cooling, Barney Bashing

DQpNYXliZSBJIHNob3VsZG4ndCBoYXZlIGdvbmUgb24gYXQgc3VjaCBsZW5ndGgg

dGhlIG90aGVyIGRheSBhYm91dCBteSBlYXJseS0NCnJhY2tpbmcgZXhwZXJpZW5j

ZTsgZWl0aGVyIHRoZXJlIGlzIHNvIG11Y2ggaW50ZXJlc3RpbmcgZGlzY3Vzc2lv

biBvbiBIQkQgDQp0aGVzZSBkYXlzIHRoYXQgbXkgcXVlc3Rpb24gaXMgbGVzcyBp

bnRlcmVzdGluZyB0byB0aGUgU2FnZXMgb2YgQnJld2luZyB0aGFuIA0Kb3RoZXJz

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bGxpYW5jZSBvZiBaeW11cmdpc3RzICYgSW5ub2N1b3VzIERpbm9zYXVycykNCg0K

------------------------------


Sparkling Wine bottles

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 93 9:43:41 MST

From: Earle M. Williams <earlew@drc.usbm.gov>

Subject: Sparkling Wine bottles

To continue the thread on domestic vs European "Champagne" bottles,

another fine candidate is the Martinelli's Sparkling Cider bottle.

They even come with a crown cap rather than cork and bracket.

FWIW

Earle

- --

Earle M. Williams

U.S. Bureau of Mines

Denver, Colorado  USA

(Internet) earlew@drc.usbm.gov

------------------------------


no subject (file transmission)

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 09:58:40 -0500 (EST)

From: okra@genesis.nred.ma.us (dean goulding)

Subject: no subject (file transmission)

NO TEAM. NO BUD.

FYI, a boycott of Anheuser Bush products is being organized in New

England to protest New England Patriots owner James Busch

Orthwein's attempts to sell the Patriots to Stan Kroenke and move

the team to St Louis.  As reported by Will McDonough in the Boston

Globe 12/18/93 p. 67, player agent Randy Vataha asks to start the

boycott Sunday @ 1 and continue until the team is sold to an

ownership that will keep it here.  Drop off points will be

announced where fans can drop off any Anheuser-Bush products that

will be trucked to a spot near the stadium and dumped to

demonstrate to Orthwein our opposition.  Orthwein who is the 3rd

largest stockholder of AB, lost a bid for a new NFL franchise last

month and seems willing to risk a number of lawsuits(TM), including

breaking his lease in Foxboro, to move the team.

"Tell you friendly bartender to serve something else.  Tell the guy

who owns your neighborhood pub or local package store not to order

Busch products..."   Amen!  Besides, the local breweries and

brewpubs can always use the business!

------------------------------


Raw Honey vs Processed

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 93 10:54:14 PST

From: Bob W Surratt <Bob_W_Surratt@ccm.hf.intel.com>

Subject: Raw Honey vs Processed

Text item: Text_1

     Season's Greetings all!

     Can anyone tell me the difference in raw honey vs. the processed

     variety?  Is the raw lower in sugar content since it hasn't been

     boiled, driving off some of the water?

     Thanks for your help,

     Bob Surratt  Orangevale, CA

------------------------------


magazines

Date:     Mon, 20 Dec 93 14:32 EST

From: <GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

Subject:  magazines

Two basic questions for you guys:

1- Is it possible to buy Zymurgy, without having to join the AHA.

2- What do you people think of _Brewing_Techniques_ magazine?

------------------------------


Potential Extract of Dark Malts

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 12:39:29 -0600

From: dmorey@iastate.edu

Subject: Potential Extract of Dark Malts

Greetings fellow homebrewers and beer lovers,

 This is my first posting on HBD.  I have been doing all grain

brewing for about a year and a half and have a question about expected

extract from dark grains.  I have compliled a list which was created

by averaging values from multiple sources.  Most sources i have found

don't cover potential extract of dark malts very much.  So I would

like to hear the wisdom of the brewers out there.  Here is the list I

have compliled up to this date:

Ingredient:   pt. gallons / lb

Malt extract    35

Dry spray malt    42

Corn sugar    37

Cane sugar (yuk)   44

Brown sugar    41

Rice syrup    36

Dextrin powder    42

Pale malt    31

Lager malt    31

Munich malt    26

Mild ale malt    27

Crystal malt    22

Wheat malt    34 (this seems high)

Cara pils malt    23

Roast barley    27 (isn't this high also?)

Chocolate malt    27           "

Black patent    27           "

Honey     38

Molasses    45

 I would like to thank all of in advance.  I hope other people

in our group will find this information useful.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Dan A. Morey  Reminding you to drink 2 to 3 beers a day.

dmorey@iastate.edu According to a recent study this will reduce

   your chance of a heart attack by 50%!

   CHEERS!!!!!!!!

_______________________________________________________________________________

------------------------------


yard o' beer

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 15:38:26 -0500

From: lovelace@pop.nih.gov (Chris Lovelace)

Subject: yard o' beer

>Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 15:34:01 -0500

>From: "Daniel K. Yee" <yee@a1.relay.upenn.edu

>Subject: yards & 1/2 yards

>Hi all,

>I've been thinking of getting a yard or 1/2 yard beer glass (with stand)

>for my brother as a birthday gift.  What are the best deals out there?

>Thanks in advance.

>                        Dan "Sven" Yee

You can get yard, 1/2 yard, and foot glasses with the wooden stand for a

pretty good price at a Corning/Revere outlet (for those of you near DC, I

think one of these just opened up at Potomac Mills, but I haven't been by

yet).  They have good prices on glass carboys, too.  I'm not sure exacly

what the prices for these items are, but I do remember they are quite a bit

lower than those at the local homebrew shop.

Chris

------------------------------


Extract experience

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 20:59:18 -0600

From: ccamley@mmm.com (Chris Amley - 3M Telecommunications)

Subject: Extract experience

In HBD1301 Todd Carlson asked for comments re different commercial malt

extracts.  I'm interested in this topic, too, especially regarding

Northwestern-brand extracts.  What are they made from?  Two-row or six-row

barley.  If two-row, what is the variety and origin?  What is the yield

(degrees OG/pound/gallon)?  Are they consistent from batch to batch and

year to year?  For context, I'm brewing pale ale (using Edme DMS) and

porter (using Munton & Fison Light).  The owner of my homebrew store has

been trying to get answers to these questions, but without luck, and has

gently steered me away from Northwestern.

And, yes, I know I wouldn't be asking this question if I were brewing

all-grain...

------------------------------


New Amsterdam - New York Amber - Ideas?

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 19:27:25 -0800

From: royh@netcom.com (Roy Harvey)

Subject: New Amsterdam - New York Amber - Ideas?

I just tried a very tasty new microbrew that I bought at my local grocery

store,  It's called "New Amsterdam - New York Amber Beer".  Very nice!  Has

anyone else tried it?  I'd love to take a crack at making an extract clone

of it.  The neck label reads "New Amsterdam contains only the finest

ingredients: two-row roasted barley malt and Cascade and Hallertauer hops."

I guess that's a start!

The label continues, "New Amsterdam has been consistently judges to be among

the finest beers in the world."  Yes, it is very good...

Cheers!

(and Happy Holidays!)

Roy Harvey

Mountain View, CA

------------------------------


Seltzer Carbonators

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 19:29:13 -0800

From: royh@netcom.com (Roy Harvey)

Subject: Seltzer Carbonators

Anyone have experience using the soda water/CO2 bottles to quick carbonate

beer?  Just a thought...  Anyone know a good source for these little setups?

Cheers!

(and Happy Holidays!)

Roy Harvey

Mountain View, CA

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1303, 12/21/93

*************************************

-------


Sg/particulate

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 03:08:16 -0600

From: bliss@pixel.convex.com (Brian Bliss)

Subject: Sg/particulate

"Bill Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu> writes:

>[snip]

>>Undisolved particles (including colloids) do not affect the measurement of

>>specific gravity. A easy to visualize example is to imagine a lake of pure

>[snip]

>

>This is not correct. Both suspended (undisolved) solids and dissovled solids

>will affect the specific gravity measurements.  That is so long as they

>remain suspended in solution.  In fact this phenomenon is used to measure

>the size of colloidal soil particles.  If you have any doubts about this

>try the following.  Take a trub laden sample off of the bottom on you

>boiler shake it well to suspend all the solids and quickly measure the

>specific gravity (before the junk settles out).  Then leave the sample sit

>until the junk has all settled to the bottom of the sample tube.  Now

>measure the specific gravity again.  You will find that the second reading

>gives a lower Sg than the first.  The difference may or may not be large

>enough to be of concern but suspended solid definetly do affect the

>measured Sg.

The "junk" in question is protein coagulate.  When mixed into a solution,

it does not raise the SG as would sugar.  This would seem to imply that it

has a lower SG than wort.  Yet it falls to the bottom.  Why?

>From an observational standpoint, I have noticed that the SG measurements

increase after the trub falls out (i.e. the wort mixed with trub has a

lower SG than does the clarified wort).  One would think it would

decrease. **

i.e. why doeshit sink?

** One cannot discount the possiblitly that this is due to temperature

correction error or other measurement errors on my part.  I have never,

however, observed a SG decrease after clarification, and have obseved

increases several times.

bb

------------------------------


clip art requests

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 08:47:14 +0000 (U)

From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: clip art requests

                      clip art requests

Thanks for all of the requests for mac/brew clip art.

I cannot possibly reply to all of you in any semblance of

promptness, so here's what I'll do.

I am going to create a clip art package and post it to

sierra.stanford.edu for the world as a shareware package

of my artwork. The fee for use of such will be quite

liberal: send me a bottle of homebrew AND give me a

mention regarding your label artwork. Sounds

reasonable.

I'll post the clip art after christmas.

george

------------------------------


Trying to boycott the Mega-brews

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 10:08:22 -0500

From: ambroser@apollo.dml.georgetown.edu (Samuel Adam's)

Subject: Trying to boycott the Mega-brews

Good Luck trying to boycott A.B. (BUD) products! I think you would have a

more easier time trying to boycott water! :)

Since "nearly one out of two beers is an A.B. product" (a direct quote from

the St. Louis beer tour, since they sold 86 million [more or less] barrels in

a year) a "strong" boycott would probably "hurt" their sales by .001%.

Just had to add my $.02 since I feel you are wasting your time. Sorta like

when teenagers were supposed to "boycott" the Beatles and destroy any kind of

"things" they had relating to the Beatles. It was silly. (If you aren't in your

30's or later you probably don't remember)

------------------------------


Re: Problems with Dark ales

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 8:25:22 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Re: Problems with Dark ales

John Walaszek writes:

>Hello everyone, I am looking for some help in determining why

>I am having problems with Dark Ales.  I have brewed about

>25 all-grain ales and every attempt at a dark one (3 stouts

>and 1 porter) I have ended up very disappointed.  I brew alot of

>pale ales and brown ales and these have all been very consistent.

>

>I think my problem may have to do with water chemistry, Lately

>I have used pre-boiled Chicago City water.  I usually do not

>check ph and don't really add any mineral salts.

>

>The problem is all 4 of these beers have had a distinctly

>musky-like aroma and flavor.  None have really tasted as

>roasty as I have intended.  The beers seem thin tasting

>as well and maybe even faintly sour.  My usual procedure is

>add add crushed grain to 3 gallons 175F water.  Rest at

>153-155F for 90 minutes.  Sparge for about 45 minutes.

>Boil 90 minutes.  Chill using chiller.

John, I have the very same problems (great pale/amber beers, lousy dark beers),

although I haven't brewed as many batches as you.  I suspect your guess about

water chemistry is correct, and I am in process of investigating my water

chemistry (request sent out yesterday to the city utilities).  It looks like

I'm going to have to quit ignoring the ingredient which makes up 99.9% of the

beer - the water!  Time to crack the books, but in the meantime, any HBD gems

would be appreciated.  Oh, I would describe my dark beer attempts as

astringent, murky, thin, not malty at all.

Norm

------------------------------


Weissbeir

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 10:40:40 -0500

From: jld3@po.CWRU.Edu (Jeffrey L. Duerk)

Subject: Weissbeir

Recently I had a chance to try a Weissbeir at Berghoff's in

Chicago, and loved it!  Since then, I've had every other

variety that I can get my hands on.  Now I'd like to try to make

one.  From what I can tell, one of the critical components is the

specific strain of yeast, yet I have not been able to locate

one that would be appropriate (or at least good), nor have I

found a reliable recipe.  If anyone has any experience in

this area, a recipe to share, and yeast info, I'd appreciate

either a posting here, or directly to me at jld3@po.cwru.edu

Second, those of us fortunate enough to live near Great Lakes

Brewery here in Cleveland have been thrilled once again at

their Porter, IPA, and Christmas Ale.  I bought a twelve

of the Christmas Ale for my brother (who regularly attends

the Portland Ore. beer festivals): he's going to have to

settle for a six.

Jeff Duerk- Case Western Reserve University

------------------------------


Hoptech and "handeling" charges

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 10:52:27 EST

From: Gary S. Kuyat <gsk@sagan.bellcore.com>

Subject: Hoptech and "handeling" charges

Full-Name: Gary S. Kuyat

I had read some comments on fruit extracts and was interested in trying

a raspberry and blueberry for myself.  I called Hoptech and placed an order

for 1 each.  Total weight for this order < 1lb.  Being somewhat familiar

with shipping costs, I asked for UPS BLUE (second day).  When I received

the package I was billed $9.75 in shipping and handling on a $12 product

order!  I called the company and was told that a $4 "handling" fee was

charged to me since my order was < $30.  This is something that folks

should know!  The extracts taste fine, but Hoptech's rediculous S&H fees

left a bitter taste in my mouth...

- --

 -Gary Kuyat

  gsk@sagan.bellcore.com

  (908)699-8422

------------------------------


Raw honey vs processed

Date:         Tue, 21 Dec 93 10:37:07 EST

From: Aaron Morris <SYSAM@ALBANY.ALBANY.EDU>

Subject:      Raw honey vs processed

Bob Surratt queries about the difference between raw and processed

honey.  The main difference is that processed honey has been heated,

and filtered.  Heating makes the honey less viscous/more fluid so it

will pump through hoses and pass through filters easier.  The filters

(usually fine cheese cloth) remove the foreign material (dust,

pollen, bee's wax, spare bee parts) from the honey.  Heating also drives

off volatile enzymes from the honey, which may change the flavor.

Commercial honey may also be a blended of different varieties of honey.

Raw honey is simply honey that has not been processed.  When I extract

and bottle my honey, I use cheese cloth to filter out foreign matter,

but no heat is involved (preserving the volatile enzymes) and I

make attempts to keep clover honey separate from aster honey, etc.

For true Raw Honey, find a local beekeeper.

Disclaimer: Answers provided by a hobby beekeeper ;-)

------------------------------


Re: malt extraction efficiencies

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 11:58:01 -0400

From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH@ac.dal.ca>

Subject: Re: malt extraction efficiencies

dmorey@iastate.edu gives the following list of extract efficiencies.  Some

of the values don't seem right, so I've appended the values I have that

differ from those listed

>Ingredient:           pt. gallons / lb               I have:

>Malt extract                35

>Dry spray malt              42    43

>Corn sugar                  37    45

>Cane sugar (yuk)            44    45

>Brown sugar                 41    44

>Rice syrup                  36

>Dextrin powder              42

>Pale malt                   31    36

>Lager malt                  31    35

>Munich malt                 26    30-33

>Mild ale malt               27    29-34

>Crystal malt                22    29-31

>Wheat malt                  34 (this seems high) 39

>Cara pils malt              23    29

>Roast barley                27 (isn't this high also?) 29

>Chocolate malt              27           "  29

>Black patent                27           "  29

>Honey                       38

>Molasses                    45    42

 Note that the extraction rate for mash ingredients are a

theoretical maximum, not the expected rate.  Thus, a good homebrew setup

typically gets 80% of theoretical maximum, or about 30 pts/lb/gal using

pale ale or lager malt.  The extract efficiency of 6 row is about 20% less

than 2 row.

 With that I bid ye all a happy Holiday season, I'm unsubscribing

for the duration of 1993...

____________

Ed Hitchcock ech@ac.dal.ca | Oxymoron:  Draft beer in bottles. |

Anatomy & Neurobiology  | Pleonasm:  Draft beer on tap.     |

Dalhousie University, Halifax |___________________________________|

------------------------------


SS Mash/Lauter Tun

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 09:26:00 -0700

From: WHEATON_JOHN/HPBOI1_03@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com

Subject: SS Mash/Lauter Tun

Item Subject: d:/beer/mashlaut.txt

I am in the process of installing an "easy-masher" type of set up to eliminate

the screen for my SS keg lauter tun so I can scrape the bottom when raising the

temp. My heat source is from the bottom and I do step mashing.  The nipple

welded in t he bottom of my keg is 1/2" dia. and I installed fittings to have a

1" copper tube with a cap come across the bottom about 1" from the bottom.  This

tube will be slott ed and serve as my filter mechanism.

Anybody tried this?  Any suggestions on improvement?  I plan on doing a test

batch in a couple of weeks with this.

The reason for not using a rolled up screen is the durability of it when I am

mixing the grain during mashing. Also, the $$.  I can easily bump the slotted

tube with out knocking it off and I can get the grain moving under it easily to

min. temp. inconsistancies.

I want to keep the expense to a minimum and still have good brew.  The copper

tube and brass fittings were nominal at $12.

My current SS keg lauter tun is like this..of course not to scale....

          |                       |

          | ______________________|welded SS nipple where + are threads

           |     SS sheet      +++|-+++

            |     1.5" space   ++|--+++  coupling, brass ball valve, barb

             |__________________|

                NO HEAT - hand transferred from 11 gal SS mash kettle where is

                          has been mashed.

This is what I plan.....for MASH/LAUTER tun

          | slotted 1" copper. w/cap (about 12" long)

          |     ____________ _    |welded SS nipple where + are threads

           |   ||           | |+++|-+++

            |  ||_^_^_^_^_^_|_|++|--+++  coupling, brass ball valve, barb

about 3/4"   |__________________|

from bottom        HEAT - no transfer necessary

I would appreciate any comments.

jw

------------------------------


Rager's hop utilization curve

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 11:00:20 -0500 (EST)

From: /R=HERLVX/R=AM/U=KLIGERMAN/FFN=KLIGERMAN/@mr.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: Rager's hop utilization curve

I must preface this by saying this is not a flame %)!  I was quite amused by

a recent post  trying to fit Rager's hop utilization rates to a second or third

order polynomial expression.   I enjoy seeing you techies spin the numbers

almost as much as reading posts from Jack Schmidling!! But be real!! The hop

utilization rates are ranges over 5 min intervals.  If you plot the midpoint

of the ranges versus utilization and even add 0 for 0 time, you get just as

good a plot with a linear fit r^2=0.99 for y=0.576x (where y is the % util.,

and x is time) then you do with second a third order polynomials (r^2=0.98).

We cannot be very accurate with hop utiliz. rates to several decimal places

since the alpha acid levels are only approximate.  It might be fun but it

is only an exercise in curve fitting.  (By the way you can't just drop

data points because they don't give the correct esthetic look!  So

for all practical purposes y=0.6x would be accurate enough.  Sorry for

rambling on, by I'm in the government and here to help you!

Andy Kligerman

------------------------------


storing lagers in bottles

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 11:43:01 EST

From: Mark Bunster <mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu>

Subject: storing lagers in bottles

A rather obvious question, but one seemingly not answered by Papazian:

once you've bottled a lager (eg, a nice dark single bock), how you should

store the bottles? Is it useful to keep them at temps below 60F? Is it better

to keep them colder but constant (eg in a fridge), or not quite as cold but

varying with the weather (eg on a porch)? And as long as I've got you all

here, what is the possible off flavor damage to a lager sitting primary and

secondary for about 4 1/2 weeks total? (Discounting contamination; I'm just

wondering about the thick layer of trub at the bottom, which may or may not

be bad, seeing as how it's naturally a bottom fermenter).

Don't try honey in an IPA. Well, you can, but the sweetness confuses a little

bit with all those hops. I think it will mellow with time, but I think there

are better recipes to include honey in than an IPA.

Happy beeridays,

M

- --

Mark Bunster                      |Exchange conversation if you dare--

Survey Research Lab--VCU          |Share an empty thought or a laugh.

Richmond, VA 23220                |

mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu            |

(804) 367-8813/353-1731           |                          -edFROM

------------------------------


Questions on: Hop storage and Step Infusion

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 11:59:39 -0500

From: edo@marcam.com (Ed Oriordan)

Subject: Questions on: Hop storage and Step Infusion

Hello,

Question 1) I store my hops (pellets) in the freezer.  They are not in oxygen

barrier bags, but in little heat sealed plastic bags.  Would it help presserve

them if I put them (still in the bags) into a glass jar and filled the

jar with CO2, and then closed the jar and put it in the fridge.

Obviously it's not much work to do it, but will it be worth it? I know pellets

are pretty stable already.

Question 2) In reading Miller's, Lines, and Papazians books the only one who

addresses step infusion mashing by using a picnic cooler is Papazian.

Does anybody out there use a step infusion in a cooler?

Papazian gives the following numbers (working from memory here)

  For 1 step infusion - Add 1 qt 165 H20 per 1lb grain  (Target 155F)

  For step infusion   - Add 1 qt 128 H2O per 1lb grain  (Target 122F)

                        Add .5 qt 212 H2O per 1lb grain (Target 155F)

I have also found that the .5 qt he purposes does not get me

to 155, but more like 145 I was afraid to add more boiling H2O(making it even

thinner) so I did a partial decoction(more work than I wanted).

What are the consequences of the mash being so much thinner (than his

1 step infussion, it's 50% thinner) during the final step????

Should I use less H2O in the first step and use it in the second?

Should I just add as much boiling water as needed to get to 155?

Does anybody do a step in a cooler, if so what numbers do you do(temps

and volumes per lb)?

I am to lazy to stove top mash, and I don't want to build an insulated box,

so please limit answers to what I should do for cooler mashing.

The reason I am doing a protein rest is I was under the impression I needed

to with 2 Row Breiss (Klages that is Harrington) to prevent chill haze and

to get some needed yeast nutrients. Is that the case.

Thanks for the replies

Ed O'

edo@marcam.com

------------------------------


raw honey

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 12:06:56 EST

From: Mark Bunster <mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu>

Subject: raw honey

I think the diff betwene raw and processed honey is mostly filtration. Raw

honey has lots of bee parts in it (legs, stingers, other private bee

substances we're not to mention on HBD), and filtration takes some of that

out. I don't suppose it will make a serious diff since you should be heating

the honey before you add it, but why have more bits of stuff in your beer?

Papazian suggests filtered clover honey works best.

- --

Mark Bunster                      |Exchange conversation if you dare--

Survey Research Lab--VCU          |Share an empty thought or a laugh.

Richmond, VA 23220                |

mbunster@hibbs.vcu.edu            |

(804) 367-8813/353-1731           |                          -edFROM

------------------------------


Copper bottom Stainless Steel brewpots

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 11:15 EST

From: Tom Clifton <0002419419@mcimail.com>

Subject: Copper bottom Stainless Steel brewpots

I was out doing some Christmas shopping yesterday, and just happen to have

looked at some nice heavy Revere stainless stockpots that had copper bottoms...

Too bad they didn't have any 32 quart size.  The 20 quart were $60 without lids.

In any event, has anybody tried electroplating the bottom of a stainless pot to

apply a copper cladding?  Are the metals compatible etc???  I do know that that

a bath of copper sulphate, a copper anode and a battery charger will let you

plate steel (nails etc) but when you get into stainless (chrome/nickel?) will it

will it still work?

------------------------------


Keg Infection?

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 12:57:33 CST

From: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: Keg Infection?

        A couple of days ago I left a message about getting a

medicinal/metallic off-taste in my brew after stainless steel

kegging. A number of people were kind enough to reply and I

now conceed to a potential other problem. I'd appreciate

hearing from you if you think I am on the right track, or if

you have experienced/solved a similar problem.

        Since I did not experience the problem with every

kegged/brewed batch, I wanted to blame something in an

individual batch process or ingredient. But it could also

be that some of my kegs have a bacterial/contamination problem

while others do not.

        Let me say that I clean every keg before reuse and that

I sanitize them by filling them with an Idophor solution for about

20 minutes before re-kegging. I even push in the little stopper at

the top of the fill tube to release air and get solution up the

tube.

        But I'll admit I have never ripped these kegs appart and

pulled the little liquid and gas knobs appart. I was thinking of cleaning

them in either an idophor or bleach solution. I know that bleach does

bad things to stainless, but I would only soak them for about 20 minutes

and then rinse.

        If I am on the right track, I'd appreciate hearing if someone

else might have solved this problem and what kind of off-tastes

they were getting. The off taste is had to describe, but it is definately

not like Coke or Sprite. I did change the large O ring, but obviously

not the little ones inside the liquid/gas connectors.

        Gotta get a handle on this problem. I refuse to drink/serve bad

beer. I hate to go back to bottling (where I have had no problems with

off tastes on any batches and essentially used similar

ingredients/process).

        Thanks in advance for your insight.

- -----

Internet: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com

    UUCP: metronet.com!pro-storm!philb

  Bitnet: philb%pro-storm.metronet.com@nosc.mil

------------------------------


Carastan malt

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 12:53:36 EST

From: cmryglot@disney.CV.COM (Chuck Mryglot X6024)

Subject: Carastan malt

Can someone please tell me what carastan malt. I have not

seen it in the HBshop I frequent but have seen it

mentioned here and in recipies.   Also, some recipies call

out light and dark crystal.   What is the color guideline

for 'light' and 'dark'.

Many thanks....

------------------------------


yeast washing, Briess malt extract

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 14:24:05 -0500

From: kovacml1@post01.alb.alcoa.com (Michael L. Kovacs)

Subject: yeast washing, Briess malt extract

   I am a novice extract brewer (2 batches so far) and would like any input on

   the following items:

   1. Yeast washing - I have read the yeast FAQ and the section on yeast

   washing seems pretty self-explanatory, but I would like some clarification

   from anyone out there who is using this technique. I just racked a 5 gal.

   batch from my priamry fermenter and had a pretty good layer of yeast (I

   think...) on the bottom. It was the same whitish layer the settles to the

   bottom of my bottles. The Yeast FAQ says to add sterile water to the

   fermenter, and swirl it around to loosen everything. Then to dump this into

   the first sterile 1 qt. mason jar.  After this step it says to agitate the

   mason jar and wait for the mixture to separate into layers. After racking,

   my fermentor did not seem to have much more there other than the yeast (not

   much hops or sediment from the malt)

   I guess my exact question is... "Will it be pretty obvious which is yeast

   and which is sediment?" Also, assuming reasonable precautions are taken in

   sterilizing the mason jars and water, how high is the risk of infecting the

   yeast in the process.

   The process of yeast washing appeals to me not just for the savings, but

   also for the idea of having a ready supply of yeast handy that I am happy

   with. I am also interested in eventually culturing yeast. Any opinions on

   this? Is it worth the effort? It seems like it is considerably more involved.

   2. Briess malt extracts - I recently went in on a 60 lb. pail of Briess malt

   extract. The price was a significant savings over buying it 6  or 7 lbs. at

   a time. An issue of Zymurgy had an article on extract brewing and it

   favorably mentioned Briess. Does any one have any experience using this

   extract in bulk. I'm not sure exactly how I'll deal with measuring it out

   considering how gooey malt extract is in general. Any advice in this area

   will be appreciated.

   (I do intended to make the leap to all-grain when I can afford the equipment

   and I feel I am ready for the process. Is there anything like an all-grain

   FAQ out there on the internet?)

   thanks,

   Mike Kovacs

If replying directly, please mail to:

   kovacs01@ssw.alcoa.com

------------------------------


Re: Raw Honey vs Processed

Date: 21 Dec 93 14:28:34

From: Ritchie Kolnos <Ritchie_Kolnos@notes.worldcom.com>

Subject: Re: Raw Honey vs Processed

>  Can anyone tell me the difference in raw honey vs. the processed

>  variety?  Is the raw lower in sugar content since it hasn't been

>  boiled, driving off some of the water?

As a beekeeper who uses his own honey in various homebrews, I can tell you that

there is little difference between raw and processed honey.

Any raw honey that I bottle and sell has to be between 15-18% water (or else it

could spoil and ferment). Processed honey (the kind you might buy in a large

grocery store), has been pasturized, filtered, and blended to appeal to the

tastes of the American consumer. For your information, most of the processed

honey sold in the United States is now imported from South America.

Since raw honey has not been pasturized, it is possible that you could

introduce some bacterial "nasties" to the wort, but I'm sure these would be

eliminated during the boiling process. As far as sugar content, it is variable

in raw honey, but I don't think it makes much difference.

When using honey in any recipe I am more concerned with the flavor of the honey

(lightness vs. darkness) than with the water content. I have found that the

source/flavor of the honey does sometimes affect the taste of the brew.

------------------------------


5 Liter Mini Kegs

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 13:02:46 -0800 (PST)

From: waltman@netcom.com (Fred Waltman)

Subject: 5 Liter Mini Kegs

In HBD #1303 Diane Palme writes about 5 Liter Mini-kegs.

These sound like the same ones that Brew Ha Ha in PA has been selling. I

got a set two weeks ago and my first beer is conditioning. Other people have

told me they have had great luck with them and I hope to add further data

after New Years.

BTW, has anyone had any luck taking these as carry on luggage on a plane?

I am not so much worried about the trip, but rather what security would

say as they went thru the X-ray machine.

Fred Waltman

Marina del Rey, CA

waltman@netcom.com

------------------------------


chillers/aletimes/dryhop/complications/haze/bottlefill/when2bottle/doppelbock

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 15:21 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: chillers/aletimes/dryhop/complications/haze/bottlefill/when2bottle/doppelbock

James writes:

>1) why are wort chillers recomended? isn't an ice water bath almost as

>effective?

If it works for you, then great.  I used to use an ice bath, but it did

not cool fast enough and my icemaker didn't make enough ice -- I had to buy

some.

>2) do ales normally have that short of an optimal fermentation time (the

>kreusen had settled after only about 36 hours)?

"Optimal" is an odd word selection.  The yeast will decide what's optimal

for them.  This time is dependent on strain, temperature, oxygen, starter

size and original gravity.  You can minimize the time by aerating well

and using a big starter.  Higher temps will increase ester production (fruity

flavors/aromas) in addition to decreasing fermentation time and increasing

the hospitability for bacterial infections.

>3) because of the high gravity boil the beer is not as bitter as i want it,

>so i was thinking about dry hopping in a secondary.  is there a recomended

>time to do this or can i do it any time after the kreusen settles?  also,

Dryhopping will not add bitterness.  Ideally you want to add dryhops when

the beer is almost done because evolving CO2 will scrub out some of the

hop aromatics.  If you are sure you need more bitterness, you can make up

a hop tea by boiling just hops in water and then straining the liquid into

your beer.  If you boil 45-60 minutes, you will add only bitterness (no

flavor or aroma).

>can someone give me a range for the amount of hops to use in the secondary

>(i know i didn't say how bitter our beer is right now, but i just want to

>know if most people use 0.5 oz. or 8 oz when they dry hop)?

I use between 0.5 and 2 ounces.

>p.s. not that anyone cares, but i'm with lan and andrew on this AOL thing.

>     F*%@ censorship!

I'd like to point out that you "censored" yourself, which is what I

advocate.  For what it's worth, Lanny and I have reached common ground

off-line on this topic and knowing Andrew, I'm certain that his IDEAS and

not his WORDS were the reason for him being censored -- for this, I too, am

outraged.

***********

Timothy writes:

>patience.  So my first question is.  If the beer is comming out good,  why

>complicate matters?  An expample of what I mean is the use of of oxygen and

>a bubbler system to airate the wort prior to pitching.  Is this really

>nessasary?  I just shake the hell out of my primary a few times after

It's not, but I read the HBD for new ideas for my own brewing and to help

out with questions.  Much of the discussion is strictly academic, but some

has practical applications if you add it to other information you have

read or experienced earlier.  To use your example, for a 1048 ale, you

don't really need anything but shaking your carboy, but for a 1120 lager,

you will need to do more than that to get enough O2 in solution.

***********

Brian writes:

>  chill haze, two batches were satisfactory, and the rest suffered from

>  haze problems that had nothing to do with chill-haze. These beers are

>  cloudy even when warm.

Could it be too hot a sparge?  Too hot a sparge water (above 170F or so)

can liberate unconverted starch.  Your Corona setting (*larger* malt

fragments) would simply increase this effect.

*********

Jim writes:

>THis is one of my pet peeves too.  I think the inspection is fine for

>rings, yeast cake/cloudiness, etc, but comments on "low fill levels"

>can be erroneous.  The problem seems to stem from homebrewers who bottle

I'm with Spencer on this one.  The inspection line is more of a note to

myself.  If I don't find a problem with the beer, I don't even mention

it in the scored section of the form.  By the way, I try to remember to

check for sediment, so I know if this is a bottle-conditioned or CP-filled

bottle.

**********

Doug writes:

>into the secondary at which point it slowly bubbled away.  Well, five days

>later it is still bubbling at a rate of about every 3 seconds which is

>completely different than batch 1 and batch 3 (an Australian Lager using

>Ale yeast).  Is this normal activity or have I done something wrong?  Is it

See my comments above on what affects fermentation time.  Apart from

sanitation there's little anyone can do to make an undrinkable batch --

I'm sure you did nothing wrong.

>Is it safe to bottle while it is still fermenting like this?

NO!  Wait for the fementation to go down to about 1 bubble every 1 to 2

minutes.

> Is there any good way to get a second SG reading

>without the risk of contaminating the brew?

Yes.  Using good sanitation techniques, take a sample, measure SG and

drink the sample (don't put it back into the brew).

>I would really like to get this

>batch into the bottle so I can expedite the drinking (hopefully be able to

>have a few with friends on New Years!!!)

Don't rush the brew.  It's better to drink some quality microbrew for New

Years than to spoil (overcarbonate) a batch by rushing it.

>Other questions:  Are Australian Light Malts supposed to produce a golden

>colored beer/ale/lager (this is the color of straw)?

Being Australian has nothing to do with golden-ness.  "Light" or "Gold"

extracts from the US, UK, Belgium, Germany, etc. all will make a golden

colored beer -- some darker than others.  If you cannot get a golden

beer from any extract, I suspect you are aerating your wort when it is hot,

which will darken it considerably.

>How close will a dopplebock be to the real thing if I

>use ale/beer yeast (I am not yet set up to do real Lagers)?

It's not so much the yeast as the temperature.  You will get a much fruitier

beer than a Doppelbock -- more like a Strong Scotch Ale.

Al.

------------------------------


quickFerments/"champagne"bottles/CO2-storing/WitYeast/metallic flavor

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 15:25 CST

From: korz@iepubj.att.com

Subject: quickFerments/"champagne"bottles/CO2-storing/WitYeast/metallic flavor

John writes:

>Short Ale Fermentations?  When you use Extract with lots of active yeast,

>then you can have quick fermentations because of the simple sugars present;

>compared to All Grain where more complex sugars are present.

This is not really correct -- a quality extract wort made from all-malt

extract will have a similar sugar profile to an all-grain wort.  Crummy,

dextrose-stretched extracts could make for a different sugar profile,

but that would make for a longer, less-vigorous ferment due to the

shortage of FAN (amino acids, for yeast nutrition).

>Capping Champagne bottles - All of the domestic champagne bottles can be

>recapped with standard bottle caps. There are some French ones that have

>bigger openings.

I believe Cook's bottles (if it's not Cook's then it's some other US

sparkling wine)  don't take standard US crown caps.  But I agree that

most US sparking wine bottles do take the standard US crowns.  Most

european sparkling wines have the larger opening, but there are a few

that do take the standard US crown cap (I believe Dom Perignon is one,

so buy a lot when you find it on sale).

************

Conn writes:

>means of kegging. My reaction? great to see such innovation. Dave Line actually

>proposed storing the pressure from the _primary_ fermentation for later use,

>which would overcome the need to prime with triple the normal

My fears would be: 1) that the pressure from the *complete* primary

fermentation could get very high, even to the point of affecting the

yeast and the possiblity of explosion, and 2) primary fermenation

often releases or produces undesirable gasses (DMS and some sulfur

compounds, for example) and you would not want to use these.  I believe

that the commercial brewers "srub" their CO2 before reuse.

***********

John writes:

>However, sometimes this doesn't quite work out, and I have to make a choice

>as to whether or not I should add brewing water at this stage to top up the

>carboy or leave the space in the carboy and hope the beer is still producing

>enough CO2 to protect it from oxygen.  What is the consensus on this?  Is

>topping up detrimental to the beer or is it at least less harmful than oxygen?

When you rack fermenting or fermented beer, you will invitably release some

dissolved CO2 (thanks to the partial pressure at the top of the siphon hose)

so this will serve as a CO2 blanket as long as you use an airlock on your

secondary.  1" is certainly not worth worrying about, but even if it was

more, I'd say the topping up is unnecessary.  If you do top-up, use boiled

water so you don't introduce dissolved O2.

*************

Michael writes:

>they haven't put it into production. If you can't find a white beer yeast or

>are not ready to make a yeast starter from a slant, you might try the Wyeast

>Bavarian Wheat Ale yeast.

Wyeast *has* released their "Belgian White" yeast.  On the other hand,

a customer of mine has brewed some excellent Witbiers using Wyeast Bavarian

Weizen yeast.

>This may be one of my crazier ideas, but I think it might get you closer

>to Celis than using a regular ale yeast. The Wyeast Wheat Ale yeast haso

>some Lactobacillus Delbrukii in it which would simulate the secondary

>lactic fermentation that Pierre and company do. What do the rest of you

>out there think?

Woah!  That's Saccharomyces Delbruckii, not Lactobacillus Delbruckii, that

is in Wyeast Bavarian Weizen (#3056 -- #3068 is all S. Delbruckii, BTW).

**************

Phil writes:

>I know that many of your secondary in stainless steel cornelius kegs.

>I like to do this as it takes up less space in my lagering refigerator.

>This summer I encountered this off-taste problem with a couple of

>American Lager's I brewed, did the primary in glass and then the

>secondary in stainless. The off-taste is hard to describe. At first

>I thought it was astringency, but it is more like a yeasty, metallic

>taste. The taste persists even after filtering through a .5 micron

>filter. It has happened when I've secondaried in stainless (about

>5 total batches) but never when I've secondaried in glass (about

>2 batches).

I don't think your problem is from the Stainless.  Check your

water chemistry (check for high Calcium or Magnesium levels) and then

check your malt freshness.  Stale malt has been known to give metallic

flavors (see the Troubleshooting issue of Zymurgy).

Al.

------------------------------


various musings

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 14:23:18 PST

From: garyrich@angel.qdeck.com

Subject: various musings

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Sun, 19 Dec 93 22:35 CST

>From: akcs.wally@vpnet.chi.il.us (John Walaszek)

>Subject: Problems with Dark ales

>

>Hello everyone, I am looking for some help in determining why

>I am having problems with Dark Ales.  I have brewed about

>25 all-grain ales and every attempt at a dark one (3 stouts

>and 1 porter) I have ended up very disappointed.  I brew alot of

>pale ales and brown ales and these have all been very consistent.

>

>I think my problem may have to do with water chemistry, Lately

>I have used pre-boiled Chicago City water.  I usually do not

>check ph and don't really add any mineral salts.

I think you may have indeed diagnosed your own problem.  From what

I recall, most Chicago water is very soft. The dark grains that you

are using will make the mash more acidic, in fact that why they were used

historically. Most dark ale districts were those that had hard water

and the acidity of the more highly roasted grains was used to counteract

the high alkalynity of the water.  What may be happening in your case is that

the acidic dark grains are dropping the mash ph below the ideal for

conversion.  you could try to get a ph reading from the mash, but I've

never been able to read my cheap litmus papers in a dark mash.  I would

just add a teaspoon or so of calcium carbonate to it when you mash in

and see what happens. Since the carbonate levels in my town often get

as high as 300ppm, I've never needed to do this myself.

>

>------------------------------

>From: palme@am1.icgmfg.mke.ab.com (Palme)

>Subject: Reusable 5l kegs ...

>

>Hi All!

>

>I saw a pretty nifty little gadget on the shelf of my local homebrew

>shop/microbrewery.  (Ok, ok, so Dan shares floorspace with Lakefront.  Sip

>and buy.  Sip and browse.  What a racket!)  It's a reusable 5l stainless

>keg, similar to the "party kegs" one can purchase at the liquor store.  A

>set of 4 comes with a resuable tapper/dispenser.  (I won't mention the

>price, just yet)  So, any thoughts?  Ideas?  Anyone out there *have* one

>of these?  It sure would be nice to get away from bottling 2 cases every

>time.  I would see putting up two of these kegs per batch and then one

>case of bottles for "dispersal."

>

>Comments *always* appreciated ...

>

>D.

>

>- ---

>Diane Palme, EIT

I have a set of these from Brew-Ha-Ha.  I liked them a lot at first.  They

are a lot easier than bottling.  They are also quite convienent and they fit

in the fridge in the kitchen.

Like everyone else that's used them at first

I had problems with overpriming.  You have to use a very light touch (<1/2 cup

corn suger in 5 gallons) or they just produce foam.  Too much pressure can even

damage the can.  Even after I mastered this I still had major foaming problems.

I think that the dispenser could really use a hose type spigot so that the

keg pressure could be brought down before the beer hits your glass at 90

miles an hour.  Since my main experiments with the cans were with last

summer's wheat beers, you can imagine the mess this made.

Now a few months later it seems that the tapper/dispenser (aka the expensive

part) is damaged.  I can't put in a co2 cartridge without most of the gas

just blowing out the back and being wasted.  Once I lose ~half the gas this

way it still seems to have some sort of slow leak that means the beer will

be flat by the next day.  I don't recall doing anything savage enough to

the tapper that should have broken it this way, but I do have 2 small

children, so all bets are off...

I was dissapointed enough with them that I kept saving those nickels and

dimes and got a fridge for the garage and and a real kegging setup.  If I

lived in a small apartment  I think I would have stuck with the cans

longer, just because they are so much more space efficient.  As it is I think

I will donate them to a freind that does live in an apt.

>

>From: <GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

>Subject:  magazines

>

>Two basic questions for you guys:

>

>1- Is it possible to buy Zymurgy, without having to join the AHA.

Every home brew store that I've ever been in has individual copies

for sale.

>

>2- What do you people think of _Brewing_Techniques_ magazine?

I love it, though it hasn't yet had an issue that's really lived up to the

standard set by the first issue.  It's still good enough that I will re

subscribe without a qualm when the time comes.

Gary Rich | Quarterdeck Office Systems, Santa Monica CA

garyrich@qdeck.com

Nobody listens to my opinions, so why I should bother disclaiming them?

------------------------------


Re: Words of Wisdom

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 15:11:36 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@teleport.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: Words of Wisdom

> From: "J. Andrew Patrick" <andnator@genesis.Mcs.Com>

> Subject: Free Speech Vs. "Professional Language"

>

> Much to my surprise, since posting my 1st message about the blatant

> censorship that I encountered at the AOL Beer Forum, several HBD

> readers have expressed opionions that I "got what I deserved" for

> using such terrible language.  Al Korzonas, Michael T. Lobo, and,

> GNT_TOX%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINECTON.EDU (whoever that is!) have

> written (either publicly or privately) to indicate their opinions that:

>

> 1) AOL was justified in censoring me for using "profane" language, and/or

I'm not much in agreement with the three you mention above, but isn't

AOL a commercial venture?  I mean, didn't you pay for that service?  I

would say that, if so, you are strongly misusing the word "censoring".

If they owns the turf, they get to make the rules.  If they think

"pissed off" is naughty, then they certainly have the right to refuse to

post it.

If I publish a magazine, and chose not to publish an article of yours,

either because it's badly-written or because I don't like your language,

I'm entitled to leave it out.  You're entitled, of course, to publish

your own damn magazine.

> I believe that I have an inalienable right to express myself in cyberspace

> in the same manner as I do in real space.  This is just your basic First

> Amendment principle applied to the on-line world.  If I am forced to

> drastically alter my on-line persona because of a few prudes who don't

> like seeing words like "orgasm" or "pissed off" in the HBD or AOL Beer

> Forums, then I am being forced to live a lie, to pretend to be somebody

> that I am not.

>

> Is this REALLY what we want??

>

No.  What we really want is for people to be reasonably polite.  If this

means that people occasionally need to temper their language, I don't

see this as trampling on your rights.  You *do*, of course, have the

right to shoot off your mouth any way you like -- you shouldn't,

however, expect that other people should either like it or necessarily

tolerate it.  I would suggest it would be a good rule that no one say

"on-line" something they wouldn't be willing to say to another person's

face -- and risk getting popped one in the snoot.

> From: dmorey@iastate.edu

> Subject: Potential Extract of Dark Malts

>

>

> Greetings fellow homebrewers and beer lovers,

>

>  This is my first posting on HBD.  I have been doing all grain

> brewing for about a year and a half and have a question about expected

> extract from dark grains.  I have compliled a list which was created

> by averaging values from multiple sources.  Most sources i have found

> don't cover potential extract of dark malts very much.  So I would

> like to hear the wisdom of the brewers out there.  Here is the list I

> have compliled up to this date:

>

> Cane sugar (yuk)   44

Hey!  Save the criticism.  Sugar is much-maligned, but many who do so do

not know whereof they speak.

> Roast barley    27 (isn't this high also?)

> Chocolate malt    27           "

> Black patent    27           "

I would be most curious to know where you got these figures.  As far as

I know, the actually amount of extract you can expect from these sources

is: zero, zip, nada.

- --Jeff

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1304, 12/22/93

*************************************

-------


SPARKLING WINE

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 23:50:23

From: aaron.banerjee@his.com

Subject: SPARKLING WINE

Is anyone out there making champagne for New Years?

I have been making beer in champagne bottles for a few years, and have

yet to have a single explosion.  Somehow, my champagne, on the other

hand, seems to either be flat or explosive.  The method of pressurizing I use

is to bottle early, or add a small amount of sugar (as opposed to CO2

cartridges--that's cheating).  My Christmas ale turned out fine, but I'll bet

it doesn't compare to some of the others...

If anyone's making sparkling wine, and bottles without CO2, contact me

directly at:

INTERNET:    aaron.banerjee@his.com

FidoNet:     Aaron Banerjee

             1:109/421

Thanks.

------------------------------


Re: Whitbread yeast (1098)

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 11:24

From: CCASTELL.UNIX11@mailsrv2.eldec.com (CCASTELL)

Subject: Re: Whitbread yeast (1098)

I tried to mail this out on 12/17.  Unfortunately, our mailer is down

about 50% of the time, so access to the outside world is limited.  If

this posting appears twice (probably on different days), I apologize.

You never know when a mailing actually makes it to the outside world.

Al writes (HOMEBREW Digest #1299):

> 3. mixed yeasts (the Whitbread triple-strain (Wyeast #1098) has been

reported

> to have a slowdown in the middle of the ferment, for example), and ...

Russ responds (HOMEBREW Digest #1300):

> Was it ever settled if Wyeast 1098 has the 3 strains of Whitbread yeast

> or just 1 of the strains?  ...

Looking at my notes from Dave Logsdon's talk, "Matching Yeasts to Beer

Styles" at this summer's convention, Dave stated that 1098 was a single

strain.  He said that they were working on multiple strain yeasts that

would be out soon.  (Are any of the new varieties multiple strains?)

He also had a couple of other interesting points that I'll throw out here.

He claimed that numerous studies have shown that dry yeast does not give

you a faster start than liquid.  The foaming and gas production is a

byproduct of the rehydration and is not actual growth.  Neither form

of yeast reaches exponential growth for about 12 hours.

Someone asked about repitching yeast from the secondary.  Dave said that

yeast should be taken from both the primary and the secondary, or you'll

risk ending up with a yeast with different characteristics.  His point

was that a certain component of the yeast may "do its thing" early and

drop out of suspension early and not make it to the secondary.  Without

this component, the yeast repitched from the secondary may have different

characteristics.

Charlie

//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//

// ccastell@eldec.com  //  Charles Castellow //

//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//-//

------------------------------


pride & clean bottles

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 04:21:14 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: pride & clean bottles

I was recently accused of submitting beer to contests because I'm

proud of it.  (I know I'm paraphrasing to make a point, so don't flame

too hard, ok?)  Well, certainly, there's some of that.  I don't

generally submit swill.  (I inflict that on local brewclub members,

instead. :-)

But what I was getting at was this: any beer I send to a competition

is SOMETHING I MADE.  It's therefore a LITTLE PART OF ME, and the

presentation REFLECTS ON ME.  If I send a grungy bottle, that's as

good as saying I'M A GRUNGY PERSON.  (Sure, sometimes, but not usually

in public.)  Not to mention the implicit message it sends to the

judges: "I didn't have the 5 minutes it would take to clean up this

bottle, but I expect you to give the beer in it a thorough evaluation

anyway."

Someone else complained about how hard it is to clean bottles just to

send in beer to a competition.  My heart bleeds.  Plan ahead.  Soak

the bottle for a day or two.  I have yet to find a label that doesn't

fall off of its own accord if you soak it long enough.

The last competition I judged, 5 judges decided for one reason or

another not to show up.  The rest of us spent 6 hours, judging 2

flights (typically >10 beers) each (and then the 6 of us who had any

stamina left mass-judged the 8 beers in the barleywine category).  And

you can't spend 5 minutes cleaning your bottle.  Foo.

So, if it's such a painful experience, why do I judge?  Foremost,

probably because it helps me improve my own brewing and my

appreciation of good beer.  Also, I'm giving something back to the

brewing community.  And, when you hit that one perfect beer of the

competition, it's worth all the infected ones.  And, it's fun (at

least for the first 10 or so:-).

=Spencer

P.S. Does any of this relate to the discussion about "language" in the HBD?

PPS I'll be on vacation, reading HBD only sporadically, until the new

year.  If I don't respond to your counter-flames, that's probably why.

(And cows can fly:-)

------------------------------


Pots for Brewing

Date:     Wed, 22 Dec 93 07:53 EST

From: <GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

Subject:  Pots for Brewing

To continue on with the brewpot thread....

Can anyone see any problems with using a teflon coated brewpot, if

they exists in sizes as big as 8 gallons?

Andy Pastuszak

------------------------------


clarification, priming

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1993 07:54:32 -0500

From: franco@astro.ge.com (Mark Francisco 3811 )

Subject: clarification, priming

Two questions from an amateur homebrewer.

I have made a amber ale and it is wonderful, though cloudy.  What is

a recommended clarification process?

I am no longer using corn sugar but malt in the brewing process but

still am when priming.  I notice the brew still has a cider flavor.  Is

there an alternative to corn sugar for priming and/or am I using too much?

------------------------------


Re: Carastan

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 08:20:10 -0500

From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton@mtl.mit.edu>

Subject: Re: Carastan

cmryglot@disney.CV.COM (Chuck Mryglot X6024) writes:

> Can someone please tell me what carastan malt. I have not

> seen it in the HBshop I frequent but have seen it

> mentioned here and in recipies.   Also, some recipies call

> out light and dark crystal.   What is the color guideline

> for 'light' and 'dark'.

Here's a section of an article that I wrote for "The Brewprint" -

the Newsletter of the Boston Wort Processors.

   Wort Processor and brewmaster at the Ould Newbury Brewing

    Co., Joe Rolfe, has donated a 25 Kg sack of carastan malt from maltsters

    Hugh Baird in England to the club.

 What is carastan malt ???  An essay by George Fix in the January

    1993 Brewprint provides some clues.  Here's a brief synopsis.

 Carastan malt is produced by roasting "green malt."  It is

    enzymaticaly inactive.  The roasted "green malts" produced by HB are

    subdivided into four categories:

 light carastan  13-17 L

 carastan  30-40 L

 crystal   70-80 L

 dark crystal  100-160L

 For this particular malt, Joe has supplied some specific information.

    First, he says that it is dextrinous.  The color is 32.8 L, it has a

    fermentable extract of 71.1% and a moisture content of 8.8%.

Hope that helps,

 Tim

- ----

Timothy J. Dalton                                   tjdalton@mit.edu

MIT, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Materials Etching Technology Lab

***** Searchlight Casting for Faults in the Clouds of Delusion *****

------------------------------


Handling Charges / Keg Cleaning

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1993 09:44:45 -0500 (EST)

From: Robert H. Reed <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>

Subject: Handling Charges / Keg Cleaning

Gary writes regarding Hoptech's handling fees:

>

>

> Total weight for this order < 1lb.  Being somewhat familiar

> with shipping costs, I asked for UPS BLUE (second day).  When I received

> the package I was billed $9.75 in shipping and handling on a $12 product

> order!  I called the company and was told that a $4 "handling" fee was

> charged to me since my order was < $30.  This is something that folks

> should know!  The extracts taste fine, but Hoptech's rediculous S&H fees

> left a bitter taste in my mouth...

I agree that adding handling fees to orders in not

appropriate: I think many suppliers do this so that their prices seem

lower than they actually are.  I believe a customer should pay for

the cost of the product and actual shipping fees and any SPECIAL

packing or shipping e.g., special packing for glass or overnight air

shipment.  IMO, filling an order, packing a box, and getting it to

UPS/RPS or the Post Office is *part of the cost of doing business*.

Most suppliers list these costs in their catalog or other literature

and I agree with Gary: let the buyer beware.  The reality of shipping

is that there is a minimum charge for a package and the shipping cost

increases nonlinearly with increased weight.  I think a more ethical

practice is to charge only for shipping.  If small orders are a

hassle, then offer an incentive for larger orders i.e., free shipping

rather than penalize the customer for small orders.

With regard to Phil's problem with keg infection:

>         Let me say that I clean every keg before reuse and that

> I sanitize them by filling them with an Idophor solution for about

> 20 minutes before re-kegging. I even push in the little stopper at

> the top of the fill tube to release air and get solution up the

> tube.

>         But I'll admit I have never ripped these kegs appart and

> pulled the little liquid and gas knobs appart. I was thinking of cleaning

> them in either an idophor or bleach solution. I know that bleach does

> bad things to stainless, but I would only soak them for about 20 minutes

> and then rinse.

I believe that Iodophor is more of a sterilant than a keg cleaning

solution.  I recommend using TSP to clean soda kegs or kegs that have had

beer sitting in them w/o a CO2 cover.  I use 1/4C per gallon in *very hot*

water and let them soak for several hours, then rinse well.  If your keg

is visually clean and still has a soda or unpleasant odor, there is a

non-vanishing probability that your beer will pick up this odor/flavor.

Without initiating a veritable plethora of net traffic regarding the

socio-economic implications of o-ring/poppet valve replacement, I

suggest replacing the large o-ring, the diptube o-rings, the ball or

pin valve o-rings, and the poppet valves.  IMHO, rebuilding your kegs

is a good investment($5 to $6) and will increase your chances of

making consistently great homebrew.  Isn't this what it's all about?

Rob Reed

------------------------------


cleaning kegs

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1993 09:53:25 -0500 (EST)

From: gelinas@ekman.unh.edu (Russell Gelinas)

Subject: cleaning kegs

  Before I kegged a recent batch, I happened to take a look inside the

long pick-up tube.  It looked less than clean.  So I took the ol'

ubiquitous Q-tip and put it in the tube, and forced it through with

hot water.  The Q-tip came out dirty, and the tube was noticeably cleaner.

If you sanitize your kegs with boiling water, a dirty pickup tube may

not be a problem; the heat should kill most anything.  But if you use a

sanitizing solution, it may be more important to ensure that all parts

of the keg are clean before sanitizing.  Either way, it's small work

to clean the tube.

  Re. sanitizing solutions:  I've got a 5-gallon plastic bucket that I

keep filled with a strong, almost saturated, solution of B-Brite.  As

long as I remember to tightly seal the cover, it remains active (ie. it

is still very "slippery") for a long time (months).  I even store things

such as rubber stoppers and plastic fermentation locks right in the bucket.

Russ Gelinas

eos

unh

------------------------------


Brewpubs, and other pipe dreams...

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 09:09 CST

From: othon@ial7.jsc.nasa.gov (Bill Othon.LinCom)

Subject: Brewpubs, and other pipe dreams...

Several friends and I have been musing about what it would

take to start a brewpub, now that they are legal in Texas.

My main interest in this is to bring good beer to Texas,

and to learn to brew on a bigger scale. I've brewed about 20,

mainly partial-mash brews, and certainly dont feel like I

(by myself) have the expertise to brew on a big scale.

Do you need a Masterbrewer to start, and if so where do you

find one? Should you start with extract brewing, or bite

the bullet and do it right the first time; what are the cost

trade-offs with either method? Have any of you

micro owners tried these "rent a brewmeister" folks who come

out and show you the ropes for several weeks?

This is a bit tangential to most digest requests, so private

E-mail is suggested and welcome. Any insights, anecdotes, or

war stories would be appreciated.

Thanks, and Merry Christmas.

 -Bill

                                            //    |__|    //

=====================================      /  /   |  |   /  /

Bill Othon <othon@ial7.jsc.nasa.gov>      /    ---|  |---    /

Orbital Mechanic                          /                  /

LinCom Corporation - Houston Division      /  ////    ////  /

(713) 483-1858                              //    /  /    //

                                                   //

------------------------------


Carapils

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 07:48:42 PST

From: mri10@mfg.amdahl.com (Michael Inglis)

Subject: Carapils

I posted this to r.c.b with no response so I'm trying it here...

When should Carapils be added in the mashing process to obtain

the residual sweetness assosiated with the grain?  In the past

I have added it at mashout along with my Crystal but I'm not

sure how effective this is.  I have heard two versions.  The first

being that there is no need to mash Carapils and the sweetness will

show up if the grain is treated as a specialty grain.  The second

version is that the grain needs to be mashed to get anything but

starch out of the grain.  Does anyone have the true story?

Mike Inglis

mri10@mfg.amdahl.com

------------------------------


Propane/Natural Gas convers

Date: 22 Dec 1993 07:58:42 -0800

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>

Subject: Propane/Natural Gas convers

Subject:  Propane/Natural Gas conversions       Time:7:51 AM     Date:12/22/93

Happy Holidays All!

Would anyone with a good understanding of the dynamics of gas burners please

contact me via private e-mail. I'm working on converting burners from one gas

to another and would like to get a little education on how the orifice size,

regulator pressure, etc are determined. This may expand into an article, but

for now it is just research. Thanks in advance.

RW...

Russ Wigglesworth (INTERNET: Rad_Equipment@radmac1.ucsf.edu - CI$: 72300,61)

UCSF Dept. of Radiology, San Francisco, CA (415) 476-3668 / Home (707) 769-0425

------------------------------


Summary of responses to Insufficient head problem

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 9:25:21 MST

From: Earle M. Williams <earlew@drc.usbm.gov>

Subject: Summary of responses to Insufficient head problem

I posted an accounting of a recent problem where I noticed my Nut Brown Ale

(nicknamed Moonbeam after a famous California governor) would lose its head

immediately after being poured into the mug (from a bottle... I haven't kegged

in a while, but more on that later.)  I received several responses, some in

HBD and some private email.  Several suggestions were given, and I'll list

a few.

Cause/Solution #1 - Soap residue in mug

=======================================

>From: jim@n5ial.mythical.com (Jim Graham)

>Btw, just thought of something---this may be a bit on the obvious side,

>but then, I wouldn't have known it if someone here hadn't told me, so.....

>You're not using soap to wash your beer mugs, brewing equipment, etc.,

>are you?  If so, that's an instant head-killer.  Apparently, there's a

>residue left by the soap that's nearly impossible to get rid of.  I rinse

>my mugs out with a mild bleach/water solution every so often (I'm normally

>the only one using them---if anyone else is going to use them, they get

>bleached before and after no matter what).

Others had similar suggestions, and I'm sorry for not giving appropriate credit.

Cause/Solution #2 - Insufficent Carbonation

===========================================

>From ryptyde!mikel Mon Dec 13 14:40 MST 1993

>Head Problems:

>Two things you could try.  First, add more sugar at bottling time.  I've

>found 3/4 cup of corn sugar to be insufficient unless I pack down the

>sugar with my thumb and add more to make 3/4 cup.  (Pretty dumb

>measurement method.  I need to get some decent scales and measure by

>weight.)

This could be the culprit.  Since I'm pretty sloppy at measuring to 5 gallons,

I may not have enough carbonation, even though it does seem to foam up some

when pouring.

Cause/Solution #3 - Not enough small proteins

=============================================

>From ryptyde!mikel Mon Dec 13 14:40 MST 1993

>Second, increase your head retention by adding 1 lb. of dried wheat malt

>extract.  This may cause a chill haze, but will make the head last much

>longer.

Some postings in HBD also suggested I either add some wheat malt or more hops

TO get sufficient proteins in my wort.  Thanks for the suggestions!

One final suggestion from someone who shall remain anonymous - try a

dozen red roses! ;->

Thanks again for all the help!

- ------

Earle M. Williams

U.S. Bureau of Mines

Denver, Colorado  USA

(Internet) earlew@drc.usbm.gov

------------------------------


Copper Electroplating

Date: 22 Dec 1993 08:26:14 U

From: "Palmer.John" <palmer@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Subject: Copper Electroplating

Tom Clifton wrote:

In any event, has anybody tried electroplating the bottom of a stainless pot to

apply a copper cladding?  Are the metals compatible etc???  I do know that that

a bath of copper sulphate, a copper anode and a battery charger will let you

plate steel (nails etc) but when you get into stainless (chrome/nickel?) will

it

will it still work?

What I can tell you about this is that it is best done in a lab. Electroplating

is usually done in cyanide baths or in the case of sulfate baths, at high

current densities 40 amps/ft-squared. Not easy to do at home in the sink. Also

the stainless needs to be pickled in strong acid beforehand to remove all of

the surface oxides that make stainless stain-less.

Aluminum cladding is done under pressure by rolling two sheets together. It is

cheaper than copper electroplating and provides nearly identical results in

terms of heat transfer charactoristics.

John Palmer

Space Station M&P

------------------------------


Off flavors in Kegs

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1993 09:28:14 -0700

From: reeves@lanl.gov (Geoff Reeves)

Subject: Off flavors in Kegs

>From: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com (Phil Brushaber)

>Subject: Keg Infection?

>

>        A couple of days ago I left a message about getting a

>medicinal/metallic off-taste in my brew after stainless steel

>kegging.

>        Since I did not experience the problem with every

>kegged/brewed batch, I wanted to blame something in an

>individual batch process or ingredient. But it could also

>be that some of my kegs have a bacterial/contamination problem

>while others do not.

>        Let me say that I clean every keg before reuse and that

>I sanitize them by filling them with an Idophor solution for about

>20 minutes before re-kegging. I even push in the little stopper at

>the top of the fill tube to release air and get solution up the

>tube.

>        But I'll admit I have never ripped these kegs appart and

>pulled the little liquid and gas knobs appart. I was thinking of cleaning

>them in either an idophor or bleach solution. I know that bleach does

>bad things to stainless, but I would only soak them for about 20 minutes

>and then rinse.

Bacterial infection is not the only possibility. This problem is beginning

to sound a lot like a problem that I had with funny tastes in kegged beer.

I was using the exact same procedure - sanitize with idophor, push down the

poppets to get full coverage, force idophor through all parts with CO2. I

had no problems with my bottled beer but the kegged beer came out with what

I suppose you could call a medicinal/metallic taste. It wasn't a bacterial

infection taste though it was an IODINE taste. To this day I can't serve

porter to my homebrew club without at least a few snickers. My experience

with idophor is that not only does it have to be rinsed but that the rubber

parts of kegs like O-rings and gaskets can pick up a long-term iodine

flavor.

I started tearing my kegs apart, boiling all rubber parts, sanitizing the

metal parts with chlorine or idophor, and then rinsing all metal parts.

with boiled water. The cornelius kegs aren't that hard to take apart. Just

unscrew the intake and output valves. You can use an adjustable wrench but

having the right extra-deep socket wrenches (~$5.00) makes the job a lot

easier. I think 3/4" or 7/8" sockets fit most keg valves. With the valves

unscrewed the two tubes (short air tube, long liquid tube) pull right out.

Geoff

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

|    A brewery is like a toothbrush, everyone should have their own.      |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Geoff Reeves:  NIS-2, Mail Stop D-436, Los Alamos National Laboratory   |

|                reeves@lanl.gov (internet) or  essdp2::reeves (span)     |

|                Phone (505) 665-3877                                     |

|                Fax   (505) 665-4414                                     |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


Bottle Inspection Comments

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1993 09:29:26 -0700

From: reeves@lanl.gov (Geoff Reeves)

Subject: Bottle Inspection Comments

>

>>THis is one of my pet peeves too.  I think the inspection is fine for

>>rings, yeast cake/cloudiness, etc, but comments on "low fill levels"

>>can be erroneous.

>

Al Korz replies

>I'm with Spencer on this one.  The inspection line is more of a note to

>myself.  If I don't find a problem with the beer, I don't even mention

>it in the scored section of the form.  By the way, I try to remember to

>check for sediment, so I know if this is a bottle-conditioned or CP-filled

>bottle.

>

Checking for sediment is not a good test. It is easy to get lots of

sediment in a CP-filled bottle. For example the first few glasses (or

bottles) out of a keg pick up some of the yeast sediment from the bottom.

The same can happen for a whole batch if you CP-bottle before all the yeast

has settled out or if you shake up the keg accidently but have to ship your

beer to the contest that day. Conversely, I know microbreweries that filter

their beer before priming and then prime and add just enough yeast to get

carbonation. They are bottle conditioned but have virtually no visible

sediment.

My main point is that non-judges can take bottle inspection comments

seriously. They don't know that they are just notes to yourself. The

comments should be to provide constructive feedback to the brewer and I

feel that any comments that don't directly relate to the quality of the

beer are inappropriate especially when they can be percevied as negative.

Geoff

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

|           Can you tell I'd rather read HBD than work?                   |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Geoff Reeves:  NIS-2, Mail Stop D-436, Los Alamos National Laboratory   |

|                reeves@lanl.gov (internet) or  essdp2::reeves (span)     |

|                Phone (505) 665-3877                                     |

|                Fax   (505) 665-4414                                     |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


HopTech shipping

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 10:31:42 EST

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: HopTech shipping

The shipping cost are cleary stated in the catalog as are the costs for

upgrading the type of shipping from standard UPS.  My experience with

mail order is that one can not assume what shipping and handling costs

are, you need to ask.  Small orders are just as much work to pack and

ship as larger ones if the cost of handling exceeds the profit on the

items purchased why sell them.

Let the buyer beware.

PS:  I have had no problems ordering from HopTech, the phone staff is

helpful and you can call the "Hot line" Wednesday nites from 6-9PM PST.

------------------------------


Making a Belgian White Ale....

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1993 12:15:52 -40975532 (CST)

From: "J. Andrew Patrick" <andnator@genesis.Mcs.Com>

Subject: Making a Belgian White Ale....

Some minor clarifications and updates to Micheal Yee's posting on the

"HBU-BBS/Steve Daniel- Celis White" recipe in HBD #1302:

 - The portions about the proper yeast selection were in fact written by

  Steve Moore, the HBU-SW Campus Sysop, and not by Steve Daniel.  All other

  sections are properly attributed to Steve Daniel and Tony Storz.

 - Pierre Celis was present at all major events at the Dixie Cup in Houston

  last October.  He was very open and gracious with information about his

  brewing process, giving us added confirmation that we were on the right

  track with this recipe.

 - Dave Noonan's brewpub in Burlington, Vermont is now making a commercial

  Wit based directly upon the HBU/Steve Daniel recipe.  Unfortunately, I

  have not had a chance to try it yet, but have heard good reports.

I just brewed an all-grain batch of it with some friends, and can confirm

that the yeast selection is indeed crucial.  We started with some growing

dregs from a Steendonk bottle.  This plodded along for a few days, and then

we ended up pitching some Bavarian Wheat Wyeast to get the thing going.

We're still waiting on final product while we "dry-BOQ" on the Bitter Orange

Quarters that Pierre recommends, but the beer was _quite_ close to Celis in

terms of color and aroma at the time of racking.  If we can just get the

gravity down to an acceptable range and pick up the proper flavors from

the Bitter Orange Quarters, we should have a really close imitation of Celis

White.  We're also considering adding some lactic acid before final kegging

in an attempt to simulate the results of the secondary lactic fermentation

that Pierre does.  I'd be interested in any HBDwisdom on how do achieve this

last step.

P.S. My heartfelt thanks to ALL who replied directly to me regarding my

recent posting on AOL and censorship.  Even those of you who called me

names that made my poor naive ears turn red!!  "I may not agree with what

you say, but I will gladly fight to the death for your right to say it!"

 - Thomas Jefferson

+--------------+---------------------------------+--------------+

|Sysop         |         Andrew Patrick          |       Founder|

|Home Brew Univ| AHA/HWBTA Recognized Beer Judge |Home Brew Univ|

|Midwest BBS   |  SW Brewing News Correspondent  | Southwest BBS|

|(708)705-7263 |Internet:andnator@genesis.mcs.com| (713)923-6418|

+--------------+---------------------------------+--------------+

------------------------------


Slotted Copper/Step Mash/Miscellany

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 10:08:07 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Slotted Copper/Step Mash/Miscellany

John Wheaton writes about installing a slotted copper tube to the bottom of his

mash tun to make it a mash/lauter tun.  This will work, John, as it is similar

to my cooler setup.  With only one pipe, I would probably try to put it

directly on the bottom of the tun though.  This will leave less liquor behind

and probably prevent more of the grain from finding its way into the slots.

Very little of the grain would be trapped under the pipe, I would think not

enough to worry about in terms of temperature extremes.  I'm sure Jack will

note your reason for not using SS screen:  it is less durable than the pipe.

He claims that the SS screen he buys is very rugged and that durability is not

an issue.  I have not found SS readily available in my area.

**

Andy Kligerman raises some good points about accuracy of curves fitted to

approximate data points, then says "Sorry for rambling on, by I'm in the

government and here to help you!".  Now I thought it was coming up to

Christmas, not April Fools Day!  Ha!

**

Ed Oriordan writes:

>Papazian gives the following numbers (working from memory here)

>  For 1 step infusion - Add 1 qt 165 H20 per 1lb grain  (Target 155F)

>  For step infusion   - Add 1 qt 128 H2O per 1lb grain  (Target 122F)

>                        Add .5 qt 212 H2O per 1lb grain (Target 155F)

>

>I have also found that the .5 qt he purposes does not get me

>to 155, but more like 145 I was afraid to add more boiling H2O(making it even

>thinner) so I did a partial decoction(more work than I wanted).

These numbers are just a guide.  Every mash tun is different (absorbs different

amounts of heat, etc.).  You need to adjust these numbers (keep good records)

to own setup.  I would recommend using something like .75 quart of 145F water

per 1 lb grain to hit your protein rest temp.  Then use up to .5 qt 212F water

per 1 lb grain to hit your saccharification temp.

>What are the consequences of the mash being so much thinner (than his

>1 step infussion, it's 50% thinner) during the final step????

A thicker mash encourages one of the main saccharification enzymes and a

thinner mash encourages the other (alpha amylase likes it thick??? I can't

remember).  Anyway, it is in at least one of the common books.  Look it up and

you can then adjust your temperature to aid the enzyme that's getting the short

end of the stiffness stick.  Of course, this may end up making a poor

environment for both enzymes!  Comments?

>Should I use less H2O in the first step and use it in the second?

>Should I just add as much boiling water as needed to get to 155?

See above.

>Does anybody do a step in a cooler, if so what numbers do you do(temps

>and volumes per lb)?

Now you've got me.  I haven't ever really tried this (sheepish grin...)

Remember that this advice is worth exactly what you paid for it.

>I am to lazy to stove top mash, and I don't want to build an insulated box,

>so please limit answers to what I should do for cooler mashing.

>

>The reason I am doing a protein rest is I was under the impression I needed

>to with 2 Row Breiss (Klages that is Harrington) to prevent chill haze and

>to get some needed yeast nutrients. Is that the case.

You'll probably get lots of reponse about how you are wasting your time doing a

protein rest in the first place (well-modified malts like Breiss 2-row don't

need it, etc.).  I am interested in the subject for future brews which may

require it.  Also, it would be interesting to be able to do multiple

saccarification steps (say, 145F, 150F, 155F, mashout) to see the effect it has

on the brew.  I'm not sure this is possible though without really diluting the

mash.

**

Phil Brushaber, I think you are on the right track in reworking the poppets and

O-rings in your kegs.  I have learned this lesson the hard way as well.

**

Jeff Frane writes:

>              I would suggest it would be a good rule that no one say

>"on-line" something they wouldn't be willing to say to another person's

>face -- and risk getting popped one in the snoot.

This has been my attitude all along.  If it is not appropriate to say to

someone's face, it is not appropriate.

Norm

------------------------------


test

Date:         Wed, 22 Dec 93 14:18:10 EST

From: Peter Ferrara <FERRARA@URIACC.URI.EDU>

Subject:      test

test

------------------------------


mosaic site for hbd?

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1993 14:26:35 +0000 (U)

From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: mosaic site for hbd?

                      mosaic site for hbd?

I've been searching for a Mosaic (WWW, WAIS, gopher, etc) site

specification for the homebrew digest and mead lover's digest.

The reference I have is:

http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu:8001/quake.think.com:210/homebrew

but is broken.

Is there another?

george

------------------------------


Re: 5 Liter Mini Kegs

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1993 14:50:38 -0500 (EST)

From: Josh Stillerman <JAS@HARPO.PFC.MIT.EDU>

Subject: Re: 5 Liter Mini Kegs

In HBD #1303 Diane Palme writes about 5 Liter Mini-kegs.

I got one of these as a gift this fall.  I put up a batch

this fall with quite mixed results.

1 - The beer was mostly foam when I first tapped it.

2 - I may have over primed it - the pressure bulged out

    the keg quite a bit.

3 - It was Ok over the next 2 days.

4 - With the tap on it is taller than a standard fridge shelf

5 - This beer was good, and reasonably carbonated in bottles

6 - 5L is actually quite a bit of beer.  This meant that I ran

    out of bottles all the quicker and had to wait for an

    occasion to open the keg.

7 - I tapped one of the comerical 5L mini kegs using the

    same tap and it had similar problems.

8 - If you add too much Co2 the kegs leak around the bottom

    (or top) crimp.

9 - Anyone want to buy mine? :(

     Josh Stillerman

------------------------------


A-B Boycott/Budweiser

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 15:05 CDT

From: David P. Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: A-B Boycott/Budweiser

While A-B may be a multi-gillion dollar juggernaut don't suppose that they

will not take notice of the Patriots call for an A-B boycott.

>From Advertising Age, Dec. 13, 1993 front page story:  "California Budslide

Hits Anheuser-Busch".

The article details A-B's move to cut California Budweiser prices to stop the

brand's decline in market share....

  "Budweiser's rate of decline has increased this year, say knowledgeable

observers.  Partial-year figures gathered by BEER MARKETER'S INSIGHTS show

that in a flat industry, A-B sales drops are concentrated in New England and the

West."  Go Pats!

also....

  "Normally, the beer industry points to California as a trendsetting

state.  In San Francisco, some observers say Budweiser taps at bars are being

replaced with local or specialty brews."

Hurrah...but...

  "A-B and distributors, however, argue there were some unique

circumstances in California this year.

 'We had horrendous weather.....economic woes....taxes....other brands

selling at $4.99 a case...."

And the plot thickens...

  "A-B also announced plans to introduce another new brew next year,

 possibly a flavored beer."  Wow, Bud with a taste!

  "Some distributors last week said they had heard of negotiations with

Boston Beer Co. under which A-B which(sic) would bring Samual Adams specialty

beer to its stable.  Boston Beer officials could not be reached for comment."

Busy day in court, perhaps?  Old rumors that refuse to die?  Nothing like some

quality hearsay.

And what of the new Bud commercials...targetting twentysomethings who can do

nothing but rattle of topical lists and drink Bud?  Geez.  I want to drink

with those guys.

Happy Holidays,

David Atkins

------------------------------


Evaluating Beer w/ Jim Koch

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 16:25:58 EST

From: Mark Stickler Internet Mail Name <mstickle@lvh.com>

Subject: Evaluating Beer w/ Jim Koch

I recently received a new book from the AHA entitled Evaluating Beer. What

I read so far seems pretty informative but I noticed one the final chapters

was written by Jim Koch (the book is a collection of previously published

articles by various authors). His was a fairly short article which basically

says that hops and malt are THE most important factors in beer taste. The

word yeast is not mentioned even once in the entire article. He does mention

water but says that is not important because it can be treated to suit

whatever the brewers needs are. As an example he points out the Bud tastes

the same whether iuts made in Tampa, Newark or St.Louis. I suppose this

means AB could produce Pilsner Urquell or Bass Ale if they had the right

hops and Malt. Other than this chapter the book appears to be worth the

price.

------------------------------


Heileman Brew. Co Beerwatch

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 15:38 CDT

From: David P. Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: Heileman Brew. Co Beerwatch

Hello again,

Just as I posted the Ad. Age piece on Budweiser, I found the following

information concerning Heileman; brewers of Colt 45, Mickey's bigmouths,

Special Export Light (GABF medal winner, I think) Old Style, Rainier & Lonestar.

Advertising Age, Dec. 13, 1993, "Heileman Buyer Eyes New Markets"

 "The new owners of G. Heileman Brewing Co. plan to aggressively expand

into new markets, including buying competitors, while maintaining a regional

approach to selling beer.

 Richard F. Gaccione said he and his new bosses are of one mind on the

company's strategic plan:  aim for growth by tapping new markets or buying

smaller competitors, and by focusing market resources on new brands."

Being a resident of Wisconsin and also being surrounded by some fine

microbreweries and regional operations, I express some concern of a hungry fish

entering the pond.  Berghoff of Monroe Wiconsin and of Berghoff Hotel, Chicago

fame is the property of Strohs.  Leinenkugel's (sp?)is the property of Miller.

What of Sprecher, Capital, Point, Schell?  Have any list members heard any

business rumblings concerning regional breweries?

Will the quality and character of regional brewing be adversely effected by

takeovers or will just the name on the letterhead be changed?  For instance,

Berghoff no longer brews beer for the Berghoff Hotel and anecdotal accounts

tell of the brand's loss of appeal in light of an expanding local beer market.

All points of view and information are encouraged.

Thanks and more Happy Holidays

David Atkins

------------------------------


High malt glucose syrup, etc.

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 11:36:48 PST

From: Alec Saunders <alecs@microsoft.com>

Subject: High malt glucose syrup, etc.

Hi all --

I have three questions for you:

(1) I recently started brewing again, after a prolonged hiatus (7

years!).  When I went to the local home brew store I asked for some

dried malt extract instead of corn sugar to go with an english bitter

kit I had.  The proprietor of the store sold me stuff called "high malt

glucose syrup" instead.  I made up the kit with this syrup, and then

put it downstairs to ferment about a week ago.  I just tested the

gravity yesterday to see if it was ready for bottling, and had a sip of

the beer that was in the graduate cylinder.  It was FABULOUS --> no

cidery overtones, lots of body, and an incredible malt flavour.  What

*is* this stuff?  I assumed, from the name, that it was just glucose

syrup.  It sure doesn't leave a taste like glucose, though!

(2) The proprietor of same store tells me to bottle as soon as the

gravity falls below 1.010.  Says that if I let the beer ferment further

I'm "losing alcohol".  This doesn't make sense to me.  Can anyone explain?

(3) There seems to have been a lot of discussion about starter

gravities in HBD.  I've just gone and made up a pile of starters

(boiled up 2 gallons of wort, then canned it in mason jars).  The

starters turned out to have a higher SG than I was expecting -- about

1.050 vs. the 1.040 that I was trying for.  I suspect that  the 1 Kg

bag of dried malt extract I purchased was a little overfull.  In any

case, my question is simply this -- does anyone have a good feel for

what the optimal SG for a starter is?  Is my 1.050 going to cause a problem?

Thanks for all of your help.

Alec.

------------------------------


hoppy whatever

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1993 16:37:31 +0000 (U)

From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: hoppy whatever

                      hoppy whatever

i'll waste some bandwidth here to wish

everyone, and their special others, a safe

and hoppy holiday season.

i'll be racking to a secondary tomorrow on my

honey wheat ale.

george

------------------------------


Seltzer Carbonators

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 16:56:02 EST

From: asteinm@pipeline.com (Art Steinmetz)

Subject: Seltzer Carbonators

I use them to carbonate water every day.  They work great.  I

don't have a need to use them with beer but they work fine here

too.  Note that long term storage in PET bottles is not

recommended cuz of oxygen permeability.

------------------------------


Weissbier

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 16:56:07 EST

From: asteinm@pipeline.com (Art Steinmetz)

Subject: Weissbier

Jeffrey L. Duerk writes:

>If anyone has any experience in this area, a recipe to share,

and yeast info, I'd appreciate

> either a posting here, or directly to me at jld3@po.cwru.edu

I took second place in the national Weiss is Nice competition

with a totally simple recipe.

For 5 gal:

6 lbs Yellow Dog Extract

1/2 lb. cracked crystal malt

1/2 oz. Hallertau hops

YeastLabs Weizen yeast in 1 qt. starter

Steep crystal in water as water is brought to boil.

Add hops and extract.

Boil for 90 min.  (longer boil is better for wheat beers)

No finising hops.

Force chill and pitch yeast at 68 deg. F.

Ferment till done.

Rack to secondary and lager at 40 deg. for one month.

The YeastLabs Weizen strain deserves all the credit.   The true

Weizen cloviness really comes through.

------------------------------


Fixed Kettle Thermometers

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 16:59:21 CST

From: Will B. Blalock <willb@hp3.imed.com>

Subject: Fixed Kettle Thermometers

Full-Name: Will B. Blalock

  I have seen pictures of SS kettles and hot liquid tanks that

  have thermometers attached on the sides midway between bottom

  and top. Is this easily done? Does it take a special thermometer

  which has to be welded to the side or can it be attached in an

  easier way? Where do you find these flat thermometers (or do you

  cut the stem off a typical style thermometer? Is it worth it?

  --

  *-------------------------------*------------------------------*

  | Will Blalock : willb@imed.com | No one ever called Picasso   |

  | 409-798-0201   Angleton Texas | an assho.                    |

  *-------------------------------*------------------------------*

------------------------------


Bulk hop purchasing

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1993 19:07:49 -0400 (EDT)

From: WESTEMEIER@delphi.com

Subject: Bulk hop purchasing

I hope this doesn't get interpreted as a commercial, but I would really

like to share a good experience and recommend it to everyone:

Our homebrew club (the Bloatarian Brewing League) has always bought

grain in bulk quantities (like a ton or two at a time).  This method

has been so efficient and economical that we decided it would be

worthwhile to try buying hops the same way.

We gathered everyone's list of what hops they expected to be using

between now and next harvest, and consolidated them into one big list.

Then we checked some suppliers and settled on The Hop Source in Oregon

(Glenn Tinseth, 503-873-2879).  Since it was a bulk order (over 25

pounds), Glenn gave us 50% off his normal prices for the 92 crop, and

25% off his 93 crop prices.  We wound up buying 72 pounds of hops,

and Glenn's only restriction was that we order in units of pounds.

When the hops arrived, they were packed in one-pound, oxygen-barrier

vacuum-sealed bags, and the 92 crop looked as good as the 93 crop.

Bright green and beautiful.

I'm sure that other hop merchants will offer similar deals, so this

isn't really a "plug" for The Hop Source, and I certainly don't have

any connection of any kind other than as very satisfied customer.

If anyone is looking for hops to carry them through the winter

brewing season, I strongly encourage you to get your club together

and put a bulk order in now.

One final note:  I have found that once the oxygen-barrier bag is

opened, an excellent way of keeping the hops pretty fresh is to wrap

them in aluminum foil and crimp the edges tightly.  Zip-lock plastic

bags are useful, but they don't keep the oxygen out, while aluminum

foil gives you as close to an airtight container as you're likely

to find.  Obviously, you want to keep them in the freezer or at least

the refrigerator (or even outside if you're in a cold climate), since

the vapor pressure will be reduced by the lower temperature, also

contributing to freshness.

- -- Ed Westemeier

- -- Cincinnati, Ohio

- -- westemeier@delphi.com

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1305, 12/23/93

*************************************

-------


Samual Smith's quest - Pt. 2

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 16:12:51 PST

From: danforth@trinity.llnl.gov (Bill A. Danforth)

Subject: Samual Smith's quest - Pt. 2

Hello all (again),

About my quest for clones of Winter welcome and Pale Ale (SS's),

can anyone give me ideas on the hops (and other possible flavorings) used

in these two brews (Winter Welcome and Old Brewery Pale Ale)?

many, many thanks!!

Happy Holidays to all!!

Bill Danforth

danforth2@llnl.gov

------------------------------


Hops Storage Question

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 16:16:13 PST

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hops Storage Question

Ed Oriordan writes:

>Question 1) I store my hops (pellets) in the freezer. They are not in oxygen

>barrier bags, but in little heat sealed plastic bags. Would it help presserve

>them if I put them (still in the bags) into a glass jar and filled the

>jar with CO2, and then closed the jar and put it in the fridge.

Yes.  This will approximately double the storage life, or another way of

looking at it is this will cut the rate of deterioration in half.  Whether

this makes any practical difference or not depends on how cold the hops are,

(you've got them in the freezer, so that's good) and how fast you use them.

If you use the hops within a month, it isn't going to matter much (assuming

you keep them in the freezer).  But if you store them longer, then it's

worth the effort to CO2 flush them.  I would suggest you fill the jar first,

then put the hops in, then top up the jar.

A more important question, though, is how have the hops been stored before

you bought them? If they were stored in "little heat-sealed plastic bags" then

they may have gone through a significant amount of deterioration already,

again highly dependent on the temperature of the storage.  I *am* assuming

that these bags are polyethelene and not a barrier bag.  Polyetheylene bags

are the same as zip-lock or sandwich bags, and aren't an O2 barrier.  *BUT*

the homebrew industry is waking up and some of the major wholesalers are

distributing their hops in O2 barrier material in small bags.  So if these

are the bags you have, then further putting them in the glass with CO2 is

uneccessary.  How can you tell the difference?  Get a sandwich bag and

compare the look and feel of the material.  If it looks and feels

substantially the same, then these bags provide virtually no protection.

OTOH, barrier material is "shiny and polished" looking and is usually

considerably stiffer than polyethelene.  The ones I have seen from a major

distributor also have little bumps molded into them (helps the vacuum sealer

out).  Your homebrew store may also have done their own packaging in barrier

material (I don't mean to imply that only distributors provide hops in

barrier packaging, some of the better homebrew stores and hop suppliers also

take great care in their packaging and storage.)  Probably the best test is

leave the hops at room temp for a few hours and then smell the bag.  If you

can smell hops, then the bag is not barrier material.

Mark

------------------------------


capping/hoptea/etcetera

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 93 08:52:21 EST

From: dweller@GVSU.EDU (RONALD DWELLE)

Subject: capping/hoptea/etcetera

          A couple things:

          (These may already have been dealt with & I missed

          them--work has been interfering with my life...)

          On capping champagne bottles--normal caps will work on

          american bottles BUT the capper I have (it's the

          jerk-and-squeeze-em type, not a bench top) will not work

          because the champagne bottles below the bulge are bigger in

          diameter than beer bottles below the bulge. You need to have

          a bench-type capper (with the bottle free-standing) in order

          to cap em.

          Someone talked about making a hop tea (instead of turning

          the hops loose in your wort). Could someone with experience

          describe the process of making hop tea--how to do, when to

          add, etc. Or does someone have a good method of dealing with

          loose hops, so they don't muck up the straining? TIA

          A big thanks to the wylie one for talking me into fresh

          hops. Just did my first batch, and MAN the difference! No

          more pellets, hopped extract, etc for this brewminor!

          Time to celebrate the ancient tradition of Beermas! Cheers

          to all!

          Ron D (dweller@gvsu.edu at Internet)

          "And what to my wondering eyes should appear...

          "But a jolly fat brewer, holding a Pilsner Urquell...

------------------------------


re: mosaic beer page

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 93 08:54:56 EST

From: sims@pdesds1.scra.org (Jim Sims)

Subject: re: mosaic beer page

>>Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1993 14:26:35 +0000 (U)

>>From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

>>Subject: mosaic site for hbd?

>>

>>                      mosaic site for hbd?

>>I've been searching for a Mosaic (WWW, WAIS, gopher, etc) site

>>specification for the homebrew digest and mead lover's digest.

>>

>>The reference I have is:

>>but is broken.

>>

>>Is there another?

>>

 This isnt exactly for the HBD, but it is a pointer to the "Beer PAge"

 - realted stuff ( i think it includes the HBD and archives, but the

 net is seideways for me right now so I cant check and make sure...)

URL http://guraldi.itn.med.umich.edu/Beer

enjoy,

jim

------------------------------


5 Liter Kegs

Date: 23 Dec 93 14:48:40 GMT

From: sail!woodie@pc0278.attmail.com

Subject: 5 Liter Kegs

    There has been a recent chorus in the HBD about 5 Liter Mini-Kegs so

    I'll take this opportunity to chime in ...

    I've been using the 5 Liter keg and Beer King CO2 tap for about 6 months

    now, or about 4 batches.  Four of my kegs were purchased from a local

    Homebrewing Supply Store the other is a salvaged keg that had a

    commercial brew in it.  So far I'm satisfied with their performance.

    They fit, snugly, on the top shelf of my refrigerator and I can enjoy a

    cool glass of Homebrew each night with my dinner.  I don't use the CO2

    until the natural pressure is to weak to dispense beer and then I only

    use enough to keep the brew flowing.  Still, I usually go through 2 or 3

    cartridges using them this way.  The first half glass is all foam and

    yeast but after that all seems well.

    The kegs seem to transport well.  During the summer months I started

    taking one to the lake for the sailing club to consume after the races.

    The kegs are just the right size to sit in a bucket of ice and provide

    brew for everyone.  When used like this one CO2 cartridge is all that's

    needed.

    Longevity is my remaining concern.  Some of my quart bottles are 25

    years old, I don't think these kegs will make it that long.  I haven't

    had leaking seams or bulging kegs (I always leave at least 1 to 1.5

    inches of space at the top) but, they are showing signs of use.  The

    kegs are plastic coated steel and mine are beginning to show some signs

    of rust on the outside where they have been bumped or scraped.

- --

     Woody Woodie

     Byram Township, New Jersey

     pc0278!sail!woodie@attmail.com

------------------------------


malt addition

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1993 09:54:20 -0500 (EST)

From: /R=HERLVX/R=AM/U=KLIGERMAN/FFN=KLIGERMAN/@mr.rtpnc.epa.gov

Subject: malt addition

While reading the moast recent HBD, I raree thought came to me!  When

I do an all grain breew, I add the crystal malts and carapils in with

the rest of the grain at the start of the mash.  Since the other grains

are enzyme rich, am I defeating the purpose of these malts when trying

to achieve I high malt, full bodied beer?  Should I add these at the mash out?

Andy Kligerman

p.s.- I can't believe all those things they say about Michael Jackson --

He's too busy sampling beers to entertain children %<)!

------------------------------


RE:MASH/LAUTER TUN

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 93 09:21:55 -0500 [EST]

From: greg.demkowicz@circellar.com

Subject: RE:MASH/LAUTER TUN

Mashing in a SS keg with a screen false bottom. If your doing this

in a RIMS setup, it will work fairly well. However, if your applying direct

heat to the bottom of the keg, as you mention, yes, you will scorch/burn

your mash. The next logical step is to remove the false bottom and add

the slotted tube. If you plan to use just a short piece of slotted tube,

rest assured that it will promptly clog. Consider enclosing the tube

with a simple lint filter ( used on washing machine drains), EasyMasher, Chore

boy, or even the screen removed from a kithchen pasta strainer. All will

work well if clamped over the slotted tube with a small hose clamp.

Greg

------------------------------


RE: Cider flavour; priming

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1993 09:30:59 -0600 (CST)

From: John Mare <cjohnm@ccit.arizona.edu>

Subject: RE: Cider flavour; priming

Mark asks about the use of sugar for priming and the cidery flavour he is

experiencing. In my opinion, the cidery edge to your beer is not the result

of the priming sugar, but if you want to test this use light dry malt

extract as I always do. For me, bottling 5 gallon batches, the following

gives very consistent reults: For ales, 1.25 cups DME in 2 pints of water,

boil for 15 minutes, cool in closed kettle, pour into sanitized bottling

bucket (a 5 gal plastic bucket with spigot), siphon beer from carboy without

aerating, stand for 15 mins while preparing bottles, bottle! For lager I use

1.33 cups DME to give a little more prime. For ales I find I have adequate

prime in 7 days at 68!F, full prime by 14 days. For lagers at 50!F or lower,

the prime takes much longer (2-3 weeks).

John M.

------------------------------


A-B and Jim <shudder> Koch

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1993 09:17:58 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@teleport.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: A-B and Jim <shudder> Koch

> From: Mark Stickler Internet Mail Name <mstickle@lvh.com>

> Subject: Evaluating Beer w/ Jim Koch

>

> I recently received a new book from the AHA entitled Evaluating Beer. What

> I read so far seems pretty informative but I noticed one the final chapters

> was written by Jim Koch (the book is a collection of previously published

> articles by various authors). His was a fairly short article which basically

> says that hops and malt are THE most important factors in beer taste. The

> word yeast is not mentioned even once in the entire article. He does mention

> water but says that is not important because it can be treated to suit

> whatever the brewers needs are. As an example he points out the Bud tastes

> the same whether iuts made in Tampa, Newark or St.Louis. I suppose this

> means AB could produce Pilsner Urquell or Bass Ale if they had the right

> hops and Malt. Other than this chapter the book appears to be worth the

> price.

>

I have been told by people who work for A-B that, in fact, their brewers

*can* tell the difference between Budweisers from different sites, and

can even tell *which* site the beer originated from.  This is obviously

a highly-specialized skill, which personally I can do without.  But...

Make no mistake, though, A-B is technically capable of producing

extraordinary beer if they chose to.  They may even have some brewers

who would *love* to do so.  But if you'll talk to any of these people

they'll tell you who controls the beer: the marketing guys (gee! Jim

Koch!).

What's Koch doing telling anyone how to actually brew beer, anyway?  And

please, Jim, no more crap about your granddaddy's recipe.  Unless, of

course, Owades was grandma's milk man?

- --Jeff

------------------------------


judgenet

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 93 10:27:24 EST

From: btalk@aol.com

Subject: judgenet

I sent a subscription request to  judge-request@synchro.com  including the

words subscribe and request. Will this do it? It has been a couple days and

haven't heard anything yet.

 Bob Talkiewicz, Binghamton, NY

------------------------------


Water Hard/Soft Info.

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 93 12:28 CDT

From: David P. Atkins <ATKINS@macc.wisc.edu>

Subject: Water Hard/Soft Info.

Hello readers,

Whilst browsing a book in my library's reference collection, I found an item

that may be of interest to homebrewers and beer hunters alike.

To determine a city or town's water hardness, you can use the EDITOR &

PUBLISHER MARKET GUIDE:  An annual publication providing data on daily

newspaper markets in the US and Canada.  If you know of a town or city with a

daily newspaper, this publication will provide the data.

Why does a Market Guide care about water hardness?  Lots of reasons....but I

won't blather here.

Instead, to the chase.  Each market is highlighted with various types of data,

including "Tap Water".  This directory does not provide Ph readings but it

does inform the reader if a town's water is hard, soft, medium, neutral,

alkaline, acid, city, county, or fluoridated.

For example:

 Madison, Wisconsin

 Tap Water: Alkaline, hard; fluoridated

or Chico, California

 Tap Water: Alkaline, soft; not fluoridated

While not the most informative source, it could be handy to curious brewers

prospective movers, beer hunters, triv buffs, etc.  The directory does not

provide any explanation to the above descriptions, so it ain't science.

Feel free to email with any reference request AFTER JAN. 4TH 1994.  I will not

be in my little library till then.  Most academic and urban public libraries

carry the title.

Pleasant, Secular Greetings and Celebratory Thoughts,

David Atkins

atkins@macc.wisc.edu

------------------------------


(simple)beer/wine suggestions

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 93 14:52:14 CST

From: "kim.paffenroth.1" <kim.paffenroth.1@nd.edu>

Subject: (simple)beer/wine suggestions

Season's Greetings! I have been homebrewing for ca. 3 months. I would

appreciate any (reasonably) simple suggestions for jazzing up brew kits.

Also, I have very much enjoyed some fruit wines I have made, even though

they should be aged more. Cranberry was exceptionally strong and sweet, with

a slightly bitter but enjoyable aftertaste. Apple has been a tad weak, but

the apple flavor is noticeable and pleasant. It's way too early to tell on

the banana, parsley, or rhubarb. I'll be starting five gallons of mead in two

weeks or so. Any other suggestions for fruit wines, or comments about these,

would be greatly appreciated. (I'm trying to do these without a press, by

the way.)

Many Thanks!!!  --- K. P.

kim.paffenroth.1@nd.edu

------------------------------


copper manifold/cleaning brass/mashing corn meal/grain source

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 93 13:07:05 MST

From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

Subject: copper manifold/cleaning brass/mashing corn meal/grain source

copper manifolds:

John wrote (in HBD #1304):

>The reason for not using a rolled up screen is the durability of it when I am

>mixing the grain during mashing.

I can't imagine how you could dislodge the rolled up SS screen, provided it

is attached with a SS hose clamp.  I have not had a problem in my admittedly

very limited experience (6 mashes).

The only reason I can imagine using slotted Cu pipe instead of SS screen is

the limited availability of the latter.  I bought my 1st easymasher from Jack,

and then made two more myself.  I was lucky enough to find a large piece of

SS screen in a dumpster behind a machine shop.  (I am not too proud to look

into dumpsters.)

Just for the record, I would like to say that I am really happy with my

easymashers.  I seriously doubt if I would have gone to all-grain if I had

had to use a picnic cooler/Cu manifold or a Zapap approach.  To me, the

easymash approach is much simpler and cheaper.  I have never had a slow

sparge, and extractions are generally 30 pts/(lb/gal) or better.

This is not intended to be a plug for Jack's business.  I think you should

make your own easymasher.  Just stay away from my dumpster ;)

cleaning brass:

On a related note, I have come across a large number of brass fittings that

may be useful in brewing, but I don't know what they were used in before.

I was wondering how I could clean them up so that I could be sure no

toxins were left adsorbed on them.  I have thought about boiling them in

some kind of acidic solution, perhaps vinegar.  Does anyone have any ideas

about this?

mashing corn meal:

I have seen flaked corn used as an adjunct.  I would like to know if I could

substitute corn meal.  For that matter, could regular wheat flour be used

as an adjunct?

grain source:

Does anyone know where I can get big sacks of quality 2-row malted

barley mail order?

Thanks,

Joel Birkeland

Motorola SPS

------------------------------


Re: Ad. Age Dec. 13

Date: Thursday, 23 December 93 14:00:24 CST

From: LLDSC@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

Subject: Re: Ad. Age Dec. 13

David Atkins talks about some of the new beers in an issue of Ad. Age.

At my library, we justgot in the new issue of Beverage World's

Periscope (Nov. 30)-we're a little behind. On the cover is an article

about the Heileman brewing company and some of their new brews. [

One of these is the Cool Colt, the mint flavored malt liquor.

Anybody tried this? How would it taste with a pack of Kools?

I'm waiting for the Schlitz Malt Liquor Draft myself.

            Scott  LLDSC@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu

------------------------------


Another Purple Dinosaur

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1993 15:26:41 -0600 (CST)

From: "T.J. Ramsey" <tjram@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Another Purple Dinosaur

Since the subject of purple dinosaurs with tire tracks etc. has come up

lately, I figured some of you may be interested in a recent (and

subsequent forthcoming) mini-comic called "Smarmy the Sexually Repressed

Dinosaur."  The first issue came out recently, and the second should be

out soon.  There are as yet no GIFs available, but the creators have

considered making GIFs of future Smarmys available, so if you are

interested E-mail them at the address that follows (REQUESTS SENT TO ME

WILL BE DELETED WITHOUT A THOUGHT)

Send requests for Barney info to GLAA305@utxsvs.cc.utexas.edu or

okeefe@wixer.bga.com

BTW, I can recommend the new Ko"lsch Wyeast very highly.  At least my

untrained palate found it quite pleasent.  I made the first batch for

someone else, but ive got my second batch of ko"lsch going and I can't

wait to drink it.

DISCLAIMER: I am only passing on info, I don't stand to benifit and so on

and so on.  Also I assume traffic will be light arount the holidays,

otherwise I wouldn't even think of wasting bandwidth in this way.

Thanks for your attention

Prettig Kerst en een gelukkig nieuw jaar,

T.J.

------------------------------


Where did it go?

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1993 13:59:31 -0700 (MST)

From: Ken Sager <Ken.Sager@m.cc.utah.edu>

Subject: Where did it go?

Greetings from Zion (where homebrew is not only delicious but a

misdemeanor too)

I have one question for other brewers using Cornelius kegs.

How do you refrain from draining your keg everytime you tap it?  Last

weekend I popped for a keg system and force carbonated 5 gal. of oatmeal

stout. I decided to share it with some friends and we emptied it

in what seemed like mere minutes. It was fantastic. WAS fantastic. It's gone.

Homebrew seems to last much longer when you share it in 16 oz portions,

rather than 5 gal. at a time! Oh well. Following this experience I feel

obligated to caution prospective keggers.

Beware! Kegging requires super-human restraint. I guess I'll bottle every

other batch just to keep beer on hand for guests.

Enjoy yourselves.

------------------------------


sign me up, please

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1993 17:05 EST

From: MARTE@vms.cis.pitt.edu

Subject: sign me up, please

Please send me information on signing up on this list (or sign me

up if this is all you need).

Thanks,

Dale Brubaker (via Marte Fallshore)

------------------------------


Hoegaardse Wit vs. Celis White, a survey.

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 93 17:05:38 EST

From: yeebot@aol.com

Subject: Hoegaardse Wit vs. Celis White, a survey.

I had the most incredible (mis)fortune of drinking Hoegaarden on tap in

Amsterdam last summer. I was transformed! Upon returning to the US, I learned

from the barkeep that Hoegaarden was no longer available here and was turned

on to Celis White, which I'm sure you all know, is brewed by Pierre Celis who

revived Hoegaarden in the 60's. Well, I'm not quite sure what it is: maybe

it's the Tap vs. the Bottle (Celis), the water (Hoegaarden vs. Austin) or

maybe even the "double" Westmalle trippel I had before I tried the

Hoegaardse. But even the fine new brew of Celis, IMHO is no substitute for

the Hoegaardse Wit.

Michael Jackson writes that Celis White is fruiter and more full- bodied that

Hoegaardse Wit. My memory tends to disagree.

But always reserving the Final judgement until I have both in front of me, I

ask for help: Can I get Hoegaardse Wit and/or Celis White on tap anywhere in

the NYC area? Anywhere in the US? (I hope to do some trekking this summer)

Also, What's your opinion?

Just rambling, (happy holidays!)

Mike Yee

Angst Brewing Co.                        "It's MY day in the barrel"

------------------------------


stainless/copperbottom brewpots

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 93 21:43:05 EST

From: ivan@mutt.cs.jmu.edu (Ivan Shantz)

Subject: stainless/copperbottom brewpots

I have been listening in with great fascination for the last

little while and have enjoyed it a lot.  As a consumer of

homebrew rather than a producer, I have had nothing to

contribute.  However the discussion of stainless brew pots

has me intrigued.  I think it began with a question as to

the feasibility of installing a petcock or some such device

in a copper bottomed one and proceeded to the question as to

copper plating.  As to copper plating I know nothing but am

a bit curious as to why one would attempt such a thing.  As

I understand, the goal of the clad bottom is to add mass to

the bottom of the pot and thereby reduce the probability of

scalding.  Copper and aluminum are used because they

transfer heat so well and therefore the entire bottom of

the pot is of a temperature rather than having hot spots

again reducing the danger of scalding/scorching.  It would

seem to me that a lot of copper would have to be

electroplated to achieve this effect and while it appears

that homebrewers are exceptionally patient folks and figure

things on a bit different equation than the general populace

(praise be to the deity of the hops) I question the

practicality of such a venture.

     As to installing spouts etc.  The fellow who said that

it makes no difference so long as you are not trying to go

through the bimetal section could be right.  However as a

machinist and sometime welder I would proceed with caution.

I suspect that it varies from pot to pot how the bimetal

portion is adhered together.  If it is electroplated then he

is indeed correct.  However there are a number of other ways

to stick two metals together and it may have been done

on the assumption that the temperature of the pot will not

exceed 100c/212F (boiling point H2O).  Having gotten into

some dicey spots with various projects at the machine shop

and also having separated the aluminum portion from the

bottom of one of my wife's cooking pots by boiling dry I

would be inclined to immerse as much of the pot,

particularly the bimetal portion, in water as possible while

I was welding it.  The same holds for silver soldering.  If

you don't know how to do this without electrocuting yourself

please find someone who does.  (These folks are

professionals, please do not attempt this on your own, if

you're a little kid and can't read your folks can't sue us

because we wrote this in little letters on your screen and

they were negligent to let you up this late).

Happy Brewing

Ivan Shantz

------------------------------


HB shop loons/Spray Malt/Extract Tang/Keg Prices

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 93 11:32:35 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: HB shop loons/Spray Malt/Extract Tang/Keg Prices

Alec Saunders writes:

>(2) The proprietor of same store tells me to bottle as soon as the

>gravity falls below 1.010.  Says that if I let the beer ferment further

>I'm "losing alcohol".  This doesn't make sense to me.  Can anyone explain?

This is one in a long line of ridiculous drivel coming out of homebrew shops

these days.  Are the people opening these stores a bunch of marketing majors

who heard that homebrewing was the latest rage or are they old-timers with the

experience of brewing bathtub brew for 20 years?  I've heard all kinds of

silly advice in the past couple of years, reported to be coming from homebrew

supply stores.  This really gets my goat, as you can probably tell.  They

should at least bother reading some of the books and magazines they sell.  The

funny part about it is that they spout this dogma as if they really know what

they're talking about (they should but they don't!).  Well, I feel better now.

BTW, all three of the people who run my local HB shop seem to quite

knowledgable, which means they usually agree with me ;-).

**

I was wondering the other day about this term "spray malt", which I believe

refers to dry malt extract.  I making some assumptions here, but bear with me.

If it is made by spraying wort for the drying process, it seems that HSA would

be a very big problem.  Actually, any drying method used would have to take

special precautions to avoid HSA.  Has this been discussed here before?

**

Virtually every extract brew I've made, including some partial mash brews, have

a flavor that I would term "extract tang".  It is a difficult taste to describe,

but my friend used to call it "green tasting".  He brews extract brews and

claims it mellows with age, but I haven't noticed this (maybe my beer doesn't

last long enough!).  I've noticed this flavor from the very first brew I made

(partial volume boil, no specialty grains, lots of HSA) to a very recent

partial mash brew (full volume boil, mashed 2-row, specialty grains at

mash-out, standard HSA precautions).  Anyway, this is not a swipe against

extract brewers because I've tasted extract brews which were undistinguishable

from all-grain brews; its just that _my_ extract brews are quite different from

_my_ all-grain brews.  I typically use Munton & Fison canned malt syrup when I

use it (rare these days) if that matters.  Have others noticed this occurence,

especially over a long period of time?  Just curious.

**

Recent HBD reports indicate that the used 1/2 barrel straight-sided sankey kegs

from BCI cost $43.50.  This is in error (I just received a price sheet).  The

actual cost is $61.50.  The barrel shaped sankey's in that size are indeed

$43.50.  Is it worth it to pay more for the straight sides if you are going to

use these things as tuns and tanks?  Is it that much more trouble to install

fitting on the barrel shaped kegs?  FYI, sankey is the style of tap on the keg.

BTW, I thought I might buy the sankey valve removal tool and possibly avoid

having to cut a keg.  They want $225 for it!  Yikes!  I'll find another way...

**

Remember:  Deck the Halls with Hops and Barley!  Fa la la la la, la la la la...

Norm

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1306, 12/24/93

*************************************

-------


Yeasty/Sulphury

Date: Fri, 24 Dec 93 08:39:49 CST

From: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com (Phil Brushaber)

Subject: Yeasty/Sulphury

        I've got a new angle on these off-tastes I have been getting when

kegging in stainless steel. I got another opinion. My wife is the head of

new products/recipes at Tony Roma's restuarants. She has been the head of

R&D of a number of national chains. I mention this not because I like to

brag on my wife (although I do) but because she has a much more "educated

pallet" than I do. (Advertising guys have no "taste" as we all know).

        Alison suggests that the taste I have been trying to get rid of is

not metallic or iodine-like, but yeasty/sulphury.

        You know she may be right. I stuck my head in the fermenting

refrigerator where I currently have a couple of batches perking away...

Discounting the CO2 smell ( I know CO2 has no smell), the smell generated

in the frige overnight is VERY much like the taste I have been getting.

        Because of space needs I have been secondarying in cornelius kegs

which I keep in the lagering refigerator. Is it possible that doing

secondary in closed kegs is not allowing the yeasty/sulphur componds to

escape, but in fact is disolving the taste in the beer? Does this sound

possible or am I heading down another blind alley on my Beer Detective

investigation?

- -----

Internet: philb@pro-storm.metronet.com

    UUCP: metronet.com!pro-storm!philb

  Bitnet: philb%pro-storm.metronet.com@nosc.mil

------------------------------


Re: Fixed Kettle Thermometers

Date: Fri, 24 Dec 93 08:22:57 PST

From: hollen@megatek.com (Dion Hollenbeck)

Subject: Re: Fixed Kettle Thermometers

>>>>> "Will" == Will B Blalock <willb@hp3.imed.com> writes:

Will>   I have seen pictures of SS kettles and hot liquid tanks that

Will>   have thermometers attached on the sides midway between bottom

Will>   and top. Is this easily done? Does it take a special thermometer

Will>   which has to be welded to the side or can it be attached in an

Will>   easier way? Where do you find these flat thermometers (or do you

Will>   cut the stem off a typical style thermometer? Is it worth it?

Will>   --

Will>   *-------------------------------*------------------------------*

Will>   | Will Blalock : willb@imed.com | No one ever called Picasso   |

Will>   | 409-798-0201   Angleton Texas | an assho.                    |

Will>   *-------------------------------*------------------------------*

I have two of these.  I used Sankey kegs.  It is *very* easily done if

you can weld stainless steel.  The thermometers come with 1/2" Male

NPT fittings.  Just weld a 3/4" x 1/2" SS bushing into the keg, put

lots of teflon pipe tape on the thermo threads and screw it in.

****Do Not Forget The Teflon Tape****

You can obtain these thermos from most any good industrial hardware

supply.  One is McMaster-Carr.   (310)695-2449.  They will ship to

anybody COD, but a catalog is nearly impossible for an individual to

obtain since they are HUGE and costly to produce.  Here is the thermo

I bought, there are several other styles available:

Part # 3946K176  3" Back Connection Dry BiMetal Thermometer

  6" stem, 20 to 240F in 2F increments.   $31.02 plus

  shipping.

dion

Dion Hollenbeck (619)455-5590x2814     Email: hollen@megatek.com

Staff Software Engineer                       megatek!hollen@uunet.uu.net

Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California    ucsd!megatek!hollen

------------------------------


Breweriana

Date: Fri, 24 Dec 1993 17:56:18 -0700 (MST)

From: MARK CASTLEMAN <mwcastle@ouray.Denver.Colorado.EDU>

Subject: Breweriana

While this is tangentially related to homebrewing I thought I would share it

here at the holidays.  Anyone passing through eastern Colorado in the summer

should stop in Burlington to see the Kit Carson County Carousel.  Of

interest to brewers is the goat.  He looks like he stepped out of a bock

label and on the back of the saddle he is decorated with barley and hops.

Beery Christmas!  Hoppy New Year!  Visualize Whirled Peas!

                             Mark W Castleman

                     Big Dog Brewing Cooperative - West

Wouldn't it be terrible if I quoted some reliable statistics which prove that

more people are driven insane through religious hysteria than by drinking.

                                                     --W.C. Fields

------------------------------


Hops Storage and rate of deterioration

Date: Fri, 24 Dec 93 19:57:01 -0800

From: mclagan@sfu.ca (scott mclagan)

Subject: Hops Storage and rate of deterioration

In Homebrew Digest #1306 (December 24, 1993), Mark Garetz writes:

"Yes.  This will approximately double the storage life, or another way of

looking at it is this will cut the rate of deterioration in half."

Thanks for information Mark. I am interested in the 'rate of

deterioration' versus bittering/aroma ability. The

statement 'this will cut the rate of deterioration in half'

makes me wonder if I should scrutinize how my local vendor

(and their suppliers) handle their hops . As I venture into

the more exotic varieties of hops, (which are less commonly

used), should I assume that I will need more quantity to

achieve the same quality because of aging?

Has anyone developed a scale to indicate rate of deterioration

of aroma/alpha over time?

Thanks,

Scott McLagan <mclagan@fraser.sfu.ca>

Coordinator for Computers, School District #43 (Coquitlam), B. C., Canada

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1307, 12/25/93

*************************************

-------


Kirschenbier

Date: Sat, 25 Dec 1993 14:18:59 -0800

From: pascal@netcom.com (Conan)

Subject: Kirschenbier

( Catching up on old Home Brew Digests ... )

"Date: 01 Dec 1993 00:35:24 -0700 (MST)

 From: "Steven W. Smith" <SMITH_S@gc.maricopa.edu>

 Subject: Kirschenbier and stream of consciousness

"Whenever I can find cherrys again, I plan to try adding them to my standard

 bock.  It seems reasonable (to me) to wash the whole fruit in a mild bleach

 solution, rinse, dry, smash (how?), force into a carboy (how?), then siphon

 from the primary onto them.  I'm thinking about 10 pounds of cherries to a 5

 gallon batch.  Maybe freezing/thawing before smashing? Do the pits matter?

 Any comments appreciated, I'm flying blind."

I was brewing a cherry-lemon-orange mead recently, and, lacking the cherries,

I wandered down to the local corner store and browsed through their freezer.

I found a wide variety of reasonably-priced two-pound packages of frozen and

pitted fruit. I read the label carefully, and could find no preservatives on

the package mentioned anywhere. I bought a couple of pounds of black bing

cherries, took them home, and pulped them with a metal meat tenderizer that

I had at hand ( like a hammer, but square, its working surface(s) covered by

variously sized small pyramid-shaped teeth, so that one may tenderize to the

degree of pulpiness desired :-), then added them to the hot protomead I had

near a boil, in the pot at hand.

So, cherries do not _seem_ to be hard to find, if one looks creatively. I

don't see much difference between picking them myself, pitting them myself,

freezing them myself ... and buying them in that last state ... except for

a few hundred thousand calories of energy and a lot of time.

The idea of rinsing fruit in a bleach solution, no matter how weak, sounds

unwise. I've heard other solutions suggested, um, copper permanganate, maybe ?

( Don't take this, alone, as sufficient authority for using it. ) Hydrogen

peroxide, I understand, is used by food processors ( according to this list,

at least ), for sanitation.

Generally, freezing and thawing is regarded as effective at killing a lot

of infective organisms, or at least putting them into a quiet state. Freezing

and thawing also breaks cell walls and allows flavoring elements to flow out

more easily. And, of course, dropping tenderized fruit into a boiling liquid

solution is regarded as suitable for any serious sanitation, or at least, a

solution over 170 Fahrenheit.

- -- richard

                     "Think of it as evolution in action."

   richard childers                                         pascal@netcom.com

------------------------------


Carboys in Texas

Date: Sat, 25 Dec 93 21:29:14 MST

From: seiferth@cs.unm.edu

Subject: Carboys in Texas

I once had the address of a place in San Antonio which offer

7 gal carboys at very reasonable prices. I'm going there shortly

and would like to pick a few up. Could someone send me the tele.

number or address?

Thanks...

Justin

seiferrh@bandelier.cs.unm.edu

------------------------------


Addition of water at time of bottling

Date: 26 Dec 93 00:19:26 EST

From: "Timothy R. Peters" <76307.3666@CompuServe.COM>

Subject: Addition of water at time of bottling

I recently brewed a partial mash porter. For various undetermined reasons

I ended up with a volume that appeared to be under 4 gallons.

I waited until fermentation was complete, primed with 3/4 cup corn sugar

in 1/2 gallon of water, added it to the beer and bottled. I now have a

feeling I should have done something earlier to correct the low volume,

or done nothing at all.

Was this OK? Since I brewed with enough grain (9 lbs of grain and 3.3 lbs

of extract) to make 5 gallons and ended up with what was essentially a

concentrated wort, did the the addition of extra water this late do

anything to affect the beer aside from lowering the terminal gravity?

Thanks for your help and

Season's Greetings,

Timothy Peters

------------------------------


Re: A-B Boycott?

Date: Sat, 25 Dec 93 22:08:52 PST

From: dbell@cup.portal.com

Subject: Re: A-B Boycott?

Seeing the note on the boycott proposal reminded me of the billboard

I saw no a business trip to Milwaukee a week ago. I believe it was

a Pabst ad, but that hardly matters:

   Why is Budweiser so expensive?

          Why ask why??

Lucky for Pabst that W-A-W? wasn't a Jim Koch slogan!

Dave

dbell@cup.portal.com

------------------------------


Hop Storage

Date: Sun, 26 Dec 93 12:27:37 PST

From: Mark Garetz <mgaretz@hoptech.com>

Subject: Hop Storage

Scott McLagan writes:

>I am interested in the 'rate of

>deterioration' versus bittering/aroma ability. The

>statement 'this will cut the rate of deterioration in half'

>makes me wonder if I should scrutinize how my local vendor

>(and their suppliers) handle their hops . As I venture into

>the more exotic varieties of hops, (which are less commonly

>used), should I assume that I will need more quantity to

>achieve the same quality because of aging?

>Has anyone developed a scale to indicate rate of deterioration

>of aroma/alpha over time?

I have just finished an article on this exact topic which will

appear in the January/February issue of Brewing Techniques.  It

has a formula for predicting alpha acid losses vs. time, temp,

storage conditions and the hop variety.

Mark

------------------------------


Kirschenbier results

Date: 27 Dec 1993 00:57:40 -0700 (MST)

From: "Steven W. Smith" <SMITH_S@gc.maricopa.edu>

Subject: Kirschenbier results

  Since it's been _so_ quiet, it seems time to share the fate of my first

kirschenbier (cherry beer).  Good news: it's pretty tasty (I'm enjoying one

now).

  Ingredients:

2 "small ziplocks" German crystal malt

2 "big ziplocks" Briess dark malt powder

3 Oz Hallertau hops, loose

2 1lb cans Oregon brand sour cherries in water (Tip-thanks to John Wyllie!)

1 envelope "Munich dark strong" dry yeast

  I simmered the crystal malt and 1/2 handful of hops in 1 gallon for about 1

hour, sparged, and added the wort to 2 1/2 more gallons of water I had heating.

Mixed in the dry extract (Gawd, I hate that part) and brought it to a low boil,

then added the rest of the hops - boiled for about 1 1/2 hours. Chilled,

brought it up to 5 gallons and pitched.

  I did the primary fermentation in my refrigerator.  After about 6 weeks (when

I got the unholy urge to add cherries) I bottled half of it to prevent ruining

an entire batch.  I pulverized the cherries (and water they were in) in a

blender and added the resulting goo to a clean carboy, then racked the

remaining 2 1/2 gallons onto them.

  It really looked disgusting for a long time. Eventually most of the cherry

pulp settled to the bottom and I racked again (now it was _slightly_ less pulpy

than OJ).  Another 2 weeks and I racked yet again, finally getting rid of most

all of the cherry pulp.

  I bottled it 3 days before Xmas, that I might inflict it on my relatives.

Surprisingly, it had a pretty good cherry flavor, although it was, um, less

than well carbonated.  I plan to do it again next year, but rather than run the

cherries through the blender, I'll just freeze/thaw them first and use more.

I'm sure I lost nearly 1/2 gallon trying to get rid of the pulp.

  "Some day" I plan to buy a scale, record accurate dates, etc. and I may be

able to share more accurate recipes.

  My sister showed up with a few bottles of spruce beer that someone in her

office had made.  IMHO, 1/2 bottle was a good sized serving.  Now I've tried

it - it was "good", but I won't ever make 5 gallons of it...  It was quite the

ego-boosting experience; since my beer tasted like cherries instead of pine

trees, it was the clear favorite ;-)

  I wish you all a happy new year!

  _,_/|

  /o.O;   Steven W. Smith, Programmer/Analyst

 =(___)=  Glendale Community College, Glendale Az. USA

    U     SMITH_S@GC.BITNET

          smith_s@gc.maricopa.edu

"They can't fix your brakes. You ask them 'where's my motor?', 'Well, it was

 eaten by snakes'... _Flakes_, Frank Zappa

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1308, 12/27/93

*************************************

-------


Newman's Albany Amber

Date: Mon, 27 Dec 93 08:05:32 EST

From: "Paul Austin (8-293-5810 or (914))" <huckfinn@vnet.IBM.COM>

Subject: Newman's Albany Amber

Amber fans who took interest in Roy Harvey's note on New Amsterdam

Amber beer may also want to look out for Newman's Albany Amber. I

am not really sure if either is microbrewed, however - I think

New Amsterdam comes from Utica, NY, where FX Matt's is. Both are

fine beers, regardless.

Paul Austin

------------------------------


Re: Koch/etc

Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1993 09:52:49 -0500 (EST)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: Koch/etc

> From: Mark Stickler Internet Mail Name <mstickle@lvh.com>

> Subject: Evaluating Beer w/ Jim Koch

>

> I recently received a new book from the AHA entitled Evaluating Beer. What

> I read so far seems pretty informative but I noticed one the final chapters

> was written by Jim Koch (the book is a collection of previously published

> articles by various authors). His was a fairly short article which basically

> says that hops and malt are THE most important factors in beer taste. The

> word yeast is not mentioned even once in the entire article. He does mention

> water but says that is not important because it can be treated to suit

> whatever the brewers needs are. As an example he points out the Bud tastes

> the same whether iuts made in Tampa, Newark or St.Louis. I suppose this

> means AB could produce Pilsner Urquell or Bass Ale if they had the right

> hops and Malt. Other than this chapter the book appears to be worth the

> price.

As a matter of "fact", he could!  I would even venture that the malt can be

substituted, with modest success.  The points Jim make are quite valid wrt

his lagers.  He uses (I assume) Weihenstephan 34/70, a very clean reliable

performer.  Not sure if AB yeast would be as good, but Jim's decoction sytem

from Pub Brewing is certainly capable of making a killer Pils.  As Jeff Frane

pointed out, many AB brewers are quite good, and would like to make more

flavorful beers.  Where do you think all those Weihenstephan Diplom

Braumeisters work??  AB also employs a tasting panel that continually

evaluates each of the AB breweries products, and reports the perceived

differences between them, what a skill!  If the big boys ever wake up, it

could be tough for some of the Koch's out there.

- ---------

RE: hop storage

I was reading the comments on oxygen barrier packaging for hops.  I

realize that there is some loss when using non barrier bags, but if

they are frozen, how much does it matter over a year, and dont some

quality noble hops *improve* with a degree of oxidation?  I completley

agree that it is better to buy in barrier bags, but it certainly ups

the cost considerably, and if you buy direct at harvest time, and

repackage them/freeze them, how bad are the losses?  I think the

biggest problem is with retailers who dont repack, dont chill, and

dont store in a dark place.

Best,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


Question about bottles

Date: Mon, 27 Dec 93 10:24:34 EST

From: perkins@zippy.ho.att.com

Subject: Question about bottles

My question is about what bottles to use.  The only definitive statement

I've seen is to use "returnable" bottles.  Since virtually all bottles in

New York State (where I live) are returnable by law, I need a little help

making the distinction.  I gather that

  * Grolsch swing-tops are good

  * refillable bar/restaurant bottles are good

  * champagne bottles are good

What about lighter (weight) bottles?  I've been saving Brooklyn Lager

bottles (similar to Sam Adams bottles) for a while.  Will they be OK or

should I hit the local establishments for something else?  How many times

can I expect to reuse these bottles (or any of those noted above)?

Thanks for the help.

Mark

- --

Mark E. Perkins    Internet:  perkins@zippy.ho.att.com

AT&T Bell Laboratories, Rm 3F-502 uucp:  ...!att!zippy!perkins

101 Crawfords Corner Road  Telephone:  +1 908 949 5441

P.O. Box 3030    FAX:  +1 908 949 1652

Holmdel, NJ  0733-3030

------------------------------


Cherry handling

Date: Mon, 27 Dec 93 09:09:00 -0600

From: chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen)

Subject: Cherry handling

SS> Steven W. Smith <SMITH_S@gc.maricopa.edu> wrote:

SS> "Whenever I can find cherrys again, I plan to try adding them to my

  > standard bock.  It seems reasonable (to me) to wash the whole fruit

  > in a mild bleach solution, rinse, dry, smash (how?), force into a

  > carboy (how?), then siphon from the primary onto them.  I'm thinking

  > about 10 pounds of cherries to a 5 gallon batch.  Maybe

  > freezing/thawing before smashing? Do the pits matter? Any comments

  > appreciated, I'm flying blind."

And Richard Childers replied:

RC> The idea of rinsing fruit in a bleach solution, no matter how weak,

  > sounds unwise. I've heard other solutions suggested, um, copper

  > permanganate, maybe ? ( Don't take this, alone, as sufficient

I think I'd use some Campden tablets, one or two per gallon of water

that the fruit is washed in. Soak one or two hours then rinse. The H2S

produced by the tablets should take care of anything lurking on the

fruit.

RC> more easily. And, of course, dropping tenderized fruit into a

  > boiling liquid solution is regarded as suitable for any serious

  > sanitation, or at least, a solution over 170 Fahrenheit.

I don't think I'd do that. I have done in the past, and most of the

cherry aroma and taste seemed to disappear into that hot wort, never to

be seen again.

If you have a food processor, the steel blade, lightly pulsed, will

macerate the fruit better than you could do with a meat tenderizing

hammer (without the splash too).

Chuck

 * RM 1.2 00946 * The heat of the moment can burn you for a lifetime.

------------------------------


Counterflow chiller model

Date: Mon, 27 Dec 93 11:47:31 EST

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak)

Subject: Counterflow chiller model

A few weeks ago, Tim McNerney asked if Stoelting was making a

magic chiller which claimed it could chill 5 gallons of wort

from 210F to 56F using only 5 gallons of tap water.

At that time I'm sure I bored most of you with my model of an

immersion chiller which predicted a minimum of 11.87 gallons

of 40F tap water was required to chill 5 gallons of boiling wort

to 56F (while 48.75 gallons would be required if the wort was

mixed with the water).  Therefore, the conclusion was that

either Stoelting was exaggerating or counterflow chillers are

much more efficient than immersion chillers.  Based on my

following model of counterflow chillers, I think the latter is

true (for a properly designed counterflow chiller).

This model assumes only one spatial dimension x, 0<=x<=L,

measuring distance along the length of the tubing.  In other

words the cross-sectional temperature is assumed to be constant

(no thermal boundary layers).  The copper fins covering the

wort line of the Stoetling should help in making this assumption

reasonable.  It also is probably reasonable if the flows are

turbulent.  Diffusion in the direction of the tubing is

ignored.

Let   T(x,t) = the water temperature at point x and time t.

     Tw(x,t) = the wort temperature at point x and time t.

       Ti    = T(0,t) the inlet water temperature (tap).

       Tb    = Tw(L,t) the temperature of the hot wort in the

               kettle.

       k     = heat conduction coeficient (radial)

       A     = average cross-sectional area of water.

       Aw    = average cross-sectional area of wort.

       V     = velocity of water.

       Vw    = speed of wort (Vw and V are both taken to be

               positive although the flow is in opposit directions.

       R     = A*V = flow rate of water

       Rw    = Aw*Vw = flow rate of wort.

       a     = Rw/R = flow rate ratio.

The equations for the temperatures are:

         dT                  dT

(1)   A --- = k (Tw - T) - R ---

         dt                  dx

        dTw                   dTw

(2)  Aw --- = k (T - Tw) + Rw ---

         dt                   dx

With boundary conditions

   Tw(L,t) = Tb

    T(0,t) = Ti,

where d/dx and d/dt are partial derivatives.

We are interested in the steady-state solution (d/dt terms=0),

in particular we need Tw(0), the temperature of the wort as it

exits the chiller.  If R=Rw  the solution is

                      R              k

(3)   Tw(0) = Tb * ------- + Ti * ---------

                     R+kL           R+kL

and if R not= Rw, Rw=aR, a>0, a not = 1 , then

              Tb*(1-a)*exp((a-1)kL/aR) + Ti*(1-exp((a-1)kL/aR)

(4)  Tw(0) = ------------------------------------------------

       1 - a * exp((a-1)kL/aR)

It is easiest to consider the case when R=Rw, equation (3).

This equation says that the wort temperature can be cooled to

nearly that of the inlet temp Ti, if either the rate is

sufficiently low (R is small), or, for a fixed value of k, the

length L is large.  Equation (4) also reflects the obvious fact

that if the water flow is large with respect to the wort flow

(a is small but positive) then Tw(0) will also be close to the

inlet temp for fixed values of k, and L.

It is also interesting to note that if the boundary conditions

are changed so that the flow of the wort and water are in the

same direction (Tw(0,t)=Tb, T(0,t)=Ti and now a < 0) then the

solution is

        Ti - a*Tb    Ti + Tb

Tw(L) = --------- + -------- exp ((k*(1-a)/a)*L) .

          1 - a      1 - a

If for example, a = -1 (same flow rate of wort and water in

the same direction) then Tw(L) -> 0.5*(Ti + Tb) as L gets large.

For this "un-counterflow" chiller the same amount of water would be

required as if you mixed the water and wort.  This is what you

would expect and serves as a "sanity" check for the model.

It may be better to send any technical comments on the model or

errors anyone finds to me directly and I'll repost a summary.

Bill Szymczak

bszymcz@ulysses.nswc.navy.mil

------------------------------


Finings for Shipping

Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1993 11:57:33 -0600 (CST)

From: "Bill Kitch" <kitchwa@bongo.cc.utexas.edu>

Subject: Finings for Shipping

I recently received some homebrew via UPS.  As I'm waiting for the beers

to clarify again I was wondering about the use of finings.  I don't normally

use any finings but recall reading that one of the atributes of isinglass

is that helps cask conditioned ale to resediment quickly after delivery

to the pub.  That makes me reconsider its use, especially for beer that

will be shipped.  Who out there is using finings?  Do you find it really

helps in resedimenting beer that has been disturbed?  Does polyclar have the

same effect of must one use isinglass?

Sante' WAK

------------------------------


Dishwasher Bottles

Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1993 12:38:57 -0500

From: y2046@hrpi16.DNET.hcc.com

Subject: Dishwasher Bottles

 Hello,

  I have been wondering if it would be acceptable to use my dishwasher

to setrilize my bottles.  I have been bringing them into work, and using

the autoclave in the laboratory to do this.  I know the dishwasher

is not nearly as good as the autoclave, but I need to know if it is

good enough.  If anyone has any positive or negitive experiences about using

a dishwasher to sterilize their bottles please reply to:

Y2046@hrpi16.dnet.hcc.com

    Thanks,

    Bruce

------------------------------


Water question

Date: 27 Dec 1993 10:54:12 -0700 (MST)

From: "Steven W. Smith" <SMITH_S@gc.maricopa.edu>

Subject: Water question

  Since the tap water here in the Phoenix area is so "interesting" - PH about

8.0, very hard, Ca, Fe, Mg, Benzene, TCE (thanks, guys) I've traditionally

brewed using Crystal bottled water.  I'm planning to get off my butt soon

and contact them for an exact analysis, since they take great pride in their

water's consistant flavor.  They supposedly use reverse osmosis, then

introduce flavoring minerals.  Anyone recommend a good practical reference for

the water chemistry desirable for different beers - for a non-chemist, that is.

The only books I've got are Papazian's 2 releases (little and big).  I also

wonder if digital PH meters are out there somewhere?

  The black beers I brewed suffered from the recently discussed sourness (due

to low PH?).  The dark ambers I've been brewing seem to do very well with stock

Crystal water, but I'd like to try brewing a black lager before summer hits

again. TIA

  _,_/|

  /o.O;   Steven W. Smith, Programmer/Analyst

 =(___)=  Glendale Community College, Glendale Az. USA

    U     SMITH_S@GC.BITNET

          smith_s@gc.maricopa.edu

"They can't fix your brakes. You ask them 'where's my motor?', 'Well, it was

 eaten by snakes'... _Flakes_, Frank Zappa

------------------------------


Potential Extract <> Fermentable Products

Date: Mon, 27 Dec 93 12:46:53 -0600

From: dmorey@iastate.edu

Subject: Potential Extract <> Fermentable Products

Hello once again,

 Thank you for the responses to my questions about the extract

potential of dark grains.  Since my posting there are been a few

questions about my sources, so here they are:

BREWING QUALITY BEERS, Byron burch, Joby Books, 1991

THE NEW COMPLETE JOY OF HOME BREWING, Charlie Papazian, Avon Books,

 1991

BETTER BEER & HOW TO BREW IT, M. R. Reese, Garden Way Publishing, 1978

THE COMPLETE HANDBOOK OF HOME BREWING, David Miller, Garden Way

 Publishing book, 1988 (I have heard this is now out of print,

 is this true)?

THE BIG BOOK OF BREWING, David Line, Amateur Winemaker Publications,

 1985

* I also did repeated SG measurements for the various sugars.

 For my final point, I want to clear up what I ment about

potential extract.  Yes, it is true that the black malts produce no

fermentable products during the mash, but, they DO contain soluable

matter.  This soluable matter does change the specific gravity.  Just

as adding large amounts of salt to water (and salt being non

fermentable) the specific gravity of the solution will rise.  As

homebrewers, we are interested in SG readings because they are an

indication of our sugar content, but not an absolute measurement.

Also it provides feedback on how efficient our process is and how

close we have come to duplicating a recipe.  Well, that is enough of

my spouting off.

Thank you for your time and happy fermentations,

Dan A. Morey

P.S.  Tis the season to have a homebrew, but then again when isn't?

__________________________________________________________________________

Dan A. Morey   If pleasure and the pursuit of happiness

dmorey@iastate.edu (hoppiness) is the most vile crime in this PC

   world, let it be known, "I shall be the

   greatest villain that ever lived!"  Hope this

   doesn't offend anyone!???????

- --------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------


hop storage

Date: Mon, 27 Dec 93 15:11:21 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: hop storage

Ed's note about keeping hops reminds me of a trick I recently figured

out for easily "vacuum sealing" stuff in ziplocs (at least).  I take a

straw and stick it into the bag, then zip the bag as far shut as I

can, and hold it tightly around the straw.  Then I suck on the straw

until no more air comes and quickly draw out the straw, sealing the

bag behind it.  Not as good as a commercial vacuum pack, but better

than doing nothing.  And easy & cheap.

=S

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1309, 12/28/93

*************************************

-------


dishwashers

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 09:15:01 +0000 (U)

From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: dishwashers

                      dishwashers

>Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1993 12:38:57 -0500

>From: y2046@hrpi16.DNET.hcc.com

>Subject: Dishwasher Bottles

>

> Hello,

>  I have been wondering if it would be acceptable to use my dishwasher

>to setrilize my bottles.  I have been bringing them into work, and using

>the autoclave in the laboratory to do this.  I know the dishwasher

>is not nearly as good as the autoclave, but I need to know if it is

>good enough.  If anyone has any positive or negitive experiences about using

>a dishwasher to sterilize their bottles please reply to:

>Y2046@hrpi16.dnet.hcc.com

>

>    Thanks,

>    Bruce

I have been using our dishwasher at home now for several batches.

I usually set it for PotScrubber setting (double duty), and

heated drying, with NO rinse agent.

Rinse agents do leave stuff on the glass that will kill the head

of your beer. Also, make sure the labels are off before loading

into the dishwasher because they may clog the screen at the

bottom. We had a label sneak past us and, although it came off

the bottle just fine (no residue), it wrapped itself over the

heating element in the dishwasher and started to smoulder.

hope this helps

george

------------------------------


requestinfo%hpcmr@hplabs.hp.com

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 09:24:54 -0600

From: "LT Brian McKinnon" <code266@amd2.med.navy.mil>

Subject: requestinfo%hpcmr@hplabs.hp.com

------------------------------


SS Screen

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 09:46 CST

From: arf@mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)

Subject: SS Screen

 >From: birkelan@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Joel Birkeland)

 >The only reason I can imagine using slotted Cu pipe instead of SS screen is

 the limited availability of the latter.  I bought my 1st easymasher from

 Jack, and then made two more myself.  I was lucky enough to find a large

 piece of SS screen in a dumpster behind a machine shop.  (I am not too proud

 to look zinto dumpsters.)

 I wish I could credit the source of this idea but a universally available

 source of ss screen is almost as handy as a dumpster.

 Most kitchen strainers are made of stainless and contain more than enough

 mesh for several easymashers.

 js

------------------------------


sparge and extraction rate

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 10:33:51 EST

From: cmryglot@disney.CV.COM (Chuck Mryglot X6024)

Subject: sparge and extraction rate

I have some questions about sparging and extraction rates on which I

appreciate your wisdom.

First, I mash in a picnic cooler with a manifold pipe arrangement on

the bottom. I single or double step mash. I achieve a step mash by adding

boiling water to increase temperature.  I finally add all of the sparge

water to the cooler (I guess that this is called batch sparging), stir and

let everything settle.  Finally, I open the drain plug and start filling

the boiler (I usually recirc the first bit for clarity). This takes 15 -

20 mins.

Now,  - I usually get 20 - 25 pts/lb/gal.

      - Is there a relationship between sparge rate and extraction?

      - Is my process all screwed up?

      - Does any one else use a similar setup and get similar or better

        extraction?

      - Does any one get 30 - 35 pts/lb/gal?

Thanks in advance.

------------------------------


Maui brewpubs?

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 07:47:55 -0800 (PST)

From: Domenick Venezia <venezia@ZGI.COM>

Subject: Maui brewpubs?

Unfortunately I am headed to Maui for 16 days soon, ;-), and

remember from previous trips a paltry lack of microbrews and brewpubs.

Have things changed in the last few years?  I'd appreciate hearing of

establishments with microbrews and brewpubs anywhere on the island.

Also, there is a chance I'll end my stay on the Big Island (Hawaii)

so the same info would be appreciated there.

Lastly, if you are attending HICCS let me know and we'll get together.

Aloha, hang loose,

Domenick Venezia

ZymoGenetics, Inc.

venezia@zgi.com

------------------------------


re: Cherry handling

Date: 28 Dec 93 09:38:08 MST (Tue)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: re: Cherry handling

chuck.wettergreen@aquila.com (Chuck Wettergreen) writes:

> And Richard Childers replied:

> RC> The idea of rinsing fruit in a bleach solution, no matter how weak,

>   > sounds unwise...

 ...

> I think I'd use some Campden tablets, one or two per gallon of water

> that the fruit is washed in. Soak one or two hours then rinse...

Yes, bleach is a bad idea; a solution weak enough not to cause problems

later (either killing the good yeast or creating an off-character) isn't

going to be strong enough to do much good.  The problem is that it's going

to be hard to get rid of the bleach once you get it in with the fruit.

Campden tablets will work, but one per gallon is plenty.

> RC> ...And, of course, dropping tenderized fruit into a

>   > boiling liquid solution is regarded as suitable for any serious

>   > sanitation, or at least, a solution over 170 Fahrenheit.

Yes, this is enough to kill wild yeast, and the acid in the fruit will keep

the other critters that annoy us (the common bacteria) at bay.

> I don't think I'd do that. I have done in the past, and most of the

> cherry aroma and taste seemed to disappear into that hot wort, never to

> be seen again.

Hmmm...I've done it and I haven't had problems with losing the cherry

character.  It's hard to argue with experience on either side, I guess.

I've just poured the hot wort over the cherries and immediately cooled the

whole mess.

I do chop the cherries a bit; I don't just use whole pitted cherries.

Could that be why my heat treatment works and yours doesn't?  I dunno...

A good test of how well you're extracting fruit flavor into the beer seems

to be that you see the fruit floating in the fermenter getting very pale.

> If you have a food processor, the steel blade, lightly pulsed, will

> macerate the fruit better than you could do with a meat tenderizing

> hammer (without the splash too).

"macerate" surely isn't what you mean...perhaps "chop"?  ;-)

My experience says you want it chopped fairly coarse--as you say, lightly

pulsed, and only a few pulses per load through the food processor.

Chopping too finely doesn't improve the extraction of fruit character, but

it definitely exacerbates problems at racking...the more pulp you create,

the more it clogs everything.

 ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


Re: Koch/etc

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 12:15:08 EST

From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu

Subject: Re: Koch/etc

Jim Busch writes:

 >   If the big boys ever wake up, it could be tough for some of the

 > Koch's out there.

I was thinking about this late last night as I was wondering the

aisles of the supermarket (love those 24-hour stores!)  I stopped in

front of the beer display -- the standard imports, Frankenmuth (local,

more or less), mostly BudMillCoors.  Hmm... Michael O'Shea's Amber...

Not bad, certainly more flavor than the standard American swill,

produced by Genesee, one of the few surviving regional breweries.

Also, the Miller's "reserve" line.  Hmm... thinks I, if the big guys

decide to go into the "micro" market, they've already got the

distribution channels, and the capacity... Could do it pretty

quickly...  The bean-counters have to be convinced there's a market,

that's all.

Look at Coors.  Winterfest is a reasonable Continental Dark (we scored

it high 30s in a blind tasting, as I recall).  They're supposedly

coming out with a Stout real soon, now, too.  Miller's got their

Reserve line (not to mention "Leinies").  It's happening, and it's

happening because of us (homebrewers)!

=S

------------------------------


Specialty Malts at Mashout / Smooth Operator

Date: Mon, 27 Dec 93 17:01:56 MST

From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

Subject: Specialty Malts at Mashout / Smooth Operator

Andy Kligerman writes:

>While reading the moast recent HBD, I raree thought came to me!  When

I do an all grain breew, I add the crystal malts and carapils in with

the rest of the grain at the start of the mash.  Since the other grains

are enzyme rich, am I defeating the purpose of these malts when trying

to achieve I high malt, full bodied beer?  Should I add these at the mash out?

You've hit one of the highly debatable areas of homebrewing.  I put crystal

malt in at mashout (I don't know about carapils, haven't used it).  I do this

because I figure I don't want the enzymes to do any work on the sugars in it,

and because it has already undergone a mash within the husk.  I also save off

dark grains (choco and black) for mashout because I feel I get smoother flavors

from them this way.  Of course, as I said in an earlier post, my dark beers

need some help, so I'm no authority on this one.  I posted a few weeks ago on

an article in Zymurgy (by Micah Millspaw and Bob Jones) I read on this subject.

Well, the article was on beer stability, but it had some references to this.

It was in the same issue as Dr. Fix's HSA article.  Check it out.

**

I've just now finished making a batch of brown ale based on my best pale ale

recipe.  I substituted 1 lb. of Belgian Special B 200L Crystal malt for the

light crystal I usually use in the recipe.  That Special B is special stuff,

wonderful taste and aroma.  I'll never use American chocolate malt again as

long as I can buy the SB.  It adds sweetness and maltiness that plain old choco

malt can't touch.  This beer really worked out well for hitting temperatures

without adjusting anything, and I had no problems at all with my newly-built

hop back.  Whirlpooling helped keep the hops (pellets in the boil) from getting

sucked out the drain.  This was the smoothest (in terms of the procedure)

all-grain beer I've made.  I'll report later on how the beer comes out.

Norm

------------------------------


"Returnable" Bottles

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 12:47:53 EST

From: Stephen P Klump <sklump@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

Subject: "Returnable" Bottles

Hello Fellow Homebrewers!

Mark Perkins  asked about bottles to be used with homebrewing:

This subject causes undue stress and controversy with many

homebrewers....with good reason.

No one, I repeat, NO ONE wants to fill a bottle of their finest,

only to have it crack or chip on capping, or explode due to thin

walls of glass.

Let me tell you of my experiences:

Bar bottles are excellent for homebrewing

     They have thicker glass than the "no refill"

     types of bottles (Sam Adams etc)

     One drawback, is that the lables are tough to remove compared

     to the "no refill" variety.

Grolsch bottles are easier to use (and bigger) with the

     rubber gasket for "capping"

I have used "no refill" bottles with smooth lipped top

     with no problems. (knock on an oak keg for luck)

     They do have thinner walls of glass, but so far, no

     cracks, explosions, chips etc....

     (there was one batch which exploded a returnable and a

     "no refill" due to overcarbonation- but since it was

     very overcarbonated, and a returnable blew as well,

     I am not going to give up on them...)

     No refill bottles used: Anchor, Sam Adams, FX Matt, Heinekin,

                             Grolsch (12oz), etc.

There are several types of "screw cap" bottles which I have

    recapped and have had no cracks, chips, leakage, etc..

    Sierra Nevada bottles have a very thick rim..for your own refernce,

    compare one to a Pete's Wicked Ale bottle top.  Pete's is noticeably

    thinner...

    Types of "screw cap" used: Sierra Nevada, Rolling Rock, Molson.

I did not come across the use of screw cap bottles by accident, I used to

go to Canada to buy a case or two of Molson Golden.  These bottles were

returnable, and screw-cap as well.  After some tests with diet-Choke

left over from a party, it was determined that recapped bottles would

hold carbonation, and the use of these in homebrewing began....

I hate to sound like JS or JdeC when I say that I have had no problems

with recapping returnable, no refill, or some screw-cap...maybe it is

the spirit or St Gambrinus smiling on my efforts.. :)   But with the exception

of the two bottles from a very overcarbonated batch, I have had great luck.

I hope my 2 cents helps.

Cheers!

Stephen

    Chemist for Hire        | Decadence requires application!

Will Recrystalize for Food! |                          -R J Green

****************************| The average dog is nicer than

Klump.2@osu.edu             |     the average person.  -A Rooney

------------------------------


Corning Phone Number

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 13:01:58 EST

From: fingerle@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL (J. Fingerle)

Subject: Corning Phone Number

Some time in the last few months, someon

e posted a 1-800 number for Corning/Revere Ware.

If that was anyone reading this, could you please

send me that number, and/or post it again to the

digest?

Thanks.   Jimmy

------------------------------


In search of Microbreweries

Date: 28 Dec 93 17:58:18 UT

From: "Freeman William "

Subject: In search of Microbreweries

I live in New England and I'm looking into setting up some trips for friends to

a few microbreweries in the North East.  Please e-mail me any helpful

information...names, locations, phone (if known), and beer rating on a scale of

1-10 of local micorbreweries. If anyone knows of a listing of microbreweries in

the US, I would greatly appriate any information to help me find it.

Thank You

Bill Freeman

------------------------------


full volume boils?

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 15:24:12 +0000 (U)

From: George Tempel <tempel@MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL>

Subject: full volume boils?

                      full volume boils?

I have been making extract/grain batches, including one with a

rather rough mini-mash, and am looking into moving to a full

volume boil in preparation for all grain recipes.

My question is this: how _does_ one get all that water boiling

in a single lifetime? I haven't had much trouble getting 2 or 2.5

gals boiling on my stove (it's electric...old house w/no gas),

and can keep a nice steady temperature too.

I understand that one shouldn't use the cajun cooker things indoors

for lack of oxygen, but I'd like to hear from the 'net experiences.

thanks in advance

george

------------------------------


SS Keg to boiling pot QUESTION

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 14:39:27 -0700

From: ezimmerm@master.uwyo.edu (Eugene Zimmerman)

Subject: SS Keg to boiling pot QUESTION

Salutations!

   I had to unsubscribe to the HBD for the last semester as I took 18

credits and had to work 30 hrs a week. I also only managed one brew in

the last few months. Well that's all done with and now I'm back (this has

digest has gotten so large no missed me I'm sure). Anyway, I'm tring to

catch up on back issues and am looking specifically for some help.

   I was lucky enough to come across an 8 gal. SS keg! I got the thing and

now need some expert advice on how to convert it to a brew pot. I'm

going to cut the top off and then put a valve twards the bottom on the side.

This thing has a 3 inch bung hole in the side and I obviously want it

plugged. I remember people talking about being careful not to use the

wrong kind of welding what ever so as not to poison one's self with heavy

metals. Where are the specifics on this? I can't seem to find anything now...

Thanks for _any_ advice or pointers anyone might give me!

Gene in Laramie

------------------------------


chiller efficiencies ad nauseum

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 11:48:22 -0600 (CST)

From: John Edens <johne@sa-htn.valmet.com>

Subject: chiller efficiencies ad nauseum

Perhaps because I live in wet, humid, Houston, I am missing the

significance of the immersion chiller. counterflow chiller debate.

I see a lot of equations and design theory being tossed around and my

gut reaction is: So what? I probably use more water taking a shower than I

do chilling my beer. And I only use water out of the cold water tap for the

beer, which means there is no heating costs involved. If the purpose is to get

a quicker chill, then I can understand that, but one should be able to

acheive that by pushing water as quickly as possible through a coil that

as much surface area as possible in contact with the hot wort.

Or is this a case of overdesign for the sake of overdesign?

<flame suit on>

John

------------------------------


Finally back again!

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 93 11:16:45 MDT

From: exabyte!smtplink!guym@uunet.UU.NET

Subject: Finally back again!

  Hello all,

  I got my first hot-off-the-presses HBD (#1305) in 10 months today

  (thanks Jeff Herring) and boy did I need the fix!  I saw a number of

  familiar names and a lot of new ones as well.  To keep this brewing

  related, I am finding a considerably better selection of micros and

  imported beers in Orlando that we had in Huntsville, AL.  I travel

  quite a bit now too and have the opportunity to sample the local beer

  scene in a number of areas.  Anyway, its great to be back (I just sent

  Rob a request to re-subscribe me) and here's to you all.

  Hoppy Holidays!

  Guy McConnell -- guym@exabyte.com -- Exabyte Corporation -- Orlando, FL

------------------------------


terminal gravity

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 16:05:33 -0500 (cdt)

From: Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU>

Subject: terminal gravity

I seem to have chronically high terminal gravities, usually around the low-to-

mid teens.  I am pondering in which order to address possible deficiencies in

my process.  Currently, I am an extract & specialty grain brewer (1 partial-

mash to date) using Wyeast liquid cultures via starter solutions.

1) Yeast population/health.  Possible courses of action include increasing

the amount of pitchable yeast by either feeding them MORE malt, or using a

two-step starter; being very careful about brewing when the yeast is really

ready (RIGHT after the starter has fermented out?); trying "yeast nutrient"

in the starter.

2) Aeration.  Probably the easiest thing for me to try would be to make one

of those "carburetors" that has been mentioned here by drilling little teeny

holes in a piece of rigid plastic tubing to squirt into the carboy.

3) Water chemistry.  I have no idea what is or is not in my water; can water

chemistry affect the "endurance" of the yeast?

A related issue might be raised wrt specialty grains.  I'm used to getting

starting gravities around 1040-1042 from six pounds of extract syrup.  If I

steep .75-1 lb. of crystal, patent, or whatever, and end up with an O.G. of

1048 (yes, this happened recently), then can I safely assume that the extra

gravity points are "unfermentables" and will also show up in the final

gravity (1016 or so instead of 1010)?  The recent thread on extract

potentials of grains got me wondering about this.

The collective wisdom of the digest is eagerly anticipated.

Jonathan Knight

Grinnell, Iowa

------------------------------


(Fwd) re: Question about bottles

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 18:23:41 EST

From: asteinm@pipeline.com (Art Steinmetz)

Subject: (Fwd) re: Question about bottles

Mark Perkins writes:

My question is about what bottles to use.  The only definitive

statement  I've seen is to use "returnable" bottles.  Since

virtually all bottles in  New York State (where I live) are

returnable by law, I need a little help  making the

distinction.

- ----

Use "refillable" bottles.  These are thick-walled brown

longnecks.  Bud still makes 'em I believe.  There is a 5 cent

deposit on the bottles and a <$1.00 deposit on the heavy

not-corrugated cardboard flip-top case.  Go to a bar that sells

Bud longnecks and ask to buy the empties.

------------------------------


RE:Dishwasher Bottles

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 15:40:00 PST

From: Timothy Sixberry <tsixber@msrapid.kla.com>

Subject: RE:Dishwasher Bottles

Hi Bruce,

The use of a dishwasher to sterilize bottles probably depends on a few

things.

 -How hot is your hot water heater set for?

 -Does your dishwasher have a heat dry system?(most do)

 -How dirty are the bottles?

 -How clean is it?

I have used my dishwasher to sterilize bottles many times with no problems,

and I'm pretty sure yours will work to.  What I do with my bottles is to

make sure they are rinsed well right after use, then let them drain and dry

out compleetly.  I prepare the dishwasher by running it through one rinse

cycle with a little bleach or idopher to stearlize and get rid of any food

particles.  Also check the drain screen for food too. Then just put as many

bottles in as you can.  Mouth down of coarse.  Put a little idopher (not

bleach) in and let er go.  Make sure the heater is on, I havn't tried it

with just hot water.

 ps- I have kegs now, and let me just say.

      Its the only way to fly!  Good luck man!

------------------------------


Diluting beer

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 22:03:00 +0200

From: ari.jarmala@mpoli.fi (Ari Jarmala)

Subject: Diluting beer

Subject: Addition of water at time of bottling

Timothy R. Peters wrote about adding water to already fermented

beer to dilute it and to increase the volume at the time of

bottling.

I have done this frequently with my all-grain batches. It's usual

that I brew a 40 l batch of say 4,5 % alcohol by weight beer and

bottle 72 bottles of it (=24 l). The remaining 16 l I dilute with

8 l of cold tap water (the water is excellent here) to make 24 l

(=72 bottles) of 3,0 % abw beer. Of course, this diluted beer has

less body, alcohol, maltiness, bitterness and hop aroma than the

original brew. But it's supposed to be so, I want it that way.

I haven't encountered any problems with this procedure so far and

I've been doing it for more than 10 years now. However there are a

couple of crucial topics:

a) Be sure that the water you dilute the beer with is suitable. It

must not be contaminated with nasty microbes and it's chemical

composition should be good enough. It may be wise to boil the

water for 30 minutes and cool it down before you add it to your

beer.

b) Carefully calculate the amount of priming sugar.

   -Ari J[rm[l[

------------------------------


PH Meters and Water

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 23:43 EST

From: Tom Clifton <0002419419@mcimail.com>

Subject: PH Meters and Water

Tried to email a reply directly but got the following message:

Your message 92931229014129/0002419419NA4EM of Tue Dec 28, 1993  8:41 pm  EST

could not be delivered to:

TO: Steven Smith

   EMS: INTERNET

   MBX: SMITH_S@gc.maricopa.edu>

as the receiving mail system rejected the delivery for the following reason:

Unable to parse address

- ------------------------

Forwarded Message 1


Date:     Tue Dec 28, 1993  7:41 pm  CST

From:     Tom Clifton / MCI ID: 241-9419

Subject: PH Meters and Water

TO:       Steven Smith

          EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414

          MBX: SMITH_S@gc.maricopa.edu>

Subject:  Water question [HBD #1309]

Message-Id: 92931229014129/0002419419NA4EM

  Since the tap water here in the Phoenix area is so "interesting" - PH about

8.0, very hard, Ca, Fe, Mg, Benzene, TCE

                            ^^^^^^^  ^^^

                            ACK! Phoee!

You can get rid of the PH problem by boiling your water with gypsum.  I think

this may also reduce the magnesium (Mg) some which can help with the bitterness

in your Black beers.  If you are doing all grain, the high PH is definantly a

problem as it causes excessive exraction of tannins from the grain husks.

Digital PH meters are reasonably inexpensive.  Brewers Resource in Woodland

Hills, CA (1-800-827-3983 for orders, 1-818-887-3282 for info) has one for $35

that isn't temperature compensated.  My local supply shop (St. Louis Wine &

Beermaking) has that one and also has one that is temp compensated for $80.  You

can reach Roy or Koelle Parris at 1-314-230-8277 next week as they are closed

between Christmas and New Years day to be with family.

- ---------------------------------

End forwarded message

------------------------------


Celis White Clone Recipe

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 17:07:00 -0600

From: tony.storz@cld9.com (Tony Storz)

Subject: Celis White Clone Recipe


Date: 12-28-93 (17:47)

  To: homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com

Subject: Celis White Clone Recipe

Subj: Celis White Clone Recipe

Read: (N/A)                         Status: RECEIVER ONLY (Echo)

Conf: InterNet_Mail (1)          Read Type: GENERAL (+)

Recently there was a request for a Celis White Clone recipe. Here is a

recipe that I came up with and uploaded to Compuserve in early November.

Thanks to Steve Daniel and Steve Moore from the Home Brew University

BBS (713-923-6418) and my electronic friends on Compuserve who helped

steer me in the right direction by giving me a starting point.

                Pugsley's Pseudo Celis White #5

malt:           4.5 lbs. 6 row (or 2 row)

specialty:      4.0 lbs. Unmalted Wheat (Bulgar from Health Food Store)

                4 grams dried orange peel

                4 grams crushed corriander seeds

                1 tsp. Alpha-Amalase enzyme

                lactic acid

hops:           1 oz. Hallertauer

yeast:          1 pack Wyeast #3056 Bavarian Wheat

optional:       1 tsp. gypsum

                OG 1.041  FG 1.011

Bring 2 gallons water to boil. Add unmalted wheat and hold at 185-195

degrees for 20 minutes. Add cold water and 6 row malt to bring down to

130 degrees. Add 1 tsp. amalase and gypsum (pH 5.3). Allow protein

rest for 25 minutes. Raise temperature to 150 degrees and hold 20

minutes. Complete conversion by raising temperature to 158 degrees and

holding for 20 minutes. Mashout at 168 degrees for 5 minutes. Acidify

sparge water to pH 5.7 with lactic acid. Sparge with 4-5 gallons of

170-180 degree water. Boil wort for 90 minutes. Add hops and crushed

spices 15 minutes before end of boil. Cool wort and pitch yeast.

While this will not fool everyone into thinking that this is the real Celis

White, I was very happy with the outcome. The spices are "up front"

without being overpowering. However, some people like a wallop from the

spices and you will need to experiment with the spice amounts.

After a couple months the spices have faded a bit, so next time I will

double the spices and probably try Wyeast White beer yeast.

This recipe should give you a good starting point with which to

experiment. If anyone else has a recipe for a Celis White clone, or have

any comments or questions on my recipe, please feel free to E-mail me or

post.

Tony Storz (Houston)

<<<>>>

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1310, 12/29/93

*************************************

-------


A dream of 'cream'

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1993 04:51:27 -0500 (EST)

From: Darin Bennett <dbennett@mailstorm.dot.gov>

Subject: A dream of 'cream'

Greetings fellow homebrewers,

I am an almost virgin (1 batch) homebrewer on a very tight budget (and in

a small apartment no less) which has for now constrained me to extract

brewing.  My first batch, a 'Dutch Light Lager', was racked about 2 weeks

ago and my sample at that time showed a good bit of potential.  My true love

(besides beer in general) is heavy stout beers and in particular, Watneys'

Cream Stout.  I was told that the 'creaminess' can be created by using

particularly large amounts of malt.  My question is, is this really true,

if so, can I add malt (powder, other?) to an extract kit or is there

another simple and inexpensive way to pull this off?

If you are willing, reply to HBD or mail me at dbennett@mailstorm.dot.gov

either is fine.

TIA,

darin

)-|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|-(

Darin Bennett                         <|> "I don't pretend to comprehend

Residing in Cyberspace at:            <|>  the universe.  It is much

dbennett@mailstorm.dot.gov            <|>  bigger than I." - A. Einstein

)-|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|-(

------------------------------


New England Brewpubs etc (attn: Bill Freeman!)

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1993 07:26:00 EST

From: "Pamela J. Day 7560" <DAY@A1.TCH.HARVARD.EDU>

Subject: New England Brewpubs etc (attn: Bill Freeman!)

Hello All & especially Bill F.,

 I also live in New England, and am currently working in Boston.

As a result, I've tried to hit every brewpub/microbrewery in the area

that I can. If I haven't been to the establishment itself, I most

likely know someone who has. If you want/need details, e-mail me

direct (DAY@a1.tch.harvard.edu) & I'll try to give you any info I

can. BTW there are guides on Breweries & Brewpubs, I don't remember

the name off hand, but there's one for east of the Mississippi, & one

for west.

 PS, I won't be around `til next week, so be patient about a

reply.

Merry (hic) New Year!

Pam

------------------------------


Major into micro (was re Koch/etc.)

Date:         Wed, 29 Dec 93  09:08:04 EST

From: Allan Janus <NASARC07@SIVM.SI.EDU>

Subject:      Major into micro (was re Koch/etc.)

On the subject of major breweries going after the micro dollar, can anyone

confirm a rumor I heard (from the founder of Capital Brewing Co. of Madison,

WI) that Miller's will be test-marketing a stout?  Gad, can a Bud Kriek be

far behind?!

------------------------------


full volume boils?

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 93 09:06:50 EST

From: asteinm@pipeline.com (Art Steinmetz)

Subject: full volume boils?

> how _does_ one get all that water boiling in a single

lifetime?

That's an easy one.  Buy that cajun cooker (note how

application of money solves yet another homebrew problem :-))

They go under various names like Cajun Cooker, King Cooker,

Fish Cooker.  Home depot sometimes has  'em.  Any self

respecting homebrew store has 'em.  Cost <$50.  The put out

over 100,000 BTU and sound like a jet engine at "Military

thrust."  Outdoor use preferred.  The don't throw off carbon

monoxide but they do suck up lots of oxygen and throw off mondo

water vapor.  I use it.  I like it.

Frugal gadget heads will scavenge water heater burners and hook

'em to their natural gas line.  Usual liablity disclaimers

apply.  You're SOL on that one anyway.

Last resort.  Split your full boil into multiple pots on your

electric stove.

------------------------------


Beer Sphere and chillers

Date:     Wed, 29 Dec 93 09:31 EST

From: <GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

Subject:  Beer Sphere and chillers

Ok, first I have a question, then a helping hint from Zymurgy.

First off anyone have any experience with the "Beer Sphere" CO2

dispensing system.  It lets you store 5 gallons of homebrew with a

tapping system using CO2 cartridges, and I saw for sale for $49.95.

Now the hint.  Chilling wort.  Someone in the newest Zymurgy had the

best method of cheap chilling I've ever read:

Take three 2-liter soda bottles.  Sterilize them with bleach and

rinse.  Fill 3/4 with boiled water and freeze.  When it comes time to

cool the wort, remove the bottles from the freezer and sanitize with

your choice of sanitizing agents.  Immerse bottles in the hot wort.

Author claims the wort is colled in 20 minutes, and bottles can be

placed in the freezer for reuse.

------------------------------


Beer King mini-kegsystem

Date:         Wed, 29 Dec 93  09:47:16 EST

From: <JMO01%ALBNYDH2.bitnet@UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU>

Subject:      Beer King mini-kegsystem

OK, it just goes to figure.  After glancing by recent postings on the

Beer King dispensing system, Santa dropped off one of these German-made

contraptions under the XMAS tree.  With nothing more than instructions

and simple figures printed on the box, I can't help but ask for some

Beer Kingexperiences - be it good, bad, or indifferent.  Is this thing

the next best thing since sliced white or is it worthy of exchange for

some good old-fashioned homebrew equipment?

------------------------------


Re: Various

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1993 10:12:51 -0500 (EST)

From: Jim Busch <busch@daacdev1.stx.com>

Subject: Re: Various

> >Subject: Dishwasher Bottles

> >

> > Hello,

> >  I have been wondering if it would be acceptable to use my dishwasher

> >to setrilize my bottles.

If you are lucky, you might get 165F water out of your water heater,

but this is barely enough for *santization* much less *sterilazation*.

Of course, who needs sterilazation for bottles?  I find it simpler to

use a sanitizing agent and a quick rinse.  Finished beer is not too

likely to get infected, unless it already harbours the beasts in the

still beer.

> From: cmryglot@disney.CV.COM (Chuck Mryglot X6024)

> Subject: sparge and extraction rate

>

> First, I mash in a picnic cooler with a manifold pipe arrangement on

> the bottom. I single or double step mash. I achieve a step mash by adding

> boiling water to increase temperature.  I finally add all of the sparge

> water to the cooler (I guess that this is called batch sparging), stir and

> let everything settle.  Finally, I open the drain plug and start filling

> the boiler (I usually recirc the first bit for clarity). This takes 15 -

> 20 mins.

>

> Now,  - I usually get 20 - 25 pts/lb/gal.

>

>       - Is there a relationship between sparge rate and extraction?

Yes, but more important is the conversion during mashing.  First, the

sugars need to be created in the mash, then adequate sparging is required.

Batch sparging is fine, but you need to add more water as the first

run through, otherwise you are leaving lots of sugars stuck to the grain.

After the bed is set, sparging of around one hour is quite normal.

>

>       - Does any one get 30 - 35 pts/lb/gal?

Sure, but I use a perf sheet bottom. I'm sure you can up the efficiency

from 25 pts.

>

> From: npyle@n33.stortek.com

> Subject: Specialty Malts at Mashout / Smooth Operator

>

> I've just now finished making a batch of brown ale based on my best pale ale

> recipe.  I substituted 1 lb. of Belgian Special B 200L Crystal malt for the

> light crystal I usually use in the recipe.  That Special B is special stuff,

> wonderful taste and aroma.  I'll never use American chocolate malt again as

 long as I can buy the SB.  It adds sweetness and maltiness that plain old choco

> malt can't touch.  This beer really worked out well for hitting temperatures

> without adjusting anything, and I had no problems at all with my newly-built

 hop back.  Whirlpooling helped keep the hops (pellets in the boil) from getting

> sucked out the drain.  This was the smoothest (in terms of the procedure)

> all-grain beer I've made.  I'll report later on how the beer comes out.

Just want to point out that while SB is a great malt, it is not chocolate.

I have a brown ale that used too much SB and it very different from the

chocolate character.  I'm not convinced that porters are as good using

SB as when using chocolate.  Now, a blend of both......

>

> From: ari.jarmala@mpoli.fi (Ari Jarmala)

> Subject: Diluting beer

>

> Timothy R. Peters wrote about adding water to already fermented

> beer to dilute it and to increase the volume at the time of

> bottling.

>

> a) Be sure that the water you dilute the beer with is suitable. It

> must not be contaminated with nasty microbes and it's chemical

> composition should be good enough. It may be wise to boil the

> water for 30 minutes and cool it down before you add it to your

> beer.

Watch for chlorine, too.  This is one of the main advantages to bringing

the water to a boil.  Or, carbon filter it, but I would still get the

water up to 160-170F at least.

Good brewing,

Jim Busch

------------------------------


high gravity ferments

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 93 10:43:43 -0500

From: steve@Pentagon-EMH6.army.mil (Steve Lichtenberg x79300)

Subject: high gravity ferments

 Hi all--

 I have a couple of comments and a question or two.

 For each of my last two brews, I have been experimenting with getting two

 different beers out of each batch.  I recently made an upgrade to my set up

 that allows me to brew 10-15 gallon batches.  This has proven to be fantastic

 as the difference in the amount of work required to brew a 5 gallon batch

 and a 10 gallon batch is practically nil.

 I have been brewing fairly high gravity batches (1.080++) and either

 diluting part of it to 1040 -1050 before or after fermentation.  I

 am beginning to believe that doing high gravity boils and high gravity

 ferments causes some nice things to happen to my beer.  There are some

 down sides as well (hop utilization is poorer so you have to use a lot ;-))

 but the positives make it worth the effort.  I can ferment in one vessel

 instead of having many carboys bubbling away all over the house. (very

 important with a wife that is scared of big glass carboys, two kids running

 around and assorted pets).  IMHO this makes for a smoother beer and I can

 play around with different tastes.  I split the strong beer into two kegs

 one full strength and the other diluted with one or two gallons of boiled

 and cooled water.  Since the flavor of the diluted beer is spread out

 further, I can experiment with adding spices or dry hops to gain additional

 flavor.  This has worked out well for me and I am propably going to make

 it SOP.

 Now, on to my questions.

 While mashing last night, I had a small problem with grains sticking

 and scorching to the bottom of my pot.  What does anyone do to help

 prevent this.  Of course, the obvious turning down the heat and stirring

 more frequently will help but if I turn down the heat too far I will be

 heating water till next week (kitchen stoves are not very good heat sources

 Oh for a commercial stove :<(  and more frequent stirring is difficult

 due to other demands on my time ;newborns do that) .  Also what is the

 best method for removing that burnt material from the bottom of the pot

 TSP and a Scotch BRITE pad worked but with a lot of scrubbing.

 Second, I recently purchased a 50 pound bag of diatomaceous earth (supposed

 to be good for keeping ants and slugs out of the garden)  I doubt I will

 be using all of this for pest control and would like to explore using it

 as a base for a filter.  Is Plain Jane DE of sufficient consistency to

 be used in this fashion?  If so does anyone have any plans for building/

 maintaining a DE filter?

 TIA for any help in this matter.

 [disclaim.i]

 --S

 -----

 Steven Lichtenberg

 Senior Programmer

 Datanamics, Inc

 1E247 The Pentagon

 Washington, DC

 ENJOY LIFE-- THIS IS NOT A REHEARSAL

------------------------------


re:chiller efficiencies ad nauseum

Date:  Wed, 29 Dec 1993 08:54:50 PST

From: Thomas_Tills.Henr801h@xerox.com

Subject: re:chiller efficiencies ad nauseum

>I see a lot of equations and design theory being tossed around and my

>gut reaction is: So what? I probably use more water taking a shower than I

>do chilling my beer. And I only use water out of the cold water tap for the

snip

>Or is this a case of overdesign for the sake of overdesign?

Believe it or not, there are parts of this country and in the world that are in

an almost perpetiual state of drought(sp?, as in really dry, not as in kegged

beer).  Even if water is abundant, clean drinkable water has probably gone

through a lot of processing to make it that way.  It seams a shame to put clean

drinkable water down the drain, to mix with all the other sewage, just because

we have added heat to it.  If we could capture it and re-use it for some other

purpose, or waste less of it, we have achieved something, if not just a little

self-ritious smugness that we are doing a small part in conserving resources.

Remember, Detroit had the same attitude toward designing cars, now look at the

mess we/they are in.

Thomas N. Tills

Programmer/Analyst

disclaimer: these opinions are my own...

------------------------------


Bottles

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 93 09:01:00 PST

From: Patrick Seymour <seymour@ucs.ubc.ca>

Subject: Bottles

Many of the local homebrew shops here in Vancouver, BC sell plastic beer

bottles in 1 and 1/2litre sizes.  Some are a green (Mountain Dew-type

bottle), and others are a brown long neck stlye.  Both use a plastic screw

top.

After emptying a bottle, I rinse & air dry, but before bottling, I rinse

again with a weak iodine & water solution.  Although I have used lables

which I've produced via PC & laser printer, I prefer the wine-tag (the type

that fits over the bottleneck) labels.

I highly recommend this type of bottle!  I've never had an infected bottle,

they hold carbon & flavor and travelled well when I sent them as XMas

presents.

I wonder though ?  I've never kept a bottle around for more than 5 months,

these may not store beer as well as glass bottles.

The plastic bottles are affected by altitude - evidenced by my foamy

lunchtime treat when skiing.

 - Cheerio

------------------------------


re: PH Meters and Water

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 93 09:17:39 TZ

From: Darryl Richman <darrylri@microsoft.com>

Subject: re: PH Meters and Water

Tom Clifton <0002419419@mcimail.com> writes:

> >   Since the tap water here in the Phoenix area is so "interesting" - PH

> > about

> > 8.0, very hard, Ca, Fe, Mg, Benzene, TCE

>                               ^^^^^^^  ^^^

>                             ACK! Phoee!

>

> You can get rid of the PH problem by boiling your water with

> gypsum.  I think this may also reduce the magnesium (Mg) some

> which can help with the bitterness in your Black beers.  If you

> are doing all grain, the high PH is definantly a problem as it

> causes excessive exraction of tannins from the grain husks.

The pH of the water may or may not be a problem.  The hardness

has no relation to this, but rather, the alkalinity is what's

important.  You cannot tell if the pH of the water will affect

the pH of the mash without having a handle on the alkalinity.

For black beers, you DO want a high alkalinity water because

these grains are very acidic and can counter the buffering power

in a high alkalinity water.  If you check water profiles, you

will find that the world's dark beers all originate in locales

with highly carbonate (high alkalinity) water.

One comment about using high alkalinity waters:  they drastically

increase hop utilization, and not in a pleasant way.  They will

produce a very harsh bitterness when the hopping rate goes above

an estimated 30 IBUs.

To tell if your mash is reacting well to your water, CHECK THE PH OF

THE *MASH*.  If it's within 5.0-5.5, RDWHAHB.  If it's not, consider

adjusting it into this range:  use CaCO3 if it's too low, use

CaCl2 or CaSO4 if it's too high.  (This is a bit simpleminded, but

this issue is brought up so often that it needs a simple solution

that is 95% right.)

  --Darryl Richman

------------------------------


Re: Extraction/Returnables/etc.

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 93 10:21:00 MST

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>

Subject: Re: Extraction/Returnables/etc.

Chuck Mryglot (cmryglot@disney.CV.COM) asks:

> Does any one get 30 - 35 pts/lb/gal?

Yes.  I use a stove-top masher, a 10-gal stainless stock pot with a

copper manifold, and do a 3-stage temperature step mash (122F, 150-156F,

and 170F).  My yields are consistently 30 pts/lb/gal or slightly higher.

Sparge rate and recirculation are always a hot topic on HBD, so I can

only speak from personal experience, but I do very little recirculating

and my sparge only last 20 minutes, so obviously one can get good

extraction with short sparge times.  BTW, I sparge with "standard" 170F

water.

You may want to try "continuous" sparging rather than "batch" sparging.

Someone posted a good explanation for this a while back.  I can't seem

to find the original reference, so I'll quote JS who paraphrased the

argument pretty well (no wise cracks, please :-) :

   It has to do with the gradual dilution effect and that the grain is

   always meeting up with a differential between it's remaining sugar and

   the disolved sugar in the sparge water.  The greater this differential

   is, the more sugar will be removed.

   It is also easy to see that in the last batch, after stirring the water

   and mash, the whole liquid will arrive at some gravity.  When the

   liquid is drained, the liquid held by the grain will be that gravity

   and that sugar is Lost.

Other variables are your sparge water temp, sparge water acidity, grain

bed configuration, etc.  I've never messed with these so I'll let others

comment on that.

On the subject of reusable bottles, Stephen P Klump

<sklump@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> writes:

> Bar bottles are excellent for homebrewing

>      One drawback, is that the lables are tough to remove compared

>      to the "no refill" variety.

I have to disagree with this statement.  Not all refillables have

hard-to-remove labels.  In fact, you would think that the brewer would

want easy-to-remove labels themselves.

If you get Huber in you neck of the woods, get a couple of empty cases.

The labels soak off after 5 min in hot water.  No ammonia, no scrubbing.

They just float off of their own accord.  I'm sure there are other

brands of beer that have labels that behave similarly.

Jonathan G Knight <KNIGHTJ@AC.GRIN.EDU> asks about high terminal

gravities:

> I seem to have chronically high terminal gravities, usually around the

> low-to-mid teens.

May I suggest that "low-to-mid teens" isn't really all that high for a

terminal gravity.  I will admit that I probably under aerate, pitch too

little yeast, etc., but I find my beers often finish at 1.012 - 1.015 or

so with no ill affects; they don't seem particularly sweet or have any

tendencies to overcarbonate.  I don't have any data to back me up, but I

think that a beer that finished much below 1.010 might have sweet/bitter

balance problems just like a beer that finished too high.  Does anyone

out there have a list of *finishing* gravities for commercial brews?

- --

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."

         - T.S. Eliot

------------------------------


Holiday Cheer

Date:         Wed, 29 Dec 93  09:58:57 EST

From: <JMO01%ALBNYDH2.bitnet@UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU>

Subject:      Holiday Cheer

During the XMAS weekend, I decided it was time to crack open a bottle

of "young" Holiday Cheer.  Recalling a recent posting on this Papazian

recipe, I halved the amount of ginger root used, hoping that the brew

would not take on that soapy after taste.  Well, the ginger flavor is

still very noticeable, maybe a little too much.  Will the aging help to

mellow the ginger's effect?  Have any other subscribers had similiar

experiences with the recipe?

------------------------------


Re: dishwashers, etc

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1993 09:47:12 -0800 (PST)

From: gummitch@teleport.com (Jeff Frane)

Subject: Re: dishwashers, etc

Hey!  How come Norm Pyle can submit an article with lines greater than

80 chars in length, and when I respond to it, my article gets bounced!

NO FAIR!

 So here we go again:

 I missed the originally posted query about using a dishwasher for

 sterilization of bottles, but caught two responses.  I have to weigh in

 in opposition to this concept, for several reasons.

 When I first started brewing, I used the dishwasher and discovered

 several problems:

 1.  No way of knowing how hot the dishwasher actually got -- so no way

 of knowing whether heat alone would sanitize my bottles.

 2.  I added sterilant to the water (poured bleach into the dishwasher

 before turning it on) -- but there's no way to determine whether it

 really gets sprayed up into the bottles.  Probably not.

 3.  The damn dishwasher wouldn't hold enough bottles for a complete

 five-gallon batch.

 4.  The dishwasher needed to be run first, because it always had dirty

 dishes in it.

 5.  The bottles needed to be run through the dishwasher and kept in the

 dishwasher until it was time to bottle.  Not very convenient.

 Believe me, I *hated* bottling in those days.

 But -- absolutely free!!! the miracle solution!!! (theory courtesy of

 WYeast's Dave Logsdon, practice courtesy of 7-8 years of bottling): USE

 THE OVEN!!!!!!

 I've found the best way to preserve sanity in bottling is to isolate the

 phases.

 Phase 1: Clean bottles.  This may require de-labeling, although after a

 few years you'll build up quite a supply (especially if you run a

 competition --additional FREE TIP!).  Soak the bottles in TSP and water;

 a rubber trashcan works great.  (ANOTHER FREE TIP: change the water

 periodically and do not leave the nasty bottles soaking for weeks on

 end.  You will get some truly disgusting things growing in the water,

 especially if you followed the previous FREE TIP and added bottles from

 a competition.  Some of those people grow some really weird stuff in

 their bottles.)

 Rinse well inside and out (Jet bottle washer a handy gadget!).  Put 'em

 away.

 Phase 2: Sanitize bottles.  Take each clean bottle and wrap a little

 piece of aluminum foil over the mouth.  Put the bottles in a cold oven,

 turn to 350F and bake for 90 minutes.  Let the bottles cool, remove and

 put 'em away in cases.

 Phase 3: Bottle.

 See?  This way you're never doing all three phases at once, each one

 takes a very short time, and you never burn out.  I bottle five gallons

 in something under an hour these days and never stress out.  Although I

 keg a lot of my beers, being able to bottle this easily means the

 basement stays well stocked, and I have portable beer for visits,

 competitions, or to send to friends.

 And to answer to question that always comes up: NO!  The oven doesn't

 break the bottles.  I've bottled literally hundreds of gallons of beer

 with this method, and I have *never* lost a bottle to heat exhaustion.

 Norm Pyle writes: (but I had to chop it out because his lines were TOO

 DAMN LONG!!!!)

 >

 While I agree with Norm wholeheartedly that Special B is fantastic malt

 (but a whole pound, Norm!?  whew!) I don't think it's a substitute for

 chocolate malt.  It doesn't have the nuttiness of chocolate malt, and it

 does have that sweetness -- which isn't always the idea.  Additionally,

 a number of people have discovered that using a big chunk of Special B

 adds a peculiar flavor to their beer, something that might be described

 as "raisin-y".  I've discovered that 1/4 pound or so adds a nice round

 note and good color without that funny taste.

 I notice that Norm says "American" chocolate malt.  I didn't even know

 there *was* an American version, but I wouldn't touch the stuff either.

 The American black malt is useless, and I can't believe the chocolate

 malt is any better.  British chocolate malt, however, is every bit as

 wonderful as Special B -- just different.

 -----

 I inadvertently chopped out a query about bringing five gallon batches

 to a boil, so can't properly credit it.  But, I will say from many years

 of experience that a big gas cooker is no different than a big gas

 stove.  True, it produces more heat (which does help!), but I've never

 found myself gasping for air when I use mine.  Of course, the houses

 may not be airtight...  but I believe the problem is using charcoal

 briquets -- that's what kills people.  On the other hand, I've never

 heard of anyone brewing on a barbeque, either.

 --Jeff

------------------------------


pump sources?

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 93 13:17:40 EST

From: "Anton Verhulst" <verhulst@zk3.dec.com>

Subject: pump sources?

Lifting 10 gallon batches has gotten to be a bit of a pain :-) for me and

I'm not quite ready to set up a gravity system and drill holes for spigots in

my SS pots just yet.  I'd like to get an electric pump in the 5 to 10 gallon

per minute range to move hot wort and sparge water around.  Does any one

have reccomendations and/or sources?  Several months ago some one mentioned

WW Grainger as a possible source but provided no address or phone number.

Thanx.

- --Tony Verhulst

------------------------------


Ideas on fermenter heaters for mead making?

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 93 12:01:45 PST

From: "Victor Grigorieff" <VGRIGORI@us.oracle.com>

Subject: Ideas on fermenter heaters for mead making?

Hello all,

I live in the San Francisco Bay area, and have no trouble making ales and

lagers in my cellar (about 55 degrees).  I am about to emabrk on mead-making

which (as I understand it) requires temperatures of 80 to 85 degrees.

Does anyone out there know of some sort of heater for a fermenter?  I assume

it would either be a band which wrapped around the fermenter or something the

fermenter would sit on top of.  I use glass carboys as well as plastic

siphonless fermenters.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 - Vic

      +------------------------+

      | Victor Grigorieff      |

      | vgrigori@us.oracle.com |

      +------------------------+

------------------------------


Propane Burner Question

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 93 10:45:26 -0500

From: Philip J Difalco <sxupjd@fnma.COM>

Subject: Propane Burner Question

For those of you that use (high BTU) propane burners:

Do any of you use them in your house (indoors)?

If you use them indoors, How do you vent them?

If you use them oudoors, what is your set-up like?

Thanks

------------------------------


Stainless steel screen

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 93 16:32:33 -0500

From: djt2@po.cwru.edu (Dennis J. Templeton)

Subject: Stainless steel screen

A couple of folks have sought a source for stainless steel screen.

I have a surplus catalog from Amer. Science. Surplus (in Chicago-Skokie)

phone (708) 982-0870.

They list a Stainless screen part that is "1/16 inch grid... rolled into a

tube 2-3/16" diameter by 4-1/4" long with a single seam. Cutting down the

seam gives 7+" x 4-1/4" flat piece." The price is $2.00 per pack of 6 and

the item # is 10652, stainless filter screen. Their bimonthly catalog is a

hoot and has some actually useful stuff like pipettes and flasks, as well

as stuff like fake vomit.

have fun,

dennis

------------------------------


Sam Adams Taste-Alike

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 93 17:03:22 CST

From: Mike Westra <root@hpuspma.stpaul.msr.hp.com>

Subject: Sam Adams Taste-Alike

Greetings...

I know there has been a lot of Sam Adams bashing going on, but

I love the taste. I would love to brew a Sam Adams Taste-Alike

so I wouldn't have to buy it anymore.

Does anybody have a good extract/specialty grain recipe (I haven't

attempted all-grain brewing yet) for a Sam Adams clone?? I have

checked the "cat's meow ed2" and found only 1 recipe that calls for

a Cooper's Ale kit and only Saaz hops. I have a lagering fridge and

would love to go for the gusto... but any recipes would be greatly

appreciated.

Thanks and cheers,

Mike Westra

HP-St.Paul

Please reply to: mwestra@stpaul.msr.hp.com -or- to the Digest

------------------------------


belgian double

Date: 29 Dec 1993 15:00:15 PST

From: "JSDAWS1@PROFSSR" <JSDAWS1@PB1.PacBell.COM>

Subject: belgian double

*** Resending note of 12/29/93 14:57

To: HOMNEBRE--PB1

SUBJECT: belgian double

I've decided to brew a double, which I've never attempted, and I've seen very

few recipes for all-grain.  With the recent introduction of belgian malts in

the bay-area I've decided to go for it... But first I got questions:

1.  I'm planning a 5-gal batch with a total grail bill of 14 lbs, hoping for

    an SG of 1075.    Is this appropriate for a double.

2.  Can I substitute 9-10 lbs two-row for belgian pale malt.  Is there a

    unique character to belgian pale malt that makes it inherently better.

3.  planning on 1 lb each of 'aromatic' and special-B    too much/too little ?

4.  Is candi sugar, or some other sugar, realy needed for this style ?

5.  should I assume extended aging time similar to that required for barleywine

I'm using the Wyeast abbey ale strain and hallertauer hop pellets, mostly at

the start of the boil.

Advice & suggestions greatly appreciated.  Prost

|    Don't anthropomorphize computers...  They don't like it.         |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------- |

| JACK DAWSON  -  JSDAWS1  -  415 545-0299  -  CUSTOMER BILLING  (BG) |

------------------------------


Boilovers

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 00:19:40 EST

From: William Furnish <fw26828@lawmail.law.columbia.edu>

Subject: Boilovers

          Just subscribed to the digest and have already gotten many

          great ideas/hints to refine my (admittedly) rough brewing

          process. I thought I'd pass a tip along, directed especially

          to those who are somewhat new in this art (as I am).

          The best way I've found to prevent your wort from boiling

          over is to keep an eye on it until it just starts to rise.

          As it is rising, take the pot off the heat until it returns

          to its original level. You can then put it back on without

          fear of another boilover. Really does work.

          Disclaimer: the author assumes no liability nor makes any

          warranties, express or implied, as to the information in

          this article. ;)

          ------------------------------------------------------------

          William Furnish

          Columbia University Law School

          "If you enjoy sausage and respect the law, you should avoid

          watching either one being made."

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1311, 12/30/93

*************************************

-------


Cleaning bottles

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 08:04:42 EST

From: fingerle@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL (J. Fingerle)

Subject: Cleaning bottles

I just saw Jeff Frane's comments on bottle washing

and I just want to say RIGHT ON.  Sanitizing in the oven

is simple, quick, and for me after 24 batches, trouble

free (knock on wood.)  However, I'd like to add a couple

of points.

1. Bottling will be very much more enjoyable if, every time

you finish a brew you RINSE out the bottle in preparation

for the next use.  Don't let the beasties grow, and don't let

the yeast sediment solidify.

2.  When I need to bottle, I use a jet washer (my apologies

if that's a TM) to thoruoghly rinse a bottle with hot tap water.

I let it drain, in the strainer, then put the bottle in the oven.

At this point, Jeff put aluminum foil over the mouth of each bottle.

I don't know why. Jeff...?

The purpose of the jet washer is really to remove dust and whatnot.

The purpose of the heat in the oven is to kill off the beasties.

3. I then fill the oven with about 50 bottles, start the temp at the

minimum, and slowly raise it to 300F over the course of an hour.

4.  If I want to bottle immediately, I crack the oven door for ~15

mins.  Normally, I bottle the next morning, so I just let the oven

cool down naturally.

On the subject of bottles-I have Miller, Lite, Bud, and Bud Lite

returnable bottles, and a host of disposable ones, from Sam Adams,

Dock Street, New Amsterdam, Watney's, Bass, etc.  The ONLY bottles

I've ever had problems with are Guinness'.  Those suckers cracked

during bottling.

I recommend, however, that you pick up several cases of EMPTY

Miller Lite returnable bottles from your beer distributor.  Why?

Well they are brown, sturdy, and the wax box they come in has

a two piece lid that hangs outside the perimeter of the top of

the box which gives extra support.  For me, each case cost $1.50

for a deposit.

Hope this helps someone out there.

Jimmy

------------------------------


Dos Equis

Date:     Thu, 30 Dec 93 08:36 EST

From: <GNT_TOX_%ALLOY.BITNET@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>

Subject:  Dos Equis

I need a good extract recipe for the commercial brew Dos Equis.  I

need to make a batch as a present.

Andrew Pastuszak

Philadelphia, PA

------------------------------


Freezing PET bottles for chilling

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 08:01:44 CST

From: pmiller@mmm.com (Philip . Miller)

Subject: Freezing PET bottles for chilling

Someone wrote about a nifty tip from Zymurgy about freezing PET

bottles of water to dump in your wort to chill.  I thought this was

a good idea too when I first read about it.  My only concern is

that when you take the bottles from the freezer and put them in

your sterilant to sanitize, won't they freeze a thin layer of

around the outside of the plastic which will then be transferred

to your wort?  Has anybody ever tried this?

Phil

------------------------------


Re: dishwashers, etc

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 09:31:37 EST

From: Mark A. Stevens <stevens@stsci.edu>

Subject: Re: dishwashers, etc

In Homebrew Digest #1311, Jeff Frane (gummitch@teleport.com) pointed out

several problems that he sees with using a dishwasher to sanitize bottles,

and suggested using an oven set at 350.

I've been using the dishwasher technique for the last couple years, and

haven't really had a problem, but Jeff's post has me thinking that maybe

this is more luck than anything else because, as he pointed out, there

is no way to know if any sterilizer got sprayed up inside the bottles

and there's no way of knowing how hot the dishwasher gets.

The oven idea is certainly an interesting alternative, but I'm worried

about the ability of glass bottles to withstand the heat of an oven.

Shouldn't glass be tempered in some way if you're going to put it in

an oven? Can beer bottles really withstand the heat of an oven? I suppose

this is worth trying, I just don't want to have to pick shards of glass

out of my oven later ;-)

Prosit!

   Mark

------------------------------


San Diego Micros?

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 09:56:28 EST

From: ht6141@usma6.USMA.EDU (Creamer TJ CPT)

Subject: San Diego Micros?

Happy Holidays to y'all!

Forgive the quick request, but are there any recommendable micro breweries in

San Diego worth mentioning?

I am going out there 2-9Jan, and would love to visit as many as I can.

Thanks for the info in advance.

Happy New Year!

                                   TJ

                                   ht6141@usma6.usma.edu

------------------------------


Kegging Questions?

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 10:31:10 -0800

From: Jack Tavares <tavares@ctron.com>

Subject: Kegging Questions?

Greetings!

My Christmas wish was granted and I received a

kegging system. CO2 tank, regulator, pressure gauge,

5 gal "soka" keg etc etc.

Now I have a batch in primary fermentation and I was wondering:

1. Should I carbonate with corn sugar/DME or with the CO2?

Papazian's book mentions using DME/corn sugar and the literature

i got with the kegging system says to use the CO2?

What have people found to be the best/easiest?

2. Are there gizmos available to allow me to hook up two

kegs at once for conditioning/serving?

------------------------------


RE: oven bottle cleaning / pumps

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1993 9:42:20 -0600 (CST)

From: EVANS@smsd.jsc.nasa.gov

Subject: RE: oven bottle cleaning / pumps

Hello,

A couple of questions and responses:

Jeff Frane writes:

Rinse well inside and out (Jet bottle washer a handy gadget!).  Put 'em

 away.

 Phase 2: Sanitize bottles.  Take each clean bottle and wrap a little

 piece of aluminum foil over the mouth.  Put the bottles in a cold oven,

 turn to 350F and bake for 90 minutes.  Let the bottles cool, remove and

 put 'em away in cases.

I've seen this mentioned before and I think I'll probably try it next time.

Seeing as that I don't necessarily want to sterilze the bottles, what is the

minimum temperature and time requiremnts be?  200F for 30 minutes? 350F for

90 minutes seems to be a little bit of overkill :-)

Second,

Anton Verhulst writes:

Lifting 10 gallon batches has gotten to be a bit of a pain :-) for me and

I'm not quite ready to set up a gravity system and drill holes for spigots in

my SS pots just yet.  I'd like to get an electric pump in the 5 to 10 gallon

per minute range to move hot wort and sparge water around.  Does any one

have reccomendations and/or sources?  Several months ago some one mentioned

WW Grainger as a possible source but provided no address or phone number.

Thanx.

You're welcome.

I looked through my McMaster-Carr catalog (#99) and on page 1358, they list

a drill-powered liquid pump for $26.58.  It claims to deliver 6 gpm at

2400 rpm off a 1/4" or larger drill.  It has a neoprene impeller housed

inside a nylon housing with a stainless steel shaft.  It looks like it would

do the trick nicely.  It's small and looks like it's capable of doing what

you want.  Since McMaster Carr catalogs are not easy to get, here's the info:

McMaster Carr

P.O. Box 4355

Chicago, IL  60680-4355

(708) 834-9427

Item number 4275

Opps, hit return too soon, Item # 4275K1

Standard Disclaimer applies although we do order quite a bit from them and are

happy with them 8-)

Hope this helps,

Chris Evans

------------------------------


Medicinal tastes and chlorine

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1993 10:50:57 -0500

From: steve@snake.appl.wpafb.af.mil (Steve Zabarnick)

Subject: Medicinal tastes and chlorine

I recently brewed an all-grain oatmeal stout that turned out so medicinal

tasting and smelling (phenolic?) as to be completely undrinkable. The

recipe was:

8 lbs Klages

1 lb oatmeal

1/4 lb roasted barley

1/2 lb chocolate malt

1 lb crystal malt

1.5 oz Willamette

Wyeast 1084 from 1 quart starter

OG=1.056 FG=1.013

The intensity of the flavor leads me to the conclusion that it is due to

either chlorophenols or an infection. I surmise two possible sources of

chlorine: (1) inadequate rinsing of bottles and/or fermentor after

sanitizing with bleach or (2) a high concentration of chlorine in my tap

water. Our town just opening a new water softening plant a couple of weeks

before I started this batch, and the water has a slight chlorine odor. I

spoke with the water dept people and they said the water has a chlorine

residual of 1.5 mg/L, which they have increased from the normal 0.5 mg/L in

order to "clean out" the new plant. Could this level of residual chlorine

account for my strong medicinal taste? For my current batch I used an

activated charcoal filter AND preboiled to remove the chlorine.

Can an infection result in a such a very strong medicinal taste and odor?

The bottles do have a small ring at the liquid level which I haven't seen

in my other beers, but the beer does not taste sour.

Thanks for any comments.

Steve Zabarnick

------------------------------


sanitizers and septic tanks

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 10:50:14 EST

From: cjh@diaspar.HQ.ileaf.com (Chip Hitchcock)

Subject: sanitizers and septic tanks

A friend who now lives in the semi-wilds of Maine (40 miles from Portland

is hardly wild) is worried-about/running-into septic tank problems from

bleach used to sanitize his brewing equipment. Is this a plausible worry at

canonical levels (which define: 1 tbp, 1 oz, 1/4 cup, ... per 5 gallons?)

(There were comments on this some time ago but I don't have access to them.)

Are B-Brite and/or iodophor (a) as effective, (b) friendlier to septic-tank

bacteria at canonical levels (again which define---and does iodophor degrade

on its own or should it be rinsed out?). Please reply to cjh@ileaf.com;

I'll summarize and post if I get anything.

------------------------------


"Beer Sphere" plastic keg review

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 08:07 PST

From: jdg00@juts.ccc.amdahl.com (Josh Grosse)

Subject: "Beer Sphere" plastic keg review

In today's HBD there was a question about this product, and I recall there

was another question about it a week or two ago.  I own one.

Plastic kegs, from Edme or Hamilton Bard, are for making cask conditioned

ales.  They have valves that keep the pressure at approximately 11 PSI or

lower.  This is so you don't have to have a series of soft and hard pegs to

manage the conditioning.  It will either be at 11 PSI or softer.

The HB Beer Sphere differs from the Edme products, because it has a

floating pickup.  This prevents picking up any sediment until you reach

the bottom.  The Edme kegs work well for parties, where the first few

pints are cloudy, after that they run clear.  If you want a pint or two every

day, the Sphere is the better choice.

The CO2 does not carbonate the beer, it merely provides enough positive

pressure to allow beer to flow.  I recommend that you use one cartridge at

kegging time to flush air from the keg.  (Cap, fire a cartridge, loosen cap to

force the air out, tighten.)  Cartridges won't be necessary if you're taking a

pint or two a day, only when you're serving a lot of beer.

Due to sediment, these kegs do NOT travel well.  If you transport the keg,

your beer will not be drinkable for several days.  It doesn't make a good

"take to a party" keg.

================================================

Josh Grosse                               jdg00@amail.amdahl.com

                                            jdg00@juts.ccc.amdahl.com

------------------------------


Re: #2(2) Homebrew Digest #1311 (December 30, 1993)

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 11:46:00 EST

From: mattb18591@aol.com

Subject: Re: #2(2) Homebrew Digest #1311 (December 30, 1993)

Please discontinue my subscription(?) to the Homebrewe Digest. I have an

account on the Net through my school and will be getting there from now on...

Thanks, Matt

------------------------------


Medicinal tastes and chlorine

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1993 10:49:33 -0500

From: steve@snake.appl.wpafb.af.mil (Steve Zabarnick)

Subject: Medicinal tastes and chlorine

I recently brewed an all-grain oatmeal stout that turned out so medicinal

tasting and smelling (phenolic?) as to be completely undrinkable. The

recipe was:

8 lbs Klages

1 lb oatmeal

1/4 lb roasted barley

1/2 lb chocolate malt

1 lb crystal malt

1.5 oz Willamette

Wyeast 1084 from 1 quart starter

OG=1.056 FG=1.013

The intensity of the flavor leads me to the conclusion that it is due to

either chlorophenols or an infection. I surmise two possible sources of

chlorine: (1) inadequate rinsing of bottles and/or fermentor after

sanitizing with bleach or (2) a high concentration of chlorine in my tap

water. Our town just opening a new water softening plant a couple of weeks

before I started this batch, and the water has a slight chlorine odor. I

spoke with the water dept people and they said the water has a chlorine

residual of 1.5 mg/L, which they have increased from the normal 0.5 mg/L in

order to "clean out" the new plant. Could this level of residual chlorine

account for my strong medicinal taste? For my current batch I used an

activated charcoal filter AND preboiled to remove the chlorine.

Can an infection result in a such a very strong medicinal taste and odor?

The bottles do have a small ring at the liquid level which I haven't seen

in my other beers, but the beer does not taste sour.

Thanks for any comments.

Steve Zabarnick

------------------------------


Water Composition

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 11:59 EST

From: Tom Clifton <0002419419@mcimail.com>

Subject: Water Composition

Out of curiosity, I called my local City Water Department and inquired about the

composition of the water here in Kirkwood, MO.  The water here comes from deep

wells in the Meramec River Valley, unlike the rest of St. Louis County which

uses water from the Missouri River.  The numbers were given to me as Milligrams

per Liter which is the same as PPM (?).

Calcium   51

Sulfates  59

Magnesium 56

Sodium    35

Chloride  58

Any of you water guru's out there have any comments or suggestions on what if

any treatment I should use?  I am an extract brewer, and stick pretty much to

Pilsners / Munich Light etc.

Tom

------------------------------


Supply Store?

Date: 30 Dec 1993 17:07:56 GMT

From: George_Leonard@brown.edu (George H. Leonard)

Subject: Supply Store?

I am new to the area and wonder if anyone knows of a good shop for supplies

located in the Providence or south Boston region. Specifically, a place

that treats their hops as they should and carries high quality liquid

yeast. Anybody have any suggestions?

George_Leonard@brown.edu

------------------------------


re: Ideas on fermenter heaters for mead making?

Date: 30 Dec 93 10:35:26 MST (Thu)

From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)

Subject: re: Ideas on fermenter heaters for mead making?

Victor Grigorieff (vgrigori@us.oracle.com) writes:

> I live in the San Francisco Bay area, and have no trouble making ales and

> lagers in my cellar (about 55 degrees).  I am about to emabrk on mead-making

> which (as I understand it) requires temperatures of 80 to 85 degrees.

[question about heating fermenter]

The direct answer is that yes, there are heaters for fermenters--they strap

around the center of the fermenter like a belt.  (Painful reminder to some

of us, of our own carboy-like physiques:])

But more to the point: You don't need to be fermenting mead at anything

like 80-85 degrees!  It would probably give you fast fermentation, and yes,

mead fermentation is sometimes very slow...but yeast at that temperature

will produce off-tastes in mead just as they would in beer.  Don't try to

compensate for a naturally bucolic pace of fermentation by forcing it with

higher temperature.

Personally, I'd aim for perhaps 75 F to get the fermentation started

quickly, then try to keep it around 70 F.  Treat the yeast right; give

them something to eat; don't make them work in a sweatshop...and they'll

do a good job for you.

Mead can be an exercise in patience.

 ---

Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA

   ...Simpler is better.

------------------------------


Re: full volume boils?

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 09:36:27 -0800

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Re: full volume boils?

>>>>> On Wed, 29 Dec 93 09:06:50 EST, asteinm@pipeline.com (Art Steinmetz) said:

> how _does_ one get all that water boiling in a single

 Art> lifetime?

 Art> That's an easy one.  Buy that cajun cooker (note how

 Art> application of money solves yet another homebrew problem

 Art> :-)) They go under various names like Cajun Cooker, King

  When looking at these large scale flamethrowers, look for the ones

with about 16 individual flames, not a single jet engine.  They

produce a little less heat (150,000 vs 185,000Btu) but I doubt you

could tell the difference.  Where the difference really comes in is

when it's already boiling, and you want to attempt a simmer. The

single flame types have a really hard time with adjustability, and are

very gas inefficient at lower settings.

 Art> "Military thrust."  Outdoor use preferred.  The don't

                                             ^^^^^^^^^

           Required!

         Drew Lynch

  Chronologic Simulation, Los Altos, Ca.

      (415)965-3312x18

    drew@chronologic.com

------------------------------


Wort pumps

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1993 11:15:52 -0600 (CST)

From: Allen Ford <allen@darwin.sfbr.org>

Subject: Wort pumps

Tony Verhulst asked about pumps from WW Grainger.

WW Grainger is indeed a good source.  They probably have a location near

you, wherever that is.  Call them at 800-323-0620.

The pumps you should consider are hot water circulator pumps.

Stock no. 1P760, 1/100 HP, 115V, 1700 RPM motor is the one I use on my

Pico Brewing Systems 1/2 bbl setup.  It is the one they sell with it.

I find it quite adequate for the job.  List $105.61, wholesale $68.48.

Stock no. 1P956, 1/25 HP, 115V, 3400 RPM motor is one you might want to

consider.  List $117.80, wholesale $76.42.

Both of the above pumps are manufactured by Teel and feature bronze pump

body, ryton impeller, stainless steel impeller housing and shaft.  They

have 1/2" NPT threads on both inlet and outlet.  I have added hose

fittings to mine so that they can be easily installed and removed.

I recommend that you use two pumps--one for hot liquor and one for wort.

This way you can pump sparge water in at the same time that you are

pumping sweet wort out.  An added benefit is that you have a backup in

case one fails.  I have had zero problems with these pumps through seven

batches.  Be sure to run hot water through the wort pump to flush it out

when you are finished.

When using pumps to move hot wort around, aeration is always a concern.

As long as I am careful and fill all hoses with liquid before I start

pumping, I see no evidence that these pumps cause significant aeration.

Hope this helps.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Allen L. Ford                               Internet:allen@darwin.sfbr.org |

| Department of Genetics                         Phone:(210)674-1410 Ext.239 |

| Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research     Fax:(210)670-3316         |

| P.O. Box 28147                                                             |

| San Antonio, TX 78228, USA                                                 |

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------


Re: Holiday Cheer

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 11:09:03 -0800

From: Drew Lynch <drew@chronologic.com>

Subject: Re: Holiday Cheer

 JMO01> During the XMAS weekend, I decided it was time to crack

 JMO01> open a bottle of "young" Holiday Cheer.  Recalling a

 JMO01> recent posting on this Papazian recipe, I halved the

 JMO01> amount of ginger root used, hoping that the brew would

 JMO01> not take on that soapy after taste.  Well, the ginger

 JMO01> flavor is still very noticeable, maybe a little too

 JMO01> much.  Will the aging help to mellow the ginger's

 JMO01> effect?  Have any other subscribers had similiar

 JMO01> experiences with the recipe?

A month or so ago I posted, about my version of the Papzian recipe:

> Spice: 4 ounces coarsely chopped ginger, added 5 minutes prior to end

>        of boil.

>

> Result: Walloping fresh ginger taste - too much.  I think this is the

>         correct boil time for ginger, but I would reduce the amount to

>         1-2 oz.

 I got a few replies suggesting I use a little of something I have in

short supply, patience :-).  As I now work for a startup with a number

of employees less than the number of bottles produced by a 5 gallon

batch, I actually got to drink some of my own Christmas brew on

Christmas! I can now confirm that wise recommendation.  This is

absolutely the best Christmas Ale I've ever made.  It also helped that

I made it early enough that it had matured by Christmas. I expect the

last couple of six packs to dissapear on New Years :-)  Bottom Line: I

will _not_ reduce the amount of ginger next year, and will brew early

for Christmas again!

      Happy New Year!

         Drew Lynch

  Chronologic Simulation, Los Altos, Ca.

      (415)965-3312x18

    drew@chronologic.com

------------------------------


Major into micro (was re Koch/etc.)

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 15:52:28 EST

From: asteinm@pipeline.com (Art Steinmetz)

Subject: Major into micro (was re Koch/etc.)

 > ...can anyone confirm a rumor I heard...that Miller's will

be test-marketing  >a stout?

Yes. This is from the Miller Reserve brand manager on

Compuserve:

#: 283576 S9/Beers & Breweries

    29-Dec-93  17:44:59

Sb: #MR Velvet Stout

Fm: Jeffrey A. Kellar 73112,2062

Roger,

The stout is no hoax and a nice beer I believe (but then I

would). I will

take full responsibility for all aspects of the beer. But I

figured the best

way to create fast brewing credibility was to bring out a

stout. It will be

in market Feb. 1 just in time to pour a few half and halfs with

MRAA. Besides

I have been wanting to brew a stout that is clearly a stout but

has

drinkability so we can bring more drinkers into the specialty

category.

I think our (my) Velvet Stout will do it.

Its an all barley recipe, and we are using the same ale yeast

as with MRAA.

Its hopped pretty heavy with cluster and cascade and has a

higher than

average carbonation level for a stout. But I am assessing

several levels and

may change before February. It is as with all the Reserve

brands a

nonpasteurized beer.

I am to say the least excited about it and the response it will

get. People

may find it to be a bit thin but analytically it stacks up quit

well against

Guiness. Drop me a note with other questions.

- --- end of repost ---

You can email Mr. Kellar directly at 73112.2062@compuserve.com

------------------------------


adding "creaminess" to beer / cleaning burnt stuff

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 15:50:57 EST

From: Lee=A.=Menegoni@nectech.com

Subject: adding "creaminess" to beer / cleaning burnt stuff

RE:  Creaminess like Watneys Cream Stout

I suspect the creaminess experienced in Watney's Cream Stout is the

product of unfermaentable complex dextrins in the beer which add to the

body.  One way of increasing the unfermentables/comple dextrins, particulary

for extract brewers with no control over the dextrin content in the malt

extract, is to add Malto-Dextrin powder.  My understanding of this product is

that it is an unfermentable complex dextrin which adds body but no taste to a

beer.

RE: Removing Burnt stuff from bottom of mash kettle

I use a stainless steel version of the Chore Boy to scrub burnt stuff off the

bottom of my brewing equipment, I call it a Kindda'EasyScrubber.  I find that

the stainless does a better job for scrubbing than a copper Chore Boy.  I

also find it is easier to clean the burnt stuff off after mashing, while

sparging, than to let the stuff cool, dry and harden.

I actually use them new as a filter ala Chore Boy when racking chilled wort,

EasyFilter.  I find that the stainless scrubby has more material in it and

does a better job of filtering than the copper Chore Boy.   When I replace

the filter scrubber it becomes a clean up scrubber.

------------------------------


Ginger/reply to: Holiday Cheer

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 14:53:25 PST

From: bishop@magic.geol.ucsb.edu (Greg Bishop)

Subject: Ginger/reply to: Holiday Cheer

Someone wrote:

>During the XMAS weekend, I decided it was time to crack open a bottle

>of "young" Holiday Cheer.  Recalling a recent posting on this Papazian

>recipe, I halved the amount of ginger root used, hoping that the brew

>would not take on that soapy after taste.  Well, the ginger flavor is

>still very noticeable, maybe a little too much.  Will the aging help to

>mellow the ginger's effect?  Have any other subscribers had similiar

>experiences with the recipe?

I don't have experience with Papazian's recipe you mentioned.  However,

ginger, like most spices, mellows with time.  I brew a Honey-ginger beer

that in its infancy (2-3 weeks after bottling) has a very strong ginger

taste.  After 2-3 months, the strength of the ginger is very nice.  Allow

your beer to age a few months.

You mentioned a soapy aftertaste from the ginger.  I have not experienced

that with my ginger beers.  Please enlighten me.

------------------------------


beer hunter psa / mega micro / mead

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 13:17:45 EST

From: sdlsb.dnet!73410%sdlcc@swlvx2.msd.ray.com (Carl Howes)

Subject: beer hunter psa / mega micro / mead

For those of you in New England who get WENH (New Hampshire PBS), they are

running the Beer Hunter series on Wednesdays at 7:30 and Sundays at 3:30.

One exception is next week since the Guv is preempting it.  Sunday will be

(mostly) about Anchor, or how a washing machine heir really cleaned up in

the beer business.  Seriously though, it's a good segment.

Now if you're still with me, Allan Janus (in #1311) asks if a Bud Kriek can

be far off.  I answer very far, since I heard a radio ad which represented

A-Bs flagship product as flavorful!  So while Miller seems to be making an

effort to market beers with flavor, A-B is proclaiming the emperors new

clothes with a bit of micro bashing thrown in.  Heineken took the same

approach in a recent radio campaign in the Boston area.  Methinks the big

players are getting nervous.

A question about mead.  I racked my first mead to secondaries last night

and, on drinking the hydrometer sample, found a nasty biting plastic

flavor.  I recall a comment made recently that off flavors are not unusual

in young mead, but this off?

Happy Brew Year!

Carl

My opinions are mine, and my puns are intentional.

------------------------------


clone requests

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1993 18:15:00 -0500

From: tim_cardoza@wellfleet.com (Tim Cardoza)

Subject: clone requests

Does anyone have recipes for Pete's Wicked Winter Ale and

Sam Smith's Winter Welcome Ale or any recipes that

approximate these beers. My friends and I like these

beers and would like to make our own. Extract based recipes

needed as we haven't ventured into the unknown of all grain yet.

Private email is welcome.

Thanks,

Tim Cardoza

tcardoza@wellfleet.com

------------------------------


Holidy Cheer Results

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1993 18:09:48 -40975532 (CST)

From: "Mark S. Woods" <woodsman@genesis.Mcs.Com>

Subject: Holidy Cheer Results

I too brewed Holiday Cheer this fall, unfortunatly I followed Papazian's

recipe directly. This results in way too much ginger taste in the beer.

However, I'm finding that the taste is starting to mellow after about a

month in the bottle. I bottled this brew in both 12 oz bottles and in

Grolsch 16 oz bottles. The Grolsch bottles are noticably more drinkable

while I find that the smaller bottles have a sort of rubbery taste

(reminds me of those pink pearl erasers we used in grade school).

I'm hoping to get rid of the rest of this batch tomorrow night by forcing it

on my neighbors.

Mark Woods

------------------------------


Sanitizing bottles in the oven

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1993 18:15:51 -40975532 (CST)

From: "Mark S. Woods" <woodsman@genesis.Mcs.Com>

Subject: Sanitizing bottles in the oven

My brewpartner and I originally "baked" our bottles in the oven after

washing them but found that many were breaking during when putting on

caps. We thought, perhaps, that the oven heat was stressing the bottles

making them more fragile (although we only ran the oven up to around 225).

We quit using the oven method and have had no breakage problems since

then. Don't know if there is cause and effect here or not, just our

experience.

Mark Woods

------------------------------


How to open a 15L keg?

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1993 18:21:49 -40975532 (CST)

From: "Mark S. Woods" <woodsman@genesis.Mcs.Com>

Subject: How to open a 15L keg?

My neighbor recently returned from Germany with a 15L keg of Krohmbacher

Pils for us to enjoy over the holidays. He let me keep the keg to use for

my homebrew. Can I use the keg? It has a fitting for a CO2 cartridge on

top - are these standardized or will I have trouble finding a match here

in the US? Does anybody know how I can open this up to clean and fill it?

It has an opening on the side of the barrel about mid-way between each

end. It is plugged with a cap that looks like it would require a wrench in

the shape of a gear with eight square teeth to open. Where can I find one

of these?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Mark Woods

------------------------------


Re: Dishwasher Bottles

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1993 18:12:49 -0600

From: shaver@hci.cirr.com (Dave Shaver)

Subject: Re: Dishwasher Bottles

y2046@hrpi16.DNET.hcc.com (Bruce) asks:

> I have been wondering if it would be acceptable to use my dishwasher

> to sterilize my bottles.

I've been using my dishwasher to clean bottles for over a year and it

works great.  The secret is to rinse the bottles just after they are

emptied.  Once I have decanted a homebrew, I immediately rinse the

bottle and then ignore it until I'm ready to bottle the next batch.

When I'm ready to bottle a batch, I fill the dishwasher with

bottles---I can get 52-54 bottles in it, so that's almost enough to

bottle my six gallon batches.  Before I load each bottle, I rinse the

inside using a bottle washer with hot water.  I then put my dishwasher

on the longest setting with heated drying and put in about 1 tbl

bleach.  NOTE: There is no soap.  I run the bottles, let them dry via

the heat cycle, then run them again on a short cycle with no bleach or

soap.  I let the bottles dry again via the heat cycle, then let them

cool.  I don't open the door of the dishwasher until the moment I'm

ready to begin filling the bottles.

I fill the bottles over the dishwasher door as I pull each bottle out.

This keeps the spilled beer on the door of the dishwasher.  When I'm

done bottling, I put in the gear I want washed and run the dishwasher

with soap on a short cycle.  This cleans the beer off the door and the

equipment inside.

This keeps the mess to a minimum and seems to clean the bottles well

enough.  I've never had an infected bottle using this method.

Credit for the method goes to someone else; I read about it here in

HBD.  Works great.

 - Dave Shaver

------------------------------

End of HOMEBREW Digest #1312, 12/31/93

*************************************

-------